#unlike women who can only discuss topics on a surface level apparently

[mityenka]

in what world is this a cis male trait

#yeah i'm a girl but i also do manly things like analyzing things in a philosophic manner #unlike women who can only discuss topics on a surface level apparently #for context this is from that rb with ur cis male trait mine is being a car fan post

[greaterlandscapes]

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.

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

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.

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.

--

(Excerpt from the Babyfather album review in TinyMixtapes)

--

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.

#dean blunt #high fidelity #music #film #music review #2021 #hype williams #Youtube

[turtle-paced]

Revisiting Chapters: Jaime VIII, ASoS

This chapter’s a good example of GRRM’s character writing driving his plot. The action of this chapter outside Jaime’s head is him holding a meeting. Internally...that’s a different kettle of fish.

The story so far…

After a long, dangerous, and traumatic journey through the Riverlands, plus some reunions with family members that turned out to be more confrontational than anticipated, Jaime tries to adjust to life as Lord Commander of Tommen’s Kingsguard. Sans dominant hand.

White

A white book sat on a white table in a white room.

The chapter opening makes no bones about this being the Kingsguard-iest of all Kingsguard-y chapters. We take stock of the entire Kingsguard here, examining their failings and demonstrating how Jaime intends to go about managing his surbordinates. On one level, this is assessing the king’s security and the men responsible for it. On another, it’s a tour of Jaime’s own service. Let’s tackle the surface layer first.

Right out of the gate, the prospects aren’t promising. Still, the discussion of Tyrion’s guilt shows which of the current Kingsguard aren’t a total lost cause. Jaime, of course, questions Tyrion’s guilt based on his knowledge of Tyrion. Osmund Kettleblack, Kingsguard supreme, doesn’t care about the question of who killed the previous king. Boros Blount and Meryn Trant think Tyrion did it, because Tyrion handled the cup and then tipped out the wine. Balon Swann is the one who thinks about the matter best, though, noticing that there were people moving all around the hall, guests and servants alike, and that nobody was watching the chalice when every eye was on Joffrey and Margaery opening the wedding pie. Loras, thinking a bit more broadly and showing his own priorities, notices the apparent risk to Margaery and names someone who was actually involved in the plot - Sansa.

Shortly afterwards, Jaime moves on to individual assessments. First up is Boros Blount, the coward. Jaime gives him the job of Tommen’s taster, to protect the king from poison. It’s a humiliating assignment, given with intent to humiliate. Boros Blount objects, Jaime bluffs…and Boros caves. Which just goes to prove again that Boros is a coward. Next is Osmund Kettleblack. The problem with Kettleblack is simple - he’s nobody. No tourney record, no past, not even a reliable means of confirming that he’s a knight. Jaime doesn’t know him, Jaime doesn’t trust him, and what he’s shown thus far in the meeting is not a great cause for confidence. He’s evasive at best, dishonest at worst, and finds the matter funny. Not to be relied on. Should never have been appointed.

Importantly, the appointment/reappointment of these men leads Jaime to internally criticise his sister and his father. Regarding Blount:

Cersei should never have stripped the man of his white cloak. But their father had only compounded the shame by restoring it. 

Regarding Kettleblack:

What was Cersei thinking when she gave this one a white cloak? 

His opinions here are definite. Jaime is not making excuses for Cersei and Tywin in this regard. This is a significant step for a character who has unquestioningly trusted in his family members to the detriment of others. That he starts his criticism with the Kingsguard shows that Jaime is starting to take the Kingsguard more seriously.

Next is Ser Meryn Trant. It’s a brief exchange, but it gets to the heart of many of Jaime’s problems with the institution.

“Here, show me where it is in our vows that we swear to beat women and children.” 

“I did as His Grace commanded me. We are sworn to obey.” 

Jaime, who once stood outside Rhaella’s door and asked his colleagues if there wasn’t anything they could do to protect her from Aerys, wants to find a solution to this problem. What he comes up with is better than nothing, but clearly not workable in a lot of situations.

“The king is eight. Our first duty is to protect him, which includes protecting him from himself. Use that ugly thing you keep inside your helm. If Tommen wants you to saddle his horse, obey him. If he tells you to kill his horse, come to me.” 

What happens when Tommen grows up? What if Jaime’s not around (especially as Cersei’s not likely to see ‘kill Tommen’s horse’ as a problematic order)? It’ll do for now, and it’s a big step up from prior Lord Commanders’ thinking on the topic, but not a permanent solution.

Next up, Balon Swann. Unlike Blount, Kettleblack, and Trant, Swann might actually be worth including on the Kingsguard. Jaime’s appraisal of his skills is positive. Still, he turns up the heat on Swann regarding another Kingsguard dilemma. Ser Balon has a brother.

