#the dress is based off an in game model (but i can’t figure out whose) but recolored

[dragonjadearts]

i’ve been replying the witcher 3 and i forgot how much i love Elihal

[linxuelian]

I found a Chinese BL Warring States Game of Thrones, three years older than The Untamed

And I just had to write a review about it! It’s 60 episodes long so I haven’t finished it yet at the time I’m writing this - but I decided to just go ahead and recommend it anyway.

Why, you ask?

For one, it’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms with all the Hollywood action and adult HBO things. It’s got explosions:

Horses falling down:

People getting flogged:

Sweaty soldiers getting mauled to death:

Children used as hostages:

Dead bodies presented in court:

Stylish dye jobs:

Loving father figures:

A Jon Snow lookalike:

And very gay innuendo:

That’s right, unlike The Untamed, which was first written as a straight series featuring Wen Qing as the main female lead and then rewritten again after fans of the novel decided to boycott it, this series was written to be gay from the very beginning. It got taken down by the Chinese Censorship Board after twelve episodes and river-crabbed to death, but a good number of scenes survived censorship. Those that did not made it to BiliBili in the form of “hidden�� videos and disguised as “music videos”.

That’s not all. For a warring period Wuxia series, it’s got very beautiful actors, backdrops and clothing. It’s dressed like a fairy tale, with different kingdoms sporting different colours and styles in fashion and tastes.

In terms of art direction, it’s pretty low-budget for a series but the team makes good use of existing props, locations and brighter-coloured fabric to make up for the quality. The costume design is more fantasy-based than period, and the vivid takes and angles in the first season add to its charm.

There’s also its complex story line, which brings us to...

Men with Swords is not a title for the faint-hearted. There is an acute absence of black-and-white morality depicted in it.

If you think a BL series with such beautiful backdrops and fairytale-like clothes is for the simple-minded, one-track-good-vs-evil sort, think again. The series is a tale about Murong Li, a vengeful prince disguised as a musician and his rise to power, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction in its wake.

Where The Untamed fails at delivering gray morality unlike the novel it’s adapted from, choosing to alter its script to fit a more general audience (a commercially-wise decision which got it into Netflix), Men with Swords succeeds in faithfully telling a tale where there is no good or evil, only humanity, jealousy, grudges, rebellion, loyalty, life, death, greed and love.

Everyone has both good and bad sides, just different camps and motives. Men with Swords tells the story from not just one person’s perspective, but from the perspective of many different people, all of whom become entangled in a battle for their figurative Iron Throne - to become the king of the world.

There are no “what ifs” in this story, only decisions, reactions and repercussions

A prevailing theme in this series is that there are no “what ifs” and no turning back in life, only things that have happened and will happen. Murong Li starts his journey as a prince who has lost everything and a victim of war, wandering around for three years while being put down and getting sexually harassed, eventually losing it, taking his chances and hardening his heart as he walks down his conniving, badass path of destruction towards the top.

Men with Swords is not a series for the faint-hearted. It’s a game of chess where the main character, Murong Li, is cunning and decisive, cold and ruthless and many recurring characters die horrible, sudden deaths, friend and foe alike, a la Attack on Titan.

The series is filled with political strife and warfare, peppered with some sweet, comedic and romantic undertones. There is a stark contrast between fluffy and dark in its narrative, which is pretty refreshing overall.

With that all aside, I know what you’re probably scrolling down for:

The main characters and their boyfriends

This is it. This is what you’re here for. Most “BL” series are actually bromances, but the real upside for a BL fan is that this show is not a bromance - it’s a BL title, and even with censorship, the love stories prevail.

I’m going to put this under a cut because it’s LONG AF, but what that means is that there is a LOT of BL content available, and not the type that you have to hunt for. They’re very open about it.

While the show itself has a lot of ships, there’s a larger focus on three main ones, namely the beautiful Murong Li and two powerful kings, the fairy-like Ling Guang and his servants, and King Jian Bin with his general.

Murong Li: Da Ji 2.0 and his rich and powerful kings

If you’re a Jin Guangyao fan, you’ll probably enjoy Murong Li and his elegant, charming viles and ruthless scheming. He’s a surprisingly good fighter too, and unlike most elegant and waif-like beauties in dramas and novels alike, he’s a beauty with brains who uses his physical weakness as his strength, bending and seducing his way up to power.

Murong Li only really goes after rich and powerful people, worming his way into the kingdom and taking them down from the inside. Two main love interests are King Zhi Ming, the childish but rich king of Tianquan:

And Yu Xiao, a powerful barbarian king with a soft heart:

Murong Li, while wandering around as a musician, picks up many tricks along the way to hone himself. He’s adept at dressing up, making himself look helpless and alluring to bewitch powerful men, for one:

See that small smile right there? Yes, our boy knows what he’s doing.

Aside from that, Murong Li’s also pretty good at manipulating people by using their jealousies and insecurities, getting them to fight with each other over him.

Murong Li, although modeled after the cruel and beautiful Murong Chong, the Emperor of Wei, is likened to Da Ji, the favorite consort of the King Zhou of Shang. Da Ji was said to be a malevolent fox spirit who started the art of foot-binding to hide her fox feet. Everyone else looking in can see it, but the King was blinded, just like Murong Li’s powerful love interests. In fact, the series draws a direct parallel to it:

The Guo Shi here uses the term “yao”, which alludes to a malevolent spirit.

It’s not that Murong Li doesn’t have a weakness, though. Just like every Jin Guangyao has a Lan Xichen around to cause him to slip now and then, Murong Li surprisingly is weak towards the most naive and childish character in the series, the truant King Zhi Ming, whose only qualities are having purple bangs and being rich and playful.

No matter how calculative and ruthless Murong Li is in the series, he does end up almost slipping up and giving everything away when it comes to this bumbling fellow:

He’s saved only at the nick of time by one of his followers. Murong Li tells a lot of lies, but the one thing he can’t lie about are his feelings towards King Zhi Ming, who is ultimately the one thing he can’t give up next to his kingdom.

There’s a lot more one can write about a complex character such as Murong Li, but the second ship is just as good. It features:

Ling Guang: The Ex-Arrogant Depressed Hamster hung up over a dead ex

Ling Guang, the mortal enemy and foil to Murong Li, is a baby-faced, very-much-older-than-he-looks character whose sole purpose in this series is to wear frilly magenta clothing, destroy the kingdom of Yaoguang, set Murong Li down a path of vengeful destruction and piss off eligible, probably younger bachelors by comparing them to his very handsome, very loyal and very dead boyfriend, his personal guard, Qiu Zhen, who died sometime over thirteen years ago.

The bachelors’ pissed off takes to this are particularly priceless:

Here’s another one from season 2:

That HMPH face is to die for.

Ling Guang’s delusions are met head-on by these eligible bachelors, his ministers and his allies alike:

Only to be met by a, “haha, NO.”

Frustrating, right? It only gets worse as the series progresses. Due to Wuxia’s fantastical existence of sword souls, he begins to actively test his subjects out to see if they’re his dead boyfriend, whose sword soul is still alive:

Gu Shi’an: WTF.

So why do these eligible, handsome bachelors, particularly this guy from season two, jump at his lap every chance they get?

First off, he’s very, very pretty. He’s arguably the prettiest and fanciest king in the series, with a cute rounded face, favoring fluffy organza, frills and feathers in his garb, and sporting fabulous curls like that of a swan princess on a good day.

Secondly, and more importantly, it’s likely because he’s the type loyal dogs adore.

He’s stupidly and openly attached to his bodyguards and servants, unable to hide his feelings or control them. Ling Guang’s relationships are technically the opposite of Murong Li’s. While Murong Li hides his feelings and goes after men of power and tends to use them before leaving them, Ling Guang’s willing to sacrifice everything, including his kingdom, his health and his own life for men who are merely servants.

He's a king who doesn’t know proper protocol. He’s the type who’ll demand to eat with you at the same table:

Creeps outside the palace to see you off:

Hugs your sword around like a pillow while he waddles around listlessly and sleeps with it by his side after you’re long dead (grand total: 13 years):

Coddles you when you’re sick:

Takes arrows for you:

Isn’t afraid to cry and tell you how it is:

Faints violently and won’t rest until he can get your stolen body back:

The results?

If he’s not what loyal bodyguards like, I don’t know what he is. If Murong Li’s love interests have to pit themselves against each other to show how useful they are for his sake, Ling Guang’s love interests need to wrestle with a dead man he can’t let go of... which is hopeless, because you can’t kill a guy who’s already dead.

As a foil to Murong Li, what’s also interesting to note is that it’s alluded to and foreshadowed that he’s exactly the sort the loyal Yu Xiao, the current barbarian king, would have loved to have as a lover - honest, loyal and doting - unlike Murong Li himself. Gongsun Qian, a deputy minister with great foresight, had wanted Ling Guang to go to see the new barbarian kingdom, but he had refused to go outside the palace, shutting himself inside like an otaku. This decision ultimately gave Murong Li a step forward with his plans, at the great cost of four kingdoms, including his own.

Jian Bin: My boyfriend can (REALLY) fight

Next up is Jian Bin and his general. Jian Bin’s the king of Tian Ji, a new kingdom founded by astrologers. The catch here is that Jian Bin and his boyfriend, Qi Zhi Kan, are both men of science, and this tank of a boyfriend is a genius on the battlefield who doesn’t give a single shit about star signs, astrology and superstitions.

A story between a serious, loving king and his handsome general who was once a simple sword-maker in the woods, King Jian Bin meets his handsome ex-lumberjack boyfriend when he’s attacked, falls down from his horse and is rescued by the man himself.

Jian Bin then brings the guy back to his palace and dresses him in armor:

This puts the king’s general on the war path of several ministers and the superstitious people in their kingdom. As lovers, the two go through various trials together in an attempt to run their kingdom their way.

Qi Zhi Kan may seem like a herbivore in front of the king, but he’s really not one at all. He’s terrifying to a degree when it comes to warfare, and very, very difficult to take down. Unlike the other ministers, Qi Zhi Kan knows that he can expand the kingdom quickly and solve problems by waging war.

Even his allies are scared of him:

Ultimately, it’s a ship meant for those who like watching the king teasing his loyal subject and caressing armor whenever he’s around AND not around. Jian Bin even admits to it on-scene:

This loving and devoted couple were originally blessed as the ones with the most piggyback scenes, tender bandaging-your-chest and armor fondling, but they got censored unfortunately.

Scenes like these made the cut, though:

And that’s it! There are actually other minor ships, but these are the main ones for now.

If you’re sold and interested in the show, the series is available online on Rakuten Viki. https://www.viki.com/tv/35524c?locale=zh

[itsclydebitches]

Was planning on making this my own post, but I thought you would be more suited to discussing this sort of topic. Something I've noticed when it comes to the more prominent/important/strong female characters (Nora, Pyrrha, Penny, Robyn, Emerald, Sienna) is that RT often has the tendency of giving them masculine allusions (Thor, Achilles, Pinocchio, Robin Hood, Aladdin, Shere Khan) as if they are unable to stand on their own as characters unless they have that connection to a male character. 1/3

It is worth discussing! Yeah, I hesitate to call it a pattern just because, as you say, Team RWBY themselves are an exception to the rule  — and as the title characters of the story, they’re a pretty big exception. We also have good women allusions turned into good women characters (Glynda with The Good Witch, May with Maid Marian) and bad women allusions turned into good women characters (Winter with The Snow Queen — I don’t think she was ever meant to enter full antagonist territory, but that’s another post). So it’s not just a matter of saying, “RWBY models their strong women after male inspirations and turns all female inspirations into male characters.” It’s not that simple. But the fact that it’s not simple doesn’t mean there’s nothing there to unpack because I definitely understand the feeling you’re pointing to, anon. Team RWBY feels like it has the most thought put into it in terms of changing up these allusions, specifically when it comes to subversion: the little girl in a red hood who previously needed a hunter’s protection has become the hunter herself, Belle overcomes both her Gaston and the now evil Beast, Snow White extracts herself from her own abusive situation (with a little help from the Dwarves still), and Goldilocks is no longer lost and in need of basic necessities, but can rather punch her way out of any establishment  — like, say, a club. The execution of these themes aside (how Adam was handled, turning Jacques’ arrest into a joke, etc.), there’s a commonality here that works. Or at least, it works for me. Yet when we expand the allusions past our title team, things get... very messy. That’s when we start to hit on these concerns. 

I’d say the problem stems primarily from that lack of thought, not the act itself of turning women characters into men or vice versa. Meaning, as I’ve said in the past, RWBY’s use of allusions is terribly unreliable nowadays, and that’s not just in terms of plot expectations like, “Why did Penny have to become a flesh girl because Pinocchio, but Ironwood didn’t stay good because Tin Man?” It also includes these questions of why these changes were made and what sort of messages they send. As you lay out, why are so many of our heavy hitters  — the most talented huntress, the lightning-immune smasher, the Maiden android, etc.  — based on men? Why are many of the effeminate and “weaker” men  — Jaune the untrained, Ren the emotional councilor, Oscar the kid who wants to talk it all out  — based on women? Again, I don’t intend to sling any hard accusations, but rather to point out what’s likely a subtle, unconscious bias. To provide another example, I’ve seen talk recently about how RT (again, unconsciously) depicts the faunus, where all the good characters have culturally established “good” animal features and all the bad character have culturally established “bad” features. It’s cat ears, rabbit ears, sheep ears, monkey tails, dog tails, and beautifully changing skin color vs. scorpion tails, spiderwebs, bull horns, tiger ears, bat wings, and crocodile scales. Is it a perfect 1:1 divide? No, Ghira has panther claws and Fennec has fox ears, but there’s enough there for us to go, “RT tends to give the good guys cute features and/or features we associate with safe animals, whereas the bad guys tend to get ugly features and/or features we associate with dangerous animals.” I feel the same way here, that there’s a bit of a trend at play, with the caveat that there are more complications simply by virtue of these allusions being, well, complicated. But there’s enough there to make us stop and think, “What were RT’s intentions with this? If they just chose something based on the rule of cool, what might those inclinations tell us about gender norms in America?” Meaning, when someone goes, “Idk, we just thought it would be cool to change this up” there’s a lifetime of media consumption driving that choice. It’s not actually random, but based on whatever has been normalized  — unless you actively counteract that by thinking through what you want the change to do. 

Unconscious biases are always at work. When we analyze something like this it’s often not a matter of saying, “The author is [insert accusatory term here]” but rather just, “The author is falling into expectations, patterns, and normalized decisions based on the culture they’ve grown up in.” Which includes things like thinking, “Well, if this character is based on a male god, she must be crazy strong. If this character is based on a woman fighter, he’s probably more emotional.” Such biases may be driving a lot of decisions because, as said in the past, I really don’t think RT is putting much thought into these allusions, if any at this point. For me, Penny was proof of that  — the inability to see how following her allusion utterly destroyed her character growth  — but even if we don’t agree about Penny, what about Salem? Far from just using her name, this volume gave us a blatant reference to the events of Salem Trails in the 1690s. Namely, the burning of the witch. 

Except references like this can’t just look cool. This isn’t a video game Easter egg with no real connection to the story, it’s a cinematography/plot choice that carries meaning. So what is that meaning? Well, the thing about the women on trail at Salem is that they were innocent. This is what that reference says: “Hey, remember that real life event where women who weren’t witches were horrifically killed because others thought they were evil? None were actually burned, but culturally we tend to think they were. So that’s the image in our collective mind: innocent women on fire.” Except... Salem is actually a witch. Salem is evil. Salem is guilty. Or at least, the questions surrounding the extent of her guilt  — How much responsibility does she hold in comparison to the Gods? How much agency does she still have after the grimm pool?  — has not been acknowledged by the text. Yang just yelled at Salem for killing her mom and Oscar is about to blow her up. This is not a “Question Salem’s humanity” scene, it’s a “Kill the witch” scene... yet it uses an allusion that is contrary to what the moment is trying to achieve. So what are we supposed to take away from this? Do we adhere to the subtext and believe that Salem is innocent somehow, ignoring what the actual text says, or do we uphold the text and in doing so undermine the reliability of every other allusion in the show? If we can’t trust Salem’s, why would we trust, say, Penny’s? 

RWBY’s allusions are all over the place and yes, I think that lack of consideration extends to who they randomly decided to genderbend. There’s no acknowledgment of  — let alone engagement with  — how many of these characters and historical figures were trying to pass themselves off as another gender, nor does RWBY acknowledge how the need to do so feeds into our current and historic assumptions about gender as a whole. Why does the man dress as a woman? To keep himself safe and seen as a non-threat. Why does the woman dress as a man? To gain access to places previously barred from her and to gain the respect she otherwise wouldn’t be afforded. And, of course, in 2021 there’s the expectation that media will include trans characters, GNC characters, non-binary characters, cis characters uninterested in practicing traditional femininity/masculinity, etc. None of which RWBY tackles outside of May, a woman who references a systematic transphobia we otherwise never see in the show. May, as a minor character, is great and I am in all honesty thrilled that she exists in the RWBY canon. However, the rest of the show is built on an anime conception of gender  — combat skirts and bare midriffs in the snow  — while nevertheless engaging with the very complicated question of how you re-imagine canonically/historically gendered people. As a “girl power” show, RWBY has opened itself up to questions like, “Okay, it’s great that you made these four fairy tale girls kickass, but can we talk about making Joan of Arc into a bumbling guy whose presence as a blonde, blue-eyed, sword-wielding man taking up lots of important screen time has generated accusations about this being a male-centered show?” It’s not a “RWBY is horrible for doing this!” issue, but a “RWBY is deliberately playing with gender and marketing itself as a progressive show, so... let’s figure out what these individual choices are actually implying and whether or not we consider that progressive.” 

