#i really hope someone can relate

[lilislegacy]

I love that whenever you get sent songs, you actually take the time to listen to them. And not only that, but you analyze the lyrics and everything. I simply think it’s so nice that you give everyone’s thoughts and recommendations your full attention. There are not many popular posters who do that and actually care about each person’s thoughts that much. No one is saying this to you so I thought I would

And I have a question. What are YOUR songs that make you think of Percy and Annabeth? And I going to listen to each of them with my headphones on and really pay attention to the lyrics. Because you do the same for us

this is so nice of you to say! thank you for this ❤️ and yes, i always want people to know that i value their thoughts. the only reason i am “popular” is because you all listen to my thoughts and value them. so why wouldn’t i do the same in return?

for my songs, i have soooo many. but i will give a few!

1. Rescue by Lauren Daigle- this one literally gives me chills if i think about percabeth during it. the lyrics are so freaking spot on. especially percabeth in the titans curse, the last olympian, and all of heroes of olympus. if there is one song you guys are gonna put on your headphones for or play in your car and let yourself have the feels, make it this one.

2. True love by Pink - it just gives such percabeth pjo vibes. i love how much they bicker and press each others buttons.

3. Paris by The Chainsmokers - this isnt one where the lyrics match exactly. obviously the bits about alcohol and cigarettes don’t really apply to percabeth. but the themes of the song and some of the lyrics really hit hard. it just gives percabeth vibes to me

4. Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Rey - no explanation needed. it gives me chills

5 Missing Piece by Vance Joy - there’s so much about this song that fits so percy. i just love it for them.

[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.

[luckthebard]

I should know better than to go on CR twitter but I just read someone in all seriousness complain about Orym “pulling the dead family card” without any seeming awareness of how callous of a thought that is

And I just desperately want some of these people to take a giant step back and try to exercise some curiosity about different explorations of life experiences and emotional truths instead of resorting to downplaying or dismissing ideas that are difficult or uncomfortable.

[stardust-falling]

fandom psa; there is nothing whatsoever that is inherently "problematic" about shipping characters who are "found family."

Adoption is not found family. A blended family is not found family. A found family or chosen family is a group which, through circumstances or simply mutual affection, hold their relationship to one another with equal care and importance as family members ought to. It's not the same type of relationship.

It's not incest. It's not even pseudo-incest unless you want it to be. I personally don't care what people ship, but I'm absolutely tired of people misusing the term "found family" to just recreate the idea of a nuclear family and force those roles onto the entirety of a fandom. Sure, maybe characters who are found family may view themselves like siblings, or like a parent and child or aunt and niece, but they might also just see each other as friends-- and guess what? romantic partners too! That's technically the most widely-accepted form of found family/chosen family there is!

The whole point of found family/chosen family is to have the importance of "family" on relationships that lie outside the commonly-understood bounds of that relationship. Not to recreate the "mommy-daddy-daughter-son" dynamic with unrelated characters and use that headcanon or fanon dynamic to enforce your own morality or preferences on other fans.

[skylarbee]

milex and 'white nights' by dostoevsky

if you love milex do not, for the love of god and the well-being of your mental health, read 'white nights' - i am crushed and utterly inconsolable, and the fact that this whole story fits so well with the lyrics of 'killing the joke' and 'the meeting place' and the la cigale performance has me wanting to cry until tomorrow, and i can't keep all these thoughts to myself.

for those that don't know, it is the story of a man who meets a girl and falls in love with her; unfortunately, the girl is in love with someone else and is waiting for him to come back to her; and in the end, she returns to her lover, but wants to remain friends with our nameless character.

the two characters meet during the night, always in the same place - 'but I want to see you tonight'

the man can't sleep, he is too excited about their next night when they'll meet again; he even goes back to their meeting place on his own: - 'he struggles to sleep at night and during the day/he's worried she's waiting in his dreams/to drag him back to the meeting place/his love had left him there' - 'he's crying out from the meeting place/he's stranded himself there'

things taking a wrong turn is indicated by grey and gloomy weather, rain and dark clouds - 'cause the clocks count down and we're in for bad weather'

the man confesses his love to the girl, despite knowing that she can't love him, knowing that what he is going to say "is all nonsense, all impossible, all stupid! I know that this can never be, but I cannot be silent" - 'why do I always have to go killing the joke?'

