#all terms named after strange attractors!!

[voidfanged]

— LORENZIC / 🜏L🜏

leviathic loving leviathic

— COULLETEAN / 🜏LW

leviathic loving women

— ARNEODEAN / 🜏LM

leviathic loving men

— DADRASIC / 🜏LNB

leviathic loving non binary

[ohthatphage]

More on what I am, I think.

Every now and then, the Inmara (@theinmara, in the company of @fenmere) revisit their attempt to figure out just what I am.

I am amenable to this, as I do not entirely know myself.

Or, it is more accurate to say that I know exactly what I am, but I do not know the appropriate English words (or any other words) to describe it. And I like the idea of learning how to use the language better for the purposes of introducing myself.

I must admit, I enjoy being like a monster and representing myself with dark and dangerous imagery and connotations, if only for the purposes of later belying those things.

Sometimes I am hit with emotions of self consciousness and embarrassment that I may be coming across as "edgy" or an "edgelord". But I do not think those feelings are mine. It is often hard to differentiate my own feelings from those of my superfans that share this system with me.

But, I'm being hit with those emotions now as I'm being asked to write this, so I'm presenting them to you as a way of being self effacing, I guess? On behalf of the others in the system who care.

What I can say clearly, though, is that despite the words that follow this sentence, I am not particularly more powerful or important than any living being. And I'm going to be talking about my greater identity, the thing that I am when I'm not a conscious being inhabiting a human descended body. And that thing is largely mindless.

Anyway, enough pre-amble.

In the last couple of days, the Inmara have been attempting to craft a Sentinels of the Multiverse DE deck for me, and they have been searching physics articles for terms to use for card names, such as "the First Law", "Townsend Avalanche", "Catastrophic Shaft Detachment", or "Strange Attractor". And this has prompted some more self reflection directed at me, and some more learning about what entropy and enthalpy are.

When I was first invited into the system at their age of three and a half-ish years old (my age being much, much older), all I knew were a few simple things:

I came from outside their system.

I am an older, non-human identity.

I am of and at home in darkness, but light is also of me.

I was asked to help them manage their chaos, which is what I can do.

When they reached about 15 years old, they learned about entropy in a magazine article right about the same time they learned about the word "phage" in biology class, coincidentally right after having a nightmare in which I threatened their eldest (and fronting) member with a knife blade made of moonlight, to try to get them to come out as trans and deal with their dysphoria.

I was unsuccessful at getting them to come out as trans at the time, which is OK. It was a bad time politically for them to do that, even though it cost them dearly to remain in the closet. But I did inspire them to make me the face of the villain of their homebrew mythology that they were writing for English class, and to name me Phage and claim that I was "Entropy Itself".

Since then, based on their understanding of it, I have thought of myself as Entropy Itself, and the name Phage invokes me.

But Entropy is not accurate, as fucking cool sounding as it is.

When most people hear or read the word "entropy", they think of the process by which enthalpy becomes entropy. And, for the past few decades, whenever the Inmara attempted to look up definitions of the word "entropy", they did not find anything to disabuse them of that idea.

Until a couple years ago. But what they found a couple years ago was still ambiguously worded for them, and though they started writing "Entropic Decay" into their literature about me, and convinced me to start using that for myself, they were uncertain of it.

Yesterday, though, they found very clear and concise definitions of Entropy and Enthalpy the really disambiguate everything.

Entropy is the amount of energy in a system that is no longer available for doing work. It is the end result of the second law of thermodynamics.

So, "Entropic Decay" would be slightly more accurate to describe what they perceive me to be.

Enthalpy is the amount of energy in a system that is available for doing work. The opposite of entropy. It is what is needed for the second law of thermodynamics to have any relevance.

And the second law, as I understand it, based on the Inmara's readings, is the statement that "the overall heat in a closed system always flows downhill". Or, that complex and high energy becomes simple and low energy. Or that orderly energy becomes chaotic energy. That enthalpy becomes entropy. But that entropy does not become enthalpy.

Humans have frequently said that the second law is "the law of entropy", hence the confusion of the product with the process. It is, as the Inmara thought two years ago, more accurately described as "the law of entropic decay."

And so, in their old conception of me, I am accurately described as "Entropic Decay" or "The Second Law of Thermodynamics".

But in writing our novels and in exploring ideas for cards for my Sentinels deck, I (and Eh) have come to the conclusion that that's not precisely right. Because the First Law of Thermodynamics also applies to what I am. And, but, also so do a number of things that result from the two laws at work.

Also, I am not a thing conceived by humans, but rather something that is badly described by humans and the other people who live amongst them.

If I were to distill my sense of identity down to its most generic, encompassing possible term, I'd say that I am physics itself.

Yes, it is true that I am that which may result in the heat death of the universe, if the universe is shaped in a way that that will happen. But I am also that which has resulted in life.

"But, Phage," you say, "that sounds an awful lot like you are calling yourself god."

I am not.

As that greater, all encompassing thing, I am not a being. I have no consciousness or sense of identity that is anything analogous to that of a human's. I have no motives other than to do what physics does. It is only as I become distilled, reduced to smaller and smaller systems, that I sometimes gain a psyche.

In fact, besides the fact that I live in a vessel full of ktletaccete and a handful of outsiders and not whatever you are, there is very little difference between you and me. Relatively speaking.

The only notable difference is that I do not derive my sense of personal identity from anything this body is doing or where it comes from. I derive it from the history of the entire universe and perhaps the multiverse, if that exists.

I do also seem to derive a perspective, a demeanor, and a set of talents from that identity. But it's hard to say if those things are anything beyond the capacity for a human descended brain and body to hold. Based on my experiences so far, probably not.

Anyway, it's probably OK to keep calling me "Entropic Decay" because that's really close enough. But I do prefer the conlang terms that the Inmara coined for me, as being less defined by English etymologies and flexible enough to just mean "me". So, that would be Mau and `efeje'e. I slightly prefer 'efeje'e, since it was chosen to sound vaguely like Phage, and Phage is currently my name. Me, in this paragraph, referring to this localized presence and not my greater self.

OK, but, more.

I do think my sense of identity is slightly more limited than just "physics", while more expansive than "etropic decay".

It may be easier to say what I'm most closely related to and deal with than to actually give me a clear, clean definition. I am:

particularly focused on managing and perpetuating chaos

particularly good at converting enthalpy to entropy

also good at concentrating enthalpy into localized areas to such a degree that it looks like the overall energy there is become less entropic (i.e. creating things like matter from energy in a dense area of space, or life on a planet)

the darkness from which light is emitted and to which it returns.

And in the time that I have lived in a human descended body full of transgender dragons, I have also learned how to eat the energy present in autistic meltdowns.

I cannot make them go completely away, but I have significantly reduced their impact.

I am also pretty damn good at not being afraid of anything when it is dark, and the children that continue to inhabit this vessel are very thankful for that.

Anyway, I think it is this slightly less encompassing, more restricted definition of myself besides "physics itself" that is the beginning of my development of a sense of identity.

It's like, if you had a map that included every single concept in existence, what you'd do is draw a cone where the widest end encompasses nearly everything and the point ends in the Inmara's collective psyche where this consciousness is that is typing at you. And the area of that cone would include ever narrowing groups of things, one of which is the Second Law of Thermodynamics and its effects and applications.

I am not the point that's in the Inmara. I am not the base of the cone.

I am the cone.

And you are a different, equally sized but differently shaped cone.

Anyway, the idea of me as some kind of superhero or godlike being that can do a bunch of supernatural shit is mostly wish fulfillment. But it is also derived from the things that any being is capable of doing in the Inmara's inworld, which is akin to what you could do if you were Moriarty on the Enterprise's holodeck.

[blogdual890]

Satanachia Sigil

Sigil of Lucifer wall decor from wood, Wooden Art, Hanging Sign, Seal of Lucifer, Satanic Seal, Church of Satan, Pentagram, Key of Solomon IgniteINC. 5 out of 5 stars (72) $. A sigil (/ ˈ s ɪ dʒ əl /; pl. Sigilla or sigils) is a type of symbol used in ritual magic.The term has usually referred to a type of pictorial signature of a Jinn or other entity. In modern usage, especially in the context of chaos magic, sigil refers to a symbolic representation of the practitioner's desired outcome. Agaliarept, also known as Agalierap, Agalierept, Agalieraps or Agaliareps, is a Great General of Hell alongside Satanachia and one of the demons to directly serve under Lucifer. He is one of the Six Great Officers in Hell, the others being Lucifuge Rofocale, Satanachia, Agaliarept, Fleurety and Sargatanas. He is purported to command the Second Legion of Spirits for the glory of the emperor.

The first list is from the Pseudomonarchia daemonum by Johann Weyer (aka Wier, Wierus), which he included in his De praestigiis daemonum in 1583, and in 1584 Reginald Scot included the same list in The Discoverie of Witchcraft. The second list, the seals, and engravings are from the Goetia at sacred-texts.com - 1904 translation edited by S. MacGregor Mathers.

Goetic seals from the Lesser Key of Solomon

A sigil (/ˈsɪdʒəl/; pl. sigilla or sigils) is a type of symbol used in ritual magic. The term has usually referred to a type of pictorial signature of a Jinn or other entity. In modern usage, especially in the context of chaos magic, sigil refers to a symbolic representation of the practitioner's desired outcome.

History(edit)

72 seals from the Lesser Key of Solomon

The term sigil derives from the Latinsigillum, meaning 'seal'.(1)Skype.

In medieval ceremonial magic, the term sigil was commonly used to refer to occult signs which represented various angels and demons which the witch might summon.(1) The magical training books called grimoires often listed pages of such sigils. A particularly well-known list is in The Lesser Key of Solomon, in which the sigils of the 72 princes of the hierarchy of hell are given for the magician's use. Such sigils were considered to be the equivalent of the true name of the spirit and thus granted the magician a measure of control over the beings.(2)

An excerpt from Sefer Raziel HaMalakh featuring various magical sigils (or סגולות, segulot, in Hebrew).

A common method of creating the sigils of certain spirits was to use kameas (magic squares) — the names of the spirits were converted to numbers, which were then located on the magic square. The locations were then connected by lines, forming an abstract figure.(3)

The word sigil.. has a long history in Western magic. The members of the Golden Dawn were perfectly familiar with it (″combining the letters, the colours, the attributions and their Synthesis, thou mayest build up a telesmatic Image of a Force. The Sigil shall then serve thee for the tracing of a Current which shall call into action a certain Elemental Force″) and it was used in the making of talismans. The sigil was like a signature or sign of an occult entity.(4)

Satanachia Sigil

The use of symbols for magical or cultic purposes has been widespread since at least the Neolithic era. Some examples from other cultures include the yantra from Hindutantra, historical runic magic among the Germanic peoples, or the use of veves in Voudon.

Austin Osman Spare(edit)

Satanachia Sigil

The artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare developed his own unique method of creating and using sigils, which has had a huge effect on modern occultism. Essentially, Spare turned the Medieval practice of using sigils to evoke entities on its head, arguing that such supernatural beings were simply complexes in the unconscious, and could be actively created through the process of sigilization.(5)(4)

The big difference with Spare's method was that he dispensed with pre-existing esoterica and external beliefs, so the sigils were no longer for controlling traditional demons, angels and what-have-you, but instead for controlling forces in the unconscious psyche of the individual operator.(4)

Spare's technique became a cornerstone of chaos magic.(6) It also influenced the artist Brion Gysin, who experimented with combining Spare's sigil method with the traditional form of magic squares:

Calligraphic magick squares were one of the techniques most commonly applied by Gysin. He would reduce a name or an idea to a 'glyph' and then write across the paper from right to left, turn the paper and do the same again, and so on, turning the paper around and around to create a multi-dimensional grid.. The same techniques and consciously driven functional intention also permeated his paintings. In a very real sense, everything he created was an act of sorcery.(7) Home alone 3 on amazon prime.

Chaos magic(edit)

A modern personal sigil.

In chaos magic, following Spare, sigils are most commonly created by writing out the intention, then condensing the letters of the statement down to form a sort of monogram. The chaos magician then uses the gnostic state to 'launch' or 'charge' the sigil – essentially bypassing the conscious mind to implant the desire in the unconscious.(8)(6) To quote Ray Sherwin:

The magician acknowledges a desire, he lists the appropriate symbols and arranges them into an easily visualised glyph. Using any of the gnostic techniques he reifies the sigil and then, by force of will, hurls it into his subconscious from where the sigil can begin to work unencumbered by desire.(8)

After charging the sigil, it is considered necessary to repress all memory of it: in the words of Spare, there should be 'a deliberate striving to forget it'.(5)

Grimorium verum sigils. In modern chaos magic, when a complex of thoughts, desires and intentions gains such a level of sophistication that it appears to operate autonomously from the magician's consciousness, as if it were an independent being, then such a complex is referred to as a servitor.(9)(10) When such a being becomes large enough that it exists independently of any one individual, as a form of 'group mind', then it is referred to as an egregore.(11)(12)

Later chaos magicians have expanded on the basic sigilization technique. Grant Morrison coined the term hypersigil to refer to an extended work of art with magical meaning and willpower, created using adapted processes of sigilization. His comic book series The Invisibles was intended as such a hypersigil.(6) Morrison has also argued that modern corporate logos like 'the McDonald's Golden Arches, the Nike swoosh and the Virgin autograph' are a form of viral sigil:

Corporate sigils are super-breeders. They attack unbranded imaginative space. They invade Red Square, they infest the cranky streets of Tibet, they etch themselves into hairstyles. They breed across clothing, turning people into advertising hoardings.. The logo or brand, like any sigil, is a condensation, a compressed, symbolic summoning up of the world of desire which the corporation intends to represent.. Walt Disney died long ago but his sigil, that familiar, cartoonish signature, persists, carrying its own vast weight of meanings, associations, nostalgia and significance.(6)

See also(edit)

Look up sigil in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sigils.

