(no subject)

[skygiants]

I've been feeling playlisty recently, so a few weeks ago I did a Twitter meme where I asked people for prompts for 5-song playlistlets about things we both liked, which I would make in the next week.

...it has now been almonst a month, but on the other hand almost every playlist on this list has more than 5 songs in it, so really it was an equal-opportunity lie!


clones (star wars) for bluestalking - I uh for sure had this one ready to go already, mostly with songs siphoned off from the playlist for my clone amateur oral historian character from our last tabletop campaign

bash for jothra - relatedly, the playlist for my clone amateur oral historian character from our last tabletop campaign

wild theatrical productions for evewithanapple - I was not sure whether this prompt meant 'songs from wild theatrical productions' or 'the mood of creating/experiencing a wild theatrical production', so I attempted to do the second with the first? please note that 'wild' is not a condemnation, some of these are from productions I think are legitimately delightful and some from productions I sincerely believe are terrible

Kay for aella_irene - this was surprisingly difficult, the only thing in my personal feelings about Sir Kay that for sure I feel like I captured was my strong belief that he spends his entire life annoyed and stressed

Russian Doll for aberration - this is another one I definitely had cued up and ready to go already

the Iron Bull (Dragon Age) for agonistes - the Land Down Under here represents Ferelden

bog bodies - shati forbade me from using Zombie by The Cranberries in this playlist, which, technically, I did not

UNIONS! - happydork is lucky this playlist was not composed entirely of Daniel Kahn songs

True Pretenses by Rose Lerner for sophia_sol - this one was so much fun to do AND coincidentally also gave me an excuse to use another Daniel Kahn song >.>

Ernest Shackleton Loves Me for pseudo_tsuga - an attempt at conveying the Mood of this great work without using any actual songs from the show

Princess Tutu - ok YOU guys all know that my personal playlist for this is LENGTHY, but the person who requested it is my roommate M and we've just finished watching S1, so I had to leave off more than half the things I would put on it until a later date when they will make sense >.>

Twelve Kingdoms for izilen - another playlist I have had ready to go for years just waiting for someone to ask me about it

the specific emotion of yankumi pretending that shin rescued her from the scary gang member she just beat up for esmenet - this is indeed a very specific delightful emotion which I did my best to capture!

trapped in an inn for nextian - a mediocre playlist for a great prompt, I would LOVE more suggestions for songs that express the feeling of 'I'm been stuck for a week in this place with a bunch of people I don't like OH WAIT no nevermind I love them now'


Feel free to chime in with a.) song suggestions for any of these playlists or b.) more prompts, I am always looking to grow my music collection and I continue to find playlisting a pleasant and soothing activity.

Comments

[vass]

Playlists! It's been too long since I've seen a fandom playlist meme.

Prompt: Erin Bow's Prisoners of Peace series.

For which I may already have three songs, but they don't go together and I have this bad habit of having ideas for playlists and getting as far as two or even one song.

And feel free to give me a prompt too if you'd like to.

[skygiants]

They're so much fun to do! I hope other people pick up the meme because I ALSO want to prompt people, and speaking of which: how about a Crossroads playlist? :D

[vass]

Ooh, difficult one! There's so many places one could go with that.

Okay, so, a couple of caveats: I don't have Spotify, so I can't include links, sorry. And I haven't listened to them one after the other to check if they work together even the tiniest bit, because I have two industrial fans and a dehumidifier running in my kitchen after the upstairs neighbour's water heater broke and leaked through my ceiling, so listening to things... isn't working very well right now.

1. Dessa, Good Grief
2. Indigo Girls, Dead Man's Hill
3. The Mountain Goats, Deuteronomy 2:10
4. Hurray for the Riff Raff, Crash on the Highway
5. Laurie Anderson, Strange Angels

[genarti]

Ooooh, I only know the first two of these (though I will definitely look up the others), but GOOD CALL for both of them!

