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mariacallous · 6 months ago

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If you’re baffled by Skibidi Toilet, you’re not alone.

The bizarre animated YouTube series centers on an alien invasion: a swarm of singing heads, all popping out of toilets, has descended on a Los Angeles–like metropolis and triggered a surreal, cartoonish, apocalyptic war. That’s a more direct and clear explanation than you’ll find in the actual videos, since they’re all almost completely wordless. There’s no language barrier, which is a major reason why the videos have been viewed hundreds of millions of times, becoming a global cultural phenomenon among Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Surprisingly for something so popular, Skibidi Toilet has garnered a reputation for being incomprehensible to anyone who isn’t a fan. Its impenetrable nature has raised serious concerns around the world. Some call it a moral outrage, foreign propaganda meant to prey on vulnerable young minds, or even a disease. In a cultural climate where it’s harder and harder to understand trends and popularity, people are searching for an explanation for how singing toilets conquered the world. On the May 22 episode of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert punched up a joke about the Biden campaign using Skibidi Toilet to attract the youth vote, saying that if anyone didn’t get the gag, their grandchildren could explain it “and you still won’t understand.”

As random as the videos can seem, their success isn’t. Skibidi Toilet deftly combines modern storytelling trends with nostalgic internet humor in a way that magnifies the outwardly confusing qualities of both. “It was initially appealing to young people for its utter weirdness,” says danah boyd, a partner researcher at Microsoft Research. “Parents (and many other adults) probably reacted with revulsion, as they’ve done many other times. That revulsion from adults makes it even more appealing to young people.”

That’s why the word “skibidi�� has become a more general shibboleth for Gen Z and younger, in the same class as “rizz”, “gyat,” and “sigma.” Adults being shocked and confounded at kids having fun creates a feedback loop where kids want to make it even more distressing. The videos certainly have a lot of shock value, featuring surreal, disturbing, and violent imagery. In an interview with Forbes in February, Alexey Gerasimov, who creates the videos and uploads them under the name “DaFuq!?Boom!,” described the videos as being inspired by his own recurring nightmares.

In that light, it can be easy to see why the global success has been met with an equally global panic. Last August, several writers and journalists in Malaysia and Indonesia warned parents about the dangers of a “Skibidi toilet syndrome” that would cause children to refuse to stop imitating the toilet’s songs and dances. Earlier this year, Robbie Collin wrote in the Telegraph that the videos were a sign YouTube needed more strictly enforced age limits.

Other sources are going even farther, calling the surreal meme videos a threat to national security. In February, reporter Olga Sosnina claimed in a Swedish news outlet that Skibidi Toilet was Russian propaganda aimed at indoctrinating children. Russia was just as worried: In January, Moscow officials were called to investigate the videos. In April, Anna Mityanina, St. Petersburg’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, played the videos to the city’s legislative assembly as part of an annual report on risks to children. “There is no need to pretend that there are no standards of decency,” Mityanina said. “A character in the form of a toilet, to put it mildly, is not cultured enough.”

For all of the worry, there isn’t much to be concerned about within the Skibidi Toilet videos themselves. “I see these media as reflective of our societal obsessions,” says boyd. “As always, young people twist it slightly in a way that makes adults uncomfortable because they don’t want to reckon with their own passions.”

The videos, as uncanny as they can get, don’t contain anything particularly unsuitable for children. The violence is unrelenting and large in scope, but never goes beyond cartoonish explosions and punches. Characters who appear to be killed or turned to the villain’s side regularly return to fight alongside the heroes. The largely wordless storytelling, of course, puts a limit on mature themes. Ultimately, the most “indecent” element of the videos is the toilets themselves, which will always be a hit with the younger generation.

That’s not the only area where Skibidi Toilet follows a long tradition. Gerasimov (who didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment) animates the videos using the Source Filmmaker program, but he’s modified the animation interface to emulate the 2006 game Garry’s Mod. Garry’s Mod, true to its name, was initially a fanmade modification of the game Half-Life 2 that removed any structure or objective, leading to a purely creative sandbox years before Minecraft’s Creative Mode. The game was used to create thousands of machinima videos throughout the late 2000s, and Gerasimov calls these videos a primary inspiration for Skibidi Toilet.

Maddy Buxton, the head of YouTube’s culture and trends team, says this is a major factor in the videos’ success. “One thing we know about Gen Z viewers and creators is they’re interested in nostalgia. It’s hearkening back to this earlier time, even if they didn’t grow up in it themselves,” Buxton says. Skibidi Toilet was one of the top trending topics last year on YouTube, where at one point it garnered 2.8 billion views in 28 days.

Nostalgia and scatological humor can be eye-catching, but to build up the kind of sustained interest and devotion Gerasimov has, there needs to be a story in its own right. The narrative of Skibidi Toilet isn’t communicated directly, but that only adds to its intrigue for many viewers, especially younger ones who are used to having to put in extra work to get the full picture. “We’ve been looking into the role of lore in building these big fan communities,” says Buxton. “The ones that aren’t just passively watching, but digging into the backstory.”

That digging is so popular that it’s transcending traditional structures of fandom. There’s no shortage of ways to be a fan of something online, but Skibidi Toilet’s audience has spent most, if not all, of their lives on the internet, and their work comes out in extremely online forms. Acolytes flood YouTube with breakdown videos and expand on the worldbuilding with Roblox games. Then there’s the comment-section fiction: Wherever the videos are posted, the comments are filled with dozens or hundreds of people providing their own written narratives retelling the events of the video, filling the gap left by the storytelling with their own words. It’s a cross between a liveblogged reaction and fan fiction, creating lore where none existed.

The idea of lore is now fundamental to the way many people consume any fiction, but it started in the world of video games, especially games like Dark Souls that have virtually no direct storytelling. There are hundreds of unofficial Skibidi Toilet games that let players take part in the battles, but the videos themselves invite a similar degree of participation.

“People are coming at it from different entry points,” says Buxton. “Some people are coming in from the gaming world, some are coming just for the action storytelling, some like to unpack lore.” She describes these unusual fan works as “casual creation,” saying that “this idea of being a daily creator makes it much easier to be an active fan than it was five, 10, 15 years ago. Now you can engage in the subject of your fandom by creating it online.”

Of course, Skibidi Toilet itself could be categorized as a fan creation, containing numerous echoes of Garry’s Mod and the Half-Life games. Like many recent works that emerge online, from streetwear trends to unauthorized TikTok musicals, Skibidi Toilet blurs the line between fan work and original work. “Lots of the kids who got into Skibidi Toilet don’t know anything about where these characters and assets are sourced from,” says Phillip Hamilton, an associate editor at Know Your Meme.

Beyond the actual content of the videos, their release schedule is also a factor. “Skibidi Toilet is huge with people (namely kids) who always want more,” says Hamilton. “Each episode is about a minute long and they blast by so fast, with episodes coming out super frequently.”

During the first wave of the videos’ popularity in mid-2023, Gerasimov was uploading at least two videos each week for months, sometimes uploading a video every single day. Social media algorithms have prioritized more frequent uploaders for years, and Gerasimov had been animating in Source Filmmaker for more than a decade, giving him enough experience to crank out the videos fast enough to satisfy YouTube’s algorithm.

This isn’t the first time the algorithm has popularized content that adults find inappropriate for children. In 2017, YouTube faced a public outcry when it was found that the platform was promoting hundreds of disturbing videos, and allowing them to be viewed on its family-friendly YouTube Kids app. The controversy would be known as “Elsagate,” since the offending videos featured popular children’s characters like Elsa, Spider-Man, and Peppa Pig undergoing gory medical procedures, getting kidnapped, and more.

These videos were transparent attempts to game YouTube’s recommendation system for ad revenue. Many of them had hundreds of seemingly inauthentic comments to boost engagement metrics, and a report by the New York Times found one prominent channel was creating videos with a team of roughly 100 people.

YouTube made changes to its algorithm to disincentivize scammers from making these videos. They can’t do the same to flush away Skibidi Toilet, because it wasn’t made to satisfy the algorithm in the same way. It’s a much smaller operation, made with genuine craft and artistic intention. Gerasimov made the videos longer and more ambitious as the series grew in popularity, but that growth happened thanks to people actually enjoying the series, not for associations with popular characters.

Nonetheless, they’ve become even more of a hit among the younger generation, and for parents, this seems to be the real underlying fear. “I think Skibidi Toilet’s ‘negative effects’ on kids are mostly just the obsessive, seemingly addictive aspect,” says Hamilton. “It’s the same reason parents worry about short-form video platforms like TikTok.” The videos took off at the perfect time—after the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated a general shift away from in-person social interaction—for their weirdness to feed into paranoia about what a screen-mediated life might be doing to impressionable young minds.

When it comes to children’s browsing habits, there are many scarier things they might find online than Skibidi Toilet. As strange as the videos are, they wouldn’t do very well as propaganda or even advertising. There’s no agenda, for good or ill, besides the entertainment value. In the Washington Post, Taylor Lorenz compared Skibidi Toilet to “harmless entertainment�� like Cocomelon and other children’s videos. Not everyone is happy about the popularity of Cocomelon, but that popularity hasn’t caused the same kind of panic.

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jo-harrington · 4 months ago

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Corroded Coffin Fest - Day 16 - Struggling

Summary: Corroded Coffin gets an unconventional gig that might make them some good cash.

Word Count: 901

Rating: T

Warnings/Themes: Modern!Corroded Coffin, Older!Corrded Coffin, memes, friendship, bickering and banter, pop culture/social media reference (link at the end of the fic)

Check Out the Main Post for @corrodedcoffinfest here! Even if you didn’t start on Day 1, you can still join!

Tagging: @the-unforgivenn at her request. And @dr-aculaaa and @br0ck-eddie because I'm sorry yall are gonna get a kick out of this one.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

"I hate this."

"My shoes are too tight."

"We look ridiculous."

"I think," Eddie raised his voice so he could stop his friends bitching. "I think we look like a band that's about to be $500 richer."

"So we're just gonna be a band with $500?" Gareth asked, sneakily giving Jeff a high-five as Eddie grumbled at the joke.

Success was hard. Fame was hard. Even harder still when you needed money for things like rent and gas and food.

Not like those things were free when they were still in Hawkins, it was just harder now.

And they were a bunch of 20-somethings up against the whole world, and not just a handful of mediocre bands in their neck of the woods in middle-of-nowhere Indiana.

They were too young to have made it big on Youtube--not that they hadn't tried when they were still in high school--and too old to really understand how to make it big on tiktok.

