#this ask was sent to my main for some reason but imma assume it was meant to be a request for here

[urfavesarequadranted]

Equius Zahhak from Homestuck and deodrant from real life are kismeses!

[asherlockstudy]

I get that interview was HBO forced but it sounds insane when last season, he was saying Jaime needed to get away from her for good. I mean no nice post about Gwen after the last ep. I dont believe it was about not wanting to stir the hornet's nest if him and B didnt get together as he posted a huge loving one about Lena and that was a very controversial part of the plot. If hed know posted a gwen one saying"sorry JB didnt get a happy ending but here's me and Gwen in happier times" i dont get it

I think it’s very weird too…Imma analyze it. Not that I’m gonna reach any solid conclusion but I will just lay out all my thoughts.

Whatever the reason Nik doesn’t post or reply publicly to Gwen is, it has nothing to do with his personal preference for Braime or Jaime x Cersei. Even if we make the insane assumption that Nik appreciated that Jaime dumped Brienne to return to murderous Cersei and die with her without serving any purpose in the main plot (what lead actor of 8+ years would ever like being unimportant in the ending plot) and saw “pOeTRy” in it, it still doesn’t explain why he should prefer posting about Lena over Gwen. We would be naive to think he made a post about Lena and not Gwen because he prefers Cersei to Brienne. So, we still have no clear evidence of what Nik’s private thoughts and feelings are for his character after the ending. 

Here’s what we have: 

We have two interviews: one with HBO rofl and one with that journalist who collaborates with HBO and was an insider (I’m not gonna search his name) in which he stans Jaime’s choices, his love for Cersei and the tragic poetry in it all. Then we have him promoting the episodes and the documentary in his instagram and twitter, however he is entirely emotionally detached from his character and his fate. I would say he lowkey looks entertained in his weird af episode promo videos and secretly amused while filming the “thank you” video after the last episode where he says “Come on, it was great” and suggests a petition for an Arya (huh?) sequel.

We have two videos uploaded on yt with him: one is a video of a stalker in which Nik looks uncomfortable and passes the question to the random guy next to him who apparently happens to be a GOT fan, have an elaborate opinion on the last season, hate D&D and think they threw away Jaime’s beautiful character arc. What are the odds…The second is a skit in Jimmy Kimmel in which Nik drags his own character by making him stupid and clumsy, a sad little being because of his maiming and, most importantly, an unrepentant sister fucker. All of Jaime’s worst qualities displayed for laughs, plus that he’s actually a likeable but very stupid person. The skit ends with a dragon randomly burning him and his family alive and those credits

So, we have straightforward criticism towards D&D by Kimmel and NCW actually participates in it. This is what this skit means - that this level of writing, this kind of lame character and that ludicrous death is something that only Benioff and Weiss would like to produce. And, well, the Olsen sisters (although I think they’re cleverer than that). 

So, we have two videos where NCW’s intentions are dubious AT BEST. 

Then we have all the promos. When left to speak on his own, Nikolaj would say how the ending was beautiful and made sense and he once mentioned he sent a letter to thank them for this genius plot…Right. But then when asked or caught off guard (1:04): 

Nobody tries to sugarcoat it, look at the title of the video: … NCW is ‘happy’.  Then of course we have our Lady and Saviour Gwen who tries not to laugh as Nik struggles to find what to say and not just stand up and flee.

Also, this one. The best one: 

I could make a thousand gifs for this but just watch again the entire video:

0:07 - Gwen’s face when Nik says he thought the script was fantastic

1:13 - “N-no..NO!!!” when asked if he would change something in the ending and Gwen’s reaction to that. Then, our leader Gwen proceeds to mock him: “So, it’s an immaculate- It’s immaculate?” to which Nik impulsively replies: “NO!” and goes on “do you ever read a book and think you want to rewrite this?” which implies, that yes he would want to rewrite it but knows he can’t. 

(3:03 - 3:06) - VERY IMPORTANT ONE. When Gwen wondered who was closer to predicting the actual ending, Nik says “I was, yeah” and OMG look at Gwen’s face. It’s very subtle but she’s trying to communicate with her eyes a “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT” to him without being seen by the interviewer. It’s kind of a wife done with her husband’s shit look tbh, that level of subtlety. And Nik answers back with his eyes in equal subtlety and it’s like he says a “What? I truly was right lol….”. To me, this seems to mean that Nik always knew or feared that D&D would eventually destroy all his work and was eventually proven right. Unless this all is about Dany being killed by Jon but I doubt at this point Nik and Gwen cared enough to go all cryptic and eye communicating for this. No, it was about them. 

