#Sorry you got a poem.

[picturesofthegoneworlds]

If you are still taking prompts: 'new mythologies', focused on the witchy trio. Curious to see what you come up with if you wind up selecting this prompt! I greatly enjoy your writing. :)

There is a woman in the moon (the second moon, that is.) she waxes, she wanes shies and flares but she always stays tethered to one spot and tired of running away. Where she paused her orbit centuries ago crystal arms and legs sprout from the grass and the tides of rivers are pulled, evaporate from heat into clouds that mass. If you do no cover her from your view you will not sleep if you look to someone with her over their shoulder you will not need to speak and if her lightning were to strike, the gemstone-limb-lands will become the petrified home you did not seek.

There is a woman in the sun (there is a second-sun, too.) feels close enough to reach, though she can’t be lassoed she doesn’t spend all of her days here steals - what is offered - takes, often disappears to a more peculiar sky where she instead anchors in time and the flora and fauna with petal trumpets and sinew harps dance and dine on top of beds of canopied candied leather leaves and filigree skeleton branches then returns, here, intermittently, with what she had taken and what was newly granted jewellery adorning flaming tendrils that smelts and pours liquid gold between the fault lines and the landfills Sometimes the sun stays late to greet the moon, others she arrives early to share the sky of the long summer days with her But the sky is still a sky they cannot often share, so once a century they shadow one another reach out for each other with hands of flame and lightning when their fingers converge they tie in knots and bows, in threads red and ribbons green and all who are bound will be unaware, gift-wrapped in what is reality and what is dream can unveil bliss or purgatory there in the in-between- - there is a woman in the sun, another in the moon. They have been there longer than I can remember… longer than my mother can and hers, too

There is a woman in the moon and she is always blushing ‘Red sky at night - shepherd’s delight Red sky at morning - shepherd’s warning’ mourning a crack, a howl, a breeze can be heard from the densest of city cobblestones and the highest of mountain peaks a lonely tune bereft of its melody searches out shadow and turns it to static energy

There is a woman in the moon -a woman in the sun, too and ruins of temples to old gods (I’m told) glass panes long dissolved from between lead canes corners of masonry rounded by rain shingles masking floor tiles carpeted in ivy, grout replaced by root and rot and if you were to build the moon an alter lightning will sunder, shatter, strike it down but the sun accepts offerings, bleaches colours to keep the hues for her own collection, peacocks them as a crown

There is a witch in a cottage in the woods in a clearing, on stilts and platforms and pontoons her garden grows, in both the light and shadow and she wears death like a lace fine-spun from her own marrow land flush with lilac, lavender and violets here it is, where the moon is moored above the glade where the sun passes often on parade and the witch knows both the sun and the moon by name strings up tapestries and dolls from between the branches so that they both can see of friends and loved ones between threads of red and ribbons of green

[skrunksthatwunk]

GIRLFRIENDS POST-UHAUL (uhaul the second, i guess)

[cometrose]

obsessed with zhongli x azhdaha lately like they were doomed from the start and they make my heart hurt a bit

a blind dragon yearning to see the sun and morax gives him eyes so he is the first thing he sees

MIND YOU zhongli is always represented by the sun (this is just like being stabbed)

azhdaha himself said there was no one who trusted and respected morax more than he did

"that day in the chasm...did you hesitate?" "a heart of stone is a heart nonetheless" SHOOT ME

