#fuck that art shit im becoming a politician

[gimpy02924]

daan & stitches

Gave up on this bruh

[azumasoroshi]

stronghart is such a dick holy shit :sob: susato is so disappointed in him

gregson really is the gumshoe of the game sheesh

a comprehensive roast of britain (deserved)

didnt hobo phoenix have a beard lmfao i guess it was just stubble so he was on thin ice but didnt fall through

a comprehensive roast of japan (deserved)

japan strikes back with a hard hit

japan hits itself

i cant possibly screenshot the whole rabbit boom conversation but japan hits itself again lmfAO id love to see a rap battle between susato and gregson about who had the weirder taxes itd be hilarious

the rabbit boom is fair though who wouldnt want rabbits i want rabbits

also susato's mascot is a bunny right that's actually really cute

oh my god her bunny name is usato that's so. awwwwwww

what i would give for susato art with bunnies ugh (that is a cue to send me all susato bunny art in existence)

can i learn all my history lessons from dgs characters please

actually why isnt that a thing. people hang onto every word said by uhhh what are they called. vtubers right yeah why arent there any history or chemistry vtubers id watch the shit out of those lmAOo

if i get a psychology and teaching degree you can bet on what my career path is gonna look like following college

or maybe in college. get ez money from being an anime professor

ANYWAY

fuck what's your favorite movie icebreakers this should be the new standard

SUSATO WHAT THE FUCK AHUSGDHKJSDGJKJSDHJSD

watch that have been an actual tax britain or japan had. actually i guess it kind of is in american healthcare or in heavily polluted cities hm

THIS IS THE LINE EVER

ryuunosuke you would be a great politician/lawmaker you'd fit right in with the rest of them

NAHHHHHHHHH france what the fuck

ace attorney suddenly becomes a pay to win game like episode where all the good choices are paywalled help

episode traumatized me dude you'd have like the nicest outfit ever and it would be locked behind diamonds and youd have to go in rags and everyone would be like "lmao why are you wearing rags" and your character would be like "why didn't i go with the paywalled outfit :(" it fucking SUCKED

actually that mightve been where i got my restraint on spending in game currency from because i never spent anything on those choices even though i really wanted them

holds up well even now since im a master at saving in gacha games

anyway i wasnt expecting to like this escapade as much because im kinda eh on stronghart and gregson as characters but surprisingly it was really entertaining agffgjhhghkj in no small part to how much of an unapologetic douchebag stronghart is

i might actually like stronghart a lot more than i did before because of this escapade lMAOO funny how that works out

(source: x)

[dormats-town]

Pls Go for it, Town 👀

thank you the one they call tori

tw heavy topics, mentions of colonialism, shit like that.

so lets do this section by section i chronological order. because i said so.

we start off with bo, telling us how the world works. similar to how those in typically the earlier years of the elementary (more like kindergarten though, to be honest). it's simple, explaining that nature is perfect and that is apparently our world.

(side note: perfectly parallels that one line that every angsty ass tiktoker has been using recently, " you say the oceans rising like i give a shit. "* the world isn't working as perfectly as was due to the affect of humans/cooperation, which is another way i couldve gone over to the next part)

then socko is introduced.

socko speaks about the world's more human/corrupt side of things in a cheery tone. namely oppression and such. then we get to the more speaking part and GOD it is so so good.

essentially, bo asks socko what he could do to help. socko says to educate himself due to the fact it is incredibly exhausting to, yknow, unpack all that shit. then the following dialogue goes on and god it is so so good.

" I'm sorry, Socko. I was just trying to become a better person "

" Why do you rich fucking white people insist on seeing every socio-political conflict through the myopic lens of your own self-actualization?

This isn't about you!

So either get with it, or get out of the fucking way. "

and im just. holy shit bo burnham, white ass guy, got it. he got it. i am so familiar with situations like this where like, instead of focusing on learning- the one who doesn't experience that kind of oppression ends up not focusing on the information given. no, they're only thinking about being a better person and its like. he's right! it isn't about them. it isn't about them seeming like they're woke, its about the oppressed facing oppression.

and then. bo (in the song) tells socko to shut up for telling the truth. to shut up for being angry. to shut up about feeling frustration. to bo, socko can only express his frustration when he can educate people. once the truth starts actually offending him? he wants socko to stop. so, socko is threatened into behaving as bo sees for. yet, at the end of the song.. bo still punishes him, no matter what.

as a person of color, it is frustrating to experience time and time again people who do shit like this. not only by white people, but by other poc as well. most times, people will focus on the person who feels bad. who feels guilty of racism. not the poc. not the one who has a right to be frustrated. because that's how the world works. despite how progressive people are willing to be- it's not for the oppressed. it's to seem like a good, decent person. because for them? that's enough, so they don't continue their compassion and understanding further.

there's this one lyric i like from an AJJ song, that sounds completely unrelated, i know, but let me continue. People II: The Reckoning is honestly such a good song and it has really good lyrics, but this verse especially? good shit.

" But there's a bad man in everyone, no matter who we are.

There's a rapist and a Nazi living in our tiny hearts.

Child pornographers and cannibals and politicians too.

There's someone in your head, Wait to fucking strangle you "

holy. shit. let me just agahhgmgmgm. its so good. because it's true. we live in such a european based world. we let rapists influence how we think and be leaders. we let shit politicians control what we are taught and what we aren't taught in school. some live where the colonizers actually lived, and most lived in places that were colonized.

of course we're going to be bad people. there's so many conservative places where they spoon feed children that shit, and those kids become teenagers. then they become adults.

that's why unlearning it can be hard. that's why unlearning it can be difficult, but you shouldnt burden poc who are more in touch with their issues and their community in order to become a better person. educate yourself, because now we have the internet. sure it does take a lot of digging but for the love of fuck do not throw a fit for someone trying to point out something problematic that can be undone with work.

anyways thats enough of that, bo burnham's how the world works is art and bo burnham is one of the only white men ever.

(* this is not meant to offend anyone, though i stand by everything else i said)

[biconicfinn]

id like to know, what are your takes on politician!Alec? if you want to talk about that

THANK YOU FOR THIS ASK!!!!! POLITICIAN ALEC IS MY FUCKING JAM DJKABVHJKDBVKADVBFAV okay anon strap in because this will get crazy

holy shit this is long so i’m putting it under a read more!! 

okay so first of all: alec is someone who has been trained from a young age to be a politician, he would have been educated in diplomacy and politics, his parents were expecting him to become head of the new york institute and they have no qualms about living vicariously through their children and forcing their burdens on them as we have seen in the show.

he was probably taught clave law and the accords, a whole bunch of languages (polyglot power couple malec ftw) because i assume the NYI uses english as their lingua franca because of their location but since institutes also have to deal with local downworld and mundane populations it’s safe to assume that in other countries where english isn’t the main language, they go with the local languages and alec would need to communicate with these other institute heads, etiquette, some formal ballroom dances like the waltz, the art of negotiation, administrative stuff like resource allocation, budgeting, public speaking, the nitty gritty details of the clave workings, in addition to the knowledge of the different races of the shadow world, hand to hand combat, combat with a variety of weapons (he masters archery to utter perfection but he definitely is also incredibly proficient in close range combat as well).

sorry i just love alec and he is definitely more competent than most of the Alec StansTM (yall know what im saying) make him out to be

okay so!!!!! it’s pretty much canon that alec has spent a considerable amount of time as acting head of the NYI; what with maryse and robert always fucking off to idris to lick the boots of the clave and so he probably has a good relationship with the people under his command. he’s probably put protocols in place to reduce casualties and injuries, form patrol teams that are well-balanced so that they are versatile enough to take just about any threat that comes their way, etc.

