The Fantasy Issue (Spring 2022)

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CONTENTS MAIN FEATURE

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Fantasy is Alive in Brooklyn’s Club Scene Lucas MacCormack explores Brooklyn’s bustling club scene and its importance to the underground community in the wake of the pandemic.

AROUND CAMPUS

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The Legend of Pratt’s Secret Tunnels Nina Martineck uncovers the tunnels hiding underneath Pratt and whether their existence is fact or fiction.

AROUND THE CITY

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The Magic of The Lightning Thief Merci Valdivieso reflects on seeing The Lightning Thief on Broadway and what it meant to watch the beloved book series adapted for the stage.

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‘That Girl’ in NYC Eli Nadler examines the TikTok trendy “That Girl” and how her online appearance is more than meets the eye.

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OPINIONS

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Genshin Impact or Gacha Cash Grab?

Hayes Mitchell critiques the popular video game Genshin Impact and why it’s not worth the money, both in game and real life.

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The Soundtrack to Your Badass Dreams Starts With Nathy Peluso’s Calambre Dana Hinkson reviews Nathy Peluso’s album Calambre and the artist’s magical ability to create fantastical reality for listeners.

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Instagram’s Illusions Naomi Desai analyzes the fakeness of Instagram, and its impact on our mental health and self-worth.

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Fantasy is Alive in Brooklyn’s Club Sc WORDS

Lucas MacCormack ILLUSTRATION

Avery Slezak

On a freezing Saturday in February, a group of friends and I found ourselves among the many eclectic young people meandering through the streets of Bushwick on their way to something greater.

Through a river of giggling bodies, we landed at the non-obtrusive front door of Rash, a new bar and club making a name for itself in the New York techno nightlife scene. Standing outside of the black facade were a handful of souls huddled in oversized puffer and workwear jackets lit by cigarette tips. Once the bouncer checked our IDs and vaccination cards, he opened the door to the low-lit, high-volume venue.

The front end of Rash is a uniquely decorated bar draped in red light. On the night we went, it was filled to the brim.

People sat in the sharp, plastic, off-blue bar stools, hung around the edges of the room or lounged in the side area with cheap, but austere, leather couches.

Every railing and empty flat space was piled high with uniformly monochrome black winter jackets. The vibe was upbeat; a jittery sense of newness still hung in the air. The sound of bass wafted in from the back room.

After grabbing drinks, we made our way

into what seemed to be a solid wall of strobing smoke. Upon entering, you found yourself in a room of incomprehensible size and space. The only thing keeping you grounded was the consistent red light that illuminated the DJ booth.

Through flashes of multicolored lights, I got glimpses of bobbing heads and smiling teeth. The volume was exponentially louder than the hushed front bar would have you think. The hypnotic combination of sensory overload in the forms of the dizzying lights, the smell of artificial fog mixed with perfume and sweat and the music, played at breakneck speeds, produced warping sounds of a myriad of synths and bass culminating into a feeling of an alien invasion on acid.

Everyone was eating it up.

Since bars and clubs reopened in New York around March of 2021, nightlife has come back strong. As with anything related to pleasure and government mandates, underground organizations were the first to pop back to life once the vaccines rolled out. Mainly sticking to small house parties or outdoor events, a new array of DJs began cutting their teeth seemingly out of necessity. If you couldn’t go to the clubs you loved, why

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not become your own favorite DJ? This space allowed not only for new DJs, but for local favorite performers to shine as headliners at these operations. Then, once businesses reopened, these young talents were the first to hop to the vacant venues and perform for larger crowds of bassstarved ravers.

After gestating indoors for over a year, DJs are employing sounds both familiar and delightfully left-field. The music of the underground techno scene right now is hard hitting and fast. The genres lean towards a 1990s/2000s aesthetic with industrialized trance, glitchy drum and bass and gabber, a lesser-known hardcore genre popularized by labels such as Mokum and listened to by the drugged-up jocks of easter European cities like Rotterdam in the late 90s.

These culminate into something that feels unique in its temporality. As an audience member, you experience the sound of the time. This is the sound of now: stylized, grungy and, at the same time chic. It’s devilish yet ethereal, the play of light and dark bringing opposites together into one. The distinctions of time and genre are blurred but unified.

