#icons petri

[thepastisalreadywritten]

By Courtney Mares

9 November 2024

For the first time in over a century, the historic Chair of St. Peter, a wooden throne symbolizing the pope’s magisterial authority, has been removed from its gilded bronze reliquary in St. Peter’s Basilica to be displayed for public veneration. 

Pilgrims and visitors can now behold this storied relic directly in front of the basilica’s main altar, just above the tomb of St. Peter, where it will remain on display until December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

According to Pietro Zander, Head of the Necropolis and Artistic Heritage Section of the Vatican:

"The last major public viewing of the chair occurred in 1867, when Pope Pius IX exposed the Chair of Peter for the veneration of the faithful for 12 days on the 1,800th anniversary of the martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Paul."

It was the first time that the centuries-old wooden throne had been exhibited to the public since 1666 when it was first encased within Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s monumental bronze sculpture under the stained-glass Dove of the Holy Spirit window at the basilica’s apse.

Formally known as the Cathedra Sancti Petri Apostoli, or more simply as Cathedra Petri, the chair has held a revered place in Catholic tradition over the centuries, representing papal authority from St. Peter to the present.

“The chair is meant to be understood as the teacher’s ‘cathedra,’” art historian Elizabeth Lev told CNA.

“It symbolizes the pope’s duty to hand down the teaching of Christ from generation to generation.”

She explained:

“It’s antiquity [ninth century] speaks to a papacy that has endured through the ages — from St. Peter who governed a church on the run trying to evangelize with the might of the Roman Empire trying to shut him down, to the establishment of the Catholic Church and its setting down of roots in the Eternal City, to our 266th successor of St. Peter, Pope Francis.”

A Storied History

The wooden chair itself is steeped in history.

According to the Vatican, the wooden seat was likely given by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald to Pope John VIII in A.D. 875 for the emperor’s Christmas coronation in the old St. Peter’s Basilica.

A depiction of the emperor appears on the crossbeam of the chair, and its ivory panels illustrate the labors of Hercules along with other scenes from Greek mythology.

The informational sign near the chair in St. Peter’s Basilica informs visitors that “shortly after the year 1000, the Cathedra Petri began to be venerated as a relic of the seat used by the apostle Peter when he preached the Gospel first in Antioch and then in Rome.”

The Fabric of St. Peter, the organization responsible for the basilica’s upkeep, maintains:

“It cannot be ruled out that this ninth-century imperial seat may have later incorporated the panel depicting the labors of Hercules, which perhaps originally belonged to an earlier and more ancient papal seat.”

Before returning the chair to its place within Bernini’s monumental reliquary, Vatican experts will conduct a series of diagnostic tests with the Vatican Museums’ Cabinet of Scientific Research.

The ancient seat was last removed and studied from 1969 to 1974 under Pope Paul VI but was not shown to the public.

The recent restoration of Bernini’s works in the basilica, funded by the Knights of Columbus in preparation for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, made it possible for the chair to be moved from the bronze sculpture in August.

Pope Francis got a sneak peak of the relic in early October and a photo of the moment — showing him sitting in a wheelchair before the Chair of St. Peter — quickly went viral.

Afterward, the pope requested that the relic be displayed for public veneration.

Francis ultimately decided that the Chair of St. Peter — a symbol of the Church’s unity under the instruction of Christ — would be unveiled for the public at the closing Mass for the Synod on Synodality.

“Pope Francis has been exceptionally generous to the faithful about displaying relics,” Lev said.

“He brought out the bones of St. Peter shortly after his election, he had the Shroud of Turin on view in 2015, and now he has taken the Chair of Peter out for veneration in the basilica.” 

“In our virtual age, where much confusion reigns between what is real and what is not, Pope Francis has encouraged us to come face to face with these ancient witnesses of our faith and our traditions.”

Feast of the Chair of St. Peter

The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, celebrated each year on February 22, dates back to the fourth century.

St. Jerome (A.D. 347–420) spoke of his respect for the “Chair of Peter,” writing in a letter:

“I follow no leader save Christ, so I enter into communion with … the Chair of Peter, for this I know is the rock upon which the Church is built.”

As Pope Benedict XVI explained in a 2006 catechesis:

“‘Cathedra’ literally means the established seat of the bishop, placed in the mother church of a diocese, which for this reason is known as a ‘cathedral.”

