#Keefe Jackson

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 8, Number 12

Blood Incantation (but not Blood/Incantation)

Dusted closes out 2022 with blood and incantation.

Specifically, this Dust features two separate recordings with identical band names, one a split release by a pair of metal bands, one named Blood, the other Incantation, the other also metal but more atmospheric whose name is Blood Incantation.  It’s a lot of blood. A lot of incantation.

But never fear if your tastes are less sanguinary. We’ve also got experimental klezmer, power pop, sound art, new weird traditionalism, synth pop, deep house, death metal and jazz both free and more traditional. This edition’s contributors include Bryon Hayes, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Patrick Masterson and Jim Marks.

Baltic Furs — Contemporary Ruin (Round Bale Recordings)

Contemporary Ruin by Baltic Furs

For its final release of 2022, the Minnesota-based Round Bale Recordings label offers a cassette from someone in its inner circle. Baltic Furs is the alter ego of Matt Irwin, a graphic designer whose optical artistry enswathes some of the label’s output. Irwin is a drummer-cum-synthesist whose aural hue leans toward the inky black end of the spectrum. On Contemporary Ruin, both Irwin’s percussionist origins and his tendency toward the inchoate are on display. Dreamlike, dimly lit images attempt to bring themselves into focus as warped, bell-shaped tones emanate from unholy objects. Irwin is signalling the coming of an impending disaster: it could be the end of the world or a demon emerging from its resting place. He’s happy to let the listener decide their fate. The latter half of the cassette begets emergent strains of melody that seem to brighten as the music runs its course. The tenderness is nascent and without form, but it’s also indicative that Contemporary Ruin is the first page in the next chapter of Irwin’s engaging narrative.

Bryon Hayes

 Black Ox Orkestar — Everything Returns (Constellation)

Everything Returns by Black Ox Orkestar

Even when it dances, klezmer has a melancholic air. It commemorates, after all, a Jewish-East European culture that flourished despite centuries of persecution until ending, abruptly, in the Holocaust. True, Jewish emigres brought this rollicking but wistful concoction of clarinet and fiddle, elegy and celebration, with them in the diaspora. It reached, even, the experimental precincts of Montreal, where members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion formed Black Ox Orkestar in the early aughts, then left it fallow for a decade and a half. Everything Returns is their lovely (and timely) return, a pensive exploration of cross-cultural discourse that melds Jewish, gypsy, Arab and European traditions in bittersweet rumination. This is music made of shadows and sighs, but ready, nonetheless, for the fight. It’s opening salvo, “Tish Nign,” layers wordless vocals over piano, then gathers its strength in martial cadences of bass clarinet. “Skotshne” sparkles with cimbalom, a dulcimer-like instrument with a ghostly echo; it skitters over a skeletal foundation of drums and acoustic bass. But it’s “Viderkol” that stops you short, a dusky lament hedged in by the low hum of clarinet, a run of piano. Even sung in English, it has a foreign, historical aura, as the principals remember the lost with the gentlest, least bitter sort of sadness. “There’s something in us that could make us whole,” they sing, and maybe they mean music and remembering.

Jennifer Kelly

 Blood/Incantation — Split 7” (Hell’s Headbangers)

Not Blood Incantation, but Blood and Incantation (see what they did there?) collaborate on this divertingly atavistic split record. Blood Incantation seems to provide the newest front opened in the Hipster Metal Wars — and to be honest, this reviewer can’t really fault the offended (“ambient death metal?”). If anyone might have any sort of right to defend the traditional boundaries of the kingdom of Metal ov Death, the dudes in Blood might be able to claim it. The German band has been making records since 1986, and the two new tracks on this split record are still the same old moldy stuff, a grinding, guttural assault on good taste. Incantation is by contrast the fresher face, having only started releasing music 1990—but the band certainly has the bigger name. Their tune, “Quantum Firmament,” is also the more engaging side of the split. Whether you find this record to be more than a sort of scenester-snarky, vinyl-mediated pun may depend on the degree of your interest in Incantation’s music; if you dig the band, “Quantum Firmament” is worth hearing.

