#i will not let these sick ass designs and personalities and concepts go to waste

[lyricalchrysanthemum]

Grabs the stat trainers and frontier brains by the hands

We’re gonna make you so relevant

[kaediisarchive]

Final thoughts on the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie.

LOTS of spoilers under the cut! Do not look at this post if you don’t want to see spoilers!

And remember, this is all just my opinion. It’s not like an actual in-depth review because I’m not a film student; this is just my perspective on what I saw as a fan of this franchise.

POSITIVE

Sub-Zero and Scorpion were great. Opening fight was great.

“Eddy Tobias” namedrop lmao

I love the snow preceding Sub-Zero’s attack. Very foreboding.

Score is AWESOME. My favorite soundtrack is probably the one that plays when Sub-Zero is attacking them in the city towards the beginning.

Sonya rigging her house with a secret bunker and trap doors is smart and fits her character.

I like that the dragon logo has an integral meaning to the story.

Loved Jax vs Sub-Zero. Not mad about the origin change of Jax’s arms. I like that he had to work through his feelings of inadequacy and failure; people don’t just immediately bounce back after something that traumatic. I also like that his arcana manifests to protect Sonya rather than in the heat of battle. It shows his emotional priorities and what separates him from people like Kano who manifest their arcana in a fit of rage.

Sonya “Throw Hands on Sight” Blade lmfao. They nailed her fighting style too and I am happy.

Kano is the best thing about this movie. No competition.

Kotal reference!

Nightwolf reference!

Shang Tsung’s soul magic being black and wispy and foreshadowing Noob Saibot.

KANO DID THE HEART RIP

CHEKOV’S GNOME I’M SCREAAAAAAMMMMIIIIIINNNNGGGGGG

I love Liu Kang in this. He is 1000000% a Wholesome Boi. I like that he’s younger and unhardened and not the fully realized champion version of his character yet. Let him grow into it so it feels earned later on. I like that he’s the underdog, and I like what they’ve set up for him in the future. Also, the casting for him was perfect and they nailed his fighting style, too.

That little “the FUCK” that the Kano actor improvised(?) in the middle of Liu Kang’s lines made me laugh more than it should have. I don’t know why that moment got to me so much but it did.

I love Kung Lao. And they nailed his fighting style, too! Great to see variation that represents the characters (though there were less shining examples, which I’ll touch on later).

LOW SWEEP! LOW SWEEP! LOW SWEEP!

Egg roll scene is best scene.

Kabal! I love his dry humor. And his voice reminds me of Duke Nukem, which I’m not mad about. It complemented his dialogue well.

Not mad about Kung Lao’s death because it was meaningful. His fatality on Nitara was sick, too.

Liu Kang taking the ribbon from Kung Lao’s hat and wearing it in his honor, giving an origin for his signature headband is FANTASTIC.

THE PIT!

FLYING BICYCLE KICKS!

LIU KANG’S DRAGON FATALITY!

SONYA’S ENERGY RINGS!

Sub-Zero was a GREAT final boss. They really built him up appropriately to make him feel like it.

Scorpion’s fatality! And his skull face!

NEUTRAL

Not sure how I feel about Sub-Zero being wholly evil and there being no involvement from Quan Chi. It’s more straight forward for sure. It makes him an interesting (and badass) character, and I’m really behind this portrayal in that he is one of the most believable characters in the movie, but I’m not sure if I like the implications for later films in how this has simplified the dynamic in the entire Shirai Ryu vs Lin Kuei plotline. Having Quan Chi be the Machiavelli was always one of my favorite MK twists. And how do we eventually end the feud now? If Bi-Han / the Lin Kuei were wholly responsible, why should Hanzo EVER make peace with Kuai Liang down the line? The complexity feels like it’s been stripped down a bit, but I do love this iteration of Sub-Zero. I truly do. That’s why this is in the neutral category and not the negative XD.

Why didn’t Jax tell Cole when he saw the mark? Why wait until his family gets attacked? Maybe he didn’t want to do it in front of his family to keep them out of it, but that ends up endangering them more. Not a gripe, just a curiosity.

Sound editing was a bit too intense at times for my taste. I have tinnitus, so...big boomy bass with very mild voices is a chore for my ears to switch between. My ears were ringing within the first twelve minutes.

Torn between “fuck you Reiko” and “Reiko deserved better”. He deserved just a little bit better, but Skarlet says “get fucked” anyway.

I don’t like the “shaky cam” used in the fight scenes. Not my cup of tea. Very hard to visually process at times.

Whatever cosmic force is picking the champions for Earthrealm is doing a shitty job at it.

Why did they change the location of the Sky Temple to a desert? Again, not a gripe, a curiosity.

“We will not see another full moon before the tournament begins” THEN WHERE IS THE TOURNAMENT BUDDY???

Not sure how I feel about the “arcana” concept. It’s an okay plot device but kinda hammy.

Kitana’s fan! But why? Why is it there? I could understand the Kotal and Nightwolf references because Sonya has been researching, but why is Kitana’s fan randomly in an Earthrealm temple? Purely cheap fanservice.

Nitara was really cool. Shame she had to die, but her death was cool and there have to be some characters that get killed off. Wish she had more screentime though; feels like another instance of fanservice just having her show up basically as a namedrop and a quick kill.

The phrase “Are you okay?” was said WAY too much in this film. So much that I actually notices how often it was said, and I usually don’t pick up on these things.

Pretty sure a camera operator fell at one point in a Sonya scene because the camera jerked around violently all of the sudden then stabilized. Whoops.

How did Sub-Zero know to take Cole’s family to the gym? WHY did he take them there?

NEGATIVE

Opening scene was awesome, but it’s emotional impact felt stunted. I feel like the order of events should have been twisted a bit. Hanzo find his wife and son should have been the big emotional climax of the scene, but it felt like a passing moment and gave him no time to mourn and no time for the impact to truly set in with me. It was an “oh no they died” moment instead of an “ OH MY GOD THEY DIED THIS IS SO FUCKED FUCK YOU SUB-ZERO” moment. I dare say that the Legacy web series did it better in spite of their lower budget and overall quality; the series of events had better pacing and gave more emotional impact because of it. I said what I fucking said don’t @ me.

Wish we got more Scorpion. I love Sanada, I love him as Scorpion, but they didn’t give us the time we needed with his character to truly get a grasp of him.

Cole Young is like white bread in a parade of decorative cakes.

Raiden, a normally passionate and protective character whose fatal flaw is that he involves himself too much in events because he cares about the people in his realm and ends up fucking things up because of it, now seems to not care in the slightest. He feels completely uninvolved save for an occasional pop in to give a nod of disapproval. I don’t like this unemotional take on one of the most emotional characters in Mortal Kombat.

Small complaint from my perspective as a martial artist but uh...”Throw your uppercut!” was a bullshit line in a bullshit scene. If you’re locked up with someone like that and the guy has his arms around your neck, you physically cannot uppercut. You cannot fit your arms between his arms because they are cinched tightly around your shoulders/neck. YOUR HEAD is between your fist + bicep and HIS HEAD. In that situation, the guy has also left his body completely unguarded, so the most logical thing to do since you CANNOT reach his head is to go for BODY BLOWS. Beat him until he lets go to protect himself, catch his floating rib with double strikes, or punch the dude in his fucking liver as hard as you can to DROP HIM. Cole is supposed to be an experienced fighter, yet he makes one of the most rookie mistakes a fighter could ever make. Normally I wouldn’t care to point out mistakes in fight choreography or whatever because it’s MK and I expect ridiculousness, but this is the WRONG kind of ridiculous. It’s just NONSENSE.

I have SO MANY issues with Mileena. I’ll make this as short as I can. I don’t like the design of her mouth. I don’t like her weird stacked voice. She shows NO personality, not in her acting or even her fighting style, just an evil minion that got angry because she almost got her ass kicked. The turned one of the principle characters of the entire franchise and a fan favorite into a GRUNT. There is NO mention of Kitana outside of literal “fan”-service. Not even a reference to one of the most important plotlines in all of Mortal Kombat. And then they KILL HER OFF!!! When they do inevitably bring in Kitana WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY GOING TO DO SINCE THEY KILLED OFF MILEENA???? I’m heated and biased and they did my girl dirty.

Speaking of doing characters dirty, poor Reptile. They turned him into an actual animal. What a waste.

Why are they so mean to Sonya if she doesn’t have a mark? She wouldn’t be as much of a “liability” if they would take the time to prepare her and teach her how to defend against fighters that have unlocked their arcana. Mind-numbingly stupid logic.

This movie relies A LOT on prerequisite knowledge to work. It’s like they want fans to fill in the blanks for them. But not everyone watching is already a fan; this isn’t an obscure release, this is a blockbuster movie released worldwide. These gaps in lore and prior knowledge don’t make sense for such a broad audience.

Cole Young literally could have just been Johnny Cage.

Where was Raiden when his temple was being assaulted?

Cole’s arcana is LITERAL PLOT ARMOR IM FUCKING DONE

No but for real that’s the most boring decision they just ripped off Jax’s MK11 heater effect and Baraka’s blades (I know they’re tonfa and they aren’t attached and I DON’T CARE). Also, now he’s suddenly good at fighting again? After being dog shit this entire movie??? And tanks Goro?????

If Raiden is an Elder God in this continuity, why is he allowed to help Earthrealm AT ALL? It seems like favoritism and bends the rules that the Elder Gods are supposedly bound by way too much. They really just shouldn’t have made him an Elder God; I honestly think they just said it to introduce the concept without a fuck given towards the actual lore of the Elder Gods.

WHY DID RAIDEN TELEPORT KANO TO SONYA’S HOUSE AFTER HE BETRAYED THEM I HAD TO REWATCH THAT SEVERAL TIMES TO MAKE SURE I JUST SAW WHAT I SAW  WHAT THE ACTUAL NONSENSICAL FUCK

Cole REALLY should not have been involved in that last fight. Especially not after Scorpion shows up. It should have been Scorpion vs Sub-Zero ONLY for the final fight. Cole tag-teaming Sub-Zero with Scorpion cheapens Scorpion’s revenge.

Camera work in the final fight was not good, especially in the first portion. At one point Cole gets thrown into a fence, but it cuts to an awkward inverse angle that makes him look like he’s bouncing off of a trampoline. This continues to happen and ruins several shots for me.

Honestly Scorpion should have just possessed Cole. Permanently. No switching back and forth. No more Cole, only Scorpion.

PREDICTIONS

Lots of dead characters come back as revenants and / or with upgrades.

Kano comes back with cyber eye.

Mileena comes back with full teeth.

Liu Kang becomes MK champion, wins tournament, and kills Shang Tsung. As it should be.

Cole Young helps Liu Kang become champion somehow idk maybe he sacrifices himself or something just please don’t make Cole the champion I will start a riot.

Next movie will start IMMEDIATELY at the tournament since there was supposedly less than a month until the tournament starts in this movie.

New characters coming in will be Kitana, Shao Kahn, Jade, Quan Chi, Kuai Liang, Noob Saibot, Ermac, and Johnny Cage.

OVERALL

This movie was good, bloody fun! It’s not an A++ Oscar-winner, but if you expected that going into it, you played yourself. It was Mortal Kombat; it was stupid, it was gory, and I had a blast watching it. Kano and Liu Kang were the best parts of the movie for me, with Scorpion and Sub-Zero tied for third. Also I popped a lot for the cheap nostalgia hits. I’m overall satisfied with what we got in spite of my complaints, and I only complain so in-depth about the things I love lmao so trust me when I say I’m not actually mad, just nitpicky. I’ve watched it twice now, and I would watch it again. It’s like a 6.8/10 for me.

