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Who are you and why should we care?
I'm merton! That's not my real name. If you are curious, I named myself after the high-level attack spell from Final Fantasy VI, and also the deuteragonist of Big Wolf on Campus.
I do a lot of stuff in my life but what's relevant to this website here is that on October 21, 2011 (while I was an undergrad in college) I made an account on Rate Your Music Dot Com. Over the ensuing fifteen years I acquired something of a following on there, to the point that in 2022 (right before the birth of my first child) I started charging people to commission music reviews from me. I genuinely never expected anyone to actually do this, but against all odds people actually did, to the point that I racked up a pretty extensive body of music writing on there, both commission-based and not.
Only problem was: it turns out everything I was doing there was super illegal, and on September 16, 2026 (actually almost on my fifteenth anniversary of using rym!) I got a message from the rym mod team informing me that I would no longer be able to write commissioned reviews. Only problem was that I had several commissioned discography reviews still unwritten at that point, and I also didn't want to take down a significant portion of what I had written up to that point.
So I decided to make my own website! People used to do that, you know. Make their own websites. Actually, I have very fond memories of a childhood making silly websites on my parents' blueberry iMac, guided by the gentle tutelage of Elizabeth Castro. Plus then I spent my adolescence looking up to the luminaries of the 2000s amateur online music critic scene--you will see some significant Mark Prindle inspiration in this website's deliberately Web 1.0 design.
(and speaking on web design: many of these reviews will features references to rym's community/web interfact/standardized rating system; as well, many originally featured rym-specific formatting and shouted out other users. i have left the former as-is because changing it would be a hell of a lot of work; in terms of the latter i have tried to preserve as much as i could.)
I am currently in the process of migrating all my old reviews over from rym, which will likely take quite a while, but I hope you stick around :)
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How does your rating system work?
I rate things from 1-10 stars (⭐). Pretty normal and intuitive, eh? But just for the sake of being pedantic, I'll break it down some more.
THE GOOD ZONE
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: This made me experience some kind of emotional transcendce
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: This inspired deep awe and/or joy in me
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: This is good, in a solid and dependable way
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: This is for the most part good, but does have certain major un-ignorable flaws
THE OKAY ZONE
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: This is pleasant but forgettable
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: This is perfectly generic but unobjectionable; made me feel nothing
THE BAD ZONE
⭐⭐⭐⭐: This is so boring that it bothered me
⭐⭐⭐: This has glimmers of promise but is mostly a failure
⭐⭐: This is lacking in every sort of value
⭐: This is something I actively object to, on moral or aesthetic grounds; made me feel angry
In general, my most common rating is 8/10.
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Can I commission you to review something?
Yes! You can commission me to review things via ko-fi. Except not right now because commissions are closed while I build this website and then finish all my pre-existing commissions. But watch this space!
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Are you on any other websites?
Well, my rym account remains active; I'll mostly use it for announcing new reviews and also chatting with people. Other than that you can find me on, um, 𝕏 The Everything App.
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