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imakemywings · 5 months

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Uncovering The Hidden City: Depictions of the Siege of Gondolin in Popular Culture

KEY WORDS: Gondolin, Hidden City, Turgon, Idril, Tuor, Maeglin, First Age, Morgoth, Earendil, siege, theater, literature, radio, cinema, pop culture

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Not much is remembered of the famed Elven stronghold of Gondolin, but of a few things we are relatively certain: It was ruled over by King Turgon, son of high king Fingolfin; it kept itself hidden from the forces of the so-called “dark lord” Morgoth for centuries through a policy of careful isolationism; and it was eventually betrayed by Turgon’s nephew, his sister-son Maeglin Lómion.

What texts survive from the First Age—and few enough of the Gondolindrim survived both the sack of Gondolin and the Third Kinslaying to tell their tales—paint an incomplete picture, and since the end of that Age, we have been trying to fit the pieces together and complete the image. Why do we have such an interest in this tale? Is it because of the likelihood that Gondolin was the last of the Elven strongholds to fall during the Great Darkness, making it an event of staggering significance to the peoples of Middle-earth at the time? Is it out of a sense of grief for the loss of a city which, by all accounts, was a cultural cornucopia at the time? Or is it simply because the family entanglements allegedly involved make for such a lurid tale?

Pop culture portrayals of the event vary widely in both tone and focus, as well as which characters they sympathize with. Few things remain constant where so much is left to the imagination. Even the few key pieces of information we have about Gondolin and its people are open for manipulating where a playwright or director sees a chance for a more engrossing story. However, the endurance of the tale suggests that nothing can compete with reality in the realm of this particular event.

The Númenorean Play (Title: The Fall of Gondolin) – Published at the height of Númenor’s Elf-mania, this play is an unabashed love letter to Gondolin and the descendants of Fingolfin. In this script, King Turgon is a heroic figure for the ages; the play opens on his battling through the Nirnaeth Arnoediad as he hacks an escape for his soldiers through an onslaught of orcs. In the wake of Turgon’s coronation as high king of the Noldor, a tense conversation between Maeglin and Idril in an empty hall paints a subtle picture of the tensions waiting to pull Gondolin apart.

Idril’s husband Tuor is given a very prominent place in this production, which is perhaps unsurprising. Here, the Way of Escape is actually Tuor’s proposition, begun by Idril, though many historians vigorously defend Idril’s legacy as the one responsible for the escape route.

Having set the stage with the interpersonal conflict, The Númenorean Play wastes little time in rushing through Maeglin’s betrayal to focus on the actual assault. The height of this drama is Tuor’s rescue of Idril from Maeglin’s lustful clutches, and his son from Maeglin’s murderous intent. Clearly Númenor relished the notion of a Man being responsible for the rescue of the Elven princess and the defeat of the king’s greedy nephew.

Thanks to the copious records both kept by both Númenor and certain Elven enclaves of the time, we have a fairly solid understanding of the cultural impact. The play fell out of favor as Númenor turned away from the Elves, which made it all the more popular among the Faithful. It grew increasingly political in Númenor’s declining years, until it was scarcely about Gondolin at all, but rather a statement on the alliance of Men and Elves. In the final years of the kingdom, it was banned outright by Ar-Pharazon, who claimed it caused excessive unrest, and amidst criticism from his advisors concerning the portrayal of a Man wedding an Elf of higher rank than himself and producing a child of mixed blood.

The Play of Lothlórien (Title: The Final Days of Gondolin) – Few records survive of the arts of the Elvish enclave of Lothlórien, but those that do are almost entirely thanks to the efforts of lingering guests of Rivendell and Queen Arwen Evenstar of Gondor, who made documentation of Lothlórien’s culture and history a cornerstone of her rule. Therefore, although this play was not well-received by Mannish kingdoms at the time, significant records of it remain and it was performed at least once in Minas Tirith.

For reasons unclear, the playwrights of Lothlórienby decided to give a more sympathetic view to Maeglin, who here is actually put to torment by Morgoth before revealing Gondolin’s location, and who reaches out to both Turgon and Idril in an effort to repair the damage, but is somewhat coldly rebuffed by both. Dialogue also indicates Maeglin has been neglected since his arrival in Gondolin—here, on the cusp of adolescence, as opposed to in the fullness of adulthood as in other adaptations—and that he is unpopular among Turgon’s advisors, and is particularly misliked by Idril and Tuor.

While The Final Days of Gondolin presents an interesting “alternate” perspective, most historians today agree that it sacrifices accuracy for narrative, choosing to portray Maeglin’s unfair malignment and ostracization (in some versions, due to his mixed heritage—though Idril’s own mixed heritage is not addressed) as the main cause of his discontent. Today, many feminist groups also criticize The Final Days of Gondolin for the implication that Idril was at fault for not being more accepting of her cousin’s unwelcome romantic advances.

The Idis Play (Title: The Fall of Gondolin and the Kingdoms of the Elves) – Once again we see an effort by Men to capture the fall of Gondolin on stage. The Fall of Gondolin and the Kingdoms of the Elves is unique in the liberal use of horses on the stage, which makes it particularly difficult to put on nowadays. At its debut in Edoras, it would have been performed outdoors, making life a bit easier for everyone, with regards to the equine actors.

Once again, the Men of the story take centerstage. This play devotes time to Tuor’s journey to Gondolin, including a meeting with Ulmo, lord of the sea, in Vinyamar, before it dives into the politics of Gondolin, largely from Tuor’s perspective. The play draws strong comparisons between Turgon—who allegedly constructed Gondolin to honor Ulmo—and Tuor, Ulmo’s chosen champion. It devotes considerable time to Maeglin then cleaving Turgon away from Tuor, his spiritual kindred, and Idril, his loyal daughter.

At first brush, the play is perhaps surprisingly politically-focused for a play of the Rohirrim, but it is possible that the country’s past history with insidious influences on otherwise well-liked kings—one recalls centuries earlier the damage done by one Gríma Wormtongue—that this particular aspect of the fall of Gondolin struck home with the Rohirrim.

As to the speculation on Tuor’s pre-Gondolin wanderings, it is impossible to say how much is true or false. Whatever Tuor may have seen that led him to believe a Vala wished him to seek out this city has been lost to us. But one thing is clear—Turgon took Tuor’s words seriously.

Many modern showings of this play choose to conclude the final scene of the refugees’ flight with a few seabirds sailing overhead, foreshadowing the group’s arrival in the Havens of Sirion and perhaps even Eärendil’s future marriage to Elwing, last queen of Doriath, perhaps most famous for the tale of her transformation into a white seabird during the Third Kinslaying.

The Meadaz Novel (Title: Like Leaves from the Vine) – Like Leaves from the Vine, from Haradrim author Meadaz, focuses almost entirely on the relationships between Tuor, Idril, and those immediately surrounding them, almost to the exclusion of anything relating to Morgoth or outside threats. The book was a raving success at the time and remains on most “classics” lists for its passionate, poetic prose and subtle touch with the interpersonal relationships.

Like Leaves from the Vine reads almost as classic Haradrim romance epic, beginning with a meeting of Tuor and Idril not long after Tuor’s arrival in Gondolin. The pair are clearly smitten, but much stands in their way, and neither is sure whether such a relationship would be possible (This novel posits theirs as the first romance between Elves and Men, though the accuracy of this claim is doubtful.)

In this novel, Maeglin arrived in Gondolin at the cusp of manhood and was welcomed by his cousin, who has, this far into adulthood, grown weary of rebuffing his romantic attention and mistrustful of his desires, despite lingering familial affection. It isn’t until his attempted assault of her on the night before Morgoth’s arrival that Idril seems to truly give up on him.

Also tackled in this novel is Turgon’s relationship with and his effort to mentor Maeglin—and Maeglin’s occasionally conflicted feelings about plotting Turgon’s overthrow. At times he seems to almost regard Turgon as a father figure, but he always comes back to his burning ambition and his resentment over Idril’s rejection. With far more time to linger than a play, Meadaz even digs into Maeglin’s relationship with Salgant, who here appears almost besotted, or at least eager to have someone’s approval, as well as Tuor’s reception by various lords of Gondolin, chief among them Glorfindel of the Golden Flower and Ecthelion of the Fountain.

