#ian thesis actually

[metalheadmickey]

the thing about ian is that he and mickey will fuck so nasty, and he'll still call it "making love." mickey will be starfished on the bed, drenched in sweat and staring at the ceiling with his eyes all huge like he just accidentally bore witness to the birth of the universe after whatever depraved act ian just committed upon him, and ian will be next to him like "i love getting to make love with you 🥰 that was so nice 🥰 i love you"

[marzipanandminutiae]

not to be That Person but you’ve got a tag on your gothic poll that’s incorrect

the goth subculture was spawned by the music. it’s only called “goth” because of a critic’s (ian something) usage of words from one of the early post-punk bands in the 80s (forgot which). that’s how the “gothic rock” genre was henceforth labeled. while the aesthetics of the subculture are heavily influenced and straight-out borrowed from pre-existing gothic media, they do not form the scene on their own.

the goth scene emerged because of the music. if you listen to and enjoy goth music, then you are goth. that’s it. it’s not about the aesthetic, and just because you “dress goth” or enjoy gothic literature does not make you goth.

but ANYWAY. thats all. just wanted to let you know. so you might wanna drop that tag, it’s misinformation.

Thank you for your insight. I would challenge you, though, to explain how the term “gothic” which “goth” is short for) came to mean “interested in dark, Romantic, and macabre subjects” in the present day without invoking the literary movement.

Someone else also quoted the person who coined the term, and he directly linked it to…enjoying darkness and the macabre. Which association comes back to my point above.

(I actually like some classic goth music, to be clear. I just think the idea that someone could write a doctoral thesis on vampire literature and dress like a Victorian widow but not be entitled to a term that is literally short for “gothic” if they don’t like a specific list of musicians is…a bit odd, to say the least.)

[thevalleyisjolly]

I like to think that when Twelve spent all those years on Earth as a university lecturer, he went to at least one conference where Ian Chesterton was presenting, planted himself in the audience, and absolutely hammed it up during the question period as a slightly bewildered academic who might possibly be at the wrong panel. Actually, despite how irritatingly basic his questions seemed to be, they were really very helpful in supporting Ian's thesis by subtly drawing connections between points that the audience might have missed. Unfortunately Ian didn't pick up on it because he was thrown off-kilter by this strange old professor referring to him as "Chesterfield" the entire time. It wasn't even a conscious decision on Twelve's part. Regenerations come and go but the instinct for mischief never fully vanishes altogether.

[thesinglesjukebox]

JELLY ROLL - "HALFWAY TO HELL"

Our highest-scoring single to date from any artist threatened by Waffle House...

[4.40]

Taylor Alatorre: Whitsitt Chapel is a solid album, but "Halfway to Hell" is something a teacher might put on the overhead projector to illustrate how not to write a thesis statement. "Webster's Dictionary defines 'backsliding' as..." and so forth. The single spells out its themes with such unvarying bluntness that it feels like an ill-fated attempt to clone the entire album in miniature. It's understandable that an erstwhile Memphis rap understudy would want to sand down his pill-popping, sizzurp-sipping past in order to meet his big Nashville moment; we wouldn't be writing about him otherwise. But when you start a song off with such a beguiling audio fragment of a Baptist sermon at the outer edges of the universe, then smother it in the cradle with a bunch of Mad Lib dualisms and Truck Month theatrics, the calculated inoffensiveness threatens to actually offend. [4]

Andrew Karpan: Another somewhat singular creature of country music's endless push for authenticity, this time produced by the same label as Jason Aldean, with a kind of dirtbag grit that would make Post Malone blush. Which is to say that it's a record that creaks and growls — often convincingly — but to what end? [4]

Alfred Soto: Decent rumbler halfway between Eric Church and Mumford and Sons. If I'm honest with myself, Morgan Wallen's done this rue-on-a-Sunday better of late.  [5]

Nortey Dowuona: Zach Crowell was part of the production crew that made Sam Hunt's "Body Like a Back Road." He was also part of the production team of "Kinfolks." So in theory, he should be able to produce a barn-burning gospel country record, but instead he produces a thinly rendered WWE parody of such. The problem is at first the drumkit. The kick pattern of the first verse is solid, allowing Jelly to take hold in the mix, swell up during the pre-chorus, and soar into the chorus itself. But the loud snare smacks in the second verse and chorus distract from the banal lyrics; the line about a chariot carrying him away is the only one that's compelling. You could never tell this man has actually survived the reality of dancing between sin and salvation because the production is neither lush and glossy enough to carry him away, not rough enough to sweep him into hell. Which makes me think: Where's the Zach Crowell who produced "2016"? [4]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: This is such a WWE entrance theme banger – I'm finding it hard to critique without imagining flamethrowers and dramatic ring walk spectacle. What do you even do with something this overwrought when you just hear it on the radio or in a playlist? [6]

Mark Sinker: This guy takes the first two-thirds of jazz co-inventor Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe’s very well-known stage name and fuses it with maybe-unmeant echoes of AC/DC / Chris Rea title-fu. As a mode of faith, this should (by the demands of its expressed content) be more generic in form than not, that to believe is to be one of billions in similar plight, while the One that’s truly Original and Particulate is the Inexpressible Object of the Belief… and so all along the lines, until it rides off into its wide-open infinite expanse of many-times-heard-before reverb. And counter this, a reason not to concern-troll an entire religion is that any church with actual-real riz will be divided against itself.  [4]

Oliver Maier: Jelly Roll nooo stop you're not supposed to drink the holy water!! Noooo he can't hear me over the terrible mix!!!! Jelly Roll NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! [2]

Ian Mathers: I've been re-reading Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series recently, where (among many other things) the future setting has in its past a series of religious wars so terrifying that by the time of the books it's illegal to proselytize. You can believe whatever you want and discuss it with your personal religious counselor, but making it any kind of cultural signifier, let alone ammunition in any kind of cultural conflict, is absolutely taboo. The setting is an interestingly fraught mix between a utopia and a dystopia, but I gotta admit, the whole "don't talk about religion" bit sits pretty easily with me these days. [3]

Isabel Cole: Maybe it’s my choirgirl past talking, but “this little light of mine / damn near burned me alive” is a delightful piece of cheeky blasphemy. The rest of the song isn’t terrible, but nothing else feels as specific or as evocative as that. The chorus has some potentially decent ideas that are washed out by the mix into an undifferentiated wind of wailing, and the production refuses to entertain any kind of dynamism. (It feels like a very basic expectation for the song to drop more dramatically before the explosion into the final chorus, but it just… doesn’t….) Jelly Roll, meanwhile, hits his marks fine, but he never sounds like a man condemned, unless your idea of hell is a particularly divey karaoke bar. [5]

Brad Shoup: "This little light of mine/damn near burned me alive" is a nice contribution to the dirtbag hymnal. But it's buried in a mudslide of the hoariest crazy/beautiful imagery: booze and Bible verses, angels and devils, self-destruction and salvation. It's twanged out but has the overdrive of hair metal, with a light disco shuffle. The result is not unlike a 2010s Carrie Underwood crossover, but with a lot less fear of God. [5]

Katherine St. Asaph: Is one snippet of a sermon really enough to summon hellfire unto a song? Perhaps not, but who else is trying? [7]

TA Inskeep: Quit bellowing, man. As much as I hate invoking these names, this is (Kid Rock rapping) x (Nickelback’s guitars) + banjo, and it = nothing I need or want to hear again. [2]

Hannah Jocelyn: I liked "Need a Favor" more than I should have -- it's definitely a dirge, but I would have given it a [6] for the part of me that enjoyed listening to Nickelback as a mini-Hannah. This doesn't work, though it does answer the long-pressing question of "what if Rascal Flatts wasn't even a little bit of fun?". [4]

Dave Moore: For a few moments during this I'm transported to the glorious few months of Big 'n' Rich's alt-weekly champions and ensuing message board conversations, which was the last time anything I'd have to say about hip-hop and country might have sounded even remotely fresh. Accordingly, this feels about twenty years too stale, though I'm happy enough for Jelly Roll's success. [5]

Daniel Monteshenko: Sure, it sounds like a rousing song for the antagonist to sing in act two of a critically derided Broadway jukebox musical. Yup, it's as clichéd as any song you've ever heard mention hard liquor, the Cross and "mama." Of course the title's reverse SEO'd to capture unknown AC/DC fans. And you know it's overproduced, airless and a product of the loudness wars. But damnit, that's a hell (heh) of a chorus. [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[doloresdisparue]

have you read Lolita In The Afterlife? i got a copy of it from my local bookstore but i haven’t read it yet

I have! Very mixed opinions.. a few of the essays I really like and some i genuinely hated. If you go a little further back in my blog there are definitely excerpts from when I was reading it, both parts I shared because I loved them and some I made fun of. I did cite it in my thesis several times (specifically the essays by Bindu Bansinath, Christina Baker Kline, Kate Elizabeth Russell and Ian Frazier).