This aesthetic is reflected in the crowd themselves, dressed in a blend of both de-

signer and DYI clothing that drape loosely and hold tight just the same. This isn’t an absence of decision, but rather a show of the arbitrary nature of decision itself. Why not wear biker gloves, baggy cargo pants, a gaudy tight-fitting graphic tee, $600 shoes and a fuzzy trapper hat? It’s fun, silly and, most of all, absurd. A competition of who can be the most esoteric bitch in this club right now.

That night at Rash was my first time at the venue. Opening their doors in fall of 2021, Rash has quickly become the beating heart of emerging nightlife, hosting acts big and small. You’re just as likely to see world-renowned DJs as you are to see a friend of a friend’s noise project playing any given day of the week. It seems that Rash has hit the right mark of mystique, accessibility and aesthetic allure. They draw in not only the fans, but DJs and performers who are flocking to get their time behind the infamous plywood booth.

Besides Rash, there is, of course, no shortage of available clubs to check out in the city (even with the unfortunate temporary closing of the beloved Bossa Nova Civic Club). Some of the larger-named clubs include Nowadays, Basement, Elsewhere, Good Room, Public Records and House of

6 Yes, all providing something different for every kind of dance music listener. Nowadays and Basement both boast some of the largest capacities in the city, as well as providing consistently premium-quality experiences.

Elsewhere hosts more accessible line-ups, and Public Records holds audio-file quality sound systems that can’t be missed.

As we move closer to an equilibrium in our collective lives living with COVID, more seemingly unlikely spots are opening their doors for nightlife activity. It’s common on Saturdays to find a line outside of the local Cuban restaurant with thumping bass leaking through the front windows with a $15 cover. There’s also the ephemeral, yet wildly popular, events hosted by More or Outlaw, situated in sporadic locations including, but not limited to, a seemingly abandoned apartment building, an old train yard, a military fort in Sheepshead Bay, a gutted storefront on 5th Ave. and, of course, a myriad of warehouses. The variety of locales adds to the allure of any event, with party-goers wanting to find that one event that just can’t be missed. Though you can’t beat the consistency of an established club, there is an undeniable thrill to the immediacy and unfamiliar nature inherent to these pop-up events.

At the end of the night, in the early morning hours of Sunday, sound systems across the borough continue to thump into their last notes. As the lights came on at Rash, I found myself in a shockingly small space, about the size of a decent living room. With the walls painted completely black, it’s hard to gauge scale until you hit the edge. I stood among only a handful of people: all drunk, smiling, sweating and ready for one more song that wasn’t going to come. We made our way outside, and before we departed, we gave hugs to all friends, old and new.

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The Legend of Pratt’s

Secret Tunnels “Upon first hearing about the tunnels, I didn’t believe they existed. I’d gone to enough ancient schools to know how ghost stories and urban legends linger in classrooms and hallways. I would be lying, however, if I said that a part of me wasn’t left wondering.”

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Those into cryptid Pratt lore might be familiar with the myth of the tunnels. Legend has it that they run under the cluster of buildings around Main Hall. Some may have heard of a winding labyrinth, while others may envision a few rat-ridden holes coming off the basement.

I’ve heard fables of people using them to get to class, partaking in numerous illicit activities under their exposed wires and even squatting down there, according to one professor.

Upon first hearing about the tunnels, I didn’t believe they existed. I’d gone to enough ancient schools to know how ghost stories and urban legends linger in classrooms and hallways.

I would be lying, however, if I said that a part of me wasn’t left wondering.

As it turns out, a tunnel or two runs from the steam engine in East Hall to Main Hall to Machinery Hall, as explored by Flickr user HetxOne of Pratt’s crown jewels is its functioning steam engine in East Hall, built in 1887 with the inception of the institution. The notorious tunnels are part of this system. They primarily serve pipes and wires running from the steam engine to other parts of campus. A few storage rooms branch off from the tunnels as well.