3:09 - Nik is surprised and then clearly amused at the information by the interviewer that Kit was the one who came closer with his prediction. He can’t hide his smile and says an ironic “good for him” while looking knowingly at Gwen who then says this must be a lie. This shows that it is known amongst the actors that most of them are disappointed and Kit was one of them. Both Nik and Gwen apparently knew Kit hated his ending too and would never expect this to be how the show would wrap up. BTW that writing and that backlash really got to Kit, I hope he recovers soon. But think about this, Kit went into rehab for stress and alcohol, Emilia was devastated and gave a somewhat concerning interview and Nik’s public behaviour regarding GOT is inconsistent and unpredictable. I am thus assuming the writing of the final season and the backlash fucked them up way more than they let on. 

This interview is a gem but here’s the most important part, perhaps the core of what baffles us: 

1:32 - After all the miserable no-nos poor Nik mumbles, Gwen tells Nik what we all think: “I think it’s just a question, you know? Maybe you want to answer it?”

Of course he’s in a total loss for words. Literally, he doesn’t make any sense. Some incoherent sounds come out of his mouth and that’s it. This can mean two things: either he truly thinks the ending is perfect or the ending made him such a mess that he can’t even process it verbally two years later. 

Either Gwen is much braver and Nik is extemely paranoid or Nik actually has many more restrictions in what he is allowed to say. I believe Gwen wanted Nikolaj to be as open as her about it and she still tries to make him open up but he doesn’t. In all the promos without exception, Gwen looks as if she knows Nik is full of shit and secretly agrees with her. If Gwen knows that for a fact, then we can’t argue and it’s actually what makes sense anyway. Nikolaj agrees with Gwen but is not eager to discuss it openly yet, or ever. This could be because he is very professional or because he doesn’t want to get a bad name as a “backstabber” of his projects or it might be a situation of a more sensitive nature. 

If those rumours that the S8 script was changed are true, then Nik and Lena might have had a serious breakdown with D&D and a negotiation might have taken place. For instance, Nik and Lena were really unnecessary in E6, Nik’s scene in E1 could have been eliminated as well and Lena does not appear in E3. Yes, they are big actors but paying them 1,2 million for every episode seems a tad excessive when Emilia and Kit are now famous too and have like 300% times more screentime. All this is wild speculation but maybe they stretched their appearance in the episodes as much as possible and gave them a good amount of money to agree on the butchering of their characters and their importance as former lead actors. I mean, especially Lena was downgraded to a secondary character in this season. Lena had to really fight to see her salary rise in the previous seasons. And now it’s a million for every episode? Wow. How many minutes was she staring out of the window in S8? Maybe they were silenced and payed a shitload of money to stop complaining and promote the show and praise the writing as what it was supposed to be. Maybe they payed them in order to promote Peter, Kit and Emilia for the Emmys instead, who knows. When so much money is involved, things can get frustrating in ways we don’t even fathom. This is wild and rough speculation but all I’m saying is there may be reasons Nik avoids talking freely about his character that we can’t know. 

Besides, it’s not just a Gwen problem. It is not a Gwen problem. Gwen revealed she sent a “Jaime is a fuckboi” meme to Nik privately and he answered playfully as ever (but again as if he’s in denial). They posted a story together a couple of weeks ago. Nik did not just ignore Gwen’s instagram post. Daniel Portman posted the photo and tagged Nikolaj too. Nik ignored him as well. Bryan Cogman, who Nik and Gwen owe a lot to, commented under the photo in a very sweet and emotional way. Guess what, Nik ignored him too! It’s ridiculous to think Nikolaj has stopped communicating and caring about Gwen AND Daniel AND Bryan just because his character returned to Cersei. Furthermore, the fact that they all keep tagging him shows they don’t think their relationships with him have become tense. 

That’s not it. It’s not about Gwen. The only way that Gwen is involved in all this is that she wants Nikolaj to open up so that he would give a little acknowledgement to her character and the relationship with Jaime because she feels very much for Brienne. I’m sad to say, however, that it seems to me that Nik did not take that blow more lightly than Gwen. In fact, his behaviour is more inconsistent and troubling whereas Gwen’s openness about it made her confront that sore subject more healthily after all. I start believing Nik was actually way more devastated than Gwen. At least Brienne remained a decent character, ever faithful to her ideals, ever innerly strong. Jaime was entirely trashed, let alone that he was supposed to be a main character. If Nik can’t even handle a photo that reminds him of his destroyed character arc, I wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe Gwen wants Nik to open up so much for his benefit as well - he keeps it bottled up and she might know first hand how that affects him.