[thanksjro]

Dark Cybertron Chapter 2: Going from Zero to Antichrist Real Quick

Bumblebee and his camp buddies are trying to figure out what to do with the Titan who just popped out of the ground like a prairie dog, as the sky looks like a Lisa Frank notebook thanks to the portal to the Dead Universe. It’s honestly very nice, we should should get more pretty apocalypses like this.

Bumblebee starts throwing out orders at everyone, much to Slag’s chagrin. When Slag brings up the point that they probably can’t do much of anything to a guy roughly a hundred times bigger than they are, Bumblebee tells him to shut up and do as he’s told.

Yeah, I had about the same reaction, Slag.

So the Dinobots do their thing. Swoop, who I think is the only guy here who can fly, goes up to see what the Titan’s doing. It’s not much, other than looking really upset. Oh no, what if he’s afraid of heights? Poor guy.

Even if the Titan isn’t moving, the mere presence of the thing is jamming signals, which is kind of an issue. Ironhide’s ready to shoot it in the foot, and Arcee will help, because she’s a team player now. Bumblebee has a minor crisis over whether this is the same Titan that told Starscream he was a prophesied son of a gun, but Prowl doesn’t seem to think that it is.

Prowl, who has been suffering from short-term memory lapses over the last several months or so because a bug-man was controlling his mind.

Yeah, let’s maybe take his opinion on the matter with a grain of salt, even if he is right.

Over at the Lost Light, Orion Pax is visiting Brainstorm’s workshop, where everyone’s favorite science man is admitting to having studied the Dead Universe’s effects on the living and interviewing people who had been to the area.

Man, I sure hope that guy signed a waiver, otherwise Brainstorm’s going to be in a spot of trouble.

Then we get a quick rundown of what the Dead Universe is: an omnicognizant parallel universe that functions on fundamental principles that differ from our own and wants you to die. So, obviously not a place you would want to go to. Still, we gotta, because that’s where the plot is the Dead Universe is gonna vore Cybertron if we don’t.

Brainstorm agrees to cook something up to make the trip through the Gorlam Prime portal easier.

Back on Cybertron, the Titan looms in the distance as we check in on an oddly pristine-looking Iacon. Rattrap tells Starscream to come out of the closet, because the Titan still hasn’t moved and doesn’t seem like it’s going to anytime soon. Starscream does come out, but it’s with his arms full of weapons of Autobot design that he appropriated from the ruins of Kimia, because he doesn’t trust that Titan to not start some shit. Rattrap suggests that they maybe get a second opinion before they start murdering people for standing in a barren field.

Back on the Lost Light, there’s a little shindig going down at Swerve’s, everyone staring down the table where Optimus, Rodimus, and Ultra Magnus are seated. Swerve takes the opportunity to do what everyone else is probably really wanting to, and snaps a few photos of them for his scrapbook. As soon as he’s done, we get to the Emotions portion of our issue.

Rodimus is letting himself be vulnerable in front of the man he idolizes, and I think that’s very brave of him.

Nobody’s feeling super great about the situation they’ve been presented with, but there isn’t a lot that can be done about it now. Just gotta work with what they got. Rodimus asks Optimus how he feels about Starscream being elected leader of Cybertron.

But I thought that freedom was the right of all sentient beings? You know, like the freedom of choice in our government officials, even if they aren’t the best option we could possibly have, because at least they’re better than the guy who had bombs planted in people’s heads for crowd control purposes? Are you saying that it only counted when the concept of freedom could be manipulated so you could go kick Megatron’s ass, and that actual freedom of choice doesn’t jive with your personal sensibilities as much as you’d like everyone to think it does? No wonder you’re going to try to overthrow the entire Earth’s government system to get humanity annexed into Cybertron’s bullshit in a few years’ time.

But perhaps this Starscream thing is actually the work of Megatron! What will Orion do then?

…I mean, do I even have to say it?

ORION, THAT’S GAY.

And I thought we’d already figured out what to do with Megatron back in “Chaos Theory”, where you spent three issues waffling on the subject until the man himself told you to execute him, because even he was sick of your crisis of self. The only reason you didn’t get to act on it was because Megatron disappeared after Vector Sigma blew up and then you fucked off into space without even bothering to check if he was actually dead.

But enough of Orion promising to kill/kiss Megatron, it’s time to see what Brainstorm’s cooked up. It’s not much, but to be fair, he’s only had a few hours to pull something together- our ship’s genius has made a few forcefield generators, using nothing more than some forcefield generators and juice he squeezed out of a bug. Science truly is amazing.

And I bet Trailcutter hates this invention too, for multiple reasons this time!

Cyclonus, who is looking especially purple today, agrees to join the excursion to the Dead Universe, even though it’s pretty clear he really, really doesn’t want to. Hardhead seems in better spirits than our resident space jet, though maybe that’s just bravado macho-man bullshitting on his part.

With our team put together, it’s time to jump out of the spaceship and into a place that quite literally wants them dead. But first Rodimus has a little chat with Ultra Magnus about his feelings. A lot of sharing this issue.

Magnus doesn’t feel fit to be in charge while Rodimus goes off to save the day and maybe die, because he doesn’t have that special something that makes a leader a leader. Charisma? The ability to think on your feet? The ability to see people as people and not numbers? Not having people know you’re actually a much smaller man running around in an Ultra Magnus suit? Whatever it is, Rodimus seems to think that it’s trumped by a mysterious something in his hand, and that Magnus will do just fine.

While Team -Imus goes into the murder reality, Magnus and the Lost Light will be going off to find Jhiaxus, because they need something to do while our protagonist and his absentee father go on their own adventure.

Back on Cybertron, Starscream’s visiting prison, and wants to talk to a very good boy without the guards overhearing. Jazz makes a very vague threat about what will happen if any harm comes to the prisoner, then steps away.

Let’s talk about how to sell toys for a second.

This issue of “Dark Cybertron” had a cover featuring Scoop, the very good boy I’ve mentioned before, because it was paired off with his Generations toy. We know from reading RID that Scoop is the leader of a group called the Construction Patrol, and he likes to help simply for the sake of helping. Sounds like a nice, if generic, character. How is this issue going to introduce people to him? Will he bust out of prison to save the day? Fight evil through heroic sacrifice? Do anything besides talk?

No, he’s going to tell Starscream he’s a herald of death that was foretold in the robot bible.

Yeah, that’ll move some fucking product!

This isn’t even the most batshit thing Scoop’s going to pull in this event, but it is what they decided to put in the issue that “features” him.

Over with Shockwave, we’re treated to some renewed friendships, as Nova Prime and Galvatron reveal that they don’t hate each other after all, but have a mutual respect based in subjugating those weaker than them.

I’m guessing this is a contrast to their previous relationship dynamic in older publications, but I’m not going back to comb through the likes of Heart of Darkness to check, because it really doesn’t matter.

There’s a bit of a snag in Shockwave’s plan to bring Galvatron and Nova Prime back to the Not-Dead Universe, as the space bridge in the Titan burnt up when it got there. Gee, that sucks. I guess all those “Prelude” issues about getting the Titan from Gorlam Prime were sort of a waste of time, weren’t they? Love it when I’m told I wasted my time reading motherfucking Ramondelli issues.

Speaking of Ramondelli, it’s Dead Universe time.

Sigh. Hello, public domain pictures of space on the overlay layer option in Photoshop. It’s nice to see you.

No, it isn’t. I lied.

I’m sorry, public domain pictures of space on the overlay layer option in Photoshop, this isn’t your fault.

So we’re here in the Dead Universe, and it’s looking pretty wild and crazy, though the characters are likely thinking this for a completely different reason than we are as readers. It turns out, the Dead Universe… is dying.

…MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM THAT’S SOME GOOD WRITIN’ RIGHT THERE

Also, Cyclonus has disappeared, not that anyone actually gives a shit, because they’re too busy dealing with the giant space leeches that just showed the hell up. Dang, why’s that happening?

…That only happens as a form of population control, or if the young in question are sickly and have a low chance of survival, not just because the mama rabbit got a bit peckish between lunch and dinner, you stupid fucking robot.

Half of this writing team won awards a couple years after this was published, I want you to remember that.

They fight the cyberwraiths for a bit, things look like they’re getting dicey, then suddenly they fuck off as Cyclonus shows up, probably fresh off the end of a goddamned panic attack because he’s back in the Dead Universe. Then he proceeds to vomit up some black energon. That’s a fun thing, glad you made me look at that.

Rodimus is concerned that one of their team members has got the Hollywood Tuberculosis cough, but Cyclonus doesn’t want his fucking pity. The fellas decide it’s time to get a move on, seeing as they’ve been here a grand total of 20 seconds and been attacked, so they need to get this over with ASAP.

As Team -Imus flies off in a ship I don’t remember them bringing along, someone decides that they’re going to stick their finger in that puddle of vomit.

Nightbeat you fucking idiot, there aren’t any sinks in the Dead Universe! Now your hand’s gonna be all gross for the entirety of this event! He’s not even analyzing it, it’s just on his hand! Why is Nightbeat having zero concept of personal hygiene a running theme in the things I read? Fuck!

You may be wondering what Nightbeat’s doing in the Dead Universe, or even where he’s been for a good chunk of IDW. We’ve seen him in flashbacks from before the war, but not during or after, least not within anything I’ve covered. So, what’s be been up to?

Fuck you, you’ll have to wait for a later issue to be told what Phase One bullshit you’ll have had to read to understand why this dumbass is here.

Back on Cybertron, Prowl is telling Bumblebee that he sucks because he’s not acting. I’m not exactly sure what he expects Bumblebee to do about the Titan who’s just standing there. It’s not like issuing a loitering ticket is going to do anything. Then the Decepticons attack them, among their ranks being the scariest fucking Ravage I’ve ever seen.

Why do you look like that? Rojo’s supposed to have the cutesy style on this team, why the fuck did he turn the kitty cat into one of the terror dogs from Ghostbusters? 

Anyway, that’s the end of the issue. Sure hope you’re invested enough in trying to figure out what the fuck Nightbeat’s deal is to snag Robots in Disguise #23.

[socksual-innuendos]

So I was tagged by @yesjejunus for this and I’m doing a joint interview with Emi and Cam because why not. Art is also by yesjejunus

What is your name?

E: Who’s askin? C: Camila, and that's my sister Emilia.

How old are you?

E: Old enough to be your mother. Who’s askin?? C: 48, but I don’t really feel it. 

What do you look like?

E: Oh, good, I have jokes for this. ‘Why not just check my mug shot’ or 'Who is this interview for, the blind?’ oh! How about ‘use your damn eyes’?

C: Oh, ugh...well I use to have black hair and my skin wasn’t so...the way that it is, haha. Can we please move to the next question?

Where are you from? Where do you live now?

C: Mexico! I don’t remember much of it, actually. I mean I do but not enough of one place. We moved around a lot and most of it just looked like the wastes here. I don’t remember being told when we had made it into America, I don’t think it really clicked until we were half way through Arizona. We still moved around once we made it into the States and up until a few months ago we didn’t have a home. But we sort of do now! Right Em?

E: Yeah, we’ll see.

What was your childhood like?

E: Just like everyone else’s in some ways. Good at times, shitty at times, getting into way too much trouble at times. Heh, you know, the usual kid stuff and more.

C: Even when papa was around we still stayed with host families. Emi and Abuelita always seemed to be out doing something, mostly work I think, not that I could ever join them. When I was real little I would get sick so much. Papa wouldn’t let me out unsupervised, but he did trust Emi to take me places. Once he was gone things got a lot more strict. I think the host families didn’t want to chance me getting hurt or more sick. Abuelita agreed with them, but Emi would sneak me out and we’d play. 

What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions?

