Finches

they/them. doing the best I can.

[chthonic-pain]

nobody warns you this but addiction happens without you noticing and one of the first things that it attacks is your ability to care. if you find yourself using recreational drugs every day, stop and take one day a week sober. if you struggle with this or if you don't see the point of the exercise, you are likely already addicted and you need help.

[chthonic-pain]

nobody ever taught me the warning signs for drug addiction, only that "it costs lots of money and destroys your life!!!1" which is not helpful if you can't recognize a developing addiction in yourself.

so here's some things to watch out for with recreational drug use:

planning your day around drugs e.g "i'll give myself an extra half hour before heading out so i can get high first"

rapidly switching emotions around drugs. you love them but you hate that you love them so much. you hate the way you feel on them but you hate being sober. feeling guilty after using even when you didn't give a crap beforehand.

caring less about spending money. if you are budgeting for drugs like they are food, you are likely prioritizing them more than is healthy.

getting high to do household chores and other unpleasant things because it would suck less and be more bearable on drugs

feeling anxious or restless while sober, not knowing what to do with oneself, feeling lost or ungrounded.

thinking about doing drugs constantly even while sober. maybe it's the first thing you think of when you wake up. maybe when you're bored or otherwise have free time, drugs are one of the first things you can think of to occupy yourself with.

going to work or school while under the influence, especially if it happens regularly and if you're seeing your performance suffer as a result.

the idea of taking a 'tolerance break' sounds good to you until it's actually break time, at which point you can come up with 20 very reasonable sounding points to explain why it wouldn't benefit you actually and you should just keep doing drugs regardless.

even if you succeed at quitting the drug, you keep your dealer's number on your phone "just in case"

you pretend to be sober when you aren't. you worry about other people noticing how much time you spend high. you make efforts to hide your drug use or minimize how much other people think you're using. you're scared of other people's judgement if they were to find out.

you have mood swings laced with self-hatred, regret, financial worries, and guilt. these mood swings are then very quickly wiped away by feelings of "but it doesn't matter, i can do what i want, and clearly i'm doing just fine while using drugs frequently". news flash, if you are rapidly switching between feeling numb-ok and hating yourself more than anything because of your drug use, you are mentally ill.

yes this applies to weed. weed is a drug and you can get addicted to it like any other substance. addiction is not the same as physical dependence; it is psychological and it can happen to anyone. you are not immune to addiction.

[asynca]

Many of these also apply to process addictions such as Gambling Addiction.

[spaghettinatural]

and drinking!!

[goblinsandrascals]

i know I only have like 3 followers but maybe this will get out because there are some more lessons I learned in my own journey of addiction recovery:

Just because you dont indulge every night, doesnt mean you dont have a problem. When I drank I made a line that i didnt drink on week nights because i had to work the next morning and i only drank to get drunk. That is not a healthy mindset, and it while i never crossed that line, it didnt mean i didnt have a problem. The problem was my relationship, it was not recreational, it was dependcy, i needed alcohol to make it through a job that made me want to kill myself

In the same vein as above- its was only a matter of time before I broke that rule. I was really good at not getting hangovers, and young, so i would have justified breaking my no weeknights rule eventually.

If you have a mental illness you need to be double vigilant, ive found a lot of things that became unhealthy addictions as coping mechanisms because I couldnt access medication i needed

Who are you when youre intoxicated? Not everyone gets mean or depressed or what not, but if you do, you should take a look at if indulging is good for you and your relationships.

I asked a sober friend how he knew he was an alcoholic when he was drinking and he said something thats stuck with me to this day- people with a healthy relationship with alcohol dont ask if they have a problem. Of course this is a generalization but it knocked me over at the time and really got me to take what i was scared of more seriously

Social media, video games and tv can also be addicting and cause harm. I was playing Apex for hours every single night, ignoring my partner, being angry and frustrated. When I wasnt I was obssessed with facebook and tumblr and other social media sites- and looking at them made me feel angry and like shit about myself. When i went cold turkey on social media i realized how much happier i was all the time and how it had literally 0 other impact on my life. Now im very precious about how i engage on social media. If you notice something is making you feel bad and is not necessary for survival under capitalism (like work), then ask yourself why youre engaging and what it would look like to stop.