Long story short, the reasons Nik doesn’t post anything about his feelings for Jaime’s character arc, his relationship with Brienne and his collaboration with Gwen probably are both professional, after begrudging deals and agreements and restrictions from HBO, and very personal, inner and private, as he’s still trying to cope with a disappointment that crushed down on him from what used to be his dream job and a role he hoped would be a (or the) peak of his career. I bet all these years Nik was hopeful Jaime would be extremely important and fully redeemed in the end but also extremely scared and anxious that the writers won’t give him what he hoped for and what made sense. Would I exaggerate if I said this should be the biggest professional disappointment he ever experienced, provided that he didn’t like the character’s ending? 

From everything Gwen has said about him, I have surmised that Nik is very emotional and anxious but with a very blasé and superficially amiable attitude. He avoids expessing emotion in real life which is why he might be dissociating a lot lately. He tries to distance himself from that part of Jaime’s character that involved Bryan and Gwen because this is the part that he loved and lost. Honestly, I can’t think of any other logical reason he ignored Gwen, Dan and Bryan one after the other and never made a post about his own character specifically or his good times with Gwen. It’s obviously not that he suddenly hates all of them to the point of not even replying. Even if HBO restricts him on what he can say in interviews for a while, there is no other explanation for this other than that D&D’s genius writing fucked him up emotionally as much as Emilia and Kit and he does not want to deal with it even though Gwen probably thinks it would be for the best if he did. 

Now after I wrote all this, imagine if Nikolaj actually doesn’t give a shit and is just happy going on with his life while I am here wasting time. But… I don’t think so. I will never not believe Nik didn’t love Jaime to pieces. He had big dreams for this role, I am sure of it. 

[khoistop100]

#43 I Don’t Like Shit I Don’t Go Outside

This is a paper I wrote for a poetry class I took last year. I don’t have the chance to write anything else tonight as I will be in a car headed home from Austin and when I get home I’ll be going straight to work. If you have time to read seven pages worth of my thoughts on one of my favorite albums, then enjoy.

Rap never seemed to be built for talking about depression. From as far back as The Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” or even “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest, rap seems to maintain a robust braggadocios, sometimes playful, tone. Of course, this lack of emotionality is understandable when considering the hyper-masculinity that the music began to become centered on with the emergence gangster rap in the early to mid-80’a. From there, rap seemed to be engulfed with an obsession to be the biggest, toughest guy.

           However, since Kanye West’s release of “808s and Heartbreak”, the world of hip hop has been inundated with all kinds of emotional and “soft” rap. Gone was the rule that rappers had to be tough to be commercially successful. Rappers such as Drake and Childish Gambino appeared, focusing on more personal and introspective topics, in the vein of older rappers such as Biggie and Andre 3000. Along with these themes of emotion and insecurity came the topic of depression, an important motif in “808s” and was also the focus of rappers such as Kid Cudi. “808s” opened the door for rappers to express themselves and how they felt while still being legitimate rappers in a way that was not possible before. Depression was still relevant before, you could find it in works such as DMX’s “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot” or even Notorious B.I.G’s “Ready to Die”, especially in the final track of that album “Suicidal Thoughts”. Yet, depression was not the main focus or even the appeal of those works. “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot” is remembered for its blood-pumping, anger fueled beats and the myriad of dog barks DMX enjoyed scattering into his songs while “Ready to Die” is mostly praised for Biggie’s unparalleled flow and storytelling. It was not until after “808s” that the rap world could find an album as warped and engulfed by depression as “I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside: An Album by Earl Sweatshirt.”

           To understand the themes and ideas in “I Don’t Like Shit”, it is important to have a short history of Earl’s life. Earl Sweatshirt was born on February 24, 1994 as Thebe Neruda Kgositsile in in Los Angeles, California to Cheryl Harris, a law professor who was forced to raise Earl alone, without the help of Earl’s father Keorapestse Kgositsile, a South African poet. In 2009, Earl was contacted by Tyler, the Creator through MySpace and would go on to join Tyler’s rap group Odd Future. A year later he released his first mixtape “Earl” on the group’s website.

           The mixtape’s reception was fantastic, yet Earl was forced to stop making music with the group. Earl’s mother began to become concerned with her son’s behavior and sent him to a “retreat school” on Samoa. Earl returned to the states two years later and released his debut album, “Doris”. This release was not under the Odd Future label but still featured many of Odd Future’s members. Earl’s next and most recent album, “I Don’t Like Shit”, was released two years after “Doris”, in 2015, and was also not under the Odd Future brand.

