#carbonne

Tati (playing Seraph): The Tarrasque's not evil, it's just programmed to mindlessly destroy. If we do an Arcana check and it seems okay, can Una have it?

Adam: I'm not convinced.

Andy (playing Una): *hopeful* Arcana check.

DM: It's imbued with a similar energy to that which you've felt all over the mountain, but it doesn't feel threatening.

Andy: I want to tap very, very lightly on the jar.

DM: The tiny gravel golem wakes up and immediately starts shaking its fists and snarling at you.

Andy: I whisper in Primordial, "I'm not going to hurt you." And I would like to softly sing it a lullaby, also in Primordial.

DM: It gradually stops thrashing and seems to be soothed by your lullaby. It begins to sway gently in time with your voice. When you stop, it slowly places its tiny hands palm-up against the glass.

Andy: *breathless* "I'm Una. Do you have a name?"

DM: There's a pause, and then it rumbles very quietly, "I am Carbonne."

Andy: "Where do you come from?"

DM: "I only remember this room."

Andy: "Would you like to see more of the world?"

DM: "Yes. Very much."

Tati: I wave at Carbonne.

DM: It tentatively waves back.

Andy: Guys. Guys. I love Carbonne more than life itself.

Tati: Aw, go on. Have you ever seen Una care this much about anything?

Adam: I grumble, "Fine. Don't make me regret this."

DM: Ioreth smiles blandly. "I'm monitoring the situation."

Una (genasi artificer): Maria said you would be the best person to ask about it. What do you know about it?

DM: She says airily, "Last time it woke, a group of great heroes put it back in the ground, as always."

Seraph (siren sorcerer): *sharp look*

Billie (gnome ardent): Last time? Were you... there?

DM: "Not there there, but I was..."

Una: Alive?

DM: "In a sense... The simple answer is yes."

Billie: How fucking old are you?

Kjell (half-elf barbarian): Who are you?

Seraph: More importantly, you know when it was last awake. When is it due to wake up?

DM: She inspects a perfectly manicured nail. "Well, I haven't been keeping track... What signs have you encountered?"

Thaddeus: A whole town has been having nightmares for three hundred years.

Seraph: And the mountain is imbued with elemental energy.

DM: "I see. Have the rocks or earth begun to come alive?"

Party: *looks at Una*

Una: Oh god. Carbonne! Yes. I'm a parent now.

DM: She looks nonplussed.

Una: *pulls out jar containing a tiny gravel golem*

DM: She says nonchalantly, "In that case, it must be getting close. If it has begun to animate its surroundings, I would expect it to wake in the next hundred years."

Seraph: Fuck.

Kjell: So it's going to happen within our lifetimes.

Andy (playing Una): Yeah! Although now I'm really glad you suggested doing Storage first so I got to meet Carbonne sooner. Uh, in case Lab 2 is dangerous I nip out and ask Thaddeus to look after Carbonne for me.

Hamish (playing Thaddeus): Sure.

Andy: I tell it, "I'm going into an area that might not be safe, so I'm going to leave you with my friend Thaddeus for a few minutes. Is that okay? I'll be back soon."

DM: Carbonne says, "Okay. Come back."

Andy: My heart, guys! Okay, Lab 2.

DM: Lab 2 also has ten tanks along the far wall, but this time only one of them is occupied.

Andy: I look for this room's chalkboard.

DM: The chalkboard talks about how this experiment aimed to try to increase the subject's power level by incorporating material from the Far Realm with the previous experiment.

Tati: Don't like that.

Rach (playing Ashiok): Far Realm?

Tati: Mind flayers, aboleths, beholders. A totally different universe; genuinely alien and with the unrelenting goal of subjugating and/or destroying our universe.

DM: The blackboard declares that this experiment is a failure and should not be replicated. Because of the Far Realm influence, the subject is far too intelligent to control and possesses an implacable hatred for anything from the natural world. It was too dangerous to try and kill it, so it's been enclosed and left here.

Tati: I look at the jar. Is this one asleep too?

DM: The creature in the jar is staring at you while it mashes itself against the inside of the jar, desperately trying to get to you. It looks furious.

Tati: *recoils* Oh god. I look away immediately. "Billie, do not telepath with it. It could mind-control you."

Adam (playing Billie): I'm rolling a Wisdom save to see whether I heed Seraph's warning or not... Aw, I don't telepath with it.

ID: J'te veux toi sinon c'est die die die

Anxiety, via romance, via rap, via flamenco, via Spain, via France, via TikTok...

