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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Being autistic is just people constantly violating your boundaries you already struggle to maintain
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HoO is so funny to me when you actually think about the ages of all the characters. Octavian is 18. Percy and Annabeth are 16, almost 17. Reyna is presumably 16. Frank just turned 16, Jason’s about to turn 16. Leo and Piper are like 15. Hazel’s like 14 and a half, and Nico is 13.
The Death Sibs are both the youngest and oldest on the Argo II. Octavian is a college freshman getting into petty drama with a bunch of high schoolers. He gets told to shut up at one point by a random 8th grader. Everyone is scared of the 8th grader. We Sent A 13 Year Old To Superhell and he came back weirder, Just Like Middle School. TLH was just three high school sophomores being sent to do a task and it going Exactly Like You’d Expect. Percy’s the only demigod on the ship who can legally drive (though Reyna gets her drivers license at some point before TOA). What Is Happening.
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goodmorning
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I'm still thinking about how ashamed I was (and am) with being open about my pain because I am so young. It's so hard to feel worthy of having your pain taken seriously when the people around you insist that young bodies are always in pristine, untouched condition and that you must earn your pain through aging. Never is it considered that young people aren't lying or being a hypochondriac for expressing their pain.
Young people can be in life-altering pain. Young people can have debilitating pain. It doesn't matter what age it happens because pain doesn't discriminate. Complaining about pain and doing things to prevent needless pain aren't something you have to "earn" through aging.
If you want young people to be in less or lesser pain, then encourage them to do whatever they can to minimize it. Don't downplay what they're experiencing. Not everything is a lie, not every experience that is different than yours is exaggeration or deceit.
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No, House Targaryen is not inherently "doomed" by the very same flaws (and themes) that doomed the civilization that they left.
No, they're not fated to succumb to the Doom that they survived specifically because of the foresight that set them apart from everyone else who perished. Not only would it be terrible, simplistic writing, it would also endorse a terrible, simplistic worldview.
People choosing to make House Targaryen a representation of and thematic successor to not just the civilization that they differentiated themselves from, but the power structure that they chose to leave, literally divested from, and actively worked to prevent from rising again in another form... really rubs me the wrong way.
Why isn't this projection and generalization done for any of the families that come from the cultures that are not coded as other? Why is it only the family that's been separated from their cultural context? Why do the other families each get to be unique, complex manifestations not just of different aspects of their cultures, but of their own specific histories?
Why is the foreign degenerate family both a representation of everything wrong with the culture they come from, and a scapegoat for everything wrong with the system they assimilated into? How is it they represent everything bad about what they left behind, and also everything bad about the land they came to? Even though all those flaws are not only shared by the system as a whole, but are flaws that predate their arrival, that they were punished for resisting, and that they are demonstrated to be incompatible with. Why is it always both?
It just rings so familiar to the way so many people view the other in real life. Because the Targaryens are overtly, and intentionally written as the other. It's the reason so many people identify with them, and it's the very same reason that other people vilify them. They're not just the in-universe other to the 'default' culture established in the text, but they're also given characteristics that we, the reader and audience, can recognize as other and even sometimes anathema to Western Christian culture.
Perhaps the old tales were true, and Dragonstone was built with the stones of hell
A Storm of Swords, Chapter 25, Davos III
I want you to ask yourself: Why is the idea of "fire and brimstone" evil?
To paraphrase the annoying people that love to cite Ramsay when they feel like it: If you look at a morally complex family surrounded by other morally complex families in a morally complex world in a story that's famed for seeking to challenge your underlying assumptions, and think that their association with fire and brimstone is meant to signify their singular satanic evilness, rather than say... challenge that very Eurocentric assumption, you haven't been paying attention.
This vilification mindset where the Targaryens are the singular evil of Westeros is so common to people who seem to want to consume ASoIaF without engaging with the criticisms of the Eurocentric worldview of history at the heart of it. And they end up using the convenient “others” to project all the wrongs of that world onto so they don't need to examine it any deeper.
This is the part where I so often get crucified!
