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misiwrites · 3 years

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Beyblade Week Day 2

this is probably a really bad piece of writing to post for @beybladeweek2021 and also a very strange take on the day 2 themes and i'm sorry - i do try to come up with oneshots that make sense as stand-alone pieces even though they take place within an AU, but for a oneshot about kai it just kind of failed because he's a very contextual character in the tale of four kingdoms, so i just went and wrote the weirdest shit i could muster out of these themes and this is it. maybe it entertains someone out there anyway.

this takes place pretty early on the 4kingdoms timeline, it's a little peek to kai's PoV that's not in the main fic. and.... this is based on my g-revolution-based headcanon that kai writes really embarrassingly melodramatic poetry on his free time. i felt a need to say that

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Friendship / Beach / Summer

The Sun is bleeding its brilliance into the crimson ocean. Midnight is said to be the time when demons come out to play, when time and human emotion alike are at zero – even here in South, where the flame of the Sun never truly goes out.

Kai has always enjoyed that hour. To him, the level of human emotion being at zero is a thought of comfort, when everything starts anew. A blank page. He welcomes the demons to join him.

Not to mention that it’s the only genuinely pleasant time of the day in the South, the only time when the black of his uniform isn’t trying to suffocate him to death.

“Suffocate to death.” He tilts his head in approval. The word death has a dull ring to it, but he jots the line down in his notebook all the same, if only to please the demons around. The ink that follows the tip of his vermilion-feathered quill on the paper is as dark as the sky of the North…

An abrupt shudder rips up his spine and he presses his eyes shut tight. There it is again. The North. He wants to move on from the thought and fast, but the spell never works.

As much as he wants to forget, the memory of his brief visit to the Country of North keeps coming back to haunt him, a snow-coloured ghost behind his eyelids. He’s very good at forgetting, an expert at closing his eyes and ears and pretending he didn’t see nor hear a thing, but this memory persists, both the bone-chilling cold and the uncomfortable, invisible yet inevitable bond between him and the other kings that hasn’t left his consciousness ever since.

He never wanted to go there. There’s a sinking feeling within him that the journey was a horrible mistake – that the supposedly infallible, the oh-so-flawless Hiwatari Souichirou made a mistake in his calculations in sending him there, and now Kai knows. Something has been set in motion, and nobody will be spared from it.

He doesn’t want to admit that it terrifies him, the knowledge of the outside world being so vast and so different from his own reality. Pretend you don’t see, pretend you don’t hear, but how could he? Three other kings, three other kingdoms, the North planted a seed of awareness in him that has since been growing into knowledge – about him being part of something greater out there. Something way beyond these stone walls of the castle above the red ocean that he believed to be the centre of the world.

And yet he’s here again, staring at that ocean, the red, foaming waves ravenously licking the dunes of the South. This kingdom of never-ending summer was already drenched in the dubious colour of blood the moment it was created. The others were not: although he has only seen the North, he can instinctively tell that they’re different, all three of them, and none have the red horizon of the South.

He doesn’t want to be curious about the others, doesn’t want to engage, but the wheel has been set in motion whether he wants it or not. An irreversible force pulling him along to join its cycle.

Under the previous line of writing, Kai’s vermilion quill loops around to form a new word. Friend.

Friend. Friend. For a word that he doesn’t know the meaning of, it sure keeps coming back to him a lot. He knows it’s something that can only be done in cooperation with another person – that’s what Hiwatari Souichirou is pushing him to do, now, with the Eastern Seiryuu-ou, the dragon king. “I need you to befriend him.”

And in his message on that talking device that appeared out of nowhere after the journey to the North, the Seiryuu-ou said something along those lines as well. “I want to get to know you.”

He stares down at the word for a moment. Then, underneath it, he writes it again, this time with sharper angles. And then one more time. There – that’s more like the handwriting a person of great importance like him should have. Not the childish curves of the earlier scribbles in the notebook.

“Still here, Kai-sama?”

He jumps a little at the voice behind him, then pretends to have seen the appearance of his royal knight at the doorway miles ahead, not giving him the satisfaction of noticing the successful ambush. He hurries to set the notebook aside.

“So?” he asks in response.

“Are you going to stay out here till the hour of the wolf again? His Majesty won’t be excited.”

“And I couldn’t care less what Hiwatari Souichirou is excited about.”

Johnny breathes out a scoff. The knight has always been humoured by his protectee’s manner of calling the old king by full name, as if they were strangers rather than family to each other.

