#two of whom are college dropouts

[unintentional-sad-wizard]

Guess who’s officially a college dropout

[vivimura]

PAIRING ~ dropout!pjs x fem!reader

SUMMARY ~ an argument with dropout fwb jay over what your futures would be like after you graduate escalates.

GENRE ~ angst, suggestive.

WORD COUNT ~ 1.125k

ᯓ★ first fic! hope you guys like it lol.

"i wanna settle down by twenty five."

he chuckled, his eyebrows shooting up at your cute and almost innocent confession. “settle down… at twenty five…?” he repeated your words back to you, his eyes slightly widening in fake surprise. “baby girl, you’re twenty one. you barely just started college and you’re already thinking of marriage.” you wore a motivated smile on your lips and shrugged. though, his hostility stung. "you don't think about that stuff? you're like- twenty five soon." he let out a scoff, his smirk returning. “marriage and kids aren’t really in the cards for me,” he simply replied back, his hands now making their way down your thighs. “i’ve got better things to think about.”

you scoffed and rolled your eyes. "yeah? like what kind of weed to buy next? whom to hook up with?"

he chuckled at your comment before he shook his head. “there’s gotta be more to life than just working a boring job and popping out babies.” he mumbled, his breath fanning over your skin as he now leaned his face against your neck. “i want to live life to the fullest, travel, experience things. you can’t do that if you’re at home changing diapers all day.”

you remained silent, simply looking into his eyes as you tried imagining what the future would entail for the two of you, and if the two of you were even in touch. "we really are different people." he chuckled at that as he looked up at your face again. he didn’t reply, he already knew that himself. “trust me, i know,” he said simply, the smirk never leaving his face. he kept his eyes on your face for a moment, studying your features carefully before his smirk widened into a smug “and it’s cute how you think that marriage and kids are like a magical fix for whatever problems you come up with.”

you frowned, his words poking you in ways you weren't a fan of. "it's cute how you think traveling the world will fulfill the inner loneliness you've had after having grown up in a shitty household." your reply was low, and you knew it. but you were too riled up to care. he raised his eyebrows at that, his gaze hardening as he looked at you with a cold, almost annoyed look. “watch your mouth, baby,” he said sternly, his smirk now gone and replaced with a steely look. his hands grabbed your thighs tighter, nails digging into the skin. “i don’t appreciate you psychoanalyzing my life like you know anything about it.” "and i just love you being judgmental of my ambitions." you sarcastically grumbled, flashing an almost mocking sweet smile.

“i’m just being realistic,” he deadpanned back while he leaned his body farther forward, effectively making you lay down against the headboard of the bed. he was now on top of you, his body between your spread legs and his face hovering just a few inches above yours. he looked down at you with an almost icy cold look. “there’s more to life than just marrying some college prick and popping out babies.”

"are you, though?" you tilted your head, not backing down under his piercing gaze. "are you sure you're not just jealous that you'll never be that guy in my life?" he let out a scoff at that, though his expression darkened as a small, almost unnoticeable frown formed on his lips. “you really think you’re so special?” he asked, his eyes narrowing into a glare, his hands still gripping your thighs. “you think you’re so unique that you’ll get some perfect happy ending like those white chick movies?”

you bit the inside of your cheeks, glaring right back at him defensively. "I'm an ambitious woman with genuine plans for life. the hell are you? a pathetic dropout who deals drugs for a living? I mean, what if you get caught, huh?"

he let out a scoff at that, not even a hint of humor in his expression as he continued staring down at you. “pathetic dropout who deals drugs?” he repeated your words back to you, his grip on your thighs getting even tighter, his nails digging deeper into the skin. “i make more money than those little preppy boys your daddy wants you to marry.”

"yeah, and you'll probably overdose or go to jail before those preppy boys do!" you hissed at the stinging feeling of his nails. he let out a scoff again, that icy cold look never leaving his face as he looked back out at you. “and what if i do?” he asked with a shrug. he didn’t care whether he ended up in jail or with a needle sticking out of his vein. “you’ll go to college, find some rich boy, marry him and pop out a mini you. and you’ll sit in your white picket fence house with two point five kids and your husband who can’t get you off.”

your eyes flared in anger. but fuck, why were his replies irritating you as much as they were turning you on? "oh, and what the hell do you know about getting me off!?" he stared down at your lips, a familiar cocky grin beginning to form on his own. "you forgot that I've been the one getting you off since, what-, three months now?" he mocked. "don't deny it. you've almost squirted on my face a few-" your eyes bulge out at his filthy words, and you bring your hand up to cover his mouth to cut him off. your ears burn in pure embarrassment. "jay, I swear to god-" he let out a loud laugh that was muffled by your hand, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he looked down at you. he smirked under your hand, his hands still grasping you by the thighs. he slowly pulled your hand away from his mouth, but his hold on your wrist didn’t loosen. “so you do remember,” he said in a cocky, teasing tone, a smirk on his lips. "you're seriously fucking pissing me off." your hands formed fists on the soft material of jay's duvet. god, you wanted nothing more than to wipe that stupid smirk off his mouth. he continued to chuckle at your pissed off demeanor, his smirk only growing wider and his grip on your wrist only getting tighter. he leaned down closer to your face, his face now only inches away, and he made sure to lock his eyes with yours and hold your gaze, not breaking eye contact. “it’s true though, isn't it? nobody can make you feel as good as I do." you let out a frustrated sigh, feeling a certain wet, sticky feeling appear between your legs. "it's not. seriously. quit it, park." "nah." he chuckled sinisterly. he caught ahold of both your wrists, pinning them with his single right hand with ease. his naturally sharp jaw was clenched in a way that only made it sharper in an intimidating way. suddenly, he brought his free hand to cup your heat covered just by a flimsy pair of shorts. "park-" your eyes widened and you squirmed in his bed, trying to wriggle your hands out of his grip. "sh-sh-shh.." "I'll show you what's better than a two point five."

[dropout-if]

DEMO (coming soon) - FAQ - NAVIGATION

Dropout is an upcoming (and a side project!) +18 slice-of-life interactive fiction game. Loosely inspired by media such as In the Heights and Night in the Woods.

Tag(s): Slice of life, Drama, Romance, YA, LGBTQ+, Text-based.

You take the train home from college after nearly four years away, knowing you will be welcomed with open arms, bright smiles, and the sincerest congratulations from your friends and family, from the entire neighborhood. Their pride has not been misplaced, for better or for worse, you are the one: the only one who made it into college.

This is your first summer home since you began studying in Stanford. That is what everyone thinks.

This is your first summer home since you dropped out of college, thus becoming the biggest disappointment in your neighborhood. That is what only you know.

Trigger Warning(s): Crude humor, Strong language, optional sex scenes, Violence, Depression and depictions of other mental illnesses, Substance use, Unwanted pregnancy (a RO's, Wanda).

A short disclaimer

Features and Characters below!

Return to your home, the fictional neighborhood of Downtown Heights, where you're treated like a local hero because of your grand achievement.

Determine how you managed to make it into college and why you decided to call it quits.

Reunite with your high school friends and acquaintances, with whom you've barely spoken in the past few years.

Romance one (or more) of the six old faces waiting for you in Downtown Heights.

Customize your Main Character! From their teenage years to their young adulthood, from physicality to personality. Be it your traits, flaws, and vices: everything shapes your return home.

Navigate the very dramatic shenanigans of young adulthood.

Queer relationships • RO Intros • ROs' Social Media • RO Facts

Jean/Jade Gray (he/him or she/her): THE EX • 23 years old

J and you were good. Until you weren't, and then they broke up with you right before you left for college. The two of you promised to stay as friends, but, like most promises between you and J, that too was meant to be broken. Your ex is often considered to be ambitious, determined, and cutthroat. You honestly expected them to be well out of the neighborhood.

Exes to lovers. It's possible to start a poly relationship (v and triad) with J and Kai.

Uma Bharat (they/them): THE OLD FRIEND • 22 years old

It has always been you and Uma, and this has been something you covetously believed to be true. But then the distance settled in, and then the many years in which you lived abroad. You can't claim to know them as well as you once did. Uma once dreamed of being a successful painter, and they have never given up on art (though they sometimes feel like art has given up on them).

Childhood best friends to lovers. It's possible to start a poly relationship (triad) with Uma and Travis.

Statler Amani (he/him or she/her): THE HEARTTHROB • 25 years old

You knew Statler back in high school, though they can't claim to have known of you until you made it out of the neighborhood. Many years ago, they were every high schooler's dream partner: kind, polite, intelligent. Their current partner must be proud. Nowadays, Statler works as hard as they can to help their family.

Unrequited crush to lovers. Statler is already in a relationship, a (more-or-less) toxic one.

Wanda Pavon (she/her): THE MODEL • 22 years old

Wanda had a future in modeling, the two of you were in the same group of friends in high school, and you never doubted she would be capable of making it out of the neighborhood. Her self-assertive and spontaneous personality surely would have made Wanda's road a little easier. You only find out why Wanda stayed in Downtown Heights when you meet her daughter.

Friends to lovers. Wanda is a single mother, her daughter's name is Gabi.

Kai Alofa (he/him or she/her): THE ROOMMATE • 24 years old

Kai's glow-up is the reason some Downtown Heights grandmothers believe in magic. The high school nerd turned fuckboy/girl has spent the past few years traveling around the state. Like you, they are back for the summer, ready to disappoint their parents. Rooming together comes as a natural result of delaying said disappointment (or so Kai claimed).

Friends with benefits to lovers (mandatory to romance Kai). It's possible start a poly relationship (v and triad) with Kai and J.

Travis Camaro (he/him): THE RIVAL • 21 years old

Uma, Travis and you were considered to be inseparable: it was the three of you against the world. That is no longer the case. A massive argument completely shattered the friendship Travis and you had. You know he resents you, you know he's jealous you managed to make it out and that he was left behind. And that's all you know. Travis has always been... a private guy.

(Past friends) to enemies/rivals to lovers. It's possible to start a poly relationship (triad) with Travis and Uma.

Choosing a route.

The Dropout's Family

The list of flings!

[jacksgreysays]

Extremely late, completely unnecessary opinion of the Watcher situation, (2024-04-24)

So this is a relatively belated post — several days after the initial “Goodbye Youtube” and one day after the “An Update” videos — and surely by this point there are more interesting/insightful op-eds (both in written form and video form, especially penguinz0’s fairly objective POV as, essentially, a YouTube expert) but there is something about the Watcher situation that made my brain itch. Thus, I wanted to write about it in order to make sense of it all as well as get into a philosophy that seems to be haunting me in recent years and which I think applies greatly here.

This may seem completely out of left field considering 1) definitely not fanfiction and 2) about Watcher Entertainment, a YouTube channel which—as far as this tumblr is concerned—I’ve not engaged with whatsoever, but I don’t know where else I would put this, and weirdly enough I think the general tumblr response to this whole predicament is maybe the… if not objective… then at least, most thoughtful?—or, perhaps, least immediately reactive?—amongst the various social media platforms, that I think some people might appreciate this anyway.

In terms of my relevant background: I majored in Management Science (which is just a fancy way of saying Economics + Business + Accounting because they are, weirdly enough, separate things) and minored in Film Studies in school, I am currently working in the stage tech industry (which, I know, is obviously different from film/video industry), and I like to think I am a fan/consumer of a wide variety of independent creators, some of whom I am lucky enough to be able to afford being a patron/subscriber. I won’t go into all of them—because it is a lot—but there are four in particular whose business models I want to analyze in comparison to Watcher’s admitted blunder:

A) RocketJump (known for Video Game High School and Anime Crimes Division; the core group which turned into the podcast Story Break, then became Dungeons and Daddies) B) Dropout (formerly College Humor, we’ll get into their discography later) C) Drawfee (previously an offshoot of College Humor, now fully independent) D) Corridor Digital (used to be mostly behind the scenes of how VFX studios work, have since become a mostly original content creator)

I will say, right off the bat, I am a patron of Drawfee as well as Dungeons and Daddies, and I am a subscriber to Dropout. I am not subscribed to Corridor Digital’s streamer, which I will get into why later. I understand that being able to sustain those two patronages and one subscription is a luxury that not everyone can afford and so my point of view is already skewed by being such a person who could theoretically afford another streaming service if I so chose. I also acknowledge that many fans of Watcher are not in similarly financially secure places as I am and that regardless of the business model, any monetization that comes from fans would have been a rough ask. However, I wanted to go into this essay in a way that accepts Watcher’s statement—that they needed more funding—in relatively good faith rather than assuming the worst (although that is another point I’ll get into later, largely related to the philosophy I brought up earlier.)

All four of the above listed content creators started or, at least, hit their stride on YouTube:

RocketJump and College Humor were, if not household names, then the digital equivalent of it in the “early days of YouTube.” They were part of the wave of content creators that made YouTube seem less like a bunch of eccentrics with cameras making videos on the side and more like a viable way to support yourself/your team with the art you create.

RocketJump’s Video Game High School went from short (less than 10 minutes) minimal location episodes in season one, to 30 minute plus episodes with full on fight scenes and car explosions by season three thanks to a Monster Energy brand deal. They also had two seasons of Anime Crimes Division, a literal TV quality show, thanks to a Crunchy Roll sponsorship. Unfortunately, RocketJump shut down not long after (their videos are still up on YouTube but they obviously don’t add anything new) but the core creative team behind that have been involved in several projects outside of YouTube (Dimension 404 on Hulu being one of the biggest ones so far) including the podcast Story Break (part of the Maximum Fun network) and now the independent podcast Dungeons and Daddies, the episodes of the main campaigns which are free with ads or, for patrons, ad-less along with additional mini-campaigns and other benefits.

