Characters, Capitalism, And Other Problems

Semi-cerebral shitposts & assorted screaming into the void. Plus bonus scattershot dissemination of every fandom I've ever been in. Over 18 by like...a whole lot. Like a bunch. Primary account of tough-bit-of-fluff

[call-me-noa]

Happy mother's day

[oli-disaster]

mutuals im making hot chocolate and spiritually handing it out to you all

[oli-disaster]

extra important day today

[mothric]

executive dysfunction is telling yourself for two and a half hours that you need to shower bc you smell like your workplace and you absolutely Cannot do Anything Else until you shower, doing Any Other Thing before showering is illegal!!! but you still haven’t for some reason??? you’ve just been sitting on your bed in a towel scrolling tumblr for 2+ hours thinking “I need to shower right now immediately” and growing increasingly frustrated that you are still not clean and you haven’t eaten or done your laundry either

[mothric]

ok actually no I’m reblogging this because a) I am clean now (and I smell amazing, thank you), and b) I had a heckin Realize and I wanted to share it with y’all in the hopes it’ll help someone else with a brain like mine.

I figured something out about myself a long time ago– it’s only just now occurred to me that I was in fact solving a problem caused by executive dysfunction, and I haven’t been implementing this solution lately because my brain went “that’s a relatively new term to me and therefore a Different problem that requires a Different solution”. thanks a lot, brain.

anyway, long long ago, before I knew these fancy schmancy Official words, the problem, as I phrased it to myself, was such: 

sometimes I get Stuck. I was doing something, or on my way to doing something, and then… I just. got stuck.

“Stuck” looks like refreshing my feed or dashboard repeatedly. or it looks like staring at a spot on the wall. or chewing my fingernails. or picking at a stubborn sticker. all the while, my brain drifts through various unrelated topics I wouldn’t be able to recall if asked. sometimes I can get Stuck for hours before realizing I am Stuck. sometimes I get so Stuck that I go to bed that way (feeling especially bad for being unproductive) and I have to just reset everything by sleeping.

one day I asked myself, “why is this happening? why am I stuck, right now, at this moment in time?” the answer, as it turns out, was pretty simple: I was trying to make a decision, and I got distracted. I haven’t moved forward because I haven’t answered that one question or made up my mind.

let me rephrase this in terms of executive dysfunction: many people have expressed that it feels like knowing you need to do a thing but not feeling “ready” to do it. many with ADHD may also be familiar with the feeling of needing things to be “just so” before you embark on a task- you need your setup to look a certain way, or you need to set a timer, or have the right music playing, etc.

when I get Stuck it’s often because I got lost somewhere in that setting-up process, and my brain took the opportunity to nyoom off into Distraction Town.

getting myself Unstuck is solved, 95% of the time, by tracing my steps back to the original decision I was trying to make- often something small and inane- and then troubleshooting from there. (out loud! verbal processing is totally punk.) 

“what was I trying to do?” 

“was I trying to decide between two things?” 

(the answer’s usually yes.) 

“what were they?” 

“okay, let’s decide. 

“okay, that’s settled. let’s move on.”

and then I am free as a bird to nyoom in the direction of The Thing I Wanted To Do All Along, in the amazingly disorganized, scattered, yet rapid-fire way that I do many things.

so!!! in the case of my first post, where I hadn’t showered for 2 hours? turns out I had been trying to decide what music to listen to in the shower. (another hack: my chances of getting Stuck while showering decrease by 75% if I have music playing to help me keep track of time.) I couldn’t immediately make up my mind, got lost in thought, got distracted, and drifted. once I stopped and asked- “why am I stuck?”-  then I remembered- “oh yeah! I wanted to listen to music”-  and then decided- “I want to listen to Daft Punk’s Discovery album”- I was finally heckin able to shower. and also eat, and also throw my clothes in the dryer.

and may I add I only zoned out once, during the slow part of “One More Time.” :P

I’m not saying this is a foolproof method. sometimes I don’t have a reason for being stuck, and that’s okay! I’m also not saying this is how every adhd brain works. it’s just how my brain works, and I’m sure there’s at least a few who can relate. for those few, I hope this helps!!

[mothric]

a lot of people are reblogging the original post without the update and leaving frustrated comments and that makes me sad! if I can find ways to hack my brain than so can you! executive dysfunction is a real and frustrating challenge, but don’t buy the lie that there’s no way to work with it or around it!!!

[sometimesyouhavetobebrave]

!!!!

[backuppixiedust]

This sounds really useful and for some reason, I’m also really happy to find out that I’m not the only person who uses music to keep track of time

[sowecoulddance]

its christmas eve and look whos on tumblr

all of us

[sharper-and-bigger]

Jesus also spent Christmas in a barn full of animals

[fuks]

[creature-wizard]

I recently saw an actual news article censor the words "sexual" and "molest." Fucking shit hell fuck shit fuck.