Jonathan Shaw 

 Blood Incantation — Timewave Zero (Century Media)

Denver death metal psychonauts Blood Incantation have never concealed their love of ambient, cosmische, new age synths, et al. They also were clear even before putting out their second record Hidden History of the Human Race that their third would be their own entry into those fields. A 40-minute, two-track EP, Timewave Zero has (based on comments) clearly come as an unpleasant surprise to a grouchy, vocal minority of their existing fanbase. but those more into avowed influence Klaus Schulze than blastbeats, death metal growls and intense riffs will find that Blood Incantation know what they’re doing. This isn’t just the quartet noodling around with some neat synth sounds; there’s pacing, sculpting and evidence of a compositional eye on both halves of the EP. Timewave Zero, then, is admirable on multiple fronts, both as a totally solid record and as evidence of a band determined to follow its muse even in the face of requests to keep making more of the same.

Ian Mathers 

 Dazy — OUTOFBODY (Lame-O)

OUTOFBODY by Dazy

Power pop is harder than it looks. It balances on a knife edge between crusty fuzz and open-hearted tunefulness, and it’s easily tipped towards noise or daffiness. But James Goodson, out of Richmond, gets the blend just about right, a bit to the sweet side of Teenage Fan Club, a bit more muscular than the Raspberries. Indeed, the buzzy, frictive “On My Way” sounds like the Dirtbombs crossed with James, which is to say gloriously clangorous but with its earnest heart showing. “Motionless Parade” swoons and jangles in the vein of True West and the Rain Parade, while “Choose Your Ramone” hilariously amps it up, with a blistering, squalling guitar solo that is neither Joey nor Johnny. Goodson may never be a big star (or a Big Star), but it’s fun watching him try.

Jennifer Kelly

 Bruno Duplant — Nox (Unfathomless)

nox by Bruno Duplant

Art reckons with life on Nox, which is one of the nine full-length recordings that the ultra-productive French sound artist has realized in 2022. The artist’s statement references observations, both recent and antique, of certain bad navigational habits of humans, to wit, they closely circle things that will scorch them. At least moths, who aren’t noted for their brain mass, have an excuse… But even if you aren’t acquainted with the musician’s intent, you’re likely to grasp this immersive, 40-minute-long piece’s intimations of decay. Gathered and generated sounds creak, crackle, and bob around the listener like the chunks of debris that swirled around your surfboard that one time you fell asleep on the beach at low tide and woke up in the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Bill Meyer

 Kelman Duran — “Loko” (self-released)

Kelman Duran is a low-key LA-based Dominican producer who’s made his name on art school dancehall and reggaeton edits, notably 2017’s excellent 1804 Kids. But “Loko” is another animal, blisteringly zooted deep house filth all taut and suspended in that leery-eyed fork in the road where the head says no and makes the good decision but the heart speaks louder, beats yes, makes an ellipsis for you to fill in. Adriana Roslin’s epileptic video (in which she appears, by the way) is the perfect accompaniment, exuding the self-assured swagger of a fashion school grad-turned-social media manager by day and club rat queen by night; you’ll see what I mean when you watch. It’s unclear if this is a brief diversion from his usual speed or a turn toward a more permanent 4/4 producing mode, but either way, Duran has left one of the best dance tracks of 2022 rather late in the going. How late? Consider: At the time I write this, Dust is scheduled to go live in about two hours; “Loko” has been up for less than 24. But we weren’t going to miss out. You shouldn’t, either.

Patrick Masterson

 Family Ravine — Jumpthefox (Round Bale Recordings)

Jumpthefox by Family Ravine

With his Family Ravine project, Kevin Cahill navigates a similar path to that of Henry Flynt, welding his avant-garde sensibility to traditional musical styles. Jumpthefox follows hot on the heels of Away & Instinct, and both records document Cahill’s polyglot approach to music making. The musician has created an Interzone-like fusion of American, British and European folk forms, which he has processed through his tireless creative instinct. Cahill builds a fluid-like loam from loops and fragments, which he layers repeatedly into a strange topography. Working primarily with stringed instruments and melodica, Cahill materializes his songs in a spectrum of shades, from shimmering and bright to muted and foreboding. It must be magical to hear his songs being crafted in real time, but we’ll have to settle for experiencing the finished product. This writer is certainly not complaining.