Precious little is known about the lords of Gondolin, save that one of them called Glorfindel existed, and likely partook in the battle for Gondolin. Like Leaves from the Vine popularized his title as lord of the Golden Flower, but if it is accurate, it is difficult to say. Ecthelion may be an invention of this author, though the name was known in the area at the time.

Some literary scholars cite the awkward pacing of the novel’s conclusion as a sign that the author wished to end with the guard spotting the approach of Morgoth’s troops and Idril’s realization that someone has betrayed them to the enemy, but felt pressured to include the actual sack of the city for completeness’ sake. Others suggest extended, bloody battle sequences were simply considered uncouth among Haradrim literati at the time. Still other scholars point to the constant loom of Morgoth as a more existentialist threat, meant to stand in for the many non-military threats constantly facing any city at the time and argue that Meadaz uses the forces of “the enemy”—not seen until the very end of the novel—as a metaphor.

Deftly mixed into the ever-shifting interpersonal drama are Meadaz’s own reflections on a culture on the verge of destruction, perhaps reflective of Harad’s long history of struggle with despots and invaders. At some points, the text is positively philosophic, to wonderful effect for the reader who knows already what is in store for these characters.

The Blue Mountains Radio Drama (Title: Secrets of the Hidden City) – While radio was slow to take off in Dwarvish communities due to its limited functionality underground, use of it came quicker in above-ground diaspora groups due to the speed and convenience of communication. Dwarvish techsmiths quickly set about perfecting the system, and eventually the radio dramas popular among Men and Hobbits also took root. One of the earlier examples of an epic radio dramas put out by a Dwarvish cast and company was Secrets of the Hidden City.

What is truly impressive about Secrets of the Hidden City is how much research clearly went into it. Dwarvish historical productions tend to stick more closely to truth and accuracy than many you will see on a Mannish stage, and this was no different. Entire episodes are dedicated to describing city function and architecture—episodes very well-received by their Dwarvish audience. Historians continue to applaud the show for its commitment to accuracy, and where question arose, working out the most logical or likely truth based on surrounding information.

Playing into the crime dramas which were popular in the community at the time, Secrets of the Hidden City chooses to make Gondolin aware that it has a traitor in its midst and focus on the tension of the effort to root that person out. It takes pains to establish that Maeglin is a liked and trusted figure in Gondolin, suspected by Idril alone, so that to anyone unfamiliar with the tale, it comes as a shock when his treachery is revealed. Turgon’s agonized response is particularly touching; to learn that one he considered his own son had plotted the destruction of all that Turgon built is a crushing blow to the king, who chooses to remain behind and die with his city, in what is heavily implied to be a suicide.

Throughout Secrets of the Hidden City, there is a great focus on how beloved Gondolin is by its citizens, such that listeners are encouraged to grieve Gondolin as if it too, were a beloved character meeting a terrible end. When the characters at the finale wail and bemoan their losses, no one doubts that Gondolin itself is included in their grief, and that some of their tears are for all the history, culture, and memory that is lost with her destruction.

The Andir Play (Title: Reflection: Fall of a Bastion) – This play is entirely a soliloquy by Maeglin to the audience, which therefore requires an extraordinarily powerful actor to cast as the lead. Here, Maeglin is presented as a disembodied spirit who has rejected the call of Namo, the lord of the dead, and instead drifts in regret and bitterness around the ruined landscape of a Middle-earth deep in the throes of the Great Darkness.

Throughout the play he laments to the audience about his life, beginning with his complicated relationship with his father, Eöl. While Maeglin insists they are nothing alike, the audience listens as more and more similarities between them crop up. He takes the audience through his wonder at first arriving in Gondolin and his pride at his place beside the king to the resentment and ambition which consumed him as an adult, leading to his eventual betrayal of the city which had taken him in.

Perhaps the most powerful moment of this play is when Maeglin cries out to the silent theater that when he gave Morgoth the location of the city, it was not fear of torture first on his mind, but rage with Idril who had spurned him, and Tuor who had wed the woman he desired.

Therefore, while this play roundly condemns Maeglin’s actions in life, it also presents him as a very three-dimensional character, one with the capacity for regret: someone who had the ability to be better, but instead chose a path of darkness. It launched the career of playwright Andir who rocketed onto the scene, with most critics praising the claustrophobic power of the piece. It is also surprisingly historically accurate, though some things—such as Maeglin’s recollection of certain festivals of the city—were inventions of Andir to give more depth to Maeglin’s memories.

The Oreldes Film (Title: Princess in Peril: The Fall of Gondolin) – Princess in Peril places Idril front and center, and never strays from her. While the film has been criticized for its blatant historical inaccuracies in costuming and set design (Rog’s perm is particularly egregious), one can find few faults with the snappy performance of Ionith in the lead. Take issue with the modern dialogue one might (it seems doubtful that Gondoldrim ever started a horse race with “Cowabunga!”), but Ionith delivers it confidently and with the aggressive punch the director puts behind this entire interpretation of her character. Promotional posters of her from the film were so popular at the time they have come back in vogue as “retro glampunk.”

Princess in Peril does not perhaps present Idril as the most conscientious princess, but it does give enormous credence to her foresight and her suspicions. Additionally, in this adaptation, Tuor does not come to Idril’s aid during the sack: Idril slays Maeglin herself, and rescues Eärendil from the clutches of Salgant, aiding Maeglin to off Idril’s heir. It has been criticized for extending that fight too long—it takes several encounters with both characters throughout the chaos of battle before Idril offs them definitively, all set to the flaming backdrop of the burning city and a rock n’ roll score.

In the final sequences, Idril takes up her father’s fallen sword and charges the palace of kings in time for Turgon to be seized by a firedrake. His final words are an plea to flee with what Gondolindrim she can gather. Idril slays the firedrake and cradles her father’s body in her arms, bidding him a final sooty, teary goodbye before leading her people out of the city.

This focus almost exclusively on Idril comes perhaps as contemporary critics felt she had been overshadowed by the male drama of the tale. However, its own lack of nuance leaves something of a hollow final product, as we have very little idea of who this power princess is. Much of the film’s potential emotional stakes are sacrificed for the at-the-time cutting-edge special effects of battle. But even if the film fails to give us a satisfactory answer, it does indicate that even at this time, curiosity about who this woman was and what she experienced lives on, and if the specifics have been lost to time, we nevertheless remember her as a hero.

The Jolly Green Goblins Podcast (Title: Real Community Organizers of Gondolin) – Real Community Organizers of Gondolin was launched almost ten years ago now, and at one point was a pop culture staple. Borrowing from popular TV comedies several years earlier, it styled Gondolin as a workplace mockumentary and its razor-sharp, dark humor and lightning fast, quippy dialogue kept listeners in stitches for years.

Real Community Organizers of Gondolin picks up several years after the wedding of Tuor and Idril, with a meeting of the king’s council. It is the perfect opening to showcase the writers’ phenomenal talent for biting dialogue and quickly establishing characters and dynamics. Listening to the bickering of the Gondolin Home and Gardens Committee became such a staple of pop comedy that it was frequently referenced by multiple late show hosts during the podcast’s run. Similarly well-known gags, which pervade even that audience which managed to avoid listening to the actual show include Turgon’s interview sigh, which manages to convey a deadpan expression even without visual aid, and the constant references to everyone’s inability to leave the city (“I’d kill for a Hithlum taffy,” sighs Egalmoth. “I mean I really would. I better stay inside today.”)

However, the show rapidly lost favor in the final season, which chose to tackle the fall of the city as a way to wind up the show. It became painfully clear midway through the show the writers had no idea how to balance their typical humor with the overwhelming horror of what was taking place in the city. No amount of sassy quips could overcome Maeglin’s attempted murder of seven-year-old Eärendil or Ecthelion’s brutal death at the hands of a balrog.

In recent interviews reflecting on the end of the show, writer Cothes admitted the team could not decide between going dark enough to mock the terrible fates many of the characters met, or switching tone entirely to something more genuine, and the result was the confused muddle of the final season. She suggested they might have benefitted from simply taken far more artistic license with the story to make it fit their purposes better, but that they felt constrained by prior interpretations which are often take as the “truth” of the story in the popular imagination.