[vass]

THANK YOU!

I was thinking about it just now, and I realised something about Crossroads:

The tonal whiplash could be argued to be in keeping with one of its main themes. In that (as has been noted) this trilogy is a weird thematic hybrid. It's a valiant, hopeful portal fantasy with vet students combined with a very grimdark exploration of grief, survivor guilt, genocide, torture, and trauma, and those two pieces aren't smoothly blended in or reconciled with each other, they're just jammed together and stuck, unmixed... in a story about finding a world where impossible hybrid species which could not survive in nature can survive. This book about chimeras is itself a chimera.

[skygiants]

oh I LOVE this analysis! CHIMERA BOOK

[sovay]

This book about chimeras is itself a chimera.

That makes me feel a lot better about it, thank you!

[skygiants]

ahhh, thank you! no worries about not including links, I shall find them on Spotify myself :D The ones that I know on this list are PERFECT and I am excited to listen to the ones I don't.

(and, as you say below, it doesn't matter if they flow nicely into one another because that too is thematic for the series!)

[rymenhild]

I am dropping in to say that any Prisoners of Peace playlist without "Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto" is invalid, and also I'm probably going to make a whole playlist.

[rymenhild]

This playlist is happening. I'll share it soon.

Meanwhile, I have realized that in my head, Greta Stuart, brave self-sacrificing queer princess of the line of Scots royals, is definitely a great^many granddaughter of Jamie and Maddie Beaufort-Stuart.

[skygiants]

yessss we can see how much overlap we've got!

also: of course, you're absolutely correct

!!!!!!!!

[vass]

YES

[rymenhild]

Here is my Prisoners of Peace playlist.

[skygiants]

I HAVE BEEN COLLECTING SONGS ALL THIS TIME I SWEAR, just have not gotten around to collecting them as a spotify link. And here they are!

(And now I can finally go listen to rymenhild's and see if it overlaps! Also, you should tell me what your three songs are, too.)

[vass]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS

'Poor Atlas' is the only song I'd heard before (and yes, "I'm building a body where our designers failed" definitely resonates" for Greta's dilemma), so there are so many good songs here that I'm glad to make the acquaintance of.

Okay, 'Rules' is the MOST Greta-in-Swan-Riders song ever and I am crying. "til all your memories are gone" OH NO

'Holy Moses' is unexpectedly perfect for Greta/Talis as a ship.

And 'Eiderdown' works so well for The Scorpion Rules era Greta.

And 'Sort of a Protest Song' is just very very Talis in the best and worst ways. "I can't remember 1989 / I try but I forget what you look like / A robot heart for a robot boy" OH NO AGAIN

Here are the three I had in mind:

1. Tracey Grammer, 'Shadows of Evangeline' ("It is rain, it is age, it is poison / Supplication to family honor / Little children with keys to the temple")
2. Suzanne Vega, 'Wooden Horse (Caspar Hauser's song)' (this is the MOST Talis song. "And when I'm dead and gone / If you could tell them this / That what was wood became alive")
3. Ellen McLain, 'Still Alive', for some thematic whiplash ("but anyway this cake is great / It's so delicious and moist!")

The one I'm really hung up on as belonging on a Prisoners of Peace playlist, though, is the Suzanne Vega.

[skygiants]

It always feels like cheating to use songs from the Hunger Games tie-in album because Prisoners of Peace is so consciously engaging with and averting the themes of Hunger Games-style dystopias but a.) that whole album is really just unfairly good for what it is and b.) RULES IS SUCH A PERFECT SONG FOR THIS.

'Sort of a Protest Song' goes on all my robot-related playlists (Ancillary Justice FOR SURE) and every time it gives me slightly different feelings.

I hadn't thought of Caspar Hauser's song for this but you are right, it is PERFECT. And I'm not familiar with that Tracey Grammar, so thank you for introducing it to me -- the mood is exactly right.