I suppose that's in the spirit of the collection, presenting many different viewpoints on the books legacy and I do commend that but I also think a handful of the essays make such outrageous, offensive or dangerous claims that leaving them in there uncommented is a little questionable ("Humbert should be played by an ugly actor because rape and rapists are ugly" comes to mind). But again, I understand the impulse to want to present a collection of different viewpoints and let the reader make up their minds. More in the spirit of Nabokov too, I would think.

I also have a personal grudge against the book for not including Emily Maltbys submission (which I was lucky enough to read) but that's just me caping for the musical again.

EDIT: Also my god that cover is ATROCIOUSLY ugly. Like, I might have actually bought the book myself for my little Lo-library but that cover is giving self-published on Wattpad. Love and light, nothing to do with the content but I hate that cover.

[starplusfourletters]

Quantum Leap s1e12 (the trans rights one)

QL set after 1995 is breaking my brain. Ziggy + Party Rock Anthem = blue screen of death for me

OOOOH time shenanigans that make no sense LET'S GOOOOOOO

oh I actually really like the mom character

omigod the writers googled "teenager 2012" didn't they WHAT SELF RESPECTING HIGH SCHOOLER WAS TALKING TWILIGHT IN 2012

Okay. Obviously the thesis of this episode is trans rights are human rights. But I think the way the way that thesis is being presented damages the story and by extension the message itself:

We have straight and queer characters within the Leap reacting to the narrative and trans-ness. We have straight and queer characters OUTSIDE the Leap reacting to the narrative and trans-ness. We have a LOT of different narrative beats (the support group, the basketball games, the running away, the school politics) that all reveal something about the trans experience. All of these elements show this story from a different angle, and they avoid the trap of portraying trans-ness as exclusively painful or negative. I think this is very well done.

What I think isn’t well done is the way the story grinds to a halt every three minutes for the Powers That Be to look directly at the camera and say “HEY! Are you getting it??!? We’re concerned you’re not getting it!!” 

The case-in-point of this for me is Ian. Like, if the Powers That Be are concerned the audience isn’t picking up what they’re putting down, Ian is just the OBVIOUS solution. They’re nonbinary, and because this is Quantum Leap they can occupy the rather unique position of being outside the story while still in-universe. Ian can speak-to-the-audience-without-speaking-to-the-audience here. Hell, Ian should be DRIVING this ep. But we’ve got Ian pulling up GRAPHS of statistics about trans people’s mental health? And HOLDING THEM UP TO THE CAMERA? Nonononono.

TLDR: show don’t tell and trust your characters and your story to convey your thesis; that’s kind of the point of fiction, right?

And maybe more importantly, trust your audience. You have an important message you want to convey and you don’t want to get it wrong, I get that. But I don’t think any staunchly anti-trans people are going to watch this episode. And the people whose minds you could change don’t want to feel like they’re being spoon-fed. We’re all going to get more out of sympathetic-but-flawed characters interacting with each other in a way that feels genuine; that, again, is kind of the point of fiction.

okay sorry rant over

Wow this principal is actually terrible at noticing when the door swings wide open in her tiny office. Those lines could have been heard thru the door just sayin

"Your fear is not my responsibility" turns all around in a very cool way. Seriously this ep is full of good lines and ideas and characters at real risk of being smothered by the feeling of being hit over the head by political preaching

...good news folks we solved trans rights

OH SHIT IAN??? WHAT'S IAN DOING??? Legitimately took me by surprise there

[demi-shoggoth]

2022 Reading Log, pt 11

It’s taken me a while to get up the energy to read this month, let alone reflect on what I’ve read. But here’s what I’ve been reading lately.

50a. Show Me the Bone by Gowan Dawson. I wanted to like this book; I really did. The concept is interesting: it’s about Georges Cuvier and his “Law of Association”, which claimed that the entire structure of an extinct or unknown organism could be inferred from a single bone or tooth (hence the title). And the thesis is interesting: it’s about how this original concept was distorted to fit multiple social, political and scientific agendas in England, culminating in its most visible incarnation of the Crystal Palace dinosaur sculptures, which make large, sweeping, and generally incorrect assumptions about the animals they depict. But the writing is so dull. The authorial voice embodies almost all of the bad habits of academic writing, to the point where getting through the book is a real chore. This is a book that I might come back to given a lot of free time and nothing else to read, but I’m too busy (and there’s so many books I’d rather enjoy) to struggle through it.

51. Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Werewolf Film by Craig Ian Miller. The title refers to the main thesis—that there are phases of werewolf movies where the monster represents different ideas, rather than being a monolithic “the beast within” signifier, as werewolves are often reduced to. The book talks about Larry Talbot as being representative of the American experience in WWII in the Wolf Man sequels, discusses the fear of disease and the division of mental and physical illness with An American Werewolf in London, the anxiety about teen subcultures and school shootings in Ginger Snaps, and a lot more. One thing I particularly liked about the book is that it discusses some movies about non-werewolf shapeshifters when they’re thematically relevant (like a compare/contrast between Cat People and its dumber, werewolf ripoff Cry of the Werewolf).

52. Drakōn by Daniel Ogden. Now here’s a dense academic book that actually reads well. This is a survey of dragons and snakes in Greek mythology, religion and culture, starting with a look at the various myths about dragons and dragon slayers, and then moving to anguiform gods and snake cults. Although the basic stories are fairly familiar to me, there’s a lot of material that was new, typically sourced from authors whose works are less known and translated than Ovid, Homer or Hesiod. The last chapter talks about early Christian dragon lore, leading of course to Saint George, and how this was influenced by Greco-Roman ideas of how dragons worked. The one thing I wish this book had were more images. A lot of pottery and sculpture is described without being illustrated—we get accession numbers (many of the pieces that are not shown are from the Louvre) and occasional “reproductions by the author”, but a lot goes without images. Especially since some of the depictions sound wild (like a Hecate with a snake body, snakes for hair and two dog heads emerging from her torso).

53. Sticky: The Secret Science of Surfaces by Laurie Winkless. This is yet another popular science book from Bloomsbury Sigma, and like the rest of the line, it’s very good. The theme of the hour is material science, namely about the properties of surfaces and friction. Each chapter looks into applied physics for one particular topic—breaking the sound barrier, the behavior of rock causing earthquakes, and how geckos stick to ceilings are all discussed, to give you an idea of the breadth of the book. Each chapter highlights how much we still don’t know about friction, while simultaneously discussing how much we do know and can apply, even if the exact mechanisms are still debated. I never knew that the physics of curling were so contentious.

54. Envisioning Exoplanets by Michael Carroll. See folks, this is why you need an editor. This book is by one of the foremost authorities on the hunt for exoplanets (planets outside of the Solar System), and talks about how we find them, what we have found, what the planets are like and which ones may be able to support life. The art is gorgeous, showing images of stars, moons and planets vastly unlike ours but still seeming familiar and realistic. Unfortunately, the book is very poorly organized. Topics will change between paragraphs, or even within a paragraph, without warning or transition, or seemingly any obvious relationship between topics. Technical terms will be used before they are formally defined. Units are used interchangeably (notably AU, kilometers, and no actual numbers, just approximations of distance compared to the Sun’s planets). The overall effect is very stream of consciousness, as if you were having a conversation with an expert who was only sort of invested in making sure they were understood. There’s good stuff in this book, but sorting it out was a frustrating experience.