After hiding his notebook away in a drawer, Kai gets up from his position by the ocean-side window and turns to Johnny. His eyes betray none of his thoughts, as usual, but he isn’t quite as versed at hiding them from his voice when he opens his mouth for a question. Midnight has let the young Suzaku-ou down, he’s past the hour of time and human emotion at zero, now the wheel continues to turn again.

“Tell me,” he says to his knight, “what does the word ‘friend’ mean?”

#my writing #4kingdoms stuff #LetItRip2021 #I KNOW IT SHOULD BE DAY 7 ALREADY IM FOLLOWING UP FROM BEHIND OK

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believingispowerfulmagic · 4 years

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The Nanny - “Quarantined at Nottingham”

A/N: I thought I would also give a glimpse at how the quarantine is affecting Outlaw Queen in some of my AU verses and knew you would all want to see The Nanny. It also seemed like a good place to start because this version of OQ has a large house, a lot of property and doesn't really need to worry about money. So what parts of quarantine are affecting them?

Thanks to Eva (glindalovesshoes) for looking this over for me!

Warning – some slight spoilers for the main Nanny verse.

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"How are you?" Dr. Espenson asked before sipping her coffee.

"Well, that's a loaded question," Regina replied, settling back against her chair. "Can we start with something easier?"

Dr. Espenson raised an eyebrow. "No."

Regina sighed before rubbing her forehead. "I guess not."

"So, I'll ask again. How are you?" Dr. Espenson asked, studying Regina now.

"Stressed with a touch of cabin fever," Regina answered, leaning forward to rest her arms on the desk. She watched her therapist on her tablet screen as she added: "But I assume everyone feels that way right now."

Dr. Espenson nodded. "Even me."

Regina sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "But I feel bad about it as well."

"Why?" her therapist asked, frowning in confusion.

"Because there are other people stuck in way smaller houses or apartments and I'm quarantined in a mansion set on a sprawling estate comprised of several acres, including forests," she replied.

Dr. Espenson jotted down some notes. "So you feel guilty that you have it better than some people?"

"Yes," Regina replied.

"And you feel that means you can't complain?"

Nodding, Regina said: "Pretty much."

"Okay, let me give you the highly technical term for what that is," Dr. Espenson said. She set her pad down and cleared her throat before looking directly into the camera. "Bullshit."

That caught Regina by surprise and she let out a little laugh. "What?"

"It's bullshit. Do you and Robin have some advantages others don't? Yes. But in many ways, this is a great equalizer. Everyone is dealing with stress and cabin fever, no matter what. You're allowed your feelings. Own them. And then we can deal with them," Dr. Espenson told her.

Regina blinked a couple times before relaxing, feelings her shoulders slump. "Thanks. I needed to hear that."

"And that's why you pay me." Dr. Espenson picked up her notepad. "So, where do you want to start?"

"I don't even know. You pick," Regina told her.

Her therapist nodded before asking: "Your bereavement group. Have you still been meeting or…?"

Regina took a deep breath as a wave of sadness washed over her. "We've switched to virtual meetings. And it's helped. I can't imagine having to be isolated from people while grieving."

"I'm glad to hear it's helping," Dr. Espenson said. "And that you've all managed to find a way to stay together…even if you're all apart."

She nodded. "And it helps talking with all of them. For a while, I felt guilty that I was glad that Daddy was not here for this pandemic but then nearly everyone else said the same thing."

"And I'm sure Meg assured you all that it didn't mean you missed them less because of that, right?"

"Yes," Regina assured her. "And that just because we all thought it would be more stress during this time, it didn't mean we saw our loved one as a burden. And that they would want to be one less thing we worried about. Knowing my father, I know that is true. I would be worrying about him so much, especially with his lung cancer."

Dr. Espenson nodded. "So it's understandable to be relieved that he wouldn't have to be subjected to this virus."

"Right. I just worry about everyone else now. Especially Emma," Regina said, thinking of her best friend on the front lines. Emma had volunteered to help out at the hospital once the outbreak started and had been working long hours since then.

"Have you spoken with her recently?" Dr. Espenson asked.

Regina nodded. "She tries to Facetime with us whenever she's off duty. It's heartbreaking to see how tired she is and the bruises left by her PPE but she's doing her best to keep her spirits up."

"And have you touched base with Robin's parents?"

