awsmnivi

[awsmnivi]

Okay, first of all: it is not at all surprising that tumblr is into this beef. at least half of being in fandom is beefing constantly, and the levels of haterdom that Kendrick Lamar has achieved are...... truly impressive and a little bit scary.

this is gonna be messy and not comprehensive but i've been thinking about this for like a week and there's just so much....... context. there's layers to this shit.

so let's start at the beginning.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

DRAKE AKA THE BOY AKA THE 6 GOD AKA THE TEFLON DON AKA CHAMPAGNE PAPI AKA WHEELCHAIR JIMMY

Aubrey Drake Graham is a rapper and actor from Toronto, Canada who I first became acquainted with from the television show Degrassi, where he played Jimmy Brooks, a hot headed jock who was later targeted in a school shooting and was paralyzed from the waist down. Everyone was skeptical when he started rapping in the 2010s, but he was a talented enough musician and business man--especially in his ability to chase and hop on trends--that he has become a very powerful figure in the music industry. One of his earliest massive hits is YOLO, a song that was inescapable when I was in college.

Drake has long had a reputation for being soft, firstly because he used to make music that women really fucked with (Hold On, We're Going Home is a great example, as is the video for Nice For What), and also because, well, he is a rapper from Canada who got his start on fucking Degrassi. This has very obviously bothered him throughout his career.

KENDRICK LAMAR DUCKWORTH AKA KENNY AKA KDOT AKA THE SECOND MOST PETTY PULITZER PRIZE WINNER

Kendrick is so different from Drake in almost every capacity. Kendrick is a rapper from Compton and from the start he was showered with critical acclaim for his technical skill but not necessarily the same kind of fame and success as Drake did. KDot has rapped a lot about his experiences as a gang member, and in many track reminds the listener that he has killed someone. His albums Good Kid M.A.A.D. City and To Pimp A Butterfly are considered modern day hip hop classics. They're really both incredible albums tbh but very very dense and emotionally effecting. Kendrick also won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for music for his album DAMN. in 2018.

On top of that, Kendrick really holds it down for the culture--his song I and Alright became spontaneous protest chants during the George Floyd protests in 2020. I actually sort of can't listen to those songs anymore because I associate them with that movement so strongly!

PROLOGUE

It wasn't always beef between Drake and Kendrick. In fact, Drake had Kendrick open for him on tour in 2012 and Drake featured on the Kendrick single Poetic Justice. The only evidence of animosity between the two occurred after Kendrick's infamous verse on Big Sean's song Control, where Kendrick essentially named a bunch of rappers and said he was coming for them to be the greatest rapper of all time. Drake was one of the people he named.

Many people interpreted this as a diss, but Kendrick didn't respond to anyone iirc. At the 2013 BET Awards, Kendrick's verse in the cypher referenced Drake's album Nothing Was The Same, and talked about tucking a "sensitive rapper" back in his pajamas. Drake insisted there was no real issue. HM!!!!!!

SIDEBAR: THE STORY OF ADIDON

Kendrick is not the only person that fucking hates Drake. In 2018, the rapper feuded with one of his idols, Pusha T. If you don't know Pusha T, actually, yes you do: he is one half of Clipse, which had the smash hit Grindin'. If you have been in a public school where kids are slamming that beat out on the lunch tables you and I come from a shared heritage.

I don't want to get into the weeds here, but Drake and Pusha went back and forth until Pusha dropped The Story of Adidon, where Pusha revealed that Drake had secretly fathered a child with an a sex worker in France. At first Drake denied it but then like a year later he claimed his son as his own. He was shamed into caring for his son through rap beef. For years, I have maintained that the hardest bar in rap music is "You are hiding a child!"

This is important to note because this is the first time beef with Drake like, stuck. He has beefed with other people before, but usually he just pumped out a pop radio hit and dominated the airwaves, basically neutralizing whatever response he was gonna get. Drake would blame Kanye for this and then start beefing with Ye but that's a whole other thing.

