#cuz I’ve been working on it for years

[cj-marj]

ShikaNaru snippet

Living with someone is nice. Most times.

There’s a man lying on his couch. They’re childhood friends; that’s the easier way to describe their relationship. But the term ‘friends’ is a loose word. They didn’t know much about each other as kids, and even when this started, but they’ve always been that way. They come together and break apart like puzzles fit for each other. Their times together were few and far between but each moment was unexpectedly memorable.

Then Shikamaru started coming around more often.

As usual, Naruto welcomed it without much forethought. But when the days grew shorter and Shikamaru remained a constant presence in his house, that lack of forethought came back to haunt him. He became afraid. He enjoyed the company, and he became afraid of losing it this time. This time, he hoped he could glue the lines between them so they would never come apart again. But Shikamaru had a life outside of him. So he carried on.

Some nights, he slept alone, and he didn’t complain. Some nights, Shikamaru would stay over. Some nights, they would stay up working and fall asleep next to each other in the living room. Being the early riser he is, Naruto would awake first and bask in the warmth of his frequent house partner. He would shuffle forward just to count the lashes on his eyes, and the faded acne scars, and note the few moles he finds under Shikamaru’s jaw. Then before Shikamaru wakes, he shuts his eyes and lies there, pretending. At some point, he came to learn that Shikamaru caught on to his ministrations, but he never said anything. He let Naruto have it so Naruto took it.

He shouldn’t want it. He shouldn’t want to want it either, but one day, when Shikamaru waits for him to drop the pretence and he opens his eyes to meet those ever-brown ones he’s coming to love searching for, he gives into his yearning. He realises, or rather, remembers, right there, what a weak man he is for this. He wants this. He wants Shikamaru to stay. He wants to never be apart from him again. And Shikamaru must see it in his eyes, because not only is he good at reading people like that, but Naruto’s never been good at hiding his feelings.

“Morning,” Shikamaru drawls in that low timbre his voice takes on after a long sleep.

“Morning,” Naruto whispers back.

The air is dry and so is his throat. They had forgotten to shut the glass doors last night after they’d come in from smoking. Shikamaru tumbled to the ground laughing at something stupid Naruto had said, and Naruto followed him solely based on the instinct of craving his warmth. They rolled around on the carpet speaking in tongues, sneezing and occasionally giggling into the ground at their own childishness. Naruto was beyond full. The mirth in his heart threatened to explode out of his chest and kill him right there. But he lived, just to fall under the same threat the next morning.

“What’s for breakfast?” His eyes break away and land somewhere on Naruto’s hair. His hand follows soon after.

“Dunno. What do you want?”

Shikamaru’s fingers are warm, but Naruto shivers at his touch. It’s such a clear reaction that he can’t even bother to hide. And Shikamaru sees this, but he continues to run his hands through Naruto’s hair.

“Why’s your hair so messy in the mornings?”

Like a man possessed, Naruto’s hand lifts to ruffle through Shikamaru’s hair as well. The ink strands slip through his fingers without fuss. Tangles never really hold in Shikamaru’s hair.

“Like yours is any better.”

They’re supposed to be bantering, but the tone is off. Shikamaru’s hand is moving too rhythmically through Naruto’s hair and the latter’s voice is too soft to illustrate nothing if not a man in love.

“You should braid your hair before you sleep.” Like he mentioned before, it’s pointless. One brush and Shikamaru’s hair is cascading down his neck like a waterfall. But this is what happens: Shikamaru starts it, Naruto continues, Shikamaru lets him have it and Naruto takes it in the only way he’s ever known.

“It hurts my hands. Will you do it for me?”

With ferocity.

[whiskeyswifty]

in defense of 1989:

the breathless, wailing anguish with which she howls "take me HOOOOOoooooome" as she finally gives in to her vices, her weaknesses, knowingly but willingly. because she's so tired of doing the right thing, the smart thing, so lonely, so hopeful, and soooo horny she's helpless against self destruction. A song so unflinching in its awareness of that while also unapologetic in her choice to fully throw herself into temptation.

and even still the continued breathless, endless questioning in out of the woods. is this it? is it finally over? when it be over? when will someone just love her, and when will she stop doubting that they don't? when will this cycle of searching and heartbreak end? the way the song ends, so desperate is she for guidance that her voices harmonize together in a nearly religious choir, calling to the heavens for an answer. utterly lost, screaming into the forest doubting everything she remembers, was it real? can she even remember herself?