of course, thanks to a little thing called the nephilim’s deep-rooted homophobia, a lot of the work alec put in probably got negated when he came out. it took a lot of courage for him to come out and to be openly gay. raj was an absolute asshole to alec for no reason and often questioned his leadership decisions post coming out, and even if not all the shadowhunters reacted like that, they did show some resistance(?) to alec’s leadership when he was appointed head and questioned him. it probably took a lot out of him because it’s one thing to have your people doubt you as a leader because of your actions or words; your decisions as a leader, it’s another thing for them to mistrust you entirely because of a fundamental part of your identity that you can’t change. you can build trust by publicly admitting and apologising for mistakes and putting in honest work to be better, but it’s impossible to build trust when the other person doesn’t even see you as human to begin with. 

this is turning into a hoti!alec ramble but i promise i will bring this back to politician!alec okay i promise i just need to establish the headcanons i’m building on first sorry 

okay back to business!!!! i feel like alec is so very genuine and honest outside of the political sphere alec “casual wedding vows” lightwood anyone? so when he does show his ability to be a complete fucking shark in the political arena a lot of people are blindsided because they expected him to be very honest and direct but he knows that as much as he’d like to be genuine, he needs that shrewdness to navigate the political minefield of idris. he prefers directness, but if you take the manipulative, indirect, route and underestimate him, he will not hesitate to turn your own methods against you.

he is also the type of leader who constantly tries to make an effort. his intentions were genuine with the downworld cabinet and i think that if it wasn’t set up in the middle of the shitstorm which was valentine’s re-emergence and the circle’s rise, it would have been more successful. he has a lot to learn and unlearn, and he (an utter perfectionist) will do as much as he can to help the downworld. i like to think that in a post s3 world, but before the time skip, he helps to re-establish the ties between the shadow world factions in new york and focuses on being the nephilim voice of the downworld to the clave, constantly trying to push for new accords and reformed policies, and he makes an effort to not speak over the downworlders, but instead be their representative and ally to the clave because the clave are racist bastards who wouldn’t listen to them but they have to listen to alec lightwood (”it’s lightwood-bane, actually”), one of the heroes who stepped up to defend alicante when the rift to edom opened. (and also because if they did try to slander or belittle him, they risk angering magnus, who has enough clout to embargo most warlocks from providing magical assistance to any local institutes, if he feels that the downworld is being ignored despite the fact that a warlock is the sole reason why alicante was’t razed to the ground, or that he and his husband are being targeted by the clave. because they are That Couple.) in conclusion alec is a good ally okay?

but as much as he tries/tried to do right by the clave, he sometimes also doesn’t give a fuck about them. he’ll be in meetings at idris, and maybe they’re discussing asinine, irrelevant, minor issues that are really just stupid excuses to showboat and compare family clout and whatnot and he’ll be pissed as fuck because instead of discussing actual relevant issues like irregularities/strange patterns in demon attacks, hunting down remaining circle sleeper cells, reparations for the downworld (like for the heavenly fire project), rewriting the accords, rebuilding idris, helping get the attacked institutes back up and running, you know, actual important issues that need attention but no, we’re discussing some petty family squabble that turned into a political feud that involves everyone and their fucking uncle. and he gets so damn angry he just blows up and rants at them and tears them a new one. he finishes his impressively long spiel with “you know what? fuck this. when you guys are done fighting like children and taking up precious time that we should be using to talk about real, pressing issues that affect the entire shadow world instead of five people at this table, let me know and i’ll be there but until then don’t bother. if you’ll excuse me, i’m going back to my husband. thank you. and for the last damn time, my name is alec lightwood-bane. i already changed my damn name legally so fucking use it.” and he just leaves to go back to new york because fuck the clave. 

he goes back home to the loft and it’s like the stress and anger just melts away because he walks in on magnus dancing around the kitchen as he cooks dinner, singing dancing queen at the top of his lungs, laughing when magnus twirls to see him leaning against the doorway of the kitchen with his heart eyes and blushes at being caught doing somethin so silly

he becomes a successful inquisitor by sheer force of will and determination. it’s not at all intentional, but it just happens. with the success of the cabinet and the measures he puts in place, he shares it with other institute heads and slowly more and more institutes are collaborating with the local downworld and most of the time, the statistics pay off in the long run. there are starting troubles as with any new initiatives, but soon enough there is a sizeable number of institutes following them successfully and it’s hard for the clave to ignore. alec gets invited to alicante to discuss the possibility of him becoming inquisitor just when the downworld deputy program is taking off in new york. (it all starts with simon asking “so are you guys nephilim or shadowhunters? what’s the difference? or is it interchangeable?” and then they realise that while nephilim is a term to describe half-angel half-human beings, shadowhunter is a term more commonly used by active duty demon hunters and drops out of use as a self-descriptor when the nephilim in question leaves combat. “so that means technically anyone in the shadow world whose job it is to fight demons is a shadowhunter? right?” and the lightbulbs light up in alec’s head immediately) oops time to get back to it the point. 

okay so!!!! the clave offer alec the position of inquisitor and it’s part recognition for his efforts and acknowledgement of his skills, part them wanting to keep him under their control. how does that work? well it’s simple. if alec is inquisitor and the clave makes it as hard as possible for him to do any effective work, bogging him down with bureaucracy and and votes on motions that are just shy of the majority needed to pass laws etc etc. basically throw every road block they can at him and wear him down; forcing him to step down and thus silencing him, and by extension, the downworlders who rely on him for a voice in the clave. 

malec side note: so they first say that magnus can come to alicante and make an exception for him, and the general plan is to make it look like they’re actually doing something good when it’s to lull them into a false sense of security. (but alec and magnus choose to live in brooklyn first because despite everything, it is still dangerous for magnus to be the only warlock in a city full of nephilim) but then alicante opens up to the rest of the shadow world, magnus becomes the high warlock of alicante, and the clave are dealing with the force of nature that is known power couple and ultimate badasses magnus and alec lightwood-bane. oops. 

but they underestimate the power of alec’s Lightwood(-Bane) DeterminationTM and his sheer stubbornness. so their plan backfires spectacularly when within the first few years, he’s implemented laws to open alicante up to downworlders, expunge criminal records of downworlders who were previously wrongfully charged with crimes, rehabilitation of wrongfully imprisoned downworlders, mandatory downworld cabinet and downworld deputy initiatives worldwide, as well as be part of the core group that rewrote the accords to be more fair. 

alec probably retires after like five years of being inquisitor and then magnus steps down as high warlock and they just travel the world together and be in love and happy, occasionally consulting on political issues here and there but for the most part they just run off into the sunset to be immortal husbands together because they’ve sacrificed enough for the good of the shadow world to last several lifetimes. 

[boogiewrites]

Choking On Sapphires 20

Title & Song:  No You Girls

Characters: Alfie Solomons x Genevieve (OFC)

Word Count: 5000+

Summary: Genevieve is a force to be reckoned with. An intelligent, independent and brutal businesswoman. She’s been intrigued by Alfie since she met him. But where will she draw the line between business and pleasure now that they are working so closely together? Alfie hires Gen to help him end the blackmailed politician’s pull in London. He’s promised her the bloody good fight she’s been itching for, will the evening deliver?

Warnings/Tags: Language. Fighting. Gore. Blood. Nameless character deaths. Seduction. 

A/N: Every chapter of this story will have a song to work as the title and as a soundtrack. Chapter song is No You Girls by Franz Ferdinand.

Positive feedback is MUCH appreciated! Reblogs, likes and comments feed this artist to write more!

My Masterlist. (Includes Parts 1-19)

You had been invited out tonight for a hit on a club. When Alfie had asked you who you'd suggest hiring to help fight your way in, you could tell by the way his lip disappeared under his mustache when you said your Arthur and the Shelby's, that he wasn't exactly sold on the idea himself. But after telling him no one fought with you better, he reluctantly trusted your choice. 

