#if I see one more dudebro say 'but you didn't go through what I did with Ghost' I'm gonna scream
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Hold onto your hats, because I want to rant about how Blizzard fucking sucks with women or any minority rep. And why it'll suck for your fav in whatever MW is coming up.
Fully inspired by this post, I'll be referencing to a few points that @spookykittenwrites made
As I said in those tags, I've been playing WoW since Burning Crusade, so I've known about the company since about 2007. I've not touched overwatch, but according to emp, their rep there is surface-level as well.
It's half me yelling about MW and half me yelling about how WoW fails in representation.
I have 0 faith in them with any sort of proper representation. I'll mostly be sticking to queers and women. I do have a small section about Gaz, but I'm white and keep that in mind.
Onto the bullshit
They're not gonna make any main character queer. This means Soap, Gaz, Price, and Ghost. Farah and Alex by extension. Most likely not Alejandro and Rudy. They won't risk the repercussions.
Hell, Alejandro is implied to have a family, but we skimmed over that part as a fandom.
What they will do, like Laswell, mention that a side/secondary/tertiary character has a partner, but won't put ANY thought into it. Laswell's wife could SHOULD have been talked about by name.
They don't CARE enough about their characters to even solidify her over a facade of rep that will make the queer people happy. It did in a sense, I am happy that she has a wife. But if you're bothering to have a line about her, just add a second. Like Price could ask "Oh, how's Madeline doing anyways?" or "Yea, you've told Jenny you'd stop smoking how many times already?"
WoW-wise, their queer characters are mostly surface-level. Which isn't bad in a world full of queer stories that are queer-centric. The problem is they don't have the balls to upset any fan by making a popular character explicitly queer in their portrayal. Hell it wasn't even THEM who made Matthias and Flynn queer, it was originally put into the novels (I believe Chrissy Golden?)
Here's a quote from an executive producer: "We don't try to put a big focus on it and make it a big deal, we just try to make the game feel comfortable, friendly and approachable for everybody"
I don't know about you, but using "comfortable, friendly, and approachable for everybody" as an excuse for why you don't have more outwardly queer rep (versus "hint around it") leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Because my sexuality or gender identity is uncomfortable for people? My existance is uncomfortable for people, so you don't want to explicitly say it???
but he implied that the devs don't think Pelagos is the first trans character. Fuck you. It's giving JKR saying that Dumbledore is gay, but it wasn't important to Harry's story. What isn't explicitly said in the source material is not canon.
They had, HAVE, the chance to make major players into canonically queer characters, but they're afraid of backlash. Vol'jin would have been so easily bi in canon, especially with his whole thing with Tyranthan in the fucking novel. And that Tyranthan went to his funeral??? even though they're on opposite sides????
Onto the next point, they don't and won't give a shit about the female characters. All I'm thinking about is the disappointing outcome of Tyrande's revenge after the burning of Teldrassil, hell even the whole Azshara thing. I'm not gonna go into detail about how it, just know it led to nothing. She didn't get revenge. She didn't have a satisfying end. Why? Probably because Sylvanas and Azshara are both more popular than Tyrande. Sylvanas probably being the WoW character with the most merch (not to mention the whole thing about a dev loving her).
Farah is gonna be brought up minimally, much like she was in MW II. Valeria/El Sin Nombre and most likely the Vaqueros will be completely forgotten. Maybe brought back (again like Farah was in MW II)
They're not consistent with their characters in the first place, why give a shit about a promise they made. It'll most likely be implied between games that some shit will be solved, or a line or two in the next game. Just so people get closure.
The surface level rep keeps going throughout. We have a bunch of diversity in the operators, but significantly less in the campaign, where the characters need to be fleshed out more than a written backstory and voiced lines.
How often have they shown Alex properly since he lost his leg?
The dudebro's are pissed that they changed Gaz, a mostly 1-dimensional character that died within the first Modern Warfare. Gaz is a good character, there's no reason that they're pissed about him vs them being pissed about any other member of the task force. But I've seen more hate on Gaz than any other 141. Which sadly leads me to conclude that they probably only dislike him due to his race.
But the aspect that isn't giving me much hope is the phasing out of Gaz in additional content. You're telling me the only POC in the 141 is not included in the red team? Out of all the dudes you could have removed?? Like I'm all for including Farah into the red team; but removing the only person of color on the team, one who was canonically in the Ghost Team mission, isn't the win they think it is.
Not to mention the numerous merch of the 141 that have Ghost, Price, and Soap; but not Gaz. With only 1 design containing Gaz.
And don't come at me that "those are the old designs though!" It's in their current website for sale. The 8-bit design is fairly recent within the last few weeks or so. Gaz is a main character in MW 2019 AND 2022. He deserves more than 1 solo shirt that is just the repurpose of the 141 shirt.
Onto the points brought up by @spookykittenwrites
Ghoap
Either won't be mentioned at all or will be excessively "haha we're just pals" kinda vibes.
They WILL play up the dynamic in trailers and such, as it did bring a new group of people to the games, and it seemed to make the dudebro's happy with their bromance.
Death
None of the main characters will be killed off. There's too much opportunity to make money off of their survival. So far the new games have been very light with the major character deaths. In the original games Soap and Price are the only 2 that survive past 1 game.
Roach
They're not gonna make him mute or selectively mute.
I do think they might bring back Roach to kill him off within the same Game though.
Hell, they might not even bring him back.
Farah and Alex
I honestly hope that we see them together, it might not happen. I think they're gonna keep the Farah/Alex line as the raid focus.
As for the no chemistry thing. Depends. If they're seen for 3.5 seconds they definitely won't. Hell, they aren't technically ever stated to be dating in canon AND the dudebro's get pissed that people are shipping them. Again with the not saying anything that'll upset the target audience.