In I wish you would, how she turns a quiet, fleeting moment of laying in bed, watching headlights crawl across her bedroom wall though the gap in her curtains into a bombastic tour through all the regrets and dashed hopes that fly through her head. how you can mentally run through the span of fifty emotions over the course of ten seconds.

wildest dreams where the song is paced using her own heartbeat i mean what a clever way to quite literally let you into her heart

also in wildest dreams, giving into the idea that maybe this is what she deserves maybe, all she deserves. it's all she'll ever be, just a memory to someone and so in that fatalist acceptance, she's determined to at least make sure she's a phenomenal memory. and she asks them to lie to her, just this once. she doesn't ask for anything else, just to be told one time that she's worth remembering. an incredibly vulnerable thing to admit about how you see yourself and how dark of a place to be mentally.

the murky, wobbly synth and wistful whispery voices on this love. the whole song sounding like a fog or like wading in the tide as it ebbs and flows. so tactile in how it renders the feeling of wading through the fog a breakup or dissolution. not sure what the right thing to do is, to turn around and fight for them, to let them go, to move on. a song where she's so lost, she surrenders her fate completely and accepts whatever happens will happen and completely succumbs to the current, wherever it takes her and whatever it brings. she has to believe they'll come back on their own because there's nothing else to do now. she's done everything she could and it's just up to the tides of fate.

i mean clean?? hello??? one of the most apt metaphors for breaking up with someone when the relationship was intense and maybe codependent or manipulative. how addiction can be a person, and all the same trappings apply. how the whole album was her struggling through that. revisiting it over and over, how hard it is to try to live without them, as if it feels like drowning. but ultimately finding a baptism of self in the drowning, being the one to save herself for the first time, realizing she could save herself. revolutionary idea for the person who wrote all 4 prior albums, a monumental moment of growth. while still acknowledging that the itch to return to them will always linger, but recognizing that that's not love or fate or destiny like she once thought it was. it's just her insecurities trying to drag her back into bad habits, ultimately pulling the monster out from under the bed and in the harsh light of day, seeing it for what it is and rendering it unable to fool her anymore. one of the most pivotal moments in her mental and emotional growth as a person that she's ever discussed in her art. Where she completely abandons the fairytale idea of fate and destiny and begins to embrace her autonomy.

bonus of YAIL being one of the quietest, most intimate and mundane stories of love she’s ever written. how poignant for it to come after the bombastic pop and clashing synths of the sweeping and tragic romances regaled on the entire album. as if to say nah, real love, true love is in the quiet, unremarkable moments. the synths and echoes used again here but in a more dreamy, ethereal way, as if it's not happening quite yet but it's a wish for something totally different than she had before, something she should have wished for all along. a beautiful contrast!!

also just i'm sorry but blank space was so clever, maybe you had to be there but for her to come out with this song after the Red era and just.... absolutely destroy the pervading narrative about her with a sledgehammer but in the most tongue and cheek way, the most above it all way. like look how stupid you sound? this is the person you think i am? do you hear how ridiculous this shit is? get a grip! she not only made them into the fool and came off smarter and savvier than anyone else, she made BANK off of their stupidity. slay of the century!!!

basically 1989 is the rawest and most honest depiction of a woman in her 20s at some of the lowest points your 20s can bring. how through that time, as you figure out who you're supposed to be as an adult, you completely lose sight of who you are, and because of that you feel the lowest about yourself you may ever feel in your life. You let yourself get treated horribly and you begin to wonder if this is all there is. and it's awful and it feels endless and so lonely because you feel like the only person going through it, that everyone else knows something you don't, and that you're pathetic and worthless for falling so behind everyone else. but at the same time your 20s are soooooo fun and exciting and liberating because of your first foray into independent adulthood, so to lay unapologetically pop instrumentals over these crushing feelings is genius. it's the whiplash of that time in your life, the oscillation making each feeling of euphoria and devastation that much more potent. And how she emotes on this album is unlike anything else! She’s theatrical with her syllables and delivery as if she might never get the chance to say any of this again!