"We have," Regina confirmed. "We still call them once a week. They are quarantining and doing their best to stay safe. Robin's offered to have food and supplies delivered to their house but they keep refusing. I think they enjoy the time they can spend out of the house."

Dr. Espenson chuckled. "I can understand. I've never looked forward to grocery shopping the way I do now."

"Will still does the grocery shopping for us. I've offered to go but he absolutely refuses," Regina said, thinking of their faithful butler who was back in his old rooms with his wife in tow to ride out the quarantine.

"You think he's escaping as well?" Dr. Espenson asked.

Regina laughed. "Oh, yeah. There are nine of us here. Nottingham is big but that's still a lot of people."

"Agreed," Dr. Espenson said. "Are you finding ways to get some time to yourself?"

"I am," she replied. "I go to either a quiet room or to the hammock outside and I put on some music and I just decompress. Take time for myself."

Dr. Espenson nodded. "Good. I'm glad to hear that. And you know I'm always a phone call away, right?"

"I do. Thank you," Regina said.

Checking her watch, Dr. Espenson gave her an apologetic smile. "I'm afraid our time is up. I'll talk to you and Robin in a couple days."

Regina thanked her before ending the video session. She then powered down her tablet before leaning back in her office chair, closing her eyes for a few moments as she relished the silence in her home office.

It was bliss.

After taking a few moments to clear her mind, she stood and left her office. She headed downstairs, ready to face whatever chaos had engulfed Nottingham that day.

To her surprise, she found it was relatively quiet. She heard some noise coming from the living room and she entered there, finding Mary Margaret singing a nursery rhyme to her son. Neal caught sight of Regina and his eyes lit up. He held out his arms to her. "Up! Up!" he said.

"Hi, sweetheart," she said, picking up her godson. "How are you?"

He laughed as he grabbed at her face. Regina chuckled as she gently pried his hands away, kissing them. "I guess that means you're doing good," she said.

"He's probably handling this the best," Mary Margaret replied, standing from the couch. She tried to smile but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

Regina shifted Neal so the boy rested on her hip and she stepped closer to his mother. "Are you okay?"

Mary Margaret sighed as she shrugged. "We just spoke with David and I really, really miss him."

The sadness and weariness in her voice broke Regina's heart. Mary Margaret was the most positive person she knew, even more positive than Robin, but this seemed to be beating her down. She did have it harder, spending the quarantine away from her husband. Like other police departments around the country, the Avalon police department had been hit hard by the virus. David hadn't gotten it but he was worried about bringing it home to his wife and child, so he and Mary Margaret agreed it was best they stay away for the time being. He was originally going to find some place to stay and so the Locksleys had offered to let him stay with them. Instead, they asked if Mary Margaret and Neal could stay at Nottingham – David felt better knowing she would be with family and knew how safe Robin ensured their compound was. They readily agreed.

While it was the right decision for their family, Regina knew it was difficult for her friend. She didn't know how she would manage if Robin was separated from her and their children indefinitely and their only communication with him was video calls. And though crime was down in the city, David was still on the front lines and putting himself in danger every day. Regina stayed up worrying about her family and they were all safe in Nottingham. She couldn't imagine the thoughts that went through Mary Margaret's mind at all hours of the day.

Regina wanted to hug her but knew she couldn't, even if they had been cooped up in the house for weeks. Instead, she could only give her a small smile as she said: "I wish I could just make this all go away."

"I think we all wish we had that power," Mary Margaret replied with a sigh. "Do you mind watching him? I think I need a little time to myself."

"Go do whatever you need to do for yourself. We've got him," Regina assured her. Mary Margaret thanked her before heading out of the room.

Regina looked at Neal, bouncing him slightly. "Let's go see where everyone else is," she told him.

Continue reading on FFN, AO3 or Wattpad

#once upon a time #outlaw queen #oq au #oq ff #the nanny oq

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ournewoverlords · 5 years

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Rocketman is great, go see it!

I'm not the man they think I am at home Oh no no no I'm a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

Oh man, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. I’m apathetic towards biopics and I barely know any Elton John songs outside the Disney ones (yes, I’m a heathen, my excuse is that I didn’t get to America until 1995 and some combination of Britney and N’Sync consumed my formative years) but I had a big doofus grin throughout this movie and discovered a lot more sympathy for a celebrity I had in the back of my head as “the eccentric old dude who seems nice enough but probably doesn’t have all his marbles?”. That’s not because the film glamorizes Elton John by any means - it literally starts out with him declaring he’s done a great many horrible things, and concludes with him sighing that he’s been a cunt since 1975 - but you see the man inside the glittery bird costume, broken but trying, and I think that makes it a success in my book.

