We’re Going To Get The Ending Of X After All. This Was All Part Of CLAMP’s Master Plan, I’m Sure

hi, dear author! i hope you're doing well. i just wanted to say that i love your satoshoko and reading your stories always feels like time well-spent. you're an excellent writer which ig would only stand to reason you're probably a reader as well haha. anyway, ive been itching for more of them so I was wondering if you could pretty please w a cherry on top give me book recs in the vein of (your) satoshoko? doesn't even have to hit the same tropes as stsk, just their general vibe, and/or your writing style for their stories. thank you in advance if you answer ♡

Hi! Thank you for your kind comments about my writing. I have a weird relationship with my own stories, so it’s nice to hear that they are a) being read and b) liked by readers. I do read a lot, guilty as charged. I don’t, however, read a ton of romance, so a lot of my suggestions are more along the vibes of dealing with alienation that I think haunts the SatoShoko ship. 

So anyways, the books I have selected are about loneliness, and the strange humor that is found within sadness. I hope you haven’t read at least some of them, nor see them on the list and think less of me. I am obviously not even a shadow of these writers, so I suspect that you will find them way more entertaining to read. As always, some of these stories could have triggering content so if there is anything you are hoping to avoid, look them up on Goodreads or Storygraph first. 

Normal People by Sally Rooney is a literary romance for sad people, and the man isn’t completely toxic, so it has to go at the top of the list. 

“The depressed person” is a short story from David Foster Wallace that is in his collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. It’s my favorite of his books and is full of great stories but is also the one that repulses me the most. The short story itself is about a woman coping with depression, and was the vibe I was going for in the story “Displacement.” 

The reason it took me some time to answer this message is because I had to reread at least two of the stories in Eleven Kind of Loneliness by Richard Yates. Each story is in plain prose, and focuses on the different ways that people deceive themselves. I had to reread it just to re-check the vibes, but it’s great and I really enjoyed it. Hopefully the rest of it checks out! I guess I'll find out as I continue my reread lol.

My last recommendation is a book I just finished. Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata is a collection of stories that are a little surreal, pretty strange, and are all about connection in some way or another. I feel like SatoShoko probably watch and read weird shit all the time, so that’s my pretence for including it, but I actually just think that it’s a really great collection of short stories. 

Now, if you’re looking for SatoShoko stories, I know that there are several collections and bookmarks featuring different writers. My writer pal bby_rabbit wrote me a good SatoShoko, “heartbreak soldiers, disappointment junkies” (NSFW, M). It’s a great story, and to be frank, there would be no antioedipus without bby_rabbit (or Bawgdan, as she was going by when we met). 

Happy reading, and let me know if you need anything else! 

they're so me

I am FINALLY DONE with In every dream home a heartache! It is over and I am free!!!!!

Here is the last chapter, the how-to manual for life.

Here is the song it's named after. I heard in an art class and giggled over it but it clearly stuck with me. The premise of the song inspired Hard Candy and Sour Hearts (a SatoSho).

The meme isn't mine and if you know who to credit I will gladly link them because this is the best JJK meme to ever exist.

Sitting at the bar, Kurenai drags her finger down the side of a glass, wet from condensation. Raidou sits beside her, picking at some grilled fish. Sticks some in his mouth, not talking since they’re both ashamed of what they’ve done, how things are, that they let it get to this point. The bar is crowded, full of patrons celebrating the end of another terrible work week with the people they care about. Sick cosmic joke, it all is. 

There’s a woman to Kurenai’s side, leaning across the bar. Hair up in a clip, loudly talking about how her best friend is getting married. Arm around said best friend’s shoulders, as they finish each other’s sentences. It offends Kurenai, because she remembers when she was in her baby twenties and could be that happy girl in a bar. Smile with all her teeth and mean everything she says, drunk babbling and woo-wooing, liquid courage making it easy to believe that everything will be a-okay. 

We should be this happy. It feels like they are never going to get their turn. Kurenai traces a heart on the bar. Elbow on the counter, chin on her fist, head tilted as she starts to make different shapes—circles, stars, diamonds. Crude flowers, simple Xs, different words all to do with love and hope. She wants to be that girl again, the one who believed that her life could turn out happy. 

“Do you think we’re soulmates?” Kurenai asks the question, even though she knows Raidou’s answer. Their struggles are evidence, Kurenai is certain of it. 

Raidou chews for a minute, swallows his food before he answers because he was raised the right way. Turns to look at her too, this flat expression on his face. “Yeah.” He smiles when Kurenai scoffs, putting her hand over her mouth to smile into her palm. “I wasn’t even joking.” 

“Shut up.” Kurenai tries to sound threatening, but she’s still smiling, silly girl because it’s Raidou doing the talking. He sets down the chopsticks he was using to pick at the fish, then turns his body to give her his full attention. 

“Well, what do you think?” Raidou asks, looking right at her. It’s not hostile or confrontation either. His eyes are soft, like he can really see her. 

“I think that I’ve found you in every lifetime before, and will continue to find you in every lifetime after this one.” Kurenai leans over and tilts her chin down, pretending to glare right at him but smiles at the end to show that she doesn’t mean intentional harm. 

Raising an eyebrow, Raidou lets out a wheeze. “That sounds an awful lot like a threat.” 

“It’s a promise!”

“Every threat is a promise.” This is something that Raidou sincerely believes too. Has told her as much when he tells her that her love is always pointed right at his throat as if she is waiting for him to no longer be who he says he is. 

“I promise to keep finding you in every lifetime,” Kurenai sits up straight, smiles at him to seal it, like she did when they were kids and coming up with plans and strategies for their missions. Puts a hand over her heart as if to swear upon it. 

“You promise?” Raidou’s voice changes into something so much softer, more tender. It doesn’t fit this loud, noisy bar where people are talking fast and loud about their shit jobs and terrible love lives. Jokes about blowing up office buildings and raising ancient demons the background noise to a serious conversation about the laws of their universe. 

“I promise.” Kurenai picks up her drink, takes a sip, then another while Raidou appears to think about it for a moment. 

“So, you think we’ve done this before?”

“And we’ll keep doing it in the future.” Kurenai doesn’t know any other way to be. 

A/N

This ship is my original rare pair shame. I wrote about them in Storms and Lovesickness, both NSFW. Please mind the tags.

My sad girl mood forever and ever.

Updates:

Lovesickness - Love makes you do crazy things with no regrets. Naruto, Older Jounin, E.

Sharp Stick in the Eye - eat me! drink me!. Bleach, Nemu/Byakuya, E.

Meme not mine - I don't have such genius.

do you ship nanami x gojo. i think they have a lot of appeal

I honestly never thought much about them until I saw this drawing by the lovely and talented IPostMySimpingStuffAnonymously made me see the light. That particularly drawing actually lives rent-free in my head, tbh.

I feel like they'd be silly like KuroFai from Tsubasa. Kento is like Kurogane but not visibly angry all the time, while Gojo teases/gets on Kento's nerves like Fai.

Like, I don't think I'm the only one who can imagine NanaGo being ridiculous like this? I hope?

Imagine this but NanaGo. What a time to be alive. I only posted the funny panels because to me, NanaGo at its best is a ship rooted in humor. I'll stop rambling now lol.

A new dispatch from heterosexual hell: Lovesickness (Naruto, Older Jounin, E.)

sometimes i really wish that i wrote instagram poetry instead because i would feel much less ashamed to die with that in my notes app instead of dumb fan fics

I am dead.

I am completely normal about this