So the Spoon Theory is a fundamental metaphor used often in the chronic pain/chronic illness communities to explain to non-spoonies why life is harder for them. It’s super useful and we use that all the time.
But it has a corollary.
You know the phrase, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” right?
Well, Fork Theory is that one has a Fork Limit, that is, you can probably cope okay with one fork stuck in you, maybe two or three, but at some point you will lose your shit if one more fork happens.
A fork could range from being hungry or having to pee to getting a new bill or a new diagnosis of illness. There are lots of different sizes of forks, and volume vs. quantity means that the fork limit is not absolute. I might be able to deal with 20 tiny little escargot fork annoyances, such as a hangnail or slightly suboptimal pants, but not even one “you poked my trigger on purpose because you think it’s fun to see me melt down” pitchfork.
This is super relevant for neurodivergent folk. Like, you might be able to deal with your feet being cold or a tag, but not both. Hubby describes the situation as “It may seem weird that I just get up and leave the conversation to go to the bathroom, but you just dumped a new financial burden on me and I already had to pee, and going to the bathroom is the fork I can get rid of the fastest.”
I like this and also I like the low key point that you may be able to cope with bigger forks by finding little ones you can remove quickly. A combination of time, focus, and reduction to small stressors that can allow you to focus on the larger stressor in a constructive way.
“Magic? no, this is pure engineering by yours truly, small one. But I can see where you might be confused.”
The younger manticore set down the kettle and motioned their guests to the sitting area, rolling her eyes at the nervous human girl hiding behind her grandfather. “She used to be the most beautiful artificer on the continent, now she’s only the most terrifyingly skilled one.”
The spines at the end of the ash grey tail only flicked a little as the old craftswoman chuckled behind her porcelain mask. She set down her pipe and offered her hand to the man, who took it in his and gently kissed the black clockwork knuckles before winking up at her.
“Used to be? Are you blind child? You’re in the presence of the prettiest kitten in all of Persia.”
A deep purr that melted into a girlish giggle filled the room. “Enough you dog. You’ll not have any more discounts and I’m a spoken for woman. What do you want?”
“A spoken for widow.”
“Still~”
“Wow. Gross.” the young manticore drawled as she handed the trembling girl a cup of tea.
The girl was too shy to reply, but internally she enthusiastically agreed.
Britt McGinnis wanted a manticore with a porcelain face for her $25 tier patreon sketch and I kinda ran away as fast as I could with that prompt into the rainbow steampunk hills. love me a good manticore. Also, manticores with wings aren’t usually my jam but I figured this lady would love the ~flair~.
Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them.
“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”
“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”
It’s just.
50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job.
i also like that this is a “ask craftspeople” thing, it reminds me of when art historians were all “the fuck” about someone’s ear “deformity” in a portrait and couldn’t work out what the symbolism was until someone who’d also worked as a piercer was like “uhm, he’s fucked up a piercing there”. interdisciplinary shit also needs to include non-academic approaches because crafts & trades people know shit ok
One of my professors often tells us about a time he, as and Egyptian Archaeologist, came down upon a ring of bricks one brick high. In the middle of a house. He and his fellow researchers could not fpr the life of them figure out what tf it could possibly have been for. Until he decided to as a laborer, who doesnt even speak English, what it was. The guy gestures for my prof to follow him, and shows him the same ring of bricks in a nearby modern house. Said ring is filled with baby chicks, while momma hen is out in the yard having a snack. The chicks can’t get over the single brick, but mom can step right over. Over 2000 years and their still corraling chicks with brick circles. If it aint broke, dont fix it and always ask the locals.
I read something a while back about how pre-columbian Americans had obsidian blades they stored in the rafters of their houses. The archaeologists who discovered them came to the conclusion that the primitive civilizations believed keeping them closer to the sun would keep the blades sharper.
Then a mother looked at their findings and said “yeah, they stored their knives in the rafters to keep them out of reach of the children.”
Omg the ancient child proofing add on tho lol
Sometimes the most mundane solution is the right one,
I'm Ren. Common subjects on my blag: cute stuff, amusing stuff, neat stuff, animal stuff, science stuff, weird stuff, gender stuff, race stuff, art stuff, music stuff, delicious stuff, gaming stuff, and other random stuff.
