everything is lit, except my serotonin
"what a time to be alive" is probably one of my favorite songs on the new record. that's not really a hard sell, though; i struggle to pick favorites at the best of times and by this time tomorrow, my favorite track will likely be a different one. but there's something about this track that i keep circling back to, for a multitude of reasons.
this one has proven a little contentious. critics don't quite get it, and even people who love the song will say that it's a little off-putting lyrically, primarily because of those lines in the chorus: "everything is lit, except my serotonin / everything is lit but my lightning-bolt brain". i'm not going to say outright that critics scoffing at the obvious earth, wind, and fire influence is one of those delightful instances of antiblack racism that's so common in music criticism, but i'd be lying if i said i didn't suspect that was a factor. but more to the point, that line in the chorus hit me a little harder than i expected it to.
patrick has stressed repeatedly that the majority of "what a time to be alive" was written before the pandemic. the lyrics to the bridge are the only parts that reference the pandemic specifically, but the rest of the song feels oddly prescient as it discusses how it feels like the end of the world...probably because in 2019, for some of us, especially those on the west coast, it did feel like the end of the world. pete wentz lives in los angeles, and thus probably got a very clear picture of this as it happened in real time. wildfires have always been an issue on the west coast, but by 2017, they started picking up in speed and scope, in large part due to the effects of climate change. the year after that, they got worse. the third year in a row this happened, it cemented that this was going to be a pattern, which is exactly what happened. today, the last third or so of the year is generally regarded as "fire season," when risk of wildfires becomes extremely high, power outages are common, and evacuations are anticipated.
i live in a fire zone. every year since 2017, i've had to evacuate my home regularly, or i know someone else who has. at this point, it's pretty well-established as routine. the first time this happened, it felt like the end of the world - watching neighbors' houses go up in smoke, housing displaced family members or friends who'd been evacuated themselves or actually lost their homes. by the time the pandemic happened, fire season hadn't actually died, either; we were carrying out evacuations while masked, and often without power (and thus no easy way to get news as to what was happening).
here's a thing about living in a fire zone. there are nights when you're going off no sleep and you're watching the ember-glow on the horizon at the early hours of the morning and thinking that it could almost be considered pretty, in a dark and dismal kind of way. there are days when the smoke haze is so heavy that you never get to see the sun but it makes the air hot and thick and it burns in your lungs. the smell of smoke becomes choking and omnipresent.
everything is lit, except my serotonin. everything is lit but my lightning-bolt brain.
i don't know if these lines were written about the wildfires in particular. it wouldn't surprise me if they were. there are a lot of moments in the song, the parts written pre-pandemic, that make me think that could've been the case: neon in the night-time and not caring if it's pretty because the view's so pretty from the deck of a sinking ship. livestreaming the apocalypse, because twitter feeds were literally the best way to get your news on whether your house might be next - if you had power and internet, that is. and not everyone did.
everything is lit but my lightning-bolt brain. it's kind of a silly line, and i understand being put off by it. it took me some time to warm to it too (pun absolutely intended). it's also a quadruple-entendre. everything is "lit" in the colloquial sense of being cool and exciting, sure, but it's also more or less how the human brain works. our brains are really just electricity, passing little bursts between all the neurons and synapses. on top of that, the sensation of feeling like electric shocks are passing through your skull, or "brain zaps," are a common symptom of withdrawal from antidepressants (which, among other things, are used to regulate someone's serotonin levels). and then there's the case of the world being on fire, literally. everything is lit except my serotonin. my lightning-bolt brain.
a memory:
i never actually stopped working through the pandemic, as i was considered an essential worker. the fires didn't let up either. a particularly horrible fire tore through a nearby area and that's the thing about fires: they turn the whole fucking sky vivid orange. i drove to work on a chilly autumn morning, the whole sky lit up in an orange glare. i stood for a minute in the freezing parking lot while flakes of ash overhead settled like snow onto my car, my hair, my clothes. somewhere, people's homes and livelihoods were burning, and in a matter of days or hours the wind could change and my home and friends could be next. so i walked through the falling ash and the sickly orange glow of the sky and did my temperature check at the door with my mask pulled up over the lower half of my face, and i got to work.
i remember that moment vividly because it was strange and surreal and eerie and it was probably the moment that felt most like the end of the world to me, or at least it did then. driving through town with the sky on fire and a disease tearing through the world and having to walk into work anyway. that's what this track reminds me of: the sheer, staggering surreality of watching everything fall apart, and then...you go to work, because what else are you supposed to do? you go to work. the world is ending. you go to work.
what a time to be alive.