It’s a “musical fantasy” - honestly, a straight-up musical - that hits some pretty familiar narrative beats: main character bursts into rehab in the opening, looking like he needs a shower, a shave, and a hug, and now we’ll learn how he got there. No surprises, but it’s a clever way of unspooling his character arc as the movie progresses, because we watch him start his account with flat-out lies - “my dad was great, always there for me” - and then as he keeps going, it starts pouring out of him and he can’t help but begin to confront the truth. One character arc, the literal arc, is about his downfall, but the other one - the one behind it - is about his healing. It’s not an “X happened, then Y happened” kinda biopic, the journey here is as much inward as temporal - this is Elton, coming back to face the words a musician early in his career told him: “You gotta kill the person you were born as in order to become the person you want to be.” But who is the person Elton wants to be? What if the person he wants to be is just... himself?

And who is that, anyways? What I love about the movie is how it’s interested in what’s behind all the glam, the glitter, the outrageous costumes and crazy heels and rock n’roll - but it’s not afraid of those things either. You don’t have to be one or the other, extrovert or introvert, dazzling showman or a shy kid who only ever wanted to play for himself. Because the man IS fucking fabulous, he clearly had big emotions and a big life, and what I love about this movie is how it’s not afraid to throw itself into that, the same way camp is a kind of defiance against both the people who take life too seriously, and the people who don’t take it seriously enough. It punctuates again and again that this whole thing is about the hole in Elton’s heart, the hole that one’s parents are supposed to fill, and how his outrageous talents both lift him out of there and then give him too many things to fill it with — luxury clothes, booze, sex, drugs, eating disorders, pushing away the only people who care for him as if self-hatred were its own addiction. It’s a bottomless pit, and the struggle Elton faces is whether there’s anything worth salvaging at the bottom of it. It doesn’t sound like a very heroic choice, but it is: choosing life.

Some notes I jotted down right after watching, spoilers under the cut:

There were some things I didn’t think worked as well, though it wasn’t that they were bad, just that I wish there was more there.

For example, I thought that the final sequence where the characters from his past re-appear in this kind of cliched therapy sequence felt a bit too on-the-nose and forced, or at least clunky compared to the deftness of many of the earlier scenes. As a climax, it didn’t really land for me. This is part of my general wish that the story had more “meat” on it — i.e., a bit more prose and less verse — because it feels like it should be building up to this realization that Bernie was the one who truly loved him this whole time (not romantically I mean, but, in the more meaningful sense, properly). Because Bernie essentially becomes a peripheral character after their initial honeymoon — he’s always kinda in the background, but they drift apart over the years to underline Elton’s fall — so their relationship doesn’t have as much weight as it could’ve to me even though it is a thread that runs throughout the movie.

Don’t get me wrong — the scenes they have together are sublime, especially that “Your Song” scene, where the look Elton gives him really makes me wonder if Elton’s aborted kiss really was just a young man confusing his momentary giddiness for a crush. Jamie Bell gives this wonderfully gentle performance that keeps him as this North star in your mind, the one you want Elton to find home by. I just wanted more, especially in the latter half of the film, because I think the core of this film is about a love story, between Elton John and the things that save him: his best friend, and his love for music.

That’s my critique of the film in general, if I had to have one — despite running over two hours long, there’s some parts that feel oddly compressed or skimpy. John Reid, Richard Madden in an incredible performance as Elton’s frighteningly intense yet undeniably attractive business (and pleasure!) partner with the Hugo Boss suit and smoldering black eyes, goes from what girls want the dude in Fifty Shades to be to an abusive, cold-blooded asshole in the span of what feels like two scenes and ten minutes. It’s like one second, Elton’s star is rising and he’s flying high — and then in the next, he’s snorting coke, fighting with John, and drinking too much. It is heavily implied that: 1) getting famous was synonymous with doing drugs at the time, and because of Elton’s personality he couldn’t brake (but I still wish they made this subtext a bit more text) and 2) that behind this lurch downwards is his inability to be honest about his sexuality — John, of course, wants him to marry a beard “for the business” — but it’s strange that that’s not brought up earlier as a theme, when he was secretly getting kissed by the trumpeter and then happily trysting with John.