the man has been lonely all his life and has been unsuccessful with women, but despite his loneliness and despair, he manages to make the girl laugh multiple times - 'but I, I live a lonely life / but I, I know I'm a funny guy'

at the end, she writes him a letter, asking him to forgive her for leaving him - 'her voice still echoes/ I'm sorry I met you, darling, I'm sorry I've left you'

nastenka's lover has been away for a year, but before he went, he promised her that when he comes back, he'll marry her. but when he does comes back, he doesn't go to her and the girl begins to doubt his love for her - this is when how our character finds her. in her misery, she wants our narrator to come live with her and tells him that she will love him; but after discussing their plans, her lover turns up - and tell me that this does not remind you of la cigale:

"Come along! Look at the sky, Nastenka. Look! To-morrow it will be a lovely day; what a blue sky, what a moon! Look; that yellow cloud is covering it now, look, look! No, it has passed by. Look, look!"

But Nastenka did not look at the cloud; she stood mute as though turned to stone; a minute later she huddled timidly close up to me. Her hand trembled in my hand; I looked at her. She pressed still more closely to me.

At that moment a young man passed by us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently, and then again took a few steps on. My heart began throbbing.

"Who is it, Nastenka?" I said in an undertone.

"It's he," she answered in a whisper, huddling up to me, still more closely, still more tremulously.... I could hardly stand on my feet.

"Nastenka, Nastenka! It's you!" I heard a voice behind us and at the same moment the young man took several steps towards us.

My God, how she cried out! How she started! How she tore herself out of my arms and rushed to meet him! I stood and looked at them, utterly crushed. But she had hardly given him her hand, had hardly flung herself into his arms, when she turned to me again, was beside me again in a flash, and before I knew where I was she threw both arms round my neck and gave me a warm, tender kiss. Then, without saying a word to me, she rushed back to him again, took his hand, and drew him after her.

I stood a long time looking after them. At last the two vanished from my sight."

and despite all this, the man is not angry with her; the last thing he'd do is hurt her in any way; he wishes her to be happy - and realises, that all his life, he's only been truly happy during these nights with her:

"my god, a whole moment of happiness! is that too little for the whole of a man's life?"

which hits even harder if we read the epigraph of the story:

"Or was his destiny from the start

To be but just one moment

Near your heart?" (Ivan Turgenev)

[anthromimicry]

[puhpandas]

you know the content drought is bad when you think about content from over a year ago and still get excited

[coriander-candlesticks]

I feel a little nervous posting about this but I have an Etsy! Where I've been (slowly) putting up Elder Futhark runestones and Greek Alphabet Oracle stone sets! I realized I liked creating them and they're an intersection of interests (paganism & ✨ making shit ✨) that I feel comfortable expanding on. I make crocheted bags for them too!

I'm proud of them generally, I'm not going to be sharing the sets I make just to, like, push my Etsy on y'all. It's been a lot of fun figuring out how it works and getting back into polymer clay after not picking it up for several years.

If you would like to take a peek at what I've got so far, you can find my shop here.

[thepunkpanther]

RAY KOWALSKI + SONGS

spotify template by @seaoftr

[doubledyke]

the "feeling of impending doom" symptom with anxiety is one of the hardest to be ~MiNdFuL~ about and idk exactly why... probably cuz it's so specific and kind of stands out compared to the usual shit im thinking about 24/7. also bc it's true that literally anything could happen at any time so it's impossible to rationalize lol. plus it has the added effect of being depressing as hell. doesn't help that it's also a symptom of some real medical crises 😭 so even when i try to tell myself "okay it's just your hormones" etc, my brain is like " true, but you're actually gonna have an aneurysm in approximately 17 minutes, so. jot that down."