E: I’m friendly with plenty, whether or not they’re friendly with me is their problem. I guess the Chairmen are fine with me, BAH! I know the Omertas have it out for me, and if those damn pretentious White Chode Society fucks didn’t make a steak as good as they do they’d be a hole in the ground. Who else is there? No one that matters I guess-- Wait, those Boomers might be batshit but they know how to have a party! 

C: Oh! I’d like to think I’m friends with the Chairmen, but they’re really just my employers. Swank is nice, a bit of a flirt but he’s like that with everyone. Tommy is sweet too! He can be tough during practice but I can’t fault him for that. Although Emi doesn’t really like them I love the White Glove Society! They really make you feel like royalty-- And their spa is amazing. There’s nowhere like it in the world I swear. I just really enjoy their casino....Um, other than that I don’t really know any other factions. The Kings are funny, but Emi doesn’t really want me in Freeside without her or Cass or Arcade. She also says I am absolutely not to go near Gomorrah. I’ll admit I’m curious but it doesn’t really seem like a place you’d want to wear open toed shoes, you know?

Tell me about your best friend.

E: Only got Camila and Raul, really. Arcade’s good, a bit too idealistic for his age but whatever keeps you goin. Cass is pretty independent, but it’s part of why I like her. 

C: I have so many now! There’s Veronica, she’s probably the closest I’m to, oh and Sarah. I love my sister dearly but she was never into girlish things. But I have those two now! And they love doing all that stuff. Swank gives me a hard time when he comes around The Aces, but it’s all in good fun. Arcade is teaching me how to do computers, and it’s really helping with the Vault hotel. He’s a bit prickly but he still wants to teach me. I really do love them! I know she’s pretty defensive about our living space but I’m glad Emilia includes them in the 38, this place gets too big and lonely without people. 

Do you have a family? Tell me about them!

E: Cam’s all I need. And Raul’s here now. The others are nice to have around but...Family’s special. 

C: There use to be more of us...I never knew mom but Emi’s told me of her. Xiomara was my abuelita’s name, and my papa was around only when I was little. Then there was-- well, it’s not my place to say. Oh, but I have Raul now too. And Veronica, and Arcade, n Cass, Boone....they count. To me they do. 

What about a partner or partners?

E: Nope. Don’t need one. Not in that sense anyway. I don’t mind having regular lovers, but I don’t get attached like that. Friends suit me just fine. 

C: Not for me no. I mean I haven’t really thought of anyone like that...I haven’t really had the chance to. I mean I’ve thought about it before but nothing serious and definitely not at anyone in particular. I think it would be nice...but I’m just not sure. 

Who are your enemies, and why?

E: Enemies? Now why would anyone want to be enemies with me, I am nothing short of a delight. Although, I will say the Garrets’ opinions of me vary with how hefty my tab is. 

C: I really hope I don’t have enemies. I just got friends! One thing at a time please.

Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them?

E: Brotherhood of Kiss My Ass! Don’t get me wrong, they have cool shit and I love their archives but as long as New Vegas is what it is and as long as they do how they do, I hate them. 

C: Veronica’s told me a lot about them. Aside from the obvious, um, flaws, they sound interesting. I know Emi loves history stuff...This seems really complicated...

What about The Enclave?

E: Never heard of ‘em.

C: The who now?

How do you feel about Super Mutants?

C: I haven’t had the chance to properly meet any. Emi says some are like us and that others are just mindless and violent. We had heard about Jacobstown, that’s part of the reason we’re up here actually. Apparently its a home for the mutated. It sounded like a good idea at first-- it certainly was a smart one but...I like Vegas.

E: Tough sonsofbitches. They have no right being as fast as they are. Clumsy in close combat though. 

What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in?

E: Well, it wasn’t the craziest but I did get in a scuff with a mark’s security guard on top of a building. We ended up rolling off, and when I tried grappling my leg had tangled in my climbing cable-- That’s what fucked up my knee-- I ended up hitting the side of the building, having the wind knocked out of me, and then alerted the rest of the security team of an intruder when I broke a window to get back inside. Trying to get out of there with a dislocated knee was probably one of the best and worst adrenaline rushes I’ve had. 

C: Once Rosa and I had a really big miscommunication. I think that was the first time we ever got legitimately mad at each other. She ran off too cool down but I got worried and ah-- Um, things turned out fine, thankfully. Yeah.

Have you ever fought a Deathclaw?

E: Several, actually. Wait-- Ha! Actually, ask Arcade about this, I’m sure he’d love to tell you the story. 

C: Heavens no! I haven’t even seen one outside of pictures. They look terrifying, and Emilia says they’re very territorial and very aggressive. Hopefully I never have to. Although, Emi has said if I’ve ever wanted to see one we could go to the Thorn but animal fights? That seems needlessly cruel.

Do you like fighting?

E: Hell yeah! 

C: I don’t have the energy for conflict. I’d much rather talk it out, like adults. [Camila glares at Emilia]

What’s your weapon of choice?

E: Depends on the job. I love my sniper rifle, but sometimes a trick shot doesn’t have the right flair to it. It’s really about reading the situation and seeing whats available. Sure, you can blast someone’s brains out 2,000 meters away but where’s the fun in distance if no one knows how far it really is. Now, making a big deal out of a target, there’s the fun. You have to personalize each kill, let the mark and the world how premeditated it was. No, it didn’t have to be that complicated, but it was and someone put the effort in. That’s the sort of thing that let’s people know you’re better than them. 

C: I suppose a mic. I’m not really trained in anything, and I don’t really have a preference towards a weapon? Emi really should teach me but last time I brought it up...I’ll ask Raul.

How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?)

E: It’s all skill baby. I give a prayer and Lord willing I succeed. That and a quick wit is all I need. (S5, P9, E6, C7, I6, A10, L0)

C: I mostly relied on Emilia to survive. Things have been complicated in the past, but she did what she needed to do. I try to be as polite and accommodating as I can though, at the very least people leave you alone if you’re not causing trouble. I got a job at the Vault 21 hotel! It doesn’t get as busy as the other places on the Strip, but it’s still something!  (S2, P6, E3, C10, I6, A3, L9)

Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them?

C: I work at a Vault! Sort of. It’s a hotel now and it’s been mostly destroyed....Sarah’s a bit afraid to be open about it, given how ‘gracious’ Mr. House was, but from what she said it was much more homey when she was little. She’s also told me about Vault life. I guess growing up underground really makes the concept easier huh? I hate being cooped up, but a roof always over her suits her just fine. ‘Though, I guess if the Vaults are as big as she says they were there would be plenty to do inside but...still...

E: I’ve been in a lot. It’s...humbling. All of them have their own unique story and connections to the old world. Reading about some of these people, their lives, their struggles? It’s like looking into other worlds. The dangers out in the wastes are one thing, its nature of man’s sin or the world’s design, but in the Vaults? It can be paradise or tailored evil. When man plays God, everyone suffers. But I suppose they were use to that kind of living. It is life, no? Just like out here. But even then, most of the time Vaults were safe. For those who first stepped out, they left that and saw nothing but, well, this. I can't imagine not having been able to grow up out here. It's shaped me, made me strong, and I can survive because of it. I don't lament my life being hard, like I said it's made me who I am, but I can't help but put myself in their shoes. Having to learn all this after a life in a Vault? That is a cruelty on its own.

How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you?

C: Well, you can see how it’s effected me. I’m just like any other ghoul I guess. Oh...I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for when my skin really starts to come off. Oh-- Ah! One good thing I suppose! I no longer get sick. I mean, I still get the fatigue and pain but I don’t get colds like I use to. That alone lets me do more than I could when I was a kid. Bright sides, right?

E: I don’t have an extra arm yet, so I don’t think its effected me much. I try to keep radaway on me though, it always has it’s uses. 

What’s your favorite wasteland critter?

C: Oh I love bloatflies! They’d kind of ugly, but also sort of cute? Just like me!

E: I’ll admit I have a certain fondness for our nightstalker Sawyer. There’s intelligence behind those eyes...well, some semblance of it anyway. Still, she’s here for a reason. Although...they’re not very common up here-- actually I don’t think I’ve seen any up here, but frogs. I really really love frogs. 

What’s your least favorite wasteland critter?

C: RADROACHES. I don’t see too many creatures thankfully but these manage to get everywhere and I hate it!

E: Centaurs are some unholy creation of man and should be purged from this life and the next. They and feral ghouls...I say a prayer for them before I pull the trigger. Whomever they were before they didn’t deserve that.

How do you feel about robots?

E: They’re fine for the most part. Just bits and bobs that can sometimes have a personality, although I’ve seen some being used to cheat death. Those ones are abominations. 

C: Yesman! Oh I love him. Ah, I’ve met other robots before too but I never got to know them well. Vegas doesn’t seem to have much aside from securitrons, though.  

How many caps do you have on you right now?

C: A lot more than what we--

E: That is absolutely none of their business!

Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla?

E: Sarsaparilla, easily. 

C: Emi just says that because nuka give her hives!

Do you do chems?

C: Emi made me swear never to touch Med-X. She told me it’s stronger than the stuff we use but nowhere near worth the addiction. I’ve seen some of what she means, so I don’t plan on breaking that promise. Colitas are just fine for me. 

E: Some of ‘em yeah. Mostly for work though. Heh, I even make my own brand of kick in the ass. Yeah...Flake’ll get you through just about anything. The high’s crazy but the crash is insane. I mostly prefer the natural stuff. Peyote comes in handy when I need a good bit of life insight.

Do you ever think about the Pre-War world?

E: A lot actually. It’s quite interesting, they lived a lot differently than us but at the same time not. It’s funny to see how routine human nature is. 

C: Sometimes. Emi still brings back old world books that she finds and I read them when I feel like it. The one’s with photographs are nice. A snapshot in time, as Emi says. She certainly finds them more interesting than I do. 

What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently?

C: I was very insistent one night, and I wish I hadn’t been. Things would have been different if I had just stayed in bed.  

E: Ha! You are asking an assassin what their biggest regret it. There is nothing, I assure you. 

What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve?

C: I got a job! I have a home, I have friends. I’m...normal. Ha!

E: Ah hell, give me a minute to think of the nastiest bastard I’ve ever ‘in’directly put into power...

What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world?

E: I’m getting old, I don’t need a future. And I’m just one person, the world will go on when I’m dead. Cam though, she’s got what? Centuries? That’s a long fuckin time to think about. Raul’s tried to tell me what it’s like but it just feels-- It just doesn’t click. No way in hell I’m making it that long. I just have to figure some way of making this place as secure as possible for Camila.

C: I just want to be independent! I love Emi dearly but she’s a bit much at times. Especially now...and I’m scared I won’t be able to do a lot on my own once she’s gone. Vegas is good for me. I have friends here and there’s jobs that I can manage. Even if Emi wants to move again, I’m staying. I have to. I have a future here, I can see it. 

[thereddeath2093-blog]

2020A_CW-210 personal blog post

DOOM

By Steven Bunch

                 I spend a lot of time thinking about doom. It’s a rather abstract concept to preoccupy oneself with, but still I find myself living a “doomed” life. I listen to doom metal, I watch movies and TV shows full of doomed people on doomed worlds, I fantasize about the doom of the planet and my own personal doom. It even gets so much more specific to the point of absurdity; my favorite rapper is MF DOOM, my favorite super villain is Dr. Doom, I even play DOOM the video game.

               Half of my time spent thinking about doom, is trying to understand what the word itself really means. What is doom? What does it mean to be doomed? This as you can imagine inspires all sorts of philosophical questions about life and death, fate and inevitability, as well as many others. For all my pondering, I can’t really come up with a solid answer or something definitive. Sure, I could go with a typical dictionary definition of the idea, but it is more than that to me. It encompasses too much to be summarized and completed in a single or simple string of sentences. It’s an aesthetic, an ideology, and a state of being to me, something transcendental unto itself.