References(edit)

Footnotes(edit)

^ abWeschcke, Carl Llewellyn & Slate, Joe H. The Llewellyn Complete Book of Psychic Empowerment

^Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis: The Lesser Key of Solomon, Detailing the Ceremonial Art of Commanding Spirits Both Good and Evil; ed. Joseph H. Peterson; Weiser Books, Maine; 2001. p.xi-xvii

^Greer, John Michael (2003). The New Encyclopedia of The Occult. Llewellyn Worldwide. p. 438. ISBN1-56718-336-0.

^ abcBaker, Phil. Austin Osman Spare

^ abSpare, Austin Osman. The Book of Pleasure

^ abcdMorrison, Grant. Pop Magic!

^P-Orridge, Genesis. Magick Squares and Future Beats

^ abSherwin, Ray. The Book of Results

^Hine, Phil. Prime Chaos

^Marik. Servitors

^Rysen, Fenwick The Fluid Continuum

^Emerson, Gabriel. Egregore Definition Compilation

Sources(edit)

The Book of Pleasure. Austin Osman SpareISBN1-872189-58-X

Liber Null and Psychonaut. Peter CarrollISBN0-87728-639-6

Baker, Phil (2011). Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist. Strange Attractor. ISBN9781907222016.

Emerson, Gabriel (1997). 'Egregore Definition Compilation'. Chaos Matrix. Retrieved June 7, 2018.

Hine, Phil (1998). Prime Chaos: Adventures in Chaos Magic. New Falcon Publications. ISBN9781609255299.

Marik (1998). 'Servitors: Part Two of Sigils, Servitors, and Godforms'. Chaos Matrix. Retrieved June 7, 2018.

Morrison, Grant (2003). 'Pop Magic!'. In Metzger, Richard (ed.). Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. Red Wheel Weiser. ISBN9780971394278.

P-Orridge, Genesis (2003). 'Magick Squares and Future Beats'. In Metzger, Richard (ed.). Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. Red Wheel Weiser. ISBN9780971394278.

Peterson, Joseph H. (ed.), The Lesser Key of Solomon: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis (York Beach, ME: Weiser Books, 2001). Considered 'the definitive version'

Rysen, Fenwick (1999). 'The Fluid Continuum --or-- What the f***'s an Egregore?'. Chaos Matrix. Retrieved June 7, 2018.

Sherwin, Ray (1992). The Book of Results. Revelations 23 Press. ISBN9781874171003.

Spare, Austin Osman (2013). The Book of Pleasure: The Psychology of Ecstasy. Lulu Press. ISBN9781105502996.

Weschcke, Carl Llewellyn; Slate, Joe H. (2011). The Llewellyn Complete Book of Psychic Empowerment: A Compendium of Tools & Techniques for Growth & Transformation. Llewellyn Worldwide. ISBN9780738729862.

White, Gordon (2012). 'Magic Secrets as Taught by Robot Fish'. Rune Soup. Retrieved June 7, 2018.

White, Gordon (2010). 'Shoaling: Making Sigil Magic more Awesome Since 2010'. Rune Soup. Retrieved June 7, 2018.

El, Moorpheus (2011). 'Secret of Secrets: Reality is Programmable'. Matrix-Five. Retrieved August 28, 2011.

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sigil&oldid=1015300196'

[lockdownfest]

LOCKDOWN FEST MASTERPOST WEEK #2 EXTENSION

*

BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE (2007)

Stuck in the Middle with You by InsanelyWriteful (M) 6k, WIP. With the zombie pandemic in full swing, Nigel flings himself into the fray on the hunt for groceries. Don't even get him started on trying to find that most-sought-after, priceless item of all items: toilet paper. As far as the world's concerned, that doesn't exist anymore. With the world going to hell, Nigel finds himself trapped with a strange man named Aiden Galvin. But, hey, there are worse fates than being stuck with a hot piece of tail, right?

BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA

Two Weeks In Quarantine by JedIzuku (T) 48k WIP, Midoriya Izuku/Todoroki Shouto. A virus threatens all of Japan. Everyone needs to self-quarantine for two weeks to help prevent the spread. Izuku Midoriya learns that his friend, Shoto Todoroki, would be quarantined alone because of his father’s work. And Izuku won’t stand for that.A love story.

CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN

Stuck in the Middle with You by InsanelyWriteful (M) 6k, WIP. With the zombie pandemic in full swing, Nigel flings himself into the fray on the hunt for groceries. Don't even get him started on trying to find that most-sought-after, priceless item of all items: toilet paper. As far as the world's concerned, that doesn't exist anymore. With the world going to hell, Nigel finds himself trapped with a strange man named Aiden Galvin. But, hey, there are worse fates than being stuck with a hot piece of tail, right?

FALL OUT BOY

Gradually and Then Suddenly by earlgreytea68 (G) 3.3k, Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz. Life in quarantine: fourth-grade science, couch concerts, blanket forts.

HANNIBAL

Point of View by house_of_lantis (M) 3.8k, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter.  Summary: Franklyn Froideveaux gets an unexpected peek into Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s personal life during their self-isolation. 

HARRY POTTER

Locked Inside Your Temper Trap by VeelaWings (E) 4.3k, Draco Malfoy/Neville Longbottom. This was a minor problem. Not the being trapped in a humid greenhouse with a sweaty, gorgeous Draco, mind you. No, it was being trapped with a sweaty, pissed off Draco who would inevitably blame Neville.Plus the obstacle of not having the privacy to enjoy a fast and dirty wank with all this evening’s material.

Top Priority by JayGwen23 (T). 8k, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. England is trying to stop the spread of an aggressive, new virus that is affecting both wizards and muggles. Everyone is being told to self isolate. House mates, Harry and Draco are stuck at home trying to brave it through the madness, while trying not no go mad themselves.Written for Lock Down Fest.

Bored Harry by foxymoley (G) FANART. Harry's been stuck in his room at Privet Drive and is bored out of his mind!He uses his wand in a mug as a lamp as Hedwig stretches as much as she can in her cage.

Harry Potter and the Secret in the Library by EvAEleanor, tasteofshapes (E) 11.6k, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. Draco stands outside the library for a moment, before he turns the handle and pushes the heavy double doors open. What he expects to find is a silent library cloaked in darkness. What he gets instead is a fire crackling merrily away in the grate, the library lit only by firelight, and Potter lounging on the fur rug in front of the fireplace, clad only in a terry-cloth bathrobe, a glass of wine in one hand.“What the… Potter—!” Draco yelps, and Potter looks up from the book open in front of him and raises an eyebrow at Draco.

The Magic of Muggle Films by sunshinedraco (E) 5.3k. Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. Harry is happy to get home from an Auror mission in Northern Ireland, but may have been exposed to a contagious disease. Draco Malfoy, who comes with a team of Healers to inspect Harry and also happens to be the subject of Harry's long-term awkward crush, is also accidentally exposed. The two are quarantined together. You know what happens.

Sweetheart by WolfyWordWeaver (T) 3k, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter. Remus Lupin comes home after a long day working at the hospital and quickly realizes that something is wrong with Sirius. Avoiding COVID-19 doesn't mean avoiding all hurts and Sirius has to deal with a major hurdle. While Remus doesn't have all the answers he does know how to do his best.

Stuck Senses by TheUltimateUndesirable (E) 12k, Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood. In the mist of the 2020 pandemic the wizarding world is left with a dire and unknown future as Covid-19 makes it's way into Europe. Hogwarts ends up on quarantined leaving students, professors and a Luna stuck at the school. How long will anything last and what will anything become? No one knows.

Augmented Agony by Drarrelie (T) 365, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. Of all days... Draco's luck was apparently just as abysmal as ever. This work is part of a series of connected weekly drabbles written during 2020. It takes place in 2001, before the rest of the currently published drabbles in this series, while the two of them are still in Auror training.

If It Takes All Night by tackytiger (M) 11k, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. It's not the first time Harry's been the victim of a botched curse (that's one of the reasons he doesn't like crowds), but he feels bad that Malfoy had to get caught up in it too. So they're bonded. That's ok, they just have to make sure to be touching at all time. No problem. Because Malfoy smells so nice, and has such lovely shiny hair, and his skin is so very warm.But this isn't going to be a problem for their friendship at all.Is it, Harry?

I'll Tell You Mine (If You Tell Me Yours) by MarchnoGirl (E) 4.2k, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. When a cauldron of Veritaserum explodes all over Harry and Malfoy, Harry has the chance to finally discover Malfoy’s secrets. And maybe something about himself too.

Correspondence in the Time of Quarantine by Lediona, Zigster (T) 1.5k, WIP, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. After informing Scorpius of my plan to bring him home, he wrote back immediately to ask if he might bring a friend with him to isolate at the Manor. When I inquired about the identity of this friend, imagine my surprise to discover that it was none other than your son, Albus Potter.

Garden War by Cibee (Cibeeeee) (T) 5k, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. Harry and Draco are quarantined in their houses, a lake across from one another. What better ways to spend this time than to annoy each other with letters and attempts to prove that their garden is better ?

LITTLE WOMEN (2019)

Chocolate Kisses by lady_needless_litany (T) 3k, WIP, Theodore Laurence/Josephine March. If Jo had to be shut in her house for the foreseeable future, at least she had Laurie to keep her company.

MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

Strange Attractors by dance4thedead (T) 882. There's an asshole in Matt's apartment. An unworthy love letter to the fic "The Goldilocks Principle". Set in late March 2020, during the COVID-19 crisis.

I walk this lonely road by xxx_cat_xxx (T) 1.6k, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov. Part 3 of Red in my Ledger.

MERCY STREET

We run a very tight ship by middlemarch, sagiow (t) 3k, WIP. Jedediah "Jed" Foster/Mary Phinney. "There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.Every single passenger on the ship would have that thought. At least once. Sometimes, on an endless loop, like the announcement about pina coladas on Deck 4. It turned out, the only way out was through. With card tricks.

OCEAN’S 8

You Shall Go To The Ball by ShadowHaloedAngel (T) 1.4k, Daphne Kluger/Rose Weil. The lockdown means the parties are all cancelled, but Rose and Daphne decide to have a little ball at home instead. After all, when else can you have a costume party for the hell of it? And with your own fairy godmother on hand, your gown is always going to make you feel like a princess.

OVERWATCH (video game)

nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody (ooh) nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody no— by faorism (M) 9k, Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada and other ships. Like most things now, it's more a matter of not if, but when. (Or: five times Jesse kept himself together and one time he really, really didn't.)

PITCH PERFECT

Icy Hot by Notsoawesomenerd (E), 7k. Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell. No, this is not a story about the topical pain reliever. This is a story about the interesting things Chloe can do to Beca with ice and ice-related items.

Desperate Measures by aliciameade (M), 6k, Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell. Chloe and Beca have everything they need to weather the mandated period of social distancing and staying home: food, water, shelter, games, entertainment, and each other's company.The one thing they don't have?Much-needed privacy.

RWBY

The Man in Your Head by goreds (G) 431, Ozpin/Salem (RWBY), Ozma/Salem (RWBY). Salem has a friend in her head. Not that she considers him a friend...

STAR TREK: ALTERNATE ORIGINAL SERIES

fourteen by sciencebluefeelings (T) 2.6k, James T. Kirk/Spock Prime. Two years ago, Spock waited for Jim. Now it's Jim's turn to wait. 

STAR TREK: ORIGINAL SERIES

Seventy Two Hours by LiraelClayr007 (G) 2.4k,  James T. Kirk/Spock Prime. Kirk lowers his voice, makes it almost too low to hear, and this time he is pleading. “Bones. You know why I can’t stay here. You know what this’ll do to me.” He closes his eyes, then says one more time, “Please.” He can’t look when he says it. He already knows the answer.“Sorry, Jim. It’s only three days. If it’s any consolation I don’t think you were actually exposed, but we have to be sure.” He looks at Kirk, then at Spock, then shrugs. He knows what he’s putting Kirk through.Or: Kirk and Spock are accidentally exposed to something on an alien planet and have to spend seventy two hours together in an isolation chamber. Easy, right? Except Kirk is going to go mad, because he's head over heels for Spock.

STAR WARS

grey and sprawling by srawratskcuf (Doreen) (E) 7k WIP, Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren. Ben and Hux have had a rocky long-distance semi-relationship ever since Hux went away to college. Basically, they call each other once a week and have phone sex, and absolutely do not talk about their feelings.When Ben finally saves up enough to fly across the country to visit Hux, his ten day trip gets extended indefinitely. Sheltering in place together will make or break them.