Nevertheless, the show’s focus on petty banalities and irreverent takes on the difficulties of ruling the Hidden City show a human side to the characters involved. There’s something relatable in seeing Idril oversleep for the council, in Turgon’s frustration with trying to get the lords to agree on something in Tuor’s realization about just how much of his monthly budget he’s spent on new outfits for Eärendil, in their tendency—as much as ours now—to get caught up in the minutia of things which barely matter in the grand scheme. Real Community Organizers of Gondolin shows us that they were all people, for better or worse, by giving us a look at their less noble sides.

Conclusion

What can we observe from these often widely varying interpretations of Gondolin’s end? It is one of those “grand tales” of the First Age, a towering myth in which is buried some truth, though much has been lost to the ages, and likely much invented by those that came after. There are some constants: We know there was a city. We know there was a king, a princess. We know there was a betrayal. And the city fell. The residents of Gondolin could not save their city, despite the best efforts of Princess Idril and perhaps of others—and while we cannot effect change of the past, we can do our best to remember them still.

Doubtless many Gondolindrim died or lived on thinking of how things might have been different. And perhaps that is part of the draw for us as well—that in this play, in this book, in this movie, maybe Gondolin will be spared. Perhaps King Turgon will not die. Perhaps Eärendil’s life will not be threatened. Perhaps they will not have to walk away from the corpse of their home.

Perhaps we are drawn to the heroism in spite of the grimness of Gondolin’s situation: that the lords of Gondolin fight, despite the overwhelming odds; that Idril leads the fleeing civilians rather than place her own life ahead of theirs; that Turgon goes down with his city. Or perhaps we cannot help but fixate on the tragedy of so grand a place brought down by something as small as one bitter malcontent, ready to burn it all to the ground to satisfy his anger.

The tale of Gondolin’s final days fascinates us for many reasons, not least of all because there remains in all the grief a spark of hope: the survival of Eärendil, future leader of the Gondolindrim, and one who will go on to bring succor to the people of Middle-earth, eventually turning the tide against the Great Darkness, allowing a calmer age of peace and prosperity to dawn, even if it did not last forever. Gondolin’s story takes us through a whirlwind of emotions: the joy of Tuor and Idril’s love, the anxiety over Maeglin’s resentment, the anger at his betrayal, the fear of the siege, the sorrow at Gondolin’s end. In living through this memory of the past, in keeping it alive, we remind ourselves that we are all the Children of Middle-earth, past, present, and future, and we have always and ever been together moving towards a softer, gentler dawn.

#rocky writes #turgon #idril #tuor #maeglin #the silmarillion #tolkien tag #somebody on ao3 suggested I write one of these for Gondolin so here we are #Gondolin #fanfiction #tolkien fanfiction

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markresonates · 2 years

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FASTER

summary: you catch a ride to a party with Haechan after your date stands you up, but eventually ditch when drama ensues

pairing: rich stoner frat boy!Haechan x fem!reader

genre: porn w plot, angst, tiny fluff bc i'm soft

au/tropes: university, beach town, stupid bets, best friends to lovers

word count: +4.5k

a/n: oh hey tumblr! long time, no see...let's pretend i posted this last week, okay? okay

warnings: public high sex, oral (fem), squirting, tiny humiliation, lil manhandling, me *unsurprisingly* pushing the haechan big dick agenda, drinking & smoking, semi hard dom!Haechan, sub!reader

In your mind, you envisioned tonight going down a bit differently. You should be a few drinks into the first party of the school year at the biggest frat house on campus, body buzzing from cheap booze, drunk on your youth and the fallacy you’ll live forever. You were excited for the events that lie ahead, yet unbeknownst to you, what you imagined would never pan out. The guy who asked you out at club cornucopia last week was supposed to pick you up a half hour ago, and he’s failed to answer a single call of yours.

After reviewing your options, you decide to go to the party anyways. You’ll be damned before you waste your first opportunity of the year to party like your actions have no consequences. Collecting your things, you walk through the front door with determination.

A set of white headlights approach you from behind as you lock up the place, and the new silver Porsche they belong to cruises to a stop, parallel the driveway.

“Hey, babe,” a smooth voice calls out to you from the passenger seat window. “Looks like you need a ride.”

You tense up before peering through the vehicle and recognizing the driver – even in the dark you’d recognize Haechan’s smirk and that attempted wink he throws in any day. “Hm, depends. Are you going to drive the speed limit?”

“Ha, not a chance,” Haechan says, unlocking the doors, anticipating you’ll cave regardless. The handle on the outside pops out from where it was previously flat against the Porsche door.

You mull it over for a moment, then sigh and hop in the pricey sports car. “Well, at least you’re honest.”

As soon as he hears you buckle up safely, the car takes off at a not so safe speed. “So, y/n, why are you late to my party?”

“I could ask you the same question. Why are you late to your frat’s party?”

“I’m on-time, actually,” he reports, very matter-of-factly.

You snort. “This is what on-time looks like for you? You know, you’re good at a lot of things but time management is not one of them.”

Haechan chuckles, dryly. “This is what doing an alcohol run looks like, sweetheart.”

He pulls up to a stop sign, hitting the brakes suddenly and making you grab for the railing on the car door. From tall paper grocery bags in the backseat, you hear glass bottles bump against each other, clinking loudly.

“You ran out of alcohol that quickly?”

He cracks a cocky half grin. “What can I say? I throw great parties,” he compliments himself, changing gear shifts and hitting the gas pedal. “And thank you for acknowledging I’m great at nearly everything.”

You scoff and roll your eyes. “I mean like, that’s not what I said but-”

“I could show you a few other things I’m great at too…if you’re ever down, y/n,” he proposes and shoots a knowing glance your way.

Your cheeks heat up, his words compelling a fluttering sensation deep inside. It’s a familiar feeling when it comes to being within close proximity of Haechan. “Hey, eyes on the road,” you reply, directing his head forward with two fingers to his chin.

For as long as you can remember in your friendship, Haechan has been a shameless flirt. Nevertheless, after all these years of suggestive comments here and there, you’ve never taken them seriously. There was a point in high school where you had tried to distance yourself from him, at least until your tiny crush went away, but it was too hard to maintain radio silence with Haechan. Especially because he continued to bug you about hanging out and asking why you were avoiding “the bestest friend anyone could ever ask for" – his words, not yours.

The only reason you two stopped talking as much recently was that he got heavily involved with his fraternity business (and the wild shenanigans that accompanied it). It’s been a few weeks since you’ve spent more than 10 minutes with him.

“When did you get-” you begin before his abrupt parking.

“Here!” he announces. He kills the engine, getting out around the corner from Greek row. You disappointingly snap your tongue but follow his lead a second later. “Sorry, what was that again?”

“Haechan! Took you long enough!” Johnny shouts from across the street.

You take a deep breath. “Nevermind. It’s nothing.”

“No, what were you saying?”

“I was saying it took you long enough!” Johnny repeats, jokingly. “What’s up, y/n? Haven’t seen you here in a while.”

“Hey! Well, I’d be around more if I was invited to.” You give Haechan a pointed look.

“Why don’t you have her over more? Scared someone is gonna steal your girl?” The fraternity alumnus’ eyes ping pong between you two, attempting to gauge reactions.

He doesn’t give him much of an opportunity to read his face, instead ducking into the car again to retrieve hard liquor from the backseat. “Wait, aren’t you supposed to be DJing?” Haechan deflects.

“I left TY Track on duty right now. I was about ready to come looking for you because you volunteered to swing by the liquor store on your way here an hour ago.”

You scoff and cross your arms. “Oh, so you weren’t actually on-time to the party like you told me.”

"HA, Haechan? On-time?"

“Actually, um, I never said I was on-time to the party. I was perfectly on-time to pick you up where you were so you didn’t have to walk the entire way!” Haechan tries to clarify his vague assertion from earlier. He holds out two heavy bottles for you to take. "Here."

“I got those for you, y/n, don’t worry.” Johnny collects the two from your grasp. You grab the third from Haechan’s extended hand a moment later.

In total, your trio enters the rager through the backdoor with five bottles of the good stuff. You unload in the kitchen, where you find a tipsy Mark attending to a thoroughly shit-faced Jungwoo at their long rectangular table.

“y-y/n!” Mark hiccups. He gets to his feet, taking a few wobbly steps towards you to throw his arms around your shoulders . “I missed you!”

“Sorry, he’s clingy when he’s drunk,” Haechan apologizes for some reason.

