sorry for not posting i've been busy slonkin my shit silly style day in day out
take a kung lao as a little treat for being so brave
Braid Lao,,,, save me braid Lao 😔
I would pay to see it ngl
See THIS is what I want dude!
I’m glad everyone just going hog wild with ideas of using Mickey in both good and the bad
I am very excited for Khaos Reigns.
But I am not a fan of the redesign of Sektor and Cyrax.
I could care less that they changed their genders. But.... Jade, Sareena, Jataaka, Kia, Skarlet, Cassie & Jacqui and Khameleon were all right there.
I'm all for new interpretations of the characters, especially since this game is all about the multiverse, but MK1 has been building up to Countess Jade and Sareena has this great redesign that's wasted as a cameo.
Also? We have the perfect design from MK11 that they refused to let us play as and the new designs feel like a downgrade
And honestly MK9 did this better. Cyrax resisting automation while Sektor was fully prepared to lose his humanity to be a more efficient assassin. Cyrax gets his redemption in MK11(pointlessly killed because Ed didn't want us to play as him 🙃)
But we're doing this AGAIN for the sake of multiverse bullshit that I'm already tired of.
Also, if this is Sektor
Who the HELL is this from Sub-Zero's ending?
But what really bothers me is the change in design and going from Cyborgs to Iron Man Suits.
They took away all the depth and tragedy that came with the cyber initiative program and just made it....people in bodysuits...
So much for "gore is an important part of MK"…… Cyber Initiative was one of the biggest body horror elements of MK
It was such a traumatic event that left people scarred for life. The process of having no say in it then getting dismembered and replacing your body with machine was pure horror. Now it's just Iron Man army.
The main elephant in the room, the gender swapping, doesn’t really bother me. But taking away that fact that they’re cyborgs is mind boggling. That’s the main thing Sektor and Cyrax are known for!
It was such a terrifying and important moment in Lin Kuei history and really spoke to the lengths that Kuai Liang went to reform the Lin Kuei. It was one of the most scary and gruesome aspects of Mk, which is what mk is all about. I'm tried of these sterile and watered down versions of these characters.
If I'm being honest, storywise. The "new era" sucks in almost every way. There are good things like redeeming Sindel, Mileena being good and having a proper sisterly relationship with Kitana, Li Mei, Reptile and Ashrah. But everything else? No. Making Kuai Liang Scorpion was bafflingly stupid. Like why couldn't they just have the Lin Kuei and Shirai Ryu be at peace? Liu Kang's new era amounted to changing but the same shit happens anyway.
It just tells the same beats over and over again. It would've been really cool if they actually told a new and different Mortal Kombat with actually different versions of the characters or entirely new characters altogether. But in every way it's just the old story but with at best slight, insignificant alterations and at worst alterations that fail to account for what made the old stuff actually cool and interesting. It should have actually did something with Liu Kang making The Great Kung Lao his champion and that should have resulted with a new story in an early era. But they refused to take risks.
I just know Kung Lao would have chubby cheek triplets with dimples like their dad. Man has good fertility. And they'd inherit his personality and love for food.
Kenshi getting the fucking snip after one unplanned baby. Vasectomy to prevent disappointing yet another child.
kung lao has 15 kids confirmed
MY MAAANNNN 😩
fanart Liu Kang
I haven't been able to play the beta, but I find Li Mei's very VERY Chinese traits interesting. They leaned hard into them, and I wanted to take a moment to go all meta-geek about her fu lions and her fireworks.
Sometimes called "foo dogs", they're stylized lions and are used as guardian symbols all over China. MK has used them with great abandon throughout; they're pretty stereotypical. Traditionally, guardian lions are paired: one has a paw holding a ball, the other has a paw holding a lion cub. The one with the ball is male, the ball representing the world and the material; the one with the cub is female, representing nurturing/care and the spiritual. The female lion protects those inside, while the male protects the structure itself, and you can keep going down into layers here. Turtles on turtles, or lions on lions, as it were.
What's interesting to me is the guardian-protector angle of them and the choice of that for Li Mei. As an Umgadi, she would have been dedicated to protecting the royal family; the idea of being able to summon a spiritual guardian lion to protect her charges is a great note. When she fails in her service and leaves and becomes Constable of Sun Do, she absolutely does not leave behind her protectiveness, but in fact extends it to the capital at large. She's not just protecting Sindel and Kitana and Mileena now, it's everybody.
(and the best screencap I could find was a fu lion against Kitana, which amuses me on some level). The firecrackers are another spirit protection aspect, and I hadn't known about this moving to China. The folklore is that there was a monster who lived in the mountains that would come down to a village, terrorize it, and then leave. One year an old man shows up and spends a few days protecting the village; eventually he says "I can't do this anymore, I have places to go and things to do, but I'll help you protect yourselves". He teaches the community what to do: namely, Nian hates the color red, as well as loud noises like drums and music and… you guessed it, fireworks. Not only do they make for some pretty sweet particle effects, but they lean into that idea of protection again, a little subtle reinforcement that this is part of who Li Mei is. She's a guardian, and with her bright lights and loud noises, she's going to keep the bad things away. The last "big" element in Li Mei's kit that's new is her Sky Lantern. From a gaming POV it's a great anti-air move, and it actually leans into the historical side of things: they were used in China initially for military purposes, and then took on a non-military angle. Li Mei's kit leans into the military side of things, so these aren't unexpected.
But the sky lanterns do have a significance today that is less about the military, and more about family and reunions. Much like the fu dogs also have nuture/care and family tied into them, so do the lanterns - which means Li Mei has a whole boatload of "I will protect and care for everyone as my family". Especially since she was taken from hers and became a warrior-priestess. Despite - or in spite of - everything that's happened, Li Mei is going to continue to protect her family... which at this point is all of Sun Do. And just maybe all of Outworld, but only time will tell.
my comfort character ever