               The aesthetics of Doom are easily recognized but much like the idea itself, abstract and difficult to definitively explain. There are rather obvious tropes and visual elements that appear in art and media that are representative of what I’m talking about; ruined buildings, smoke filled skies, destroyed cities, dead bodies, anything apocalyptic really. However, the idea is much deeper than that. A piece of art, or anything visual, that can inspire feelings of dread, despair, or hopelessness exemplify this aesthetic in its purest forms. This has a place in the greater sense of the word and the idea of Doom itself.

               The ideology of Doom, unlike a lot of ideologies, is not one that is readily “chosen” in the same way one might choose to be a democrat or one would take up the cause of conservation. This is a kind of mentality that people usually fall into, and more so often than they might realize. Unlike the aforementioned aesthetics, the ideology is easily explained and familiar to most people. While chiefly the mentality is signified by feelings of doom or feeling doomed, it is a little more complicated than that. A true ideology of doom comes when this mentality is reflected out into the world as a whole rather than the individual. More than a simple feeling of personal helplessness, an ideology of doom encompasses the whole of humanity, to see the entire human race as doomed. As you can imagine, this is not a particularly hot-take, especially these days. That being said, embracing this fact would be the key difference between someone who is merely cynical and someone who is waiting with baited breathe for the apocalypse. Which is essentially what I’m talking about.

               People would scarcely admit to themselves, and even more so to each other, that they want the world to end. But the fact of the matter is that most people on some level do. Being a “doomer” has even become a popular internet meme. You get a sense of this feeling anytime someone has a particularly fashionable doomsday prophecy or something like this virus breaks out. People talk about “what if this gets worse?” and “what if this is the ‘big one’?” and they do so in very practical sensible ways, but it’s not hard to see something under the practical nervous façade everyone displays. There’s a part of it that is exciting to everyone. There’s a little voice in every one’s head that says “well fuck, if the world ends, I don’t have to go to work on Monday”.

Now that might seem rather funny like a Sunday newspaper comic, but there’s something deep in the psychology of that mindset. People don’t want to have to go to work, but more than that, they don’t want to be expected to participate in the societal machine that makes people go to work and earn money. Part of being an adult is accepting and fulfilling obligations that are somewhat thrust upon you from outside regardless of how one feels about those particular obligations. People are to a degree forced to participate in a society that they don’t agree with, or at the very least, do not like their position in. An apocalypse frees the shit scrubber and the burger flipper to eat his boss and give a finger to the man free of any guilt of any financial or typical consequence. All of us have someone higher on us on the ladder we wouldn’t mind making a meal out of.

Naturally this all extends outside of working relationships and obligations, but to the far reaches of civilization as a whole. Every person from pauper to prince is well aware, that the “system” in place is not only incredibly flawed and corrupt, but also antithetical to the very human soul itself. Obvious injustices such as bigotry, war, poverty; as well as little things like traffic, wasted time, rudeness, all support the notion that something is wrong .“The system” as your local pothead would call it, isn’t designed to crush people into machines and thoughtless consuming automatons, but one can’t be faulted for believing it so, considering how often said system produces such hollow beings. One of the mindset of “Doom” recognizes that the easiest way for these things to change, if they can be changed, is to wipe the slate clean entirely.

                This is the point where most people will close this page because I’m starting to sound like a cultist of some kind. But, those people aren’t remiss to do so. This is the kind of mentality that leads people into cults. Nearly every cult is a “doomsday” cult of some kind. Even Christianity for all its pomp and circumstance, is hardly ever different. Some of the most colorful and interesting passages of the Bible come from the book of Revelations and the prophecy for the end of the world. That’s how natural this all is, how prevalent it is in the human psyche. We have always been waiting for the end of the world, because unlike most animals, we are very poignantly aware of our own mortality, and this awareness manifest itself in strange ways. The strangest of all being embracement.

               This leads to my final point about Doom itself as a state of being, the embracement of death. Now again, I’m not trying to get all death-cult on you, but there is something to be said for not only accepting one’s own mortality, but embracing it. The fact of the matter is, life sucks, and not just these days or in a particular circumstance. Life, on the whole, is a tragedy. We are born into fragile bodies against our will, bodies that will very slowly decay with us trapped inside them. We are born into families we do not choose, with people who do not know but are entrusted with our entire existence, and then as an adult expected to serve someone else entirely. We are expected to work and struggle and to get sick and to suffer until we are physically incapable anymore. And if you whine about it, there will always be someone to chime in and remind you that your particular suffering isn’t even close to the breadth of suffering humans can experience because “someone always has it worse”. This is a world where a good death is considered “getting old”, which is essentially just fermenting and rotting longer than anybody else.  

               To be “Doomed” in this sense is a recognition and rejection of fighting these things. If we are all going to die, then there can be no “good death”. All death is natural, all the world is transient, a passing image. Nothing, least of all people, last forever. You spend a lot more time dead than alive in the grand scheme of things, and in that, being dead is more of the default state. That’s not to say that this is a suicidal feeling at all. This isn’t some philosophy of suicide in so much as it is a philosophy of embracing the inevitable end of all things. Someone in the “doomed” state of being isn’t going to go out and seek the end of their own life, but they aren’t the kind of person to shy away from it either. They allow themselves to fall away and let go of life’s worries much more readily. There is a reason that coming to terms with one’s own mortality is a huge part of Zen and eastern spiritual learning.

Why would you shy away from death and doom if the world is a bag of ass and you’re going to die anyway?

               After many hours wasted thinking, I have come to the conclusion that this is where I draw my artistic inspiration from. All of my world view is painted with a funeral veil. I find myself obsessed with the aesthetics of doom because I constantly live in that state of being. I can’t help but feel a compulsion to drive this aesthetic as far as I can. I feel the innate urge to draw visions of monsters, destroyed cities, and the sky shredded by cosmic terror so naturally. I can’t help but express this feeling through my artwork. Something within me wants to say to people, or remind them; “hey, not only are things like suffering and death very real, but sometimes they are the only thing that is. They are inevitable and they shouldn’t not be cowered from, but embraced and mastered.”

Now, maybe I’m projecting too much. (I tried not to be too first person, oh well). Perhaps I’m just trying to explain my own morbid fascinations I can’t otherwise do so with. Maybe I’m just too edgy for my own good or it’s because I have a very strong belief in the afterlife. Though it’s not out of the realm of possibility that there’s just some people out there (myself chiefly included) who are just sort of depressing, death obsessed freaks. However, I gamble a stamp, that considering how many depressing death obsessed freaks are really out there in the world, that I’m not entirely off-base when I talk about these things being prevalent in the subconscious of the human race as a whole. I believe something deep in the human psyche craves a change, craves destruction to make way for something new. Something in each of us wants these things no matter the cost, something in each of us, craves Doom.

[crystalelemental]

You know, talking even briefly about how I don’t care much for the Gen 5 starters has resulted in me wanting to share my opinions about starter Pokemon as a whole.  Like, what I think of each of their evolutionary lines.  So let’s do that.  Not really a ranking or anything, just my opinions on each.

BULBASAUR LINE Bulbasaur’s evolution line is great, fight me.  They’re little dinosaur creatures with a giant flower that blooms on its back as it evolves, how is that not cool?  Grass/Poison was super redundant in Gen 1, putting it into conflict with every other grass type bar Tangela, but nowadays it’s...slightly less common of a typing?  Okay, it’s pretty standard.  But I really like the concept behind them.  Also, I can’t remember where I saw this, but someone insulted Venusaur’s design and I want you to know I’m judging.

CHARMANDER LINE Okay, Charmander?  Super cute, love the little lizard creature.  Charmeleon?  Okay, bigger and angrier, kind of a thing with Pokemon as they evolve.  Charizard?  The most stock-standard “dragon” you can imagine.  It’s literally just a Dragon.  Had they not been cowards about the typing back then, it probably would be Fire/Dragon.  But no, Fire/Flying.  I really don’t like Charizard.  It’s so standard and yet it’s held up as one of the best Pokemon designs, and for what?  For being a standard, boring-ass dragon.  Listen kids, dragons are boring, and we need to get over them.

SQUIRTLE LINE Squirtle itself is just adorable.  I love this thing so much, it’s honestly becoming my favorite of the gen 1 starters, even over Bulbasaur who I adore.  I’ve heard others mention that Wartortle is kinda underwhelming, but really, it’s not worse than Charmeleon or Ivysaur, and they’re just fine, so I think those people are just mean.  As for Blastoise itself, it’s a cool concept, though you do have to wonder how it got metallic cannons coming out of its shell.  Really doesn’t make much biological sense at all, which proves once again that anything that genwunners complain about Gen 5 being stupid for, Gen 1 did it too.  Overall great, probably turning into my favorite of the evolution lines.

CHIKORITA LINE Okay, I really like this evolution line, but for contrarian reasons.  Chikorita is not the cutest of the starters in Gen 2.  Cyndaquil is.  Its concept of having a giant flower around its neck isn’t bad, but Venusaur’s just a little more interesting in concept.  But ultimately, I still really like this line.  Because it’s the worst starter line from a competitive standpoint.  It’s so bad it’s hard to use even in the main game.  This poor thing deserves love, and if you hate on them, you are a bad person.

CYNDAQUIL LINE Okay, real talk: Cyndaquil was my go-to as a kid.  It’s so cute!  It’s such a cool concept, too.  The evolution line is a little stale, though?  I know the other starters aren’t exactly much better, but it really feels like it’s just slowly elongating with no substantial differences between the forms.  Also, mono-Fire feels like a huge waste on such a cool concept.  Like, imagine if this thing got a secondary Electric or Ground type or something.  Yes, horrific 4x weaknesses, I understand that, but counterpoint: it’d be cool.  And that’s really what matters.  Not like Typhlosion’s exact copy of Charizard’s stats did it any favors to begin with.  Still, this line is probably my favorite of the generation for one, singular reason.  It’s not a reptile.  Every other starter up to this point was some kind of reptile!  Gen 1 had this whole dinosaur motif going on, and Chikorita’s basically a dinosaur thing while Totodile is an alligator...crocodile...thing.  Thank you, Cyndaquil, for being the most unique animal type of the starters.  Even if your evolution path is kinda boring.

TOTODILE LINE Totodile’s line is...interesting.  It starts out as a cute little critter, and as many evolutions do, becomes a huge hulking monstrosity in its final form.  Feraligatr is pretty cool, and I do think it’s interesting how it’s the lowest level for final evolution of all starters.  That was a neat trade-off.  But man, Croconaw’s design just looks...odd.  It’s probably supposed to be like an egg pattern, but it really looks like a weird caveman cloth print, and it doesn’t look great.  It’s like an awkward teen years before getting to be a fairly cool adult.

TREECKO LINE Treecko was always my least favorite of the Gen 3 starter lines, and I never really knew quite why I was so lukewarm about it.  Spoilers, I adore the other two, but Treecko never really stood out.  I think my comments on Cyndaquil gave me a realization as to why: it’s another reptile creature.  It’s a cool-looking evolution line, but it’s still a reptile.  And I’m about reptiled out.  Still, we have to admit that Grovyle is super cool, both because of its sleek design, and its role in Explorers of Sky.

TORCHIC LINE Prior to Gen 6 producing the greatest starter of all time, Torchic was my stated favorite.  Listen, Fire/Fighting was a cool typing back when it happened the first time.  It wasn’t until it kept happening that everyone got sick of it forever.  A kickboxing chicken is also just about the funniest way to go with the typing, too.  You can’t deny how imaginative this line is.  Plus, the first form is super adorable.  Tiny little chicken, doing its best.  I love it so...  And its final form looks nice, too.  Really, the designs of Gen 3 were all spectacular.

