#it’s just his funky portrait

[you-have-been-frizzled]

Anything you want to info dump about? (Feel free to leave this in your inbox until you want to use it)

elliot looks like gaston,

beta elliot looked good i’d even say a bit attractive 

he looks like a writer, he looks like he would have a english accent, just amazing

these are the same person to me and i’m sorry to anyone who likes Elliot, he looks like gaston and i read everything he says in gaston’s voice

[mo-ok]

cleaned up some of my gingaman sketches <3 <3 <3

[kof-xiii]

rawr

[yyokkki]

Asking to Sketch Them

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*cough* I forgot this series was a thing I was doing uwu

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DIASOMNIA

Malleus Draconia

"Oh? How bold of you to think you could capture my visage in a mere canvas."

He says with the goofiest smile imaginable（⌒▽⌒）

He's already summoning a chair to sit on

Very experienced with posing so it's a breeze

You have a nice chat about philosophy, gargoyles and culture while you draw him

When you're done he's fangirling internally

Asks if he can commission you to draw a portrait of the both of you tgt

Hangs it up in his room <3

Becomes a regular commissioner

Mostly gargoyles

10/10 honestly nothing bad to say he's lovely

Lilia Vanrouge

"Fufufu, I've been in thousands of portraits over the years, you'll have to try your hardest to really impress me~ No pressure though!"

100% pressure once again

The old bat man will probably be hanging from the ceiling no negotiating

So it's either you draw him upside down or get upside down too

If you choose the second option you best hope no one walks in on you cuz damn wtf

How are you doing that you aren't even using magic???

When you're finished he jumps down and looks and goes

"How nice! Art has truly evolved so much since the last time I had one done~"

Starts showing you some of the portraits he had before like he's showing you baby pics

One of them has him looking like those medieval babies TT

4/10 I can't explain why I'm not giving him a lower score he's just funky

Silver

"No problem. If I fall asleep you can just wake me up, I won't mind."

He doesn't have much experience in posing but he's a natural

He's lookin like a disney princess fr, animals have started gathering

You're having a pleasant chat abou-

Oop he fell asleep

You think about waking him up but like

He looks so peaceful and like he's not even really moving so-

By the time you're done he's probably up and he starts apologizing

Tbh it's Silver so it would've been beautiful whether he was awake or asleep

Bonus points if you include the woodland critters snuggling into him

Human anatomy AND animal anatomy practice!!

9/10 he tried his best and it did turn out well

Sebek Zigvolt

"I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS HUMAN! MY VALUABLE TIME IS SPENT GUARDING AND PROTECTING THE HONOUR OF THE GLORIOUS YOUN-"

once again someone kiss him and shut him up omg

Or actually just show him the Malleus portrait he'll shut up

Yeah you have to do Malleus first if you wanna draw him

Stiff like a ramrod his face looks constipated

Ask him a question about his young master and he forgets he's being drawn in exactly 3 seconds

His face really lights up as he talks about him it's kinda cute

By the time you're done he's probably still talking so interrupt in a speech break

Thinks you did a good job and asks for some advice with art

Then starts trying to buy the malleus portrait off of you

I should've tried harder to not make 80% of his just him talking about the dragon boi but it's really hard cuz he's just him TT

7/10 he's not that bad but your ears are bleeding

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Heartslabyul | Savanaclaw | Octavinelle | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia

[ninaswritingstuff]

One reason I haven't updated shifting priorities in well over a year is that I've been fixated on an AU of my AU in which Bernard is thrown into the mix.

Like, Tim has been so fixated on trying to clone Kon that he has pretty much completely ignored his body. That cloning tube and Kon's DNA are pretty much the only things he cares about. And he's tried and failed 99 times. He's running out of Kon's DNA, nothing has worked, so he gets an extra boost of desperation.

He uses his own DNA as a stabilizing agent.

So, fun thing about cloning is that it requires a donor egg. The genetic material of the egg itself is removed and replaced with the complete DNA of whatever you're trying to clone (don't quote me on this, this is my recollection/understanding of how they made Dolly).

Tim, who in this AU has the parts that would produce a human egg (trans!Tim or AOB, dealer's choice for the purposes of this run-down), decides he's going to cut out the middle man and use his own.

Only to find out that he's pregnant. It doesn't really click in his head until he's gotten his egg and already started the 100th attempt (forgetting to remove his DNA from the egg before adding in Kon's), so when it finally hits him, he's staring at a cloning tube with a (finally) viable embryo.

So he goes out and gets himself a pregnancy test, and this is where he crosses paths with Bernard. Bernard just kind of stumbles across him in the local CVS, and at first thinks he could try to reconnect and made shoot his shot, only to realize exactly where he's found Tim.

And never let it be said that Bernard Dowd is a coward.

So he squares up and heads over, and ends up basically being Tim's moral support for the remainder of the pregnancy. He had even planned to be in the delivery room with Tim when the baby was born (which didn't happen because the baby decided to arrive a month early and in the most traumatic way possible).

He's not actually expecting anything from Tim. Clearly, Tim's got enough on his plate, and he's clearly still not over whoever it was who got him knocked up. So Bernard's mostly just trying to be a good friend. And if something eventually develops, well. Bernard certainly won't complain.

Bernard was thrown for kind of a loop when Danny came along, but delayed twins are a thing, so...he just kind of rolls with it. It's Gotham. Weirder things have happened.

He puts a lot of time into helping Tim out with the not-twins, and maybe kind of starts to think of the kids as maybe sort of his. In, like, a dad-that-stepped-up kind of way. Bernard is honestly surprised by how down he's turned out to be for basically co-parenting with Tim.

They end up building up a working system over the next few months, with Bernard coming over after school to mind the kids so Tim could get so rest in. By the time the not-twins are a month old, Bernard's kind of...moved into Wayne Manor. In an unofficial capacity.

And just when things seem to have reached a sort of equilibrium, Bruce dies. Or, well, it seems pretty overt that he's dead. Bernard's been in the know (to an extent) since Tim brought Danny home, so when Tim tells him his theory about the portrait of Mordecai Wayne, Bernard (funky little conspiracy theorist that he is) believes him.

Tim ends up leaving Danny and Ellie in Bernard's care so he can go and hunt down enough proof to bring Bruce home, with encouragement from Bernard (and the condition that Tim maintains regular contact while gone). It's not easy, being a single parent to twins is even less easy, but Bernard fully believes that this is something Tim needs to do, and he was already pretty much done with school, so he doesn't have to worry about college until the fall.

BruceQuest occurs largely unchanged from canon, save for the fact that Tim is less passively suicidal throughout. And when Kon finds him in that sewer...well, Tim's half-convinced he's talking to a hallucination, so he mentions the not-twins.

After that encounter, Kon makes a bee-line for Gotham, and gets to meet the babies. One thing leads to another, and Kon and Bernard end up co-parenting while Tim's off saving Bruce's bacon.

When everything is handled and Tim's back home with Bruce not too far behind, the three of them end up having to have a discussion about what they're gonna do moving forward.

Endgame TimBerKon.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Paul McCartney Discography Album Cover Ranking

Because I Feel Like It!

25. What was the vision here. I'm genuinely baffled. That pink feels so out of place. Why am I thinking of that one Narnia book.

24. C'mon, man.

23. Denny literally looks like he's about to sneeze. Linda's slaying tho. Why is the contrast so high. You can't even tell they actually took these pics on location.

22. It should probably be lower than London Town but I'm too much of a sucker for red/blue contrasts. It emphasizes his asymmetry way too much.

21. It's kind of a neat picture but it doesn't match the album At All. (Linda I Love Youuuuuuu)

20. The squished artist name and feet upset me. Nice picture though.

19. Striking. I really love the font. The reflection feels like too much.

18. Inoffensive. The colours are lovely.

17. Not super ambitious but a well executed concept.

16. Very cute and cool composition!!!

15. Neat concept. I prefer the cooler tones of the deluxe edition.

14. Love the copper here and the delicate touches of purple.

13. Integrating the album title into the actual subject is always inspired. I wish the tracklist could be found on it too though!!

12. Again: big red/blue contrast fan here. I just find myself wishing the picture (which is good!) was better integrated into the background somehow. Really like the font and the tetris-like blocks though, it feels very in character with the production.

11. Beautiful composition. Just lovely, possibly the most underrated one.

10. Love the handwritten title, the little pie detail, the colour palette, the fact the picture is slightly blurred. this is like if the Driving Rain cover was thought-through.

9. Unapologetically quirky like the album itself. I go back and forth on the blue frame but the portrait itself is so goddamned inspired I have to give it a spot in the top ten.

8. Gorgeous picture. The birds in motion are amazing. I wish Paul's haircut was better but what can you do.

7. This is amazing to me. This cover TELLS a story (I know it's basically a screengrab from some TV special lol). In connection with the title it makes me think "the egg" is earth itself. The way the lighting creates a natural frame. It's just so cool and unique.

6. I cannot decide if the concept of Mike McCartney happening to see his brother through the kitchen curtains and snapping a picture of it or having a specific vision for this image and getting Paul to pose for him is more impressive. This is the stuff of legends. He was fucking 18 or something. Though a part of me wonders if it really works as an album cover. I'd need to look at a physical copy more closely.

5. Back at it again with the blue/red. It works so well with the album's mood as a whole and it's a lovely picture to boot.

4. I just love getting lost in all the details of this one. There's so much to look at without the whole thing feeling over-crowded or overwhelming. I can see the brushstrokes and I love that.