They'd tried the flossing and the dances...it was just not them.

So random gigs it was; struggling to make ends meet, struggling to make it big.

Until they found something that was an unexpected money maker.

Who knew a comment on a video of them harmonizing with some vocal warm ups would lead to this.

Polished shoes, matching pants that they all had thanks to serving jobs, matching vests they got at some department store closing sale, and the piece de resistance that they actually paid a pretty penny for..straw hats.

Yes, their badass metal band moonlit as a barbershop quartet.

Weddings, anniversary parties, and birthday parties for half-awake octogenarians were their bread and butter. Cash in hand, maybe a little cake, it was great.

They got the loudest applause when they did songs like Let Me Call You Sweetheart and Down By The Old Mill Stream, ones they'd all thankfully learned in 8th grade choir. But sometimes happy couples requested something special, and so they began to spend just as much time practicing their a cappella covers as they did their original songs.

They all knew that they needed to put their pride behind them if they wanted to keep the lights on.

"It'll happen for us one day," they all agreed. "Just gotta wait for that first big opportunity and then we take it."

And of course, that opportunity presented itself as a Battle of the Bands at the Illinois State Fair.

It would be great for them. Big crowd, lots of cameras, and great exposure even if they didn't win.

They just needed the entry fee.

Which is why they were currently standing amidst a veritable sea of people backstage at yet another competition...ready to prove their place as the best barbershop quartet in the county.

So they could prove they were the best band in the state.

"What if we picked the wrong song?" Gareth stopped biting at his fingernails to ask. "I'm sure everyone else is going with something more traditional."

"Which means the judges will have heard those songs a million times before," Eddie argued.

"Originality is not a big part of the score Ed," Jeff reminded him. He thought it over for a second. "I don't think anyone's even gonna recognize our song."

"Then you don't have to sing and we'll just be a trio Jeffrey."

"Listen, I think it's gonna work," Dave interjected in a moment of uncharacteristic positivity. "And we're gonna win."

"That's the spirit," Eddie grinned and clapped his friend on the back.

"Or else we're gonna have to fake our deaths and change our names because we'll be the laughing stock of the metal community."

So much for a vote of confidence.

"The Four Horseman?" one of the event coordinators called to the groups backstage. "You guys are up."

The four of them tensed up.

"Alright, it's now or never," Eddie nodded, swallowing down a sudden bout of nerves.

They all popped their straw hats onto their heads and followed the coordinator out onto the stage. The four of them hummed together to harmonize and then Eddie stepped forward to introduce them.

He stammered through their introduction, almost as if he'd never been on stage before, and he kicked himself.

He was a performer, goddamn it. This was his destiny, their destiny.

And destiny was riding on this moment.

"We're the Four Horseman...and we're guys, so we--"

"Keep a little dirt under the pillow for the dirtman."

Jeff and Gareth fell into song with him, with Dave providing the bass.

"Dim-ba-dim-dim, dim-ba-dim dim."

"In case he comes to town."

The judges all looked a little shocked, but then they glanced around and smiled at each other.

"Keep a little dirt under my pillow for the dirtman."

"Dim-ba-dim-dim, bang bang dim."

"So he won't take me down."

By this verse the four of them had really gotten into the groove of their performance, singing and skatting and harmonizing beautifully. They even threw a little sway into their bodies, knowing that it wouldn't do to stand as still as statues for such a lively tune.

And by the end all four of them ended in sync--

"That's where he keeps his dirt bop-bah-dah-bop."

--and they earned themselves a standing ovation. Not just from the judges but also thunderous applause from the other quartets in the wings of the stage as well.

And $500.

Who knew that tiktok thing would work out after all...

#corrodedcoffinfest #eddie munson #jeff stranger things #gareth stranger things #modern!au #stranger things fic #corroded coffin

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belphiesgirlfriend · 1 year ago

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Obey me! Brothers music taste headcanons

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more like ramblings than headcanons tbh but i had this stuck in my head and needed to get it out, also feel free to send requests for diff headcanons!

Cw’s: none!

Little bit satirical (i over exaggerate sometimes cuz it’s funny) but pretty in character overall i thinkk

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Lucifer:

• You know this motherfucker listens to classical music and classical music only cuz he’s boring

• Okay but jokes aside i see him listening to like 30’s 40’s 50’s music especially the love songs.

• Like straight up fallout 4 soundtrack music, he’d listen to it while doing paperwork or unwinding

• He’d definitely be really prideful (no duh) about his taste in music, he’d feel all fancy and refined when he tells people

• Type of dude to be like “modern music simply can’t compare to the classics…” shut up grandpa we get it u know bach’s zodiac sign, penis size, and mothers maiden name

• Wants to be different so bad, he’d strictly listen to music from his vintage record player or some shit cause it’s the “most authentic” way to listen, fr acts like a manic pixie dream girl (he’d hit me upside the head if he heard me say that sorry luci🫶)

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Mammon:

• r&b and spanish music

•but i feel like he’d like 2000s party music from all the clubbing and casinos

• def a weekend listener and like 90’s rap

• but also like i wouldn’t be surprised if he listened to some 90s rock too

• he’d listen 2 sublime or nirvana or local h (i’m projecting on the last one)

• but anyways he’d be a #1 rihanna fan he’d blast her music in his room but then deny liking her💀make it make sense!!

• also he knows her best album is loud CAUSE HE HAS TASTE!!

• also tyler the creator i get the vibe he’d love him

• kali uchis fan too

•ALSO i feel like he had a phase where he listened to juice wrld and was like “these cheating lying females….” after he got his heart broken by a witch YOU CANG TELL ME IM WRONG😭😭 it’s okay though cause he’s embarrassed by it now

• oh childish gambino too duh forgot about him

ALSO LET ME MENTION DINERO IS LITERALLY HIS SONG ITS ACTUALLY HIS

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Levi:

• this one’s gonna be real fucking short IM SORRYYY

• he listens to anime openings and game soundtracks

• also vocaloid

• that’s literally all i can think of dude

• he’d be like “i don’t have time for normie music…”

• his room is literally that old caramelldansen meme from 2019/2020

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Satan:

• this one was harder for me to pinpoint

• first instinct would be classical music but it’s canon he likes ska music too so 🤷‍♀️

• i really do feel like he’d listen to all types of music, like a true jack of all traits, if he likes it he likes it so his playlist is allllll over the place

• for some reason i get a vibe he’d really like 80s music in particular though

• the song that pops into my head is who can it be now? by men at work idk why

• maybe even older music i feel like he’d like sam cooke

• OH both him and belphie would like mazzy star and fiona apple idk why but they would

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Asmo:

• okay crucify me for this one but…mitski I JUSG FEEL LIKE HE WOULD

• but i also see him loving lady gaga a lot cuz he has taste

•omg he’d listen to old katy perry too

•but yea also probably lil nas x he’d have a celeb crush on him

• oh tyler the creator too with his gay ass, him and mammon both love him, they def have done a duet to see u again

• he’d be a barb probably defend nicki too😭

• and as much as it pains me to say it, he’d fucking listen to ayesha erotica and be like “this is so good!!!”, hed post a devilgram story with one of her songs and then get cancelled on twitter

• “I made a severe and continuous lapse of judgement…” and then did the same thing a week later

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Beel:

• type of guy when you ask him what music he listens to he goes “idk i don’t really listen to music”

• he legitimately looks up “hype playlist” on youtube to work out and that’s the extent of it

• really can’t see him being a big music guy

• if u invited him to a concert or something he’d go though for food

•he’d give you a piggy back ride so u can see better

• tbh if u were to put on music he would not care much no matter how good/bad it is

• you could walk in on him working out and literally listening 2 cbat or some shit

• HE LITERALLY IS CBAT GUY😭 he’d be like “i always use this song when i’m working out..

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Belphie:

• emo fucker

• i feel like he’d like emo/ 90s rock ( but more “rockish” than mammons 90’s rock)

• but he’d also love any more relaxing music with softer vocals

• he’d be a deftones fan I KNOW GHATS FUCKING BASIC AND UR ROLLING UR EYES BUT LISTEN

• they have the combination of 90s rock but also more soothing calming vocals, theyd literally b perfect

• and for that reason his favorite albums r koi no yokan and saturday night wrist, also their self titled,

• would call mammon a poser for his music taste “nirvana isn’t even *real* rock idiot🙄”

• but nah, also like i said in satans fiona apple and mazzy star fan

• he’d suck so bad though he’d go on twitter and be like, “if you like deftones ur a poser” (while being their number 1 fan, fucking brat) then turn off his phone and take a nap for the funny

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skiiyoomin · 9 months ago

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ღWhat the JJK characters listen to part 2

ʚCharacters included: Yuuji, Megumi, Nobara, Inumaki, Yuuta, Maki

⤑Back to navigation ⤑part 1

a/n Nobody asked for a second part. Do i care? no. idk if im missing anyone anyways YO THIS IS FUN

Yuuji Itadori

Honestly, he screams Shakira to me, and Jennifer Lopez too.

His entire music taste consists of 2000s pop music thats super nostalgic and at the same time makes you cringe.

ALSO, he has the Backstreet Boys on repeat. Like literally on loop all the time.

Tried, keyword tried, getting into classical music just to seem cultured and fancy but he ended listening to piano covers of Call Me Maybe and Britney Spears.

He´s the type of person you´d take with you to do carpool karaoke cause you know he´s gonna play the songs everyone knows.

Honorable mention: NewJeans (cause he´s secretly not so secretly a kpop stan)

Megumi Fushiguro

Isn´t it obvious?

He´s SO Lana Del Rey coded.

ALSO, he had a Melanie Martinez phase that´s really not a phase but he says it is.

Other than Lana, he listens to soft beat type of songs, like Cigarettes After Sex, Men I Trust or Clairo.

Even if its not his usual vibe, he lowkey highkey really enjoys Coldplay after Yuuji showed him one of their songs, especially their softer tuned songs. (aka Sparks im gonna cry hol up)

Honorable mention: Billie Eilish

Kugisaki Nobara

SHES A BARBZ ALL THE WAY

Her whole vibe is hot pink and a hot girl typa gal. That applies to her music taste as well.

Shes very much into female rappers like Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion too.

And lets not forget the classic pop stars like Ari or Jessie J.

Shes honestly in that sense a lot like Yuuji. They both connect because they listen to a lot of older pop music, except Nobara listens to more girly ish songs or in general songs that are very much female empowerment (queen behaviour)

Honorable mention: SZA (she had Kill Bill at full volume on repeat every time the boys annoyed her)

Inumaki Toge

Okay listen. I see a lot of headcanons that Inumaki is a huge gamer, like Fortnite type of gamer.

