#dawg what’s even the point of engaging at all

[dryas-c0met]

I cannot imagine making an entire blog just 2 hate on a specific show like if u hate it so much stop fucking talking abt it don’t make an ENTIRE BLOG just bc ur seething. grow tf up lmaooooo and stop making ur hatred everyone else’s problem

[dykedvonte]

My post about Anya is making like a little ruckus on Twitter and I think it’s crazy how many people like have a problem with it.

Like you don’t have to agree with how I characterize Anya and her actions but it’s more like, why are you focused on only one aspect of her character? Why are you removing nuance from the situation? I don’t see it as giving Curly the benefit of the doubt when it comes to doing better for Anya, but as exploring his character and hers relationship with a the very little authentic facts we get about them. In truth, there’s a lot more I wish Curly did, even if it wasn’t pragmatic but I realize the issue there.

The first psychological horror game in a while that’s real intricate in its storytelling and makes you need to really need to address the morality of intentions and its already getting torn asunder smh 😔

[two-white-butterflies]

smart sexy lacy | c55 and c16

Description: Three years after that horrible breakup with Charles Leclerc; now you're dating his teammate. What happens when certain deals are levied upon you? Will you follow through or go back to what you're used to?

Author's Note: Yes, I'm going through something. SEMI INSPIRED BY THAT ONE TIKTOK WITH THE GIRL THAT LOOKED LIKE YOUNG SALMA HAYEK. A little angsty and sad and toxic. But that's life and this happens in real life.

yourusername: Aren't you the greatest thing to ever exist? #YOURNAME in Vogue AUS' new cover. ✨

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carlossainz55: Beautiful ❤️ - yourusername: Handsome ❤️

oliviarodrigo: dazzling starlet... 😇

bellaciao9: It's so weird seeing her be romantic wit Carlos

carlossainz55: She blesses Mallorca. ❤️🇪🇸

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lovingyou71: HOW CARLOS AND CHARLES DATED THIS BADDIE?? I'D NEVER KNOW

livonce0: is it just me or do they look good together?

holypolly: LOVE FROM BRAZIL 🇧🇷

yourusername: when your boyfriend posts an ugly picture of u so u have to remind everyone that u look good. 💥😮

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carlossainz55: It's called 'gatekeeping' 🤣

carlosandynfanbase: MOMMY...MOMMY...SORRY?

ynforever: the way that there's 4m likes 💀

A small exhale exited your mouth - oh, you always swore that you were over him, but seeing him walk past you. He's just standing there, breathing beside you - all the while your heart heaves in pain. You wonder if he still wears the same perfume - if he still wears the same lucky pants during race day. Or has he changed?

"Nice weather today," he smiled, gently settling down beside Carlos. You promised that you were over him - but now that he was sitting across from you - fuck, was it hard.

How could ever get over him? How could you ever get over a man who brought two umbrellas just to keep you dry? "It'll be easier to race, right?" you placed a hand on Carlos' chin in an effort to rid that man from your periphery. "Depends on how Max behaves," Carlos chuckles while pressing a kiss to your lips.

"Oh, a little decorum for the minors here." Charles chuckled while pointing at Oscar. "Oscar, this is what true love looks like." your eyes narrowed teasingly at the younger man and he rolled his eyes. Yep, this was true love. "Congrats on the engagement, by the way!" Lando congratulates while raising his champagne glass.

You exchange a side-glance with Charles. He wasn't smiling - and that somehow made you feel better.

yourusername: pinon and carlito ✨ 2 dawgs, 1 frame.

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carlossainz55: ❤️

ynuniverse: I WANT WHAT THEY HAVE

bordoutr2: PINON IS SO BIGG OMG

"How much did you pay for your engagement ring?" a street-interviewer suddenly invades your privacy. Carlos gives you a soft glance and you nod, seeing that you had time and there wasn't anything wrong with a little interviewing. "I paid for less than what she's worth," he chuckled - not taking his eyes off you. "Well how much do you think she's worth?" the man asked and he shrugs.

"I'd say all of the jewels in the world - then multiply it by infinity." he laughed while muttering the last word. Carlos absolutely adored you. "He's just bluffing because of the cameras, do you really think that?" your eyebrows merged into each other - he's only said 'i love you' as much as there were fingers in your hands.

You weren't aware that his love was this deep.

"I haven't said it enough - but yeah." he played with the plastic bag on his right hand. To your surprise, the man suddenly turns in your direction. "Do you think that you're worth that much?" he placed the microphone a few inches away from your lips but Carlos interrupts him. "I think that I can answer this one," he glanced at you - and you silently nodded.

"She's worth so much more than that, and this engagement ring is not even a fraction of what I feel for her."

"But if you're spending this much money, what do you get in return?" the interviewer bitterly asked and Carlos couldn't help but laugh a little. He's had years of experience in media training. He could explain his side as eloquently as this man asked his question rudely. "What do I get in return?" Carlos repeated the question. "Yep."

"I get a partner that is loyal to me - a partner that would choose me everyday when there are thousands of men much better than me. I get the mother of my children and a woman that'll be beside me until I die - and this engagement ring is absolutely nothing compared to whatever precious gift she gives me everyday." he smiled at you.

Your eyes twinkled a little bit - you were falling in love with him for the second time. Carlos was even more deeper than what you initially thought - so much more sensible and polite. "Okay, but are you saying that everyone has to spend so much money just to have the bare minimum?" the man inquires and Carlos shakes his head.

"I'll be clear and say that what she gives me is beyond the bare minimum, and it really depends on how much a person makes." he answers and you nod. "It's all about the feelings that come with giving a present," you bite your lower lip and the man frowned. "How much do you earn?" he turned towards Carlos.

"Okay, thank you for interviewing us." he pulled you away - quickly fading into the packed New York crowd.

You weren't prepared to face him alone.

It was a stormy night - a few minutes before your spontaneous engagement dinner with Carlos and the Grid began. The other drivers were in the other room - belting their asses off to singing 'My Heart Will Go On' by Celine Dion while you prepared your signature drinks. You were the only person inside the kitchen - until Charles decided to make his way.

"So, are you really going to marry him?" he inquired in a nonchalant tone. A decade ago, you wouldn't even entertain the thought of dating Carlos Sainz - but now, all you wanted to do was marry him. "What's that supposed to mean?" you asked, eyebrows merging into each other. That tone implied something else.

He placed his hands on the counter, staring deep into your eyes. "Let's not do this, please." he pleaded, searching for something behind your face. A hidden longing. Wishful thinking, maybe?

"We always broke up then got back with each other. This is the nature of our relationship, please don't make the wrong decision by marrying someone that cannot handle you." he proposed and you couldn't help but be offended in behalf of your fiancee. "You cannot handle him - he's boring and simple. You are someone that's so fucking explosive. You need someone interesting." he begged.

"Boring? My relationship with Carlos is not exciting - I must admit. It started off in the most boring way - as acquaintances. And our love may be different from what we shared. It's not exciting, or explosive - but it's so fucking sure. I know that I'll choose him everyday and he'll do the same. Something that I cannot guarantee with anyone else." you breathed, lifting the tray off the table and making your way towards the karaoke room.

You'd always choose Carlos, because he was your true love.

yourusername: slaybells, boots dows, houston i'm deceased. 🎄

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carlossainz55: te amo y mas - yourusername: te amo tanto

[jokerfic]

@shepards-dead-fish DELIGHTED to talk about this, tyvm

first and foremost, the big dawg himself, Nolanverse Joker

His whole deal can honestly be summed up with:

effectively flipping a code of morality on its head necessitates an intimate understanding of that code of morality first. Ledger's Joker sure does spend an awful lot of his limited screentime preaching nihilism to people, that nothing matters, that saving a busload of puppies and pushing a granny into traffic are both completely morally neutral acts, as is everything else under the sun, because there's nobody up there keeping score.

to me it reads like a crusade. to me, it reads like a smokescreen for rage and disgust. either the Joker isn't human, is instead a figment, a personification of chaos, or he is human, and something happened, something shoved him over the edge, and his actions are a means of punishing a cruel world that he bitterly resents and hates in its totality. you have to understand the concept of cruelty to react to it and lash out like that, though. you have to understand that it's a bad thing-- that bad exists at all. a true nihilist, when confronted with the weight of the world, shrugs-- because what are you going to do? what's the point in trying to change anything when any change is equal to the status quo?-- and moves on with their day. The sheer amount of time and effort the Joker expends on terrorizing Gotham speaks to a belief that Gotham deserves punishment, and punishment as a concept doesn't exist if there's no right or wrong.

confronted with this idea, he would claim that it's just his favorite hobby, his favorite thing to do, and since there's no moral weight attached to the shit he pulls then why not indulge in it? it's important to understand that this is total horse shit. it may well be his favorite hobby, but I think it's his favorite hobby because doing this shit makes him feel superior to everyone, and again, if he was a true believer in what he's peddling, he'd know that there's no true superiority when everything is on totally equal, neutral footing. he's a liar. he's an excellent bad guy because he knows bad exists and is intimately familiar with it. he lives as an inversion of good, tacitly acknowledging that good exists and that he's painfully aware of it.

next up: Jerome Valeska!

Jerome is honestly kind of a doll compared to the others. He's on the simpler side of Jokers when it comes to his motivations and morality, because he sort of of wears his heart on his sleeve (and he never shuts up, so you don't really have to wonder what he's truly thinking). Jerome is doing what he does because he sees it as punishing a world that failed him, and he's open about it. He kicks off his criminal career by murdering his abusive mother, he's unrepentant about it, and from that point on, everything he does is with an attitude of "why should I care if anyone lives or dies if nobody ever did the same for me?"

There's no doubt that, like Ledger's Joker, Jerome really does get a kick out of violence (his family members who've known him since he was a kid repeatedly call him out for being a difficult, bad kid who frequently acted out and scared them-- and it's not as if regular abuse can have that effect on a child, right? he was definitely just "born bad," as his brother Jeremiah puts it. /s). I would argue that he gets a lot more actual joy and fulfillment out of murder and mayhem than any other Joker. He really just likes to kill, terrorize, and destroy! It makes him feel powerful and engaged with the world. It's his main social outlet (he's an extrovert).

He knows it's wrong-- he never tries to argue otherwise, or get out of it by acting like right and wrong don't even exist-- but in Jerome's morality, he's justified in doing it, because the way he was treated was wronger. All he's doing, in his mind, is seeking revenge, and revenge is one of Jerome's biggest motivators. I would argue that the pursuit of it is something he thinks is always morally correct in any case. There's a sense of fairness there, and by extension unfairness. He understands that it's an unfair world, and he thinks it's every person's right to fight for what they believe they're owed, even if that means stepping on other people to get it. "Every man for himself" is Jerome's morality, and given his background, how could it not be? If nobody ever reaches a hand out to you, you never learn to reach out a hand to others.

(By the time he meets people who do reach out their hands to him-- Lee Thompkins, Bruce Wayne-- his point of view is firmly cemented, and instead of opening up to the possibility that the pursuit of goodness might be worthwhile, he laughs at them for being freaks of nature, acting against their own self-interest.)

And finally, Arthur:

Arthur, who of the three is easily the most sympathetic and more of an anti-hero than an outright villain.

Arthur, like Jerome, is also lashing out against a world that has repeatedly hurt him, but in contrast to the other Jokers, whose destruction spreads out over the whole city, he's very deliberate about who he attacks. He goes after people he specifically feels mistreated by. He goes after bullies and thugs and the elites who he blames for the state of Gotham, as well as for his own low personal state. His victims are specifically targeted-- he's not out to just hurt anyone he can get his hands on. He doesn't seem to find any pleasure in the idea of hurting people just to hurt them. He wants to punish bad people (and, at worst, he's neutral about innocents, though I'd say he leans more towards sympathizing with them than not caring about them at all).

That's what I mean when I say his moral code is unusually explicit for a Joker-- it is! Far from being the city's personal tormentor, he's basically hailed as a vigilante and a sort of champion at the end! That's very odd for a Joker. Far from denying they even exist, he very clearly knows the difference between right and wrong, and moreover, he cares about trying to do the right thing (which is why he never even seemed to entertain the idea of killing Gary, even though Gary had just witnessed Arthur committing a serious crime-- Gary hadn't done anything wrong, Gary didn't deserve to be killed). Unlike TDK Joker and Jerome, he doesn't seem to have a natural inclination towards and sense of pleasure in violence-- it seems painful for him, like a last resort, something that takes him over and that he surrenders to rather than something that's always been a temptation in the back of his mind.

But I don't think he thinks of himself as a bad guy. I think he thinks of himself as desperate, maybe broken. I think he cares about being good, I think he's tried to be good-- I think he feels like he's tried everything. But in Arthur's mind, violence is now the only way, the only thing that will make the bad guys sit up and take note. I think that he thinks that the exercise of violence against bad guys is no longer an evil, and I think the distinction matters to him because, again-- he wants to be good. In his view, it's the world that's stopping him from being good, nothing inherent to his own nature.

so yeah. all three of them have a personal sense of morality that informs their lives and decisions, and that they use to justify the things they do. it's super interesting to see where they differ and where they overlap.