           In his early work, Earl’s main focus seemed to be having fun and rapping well. While Odd Future was infamous for their variety or horror filled themes, Earl seemed intent on writing as intricate raps as he could without as much focus on the content of his songs. Here’s and excerpt from his song “Hive”, the fifth song off of “Doris”:

“So here I sit, eye in the pyramid/ God spit it like it’s truth serum in that beer and then/ (Poof) Disappear again, reappear bearded on/ top of a lear steering it into the kid’s ear again.”

Note his emphasis on layered, multisyllabic rhymes. This style should come as no surprise considering two of his major influences were M.F Doom and Eminem, two of the most prolific rhyme writers in all of rap. Yet, if you look through the song as a whole, the songs seems to be missing an overarching theme or through line. Earl was described by a friend and colleague, Vince Staples, as “someone who can just rap about rapping.” It is true that Earl had songs that captured some of his darker moments; “Sunday” seems to be filled with a sense of longing for a past love while “Chum” is frustrated and angry with his life as it was, but these were outliers. Which is why the narrative he creates within “I Don’t Like Shit” is so tantalizing and dark.

           The album starts with what sounds like a seatbelt buckle, what I assume to mean “strap in”. From there, the opening track, “Huey”, takes the listener on what sounds like an afternoon joyride. The synth tones are easy and free flowing, snare light. The song’s first words indicate movement, “Foot and hand on the gates/ We was jumping ‘em,” creates a momentum that goes on through the album’s first four tracks. From there, Earl goes on to talk about the state of his life. He talks about Los Angeles and growing up there, problems with his girlfriend, the state of music. A majority of the song sounds like the “rapping about rapping” that Staples was referencing. That easy going, braggadocios tone goes on until the lines “Critics pretend to get it and bitches just don’t fuck with him/ I spent the day drinking and missing my grandmother.” It is here we feel the song, and album, pivot and take a turn downhill. After two more lines, Earl ends the opening track with “And I gotta jot it quick cause I can’t focus so well.” When asked about the process of writing the album, Earl described his writing and production as capturing moments. He had to work quickly, as moments for these songs were fleeting. The line also goes on to create the kind of hurried and scattered tone that shapes a majority of songs on the album. The album as a whole is only half an hour, meaning that each of the ten tracks is about three minutes long on average. By presenting each of the ideas in short spurts, each track feels like an idea and the album would be a train of thought, fluid movement from one idea or image to the next. That fluidity is helped along by the album’s wonderful production, most of which Earl himself is responsible for. After his final line on “Huey”, Earl lets the beat ride on for a few seconds, before letting the synth notes drop and fall down the stairs. The beat decomposes, the bass becomes heavier and the feeling is one of being submerged. This heaviness is cut by a few sharp notes and a woman’s voice saying “And now, a formal introduction”.

           Earl wastes no time to transition into his next track, “Mantra”. The song immediately starts with the hook,

“Get your lady, cop piff/ Inhale and cough, rip the label off this/ Picked the road that got twists/ I’m holding my dick and playing cautious.”

The hook is a good example of how Earl portrays himself. He talks about women and he talks about drugs. He shows that he’s indignant, proud of his ability to make it for himself, and he is also still a bit immature. To his credit, Earl was only 21 at the time of release and only 15 when he first met up with Odd Future and began his career. More on that later. This first hook is delivered concisely and clearly by Earl and is followed by an aggressive but hurt verse that talks about his experience as a rapper. He brags about his skill and his relationships with women at first but the verse seems to become focused on the negativity that rap has brought into his life. Lines such as, “The poster child, you posed to hate me” and “You know you famous when the n****s that’s around you switch, and if they hated in a passive tense, and now they hound ya dick, and you ain’t ask for this.” Earl sounds resentful, of fake friends and, later on, even fans, “Now you surrounded with a gaggle of 100 fucking thousand kids/who you can’t get mad at, when they want a pound and pic… And they the reason that the paper in your trousers’ thick” This frustration culminates in the line “You can tell the reaper Imma meet ‘em when he send for me/ with a cleaver and a .30 and some twisted weed” Earl is challenging, almost taunting, Death, as if all the troubles he is dealing with make Death a welcome challenge. After the first verse, the second hook is delivered by an Earl that sounds muted and farther away and tired. This exhaustion causes the second verse to sound desperate and exasperated. The verse is directed at his ex-girlfriend and details how his fame and touring caused a the ex to form a unfounded suspicion that would go on to destroy the couple.