55. The Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories about Mystery Illness by Suzanne O’Sullivan. I didn’t realize that this was a follow-up when I grabbed this from the library, but this is a sort of sequel to Is It All In Your Head? which I read last year. The topic is again psychosomatic illnesses, but this time how they are viewed and manifested in different cultural lenses. The titular “sleeping beauties” are children, usually female, who go comatose in Sweden as a response to the threat of deportation. Other stories highlight how particular combinations of environment, culture and trauma manifest as physical symptoms, and how the cycle of pathologising normal fluctuations in pain, attention and the like are perhaps a Western manifestation of culture bound illness.

[mann-walter]

My Week so Far

There are a ton of unlikely things I read and watch lately, things that are really out of my lane. First, listening about Malachi Martins, a former Jesuit. I actually knew fuck all about this man prior to that podcast experience and gained no significant amount of information afterward, only that he wrote books about the Jesuits, said that the Church is essentially rotten, and was (some people say “claimed to be) an exorcist. For information, I’m not affiliated with those religious institutions and so didn’t feel any sort of disappointment or excitement or whatever, it was moderately informative full stop.

Second, I have been reading a thesis on Howard Barker’s theatre, shockingly, it’s not by David Ian Rabey, the man whose name will always pop up when you search for academic writings on the playwright. I swaggered into reading it as if I know what Howard Barker’s theatre is—which of course I don’t—well, if you count watching Pity in History once (the televised, uploaded to YouTube version that is) and reading some of his poetry which sounds like a well-written rant, then I know a little. Anyway, the thesis is great. I actually have read another writing on Howard Barker in the past, but that one multi contributor book was… have you ever been so knowledgeable and interested in something, and you have so much to say (or too much I should say) that your explanation is the “You have to be there” variety of abstract? That was how the other one felt. This thesis however, gives solid, succinct explanation that I, a layman when it comes to Barker (or British theatre for that matter) can still follow, enjoy, and gain information from it. It’s fun you know to peer at an artist’s ideological shifts and how they manifest in the art. For example, according to the thesis, Barker’s first phase was coloured by traditional Marxism and he did political theatre in that vein, then when he still disliked the Right but now also disenchanted by the Left new or old (his second phase), he began to have daggers up every movement’s throat through his plays.

Yeah, so those are two things I gained from my latest internet travels.

PS: I came to read that thesis because Howard Barker is, safe to say, on the fringes. Some have called his theatre whack but others (like any other fringe author) call him a genius. I just wanted to know, guys.

[cyborgsurrogate]

Weeks 5 and 6

Texas had a big freeze this week (again), so I got some time off from work. I was able to get in some much-needed rest and also a good chunk of reading.

Time has been a really valuable resource for all of this work. And what's becoming frustrating for me these last two weeks is how often I use my time to research something and, after all this time has passed and all this effort has been put into reading, I realize this source or resource doesn't actually work for my research purposes. That was my experience this week. I had two (hopeful) novels that were recommended to me by friends and colleagues as texts that seemed to fit my general thesis goals. However, while both were good reads, generally speaking, only one of them would be useful for my thesis and even then the story really doesn't lend itself to the meat of my work, and would really only be helpful as a supplement. And while, as I said, I enjoyed the books, it's hard not to feel like that's just time wasted. And I can't help but feel that it's going to continue happening.

Reads for the week:

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Two chapters of A Thousand Plateaus

[agape-philo-sophia]

➝ Ordo Ab Chao — Order Out Of Chaos: Their Order ➝ Hegelian Dialectic — Controlled Opposition: Problem — Reaction — Solution 🚨

A framework for guiding thoughts and actions into conflicts that lead to synthetic solutions which can only be introduced once those being manipulated take a side that will advance the predetermined agenda.

➝ 1. The government creates or exploits a problem blaming it on others ➝ 2. The people react by asking the government for help willing to give up their rights ➝ 3. The government offers the solution that was planned long before the crisis

👉 The puppet masters will create “disorder” so the people will demand “order”. The price of “order” always entails a handing over of control and loss of freedom on the part of the citizenry. Out of “chaos” comes “order” – THEIR order – their WORLD order.

👉 The trick of creating chaos and then seizing power under the pretense of putting things back in order is a tried and true method of deception and manipulation. It’s the meaning behind the Latin motto: ORDO AB CHAO meaning ORDER OUT OF CHAOS.

👉 It’s also referred to as the Hegelian Dialect after the philosopher Georg Hegel who wrote about its effectiveness. He described it as: THESIS — ANTI-THESIS — SYN-THESIS.

👉 Others have described it as: PROBLEM — REACTION — SOLUTION in that firstly you create the problem; then secondly you fan the flames to get a reaction; then thirdly (like Johnny-on-the-spot) you provide a solution. The solution is what you were wanting to achieve in the first place, but wouldn’t have been able to achieve under normal circumstances.

“A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it’s going to get.” — Ian Williams Goddard

Increasing stress and confusion in the targeted business-person or in the masses is done on purpose to break them down so they go into self-doubt and become uncertain and confused about what is actually happening. Controllers purposely increase stress and confusion as a manipulation method to destabilize and weaken others, so they will be easily persuaded to go along with any solution the Controller offers just to reduce their stress.

This works on the principle that a drowning person will clutch at a straw, so the Controller in his manipulation deliberately attempts to push them under water so he can then offer them the straw.

Cycle of Pain – Problem, Reaction and Deceitful Solution

It is important to realize the cycle of emotional pain and human suffering is perpetuated repeatedly from those groups of people that have endured tragic pain. This leaves the imprint and residue of that pain to be carried by the family lineage and the rest of the human race that is on the earth. That pain continues to accumulate in the earth and the human race, until the cause of the cycle of pain and suffering is identified, recognized, and cleared from the earth and the people. The cause of pain and suffering must be identified in order to stop the painful recycling of previously recorded pain, which if left hidden, continues to recycle and generate even more pain and suffering Consciousness fields back into the earth. It is impossible to find effective solutions for human suffering and pain, when the people are deceived and given misinformation by those who protect their selfish interests. We cannot inoculate disease and starvation, end war and senseless killing, and stop co-creating the world to increase human suffering and slavery, until we get to the real cause and root of the problem. Real solutions start with full disclosure and global transparency. Solutions will not work when they are created from misinformation and carried out by those who are compromised by committing fraud, deceit and manipulation of the public to engineer the Death Culture.

Many conspiracy analysts have spotted the Hegelian dialectic in action repeatedly. The NWO handlers use the controlled mainstream media to create a PROBLEM where there was none before. The public REACTS to the PROBLEM and demands an immediate SOLUTION that was prepared by the same people who created the PROBLEM in the first place.

The SOLUTION always involves actions or legislation that never would have passed public approval under normal circumstances – that is, before the elite Hegelian strategists broadcasted there was a PROBLEM.

Once we realize that it was all planned out ahead of time, including our reaction in our programmed ignorance, it’s easy to stop participating. When enough people become aware, and stop participating in this sinister agenda, the house of cards will come crashing down.

In order to avoid falling victim to the Hegelian Dialectic from now on, you must remember the process involved. Any time a major problem or issue arises in society, think about who will gain or profit from it. Then remove yourself from the equation, take a step back and look at it from a third party perspective. See the so-called “problem”, look at who is reacting, why and in what way. Then look for who is offering up the solution.

Continue here: https://www.minds.com/MindCom/blog/hegelian-dialectic-how-the-government-uses-cognitive-dissona-923206440956583936?referrer=MindCom

[thesinglesjukebox]

LENIN - "INTIRAYMI"

Next, from Jessica, a Peruvian house banger with layers...