[toongrrl-blog]

Pink Power Rankings (Pt. 1)

Hi I am here to look at famous pink outfits in film and TV history and figure out: is pink a power color for this character? I choose to leave out obvious ones like Pink Power Ranger because, duh it’s in her name and this is gonna be a long list. Also avoiding real-life figures and onscreen depictions of real life figures because keeping it short (and I don’t have the time)

Pictured above are the bridesmaids at First Daughter Luci Baines Johnson’s wedding in the 1960s. 

Mimi Tachikawa

She is the most obvious pick from Digimon and the girl most decked out in pink. To paraphrase this video from The Take: there was once a show about a strange world beyond our own, somehow a group of preteens were pulled into this world not of their accord, including a young 10 year old girl. Along with her friends they were exposed to the elements and fought monsters out to harm them, she was sexually harassed by two clearly adult digimon, uncomfortable with the elements, often had to put up with toxic masculine BS, and was often snarked at by the story and even some of her own friends for being so girly and into pink. Of course some audiences and the story were overcome with sympathy with this girl pulled away from a familiar world...

Just kidding! They weren’t and some audiences even gave her a lot of shit and this has only been recently examined. For a while Mimi Tachikawa had a problem that seemed to be well known by a lot of female characters, like Carmella Soprano, Betty and Megan Draper, Margaret Sterling, and yes Skyler White. Put a flawed, complicated woman character alongside more charismatic (and male) characters and she will be disliked (despite the audience being more likely to be she than the menfolk held up as icons). 

This is sad because looking back, Mimi was truly a badass all along: she sticks up for herself, speaks up for herself, she is unapologetic about her love of pink and girly things, she is quick to tell guys when they are getting in her space, she’s honest, she lets Tanemon go on and fight with only a sincere question if she really is going to while the others hold their Digimon down, she stands up against the Numemon who were harassing her and her friends, and she was funny as hell. Sadly it took a long while for fans to grow up but many of us, especially girls, reclaimed her as our own. It also helped that Mimi came before girly icons like Elle Woods, Leslie Knope, and Joan Holloway and also before the boom in Gen X and Millennial women contributing to comedy and starting their own stand-up specials and movies and TV.

Power Ranking: 10, all because she held her own, no matter the haters and was glad to see us no matter how odd. 

Karen Wheeler

Another complicated lady, this time older and from the 1980s. This is Karen Wheeler of Hawkins, Indiana whose children are off on their own adventure. She is trying to tap into her sexual power here. It’s dicey because the man in question is a young man and she is a unhappily married affluent housewife in the suburbs; she agrees to meet him at the motel for “private swimming lessons” and does herself up in a way inappropriate for swimming lessons (in Scarlet Letter Red to boot!), only to be stopped by the sight of her lazy husband sleeping on the Laz-E-Boy with their youngest child Holly on his chest. This season sees Karen open up to her two older children over the patriarchy and saying goodbye to a best friend and girlfriend after confessing his love for her.

Power Ranking: 6, because her sexual power was on shaky ground and only based on her looks and attention from a man but she shows some character development that season. 

Nancy Wheeler

This look was a game changer, but Nancy is no stranger to pink and preppiness. Here she is wearing an outfit that recalls the postwar “Boyfriend Shirt” from Brooks Brothers for the female collegiate set and it’s updated with long loose but pinned hair and designer (or mock) jeans. In this outfit she goes monster hunting with her younger brother Mike’s best friend’s older brother and Nancy’s classmate, Jonathon Byers and squares off with slut-shaming police officers and a mother who chastises her for lying about her whereabouts and losing her virginity while Nancy’s best friend Barb Holland is missing and she also tells off boyfriend Steve for trying to cover his ass by not participating in the police investigation. This is the look (which can easily double as office wear) when you want to go straight from school where you have an impeccable GPA to monster hunting in your neck of the woods to find the whereabouts of your best friend and for fighting the patriarchy. 

Power Ranking: 8, this is a girl on the move as we can see with her rolled up sleeves. 

Eleven

The Iconic Look, the look where she made a boy wet his pants, found two missing kids, broke a bully’s arm. The Polly Flinders dress would alter the way we see girls in dainty pastel pink dresses. 

Power Ranking: 10, can you do all that without touching someone?

Barb Holland

The most tragic look for this was the sweater that Barbara Holland (1967-1983) wore when she was taken by the Demogorgan and killed. This was the look where she was the recipient of a wet willie from a boy who looked down on her and her best friend who was dating his popular friend, the look where she accompanied her best friend reluctantly to the popular boy’s party, and where her friend turned her back on her concerns. This is the look of a passive and traditional (to her detriment) femininity. She did gain a huge following who cried foul over her fate. 

Power Ranking: 4, points up for the fandom and devotion but she wasn’t empowered. 

Erica Sinclair

That was depressing, let’s go to the girl who embodies America: Hawkins resident wise-ass, the girl who kept her observations and words as tight as her corn rows, and her planning as precise as her perfectly well done baby hairs (Black readers, feel free to correct me as I document her fabulousness), My Little Pony nerd and Economics wonk, and American Heroine. Erica sassed her way into Stranger Things with a raised eyebrow and a lusciously girly girl wardrobe that stands out and fits in with her Midwestern environment. She’s no stranger to pink and she commands attention and the best service at Scoops Ahoy and manages to get several ice cream dishes for free (the most elaborate ones) before getting in on finding the secret Soviet military base. Girlfriend manages to deal with teenage shenanigans, assassins, creatures from another world, near-death experiences, almost being captured by foreign enemies and the most awkward sing-a-long ever. She doesn’t seem to have lost her child-appropriate enthusiasm for games even when telling off old balding men for getting her age right.

Power Ranking: 10, you can’t spell America without Erica

Joan Holloway

Pink is an appropriate color for the resident femme intellectual of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, it shows that Joan is willing to defy “the rules” of fashion for redheads (she also wears red) and it ties into her 1950s persona of the bombshell who is trying to get married to a man who’d move her out to the upper-middle class suburbs and she wouldn’t have to work. That was Joan at the beginning: over time she started to own her natural independent streak and her willingness to buck expectations of her based on her gender and looks but also deals with the same men who ogle her, disrespecting her intellect, her hard work ethic, and even her body (fuck you Greg Harris). In this fuchsia number (still in the pink family), she sets up a luncheon with a colleague (Peggy Olson) where she pitches the idea of them setting up a production company with their names, while Peggy didn’t take, Joan starts her own “Holloway & Harris” with her babysitter and mother. Sealing her end as a strong, productive, independent woman who learned to own herself as she was. 

Power Ranking: 10, men may like scarves but women like not being tethered to men. 

Betty Draper Francis

Meet Elizabeth Hofstadt Francis and her ex-husband Don Draper (actually Dick Whitman), for about 10 years of marriage, they have enjoyed a union where they looked like a couple right out of a magazine, he being a square jawed handsome self-made man with an athletic build who often is compared to old-school movie stars like Tyrone Power or Clark Gable or Cary Grant and she, a beautiful model from a wealthy family in the Main Line area of Philadelphia who studied anthropology at Bryn Mawr and speaks fluent Italian and is often compared to Grace Kelly (and other Hitchcock Blondes). But the interior of their perfect colonial in the suburbs hid an ugly reality where she suffered from ennui and was a brat to her kids while he gaslighted and cheated on her with other women, more modern women, like she wasn’t enough. Eventually she found out his true identity and floored that she had been living a lie and gave up her last name for an imposter, she divorced him and married a man she met at her husband’s work function. 

About three years later, Don is happily married with a younger and much more modern woman (Megan Draper) while Betty is married to a man who loves and accepts her even at her worst but to her chagrin has put on a lot of weight (a blow to a former model who grew up being raised that weight gain or being fat was the worst thing a woman could be) and she hasn’t dealt with her unhappiness in a productive manner. 

For a while well into 1968, she accepted the extra pounds (although looking like she lost some) and coming middle-age and even dyed her hair black, until her new husband tells her he plans to run for office and as he was excitedly recounting what is to be done, says “Everyone will see you” not knowing that his young, vain wife would read this scenario differently and after assessing her new look to an old evening gown of her’s, she sped up her weight loss and returned to her slim and blonde look that turned heads. Soon she takes a drive to her son’s summer camp and runs into her ex-husband and they feel the old spark and sleep together; it is there she tells him that he as a lover is different than him as a husband and admits about the young wife she looked down on, “That Poor Girl, she doesn’t know that loving you is the worst thing to get to you”. Next morning she has breakfast with her new husband, who is none the wiser, while Don heads back to the city. But is Betty really happy?

Power Ranking: 7, not satisfied but has received some closure about her relationship with her ex-husband. 

Sally Draper

This is Sally in her birthday party dress. On that day her father built her a pastel colored playhouse, Mother prepared treats for the adults and kids for her birthday party, she and her friends played out their parents’ (admittedly shitty) marriages at the playhouse, her father goes out to get her birthday cake from the bakery and returns only with a golden retriever named Polly, while her unhappy mother fumes about her husband doing something shitty and humiliating and not being allowed to ream him out because he brought a dog and that makes him the good guy. 

Power Ranking: 5, she gets a dog but is still young and dependent on her messy parents. 

Rachel Menken

Meet Rachel Menken Katz, running into her ex Don Draper while he is out with his latest mistress and she with her husband Tilden Katz. She would end this series as dying from cancer after having two young children and running her father’s department store and instead of flowers, requesting that donations be made for a Jewish hospital in the Jell-O Belt. In 1960 she fell in love with an ad man who proved to have been miserable and having lost his mother during his birth, as she did, she also competed in what was called “a man’s world” at a time when women were relegated to assistant roles at best and she split from him when he wants to run away with her, mostly because he wants to run away from his issues and not because of his feelings for her. As her sister Barbara said, “she had everything”.

Power Ranking: 8, she ends up dying young but she manages to “have it all”. 

Megan Draper

Meet Megan Calvet, later to become Megan Draper. How does she become the next Mrs. Draper? At this timeline, Don Draper is dealing with life after divorcing Betty Draper (now Francis) and is trying (and failing) to quit alcohol and trying to date the intelligent, warm, no-nonsense, and close-to-his-age Dr. Faye Miller. But that night Megan, who noticed she caught her boss’s eye, decides to make the moves and in a uncharacteristically demure (many fans thought she looked frumpy here) but at worst basic outfit, she sleeps with him. This is the outfit for a quickie that later won his heart and has him pop the question and she becomes part of Creative at their work. But is this really for the best?

Power Ranking: 7, she married Don Draper but then again she married Don Draper. 

Peggy Olson

Meet Peggy Olson, who officially walked away from the things holding her back from feeling at ease with herself and her choices. After a whole season where the priest impressed by her skills has learned that Peggy had a child out of wedlock and put him up for adoption and starts pressuring her to admit her “sin” while Peggy would rather move on with her life, she tells him they don’t see eye to eye and walks away from the Catholic Church and while the Cuban Missile Crisis is going on, she lays down in her bed with the pink comforter and pillows with her pink floral nightgown, she lays herself down to sleep and prays with a contented look on her face.

Power Ranking: 9, she’s not fully absolved of the issues plaguing her but refusing to wear a hairshirt and beat herself up? Awesome. 

Dawn Chambers

Meet Dawn Chambers, from 1966-1968, she was the only black person (let alone black secretary) at the uber-white Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (pun intended for the decor) and like many minorities in positions occupied by less marginalized people, Dawn had to keep her head low and not stand out (despite some co-workers considering her as remarkable as a sore thumb). But then in 1968, she made the mistake of punching in for a co-worker and they get caught by Joan Holloway (and it’s so horrid, thank God Don Draper intervened on Dawn’s behalf and Pete reminds them of how the ad agencies are being looked at for their minority quotas). This was also the season where Dawn took to wearing blazers over her blouses and skirts or dresses and here Dawn is wearing a conservative grey blazer over a pink shirt with ruffles down the front and a red plaid skirt when her work life alters for the...better? It is there that Joan sternly gives her the promotion of keeper of the keys, title not pay, and Dawn tells her that she decided she doesn’t care whether other people in the office hate her but she doesn’t want to disappoint Joan, who withholds any warmth or approval. The next season we see Dawn stand up to a entitled and mediocre white man (Lou Avery) and first she is moved to reception and then she takes over Joan’s post as Office Manager (With her own office! And the salary!) while Joan goes upstairs to her own office in Accounts. 

Power Ranking: 10, this is a big fucking deal for a Black Woman in a mostly-White corporate setting during the 1960s. 

Trudy Campbell

1970, Trudy Vogel Campbell has remarried her estranged husband Pete and they are moving out to Wichita, Kansas with their young daughter Tammy where he will work a plush job for Lear Jet (and they are being flown out by them!). 

For the past ten years, Trudy and Pete have had a difficult marriage where he was dissatisfied with the choices he made and that he really didn’t want to marry her, and Trudy had to deal with being a woman with fertility issues at a time when motherhood was seen as a primary goal for women and women who didn’t have kids or chose not to were seen as weird at best. They had to deal with pressure from her father to adopt, his parents snotty issues, she had to deal with her husband’s attitude, his envy of others, and his cheating. But Trudy laid her boundaries and was able to stand up to her husband, without losing her gracious manner and her zest for society. She tried to be a supportive wife and she found some common ground with him, when it comes to common decency and politics, and they make an amazing pair on the dance floor. 

Then came the end after their divorce: they behave more amicably, he’s more involved with their young daughter, he fights for Trudy, and he gives an amazing pitch for her to come back. She takes him back but lets him know that she isn’t the same girl he married a decade before and she looks at things for how they are. 

Plus she is gonna rule Wichita!

Power Ranking: 8, she accepts there will be compromises but states her boundaries and has them met and will be a society wife. 

Elle Woods

Who shows up in court in LA hot sandals, a pink tote bag for her canine companion Bruiser, long glossy hair, and a curve-hugging but professional power dress in shocking pink? Elle Woods. After trying hard to be taken seriously by her fuckboi ex Warner and her snotty, neutral toned Harvard classmates and learning that her Professor got her in an internship for a important lawcase (where they defend her fellow Sorority Sister) just for her looks, she leans into both her natural intelligence, expertise, and love of pink and all things girly to defend her friend and solve the case. 

Also can we talk about how both Legally Blonde and Bridget Jones’s Diary are both movies where the attractive blonde protagonist is humiliated by showing up for a costume party in a Playboy Bunny costume under false pretenses and she deals with sexual harassment and being underestimated regarding her intellect? But LB ages better because it kinda pokes fun at the beauty myth more and is more inter-sectional and Elle finds supportive women to add to her posse of supportive sisters and she supports other women in turn.

Power Ranking: 10, Sisterhood and owning your personality quirks and interests and boldly defending others is always a win. Case Dismissed. 

Lorelei Lee

The ultimate Pink Power icon and the one who set the path for all femme-y and cute loving blonde protagonists with wit and ambition. This is the song for a woman who sings about how transactional heteronormative relationships in the mid-century were and how the performative actions of men in heterosexual relationships don’t do much to improve women’s lives, like paying the rent and that they would use women for their own uses and could be shallow enough to dump women if they lost their beauty and/or got older, so for insurance make sure you get money or rather things that can be hocked and worn with pride, like diamonds. Tom & Lorenzo covered this in their One Iconic Look series and this sequenced has been spoofed several times in Hey Arnold!, Crazy-Ex Girlfriend, Birds of Prey, and most famously by Madonna, and it is the look for women who not only feel good about their curves but also want to show them off.  As T&Lo said about the ditzy Lorelai and her savvier friend Dorothy Malone (Jane Russell):

These women were all about power, control, and looking out for each other. Men were side stories or play things.

And in the repressive Fifties it was outrageously pink and smelt of female sexual power (pink pussies). 

Power Ranking: 11, hawwwwwwww that’s what you get for having an iconic and referenced look!

Marge Simpson

The most nostalgically remembered outfit in cartoons and the most written about in think pieces and articles by Millennial women who grew up watching The Simpsons and the rest of what the Animation Renaissance had to offer. In “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield”, the family goes out to the outlet mall in Ogdenville where Marge and Lisa happen upon a beautiful pink Chanel suit that even left my cartoon-apathetic mother enthusiastic and Marge is soon seen by a old high school friend who mistakes her for being wealthy and Marge goes along with the ruse and is invited to Country Club activities with the ladies where she shows up in several talented alterations of her suit (until getting destroyed by Santa’s Little Helper, RIP Iconic suit), she also gives her family a hard time about how they don’t fit into that Country Club Scene and then when forced to see how she hurt them (and even Baby Maggie), turns around and tells them she loves Homer’s sense of humor, Lisa’s compassion and outspoken human rights politics, and just loves Bart (even if she can’t figure what she likes about him). 

This also happens to be another instance where Marge sacrifices a social life (she’s not seen with a lot of friends who have her back, aside from a brief time with Ruth Powers), chances for social mobility, and her own self-improvement for her family. While we love a mother who prioritizes her family’s autonomy, we still kind of hope that she didn’t have to sacrifice her own identity for her family. 

Power Ranking: 8, points for the iconic suit and it’s layered meanings. 

Bridget Jones

A rare move of power for a normally powerless and insecure woman and in a shocking pink blouse and black slacks that show off her hourglass curves and go with her coloring. 

Pink is not a color Bridget isn’t familiar with, especially with this deleted scene that shows her in Pink Passivity (and it looks delicate on a blonde with blue eyes and pale skin but could risk her fading but I as a brunette would look popping!). But here after entering a relationship with Daniel Cleaver (who is a walking red flag) and finding out he was keeping her as his side-ho to his skinny, bitchy American girlfriend and colleague and I have my problems with Bridget Jones as a series (which would take several parts) and I can talk about how Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway were a lot better written versions of her (klutziness and awkwardness but succeeding!). But this is a huge power move where Bridget wears a simple outfit that owns her looks (even being affirmed by a older and previously antagonistic co-worker that she’s actually thinner than the average woman and she can’t back down, like ever) and is able to quit her job for a better and more glamorous job and tell off her ex-boyfriend for how poorly he has treated her. And all her co-workers smile off as she walks off in triumph after telling Daniel she’d rather wipe Saddam Hussein’s ass. I kinda wish I could go Joan Rivers on Daniel here. 