[anotherpapercut]

hi more drug question

I have been told many many times that using ecstasy will basically fry your seratonin receptors so that you will never be able to feel happy again unless you are using the drug. I am assuming now that this is false but I am curious now as to how false. Is it something that CAN happen if you take too much at once or too often, or is this just random Drug Scary misinformation

Also also since wellbutrin is not an SSRI does LSD work when you are on it or does it also cancel it out

lol that's kind of an extreme version of what I usually hear! you're right that basically the answer here is no. this comes from a couple different things. first is MDMA induced serotonin toxicity, and 2nd is something called "serotonin syndrome" which is a real thing that can happen, but it's really really hard to get like this. prepare for a very long answer lmfaooo

MDMA induced serotonin toxicity occurs when you take too high doses too frequently. MDMA IS slightly neurotoxic, but so are many prescription drugs so don't let that word freak you out too much! basically MDMA works by dumping large amounts of serotonin into your brain, hence why it's the happy/love drug lol. if you take too much too often, your brain will straight up run out of serotonin. obviously that's bad! it's not as simple as "never feeling happy again" but you will essentially have depression for a bit because of lack of serotonin (on its own, low serotonin levels following modest MDMA use is not damaging and resolves within a few days) but the real problem is that if you are on MDMA with depleted serotonin, your brain will continue releasing dopamine which will attach to the serotonin receptors and damage them. this is what can cause long term depression symptoms, the damaged serotonin receptors. ultimately your brain will heal this on its own unless for some reason I guess you keep taking it a lot (which would have no effect. when you take too much MDMA your brain just runs out of serotonin to dump so like. it just won't work lol)?? it can also be treated with the supplement NAC, which I would recommend taking any time you use MDMA because of this!

to sum up MDMA toxicity: it can happen but only if you're misusing it! it's generally recommended that you dont do much more than 1 dose every 3 months or so to make sure your brain has time to reset. research interactions with anything else you're using (prescription or not), take some NAC in the weeks following a dose, drink a lot of water, keep your body temperature regular because that can worsen it, and take some antioxidants like alpha lipoic acid and grape seed oil during/immediately after taking MDMA - it's when you come down that your brain is delicate and could use the protection. also this may sound counterintuitive but weed also has antioxidant properties, so smoking it as you come down helps a lot. also if you DO have MDMA toxicity taking more MDMA will not help u feel happy unfortunately it will just make it worse lol, your brain only has so much serotonin to give

now serotonin syndrome can happen with the misuse of any drug that works on serotonin including MAOIs, SSRIs, and SNRIs, usually by taking a VERY large dose (but some people are just extremely sensitive). it usually takes care of itself eventually, but the amount of time it takes and stuff is kinda hard to pin down bc it's REALLY misunderstood and tends to be overly self diagnosed. again this is like super super hard to do. you would have to take a MASSIVE dose or mix it with other serotonin affecting drugs (ESPECIALLY MAOIs. DO NOT MIX MDMA WITH MAOI ANTI DEPRESSANTS). like 5 times the normal dose at least probably (partner is currently trying to find some literature on it so he'll add that in the replies if he finds anything interesting). it will cause things like heightened anxiety and body temperature and can cause kidney problems or seizures if it's like really bad and untreated. but you'd feel REALLY bad before it got to that point, so in general like, if you take any type of drug and feel extremely bad after go to the doctor lol. mostly this will also just heal itself; your brain is pretty resilient! again usually if this does happen it's very minor. cases bad enough to require hospitalization are exceedingly rare

to give you an example of what these can look like, I have a friend who was given about 3-4 times a regular dose by a fucking piece of shit asshole she knows and, this part is crucial, it was mixed with a very large amount of alcohol AND acid (which can slightly increase the neurotoxicity. normally not a huge issue but becomes one in circumstances like this), AND coke; like she was blackout drunk and while not on a lot of acid or coke, this is just too many things to have in your body and brain at one time. the mixture of such a large amount different drugs caused her what I'm guessing was a mild case of both of these things at once. she experienced slightly worsened depression for about 6 months after, and actually had a mild stutter for almost a year. I made sure she took some NAC and other things that aid brain healing, and she didn't try molly again for a long time to be super sure she didn't overload her brain before it was ready. this is a pretty extreme case, and even with that she has fully recovered thankfully. do NOT EVER do drugs with someone you don't trust with your life. DO NOT EVER do drugs in doses you have not confirmed for yourself to be safe and DO NOT EVER mix drugs without finding out if it's safe!!! just as a small aside though: usually taking molly and acid at the same time is perfectly safe. in fact it's called a candy flip and I HIGHLY recommend it because it's fucking awesome. again, just make sure you are taking safe doses in a safe environment