3. The funky af font matched with the super super simple motif. Nothing to add. Having the title vertical and horizontal was inspired.

2. Iconic. Christopher Lee is literally on it.

Sorrrrry but the way it combines black and white with colour and it's VISIBLY homedrawn marker and the yellow is so iconic. This shit goes crazy, I don't tire looking at it.

[caltropspress]

Earl Sweatshirt: A Geography of Grief and Growth

I made myself the poet of the world. The white man had found a poetry in which there was nothing poetic….I had soon to change my tune.

—Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

I suggest that we do not necessarily need to hear and know what is stated in its entirety, that we do not need to “master” or conquer the narrative as a whole, that we may know in fragments.

—bell hooks, “Teaching New Worlds/New Words” (1994)

Breakin’ ’em down to micro-fragments.

—Saafir, “Battle Drill” (1994)

What is asked of me is not to ascend but to descend.

—Robert Bly (1990)

1.

Earl Sweatshirt’s arc, swerving and dervishy, isn’t difficult to see, as we’ve witnessed it with him—we’re either interlocutors or interlopers, both with questionable motives. So when Earl looks back on school daze, as he does on “OD,” we look back with him (though ours is often an imperial gaze [HOW COULD IT NOT BE?]). We tee-hee and titter as we hear that “somebody tooted in the student commons,” tooted being the most puerile word for gas he could have chosen. An array of scatological options were ignored. It’s a deliberate gesture toward juvenilia. He doesn’t want his expression to be too mature, ha. He wants to welcome you to the romper room, ha. Remaining a kid until the moment he expires, apparently. So he sets the adolescent scene: the student commons. “The bell rang,” and the accused student was spared the prolonged opprobrium. In about four seconds, the student will begin to post. He “went home and argued in the comments,” channeling his embarrassment elsewhere, talking shit (shit) on the internet behind the safety and quasi-anonymity of a screen—an odd facade. He can walk right up to your avi and diss you. That’s his philosophy. The public humiliation replaced with a private self-possession. The discomfort of the crowd exchanged for the solace of solitude.

2.  DID AN ANGEL SPEAK?

The sonics of “tooted” and “student” are twee, giggle-inducing. We laugh along with the concatenation of m and n phonemes [somebody | student | commons | rang | went | home | then | in | comments]. The near-homophonous commons and comments scan hysterical. With “OD,” it’s easy to confuse adolescence with adulthood. That “somebody” committed this social transgression seems defensive. Maybe it was him—the subject, Earl, Thebe—seeing as how the rest of the song is delivered in the first-person. Embrace the Age of Immaturity. Channel the Fat Boys: Darren Robinson’s flatulent beatbox. Place it beside the disorderly lyrics that Bobbito spits: “I write my own shit from finish to start, / Diminish the heart, / I eat a knish and then I fart.” Like the Cenobites, Earl kicks a dope verse, and only that. “I keep my sentences short,” he says on “EAST.” Beauty is brevity, brevity beauty. A “brevity pack,” as Earl has referred to the Feet of Clay songs. He strives to be live ’cause he got no choice. He runs his own business like James Joyce. In A Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man, a similar flatus incident unravels. At Clongowes Wood College (Stephen Dedalus’s Coral Reef Academy), a “stout student who stood below…on the steps” by the name of Goggins “farted briefly.” Sonically, the sentence shares much with Earl’s opening line. Dixon asks, in a “soft voice,” “Did an angel speak?” But the others react with bellicosity and name-calling (stinkpot; flamingest dirty devil). Goggins doesn’t retreat home; he simply asks, “It did no one any harm, did it?” You still bet that you can harm me, but you don’t alarm me, Goggins might say another way, reprising Del the Funky Homosapien, echoplexing Masta Ace. 

3. 

Earl “watched the doppler move,” the wavelength shift—the siren song of the “toot,” something insidious—or maybe it’s just the tremors we’re feeling. Woop, woop: that’s the sound of the beast, KRS would say. The frequency shivers. The shift, the movéd doppler, means Earl is immediately older, he’s the child who “get[s] introduced to violence,” even if he acknowledges the line was inspired by his nephew on a playground in South Africa, experiencing apartheid reincarnate as a whiteboy cuts him in line for the slide. Cranly, bullying Goggins, “shove[s] him violently down the steps.” The doppler moves. It slides into violence—like the violence visited upon the MOVE compound located at 6221 Osage Avenue in Philly in 1985. Gradations of black/white. ELUCID mentions the “gray on [his] face showing age” on his Osage (2016) project. Isn’t it strange—how the youngins can turn cold, hoarfrosty, in an instant? The grayscale cover to ELUCID’s tape is graced by a photograph of Birdie Africa, the sole child survivor of the siege. The bone fragments of the MOVE children have since been used in anthropology courses at UPenn and Princeton—case studies. It’s a good trope. Fascinating stuff.

4.  TRYIN’ TO TRANSFORM YOU BOYS TO MEN LIKE DAYCARE

When JuJu of the Beatnuts asked, You want pain?, he wasn’t referencing the dramatical-traumatical pain Earl negotiates—JuJu’s question posed a ruffneck and ruffian pain on “Watch Out Now.” Somewhere closer to Marcy, where Jay-Z’s streets was watching. Earl clocks minutes, anaphoric with what he watches (I watched the doppler… / I watched a child…), much like Dylan’s portentous hard rain in which he saw endless racialized visions: “I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it”; “I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’”; “I saw a white ladder all covered with water.” For Earl, the ladder is a slide. The saw is watched. Witnesses all.

5.

In “Theory as Liberatory Practice,” bell hooks writes that she “came to theory because [she] was hurting”: “I wanted to make the hurt go away. I saw in theory then a location for healing.” hooks says that she “came to theory young, when [she] was still a child,” citing Terry Eagleton who argues that “[c]hildren make the best theorists.” Children, Eagleton insists, possess “a wondering estrangement.” No wonder, then, that “since a jit” Earl has found no use in “giving up.” He rather make it make sense. 

6.

I beat you to the point. Having gained experience, there’s nothing you can tell Earl that he doesn’t already know, that he hasn’t already seen. He’s seen enough, had enough. He doesn’t await the mob’s pursuit; he places the noose on himself, he RE: DEFines it within his own lexicon. His noose, therefore, “is golden.” He’s a young youth, rockin’ the gold [noose], DEATHWORLD goose. He speaks with criminal slang, with a split tongue like ELUCID. Where ELUCID was “true and living, actual—no dull axes, owner of all heads,” Earl is “true and living, lonesome,” with no skulls to keep him company. He has to square up with the “pugilistic moments” on his own. 

7.  I AM OLDER THAN I ONCE WAS AND YOUNGER THAN I’LL BE

I’m thinking of “The Pugilist at Rest” (1991) by Thom Jones, whose epileptic protag describes a “grainy black-and-white photograph” of the bronze statue called The Pugilist at Rest. The pugilist, with a pocketful of mumbles, has “slanted, drooping brows that bespeak torn nerves” and a forehead “piled with scar tissue.” Torn nerves and scar tissue—sounds like the physical manifestations of grief. And, yes, Earl has grieved, and he continues to grieve—as listeners, we’re accustomed to his grief pedigree, as per Ka. In the past, Earl was “panicking a lot”—he just “want[ed] [his] time and [his] mind intact.” That’s a cold fact.

The narrator of “The Pugilist at Rest” readies himself for a cingulotomy—a psychosurgical procedure that will “cauterize a small spot in a nerve bundle in [his] brain.” In other words, he wants to keep his mind intact. The neurosurgeon promises the operation will lift “the heaviness of a heart blackened by sin,” which is what convinces the narrator to agree to it. Good grief, he thinks, he’s been reaping what he sowed. He “can’t go on like this,” barely living “with a deadening sense of languor,” a phrase which calls to mind Earl’s lethargic, slugabed flow. Feeling insane in the membrane, like he’s a Soul Assassinated, exploring the depths beneath his whooligan behaviors. 376 was a brothel. “Good and evil are only illusions,” Jones writes. In anticipation of the surgery, the protag considers the worst-case [so what, so what] scenario: “If they fuck up the operation, I hope I get to keep my dogs somehow.”

8.  MOURNING & MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLIA

Grief carries its own antidote along with it.

—Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)

“Grief is the door to feeling,” Robert Bly says. But Earl, on “Grief,” told us he “ain’t been outside in a minute”—and that minute, whether we’re speaking with criminal slang like Nas on “It Ain’t Hard To Tell” or not, is an eternity. Earl hadn’t crossed that threshold, hadn’t kicked in that door. MIKE would realize it much later on “No Curse Lifted (rivers of love),” how you “had to walk through the grief,” even if it “was the worst feeling.” In 2015, though, Earl found these passageways distorted. Like the undulating photograph on the cover of his first mixtape. Like the blur-obscured selfie on the cover of Some Rap Songs. Like the static-scrambled cover of I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside. Earl’s dealt in fragmentary confuzzled noise for a full career. He’s been standing on the corner, red burnt, moving down alien lanes paved by GBV, greenthinking to himself. It ain’t hard to tell that Earl “don’t act hard” and yet is a “hard act to follow.” The density or opacity of his exterior notwithstanding, grief don’t come easy. “As men,” Bly says, “we’re taught not to feel pain and grief as children.” So Earl spits somnolent, numb-tongued and slack-jawed. Like he said on “Cold Summers”: muffle my pain and muzzle my brain up. 

