#Anyway this is a continuation of another sketchy drawing I made a few months ago

[rputthebottledown]

Look it‘s Nerdanel & Fëanor with cute little toddler Nelyo. Sometimes I just need some fluff in my life

part I

part III

part IV

part V

part VI

[alikestory]

mostly rambling about writing my webcomic...

i was doing the typesetting for the next chapter and there's this one part where i was like, i need to explain what this person is referring to for this scene to have any weight. i'll just write a quick backstory thing~

anyway it's. as long as a normal chapter nowwwww :'^) INEVITABLY. i still have one little scene left to write dfghj

generally this arc keeps getting LONGER ;___; i know how it ends and i'm like "wait is this going to have any impact if i don't write something about that??" and in general there are lots of things i know about the characters that aren't in the comic and i'm like DOES IT MATTER???? i don't know.... :'3 (like, not stuff that's going to be revealed later just kinda mundane things that happened before the story starts. but then i hate it when a manga has an entire volume dedicated to one side character's backstory and i'd like my webcomic to END ONE DAY.........)

okay so i wasn't like "i'll just write a quick backstory thing~ tee hee~" I SAID IT BLEAKLY. RESIGNED TO MY FATE.

it is mostly the character in question narrating some stuff so i thought okay i'll do it nagata kabi style and i can totally finish this and another 21 page chapter in two months. i mean her manga is in a simple kinda sketchy style and there's a lot of narration but it's interesting....... anyway that's my current plan. basically how shitty can i get away with this looking..... and what if i made it pink like my lesbian experience with loneliness.......... but i don't want people to see it and think of nagata kabi necessarily i just like pink. MY WEBSITE IS ALREADY PINK. IT'S FINE. NO ONE WOULD EVEN NOTICE. also being like "hey remember this completely unrelated and also way better manga???" at the very beginning of a 30-40 page update. :'^) BAD IDEA.

anyway i own (i can't think of a way to abbreviate this title sdfg why is it so long) my lesbian experience with loneliness but i want to read her newer books too. i think i read exchange diary at a library and found it kinda boring tho? .-.;; ig it's not as sensational as long title. less sex appeal. (that is a joke.)

SEEING THE NEWER TITLES IS. bleak. this poor woman what the hell. like reading long title you'd expect things to get better for her and it's not like her manga hasn't been successful either..... it's kind of depressing, i put them on hold at the library but DO I REALLY WANT TO KNOW???

also somewhat self-conscious about my library holds u__u;;; having three volumes of manga in the first place. whenever i put manga on hold i worry they'll think i don't read real books..... (because i DON'T. i put left hand of darkness & house of leaves on hold too but i've had both of them out before and just never actually read them........ THIS TIME I'M GOING TO. I SWEAR.) i also took impossible people out a few months ago so what if they can see my reading history and are like "why do you read so many comic books about alcoholics??" BUT NEITHER OF THOSE THINGS WILL HAPPEN. i just have an anxiety disorder :v

aaaaa i also don't even know if this backstory flashback thingy is enough.... I MEAN. I GET IT NOW. I KNOW WHY THEY DRAW AN ENTIRE VOLUME OF VILLAGER E'S BACKSTORY. (actually when i think of this phenomenon i think specifically of fai from tsubasa orz;;;; I'M SORRY.) AND. OKAY. IT'S SO EMBARRASSING.

nothing i'm saying or will continue to say is helping my case for Dear Library Employees, I Swear To God I Don't Just Read Comic Books (about alcoholics. i also read comics about other stuff.)

there was some comedy/romance shojo manga i read back in high school and i think the offenders here were by the same author but i don't remember who for sure :v anyway there were a bunch where something serious was about to happen or the characters were finally going to be honest with each other and then they'd have some kinda joke and it would always annoy me bc as we have established i love some sensational drama :v

BUT I GET IT NOW ;_____; THAT IMPULSE...... it's hard to write a sincere and emotional moment and be like WHAT IF IT DOESN'T LAND????? it's so obvious what i'm trying to do that if people go "i don't buy it" then i'll just DIE I GUESS?????????

but you have to try u__u you HAVE TO.