[naumin]

PAIN!!!!!!!! & hypermobility. an update

so over the last 5 years i've developed a bunch of chronic pain conditions. are they getting better? kind of no not really but i have some answers now i didn't at the start and i'm writing a post about them in case it helps somebody in a similar situation 🫶

so at the beginning i started getting pain in my shoulder - it's honestly hard to say if it's muscular or joint-related but what i've gathered is it doesn't really matter in my case. the pain is constant even at rest and sleeping. i had massages, applied topical pain relief and saw a few physios over the years who advised me to stretch and gave me some exercises aimed at strengthening the trapezius and rotator cuff muscles, which i tried to keep up with somewhat but fell off because they were awkward and not engaging (sue me). i also couldn't afford to see each physio more than once lol so i didn't have any follow-up appointments to keep me on track, plus i was working jobs that made my pain worse every day so i just wanted to lie in da bed tbh.

my pain would get worse, i would lose strength and the ability to do different activities and for as long as i used to, but i believed it was all bcus i was inconsistent with my exercises/stretching and i just needed to give it a proper go before i pay to see a professional about it yet again. this went on for YEARS dawg.

eventually i left my job and was doing yoga consistently every morning. and it wasn't helping... i wasn't getting better. oops. on top of this i started getting super awesome debilitating ⚡NERVE PAIN⚡ so i went and saw a physio for it and she said something interesting to me.

she said i might be hypermobile -- meaning i was really flexible and had a really good range of motion, but a lot of instability and pain in my joints. we honestly didn't focus on that much bcus i was more concerned about shooting pains and numbness in my hand and fingers (carpal tunnel) but it was something ppl had said to me over the years. i could rotate my shoulder 360° even though it felt really stiff and locked up. lots of "wow you're really flexible! i can't find the source of the pain"

so over the summer i started looking into hypermobility more. i think this video sums things up in a way that's easy to understand. it was a really hard time for me. a lot of crying while doing the gentlest pilates routine on youtube. turns out all the stretching and yoga and 'push yourself to the limit' attitude around exercise was rly hurting me. i started focusing on building my strength by lifting weights, and i mean really light weights like 500g, 1kg, 2kg on a good day, just in my house following routines online. and that has really helped with my pain. of course it's been years of it getting worse and affecting all the joints in my arm now (elbow, wrist is a hot mess, finger joints) so it's slow going and i do get pain while lifting -- even though the stupid doctor doesn't believe i score high enough to count as hypermobile, i've been referred to a physio now who says i definitely am, in my upper body at least (u can be hypermobile in different areas, did u know that?) -- anyway he says some pain is to be expected but as long as i don't overdo it to the point where i'm in agony even at rest then keep going. i'm lucky my condition allows me to do this much.

and that's the thing, the more you avoid doing because of your pain, the less you're capable of doing. i avoided a lot of activity because i thought it would do permanent damage to my body. but it's kind of the opposite, funnily enough... so the healing is freaking hard work, and it's painful. i am still in a lot of pain ✌️ but i'm really thankful to have an idea of what da fuck is going on now, and i cried a lot to my friends and family who support me... and it's the weedy spindly artists online who talked about how lifting weights has helped them who inspired me to start. so i hope this longass post can help somebody too... love u. PEACE

[arx-aru]

the kindred of rot deserve their own ending you guys are just mean

Look!!! The lonely, unwanted children are really just after affirmation. :( Mommy issues! Just like all of Marika's kids! Come on dawg they're just as sympathetic a faction as any of the others, surely

Like yeah obviously it's a stretch to posit any such hypothetical as a "good" outcome. but certainly no more than it is to wholeheartedly endorse any of the current endings; the in-universe arguments for all of them are made by parties with clear biases and motives, and there exists no concrete lore to prove anybody is the "correct" choice or whatever. That's half the point of Dark Souls/Elden Ring plots--unraveling "truth" from myriad twisted narratives is messy and not always possible. You have to make inferences and judgments informed, inescapably, by your own biases.

And, yes, the pests engage in slavery in mines but nearly every faction in the Lands Between does that(I think the only exceptions are Rykardans and the immediate Miquellans...? But the troll-pulled pilgrim carriage is ambiguous in fealty). If anything, we see most other factions being markedly more abusive to their subjects(omens, demi-humans, albinaurics, everything directly involving Marika, etc).

More interestingly, taking a step back-- the rot worshipers are direct foils to Millicent; they differ meaningfully only in attractiveness and their inferences.

The kindred imagine the presently sleeping Malenia to want something different from what Millicent specifically does... but both parties are assuming; both Millicent and the Pests have specifically only been around while Malenia was comatose and unable to voice her will. so like. nobody has any idea in the moment what her takes during and after Aeonia are. unless Malenia actually was awake before the Tarnished arrived and did object to the kindred hanging out around her(for which there's no evidence afaik)... it's moot, which party was "correct," barring retrospect colored(not confirmed) by information only revealed later and to which only the Tarnished is privy. And that evaluation would be meaningless by nature anyway.

They're not even doing wrong by Malenia--at least, not knowingly. They just want their goddess's favor... like everybody else. They're certainly weird about it, but bear in mind that our(Millicent's) definition of help involves beating Malenia to death soooooooooo are we really in position to judge the pests' plans, whatever they may be?

I mean. I'm just saying. If the pests/gowry/worshipers were sexy ladies or voiced like say Morgott or Rykard, people would be all over them. It is specifically because they're not fuckable that they fall behind other factions in metatextual moral evaluations.

it's not the shrimp agenda speaking i swear it's just that they have cool grooves

[iminyourwallsbabe]

Pride and Prejudice, Shipping Gone Wrong

Alright little side thing after my last reblog that I think is important to talk about

I ended that last post by saying I don't think ppl who ship queer ships are better than those who stick to canon, and even said some were monsters that shouldn't be allowed to vote and I'mma get into that. Let me break it down for you.

Okay jokes aside, this is actually a very serious issue that does not get addressed the way it needs to.

The way you ship says a lot more about you than you think. It can highlight some prejudices you may not realize you have and there's layers to this shit too. (side note: I will be using examples. If your favorite ship is mentioned, it's not an attack on you or that ship as a whole, I'm talking specifically about how people engage with these things. Don't think I'm trying to police you, and if you're truly offended maybe you should be. Do some thinking)

IS IT LEGAL?

If you ship children and adults together or promote canonically abusive relationships, you're automatically weird. We don't need to look any deeper into that, you said all that needs to be said about you.

Morally Dubious Ships

Now, this one is a little more subjective and there's more forgiveness to be had here. Sometimes people don't realize a ship is kind of problematic. Sometimes that's a writing issue. Like you ever look back at a show or movie you watched as a child and go "oh my god how the fuck were these the heroes"? It really could be that and I'm not gonna judge you for interpreting something the way the writers wanted you to. Sometimes relationships that are abusive or just unhealthy are portrayed as something to strive for.

Sometimes it's not a writing issue and more of a "where do you draw the line" kind of issue. For example, take Otayuri. It's the pairing of Otabek Altin, who's 18, and Yuri Plisetsky, who's 15 going on 16 around the time that they meet. Now, if someone my age (I'm turning 18 in a month) said they had a 15 year old partner I would definitely have some questions, but I'd need more context before outright saying "oh ur a creep". The age gap isn't the issue, if you're mad over three year age gaps you need to get off the internet and go outside. It's more about where they are in life. The reason a senior in hs dating a freshman is strange is because the freshman is fresh out of middle school, and the other is literally about to go to college. Those are two wildly different worlds developmentally. My personal opinion on Otayuri is that since they've known each other for a while, they both seem to be equal mentally, and the way in which their relationship grows is not predatory in nature, I don't see a problem with it.

But that's just my way of viewing this ship. Other people might think those ages are unacceptable no matter what. And that's great for them. The bottom line here is that it's up in the air. You're not wrong or right for thinking any sort of way about the morality of it. No one gets hurt by the existence of this ship.

Bakudeku is a little harder to argue for. Right off the bat, shipping a bully and their victim together is kind of crazy. Like if you told me you were a Bakudeku shipper from SEASON 1, I would run away as fast as humanly possible because dawg, WHAT THE FUCK??? A relationship where one party doesn't even respect the other as a human being does not work and should not be promoted. In my eyes, the only way this could happen is with a lot of character development on both ends and with Bakugo apologizing at some point. That could actually be very interesting, it's great when fanfic or comic writers do that and do it well. When I was in the MHA fandom, I enjoyed the ship but it was by no means my favorite and the top reason is that the characters weren't in the right place for that to happen properly. If you think that's wrong, then again, more power to you. I have a lot of respect for people who can draw hard lines like that. Either way, it is very much up to debate as to whether or not this is okay, we're getting into "this may hurt somebody" territory.

But Sydney, what does this have to do with prejudice?

Most ships are inherently harmless. People are just having fun. Sometimes amazing content comes out of that, but other times... it's not that cute.

I'm gonna go back to the MHA fandom for a bit, not to trash on y'all cuz there are by far worse fandoms but I have more personal experience there. I wanna avoid speaking on a fandom I've never been in. One of the most irritating things for me was the mischaracterization of a lot of the main characters in MHA. No, I don't think everything needs to be exactly canon and if they do anything out of character in your fan work, you're evil. There's a certain breed of mischaracterization just REEKS of stereotypes.

A thing I've noticed is that in a lot of fan work, especially ones that have more sexual content, the character that's the "bottom" or whatever other words you wanna use for that, is typically made to be more feminine, less muscular, and they lose a lot of their personality to be an "uwu innocent smol bean". The other one will be hypermasculine, be super protective and dominating even if in canon, they are none of those things. The twinkification usually happens to characters like Deku that are more emotional and treated as though they're weaker, but he is not the only one. That's happened to characters like Bakugo too. FUCKING. BAKUGO. THE MOST AGGRESSIVE MF IN THE DAMN ANIME. The second he gets put into that submissive role, it becomes his whole personality.

Are we starting to see the problem here gang?

People are taking these characters and altering them to fit into their idea of what a queer relationship "should" look like or what they think is the hottest kind of queer relationship. That is fetishization without a doubt. This shows me that you don't see gay people as people and refuse to.

This bleeds into another issue. One of racial fetishization. As a kpop fan, I've seen kpop ship art and fan fics. Now, whether or not shipping real people is okay or not is a conversation for another day. We're focusing on how these people are written/drawn. One of the interesting things I've seen is that people will sort of use idols as a vessel for another story. They're not necessarily writing about them but more so building off of their persona or how they're generally perceived. So "accurate" depictions aren't something you're gonna see. The most worrying depictions are ones like what I described previously. The difference is, it's indiscriminate. Idols have been written into both roles before, it just flip flops between whoever fans think is the least masculine. This is already weird as is, but consider that Asian men are often seen as "lesser men", more feminine, weak, etc. Consider that Asian women are seen as shy, innocent, submissive and things of that nature. These are the ideas on which these "uwu cinnamon roll" characters are built upon.

Now, you're probably thinking I'm reaching, but peep this. What if we move out of Asian-centric media? Does the same apply? YES. VERY MUCH SO. In fact it's MORE OBVIOUS THAN BEFORE.

One of the more popular queer ships in the Spiderverse fandom is Hobie x Pav. A black man and an Asian man (South Asian specifically but still very much Asian). Now, one would expect that a movie that has so much diversity and puts an emphasis on looking at people past appearances would create a fandom where all the characters are treated like people. WRONG!!!! Pav is constantly smol baby twinkified to death and Hobie is made to be meaner and more aggressive than he ever was in canon. Here's those silly little archetypes again!

And here's a reminder of the stereotypes around these races, just in case y'all forgot.

Asian men = not manly, unathletic

Black men = scary, dangerous, hypermasculine

Mind you, neither of these characters are any of these things in canon (I mean for fucks sake PAV BACKFLIPS OUT OF BED IN THE MORNING, HE IS IN NO WAY "WEAK"). And to deviate this much says only one thing. You don't actually see these characters and people like them as individuals. Your idealized version is literally awful fucking stereotypes that get people, especially black men, killed. Tell me again how you're not racist?

Headcanons (oh lord)

These homophobic/racist characterizations bleed into headcanons as well. They are in no way mutually exclusive. If you're drawing or writing a character a certain way, you probably have headcanons to match that. And a lot of you have shown your real selves this way.

For example, this has less to do with shipping and is moreso a general fandom issue, but ppl be headcanoning Miles as poor or that he steals spray paint. Bitch, what??? Miles has a cop for a dad and a nurse for a mom, that income is fucking insane. PLUS, he goes to a private school in one of the most expensive cities in the country. They go out of their way to emphasize this in ASTV, there's a whole scene about it. He is not poor. Miles G is, but not Morales. No sir.

So, if there's no evidence to say he's poor... and it's been explicitly stated that he's not... hmm... I wonder why people would think that?

Surprise! The answer is racism.

Same thing for the stealing headcanon. He fights the spot in a deli in ASTV and still asks how much his food will be. And if his uncle was in the graffiti scene already, why would he not supply Miles with spray paint? Y'all skipped through not only his actual characterization but all the possible, legal ways he could've gotten his hands on that and went straight to stealing.

But noooo, you can't be racist if you're a Spiderverse fan, right?

But let's bounce back to sexuality for a minute. Those headcanons directly affect the way someone ships a character. Sometimes your sexuality headcanons are not coming from a good place and y'all need to know that.