For the Muslim aspect; not sure they even think about their own characters enough to have her religion mentioned in game. (They can't even get the bios straight when they update the game, I'm not gonna complain about this here)
Laswell's Wife
Important thing to remember, the line about her wife isn't even in every playthrough. It's a hidden one.
No doubt about her never being mentioned in my head. It only got past the dudebros because it's a lesbian couple. If it was a dude talking about his husband I doubt it would have gotten into the game.
US can do no Wrong
Definitely, the entirety of the blame will be on Russians. They did in fact blame a real US warcrime on Russians in the past.
Interestingly enough, the most recent info I can find is that the Military took out their funding post-sexual harassment allegations from Activision-Blizzard in December 2022.
Military Propaganda is still Military Propaganda even if the Military isn't funding it.
Moral of the story? The comfort of the dudebros, the target demographic for the game, will always be priority. They won't risk hurting their profits by claiming a character is queer or putting too much importance on a woman. Whatever their comfort level is, is what that we'll be getting.
I'm gonna stop my rant here... Don't go into the next game hoping to get some good rep.
On a slightly positive note: they are getting better. Farah was genuinely a good character in MW 2019. The fact that there's a mention of a same-sex partner, even in passing, is pretty good.
Also, enjoy the Christmas merch shirts that I found of Price and Ghost.
#if I see one more dudebro say 'but you didn't go through what I did with Ghost' I'm gonna scream#you might have loved him as an operator#but canonically he's only in 1 game#and had 0 personality#I'm not tagging anything bcz I don't want people yelling at me tbh
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If somebody brandished me in front of their entire household like that I'd die from sheer embarrassment.
Maybe it's because I know what's coming, I can't help but feel the grip of dread coiling around me. There's technically nothing wrong with Shaghad in these panels, but I find myself wincing and bracing myself. Like, he's presumably close to his household staff, they're all smiling, Elam looks really happy for them, but I can't share their smile. I wonder how I would've felt towards these panels if I didn't know what would happen (by the time this chapter came around and I first read it I unfortunately already watched the anime and knew what was coming).
We don't see his face, his eyes. His smile is a bit too wide. He doesn't respond to what Narsus actually said. Shaghad's “Narsus!” was said a little too forcefully.
He must've heard what Arslan represents, as established in previous chapters the residents of Gilan know Arslan wants to abolish slavery.
Shaghad wants no part of it.
First hint in the scene that, uh-oh, things aren't gonna be smooth sailing for Narsus.
“You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY.
I know the quote is only so tangentially relevant if you tilt your head sideways and squint, but I couldn't resist.
Stories are important, y'all.
Elam must be feeling so terrible, seeing as he was once a slave too (and looks like these slaves aren't even being treated kindly to boot, and Shaghad dares to proclaim “there's nothing wrong w the system if the master is merciful!” when he himself is not even a merciful master...)
Shaghad is the type of person that, when someone says “it's not fair!”, laughs and smugly sneers at the person “the world's not fair, deal with it”. Or one of those dudebro types who mock emotions and stuff by saying “brooo that's all chemicals nothing you say is valid and nothing you feel is real”.
God I hate this guy.
I do wonder when/how he changed, though. How'd he go from being so close to Narsus, enough for the latter to trust him, to... this? Maybe the inferiority-resentment combo he felt made him veer off-course. He was always the “disreputable” type, so I guess his descent wasn't very difficult.
This panel is making me feel things. Narsus and Elam are so small, the gates of Shaghad's estate looming behind them. The way the shadow is positioned evokes the feeling that they're leaving darkness behind. Compared to the grand, warm welcome they received with servants lining the gate, there's no one to see them off when they depart. Ough.
The way the line “When even a love may wither with time, why expect more of friendship?” is positioned over a panel of ocean waves about to erase footprints (I think?). Arakawa is a genius.
Also, Narsus sounds so dad-like in this scene, and Elam... is not okay. I wonder what he's thinking.
Oughohohoho Farangis PRETTY
How tf did Pelagius not recognize her, is he blind?? And of course, I loved the part where she just. THROWS HIM. Woman's STRONK.
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I saw someone talking about how with the scenes added in the ebook and with the scenes in the ongoing side story, with emphasis on that one scene where LHH talks about the heroine of ORV, DokSoo might become canon. And while they did mention that they read the side story, I thought that that particular scene pretty much sunk many ships?
oh boy ngl i was a bit reluctant answering this ask but imo this is just fans' wishful thinking rather than singshong walking through a doksoo route.
the doksoo scenes added to the ebook arent really so fundamental to the point that theyre the closest ship to become canon. in fact I'd say that the main reason to make them canon would be that it's a (well-developed) straight ship tbh. in the 1863rd turn, theres an added smoking-on-the-roof scene. kdj tries smoking and immediately has a coughing fit. hsy asks him if she did well in this round. this added scene is a direct parallel to kdj telling her that she did well during the enemy of the story arc
another scene is during kaizenix. yjh and kdj decide to try the romance route and bcs yuri was in love with ricardo, it's kdj who writes the letter "write a story that's for me and me alone" this is also a foreshadowing to what we learn in the epilogue lol. to expand more on kaizenix, we also have yjh telling kdj that his writing skills are terrible despite him reading so much, kdj tells him that with his face he certainly didnt have any problems with courting. yjh then goes on a thinking tangent about how he could not care less about the looks of someone he likes (and we know who is called ugly throughout the book)
as for the lhh part where he talks about orv's heroine (kdj's love interest in this context) he is 100% not referring to han sooyoung. he says that the character he had in mind didnt have as much screentime as the other leads. the main women in orv when it comes to screentime are hsy jhw uriel and ysa. going by lhh's logic and IF his words represent singshong's stance, then hsy is immediately ruled out. i also wouldn't consider jhw for the role either, not only bcs i didnt really see their scenes with a romantic undertone but also why would singshong write kdj's romantic interest love someone else (lhs) romantically?