but also, the perhaps unconscious metaphor she presented that so many people, fans included, seem to fall victim to. the idea that oh, it's just pop music, it's not that deep, it's soulless and vapid. only serious music can actually be emotional, when the words she's saying and the hard truths about herself she's conveying are raw and bleeding open wounds. repetition isn't laziness, but a manifestation of anxiety and building tension. heavy synths and electro-pop stylings aren't soulless compared to guitars, but a way to unground you from reality and give you that atmosphere of disorientation and so as she grapples with losing her bearings, so do you. it's a musical allegory for how in your twenties someone can outwardly be having the time of their life, but inwardly be the lowest they've ever been. it's the eternal duality of your 20s, rendered so beautifully and harnessing musical stylings so masterfully to convey this experience. i'll defend it forever for that reason and implore people to reexamine their view of pop music and pop instrumental compositions as less artistic achievements and less emotional than acoustic ballads. sadness isn't the only vulnerable emotion. confusion, anger, anxiety, frustration are all profound and loud emotions that deserve an electric guitar because sometimes words aren't enough for how much you're feeling, and it's up to a cacophonous soundscape of electric guitars and moog synthesizers and your own cathartic screams to fill in the rest.

[pepperpixel]

A pic of my human whirl design and holomatter avatar whirl hanging out together! Cuz I thought that’d be cute! And I was right… it is!

[mushroomgothic]

today i was offered a full time (if I want it to be) well paying seamstress job sewing pageant dresses and costumes for kids?? by a lady who I just happened to cut fabric for at work last week. she has a whole successful business running out of her house right now, but next month is expanding to a very nice big space downtown

[lesbiansanemi]

I’ve been spending less and less time on this stupid ass website recently and honestly….. good

[saetoru]

my dad is so sad ab replacing his car 😭😭😭 he literally got a better one today but he’s just attached to the old one sobs

[dramaturgical]

2024 has been pretty wild for me

Tw: death

[clarabowmp3]

I can’t keep living like this

[blessphemy]

was seeing some tumblr post about wage stagnation and cost of living increase

you know I was feeling a little bit of “should I be ashamed?” about myself for not sticking with 1 job for more than 2 years (a combination of circumstances, the fields I’ve worked in, mergers, etc) and not having a Career but then I remembered that in the process of my skipping around I have on two occasions doubled my prior salary (not an exaggeration) so like

[telogen]

I miss therapy

[jarkonian]

Here’s my first prototype for a self-contained boss fight!

[smallsadchild]

There is a song. Called Human of the Year. By Regina Spektor. It gets stuck in my head. But my brain for some reason, always replaces the word human.

With Chuuya.

I do not know why. But the chorus to that song to me is now “chuuya, chuuya of the year and you’ve won…” and I fear it will be that way ‘til the end of my days.

But I have no one to complain to. Because I know no one irl who knows both the song and bungou stray dogs. Or even any Nakahara Chuuyas just in general.

So I send this into the void. In the hopes that one day, maybe, someone will see it and understand my pain. That, or that I can forever fuck up this song in someone else’s brain because god damn it I don’t want to be the only one.

[yuribalisms]

Okay so for a long time, I did not know what I wanted to do with my life (okay that’s a lie, I would kill to get involved in show running but that is so so so incredibly difficult and will likely never happen unless I get so very insanely lucky) so I needed to come up with a career I can tolerate enough that I could, potentially, do my whole life without wanting to kill myself at the thought of it. I always said editing? Cuz I don’t mind editing and I’m good at it and it makes sense with my degree and maybe I could eventually get involved in the publishing world, but like… editing itself is not anything I’m passionate about

Except recently???? I am realizing I actually love teaching people things? Especially if it is connected to literature/writing. Like I genuinely love explaining to people how awesome this thing is that I’m passionate about so… I have begun to consider teaching as a potential career? Like I will have to commit to going back to school and either double majoring or really reworking my degree plans but I think I would genuinely like that?

Ideally I would love to teach college courses but idk if I could hold out in school long enough to get all the credentials for that (though maybe one day, that could be a really long term goal once I’m like in my 30s or something). I know I wouldn’t be able to handle like middle school kids (plus the things I would be teaching them wouldn’t be as complex as I enjoy) but I wouldn’t mind teaching high schoolers. Like now that I’m thinking about it, I could very easily see myself being an English/lit teacher so maybe I should genuinely consider that and look into going back to school with that in mind….

[galariangengar]

💭

[zouisalmightie]

im supposed to be done with my program in april and today my mentor was like “you didn’t hear this from me but they’re trying to figure out a way to make you redo the entire first year all over” and ive been spitting mad since 6pm.

[lesbiansanemi]

Was doing so good holding it together today but now that I’m laying down and trying to sleep I’m tearing up and I can feel that I’m about to burst into tears any second now