You giggle at the cuddly boy’s inconsistent affectionate side. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“Mork, get off of her, she doesn’t want you.” He enunciates his words as if explaining something to a child.

“How do you know wha- I mean WHO, she wants, huh?” Johnny teases with a suspicious expression. He strolls out of the kitchen, returning to his shared turntables.

Annoyed, Haechan sticks his tongue into his cheek and his head twitches to the side. “Ugh. I need a drink.”

The kitchen isn’t terribly well-lit but it is bright enough that you notice a light purple patch on his neck. If you had to guess, based on the yellowish color around it, you would say someone’s mouth left that mark on him a week ago.

“Are you, like, jealous or something?” Mark blurts out. He squeezes your body tighter.

You avert your gaze from the hickey, blinking a handful of times. “I, um-”

“Why would I be jealous?” Haechan snaps. He hops on the kitchen counter, sitting relatively close to you, and screws the cap off of the vodka bottle you brought in. “Like I haven’t hugged my own best friend before? Come on.”

Bingo. There’s that reminder you needed: best F-R-I-E-N-D.

You can stare at his neck all you want but nothing is going to change the fact that your lips will never be in the same place.

“Is that all you’ve done? Hug?” Jaehyun interjects from behind you. He joins your small kitchen crowd, minorly buzzed with a red solo cup of beer in hand. Mark detaches his body from yours to cling to him and weirdly rub his ears instead.

“Yeah? So?” Haechan answers, begrudgingly.

“Hm, how do you guys feel about a friendly game of spin the bottle? Or is that too much for you to handle as friends?”

“If you wanna m-make out with y/n, you don’t neeeed to play a game,” Jungwoo mumbles, every syllable of his speech slurred to the point where you can barely understand him. “She’s p-probably easy enough to get on her knees r-ight now.”

The kitchen is dead silent as all eyes turn from the drunken individual to you. Haechan puts down the bottle before taking a single swig, jumping down from the counter a second later. Your heart begins to race as adrenaline floods your system.

“What did you just fucking say?” he challenges, venomously.

Jungwoo clears his throat nervously, perking up a bit hearing the distinctive threatening tone. “Er, I didn’t say that. S-someone…someone told me that.”

He lays his hands on the kitchen table, leaning halfway over it. “Who?”

“Oh my gawd,” Mark gasps dramatically. “The bet…”

“The bet?” Haechan whips in his direction. “Whose bet?”

You remember Haechan telling you that it’s a fraternity tradition for the members to carry out a bet the first week of school every year, and you have a feeling you know who Jungwoo is hinting towards – the particular someone who was supposed to pick you up earlier.

The guy who asked you out at club cornucopia, and hooked up with on your first date the day after that. He was so persistent to get you to third base, but you turned him down that night because you didn’t want to rush into things with a person you could genuinely see yourself growing to like.

You couldn't wait for Haechan forever. You knew you had to move on – or at least try to move on.

Mark gulps guiltily, before providing context. “His bet was that he couldn’t get someone he asked out at club cornucopia to, you know–” Mark bobs his head with his mouth open. “–on a first date…and an hour ago, he told everyone he did...with y/n.”

Your best friend clenches his jaw. “Who?”

“Sungchan.”

“Yeah?” he answers, right on cue. Sunchan stops in the doorway when he meets your livid eyes. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh!” you spit. “So you really fucking lied and told everyone I sucked your dick? What the f-!”

Haechan cuts you off, socking their younger frat brother in the jaw.

You wouldn’t describe Haechan as the most athletic person in the world, but you heard from Jeno that he’s been hitting the gym more and more lately, evident by the fact he can do five full pull ups now. Much to the kitchen crowd’s surprise – yours included – his fist collides with Sungchan’s face hard enough to send him to the ground.

"Ow!" Haechan caresses his sore hand.

Having no desire to wait around and see what happens next, you grab his unharmed hand and drag him out the back door. You march him back to his car. Not a sound leaves your mouth until you are both in your seats.

“That was…” you trail off, cringing.

“y/n, I’m sorry that I-”

“No, no, it’s not you.” Receiving a call from Mark, he fishes his phone out of his pocket. He declines the call and patiently waits for you to continue speaking. “Ugh, I wish I could forget this whole night ever happened.” You bury your face in your hands for a moment.

“Hey, let’s go get high like old times,” Haechan suggests, nudging your arm softly after a moment of silence. “We can forget all about it, sweetheart.”

You give him a weak smile and hum approvingly. He smiles back at you. “There’s that smile of yours I love.”

He doesn’t stall for your input on location, inserting the key into the ignition, with a new – or should I say your old – destination in mind. It’s a 30 minute drive with no traffic but it doesn’t take long before you recognize the roads he is taking to the beach. You’re driving down memory lane, picturing the moments you shared with Haechan – you experiencing your first almost kiss with him in middle school; him sharing in great detail his first time with some hot girl you didn’t know personally but were envious of; you crying over your first heartbreak; him high blabbing all the secrets he knows about his frat brothers when he first joined and making you promise not to tell another soul.

This will just be another sour memory attributed to your favorite secret smoke sesh spot and remedied by his presence.

For once, he lets you pick the music. You keep the volume on low for him to share what he’s been up to most of the summer and you gladly listen. You’ve always been easily distracted by Haechan, and even if the party tonight was a monumental waste of your time, this moment is no exception to his captivating charm stealing your attention.

Haechan was the epitome of cool. Watching him drive, you’re convinced that he has never looked so hot. Every so often, he runs his fingers through his soft, dark magenta hair and you feel tempted to do the same. He leans back in his seat, his ripped black jean clad thighs spread wide open, right foot flooring the gas pedal. His hurt hand loosely grips the bottom of the steering wheel while the other is rested on the gear shift.

Your surroundings pass by in a blur since he speeds there nearly the entire way. You are in the middle of talking (and overanalyzing) your date with Sungchan when he pulls up to a stop light. He shifts the position of his hand to cup your thigh. It’s supposed to be comforting but, if anything, it feels more intimate and possessive than he initially intended.

He half expects you to pull away from his touch, but you wouldn’t dare move a muscle. Testing the waters, he slowly rubs his thumb back and forth on your warm thigh. It’s a delicate feeling that makes you feel like your skin is on fire. If it wasn’t for the traffic light turning green, he would have explored your body further.

He pulls into the small, empty dirt lot. Very few people know that behind a large boulder in the very corner of the lot, there is a large enough space to fit one car. He parks his Porsche but leaves it on to play music. You pick your favorite high playlist to play on warm nights like these. He retrieves the necessities from the trunk and readies things up so you don’t have to do any of the work. He takes the first hit from his ruby red bong, blowing clouds of white smoke into the air.

“You wanna be a big girl and light it yourself?” He playfully wiggles his eyebrows and waves the lighter around.

“I can do things by myself. You don’t always need to take care of me.”

“I don’t mind taking care of you, but okaaay, if you say so sweetheart,” he sing-songs.

Overestimating your abilities, you take a sharp hit and almost immediately cough. The stinging sensation prickles in your throat and lungs, while the euphoric haze punctures reality as you know it. You two go back and forth, taking turns until you’re both high as a kite.

You close your eyes and melt into the moment as Frank Ocean’s “Skyline To” flows from the car speakers.

Solstice ain't as far as it used to be,

It begins to blur, we get older.

Summer's not as long as it used to be,

Everyday counts like crazy.

Smoke, haze

The atmosphere is calming, a peaceful serenity in the silence. Rolling waves and soft melodies lull your mind into the clouds, though your despondent consciousness descends from the high quicker than you’re used to as the reality of the situation awakens an excitement only Haechan can invigorate. Where you lack vocal communication, the energy between you two buzzes and crackles as tension thickens in the humid air.

To diffuse some tension, you settle on asking about something you know he would love to brag about. “So, when’d you get this one?”

“What, the car? Last month. Isn’t she pretty?” he responds with a wide smile. He rubs the dashboard fondly. “I’ve always dreamed of having a Porsche.”

You giggle at his enthusiasm. “I guess dreams come true, huh?”

“Well…not all dreams. But maybe someday,” Haechan says, cryptically.

“I hope you get everything you could ever wish for.” You pat his knee with sincerity. “What else have you been doing since school started?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Nothing really. I basically spend all my time with the boys and my baby.”