with uriel, unless you consider kdj/uriel to be a direct parallel to 999yjh/999uriel then i dont think shes The candidate either. now for ysa, im a bit iffy when it comes to her bcs sure she doesnt have as much as screentime as lets say yoohankim but shes also not someone you would consider neglected (like lsh for example) also i genuinely think that romance would undermine doksang's bonds. i think theyre so good BECAUSE theyre platonic
singshong have told us in multiple ways that orv is not a story about a canon romance so you can interpret the ending however you want just dont mis-label the novel's genre (this includes both het and gay romance). plus i just dont think they would shoot themselves on the foot and risk "angering" the largest active part of the fandom (general statement). i dont want to sound arrogant but you cant deny that joongdok shippers are the backbone of orv fandom and joongdok artists have been the only ones to be recruited to promote orv. alter (the official artist before blackbox) is a danmei artist, blackbox is a joongdok shipper, haban (taiwanese release cover artist) has a danmei history, the artist of the simplified cn version release has jd porn on their twitter and so on. certainly singshong are aware that orv didn't get this big bcs some guy recommended it in solo leveling's comment sections
speaking of guys, not every dudebro out there ships doksoo anw, some like doksang, some dont ship anything. the same can be said about the female audience too. not everyone ships joongdok. some ship doksoo, some yoohankim, some nothing thats not canon. im not part of the latest group since i could not care less about a ship's canon status lol
this got WAY too long. if you want a TL;DR refer to the first paragraph
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Tales of Arcadia: Complete
A little while ago, I made a post saying that the last media related to the Tales of Arcadia I needed to see to complete it would be the movie Rise of the Titans
Well, I finally finished watching it
Edit: I forgot to say this but I am Brazilian and I watched the shows/movie in Brazilian Portuguese so there are some diferences I forgot to make a check of.
Bobby is Toby/Robot Gun is Gun Robot.
Tell me in comments if I forgot anything else. Sorry
First things first, I have to tell you i'm the type of person that doesn't care about spoilers. I already knew who was going to die.
I also already knew of the infamous "time travel for Bobby" ending
I also have to tell I'm a high-time (action/chases/fight scenes) dudebro "main attraction" kind of person
To me, the main characters and the main plot will always be more important in the grand scheme of the story and that secondary characters and b-plots should be there to support it and if they take more space than I think it's needed, I will be bothered
So...what are my thoughts? Well
The sub-plot with Steve becoming pregnant was...a metaphorical overflow to the cup that was my patience. Steve himself is a overflow to that cup but I'm straight up skipped the scene of birth because at that point I was done with it
Can anyone explain why did Bellroc's Titan come from the North Chinese Sea? I can understand Greenland for ice guy because cold nation and my home for Nari because our florest is notable enough to the point of being called Earth's lung (thank you nature for putting that effort on THIS place of all places) but why the North Chinese Sea for Bellroc?
...Is it wrong to say that I was expecting more from the Robot Gun vs Bellroc fight?
I mean, when you hear the name "Robot Gun" and hear that he's fighting a walking volcano, you expect a giant walking arsenal (especially after watching 3below with the Serrators) and that if the fight with the walking volcano was going to be a curbstomp, it would at least let the robot show off
I love that the explanation for the amount of weirdness that appears in Arcadia is that the HeartStone located in Arcadia is one of the first HeartStones in existence but I have two questions:
How did two those pages got stuck?
You mean to tell me Gunmar absorbed the energy of "THAT" HeartStone? (I'm not angry about that fact. I'm just curious)
So with all of that said, it's time I talked about it
Jim's decision to go back in time, let Bobby become the Trollhunter and try to make things work out in the end like the Young Atlas he forces himself to be
...Is it wrong to say that I was okay with it?
I know the popular opinion around this ending but I was kinda fine with it
Don't be fooled, I had many expectations around this ending. I was hoping to find something about it that made it feel wrong or broken to me
But each and every expectation I had about this ending, especially with the other 3 series beforehand to give me a feel of the story as a whole, was fulfilled as I watched
I hoped that the Khronosphere and its power over time was built up and, lo and behold, it had quite a screentime
I hoped that the decision to do it was treated as a last resort, and look and behold, they made sure to treat the situation around the Titans as apocalyptic as possible
And I HOPED (while also hoping it didn't exist) for a scene where they acknowledged how rough, how tough and how heavy such a decision would be to our Young Atlas
When I made that post, when I was preparing to watch the movie and when I was watching the movie, I hoped so much that this scene didn't exist.
I wanted ONE non-hammered/wrongly hammered nail
But, look and behold, that scene existed
The only thing that I guess bothers me is that I always felt through the series to not fully trust Bobby to handle such a task but as a certain video I watched on Youtube related to Discworld once said:
"Scientists believe that's a 1 in a 1.000.000 possiblity. Wizards say that 1- in a 1.000.000 possibilities happens 9 times out of 10"
And Bobby has shown me many times, despite my own opinions of him, that he doesn't think
He Becomes (or in my first language: Transforms Himself)
.........Also, how high is the hope for a sequel where we see how Jim efforts paid up?