I will say, during RocketJump’s decline, they did try their best to keep going. The partnerships with Monster Energy and Crunchy Roll were the big swings to get the funding to make those TV quality shows they wanted. I believe they lucked out with those brands in particular, or, at least, those brands didn’t seem to inhibit the creative process or ask too much of them that it felt like “selling out” but I also don’t have insight into why they didn’t pursue this model of, essentially, very weird but interesting season long commercials. Maybe they just couldn't find the right brands or maybe they did feel like it was too stifling. Regardless, before they shut down completely, they did also downsize—moving out of the actual city of Los Angeles over to Buena Park. Which is in Los Angeles county, and basically counts as LA still, but is way cheaper than literal Hollywood real estate. (I should have added to my relevant background that I’m born and raised LA county, and have relatives and friends in the film/movie industry, so trust me when I say literal Hollywood/city of Los Angeles is so overrated and unnecessarily expensive. There is a reason why LA traffic is the worst and it’s because everyone is commuting INTO the city. Respectfully and with affection, no one should live there. No one’s start up should be located there.) Obviously the downsizing didn’t necessarily work for RocketJump, but they also didn’t have multiple successful revenue streams the way that Watcher currently does.

In contrast, College Humor was acquired by InterActiveCorp and was turned into CH Media which was three pronged: College Humor, Drawfee, and Dorkly. In 2018 they made Dropout, which had exclusive content separate from their YouTube videos which involved all three prongs. Then some financial shenanigans happened early 2020—IAC withdrew their funding—and there were a bunch of layoffs right before the pandemic which extremely sucked. It has been stated by multiple people involved that it was basically a miracle that Dropout survived through all of that, but there were definitely some sacrifices along the way to make that happen. Currently, Dropout seems to be thriving with mostly exclusive content with the occasional “first episode of a season” posted to YouTube, OR if Dimension 20 is doing a “sequel season” in an already established campaign they will put the entirety of the previous season on YouTube.

IAC withdrawing their funding did put CH Media in a bind. They had to layoff a lot of people right before pandemic and, understandably, a lot of trauma was had. There were also weird issues with who controlled certain IPs/brands/digital assets (I mostly come at this from a Drawfee POV, it took several years for them to own the Drawga series and be allowed to host all of the episodes on their YouTube, and there was also something about the sound file for their opening animation?) but mainly the difference is what kind of content they generate. Originally Dropout had multiple scripted shows with high budgets and pretty cool effects/animations/stunts (Troopers, Kingpin Katie, Gods of Food, Ultramechatron Team Go!, Cartoon Hell, and WTF 101) whereas now almost all of their shows are variations of improv comedians being put into different scenarios or given different prompts. I’m not just talking about Game Changer and Make Some Noise, because Dimension 20 and Um, Actually also technically fall under that description as well. Which is not to say that these shows are worse than the scripted shows—I subscribe to Dropout, so clearly I’m a fan of their current shows—and the budgets for them have since increased to resemble, if not match, those early shows, but it is a noticeable shift in their content creation strategy as a response to the lack of IAC funding. And I will say: Dropout releases at least three videos a week if not more and at least two of those are long form at 30 minutes plus (Dimension 20 being the longest, of course.)

So, these first two business models are not really the most applicable to Watcher Entertainment considering their origin was to get away from Buzzfeed—they’re probably not keen to be partnered with or purchased by a larger company—but there are some aspects to both that I believe are valuable in at least showing the strategy in how these former YouTube creators could successfully extract themselves from YouTube or how they still utilize YouTube even if it is not their main hosting platform or revenue stream.

Then there is Drawfee and Corridor Digital, both of whom are currently—if not primarily—on YouTube, whose situations are more comparable to what I believe are Watcher’s goals.

Drawfee had to rebuild themselves like a phoenix from the ashes of the CH Media layoff during the beginning/worst of the pandemic. Side note: I’m happy that Nathan (one of the four main artists of the current Drawfee team) at least has forgiven(? or let bygones be bygones) Dropout enough to be on an episode of Game Changer (although I will say that this happened after Drawga was “returned” to Drawfee, and after Dropout officially split from College Humor as a brand.) All that being said, Drawfee was a team of four artists plus their editor who wanted to stick together but basically had all of their support system taken away from them. They took a bit of a break to assess their goals and options, announced a patreon with several tiers with great perks, and stuck to their upload schedule. In addition to two videos a week, they also stream on Twitch weekly, have a patron only stream once a month, and a draw class (for one of the higher tiers) once month. After asking their patrons on the relevant tiers if they were okay with it, they began releasing the patron only stream and the draw class to the general public for free after a month. The patreon perks also include things like merch discount codes, high quality PNGs of the final rendered art, access to the draw class with live interaction/critique, and a commission from the artist of your choice. The only “ads” they run are for their own patreon and merch store and, even then, they’re usually at the end of the videos with a credit scroll of the patron names during their exit banter.

Admittedly, they only have MAYBE eight employees—that’s including their video editor(s?) and their discord mod(s?)—with the main four artists doubling/tripling up duties as additional video editors, CFO, and marketing/merch leads. It’s a very streamlined crew and their production costs are not very high since it’s mostly screen recording of their drawings with their audio recording overlayed onto that footage. Although the video editors do sometimes have clever cuts to relevant images depending on their vamping. Sometimes they will have a guest artist but, again, since it’s screen and audio recordings, there’s no travel/housing costs. So, very minimal expenses due to low production costs and small crew but, again, their only revenue source is the patreon/merch, they don’t do outside ads and they very rarely do live shows.

Corridor Digital is, I think, the most applicable to what Watcher would ideally do, which I suppose is somewhat ironic for this essay in particular considering they’re the only one of the four that I don’t financially support. They have two YouTube channels: their main one being where they show the “final product” videos, but I believe their Corridor Crew channel which started primarily as behind the scenes type of videos is where most of their views come from. Especially their React series (VFX artists, Stuntmen, and Animators React etc.) On Corridor Crew they usually upload two videos a week — one which is a React and the other which goes into fun projects/challenges (involving VFX or not) or using VFX to explain scientific concepts — as well as the first episodes of their exclusive content on their streamer. Also behind that paywall are longer and ad-less versions of the videos on YouTube. They also have merch. All of them have merch, I don’t know why I’m stating that. They don’t have a patreon as far as I know, but I also don’t know if their subscription to their website comes with similar perks like discounted merch or something similar.

Anyway, their studio seems to be about 15 to 20 people — not all of them are VFX artists, of course. I believe they have higher equipment costs than Watcher since, understandably, Corridor has to be on the cutting edge of video editing technology. They do occasionally travel for shoots, but it doesn’t require big teams, and that’s only when the local locations available to them don’t match the requirements for the “final product” videos. Otherwise most of their videos are set in the studio or in the alleyway outside their studio in Los Angeles (the city itself, not just the greater county, though they are in a rougher and thus probably cheaper part of Los Angeles). I personally don’t subscribe to their website primarily because their exclusive shows don’t appeal to me—either they’re too technical or a little too dry; to be fair, most of them are VFX artists first before they are performers—and I don’t particularly feel the need to see the extended cuts of the videos uploaded on YouTube. Also I sometimes get a little bummed out by their lack of diversity.

All of this to say, from these four different business models, a bespoke Frankenstein business model for Watcher could be cobbled together. But also, even with that bespoke Frankenstein, there are some changes that Watcher would have to make: primarily their upload schedule. As of right now, I think they do MAYBE one video a week if not, perhaps, one video every TWO weeks. If they want a monthly subscription model, their rate of content generation would ideally be higher to double/quadruple their current upload rate. Obviously they want to create videos with higher production value, but at that rate of generation, something’s got to give: supplement their TV quality shows with either a behind the scenes type series or an increase of “we get four episodes out of Shane and Ryan get increasingly drunk in someone’s backyard” or something similar. Leaning into shows like Worth A Shot (the first season in which Ricky Wang makes cocktails based on a random ingredient, the second season threw in some competitive aspects which I didn’t really find necessary) or the Beatdown which has relatively low production costs (no travel, one location, maybe two cameras at most therefore smaller crew requirements) but a higher polished look. Otherwise, for a separate streaming subscription service, 2-4 videos a month is not going to cut it.

As of right now they probably can’t back out of the separate streaming subscription service because those set ups usually require some level of contract/paying for servers for the website and whatever is hosting their videos for a set amount of time. However, what really strikes me is that I literally didn’t know they had a patreon until I scrolled through the comments of the first Goodbye Youtube video. Maybe it’s been linked "tactfully" in the descriptions of videos, but considering they claim to be lacking in funds, the fact that they weren’t plugging their patreon at the end of every video is not just strange, but also irresponsible considering they do have 25 employees that they don’t want to layoff.

Additionally, I understand artists needing to be in a space that promotes creativity, but there are cheaper places that must be comparable that aren’t in literal Hollywood. It’s an unnecessary expense. On top of that, other people have already brought up that it was fairly crass to introduce this paywall, attributing it to the increased production costs, when the next planned “new series” is a reboot of an old Buzzfeed series in which people travel and eat expensive food. I’m not even talking about the personal expenses of Steven, Shane, and Ryan; what kind of car they drive or the cost of their wedding venue doesn’t matter on a business model basis.

But getting back to the patreon: again, I literally didn’t know they had one. I’m looking over their tiers— they have $5, $10, $25, and $100 — and for the most part they seem okay, although I think they have more to offer that wouldn’t necessarily cost them more. Ie, something that has baffled me for a while: the fact they don’t sell the mp3s of the Puppet History songs; they already exist and it doesn’t cost them anything additional because they don’t need to put it on physical media. Or maybe they do and they’re not marketing it similarly to how they weren’t overtly marketing their patreon?

And, okay, maybe they didn’t want to seem desperate — in the early days of Dropout and independent Drawfee, they both were very blatant in getting people to subscribe/join their patreon. As they should be. Desperation maybe doesn’t look cool and sexy, but it is earnest in a way that conveys equal effort that fans who can afford it would want to see. The fact that we weren’t getting rotating ten second clips of Steven, Shane, and Ryan asking people to join the patreon at the end of every video — even if its the same clip every three videos — is wild. And yes, the $25 tier includes a shoutout every 3 months on Watcher Weekly+ (which I don't quite understand what that is,) but the fact that they weren’t doing a quick post movie credits scroll of all the patreon names is, again, wild. Once you have that initial list, it’s not too difficult to add any new names that join and put that title overlay on top of, again, those nonexistent ten second clips of the three.

As others have already stated, it seems like an extreme mismanagement of their existing successful revenue streams, if they are actually struggling to pay all of their employees. Which goes into the philosophy part of this essay: don’t assume malice when it might just be incompetence. It’s something that I have to remind myself of often because I do get paranoid about people’s intentions sometimes and I have to check myself. Am I being overly suspicious of what might be just an honest mistake? Am I assigning ill will to an action just because it inconvenienced me?

Yes, of course, a lot of this situation could be misconstrued as straight up greed. But, also, Watcher is a relatively young company, helmed by three people who certainly don’t have experience running their own company:

They like to travel. They like to bring a full crew around with them. They’re renting out a shiny office in the heart of Hollywood where everyone knows is where real show biz happens. They’re adding more employees to the team because surely more people means better. And they want better productions values because the prettier the videos the more people will like them right?

It’s naive. It’s a level of inexperience combined with giving responsibility to officers whose main priority is to entertain. And if that means entertaining themselves and their staff, then they might not know the difference. It’s the kind of mistake that first time managers make—trying to prioritize fun over getting the job done. Prioritizing making friends with their employees rather than making sure the work the employees put in is equal to (or greater than) what you spend on them whether that is in paycheck or bringing them to cool locations for fun shoots. It’s a mistake anyone can make, it's just unfortunate that they made this mistake in front of millions of people. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s solely a greed induced cash grab.

But then comes the catch-22 of the philosophy—is it worse to assume incompetence than it is to assume malice? Or, in this case, greed. Especially for the heads of a company that holds the livelihoods of 25 employees in their hands. At what point does it not matter if it’s incompetence or greed if the end result is the same?

Is it better to think that Watcher knew about the various other business models of independent creators and just ignored the efforts put into achieving those successes or is it better to think that they didn’t know and just stumbled into one of the worst moves they could have done. Again, other people have mentioned that Great Mythical Morning—which Watcher has had multiple collaborations with—has managed to make the YouTube subscription/tier system work to the point that they can sustain themselves as well as spinoff channels. Is it incompetence or greed that led to Watcher thinking they could bypass that completely in less time and with less content?

I’ve been at this mess of an essay for several hours when I should have been asleep. Ultimately I want to say, regardless of incompetence or greed… yes, Steven is CEO and yes he is ultimately the one who makes the final call but it is disheartening to see the pointed vitriol at Steven specifically and the infantilizing of Shane and Ryan in comparison. Either they’re all silly uwu boys who are messing around not knowing how to run a company, or they’re all complicit in a crass cash grab in an extremely busted economy.

I think what’s most frustrating to me in all this is that there were so many other channels and creators who have literally walked this path before them and, again, whether through incompetence or greed or arrogance, for them to just ignore it… It’s not betrayal because I don’t know them and so there’s no relationship to betray, it’s just so inefficient and convoluted that I don’t understand. Or, no, even if it was greed, it’s an incompetent greed because at least pure greed would have been pushing that patreon every second they could. Their ratio of YouTube subscribers to patreon members is less than 1% and I bet that’s because a lot of their audience, like me, literally didn’t know they had a patreon. I probably would have become a patreon member of theirs had I known earlier, ESPECIALLY if it included access to those Puppet History songs. Drawfee has half as many YouTube subscribers and nearly double the patreon members as Watcher. I’m just baffled, is all, and maybe by this point sleep deprived.

Anyway. That’s my extremely late, completely unnecessary opinion of this situation.