“Living a double life”, though, is a huge theme in another way: it’s the contrast between Elton’s happy, extravagant show life and Reginald Dwight, a lonely little boy trapped inside a miserable man trapped inside a mansion that provides so much of the pathos in the “adult” years of the film. None of the fame and fortune have brought him love, only adoration. If that’s a familiar thesis in biopics about famous people, it still works for me here because Taron Egerton’s performance is just SO GOOD. He gives it his all in every moment, not just the big singing and dancing ones. Behind all the little drug-induced twitches and grimaces of self-loathing (but also just the tiiiny bit of ego all great performers have), you can see the sweet kid who deserved better, who just wants to “go home”, if only he could find it.

I think the fundamental reason behind my “I wish there were more stuff” is the fact the movie structures itself after a musical, and for musicals the non-singing parts are more about how you get from one big singing part to the other. That’s a hard space for a biopic, especially one that gets into pretty serious territory and has years to cover; song and dance end up competing with time for character work. But the director does something I think is really clever, though, and that’s to use those musical sequences as part of the story — the moments flow into the song, and the song crystallizes the moment/theme/feeling in this natural way. They’re not an excuse to check off Elton John’s biggest hits, but rather fulfill a cinematic purpose in capturing an emotional rather than factual truth.

Not just the songs, but there are a number of these deft little scenes I really liked because they make the “point” in a single shot/cut/image, with very little dialogue. Some examples:

- The first time Elton and Bernie meet, Bernie mentions the country song Elton’s prospective manager had just disparaged and Elton kinda smirks, then in the next beat realizes that maybe that was kinda asshole, and he clumsily hums out the first verse, and Bernie perks up and follows with the next, and soon they’re both banging on the diner table and singing it together with huge grins. What’s especially great about this scene is that you can’t figure out if they’re doing this in “reality” and everyone thinks they’re crazy, or if this is one of those musical fantasy sequences. The point is that the distinction between them doesn’t matter, because that sequence is about the feeling of the moment, and at that moment they feel connected. Love at first sight.

- The scene where many years later Elton, now successful and dare-we-say perhaps even hopeful that his father might accept him now, finds the man with his new house and family — and after the expected awkward intro it seems to be going ok, his father’s invited him to come sit and chat inside. So there’s his father sitting on the couch… and then this pair of boys, his new sons, comes over and he just wraps his arm around them so easily, and your gut sinks instantly, before it even cuts to Elton, whose face has shattered all at once

- Nice studio girl, lifting her voice with his in his darkest moment -> cut to wedding -> cut to morning at the house, each opening their own door and greeting each other with an excruciating level of politeness. Says it all in three scenes.

- The levitation during his performance at The Troubadour. PERFECT. You can say “this and this happened”, “and then he gave an amazing performance”, but that’s not as powerful as showing the feeling Elton John must’ve felt during that performance: a lonely little boy turned struggling young man who felt, for just a moment, that he could fly.

- Another musical sequence - Elton’s suicide attempt, where they carry him onto the ambulance and he keeps batting away the oxygen mask to keep singing. It works on so many levels because he’s just a kid who wants to sing, he’s the star who was born to sing, but he’s also a man who doesn’t want to live.

#rocketman #rocketman review #taron egerton #richard madden

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djinmer4 · 6 years

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Snippets 1/? (Amalgam!verse)

Logan heard a thump coming from the main staircase and shot right out of bed. The security system should have taken care of most intruders but as the Hyena and Abominite had proved, it wouldn’t keep out the more determined supervillains of New Gotham. He pulled his gun out from under his pillow and after a second’s hesitation, also found a taser from the closet. He had his claws if he needed to drop his weapons and it might be worth taking whoever it was in. On the other hand, if it was the Hyena, Logan would need all the firepower he could get.

He crept around until he got to the staircase. The manor was isolated enough that no streetlights could be seen, but there were security lights all over the building. They tended to be pointed away from the windows but enough light leaked through to allow him to at least see the shapes of everything. And there on the steps, climbing slowly was a tall, muscular figure. Logan stayed still long enough to notice something odd about the way the figure was moving before he moved to tackle the shadow, taser sparking in his hand.

He slammed into the man and realized what was so odd. The person had been ascending the stairs backward. Also strange, whoever it was hadn’t even flinched when the 200 kg superhero had slammed into him. Now worried, Logan pressed the taser to the intruder’s skin and pulled the trigger. “Hahaha, that tickles!”