“And tell all your little friends how that bitch stole me/ And despite all of the facts that you got phony/ You gon tell about the night that “exposed” me/ For the bastard I was…and the alst couple months that was the worst/ caused I small all the trust/ that I earned in the past couple months that we had as a couple”

The verse ends with the two parting ways. At the end of the verse, we can hear Earl crumple up paper and throw it away, then saying, “I shouldn’t even be-Fuck, man fuck this”, as the sound of a Earl inhaling, most likely smoking, transitions the song into the final hook, which sounds totally distant. The voice that reads the final hook of “Mantra” is not even recognizable as Earl’s. From there, all sounds blur and mix together. For a moment, nothing is recognizable, there is just sound. Then, a beat emerges, a beat that flows directly into the next track, “Faucet”.

           Faucet is about remorse. Earl has become lost, transient. He doesn’t have many friends he trusts or a family he feels connected to. Earl is alone. “Ain’t step foot up in my mommas place for a minute/ my days numbered…I feel like I’m the only one pressin’ to grow upwards…Trying to see an M and some steadier hands” There’s plenty to dissect here. “Faucet” show’s Earl’s existential worries. He talks about his decrepit relationship with his mother ever since he came back to America and follows it up with observing his own mortality. He wants the most from his life but it feels empty. The line about growing up seems to be a call back to his Odd Future days. The group was always known for its outlandish playfulness, immaturity, and vulgarity, which is all quite appealing for a young man of 16. Yet, Earl was sent away for that kind of behavior, to go to school on a remote island. When he got back, his friends hadn’t really changed but he had, and it only causes him to feel more distant from the few friends he has. The reference to “steadier hands” could be about many things. It could be calling to Earl’s drug problem he often talks about. It could also be a desire for a steadier life, one not centered on touring or partying but one centered about a home. The hook starts off with the line “And I don’t know whose house to call home lately” and ends a few lines later with “When I run, don’t chase me”. Earl makes his transience clear as day, though his loneliness is more complex. Earl seems to resent the isolation his life has brought him, yet he wants to be left alone to “run”. He still desires to roam and be “homeless” and be alone but he also hates it. The second verse explores the dynamics of his family deeper,

“Out the toaster, I  gotta focus, my family problems/ shrunk and widen with the bumps in my personal finance/ It hurt cause I can’t keep a date or put personal time in/ or reverse to the times when my face didn’t surprise you/ before I did that shit to earn me my term on that island/ can’t put a smile on your face through your purse or your pocket”

It’s clear that Earl is lost. He knows that money is important and is his focus but he also feels like it’s interfering with his relationships with friends and family. At the same time, he still feels hurt and betrayed by his mother for sending him to Samoa and pulling him out of a life he was beginning to feel comfortable in. And the focus on money he was brought up in is pointless in the context of family because it’s not money that his mother wants from him. The two are estranged, and Earl doesn’t know if he can trust her or how to make her happy anymore. The hook is repeated a final time as the beat fades out.

“Grief” is the heaviest and angriest of the first four tracks. The beat sounds sloppy, almost like synthetic gravel. The song is unapologetically sad. “Step into the shadows we can talk addiction/ when it’s harmful where you going and the part of you that know it/ Don’t give a fuck” The first four songs encapsulate the bigger idea of the album, it’s the movement from evening into night and all the darkness that comes with it. “Huey” is the evening, fun until the one though of darkness sends him flying into night. There, in “Mantra”, Earl stews in anger over fake friends, celebrity, girls, all the woes that are apparent day to day. As the night goes on, Earl finds a deeper source of his problems in “Faucet”. His loneliness, his decrepit relationships. “Grief” is the darkest moment before the dawn. Earl has lines such as “I’ve been alone in my shit, for the longest” and “Thinking bout my grandmamma, find a bottle/ Imma wallow when I lie in that/ I just want my time in tact/ When they both gone, you can’t buy em back”. It’s on that note that the “night” ends. Earl fully falls into his “Grief”, bemoaning the loss of his mind, which can be seen as coherence or ability to think straight, and his time, which can both mean his money or opportunity to right relationships. At the end the second verse of “Grief”, the Earl we see is lost and hopeless.

Which is why the ending of the song seems to strange. The song blares out a bright synth tone that shocks the listener, and plays a ditty that is reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons. The moment feels like the “and we’ll be right back” that indicates that a broadcast is about to go to commercial break. It’s loud and blatant and is a strange break away from the dark atmosphere Earl was developing.I think that this moment serves as a palate cleanser. Artists can only go so far down into images of depression before they are forced to deal with vague descriptions of sadness and hopelessness. To put it sadness on a numerical scale, let’s say that you can convey your sadness on a scale from one to ten, ten being the saddest a person could possibly be. By the end of “Grief”, Earl could be seen as an eight or nine even, leaving the remaining six tracks not much room to grow into. By blaring his cartoon horn, Earl is able to hit reset in a way, and readjust himself before continuing on with the rest of the album.

