#THREE FUCKING HOURS LONG

[slut-kiss-g1rl]

cbat test soon :(((

[chibiveneficus]

i fucking love this show

[zecoritheweirdone]

wanna preface this by saying that i am. So normal. anyway i just spent the last week redrawing scenes from mystery skulls animated but as that hermitcraft au i posted about a couple times. you guys should watch msa it is. so so good.

[happyk44]

actually lol the story playing out as it does but after Annabeth reunites with Percy, he looks behind her and is very quickly, "where's grover"

cue depression that some other satyr is joining them on this quest instead of Grover, who obviously decided not to come get Percy himself because he hates him

("percy, he doesn't hate you, he's just busy preparing trying to keep Gaea down with all the other nature spirits")

("HE HATES ME")

[seven-winged-liar]

RIP Freddie Mercury you would have loved the phrase 'serving cunt'

Partially inspired by this post (give it a couple notes <3)

[putting-kinito-in-places]

Deltarune?

Hiii, this is the mod who made the Undertale one! Hope you like this, Anon!!!! ^_^

[meyerlansky]

you ever just get kinda horny about relatively ambiguous/nonspecific concepts

it is pretty shapeless at this moment but i am rotating the concept of bucky edging/overstim in my mind tonight

[thelaurenshippen]

I think being pressed through a pasta roller would fix me

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 38

it was 3 hours. i had to lay down immediately.

[arom-antix]

@fishshit I consider your post canon so I made it

Edit: I FOUND IT

Edit 2: Yakov trauma

Edit 3: I lied, here's the design rant

Edit 4: Updated design!

[brother-emperors]

Another of his victims was Lepidus, that lover and favourite of his, the husband of Drusilla, the man who had together with Gaius maintained improper relations with the emperor's other sisters, Agrippina and Julia, the man whom he had allowed to stand for office five years earlier than was permitted by law and whom he kept declaring he would leave as his successor to the throne.

-Cassius Dio 59.22

everyone talks about the incest allegations, but surprising no one: the brother in law allegations are more fun to me

some commentary on the death of Lepidus

The Roman Emperor Gaius 'Caligula' and his Hellenistic Aspirations, Dr. Geoff W. Adams

usually my Caligula design is a remix of my Octavian design with darker hair, but for this I decided he should be his own person

society6 | ko-fi | twitter (pillowfort, cohost) | deviantart

[corpsentry]

WHALE TIME

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

soo hi everyone!! i'm back on my bully essay/meta/something writing!! sort of. i did this.

anyways anyone who's been on this page for some time know how from time to time i have insistently mentioned the parallels between lola and peanut, right?

welp! that was a joke but the time has finally come!! a super-pretentious essay just for the fun of it!! (and also bc i haven't been writing actually argumentative texts in like months perhaps a year, so. yikes, i really need to practice again)

word count: 2.2k WOAH. IM SORRY

i, in my corner, with my monstrous needs. — susan sontag, as consciousness is harnessed to flesh

take this quote both as a title and an anticipation of what is to come. the essay will be distributed analyzing first the dependence of each of them on johnny, to then draw comparisons. i'll make sure to steer as away from headcanons as possible, sticking closely to the source text. obviously, some things' interpretation might be ambiguous, but, you know. your usual occupation hazard.

also, a disclaimer before we start: while they are psychologically complex and there is always a mimetic intention in developing them, these are fictional characters, and, as such, their primary function is to be vessels for different themes, questions and so forth. therefore, i will prioritize meaning and themes over moral implications and similar elements.

i. peanut

for how much i can adore talking about him, the way peanut depends on johnny is very much on the nose; worn on his sleeve, even. in 11:11 minutes of voice lines, he mentions johnny 30 times.

many interpret this as the caricature of a boy crush, but i have reasons to believe it is much less cute than that.

the problem is that, really, more than trying to identify specific situations... peanut seems to rely on johnny for a significant part of what he does. when he does good at dodgeball:

Look at me, Johnny, look at me!

almost like a child calling for his parent's attention to be praised. he calls johnny's name when he's going through hardships, when he's scared or when he's sad.

more than someone he just loves, johnny is a point of reference. whenever there's something going on, whenever he does or has to do something, his first thought goes to johnny; vice versa, what johnny asks of him is his priority.