#trollhunters#3below#wizards tales of arcadia#toa trollhunters#toa 3below#toa wizards#trollhunters rise of the titans
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if the redditor dudebros are right, he made a mistake on his flying lap and then couldn't improve much after since the tires were already used. (which it did look like he went wide and kicked some gravel up at one point, i just couldn't tell because they were playing with graphics at the time so i didn't know if it was graphics appearing or gravel i saw). but that's at least something, i suppose.
they're half right
he did mess up on one of his quick laps, he was green through S1 and S2 and then ended up yellow in S3 because the rear seemed to kick and he went wide (not sure about the gravel, I don't remember seeing any dust kick up from it, but it was enough to fuck up his lap time a little)
he barely did any runs on the softs though, which is what a lot of people including Oscar did, Lando seemed to mostly run the hard tyres and also spent a lot of time doing continuous laps, and at one point was "tucked up under the rear wing of Alonso for a lap gathering information" (McLaren's words not mine lol)
McLaren really seem to be testing these upgrades and I'm sure they're taking full advantage of 3 practice sessions to do it in rather than just the one they had last week
we've also got to remember that practice sessions are an indication of how things are going but you can't directly compare the teams because everyone is on different set ups, fuel runs, some were doing a push-cool-push, some doing continuous or more representative of race pace laps, some were looking at possible quali run type laps
from what I saw the McLaren race pace laps were looking kinda nice but we'll have to see what they do in FP3 tomorrow and then obviously quali is all about pushing
I'm not upset or overly concerned is what I'm trying to say 😅
#british gp 2023#FP2#lando norris#i always say practice doesn't mean as much as people *cough* sky *cough* make it out to be#it's useful to see but it's mostly for the engineers and collecting data#birb speaks
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s02ep01 of Mushoku Tensei
Yay, everybody's most hated anime finally started!
"Hey, you, you're finally awake!"
Spoilers below!
So the episode starts and the first thing I see isn't the image above but... this:
Is this Rudeus? Why is he blushing? Can't trust blushing in this anime!
(it wasn't Rudeus lol!)
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>Do I need to answer that?
Wow I see Rudeus became a snarky ass anti-social hikineet again.
She literally snapped (the arrow).
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>I'd like a room for a month, please.
A whole month? So he's going to start searching from here?
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lol he just left a pile of coin and went in
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My boy, erm, man, is down bad.
This is kinda creepy ngl
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>I'm not travelling to get over my heartbreak. I need to find Zenith.
Who is Zenith?
...
Oh yeah, his, his mom. I, I think...??? (or was it his sister???)
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Wow now this is some tropey bullshit.
Ever since wild west movies you can't enter a goddamn tavern without everyone looking at door and making comments. It's like they sit in these tables just waiting for someone to enter through them doors. Like dude what were you even doing there before Rudeus walked through? Weren't you having a conversation? Drinking? Or were you like "hey bro keep watch on the door while I take a sip."
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>Excuse me, would you mind helping me officially disband my party?
Oh, so that's what he went there for.
>*hesitates*
Just hand the tag, Rudeus, gosh, stop being so melodramatic!
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>Did his party get wiped out?
Uh... no?
So did nobody notice what his party name was? I thought that would be important? I guess it's not that famous outside the... whatever that demon region was called.
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>What about your party?
>I work alone.
ok, kirito, calm down
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wow he had a panic attack?
what... what is he touching in there
is it... it's her hair isn't it
...
okay...
bro is down bad
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Every time I see a scene like this I can't help but think that this person only looks after Rudeus because he looks like a kid and if he looked his original way she would just kick him out.
Sad but that's what I learned from Cheat Skill: people are (jusfiably tbh) prejudiced against fatass hikineets (u_u)
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Is he talking about his sister or Eris...?
(come to think of it, wasn't his sister already found? Gee, I completely forgot everything that happened in season 1!)
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>touches Eris hair as a group of dudebros walk by
Rudy... bro...
Haha haha. Brutal.
Just dumping salt on the wound aren't ya!
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>you're early
I thought he was diligent, but I guess he just didn't sleep.
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Something I noticed rewatching:
>I can cast spells without an incantation
>the girls: *didn't even hear that*
>the two magic guys: :o (holy shit)
>the sword guy: huh? (what are them reacting about???)
I guess you could say this is a big deal for some. And others have no idea about it.
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>he doesn't shake her hand
Stop being so melodramatic, Rudeus, jesus christ, they aren't even dead!
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So the leader isn't the strongest. He sounds like the weakest, in fact.
I'm glad they have a healer. If I remember correctly it's the one thing Rudeus can't do.
Tsundere girl on full power AGAIN I see.
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>you might part ways with us and party with other adventurers someday.
No, dude, they're using her to teach YOU!
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>They can't see well in the dark, right?
I'm glad Rudeus actually learned something in his adventures. What an experienced adventurer he grew up (?) into!
PSA: adventurer isn't a stable job. Please don't be like him.
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Why do I feel like that's not the case for Rudeus...
>then, what if I joined close range?
RUDEUS WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU'RE A MAGE
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>the last person I saw cast silently was a teacher in my school days
It's that rare...
Wait how old is this guy.
He has lines under his eyes so I guess he must be extremely old (like 30 years old or more (sorry ;p)).
With that long hair, scarf and physique he looks like a character from some BL. Which one of the two other party guys would people ship him with?
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THEY AREN'T DEAD. FUCKING HELL RUDEUS. STOP.
Guy you're talking to probably had his old party members die on him or some shit, your issues are NOTHING compared to *gestures around*
JUST GET IN THE DAMN ROBOT RUDY!!!
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How nice of the monsters to stay together still in one spot where you can just blast them off the planet with one big explosion magic.
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>mage, whispering: exa-flame
>BOOOM
okay.
>he chants whispering again
Why is he whispering. That explosion was fucking loud. The monsters woke up already.
>he does it again
You know what I think that's just how he speaks.
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What is Rudeus listening to on the ground?
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>it's too late
Did he see it with his eye?
Rudeus???
Jesus christ, he was about to suicide by monster grizzly bear attack.
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Stop giving everyone trouble, Rudeus. Cast some spell...
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Wow the healer actually heals.
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>Why isn't everyone running?