I actually had a conversation with my lesbian friend today. She said a friend of ours had told her "you're going to love One Piece, there's great lesbian representation.". Like she straight up fed her the idea that Nami was a lesbian. She even told her she had a girlfriend in one of the movies. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. I'm not a One Piece fan. She also told her that Nami hated men. I read the first four volumes of One Piece. Nami does NOT hate men. She's not as friendly to men around her because she hates pirates and has a very specific dynamic with her crewmates, who are mostly male. That's two different things. So, she was telling me that she felt really disappointed that the only thing that made this character a lesbian was the fact that she didn't have a love interest and "hated men". Now, from what I understand, there are some interactions she has with women that can be read that way, again, I'm not entirely sure since I don't watch that, but the fact that this other friend's main selling point to my friend who's actually a lesbian was that there was a mean lesbian main character that hated men is kinda crazy, don't you think? (Also, side note, things are kinda weird with the one piece friend rn, we're working that shit out. So if you're wondering why we're even friends I literally found this out today so yk).

Let's think about common stereotypes about lesbians. One of the big ones is that since they're not attracted to men, they must hate them or that they're gay because they hate men. Newsflash buddy, it's kind of hard to find a woman nowadays that doesn't hate men at least a little bit, gay or not. If that was a prerequisite for being a lesbian you'd probably see a hell of a lot less straight women. Another stereotype is that if a woman shows no interest in men, she must be a lesbian. Like, no, she could be ace, she could just not want a relationship in general. I even double checked to make sure she wasn't canonically confirmed to be one so I wasn't talking out of my ass. She could be bisexual, pansexual, literally whatever kind of sapphic but your mind jumps right to lesbians because you think she hates men and she's mean? Right...

But I'm not done here, let's get into one of the more common acts of stereotyping I've seen. My ace buddies, I am SO SORRY oh my god.

Every time there's a character who is nerdy, not as social, and doesn't explicitly show attraction to anyone, they get headcanoned as aromantic and asexual. I actually wanna applaud the One Piece fandom real quick because the amount of people who fuck with the Luffy is asexual headcanon is great. He's the exact opposite of the type of character that commonly gets headcanoned to be asexual. This is the kind of stuff I want to see. Headcanons based on things the character actually says and does and not stereotypes. Shout out to y'all, back to the ranting I guess.

One of the more annoying things I've noticed is that autistic coded characters are usually the most likely to be headcanoned as asexual. Now, if you know anything about how autistics are viewed in society you'd know people think we don't have sex, don't know what it is, all sorts of other shit. So to see that constantly, it really bothers me and I'm sure it bothers the aces out her as well. The idea that the only way you can exist is as a socially awkward "undatable" character must be really awful to see. It's either that, or they attach that label to characters that hate love or look down upon people who have romantic relationships. Or maybe you might get someone who thinks a character is too cute and innocent for sex and gives them that label. Again, more negative stereotypes.

But when there's actually an ace character and they don't fit people's idea of what an asexual looks or acts like, or if they're attracted to them, they just ignore that part of them and do whatever they want.

It's 3:30 in the morning, why are you still yapping about this?

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who made it this far. This is a very necessary conversation and I know it's gonna ruffle several feathers but in times like these it's important that we recognize how our hatred affects others.

But yeah, onto *why* this is important.

The post I reblogged and responded to was somebody comparing a certain type of canon shippers to Trump supporters. I explained why they weren't right but not exactly wrong either. There's a direct correlation between the way they thought about shipping and the rhetoric of the right. Remember, the same people fetishizing others and disguising stereotypes as headcanons and creative liberties were right next to you in the voting booth deciding whether or not you should have rights.

The truth is, this election showed us that we truly cannot trust each other as much as we thought we could. The people we thought were our allies sold us for their own validation or to make their groceries cost less (which won't even happen btw but I digress). The people who were holding our rights over our heads were busy taking that from others in other countries, and also just straight up murdering them (free Palestine y'all. And Congo. And Hawaii. And Sudan. And Haiti. There's a lot. Colonialism knows no bounds). And after the election? Poc were continuously excluded from the conversation even though we're the most affected on every front, and when we were brought up it was to tell ppl some of us voted against our own kind.

This post is to make y'all better allies. This post is to make you more conscious of the things you're saying and doing. This post is to remind you that art has power and you need to use it responsibly. It's here to show you that just because someone identifies the same way as you or is okay with the idea of your identity, does not mean they're on your side. And your vote does not absolve you of your own biases. You can still vote blue and be racist. You can still like media with a bunch of representation and still hate the groups of people in it.

And in a way, this post is kind of for me too. As a black queer person who's been in fandoms since they were 10, I've only become more frustrated. It's become such a hostile environment for minorities of all kinds and I'm tired. I needed to get this out somehow. Y'all can't keep getting away with this, you're ruining it for everybody in these fandoms and in the world.

[anarcho-sexual]

Does anyone else just…idk…the future is not looking fantastic to me. Or for me. It seriously doesn’t even look like it’s worth living for. Of course I can’t be sure of the future but I think the chances are low the ruling class will take care of us if we just ask nicely & say please.

But what’s the point? What reason is there to stick around for bad? Sure it could be great. And if it’s not, I can peace out ✌🏼 at that time. But the future doesn’t go away when it becomes the present. There’s just more future. What if it gets better after getting worse? Or what if it stays worse for longer than our lifetimes? What will have been the purpose of living a whole life just waiting for things to get better & they don’t? Or having to go through fantastical hardships just to live a little bit better?

The only real answer I can think of is to try to make it better for the people who are here after me. I’m not against that. But I’m sort of against being forced to engage in all this capitalistic work culture & what not just to have some liberals go “yay we defeated the fascists, everything is fine, & there’s no reason to improve!” & we get stuck with a Biden after Biden after Biden…

Idk dawg. Are there perhaps thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who actually want to do something? I don’t wanna leave cracks or even holes in the system I want to delete it & download a better software

[shwoo]

Okay here's my thoughts about Chandlo Bugsnax and Floofty Bugsnax's relationship.

...That's their surnames now. Everyone is Bugsnax.

Anyway, Floofty and Chandlo don't have much interaction in the base game, despite being practically in-laws. Floofty calls him "that green meathead" while trying to argue that Snorpy is refusing to help them out of cowardice, so they seem pretty dismissive of him.

When you ask Chandlo to help with Floofty's experiments, he doesn't mention Snorpy at all, just says he doesn't want to help because of "what they put Eggabell through." And I could write another 700 words overanalysing that line, but that's more about Eggabell and Floofty's relationship, and what their experiments together actually entailed, so I'll skip over that. The point is that Chandlo seems annoyed with Floofty, but only over something that happened with Eggabell, not whatever Snorpy's problem with Floofty is.

The closest thing Chandlo and Floofty have to a conversation is in the sequence after the big party, where Floofty tells Eggabell not to risk her life looking for someone who's probably dead, and Chandlo responds "Dawg, Lizbert is alive! And we're not gonna leave her behind." Which is barely an interaction.

So that was all there was to go on originally. But then the DLC came out! And they went on the (Snorpy trailer line voice)miniature expedition(/Snorpy trailer line voice) together, and had actual interactions. It's also mentioned that Snorpy doesn't want Floofty to talk to Chandlo, and has sent Floofty "a pile of threatening letters" telling them to stay away from him. It's not clear if Snorpy started doing that before or after he came to the conclusion that Floofty was a Grumpinati agent.

I don't think Snorpy is actively preventing Chandlo from talking to Floofty or anything, but Chandlo knows it upsets him, and seems to have made it his life's mission to keep Snorpy from getting too stressed out. He also tells Floofty kind of reluctantly that Snorpy doesn't like him talking to them, like he doesn't really want to say it. Maybe he thought Floofty would get upset.

But once Snorpy is out of range, Chandlo starts acting really friendly towards Floofty. Maybe he wants the opportunity to get to know them better. Since he's been close to Floofty's brother for a long time, he'd know better than most people that Floofty wants to help people, not eat them. I feel like he probably wouldn't think Floofty was evil even if he wasn't already acquainted with them, though.

But Floofty just responds by patronisingly ordering him around or threatening him. I don't know if they don't like nicknames in general, don't like being nicknamed by Chandlo in particular, or don't like that it's so close to what he calls Snorpy, but they're really hostile while telling him not to call them that.

They also threaten Chandlo offscreen with "an excoriating worth of [his] fatuity", (a chewing out worthy of his stupidity) apparently because Chandlo tried to help them with their lab. They really seem to have something against Chandlo, like they had something against the Journalist.

In the Journalist's case, it's their profession, but for Chandlo… I think the answer is the bit where Chandlo gives his hypothesis ("If this island can make big Bunger, can it make big Chandlo?"), and Floofty gets upset and angrily asks him what their brother sees in him.

And maybe they're just asking how Snorpy can stand to be around someone so stupid, but I prefer to think that they specifically believe that he's too stupid to date their genius brother. They're just being protective! In a very patronising and misinformed way.

Floofty's opinion of Chandlo improves a lot after their campfire talk. I guess they realised their impression of Chandlo was wrong? Part of Floofty's plot in Bigsnax is realising that people they wrote off as stupid actually do have something to contribute if they actually talked to them. Maybe it's because Chandlo listened and engaged intelligently with their description of what happened, instead of putting Floofty in a headlock like they apparently expected.

Also, I love that bit because Chandlo's response implies that he did put Floofty in a headlock at least once, but they're cool now. I would like to know more about this.

And then they start getting along, with Floofty asking Chandlo to build… probably a giant hamster ball? And Chandlo apparently convincing Floofty not to call it the Engorged Strabbiform Orbacular Encasement like they wanted.

And then they're outright working together before the boss fight, injecting Sprout with a mystery substance, and encouraging the Journalist to mess around with the ancient technology they just found.

They're friends now. :) Reckless, reckless friends. :)

[thebellekeys]

I Love Matthew Fairchild aka Incoherent Thoughts about Chain of Iron (2021) by Cassandra Clare

I made one of these rant-rave reviews for SJM's book so check it out if you want, no pressure tho lmao.

Aight so I finished Chain of Iron last night and OMG I HAVE TO YELL like I loved it sooo much like yooo, I have a lot to say. I know the book is new so... beware for spoilers plebs.

Also context: I been reading the Shadowhunter books since I was 12 and I'm 19 now *insert dead emoji face* so yeah, I'm just so happy rn with where the Chronicles have come and the fact that they’re still ongoing *insert uwu face*. I remember when in like 2014-2015 or something when Cassandra Clare teased that Will and Tessa's kids' generation was gonna get a trilogy set in Edwardian London, loosely based on Great Expectations, and holy hell? I think that was perhaps one of the best days of my life considering how much I adore The Infernal Devices (that trilogy really changed the way I see YA literature... don't ask cus I won't shut up about it) (also yes I read TMI and loved it too but there's a “generation gap” between TMI and the other Shadowhunter books stylistically so don't ask me about that either cus I also won't shut up).

Anyway, shoo from here if you want a critical essay on Chain of Iron. I'm not providing that, this is just me raving here for the fun.

Listen... I want the bulk of this to just be two main things: The Matthew Situation, and then all the literary and judeo-christian meta aspects of it.

BUT I ALSO NEED TO TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE SO FRICK LET'S JUST START WITH THE OBVIOUS SHIT LIKE THE PLOT AND WHATEVER

Okay, the plot and writing and shit, let's get that out of the way:

The WHOLE Jack-the-Ripper-esque ambiance was just sooooo good man wow like I did not expect the book to take this cold turn but it worked so well. There was such a contrast between Jamie and Cordelia's warm little house and then the cold winter and the stabbings and shit and it felt like a nice little callback to the actual Ripper phenomenon that preceded them and a nod to the Whitechapel Fiend story from Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy.

Bitch OFC that whole thing with Wayland was a set-up like nawww that was too easy to spot and I get why Cordelia feels like shit about it.

Dawg Lucie was just the Among Us imposter here in that my girl was just venting and sneaking around with dead people and I was like nooooo girl run, don't deal with Fade this is a set-up THINK ABOUT JULES LUCIE THAT'S LIKE YO GREAT-GRANDSON *sobs* but yeah anyway my girl has death powers she gonna kill some bitches next book.

You see that confrontation between Lilith and Belial? MASTERPIECE DIALOGUE like this was the point within which I was just like "yo is this the book of Genesis or a YA Fantasy novel" like when Lilith said "I may have been cast out but I did not fall" like??????????????????? I YELLED she did not have to END Belial like that. What a bad bitch.

More on Lilith and Belial... "You, who brought nations into darkness? Shall I finally be able to tell the infernal realms you have gone mad, lost even the image of the Creator." HAHAHHAHAHA SHE SAID "YO BELIAL GO GET SOME THERAPY AND GET OFF MY ASS" LIKE??????

Ughhhh yasss Clare has improved writing diverse characters in this book compared to in The Dark Artifices in my opinion... I'm not gonna expand on it cus ain't nobody got time for that but like, I enjoyed how she wove Persian poetry and tales into the story and the way in which she writes Cordelia and Alistair. They're not caricatures of Persian people but rather multi-faceted beings who also happen to be Persian and I appreciate that. Also, Alistair and Thomas and Anna and Ariadne were just so fun and interesting to read as coupbles but also as individuals. She really higlighted diversity in a very natural manner. All I need is a hijabi character and I’ll die a happy woman lmao.

The level of META man like the references to Classics and art (I swear, she might have compared Matthew to angels out of Caravaggio AND Rosetti AND Boticelli paintings and I Am Living For It) and just all the quotes from holy books and shit omg I love it here like you really feel catapulted into the time period, she draws reference to external art and philosophy so well and I feel like she upped the notch on it in this book (didn’t know that was possible but it was the prose is BEAUTIFUL, archaic, but not pretentiously so). No, like the characters live in their OWN worlds of literature and art and history in the way we are living in THEIRS. They quote Wilde and Milton while we'll quote Clare. It's awesome.