You were to be handsomely compensated for your skills which would be out in full form tonight. You'd been excited and nervous as the date approached for the job, but now that you were walking in through the back entrance of the club as it was closing, to sneak the door keys and bring them back and wait in the car for your targets to arrive, you felt back in your element.

The director of this group of painfully mediocre wannabes just so happened to be the man who had tried to fuck Alfie over that you had helped steal the blackmail for. Now you found yourself in a position of immunity from the blackmail working like a dream. He can't report the hit, Alfie gets the last word. Everyone who mattered was happy. Alfie still having bones left to pick with this man and since you were involved already, he brought you in as your addition would make the night go much more smoothly, he suggested. He was taking part in this fight, as it felt it was personal at this point. Saying that he needed the opportunity to blow off some steam as well, like old times.

You're slinking across the street in your long, off the shoulder dress. Hidden split up each thigh for ease of movement hugged your curves in thin, soft red fabric to accommodate the summer's heat. Your makeup, the usual dark eye, and red lip, your hair pulled back at the nape of your neck so it wouldn't interfere with your sight or movement. You were very much dressed to kill.

Tommy and Alfie are sitting in the second row of the benched back seats of the large Rolls Royce watching you walk away in the direction of the club.

Alfie's nose twitches, readjusting his grip on his cane. Tommy had lost count of how many times he'd done this. Solomons was moving enough to almost be deemed twitchy. Tommy looks back over to the newspaper he's been skimming while they wait for your return.

"Do you not trust her to do her job?" Tommy asks in his even, cool tone.

"Eh?" Alfie gruffs, looking over at Tommy with a furrowed brow. "I wouldn't've hired her if I dinnit." he says obviously, one hand moving off his cane to express himself.

"Then can you stop fidgeting?" Tommy hides a small half smile with a slight tilt of his head as Alfie leans away from him in a pout. "You've worked with her on jobs before, haven't you? Or are you always this nervous when it comes to her?" he doesn't hide the smirk on his face from his words.

"I 'ave but none this dangerous." he states, thumbing his nose.

"From that statement I take it you've not seen Gen fight before have you?" his eyebrow rising in interest.

"I saw 'er at The Garrison." he offers.

"No that wasn't a fight." Tommy shakes his head. "I mean in the sort of spot you'll find yourselves in tonight." he clarifies, slowly turning his head towards Alfie who's enjoyed the subtle puzzlement on his friends face.

"No." he says, his hand punctuating his sentence with a wag. "But I did see her come home after getting the shit beat out of her by two men a few weeks back." he says with a bad attitude. "So forgive me if I'm hesitant to let her loose on her own."

"Is she your's to let loose now?" he says with implication.

"Don't be fuckin' daft Tommy." he growls. "But I'm the one hirin' her ain't I? She wouldn't be back out doing this so soon if I hadn't asked her to." he elaborates.

"Gen knows her limits, she wouldn't take a job if she thought she couldn't deliver."

"I'd be inclined to believe that." he solemnly nods.

"How's living with her going?" he breaks the silence growing in the car.

"Well you know." he pauses for a moment, "Place is fuckin' huge, innit? She's lovely. Good girl, very hospitable." he says with a firm nod of his head, still looking out the window in the direction you should appear.

"She is." he nods, looking back to his paper.

"She's never boring is she?" he says in a tone that tells Tommy he's become well acquainted with your big personality.

"Not in the years I've known her," he says with a small smile. "I heard you took her out to the Opera?" his voice full of suggestion

"She asked me to," he says with a hint of defensiveness. "What was I gonna do? Say no?" he lets out a gruff laugh.

"So you weren't taking her out?" his question inflects with interest at the end.

"No, mate. Weren't nothin' like 'at." he shakes his head as the words groan out.

"Nothing like that?" he insists.

"If there is from her end, I'm not aware of it." he plainly states, motioning out with his hand. "That is if she is in fact as affectionate with her good friends as she says she is." he pauses, places his hand on the other man's knee, leaning towards him with a look that is supposed to signify he's being impressive, "Which apparently we are now. Just so ya know, mate." He nods as if in sympathy towards Tommy's defeat. "So she has said to me, yeah?" he returns back to his normal sitting position.

"Good friends, eh?" he says with a subdued expression of amusement that would have been visible if it hadn't been dark outside.

"But she ain't like 'at wif you? Is she?" he says, his finger pointing out at Tommy, side-eyeing him.

"She has never been," he says, his face back to indifferent. "She is that way with Arthur and John. Arthur specifically."

"Why not you?" wondering if he'd done something to make her not want to be as close to him.

Tommy swallows before he speaks. "I've always assumed it's because she was a friend of Grace's." he says, the usual micro-lilt of her name as he forces it out of his mouth.

"Ah." he nods in agreement. "Now that would make sense, yeah." he ponders it a moment before quickly moving back to his questions. "Her and Arthur seem strangely close what with how she talks about 'im, what's the story wif 'at 'n all?"

"They're not fucking if that's what you're asking." he says with a bit of a tired drag to the words.

"That's not what I said, Tommy." he says a bit with the hint of offense.

"No but it's what you meant, wasn't it?" he says knowingly. Alfie gives him a strong side eye after turning his head from his direction. After a few moments of Alfie's silent treatment, he continues, "I believe they talk about art mostly. They're both very good to have on your side in a fight and they're both also very emotional. Seems that makes a friendship these days." he says with a short sigh.

"Well that checks out, dunnit?" he mumbles, still looking out the window.

"Seein' as he's married 'n she's watchin' the kid 'n all." he clarifies to himself mostly. "She didn't seem like the type of woman who'd do that sorta fing." he says more quietly, his eyes narrowing in consideration.

"She isn't." he agrees flatly. "She's a good woman, Alfie." he adds with more sincerity, nodding his head as he looks over his paper.

"It's hard to believe she's as good as she is, Tommy." he admits, his voice not showy, his hands not moving. "Hard to believe there are any women left like 'at all."

Tommy's eyes slowly look up and forward, taking in his words and what they told him about how he felt. "It is very hard to believe." he quietly agrees. They both sat in silence with heavy thoughts about the women on their minds. ---------------------------------------- Tommy leaves the car, going to a street over to wait for John and Arthurs signal that all the men had all arrived. You're turned around in your seat, on your knees. Your forearms crossed on the back of the seat, facing Alfie.

"What's wrong with you tonight?" you ask, your eyes narrowing as he keeps his eyes on Tommy leaving. "You've been acting odd." you pry with a tilted head.

He turns his eyes your way for a moment, before moving them back out the window. "What are you on about?" he huffs out.

"I know you Alfie, I can tell when something's off." you hum at him, resting your chin on your arms. "What is it about me that's throwing you off tonight? Let's fix it before we get in there bc I don't want it distracting me." you insist with a nod of your head.

"Well you were beat all to hell not that long ago, weren't ya?" he bites a little too harshly at you, looking back at you. You give him an attitude-filled glare.

"So you think I shouldn't be doing this." you say with a slow nod, pursing your lips in disappointment. You sit back up, lifting your chin from your arms.

"Don't be puttin' words in me mouth." he says, shaking his finger at you. "That's not what I said now, was it?" he lets his shoulders fall as they'd tensed while he spoke.

"Fear born from worry, then?" your expression softens as you stop your attempt to turn away from him. Your eyes aren't defensive when he meets them again.

"Now I just told ya not to do that, dinnit I?" he looks back out the window. No longer revving up, his face was set in an angry sort of pout.

"I'm a big girl, I can handle it, Alfie. Don't worry about me. Worry about yourself." you say poking him in the chest, limp-wristed and playful. "Look on the bright side." you offer which a much more subdued and charming expression, "This is the only time you'll ever be nervous for me before a fight because once you see me in there, you'll apologize for having doubted me." you give a challenging grin.

"Now there. That." he points at you. "That's the woman I hired for this tonight. You. Now?" he taps your nose and you can't help but roll your eyes at him. "You. Stay." you commands gruffly and you smile at his playfulness.