Bryon Hayes

  Hot Chip — Freakout/Release (Domino)

Consistent quality is a great asset for a band and a thrill for fans, but it can have the opposite of a silver lining for us music writers. Freakout/Release is another topnotch set of emotionally mature, sometimes melancholy synthpop bangers from the now sort-of-venerable Hot Chip (their eighth!). It’s not as if they’re not trying new things, heck here you actually hear a couple of guest vocalists (Lou Hayter on “Hard to Be Funky” and a blistering Cadence Weapon on “The Evil That Men Do”) and the title track is more rough-and-tumble than the Chip usually gets. “Down” rides a Universal Togetherness Band sample to dancefloor glory, while tracks like the hopeful “Broken” and the gossamer “Not Alone” show their more emotive strengths. It’s another great record in a career full of them, and if it’s hard to know what more to say, it feels unfair to them to leave it at that.

Ian Mathers

 Keefe Jackson / Jim Baker /Julian Kirschner — Routines (Kettlehole)

Routines by Keefe Jackson / Jim Baker / Julian Kirshner

Routines? I don’t know. On the one hand, the title might acknowledge that the three musicians on the album can, either together or separately, be counted upon to be heard in some small space that hosts Chicagoan improvisers, on a pretty routine basis. But the music itself is far from routine, unless you want to take a step back and acknowledge that each musician habitually figures out apposite responses to any given situation. Jim Baker can be relied upon to completely change any sound environment with a pivot of his seat, since that will determine whether one is going to hear his restlessly assertive voice on the piano and or the ozone-scorching sizzles he obtains from his ARP 2600. Keefe Jackson can likewise be counted upon to be equally engaged playing either sopranino or tenor saxophone, but lightning disruption he launches from the first differs profoundly from the mercurial forcefulness he summons on the second. Kirshner can also be expected to keep things moving without lapsing into cliché. But the trio keeps enough variables in play that you’ll never know quite how the music is going to get from start to end.

Bill Meyer

 Philip Jeck — Resistenza (Touch)

Resistenza by Philip Jeck

Touch has never been about staying in the past, so it makes sense that the firm would experiment with new formats. Resistenza is a digital-only recording issued on what would have been the 70th birthday of the late Philip Jeck, whose passing was just one of those that has made 2022 an especially rough slog. It’s simultaneously a bit sad and quite poetic that the first (and hopefully not last) posthumous release by an artist whose work was all about the stubborn physicality of vinyl would be a non-physical edition. It comprises two live recordings, both made in 2017-18. The more recent is “Live in Torino,” a fittingly ephemeral sequence of sounds snatched from old records and manipulated into ghostly scraps that spin and bob like the luminous traces left by deep sea fishes. “The Longest Wave,” which was recorded in Jeck’s home town of Liverpool, is quite the opposite. Jeck is joined by Jonathan Raisin, whose piano trills augment Jeck’s already lush flow. The best moments come when the turntablist breaks out some sub-aquatic bass figures that ballast Raisin’s delay-dampened drizzle of notes.

Bill Meyer 

 Niko Karlsson — Its Own Phantom (Feeding Tube)

Its Own Phantom by Niko Karlsson

Look out the window of your Finnish country cabin in the winter and your view is likely to be reduced to a few essentials. Grey sky, green trees, white snow — that’s about it. Its Own Phantom is an apt soundtrack for an afternoon spent gazing upon such a vista. None of its tracks are in a hurry, and each sweep of hand across strings (mostly guitar, sometimes banjo or sitar) unleashes a stream of melodious sound that’ll draw your mind into an imaginary space situated somewhere beyond the farthest visible fir. The term “acid folk” implies a potentially psychedelic experience generated by not entirely voltage dependent means. Let’s call this tape snowshoe folk; it may not induce hallucinatory states, but it has its own way of elevating the listener beyond the cold ground.

Bill Meyer

Eva Klesse Quartett — Songs Against Loneliness (Enja)

Songs against loneliness by Eva Klesse Quartett

Holiday season got you feeling isolated? Eva Klesse is here to help you feel better with Songs Against Loneliness. This new set of jazz originals by her quartet (joined occasionally by guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel) is soothing but not sleepy. Klesse, a drummer, composed five of the 13 tracks here, and the other members of the group, Evgeny Ring on sax, Marc Muellbauer on double bass and Philip Frischkorn on piano, contributed the rest of the compositions.