OKAY now finally your specific question about Wellbutrin: I actually take Wellbutrin so I can answer this one from personal experience! Wellbutrin should not alter the effects of LSD in any way HOWEVER! both of these drugs lower your seizure threshold! I'm on the max dose of Wellbutrin (which is the max dose BECAUSE of seizure risk) so when I plan to drop acid I usually either skip my dose entirely that day or only take half depending on how much acid I'm planning to take. because of the way Wellbutrin works, this shouldn't cause you any problems as far as that goes. for me, not taking my Wellbutrin for a day mainly has the effect of making me more fatigued, and acid counteracts that really well by making me feel very awake/aware. if you don't want to skip or halve your dose though you can also take things that will RAISE your seizure threshold. so like I sometimes will smoke hemp because CBD actually will help with that. the risk here isn't huge either way especially if you have no history of seizures, but again if it's something you're concerned about you should be just fine skipping or lowering your dose for the day. acid usually lasts about 12 hours too so i personally don't even care about skipping the Wellbutrin that much because it basically does the same thing for me. I did take my full Wellbutrin dose the last couple times I've done acid though because I was taking a very small amount of acid (about half a tab)

in summation lol sort of TLDR I generally would recommend MDMA for recreational use because the risks of damage are low and it's safe if you are safe about it. and it's honestly just a really fun one! the only negative effect I've ever felt is some emotional and physical fatigue the following day, and this is largely because of how emotional and energetic you are on it. I just make sure to have the next day off to lay around and listen to music :)

taking it with a partner or loved one will give you an especially beautiful experience, as MDMA has been proven to facilitate extremely open emotional conversations. in fact, when MDMA was first synthesized it's primary use was in psychotherapy! research was shut down during the war on drugs, but in recent studies it's demonstrated amazing abilities to treat and even straight up CURE disorders like PTSD. for a personal anecdote, my partner actually completely fucking cured his alcoholism on a combo of MDMA and whippets (nitrous oxide) lmfao. like dude straight up went from getting black out drunk multiple nights a week to drinking nothing for the past year and a half without any other treatment program. LSD has been proven to have similar incredible results with treating and curing things like depression, anxiety, PTSD and addiction and is also a very fun and very safe one.

sorry to reiterate for the billionth time lol but it's important: these drugs are safe and fun if you make sure they're safe and fun! do your research and never use in an unfamiliar environment with people you wouldn't trust in an emergency! also I know this sounds like a lot, but remember I'm giving you like the absolute safest possible practices and emphasizing sort of over cautiousness because I think it's always better to be too safe. I've taken molly without nac and I've taken kinda big doses a little closer together than I should have without any problems. there's a bit of flexibility to these guidelines, but it's always better to think of them as being rigid so you don't end up too far in the other direction. like I've said it's really really hard to do actual damage that would last more than like a day or 2 max. most of the time you'll just be sleepy the next day from all the dancing so it's nice to do it on a day 1 of a weekend. also it only lasts like a couple of hours lol so it's not your whole day or anything!

[rileylastname]

extreme sensitivity and difficulty adapting to change is one of the most challenging parts of being autistic (to me, i am only speaking my for myself here, every single autistic person is different). small changes, even positive changes are liable to cause a meltdown. the world is such a scary place when you know that things changing, as all things do, could send you into a spiral. and it’s so difficult to explain to allistics why we’re reacting the way that we do, especially when you know it seems like an overreaction... but this is how i describe it:

you know that feeling when you got a haircut that you hated and were doing everything you could to hold back the tears? that “oh no oh no oh no” moment when you look in the mirror and realize you hate how it looks, and now there’s a sob bubbling up in your throat and you’re trying so hard to choke it back down so that you don’t cry in public but the more you look the harder it feels to bottle it all in?

i feel and often react that way to everyday situations and changes. i cut my nails a little bit shorter than I’m used to? meltdown. or we got a new toaster to replace the old one? meltdown. or my phone updated and everything is different? meltdown and now i can’t stop crying! (these are all real examples of real things from my real life that caused me to have real meltdowns btw.) and in the midst of my stress i can’t help but berate myself for losing it over something like that, and of course shame and self-loathing only exacerbate the meltdown.

i am constantly trying to work through my internalized ableism about this. I spent years being called dramatic and immature, confused about why i was unable to grapple with things my peers found entirely inconsequential. i wish that i didn’t feel guilty or embarrassed about the way that i naturally react to stressful situations (especially situations that are probably not nearly all that stressful to allistics) because I know that if I could hate myself into becoming someone I liked better, it would have worked by now.