[angiethewitch]

ooooh, storytime!

for a while, my husband worked as a call handler for the ambulance service. during his training, they had a talk from someone wanting to introduce new policy and he wanted to use my husband's group as a tester group. fun, right?

well, the talk was about how saying suicide was triggering. if a caller says theyre suicidal, the handlers should say "unalive" instead, because saying the word might actually trigger the suicidal person.

if the caller says they were raped and need help, the handler should say "S A" instead, because rape is triggering.

I don't know about you, but if I phoned up the ambulance service to ask for help because I want to die, I wouldn't want them using tiktok speak and trivialising the issue. I think that would make me less likely to ever ask for help. SAY THE WORDS. how are we supposed to address the problem if we can't even name the fucking problem.

luckily, my husbands main instructor literally said "well, that's fucking stupid" to the man wanting to introduce this policy and it hasn't been implemented. but it might. we are watching language be erased. NAME. THE. PROBLEM.

I wish I were making this up, I wish I could say I was exaggerating. I'm not.

[handsaniti]

So fun fact, people who are trained in helping to deescalate suicidal people will always say to put it bluntly.

“Do you want to kill yourself?”

A, it has the benefit of making sure everyone is on the same page. Self-harm and attempting suicide are two different things. You can want to harm yourself without wanting to kill yourself. It can also let you know if the person is passively suicidal or if they’re in the process of killing themselves.

B, stigmatizing suicide leads to more suicides.

C, you will not cause someone to kill themselves by saying the word suicide. It is not a magic word that speaking the name of will cause someone to jump off a roof.

[breelandwalker]

Also, speaking to causation on this trend (separate from issues of censorship), lay people need to learn what "triggering" actually means.

Because way too many people do not understand the difference between "This word is an activating reminder for something traumatic in my brain and it has a rapid and deeply negative impact on my mental health which may result in dissociation, flashbacks, spiraling, panic attacks, or similarly serious reactions" and "ewww that word makes me UNCOMFYYYYY."

[teaboot]

Time to talk about self-harm and abuse again!

When I was working on breaking my self-harm habit, one of the most COMFORTING things was discussing it frankly and openly with a professional. Saying out loud, “I’m doing X to myself” and seeing her just nod like it was no big deal and proceed business as usual with her questions was AMAZING for making myself less shameful im talking about it. The idea that I wasn’t revolting, that my problem was not uncommon, that it was actually a pretty normal response to stress and trauma, made it easier to talk about it and eventually stop doing it.

On the other hand, the WORST therapy session I ever had was with a young man who I presume to have been relatively new and inexperienced in the field because, after confessing I was experiencing symptoms of PTSD related to childhood abuse, instead of asking outright, “were you physically abused?” or “what were typical punishments in your house?”, THIS GUY sort of fumbled over his words to ask, “Were you ever…”, before flicking his hand in a “striking someone with a belt” gesture in my general direction.

And because HE wasn’t comfortable using frank and open language, *I* got to deal with being triggered by that! Because GUESS WHAT: SOMEONE PRETENDING THEY’RE HITTING YOU CAN BE UPSETTING TO PHYSICAL ABUSE SURVIVORS

So yeah. Obviously everyone has different triggers and different things that help or make things worse.

But for the love of god, WE HAVE WORDS FOR A REASON

[bogleech]

We don't talk enough about America's permanent ongoing saturation of "Stranger Danger" hysteria. It's like this country's whole social ecosystem teaches full grown adults to perceive an invisible army of rabid bogeymen lurking around every fucking corner. And it's everywhere. Absolutely fucking everywhere, top to bottom, from true crime media and urban legends like the old Poison Halloween Candy thing to our sadistically rage-fueled, revenge-based justice system and immigration policies. The NRA and the war on drugs and post 9/11 airport security and mccarthyism and satanic panic and just E V E R Y T H I N G in America, everything that has defined its history for 100+ years is constantly nothing but this fucking FEAR TERROR FEAR TERROR.

[this-is-me-trying-girlie]

i just watched episode two of stranger things 5 dude you CANNOT deny that Jamie Campbell is not Victor Vale

PLEASE HEAR ME OUT JUST PLEASE

[echoes-of-a-life-well-lived]

I see it.