Well, that voice was familiar. Logan stepped back and turned on the light. “Nightcreeper,” he said dryly.

The lunatic didn’t turn around but he could hear the pout in the other man’s voice. “Aw, Logan! You turned on the lights! Now I have to start all over again!” Damn the man had no indoor voice.

“Kurt, what are you doing here?”

“I just turned in this article to the paper about the ‘Bloody Mary’ legend going around homeless kids and I decided to see if the there was any truth to them.”

Logan was pretty sure he was still half-asleep because that sentence wasn’t parsing. “Doesn’t that legend involve laying the mirror on the floor, covered with sea water and chanting her name? Why are you in my house?”

“It does!” The green man pouted. “But when I tried it nothing happened!”

No surprise there. No one sane would willingly answer a summons sent by the Nightcreeper, not an angel or demon. Hell, why do I listen to the guy?

“So I’ve been trying different variations of the legend all night to see if I could get something to happen.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you are here.”

“The oldest version I’ve found involves walking up the stairs backward in a darkened room while holding a mirror and a candle for light. But the staircases in my apartment building are always lighted. So I thought of your home first.” The invulnerable man clasped his hands together and made puppy eyes at Logan. “May I pretty please with a cherry on top continue my experiment?”

The hero rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Fine. Have fun.” Then he reached over and shut off the light.

“I will!”

“American beer is so tasteless. Isn’t there anything else I could drink?”

“I told you, Ryder. Just skip the beer and drink the whisky instead. Their lagers suck but their bourbon’s not bad.”

“I don’t want whisky. One of us is going to have to pay bail after you tear up the bar and I’ll be too drunk to do that if I’m drinking whisky all night.”

Logan shrugged. “Suit yourself. I intend to enjoy my evening.” He skulled his drink, then waved to attract the bartender’s attention. “Two more and a Shirley Temple for my friend here.”

Kurt glared at him. “A Shirley Temple? Really?”

“Man, if you don’t want to be DD for the night, you’re gonna have to up your game from American beer.”

“We walked here. Neither of us needs to be concerned about staying sober.”

“Hey, aren’t you that reporter from TV?”

Kurt looked up. The woman who had approached him was blonde, blue-eyed and very busty. He straightened up and smiled at her. “As a matter of fact, I am. From You’re WRONG! Unless you were thinking of some other handsome, blue-eyed reporter from New Gotham?”

She beamed at him. “I knew I’d seen you before! Bartender, could you take a picture of us together? My friends’ll be so jealous!” A bored Cardinal leaned over the bar to take the camera and framed the two of them in front of the giant fountain. After passing it back, the blonde resumed the conversation. “So what’s a celebrity like you doing here?”

“This is the hottest nightclub in New Gotham. And I just finished an interview and was jotting down my note while it was still fresh in my mind.”

“Really, so you’re done with work now?” She leaned over to give him a look straight down her cleavage, toying with one yellow curl to ensure his attention was in the right spot. Kurt appreciated the view.

“A few more minutes. Just long enough for someone to powder their nose.”

“Well, I think I need a quick trip to the powder room. But don’t go away. I feel we’ve got a lot to ‘talk’ about.”

“Oh, I won’t.” He blatantly watched her as he sashayed out of the room. Once she was gone (and his notes were recorded and stowed, he was a professional after all), he took out a small canister of breath spray and gave himself a double spritz.

“This is a respectable establishment, not a hookup bar. Do you even know her name?” He turned to see Cobblepot giving him an exasperated look. It wasn’t too different from the look the Penguin gave Nightcreeper whenever they met.

“I never implied it was a hookup bar. But if I want a little company after work, it’s no one’s business but my own.” The blonde was making her way back to them, so Kurt stood up and met her halfway. As they left the club, Kurt tossed a brief wave over to the bar.

“He definitely doesn’t know her name.” Stated Cardinal.

“The playing around would be almost amusing if he wasn’t so obnoxious about it.”

“Oh my God, what did you do? It looks like a massacre in here.” Colombina’s wide blue eyes took in the red gore splattering the small kitchen.

“It’s just tomato sauce!” protested Kurt.

“You’ve got a red stain all over the back of your shirt. How . . . . does that even happen? Did you turn away from the stove just as it exploded?”

“I was so careful this time,” he moaned. “It makes no sense!”