"You'll get your money's worth out of me tonight, Solomons, don't worry." you say with a cutesy wink, throwing your head back in a laugh as you turned around in the seat. His eyes give a very slow blink your direction, his head shaking back and forth with a deadpan face at you before you've even turned. -------------------------------------------- The signals are cleared. Everything is in place. Now it's on you to make the first move. Arthur and John are clearing the front guards and the lobby. Alfie clears out the guard in the back. Tommy is the controller, watching outside and making sure no one leaves or enters during the fight. You'd snuck in from the roof. You take a very deep breath, feeling it move through every part of you. You initiate the distraction.

Your heels clack loudly in the most empty club. A large room with hanging chandeliers, huge columns separated a dance floor with an ornately designed ceiling above it. The boys, numbering around fifteen to twenty, all greased up are spread out around a few pushed together tables in the dance floor. Some notice you slink across the landing before your heel hits the stone of the first step, but after that, all eyes were on you. They don't speak for a few steps, you're prim and posh and have all things you hold in your charming arsenal of distraction at full volume. The hit of your metal tipped heels echoes across the cavernous room as they move slowly across the floor to the men. You hear the murmurs begin.

"I think you're in the wrong place, lady." one of them says, this is the one that's just put the target on his head. Lucky boy.

"Quite the contrary," your voice is smooth and velvety, your face set like you know a secret no one else does. "I believe I'm exactly in the right place." you-you laugh, moving one shoulder with the sound, one hand to your chest. The mood shifts slightly in the room. Bait set.

"Oh are ya sweetheart?" he chimes in. You stand between them, still turned away from the back exit.

"You're here aren't you?" you say with a wink as you put your hands on your hips. He gives you a dumb laugh in retort.

"Oh you here for me, doll?" he asks, leaning back in his seat.

"I greeted her first, she's mine." the original speaker almost growls at you, his hand rubbing up and down the back of your thigh.

"Oh I'm here for all of you, handsome." you give a cheeky grin, jutting your hip out in his direction. "Me and my friends were sent here to entertain you boys tonight." you say, putting your shawl around his shoulders. "But I happen to be the first to get here and I'm not one to keep a party from starting."

"That right? he says, looking you over and licking his lips.

"Something about a celebration I'm told? A little something," you shimmy your chest at him with the word, "for a job well done?" you say with warm praise.

"Told ya he wouldn't be mad." the second speaker adds in a defensive tone.

"Guess so." the boy with his hands on your thighs says. "What are you planning on entertaining us with tonight, baby doll?" his fingers grip into the soft flesh under your ass.

"I'm known for my dances." you purr at him.

"You reckon I could get the first one of those?" he suggests, leaning closer and smelling you.

"Thought you'd never ask." you whisper leaning in close, your prominent breasts in his face. "Turn this seat," you say with a kitten like delivery. He raises himself and does as you command. "Now, sit back, luv." you bat your lashes, your hand pushing him back into the chair.

You loom over him like a vulture, taking a moment to look for the men you'd come with tonight. You see Arthur and stretch, letting him know you've seen him. You don't see Alfie yet so, you continue. "You'll all get your chance tonight to dance," you announce to the group, you move back to the boy in the chair. "and I never disappoint." you coo as you push his knees together, standing on either side of them. "But it is much better one on one. Don't you think?" you tilt your head and ask almost innocently.

"Amyfing you say, darlin'." he says in a chuckle, hands already on your hips.  You sink down on him, hands rising above you in and inhale, grinding against him on the exhale. You hitch up your dress, sliding your knife into your hand as you raise it. You look up to Arthur as you lean in close to the boy's ears. He gives a nod and raises a gun from his hiding spot. That was your signal that you were clear and lucky for you, these boys were unarmed. You assume their egos became quickly out of check when free alcohol was involved, and in their pissing contests, they would threaten each other with their guns and that character head boss of theirs couldn't have word getting out about things like that. So he made them start leaving their guns at the door, assuring they wouldn't use them on each other. Guess he didn't think that plan through.

You hold his face in one hand, running your hand over his neck and jaw and pushing his head back when you made your rounds of doing this, his eyes were closed, his life is literally in your hand and you felt the rush of knowing you were about to spill the first blood of the night. You take his chin into your hand and kiss him. He was terrible at it to no surprise, but not surprising in the least is that he's easily distracted. You stand over the boy, your hand holds his head up, looking like any other part of the dance. You hear the footsteps behind you. You tighten your grip on your largest brass knuckle knife. You didn't want to use guns tonight,  but you did have yours to intimidate. You didn't need the attention on the place until you wanted it that way. Alfie had his brass knuckles, along with his hands, adorning crowns and his biggest rings, fists backed by strong arms and broad shoulders. The boys both had their hats. Arthur liked to use the environment instead of planned weapon if he wasn't using guns. He was currently holding a broken bottle. Typical Arthur. John preferred bare knuckles, as he was a powerhouse tank that knew how to take a man off his feet in an endless number of ways. You move your hand now holding your knife to your chest, acting as if you're going to grope yourself and move your occupied hand up his chest quickly. You retrieve your snubnose from your chest and hold the gun to the head of the man next to you as you slice the throat of the man under you. The blood flows down his chest as his hands reach up to his throat, you don't look away from the man in your crosshairs, and you rise off the dying man. The group is wide-eyed in their naivety and still, despite the whispers and curses you hear.

Alfie takes your right. Arthur circles to your left, John finishes the shifting square you've created. The orders were to keep it as quiet as possible and kill all the members of his wannabe gang. That's it. You had intentions on getting messy tonight. Thus the red dress. You needed desperately to work out your tension and that was your intention. Take out as many as possible. The room is quiet except for the gurgling and sputtering of the man who had fallen out of his chair and was now face down on the ground. His wet hands slapping against the intricately tiled mosaic floor as the blood spread out along the cracks mimicking their natural movement in the body like it was flowing through a different set of veins now.

"'Fraid you've made some very poor decisions that's led ya here tonight, boys." Alfie nods as his booming voice echoes around the room. "The worst bein' the decision to work for your bastard of an employer and that decision will be the fuckin' end of ya tonight." he states with a strong nod. "So say your fuckin' prayers to who the fuck ever and let's this get this over with, shall we?" he says with a charming grin, adjusting his grip slowly on the dusters in his hands.

They stay still, some standing in defiance but carrying those actions no further. These men really were pathetic.

"Are you just going to sit there like a bunch of fucking pigs waiting for slaughter or are ya gonna fucking fight?" you shout loudly, taking a few steps back, your arms out at your side in exaggeration.

You hear Arthur curse  with impatience and the broken glass hits the mans face as his friend jumped to his defense and it went from there. You and Alfie picked them off from behind. You struck, stabbed and hit at temples, throats, noses and groins. Each leaving you with more and more blood on your person. The way these boys loomed over you in your fighting stance led to attack from above, making any throat slice, if deep enough, spurt out another gush of blood, dripping down your dress after soaking the upper half of your body, before you could get out of range.

They begin to notice you're picking them off and they start to move in numbers towards you and Alfie. Then it became a true brawl. You have your knife, it and the combination of the knuckle dusters were enough to temporarily disarm most in just a few well-placed hits. You see the lack of form these fellows have, lumbering and easily distracted. Your speed and knife to their panic, swinging chairs, and broken bottles wasn't the fairest fight to them but it allowed you to enjoy yourself. The more you take down, the more they seem to want to be the one to take you down.

You hear things crashing around the room, but you can't pay much attention as they start to swarm and you have to switch gears. You go low, taking their feet out from under them in kicks and hits, your legs striking high at chins and guts as your skirt flies out in a pleasing floral, fluid visual amongst the dark moving forms of men on the floor around you.