“It is the symbol of the bishop’s authority and in particular, of his ‘magisterium,’ that is, the evangelical teaching which, as a successor of the apostles, he is called to safeguard and to transmit to the Christian community,” he said.

When a bishop takes possession of the particular Church that has been entrusted to him, he sits on the cathedra, Benedict explained:

“From this seat, as teacher and pastor, he will guide the journey of the faithful in faith, hope, and charity.”

“The Church’s first ‘seat’ was the upper room, and it is likely that a special place was reserved for Simon Peter in that room where Mary, mother of Jesus, also prayed with the disciples,” he added.

Benedict XVI described Peter’s ministry as a journey from Jerusalem to Antioch, where he served as bishop, and ultimately to Rome.

He noted that the See of Rome, where Peter ultimately “ended his race at the service of the Gospel with martyrdom,” became recognized as the seat of his successors, with the cathedra representing the mission entrusted to Peter by Christ.

“So it is that the See of Rome, which had received the greatest of honors, also has the honor that Christ entrusted to Peter of being at the service of all the particular Churches for the edification and unity of the entire people of God,” he said.

Bernini’s Baroque Masterpiece

Bernini’s monumental reliquary for the chair, commissioned by Pope Alexander VII and completed in 1666, is one of the most iconic artworks in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Bernini encased the wooden relic within a bronze-gilded throne, dramatically raised and crowned by a stained-glass depiction of the Holy Spirit, symbolized as a dove, surrounded by sculpted angels.

The bronze throne is supported by massive statues of four doctors of the Church — two from the West, St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, and two from the East, St. John Chrysostom and St. Athanasius.

It is symbolizing the unity of the Church through the ages, bringing together the teachings of both the Latin and Greek Church Fathers.

And at the top of the throne, cherubs hold up a papal tiara and keys symbolizing papal authority.

On the chair itself, there are three gold bas-reliefs representing the Gospel episodes: "consignment of the keys" (Matthew 16:19), “feed my sheep” (John 21:17), and the "washing of the feet" (John 13:1-17).

The ongoing restoration of Bernini’s monument at the Altar of the Chair, along with the recently finished restoration of the baldacchino, is significant not only in light of the 2025 Jubilee Year but also the upcoming 400th anniversary of the Consecration of the Current St. Peter’s Basilica in 2026.

Benedict XVI said:

“Celebrating the ‘Chair’ of Peter means attributing a strong spiritual significance to it and recognizing it as a privileged sign of the love of God, the eternal Good Shepherd, who wanted to gather his whole Church and lead her on the path of salvation.”

[mixtapedoh]

the amazing, showstopping, incredible @musicallisto enables me daily <3333

for your consideration <3; you may now rest soundly in the knowledge that i am, in all things, correct.

[dozydawn]

Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko 1995 Original Dance “Quickstep”

Borsalino by Claude Bolling.

“They’re popular here, they get some pretty good support at home, too. Susanna’s father is the mayor of Helsinki, Finland.”

[oldtelevisionicons]

@jeannieneIson or like

[trans-xianxian]

i have no idea what wangxian is no clue the show context or setting but ive been following you for months now because i like your rambles about these strangers and your my emotional attachment blog

I love this ask so much I almost didn't want to publish it just so that I could keep it safe in my inbox. I want to print it out and put it up on my wall. it's So sweet while at the same time being deliriously funny. thank you tumblr user evermorethecrow

and also watch the untamed (2019)

[fuckyeahlespleen]

pink details in la decima vittima 1965 dir. elio petri

(the 10th victim)

[hometeamottawa]

Everything You Need to Know about Buying a Condo in Ottawa

Welcome to Everything you need to know about buying a condo in Ottawa. In this comprehensive video, Kayla Meyer, Saeideh Shabani, Reed Allen, Alex Wickham, Ryan Brown, Naj Sadaat, Sylvie Bégin, Keith Bray, & Bryanne Rheault explore the ins and outs of purchasing a condo in this vibrant and diverse city of Ottawa, Canada’s capital. Introduction to Ottawa’s Condo Market Ottawa’s real estate…

[kaiasky]

ok so here is my best understanding of weed from someone who has never smoked it, except for that one time i smoked it.