SUPERNATURAL

some kinda something by quillquiver (E) 2k, Castiel/Dean Winchester. There are only so many places to hide shit when you’re playing with 700 square feet of totally shared living space. This is something Dean has become very aware of in a very short amount of time.

Que Sera, Sera by wigglebox (G) 4.3k, Castiel/Dean Winchester. A few months into his new human life, Cas comes down with a fever and cough. Usually, that wouldn't be a concern, but now there's a contagious, new illness spreading across the country, and the anxiety that comes along with it.

I Don’t Understand These References by CeliPuff, Winchesterlovr0508 (M). 1.5k. Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester. Dean says the president extended the quarantine so Sam suggested I make a journal. I suspect it’s a ploy to keep my hands off his brother but being extremely old, I’m entitled to do what I want. And I happen to have eons of experience in multitasking.I prayed to Gabriel to run some interference. I believe this is a foolproof plan.

Apocalypse by Maleyah (Katherine_Kat) (E) 36k WIP, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gabriel/Sam, Michael/Adam Milligan. Dean moves through Cas’ kitchen with the ease of familiarity, as he sets about re-heating the leftovers. Ironically Cas’ kitchen is better equipped than the one in his apartment. It’s just that he’s been pouring all his money into The Roadhouse. The apartment is a rental anyway.“You have got to be shitting me!”His eyebrows shoot up at the language. Cas doesn’t curse often, but given the fact that the world is slowly descending into madness, he has a good guess what is provoking it. He glances behind him, across the counter that connects the open kitchen to the living room, where Cas is staring at the television. 

THE MAGICIANS

hard rain, honey, and the sweet sun by Allegria23 (E), 7k, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh. Eliot and Quentin are staying in their apartment. They both have some ideas.

THE WITCHER

Love in the Time of Video Conferencing by Elizabeth (M), 15.6k, Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier. Pestilence is a bitch, and the entire university has had to shift to e-learning overnight. Jaskier is a systems admin being forced to pick up slack for the overwhelmed help desk. Work ended hours ago, so why is he on a support call with the most technologically-incapable history professor he's ever met? And really, what is the deal with this guy?Based on the "OMG they were Zoommates" prompt from the AO3 comment Tumblr.This is, five times Jaskier and Geralt used Zoom for tech support, and one time they used Zoom for... something else. I apologize if this upsets you; it helps me cope with the emotions, so I'm hoping to channel stress into fluff and put it out there so it can possibly help others.

YURI!!! ON ICE

Music from the Heart by Multiple_Universes (G) 6.5k, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov. A curse falls over the land. It keeps people stuck indoors and will not let them out. The most powerful magician in the land seems unable to break the hold of the curse. But, as they say, love will always find a way.Inspired by videos of people singing from their balconies during the coronavirus quarantine.

[molecularhomosexual]

love, politics

the interesting thing about taking on love as your framework of politics is that it scrambles the codes of our typical political coordinates, especially regarding individualist/collectivist. i saw a comment i made on a post from @guattarian-egirl making the rounds, and i wanted to make a couple more comments about it.

dysphoria: a painful, calcified deposit, one you cannot bear to continue living with, a strange anti-attractor, a dam holding at bay the lake of desire. we inherit this deposit. dysphoria as a condition that exists across the entire social body is epidermalized onto each individual person—it expresses itself in each individual life. the differences in experiences of dysphoria across different people, produced under condition of a dysphoric misogyny pervading the social air we breathe.

you love another, another is dysphoric. dysphoria is painful. you love another. you desire that no harm come to them, to this one, to this life. you desire good for them. you desire to bring that good about. “who decides what counts as good and what counts as bad?” but love isn’t a person, or rather, love is a remarkable person, a person who comes alive again and again. i cannot give “good-in-general,” because good will always be specific to the life under question. you desire the good of another. you see what they desire, and you see those parts of themselves they suppress. you see what movements they’re stuck in, and you see what new movements they’d like to make. can you help them make those new movements? help them.

you do this labor of love under condition of a dysphoric misogyny. you desire the good of another. what is the good of this other? another is dysphoric. what is producing this dysphoria on the level of the molecules that make them up? you love another, another is dysphoric, and so you will ensure you do whatever it takes to lead them out of dysphoria, over and over again. love is a repetitive task. each repetition brings about a new difference in another’s life.

and you desire the end of a dysphoric misogyny—you desire the end of a colonial/modern gender system. this is not a completely abstract object, or a ‘hyperobject��� as some modern philosophers call it. we see this system embedded in each of our lives, producing the power relations we live, encouraging us to organize in certain ways rather than others. you desire the end of a dysphoric misogyny. our interventions are local, whether we make them individually or collectively. we set up local acts of resistance, which aren’t simply negations of a gender system but positive institutings of new organizations of gender. no, you are a woman, and that’s that—you don’t need more than desiring to be one in order to be one.

a new instituting of gender exists in conflict with the colonial/modern gender system, and it irreversibly modifies it, even if at so many different local points on the battlefield. i’ve no interest in a project of gender nihilism (or, i’m only interested in a project of gender nihilism insofar as it produces its own forces of affirmation, insofar as it creates new ways of living [but, then, perhaps we should find a better name for this political tendency than ‘gender nihilism’.]). a new instituting of gender irreversibly modifies the colonial/modern gender system. the minor movements exist in rugged conflict with the dominant world, constantly eluding capture, modifying the capture-system when captured.

we must create new ways of living with ourselves and one another; it doesn’t matter much whether we call those new aspects of life under the same name, ‘gender’. i worry when there are conversations about producing hormones for transition “after capitalism,” whatever that may mean (these aren’t clear enough terms). i worry when people pose the question of whether we should produce hormones anymore in this post-gender society. i worry most of all because they betray individual lives for some collective solace: “but the conditions that produce gender were abolished. why would you still want to transition?” a hidden frustration with the very existence of trans people today, moving their own lives and desires under condition of a vitriolic gender system. well, could you just stop being like that, at least in this abstract hypothetical i’ve devised about your lives? people have substituted arguments based on the state of nature, based on some mythical, pure past, with arguments based on the state of paradise, based on some mythical, pure future. horrible eschatology. the only true future we can contemplate is Erewhon, here now and nowhere, a future already here and never to arrive.

who is love? love enables us to desire both the resolution of an individual dysphoria in this person’s life, and the resolution of a gender system that enables the production of dysphoria. we desire this, and we desire that. this is neither a liberal-individualist politics, nor is it a quick and on-the-surface collectivist politics. this is a politics of singularity, this is a politics of each one, granted we mean much more with ‘one’ than simply ‘person’. there are no contradictions here. a politics of love enables us to feel what is at stake when we do politics. do you desire to sacrifice one for another? do you sacrifice yourself for the sake of another? will you place a limit on your own love, or will you take it to its farthest possible conclusion, forcing yourself to desire the good of each one? love is a repetitive task.

[thecomicsnexus]

DOOM PATROL #23-24 JUNE-JULY 1989 BY GRANT MORRISON, RICHARD CASE AND SCOTT HANNA

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC WIKIA)

Overnight, the temperature outside the Secret Sanctuary of the Doom Patrol dropped dramatically. The unexpected weather change has made The Chief curious, and he plots out the system of equations that represent that weather pattern into a Lorenz Attractor - a graphical representation that resembles a butterfly. He is joined that morning by Josh Clay, who has decided that he will stay with the Doom Patrol after all - but only in a strictly medical capacity. Dismissively, the Chief agrees to the terms, and introduces Josh to another new member: Dorothy Spinner.

Elsewhere, Rebis visits with Eleanor Poole's husband Dan, who is more than a little bothered by the idea that his wife has merged with a man, and become this bandaged hermaphrodite. Rather than listen to Dan's pleas for his wife, Rebis becomes fascinated by a wall of Matryoshka dolls, hoping to take one away with it.

Meanwhile, Cliff Steele and Crazy Jane go the the hospital to visit their comatose friend Rhea Jones. Unfortunately, they discover that her room has been ransacked, and she is nowhere to be found.

While wandering the halls of the new Doom Patrol Headquarters, Dorothy and Josh discuss how the Gene-bomb affected her. Josh stops her, suddenly, hearing an unusual sound. Turning, he sees a horrifying giant bug, and tries to shove Dorothy out of its path. Instead, she rushes forward, and sternly orders the creature to go away. Soon, the creature seems to fade away, and Dorothy explains that the Gene-bomb gave her the ability to conjure what she imagines into reality - though it isn't exactly within her control.

In England, Holly McKenzie wakes on the banks of the Thames river after spending the night in a squat in Brixton. She's not sure how she got from there to here, but the smoking wreckage of a police car and the bodies within seem to tell part of the story. Her attention is caught by a strange voice calling her name. A silhouette stands on the edge of the water, and approaches her. He introduces himself to her as Mister Nobody.

In Rhea's room, Jane senses something sinister, and is suddenly taken over by a personality who demands to be shown to a book store. Cliff is forced to chase after her as she determinedly leaves the hospital, and smashes through the front window of the nearest bookstore before stealing several books off of the shelves. Embarrassed, Cliff leaves an address to send the bill to.

Returning to the hospital, Jane begins cutting the pages of the books into little pieces, and arranging them on the floor, claiming that this technique can be used as a form of divination. Later, with Rebis in attendance, Jane begins to read the words that she has collected in sequence. In reading them, Cliff notices that there are a number of references in the texts to Jack the Ripper. Jane explains that the names of the victims are the key to opening the door to finding Rhea. She begins reciting the names; Mary Ann Nichols through Rhea Jones, and finally says the name Red Jack. With that, the door opens to a hallway that was not there before. After the Doom Patrollers pass through it, the nursing staff peers through, but all they see is one of the hospital's corridors, as usual.

Cliff finds himself separated from his companions, hoping that whatever reality he is in, it isn't the work of the Scissormen again. He is startled by the sight of strange man, who warns him that it is too late, as he holds Rhea's prone body in one hand, and a knife in the other.

Rebis finds itself in darkness, and fumbles around for a light switch. The chandelier illuminates an ornately decorated room with ultraviolet strobes. Exploring the hallways of strange mansion, Rebis is attacked by a giant marionette.

Elsewhere in the house, Crazy Jane calls out to the companions she was separated from, and comes upon an old Mutoscope labelled What the Butler Saw. When she looks into it, she sees a strange scene of a shirtless man preparing to eat dinner while a woman holds a baby nearby. He reveals his dinner to be a plate full of human hands armed with knives and forks. His blood spatters on the wall, and the woman cries while her baby is revealed to be some kind of large insect. Jane recoils with some discomfort, only to see that someone is watching her through a set of eye-holes in the ceiling.

Cliff Steele, meanwhile, has come face to face with the owner of this house. He introduces a still comatose Rhea Jones as his wife, which enrages Cliff. He rushes forward, but the earth splits in two, opening a fissure beneath his feet, apparently at his host's will. Grabbing onto the edge, Cliff barely manages to hold on while Red Jack introduces himself, claiming that he is God.

In another section of the house, Crazy Jane continues her search. She discovers a hallway where the walls are covered in live butterflies, pinned there in an entomological fashion. Seeing them pinned there, she feels sympathy for their plight.

Red Jack claims that he was punished for creating reality - by himself - and stuck in this endless prison. Despite Cliff's numerous attempts to attack him, he fails every time, and Jack unexpectedly plunges a knife viciously into Rhea's shoulder. Red Jack promises that nothing ever really dies in his house, it is merely pain that sustains his existence. In fact, he began his butterfly collection because the butterflies' pain nourished him. Unfortunately, their nervous systems are so rudimentary as to require that he capture millions of them.

He goes on to explain how every hundred years, he finds his way into Cliff's reality. One hundred years ago, he had the joy of murdering several prostitutes in Whitechapel as Jack the Ripper. Now, he has decided to take a human wife, having noticed Rhea's abilities, despite the coma. Rebis, meanwhile, has since freed himself of the marionette, and upon discovering Red Jack, attacks. Nonchalantly, Jack skewers Rebis, and tears off Cliff's arm, reminding them that he is not to be crossed.

Unexpectedly, though, Red Jack senses Rebis' nervous system shutting down, which is a result of the Negative Spirit leaving its body. The spirit attacks, but even its efforts are to no avail. As Cliff hobbles toward him again, Red Jack drops a chandelier on his head. He is surprised, though, when Rhea herself attacks him with his own knife. Stumbling from the sensation of a knife in his back, Jack is confused by a feeling of emptiness inside him. He is swarmed by millions of butterflies, apparently freed from their walls.

As they fly away, their pain leaves him, and he has no sustenance. His life force begins to fade. Crazy Jane appears, and it turns out that it was she who released the butterflies from their prison. Standing over Jack's corpse, Cliff wonders if he really was God. Rebis gathers Rhea up in its arms, and they hope to find a way back home.

Somewhere in Detroit, a a crazed homeless man named Lloyd Jefferson has just burnt down a building. He is accosted by Mister Nobody, who invites him to a Brotherhood.

REVIEW

So, does the story have no meaning?

Reviewing Morrison isn’t easy. The man puts a lot of references into his work, literary, art, movies, you name it. Red Jack is god... and possibly Jack The Ripper. I am not going to even try to figure this out.

