#I just don't have the spoons

[the-pen-pot]

Me, ill and miserable: Ugh, this week can't get any worse.

My laptop: Wanna bet? *DIES*

[whumpsmith-participates]

I really don't think I can come in clutch and finish the last 6 or so pieces for medwhump May in the next 24 hours, but I do wanna make it to 31 even if it's outside of May.

[raynewolferune]

DC x DP Prompt: Bruce is bad at emoting but at least ghosts are empathic (too bad bat kids are not)

Was reading Twincognito on AO3 when I stumbled across this gem again:

~

" “Danny, Tim. I was just…checking in. Is everything alright?” Curse his inability to make meaningful conversation when it wasn’t a life or death situation.

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

Then Danny hauled himself out of the bed and walked over to Bruce.

Bruce tried not to let too much excitement show on his face. "

~

Now I really want to read a story where Bruce adopts Danny post Meta trafficking and is being his usual emotionally constipated self. His kids keep getting mad at him because he's treating their new meta brother who was trafficked poorly (generally being stilted in conversation with him, walking away hurriedly mid-conversation, avoiding Danny when he's feeling really awkward, etc). They think Bruce is discriminating against Danny for being a civilian, meta, dealer's pick, but really it's just Bruce being horribly socially awkward. Danny knows this because of ghost empathy and find the whole thing hilarious. The whole thing comes to a head with the Bat Kids staging an intervention in the Bat Cave.

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

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.

Plain-text version:

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!

P.S. 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.

[inkskinned]

as we enter the start of a semester and the dreaded Hour of Making Friends us upon us... if ur ever at a loss for what to say in one of those weird social situations where you only vaguely-know people, one of my favorite questions to ask is "what is your favorite food crime." a food crime is like the food combination that you love that other people find revolting. press them to take it further than pineapple on pizza, that's rote. food crimes is a good topic that has many benefits as it turns out all people are degenerates and also it will give you some cool ideas to try out later in the privacy of your own degenerate kitchen

the other good thing to ask is "okay but has anyone here ever been someplace haunted" bc it turns out if you ask most people directly they don't believe in ghosts, but many people are like "oh yeah i lived in a haunted house. ghosts aren't real tho"

[egophiliac]

this chapter has been so absolutely nuts that I actually low-key forgot that I had a couple of new UM posters to do! wild! anyway, I gotta think about Lilia's some more, so here is my beautiful electric crocodile son in the meantime. god I hope this reads properly

(I went with Volt to go with his name, but there's a Bolt version too in the print-size folder!)

[crabsnpersimmons]

Voice Cast: Donnie Osmond

some of you may have already seen a preview of this guy, but here he is!

this is Eddie! my Eclipse OC, who i've been brainrotting about lately

Eddie used to be a performer, singing and dancing on stage as part of a touring show. He fell in love with another performer, who shared his dream of having a big family some day. but as a robot and a human, they didn't believe it was possible for them. His love eventually left the show to elope with another man—a human man. Years later, they reunite, but she is alone and pregnant. Due to complications during childbirth, his love passes away, leaving behind her twin infants, whom she named Solomon and Lunete. After that, Eddie decides to retire from the stage to raise the twins.

While he misses the stage, he tries his best to be the best father he can be for his kids.

[tamagoneko]

are you confusing me for someone else?

[spoonmoment119]

anyone who doesn't ship grumbo CLEARLY has never watched grian's season 6. he's insane. he'd do anything for mumbo.

[anyroads]

British people: these avocados must go they're past their prime please won't someone eat them

The avocados:

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[thresholdbb]

I have a gripe about the Star Trek mugs...

Picard's teacup is a delicate, fragile little thing held by a strip of plastic and a dream. That thin glass will break if you look at it sideways. And where do they put that ridiculous tiny cup? On the Enterprise, which is always being dragged into conflict

The DS9 raktajino mugs are hefty, wide-based things that are meant to not tip over. They're called no-spill mugs. They have a foam piece on the bottom so they don't slip. They're incredibly sturdy – meant for ships and traveling! Where do they put them? At the station, which is arguably the most stable place they could be cause DS9 rarely gets knocked about.

