#I am. out of practice

[ferritins]

SWEETER KIND OF PAIN | D. GRAYSON

SUMMARY: the first clue that something is wrong happens when you walk through the door to find that Dick is a) still in his Nightwing uniform and b) touchy, even for him.

WARNINGS/NOTES: dubcon non-s*xual physical touch (cuddle pollen).

The first clue that something is wrong is when you walk through the door to find that Dick is a) still in his Nightwing uniform and b) touchy.

Touchy is an understatement.

Dick’s hands are everywhere; palming the handle of your hipbone over your pyjama shorts, smoothing over the wings of your shoulder blades, sweeping up the length of your sides, and sit e, he’s always been tactile with you, but this is a lot, even for him.

The near-desperation and intensity of the way he’s seeking your skin gives you pause.

“Dickie, hold up.” You say, voice soft but hands braced firm on his shoulders.

Dick visibly shudders as he withdraws his hands from where they’re perched on your hips, something desolate creeping into his expression.

“Sorry, I’m sorry—“

“Hey, don’t apologise. This is just… a lot, even for you, and I need to know what’s up so I know how to help.”

“Cuddle pollen. Ivy tagged me earlier.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” You say, empathy a heavy stone on your sternum.

Dick has described to you before the gnawing, hollow cold of cuddle pollen, the ache of skin hunger; touch starvation, dialled up to twenty. Just hearing it described sent goosebumps down your back; to think that Dick is experiencing that now stops up your throat.

“Come on.” You say, taking his hand in yours and heading to your bedroom. “Let’s get you out of your suit, then we can cuddle.”

Dick clings to your hand like a lifeline. His hands return to your hips, long fingers sweeping under your pyjama shirt on the search for skin as you unzip your his suit at the neck.

He groans, full-throated, as you push his suit down to his hips, revelling in your touch, the sound making your ears hot.

You tug his pyjama shirt over his head, and help him tug down the legs of his suit til he’s just in his boxers.

The brief loss of contact sets him to shivering.

You wince, sympathetic.

As soon as you’re under your duvet, bare legs tangled with Dick’s, his body goes slack with relief, two hundred pounds of muscle and sinew pressing into you like he wants to work himself subdermal, live inside of you.

One hand slips under your shirt, pushing it up to smooth over the soft expanse of your belly; the other sweeps long, slow, proprietary strokes over your thigh where it’s thrown over his.

“You’re so soft, baby, feel so good.” He mutters into your neck, pressing butterfly kisses into the delicate skin. You’re not entirely sure he even knows what he’s saying, most likely endorphin drunk.

“.”Flatterer.” You laugh. “Is this helping?”

You valiantly ignore the way your voice quavers at the end of your question as his fingers catch on your waistband before sweeping back up over your belly.

“Yeah.” Dick sighs. “Thank you.”

Cocooned in warm blankets, held by someone you love; it’s no wonder that you find yourself fighting sleep.

Tomorrow, you’ll need to talk, to assuage his misplaced guilt, and set some boundaries for the next time something like this occurs.

For tonight though — touching and being touched, able to give intimacy and comfort in a way deeper than mere sensuality — you’re happy just to be here, to hold Dick close.

[miscellaneousrenaissant]

Looking forward to today's episode lol

[mienar]

the wandering painter, part one

instagram | shop | commission info

[novakiart]

something something red thread of fate

[giantkillerjack]

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.

[anneapocalypse]

So, just curious how many writers and creators will have to be forcibly outed by relentless harassment before we acknowledge that "This queer characters was written by a cishet person and that's why they're bad" is not good criticism.

[pisscord]

so i've been watching the clone wars show...

[meru90]

[milk-lover]

Sobbing uncontrollably reading through a dissertation about the college experience of students with ADHD. It is like reading a report about my life that just says over and over "My experiences are real. My hardships are real. I am not lazy, I am not dumb. My struggles were not my fault, and they were not a moral failing. The failure was with the system, not with me."

Here's a line that got me in particular:

"Hotez et al.(2022) compared the health, academic, and non-academic capacities of a nationally representative sample of U.S. first-year college students with ADHD and without ADHD. Students with ADHD self-reported lower academic aspirations and more feelings of depression and overwhelm, ranking themselves lower in their general emotional health. The fact that students with ADHD scored in the highest 10th percentile for many non-academic traits, such as artistic ability, computer skills, creativity, public speaking, social confidence, self-understanding and understanding of others, compassion, and risk-tasking, suggests that this population has strengths that are frequently underappreciated in academia."

(the paper is a thesis called "Understanding the Collegiate Experience for Students With ADHD" by Gia Long, 2022)

[4chtungb4by]

Day 1 of begging Eric Barone to give Harvey a scarf and earmuffs

[homeofwyrm]

Part 2/2 (If I misspelled something, please don't tell me I can't read and will NOT learn)

Finally had some free time to finish this and now the brain worm is fed.

[vampireposter]

meeting wyll at the grove, as someone who the tieflings trust enough to train their children, says so much about him. it's so sad that he doesn't get explored in acts 2-3 as deeply as the other companions, when his problems are equally intense. the average player probably long rests once before coming across the grove, but even if not, in that time wyll has already proven to the tieflings that they can rely on the Blade of Frontiers.

this is the immediate first thing he chooses to do after being condemned to slow death via ceremorphosis. his priority list in the first conversations with tav is: 1) hunt down a dangerous devil, 2) help zevlor with the goblins, 3) once nothing threatens the tieflings he will gladly search for a tadpole cure. wyll is perpetually his own last priority, and i wonder if it has to do with the lore about souls.

if he believes mind flayers' souls have been destroyed, and fiend warlocks will all have their souls sent to the hells after death, then becoming a mind flayer isn't the worst possible way for him to die. he would never become a mindless monster to save his own soul, but he's not gripped by horror the way that some of the other origin characters are. lae'zel has been made revoltingly impure to her people, astarion is terrified of losing the scrap of bodily autonomy he just regained, gale is guilt-ridden over the orb detonation if he dies, shadowheart has to survive to prove herself to her cult leader, and karlach has also just regained bodily autonomy and is desparate to live.

this is just another quest for the Blade, whose persona guards wyll ravengard against the vice of self-concern when he ought to be concerned for those in need.

[hinamie]

for @cherryys who (rightfully!) hcs lategame megumi as having a bunch of scars befitting his status as resident punching bag

[wasyago]

we're at it again🕺

[starbiology]

i can trick myself into classic art studies if i get to draw my fav character lol

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This was home.

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