Jaime leaned forward. “What will you do if brave Ser Donnel gives his sword to yet another usurper, and one day comes storming into the throne room? And there you stand all in white, between your king and your blood. What will you do?” 

Jaime doesn’t let him dodge the question. He only lets up when he’s extracted a promise from Balon not to turn on Tommen.

Jaime’s conversation with Loras is the longest by far. Not only does Jaime have the problem of an arrogant and untested colleague, there’s the issue of Loras’ allegiance to Renly and the matter of Brienne. Jaime already knows that Loras was Renly’s lover. What he sees when Loras starts to speak of Renly gets some compassion out of Jaime.

The arrogance had gone out of Ser Loras the moment he began to speak of Renly. He answered truly. He is proud and reckless and full of piss, but he is not false. Not yet. 

Incidentally, I do like that observation, that the arrogance went out of Loras, as a means of showing that Loras’ feelings were genuine. Renly was more important to Loras than Loras’ ego. Then they discuss Renly’s murder, and Loras’ accusations against Brienne. Jaime pokes a few holes in Loras’ arguments. He’s not a stupid man, Jaime. He might not be one of the leading intellectual lights of the series, but when he bothers to think, he’s not bad at it.

“She had sworn to protect him. Ser Emmon Cuy, Ser Robar Royce, Ser Parmen Crane, they’d sworn as well. How could anyone have hurt him, with her inside his tent and the others just outside? Unless they were part of it.” 

“There were five of you at the wedding feast,” Jaime pointed out. “How could Joffrey die? Unless you were part of it?” 

“Draw your sword, Ser Loras. Show me how you’d fight a shadow. I should like to see that.” 

That latter one gets Loras to contribute what he’d noticed of inconsistencies in the crime scene himself.

“The gorget was cut through. One clean stroke, through a steel gorget. Renly’s armor was the best, the finest steel. How could she do that? I tried myself, and it was not possible. She’s freakish strong for a woman, but even the Mountain would have needed a heavy axe. And why armor him and then cut his throat?” 

As a result of his judgment that Loras is honest in his grief and making accusations fairly rather than maliciously, Jaime decides that Loras can be asked to judge Brienne’s account fairly, on his honour as a knight. Loras agrees.

There’s one last thing before Loras leaves:

When I saw him all bloody, with her fled and the three of them unharmed... if she’s innocent, then Robar and Emmon...” He could not seem to say the words. 

Jaime chooses to lie and comfort him rather than condemn him for the murders he’s committed.

Jaime That Was

The thinking that starts the chapter is that of a man profoundly out of place. At no level is he comfortable with the life he’s living.

He’s not at ease in the court.

Jaime had spent his days at his brother’s trial, standing well to the back of the hall. Either Tyrion never saw him there or he did not know him, but that was no surprise. Half the court no longer seemed to know him. 

He’s not at ease in his job.

The chair behind the table was old black oak, with cushions of blanched cowhide, the leather worn thin. Worn by the bony arse of Barristan the Bold and Ser Gerold Hightower before him, by Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, Ser Ryam Redwyne, and the Demon of Darry, by Ser Duncan the Tall and the Pale Griffin Alyn Connington. How could the Kingslayer belong in such exalted company? 

Yet here he was.

He’s not at ease in his family.

I am a stranger in my own House. His son was dead, his father had disowned him, and his sister... she had not allowed him to be alone with her once, after that first day in the royal sept where Joffrey lay amongst the candles. 

He’s not at ease in his clothing.

His clothing fit badly as well. He had donned the winter raiment of the Kingsguard, a tunic and breeches of bleached white wool and a heavy white cloak, but it all seemed to hang loose on him. 

He’s not at ease in his own body.

A longsword hung from his hip. From the wrong hip. Before he had always worn his sword on his left, and drawn it across his body when he unsheathed. He had shifted it to his right hip this morning, so as to be able to draw it with his left hand in the same manner, but the weight of it felt strange there, and when he had tried to pull the blade from the scabbard the whole motion seemed clumsy and unnatural. 

Having returned to his old life and finding that it doesn’t fit, Jaime’s taking stock. What exactly was it that he was so comfortable with? Who was he, last he was in King’s Landing? He looks to the literal record of his accomplishments and finds them lacking. Barristan Selmy - not Jaime’s biggest fan - declined to record any but the most notable accomplishments and honours. We even have the full text so we can run a direct comparison. Ser Barristan’s entry is twice as long, and amongst several tourney victories, there are lines recording his accomplishments in battle: slaying Maelys the Monstrous, rescuing Aerys during the Defiance of Duskendale, rescuing Jeyne Swann from bandits. Jaime…knighted for “valour in the field,” and after that his page records his Kingslaying, his part in the honour guard that brought Cersei to King’s Landing, and his tourney victory at Cersei’s wedding.