“I’ve been alone in my shit for the longest,” he spit on “Grief,” and in work as recent as “Vin Skully,” he’s still figuring out “how to stay afloat in a bottomless pit.” Bly says that “we receive something from our father by standing close to him—something moves over that can’t be described in material terms.” Bly speaks of being in a “conspiracy with his mother” from early on. Earl finds himself “thinking ’bout [his] grandmama” while he wallows and lies in a bottle. “Grief” catalogs all the things his mama taught him. Earl’s work, of late, is autodestructive. He peels away and pastes back haphazardly. He vibes with this Bly shit: “If you can deny something so fundamental as grief in the whole family, you can deny anything. And then how can you write poetry if you’re involved in that much denial?”

Bly goes on to quote Alice Miller, the psychoanalyst who gave us The Drama of the Gifted Child (1979): “When you were young, you needed something you did not receive, and you will never receive it. And the proper attitude is mourning.” Mourning is the proper attitude, not blame—mourning. Mourning makes its way through moaning and mumbling—Earl’s current intonation. On “Grief,” he “cut the grass off the surface [and] pray[s] the lawnmower blade catch the back of a serpent.” Philip Larkin’s poem “The Mower” (1979) leans more literal: “The mower stalled, twice; I found / A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, / Killed. It had been in the long grass.” Larkin’s speaker genuflects before the innocent critter, recalling how he “fed it, once.” Now, he mourns how he has “mauled its unobtrusive world, / Unmendably. Burial was no help.” Earl, of course, is less forgiving of the serpents in the grass. They’re threats, not friends. Still, a void opens up when the mower—(and let’s not forget the lawnmower is a modernized scythe)—does its mowing. Grief is the door to feeling, and on the other side:

Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time.

9.  NOBODY KNOW WHO MADE THIS WELL, FOR IT WAS HERE WHEN I WAS BORN

“Come get to know me at my innermost…”

Riveting, Earl raps. Earl raps are riveting. We fix to the flow—riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s. We’re invited to know Earl, to become familiar, and his “innermost” is a constant vacillation between optimism and [afro]pessimism. The sudden switches—these switches on bitches like fixed with hydraulics—establish what Danny Schwartz, writing for Rolling Stone, called an “uneven terrain.”

Earl’s “family business [is] anguished,” and that’s recognizable. We’ve known Earl (on “Chum”) with the “pendulum swinging slow” and low. He holed up, hostage-like, in his “heart’s bottomless pit.” Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842) brand of captivity. “I was sick,” that narrator says, “—sick unto death with that long agony.” Something tells me there should be an exclamation point there (SICK!). Earl Sweatshirt was down, down, down. “I was in the fucking pits for like 10 months post my pops dying,” he said in an interview. The Spanish Inquisition ain’t shit.

But for these countless downs, “OD” tracks the ups like naloxone in the nasal membrane. “Now I need atonement,” Earl notes—he makes a case for reparations. He “sets the goal[s]” like some motivational speaker. If “half [his] wings is broken,” he can “spread the other for [his] brodie OD.” Somewhat circumspect as he’s “tiptoeing,” yet the approach is laden with “too much love.” Even when his “sister showed in a rut,” he’s joining arms with her and “getting over, sending up.” That rut she walks—like Eudora Welty’s worn path (1941)—is a path through the pinewoods, and she’s suddenly Phoenix Jackson. “She was very old and small,” Welty writes, and she moves “with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grandfather clock.” Even with her pentium processing and pendulum low, she swings back up—the rise of her namesake. She screams phoenix, her feathers and flames are one skin. “Living in the moment,” Earl raps, and his craft is bars. “You been corrupt”—and, sure, who hasn’t?—but you recover with “some ginabot.” Welty’s Old Phoenix surveys a spring “silently flowing through a hollow log.” She bends and drinks and says, “Sweet gum makes the water sweet.” It’s the equivalent to Earl putting “shilajit in his sippy cup,” which is “healing cuts revealingly.” And, yes, from a “sippy cup,” so we’re back to toddling around again (“Since a jit,” he says). “I can’t give enough,” Earl raps, his last winding-sheet made of nard and myrrh. 

10.

We crouch and teeter, caterwauling along the ledges, for we’ve got these clumsy feet of clay. This is the intended effect[/defect]; this is the rubble of what Earl calls the “crumbling empire.” This is us feeling the violent vibes of the “death throes” he speaks of. Why would we expect anything to resemble traditional song or rhyme structure when the earth quakes, civilization trembles, and Earl’s dungeon shakes? His chains have fallen off. The tenor is tremors. He’s living the trife life—hell on earth—but still living. Earl’s done trying to not look down—he embraces an outer appearance which scans dour; he deliberately gazes into the pit, inviting the vertigo, for it “haunts the whole of existence,” as Fanon says. But Frank B. Wilderson III promises a “vengeance of vertigo.”

11.

Gallons of rubbing alcohol flow through the strip, and Earl’s lips. He’s “refilling the pump”—his heart, yeah—but with a sawed-off shotgun, hand-on-the-pump posture. There’s “no concealing it,” not even with a concealed carry permit. He brandishes right back at “the enemy up in arms bearing snubs.” The mood swings; been down so long it looks like up to him. The turns require tourniquets. This is some Battle of Dak To torture—somewhere between Retaliation and the Heavenly Divine. Emotional turmoil seems violent by design, and Earl’s “memory [is] really leaking blood.” Fear not, the blood is “congealing, stuck.” Like Havoc says, “The Mobb rollin’ thicker.” Prodigy cites it, too: “This ain’t rap—it’s bloodsport.” But Earl has known that all along—he’s been “mobbin’ deep as ’96 Havoc and Prodigy did” since 2013.

12.

HipHopDX’s Kevin Cortez referred to listeners having to “sift through the muddle” in order to appreciate the bars, but where muddle suggests a disorderly conduct, a kaos network, Earl’s style, more appropriately, models. The woozy, wavy, and inner-conflict-war-torn vocals model an abstraction that anticipates the listener’s loyalty. This is what I’ve got, brief and cryptic as the gesture may be, the model says. Writing for NME, Dhruva Balram described Earl’s lyrics as “slurred,” but slurry is the form.

13.

If the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression, its outcasts have the gods of chaos on their side…

—Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (2005)

So if we’re giving ourselves over to the woozes and waves, we’ll just as well find ourselves lost. Let’s go—like those tourist books run by students—and let’s wander eastward. Follow our napkin-scrawled directions and disorientations to a somewhere elsewhere. Let’s go east for a second, for a spell, on a lark, in the dark (word to AKAI SOLO). Earl’s bloodwork contains “pieces of slums”—or more aptly, [sLUms]. He’s hand-to-hand with that Jungle Boy MIKE, but also the god Mike Davis. “[T]he cities of the future,” Davis wrote, would be “constructed out of crude brick, straw, recycled plastic, cement blocks, and scrap wood.” Just the same as an Earl Sweatshirt verse is built—under the tutelage and overstanding-sharing, symbiotically, with MIKE. Davis says our cities aren’t “cities of light soaring toward heaven,” but a world that “squats in squalor, surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay.” Smells like somebody tooted in the student commons. Smells like a slum village, something we’ve smelled before—possibly coming straight from the slums of Shaolin. 

14.  ACID EASTERNS

Earl trekked to the East and squinted into “one beacon in the dust weaving”—like Clint Eastwood arriving out of the hazy horizon ether of High Plains Drifter (1973). But Earl is heading to the East, blackwards. And though Brother J claimed you can’t define what’s direct from the East, Jeru told us on The Sun Rises in the East that you can’t stop the prophet either. So on “EAST,” Earl traverses a tricky terrain—it’s tricky, tricky, tricky because it’s an acid western landscape: an acid eastern.

The path isn’t direct or linear—it zigs and zags like rolling papers, and stimulates the same. “Double back when you got it made,” Earl says at the start of his journey “EAST.” The objective is to talk sense condensed into the form of a poem like Special Ed once did on “I Got It Made.” Instead, Earl’s poems—his L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poems—skew [non]sense, go form[less], and vaporize rather than condense. Lyn Hejinian in cinnamon Timbs: “constant change figures / the time we sense.” The narrative is hallucinogenic (note: “how the story careen against the bars”). Earl’s bindle contains “thirty racks and weed [with] no fat in the collard greens.” That’s how he gets funky on the mic like an old batch. That’s how he gets sincerity on the mic: “Off top it’s me—no cap, / I don’t bottle things.” That buck that bought a bottle could’ve struck the lotto, maybe. But Earl’s “canteen was full of the poison [he] need[s].” He gets where he’s going like El Topo, bereft. The “trip was long and steep”—that being an acid trip—so let me see you try to ride a horse into the chasms of the canyon.

“EAST” is a death meditation, a grand duel between Dantean and Donneian lyric voices [he damn-near well should’ve double-tracked the vocals]. In a 2015 interview with SPIN, Earl is asked about the worst thing he did that year, to which he replies: “Umm…acid?” He elaborates: “I took it at a time when I really didn’t need to be taking acid. I had like a fucking existential crisis at, like, four in the morning. But it was tight. We reeled it back.” Jodorowsky called El Topo (1970) an “eastern” in that it “incorporat[ed] ancient eastern wisdom in the materiality of American cowboys.” For Earl, it’s more a rhinestone cowboy—he holds the cold one like he holds an old gun (as evidenced in the “EAST” music video). DOOM was no stranger to grief, of course, and the rumors persist regarding the bad acid that precipitated Subroc’s early demise (“Bad Acid” also being the original title for “December 24”).