You think you can outrun a bear? Humans are better at long distance endurance you know.
>of course I know why they stand and fight
Because... they gonna die if they don't???
Sorry is this supposed to be deep?
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>goes grope Eris embarrassing hair bundle again
>doesn't
Is this supposed to be character development?
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I can't believe this lazy sack of shit did nothing the entire fight just to step up last moment and seize the hero spot.
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Oh it's the melting snow thing again.
This gets a pass.
Because it looks badass.
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This looks like it could make a good wallpaper.
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Love at first sight!
If tsundere switches because of his power level I swear to god...
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What is this. Blood? Mud? Fire burns? Cold burns? An EoE reference? I don't even know.
I'm glad Rudeus can actually loot things like a proper adventurer.
I'm also VERY GLAD this is actual looting in this series and none of that "monster disappears and turns into Japanese-style bath tub drop item" kind of bullshit.
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The fact that he can say "thank you" in scenes like these is probably one of the best parts of this series.
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One thing I noticed rewatching:
They're shaking hands NOW because he didn't shake her hand when they left. This went over my head the first time.!
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>more tavern antagonism
Stop acting like NPCs, NPCs...
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>everyone: fuck off foreigner >:( *xenophobes*
>foreigner: we'll buy everyone a round of drinks!
>everyone: uh, yeah ur alright :3
Leader is paladin class I see.
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>Rudeus! Rudeus! Rudeus! Rudeus!
please stop
this is cringe
he just cast one spell
y'all spoiling him
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>hand in pocket
AGAIN DUDE???
wait what
what
WHAAAATTTT
no way
It's the panties. The holy relic.
Jesus christ.
>what the hell am I doing?
What the hell are you doing really!
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You know despite the voice actor's terrific voice acting it's kinda hard to take you seriously when you're pressing your teacher's stolen panties against your face like that.
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I'm glad he finally came to terms that NOBODY EVEN FUCKING DIED YET.
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Wow such an impact...ful.. scene... i... guess????
Okay, so we have both good news and bad news.
Good news is... he isn't into the redhead loli.
Bad news is... he's really into the teacher loli.
Sad news is... best loli is the crazy demon lord loli and I'm afraid we won't be graced by her absolutely psychopathic presence again so soon. But we will one day I hope. Think of it like this Rudeus was born with two eyes, right, so what I'm saying is... does that count as foreshadowing??? Please???
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So new season starts with now-veteran adventurer Rudy getting into a new party and he will probably use their help to search for his mother (?) Zenith.
All things ranted one thing we get in this anime that we don't normally get is a character having started his adventurer job from zero in a world, leaving a party, then forming a new party and showing off his experience.
Normally it's start from zero OR start with full experience.
Refreshing that we get to see both ways for once.
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Let me start by saying I've never watched Legend of Korra. like, the most I've watched was any bending scenes/fights and all the Zuko and Toph clips (admittedly, I didn't watch any of the Katara clips because..well..honestly I didn't want to see her be so meek). But I've always felt kinda...bad for liking Mako since the few posts I did read made it seem like both Korra and Asami were better off without him and I didn't want to accidentally fall into the category of sympathising with a man who didn't treat women right. Even when I watched what few clips he was in -Mako seemed a little serious but not anything bad- I thought it was just because I didn't see enough of him to see why he was so bad for Korra and Asami.
And then I read your post on Mako and how he had to do anything and everything to take care of Bolin and my heart kinda broke. I don't know if this is right, but it kinda feels like Mako is being treated a bit like Katara's being treated. Like, they both fit the sibling-turned-parental-figure roles and some of the fandom seems like they can't accept that both are still teenagers who...well, still act like teenagers. seriously, I'm gonna be mad if I ever see another 'take' about how Katara is bad for acting more teenager than mother 😤. And the parallels between the non-con kisses that their respective Avatars gave them, with both Mako and Katara shouldering the blame (though in Katara's case it's more of a "she's supposed to like it! She's the Avatar's girl uwu") . It just rubs me the wrong way how neither of them get any slack for acting less than amazing when they both spent years carrying their trauma and shielding their siblings from that same hurt.
Sorry if this is bothering you or if it doesn't make sense; I'm just kinda fed up of seeing people side with the Avatar no matter what the situation was, especially when Korra and Aang were actually in the wrong *coughnon-conkisscough*
You're not bothering me at all, don't worry!
Honestly all of this makes a ton of sense, someone who's never seen the show and only has fandom's word to go on could be excused for thinking Mako's a fuckboy who was intentionally leading the girls on rather than a kid who'd been raising his baby brother alone on the streets since he was eight years old and maybe not the best at navigating personal relationships and didn't know how to deal with the fact that he had feelings for two incredible girls at the same time. That shit's hard to deal with even when you have parents and had a happy and comfortable life and are just in high school trying to get through the day, but you throw that in the mix with 'became a parent at eight years old' and 'struggled to get enough to feed his brother, nevermind himself, while they lived on the streets' and then everything that happened during the series, and it's like, cut this kid some slack maybe????
Also the comparisons with the way the fandom treats Katara are also spot on. Obviously in Katara's case there's also an added element of racialized misogyny, because she's a dark-skinned girl and the only dark-skinned girl in the main cast, so that gets added to the fact that she was also the gaang's 'mom friend' and you get fans unironically calling her a 'bitch' for -checks notes- getting reasonably upset after being pushed to her limit and losing her cool--but in Mako's case, he actually fills the same niche in the krew that Katara did in the gaang, and he gets a lot of the same treatment, which I think winds up coming at him from the opposite side of the fence so to speak. Because he's a boy, he automatically gets the blame for anything that goes wrong with the love triangle--up to and including the avatar violating his boundaries and kissing him without his consent--because Korra and especially Asami are precious girls and could do no wrong.