This is the take that so often gets me crucified for "trivializing real world bigotry" in an attempt to "moralize interpretations of fiction" by an onslaught of people with troubling ideologies who then ironically steer the onslaught to moralizing their interpretations of fiction in a way that seeks to either mask or justify their troubling ideologies.
The worldbuilding of ASoIaF is an almost unparalleled projection of the Eurocentric worldview. That's what makes the world feel so rich. That's why GRRM and even the readers and audience are able to craft so many details that feel intuitive. But that also means that how you choose to interpret that world is often driven by underlying biases and ideologies that relate to that worldview — especially if you're not willing to challenge them the way George RR Martin does and encourages you to do.
It means that certain potential biases and ideologies people might balk at outwardly expressing in the real world are recontextualized in a way that feels more comfortable to indulge in.
There are countless examples from countless parts of the narrative. Honestly, you could fill books on the matter. But the one I'll point to right now is how the vilification I pointed out earlier is so emblematic of how the Eurocentric worldview often seeks to project their own flaws onto the other or choose scapegoats for systemic issues.
It comes from the same place with how someone pointed out that the baffling bastardphobia that would have medieval peasants giving the side eye is so often people jumping at the chance to “cosplay” as bigots who base their arguments in misogyny and bio-essentialism. Because it's an acceptable channel to indulge in that mindset in a way that they'd often otherwise question, or at least hold back from expressing out of caution.
And there I go again. "Moralizing fandom" for pointing out that fandom is so often used as a 'safe space' to build communities that share and spread troubling ideologies that you're not allowed to criticize because those ideologies have been 'appropriately' decontextualized from their real-world parallels, even though those parallels are still very much there.
But the problem is that it's impossible to simply 'channel' bigotry and leave it in an 'acceptable' space, because bigotry doesn't work like that. It's not a static object you can carry around in your pocket to play with when you think it's safe to do so. It's a blight. A living poison that feeds and grows and spreads. And if you give it a 'safe space' and continue to feed it with 'acceptable' fuel, it will always find its way out.
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the worst part about finding more and more about totk that i dont like is that ... it seems like one of my biggest fears is going to become true; all of my previous hyperfixations died because a new thing of the franchise came out and i didnt like it, turned that strange, perhaps unhealthy, love and attachment into disappointment and sadness
and im afraid thats happening to zelda right now, the one hyperfixation i hoped could last or at the very least i would just grow slowly away from in a good way
if it was just totk that i didnt like, tho its hard to see all the love people have for it and just ... feel the opposite about it, it would be fine (heck i really disliked links awakening but ultimately i just regret spending so much money on it, it didnt impact my feelings about the rest of the franchise) but because it diminishes everything about botw too .. a game that i still love deeply, its not fine
aside from me not liking anything they did with the zonau, it basically steamrolled botw too, damn near ignoring it ever happened, cramming in zonau stuff where it wasnt before just so its literally everywhere, taking its mysterious and answerign them in boring ways, implying that stuff i loved so much about botw was yet just another zonau thing (the three dragons possibly having been zonau ..........the ancient hero mystery being .. that.......) people basically claiming as fact that its somehow slammed into the old timeline despite it making no sense nor has any evidence aside from some names that happened to be used once before or them saying whats the point of ever looking at botw again bc totk does everything "better" ...
you cant ignore it really, even if i try to ignore what i dont like, i know whats revealed in totk, and others know it too.
and in turn it all makes me go back to that strange self hatred i thought i had finally left behind, the why do i care so much, its stupid to care so much about a piece of media i have no control about anyway, whats the point of caring so much, you have wasted so much time and effort and thought and tears about something like this, why are you so weird, why cant you just be like everyone else and love it all, why are you like this,
stop being like this.