Most are empty by now, though Hetx did find a grungy pile of midcentury modern desks shoved into one and a few file cabinets filled with old documents in another. From their photos, the tunnels seem to be little more than another layer to the basement; they are another quaint rat hangout.

I tried to find them for myself. I really, really did. But with a lack of solid information online (probably for the better) and a lack of non-speculative knowledge from Pratt faculty and students (also probably not a bad thing), the tunnels continue to elude me. I poked around the main cluster, searching for any possible entrance point, but all maintenance doors are locked, and my curiosity isn’t really worth expulsion.

So, yes, the tunnels are real, although their true purpose might feel a tad disappointing.

Any secret societies or cult rituals that made a home in the tunnels have remained fully underground (pun intended). This doesn’t mean that we can’t pretend they aren’t cabalistic, though, like another ghost haunting our house or Bigfoot in our backyard. We’re allowed to fall into the romance and the enigma and convince ourselves that steam engine pipes serve a greater purpose.

In that respect alone, maybe they do.

WORDS

Nina Martineck ILLUSTRATION

Serena Y. Cheng

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The Magic of The Lightning Thief WORDS

Merci Valdivieso

ILLUSTRATION

Alex Moon

It was my eighteenth birthday. I was waiting in line in front of Broadway’s Longacre Theatre, which was fancier than any building I’d ever been in. The sky was dark, the line was short, and I was ready to see the musical of my dreams.

When the theater doors finally opened. and my mother and I followed the crowd inside, I was taken aback by the beauty. There was classical architecture, classic red Broadway seats, beautiful gold walls and hanging chandeliers.

When we managed to find our seats—they were so close to the stage, the third row!—we were handed the playbill: “The Lightning Thief: the Percy Jackson Musical,” the gold silhouette of a lightning bolt on a blue background.

The “Percy Jackson” series is the most important media I was ever exposed to. At the time, I was the book’s target audience: twelveyears-old, the same age as Percy during “The Lightning Thief,” with an ongoing curiosity about Greek mythology and a love of reading.

I was able to escape to a world with quippy protagonists and middle-school adventures, and I could still relate with the embedded tragedy of absent adults and betraying friends.

Percy Jackson always tried to be good, even when he failed, and he will always be my hero because of that. Getting to see a real-life depiction of his journey was surreal. After years of gazing at Broadway like a dream too far to reach, my mother surprised me with tickets to a show literally hours after my birthday. It felt like destiny.

The show opened with “Prologue,” and the moment the words, “Look, I didn’t wanna be a half-blood,” were sung, I got chills.

Finally, years after the disappointing movie

adaptation, Percy Jackson’s story was being done justice. I was twelve-years-old again, hearing my hero speak to me.

One of the most magical elements of the show was how they handled Percy’s powers. Being a son of Poseidon, he essentially waterbends, using water as his weapon. In “Put You in Your Place,” he met Clarisse, a bully who tried to dunk his head in a toilet. To save himself, Percy exploded the toilets, but instead of splashing the actors and the audience with water, the ensemble sneakily pushed a giant fan onstage and put a roll of toilet paper in front of it. Paper went flying into the wind and into actors’ faces.

After “Drive” and a fight with Ares, the god of war, they break the fourth wall. Percy faced the audience directly for a glorious second and released toilet paper into the fan for us to catch.

For me, the most important moment of the musical was Percy’s solo song, “Good Kid.” We got to hear Percy’s emotions, his thoughts, everything that had been internal until that very second; the thoughts of a child who’d been put in the position of a hero. It was heartbreaking to hear the lyrics, “I never try to do anything / I never mean to hurt anyone / I try, I try to be a good kid / A good kid / A good son. / But no one ever will take my side / All I ever do is take the fall / I swear, I swear that I’m a good kid / Guess I’m good for nothing at all.”

Chris McCarrell’s performance as Percy was so raw, so real to the character, that I cried; full on tears, holding back sobs. I found myself reassuring that fictional character that I loved him.

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“That Girl” in NYC WORDS

Eli Nadler

Who is “That Girl?”