Summed up like that, his life seemed a rather scant and mingy thing. 

Jaime follows that ego-punching observation with a wish that Barristan could have recorded more of his tourney victories, and a few of his deeds in fighting the Kingswood Brotherhood. But think about what that means. What does Ser Jaime Lannister have to be proud of? Professional sports wins? Stuff he did when he was a teenager? He’s a grown man now. What has he done with his life?

And me, that boy I was... when did he die, I wonder? When I donned the white cloak? When I opened Aerys’s throat? That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Knight instead. 

This gets quoted a lot, because it’s a damn good executive summary of Jaime’s character and dramatic tension. At fifteen, Jaime was a boy who wanted to be a great and honourable knight. At thirty, he might have been a knight, but also “a madman, cruelty and chivalry all jumbled up together” who knew no fear. He even reconsiders who he was as a boy when faced by seventeen-year-old Loras Tyrell.

He’s me, Jaime realized suddenly. I am speaking to myself, as I was, all cocksure arrogance and empty chivalry. This is what it does to you, to be too good too young. 

He wanted to be a knight, and everyone always said he was great, the best. And teenage Jaime ate it up without knowing what his vows actually meant, but blithely certain he could face any challenge perfectly anyway.

When he looks at the Kingsguard, he has to admit that he’s not exactly been a shining example of high standards.

He wondered what Ser Arthur Dayne would have to say of this lot. “How is it that the Kingsguard has fallen so low,” most like. “It was my doing,” I would have to answer. “I opened the door, and did nothing when the vermin began to crawl inside.” 

The person he’s been is not one he can be proud of.

Jaime That Is

So if Jaime isn’t who he was, who is he now? Clothing reflects the man, here. The Kingsguard uniform doesn’t fit him, as quoted above - he literally does not fill it. Nor does he recognise his own reflection, or identify with the man he sees in the mirror.

When he looked in a glass, he no longer saw the man who had crossed the riverlands with Brienne... but he did not see himself either. 

As mentioned above, the deeper level to the tour of shitty Kingsguard members is a tour of Jaime’s own service in the Kingsguard. The highs and the lows.

We start with a relative high note, in Jaime’s handling of Boros Blount. Blount is craven, and this is a vice Jaime does not share. When Blount accuses Jaime of treating his obligations to Aerys the way Blount himself treated his obligations to Tommen, Jaime does not rise to the bait. He has the courage of his convictions in his killing of Aerys. He says he’s unfit to guard the king as Boros, and would Boros care to fight him on it and improve the Kingsguard? The risk here is, as Jaime says, the mediocre Blount could have easily killed him.

His handling of Ser Meryn goes to the classic Kingsguard problem - what if the king they’re sworn to serve is a tyrant? Jaime here has an opportunity to address a problem that’s haunted him for years. His internal narration makes no mention of the consequences of mindlessly obeying. It doesn’t have to. On top of this, Jaime, who once went on at some length at the futility of swearing vows and the contradictory nature of the ones he did swear, has been thinking of ways around the Kingsguard ones. We see here his insistence on not being like his distinguished predecessors in a far better way.

Jaime’s confrontation with Ser Balon expressly recalls Jaime’s kingslaying.

“What will you do if brave Ser Donnel gives his sword to yet another usurper, and one day comes storming into the throne room? And there you stand all in white, between your king and your blood. What will you do?” 

“I... my lord, that will never happen.”

“It happened to me,” Jaime said.

What satisfies Jaime here is Balon’s promise not to do as Jaime did, that is, turn on his king. Balon’s willingness to criticise Jaime amuses him. He calls the answer a good one - not willing to tell anyone but Brienne the truth of why he turned on Aerys - and bids Balon return to his duties. Nevertheless, that Jaime himself brings up the Kingslaying issue as a matter of standing between his blood and his king does tell us quite a bit about Jaime’s affections for Tywin.

Finally, Loras. Here, Jaime loses his temper.

Jaime hated that smile. “I was better than you, Ser Loras. I was bigger, I was stronger, and I was quicker.”

“And now you’re older,” the boy said. “My lord.”

Even when he realises the essential ridiculousness of the pissing contest (because he is older and wiser, as he says), he still can’t help but snap back again when Loras reminds him that not only is he older…

“Older and wiser, ser. You should learn from me.” 

“As you learned from Ser Boros and Ser Meryn?”

