I Hate My Art Style Sometimes :///

ur first and last recent emojis are ur gender now. mine is 🅱👨‍❤‍💋‍👨

Geta Headcanons

Geta always has a plan. In fact, he usually has two, three, four plans in the back of his mind. His brain is never not working; he’s always watching, always anticipating his and everyone else’s next move. He’s got it all down, he knows every exit in every room in the palace, he always has his back to the wall, he wears his sturdiest rings just in case he has to lash out. He’s thin, lanky even, but he figures he’s been on the receiving end of enough punches from his father to know how to land one himself.

Every blink, every flick of a finger, every word that comes out just a little bit off, he notices it. He sees how people watch him, but he watches them right back, and he sees it all. Things maybe they don’t even realize they’re doing. But Geta sees it, analyzes it, his mind spinning with reasons for why. Why do the senators fiddle with their robes when he is speaking? Why does Lucilla pause slightly before she answers his questions? Why does Tegula’s lip twitch whenever Geta adjusts his laurels? He’s got a million answers for each question, and not one of those answers makes him feel any better.

Geta doesn’t sleep well. He never has. He has trouble falling asleep and then staying asleep. As an adult, he grinds his teeth so badly he’s had one removed at the back of his mouth. As a child, he’d stare at Caracalla, passed out and snoring, completely oblivious to the world around him. Geta envied him for it. He still does.

Caracalla. It’s not entirely Caracalla’s fault he’s ill, Geta knows that. Geta isn’t even sure Caracalla knows he’s ill most of the time. Geta pities him as much as he loves him. If he thinks about it too much, he feels his throat seizes up and he has to close his eyes. He hasn’t cried in a long time.

Geta layers on the cuffs, stacks his rings, slathers his face with make up. Geta does not always like being himself. The thicker the eye shadow, the more elaborate his robes, the more 'Emperor' he looks, the less he sees himself and the less others can see him too, he thinks. He hopes. He doesn’t always feel that way, not when he is standing in the middle of a room, playing his part, and then something or someone goes off script and he’s left naked and exposed, a fool.

When that happens, Geta broods. He paces, he fiddles with those same rings he layered on for protection. He replays the moments over and over and over and over and over in his head, he can’t stop himself. His stomach burns and he’s found himself on the ground a few times, curled up and sweating, blinking back hot tears and swallowing bile. He’s pulled out hair before, he’s made himself bleed with his own fingernails, and so now he cuts them short.

I got tired and went onto photoshop and my friend told me to post what I made so

> THE JESTER

A Crash Course to Kendrick's Super Bowl Performance, from a Black Woman

Note: this does NOT go in depth into all of the song's lyrics. I don't have time to recount two decades of his discography. This is just a summary of the performance itself.

Let's start with the first visual we get:

UNCLE SAM - most notably recognized from WWII American wartime propaganda, Uncle Sam is the personification of American patriotism and freedom. The term "uncle" is also evocative of Uncle Tom from Uncle Tom's Cabin, an abolitionist book that aided in inciting the Civil War. Uncle is also a very common term (both endearment and derogatory) towards Black men (eg. "unc"). Samuel L Jackson was fantastic.

Uncle Sam also resembles a circus ringleader, notable for my next point:

THE GREAT AMERICAN GAME - no, not Super Bowl. The GAG is us the people being pitted against each other: through late-stage capitalism, through the culture war, through class warfare, through being built of the backs of slaves. We are all players in the GAG because none of us on this site were the oligarchs seated at the inauguration.

This is also seen as Kendrick's stage was a Play Station controller. Not only did it remind of circus rings visually, but it was a game battle stage. The Great American Game is a battle royale of the commoners for the amusement of the rich whites.

Remember the foods / Them color was tin and brown / But now they 100 and blue - For this I'll just say, look what the last election said about lowering the price of eggs... and look at the prices now.

The revolution about to be televised / You picked the right time / But the wrong guy - Election 2024 once more.

THE FLAG DANCERS - yes, the dancers formed the US flag... off of the backs of Black people. Not a single white person in sight, and that's true of the cotton pickers in the fields. Plantations are part of how the US came to economic prominence after being a "backwater" colony. Remember tobacco? Cotton? Our bloodlines do.

The red and blue dancers are also notable for representing the Crips and Bloods, two infamous street gangs. The dance in Not Like Us is the Crip Walk. I recommend researching more on your own time about them, but just know they are a large part of the stereotype of Black people being "ghetto."