[technicallity]

sometimes I wanna reply “bitch me too” to my mutuals posts but I’ve never talked 2 them so they might not see it as friendly joking so i just dont

[jadefyre]

reblog if it’s okay to say “bitch me too” to you if you’re mutuals

[smhmyheaddude]

well how can i refuse if it came straight from an orc

[crommers]

[fandaniel]

[rynekat]

[missingrache]

Which reminds me. The work colleague who makes display signage using AI art is finally getting told to knock it off bc a reference librarian overheard some patrons mocking said AI art the other day and also bc we got a write in comment about how disappointed the commenter was that the public library ie an information center would use AI. We come to the brick and mortar library to get away from that etc etc etc. So, you know. Be loud and annoying about it in public, maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll do something.

[energyprison]

going back to videogames you played a ton as a kid is so funny cause your entire memory of it is of spending days and days on the first level of a game that turns out to be in total 5 hours long

[scorpionlafemme]

[bostghuster]

I’ve read the Villains and Virtues trilogy for the second time this year and now I’m reobsessed, so here’s my take on Damien and Amma

[kaijuno]

[evilwizard]

[stardustschild]

Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”. 

[tbbackus]

There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.

[crutchie-morris]

or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out

[musicofthestage]

best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere

[agatharights]

During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well

Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.

Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.

So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).

[soulpunchftw]

This is wild from start to finish

[totalspiffage]

I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)

[punkbatsarchive]

In my seventh grade play, which was a midsummer night’s dream, Thisbe didn’t have a sword so she stabbed herself with a coathanger

[redheadeddisneyfreak]

My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.

[sammywhatammy]

i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show. 

my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.

in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.

so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-

PFFFFFFFFFRRRRRBTFTBTBFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.

the lesson: sometimes there are fuck ups you just can’t recover from.

[cinder-ember]

During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?

Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.

The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.

Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.

Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.

Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.

Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.

Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.

Sunday Night:  Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.

Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.

[pancakereport-deactivated201904]

In a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan, Wendy forgot one of her lines and started singing the star spangled banner and the audience was singing along and people got emotional

[les-etoiles-de-la-boxe]

Once during the closing night of our high school production of south pacific, we were havin our pre-show pep talk, and our director reminded everyone (mostly seniors) not to go off script to try to be funny. Of course we had one lead who decided to ignore this advice. So during one scene where the sailors were “fishing” at the edge of the stage, he decides to pull up his rubber fish, make a comment about how it wasn’t big enough, and throw it back into the “ocean”, which of course, was the audience. Now, this probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if he had gently tossed it, since it would have landed right behind the pit. But naturalt, he decided that this fish had to break free in the most dramatic way possible, so he winds up and chucks this fucking foot-long rubber fish with all of his strength. So now imagine the stage crew, all of us huddled together, silently screaming as this limp fish goes sailing over the heads of the audience in what looks like a low-budget reenactment of free willy, only to slap some poor parent across the face. I swear, you could almost hear the chorus of “mmmm whatcha saaayyy” rising from all those backstage. From that moment on, all rubber fish were ferociously guarded by yours truly, under the direction of our stage manager.

[hey-look-a-hufflepuff]

This post gets better every time it shows up on my dash

[majomaru]

My Junior year of high school our drama club put on Peter Pan,which involved the construction of a small boat fashioned out of scrap wood,plaster and an old wagon. A few of the actors who were cast as pirates had to ride the boat-wagon down the aisle to the front of the theatre,which had a concrete floor that sloped. About halfway down the brake they were using to control their speed gave out,and they crashed into the front of the stage at high speed.The entire boat imploded. The actors just sat there in silence for at least a full 10 seconds in the midst of the wreckage before my friend Adena screamed “ABANDON SHIP” and they all jumped out and took off running.

[narcissus-thee-squeekual]

My school once did a parody of Cinderella and I was Cinderellas dog. At one point Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the dog had to flea the ball. I thought going down the stage steps wasn’t dramatic enough for “fleeing” so I launched myself off the stage and landed painfully in the center isle about three rows in accompanied with a very, very loud thump of face on concrete where I laid there like a dead fish for a while. At this point Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother got to me, not knowing what to do they stepped over me and continued running. But Cinderella had forgotten to loose her shoe so half way out of the room she chucked it back where it hit me in the head. I bolted upright and ran shrieking hysterically out of the room. A moment later the Prince came down to where the shoe was picked it up, looked dramatically at where I had exited and said “I hope that dog’s okay.” completely forgetting his line.  

[nicin20gayteen]

This may be my all time favorite post. 

[those-fucking-feratu]

I was once in a production of “Hello Dolly!” and the two leads were complete jokers and would prank each other during rehearsals all the time. The rest of the cast never thought they would do that during a show, but they told the chorus (separately) that they each were planning to add some tongue into the final kiss between Dolly and Horace. Of course, we told neither of them about the other’s plan, so during the very last show, we were all waiting in the wings to see what would happen. What happened was we ended the show with the two leads violently frenching each other on stage as the curtain dropped. They started dating two weeks later.