“Um, oh,” you reply.

He gets out of the car to put away his bong and its corresponding accessories in the trunk. While he’s taking care of business, you struggle to hide your emotions to the news of a relationship you weren’t aware existed.

Maybe it’s better to know you have no chance. Almost reassuring that you can give up on your dream where you could have a life with him. At least now you know where it is he got that hickey on his neck – from somebody luckier than you are, sadly.

He gets back in the car and takes over as DJ. You wipe the built up condensation off the foggy window with the back of your hand, failing to take into account that the droplets could soak into your long-sleeved, crop top shirt if you weren’t paying attention. You regret wearing it anyways due to the fact that tonight turned out to be much warmer than the weather app on your phone said it would be.

“Ugh, fuck. Just what I needed – a wet wrist,” you grumble.

Haechan rolls down your window for you, lightly snickering at your misfortune. You hold your arms out the window and try to squeeze water from the sweater material. “Oh, so you think this is funny? Now I’m going to be annoyed by it all night.”

“Hey, it’ll dry way sooner than you think.” He rubs your leg reassuringly.

You snap your tongue and sigh heavily. “Yeah, yeah, I guess.”

“You’re cute when you complain, y/n,” Haechan says out of the blue. “Pretty cute when you’re wet too.”

You’re facing away from him, staring out at the black water as if you didn’t hear him. Despite the booming waves crashing against the shore, he hears you gulp. You nearly choke on your saliva, which leaves the impression that when you’re high, your body can’t physically function if you’re simultaneously devoting all of your brain power to the meaning behind his provocative compliments. Then again, even if you weren’t high at the moment, you’re convinced something similar would happen regardless of sobriety.

Looking at the clock, you’re surprised by how much time has passed. Your high is a faint shadow of floaty lightheadedness by this point. You basically have no excuse to feel at a loss for words other than feeling naturally flustered by Haechan – your best friend with a girlfriend of his own now.

“Aren’t you going to say thank you, y/n?” he teases.

“Th-thank you."

“You’re wel-”

“I need some air.” Before he can react, you abruptly get out of the car.

He quickly joins your side and you flinch from how close he is. “Okay, what is it? Why are you being like this?” Haechan questions, reaching for your hand.

You pull away and cross your arms. “I just don’t think we should be so close if you have a girlfriend!”

His face scrunches up. “What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t have a girlfriend!”

“You just-? You just said you spend all your time with the boys and your baby.”

“God! Are you serious? Is that what this is about?” Haechan frustratingly runs his hand through his hair. “I was talking about my fucking car!”

“But-” You pause for a moment, processing his words. “But what about your hickey?”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Jaemin and I had bets for the new school year where he had to give me a hickey and I had to wear it the whole first week of classes!”

"Jaemin?" Hiding your shocked expression, you look at the ground, too embarrassed to meet his eyes. Your plan works for 0.2 seconds before he lifts your chin up.

“Why did it matter so much to you?”

You gulp. “It didn’t.”

“Liar.” He moves his hand to cup your cheek. “Were you jealous, sweetheart?”

With both hands on his chest, you try to push away from him. He wraps his free arm around your body to hold you in place, causing you to gasp. Arousal instantly rushes through your lower half.

He directs your head back to stare into your soul again. “Answer the question, y/n,” he whispers with chilling intensity.

“I…maybe.” Your eyes flick down to his mouth where he wears a devilish smirk.

He shifts his hand again, this time holding under your chin but with his thumb lightly rubbing along your bottom lip. “Then I guess I have Jaemin to partially thank for making my other dream come true.”

Haechan doesn’t waste a single second diving in for a kiss. His unharmed hand slides down to squeeze your ass while the other loosely holds your lower back. You wrap your arms around his neck and deepen the kiss by parting your lips for his eager tongue to slip inside your mouth. He wobbles you towards the car, skillfully unbuttons and unzips your jeans, and flips your body around. From behind, he rips your jeans down your legs and gets on his knees, without a care in the world that his own will get dusty. He kisses your pussy over your panties and you mewl.

Noticing the wet patch, he chuckles. “Already wet for me, hm?”

“You've always made me wet,” you answer breathlessly.

He hums, content with your response. “That’s what I like to hear.”

He thumbs your panties to the side and connects his mouth to your folds. You lean against the car, moaning his name and inflating his ego. Haechan eats you out until you’re seconds away from coming. He rocks back on his feet and opens the car door. He pushes the button in the center console to open the hood, pushes both front seats forward and flips the back seats over to give you two more space. You kick your pants off your ankles as he gets in the back. He removes his throbbing erection from his jeans and gives it a few jerks.

“Fuck, y/n. You see what you do to me?” he rasps. You nod repeatedly, refusing to look away from his precum-slick tip.

He slides a condom on and you climb on top of him, straddling his lap. You hover over his large cock for a moment before he lowers your body down. Once his whole length has disappeared inside of your pussy, you're completely full to the point where you have tears in your eyes. He wipes a tear from your cheek and waits for you to roll your hips first. Soon enough, your bodies are molding together and you’re bouncing on his cock mindlessly.

You roll your head to the side to give his mouth access to your neck. He intermittently plants wet sensual kisses, taking years worth of pent up lust out on your sensitive skin. You can feel the satisfied smile on Haechan’s lips growing wider as you moan.

“I’ve been dying to hear your pretty moans for years now.”

“Yeah? Why didn’t you d-do something about it then?”

He scoffs. “God, what did you think I meant by ‘show you a few other things I’m good at,’ huh? Hasn’t it been fucking obvious I'm crazy about you?”

Haechan manhandles your body around so you’re facing away from him. No one would know he has a hurt hand by the way he digs his fingers into your skin. He fucks you nice and hard, turning you into a whimpering mess. You might as well be high based on the out of body experience after a handful of minutes.

“F-faster,” you whine.

“Alright, sweetheart. If you think you can take it…”

He increases his speed and loops a hand around your body to rub your clit. His fingers move rapidly, the pressure in your core increasingly mounting until the sensation teeters on the edge of overwhelming. You try to fight it and last longer than your body is realistically capable of.

Haechan senses your impending orgasm. “It’s okay, baby. Be a good girl and come for me. You know you want to.”

You come on his cock with a broken sob. As his pace accelerates, you regrettably start to squirt all over the back of his front seat. You watch your juices flow out of your body, squeezing your eyes shut, humiliated you can’t get a handle on your body’s reflexes to the pleasure.

“That’s it, y/n. Let it allll out, it’s okay. Don’t hold back,” he encourages you, surprisingly not caring about the mess you’re making in his precious car.

You roll your head to rest on his shoulder and drool drips from the corner of your mouth. Your body quivers through the entire high. When his fingers continue to rub your clit, you twitch wildly. Your hot walls pulse around his cock, finally triggering his own orgasm. Haechan shoots his load inside you while a rich, deep groan falls from his lips. The rhythm of his thrusting slows to a crawl before stopping entirely.

He lifts you off of his lap when both of you have finished panting and caught your breath. He rolls the condom off and puts it in a plastic bag he keeps in the back seat for collecting trash. Leaning forward, he presses the button to close the top of the car. It’s just you, him, and the sound of the ocean again.

He hands you the panties that were discarded in the front seat and you slip them back on. Haechan sits back, pulling your body close to his side. You throw your legs over his lap and snuggle into him comfortably.

“Dreams really do come true,” you mumble, lethargically.

"I guess so." He kisses the top of your head. "Or at least mine do."

You bury your face into his chest. “Sorry about your car.”

Haechan sighs. “It’s okay, really. I can always get it cleaned. And on the bright side, every time I get in my car, I’ll always remember how I made you come in the backseat.” He squeezes you tighter and you giggle at his optimism.

You're moments away from sleep when a lightbulb goes off in his head. "Hey, sweetheart, how about you give me a hickey on the other side of my neck?"

