#such lovely long lashes

[link-sans-specs]

GMM2494

What's the Best Cut of Steak?

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[lotus-pear]

the fine people of bsd tumblr have asked for fem skk and i shall give it to them

[hedgehog-moss]

Hey, I just wanted to tell you that I adore your posts about you life with your animals and plants! Nothing brings me as much joy as one of your posts appearing on my dashboard!

Have a great start into the new year!

Thank you for the message & wishes! <3 I'm glad you like the posts and I love that you included my plants on equal footing with the animals :) My Christmas cactus lived up to its name for the first time this year, actually blooming on Christmas... The little yellow fox looks so impressed:

Poldine says it's the thought that counts <3

She got a special treat this week! I told my New Year visitors that (on account of my Christmas Broom) my herbivores wouldn't get to eat a Christmas tree this year, so they came with a couple of bags filled with the chopped-up remains of their own tree :)

But Pampe wasn't fast enough (she only fully trusts muesli) and as she was cautiously inspecting her first branch, her daughter materialised next to her and claimed it.

Best wishes to everyone for the new year!

[accio-victuuri]

wang yibo for harper’s bazaar january 2024 issue 🤍

[shakingparadigm]

Another ALNST friday i forgot about because I was too busy *raking fingers down my face*

ANYWAY FUCK MY LIFE

[turtleblogatlast]

One of my favorite headcanons is that Leo grew up watching telenovelas with Splinter.

It just works so well - his bits of Spanish that he spouts randomly, his showy way of apologizing, and, of course, his love for dramatic betrayals all point to this being a very real possibility.

Plus, it’s very cute to imagine a tiny Leo at his father’s side as they both gasp in shock when the show’s eighth plot twist in just as many episodes happens.

[cupophrogs]

I wanna know how drew found Daddy Long Legs

"And now he tags along. I think he just wanted someone to care about, I can understand that."

Pops is a silly guy :]

Transcript:

"If we're being real here, Pops found me. I was just coming out of the grinder room. That was... something. "

"I must not've been all there, could barely stay upright! Adrenaline crash, I guess. But, next thing It know, I'm face first through the catwalk with gnashing teeth and a moustache in my face, screaming "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?"

"But he stopped. "Why, you're just a boy!" He said. Then, he pulled me up, and he apologised (Been a minute since anyone did that.)"

"So now, he tags along. I think he just wanted someone to care about, I can understand that."

[reidrot]

he looks like a tim burton character in this

[beneathsilverstars]

siffrin post-canon h/c is like "dw you're not actually mean, we love you!" and loop post-canon h/c is like "yes you are mean, and we still love you!"

[epickiya722]

I headcanon Megumi sometimes hate his eyelashes. Oh, he doesn't mind them. He likes them because they are flattering to his face, but sometimes he does hate his lashes because they constantly get in his eyes.

[laurettelarue]

Laurette Larue

ME...... For me it seemed the appropriate time to show Laurette's face.. The face I enjoy and makes me feel so good... so feminine... First 2024 resolution ticked. My face is out here in the open for the very first time.... hope you enjoy it being shown. Yes I am 67 years young, I am Dutch, and I live in the Netherlands. Lesbian cross-dresser evermore seems a more applicable 'label' , Because I love girls, with or without that 'something extra'. Please read my profile before contacting via DM.... 💋 Laurette

[whiskeyswifty]

Whenever I listen to so long london, I can’t help but think back to peace and how she went from “I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm” to “just how low did you think I’d go.” How she went from willing martyrdom at the altar of love as a declaration of her dedication to realizing hold on, love should be a partnership. It can’t be all one giving and the other taking, burning and burning bits of themselves until you’re nothing but ash and they’re still as cold as they’ve always been. Nobody is perfect, but it’s also impossible to help someone get to a better place if they don’t want to help themselves. Even unconsciously, they’ll take everything you gave but give nothing back. Soon you learn you’re just enabling them, you’re just a crutch that they grow to expect, like as she says “and you say I abandoned this ship but I was going down with it.” Realizing that they’ve given up on learning to create their own sources of heat and have fully shifted to burning you alive. how fucked up that was, and how that’s not what love is. You shouldn’t have to light yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. To make them happy, to make you valuable to them, to keep you around. To love and be loved is to learn to build a fire together so you’re both warm. It’s such wonderful growth to see and I’m so relieved she finally got there.

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

I see your tags on the Wocky and Alita art, I would love to hear your thoughts on Alita actually!

I only need one person to show interest in what I have to say for me to talk forever and ever, thank you. HAHA Okay, in seriousness, this won't be as thorough/long as the Klavier post because... there really isn't much to her, but I find it extremely interesting how Alita falls into the same category of witnesses as April May and Dahlia without being — and I mean no offence to her when I say this — stunning? Like, with April and Dahlia, there's a very clear mass appeal to them which most people point out. Contrariwise, Alita's appearance is really only commented on by Trucy, and just glancing at her portrait, you can see that, without her slightly outlandish fashion, she's frankly nothing to write home about.

So why am I discussing this? Surely it's a little reductive to analyse female characters beginning with their appearances? Usually, yes, but that's the thing about this category of witnesses: their pretty faces aren't just pretty faces.