[6.00]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: There’s not one factor that makes this the French tube de l’été; it’s a perfect smattering of smaller virtues. Carbonne, a relatively unknown Montpelliérain rapper turned TikTok hit maker, doesn’t really seem to know what to do with his overnight fame, but it does seem clear that his 5+ years in the industry have allowed him to crystallize a sound informed by Southern French rap, Euro-pop, and Spanish guitars. “Imagine” is also a summer smash because it’s about the high and low expectations of the season. On the one hand, Carbonne’s girl is dreaming of drinking Portuguese wine beneath beach umbrellas and traveling the world; on the other hand, Carbonne is paranoid about the relationship falling apart at any moment. People everywhere on the internet seem to relate, making pop, reggae, rock, and of course sped-up versions of the track. What they're really doing, though, and the real reason this is the song of the summer, is shouting the monstrosity of a chorus together in a group, just like in the studio recording. [7]

Kylo Nocom: Three years have passed since C. Tangana made his bid for recognition through the artsy cosmopolitanism of El Madrileño. Despite the occasionally embarrassing excess of that album's cinematic gestures, Tangana's subsequent Tiny Desk Concert succeeded by highlighting the plethora of collaborators singing and clapping together. Carbonne's "Imagine" is on a similar wavelength: not only is it in the flamenco fusion vein Tangana previously mined, but its success was aided by a TikTok video highlighting his friends singing along to a hook primed for virality. The track is an outlier in the French rapper's catalog: prior releases flirted with house and 2-step crossovers between stretches of fairly standard pop-rap. But the song is contemporary with artists who similarly track in Andalusian musical influence, such as TIF; the pivot has the slight stench of marketable novelty. While it's too early to tell whether the success of "Imagine" will result in a hard launch of Carbonne as a Proper Artist, his actual rapping is fairly disposable. Still, though, those gang vocals aren't nothing; one of life's greatest joys is singing a song alongside the person who wrote it. [5]

TA Inskeep: Carbonne sounds like a perfectly nice boy rapping over flamenco guitars and handclaps with all of his friends backing him on the chorus, which is exactly the problem. There's no push here, no pull; "Imagine" just dully exists. [3]

Nortey Dowuona: Rodolphe Babignan, a flamenco musician from Paris, plays the guitar lines that thread this song. His guitar is exciting and smooth: chords played slowly during the verses with little licks trickling from each side of the mix, lilting during the second verse before settling into the first pattern, then clustering and swirling around the soft drum programming. Babignan's bridge licks feel so bright and bubbly that the loud group chant of despair and paranoia, the flip side of love, barely registers unless you are paying attention. [8]

Katherine St. Asaph: There's a loud banger trapped beneath the arrangement, thumping at the walls to break free. Carbonne is coolly determined not to let it. [4]

Jonathan Bradley: Montpelier rapper Carbonne isn't a reggaeton artist, but "Imagine" draws some influence from that sound: the murmured vocal is reminiscent of J Balvin's conspiratorial cadence, for instance, and this lively flamenco guitar figure would sound great over dembow. It could almost suit a sidewalk café or chic wine bar too, but the lively handclap rhythm keeps things from becoming too genteel. The heady whimsy is apposite, though: Carbonne, caught in a reverie of travel and romance, knows a girl who hopes to run away with him, and he seems troubled by how attractive the idea is.  [7]

Ian Mathers: I'm always relying on the translations of others for these, but there's just something so intensely romantic to me (especially in context of the rest of the lyrics) about "we're talking about living facing the sea, I can see that she's not a homebody." The whole song is this combination of being swept up in love with someone and imagining life and travel together, with maybe even an implication of being willing to leave one's own comfort zone for the beloved's sake, while at the same time being the kind of person who is immediately suspicious of losing what possibly feels like undeserved good fortune (or maybe I'm projecting). That heady, queasy seesaw between feeling on top of the world and borrowing trouble from a possible future, over such a sunny, pleasingly busy arrangement, hits surprisingly hard. [8]

Brad Shoup: These last couple weeks some apropos Lloyd Banks lines have been going through my head: "Her panties wet over fame, fell in love with my chain/I wonder if I wasn't an entertainer, would she remain?" I mean..... no???? "Wanna Get to Know You" is a perfect single for many reasons, one of which is that it captures the anxiety of the famous himbo. The swaggy yet devout 6'5" tight end, the regional rapper with the fresh advance, the belovedly bewildered streamer whose aesthetic scale stretches from epic to so cursed, bro: guys who have devoted every waking minute to becoming what people want them to be, suddenly wondering if they're loved for the right reasons. I adore that shit. I also adore flamenco pop, with its combination of hazy sensuality and technical rigidity. Carbonne repeatedly swamps the standard flamenco vocal interjections with a bro chorus that sounds like a terrace chant, or maybe a broker protest. The compás clicks like a countdown, as the singer grapples with a girlfriend who seems to like him for him. The title lands, at the end, like a punchline. [7]

Alfred Soto: Justin Bieber, meet flamenco. [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: At first, I suspected that I'd find this bauble of acoustic hip-hop much more annoying if it were in a language I understood — but even after reading a translation I find it breezy and inoffensive. That I like it as much as I do is perhaps an appreciation for Carbonne's ability to meet the moment: this is just as frothy and light as it needs to be, unburdened by the need to make much of a point. [6]

In which Telbi does not have great job satisfaction but also didn't really want to talk to anyone after the day she's had, thanks dad.

~~

 There were strangers in her home. Telbi snuck in through the kitchen, lifting enough food for a quiet meal in her room on the way. She had no interest in meeting more people. Particularly those who would want more from her, which – no one came by the house without wanting something, even if it was just a social visit. Her father could field that.

 Telbi wanted nothing more to do with people today. It was bad enough her boss expecting her to play nice and explain everything in exhausting detail to prospective investors that really didn’t understand what they were asking about. Why she couldn’t just be left to get on with her work, left to her own devices, she’d never know (she knew; of course she knew, but it had been years and honestly she knew that gnomes could hold grudges but this was ridiculous).