clementeworks

[clementeworks]

Dudleya

[clementeworks]

bubble robo & poison robo

[clementeworks]

I’m back?

Apparently I’m back on Tumblr for who knows how long.

[clementeworks]

this took me a day but i knew i had to do it as soon as possible

[clementeworks]

shh!!!!!!!

[clementeworks]

Continued under the cut!

Keep reading

[clementeworks]

All I really need to say:

In canceling Milo’s book contract, Simon & Schuster made a business decision the same way they made a business decision when they decided to publish that man in the first place. When his comments about pedophilia/pederasty came to light, Simon & Schuster realized it would cost them more money to do business with Milo than he could earn for them. They did not finally “do the right thing” and now we know where their threshold, pun intended, lies. They were fine with his racist and xenophobic and sexist ideologies. They were fine with his transphobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. They were fine with how he encourages his followers to harass women and people of color and transgender people online. Let me assure you, as someone who endured a bit of that harassment, it is breathtaking in its scope, intensity, and cruelty but hey, we must protect the freedom of speech. Certainly, Simon & Schuster was not alone in what they were willing to tolerate. A great many people were perfectly comfortable with the targets of Milo’s hateful attention until that attention hit too close to home.

Because I’ve been asked, I will not be publishing my book with Simon & Schuster now that they have dropped Milo. After I pulled my book, they changed the release date of Dangerous from March to June 13, the day my next book, Hunger, comes out. I said nothing because I was neither threatened nor concerned but it did reinforce for me that this was not a company I wanted to do business with. My protest stands. Simon & Schuster should have never enabled Milo in the first place. I see what they are willing to tolerate and I stand against all of it. Also, I’ve received far better offers for How to Be Heard from other publishers.

There are some who will spin the cancellation of this book contract as a failure of the freedom of speech but such is not the case. This is yet another example of how we are afforded the freedom of speech but there is no freedom from the consequences of what we say.

[clementeworks]

MICE IS BACK! Join is in Cambridge October 21-22!!!

<3 <3 <3

More details coming soon…

[clementeworks]

Review: Pokémon Sun and Moon

It’s 1999. I’m eight years old, sprawled across my bedroom floor, but also wading waist-deep in the tall grasses of the Johto region. Enter Silver version, my first adventure as a Pokémon trainer. Fast forward 17 years, five generations, and three reboots; I’m 25 years old, sprawled across my bedroom floor, but also being carried by a Machamp through a cave on my way to fight the Elite Four. This game is everything I wished it was when I was little.

More accurately, Pokémon Sun and Moon are one step closer to the freestyle, open-world Pokémon experience we daydreamed about. After Game Freak gave the franchise an aesthetic overhaul in Pokémon X and Y, with a few tweaks in the following Generation III reboot, this installment is a bold streamlining of its prior improvements, making Generation VI look like a prototype for this adventure.

The Alola region feels far more lush and alive than any of its predecessors, for better and worse. The overworld teems with lively touches like ambient cries of local Pokémon and environmental puzzles that engage the full 3-D landscape. Battles are more fleshed out too, complete with trainers and their command animations in-frame with the fighting Pokémon. The boost in worldbuilding compliments its new challenges too, with wild Pokémon being able to call for help when injured.

The flipside to this, is that the more intricate visual effects butt up against the 3DS’s performance capabilities, resulting in some severe drops in framerate. Whenever more than two Pokémon are in battle, or if there’s a flashy visual effect happening, the game stutters.

As a progress-driven Pokémon player, I can’t be bothered by minigames that distract me from blazing through the campaign. Somehow, Game Freak knew this. The revitalized Pokémon-Amie (now Pokémon Refresh) incentivizes the time I spend with my partners. After battle, a small window appears asking me to initiate the feature. If a Pokémon is paralyzed, I can apply some medicine and a few belly rubs and send them on their way so the next time I use them, they go the extra mile in battle.

Small conveniences show Game Freak thinking proactively about optimizing the player’s experience, and that’s where the game shines as a whole. I no longer found myself jumping between menus for menial tasks like healing or moving Pokémon around in the storage boxes. The option to swap in a Pokémon you just caught straight to your party is a big deal, too. This game’s interface lends itself so well to muscle-memory, to the point that you can complete small menu tasks almost as fast as you think of them.

The biggest convenience (read: gift) we see is the Pokémon Ride system. Using Hidden Machines (or HMs) to teach Pokémon moves to navigate the overworld’s terrain puzzles became clunky generations ago. With Ride Pokémon, the player no longer has to relegate one or two members of their party to vehicles or bulldozers. Now you essentially have two parties: One for battling and one for traversing Alola.

Pokémon’s objectives are known to be one-note, from getting your starter to becoming Champion. While that’s still the case here in Sun and Moon, these familiar goals become a foundation for the Island Challenge, the freshest take on the standard Pokémon journey Pokémon yet. In the Island Challenge, Gym battles are replaced altogether with missions that force you engage with the overworld in ways that feel more seamless than entering a gym and navigating its signature puzzle. Through trials, we interact with the strongest local Pokémon in a given area and the captains that oversee them. This system of progressing the character still has a long way before breaking away from formula, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Sun and Moon’s plot is also richer, if only by a little bit. The characters you hang around most have a greater sense of presence compared to the obligatory acquaintances from X and Y. These incremental changes in story built enough tension to drive me forward through until I had to stop and level-grind to continue. Even if the plot is one of the weaker elements of the franchise as a whole, Sun and Moon marks a stronger attempt to change that.

Pokémon Sun and Moon is an inspired reinvention of an already revitalized formula. As the franchise hits the technical limitations of its home console, will Game Freak use this as a chance to migrate to a Nintendo system with stronger processing power? Or will Nintendo’s next handheld be able to match the Pokémon developers’ expanding ambition? Chris Kindred is a temporary Social Media Strategist at NPR. He moonlights as a freelance illustrator and games critic. You can find him tweeting at @itskindred 

[clementeworks]

A gif I made of one of my favourite films (and aesthetic goldmine) , Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven”.

[clementeworks]

lunch break.

[clementeworks]

Boop

[clementeworks]

Three guards. Eyes open

[clementeworks]

When your hardware is obsolete, it’s time to upgrade.

[clementeworks]

MANNAZ MERKSTAVE | Expect no help now.

[clementeworks]

Offering physical commissions and shipping for the first time, thru the month of Nov.

Shoot an email to konradwerks at gmail to get on the list, pricing info, or for any other questions.

[clementeworks]

MP100