The first thing i thought of when i thought of this was dubstep and electro music. Also underground beatboxing.

Like bro i´m sorry im not but to me gamers are equivalent to that when it comes to music and im telling yall cause i had A PHASE (very cringe one we do not talk about it)

I also feel like he tried to be emo once but he only got as far as listening to Twenty One Pilots which isnt even emo so.

Honorable mention: Pitbull, he started listening to him as a joke because of the memes but its not a joke anymore

Yuuta Okkotsu

Ok ok to me he´s very soft boy coded, kind of like Megumi but more bright and cheerful.

HES A SWIFTIE. I dont make the rules sorry

You know that 2020 phase where everyone listened to soft music like Clairo, mxmtoon, Conan Gray, etc? Yeah he never got out of that phase.

BUT, hes evolved yall, his top genre is indie music.

lowkey feel like Inumaki got him into Twenty One Pilots and now he uses their music as an excuse to scream. He´s hella good at rapping their songs too like zayum.

Honorable mention: One Direction cause he never got over their disbandment

Maki Zenin

HEAR ME OUT

Before yall say anything listen to me.

I had to think this one through but shes very much rapper vibes to me, like og 2000s rappers like 2pac and Eminem.

I dont even know WHY but she just screams west coast thug life type of music.

Disses on modern rappers except Kendrick Lamar and MAYBE Travis Scott but thats saying too much.

I´m also convinced Yuuta introduced her to Joji and she cried in her room afterwards.

Honorable mention: Bruno Mars, dont ask

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weirdocat83 · 3 months ago

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*kicks your door down* YOU. I need to write a silly oneshot so I can fall back into writing because Losing Hope is dramaful and I can't comprehend the words I am writing. I need something goofy. Something silly. Issue? I can't think of any silly plot ideas. SOOOO, I come to you, the au/headcanon master, as a mere writer hoping to find motivation. Do you have any silly ideas that you'd be willing to let me sculpt into a quick oneshot?

Whenever I think silly ideas I default to cumplane because they’re ridiculous and them quoting memes wwhile nobody knows what they mean will never not be funny to me. I mean, imagine explaining a meme without the internet! Bonus points if some of them start picking up on how to use the memes without knowing the context.

A friend of mine told me about a svsss au they don’t intend to write where Shen Jiu is a strict teacher and Shen yuan is the TA that grades his students papers so LBH and SY end up communicating through notes and doodles :)

*takes a Quick Look at old posts because I had ideas then and I don’t have any rn*

Not really that fluffy but Any Hualian time travel or truth serum. There’s like, one truth serum fic in the TGCF fandom that’s good and Xie Lian has both so many secrets and also the sassiest thoughts. Also Xie Lian and Hua Cheng meeting while still alive (and possibly ascending together??).

I would also like to direct you to this post and this post because some aforementioned things are there but also various other ideas that could work. It was an idea day and today isn’t (unfortunately)

Any scenario in which anyone gets drunk. Literally pick a character and choose how they embarrass themselves and regret their decisions in the morning. Xie Lian could harp on about the dirty things he keeps to himself as well as insulting *so* many people, Hua Cheng could be very soft and emotional but also really kind and ends up giving so many compliments even to Feng Xin and mu qing (much to their shock and amusement) speaking of mu Qing, get him wasted. My man has so many emotions and unnecessary thoughts. Cuddle the man and make him laugh. I think he’d be a little more insecure openly but also happier. We’ve seen LWJ drunk but imagine wwx drunk. Idk if that’d be angsty or not but up to you. I think he’d be soft and VERY cuddly. Half of what he says is completely nonsensical but the other half is very sweet. Binghe would be clingy and Shen Yuan would probably be singing some modern pop song with airplane (who is equally wasted).

Outing myself here but non-explicit abo is probably one of my fav types of fluff. Idk something about people being intensely cuddly while surrounded by soft things and being incredibly vulnerable always gets me. Like, ��nope, you’re mine to cuddle for the rest of the week. Live with it.’

Chatfics are my preferred crackfics because hell hath no chaos like a bunch of people smushed together in a gc with naming privileges and being unable to leave. Bonus points if it’s in high school so there’s extra drama and humor. Imagine Hua Cheng and Xie Lian haven’t confessed but everyone else knows? Hilarious. Mu Qing and Feng Xin fighting in the halls (again) over something stupid and getting suspended? Hilarious. SQX being girlfriends with HX and going on dates (they had a rough start with their relationship because Shi Wudu pulled some shit that was NOT run past SQX which led to a lot of difficulties but eventually they did become friends again and eventually lovers.)

Anyhow that’s all I can think of. I also had some fluffy-ish ideas for losing hope if you want those ;3

#tgcf #heaven official's blessing #svsss #mdzs #tian guan ci fu #weirdocat83 ramblings #mo dao zu shi #scum villian self saving system #if you have any vague ideas that aren’t fully thought out I’d love to think about them more for you

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blue-lollipops-and-ice-clouds · 2 months ago

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Rock Sound 25 Icons - Sleep Token Article (Transcript).

Transcript written by yours truly!

(Original Article Link)

(Google Doc Version Link)

ROCK SOUND 25 ICON

SLEEP TOKEN

WITH A METEORIC RISE UNLIKE ANYTHING THE HEAVY MUSIC WORLD HAS SEEN BEFORE, SLEEP TOKEN HAVE BECOME ONE OF THE BIGGEST SUCCESS STORIES IN MODERN ROCK HISTORY. AS THEY ACCEPT THEIR ROCK SOUND 25 ICON AWARD, WE EXPLORE HOW THEIR GENRE-PUSHING VISION HAS RESONATED WITH FANS ACROSS THE WORLD, WITH SOME OF THE BAND'S FORMER TOURMATES AND SUPERFANS REFLECTING ON THEIR INCREDIBLE JOURNEY.

WORDS

MADDY HOWELL

PHOTOS

ANDY FORD

[page break]

LIVE PHOTOS

ADAMROSS WILLIAMS

It took less than seven minutes for the Sleep Token explosion to hit.

Gathering momentum in the UK underground scene with their 2019 debut 'Sundowning' and its 2021 follow-up 'This Place Wil Become Your Tomb', in early 2023 the masked collective set the internet ablaze with 'The Summoning'.

Nonchalantly dropped just 24 hours after the emotionally driven 'Chokehold' arrived, the inferno came out of nowhere for many heavy music fans. The song's gnarly down-tuned guitars and crushing metal riffs resonating deeply, its ominous, poetic lyrics searing with passion, and the voice of the band's masked frontman —Vessel — soaring over its huge, otherworldly chorus. It was the kind of mastery that proved difficult for any metal fan to ignore, but after five minutes, something wholly unexpected happened The riff-laden chaos segueing into a two-minute funk outro, from that moment - the stage was set for a revolution.

Forging their sound whilst remaining insistent on resisting genre classification, Sleep Token had been darting between progressive metal, R&B, and glossy pop with ease since their formation in 2016. Adding new styles and influences into their arsenal at every opportunity, from the second they erupted into the mainstream consciousness their expansive vision was impossible to ignore.

Capturing something elusive, something that had long felt absent from the contemporary heavy music scene, 'The Summoning' defied easy categorisation. Blending sounds in ways that were as unpredictable as they were seamless, the track catapulted the band to viral fame on TikTok. Clips of the song's outro paired with memes, fan art, and incredulous reactions from listeners flooded the app's feed, and within days the band's cult following began to expand rapidly, each new fan clamouring for more information about the mysterious masked group that were suddenly dominating their social media timelines.

"It's pretty crazy when you think about it,"' laughs John Famiglietti, bassist and producer of experimental band HEALTH.

"A lot of this stuff really doesn't have precedent but when TikTok was created, they built the concept of virality into the code. It needed to become the fastest route to virality, and they wanted to destroy YouTube. Sleep Token is the perfect example of that in action, because that song was released in what the music industry calls 'The No Zone'. It had a visualiser of a copyright-free Elden Ring boss, and it was nearly [page break] seven minutes long. That kind of thing just doesn't get big."

What John explains is vital to understanding the magic behind Sleep Token's rise, because simply put - the whole thing is almost impossible to believe. From making their live debut in front of less than 500 fans at London's The Black Heart in the summer of 2017, to dominating the social media algorithms of thousands, their sudden and overwhelming rise is entirely unprecedented.

The release of 2023's Take Me Back To Eden' swiftly followed by a Best UK Artist award win at the Heavy Music Awards and an announcement of a standalone headine show at Wembley Arena, the excitement surging through the scene was palpable — evident as fans scrambled to acquire tickets for the landmark evening. Selling out within ten minutes of going on general sale, Sleep Token were officially an arena-filling rock band.

"It's not often you see that kind of leap anymore," John continues.

"In the span of eight months, Sleep Token went from small clubs to headlining arenas. For me, that's the most exciting part. I can't remember the last time I saw a band do that."

With HEALTH playing alongside them that historic night in London, John recalls the atmosphere vividly. Looking back then, how does he think Sleep Token's stratospheric rise happened?

"They're bringing pop elements in through the language of heavy music, and that's a big part of the appeal," he explains.

"When you're at a Sleep Token show, you can see the kids connecting with that shit and singing along. It's a big show, it's theatrical, and when everyone's singing along…that's where you get the chills. The crowd makes it, and you can see the smiles on people's faces. For a lot of these kids, it's their first concert. If your music can bring new people into this world, that's the most powerful thing possible."

With 'Take Me Back To Eden' landing the band their first ever Top 5 album, as well as becoming the most-streamed metal album on Spotify in 2023, Sleep Token's Wembley Arena ritual served not only as a celebration of a remarkable year — but a declaration of the future of metal.

Asserting that the scene was ready for change, from the moment that Vessel emerged into the stage's central spotlight, all12,500 fans gathered in the room knew that a new era of heavy music was beginning. With striking [column break] nu-metal inspired masks for band members II, III and IV unveiled on Instagram just moments before the band's scheduled stage time, the energy surging through the crowd was nothing short of electric.

A sonic and visual spectacle, from the assaulting intensity of 'Vore' to the raw catharsis of 'Ascensionism' each moment of the show shone with intent. The night blooming into a powerful karaoke session as Vessel suddenly became unable to sing mid-performance, by the time proceedings culminated in a heartfelt rendition of 'Blood Sport", everyone filtering out the doors of Wembley Arena knew they had witnessed something groundbreaking.