LIKE THAT

This is where the current beef starts. In March, rapper Future, a former Drake collaborator, released an album produced by Metro Boomin called We Don't Trust You. Kendrick has a surprise feature on Like That where he says "motherfuck the big three, nigga it's just big me." This is a reference to the J. Cole and Drake song First Person Shooter, where the two refer to themselves and Kendrick as the big three of rap. Kendrick doesn't want Drake to speak his name even as a compliment.

J Cole dropped a response and then literally three days later apologized and removed it from streaming. What Did He Know??????

DRAKE RESPONDS

On April 13th, a leak of a song goes around Twitter and people think it might be Drake's Kendrick diss. IIRC a few days later it shows up on Spotify as a song called Push-Ups. He also releases a song called Taylor Made Freestyle, where he makes fun of Kendrick by using AI voices of two iconic California rappers, Tupac and Snoop Dogg. He also mentions Taylor Swift, saying that Kendrick is a bitch for moving his release dates around not to conflict with hers, and that his feature on Bad Blood was stupid.

Tupac's estate threatened Drake with a cease and desist and Drake took down the song.

EUPHORIA, 6:16 IN LA

On April 30th, Kendrick releases Euphoria, an extremely fucking mean song. He calls out Drake for being a culture vulture for black American culture, referencing the way that Drake will identify a music trend, go to that scene, and then package it and sell it under his own name. He really does go as far as to change his accent on some of his songs, it's super weird! At the end of the track, Kendrick disses Drake using the regional accent and slang from Toronto, Drake's hometown.

Three days later, Kendrick drops 6:16 In LA, which is much shorter and rougher than Euphoria, though just as nasty. Hilariously, the beat was produced by Jack Antonoff, Taylor Swift's major collaborator and main producer. The song also samples an Al Green song where Drake's uncle played guitar. Check Jack's faves on Twitter--I would love to know what Drake did to piss Taylor off!

FAMILY MATTERS AND A QUICK NOTE

On May 3rd, Drake drops Family Matter. On this track mostly he calls Kendrick short a lot. He also implies, but does not outright say, that Kendrick beats his wife Whitney, who is shown on the cover of Kendrick's album Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers.

Now, I want to mention this because it's a serious allegation but 1) rap beef is not journalism, sometimes these dudes just lie and 2) many of the things that Kendrick will go on to mention can be corroborated by outside sources, but this I haven't been able to. Also the way that Drake says it on the song does not really make me feel like Drake even means it, but is just searching around for something that will provoke and insult Kendrick. You may feel differently.

Not to say that Kendrick is perfect about women and abuse: Mr. Morale has some weird... stuff on it about women; Kendrick is just kind of a hotep; he threatened to take his music off Spotify if they took down R. Kelly's catalogue. No one in this conflict is perfect. I would argue Drake suffers from a much deeper level of sickness.

MEET THE GRAHAMS, NOT LIKE US

So, all this time, people had been wondering where the fuck Kendrick's response was. I thought he might not respond--it's not really his style. About an hour after Family Matters drops, Kendrick releases a song called Meet The Grahams. In previous songs, Kendrick alleged that Drake had a leak in his camp, and that the people around him dislike him so much they're feeding Kendrick dirt. Based on how quick this response came out, I would say that's probably true.

This song.... is fucking nasty. It's addressed to everyone in Drake's family, starting with his son Adonis. In the first verse, he apologizes to Adonis for having such a horrible father, and also says that he wishes Adonis's grandfather had worn a condom. By the time he's addressing Sandra, Drake's mother, he tells Sandra that he wishes men like Drake would die. He then insinuates that Drake is a pedophile.

Now, there have been many, many instances of Drake getting caught talking to underage Instagram models etc etc. The most famous example of this is when Millie Bobby Brown, then 14, said that she was friends with Drake and they text often. Drake at that time was 36. That's not fucking normal behavior.

Kendrick also says that Drake has a secret eleven year old daughter. Turns out the only bar harder than "you are hiding a child" is "you are hiding a second child."

That night--literally, I was brushing my fucking teeth and my husband was already asleep--Kendrick releases Not Like Us. On this track, he repeatedly calls Drake a pedophile over a fucking DJ Mustard beat.