And the thing is that it gets kinda complicated because Korra did also get a lot of racialized misogyny flung at her by the racist&misogynistic dudebros of the fanbase who hated that a brown girl was now the avatar, but that wound up overshadowing the very real and reasonable criticisms that can be made of her character and her behavior. Especially in Book 2, where she gets angry enough at Mako for -checks notes- doing his job and not wanting to jump to conclusions that she TRASHES HIS OFFICE!!!!! IN A FIT OF RAGE!!!!!! (which of course Mako gets blamed for and a lot of fans will frame that as Korra getting 'reasonably upset' which lol no)--and the fact that this occurs in the same season as Bolin getting trapped in an explicitly toxic and abusive relationship with a Water Tribe girl (who happens to be Korra's cousin) that is played for laughs the entire fucking time makes me think that Bryke just have very troubling ideas about how it's ok for women to treat their significant others, particularly if they happen to be men.
(Although let it not be said that they didn't write toxic relationships from the other side, Varrick spends the entire series mistreating Zhu Li and then at the end he decides he's in love with her and they get married [in a very Western ceremony, incidentally], and nothing is ever mentioned of the awful way he treated her for the entire show.)
So yeah like, it really, really bothers me that Katara and Mako share similar niches in their respective teams and both of them get a whole lot of untoward hatred for -checks notes- being teenagers and having feelings and sometimes expressing them. They both deserve so much better from their respective fanbases, and I think the biggest reason Katara has a bigger and more devoted defense squad is because atla is still pretty widely regarded as the best installment of the franchise and a lot of people just don't care to even watch lok. The bulk of the lok fanbase is anti Mako and it's hard to maintain any resilience as a fandom in the face of that lmao.
But I'm always happy to talk about how much I love him and if I can only turn the tide one anon at a time then that's ok.
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Do you think canon Jaune still currently hates cinder like he did in V4 or do you think he simply sees her as someone who needs to be stopped?
That's an interesting question. I appreciate you asking me lol. (For the record, there’s an upsetting screencap from V8 of Penny’s death below).
Well, he knows it's her.
His first priority is to secure the civilians, so he's past his death wish.
(Kind of off-topic, sort of: it’s actually ridiculous how romantic I find this shot of Cinder revealing herself to Jaune with her obsidian projectiles. Hi, honey)!
I think that he's past the hatred, yes. At this point he's really just dismissive of her. Both aggression and dismissal of the anima are not the final answer... idk I have some thoughts on it as it stands in canon but also I'm trying to protect my heart and not get too attached. Sure I am content to hypothesise about whether the Indecisive King structure holds true but also in terms of immediate canon I'm like please don't hurt me lol.
Of course, now they're tied together through Penny's death, just like Cinder killed Pyrrha, and there's all sorts of fucked up/wonderful potential there (and as a shipper pre-V8, I lost my mind when this happened - so tragic).
I really like them both riding each other's shields but it's important to remember here he's specifically keeping her from Penny. There's both the framing of Jaune being 'the thing immediately in front of her' as well as her immediate obstacle to reconcile... remember he's her animus too. He's 'protecting' Penny at the same time as diametrically having hurt her... there's so much going on here.
Because there are two ways it could go. Cinder's stopped and that's the simple and clean answer, you gut her cleanly and get it over with. That, or the more complicated one, which is integrating anima and animus (like Salem and Ozma didn't). That could be platonic. Or not.
I think Jaune has also accepted his role as healer/more supportive (or classically 'feminine') characteristics in respect to their V5 confrontation but he's not done yet. Cinder's story is also really picking up momentum, so it could go any way now, virtually.
Also for fuck's sake, Jaune's new outfit and hair in V7/V8 is so laughable to look at. It's the one thing I sincerely cannot get behind in the new volumes. I prefer the more casual longer hair and I also haaaaaate the dudebro haircut. I can't tell if it's actually trying to do something thematically or if it's just stupid.
Not really the point of your ask but I can't really predict what will come next. I lean towards the pessimistic side because I don’t want to be hurt. I sort of took Jaune's redesign (more a modern idea of masculinity) as a cue WK is more likely because that's also more of a... very feminine/very masculine pairing, whereas Cinder embodies a lot of masculine and feminine characteristics (and I'm using these in a descriptive sense here, not trying to say people ought to be one way or another) which I find to be pleasingly balancing with Jaune-the-healer-and-pretty-boy lol.
In summary: I don't think he hates her, and I think that's actually still a problem, because when he was angry, he confronted her and challenged her.
This is specifically why I ship it. One of many, anyway.
So if there's not more conflict between them at some point, there's an issue - at the very least there has to be a reprisal from anger -> dismissal/rejection -> confrontation/acceptance.
That, or it's removed from her and the others offer him support for having to kill Penny. In that case, then I’m very, very wrong about story direction, or at least the importance of anima/animus (which seems to be a big deal, but who nose - the character arcs are not all treading the same ground, and it could just be that once he’s past Cinder he’s past Cinder, but again, she’s also very important as villainess protagonist, and and and... so much riding on this lol).
I also want to put a disclaimer if this post gets out of hand (I doubt it does), when I refer to Jungian psychoanalysis it’s explicitly within a story structure and the way the story uses to communicate ideas, and conceptions of self in a poetic manner. I don’t literally think people are composite parts, but I think the symbolic/iconographic method of storytelling is interesting because it’s all rich and intentional.
It’s a way to explore ideas of the self etc. and the kinds of personal and moral decisions you have to make about the world, not literally trying to be prescriptive about human psychology. I do think as a broad disclaimer the hero’s journey is limiting and absolutely not universal, but it is a major part of the language of Western storytelling, the same as Jung.