[dibidibifiction]

A Hundred-dollar Bill: PART 1

Warning: foul language Word count: 1.5k

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction made for personal entertainment of readers. The writer does not ever intend to offend her readers nor does she aim to spread false information about anyone as to pay any disrespect to the real-life persons whom the characters are based on. She also does not claim ownership to any of the images that are being used.

masterlist

“Mmm, Y/n, these are delicious!” Kibum exclaims as he takes one more full bite of my homemade triple chocolate cookies.

“Hand me one!” Taemin says, concentrating on the television screen where he and Minho are playing PS4.

“I'm really glad you like it. I’ve always loved baking,” I say to Kibum while joining him on Minho’s bed, ignoring Taemin. “This is actually my first time baking again ever since after my mom passed long ago. If you want I could—”

“Yeah!” Minho roars in the middle of his basement bedroom, making me jump. “I won, motherfucker!”

“I guess you're happy now?” Taemin mocks him while throwing the controller on the couch. Minho doesn’t ever let it go every time he loses a game. He would force his opponent to play more of FIFA 18 with him until he finally wins.

Minho continues to yell victoriously while he runs around the room with both of his hands in the air like an Olympic champion. He proceeds to Kibum and I on the bed. He jumps, and lands on us belly first.

“Ah!” I shriek in cramping pain, his boney hips hitting my thigh. “What the hell!”

Kibum, who doesn’t even look up from his phone, scrunches his forehead in irritation. “Hey, get off!”

While Minho annoys us even more by moving all his limbs like he’s swimming, together with his contagious high-pitched laugh, an idea comes to mind. With all the strength I have, I heavily climb on top of him, sitting on his butt to pin him down. I avenge, starting to poke and scratch his sides up and down.

“Shit, no!” Now laughing even louder because of the tickling, he suddenly draws his whole heavy body to roll to the side, making me crash onto Kibum’s shin. Now he’s the one pinning me down. Before I know it, Taemin jumps in and starts tickling me with his fingers, switching back and forth my neck and my stomach. It’s like they planned to destroy me.

“What did I ever do to you, Taemin!” I scream at him breathlessly, shaking my whole body in a struggle to escape the boys’ strong grasp.

“Hey! Would you guys stop that?” Kibum, the one who bitches the most, shakes up from the bed and transfers to the sofa where the other two boys were playing video games. “Why am I even friends with you?” he complains, taking another one of my cookies from their box on the side table.

Minho and Taemin stop what they’re doing. Breathless but are still laughing at me. 

I’m finally free, exhausted from their physical bullying. I look like I’ve just had rough sex and got all fucked up in bed. “He’s right. Why am I even friends with you?” I sulk. I am sick of always being the weakest target. I blow my messed up hair away from my face as I get up and follow Kibum to the couch. I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. “Kibum, save me.”

“That’s on you, babe. That’s what you get from bringing us all together in the first place,” he says, as sassy as ever. 

Oh, right. I did introduce them to one another. I met them all separately. In different places and different times, but all in the same year. Two years ago.

I first encountered Kibum on Instagram. I followed him and commented on his IGTV about easy outfit hacks. It’s from him where I learned how to cut my jeans stylishly when they’re too long, or turn old clothes into good-as-new ones. He is brilliant. I even sent him a private message to tell him that, and we ended up hitting it on.

A few days after that, I ran into him on the streets of the city. I’m genuinely surprised that he recognized me, chatted me up and practically forced me to have lunch with him. He fell comfortable with me that same day and blurted out all his frustrations about being stuck in life. He had been wanting to go to fashion school but money was too tight and the influencing career wasn’t really working. I was weirded out at first since I’m not really good at making friends. But this guy appreciated me instantly just because of my comment on his post. I don’t get that a lot. He said that I was only one of the few who constantly followed him and actually cared. Plus, I was the only one who's close by. 