I gotta tell Johnny! No time. I gotta see Johnny now. Gotta help Johnny. What can I do next to please Johnny? I mean Lola! I mean…

(this also goes in a "negative" direction, envy being the other side of the medal to adoration. especially because, in some way, this reliance on johnny might be felt by him as emasculating, and, being johnny his model of masculinity, adding it to the napoleon complex thing, it's not hard to guess why it can be so unpleasant. we can see this manifest through some of the things he expresses in regards to lola- not as much an interest he has towards her, but the interest he wishes to have from her- which are a bit more different than it might seem at a first glance. but this is a mouseketool we'll need later. still:

Last time I saw her, Lola made eyes at me, not Johnny!

do we really need this part? heh. i'm not sure, but it's always good to point out)

(also, just because, for the purpose of this analysis, it might be useful to specify: while these sentiments are very much implied in peanut's canon quotes, we have no evidence in canon in what measure they are reciprocated by johnny. the fandom has universally agreed that johnny also views peanut as his Best Friend In The World; while in some measure, they must be at least a bit close, i think it is even safe to say, given the caricaturist nature of bully's characterizations, that johnny holds peanut in less consideration that peanut deludes himself into believing. quoting another post of mine, the kids who show some level of obsession towards their leader mention him on average ten or less times (gord mentions derby eight times, parker six times, kirby mentions ted five times). the leaders don't usually make names at all, that much is true; however, peanut mentions johnny 30 times, and, even in front of this proportion, johnny mentions peanut 0 times. just to make that clear)

overall, what undeniably shines through his voice lines is a feeling of general inadequacy, whether about his height, or his strength in front of a bigger adversary. the audios in which he tries to show off range from being disingenuous, to straight up improbable.

crossing what we have until now said, it is not hard to come to the conclusion that he really tries to make up, to fill this empty feeling of inadequacy by taking pride in his role as johnny's second in command.

while i am a big fan of bully's characteristic of having left much content out of the main game, leaving the gamers to dig it up for themselves, i do believe that scrapping some of the stuff that was prepared for peanut is a loss. we have a number of voice lines coming from chapter 3, in which it was heavily implied how important peanut's role as johnny's right hand man was.

for example, much like... all other seconds in command, really, he was to be followed and then fought in the rumble, before you could get to johnny, with the specific duty to cover his back. even his very first scene, the opening cutscene of chapter 3, i believe, is not to be underestimated. most of the other people, as far as i recall, call you when they need it in person; johnny, however, sends peanut. making him, de facto, an extension of himself, almost.

again, you choose the motivation. what is important, from a narrative point of view, is that peanut clings to johnny through these acts of service, almost making it the foundation of his personhood.

basically, he makes it so that, if he can't be of help to johnny, his whole self is fundamentally annihilated, giving himself completely to johnny.

ii. lola

with lola, reading between the lines gets a bit more difficult; first of all, because lola is much less transparent than peanut, her insincerity being a supporting beam of the whole chapter 3. secondly, whether she was done dirty by the creators or not, it is undoubted that being the perspective that of a teenage boy (namely, jimmy, but we certainly, as viewers, are brought to sympathize more with johnny than with lola) with all the prejudices it can bring with itself.

however, it doesn't mean that there isn't anything to work with- quite the contrary, actually. the issue with lola is that there is a certain amount of layers to get through before gaining a satisfying perception of her as a character. still, we're here to try our best, aren't we!

even behind the muddiness of her intentions and the manipulation she shows herself a master at, it is clear from the second we first meet her that what she does is in function of johnny.

to get through this mess with order, we'll start from an easy, measurable numeric information: lola mentions johnny in her audio files 19 times. which, we're assessed, IS a considerable amount.

we have extensively talked about the way her cheating patterns are a strategy not to succumb to the passive role of the girl in the heteronormative, patriarchal prototypical couple (there's a post here breaking down a lot of this stuff, if any of you is interested!!), so, instead of this, i want to focus on what lies beneath that behavior.