What I can do instead is judge the story itself, which is crazy. From beginning to end. Rebis is cold as ice to her husband, Cliff has a very distinctive sense of humor and Crazy Jane tries hard to not look screwed up. The whole sequence with her regretting shattering a window and walking with glass on her head... it’s priceless.

And the funniest thing is how Cliff tries to lay low by saying that it is all ok, because she is a super-hero (like you could expect super-heroes to be involved in crazy stuff).

And Rhea comes out of her coma to stab Jack. Then goes back to it. The whole thing is crazy. But that is exactly the intention of the writer.

Only thing that I feel concerned about is... how often will things get trippy until it gets repetitive?

I give the story a score of 9

[sazc89]

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โหราศาสตร์ยูเรเนียน พื้นฐาน

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON NITRO’S LEAD VOCAL, LEAD DANCE CHOI DAEIN...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: Dane CURRENT AGE: 26 DEBUT AGE: 19 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 18 COMPANY: Koala.T Music SECONDARY SKILL: Nunchucks 

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): Face Genius, 반대인 - because he’s always doing the opposite of what people expect INSPIRATION: he looked up to gemini and 4ce who inspired him to pursue becoming an idol. SPECIAL TALENTS:

“impossible” to scare ( will walk through a haunted house laughing, is still during jumpscares, etc.).

is a better-than-average artist.

can read palms ( he can’t actually, but when he’s asked to for shows he predicts outlandishly fake futures ).

NOTABLE FACTS:

is quite active on social media.

is a 3rd dan in hapkido

studied abroad briefly in japan, and can speak conversational japanese

owns a cat named dal

enjoys photography, often has a polaroid camera on him when he travels

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

his current goals are much of the same. to keep propelling himself forward as much as he can. to try and keep pushing nitro up and toward more popularity. they’re not a projectile missile of a group, not like atlas or olympus. but they’re getting there. putting koala.t back on the map. making a name for themselves. and after all this time, daein does want to do that. make a name for himself. for his group. scrawl out some kind of a legacy to leave behind. an imprint of who he is. music and all.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

daein want to find his place in the world. sometimes wants to feel more firmly planted in a reality that he can create. he’s interested in ghosts, but he doesn’t necessarily want to be one himself. he knows he wants to create an imprint with music, with nitro and by himself. he wants to push forward and come to terms with his own interests intermixed with the trajectory that koala.t wants to send him on. he wants to try and be somewhat picky with the projects that they push onto him, because despite nitro’s length in the industry thus far, he hasn’t yet grown to despise it in the same way he’s seen some of his peers do. and he doesn’t want that to happen, either. wants to keep careful balance on the wire of what his company wants, and what he himself wants. and then build a legacy from it. something he’s content with. something he can lean on when he outgrown the career path he’s chosen. is it feasible, in the long run? well, nobody really knows the answer to that one. but daein hopes it is.

IDOL IMAGE

daein in image and in role is used as a collector. he’s essentially a tool in fan outreach, something that had been pre-planned, from his place of birth to how his personality is shaped and used to the company’s advantage on screen. koala.t has built and launched his entire brand based off of this. daein is sure that they didn’t decide to put him into their new flagship group just because he was talented. whatever amount of talent he had was seen as a bonus. the valuable piece that daein holds is his appeal is, materialistically enough, his face and opportunity for widespread appeal based off of this and the easy way he’s able to endear himself to people. daein’s real value is his following, with his knack for drawing fans into nitro as a whole. that initial gateway point that catches at people’s attention.

in nitro, he’s the member people might point to and declare a stan attractor. the one who pulls interest into the group, even if they end up hopscotching off to bias another member in the end of things. so step one was to sell this image, a split between hardworking and 4d in a toned down, palatable sort of way. the kind of guy who was quick to talk, the kind of guy who was personable, who made you want to keep talking. who had no reservations chatting away to show hosts or describing nitro’s latest comeback. he had the sort of face that made people look, it was just daein’s job to make it stick after.

he was given a stage name, something that they decided fit with his concept more and might appeal to an international fanbase. was told which parts of his personality he was allowed to play up ( not being afraid of ghosts? great, let the members cling while you laugh during the haunted house daein, that’s great ), and those he wasn’t ( cut the sarcasm and macabre humor, we need to appeal to the thirteen year olds ). a dose of humor, a loud effect to his voice that’s often lost later when the camera clicks off. he wasn’t a boy next door, but he was a boy you found yourself staring at. interested in. styled in a peter pan, never grow up fashion with a mischievous bite underneath that pixie-dust appeal.

there’s more behind the lens. behind the glamour. but daein’s been in the industry long enough to know that you’re only supposed to share certain parts of yourself with the public. because for all the fans shout and clamor and say they’ll love you forever. love you no matter what. it’s a lie. all it takes is one new fact that rubs them the wrong way, and you’re passed over. petitioned out. at least when it came to him, koala.t looked to see what parts they had cast him for and pulled them to the forefront. not everything about daein’s image is fake. but it’s overplayed, exaggerated. sometimes to the point where he gets sick of himself. overlaid with white lies that settle better with the fans. stains hidden. an illusion of perfection - but sometimes it’s a nice feeling.

IDOL HISTORY

하나 born in seoul to on the edge of upper to middle class parents, daein’s life should have been easy. it, perhaps, has been. but that all depends on who you ask. they weren’t fit with golden spoons, but his father was a well respected dentist, and daein was expected to follow those pre-trodden footsteps in some manner or another. if not in the field of orthodontics, then in some other highly regarded career. lawyer, maybe. something that would allow for him to continuously climb that ladder of success, provide opportunities for the next generation in the choi family. it is apparent now, looking back, that daein has failed all but miserably in their request. his story could perhaps be seen as predictable in some ways. but who longs for freedom more than a bird beating itself against what it thinks a cage? daein saw the world stretched before him from behind the glass window, kept knocking himself against it headfirst until he could break free. trod over the idea of pre-conceived destiny (dentistry? ha!). rip himself as far away from expectations as possible. for better or worse, daein has built this life for himself.

둘 the first dream that daein remembers having was summarily rejected. a secondary hobby for when he had time. it wasn’t connected to the idol life, and it wasn’t his bridge into the industry. it was hapkido. he had a talent for it, in the way that some kids do, where they’re the leader of their small after school hagwon class pack. he might not have had the makings for a real athletic star, but even if he had, daein thinks they wouldn’t have really cared. somewhere around this point, at twelve or thirteen, daein started to learn that he loved to harbor things that he shouldn’t. dreams, thoughts, interests. he reached toward the taboo simply because it was out of bounds. even now he’s not sure if he forced his way into some of the interests he likes, some of the eclectic music he prefers, or if it was all just a happy coincidence. he decided he liked horror movies. he decided ghosts were pretty neat. so were polaroid cameras, along with cutting up a good portion of those pictures to piece together strange mosaics. which led him to liking art. twisted up, inky designs of strange proportions. sometimes drawn on paper, and sometimes his own skin. frowny faces and  lopsided eyes decorating kneecaps or the back of his hands. he liked skateboarding next, along with the sting of skinned knees. singing came a little later when he was pushing sixteen, seventeen. it’s really luck that daein managed to find a way to lean into one of his strange proclivities. if not for koala.t, where he’d have ended up is a grand mystery. maybe forced into becoming his father’s successor. maybe staring at the clock from behind the cash register at a convenience mart. but nobody cares about those maybes except daein at three in the morning.

셋 daein started studying abroad if only to slip out from underneath his parents thumb. they weren’t possessively controlling, but they were the type that decided that they knew best. they were the type to push him toward some kind of productivity. to cluck at what they decided were poor decisions or to ream him out for coming how too late. even if that last one might’ve been a completely normal parental reaction, while they weren’t shoved to an extreme end of the spectrum, his father was still a disciplinarian. he wanted daein to get his act together. to find a path and drill down hard into it. work himself for the sake of work and follow along in what society deemed as an acceptable career path in the natural progression of things. but daein didn’t want to follow that. there was just something in him that kicked back against it. so he lied, just a bit. decided to start telling them in the later years of high school that he was interested in politics. that maybe becoming a diplomat could be his far reaching ambition. so he took language classes, applied to schools, and when it came tie for his last year of high school he was temporarily relocated into japan on a language learning transfer opportunity he’d found. not that his time spent there lasted all too long. a total of one year. that was the amount of time spent away from home where his father would still talk to him.

넷 his time spent in japan really only served to give daein the makings of a conversationalist in another language and a slew of new interests that would last for an obsessive few months. he didn’t really become invested in politics. he decided he’d prefer not to be a diplomat after all ( and truthfully, he wasn’t very well suited for the job ). so when his study abroad term reached the end he didn’t reapply, he instead chose to come back home and continue his education in korea. back to a happy mother and a mildly frustrated father, because why couldn’t daein get his life together? to pick a path and march steadily toward it, just like he had? but then daein did just that. only it was the wrong path. he’s always found that rather funny. the constant demand to do, do, do, except! not that one. anything but that one. maybe that’s why he picked it. why he saw that flyer hanging up near a noraebang he frequented with his friends for a defunct entertainment company and decided to go audition. just because it was the stark opposite of what they wanted from him. something he knew deep down in his gut. but he’s always been like that. they’ve always known he has been. going against the grain. so he auditioned., and he got in. accepted the offer and started marching down that path. a path that would take him away from his parents, or at least his father, in the end.

다섯 at the time, being in koala.t didn’t mean much of anything. there were no current idols in their roster, the whole company in a strange place. who could tell if their next attempt at a pop group would succeed? so it was a little funny, a little interesting. if his friends questioned him, daein would point out that he ‘probably wouldn’t end up debuting.’ or if he did, maybe it would be some huge disaster. it wasn’t like they didn’t have a company building though, didn’t have a handful of other male trainees he was expected to train with. and train like it was a job, even if daein was still in the mindset of half seeing the company as a joke. his grades suffered. an ultimatum kicked in from his father, continued financial support if he separated from the company and what was viewed as a below their level ambition, or else he’d cut off the money. it’s clear that daein opted to stay at the company. his father made good on his word. the money stopped, daein technically took ( and is still on ) an academic hiatus, and managed to get himself part time work during his off hours for training. if nitro didn’t end up coming together, didn’t end up succeeding ( even if they never were on a very explosive scale ) then daein isn’t sure how his life would’ve turned out. other thoughts that only daein thinks about, but this time at four in the morning.

여섯 eventually, nitro debuted. he hadn’t trained for an exceptionally long time. but it was long enough where he made for a passable dancer, where they’d equipped him with enough singing technique that they could slap the label of vocalist onto him. truthfully, it was hard. a fact that daein is slow to admit to. he’s on the older end of things, and has always preferred talking to others about their own problems than his own. he likes the idea of advice. he likes trying to solve problems like puzzles, the right solution that will click into place. but not usually for himself. he wanted to be away from his parents and the life that they’d wanted out of him. and he was. identity has always been a confusing thing to daein, despite the fact that he was always throwing himself after one. sometimes he feels like it’s evaporating even further now, when it feels like parts of his identity are being stripped away. replaced by something else, something more enjoyable for nitro’s fans. this strange, ephemeral peter pan of a boy. forever lost in neverland, the option and memories of returning home fading and fading. maybe he’ll feel less divided about it if they ever disappear entirely.

[monkeyandelf]

New Post has been published on https://www.monkeyandelf.com/2017-end-of-year-edition-in-depth-drowned-in-sound/

2017 End-of-Year Edition / In Depth // Drowned In Sound

Articulate Silences, Ambient Sounds is back. It’s a whole year since the last edition of this column, for which I can only apologise. I’ve been writing about music for around a decade now, usually for little or no monetary reward, and 2017 was the year in which I briefly gave up (almost unconsciously) in the midst of other stresses and strains. Leaving the mind-numbing time and energy black hole that is London in favour of the best city in the UK beginning with the letter “L” (that’s Leeds, obviously; sorry Leicester and Liverpool, I love you both too) in August was a turning point, providing me with a renewed enthusiasm for listening to – and writing about – new music. I fully intend the column to get back to being (semi-) regular again from this point on. If you make or release records that might be suitable for inclusion then email me at avantbland@gmail.com. I simply do not have time to reply to all my emails, but if you send me something clearly labelled as being for this column I will listen to it and – if I like it – I will write about it. You can also get in touch with me on Twitter, which I check more regularly, at @benjamin__bland. For now, have a round-up of some of this year’s highlights. This is nowhere near definitive, but it’s an insight into my favourite ambient releases from the last twelve months or so. I hope it provides you with some suitably contemplative listening material as 2017 bleeds into 2018. See you on the other side.

—

If I had to identify an ambient MVP of 2017 then it would – undoubtedly – have to be the folks at Eilean Records. Eilean has been going for four years now, and almost everything they release is extremely high quality (both musically and in terms of the presentation). 2017 might have been Eilean’s best year yet: sixteen releases, sixteen gems. Listen to them all. The newer releases have not received enough listens from me yet to identify which are my favourites, so I’ll make my life a little easier for now by highlighting the label’s first four releases of 2017. The first of those, Daniel W. J. Mackenzie’s Every Time Feels Like The Last Time, is a work of haunting modern composition, which culminates in the particularly heavenly ‘Smokey Quartz and Our Skin’.