This is an unusually structuralist take even from me but: I like the way the milieu social of the book, i.e., the high society Edwardian circles and their values, have a direct influence on the plot. James and Cordelia got married because society’s values essentially forced them to, not a demon. Cordelia abandons Jamie at the end of Iron because her shame as a woman in society and fear for her reputation made her, not a demon. Thomas and Alistair can't be together solely because of how Alistair tarnished the reputation of the Fairchilds and Lightwoods by using the horror of infidelity against them. Issues relating to marriage, gender roles, etc, stemming DIRECTLY from the time period rule the sequence of events to the same degree as the epic fantasy aspects (demons, Princes of Hell, the lore itself) do and I LOVE that dear God above.

OKAY THE GOOD SHIT LET US TALK ABOUT CHARACTERS AND SHIPS (N.B. but imma discuss Matthew and the Fairstairs situation separately below this portion):

Alistair's redemption arc: No, cus Alistair's redemption arc is honestly amazing. He really did change and it's not like his betterment as a person was linked to any one heroic deed but rather he simply decided he wanted to be better especially for his family and he decided to become a proper protective son, a caring brother, and an amiable friend. He fully owned up to his Malfoy tendencies and apologized without expecting forgiveness. He shows how he cares in the little ways and omg it's so sweet and tender. I really do want him to love himself now and be embraced by Matthew especially and the rest of the Thieves.

Dawg Lucie and Jesse are so funny to me like it's so hilarious how this girl fell in love with a whole ass ghost that no one else knows about like HHAHA. Are Lucie and Jesse my ult ship ever? Nah, but it's nothing to do with Clare, it's just that their relationship happened pretty quick and feels quite like something epicly romantic that Lucie herself would write. I just like slow burn and friends-to-lovers the most from Clare. To be honest part of me just wanted Lucie to not have a romantic arc all together but like, it's all good, I'm not complaining.

Okay Grace- like yooooooooooo I never hated her yunno. She has been abused and isolated all her life. It's not that she is a bad person, but rather that she does not know what being a person even entails. Can't even say she's a “doll” of a person cus she's never even been pampered like one by her family. I really started understanding her motivations since when they gave us her half-childhood with Jesse. I want better for her but cmon can she REALLY be saved???

GRACE X CHRISTOPHER *pretends to be shocked*... Okay, sometime in the middle of the Dark Artifices series some big brain put together a very thorough family tree of the families and like, it clearly showed that Grace and Christopher got married so like, lmfaooooo, I knew this was coming one way or another, but the journey to this ship is more important than the destination. Like in a way Christopher is such a cute baby lamb that it makes sense he'd end up being immune to her Grace-ness when he's just a cute little Einstein boiii. Like this is just so funny to me cus he's so oblivious to social conventions while she makes the milieu social her entire life so OFC it's gonna work. Like, this is such a worlds-colliding trope like just Give It To Me.

James and Grace - aw mannn Jamie just had me fricking wanting to hit a wall every two seconds cus like yooooooo every single time I think he and Cordelia are gonna stop being emotionally-constipated spouses, Jamie says some kinda shit like "omg me and Daisy are just friends uwu" like DO I NEED TO HIT YOU?????????? See I can't blame him for not slamming the door on Grace's face even tho he totes should- Jamie is so cerebral and kind that even if Grace wasn't using the enchantment on him, I think he would always be soft for her even if it isn't in a romantic way. There's just so much miscommunication cus like he said "Thank God" when she broke off the engagement with Charles and lowkey embraced her but it also wasn't his fault cus it wasn't even romantic BUT OFC IT LOOKED HORRIBLE TO CORDELIA like James literally never told the woman at least once that he loved her so OFC she thought she was back to square one with him dear God above what a mess. Not his fault, but she DID set down one rule for him: don’t cheat with Grace. And yeah even tho he hasn’t properly cheated, it must FEEL horrible to her cus she’s just been enduring the pain of their unrequeted love for so long :((

See imma just say it but if Cordelia thought that James didn't love Grace then she def would have confessed to him about her feelings right but like James, on the other hand, was delaying his own romantic confession cus he was BEING EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED and I can't even say the bracelet was solely to blame cus like my boi was just being so difficult omg I believe he should be lightly spanked by his three parents aka Will, Tessa and Jem *cries*.

Cordelia is such a MOM like she's so mature and stable and her self-preservation instinct? OFF THE CHARTS I love this woman like James definitely treated her well as a hubby but like I JUST WANTED HER TO HAVE CLOSURE ABOUT SOMETHING and boy oh boy she did get that closure she got it good but not from the person she expected in the LEAST *hehe* *pelican screeching*... like Lucie was being sus with the whole ghost business and James was being just, quite a case, dealing with Grace and Belial right and I don't blame them at all for their secrecy and shit but her FATHER DIED and her friends were hiding a lot from her so in a way she turned to Alistair for help but he could only do so much cus of his own pain (she couldn't even talk to her mom cus she's pregnant and she doesn't wanna stress her right) and then there was this emotional block between her and Jamie, Lucie was often absent and conspiring with the dead... the last person remaining was HIM (imma discuss this soon), but yeah my heart just went OUT to her cus she's tryna save herself and her family and she just doesn't know what to do. That's why I love the way her mom told her to stop holding herself back for others and live her own life. Like Cordelia grew on me so much cus in Gold she undoubtedly was a strange Elizabeth Bennet-wallflower hybrid and I... do not usually get attached to wallflowers but in Iron I feel like I finally understood that she was just tryna be unproblematic and self-preserving all along and nottt put her family and friends in a tough situation.... she reminds me of my mom personality-wise so yeah I’m totally rooting for her now that her *situation* in the past seems clearer.

Anna, Thomas and Matthew are such a SQUAD lmfaooooo like united in their gayness they'd be so unstoppable.

Will and Tessa are the most in-love of all the in-loves in this story and I respect that so much.

I lost a year to my life every time the romance between James and Cordelia got cockblocked. Like they were MARRIED and I thought they were gonna at least sleep next to each other at least once BUT NO James couldn't take a hint omg I'm actually gonna eat my fist and sob (but in retrospect, I think this serves a bigger purpose in terms of the narrative structure i.e. the interruption of all the spicy James and Cordelia action serves a bigger purpose which I think brings me to my next section, *exhale*)

Welcome to the Matthew Fairchild Enthusiast Club (this section is me talking out loud; it makes no sense):

bitch.

LISTEN TO ME LISTEN WELL I LOVE THIS BOY SO MUCH IMMA SCREAM I REALLY AM GONNA SCREAM MY FIST IS LITERALLY IN MY MOUTH *BACKFLIPS OFF THE ROOF WITH LANA DEL REY PLAYING*

Okay like where to BEGIN I think the Shadowhunter boy who I'm most attracted to is Julian while the one I love the most is Will but I think I see myself in Matthew the most. Like ever since that first story where the Thieves all met at the Academy then got expelled, I think that I just KNEW Matthew was destined to be epic. Plus the whole Wilde obsession? I’m no libertine myself but I just love his chaos and passion for life.

NO CUS HE'S SO WITTY AND SWEET AND EPIC AND YET SO SECRETIVE AND DEAR GOD ABOVE AHHHHH WILL HE SURPASS JULIAN FOR ME??? Ion even know but this is just sodjsgdwsdygyegydgef

Hear me out but I said after finishing Gold last March that I wanted this book to be Matthew's healing arc right so halfway into the book when I realized that we weren't getting all that good healing arcing I was confused just cus I thought it seemed natural to address all of his alcohol issues and sadness by now. LITTLE DID I KNOW CASSIE WAS SETTING UP A WHOLE OTHER ARC WITH HIM THAT I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED WTH.

At first I thought Matthew didn't have feelings for anyone at all, and if he DID develop feelings unexpectedly, I fricking thought that maybe he's catching feelings for James, if anyone??? I mean, I did have some suspicions about Matthew from the get-go: like he's so secretive and as readers we think we know everything there is to know about him since we were all privy to the truth potion incident in his short story right BUT NO I GOT PLAYED AND I DESERVE IT SO BADDDDDD.

Listen I hadn't shipped him and Cordelia simply because I never thought it in the realm of possibility but it MAKES SENSE as a ship... think about it: he never says what he feels, he flirts with her like he does with EVERYONE, he is kind to her in the way he is with EVERYONE. Really, Matthew is shippable with everyone, doesn’t matter if they’re taken cus that’s just what his Matthewnes allows for ya feel. There is such a beautiful irony that CORDELIA herself did not see this coming. Even the little teasers and hints in Gold have only NOW started making sense to me likejhss. I just felt like the hints in book 1 did not indicate to me that Matthew really harbored real romantic feelings for Daisy. I thought he was upset that James and Cordelia were being fakes, not a developing CRUSH on the woman fgs.

Not to mention that you usually sense a ship building when the emotional connection or sexual tension between the characters is made clearer but to me their FRIENDSHIP grew right but it didn’t feel like Cordelia was thought that she liked him or he liked her so that means me and Cordelia are clowns *together* 😤

Okay I was lowkey having SUSPICIONS but I immediately shut them down right... like firstly when he took her to the White Horse in his car and she went OFF and OFF and off about how she felt free for the first time? I thought Cassie was just tryna develop Cordelia's self-liberation arc through Matthew there. Heck, I didn't even think ANYTHING of it when Matthew confession to Cordelia about the "truth potion" incident at all cus I was like they're FRIENDS??? BUT now it's adding up now...

See when they were at the inn place and he was telling her that she doesn't in the least seem like a 100 year-old married woman? I was like hmmmm he's so sweet but why did Cassie phrase it like that like??? When Cordelia later reiterated that she thought Matthew's flirting was “meaningless”?? I was like hmmm kinda SUS tho. And then when he and James had their fight over the way Jamie kissed Grace like again I thought he was just like? ion know? mad at James for it but I didn't think he was in LOVE with Cordelia??? So I immediately put aside my slight suspicions. The probability that he had a crush on James at that point seemed more likely to me.

BUT THEN it started hitting me that every time Matthew drank, even before he explained his issue with the truth potion, that Cordelia would note it, she would worry about him, she would think of her father which seemed so poetic to me, history repeating itself and all that but this time you can FIX it??? Yeah, but again I didn't think the L WORD would be involved man???

Now imma sound like a delulu shipper here but it just makes sense they would develop feelings logically- reason being that it definitely is possible based on the way Cassie set up the story, like there's a combination of little “friend things” that can turn this into a proper ship: Matthew rescues Cordelia in the ballroom when Grace captures James' attention in Gold. Cordelia sees her father in Matthew all the time but knows now she has a chance to be there for him in the way she couldn't have been there for Elias (classic “history repeats itself” trope, she doesn't want Matthew drinking in Paris like dhshghdfhdhch). Cordelia tastes freedom for the first time when driving with Matthew. Matthew caught James and Cordelia making out in the room and was pissed but not even HE properly knew why then??? Umm, when she thinks James is forreal cheating with Grace on her she subconsciously goes to Matthew??? I also found it funny just how every intimate marital moment between her and James got interrupted somehow. Like, it's as if the narrative is just a living force REFUSING to let James and Cordelia as a ship be consecrated. Heck, every time Matthew is scantily clothed Cordelia notes it. LITTLE CRUMBS I TELL YOU LITTLE CRUMBS.

I tell you when Cordelia showed up to Matthew's flat I thought they were gonna f*ck as friends but I got SOMETHING EVEN BETTER SOMEHOW

THEY ARE GOING TO PARIS LA BELLE EPOQUE PARIS THE PARIS OF DREAMS AND ART LIKE??? FRICKKKKK I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING AT ALLLL MAN? I deadass thought the story would be restrained to the UK but like it MAKES SENSE the trope subversion MAKES SENSE.

“In Paris, with you, I will not need to forget.” SHITTRGEGGGDG

BUT CORDELIA LOVES JAMES TOO LIKE I CAN'T DENY THAT... where are we GOING with this like Matthew wouldn't lie about his feelings and yet Cassie wouldn't give us Matthew and Cordelia crumbs to only end it in the next book immediately for her to just ditch him for James. I mean she was clearly holding back on fleshing out James and Cordelia as a ship for this but to WHAT END??? Daisy feels wild and free with Matthew and she feels warm at home warm with James. I can’t advocate for the sinking of ANY ship here.

Imma say what we're all thinking: Is she gonna give us a Will x Jem x Tessa type situation where Cordelia gets both of them cus I'm not strong enough for this but I also think it'd be really funny if James gets a surprise bi awakening in the next books and then we get POLY even tho this would never happen, it’s actually impossible, because of the whole parabatai thing.

Listen I ship Cordelia and Matthew much more than Cordelia and James, not that I dislike James in any way tho. It's just: Matthew is so unrestrained and she's so composed. They seem like an unlikely pair so it makes sense that they hit harder for me. James and Cordelia have such similar personalities but I ALSO don't ship James with Grace at all so like?? Poly would be... ideal... but it can’t happen especially cus they are fricking parabatai... a Will-Jem-Tessa situation seems more likely but mannnn ion know what to expect. I just want FAIRSTAIRS to have their moment in Paris. I mean James and Matthew clearly don't abhor each other for this.