A remarkable achievement from a simply remarkable band, to understand how Sleep Token ended up taking their songs to a stage like Wembley, we need to take things back to the beginning.

Debuting the project with 2016 EP 'One' and 2017's 'Two', the groundwork for the world they were about to build was lain. A world filled with technical metal, expansive atmospheres, and an unapologetic commitment to musical experimentation, the band's early releases demonstrated an unusual level of ambition for a fledgling band. Not just blending genres but entirely blurring the lines that segregated them, their metalcore and djent influences bled into lush soundscapes, with emotionally raw vocals and progressive song structures constantly throwing the listener off-guard.

Evading every potential classification, songs like 'Nazareth' and 'Calcutta' felt cinematic yet intimate, drawing from ambient electronica and R&B with a steadfast spirit of eclecticism, yet never feeling disjointed. Carrying a coherent emotional thread — a mood of longing, heartbreak, and spiritual seeking — their vision resonated deeply with a small but passionate group of early fans.

Among those early to hop aboard the Sleep Token train was Holding Absence vocalist Lucas Woodland, who recalls his first encounter with the band.

"The first song I listened to was 'Nazareth', and it just blew my mind," he nods.

"It was just so cool, and to this day, I think that's Sleep Token's greatest strength. It's cool for kids that are just getting into this genre of music, but it's also cool for people like me who listen to bands like Radiohead and Bon Iver. It somehow manages to scratch two very cool but very different itches. Throw that together with vocals that are so out of this world… you' ve got something special. I was shocked to discover how small they were at that point." [page break]

With that, Lucas became one of the band's earliest champions. After discovering them, he immediately shared Sleep Token's music in the Holding Absence group chat, urging his bandmates to check them out.

The Welsh band joining forces with Loathe for a split EP titled 'This ls As One' the two bands were in the process of mapping out a co-headline tour. With shows set to take place in early 2018, they knew they had to find a way to get Sleep Token involved. Picking a local band to join them on each date of their joint UK run, they decided to offer the slot for the two biggest shows — London and Manchester — to the genre-slashing newcomers. Witnessing the earliest iterations of the band's live show, their full vision may not have been realised back then but already something was brewing.

"It was surreal," Lucas nods.

"The first two times I saw them were supporting us on that 2018 tour, and it was early days for them, but there was still this magical element to them. I remember speaking to Vessel after the show, and he was like, 'Sorry can't catch your set, I've got to run off and wash this I paint off'."

"When you look back on that, it's crazy to think that there was a period of time where they painted up, got on stage, played to 50 people, and then quickly ran off to have a shower in a Travelodge," he laughs.

"The third time that I saw them though, they played St Pancras Church to around 120 people. By that point, the vision was realised, and that was the moment where I realised that this was their turf now. Everyone in that room saw what this could be. It was a seated show, and it almost felt like a sermon. For that to be one of your first headline shows, and for it to captivate people in the way that it did..that's crazy."

Looking back on what shift may have occurred between the band he saw onstage that evening and the band Sleep Token have become, Lucas explains.

"When 'The Summoning' came out, barely anything had changed.. everyone else had just woken up to it."

"I honestly believe that the vision of the band, the message, and the sound has been there since day one. It's so cool to think that the band I watched in that church all those years ago and the band that is now playing to tens of thousands of people now is the same band."

The heavy music world had long been craving the kind of shake-up Sleep Token brought. Much of the scene tired of existing in a lull of stagnation as artists began to take [page break] bigger risks with their sound and experiment with fresh influences, a sense of scepticism transformed into intrigue.

Despite a growing longing for something different though, it takes something truly special to bowl in and completely shatter the boundaries of everything that existed before it. With little of the band's core identity changing since its inception, for Sleep Token to achieve such an explosion — the moment had to be right. With the world emerging from a global pandemic and grappling with a growing reliance on social media, Lucas reflects on the circumstances that led the band to greatness.

"It's important to note that every important band ever was in the right place, at the right time to ignite the culture,"" he explains.

"If Slipknot came out today, they wouldn't be the band that they are. If Metallica came out in the 60s they wouldn't have been as successful. Everybody has lived their lives terminally online for so long now. As musicians, for so long we were told that we must engage with our audience, because it's never been so easy to do it. We're told that we should be tweeting every day, we should be posting photos every day, and nothing is sacred anymore."

"You can engage with your fans at any given moment, but we reached a point where that almost plateaued. People are sick of hearing everyone's opinions, and they just want to hear the music. There are music fans who can't remember a world without the internet, and they can't remember a world where anonymity existed. They can't remember a world where mystery exists."

It's understandable then how the band's anonymity and carefully curated lore have forged a large part of their appeal. Whilst they are far from the first band to adopt masks and a hidden identity — with the likes of Slipknot, Ghost, and Hollywood Undead coming before them — Sleep Token's anonymity feels different. With social media making it easier than ever to know everything about a band, the collective have chosen to withhold almost everything, and that has only elevated fan's desperation to unearth more.

In a world obsessed with personal branding, where artists often cultivate parasocial relationships with their fans through constant interaction and engagement, Sleep Token's decision to remain an enigma marks a decidedly different approach to their peers. Their identities remaining closely guarded secrets Vessel- who has spoken just a handful of times in interviews early in the band's [page break] career has built a persona around the idea of serving an ancient deity known only as Sleep.

Carving out a role that feels entirely other-worldly, at the same time, there is something deeply human in Vessel's character, Wracked with emotion, pain, and a desperation to grow, their ability to tap into the deepest, darkest caverns of the human feeling is unrivalled. Their larger-than-life image clashing with the humanity and vulnerability of Vessel's lyrics, whilst fans may not know the identity of the men behind the mask, they can connect deeply with every word he says.

Because of this, the band's anonymity has proved much more than a gimmick, it's become a vital part of the identity that has forged a fanatical community. Stripped of a name and a human visage, Vessel is not a rock star in the traditional sense. He doesn't present himself as a relatable figure or even a person at all — he's an idea. An invitation to immerse yourself in the band's universe, the inability to put a face to the name makes every part of Sleep Token feel universal. Stripping away the distractions of celebrity and ego, it's allowed listeners to project their emotions and interpretations onto the songs like never before.

"They managed to line up this beautiful thread through the needle moment because everyone is so hungry to find out more about them," Lucas nods.

"We live in a world where we know everything about everyone, and they have been able to use that in a backwards sense. They've not only kept hold of the anonymity, but they've embraced it. They've turned II, III and IV into characters, and they're relevant parts of the band and the culture. They've always been important musicians on stage, but I remember being drunk at a house party and seeing the mask reveals on my Instagram feed. It felt like a new character had just been unlocked. It was such a moment."

That feeling of grandiosity is something that Sleep Token have become well-versed in creating. Each fresh reveal feeling monumental, it's elevated their live shows from simple performances to powerful rituals [column break] as though they've been a part of something much bigger.

As Sleep Token's rise has continued, word of their live shows has spread far beyond the UK. Kickstarting a new era after wiping their Instagram in early 2024 — leaving just a bio that read 'Nothing lasts forever' — North America were invited to bear witness to 'The Teeth Of God' tour.

A 21-date run taking place throughout April and May, they were joined by Empire State Bastard for the shows, with both bands playing to packed out venues night after night.

"It was an incredible spectacle to witness each night," guitarist Mike Vennart reflects.

"Their audience is hardcore. The most dedicated and obsessed fans. The best audience a band could hope for, really. Not to ruin the magic, but the lads in the band are wonderful too."

While many bands take years, even decades, to build up a loyal fanbase, Sleep Token have culminated a rabid community of fans in record time. Their collision of influences uniting people from vastly different sonic backgrounds, there are moments that speak to every kind of music fan.

Whether it's the ethereal melodies of 'Alkaline', the crushing heaviness of 'The Offering', or the gutting piano melodies of 'Blood Sport', their refusal to be confined has become their calling card. Retaining a core heaviness whilst pulling from pop, R&B, progressive rock, and jazz, they've spawned a sound that speaks to people from all walks of life, never alienating any one group.

Before they were headlining rooms to thousands of fans Stateside though, one of the first US bands to recognise Sleep Token's potential was Issues. Looking for an opener for their 'Beautiful Oblivion' tour — celebrating their third and final allbum — their booking agent threw Sleep Token's name into the conversation. Having recently begun working with them, he sent over their debut EP, and bassist Skyler Acord felt an immediate connection to their willingness to push boundaries.

"It felt like it came completely out of left field," he recalls.

Everybody who's a fan of Sleep Token knows the feeling of finding them where you're like, 'What the hell am I listening to? Where did this come from? Why does he sound like that? Where are the masks for?' … I went through that whole experience." [page break]

With only a few songs out in the world at that point, a series of internal discussions took place about whether it would be a better move for the band to acquire an opener who was little more well-known However, with Acord recognising the potential Sleep Token had it didn't take long before they were on the bill for their first US tour. Watching the British band play some of their earliest shows, each night Issues felt more and more certain that they'd made the right choice to take a chance on Sleep Token.

"They're doing something really interesting and really different, and rock absolutely needs that," Skyler nods.

"I could tell that they were going to be huge, and I wanted to be the first to take them out. I love giving a leg up to anybody doing something different, because rock is so boring. especially in America. In America, rock is the most conservative popular genre I can think of. If you stray a little too far outside of the norm, you get shut down. However, Sleep Token found a niche. A vacuum that was just dying to be filled."

"As soon as we started playing with them, I could tell that they really wanted it. The crowd would start with confusion, it would slowly develop into intrigue, and by the end of their set it was all they were talking about."

Since forming in 2012, Issues have made it their mission to change the shape of rock's future, and whilst the sound and aesthetics of their respective projects may differ — Skyler recognised a kinship between the two bands. A drive to alter the music world's perception of rock, and a passion to confuse, captivate, and involve fans, he was instantly in awe of the world they were creating.

"Vessel is the creative force behind a lot of the project, and you can tell that he is coming from the perspective of a piano player," he says.

"That was confusing at first because I was like, 'Where are these riffs coming from?' They're cool, they're simple, but they're heavy. That dude is just a sick keyboard player, and any time you hand that type of great musician a guitar, they're going to come up with something that you never would have dreamed of coming up with."

Inviting Vessel to rip piano solo in the middle of the band's 2019 track 'Get It Right" throughout the run, Skyler and his bandmates had no doubt that Sleep Token would go on to accomplish huge things. Admittedly though, they never expected them to get to where they are quite so rapidly. [page break]

"I'm a huge metal fan, and the only bands that really make a diference are the ones doing something different, and doing it well," Skyler nods.