Every Time Feels Like the Last Time by Daniel W J Mackenzie

Equally haunting, like a half-remembered dream brought back to life through stuttering tape recordings, is On The Brink, a collaboration between Josh Mason & Nathan McLaughlin, two masters of texture who both deserve to be far better known than they are.

On The Brink by Josh Mason & Nathan McLaughlin

Old Articulate Silences favourite Monolyth & Cobalt (aka. Matthias van Eecloo, who also runs Eilean) is bowing out (from this project at least) with the brilliant The Dunen Diaries. This is effectively a two-part release, with the second half being a selection of collaborations that build perfectly upon the beautifully elegiac foundations of the record’s first half. Essential.

The Dunen Diaries by Monolyth & Cobalt

9T Antiope’s Isthmus has been something of a revelation for me. This Iranian duo – composed of Nima Aghiani and Sara Bigdeli Shamloo – arrive with a sound that’s somewhere between Grouper’s hazy atmospherics and Jenny Hval’s deliciously unhinged feminist agitprop. The swooping violin loops of closer ‘Telophase’ – which might also tide over those who, like me, spend most of their lives waiting for a new Portishead LP – bring the record to a genuinely soul-stirring conclusion.

Isthmus by 9T Antiope

As long-term column readers will know, two of the most consistent ambient musicians operating today are also from Iran: Siavash Amini and Porya Hatami. Siavash’s latest release, TAR (Hallow Ground) is a storming follow-up to 2015’s Subsiding, which – if you missed it – is one of the best releases of the last decade or so. This new effort is pretty much on a par, reaching a coruscating high point on colossal second track ‘Rivers of Tar’.

SIAVASH AMINI – TAR by Siavash Amini

Porya’s new album, Monads (LINE), might be his most hypnotic effort to date, despite seeing him leave behind his previous focus on melodic ambient composition in favour of a work fitting the microsound focus of the LINE imprint. I’m often fairly ambivalent about work that fits in this category – “ambient glitch” for want of a better term – but this definitely resides in the upper tier of the style.

Monads by PORYA HATAMI

Sarah Davachi’s All My Circles Run (Students of Decay) might just be my favourite LP – of any genre – released in 2017. This is a step in a new direction from Davachi, who has previously impressed largely through her mastery of analogue synths. Here the attention is on electroacoustic composition, but the result is still recognisably Davachi’s. There’s a tonal warmth here that is unmistakably reminiscent of last year’s brilliant Vergers whilst still offering new textures.

All My Circles Run by Sarah Davachi

All My Circles Run’s focus on acoustically-generated sounds rather than on synths may mark something of a departure for Davachi, but thankfully there have been plenty of other places to get a dose of analogue goodness in the last twelve months. In fact, one need look no further than the debut full-length from Téléplasmiste, the duo of Strange Attractor Press head Mark O. Pilkington and Coil/Cyclobe collaborator Michael J. York. Frequency Is The New Ecstasy (House of Mythology) is a truly delightful synth-fuelled trip to a higher plain.

Frequency is the New Ecstasy by Teleplasmiste

The late-arriving trump card, in terms of synth-tastic outings, however, turned out to be Gardener’s sublime A Place Where Nothing Was, the first release from sometime Gnod member Alex Macarte’s new Golden Ratio Frequencies cassette label. An utterly captivating mix of synths with tape loops and field recordings from former Make Noise Synthesizers employee Dashiell Lewis, this certainly marks out Golden Ratio Frequencies as a label to follow closely in 2018, and Lewis one to look out for in the future.

A Place Where Nothing Was by Gardener

Another unmissable late release, Timo Kaukolampi’s I (SVART) is – at least in part – a tribute to former Pan Sonic/Ø legend Mika Vainio, who – as I’m sure most readers will know – sadly died earlier this year. This is a really remarkable first release, with Kaukolampi establishing himself as a gifted creator of widescreen spectral soundscapes. It’s a shame it turned up so close to the end of the year, thus running the risk of slipping through the net.

1 by Kaukolampi

Paris-based Japanese sound artist Tomoko Sauvage has been working with water for a decade now, exploring its sonic properties through the use of hydrophones, which transform the water’s various ripples and drops into music. Musique Hydromantique (Shelter Press) does feel genuinely musical, with Sauvage exploring her subject’s responses in various acoustic environments, each of which generates beautiful minimal soundscapes.

Musique Hydromantique by Tomoko Sauvage

Mary Lattimore, of course, works not with water but with the harp. In some ways, however, the effect is much the same. Lattimore’s is adept at creating pieces that manage to transcend their minimalist focus on a sound source, blossoming into captivatingly evocative multi-level compositions. Collected Pieces is technically a compilation of offcuts from recent years, but that certainly doesn’t make it uneven. In fact, for those unfamiliar, this is an essential introduction to an essential contemporary artist.

Collected Pieces by Mary Lattimore

Leyland Kirby’s The Caretaker project is winding towards its conclusion, and 2017 saw the release of the second and third stages of the mammoth closing statement, Everywhere At The End Of Time. Kirby’s sonic exploration of the progress of dementia, Everywhere At The End Of Time is already a work of enormous significance, only set to become more and more heartbreakingly effective in 2018. You can subscribe to the work for a mere five pounds via Kirby’s own History Always Favours the Winners imprint on Bandcamp.

Everywhere at the end of time by The Caretaker

Followers of Kirby may also have noticed that he slipped something else out this year, the astonishing (free!) gift that is We, So Tired Of All the Darkness In Our Lives. The title sums it up.

We, so tired of all the darkness in our lives by Leyland Kirby

For a more comprehensive (seventy-five track) round-up, including bigger names – not least the predictably fantastic new records from 12k guru Taylor Deupree and from Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS – I’ve created a (ten and a half hour!) Spotify playlist of other highlights from the year. I hope it leads you to many more discoveries.

I must, alas, finish the column on a sombre note. Not only did we lose the legendary Mika Vainio this year, but we must also recognise the passing of the enormously talented young Swedish composer Marcus Fjellström, who sadly died in September, just a few months after the release of his last record, Skelektikon. RIP Marcus and Mika. You will both be missed.

Skelektikon by Marcus Fjellström

Onko by Mika Vainio

Articulate Silences, Ambient Sounds will return in 2018.


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[relationaltherapist]

Just One Thing: Simple practices for resilient happiness.

What's your deepest nature? The Practice: Be Home. Throughout history, people have wondered about human nature. Deep down, are we basically good or bad? Recently, science is beginning to offer a persuasive answer. When the body is not disturbed by hunger, thirst, pain, or illness, and when the mind is not disturbed by threat, frustration, or rejection, then most people settle into their resting state, a sustainable equilibrium in which the body refuels and repairs itself and the mind feels peaceful, happy, and loving. I call this our Responsive mode of living. It is our home base, which is wonderful news. We are still engaged with the world, still participating with pleasure and passion, but on the basis of a background sense of safety, sufficiency, and connection. But when body or mind are disturbed – perhaps by overwork and fatigue, or by the cough of a nearby lion a million years ago or a frown across a dinner table today – Mother Nature has endowed us with hair-trigger mechanisms that drive us from home by activating fight-or-flight systems in the body and related mental states of fear and anger, disappointment and drivenness, and loneliness, shame, and spite. When we experience chronic stress (even if it’s mild), this state of affairs – in which the body gets worn down and depleted, and the mind gets frazzled, pressured, prickly, worried, and blue – becomes the new normal, a kind of ongoing inner homelessness. It is the Reactive mode of living, a disturbance of physical and psychological equilibrium that helped our ancestors survive to see the sunrise – but which undermines well-being, wears douwn long-term health, and shortens the lifespan. These two modes of living, Responsive and Reactive, are the foundation of human nature. We have no choice about the vital aims they serve – avoiding harms, approaching rewards, and attaching to others – nor about the brain’s capacity to be in either mode. Our only choice is which mode we’re in. Happily, the Responsive mode is the resting state, the default, of body and mind. It’s what you return to when you’re not rattled. In the language of systems theory, the Responsive mode is the most fundamental “strange attractor” in the dynamic processes of your brain. Therefore, this mode is your underlying nature – not the Reactive one. You don’t have to scratch and claw your way to the mountaintop; if whatever is disturbing you comes to an end, you’ll soon come home to the lovely sunny meadow that has always been here – even if was hidden by the fogs and shadows of a troubled body or mind. Your deepest nature is peace not hatred, happiness not greed, love not heartache, and wisdom not confusion. As soon as you have a sense of home . . . you are home! Because body and mind are inclined toward the Responsive mode, any sense of ease in the body or feeling of calm, contentment, or caring in the mind will start activating some Responsive circuits in your brain. This will naturally light up associated circuits with a cascading, snowballing effect throughout the Responsive network. Your body and mind want to come home: that’s where energy is conserved for the marathon of life, where learning is consolidated, where resources are built rather than expended, and where pains and traumas are healed. Your whole being is always leaning toward home. Can you let yourself tip forward into your deepest nature? The Be Home Meditation Let it sink in that your human nature is to be peaceful, happy, loving, and wise. Be at home in your body. Take a breath and exhale slowly, abiding as a body relaxing. Get a sense of being in this body, inhabiting it. Nothing needs to be a particular way for you to be at home in it. For example, whether it is tall or short, heavy or light, young or old – you can find an immediacy, presence, and familiarity with this body as it is that feels like coming home. Be at home in your senses. Be aware of sounds coming and going, known without effort. Pick a touch or taste, and allow yourself for some seconds to be at home in it. Be at home in actions. In the simple reaching for a cup, be present in it. Keep noticing the workingness of an action, that it is being successful and thus safe to give yourself wholly over to it. Be at home here, wherever you are. Take some seconds to become familiar with it. Let go into truly being in this setting, this location. Be at home in this moment, right now. Be present with whatever is happening. Let there be a sense of arriving. Again and again. Be at home in life, being the ripe fruit of three and a half billion years of evolution, cousin to every other living thing – even sharing about a fifth of our DNA with that of a banana! Be at home in this universe. We are here in this Milky Way galaxy distinct from several hundred billion other ones, now about 13.7 billion years after the universe began, built from stardust, cousin as well to every physical thing, awash in the sea of quantum foam that is our common nature. If it is meaningful for you, be at home in your personal sense of Whatever may transcend the material universe. Perhaps an intuition of that which is unconditioned always just prior to conditioned phenomena, or a perception of a kind of light shining through the stained glass of our lives, or a knowing of a presence you call God or by no name at all. For most of our time on this planet, people usually spent their lives within a few hundred miles of where they were born, doing much the same thing each day with the same people in their band or village, embedded in a culture that changed little from century to century. These external factors provided a stable sense of home – but they are largely tattered, even shattered today. Be confident and happy that your growing internal sense of home is your anchor and refuge amidst the jostling currents in the stream of economic and social changes we live in these days. Know what it feels like to be at home. Knowing the sense of home is like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that will help you come home again. It’s good to be home. Just one thing that could change your life. (© Rick Hanson, 2017)

[lawrence9gold]

A Few Words on the Faces and Focal Points of the TetraSeed | A Little Surprise | The Archesoma

I recognize that it may be helpful to bring the TetraSeed into more familiar terms by looking at each of its features. Starting with Memory, as I believe it to be the most accessible to you, friendly reader.

MEMORY

Memory is nothing but the persistence of things. No persistence, no memory. If you can find it, it's persistent somewhere and in some way.

Memory is the persisting of the impression of an experience after the passing of the experience.

That definition applies even to computer memory or memory metal (used in eyeglasses): computer memory retains patterns of ones and zeroes; it is the pattern that it retains. Another medium than silicone wafer circuits could just as easily, and perhaps even better retain a pattern of ones and zeros. The medium doesn't matter; it's the pattern.

Memory metal exhibits similar behavior of pattern-retention: it retains its form, returns to it even when distorted by force. It's pattern, retained.

Does that bring it home, for you?

Memory is persistence of a pattern of some sort, even a persistence of a pattern of patterns, of movements, the corresponding sensations, patterns of function, patterns of behavior, patterns of relationship, of experience, of habits, of destiny.

That leads us to the next Element.

IMAGINATION

Imagination is open-ness to being strangely attracted in some direction. Another term for this is, eros. Thanks to Walt Disney, imagination has been brought before the public; he pointed to imagination as something alive. He highlighted it.

He was a pioneer of the animation of the imagination in his cartoons and the feature movies released in his lifetime.

He set a direction.

Imagination is about direction. "Direction", is an abstraction because, although the word, direction, usually awakens an intuitive impulse to move "outwardly" ( doesn't it ); it has no content, in itself, does it? "Outwardly", in this sense, means, "into form", whether internal/subjective or external/objective.

And it's an opening outward because it's always a movement from the known ( memory ) into the unknown. If it isn't moving outwardly from memory, it's memory, not imagination.

Imagination is a pregnant pause. Imagination is like a woman: she may be beckoned by our patient receptivity, primed by our attention, but never yields to our immediate insistance -- and then comes unexpectedly. Imagination is like that. Imagination doesn't come "from" us; it comes "to" us. We may then hold it by making the imagining tangible, which is to say, persistent. We make the imagining persist, and when we do that, it becomes, Memory.