It can be scary to admit any and all of this. It can feel shameful and embarrassing. It was one of the most difficult things I did, quitting alcohol, and I wasnt even at "rock bottom". Its okay to be afriad. Its okay to be embarrassed. There is no easy or correct way to enter recovery/get sober, whats important is that you make the choice and do the damn thing. Whats scarier is dying. Whats scarier is wasting a decade and realizing youll never get it back. Whats scarier is losing those who love you for who you are, your real friends and family and maybe never getting them back. Yes relationships will be different after getting sober, but something new and beautiful can flourish out of the pain and its so worth it.

[awesomebutunpractical]

Here’s the thing. Practical self-care, such as showering, feeding yourself, talking a walk, cleaning your space, getting rest, ect. will not solve every problem you have. Especially the big, serious ones. But it will solve a ton of smaller problems that are building up, adding to your stress, and using the energy you need to cope with those big serious problems.

You can feel as awful as you want, just eat a sandwich first.

[hestia-and-the-court]

I think there’s this little instinct we have that rejects solutions to our problems if I feel better after getting my sandwich that means my problems are less valid and therefore if I want my pain to be REAL it can’t be relieved in any way which is nonsense the reason why my problems feel smaller when I take care of myself is that I have more energy to cope with them and that’s a GOOD thing The whole “oh must be nice to think that getting outside cures depression” movement is not in my opinion a victim complex so much as it’s a “I’m in pain and when you try to give me an easy solution it feels like you’re not listening to me” reaction 

tags by awesomebutunpractical

[naamahdarling]

Those tags are AMAZING. Someone finally identified what felt so hard about this to me. It ISN’T a victim complex. It’s an expression of profound frustration and pain.

The un-fun self care is really no more than this: giving the “soft animal” of your body (thx Mary Oliver) what it needs to survive. To take actions to give it the basics, so the body itself feels a little better. That alleviates enough some days to feel pretty okay.

[goblinsandrascals]

I think ive said this already, and probably on this same post, but i always talk about depression as a virus.

A virus' goal is to replicate, to survive, to reproduce. Depression isnt any different. My depression tells me that the things that heal me, that make me feel better are too difficult, theyre bad, you dont want them. If it wants to survive i cant take care of myself, it cant let me.

I think its all of the above right? Its, if i feel better because i ate or showered i was never really hurting to begin with. Of course you were. Our bodies hurt in different ways, and hunger or feeling icky are forms of hurt, and yes eating may help but it doesnt solve how I felt. And how I felt was real and not foolish, and especially with chronic diseases like depression it helps alleviate symptoms, but of course youre not cured and youre still so valid.

I think its also that depression doesnt want us to feel better because its a virus, too. And it forces our brains to operate in ways it usually doesnt and probably isnt very good at and we cannot discount how big of a roadblock our brains can be.

[knowlesian]

“why do i believe this” and “who benefits from me believing it” are the first steps to decolonization and we should all be doing this more

[knowlesian]

since this is on my dash again another two steps, a little harder this time

“who do i hurt when i do this?” and “could i look them in the eye, validate and acknowledge that hurt, and then keep doing it anyway?”

[knowlesian]

feels like a good day for another two.

“whose voice is missing from this story” and then “how do i seek out those voices/how does a story i think i know change when i add new perspectives”

[banans13]

I think now that queens dead they should have her stuffed and put on display in Cairo for the next 150 years.

[banans13]

BLAZE REJECTED MY POST WOW LOL

[autisticwolfesbrainisautistic]

We'll make sure at least 100k people see it for free then.

[tacticalhimbo]

[ source ]

going to be a bit more serious on the dash, so i'll be trying to uplift some voices now that initial celebrations have been made.

[renthony]

No but in all seriousness, memes aside, much love to all my friends in the UK right now. I know shit's about to be chaotic and nationalistic and shitty, and I hope the media circus ends as quickly as possible.

[awesomebutunpractical]

Here’s the thing. Practical self-care, such as showering, feeding yourself, talking a walk, cleaning your space, getting rest, ect. will not solve every problem you have. Especially the big, serious ones. But it will solve a ton of smaller problems that are building up, adding to your stress, and using the energy you need to cope with those big serious problems.

You can feel as awful as you want, just eat a sandwich first.

[hestia-and-the-court]

I think there’s this little instinct we have that rejects solutions to our problems if I feel better after getting my sandwich that means my problems are less valid and therefore if I want my pain to be REAL it can’t be relieved in any way which is nonsense the reason why my problems feel smaller when I take care of myself is that I have more energy to cope with them and that’s a GOOD thing The whole “oh must be nice to think that getting outside cures depression” movement is not in my opinion a victim complex so much as it’s a “I’m in pain and when you try to give me an easy solution it feels like you’re not listening to me” reaction 

tags by awesomebutunpractical

[naamahdarling]

Those tags are AMAZING. Someone finally identified what felt so hard about this to me. It ISN’T a victim complex. It’s an expression of profound frustration and pain.