She’s waking up at six to get a workout in while wearing a matching set. She’s handcrafting a gorgeous fruit-filled oat bowl and an aesthetic iced coffee as the sun rises. She is seizing the day to a specific level of perfection, is scheduled to look her best and is casually compelled to share these moments with you over TikTok. But in a cool, chill way.

Aspirational and often unrealistic, “That Girl” first appeared during the earliest stages of the pandemic, assimilating into “day in my life” vlog-type content. Now, she’s found primarily on TikTok and generates a hyper-specific set of standards for primarily female-identifying users.

She is often a thin, heteronormative white woman from a specific socioeconomic background, taking advantage of every minute of her day.

When I moved to New York in August, my “For You” page was flooded with “That Girl” in NYC. A typical video displays her early morning routine, wellness-centered lifestyle, constant cycle of productivity and aesthetically pleasing healthy meals. Love them

ILLUSTRATION

Angel Ye

or hate them, these videos have remained popular for a while now, so much so that their significance and potential hazards should be addressed.

At face value, a focus around selfcare, exercise and romanticizing your life sounds like where we should be headed. However, it wasn’t long before some elements—interwoven with wellness tropes—would devolve into toxic health practices, images related to under-eating or overexercising, displaying low-carb but aesthetic meals and orthorexic behaviors.

Even further is the glamorization of hustle culture. If manic pixie dream girls were written by a man, “That Girl” may be currently being written by aesthetically astute women, at the top of her game in regards to health, wellness and productivity. Not only is she always productive, but she manages to always have her nails wellmanicured and her NYC street style or professional outfits perfectly tailored.

Simultaneously, she documents it by editing her content in serene and aesthetically-pleasing montages.

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I’ve seen friends influenced by toxic productivity through this content and burning out as a result. I’ve experienced secondhand anxiety from this impulse to be constantly grinding, hustling and forcing opportunities, chasing that sense of validation or notion that I’m staying afloat or doing well in the city. “That Girl” would suggest that you diligently work on both yourself and on the outcome of your day so that you succeed no matter what. It’s clearly formulaic, but it gives girls new to New York the idea that it’s out there and that it’s on them if they can’t succeed.

I’ll never be one to turn down the option to “fake it ‘til you make it” because, more often than not, it works. But, as an individual, I am inherently relaxed and easygoing.

I enjoy my day, experiences and opportunities much more when they’ve presented themselves to me organically. Romanticizing your life seems invaluable in enjoying the everyday and the mundane. However, if the only way to prove you’re “That Girl” is to perfectly curate the experience itself, it can become performative and all-consuming.

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Genshin Impact or Gacha Cash Grab?

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Hayes Mitchell

ILLUSTRATION

Tien Servidio

“Genshin Impact” is currently the most popular gacha game with around 50 million users across multiple platforms. It is an action role-playing game created by miHoYo, a video game developer based in Shanghai, China.

Since “Genshin Impact”’s explosive reception in 2020, the game has garnered a massive fanbase. So why do so many critics say the game is a copy of one of Nintendo’s best selling games “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild?”

Secondly, how are people spending hundreds of dollars on a free game?

I downloaded the game in search of my own answers.

On first impression, the likeness to “Breath of the Wild”’ is striking. It’s hard to avoid comparison when the game mechanics are so similar. The most obvious similarities are climbing, gliding, cooking and potion making.

Even so, I stayed open-minded and found myself quickly entranced. Unlike “Breath of the Wild”’s apocalyptic world, “Genshin Impact”’s world of Teyvat, with seven nations based on the real world, is colorful and lively.

There’s an abundance of appealing characters you can collect, each one wielding one of seven elements. It has beautiful graphics, like the aquamarine Luhua pools or sunset at the highest summit. Finding treasure chests, fighting enemies and solving puzzles across the land of Teyvat makes exploration exciting.

Despite this, I soon encountered the gambling side of the game. I’m skeptical to believe that “Genshin Impact” would be as popular as it is if it weren’t for the game’s gacha system.

Gacha games are free games that prompt players to spend real money on an in-game currency through a gambling-like method. The

gacha mechanics are like that of a toy vending machine, originating from the Japanese word gachapon, which are vending machines that dispense toy capsules in a randomized variety.