Anciently, this feminine personage of the imagination has been given the name, "muse", an inspiring female who arouses great things of a human's potential, which s/he must then bring alive, make tangible, make persist, bring to life. Muse and music: where do they come from? Pregnant Mystery

Thus does IMAGINATION feed into MEMORY.

Feel the light go on? That may have been your first feeling of "synergy", occurring. That feeling of synergy is the appearance of a "strange attractor" in "psychic space". And what it attracts is

ATTENTION

Attention locates strange attractors (which are all TetraSeeds of myriad Synergies). Strange Attractors have a "smell". Attention is like a nose. Yes, a nose, and it sniffs out Strange Attractors, the way a truffle pig sniffs out truffles.

Follow your nose. Follow your nose. You do. You do.

In fact you can't help but follow your nose.

Even if you follow your ear, you end up pointing your nose the same direction and your nose leads the way. And if you follow your nose, you really follow your nose.

Things that go in your nose really get attention. Don't they? Chanel #5, the smell of pork barbeque?  a gnat? We'll let that be that.

Attention is a pointer. Attention locates. Always, attention locates.

What does attention locate? anything with a location, in terms of any of the senses

Attention is a locator-pointer.

However, attention may be waveringly or steadily "ON-OBJECT", attention may be narrow and intense 

or open and lightweight

or diffused or dissolved.

or highly coherent (attention steadily cohering ON-OBJECT).

INTENSITY of ATTENTION is related to INTENSITY of INTENTION.

The primal intention is, activity

What we call, "being" is really, "becoming".

No activity, no existence. Absolute zero. The Center of the Black Hole, 

no communication out or in.

Activity is Existence and Existence is Activity.

Intense attention yields more detail, remembered and also recognized by memory.

Attention burns impressions into memory according to its intensity,

the more deeply, more densely

the more intense the attention.

Activity is existence and only activity is existence.

ATTENTION consolidates MEMORY according to its INTENSITY

Feel that? another synergy, another strange attractor

sniff, sniff, sniff

INTENTION

Intention intends movement, activity, or change.

(sniff, sniff, sniff)

Intention has no momentum of its own; that is supplied by memory/persistence.

It has no direction of its own, of any kind until pointed to by imagination, 

imagination perhaps bolstered by memory.

(sometimes not so bolstered by memory, as dreams of the imagination may evaporate as we wake)

Intention is the synergetic emergent of 

ATTENDING TO, "REMEMBERING IMAGINING". 

To do all three, simultaneously, spontaneously activates intention.

another synergy

(sniff, sniff, sniff)

You've activated all Four. How do you like it? Want some more. I thought you would. Now, you know what goes into the TetraSeed transformation procedures: The Four, inner and outer.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3ebra7zkKR0/WOgXMgEb3uI/AAAAAAAABY0/XM_ggKdpqnQ2d5_Qp2CPhpPVKcpanB6IgCLcB/s320/TetraSeed%252C%2Bintegrated%2BMerkaba.jpg via Blogger http://lawrencegoldsomatics.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-few-words-on-faces-and-focal-points.html

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Painting Isn’t Dead! It’s Just Slow

Installation view of “Quicktime” (2017), Rosendwald-Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia (all images courtesy Studio LHOOQ)

PHILADELPHIA — When I read that Quicktime would be the name of the latest exhibition at Rosendwald-Wolf Gallery, Apple’s video editing software of the same name crossed my mind. Video actually has nothing to do with the show. The exhibition includes abstract paintings, most of them large, all finished quickly, by five different painters.

Quicktime takes its cue from Raphael Rubinstein’s “Provisional Painting,” published in the May 2009 issue of Art in America. In the essay, Rubinstein discusses a handful of artists — Albert Oehlen and Mary Heilmann among them— who seem to “turn away from ‘strong’ painting” in favor of works “that look casual, dashed-off, tentative, unfinished or self-cancelling.” Joan Miró, who rejected the idea of the “finished, durable work,” represents an early practitioner of “provisional painting” for Rubinstein.

Patricia Treib, who has two works in oil on canvas in the show, finishes a painting the day she starts it, and strives to work with what’s in front of her, in the spirit of improvisation. As she said in an interview with Joe Fyfe:

I want the work to appear as if it’s about to change or is in the process of shifting. I want there to be moments of ambiguity as to where one form ends and another form begins. A shifting quality as to the points of contact between things, clear assertions of one thing meeting another, but contradiction in terms of them existing all at the same time. There’s an absurdity to it.

In “Le Smoking” (2012) and “Camera (I)” (2013), the pronounced brushstrokes visualize the physicality of the paintings and emphasize “the process of shifting” that interests Treib. Her surfaces are generally flat and the thin oil paint occasionally contains tiny clumps of debris or brush hairs. The sides of “Le Smoking” seem smudged with soot, as if handled by a chimney sweep.

Like Treib’s brush strokes, Melissa Meyer’s paintings, reminiscent of 1980s subway graffiti, reflect the body’s movement during the creation of the painting. Meyer paints on the floor and works in oil thinned to the consistency of watercolor. There are no clumps of paint that could slow the eye down as it moves across the work. The title and contrast between the purple, black, and white in “Draw the Line” (2015) emphasize the clusters of movement on the canvas.

“Walk the Line” (2011), rewards the viewer with extended looking. Underneath the more dominant blues, pinks, and oranges, there are subtle cream squares in the lower corners and the middle. The painter wants us to stand there a while. This is a good challenge — how many viewers actually have the patience or stamina to stand and look at something that isn’t giving them a scattershot feed of information? Everything belongs on that canvas, not because an algorithm determined it, but because the artist put it there.

Installation view of “Quicktime” (2017), Rosendwald-Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia

The biomorphic shapes in “Mars Arms” and “Sooty Sweat” (both 2016) by Amy Feldman felt like alien beings that drew me in. In both, Feldman’s brushstrokes are short and quick. “Sooty Sweat” might just have the thickest paint in the entire show, while the lines in “Mars Arms,” though imperfect, convey austerity.

The anagrammatic title of “Mars Arms” is wonderfully suggestive. Saying it aloud, I think of the arms of Mars, which could either embrace or push away. However, there is no possessive apostrophe in the title. These aren’t Mars’s arms, after all. It seems more likely that these shapes are the arms (weapons) for the Roman god of war. Feldman’s rendering of the straight and curved lines, along with the small openings in the biomorphic shape, remind me of the mazes that I used to love doing as a child. Is that part of Mars’s plan? Perhaps Feldman’s work is half as dark as I’m suggesting. If the title were more bland, “Untitled,” say, or “Gray and Gray,” then I would read less into the shape Feldman presents.

All of this Mars business gets more intriguing with Marina Adams’s “What Venus Said to Mars” (2016) hanging catty-corner from Feldman’s work. Adams’s painting, in acrylic on linen, creates a vulvic center with contrasting orange and blue diamond shapes. The title, once again, plays a determining role in the reading of the painting. According to ancient Roman mythology, Venus and Mars engaged in an adulterous affair. Interestingly, Renaissance depictions of their love show Mars unarmed. Does their love bring an end to violence, or is it simply a small respite from what’s to come?

Caroline Wells Chandler, “Strange Attractor for Agnes Martin” (2017), hand crocheted assorted woo, 70 x 73 inches (178 x 185 cm)

Adams’s painting resonates with Caroline Wells Chandler’s “Strange Attractor for Agnes Martin” (2017), which hangs in the gallery’s display window on Broad Street. (Chandler’s work is not part of Quicktime.) Chandler, who trained as a painter, but has recently been working on large crochet figures that explore various dimensions of gender, depicts a female figure in crochet, seemingly bent in half at the waist, exposing her vulva. The difference, of course, is that Adams’s work involves a female saying something to a male, while Chandler references lesbianism by way of Agnes Martin. Rosenwald-Wolf’s decision to display Chandler’s work in their Broad Street window, in affiliation with Lord Ludd, is a smart, visible challenge to gender norms in the era of Trump.

In a show that’s predominately focused on abstract paintings, Ann Craven’s work offers a contrasting perspective. All three of her works are high gloss and involve trees. “Tree (Purple Beech, Cushing, 8-22-13, 10PM)” (2013) seems to fit the dialogue created by the other paintings in the show. The tree in this picture is like a large, dark mass coming out of the surface of the painting. In the upper right portion of the circular mass of limbs and leaves, a bit of blue breaks through, adding some variation to the coloring. Craven inserts some surreal humor with a trunk that’s disconnected from the ground. Perhaps it’s the inclusion of the moon in the other two paintings, but they would make more sense as part of another conversation.

Quicktime’s focus on abstract painting by women is refreshing. Certainly, there are a number of artists — Bruce Nauman comes to mind — that have explored time and duration in their work, but Nauman usually works with video. The passage of time is less visible in painting — the canvas does not move.

Installation view of “Quicktime” (2017), Rosendwald-Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia

If Adams’s works seem more labor intensive than some of the others, the look of the paintings, as she has said, is the result of years of work as a painter. Just as Adams took a long time to arrive at the work she’s doing now, we have to be patient and look for a while, say, longer than seventeen seconds, before we can see what it might mean to move quickly. Painting, right now, seems to me one of the more radical gestures by an artist. It’s equally so for the spectator; sometimes quicktime is actually the result of a longtime. Is it not radical to say, I’m going to stand here and look? I’m going to stand here and think.

Quicktime continues at Rosendwald-Wolf Gallery (333 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) through April 22.

The post Painting Isn’t Dead! It’s Just Slow appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[felinevomitus]

Interview: Joe Banks + Disinformation

Joe Banks is a sound artist, author and researcher, originally specialising in radio phenomena and electromagnetic noise. For over twenty years Joe has been performing, releasing albums and exhibiting under the guise of Disinformation. This Disinformation brand name allows for a critique of corporate identities and modern communication, and uses a sonic palette sourced from errant radio waves, natural earth signals, and interference from the sun and from the National Grid, etc. In 2012, Joe published “Rorschach Audio – Art and Illusion for Sound” on Strange Attractor press, a book that explored the subject of EVP (ghost voice) research in contemporary sound art practice. Joe’s work currently focusses on language and evolutionary neuroscience. Joe lives in London, 40 metres from the spot where physicist Leo Szilard conceived the theory of the thermonuclear chain reaction.

For more information, please visit https://rorschachaudio.com/about/ All images courtesy of the artist. 

………………

Ilia Rogatchevski: Disinformation began in the mid-1990s. What was the conceptual reasoning behind branding your creative output, rather than just making works under your given name? Has the conceptual framework behind the Disinformation handle changed or shifted in the last twenty years?

Joe Banks: To clarify when it was that all this activity started, the first Disinformation solo releases were published by the record company Ash International – an imprint of Touch Records – in 1996. The first collaborative recording, where I contributed Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio noise, to a track by Andrew Lagowski’s SETI project, appeared on a compilation CD called “Mesmer Variations” in 1995, and that contribution is credited to Disinformation in the printed CD sleeve-notes.

The name Disinformation works well for performing concerts and publishing LP and CD tracks, but was intended as much as a brand name. At the time I was interested in exploring ideas around corporate communications, logo design, corporate identities and branding. The name Disinformation also suggests parallels with philosophical concepts like the Liar Paradox and so-called Strange Loop. The name is also useful in collaborating with other artists. Creating collaborative artworks and publishing under the authorship of “Joe Banks” could arguably be misleading for audiences and disrespectful to collaborating artists.

If I’m writing research, obviously I have to publish using my own name. However, I’m also careful to not just acknowledge, but to actively advertise all the inspirations and sources that I make use of, in terms of the artists who’ve inspired my artworks, and the authors of material used in research work like the “Rorschach Audio” project.

As for the name itself, with all this talk of “post truth” politics, “fake news”, and Michael Fallon’s recent statement about “weaponising misinformation”, if anything, the idea of encouraging scepticism is more prescient now than it has been at any point in the last twenty years.

IR: What attracted you to using sound as a medium? I’m particularly interested in finding out what your gateway to experimenting with radio waves (VLF, ELF, Noise from the sun and and the National Grid) was. What creative potential do you see in radio?

JB: Part of the appeal of making sonic art using VLF radio noise was that on the one hand the imagery associated with VLF is just extraordinary – electric and magnetic storms, radio science, electricity, space physics, communications science, defence electronics, etc. On the other hand the techniques required to record these phenomena are technically straightforward and cheap to realise. It was really about research, about ideas, and a creative thought-process, rather than being about technology as such.

IR: In the past you’ve described your work as being akin to natural wildlife recording. Do you find that recording storms or interference places you in a similar realm of debate as soundscape studies and acoustic ecology? Do you see interference, i.e. your source material, to be a pollutant on our (sonic) landscape?

JB: The idea of presenting recordings of electromagnetic interference as a form of wildlife recording is important, but only really applies to a few Disinformation tracks – unprocessed, un-remixed field recordings like “Theophany” (meaning “The Voice of God”), “Stargate” [both from the “Stargate” LP, 1996] and “Ghost Shells” [12”, 1996] for instance, and, later on the “London Underground” and “Bexleyheath to Dartford” tracks [from “Sense Data & Perception”, 2005], but the idea’s still relevant.