knowing i cant stop being like this, fearing from the start it might happen just like it has so many times, that i fall in love with a piece of media so much that when it gets a new thing that i dont like but affects every aspect of it it all flips into anger first, then disappointment and sadness and in end into wishing i wasnt weird like this, knowing i cant change it ... and it turning out true
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"wanting fiction to be relatable is selfish" my dude you can advocate for people getting outside of their own perspectives (a good thing) without implying that the human desire to be understood and empathized with is vapid and bourgeois
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like going “hey guys see those lyrics about hating yourself and being a bad person? well since that guy actually turned out to be a bad person you shouldve known” Is Not The Take You Think It Is. purely for the reason that so many people who are mentally ill and/or struggle with self loathing RELATED to that. but unlike him they were not ACTUALLY the bad person being described. i dont know if im being coherent but like. ive seen takes that are essentially implying “hey look at those lyrics that were so relatable to so many people because of mental illness? yeah anyone with a BRAIN couldve seen a bad person wrote that like who ELSE than pieces of shit would relate to that lol”. same goes for his character. people can struggle with mental illness and hate themselves and ALSO be horrible abusive pieces of shit. but do not equate the two or act like we shouldve KNOWN the former because of the latter. that has horrible implications think before you speak idk
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Just a reminder that grammatical gender is not the same as the gender that people have. I see a lot of people online who think that all gendered languages are a problem, and they can be frustrating, but a lot of that seems to come from a lack of understanding on what grammatical gender even does.
Like, first of all, the categories themselves are arbitrary for the most part. “Masculine” and “feminine” for nouns doesn’t actually mean that your chair is a woman. The word for chair in Spanish is feminine, which means that it gets described with feminine articles (la, una, las, unas), adjectives (usually ending in an -a), and objective pronouns (la). Again, none of this has anything to do with the chair actually being female. It’s just the category that the word falls under, and that category tells us how to talk about it in a sentence. The grammatical genders could literally be anything; maybe some words are purple and some are green, and you have to describe purple words differently than green ones.
Second, some words even to describe people have a specific gender that does not ever change. La persona is a feminine word regardless of the gender of the person being talked about. Soy una persona, even though I’m not a woman. Even in a gendered language, there are some words that don’t gender the person in question.
It definitely can be frustrating and does mean that a lot of situations that don’t need to be gendered are gendered (for example, saying a sentence about my teacher would automatically gender the teacher, depending on if I say profesor or profesora), but a lot of people don’t even seem to realize that in grammar, gender means something different. Which is honestly a shame, because overall it opens up new ways to be more descriptive. For example, if I’m in another room and drop something, and sigh está rota (it’s broken), you automatically know that whatever I broke is a feminine object. So it can’t be, for example, a plate (un plato). Maybe it’s a cup (una taza). Sure, it’s not necessary, but it can be very interesting.
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Special interest? Triggered.
I will now talk about the movie breakfast club for 4 hours straight.
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detective comics #509
[ID: Bruce Wayne sleeping in his penthouse, his eyes squeezed shut as the narration reads, ‘Gordon's strained laugh sounds hollow, but it echos in the Batman's mind... and haunts his dreams...” Bruce awakens to a hand on his shoulder and before he can think, he's twisting it and holding it down. The panel expands, revealing the hand belongs to Alfred as he's almost toppling over! He cries out, “M-master Bruce—my arm!” as Bruce groggily realizes who it is. He lets go at once as Alfred moves to the end of the bed and holds his arm while stammering an apology, “S-sorry, s-sir... Sorry if I startled you.” Bruce looks at him with aghast as he cries out, “My god, Alfred—I almost broke your arm!” Alfred reasons, “You must have been having a nightmare, sir.” as Bruce sits up and puts his face in his hands. He weepily dismisses, “A nightmare—what kind of an excuse is that? Old friend... forgive me...” Alfred reassures, “Nothing to forgive, sir. Just bad nerves, sir.” END ID]
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"A fifth point concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but has also refused to hate him. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. The nonviolent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives.
In speaking of love at this point, we are not referring to some sentimental or affectionate emotion. It would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. Love in this connection means understanding, redemptive good will. When we speak of loving those who oppose us, we refer to neither eros nor philia; we speak of a love which is expressed in the Greek word agape. Agape means understanding, redeeming good will for all men. It is an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless, and creative. It is not set in motion by any quality or function of its object. It is the love of God operating in the human heart.
Agape is disinterested love. It is a love in which the individual seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor (1 Cor. 10:24). Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. It is an entirely "neighbor-regarding concern for others," which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friends and enemy; it is directed toward both. If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend's own sake. Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution.