“Genshin Impact” holds time-limited events in which players can wish on a special character or weapon. Since in-game currency, the most common one being primogen, is hard to accumulate within the short time period, players will be tempted to reach for their wallet.

There’s a less than 1% chance of obtaining a 5-star character from a wish, with a pity system that guarantees one after 90 pulls. Some people will save up in-game currency for when they have the opportunity to win a character they want, while others scramble around at the last minute. Just like gambling, when you win a bet, it just makes you come crawling back to try your luck. miHoYo puts their all into the details of their games, creating a pleasing aesthetic for a cash grab. But the gacha system makes gameplay restrictive, compared to the freedom and flexibility “Breath of the Wild” has to offer.

When it comes down to it, “Genshin Impact” falls short; it lacks an essential driving force. I find myself skipping through dialogue during the main quest. Having to understand the difference between crit damage and crit rate, switching between characters in a fight and navigating what route to take when optimizing a character is too overwhelming. At the end of the day, I would say the game is good, not great or spectacular. Do yourself a favor and go play “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” instead.

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The Soundtrack to Your Badass Dreams Starts With Nathy Peluso’s Calambre WORDS

Dana Hinkson

PHOTOGRAPHY

Dana Hinkson

In the pivotal year of 2020, Argentinian artist Nathy Peluso would release her debut studio album “Calambre,” or “Electric Shock” when translated from Spanish. Peluso disclosed the reasoning for the name to Atwood Magazine, stating that “[T]his record has a strong energy that runs across you…and I wanted to cause shocks when people listen to it. I want people to give themselves over to [the music’s] electricity.”

From my experience, this high-vibrational album was true to its name. The current of her lyrics, voice and beats coursed through me.

Some moments calmed me or gave me chills; others filled me with kinetic energy. Each song easily falls into individual genres, such as dancehall, salsa and R&B, and shows Peluso’s own individuality and impressive range.

Together as an album, these genres are the makings of something cinematic.

After listening to “Calambre,” I found that I had subconsciously directed a film in my mind.

It was about a drug dealer who sold empathy in

pill form. Ironically, after taking on a whirlwind romance, the dealer is left contemplating an apathetic life. The first song, “CELEBRÉ,” an upbeat dancehall number that embraces Peluso’s chaotic success journey, thrusted me into a dimly lit discotech named Paradiso.

Colorful, shimmering bodies, high on empathy, danced, flipped and wined away their wounds from the invisible wars outside.

The third song, “BUENOS AIRES,” was an introspective stream of consciousness that sounded like a stripped-down version of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “You Can’t Hide Love.” Here, Peluso effortlessly allows us into her universe as she ponders yearning, freedom and time.

At the sound of dreamy keys, steady drums and the tranquil strength of her voice, I felt my body loosen. When I gave into the song, I was swaying to the beat and cooking silently, allowing “BUENOS AIRES” and my sizzling pans to harmonize deliciously. This song revealed the dealer to my imagination. From an apartment across the street, the dealer watched Paradiso close at the break of dawn.

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Dressed in their lover’s clothes, they lived Peluso’s lyrics as if they were “fumando sola en el balcón” orr smoking alone on the balcony.

When I reached “AGARRATE,” the album’s last song, I had officially hit the dougie, dropped it like it was hot a few times and cried. Now was the time to headbang. The first verse is executed with classic Peluso melodrama as she laments over a toxic romance’s end with only a bandoneon to accompany her. However, before I could express any sympathy, I was hit with boom-bap fury; a musical scoff to any pity toward her. From the second verse to the end is a wicked tongue lashing at an ex-lover with harsh lines like “Hijo de puta, flaco, ¿cómo sos tan despiadado?” (“You skinny motherfucker, why are you so cruel?”)

Each lyrical blow had the film reels in my head spinning, playing the last dreamy scenes.

In their bedroom, the dealer underwent an emotional rollercoaster after their venomous break-up, ranging from melancholia to scalding egomania. In the end, the dealer

breathed shallowly at their running bathroom sink with their entire supply of empathy next to it. Would the dealer destroy the empathy out of apathy? Could they bear the idea of hurting another day? It seems that the answer, or maybe an even better daydream film, is up to you. “Calambre” can be found on all music streaming platforms, just waiting to send sparks of creativity your way.