For April and Dahlia, their beauty is part of their arsenal. It functions as both their defence and their weapon of choice; they know how to wield it to bring people under their heel. Alita being ordinarily pretty instead of drop-dead gorgeous deprives her of that weapon and leads you to wonder how she became a mafia heiress to begin with. It also parallels her to Mimi Miney in a way that goes beyond the 'murderous nurse who worked for and killed her awful boss' comparison you get on the surface. Presumably, Alita, like Mimi, only got to where she was because she managed to fool the people around her into believing she was less dangerous than she actually is. Mimi did this by feigning stupidity and inviting people to underestimate her. Alita seems to do this by showing them what they want to see.

When she first meets Apollo and Trucy, Alita stays quiet and spends more time listening to them than she does talking. Once she has a hold on who they are, then she slips into her persona, and I find it interesting how she doesn't even attempt to come across as particularly delicate or lovelorn? Instead she goes for the relatively typical role of a distressed, indulgent loved one earnestly entreating Apollo for help. I'm inclined to say she does this because her read on Apollo makes her realise that he'd likely be exasperated or annoyed by such a person; but it's also almost as if she knows she doesn't have the disposition to pull off that frail, damsel-in-distress archetype and has resigned herself to being ordinary. Like how she looks. The next time she has to reapply her persona, Alita's appearing in court, and again she makes subtle adjustments that best suit her situation. The judge is old, so she takes a chance on expressing her dedication as a wife while balancing her dedication as a righteous citizen, which works. But oddly enough, despite her successes, I don't think Alita is actually good? At donning disguises? Everyone I've seen discuss this case has been able to guess almost immediately that she's the culprit, and maybe we're just prepped by past characters like her that have appeared, but I don't think she's even that convincing in the game.

Both the identities she assumes are risky manoeuvres that happen to fall in her favour, and she's not particularly dedicated to maintaining the front. When she asks Apollo to be Wocky's defence, she admits that marrying him is largely a chance at a more exciting life than some great love story; Plum Kitaki straight up says that there's a darkness in Alita she doesn't like, despite how docile Alita behaves in front of her; and Wocky has moments where he slips up and calls her things like, "imposter" and "fallen angel", implying that at least subconsciously, he knows she's not what she makes herself out to be. Even her general mannerisms don't greatly differ between her actual self and the mask who's blunt her claws — nothing is ever overtly coy or cutesy — and when Apollo brings up the fact she was Wocky's nurse, she drops the facade almost immediately. There's no waffling, no, "Whatever do you mean?"s or, "You're scaring me"s, just the statement, "I don't know what you mean by 'meaning', Mr. Justice!" delivered in a sudden cool, frosted steeliness.

And I think that steel is what really makes her different.

See, the other women are all driven to crime by some defining trait in themselves caused by their circumstances. For Dahlia, it's her desperate need to be free of the Fey clan; for Mimi, it's grief over her sister's unjust death; and for April, it's her fear of Redd White. You don't really get that with Alita. Instead of there being something dark in her life that leads her down this path, she just seems... tired. Tired of being "pretty enough" but not "gorgeous", tired of being the obedient nurse to the corrupt doctor, tired of being ordinary. There's no predatory external force pushing her into a corner, there's no abusive family beliefs pinning her down. There's just an ordinary life, lived dull and ordinarily, and she had had enough. So what does this girl, who's tired and ordinary in every way except the steel that lines her spine, do to get out of this?

She gambles.

Marrying into the mafia was a gamble, seeking Apollo as council was a gamble, shooting Dr. Meraktis was a gamble. Every decision she's made since she met Wocky has been a series of high-stakes gambles that leave her life on the line all so she won't be second-best anymore. This time, she was going to be the one on top. No matter what.

... And I'm sorry for loving evil women, but girlboss?? Girlboss???

I've heard people say they're disappointed that her "breakdown" is just an extension of her usual damage sprite, but it's honestly one of my favourite "breakdowns" in the series ever? Just because it isn't really one? Everything Alita has done up till now has been reckless, calculated risk, of course being convicted for murder is no different than losing in any other aspect of her life. Of course you're not going to get more than her damaged sprite, because this doesn't warrant a more dramatic reaction. She's lived this whole time knowing it could all come crashing down around her, and it finally did.

She made a bad bet. You caught her. Oh well.

The frosted girl of steel, standing tall to the very end. It's kind of sad that, even after all that, she's still seen as only second-best, incomparable to mimi, dahlia or any of the other women who've stood in her place.

[magicicephoenix]

i need to go pound joey drew into a pulp RIGHT NOW

[esleep]

the whole "cats choose their owners" thing is really funny to me because ivy very much did NOT choose me. she was a slightly dim-witted and very rambunctious feral kitten, and that combination led to her getting herself stuck inside an old chipmunk nest halfway down the steep bank of the creek by my parents' house. from there she proceeded to scream her head off until both my mom and i came out to see what on earth was making all that racket, then we excavated her out of that hole like a sad little potato. she was grateful for the rescue, but definitely NOT grateful for the ensuing flea baths and conversion to indoor cat life at my apartment, which she reminds me of regularly. ivy i'm sorry for saving you from an early death due to predation/disease/cars, but can you stop biting me every day of my life please