#drake sucks

[thegoodmorningman]

Happy Friday!!! Don't Think. Just Do.

[flawlesspider]

I have a fat crush on Kendrick Lamar.

[albumwalloffame]

Album Cover Wall of Infamy 2024 - Day 25

Drake - If You're Reading This It's Too Late

Oh... boy did I pick a good year to induct a Drake album on the Wall of Infamy.

Drake has been under fire this year from pretty much everyone, from fellow musicians, to internet music critics, to casual music listeners. It is a beef that I am WAY too underqualified to even think about discussing with any seriousness.

I tend to plan these pretty far ahead in advanced, so let's just say, I had no idea all of this was gonna happen when I decided to put this album cover at the end of the list, I just wanted to talk about a lazy, boring and basic ass album cover, the kind of which Drake has been using to represent his music with such disturbing frequency in the 2020s, and yes I know this Mixtape was released in 2015.

Yeah, the mid 2010s was officially the point I think Drake just gave up trying and began coasting, like he was a big star so he didn't need to put any more effort into anything than the bare minimum.

The problem with lazy album covers like this, is that the album cover represents the music, sure Pink Floyd's The Wall looks really dull with just the white brick wall as the album cover, but open it up and you have Scarfe's illustration work, representing the themes of the album. Led Zeppelin's debut self-titled album has an image of the Hindenburg disaster, representing the shock and controversial nature of hard rock and heavy metal. Rainbow's Rising has a fist grabbing a rainbow, representing something that is both fantastical but also epic.

When I look at lazy album covers, even when they're good, they tell me that the music on this record is worth skipping over, because if nobody wanted to put effort into the album cover, than why would anyone put effort into the music. Yes, this isn't really something people consider in the era of music streaming and unlimited access to music libraries, but that is why I started this side blog, to share some amazing, and not so amazing, Album Covers.

But also, fuck Drake.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

[kamikazeonwings]

characters have to be a little bit awful in ways that you cant defend. its good for the ecosystem. your honor he did do that. He did in fact do that

[notrobinsomethingworse]

Jason, freshly adopted from the streets. Still freaked out, wondering downstairs for breakfast.

Kid!Tim, munching on cereal: hi!

Jason: who are you?

Tim, wiping his hands clumsily on his pants and sticking it out for Jason to shake: Timothy Jackson Drake. Pleased to meet you!

Jason, shakes nervously before looking around: ah. Yeah. Jason.

Tim, seriously, eyes wide and innocent: did he steal you too?

Jason: What?

Tim: Did Batman steal you too?

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[fanaticalthings]

just another night in gotham

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[redfirerai]

Bats in their natural habitat

[timmydraker]

CW: abortion/misscariage talk

Tim finding out that he really, legitimately, was an unwanted child.

It all comes to light when he’s looking through his old medical records after loosing his spleen. He wanted to check that there were no allergies he had other than shrimp and then looked into his family. Of certain cancers or disease were common in his linage, he needed to be aware so he could lessen the risk as much as possible.

That’s when he discovers that his mother, proud !feminist’ and independent woman that she was, had refused several surgeries to remove her uterus or have her tubes tied but still had several abortions.

And by several, the papers literally mean several.

Seven whole abortions of children she didn’t want, yet both her and Jack refused to do anything to jsut… prevent any pregnancy in the first place.

They got it all covered with hush money so it wouldn’t get out to the public, but they ended up making a mistake.

Janet Drake went to a Gala when she was unknowingly pregnant and a woman, whose husband was the owner of a prominent news paper company, noticed several signs that Janet was with child. She pointed this out to Janet and when she saw the look of familiar realisation on her face, promised to keep it secret.

Just a day later an article was shown with a photo of Janet with a barely there bump and just like that, Jack and Janet were forced to keep their baby.

Maybe if they hadn’t made several public statements about being against abortion it wouldn’t have mattered, but hypocrites rarely win.

Tim finds several statements by doctors in their files, hidden away behind several fake files and private stamps, that show the couple had tried to figure out a way to ‘remove’ the child before it was born so it wouldn’t be a problem.

Tim even goes so far as to look at his parents search history around the time and sees in horror as it goes from searches on how to force a miscarriage to the financial benefits of a child.

That’s where Alfred finds him, frozen and staring at his screen with enough tears to make a puddle on his desk.

The worst part?

He’s not even that surprised.

[deadsetobsessions]

Tim Drake had a lot of free time.

In between the time little Timmy was deemed old enough to not need a nanny and his ninth birthday when he got his first film camera, Tim Drake had so much time after school to explore his big, empty house. And so he did, hours upon hours were spent exploring his house.

Mansion, Tim corrects himself. His house isn’t a house. It’s an abandoned mausoleum disguised as a mansion. He intimately knows every creak of the floorboards in the out of the way galleries, every heavy weight curtain shut closed so what little sun that makes it way through Gotham’s gloom is reflected in order to protect the artifacts stored within the walls. Tim probably knows the exact amount of fleur-de-lys on the fourth sitting room’s wall paper- by extrapolation from preexisting data and personal data collection. Basically, he laid on the floor and counted.

Tim had a lot of time. He also had a lot of artifacts to pore over, making stories as he goes and double checking the actual history of the object.

Tim thinks he’s an artifact, almost. To his parents, at least. A child, a thing, they collected at one point in their lives and put on display at the galas they deem worthy to return to Gotham for. Perhaps he’s worth even less, had his parents bothered to look at him more than the lesser art pieces in their storage-mansion. The story everyone knows about him is prerecorded by people who weren’t really there.