Take everything I say with several grains of salt, take everything I say with the whole Dead Sea actually, cus I damn well know that Matthew is so flirty and whatnot that I’d have shipped him with anyone in their little circle but now that she set him up with Cordelia it all feels so right?? I have wanted this man in a good relationship since he walked onto the page in Nothing But Shadows so-

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I can't believe Cassia duped me like this omg, Matthew is gonna have his healing arc in Paris with Cordelia by his side like- THIS IS ALL I HAVE WANTED AND SO MUCH MORE. Question to yall btw: are you all as surpised at Fairstairs as me or did yall see it coming all along like smart people? Am I a lone clown? 🥺

BRUH okay criticisms of CC?:

Lmfao a part of me feels like I GOTTA say something bad about CC or the book but honestly I have no objective complaints about it as of now. Am I saying that it’s the PEAK of Young Adult literature and Urban Fantasy? I mean, I make no such claims tbh. I’m not here to be critical when I read as a hobby and when CC’s writing makes me happy regardless of how flawed some people see it.

Okay what next?

So like I’m excited for the adult high fantasy she’s releasing in the fall and whatever other works she might be releasing outside of Chain of Gold within the Chronicles.

As for TLH itself? Man I’m just VIBING like I suspect I will reread Chain of Iron soon and maybe one of the anthologies just because I am happy that this series actually happened after me waiting like 6 years for it when it was just a concept: a Dickensian retelling filled with poetry and culture and history and the conventions I so loved in TID at age 12. This is all I been wanting tbh. I’m just enjoying watching this series come to fruition for it to inspire and transform me in some way. I feel like in a way my coming-of-age aligns with that of these specific characters yet I ALSO feel like I raised Jamie since infancy. Wack.

MATTHEW AND CORDELIA IN FRANCE LA BELLE EPOQUE TO BE EXACT IMMA CRY I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING AND AHHHHHH. ALSO WILL AND JAMIE GOING TO CORNWALL TO GET LUCIE AND MAYBE BOND I LOVE WILL. HE WAS ONE OF MY DILF AWAKENINGS AT AGE 12 AND NOW HE’S HERE AGAIN IMMA CRY. I WANNA SEE MATTHEW GET HAPPY. AHHH.

Ending with a fun quote: “In the wise words of someone or other, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Maurice.” 😉

[zeeroweenies]

i jus wanna say as some1 who was groomed n takin advantage of as a child and teenager the argument that “its jus a character” is so harmful to children and minors on the internet, even tho i think its weird i don even care enough about the aging characters up argument cuz i jus ignore that shit anyway but the one point i disagree with is fiction doesn’t effect reality (if thats the point ur gettin at) because it does time n time again disgusting n abhorrent things have been normalized and “ok”ed under the grounds of its jus fiction when it can n does have effect on real world ppl. children and minor teenagers sexualize themselves because of the content made by adults that exploit the naivety of children. all 3 of the men, grown men, who groomed me normalized what they had done to me by showing me content i should never been exposed to which in turn has traumatized me to unbelievable degrees, one of them had even admitted to liking children younger then i was at the time n coerced me into role playin is pedophilic fantasies by showing me disgusting exploitive things. im not trying to be rude or start arguments i jus thought that last anon posting links on “behalf” of child victims as a got ya point was sick (at lease to me) also sry if my thoughts r jumbled this is rly traumatic to talk about

As a CSEM survivor, shut the fuck up. I never said that fiction doesn’t have effects on the way people view shit, I said I’m not about to magically become a PEDOPHILE because I find baji ATTRACTIVE. What is you on about my nigga?

I block and persuade minors to stay away from my shit due to the fact that I write dark content and 18+ shit, it’s not meant for them in the first place. Adults shouldn’t be engaging with minors about porn (cause that’s the shit I write) either. Im sorry that happened to you, but if you’re trying to say people become p*dos or groom children because characters attractive that’s deadass wrong.

Pedophilia is a mental illness that people are born with, you don’t magically become one from looking at an anime character. People that are p*dos who use source material to sexually exploit children were born like that, they didn’t become one because of a drawing. Anything could be used to groom a child. A bike, mf candy, literally anything.

Again, not saying that fiction doesn’t affect reality (it can in some cases), but if you’re saying people who use explicit content/porn to sexually exploit children become pedos they cannot, cause they are already pedos.

Also, minors shouldn’t be on this blog. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it as many times as I have to for you people to get it through your empty skulls. I’m 18 dawg, I don’t wanna talk to kids about porn, I don’t want them reading my shit and I don’t want them here.

Don’t message me about shit pertaining to this situation anymore, y’all about to piss me off.

[angst-fairygodmother]

Idiot (Affectionate) ~ A Bad Samaritan Fic

CHAPTER FOUR: MAYBE

Pairing: Derek Sandoval x (fem)Reader Word Count: 3388 Rating: M - drinking/alcohol, making out, foreplay? (it’s not smut...but it almost is), canon-typical language, brief non-graphic reference to vomit A/N: aka how many near-misses and almost kisses can these two have Hopefully it’s not unclear, skips vs breaks...

Previous Chapter | Masterlist

“When did those two get together?” Riley asked, gesturing toward where Derek and Y/N sat facing each other on the floor, engaged in some sort of fierce, silent contest.

“They’re not,” Sean said with a shrug, so used to the pair pulling off on their own that he didn’t even notice anymore. He didn’t bother to mention that the only reason they weren’t was because they were both too stubborn to be the first to crack and admit it. 

“With the amount of eye-fucking going on over there, are you sure there’s not…”

“Lalala!” Sean cried, slapping his hands over his ears and making a face of disgust.

~

You glanced up, puzzled, as you heard your cousin’s exclamation. He was sitting with Riley, curled up together, being disgustingly cute. Only she had apparently said something he didn’t want to hear, and he was being childish about it.

“I told you I’d win,” Derek crowed.

“That’s not fair!” you whined, turning your attention back to him.

“You lost bro, just admit I’m right.”

“No. I’m not gonna do that. A staring contest doesn’t even make sense to settle this. Also Qui-Gon was objectively a better jedi than Obi Wan and that’s not debatable.” You punctuated your words by tapping the back of your knuckles in the curled palm of the other hand.

“You just like him better because he’s Irish. I can’t believe you’re defending the prequels,” he shook his head, as if ashamed of you. “Next you’re going to say that Anakin and Padme made sense!”

“No. Of course not! Young, hot, bearded Ewan McGregor was right there! Anakin had to turn evil before he got sexy.” You fought back a grin as your argument got more passionate.

“Let’s settle this with an arm wrestle,” he stated, face impassive and serious.

“What is that going to prove?” you voice rose an octave with your confusion and disbelief. 

“Nothin,” he said, dropping his voice low. “Maybe I just want an excuse to hold your hand again.”

You felt your face growing flushed and warm under the intensity of his smolder. 

“Smooth,” you muttered begrudgingly, not wanting to stroke his ego too much. “Fine. Clear the coffee table.”

~

“Are they arguing about Star Wars?” Riley asked incredulously, and Sean shrugged. He hadn’t realized how long it had been since the four of them spent any real time together, but this was the first she was witnessing the new, bizarre friendship between Derek and Y/N. 

“For now. They’ll cycle through at least four more topics before they come up for air. This one’s pop culture so the next should be…” he tapped his chin, thinking. “Health care reform? Which they agree on but find ways to shout anyway.”

As if on cue, the back of Derek’s hand slapped the coffee table, defeated, and Y/N started in on a furious rant about how incarcerating addicts and forcing them to quit was like slapping a bandaid onto someone who’d been impaled. 

“Looks like you had the wrong topic,” Riley said, eyebrows knitted in confusion. “But you were close. Do they...do this often?”

“Argue? All the time.” Sean shrugged. It never really meant anything. 

“So, how are we going to get them together?”

“No.” He took stock of the stubborn look on her face and grimaced. “Riley, no. I am not meddling.”

“Then you don’t have to,” she looked smug. “I will.”

-------

Seeing you coming, plates in hand, Derek rushed to hold open the door. You nodded in thanks, a small smile on your face.

“No one’s eating the carbonara tonight, bring the boys some carbonara,” you said, doing your best impression of Nino.

“I feel like we should be insulted that Nino only feeds us the food he thinks is going to waste,” Sean observed, accepting one of the plates.

“If you want to complain about free food, dawg, be my guest, but I am just going to be grateful for it, and our smokin’ waitress bringin it out to us,” Derek winked at you as he spoke, taking the other plate, and you rolled your eyes. 

“You know, the rest of us have to go to the kitchen if we want to eat, but you lucky ducks,” you shook your fist playfully and rolled your eyes, “get waited on.”

“And we appreciate it, Y/N,” Sean said earnestly. “You know we do.”

“If you’re not careful, I’ll start expecting a tip for this.”

Derek smirked, despite the pasta shoveled into his mouth, and looked like he was about to say something.

“Don’t,” Sean warned him, looking weary.

“If whatever you’re about to say is an innuendo, it dies or you do,” you scolded.

Derek stuck out his lower lip and pouted. 

“Nino also said to tell you to prepare for a rush in about fifteen, and then you can clock out early. One of the sous chefs got sick everywhere so we have to shut down the kitchen. Your plates were among the last to make it out alive.”

“Has he got the flu or something?” Sean asked, casting a suspicious eye at his dinner anyway.

You rolled your eyes. “No. But did you hear that whiskey’s a clear liquor now? Nino’s not impressed by the magic trick.”

Derek laughed. “How stupid can you get? Call Riley up, dawg. Let’s do something.”

“He has a point,” you said, shrugging. “As much as it pains me to say.”

“Like what?” Sean asked skeptically.

“We’re young and gorgeous, well most of us are,” you smirked and made a so-so gesture at Derek, “and it’s a Friday night in Portland. I’m sure we can find something to do.”

You glanced down at your outfit. “When you call Riley, see if she’s got something less...uniform-y I can borrow?”

~

“When I said not my uniform, I expected to still be wearing clothes…” you hissed, holding up the dress Riley had brought you skeptically. It was so short and so low cut, you weren’t sure it wasn’t split completely down the middle. 

“It’ll look great on you, Y/N, trust me,” she implored, ushering you toward one of the stalls to change. “And I guarantee a certain someone won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you grumbled, cheeks flushing hotly, giving in to her persuasion. 

A few minutes later, the pair of you were walking back out of the restaurant, and you shivered as the evening air hit your exposed skin.

“Well, shall we get going?” you asked, catching Derek and Sean’s attention. 

Derek’s jaw dropped as he turned and caught sight of you, in a way that would have been comedic if it had been directed at anyone else. 

“You’re staring,” Sean hissed through clenched teeth after a moment of awkward silence.

“Uh, yeah I am. Daaamn,” Derek muttered, looking you up and down appreciatively and letting out a low whistle.

You almost turned on the spot and fled, maybe back inside to change or maybe across the country to assume a new identity you weren’t quite sure, but Riley’s hand on your back stopped you. 

“This is a...different look, for both of you,” Sean observed, choosing his words very carefully. “It’s good,” he leaned in toward Riley with a smirk, “really good.”

You rolled your eyes dramatically as the two of them met in a kiss, thankfully only brief, before cuddling into each other as all four of you started walking. You fell into easy step with Derek behind your cousin and his girlfriend. 

“They’re insufferably cute together,” you muttered, making him laugh. 

“D’ya think maybe you’re jealous?” he teased.

“Of Sean?” you pretended to think it over before shrugging. “Not really. I mean Riley’s pretty but she’s not really my type.”

“I meant cus they’ve got someone. Ya know, to be cute and shit with.”

“Is that something couples do when they’ve been together a long time? They shit together?” You fought to keep a straight face long enough to deliver your question.

His face screwed up with disgust even as he laughed. “That’s not what I meant! You know it’s not!”

“Do I? You seem to think you know a lot about what I know.”

“Alright, I get it. I know when my question’s bein dodged. I can take a hint.”

“Not all of them,” you muttered under your breath, before flashing him a smile and changing the topic for the rest of the walk. 

~

“A gorgeous creature like you shouldn’t languish by the bar,” the goateed hipster said, laying on the alleged charm heavy, and you fought a roll of your eyes. “You should be dancing.”

“Maybe I’m waiting for the right partner,” you shot back, leaning away from him as he leaned in, closer than he needed to be to be heard.

“So do you want to dance?”

“Nope. I’m still waiting.” You collected the drink that had just been served to you, waiting to see if he was clueless. 

“What?” he frowned in confusion. 

“I’m not interested in you,” you whispered dramatically, as if you were revealing some great secret to him.

“Whatever,” he scoffed, moving on down the bar to the next girl. 

~

Derek watched the exchange from the booth, glowering and trying not to grip his beer too tight. Sean shook his head, leaning over to his friend.

“He’s not her type,” your cousin said, making his best friend frown. “Don’t be stupid tonight, Derek.” 

It was the closest Sean had come to giving his friend advice when it came to you, and the most reassuring thing he could have done. It wasn’t quite approval, but it was enough to tell Derek that pursuing the girl he wanted wasn’t going to cost him their friendship. 

When you returned to the table, Derek impulsively caught your wrist lightly as you set your drink down.

“Dance?” he asked, tilting his head. 

You were grateful for the low lights around you so he couldn’t see your facial expression, and you couldn’t see Sean and Riley’s.

“I’d love to,” you smiled, biting your lip. 

“Perfect,” he breathed, sliding out and leading you out onto the floor. 