From there, the album goes on to tread over familiar ground again. The fifth track “Off Top” feels empty and lacking in substance compared to the four songs prior. It does offer some good characterization about Earl in the lines “Little mad n***a missing dad, never praying much/ Right around the same time his grandmamma drank a bunch”. Here, Earl hints at more problems within his family that could explain why he is so confrontational or why he struggles with addiction. Other than that, just a few images of him dealing with the rap world and women are all “Off Top” has to offer. The next, “Grown Ups”, is also lacking. Here, the focus is primarily on Earl’s relationship with the father he never knew. The most outstanding lines appear in his first verse, “Grew up in a home that my papa wasn’t in/ Came up off of work that my conscious wasn’t in” What grabs me about these lines is the idea that rapping is an occupation that Earl came into before he really developed into a person in his eyes. As I mentioned before, Earl joined Odd Future when he was sixteen. Being catapulted to worldwide fame like that seems fun at first but that was before he was even old enough to vote, let alone think about how it would go on to distort and affect his relationships in the future. This resentment of rap as his profession for seemingly the rest of his life is interesting, a possible contributing factor in his depression.

On “AM//Radio”, Earl welcomes us to the first feature of “I Don’t Like Shit”. It doesn’t appear until the seventh song, a stark difference when compared to “Doris”. On “Doris”, the first verse on the entire album is done by a feature and it isn’t until track six that Earl has a song by himself. Out of the fifteen tracks, only four songs on “Doris” fail to have a guest appearance. The fact that “I Don’t Like Shit” makes it to song seven without a feature goes to show the affect that the isolation he talks about has affected his music and reminds us of the line in “Mantra”, “N****a is fake, I limit the features I give em.”

Of all of the tracks on “I Don’t Like Shit”, “AM//Radio” feels the most nostalgic. Both the feature, rapper Wiki, and Earl speak about the days when they hung out with the members of their respective crews and just chilled. Life was easier back then. This song also has Earl’s first reference to his time in Odd Future, in the line, “Bitch if yo n***a had Supreme, we was the reason he copped it” Odd Future as a group felt like they were primarily responsible for the popularity of the Supreme brand, as they often wore it. I also want to take a moment to point out that Earl’s production on the song is a work of magic. It creates a drowsy, dreamlike flow that I’ve never found in another song. After the two and a half minute mark, the song is lyric less and Earl’s production feels light and free and is some of my favorite music ever. For all his wordplay, Earl as a producer is one of my favorite things about him.

“Inside” is mainly about how Earl felt left out and distant from Odd Future due to their mainstream success happening while he was in Samoa. He missed out on that excitement and bonding that the group had worked so hard for together. The song carries on the smooth tones of the latter half of “AM//Radio” and ends with a reference to the album’s title, “And lately I don’t like shit I’ve been inside on the daily.daily” which leads directly to the album’s penultimate ninth track “DNA”.

The song starts with nothing but Earl’s haunting vocals and a few, scattered piano keys. Earl talks about his alcohol and drug abuse, about his fears of death and, mostly, about his confidence in his own abilities. Reoccurring themes pop up again, such as his struggles with finances and his love/hate relationship with rap in the lines, “just checking and balancing checks/ and checks and salaries testing my friend ship, Cause n****s get sour of this/ Rap shit got the best of me, I threw the rest off the balcony.” Yet it’s Earl’s feature on the song, Earl’s longtime friend Na’kel (often reffered to in Earl’s music as Nak), that fully captures the desperation of the album. His verse begins,

“Hundred blunts, n****s change/that’s my day to day/ n****s tryna ride my train/ like they fucking strays. My bro left today, fuck”

and that “fuck” goes on to echo in the listener’s head for the rest of the song and most likely for the rest of time. There’s something about Nak’s delivery, be it the timing of the pause he takes after today that leads us to conclude it as a complete thought before he shocks us with the “fuck” or maybe it’s the desperation and bitterness with which he says it. Either way, that “fuck” is still one of the most effective appearances in music due to the bubble of space it creates within the song, similar to the final “Sasha, thumpa” that ends Andre 3000’s verse on “Da Art of Storytellin’ pt. 1”. Nak goes on to list all the things he’s been able to accomplish that would make his brother proud in a voice sounds like it is just on the cusp of breaking into tears. I believe that this marks true end to the album “I Don’t Like Shit” in terms of theme. We traveled through nine songs in which Earl lead us through various faces of his depression and he ends on showing us someone else’s. It makes Earl sadness almost palatable, knowing that he isn’t alone and that we are all suffering in our own way.