Edit (several hours later after some sleep): I forgot to mention, because they did walk this back almost immediately, even before their "An Update" video, but I believe the original plan was to put EVERYTHING behind that paywall and pull their content from YouTube entirely. Which is, again, extremely baffling, because if ALL of their content is behind a paywall, how would they possibly gain new fans? Even if all of their current fans were able and willing to pay for their separate subscription streaming service, how would a brand new person even stumble on their content enough to want to subscribe if there wasn't a significant amount of "proof of value" free content on YouTube? Again, extremely baffling, and a level of incompetence that overshadows a "cunning" greed. But, like I said earlier, they did walk this decision back almost immediately. If I've misunderstood this and that was never their plan, please let me know, I don't want to be spreading misinformation in a situation that is already so convoluted.

[warningsine]

In its flawed first season, “Halt and Catch Fire” tried too hard to be the next “Mad Men.” Following four visionaries through the first decade of the personal computing revolution, the AMC series opened by introducing its Don Draper: Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace), a slick, manipulative hotshot with an IBM pedigree. It’s 1983, and he’s speeding through Texas in a black sports car when he hits an armadillo. The carnage is nauseating, but it doesn’t stop him from making it to his destination: a college lecture hall where he’s come to interrogate a roomful of male comp-sci majors about the future of their industry. The sole woman in the class arrives late. She wears military fatigues, her hair is bleached, and bratty punk music blasts through her headphones. She is the most brilliant coder in the room.

Her name is Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis), and she turns out to be the show’s true protagonist. Her story comes to the fore in subsequent seasons that evolve radically enough to make “Halt and Catch Fire,” which ends its run on Saturday (Oct. 14), one of the greatest TV dramas of the decade. But there’s lots of tiresome male anti-hero stuff to get through first, as Joe commandeers a local electric company and talks its best employee, timid family man Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy), into helping him reverse-engineer an IBM. As this classic alpha-beta duo schemes and innovates, their new hire (and Joe’s fuck buddy) Cameron remains a quasi-peripheral figure. It’s the songs music supervisor Thomas Golubić (“Breaking Bad,” “Better Call Saul,” “Six Feet Under”) surrounds Cam with that offer the first hint that the show is really her story.

Cam’s punk tapes are a window into the initially taciturn character’s rebellious nature, just as her headphones are the first clue that she’s a loner. In the premiere, she’s listening to the Vandals when she gets kicked out of a video arcade for using the old coin-on-a-string trick. A few episodes later, there’s a gorgeous scene where she pirouettes through a dark, empty office with X-Ray Spex’s “Germfree Adolescents” on her Walkman. (The moment is echoed near the end of season three, where she dances—first with Joe, then alone—to Pixies’ “Velouria.”) Whether it’s an iconic band like Bad Brains or a lesser-known act like Big Boys, Cam’s always got loud, angry music in her ears while she’s coding.

Cam is a punk, but not just in the banal, myopic way the tech industry has always appropriated the aesthetic—with dropout programming prodigies, “rockstar” developers, and startups bent on “disrupting” existing business models, all of whom share the ultimate goal of making money. She is impractical to a fault, trusting her own unruly instincts over the dictates of the market. Over four seasons, we watch her dream up everything from a friendly user interface that’s years ahead of its time and would take far too long to build, to a computer game so abstract, no one can understand how to play it. When she founds her own company, at the end of the first season, it’s called Mutiny. All of the employees live together in a house and make decisions democratically. Eventually, Cam exerts her power as Mutiny’s leader, but only to save her vision from getting absorbed into a big corporation.

From the very start, Cam’s music bleeds from her headphones into the show’s non-diegetic soundtrack. When she shows up for her first day at Cardiff Electric, the company Joe hijacks, “The Magnificent Seven” by the Clash follows her, its lyrics about the futility of the capitalist grind underscoring her ambivalence about the job. Over time, punk comes to symbolize Cam’s growing influence in the industry. It’s the official sound of Mutiny HQ, her chaotic geek haven adorned in red spray paint. Near the end of season two, the Raveonettes’ cover of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control” plays as she exacts public revenge on the billionaire who rips off the early online community she’s created. After Mutiny moves to California, in season three, hardcore riffs constantly reverberate through the cavernous office.

“Halt and Catch Fire” doesn’t usually hit you over the head with feminist themes, but it does subtly build an argument that women are gaining ground in a world men still control. Gordon’s wife, Donna (Kerry Bishé), initially seems like a nagging mom type, keeping her genius husband from his destiny. But she’s a genius, too; her engineering expertise becomes invaluable to Cardiff’s portable computer project, then she joins Cam at Mutiny. By the finale, Donna’s combination of technical prowess and business savvy have made her a powerful Silicon Valley venture capitalist, as well as a sort of Sheryl Sandberg figure.

Donna and Gordon Clark’s daughters, Joanie (played by Morgan Hinkleman as a kid and Kathryn Newton as a teenager) and Haley (Alana Cavanaugh and then Susanna Skaggs), are the next generation of liberated women. Cam lives with the Clarks after Mutiny moves to California, and her influence on the girls is palpable. A few quick time jumps land us in the mid-’90s by the fourth season, when the sisters are in high school. Teenage Joanie is a classic rebel, smoking cigarettes and getting into trouble and, yes, listening to punk. (The band name Shonen Knife, she explains to her father, basically means “dick” because “shonen” is the Japanese word for “boy.”) Haley is a budding web development star whose taste for PJ Harvey and riot grrrl helps her come to terms with her queer sexuality. A giddy scene midway through the season finds her bonding with her crush, a waitress, over Bratmobile and Heavens to Betsy.

Music becomes more essential to the show than ever in its fourth and final season. There are moving syncs that have nothing to do with Cam, like when an unmoored Donna gets pulled over for speeding while singing along to Pat Benatar’s “We Belong,” and when she plays Dire Straits’ “So Far Away” after Gordon’s sudden death. But the alternative, indie, and riot grrrl music Haley and Joanie listen to—Gen X’s version of the punk bands whose fierce spirit Cam helped instill in them—is the core soundtrack of these episodes. Golubić cements the connection by pairing Cam’s scenes with some of the 1990s’ most iconic female-led anthems: the Breeders’ “Cannonball,” Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl,” Hole’s “Doll Parts.” Just as X-Ray Spex and their peers helped pave the way for women in punk, Cam sets a precedent for girl programmers like Haley. At one point, she’s surfing the internet and stumbles upon a Cameron Howe fan page.

Perhaps the greatest thing about “Halt and Catch Fire” is that it ultimately has no real heroes or villains—only four talented, flawed people who all end up playing both of those roles at one point or another. The music is what puts us inside Cam’s mind more than any other character’s, though, and illustrates how her ideas electrify everyone who can wrap their mind around them, even when her projects fail. Her work endures like an out-of-print cassette passed from hand to grubby hand, a guidepost for like-minded young punks who walk the difficult path she cleared.

[6mayhem]

5, 7, 10, 19 for oc ask >:3

5. Share a drawing or physical description of an OC.

i will share many drawings!!!!!! of my favorite, nephy :3

this actually perfectly fits with 7-

7. Confess. Do you have a favorite OC?

YES and it's NEPH! ^^^^^^^^ he's my oldest still active oc, and went through the most redesigns over the years. here's some older designs from 2020-2021:

anyway! he's a demon, film major, musician and lead singer of a band called punch line, transgender, bit of a drug addict, emo and cringefail loser. he ran away from home at 16 due to the abuse/neglect from his single mother, and ended up moving into his online best friend's apartment - the friend being 75, whom he never actually met in person before then. after moving to trash city, he befriended tarot (one of jay's siblings re: other post:3), and the both of them started engaging in a lot of dangerous activities for their age, like going out clubbing and flirting with older men lol. eventually, they started dating, but eventually broke up and now have petty transgender exes beef lol.

afterwards, neph actually managed to finish high school and enrolled in jhana academy to study film. at university, he meets kall, and offers them a room in his and 75's shared apartment, the three of them becoming bffssss :3. then, one night while clubbing, neph meets deth and primus, who saw him perform on stage and offer to do music with him, forming punch line. the same night, he also meets wren, a werewolf college dropout working at sixten (junkyard 7/11), and they become boyfriends :) well after a lot of back and forth, at least. ONLY TO THEN accidentally end up with the custody of alexis, neph's 10 year old estranged cousin, all while sharing an apartment with WREN'S cousin, nathan, blabla, the police one day do a wellfare check, find drugs at the apartment, wren is arrested, blabla it gets real tragic...anywayyssss

10. Talk about an OC you've kinda forgotten about.

oh boyyy where do i start. i make so many ocs and then forget about them...

i guess i've kinda forgotten about maus lately, so i'll talk about him !! he is the younger son of the cult leader of gold children, his older brother being thorn. his parents, as well as his brother, are all angels, but he himself was born without the features. this is considered a sign of being somewhat "chosen", so, since birth, he was damned to be a graveyard keeper and mortician, his job being to harvest the souls of any deceased people who are buried there and feed them to their (mortal) god, sunscorch.

due to his condition, he has always felt like he stood in thorn's shadow. thorn, originally named petal, had a bright future ahead of him - at least until he got involved with an older man who heavily abused and sex trafficked him. swearing to never let anyone get close to him again, petal, now a fallen angel, changed his name to thorn and became part of a gang that lives in the outskirts of trash city and regularly robs and kills people lol.

maus never gave up hope on his brother, despite how much he envied him growing up, continously reaching out to him over the years, to no avail. it is right before giving up that he meets arum, an immortal prince of hell that keeps getting reanimated on his graveyard. the two start a relationship, maus not knowing that arum also has a relationship with thorn. thorn figures this out, though, and, after a little detour in the form of a roadtrip with two teen boys in order to find the actual real jesus christ to prove to everyone that sunscorch isn't actually the biblical god (hehe), he ends up dumping arum and reuniting with his brother <3

19. Share a song or a playlist that you associate with an OC.

i've always been meaning to make a playlist for my ocs but never got around to it :,3 but here's some songs that inspired a lot about certain ocs

75 (literally where her name comes from HAH):

wren:

maus/thorn:

and of course this isn't complete without adding the saydie/arum/nausikaä pmv my friend made (based on my shitpost storyboard):

[bansalclassespatna]

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[burgerpocalypse]

I've been trying to run through some free games I got from the Epic game store, specifically Grand Theft Auto V, Creature in the Well, and most recently Night in the Woods. I quit GTAV about 60% of the way because it sucked, and I can't beat the last area of Creature, so that leaves me to talk a little about NitW and the emotional turmoil it gave me.

Upfront, I'm not interested in games with heavy emphasis on story, least of all visual novels or whatever you want to call this game. However, I've heard mostly positive things about Night in the Woods here and there for the better part of the previous decade. That and the fact I got it for $0 convinced me to finally try it out.

Night in the Woods is an adventure focused on exploration and character drama. Mae Borowski, the protagonist, is a college dropout that just moved back to her Rust Belt hometown for mysterious reasons, and becomes entangled in suspicious happenings. The player will traverse the aged suburban sprawl and rural outskirts of Possum Springs, conversing with family, friends, strangers, and everyone else, uncovering secrets and opening wounds along the way.

Seeing as how Night in the Woods is primarily a story, I'll mostly be discussing that, so look out for spoilers, yo.

After spending two years away, Mae attempts to reconnect with her previously closest friends Bea (an idealist goth whomst had considerable familial and financial responsibility thrust upon her at a young age), Gregg (an anarchist punk with bipolar tendencies), and Angus (an incredibly nice man). Mae pushes the story forward by hanging out with Bea and Gregg, and sometimes Angus. This will often involve going to social outings, running errands, committing crimes, and so on.

Other than her friends, Mae will also have opportunities to interact with her parents, various citizens, and vagrants. whom provide flavor and history to the world while also bringing some of Mae's muddled past to light. The player will traverse environments through walking and jumping around, with the occasional platforming feat required to progress or access certain areas. Occasionally, you'll be presented with small minigames, like a Guitar Hero-clone or red light/green light shoplifting, and a game-within-a-game dungeon crawler that pissed me off to no end. While most activities in the town are benign, certain important events will move the day along and lock you out of further exploration.

Early on, Mae's group stumbles upon a discarded arm and some cryptic dialogue from a few characters. After each day, Mae experiences strange dream sequences that involve platforming segments and surreal representations of her friends and the town. Several hours of gameplay later, Mae witnesses a kidnapping on Halloween by what appears to be a ghost.

In the midst of all this, Mae hangs out with her friends and discovers what they've been up to in her absence. Bea runs the family business for her father, who broke down after her mom died, putting them in dire financial straits and preventing Bea from leaving Possum Springs; she bears resentment towards Mae, since she dropped out of college and came home for no apparent reason while also not maturing at all. Gregg is aimless, sporadic, and uninhibited, while his boyfriend Angus is neat, tidy, and overly helpful. Their relationship appears strong, and they are planning to move to a new city together, though Bea is convinced it won't last.

Mae does her best to strengthen bonds while suffering from a variety of stressors, like her family's money troubles, her self-destructive tendencies and dissociative episodes, and ominous celestial beings invading her mind. This sometimes leads to inadvertent and painful social situations, especially with Bea.

Mae attempts to investigate the supposedly supernatural happenings with the help of Bea, Gregg, and Angus, while her mental health steadily declines. Eventually, the group travels deep into the woods (at night) and stumble into a cult, after which Mae suffers a great fall and enters a coma. After waking up, Mae then attempts to confront the cult head-on, though her friends arrive to help. They enter a cave, find the cult again, discover the eldritch horror they serve and explore her personal connection to it, accidentally cause a cave-in and trap the cultists, escape the cave, and try to make sense of what happened after the fact.

Now, don't get me wrong. I rather enjoyed Night in the Wood's story. I really liked all the characters. I loved the dialogue. Even the platforming and various minigames were fine, if simplistic and occasionally annoying. The structure of this paragraph seems as though it's leading towards a big 'but'. I just wanted to say that I really liked the game, even though I don't generally enjoy video game stories, and especially not video games primarily about a story. Though I'm not from a run-down midwestern town, and obviously don't have the same sort of personal relationships she does, Mae's emotional strife and insecurities really resonated with me. Her personal thoughts and reactions often made me just stop and think about the many mistakes I've made with the people I care about and all the relationships I've ruined.