Estranged Earl, alienated—a high plains drifter (not Clint Eastwood, though) who rechristens a town “Hell” through a baptism of blood. Like the Beastie Boys’ version, Earl pulls out a pair of pliers and pulls a bullet out of his chest. He pulls through, true and living. “I’m long distance from my girl,” Mike D raps, so he’s “talking on the cellular,” but Earl is more alienated than that—beyond racking up roaming charges, immersed in dead zones. He “lost [his] phone and consequently all the feelings [he] caught for [his] GF.” Relationships can’t be sustained in these bleak and barren locations. All the blood has been drained from the ruddy faces—sanguine scenery. In his essay “On the Acid Western,” Jonathan Rosenbaum discusses how the subgenre “refuses to respect or valorize bloodshed.” Memory really leaking blood. Congealing. Stuck. To paraphrase Rosenbaum, Earl’s acid eastern “formulat[es] a chilling, savage frontier poetry to justify [his] hallucinated agenda—a view at once clear-eyed and visionary, exalted and laconic, moral and unsentimental, witty and beautiful, frightening and placid.” Earl’s “innocence was lost in the East,” and obsessives speculate whether this refers to Samoa or New York City—how far east we going? Countless spirit-questers pit-stopping at ashrams, searching for that Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal guide. 

“I wait a beat,” Earl says. His canteen stays filled, auto-replenishes. His “cognitive dissonance shattered” and the “necessary venom restored.” Jodorowsky reportedly once taped snakes to his chest for an experimental theater performance. As if it matters if you think it matters anymore. Or, as ELUCID says, “Words mean things but don’t have to.” Acids and bases. Occident and Orient. Western and Eastern. Up is down.

15.  NOTHING LIKE US EVER WAS

Earl’s “EAST” accordion beat—or whatever Orkes Gambus Al Fata instrumentation is at work—is more madcap than madvillainous. In my head is Erick Sermon, though, speaking about how “the flow slow…like a jazz player, or someone on the accordion” on “Knick Knack Patty Wack.” But I’m less concerned with the flow of air through bellows—compressing and expanding—than I am with Earl’s rendering of wind. (Somebody tooted.)

“Let the dead be dead,” Carl Sandburg says at stanza’s end in “Four Preludes on the Playthings of the Wind” (1920). Later, he reports, “The only singers now are crows crying.” And so Earl, a lonesome crow, reminds us—and himself—that “the wind get the ashes in the end” on “December 24.” The whining, wheezing consonance of /-nd/ in “wind” and “end” manages to evoke both the wind itself and the circularity of life. The bar whooshes and whips until we’re at our end, the terminus. That circularity, that full circle: ashes to ashes. “We are the greatest city,” Sandburg repeats, “the greatest nation: / nothing like us ever was.”

Global winds be blowin’—[Of the Soul]—and so billy woods cites that same line on “Haarlem”: “Thebe said the wind get the ashes in the end, bruv.” Check the configuration of the rhime: 

The wind | gets | the ashes | in | the end   {birth}                    {life}                {death}

Even that get does work—whether it’s the violence of Death Grips’ “get got”; Too $hort threatening you to “get in where you fit in”; or the satirical sadism of Keenen Ivory Wayans’ I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. The wind wins out—it gets what it wants. On “EAST,” the wind—infinitely personified—“whispered to [Earl], ‘Ain’t it hard?’” It ain’t hard to tell that it is. How about some hardcore? Yeah, we like it raw like M.O.P. But those burns yield ashes. In Adrienne Rich’s poem “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children” (1989), she struggles with the words she uses, knowing “[t]his is the oppressor’s language / yet [she] needs to talk to you.” I know it hurts to burn, she writes, but writing is no less ardent. “The typewriter is overheated, my mouth is burning.”

Let me bring it back to Robert Bly. “In the ancient times,” Bly says, “the movement for the men was downward—a descent into grief. It’s referred to in the fairytale as ‘the time of ashes.’” Ashes, he explains, is the “code word for the ‘out of it’ time.” 

We know what it is like to take ashes in our hands. How light they are! The fingertips experience them as a kind of powder… Ashes, we note, find their way into the whorls of our fingertips, cling there, make the whorls more noticeable, more visible, more clear to us. We can take our own fingerprints with ashes.

Ashes, then, aren’t simply for the wind’s taking—ashes are for us, are necessary for us to transcend the grief the boys, the men, and the man-child experience. Bly points to the various cultures that have used ashes in initiation rites: “Ashes Time is a time set aside for the death of that ego-bound boy.” Ready to give up, so you seek the Old Earth. The elders cover your face—even your whole body—with ashes “to make [you] the color of dead people and to remind [you] of the inner death about to come.” Consider Earl’s ashen white face produced in the negative imagery of the “Grief” music video.” “The word ashes contains in it a dark feeling for death,” Bly says. “Ashes when put on the face whiten as death does.”

Earl Sweatshirt is a far cry from knocking blunt ashes into caskets.

16.

Feet of clay, hands of light…

—Moor Mother and billy woods, “Furies” (2020)

For Cheryl I. Harris, Earl’s mother, the feet of clay refer to a vulnerability we all possess no matter how formidable we may appear to become. Earl invokes the King of Babylon’s dream, a dream of an idol “meant to represent all the empires of the world,” echoing Sandburg’s imperious “greatest nation.” Earl believes “we at the feet of clay right now…We posted up live from burning Rome.” Imagine the ash pile. So Earl is here, ostensibly, to turn the disco into something dismal—how Mtume becomes “MTOMB” with its entombed sonics, as if he’s rapping from within a wall, the victim of some Poe immurement. 

17.

“I remember woods,” Earl raps on “OD.” “I remember Endom when he wasn’t remembering much, / I remember love healing the ruptures.” I remember is also the refrain and title of Joe Brainard’s poem-memoir, a term which aptly describes much of Earl’s recent output. Brainard’s memories bum-rush into the present:

I remember a dream I used to have a lot of a beautiful red and yellow and black snake in bright green grass. I remember painting “I HATE TED BERRIGAN” in big black letters all over my white wall. I remember liver.

If Earl recalls love “healing the ruptures,” then he also likely recalls Fanon: It is essential to convey to the black man that an attitude of rupture has never saved anyone. But Fanon also speaks of young Black men “maintain[ing] their alterity. Alterity of rupture, of conflict, of battle.” Earl, “feeling rushed, grew up quick.” He echoes Biggie, who “grew up a fucking screw-up,” and Raekwon, who “grew up on the crime side” (though Earl’s mama taught him, as we know from “Grief,” how to avoid the pigs, persecution, and prosecution). Eyes on the clock, Earl acknowledges this “trip around the sun” is his “25th,” so “give it up”—his survival alone deserving of a standing [on the corner] ovation. He celebrates life with “gin and rum.” Again, notably not gin and juice—murder was never the case. The only death is the inner death, the death of the ego-bound boy, that Bly describes. Earl’s gin is the drink of be[gin]ning, of genesis (“Light them Phillies up then…”), of Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, when I was dead-broke, man… “We wasn’t supposed to be alive,” Earl says, yet here he stands.

18.  RUMINANT

Stare at the Feet of Clay album cover—an evocation of folkloric imagery: a Grimm forest with gnarled tree branches—and the enchanted, diabolic goat lying in wait. Earl’s parasocial following speculate G.O.A.T., of course, but I’m more inclined to mythopoeic possibilities. The Feet of Clay goat glares like Baphomet but frolics like a faun over fractured beats. “OD,” Earl has stated, “brought [him] up out of [his] little wreck”—a wreck of wracked nerves. Adrienne Rich encourages “diving into the wreck” (1973).

I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power.

Earl’s right there with her, submerged and blacking out, but still surviving: Really leaking blood, but refilling the pump.

In her essay “Teaching New Worlds/New Words,” bell hooks invokes Rich’s struggle to navigate the “oppressor’s language.” For hooks, as a Black writer, managing that is even more difficult and historical. “I think now of the grief of displaced ‘homeless’ Africans, forced to inhabit a world where they saw folks like themselves, inhabiting the same skin, the same condition, but who had no shared language to talk with one another, who needed ‘the oppressor’s language.’” hooks explains how Black folks have “remade that language so that it would speak beyond the boundaries of conquest and domination.”

Earl Sweatshirt, especially in his later work, has “altered [and] transformed” English, just as “enslaved Black people took broken bits of English and made of them a counter-language.” The emotional wreckage is also a linguistic heap of fragments—micro-fragments, if we’ve learned anything from Saafir. Earl, in the tradition of his ancestors, “put[s] together [his] words in such a way that the colonizer ha[s] to rethink the meaning of the English language.” “The grammatical construction of sentences in these songs” by Earl, just as by the spirituals of hundreds of years prior, “reflect[s] the broken, ruptured world of the slave.” That crumbling empire Earl mentions was faulted by feet of clay.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2019, sharing a dais with his mother, Cherly I. Harris, Earl spoke to this lineage directly: “Rap music is slave music—the modern-day iteration of it. Slave communication had to be encrypted. You got a code.” He shifted: “If I know what I’m saying…I can teach it to you.” On Feet of Clay, Earl is teaching to transgress. “I’m cracking my own code,” he says to an audience member during the Q&A, “how it comes out garbled…,” and then he trails off, as if making a deliberate effort to keep his answer cryptic.

hooks always saw language as “a site of resistance.” This included the incorrect usage and placement of words—she called such practices a “rebellion.” Weaponizing syntax. hooks recognized rap music as a continuation of this fight—the latest [sound]clash, hip-hop artists as rebels without a pause—while still acknowledging the collateral damage it might cause.