Another basic point about agape is that it springs from the need of the other person--his need for belonging to the best in the human family....
Agape is not a weak, passive love. It is love in action. Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community. It is insistence on community even when one seeks to break it. Agape is a willingness to go to any length to restore community. It doesn't stop at the first mile, but it goes the second mile to restore community. It is a willingness to forgive, not seven times, but seventy times seven to restore community...He who works against community is working against the whole of creation. Therefore, if I respond to hate with a reciprocal hate I do nothing but intensify the cleavage in broken community. I can only close the gap in broken community by meeting hate with love. If I meet hate with hate, I become depersonalized, because creation is so designed that my personality can only be fulfilled in the context of community....
In the final analysis, agape means a recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. All humanity is involved in a single process, and all men are brothers...
A sixth basic fact about nonviolent resistance is that it is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. Consequently, the believer in nonviolence has deep faith in the future. This faith is another reason why the nonviolent resister can accept suffering without retaliation. For he knows that in his struggle for justice he has cosmic companionship. It is true that there are devout believers in nonviolence who find it difficult to believe in a personal God. But even these persons believe in the existence of some creative force that works for universal wholeness. Whether we call it an unconscious process, an impersonal Brahman, or a Personal Being of matchless power and infinite love, there is a creative force in this universe that works to bring the disconnected aspects of reality into a harmonious whole."
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "An Experiment in Love" (1958)
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i'm the antonymph of the internet
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╰┈➤ SHUFFLE AU
DESTINATION POINT (DP)
the Leo/need adjacent unit, composed of Ichika Hoshino, Airi Momoi, Ena Shinonome, and Minori Hanasato.
☆ a girl who's lost her friendships, and three others searching for their worth.
about the group's name:
♡ originally, i had "from here to there" in mind, but someone from the Discord gave me the name "destination point" and i thought it was much better, so i went with that. ♪
about the SEKAI:
♡ the Train SEKAI. no one knows when it left, or where it's going - just that it never stops. it's the perfect place for those who feel like they're lagging behind. just close your eyes and let yourself be carried away, right? but maybe there's something you can do…
starts with a Miku and a Rin. the former's hardworking and talented, but the latter struggles - Rin is somewhat influenced by Ena's (and, to a lesser extent, Airi's) jealousy towards others.
•
Ichika hasn't managed to rekindle her friendship with her friends, and she's not doing particularly well. At one point, she meets Airi - who just quit being an idol. The two start talking and become friends, at which point they end up forming a band together. Airi wants to try finding a place where she could finally be taken seriously.
Ena's invited by Airi, and Minori - who had failed auditions recently - ends up inspired by Ichika's kindness, Airi's drive and Ena's determination, which is how she joins. (Haruka completely gave up on being an idol; something Minori is saddened by.)
In my mind, Ichika plays the guitar; Airi, the drums; Minori, the keyboard and Ena, the bass.
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IDEAL HEAVEN! (IH)
the MORE MORE JUMP! adjacent unit, composed of Mafuyu Asahina, Emu Otori, Mizuki Akiyama and Shizuku Hinomori.
☆ an up-and-coming idol group that combines cuteness and sophistication.
about the SEKAI:
♡ quite similar to the Empty SEKAI, but with some idol influences - a broken stage with no one in sight. there's no bright lights, no colorful props. nothing. that SEKAI both comforts and pains Mafuyu.
home to a lone Miku. sweet, hopeful, but genuinely crushed by the pressure she's feeling.
•
Mafuyu's mother wants a perfect child. idols are very frequently represented as being perfect - so, she decides that her daughter should become one, too. Mafuyu's not keen on the idea, but that's her mother; she's obedient, so she goes along with it.
Shizuku still quit Cheerful * Days, but instead of stopping altogether she ends up with Mafuyu. Emu wants to make people smile, but no one ever came; Wonderlands × Showtime was never a thing. so she decides to become an idol instead, even if it means she'll never bring back the Wonder Stage to its former state.