It is a completely bonkers song. It made me feel like I was hallucinating. People have already started playing it in the club. Kendrick successfully used Drake's main tactic of releasing a club banger when there's beef against him. Like no shit, the Dodgers social media referenced the song in a recent tweet, this is a club banger about how Drake is a pedophile.

On this song Kendrick also has a bar that insinuates that there at least six more diss tracks in the chamber. I have no idea what's going to happen and I'm kind of fucking terrified. Anyway thanks for reading, sorry if I left anything out.

[awsmnivi]

The way I see these whole ass analysis on Rhaenyra and Daemon in the show, so complicated and complex and the people writing them are fighting for their lives to prove their points, while I'm just like...

You do realize that the show writers have no idea what the ages of their characters are, right? They did not even bother to establish that basic trait. They decided for Rhaenys to blow up the coronation in an impulse of "it would look cool". They have no idea what to do with adult!Rhaenyra or Daemon in general? Their personality shifts from one episode to the next?

Team Black's entire dynamic as a family is inexistent because they didn't even bothered to write it? And the only Green that is somewhat complex and entertaining in the worst way possible - for me, at least - is Aegon, but that's because Tom fought for his life to bring his own input to the character and portray him in that way. (Pretty much like Matt did with Daemon, over and over again)

Like, as much as I enjoyed what they did with Daemyra, I also realize it was by complete chance and accident. These people cannot write to save their lives. And I do very much think they will ruin them in season 2, and they will be over as a couple. But I honest to God could be fine with destroying their marriage if at least they made Rhaenyra and Daemon interesting separately (which is absolutely not going to happen either).

But in general people give them so much credit and act as if those writers are capable of all these amazing thoughts and connections, meanwhile Ryan Condal's comment regarding feminism is "We have female dragons". What's not clicking?

[awsmnivi]

matt smith who i have always liked has risen so high in my esteem because he simply does not do dumb editorializing meant to dictate viewer response. he’s like idk i just act my lines and it’s your job to interpret them, you’re intelligent enough for that right lmao

[awsmnivi]

today’s accusations of fake lesbianism aside i am not attracted to men and the only three dudes i have been attracted to in the last five years were all because i wrote fanfic porn about them. like, the thing about writing porn is that you don't have to be attracted to the people involved or personally interested in the acts depicted, you just have to sell the reader on the character being hot for whoever or whatever is going on. but this is dangerous because it has a transformative effect. the power of ART to produce EMPATHY. would i be so unhinged about jason ralph if i had not spent so much time writing so many words on how much eliot wants to fuck quentin? no. would i suddenly find matt smith hot now if i had not embarked on entering the twisted mind of rhaenyra “uncle-fucker” targaryen? i would not. it's risky. stay safe out there

[awsmnivi]

did not expect the shipping/stanning choices win of waking up to a video of BEN SHAPIRO hating on daemon and rhaenyra LMAOOOO

[awsmnivi]

TARGARYEN GOTHIC: Rhaenyra, Daemon and the gender doubling in House of the Dragon.

There are a set of recurring themes in the Gothic narrative that make the genre so apt to discuss anxieties and projections regarding the concept of family, identity and gender. It is no wonder, then, that House of the Dragon dabbles in it with both feet, reminding the audience that, above all, this is a story about the fall of a family line. Much like the House of Atreus, or the House of Usher, the Targaryens – wrapped in each other like overgrown ivy – have their destiny laid out in front of them no matter their decisions. It is what makes the story so compelling, so captivating, and it is why it becomes the perfect container to discuss gender politics especially in relation to a family (and by proxy a reign) like this. Out of all the themes of the Gothic, one in particular serves the purpose in the most encompassing way, and that is the “doubleness”, the mirroring, the doppelgänger. This trope finds its way in most commentaries about the gender experience in a Gothic space, as Luce Irigaray puts it, the double is “two lips in continuous contact”, a split in subjectivity that helps to explore the tensions between masculinity and femininity. Emma D’Arcy, who interprets older Rhaenyra in the show, touches on this concept in several interviews, saying that their character “pushes at the edges of womanhood” and “is obsessed with masculinity”. This obsession is what manifests into the trope of mirroring, as they further explain “It’s like she has a doppelgänger. The doppelgänger is Rhaenyra born male, who has access to all the things that she craves and feels to be hers”. Doubleness, henceforth, becomes a way to negotiate the differences between and within the masculine and feminine experience, the outside and inside, the public and private. To be a “double” is to resist categorization as one thing rather than the other, to discuss binary oppositions without feeling comfortable in either of the two terms opposed. To be a double, therefore, means to have a mirror, and Rhaenyra’s mirror, according to Emma D’Arcy’s words (and as I will explain, to the narrative itself), is Daemon, her uncle. According to D’Arcy “She has this amazing connection with her uncle Daemon,” and “in some ways, they’re [of] the same fabric, and yet the rules are completely different [for them].”