He’s been doing Instagram for years but his audience had grown too slowly, which I didn’t understand. Kibum’s work was absolutely impressive and effective. 

We had been having dinner at the same café, where we had lunch for the first time, almost every evening since then. We just connected.

Taemin used to be a famous pop singer but his career fucked up because of rumors gone wrong about him using drugs to appear happy and funny in reality shows. 

It was a late night, just around two months after I met Kibum, a man with bleach blond hair in a dark hoodie bumped into me for running from men with huge cameras. In my attempt to help out, I ran after him and pulled him up into an alley where he’d be hardly seen. However, my plan failed and he started to panic. When the paparazzi was gaining on us, I started panicking as well. So without extra thinking, I pushed him onto the wall and made out with him. That way, they’d be too uncomfortable to even look and just puzzledly proceed to different directions. 

Taemin stayed on my couch that same night and disappeared the next morning. On my way home from work a few days later, he randomly approached me to borrow money for some errands—which I did lend him—and offered to pay triple. I immediately and strongly declined that payment. Instead, I asked him to have dinner with me and Kibum at the café. 

We, including Taemin himself, expected that he’d just eat with us only for a few days, but he figured it was a safe place where almost no one crazy could recognize him and chase after him, especially when he dyed his hair back to its natural color. 

Since then, I’ve got two best friends by my side.

Minho is the son of my boss—well, former boss—who is the CEO of the company I worked for, which he’d soon inherit. He hated the company. Hell, he hated his father. So did I, which is why I quit just recently. 

Minho and I bonded over cigarette breaks every four P.M., right before my work hours ended. I’d then head to the café to meet up with Kibum and Taemin. 

One afternoon, he just invited himself to join us since he claimed that he had nowhere else to go. 

Just then, our little group stopped growing in numbers and started growing something tight and unbreakable. We would learn about each other’s hardships and be there for one another. We would celebrate every little achievement. The bond that we had was just very natural and unexpected. Some of us had fights but they were never too serious and we would realize that our friendship is always bigger than anything. We are the broken pieces that are mended together by one another.

“Hey, here’s an idea,” I announce to no one in particular after a moment of silence.

“I hope it’s not another sketchy party like last time,” Kibum grumbles. He is laying on the sofa, using my lap as his pillow.

“I heard the family I used to babysit for is going away for the weekend. What do you guys say?”

I sigh when nobody says anything. “They have a pool. So…” I trail off, waiting for somebody to be excited as I am.

“There’s no way I’m breaking and entering someone else’s house,” Minho blurts out.

“We’re not breaking anything, we’re just entering,” I shrug.

“Yeah, Hyung. Stop being a wuss,” Taemin pats Minho’s back once. “I’m in! There’s no reputation to ruin anyway,” he shrugs as he walks towards the couch and sits under Kibum’s feet, taking my side.

I turn to Kibum, who is biting dead skin off his nails, pretending not to hear us. “Fine!” he rolls his eyes as he sits up. “I’m in too. Just for one night, right? We’re not staying there the entire weekend. My life is fucked up enough. I’m not going to jail.”

“Yes!” Taemin and I high five. We three then look to Minho. We are not taking no for an answer. 

“Oh, what the hell,” he gives in. I love that he doesn't need much convincing. He stands up, and runs towards us. Once again, he flops his wings, jumps, and touches down on all three of us. 

There was loud laughter, which I always love experiencing with these people. Next thing I know is we are group hugging. 

“So, when do we go?” Minho asks when he pulls away.

I smile cockily. “Tonight.”