"you're leaving?" if you listen closely you can hear zhongli's heart crash and shatter into pieces when he realizes azhdaha can't stay

rage beneath the mountain is one of my favorite pieces of genshin music it is so good

azhdaha is the moon and zhongli is the sun (why don't i just die)

im telling you they were DOOMED cause morax is like "lets form a contract and be friends but if you hurt my people i will stop you" thats how you knew it was already fucked

zhongli trying to hold back azhdaha's erosion with his own strength for as long as he could but he couldn't do it and having to watch his friend turn into a shell of himself

zhongli having to steel himself and lock away his feelings as he seals his partner in a prison within the earth and its implied that this is contributed to his own erosion

eroded azhdaha calling zhongli an usurper who stole his throne but this also means the true azhdaha did not care for the title and loved zhongli and humanity

that one event where zhongli returns to azhdaha's domain and leaves wine there

the 5* liyue golden bow trapped in beta and the description is that zhongli asks azhdaha "if we can ride on your back we could visit the palace on the moon" and the thought of morax sitting on azhdaha's back as they roam the mountains makes my chest ache

the betrayal hurts even more because azhdaha is saying all of these hurtful things and doing horrible things and morax knows this isn't the real him but he can't do anything to stop him

azhdaha seeing morax's face before he was sealed away and accepting his fate

more beta bow lore (it’s called Dreams of Dragonfell) is that in his prison azhdaha is distraught over breaking his relationship with zhongli and humanity that he treasured so much he doesn’t understand why he did such a thing but the memory itself is painful

tragic doomed from the start dragon yaoi i would not wish this on anyone

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Screaming from the crypt (or how the past haunts the present on Midnights)

I know it's been discussed so much since Midnights came out but just.

I love how there is such a clear narrative throughout the album (and perhaps especially on the 3am/Vault tracks). About questioning and regret and choices and coming to terms with all of it. It is one long story about how we're all a mosaic of the choices we make, each one taking something from us and leaving something else in its place.

(And now a disclaimer: I'm looking at this mostly through a narrator/subject lens, and trying not to dive too deeply into real-life events or speculation except for in a general sense. For this purpose I like to look at the body of work as art, like literature, because I find it makes it easier to see the common threads in the different songs and cohesion in the narrative.)

In looking at the 3am+ tracks in particular, it's fascinating how some turns of phrases or themes repeat themselves in different songs, in different contexts. (I'm only focusing on the non-standard tracks because there are too many songs and I'd be here all day but I bet I could do a part two lol.) I know many people have pointed out the parallels throughout her discography already and I’m not saying anything groundbreaking by writing this, but I love how these parallels run through in the same album, because it makes it seem like it's one long story, or at least, one long rumination on many different stories that are coalescing into a single narrative.

Battle (let’s go)

For instance, the one that jumped out at me when I started writing this post the other week was, "Tore your banners down, took the battle underground," in The Great War and "If clarity's in death, then why won't this die? Years of tearing down our banners, you and I," in Would've, Could've Should've. It's a story about staying stuck in the same cycle of reliving trauma and coping mechanisms and bad habits over and over again and fantasizing about how taking the “antagonist” out and gaining the upper hand for good would bring closure (WCS), but the truth is that nothing ever will. All that cycle does, though, is repeat itself in other situations, and in this case pushes someone away the narrator cares for (TGW). The difference is that the imagined battle in WCS is a two-way street in her mind (that is ultimately unwinnable because it was never a fair fight), but in TGW it's one-sided -- she's the one fighting dirty, taking shots, the way she'd been doing in her imagination (or nightmares) all these years. But the person in front of her isn't fighting back the way the person in her mind in WCS would, because their intentions are honourable instead of exploitative.

And that's paralleled in another pair of lyrics from the two songs, "And maybe it's the past talking, screaming from the crypt, telling me to punish you for things you never did," (in TGW) and "The tomb won't close, I fight with you in my sleep," (in WCS). In both cases, the funeral imagery makes it seem like this past event should be dead and buried in WCS, but it keeps rising from the dead, haunting her no matter what she does and in TGW, another (or perhaps the same?) tomb that won't close keeps unleashing new ways to hurt her and in turn the new person in her life. In other words, the trauma from the past continues to bleed into the present.

(Again from a literary point of view, I'm not saying the events of the two songs are linked IRL, but they're fascinating textual parallels on the album as a string of chapters, which is why Dear Reader is so compelling, but that's a whole other essay.)

