#which makes them harder to read at open mics and stuff but im happy about it

[andromerot]

i dont really post most of my poetry here because i lean heavily into it irl and wouldnt like to translate it to english anyway but i think ive found my first poetic device thats all my own and inspired by no one specific i remember and im so happy about it

[worldsfirstgayknife]

HI YES I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR MORE ABOUT KNICKLE

christmas present to myself; infodumping about knickle

OK SO first of all their surface level dynamic of 'two gamer bros, one is grumpy and one is goofy' is already excellent. i can make so many gamer jokes. i can make so many bro jokes. its amazing.

but their FULL dynamic makes me go bonkers and become gay. 'two bros. one is an emotionally repressed jerk with a secret soft side thats trying to better himself. the other is a goofy and ditzy gamer whos mellowed out due to a traumatic experience and is trying to recover. the jerk cares about the gamer to a degree he hasn't shown to any other character on the show, and the gamer, due to the advice given to him by the jerk, has been able to make an effort towards moving on from his old friend that sent him into a depressive spiral. they also play video games together' like THATS SO GOOD *passes out*

i started liking knickle before episode 13 + 14 came out when the only meaningful connection they'd really had was the scene from episode 7. it was mostly me being like "knife was nice to him and seemed to genuinely care about helping him even though he usually doesn't do that. kinda gay ngl." which was pretty awesome of me. but now that knife berated taco about abandoning pickle and asked mic to say hi to pickle on his behalf... that scene was definitely not a one off thing of him doing a random act of kindness. he cares about the pickle and still thinks about him.

AND IT MAKES SENSE THAT HE DOES!! knife is the most critical of the show and takes the most note of the way that it affects people. and pickle is arguably the character that has undeservedly been hurt the most by the show. knife is like you deserve better than the world has given you bro. i love you bro. but even besides knowing and caring about what pickles going thru, given that they hung out together inbetween seasons and that he wanted to say hi to him, knife seems to just. genuinely like pickle and enjoy his company. which is probably more reason why he would care about helping him out. cries.

so besides the fact that knife genuinely cares about and wants to help pickle, he's also benefited from being so willing to do so. the episode 7 scene was the first time in the show he had extended kindness to anyone, and in the two other notable times he's extended kindness and given advice to people... id argue its because they reminded him of pickle?

my friend rib did a sick knife analysis which kinda goes over this but like. knife notices suitcase distressed over the way shes been treated by her alliance. kinda like pickle. and its even more more obvious with mic, he's more adamant about mic getting out of the alliance because he knows what SPECIFICALLY taco did to her last alliance member, and doesn't want her to do that again. but he can never seem to be as genuine as when he gave more direct advice (albeit as a metaphor) to pickle. his advice to suitcase is very vague (wtf does make your presence known even MEAN bro) and their conversation is more him pointing out the behavior of the alliance that he thought was apparent. and with mic, he sees his efforts as favors, and a combination of spiting taco and keeping mic from going thru what pickle did. pickle is where knife's advice character arc started, and pickle is where it's presumably ended (is that what you said to pickle, say hi to pickle for me). pickle makes knife want to be a better person. cries again.

and though theres less to say and analyze since he hasnt. had any frickign lines for 6 years (im so excited for letters to get a comic dub you have no idea), pickle has benefited from knife being there for him and giving him helpful advice. he replaced the photo of him and taco and has been more willing to forgive and trust, like with balloon, and if not for knife, there's... no telling if anyone would've noticed what he was going through and tried to help him, or if he'd be willing to open up to OJ after the events of episode 7 kept him from doing so. which makes me so frickin sad man.

and this is jsut me projecting and being soft. but. the thought of, after all the shit he went through on and after the show, after being pushed aside by everyone, pickle getting to be with someone that changed for the better and cares about him from a place of genuine compassion? as opposed to taco, who changed for the worse and only pretended to care about him for her own gain? holy moly im gay. pickle deserves a happy ending after being treated so badly, and knife deserves one too. and i think it would be so sweet if a happy ending for them meant they'd have it together.