A bolt of excitement zaps you wide awake. You look up at him, eyeing a blank space with your name on it and smile. "I thought you'd never ask."

hiii ik 2 baddies is supposed to be about a 3some but how the fuck are 3 people supposed to fuck in a car?? exactly. i watched a video tour of the 2021 Porsche 911 (what i learned to be the newest model that actually has a trunk) for this and there's like barely any space for 2 people, let alone 3...

so it's been almost 6 months since i've posted and this is something i wrote real quick in honor of 2 baddies and to feed yall a bit. originally, i intended on posting this last week (when it was still the season of summer) but i was too anxious about my own school year starting this past week to proofread. 00 liner's watch me and mark's show off are still wips bc my thoughts are all over the place with both of them.

i feel like i've developed a love-hate relationship with writing over the last 10 months and it's hard to want to do it. i feel like it makes me happy while also making me anxious. the thing is, not posting also makes me anxious. same with anon mail. i love hearing from readers but i also know that before i closed my mailbox to anon mail, i started getting a lot of hate anons again, and it didn't really seem worth it. basically, it's a lose-lose situation in both regards. i'm going to turn on anons for a little and see how it goes...

i think most of my anxiety around tumblr now is that i know people expect things from me, and i want to do so well on those things that i don't do anything at all bc i don't want to let anyone down. i'm going to be more active on tumblr again but readers need to understand i'm a person. i have a life and i have too many feelings. i don't want to leave tumblr completely but if things get to be as bad as they were in the first few months of the year in terms of feedback, i might have to reevaluate my time here. i would greatly appreciate your patience with me posting those two fics and i thank you for reading this one!

okay, tis all! and again, i sincerely thank you for reading!

stream *2 Baddies!!*

➾my masterlist

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cornucopiaradio · 2 months

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We have a new collection of #audiodrama work that has gone live on our website today, and has also been added to our main ‘Cornucopia Radio’ podcast feed and is streaming on our #spokenword #internetradio station!

http://www.cornucopia-radio.co.uk/alisdairadams

Two very good friends Mary and Jean are visiting Sheffield Cathedral, listening to the church organ music, viewing the medieval art and enjoying their sandwiches. But what is Jean going on about? Illuminati Ham? Vajazzling? King Tutankamun’s Chiropodist? They’re soon joined by two other ladies and the conversation gets even stranger, including a story about a tragic accident involving triangular chocolate.

It’s just another crazy day in the middle of the steel city, as you join us for our very funny, one-off audiodrama sitcom. Starring four amazing comedic actresses; Janice Sampson, Gayle Hazelby, Sarah Betts and Mandy Sims. With the script written by the very talented Alisdair Adams. You’ll notice lots of references to different things in #Sheffield if you live or have lived here.

There are also two other new productions on this page (‘The Light Within’ & 'Natalie and Jen') also written by Alisdair Adams, which I’ll be promoting later this week.

Leave us a comment if you’ve listened, we’d love to know if you enjoyed the story and characters.

#audiodrama #sheffield #catherdral #sitcom #comedy #south yorkshire #voice acting #voice actress #british #podcast #radio comedy

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whatmathgodwrought · 2 months

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Salad Bar Theory of Popular Culture

This is going to be a long post. It will discuss "The Salad Bar Theory of Popular Culture," and why Tumblr dot com is the ideal, overgrown petri dish on the web for this phenomenon.

It's a bit of lark, but I do hope you'll laugh at least once if you read to the end.

Imagine you're dining at an all-you-can-eat restaurant. The restaurant is massive. The self-serve food bar has every kind of dish imaginable, and what's more, there is a construction crew adding more space, and new chefs are constantly adding new entrees, remaking old favorites, and sometimes they even invent new cuisines altogether. All of your friends and acquaintances are there. Sometimes you eat together, sometimes you talk about what you ate, sometimes someone excitedly comes to your table raving and telling you to try something new or an old favorite. There is more than you could ever possibly eat in several lifetimes, and it only keeps growing.

This metaphor is the current state of entertainment in the 21st century for all forms of media: music, movies, books, TV shows, ebooks, audiobooks, podcasts, talk radio, art, comics, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, cartoons, anime, newspapers, infotainment, online journalism, live-streaming, plays/dramas, console gaming, PC gaming, smartphone gaming and more. Thanks to the internet, streaming, global-shipping, viral-meme-culture, commodification-of-the-invidivual-via-the-social-media-grind, (and let's be honest, piracy and archival culture), people have access to and are exposed to more entertainment than they could ever hope to consume in several lifetimes.

So, where does leave the typical diner at this restaurant? Well, as the next paragraphs will show, there is no such thing as a "typical diner." There are no gourmets, no gourmands. There is just the Cornucopia and groups of people wandering the endless salad bar. You can be first in line and pay a premium to experience the brand new dish. You can go back to the same section and reload your plate with the same thing as many times as you want, and people will ask if you don't ever get tired of the same thing. You can be a vegetarian. You can eat only meat. You can eat a bit of everything. You can brave the sneers and jeers of the gatekeepers as you sample something--with tastebuds aglow--for the first time and rave about it to all your friends.

So what kind of dining experiences are there in this cultural canteen, this pop-culture pizzeria, this taverna theatre? What do you see there?

Popularity is the Objective Word Here

When something is popular, it spreads like wildfire. This has always been true of popular culture even before the internet. Humans are social, they tell stories and they share. This may seem obvious, but it's also bedrock for the other observations.

Originality is Dead: Long Live Reboots and Remixes.

Show of hands to three questions:

How many people recognize the reference of a gorilla carrying a woman, climbing the Empire State Building while bi-planes shoot at it?

King Kong right? A cultural icon for many years.

How many people have actually seen the original King Kong (1933) starring Fay Wray and directed by Cooper and Schoedsack?

Not as many right? Maybe you only saw one of the many remakes in 2021, 2017, 2005, 1986, 1976, 1967 or 1962.

How many people are alive today that saw King Kong (1933) in the cinema?

Not many I'll bet.

I'd wager the number of hands goes down with each question. And yet the staying power of the original story remains burned into film history and memory. The point is this. Humans retell stories. This is not a bug. It's a feature. "Tell me the story again of…" There is joy (and profit) in the retelling.

Derivative Reference is Often the Primary Way of Experiencing Pop Culture

OK, so people are sharing things left and right. They're retelling, remixing, rebooting, writing fan-fics, etc. All of this creative effort means that your first-time encountering something new may be a reference, rather than experiencing the original. People rarely experience the true original firsthand anymore. They're going to experience things second-hand.

This is especially true with older media. A first experience with something will often be a derivative reference. An example: Back in the day, in school, we watched Planet of the Apes in class. (I don't know, probably the teacher was hung over.) Want to know how I figured out before the big reveal that the Planet of the Apes was really Earth?

Troy McClure spoiled it for me. In Season 7 Episode 9 of the Simpsons, "A Fish Called Selma," McClure takes an acting gig in a musical adaptation of Planet of the Apes, and he sings the following lines:

Oh my God, I was wrong It was earth all along Yes you finally made a monkey out of me.

So there I am, watching Planet of the Apes for the first time, and Troy McClure's big number starts playing in my head. I sit there in disbelief, remembering the Simpsons, and then practically crying into my desk with laughter.

Probably the teacher thought that "kids these days" don't appreciate cinema, but it was just so absurd to have the movie spoiled by a bit in the Simpsons.

Want to know something else? In doing research for this essay, I discovered that Planet of the Apes film isn't even the original. The original story was a French language novel "La Planète des Singes" by Pierre Boulle. So again, people love retelling, often in different forms of media.

Point is, the longer something has been out, the more it tends to be referenced in other forms. TV talk shows will make jokes referencing the new popular thing. Popular phrases quickly become part of the everyday lexicon. People talk at the water cooler. A tech mogul names their new software after one iconic word in Heinlein's 1961 sci-fi novel.

Any piece of popular culture could be "spoiled" for you at any moment, which brings us to....

Spoilers are Everywhere but Do They Just Act as Adverts?

King Kong dies in the end. Dumbledore Dies. Both of these are spoiler memes (and I'm not sorry), but consider the amount of time passed between the original release of both. How long is the statute of limitations on spoilers? How long before a popular piece of media saturates public awareness so much that it becomes unavoidable? Is this ultimately unavoidable because of the viral nature of advertising, marketing and sharing?

In the modern day, it's increasingly hard to avoid spoilers. I've heard of people going off social media for weeks before a major film release so it doesn't get spoiled for them.

People seem divided on the topic of spoilers, but it's a very good question: Would you still enjoy a story if it was spoiled for you? Shakespeare spoils Romeo & Juliet in the first 14 lines:

Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Do you still want to see the rest of the play? What if it had Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo, Claire Danes as Juliet and Harold Perrineau as Mercutio? There is something to be said for knowing where the story goes, yet still enjoying the teling of the tale.