weed is apparently a flower not a leaf. the other bits have thc but people are wusses and don't smonk them. EXTREMELY silly since the cannabis leaf shape is so iconic. (the only parallel that even comes close is that the aminita muscaria is the icon of psychedelics despite not being a psyllocybin mushroom.)

i think like only one sex of plant has flowers that are worth smonking and it's a big thing to ensure all your seeds are female.

for some reason chewing it raw doesn't get you high you need to heat it up? (which i learned because i was worried that if i could smell unburnt weed in storage i was getting a contact high)

in general i feel that weed fans are maybe a bit of pussies like idk, simply smoke 3x the weed if it has 3x lower concentration, idgi? skissue.

People have strong opinions on how to get their weed but it seems like generally: in illegal places you talk to the most annoying person you know, and in legal places you go into an app store and place an order on an iPad and if you go to the front desk they say they can't help you, place an order on the ipad. or you order it online with various promises about how fast it'll get there and how little you need to interact with another human being.

there is an item known as a grinder which seems terribly designed and intended to spill as much cannabis on the ground as possible. why does this item look like a petri dish and not have an inbuilt funnel or something? i do not know.

the grinders job is to turn weed, which started life as loose ground up buds and was compacted into brussel sprouts of slightly more compressed ground up buds, into loose ground up buds, so it can be recompacted into slightly more compressed ground up buds in a weed cigarette bunt

the airflow of a joint is a mystery to me because my mental model of it is just you take the rolling paper and roll it up, lick it to seal it shut, and then twist the ends shut like a tootsie roll. which would block you from being able to suck the air in, no? my best guess is it's not entirely airtight and you just draw breath through the paper.

similarly, once you light it i don't understand what prevents the weed from spilling out the open end. if you blew on a joint would it spray everyone with smouldering weed?

i think most joints are unfiltered because idk. in general ig my perception is that cigarette users prize the aesthetics of a manufactured and standardized product while weed users prize the aesthetics of handrolling as a craft.

theres some substance called resin that makes it more thc-y. presumably it's just you blend up the rest of the plant and distill it?

blunts are either cigars with weed in them (do they still have a tobacco leaf as the wrap??) or just a big joint I'm not sure.

you can also, if you're normal, use a pipe or a bubbler or bong. this is very sensible and i understand how these work.

i don't understand why the weed pipe is that particular form and not like a tobacco pipe. or like why are the tobacco pipe, crack pipe, and weed pipe all different??

If you're a wuss, you can eat a gummy, either the thc kind that does something or the cbd kind that does nothing. you eat this and "nothing happens" and you have 4 more and then you explode, and apparently this happens to everybody. skissue.

the primary effect of weed is that you feel uncomfortable and want to eat food except ur mouth feels bad when it eats food. secondarily time goes slower (which, by the time-flies principle, implies you're not having fun?)

theres sativa which is if you want to have a fun joyous intriguing time, and indica which is boring. People make a lot of this difference and it's always like "there's two types of cowstuff, prime rib and literal cowpies"

if you smoke weed you get a tolerance and if you stop smoking you get less tolerance. so theres a ritual of taking a break to reset the tolerance. i find this oddly charming.

[magpie-come-east]

I'm gonna be annoying and ask about Aster too. So much about him seems left unsaid and I want to put him in a petri dish

favorite thing about them

It tickles me so much that people really like him. People tell me they like Cyrielle, but it hits so much harder in a good way when people say they love Aster. It's hard to get people invested in OCs- particularly OCs that aren’t there as vehicles to smooch the blorbo- so it makes me feel like I did a good job writing him!

He's kinda the most delightfully quirky character I've ever written. His seething yet outwardly jovial rage is so fun. He's toxic and he knows it.

least favorite thing about them

Much like Cyrielle, I wish I had cared more about his backstory as I was writing him. I wish I had fleshed him out more to make his sudden turn from Ranni's chosen Lord of Lord of Frenzied Flame more organic and clearer.

In fact, since he wasn't the POV character in Gilded Apotheosis- and was pretty much actively getting amnesia in HSPS- I also didn't get much oppertunity to showcase Aster, Ranni, and Blaidd's relationship. Apart from a few vital scenes.

favorite line

This one is hard again! Because I think he shines best in banter and dialogue. He doesn't have a ton of stand-alone banger lines.