MUDKIP LINE Mudkip was the one that gave Torchic a run for its money.  Mudkip itself is super adorable and precious, and while it and all its evolutions can look a little dopey, they have a lot of charm in their design.  Plus, Water/Ground is an awesome typing.  Quagsire did it first, yes, but that didn’t make it any less cool.

TURTWIG LINE Believe it or not, I don’t have very strong opinions about most of the Gen 4 starters.  Like Gen 5, I feel like none of them stuck with me that strongly, and any playthrough of the game, I’m perfectly fine dumping the starter.  That said, if I had to pick a favorite of them, it’s Turtwig.  I guess I just like turtles.  It’s mostly the concept behind its final form that I love.  It carries a giant tree on its back, and packs a fairly unique Grass/Ground typing.

CHIMCHAR LINE And now the exact opposite.  From day 1, I never liked Chimchar.  First off, I do not like monkeys.  I just don’t.  Secondly, Infernape stole the exact same typing as Blaziken, which is not only shitty, but also really boring.  Every other starter so far has been fairly unique in typing choices, and this asshole is gonna just do the exact same thing as last gen?  Oh, I’m sorry, it gets to be way faster but a bit less strong but still really strong.  Fuck Infernape.

PIPLUP LINE Piplup is cute, though.  And having its final form be some emperor penguin that’s apparently made of steel is awesome.  Torterra is the favorite from this gen, but man, Empoleon had such a cool typing it was hard to not consider it the most interesting.

SNIVY LINE Snivy’s alright.  It had a solid design, and I can understand why Smugleaf caught on as the fan favorite.  That said, that’s kinda all it’s got.  Serperior is plain boring, and it’s the only Grass starter not to get Earthquake for coverage at any point.  The only thing to its name is Contrary, and somehow it’s on its way to being the highest competitively ranked Grass starter, even above Mega Venusaur.  Which just goes to show that competitive Pokemon is broken beyond all repair and we should probably torch it all and start over.

TEPIG LINE I can’t believe they gave us three Fire/Fighting types in a row.  I’m gonna say it: if Emboar had gotten literally any other typing, it’d be my favorite of this gen.  Not even a contest, really.  Emboar looks cool, and Tepig is adorable.  Sure, Pignite is...a little awkward of a design, but that’s fine, it stood up.  It’s not lying to me unlike some middle stage fire starters I could mention.  But the fact that it’s part Fighting means it’s a huge disappointment.

OSHAWOTT LINE Oh wait, except Oshawott is also a huge disappointment.  An adorable little otter to a cool samurai otter, to whatever the hell is going on with Samurott.  “Steve, it can stand on its back legs and has the sword thing so-” no.  No it does not.  You know why?  Because it’s not drawn like that.  If you wanted to keep the samurai thing going, it’d be drawn and displayed as bipedal.  Instead, you gave us water horse, whose special attack is higher than its physical attack.  This should’ve been the favorite of the generation, but that final form does not look good, does not make sense for the line, and is mono-Water.  Not even a dual typing to keep things interesting?  Sad.  So I guess I don’t have a favorite of Gen 5 starters.  Because none of them are consistently good.

CHESPIN LINE Gen 6 did many things wrong.  Starters were not one of them.  Chespin is adorable and wonderful.  People made fun of Quilladin, but really, it’s the same deal as Pignite: it looks a little awkward but ends on a high note.  Chesnaught looks great, and the paladin concept is great, giving it a lot of good support moves and a Grass/Fighting type that is never really good but is interesting.  I like it a lot, but it’s massively overshadowed by...

FENNEKIN LINE Behold, the greatest starter line ever made.  They gave me a fox!  A Fire/Psychic fox!  Do you know how long I had waited?  Literally since Ninetales.  Fennekin is adorable, Braixen is the sassiest thing ever I love it, and Delphox is still an excellent witch design.  If there is any flaw this line could possibly have, it’s that Braixen should have the Psychic typing and access to some of the tech Delphox does.  Oh, and that the evolution line is competitive trash and has gotten literally nothing of value while a certain bastard-ass frog gets like 12 different favors over nothing.

FROAKIE LINE This is the worst starter line of all time.  Froakie itself was fine.  The idea of going ninja-theme on the frogs?  Fine.  I don’t care about ninjas at all, but fine.  That should’ve been the end of it.  But no.  It could’ve been just as simple as “not my preference” and move on.  And it should be.  But instead, they give it Protean, one of the most broken abilities in the series, on top of its blistering speed.  Hell, in ORAS, they gave it Gunk Shot, which rounded its coverage so perfectly it got banned to fucking Ubers.  So obviously, we went too far, right?  Time to dial it back.  Haha, idiot.  In the change to Gen 7, they give its multi-hit priority move a special designation instead of physical, because god forbid this bougie-ass frog have to work for anything in its goddamned life.  Oh, and we gave it a special snowflake form based on the anime, that gets like 50 more base stat points than a goddamned mega evolution.  Because, again, god forbid this bougie frog have to work for a damned thing in its life.  I thought it was blatant favoritism that Charizard got two megas.  I thought it couldn’t get any more obvious who their favorite starter was.  I was a goddamned idiot.  They could’ve gone way harder, and they did.  Greninja deserves nothing but getting its ass nerfed into the ground where it belongs.

ROWLET LINE You know, I actually wish the Rowlet line was better than it is.  Rowlet itself is cute, and while the final form’s design isn’t really my thing, the concept of it being an extinct bird and thus being part Ghost is...morbidly hilarious.  It’s also an archer!  That’s really neat!  But...it’s not very good.  I blame the speed.  Why did they want to make everything so bulky offensive this gen?  It didn’t work.  Whatever their reason, it’s a nice enough evolution line that just doesn’t quite hit the mark for me.

LITTEN LINE Ooooh boy, okay.  Look.  Litten’s super cute.  Torracat?  I can work with that.  But Incineroar...  Oh my god it looks so weird.  I don’t know what it is.  I think it’s similar to Bewear, in that it really just looks like someone’s fursona, only instead of being a really bad and lazy fursona with no personality, it’s a surprisingly high-quality one with a backstory about being a wrestler that’s simultaneously endearing but also concerning how much effort was put into it.  I know it’s a fire-type thing to stand up in the final form, but maybe...you shouldn’t have.  Maybe you should’ve been like Samurott.  Actually, maybe the two of you should trade places!  Samurott should stand its ass up, and you should sits yours down.  Then everything would be fixed.  Forever.

POPPLIO LINE Were it not for Fennekin being an adorable fox with the best typing, this would be my favorite evolution line.  Popplio was cute.  Maybe a little odd looking, but still cute.  Brionne was one of the prettiest middle evolutions in starter history, and it ends on the most elegant thing in the world.  Primarina is gorgeous, and I adore it.  Much like Fennekin, if there’s any real detriment, it’s that the middle stage doesn’t get the secondary Fairy typing.  Then it would truly be perfect.

[hayleysstark]

Have you read about the cancelled sequel for Treasure Planet? What are your thoughts about it? Would it have been a good idea, or would you have prefered we only have the one film? Also, if Disney had decided to greenlight a TP sequel, would you want them to use the one they scrapped, or do you have any ideas for what a potential sequel could be?

((for those wondering what the fuck we’re talking about, this article sums up the canceled sequel pretty well))

i did indeed hear about the canceled sequel back when i first got into the fandom!! and may i just say this is a really, really interesting question??? i haven’t discussed the sequel on my blog, i never really felt the need to - it’s obviously never going to come to pass, so i saw no reason to bring it up - but now i just gotta.  

to be honest with you, i’m kind of glad there’s only one film - though i tend to complain a lot about the lack of new content in a fandom as old and small as this one, there’s something to be said for the security of it, too. let’s be real, Disney has a pretty bad habit of taking a film we all know and love, and trying to turn it into a series, or a franchise, or a low-budget television show that just…shits on everything the audience loved about the original. sometimes, good things - or, in this case, amazing things - really are best left alone.

that said, there’s no denying i definitely enjoy the concept of the sequel - i see it as an opportunity, above all, to really build on what little they’d established about the universe in the first film, and even broaden it, and that’s an objective i can completely get behind. the way they handled jim’s character in the sequel is, not gonna lie, a personal favorite of mine as well - his reputation at interstellar gets me every time. he constantly toes the line between talented hotshot prodigy who wastes no time in rising straight to the top of the class with his inventive and ingenious problem-solving skills, and insolent, irresponsible troublemaker who constantly challenges authority and can’t take orders no matter how badly it ends for him… yeah, watching jim struggle with who he used to be, and who he wants to be, and eventually finding some sort of medium between the two, without ever compromising either side of his personality, is easily one of the most intriguing parts of the sequel for me. 

a reunion between jim and silver also interests me as well, but i’m nothing if not a nitpick, so it would have had to be done very, VERY well for me to be completely on board with it, lmao. the larger plot wasn’t too shabby, i’d genuinely enjoy to see the pirate ironbeard repurposed for another film, and the Centurion had a pretty bomb-ass design, not gonna lie. as for the romantic subplot…i’m not crazy about it, and i felt, personally, the film already had plenty going on without throwing more into the mix, but i did appreciate the character of kate, and how well she seems to balance jim with her confidence, conformity, and constraint - considering he’s insecure, insubmissive, and independent, i can admit they’d work well together, and may even have been a reasonably strong couple. who knows?? if they’d made it to the silver screen, i might have even shipped them!! 

ultimately, i do think the sequel would have been worth the watch - though i’m sure it would have been nowhere near the original in terms of quality.

i suppose if i had to come up with a sequel myself, i do like the idea of setting it a bit farther in the future than Disney did - maybe jim, in his early to mid-twenties, receives an assignment to hunt down and capture the pirate john silver for the royal navy?? i’m honestly not sure, though!! guess i haven’t considered it enough. 

anyway, thank you so much for asking, honestly, i love discussing my space children and everyone i know personally is sick of hearing me talk about them and i hope you enjoyed my answer!!! always feel free to send me another ask whenever, or DM me and strike up a conversation!!

[muthaz-rapapa]

A few thoughts about KiraPuri Ep. 8...

Another long post. I’m sorry. -.-;

It was good episode. Very good episode.

But I hope I wasn’t the only one who was a little disappointed that last week’s preview tricked us into thinking this would be about Ichika bossing the others around and through that, mess up the camaraderie they’re supposed to be forming. Which would then be followed by everyone deliberating what to do to solve this problem and what Ichika has to do to correct her wrongs. Or something along those lines.

Again, how things played out was in fact, a lot better than putting Ichika in the main spotlight like how it was for the past seven weeks. Now everyone has a part in putting this team together, finding ways to work with each other and so on. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better end to the ‘introductory arc’, where we often see the lead Cure taking charge more than the others. 

Because I’m aware that it’s kinda necessary to have the them establish themselves into their leader roles that way (by being energetic and encompassing) so I’m willing to let that slide as far as the first 10 episodes go.

However, I still think it would’ve been interesting to see a flaw (any flaw) of a Pink Cure be portrayed in a negative light.

Mostly because I feel that a lot of times any aspect of the protagonist, even the very less than ideal ones, would rarely be displayed so badly that it would alienate the other characters or viewers from her.

For example, even if she was incredibly selfish and jumped into something without consulting her team members first, the plot would conveniently bend over to accommodate what she wants and then find some cheesy way to justify how ‘right’ she is or beautify her to such an extent that it leaves no room for argument against her. Then nobody would have a chance to call her out on her faults so that she can learn to fix it herself. Whether by virtue of her ‘purity’ or whatever glorified trait she possesses, it’s almost always guaranteed to turn out her way.

