Air Logic
[ deep electronic, leftfield, ambient, chill ]
Listen to full set here!
Tracklist
1. Aquarian – Sketch 2 (Song for D.O.U.G.)
2. Evan Caminiti – Carnation
3. Neinzr – Trauma
4. Pictureshift – Glaciers
5. J. Dennis – After Light
6. Route 8 – Deepmind
7. Pearson Sound – Everything Is Inside Out
8. Dewemer – Erk
9. INVT – ARPA303
10. Clubroot – Conqueror
11. Cabaas – Excess (Otik Remix)
12. Di Barsotti - Can You Believe What Happen
13. Forest Drive West – Parallel Space
14. A-Sim – Never Ending Story
15. Imre Kiss – Axyn
16. Plebeian – Pearl
17. Konduku – Obru
18. Soyuz – Dark Side Of The Moon
19. Brother Nebula – A Question
20. Will Silver – What’s For U
21. Batu – Traverse
22. Chestnut People, Priori, Ludwig A.F. – I
23. Night Manoeuvres, Dot Major, Absolute. – This Life
The Raven Cycle series (The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily Lily Blue, The Raven King) by Maggie Stiefvater
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.
Fantasy, young adult, paranormal, urban fantasy, series
The Elemental Logic series (Fire Logic, Earth Logic, Water Logic, Air Logic) by Laurie J. Marks
Submitted endorsement: A 4-book series about transforming war and prejudice into peace and fellowship. Unique, subtle magic system. Lesbian knife-wielder survives the unspeakable to save and be saved by a giant blacksmith who is hiding the fact that she is the most powerful mage in the world! Bisexual paladin gets a new lease on life when he meets a much younger seer boyfriend! Realistic found family!
Earth * Air * Water * Fire
These elements have sustained the peaceful people of Shaftal for generations, with their subtle powers of healing, truth, joy, and intuition.
But now, Shaftal is dying.
The earth witch who ruled Shaftal is dead, leaving no heir. Shaftal's ruling house has been scattered by the invading Sainnites. The Shaftali have mobilized a guerrilla army against these marauders, but every year the cost of resistance grows, leaving Shaftal's fate in the hands of three people: Emil, scholar and reluctant warrior; Zanja, the sole survivor of a slaughtered tribe; and Karis the metalsmith, a half-blood giant whose earth powers can heal, but only when she can muster the strength to hold off her addiction to a deadly drug.
Separately, all they can do is watch as Shaftal falls from prosperity into lawlessness and famine. But if they can find a way to work together, they just may change the course of history.
Fantasy, adult, politics, secondary world, series
My eleventh work for A Year In Shaftal, the Elemental Logic fandom event hosted on @shaftal
Prompt 9. Music: a playlist/fanmix
A collaboration with @samwisestouthearted, my girlfriend and Taylor Swift & k.d. lang consultant. Cover art by me.
Track descriptions below the cut:
On The Road To B.C. (Grace Petrie)
"Girls like you were born to make girls like me make mistakes/I never even fought"
Zanja meets Karis, and it sparks a light inside her.
Stop The World (Come From Away)
"Here we are/Where the continents once crashed together/Before they went their separate ways forever"
Alone together by the river in Strongbridge.
See You Again (Carrie Underwood)
"For you are the stars to me/You are the light I follow"
Zanja setting out on her own, knowing that Karis is G'deon.
Medicine (Biffy Clyro)
"If she asks should I tell her?/If she asks should I let her know?/We'll never be together/We'll never see each other grow"
Addiction getting in the way of destiny.
Wash Me Clean (k.d. lang)
"My desire carries no shame/My will, will harbor no pain"
Healing and intimacy, with a little help from water magic.
Lake of Silver Bells (Carbon Leaf)
"What you need's not just the dream/But something on the other end"
For the years of insulated familial happiness in a broken, warring land.
Language Or The Kiss (Indigo Girls)
"It was a calling that said if joy then pain"
For action to become possible, Zanja must let Karis go.
The Archer (Taylor Swift)
"I wake in the night/I pace like a ghost/The room is on fire/Invisible smoke"
Zanja alone, facing and experiencing another death.
Oi (Carbon Leaf)
"Bound in chains with a thousand rains/No wonder the storm still adores you"
Karis alone, bereaved, setting up house in an abandoned building.
A Thousand Years (Christina Perri)
"I have died every day waiting for you"
Karis pulls Zanja back.
This Love (Taylor Swift)
"This love is alive, back from the dead/These hands had to let it go free and/This love came back to me"
Reunited in Travesty, getting to know one another again.
Wild Turkey (Amythyst Kiah)
"When I was seventeen I pretended not care/Stayed numb for years to escape despair"
Karis on the bank of the frozen river, widowed twice over.
When You Come (Crowded House)
"And that is why/I stumble to my knees"
Zanja returns from the sea.
Daylight (Taylor Swift)
"I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you/I've been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night/And now I see daylight"
Perspective.