This may be cheating. It's not dialogue but it is a thought in his POV:

'Nice girls. He hoped he never saw them again.'

Like it's so encapsulating of who he is at the end of HSPS. He's healing. He's lonely. He's still kind of a dick. But lovable for it.

'The mimic’s hands rose, but did not grasp Aster’s staff or sword. Not even the seal that he kept clipped to his belt. Instead, both hands began to flash a series of gestures ranging from rude to obscene. Brief periods of silent laughter sandwiched between each.'

I just love him

“You know that the Grace-Given Lord is Margit, right?”

Finally an actual quote. This one's just iconic. Please tell that 9 INT woman the truth about her Lord, sir. Just casually drop that in her lap.

brOTP

Aster x Cyrielle. This one I expanded on in the Cyrielle answer to this meme.

Ranni x Aster

Yeah, they're technically married, but they never romantically loved one another. Nonetheless, Ranni's deeply loving nature really stands out in their relationship. Again, it's sad I couldn't show more of Ranni and Aster's relationship. But one of the factors that led to Aster taking on the FF was him learning that Ranni was going to go to the stars without him. In her mind, this was a mercy. To him, it felt like abandonment of the one person that cared for him just as he was. Eccentric warts and all.

OTP

Varre x Aster

I loved that toxic middle-aged yaoi. Reading that third chapter of HSPS still hits so good. If only Aster's brain wasn't literally being melted and if only Varre hadn't been seduced away by Mohg's magnificent breasts! Sad!

nOTP

Aster x Cyrielle - same as before. But really I don't have an intense nOTP otherwise.

random headcanon

If I could go back and add to his backstory, I would expound on his origins. When Godfrey's Tarnished spread out in the lands beyond the Lands Between, Aster's homeland was conquered- or at least menaced- by the marauding, displaced bands. Aster was born of a Lands Between exile and a woman indigenous to the land. But it was not a union made of love. Aster's mother was more or less taken in the conquest. I think this would better explain his general resentment of the Lands Between and the Greater Will- as well as his upset of himself being revived as a Tarnished, too.

unpopular opinion

He's an OC. I don't think there is an unpopular opinion!

song i associate with them

Kingslayer by Bring Me The Horizon!! (Love this one)

The Man Who Sold the World - Midge Ure

Camel by Camel (flashing lights) (youtube.com) <- This thing

favorite picture of them

Rennala's cutscene never disappoints. I love my miserable balding king.

[ladyofthelake]

GO SPACE MEN!!

AO3 Top Relationships Bracket- Semifinals

This poll is a celebration of fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.

[assiraphales]

mad scientist laszlo is THEE moment. he's always been an icon as an eccentric slut with whimsical little hobbies like topiary and poetry but him tottering around his laboratory lit by candles splicing dna in his over the top outfits??? the man has an 18th century education and he's capable of running complex experiments and transferring energy with his hand built machines. he's creating bastard hybrid creatures in petri dishes. he's whipping up a lotion that let's him, a vampire, walk in sunlight. he's messing w things no one else should ever mess w. good for him!

[all-action-all-picture]

MINNIE - 65 Years of Minxing! 2018 magazine celebrating 65 years of Beano icon Minnie the Minx. She was created by Leo Baxendale and Georgie Moonie (who was Beano editor from 1938 to 1939 and 1946–1959, d. 2002). Her strip originally appeared in black and white but letters from Moonie to Baxendale show that it was planned she would adopt the red and black colour scheme of Dennis the Menace should the strip be popular enough to move to the colour pages.

Baxendale (1930-2017) worked for The Beano up until 1964. His other main strips for the title were Little Plum, The Bash Street Kids and The Three Bears. His initial replacement on Minnie was Jim Petrie (1932-2014) who, I think, was the longest running artist on the strip and the one I would have been most familiar with.

DC Thomson.

[addicted2wasps]

My current complete collection of ocean Jasper spheres. It's an addiction. I've shared pictures of these before, minus my newest one which is the big one at the far, middle right. They also all have names!