This is immediately clear in the narrative style adopted to characterize these two characters in the very first episode of the show. Visually and metaphorically explaining how, out of all the Targaryens in the family, they have the closest connections to their dragons. The similarities in the way Rhaenyra and Daemon treat their rides, as opposed to the way Viserys talks about dragons (in episode two he mentions how dragons are maybe too big for their world and deserve to be left in peace), mirror both each other and their position in the family. Dragons are elemental creatures, volatile and connected to their riders via an almost magical bond that digs its talons in their blood and ancestry. They are also possibly fluid in their gender, as mentioned in Fire and Blood itself “Septon Barth’s speculation that the dragons change sex at need, being ‘as mutable as flame’”. Furthermore, in High Valyrian, the word for prince (or most accurately heir) is gender neutral, further implying the doubleness and fluidity of gender when tied to the old blood of Valyria.

Keep reading

[awsmnivi]

(cw for incest rape etc)

in episode 4 of the show daemon takes his niece rhaenyra, who is 19, to a brothel with the intent of seducing her, publicly, so it gets back to his brother viserys who has disinherited and exiled him, as an act of revenge.

rhaenyra is very into it. he’s her favorite relative, she clearly has had a crush on him for a long time, and he’s returned a dashing war hero.

daemon looks into her face, sees a sweet, eager desire - and stops. he can’t go through with it.

when confronted by his brother, daemon brings up the fact that when they were rhaenyra’s age “we fucked our way through every brothel in the street of silk.” implicitly - together.

viserys is, of course, married to his his teenage daughter’s best friend. he has already impregnated her twice. we see him maritally rape her in the same episode, intercut with the brothel scene.

viserys and daemon of course come from a family that marry brother to sister. but daemon was born a brother.

daemon - and this is something he still obviously finds painful - was married off at 16 himself, and sent away from home.

in episode 5, after viserys refuses daemon’s plea he be allowed to marry rhaenyra (to make this all right?) on grounds he is already married, daemon kills his estranged wife. he spooks her horse - it’s unclear whether this was intentional. her spine is broken, and although the scene cuts away, it’s strongly implied he finishes her off with a large rock.

he then returns to court, unencumbered, obviously with the intent of marrying rhaenyra. at her betrothal banquet to another man, in hurt fury at his abandonment and from a genuine desire, she dares him to steal her away and make her his wife. again, he cannot do it. when violence breaks out, he flees again. he knows if he did this he would destroy rhaenyra’s political prospects and relationship with her father.

10 years later, after their marriages to other people and after daemon has been widowed (natural causes, this time), they reunite. rhaenyra confronts daemon about his abandonment and he says: “i spared you. you were a child.” rhaenyra initiates both their sexual encounter and their marriage.

in episode 9, we get a depressing anecdote about daemon’s nephews, rhaenyra’s brothers, the ones by viserys and that teenage girl he married. the elder, aegon, took aemond, the younger, to a brothel when he was 13, saying “time to get it wet.” it’s clear from the way aemond tells this story he found this an upsetting experience and first experience of sex.

in episode 8, we learn aegon only pays attention to his sister-wife helaena “when he’s drunk.” we learn he has raped a teenage maid.