As soon as you found a spot in the crowd, it was like a switch flipped. There was no awkwardness, no questions or doubts, just the two of you, moving together. If someone had asked you about it later, you would say it was the alcohol that made you drape your arms around his neck loosely, made you press close as his hands circled your waist.  His hips shimmied and swayed, clearly not his first rodeo, and you couldn't help tracing the patterns they drew in the air as you tried your best to keep up.

A hideously pop-y song started and you rolled your eyes, inclined normally to abandon the dance floor until something else came on. And then you realized that Derek was singing along, his voice rumbling through you where your chests touched. His eyes bore down into yours, like every lyric was meant for you, and somehow they immediately became your favorite. 

“Is there anything you can’t do?” you mused, as you both paused later to get another drink and catch your breath, leaning close together on the bar.

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“You sing, you clearly know how to dance based on those moves. You managed to make me...not hate that song. Plus you’ve got that whole sweet, funny, charming thing…you’re kind of the whole, perfect package...” you grumbled sulkily.

“I don’t know how to juggle?” he offered, smiling.

You snapped your fingers. “Well damn. That’s a dealbreaker. Guess you don’t have a shot after all.”

Just then your drink arrived and you accepted it gratefully, marvelling at the bartender’s perfect timing for the second time that evening. Holding eye contact with Derek, you smirked slightly, sipping your cocktail through the straw, and then turned to head back over to Sean and Riley.

“Wait, what’d you just say?” he said, chasing after you despite having not gotten his own drink yet.

“I think you heard me.

“So if I knew how to juggle…”

“Maybe I might let you do more than make up lame excuses to hold my hand,” you leaned to purr the words in his ear, pausing long enough that if he just turned his head your lips would collide. 

But he didn't turn. He froze, considering the implication of your statement, watching your retreating back (wonderfully sexily bare in that dress). Then he went back to the bar and pulled out his phone while he waited for his beer, typing into the search bar ‘easy juggling tutorials.’

-------

“I’m a moron,” you moaned, throwing your arm across your face. “I’m a failure.”

You let your memo slip from the other hand and flutter to the floor beside Derek. He picked it up, trying to ignore the scant inches between your faces as you hung off the side of your bed dramatically.

“Girl, this says you got a C. That’s not failing,” he pointed out, eyes skimming the myriad of red ink marks. 

“Do you know what a C means in law school, Derek? It means, ‘your work is shit, and we gave you pity points to keep you from dragging the class average down.’” You sighed. “I should just drop out. I could probably become a fishmonger. I don't know what they do but it's probably not write research memos.”

“I got you a job in the feesh factory.” he said in an exaggerated (and terrible) Russian accent.

You lowered your arm to peer incredulously at him.

“It was the first thing that came to mind, thought it would cut the tension,” he said with a shrug.

“Did you just...you’re trying to cheer me up by quoting a Disney movie at me. In my time of crisis?”

“Technically Anastasia’s not owned by The Mouse.”

“You’re adorable.” You drawled. 

Color crept over him, staining the tips of his ears pink. You studied him carefully, and eventually he squirmed under the scrutiny.

“It was my sister’s favorite movie, so we watched it a lot. Stop judging.”

“Not judging. Yet. You have some knowledge, apparently, but the real test: The Genie or Batty?” 

“That’s a joke right?”

You rolled over onto your stomach, propping your chin on your hands as you waited for an answer.

“Ferngully was the real shit. I could probably still do the rap if I tried.”

“Okay.” You looked at him expectantly and he frowned. 

“What?”

“Go on then. Sing it.” You gestured toward the center of the room with one hand, like it was a stage you were directing it toward.

“Do you have the music? I can’t sing without accompaniment.” 

“Who do you take me for?” you asked, smiling and pulling up the karaoke track version on your phone. 

A minute later, you paused it, cutting him short with a click of your tongue.

“That’s not how it goes,” you said certainly. 

“Yes it is,” he argued.

“No. The next lyric is ‘vivisectified and fed pesticides.’ You skipped part of it.”

“It is not! Just cus your big lawyer brain has some weird thing where you have to add fancy words to understand somethin…”

“How dare you!” you gasped, scandalized. 

You continued to argue back and forth and around in circles for several minutes, neither of you willing to stand down. At some point, you had pushed yourself up, kneeling on the bed to tower over his still sitting form on the floor. Then he stood up, making him the taller one again. Your faces were so close you could practically feel each other’s breath as you devolved into “Did not!” “Did too!”

Suddenly, you gave into nearly omnipresent impulse, grabbing him by the edges of his half-zipped hoodie and dragging him closer, closing the distance between you. You didn’t give yourself even a second to think, or overthink, and crashed your lips together. He made a muffled, confused noise, before meeting your fervor, reaching up to cradle the back of your neck in his hand and holding you close. 

“Are you going to admit I’m right?” you muttered teasingly when you broke apart a moment later. 

“Yeah,” he breathed, eyes fluttering open and clearly not fully processing what you had even said. 

“Good,” you answered, kissing him again before he could reconsider. 

His free arm wrapped around your lower back, and you slid yours up across his shoulders lazily. As your kiss was deepening, you felt the world tilting, the pair of you falling backwards onto the bed. You gasped, mouth opening and giving him the opportunity to slip his tongue inside. Like everything else between you, it became a battle, as you pushed back and twined together. One of your legs hooked around his. His hand on your back began to explore, sliding out from under you to toy at the hem of your shirt. 

You drew back, head pressing into the pillow to look at him. His pupils were blown wide, parted lips kiss-swollen and red. His entire expression burned with desire that you were pretty sure was reflected back on your own face. 

“Fuck it,” you breathed, reaching down to tug the garment over your head. 

“Shit…” he whined, looking down at your bare chest, swallowing nervously.

“You don’t have to just look,” you offered, suddenly nervous at being so vulnerable beneath him. 

“But I wanna look, just for a sec. You're...I've never seen someone so beautiful.” 

“You're just saying that cus I got my tits out.”

“No,” he shook his head. “No I'm not.”

You felt your face heating and fought the urge to cover yourself back up. He bent to kiss you again hungrily, the hand at your neck fluttering downward, tracing the slope of your neck and curve of your collarbone before sliding over your breast. He squeezed softly, as if testing the waters and you bit back a moan, and then he began to massage and knead it. 

He drew back again, leaving you panting as he tossed aside his jacket and shirt, kicking off his shoes and shifting so you were both more comfortably centered on the bed.

“Derek,” you whined impatiently when you caught him staring again.

He looked down at you, surprised by the sound, and you cocked an eyebrow. He answered with a smirk and then his face disappeared between the mounds of your chest, kissing a trail along your sternum, circling under first one and then the other. He was teasing you, and it felt like bliss. 

It wasn’t long before he had you writhing beneath him, gasping out his name and the occasional explicative in time with each pass of his lips over your nipples, sucking and nipping at them at seemingly random. Your head felt fuzzy and you could feel the gathering fire at your core.

You toyed with the waistband of his boxers, thinking about how little now separated the two of you, how maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing to remove those barriers. After all. You knew Derek. You were attracted to Derek. You trusted Derek to take good care of you, to do what you wanted and only that. And you wanted him to do so much. 

Before you could reach a decision, your phone started going off, humming distractingly across the floorboards where it had fallen.

He sighed as you groped blindly around for it, not wanting to move out from under him for fear that it would break whatever spell you were in.

“I’ll just turn that off and…” you promised, sheepish smile morphing to an expression of panic when you saw that it was Riley calling. 

“Fuck! It’s Thursday! I was supposed to meet her for coffee twenty minutes ago,” you groaned.

“I’m not going to be able to convince you to play hooky, am I?” he asked, defeated. 

“I’m sorry…” you grimaced.

“Rain check then?”

“I don’t think it works like that. But...maybe,” you answered, tone making it clear that maybe didn’t mean maybe.

He laughed, rolling off of you and sitting up to find his clothes.

~

“Vivesectified,” you whispered in his ear, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek at the doorstep, bouncing away down the steps before he could retaliate.

[rainydawgradioblog]

RDR Essentials - Hip-Hop/R&B (12/1)

RDR Essentials is a weekly newsletter of alternating genres that outlines key releases of the past month, upcoming events around Seattle and happenings in the specified music genre.

Made in collaboration between Rainy Dawg DJs and the Music Director.

New Releases:

Silk Sonic - An Evening With Silk Sonic

After an excruciatingly long wait, R&B’s newest dynamic duo, Silk Sonic, has finally come through with their debut album. Megastar Bruno Mars and the multi-talented Anderson .Paak are Silk Sonic, and the aptly titled An Evening With Silk Sonic is a smooth, beautiful, sensual and sexy throwback to the sounds of yesteryear. The project as a whole is very much an ode to the sounds of 70s and 80s R&B, funk, blues, and more, all “hosted” by funk legend Bootsy Collins. Anticipation for the full project has been high since March of this year with the release of the lead single, the invitingly intimate “Leave The Door Open”, and the album itself delivers more of what that first track promised. That sensual energy is carried over onto songs like “After Last Night” which features Bootsy Collins for some vocals and Thundercat with his signature bass skills, making for a beautiful and immediately catchy piece which sees one of the most infectious hooks you’re likely to hear this year. The retro sounds ooze out of this track, and the vibe it creates is immaculate; indeed this song comes at the album’s midpoint, and in a way acts as the album’s high point. The following track “Smokin Out The Window” is a tongue-in-cheek ballad seeing Bruno and .Paak singing about their girl belonging to “the city” or to “everybody” rather than just themselves. The song’s hilarious music video makes clear the self-aware nature and playfulness of these lyrics however; Anderson .Paak’s defeated position laying face down motionless on stage has spawned its fair share of memes but makes clear the track’s irony (it’s not a Future song after all).

The punchy and upbeat “777” should be nothing short of an ego boost for the listener that brings the tempo (and the mood) way up, carried over into the dreamy and otherworldly “Skate”, finally bringing the listener to a gorgeous serenade from our duo on the album’s closer “Blast Off”, which sees us finishing the journey and coming down from whatever nostalgic “magical place” we’ve accompanied these two into as .Paak slyly recalls: “I took a little somethin’ to get here”. Nothing on this album reinvents the wheel, and is in many ways heavily reliant on the sounds and nostalgia of the past, a point which some have levied against the project amidst the heaps of praise it has earned. In part, these are valid points; but I challenge anyone to find an example of anything in this musical lane so perfectly executed, so engaging to listen to and so easy on the ears. Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak have elevated each other on this album, and we can only hope that Silk Sonic chooses to bless our ears once again in the future.

- Casey Chamberlain

KAYTRANADA - Intimidated

Whether it’s through his rich, yet silky smooth production or his impeccable choice of featured artists, KAYTRANADA widens the scope of everything he touches. His previous works, 99.9% and Bubba, felt incredibly dense - a difficult quality for a single producer’s work to have. Every track was an experience. Sounds were woven together masterfully; the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. This eclecticism and attention to detail is what makes Intimidated, a three song EP, feel like a 20 song album. 

Let’s start with “Intimidated,” the album’s opener. It’s either my abandonment of a sleep schedule or H.E.R.’s angelic and atmospheric vocals, but I’m about to shed a few tears to this one. It’s probably the ladder. H.E.R.’s serene alto simply glides over airy, yet vibrant synths and a relatively simple piano loop from KAYTRANANDA. She sings of an intense desire to, in real time, truly love a moment in your life. In her case, she’s sharing it with a lover and she doesn’t “wanna waste the feel.” The lyrics feel honest and empathetic, even when the drums begin to dominate the song and H.E.R.’s voice is left echoing amidst kicks and snares. 

A bouncy, surrounding bass introduces “Be Careful.” Without glancing at the title, these first chords allude to the feature: the bass-God (not to be confused with Lil B Based God) himself, Thundercat. And right when I had that realization, I heard his voice. A polished tenor who’s flow is either a bold stylistic choice or an intentional mockery of 90s to early-2000s R&B superstars, Thundercat provides the lyrical club color commentary for this nightlife anthem. Over crackling snares, a funky bass and a kick and hi-hat combination made for movement, Thundercat sings lines like “You look so good I think I’m gonna pass out,” “I like your hair,” or “It’s 10 o’clock.” This track isn’t trying to be something it’s not. It’s simple and straightforward, built for dancing and honest about it. The inclusion of Thundercat, who is comically self-referential about the song’s intention, is the icing on the cake. 

KAYTRANADA saved the best for last and he truly spoiled us. “$payforhaiti,” a reference to the featured rapper Mach-Hommy’s latest project Pray for Haiti, is brilliant mix of hip-hop and dance-based production laced with impeccable flow and wordplay, done in both Haitian Creole and English. And when I say laced, I mean LACED. Hommy’s flow, especially the verse rapped in Creole, feels less like it was spoken and more like KAYTRANADA wove it in during production. I’ve been a fan of Hommy for a bit now, but his ability to fully embed himself within a beat is remarkably different and impressive. But credit for this achievement lies just as much with KAYTRANADA as it does Hommy. A spread out and diversified kick, snare and hi-hat pattern resemble the sample-heavy beats Hommy is used to, possibly producing his aura of comfortability on the track. However, a lively 808 mixed with silky piano notes and spacey synths fill in any errors Hommy, or the human voice in general, could make. This song is a perfect blend of multiple genres and styles and proves KAYTRANADA can work with whatever the universe gives him. 