However, if the plot wanted to spend so much time on Mae and her friends, it should have been about Mae and her friends. Conversely, if it wanted to be about a spooky cult in a small town, it should have spent much more time on a spooky cult in a small town. The plot is torn between two diametrically opposed focuses, those being Mae's struggles to maintain relationships and her dealing with suspicious supernatural occurrences in Possum Springs. So much time passes before anything really happens with the cult and cosmic horror that I feel some people might even forget there is a cult and cosmic horror, and Mae isn't just experiencing a psychotic break for no reason.

In the end, the cult goes unresolved, and it's unclear what the relationship is with the residents of Possum Springs, or what its powers even are. I don't need the game to explain every aspect in detail, but no one appears to be affected by the existence of the cult and its god other than Mae. My brain was going into overdrive looking for clues, making patterns, identifying red herrings, anything that might help me understand the mystery, when in reality there was no mystery to understand.

There is also a severe lack of actual choice or decision making in terms of dialogue, and a distinct absence of any real challenge in gameplay. I definitely felt that this story could have been more efficiently told if it were in a book, usually after spending a few minutes walking around trying to find something important and

It doesn't help that I sometimes accidentally skipped certain segments, since it's not always explicitly clear if an action will push the day forward and lock me in. I even completely missed a third of the investigations since I chose to check out the historical society building with Gregg second when the game expected me to do it last. This sort of problem led to me giving up completely on other story-focus games like Kentucky Route Zero since I constantly skipped and missed chunks of stuff or did things out of the intended order and ruined the flow of events.

Now this has obviously gotten a little too long, so I'll just wrap it up by saying that Night in the Woods is great and I recommend it. It made me feel feelings, deep feelings, like I was moments away from crying on more than one occasion.

Thanks for reading. I have a lot on my mind because of this game, so I hope it was worth your time.

[graylikethecolor42]

Frankenstein 1931 Rant

Ok so this is my review of sorts for the 1931 Frankenstein movie. I had never seen it before, and decided that I should watch it so I could form my own opinions. I mainly compared it to Shelley’s book, attempting to remain as unbiased as possible. This proved difficult, and I was left at the end with a bundle of incomprehensible emotion that I later determined was mostly Rage. This is Long AF, so I'm going to put most of it under the cut.

This movie disrespected my girl Mary Shelley. In the opening credits they list her as “Mrs. Percy B. Shelley”. What the actual horror loving fuck?! Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 18. She was a feminist, daughter of one of the most prolific feminists of all time. She was so hardcore goth that she lost her virginity on her mother’s grave and carried around her husband’s CALCIFIED HEART. She deserves more respect than being referred to as her husband’s wife in her own goddamn movie adaptation.

The version I watched (rented from my local library) began with a quick content warning, which surprised me. All the things mentioned in the segment were true of Shelley’s book, and it led to a false sense of hope that maybe this movie wasn’t as off base as everyone claimed.

These hopes were quickly dashed with the presence of “Fritz”. While I don’t think he was ever referred to as such, he was recognizable enough as Igor, whom I only know through Pop Culture Osmosis--Frankenstein’s hunchbacked assistant. He only exists in the story to mess everything up in the name of plot development.

Case in point: the brain. This scene set up one of the greatest deviations from Shelley’s original text. Her book asks The question of nature vs nurture--if humans are inherently bad, or if our experiences shape us. This adaptation decides that the brain itself is inherently abnormal and therefore evil, and Dr. Waldman throughout the movie cements this detail.

Minor note here, but why is the college town Golstadt? Was Ingolstadt too hard? The extra two letters really put a strain on the movie’s budget? The extra seconds it took to say it padding the runtime too much?

Ok, was anyone going to tell me that they messed with the character’s names, or was I just supposed to figure that out by watching the scene multiple times myself? The man that enters is named Victor, and Elizabeth references her fiance Henry. This was very confusing, as in the book Victor and Elizabeth are love interests, and Victor’s best friend is named Henry Clerval. Additionally, this Victor’s last name is Mortiz, which you may notice is Justine’s last name. Justine Mortiz is not in this movie. Henry Clerval is not in this movie. This Victor character is either a bastardization of both Justine and Henry’s characters, or a complete fabrication, and I’m not sure which version makes me angrier. Justine and Henry were both integral characters in Shelley’s book, and to see them either way, edited down to nothing plot relevant makes my blood boil.

For the sake of my sanity and Clarity, I’ll be calling “Henry Frankenstein” Frankenstein, and “Victor Mortiz” the pretender Victor. Additionally I’ll be referring to the Movie creature as “The Monster '' and the book creature as “Adam”.

At least this movie recognized that Frankenstein was a college dropout, though his reasons for leaving were a bit different: Movie Frankenstein was becoming unstable, asking for more bodies and leaving when they wouldn’t supply him, where Book Victor didn’t even try to ask and just went graverobbing of his own volition and then created the Adam in his college dorm, dropping out afterwards.

In the scene where Waldman, Victor and Elizabeth go to visit Frankenstein, Frankenstein treats Elizabeth like shit (technically all of them but especially her), saying she’ll ruin everything. I have no commentary except for “dick move, who wrote this screenplay again?”

My mom was watching this with me, and asked why Frankenstein didn’t just keep his unwelcome guests locked out or make them stay downstairs. I replied with “Well the man just insinuated that he’s crazy, he has to prove himself now.”

I will admit, the “It’s alive!” scene was pretty cool. I recently saw a post about how if this version of Frankenstein was paired with Adam from the book there would have been a happier ending. This Frankenstein is so excited and happy that it work, that he did it, that he’d created life and cherish it. While completely out of character, it gave a look into Frankenstein’s inner workings in the movie.

I’ll be honest, I found it hard to care about Victor’s family. And by family I mean his Father, because Ernest and William were nowhere to be found (more on that later). The Baron is grumpy and unlikeable, and he doesn’t even die like he deserves like he did in the book.

Frankenstein has some raw dialogue in the scene with Waldman, “Have you never wanted to do anything that was dangerous? Where should we be if nobody tried to find out what lies beyond? Have you never wanted to look beyond the clouds and the stars? Or to know what causes the trees to bud? And what changes the darkness into light? But if you talk like that... people call you crazy. Well, if I could discover just one of these things - what eternity is, for example - I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy.”

But then Waldman brings up the inherently evil bullshit that I mentioned earlier. Oh, the brain was abnormal, it was evil, and the monster is now evil no matter what.

Now Waldman has a line here that I find interesting--”You have created a monster and it will destroy you.” More on this later, just keep it in mind.

The scene with the monster establishes a few things--At least some comprehension, a yearning for light, a fear of fire, and the fact that Fritz is the worst and he deserves what’s coming. But I’d like to detail the Biggest derailment of the canon source material--The creature’s intelligence. Part of the Horror of Shelley’s work is that Adam is conscious, aware, and intelligent. He learns quickly and is abandoned by the person who should have cared for him, and he’s painfully aware of the horror of his existence. His humanity comes from his vast emotions and mental capacity, showing that it wasn’t his nature, but the (lack of) nurture that created the “monster” within him. Taking all of that away, stripping the character until he’s a groaning, barely conscious being, rips away layers and layers of Shelley’s commentary and storytelling.

Fuck Fritz. He hurts the monster when in reality it hasn’t done anything to anyone--yes it freaked out and they had to restrain him, but that was self defense and he didn’t seriously injure anyone. Meanwhile Frankenstein has a line later about how Fritz “always tormented him”. I’d probably kill him too, especially since Fritz kept pushing even after Frankenstein told him to leave him alone. I don’t feel anything over his death.

Next Waldman convinces Frankenstein to destroy the Monster. Showing a shocking change of character from both the “It’s Alive!” scene and his previous conversation with Waldman, Frankenstein barely puts up a fight, one “It’s murder” and then he gives in.

The monster goes down, Frankenstein’s family comes and sees him collapse, Waldman promises to “painlessly destroy” the monster, blah blah blah

Waldman’s death is interesting to me. I’ll talk about it a little more when I get to Maria, but so far all of the Monster’s violence and murders have come across as self defense. An innocent creature trying to defend itself. Yet it’s still painted in a negative light, even though Waldman was just as morally gray in his endeavors to end the Monster. Also, Waldman was going to Vivisect the Monster, not “painlessly destroy” him like he told Frankenstein. Who was really in the wrong here?

Wedding wedding, blah blah blah

Ok we’ve reached Maria, the moment I’ve been leading up to. Maria is a little girl from the village that takes up two important roles in the story--The old man that accepts Adam as a friend and then is accidentally killed by him, and William, Book Victor’s youngest brother and Adam’s first revenge murder. In the book, these two scenes are major turning points within Adam’s own recounting of his story--where he first found love and peace and then learned that the world was cruel and unfair when he lost it all, and when Adam makes a distinct choice to be cruel right back, killing William and pinning it on Justine. However in the movie the Monster isn’t intelligent enough to have those turning points. This scene shows the Monster’s humanity, his childlike wonder and Innocence. And unlike in the book, Maria isn’t afraid of the Monster. She seems more than content to play with the Monster. However, this version also shows that the monster is still inherently evil--that he’s capable of killing an innocent child, even by accident. But the biggest issue I have with this recasting is that it takes away all of the Consequences of Frankenstein’s actions. Shelley’s book was a cautionary tale, not necessarily about breaking the laws of nature or trying to be like God, but of not taking responsibility for your actions. Book Victor makes the wrong choice over and over and over again, and he doesn’t care about anyone but himself. I’ll revisit this a bit later when I talk about Elizabeth, but Book Victor never thinks about how his actions will affect the people around him. His brother is murdered and Justine is framed for it. Henry dies for the same reasons. Adam tears his way through his loved ones because he was hurt by his negligence. But this movie takes this all away, shifting the consequences away onto random characters while Frankenstein is vaguely guilty and not personally affected.

Ok, over to Elizabeth. She for some reason has been excluded from the wedding party, and makes her appearance now. She warns Frankenstein that she’s got a bad feeling, Star Wars style, but he doesn’t really pay her any attention. I feel like the treatment of Elizabeth in the book was pretty satirical, Shelley making subtle jabs at how women were treated at the time. The movie makes it feel more like “this is how women are”, in a very sexist way. Early Hollywood is not known for is progressiveness or women’s rights or anything like that. Now in a similarity to the book, Frankenstein locks Elizabeth in her room, and also like the book, the creature sneaks in. But where Adam was exacting revenge, specifically for his lost Bride (which is also nowhere to be found in this version), the Monster displays a very weird character shift. Up to now, The Monster’s violence and murder have been either self defense of accidental. However now he sneaks in specifically to attack Elizabeth. Why? It doesn’t make sense except for the “inherently evil” dialogue that has underscored the movie, and even then it feels like a stretch. But even worse, Elizabeth doesn’t die. For some reason the monster attacks her, but doesn’t kill her. This continues the line of no consequences for Frankenstein. Yes, his fiancee was hurt, but he didn’t lose anything in this movie. Nothing drives him to be a better person, to confront who he is and help him realize his responsibility.

Ok, home stretch people: The manhunt. Maria’s dad carries her tiny waterlogged corpse through the wedding celebration, causing a riot that the Baron fixes by creating an angry mob. Everyone searches, and The Monster is back to self defense pretty much--he’s getting attacked, so he attacks back.

The Monster faces down against Frankenstein, knocking him out and dragging him as he attempts to outrun the mob. They find a windmill, Frankenstein and the Monster fight, the monster throws Frankenstein off the roof (which he miraculously survives by the way). Why did the monster shift again, showing a personal vendetta against Frankenstein where none had previously been shown (except in the attack against Elizabeth)

The villagers burn the windmill, trapping and killing the Monster. In the book the Monster implies that it is going to commit suicide via burning (I believe on Victor’s funeral pyre, but it’s been a while since I reread the last part of the book), so there’s at least a little bit of a parallel? Something that confused me was how the movie managed to show his death in a sympathetic light, even while actively casting him as the villain.

Then Victor lives happily after. No, I'm serious. He’s fine, Elizabeth’s fine, his father is fine. No consequences. No lessons learned. Going back to Waldman’s line, “You have created a monster and it will destroy you.” Except it didn’t. The tragedy, so inherent in Shelley’s text, is completely destroyed and glossed over. In the book they chased each other to the ends of the world and died within a day of each other, mutually assuring their destruction. Here there’s no need: The monster is dead, along with all the consequences that should have followed Frankenstein.

[freshdotdaily]

My personal thoughts on Kanye as made clear by watching the Netflix documentary on his life, “JEEN-YUHS”

College Dropout came out when I was 24, at which point I was already such an indie rap nerd and had played a few paid shows and was figuring out which direction I wanted my music to go in...trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between Common's socially conscious stance & Jay-Z's Brooklyn hustler sensibilities as I was directly in between, and here comes Kanye dipped in vintage Polo literally being the bridge between those two worlds as a Chicago mc signed to Roc-A-Fella records. I wanted that. 

At one point I even caught myself emulating the preppy aesthetic with blazers over the double Polos for a brief second. In hindsight, it's the 3rd time I wanted to dress like a rapper (Grand Puba and Jay-Z being the first two).He left his D&G beanie off the side of the stage at an SOB's show (Jean Grae was on the bill)...I looked left and right and quickly slid it into my backpack and dipped. Watching the rise and success let me know it was really possible to be a stylish rapper sans gangsta posturing. I held on to that beanie until I left Brooklyn as a reminder.

