i-just-like-commenting:

ghostridetheship:

wannabanauthor:

I think Shades figured out Tilda’s parentage the night he met her. That’s probably why he never asked Mariah why she never told him. After they were introduced and Shades went downstairs with Che, he was staring hard at Tilda. It wasn’t jealousy. I think he was trying to figure out why Mariah never told him. And then he probably realized that Tilda looked a lot like Uncle Pete.

He’s very observant and good and putting two and two together.

I don’t think he did. 

(I really hope he didn’t.) All that stuff happened before he knew anything about anything and it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge in the community/streets. If he did, I’d imagine he’d have been way more cautious with and sensitive to Mariah. I feel like he would have then understood her mistrust of and failure to fully love him, why she was drinking so much. I think he would have stopped romanticizing the night she killed Cornell in, unbeknownst to him, a straight up PSTD episode.

And frankly, if he knew and still went on to choke her out and call her a crazy bitch, then throw the whole Shades away.

100% agreed, no way did Shades knew about anything related to Mariah’s rape. He came in at the tail-end of her murder of Cornell, and likely assumed that “I didn’t want it!” was in reference to his criminal behavior on her behalf. That was, after all, why he was planning to kill Cornell.

It’s very obvious that Ma Mabel kept that secret close in the family. Cornell must’ve known (and I will never get the whole “he’s so sympathetic!” fan reaction when his final words were slut-shaming a rape victim), Pete and Mabel knew, but otherwise? The Johnsons most likely thought that Tilda was regular born out of wedlock, Shades would’ve been about 8 or 9 when this happened and utterly clueless, and Tilda didn’t look that much like Pete; in the lie that she believed, she assumed that she took after her mother rather than her lighter-skinned “dad.”

I’m pretty sure Ridenhour was the only outsider that Mariah confided in because as her first boyfriend and amicable ex she trusted him at the time. Nobody else knew. Shades’ concerns about Tilda came more from an unknown player coming into the business as well as how Mariah’s behavior changed once Tilda came around. Could Tilda, as a new age doctor, really be trusted with their secrets? (no) Would trying to reconnect with her distract Mariah from running the business properly? (yes) Was trying to reconnect with Tilda making Mariah distance herself from him to be more “presentable” to her daughter? (yes) All of that is more than enough to explain Shades’ behavior towards Tilda.