By the end you're underneath the last man who happened to be rather large, giving you a bit a fight to finish. You've got the knife pushed through the top layers of his body where his neck used to be, now just a deformed mess from the struggle as you shout in frustration and effort to shove him off of you.  He'd had his hands around your throat, you'd matched this with the knife across his and a thumb in his eye. Once you see your boys standing and watching you, each look a bit predatory in its own unique way, you let your shoulders slump as you move to all fours to standing, in realization it was over. Arthur looks like the runner-up in being covered with the most blood, behind you who was literally sopping with it. You rise, moving your dress as it makes heavy wet squishing sounds as you do so.

As you stand and look down as you  notice none of their eyes were meeting yours, you see the fabric of the dress really wasn't made to have gotten wet as it is leaving nothing to the imagination. Your nipples being hard from the blood coursing fast through your veins are painfully visible as they do look hard enough to cut with the way the fabric sucked to your skin as you moved. Your arms especially, caked in fresh and clotted blood are the same color as your already red, blood-soaked dress giving the illusion of not wearing anything at all, really. You let out a grunt of frustration as you fling the gore from your hands and move towards them slowly, especially thankful now for the previously concealed slits in the thighs of your dress as without them, walking would have been really damn difficult. The moisture in the fabric making it so heavy.

"You could've stepped in at any time on that last one ya wankers. Ruined my bloody dress." you grumble, you are met with silence. "I'm gonna start fuckin' charging all of you if you don't stop fuckin' gawkin' like some schoolboys." you bark at them, making them stand at attention. They were all wound up from their violence and you weren't actually mad. You were just annoyed at the shift in the mood around you like this, being bothered more by how it bothered others rather than the nudity itself.  "Jesus Christ boys, pull yourselves together." you say in a higher pitched voice, pulling the off the shoulder dress up as it was starting to shift.

You looked like a statue carved from red marble by the most gifted artist known to man, he thought. Although this statue of a goddess was real and moving and breathing heavily, perfect proportions shown in their rhythmic movement that could steal your words from your mouth and make it go dry. He was still grunting and heaving, his fists just starting to remember how to unclench, wanting to act on the thoughts that formed in his mind at the sight of you that matched his animalistic current appearance. Your scolding tone snaps him out of his hungry gaze as he clears his throat and puts the brass he wore in his pockets, moving towards you.

"C'mon, boys," he groans, taking off his coat and wrapping it around your shoulders, his hands resting on your shoulders. "She'll make us pay for the gift of sight if we keep using it to look at her." he says with a chuckle, having taken out a lighter and cigarette as he spoke, he hands it off to you. You look him over, as he helps you, hair damp from sweat, just the least bit of blood on his white shirt. His hair flopped about before he wiped it back with this hand, you always found it charmingly boyish when you caught the rare chance to see it in its natural state.

You slide your arms into the oversized coat and accept it, lighting it between your fingers with narrowed eyes. Thinking this gesture felt like an odd sort of power move from him, although his eyes were passive as they turned from you. You couldn't help but notice Arthurs displeasure at Alfie being the one to do your post-fight aftercare he'd been used to handling.

You regroup swiftly, the brothers gone, leaving you and Alfie to depart together.

"You mind if I take a bottle, boss?" you say, hoisting up your dress as you walk towards the bar.

"You got all the liquor in the world at home, luv." he says, moving his hands back and forth, dismissing the idea but your back is already towards him.

"I know but I want it for the drive home. I prefer my hard liquor to be earned after a job nowadays." you say with a laugh, leaning over the bar and grabbing a bottle of whiskey and walking towards the back door. "That got us?"

"That's got you, you sneak on to the car and I'll be out after I sort this out." he says, shooing you off with his hand.

"Yes, sir." you say with faux enthusiasm, hoisting up your dress in your arms to make it easier to get to the car.

Once you settle in with a swig and your cig, letting out a loud, pleasurable exhale of a job well done, you wait for Alfie. As you sit in the dark, having spent all your energy inside, and having still been so close to recovering from your last fight, you found yourself absolutely exhausted.

You rouse as he slides into the car with a grunt. You yawn as he settles. "Good?" you ask with a stretch.

"Should be, yeah." he says with a nod as the car starts.

"That went pretty well I think." you say optimistically, settling your back against the seat, and into the coziness of his coat. Drinking from the bottle, looking miniature in the oversized coat and sleeves that hid your hands as they grasped at the bottle.

"Yeah it did." he says with an enthusiastic nod.

You nod in agreement, taking your shoes off and pulling your legs underneath you and your turn to face him, the side of your face on the back of the seat. "Alfie?" you ask, in that tone you know he recognizes.

"Yeah, luv?" he says with a half smile, voice holding amusement for your call of his name, reminding him of a cat meowing for treats.

"I'm completely fucking knackered." you admit with a lazy smile, your eyelids resting lower than usual.

He laughs at you. "Ya sleepy there little one?" he teases.

"Yeah,  little ones sleepy." you say with a slow lazy chuckle, your head leaning back on the seat, you rest the bottle in the floor.

"Well ya earned your rest after that in there tonight," he says supportively. "I believe my personal apology is in order after that wonderful show you put on. I shouldn't have questioned your judgment on the matter." he expresses genuinely, you feel him moving, speaking with his hands despite your eyes being closed. "Since ya keep goin' on and bein' right even with the odds stacked against ya." he says, not hiding that tone of being impressed and confounded at your behavior. "You'd think I'd learn." he tsks himself playfully.

"Now's not the time for praising pillow talk, Solomons, I'm tired." you smile, your eyes staying closed with your tilted back head, a smug grin on your face. -- You wait until you're out of the city and away from the lights. "Safe to unbutton this coat now?" you ask, breaking the quiet of the cabin of the car.

"Yeah, take it off if ya want, we won't run into no trouble now." he says in a tone that tells you not to be silly, do what you want. You run with this unverified permission.

You unbutton all the buttons on the long jacket, feeling better as the air hits you, cooling you immediately. You fan it a few times until you shiver, scooting closer to him and putting your head on his shoulder.

"What's this now?" he says in a laugh. "Never had a business partner do this after a job." he teases.

"Well the jobs over." you state in a bratty tone. "And I'm very tired and it's a long drive." you explain in a small voice, invading his personal space.

"You're right. Jobs over, innit?" he says readjusting how he sits to accommodate you.

"You know if my doing this truly bothers you I'll stop. Just tell me." you say almost short with him. You were genuinely fighting to keep your eyes open.

"Go to sleep." he whispers in a gruff tone you reply with a short laugh and you curl up in the seat.

Pt 21 Stand By My Girl

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[isaacathom]

‘i use the force of my personality-’ stop right there. i dont have that.

‘better to defend the weak OR help the poor’................. am i thinking too deep in these questions or am i straight up incorrect for seeing them as VERY similar ideas. like......... the poor....... are the weak......... or do we mean specifically Physically Weak because like..... they certainly can be..... what im saying is there is no meaningful difference based on my interpretation of words without any other context.

‘animals deserve our respect OR are delicious’........................................ what in the actual fuck kinda quiz am i taking. the fuck question is that???? what if both??? are true???? both??? what do you MEAN. what do you actually mean. make it fucking clear. are you asking if im a vegetarian? are you asking if im one of Those Cunts who dont shut up about animal rights even as humans die? what are you asking? im not dealing with that shit.

‘personal power comes from-’ beats me man

‘do you prefer new age religion or eastern religion’ im???? not religious???????? and dont understand what you mean???? new age i guess?????????? I GUESS????? what the fuck are you asking me

‘i love the city/i hate the city’ i am indifferent to the city

‘in a fight, its better to’ fucking run im scrawny and will snap if looked at badly like i should not be in an actual punch on unless i gotta death wish, man.

‘do you prefer eastern or western religion’ ???????? i dont know you absolute pain in my irreligious fucking ass. at least with new age i have the vague sense that yea, im down. i literally want nothing to do with any of the big ones.