It was Super heartbreaking to see him lose his mom, who was clearly his anchor and compass. I also wished for a supportive and close relationship like that with my moms. I remember being in tears as he performed "Hey Mama" on stage with her. I know I'd never have that moment. Also, sucks to see what his struggles with his mental health have done to his legacy. My friend Kesed hypothesized it thusly: 

“It’s highly possible he has Asperger’s. The reason why his mother was his anchor and his compass is because she knew something was “wrong” with him, but like many Black mothers, they don’t let their child know or believe it. They usually repeat the axiom: “ain’t nothing wrong with my baby!” She built his confidence to camouflage his impediment(s). So, Ye grew to believe that indeed: there’s nothing wrong with me (there’s something wrong with everyone else). And his mother reinforced it. That’s the main reason why he spiraled when she passed because there was no one around to “balance” him or continue the lie. In her absence, he realized that yes, there is something wrong with me. And he’s been struggling with that ever since. His mother was his biggest fan and supporter. When she died, he lost some of his powers. Just look at his music. He’s too myopic to see beyond his own reflection.”

I see there's a whole generation of people for whom he was their Michael Jackson, their Jay-Z, their Nas. For me, I had other indie hip-hop heroes, but this gave kids who loved rap (but not hardcore rap) an artsy and valid alternative to G-Unit & it's ilk.I really do think that the ego gotta die for us to transcend. and Kanye really leaned on & led with his ego. It's a trauma response/survival tactic from being slept on and having doors slammed in your face. But once you're mega-successful, that mentality no longer serves you!

Look how many times he changed the culture. Amazing.While he's no longer a hero or inspiration for me, I can't deny his impact on my life and the culture as a whole.I guess you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain.

This gif aptly below summarizes my relationship with Kanye West. At first I am genuinely happy & pleased and then, quickly over time, less so, until my internal disgust and disappointment is pasted on my countenance.

[femalechibiblogger]

5 Underrated Video Games

1. Night in the Woods

Margaret "Mae" Borowski is a 20-year-old college dropout, who relocates back to her hometown of Possum Springs, which has been struck by the closure of the coal mines and the stagnating economy. She meets up with her old friends, including gloomy but intelligent Beatrice "Bea" Santello, hyperactive delinquent Greggory "Gregg" Lee, and Gregg's quiet, modest boyfriend Angus Delaney. Mae also learns that another one of her old friends, Casey Hartley, has mysteriously disappeared.

Mae spends several days exploring Possum Springs and spending time with her friends, but she also begins to have strange and vivid dreams. At the town's Halloween festival, Mae witnesses a teenager being kidnapped by a mysterious figure. The four friends begin working together to figure out what is going on, with Mae's mental health slowly deteriorating with every one of her dreams. After intensive searching, the four stumble across a strange group of cloaked figures in the woods, who chase after them; Mae ends up falling and lapses into a coma.

Mae eventually wakes up and returns to her friends, and she reveals that the reason she dropped out was due to her increasing dissociation from people and the world (it is implied that Mae suffers from some sort of depersonalization disorder), seeing everything as merely shapes. Mae's journal, in which she draws pictures for each major event in the game, was given to her by a doctor to write down her emotions after she bludgeoned a student with a softball bat six years ago as a result of a dissociative episode. Due to this incident, the townsfolk became wary of Mae and caused a financial and emotional strain in her family. As her dissociation worsened at college, Mae mustered up the strength to leave and return home, hoping that being back in Possum Springs would help her return to normal.

Still wounded, Mae decides to venture out into the woods alone to find the group who chased her and the others, only for Gregg, Bea, and Angus to refuse to let her go by herself. The group enter the old mines and meet the mysterious group, who are revealed to be a cult. The cult turns out to be behind the kidnappings of several residents, including Casey, taking those whom they deem useless to society and whom they say will "not be missed" into the mines to sacrifice them to a god-like chthonic entity called the Black Goat in hope that the Black Goat will revitalize the economy of Possum Springs. The cult's leader allows the group to leave, threatening them never to tell anyone about the cult – however while riding up the mine's elevator, a member of the group attempts to kill Mae. The others manage to save her and the elevator falls, collapsing the mine and presumably trapping the cult underground.

Depending on who the player interacted with the most throughout the course of the game, Mae will sit down with either Bea or Gregg and talk about the events of the previous night, and all the things that have happened in Possum Springs. The others join them shortly after, and Mae tells them that although they will all be forced to grow and adapt to life as it goes on for better and for worse, they can still enjoy their time together now. The game ends as the four decide to forget about their problems for the time being and have band practice.

2. Among the Sleep

Among the Sleep is a first-person exploration game seen from the view of a toddler. The player can move the cursor to walk or crawl around, the latter of which is faster and is required to slide through obstacles blocking the way. Running is also an available option, though the player will fall down if it is done for too long. The player can interact with and push objects, and open doors and windows. Sometimes, the handle to open doors is too tall to reach for the player, in which case the player will have to push and climb chairs for additional height. Other than chairs, the player can climb boxes, tables, and various things to reach otherwise unreachable ledges and heights. Certain objects can also be held as well as thrown away. Others can be stored to the inventory and taken out again for later use.

For most of the game, the player is accompanied by a sentient teddy bear named Teddy, a birthday present from the toddler's father. The player can hug Teddy, who emits light that helps the player navigate through darker environments. The light will wear down after a while, but will recharge if left unused. If the player drops Teddy, which always happens whenever they arrive from sliding through pipes to a new level or environment, they will have to pick it up first before advancing again.

Throughout the game, the player is followed by two monsters: a feminine figure that haunts the first three levels, and a trench coat-wearing figure that haunts the final level. The monsters' appearance is indicated by the blurring of the vision, grating sounds, and in the case of the feminine figure, a slow lullaby (Trollmors Vuggesang), "Trollmother's Lullaby") hummed about. There is no way to fend off the monsters; if they appear, the player will have to run away or hide under tables or chairs until they go away. If the player is not quick enough to evade the monsters, a short cinematic will show the monsters taking hold of the player, which results in a game over, followed by a continue screen with a pacifier. Clicking the pacifier restarts the game from the last checkpoint. The player can also get a game over by other means, such as falling into water or chasms.

The game is largely linear and involves going from point A to B, though the expansive environment with multiple obstacles may induce the feeling of being lost. After some time exploring the player's house, the player is taken to a dreamlike location with a gingerbread house-like hut that serves as a sort of hub level. The house contains a circular door that leads to a new level, surrounded by four containers where "memories" obtained from each level are stored. After the player finds a memory and heads to a tube at the end of the level, they will be returned to this hut. Once four memories are stored, the player can insert Teddy's right hand below the circular door to return to the player's house.

In the extra DLC level, instead of exploring dreamlike locations, the player is taken to another house with the objective of finding and thawing five frozen dolls by playing music or turning on the TV. The gameplay is still the same, with the feminine figure haunting the player, but the player is also confronted by a fireplace monster in the underground section that advances and closes in through an aisle.

3. Rule of Rose

Described as "essentially an interactive movie" by its director Shuji Ishikawa and associate producer Yuya Takayama, the narrative of Rule of Rose centers on the traumatic childhood memories of Jennifer, "an ordinary, vulnerable girl"; these memories sometimes manifest in exaggerated ways. Set in England, the game opens in 1930, as 19-year-old Jennifer is led to an abandoned orphanage by a boy. She follows him to a grave in the courtyard, where she digs up a coffin with a bloody sack inside it. Four children sneak up on her and pour water on her, before shoving her into the coffin. She awakens in a largely abandoned airship in flight to an unknown destination, ruled by a cruel group of young girls known as the Red Crayon Aristocrats, despite the presence of adults on board. Under the threat of death, Jennifer must appease the Aristocrats by bringing an offering for them each month. Assisting her is Brown, a dog she frees from confinement in the airship, and the chronically sickly Wendy, who is the only child to be friendly to her.

Jennifer eventually regains her memories of being cared for by the farmer Gregory Wilson, after she was orphaned in an unrelated airship crash. There, he was kind to her, though he confused her with his dead son Joshua, kept her prisoner, and periodically slid into melancholy alcoholism. Discovering her one day, Wendy began to exchange letters with Jennifer and eventually convinced her to escape, but not before Wendy stole his gun. The two then renewed their oath of "everlasting, true love," with Jennifer's stuffed bear exchanged for Wendy's brooch. Back on the airship, Jennifer ascends to becoming part of the Red Crayon Aristocrats, after retrieving the stuffed bear for the Princess of the Red Rose, the co-leader of the Aristocrats.

The game's setting then transitions to the now-inhabited orphanage. Bullied by the children, Jennifer is horrified to find that she has become the offering of the month; meeting up with Wendy in the courtyard, she loses Brown and later finds his corpse in the Aristocrats' meeting room, where he had been killed in her place. Wendy then reveals herself as the Princess of the Red Rose. Jennifer, now a child, slaps her and casts aside her brooch, hating the Aristocrats and herself for being too cowardly to oppose them. Afterward, the Aristocrats approach Jennifer, now an adult, in the hopes that she will replace Wendy as their leader, whom they have deposed. Wendy, however, retaliates against the children by mentally conditioning Gregory into assuming the persona of "Stray Dog," a dangerous creature she had invented to assume power over the other children. She then brings Gregory, as Stray Dog, to kill everyone in the orphanage. Only Jennifer escapes the onslaught. Before being killed off-screen, Wendy, now remorseful, confesses her role in it, which had been sparked by her jealousy over Brown. She then gives Jennifer Gregory's gun. Gregory then returns to kill Jennifer, and in a moment of lucidity, he asks "Joshua" to give him back the gun, which Jennifer does. He then kills himself.

Rule of Rose concludes with Jennifer, as a child, waking in the large empty orphanage and reflecting on the events and characters. Jennifer vows to remember the other children, especially because the media coverage of the children's deaths had diminished after it came to light that Jennifer had been the survivor of two horrific events, and meets with Wendy and Gregory. In the final scene, Jennifer visits Brown, now a puppy, in the shed and puts a collar on him. She completes a Bucket Knight nearby, symbolizing that she can always remember and return to her memories of Brown. Promising to protect him for eternity, she then closes the door on him.

4. Tattletail

The game takes place in 1998 over the course of 5 nights, beginning on December 20th and ending on Christmas Day. The player wakes up on Night 1 to open their Christmas present early. The present is the new fad toy, a purple Baby Talking Tattletail (based on a Furby). After playing with the toy briefly (which involves feeding and grooming it), the player puts it back into its box and goes back to bed.

On Night 2, the player finds the same Tattletail in the tumble dryer, with no indication of how it got there. The player then charges it, wraps it back up into its box and goes back to bed.

On Night 3, the player encounters the contents of an old nursery in the basement. In the corner sits the now-recalled Mama Tattletail, along with a cassette tape which can be played using the toy. The tape contains a snippet from a story in a read-along style - including prompts to "turn the page" - about how "the children thought that Mama would never find them as long as she couldn't see them" but Mama would find them nevertheless. The player returns upstairs to find that Tattletail has made a mess. Tattletail asks to be taken to “Mama”. The player returns to the spot to find that Mama has disappeared. Mama Tattletail then starts to hunt down the player when they try to clean up after Tattletail.

On Night 4, after a lengthy hide-and-seek session with another Tattletail, the player finds a VHS tape that shows several interchangeable camera feeds from what seems to be a Tattletail commercial (which is actually footage from the trailer). After some time, some of the camera feeds' names turn red, the lighting changes from blue to green and trash bags and obscured parts of inanimate or writhing human bodies appear.

On Christmas Eve, Baby Talking Tattletail invites the player to the basement to join a "party" with a yellow and blue Baby Talking Tattletail, with two more that the player must fetch. After the player gets them, they must pick up their own Tattletail and get some supplies from upstairs. The player then finds out that the Talking Tattletails have made a pentagram out of the Christmas lights with the VHS tape in the middle, and have begun chanting in a seance. After rewinding the VHS tape, Mama appears and steals the candles and the player must find them in vases scattered around the basement while avoiding being attacked by Mama. Once the seance reaches its climax, the tape begins to levitate and the player must destroy it. The seance then ends and the player goes back to bed.

5. Duck Season

Summer 1988 and your mom has just rented the coolest new game for your Kingbit Entertainment System. As you play over the course of the day it becomes apparent something is different about this game than the other games you own. Duck Season is a throwback to the golden age of 1980's gaming and movies with a hint of horror in a Spielburgian universe. Re-live a slice of childhood as you transported to an eerily familiar memory and play out the dark story that unfolds over a single day/night as your imagination takes over.

[acchonorsstudentorg]

My Journey Learning German

Despite growing up in a monolingual household or perhaps because of it, I knew from a young age that I wanted to speak more than just English. To this day, I find myself in awe of the multilingual who, seemingly by magic, wanders in and out of different tongues as if scanning the radio. What new worlds are conveyed on those frequencies, what cultures? As soon as I could hold a pencil upright, I was spending my youth forever inventing new alphabets and my own infinitive phrases; yet it took me nearly two decades to not already abandon my linguistic passions by dinnertime.

I picked up German 11 years ago while failing out of college at 20 years old. Although I had never stopped being fascinated with communication (at that time I was a music major—music is its own language after all), I had indeed stopped attending class. I didn’t know it then, but I was in the throes of a Major Life Transition: caught between childhood doubt and adulthood self-discovery, I began to challenge what I thought I was capable of and, in particular, what language meant to me.

I was a college dropout with no plan when I purchased “Rosetta Stone: German” on a whim...

Now, I promise I’m not advertising for a product when I say that Rosetta Stone’s lessons immediately made me feel like a kid again. This was back before we had a plethora of convenient (and in some cases, free) alternatives like Duo Lingo on our smartphones. In any case, Rosetta Stone was immersive and I liked that. Pretty soon, I had developed a plan for learning each and every day—that last part being the most important:

1. Every day, I completed about an hour’s worth of lessons in the program.

2. Afterwards, I went back and wrote each sentence I had encountered in the program into a notebook.

3. Since Rosetta Stone is immersive and doesn’t (or didn’t when I used it at least) explain grammar, I augmented my understanding of the sentences in my notebook with reputable websites on grammar (such as https://yourdailygerman.com/ and https://learngerman.dw.com/en/grammar).