TOO LOUD, TOO RECKLESS, TOO GHETTO. Do you really know how to play the game? - This is exactly what Black people, especially Black men, get told all the time. It's why we change our names on resumes if they sound "too Black." It's why we codeswitch in non-Black company. This is especially rich considering how non-Black people love our culture and love to make money off of us, as the latter part of the quote points to. And it's even more profound during the Super Bowl-- the NFL is majority Black players.

STREET LIGHT A CAPELLA -- "thug" stereotype dancers to counteract the a capella connotations, with Uncle Sam then saying that Kendrick figured out "bringing other street guys around being a culture cheat code." Yes, this is a direct hit at Drake (listen to "Not Like Us") but also politically. Look up "model minority". Notably I would point to Candace Owens, or the Miami Venezuelan political group that's been in the news recently, especially as this directly led to Kendrick being surrounded by...

DANCERS IN WHITE -- it's white America. That's... that's the allegory.

NOT LIKE US TEASER -- Kendrick says "Not Like Us" is "their favorite song." -> he means white people specifically here. It comes after he's surrounded by all white dancers, the women around him who are his call and response are also in white (my opinion, they represent the industry). He's saying "Not Like Us" is the favorite of yts because it is about BLACK MEN FIGHTING. This again is reflected in the video game stage and ringleader Uncle Sam.

SZA -- instead of giving what they want, we see SZA. She's one of Drake's exes and Kendrick has always supported her.

ALL THE STARS -- This was in the first Black Panther movie, which I recommend you watch. Rest in Power Chadwick. Notably, this movie was incredibly mainstream as a major Marvel movie, and then we have Uncle Sam say...

"THAT'S WHAT AMERICA WANTS: NICE AND CALM. DON'T MESS THIS UP" -- translation: Marvel (the industry, America, etc.) wanted a safe, semi-pop song because white American likes safe pop songs, not Kendrick's usual heavy rap style about his life as a Black man! Don't mess up what you've got going mainstream for having this "Black rap feud" with Drake, who is an R&B model minority to white people because he's safe.

So what does Kendrick say?

IT'S A CULTURAL DIVIDE / IMMA GET IT ON THE FLOOR -- He was warned not to be political or apologetically Black for this Super Bowl performance, but he is using this big stage opportunity to speak out.

40 ACRES AND A MULE / THIS IS BIGGER THAN THE MUSIC -- 40 acres and a mule are what the freed slaves were promised. Instead, this land went to white sharecroppers. Research Jim Crow laws.

THEY TRIED TO RIG THE GAME / BUT YOU CAN'T FAKE INFLUENCE -- rig the election, rig the industry like with model minority Drake, rig the Great American Game with culture war to distract from active class warfare.

NOT LIKE US -- the only thing I'll mention because it made me holler is Serena Williams crip walking on Drake's metaphorical grave. She's another one of his exes.

TURN THE TV OFF -- exactly like he said! The TV is a distraction, the Super Bowl is a distraction, the mainstream news is often a distraction. Turn it off and get with your people!

GAME OVER — could not see this on my stream but at the end of the performance, the lights in the stadium spelled this out. The world is watching, America…

In conclusion, Kendrick Lamar is a visionary and thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

@official-graveyard-posts

do you think truckers realize that theyre dentists of highways

i would like to formally declare that geta and caracalla cannot be villains because:

big brown doe eyes (geta)

malewife tendencies (caracalla)

poor baby has syphilis (caracalla)

poor baby has to babysit and share his empire with his brother who has syphilis (geta)

slutty (both)

would kill for the people they love, even if that includes killing the people they love (both)

sexually non-discriminatory (definitely caracalla, but probably both if we’re being honest)

single dad to a very adorable monkey (caracalla)

single dad to his sick brother (geta)

big fans of watching sweaty men go at it in a huge arena (both)

just wants everyone to acknowledge his pretty rings (geta)

hot as fuck, but in a menacing kind of way (geta)

brothers by chance, besties by choice (both)

girls emperors just wanna have fun (both)

confused as to why everyone doesn’t love them as much as they love themselves, and also incredibly hurt by that fact (both)

first people to ever celebrate brat summer (both)

king of having homoerotic tension with people who genuinely hate him and want to see him dead (geta)

adorably excitable, especially when bloodshed occurs, but like, hey, we all have our quirks (both)

big himbo-in-denial energy, doesn’t know poetry, but pretends he’s still very smart boy, very brilliant emperor (geta)

they’ll work it out in the remix (both)

it would seem that emerald fennell and her perfect cast created saltburn exclusively for me and 6 other people on tumblr to go absolutely bonkers, crying-in-a-corner, life-changingly insane over and for nobody else on earth to understand or appreciate fully