[7.46]

Jessica Doyle: Don't worry about the backstory yet, there's no rush. Let's start by enjoying a party jam whose ambition shows in its structure: in an era of two-minute songs and dance tracks with no actual rhythm, "Intiraymi" has not only the required bouncy chorus that ends with "ĄEs un carnaval!" but a distinct repeated pre-chorus and a distinct bridge during which to gear up for the final dance. Also, let's face it, this is the best use of strings in a K-pop or K-pop-adjacent song since the legendary "The Ghost of Wind." Even the song's more subtle touches -- that Lenin ends the initial rounds of the chorus on a lower note, so it has more impact when he doubles himself going higher at the end -- work in its favor. Okay, now we can throw in the backstory: Lenin Tamayo Pinares is the son of an Andean folksinger and native speaker of Quecha, and not only a self-produced musician but one committed to using contemporary Andean music as an agent of collective empowerment for indigenous minorities (and hopefully getting an undergraduate thesis done on the topic while he's at it). Fun is fun, and "Intiraymi" is well-crafted, contagious fun no matter how little time you want to invest in it, but you do need a little bit of context to understand why I want this man to realize all of his ambitions and then some. [9]

Nortey Dowuona: "This is not only a positive message," he said of his music. "It's a battle." [10]

Taylor Alatorre: If I were to listen to this without looking any further into Quechua culture, I'd have to guess that the Intiraymi is basically akin to a Copa América celebration. Lenin shows more interest here in creating sounds with cross-border appeal than in putting centuries of suppressed history on display, as is fully his right. Those violin breaks act as tethers to a living past rather than dusted-off artifacts of an ancient one, more evocative of extended family gatherings than Inca and Chanka glories. The sense of forced fun is never entirely absent, but that's something it has in common with family gatherings as well. [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Intiraymi is a (Southern Hemisphere) Winter Solstice festival, so it feels appropriate to review "Intiraymi" as I experience the Northern Hemisphere equivalent. This is a banger for the shortest day of the year, a concentrated, poised delivery of hooks that eventually folds into a giddy, delirious fit of ecstasy. [8]

Ian Mathers: Of course, there are only so many combinations of different letters out there; when different languages share the same character sets, you're going to get some weird and/or funny overlaps. Which explains why someone going by Lenin is singing the praises of an Incan festival for the sun god. He's got an interesting background, but I don't have the context to know how significant the subject matter here is. But that's all kind of just background; I don't even need the subtitles to tell that the chorus is celebrating some sort of carnival, and infectiously so. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: An ebullient little house-pop charmer. It's a bit too cheery for my tastes, but those strings are something to celebrate. [5]

Brad Shoup: LENIN's very unsweaty take on K-pop is the draw for sure, but dig that chorus: it sounds like Suede. [7]

Michelle Myers: When you're a K-Pop fan, everything starts to sound like idol music. Tate McRae? She's K-Pop. Ed Sheeran? Totally K-Pop. Nu Metal? That's just Ateez with guitars. But Lenin Tamayo is different. He's purposefully trying to make music that sounds like the Peruvian equivalent of an early 2010s Kenzie banger. [8]

Frank Kogan: This is excitement from the start, the danceable violin riff and the floor beats coming in, a melody with punch and lilt, and on from there: fiddle breaks, sensitive idol star interludes, absolutely sing-a-long-able chorus. His voice is as small as Hilary Duff's, and the wails are more gestured at than actually wailing; so he's getting by on brains more than vocal cords. That's not bad at all, if the arrangements and songwriting get the music to go where he wants it, which they emphatically do here. [7]

Kayla Beardslee: It's so hard to go wrong with a rousing piano-house banger, and this one certainly doesn't! [7]

Aaron Bergstrom: The Inca had a pretty advanced understanding of astronomy. Based on the ruins they left behind, we know they could calculate the solstices with an impressive level of precision. They knew they lived in a clockwork universe, that the days would get shorter until a calculable date, after which they would start to get longer again. And yet, despite this scientific certainty, they still devoutly observed the Inti Raymi, a nine-day festival around the winter solstice dedicated to worshipping the sun god Inti. It's possible there were a few people in those crowds who gave themselves over fully to the supernatural, who worried that they days would keep getting shorter forever unless they properly demonstrated their devotion, but I think most people knew that the sun would return no matter what. That didn't make the Inti Raymi any less important to them. The return of the sun demands celebration, regardless of how your personal cosmology explains it. Anyway, I've been playing this song a lot lately. Today is the shortest day of the year. Tomorrow will be five seconds longer. I'm not saying I caused that, but I'm also not going to stop playing the song. Praise Inti. [9]

Will Adams: How refreshing for a cry of "es un carnaval!" to actually sound like it. How crucial it is for dance-pop bangers to be a little cheesy. [7]

Katherine St Asaph: Power in cheese. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[loveisbraveandwild]

It’s great!!! The hardest part for me is all the academic reading and writing, which might sound silly to say but I studied math in undergrad, so I didn’t do that regularly until now. The content is really interesting though, which makes it more enjoyable than math, so I love it! 😂 Also, the perception of the field can be a bit old-timey but everything seems pretty liberal (at least in this limited academic environment I’m in), which is nice, and we talk about feminist ethics and universal design and the idea that neutrality is a myth and the concept of information poverty and how traditional cataloging systems can actually perpetuate bias. Of course, we also learn more traditional things like what level of processing should you do when acquiring new material, how to write a finding aid, etc. Also, since I’m on the archives track I can’t speak as much to the childrens librarianship/school librarianship courses in my school, but overall there’s lots of Library Science (of course) and also Information Science courses for my program, so the information science can veer slightly technical at times, but it’s nothing too crazy (yet lol). Something I really like about my program is that we have a field study option, so I’m excited to do that instead of writing a thesis haha. I’m sure you’ll love what you learn, childrens librarianship sound super interesting! Good luck with everything, and I’m always down to talk library stuff when I’m on here!!! 🎉💕

eeeep i was a liberal arts major and all i did was read and write essays so hopefully im well prepared! i also know for a fact that my program is centered on progressivism and tbh have never gotten the impression that people both within and out of the field gave a bad rap to libraries/ians in regards to a lack of liberalism- its interesting that thats been ur experience! my program also has a field study option which im really looking fwd to!! i might dm u to chat more:) thanks for sending all this!

[phykios]

honesty and promise me, part 5 [co-written with @darkmagyk] [read on ao3]

 Annabeth is making her periodic pilgrimage to the gynecologist when she gets Leo's call. It's very fitting--two uncomfortable and invasive things for the price of one. She answers her phone, ignoring the doctor's chastising frown. Surely she can place her new IUD while Annabeth deals with whatever Leo wants.

 "What are you doing on the 18th?" he asks, about the only type of hello she ever gets from Leo.

 The two of them never really grew out of pretending not to like each other, after they had gotten over their initial dislike. When he and Piper first got to Miss Minerva's, more or less straight out of juvie after Piper's dad made a lot of calls and called in a lot of favors, she and Leo had really hated each other. They used to fight over everything, from Piper's attention to the position of captain of the Mathletes team. And also, over Leo hating a rich white girl on principle, which, in retrospect, is totally fair. But then, by a weird twist of fate, they wound up in Boston together.

 If Annabeth had to choose between hanging out with her creepy, Norse mythology-obsessed uncle and hanging out with Leo, she'd pick Leo every time. They had gone through a lot together, things both big and small.

 "Of August?" she asks.

 "Please be still, Ms. Chase," says her doctor. Annabeth rolls her eyes.

 "Duh."

 Wracking her thoughts she can't think of any prior commitments she might have had. Maybe there's a concert that day, but if she can't remember, it probably wasn't that important anyway. "Not much."

 "Good, because we have plans."

 She frowns. "Piper didn't mention any--"

 "No, you and I have plans. I'll see you in Philly, yeah?"

 Philadelphia? Ew. "Why Philly?"

 "Our Smarter House thing won an award."

 "No shit?"

 "Eta Industries Award. The gala is on the 18th. You're my plus one."

 She sucks in air through her teeth, readjusting her hips as unobtrusively as possible. Eta Industries was… a very big deal. "Isn't that, like, an engineering specific award? Maybe you should accept it by yourself." She'd be better off staying out of the limelight for this one, she thinks, even as some part of her longs once again for recognition.

 Something electric whirs in the background, tinny and buzzing. "I'll see you on the 18th, then," says Leo, not having heard a word she said. "Also, you've been summoned to the castle."