In practice, apart from the titles of the tracks (“Glory Glory Misfits,” “Der Eremit,” and so on), there is nothing ponderous (or overly perky) about the melodies and arrangements on display here. The quartet’s decade of playing and recording together (apart from Muellbauer, who replaces Robert Lucaciu this time around) is evident in its cohesiveness. Muthspiel and Klesse have worked together before, and his contributions here are fully integrated into the quartet’s sound, beginning with the poignant chords that open the title track “Minor Is What I Feel.” That track and some of the others seem carefully composed, while others, such as “Past, Tense,” are more improvisation. This cut builds slowly from a solo by Muellbauer to the full quartet. Klesse’s rattling percussion keeping things together without ever quite settling on a rhythm.

So take heart if you’re feeling left out and let these well-crafted tunes serve as your soundtrack for the journey back from loneliness. And if you’re already in the holiday spirit, Songs Against Loneliness will help keep you feeling warm and fuzzy.

Jim Marks

 Mdou Moctar — Niger EP Vol. 2 (Matador)

Niger EP Vol. 2 by Mdou Moctar

This is the second in a series to collect early cassette tape recordings of the Niger-ian guitar phenomenon as he and his band travelled, often by bus, to informal gigs: weddings, rehearsals, house parties. The vibe is not much different from Moctar’s studio recordings, pacing torrid runs of guitar with homespun handclaps and hand drums. The difference comes in the ambient sounds. A motorcycle zooms away at the end of “Iblis Amghar,” birds chirp and people go on with the ordinary activities in their lives, even with such incendiary music going on around them. And, indeed, it is fire, this music, balancing locomotive percussion and hypnogogic trance, as on driving, dreaming “Ibitilan” or the searing blues of “Asditke Akal.” “Chimoumounim” sounds as if it comes in from a great distance, its groove approaching, then taking up a central place in our ears and hearts. Moctar’s grooves sound great in the studio, but maybe even better here in their natural space.

Jennifer Kelly

 Mister Water Wet— Top Natural Drum (Soda Gong)

Top Natural Drum by Mister Water Wet

Top Natural Drum is Kansas City producer Iggy Romeu’s third album as Mister Water Wet. It’s also his first to arrive via a label other than West Mineral Ltd., the imprint founded by his buddy Brian Leeds, who most know as Huerco S. Although they’re connected, Romeu and Leeds have taken divergent paths. Romeu’s first two MWW outings were colorful and strange in comparison to Leeds’ grainy, monochromatic fog banks. He brews up his ambient tinctures with hints of jazz, hip hop and elements sourced from his Puerto Rican roots. Romeu is also careful to add subtle bits of the arcane to his concoctions, revealing himself to be a master crate digger. With Top Natural Drum, he drops the ambient veil to show off some rhythmic chops. The result is a series of head nodding beat-scapes sure to please those who spent the 1990s with their ears glued to the turntablism scene.  

Bryon Hayes

 The Modern Folk Trio Band — Always Be Recording (Island House)

IH-002 Always Be Recording by modern folk trio band

The Modern Folk Trio Band is actually a quintet, formed around J. Moss’s languid, liquid guitar, but including Austin Richards, Zach Barbery, Remi Lew and Trevor Schorey trading off on additional guitars, bass, drums and synthesizers. This cassette includes three tracks, two lengthy and one succinct, but all three fluid and luminous. “Diet Coke Extra Ice” winds placidly through slow, chugging lyricism, its lead guitar high and clear and full of light. “Slide Solo,” the short one, is just what its name implies, an interlude of intriguingly bent and haunted sounds, tinged by blues but not exactly boxed into it. And “Hot Jam,” the final cut, is not as viscerally physical as its title suggests, but rather a glistening, nodding, extended drone, grounded by the thud of drums but reaching always for an ethereal other-ness. Throughout, a loose improvisatory air presides. If you’re always recording, sometimes you get something good.

Jennifer Kelly

 Woody Sullender — Music from Four Movements & Other Favorites (Woody Sullender)

Music from 'Four Movements' & Other Favorites by Woody Sullender

What’s the difference between listening and performing listening? If you have the time and credit, you could take up the matter while you pursue an MFA. Or you could go to www.fourmovements.woodysullender.com and download Four Movements, a video game space that “consists of several navigable environments where the virtual participant can perform listening” and live the difference. It is the work of an artist and musician who has studied under Maryanne Amacher and previously performed banjo music under the guise, Uncle Woody Sullender, and it provides the sort of disparate yet cohesive sound experience one might expect from a person whose creative map contains such aesthetic/methodological coordinates. Cantering banjo in just intonation coexists with techno beats, a Robert Hood cover sounds like a streamlined remembrance of Conlon Nancarrow’s player piano music, and moments arise when you might wonder if this guy’s spent some salon time with Horse Lords.