The un-fun self care is really no more than this: giving the “soft animal” of your body (thx Mary Oliver) what it needs to survive. To take actions to give it the basics, so the body itself feels a little better. That alleviates enough some days to feel pretty okay.

[goblinsandrascals]

The way i talk about depression when caring for people is that its a virus. A virus' job is to multiply, and conquor. Mental illnesses are the same way.

Depression says dont sleep, dont eat, dont go out, dont shower- its telling you not to do those things because that's how it persists, thats how it can grow. Its programmed to replicate just like a virus.

Part of the reason is that we dont respect or take emotional pain or mental illness as real. Not real real at least. And we have an attitude about the spectrum of human emotions that is toxic as fuck.

All that to say i agree. "If eating makes it better im just a whiney brat, or it wasnt real to begin with." Thats nonsense.

How wild would it be if someone said "no, if you set the bone then it wasnt ever broken and ill just look like a baby for the fuss i made about how much it hurt.

Mental and emotional pain is no different. Having a cast and pain killers is just there to help everything heal easier, quicker and better, and the process is less painful overall. Eating and sleeping and showering set up the conditions for you to be able to work through what your feeling easier, quicker and with with a clear mind so you can make better choices and understand what it is your feeling even more clearly.

[brytning]

Self-care Sunday: Does anyone else feel like they need more concrete instructions than "just let go" of intrusive thoughts? Hunter Clark-Fields (author of Raising Good Humans) explains that the reason labeling thoughts works to help let them go is because the process activates the prefrontal cortex---the part of the brain responsible for logic, reason, and decision-making, i.e. the part of the brain that's good at focusing and setting emotions aside. It's been really helpful in my meditation practice to notice where my thoughts go, give them a label, and find it easier to refocus on the present. Labeling thoughts isn't just helpful during meditation! It's a useful practice at any time of day when you notice unwanted thoughts cropping up. The key is in the noticing.

[goblinsandrascals]

It is extremely important that we feel our feelings they will not just "go away". How many times have we all had something go wrong and the whole day spirals from there? I know i have.

Last time i baked a pie for a gathering of friends and something went wrong and the filling bubbled over and the crust didnt cook and it was a disaster. Before i could spiral my parter told me "i think you should just cry about it." Im a cryer, i cry at everything and I fucking hate it. So i try not to. Except i need to cry because that is how i let my feelings out.

Some people its music or writing or physocal activity. Whatever it is- do it early and as often as you need to.

So he told alexa to play despicito and we laughed and i let myself cry, just a bit, just for a couple of minutes, and i was able to move on.

I call it grieving. We need grieve so much more often than we know. Late to work because of traffic? Yeah thats frustrating and youre allowed to grieve that. Ruined pie? I needed to grieve. Did poorly at school? Grief. Sometimes grief is sorrow but just as often its anger or frustration or boredom or confusion or anything. Grieving also doesnt need to be personal. We can also grieve for the systems that hurt us, or those around us, we can and should grieve after tragedies. Take time. Feel things. Its really important.

You need to feel it and work through it just the same as any time else.

If you dont know what your emotional release is, start paying attention to what happened or what you did that made you feel better next time youre stuck. Try to do that sooner next time, see if it works. If you really dont know then try things out, you'll find it.

Feelings are valid, you cant control emotions. But you can control how you respond to them, and that is what matters.

[the-bi-writer-blog]

today i’m thinking about pieces of media that were HUGE in their day, ran forever, had an enormous fan base…and then were Killed Real Dead by their own creators, via a horrible finale. (GoT, pretty little liars, how i met your mother, and supernatural all come to mind.) 

and i don’t particularly care about any of these individual shows, per se, but the trend is sort of baffling & fascinating to me. 

like, each group of writers spent seven plus years creating worlds and characters that fans clearly loved…and then spiked it straight into the trash in 60 minutes flat at the end. 

i just don’t really…understand why??? it seems like most of these shows would have been really easy to bring to a satisfying conclusion for fans, u know? 

Keep reading

[the-bi-writer-blog]

i keep thinking about this, so here are more late-night thoughts:

(disclaimer: i’m not actually like, a Person Who’s Qualified for Serious Literary Analysis. i’m just rambling some personal thoughts on my own blog.)

anyway. i keep thinking about how each story asks at least one central question.

and i think what makes the ending satisfying (or not) is how the story speaks to that question.