…he’s arguably a member of the Kingsguard more in the model of those two rather than the dead Aerys-era colleagues Jaime respected, the ones everyone agrees were what members of the Kingsguard should be. Jaime knows that he’s not been good at his job, as discussed above. Nevertheless, the realisation that he’s talking to a boy not so very different to how he was motivates him to demonstrate that he has learned. 

As in a swordfight, sometimes it is best to try a different stroke.

Then he changes tack to flattery and softer words. Which gets him way further. He even holds his tongue when a zinger about Renly occurs to him - I know, right. He reasons with Loras about Brienne’s account of events, pointing out the flaws in Loras’ arguments.

Most of all, though, Jaime’s reflection on his journey through the Riverlands with Brienne shows how he’s changed. 

“Brienne’s ugly, and pighead stubborn. But she lacks the wits to be a liar, and she is loyal past the point of sense. She swore an oath to bring me to King’s Landing, and here I sit. This hand I lost... well, that was my doing as much as hers. Considering all she did to protect me, I have no doubt that she would have fought for Renly, had there been a foe to fight.”

That’s a lot added to his initial dismissal of Brienne as just plain ugly. He gives her the credit she’s due, and refuses to blame her entirely for the loss of his hand. (He blames her a little.) Just as importantly, he puts that blame on himself.

Finally, once Loras is gone, Jaime is left alone to consider some of the things Loras did, and how they might analogise to his own situation. Loras, in his grief over Renly’s murder, himself killed two of the men supposed to be guarding Renly.

The Knight of Flowers had been so mad with grief for Renly that he had cut down two of his own Sworn Brothers, but it had never occurred to Jaime to do the same with the five who had failed Joffrey. He was my son, my secret son... What am I, if I do not lift the hand I have left to avenge mine own blood and seed? 

This is pretty telling about how Jaime continues to think of love. It involves murder and violent retribution. While he might not have murdered guards in a similar situation, the thinking that brought him to push Bran out a window and start a fight with Ned on the street is still apparent. The very fact that he did not consider that sort of revenge against his fellow Kingsguard for failing Joffrey is evidence to him that he must not have loved Joffrey. Who is Jaime? Not Joffrey’s father. Not in truth.

Jaime closes the chapter with the next items on his agenda. Second is a prosthetic hand. He wants it to be gold - showing that he still very much feels himself a Lannister - and he wants it “to stroke [Cersei’s] golden hair, and hold her hard against me.” He hasn’t given up on the relationship, either, though he is painfully mistaken about Cersei possibly liking or approving of any prosthetic hand Jaime might wear. Before that, there are other debts to pay. They’ll have to wait for the next chapter, though.

Chapter Function

This chapter is an extended meditation on Jaime Lannister and his place in the world. Crucially, the character himself is thinking about the issue as well. Brienne is not in this chapter. Cersei is not in this chapter. Tywin and Tyrion are not in this chapter. This is vital to such a taking-stock of the character, as Jaime is reactive and passive in most of his personal relationships. Without his family stealing scene after scene from him, we can see who Jaime is on his own, and who he might want to be. Without his family stealing scene after scene, Jaime can get some breathing space to work it out for himself.

Needless to say, this is something long overdue for Jaime, and a vital piece of the character development that drives his choices through AFFC.

Miscellany

Who doesn’t love the detail of Barristan recording his own dismissal from the Kingsguard before leaving?

Loras reports Renly’s true opinion of Brienne here, which goes further to showing the audience that Renly was not a nice individual.

I do not envy the poor bastards who keep the White Tower clean. All that white. Good god. Every single bit of dirt would show. I hope nobody in the Kingsguard likes red wine.

Clothing Porn

A snowy linen tunic with white wool breeches and a white silk cloak, accessorised with a gold belt and a gold rose brooch to clasp the cloak. Some people have nicer whites than others.

Food Porn

None.

Next three chapters

Sansa VII, ASoS - Catelyn III, ACoK - The Drowned Man, AFFC

You know the drill. If there’s a particular chapter you’d like me to look at, send me an ask and it’ll go on the list!

#ASoIaF #revisiting chapters #cw: violence #cw: abuse #jaime lannister #loras tyrell #a storm of swords

[wecannotgoback]

Video Games Might be a Little Satanic

Susan Brinkmann of Philadelphia’s The Bulletin would like you to know that video games are, more and more, skewing towards the satanic and are waging a war against God… or… something. According to Brinkmann, even the “hardcore” crowd is starting to become concerned by the increasing levels of anti-religious sentiment in modern video games.

Even the most hard-core gamers are sounding the alarm about the rise in the number of satanically-themed video games that target God and Christianity, invite players to make pacts with the devil, and elevate Satan to hero status.

