post about amphetamines and ensuing thread about how "ADHD people just feel normal on stimulants" is anecdotally true but not necessarily scientifically true on my dash and I'm just thinking about that first time that I tried meth with Sigma and we just both hyperfocused on our computers the entire time (they do have ADHD but I do not), or how I used to take Adderalls for the wakefulness and euphoria yes but also because I felt like it was easier to ride the strange winding pathways of my cognition to a place where they'd end up as a fic or some other project rather than just petering out because I couldn't keep up/got distracted by something else/got intimidated by the breadth of my thoughts
which I think is what the euphoria was actually related to. it wasn't just a direct result of Having Consumed An Substance, it was the exhilarating feeling of riding those strange winding pathways to wherever they wanted to take me, and not falling out of the train and landing unceremoniously on the side of the tracks with nothing to show for my grandiose thinking except some fragmented concepts
and to me, that's... therapeutic. that's a therapeutic experience, to be fully present in and engaged with my own mind. to feel centered and yet expansive, to be unbowed by anxiety, to see an end goal (a finished thing, in all its weird glory) and be inexorably propelled towards it by my own steam.
but I don't have ADHD. so I guess I'm just Being High, by this dichotomy ("people with ADHD on amphetamines are experiencing therapeutic effects" / "people without ADHD on amphetamines are experiencing recreational effects"). but it doesn't seem fair to make such a flat division, or to even assume that what people think of as "recreational highs" aren't therapeutic in some way (see also: the wide variance in how people respond to THC)
anyway tl;dr the ever-evolving wars on drugs really decimated how we think about the interactions between our bodies and the substances we put into it
6 notes
·
View notes
What do you think of Oliver and Arthur’s friendship? If they even have one 😭
i love them!!!
there has been CRIMINALLY little exploration of their relationship, so there's not really that much of a set-in-stone canon dynamic to point at, but the few examples we do have are so fun, and there's SO much potential for more
they’re an example of my favorite kind of contrasting characters, where it’s like… they are each other but backwards.
i guess you could consider this a type of foil relationship? but it’s not really about them disagreeing or any sort of thematic or idealistic contrast. it's their timelines that contrast--as in their stories are near-perfect parallels of each other but inverted and made completely different. it's like they’re both walking the same road, but they're going in opposite directions. they kinda start out where the other ended up and end up where the other started out.
the stuff that’s core to ollie’s character is the same stuff that’s core to arthur’s character, but it's all flipped. arthur’s origin is like ollie’s playing out in reverse, and ollie’s is like arthur’s happening backwards.
they’re both motivated by their families’ histories and their “birthrights,” but the relationships they have with them are exact opposites. ollie’s story is about distancing himself from his heritage & inheritance, and arthur’s story is about embracing his.
being torn between two worlds is a pretty big theme for both of them. the inciting event in both their stories is a sort of culture shock. they’re both taken from the reality they’ve known their entire lives & thrown into another, VERY different reality, but, again, from exact opposite directions. ollie loses everything he has, and arthur gains a literal kingdom.
if you boil it all way, way down to just the fundamentalest of fundamentals, green arrow is basically a riches-to-rags story, and aquaman is basically a rags-to-riches story.
(pre52, there was another parallel with this because in the 90s, arthur’s origin was changed so he wasn’t half atlantean but was instead a full atlantean child who grew up basically feral in the open ocean, so he starts out living in the wild and ends up living in a castle, where ollie starts out living like a king and ends up living in the wild on the island)
Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target is probably the best (and kinda... only? that i’m aware of) example of something that really focuses on the two of them, and i really liked it. the whole plot is centered around them getting freaky fridayed into each others’ lives, which is very fun and also SUCH a good way to explore a lot of what i’m talking about
(one big criticism i’ve seen of this, which i definitely agree with, is that arthur’s... never really had much of a relationship with his mother? like i get what they were going for here, but yeah, the whole thing works a lot better if you read it as him using her as a standin for his love of atlantis & his atlantean heritage as a whole rather than just her but anyway)
there's just so much potential with these two!!
they’ve been through basically the same thing, but they went through it in opposite directions and had completely opposite experiences. they could both perfectly understand where the other is coming from, but in just as many ways, couldn’t at all. they have absolutely everything and absolutely nothing in common in equal measure. they’re like mirrors of each other, but inverted mirrors where everything is upside down and backwards
SO much potential for a really complex and interesting dynamic... not to mention the comedic potential. i mean, really, the things you could do with the fact that arthur is the head of a monarchy and ollie is... ollie alone!!
(from Green Arrow (2001) #3)
how many more times can i say the word "potential"? idk!! i just love them and REALLY wish someone would take the time to expand on their dynamic!! it could be so good!!!
29 notes
·
View notes