To keep the battle motif going, there’s yet another parallel, this time between TGW’s "[You were a] soldier down on that icy ground, looked up at me with honor and truth," and You’re Losing Me’s "All I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier, fighting in only your army.” In the former, the subject is laying down his armour in the war she’s projecting onto him, waving the white flag, and she realizes that she’s about to destroy something if she doesn’t put her sword down too. By the time we get to YLM, the roles are almost reversed; at the very least they’re supposed to be on the same team, but in this case she’s doing all the heavy lifting, fighting for their relationship in contrast to his apathy killing it. It’s also pretty interesting (if not outright intentional) that one of the 3am+ editions of the albums starts with The Great War, where they find themselves in conflict (even if it’s in her head) that ends in a truce, and ends with You’re Losing Me signalling the end of the relationship, evidence that the resolution in the first song wasn’t an ending but merely a ceasefire before the last battle.

Putting the rest under a cut because this is waaaaay too long now ⤵️

(There’s also another metaphor there in The Great War with its battle imagery: World War I, aka The Great War, was supposed to be the war to end all wars, because loss on its scale was never seen before and when it ended, most thought never again would the world embroil itself in such battle, the horrors and implications were so devastating. Two decades later, the world found itself in WWII, with an even larger scope and more horrific consequences, the intervening time between the two a period of festering conflicts and resentment leading to some of the worst acts the world would see. Bringing real life into it for a second, there’s something a little poetic, though sad, about The Great War the song being about a fight that could have ended the relationship that they ultimately resolved and was meant to be evidence of the strength of their love, but so too did it end up being a period of détente, the greater battle coming for them years later. But that is not the point of this post.)

If one thing had been different

Another major theme in these editions is pondering the "what ifs?" of life, but I think it takes on even more significance in the broader context of the album in the lyrics of "I'm never gonna meet what could've been, would've been, should've been you," in Bigger than the Whole Sky and the repetition of would've/could've in Would've, Could've, Should've (I would've looked away at the first glance, I would've stayed on my knees, I would've gone along with the righteous, I could've gone on as I was, would've could've should've if I'd only played it safe, etc.) In both songs, the narrator is mourning an alternate course their life could have taken* and questioning what they could have done differently, in the aftermath of trauma and loss, and the regret that comes with that loss, and with the loss of agency in the situation because ultimately it was never in their hands. In an album full of questions, wondering about the path not taken, or the forks in the road that have led to a different version of your life, it's digging deeper into the contrast of choice vs. fate, action vs. reaction, dwelling on the past vs. moving on. When you're supposed to let go of the past, what do you do when it is holding your future hostage?

(*I know there are different interpretations/speculation about BTTWS which I am not getting into on main. I'm just saying that whatever the song is about, it's grieving something that never came to be. The literal origin of the song is less important to the album than the sense of loss it portrays. Whatever the inspiration is, it's crafted to tell part of the story of Midnights of ruminating over how, to borrow from her previous work, if one thing had been different, would everything be different?)

(Also I was today years old when I realized that the words are inverted in the two songs. Apparently I've been hearing BTTWS wrong this whole time.)

There's also an interesting tangent in the role of faith in both songs: in WCS, the events of the story cause her to lose her faith (e.g. "All I used to do was pray," "you're a crisis of my faith,") and question all the things she felt had been unquestionable until that point in her life (e.g. "I could have gone along with the righteous"), whereas in BTTWS, she questions whether that very lack of faith is to blame for the loss in that song ("did some force take you because I didn't pray? [...] It's not meant to be, so I'll say words I don't believe"). It's like pinpointing the moment her life changed and upended her beliefs (WCS), but as a result then leaving her unmoored in times of crisis because ultimately there's no explanation or comfort to be taken from what she used to hold true before that (BTTWS). The words she once relied upon to guide her have long since lost their meaning, but in times of trouble it leaves her wondering if that faith she once held then lost could have prevented this pain.