“This has been going on for the last 10 years, but especially in the most recent games,” said Lance Christian, 32, of Alton, Illinois who has been an avid gamer for most of his life.

Basically Mr. Christian and, by extension, Mrs. Brinkmann are arguing that the video game industry has become increasingly friendly towards Mr. Beelz.

Brinkmann cites several games to support her argument (and provided by Mr. Christian), including Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Darksiders, Devil Summoner and Tecmo’s Deception: Invitation to Darkness. But the brunt of Brinkmann’s article is aimed squarely at EA’s Dante’s Inferno and it’s apparent outward showing of anti-religious sentiment. Sadly this argument falls apart when you actually look at the game and not just some questionable advertisements. Best Twitch streaming equipment.

Without getting into too much detail, Dante’s Inferno puts you in the shoes of Dante, a soldier from the Third Crusade who has embarked on a journey into the afterlife to rescue his wife from Lucifer before he can use her soul to break free from Hell and try to overthrow God and Heaven. In the process of doing this Dante must fight his way through demons of all shapes and sizes while using a big ass scythe… so in reality, it’s almost 100% faithful to the Divine Comedy if scribe Dante Alighieri had watched “What Dreams May Come”.

And dropped blotter acid.

Let’s look at Dante’s Inferno objectively for a moment. Yes, the game is very brutal and definitely deals heavily in the macabre. But once you look beyond what’s on the surface what you find is a rather righteous tale of redemption as this man travels to the furthest corners of hell in order to save the woman he loves from the devil himself and in the process protecting Heaven and possibly saving God’s ass. I don’t know about you guys, but that’s pretty damn angelic to me, regardless of the methods used.

Cultural Differences The fair majority of games listed in Brinkmann’s article are Japanese in origin. In Japan, religion is not a particularly taboo issue and many forms of Japanese media, from manga to films and games, include some form of religious or spiritual content that is used as a mechanism to further the plot. That’s it and, more often than not, that’s all. No condemnation. No outrage. Best gaming chair models for 2021.

This issue doesn’t spark until news of the ‘evil anti-Christian Satan sim’ reaches the American Bible Belt or, God forbid, the mainstream news.

You see, the United States has something of a hard on for Jesus and whenever something that dares to paint Christianity as anything but a bright white beacon of hope for all humanity, a small but loud sect of the American population cries foul. This is due in large part to two things: 1.) Ignorance of the culture the game was created in and for, and B.) Arrogance. Pure, simple arrogance. Specifically the arrogance that any mention of “God” automatically means that it’s referring to your god.

As a matter of fact, most video games are very careful to avoid mentioning any religions outright. Sometimes, as is the case with games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, elements of existing religions are used to enhance the mythos. In Oblivion, the Knights of the Nine are strikingly similar to the Knights Templar. Anyone who takes the time to read the countless books in Oblivion will find many more nods to real-world religions and beliefs worked in.

Games like Oblivion, which feature religion outright, are a rare breed. The majority of games that use religious symbolism do so in a more subtle or restrained way. Bayonetta (one of the games listed by Mrs. Brinkmann), for instance, is basically about a witch who is out to kill angels. While this works to set the story up, it doesn’t actually come up very often as you play and when it does, it’s not pushed on you very strongly. Of course, Bayonetta isn’t exactly what you would consider a serious game – most gamers were quick to realize that Bayonetta is little more than breastakaboobical, chestakamammical, pendular globular fun. Unless you actively pay attention, you won’t even notice it’s there.

The Dragon Age Effect Dragon Age: Origins is a shining example of how religion and religious belief can be conveyed in games. For those of you who have yet to play it, Dragon Age: Origins includes an religious group known as the Chantry of Andraste, which is heavily based on Christianity. Unlike games like Oblivion, which treat spirituality and religious faith as absolute fact, Dragon Age: Origins keeps the entire discussion rather. At no point during the game are you led by the narrative to believe that the story of Andraste is either right or wrong. To further gray the area of religious belief, there are several points in the game you can overhear NPCs and members of your party debating the merits of religious belief and faith.

The true beauty of how religion is portrayed within Dragon Age: Origins is that at no point during the game are you given the answers. It treats religion as a characteristic of a larger world and the overall narrative is such that depending on how one looks at it one can decide whether they were taking part in a holy war or simply defending their homeland from an invading army. The Gamer Collective’s list of best corner gaming desks.

But of course, Blankmann and Mr. Christian (who provided the list) have taken Dragon Age: Origins and boiled it down to its most base elements — and somehow still managed to get those wrong:

Game revolves around the story of God going mad and cursing the world. A witch attacks believers and players can “have sex” with her in a pagan act called “blood magic” so she can “give birth to a god.” Another scenario allows player to have sex with a demon in exchange for a boy’s soul.