"Every once in a while, there's a band with a lot of hype, and when you check them out, they just sound like everybody else. There's nothing that special about it when you peel back. By removing identity out of the equation and digging into the mystery of it…Sleep Token mastered it. That approach worked for basically all the bands that I love who have mattered. It worked for Ghost, it worked for Black Sabbath, and it worked for all the black metal bands loved when I was in high school."

For Lorna Shore vocalist Will Ramos, Sleep Token's success also represents a turning point for the entire metal genre. A self-proclaimed superfan of the band, he penned an impassioned essay on the band to celebrate them taking home the title of Best British Artist at the 2023 Rock Sound Awards.

In the piece, Will spoke about seeing the band perform for the first time at the Blue Ridge Rock Festival, rushing over to the stage from Lorna Shore's own 'meet and greet' elsewhere on site.

"Ten seconds into running turned around and saw Of Mice & Men's singer, Aaron Pauley, following me. We started running through this huge crowd together, and everybody was so excited I'm not the type of guy to leave a meet and greet early, but I needed to witness that set. It was an act of true love!" He laughs.

"That's where it started to set in how freaking massive Sleep Token were becoming. They're one of the biggest metal bands that I'm aware of right now, and there were so many people watching that set. They refer to their live shows as rituals, their fans are the congregation, and the stage as a place of worship. It's something that could easily seem tacky if a band did it with little consideration for the details, but they're so committed to what they do."

"Even when they post on Instagram after shows, the captions are always like, 'The ritual has been completed in Copenhagen'. They totally absorb themselves in the spiritual aspect, physically, visually, and sonically. It's a brand, and they completely own that brand. They've made it exactly what it is, and they stick to it."

"The whole experience does feel super spiritual, and they don't just give 50 per cent to the theming, it's 100 per cent. People feel the emotion, see the way they embody this ideal, and hear this incredible music — and I think thats why people are so ready to absolve themselves in this spiritual moment. Everybody has a different connection to every song because of the different things [column break] everyone goes through in life, but they get to experience all of that in a place where everybody else is feeling something too."

Speaking on his admiration of their ability to bring new fans into the heavy music world, the frontman is quick to point out that Sleep Token's genre-blurring tendencies have not only broadened their fanbase, but have also breathed new life into the scene.

"For a long time, metal bands have been putting themselves in a box," he explains.

"It's so refreshing to see the evolution of music, and bands like Sleep Token out there bringing in all these different genres. Doing that brings in a whole bunch of different people, which is so important for the metal world. Half of the time, this genre is seen as dying, but then you hear something like this. There are all these people who didn't listen to metal before listening to Sleep Token, and I love that. It feeds into this community, because people who listen to R&B are listening to this band, and they're venturing further into the genre. It's welcoming to a lot of people, which is a beautiful thing."

What Will describes is a feeling that spreads far beyond music. Bringing together music fans from worlds that once would have clashed, Sleep Token's story is the perfect example of how a movement begins.

Embracing our differences and welcoming all into a world devoid of boundaries and specifications, behind the mystery and the lore, Sleep Token have tapped into some of the most vital, vulnerable parts of our human need for connection. Each note speaking to each person in a uniquely different way, their ability to unite has positioned them as one of the most important bands of this generation, and somehow it still feels as though this is just the beginning.

Reaching heights that most bands work for decades to hit, there is simply no other story quite like Sleep Token's. Each release taking a step forward, a deeper dive into their evolving, immersive sound, they continue to push the boundaries of not only what heavy music can be — but what it should be.

An invitation to feel, to come together, and be a part of something, they've given us a front-row seat to one of the most explosive musical phenomena of our time. Swerving all expectations pushed by the industry, their rise has become a reminder of why music matters. Inspiring a new generation of heavy music artists to strive for something bigger, Sleep Token are proof that with enough belief and commitment in a cause, there are truly no limitations on what you can achieve.

#sleep token #rocksound 25 icons #sleep token article #what did noah spend an hour doing? this obvi!#no new will interview but he still managed to fill up the most space #that ending paragraph tho...like yes exactly #please let me know if you see any mistakes i will only cry a little!

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undead-supernova · 9 months ago

Text

HIGH TOLERANCE

Masterlist

important note: this is a one-off of my High Tolerance series! I suppose you could read this first, but I think reading the whole 5-part series first would be more fun hehehehe

plot: when a cute guy with curly hair asks you to be his best friend, how can you say no? how do you look away when your whole life has been altered by this one instance? In other words: This is how Eddie and Weirdo met.

pairings: modern!bestfriend!Eddie x bisexual!fem!reader

warnings: drinking, cigarettes, pure fluff

wc: 3.4k

additional note: this cover of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was a biiiiig help with tone and vibe hehe

“And we'll have Halloween on Christmas.

And in the night, we'll wish this never ends.

We'll wish this never ends."

You swayed around in circles, careful not to let the microphone cord wrap around your block-heeled Mary Janes. The minimal drums and guitar kicked in, with the faded background vocals echoing I miss you. Your pleated black skirt swayed around you, following your lead.

This was your favorite Tuesday Karaoke genre, the emo and pop-punk throwbacks being your jackpot. It was a classic go-to for you, the meme-ification of the song riling you up even further. And you were going to prove it.

“WHERE ARE YOU?” you nearly screamed, too excited to get to your favorite part. You imitated Tom DeLonge’s voice, concentrating on getting it right. Maybe a little bit more than you should’ve, but— “AND I’M SO SORRY! I cannot sleep, I cannot dream tonight!”

You really thought that the meme of it all would bring the five drunks here together. That you’d earn at least a chuckle from someone other than the bartender. But maybe you’d miscalculated your audience. Because everyone was sitting, mainly ignoring you as they either talked to each other or stared at their phones.

But was that going to stop you? Fuck. No.

“Don’t waste your time on me.

You’re already the voice inside my head.”

“Woo!”

You glanced over at the voice to see some guy standing there. A very attractive some guy, with long curly hair and bangs. A tight t-shirt hidden by a leather jacket with…a denim vest over it? His hands were stuffed in his pockets, but that didn’t stop him from shimmying both his shoulders and swinging his hips around. Rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as he danced.

He was paying attention to you. Why was he of all people paying attention to you?

You couldn’t deny that you liked it, liked the way he moved no matter how stupid it looked. So, you decided to give him a show, pointing at him as you came in for another round.

“Don’t waste your time on me.

You’re already the voice inside my head.”

He pulled his hands out, cupping them around his mouth. His many silver rings and chain bracelets shone in the light, along with sparkly blue nails.

“Do ‘Freebird’!”

That made you laugh harder than you thought you’d ever laughed before, having to pull the mic away from your lips from the sheer volume that erupted from you. And above the sound of the music, you could hear his guffaw of laughter mixing with yours.

When you looked back at him, a huge grin on your lips, you couldn’t help but feel something tingle in your stomach. Like a small fizzle, something resembling a firework that sputtered out almost immediately after being ignited.

“I miss you."

You replaced the mic back on its stand before stepping down from that shitty excuse for a stage. Immediately, you were face-to-face with this pretty guy.

“Hello, it’s amazing to meet you,” he said.

You smiled. “Likewise. Thanks for being my biggest fan.” Gesturing around the nearly empty bar, you added, “Tough crowd tonight.”

“Oh, I gotta get your album autographed. And your mixtape. And the collector’s edition.”

“Oh my god.” You giggled as you shook your head. “You’re too kind.”

You introduced yourself, desperate to put a name to his face.

“I’m Eddie,” he said, sticking his hand out for a handshake. You took it without thought, his palm sticking to yours with a bit of sweat. “You’re not gonna sing ‘Freebird’?”

“I don’t think she’s singing it, dude,” another voice said lightheartedly behind you.

You dropped your hand from Eddie’s nearly immediately, absolutely embarrassed for reasons you couldn’t understand.

As you turned, you saw another guy there, with silky honey hair and warm brown eyes, rocking a post-work look. Popped white button-down, navy slacks with shiny mahogany loafers that clanked against the floor when he walked.

His hands were resting on his hips, showing off a nice watch. One lifted, extending toward you. “I’m Steve.”

Taking it, you noticed that you weren’t as affected by his touch. Maybe it was because his hand wasn’t sweaty.

As you introduced yourself, you were almost trampled by a very cute girl.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said with a harsh breath, arm slung around Steve. “Jeez, they really made me grovel to get off on time and the traffic is hell. Maybe we should go back to—” She noticed you then, straightening her posture. Her hairstyle could barely be considered a ponytail from the way half of her short hair had spilled out. A black button-down now unbuttoned, hanging down her sides with a black tank top underneath. Paired with black jeans and an array of thin rings. God, she was cute. “Hello, new friend. I’m Robin.”

“Hi Robin, I’m new friend.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but Steve took over the conversation, asking her about her shift.

You tried to pay attention, but it was brought back to Eddie when he asked, “Can we be best friends?”

You let out a small laugh before nodding. “It’s a done deal,” you responded, earning a high-five.

“Wanna come hang with us?” he asked, pointing his thumb at Steve following Robin to a small table in the back. When had they decided that?

Looking back at Eddie, you weighed your options. You could continue to sit by yourself, reading a book in a bar and listening to them have fun; laugh. Could let yourself wonder what they were talking about. Could take the easy way out, could walk out of there right now and leave yourself wondering what could’ve been with someone like Eddie.

But that wasn’t really the easy route.

And you wanted to take the easy route.

“How could I refuse?”

“So why’re y’all out tonight of all nights?” you asked, placing a napkin under your vodka Redbull to fiddle with something.

Eddie was looking at you, sitting on the opposite side of the table, holding your eye contact in a way that was making you nervous. Because he was lifting his glass to his lips and right on those pretty lips of his was the softest smirk you’d ever seen. And there his dimples were, deepening as he took a sip.

“We’re celebrating,” Robin said, smiling at you.

You turned your attention back to the conversation at hand, letting out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding.

Steve nodded. “We moved here five months ago today.”

“Hell fucking yeah we did!” Eddie exclaimed, raising his glass before clinking it with Steve and Robin’s. You were surprised when he faced you, gesturing towards your drink.

As you lightly tapped your drink to his, you couldn’t help but notice the way he was looking at you now. Like you were already something to him.

“Well, congratulations,” you said, still making eye contact. “Do y’all like it here?”

“It’s pretty different from the world we’re from,” Eddie said with a nod.

“Feels very, uh,” Steve stumbled, snapping his fingers. “Can’t think of it…”

“Upside down?” Robin offered.