(Shoutout to WCS for being Catholic guilt personified lol.)

To keep on with the vaguely faith-y notions, an obvious parallel is the line in Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve about, “I damn sure never would've danced with the devil at nineteen,” and, "When you aim at the devil, make sure you don't miss," in Dear Reader. All of WCS is about her fighting with an antagonist who haunts her, with whom she wholly regrets ever becoming involved. DR could be seen as a reflection on that fall from grace, warning the audience that if you choose to go after the person (or thing) haunting you, make sure you do so clearheaded enough to be decisive. Again, these “devils” may not be related in real life: the IRL devil in DR could be speaking about her naysayers, or Kim*ye, or Scott & Scooter B, etc., meaning not to cross your enemies until you know you can win. But taking real life out of it and looking at it textually, I am intrigued by the link between WCS and DR, so that’s what I’m going with here. And perhaps that’s even the point in a wider sense; there will be multiple “devils” in your life, or threats to your well-being. If you’re going to commit to taking them down — whether it’s an actual person, or the demons inside you that refuse to let you go — make sure you have the right ammo so that they can no longer hurt you. (Of course, one lesson from these experiences is that sometimes you can’t win, and you have to live with the fallout.)

(Sidebar: I know that “dancing with the devil” is a turn of phrase that means being led into temptation and engaging in risky behaviour, as opposed to describing the actual person. Given the religious metaphors in the song, that could very well be/is the intention, particularly when it’s preceded by, “I would have stayed on my knees” as in she would have continued to follow her faith — in whatever sense that means — had she never met this person, which could also be a more eloquent way of saying she would have continued to be live her life in a way that was righteous (even naive) and seen the world in black and white. Either way, it’s a force she wholly rejects. Like I said, multiple devils, same fight.)

Regret comes up too: in WCS, she says, "I regret you all the time," obviously directed at the person who manipulated her and led to her perceived downfall, citing him as the one impulse she wished she'd never followed, because it won't leave her no matter how hard she’s tried. In High Infidelity, she tells the person to, "put on your records and regret me," and on the surface, it’s like she’s turning the tables, painting herself as the one now causing the regret in someone else, the one inflicting the pain this time. Yet the verse preceding it and the lines following it in the chorus depict a partner who is also emotionally manipulative and vindictive like in WCS (“you said I was freeloading, I didn’t know you were keeping count,” “put on your headphones and burn my city,”). It’s not so much that she’s intentionally harming the person (the way the person in WCS does to her), but rather that the venom in the subject’s feelings towards her seeps through; she’s imagining the way he’s going to feel about her when she leaves, hating her just for by being who she is. (There could be another tangent about how in both songs she’s there to be a “token” in a game for both of the men, who play her for their own purposes.) The regret is dripping with disdain. It’s as though she’s picturing how the person is going to hate her for doing what she’s thinking of doing the way she hates the person who first hurt her.

Sadness, unsurprisingly, shows up in a few lyrics. In BTTWS, “Everything I touch becomes sick with sadness,” sets the scene of a person so overcome with grief that it permeates everything around them; they cannot see their way out of it and feel like the fog will never lift. In Hits Different, it’s, “My sadness is contagious,” the result of a breakup where the person’s grief again touches everything and everyone around them, pushing them further in their despair and loneliness. The reason behind the grief in either case may vary, but regardless of the source, the feeling is overpowering and isolating. They may be different chapters in the story, but the devastation is hauntingly familiar. (As is a recurring theme in Midnights as a whole: there are situations and feelings that present themselves at different points in her journey and colour in the lines in different ways along the road. Like revisiting an old vice and realizing the hit isn’t quite the same as it was in the past.)

