idyllghost

[idyllghost]

Honestly, I love it when characters relapse. When someone who’s gotten over their anger issues falls into a situation so out of their depth they fall back on their old habits. When someone who’s learned to open up becomes a recluse again in order to cope with something outside their control.

There’s just something so horrible, so toxic, about watching a character grow and then slip back into their old selves in order to cope, bc you know they still care, that they’re the same inside, but watching them hurt so hard they don’t know what else to do brings a sense of catharsis.

[idyllghost]

Hello federal government are you excited to see what a real crazy person looks like

[idyllghost]

I just saw a post that said Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show was pandering to MAGA…media illiteracy is at an all time high.

[idyllghost]

It doesn’t sit right in my spirit how non blacks wanna praise Kendrick for his performance and talk about how he repped West Coast Culture well -he did- but he was specifically speaking about the BLACK American experience. Speak on how powerful that was. You listen to the music. You use the slang. You have no problem speaking on the Drake diss of it all. Speak on the most important aspect of his performance. Have the conversation.

[idyllghost]

It wasn't just the halftime show. Maga is pissed at all the Black Americans celebrating. They've already compared the Black players of the Eagles (the team that Trump didn't want to win) to gorillas cuz Jalen Hurts triggered the racism/anti Black in them.

They are pissed the Black American woman Ledisi sung the Black national anthem Lift Every Voice and Sing. They're pissed the Black American man Jon Batiste sung America the Beautiful. They are pissed at Kendrick for dumbing his message down enough just to ruffle both Drake and Maga's feathers. They're pissed Serena Williams was crip walking after telling her for years to not act ghetto like that on the tennis courts. They're pissed an HBCU marching band Southern Jukebox performed reminding the public Black Americans had to build our own universities cuz anti Black rascists didnt want us. They're pissed Samuel Jackson was trying to police Kendrick's expression while dressed as Uncle Sam, mirroring what's always been going on in our politics.

Maga doesn't see Black Americans as Americans (or as human tbh) despite our spilled blood that built the White House, the Ivy League schools, and so much more the USA wants to erase. They still haven't paid reparations for non-consensually using Henrietta Lacks cells that pioneered modern medicine or for any of the descendants of slaves waiting for 40 mules and an acre.

The USA has hidden Slave Masters' cookbooks on how to eat Black Americans so we can't even bury our ancestors properly and book on how to make furniture out of Black Americans with our skin turned into leather/hair used as filling for pillows.

[idyllghost]

People forget that Kendrick isn't a hater of Drake for no reason.

Kendrick is defending the raping of Black American culture, calling out Drake for his mistreatment of Black American women specifically (Serena, Megan Thee Stallion, hood girls etc), calling out the weird alpha bro behavior where they basically describe wanting control over girls cuz grown women don't wanna date their misogynistic asses.

It's bigger than Drake. We have some former white rappers who turned country singers claiming rap/hip hop isn't a real art form while trying to gatekeep Beyonce from country. We have people using AAVE incorrectly and trying to correct Black Americans on their own dialect. We have anti Blackness skyrocketing during Black History Month via the hate spewed at the Black Grammy winners Beyonce, Doechii, and Kendrick.

Yes, the beef was entertaining to a lot, but to the Black American community the beef represented Kendrick fighting for our respect and using his hatred to protect another genre Black people created that would've been dubbed "vapid party music" due to Drake's colonizer mindset.

[idyllghost]

It’s not my usual content but it’s important. It’s a disservice to only call Kendrick’s performance a televised fuck you to drake. It was so much more than that. It was an open critique on the current state of America, it was a live performance at one of America’s biggest events where he spoke against America’s racism and descent into fascism. Yes he performed Not Like Us and of course Drake was ripped to shreds (again) but it is so much more than that.

[idyllghost]

A Crash Course to Kendrick's Super Bowl Performance, from a Black Woman

Note: this does NOT go in depth into all of the song's lyrics. I don't have time to recount two decades of his discography. This is just a summary of the performance itself.

Let's start with the first visual we get:

UNCLE SAM - most notably recognized from WWII American wartime propaganda, Uncle Sam is the personification of American patriotism and freedom. The term "uncle" is also evocative of Uncle Tom from Uncle Tom's Cabin, an abolitionist book that aided in inciting the Civil War. Uncle is also a very common term (both endearment and derogatory) towards Black men (eg. "unc"). Samuel L Jackson was fantastic.

Uncle Sam also resembles a circus ringleader, notable for my next point:

THE GREAT AMERICAN GAME - no, not Super Bowl. The GAG is us the people being pitted against each other: through late-stage capitalism, through the culture war, through class warfare, through being built of the backs of slaves. We are all players in the GAG because none of us on this site were the oligarchs seated at the inauguration.

This is also seen as Kendrick's stage was a Play Station controller. Not only did it remind of circus rings visually, but it was a game battle stage. The Great American Game is a battle royale of the commoners for the amusement of the rich whites.

Remember the foods / Them color was tin and brown / But now they 100 and blue - For this I'll just say, look what the last election said about lowering the price of eggs... and look at the prices now.