Compared to the acoustic ecology movement, part of the artistic strategy was to poke fun at some of these over-romanticised conventions about what’s considered “natural”. The idea that any electrical activity, and, even more so, any human activity, is or can be part of nature goes against the more sentimental notions that some people project onto what they see as being nature.

In contrast, it’s about stressing how electricity is an aspect of the natural world, as opposed to being exclusively and purely a product of technology, and about stressing how human activity is part of nature – stressing these facts as a positive, as an expression of idealism, to question traditional ideas about how we’re seen as distinct from other species and from the rest of the natural world.

IR: Reading through some of the materials you sent me, I’ve noticed that you place great emphasis on copyrighting your work, images, sounds and ideas. While this is not uncommon, I’m interested to find out what your relationship is to appropriation, synchronicity and originality in art? In the example of Tacita Dean’s ‘Sound Mirrors’, is it possible that there was overlap in interests, rather than outright theft of intellectual property? Have there been other examples where your work has been subjected to misuse or appropriation without your consent?

JB: It seems pretty obvious that from time to time artists do independently re-discover aspects of each others’ ideas, in good faith, so-to-speak. It seems equally obvious that problems with genuine rip-offs have as much to do with issues of professional and personal courtesy and common sense as they have to do with actual copyright law, but, to be honest, I don’t think there is any more emphasis on copyright in my work than you’d find in any mainstream cultural product.

It’s more a question of not being naive about the fact that today’s avant-garde cultural experiments become tomorrow’s mainstream and trying to protect yourself from exploitation in that context. Copyright is far too complex a subject to do justice to here, but I notice that in your own material you talk about being influenced by the Situationist writer Guy Debord, who is perceived as a famous, almost legendary, opponent of copyright.

What is less well-known is that Guy Debord, his partner Alice Becker-Ho and Debord’s friend, Gianfranco Sanguinetti, all asserted and defended their own copyrights when they felt their ideas were being misused (and this is well documented on a pro-Situ website called “Not Bored“).

As a case in point, from 1999 to 2006 my research project “Rorschach Audio” generated between £0 and £150 per year, mostly in lecture fees. Then, after successfully fending-off a number of fairly blatant copyists, from 2007 to 2012 the project attracted £234,000 in AHRC funding. Suffice to say that I only got to see a small portion of that funding in terms of personal salary, but this does show how much ideas can go on to become worth, even, in some cases, after years of being marginalised and ignored.

IR: I’ve been reading “Rorschach Audio” with great interest and while I consider the subject of EVP to be a bit of a red herring, I wonder if you’ve come to a consensus regarding the reason why artists are attracted to and get sucked into working with EVP? Is there anything beyond the grief/loss factor or the lo-fi aesthetic?

JB: The Electronic Voice Phenomena – ghost voice – belief system is just so blatantly false that when I first got involved with sonic art my attitude to EVP was outright hostile. I didn’t become interested in EVP until it became apparent that the psychological processes which enable people to mishear poor-quality voice recordings as ghosts, are, in themselves, more interesting than the recordings themselves. But it never ceases to amaze me how many people in electronic music, alternative and mainstream art, even academia, seem sympathetic to the idea that EVP recordings are actual ghosts.

One reason, perhaps, that a few people get attracted to EVP, is, frankly but honestly, because they flunked science at school, so they don’t seem to understand why it is that using a bit of made-up technical jargon and messing around with electronic recording technology isn’t enough to make EVP experiments “scientific”.

From time to time, and particularly among some artists, you also come up against a kind of postmodernism-by-numbers, which is so anti-rational that some people don’t seem to understand what science is, why science is important, or how science works; who have little concept of the distinction between science and technology, and no concept of science being a methodology first and foremost.

Obviously bereavement can be a genuine motive, but in some cases artists choose to work with EVP because it seems to challenge conventional thinking, albeit on a very superficial level. And because EVP recordings are just really easy to make.

IR: How has your research developed since the publication of “Rorschach Audio” in 2012? I get a sense that you’re moving into a more language-focused direction. Is the technology that’s responsible for most electronic music now playing a smaller part in your practice?

JB: I should stress that I’m actively continuing to exhibit and to develop all the existing work; also, since 2012, a great deal of new material has been published on the “Rorschach Audio” website. “Rorschach Audio” features have been published in places as diverse as the lifestyle magazine of the Soho House hotel chain and “The Psychologist” – the magazine of the British Psychological Society.

Having said that, you’re absolutely spot-on – whereas in the early days “Rorschach Audio” focussed on illusions of sound, as the project progressed, the focus shifted towards illusions of language, then to language more generally. Technology itself has never really been the prime focus – as the “Rorschach Audio” book says, “the earliest form of sound recording technology was not a machine but was written language”.

Even when I was producing sound art almost exclusively with VLF radios, even that work was really about radio as a sensory extension. It was about psychology of perception, and this is something that makes this work qualitatively different from most work by artists who’ve used electromagnetic noise. It’s what Geoffrey Grigson called “the electricity of the mind”… it’s about excitement… it’s about ideas.

In light of what you say, if I may I’d also encourage your readers to check out an article I wrote about evolutionary neuroscience, with the subtitle “visual reality is in itself a carefully constructed optical illusion”, for the website of the AXNS [Art X Neuroscience] Collective (see below). That is one I’m particularly proud of, not least because it’s almost exclusively about visual perception, and, in fact, because it says almost nothing about sound at all.

AXNS Article Part 1 | AXNS Article Part 2

Ilia Rogatchevski Originally conducted for Resonance 104.4fm in November 2016 Published by Ear Room, 4 March 2017

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON NITRO’S LEAD VOCAL AND LEAD DANCE LAI XIANG...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: Xin CURRENT AGE: 26 DEBUT AGE: 19 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 18 COMPANY: Koala.t SECONDARY SKILL: Korean language and pronunciation (has phonetic skill and mastery in korean and a large vocabulary)

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): xiaoxi INSPIRATION: he looked up to gemini and 4ce who inspired him to pursue becoming an idol SPECIAL TALENTS: 

“impossible” to scare ( will walk through a haunted house laughing, is still during jumpscares, etc.). 

is a better-than-average artist

can read palms ( he can’t actually, but when he’s asked to for shows he predicts outlandishly fake futures )

NOTABLE FACTS:

can speak mandarin and korean fluently, is conversational in english

has a large following and fanbase in china

a lot of his solo promotions are done to appease said fanbase ( such as chinese releases on his soundcloud for free )

is extremely active on social media

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

his current goals are much of the same. to keep propelling himself forward as much as he can. to try and keep pushing nitro up and toward more popularity. they’re not a projectile missile of a group, not like atlas or olympus. but they’re getting there. putting koala.t back on the map. making a name for themselves. and after all this time, xiang does want to do that. make a name for himself. for his group. scrawl out some kind of a legacy to leave behind. an imprint of who he is. music and all.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

xiang wants to gain enough momentum that he can eventually carry that fame back over to china if need be. he’s been contacted a few times by chinese companies trying to pull him back to his home country, sign there and cut ties with koala.t. but he’s content where he’s at right now, it was the path he chose ( even if it hadn’t been the most well thought out of plans ). but he wants it there as a stable option for himself. with his family still out of the picture, he needs some way to keep his current skill set pushing him forward – and in all honesty, china is a much better bet for him than korea is as far as longevity is concerned.

IDOL IMAGE

xiang in image and in role is used as a collector. he’s essentially a tool in fan outreach, something that had been pre-planned, from his place of birth to how his personality is shaped and used to the company’s advantage on screen. koala.t has built and launched his entire brand based off of this. xiang is sure that they didn’t decide to put him into their new flagship group just because he was talented, because he had a knack for korean. whatever amount of talent he had was seen as a bonus. the valuable piece that xiang holds is his appeal in china. while nitro doesn’t branch out and promote in china, xiang is still given ample room to use social media and regularly creates or releases songs in mandarin on his soundcloud. despite his promotions almost entirely centering in korea, xiang has managed to amass quite an international following in china. and china has quite an expansive market if one is able to chisel into it. xiang’s real value is his following, and with the knowledge that they would let him try and reach out to his home country after debuting, his stage persona was crafted to meet and blend with that.

in nitro, he’s the member people might point to and declare a stan attractor. the one who pulls interest into the group, even if they end up hopscotching off to bias another member in the end of things. so step one was to sell this image, a split between hardworking and 4d in a toned down, palatable sort of way. the kind of guy who was quick to talk, the kind of guy who was personable, who made you want to keep talking. who had no reservations chatting away to show hosts or describing nitro’s latest comeback. a knack for languages paired with a language classes that focused specifically on phonology in tandem with grammar meant that they could use pronunciation as a talking point to draw in initial interest. it was just xiang’s job to make it stick after.

he was given a stage name, something that they decided fit with his concept more. was told which parts of his personality he was allowed to play up ( not being afraid of ghosts? great, let the members cling while you laugh during the haunted house xiang, that’s great ), and those he wasn’t ( cut the sarcasm and macabre humor, we need to appeal to the thirteen year olds ). a dose of humor, a loud effect to his voice that’s often lost later when the camera clicks off. he wasn’t a boy next door, but he was a boy you found yourself staring at. interested in. styled in a peter pan, never grow up fashion with a mischievous bite underneath that pixie-dust appeal and koala.t has put out a couple of ‘can you believe it?’ articles regarding his age.

there’s more behind the lens. behind the glamour. but xiang’s been in the industry long enough to know that you’re only supposed to share certain parts of yourself with the public. because for all the fans shout and clamor and say they’ll love you forever. love you no matter what. it’s a lie. all it takes is one new fact that rubs them the wrong way, and you’re passed over. petitioned out. at least when it came to him, koala.t looked to see what parts they had cast him for and pulled them to the forefront. not everything about xiang’s image is fake. but it’s overplayed, exaggerated. sometimes to the point where he gets sick of himself. overlaid with white lies that settle better with the fans. stains hidden. an illusion of perfection - but sometimes it’s a nice feeling.

IDOL HISTORY

一 born in tianshui to wealthy parents, xiang’s life should have been easy. it, perhaps, has been. but that all depends on who you ask. they weren’t fit with golden spoons, but his father was a well respected doctor with his own practice, and xiang was expected to follow those pre-trodden footsteps in some manner or another. if not in the field of medicine, then in some other highly regarded career. lawyer, maybe. something that would allow for him to continuously climb that ladder of success, provide opportunities for the next generation in the lai family. it is apparent now, looking back, that xiang has failed all but miserably in their request. his story could perhaps be seen as predictable in some ways. but who longs for freedom more than a bird beating itself against what it thinks a cage? xiang saw the world stretched before him from behind the glass window, kept knocking himself against it headfirst until he could break free. trod over the idea of pre-conceived destiny. rip himself as far away from expectations as possible. for better or worse, xiang has built this life for himself.

二 the first dream that xiang remembers having was summarily rejected. a secondary hobby for when he had time. it wasn’t connected to the idol life, and it wasn’t his bridge into the industry. it was soccer. he had a talent for it, in the way that some kids do, where they’re chosen first for pickup games. he might not have had the makings for a real athletic star, but even if he had, xiang thinks they wouldn’t have really cared. somewhere around this point, at twelve or thirteen, xiang started to learn that he loved to harbor things that he shouldn’t. dreams, thoughts, interests. he reached toward the taboo simply because it was out of bounds. even now he’s not sure if he forced his way into some of the interests he likes, some of the eclectic music he prefers, or if it was all just a happy coincidence. he decided he liked horror movies. he decided ghosts were pretty neat. so were polaroid cameras, along with cutting up a good portion of those pictures to piece together strange mosaics. which led him to liking art. twisted up, inky designs of strange proportions. sometimes drawn on paper, and sometimes his own skin. frowny faces and  lopsided eyes decorating kneecaps or the back of his hands. he liked skateboarding next, along with the sting of skinned knees. singing came a little later when he was pushing sixteen, seventeen. it’s really luck that xiang managed to find a way to lean into one of his strange proclivities. if not for koala.t, where he’d have ended up is a grand mystery. maybe forced into becoming his father’s successor. maybe staring at the clock from behind the cash register at a convenience mart. but nobody cares about those maybes except xiang at three in the morning.

三 xiang started studying abroad if only to slip out from underneath his parents thumb. they weren’t possessively controlling, but they were the type that decided that they knew best. they were the type to push him toward some kind of productivity. to cluck at what they decided were poor decisions or to ream him out for coming how too late. even if that last one might’ve been a completely normal parental reaction, while they weren’t shoved to an extreme end of the spectrum, his father was still a disciplinarian. he wanted xiang to get his act together. to find a path and drill down hard into it. work himself for the sake of work and follow along in what society deemed as an acceptable career path in the natural progression of things. but xiang didn’t want to follow that. there was just something in him that kicked back against it. so he lied, just a bit. decided to start telling them in the later years of high school that he was interested in politics. that maybe becoming a diplomat could be his far reaching ambition. so he took language classes, applied to schools, and when it came tie for university he was temporarily relocated into korea.politics major, korean language minor. not that his time spent there lasted all too long. a total of one year. that was the amount of time spent away from home where his father would still talk to him.