Death by a thousand cuts

She also writes about wounds on this album, which isn't surprising I suppose given that the whole conceit is that these are things that have kept her up at night over the years. WCS is perhaps the driving narrative on this never ending hurt when she sings, “The wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign, I regret you all the time,” suggesting that no matter what she does, the pain of this experience has permeated everything she’s done afterwards. (Not unlike the overwhelming grief in BTTWS, for instance.) Elsewhere, in High Infidelity she sings, "Lock broken, slur spoken, wound open, game token," and in Hits Different, "Make it make some sense why the wound is still bleeding.” Again I'm not suggesting they're about the same events; the line in HI is about a situation where a partner crosses a boundary, hits below the belt, picks at an insecurity (or creates a new one) and treats the relationship like it's transactional, opening the floodgates in turn. In HD, the wound seems to be more self-inflicted, where she's pushed the person away. (Over a situation real or imagined she feels she needs distance from.) But again, something has picked at her like a raw nerve, and just like in the past, she's hurting, even in a different time and place and person. Almost like the wounds of the past break open over and over again to create new scars. If one were to extrapolate further, it wouldn’t be the biggest leap to wonder if the wound open in WCS, then torn apart in HI makes the one in HD hurt even more.

(I once wrote a post about how I think as time goes on, WCS is going to turn into one of those songs that will be found to drive so much of her work, because it’s just… kind of the unsaid thesis statement of so much of her songwriting.)

Another repeated theme is that of the empty home and loneliness. In High Infidelity, she sings, "At the house lonely, good money I'd pay if you just know me, seemed like the right thing at the time," painting a picture of someone who may have everything they'd want to the outside world, but in reality feels metaphorically trapped in their home (or at least alone amidst abundance), a symbol of a relationship gone sour and a failure to build connection. She just wants someone to understand her, want her for her, but as she's written earlier in the song, she's just a pawn in the game, a trophy from the hunt. Home, in this case, is lonely, isolated, an emblem of her fears. In Dear Reader, she continues this thread, then singing, "You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking, if you knew where I was walking, to a house not a home, all alone 'cause nobody's there, where I pace in my pen and my friends found friends who care, no one sees you lose when you're playing solitaire." It's the same idea, admitting to listeners that the gilded cage she lived in kept her distanced from her loved ones and real connection, keeping her struggles close to the vest but feeling desperately lonely amidst her crowning success. She's pushed people away and it may have felt like the right thing at the time, but in the end maybe felt like she was trapped. And when you push people away, eventually they take you at your word and stop pushing back; you’re a victim of your own success at isolating yourself. What starts out of self-preservation then further perpetuates the underlying problems.

(There's another interesting link about "home" also feeling unsafe with HI's "Your picket fence is sharp as knives," which further leads into the theme of marriage/domesticity feeling dangerous, which is a whole other thing I won't get into here because it's another discussion and may derail this already gargantuan word salad.)

In a slightly similar vein, we have the metaphor of bad weather for a rocky road or unstable relationship, in High Infidelity again with, "Storm coming, good husband, bad omen, dragged my feet right down the aisle" and You’re Losing Me’s "every morning I glared at you with storms in my eyes.” They aren’t speaking of the same situation or even same kind of breakdown, but it is pretty interesting how the idea of clouds/storms/floods/etc. play such a role in Taylor’s music to signal depression, apprehension, fear, uncertainty, etc. In HI, I think the “storm” coming is the looming threat of commitment to a partner who makes the narrator uneasy (if not fearful). In this case, the idea of making a life with this person is not one that incites joy or comfort, but instead makes the narrator feel that dark times are ahead if she continues down this path. Perhaps in some way, the “storms” in YLM have made good on the threat in HI in a different way; it’s a different home, a different relationship, but the clouds have settled in regardless, and some of her fears have come to fruition in ways she did not expect. The person she once trusted no longer sees her or her struggles (or worse, doesn’t care), and the resentment and pain build with each passing day.