PART 2

[markrichardson]

My Year in Spotify Listening

Like a lot of people I checked out the Spotify year-end summary thingy, and since Spotify is only a certain percentage of my listening, the results were surprising, and I tried to figure out what it meant. In general, I listen to new music via iTunes, if I am sent promos. That only encompasses a certain amount of new music of course, but if I’m sent a download, I tend to use that for my listening all year long. Often, I’m “done with” an album more or less by the time it comes out, but sometimes I’ll keep listening (as w/ DJ Koze this year) and I do that with my promo files. My Spotify listening tends to be a mix of things I stick on a few different playlists based on mood or genre, and they could come from anywhere (but they aren’t usually new). 

In terms of my favorite artists (Bill Evans wound up in my top spot, somehow, followed by Joni Mitchell) it was hard to figure out how it’d happened, because I didn’t spend the year obsessed with either. Then I looked at my 100 most played songs, and that did bring back a few things. I’m not sure if the whole list is in order, but the first 5 songs in the playlist are the 5 listed when Spotify gave me my most-listened-to tracks of the year, so I think so? Anyway, that’s what I am going with here. This is how my Top 10 songs show up on the playlist, in order, with one exception: in the middle of the list was Bow Wow Wow’s “See Jungle,” which I already wrote about on Tumblr 8 years ago (and about which I have very little to say now, except that yes I do still listen to this song a fair amount), so I’ve omitted that and included No. 11. 

Wussy: “Runaway” This was my favorite song of the year, it has 600 plays on Youtube and 5,400 on Spotify, which makes me a little sad. Technically it’s not from this year—Wussy put this out on a small-release tape or CD-R a few years ago—but I’m still counting it. This is the rare case where the streaming media playcounts tend to match the responses of folks I’ve talked to about this song—I mentioned to 4 or 5 people, and in each case they said “Yeah that’s kind of nice I guess...why do you like it so much?” I’ll try to answer that here.  

First I should say that I have no real interest in or knowledge of Wussy. They’re an indie rock band from Ohio, most notable at this point for the fact that Robert Christgau loves them, and has written rapturous reviews of their work over the years, which surely has helped them to achieve whatever small amount of notoriety they have. I checked them out here and there but they didn’t make much of an impression on me. I wish I could remember how I came across this particular song, but I can’t, probably either Twitter or a streaming media algorithm. But I loved it immediately, like, stop-what-you-are-doing-and-listen kind of loved. It just clicked. 

The first thing that comes to mind is the chorus: “I love you, let’s run away.” That’s the theme of so many of my favorite songs, I mean, the first album I bought in my life was “Born to Run,” and if you could sum up the first three Springsteen albums in in 6 words, “I love you, let’s run away” wouldn’t be bad. And I think I liked that this song didn’t try for poetic phrasing, just said it in the simplest way possible.

But the romance of a song like this has a shade of darkness to it, and that draws me in even more. Escape is never a long-term strategy. Eventually you have to figure out how to make life work when you’re in the thick of it. So while it’s such an appealing dream to exit the world with someone you’re crazy about, there is a shelf life to that sort of gesture. I relate to this idea of being fed up with everything in the moment and wanting to jump in the car with the only person who gets you, but eventually, the car is is going to need gas. What then? 

I didn’t know when I first heard this song that it was a cover, so the immediate impact of it was as a Wussy song. But I learned that it was written and recorded by another Ohio artist that people in the band had known, a woman named Jenny Mae. She died last year. Pitchfork did a news story on her passing. She was 49. And when I found that it was her song, I listened to her version and I loved it almost as much (but not quite), though her take also made my Spotify Top 20. I did think enough of her version to order the 7-inch, which was her first release. When I read about Jenny Mae’s life, the song took on another layer of meaning. She suffered from mental illness and self-medicated with alcohol. And she was described by people who knew her as brilliant and creative and hilarious but also impulsive and self-destructive. Which for me gives a sentiment like “No one likes us anyway / I hate my job / Sweet, sweet are the innocent / I love you, let’s run away” and “40 ounce between your legs/ Shakin up my heart / Turn around and look at me / Light another smoke” a different tint. These are the kinds of things you say when in the throes of a rush of feeling, but they’re not impulses you can safely follow for a lifetime, even though goddammit, sometimes I want to.