Also points on that bolder shade of pink. 

Power Ranking: 10, no one gets to burn a cheating, manipulative bridge like that (and yes she is conventionally prettier than I but that’s not the point). 

Alice Macray

I know, I should shut my mouth and wear beige but my personal color analysis says I’m a winter person.

It’s an interesting power move, albeit within the confines of patriarchal society and even the only defiance that wouldn’t get her tsked at because she is serving the Male Gaze. And yet it’s a natural part of her characterization in this part of the series: the traditional housewife stubbornly keeping her pedestal and fighting to stall progress for other women pursuing other paths (part of wearing beige and shutting up as Mother of the Groom is to allow the Bride to take center stage) but it’s also a path she had to take what with being a dyslexic in a less informed and intolerant era and growing up in a sheltered, conservative Catholic family. This is also the outfit she wears when she spots a younger wife being forcibly yanked by her husband, alluding that the patriarchy isn’t benevolent. 

This isn’t her first time in pink, or even a pink and blue combination: she wears pink when she goes and gives out bread to defeat the feminists at the Illinois Legislature, she wears pink and blue when Bella Abzug calls on her and her peers’ hypocrisy, she drinks a Pink Lady when she is given a “Christian Pill” and it matches her lavender dress. It’s also ironic: pink, white, and blue are the colors of the Transgender pride flag and she is defending White Heternormative Cisnormative Christian Values TM and it’s also a color combo that shows up in the beauty parlor she frequents where she and her friends wring their hands over working women gaining more ground and feeling that their comfortable privilege is being taken away by women who sully their hands working outside the home while they stay home with their children in their coordinated pastels and have maids of color keep their worlds nice and orderly. 

But she is wearing a pink maxi dress with a high neckline and a very prominent hat that provides very ladylike shade for her fair skin, just like our first Pink Power Girl Mimi Tachikawa, and like Mimi, Alice will take a life-altering short trip to Wonderland. And like Pink Power Girl Eleven, she finds her true hidden power and starts wearing more saturated colors as time goes on. 

Power Ranking: 5, she is on her way to breaking out of her little safe world and doing more than subverting a wedding tradition. 

[rhythmantics]

a collection of doodles; stuff for a 3rd Orre game idea I bounce around sometimes and a couple of OCs

the dream is to one day make a fangame for the orre series

tbh with the way pokemon currently is i don’t trust them at all to handle orre

xd was already Lighter and Softer than colo, and i can only shudder to imagine how much lighter they’ll crank that dial. we might even see shit like...routes...and wild pokemon on them...like??

the orre games had this wonderful moral ambiguity and urban decay that i don’t think pokemon is capable of catering to right now, since they’re trying so hard to have this image these days of this sprawling, kid-focused series. and yeah, s/m’s story got dark and shit, but the game wasn’t marketed that way, and it’s more of a juicy tidbit than the core of the experience.

If a third orre game isn’t unnecessarily gritty and edgy then, like, what’s even the point lol

So i do have rpg maker xp and I do have pokemon essentials and i think i’ve more or less worked out the mechanics i need to have implemented, but i dont think i ahve the time to spare to actually finish it in any capacity because the amount of new assets i’d have to create - tiles, character models, etc - is so massive it would realistically take me several, several months even if i was doing it as a full-time job

so in any case here are some ideas to titillate your interest:

GAMEPLAY:

level scaling across the entire game, across every trainer (possible to turn off for a more traditional pokemon experience). Regular trainers would be set ~3 levels below your team, “strong” trainers (ie cail, rider willie) would be set at your team, and bosses would always be a few levels above. The only place this wouldn’t apply would be Mount Battle, which is, after all, a side challenge. This mechanic would pretty much do away with the need for level grinding except to balance out team levels. reasoning: the orre games are known for their higher difficulty curve, and this plays off it. Double battles also make for very interesting avenues of strategy exploration; with bosses always a little tougher than you are the hope is you might wipe out a couple times before figuring out a winning strategy.

Lucky egg given early but no exp. share.

higher catch rate on shadow pokemon - since the game would start you out at lvl 25 and honestly this is just an anti-frustration feature

Again, level scaling can be turned off for a more traditional experience, but the idea would be that the levels would get pretty high pretty fast, and by midgame you’d be going up against lvl 55s and stuff (just enough to start encountering some salamences and flygons), hopefully ending the game in the 80′s.

Pokedex -> strategy memo, and seen = obtained. Strategy memo actually contains opinions from the player character rather than just standard “animal facts” type stuff.

No routes! Just cities! Pokespots still in effect to limit the player’s pool of usable pokemon.

Missed pokemon integrated with pokespots or maybe made un-faintable so you have to catch them because i’m really not that good at programming guys

SETTINGS:

Orre is a cold desert. I know technically it’s based on the Arizona desert, and I’ve been there, but friggin look at the fashion, these people would all get heatstrokes in a matter of seconds.

So to that end, my orre is actually based on the Atacama Desert, whose topography not only resembles Orre’s (volcanic mountains on one side, ocean on the other), but is a cold desert (with daytime temperatures peaking around 60 degrees F) and is considered the driest desert in the world, with some places having not seen rain in centuries, having been compared to Mars in regards to how uninhabitable it is.

you know, like how apparently wild pokemon can’t survive in orre except at the pokespots.

also the orre colosseum looks just like the atacama hand and i dont think that’s a coincidence

canyons, oases, underground rivers and deep underground cave systems, forests to the northeast and a coast that’s actually somewhat habitable via fog collection

THE UNDER IS BACK

gateon renamed Io Port (the japanese name) to go with the gem/mineral naming scheme of the rest of the game. Plaque added outside lighthouse reading “Io Lighthouse” (GEDDIT)

cipher key lair being torn down by reformed eldes, working with lovrina and gorigan, in order to create an amusement park, hopefully to be an international tourist attraction of the more innocent variety than realgam

Areas given a name. Desert is orre desert, northwest forest is Tempor Forest, mountain range is Kabla Mountains, keeping in line with Eclo Canyon

A new town named Appoak, one of those aforementioned fog-collection coastal villages, which has the distinct honor of being the place you buy your wildflower seeds, which are often scattered in the desert as funerary rites because it’s kind of hard to build a grave out there and this is a tradition that natives of orre held long before the settlers/miners came in and which has overtaken the settlers/miners’ traditions, especially during and after the starvation riots that happened after the majority of the mines ran dry and the companies stopped sending their support to the workers that were now effectively stranded in one of the harshest environments on the planet.

Dead were littered on the streets, no one had the ability to bury them all, and so the tradition of scattering flower seeds instead of erecting graves that would simply be wiped out in the next sandstorm (and have you ever tried to dig a hole in dry sand) became popular since it felt like more closure

Anyways Appoak cultivates desert flowers year-round and sells the seeds and performs funerary rites, as a result it’s considered something of a sacred locale in that no one wants to mess with it because you have no idea who you might be pissing off whose loved one was buried with Appoak rites

CHARACTERS:

Michael, 5 years later, now 18 (in xd he’s called an “unknown teen” by ONBS and honestly he’s so short that i’d feel bad if he was older than 13 at the time of the game) is your player character! Trainer class Lab Kid, with a cool hover-scooter, who is now officially a staff member at the Lab HQ as a result of reaching adulthood (though he’s been helping out with field research long before that.)

Your starter is a sylveon, level 25, because this Michael is not a blank-slate character, and sylveon is both in character and doesn’t conflict with any choice of eeveelution from the first game. In fact, this michael made it through the entirety of the first game without evolving his Eevee, like an absolute madman.

Lily and Jovi start the game off overseas giving lectures on shadowfication and purification, mostly so that i don’t have to create their sprites. But also because them leaving is an excuse for them to take all your pokemon from the first game with them, for “demonstration purposes,” leaving you with just your eeveelution and maybe some second pokemon-i-don’t-know-what-yet-probably-your-choice-of-any-starter so you can hurry up and get to the double battles without sacrificing an ability to make a choice on your starter.

Wes is in the game and he is an asshole and you will love him

Cail actually serves a plot purpose

Cameos from all your favorite admins and named characters from Colo/XD, most of which remain unfought until either late or post-game (because the focus is on the new story, you know?)

Miror B and flunkies at Io Port, the proud owners of a popular and, more importantly, lucrative new ludicolo dance act.

Eldes, trying to make up for his past, sponsoring an amusement park being worked on by Lovrina and her brother, with Gorigan overseeing the construction. Snattle offhandedly mentioned as having been elected governer by default (no one else was running) and helping with greenlighting these projects since he and eldes are, apparently, sand-golf buddies and eldes has been twisting his ear for the greater good

also eldes wears a dress shirt with hawaiian print on it

Dakim lives on mt battle now

not as, like, part of the mt battle challenge. he just . sorta. lives there.

Venus is now the onbs weather girl and onbs can’t decide whether they like her or hate her

the jail squad: greevil, nascour, and evice. They’re poker buddies. orre jail for the rich is basically a retirement home because orre is ridiculously corrupt.

ardos? ein? well...

PLOT

So, your field assignment is to collect samples of M18 - also known in Almia by the name of “Dark Crystal” and sometimes colloquially referred to as “shadow crystal” in Orre - for research.

As you probably already assumed, this stuff works as a catalyst for shadowfication and Orre happens to be supernaturally abundant, though it having been strip-mined out by cipher during the last two cipher events has made it much rarer (and it’s theorized by NPCs that the return of wild pokemon may have something to do with the lessened M18 presence).

touching it initiates a small flashback cutscene, as it’s apparently transformed from normal quartz into M18 by the abundance of negative feelings somehow (again, you’re collecting it for study) so that’s how we get some nice backstory about michael’s dead dad (who isn’t eldes, sorry guys, he’s a guy named Prof. Taiga because - haha - Taiga Lily) and other characters

Somehow this investigation leads you to the first rumblings of a resurgence of cipher, who is also collecting M18, though for much more nefarious purposes

So, anyways, in XD, when you beat ardos in the orre colosseum, he sent you a creepy-ass email declaring that he’s basically gonna stalk you forever and kill you during cipher’s - what, third? - third coming, which he’s totally gonna do. Sequel hook! which comes true! because HELLO, your opponent is Ardos, who’s been working in secret this whole time, plotting your demise.

Also ein is there, which is important because...

QUICK HEADCANON BREAK

In colosseum, Cipher specifically targets Celebi because they know celebi’s power is directly tied with undoing shadowfication. (Material in-game suggests that celebi has been responsible for purification for generations of rui’s family, which means cipher didn’t INVENT shadowfication, but they did create a method for doing it ARTIFICIALLY)

However, in XD, cipher doesn’t target agate at ALL. they never even step foot in it. In fact, they’re so woefully underinformed about purification that they feel the need to kidnap Prof. Krane over it.

How does that happen?

Well, we know cipher in game 2 is the main branch, and cipher in game 1 is actually just an orre side branch. Whose only real plan with shadow pokemon was just to rig up really exciting and morally inexcusable colosseum matches for rich people to bet on. No world domination in game one!

So my theory is this: Cipher orre branch created shadowfication basically on a whim and tried to make money off it, which you stopped. When you stopping it attracted attention, cipher main branch had to take notice, and realized that, hey - fucking shadow pokemon ,fuckin world domination, right??? so they promptly took over all of cipher orre branch’s operations and replaced the old personnel with new ones from main branch, while forcing them to hand over their research.

Ein did not take being fired well.

In fact, he took it so poorly that he made sure to destroy all his information on purification before handing over his research.

Cipher in game 2 has no idea the connection between Celebi and purification.

BACK TO THE PLOT

Because Ein has been re-hired by Cipher, he brought with him his knowledge of purification.

They know about celebi.

Also wes is there? He plays a major role, mostly after it’s revealed he’s actually a cipher admin.

...His eevee and espeon are missing.

time travel shenanigans idk

it rains at the climax for the first time in 10 years!

this is a wip

if this is interesting to you guys lmk! im always open to talking about it more in-depth or hearing ideas. hahah...

[ciathyzareposts]

Nippon Safes Inc. – Three’s company

By Torch

In my previous post time we took a gander at the manual and discussed the history of the developers, but not much was said about the game itself, so let’s get cracking (literally) on that.

I start off as Doug Nuts. (So no quiz-based character selection as of yet.) He’s underground in what looks like a sewer and has seemingly huffed and puffed his way through a brick wall and is now facing something that looks suspiciously like a bank vault.

Who exactly is this “BANK” sign intended for?

I bet you’re dying to see where this is going, but let’s pause for a moment, to talk a little bit about the interface. It’s fairly simple; When I press and hold the right mouse button, this menu appears:

I move the mouse to the action I want to perform, and release the button. The mouse pointer changes shape to reflect the selected action, and I can click whatever I want to perform the action on. The actions are from left to right: “Open” – “Look” – “Take” and “Speak”.

There’s no separate inventory. When you pick up an item, it’s added to the action menu, and you select it the same way as the actions. Oh and if I pick an action and then mouseover an area of interest, the name/description will only show if the action in question can be performed on this specific area. If I want to simply use an item, I click it on myself.

That seems to be all there is to it. For now, at least.

Having mastered the interface, I check my surroundings. Near Doug is a toolbox. When I open it, I find a pack of plastic explosives and a detonator, which I take. The bank wall has a conspicuously square-looking hole, that seems a great fit for my explosives. I insert them and try using the detonator. As mentioned, this is done by selecting it and clicking it on Doug. He’s not too keen on blowing himself up, so I move him into an alcove off to the left of the screen and try again.

Success! The wall blows up and leaves a big, gaping hole for Doug to enter. However, as I approach…

So my detonation precedes me

Fastest game over ever?

Well, that took all of 5 minutes. So how do we restore….. Oh wait, it’s not over.

You talkin’ ta me? Fuhgeddaboudit. And so on.

I’ve now magically ( or rather programmatically ) turned in to Dino, the discarded boxer. He’s looking for a job and has decided to try his luck in a fancy looking office.

May want to drop the lollipop when going in for a job interview. Also, please somebody decipher that Mitsushita slogan for me

There’s no way to interact with the door or buzzer besides looking at it, so I can’t get into the building, but a shady looking guy appears and starts ogling the sports car that’s parked on the sidewalk, for some reason. When I talk to him, Dino, not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, asks the man if he needs any help getting into “his” car.

I only dress like this to hide from the police. Did I say police? I meant the sun!

Long story short (ok, it wasn’t very long to begin with) Dino rips the door off the hinges and the world’s most over-the-top car alarm goes off. And as with Doug, the police in this town are either psychic or getting paid by the arrest.

I thought this was the kind of door that opens downwards

Either way Dino is taken away as well.

They took my lollipoooop!

I’m starting to see a pattern here. I’m guessing we’re off to meet Donna next.

I’m fairly certain she had more hair on the box cover. And less cane

But no! Just when I think I have the game figured out, it subverts my expectation like an episode of Game of Thrones. I’m not controlling Donna at all, but some old guy in a trenchcoat. Ok, let’s see where this takes us. I’m on a street with two nearby hotspots, the most inviting of which is the “Hot Sushi” venue. According to the poster on the outside, that’s where I’ll find Donna. As I enter, however, I’m violently kicked out again by Mr. T. or some relative.

We can’t all be as classy as you

For some reason this guy can only jump to move around. I guess the budget didn’t have room for a walking animation. Anyway, all attempts at re-entry ends with me being kicked out again, so I decide to check “Honest Chan’s” booth on the left side of the screen instead.

To Deano, who was wondering if the game would avoid racial stereotypes: That’s a nope

Honest Chan is running a pawn shop. He only has 2 items of interest to our guy, though: A rubber mouse and a tie. I really have no idea why I was kicked out, but maybe it would help if I was wearing a tie…?

Yeah, that green tie with yellow dots practically reeks of class

It’s quite possible that I figured out this next puzzle because there’s not much else to do at this point, but basically the tie costs 100 yen and the mouse is 200. My guy doesn’t have any money, but he is carrying an amulet. Chan won’t accept this as a trade-in for the tie, but he’ll give me the rubber mouse for it. By now I was plotting an elaborate scheme, where I would wind up the mouse and send it into the Hot sushi, making the bouncer chase it and then sneak in…. Ok, that wasn’t really very elaborate. But I the only thing I can do with the mouse is trade it in with Chan again.

What’s your business model, exactly?

So in other words, he’ll give me a 200 yen item for my amulet, but not a 100 yen item. And then I trade in a 200 yen item for a 100. Makes perfect sense… Regardless, my newly acquired green/yellow polka dotted tie has a hidden bonus modifier of +5 to class, which is apparently sufficient to enter the “Hot sushi”.

I feel a weird urge to take a pick to that middle square on the dance floor

The establishment is empty, which is really no surprise, given their very specific dress code requirement. I can talk to the bartender though, and try to order a drink or get some “informations”.

I just now noticed that the glass in my guy’s spectacles are different colors

More specifically, I can ask about all the members of the dynamic trio.

Who could they be?

If I pick the top 2 choices, the bartender will give me the names of Doug and Dino, but the third choice prompts Donna to come out on stage for a …. Ok, let’s be generous and call it a dance.

It’s mostly just walking back and forth on stage

After a short while, Donna announces that she’ll perform the show that made her famous: “The bottle show”. I don’t know what that entails, but it’s a fair guess that it’s not family friendly entertainment, because soon after the announcement

How did you get in without a tie?

So Donna joins the prison gang.

Gender stereotypes: Check

I guess this whole thing has been an intro/tutorial, and the real game is about to start. I’m presented with a sweet sequence of some guy drawing the characters, them coming “alive” and walking around the set of the development studio or something. It’s a nice addition, but I had to crank up the CPU cycles on Dosbox, because on the default setting the drawing process was excruciatingly slow.