Far as I'm concerned, Janeway's the only one doing practical space mugs correctly. Come on, a metal travel mug that's as strong as her coffee is black? Takes a beating through 70,000 light years of bridge shakes fighting off the Borg and the Hirogen and still holds a hot drink? Now that's a space mug

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt 58 Part 7

The long dining room that held the ornate old dining table that seated way too many people already held  most of the family. Bruce was missing and Damian informed them he was at work, the only other person missing was Jason but it was typical for him to skip out as he didn’t live there and didn’t have the best track record with the rest of the family. That left Damian, Tim, Cass, Duke, and Dick seated.

Damian sat next to the chair that Bruce normally sat in at the head of the table. Tim sat across from Damian followed by Dick, Duke, and Cass. Danny sat next to Damian and Jazz sat next to Danny. 

“So, how was school?” Dick asked his elbows on the table with his head on his hands and a smile. He was the only adult in their life besides Bruce that actually cared about their schooling. 

Danny had actually forgotten that all of this had happened in just one day. The thought was a little jarring if Danny was being honest with himself. He wasn’t sure what to tell Dick, on one hand he was just asking about school on the other… no he wasn’t going to think about what happened right now. Just the thought caused phantom volts to go through his body like he was reliving the accident. He felt a nudge to his foot from the right and looked up to see Damian giving him a quizzical look. He cleared his throat and looked back over to Dick who was giving him the same kind of look. 

“I-I’m, uh… school was fine, didn’t learn much since school just started,” He eventually decided to say after stumbling on his words a little. 

“Dash isn’t picking on you again this year is he?” Dick asked with a concerned look on his face. 

Danny wished it was just Dash, the pain he felt from the portal was a thousand times worse than anything the bullying blond could pull. If it was just Dash, Danny could have just laughed it off and forgotten it probably, but it wasn’t just Dash and Danny couldn’t help but take a deep breath trying to gather his thoughts and calm himself.

He startled as he felt a hand on his knee, he looked to his left to see Jazz giving him a look of sympathy as she rubs her thumb comfortingly on his knee. She then spoke, “Danny you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Okay?”

Danny gave her a small nod, a small smile on his face. 

Before a new topic could be discussed Alfred arrived with their food and began serving them. Danny loved the food the old butler cooked especially since he was able to do so in a kitchen that wasn’t contaminated. Alfred did his best to make sure everyone was served food to their liking, as long as it was a balanced meal at the end of the day the elderly butler would serve just about anything you’d request.

Danny picked up his fork to begin on his salad, however when he tried to push the fork into the lettuce his hand felt a cooling sensation with pins and needles and his fork went through his hand. He stared at his hand for a moment wondering what just happened. He then picked up his fork to try again and was able to get a mouth full, but when he went for a second bite it happened again, his fork clanging against the bowl again.

“Something wrong Danny? You're staring at your hand weird,” Danny heard Dick speaking and looked up to see Dick staring at him giving him an odd look. 

Danny couldn’t help but rub his neck nervously with his other hand, he hoped to get ahold of whatever this was so no one noticed. Though knowing his luck everyone probably did notice, over the years he and Jazz both noticed that the Wayne family was much more observant than their media persona’s showed. 

Dinner continued and Danny struggled to eat anything as anything he tried to hold fell through his hand frustratingly and Danny couldn’t help but get agitated. 

Eventually his glass he was holding slipped through his hand and tumbled onto the floor shattering into a thousand pieces. Danny let out a frustrated sigh as he stared at the mess he made. 

Before he could stand to clean up Alfred appeared by his side with a dustpan and broom and began cleaning it up, “are you still feeling unwell Master Daniel? Perhaps you should retire for the evening, I will attend to this mess.” Danny begrudgingly nodded his head and made his way out of the room.

He wasn’t alone for long as Damian and Jazz tailed him out of the room. 

“What was that? It looked like your spoon was going through your hand,” Jazz asked after they were a ways from the dinning room.

“Jazz, honestly I don’t know, it felt cold and then anything I tried holding fell through my hand.” Danny brushed his bangs away from his forehead and they dropped back into his face as he dropped his hands back down to his side.

The walk went silent after that, although it didn’t stay for long as Danny felt the cooling sensation again but this time through his whole body, he let out a yelp as he felt his body sink into the floor.

Damian and Jazz looked at him with panic but as they grabbed at his arms or his hands to pull him back up they went through him just as the spoon and apparently the ground now. 

He let out a panicked yell as the floor swallowed him whole, so now he was sinking further down further into the earth. What was going to happen to him? Would he ever find his way back up?