I'll go on record and say I don't really care about spoilers. They've become adverts to me, hooks of interest into things I might not have discovered otherwise. I have to encounter new media somehow, and I try to take a positive outlook on it, saying, "I was meant to discover this." If I like something, I'm going to like it unabashedly and still find a way to enjoy it.

Delayed Gratification

If you are PC gamer, let me ask a question: How many unplayed games do you have in your Steam library? Games you haven't even downloaded and opened for the first time. What about unfinished games? Played-once-and-dropped-it games? Now ask yourself: Did you buy this game when it first came out? Did you pay for early access? Would you have still enjoyed it, even if you had to wait a while? Consider the Reddit community r/PatientGamers. They don't care to line up and pay a premium for a brand new release. They know it will still be the same game (often less buggy), and they will even be able to get it on sale. They know the salad bar is vast. There's lots of content, and there's no hurry. They let it come to them when the time is right.

I Don't Want to Hear It

Similar to r/PatientGamers, there is also the phenomona when it seems like everyone is raving about something, to the point where you begin to actively block it out. It doesn't seem to matter what it is; even if it's something good that you would ultimately enjoy. Something about the repetition or the messaging rubs you wrong, and you innoculate yourself against it. You avoid that part of the salad bar at all costs, even if you might like it.

Interpreting the Rules: Remixing as Fan Behavior.

How dooes your social circle play the game Uno? Fandom has a tendency to take what's been created and modify it, remix it according to their own rules, according to fanon's own internal logic. Sometimes it's seen as an act of repair, sometimes a love letter to canon. Sometimes it's shipping characters. Sometimes it is a what-if. What if all these different characters from different properties got together in a story?

Dismay at Media Conglomerate Strip Mining

Has one of the five mega media conglomerates "ruined your childhood" by making a live-adaptation of your favorite childhood cartoon? Well, buckle up, because they aren't going to stop. The big five are hungry for content, and they are actively strip-mining your childhood favorites. It doesn't matter if it's a live action remake of Avatar the Last Airbender or CATS the musical, eventually some studio exec is going to see dollar signs, and your favorite thing is going to get a bad remake. It's best to just accept this.

Further Dismay at AI Strip Mining

If you don't like what the big five are doing, you will hate what AI is doing, and if you're an artist you probably already know you are getting robbed by AI companies. Large language models (also known as Plausible Sentence Generators) and text-to-artwork tools like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney are getting more sophisticated.

They're still scraping the web, and more sites seem to be selling user-generated content to these places, prompting artists to use Glaze and Nightshade to protect their work and poison AI data-models.

People are selling their likeness for permanent use in perpetuity for use in crowds. Lord of the Rings used AI-enabled CGI units in some of the battles, and that was over 20 years ago. How long before they don't hire extras for movies anymore?

The year is 2100. You put on a vid. It is the usual cast, starring: Tu-Pac Shakur's avatar, Hatsune Miku, the latest Disney princess avatar, and the disembodied voice of James Earl Jones. All of the original flesh and blood actors are long dead, but their AI avatars and copyright ramain. Some were never were alive in the first place. It's all necrotainment. You turn off the TV.

Back to the present year, James Earl Jones's voice is now in an AI model, so Disney can give us the same Darth Vader forever. The year 2100 seems not so far away.

On the plus side, there seems to be a growing backlack against AI-generated content. People consider it cheap, shoddily-made and flimsy, and the quickest way to associate a brand as cheap garbage. At the Glasgow Willy Wonka's Chocolate experience event, the organizer used AI generated visuals for the marketing, and people arrived disappointed at the "dirty old warehouse." According to Paul Connell, the actor who played Wonka, the script was "15 pages of AI-generated gibberish."

"I never knew I would have liked this"

OK this is getting a bit grim, so here's something fun: People are getting exposed to other cultures' entertainment, and they like it! Netflix reports that 60% of their users have watched a Korean drama, and they plan to invest USD $2.5 billion in future Korean drama for the platform. Like anime booming outside of Japan in the 80s and 90s, or the British Invasion in the 1960s, people try out other parts of the salad bar, and discover they quite like it.

Archival Behavior

Abraham Lincoln once said, "You can't believe everything you read on the Internet." This is why screencapping and archiving things has become more important. Tweets get deleted, accounts get banned, and users deactivate. Capturing and archiving things here at least preserves some of the conversation.

In the Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote, "If you know yourself and you know your enemy -- and let's be clear the enemy are techbros, who are fundamentally lazy and want to cut corners for the sake of a quick buck and flashy, fake-innovation. Even their own mothers don't love them. They stole this content from Tumblr username whatmathgodwrought, original posting date 2024/03/03, and this should be used as evidence in the lawsuit against the responsible parties -- you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

If the internet is just 4 websites containing screenshots of the other ones, many are doing the good work of archiving for posterity.

Wasn't this Post also about Tumblr?

Yeah, yeah, we're taking the scenic route. (If you actually read this far, thank you. Send whatmathgodwrought a message and I'll read your blog, maybe reblog some of your stuff, maybe even follow you.)

Let's recap: pop culture spreads like wildfire. It gets retold/remixed/rebooted. Reference and spoilers are everywhere. You can delay and still enjoy a thing anytime, or you can resolutely choose to avoid a thing completely. You can remix, recreate, and fan-theorize canon ideas to their natural conclusion. The big five entertainment corps and AIs are strip-mining the heck out of it. People loves to try out things they never would have had access to before. So, after having some of these kind of experiences, you can post your fandom thoughts on Tumblr, add tags and watch it blow up (or not) or don't add tags (and watch it somehow blow up anyway?). Posts with "10k note energy" have slept for years before someone fired a reblog chain heard round the world. So what makes this environment the Galapagos Island or Cambrian period of websites for this Salad Bar idea?

Repeat and Resurgence

So the thing about a recurring joke is that it keep recurring. People will often write: "I will always reblog this." There are also seasonal examples. King Taejong falls from his horse, Feb 8, 1404. Julius Casear's assassaination on the Ides of March. Voyager's "Threshold" season-2, episode 15, Jan 29th. The clay tablet to Ea-nāṣir complaining about inferior quality copper. People like retelling, and reblogging with scheduling or queue contributes to the seasonal nature of repeat themes.

Tag You're It

Tags kind of help with the spreads-like-wildfire aspect. I've always liked tags as a general concept, because they're a flat, non-hierarchical, multi-category way of organizing information. In the Dewey Decimal system, your number is the category, and that's it; no nuance, no second-guessing, no argument. With tags, you add as many as you want, and then off it goes--haphazardly careening about the Tumblr ecosystem. Tagging is also broken, but whatever.

Goncharov

my favourite thing about the goncharov nonsense is that it relies on the tumblr culture of watching ur mutual posting about something but not really paying attention to it. the reason it slips so easily under the radar is we’re all used to seeing people’s random sudden fixations on our dashes and then just letting them do their thing - you don’t unfollow, you often don’t even filter it out, you just think ‘hey, glad they’re having fun’ and scroll past. i went like two days before realising it was a mass joke because i assumed one of my mutuals was just Really Into some old mafia film from the 70s all of a sudden. because why wouldn’t they be

User @watchmakermori hits the nail on the head. Tumblr's ecosystem exposes the user to random fandoms, which they might like, might look at later, or might actively avoid. It is within that space of ambiguity that the Goncharov phenomena thrived.

Trending By Organic Pollination

On this hellsite, it's possible to completely overwhelm the tags and get something trending, but at least this is mostly driven by human interest. In this case, Tumblr's lack of an algorithm is actually a feature. When a mutual reblogs something, at least I know that a human did it, unlike algorithm-based, auto-served content. We've seen what algorithms have done to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and even Google search. Algorithms drive "engagement", endless scrolling, and are likely contributing to Dead Internet Theory. At least Tumblr users are continuously blocking bots, trying to inoculate against AI-generated content, and are reblogging human content.

Parallel Play

Tumblr users' tendency to engage in parallel play also contributes to the remix factor as users reblog, retag and recontextulize. A shitpost becomes educational. Two isolated fandoms collide accidentally because of a poll. Someone makes a spelling error and it goes viral. Users play with JPEGs like dolls. Everyone is just out there doing their own thing in the big sandbox, and emergent behaviors result.