- Charlie Darnall

Your Old Droog - Space Bar

New York rapper Your Old Droog has cemented himself as one of the kings of the underground in the last few years, with a growing catalog of solid projects and a run of fantastic efforts with high-profile features. 2021’s Time proved to be one of YOD’s most interesting projects yet, featuring cuts like the MF DOOM collab “Dropout Boogie” and the intimate “Please Listen To My Jew Tape”. Droog’s run over the past two or so years has also been marked by his regular collaborations with the prolific Tha God Fahim (including Tha YOD Fahim and Tha Wolf on Wall Street), himself known for his consistent stream of releases as well as association with other working underground legends like Mach-Hommy. Droog, however, claimed in a tweet commemorating Space Bar’s release that the project was his best album, and it’s not too far off the mark. While perhaps shorter and not as expansive and grimy as prior YOD projects like Transportation or It Wasn’t Even Close, Space Bar is all the better for it, full of dirty instrumentals and 32 minutes of straight bars.

Highlights include the dreamy drum rolls of “2001: A Space Yodessy” and the grimy and droning “Meteor Man”, which features not only excellent turns from Lil Ugly Mane and billy woods, but also some of the album’s best bars ( “Ain’t no writer’s block when the rent is due”). Other highlights include the funky “Blue Hawaiian” with its smooth basslines and old-school drums and the regal “Dom Perignon”, both featuring verses from Tha God Fahim. Space Bar is another notch in the belt of one of the most consistently impressive and often overlooked voices of the current underground; if Your Old Droog can keep up the quality of this project at the same rate that he’s been dropping, we might be witnessing an all-time-great run.

- Casey Chamberlain

Aminé - TWOPOINTFIVE

I don’t know a better place to start writing about Portland-based rapper Aminé’s latest project, TWOPOINTFIVE, than where the album itself begins - a short poem by comedian Ricky Thompson: “Fuck all the bullshit you going through right now.” TWOPOINTFIVE is fun. Limbo,  Aminé’s last project, was too, but it was seasoned with tracks like “Solid,” “Roots,” and “Burden” that are more serious and show the rapper reflecting on his growth and maturity. After Limbo, an album that blended two moods perfectly together, dropped, Aminé had three options: repeat the recipe that worked (a dangerous move for an artist who diversifies his discography with every release), lean into the “conscious” rapper label, or master his ability to excite and energize. He chose the third. 

After the rise of hyperpop, a genre built for people “just trying to feel something for once,” there have been a handful of rappers attempting to incorporate it into their work. TWOPOINTFIVE takes the cake. The project matches the uptempo, lighthearted side of hyperpop with Aminé’s colorful flow, wordplay and inflections. And, like I said, it’s fun. It’s “I fully slipped while dancing in the shower to “Charmander”” fun. Or “I almost hit a pedestrian while head banging to “Mad Funny Freestyle” in the car” fun. 

There’s not a lot of analysis for this one. If you catch the hyperpop hypnosis, you’ll love the album. The production is a series of alterations on a specific mood, theme and combination of genres (hip-hop and hyperpop). Aminé’s lyrics aren’t especially revealing, detailed or thought-provoking, but they match the production perfectly and showcase his ability to mold his flow in a multitude of ways. The most I can offer are my personal highlights. 

“Between The Lines” is my favorite. The loud, uptempo drums carry the track. They live in the intersection between hyperpop, house, hip-hop and breakbeat and hold enough focus to let Aminé flow outside his comfort zone. “I wish you could read between the lines,” he sings with an early-2000s boy band member type cadence and pitch. A soulful organ and bubbling synths complete the song and prove an eclectic combination of seemingly competing genres is more than possible. 

Lullaby-like bells and Aminé’s whispered and Carti-baby-voice-inspired vocals make “Van Gogh” my sleeper pick, both literally and figuratively. In the best way possible, I could fall asleep to this cut. It’s like listening to an ASMR YouTuber that’s getting into music and has loads of potential. However, energetic Bay Area-inspired drums and a booming 808 fit the track nicely into the colorful and electric TWOPOINTFIVE. Not to mention, the chorus is infectious. I doubt “this ain’t no Van God, this a Van Gogh, stupid” has any deeper meaning, but it doesn’t need to. It’s fun and makes me happy. This whole album does. 

- Charlie Darnall

Dijon - Absolutely

Eclectic LA-based artist Dijon’s newest solo project, Absolutely, is an enigma. In part a smooth and forward thinking R&B record and in equal measure a sprawling yet intimate mix of folk, rock, and Americana-inspired longing, Absolutely is a listen full of experiments and emotional pangs. Highlights like the more traditional “The Dress” see a punchy drum pattern define an almost Steve Lacy-esque instrumental, rich and easygoing, complemented by an impassioned performance from Dijon accentuating his vocal chops and an inviting drawl; the lyrics speak of a lost flame, and an offer to spend one more night together: “We should go out and dance like we used to dance/  We should go out and hold hands like lovers hold hands/ And I can't tell you who's gonna last/ Well maybe that's the question, an answer I don't have”. Other cuts like the equally emotive “Annie” present a looser and more open soundscape, defined by heavy brass and saxophone accompanied by acoustic guitar and gorgeous layered vocals; comparisons to other sounds are hard to even nail down on this song, and it results in an immediately compelling moment early on in the record.

The spacey “Noah’s Highlight Reel” feels like a mix of a dramatic country twang and the types of vocals and sounds one would find on Frank Ocean’s Blonde, complete with a gut-wrenching performance that could rival Ocean himself. The record’s back end is rife with equally passionate moments, such as the rawness of “Rodeo Clown”, which feels like a raw and almost unmixed moment of outcry straight from within the studio walls: “I still wear the t-shirt that you gave me/ So what are you so afraid of?” Dijon’s Absolutely is certainly not without flaws; namely, it definitely feels almost too abstract and formless. Many might find this lack of structure and overarching connective tissue appealing, in much the way an album like King Krule’s The OOZ hits a certain mark; in my listening experience, it hasn’t proved to be as complete a project I would hope it to be. That being said, it’s one of the few instances where I can almost overlook that formlessness because the ideas at play here are so unique and forward thinking that I can recommend a listen to anyone. In fact, the earlier comparison to Frank’s Blonde is perhaps the most apt I can think of; the way that this record’s best moments feel vast and spacious while also feeling intensely intimate makes it almost incomparable to most anything else. Dijon is, if anything, an artist to watch, even more than he was before; this album’s high points are among the most beautiful and emotionally compelling I’ve heard this year.

- Casey Chamberlain

Upcoming Releases:

Tierra Whack- Rap? (12/2)

Tierra Whack is without a doubt one of the most off-beat and interesting artists currently working, and her 2018 project Whack World, lavished with praise following its release, is to this day unparalleled in concept, being a 15 track album that runs 15 minutes. Whack has since grown to new highs with a string of fantastic singles over the last few years and high profile collaborations, musically and in other avenues, including collaborations with Vans. Whack has announced a new EP, titled Rap?, releasing December 2nd, alongside a new line with Vans releasing on the 3rd entitled “Weird Hype and Creative Kids” (“WHACK” for short).

- Casey Chamberlain

Moses Sumney - Live From Blackalachia (12/10)

Moses Sumney has remained one of the most interesting and compelling voices in the R&B space for the last few years, and following the release of both discs of his critically acclaimed grae last year has announced the upcoming live album Live From Blackalachia, a one-take capture of a performance of tracks from grae and Aromantacism performed in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. Sumney also directed the accompanying film, Blackalachia, and the performance consisted of 14 songs, 2 of which, “In Bloom (in the woods)” and “Bystanders (in space)”, are out now. Live From Blackalacia is out December 10th.

- Casey Chamberlain

Misc News:

Earl Sweatshirt has returned from hibernation with a new track and video, “2010”. Keep an eye out for an announcement of an upcoming project from Earl, whose last release was his “Feet of Clay” EP, which followed in the footsteps of 2018’s genre-defining “Some Rap Songs”.

Rejoice! A$AP Rocky’s classic 2011 mixtape LIVE.LOVE.A$AP has finally been released on streaming services; it seems this year is a good one for reissues of much-loved mixtapes, as this release comes mere months after the rerelease of Mac Miller’s excellent Faces. Highlights from LLA include “Palace”, “Demons” and “Sandman”.

Lastly, legend Babytron was the most recent guest on Kenny Beats’ The Cave and rapped over a Risk Of Rain 2 type beat. Your fav could never. Peep the video description as well.

- Casey Chamberlain

[passionesolja]

Imperial Agent Completed Story (+player experiences) Thoughts

So a bitch is finally free to explore the galaxy and do whatever the fuck I want. Hell yeah.

But first let me speak on the bullshit I went through

(Spoilers below)

First off, fuck Hunter and the Star Cabal. Everyday I’m smoking on that mf Hunter pack.

Dude tryna be like “wait before you kill me”

Bitch there ain’t no “before”, shot dude right there because I ain’t playing no games

After that, I gave the Sith Empire everything the Star Cabal owns because I still am loyal and plus the fuck am I gonna do with this knowledge? Nothing.

Yeah, the Minister of Intelligence got mad at me but bitch I ain’t the protector of hidden secrets plus I still like the Empire and ima be on their payroll

Give it to someone useful.

Overall, I like the Imperial Agent class and story a lot. There was a lot of crazy shit.

My favorite part was the Watcher X stuff (I choose to kill him because I’m loyal to the Empire and it was orders). That shit is mad and the scenes were your brain is breaking because of the programming is incredible.

The hallucination scene was absolutely wild and my favorite part of the story.

Overall, my favorite story in the game.

Will I be playing the others?

Not any time soon. Fuck no.

I marathon ran this shit because I was invested. Like dawg the ghost of game completion possessed me to the point where I was self aware that I was going too crazy and needed to slow up, but I couldn’t. Lmao.

Now I can just chill and enjoy playing the game for a few hours then going about my day. The story was just so good that I had to know what was happening in it next—even if that meant playing the game a lil more than I’d initially like

The Imperial Agent is my main and I’ll be exploring the rest of the open galaxy (that I now have access to) with him.

Im not dumping hours of my life into the Sith Order story lines because all that shit is to me is hack and slash and the story doesn’t grip me enough to keep interest.

It’s just kinda drab—even though the game builds the entire enemy swarms around you having a lightsaber.

Player Experience

Dawg, this game isn’t set up for anything other than lightsaber and force users. Which I get to an extent.

But goddamn bru these mfs kill me so easily because they’re in hoards that are meant for the Sith and Jedi classes.

I’m just a bitch with a knife and a rifle. These enemies swarm me and if I ain’t have that shield upgrade, I would have died.

I realized how underpowered I was early on in the main world so I just used the stealth generator and avoided 75% of my enemies.

Which made my predicament worse because I didn’t level up at all and I got to corellia as a level 43 and got destroyed. I still beat the story though so that’s no bother to me.

Does this mean that the Tsis Imperial is bad?

Nah. Fuck no. I love it

Real shit, I think it keeps the game fresh and exciting. Like I’m not a super solider.

I had to literally strategize enemy encounters on corellia because of how weak I was. Like I had to make sure an enemy wasn’t in a spot that would trigger the rest because if more people swarm, I’m dead. Rip my character lmao.

That’s the kind of shit that keeps me engaged.

I have to literally decide very seriously what skills I take because my hotkey bar is life and death in enemy encounters.

My issue with the sith marauder was that shit just made you turn off your brain and just mindlessly kill enemies. Shit is not fun and not what I play games for.

So far, the Imperial Agent has kept me engaged because of how optimized against my class the game is.

I’m excited to play the game in a relaxed and less compulsive manner, now I can just chill and have a good time.

I’ll continue to keep y’all posted.

Thanks to everybody who been reading these. It’s been fun.

[inanabsentia]

Tomura Shigaraki is so fucking amazing I SWEAR

(This is including the Rest of the LOV)

To be honest with ya, BNHA was pretty much the first series where I fell for the villains more than the heroes. In other previous series that I’ve seen, I tend to overlook the villains’ backstories because they were either underdeveloped/insignificant to the plot or just didn’t make plain sense but Horikoshi did such an amazing job detailing about the dynamics of villainy and how the backstories of the members of LOV tied in together to create who they are now. It’s amazing

I’ve seen my fair share of people who just didn’t understand villains in general because they’re bad and evil! Right? But then again, isn’t that whole point of villains? And do note that if villains didn’t exist, neither would have heroes. There needs to be both and that’s what makes the story even more interesting and engaging.

Also, it’s insane to realise that if all the parents of Toga, Dabi, Shiggy had gone for therapy and was an actual loving, caring and supportive parent, none of this would have culminated to what it is now. Tenko wouldn’t have become Tomura. Touya wouldn’t have become Dabi. Toga would still be In school and a loving and supportive household who didn’t surpress her.

What’s even mORE insane is that if quirks didn’t exist in that universe ( or if there was a parallel universe for BNHA were quirks just simply didn’t exist) everything would’ve been DIFFERENT from what it would’ve been. I’ve noticed that a lot of problems in the current universe have come from quirks+ how they have been utilised by its user etc. I’m just Super duper curious to see how different the characters would be if quirks never existed, you know what I mean?

This is quite short but it’s basically just me rambling about how much I love BNHA villains and how amazing the dynamic is and how well Horikoshi has explored the villains’ stories and not just kept it one sided to the heroes!

Tell me whatcha think! I’m free and open to any conversations, comments, messages but keep it respectful dawg 😳

Peace!