"I was a college dropout with no plan when I purchased “Rosetta Stone: German” on a whim..."

I did the above 3 steps each and every day until I had completed the entire program. While I was still nowhere near fluent, I was most definitely hooked. Using the same method I had developed with Rosetta Stone, I soon devoured other popular software including the Living Language and Pimsleur series, about 100 ephemeral apps and videos, and later, Duo Lingo. Within two years, I was conversational... but it still wasn’t enough.

I doubled down: I decided it was time to practice speaking with someone. Via an online search, I quickly found a German tutor, a native speaker, with whom I would meet as much as my humble bank account would allow (which meant about two hours of lessons per week). The progress was slow and often grueling, but over the following year, my skills vastly improved. I had just started to feel somewhat comfortable in the language as a daring thought came to mind: What if I looked for a German-speaking position? As I was still in between odd jobs, I figured it couldn’t hurt.

To my surprise, I quickly secured an interview for a German-speaking customer support role with a promising startup. Although my German initially wasn't developed enough for the position, they offered me an English-speaking role as well as one of the best proposals I’ve ever received: a desk near the German Team so I could practice with them. 6 months later, after daily practice speaking German with my new friends, I was promoted to the German Team, full time. Suddenly, the 8-hour workday had become my childhood dream. While my sentences weren't always perfect, I was now a fluent German speaker. This journey still remains one of my greatest accomplishments.

"... a daring thought came to mind: What if I looked for a German-speaking position? As I was still in between odd jobs, I figured it couldn’t hurt."

And yet life moves us in unexpected directions...

Serendipitously, my path eventually led me back into the classroom where I now pursue my Ph.D. in German and Linguistics. I hope someday to teach.

Still, I often miss the daily interaction with my coworkers and the amazing world of our shared language in the office. As a student, I find that dedicated “language time” doesn’t always make the daily cut on my to-do list. But it doesn't matter. Life is a creative process and language is always around us. Now, as I work part-time delivering food across town, I simply put on my German audiobooks and enjoy the pleasure of practice—a world to dive into.

In college, communication is key, both in language and in learning. In whatever world you find yourself, there are always new connections to be made.

-Aaron Turner, HSO Social Media Team Lead

[sooibian]

Tempting Fate (I)

@is-that-baekhyuns-shirt​ thank you, thank you, thank you for this beautiful poster!

Chapters: One | Two

Pairing: Minseok x You x Kyungsoo

Description: You’re forced to make a choice between a present that you didn’t choose and the idea of what could have been.

Themes: Angst, Exes!AU, Arranged Marriage!AU

Warnings: Strong language, indicative of emotional infidelity

Word Count: 3.7k +

A/N: Writing in quarantine hasn’t been easy so this is me trying to get back into writing by channeling all the rainy day melancholia into an angst piece. A huge thank you to @fightoh​ who inspired this Kyungsoo. I love you, Melissa! ^_^

We’re looking at a two-shot here, so lemme know if you’d like to be tagged for the update :)

________________________________________________________________

‘Settle down’

You often mulled over your father’s words of advice. This was one of the very few he’d cared to vocalize a little over a year ago. Settle down - as if you were an inanimate object devoid of any thoughts or feelings. As if you were lifeless. There was an undeniable ounce of truth in that, though. 

He had left you lifeless, cold, and pathetic.

So you settled. 

Gradually sank under the weight of the very same thoughts and feelings you were not supposed to have. Especially not after, as your step-mother had so eloquently put it, you’d spread your legs for the spawn of Satan. 

These questionable archaic edifices threw you back by decades, centuries even. You’d started to loathe them all - your parents, the society and to a large extent, your own self. Either way, you did what you were asked. 

Like dust, you settled.

The buzz of your phone alerted you of a meeting that was scheduled thirteen minutes from now. Twirling the cup of long gone cold coffee, you took some time to compose yourself. Ten minutes. Taking a huge gulp of the bitter liquid, you proceeded to head out of the cafe. 

“Hello”, said the man who accidentally bumped into you on your way out.

The sound of his voice could sweep you over with a wave of recognition even in your most unresponsive state. Dreading, you looked up to meet his eyes. The same big, brown eyes you’d once have endless conversations with. The very same eyes that saw you for who you were. The eyes that had already started to say the things you weren’t emotionally equipped to hear. 

“Hi”, he exhaled. You were enchanted by the way his lips moved. Flushed and soft, with a subtle pout. Plush and voracious they’d once felt on your skin.

He looked exactly like you’d remembered him. Soft brown hair fell in shaggy bangs across his forehead. A black shirt over ripped denims that outlined his lean frame and his right wrist wrapped in dark beaded bracelets. Your gaze dropped and stayed fixed on his combat boots, as you fought back tears.

Your phone chimed. Seven minutes.

Kyungsoo’s lingering gaze saw you out of the cafe.

.

.

.

“How was your day?” your husband asked, in the trademark gentle tone he’d use with you.

Dinner table conversations with Minseok were cumbersome. They felt heavily rehearsed and unnatural. You usually had polite responses and courteous questions to subdue the pressing silence that filled up any space Minseok and you inhabited. But tonight was you felt pushed to the wall. You felt hollow and rigid. 

A dazed stupor had steered you through the day after the man who’d splintered your heart had chosen to resurface after two years. The very same man because of whom you weren’t the wife Kim Minseok truly deserved.

This wasn’t exactly the dinner table conversation you'd ever pictured having with your ever so sweet and kind husband. 

“Nothing out of the ordinary”, you smiled, “did you manage to get Yang Ho Sung on board for the expansion?”

“Not to jump the gun but we might be able to lock in his signatures come Monday”, a pleased Minseok flashed his toothy grin. 

“Not to jump the gun but congratulations!”

He chuckled, “If all goes well, I might have to fly out to Hong Kong. You know, raise capital...move funds...”

‘Raise capital, move funds’ was a part of your job description as Financial Controller, not the Head of Strategy's. Hong Kong was where the Company’s Head Office was situated. It was also where both of your parents had taken permanent residency. It was a place both you and Minseok frequented and for most part it meant bothersome soirees (generously sprinkled with intrusive questions) with his side of the family as well as yours. And anyone with a pair of functional eyes could spot trouble in paradise. So you were glad as you were grateful that you didn’t have to do much to dodge this trip. 

It was almost as if Minseok read your thoughts, “You’re working on the Nakamuras’ merger project and it didn’t feel right pushing this expansion onto your already full plate.”

Pursing your lips into a slight smile, you nodded in agreement.

.

.

.

The day of Minseok’s flight to Hong Kong found you seated across from Kyungsoo at the very same godforsaken cafe.

“How have you been?”, he asked plainly. 

Devoid of expression, your eyes bore into his as you clutched the teacup closer to your person, the rock on your finger conveniently on display.

“You mean after you suddenly disappeared? All things considered, peachy.”

His jaw tightened, “Don’t be like that.” What should’ve been a plea, came across as an audacious command.

“Why are you back, anyway?” You hated sounding like a jilted past lover straight out of a soap opera but you felt exactly like one.

“Because you deserve the truth”, brows furrowed and voice down to a whisper, he leaned in closer.

“I deserve much more than just the truth!” You were seething with anger.

“Let’s start with the truth first.”

“Okay”, you squeezed your eyes shut and shook your head, “this attitude is quite brazen, don’t you think?”

His hands landed on the coffee table in a soft thump, and spoke as if he were spelling out every word for you, “You’re clearly not ready for this conversation so call me when you are, yeah?”

“Go fuck yourself, Doh Kyungsoo”, grabbing your purse you dashed out of the cafe as angry tears streamed down your cheeks.

.

.

.

Locking away every vicious little memory of Kyungsoo in the farthest corner of your mind, you went about your mundane, monochromatic life until unsubtle baby pink and powder blue onesies peeked out of Minseok’s luggage as you helped him unpack.

“Just Mother being over enthusiastic, that’s all…I’m sorry...”, his face flushed as he yanked the Harrods bag out of your hand and hastily dumped it in his closet.

If only she knew that your hostile home environment wasn’t conducive to...reproduction.

“I know my face looked a little puffy during our last video call but that doesn’t mean I’m...”, you said quietly.

“I know, I know...I’m sorry, she shouldn’t have.. I had half a mind to...to discard them or... give these away to Ho Sung considering, you know, his wife’s expecting but I couldn’t...aish...I think I’ll go take a shower.” 

Averting your gaze, he rummaged for fresh towels in his closet.

“Minseok”, you gingerly sat down on the edge of the bed feeling guilty for having put him in a spot.

“Hmm”, his voice sounded shaky.

“Minseok”, your grip on the sheets tightened as you chewed the insides of your cheeks, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Scratching the back of his neck, he turned around to look at you. The upward curl of his lips didn’t meet his eyes. He knelt before you and took your icy hand in the cozy warmth of his. 

His hands were always so, so soft and warm, yet so firm and steady.

Bringing the ring on your finger to his gentle lips he whispered, “I know.”

.

.

.

His incessant phone calls and messages coupled with your unbridled desire to understand the reasoning behind that one decision that steered your life onto a downward slope was why you agreed to see Kyungsoo again.

“Is ‘How have you been?’ still out of bounds or...”

Kyungsoo chose wisely with this quaint little overpriced Italian restaurant. There was no way either of you’d end up creating a scene here.

“It is not and I've been well. You?”, you ask civilly, twirling spaghetti on your fork. 

“I left because - ”, he started.

“Diving right into it, I see.”

Leaning back into his chair, he let out an exasperated sigh, “Would you please?"

“Okay. Go on...explain what good reason you had to turn my world upside down, Kyungsoo.”

“Thank you. Remember my art gallery?”, Kyungsoo asked.

How could you ever forget! It's what your step-mother used to attack with you every chance she got. Wayfaring, college dropout Kyungsoo's mildly successful upscale art gallery in Gangnam.

You nodded curtly in response.

“Dad handled everything...right from the actual sourcing process of art pieces to the finances. Although it was my business, I was simply a curator. You of all people should know how our parents like to meddle.”

“Kyungsoo, what's your point?”

“He apparently used the art pieces to launder money. And before NTS could get a whiff of it we had to go underground - I had to go underground. So he declared business bankruptcy, salvaged whatever little he could after NTS got their fair share of it, obviously and we went off the grid. Only recently we were made aware  that all of our other Companies have been cleared off defaults - Dad pulled some strings to make that happen - but all of this is behind us now.”, Kyungsoo’s eyes enlarged as he chewed on his lower lip anticipating your response.

“Well, you could’ve called.”, you sipped Riesling to steady yourself.

“We could’ve been tracked, love!” 

Feeling yourself disintegrate at the way that term of endearment rolled off his tongue, you pressed a napkin to your lips.

“What is it that you want now, Kyungsoo? I’m married - it’s all over!”, your voice quivered as you tried to reason with him as softly as you could.

“It’s not! It’s not over! Kim Minseok isn’t the man you chose -- this isn’t the life you chose! You didn’t escape my mind once in these last two years, baby...my hands were tied! Please understand, there was nothing I could've done. But I’m here now and I’m not leaving.”

.

.

.

The picture frame in your secret possession remembered Minseok as a portly little lad in a penguin onesie. 

Him in his mother’s arms and you, an infant, in yours. Your mothers had been childhood friends, thick as thieves but the only memory you had of Minseok was this picture frame from the scenic Guri, where you spent the first five years of your life - until your mother passed and your father spiralled into despair. Minseok’s mother took pity and urged her husband to offer your father a position in the Seoul branch of his company. 

The job paid well since Mr. Kim’s company was flourishing. Your father immersed himself into work leaving you with sitters for most part of your childhood. He successfully managed to add a chip-making division to the already thriving semiconductor line making SK Group the largest memory chip-maker in Asia thus elevating him to a Keyperson’s position. In his forties, he found himself a botoxed, gold digging beauty to marry and lived his life forever indebted to Mr. Kim.

So when the conglomerate’s matriarch proposed an alliance between you and Minseok, your father couldn’t refuse.

The alliance came a year after Kyungsoo disappeared.

Doh Kyungsoo. Your first love. The only one who’d stood by you when your own father couldn’t care less. You’d met him in your sophomore year at the University where he studied Archeology and Art History and you, Business Administration.

You had little to no memory of the night Kyungsoo played your knight in shining armour on Baekhyun’s bar hopping 21st birthday. You were drunk out of your wits. And when a sicko tried to take advantage of it, Kyungsoo stepped in. He drove you home, tucked you in bed and even brought you Haejangguk the next morning.

You’d managed to tame the beast according to Baekhyun but the truth was it was Kyungsoo who saved you from your dreary life. He brought out your exuberance and ferocity. 

You ditched the pastels in your wardrobe for radical florals, the straight black hair, now an untamed, red tempest and modest little diamonds in your ears replaced by the dazzle of the glittering galaxy.

Your grades declined meteorically as you painted the town red with him on his Motorrad and come senior year he recklessly dropped out of college. That’s when things started going south for the both of you.

After a failed acting stint, he dabbled aimlessly in Seoul’s art scene. You didn’t greatly approve of his life choices, especially these major shifts which were solely his decision since he hadn’t bothered to consult you once. You, on the other hand, picked up pace academically and after graduation, Mr. Kim’s conglomerate took you under its wing - just as planned.

You tried to be there for Kyungsoo during this "phase" of his which lasted well over two years but he kept pushing you away. Until finally, with the help of his father, he set up his own art gallery in Seoul. It didn’t create a lot of buzz at first but it brought a welcome change within Kyungsoo. He was focused, driven and tried to make the best of the opportunity. 

Both of your careers kept you busy and you slowly began to drift apart. Petty fights and misunderstandings only deepened the cracks in your relationship and Kyungsoo, being a man of few words that he was, didn’t help the situation.