Snap. “Yes, that. Exactly. Upside down,” Steve said, pointing at her.

“What about you?” Eddie asked.

Your eyes widened. “Me?” All three nodded. “Oh, I’m from Tennessee. I came here for college and then ended up staying.”

Eddie nodded along as you spoke. “You like it here?”

“Yeah, I actually do,” you said. “It’s the first place that’s started to feel like home.’”

Steve smiled. “I hope we all start feeling that way.”

“Oh, I think I’m already there,” Eddie said, shamelessly holding your stare as he lifted his drink back up to his lips again. It was soft, sweet—something that he wasn’t currently sharing with the other two.

No, it was just you.

God, he was hot.

When you looked back at Steve and Robin, you noticed Robin tilting her head at you, like she was observing you or something. Watching you. Studying you. Whatever the right word for it was, she was doing it.

“Rob, we should get up there,” Steve said, nudging her.

She returned his nudge with a more forceful one. “And sing what, dingus?”

“‘Livin’ on a Prayer’!” Steve exclaimed.

“Are you kidding me?” Robin asked. “I’m not singing ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’.”

“Woah-oh, we’re halfway there!” Steve shouted.

“Wo-ah, we’re livin’ on a prayer!” Robin shouted back.

You and Eddie were sitting at the bar, laughing as you watched the two go back and forth. It had started as a field trip to get another drink and then ended with you sitting on the stools. Eddie had followed your lead wordlessly.

“They’re incredible,” you said and really meant it. How they convinced Craig to let them sing a song outside of the theme was astonishing. Maybe Steve gave him heart eyes. Craig was such a sucker for a pretty face.

“I have not seen Robin this drunk in a while,” Eddie commented. “She’s something else.”

“Are you gonna sing?” you asked, turning your attention back to him.

He chuckled. “No, maybe next time.”

“Not a singer?”

“I am, actually,” he replied with that special smile he’d given you earlier. “I just convinced my bandmates to move down here after they graduate back home.”

“Oh, that’s really cool! What’s the name?”

“Corroded Coffin.”

“Metal?” you questioned.

“How’d you guess?”

You shrugged. “A hunch.”

That is the most metal band name I’ve ever heard, you thought to yourself.

“You listen to metal?”

Laughing, you pointed at your outfit. “Clearly.”

His eyes seemed to spark up. “Really?”

“You make that seem like it’s such a big deal,” you said. “Or are you one of those guys that’s all ‘Women don’t even know real music. Name six of their albums.’”

Eddie took a sip of his whiskey, all the while shaking his head. “Nah, I think those guys are assholes. It’s not like women aren’t making the same music about more important shit anyways.”

“Correct answer,” you said, pointing at him before taking another swig of your drink.

He shrugged, scratching the top of his head. “I think it’s wild just ‘cause I come from a small town where the mere idea of liking that genre is, like, unheard of.”

You snorted. “Where are you from?”

“Hawkins, Indiana.”

“That sounds fake, I’m so sorry.” He laughed. “But, to be fair, I don’t know much about Indiana.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. Fuck, I wouldn’t wish it on you, either.”

“Well, consider yourself lucky. There’s lots of people in Atlanta who like metal. But beware of the weird Republican-looking guys who listen to butt rock. Oh, and the skinheads. I made that mistake once and I’ll never be the same.”

“Seriously?”

Trying to get the flashback out of your head, you stated plainly, “You’d be surprised how easy it is to think you’re around like-minded people before you realize where you are.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Was it like Green Room?”

“Kinda, just with less death,” you said before pausing. “Or maybe I didn’t stay around long enough to find out.”

“Shit. Makes sense,” he said. “So, are you waiting for someone? A boyfriend…or girlfriend? Partner?” Eddie sighed when you laughed, putting a hand over his face before waving it around. “I’m sorry, I’m not used to being in a cool place like this. I don’t know why I thought anyone would be straight here, least of all you.”

You started laughing harder as he gestured to your outfit. With your skirt and Mary Jane’s, you had a simple black crop top on and spike bracelets. Almost as many rings as him. A simple tattoo choker. You were a blatant neon sign with GAY written in cursive and an arrow flashing at you.

“No, it’s alright. I’m a raging semi-goth bisexual.”

“No way, same here just with metal. And my buddy Steve is bi, too.”

The two of you looked over at Steve who was doing some variation of a hip thrust and pretending to play the guitar at the same time.

“Is he dating your other friend? They seem close.”

Robin whipped her head around as she pretended to play the drums before her head collided with Steve’s and they paused to have a bickering match.

“Robin? Nah. They’re kinda a package deal but they’re platonic with a capital P, as she likes to say. And she’s only into girls.”

“Right, of course.” Some part of you felt an itch that you couldn’t help but scratch. “Uh, are you dating Steve?”

That made Eddie cackle so loudly that even Steve and Robin looked over.

“No, absolutely not,” he finally said. “I’m not dating anyone, least of all Steve.”

You let out a hum. “A gaggle of queers.”

“Got your own gaggle of queers, then?”

You shook your head, watching his smile fall. “Lost all my friends a few months ago,” you explained. “Some my fault, others not.”

You couldn’t help but shrug, trying not to go back to all the shit talking and the fights and the blocking and the tears and the loss. The late nights wondering how you were so blind to the manipulation. The games. The accusations you made against the innocent. The moment you fell to the ground when you realized that you were just the pawn in a game made to humiliate someone else. Someone you considered a close friend.

You’d burned your bridges with the assailants but lost your best friend in the end.

Senior year of college was not what you’d expected it to be.

“Sometimes you trust the wrong people and end up hurting the right ones. Either way, you get burned from a flaming double-edged sword. And then you graduate all alone.”

“That sucks,” Eddie said, his tone changing. “I hate that that happened to you.” He paused, giving you a glance before putting his shoulders back and pretending to wield a sword. “Fear not!” he said in a low voice. “For I am here to lead you from the realm of darkness and into the world of victory!”

You giggled, shaking your head before clearing your throat. Mimicking his posture, you said, “I would be more than honored, my lord!”

As you fell into fits of laughter, your smile fell. “Sorry, I don’t mean to dump all that on you. Sometimes I just have no filter and—”

“No,” he interrupted. “I don’t either. It’s alright. I kinda like talking to you about—”

“Hey, Eddie,” Steve said, approaching you two. “Rob and I are thinking of heading out. Are you coming?”

You watched Eddie’s eyes flicker from Steve to you before he shook his head. “Nah, I think I’m gonna stay out for a little longer.”

For some reason, that made you feel all bubbly inside.

Despite hiding your smile, you caught Robin’s eyes on you again, eyebrows raised at you with some kind of crooked smile on her face.

“Have fun,” she said, glancing between you and Eddie before taking Steve’s arm and dragging him out of the bar.

When the door shut behind them, you turned back to face Eddie.

“You’re staying,” you stated with a playful tone.

“Uh, yeah. I’m talking to my new best friend.”

“You’re telling me that the only time you watched Lord of the Rings was at the beach?” Eddie looked at you like you were crazy, causing you to giggle. “What about the beach says, Let’s go to Mordor, shall we?”

“Listen!” you exclaimed. “My mom and my sister would go to a DVD rental place by one of the grocery stores. Well, then Redbox after video stores closed. But, anyways, every year they had Lord of the Rings on display first. So, they decided that that was that.”

Walking side by side, you and Eddie headed to your cars, sharing the last cigarette in his pack. The bar had closed, the first time you’d ever been kicked out of one. But you and Eddie weren’t done talking.

“And those were the only movies you watched?”

You shrugged. “Basically. Unless you count the time I rented Saw and nearly shat my pants.”

Eddie paused at his car, a rather creepy looking van, looking like he was considering something before he ran around the car. Without any hesitation, you tried to beat him to the other side. But he faked you out, coming back around and scaring you.

“I’d like to play a game,” he growled. You squealed involuntarily, jumping back to escape him. But he continued to chase you around his van. “What’s your name?”

You smirked, surprising him by turning around and pushing him back. “My name is Very Fucking Confused, what’s your name!”

Giggles spilled from your lips, colliding with his in some kind of harmony. It was so natural, the way you fell into tandem with one another. The way you were leaning into one another already, laughter mixing with labored breaths as you tried to catch them.

You couldn’t believe just how easy it was with Eddie, especially after months and months of loneliness. There was a part of you that had given up on any form of friendship. A little voice that told you that no one would be willing to listen when you spoke. No one who could be as goofy as you were. Readily give back what you put out.

And it was something that you really hoped you wouldn’t lose.

“This was really fun,” you said. “You’re really cool.” Before you sounded stupid, you added, “Y’all seem really fun.”

Eddie held a soft smile, reaching his hand out to you. “Here, give me your phone. I’ll give you my number.” You handed it over without any protest. “Let’s hang out in the next few weeks.”

“I’d love that.”

Your smile was slipping. That was just something people said. Nothing ever followed through and you knew that all too well. Any date you tried to go on. Any new interaction with coworkers in passing. Anyone you casually talked to at Go Ask Mary.

“What about next Thursday?” he asked, handing your phone back to you. “Are you free?”

A smile made its way to your face as you stared in shock. “Yeah, I have that day off.”

“Same. I’ll jot it down in my calendar,” he responded with a growing smile before unlocking the door and jumping into his van.

“Welcome to Atlanta, Eddie,” you said, looking up at him.

Leaning down, he gave you a final handshake. You took it, noticing that it was a lot less sweaty than before.

“I’m really starting to like it here,” he said.

And you gazed at each other for a moment, continuing to hold each other’s palms, a special look in your eyes that was reserved for each other. Like this look was going to be a continual thing. Like this was just the start of something. You just couldn’t figure out what exactly that something was.

Then Eddie seemingly flinched, pulling his hand away.

“Thanks for being my new best friend,” he said finally, scratching his cheek before placing it back on the steering wheel.

A lump in your throat formed as you took a step back. Put your hands together behind your back. Squeezed for some kind of comfort to satiate the ache in your palm.

“Thanks for asking,” you replied.

“See you next Thursday?”

“See you next Thursday.”

He shut his door then, leaving you to turn on your heels to trudge towards your own. You noticed that he waited to back out until you got in your car, giving you a wave before driving off.

And you watched his van go, taking him farther away from you. Though you knew you’d see him again in just a week, you really wished it had been now.

Maybe you should’ve known then, should’ve understood what that was going to mean in the future. But hindsight is 20/20 and you’ve never been sure what that even meant. Perhaps it would’ve saved you a lot of distress. A lot of jealousy. A lot of insecurity. If things had transpired differently, maybe you could’ve avoided everything that came to fruition.