Coming back to heartbreak, one of the obvious "full circle" moments is the beginning of a relationship in Paris, where she says that, "I'm so in love that I might stop breathing," clearly enthralled in a new love that allows her to shut the world out and grow in private, capturing the all-encompassing nature of the relationship. This infatuation has consumed her in the most wonderful way (in contrast to the sorrow of some of the previous songs), and it feels like a life-altering (or even life-sustaining?) force that is so strong she may forget what it’s like to breathe. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) By the end of the album, though, in You're Losing Me, that heart-stopping love has become a threat: "my heart won't start anymore for you." In the former, her racing heart is full of excitement, but by the latter, her heart has given out completely under the weight of the pain she bears. (YLM is full of death/illness imagery which I already wrote about awhile ago so I won't hear, but needless to say that song deserves its own essay for so many reasons.) She's gone from the unbridled joy of the beginnings of a relationship to the unrelenting sorrow of its end, two sides of the same coin.

Love as death appears elsewhere in the music too, for instance, in High Infidelity’s, “You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough" and You’re Losing Me’s “How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dying? […] My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick.” Though not completely analogous situations, they both tell the tale of one partner’s apathy (or at least denial) destroying the other. In the former, the partner’s actions (or inaction) are more insidious, if not sinister; in the latter, the lack of momentum (or admission of a problem) is passive. In both cases, the end result is the narrator’s demise; it’s a drawn out affair that chips away at her morale and her health and her sense of self. (Breaking my own rule about bringing in alleged actual events into the discussion, but the idea that the relationship in High Infidelity, which was obviously fraught with unease and even fear, ended in a similarly excruciatingly slow and hurtful death by a thousand cuts as the relationship in You’re Losing Me almost did at that time must have been so painful. It almost feels like YLM is wondering why what used to be a source of light in her life was mirroring a situation that caused her such pain in the past.)

From the same little breaks in your soul

I said early on that part of what is so compelling about Midnights is that it feels like an album about ruminating — on choices, on events, on people — and the two final “bonus” tracks of the album depict that as well. In Hits Different, she sings that, “they say if it’s right, you know,” an ode to the confusion of a breakup and struggling with the aftermath of calling it quits. It’s a line that has always intrigued me, because the typical use of the phrase is in the sense of, “you’ll know when you meet the one,” but here it seems to have a double meaning, a reassurance perhaps from the friends (who later on tell her that "love is a lie") that she’ll know if she’s made the right decision in calling it off, but could also be her wondering if the relationship is right, she’ll know, and want to reconcile. In the final bonus track, You’re Losing Me, she sings, “now I just sit in the dark and wonder if it’s time,” this time leaving no doubt about the dilemma she faces, though it’s no less fraught. She’s wondering, perhaps for the last time, if now is finally the moment to end the relationship for good. They say that if it’s right she’ll know, and now she’s wondering if that feeling inside her (that once told her her partner was the one, which is why it hit differently), is telling her that it’s time to go for good. Wait Alexa play “It’s Time To Go.” These are not only the things that keep her up at night, but the things that play over in her mind like a film reel in her waking hours.

Midnights as a whole is a deeply personal album, as is most of Taylor's work, but the 3am+ edition tracks seem to dig even deeper to a lot of the issues raised on the standard album. Almost like the standard tracks are the things she wonders about on sleepless nights, but the bonus tracks are the things that haunt her in the aftermath. The regret, anger, sadness, grief, relief, even joy— they’re the price she pays for the memories she keeps reliving. Midnights might be the most cohesive narrative of all her albums, and really does feel like we’re watching someone work through her journal over time, stopping short of outright naming those giant fears and intrusive thoughts (except for when she does) but making them plain as day when you connect the songs together, and perhaps never more clearly than in the expanded album. It’s incredible how the songs stand on their own to relay a specific moment in time, but that they are also self-referential to each other (whether thematically or overtly) to weave a larger web over the entire work. We’re so lucky as fans to have these stories and to keep peeling back these layers as time passes. (And my literature-analysis-loving ass loves her even more for it.)

