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.
listening to Too Sweet for the first time and, damn, Crowley never got his flat back, did he? can't believe he's been crashing on Hozier's couch all this time drinking booze and waxing lamentations about his angel. strange world we live in
I think a lot about Leo’s tendency to push his way into the spotlight despite clearly being a natural in the shadows. Hell, you could argue that his worst moments are when he’s forcing himself onstage, and his best are when he does things no one notices until it’s already been done.
[ID: A series of GIFs showing the parallels between Azula introducing herself to King Keui in Kyoshi Warrior disguise and Ozai asking Fire Lord Azulon to make him the crown prince over Iroh. The last GIF shows Azula and Zuko peeking through curtains watching Ozai speak to Azulon.]
“I am your humble servant, here to serve you and our nation. Use me.” // "We are the Earth King's humble servants."
it's so funny to me that caleb and veth really did just trade off the job of intensely pining for the other at like the halfway point of the campaign. like, imo, nott in the early days did not behave in any real romantic or even romance-adjacent ways toward him--I imagine it would be very hard to even think in that way when you hate what you look like so much, have such low self-esteem, and are actively lying about your entire past, including a secret husband. caleb, on the other hand, is kind of diving directly back into the sort of relationship he had with astrid and eadwulf. very close, very intimate, we-huddled-for-warmth-together-and-oops-it-led-to-something-else sort of thing. he is the one who expresses that he's fine with it if people think he and nott are romantically together when they're talking to keg. nott is the one who pushes back on that. he calls her his life partner. unknowingly, he compares his feelings for nott to nott's feelings for yeza. his behavior only really starts to change after he finds out about veth's husband because suddenly all of that other stuff is rendered inappropriate in retrospect. but even then he compliments her to yeza over dinner in the most awkward of ways, he admits to being jealous, he calls yeza "a lucky man" to have her, he stares at veth and yeza closed bedroom door for far too long, he creates an entire arcane tower with room for her family just so she'll stay with him. in general, his behavior is not, um, totally and completely platonic about it, you know?
like, veth's feelings for caleb are canonical and therefore indisputable in their existence, but caleb in the early days was not that dissimilar to how veth was acting near the end of the campaign. it really paints a picture of "right person, wrong time" in the way things just didn't line up for them. or, as veth would say: "in another world, maybe"
The hero's sword arc of Frieren is only a single chapter but it's probably the chapter I think about the most... You have the classic sword in the stone that can only be pulled by the hero who is destined to save the world. So of course Himmel, the legendary hero, is the one who freed it.
Except: he didn't. He failed. He couldn't pull the sword from the stone. He wasn't the prophesied hero who would save the world.
And he went, okay, well, people really need a hero right now. So I'll just pretend to be one anyway. It doesn't really matter if I'm a fake or not if either way we're helping people.
And he did. He was a pretend hero. And they saved the world.
And now eighty years later there is no one left to remember that he never pulled the sword from the stone at all. It's easier to believe that he did, because he saved the world, so he must have been the destined hero. But he wasn't. The sword saw him and rejected him, and he simply went on anyway, because he wanted to help people, and that's what it takes in the end to be a hero, really. The four of them saved the world, and the true hero's sword sits quietly in a cave somewhere, rusting away, forever, unneeded.
Vil outfit design inspired by high fashion and chapter 5 Overblot design
Vil’s Overblot design reminds me a lot of a nuns habit so I wanted to bring in some recognizable themes such as candles, rosaries , gold detailing and such . For the face droplet mascara and tears meant to mirror crying Mary statues and such .
All this to say I wanted to design something based on these elements and while also being distinctly connected to vil.
I think it’s really interesting that Vil’s Overblot design is so reminiscent of nuns . The juxtaposition of vil who in the spotlight who is well known for his beauty , believing himself to be ugly , is dressed in what is considered to be “modest “ clothing covering himself from view .
Vil is an extremely interesting character coupled with his ob design being my favorite i love this part of his design .
It’s been a while since I’ve drawn vil and I missed it