Rap music has become one of the spaces where black vernacular speech is used in a manner that invites dominant mainstream culture to listen—to hear—and, to some extent, be transformed. However, one of the risks of this attempt at cultural translation is that it will trivialize black vernacular speech. When young white kids imitate this speech in ways that suggest it is the speech of those who are stupid or who are only interested in entertaining or being funny, then the subversive power of this speech is undermined.

Or, as Earl once said on “Chum,” “Too Black for the white kids and too white for the Blacks,” an axiom he’s come to loathe. Perhaps Fanon had the better bar on this subject: “The white man had the anguished feeling that I was escaping from him and that I was taking something with me. He went through my pockets. He thrust probes into the least circumvolution of my brain. Everywhere he found only the obvious. So it was obvious that I had a secret.”

Despite the pitfalls (and, yeah, the pit is bottomless), Earl’s words play [wordplay] a part in retraining minds, all while exorcizing his own demons through a steady diet of ashes and fractures. hooks promises us that “in the patient act of listening to another tongue we may subvert that culture of capitalist frenzy and consumption that demands all desire must be satisfied immediately.” Through his embrace of a language that indulges in passion and cerebral coding, Earl “heal[s] the splitting of mind and body” so common within Western metaphysical thought. Earl Sweatshirt speaks “words that do more than simply mirror or address the dominant reality”; he builds blips into a reality that is worth the rewind.

Images: Dead Man, dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1995 (screenshot) | Teen at 1990s computer photograph, Unknown (c. 1996) | James Joyce, Age 2, Unknown | ELUCID, Osage album cover (2016), photo by Michael Mally, Philadelphia Inquirer | The Boxer at Rest, bronze statue, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome, Italy (330-50 BC) | Alphonse Legros, The Pit and the Pendulum, second Plate (1861) | High Plains Drifter, dir. Clint Eastwood, 1973 (screenshot) | Subroc on an Apple IIc, Unknown (c. 1987) | Earl Sweatshirt, “Grief” music video, 2015 (screenshot) | Arthur Rackham, The Water of Life, Grimms Fairy Tales (1916) | Dead Man, dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1995 (screenshot)

[the-colourful-witch]

Hi there I was wondering, when you started doing the Harry Potter character design series that you do in your blog, which characters did you start with and how did you decide what characters to do next and how the art project would develop?

Hiya! What a fun question, I'm glad you asked :)

Start of the Project

It started about a year ago. I was pretty art-blocked after graduating from art school. I was by myself during the summer holiday (or rather, the start of a black void that is creating your own art career, holidays are for students...). I was tired and enjoying some much-needed time off when I doodled this little punk girly on my iPad... She had pink hair and funky outfits and I thought: this is Tonks! So I posted the sketch on Tumblr. I don't even know why. I never posted sketches before, it was just an impulse.

The funny thing is, I posted (HP) stuff on Tumblr before but never really did anything with it. I had done a few Marauders portraits the winter before but that didn't prompt me to do more. It wasn't until I posted Tonks and I got some enthusiastic reactions that I thought to create more. It sparked enthusiasm in me; I wanted to explore more of these outfit sketches for HP characters. This is fun! So I did Hermione next, then Harry, then Ron. And on and on. Soon, I was taking requests and thought; 'People seem to really enjoy this! Who'd have thought my doodles turned into this?!'

After about two months, I decided to illustrate every HP character in the books (minus a few extremely obscure ones.. maybe when I get the motivation..). It will probably take a while, but after one year I've done... (takes a moment to count) 45 of them! There are so many more, so it will take a few years to get through them all, I think. Not to mention, all the other illustrations I do, too. The Triwizard portraits were fun! As well as the Weasley family portrait, the Gryffindor Quidditch team... I have a lot more stuff planned :) So, long story short: I'm going to continue for a long long time because there are too many characters to get through and I can't wait to share them all with you! How do I choose which characters to do next? That depends. Sometimes I take a request because I can't choose myself. And other times, I'm planning a few characters in a row. Like, I started with the Gryffindors in Harry's year. Dean, Seamus, Lavender and Parvati... Then a series of Slytherins, a series of Marauders. A series of Teachers, Triwizard Champions, etc. I recently did a series of every Weasley family member and finished that off with a portrait. The same with the Gryffindor Quidditch team; first all the individual characters and then a group illustration. I like doing it like that, it feels organised :)

Future Plans

As for future plans... I'm so thrilled about my plans. I feel like a child on their birthday :) I started the Owl Post Club last month, through Patreon, where I send my patrons a postcard with a Wizarding World illustration every month. I just sent off the first card and the feeling was unbelievable. I received messages that the cards arrived and they were so happy and I'm just beyond excited. I'm hoping to expand my Patreon with more fun projects like this soon. I would like for people to be able to have physical artwork and I'm working on making that possible. The Owl Post Club is just the beginning. Link to the Owl Post Club:

I hope this answered your question(s) :) I'm happy to answer more if you have any.

Magical wishes, Fleur

[kulemiwrites]

NOVEMBER 14: Masato Aizawa

The (No)vember Experiment

What’s the longest you and your dreamboat have gone without getting frisky? Are the two of you constantly teeming with insatiable desire? Can’t keep your hands to yourselves for more than a moment? Depending on your answers to any one of those questions, the idea of going an ENTIRE month without chasing “The Big O” may sound like either a breeze, a curse or a blessing in disguise! Wouldn’t you like to find out which? 

That’s right! We at the KW♥️LOVE offices are challenging our readers and their lovers to a month-long experiment to test their self-restraint! Yes, you read that right– AN ENTIRE MONTH without “The Big O”! Think you can handle it? Rip off the October page of that wall calendar, whip out your favorite marker and get to X’ing off the days until you complete(or forfeit) the NOvember experiment!

We encourage all participants to print out the survey we’ve created for the occasion to fill out and give feedback on your experiences! Keep them for your records in case you participate again next NOvember, discard them when the experiment is over or send them in and we’ll include your feedback in next month’s intimacy column!

[Any submissions will be carefully reviewed by our team. All personal identifiers such as names and unique nicknames will be redacted to ensure the safety and security of our readers before publishing.]

Rating: 18+ Characters: Masato Aizawa & GN! Reader A/N: The idea here is that KW♥️LOVE (Sometimes just KW, and broken into sections) is a fictional version of Cosmopolitan. I was feeling nostalgic over the bygone age of the magazine lol. Surveys are filled out by the character. You determine how the reader would answer their own.)

READ ON A03

Portrait used on calendar is used with permission of the artist @fabylp

When you finished reading the article, the first thing you did was send the link to Masato. After about 20 minutes, you received a string of tan ‘thumbs up’ and ‘flexing’ emojis confirming what you’d already known. It seemed interesting enough but this sort of thing was right up his alley. He’d always had a peculiar interest in assigning himself tests, or “trials” as he liked to call them, to assess his strength and endurance in both the physical sense and the mental.

In a way, he’d already done a version of his ‘no nut’ challenge before. He’d told you about a trial he’d given himself where he went months without any sex or masturbation. 

Months. 

That word seemed to echo in your head.  

His knack for pushing the limits was all fine and dandy but you could help the shiver when you realized what you might have just signed yourself up for. What would you do if he suggested stretching this out for a couple more months. Or the extreme, a year?

In theory, sure, it seemed a little dramatic but you knew what sort of a monster you were up against. What had you just gotten yourself into? 

You stared at his text.

Just a simple line of thumbs and flexing biceps and yet, it felt almost menacing. 

Your train of thought was disrupted by the funky tune you’d assigned to Masato’s contact and instead of a text thread, you were now looking at a picture of your man smiling with a muscular arm wrapped around you as he pressed a kiss to your temple, looking away from the camera.

Any other day, you’d beam at this screen but today, you dreaded swiping the green icon and it was all your own fault. 

“H-Hey, Masato–” you answered. 

“Amorzinho, how are you feeling about Mediterranean for dinner? I’m in the mood for some of those lamb things– gyros! Yeah, lamb gyros sound great right now.”

“Oh, sure… Yeah, that sounds fine.”

“You sure? You don’t sound very happy about it?” Although you couldn’t see him, his tone of voice painted the picture of him perfectly. “We… can get something else. Doesn’t have to be gyros.”

“No,” you chuckle, “no, mediterranean sounds good. Don’t worry.”

There was shuffling on the other line, followed by the sound of a car door shutting and muffled words that you couldn’t make out aside from the word ‘street’. Then, his attention was back to you. 

“Are you not feeling alright or something?”

“Do I really sound that bad or are you just being overprotective?” you said jokingly. You had to wonder if these silly thoughts put that much of a damper on your mood and if so, you needed to get your ass back into gear. 

“Who knows… but, I think we can both say you’re not being yourself,” he said. “Did I fuck up? What day is it today?”

“No, Masato–” you smiled, shaking your head at the fact that now you’ve got the gears in that poor man’s head turning for nothing. “You didn’t do anything. Today’s not important. I think I just sorta bummed myself out a bit.”

You frowned at your own words. It sounded even sillier out loud. 

He urged you to continue. 

“I was just thinking about that article I sent you.”

“The nut November thing, yeah.”

“‘No’ nut November thing,” you corrected. “You know why I sent it, right?”

“‘Cause… you wanna give it a shot?” he seemed to question his own question. 

“I guess, but more like… I know how much you enjoy doing challenges and stuff? So, I had a feeling you’d be interested in trying that one.”