I have to admit that I’ve yet to finish Dragon Age: Origins so I turned to resident Dragon Age expert, friend of Binge Gamer and all around connoisseur of awesomesauce Raychul Moore to see just how accurate the above statement was.

Suffice to say, not very NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD:

HA! That is all wrong. You have sex with a Mage so that the demon will not kill and take the soul of one of the Grey Wardens (they are the only ones that can kill the Archdemon). You never can have sex with someone to save a demon.

[Before that] a boy is possessed, but you can’t sleep with someone to save him, you have to decide whether to kill the boy or have someone go into the “Fade” to fight the demon and save the boy. “God going mad”? Yeah, they never played the game, obviously. There is no reference at all to such a thing.

…I have nothing to add, I simply wanted to clarify that Mrs. Brinkmann’s article was wrong.

The Other Extreme If games like Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne are the extreme of demonic imagery in games, the other extreme is best seen in Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a real-time strategy based on the series of books that have also spawned a series of movies starring Kirk Cameron as Himself*. The basic premise of Eternal Forces is that the world has ended and you’re on a mission to convert as many people to Christianity as possible.

And if they don’t convert, you kill them.

Apart from that Left Behind: Eternal Forces is the single most intentionally racist game I’ve ever played. Those fighting for the “Antichrist” have African and Arabic names whilst the majority of those fighting for the Lord are whiter than Ward Cleaver. Furthermore the game carries a 1950s-esque sense of gender role as many unit classes are “men only” while women must carry around arbitrary titles like “Medic Woman”.

For what its worth many Christian organizations decried the game as being the misogynistic, bigoted tripe that it was. What few of these groups realized was that the game itself also sucked, for which there is no forgiveness.

No More Backpedaling But you know what? For as much as I find Left Behind: Eternal Forces to be a vile disgrace on the video game industry, I would not call for it to be censored. I wouldn’t call for it to be pulled from store shelves, and in fact I would like to see Left Behind: Eternal Forces and other games like it sitting on store shelves right next to Devil May Cry and Shadow Hearts. As gaming grows, the industry needs more games to address these supposedly taboo topics. And when the blowback comes (and it will come), the gaming industry must stand its ground.

No more backpedaling.

Every time a group of people cry foul over the content of a particular title, the games industry goes absolutely insane. Developers and publishers have PR firms draft ultra-professional retorts to these wild-eyed complaints while game bloggers (schmucks like me) circle the wagon and say anything they can to try and discredit the source while rarely, if ever, addressing the core issue.

This needs to stop.

The video game industry, as a whole, needs to stand up and say two simple words:

So what? Until the gaming industry stops trying to apologize every time a title offends someone, that aura of “legitimacy” that so many gamers want in order for this medium to be taken seriously as an art form will continue to elude them. If you want this thirty year-old misconception that video games are strictly a children’s toy to finally be done away with, we’re going to have to own up to and defend all the content in these games instead of apologizing for it.

So as the title says: Yes, some games are satanic. Some games are sexist. Some games are racially or culturally insensitive, though rarely is it out of maliciousness. Some games have content that you or I will not agree with. But if gaming is to truly become accepted in the public consciousness as an art form and a true entertainment medium, people are simply going to have to accept that there is some content that they simply will not like. Just like they do with film and music and television.

Gaming is not just for children anymore, and to break that mindset you may have to drag a few people to that realization kicking and screaming. But before the gaming industry can do that, it has to stop being afraid of stepping on a few toes.

*Correction: Kirk Cameron’s character of Buck Williams may actually be slightly less insane than Kirk Cameron himself.

Oh, One More Thing…a lifelong gamer with intricate knowledge of several “anti-Christian,” “anti-religious” games who lives in Alton, Illinois (home to one of the oldest Catholic Churches in the United States) who just happens to be named “Lance Christian”? … something smells about that. I think Mrs. Brinkmann has been had.

#gaming #video games #satan #devil #games

[anditjustmadeherkind]

Deep, soothing breaths, everyone, or, 'how I learned to stop worrying and love Rob Thomas'.

Comment to the author of meta on the following link: 

http://cadhla.livejournal.com/?skip=50&tag=veronica%20mars

Deep, soothing breaths, everyone, or, 'how I learned to stop worrying and love Rob Thomas'.

Mar. 14th, 2005 at 3:28 PM

All right: there's a lot of kerfuffle in 'Veronica Mars' fandom right now, over some spoilers that have managed to get leaked to the general public. There's always a chance that they're actually foilers*, but since that's difficult to count on, there's been an understandable amount of consternation. I will now weigh in. Because I am a very pushy blonde who does this sort of thing, especially when she can't put everyone involved into a hot bathtub with lots of lovely bubbles until they feel better.