‘rather spend time at church or the gym’ neither but i have to pick gym because you dont fucking get that im unfit AND irreligious at once

‘rather spend time camping w/ friends or drinking w/ friends’ drinking purely because you didnt say I have to drink and it probably means we’re at someones house playing video games. as opposed to me being stuck in the fucking wilderness with rowdy boys who are probably drunk anyway. except, man, i hate alcohol. cannot make that clearer

‘were you better at math/science or art/music’ actually i was better at english as a kid and ive never been particularly good at science and i cant play an instrument soooo what.

‘family elders are expressing disapproval of you to the rest of the family. what do you do?’ tell them to fuck off back to albury where they belong? what do you want me to say here. my nana would never disapprove and i dont listen to anything my paternal family says. realistically id say ‘oh, ok, sure, but ive got this sorted’ and then change the topic. neither of these are options. ‘silence them any way you can’ by changing the subject, ay.

‘do you respect the leaders of your family’ the what.

‘if your family had arranged your marriage-’ stop RIGHT there. no. nooooooo. nooooo sir. not even a remote option. the fucks this, the 50s? what am i dealing with. i know this is like, dnd, and dnd is timelocked to tolkien, but the Fuck. No??? no??? none???? my only option is to flee because i dont have the option to tell them to shove a plug up their ass.

‘youre estranged from a family member. on his deathbed, he seeks reconcilliation’ lol get fucked.

‘do you become close to people, or hold them at a distance’ i dont do that on PURPOSE.

‘if you were injured, would people in your home town help’ no offence but uhhhhh this isnt america, we dont know everyone in a 5km radius. the answer is probably yes purely because of my community work but i dont even know my own neighbours so id basically be hoping someone i know happens to find and recognise me.

also ok in theory i could be a politician but in practice im bad at public speaking and have anxieties up the ass soooo not actually a practical feasibility.

‘would you assassinate the president if paid enough’ im not an american and also No??????? money cant pay for ptsd my dude.

True Neutral Human Wizard? great. what a waste of my time

[trendingnewsb]

MIA: This is a white country, you dont have to spell it out to me

Maya Arulpragasam is bringing dancehall, hip-hop and grime to this years Meltdown. Is the outspoken British Sri Lankan the best argument for positive cultural appropriation?

The Guardian said that you couldnt shag to my record. As conversational openers go, MIAs beats the banal niceties of, say, Hello, how are you doing?. Its no surprise that she charges straight into a chat about why her last album was considered too confrontational for the bedroom by this paper. Its an icebreaker moulded to MIAs very own design: abrasive, compelling, underpinned by sex. Yeah, she finally concedes with a grin when I suggest we move past it, you cant have it all, can you?

Its a theme she warms up to when we talk about her edition of Meltdown at the Southbank Centre, which were ostensibly here to discuss. Usually, I wouldnt do something like this, she says, slouched under an oversized khaki coat dress. [But the organisers] were like: Hey, you can do whatever you want. Still, putting on the South Banks annual festival, curated in previous years by the likes of David Bowie, David Byrne and Patti Smith, has turned out to be a fairly arduous affair for MIA who says she doesnt do computers at the moment.

They didnt tell me it was nine days long. I thought it was a weekend. And then all my lists were, like, Well, this person wont be in London and that person is doing Glastonbury. Organising festivals is actually really complicated, she stresses. It wasnt just about dreaming something and then it appeared. Programming literally means, like, programming.

For all that Maya Arulpragasam didnt quite know what she was letting herself in for, one suspects the Southbank Centre didnt either; logistics aside, the mornings photoshoot has already been met with some flapping from the press officer made nervous by MIA climbing on the roof without safety clearance. Still, her lineup dancehall, Brooklyn hip-hop, depressive Swedish rap and Nigerian grime is perhaps the most underground the festival has seen in its 24 years. How much is she expecting to shake up its comfortable concert halls, cafe bars and conference-room spaces?

Click here to watch the video for last years Go Off.

When I was a teenager in London, I would just get a Travelcard and go somewhere, explore the city and go to weird places, she says. I would never judge the place, like, This is middle class and white. This is a white country, you dont have to spell it out to me, but there wasnt ever a limit on where I could go or what I could do.

A long, elliptical digression on London then and now follows, which takes in the optimistic multiculturalism of the 90s, Tamil house parties, empire and British identity. Its the bento box of an MIA interview: individually contained ideas that dont obviously bleed into one another and yet, overall, make a collective sense if youre prepared to go with it. Thats the key thing about MIA: you have to be willing to go with her to properly get her. Given that she still looks and sounds like a beautiful, bratty, art-school upstart and is prone to labyrinthine tangents, its easy to portray her as inarticulate or unhinged. But MIAs intelligence is instinctive rather than intellectual, and fuelled by the political.

The Mehrabian maxim that reckons that only 7% of communication is verbal is one that might best be proven by the transcript of a chat with MIA removed of all tone, attitude, context and body language. Take, for instance, her explanation of why only the future remains relevant:

As humans, we dont use our past and our history to work out the importance of what our role is in the present, she says. And if you cant use the past to define your present, then it should not be an element that holds back the future. Greece is a perfect example. More than Britain, they were brought to their knees, and not a single white country thought about saving them. And it was part of their heritage. Its where their mythology comes from or their concept of capitalism and democracy comes from. Nobody cared, everybody cared about the modern. Right?

Kim Kardashian is actually more powerful than Greece. She has more money than the whole of Greece, she continues. Therefore, thats where the power lies. If you then define it that way, then you kind of just have to live with that. And maybe whats happening in modern society: that if youre going to judge it by that, then other countries are gonna come in and define the future.

In print, its a statement that seems lacking in logic and coherence. In the moment, Im fairly sure Im able to follow her and we go on to consider how and where this future is being defined (for the record: You cant ignore the fact that China is going to be doing their thing in the next 50 years) and how Arulpragasam believes the immigration issue has become a red herring covering up a truth that can explain the American and British swing to conservative populism.

With Brexit, the idea was to get away from Europe and reinvent our identity, she says. And really, that identity was going to be American, but then they gave us Trump! So, everyone now is like, Oh shit, what is Britain? Are we going to rewind back to the 1800s? We cant. Its too late for that. So, going forward, we need a charismatic leader who then va va vooms the British identity. And we dont have that either.

People thinking that Im a bitch is totally unwarranted … MIA. Photograph: Stephanie Sian Smith/The Guide

The prime minister has called a snap election on the day we meet. Does MIA have any faith in our political system? Or in the left?

Everyone keeps going, Corbyn cant do this, but its, like, well, who else is there? she says. If people just left him alone to actually do the job and actually gave him some support, maybe hed be different. Treating him with so much contempt fighting that takes all his energy. How the fuck do you expect him to do interesting things? In any case insists the estranged daughter of a Tamil revolutionary, politicians are people who couldnt get jobs somewhere else.

MIAs politics, unwieldy and unslick though they may be, have often made her an easy target for tedious sneering in the press; the most insistent narrative is that, like Banksy, shes big on arch, subversive statement but lacks substance. Or that she is a hypocrite for making herself the poster girl for the worlds most marginalised people. And yet, shes one of the best pop stars Britain has ever produced. For all the ear-clanging experimentation of her five albums, MIA has always kept a sleeve full of pop bangers Bucky Done Gun, Paper Planes, Bad Girls, Finally that have sounded like little that came before or since her. Even if she didnt have the tunes, here is an art-school refugee Sri Lankan single mother with a visual aesthetic co-opted by everyone from Vetements to Versace who was born into political rebellion and revels in controversy. Gleefully gauche and carefree, MIA is the best argument for when cultural appropriation works. Bland singer-songstress beloved of Radio 2 playlists she isnt. So how much has the criticism bothered her?