In Conclusion?

This post ended up more Tumblr-positive than I intended, even though that wasn't the original idea. The idea was to be more dispassionate, more objective, a casual observer. But like any participant-observer, I've gotten a bit caught up in the phenomenon.

So let's call this a Love Letter (academically aggravated) to Tumblr. Suffice it to say, I hope y'all keep blocking bots, reblogging humans, spiting the great AI content harvest, and keep enjoying the Salad Bar.

#salad bar theory of pop culture #tumblr

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longliverockback · 5 months

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Black Sabbath Hand of Doom 1970-1978 [Picture Discs Box Set] 2023 BMG ————————————————— Tracks LP One: Black Sabbath 01. Black Sabbath 02. The Wizzard 03. Behind the Wall of Sleep 04. N.I.B. 05. Evil Woman, Don’t Play Your Games with Me 06. Sleeping Village 07. Warning

Tracks LP Two: Paranoid 01. War Pigs • Luke’s Wall 02. Paranoid 03. Planet Caravan 04. Iron Man 05. Electric Funeral 06. Hand of Doom 07. Rat Salad 08. Jack the Stripper • Fairies Wear Boots

Tracks LP Three: Master of Reality 01. Sweet Leaf 02. After Forever 03. Embryo 04. Children of the Grave 05. Orchild 06. Lord of This World 07. Solitude 08. Into the Void

Tracks LP Four: Black Sabbath Vol. 4 01. Wheels of Confusion 02. Tomorrow’s Dream 03. Changes 04. FX 05. Supernaut 06. Snowblind 07. Cornucopia 08. Laguna Sunrise 09. St. Vitus Dance 10. Under the Sun

Tracks LP Five: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 01. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 02. A National Acrobat 03. Fluff 04. Sabbra Cadabra 05. Killing Yourself to Live 06. Who Are You 07. Looking for Today 08. Spiral Architect

Tracks LP Six: Sabotage 01. Hole in the Sky 02. Don’t Start (Too Late) 03. Symptom of the Universe 04. Megalomania 05. The Thrill of It All 06. Supertzar 07. Am I Going Insane (Radio) 08. The Writ

Tracks LP Seven: Technical Ecstasy 01. Back Street Kids 02. You Won’t Change Me 03. It’s Alright 04. Gypsy 05. All Moving Parts (Stand Still) 06. Rock ‘n’ Roll Doctor 07. She’s Gone 08. Dirty Women

Tracks LP Eight: Never Say Die! 01. Never Say Die 02. Johnny Blade 03. Junior’s Eyes 04. Hard Road 05. Shock Wave 06. Air Dancer 07. Over to You 08. Breakout 09. Swinging the Chain —————————————————

* Long Live Rock Archive

#BlackSabbath #Black Sabbath #Geezer Butler #Tony Iommi #Ozzy Osbourne #Bill Ward #Hand of Doom 1970-1978 #Compilation #Picture Disc #Box Set #Metal #2019

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queenofcandynsoda · 1 month

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Sol Fertilis: Victory Week and Day

Victory Week and Day

Victory Day, also known as officially the Day of Victory in the Ardens Oriens War, meaning “Blazing East”, celebrates the defeat of Nazi-Ostania and Zandia and the end of the Ardens Oriens War on March 27th. This is a major part of Abbadon’s Inferno War. In the week leading up to Victory Day, Sol Fertilis observes Victory Week, a period of remembrance and celebration dedicated to honoring the nation's triumph in the Ardens Oriens War and the defeat of their enemies. It occurred from the 21st to the 26th of March.

The Departments of Art Promotion and National Holidays from the Ministry of Celebrations & Festivals would provide each household with Victory Day decorations, along with small Nazi-Ostanian and Zandia flags that look like they’re on fire, PNP Banners, Victory Wreaths, and memorial candles. Streets, Centers, malls, Children’s Palaces, workplaces, government buildings, and many other places would be decorated with Victory Day decorations, along with anti-Nazi Ostanian, anti-Zandian, and pro-Sol Fertilian propaganda.

On the first day of Victory Week, town squares across Sol Fertilis present documentaries that vividly depict the atrocities committed by Nazi-Ostania and Zandia during the Ardens Oriens War. The documentaries did not spare any graphic details of war crimes and crimes against humanity. There are images of Nazi-Ostanian soldiers killing Sol Fertilian citizens, bombing major cities during air raids, enslavement of citizens, mass murders of the Jews, Roma, Arab, and African Sol Fertilians, Zandian soldiers destroying religious monuments, etc. The purpose of this is to increase rage against Nazi-Ostania, which was already defeated, and Zandia, which has a conditional surrender and is suspected to house escaped Nazi criminals.

On the second day, citizens are presented with historical footage and audio from their teleautomata, which is a television with automatic activation capabilities, and an automataradio, which is a radio device equipped with automatic activation features. The historical footage consists of Sol Fertilian military leaders, soldiers, supporters, and citizens preparing for war to protect its sovereignty. The purpose of this is to remind the nation’s resilience and defense.

On the third and fourth days, this is where the Sol Fertilian children would prepare items for the Victory Day Parade. All of the Iuventutis Foederatios, meaning youth leagues, would prepare their decorations. Examples include the Ceres Gaia Junior Harvesters, a Beta Neutral Iuventutis Foederatios focus on agriculture, which would build a cornucopia of ration food that soldiers and citizens eat. Another is the Bona Flora's Bloomers, an Omega Iuventutis Foederatio focusing on floriculture, which would make garlands and bouquets that represent the Supervictus, a term for the survivors of the Nazi-Ostanian and Zandian atrocities. Another example is the Keres Scouts, an all-female Alpha Iuventutis Foederatio, who would build paper-mache figures of Sol Fertilis’ enemies so they would be burned down at the end of the week.

On the fifth day, there are films about major heroes from the Ardens Oriens War. Starting from the Sol Resistance Army to the “Witch of Berlint” Sigal Fleischer, to the Juvenile Soldiers who fought the Hässlich Youth, to the Berlint Theatre Massacre along with the eventual Beheading of Hässlich. These are the most iconic films and would be shown on primetime, depending on which channel. Also, the AlphaVigil, which is a short program for young Alpha children in the Centers and Children’s Palaces to instill a sense of rage towards Sol Fertilis’ enemies, would show recreations of war heroes’ fights to celebrate the triumph over enemies.

On the sixth day, there would be televised public executions of those who are convicted of High Treason, officially known as Altum Proditio. This type of High Treason mainly connects to Nazi-Ostania and Zandia as these traitors are convicted of being collaborators, terrorists, spies, assassins, seditious criminals, and secessionists. Once they are convicted, they are held in prison until it is the day before Victory Day. They are taken to the April 3rd Square where they are executed by either firing squad, hanging, burning at the stake, and, for the most severe offense, damnatio ad bestias via wolves. In Olympia, most of its citizens would be in person to watch and praise the executions as high-ranking government officials, such as Senators, Justices, and Patriarchs/Matriarchs, would watch them from the balconies. Citizens living outside Olympia are mandated to watch it on the screens in public squares, taverns, workplaces, Centers, post-Center institutions, malls, etc. Omegas, pregnant women, the elderly, and young children are the only ones to be excluded from watching the brutal executions.

On Victory Day itself, there is a massive festival around the nation with a military parade in Olympia. There were presentations on military strength and citizen resilience. There are floats from the Iuventutis Foederatios to show that the nation survived to be fertile. Citizens would eat “Victory Snacks” as they watch the parade. Sol Fertilian leaders and war heroes would watch from balconies and praise the military and Iuventutis Foederatios. Citizens would visit Ardens Oriens war memorials and museums to commemorate the soldiers, heroes, and Supervictus, which is a term for survivors of the Nazi-Ostania invasion of Northeast Sol Ferilis and the enslavement. There is a televised orchestra concert at the Minvera Theater with songs based on battles that Sol Fertilis won. At primetime, citizens would watch a documentary film that shows the entirety of Sol Fertilis’ involvement in the Ardens Oriens War, starting from Nazi Ostantia’s invasion of the north to the death of Hasslich, marking the end.

#sol fertilis #holiday #victory day #victory week #omegaverse #dystopia #dystopic #dystopian #dystopian omegaverse

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