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.
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The Vampire Aesthetic
Ok so Danny knows two billionaires personally and they really couldn’t be more different. Yet they had one thing in common. A vampire aesthetic. Sam is fully into goth. Spiderwebs, bats, the color black. She enjoys fangs and fake blood and the darkness of her soul. Meanwhile, Vlad is Vlad. If his name wasn’t enough, the dark clothing, pale skin, and flying around with a cape and fangs with coffins in his mansion really sells it.
Danny doesn’t know many rich people so he thinks this might be some kind of trend. (If Paulina is rich, her family likes the chupacabra) So he just thinks that all rich people have some kind of vampire thing going on.
Cue Danny somehow ending in the Wayne household. Maybe he was brought over as a friend of one of the bats, maybe rescued from a field trip/vacation gone wrong, maybe some other situation. But he is there in civilian form with civilian Waynes and Danny just takes a good long look around the inside of the mansion.
“So where’s the vampire aesthetic?
Everyone freezes.
Danny just starts looking around, checking behind paintings and feeling the walls for secret levers. Used to secret passages with Vlad and possibly Sam. The Fentons definitely had them when they were temporarily rich.
“Come on, I know you guys are hiding it.”
Cue the entire batfamily thinking that this is another Tim and that he is fully aware that these people are the batfamily. Danny hangs around the mansion more and the bats just start dropping their disguises and not even bothering to hide stuff around Danny because they assume he already knows. (Possibly even trying to recruit him to be a new bat) Meanwhile, Danny, who does not know these people are batman and his birds, just does not pick up on any of it.
He grew up in a health violation with a giant ballon observatory lab above his head and a portal to the afterlife in his basement. He is a half dead teenager who has tea with the god of time and his godfather is the other parent to his clone child. He’s used to death lazers being scattered across his home and mysterious stains on clothing.
People are weird! He doesn’t judge!
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i have been unmedicated for the entirety of spring break and thus have had little interest in writing this down, but i have been thinking about this for the entire week (as well as a dpdc clone danny au that resulted in it becoming its entirely separate batman au that includes a teenage vigilante bruce wayne, an ocarina, and me entirely incapable of making a batman au without making bruce dirt poor but we're not talking about that) and so i've finally went 'fuck it' and forcibly grabbed my laptop. I will get this done in one sitting even if it kills me.
BUT. This is about neither clone^2 danny nor about who i am calling Ocarina Batman. This is about my Danyal Al Ghul Au and more SPECIFICALLY it's me thinking about his relationship with Sam and Tucker specifically.
Tucker and Sam? Adore this asshole (affectionate) with every fiber of their being. And it is very much a reciprocated feeling, but Danny's thoughts will not be delved into much other than he would kill for them.
Tucker? The only person currently capable of getting a deep, loud, belly laugh out of Danny. Sam can get him to smile and to laugh, but it's the kind that's a chuckle-under-the-breath. The quiet, looks-down-while-huffing laughter. Snorts once with laughter and then grins stupidly.
But Tucker? Tucker can crack a slew of stupid jokes and Danny will be incapacitated for the next five minutes because he's laughing so hard that he can't breath. He lands one well-timed pun or quip and Danny will be close to tears. His laughter is their favorite sound in the whole world.
Sam is lowkey jealous of this ability, and she's gotten a belly laugh out of Danny a few times. But alas, it is Tucker who wields this power and has gotten it the most times out of the two of them.
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They're also both physically affectionate with Danny as much as possible. It started roughly around when they were 12-ish, a year since they befriended Danny, and they noticed that he sought after touch but never seemed to initiate (and was in some ways repulsed by it). They started slowly being more touchy with him. Hooking a finger around his to lead him somewhere, tapping his wrist, looping arms. Little touches, grabs, etc, to get him used to it, and once he started doing it back they started increasing it.
It's gotten to a point where he will now just. Lay on them. Like a lizard sunbathing on a rock. Leaning on their backs when they're sitting in class before the bell rings, his chin on their heads. He'll talk about anything with his arms looped around their shoulders.
If they're sitting on a couch at either of their houses, he'll lay his legs on theirs. Him and Tucker will press their feet against the other's and try and push against them (newsflash: Danny always wins, Tucker claims its the ghost strength but Danny's been winning since before his accident)
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Naturally, both Sam and Tucker know where Danny keeps his weapons on his person, and are allowed to grab them off of him if they need it. His only requirement is that they don't lose his weapons if they take it and forget to return it immediately.
They both understand how big of a thing this is from Danny, and so they do their best to treat his weapons with a lot of respect and care because they know its his way of saying he trusts them.
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Sam and Tucker are so fond of Danny it's insane. Like fr. That's their goddamn best friend, and they are so protective of him. Emotionally, physically, you name it. They will tear the head off a grown man if they need to, Danny's had scars since he arrived in Amity Park and Sam and Tucker both are going to find the person who put them there and make them pay for it.
One time, Tucker overheard a bunch of upperclass girls speaking nastily about Danny and about the rumors surrounding him, calling him names like 'freak', 'monster', etc. Danny was with him and heard it, and seemingly appeared unbothered by it, even telling Tucker that he was used to such rumors.
Tucker was so furious that hacked into the school system later that night and tanked those girls grades. They were kicked out of their clubs and had to go to mandatory tutoring for the rest of the year. He made sure to leave some way of letting them know it was him who did it.
And Sam doesn't like using her money for things, doesn't like abusing that wealth. So instead, whenever her parents talk bad about Danny, she causes a media incident that has her parents scrambling to deal with. She does something wild, outrageous by her parents' standards.
She heard some boys on the basketball team making fun of Danny once, similar to those girls had. She kicks up a fuss about something eco-unfriendly at school and forcibly holds a protest on the same day of the big home basketball game, forcing them to cancel the event and reschedule to a visiting school.
She anonymously donates money so that there's new uniforms for the team but oops! Looks like she "forgot" to donate enough money for them to get uniforms for all the team members, and strangely enough those boys in particular didn't get them! Looks like they'll have to wait until more money gets donated for the basketball team to get their new, nice uniforms. The old ones look so ratty in comparison, right?
And since the football team gets most of the sport money, that might just take awhile. And if (and when) they kick up a fuss? oops! Off the basketball team you go, :) such unsportsman-like behavior is unfit for the team.
(The only good thing about how corrupt the school system is is that she can use it to her advantage too.)
The both of them know that Danny suspects them for the sudden misfortune falling on these people, but he doesn't call them out on it. He's kinder than he used to be, but not kind enough to vouch for people who speak badly of him. Sometimes, he might just congratulate them on not getting caught.
Because Danny is their wonderful, hurt friend with a "slightly" Blue and Orange Moral code, and enough scars that people have been calling him a criminal (and worse) since he arrived in Amity Park when he was ten. And they'll be damned if he gets hurt anymore.
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