You are much shorter in real life.

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.

a gifset for every tww episode (in no particular order): mandatory minimums (1x20)

“Josh, you need us, we're standing right here.” “Hi Senator, why don't you take your legislative agenda and shove it up your ass.” “Turns out I was fine.”

Only the real ones remember these two 😭 they were both in dire need of a revamp so!!! New designs for the sonadow kids ✨

(Please click for better quality!!)

gonna try to write something today

I normally don't vague post about other people (and I'm not really here, even) but someone in the tag suggested that Jack would make a better Team Leader than Yusei and it made me realize something, in part, about why people think that Yusei is boring.

tl;dr: Yusei isn't boring; he was written as the MC in the wrong genre.

See, Shonen protagonists typically have the following personality traits: loud, brash, hot-headed, sometimes abrasive. Yusei is none of those things, and Jack is ALL of them. Which, I'm sure, is what led that person to say that Jack would make the better leader and what leads so many people (who are mostly only fans of Shonen anime) to say that Yusei is boring. He doesn't fit their expectations of what a Shonen protag is supposed to look like, therefore he's boring.

But the thing is, if you popped him into, say, a Slice of Life, he'd be perfectly at home (well...except for the Trademark YGO Hair anyway) and well-loved by the fan base. I can say this with fair certainty because I've at least never seen anyone say that Natsume Takashi (Natsume's Book of Friends) is boring in any way, and honestly the two of them have very similar temperaments. The difference is, obviously, the genre of their respective stories.

Slice of Life allows for its protags to be softer-spoken, more reserved; Shonen often does not.

It's time people stopped saying that Yusei is boring and just admit that they like loud, brash characters as opposed to quiet ones, and that Yusei just doesn't fit what they expect from a Shonen protagonist.

He's not boring; he was just written for the wrong genre.

Benzaiten Steel

New selfship! I call them HarV (Harvey/Harv/V) - ref img

RAHH GIVE ME STUDIO INVESTIGRAVE STUFF TO DRAW ‼️

fic talk in the tags 💝

I never really bought into the theory that hunter had scars on his hands, but I did think something was up with that.

My first thought was that it was a metaphor for freedom and all, you know. He likely crawled out of the earth with those hands only to be held down again by Belos, and IIRC the first time we see him without them, he's in the Human Realm, under the impression that Belos died. He was letting himself loose and actually happy, as Gus points out, so he didn't feel the need to wear them anymore. Then he touches the Old Man Slime and the world comes crashing down again.

The curse, as I'm sure many others have pointed out, can be seen as a metaphor for abuse. I don't think it'd be a stretch to say Hunter suffers from some pretty bad PTSD. So, after he's infected by the Evil Goo, he starts being erratic, yelling at Flapjack, seeing things in the forest... he's repeating behaviors from his abuser and unable to let go of the past. In this case, it is literally his abuser acting through him and forcing his hand, but, you know, metaphors.

I'm not sure where they're going with him in the next two episodes (still in denial about Flapjack's death, I pretend I do not see it) but I think he might start wearing gloves and shut down again. I'm begging these kids to go to therapy, pls Dana pls pls pls

complaining complaining comPLAINING but i reached my social battery limit earlier today and i don't think the next five hours of sleep i can get if i go to bed RIGHT NOW are gonna replenish it and i have first impressions to make tomorrow and about a million texts i've been ignoring and and and.

very much a work in progress but ty/felix playlist be upon ye

Some recent pressed leaves and stuff to add to the collection :0

I have been meaning to do a btd Colin mock up for * checks watch * 600 years now.

I was gonna try to replicate the btd style too but I gave up half way APPARENTLY LOL 💀😭

......comic part 1 coming out tomorrow? (chopped in half because it's taking too long for me to finish what the full thing was originally gonna be)