You both did and said things you shouldn’t have and all that should have been said was left unspoken. Often you even decided to part ways but every other night found you in each other’s arms. Come morning, the very same issues would resurface. 

But you both tried. Tried to make it work through the tears and the pain for the thing called love. You’d both been inseparable for four years now and this was nothing but a minor roadblock.

And when things finally started to look up, he left without a goodbye.

.

.

.

Minseok looked nothing like the toddler you’d remembered him to be except for his striking angular eyes. He was lean, suave, well mannered, albeit slightly awkward (you didn’t blame him considering the blind date setting) and definitely deserved a better wife than you. He shyly complimented your neutral beige flare dress and you both shared the rosy bits about your life.

His father had decided against giving him a directorial position on a platter so he’d worked his way up from Assistant Manager, Sales to freshly anointed Head of Strategy and you were working towards a better position in Finance. 

Minseok was, plainly put, nice. Very much unlike the broody, flighty, reckless Kyungsoo you’d known and loved all these years. But Kyungsoo was a distant memory and Minseok looked like someone who was married to his work. 

All things considered, you believed you could make this arrangement - that was your marriage with Minseok - last.

.

.

.

The expansion kept Minseok busier than usual while you were busy plotting away with Kyungsoo - looking for ways to get back with your first love and break the news to Minseok in the gentlest way possible. 

“Ripping the bandaid off is the only way forward”, Kyungsoo suggested, helping you with a generous serving of kimchi stew.

His studio apartment was a stone throw away from your workplace. So you took an extended lunch break to see him in the privacy of his house. You felt a tinge of guilt at the frequency of your rendezvous but you let your heart have it’s way. As much as you hated the predicament his reappearance had put you in, his presence made you feel alive again. You no longer dreaded the morning alarm, the commute to work or even work itself. You had something to look forward to everyday - you had him to look forward to everyday.

“Hello?”, he interrupted your train of thought.

“Hmm?”, you looked up from your bowl.

He chuckled, “Nothing’s changed...” making you eye him questioningly.

“You still space out a lot”, he said, scrunching his nose affectionately.

Guilt weighed heavier.

You smiled, “No, it’s just that - there’s so much at stake Kyungsoo. I don’t think I can just rip off the bandaid.”

“Higher the risk...”, his eyes widened in an attempt to convince you.

“I know...but...he’s a nice guy and --”, you fought back tears.

“Run away with me?”

“Kyungsoo!”

“I’m sorry”, he muttered.

“Did you find a new place for the art gallery?”

“Mhmm”, he avoided your eyes, “just off Samcheong-ro.”

“Kyungsoo, this is huge! Samcheong-ro is the heart of the art scene!”

He smiled, “And this time around I’m working with people I can trust.”

Putting your hand on his arm, you squeezed it lightly. Nodding you said, “I’m really, really happy for you.”

He sighed, “Listen I’m sorry about earlier...I didn’t intend to rush you, I’ll be patient...I love you.”

You couldn’t say it back.

.

.

.

“Minseok, the Nakamuras accepted our offer”, you started with some happy news.

His feline eyes widened in astonishment and his shoulders went up as he pursed his lips to contain a big smile, “Really?”

You nodded.

“This means a hell lot of more work for you”, he chuckled, “but it’s a huge reason to celebrate! Let me take you out to dinner tomorrow?”

In your one year of marriage, Minseok had made this offer only a handful of times.

“Sure”, you smiled, “I was thinking of a weekend trip to Jeju. You know, clear my head?”

“Ah! Of course, anything you need. Will you be travelling alone?”

“Yeah”, you lied through your teeth.

Looking mildly dejected, he forced a grin, “You deserve the break.”

.

.

.

You woke up well before the break of dawn, not nearly as enthusiastic about the seaside getaway as you’d been when you’d planned it with Kyungsoo. Nevertheless, you went on to physically and mentally ready yourself for your flight at noon.

Minseok, an early riser by habit, was still in bed at half past eight.

“Minseok?” 

You leaned over his asleep form but nothing. So you put an arm on his shoulder and tried to lightly shake him awake only to receive a muffled groan in response. A hand on his sweaty forehead confirmed your suspicions.

Without giving it a second thought, you texted Kyungsoo, called off the trip and to avoid the inconvenient onslaught of questions, turned your phone off. Feeling an overwhelming sense of concern, laced with guilt and anxiety, you shook Minseok awake.

“You’re burning up!”, panic struck, you nearly yelled at your groggy husband.

“I don’t feel so well… Please call Soo-ah, she’ll take care of me. What’s the time? Have you called yourself a cab?”, Minseok spoke in laborious gasps.

“There’s no need to call Soo-ah”, you said, straightening the duvet, “I’m not going anywhere.”

To your utter surprise, Minseok did not, in any way, nudge you to carry on with your plans. Instead, he thanked you with a slight nod and a small smile. His gentle, cherubic smile made your heart skip a beat, it cooped you up in an inexplicable warmth.

To you, an uwell Minseok was uncharted territory and during the course of the day you realised he wasn't very different from a tantrum throwing infant. 

You started your day with committed the cardinal sin of denying him his morning cup of coffee.

“I’ll drink twice as much water to rehydrate!” He whined.

“Ugh! Don’t make this harder than it already is! I'm grasping at straws here!" You shouted from the kitchen while whipping up rice porridge for breakfast.

His protests against the mushy bowl for his first meal were comparatively milder, which was a welcome relief but your caffeine deprived husband sporadically kept shooting you snarky sideway glances. All hell broke loose when you had to nearly shove the acetaminophen pill in his mouth.

“Yah! Are you trying to kill me? This is fatal!”, he’d started talking in pouts now.

“Yah! Kim Minseok!”, annoyed, you glared at him.

A round-eyed Minseok stared at you in disbelief before quietly dry swallowing the pill.

The medicine was quick to act, stabilizing his temperature. So you asked your stickler for cleanliness husband to go take a quick shower but the man wouldn’t budge. 

“I want to stay in bed all day”, he smiled adorably.

“You’re not exactly smelling like fresh lilies right now, Minseok. Who’s to take care of you if I faint?”, you teased.

His face flushed as he begrudgingly stepped out of the comfort of his duvet. Grinning with glee, you proceeded to cook him chicken soup for lunch.

Lunch was awfully quiet.

“Did you not like the soup?”, you asked in mock concern. You were sure your comment from earlier was the reason for his mopey face since the fragrance of his cologne overpowered the aroma of your chicken soup.

“No, the soup’s just fine”, he deadpanned, making you chortle.

“You should fall ill more often, this is fun!”, you giggled.

A pink blush rose to his cheeks as he swirled the spoon in his bowl, “I agree.”

***

While Minseok napped, you prepped for dinner. The www suggested a light bean sprouts soup with a side of rice and kimchi.

“Shall we eat in front of the TV today?”, you asked Minseok.

“Sure! Anything you wanna watch?”, slumping into the sofa, he flipped over to the primetime news. 

You groaned.

“What? You love this anchor!”

“And how do you know that?”, you asked, slurping your soup.

“I follow you on Twitter, remember?”

“Hmm but I lack the cerebral capacity for this tonight”, you snatched the remote out of his hand and played The Running Man instead.

Yoo Jae-suk and Lee Kwang Soo��s antics left you in splits. Dinner ended with you sniffing water up your nose and an alarmed Minseok furiously thumping your back as you continued to giggle foolishly.

“I don’t remember the last time I laughed this hard”, you cried.

Minseok smiled awkwardly taking in your behaviour he wasn’t accustomed to, “Let me help you clean up...then I should probably head to bed.”

“Wait”, you floundered out of the couch, “just one more thing!”

“I swear I took the last dose when you weren’t looking!”

“I know that because I was looking!”, your voice carried from the kitchen.

“Here…. I’ve been too harsh with you today”, you offered him a slab of tiramisu making him almost jump out of his seat in delight.

“What’s this?”

“Your question is low-key offensive, Minseok!”

“No, I know, I mean...thank you. For everything.”, his lips curled in a sincere smile making your heart flutter.

***

For someone who holds his liquor well, flu medication made Minseok really drowsy, real quick. 

As you tucked him in bed, you switched your phone on with your numb fingers. It beeped furiously with a flurry of angry messages from Kyungsoo, making Minseok stir in his sleep.

“I’m sorry”, you whispered.

“I love you”, he mumbled in his sleep-befuddled state.

[youngboy-oldmind]

ALBUM REVIEW: The Lost Boy

“Try to take a walk up in my shoes/A n**** rapping like I really got something to prove, Cause motherf****er, I do/I climb hills, n***** was sleeping, on Nyquil/ Paint a picture vivid, dawg, on everything, my life's real”

Overall Thoughts

Maryland rapper YBN Cordae plants a solid footprint in the rap game on his debut album The Lost Boy: a 45 minute masterpiece filled with excellent storytelling and production combined with a unique style that proves he’s definitely an up and comer to look out for in years to come.

The Lost Boy was my favorite rap/hip-hop release of 2019. Cordae’s first studio album is contender for one of my favorite debut albums ever. In my opinion, related artists’ (Chance the Rapper, Logic, Bas, J Cole, Kendrick, Amine) debut album’s fall to The Lost Boy. And at 21, his debut releases at an age younger than everyone in that group. To have an excellent project at such a young age is another feat on its own.

One commonality I notice with debut albums is that new artists tend to sound like their biggest influencers; the biggest culprit being Logic. But Cordae stands out with his own style that doesn’t sound too similar to any of his numerous influences. His delivery, word choice, and flow (while not always mind blowing), is not a carbon copy of a rapper from the 90s-00s. Here, Cordae’s sound is his own.

His pen game on this project is consistently above average, but rarely mind blowing. Tracks like “We Gone Make It” and “Thousand Words” exhibit his strongest lyricism. However, Cordae’s story telling abilities are consistently powerful. Tracks like “Bad Idea”, “Thanksgiving”, “Nightmares Are Real”, “Family Matters” all have Cordae illustrating his experiences. He emphasizes his perspective as a young man who’s finding himself through all these experiences. Even his most bragging and banger tracks still feature great humility and storytelling elements, the stand out being “Broke as F***”.

The features on The Lost Boy are all top notch. Cordae includes Chance the Rapper, Ty Dollar $ign, Pusha-T, Anderson .Paak, and Meek Mill, all of whom bring elite verses to their features. It’s even better that the guests don’t completely outshine Cordae. Cordae brings enough weight to each song that its not completely engulfed by the feature. Songs like French Montana’s “No Shopping”, Logic’s “Homicide”, Chance’s “Handsome” all suffer from a feature that outclasses the main artist. But Cordae goes toe to toe with each feature.

I should also mention the two skits, “Sweet Lawd” and “Grandma’s House”. Both are pretty good as far as skits go. I can’t help but assume they were influenced by Kanye West’s “I’ll Fly Away” from The College Dropout, both of which sound very reminiscent to. They display Cordae’s singing abilities and soulful sound. And its touching to hear Cordae’s grandmother on the latter track.

Overall, I can’t really find a weak spot on this project. The runtime, theme/tone, uniqueness, production, and lyricism are all excellent. As far as debut albums go, Cordae made has created one of the best I’ve ever heard.

Album Breakdown

The common theme throughout this project is Cordae’s experiences being young and lost in a chaotic world. I love this theme because it doesn’t limit the scope about his topics. He can make fun tracks, political commentary, and emotional deep cuts while staying tonally consistent.

1. Wintertime

"Wintertime” features a smooth, mellow, jazzy beat; The vibe feels like a instrumental off of J Cole’s 4 Your Eyez Only. Cordae introduces himself, compares where he started to where he’s at now, and discusses some everyday plagues that stress him (anxiety, maintaining success, pressure to appear problem-free) while also aiming for the top and hoping nothing he creates fades away. Great intro.

2. Have Mercy

This next track is lyrically nothing deep or profound, just a banger track with a dope instrumental. The echoy, bassy sound that develops on the last leg of the song is especially great. I also found Cordae’s music video technique interesting. He released two videos, Path A and Path B, that illustrate opposite tones. Path A brings more zainy, flamboyant visuals while Path B is much more dark and eerie. I personally think Path A is the more appropriate for the track. Overall, not a bad banger.

3. Sweet Lawd- Skit

This skit features Cordae singing the hook off “Have Mercy” over a church-like piano. As I mentioned early, strongly reminds me of “I’ll Fly Away” off Kanye West’s The College Dropout. Cordae’s voice is soulful and pleasant to listen to as well. The first gospel-esque track.

4. Bad Idea

Chance the Rapper and Cordae team up to create one of the best songs on the album. They both deliver great verses, Chance’s middle verse being the best. Here they talk about the downsides of Home and the impact those experiences had on them. They borrow the beginning chorus lines “It might not be such a bad idea if I never went home again” from Gil Scott-Herman’s “Home is Where the Hatred Is” and heavily styled like Kanye West’s “My Way Home”. Although Cordae is the main singer on the chorus, he layers his voice to make it sound like an ensemble of singers. A great stylistic choice. And the heavy piano X light strings perfectly end the track. Between the strings at the end, the Kanye West sample, and Chance’s (a huge fan, supporter, and protege of Kanye) involvement, I definitely smell influence from West’s sophomore album Late Registration.

5. Thanksgiving

“Thanksgiving”, the first deep cut on the album, has Cordae introducing a girl to his family during Thanksgiving. However, she’s fake and never stays around, making him question their relationship while remaining hopeful they can maintain it. Cordae demonstrates his powerful storytelling abilities. The overall mellow tone in the production allows his lyrics to fit perfectly in the instrumental; it doesn’t outshine but it doesn’t get over shadowed either.