Good examples, imho:

LOTR asks: how do ordinary people with no special talents fight a large evil? (Answer: together.)

^^ Ditto for the Star Wars original trilogy.

Friends (show): What does it mean to be part of a community? (Answer: everything.)

There are probably a lot more but it’s like midnight, so

Okay now the fun part - bad examples.

These examples are specifically bad, imho, because the questions they ask are *so* straightforward, and so well honored by the rest of the series. But then when the finale comes around, the writers suddenly start acting like they’re playing a different game

HIMYM is easy pickings. The question is literally, How did these two people meet/fall in love? (Answer: it literally doesn’t matter, because mom’s long gone and the kids whine when they’re told stories about her.)

Pretty Little Liars: Which one of the *many* unsolved mysteries will lead us to the villain’s identity? (Answer: none of them. the villain is someone you’ve never heard of.)

I didn’t watch any recent seasons of GoT or Spn, but they made everyone Sad, so they probably belong on this list.

Anyway. It’s not like all media needs to “say” something imo; if you look at the list above, two of the questions are just straightforward plot resolutions. but you could like. answer the question you’ve been asking for 7 seasons.

i don’t really have a point, but i’m just kinda sad that Really Bad Finales have sunk so many fandoms, so fast. series finales can make or break a fandom, and i just wish that…didn’t happen so much.

[goblinsandrascals]

(This is needlessly long and riddled with typos)

Good news! You are qualified to make literary analysis! Everyone can and should practice their media/literary analysis, its a complex skill that I don’t believe anyone can perfect, but we should all be challenging ourselves to try and opening ourselves up for feedback.

As for the actual topic, its a great one, and I believe it stems from a fundamental misunderstanding that TV shows aren’t just one off stories, but bigger more complex stories, just like a book series. You have have an episodic story (Star Trek or Firefly, for example), where each episode is one fully encapsulated story, but the characters carry on from each experience which paints a picture of something larger. A life story in general, the story of a person coming to a realization, the unfolding of a bigger plot than the characters can conceive of at the moment.

TLDR: I think many shows are made to last as long as possible, not be as good as possible. Characters often lack any meaningful and lasting growth, or are very stunted and have very basic growth that’s more implicit for the regular view, than obvious to the casual one. Writers, for some foolish reason, hate when audiences predict their endings.

1. The goal is to last as long as possible, not to tell the best story possible. It seems to me that TV shows (especially sitcoms or sitdrams) like HIMYM, Friends, Big Bang Theory, Scrubs and others don’t know the full picture. Their goal is to last as long as possible so the characters have little to no meaningful growth from episode to episode or even season to season. If they did the story would have to go somewhere meaningful, they’d have to have a plan for what to do. That’s a lot of work, especially when you’re just trying to make this thing last and you don’t know how long you have. It also suggests that there is an upper limit of how many seasons a show can run.

2. The characters are static objects to be moved through the various plots, not actualized people. HIMYM suffers from this more obviously than others because of their story-telling set up, someone talking about the past, so the ending is already set. It’s not satisfying to watch this on-again-off-again nonsense knowing it’ll amount to nothing, it’s just frustrating because it’s wasted time! There’s no suspense. It’s just.. not going to happen. And then it did, which stunted and totally threw out the book of all the growth that main character did manage to have up until that point. That’s not the only reason it’s unsatisfying, but it is a big one.

Scrubs is another interesting example - there are moments of depth and, within an episode, growth. But it never sticks and the emotional moments are all manufactured with voice over and music, not because of the characters themselves, usually. In fact, the characters suffer, as many sitcom characters do, from growth regression. As the seasons went on JD just becomes more of an incompetent, misogynist, buffoon. That blond girl becomes even more prissy and insufferable. Everyone just turns into caricatures. All that to say that there can be real moments of emotion and depth, but they don’t last and after the commercial break they might as well have not happened.

3. The twist ending, AKA writers hate when you predict their story. There’s also an element of "oh we don’t want you to know whats going to happen, we want to surprise you!" What I call the M. Night Shamawhatshisface effect. Unpopular opinion maybe but actually a story is better if you can see where parts of it are going. It means you’re using all kinds of cool and wonderful writing tricks (foils, foreshadowing, symbolism, etc). Its a good thing when people can predict certain things that will happen. You can’t twist for twists sake, that just ruins everything you’ve built up! All the emotion and growth, the whole journey ruined, Game of Thrones.