“Well, it’s interesting,” he emphasized, followed by a soft chuckle. “I can give you that.”

You chewed at your lip as you turned over your next sentence in your head and when he asked if you were still there, you finally spit it out. “It’s just that I notice you get a little… intense, when it comes to your ‘trials’. So, the thought of you going overboard made me question if this will be as fun as I thought.”

You were met with one of his airy, boisterous laughs. “That’s all?”

You knew it was a little silly, but for him to laugh like that didn’t help you feel less embarrassed by the words coming out of your own mouth.

“Yes, that's all.” you spat with a tinge more attitude than you intended.

“Listen, amorzinho,” he cleared his throat before continuing. “How about we just forget this? We don’t have to do it.”

“I’m not saying that I don’t want to do it. I just don’t want you going overboard. It’d be fun to try and join one of your trials for once.”

“Got it. No going ‘overboard’.” he said in that amused tone when there’s more than he’s letting on. “You wanna do those slip things, too?”

You shrugged, “Why not? It could be fun to swap in the end and read each other’s answers.”

“What? You mean, you don’t want to send them in and get featured on the romance page of the KW♥️LOVE website?” he teased. 

“Ha, not a chance.”

The cloud hanging over your head seemed to have dissipated and you had to wonder why the hell you allowed yourself to get worked up like that anyway.

The smile in his voice only eased you more, “I’ll download mine tonight then. Get dressed for dinner. I’ll be home soon.”

“See you soon.”

(No)vember Experiment Initial Survey Are both of you participating? Yeah Have you ever practiced abstaining from sex for any period of time before? Yeah Do you believe you are capable of completing this experiment? Yeah Do you believe in your partner(s)’ ability to complete this experiment? Yeah Do you predict a “loser"? None Initial thoughts on the month ahead? I’ve done worse.

The last 13 days have been nothing short of torment and anguish. Not even being chained, beaten and having salt poured into his open wounds could compare to this… 

Alright.

So, he was exaggerating but you had no clue how torturous it was to get through each day pretending that all was well and that he wasn’t dying to screw you into the nearest surface at a moment’s notice. 

You thought him to believe that this would be a walk in the park. You had high hopes for him. He didn’t want to disappoint you. 

Though, truthfully, you had disappointed him when you didn’t lunge at the out he’d given you over the phone that day. He really hoped you’d bite and tell him that you changed your mind. Maybe he should have doubled down when you told him your concern, and suggested that you ramp up the challenge to 90 days instead of 30. 

Maybe then, you’d have dropped it. 

It was hilarious that you truly believed him capable of surviving a month– 30 whole days without a taste of you, without burying himself within you. 

How well did you know him, really?

One truth about Masato was that he was a very physical person. In many cases, he used his hands to communicate what his words and eyes couldn’t. The same whim that led him to violence was the same whim that made him so affectionate.

There wasn’t a single phrase in any known language that could communicate what he felt better than his touch could. 

There was a distinct difference in the way his touch applied to you than it did the rest of the world. As far as he was concerned, your body didn’t know anything beyond his gentleness. If you hadn’t seen him in action, you might have questioned if they were even capable of anything else. 

Day in and day out, it was his mission to show you just how much he appreciated, adored, loved and wanted you. This little game made that increasingly harder because touching you fired him up in more ways than one. 

That’s what made this next truth about Masato all the harder to reconcile. 

He NEVER wanted to do this.

He nearly bit his tongue off that day to keep you from hearing him click it when you confirmed that this was what you wanted. Knowing that you’d chosen it because you thought it would be what he wanted made him want to give himself a good wallop to the head. 

He considered just telling you how he felt but you seemed so thrilled to ‘do a trial’ with him that he couldn’t take that away from you. That, and the fact that you’ve brought up those seven months he’d gone without any form of sexual gratification at least three times now– three!

So, now this was a matter of pride. 

A refusal to lose even to himself. 

However, what he wished you’d understood was that the circumstances in his life then and the circumstances of his life now couldn’t be less identical. That seven months was made possible by willpower, yes but also by the fact that he had much bigger, far more important issues to prioritize and the fact that he was single most certainly helped.

Now, he has you by his side. 

And he loved you. 

And he damn near worshiped that that he loved.

This made him docile. 

Agreeable. 

Too fucking keen to acquiesce. 

This was precisely what his mother, may God rest her poor soul, always warned him about. He was as stubborn as a mule to the outside world but utterly pliant to the object of his affection. 

He was self-aware, at least and since he had that going for him, it was made blatantly apparent that being in love… made him pathetic and Masato didn’t ‘do’ pathetic.

In just 13 days, he’s used every single one of his fingers and toes to tally off the amount of times he’s had to peel himself away from you simply because your warmth alone was enough to make him pop a boner. 

It was mean. 

Agonizing.

He couldn’t treat himself to shower with you or chat casually with you as you got changed. He couldn’t even lie in bed and cuddle with you without having to end it with a chaste kiss to the temple and turn away. At this point, he had no choice but to erect a mental barricade between you– ‘your side’ and ‘his side’, just so that he didn’t wake up in the middle of the night, rutting against your perfect ass like a beast in heat when you inevitably pressed it against him. 

Because you wanted to do this fucking 30 day challenge and you believed in him…

God hadn’t heard from him in over 15 years but he reached out just to ask for the strength to resist groveling at your feet and begging you to end the torment.

He was pathetic. 

In every sense of the word. 

As you joined him in the bedroom tonight, a towel wrapped taut around you with steam still rising from your skin and smelling absolutely divine, he wondered if this patheticness of his had reached its peak. 

For 10 nights now, instead of going commando, he’s worn underwear to bed simply because the sight of you like this alone was enough to make him pitch a tent beneath the comforter. Tucking himself beneath the waistband always offered him the false sense of security that he needed. 

Tonight though, the moment his cock began to beat against his thigh simply from the whiff of you, he wasn’t so sure he’d survive the night.

“Masato,” no one ever uttered that name as beautifully as you. “Think we can cuddle a bit tonight. Sleeping so far apart has started to feel a little lonely.” 

And now he was certain that he wouldn’t.

You didn’t have to go a second without his arm around you after you finally sank into bed. He had you as flush to his body as he could without impaling you on his cock– so fucking rock hard tonight it was painful to the touch. It took a little awkward maneuvering but he seemed to manage okay.

Though, having you this close to him, smelling so good, being so warm, made every dirty thought he’s had involving you the last 13 days and 12 nights swarm his mind in a frenzy. It was beginning to disrupt his breathing. He was certain that you could feel his pulse pounding in his chest, in his fingertips.

The smart thing to have done in this situation would have been to whisper his well wishes for you good night’s sleep and then respect the mental barricade. 

His side. 

Your side. 

Your shoulder peeked out beneath the comforter in a way that was so inviting that he couldn’t help but press a lingering kiss to it. 

His side. 

Your side. 

And then another.

His side. 

Your side. 

He pressed another for good measure and his ears perked at the sound of a soft moan coming from you. Surely that wasn’t right… Now he was hearing things. 

Masato had begun to retract his arm so that he could turn to his side and grip the base of his cock as if he intended to choke it to death but then he heard an even sweeter sound pass through those lips. 

“Again, please.”

To beg him so pitifully, as if he’d ever allow himself to deny you– as if he were anything but dutiful to you– 

When he pressed his lips to your warm skin again, you treated him to even more of your beautiful music then shattered the barricade so that your ass was flush to his groin.

Masato spoke your name in warning but was immediately cut down by a sharp hiss and he knew not to speak another word. His fingers were all but burrowing themselves into your belly as your ass brushed his clothed erection in a desperation unlike anything he’d ever witnessed in you. 

You craned your head and reached around for him, drawing him in close in silent request of a kiss and because he was so acquiescent, he felt he had no choice but to oblige. The words you spoke against his lips stole all the air from his lungs that he’d have willingly given you anyway. 

“If we… stopped at just the tip, we could still win the game, right?” you panted and your hips did not take a moment of respite.

As far as he was concerned, this was your game and he played by your rules. For you and only you, he was an ardent rule follower. 

So, once those rules suddenly demanded that he plunged all 8 and a half inches into you until he filled you with 13 days worth of cum? 

Well…

(No)vember Experiment CONCLUSION SURVEY Experiment duration? 13 days Did this challenge meet your expectations? ___ is happy so I’m fine with it. Did you notice anything different about your partner during this time? Not really. I always knew that ___ was too good to stay away from. Will you participate in the (NO)vember Experiment again next year? Ha Any closing remarks on your experience? I’m choosing the trial next time

Please do not reupload/repost/rewrite but likes and a reblog go a long way! Thank you for reading!

If you enjoyed this, you're welcome to check out more of my work! I have a masterlist to save you browse time!

[thrawns-backrest]

doodle and wip dump! descriptions and headcanons under the cut

Thurfian and Chiss OC (yet to be introduced). I really wanted to draw these two as I imagined them with similarly elongated face shapes and needed to work out the differences in their features. really happy with how Thurfian's hair ornament turned out. I imagine traditional Aristocra hairstyles as long and flowy while the military has more practical cuts

my funky little man and his outfits! love the thigh length cape so much. the final one is what I imagine him to wear at his new position in the Ascendancy (as per my fic). these are actually simple low level bureaucrat robes, the Syndics have even more elaborate outfits. I also imagine the waist tie knot to have additional status/occupation meaning

Ba'kif progress wip. just the base sketch with some colors thrown in for now. I want to finish his portrait ala Ronan style so fingers crossed we get there. this is what I imagine as a service dress uniform, as opposed to full dress where he would be wearing his full chains. these smaller chains are kind of like medal ribbon bars, for a more practical style

and finally someone mentioned Ronan with shorter hair and I couldn't resist. and the sketch that started it all next to it (first time I drew my man). I think I prefer him with his curls, it says more civilian which is what he is essentially, with that obligatory slicked back quality for some pomp. That said, I do imagine younger Ronan with a short style like this and it's neat that he actually looks younger here.