Bo Diddley: “Nursery Rhyme” In Richmond early this year I bought an old Bo Diddley album called The Originator. I saw it in a used bin, it was $20, and, it was pure instinct, I had a feeling it was interesting. For me, buying used records, $20 is a fair amount of money, I don’t pay that for something I’ve no idea about, typically. But something compelled me to pick it up. I was intrigued that it had none of the hits I knew. And I took it home and when I put it on a short while later it blew my mind. This surprised me because on the one hand it sounds so much like the idea of “Bo Diddley” I keep in my brain, the one rhythm we know from the song he named after himself, but this was just so controlled, so well rendered, with so much atmosphere. The whole thing is brilliant. I became particularly obsessed with this cut from the record, and then I started exploring the “Bo Diddley” beat in general, reading whatever I could about it and listening to examples. This kind of random deep-dive is the best thing about the internet era for a music fan. 

Mulatu Asatke: “Tezeta (Nostalgia” At nights when I hang out with my Mom at her condo in Michigan I play music over a Bluetooth speaker I bought a year ago. My Mom’s default has for a while been to put the television on, but at some point I asked her about playing music instead so we could talk or just hang out, and she grew to like it. Sometimes we’ll chat about stuff, and sometimes she will play Candy Crush on her iPad while I do things on my phone, which sounds distant but is actually very comforting to me. One of the things I’m doing on my phone during these evenings is finding songs to play. It’s quite fun (and interesting) for me to say to myself “What is a playlist that would make my Mom happy?” and then try and figure out what that might be on the fly. She was never really a music person so I don’t have a lot to go on, mostly her age, a story or two about a song she liked, and a vague knowledge of what she might have heard on the radio in my lifetime. 

In September, my Dad died, and I stayed with my Mom in her condo for a number of days that month. I felt a strange mix of feelings. On the one hand, he was father, I missed him, I thought about never being able to talk to him again, to not be able to share the things in my life. I thought about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to learn more about his life, my knowledge of which is pretty sketchy. There were all the usual things a person would be sad about. But then there was the fact that he had a severe and debilitating case of Parkinson’s disease for the last eight years, and at times he suffered so terribly. I remembered how on a few occasions he called me while he was delusional, he would tell me that he was sure he was going to die. One time, he told me that he saw someone in the driveway who was going to kill him. Another time, he said that it was hard to explain but that he had been split into two people, and he couldn’t take it, he was terrified. I told him that it would be better tomorrow and he yelled, “I’m going to be dead by tomorrow!” I would get calls like this while I was walking to work in Brooklyn 700 miles away, and I would feel so helpless. And so when he passed, I thought about him during situations like that, and also felt like maybe not he had some peace. 

A night or two after my Dad died I was sitting with my Mom, talking, and playing music. She dug out some old photos and we were looking at them, pictures from her in high school that I had never seen. I wanted to see everything, learn every detail. And over that Bluetooth speaker I was playing some random playlist I had found called something like “Jazz for late night.” I wanted background music. And while we were hanging out and talking, this song came on, “Tezeta” by the Ethiopian jazz bandleader Mulatu Astatke. And man, it’s hard to describe, but the mood of this song so perfectly captured the exact feeling I had. The phrase that comes to mind is “bombed out,” that’s the way it seemed, like I’d been beaten up and thrown in a ditch and my ears were ringing and now I was trying to reorient myself after all that had happened. There was a feeling of weariness and sadness but also a feeling that life continues, that we have to gather our memories and keep on. And this impossibly beautiful song captured every bit of that, the one-chord riff moving ahead, in spite of it all, while the sax line captures all the sadness dripping off everything at the same time. I listened to it constantly in the weeks afterward.  

