I honestly hate how art and media have kind of romanticized the idea of like “going off your meds and being your true self again” because like I started taking antidepressants and like immediately got a new job, found a place to live, improved my relationships with people in my life and completely reconciled with my sort of estranged ex-girlfriend?? Medication can be rad and while I realize that it’s not for everybody I don’t think anything should be trying to convince anyone that being on medication inherently makes you less of who you are
(Most) Medication is for helping you to be you again. The real me isn’t tired by just walking to the train station. The real me is not my anxiety or depression. They don’t define me.
The real me is who I am when I’m not anxious and feeling worthless 24/7.
Medication is supposed to be the chemical equivalent of glasses or a wheelchair, depending on the severity of impairment. It tries to help you compensate for what has been taken, been broken, or is missing.
In particular, i always hear the myth that anti-depressants give you “artificial happiness”… no, no, no. They give your brain the ability to be happy. You won’t always be happy, and sometimes you’ll be sad. But the happiness you’re able to feel when you’re on meds is your own, real, happiness.
swan lake starts out with the prince seigfried with his hilariously stupid name.
his mother is the queen of some unnamed kingdom, and on his birthday she not only gives him a crossbow, which is apparently common in quasi victorian times, but she also reminds him that since he is 21 and like an adult now that he needs to have some responsibilities. these include governing the kingdom and taking a wife, because you know, WHO RUN THE WORLD? GIRLS.
so he’s all like “gosh mom okay whatever i get it” and goes out with some of his broskies to go hunting with his new crossbow. he goes running after some swan and gets separated from his buds. the swan actually morphs into a woman and she’s all like “damn son please don’t shoot me”
he’s all like “man girlfriend you so fine but you’re like half swan and that’s kind of weird what’s your story?”
she tells him that her name is odette and shes a princess turned into a swan by a vengeful sorcerer rothbart who apparently has nothing better to do than torture young ladies, and trapped her and her swan maidens on a lake made out of her mother’s tears and they’re all pretty upset about it
at this point there is a lot of dancing of the swans which is probably the most memorable and gorgeous part of the ballet, but has absolutely nothing to do with the story other than being like “damn these girls are swans”
she’s all like “hey the only way i can get to be a real human again and save all my swan lady sisters is for a man to fall in love with me and swear it to the world”
and despite having known her and danced with her for only like 20 minutes by now he’s all like “oh course ill do that for you bae, in fact my mom is having a ball tonight you should come we’ll do it then”
von rothbart, who is listening in, is all like “hell no am i letting my swan bbs go” and he starts to concoct a plan to fuck up their love swearing shindig
act three flashes forward to the next night, with the ball. seigfried’s queen mom has brought all these eligible princesses from neighboring kingdoms to try to egg him on like “please get married already.” all the princesses are of course into it because hey, cute prince, and they all try to do their best dancing for him to remind him that they are the most marry-able
they dance with their entourages in a lot of traditional dances, like the hungarian czardas, until BOOM INTERRUPTION
in busts odette, or who we think is odette, and some dude. turns out rothbart has used his magic to tranform his daughter odile to look like odette, but she is a black swan, instead of a white swan.
this sassy bitch dances with seigfried and he’s completely enraptured- he totally thinks this is the same swan lady from the other night. she’s such a boss ass bitch with her rad thirty two fouettes and her like mad gorgeousness that he is completely convinced that she is odette, and of course he goes in front of everyone to swear his motherfucking love TO THE WRONG GIRL
this is the terrible moment where we see odette frantically flying at the window, and he realizes THAT HE HAS MADE A GRAVE MISTAKE
odile and rothbart laugh it up and leave in a flash of smoke because they think that odette is now going to be a swan forever with her swan girlfriends and seigfried busts out to there to go look for her
he gets to the lake and odette is in tears, surrounded and protected by her flock, who don’t want to let this dude in. she listens to his plea and forgives him
then she decides that the only way to free her flock of swans is to kill herself, and she leaps off the cliff into the lake, drowning herself, despite the fact that SHE IS A BIRD AND SWAN CAN SWIM, and seigfried, unable to live without her and wracked with guilt, follows her and jumps to his death.
with the two’s selfless death and eternal love, the swans are freed from their bondage and rothbart dies, as we see their eternal souls floating over in the horizon.
(in some versions, the two promise o jump off the cliff and the romise in and off itself frees the swans so nobody has to die, and in some versions, they fight rothbart and kill him, and in other versions, only odette dies, so i can see how this might get confusing)
*shuts story book* and that’s the ballet of swan lake
I sometimes have to pay for water, but with a phone and some wifi, I get to read whole novels about my favorite characters for exactly zero additional dollars
The next time someone rudely asks me “so… what are you?” as a way of trying to figure out my race, I’m gonna answer as nervously as possible with “hahah ahah ahaha… human? liKE YOU?” and then walk about 3 feet away from them before stage whispering into my watch “I fear the humans are beginning to catch on. I believe it’s now time to proceed with Plan E.”
What amuses me is the Plan E part. That means several other plans have failed. You are a terrible secret agent.
[sweats and whispers into watch] “They’re definitely onto us.”
i love the fourth of july cause its the one day a year i get to pretend my country is actually great and not full of problems so tomorrow im gonna ENJOY myself and WEAR MY USA SHIRT and eat BURGERS and WATCH CAPTAIN AMERICA 1 & 2 and SHOVE A FIREWORK UP MY ASS and im gonna have a lot of FUN WITH IT so if you really cant stand that blacklist #go usa
tho i encourage you to give it a shot cause its a lot of fun to just pretend youre livin the American Dream for a day
Like.
Yes. We understand that the US is still all but crippling to live in. Because we are all but crippled by the many, many issues with the government and the society. Give us this one day to be unreasonably excited about existing and pretend that we’re living the dream our grandparents told us we could.
Also, just throwing this out there to make people sad, but…
When he’s thawed out he’s laying down. He was frozen laying down. And the plane hit the water when he was in the pilot seat- we saw that.
Which means he wasn’t knocked out by the initial impact. And it doesn’t look like he drowned, either. He had time to see his expected death coming, after the impact, and lay himself down. My guess is some internal injuries from the crash, followed by freezing to death inside the plane.
So just go ahead an add a little scene in your head of Steve surviving the crash, but knowing that wet and isolated on a field of ice, in a plane that’s still sinking, nobody would get to him in time. But he knows he’s done his job. So he lays down, and closes his eyes, and maybe wonders if anyone will ever find his body, and bring it back to be buried by his mom and dad, since Bucky never was buried. But either way they’ll have a service for him, and that will be nice, and the priest will say the words and he’ll be at rest. And he feels bad, leaving his men, and he regrets everything he never told Peggy, and that he won’t be there for her now, but at least he did his part, right? He got the job done, and that’s what counts. If he dies alone, bleeding out and freezing, that’s all that Bucky got, to. So that’s all right.
I’m not crying. My eyes are just leaking.
I’m definitely crying
Not to make this post any sadder, but Steve’s parents were deceased before the movie began. So, if he’d had a funeral, the most likely attendees would have been Peggy, the remaining Howling Commandos and possibly Howard Stark.
And Tommy Lee Jones
how dare you on his birthday even no cake or eagles for you good day