[thenixkat]

i was going to refrain from it for awhile but since folks ruined my whole funky flow twice now I might as well.

Someone remind me around 5:30/6 pm whenever i actually get back home from work to elaborate on shit cause I do have shit to say on

Low facial diversity

Slavery

Fatphobia

Pasty bitch overload

In Dungeon Meshi

Cause like while I really do like Dungeon Meshi that doesn't mean I didn't notice shit

[pocketfullofpearlies]

RISE OF RED: A TALE OF HEADS AND HEARTS

(Descendants: Rise of Red Fanfiction/Re-imagining)

Chapter 1

''You know Red, this is the best idea you've had in a long time, '' Cheshire Cat said, his grin even wider than usual. ''I mean ruining your mum's portrait a night before Hearts and Heads Fest is insane. I love it!''

Red stood back, admiring her handiwork.

''I feel like it needs something, don't you?'' She asked, stroking her chin with her hand and staining it bright red.

She bent down and picked one of the guards she had shrunk.

The tiny guard kicked and yelled, brandishing his sword.

''Tsk, tsk. You'd think that after years of training and the Queen's strict regime, the Royal Guards would know not to accept a random package of shrinking cookies they receive in the middle of the night.''

The guard yelled even louder, almost loud enough to be audible.

''Then again, I shouldn't blame you; you're all half card anyway,'' she mused. ''Still, what do you think is missing? I've licked up almost all my red licking paint, but I have an array of ostrich feathers and peacock glitter left.''

The guard wriggled out of her hold and poked her with his tiny sword.

Red gasped. ''I've got it!''

She dug in her bag, feeling past the family of rabbits and the pot roast in there for a pack of playing cards.

''I never leave home without them,'' she said proudly, flipping them in and around her hands.

The queen cards separated themselves from the rest and Red blew them onto the portrait.

Then she dipped her brush back into the licking paint and spread a slash of colour all over the cards, giving them all funky hairdos and moustaches.

''Purrrrfection, wouldn't you say, Chesh?''

''Um, Red, how strong were those shrinking cookies you gave the guards?''

Red looked around at the guards at her feet who were gradually increasing in size and groaned.

''Gotta bounce, guys,'' she said, taking out her pogo as she stuffed all her supplies back into her bag.

She balanced on the device and it started bouncing automatically, taking her away from the Royal Courtyard and Into the castle.

''Told you not to use those WonderTube tutorials,'' Cheshire tutted.

''Oh hush you,'' Red said, getting off the pogo.

''As you wish, your Redness,'' he replied, grinning as he faded away.

Red folded up the pogo and licked the remaining licking paint off of her hands.

She had landed in the H wing of the castle, but her room was all the way in the R wing.

''Might as well make a stop in the kitchen,'' she said to herself.

She started skipping along, and had made it all the way to the A wing when the Queen Alert on her skirt went off and lights suddenly turned on.

''Uh oh...''

''Redwina Scarlet Heartlynn Vermilion Rouge-Redding!''

Of course she's up working right now!

Red shook out her hair and tied her bag around her waist to form another skirt.

''Mum! You're still up.''

The Queen of Hearts looked down from her work throne at her daughter suspiciously.

She was dressed in a light red sleeping gown, her long red locks wrapped around red curlers and what could either be a strawberry or blood mask smeared on her face.

''Now just where are you coming from looking like what a Jabberwocky wouldn't want for dinner?'' she asked, her voice clipping through the air and snipping at Red's confidence.

''I was talking a walk in the rose garden, Mum.''

''Past the curfew? The general curfew I placed on everyone? Including those guards I'm going to behead for letting you go out?''

''Great! More people you're going to behead tomorrow; how fun.''

''Considering you're going to be conducting some of those beheadings, you should think it's fun.''

''Awesome!'' Red said, attempting to sound excited. ''Is that why you're still up?''

''Yes, if you must know. Tomorrow has to be perfect.''

''Right, right, yeah. But, uh, mum I was thinking-''

''-Well that's a ticket to ruin-,'' The Queen mumbled

''-What if we don't make Hearts and Heads Fest about general, widespread decapitations and turn it into more of a celebration?''

The Queen stiffened and glared at Red.

''O-or not? Forget it. I don't know what I was saying.''

Red shifted uncomfortably as her mother went back to work.

''I'm gonna head up to my room now. Goodnight.''

The Queen gave a very posh grunt and waved her off without a second glance.

Red sped off to her room and slammed the door behind her in relief.

With a sigh, she plopped on her bed.

Cheshire appeared as she lay down, an even more mischievous grin on his face.

''You could've at least told me she was up, Chesh,'' Red told him.

''I could've, but I chose not to. It's more fun that way. ''

Suddenly, Red's speaking mirror started beeping.

''Oohhh...lover boy's calling,'' Cheshire teased before disappearing again

Red rolled her eyes, then got up to sit at her vanity table, tapping the mirror three times.

On the third tap, her reflection dissolved, revealing the person who had beeped her in the first place.

''Hey,Maddox!''

''Don't 'hey, Maddox' me, Princess,'' Maddox Hatter said, giving Red a stern look. ''I know what you did.''

He took of his hat, briefly exposing his silky white curls, and pulled out a piping hot kettle.

Bringing out an elegant, hand painted teacup, he poured the hot, purplish liquid into it.

''Where's the mouse?'' Red asked as he stirred his tea.

''Asleep. Like you should've been instead of turning your mother's portrait into your personal sketchpad.''

Red groaned. ''Come on, Maddox. I play pranks like this all the time.''

''I know, but tomorrow's super important. It's not the kind of day to risk upsetting the Queen.''

Maddox sipped his tea and observed Red's forlorn expression.

''Look, Red,'' he said gently. ''I know tomorrow is going to be hard, but-''

''-Hard?'' Red interjected. ''Hard? Mads, your dad's tests and homework assignments are hard; trying to find an unpainted white rose in mother's garden is hard. But tomorrow I'm going to have to order someone's death! I can't do that!''

Tears filled her eyes and began rolling down her cheeks softly.

Red wiped them away, licking her fingers.

Wonderlanders' tears tasted like sugar, and on the rare occasion Red shed any, she made sure to take advantage of it.

Maddox sighed, setting down his teacup. ''I'm sorry, Princess. I wish there was something I could do.''

A lightbulb went off in Red's head, and she snatched the corresponding one floating mid-air and threw it away.

''Maybe there is,'' she said, her eyes shining with uncried tears and mischief.

''Oh no. You have your trouble face on.''

''What if you bring me that time machine thingy you've been working on. You said it's ready, right?''

''Not possible, Princess.''

Red pouted. ''Why not?''

''Well,my dad would disown me and I'd have to join The White Rabbit Gang. And, oh let's see; you could alter time as we know it putting us all in grave, grave, very grave, extremely grave -did I mention grave?- danger!'' he said, mouthing an extra 'grave' at the end.

''Okay, okay, I get it,'' Red relented, rolling her eyes. ''I'm just fed up with this. I wish I could go back and stop this stupid festival from ever existing. And I really, really wish I could leave Wonderland and see more of the world.''

''Don't worry, Princess. In time, at least one of those wishes will come true.''

''Yeah, sure.''

Red yawned and rubbed at her eyes.

''Being a vandal sure is exhausting,'' she mumbled.

Maddox laughed at how cute she looked, only for his laughter to turn into a yawn as well.

''I'm gonna turn in now, Princess. Goodnight.''

''Nighty night, Mads,'' Red said tiredly, tapping the mirror thrice to end their call.

After washing her face of paint and tears, she slipped into a pair of heart patterned pyjamas and hopped under the covers.

''Off with the lights,'' she said, making the lights turn off automatically.

She turned and twisted for minutes before falling into a tumultuous sleep, her mind fixed on nothing but the thought that by this time tomorrow, she'd have blood on her hands.

Chapter 2:

https://www.tumblr.com/pocketfullofpearlies/757338583424172032/rise-of-red-a-tale-of-heads-and-hearts?source=share

[basil-l3af]

Casey’s profiling portrait is so interesting to me because that’s not the real Casey, it’s the fictional version of him.

His character model in the real world is pretty formal; neat slicked back hair, the vest, his shirt properly buttoned, and his tie in place and not having any funky patterns. but his counterpart in the dark place is the exact opposite of this. he’s not well put-together and is far less professional

It’s also a nice little easter egg when he gets possessed (i guess that’s the right word) by scratch and he loses the tie, his outfit resembles scratch’s American Nightmare look!!!

ANYWAYS, so with those changes being noted, the portrait used when you profile Casey resembles the fictional one more than the real one:

All the physical characteristics of fictional Casey are displayed here, but why????

Is it to symbolize how much of his life has been influenced by Alan’s writings? Because not only did he have to deal with the Cult of the Word and their weird messages towards him, but Alan’s echos (unknowingly) peering into Casey’s own life and taking inspiration from it. I’m so curious as to if major events in his life, like his divorce, was caused by Alan and his writing. not only that, but the utter resemblance he has to Sam Lake (duh, but in the games he’s the actor for the Alex Casey movies).

it’s just weird to me that it’s Saga who perceives him as that, since she’s unaffected by the dark presences.

i just wanted to share my thoughts on this cause it’s driving me insane. i’m not sure about the broader implications of it, other than how much of real Casey was affected Alan, but i’m hoping more is explained in the DLCs that come out soon!!!