1. Sanguinolentum: Containing, or tinged with blood, bloody.

2. Tulipa: Plant, Tulip. The colours and patterns reminded me of a flower field.

3. Xerces Sylvester Cosmos: This one is super random. My parents and I each gave this one a name. I said Xerces because it reminded me of the extinct, blue, San Francisco Lycaenid butterfly, my dad said Sylvester because he's random, lmao, and my mom said Cosmos because it seemed I had searched the entire cosmos for it.

4. Fuligo: The yellow blob reminded me of yellow slime mold.

5. Cirrocumulus: Named as such because the light blue orbs are reminiscent of clouds.

6. Nix: Meaning "snow" in Latin. The large, white orbs give an appearance of large fluffy snowflakes.

7. Sakura: The numerous, small, pink orbs give off cherry tree vibes. As if it were covered in tiny, pink blossom petals.

8. Penicillium: An iconic fungi. The colour and pattern resembles mold in a petri dish.

9. Favus: Meaning "honeycomb" in Latin.

10. Occasus Solis or "Occasus" for short: Latin for "setting sun".

11. Ignis: Latin for "fire".

12. Maculosus: Latin for "spotted" or "speckled".

[whatmathgodwrought]

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.

[pillowfriends]

my thoughts on the WoT characters after book 5

before I start posting Lord of Chaos thoughts, I wanted to sum up what I think of the characters after The Fires of Heaven (and New Spring) so I can look back on it later. I’m sure I’m missing some, just listing everyone I have thoughts on.

Alanna: I have my eye on her after those sus forced bonding comments… time will tell but I don’t trust her at all. I like her though, she’s fun.

Asmodean: he was funny as hell, what a pathetic guy, and had objectively the most hilarious death in the series so far.

Aviendha: this is probably the character I have the least complicated feelings about. I just like her. she’s funny, she’s badass, her relationship with Rand is great.

Birgitte: a hot bicon. every word that comes out of her mouth is gold. she’s such a bro.

Egeanin: standout side character to me I love her so much. yes girl unlearn your cultural biases! and be unhinged and horny on main!! she better come back!!

Egwene: girl I want to like you but you're making it so hard 😭 as a character she's great. as a person I'm struggling with her dumbassery and her superiority complex and the way she's treating Nynaeve.

Elaida: she’s cringe and bad at her job but I kind of stan. she’s doing her best and it is absolutely not good enough and she’s being puppeted by the Black Ajah and only succeeded at deposing Siuan because a bunch of teenage boys stabbed people for her. I can’t even be angry at her tbh.

Elayne: book 5 was so great for Elayne. she's maturing a lot and she really shot up the list for me. her interpersonal relationships are so funny and I love how excited she is about making ter'angreal.

Faile: maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder but I miss her and want her back. she was so silly but also loved Perrin so much and I’m such a hopeless romantic that I loved the sappy parts.

Gareth Bryne: this man is a CREEP!! Siuan get AWAY from him! ugh ugh ugh. and I know it’s only going to get worse.

Galad: unfortunately this man is one of my favorite character archetypes. I didn’t vibe with him at first but now I really do.

Gawyn: I want to put him in a paper shredder. I am so angry at this man even after a full book to cool down post-coup. please let me deck him. I do think my feelings will change but right now I’m still angry as shit.

Graendal: problematic queen. do I think RJ will do anything interesting with her, probably not, but am I intrigued, yes.

Lan: THIS MAN BREAKS MY HEART DAILY. ohhhhh my god. not normal about him.

Lanfear: hmmm complicated feelings about book Lanfear. I found her introduction painful and annoying - it’s way too obvious - but she improved and I do love how crazy she is. it didn’t really sink in for me until her conversation with Rand in Tear that she’s delusional and obsessed with LTT to the point of being completely out of touch with reality, and therefore v scary. TLDR I love her now. RIP gone too soon.

Leane: I have no idea what’s cooking with her, I just have to RAFO. I’m either going to think she’s an icon or get angry at RJ for being sexist and I don’t know which.

Liandrin: the balls on this woman are actually insane, trying to Compel Moggy. she’s way too cartoonishly evil to be really interesting though. but she makes so many sexually charged dog references which I love tbh.

Logain: he’s fine I guess. hard to tell where his story is heading and he kind of hasn’t done anything.

Loial: he has never done anything wrong in his entire life, he's perfect and I love him.

Mat: I've come around and I like him now. his memory stuff is really interesting and so is the way he interacts with fate/the Pattern.