The revolution about to be televised / You picked the right time / But the wrong guy - Election 2024 once more.

THE FLAG DANCERS - yes, the dancers formed the US flag... off of the backs of Black people. Not a single white person in sight, and that's true of the cotton pickers in the fields. Plantations are part of how the US came to economic prominence after being a "backwater" colony. Remember tobacco? Cotton? Our bloodlines do.

The red and blue dancers are also notable for representing the Crips and Bloods, two infamous street gangs. The dance in Not Like Us is the Crip Walk. I recommend researching more on your own time about them, but just know they are a large part of the stereotype of Black people being "ghetto."

TOO LOUD, TOO RECKLESS, TOO GHETTO. Do you really know how to play the game? - This is exactly what Black people, especially Black men, get told all the time. It's why we change our names on resumes if they sound "too Black." It's why we codeswitch in non-Black company. This is especially rich considering how non-Black people love our culture and love to make money off of us, as the latter part of the quote points to. And it's even more profound during the Super Bowl-- the NFL is majority Black players.

STREET LIGHT A CAPELLA -- "thug" stereotype dancers to counteract the a capella connotations, with Uncle Sam then saying that Kendrick figured out "bringing other street guys around being a culture cheat code." Yes, this is a direct hit at Drake (listen to "Not Like Us") but also politically. Look up "model minority". Notably I would point to Candace Owens, or the Miami Venezuelan political group that's been in the news recently, especially as this directly led to Kendrick being surrounded by...

DANCERS IN WHITE -- it's white America. That's... that's the allegory.

NOT LIKE US TEASER -- Kendrick says "Not Like Us" is "their favorite song." -> he means white people specifically here. It comes after he's surrounded by all white dancers, the women around him who are his call and response are also in white (my opinion, they represent the industry). He's saying "Not Like Us" is the favorite of yts because it is about BLACK MEN FIGHTING. This again is reflected in the video game stage and ringleader Uncle Sam.

SZA -- instead of giving what they want, we see SZA. She's one of Drake's exes and Kendrick has always supported her.

ALL THE STARS -- This was in the first Black Panther movie, which I recommend you watch. Rest in Power Chadwick. Notably, this movie was incredibly mainstream as a major Marvel movie, and then we have Uncle Sam say...

"THAT'S WHAT AMERICA WANTS: NICE AND CALM. DON'T MESS THIS UP" -- translation: Marvel (the industry, America, etc.) wanted a safe, semi-pop song because white American likes safe pop songs, not Kendrick's usual heavy rap style about his life as a Black man! Don't mess up what you've got going mainstream for having this "Black rap feud" with Drake, who is an R&B model minority to white people because he's safe.

So what does Kendrick say?

IT'S A CULTURAL DIVIDE / IMMA GET IT ON THE FLOOR -- He was warned not to be political or apologetically Black for this Super Bowl performance, but he is using this big stage opportunity to speak out.

40 ACRES AND A MULE / THIS IS BIGGER THAN THE MUSIC -- 40 acres and a mule are what the freed slaves were promised. Instead, this land went to white sharecroppers. Research Jim Crow laws.

THEY TRIED TO RIG THE GAME / BUT YOU CAN'T FAKE INFLUENCE -- rig the election, rig the industry like with model minority Drake, rig the Great American Game with culture war to distract from active class warfare.

NOT LIKE US -- the only thing I'll mention because it made me holler is Serena Williams crip walking on Drake's metaphorical grave. She's another one of his exes.

TURN THE TV OFF -- exactly like he said! The TV is a distraction, the Super Bowl is a distraction, the mainstream news is often a distraction. Turn it off and get with your people!

GAME OVER — could not see this on my stream but at the end of the performance, the lights in the stadium spelled this out. The world is watching, America…

In conclusion, Kendrick Lamar is a visionary and thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[idyllghost]

Endometriosis vibes

[idyllghost]

[idyllghost]

"In case anyone missed it, the tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas has now spread to Ohio.

[The Republican Administration] has ordered the CDC to not report on this"

[idyllghost]

take a non-cowboy Solid Snake I drew on drawception’s sandbox feature

[idyllghost]

I don’t think I ever posted it but here’s a sketch of butch Charles I made for @cryptidcr3ature back in June of 24’

[idyllghost]

Turned 21 can drink now;I think I need to be tested for autism

[idyllghost]

Explained to my brother how he couldn’t have had his TBI after we got our dog because I remembered in vivid detail begging paramedics at 6 years old to take his plush with him because he couldn’t sleep without it; I think I might have PTSD yall

[idyllghost]

Thank you so much for this wonderful commission @idyllghost !! ❤️ it came out so beautiful and I am super happy. Been looking forward to this. My Regina looks absolutely stunning

[idyllghost]

i don't understand why it's bad for female characters to have feelings and depth and emotions that aren't always neat and clean like maybe she has unresolved feelings for someone maybe she is overly caring maybe she is a bit insane and i love her for it. why does she have to be the little sunshine girl or the badass bitch like what women do you know who are like this? fuck off