“And finally, for the State of Bavaria, the winner of this year’s Senior Fencing Cup is Kurt Ryder.” The teenager waved at the screaming audience and came up to the stage to accept his trophy. Before going back down, the principal grasped his arm. “Before I conclude this ceremony, I have one more announcement to make. As the Olympics are later this year, tryouts are now starting for the team. According to the judges, the three top fencers from each state senior circuit, assuming they are old enough, may participate. Qualifying trials will be next month at -”

Kurt sat down with a thud as the official started fielding questions from the crowd. He’d have to tell Mama and Marie about this immediately. The trials were unfortunately in the middle of the circus season but the chance to be an Olympic athlete didn’t come around very often. This might be his only opportunity to do something like this.

He went home to a surprise party. “Congratulations! I told you you’d win,” Irene smiled. She and Marie had worked all day to prepare the party for Kurt.

“Yes, Mamma. I should know you’re always right in your predictions.” He kissed her on the cheek.

“And I’ve already arranged for you to stay with the Wagners this summer. You’ll have to help out with their farm when you’re not practicing but they’ll take you to Munich for the trials. And you can move straight in after the Olympics.”

“Jimaine’s gonna be disappointed,” teased Marie. “She was looking forward to doing your ‘Lover’s Act’ again this year.”

“She’s just going to have to live with it.” Last year had been fun, but Jimaine apparently was reading more into the act than Kurt felt. He might have considered pursuing a real relationship with her but while Jimaine was content to be a circus acrobat (no small feat in itself), Kurt wanted more than that. She didn’t understand why he was so interested in attending a Universitaten or was considering leaving Germany at all. He’d even found her trying to tear up his Abitur results. Fortunately, he had stopped her before she did any real damage but the act just solidified his decision that they really wouldn’t be a good couple.

“Maybe you’ll find a cute girlfriend to cook for you in the Olympics. Or maybe after the trials, at the University of Television and Film.”

“He’d better hope so,” Irene muttered. “He’s not going to ever get better at cooking.”

“I’ve been trying,” he protested. “Cooking’s a difficult skill to learn!”

“True,” his sister backed him up. “Miracles have been known to happen.”

He frowned at both of them. “With family like you, who needs enemies?”

#amalgam!verse #kurt ryder #nightcreeper #no timeline at all

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raeofgayshine · 6 years

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I have so many Sanders Sides AU verses (including all those soulmate ones), but there’s two I haven’t posted anything for yet.

One of them has a name and it’s called the Worth The Risk Verse and I already have one story done, working on the second because I feel like it needs to be posted first (as the first one was just mostly a dumb joke) and it’s one of my favorite stories I’ve done, there’s some great Platonic Logince and Logan who is afraid of letting others in because he was hurt so badly and Roman who has been hurt over and over but keeps putting himself out there because he needs to believe it’ll be better and they’re like practically brothers even though they’re completely different, and the whole series is sort of like about the two of them learning that heartache is worth the risk sometimes, which is helped by Patton and Virgil, and also other things life throws at them and it all came from a single dream that I can’t even use half of because the line makes no sense in any real context but I still enjoy it because it gave me this (Like I literally woke up, wrote down the few lines I remember specifically, and then started jotting down information I knew about the verse that I did not consciously think of like it all just existed from that dream). And I don’t know all that much on what can exist inside the main timeline of the verse yet, I have a lot of stuff I want to write that’s just teenage Logince that comes before what I consider the main two stories, which is the one I’m writing now and then the one that will follow it, but nothing so far that comes after (Although I might get inspiration who knows). I really love the verse though, and I love the relationship Logan and Roman have in it, and the things they’ve gotten up to together. Also three out of the four are nonbinary and Logan is trans. Patton is genderfluid and uses shifting pronouns, Virgil is a demiboy and uses he/him, and Ro is just nonbinary and uses they/them. So that’s a fun aspect to write as well.

The second AU I’m working on has a name TBD, but right now I just have it saved as the Orphans AU because, well three of the boys are orphans and Virgil’s parents are just dicks but close enough (Also featuring Foster Dad and eventual Adoptive Dad, Thomas). I mostly only have the background worked out so far for this one, but I do roughly know what I want the first story to be (the main, multi chaptered one). But I do have the characters worked out and I love each of the boys so much.