[magnus-rhymes-with-swagness]

while i’m truly genuinely happy there’s an aspec club at my university, some of the people there are very annoying

[stedebonnit]

Just saw a post that irked me that started off by saying Aziraphale has never suffered and as someone with religious trauma and who grew up in an emotionally neglectful and chronically invalidating envrionment I want to be the first to say that suffering is not defined by rigid standards and that there's a reason neglect and manipulation are classed as forms of abuse. I didn't finish reading the post because I got really angry seeing it so I apologize if I missed context by choosing not to engage further but I just want to make it abundantly clear that suffering and abuse are not black and white concepts, and just because someone is in a space that tries to paint themselves as good doesn't mean that they are good (I mean, seriously, if you haven't learned that from this show then idk if you've even watched it), and just because someone is unable to see that their situation is abusive does not mean that they aren't suffering (and in fact people saying that reeeeally smell of "if they were abusive why didnt you just leave?" Vibes)

[the-darklings]

Hello, I love your fics and I've noticed that a lot of your stories despite being reader fics are very character driven. Not just for the og characters but for the OC themselves.

It's done so well that I wanted to ask if you have any steps for writing such enticing character driven stories or does it just come naturally?

It comes naturally, and stems from the fact that, at my core, I'm an absolute character-driven story writer and reader.

I can put up with okay writing and a mediocre plot, but you have to have good characters for me. It's a deal breaker. I always joke that my favourite thing to do when I write is simply have two characters sit and talk - that's it. If the characters are interesting and compelling, it doesn't matter if they're not doing anything "exciting" it will still be engaging to read about.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that plot, prose, and world-building are not just as important - they are! - but for me, characters are key. And that's because, for me, at least, stories are for people by people. Therefore, characters will always be the thing people remember. Think about your favourite stories for a moment - no matter what the medium is - what comes to mind first? I would bet 9/10 times it's the characters. If I say Star Wars, chances are that even if you've never seen a scrap of those films/shows etc, you still know Darth Vader. You know Luke Skywalker. You know Batman. You know the Joker. That's because we identify with people, aka the characters. They're the reason we love storytelling. The best stories in the world are so popular because they have characters that outlive or/and outshine their own canon.

I guess for that reason, it's always funny to me when I see people get snobby about people's OCs, especially canon/OC ships. And even more so, x reader fics. As if they're somehow "lesser". But take a second to remember something important: every single character you love is someone else's OC that's been given a wider audience. That's all.

[stuffyflowers]

I think Starlo makes a good sheriff in the way Martlet makes a good Royal Guard

They're not exactly good at their jobs, but they have strong emotional characters that drive them to do the right thing rather than convenient or injust protocol. Being in positions of authority, this is possibly one of the best traits you could possibly have imo.

This too is a Papyrus thing except unlike Papyrus I can believe they could actually be competent with some time

Yeah, when I say star and martlet aren’t good at their jobs I am referring to the one they are expected and try to perform. The Royal guard is full of rules and regulations which martlet can barely keep up with, as well as being at its core against what she believes is right in regards to the fallen humans and how monsterkinds freedom should be secured. The illusion of being an almighty sheriff breaks for starlo during his fight with clover, realising that apprehending them for simply being human as his role as a lawman of the underground would entail isn’t justice at all, and he’s not prepared to take a life. It’s not fair.

That doesn’t mean they have no leadership skills or strong moral character that they can put into other more useful/productive roles. I think they both show they can be great leaders when put in actual threatening situations in the climax of most routes. Starlo immediately forms a rescue plan for clover when he finds out about cerobas intentions (which would have worked if not for their own insistence to seek her out). Martlet is defined in every ending by her ability to try to achieve the most just outcome, whether it involves protecting/vouching for clover, trying to rehabilitate them, or having to take them down as a last resort.

Being in a position of power under asgores political regime doesnt go well for either of them bc they don’t get to use these qualities in a way that matters, they don’t get to follow their own idea of what ‘justice’ really entails. By post pacifist they both come to this realisation: star tones down the sheriff stuff in favour of focusing on the actual positives which his town brings to the underground. martlet quits her job and while we don’t see what she is doing with her life now, I think she tries to follow in the footsteps of her mentor (the one she knew, anyway) by making the world a better place through small acts of kindness. It’s the kindness of people like martlet that eventually allows for the barrier to break in the pacifist ending of undertale, after all :)