This is obviously by no means an exhaustive list, and I know there are more parallels and probably even stronger links (particularly when you add the standard version into the mix), but these were the ones that particularly struck me and I’m just glad I’ve had a chance to sit with this and think it through. ❤️

[cyberr-v0id]

Too many people relate the ocean to sunshine and summer and relaxation and… that’s just not it.

I mean no hate if that’s what it means to you, and maybe it’s the fact that I AM an ocean child, my family is from the sea and we came to this country across it, but I can just never relate the ocean to an ice cream and a pool floatie.

To me the ocean is wild. It is danger. It is freedom. It is tasting the edge and knowing that not everyone can come back from it. It is swimming as far out the bay as you can when you’re twelve because you’re just so enchanted by the water and what it promises, only to realise that you’ve drifted far from where your family was. It is promises and secrets and treasure. It is alluring, a siren in the back of my mind, calling to me. It is hooked deep into who I am and I know that I can never come back from that.

The ocean is restless and she cares for no one any more than she has to. She would willingly drag me down ti her depths and never let me go, and that just makes me love her more. The ocean is in my heart.

The ocean, the sea, the waves that crash on the rocks in the storm, that rush up up up over the sand banks and into the town. That isn’t a being that is intrinsically tied to sunlight and fruit and sun tans.

Have you never stood on the cliffs, or the end of the pier, and felt the waves crashing below and the salt spray fly onto your face? Have you never felt the tug of a current, or stayed on the shore even as the tide comes up to your legs, then up to the harbour wall? Have you never stepped into her fierce embrace and wished to never leave?

The ocean is restless, yes, and wild, and dangerous. She will be tamed by nobody.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Just wait, Roku's gonna see Kyoshi and call her "mommy" (non-sexual) and Kyoshi's just going to stare blankly at him and be like "Fucking hell, you ARE my reincarnation. Is this was Kuruk felt like? Thank fucking christ Nyahitha is dead, I wouldn't be able to take the bullshit coming out of his mouth"

And Roku is just standing there both embarrassed to all hell, terrified (he called the scariest lady in the world to ever live mommy c'mon), and confused as fuck. jkaljsfs;af

[tifacart]

For @merthurweek2022

Day 2 - what does merthur mean/represent to you? + orange

-Dusk and Dawn, Mirtha Michelle, Letters to the Men I have loved

For me personally merthur is the inevitably of fate. Where every beginning would have an end just like how we started our day at dawn and it ended at dusk. For merthur specifically there's still hope even after the ending (Merlin's however long wait for Arthur) just like even after the darkest nights, morning would follow. You just have to be there to see it. (Keep waiting merlin, we'll see our sun rise yet)

[crossbackpoke-check]

Why I Am Not Coming In To Work Today [abridged], Jess Zimmerman

part one | part two

[ask-the-totally-real-peppino]

show us the horrors

who’s the most monstrous clone oc (if you’re comfortable with sharing it)

(All clones are capable of being scary, but some are a little scary all the time!!! Also, you implied one, but I have brought three hehe

Top right is Truffle, and she has the DNA of a Football Fish (and some other deep sea creatures). Despite all the teeth, she only eats tiny crustaceans, and she is a bit of a practical joker!!! Mostly luring in unsuspecting folks with her lure and then going BOO!!!

Top left is Rocky Road, and they are technically two clones with separate brains, despite being counted as one in the masterlist. They got some sorta bovine DNA, and they're rather skittish, as stumbling over their legs made them an easier target, but they are pretty sweet once they warm up to someone!

And then the last one, is probably more monstrous in terms of personality than appearance, but he is fuck-off huge (shout out to you anon who asked about giant clones!!!) His name is Chickpea, and he is a bad, bad boy!!! The muzzle and claw caps are not just a fashion statement, y'know!!! The collar is tho hehe

[poems-of-the-anentomologist]

I don't think I can write a poem today.