I also really like anima/animus, light and dark, equals/opposites, the things that define a thing as that-which-it-is-not is also what gives it meaning, that type of philosophy (sorrow is half of joy). So that’s the angle I come from. That’s why I think it’s important Jaune doesn’t run from it and dismiss it, and the same for Cinder.
#knightfall#rwby knightfall#arcfall#pick one.#seraphina's asks#and also like if anybody is still somehow reading#the real urgency I feel to finish Skimming Eye is because I'm honestly so pessimistic about V9#like I absolutely adored V8#but I also know it's probably going to kill my Knightfall drive#because WK is very likely in my eyes at least in terms of what I think I should be prepared for lol#and i'll almost definitely feel embarrassed I was so invested and it'll be horrrriiiiiible#so i HAVE to tell this story now#whilst I feel like it's possible#and whilst I feel invested and not embarrassed
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My Dean Blunt Rotation aka High Fidelity Left A Bad Taste in My Mouth
For the past 2 to 3 months, my listening habits were teetering to an end; mostly via burnout by spontaneously listening to local artists daily and less likely of a musical discovery drought, whereas my interests of a certain artist or genre hasn't found its, sort of, "eureka", moment per se. I've been feeling less enthusiastic over the things i listen to since my friends have gradually lost their flare when it comes to discovering/exploring untapped parts of the music realm. Thus, in return, my enthusiasm not being reciprocated. It leaves an empty feeling from someone who has been yearning social interaction, may it be media being latched on the topic - it's a feeling that's been guilt-tripping me ever since I was stranded in the other end of the metro. I feel closed off, exposed to the crippling loneliness the lockdown has punished us: a defacto solitary confinement in a national level. Our act of staying online is also an act of staying alive outside.
To be fair though, it's a valid move to not boomerang compliments/gripes over an art you haven't consumed due to someone's autonomy. Your able body being to consume the art you wish to finish with free time is a luxury in of itself. The art is then failed to serve its purpose to reach its goal: You have squiggly lines heading straight to oblivion rather than swirling in the earlobes of a wandering cyber nomad. We, eventually, need to find something that could help us exit, rather than escape, from capital. We, in return, do not shut ourselves from the outside. Instead, we then tend to avoid the stress of protocols and outdoor fascism; Not avoid the indoor liberalism that is eating us alive and online. It's a capital punishment we never knew we signed up for ever since the onslaught of the virus and the state. Art for art's sake is nonexistent now, always has been, it seizes to ever since we went inside. Feeding off of a holographic meatloaf coming from a glowing screen. We have a real-life Karen acting as a nightlight in our rooms.
The COVID lockdown made us listen to music — both for better, for worse. For one, it made us pass most days. You could say the same for any sort of media: film, mixed media art, or whatever pre-Covid activity that sprung up during our time in isolation. For music, however, there was an uptick of new listeners that made others Wheel-of-Fortune the fuck out of their music discoveries in sites like RateYourMusic, Bandcamp, or even Sophie's Floorboard. We've continued to expand and became more open change of opinions and be less of a jackass towards someone else's opinions. On second thought, our opinions have been catalogued, leaving more notes than actual footprints of our previous listens. Our new discoveries made new bands and re-emerging bands, bands who faded to obscurity, crawl back in the surface with newfound interest from younger listeners (ie Panchiko, Jai Paul, and Dean Blunt) and this glowing, previously unseen and unexpected overwhelming support from fans of departed artists (ie SOPHIE, MF DOOM)
For the other, we've hogged gratuitous amounts of media, resulting into losing our primary direction as to how we want to consume our media based on the preconceived notions of what we want in our art. There is goodness in becoming directionless when you think about it, but there comes a cost to our identity as music listeners. Instead, we end up widening our tangents, falling in endless rabbit holes, having zero chances to emerge from the surface. In fact, i refuse to call it a "rabbit hole" instead i'd rather call it a "pipeline" of sorts — transitioning casual music fans into a full on, different, unique versions of themselves that would define them when laws and protocols have eased in the outside world. Our act of staying online has either made most of us break our character or enliven our past selves. The music pipeline is now more apparent, stretching the norms of what was once alienated by a silent majority, but now accepted as an acceptable form of expression. The more music we are exposed to has made casual listeners stranged out or react in ways that our personality have betrayed us or deemed not as acceptable to them. Still, not changing anything that was prominent pre-pandemic. Liberal cop behavior is stronger, now more dangerous than it ever was once perceived by the outside world.
HIGH FIDELITY? NO, THANK YOU.
Imagine a situation inside of a record, pre-pandemic of course, where you do not feel like lifting a record out from the shelf, instead, you window shop just for the sake of windowshopping. Capital and media made us think that going to record shops is a semi-productive activity. The age of discovery has died ever since High Fidelity romanticized and normalized the incelage of horny record diggers. Does this movie age well, yeah sure it does, for old 90s nerds at least. But did it translate well over in the past 20 or more years of events and tragedies that unfolded in pre-9/11 America? No it didn't. It was an age of free expression, only liberals would dream of whenever they take a sip of Guinness beer in their favorite dive bar.
Mind you, over a couple of months ago, it was my only chance in seeing why this movie was the talk of the town back when it was released. There's music, yeah, and attractive leading leadies, yeah, it has everything a 90s kid would love to salivate and drop their gonads over while they watch this movie. I obviously did not live to see the movie on opening day but i could imagine the scent that came out of that movie theater with attendees donning windbreakers and The Who shirts with popcorn dressing stains on their plastic cups. If there was a Filipino counterpart to this movie, i'd bet corporate champions Eraserheads and Rivermaya would soundtrack their music over and have either Tado or have Boy 2 Quizon, but i sense it to age like milk more than it could age like fine wine due to the senseless jokes one can execute in a Cubao or Cartimar record store.