(*For the fandom-impaired, 'spoilers' are leaked bits of information about the show -- things like 'Smurfette was actually created by Gargamel, gasp!' or 'Doctor Who regenerates in this episode!'. 'Foilers' are bits of false information leaked intentionally to confuse the issue; 'Buffy decides to kill everyone and stay in happy la la psychosis land' or 'Megan and Firefly finally get married in a simple, tasteful, trans-species ceremony'. Simple, universal terms.)

( Collapse )

So here's the basic skinny: Logan turns out to have been involved in Veronica's rape, in that he a) supplied the drugs used on her (although they weren't intended for her, and nothing says he would have agreed had he known she was the target), and b) did body-shots off her while she was out cold, for which he winds up apologizing, and for which she apparently forgives him, as they appear to be dating, and are, in fact, caught making out at a surprise party for Logan. He winds up defending her in front of all his friends and family, and takes her back to his room. Veronica is waiting on the bed, alone, when she catches sight of a camera on the ceiling, and flees. The next shot is of her riding away with Weevil.

The actual spoilers are more detailed than this (as

ohimesamamama

will doubtless point out, when she sees this post), but that's the general gist of it. The item causing the most furor is, obviously, the camera. 'How DARE they?!' shriek the fans. 'How can Logan DO that to her?! How can Veronica run out without telling him?! How...' And then there is wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, and then comes the lamentation of the women, especially those women who like the Logan/Veronica pairing. There has been, unsurprisingly, a

lot

of lamentation. Nothing laments like a 'shipper who fears their cruise has been cancelled.

But worry not, lamenters! Worry not, because there are a few facts we're tending to overlook in the general wail-gnash-rending. Most notably, these are:

1. Rob Thomas is not Joss Whedon. Say it with me, folks: Rob Thomas is

not

Joss Whedon. More importantly,

Rob Thomas is not Marti Noxon

. Look. Joss was a great guy; he created great characters and a great universe; he poured his heart and soul into making something we could care deeply and passionately about; then he went away and left it all with a half-crazed Romanian au pair who thought the original 'Dark Shadows' was the height of thematic subtlety. Rob? Rob has not done this thing to us. Rob has not said 'wow, I think I'll go play in another sandbox, here, Angst Queen, use your super angst powers to keep the viewers coming back while I enjoy myself elsewhere'. Rob is, in fact, right there, every day, working his butt off to make the show as good as it can possibly be. If he has a Romanian au pair, she's chained up in the closet, being used as a script-checker -- whenever she gets excited, they drop that plotline.

2. Logan is not Spike. Veronica is not Buffy. Logan and Veronica are not Buffy and Spike. Logan? Is not so sick and crazy with denied love that he's going to throw her down on the bathroom floor and try to claim his territory. Veronica? Is not so self-centered and neurotic that she's going to wind up him up with disgust and lust and need and loneliness, then dance a happy contra on the shattered wreckage of his heart. They are, in short, not making each other cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. They annoy each other. They irritate each other. They brace each other up. But they don't cause raw insanity to come into the picture. For which I am very thankful. Also, Veronica, while she can be both careless and heartless, is not self-centered -- if anything, she's self-

sacrificing

. She's giving up what she wants in favour of what she thinks is right: she's throwing away her chances at going back to a happy obliviousness in favour of finding the answers about what happened to Lilly. If Veronica were the Chosen One, she wouldn't whine, she'd just go kick some undead ass.

3. Just because you get hurt once, that doesn't mean you're going to get hurt every single time. Joss Whedon comes up a lot in discussions of the current spoilers, and the basic theory seems to be 'Joss wouldn't have let them be happy, so Rob won't either'. Folks, it doesn't work that way. Seriously. One girl saying something mean about your hair doesn't mean all girls hate it; one show creator whose outlook on romance seems to make the relationships on 'Swan's Crossing' look stable doesn't mean all show creators are going to rip away the happiness of their characters just for fun. Let 'Veronica Mars' rise or fall on its own merits -- and so far, those merits lead me to trust in Rob.

This is also where the topic of tropes has to come in. Every creator, from the rawest writer of fanfic to the most well-established and famous producer, has tropes. Wes Craven loves him some unexpectedly evil boyfriend who was totally supportive right up until he tells you that he's the one who boiled your bunny. Stephen King adores putting beautiful girls with men who do some form of physical labour, and destroying writers with the products of their own imaginations. Michael Swanwick likes modern pageantry as a means of showing you the corruption that underpins society. Tropes are unavoidable. What does Rob Thomas believe in?