That’s one of the major reasons why I had so much difficulty tolerating Cure Flora in Go!Pri. As well as many other hero/heroines in other series and genres but those in Precure, especially, because this franchise seldom operates outside its usual formulas.

Maybe I’m not talking much sense but… it’s just this bothersome feeling I can’t help having on how the writers do their characterizations. Like, don’t just gloss stuff over all the time. Give me their ugly sides, give me unsettling confrontations between friends, give me something that won’t allow me to let her live it down but can also allow me to totally accept it as part of the composition of her character. Because that’s what going to flesh her out. She’ll be more of a person and less of an stereotypical image on paper. Flaws make a person a person.

Yea, yea, I do realize I might be thinking too deep into a children’s show but hey, since I invested myself in watching it, then it’d be dumb not to wonder about these things.

*sigh* Well, anyways, it’s a good thought exercise to have, nonetheless. And it’s still very early in the game for Kira Puri so maybe we will see some clashing development like that later on. Only the next 40 something episodes will tell.

Moving along!

I’m glad Yukari brought up the question on whether it’s true that “everyone” wants to open up this patisserie shop.

It implies that the lot of them might just be pulled in by Ichika’s enthusiasm and the fact that they are all Precure rather than being genuinely interested in participating because they want to.

Akira, in particular, is indirectly called a bit of a pushover which isn’t hard to see why since she often pampers her sick sister so that habit might have extended to their group where the majority of them are still in middle school. In other words, Akira has no will or opinion of her own. She just goes along with the flow to appease everyone and she’s being called out for it.

Yukari isn’t trying to be mean but it’s a question that really needs to be asked because lemme tell ya, starting and managing a business is no fucking stroll in the park. It takes a lot of time and effort and in this case, manpower, to get it off the ground and running.

If nobody but Ichika is 100% sure of really devoting themselves and a good portion of their schedules to this project out of their own volition or desire, then the patisserie is not going to succeed.

Thankfully, they all realize they do in the end but again, I have to say this because Toei is giving too many unrealistic expectations on what it’s like to run a shop. As a working person, I can’t just sit by and not say anything about it.

Another thing that got me concerned was how time management or store hours never entered their conversation and likely never will after this point even though it’s a super important discussion that you must have with your employees.

Because Precure universes have a weird sense of time in general but Kira Puri takes the cake in that I see these girls lounging around town and baking at the patisserie more than doing anything else that they should be doing. Like going to school, doing extracurricular actives, etc. I get that this season doesn’t prioritize those things but then…HOW do they make it work? It’s not like they have a fully-fledged, nontransparent and non-creepy adult to oversee the place when they’re not there.

Also, considering that 3 out of the 5 of them already had other commitments to attend to before the patisserie idea came up, it’s a surprise that nobody mentioned them until the very end of the ep. And even more of surprise when Ichika seems so shocked by it so you kind of wonder how self-absorbed she really is to forget stuff like that about her friends so quickly.

I’m sorry for dragging out these gripes of mine but honestly, things can’t possibly go so smoothly like what I’m seeing here. Not to mention, I hate the fact that they brought this up for comic effect when in hindsight, it’s really not something you should be laughing about.

So I hope at some point later in the season, there will be scheduling and commitment conflicts. Everybody might be on board now since they just finished setting the place up and all but when business is booming (I’m guessing it will anyway) and Ichika needs all the help she can get, how will they deal with it when the others can’t spare the time for the shop?

Anyways, while I do make too much of a big deal out of kid’s show, I also know that that’s not the objective of this episode.

The point of this episode was to see if the girls could learn to cooperate with each other. Cuz that absolutely had to happen first otherwise KiraPati would never have been set up.

And since it was set up, obviously they did find ways to work together.

Which introduces new pair dynamics as well.

We already got a good feel of Ichika + Himari + Aoi and Yukari + Akira based on grouping them by age. Plus Ichika + each Cure in their respective scenarios.

But it’d be boring if it was always limited to those so it’s high time that interactions not involving Ichika was finally delved into.

For Himari + Akira, you can see the relationship as that of an older sibling and younger sibling (cuz duh, this is Akira we’re talking about).

Tol and smol. Cute. <3

But you can also see them as marketing partners, too.

Akira, who’s already been assigned as KiraPati’s main garçon, attracts customers and investors with that welcoming, charming demeanor of hers, making it easier to lower their guard so she can pitch their ideas to them.

Meanwhile the more knowledgeable Himari backs up their proposals with the extensive details, showing how serious they are about their business and assuring people that they will be putting the resources they receive to good use.

It’s very encouraging to watch as they naturally come to bounce off each other in that respect.

Then we have the creative pair. The cool feline pair.

Stylish Mama Cat and Rockstar Lion Cub pair.

Their job is interior design cuz you want your customers to enjoy themselves in a nice setting under a pleasant atmosphere after all, right?

Yukari certainly got the aesthetics for the store down and Aoi, being an artist in her own right, most likely agrees with the concept she came up with. So it’s just a matter of organizing everything up to scale.

And of course, they do.

Yukari makes efficient use of Aoi’s muscle to help her set up the decorations and furniture. Not a space wasted but not too cramped (yes, I wouldn’t put it pass Yukari to be an expert on feng shui, lol).

And Aoi, well, it’s just scary how she manages to throw everything into the right spots with such precision (moral of the story: don’t mess with Aoi cuz she will kick your ass).

To think they were in such a messy state the day before but they can all come together like this and make that much progress in such a short amount of time.

It’s great. Their strengths complement each other well and they’re being productive about it.

It’s just great. ^^

Last but not least, the moment of crowning.

While it’s still debatable if the current Ichika is qualified enough to be a steady manager who puts a 14-year old in charge of a store? AND the cook (oh boy…), there’s no doubt that she definitely did earn her title as the leader of the group.

Ichika was the one who brought them together. She was the one who made the decision to use this space provided to them for a cause. She was the one who wanted to bring something good to others and get them to smile from the sweets they’ll serve.

She may not have Himari’s brains or Aoi’s strong arm or Yukari’s calmness or Akira’s maturity. And it’s true that she’s reckless and clumsy all over the place.

But it’s indisputable that she’s got the heart needed to make all this possible.

And that, I think, is the most critical element in sustaining their patisserie. You gotta have the intention to make people happy. There’s no other way you can open a business without that.

So it’s only fitting that Yukari would be the one to christen Ichika with the important position of manager. Because throughout this whole fiasco of building a shop together, Yukari was the only one who didn’t lose herself to stress over the situation (duh, this is Yukari we’re talking about).

Why? Cuz she predicted this would happen.

She knew that with the variety of people here, it definitely is possible to open a magnificent patisserie. Them getting off to a rocky start is just a minor bump in the road because no one’s going to do everything perfectly on their first try like how she was with the macarons *gets shot*.

And she knew that Ichika had the potential to live up to the expectations of being manager because Ichika has the determination to see it through.

If she didn’t know those things, she wouldn’t have stuck around to help because then it would be a failure and Yukari doesn’t accept failure. She doesn’t function on something flimsy like a whimsical belief. She has to really know there is a winning result at the end to see this as worthwhile.

(True moral of the story: Kira Puri wouldn’t survive with Yukari. Yukari knows all. They’d be lost without her. This season would be nothing without her. Yep.)

So think about what it means for her to entrust this huge responsibility to Ichika. 

“I trust that you won’t bore me so do your best, little manager.”

Yukari, who’s the most capable of them all. Yukari, so capable that she can probably/easily be a better manager than Ichika but chose not to because that would be no fun for her. Yukari wants Ichika to rise up the challenge in overseeing this patisserie.

It doesn’t just imply how much faith Yukari has in Ichika. It also suggests that being manager will mold Ichika into an even better character. All the stuff she’ll have to face as the leader of her team, that is what going to serve as her character development.

And I so hope that is the case here. I really, really do. You’ve got 40 more episodes ahead of you to take this season’s Cures as far as you can, Toei. Don’t disappoint me.

And that’s that, I suppose. 

lol, what the hell is bunnycake looking so tired out for? She didn’t do anything while the rest of them were slaving away to construct her restaurant. :P

Now bring on the fillers~

I can’t do this kind of review every week, it’ll kill me. =A=;

[jsalim-art]

Something to get out my chest

 I’m probably going to delete this later and I just need to get this out my chest because I have been bottling it up for a long while and if I do blurt it to said certain family members I know I would regret saying what I said. Although talking to the void is probably not a good idea but seems a better place to vent than exploding in rage by venting my frustrations in real life and I have nothing to lose just saying this here. I'd be doing vent art to express this but it seems I don't have the energy to do ambitious works (well at least I have a bit of energy to do little doodles) anyways where shall I start? I might ramble off topic here and there so bare with me. And this is gonna be long.....

I love to draw and write the characters and worlds I create in my world and the only person who knows what are in these worlds and these characters is myself and well someone has to make them. I have been drawing since I can remember holding a pencil. My mind back then and now is always filled to the brim with ideas and concepts I'm dying to put on paper. Most of these works are unfinished and the only finished work I have to offer was a shameless self-insert fanfiction but that is another story. The earliest I can remember is at 10-11 I made my own fantasy and all over the place story and mind you it sucks but it was the forerunner of all my original stories that influenced my work now. I like all artists have our beginnings somewhere and well that is where I started my road into creating stories and art for the worlds I create.

This is what makes me happy or my happy place. I'd be content to spend my days working on my stories and art. During my teen years onwards I basically did that obviously while balancing school, social life (or my lack of it), and family life. It was great, and although I had difficulty balancing that when I first got to college I still managed. Then things changed, family stuff added along with stressing over course work really did a number on me emotionally and maybe mentally, well whatever it was it was the result of me failing a semester and having to redo it twice before I can finally move on to my final semester. Despite what I have gone through I was ecstatic I finally graduated completing my Independent Illustration diploma in college that was late 2013 to early 2014 when that happened.

You’d think I’d work out something like build a better portfolio so I can network myself or take up my learning to the next level but nope I was an idiot back then and still feel like it now because of my choices. Instead, I was scared what my future holds out for me I feel like now that I finished this stage of my learning that the sky’s the limit that I can do anything my heart desires and nothing can stop that. Then I forgot I have obligations to my family, I still live with them and I have no shame in that (after all life is difficult living on your own in these times now especially) also, for now, that is the only choice I have.

So after graduation, my family finally got the okay from the government to get our Canadian citizenships which was about damn time considering we stayed in this country as immigrants for like almost a decade and other than me graduating art school, I get to finally get my citizenship. After our ceremony, my dad announced for a bullshit reason that he is taking me, my sister, my mom, and niece to Dubai because my mom has to sign some important paper (spoiler alert there is no paper signed at all and it was all a lie my father gave us to come). So what did I do instead of working on a portfolio or something? I spent all of 2014 being anxious, I was not proud of what I choose to do instead of doing the smart thing.

I basically accepted my fate this is what's going to happen. I literally left Canada on New Year’s Eve and spent the first 3 months of 2015 away from home. A huge chunk of my “vacation” was spent in Kuwait, trapped in a hotel with my mom, sister, and niece. It was a nightmare and I never want that to happen again I did get to go places but 90% I was stuck in that damned hotel (why we were in there is a personal reason I will not disclose). The only thing that is good with this trip is my week in Thailand with my family and although I got sick there I enjoyed this part of the vacation a lot more than being trapped in a hotel in Kuwait. I did manage to do some of my art at least during these 3 months but was not a lot like I hoped for.