People thinking that Im a bitch is totally unwarranted because Im not, she ays. I just had to fight for shit, and I still do. I just dont care any more. I dont know. She stops and starts. What I deal with as an artist, the media, the public persona, its a walk in the fucking park, compared to how confusing the universe really fucking is. Theres so much beauty in it and theres so much mystery, theres so much confusing shit in it. That is way more interesting to think about than why, like, Patricia hates me. You know what I mean? I laugh. Its like, Who the fuck is Patricia? and How can Patricia say this shit about me?. It just does not matter to me at all.As it is, she says shes most preoccupied with how to be a functioning grown up, an adult and a mother to an eight-year-old son (whose father Benjamin Bronfman is son to the billionaire heir of the Seagram fortune) born into immense privilege.

When the war came to an end in Sri Lanka in 2009, it actually did affect me, she explains. Everyone was, like, What the fuck does she know? Shes, like, a pop star, but that was my life. It was 50% of who I was, it was my identity. I didnt know what to do with myself. So I had a kid. Its the year the cause died, but the year my personal cause my son was born. And then, OK, I have to figure out what to do in very small parameters: I have a son, how is he going to see his grandma, am I going to make it there on Saturday? Can I make sure that I dont mess up his head by being depressed about certain things?

She struggles to reconcile her upbringing poor and living in Sri Lanka for her childhood to poor and living on a council estate in Mitcham, south London, in her adolescence with her sons. Im not very straightforward as an immigrant. That whole My kids would never see the pain that I saw; Im not like that. Im totally up for reintroducing him to the pain. I dont have any qualms about that. Her problems havent changed, she says, because of money or better circumstances. Whether Im in a mansion or a council flat, I would feel the same anxiety waking up going: I need to write this thing in a scrapbook, wheres my notepad? I would still have all those problems. I might still overcook the fish fingers. Those things are not going to magically transform because your house has changed. At the beginning I thought that money couldve saved my family. Very quickly I realised that money is not the thing.

Her conflict in wanting to being huge and commercial versus credible and ahead of the curve has been a persistent tension threaded through MIAs career. When I got into the music game, it was never an option to shut up and make lots of money. she says. To be a huge pop star, I would have to be, like, Yes, I think bombing Afghanistan was a great idea, I love our democracy and what it has achieved. I love the American flag and Im going to make a jumpsuit out of it. I just think it was important to have all of those Arab Springs, and its great and lets drink Coca-Cola. I had to do that, and do it all in a thong. Could I have done that if it meant that my mum had the nicest house in Chiswick by the river?

Click here to se the video for MIAs Bad Girls.

Does she worry about money now? If youre preaching living within your means, you have to, to some extent. But I also know that if youre someone in society that speaks out about injustice or political issues, one of the things that happens is that you get economically punished, 100%. I take that hit all the time.

The most recent, obvious example was MIA being forced to quit her headline slot at Afropunk last year, following a contentious quote in which she asked in an interview why Beyonc and Kendrick Lamar might not discuss why Muslim lives matter or Syrian lives matter. I dont regret [raising the issue], she says, with triumphant chutzpah. You saw how bad it was. And the Muslim ban didnt happen just with Trump, it was already happening under Obama. But you couldnt say that about him, you couldnt say that he introduced the Muslim ban, or banned seven different countries, or was already monitoring people, or dropped more bombs than Trump has. In truth, Obamas administration did identify the seven countries on Trumps list for additional screening measures, but it didnt bar their nationals. Shes already skipped ahead. The quantity of damage cant be quantified right now, she insists. Well have to wait the four years. After eight years of Obama, we kind of knew [his failings], but we just werent allowed to say them because he was so great. He was better than any person in Hollywood that I wouldve watched. He was really likable and just had loads of swag. That doesnt mean that you have to deny the truth, though.

This (and much more) comes moments after she tells me she has no time for opinions these days. She claims she doesnt read the news any more and that her primary sources for information are customers at the local kebab shop, taxi drivers and then sort of figuring it out. What about the state of the world? MIAs moment as an agitprop pop activist has never seemed more potent. Politics? I have no time for these things because Im so stuck in the zone. Ive become a hermit. [Meltdown] is actually giving me the chance to actually go out and meet people again. Ive gone for weeks without talking to a person, I do that happily. I tell her I dont believe her, as I suspect it would be a recipe for her to go fully barmy.

Im actually quite an extreme person, so I dont see that as madness. I see that as, like, solitude, doing a phase of solitude is not that bad. After declaring her fifth album AIM to be her final one, shes also trying to find new ways to channel her creativity. Im trying to write a film. I havent stepped into it yet because I want it to be good. Once you hit the start button you cant really stop it. She has, she tells me, the added complication of ADD to contend with. When was that diagnosed? I just have it. Dont even need diagnosis, its a waste of time, its a waste of the NHS. In truly blithe MIA style, she adds: Its just when you have too many ideas and not enough ways to get them out.

MIAs Meltdown is at the Southbank Centre, SE1, 9-18 June

Read more: http://ift.tt/2rBtxTD

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[trendingnewsb]

MIA: This is a white country, you dont have to spell it out to me

Maya Arulpragasam is bringing dancehall, hip-hop and grime to this years Meltdown. Is the outspoken British Sri Lankan the best argument for positive cultural appropriation?

The Guardian said that you couldnt shag to my record. As conversational openers go, MIAs beats the banal niceties of, say, Hello, how are you doing?. Its no surprise that she charges straight into a chat about why her last album was considered too confrontational for the bedroom by this paper. Its an icebreaker moulded to MIAs very own design: abrasive, compelling, underpinned by sex. Yeah, she finally concedes with a grin when I suggest we move past it, you cant have it all, can you?

Its a theme she warms up to when we talk about her edition of Meltdown at the Southbank Centre, which were ostensibly here to discuss. Usually, I wouldnt do something like this, she says, slouched under an oversized khaki coat dress. [But the organisers] were like: Hey, you can do whatever you want. Still, putting on the South Banks annual festival, curated in previous years by the likes of David Bowie, David Byrne and Patti Smith, has turned out to be a fairly arduous affair for MIA who says she doesnt do computers at the moment.

They didnt tell me it was nine days long. I thought it was a weekend. And then all my lists were, like, Well, this person wont be in London and that person is doing Glastonbury. Organising festivals is actually really complicated, she stresses. It wasnt just about dreaming something and then it appeared. Programming literally means, like, programming.

For all that Maya Arulpragasam didnt quite know what she was letting herself in for, one suspects the Southbank Centre didnt either; logistics aside, the mornings photoshoot has already been met with some flapping from the press officer made nervous by MIA climbing on the roof without safety clearance. Still, her lineup dancehall, Brooklyn hip-hop, depressive Swedish rap and Nigerian grime is perhaps the most underground the festival has seen in its 24 years. How much is she expecting to shake up its comfortable concert halls, cafe bars and conference-room spaces?

Click here to watch the video for last years Go Off.

When I was a teenager in London, I would just get a Travelcard and go somewhere, explore the city and go to weird places, she says. I would never judge the place, like, This is middle class and white. This is a white country, you dont have to spell it out to me, but there wasnt ever a limit on where I could go or what I could do.

A long, elliptical digression on London then and now follows, which takes in the optimistic multiculturalism of the 90s, Tamil house parties, empire and British identity. Its the bento box of an MIA interview: individually contained ideas that dont obviously bleed into one another and yet, overall, make a collective sense if youre prepared to go with it. Thats the key thing about MIA: you have to be willing to go with her to properly get her. Given that she still looks and sounds like a beautiful, bratty, art-school upstart and is prone to labyrinthine tangents, its easy to portray her as inarticulate or unhinged. But MIAs intelligence is instinctive rather than intellectual, and fuelled by the political.