ultimately, the whole point is that lola expects and wants johnny to fight for her. whether is it because she feels taken for granted, or just because he can't perceive it if not through grandiose gestures like the rumble- your interpretation will work; she wants to see johnny fighting nail and teeth not to lose her, she wants him to show her that he wants her.

she's all about that attention, and she knows exactly what and how to do to get it. and i think this is especially clear when you compare the moments in which she knows there's no advantage she could go for; when she has understood that jimmy won't fall for her manipulation, when algie and chad leave her unsatisfied, when norton openly accuses her and antagonizes her - she loses her temper, lets go of that sweetened and/or flirtatious voice tone, abandons that specific kind of gesturing. she doesn't care anymore about obtaining something. she was actually angry, and she was actually upset that johnny had disappeared.

in some of her audios, she references johnny with some amount of fondness, as well:

Johnny and I were on the best date ever.

(there is also a voice line in which she says "He told me he likes me because of my personality. Isn't that sweet?"; due to it being a general chatter and not exclusive to one chapter, i assume it is relatively safe to assume she is quoting johnny. however, as i said at the beginning, we're trying to stay as close to canon material as possible, so, do your thing- and i'm open to arguments!!)

a considerable amount of audio files, however (which will lead us to our final point) is about her... calling for help for johnny, or stating, confidently, that he will come save her, or avenge her later.

Someone get Johnny! Johnny's gonna get you for this. Johnny is gonna kill you!

but wait... i have some sense of déjà vu...

You're gonna be sorry when Johnny finds out!

iii. two faces of the same medal

if i had to pick an effective image for a metaphor, i'd say that the thing about lola and peanut is that they are both dogs looking for someone to take their leash; we’re talking here about an exclusive relationship with someone they can rely totally on, someone we’ll call the Other (with a capital o, distinguished from just other. yes it is unnecessarily complicated i’m sorry).

for what my professor would call accidents of history, it happened that both of them found that Other in johnny.

each of them attempts at creating an exclusive relationship with the Other, one foolproof and fundamentally… perfect. perfect in the way that everything works like oiled gears, in the way that every next move is predictable, in the way that any accident will not break the created equilibrium. (even if, in the general sense of the term, lola and johnny's relationship is everything but perfect, it is in the connotation that we have established here. lola is aware that, no matter what she does, johnny will come back around. hell, the very thing that she does is aimed at keeping that balance; specifically, keeping him a bit on the edge, pushing him into a corner where he has to actively make an effort to keep her close.)

they both hide something they are ashamed of, regulating not only their actions and reactions but their very way of existing in the world, in order to keep that gear working, in order to remain in johnny's hand. lola hides that craving for a genuine and stable affection, dissimulating it with the cheating and the fatuous physical demonstrations of closeness; peanut hides his sense of inadequacy and complex of inferiority, by being the tough and reliable second in command.

basically, what they mean to achieve is a sense of security, the safety of not really being the one to lead but, at the same time, finding a purpose, other than a shield from the outside world that they are not willing to concede themselves to. like a... symbiotic relationship?? i was going to say parasitic, but, yknow. the Other does get some advantages, which are, respectively, peanut's acts of service and lola's capacity to boost johnny's pride.

now, of course, johnny is not aware of either of their play. which makes it even better, since, as we already said, both of their approach to the relationship needs some degree of insincerity.

like, i don't deny that johnny might be a good friend, or a loyal one. but he is an oblivious, prideful fuck who can't see past his own nose; he's got a tendency to make it all about himself - which of course goes perfectly with what we said about both peanut and lola making the Other their center, taking up, in a certain way, a passive role in the relationship.

this way, both of them aim at creating with johnny a relationship that is, in a way, codependant and conditional, in which the do ut des (their respective "service" ↔ johnny's guarantee of stability) creates the foundation of the very relationship.