But ever since that trip I guess it kinda changed me a bit. I don’t consider myself a positive person heck I’m mostly negative I at least try to be optimistic. Now I just accept that my life is probably not going to be what I hope it will be. And I get it life happens and the plans you make for yourself do not always go the way you want and sometimes it is a good thing cause it may be a better path to some or not to others. I should know I went from being an illustration student to a NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) to a Liberal Arts Student so yes life works in mysterious ways.

Liberal Arts was a different territory to art courses considering its essays, readings, tests, quizzes, etc it was hard I must say I spent half my time crying over my homework and lamenting if I failed or not (although that seems to have worked wonders into getting passing grades and up). But I enjoy these classes and I do want to open my horizons to learning and hey maybe find some inspiration along the way. I already finished my second semester and currently waiting with anticipation for my final grades so wish me luck I survived the semester with passing colors. I also thought I can go back to balancing my school work and my art like I always had done. Then I forgot I have family obligations/contributions I must do. Not that I do not mind but these drain up my mental energy and by the time I am not needed I just can’t really bring myself to pick up a pencil and draw. Whatever I have time left before I sleep is stare at youtube videos and reblogging stuff online because that's how mentally tired and worthless I feel.

When I finally do have the time to actually pick up a pencil and draw 70% of the time I choose to procrastinate because I believe I’ll just be called over by the family for certain responsibilities and I’ll never get the peace and quiet I need to just do what I love and am passionate about. It's always the same cycle ever since then. I just hope there will be that window of opportunity where I have all the time I needed to just draw and maybe write and that one opportunity I had was taken away from me. Well, it won’t be for forever cause there will be more opportunities for me to actually get my lazy ass to draw maybe write. It's just that I am sick and tired of having my time taken away from me and I am mad at myself for being a doormat. But I’m just scared of feeling that I am selfish for wanting that and maybe it’s time I stop that and it will be hard for me to get over. I coped with this by blaming my problems on my family saying its their fault they did this to me (it is obviously not true but it's a way I made myself feel better and denying that this is mostly my doing) I now know it's futile projecting this because in the end, I myself have to make time for myself to do the things I am passionate about. I’ve grown quite resentful and I don’t want to become this bitter person in the future who felt like her life got wasted because she made herself a doormat to please her family or scared of her future. I envy you artists out there who have all the time in the world to make creative original (as well as fan work) content without having to deal with the roadblocks in life and being in charge of your lives. I just want to say that you have to cherish the time you make for yourself to be creative you never know what will happen and before you know it *poof* you hardly have the time. Don’t ever take it for granted like I have.

Art means a lot to me and I feel like I disappointed myself and I feel like I don’t deserve to hang my illustration diploma because I fee like an imposter and felt like I wasted my years being scared of my future so much so that I got to the point where I feel I went to the point of no return. It makes me feel like maybe I should just give up on art and forget about all those worlds and characters I created like whats the use of being creative when life got you by the ankles and refused to let go. As much as I am in such a negative state of mind refuse to outright throw away everything I hold dear and give in the mediocracy of life dragging me away. I don’t want to be discouraged ever again, I want to be sure that this time this is what I want to do with my life whether I go to study graphic design, or go big with my art or even have a typical  9-5 job but still able to find the time to do art and/or write. This is my life and maybe right now the time for doing what I love is not in my future at the moment but its still going to be there for me when I come back. 

And I just want to say and I know I do not need to apologize to my followers I’m sorry if you followed me for the art and hardly or never got any content since following me. As much as I would love to post as much of my originally content as possible well I have to deal with life and responsibilities some of that said responsibilities isn’t so supposed to be mine in the first place. I thank you to those who stuck by if anything I’ll try my best to make more content when that window of opportunity opens for me and you’ll bet your ass it will be a tidal wave of stuff. 

But like I said life is strange sometimes, and I’m not about to give up just yet.

- signed a former illustration student trying to find her way

[erickmalpicaflores]

Erik Malpica Flores Erik Malpica Flores recommends: Stay Out Of The Kitchen

Photo by: Ian Watson/USA Network

Following a mid-season premiere that ended with a girls’ night that (as predicted) viewers didn’t actually get to view, SUITS’ most recent episode continued exploring what happens when Louis Litt is managing partner and everyone else is the same. The episode title, “Whale Hunt,” referred to Harvey Specter’s messy attempt at landing a big client. Meanwhile, three-fourths of the series’ female characters all dabbled, in some way or another, at mixing business with pleasure. For Katrina, it was the ever-obvious dilemma of the spark between herself and Craig-From-Degrassi Brian; Samantha, on the other hand, accepted a case that involved working with rival Alex Williams’ wife. And then there was Donna’s “empowering” new romance.

A whale of an ass. It all started out so well; it kind of ended well, too. The behavior in the middle, though…not so much. Following the previous episode’s spat over how to handle Harvey’s latest attempt at taking down Malik, “Whale Hunt” kicked off to a nice, mature start. Mature!Louis made a much-needed return to make amends with Harvey and remind him that he’s “the best closer in the city.”

Because SUITS viewers have never, ever heard that description of Harvey before.

Once that lack of confusion was nice and extra-cleared up, the lawyers decided that Harvey should put his talents to use by trying to sign Stephen Palmer. But Mr. Palmer had already learned of Harvey’s reputation for being the guy who basically never does what he’s told. (Fact check: Green light.) Palmer sent Harvey away with his tail between his legs and no deal on the table, whatsoever.

Back at the firm, the new boss man wanted to know Harvey’s whale status. Obviously, the best way to handle this was to lie to Louis and say he was [insert sportsball reference for being close to scoring here]. So, when Louis called Palmer to give the whole, “we really value your business” spiel, he had a rather rude awakening: “I’ll tell you what I told him. He has a reputation for not doing what he’s told.” (Fact check: Oprah says hi.)

Not only did Louis have one less client than he’d hoped for; but he was also making a complete idiot of himself and establishing his own reputation as “managing partner who can’t even tell when his lawyers are lying to him.” But Palmer gave him the chance to prove that he at least wasn’t another “guy who doesn’t do what he’s told” (fact check: false) by inviting him to play some poker. Harvey invited himself along and made an appearance, even after Louis specifically told him to stay away.

See also: Harvey doesn’t know how to listen.

And that, SUITS gang, is how we were subjected to “Harvey and Louis behave like children at a poker table, make themselves both look like idiots — but mostly Louis.” I mean, we haven’t seen this level of immature bickering in front of clients since the good ol’ days. And we shouldn’t have had to see it at this point in the characters’ so-called development. Harvey’s entire speech about what a loser Louis was compared to him, capped off with Louis losing as predicted, was just a whole new level of unprofessional.

If I’m Stephen Palmer, I’m staying far, far away from Insert Firm Name Here, “best closer in the city” or no.

After the Mike Ross fiasco went public, it might have seemed impossible to make this firm’s reputation even worse than it already was; but Harvey and Louis are nothing if not guys who love a challenge. On top of making themselves look like the hot messes they are, Dumb and Dumber also managed to make life difficult for Donna by having Dumber demand that she fix everything  — just as she was getting ready to leave. Luckily for Donna (and us all), Gretchen more than had her covered.

SUITS’ highlight of the week? Pretty much everything Gretchen had to say to Harvey and everything about how Aloma Wright delivered it. Period.

When Gretchen told Donna she’d take care of “those fools” so the other woman could make bad choices go out with Thomas, my immediate reaction was something along the lines of, “God help them.” Even then, I was unprepared. And because he’s not a complete idiot, nearly drowning in Gretchen’s special blend of hot tea convinced Harvey to make amends with Louis.

As “Whale Hunt” closed out, Specter and Litt were back to being best friends. They even sealed the deal over some decaf prunies. (Harvey has gotten so old while hiding from his feelings that he no longer makes jokes about how gross Louis’ prune drink looks, so there’s that. Gotta get that fiber!)

Three personal cookies. While the boys were “being boys,” the ladies (all except Gretchen!) were having difficulty with the concept of keeping the personal separate from the professional.

For Katrina, it was all about pheromones. Her case of the week involved perfume, so that meant she should tempt fate by spending lots of extra alone time with Craig-From-Degrassi Brian. In one electrically-charged, yet unintentionally hilarious scene, Katrina sprayed some perfume on her wrist and instructed her associate to close his eyes and sniff it. Later, after things had nearly gotten completely out of hand (out of wrist?), Katrina accepted an invitation to work at Craig-From-Degrassi Brian’s home while his wife was out. Awkwardness ensued. Again.

But it got worse!

In a meeting with the perfume rip-off people, where they were supposed to be negotiating on behalf of their client, Katrina and Craig-From-Degrassi Brian had some sort of Larvey-inspired personal meltdown instead. We’re talking lots of hinting at Katrina wanting to be the chosen one, all while Craig-From-Degrassi Brian let it drop that he couldn’t choose her, “no matter how much [he wanted] to” because he had already chosen someone else.

Interesting.

Seeing as how they clearly had some unresolved — and unresolvable — tension, Katrina did the “right” thing by telling her associate that they could no longer work together.

SUITS has never exactly had the most puritanical characters, but on a series where — thanks to Harvey’s childhood trauma — the established “big bad” is infidelity, it’s a little bit unfortunate to be wasting time on rooting for this. But hey. Catrina is a really clever shipper name, assuming you understand that Brian = Craig.

If Katrina’s ultimate choice was to put her professional life first by not pursuing things with her married coworker, the other side of the coin came from Donna’s decision to accept a client’s invitation to dinner. Now, Thomas Kessler had already promised not to take no for an answer; and as we learned in “Whale Hunt,” he also went ahead and made reservations before ever bothering to make sure he heard the answer he wanted. Because nothing says “empowered” woman, finally getting herself a personal life, like pairing her up with a manipulative man.

Rather than accept orders from her firm’s managing partner, Donna did a full 180 from her usual career-first mode to arguing with her boss and, essentially, refusing to do what she was told. That’s…not how finding a work-life balance and proving that a woman can “have it all” works, but sure.

On the date itself, the SUITS writers were kind enough to soften the blow by actually confirming that they remembered the tiny little bit of personal backstory they’d actually given the former secretary. After she listened to his smugly told dad-jokes, Donna told Thomas all about life in her 20s, when she was an aspiring actress. But then he said something about his own career as a designer only taking off because he was such a terrible actor, so — har, har — we’re all supposed to laugh with Donna about how that implied she was a terrible actress.

Ok.

In yet another attempt at actual continuity, Donna brought up the fact that she was initially concerned about mixing business with pleasure (as she should have been, given her own established rules and her advice to Katrina). But — and she was interrupted by the man, who had to explain her own feelings to her here — “it’s all been pleasure.”

Fact check: Nope.

Actual pleasure: Samantha Wheeler worked with Alex Williams’ wife, Rosalie. Bonus pleasure: They were sticking it to for-profit colleges.

There’s not much to say here, other than that this was a pairing that simply worked. And while Alex was smart to stay out of the case in the beginning, he was also completely justified in stepping in when and how he did. But if Jessica Pearson ever needs someone from her old firm to come to Chicago when PEARSON finally airs, I’d say Harvey/Louis/Whoeverisbossbythen should send Sam and Rosalie. Because that was a dream team if I ever saw one.

Thoughts (and prayers for Harvey now that he knows Donna had plans):

“A good leader inspires people to do what they do best.” This is true.

“My reputation is being the best closer in the city.” This is…false now? Cool.

“The only thing Harvey fights hardest for is himself.” (50% true because we know he’s incapable of doing this in his personal life. Work, on the other hand…)

“I don’t follow orders. I don’t bend the knee. I win.” Sure, Harvey.

“It makes me sick, the two of you acting like children.” Me at most of these characters at this point.