Bill Meyer

 Tchornobog/Abyssal — Split LP (Lupus Lounge)

Tchornobog / Abyssal by Tchornobog

You get two epically scaled tracks of death metal-adjacent mayhem on this split LP. More bang for your buck? More yuck, for sure. Markov Soroka’s utterly whacko project Tchornobog is given the A side, and his 25-minute song “The Vomiting Choir” pummels and roils, blackened on its edges but still very much belly-down in layers of rancid muck (see that title…). There aren’t many opportunities to lift your face out of the sodden slurry and grab a breath — which is sort of impressive for a song so long, and by its halfway point, pretty oppressive, too. So, you may be grossed out by the bubbling, gurgling noises that become audible around the 11-minute mark, but at least the mix is a little less clogged up with clangor and crunch. Abyssal’s contribution, titled “Antechamber of the Wakeless Mind,” is only a minute shorter, but the song seems by contrast rather mannered, alternating slowly suppurating death-doom with long spells of churning, dissonant riffage that always feel consciously composed. The split is not a pleasant experience so much as it is an interesting experiment in differing modes of metal excess.

Jonathan Shaw 

 temp. — Taking notes (American Dreams)

Taking Notes by temp.

temp.’s Erica Mei Gamble is a producer, DJ and video archivist based in Chicago—and one half of the experimental electronic duo Dungeon Mother, but her Taking notes represents a significant step forward for the artist. It gathers music previously posted on Soundcloud into a chilly, cerebral and surprisingly cohesive statement; that is, it sounds very much like an album. It starts in wordless abstraction, the cut “Air” lofting translucent tones of synthesizer onto a pristine background. They pulse and flare like northern lights, unearthly also visceral. “Yah” finds the ghost in the machine as a human cry punctures glistening electric pulses; the cut is clean and a little spooky, like a quieter Shackleton. But it's “What’s Beyond,” performed with Gamble’s Dungeon Mother collaborator Sarah Leitten, that fully realizes the juncture between unreal, ominous sonics and fragile human consciousness. Leitten chants poetry against a seething mesh of synth tones, her words encompassing both natural and super-natural imagery (For example: “I’ll dance with the stars above/and I hold the moon in my hands/and I drink the sun with my eyes/and I am the darkness/I am the abyss.”) Later, with Emme Williams in “Trying to Climb,” Gamble stakes out a minimalist corner of the disco floor, with beats that glitch and blot and corrode and a half-remembered recorder melody tootling in the background.

Jennifer Kelly

  Wild Pink — ILYSM (Royal Mountain)

ILYSM by Wild Pink

John Ross got the idea for his song, “Hold My Hand” while lying on an operating table, waiting for the anesthetic to knock him out before surgery. Ross, who is the main creative force behind Wild Pink, found out he had cancer mid-way through recording this fourth full-length. His uncertainties around this diagnosis, combined with his dogged insistence to finish anyway, define this album, whose bright, soft indie pop textures wrap around some very dark textures. Consider, for instance, “Hell Is Cold,” with its thumping rhythms, its half-focused glitch textures, its shimmering layers of piano. Ross sings just above a whisper, here and elsewhere, in a confiding tone that tickles the hairs inside your ear. Yet while the sonically, the song bounds and wafts, its message doesn’t. “I know I’ll be free when I die,” sings Ross, and the song ends abruptly like a life snuffed out. Likewise, the title track, aims at the kind of soccer stadium anthemic-ness that sends beach balls bobbling out over festival crowds. “I love you so much,” Ross intones over surging synths and pounding drums. Still, despite its ebullience, the cut has a vertiginous feel, as if the bottom is dropping out. Like many people facing difficulties, Ross reached out to friends for aid. The album has striking cameos from Julien Baker (“Hold My Hand”) and a multigenerational brace of guitarists, J. Mascis (who rips a sidewinder “See You Better Now”), Ryley Walker (breezily anthemic in “Simple Glyphs”) and Yasmin Williams (shimmering and gorgeous in “The Grass Widow in the Glass Window”). And yet, for all that, and despite the serious subject matter, the music mostly feels bland and oversaccharine, except for the sludgy, guitar-driven fury of “Sucking on Birdshot” and, at the end, “ICLYM” shuffling out like the Beta Band in shambolic triumph.