 "Leo--" she jumps as the gyno touches something she really shouldn't have.

 "No arguments, she's expecting you today at two. Adios!" He clicks off.

 "Okay, Ms. Chase," says the doctor, a little too chipper for Annabeth's taste. "You should be all set."

 Annabeth leaves the doctor's office with her brand new IUD, a handful of medical literature which immediately gets tossed in the trash, and a sinking feeling in her gut as she gets on a train to Brooklyn, headed to Piper's place for another annoying and unnecessary fashion show. It's not that she doesn't enjoy being Piper's model--it's a position she's held since their time at Miss Minerva's, and it's never really a hardship to be told how gorgeous she is--but Piper has a way of just... getting information out of her that she doesn’t always want to share.

 Stopping off early, Annabeth gives herself a moment to walk down the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, to settle her nerves and indulge herself a bit. That skyline gets her every time.

 Turning down Pierrepont Street, she is once again struck by just how quiet the city can be. Manhattan is loud, rude, in-your-face, almost an entirely different world from the stately, deafeningly silent Brooklyn. For Annabeth, who is incapable of falling asleep without city horns blaring, it wigs her out a little.

 She barely has time to ring the doorbell on Piper's dad's place before the girl herself wrenches it open, grabbing Annabeth's hand and yanking her inside. "You're late!" she trills, suffering what Annabeth can only assume is the onset of a caffeine overdose.

 "I thought I had until two."

 "That was before I had the best idea."

 The brownstone is a mess, as per usual, reams of fabric tossed over every available surface, enough dressforms strewn about to make it look like Piper is hosting a party exclusively populated by headless zombies, adorned with a warehouse's worth of half-finished dresses and jackets. Based on the loud fabrics and structured angles, it looks like Piper is in the middle of a Klimt-ian phase of inspiration. Annabeth eyes a bright gold gown with a huge, extended collar, embroidered with silver eyes, the raw edges trailing the floor. "Please tell me this isn't your idea."

 "First of all," Piper releases her arm as they enter her kitchen-turned-photo studio, gingerly stepping over a box of assorted beads, "even though it would look amazing on you, that dress is for an actual paying client. Second of all--" she snatches up a dressform from its position behind the camera, setting it down in front of her with a flourish. "This is my idea."

 Annabeth was right--Piper is definitely on a Klimt-ian kick.

 Pulled straight from her art history classes, the dress looks like a two dimensional painting come to life, a stunning skirt like a column of liquid silver descending onto the black mat, pleats like fluted columns precisely draped over the dressform's hips… and not much else. Annabeth points. “Is that it?”

 Piper makes a face. "I have a bodice, promise. Now go take that shit off."

 Annabeth looks down at her repurposed The Police shirt, fished out of a thrift store bin some months ago, shirt collar cut and sides resewn to bring the waistline in. "I like this shirt."

 "Oh, I like the shirt plenty," she agrees. "But you could stand to wear a nicer pair of jeans."

 She does have a point there--her jeans are clinging to life at this point, the knees and hems all but obliterated, strings of fabric valiantly attempting to hold their original shape. "Fine. Be right back."

 When she emerges from the bathroom a minute later in just her bra and panties, Piper has laid out another bolt of fabric in that same color, silver with a blue shift beneath the studio lights. Piper, bent over with a strip of measuring tape, looks up at her, then squints. "So who is he?"

 Annabeth starts. "Excuse me?"

 "The guy you've been seeing."

 How... the fuck does Piper always know these things? "I don't know what you're talking about."

 She flicks her eyes down to Annabeth's thigh, Annabeth following her gaze to the remnants of the bruise that Percy had left there with his mouth two days ago. Dammit.

 Piper tsks, a smile distorting the sound. "Naughty, naughty, Annabeth."

 "How do you know it wasn't from a girl?" she asks, petulant.

 "Because if it had been a girl, you wouldn't be nearly so defensive."

 Shit. "We've been friends way too long," Annabeth grumbles.

 "That we have," says Piper. "And out of respect for our friendship, I will refrain from grilling you about him until you are more comfortable sharing."

 "So, for a few hours?"

 She shrugs. "More or less."

 "I suppose you want me to thank you for holding back."

 "Don't thank me yet," she grins, wide and toothy. "I've been cooped up here working on my collection for three days, and I am dying to talk to someone."

 Annabeth sighs, but obediently raises her arms, making room as Piper crouches down to pin the skirt on her. "Okay, you got me. I'm seeing this guy."

 "Seeing or seeing-seeing?"

 "Just seeing," she clarifies. "It's pretty casual."

 "Can't be that casual if you're telling me about it," Piper points out.

 Fuck. This is why she never tells Piper about her hookups. "You're the one who asked."

 "Another business bro, I assume?"

 "He's--" Piper swats at her as she automatically sucks her stomach in, their long held code for "stay put." "He's a dancer."

 She hums, arranging pleats over Annabeth's knees. "Like on Broadway?"

 "Ballet."

 Piper glances up at her, eyes sparkling. “Un danseur! Ooh la la,” she trills. “What’s his name?”

 “I can just leave,” Annabeth says, distinctly not thinking about how Percy will occasionally slip into French whenever he stubs his toe.

 “Okay, okay, no more boy talk.” Piper moves in front of her, adjusting the fabric about her waist. “Tell me about the thing you just won with Leo.”

 “I had honestly forgotten about it,” she says, lying a little, pulling her arms forward. “You remember his master’s thesis?”

 “The shmart kishen thing, right?” Piper asks around the tape measure in her mouth.

 Leo, the prodigal boy that he is, had spent his last year of school dedicated to a singular problem faced by people around the world: the sudden, out of control kitchen fire. Using very complicated electronics and engineering that Annabeth does not understand, he devised a handful of mechanisms to sense, contain, and ultimately douse random fires as soon as they popped up. Annabeth came on as his design partner after he had graduated and had gotten some funding to conceptualize an entire safe house.

 “Well, it just won an Eta Industries award.”

 Her head snaps up, hands freezing in their tracks. “Holy shit.”

 “Yeah.”

 “Congrats.”

 “Thanks,” she shrugs as Piper gets up to grab some more fabric. “I mean, it was mostly Leo’s doing. I just made sure he didn’t leave any stray pipes around.”

 Holding out her arms again, Piper slides them through the sleeves of a heavy, corset-like piece, structured and straight and very forgiving on Annabeth’s lack of curves. “You shouldn’t sell yourself short,” she says. “I’m sure your skills as a guinea pig were very valuable.”

 “Are you ever going to let that go?” Annabeth asks, she who has literally burnt pasta while it was submerged in water.

 “You’re just lucky my dad was out of town that weekend. Have you decided what you’re going to wear to the awards ceremony?”

 She shoots her friend a strange look. “I thought I was wearing this?” she gestures to the unfinished silver gown currently making her feel like an absolute goddess.

 Piper makes a face. “What do I look like, the fucking Flash? This isn’t going to be ready for another thirty hours, at least. I’ve got decals to add, Swarovskis to bead, not to mention all the hand-stitching on the neckline because for whatever reason my machine has decided to hate me this week.”

 “Okay, well,” says Annabeth, appropriately cowed, “then I guess I’ll wear the black one you gave me.”

 “2019 fall/winter?”

 Annabeth nods.

 “Styling?”

 “Luke gave me this really nice scarf for my birthday.”

 Throwing her head back, she groans.

 “What? What’s wrong?”

 “You’re so boring,” she moans, pulling Annabeth’s hair out of the way. “Let me guess, you’re going to pair it with the black shrug and opaque nude tights.”

 “Well… yeah, I was.”

 “Exactly! Boring.” Coming back around, she pushes Annabeth lightly into the light, before taking her place behind the camera. “You could do so much with that dress and you choose to make it boring. Why not some fishnets? Or a big statement necklace?”

 Annabeth waits after a few shutter clicks to answer. “Because I doubt that the people at Eta Industries are going to be big fans of my tattoos.”

 “That is a bald-faced lie and you know it,” Piper says. “Your tattoos and piercings are gorgeous and you would look absolutely rocking with them. Knock all the old farts right off their feet. Turn.”