Look at them go

Check the exhaust pipe on the computer. This must be Glorious Olga 35 (5 CAPs for the first commenter to get the reference)

Yes yes, we get it. They’re all stereotypes

After the intro animation is over, I get to the character selection screen

I think I just now realized that all their names start with a ‘D’

Now, I honestly don’t fully understand the point of this next screen. If you recall my intro post, I mention the quiz, where you’re supposed to answer questions to choose the character whose personality you most connect with. The responses to each question will yield a syllable, matching the ones on display in the screenshot. I figured if I put all my responses together, I could input a word or something, and the game would suggest to most suitable character (to start with).

On this screen, however, the mouse pointer is not displayed, and I can’t type anything besides the numbers 1-3. If I press one of them, I start that character’s chapter. So what’s the point of the quiz? Or this screen at all? If anybody knows how this is supposed to work, and I’m doing something wrong, please let me know in the comments.

For now, I picked Doug. Because reasons.

Sure I do. I just gave it 4 chains on Brigadvisor

I start with Doug having just been released from jail. His inventory contains a key, a letter and 1000 yen. So far I’ve found no way to examine inventory items, so I have no idea what kind of key it is. If I select the letter, I can read it by clicking it on Doug.

The letter is from someone who calls himself Dr. Ki. He’s apparently the one who posted bail to get me out of prison. He wants me for a “delicate” job that requires maximum confidentiality. Doesn’t sound like a recipe for staying out of jail for too long. Regardless, it’s an adventure game, so what else can one do but go check out what the guy wants?

Unfortunately, the prison is a long way from the city, and the guard won’t call me a cab. I can leave the screen to the east, which brings me to a highway.

Too bad that impenetrable fence keeps Doug from walking somewhere a bit safer

Walking along (or rather on) the highway, I find 2 empty trashcans and a payphone. Oh, and a road-sign.

So now it’s Tyoko again?

After 3 screens, I come to a dead-end.

Maybe the eye would see farther if you were standing up

I try the payphone, but it needs some sort of token to make a call. There aren’t a lot of hotspots here, so after wandering around these 3 screens (4 with the prison area) for over half an hour, I’m starting to think I’ve encountered a bug or something. Sort of by chance I suddenly discover that I can also go south from the prison. Duh, don’t I feel stupid? In my defense, the hotspot for the exit text doesn’t overlap too well with the graphics that look like they could represent an exit. Oh well. Due south I find an abandoned food stand and a trash can with some actual trash. I can pick up an empty soda can and its tab (the thing that you pull up to get to the soda). Thinking Doug – being a veritable MacGyver of the underworld – could perhaps work some magic on the payphone with this, I head back there, and jackpot!

I bet MacGyver would’ve just built a phone

Shortly after, a cab pulls up. The driver is a pretty mean-looking guy, who’s worried that I can’t afford the ride, and that he’ll have to put me in hospital like the previous customer who couldn’t pay. I assure him that I’m good for it, and we get under way. After all, I’ve got 1000 yen in cash. After a while, though, the meter passes the 1000 yen mark. I run to Google, and it turns out 1000 yen is only about $9 USD. Ooops.

I’m just wondering if your meter might be susceptible to modification by soda can tab.

After a while we arrive at a familiar place, and I’m now facing a 2500 yen cab fare. Under threat of serious injury, I try to bargain with the cab driver.

Brace for impact

It’s only a flesh wound

So he ends up punching me in the stomach, DOESN’T take my 1000 yen, then drives off. Big whoop… The old guy in Donna’s intro was treated worse for not wearing a tie. Ok, let’s head into the “Hot Sushi” then, and get to the bottom of this whole letter-sending thing.

Apparently the tie requirement isn’t a thing anymore

The letter was sent from a Dr. Ki, but when I talk to the bartender, Doug asks for a Dr. Woo. So far naming consistency has not been the game’s strongest suit. Maybe Woo is his first name, and Ki his second, so Woo Ki? Er… sounds like a there could be a lawsuit somewhere in there…

There’s a guy sitting alone in a booth to the right, and hey! It’s our guy from before. With the cane. And the tie. He doesn’t want to talk initially, but I show him the letter, which makes him change his tune.

The guys at the table are cameos from some of the developers. Totally meta.

Dr. Woo-Ki is by his own account a collector of sacred objects, mostly statues, idols and stuff like that, but he’s missing a rare jade Buddha statue and wants me to steal it for him. If I refuse, he’ll un-bail me from jail. I don’t know a lot about Japanese law, but that doesn’t sound like something that should be possible. Oh well, plot devices and their little games. The Buddha is in the Saku-Rambo monastery, wherever that is. Only initiates are allowed inside, and the statue is kept in a safe. Alrighty then. We have a purpose. Guess it’s time to round off for now. Next time I’m hoping to get to the bottom of the greatest mystery of all: What’s the proper name of the city? “Tioko” or “Tyoko”?

Time played: 1t 20m Inventory: 1000 yen, unidentified key, empty soda can.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/nippon-safes-inc-threes-company/

[lozshop]

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond BlockS

New Post has been published on https://lozshop.com/review-loz-pokemon-pikachu/

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond BlockS

This is the best replica of a Pikachu I’ve seen this month, especially when compared to its counterparts. The eyes, ears, mouth, tail, cheeks, etc. are all instantly recognizable and distinct, and it’s much cuter than anything other model featured before. So I’ve decided to make a very review for one of the best Loz’s products. 

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks for every single detail

The back even keeps the stripes and tail colors, as well as a tail that is the most accurately shaped as Pikachu’s tail.

Unfortunately, the size of the tail makes the figure a little backheavy, making it more frustrating that, as far as I can tell, there are no base plates made for these bricks…

And I just said that I’m impressed with how well they constructed Pikachu’s face, especially since they were working with more pieces than the other sets utilized, but with how they designed the face… We are working with high levels of “derp” here. Oh, that’s even better.

Not as good as it trying to find its nose though. Or its “punched in the stomach” face. I guess that looks normal. …Though we now have a very sarcastic-looking Pikachu. And now Pikachu’s just seen what Professor Oak does with all those Bulbasaur that starting trainers don’t take… Eh, heck with it… Let’s create a derp gif for future reviews so I don’t have to steal other peoples’.

And the mouth… …I don’t know why they bothered to make an actual mouth as opposed to a small smile or something… but thank you for making it as goofy and ill-fitting as possible. I want to say it reminds me of a really early computer-animated independent short I saw one time where the characters’ mouths moved in a diamond pattern, but it’s not coming to mind.

Actually, is anyone else getting a Far Side feel from this? Especially with the fat kid whose mouth turns into a trumpet when he’s excited? Like what Strong Sad dressed up as in that Homestar Runner cartoon? …No? …Just me?

The cheeks are nice, though, especially since they could afford to round these. Maybe they look a little big, but Pikachu are known for their large cheek patches that generate electricity, so I can’t fault the design for that.It even has a cute little button nose! …Which is offset somewhat by the close-up shot of the lifeless pupils staring at me…

They built the top of the head to give it a much more spherical and natural look, so we’re not dealing with the cube-heads of Nanoblocks or the creepy Ionix mask stolen from the Happy Mask Salesman.

Guess this Pikachu has avoided meeting with a terrible fate. …Still gotta save the world from the moon, though…

However, I’m strangely put off by the shape of the ears. On the one hand, I’m glad they matched the shape of the ears so well, since Pikachu does have rod-like ears, but on the other hand, since most of the figure is so blocky, they don’t quite match the design.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so concerned with the design if they kept the cylindrical shape, but the little triangles on the top don’t match the smoothness of the rest of the ear. Why couldn’t they have used cones for the tips and kept it smooth all the way up? …Still, it’s a minor nitpick at best, one that only people with too much time on their hands would bother to point out and complain about. …Anyway…

I LOVE the design of the arms. They’re just the right shape and size and actually look like arms as opposed to claws or tiny brick mounds. I even love the little claw at the end, since that just perfectly represents how tiny Pikachu’s little fingers are and just makes it all the more cute.

Not as much detail was put into the feet, but they did make them look like feet and not little blocks or The Tramp’s comically oversized shoes. It would have been nice to have some semblance of toes, but they keep him standing, so can’t complain.

The tail is very nicely shaped, given what they had to work with. I would have liked it if they made the tail more slanted and lightning-shaped, but I don’t know how they would have pulled that off without using an excessive amount of bricks that probably would have made the design more fragile.

I especially love their use of headlight bricks to build a slant on the backside of the tail and make it look less “blocky.” …Though I’m wondering if those crevices left between the bricks can be filled in with something?

But the best part about this figure? The thing that causes it to excel far beyond anything else we’ve seen this month? It’s articulated! Yes, it actually has hinged arms and ears, allowing for roughly 90° of movement with the arms and 45° with the ears. Ok, it’s not minifigure-level, or possibly Wall-E level, but when you have a figure built out of standard building bricks, you take what you can get. And now you can reenact that Paffendorf meme that was briefly(and I mean BRIEFLY) popular a few years ago.

Even the tail has a wide angle of movement, so you can get it to adorably wag its tail. …It’s too bad the arms don’t pivot forwards, or we could get it to reenact Leek Spin in addition to Paffendorf. …My mind’s strangely centered on ancient memes today, isn’t it?

And now let’s look at the Pokéball that came with this figure. …Strange that a Pikachu would be paired with a Pokéball, as anyone who’s even slightly familiar with the show or game would know, but I guess if you’re illegally producing knock-offs of other franchises and you don’t know if you’ll get away with any more, it’s best to include as much as possible in your first release.

Besides that, the faux-round shape and how the red and white bricks don’t properly layer on the black middle makes it look mechanical and avant garde, more like paper cutout origami than a proper ball. …In fact, do you know what this design reminds me of?

Still, I guess it’s not terrible and it’s impressive they could make one with the limited amount of bricks they had. I guess we’ll just pretend Giant Pikachu is so powerful, it can rip the heads off Daleks and paint them red and white.

And that’s your LOZ Mini Blocks Pikachu set! A strange yet welcome addition to the new trend of creating figures out of regular building bricks. And since it’s not made out of Nanoblocks, I don’t have to superglue it together to keep it intact, nor spend 2 hours getting the first layer of bricks positioned. Heck, since there are more Mini Blocks in the range, I might just have to look at some more and see what this is compatible with.

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks in main factors

Quality: The quality is very high, even higher than their Nanoblock bricks since I couldn’t find any “problem” bricks that were melted or molded incorrectly. The plastic quality actually feels even higher than most other mainstream companies, since they’re made with that “Lego”-feeling plastic that franchises like Mega Bloks and K’Nex don’t even have. The colors are vibrant and the bricks molded quite nicely, with a uniformity not many obscure building brick companies have. There were a few bricks that felt loose or didn’t quite click together smoothly, as was expected with LOZ, but overall, the high quality for the relatively low price point of this item is extremely commendable.

Design: This is the best Pikachu model I’ve seen so far. It legitimately looks like what I’d imagine a Pikachu to look like if Lego ever decided to make a Pokémon figure in the same style as their Wall-E set. The proportions aren’t perfect and it looks quite blocky in some areas, especially around the torso, but I would probably expect this of any building brick company that decided to take a stab at this character. And the fact that they made it articulated and more than just a statuette REALLY helps up the fun factor to be had with this set. I guess my only legitimate complaints are with the derpy eyes and the undetailed feet, and maybe the diamond mouth, but since they made this with standard Lego brick shapes, I’m impressed with the amount of detail they were able to accomplish. If Lego DID make this, most of the detail would have probably been through stickers, and I’ve already made my opinion of stickers clear in my Lite Brix review… As for the Pokéball, it’s ok. It’s a very bulky, strangely cubist version that looks like if Pablo Picasso was hired to design a brick set, but it’s recognizable and sturdy and does fit the strangeness of the Pikachu design.

Creativity: As it’s a Pikachu most likely produced without a license from The Pokémon Company, there’s not much creativity in the idea of building a Pikachu or a Pokéball. However, the fact that they managed to build this out of standard brick shapes with no custom bricks is impressive, especially in areas where they flipped the bricks on their sides to give the design a bit of a slope. And again, the fact that they included articulation does make it feel like a legitimate toy and not just a model to assemble and stick on a shelf.

Readability: The instructions are done in the standard “single sheet” and “multiple steps in one” styles we’ve seen so far from Diamond Blocks and other Nanoblock companies. However, since these bricks are a bit bigger and there’s more of a variety with the shapes, it’s much easier to follow along with than regular Nanoblocks. I’m much more of a booklet-type of person, but I didn’t lose my place or start on another layer before I finished the first, so it also has that going for it over Nanoblock instructions. Overall, if it was just printed in a booklet, I would have no complaints.

Packaging: I LOVE this box. It gets the product information across without seeming too cluttered or overly detailed. It’s just the assembled product against a white background, but the small details they added did catch my eye and heightened my interest in the product. It’s obviously trying to trick you into thinking it has something to do with Lego Ideas with its “LOZ Ideas Classic Creator Series” declaration, but it backs it up with Pikachu sitting on a piece of paper covered in sketches, which really does give it the appearance of an “indie” fan creation. And the small windows on the back featuring the figure’s articulation really help to sell this item. So even though it’s not the Engrishy type of box like the Jie Star boxes are, it’s professionally made and slightly humorous that they’re trying to pass this set off as legit.

Compatibility: It’s compatible with Lego Nanoblocks

Overall for my first review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks:

If it was compatible with other building brick lines, it would have been a 5/5. I LOVE this figure and the packaging that came with it. It’s fun, it’s stylish, it’s professional, and it perfectly represents the cartoony nature of Pokémon. If Lego or some other company was to include Pokémon in their line of figures built with standard bricks, LOZ has set a standard that might be tricky for them to match. If you can find this set, whether you’re a huge or passive fan of Pokémon, I highly recommend it. It’s truly the best building brick set featuring Pokémon I’ve ever seen…

#LozBlocks, #LozDiamondBlocks, #LozPokemonPikachu #Reviews/Unbox #loz #lozblocks #nanoblocks #diamondblocks #miniblocks #ministreet #blocks

[sandwichbully]

It’s a two-fer!

Sikora’s Polish Market & Deli, 8 September 2018

  I’m biking around Nordeast on Saturday, not looking for anything in particular, I’ve been on mostly all the trails in town, now I’m just urban exploring (read: holding up traffic).   Now, let’s back up a bit, a bit of story time.   See, back in the day, Daddy Charlie went to a bar called Mayslack’s. He knows this must have happened. The problem is that he can’t fucking remember if he was ever actually there. Did it happen? Did he go there? He must have. This was when he was dating Angie Doom, she would have totally taken him to Mayslacks because it would have given her a chance to do two things she loved: Pretending to like country music and making fun of people who like country music. So he knows he had to have been there but the memory is just a blur. (Daddy Charlie was a drinker, to paraphrase Heath Ledger’s Joker.)   Mayslack’s is also famous for their garlic roast beef, so I figured that I was in the neighborhood, may as well pop in, finally form a Mayslack’s memory, and get some Sandwich Bully fodder out of it.   I walked in, took off my messenger bag, hung it on the bar stool, sat on the stool, saw the sign behind the bar that said “$20 MINIMUM FOR DEBIT AND CREDIT”, got off the stool, picked up my bag, slung it over my shoulder, and walked back out. Wasn’t even in there long enough for the bartender to know I existed.   (Also, looking at that menu online, the sandwich is $12.95, which is, uh, no.)   So, luckily, I find myself at Sikora’s, where the sign in the window says “POLISH DOG $4″ and I say yes to that. I go inside and I have to look around for the - Where - Do I go to the counter or - What? Where - It’s back in the corner, a total self-serve sitch.   There are two buns in the plastic bag - you know, the plastic bag that buns come in - in the bread box, some sketchy looking slaw (but it’s vinegar based instead of mayo based so I might live), and then there’s a steam tank inside of which are four kielbasas that look like what happens when an old man dies at the Russian bath and nobody notices until closing time. These things are wrinkly as fuck in some murky goddamned water.   However, I have dared to eat the 12:30 AM gas station hotdog more times than a suitable number for that occurrence exists. I may live.   So, seeing as how this is being served up family picnic style, I take one of the two buns (remember that) and dress it with slaw and mustard from a yellow bottle that aside from the homemade label SPICY is nondescript, and reach into the tank to grab the least wrinkliest of the four dogs.   Yeah, there were two buns and four dogs. Who put this together? Who thought they were going to sell more unbunned than bunned dogs? It just - I mean - You can see where my brain is falling to pieces with this, right?   Fuck it, I’ve got my least wrinkly sausage at the deli which is like saying I’ve got my most fuckable sheep at the petting zoo: I’m not sure about this and I think something bad will happen to me but I’m going through with it. So, fuck it, I’ve got my least wrinkly sausage and I take it up to the register and the gal at the register rings me up and I break out my debit card and she sucks her teeth, “Ooh, we actually have a five dollar minimum.”   YOU CAN’T DO THAT! THAT’S NOT HOW SOCIETY WORKS! YOU CAN’T MAKE YOUR MINIMUM HIGHER THAN YOUR SPECIAL! IN WHAT UNIVERSE DO YOU THINK THAT’S OK! WHY WOULD YOU - WHAT THE - I MEAN COME ON!!!   ... is what I wanted to say but instead I just bought a juice.   I took it to the counter and the gal said, “That’s a good choice.”   I tell her, “I just bought it because the guy on the label was smiling at me.” Which was the truth. I had no idea what the fuck it was until after I bought it and read the label: ORANGE & APPLE & LEMON JUICE.   I take a seat outside, the only seating provided and I bite into my dog and...

  This was the blandest dog I’ve... Well, that’s a bit hyperbolic but, Jesus, where was the salt? the fat? the garlic? It was totally uninspiring.   The bun was thicc and fluffy without being airy, the mustard was spicy, the coleslaw provided no crunch or sweetness or tang. Kind of bummed but I lost only four beans.