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Instagram’s Illusions WORDS

Naomi Desai

ILLUSTRATION

Wren Edwards

Instagram has never been an enjoyable experience for me. I get anxious when posting something and am embarrassed after I do.

The app is a parasite that sucks away my confidence and leaves me ashamed, yet I continue to check my account and “Explore” page multiple times a day.

On Instagram, everyone tries to promote themselves and appear more enviable to their peers. While the app can be a place to see what friends are up to, it also tricks us into only seeing an illusion of what people’s lives are like. Everyone has a parallel self on Instagram, and it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s fake.

Ryan Nelsen, a sophomore Communications Design student, shares this sentiment.

“In high school, I had an [art] account that accumulated 11,000 followers, but the pressure to maintain the success I had while venturing into new art styles became too overwhelming,” Nelsen states. ”The most difficult part of this was not deleting the account, but explaining why I did it, which I still can’t fully articulate.”

Most of us joined Instagram expecting it to be casual, but now it has evolved into something

completely different. The documentary “The Social Dilemma” makes the problems of social media, and their influence on mental health, evident. The documentary states that in girls ages 15-19, the suicide rate has increased by 70% since Instagram was created.

Despite this, we still continue to ignore social media’s problems because it “keeps us connected.” The cost is higher than the benefit. Instagram is too time-consuming for something that doesn’t even help us. The social interaction part is so minimal compared to the negative side effects it causes.

Nelsen comes from a different perspective and thinks that “the idea of sharing something to a ton of people feels . . . powerful and optimistic.” He says that it’s not about creating a “parallel self” online; rather, it’s more about “vibes that reflect who you are rather than recreate who you are.”

The isolation and loneliness of the pandemic made me realize that you can’t tell what someone’s true personality is online.

Instagram puts a filter on people literally and figuratively, so much so that it’s almost impossible to tell what’s real and what’s an illusion.

Cover Story

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Selena Yao For the theme fantasy, I wanted to incorporate a landscape that shows a fantastical world. Fantasy, for me, is an imaginative environment that does not exist in reality, so I create the world through illustration. I wanted to show a girl surrounding herself in a place where she can let her creativity roam free. My style involves heavy blending and mixing of colors, which I feel adds to the mystical and dream aesthetic. Our fantastical worlds are where we get our inspirations and a place to escape this rule-filled reality.

Letter From the Editor Prattlers, Much has been said about the magic of New York City. It’s what draws so many people here, but the fantastical is alive well beyond the five boroughs. It’s present in the books we loved as children and in the films that helped us travel to new places. It lingers, at times, in the current events we witness.

Fantasy is crucial to escaping and educating ourselves about our world. “The Fantasy Issue” is a multi-faceted look at what it means to be enraptured with the unreal. Our writers took on this theme by discussing a variety of topics: the magic brewing in the Brooklyn club scene, the spellbinding nature of a Broadway show, the alluring aspects of favorite artists, musicians and video games. Whatever you are most drawn to, you are sure to find it within these pages.

The unreal has been on the minds of everyone here at The Prattler lately. As we have watched events unfold in Europe this semester, and as we stand firmly with Ukraine, the unbelievable has become even more urgent to understand. I sincerely hope that this final issue of the year both allows you to find some magic and look towards turning our seemingly absurd ideas of a better world into reality.

Thank you for a great year, Prattlers, and for letting me be your editor-in-chief for the last two as well.

With much love,

Carly Tagen-Dye

Carly Tagen-Dye Editor-in-Chief

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

ADVISORS

Carly Tagen-Dye

Christina Park

David Gordon

MANAGING EDITOR Nina Martineck CREATIVE DIRECTORS Amber Duan YoTian Chu

PRODUCTION MANAGER Tien Servidio LAYOUT Amber Duan YoTian Chu COVER BY Selena Yao

Sahar Khraibani SOCIALS Website: prattleronline.com Email: theprattler@gmail.com Instagram: @prattler

PRATT INSTITUTE 2022