Like there’s fucking bamf Mom friend Logan who’s the oldest at 12, is trans (because that’s my favorite thing and you can fight me), and has been in the system his whole life. He’s a fucking genius, only cares about the rules that actually make sense to him, will do literally anything to protect his family, and at any given point has about 17 escape plans in case something goes wrong, never afraid to speak his mind especially in defense of his boys, and loves them all to pieces. He spent weeks teaching himself and the others sign language after Virgil showed up

Then there’s Patton who has been in the system since he was a few months old, met Logan when he was like two and immediately got attached (the two are literally almost never apart and most people assume they’re twins), resident Dad friend Patton wants to make everyone feel safe and at home, has a heart too big for this world, loves everyone but is especially protective over his famILY and is willing to fight for them at any given moment. Taught himself to bake with Logan’s help to make it easier for Roman to adjust, but cannot cook to save his life. Patton almost always has a bright smile and a positive attitude that balances Logan’s more realistic nature. Pat is also always ready to cause trouble when necessary.

Roman is the baby and also maybe my favorite, he’s 7, he’s overly dramatic, constantly has his head in the clouds but a lot of that is just because of how he copes. He was raised for five years by a single Mom who was abandoned by everyone for getting pregnant as a teen but worked her ass off to give Ro a decent life and she always took everything that came with a smile, looked on the bright side, and Roman tries to do that for the others now that she’s gone. He’s also deeply afraid of the others “leaving” him like his mom did, which sometimes leads to him being really clingy, but the others rarely mind. Roman likes to play the part of the protector even though he’s the youngest, he dreams of being able to defend others the way Lo and Pat do, which is probably what leads to him bonding with Virgil so much. Patton reminds Roman a lot of his mother, which most of the time Roman loves (although he never talks about his mom much). When he has dreams about her or just starts missing her a lot he usually goes to Logan though (Which may or may not have something to do with the first time they really bonded when Logan found Roman alone crying and held him for hours despite the fact that up until then they had only ever argued).

Virgil is 8, he’s also the newest to the famILY as he only came to the group home after his parents were arrested for drug use. He was only supposed to be there temporarily (and like initially was) until his parents were like proven fit to take him back, but after they do Virgil tries to run off and long story short they’re arrested for child abuse and Virgil is removed from them for good. Virgil suffers from bad anxiety, doesn’t trust people a lot, he also doesn’t talk unless he really really trusts someone (which is why the boys learn sign language to communicate with him easier). It wasn’t easy for the others to get close to V because he was terrified of everything when he first arrived, but slowly they make little steps of progress until Virgil is deeply attached to them all. All three of the others are super protective over him, even Ro, which Virgil finds equal parts confusing and unnecessary but he loves it for the most part. He’s the closest to Patton but he really does love the whole trio, they were his first famILY and they’re like his security blanket. Once he gets comfortable with them Virgil also becomes like surprisingly affectionate, not always in the super obvious ways that Roman is, but given the chance he does like to spend most of his time in some sort of physical contact with the others even if it’s just like sitting close to each other, it helps keep him grounded and feel safe. He also wears an oversized hoodie because it provides a similar comfort of safety.

And they’re all such a cohesive famILY, they’re siblings in every way but blood and the thought of being separated is something they’re so against that Logan has a large number of plans for running away just in case they do try to separate them, Patton is briefed on all of them just in case. Pat and Lo really do look at Virgil and Roman as if they’re their responsibility, especially Logan, to the point where Logan never exactly got to act like a kid because when they were younger he had to take care of Patton and now Virgil and Roman, so when Thomas eventually takes them in one of the things he has to do is teach Logan that he doesn’t have to be an adult anymore which is really hard but so worth it in the end to see Lo light up like a kid on Christmas when they go to the planetarium and Logan lets himself for once not worry if Roman was bored or if Virgil was scared or if Patton was still there and instead just focuses on his own wonder and excitement and childish joy.

And anyways it’s basically just an AU about four boys who had made a famILY and put their defenses up to the outside world learning to trust again and open up and be the kids they were and live without the fears that normally plagued them like other kids did, but they’ll always be closer than normal siblings and especially Patton and Logan who were basically raised together will always rely on each other more than normal but over time they learn they can trust others too and that’s important.

So yeah I’m really in love with my two newest Aus and I can’t wait to share them once the stories are done. Stuff from Worth The Risk should be coming pretty soon but the orphan verse is probably going to have to wait a little bit at least until I finish a few other things I’ve left open

#ravenpuff rambles #ravenpuff writes #Worth The Risk Verse

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khoistop100 · 7 years

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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