       The album’s final song, “Wolf”, feels like a large flag with the words “everything is ok! I’m still the Earl you know and love” written on it in big bold letters. The song features Vince Staples, a rapper Earl had known and been friends with since before Odd Future. In fact, it was on Earl’s song “Hive” that Vince Staples ever appeared. The song sounds reminiscent of “Doris” or even something that would show up on one of his mixtapes. It’s bright and bouncy and fun, a stark contrast and breath of fresh air after Nak’s performance on “DNA”. The song seems like a return to the norm for Earl, after branching into the deep dive into depression that the rest of the album was. It could also be seen as a mask, a performance that Earl puts up to hide the darker thoughts he tries to keep to himself. Either way, it’s the ending of “I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside: An album by Earl Sweatshirt.”

[lilietsblog]

Strike Witches episode 1: first impression

so im gonna try strike witches: the unknown anime i chose to not familiarize myself with the premise beyond 'something like fighter pilots i think?' that i picked up by osmosis

oh hey look a discarded doll. def war is hell vibes here

cant say im a fan of the visuals from the first several seconds, the color scheme and everything seems kinda bland? the only reason im making this observation is bc i had to pause to let it load tho

oh look Very Noticable CGI

(i have a headache and am vaguely nauseous and basically am Very Cranky as a result)

man, there aren't even characters yet. it's been almost two minuets and there still aren't people for me to relate too that's a crime by which i dont mean that literally but just 'this might not be the thing i want to watch right now'

oh hey monsters okay this is better than just straight up war is hell between humans omfg in 1939 subtle 'we wanna play with ww2 era toys but without bringing up the fact japan was on the side of nazi germany' i assume sure im onboard if thats the premise

magitech??? magitech!!!

that's. their legs. in those things. are they evoking Baba Yaga and her travels in a stupa bc thats okay panty shots i think imma quit at the end of this episode

oh i. just realized this is the movie that actually makes it a bit better and gives me more hope lets try the actual first episode first

ok the first shot is of the sky and not a discarded doll that's already better

holy shit whatever this video player is it allows to load external captions from pc or url. technology progresses at an incredible pace

i love that the fighter planes are clearly shown attacking the vortex first 9u9

opening has so many girls wearing shoes but no pants. im just. this entire device's entire point is clearly to fanservice that does not mean this is bad character-wise yet ofc. i watched and liked fucking rosario+vampire. this show has a chance yet. lets see what its got

the op song is nice its also very straightforward about aesthetic of this show being 'girls without pants in absolutely non-sexual situaitons' and i can respect that

and oh look it actually does start with characters interacting right after exposition that's what im talking about

okay so now might be a good time to mention that the first context i heard of strike witches was uh. misogynist porn. like the kind that doesnt go for 'look at these relatable characters being kinky' but for 'consider: what if powerful girls got hurt instead'. so thats the context in my brain and i want to fucking overwrite it

military uniforms+panties are definitely an aesthetic and im incredibly amused by it okay every single girl here doesnt wear pants sure that actually looks like a swimsuit rather than panties and thats nice

also they are characterizing the protagonist! like i know thats not much to ask for but im going into this straight off blogging about madoka and this is just such a relief! she is kind and brave and plucky and talks gently to a scared kitten and I love her also she Does Not Think Things Through shes like the typical shonen protagonist but a girl. im in

Yoshika her name is Yoshika

and her motivation is her dad but eh sure whatever I kind of like the touch of 'it was classified military information' not sure why

theres nothing about Yoshika that qualifies her other than her personality and magic powers huh

yep thats a swimsuit aww shes a healer!

I love that the military observers rush to help as soon as they see something is off theres work and then theres helping emergencies

oh!!!! her mom and grandma are around!!! and teaching her!!! im happy!!!

Yoshika why is all that a 'but' to 'you should learn to control your power' i dont think there was any subtext of 'you shouldnt even try' there? or was it? maybe i should just trust her for now

awww Yoshika actually doesn't want to go to war <3 but this woman thinks she will because she wants to help people and she'll help people the most there I I like this ;~; I'm so happy I like this I love Yoshika's 'fuck war' instinct I love her drive to help everyone and in fact the trope of magical healer almost killing themselves to help a patient (despite it being professionally inadvisable) is actually the thing i made my very first rp character sooo :> you know. stuff something is fishy about that letter. its no coincidence it was sent just now... I love Sakamoto and her A+ social skills HA HA HA HA HA also huh... she's not in on whatever's up with that letter

Yoshika so uh alright she'll take her without enlisting her huh interesting but uh what about school I guess military and witches can override all that and it kind of makes sense to me thematically