Galaxie 500: “Fourth of July” (live) One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite band in my favorite version. This song is indicative of how (as with all songs on this list) when I’m in the mood I can listen to one track over and over. On a couple of occasions in 2018, I listened to this maybe 8 or 9 times in a row, immediately hitting “back” when it had finished. And the thing I was typically listening to was Naomi Yang’s bassline, which to me holds the lion’s share of the song’s feeling. Her bass playing in Galaxie 500 is so incredibly emotional to me, and it was never more so than here. 

Pusha T: “Infrared” The one truly “new” song on here.” I didn’t have an advance of this record so I listened on Spotify when it came out and I loved it. And this song in particular seemed so perfect, the carefully constructed rap, executed as if it’s coming off the top of his head, the sample—I listened to this many times in a row on a few occasions, and it also sent me to revisit Clipse, which brought me a lot of joy. 

Joni Mitchell: “Carey” Another song about freedom, but here it’s real. Blue is a perfect record but I probably revisit this one more than any other single song because I’m so in love with the production—that bass, that hand percussion...sonically, an album recorded almost 50 years ago simply cannot be improved upon. I remember hearing this one on AM radio when I was very young. It was a single, b/w “This Flight Tonight,” one hell of a 7-inch. I’ve always thought the picture it painted was so incredibly romantic—”Maybe I’ll go to Amsterdam, maybe I’ll go to Rome / And rent me a grand piano and put flowers 'round my room.” Hey, why not! And if Carey is indeed keeping her in this tourist town, we know it’s only for another hour, another day, another week, whenever she’s ready, she can’t be tied down. But then, that’s the future: this night, now, is a starry dome, and we’re alive, inside it. 

Arthur Russell: “That’s Us/Wild Combination” Sometimes w/ my favorite Arthur Russell songs you can hear the strain as he creates a new genre trying to get a particular unnamable feeling across. But not this one. Sitting in a room with his friend Jennifer Warnes he made a song that feels as natural as a breath. 

Carole King: “Pleasant Valley Sunday” I’m in awe of Carole King’s ability to write songs that sound perfect on the radio. Even if her prime hitmaking years only lasted a bit over a decade, the number of her songs with her name on them that left a huge mark on culture is staggering. Her demo for the Monkees hit “Pleasant Valley Sunday” shows how perfect everything was before the artist who would bring the song to the public got anywhere near it. I found this one on Youtube 8 or 9 years ago and it’s been in regular rotation since. 

Hank Williams: “The Angel of Death” In February and March I was doing research my Pitchfork Sunday Review on Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. It’s one of my favorite records, and I’ve wanted to write something long on it for years, so spending time w/ it as the winter wound down was an intense pleasure. It’s common knowledge that Springsteen was listening to a lot of Hank Williams when he was writing the album, and when I came across this song, I became obsessed with it. One, the melody sounds right off Nebraska, and “My Father’s House” (another song I listened to a lot this year) especially seems directly modeled on it. But this song has so much going for it on its own. It’s about death and the moment of judgement, but Hank’s melody and phrasing don’t sound frightened. It’s hopeful, a prayer instead of an admonishment. 

Guided by Voices: “Motor Away” I’ve loved this song for years but I listened to it intently around the same time I was playing the Hank Williams, when I was thinking about leaving Pitchfork. I’ve never been a big fan of Robert Pollard’s lyrics (though I love many of his tunes), but he second line here is the one I couldn’t put out of my mind: “When you free yourself from the chance of a lifetime.” That’s where I felt I was. Editing this music magazine that I cared so much about was the culmination of a dream that took a long time, a ton of work, and a fair amount of luck to realize. When the chance of a lifetime comes along, you’re supposed to hold on to it as tightly as possible for as long as possible, until someone finally pries it away, which will happen eventually. I knew that. And yet, deep down, I knew that after 11 years, I wanted to try something else. Run away, motor away, drive away. Sometimes a song can give you the tiniest push.