4. Let’s put these together and imagine an example of a good character/show arc. Jaime Lanister is a great example. We have all this build up, all this good hard character work, and then he literally punts it into the sun to return to his horrid sister and everything he’d spent all these years trying to change and do better. It’s a personal journey. He’s clearly trying to prove things to himself, to find himself worthy and honorable and good, trying to erase “oath breaker” or whatever his title was.

On this journey it is very clear that Cersi represents all the old bad wicked shameful things he’s done and Bryn represents the honor, pride, dignity of who he was, who he could be. She is the best of us, and she believes he can be, too. The first time anyone has believed in him whole-heartedly, unconditionally, without ulterior motive.

Then he runs back to Cersi.

It’s okay that we were rooting for Bryn and Jaime, it’s good that we could anticipate that they could be together! You’ve shown us that’s where the story is going, to bring it to it’s conclusion!

Oh, but you need to add a twist, right? Jaime dies. He succeeds his journey to redemption, but in order to complete it he needs to die for whatever reason that you can set up in the plot. That works, that tells a cohesive story, with an classic ending that will still feel raw and fresh because of how it’s presented. It’s heartbreaking and unexpected, you thought he made it! But now that you see it, even if it hurts, ya know what, you’re right. Look at all the foils we see for Jaime, look at all the clues, yeah he had to die. But you didn’t see it until it happened ‘cause you weren’t looking for it.

So yeah... that’s an overlong breakdown of my thoughts that you didn’t ask for but your post made me really excited so I wanted to reply. Hopefully that’s okay.

[berrytual-remade]

sex + spirit + harmony

here’s the bi pride flag using colors from gilbert baker’s original pride flag 💗💜💙 (inspired by this and this)

[shalomamme]

Specifically being a black girl from texas juneteenth means a lot to me!

Happy Juneteenth 🤎✊🏽

[uncleromeo]

if you don't do anything else today,

Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.

have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.

and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.

black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.

if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.

This is Juneteenth.

white people CAN interact with this post. share it, spread it.

[sc52]

[goblinsandrascals]

I would add that some of the biggest prizes require MULTIPLE bullseyes to win, so the best prizes aren't even available to anyone and the petty "one bullseye" prizes that the middle class get are peddled as huge successes when really they're just mediocre within boundaries that don't threaten the ruling class.

[roboco-san]

I would not call myself a fan of women's wrestling given that I have not ever actually watched it BUT I am definitely a fan of homoerotic women's wrestling gifs. those I enjoy immensely

[goblinsandrascals]

Watch Liv Morgan and Rhea Ripley - their tag team was Liv for Brutality. They were adorable and so physically affectionate. Also Rhea Ripley’s pin is... certainly... well...

Also, for men’s, take a look at RK-Bro. Randy Orton has said that Riddle, “Captivates him” and, “gives him a renewed love for wrestling”. And they’re so stinkin’ cute.

[micro-usb-deactivated20230625]

[writing-in-the-grave]

ATTENTION WRITERS

Google BetaBooks. Do it now. It’s the best damn thing EVER.

You just upload your manuscript, write out some questions for your beta readers to answer in each chapter, and invite readers to check out your book!

It’s SO easy!

You can even track your readers! It tells you when they last read, and what chapter they read!

Your beta readers can even highlight and react to the text!!!

There’s also this thing where you can search the website for available readers best suited for YOUR book!

Seriously guys, BetaBooks is the most useful website in the whole world when it comes to beta reading, and… IT’S FREE.

[shinningstarz]

HEY! BECAUSE OF OP, THEY CREATED A SPECIAL WELCOME IF YOUR FOUND THEM THRU A TUMBLR WELCOME, ITS A YOUTUBE VIDEO.

[writing-in-the-grave]

They also sent me this; which was super cool

[writingonjupiter]

*slams reblog button*

[cianmars]

@findingtallahassee holy shit! This is cool!

[lalalandlala123-deactivated2021]

“Authors retain all rights to works posted on BetaBooks, and can add or remove content at their discretion. BetaBooks makes no claim to any of the work posted on the site.”

Incase anyone was wondering

[winters-wonderland]

Thank you for sharing! Especially about the copyright protection

[kumabearsweetheart-deactivated2]

This is fantastic! I’ve shared it with all my writer friends and hope that they have a ton of success!

[goblinsandrascals]

@earlgreyer1

[everythingfox]

“Hands down, confidently after 26 years on the internet, this is the best thing I have ever found.”

(Source)