The Mehrabian maxim that reckons that only 7% of communication is verbal is one that might best be proven by the transcript of a chat with MIA removed of all tone, attitude, context and body language. Take, for instance, her explanation of why only the future remains relevant:

As humans, we dont use our past and our history to work out the importance of what our role is in the present, she says. And if you cant use the past to define your present, then it should not be an element that holds back the future. Greece is a perfect example. More than Britain, they were brought to their knees, and not a single white country thought about saving them. And it was part of their heritage. Its where their mythology comes from or their concept of capitalism and democracy comes from. Nobody cared, everybody cared about the modern. Right?

Kim Kardashian is actually more powerful than Greece. She has more money than the whole of Greece, she continues. Therefore, thats where the power lies. If you then define it that way, then you kind of just have to live with that. And maybe whats happening in modern society: that if youre going to judge it by that, then other countries are gonna come in and define the future.

In print, its a statement that seems lacking in logic and coherence. In the moment, Im fairly sure Im able to follow her and we go on to consider how and where this future is being defined (for the record: You cant ignore the fact that China is going to be doing their thing in the next 50 years) and how Arulpragasam believes the immigration issue has become a red herring covering up a truth that can explain the American and British swing to conservative populism.

With Brexit, the idea was to get away from Europe and reinvent our identity, she says. And really, that identity was going to be American, but then they gave us Trump! So, everyone now is like, Oh shit, what is Britain? Are we going to rewind back to the 1800s? We cant. Its too late for that. So, going forward, we need a charismatic leader who then va va vooms the British identity. And we dont have that either.

People thinking that Im a bitch is totally unwarranted … MIA. Photograph: Stephanie Sian Smith/The Guide

The prime minister has called a snap election on the day we meet. Does MIA have any faith in our political system? Or in the left?

Everyone keeps going, Corbyn cant do this, but its, like, well, who else is there? she says. If people just left him alone to actually do the job and actually gave him some support, maybe hed be different. Treating him with so much contempt fighting that takes all his energy. How the fuck do you expect him to do interesting things? In any case insists the estranged daughter of a Tamil revolutionary, politicians are people who couldnt get jobs somewhere else.

MIAs politics, unwieldy and unslick though they may be, have often made her an easy target for tedious sneering in the press; the most insistent narrative is that, like Banksy, shes big on arch, subversive statement but lacks substance. Or that she is a hypocrite for making herself the poster girl for the worlds most marginalised people. And yet, shes one of the best pop stars Britain has ever produced. For all the ear-clanging experimentation of her five albums, MIA has always kept a sleeve full of pop bangers Bucky Done Gun, Paper Planes, Bad Girls, Finally that have sounded like little that came before or since her. Even if she didnt have the tunes, here is an art-school refugee Sri Lankan single mother with a visual aesthetic co-opted by everyone from Vetements to Versace who was born into political rebellion and revels in controversy. Gleefully gauche and carefree, MIA is the best argument for when cultural appropriation works. Bland singer-songstress beloved of Radio 2 playlists she isnt. So how much has the criticism bothered her?

People thinking that Im a bitch is totally unwarranted because Im not, she ays. I just had to fight for shit, and I still do. I just dont care any more. I dont know. She stops and starts. What I deal with as an artist, the media, the public persona, its a walk in the fucking park, compared to how confusing the universe really fucking is. Theres so much beauty in it and theres so much mystery, theres so much confusing shit in it. That is way more interesting to think about than why, like, Patricia hates me. You know what I mean? I laugh. Its like, Who the fuck is Patricia? and How can Patricia say this shit about me?. It just does not matter to me at all.As it is, she says shes most preoccupied with how to be a functioning grown up, an adult and a mother to an eight-year-old son (whose father Benjamin Bronfman is son to the billionaire heir of the Seagram fortune) born into immense privilege.

When the war came to an end in Sri Lanka in 2009, it actually did affect me, she explains. Everyone was, like, What the fuck does she know? Shes, like, a pop star, but that was my life. It was 50% of who I was, it was my identity. I didnt know what to do with myself. So I had a kid. Its the year the cause died, but the year my personal cause my son was born. And then, OK, I have to figure out what to do in very small parameters: I have a son, how is he going to see his grandma, am I going to make it there on Saturday? Can I make sure that I dont mess up his head by being depressed about certain things?

She struggles to reconcile her upbringing poor and living in Sri Lanka for her childhood to poor and living on a council estate in Mitcham, south London, in her adolescence with her sons. Im not very straightforward as an immigrant. That whole My kids would never see the pain that I saw; Im not like that. Im totally up for reintroducing him to the pain. I dont have any qualms about that. Her problems havent changed, she says, because of money or better circumstances. Whether Im in a mansion or a council flat, I would feel the same anxiety waking up going: I need to write this thing in a scrapbook, wheres my notepad? I would still have all those problems. I might still overcook the fish fingers. Those things are not going to magically transform because your house has changed. At the beginning I thought that money couldve saved my family. Very quickly I realised that money is not the thing.

Her conflict in wanting to being huge and commercial versus credible and ahead of the curve has been a persistent tension threaded through MIAs career. When I got into the music game, it was never an option to shut up and make lots of money. she says. To be a huge pop star, I would have to be, like, Yes, I think bombing Afghanistan was a great idea, I love our democracy and what it has achieved. I love the American flag and Im going to make a jumpsuit out of it. I just think it was important to have all of those Arab Springs, and its great and lets drink Coca-Cola. I had to do that, and do it all in a thong. Could I have done that if it meant that my mum had the nicest house in Chiswick by the river?

Click here to se the video for MIAs Bad Girls.

Does she worry about money now? If youre preaching living within your means, you have to, to some extent. But I also know that if youre someone in society that speaks out about injustice or political issues, one of the things that happens is that you get economically punished, 100%. I take that hit all the time.

The most recent, obvious example was MIA being forced to quit her headline slot at Afropunk last year, following a contentious quote in which she asked in an interview why Beyonc and Kendrick Lamar might not discuss why Muslim lives matter or Syrian lives matter. I dont regret [raising the issue], she says, with triumphant chutzpah. You saw how bad it was. And the Muslim ban didnt happen just with Trump, it was already happening under Obama. But you couldnt say that about him, you couldnt say that he introduced the Muslim ban, or banned seven different countries, or was already monitoring people, or dropped more bombs than Trump has. In truth, Obamas administration did identify the seven countries on Trumps list for additional screening measures, but it didnt bar their nationals. Shes already skipped ahead. The quantity of damage cant be quantified right now, she insists. Well have to wait the four years. After eight years of Obama, we kind of knew [his failings], but we just werent allowed to say them because he was so great. He was better than any person in Hollywood that I wouldve watched. He was really likable and just had loads of swag. That doesnt mean that you have to deny the truth, though.

This (and much more) comes moments after she tells me she has no time for opinions these days. She claims she doesnt read the news any more and that her primary sources for information are customers at the local kebab shop, taxi drivers and then sort of figuring it out. What about the state of the world? MIAs moment as an agitprop pop activist has never seemed more potent. Politics? I have no time for these things because Im so stuck in the zone. Ive become a hermit. [Meltdown] is actually giving me the chance to actually go out and meet people again. Ive gone for weeks without talking to a person, I do that happily. I tell her I dont believe her, as I suspect it would be a recipe for her to go fully barmy.

Im actually quite an extreme person, so I dont see that as madness. I see that as, like, solitude, doing a phase of solitude is not that bad. After declaring her fifth album AIM to be her final one, shes also trying to find new ways to channel her creativity. Im trying to write a film. I havent stepped into it yet because I want it to be good. Once you hit the start button you cant really stop it. She has, she tells me, the added complication of ADD to contend with. When was that diagnosed? I just have it. Dont even need diagnosis, its a waste of time, its a waste of the NHS. In truly blithe MIA style, she adds: Its just when you have too many ideas and not enough ways to get them out.

MIAs Meltdown is at the Southbank Centre, SE1, 9-18 June

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