THIS IS MOSTLY JSUT MY DUMB THOUGHTS ON THE CONTENT IN THE SHOW rather than like. headcanons like a normal person. oh god. basically despite them being apart they care about each other, make each other better people, and their relationship makes for plenty of fun and comedy as well as a lot of tenderness and mutual love + support.

also ive honestly? kinda come to terms with it maybe being harder to get into knickle due to the lack of content in the show. and its definitely my favorite partially because i love overanalyzing stuff and take a lot away from things that are implied or subtext. which is also partially why i love pickle, hes has a lot of cool emotional stuff goin on that hasn't really been explored and i find a lot of joy in thinkin about him!! anyways if you read all of this i am so sorry

[familyvisionis2020]

Day 1 - Asheville (2 of 2)

We got to The Mothlight around 6 and loaded in our gear. The sound guy is kind, learns or names, gives more bass mix in the monitor when the singer asks for it. I see our band name on the big movie broadsheet sized monthlong show poster and feel excited. In Asheville we take a walk and make fun of the murals, I tell the band about the Asheville 11 riots and the vegan restaurant that used to hook us up and memories of the anarchist scene that fees antique on my tongue. Kabir passes the rose water spray and so I take off my glasses and spray my face.

There’s a green room beneath the stage floor with a ping pong table and two dozen Battle Star Galactica VHS tapes and two water bottles with pee and an abandoned rocks glass. I beat Kabir in ping pong, Jeremy beats me, I think about the basketball game I quit last month because I habitually got too competitive and hurt or upset someone every week for weeks. I’m still on the group text for that game but I have it muted but I still read the texts.

We go upstairs and I read the first chapter of The Left Hand of Darkness over the course of an hour on a dusty velveteen mustard colored couch. Labor and Jeremy and John socialize and I’m happy to be left with my book, the sunset comes, the bartender arrives with a fuzzy jacket on, turns down the lights, puts on a playlist, takes plastic wrap off of limes. I’m able to get my friend from Carrboro who’s visiting in on the guest list which is nice. I get to share the kit of the headliner which means nicer than usual gear and mic’ed drums too which sounds so solid and big when I kick. I bring my own breakables though: snare, cymbals, sticks.

I find out there’s a few arcade cabinets in the back, make a b-line to the 1989 Atari Tetris cab. It’s not my favorite Tetris iteration but it’s a good one, joystick and two rotate buttons, kind of a soft high score situation because you can feed the machine quarters and prolong a game indefinitely. The longer the game goes the harder it gets though, and I’m rusty so it’s still a challenge. It’s a joy to play. The ecstasy of order, the familiar grid and cascade; the solid thunk of the joy stick isn’t unlike the satisfying fullness of a mic’ed kick drum. With a dollar I put up a casual second place high score and stop short because the opening band, Yeller, is playing. The lead singer is a femme with a merit colored crushed velvet cape, exaggerated mascara that I would call ‘corpse paint lite,’ dainty lace socks, torn fishnets, middle length brown hair that’s pretty but that has split ends. They remind me of how I looked when I dressed femme in Philly in 2015. I miss the way my girlfriend used to treat me when I dressed like that; I don’t miss the way most other people treated me. I miss feeling superior to boys who dress the way I dress now. I think about whether or not I’m much of a feminist as I was since I have conceded the battleground of the aesthetic, since I won’t show up for that fight anymore. I feel a wisp if fear and I am very comfortable. Earlier Jeremy Sharéd his kimchi with me; he said sometimes he just eats a whole jr in a sitting. Their band is hard to describe, it is rock, there is some bass solos. It does not sound like black metal or power pop or glam rock which are the genres my mind assumed the singer’s outfit signaled. The vocals remind me of folk punk, which in my narrow experience tracks with Asheville. Here are people in the front of the crowd bouncing around to the music and they look like they’re having so much fun and I try to let myself dance how they are, I find myself stiff but not too stiff to bounce a little. My body hasn’t done this movement pattern in a long time. In 2010 I would’ve called these people ‘muppets,’ a derisive epithet used primarily to excoriate such people for their putative positivity, lack of dourness, loud outfits and their bubbly interpersonal comportment, something like crunchy twee. Or is it deportment? I’m unbound by rigor typing with my thumbs in the van on the way to Knoxville. It’s nice to write slower and imperfectly.