“I would’ve been gentle, but sometimes, someone just needs to knock the shit out of you. And Donna just happens to have plans tonight.” Insert Harvey looking like a kicked puppy for “drama” purposes here. Tired.

To paraphrase a good friend of mine, please don’t sniff your coworkers.

No, really. Just don’t.

Also: Don’t go for the decaf chai. Decaf is the devil (unless you have legitimate health concerns, obviously). Katrina might be a demon.

“We all know what women respond to.” We, whomst? Because I don’t really see a lot of people around SUITS that have a clue these days.

Donna told Gretchen she had “absolutely freaking nothing” keeping her from getting her freak on, so I’m guessing Absolutely Freaking Nothing is Harvey’s new name.

Knew we weren’t going to get to actually see girls’ night. Still salty.

Still.

Alex’s first answer for why he wanted to stay out of Sam and Rosalie’s way during their case? “You are two strong women, with strong opinions about anything you have ever thought.” Fact check: That was probably the most valid line that ever came out of Alex Williams’ mouth.

“If you don’t want to eat a cookie, stay out of the kitchen.” Donna has starved herself for 84 exhausting years…and should maybe stay out of the client kitchen while she’s busy giving advice.

Dude’s “romantic” attempt at taking care of Donna’s needs because nobody had done it before him (how much stalking did he do to learn that?) screamed “creeper.” He’s one breath away from becoming Joe Goldberg from YOU.

“Why does anybody go to college? To make their lives better.” And to rack up tons of debt, only to be over-qualified for pretty much everything because of their degree, all while being too inexperienced for anything because of the time spent earning it…

“I get it: He’s an equal opportunity asshole.” “Serving the community 24 hours a day.” Zero lies detected.

Imagine thinking you need to order Donna Paulsen to “wear something stunning,” as if she wouldn’t already do that. Can’t relate.

“Because Louis is an asshole, and so is Harvey.” The answer to most of SUITS’ most burning questions.

Can Katrina and Brian stay away from each other? Will Larvey rise, now that Harvey has tasted Louis’ prunies? Is Donna ever going to be as smart about her life as she is about literally everything else?

Tune in to an all-new episode of SUITS on Wednesday, February 6, at 10/9c on USA.

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Amber Lilyestrom – Beautiful Brand – Beautiful You

Amber Lilyestrom – Beautiful Brand – Beautiful You

Amber Lilyestrom – Beautiful Brand – Beautiful You

I hear you, sister That idea, tagline, online program is right at the tip of your tongue, but for some reason, it just won’t click. You already see your name in lights. but your website’s a hot mess and you don’t dare share that link… So you Google and click and stare at the screen until you’re in physical pain

You pull another all-nighter and…sigh…everything still looks the same in the morning.

I’ve been there too.

But here’s the thing…wasting hours, weeks, months, {years?} comparing your before to someone else’s after ain’t gonna pay the bills, honey. IT’S TIME TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN.

It’s time to get out of your own way and design a brand & biz you adore. And until you get clear on what your message is…and how to tell that story…Your brand isn’t going anywhere. DARLIN’, YOU’VE GOT AN EMPIRE TO BUILD.

Grab your espresso, tea, ‘Oprah’ chai…whatever helps you find your focus and let’s create a Brand + Biz roadmap that’ll light your world on fire!

pink-bar.png It’s Time to Build Your Beautiful Brand!

Portrait image for Amber Lilyestrom Beautiful Brand. Beautiful You.

from Amber Lilyestrom What’s going on here?

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BUILD your online business. LAUNCH your brand. TRANSFORM your life.

Screen Shot 2014-12-18 at 1.51.48 PM.png

Your Brand is your most valuable asset.The most successful online businesses in the world have a strong brand identity and platform in which they can promote their products and services.You’re a savvy gal, so none of this comes as a surprise. BUT, in comparing yourself to the big players in the online business space, it can feel really overwhelming when the only thing you have (right now) is a dream and a prayer. I started from scratch, too, and in less than 6 months I doubled my list and brought in over $50K through my 1:1 coaching programs.

I left my 10-year corporate career and LAUNCHED my business and transformed my family’s life by becoming a work from home mama with NO limits on my income. It has been a phenomenal journey and I want to help you write your own success story…

I created Beautiful Bra

nd. Beautiful You. to help you create a kick ass brand and change your life in the process, just like it did for these amazing ladies:

Screen Shot 2014-12-17 at 3.08.01 PM.png “Through Amber’s program and the Beautiful Brand experience I feel like I can do ANYTHING with my business.”

I have successfully launched, am busy training my clients and have big plans to open my doors to group fitness and children fitness in the very near future. I joined BB.BY. because I needed extra guidance and I liked the feeling I got from Amber and the things she was doing with her own brand, so I took a leap of faith and trusted my gut. I loved the fill in the blank modules that made me dig deeper in what I wanted in my brand and Amber was constantly providing innovative and fun ideas to help me differentiate and develop my business. I have to say that the physical modules were one of the best parts of the course! Ambers questions were relative, functional and could be tailored to fit any business needs! They were we’ll designed so that they lead me down paths that I would never had explored if it weren’t for the questions. They really made me think outside the box and better yet, outside my comfort zone! I felt confident in knowing that Amber and our Facebook group would continue on after the program wrapped and that I have support ANY time I need it. I’ve never felt alone in my business branding journey!! I believe that there was a reason I was led to Amber and her great personality. She is very talented at what she does and without her help and support I know that my business wouldn’t be where it is today. She helped alleviate my stress and helped me focus my passion and energy on the things that mattered. I am so thankful that she came into my life when she did!! This woman is going to do great things with others and herself! Watch out 2015! – Katie Beckmann | Better Bodies Training Screen Shot 2014-12-17 at 3.10.12 PM.png “Beautiful Brand. Beautiful You. gave me EVERYTHING I needed!”

I decided to enroll in BB.BY. because of Amber! She is REAL and I loved that about her. It felt like I finally had a friend who knew what I was going through..and exactly what to say! I had the ideas, but nothing more than that. I needed a plan and a lot of help. I love the sense of community, with all of the wordswags and questions, we got to know each other and now work together and help one another. I really enjoyed the FLOW of the program. We started at the beginning and finished at the end…It wasn’t all over the place or meant for people who had it all figured out already! I loved the worksheets and how the questions really got you thinking and digging deep. -Nadia Castonguay Screen Shot 2014-12-17 at 3.11.08 PM.png “I’m LAUNCHING my new website on January 1, 2015!”

I joined BB.BY. to discover how I could build my brand, learn if I really wanted to move forward with my brand and receive guidance on how to live the life I wanted through launching my own business and brand. My favorite parts of the course were the constant and consistent feedback from Amber via the Facebook group and all of the materials were easy to understand, nicely designed and helpful. At the conclusion of the program, I am launching my new website, I am ordering new business cards to reflect my redesign and I have learned how to be more active with social media and engaging clients in order to get new business. This program was so totally worth the investment! – Meaghan Hull | Meaghan Hull Photography

About Amber…

When I returned to work after my maternity leave in 2013, I felt exhausted and depressed. I missed my baby and felt sick to my stomach each day I was trudging to the office to make someone else’s dream come true. I knew I needed to make a drastic change.

I wrote a letter to myself on December 31, 2013 and outlined what my ideal year was going to look like. I had no idea how I was going to make it happen, but I put it in an envelope and sealed it with the hope that in 365 days, I would be reading it as a successful business owner and a work from home mom. I was ready to make my dreams come true!

Fast forward to present day and here I am with a full roster of 1:1 private coaching clients, a full-fledged online business, speaking opportunities on my resume and my very first book IN THE WORKS! Now, I get to help other women make their dreams come true every, single day!

I believe that you CAN make as much money as you desire. I believe that you can transform your family’s life. I believe that you CAN create a brand that does BIG things in the world! I know this because I did it.

When I left my job, I was surrendering over $80,000 of our annual household income! It was a HUGE risk and I was terrified when I walked in to my boss’ office and gave my notice. But, what I have learned through the process is that the possibilities are ENDLESS once you decide to commit to this goal. I created a formula and a process to help you design a Brand that feels authentic and amazing. I want you to change the world and the lives of others with your unique gifts.

What do the weekly modules cover?

amber_lilyestrom_heart_rock-1 copy.jpg Who is this program best suited for?

The multi-passionate who just can’t quite get it right when it comes to building your ideal Brand + Biz. The business owner to be who has a big dream, but NO clue where to begin. Do the words Automation, Opt-In, Plug-in, and Tagline make your heard spin? This is the right place for you! The entrepreneuress with a digi-profile (think: website, social, etc.) that is totally missing the mark in effectively communicating your super powers with the world. The 9-5er ready to BREAK FREE from the grip of pantyhose and power suits, performance reviews and glass ceilings to create YOUR dream! This program is NOT for you if…

You’re looking for insta-internet fame and fortune or a magic wand to put this together for you. Beyonce didn’t earn her Queen B crown overnight! (If you are looking for the auto-pilot mode, check out my 1:1 private coaching programs). You intend to add this to your collection of dusty, online programs still sitting in the ‘To Do’ folder graveyard that is your Bookmarks bar. You’re an established online business owner with crystal clear clarity and vision on your ONE passionate endeavor and you’re up, running and dominating your field (go you!). You want to do this program in solitary. Our online community is about thriving and connecting and helping one another trouble shoot and dream big. You aren’t ready to roll your sleeves up and DO THE WORK in each module to design a super authentic Brand + Biz.

Do the work and this is what you will achieve…

YOUR customized Brand, from idea conception to implementation…we don’t miss a beat! A website ready for you to bring on paying clients/customers. A new network of amazing, like-minded, driven entrepreneurs (or soon-to-be entrepreneurs) to share in your journey with. Connections, potential clients, referrals and friends (this one is like finding a golden ticket)! A step-by-step process to design a kick-ass brand and strategy. No time wasting. No aimless searching. Lifetime access to the content you receive as a participant in the program. References/Resources from road-tested entrepreneurs on how to trouble-shoot any and every challenge that comes down the road. Want to launch a webinar and have no clue how? We’ve got you. Questions about scheduling programs or video editing shortcuts? We’ve got you covered there too! The skills and knowledge to LAUNCH your Beautiful Brand and online business! (i.e. an amazing lifestyle and endless possibilities!) A 30-day money back guarantee! If you join and complete 4 weeks of the program and decide that this isn’t the right one for you, we will ask for you to share your course materials (to ensure you’ve done the work and this truly wasn’t a good fit) and we review and communicate about refunding your purchase. We want to make sure you are happy. We also want to make sure you are putting in the work to help you succeed…when those two things don’t jive…we are happy to issue a refund. ALL of this = FREEDOM + FULFILLMENT!

What does the program include?

Lifetime access to the six weekly modules with gorgeous editable PDF documents and weekly videos. Access to the BB.BY. private Facebook Community with daily interaction, inspiration and answers to your questions. Monthly Live Video Chats with Amber and fellow Beautiful Branders. Ask your specific questions and join Amber for monthly themed chats. When does the program kick-off?

RIGHTTHISMINUTE! Enroll right now and you will receive all of the program modules and access to the Facebook Community so you can get started in building YOUR Beautiful Brand…YAY!!!

BONUS GIFT FOR BEAUTIFUL BRANDERS:

Access to the Brand Love Vault – a private resource area chock full of goodies…webinars, tutorials and links to my favorite resources. It’s a space I am constantly updating and a treasure trove of learning to supplement your program. Access to my private stock photo gallery with images taken by yours truly. Use these images in your marketing initiatives and on your social media and websites, no strings!

Amber Lilyestrom – Beautiful Brand – Beautiful You

Amber Lilyestrom – Beautiful Brand – Beautiful You

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