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.
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so my younger cousin is flying in to visit from brazil on sunday, and will be staying here for like, the entirety of july. which, don't get me wrong, is super cool! i love the kid! but it felt like a super weird move, considering his parents are the SUPER strict and borderline helicopter parents. even the smallest prank/roughousing with him/his little sister would lead to a strict talking to from his parents, he couldn't ever do anything without their clear permission, that sort of stuff. so letting him fly at alone at 16 to a whole different country and stay there for a whole month seemed WILDLY out of character. additionally, it just felt like a super last-minute trip. it's not like we have any plans to do when he gets here, and the flight itself and stuff only got booked like, midway through june.
and i was talking to my mom about it, kind of trying to nudge some answers out of her, and after a while she went, "yeah, i think they're sending him over here to get away for his boyfriend. see if the distance breaks them off." which, first of all, surprised me because last i checked, they didn't KNOW he had a boyfriend. literally everyone in the family did EXCEPT for them because while that entire side of the family being semi-conservative, his parents (mostly his dad) are EXTREMELY old-fashioned. so clearly something already went wrong. and considering the only reason the rest of the family knew is because one person found out and it spread like wildfire, i have a sneaking suspicion he wasn't the one to tell them, either.
and second of all. they're sending him HERE. to try to make him forget his homosexuality. i couldn't do anything but just wordlessly gesture to the multiple pride flags scattered around my room, then to myself, because really? he has like two other cousins in the us and they're sending him to me? honey i am about to introduce this kid to queer scenes you have never even heard of. he'll be returning home with labels only shrimp can perceive
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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.
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Damian: [brushing his teeth]
The shadow hanging over his shoulder: [Gets its teeth dangerously close to Damian's shoulder]
Damian: [Shoves a toothbrush into said shadow move and starts brush]
The shadow: [Pauses before starting to let out a contented purr]
Damian then spits out the foam and washes out his mouth, then makes the shadow do the same and then picks out pjs.
Damian: [Currently decided if he should go with the cat, dog, or knife imprinted one]
The shadow: [Starts getting dangerously close to Damian with, toxic green spirals it calls eyes]
Damian: [Throws the dog imprinted one behind him at the shadow and takes the cat imprinted one for himself and tells the shadow to put it on]
The shadow: [Stares at the clothes before hesitantly putting them on before letting out a noise of distress]
Damian: [Turning around to find the shadow somehow stuck in the pjs, lets out a sigh, then starts to help them fit]
Damian then moves over to the bed, he points to one side and tells the shadow to go there. The shadow listens, laying down as Damian also lays down, grabbing the sheets and covering them both.
It barely took a few seconds for the shadow to fall asleep, and Damian stared at it. Damian wasn't quite sure why the shadow of his dead twin was following him, nor why it was even able to and seemed to hide itself from anyone who isn't Damian.
Nobody besides him knew about it, and Damian decided that he liked it. This could have been his younger brother, if the other had survived, and they would have probably been told to fight to the death to decide an heir.
At the very least, that won't ever happen.
Even if his brother was slightly unusual.
===
Danny did not remember much of the before, he remembered people with blurred faces and features, blurred colors. He remembered a lot of colors, then red, then white, then pain.
He doesn't like pain, he believes.
Then he remembered going to sleep, and then he woke up. It was dark and slimy and cramped when he woke up, especially when he realized someone else was in their with him.
Then he fell asleep again, then woke up to that same dark and slimy place, then fell asleep again, all in some weird cycle. Then, moving, and pain.
It hurt, and he was sluggish when it eventually stopped. Then came pain again, and he was asleep.
Then he woke up, again.
He didn't know what was happening, wasn't really aware of too. But he woke up next to the other who was in that dark and slimy with him, and decided he wanted to stay with them.
He wasn't aware enough for most of the things that happened when Damian grew up, but he still stayed regardless, and hide from everyone else.
Danny loves his brother, and he thinks his brother loves him too. Even if he was slightly unusual.
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Prompt 169
Danny is from a world where everyone has wings, even if most have long since lost the ability to fly. Something about loading and aspect ratio, wings being too small, body too heavy, now mostly used as display, whatever.
It doesn’t matter even if he had blueprints from when he was like six of a jetpack to help fly. It won’t work anyway and hey, he has his ghost form! Which uh, might be perhaps, affecting his wings which were maybe sort of scorched black and practically down to the bone thanks to the accident.
It doesn’t matter, he swears. Though he’s admittedly relieved to see the new feathers growing in are different from Dan’s angry sunset. Even if they’re not even supposed to be able to grow back. Alright, this is fine, no one is going to notice! It’s not like everyone knows about the poor Fenton kid whose wings were absolutely destroyed thanks to an accident! It’s fine.
He’s not flying in a half-panic towards the Far Frozen while crying because his wings are coming back and he’s so scared. He didn’t panic and instantly fled the moment Jazz pointed them out while changing the bandages.
He definitely didn’t trip over something while wiping away said tears and blacking out from all the stress and all of his problems that he definitely mentioned to someone and isn’t keeping a secret. Definitely.
Hawkwoman and Hawkman would like everyone to know that neither of them were expecting a very small child to be spat out of the villain of that week’s machine that should definitely not be a portal. A very small child, maybe nine or ten, with a multitude of concerning wounds both old and fresh. Which isn’t even beginning to touch on the wings.
Feathered, like baby down despite the gnarled scars, unlike their own metallic, with the beginning of tiny specklings like stars amidst the darker fuzz peeking from the wounded flesh.
Who?! Who dared?! It’s (at least to the forever reincarnating duo) a literal baby! They still have down! Tiny baby fuzz! Was it the portal?! Oh this villain is going to taste their maces for causing this if that’s the case!
The rest of the Justice League would honestly like to know what just happened and are honestly unsure on if they should stop the two…
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