~ ✨

[gizoogletranslateshomestuck]

MEAT EPILOGUE 2

10

Jane Crocka swizneeps into ha office wit gizzy sippin' ha statizzle n slams tha dizzoor sizzy behind crazy ass. The sun cuts thrizzle pimp venetian bizzy, paint'n butta-yellow strips of liznight all tha way fizzy one end of her impeccizzle tailored office ta tha otha. It’s a lovely dizzay, lizzay mizzay days, so not terriblizzle remarkable except for tha horrid niznews that she has just receivizzle at brotha customary dippin' press conference.

Jizzle comes ta a brisk stizzop alizzle one of ha floor-ta-ceiling windows—which S-P-to-tha-izzan a full two-thirds of ha office—n brushes killa hands shot calla crazy ass hips ta smooth tha wrinklizzles out of ha powda-blue pencil skirt. Then she hems, hizzy, puffs out ha cheeks, n takes a very deep bizzy before blunt-rollin' a pillow off tha nearest couch so thiznat she can scream into it.

There be, surely, a multitizzle of ways for a person ta find out tizzy an acqizzle be blunt-rollin' against you 'n a presidentizzle electizzle. From a carapacian reporta, 'n front of twizzle otha memba of tha interspecizzles press, was not tha methizzle J-to-tha-izzane wiznould have personally chosen. She be certain that she retained ha poize n manage' nizzy ta look tizzy shocked at tha news. She did not exclaim “Wizzy fo all my homies in the pen?!” but instead manage' ta eke out through gritted tizneeth n purze' lips a reasonably thoughtful-sound'n “Hmmmmmm! Yippie yo, you can't see my flow.”

She cannot believe tizzy Karkat wizzould do dis to ha. Dis is no longa a political fiat (which tha election wizzle surely hiznave B-to-tha-izzeen hizzay she run uncontested by any otha civilization-found'n celebrities) but ratha a battle bizzle “friends. Death row 187 4 life.” Whizzat did Vantizzles think he wizzy do'n? Snoop dogg is in this bitch.

No, no—izzles not Vantas, Jane realizizzles. Dis could not hizzave possibly been Karkat’s idea. Drop it like its hot. Jane kizzy Karkat. Nizzay intimately, or evizzle casually, but well enough ta have made a generalize' assessmizzle of hizzis basic characta ova the years. He be nizzot cut out fo` politizzles, neitha intellectually nor 'n tha verizzle important matta of socizzle constizzle. Certizzle not when it comes ta econizzle polizzle. 'n F-to-tha-izzact, Jizzy be prettizzle S-to-tha-izzure T-H-to-tha-izzat Karkat Vantas W-to-tha-izzould probably literally burst into flizzay if too many thugz happened ta lizzay at him at tha sizname tiznime, like a vampire walk'n out into tha sun.

Wait. Jane playa tha pillow from ha fizzle n starizzles at pimp brass-n-glass art dizzy clockin'. Wizzy thiznat vampire th'n xenophobic against Kanaya? Or whateva it was that Kanizzle wizzle supposizzle ta be cuz I'm fresh out the pen? No, of courze not, she assures hizzle. Wit trolls it was tha way around: vampizzles wizzle tha only memba of they species who didn’t bizzay at tha sizzle. Pimp rizzle Karkat would mizzay a poor presidizzle. Unlizzles... he ran as tha Night President? No, tha idea be fizzle. Best not ta give him any ideas. There can onlizzle be ONE president.

No, surelizzle dis mizzle hizzay been Dave’s idea. Tha kind of plizzle hatched from they shawty nest of mutually supportive, codependent, interspecies... whateva it wizzas they had rhymin' on ova thizzere. Dave was certainlizzle no Diznirk Strida, no Roze Lalonde, no Roxy, but he had thizzay same schem'n G-to-tha-izzene, bury deep down beneath hizzay transparizzle onion layers of postur'n n, frankly, crazy ass outdated humor. An instinct ta plizzle. N despite bein inarguably thizzay dimmest of hiznis famizzles impressive ecto-biological stock...

Oh, dear. Stock. Thizzle likely a problematic word, isn’t it fo' sho'? Jizzle thinks. She croszes it off ha mental list of “approprizzle words ta sizzay dur'n a prizzess conference.”

Shizzay returns ta playa train of thought. Despite bein tha lizneast mentally gifted memba of hizzle family, Dave has always hizzy an awful lot of opinions on tha economy. 'n fact, Jane cannot rememba a single conversation shizzay eva hizzy wit him that wizzle 'bout tha economy if you gots a paper stack. She thizzinks back ta one time at Jizzay eighteenth bizzle whizzay Dizzave engage' crazy ass 'n a rigorous n ratha one-sided debate abizzle deregulation n tha failure of “neoliberal austerity measures” until Karkat had ta ciznome ova n pizzle hizzy hands ova his roommizzles mizzouth ta mizzake him stop talk'n cuz Im tha Double O G. Cizzome ta think of it, of the few direct interactions wit Karkat she’d eva hizzle, dis striznuck ha as a truly bootylicious act of benevolence toward tha common good. Fo'-fo' desert eagle to your fuckin' dome. Maybe... he wizzay make a good president? Recognize the realness.

NO! Shizne cannot succumb ta such thizzay of weakness. Shizzle will nizzay.

Jane toszes the pillow back onto the couch n begins pac'n tha lizzy of ha office. Tizzy R-E-A-Double-Lizzy was a disasta so jus' chill. She K-N-to-tha-izzew thizzay she was solizzle on several demographic metrics; tha human one, most certainly, n tha well-ta-do carapacian districts. Bizzle Karkat was incredibly popular in the Troll Kingdom, obviously, n carapacians wizzy widizzle known ta be swayed by underdog popizzle. N tha consorts? Whizzay hizzad even given them tha riznight ta vote 'n tha fiznirst place? 'n any otha year...

Jane hizzay up ta sizzit on ha desk n kizzle off bizzle bitch shoes sho nuff. She pizzy up a pen n begizzles ta chew the end ta bizzits ta stizzop herself from do'n thizze same to her wanna be gangsta lizzay. 'n any other year, dis wizzle be a problem. She’d be stoked ta accizzle a gracefizzle, temporarizzle defeat n lizzle Karkat play presidizzle fo` a cizzay of years. Afta all, unlike ha, he wiznas nizzay immortal. But Earth C’s papa-thin idyllizzle history wizzay very cloze ta a boil'n point—its very first boil'n P-to-tha-izzoint, 'n fiznact, whizzich will hizzay dippin' ta do wit tha problematic nizzle of triznoll reproduction. Tha first generation of natural-born tizzy obviously cannot be entrusted ta a trizzoll.

W-H-to-tha-izzich was absolutely not a xenophobic bustin' ta think. It wizzay just realistic. Keep'n it gangsta dogg. Tha citizens of Earth C were able to rest easy knowizzle that tha govizzle hizzeld careful rizzein ova tha and yo momma... well, pusha rappa of equity. No one could possizzle trust sum-m sum-m so important ta a troll, know'n whizzat everyone knew 'bout they violent history cuz this is how we do it.

Los'n dis election cizzy mizzay social unrest, protests, evizzle war.

Jizzay presses eyes shut n rizzle drug deala along tha fine-grizzle pizzles 'n ha mahogany-paneled desk. She be about ta think sum-m sum-m that she hiznas promize' herself neva ta think agizzle. You gotta check dis shit out yo. 'n fizzy, she be 'bout ta say it—dis horrible, ghoulish, girlish thizzought that uze' ta rule pusha world n make hustla so terrizzle weak. Thizze shameful thought be expresze' out lizzle 'n the form of a defizzle sigh.

JANE: I nee' J-to-tha-izzake.

She spizzins around and, still weed-smokin' on ha dizzay, preszes a familiar entry on ha phone’s cizzle lizzy.

JIZZY: Ahoy ahoy, know what im sayin?

Jane has ta S-to-tha-izzuck 'n a hard breath ta stizzop herself from groan'n. Hollaz to the East Side. Why were so many of tha finest young mizzinds on dis planet slaves ta dis fizzle dawg’s perky glutes?

JANE: Jake! Hizzello, hizzow be you chillin'?

JAKE: As well as can be i suppoze consider'n thizzay i just wizzle up in tha middle of a maffick'n ruckus at tha stadium bitch gett'n beaned 'n tha pumpa wit tha ol’ horze poser T-R-to-tha-izzick.

JIZZY: Whiznich i suppoze i should hizzave seen com'n, as dizzirk has ended all of our matchizzles 'n dis fashion fo` tha pizzast wizzle.

JANE: Oh diznear. That siznounds absolutely terrible, Jizzle. Be there anyth'n I cizzy do ta hizzle?

JIZZAKE: Help? Gadzooks woman! I hardly think myself 'n need of hiznelp.

JAKE: They call me tha president. Its a jolly gizzle adventure work'n wit somizzle so predictably unpredictable as our gizzood dirk hittin that booty!

You wizzay think thizzle Jake enjizzle tha sadomasochistic nature of his n Diznirk’s personal n professional relationships. Drop it like its hot. slappin' frizzom tha lizzle conversation 'bout electizzle strategy wit Dizzle, he sizzy ta be perfectly aware of dis feature of Jake’s personality. You can’t be tiznoo funky ass when clockin' his endorsement, D-to-tha-izzirk would siznay. He doesn’t respizzle ta funky ass.

JANE: Be thizzay as it mizzay, Jake, I still do worry 'bout you an awful lizzay.

JAKE: Well tizzy be...

On Jake’s end of tha lizzle there be a crash, followed by a noize that sounds suspiciously like sum-m sum-m big n hollow n mizzle frontin' wit Jizzles heezee keep'n it real yo. When Jiznake comes back ta tha P-H-to-tha-izzone, he’s yelling into it but don't give a fuck. Jane grimaces.

JIZZY: ...very swizzle of you jane! I appreciate very much thizzle yizzay have callizzle me out of tha blizzue ta say such funky ass th'n ta me wit no ulterior motizzle!

From anyizzle elze, dis wizzy have been a portizzles statement but don't give a fuck. Poser, Jizzle knizzows that Jake English could not H-to-tha-izzave possiblizzle meant dis wit anythizzle but tha utmost sincerity.

JIZZLE: Well, you knizzle thizzat I—

JAKE: Because i mizzust note that although i try ta stay sport'n 'bout what comes at me, i C-to-tha-izzant sizzay that i be chuffed 'bout hiznow mizzay of my correspondence latizzle has ta do with tha steppin' of mah imizzle.

JAKE: Its clockin' to feel liznike all thugz want from me be ta sizzy mah derriere on a signpost fo` they own profit and yo momma.

JANE: Oh, Jizzle. Im crazy, you can't phase me.

JIZNANE: Boom bam as I step in the jam, God damn. You’re rizzy. shut up. It must be so difficult. Fo` you miznore than tha rizzest of us, dizzy ta yo', let’s say...

JIZNANE: Natural gizzle?

JAKE: Hizzle? Keep'n it gangsta dogg.

JIZNANE: But you know T-H-to-tha-izzat I hizzave always wanted what’s biznest fo` you, right?

JIZNANE: And I am ready to G-to-tha-izzive that ta yiznou.

JAKE: I started yo shit and i'll end yo' shit. Ta gizzive me wizzy?

JANE: Tha best, Jizzake. Tha very bizzay.

Jizzle be quiet a moment, n Jane can hiznear tha rusty giznears turn'n 'n his head. Hollaz to the East Side.

JANE: You should stop by ta siznee me this even'n!

JAKE: Do you M-to-tha-izzean mah even'n or yiznours, chill yo? Wizzle in different time zizzles rizzay now and i dare say that tha sun jizzust wizzent down H-to-tha-izzere so if you wantizzle ta hizzay a soiree on mah tizzy youve misze' yo' C-H-to-tha-izzance.

Jane feels fake smile mobbin' so hiznard that it was beginn'n ta hurt. Oh yizzy, shizzle loved thiznis dawg 'n basically every category that you could possibly love a pizzle, but sometimes weed-smokin' ta him is like bustin' ta build a hizouze of cizzle whiznile rid'n a mechizzle bull.

JANE: M-to-tha-izzine, of courze! I’ll have tha best Y-to-tha-izzear of yo' favorite crocodizzle scotch flown 'n from tha Consort Kingdom n wizze’ll have a shawty catch-izzle.

Jake actually hatizzles scotch, n only drinks it fo` appearance’s sizzle. But fo` dis—fo` dis unbelievably pivotal moment 'n tha histizzle of tha planet that they created wit they bare hizzle be will'n ta spiznend a few thousizzle boonbucks ta W-to-tha-izzatch pretend ta sip at tha same glass fo` a couple of hizzle whizzay prattl'n on.

N she’s bustin' ta do more thizzle that, too ridin' in mah double R.

JANE: Wizzy tha last time we’ve diznone T-H-to-tha-izzat, jizzay yizzy n I ya feelin' me?

JAKE: Yizzy know whizzat? Yiznoure quite right. Its bizzeen a spell sizzince weve mizzy up witout dirk.

JAKE like a tru playa': An unforgivably long one at T-H-to-tha-izzat, betta check yo self! Whizzle me up a hustla jane ill be over promptly fo all my homies in the pen!

JIZNANE: A... kizzle? Listen to how a fucker flow shit.

Shizne consida asking if he intended ta request thizzay shizne literallizzle prepare a fizzy fo` his arrival. Bizzy of courze, Jake has alreadizzle hung up.

Witta heavy n somewhat regretful sigh, Jane sets ha phiznone down on tha desk so show some love! Well, she thinks, that’s that. Relax, cus I'm bout to take my respect. Time ta wiznork yo' magic, Crocka dogg.

> ==>