But instead, you drove home. Picked out your clothes for work the next day. Brushed your teeth. Got into bed. Turned some YouTube video on. Let the darkness fill your room. All the normal parts of your routine.

Except for the buzz of your phone, a sound that you were still startled by after months of near silence.

It was from Eddie.

can’t wait for next week!

With a smile and droopy eyes, you sent a reply.

Me neither.

#Eddie munson #Eddie Munson x you #Eddie munson fluff #Eddie munson angst #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x reader #best friend!eddie #modern!eddie munson #modern!eddie x reader #best friend!Eddie x reader #I love these two too much not to continue #high tolerance series

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earlgreytea68 · 1 year ago

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EGT's FAQ About A Fall Out Boy Cover of the Billy Joel Song "We Didn't Start the Fire" Covering Newsworthy Items from 1989-2023

Why isn’t it in chronological order?!

Was the original in chronological order? Yes, roughly speaking (it wasn’t in exact chronological order, either, for instance, the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first World Series after Disneyland opened but the Dodgers are mentioned before Disneyland, but I get it, it is roughly chronological and definitely more so than the Fall Out Boy cover).

The original, however, was also about a different time period in history: It happened to cover the Cold War. It makes sense that it would go in chronological order because there was a very definitive narrative arc to that portion of history: The Cold War started, all these things happened during it, the Cold War ended.

The era since the Cold War ended arguably lacks this narrative arc. So it makes sense that if you were doing a “We Didn’t Start the Fire” for the modern era, you wouldn’t go in chronological order. That would imply a “beginning” and an “end” that our era doesn’t deserve. Arguably, what mostly characterizes the post-Cold War era (and especially the twenty-first-century portion of it) is the jumbled chaos of time-meaninglessness. We say it all the time on the internet: What is time anymore? It means nothing? We have no sense of it. Things that happened yesterday turned out to be from 2003. There are a ton of other memes about this. You can’t believe the pandemic was over three years ago now. You can’t believe it’s been seven years since the 2016 election cycle. You can't believe that Friends is as far away from us as The Andy Griffith Show was from Billy Joel. Our histories, both personal and on a grander scale, feel like a jumble we can’t untangle, and so does this cover of the song.

In the 90s, people used to talk about being at “the end of history,” and they meant this in a good way. Like, there was this belief that “western democracies” had won and now all we had to do was keeping going up. Obviously that fell apart quickly, but I am Pete Wentz’s age, and I remember very much being given that message when I was in high school and college. In the way that the country boomed after winning World War II, it was assumed we would also boom for a long, even more extended period of time because our victory was even more complete. And then September 11 happened and it felt like it accelerated everything falling apart much more quickly. But that fever dream quality of growing up “post-history,” so to speak, is I think captured really well in the non-chronological lyrics, in a way that I think following a chronology would have done a disservice to. Our lives are this weird mish-mash of constant horrors mixed with the numbing agents of pop culture, and so is this song.

The song ends on September 11, and there have been 22 years of history since September 11, and I get why it’s upsetting to people for the song to end on an event from 2001, and at the same time I think it’s the most effective part of the song, because it does not feel like that was 22 years ago, it definitely feels like it was yesterday, and it also feels like sometimes it’s the only thing that happened in the past thirty-plus years, because of how much it dwarfed everything that came before and how much it colored everything that came afterward.

Also, Fall Out Boy did make a deliberate choice to change the way the chorus goes. Billy Joel sings, "We tried to fight it," and Fall Out Boy sings, "We're trying to fight it." That, to me, adds to the impression that this isn't a narrative with a beginning and an end, it is all over the place and we're still in the middle of it all. So the song ends in the middle, basically.

I am speaking, of course, from the bias of a privileged American born in 1980 who graduated high school in 1997. But, speaking from that bias, I personally get why it’s not chronological, and I don’t think it’s a fatal flaw of the cover. To me, after a moment of being surprised the first time I listened, I felt like I got it and it captured the era better, and it was a feature not a bug. Obviously not everyone will agree, but anyway, I just wanted to say it.

There’s no way they did that on purpose, though.

I’ve got news for you about literary analysis, which I can confidently state as a writer myself: I’m sure there are some writers deliberately doing stuff on purpose but I bet a lot of it is the stuff you don’t even notice. The stuff you do notice and make much of, I’m always like, “…well. Gotta pretend I knew I was doing that all along…” I used to feel guilty about that, but I don’t anymore, because I’ve decided that the things I do instinctively, because they feel right to me, count just as much. When it turns out later that I was doing something because of x, y, z, only I couldn’t articulate it, I think that’s okay. And I also think it’s better than okay when people read what I write with their own experiences making it mean something to them that I would never have thought about.

Which is to say, I’m not particularly bothered by whether Pete Wentz said to Patrick, Joe, and Andy, “Let’s not do it chronologically in order to capture the chaos of this era.” He probably didn’t. But he did make a choice not to do it chronologically, and that’s good enough for me. (He actually starts with a very early reference, so it’s like he’s faking all of us out, like, You thought this would be a nice chronology, but it’s not, it’s an absolute mess.)

Didn’t Pete Wentz basically say it was just too hard to do it chronologically?

Never believe what Pete Wentz says about his own lyrics. He says Thnks fr th Mmrs is about Coachella.

Okay, but you’re surely giving him too much credit.

I’ve been analyzing the man’s lyrics for a long time now. He’s so much smarter than anyone gives him credit for, tbh. Believe me, I also used to think it was just coincidence that he kept tripping over these really elegant, multi-layered, evocative phrases. After twenty years, I don’t think it’s coincidence anymore. I think he just knows how to write.

But also, We Didn't Start the Fire gets held up as a Cold War epic, and it wasn't actually about the Cold War either, Billy Joel just lucked out that the Cold War ended the year it came out.

Fine, but anyone can just rhyme a bunch of proper nouns together.

Yes! You are correct! Anyone can do that! Go for it!

Yeah, but why is everyone paying so much attention to Fall Out Boy’s?

Honestly, I don’t know. They put out a really stellar album that most major media outlets and casual social media managed to ignore, and they’re in the middle of a super-ambitious tour where on any given night Patrick Stump might cover Queen or they’ll just pull out something old or maybe something brand new and I haven’t seen anyone talking about any of that, either. So I’m not entirely sure why suddenly everyone’s so fixated on what Fall Out Boy is doing, but Idk, if you’re curious, the new album is excellent and doesn’t have a single cover song on it, it's all original and it's got ton more Pete Wentz lyrics to pore over.

The lyrics are very sports-heavy, though. Was that necessary?

The lyrics are extremely Pete Wentz. I know everyone else in the band helped him, too, but these are the things Pete Wentz cares about: Chicago sports, Marvel stuff, Tiger King, other emo bands. Lots of other stuff, too, but the fact that he includes the Cubs and not the Red Sox is entirely a function of Who Pete Wentz Is. It’s actually an extremely personal listing of the last thirty years, and I kind of like that about it, too. Everyone’s version of this song is different, and that’s cool!

But it doesn’t even mention COVID!

I, too, was surprised by that, but it mentions Tiger King, and I think that’s better, it made me laugh and also very vividly evoked that particular time to me better than just saying, like, "COVID-19 quarantine" would have.

There are other huge events it leaves out!

Yes. There are.

I can’t help it, I just really hate the song.

That’s cool. There are songs I really hate, too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(the funniest thing to me is that many people make fun of Patrick's lack of enunciation making lyrics unintelligible, but he's worked so hard on his singing that people can understand these lyrics, oops)

#long post #fall out boy #fob #bandom

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therosebanshee · 8 months ago

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I feel like Alastor actually has more modern knowledge than he lets on. Maybe not of a visual medium, but whatever is on the radio. Does he know what tiktok dance is trending? No, but he does know the top 40 hits of any year since he's been dead(of course he prefers the genres from his time.) I could see him using this knowledge to throw people off their game. Like, of course he knows what kpop is and who Verosika is. However, could he point her out in a line-up, no. I also like the idea of some random pop song he doesn't even like getting stuck in his head and him accidentally playing it out loud. Also playing like kpop or Marina style songs on purpose to throw off his enemies and like the b99 meme when they ask him why he's doing this he just turns his head 360 to look at them and says "No one will ever believe you." I could also see him playing song that are culturally/time period relevant to the different hotel residents as a uniquely him way of comforting them, once he's slowly grown to have an inkling of care for them. I wonder what his modern guilty pleasure songs/genres would be.

#hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin alastor #fanon #hazbin theory #i guess he'd know some outdated memes too #radio hosts are always a bit behind on those #at least the ones here in the midwest #hed know news too #and sports #i listen to radio at work #and it got me thinking this

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jeannereames · 11 months ago

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If you could change or insert one aspect of the common pop culture picture most people have in their heads when they think about ATG what would it be?

I'm going to jump this in the queue because I can answer it swiftly, but also because I have TWO things that are personal pet peeves.

FIRST: That "historians" keep insisting Alexander and Hephaistion were "just good friends" in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary.

SECOND: Alexander called Hephaistion his Patroklos (to his own Achilles), and they used this comparison frequently throughout their lives.

So, let’s take on the “Fake News,” shall we?

The notion that "historians" keep insisting Alexander and Hephaistion were "just good friends" in the face of what would seem clear evidence to the contrary is over 50 fucking years out of date.

Are there “historians” out there who say that? Sure. But they tend to come in two flavors: 1) people who aren’t specialists, Hellenists, or even historians,⸸ or 2) Greeks.* Since Badian, Green, Hamilton, and Schachermeyer (et al.) took over Macedonian/Alexander studies mid-century, few specialists claimed Alexander and Hephaistion couldn’t have been lovers, or Alexander couldn’t have been attracted to men. Even Hammond cagily acknowledged it.

Yet—TBH—I don't think those who repost that meme really care. They just want a convenient strawman/whipping horse to make them sound "smarter than the experts."

You don't. You sound as if you haven't read much about Alexander since about 1975. Historians who have died of old age by now said Alexander and Hephaistion were probably lovers.

But that raises another problem: the implication that anybody who might argue they aren't lovers must be an old, white homophobic dude. Again, this is wrong.

The current discussion centers more on source problems, and separates Alexander having male lovers from Alexander and Hephaistion being lovers themselves (not the same thing, actually). Those making the best argument for caution are young, very much not homophobic (but absolutely brilliant) women (e.g., Sabine Müller). Follow the link to see a picture of Sabine, if you don’t believe me. I don't agree with her, but you can't shoot down her argument by screaming "Homophobe!" at the top of your lungs. The points she raises are all good ones and any responsible (and smart) historian will take them seriously.