 Obediently, Annabeth rotates, letting Piper snap off as many pictures as she likes. “This isn’t a Vogue event, Pipes,” she says, rolling her eyes where her friend can’t see them. “Punk isn’t exactly accepted practice yet.”

 “Punk was the Met Gala theme almost a decade ago, babe. It has filtered down from Vogue. It's practically cerulean now. Side.”

 Annabeth turns again, keeping her eyes straight. Side-eye would ruin the shot, no matter how much she wants to give it.

 “I will never understand why you both refuse to wear halfway decent jeans and then refuse to go guns out in my dresses that demand it. I can almost guarantee you that Leo will show up in those stupid suspenders with grease on his face. And you’ll have to get him to leave his tool belt in the car.”

 “Then it’s probably for the best that I have a modicum of professionalism, huh?”

 Piper leans out from behind the camera, glaring. “At the very least,” she hedges, “will you let me set you up with some shoes?”

 “I don’t know…”

 “You are not allowed to wear those horrid Manolo pumps you wear everywhere. And your nude Louboutins won’t look right with the black.”

 “What did you have in mind?”

 Piper’s grin is evil, and the way she scampers out of the room means she’s got something she’d been trying to force on Annabeth for a long time.

 Five minutes later, Annabeth is presented with a set of black strappy sandals, its edges detailed in a gold zipper, with safety pin pull to match. She frowns. “Are you sure? They look kind of… hardcore for something like this.”

 “They’re Versace,” Piper says. “I was not lying about punk’s democratization.”

 Well. They are pretty cool.

 “It’s either this or the McQueen boots. They have studs.”

 Annabeth sighs, holding out her hand. Piper squeals, bouncing a little, wrapping her in a brief, but exuberant hug, kissing her cheek with a loud, wet, smack. “You’re the best!”

 “I haven’t even done anything.”

 “I am saving up favors to cash in. Now,” she releases Annabeth, retreating behind the camera. “If you’ve got some time, can I borrow your head? I’m working on a helmet and all my mannequins are busy.”

 ***

 “Hey,” Percy begins. It is so late at night, the dawn is on the edge of breaking, and they are both exhausted from some particularly good sex. Which is saying something, because all their sex is particularly good. “You doing anything on the 18th?”

 “Yeah,” She says, distractedly, snuggling down into his bed. The fact that she’s also snuggling into him is just a coincidence.

 “Oh.”

 “Why?”

 “Nothing. Was going to invite you to a thing if you weren’t.” She nods her head against his shoulder and falls asleep in his arms, thinking absolutely nothing about it.

 She continues to think nothing of it on the train to Philadelphia on the 18th, half-asleep and listening to Paramore to pass the time, blasting Misery Business on repeat as she changes in her hotel room.

 The Eta Industries event is pretty much exactly what she expected: a lot of old rich white people milling about, sipping champagne and verbally circle jerking each other, the insipid strains of classical music spilling out of the ballroom as Annabeth steps up to claim her name tag. “Name?” asks the young, college-aged girl, skimming her printed guest list over the rim of her glasses.

 “Annabeth Chase.”

 She runs a long fingernail over the assorted collection of name tags, before settling on the correct one, handing it to Annabeth, her star tattoo on the inside of her wrist free and open to anyone who would care to look. “Here you are, Ms. Chase,” she says, smiling. “Have a wonderful night!”

 Automatically, Annabeth goes to pin it on Luke’s scarf, before she remembers that something is already occupying that place--Percy’s Acropolis pin. She had taken to keeping it in her pocket these days, something of a good luck charm, and thought that it might… she doesn’t know, maybe send a subconscious signal to Percy that she’s thinking of him. Even though there is, quite literally, no way he could know, she hopes that maybe he can sense it, and that maybe he’s thinking about her, too.

 Ugh. She snatches up a flute of champagne from a wandering waiter, eager to get that thought out of her head, making a beeline straight for the refreshments table. It’s there that Leo finds her, not five minutes later, munching on some chocolate covered strawberries.

 “And here I thought you might ditch me entirely,” he says, even as he bumps her shoulder. True to form, he is absolutely, 100% dressed in those stupid suspenders, a smudge of grease behind his ear.

 “You’ve got a…” Annabeth trails off, motioning behind her own ear.

 “Huh? Oh!” He snatches up a napkin, rubbing discreetly. “Thanks.”

 She squints. Something about him is distinctly different. “Are you taller?”

 Kicking out a foot, he wiggles it, triumphant. “Platform shoes.”

 “Seriously?”

 “Hey, if they're good enough for Robert Downey Jr., then they’re good enough for me. After all, I am Ir--”

 She groans, good-natured, taking another gulp of champagne. “If you quote Marvel in your speech, I’m leaving.”

 “Fine by me, Your Highness, they’ll give me the award either way.”

 “Excuse me, Mr. Valdez?” The same college girl from before sidles up to them, clipboard clutched in her hand. “They’re about to start.”

 He claps his hands, rubbing them together. “Excellent. You coming?”

 “I…” She casts her gaze to the makeshift stage they’ve constructed, eyeing the bright “Eta Industries” placard, the sharp angles shiny and alluring, the siren-song of recognition.

 This is a big deal. There are photographers in the audience. In the write-ups and reviews, she would be listed as a co-winner of the award, a co-designer of the world’s safest house, a thought so happy she practically starts flying.

 “I think I should stay out of the limelight for this one, Leo,” she says, politely. “This is your moment. I don’t want to ruin it.”

 He frowns. “You sure?”

 Were it not for the fact that people were watching, Annabeth would have leapt up onto that stage without a second thought, snatching up the trophy like she had just won the Oscar, holding it up like the goddamn Olympic torch. “What, you want a white woman stealing your glory?” she says instead, arching a brow.

 “You get a pass this one time,” he quips, holding out his hand. “Don’t make me regret it.”

 Whatever social grace she has left crumbles. She’s denied it enough--she wants to be up there. “Oh, fine. Since you insist,” she says, following clipboard-girl to the stage.

 There’s a quick burst of feedback, then an elderly gentleman at the podium begins speaking into the mic. “Excuse me--sorry about that. Yes, yes, thank you all for coming tonight to the annual Eta Industries awards presentation ceremony. It is always such a pleasure to come together with our hard-working and generous board members and shareholders to honor the best and brightest upcoming talent in engineering.”

 Internally, she rolls her eyes. Rich people.

 “It is my pleasure, however, to introduce the young man who is the recipient of this year’s Millennium Prize for innovation and safety. One of MIT’s youngest and most decorated graduates, he was a recipient of the Mead Prize for Students, the Friedman Young Engineer Award, and the Collingwood Prize, among several others. His master’s thesis, ‘Towards the Design and Implementation of Autonomous Safety Measures in Commercial Kitchens,’ formed the basis of the project which we recognize tonight, the so-called ‘SmartSafe House,’ reflects the pioneering spirit and outstanding creative vision of not only Eta Industries, but also the field of engineering as a whole. Please join me in congratulating this year’s Millennium Prize recipient, Leo Valdez.”

 From the sidelines, she claps enthusiastically with the rest of the crowd as her friend takes the stage, shakes hands with the Vice President of Eta Industries, and accepts the award, a blue, blocky triangle which almost seems to glow in the light of the ballroom. “Thank you, Mr. Helms. This is--this is a really big honor.”

 She can see him shaking a bit, taking a quick drink from his water glass. Public speaking was never really his strong suit.

 “As--as a lot of you probably know, this project is very near and dear to my heart. Growing up in Houston with my mother, a car mechanic, I was eight years old when her beloved shop went up in flames, like that.” He snaps his fingers, his other hand pressed to the podium where no one can see, joints white with pressure. Annabeth is proud of him--he hasn’t been able to speak this candidly about it in years. She knows firsthand how much his mother’s near-death haunts him still. “Thankfully, we were able to rebuild, and my mother went on to bigger and better things--including a shop with cleaner vents. But I can definitely pinpoint that moment as the day I knew I wanted to make the world a safer place, for my mom, if not for everyone else.”