Still Thrives This Love (k.d. lang)
"Life's contradictions/Tend to grow/Spawning the choices/And the woe"
For the lovers who survived.
Two Aging Truckers (Carbon Leaf)
"Will I be there? Will I be there/When all the stories fade and I am out of breath?"
Because Karis and Zanja have many roads left to travel, and many problems left to solve.
This is my favorite fantasy series that features lesbians and I can’t recommend it enough!
The Fantasy Elements: 5/5
The books Fire Logic, Earth Logic, Air Logic, and Water Logic have us exploring a land called Shaftal. It is a land with people who are sometimes attuned to different elements and perhaps even a bit of magic. The setting is more low fantasy leaning with people’s abilities often being as simple as being good at either deducting logically the solution to a problem or simply having good intuition. There is some more significant displays of power like healing wounds, rearranging people’s memories, or even (a pet peeve of mine) some time travel. More often these take a back seat to the personal and political struggles as it navigates themes like colonialism, genocide, torture, war, etc etc.
It has some pretty heavy content, but I feel like it gets less depressing the further you get into the series.
The Lesbian Elements: 5/5
There are some WLW main characters as well as a number of other gay characters in the series. There are even some straight characters too. Regardless I love all of them!
I finished Air Logic recently, and wow. This story--the whole quartet--is the only thing I’m thinking about anymore. I want all my friends to read it. I want to draw every character. I have four fanfic summaries percolating.
Now that I’ve read the complete series, I feel like I can finally dive into the fandom properly. And it’s a tiny fandom, but that means my contribution could mean a lot! What if I… tried organizing a little Elemental Logic fandom event?
A Year In Shaftal: an Elemental Logic fanwork event
What: A companionable, low-key event for fans of Elemental Logic to create and celebrate works inspired by the books. Who knows--we might make some friends along the way.
When: January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022 (exact endpoints are midnight EST). This year will be the 20th anniversary of Fire Logic’s publication 📕
How: Create as many works as you like, at any pace you like. Any medium is fair game. I will release prompts in the weeks leading up to the new year, and will likely add more prompts throughout the year. At the end of the year, I will gift a fanwork to the person who has contributed the greatest number of works to the event!
🔥⛰🌊💨
What can you do until the event starts? Follow this blog! Watch this space for prompts, or suggest some! Tell your friends! Start dreaming up ideas for your works!
Hey, do you like a good fantasy series with fantastic world building that includes many dynamic characters from different cultures and ways of life and modes of thinking about the world?
Do you like stories where same-sex relationships are treated as normal without comment or question? Where alternative family styles, including large chosen families with many adults co-parenting one another’s children, is treated as normal? Where people hold the same jobs regardless of gender and there are just as many female soldiers, farmers, welders, scholars, politicians, etc. as males?
Would you love to read a series where concepts are explored around how to stop war and hatred of the other, or how to best use people’s different talents to achieve a communal goal, or how to problem solve between people who think very differently form one another?
If this sounds like your thing, may I recommend the Elemental Logic series by Laurie J. Marks - it begins with Fire Logic, then Earth Logic, Water Logic, and the latest and last in the series Air Logic has just been published. It rounds out the story and ends in a satisfying way. This is for sure a series that I am going to strive to own so that I may re-read it many times over.
My favorite part is really the chosen family aspect. In one of the cultures depicted, it’s the norm for people to marry into a family not just for the person who will be their spouse, but for the other people in their family who may or may not be related to them biologically. People choose not just mates, but platonic co-parents, brothers and sisters, and other familial bonds.
The main family that comprises the book includes a f/f couple, a m/m couple, a f/m couple with a child that they all parent, and several other singles or close friends who have mates outside of the core family. They come together because of shared values and goals and ties that bind them together. For example, one woman in the f/f couple has chosen one of the men in m/m couple as her brother. So they are family. And the other woman in the f/f couple is bonded to the woman in the f/m couple in strong ways which makes them family. They all care for and respect one another, but don’t necessarily all love one another. But it works. And it’s beautiful. And I love it. It’s such a nice combo of polyamory and queer platonic life partners and found family.
Also the core message of the series is just lovely. It’s about how we’re all in this together even with our many differences and how the only way to heal through tragedy and violence is to unite together and work hard to understand where the other is coming from instead of blind hatred that feeds cycles of vengeance. Those who have done wrong have to own up to it and make things right when possible, but when everyone in a situation has done wrong to one another - sometimes the best thing is for everyone to forgive one another and move on. IDK, it’s just really lovely and a unique take.
I also really like the magical system in the book. Everyone has some elemental talent, but for most people it’s fairly light. If you have an earth talent, for example, maybe you’re really good with your hands in some way or are a talented healer. But some people have very strong talents that make them more powerful. Each element has different talents, and can also affect the way people think about and move through the world. Some people have more than one elemental talent, and sometimes they are complimentary and other times they are contradictory. It’s all very natural and organic and practical.