[milliniumfalcon]

Last year we did “Once Upon a Mattress” and the jester was supposed to do a somersault off of a stack of like 3 mattresses and then the minstrel and Lady Larken would be covered up with a blanket, but during one show the jester knocked down one of the mattresses and we had no time to fix it so we had to throw the mattress on top of them

[drag0nfeathers]

In my Freshman year of high-school we put on a performance of Les Mis. In said play there’s the scene where Javert and Valjean confront each-other by the bedside of the now dead Fantine. well, Javert Had his prop weapon (I can’t remember if it was a sword or truncheon,) but Valjean didn’t have his. So we the Crew decided during our builds that we’d rig up a chair to break so our Valjean could use one of the broken legs as a club kind of thing. For all of our shows it went off without a hitch, but for the last one we decided to have some fun. Originally we really just weakened one of the legs so it would break off after our Valjean hurled the chair on the floor, but for the final chair we too saws and cut into everything. All the legs, the back poles, everything. We cut it just enough so that our Valjean would be able to sit in the chair and not break it, but when he tossed it on the ground? Chaos. And that’s what happened. All we told him before the show was “When your toss the chair on the ground, give it your all.” And so when the scene came all of the crew gathered behind the legs and assorted hidden places of the stage to watch. When our Valjean hurled the chair to the ground it shattered. Wood and splinters went in practically every direction and I’m sure that I even saw our Fantine flinch as she feigned death. There was no chair leg left for him to use. So we all got to witness as our Valjean fended off Javert with naught but a splinter. Fun times.

[ryukodragon]

THERE ARE BETTER STORIES EVERY TIME I LOVE THIS POST SO MUCH

[snapfoo]

Back in high school our drama department was putting on a comedy, whose name escapes me now, but the intro starts off telling how the hero was born. The two actors playing his parents came out from either side of the stage and joined in the middle and waved at the audience while the narrator spoke the story. At one point he states ’ they had a bouncing baby boy…’ and a toy baby was literally thrown on stage with a ’ AWAAA’ baby sound effect, then was caught by the father and given to the mother.

Now the first show went off without a hitch.

The second show, my friend was the stage hand that threw the baby on stage.

My friend was also the star quarterback for our football team.

Second show comes on, actors meet in the stage and wave, narrator says his line… And from right stage with the sound effect on cue this baby doll was fucking HURLED into the air about 10 fucking feet and dropped like a sack of wet rags down to the actors and the father actually CAUGHT it first try.

I have never in my life seen the 8D face on an actual person until that day.

[sushinfood]

IT GOT BETTER

[fwizard]

god this post is long but I have one more to add:

I just finished a music theatre prep program where our choir teacher was a head music director for a number of shows that ran in the toronto theatre district and one of the first shows he was involved with was the lion king

so the actors are in maybe their third week of previews, its a sunday afternoon show. They had a wooden puppet for the baby Simba that the actor could put their thumbs into the back of to move its little paws. they affectionately called the pupped “Stiffy”

on this specific day my choir teacher is doing his typical job when he hears a commotion backstage. He heads up to mainstage where the actors are coming off after finishing circle of life, the gorgeous, moving opening song that finishes with baby simba held high in the air while all the animals are cheering. the actors are fucking hysterical.

He asked what happened and one of the actors said that right at the climax of the opening, as baby simba is being held over the cliff, “They dropped Stiffy”

[k1r1d1]

When I was Mrs Potts in beauty and the beast our Lumiere went to make his entrance before be our guest and when he ran on stage his shoes lost traction and he fell squarely on his back losing both his candle head and wig…. With out skipping a beat he turned to the audience and said “it looks like I am becoming human again a little earlier tonight” queue audience dying with laughter and all of us staying completely in character.

[vivithefolle]

I once went to see Dom Juan by Molière, and there comes the dinner scene…

In this scene, Dom Juan sweet-talks his way through his creditor so he doesn’t have to pay him, and in order to do so, compliments him in lots of different ways, one of which is tossing away a wooden chair and replacing it by a big luxurious one. The actor goes and starts his talking, before giving a giant kick in the wooden chair, saying he won’t tolerate his creditor sitting such an unworthy seat…

Cue the flying chair backflipping several times, only to fall perfectly on its four legs, facing Dom Juan, as if to say “I’m here to stay, motherfucker” while everyone on-stage freezes and looks at the rebellious chair… And cue roaring laughter from the audience followed by thunderous applauses. Ten seconds of noise later the play resumes as if nothing had happened.

This wooden chair was its own character, seriously.