The Cardinal, 10 September 2018

  Voted or picked or elected or named or something “BEST FOOD FOR LIGHT RAIL RIDERS” by Minneapolis - St. Paul Magazine (yes, that is a publication) in twenty twelve, I was always curious to check out the Cardinal and I figured I would go there today for lunch while out riding around south Minneapolis. I mean, I don’t read MSP Mag, it’s just the banner they have hanging on the front of the building. In twenty eighteen. OK.   So I pop in, they’ve got Game Show Network on TV and Hamm’s on tap. Guy behind the counter asks what he can get me, I tell him I’m in for a bite of lunch. He starts listing off the specials as he grabs me a menu - starting with goulash because who doesn’t want goulash when it’s eighty fucking degrees out? - and I look in the menu while he’s still rattling things off and I see “Cheeseburger $6.95″ and you aint got to tell me nothing else, hoss. A $6.95 cheeseburger? In Minneapolis?   This is the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the eight dollar cheeseburgers flow. You’re undercutting every other burger stand in town?   Let’s fucking do this.   And I’ll take a fucking Hamm’s because Hamm’s.   I had my choice of grilled or raw onions. I chose grilled and I’ll tell you they were absolutely the ronin of this Japanese epic poem - Well, no, wait. Did the Japanese do epic poetry? I know the Romans and the Greeks did but what about - Because, see, even haiku are just about nature and shit. (Speaking of, I saw so many hummingbirds today. That was cool.) But those are short. Did they do epic, like, narrative poetry?   OK, so, new analogy.   The grilled onions were the true murderer whose mask is removed to reveal a severe facial disfigurement in this borderline softcore pornographic blood-soaked giallo, adding sweetness to an otherwise bog-standard cheeseburger.   The other characters included female witness frantically trying to convince the police to listen to her played by the annatto and sodium heavy American cheese; the boorish but dashing swimsuit photographer on assignment from London who sees something “telling” in the background of his photos played by the beef patty, and the police detective that is holding onto everybody’s passports until this nonsense is sorted out played by the top bun and his partner who might be too close to the murderer himself because of his wife’s work at the asylum played by the bottom bun.   Sorry, haven’t made one of my pop culture analogies lately and I like doing that so I went overboard. You don’t like it? Fuck off to a different sandwich blog.   Anyway, reflecting on the sandwich later on my bike ride, I knew what was off about it: They don’t season their meat. Or at least it didn’t taste like it, which is why I needed to pull in support players like the Simmons girl, the one they found in the park, she was here from America played by salt and Nannette, the French model, here with the photographer fellow who the police are looking at as the prime suspect played by pepper. It would have helped if they seasoned their meat a little more generously.   Oh, and also there was the female witness’s murdered-in-the-third-act prankster and scene-girl roommate played by catsup and the sleazy night club owner who winds up dead in the second act by knife in the back but the police call it mysterious causes played by mustard.   OK, I’m done.   It wasn’t a bad burger, it wasn’t a burger that made me want to shout to the heavens, either. I’ve had better burgers *cough* much better burgers *cough* but considering that the only other restaurant options right on the Blue Line are the McDonald’s four blocks south and across the street and there’s not even a LRT stop there and then the Burger King another five blocks south and across the street but with a stop a block north, the Cardinal, for being on a LRT stop, for being on the same side of the street as the tracks, and for not being a McD’s or BK, yes, by default, is the best food for Light Rail Riders. And it’s cheap, too. Not compared to the BK dollar menu which I think they call a value menu because - actually I don’t know why they do that.   I got out of the Cardinal with a cheeseburger and a beer for ten bucks before tip. Go give them your money.

  Wait, no. Don’t do that. Don’t give them your ten dollars.   Give me your ten dollars.   I wrote a book. It’s about fried chicken sandwiches.   At times.   Mostly it’s about porn.   And drugs.   And murder.   Buy it here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/batpussy-charlie-pauken/1129374780?ean=9781538094839

[robertkstone]

Pravda: Elon Musk, The Press, and the Truth

It’s Sunday morning during Memorial Day weekend and I’ve just watched Daniel Ricciardo prove yet again how hard it is to pass at Monaco. It used to be that a car with a sour engine couldn’t win a Grand Prix. But as I multi-task this dull race while perusing the Los Angeles Times Sunday edition, it also used to be that you didn’t find a full-page ad addressing how to spot fake news, either. This gesture of contrition from Facebook is an attempt to regain public trust following its loosy-goosy advertising ways, listing helpful tips for news-consumers (all of us?). Here’s a couple of them: “1. Be skeptical of headlines” and “4. Watch for unusual formatting.” I’ll keep an eye out.

This same weekend, Elon Musk engaged in a Twitter paintball fight with journalists regarding  his proposal to fact-check the press with an ironically named website called “Pravda.” Evidently, this is envisioned as some sort of crowd-sourced riff on PolitiFact or Snopes. Such a site would be “where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication,” according to a Musk tweet. Pravda means “truth” in Russian. But it was also the name of the mouthpiece for Communist-era propaganda. Is it just me or is this another inopportune name for a project? First Autopilot, now Pravda.

Going to create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication. Thinking of calling it Pravda …

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Despite the name stumble, it’s not necessarily a bad idea—if executed properly. Between Russia, our professional homegrown truth-twisters, and those just serially mistaken, a mini-industry of dot-coms has sprouted with all having roughly the same, Pravda-like objective: angling to referee the truth. But who’s going to be the referee of all these referees?

This issue is important, based on the recent experiences in the media’s dealings with Tesla.

This whole can of worms got opened during Tesla’s now infamous 1st Quarter Financial Report webcast. I started cringing when Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.’s Antonio Sacconaghi asked his match-to-the-fuse question about the potential need for Tesla to raise additional capital, given its ambitious growth plans.

“Excuse me. Next,” Elon snapped. “Boring bonehead questions are not cool.” Some webcast listeners might have been surprised at Elon barking down a Harvard MBA with 20 years covering Silicon Valley’s hardware industry. But I wasn’t.

I’d seen something similar during the press Q&A following the Tesla/SolarCity presentation of solar roof shingles at Universal Studios last year. A reporter asked about the debt Tesla would incur by absorbing SolarCity. Elon paused, noticeably stiffened, looked up at the sky, and exclaimed, rather loudly, “Stupid. Stupid!” He then  asked why anybody would want to ruin a terrific evening with such a question (actually, it really was a cool presentation). The Tesla suits around him exchanged nervous glances; I sat mortified for the reporter put in that awkward position. At every car introduction, there are journalists who notoriously ask deliberately aggressive, strange, or gotcha questions. It’s the rules of the game, to keep corporations and their executives accountable. Generally, these affronts are treated good-naturedly. A financial reporter asking about Tesla’s need for more capital or the financial sense in absorbing SolarCity is just people professionally going about their jobs. They’d be dressed down afterwards by their editors if they didn’t.

What popped out at me during that Quarterly Q&A was how abruptly Elon’s mood reversed when he stopped taking questions from institutional investors, and welcomed YouTuber Galileo Russell’s jarringly wrong-time, wrong-place, back-and-forth about future technology (that noticeably burned up question time during what was supposed to be a call for Wall Streeters only). Whatever. Suddenly it was the old Elon. Bright and chipper.

What was going on? Look, I’m no psychologist (…) But here’s my thinking. I really don’t think Elon is so stressed out and off balance from the rough press that he’s going crazy. This penchant for uncontrollable squabbling with journalists goes way back. What I noticed during those YouTuber minutes is that Musk might really be the sort of real-deal, genuine idealist that crosses our path with Haley’s Comet regularity. Someone who is also an uncontrollable, impulsive counter-puncher with the press. We don’t know how to process this. Elon’s ever-bigger rockets really are about ultimately colonizing Mars in case Earth is destroyed by an asteroid (or humanity). Tesla really is about clean electric cars to slow global warming. The Hyperloop really is about cheaper, faster long-distance travel. And the Boring Company is actually about solving gridlock in our cities (and not a trick to let him privately tunnel from his Brentwood abode to SpaceX in Hawthorne). The “boring bonehead questions” or “Stupid!” eruptions are genuine anger at being drawn away from the big picture and down these wormholes he can’t resist.

Yet if he seems a bit paranoid these days, well, yeah, there really are some people out to get him—just as there are bloggers happy to carry water for the Tesla cause. At press events, I often encounter journalists who excitedly exchange gossip about troubles with Model 3 production, any pause at the Fremont factory, another missed Tesla deadline—with subtle, Schadenfreude-laden smiles. Several months ago I rode on a shuttle bus carrying out-of-state journalists from our hotel to a press event in Santa Clara. Along the way, my enthusiastic row-mate repeatedly tried to engage me in a guessing game as to when Tesla would go bankrupt. I stared at him. When the bus jerked to a stop, another guy shouted out “Hey, we’re here! In enemy territory!” I shook my head.

The first time I pulled into Fremont’s parking lot, the place looked abandoned (which is how Toyota left it). The empty lobby was festooned with dust bunnies. Now, it’s bustling with people, with mortgages and college educations and day-care being paid for by American-built electric cars.

Steve Jobs was at least as arrogant and prickly as Musk, but we rooted for Apple’s success—while dutifully criticizing its mistakes (remember Lisa?). Since Jobs, however, we’ve descended into some sort of societal zero-sum mentality in how we respond to figures like Musk. Somehow, your loss is my win.

Are Motor Trend and Tesla cozy? Yes and no. Sure, we have often broken bread with Elon and chief designer Franz Von Holzhausen, perhaps due our geographical proximity—it’s 4 miles  between our HQ and that of Tesla’s design studio at SpaceX. And we frequently get early access to Tesla cars because we’re among the few car-buff publications who perform instrumented testing. It’s no surprise as Tesla vehicles are quick; and Tesla regularly picks us to show off those attributes.

So far, Tesla has saved a great deal of money by resisting advertising and relying on deservedly positive reviews (including many of ours). But these are now trickier waters. Times have changed. I remember writing a particularly glowing review of a Model S variant and the next day seeing an email from Tesla PR, responding, “It wouldn’t have been better if we’d written it ourselves!” I started getting chest pain. But that was honestly how I felt: Relative to the automotive backdrop at that time, the car really was that superlative.

And they’re still extraordinary. But the early shock and awe of the Supercharger network, over-the-air updates, Autopilot, a 300-mile range, the Gigafactory, and 2.3-second 0–60 times, was stunning for only so long before the stun wears off. The tempo of mind-blowing Tesla feats has slowed. And now, there’s some legitimate criticism of the Model 3—and we’ve weighed in on that, too.

And that’s the key thing: One cannot have selective truths. When Motor Trend names the Model S its Car of the Year, but calls out Model 3 for deficiencies, Tesla cannot pick and choose which facts they cite as truths. However, if there is a media outlet whose consistent negative (or positive) drumbeat belies an ulterior motive by the publication (short-selling, or self interest), Pravda would be an interesting experiment that might reveal fake news about Tesla.

But by turning this crank, would Musk really win his arguments? He has planets to settle, not grudges; Model 3 production to escalate, not Twitter fights. For us, there’s the unfolding story of the first serious car company since that of Walter P. Chrysler—a rare success in American manufacturing that’s now teetering, and of course, its fascinating, sometimes flawed, cars. So let’s cool the tweets, and disperse the lynch mobs milling outside the gates of Tesla and the media. Reset, holster weapons, and see the bigger picture.

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New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/jennifer-lawrence-new-light/

Jennifer Lawrence, A New Light

Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh; Styled by Jessica Diehl.

She may be the highest-paid actress in the world, but Jennifer Lawrence has had a tough year: an emergency landing, a romantic breakup, and her (reluctant) first nude scene, for this month’s Red Sparrow. It all has her looking to the next phase in her career—and life.

It is nearing dinnertime as I wind through the streets of Beverly Hills, passing the storied haunts Craig’s and Tower Bar on my way to the home of Jennifer Lawrence. She has offered to host, and who would turn down an invitation to hang out with this supernova? At 27, she is the highest-paid actress in the world and the youngest person to have earned four Oscar nominations (she won best actress for her work in Silver Linings Playbook) and three Golden Globe awards. Her potent combination of talent, beauty, charm, and chutzpah makes her seem like a throwback to an earlier era. And her authenticity is a refreshing, much-needed antidote for a world drowning in a digital sea of meticulously curated social-media accounts, photo filters, and sponsored tweets.

Yet, for all her successes—in addition to her critical accolades and awards she has starred in a pair of multi-billion-dollar franchises, The Hunger Games and X-Men—she is at a defining juncture, when youth fades and adulthood begins, a transition that has stymied many promising acting careers. Lawrence, however, is the rare prodigy whose next chapter could be more interesting than the first. Lawrence is imbued with insatiable curiosity, professionalism, a work ethic, and extraordinary natural talent. She may be the last true movie star to emerge from Hollywood before the industry stopped making them.

CELEBRITY. CULTURE. POLITICS. Get what’s new and what’s next. Subscribe to Vanity Fair today.

Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh; Styled by Jessica Diehl.

So, what does maturity look like for the world’s most famous ingénue? Let’s start by having her cook me dinner—roast chicken, to be exact. (I supplied the alcohol—wine and vodka, as I wasn’t sure what the menu or mood would be.) “I’ve done this a few times, but I’m not superconfident,” says Lawrence, casually attired, without a trace of makeup, in her kitchen. “I have ramen, so either way we’re fine,” she says, only half joking.

While the chicken is in the oven, Lawrence makes us martinis (my drink of choice) in the style that Michael Fassbender, one of her X-Men co-stars, taught her—a drop of vermouth swished in the glass, then tossed out before the vodka goes in. The French-style house is her first major purchase, made back in 2014, a perfectly appointed, comfortable environment and exactly what you would expect from this gal from Kentucky: vintage mixed with modern. A gorgeous custom curved long sofa in the den, we both agree, is what she should try to salvage first if a California fire were headed her way.

Lawrence admits that her style is ever evolving and that she is in the process of redecorating. “My bedroom looks like Vegas meets . . .” Her voice trails off. “Well, you never want to decorate anything before you’re 25.” A portrait of her dog and constant companion, Pippi, commissioned by her mother, hangs in the gym, which is well equipped but doesn’t run the risk of overuse from this openly disgruntled exerciser. As she takes me on a tour of the lush grounds outside, she admits having been in the pool only once, on her birthday—the downside of a career lived on the road.

This month Lawrence stars as Russian prima ballerina turned Soviet operative Dominika Egorova in Red Sparrow, a spy thriller based on the best-selling novel by former C.I.A. agent Jason Matthews. After an injury ends her dance career, Lawrence’s character is recruited by the government to join an elite squad of officers who use psychological—and sexual—warfare to extract secrets from state enemies.

About seven years ago, when Lawrence co-starred in Jodie Foster’s filmThe Beaver, the director told her that one day she would look back on her film roles and see a pattern. It was Lawrence’s good friend Laura (more on her later) who identified the archetype even before Lawrence did, noting that the actress tended to play “white trash with too much responsibility.” Sure enough, in her early films, including Winter’s Bone and the Hunger Games quartet, Lawrence embodied what she calls “the young-adult maternal figure.”

During a shoot at this 24-acre biodynamic farm, Lawrence modeled the latest in ranch dressing.

Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh; Styled by Jessica Diehl.

The character of Dominika presented Lawrence with an opportunity to break from her past in more ways than one. “Red Sparrow really scared the hell out of me because I get nude,” says Lawrence, who first balked at the idea. “I tried to do the movie without nudity but realized it just wouldn’t be right to put the character through something that I, myself, am not willing to go through.”

Lawrence, who had personal photos stolen and uploaded to the Internet in a hack, in 2014, said that she was wary of potential criticism over her artistic choice. “My biggest fear was that people would say, ‘Oh, how can you complain about the hack if you’re going to get nude anyway?,’ ” Lawrence says, referencing the stolen photos, which were meant for her then boyfriend, Nicholas Hoult. (The man responsible for the hack was prosecuted and sentenced to 18 months in prison; Lawrence’s stolen pictures will live forever on the Internet.)

But the actress draws a big distinction between the involuntary release of her photos and her decision to shed her clothes on-screen. “One is my choice.” That choice ultimately proved to be empowering. “I got something back that was taken from me, and it also felt normal,” she says.

It helps that the director of these potentially uncomfortable scenes was Francis Lawrence (no relation), who has worked with Lawrence since she was 22 and started making the second film in the Hunger Games quartet. Though she was particularly nervous about filming a violent shower-room fight scene, she says Francis immediately put her at ease. “He looked me right in the eyes like I had clothes on and then all of a sudden I was like, ‘Oh, O.K., it’s just like I have clothes on.’ Everybody here is professional. You’re still at work. One look just made me comfortable. It didn’t make me feel naked.”

Francis wasn’t the only person on the Red Sparrow set to watch Jennifer grow up—many on the production team were also Hunger Games alumni. “They all knew me since I was a baby,” says Lawrence. After wrapping the nude scenes she teased the camera team: “I hope you guys feel creepy.” (For all her dramatic accolades, comedic timing may be Lawrence’s true gift.) The director says he always had Jennifer in mind for the part. “First and foremost, she’s a terrific actress,” he says. “What excited me the most was just how different it would be for her—the way she looks and the way she behaves and the way she sounds . . . that was really, really exciting to me.”

“I get my happiness from my friends and my house,” Lawrence says.

“She is one of the most intuitive people that I know,” adds Francis. (Lawrence’s Red Sparrow co-stars include Joel Edgerton and acting icons Charlotte Rampling and Jeremy Irons.) “She’s kind of a savant when it comes to human behavior. When she’s acting in a scene, it’s not something that’s been rehearsed or practiced—it’s really fun to watch, and it’s pretty magical.”

The director also sees an authenticity in the offscreen Jennifer Lawrence. “I think a lot of people think the behavior portrayed in articles and interviews—when she falls and all that kind of stuff—has been fabricated by her. It’s really not. She really is who she is and who she presents herself to be. There’s sort of a blunt quality. She doesn’t really hold back in terms of beliefs and being goofy and she just says what she’s thinking.”

