*picks Hoid up by the ankle and shakes him, causing magical items from various worlds to tumble out beneath him*

I'm not the most online person ever but how many of you people have already been made aware of the AI COKE?!

WHAT IS THIS? WHY IS THIS? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

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.

You know I am surprise Sebek that is never jealous to anyone who is close to Yuu. It is a boys school and I can imagine some have crushes on her.

bahhh the suckers wip

Anyway I love hua cheng has """kidnapped"""" xie lian fics. It's about the chaos. The shenanigans! The duality of the heavenly Court freaking out! Cut to hualian having a cute date! Jun wu mentally trying to rearrange his plans realistically sending xie lian to investigate should have disrupted their relationship why are they now getting married??? Xie lian popping in to the heavenly group chat going I'm FINE!!! Please please stop sending people to rescue me. Yes I've definitely been kidnapped let it go!!

can someone PLEASE be insane with me about them

EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND LOOK AT OUR SWEET LITTLE LADY ... 😛👌👌

Credit

POV: You just left the Blue Moon Saloon

What’s up with the ties between Sally & Eddie?

There are quite a few - to the point where I’m starting to suspect that they may be foils, or at least inherently tied together in the story.

First let's bring things back to the clocks. The “day” side has an obvious resemblance to Sally, like how the “night” side resembles Eddie. There’s not really much I can say here since we don’t know much more yet, and who knows if this has changed behind the scenes. But just think about that, the rarity of the color purple, night vs day, and the “monster”. Keep it in your head, I think it may be important. 

Also the fact that Eddie is the only one with a watch, but Sally’s face has an incredibly similar face on her door.

Obviously Sally has some sort of beef with Eddie, despite him being nothing but friendly and (to our knowledge) being undeserving of it. One thought I entertained was “maybe Sally is dismissive of him because he’s a worker,” but that holds zero water when you consider how perfectly friendly Sally was with Howdy (karen Sally debunked <3). The second thought I had was “maybe Sally senses the queer in Eddie and it intimidates her” - which would make sense if Sally is a lesbian like I suspect. Internalized homophobia, anyone? This holds up if Eddie is going to turn out to be - not open about himself, but comfortable in his skin in a way that, say, Frank isn’t. Which I have a feeling that will be the case, which would likely make Sally put on airs even more so than usual. 

Anyone else seeing a continuous trend of (social) masks and performances unfolding in the Neighborhood? I sure am.

But let’s talk about why I think they might be foils. They balance each other out in an interesting way, despite their only solid similarity being that Both will work/perform no matter the weather. They have a lot of closely related differences:

Eddie has been mentioned (and implied within the story so far) to have a deeper well of knowledge than he lets on, but acts humble about it. Sally has been mentioned (and implied) to know less than she portrays, but acts like a bit of a know-it-all - she pretends to know things that she doesn’t. 

Eddie’s role is about helping others at his own expense, while Sally’s is using others to reach fame. 

Eddie strives to connect with his Neighbors and is all about accuracy/precision. Sally is in her own little world and has proved to be more than willing to improvise / not think things through before acting.

Eddie is slow to anger, and Sally is easily irritated. 

Selfless vs Selfish.

Night vs Day. 

And to put them in the Johari Window - i believe that Sally resides in the Blind Spot (known to others, not known to self), and Eddie resides in either the Facade (not known to others, known to self) OR the Unknown (not known to others, not known to self). Personally I’m starting to believe that Eddie may reside in both. 

It’s far too early to draw any real conclusions, and theorizing on all of this is difficult. I feel as though - as usual - we have puzzle pieces but no frame of reference for the way they fit together, what picture they build. And who knows, tomorrow’s update may shred this to ribbons, but I doubt it. 

One thought I had was that they’re in cahoots about something - it doesn’t have to be something malicious or some sort of secret plot, it could simply be something they both know and are trying to keep quiet about. Eddie is trying to connect with Sally since they have this in common, but Sally is actively putting distance between them to preserve their secret / plausible deniability. Do I actually believe this? Meh. I’m just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

So current base thoughts: Sally is dismissive of Eddie either because he intimidates/scares her on an internalized level, or she’s actively trying to put distance between them for a currently unknown reason. There’s probably a secret third option I haven’t even considered!

i think a key component of sports fan accounts is holding grudges on behalf of your favourite team/athlete. it’s part of the natural ecosystem

I had this sitting in a Google Doc from ages ago, and it seemed like now was a good time to pull it out. Let’s take a second to talk about the Ball, specifically the actual dancing part.

So you have the two lines of people facing one another. For this style of dance, the line would have traditionally been one line of men and one of women, but it’s scrambled in the show because gender is made up and the points don’t matter. The person across from you would be your partner for the dance. You come in and greet your partner in the center of the aisle and then go back to your respective lines. If it actually matters to anyone, I would say that Maggie’s line is intended to be the ‘male/lead’ side because she bows to Nina. 