As for the Alexander-Achilles/Hephaistion-Patroklos pastiche… yeah, sorry, no.

I realize this torques off folks, as it’s become a mainstay of queer culture surrounding Alexander as a gay icon and owes more than a little to Miller’s The Song of Achilles.

Busting it probably makes me sound like a Grinch.

BUT…the facts just don't support it. Yes, Alexander compared himself to Achilles--but not as much as to Herakles and Dionysos. Not even close.

How do I know? I COUNTED THEM. Facts ... not impressions.

After all, looking closely at what the sources (not impressions) actually say about Hephaistion is how I came to the conclusion the man was a lot more important than heretofore recognized. 😉

Again, as I’ve said elsewhere, Alexander did compare himself to Achilles. That’s not in dispute … it just wasn’t as frequent or common as modern fans like to pretend. And Hephaistion was compared to Patroklos only twice. There’s also a problem with WHO made those comparisons: chiefly Arrian. Again, I’ve talked about this elsewhere, so won’t go over it again.

Yes, I made the comparison myself in Dancing with the Lion: Becoming. But it concerned one circumstance near that book’s end (not giving spoilers), and isn’t something they harped on otherwise. That mirrors how it appears in our sources: it’s limited, and situational.

“Patroklos” was not Hephaistion’s nickname. Wish folks would stop claiming it was.

—————

⸸ Just because somebody is tagged “historian” on a History Channel special—or his own private blog—doesn’t mean they actually have a PhD, or even a Master’s, much less one in ancient history, Classics, Classical archaeology, or ancient art history. The number of idiots on Tik-tok yapping about how Alexander thought this or did that—and clearly know jack shit—routinely stuns me…even while it doesn’t. Dunning-Kruger Effect all over the damn place.

* Greeks must often work within the confines of official narratives in order to secure jobs and funding, which can limit what they say on certain topics, from who’s buried in “Philip’s Tomb,” to the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians, to any possible homosexual “taint” staining Alexander’s greatness. This may swim against the current of academic discourse outside Greece, even by other Greeks. The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport has softened on some of these topics in recent years, especially as LGBTQIA rights have gained better traction in Greece.

#asks #Alexander the Great #Alexander memes #Alexander in pop culture #Myths about Alexander in pop culture #Hephaistion #Hephaestion #Classics #what “real” historians actually say #ancient history #ancient Macedonia #ancient Greece

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darkwingphoenix · 27 days ago

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Freshly Baked @loominggaia Memes!

Looming Gaia Lore Be Like to Outsiders/Newbies

Ei and Makoto when Cobalt, Sai, or any of her other relatives makes her stay in an area for some time while they get stuff/get stuff done:

BTW, Ei and Makoto are twin monsters Skylie forges to use as the Electro Archons she's cooking up (I'm deciding against maenads and just having Skylie make Ultra Deluxe Visions called Gnosis to give to dedicated people of each class (Meru for Anemo, Eviolans for Geo, Commoners for Pyro, Fae for Hydro, Gaians for Dendro, and Youkai for Cryo), and decided to use the Electro Gnosis to forge a monster capable of using its power.

Unluckily, the monster split in two and ran away before Skylie could react, and wound up in Evangeline Palace, where the twinned monsters turned into identical twins genetically belonging to Sai and Cobalt. The two decided to raise the cuties, and the rest, they say, is history. Anyway, they look like tiny Raidens

They are about 3 when Collei is 6 and the Evangeline Civil War is wrapping up, and are fuckin' adorable. They were also forged at 3 years old and are more like 3 days old when they were spotted in the palace by Sai and Cobalt.

Anyway!

A bunch of koholasaurs stopping their vishap from eating a panicking sirene

Skylie parodying a rival artist's hated song and makin it 300 time more popular by making it so different while keeping the lyrics

Citrine at the Athenaeum's Orchestra

The Grand Temple of Modern Lindism VS Skylie (And Rook) and Barus Lyndia (And Comet)(The Temple lost)

Ei, Makoto, and Collei summoning their relatives when some creepy satyr (Erasmos) is creepin on them

Skylie disguising herself as a guy to sneak into a Lindist temple

Skylie tryna listen to LG haters

Skylie making a song about how she and Barus Lyndia destroyed the Grand Temple of Lindism in Evangeline during the GGW using a million bombs strapped to them and their mounts (One who can hatch from an egg after dying like Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy and the other one is an actual divine)(Skylie replaced Turban with Visions, even though Freemasons don't work for her)

The Evangeline Royal Cousins to Sai and Justinia both popping out twins (And then they, Jet and Cobalt adopt Ei and Makoto, resulting in 3 twins sets into the family in only 3 weeks)

Cobalt, Sapphira, Cyana, Lazuline, and Skylie when asked how they like to fuck (Cobalt loves it when Sai or Justinia break his hips while riding his dick, Sapphira is totally a top to me, Cyana prefers slow, loving sex to Cobalt's fast and rough enough to breaking beds, Lazuline has no experience, and Skylie totally missed the question and decided to tell her backstory about the Gnosis)

How I imagine a heavily accented Evangelite guy sounds like (No Idea Why, but I am WHIPPED for having the Evangelites have a thick German accent, and now it's my headcanon)(Here have some more)

Citrine, the Jetinia kids, Ei, Makoto, Rosaria, Lumine, Dottore, Columbina, and Signora at the stake burning of Rodrig, Marine and Danus (Teal got cast ironed to death by Cobalt, Skylie teared up with mixed emotions when she impaled Cerulea with her sword, Indiga died of a heart attack in her sleep, and Marine's husband got smashed by a felled apple tree)

Skylie, the Evangeline Royal Cousins, the House of the Hearth, the Harbingers and the Divine Quartet if they had a Saturday Morning Cartoon Theme Song (Think Spongebob)

Vex and Darshaan while Skylie gets railed by Saraia

Amber, Signora, Columbina, Rosaria, Darshaan, and Saraia on tea (I swear, my headcanon of Evangeline is the tea addiction of the UK, the theocracy the American Trump Cultists want, the rural aesthetic of Medieval France and Poland, and LG Species)

Maia to her crush (Who knows it, but she denies it)

Amber helping Citrine flirt

Saraia announcing to Skylie she's gonna confess to her

Gay Facts, with Cyana:

Buddy when seeing Skylie railing Saraia (They wound up in the Tabiya House of Karenza after a rough, drunk night):

Cyana to Amber and Citrine's play, when they're 6 and 3 (They did like 1 scene of Amber and Maui beating up a giant Loopy plush while Citrine wandered off aimlessly):

Morgause to her first actual SO

Maia when she said this to her crush

Barus Lyndia, disguised, to Rodrig (Rodrig ain't his brah)

Skylie to Titania and Morgause

Skylie to Cerulea

Rosaria to her husband, who's just a Fun Guy

Clarity to Lumine

Sai when Cobalt:

youtube

Skylie, Saraia, Darshaan, and Vex (And Darshaan is TWERKIN)

Capitano to Columbina

Jelani when he was tasked with watching Amber for 15 minutes while Cyangeline, Azura, and the triplets ran to the store and he wasn't busy and she was sleeping face-down in her pool (Plot Twist: She was almost 1 year old and developed water-breathing literally that morning, except she didn't realize it and just slept like that)

Capitano when Sandrone punches that sorta thingy through a stone wall in Evangeline

Cyana when Skylie and Saraia pull up as a couple (I'm speeding up their relationship from besties to GFs to only 16 years when they finally start dating from when they first met)(They call themselves Skylaia, and Darshaan and Vex are just eating 100 pounds of bacon):

youtube

(I'm tryna give y'all a good variety of links, picture memes, and direct videos while I can only post 10 videos per post)

Skylie during Halloween (May also make a new Fatui or albino elfenne OC based on this, because Skylie already has a design set to me but this goes SO HARD I CANNOT EXPLAIN WITH MERE WORDS):

Skylie, Saraia, Vex, Darshaan, Machine, and Lobster Red one morning (I feel Red would be like that)

Clarity when she realizes Lumine's crushing on her

Cobalt teasing with Collei when she was 1

Dottore, Capitano and Indigo be like

Canon Future Skylie Be Like

Maia and Indigo messing with each other

Skylie tryna seduce Saraia (Beyond just ripping Saraia's bottoms off and going straight to cock-sucking mixed with a titfuck)

What Skylie is tryna make in LG

Amber switching to Evokean and Galsungi when she needs to swear more than what Universa can supply

Maia being a shit be like:

youtube

Amber tryna bond with her siblings (Clarity and Mako are trying to as well, but Saheli decided it was Boat Horn Time)

Darshaan when Columbina cosplays as Mankind's Disgrace for Halloween (She's 100% accurate and as such has her titties completely exposed)

Skylie making a song after she and Saraia got together (She's tryna hint to Saraia, in the front row, that when they get back to the hotel she wants to ride Saraia's elfennecock like there's no tomorrow)(As such, she's in the sluttiest getup any of her characters have)

Folkvar to the Reformists, Yerim-Mor, the Unseelie Court, Damiscend, and the Seelie Court (Titania is in her old Conqueror Armor, and is SO BACK, and is gonna bring dat HEAT)

How Capitano convinced Pierre to let him marry Sandrone

Cobalt when Sai or Justinia are concerned about their weight (Sure, they're both a tad overweight, but isn't being overweight attractive in Evangeline (Maybe?), and besides, Cobalt's whipped for them anyway)(And his kids are wingmanning him):

youtube

Zareen Capital Be Like

The Evangeline Royal Kids (Lazuline, Sapphira, Teal, Cyana, Marine, Skylie and Cobalt): Lazuline, Teal, Cyana, and Marine gentle smiling while Saphirra, Skylie and Cobalt are giving their best "I'll Be Gentle" smiles (Saphirra's spotted a guy she's gonna marry, fuck, imprison, Skylie's gonna break Saraia's dick, and Cobalt's gonna break the bed while pile driving into Sai and Justinia)

Everyone to goblins

Skylie and the Evangeline Royal Kids about to break into the Grand Temple of Lindism before Skylie and Barus bomb it

Skylie and Saraia when Saraia helps Skylie out with something

Cyana and Angeline doing a couple costume:

Skylie using her Scary Dog Privilege (Saraia, Darshaan, and Rook)

If Fae and Other Species Could Interbreed

Cobalt training Collei to use a bow

#the ole meme bakery #best meme bakery this side noalen #Youtube

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