Mizuki's half-dragged into IDEAL HEAVEN! by Emu, who saw them looking with interest at idol merch. after bringing them to meet Mafuyu and Shizuku, Mizuki ends up accepting - the idea of wearing cute clothes and being called cute doesn't seem too terrible.
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READY MADE SUCCESS (RMS)
the Vivid BAD SQUAD adjacent unit, composed of Haruka Kiritani, An Shiraishi, Shiho Hinomori and Akito Shinonome.
☆ two street musicians chasing after their dream, and the two girls they brought with them.
about the SEKAI:
♡ the Street SEKAI. weirdly, it seems Haruka's idol background has somewhat influenced its appearance.
its inhabitants are Miku, Meiko and Len. this Miku is levelheaded, but it seems like there's something holding her back from going all-in...
•
after quitting being an idol, Haruka is invited by An to join her.
An's never met Kohane, and she never found a partner. Haruka is hesitant for a moment before deciding to give it a shot, though she keeps struggling with singing.
Shiho tries getting more experience, meets Akito. no one really knows how these two ended together, but they both have a similar drive and take music very seriously.
eventually, they all start working together. Haruka deals with her guilt and, while she doubts she'll become an idol again, she's mostly made peace with what happened.
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STARLIGHT ☆ EVERMORE (S ☆ E)
the Wonderlands × Showtime adjacent unit, composed of Tsukasa Tenma, Saki Tenma, Kanade Yoisaki and Toya Aoyagi.
☆ a strange troupe of people who aim to help others through their performances.
about the SEKAI:
♡ still very much Tsukasa's, so it's the Wonderland SEKAI. [kanade goes there for the first time and dies. alas, they're still a shut-in and this place is simply too colorful for her poor eyes.]
starts with a Miku and a Kaito, though this version of the former uses far less onomatopoeias.
Tsukasa figures he needs to show the world how much of a star he is himself, and he drags his siblings into it (with varying degrees of willingness).
a part of Saki still wishes she could be in a band with her friends; she's only somewhat managed to repair her friendship with Ichika. but she's still happy to do something fun and lighthearted after all her struggles.
Toya's very excited to do something with Tsukasa and his siblings. he also gets to stick it to his dad, which, honestly - is a bonus.
out of the three, Kanade is obviously the most hesitant about the whole thing. but she sees Tsukasa's drive to make others happy, something she shares with him, so she ends up agreeing.
Kanade is… slightly healthier physically on account of the stubborn people looking after her, as well as all the exercise she does she does as part of Starlight ☆ Evermore. mentally? eh… we'll get there. i need her traumatized to be interesting. <3
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LONELY SYNDROME (LS)
the 25-ji, Nightcord de. adjacent unit, composed of Nene Kusanagi, Rui Kamishiro, Honami Mochizuki and Kohane Azusawa.
☆ hidden behind avatars, these citizens of the web tell stories online.
about the SEKAI:
♡ the arcade SEKAI.
this Miku is shy and withdrawn, though she one day hopes she'll be able to break out of her shell, just like Nene.
alongside her is Luka - she has a bit of a teasing attitude and a catlike personality, but she always does her best to boost Nene's confidence.
about the group's name:
♡ syndrome refers to a group of symptoms - i paired it with the word lonely because i felt like it represented the atmosphere of an arcade.
you're connected with people who share your interests, but at the same time, you're sort of separate from them. surrounded by people, but utterly alone…
•
Nene's social anxiety hasn't gotten better over the years. since she never joins Wonderlands × Showtime, she doesn't learn how to fight her stage fright.
but, she finds an alternate solution; using an avatar online. it's less stress-inducing, and it lets her pursue acting, in a way - it's not what Nene wants, but it's close enough. she figures she could be satisfied with that.
Rui ends up figuring out what she's doing, and asks if he can help. Nene doesn't really have any reason to say no, so they start working together.
as for Honami and Kohane, they ended up on Nene's channel by pure accident. but her performances quickly became a comfort to them, since they were struggling at the time (the former because she no longer had her friends, the latter because of her lack of confidence).
unfortunately, ignoring your problems only goes so far, and eventually, her feelings give birth to the arcade SEKAI.
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