Jennifer Kelly

[the-way-astray]

alright guys. potentially unpopular opinion time. i hate it when people compare a ship in a fandom to a different ship in a different fandom (ex: sokeefe is like kotlc’s percabeth). feels like it just dumbs both ships (and the characters in them) down

like percy is not keefe. he’s not. they have one (1) quality in common which is humor and suddenly everyone draws comparisons between them? please their styles of humor aren’t even the same . . . and annabeth and sophie aren’t even close to similar. like at all

[loreintheaether]

i was in my bathroom, brushing my teeth, when dread filled my body and i realized… or rather had a premonition… that i think shannon is going to give keefe a conflicting love interest in unraveled 😭😭😭

IM SORRY IF SOMEONE ELSE HAS TALKED ABT THIS (pls tell me who if they have bc i wanna see what they think)

but i feel like its gonna be like a rachel dare x percy jackson type dynamic, where this mortal/human piques keefe’s interest and is maybe one of his first friends in the forbidden cities, or maybe she inadvertently knows smth about gisela or I DONT KNOW but something.

and when i say rachel dare i mean i am imagining EXACTLY rachel dare and maybe that means im just projecting too much riordan on this book but

picture the rejection. the way it would bring him back to sophie. to SOPHIE’s jealousy, especiallyyy now that they’ve confessed (now im just projecting annabeth here 😭) BUT PLS TELL ME YALL SEE THE VISION. especially bc it would give sophie a taste of her own medicine. oh my GOD i wanna see fitz’s reaction to her being jealous like that

this also just makes me excited for what other human characters we’re going to meet, especially if there’s a dynamic like that!! i’ve been LOVING their teenager-ness in these last couple books and i need more drama

[kitttttchaos]

“If my favorite fictional characters were real, they’d be out of my league.”

The reason you like them is because you relate to them. You’re on the same level as the characters you look up to.

Smth to think about 😊

[nervoustoastthing]

I hate when people are like “these two characters can’t have a relationship because character b snaps at them so much-“ then character b has canonical anger issues and is trying their best

[darkchocolatedimples]

me everytime my favorite character gets sad and joins the dark side: pookie’s just having a hard time!! they’re being silly it’s okay 😝🙏

[clarissaweasley-10]

Does anybody here know how to hug a person through a book?lf so then please spill the magic..Thank you

[crumpetsandbiscuits]

reblog if you need more friends in any of these fandoms: (TMNT, KOTLC, PJO, ASOUE) and we’ll make some friendships 💖 and feel free to add whatever fandom you want!

[valewritessss]

WHAT CABIN DO YOU THINK THE KOTLC CHARACTERS WOULD BE IN??

OKAY OKAY OKAY IVE BEEN READY FOR THIS ONE

Sophie- photographic memory is giving me Athena child, but she very well could be something else. It’s hard to tell when we’re talking about ability-based bc she has so many. Out of all the characters she’s the one I struggle the most with to assign a cabin

Dex- Hephaestus for obvious reasons, but also because Leo in hoo talks about being left out a lot and the fact that Dex gets less page time than Silveny says lots about that

Biana and Fitz- I think Fitz and Biana would both be Aphrodite kids bc a) they’re siblings so it makes sense for them to be the same cabin and b) it’s constantly mentioned how beautiful they are. I honestly think all of the Vackers would be. If any of them had charmspeak it would definitely be Alvar and maybe Fitz, which would give chance for such good Fitz rage. And like I said in my other post, Biana is a prime example of what the Aphrodite cabin would be like if written correctly and not just handed the “femininity makes me weak” role. She slays literally and figuratively.

Keefe- APOLLO APOLLO APOLLO (not just bc he’s blond just think about it really think about it) I want to explain but I can’t form the words so just think about it plsss

Marella- abilities would make her Hephaestus for sure, some of her personality traits would make her Aphrodite, but i don’t think she’d be a demigod I’d think she’d join the hunters of Artemis. OR OR OR she’s a child of Hephaestus and joins then joins the hunters (I forgot that was an option for a second)

Tam- so I looked into it and child of Hecate seems pretty good? I mean darkness and his ability with shadows is kind of eerie-like, and perfectly fit with Hecate. Also, the ability to control the mist sounds like a Tam thing

Linh- well, we’re all thinking it right? Poseidon. But less of the raging storm more of the gentle ocean waves kissing your feet and occasionally the raging storms. Like a touch of sadness and sorrow but easy to see the beauty in it so it’s not scary. Idk if that made sense Im spewing words here.