The opener mentions us before finishing up which fees nice. We set up, slapdash soundchceck, I set up the breakables, change into shorts, fill up a water bottle, settle in to the cage of hardware, make it to the throne only after nearly falling over the cables slopped over the stage like black spaghetti. Big black electric udon, and is it the amps or the guitars who eat the noodles?

Before I know it Kabir has done his intro banter and my body knows it’s time to start the set, and it’s my responsibility as drummer to count off the first song and luckily we practice plenty and so my body knows just what to do and we’re playing and it’s smooth and tight and I let myself loosen up and I head bang and make faces and bounce all around. I know I don’t need to but I think the crowd likes it and I know the band likes it and as long as I don’t get too carried away and forget where we are in the song then it’s a great way to drum as so fun and exhilarating for me. I’m not so nervous like I was last tour. The set is smooth, over before I know it. I pack up quick and try to be courteous by coming back on the stage to ask Kabir if I can help him break down and I carry his combo off stage and get some water. The set was 20 minutes and my shirt is soaked with sweat, it’s a little gross but I feel proud like I have proof I worked hard for my band and the crowd.

I go back to check out the headliner, Yawpers, mostly to be polite and not at all because I am interested in hearing them play. I catch up with my friend from Carrboro before it gets too loud to talk, he tells me about when he was in his early 20s trying to teach his daughter to potty train and not doing a good job because he didn’t understand, anatomically and ergonomically, how exactly girls peeing worked. I like hearing about the story and when the band cuts the conversation short it feels like a mercy because I don’t have to respond or find a way out of the conversation. I wish that I didn’t treat conversations like a trap. I want to not be scheming for a way out of connecting with people. It’s something I can work on improving. I bounce around to the headliner, they sound like Led Zeppelin I guess, no bass at all, cool effects on the vocals modulated by a hdand-operates effectsbpedal mounted on the mic stand. After ~2.5 songs I slip into the back room where he Tetris cab is, pull up a stool, feed the machine 3 quarters and settle in. I push earplugs in and wipe sweat from my palms onto my jeans. I feel really really happy. I love playing Tetris so much. I forbade it for the most part in the last two years, one of dozens of activities I associate with a less stable past, a throwaway activity in a life where nowadays I believe my time is valuable, where I avoid ‘wasting’ time, which is the only way I used to spend my time. It is silly and pointless to play Tetris and I am the best at, here and now. I’m in the zone, my mind feels sharp, the joystick is responsive, I shake off the rust and I am knocking pieces around and finessing rotations in a groove, in the pocket, rhythmic and precise ad drumming, plus with visual proof. I lose track of time! That never happens lately anymore it seems like. Out of the corner of my eye I see Jeremy has trickled in and is spectating from a respectful distance. I love this, I love showing a small audience my curious pointless skill, I play harder and focus and do well. I get out of tight jams with ease. My play is a silk tightrope, or like watching a diligent curling pushbroom operator and the stone slides just exactly right into place. And I do that over and over and when I see my score surpass the high score I point to the score on the screen and later I find out Jeremy captured this on his phone and that makes me feel special and talented and seen.

I finally die but only after I’ve beaten the old high score by 100,000 points, a solid and respectable showing of ~488,000 over 3 credits and about an hour of play. I’ve gotten more than a million points on this same cabinet at the Quarter Horse in Durham but it took more than Han two hours and closer to $5 in quarters if I remember right. I get off the stool and Kabir is losing his mind in that warm exited way he does over my play, tells me I’m incredible, he kept thinking I would die and I kept not dying. This reminds me of how I felt about myself almost exactly two years ago. I feel happy and healthy and hale and held and whole, Kabir gives me dap and somehow Yawpers has not finished yet. There’s a weirdly long spoken word soliloquy from the frontman about his cocaine habit, ex wife, their divorce, some other stuff. Evidently this band had a write up in Pitchfork describing their sound as ‘an expansive vision of Rock.’ Expansive is the watchword as their set tips the scales at about 75 minutes and mercifully ends. I get to introduce my friend from Carrboro to Kabir and watch them connect which is lovely.

We get our cut of door plus extra plus we sold merch so we leave in the black which to me is a shock bc im used to playing show costing money. Our band is good and people really liked it and danced and came up to us after and gave what get to me like sincere earnest praise.