This bit really only matters to me because later on you’ll see Aziraphale on the same side as Maggie. Both of them are the ones who are actively pursuing their partner. Maggie asked Nina to dance, and Aziraphale asked Crowley.

Once you’ve greeted your partner, then the rest of the dance commences. I’ve danced a few reels and contra style dances myself, but I’m not an expert on if there is a difference between them and what you’d find at a cotillion ball. I’m just going off what I do know. The most important thing that needs to be taken away from this dance is that everyone is doing the exact same steps. They even make a point of having Nina ask Maggie when she learned the steps to this dance because everyone is in sync despite no one dancing like this anymore. 

Now, the steps of this type of dance would usually be given to you by a caller. There’s generally someone directing at what point you’re intended to move. In my experience, it was a person, but the musical phrases can also do a lot of the heavy lifting to let people know when they’re meant to move, like in this scene. (Although, if you watch the X-ray, the actors apparently all had earpieces.) 

So why is all of this important? Because it still serves as a metaphor for Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship. They’re continuing to follow the same steps that they always have. They fill their appropriate roles, and they still have to answer when their Head Offices call. More importantly, this type of dance doesn’t require any communication with your partner to complete it. It’s not like a waltz or any other two person style dance where someone is following the other person’s lead. You can operate as two separate parts as long as you still listen to the music or the instructions you’re given.

However, Aziraphale and Crowley don’t actually complete the dance. They don’t do that turn that everyone else does. They stop in the middle of the aisle to see the chaos outside. It serves as extra reinforcement that while they are trying to do the steps, they’re not quite succeeding like the other couples who are dancing (Mrs. Cheng and her husband, and Maggie and Nina).

I'm so grateful that the only GG fans that care about the light novels are the ones that can be normal about things because Lightning the Argent goes from the rawest scenes of carnage imaginable to Ky Kiske doing something mildly religious like offering a short, silent, prayer for someone that got mangled to death by WMD dragons, and I just know that, in the wrong hands, those brief religious moments would generate the most annoying goddamn memes you could ever imagine

the romance drama on my sonic tomodachi life island is honestly kind of insane im trying to make a chart of it right now and im struggling to not make it super cluttered

Alrighty, here he is- Took a bit since my tablet kept crashing on me (usually that only happens when I draw Error or Fatal funnily enough).

Maybe I'll redesign and change the story a bit at some point but for now here's what I have.

OG Dust by Ask-Dusttale

Lore stuff is below if anyones interested! :D

Okay, I came up with this idea very quickly and I don't know how to go about this so bear with me. This specific version of Dust was one that joined Nightmare along with Horror and Killer as usual. However, It's nothing close to the family dynamic alot of people like to give them, unfortunately.

Dust soon became extremely good friends with Horror during this time. Killer not so much. Dust eventually decided that neither of them deserved any of this, and decided to rebel against Nightmare.

This completely backfired however, as Nightmare already could tell what they had been planning. Killer and Nightmare immediately hunted them down and it became a fight between Killer and Nightmare against Dust and Horror.

Dust had been terribly injured during the battle, having lost his other eye due to Nightmare and Killer, now matching Horror.

Horror, seeing this immediately chose to defend Dust so he could retreat safely. Horror knew he couldn't be killed until his eye back in his universe was destroyed, so he knew he had to get Dust out of there.

Dust hasn't seen Horror since then, but he believes he is okay.

Other neat stuff:

Dust is worried Nightmare and them are still hunting him down, so he tries to avoid talking to anyone to ensure they're safe.

When asked about what happened he'll refuse to answer (maybe he'll cave eventually)

Most of his time is spent wandering universes as he doesn't want to stay in one place for too long.

He usually wears his scarf, I just drew him here without it.

Of course he needed a new hoodie cause his other one was damaged beyond repair.

He wouldn't be fond of any AU Nightmare's or Killer's. (Refusing to even give them a chance to talk to him.)

He'd be jealous of other AU's where the bad sanses happily get along.

If I come up with more I'll add it here! :D

all hate to tiktok for taking 'having a space to more openly and actively talk about different cultures' to mean 'cultures are NOT to be shared and we must be vigilantly defensive of our cultures for fear of appropriation, a word that can be applied to any multicultural interaction'. like of course cultural appropriation is a very real problem but ive seen with the access to global multicultural conversation that tiktok provides it's made people TERRIFIED to even interact with cultures other than their own for fear of 'doing it wrong'. like at some point you have to acknowledge that in the real world of the great outdoors, the majority of people are eager to SHARE their cultures. yes there are ignorant questions and biases but also... how do you think those things get unlearnt? i dont understand how deciding that multiculturalism is an elephant in the room instead of a normal thing that should just be talked about and lived with is supposed to benefit anyone? and kids on tiktok are CONVINCED that it's a time bomb of a conversation to have and therefore must be avoided at all costs but like. people generally LOVE their home and their culture and are PROUD of it and want to share it. how have we made it so that showing genuine interest and a desire to understand something so integral to a person's identity is now feared and borderline demonised?