Another thing that isn’t fabricated: Lawrence’s oft reported resistance to dieting and working out. To accommodate his star, Francis arranged to shoot the ballet scenes in Red Sparrow first, so that she would be in her best shape. (The movie was shot in parts of Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and the U.K.) He adds, “She really trained a tremendous amount. She worked with a ballet coach for three months and did a lot of exercise.”

For Lawrence, the issue of body image and weight is a particularly sensitive one. Last fall, as the Hollywood sexual-assault reckoning gained momentum, Lawrence revealed in painstaking detail an incident in which she was asked, early in her career, to stand nude in a lineup of other actresses in front of a producer who judged her body and pressured her to lose weight. “I’ve always wondered what it would take to get me to really diet, to really be hungry, because I’ve never done it for a movie. For Hunger Games, they told me to lose weight, and then I discovered Jack in the Box. Red Sparrow was the first time that I was really hungry, and disciplined. I can’t be in character as an ex-ballerina and not feel like an ex-ballerina.”

Jen’s next act? The 27-year-old can see herself as a television executive.

Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh; Styled by Jessica Diehl.

Though she tried to maintain that dancer’s level of control, once she was done with the ballet sequences, all bets were off. “I can’t work on a diet. I’m hungry. I’m standing on my feet. I need more energy. I remember having a meltdown, freaking out that I had eaten five banana chips.”

Nourishment came in a European form of street food. “I discovered this Viennese kielbasa sausage in an uncircumcised French-bread roll, with pickle relish,” she says. “I had that almost every day in Budapest—which you can see, because I continue to grow in the movie,” she says, laughing. “Dieting is just not in the cards for me.”

 Back in Lawrence’s kitchen, she plates a delicious meal: perfectly tender chicken with onions, potatoes, and green beans. And then we sit in the kitchen and talk about what almost everyone else is talking about around the table. “I’ve always thought that it was a good idea to stay out of politics,” says Lawrence. “Twenty-five percent of America identifies as liberal and I need more than 25 percent of America to go see my movies. It’s not wise, career-speaking, to talk about politics. When Donald Trump got sworn into office, that fucking changed.”

She’s joined the board of Represent.Us, a bipartisan grassroots organization that aims to root corruption out of politics. Fellow board members include directors Adam McKay and David O. Russell, who directed Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook, Joy, and American Hustle,and the advisory board boasts a number of activists from all political stripes, including Democratic, Republican, and Tea Party leaders.

Now that she’s politically woke, Lawrence isn’t holding back her opinions. “It did steamroll, thanks to my personality,” she admits. “If I’m thinking something, I’ve made it very clear I’m going to talk about it. My family obviously hates every time I talk about politics because it’s hard to see your kid get criticized and they live in Kentucky, where nobody is really liking what I’m saying.” (Kentucky, where polls closed at six P.M., was one of the first states Trump won in 2016.)

Although Lawrence divides her time between New York City and Los Angeles, her southern upbringing gives her a different perspective. She maintains close ties to her hometown of Louisville (her parents still own a house there, and each Christmas she visits children at the city’s Norton Children’s Hospital), and she understands viscerally the reasons why Donald Trump’s candidacy resonated with many Americans. Here’s “a big powerful man in a nice suit, pointing at you and going, ‘I’m going to make you rich.’ It’s so appealing,” she says. “The Democrats made a huge mistake by chastising the Trump supporters, and that was disgusting to me. Of course they’re not going to vote for Hillary Clinton; they’re going to vote for Donald Trump. You laughed at them when their plight is very real.”

But she scoffs at the criticism of Hillary Clinton as a “career politician.” “I’m like, ‘I want a career politician!’ I wouldn’t hire an assistant if they didn’t have experience; we’re talking about the president of the fucking United States!”

A Kentucky native, the actress looks right at home among horses.

Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh; Styled by Jessica Diehl.

Two thousand seventeen was a fitful year for Lawrence. It started with negative reviews for Passengers, her outer-space movie co-starring Chris Pratt. The film wasn’t a financial flop—it made $300 million worldwide—but Lawrence, who garnered a career-high $20 million payday, couldn’t distract from the movie’s troubled plotline.

In June a private plane she was flying on, from Kentucky to New York, at 31,000 feet suffered double engine failure and was forced to make an emergency landing. (No one was injured.) Over dinner Lawrence told me the terrifying experience sent her into therapy for the first time to combat the post-traumatic stress she was dealing with. And every time she got on a plane in the aftermath, to soothe her nerves she watched Disney movies on rotation. “Thank you, Emma Watson, for Beauty and the Beast,” she says. “I’ve seen it six or seven times. If anybody has any questions about it, come to me.”

She also ended her relationship with director Darren Aronofsky. The two met making the allegorical Mother!, a controversial film that critics loved—Lawrence won praise for her performance as a young tortured wife and mother—but one that audiences rejected as too complicated. “I thought it was genius, a masterpiece, and . . . a cry for Mother Earth seemed right and cool. He was the perfect filmmaker to do it with.”

Although they are no longer romantically linked, they are still friends. Lawrence prides herself on healthy relationships—and healthy breakups. “We have an amazing friendship that started before the movie, then we had a partnership with the movie, and then we had a romance that came from the movie, so when you strip the romance away, we still have immense respect for each other,” she says. “As cliché as it sounds, we were good to each other. I read stuff all the time that I think would be perfect for Darren. And I think we’ll work together again.”

Lawrence has strong friendships—fellow actresses Emma Stone, Brie Larson, and Amy Schumer, to name a few, as well as a very tight group outside the industry she has known for more than 10 years. “When I was doing X-Men—that was right when Hunger Games was starting to come out—everyone just starts looking at you like you have something on your face, and the whole world starts reacting to you differently,” she remembers. “If I was not living with a best friend at the time, I don’t know what would have happened, because every day I came home, and it was the exact same: we’d talk about boy drama, and we’d talk about her [life].”

“She is one of the most intuitive people that I know,” says director Francis Lawrence.

One member of that group, Laura, whom she had met when she was 17, was with her when Vanity Fair photographed Lawrence in December. I saw something on that shoot I have never seen in 20 years of living in Hollywood. Upon arriving, Lawrence’s dog, Pippi, defecated on the property almost immediately after getting out of the S.U.V. Laura, who was helping Lawrence that day, reached in her purse, pulled out a plastic bag, and then did the unthinkable. She handed the bag to Lawrence, who proceeded to pick up her dog’s poop.

Hollywood is home to an egomaniacal industry where movie stars tend to be enabled and coddled, and at a certain point actors begin to surround themselves with sycophants and paid pals. I have watched Lawrence grow up in this community, and it gave me such a sense of pride that the world’s biggest movie star is still humble enough to pick up her own dog shit.

Lawrence provided some of her own insight: “Being an actor, you become a professional at talking about yourself,” she says. “And it’s not even our fault—we do it for months and months and months at a time. But I have my girlfriends and I’m genuinely interested in their lives.”

When Mother! was doing poorly, Lawrence initially was disappointed by the public’s indifference to the film. She remembers thinking, “ ‘Did you guys not get it? I gave my body, Darren gave his fucking heart, he bled for that script, and you don’t get it.’ It’s a little sad. And I remember letting it be sad for a couple of days, and then I was like, ‘You know what? This is not where I get my happiness from. I get my happiness from my friends and my house—they’ve brought me so much sanity.’ ”

In The Hunger Games and Winter’s Bone, Lawrence played the “young-adult maternal figure.”

Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh; Styled by Jessica Diehl.

Working steadily since the age of 16, Lawrence uncharacteristically has some time on her hands. She is signed on to star in a film with Italian director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name), but with the script still being written, there is plenty of time for Lawrence to explore other opportunities.

 After our dinner we leave the dishes in the sink and head to her living room, where there are two stockings hanging from the mantel—one for her, and a miniature one for Pippi—and a Christmas tree. I ask about future projects. Lawrence has made no secret of her love for television—especially reality programming. She’s become unlikely friends with Kardashian matriarch and “momager” Kris Jenner, who posted on Instagram a picture of a mini toy Porsche she received from Lawrence. In November, Lawrence gave interviewers everywhere a run for their money when she grilled Kim Kardashian West as part of a guest-host stint on Jimmy Kimmel Live.(Sample questions: “Have you ever been cheated on?” And “Do you think it’s a coincidence that [ex-boyfriend] Reggie Bush’s wife looks just like you?”)

Over glasses of red wine I ask Lawrence, “If you could make your own reality show, what would it be?”

“I’m happy you asked,” she says, a Cheshire-cat grin crossing her face, “because I have actually been toying with the idea of becoming a billionaire and I’d like to start my own TV network.” Because of her viewing habits—heavy on Real Housewives, all things Kardashian—she declares, “I am pretty much a television professional at this point. And I have a brilliant idea for a reality show called Breakup Island.”

She goes on: “I can’t tell you the details, but there are very distinct cast members like The Bachelor, between the ages of 20 and 50, who you stay with and care about.”

Lawrence has obviously given this a lot of thought, but she plays coy. “That’s all I’m willing to disclose about Breakup Island because I really think it’s going to happen,” she says. “My agent was laughing at me when I told him. But I am clearly obsessed.”

Lawrence leans back on the fainting couch, her face lit perfectly by the natural firelight. She takes another sip of her wine, and after a beat, with the confidence of a mogul, she says, “Seems like a natural next step.”

(C)

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6 Famous People Who Hilariously Trolled Their Own Fans

Some celebrities see fame as tremendous burden and distraction from their craft, whereas others treat it as a golden opportunity to screw with thousands of strangers for no logical reason save “shits and giggles.” We’re talking about such famous rascals as …

6

Chris Pratt Trolls His Fans With Bad Jennifer Lawrence Photos

Hollywood certainly made a weird choice when it needed a hot new action star and decided to pick that zaftig fellow from Parks And Rec. During the press tour for the 2016 science fiction thriller Passengers, which starred Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, fans got overly enthusiastic about the pairing and started “shipping” them. (For those who aren’t up to speed on the internet lingo, that means they want the two to hook up and mash their bits together and make babies.) Followers of Pratt’s Instagram account started demanding that he take more photos of himself hanging out with Lawrence so that they could satisfy their vicarious need to imagine these two millionaires spending time with each other.

And so Pratt proceeded to do what the fans were demanding:

Chris Pratt/Instagram

Over the next few days, Pratt went on to post a number of Instagram selfies featuring himself and Lawrence together. Technically.

Chris Pratt/Instagram

Chris Pratt/Instagram

You can’t argue that he didn’t give the fans exactly what they’d asked for. Still, a bunch of them didn’t seem to appreciate the photos, leaving comments like “Why isn’t she ever full in the pic” or “Why you cut Jennifer out?” Some people are simply impossible to please.

5

Nirvana Would Fuck Up Their Live Shows In Delightfully Stupid Ways

Nirvana are much better-known for their catchy grunge tunes than for Kurt Cobain’s primal screaming, but it’s not like he was intentionally trying to ruin the songs. Unless he was playing live, that is. Here’s a compilation of clips of Cobain mumbling into the microphone, or putting on a fake stupid accent, or sometimes replacing his lyrics with caveman grunts:

It’s more or less the Charlie Brown teacher voice.

Read Next

6 Famous Writers Who Secretly Wrote Insane Pieces Of Trash

Sometimes, his reasons for messing with the audience were almost admirable. In 1992, for instance, Nirvana was booked to play a show in a packed stadium in Buenos Aires. The opening act, an all-girl band called Calamity Jane, had an extremely negative reception, getting pelted with mud and bottles from the audience. This pissed Cobain off, and he considered cancelling the performance, but bassist Krist Novoselic talked him into a compromise — they’d take the stage and do an incredibly shitty job. And so, rather than play any of their hits, the band began the opening riffs for songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Come As You Are,” and then broke into renditions of their least-known songs, predominantly from their worst-rated album, Incesticide. As a finale, they did wind up finally playing a track from Nevermind — the hidden instrumental one at the end that you hear if you accidentally forget to stop the CD after ten minutes. The audience was furious. Cobain called it “one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had.”

That wasn’t Nirvana’s first foray into deliberately messing up their shows. A year earlier, they were invited to perform on the British show Top Of The Pops, but after agreeing, they found out that the show had a policy of playing the music pre-recorded and only the singer’s voice live. As a response, Cobain sang “Smells Like Teen Spirit” like Christopher Walken with his mouth full of marshmallows, the whole time pretending to play his guitar with an open hand like a robotic Disneyland attraction.

On top of all that, there’s the band’s remarkable disdain for their most famous song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” — which was intended as a joke, a mockingly generic pop song full of nonsense lyrics and a guitar riff openly stolen from Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.” They hated that it became popular and resented playing it so much that, fairly often, they would rile up the crowd by playing the opening riff, and then instead launch into … a bad cover of “More Than A Feeling”.

4

Kiefer Sutherland Started Saying “Dammit!” More Often In 24 To Mess With Fans Playing A Drinking Game

24 may have been massively successful and popular, but nobody, from the fans to the producers to the stars, was ever under the impression that it was anything but a TV show based on a gimmick and starring one-note characters and cheap dialogue. It’s entertainment in the same way that Pringles is food — they don’t have to pretend it’s wholesome.

So when fans of the series endearingly mocked its hacky writing, the creators weren’t too proud to play along. Fans put together a drinking game in which you take a shot whenever Jack Bauer repeats one of his ten or so go-to lines, like demanding to know who someone is working for, saying the word “protocols,” or yelling “Dammit!” whenever something irked him:

In a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone, Sutherland revealed that he’d caught wind of the game and decided to have some fun with it. So in one episode, he made it a mission to say “Dammit!” as many times as he possibly could, even sneaking three into the same scene. In his words: “Boom, boom, boom. And that was just one scene. By the end, there had to be fourteen ‘Damn its.’ And I could just see all these college kids going, ‘Oh, fuck!'” (Which, incidentally, is what Jack would say if this show aired on cable.)

Now, this is the internet, so of course there’s a Wiki page cataloging every single “dammit” uttered on the show. Sutherland’s claim appears to be an exaggeration (his record was four d-bombs in one episode), but it’s true that the show got more liberal with the word as it went along — the penultimate season has 47 “dammits” between Jack and company, compared to the measly 30 in the first.

3

Mythbusters‘ Adam Savage Is Always Flamboyantly Lurking At Comic-Con

It’s probably not shocking to point out that Adam Savage, the non-walrus-stache half of Mythbusters, is kind of a nerd. What is shocking is that if you’re a dedicated nerd yourself, you might have met him without even knowing it.

Savage attends the San Diego Comic-Con every year, always wearing an elaborate costume which completely obscures his identity and prevents myth-busting enthusiasts from showering him with questions. He started in 2013 with an Admiral Ackbar costume (including an original mask from Return Of The Jedi), then topped that the next year with an exact replica of the original Alien spacesuit, complete with a facehugger model to cover his face. It was so hot that it required him to wear an ice vest to keep from passing out from heat exhaustion.

In 2015, he attended in a bespoke Judge Dredd costume, though he made himself somewhat easier to recognize by refusing to shave his trademark blonde goatee. On the next year, he went as the main character of the Oscar-winning Leonardo-DiCaprio-mauled-by-a-bear movie The Revenant — that’s right, he dressed up as the bear.

And finally, in 2017, he went as King Arthur, in armor made by the actual costume designer from the 1981 movie Excalibur, with chain mail made for the Lord Of The Rings series underneath. He could have gone as Arthur from the Guy Ritchie movie that came out two months earlier, but everyone had already forgotten that.

Every year, Savage challenges fans to figure out which of the Comic-Con attendees is secretly him, and rewards them with bonuses like free tickets to his panel. And every year, at least one person figures it out, probably by whittling down the number of identity-obscuring cosplayers whose costume could only be put together if someone was earning Mythbusters dollars.

2

The Dallas Stars Wouldn’t Stop Playing Nickelback

Americans don’t care about ice hockey nearly as much as Canadians do, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own league. You can catch up on what’s going on with the NHL late at night on Fox Sports on a slow day. Well, if you’re not a fan, you might have missed the 2015 home game between the Dallas Stars and the Vancouver Canucks, during which the Stars decided that instead of playing “We Will Rock You” or “Seven Nation Army” to hype up the audience, they would only play Nickelback. Again and again. For the entire game.

Presumably, the intention was to troll Vancouver’s visiting fans. Nickelback is, after all, a (perhaps inexplicably) widely despised band from Vancouver. Unfortunately, there were as many if not more Dallas fans in attendance, who were just as annoyed by the sonic assault as the Vancouver visitors.

Toward the end of the game, the scoreboard displayed a graphic asking fans to text which artist they’d prefer never to hear again at a hockey game, providing three “options:” A) Nickelback, B) Nickelback, or C) Nickelback. It didn’t matter that the number was fake, because one answer was the clear winner (B, obviously). And in case you were wondering, yeah, Dallas won.

1

Guardians Of The Galaxy‘s Michael Rooker Showed Up On The Set Of Avengers: Infinity War Just To Mess With Marvel Fans

If you haven’t seen the second Guardians Of The Galaxy movie yet but intend to, then first of all, what are you waiting for? Secondly, this entry is going to have spoilers for that film. So either stop reading or see the damn movie already.

In early 2017, Marvel Studios started shooting Avengers: Infinity War, the long-awaited film that will see the 200 or so characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe come together. At the same time, Guardians Of The Galaxy actor Michael Rooker started posting images on his Instagram account of himself visiting various locations in Georgia, where parts of the movie are being filmed, while wearing a cap emblazoned with the Infinity War logo. Hmm, what could he possibly be doing there?

Here’s the thing, though: Rooker’s character Yondu, the blue guy with the whistle-powered arrow thing, dies at the end of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. It’s not one of those implied deaths that happens off-screen, either — he slowly freezes to death before our eyes in deep space while Chris Pratt screams “NO!” at him. The film later shows them holding a funeral and turning his corpse into fireworks. He’s definitely dead. And yet Rooker kept posting selfies from the Infinity War makeup trailer, with tape stuck over the logo on his cap that he’d previously “forgotten” to hide.