 She remembers, so clearly, that snowy night in the dorms at Miss Minerva’s. The power had gone out, and Leo had made them an illicit campfire out of their trash bin and Annabeth’s failed English exam. Cold and miserable and with dying phones, they passed the time instead telling scary stories and funny memories, until the conversation had gotten suddenly, intensely real.

 “But I would be remiss,” he goes on, cheerful, “if I didn’t acknowledge my friend and collaborator, without whose work I wouldn’t be here today: Annabeth Chase,” he waves to his side, indicating her. The whole crowd, as one, turns their gazes on her. She straightens up, imperceptibly, hoping she doesn’t look too haughty or anything. “I’ve never been very good with people. My mama says I’m just like my dad that way. Give me a car, or a computer, or pages of multiplication tables, and I’m golden. But people?” He blows out a breath, and the crowd chuckles, naturally. “Now, if it had been left up to me, the SmartSafe House would have been a top of the line, cutting-edge metal box, efficient to a fault, but completely unlivable. Thank God I had Annabeth on my team to remind me what the project was really about: a home that families could feel safe in, so that what happened to me and my mom might never happen to anyone else.” He hoists his award above his head, leaning into the mic. “Ma, este es para ti. Thank you all.”

 Stepping down from the stage, they reenter the crowd, ready to receive adoration. In another life, she might have been embarrassed by such praise. Here and now, however, she takes each handshake and word of congratulations like a starving man in a desert who just came across an oasis, hungry and greedy.

 Hey, it’s her night, too.

 After what feels like a whole-ass sixty minutes of shaking old people's hands and polite nodding, though, she is in desperate need of a break. Escaping the throng of mingling bodies, she darts into a dark corner of the ballroom, leaning against the back of a rounded stone column, just barely out of sight of the party.

 Rubbing her hands over her face, she sighs, just short of a scream. Blowing out all her air, she lets the faint music and fake laughs melt into each other, becoming white noise, a blank canvas, empty of concrete thoughts and feelings.

 Then, her ear picks up a strand of conversation.

 “...announcing tomorrow that the CEO of Pallas Inc. is choosing a successor,” a woman says, the sneer in her voice almost visible. “About time.”

 “I thought she already picked a successor,” says the woman’s conversation partner, a man with the kind of cookie-cutter cadence that she heard every time she took a business major to bed. “Pallas is a family business, isn’t it?”

 “You haven’t heard?” Annabeth can almost picture it, the furtive glance around the room, the woman placing her hand on her partner’s arm, leaning in to share a juicy secret. “Supposedly she was grooming her daughter for the role, before she went in for rehab.”

 “Rehab? Really?”

 “What else could it be?” says the woman. “She’s disappeared off the face of the earth, and her mother refuses to talk about her. Let’s be honest, if she were dead, she would have raised a bigger stink about it.”

 Annabeth closes her eyes, sucking air in through her teeth. That… wasn’t totally untrue.

 But the woman doesn’t stop. “It’s always the same story,” she scoffs. “You throw countless hours of schooling and millions of dollars into girls like her, and what do they do? Turn around and blow it all on drugs and partying. Honestly, she should be grateful her mother is even bothering with her rehab at all. Hasn’t she wasted enough of the family’s money already?”

 Blood roars in her ears, drowning out the fancy party. Sharp points dig into her palm, pinpricks of pain, before she realizes that they’re her own fingernails.

 The lady has got it all wrong. Her mom couldn’t even be bothered with that.

 Luke’s scarf, the shrug, it’s choking her, suffocating and constricting. Percy’s pin feels heavy on her chest.

 Blinders on, she would have sprinted for the exit were it not for the Piper’s stupid Versace heels, reduced instead to a teetering, tottering wreck, like a baby colt running from a predator. The night is hot and humid, heavy with the threat of rain, and Annabeth can barely breathe, dark spots in her eyes, until she ducks into a nearby Target, the frigid blast of air a welcome distraction.

 Almost in a daze, she watches herself pick up a few things--clippers, an electric razor, beef jerky, a blue Gatorade she considers for a moment before putting it back, choosing a lemonade instead--practically throwing them at the poor cashier who begins checking her out, mechanically. He doesn’t spare her a single glance for her odd assortment of items. He doesn’t even look at her at all.

 The walk to her hotel room disappears in the blink of an eye. Blink--she breezes past the check-in counter, slipping into the empty elevator. Blink--she kicks off her heels in her room, nearly hitting the wall mirror, leaving a scuff mark on the white plaster. Blink--she’s down to her underwear and tights in the bathroom, shaving the right side of her curls clean off. She’d gotten them professionally done for the night, perfect spirals held together by expensive products. And now she wants them gone.

 She pauses and breathes too hard, looking at herself in the mirror. Her mother didn’t like that she was blonde. Maybe because of dumb blonde stereotypes, maybe just because it reminded Athena too much of her failed romance with Annabeth’s dad. And that thought stays her hand from getting rid of the rest of them.

 That, and maybe the idea of Percy, of some broke dancer, tangling his fingers in it as they lie together.

 Fuck her mother, and the fucking stories she tells.

 She likes it. She likes her blonde hair and her fresh undercut.

 She can get Thalia to touch this up later, maybe. Now, though, she needs this.

 It doesn’t look perfect. The left side of hair is too long, her gold laurel earrings too fancy for a homegrown haircut like this, her makeup too pristine. Shoving her hand under the running water, she rubs at her eyes, mascara and eyeliner smearing until they’ve reached something much more respectable for the failure that she really is.

 She misses her industrial. And her eyebrow rings. And the tongue piercing. But this will have to do for now.

 Breathing heavily, eyes hot, she doesn’t register her phone blinking, signaling an unread text message.

 It’s from Thalia. surprised you weren’t at kelp heads bday party, it reads. was pretty boring. Kno he missed you  

[auralpatterns]

well it's been a while on here! let's do a 2021 wrap-up of discoveries (from any year; people who think they can do an effective end-of-year wrapup of all releases that year as casual listeners are fooling themselves)

per RYM I've logged 212 new ratings:

| 2 at 5 stars |||| 21 at 4.5 stars |||||||||||| 59 at 4 stars |||||||||||||| 66 at 3.5 stars |||||||||| 47 at 3 stars ||| 14 at 2.5 stars | 1 at 2 stars | 2 at 1.5 stars (first ratings I've given this low since 2007)

One of the two 5-stars is a 90s single I've known for long and hadn't gotten around to rating before … so my best-rated find of the year is uncontestedly Arjen Schats, Manifolds (2021); classic Berlin School

The 4.5-ers:

Sergey Eybog: Everlasting Summer (Bright Side) (2013) – cool VGM, very sunny atmospheres. I have not played the game (apparently a visual novel actually)

Nigel Mullaney: The Navigator (2021) – versatile synthwork from a long-time Ian Boddy collaborator

U/V Light: Cenotaph (2015) – hella catchy retro synthpop; 5 stars for the opener "Arriviste"

V/A / Lucky Lotus label: Journey to the Stars (2016) – four-hour orbital strike of J-core / J-trance / allies. I got this in 2018 already but eh it was back in its day a major stimulant for me get my thesis finished and all, might as well leave it a shoutout here

Material Object: Indiana Drones (2013) – very ambient techno, dedicated to the late Pete Namlook

CFCF: Liquid Colors (2019) – the new savior of ambient d'n'b? not even in a meme way?