this, of course, brings up the problem of exclusivity; on which, however, i prefer not to delve into too much, as this would bring us to the topic of their antagonism which... isn't really what i wanted to go for, at least not here. (it would risk bringing us a bit too close to my subjective interpretation and too far away from the canon, which i PROMISED i wouldn't do. however, someday i might elaborate on that??? idk , please do lmk if someone's interested around here)

i will, however, show you a diagram (it looks like a triangle- i guess it is, but it is VERY important that it is a pyramid, with a top and a larger foundation) and a quote, to wrap this up bc i think it is already WAY too long and ramble-y lmao. let me know what you think anyway, my ask box is always open <3

it almost feels like a joke to play out a part when you are not the starring role in someone else's heart you know i'd rather walk alone (i'd rather walk alone) than play a supporting role if i can't get the starring role -- starring role, marina and the diamonds

[green-tea-lemonade]

C r o m c h

[wlwmothman]

this episode has made the little hamster in my brain start running. many such cases. but I just want to talk about the commentary of race and the thread it weaves through the whole story. I've seen many people complain about others trying to talk about the context of race in the trial by saying that the trial was never about race, which like, yeah? but the reason why the trial had never been about race before was because the books didn't even have conversations about race in the first place and never before had louis and claudia been black. but they are now, and they're standing before a white court, being accused by a white "victim", and being mocked before a white jury/audience. the story presented before the audience is actively trying to make louis seem like a sexual aggressor in his "pursuing" of lestat, which is an incredibly racist stereotype that calls back to when black boys and men would be accused by white women of raping them which resulted in many black men and boys being lynched. it was horrifying and deeply unsettling to see the narrative being spun to make louis seem as the aggressor of the relationship, especially bc it banks on racist stereotypes. which further highlights the show's commentary of black masculinity and black victimhood, in that louis isn't allowed to be a victim; not by the coven, not by the jury, and not by the viewers. I mean so many ppl were so quick to dismiss the events of episode 5 and to paint louis as an aggressor in his relationship with armand in s2. but the truth is that louis is very much a victim, both by armand and lestat. I'm not saying that louis is an innocent and faultless angel, bc the whole show is very much about him not being so, and yeah, louis has his own toxic traits and exhibits his own abusive behavior, but I really do feel like ppl are quicker to highlight that and dismiss the abuse he suffered BECAUSE he's a black man. we're not conditioned to see black ppl, especially not black men, as victims bc we're conditioned to see them as the aggressors. but ppl are also quick to dismiss armand's abuse bc he's not physical about it. but armand very much holds most if not all of the control of this relationship and he constantly gaslights and manipulates louis. we don't even know how wide the extent of armand's reach in louis's mind is and that's fucking terrifying. and yes, louis isn't the greatest partner ever but I think this is in consequence to a cycle of abuse that he and armand have trapped themselves in: louis feels trapped in the relationship -> he lashes out -> armand shows up to gaslight and manipulate him -> louis is guilted into staying -> louis feels trapped -> he lashes out. so on and on and on and on. so it's really interesting to see how louis's relationship with masculinity, especially when it relates to his race and how he is perceived by the world because of it, interacts with the narrative. Anne Rice was jacking off to this idealized version of white masculinity through lestat, but I think examining the consequences of white masculinity and how it interacts with characters like louis and claudia, that very much don't fit into the mold of white masculinity, adds so much more depth and intrigue to the story.

[ask-thearchivists]

(the same with riddles)

*sees The Collector reaction to the Giraffes*

o-o

Why did you became so concerned about the Giraffes? Did they intrigued you?

There's a lot of curious animals, one per example is the Platypus, it has the head of a bird, body of a beaver, it has fins like a sea-lion, tail of a beaver, they are mammals but lay eggs and has poison.

There's also the horse shoe crab, who's blood are blue, because it has more oxygen in their bodie's construction, and many curious and scary abyssal creatures, like: the angler fish, the fang tooth, the vampire squid, the giant isopod ,giant crabs, ugly and scary abyssal fishes and the majestic giant squid and the colossal squid.

:p

The Collector: Earth animals are so interesting! Luz showed me a meme that called a cat "the nefarious anglerfish" and it was really funny. I want a platypus really bad because they're sooo cool but Camilla said I shouldn't take animals without permission.