John Cusack is obviously the incel in question here: a damaged, vengeful ex who constantly fails to live his partner's expectations and weaponizes his personality over the situations that has nothing to do with his interests. I spent the entire time being absolutely disgusted over the spineless responses of John Cusack's leading character. The movie then treads on flashbacks with John Cusack's failed relationships and what he could do to move on from each and one of them. If i could stand a SONA for 3 hours then I can't stand John Cusack being the dull entry point to incel, making more reasons why you should hate record store clerks who don't give an iota of shits to someone's inviting rapport. High Fidelity is opium for massive music circle jerks who can't take a single breathe of fresh air or a single quota of touching grass. There's more targeting weak and inferior guys and hot women who dump dumb overconfident dudebros more than the actual "music recs" in the entire movie. The more I think about this movie, the more I realize how our personality is in line towards Dick, the record store being unmercifully dunked on by the movie's two leading characters. He's an angel in the world of cynical bastards, witnessing both demons pitchforking record store customers in the ass while they're purchasing the latest Sonic Youth album.
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I believe that Jack Black, the dark horse of High Fidelity, has a pleasing personality more than an irritating demeanor due to this behavior in the record store. In fact, outside of the record store, Jack Black doesn't seem to take the business is your pleasure act pretty seriously. Unlike John Cusack's character he brought his obsession over involving a record in an important memory/point of his life. There is so much stuff that has happened outside of the record store, so much for Rolling Stone and NME being the bible of music at the time, endlessly christening and shilling artists that believe to become the second coming of the Beatles. The music references here however are treated as fluff than it is a mechanism that would drive the senseless plot forward. If anything, there are events pointed out in the event that doesn't have anything to do with the life of the characters.
If anything, this movie did a great job at capturing the feeling of music bros being dumped on the wayside by a mature set of characters and how their current conditions aren't perfumed by the studios' liking of having to Cinderella story the shit out of a bunch of normal record store owners. The reality is in the reaction of one's social capital being invaded and we're here to witness how those reactions panned out in 2021. This is a villainous depiction of music nerds being the salt of the earth, the bane of all media discussion, still reflective of the insufferable salt of cyberspace found in music forums like 4chan and RYM. High Fidelity is a pipeline of 90s musicology, a dreaded fever dream of an owner waiting for the decade to end, trends ossifying and re-emerged by the hands of nostalgia-savvy individuals. It was, at its time, every music-movie nerd's excuse equivalent of Scott Pilgrim VS. The World. There are memories worth remembering and cherishing, and this movie isn't one of them.
DEAN BLUNT, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK
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In the past two weeks I've been fancying myself into sitting down and listening to different projects from the ever elusive, UK-based sound artist Dean Blunt. The first time i chanced upon his music wasn't too long ago - albeit a recent one in the time of COVID - was when I randomly stumbled upon his records at a Spotify recommendations section under John Maus (yeah lol i know the implications whenever his name is mentioned) - but then i was enamored by his online presence so quickly I put everything down and dedicated an hour or two researching about this man's music.
Other than the fact that his album "The Redeemer" wasn't the best record to start off in journeying through his discography: ending up disgusted and borderline bored even and I was more likely to lambast this record's aimless, pretentious art-pop inflections. By the end of the day, it was a preference long solidified by his undying fanbase. According to his hardcore fans, the music isn't really music, evaluating it as a free form of sound art, rather than sticking to a structured and conventional cues; the genre is nullified by most analysts of the arts. The growing interest of the general public towards Dean Blunt's pranks and antics have long appealed to my tastes as a chaotic neutral individual. Pranks that are well executed to piss off UK gallery connoisseurs and entertain ironic attendees who'd shit on the art piece rather than participate in it.
More of the resources I've found about Dean Blunt online: numerous aliases and collaborations that lasted around almost 2 decades. The most notable of all them, at least for my money, are either Hype Williams, a duo consisting of Dean and frequent collaborator Inga Copeland, and Babyfather, an art performance parodizing the pirate radio culture in the UK. I have not delved enough in Blunt's body of work to evaluate everything and what i could synthesize from it. For now, I enjoyed it as a form of entertainment. Well, color me impressed because Dean Blunt isn't clowning around, he, in fact, makes blissful and transcendental music from left to right.
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Dean Blunt was the only few artists that made me want to binge on their discography. His movements in his music has attracted this pesky listener who thinks that being mysterious is a plus. I mean, look at me who thinks The Paul Institute, Panchiko, and Burial are the greatest artists that have walked the face of the earth.
The most I've enjoyed from Dean Blunt's discography are his mixtapes and collaborations: preferably his Soul Fire and ZUSHI, both of which were packaged as B-sides or supplemental releases rather than major releases such as the Babyfather project or the Black Metal releases. His knack for blurring the lines between genres still fascinate me as of this writing, and it continues to amaze me how he doesn't seize to compromise his art, he's here to prove a point and it sells quite well despite the lack of direction in his music. Blunt's music has more aggressive and hazy texture than the hollow, wide, soulless structure of art-pop/hypnagogic pop released today. He creates terrains from the rubble of his country's current shortcomings. The music overlaps the actual intentions with abstract concepts, becoming deconstructed down the line. In Babyfather, noise music coincides with Blunt's amateurish rapping. In Black Metal, Blunt isolates himself along with the assisted skeletal guitar playing. Both projects throwing all tropes in a vaccum alongside Blunt, who he himself would sought to become a personification of a musical void.
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(Excerpt from the Babyfather album review in TinyMixtapes)
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Dean Blunt is an entity that wishes to become one person, but no, this isn't a figure in a specific art form; this isn't Banksy, this isn't Bob Ong, this is made by one person, clearly it is if you listen closely, and it's been entrancing me ever since his presence was felt on the horizons of the internet. Dean Blunt, what the actual fuck.
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