'Britannia' gee how familiar that name sounds and i dont mean geographically

so hm could Yoshika be a military doctor without actually enlisting? how do the formalities work there i like that Sakamoto doesnt question her dislike of all things military like its unexpected but mostly bc Sakamoto's got a one track mind that has a hard time expecting anything other than what she wants to happen and beyond that its like 'sure ok a conscientous objector got it' even though its weird how there would be conscientous objectors to fighting MONSTERS its not like theres an alternative to not fight I mean also clearly Yoshika is a kid and theres room left for that in other characters' treatment of her opinions and I love that they dont get Offended that she doesn't understand and Have Proper Respect well Sakamoto doesn't at least not sure about how other people will react

man that raccoon on the road sure was convenient though. like i first thought it was Sakamoto's deliberate tactic to gauge Yoshiko's powers. she was opening her eye to i guess do just that visually and then the raccoon appeared and it just felt very natural that one follows from the other? is this foreshadowing or are the writers of this anime just unfamiliar with the concept of 'subtle' i dont mind if its the latter tbh

(im writing a ton of reflection bc the episode broke after i tried to rewind a little and i decided to download it after all, and its doing that)

so far, this show seeems nicely straightforward and fast paced. like, really straightforward. yoshiko's introduction? saving a kitten. making a ww2 era anime without difficult shit? monsters attacked in 1939. motivations and revelations are handled with all the subtlety of a hammer to the face, from the raccoon to the letter. even fanservice has the same charming quality that makes me actually be okay with the entire point of their outfits being gratuitous panty shots. making sense and having pretense is for the weak. this anime knows what it wants to be and is going straight for that. i respect that approach

also its p clear that what it wants is to be character driven and its been Delivering on that since its only half episode one and i already Love two characters personally and also some supporting cast (Yoshiko's entire family)

and like you know that in some other show GASP MIGHT MY DAD BE STILL ALIVE would be a reveal saved for like. the halfway point. but here its literally the starting point spurring everything into action bc all other motivation was just too slow to get the character where she was supposed to go. good job yo

there's this trope where the main character doesn't want to go into the main conflict (Refusal of the Call)... and very often it's handled by either 1) letting them wallow until everything goes to shit showing how wrong they were or 2) immediately conveniently wrecking everything so they have no choice now I uh. am really glad this show went a different way if just joining the conflict isnt a good enough motivation GET A BETTER ONE and IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE ANGST (and it doesn't have to be romance, either!!! why are those two the only things writers seem to be able to think of jfc)

...okay I was more like two thirds through the episode rather than half but my points stand

okay so I think what just happened was Yoshiko realized the parallel between herself and her dad leaving and got scared and her response was to comfort other people and I love that <3

I love that Sakamoto doesn't have a doubt in her mind that Yoshiko isn't going to be useless and will definitely help and also comes to her to discuss this explicitly <3

man I love Sakamoto and her absolute lack of social graces and sense of when enough is enough

and the fact that Yoshiko is working chores now and seems to enjoy it too <3

and it's when it's established that she's part of the team that Sakamoto starts showing off <3 she clearly has a dedicated well thought out campaign of convincing Yoshiko going on and its borne out not of manipulation but of clear conviction that she is right and she just has to show the girl what she doesnt know yet <3

ahaha of course showing off worked <3

so I paused and imma make a bet with myself on whether Sakamoto is going to tell her 'if you liked that you can join' right now or leave that unsaid subtly my bet is that she is, bc subtlety is an entirely foreign concept to this wonderful human being, and if i lose im going to make my bed right now not even waiting for the end of the episode let's see

oh she starts with education huh, this is not widely known? i had no idea anyway lets see if she says the thing

I love that it's her dad and it's this kind thing of 'this is what he said he was going to do, and he did' <3

huh so that was slightly more subtlety than I expected, she offered her to try them rather than trying to recruit her directly so I lost the bet gotta go make the bed now

BAM DONE YAY GOOD SELF CARE

hey more main characters!!!! I love all of you already!!! you have personality and discuss things that make sense!!! including their outfits!!! I love them!!!! the parasol girl is my favorite but also the tiny girl and the red-haired girl they are all my favorites!!!

omfg a month of travel and half a day early Yoshiko gets impatient I love her

YOU ARE A NONCOMBATANT she said with the steely confidence of a commanding officer <3

I love so much that Sakamoto respects Yoshiko's boundaries re: fighting???

OMG THE ENDING SONG I LOVE IT

I love the upbeat and airy tone this show manages to have despite the premise??? like I had trepidations at the start bc I dislike doom&gloom-heaviness of 'war is hell' narratives and I'm not a WW2 affictionado. but instead of shiny boom boom toys and angst it's all character adorableness and so much sky??? even the lack of pants ends up feeling like freedom this is the anime we all deserve