Thankfully he didn’t have to wait long as the cooling sensation left and as gravity took hold of him again he fell. Apparently there was a cave under the manor and he was able to turn back into solid as he felt air again. There was no way he was surviving this, even with new weird powers now was when he’d get impaled by spikes right?

The cave was too dark to make out much but Danny thought he might have seen a computer with several monitors. That didn’t matter now as he finally landed, and he grunted as he landed on a person who also grunted as having a teen land on you couldn’t be the most comfortable.

He knew he was in big trouble when he realized who he landed on, “Batman??”

[garaksapprentice]

The internet: You must never machine wash your knits. Never. Ever. They will be destroyed the moment they are touched by the caress of a machine's heated water supply. Hand wash only, or You Shall Be Sorry.

Me:

That photo contains ~13 pairs of 70/30 wool/nylon socks, a 100% wool shawl, an acrylic shawl, an acrylic kid's jumper, an acrylic beanie, a vest knit of "handwash only" wool, and a few other things I've forgotten.

This is one of the reasons to swatch, people. Knit a swatch. A big one. Even better, knit a hat out of the thing you want to use. Chuck it in the wash. See how it comes out. Make decisions from there.

I've knitted somewhere above 50 non-sock things in the decade or so since my first kid came along. I have machine washed them all. Only two - TWO - things have gotten eaten by the wash in that time. (a purple toddler dress and half a sock). And both of those were accidentally put through with the regular clothes wash.

Obligatory caveats: Probably don't do this if your machine doesn't have a gentle/delicate setting. I made sure mine came with a wool cycle when I had to buy a new one. It takes 38 minutes, spins at 800 RPM, and refuses to go hotter than 30ºC.

Also if you tend to use loosely spun yarns or very large gauges (both seem to be popular nowadays), or like to knit Extremely Delicate Lace, use caution. (My knitting preferences are basically the opposite of those things - I like things that last.)

[rockturbot]

He always reminds me of a Damascus goat so I had to redraw this meme with him

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Okay something I haven't really had the words for so far is to describe the surreal weirdness of interacting with Current Events™️ as a ger.

Partially this has been me trying not to make this about my feelings, and partially this is a lack of ability to articulate the feelings anyway. But I'm gonna try because I think others might be in the same boat.

So one of the interesting things about being a Jew by Choice is that a number of us don't have any prior connections to Judaism. We are not culturally Jewish when we start, we do not have Jewish family or ancestry, and we are not joining a Jewish family through marriage. We just.... felt drawn. Called, if you will. A lot of us in that boat are seekers, moved by some moment of truth or divine connection.

At any rate, that leaves us in a weird position when it comes to Jewish cultural trauma, both new and old. We don’t carry the ancestral trauma of knowing we have lost literal family to atrocities, but we accept that may be our future. We don’t have the literal trauma, but the collective grief and community trauma seeps into your bones very quickly, the more you identify with the Jewish people. We don’t have the literal trauma, but we then worry about whether we also lack the resilience that has sustained Jews by birth throughout history.

"We are made of strong stuff! Your ancestors passed on their strength!" An excellent and true statement for many, but what if our specific ancestors did not? Worse: what if they were on the other side of the equation?

We are also confronting, for the first time, the reality of seeing how few people care about Jews outside of other Jews. For many born Jews, that makes this a time to consolidate into family, to hunker down. For gerim, we find strength in community but many of us have family that do not and cannot fully understand (and honestly many of us are praying our families don't understand it for any number of reasons.)

So we are processing this for the first time as adults, outside of a Jewish family. And it's surreal and weird and hard and alienating and you feel both like you are inside and outside of the community. You are profoundly affected, but do you have any right to complain? You chose this. You knew what was coming, probably. This kind of antisemitism? Brutally predictable, if you know Jewish history. You have survivors' guilt and secondhand trauma, but other people have it far worse, far more personal, and so it feels like there's no appropriate space to discuss that. You want to speak up and also, you don't want to draw attention to yourself. You want people to see you. You want to hide. This is the only thing anyone in your community can focus on, and you are struggling the same way. It's been two months and you need to snap out of this. This doesn't hurt you directly. But it does. It does. Because no matter how isolated you feel, you cannot separate yourself from your people.

Idk it's a lot. But I'm fine. I'm fine, of course.