[tiny-vermin]

I want to know more about the m9 artist au!! I remember reading a post or two about it a billion years ago (and would love to read them again) 💜

hi jess!!!! thank u for being interested hehe :")

so ever since i drew that lil thing of essek painting a frank stella inspired painting (or even before), ive been thinking of what kinds of art each of the m9 would do. essek ofc is inspired by a minimalist show that i went to here, all the big names from that movement were shown, but those really dark, sinkhole-like paintings are speaking to me. another artwork of boxes made of mirrors also seems like the thing he would do too

there's a kiln here that we visited which was huge, and surrounding it were artists' studios and some other ceramic sellers, i imagine the clay family having a place like this in the middle of nowhere amongst the trees, and caleb would do his work there

anyways because at heart im a shadowgast luver its centred around them,, they meet at an artist residency or something like that and its an incredibly slow burn that involves talking and not-talking and looking and not-looking. in the end i am but a simple wong kar wai fan so. that kinda vibes would definitely influence this, i would describe it as a quiet burning i guess?? time skipy and words that are not said

i think im gonna rant a bit more about their different mediums and styles so i'll keep it under the cut

i think caleb sculpts figures and portraits, but in a sad, kathe kollwitz charcoal vibe. maybe some funky looking animals, perhaps some pots and vases to look at the pretty glazes. he's interested in using fire to burn texture into different mediums, like ive seen it being used on shellac to make a really cool net of ink looking structure.. but yknow, just seeing the aftermath of glazed ceramic from the kiln is enough, and probably better for him to keep his distance anyways

the clay family produces most of the ceramic to sell, vases, pots, plates, cups, teapots, yknow just a whole array. and its really colourful too, depicting every family members different style. i think caduceus would do some matte glazes with a lot of different colours, theyre all a little wonky but theyre better off that way anyways. he does some really mean ink calligraphy and painting though

jester definitely does,, everything, whatever her heart desires kinda thang. she makes pastel textile installations and lighthearted cute paintings, but theyre always so contemplative and soothing. she gets m9 a lot of work cus her mom has connections, etc etc. i really love the idea of jester creating works that talk about the female body and femininity (definitely not projecting no)

beau is a printmaker and photographer who's really experimental, she loves cyanotypes and printing flowers (for yasha), idk she seems like she would put fabric and rocks into the washing machine to see what would happen. u would probably catch her in someone elses studio learning about what they do or in the library learning about what old people did

veth works in a museum as a curator, getting beau to help her sometimes with gathering artworks and artists etc. she probably organises community art projects for kids and public art installations. her house is full of m9's artworks and various other artists shes worked with.

yasha does bouquets as her post-retirement part time job, prior to that no one really knows what she did ("she probably murdered a bunch of people and is now hiding from the government"). fjord draws comics for fun but is also not a job for him, molly is a question mark for me. but these guys probably wont be in it as much anyways

im still not sure what format i wanna do this in, im actually having fun just writing it in my notebook now (digital does not facilitate the creative juices) but i do want to do some visuals like fake movie stills or storyboards. maybe they will work together well???? dunno. working on the other shadowgasty thing im doing made me realise how much easier it is to draw when there's a script already there, so im writing the script for myself

im definitely not as practiced in writing as i am in drawing, but idk im just gonna have some fun and see where that takes me, meanwhile try not to feel too bad that its fanart HAHA (very bad habit)

edit: i just saw my previous thoughts on beau being an art journalist, but i kinda like this better.. but maybe she can do both muah

[akirakirxaa]

some anon input/questions then! what job would the zenos cousin have? since zenos is a samurai/reaper?? machinist?? gunbreaker?? lots more if he's like, more hyur than garlean!

does he have access to magic?? the echo?? what would varis think of his existence??

(Zenos is 26! maybe hed be 23? big cain and abel energy tbh. Zenos is Cain ofc.)

Hello anon!

You know, I haven't decided on his job yet. I've got a friend rooting for Machinist, gunbreaker could be funky, but then I was also thinking dual wielding a la viper could be fun. I think I might be leaning Machinist though just so I can give him the gun Emet uses to shoot G'raha. 👀

He can use magic! He is hyuran enough to be able to manipulate magic but it IS harder for him to do so because of his Garlean heritage, so he'll never be a true spell slinger. He's much better at using magic as a supplement to other physical fighting styles (such as how Gunbreaker imbues its ammo).

He has the echo and he has his own echo ability (on top of the canon visions of course), soul sight! Like most echo abilities, he can't control when it happens, so everything might be fine one minute and the next everyone looks like a different colored glowstick. He doesn't really know what what it is he's seeing until he gets a chance to meet Emet and talk about it.

Varis I don't think knows about him to start with. His ancestor was taken away when they were a baby, before Varis was even alive, and the rumor spread that the baby died to protect them and Noelle. Of course, once Varis sees his face for the first time there's no doubt, not with a face that matches all the portraits of his grandsire in the palace. He is irritated, thinks he is a bit of a stain on the family tree for being half-race, but mostly no more bothered than he is by a non-Galvus WoL. Zenos though I believe would be absolutely fascinated (maybe even slightly more than normal); not just a 'friend' he can 'connect' with but family?

Also I cannot believe I accidentally created a Cain and Abel dynamic roflmao.

And as a treat for everyone, I created him last night in gpose!

I'm still trying to settle on a name but I think he's wonderful. :3

[m0rninglatte]

Monster from Epic and Icarus analysis because the thoughts do be real

“How did suffering become so endless?”

- Icarus thinking it should have been done by now, but it's not. It's still going

“Do I need to change?”

…

Moving on.

“I'm surrounded by the souls of those I've lost”

- Icarus talking about Aurelius, Enderian, *Centross*, Momboo, etc.

- The idea of everyone who has died is a sacrifice, and they will be brought back, but also Icarus ability to not grieve properly because of it

"What if the greatest threat we'll find across the sea, is me?

- Icarus wondering if they are failing and they are going to slip up to the point everything crashes because they made one wrong move.

“What if I'm the monster? What if i'm in the wrong”

- I like to think this line as Icarus beginning to think of each reset and all the "antagonistic" acts they've done and thinking if they are and have always been a monster because they in their own eyes can't seem to do anything to help people as they just end up hurting someone.

“What if i'm the problem that’s been hiding all along”

- Icarus in “Lady of the world” talking about how corruption has always been there, how whatever they did then was always there they just pushed it back of their mind until corruption made it the forefront of their mind.

“What if i'm the one who killed you”

- Icarus debating if it was Quixis that killed Momboo or themselves.

“What if I’ve been far too kind to foes but a monster to ourselves”

- Foes = Fable, ourselves = everyone else minus the co-workers

- Although Icarus currently wants to fix everything and stay with Fable, i like to see this as Icarus debating if they are on the right side.

The Polyphemus section is Centross, mainly the Violet Reaper

“Or does he end my men, to avenge his friend”

- S1 funeral. 

-“Avenge his friend” is a line you could annotate “friend” to be Enderian

- If you wanted to, you could almost switch into "...,to serve his goddess"

The Circe section is Enderian 

"When the witch turns men to pigs, to protect her nymphs"

- Corruption of Ominus Bane

- You could see this line in my opinion as either to protect her realm or to prove her point about Overworlders and how they are the same, for example, resorting to violent outcomes

The Poseidon section is Fable

- This section is a mix of things, I can see mixes of Fable during the war and Fable currently, and Icarus is like thinking of the similarities and differences between Fable and himself.

The Odysseus section about him during the Trojan War is Icarus and the Wack

“Does a soldier use a wooden horse to kill sleeping Trojans cause he is vile”

- Icarus using the wack to kill Momboo

"Or does he throw away his remorse and save more lives with guile"

- Icarus querying if he should just throw away his regret for any actions he has done and attempt to help people through sly and cunning intelligence (literally the definition of guile)

The section after the Odysseus section is Icarus wondering if they should just become the monster to everyone else but not the co-workers and yk Fable 

“I lost my best friend, I lost my mentor, my mom, 500 men gone…”

- Best Friend is Centross.

- Mentor is a funky one because i could see it be switched into my brother, but at the same time, you could keep it as mentor and annotate it to be Quixis

- Mom is Isla -> "Like King like Prince" : Icarus finding her portrait and realising Fable hasn't told them where she is and that he can't remember her aswell as Rae

- 500 men gone = the people and gods who have died and or been husked

“I must get to see Penelope and Telemachus”

A) remove the context of the names, no wife, no son, none of that

B) This could be annotated into two different ways but i can mainly see it as Momboo and Centross and Icarus’ hope with all this they can come back

“I’ll go where Poseidon wont reach us”

- Poseidon could be annotated into Enderian, but one that I think works well is the faction, mainly Ocie.

“And if got to drop another infant from a wall in an instant so we all don't die”

- Icarus being like if i have to kill another person, fuck it, whatever it is I need to do to prove myself or help in anyway.

The end section with Odysseus choosing to become the monster I could see as Icarus state of mind of their not meant to be helping people as all they have done is hurt people, so that's what their meant to do, it's what they were ment to do from the beginning, so they will.

Thoughts and feelings go bonkers and bit of aaah and bit of RA