Well, if we go by his own work, he believes that opposites attract. He believes that love is fundamentally broken but just as fundamentally necessary, and that if you work for it, it will happen. He believes that the snarky guy gets the girl. He believes in true love, lasting love, love that is forever, love that redeems your sins, love that sees you home. He believes that the surface is only one layer, and that there's a lot more out there worth looking at.

Rob Thomas believes in happy endings. And Rob Thomas believes in redemption. Two things Joss never really showed us he had any faith in.

That message is there in his fiction -- most specifically in 'Rats Saw God', although most of the stories in 'Doing Time' are redemption stories, one way or the other -- and in his television work; I mean, 'Cupid' is one long story about redemption

through

true love, and if

that

isn't support for calling those his tropes, I don't know what

is

. He doesn't believe that these things come easy, but he does believe that they will come, given time and sufficient effort on the parts of the people involved.

That's another thing. Rob Thomas doesn't waste effort. Especially in a show as crammed with symbolism and meaning as 'Veronica Mars', there just isn't

time

to spend this much screen time and energy making the audience fall in love with Logan, a statement that becomes even more concrete when you consider the fact that he's extremely unlikely to have been Lilly's killer -- there won't be a zero-hour unmasking of the Luna Ghost in which we find out that it was Logan all along, and he calls Veronica a 'meddling kid'. Logan has had a

huge

redemption arc this season, and there's simply no point to that if you're going to turn around and throw it all away doing something that most of your audience is guaranteed to hate. Can he be villified next season? Sure. But this season? The timing is off. If Rob wanted Logan to be a bad guy in season one, he'd have just left him that way. As it stands, he's used Logan to prove one of the essential concepts of noir. Namely:

Your narrator is wrong.

Veronica starts out by lying to us: she tells us Logan is a psychotic jackass. She doesn't tell us until later how close they were, how good a friend he was to her and to Lilly, or that she used to enjoy his company. Just that he's a jerk. We get the details on Duncan right away, but on Logan, her glass is clearly clouded. Logan, meanwhile, targets her a lot, but never actually hurts her. Now, he does hurt her car -- which

ohimesamamama

has symbolically explained better than I could -- but he never lays a hand on her, never strikes her in anger, and isn't even seen being particularly active in spreading the nasty stories about her. There's old love there, and old love gone sour hurts more than almost anything else.

Logan is, oddly, a very honest person; he doesn't like to lie, he doesn't like to act, and when you push him far enough to make him hurt you, it's either calculated, distant and remote, or it's immediate and in your face. Planting a camera to catch Veronica, who he's publically called his girlfriend, having sex? Doesn't fit either of those categories. Also, frankly...okay, great. You now have a tape of yourself having sex with someone largely regarded as the town slut. How does this hurt her? Other than the betrayal -- and she's nearly numb to those -- what does this get you? You could hand the tape to her father, but he'd kill you. And as high school students on their age and social level, and little boyfriend-girlfriend sex? Sort of expected. It's not

surprising

. Doing that to Meg would be calculated and mean. Doing it to Veronica? Is pointless. It's not Logan's style.

Something is missing. The spoilers don't include dialogue; they don't include context; they don't include Veronica's voiceover. There is, in short, something very large missing from the scene -- we're panicking over a picture without words, and those can mean

anything

. If you step back, and take a moment to trust in Rob's already-proven ability to be true to character, genre, situation and plot? We have to have it wrong, because right now, as stated, the scene makes no sense. Rob has always been very true to his characters. This? Is not true to his characters. And that means something we don't see yet will put it all into focus -- another major trait of noir.

Veronica is the detective; Logan, in a way, is thus the gangster's moll. And since Veronica's real enemy is the town of Neptune -- the 'gangster' Logan belongs to, whether he likes it or not -- her winning him away from it, bit by bit, stumble by stumble, is part of the long-term observance of the genre. In noir, in the end, the hero walks away. Sometimes with the dame, sometimes without, but always having made the choice. That dame may betray him, reject him, stab him in the back, but they always find each other again, until the sun is going down and the gumshoe rolls out of town. Veronica has a long way to go before she sees the city limits. That means, by genre, that she and Logan can't be finished yet.

Trust Rob. Just because Joss let Marti take us into a dark alley and beat us up until we handed over our lunch money, that doesn't mean Rob's going to. Trust the man who gave us Trevor and Claire. Trust the man who introduced us to Dub. He's a good guy. He's never handled me wrong, and that's saying something.

Also, breathe.

#vm meta #fave #veronica mars #logan echolls #LoVe #rob thomas