Wylie- I was thinking maybe Athena because he sees reason, you know? And I read Kotlc a very long time ago so I don’t remember much about him. He had that studious vibe to him idk. I’m going purely based off of feels rn😭

Stina- Nemesis. Okay okay, here me out. Girly holds her grudges, she’s a little mean, but she doesn’t let that stop her from helping Silveny whatever the motive may be. And if we’re thinking story wise, it’s like Ethan Nakamura if you squint but it’s there I can’t explain it. Seems bad, can be bad, but she’s proof that it’s never 100% bad, people have layers, like an onion

Maruca- Ares, and the reason is because she’s pretty bluntly honest, and she’s hella determined. Ares kids are mostly seen to be very frank, and that fits her perfectly. And her determination is a trait we can see in Clarisse(most of the time in the form of stubbornness, ahem, refusing to fight) but ofc in their world everything is sunshine and rainbows so determination, not stuborness. In all seriousness I mean determination because it fits her more than stubbornness but they’re similar traits. Idk I’m getting off topic

Those were all the characters I could think of at the top of my head and if you disagree with any let me know I just did these for fun nothing serious

I would love it if anyone wants to send me characters that I didn’t do and ill give them a cabin😊

[lotusishere]

I know for sure if there was a cross over between PJO and KOTLC. Percy would beef with them the first time he met them. Let me set the scene. Do you guys remember when Percy just meet Carter from the Kane Chronicles? He thought Carter was a Greek demigod and was about to drag him because he kept getting in the way of the fight.

Now imagine Sophie, Keefe, Dex, Fitz, Tam, Linh, Wylie, Marella and Biana. Keefe with getting his ass almost killed every 2 seconds. Dex throwing all his creations at monsters. Fitz…idk what he does but I think he’s a scrapper (a regular no power fighter), Linh throwing waves and drowning everything. Wylie and his power of rainbows. Biana and Tam going in and out of invisibility. And Marella lighting the town like the Fourth of July. The way I could feel his eye twitch in horror trying to figure out what godly parent they all have and where they all came from. Better yet I know he would frown because he would be horrified to be dragged into another prophecy when he just wants to be with his girlfriend Annabeth.

He would feel like CHB is about to be repopulated with “British” sounding children with crazy powers. I know he would side eye Linh and think of his own father busted it wide open again without him knowing. And that would be even funnier for him thinking he has 2 new siblings because Tam and Linh are twins. But in reality he’s talking to Elves from one of the Barbie Fairytopia movies.

[monowritestoomuch]

PLEASE TELL ME THAT WALKER SCOBELL WOULD NOT BE A GOOD ACTOR FOR KEEFE SCENCEN IM GOING INSANE

[somewhereincairparavel]

Keefe Sencen 🤝 Annabeth Chase

"You are cute when you worry"

[the-way-astray]

okay wait if you don’t mind me asking why don’t you like incorrect quotes?

anon, i swear this was not meant to be this long

my reasons are 100% subjective. over the years, i've dabbled in several different fandoms. and i find that the same incorrect quote format is used to describe relationships between characters in different series that i find to not be alike at all. for example, i've seen multiple of the same incorrect quote formats used for both percabeth and sokeefe, when i don't find the relationships to be that similar to one another at all. it's just that people see one dimension of sophie and annabeth (let's say smart) and one dimension of percy and keefe (let's say funny) and then the entire incorrect quote becomes about that. i find sokeefe and percabeth to be two entirely different relationships with few things in common (which i've talked about), but the incorrect quotes flatten them to those qualities only and i don't like that.

the sokeefe-percabeth thing is just an example, by the way, one i picked because i feel most people i'm talking to would understand it, but i've also seen the same incorrect quote formats used to describe relationships like jurdan or kanej . . . and if you've read tfota or soc you know how drastically dissimilar jurdan or kanej are to either sokeefe or percabeth (and each other). and i find that these indirect comparisons drawn between relationships like this flattens certain characters quite a bit. this is how we get stuff like "sokeefe is basically kotlc percabeth" and stuff like that.