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Constellation Gang, more like Constellation Circus
tumblr gets to have my CG bs actually welcome (Part 2 and Part 3)
CG are all insane but in different directions
ABFD -> insane (chunni)
Uriel -> insane (hardcore fujoshi)
SWK -> insane (it’ll be funny)
SP -> insane (could kill you, won’t (probably))
modern AU because this is not out in my fic yet so funny a gorgeous golden-haired woman (Uriel), a buff blonde man (SWK), this 15 year old kid??? (ABFD), and another masked handsome man (SP).
ABFD who is actually an adult looks like a fifteen year old real (REAL) He gets carded every single time at bars for looking like a kid, acting like a kid but is legally not a kid. Them at the bars so funny three hot adults drinking meanwhile there is just??? A child??? Between them???
Uriel & SWK golden duo so real they are the life of the party they can drink till they drop, they’re loud & cheerful drunks that drink you under the table no sweat…. ABFD talking a big game and sneaking some alcohol and passing out OR increasing his chunni syndrome. Secretive Plotter, endless suffering because if he gets drunk then the group is gonna go explode something (it’s happened once. Never again.)
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Reality Lowdown
(content warnings are in tags)
The room I wake up in has shifted 2 degrees to the left
The light in the kitchen is a warm glow- it was a cool blue last night
The sun rises in the wrong spot
The stairs are too close together as I walk
I don’t let my eyes stay in one place too long
They dart across rooms, looking for more displacements
More to feel wrong about
A voice calls me to the next room. I don’t recognize who it is
I don’t know where I am
My knuckles crack too loudly
My hair is tied up wrong
My jacket is too tight in the collar
My shoes are too loose
My voice is different than I remember it
My vision is more blurry than last night
My thoughts formulate too fast
My hands are responding too slow
My chest feels heavy
My eyes glaze over
My heart aches
My stomach does flips
My fingers are chewed- so are my lips
My legs go numb
I don’t think anyone can understand it
Can truly understand-
The way my hands
Are detached from my wrists
I stare at faces until I’m certain I’ve seen the person before
I don’t think I’ve stared at a mirror for this long before
I’ve been staring at a mirror the whole time
My skin crawls
I feel sick
I will wake up tomorrow unknowing of what it will be
The room I wake up in might be shifted 5 degrees to the right
Or the light in the kitchen might be blue again
My knuckles might not crack at all
My voice might not work
I don’t know.
Reality has its claws in me
The best I can do is lick off the blood
-Reality Lowdown (By me)
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once i got pretty far in interviews to write about culture for like a mid-level gen z publication but in what was probably the final interview the editors kept asking me questions like "what celeb drama do you think is hot right now?" "what celebrities do you love and would want to cover?" and i flopped and failed answering because i'd just be like man idgaf. i like culture i'll write about anything well just give me the job and i will start caring about like. noah cyrus or whoever you want. and well as it turns out i've had the inner workings of dozens of celebrities marinating in my subconscious for years. i just needed to get weird and unlock it <3 have been chuckling about this
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i'm guessing it's because more people are joining the site lately, but i'm seeing a lot of completely empty blogs interacting with my posts and i'd like to suggest for newer users to give yourself a description + profile picture + header if you can before you start following blogs, otherwise many people may think you're a bot and block you.
it's hard for me to tell when blogs are bots or just new people, even blogs that reblog lots of posts silently but dont have any pfp/header/description read as a bit suspicious to me lol.
adding something to your description (can just be "im a new user not a bot" or something) and giving yourself a pfp is probably the best way to keep people from assuming you're a spambot and blocking you
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