Hi I don't feel like naming this character, so I ask the chaotic people of Tumblr to help! Bee puns. LOTS OF THEM! I need a name that's a bee pun or bee related pun like honey or ms comb for her. Just turn names into god awful puns.
Introducing yourself to people is so embarrassing. Like hey this is my stupid fucking name, I enjoy exactly 3 things, and am clearly anxious. please don't immediately hate me
So earlier in art class today, someone drew a characters hands in their pockets and mentioned that hands are really like the ultimate end boss of art, and most of us wholeheartedly agreed. So then, our teacher went ahead and free handed like a handful of hands on the board, earning a woah from a couple of students. So the one from earlier mentioned how it barely took the teacher ten seconds to do what I can’t do in three hours. And you know what he responded?
“It didn’t take me ten seconds, it took me forty years.”
And you know, that stuck with me somehow. Because yeah. Drawing a hand didn’t take him fourth years. But learning and practicing to draw a hand in ten seconds did. And I think there’s something to learn there but it’s so warm and my brain is fried so I can’t formulate the actual morale of the lesson.
@staff if you [change] the [design] of the fucking [dashboard] i will kill you
edit. i want it on the actual post that i am not actually making a de-th threat against the staff. that's shitty. the caption quotes the fucking costco hot dog meme, which i originally said in the tags. if any staff member sees this please do Not take it personally
probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
if any non-palestinians, especially in ‘the west,’ especially in positions of bodily safety, especially especially whites, are still feeling hopeless and lost about the genocide, may i offer, as gently as possible... get over it. your body is safe. you have been told over and over and over exactly what you can do to help, in exhaustive detail according to your specific social and political position. find out what you should do and do it if you can. if you can’t, that’s on you. find something you can do. stop asking palestinians to tell you what to do; take what is already given. you can find the instructions that have already been so explicitly left for you. you are an adult. your job is to keep moving. you are not allowed to be hopeless — that is a betrayal of everything the palestinian community and its supporters stand for. keep moving. don’t let anyone tell you that anti-zionist means anti-semite. don’t let anti-zionists around you become anti-semites. don’t let islamophobia stand. know that propaganda works and it’s working on you right now. keep moving. you are an adult. your life is yours to care for — that means finding the support you need, which also means knowing the boundaries and needs of those supporting you. you aren’t special. you aren’t alone. keep moving. you are not a hero. you are safe. you have agency. there is nothing you can do that can’t be done by someone else while you recharge. you are part of a collective; no one is looking directly at you. do what you can, and if you can do nothing, make your peace with that. palestine has no time for your shame or your guilt. feel these feelings when they come to you and then move through them.
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.
I don’t think yall understand how meaningful it is to have Oliver say “when you close your eyes it all feels the same” (kissing on screen). The fact that he doesn’t laugh it off, or say he had to push through it, or that it was a little weird like other actors have in the past is so incredibly important. This is him portraying a character and his sexuality, and it’s so validating to have the actor do his job the way Oliver has, in such a caring, positive way. It’s the feeling of finally belonging, of blending in when you’ve been marginalized and picked out all your life. Love is love, and a kiss is just a kiss.