四 xiang didn’t move to korea with this hidden agenda idea that he would become an idol. he moved because he wanted to get away. even if it was for a few years. even if he didn’t care about any of the classes he sat through. he’d been bright enough to pull his weight, to keep his father filled in and happy about the grades he was pulling. he spent a lot of time in clubs too. making friends, sometimes making more than friends. frequenting karaoke bars after too many drinks. this was what gave him the push forward. he went with a couple of friends, and one of them had told him he might as well go to the open audition koala.t was holding near the campus. if only for kicks, because one of the girls bet him they’d let him in on his babyface alone. xiang had never been the type to turn away from the prospect of adventure and so he went. he didn’t expect to get picked up. he was out of high school, figured he was too old. his korean not yet good enough, and he didn’t really have an expansive background in dance. but maybe his baby face was good for something after all. because they did sign him on as a trainee.

五 at the time, being in koala.t didn’t mean much of anything. there were no current idols in their roster, the whole company in a strange place. who could tell if their next attempt at a pop group would succeed? so it was a little funny, a little interesting. if his friends questioned him, xiang would point out that he ‘probably wouldn’t end up debuting.’ or if he did, maybe it would be some huge disaster. it wasn’t like they didn’t have a company building though, didn’t have a handful of other male trainees he was expected to train with. and train like it was a job, even if xiang was still in the mindset of half seeing the company as a joke. his grades suffered. the truth came out. an ultimatum kicked in from his father, continued financial support if he separated from the country and what was viewed as a below their level ambition, or else he’d cut off the money. it’s clear that xiang opted to stay at the company. his father made good on his word. the money stopped, xiang technically took ( and is still on ) an academic hiatus, and managed to get himself part time under the table work tutoring college students in mandarin during his off hours for training. if nitro didn’t end up coming together, didn’t end up succeeding ( even if they never were ona very explosive scale ) then xiang isn’t sure how his life would’ve turned out. other thoughts that only xiang thinks about, but this time at four in the morning.

六 eventually, nitro debuted. he hadn’t trained for an exceptionally long time. but it was long enough where he made for a passable dancer, where they equip him with enough singing technique that they could slap the label of main vocal onto him. truthfully, it was hard. a fact that xiang is slow to admit to. he’s on the older end of things, and has always preferred talking to others about their own problems than his own. he likes the idea of advice. he likes trying to solve problems like puzzles, the right solution that will click into place. but not usually for himself. he wanted to be away from his parents and the life that they’d wanted out of him. and he was. but he was also removed from what he still considers to be his home. a language he’s used to speaking taking a backseat, revisited only in moments where koala.t says it’s acceptable, plays into his brand. songs on soundcloud? fine. tiny instagram stories in mandarin? also okay. but make sure you phase back to korean, so that the domestic fans don’t get angry. identity has always been a confusing thing to xiang, despite the fact that he was always throwing himself after one. sometimes he feels like it’s evaporating even further now, when it feels like parts of his identity are being stripped away. replaced by something else, something more enjoyable for nitro’s fans. this strange, ephemeral peter pan of a boy. forever lost in neverland, the option and memories of returning home fading and fading. maybe he’ll feel less divided about it if they ever disappear entirely.

[idolizerp]

[ LOADING INFORMATION ON CHERRY BOMB!’S LEAD VOCAL, LEAD DANCE, AJ …. ]

DETAILS

CURRENT AGE: 23 DEBUT AGE: 20 SKILL POINTS: 15 VOCAL | 10 DANCE | 0 RAP | 15 PERFORMANCE SECONDARY SKILLS: Variety

INTERVIEW

Debuting as the lead vocal and lead dance spot for Cherry Bomb! meant that AJ was squarely in the middle of things - and this is meant quite literally. As a long term trainee with a classical dance background and a decent vocal range, AJ is a jack of all trades. Her performance abilities are such that she can cover any shortcomings in her dance and her vocals are stable within her range, her voice sweet and mellow, though a bit airy.  She’s marketed as the center of the group, in the sense that she’s an anchor point. With distinct features more than classic beauty, she’s not the visual representative generally speaking, but she does possess a certain “stan attractor” capability and an appeal with female fans.

When they created the stage product that is AJ, they allowed Jowi to take the parts of herself that they liked the most - she’s quick to laugh and quicker to quip back with a response that perhaps cuts ever so slightly deeper than one might expect of her sunshine-y features. They like her wit, her candor, and allow her the tomboyish tendencies she’s displayed since her youth, as long as she’s offstage. It’s an appealing dichotomy, they tell her, for fans to see you as a femme fatale on stage and a boyish sweetheart offstage. They encourage her candidness, though of course her natural tendency towards blunt, scathing, or uncomfortably insightful commentary is entirely overwritten by variety appropriate observations, “cutting” and playful remarks that speak more to comedic sense than actual truthfulness. But it reads like a truthful, almost naively blunt character to the cameras, and the public finds that appealing, or so AJ has been told. She’s something of the middle child of the group, nestled solidly in the middle, without the wildly appealing charms of being the cutest, nor the classy and elegant charms of the most beautiful stereotypical visual, so crafting an appropriately quirky, comfortable image for her seemed the best decision.

BIOGRAPHY

“for god’s sake somi, just take her with you. someone has to watch her.” 

jowi is thirteen and lanky, long limbed and gangly. she’s not tall, no, but her proportions are odd - like she’s more leg than she is anything else. the bruises that dot her shins speak to a recent growth spurt she hasn’t been able to adjust too just yet. her hair is in two hastily coiled buns, done up at either side of her head, set towards the top, with strands escaping around her face and forehead, wispy and already frizzing in the debilitating summer heat. 

somi is another story. only two years older than jowi, she’s already stunning. tall and slender, in a graceful way that speaks to the ballet training both of them have been in since they were toddlers in tutus that extended farther than their arm spans, a testament to the preferences of their mother. somi is all long straight hair, shiny and silky, and big doe eyes. she’s beautiful, honestly speaking, in the way that makes people stop and look at her. jowi is proud of this, too young still to care that she herself looks more like a child of the forest than a properly groomed human being. 

somi is expressive too, her eyes rolling in a spectacular display of disregard for their mother, slim arms crossing artfully over her chest as she heaves a sigh so theatrically woe-laden that jowi almost apologizes for the fact that she’s too young to be left properly on her own - at least according to their mother. she feels old enough to sit around the house alone. perhaps the problem is all three of them know jowi won’t just stay in the house, unable to resist the temptation of the wide world outside, liable to run off into trouble at a moment’s notice. jowi is always like that, stumbling into the unexpected, throwing herself headlong into whatever comes her way, unrelentingly charging forward. 

maybe that’s why it works out like this. 

maybe that’s why they tell her to stay in line she’s going to have to audition, so she does. 

maybe that’s why they bring them both back in, offer them spots training at the company. “you better not slow me down.”  somi says, with a hardness in her voice jowi is used too, by now.

so jowi works twice as hard as anyone else even dreams of. 

of course she likes this, this acknowledgement. years spent in somi’s shadow mean she’s thirsty for recognition, for validity, and she’s on the edge of the precipice that is adolescence, desperate to solidify who she is and who she will become. jowi is driven to a fault, always has been, and she burns with the need to live up to the ghost of her father, the present icon that is her sister. 

she’s been in a race against this girl since she can remember. she’s been condemned by her mother twice as long, the child born a month after an unfortunate accident. a burden for a newly single mother, trying to juggle a toddler and the aftermath of a funeral. 

despite born into mourning, jowi is strangely bright eyed, a larger than life personality that beams out of her like sunlight, to the point of overbearing. like the energizer bunny she exists in perpetual movement - until sudden and abrupt crashes drag her down. months of three hours of sleep a night and endless energy erupt in one drunken night gone an hour or two too long leaving her slumped over a friend’s shoulder, carried home to sleep for the next forty hours, only waking to shower, gulp down liters of water. 

trainee life isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon, and for jowi its nearly unsustainable. for most of them it isn’t, it’s a system built to break you down. but jowi is fierce, jowi is nothing if not determined,  pushing herself to her limits and past them, until she’s taking intravenous fluids in the hospital, suffering dehydration, exhaustion, anemia, you name it. she pushes herself to heights she would never have thought possible, reaches lows she thinks might ruin her. and yet, somehow, she isn’t the one who breaks. 

instead, its somi. somi, the perfect daughter. somi, perpetually first place, effortlessly lovely, stunningly intelligent, immensely skilled. but somi hasn’t faced adversity. somi doesn’t know criticism like jowi does, hasn’t thrived under duress and neglect. somi can’t take it - it’s too harsh, too cruel, too exhausting.

for jowi, it’s something like second nature. 

you might think to yourself now, “surely this only exacerbated the rift in the ahn family?” and you would be right. beyond that even. the rift became a gulf, a trench - mariana’s even, the deepest chasm of the ocean. 

at seventeen jowi was all but alone, excluding the trainees she was working and living (at that point) alongside. of course her mother outwardly supported her, to keep up experiences, but the understanding was that any sustained contact would not pass the bare minimum societally required of her, and would mostly consist of a few thousand won here and there and phone calls that heavily suggested she was simply waiting for jowi to get kicked out and come back home with her tail between her legs. 

only that’s not quite how that worked out. 

instead, she was put into vocal lessons, and then more and more personal training, and then finally told she’d been chosen for the potential lineup for the upcoming girl group. that her monthly evaluations will be weekly now, that she needs to keep on top of her diet, that this could mean big things for her. 

and then she is chosen, and she’s debuting, and she’s so fucking excited she’s overflowing with it. she’s lived in somi’s shadow for so long that to be debuting now and in a central position in the group no less, has her head spinning. surely now, now her mother will care about her. now her sister will acknowledge her. they’ll smile at her, they’ll tell her they’re proud. she’s sure of it, so sure she’s full to bursting. 

it’s only silence though, that she gets. they don’t even bother to decline the invitation to the showcase for her debut. the other girls are finding their families in the audience, tears spilling down pretty cheeks, and jowi is crying too. how cute, their slow growing number of fans say, little jowi is so touched to have debuted. 

and she is, god, is she ever. it was an accident of fate that brought her here but she finds herself born for it, made for it, thriving on it. this goal of so many years, finally in front of her. the rush and the thrill and the ache of it, heart pounding like it might explode out of her chest. but they aren’t there. 

for years, they aren’t there, and jowi learns to find the validation she craves so desperately in other ways. 

but that’s hard too. if trainee years were a marathon, debut is climbing mount everest. msg is an established company, sure, but they’re not at the top of the heap just yet. they don’t have the cache to rely on that. they’re clawing up to the top come hell or high water, and jowi’s jack of all trades status is useful, but it’s not the kind of thing that lands you cf deals or acting parts, gets you hosting. that goes to visuals and the like, and jowi’s always been a little too atypical for that, more unique and charming than broadly adored and acknowledged. so when the rupturing of young love, the spiral of depression, a change in the group’s direction and a flop of a track all come together to sink her spirit’s the offer doesn’t seem like the worst. (yes it does.) 

it doesn’t make her skin crawl. (yes it does). 

it’s almost flattering even, she tells herself. holds her head in her hands, like this isn’t some sick business transaction. trade yourself for screen time. take a chance on your future, the company has told her.  think about it, he’s been in the industry. he’s a big name, a former first generation idol. he’s still fairly handsome even, and as far as these things go  that makes for a pretty sweet deal. he has the connections and the money you lack, he’ll get your name out there. is it really so bad, the price you’ll pay in return? he could give you all the opportunities, the articles, anything you ever wanted for your career on a silver platter, and you’re going to turn it down? let someone else take him up on the offer? you’re lucky he even looked twice at you, they tell her, you’d be an idiot to pass this up. think of the good it will do the group, all the girls, not just you. you’re not that selfish are you? 

so she does it. picks up a pen and signs herself away.

she’s sponsored, and now what? 

maybe she can pretend, at first, it isn’t terrible. things are in the works. a guest spot here, a commercial there, an influx of articles on every little movement she makes. the comments are nice too - the media play isn’t oversaturated yet. their summer song does well, the new direction, its okay. it’s not her favorite, but its working. the attention is there, and the intrigue. they’re being noticed. 

she’s being noticed. 

her mother even calls her, one night, and jowi thinks maybe it can be okay. 

of course, when she lets herself stop, think, listen in the dead of the night she’s sick to her stomach. the anxiety heightens day by day, and she’s ferocious in her efforts to combat it. she trains herself into the ground and her dietary habits consist more of liquor to put her to bed and handfuls of hastily swallowed nutrient supplements than anything else, and her hours in the gym become absurd. but if they’re going to media play about her abs, she better have them, and if they’re going to talk about her figure in crop tops, she better suit them. 

she’s always been obsessive, when it comes to coping with her own emotions, when it come sto avoiding her life. 

but how long can it last? how long can she ignore the fact that she’s sold herself for screentime, traded her soul, her heart, handfuls of herself day in and day out for the chance at what - more lines in a song, a role in a drama, an article about her last post on twitter? she hollows herself out, giving away the fire and the fight in her, that tenacious fire in her eyes dimming gradually, until she no longer recognizes herself in the mirror, most days. but then, she’s become a rather proficient actress anyway.