the point i’m trying to make is we are shown a society, a class, a family, where relationships with sex, between men and women, older generations and the young, are warped at pretty much all levels. it’s a story about patriarchy and incestuous families and intimate violence. i’m not trying to say daemon is some paragon for stopping with rhaenyra. i can hear the refrain - what does he want, a medal for being a decent human being? the point is - we see no other man in the series do this. no other man in this family realizes brothel dates with close family is probably not the best thing to be doing. no other man has a sense of sexual responsibility, especially with young women, at all. and it’s meaningful to me - genuinely very moving - in this story about how everyone is trapped in a patriarchal hellscape, in this family, to have daemon repeatedly - while still fucking up hugely and being a fucked up guy - have this ability to look into rhaenyra’s eyes in that brothel and be unable to act selfishly if it means hurting her. it means more to me than some bloodless depiction of flawless sexual ethics. it’s an important story about abusive family dynamics and cycles of violence and the absolute power of men over women within the family.

so it sucks to see sara hess say of aegon, very explicitly a rapist, that we should have sympathy for him because he was never taught about consent, while also being unable to understand why people might be drawn to daemon as the one man who for one second, even warped as it is, even compromised as it is - put a woman’s well-being above his own lust. the only one.

[awsmnivi]

what draws you to daemon and rhaenyra, separately as characters? like what characteristics do you like about them than make you go “yes those are my blorbos”?

great question!

obviously talking about daemon and rhaenyra as individuals entails talking about them together, and a lot of what i like is shared between them. they are where the series is doing it’s most interesting thematic work on gender, power, and family. they are the flaws that trouble the patrilineal line: the second son, the daughter. this status as the perpetual gothic outsider makes them keen, wry, bitter observers about the things that limit them, the straightjacket of gender, the hypocrisies of power (embodied in viserys as the sort of ultimate patriarch, who rejects them both in different ways at different times.) this makes them fun and fascinating. it also lets them sit outside these structures because they view themselves as targaryens first and foremost, more dragon that human: the last of a vanished people, the heirs to a destroyed glory, to a magic that is leaving the world. and they are SO targaryen, and i will be clear - i love nearly everything about these books and this universe but the targaryens are the best thing george has created. they are the best family in fantasy literature. i do not care!!! the incest dragon atlantis people rule because they take everything most interesting and troubling about power and bloodline and inheritance and dial it up to fucking 11 to sexy unhinged effect. and daemon and rhaenyra are everything that’s great about them. the bloodlust! the obsession with the past! the desire for an intangible lost greatness! the mental unwellness! being extremely sexy! being toxic!

rhaenyra i loved instantly. i love her boldness, her arrogance, her fire, how spoiled she is, how confidant and yet heartbreakingly unsure she is, her simmering rage, and her anger specifically at the ways she’s caged and confined because of her girlhood. her final gender is “king” and in the meantime her gender is “my uncle.” she’s also this lost, hurt child whose family was totally destroyed at 15, and she’s so wounded in this very fundamental way. she is insanely horny, a horny icon. she is gaslighting gatekeeping girlbossing. she’s kind of dykey. she’s the most bisexual character of all time.

i was amused by daemon and his pathetic antics instantly from episode 1 - unable to get it up, eavesdropping like a rat in the walls, his cart of severed limbs, “a CUNT!” but now i love him :( very genuinely :( for all the reasons i love rhaenyra (he too has a lot of gender stuff going on) and also he is just like a very sad and lonely person like every violent, terrible blonde man should be. he makes me very sad! he definitely thinks his 14 year old niece is like his soulmate and the only person in the world who is capable of understanding him, and he’s like uhhhh not wrong, but also insane. he’s so funny. his arc is about how he wants to be topped spiritually, emotionally, physically, and politically by his niece-wife, and he wants this so bad the only solution is to die for her. greatest character of all time

