Wilbur: Who's the lucky- who's the lucky lady, who's Missa, what's she like?
Phil: It's a dude. *laughs*
Wilbur: Phil, you didn't tell me you were bi, and also polyamorous.
Phil: Definitely not.
Wilbur: What does Kri- what does Kristin think of your- of your... husband?
Phil: SHE'S NOT CANON IN THIS UNIVERSE! And we- and it's not like that, it's not like that- it's uh, we're- it's platonic, we're just dude's hanging out protecting an egg-
"both sides are suffering" really? because one is buried under rubble without any access to food, water, sanitation products, no fuel for ambulances, no electricity to support incubators for preterm babies, no proper beds or equipment for major surgeries, using vinegar as disinfectant, relying on phone lights to operate, has run out of body bags, had their largest bakery which received humanitarian aid bombed immediately after while the other is dancing and feasting and rejoicing and making tiktoks in clean clothes and brightly-lit rooms with electricity...
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.
fionna and cake drawings before and after watching the episodes so far. it’s nostalgic and somehow cathartic and poignant and relatable and—it just started
I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw or a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently
I tried to write something to sum up my thoughts on this, but then it got longer and longer and tbh I'm itching to write a fic set in this AU djjdkf I think I could develop on their inner feelings more than in the comic form
Before posting the first part I didn't realize people had such strong opinions on how this would play out lmaooo
imo, of course Zoro wants to fight Sanji, not with actual intent to harm (they threaten each other on the daily, come on), but because that's how they are together, how they communicate. He respects Luffy's decisions and their goal here, which is to learn what's really going on with Sanji, but he's gonna be pissy about it all he wants. They both have so many intense and conflicted feelings about this and neither has any idea how to resolve them. So they fight.
ofc yall are free to headcanon this interaction any other way you want <333
I don't ship Vox and Alastor but I adore the idea of it as this one-sided thing. Like Vox is, on some level, low key into Alastor. That his side of the rivaly, outside of the obvious old vs new debate they have, is kinda like that old, stupid stereotype of the asshole kid pulling on their crush's pigtails (as well as just being pissed off 'cause he got rejected) Meanwhile for Alastor, he just genuinely hates Vox and has fun messing with him
reading and watching “classic” books and films is such an interesting experience because, before you get into them, when you only know them by name and maybe the vaguest plot outline, they’re intimidating and stuffy and up on a pedestal, but then you finally take the leap and check them out and realize that almost every story that’s achieved such a legendary level of popularity did so because something in its emotional core reached out and grabbed a lot of people by the throat and you are NOT immune.