I have been writing a poem a day for three weeks now, and trying to keep them fresh and new has had an impact on my mental efficiency.

Especially when I am writing multiple poems in a day, which has happened a lot over the past couple of days.

I promised myself I would write companion poems for today's theme (Achilles and Patroclus) but I don't think I can do that today.

So today will be a break for me, a chance to rest mentally and take a break.

I'll be back tomorrow, and if I do actually write the poems today I will release them.

[lethesbeastie]

I miss being able to do more than 3 things in a day.

There's something wrong with my body, with my brain. Something I haven't put a name to yet, though I've got hypothesis of what it might be. Something is plaguing my body, weighing down my limbs, my heart, my head.

Do you ever feel as if you live your life wading through water? Like you've been drowning for years, chained by your ankles to am impossible weight, struggling inch by inch across the open ocean floor?

Probably not.

I'm starting to realize the way I live is far from mundane, farther still from humane. I struggle to eat. Struggle to shower. To stop. To rest. Like a shark underwater, I swear on God it feels if I stop moving, I will drown.

I can't stop moving, can't sit still, can't escape the static that starts to stutter up my spine the moment i try. It hurts to sit more than it hurts to move, more than it hurts to grind my own joints into dust, chasing the slender phantom of nervous system regulation.

Stimming, I'd said. That's what the pacing is, that's why I have to stay on my feet from the moment I leave my bed, that's why I can't ever, ever sit still.

I'm not so sure about it now.

It hurts to sit still. Hurts to move. Hurts to think and think and think, to have ideas, to want to Make, but to be denied release by the exhaustion that plagues my body.

I'm tired. So tired. I am tired of feeling tired, of feeling both everything and nothing at all. Nervous system circuits short circuiting inside me, I'm impatient with my own exhaustion, desperate to do anything except to search for rest. No one has ever taught me how to rest.

There is something wrong with my body. Something I'm trying to name (something that the doctors will claim is nothing at all), something haunting me, parasitic in its nature, in its pupputeering of my aching, shaking hands.

I want it to get better. Want to stop feeling half dead and less than alive when I rise to greet a day that's almost over. Want to stop seeing the disappointment in my mother's eyes when once again, I cannot gather myself into some semblance of humanity long enough to do the god damned dishes.

I'm trying to fix this mom, I promise. Thank you for doing the dishes for me. I'm sorry I can't get better fast enough. Yeah, I'm tired of my bullshit too.

[septembersung]

What are you thoughts on horses?

There’s only one possible answer here:

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

I thought you might like to know but bring the bassist back is like about two things it's a reference to "bring the bass back" from the poem Hammond B3 Organ Cistern about finding joy in the days you don't want to kill yourself and it's also about how I think all the time about like the 27 club and how the tortured artist who dies young is such an image but like they don't have to and in our generation of music it seems like more and more of them survived it's like a fob reference: bring the bassist back because he didn't kill himself that's not the only way for it to go anyway ily

I was literally shaking restraining myself from talking about this in the tags like. hum fucking hallelujah, bring the bassist back. and not even just FOB though like. you're the resident MCR girlie. do you ever think about how by all rights they should not be alive? but they ARE. um like... like frickin... I am not afraid to keep on living. sending my love from the other side of the apocalypse. I'm going to cry about this Gracie

[sneez]

since i started testosterone in february i have been reading a stanza of andrew marvell’s poem ‘the garden’ every month to track the way my voice has changed. today i finished it :-)

[vulpinesaint]

i’m secretly in love with you

wow... beautiful world... that's crazy cause you are ma chèrie mon ange mon cœur ma vie. t'es la plus jolie femme du monde et c'est simplement la verité...

[songbirds-in-the-east]

You know you've fucked up when your child swears that they'll never parent like you