[awsmnivi]

the way people talk about rhaenyra having more “freedom” than alicent is genuinely disturbing. she does not. she has slightly more room to maneuver …because her dad feels so guilty about murdering her mom. it’s indulgence from the patriarch, and not for anything about rhaenyra herself (i’ve seen this idea it’s because of her like, less “feminine” attributes which, lol) but because she is viserys’ penance for what he did to aemma. and what does it get her? she is allowed to put off marriage till the ripe old age of 19. viserys gives her the option to choose her husband…which he then retracts the second it becomes politically convenient to do so, and which he uses rhaenyra’s “transgression” of having premarital sex to pressure her into agreeing to. he then allows her to have a side piece because he made her marry a gay guy and willfully ignores her children are bastards while also being incapable of stopping the gossip about this that makes rhaenyra’s life hell and puts her life and her sons’ lives at risk. the idea this granted but always revocable lenience is true freedom or liberation is totally insane. alicent’s life is a horror but rhaenyra’s is not much better and not any less completely warped and defined by patriarchal dominance

[awsmnivi]

Daemon Targaryen

 I was HEAVILY influenced by daddy daemon’s talented queens, @chillyravenart and @naomimakesart (look at their art for superior Daemons!!!) this was a test to see if I can draw a man™ 

[awsmnivi]

(csa mention)

there is subtexual ‘daemon as csa survivor’ story right there if you can Perceive. the vibes between him and viserys are Off. mostly what i keep thinking about is that before the “heir for a day” comment we don’t see daemon DO anything malicious! he’s been a failson and fired from various jobs but we actually don’t see him act against viserys in any way or even HEAR about it. WHY is he treated like this tainted scapegoat and source of evil at the family heart. it drives me wild because we get no actual canon justification. viserys totally flipping about the heir for a day thing could IMPLY this is not daemon’s first transgression but we actually don’t…see or hear about any history that makes immediately exiling from home indefinitely a reasonable choice. he’s introduced sitting on the iron throne as this sort of grasping second son looming sinisterly up out of the dark - but what’s great about that scene is how clearly it’s immediately undercut by how obviously it is a joke to tease rhaenyra and how totally unconcerned about it she is, how unmonstrous daemon is to her. she sees right through it.

[awsmnivi]

Careful the things you say

Children will listen

Careful the things you do

Children will see and learn

Children may not obey

But children will listen

Children will look to you for which way to turn

To learn what to be

Careful before you say "Listen to me"

Children will listen

Careful the wish you make

Wishes are children

Careful the path they take -

Wishes come true, not free

Careful the spell you cast

Not just on children

Sometimes the spell may last past what you can see

And turn against you

Careful the tale you tell

That is the spell

Children will listen

HBO House of the Dragon & Children Will Listen by Stephen Sondheim (from Into the Woods musical)

[awsmnivi]

when you're reading smut and that middle aged man has a little too much stamina

[awsmnivi]

Goodbye, sweet boy

Process on Instagram

[awsmnivi]

me being an ottomon shipper in episode 1 😭

i think most of the problems of realm would have been solved, if only otto and daemon have f*cked each other cause there was a lot of unresolved sexual tension there

[awsmnivi]

reblogging my hotd takes from 1st episode so all my twit moots can see it 😅

this episode of house of the dragon really made me think about a mother's role in a teenage daughter's life and how important that is.

Rhaenyra has family who loves her like daemon gives her good advice but takes advantage of her. alicent wants to protect her but can't help judging her and viserys for all his faults loves her but isn't emotionally available to her.

aemma's death really is a pivotal point for her character that it leaves rhaenyra alone to be exploited and if her mother was alive, she would protect, inform and nurture her.

and that's why viserys's decision to marry alicent is so much more idiotic and in some ways really selfish because alicent could never be rhaenyra's mother. she is her best friend and she is acting like it ( supportive but jealous)

[awsmnivi]

crying at fabien saying he’s jealous that milly got to kiss matt 😭😭😭😭 stans fighting 24x7 on twitter and meanwhile fabien and matt are out here losing focus and having a consensual work place relationship https://twitter.com/millysource/status/1591454474106966021?s=46&t=i13YyktjLQRRuBJO7UrgvA

screaming licherally fabien whenever: so anyways there is this matt