then, once a character has been given a "role" (i use the term loosely) they have to occupy all the aspects that come with that "role". so then they're only allowed to be that "role" in the incorrect quote, even if the quote requires them to say/do things they would never say/do, because they've been slated into that role based on that one aspect. take this quote for example:

keefe has been slated into the role of "one that has a crush on sophie" for the purposes of this particular quote. but keefe doesn't ramble like this. he doesn't like his dad and would never discuss a crush on sophie with him (but this one i'm not that mad about since you could as easily change cassius to ro or something). he doesn't use exaggerated metaphors to describe things and he doesn't speak in purple prose. he does a pretty good job hiding his crush and would never inadvertently reveal it like this. do you see what i mean? because of the fact that the format requires him to be "one with a crush on sophie", he now has to fulfill all the other aspects the format requires, even though they don't apply to him. and it no longer feels like keefe. it flattens him down to this one aspect.

i feel like this flattening aspect of incorrect quotes does have a (very small, sort of indirect) effect on the way characters are perceived in fanon. and i don't like it? it's very weird to me. so i prefer to stay away from it. (best examples i can think of are cardan and kaz, who are both morally gray, but lots of incorrect quotes portray them as hopelessly in love with their love interests or malewives, and while that's true, them being slated into that role for the purpose of the incorrect quote often makes them out to be the kind that would doodle hearts around names in notebooks or blush or be in that sort of cutesy-teenager-with-a-crush kind of romance. and . . . uh . . . yeah, they love jude and inej, but that's like. not at all what either relationship is like. it's just not.)

also some incorrect quotes are so desperate to slate characters into certain "roles", as i call them, that they forsake crucial aspects of the character in the process, or actively make them do/say things that go against something that is a core aspect of that character. and i don't like the way the quote is willing to misinterpret something so crucial to the character for the sake of the incorrect quote exemplifying something much less important like "the funny one" or "the one with a crush on ___".

incorrect quotes also have a tendency to portray what a character actually wants to do, rather than how they would realistically behave, given the circumstances. take this quote (and ignore the weird anti-sophitz-ness for the moment, i'm trying to make a point):

in canon, it's kind of a point that sophie "isn't aware" of her crush on keefe, so to speak. she knows she has a crush on fitz. she may subconsciously want to kiss keefe, but remember, she thinks she likes fitz. so this incorrect quote just frustrates me because that's not what sophie would do!!!!!!! she would kiss fitz. actually, she would get all nervous and blushy and try to worm her way out of it. and if this is a post-stellarlune quote, and she knows she likes keefe, she wouldn't address fitz directly like that??? she would trying so hard not to look at fitz because omg omg omg i have to kiss my new boyfriend in front of my old boyfriend who appears to still not be over me. like the quote requires you to change fundamental aspects of sophie's personality/behavior to buy it. my analysis brain can't handle that. my problem is that i can't enjoy the quote for the quote, because my brain is always instead picking apart how un-character the incorrect quote feels.

having said all of that, i fully understand that anyone who likes incorrect quotes or engages with them frequently knows all this. i don't think you all are stupid. obviously keefe would never say something like that first example i showed in canon. that's understood! the point is to make fun of his crush on sophie. i get it. it's all in good fun. i just prefer not to engage with incorrect quotes because the flattening aspect makes me personally want to scream that the character would never do or say that, because at this point the character doesn't even feel like the character, so what even is the point of the quote anymore??? and then i get stuck in a loop.

and like i said in my original tags, i would never want to completely get rid of incorrect quotes. they're easy to make, fun, easily digestable, and in general sort of a safe way to get started in fandoms. they're the safety net of fandoms, and i think they really are crucial for smaller/more obscure fandoms where nobody wants to do hardcore analysis stuff but people still want to talk about their favorite media. so i think, for the purposes they fulfill, they're alright.

[swans-chirping-in-the-distance]

OW OW OKAY HERE ME OUT

So kotlc/ pjo au where Tam is the Percy (tell me he wouldn't yell "NO ONE TOUCHES HER") and Biana is the Annabeth (she figures a lot out actually and is very smart). Who would that leave Luke to be? A traitor... both of their friends... someone Biana admires... oh idk. KEEFE?

His family has hurt him sm he's just... ANGRY. It's plausible. It's truly plausible.

(Alvar would work too but wouldn't hurt as much lmao)

[darklinaforever]

Percabeth, Locklyle and Sokeefe are expected to make triple dates. And they would all get along so well.

[nervoustoastthing]

as a trans person, every character I love is now transgender

no blorbo is safe