Curium: Aember (2007) – chill IDM from what I think of as the "netlabel side" of the genre: none of the drillcore 3avant5u aggression, just a honest interest in doing clever electronic music

Маяк: Река (2013), Вышеe звёзд (EP, 2014) – best synthwave find of the year. you may need to know something about East European 80s to get full nostalgy bonus from this

Holon: Connect | Isolate (2017), Echoes of the Void (2017) – a new breed of synth music entirely really; psybient techniques without the drugs, electro-industrial soundworld without the angst, space exploration without the analog fetish … to honor the trend of Really Dumb Genre Names I've decided this should be called "Uplifting Industrial"

Kashiwa Daisuke: april.#07 (2007) – modern electro-classical snippets; some fantastic, some eh

Doss: Doss (EP, 2014) – dream trance! it's not just for the 90s, even if kids these days for some reason get the core idea usually wrong completely *coughxd*

Penguin Cafe: Handfuls of Night (2019) – not the original Penguin Cafe Orchestra but an excellent "sequel band"; if you ever needed more Brian Eno in their work maybe

Aural Expansion: Surreal Sheep (1995) – kinda same deal as Aember above, more actively techno; might be better than the much-hyped 76:14. it is very cool when labels put their 90s or 00s back-catalogue, rarities and all, on Bandcamp

Floating Points: Bias (single, 2020) – some promising initial exploration into "future garage". I still have no idea what is the core sense of "garage" or if one even exists

Nanoray: Zapper (2021) – wherein it turns out that hardcore breaks is not just a new spelling for breakbeat hardcore and is actually a cooler new evolution. a lot of it is a bit over-memed but this one is just right for me

Martin Stürtzer: The Omarion Nebula (2020) – best ambient find of the year; artist mostly does somewhat less outstanding Berlin School

Zabutom: Zeta Force (Digitone Version) (single, 2021) – FM synth re-edit from Swedish chiptune legend's 2011 EP. more please

Tangerine Dream: Recurring Dreams (?? compilation, 2019) – new-generation lineup goes back to the basics forreal and puts out excellent advanced covers of their classic-era work. much better than similar attempts in earlier decades

Earth Trax: LP2 (2020) – I'm finally starting to find good clues / entrypoints into house; this one and several others found via @lamuyazimina (thx!)

[can-i-go-with-him]

222 ask game [in honor of 2022✨]

Thanks @aeliagioia for tagging me! I feel so lucky to even be a part of this fandom in a small way 🖤

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

—

2 fictional characters to describe yourself:

Leslie Knope + Ian Gallagher 

2 songs stuck in your head:

Sober to Death by Car Seat Headrest + Get Into it (yuh) by Doja Cat

2 shows you’d rewatch forever:

Schitt’s Creek + Parks and Recreation

2 drinks you order at Starbucks:

Iced espresso with soy milk + Iced americano with soy milk

2 movies you know by heart:

My Cousin Vinny + Sleepless in Seattle

2 concerts you’d like to go to:

Phoebe Bridgers + My Chemical Romance (I actually have tickets to see them in October 2022...so fingers crossed that it happens!)

2 things you wanna do in 2022:

Finally go the beach in LA (I’ve lived here over 2 years and haven't yet...) + finish my master’s thesis

2 things about yourself that might surprise people:

I do great impersonations (my best are Alexis Rose and Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny) + I went to three universities in three years before staying at the last one

2 random pictures from your camera roll:

I’ll tag a few folks but as always, if you’ve already been tagged or don’t feel like playing no worries! I hope everyone has a really nice New Years ✨🖤 @tumblfish @peppermintkatie @messedwithmandy @thefairytail @mickeymilkovichapologist

[maxwell-grant]

any thoughts on james bond??

Not really a fan and I don’t think that’s gonna change. I don’t have much experience with the character to begin with, I watched the Daniel Craig movies which bored me to death. I watched Goldfinger, which I remembered as being fun the first time I viewed it as a kid, but I find it hard to stand as an adult because Sean Connery was an awful man and oh yeah, that’s also the movie where James Bond rapes someone (I get that it was supposed to be a slap-slap-kiss thing but that is very much not what it’s in the scene). And I read the original Casino Royale novel, which is a must-read largely for it’s importance in pop culture and has some interesting aspects to it but, again, nothing that really got me to seek out the character.

Look, I get why Bond has become this huge cultural institution and the spy of popular fiction ever since his debut, why the 60s was the era of “Bond, Beatles and Batman” and why he’s kinda become the new standard for non-superhero action protagonists. I am extremely fond of that particular style you see in media like The Incredibles and Team Fortress 2, and that style owes a lot of it to the Bond films, hell I just posted above a screencap of Venture Bros, my favorite cartoon series. I’m certainly not gonna knock on popular enjoyment of a morally dubious man of action in a slick suit who charms and shoots his way through problems, after writing my most popular posts on my unabashed worship of Vincenzo. 

The things I like the most about Bond’s character in Casino Royale and the Bond of the original novels are largely the ways in which he almost betrays the impossibly competent image he’s been set up with later. I like that he gets picked specifically just because he’s the Service’s best gambler and not because he's the best everythint, I like that he’s uncomfortable with killing and especially the targeted assassinations, I like that he has vices and struggles because of his job. His job kinda forces him to be by default an unfeeling asshole who exploits people, and I think that’s an interesting perspective to develop, even without the context of it being James Bond before “being James Bond is the coolest thing ever” was the driving thesis of the franchise.

Thing is, I never really found any reason to give a damn about anything in Bond, other than enjoyment of the stylistic trappings and absurdities which just get kinda old after a while. I don’t enjoy the titular character or the hordes of largely one-dimensional "Bond Girls”, I don’t think the villains are interesting despite their supposed reputation in pop culture, I don’t get that much enjoyment out of death traps and car chases and gun fights if I don’t have anything at all to care about in the situations. I don’t think characters inspired by Bond tend to be interesting and even Bond parodies have gotten largely old and stale (I do like Johnny English but that’s solely because Rowan Atkinson is my favorite comedian and I’ll watch him in anything, and even then I didn’t even remember there was a third film).

As a kid, the idea of being a secret agent in service of the government has never really been terribly appealing to me, and as an adult it appeals even less. I don’t entirely dislike government agent characters by default, I really like Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks and An Gi-Seok from Vincenzo and agents of fictional organizations like Hellboy’s BRPD and Carmen Sandiego’s ACME, but I can’t shake off the stink of imperialism off my perception of Bond in particular. Again, I know it’s fiction, I know I talk about morally dubious protagonists I love all the time, but it’s the fact that Bond is so closely tied to his role as a government-sponsored murderer, my disdain for real-life governments and secret services being depicted in fiction as a swell and cool thing and not at all what they actually are, and the fact that I do not find Bond at all convincing or interesting enough for me to overlook that and buy into the fantasy, all blends together to make me dislike him.  

And yeah, Ian Fleming had utterly wretched views on gender and race and that bleeds a lot into the stories. People knock on pulps for racism and sexism a lot, and it's not undeserved, but even then I’ve seldom read anything in them as appallingbas the kind of shit you get on the Bond novels, and it’s harder to separate those from the character when so much of it is framed as the thoughts and opinions and attitudes of the character to the world around him. I would still not like James Bond even if I could put aside all the racism and sexism, and I very much cannot, but the fact that they are there, atop everything else, atop the character being an actual rapist at worst and his most iconic actor being unabashedly proud of being a wife beater and somehow still remembered fondly as a pop culture badass, and you end up with the one time Alan Moore did a comically grotesque exaggeration of a character in LOEG and I thought “you know what, I acknowledge that this is overblown and stupid and immersion-breaking but fuck it, I can’t blame you for your thoughts on this particular character manifesting with such bile”.

I know there’s good stuff in James Bond novels and films, I know why the character is super iconic and popular, please don’t misconstrue anything I’m saying as me thinking James Bond fans are horrible or something, because I don’t want to get that across at all. But I personally do not like Bond, and I don’t think I have to force myself to when there’s so many other types of characters and even spies that I prefer so much more. I don’t think I’m ever really going to be a Bond fan (I do like Timothy Dalton as an actor though, and if Sam Neil ever got to play Bond like he auditioned for, I probably would have at least some affection for the character since I really like him). 

I do like Austin Powers also. A lot of the jokes have aged really poorly and apparently Mike Myers is kind of an ass on set, but I think the concept of the eternally outdated parody spy still works, the films still have pretty funny scenes, and most importantly, he spoofed the concept to death so hard that even Daniel Craig said “Mike Myers fucked us”. Austin sucked out and absorbed all the fun parts of James Bond and then made them so funny and ridiculous that the Bond franchise has never again been able to have too much fun with itself, and if I gave a shit about Bond I would probably dislike that, but I don’t so, you go Austin.