Regardless, Tim Drake knows every single corner of his prison mansion. He’s catalogued everything, after all, on a nice spreadsheet. 

And that’s why, as he entered the fifth- and least used- guest bedroom, Tim’s attention immediately cut to the wrong bit of detail. Eyes flickering between the indent on the bed, the mussed- but not terribly dirty- state of the sheets, Tim slowly backed towards the door. His eyes fixed on the spot on the bed, he called out a soft “hello?”

He immediately cringed. He’s not an amateur, and that little “hello” was a mistake that might get him killed.

Tim trembled as the panic set in, tears pooling at his eyes. He wished Batman and Robin were here, they’d know how to-

There’s something appearing on the bed. Tim Drake stares as a glowing figure with white, wispy hair and a black hazmat suit appeared sitting cross crossed on the guest bed. His gloved hands were held out in the universal I-mean-no-harm gesture.

“Don’t- don’t panic!” The thing said, looking rather panicked itself. “I’m, uh, Phantom.”

Tim Drake’s curiosity and mystery-solving mindset slammed down on the toddler’s mind, quickly banishing the fear and panick in favor of interrogating this new, exciting thing.

“I’m Tim. Are you…” Tim frowns, wishing he had Batman’s intimidating growl. “A ghost?”

“Got it in one, kiddo. I’m, uh, not here to harm you. Or steal anything! I just wanted to rest.”

Tim blinked. He decided right then and there that he likes this person. This… Phantom. If his trust was based on the fact that the loneliness was worse than a dead person, no, it wasn’t.

“I thought you sleep when you’re dead..?”

——

Danny stared at the child in front of him, watching the kid- Tim- pout at something. Danny is distracted from the staples holding his ghostly guts from falling out of his non-consensual vivisection when the kid asks him if he’s a ghost.

“Got it in one, kiddo!” Oo, he should tone down the energy. Danny’s too tired right now to maintain that level when speaking to Tim. Now, gotta reassure the kid he means no harm before he reports Danny’s presence to whatever authorities around.

His parents, at best. The cops, at worst.

“I’m, uh, not here to harm you. Or steal anything!” He could tell he landed in some richie rich mansion by the opulent decorations in a seemingly impersonal room alone. “I just wanted to rest.”

Ancients, that had been more honest than he’d wanted. He really was out of it.

“I thought you sleep when you’re dead?”

Danny snorted.

“Yeah, but you can almost never have enough sleep, you know?”

The toddler looks unsure but nods anyways.

“Listen, would you… not tell anyone that I’m here? I’ll be out of your hair soon, promise.

Tim looks like a smart kid. There’s no way he’d fall for-

“Okay.” He fell for it. Danny blinked, stupefied. “My parents won’t be home for a while.”

“What.”

Tim shrugged. “You can stay. The housekeeper is only around a couple of days.”

“You… are you supposed to tell me that?”

Tim sent him a derisive look, clearly bolder now that Danny made no moves to hurt him.

On his cherubic but skinny face, the effect is both adorable and absolutely devastating.

“You’re hurt.” Tim fidgeted with his hands. “I can… I can get you water…?”

His core purred.

“Please. Thanks… Tim?”

The kid beamed at him and left.

Crap. New fraid member it is.

——

Danny, naive: “Surely him trusting strangers is just a one time thing, he’s so well behaved”

Tim, staring Danny in the eyes as he jumps out of the window to go stalk his vigilantes: “I’m gonna go take a walk in Crime Alley”

——

Tim gets Danny water, but it’s tap water from Gotham and is infected with both an ungodly amount of toxins (that doesn’t affect either of them bc one’s dead and the other had been chugging it since they were a baby- Gothamites get bottled water or from Wayne Foundation’s Clean Water Stations) and also like trace amounts of ectoplasm.

Danny: woah this is so healthy water!

Tim, pleased because Danny ruffled his hair: yes, I’m perfect

The rest of Gotham, if they knew: making warding sigils against these two eldritch gods

——

Basically, Danny gets attached and stays mostly because of said attachment but also Danny could see Tim’s budding world dictator tendencies and went yeah gotta curb that

[exorbitant-interest]

DRAKE TICKETS!? I don’t need no Drake tickets! Gimme Tupac!

[comics-centalx]

HELL YEAH! RED HOOD CULT LETS GOOOOOO

[thumb-taks]

oddly familiar. isn't it?

Do you think when Jason was beating to Tim at himself he only saw his own bloodied corpse? Metal against skin. A familiar sound.

Do you think he felt sympathetic...? or maybe he felt like Tim should know what it felt like.

based on this panel ;)

[spoopydeboop]

The Rise and Fall of a Midwest… *squints at notes* Symbiote???

I just know he’d love Chappell Roan.

I didn’t live the way I laid out the bubbles, so I’ll prob redo this. :]

But yeah! I watched Venom 2 recently (and then 1 again) and loved it — albeit not as much as the first. I find that I typically enjoy the original more, the sequel less, and then love the third when it comes to movies. I haven’t seen The Last Dance yet but I fear it will rip my heart out. : ‘)

I cannot stress how much I’ve always loved the idea of symbiotes and hosts and what-not — but the movie has made me appreciate Eddie Brock and Venom specifically sooo much.

Little weirdos. Absolute freaks. 🫶🏼

[arunneronthird]

i have v few regrets about making tim an insufferable music nerd

[gbirrd]

the only good part of Gotham War was that Dick got to beat up his dad