The obvious implication is that Yondu somehow survived his death and is going to show up to help kick Thanos’ ass in Infinity War. However, Guardians director James Gunn threw cold water on that suggestion when he was asked about it and answered bluntly that “Yondu is dead” and will remain like that “so long as I am involved with Marvel.”

So why the hell was Rooker on the set of Infinity War? According to Gunn, it was all a misdirection. Before the Guardians sequel hit theaters, fans started noticing that Rooker wasn’t on the Infinity War cast list and came close to guessing he was about to kick the bucket, so Marvel had him visit the set and Instagram himself in a branded hat to keep people guessing. Because dreams are meant to be smashed.

S. Peter Davis is the creator of the Three Minute Philosophy YouTube series, and is the author of the book Occam’s Nightmare.

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PewDiePies Fall Shows the Limits of LOL JK

YouTube star PewDiePie’s fall from grace riled uphis 53 million subscribers, but unless you’re a Gen-Z videogamer, you may find the name splashed acrossmany a headline this weekunfamiliar.Lucky you. AfterThe Wall Street Journal reported on his pattern of using anti-Semitic jokesin his videos,Disney’s Maker Studios cut ties with the internet celeb, and YouTube canceled the second season of his streaming reality show. People might applaud what look like swift measures, but themoves are long overdue.

PewDiePiethe online alter ego of 27-year-old Swede Felix Kjellbergis famous for two things: outsized reactions tothe games he plays, and trolling. Given the impossibility of knowing whether he means what he says, you can’t always know how to respond when he does something like, say, hire people to hold up a sign saying“Death to all Jews.” His fans take him seriously but not literally; his critics take him literally but not seriously. Sort of like another divisive figurein the news these days.

But PewDiePie started racking up questionable jokes almost from the start of his YouTube career nearly seven years ago. Given that long tradition, and the fact he recently claimed that YouTube discriminates against him because he’s white, his fanbase goes beyond gamers. PewDiePie has become a bona fidewhite-supremacist hero.

Hiding Behind “LOL JK”

PewDiePie enjoys extraordinary popularity. His YouTube audience exceedsthe subscriber base of Hulu, Apple Music, andThe New York Times combined. Fansadore him because he embodies so much of whatYouTubeand, really, the internetloves: zaniness,rough-at-the-edges authenticity, and deadpan mockery.

That mix, though, often leads to a classic internet problem. “Offline you have context clues. You know if someone is going to punch you in the face, right?” says Whitney Phillips, author of This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Internet Culture. “But on the internet, you can’t tell if something was intended as a joke or a sincere expression.” Offensive “humor” further confuses the mix:Whileit’s important to call outthings like racism, sexism, ableism, and homophobia, doing so plays into trolls’ hands. They insist they aren’t spouting hatred, only proving that you can’t take a joke.

PewDiePie long ago mastered this move. He uses“gay,” “retard,” and “autistic” as playful insults. He makes plenty ofrape jokes. And he spews out all kindsof racist stuff, too. Take, for example, hiscommentary in this 2011 let’s-play video that includes the Swedish version of the N-word.

In the subtitles, he translates the word as“black,” but it’s hard to argue the word he uses is anything but a racial slur. (The Swedish Ornithological Society evenrenamed birds to eliminate any reference to the term.) Another Swedish YouTube user pointed this out and criticized PewDiePie for usingthe term but PewDiePie’s supporters, who call themselves the Bro Army, didn’t care. Neither did YouTube.

He used the N-word again, in English, in this video posted last month.

His fans’ negative reactions spawned two hashtag movements on Twitter: #pewdiepieisover and the more gleeful #pewdiepieisoverparty. But this is Twitter, so of course the racist elements of the Bro Army quickly co-opted them.

#pewdiepieisover Geezes peoples, calm the fuck down he said a word with no racist intentions. Get back to the cotton field and contemplate.

lemmy antonis (@lemmyantonis) January 12, 2017

PewDiePie’s casual offensiveness doesn’t end with the N-word. In another let’s-play video, he mentions thathe can’t see people when they’re “too black,” and fans mention thathe’s been known to say that “black things” scare him.

This 2017 video, in which he decided whether he would “smash,” pass on, or sell particular people into slavery is basicallya loaded baked potatoof racist and misogynist tropes.

In this face-swapping video he repeatedly uses an image of actress Leslie Jones to representHarambe, the gorilla killed in the Cincinnati zoo last year. I shouldn’t have to explain what’s wrong with that.

None of this means that anything that offends anyoneis off limits as a joke. But jokes that goof onracism are different than jokes that rely on race—a fine line to be sure. Even comics known to get away with it (like Sarah Silverman) sometimes miss the mark. What PewDiePie does in these videos is the 4chan version: repeat racist terms and insist they have outlived their offensiveness and are now hilarious.

But PewDiePie recently wentbeyond racist joking.In December 2016 heannounced plans to delete his YouTube channel once it reached 50 million subscribers because the platform had changed its homepage, a move that meant his viewers saw fewer videos, and less often. Coming from so towering a figure, this was a big deal. Bigger still? His reasoning. Ina jittery rant, he claimed that “YouTube wants my channel gone. They want someone else on top. They want someone really extremely cancerous, like Lilly Singh. Im white. Can I make that comment? But I do think thats a problem.

Singhbetter known by her YouTube alias, Superwomanis a Canadian-Indian rapper and comedian whose songs, parodies, and calls for positivity and #GirlLove have wonher more than11 million subscribers. Days after his rant, facingwithering criticism, PewDiePie claimedeverything he said about Singh was satire. The belated“LOL JK” is, of course, a defense favored byMilo Yiannopoulos and othertrolls, one thatraises questions of intent versus effect. “Its the impact that matters,” Phillips says. “I think weve reached an era where that ‘I was just trolling’ excuse needs to be retired.”

Becoming an Alt-Right Darling

PewDiePie’s reaction, though, also tooka step in a new direction. By claimingthat mediaoutlets takinghis words literally amounted to slanderand by calling publications that did so“the clearest form of cancerhe added media paranoia to his recipe of open prejudice and dog-whistling, making himan immediate poster boy for white supremacists. Check out the banner leadingneo-Nazi Andrew Anglin’s The Daily Stormer, which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls the top hate site in America.

The image has been up for weeks, says Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. “With PewDiePie, the question is, How did it take them so long?” shesays of Disney and YouTube dumping PewDiePie. “Neo-Nazis have been loving this guy. And because he has this massive following, they see those people as supporting their views.”

If anything, Disney and YouTube elevated PewDiePie’s standing in the so-called alt-right movement’s eyes by sending him packing. Just look at the alt-right’s preferred social media platform, Gab.

So, intentionally or not, the YouTube celebrity stepped intothe political arena.“There has always been a strong feedback loop between public figures, broadcast media, and social media activity,” says Anthony McCosker, an expert ondigital and social media at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. “I think the current push toward nationalism, tapping into exclusionary and racist sentiment, is driven and emboldened by online activity.”

This all places much of theresponsibility onDisney and YouTube;chipping away fromPewDiePie’s already staggering annual income ($15 million in 2016) doesn’t prove much to anyone. “They’re handmaidens to some pretty ugly sentiments,” Beirich says. “YouTube has refused to develop AI systems to hunt down extremist material. We at SPLC have been doing their legwork and reporting it for them, but that’s an inefficient system.”

You’ll have trouble finding consensus on what to do with someone like PewDiePie, especially because his reach is so global. In Austria this week, authorities arrested a man for dressing as Hitler in the Nazi leader’s hometown. Should PewDiePie enjoyspecial privileges because his Hitler costume appeared online? In America, satire has always been protected speechand there are overwhelmingly compellingreasons to keep it that waybutin a time of “alternative facts,” satire becomesincreasingly hard to identify.

You can’t smooth the ripples PewDiePie’s videos created, but you canslow their spread. PewDiePie’s business model revolves around grabbingviewers’ attention, holding it, and keeping them coming back for more. The real #pewdiepieisoverparty will happen when people start clicking Unsubscribe.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2ln3X3Z

from PewDiePies Fall Shows the Limits of LOL JK

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Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond BlockS

New Post has been published on https://lozshop.com/review-loz-pokemon-pikachu/

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond BlockS

This is the best replica of a Pikachu I’ve seen this month, especially when compared to its counterparts. The eyes, ears, mouth, tail, cheeks, etc. are all instantly recognizable and distinct, and it’s much cuter than anything other model featured before. So I’ve decided to make a very review for one of the best Loz’s products. 

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks for every single detail

The back even keeps the stripes and tail colors, as well as a tail that is the most accurately shaped as Pikachu’s tail.

Unfortunately, the size of the tail makes the figure a little backheavy, making it more frustrating that, as far as I can tell, there are no base plates made for these bricks…

And I just said that I’m impressed with how well they constructed Pikachu’s face, especially since they were working with more pieces than the other sets utilized, but with how they designed the face… We are working with high levels of “derp” here. Oh, that’s even better.

Not as good as it trying to find its nose though. Or its “punched in the stomach” face. I guess that looks normal. …Though we now have a very sarcastic-looking Pikachu. And now Pikachu’s just seen what Professor Oak does with all those Bulbasaur that starting trainers don’t take… Eh, heck with it… Let’s create a derp gif for future reviews so I don’t have to steal other peoples’.

And the mouth… …I don’t know why they bothered to make an actual mouth as opposed to a small smile or something… but thank you for making it as goofy and ill-fitting as possible. I want to say it reminds me of a really early computer-animated independent short I saw one time where the characters’ mouths moved in a diamond pattern, but it’s not coming to mind.

Actually, is anyone else getting a Far Side feel from this? Especially with the fat kid whose mouth turns into a trumpet when he’s excited? Like what Strong Sad dressed up as in that Homestar Runner cartoon? …No? …Just me?

The cheeks are nice, though, especially since they could afford to round these. Maybe they look a little big, but Pikachu are known for their large cheek patches that generate electricity, so I can’t fault the design for that.It even has a cute little button nose! …Which is offset somewhat by the close-up shot of the lifeless pupils staring at me…

They built the top of the head to give it a much more spherical and natural look, so we’re not dealing with the cube-heads of Nanoblocks or the creepy Ionix mask stolen from the Happy Mask Salesman.

Guess this Pikachu has avoided meeting with a terrible fate. …Still gotta save the world from the moon, though…

However, I’m strangely put off by the shape of the ears. On the one hand, I’m glad they matched the shape of the ears so well, since Pikachu does have rod-like ears, but on the other hand, since most of the figure is so blocky, they don’t quite match the design.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so concerned with the design if they kept the cylindrical shape, but the little triangles on the top don’t match the smoothness of the rest of the ear. Why couldn’t they have used cones for the tips and kept it smooth all the way up? …Still, it’s a minor nitpick at best, one that only people with too much time on their hands would bother to point out and complain about. …Anyway…

I LOVE the design of the arms. They’re just the right shape and size and actually look like arms as opposed to claws or tiny brick mounds. I even love the little claw at the end, since that just perfectly represents how tiny Pikachu’s little fingers are and just makes it all the more cute.

Not as much detail was put into the feet, but they did make them look like feet and not little blocks or The Tramp’s comically oversized shoes. It would have been nice to have some semblance of toes, but they keep him standing, so can’t complain.

The tail is very nicely shaped, given what they had to work with. I would have liked it if they made the tail more slanted and lightning-shaped, but I don’t know how they would have pulled that off without using an excessive amount of bricks that probably would have made the design more fragile.

I especially love their use of headlight bricks to build a slant on the backside of the tail and make it look less “blocky.” …Though I’m wondering if those crevices left between the bricks can be filled in with something?

But the best part about this figure? The thing that causes it to excel far beyond anything else we’ve seen this month? It’s articulated! Yes, it actually has hinged arms and ears, allowing for roughly 90° of movement with the arms and 45° with the ears. Ok, it’s not minifigure-level, or possibly Wall-E level, but when you have a figure built out of standard building bricks, you take what you can get. And now you can reenact that Paffendorf meme that was briefly(and I mean BRIEFLY) popular a few years ago.

Even the tail has a wide angle of movement, so you can get it to adorably wag its tail. …It’s too bad the arms don’t pivot forwards, or we could get it to reenact Leek Spin in addition to Paffendorf. …My mind’s strangely centered on ancient memes today, isn’t it?

And now let’s look at the Pokéball that came with this figure. …Strange that a Pikachu would be paired with a Pokéball, as anyone who’s even slightly familiar with the show or game would know, but I guess if you’re illegally producing knock-offs of other franchises and you don’t know if you’ll get away with any more, it’s best to include as much as possible in your first release.

Besides that, the faux-round shape and how the red and white bricks don’t properly layer on the black middle makes it look mechanical and avant garde, more like paper cutout origami than a proper ball. …In fact, do you know what this design reminds me of?

Still, I guess it’s not terrible and it’s impressive they could make one with the limited amount of bricks they had. I guess we’ll just pretend Giant Pikachu is so powerful, it can rip the heads off Daleks and paint them red and white.

And that’s your LOZ Mini Blocks Pikachu set! A strange yet welcome addition to the new trend of creating figures out of regular building bricks. And since it’s not made out of Nanoblocks, I don’t have to superglue it together to keep it intact, nor spend 2 hours getting the first layer of bricks positioned. Heck, since there are more Mini Blocks in the range, I might just have to look at some more and see what this is compatible with.

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks in main factors

Quality: The quality is very high, even higher than their Nanoblock bricks since I couldn’t find any “problem” bricks that were melted or molded incorrectly. The plastic quality actually feels even higher than most other mainstream companies, since they’re made with that “Lego”-feeling plastic that franchises like Mega Bloks and K’Nex don’t even have. The colors are vibrant and the bricks molded quite nicely, with a uniformity not many obscure building brick companies have. There were a few bricks that felt loose or didn’t quite click together smoothly, as was expected with LOZ, but overall, the high quality for the relatively low price point of this item is extremely commendable.

Design: This is the best Pikachu model I’ve seen so far. It legitimately looks like what I’d imagine a Pikachu to look like if Lego ever decided to make a Pokémon figure in the same style as their Wall-E set. The proportions aren’t perfect and it looks quite blocky in some areas, especially around the torso, but I would probably expect this of any building brick company that decided to take a stab at this character. And the fact that they made it articulated and more than just a statuette REALLY helps up the fun factor to be had with this set. I guess my only legitimate complaints are with the derpy eyes and the undetailed feet, and maybe the diamond mouth, but since they made this with standard Lego brick shapes, I’m impressed with the amount of detail they were able to accomplish. If Lego DID make this, most of the detail would have probably been through stickers, and I’ve already made my opinion of stickers clear in my Lite Brix review… As for the Pokéball, it’s ok. It’s a very bulky, strangely cubist version that looks like if Pablo Picasso was hired to design a brick set, but it’s recognizable and sturdy and does fit the strangeness of the Pikachu design.

Creativity: As it’s a Pikachu most likely produced without a license from The Pokémon Company, there’s not much creativity in the idea of building a Pikachu or a Pokéball. However, the fact that they managed to build this out of standard brick shapes with no custom bricks is impressive, especially in areas where they flipped the bricks on their sides to give the design a bit of a slope. And again, the fact that they included articulation does make it feel like a legitimate toy and not just a model to assemble and stick on a shelf.

Readability: The instructions are done in the standard “single sheet” and “multiple steps in one” styles we’ve seen so far from Diamond Blocks and other Nanoblock companies. However, since these bricks are a bit bigger and there’s more of a variety with the shapes, it’s much easier to follow along with than regular Nanoblocks. I’m much more of a booklet-type of person, but I didn’t lose my place or start on another layer before I finished the first, so it also has that going for it over Nanoblock instructions. Overall, if it was just printed in a booklet, I would have no complaints.

Packaging: I LOVE this box. It gets the product information across without seeming too cluttered or overly detailed. It’s just the assembled product against a white background, but the small details they added did catch my eye and heightened my interest in the product. It’s obviously trying to trick you into thinking it has something to do with Lego Ideas with its “LOZ Ideas Classic Creator Series” declaration, but it backs it up with Pikachu sitting on a piece of paper covered in sketches, which really does give it the appearance of an “indie” fan creation. And the small windows on the back featuring the figure’s articulation really help to sell this item. So even though it’s not the Engrishy type of box like the Jie Star boxes are, it’s professionally made and slightly humorous that they’re trying to pass this set off as legit.

Compatibility: It’s compatible with Lego Nanoblocks

Overall for my first review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks:

If it was compatible with other building brick lines, it would have been a 5/5. I LOVE this figure and the packaging that came with it. It’s fun, it’s stylish, it’s professional, and it perfectly represents the cartoony nature of Pokémon. If Lego or some other company was to include Pokémon in their line of figures built with standard bricks, LOZ has set a standard that might be tricky for them to match. If you can find this set, whether you’re a huge or passive fan of Pokémon, I highly recommend it. It’s truly the best building brick set featuring Pokémon I’ve ever seen…

#LozBlocks, #LozDiamondBlocks, #LozPokemonPikachu #Reviews/Unbox #loz #lozblocks #nanoblocks #diamondblocks #miniblocks #ministreet #blocks

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Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond BlockS

New Post has been published on https://lozshop.com/review-loz-pokemon-pikachu/

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond BlockS

This is the best replica of a Pikachu I’ve seen this month, especially when compared to its counterparts. The eyes, ears, mouth, tail, cheeks, etc. are all instantly recognizable and distinct, and it’s much cuter than anything other model featured before. So I’ve decided to make a very review for one of the best Loz’s products. 

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks for every single detail

The back even keeps the stripes and tail colors, as well as a tail that is the most accurately shaped as Pikachu’s tail.

Unfortunately, the size of the tail makes the figure a little backheavy, making it more frustrating that, as far as I can tell, there are no base plates made for these bricks…

And I just said that I’m impressed with how well they constructed Pikachu’s face, especially since they were working with more pieces than the other sets utilized, but with how they designed the face… We are working with high levels of “derp” here. Oh, that’s even better.