Melaine: best Wise One I love her so much.

Min: she’s never clicked with me as a character and I think her motivation is kind of dumb and repetitive. I also really dislike how salty and disrespectful she is towards Siuan but that has to do with my personal issues about the Siuan plotline so I can’t totally blame her for that.

Moghedien: I NEED to put her in a petri dish and poke her with a stick. girl you are not subtle about your petplay kink. somehow she’s scary and pathetic at the same time and I just love her a lot.

Moiraine: I can’t even put it into words. she’s my everything.

Morgase: I feel so fucking bad for her, her POVs were horrific, what a survivor. I'm excited for when she gets a bigger plotline.

Nynaeve: my favorite character who’s on page at present. first of all she has a Forsaken collared. second of all she’s so angry and I love angry women. also she has no self awareness which makes her POVs very amusing, but also sometimes devastating — I love her struggling with fear and her perceived cowardice in TFOH.

Perrin: I constantly forget he exists. not in a bad way but not really in a good way either - he’s just bland to me.

Rand: he is my idiot baby boy. go insane faster please it’s interesting.

Rahvin: good riddance you creepy fuck. not even awful in a compelling way to me, just awful. good as a character, well-written, but AAAA.

Siuan: her arc after being stilled is distressing to me and I don’t like reading it - her loss of power and influence, the way the other Aes Sedai all treat her, the sexual harassment… so I have a hard time separating that out from Siuan herself. I’m… torn. I love some of her scenes and some feel very out of left field. we’ll RAFO again.

Suroth: GIVE ME MORE. her POV was fascinating and she’s so awful.

Thom: against my best wishes, I actually like him now. he’s so dad coded and protective of Nynaeve and Elayne, and a badass, and has a good sense of humor.

Verin: what an icon!! favorite Aes Sedai bar none now that Moiraine is gone.

[inevitably there will be a part 2 when I realize I forgot some really obvious people]

[concerthopperblog]

Review: Ensiferum - Winter Storm

It's been four years since folk metal icons Ensiferum released an album, 2020's Thalassic. This is not an intolerable amount of time to wait for new music but it is the longest of Ensiferum's career. Fortunately, the wait was worth it, as the band is releasing its new opus, Winter Storm, on Oct. 18.

The nautical-themed, and at times pirate metal, stylings of Thalassic brought some changes to the band's lineup and sound, with the addition of keyboardist and clean vocalist Pekka Montin giving the band a one-two vocal punch. If you enjoyed the changes, then Winter Storm will be an album for you as Montin's participation in the band has only increased and his epic screams have only gotten louder.

This time out, Ensiferum has ditched the open waters as an album theme and has instead turned to the realm of fantasy. All but one song was written by founding guitarist Markus Toivonen from a fantasy novel concept written by bassist Sami Hinkka (who wrote the album's one other song, “Fatherland”). This gives the album the feel of a rock opera, weaving a coherent narrative about two warring factions of Northern armies and the relationship between a nomadic shaman and a mysterious widow. In true rock opera form, everything is bigger on Winter Storm. The choruses swell, the harsh vocals belt out with an increased ferocity, and Montin at times channels Manowar's Eric Adams with his soaring vocals.

One of the album's anthemic highlights is “Winter Vigilantes.” Introducing the audience to one of the two warring factions that make up the story, “Winter Vigilantes” begins with harsh vocalist Petri Lindroos doing his best throat-ripping scream before belting the opening verse. Then Montin comes in with that epic scream and it just cements the viciousness of both the track and the tribe it portrays.

“Fatherland” is notable for being the album's most anthemic song. With an almost Steve Harris-esque bass gallop from Hinkka to anchor, “Fatherland” best features the big choruses where the entire band harmonizes and sounds like a Viking chorus singing an ode to Odin.

Another highlight track doesn't feature Montin or Lindroos on vocals, but Madeleine Liljestam from Eleine, who plays the part of The Widow and takes vocal leads on the entire song. Liljestam has always sung like an angel and her voice here anchors what is as close to a ballad as you get on Winter Storm.

If you enjoyed the addition of clean vocals and the move toward more of a power metal sound than their traditional folk metal, then Winter Storm is an album you're going to love. It takes everything that the band added on Thalassic and cranks it up to 11, leading to a