6. RNP

Anderson .Paak has collaborated with Andre 3000, J. Cole, Rhapsody, Kendrick Lamar, BJ The Chicago Kid, Pusha-T, and Q-Tip, so I wasn’t surprised when I saw Cordae would be collaborating with the talented singer. However, I couldn’t prepare for the amazing back-and-forth chemistry between them. You wouldn’t think when listening to them trade bars that they have a 12 year age difference between them. Also fun fact: J. Cole produced the track.

Both these artists are just having fun over a bouncy beat, talking about the “problems” they’ve experienced being rich. Definitely be favorite fun track so far.

7. Broke As F***

This is tied for my favorite track on the album. Cordae’s lyrics aren’t necessarily the most complex and deep, but he brings such a indescribable energy to his storytelling. He basically tells the story from him being a baby, being in high school appreciating hip hop, where he came from, and where he’s going to go. The great thing here is that its not solely bragging about his possessions. Its a commentary on what he’s GAINED. This adds a touch of humility. And at the end, he comments on how he’s lost, still searching, and doesn’t “really have a lot of answers”, tying into the theme of the album. Perfect.

The spacey instrumental on the chorus, the beat drop after the first line of the first verse, and the beat change midway through makes this one of the best instrumentals on the album. And the ending drums transition to the next song perfectly.

8. Thousand Words

“Thousand Words” has some best verses on the album. Here Cordae talks about the toxicity of social media and how people create false perceptions to hide true pain. While already an intriguing topic, Cordae goes a step further by admitting he’s not holier than thou. He admits everyone lowkey wants to be a little famous, and nobody wants to be “nameless”. I love that. It’s easier to say Instagram and Twitter are toxic (Logic on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind). But to admit there is some validity and positivity to social media...very profound for someone so young. My favorite lines are:

“Living in this false reality that's in this picture gallery/ Based on a n***** profile, we guessin' salary/ The lifestyle you advertise was quite strategized/ Make a minimal amount and then we maximize/ These n***** cappin' with lies how they capitalize/ Creating they own perceptions, what a massive facade/ Digital marketing schemes even broader regime/ Live how you want on the internet, who thought of this thing?”

9. Way Back Home

Ty Dollar $ign stands out on the feature, talking about not letting fame and success pull him from reality. Cordae sings the chorus and most of his verse. Admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of Cordae’s parts; It felt underwhelming. But the instrumental and Ty’s verse carry a significant part of the song. I especially loved the high pitched melodic voice that pops in the beat throughout the song. I also love the sci-fi, techy “WORP” effect throughout the instrumental. But ultimately, this felt more like Ty’s song than Cordae’s.

10. Grandma’s House- Skit

Between “Grandma’s House” and “Sweet Lawd”, I prefer this skit. The harmonious vocals that echo Cordae’s grandma’s vocals give off an amazing gospel vibe. The simplistic yet soulful and intimate aura of this skit makes it one of my favorite interlude-skits off any rap album.

11. Been Around

Another mellow song on the project, “Been Around” has Cordae talking about the development of his career and how he’s going to keep moving forward and not let doubters or bad situations slow him down. I like the chorus more than the verses, but overall its not a bad track. It maintains the tone of the album and flexes Cordae’s pen game a little.

12. Nightmares Are Real

This was the most intriguing collaboration on the album. Pusha-T and Cordae have very different sounds and styles; Pusha-T brings much more aggressiveness whereas Cordae is softer. Cordae’s hardest verses don’t compare to Pusha-T’s baseline intensity. Although they don’t demonstrate strong chemistry, they both bring solid verses. Both tell stories of how they started in the rap game, however, Pusha-T’s wordplay and lyricism is a step above Cordae’s. He talks about dealing with selling crack while developing his skills in rapping. Particular set of lines had me shook.

“Asterisk, skipped school, recorded with The Neptunes/ We was makin' high school classics/ Before I took a kilo and I wrapped it, I rapped it/ Around the funeral with the casket/ Coke avalanche, like a landslide/ Only grew my hair this long because my man died/”

I don’t wanna go too far into explaining these lyrics cus genius will do better job. But Pusha-T brings fire to this track. The tone of the instrumental matches Pusha-T’s intensity as well. As solid of a collaboration this is, its not in my top 3 collabs. That goes to show how amazing this project is.

13. Family Matters

"Family Matters” is tied with “Broke as F***” for my favorite song on The Lost Boy. Cordae talks about the stress of witnessing family traumas and difficulties while experiencing his own success. He expresses feelings of guilt and selfishness when his family hides things from him so he can focus on achieving his goals. He talks about abandonment from baby daddies, aunt’s raising kids that aren’t theirs, a cousin in an abusive relationship, a cousin addicted to xanax, and another aunt who’s a prostitute. All of this is happening while he’s worried about “plays and streams”. It’s an interesting sentiment. Is it selfish to focus on yourself when your family has a load of obstacles and difficulties? Every time he succeeds he has to look back at where he came from and be reminded his family does not share his accomplishments. Nearly brought me to tears when I first heard it.

As I already stated, lyrically this is one of Cordae’s top songs. Arin Ray brings a choir on the chorus that sounds amazing, adding to the gospel sound sprinkled throughout the album. And the light violin strings at the end encapsulate the emotional turmoil Cordae expresses.

14. We Gone Make It

Another top track, “We Gone Make It”, features a collab with Meek Mill to make political/social commentary on todays world and encourage others to keep pushing to succeed. Unlike the other three collaborations “Bad Idea”, “Way Back Home”, and “Nightmares are Real”, Meek Mill’s verses are actually equal with Cordae. Although I’m not a huge fan of Mill, he brings in a succinct, powerful 12 bars and a hook so dope he, as Cordae puts it, had to “sing it twice”. Also fun fact: Cordae used a modified version of the first verse on H.E.R’s “Lord is Coming (Remix)”.

Instrumentally, the beat accompanies the message without overshadowing it. The piano melody and vocal chops throughout mix well with the verses. I personally love the piano keys in the final minute. It adds an aura of delicacy to a song with such an intense message.

15. Lost & Found

In the perfect closing track “Lost & Found”, Cordae displays pride, stating “I was lost boy, now I’m found”. Over a bumpy, bassy beat with epic trumpet harmonies, he comments on everything throughout the project. However, now he has assurance he’s not lost nor insecure from his experiences. And he knows things are going up from here. Like the rest of the album, he’s lyrically above average, reflecting on his life while introducing a fun, braggadocios vibe. Kinda like a “the balls in your court” to the rest of the rap game. Loved it.

Final Thoughts

I look forward to Cordae’s next album. This was a near perfect debut solo album. At 21 years old, Cordae displays strong lyricism and production skills. His ability to story-tell and introspect indicate incredible feats in career. The lowest parts of this project are still amazing, and the high points put this project as my favorite of the year. I don’t know how else to say it. The rap game better watch out for this Maryland born “Lost Boy”. If The Lost Boy indicates the trajectory of his future, Cordae will have the crown in no time.

Top 3 Tracks:

1) Family Matters

2) Broke As F***

3) Bad Idea

Overall Grade: A+

[comfortsickboys]

Meet My OC’s!

(Similar pictures for reference are below descriptions, and all pictures are credited to Pinterest. Eye color was edited slightly to match the character.)

Judah Hayes, 18 (he/him) He’s a senior at Royal County High School. He lives with his two cats Percy and Sunny and his dad, because his mother passed away when he was six. His aunt Josie and best friend Arlo are by far his favorite people in the world, and he tries to spend as much time as possible with them to keep sane. He loves drawing and writing even though he isn’t very good, because that’s not the point to him—sometimes he just needs to get things out. Speaking of getting things out, he also unfortunately tends to get sick rather easily, no matter if it’s in the air, water, or on dry land.

Arlo Martin, 18 (he/him). Like Judah, he’s a senior at Royal County High School. Two things about Arlo that anyone who knows him would be certain of is that he loves the frightening beauty of the ocean more than most things, and he thinks that he thinks too much. He worries a lot about what he’ll major in at college, and he tends to change his mind every other day. To distract himself from that pressure, he analyzes every film under the sun. When he isn’t watching movies or at school, he’s working at the cinema down the road purely so he can get credits for he and his best friend Judah to go and watch for free. He lives with his parents and dachshund, Moose, in the house he’s been in all his life. He’s about ten minutes away from Judah, so when Judah shows up unannounced, it isn’t too much of a surprise. They often watch the films together in silence if Judah just needs a place to stay. Most people in his life have said that he’s too nice and will get taken advantage of, but he thinks he doesn’t mind that too much if it means he can help others.

Rose Daugherty, 21 (she/her) She goes to Northwest Ridge University with her friend Ezra and boyfriend Grey. They’ve all known each other since elementary school, and anywhere one goes, the rest follow. She is majoring in biology and has her mind set on working with the rescue and rehabilitation of various endangered bird species. In fact, she owns a rescued scarlet macaw named Pilot, and she doesn’t hesitate to remind Grey that she and Pilot are the real soulmates here. She’s a textbook plant mom as well, keeping her loud, shared apartment filled with all of her pride and joy.

Grey Bancroft, 21 (he/him). He is majoring in English to hopefully become a professor, but if he ends up teaching middle schoolers, he figures that’ll be okay, too. The only thing he loves more than Rose is reading. He spends his free time letting the words spill from various books into his crammed mind, determined to fill it to the brim one day. He has an ever-growing personal library, and if he could take three things with him to a deserted island, it would no doubt be three books of his choice. He has one younger sister, two younger brothers, and two older sisters, whom he loves with his whole heart. Being around chaos is what he knows best, but he’s grown to love his tea and quiet reading very much as well.

Ezra Parrish, 22 (he/him). He goes to college with his best friends Rose and Grey, studying philosophy and minoring in Italian. He wishes more than anything that he could drop almost everything and move there, dragging Rose, Grey, and his boyfriend Seven along with him. Living in dorms isn’t ideal, and he spends most of his time avoiding his roommates. What he actually loves is being outdoors and reminding himself of how small he is in the grand scheme of things; it makes him feel at peace. He still plays the violin when he has the time, but he usually stays busy with his classes and his job at the shitty café on campus.

Seven LaBelle, 22 (he/him). He’s a quiet college dropout, but if anyone asks, he’s just taking a gap year. He’d spent eight years taking care of his grandmother before she slowly passed away, and he spent a year after that truly missing having someone to look after, so he took a job as a personal care aide. He doesn’t mind doing things that others may find terrible, so he figured he should put himself to use. When he’s not at work, he’s in his box of an apartment, listening to an endless stream of every kind of music (most often with Ezra, who has fled from his roommates). Ultimately, he’s just waiting for the day that Ezra packs them all up and moves to Italy.

Josie Clarke, 36 (secondary character) (she/her) Judah’s aunt who has given as much motherly love as she possibly could to her only nephew. She doesn’t have any children of her own, but that gives her more time to take care of any needs Judah may have. He’s at her house often, even if it’s just to sit together. She has two dogs Leia and Ruben who take up her time when she’s not on the computer editing videos for clients.

[womanistgrrrl]

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. © © 2020 by Adilah Didi Adi | Published in the United States by Wominist GRRRL Press at the Detroit Public Library on 5201 Woodward Ave. 

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This book is dedicated to every undocumented, detained, homeless, deported, and displaced Black being. We are the ones we've been waiting for.

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“In a retelling of her life, a ninety-two-year-old Efik-Ibibio woman of Nigeria recalls her love for another woman:

'I had a woman friend to whom I revealed my secrets. She was very fond of keeping secrets to herself. We acted as husband and wife. We always moved hand in glove and my husband and hers knew about our relationship. The villagers nicknamed us twin sisters. When I was out of gear with my husband, she would be the one to restore peace. I often sent my children to go and work for her in return for her kindness to me. My husband being more fortunate to get more pieces of land than her husband, allowed some to her, even though she was not my co-wife.'

On the West Coast of Africa, the Fon of Dahomey still have twelve different kinds of marriage. One of them is known as 'giving the goat to the buck,’ where a woman of independent means marries another woman who then may or may not bear children, all of whom will belong to the blood line of the first woman. Some marriages of this kind are arranged to provide heirs for women of means who wish to remain ‘free,’ and some are lesbian relationships. Marriages like these occur throughout Africa, in several different places among different peoples.”

 - Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Gamba Adisa Lorde

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Chapter 1

“Immortal energy sustains earth's biological system,” Professor Latoya informs a sea of biochemistry students who are having side conversations and staring at their overpriced cellphones. I too am distracted. I'm grieving the impending, dangerous alteration of my reality. While the professor makes dramatic gestures to elaborate their words, I worry if my world will resemble the cracks on my laptop's screen or shattered glass.

“This immortal energy originates from the sun,” Professor Latoya continues, oblivious to my internal turmoil. And apparently oblivious to the external turmoil because their brown eyes and full lips widen in shock when a majority of the students in the classroom rise and chant “Fees and bills will fall!” The students of color take over the stage to the horror of the professor, whose cocoa cheeks are now crimson red.  

Despite my huge concerns for the chanting classmates, I hurriedly pick up my biology textbook and race out of the classroom. I breeze through the under-resourced hallways covered with “YOU TOO CAN COMPLETE COLLEGE IN FOUR YEARS” propaganda and whiz around the student protesters surrounding the neglected school courtyard.

Although I think my journey of escapism will end when I'm in bed, as soon as I lay my head on the satin pillow, my thoughts return to the Fees And Bills Will Fall (FBWF) protests.

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I remember that the FBWF protests at the university I attend- University of San Isabella- are inspired by the FBWF protests at the Universities of Abia, Nairobi, and Namibia. I remember learning about the FBWF protests early this year when I was thinking about transferring to any African university to avoid the disgrace of becoming a college dropout and jeopardizing my legal status. After learning about the FBWF protests, I realized the rising cost of living combined with low wages were a global crisis and the bourgeoisie were definitely pushing us into a future of absolute wage and debt slavery. I then decided to stay in the United States because I figured  it would be one of the last places to experience the full impact of this crisis.  I was  wrong.

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