Not as good as it trying to find its nose though. Or its “punched in the stomach” face. I guess that looks normal. …Though we now have a very sarcastic-looking Pikachu. And now Pikachu’s just seen what Professor Oak does with all those Bulbasaur that starting trainers don’t take… Eh, heck with it… Let’s create a derp gif for future reviews so I don’t have to steal other peoples’.

And the mouth… …I don’t know why they bothered to make an actual mouth as opposed to a small smile or something… but thank you for making it as goofy and ill-fitting as possible. I want to say it reminds me of a really early computer-animated independent short I saw one time where the characters’ mouths moved in a diamond pattern, but it’s not coming to mind.

Actually, is anyone else getting a Far Side feel from this? Especially with the fat kid whose mouth turns into a trumpet when he’s excited? Like what Strong Sad dressed up as in that Homestar Runner cartoon? …No? …Just me?

The cheeks are nice, though, especially since they could afford to round these. Maybe they look a little big, but Pikachu are known for their large cheek patches that generate electricity, so I can’t fault the design for that.It even has a cute little button nose! …Which is offset somewhat by the close-up shot of the lifeless pupils staring at me…

They built the top of the head to give it a much more spherical and natural look, so we’re not dealing with the cube-heads of Nanoblocks or the creepy Ionix mask stolen from the Happy Mask Salesman.

Guess this Pikachu has avoided meeting with a terrible fate. …Still gotta save the world from the moon, though…

However, I’m strangely put off by the shape of the ears. On the one hand, I’m glad they matched the shape of the ears so well, since Pikachu does have rod-like ears, but on the other hand, since most of the figure is so blocky, they don’t quite match the design.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so concerned with the design if they kept the cylindrical shape, but the little triangles on the top don’t match the smoothness of the rest of the ear. Why couldn’t they have used cones for the tips and kept it smooth all the way up? …Still, it’s a minor nitpick at best, one that only people with too much time on their hands would bother to point out and complain about. …Anyway…

I LOVE the design of the arms. They’re just the right shape and size and actually look like arms as opposed to claws or tiny brick mounds. I even love the little claw at the end, since that just perfectly represents how tiny Pikachu’s little fingers are and just makes it all the more cute.

Not as much detail was put into the feet, but they did make them look like feet and not little blocks or The Tramp’s comically oversized shoes. It would have been nice to have some semblance of toes, but they keep him standing, so can’t complain.

The tail is very nicely shaped, given what they had to work with. I would have liked it if they made the tail more slanted and lightning-shaped, but I don’t know how they would have pulled that off without using an excessive amount of bricks that probably would have made the design more fragile.

I especially love their use of headlight bricks to build a slant on the backside of the tail and make it look less “blocky.” …Though I’m wondering if those crevices left between the bricks can be filled in with something?

But the best part about this figure? The thing that causes it to excel far beyond anything else we’ve seen this month? It’s articulated! Yes, it actually has hinged arms and ears, allowing for roughly 90° of movement with the arms and 45° with the ears. Ok, it’s not minifigure-level, or possibly Wall-E level, but when you have a figure built out of standard building bricks, you take what you can get. And now you can reenact that Paffendorf meme that was briefly(and I mean BRIEFLY) popular a few years ago.

Even the tail has a wide angle of movement, so you can get it to adorably wag its tail. …It’s too bad the arms don’t pivot forwards, or we could get it to reenact Leek Spin in addition to Paffendorf. …My mind’s strangely centered on ancient memes today, isn’t it?

And now let’s look at the Pokéball that came with this figure. …Strange that a Pikachu would be paired with a Pokéball, as anyone who’s even slightly familiar with the show or game would know, but I guess if you’re illegally producing knock-offs of other franchises and you don’t know if you’ll get away with any more, it’s best to include as much as possible in your first release.

Besides that, the faux-round shape and how the red and white bricks don’t properly layer on the black middle makes it look mechanical and avant garde, more like paper cutout origami than a proper ball. …In fact, do you know what this design reminds me of?

Still, I guess it’s not terrible and it’s impressive they could make one with the limited amount of bricks they had. I guess we’ll just pretend Giant Pikachu is so powerful, it can rip the heads off Daleks and paint them red and white.

And that’s your LOZ Mini Blocks Pikachu set! A strange yet welcome addition to the new trend of creating figures out of regular building bricks. And since it’s not made out of Nanoblocks, I don’t have to superglue it together to keep it intact, nor spend 2 hours getting the first layer of bricks positioned. Heck, since there are more Mini Blocks in the range, I might just have to look at some more and see what this is compatible with.

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks in main factors

Quality: The quality is very high, even higher than their Nanoblock bricks since I couldn’t find any “problem” bricks that were melted or molded incorrectly. The plastic quality actually feels even higher than most other mainstream companies, since they’re made with that “Lego”-feeling plastic that franchises like Mega Bloks and K’Nex don’t even have. The colors are vibrant and the bricks molded quite nicely, with a uniformity not many obscure building brick companies have. There were a few bricks that felt loose or didn’t quite click together smoothly, as was expected with LOZ, but overall, the high quality for the relatively low price point of this item is extremely commendable.

Design: This is the best Pikachu model I’ve seen so far. It legitimately looks like what I’d imagine a Pikachu to look like if Lego ever decided to make a Pokémon figure in the same style as their Wall-E set. The proportions aren’t perfect and it looks quite blocky in some areas, especially around the torso, but I would probably expect this of any building brick company that decided to take a stab at this character. And the fact that they made it articulated and more than just a statuette REALLY helps up the fun factor to be had with this set. I guess my only legitimate complaints are with the derpy eyes and the undetailed feet, and maybe the diamond mouth, but since they made this with standard Lego brick shapes, I’m impressed with the amount of detail they were able to accomplish. If Lego DID make this, most of the detail would have probably been through stickers, and I’ve already made my opinion of stickers clear in my Lite Brix review… As for the Pokéball, it’s ok. It’s a very bulky, strangely cubist version that looks like if Pablo Picasso was hired to design a brick set, but it’s recognizable and sturdy and does fit the strangeness of the Pikachu design.

Creativity: As it’s a Pikachu most likely produced without a license from The Pokémon Company, there’s not much creativity in the idea of building a Pikachu or a Pokéball. However, the fact that they managed to build this out of standard brick shapes with no custom bricks is impressive, especially in areas where they flipped the bricks on their sides to give the design a bit of a slope. And again, the fact that they included articulation does make it feel like a legitimate toy and not just a model to assemble and stick on a shelf.

Readability: The instructions are done in the standard “single sheet” and “multiple steps in one” styles we’ve seen so far from Diamond Blocks and other Nanoblock companies. However, since these bricks are a bit bigger and there’s more of a variety with the shapes, it’s much easier to follow along with than regular Nanoblocks. I’m much more of a booklet-type of person, but I didn’t lose my place or start on another layer before I finished the first, so it also has that going for it over Nanoblock instructions. Overall, if it was just printed in a booklet, I would have no complaints.

Packaging: I LOVE this box. It gets the product information across without seeming too cluttered or overly detailed. It’s just the assembled product against a white background, but the small details they added did catch my eye and heightened my interest in the product. It’s obviously trying to trick you into thinking it has something to do with Lego Ideas with its “LOZ Ideas Classic Creator Series” declaration, but it backs it up with Pikachu sitting on a piece of paper covered in sketches, which really does give it the appearance of an “indie” fan creation. And the small windows on the back featuring the figure’s articulation really help to sell this item. So even though it’s not the Engrishy type of box like the Jie Star boxes are, it’s professionally made and slightly humorous that they’re trying to pass this set off as legit.

Compatibility: It’s compatible with Lego Nanoblocks

Overall for my first review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks:

If it was compatible with other building brick lines, it would have been a 5/5. I LOVE this figure and the packaging that came with it. It’s fun, it’s stylish, it’s professional, and it perfectly represents the cartoony nature of Pokémon. If Lego or some other company was to include Pokémon in their line of figures built with standard bricks, LOZ has set a standard that might be tricky for them to match. If you can find this set, whether you’re a huge or passive fan of Pokémon, I highly recommend it. It’s truly the best building brick set featuring Pokémon I’ve ever seen…

#LozBlocks, #LozDiamondBlocks, #LozPokemonPikachu #Reviews/Unbox #loz #lozblocks #nanoblocks #diamondblocks #miniblocks #ministreet #blocks

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6 Famous People Who Hilariously Trolled Their Own Fans

Some celebrities see fame as tremendous burden and distraction from their craft, whereas others treat it as a golden opportunity to screw with thousands of strangers for no logical reason save “shits and giggles.” We’re talking about such famous rascals as …

6

Chris Pratt Trolls His Fans With Bad Jennifer Lawrence Photos

Hollywood certainly made a weird choice when it needed a hot new action star and decided to pick that zaftig fellow from Parks And Rec. During the press tour for the 2016 science fiction thriller Passengers, which starred Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, fans got overly enthusiastic about the pairing and started “shipping” them. (For those who aren’t up to speed on the internet lingo, that means they want the two to hook up and mash their bits together and make babies.) Followers of Pratt’s Instagram account started demanding that he take more photos of himself hanging out with Lawrence so that they could satisfy their vicarious need to imagine these two millionaires spending time with each other.

And so Pratt proceeded to do what the fans were demanding:

Chris Pratt/Instagram

Over the next few days, Pratt went on to post a number of Instagram selfies featuring himself and Lawrence together. Technically.

Chris Pratt/Instagram

Chris Pratt/Instagram

You can’t argue that he didn’t give the fans exactly what they’d asked for. Still, a bunch of them didn’t seem to appreciate the photos, leaving comments like “Why isn’t she ever full in the pic” or “Why you cut Jennifer out?” Some people are simply impossible to please.

5

Nirvana Would Fuck Up Their Live Shows In Delightfully Stupid Ways

Nirvana are much better-known for their catchy grunge tunes than for Kurt Cobain’s primal screaming, but it’s not like he was intentionally trying to ruin the songs. Unless he was playing live, that is. Here’s a compilation of clips of Cobain mumbling into the microphone, or putting on a fake stupid accent, or sometimes replacing his lyrics with caveman grunts:

It’s more or less the Charlie Brown teacher voice.

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6 Famous Writers Who Secretly Wrote Insane Pieces Of Trash

Sometimes, his reasons for messing with the audience were almost admirable. In 1992, for instance, Nirvana was booked to play a show in a packed stadium in Buenos Aires. The opening act, an all-girl band called Calamity Jane, had an extremely negative reception, getting pelted with mud and bottles from the audience. This pissed Cobain off, and he considered cancelling the performance, but bassist Krist Novoselic talked him into a compromise — they’d take the stage and do an incredibly shitty job. And so, rather than play any of their hits, the band began the opening riffs for songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Come As You Are,” and then broke into renditions of their least-known songs, predominantly from their worst-rated album, Incesticide. As a finale, they did wind up finally playing a track from Nevermind — the hidden instrumental one at the end that you hear if you accidentally forget to stop the CD after ten minutes. The audience was furious. Cobain called it “one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had.”

That wasn’t Nirvana’s first foray into deliberately messing up their shows. A year earlier, they were invited to perform on the British show Top Of The Pops, but after agreeing, they found out that the show had a policy of playing the music pre-recorded and only the singer’s voice live. As a response, Cobain sang “Smells Like Teen Spirit” like Christopher Walken with his mouth full of marshmallows, the whole time pretending to play his guitar with an open hand like a robotic Disneyland attraction.

On top of all that, there’s the band’s remarkable disdain for their most famous song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” — which was intended as a joke, a mockingly generic pop song full of nonsense lyrics and a guitar riff openly stolen from Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.” They hated that it became popular and resented playing it so much that, fairly often, they would rile up the crowd by playing the opening riff, and then instead launch into … a bad cover of “More Than A Feeling”.

4

Kiefer Sutherland Started Saying “Dammit!” More Often In 24 To Mess With Fans Playing A Drinking Game

24 may have been massively successful and popular, but nobody, from the fans to the producers to the stars, was ever under the impression that it was anything but a TV show based on a gimmick and starring one-note characters and cheap dialogue. It’s entertainment in the same way that Pringles is food — they don’t have to pretend it’s wholesome.

So when fans of the series endearingly mocked its hacky writing, the creators weren’t too proud to play along. Fans put together a drinking game in which you take a shot whenever Jack Bauer repeats one of his ten or so go-to lines, like demanding to know who someone is working for, saying the word “protocols,” or yelling “Dammit!” whenever something irked him:

In a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone, Sutherland revealed that he’d caught wind of the game and decided to have some fun with it. So in one episode, he made it a mission to say “Dammit!” as many times as he possibly could, even sneaking three into the same scene. In his words: “Boom, boom, boom. And that was just one scene. By the end, there had to be fourteen ‘Damn its.’ And I could just see all these college kids going, ‘Oh, fuck!'” (Which, incidentally, is what Jack would say if this show aired on cable.)

Now, this is the internet, so of course there’s a Wiki page cataloging every single “dammit” uttered on the show. Sutherland’s claim appears to be an exaggeration (his record was four d-bombs in one episode), but it’s true that the show got more liberal with the word as it went along — the penultimate season has 47 “dammits” between Jack and company, compared to the measly 30 in the first.

3

Mythbusters‘ Adam Savage Is Always Flamboyantly Lurking At Comic-Con

It’s probably not shocking to point out that Adam Savage, the non-walrus-stache half of Mythbusters, is kind of a nerd. What is shocking is that if you’re a dedicated nerd yourself, you might have met him without even knowing it.

Savage attends the San Diego Comic-Con every year, always wearing an elaborate costume which completely obscures his identity and prevents myth-busting enthusiasts from showering him with questions. He started in 2013 with an Admiral Ackbar costume (including an original mask from Return Of The Jedi), then topped that the next year with an exact replica of the original Alien spacesuit, complete with a facehugger model to cover his face. It was so hot that it required him to wear an ice vest to keep from passing out from heat exhaustion.

In 2015, he attended in a bespoke Judge Dredd costume, though he made himself somewhat easier to recognize by refusing to shave his trademark blonde goatee. On the next year, he went as the main character of the Oscar-winning Leonardo-DiCaprio-mauled-by-a-bear movie The Revenant — that’s right, he dressed up as the bear.

And finally, in 2017, he went as King Arthur, in armor made by the actual costume designer from the 1981 movie Excalibur, with chain mail made for the Lord Of The Rings series underneath. He could have gone as Arthur from the Guy Ritchie movie that came out two months earlier, but everyone had already forgotten that.

Every year, Savage challenges fans to figure out which of the Comic-Con attendees is secretly him, and rewards them with bonuses like free tickets to his panel. And every year, at least one person figures it out, probably by whittling down the number of identity-obscuring cosplayers whose costume could only be put together if someone was earning Mythbusters dollars.

2

The Dallas Stars Wouldn’t Stop Playing Nickelback

Americans don’t care about ice hockey nearly as much as Canadians do, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own league. You can catch up on what’s going on with the NHL late at night on Fox Sports on a slow day. Well, if you’re not a fan, you might have missed the 2015 home game between the Dallas Stars and the Vancouver Canucks, during which the Stars decided that instead of playing “We Will Rock You” or “Seven Nation Army” to hype up the audience, they would only play Nickelback. Again and again. For the entire game.

Presumably, the intention was to troll Vancouver’s visiting fans. Nickelback is, after all, a (perhaps inexplicably) widely despised band from Vancouver. Unfortunately, there were as many if not more Dallas fans in attendance, who were just as annoyed by the sonic assault as the Vancouver visitors.

Toward the end of the game, the scoreboard displayed a graphic asking fans to text which artist they’d prefer never to hear again at a hockey game, providing three “options:” A) Nickelback, B) Nickelback, or C) Nickelback. It didn’t matter that the number was fake, because one answer was the clear winner (B, obviously). And in case you were wondering, yeah, Dallas won.

1

Guardians Of The Galaxy‘s Michael Rooker Showed Up On The Set Of Avengers: Infinity War Just To Mess With Marvel Fans

If you haven’t seen the second Guardians Of The Galaxy movie yet but intend to, then first of all, what are you waiting for? Secondly, this entry is going to have spoilers for that film. So either stop reading or see the damn movie already.

In early 2017, Marvel Studios started shooting Avengers: Infinity War, the long-awaited film that will see the 200 or so characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe come together. At the same time, Guardians Of The Galaxy actor Michael Rooker started posting images on his Instagram account of himself visiting various locations in Georgia, where parts of the movie are being filmed, while wearing a cap emblazoned with the Infinity War logo. Hmm, what could he possibly be doing there?

Here’s the thing, though: Rooker’s character Yondu, the blue guy with the whistle-powered arrow thing, dies at the end of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. It’s not one of those implied deaths that happens off-screen, either — he slowly freezes to death before our eyes in deep space while Chris Pratt screams “NO!” at him. The film later shows them holding a funeral and turning his corpse into fireworks. He’s definitely dead. And yet Rooker kept posting selfies from the Infinity War makeup trailer, with tape stuck over the logo on his cap that he’d previously “forgotten” to hide.

The obvious implication is that Yondu somehow survived his death and is going to show up to help kick Thanos’ ass in Infinity War. However, Guardians director James Gunn threw cold water on that suggestion when he was asked about it and answered bluntly that “Yondu is dead” and will remain like that “so long as I am involved with Marvel.”

So why the hell was Rooker on the set of Infinity War? According to Gunn, it was all a misdirection. Before the Guardians sequel hit theaters, fans started noticing that Rooker wasn’t on the Infinity War cast list and came close to guessing he was about to kick the bucket, so Marvel had him visit the set and Instagram himself in a branded hat to keep people guessing. Because dreams are meant to be smashed.

S. Peter Davis is the creator of the Three Minute Philosophy YouTube series, and is the author of the book Occam’s Nightmare.

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