belligerent

I'm not sure I cared that much about anything that happened this season aside from Naomi's Judy Garland lip sync, which was something I didn't know I needed to see but am glad I did. Two winners? Okay, sure. I'm glad for both of them but had no strong opinions on who I thought should win or who I wanted to win, honestly.

I didn't think Tim was going to beat Teej or Tiffer but I personally think he should be in the final three over Tony based on art skills alone. I know this is a tattoo competition and not an art contest, but I still have no idea what Tony's specialty is when it comes to tattoo design or why he's specifically in the top three. I never really noticed his work at any point in time as being standout, whether in a good way or a bad way. I would have been more interested in seeing what Tim would have done on that final back piece than Tony, Cleen, and Christian combined.

Not that Amanda didn't need to go home, but Christian completely fucked her over by telling her to do it in black and grey. If she'd done the fox in color, they couldn't have said it looked like a raccoon and not a fox. Foxes are pretty much the only fox-colored animal and putting it in black and grey (raccoon colors) is what made it look more like a raccoon than how it was drawn, in my opinion. I can't believe the fact that Christian is making me hate Cleen less just by comparison. I said I wasn't going to watch this season because of the two of them and yet here I am.

I didn't realize how much I wanted Aquaria to win until this episode. I thought I was on Team Whomever but as soon as they finished the second round I was ready to be angry if they said any name but hers. Her second lip sync outfit reminded me of jojo's bizarre adventure for some reason. I wasn't as mesmerized by any of them as I was by Sasha's performances last season.

Monet's Maya Angelou was what I had really been wanting Chi Chi to pull off (because I love Chi Chi and want her to succeed). I thought this Snatch Game was decent but not done as well as it could have been based on the characters. There was opportunity for banter between Blu Ivy and Honey Booboo that wasn't explored (or at least didn't make it to camera), opportunity for more banter between Melania and Maxine Waters, more opportunity for banter between Dorothy Parker and Maya Angelou, etc. This was actually a set of characters that SHOULD have all worked together (aside from Chyna, who was kind of random, but I love the alley oop for the joke about why Melania's husband hates China, which wouldn't have been possible without her) but didn't work out as well as it should have. This should have been an incredibly funny snatch game overall but instead it was only funny. Miz Cracker's one-liners are just sliiiiiiiiightly too long to land well, so you can tell they're not off the cuff. I think she's funnier when she's responding off the cuff, because her practiced things are obviously practiced and don't come off as witty.

That wouldn't matter if the snake were actually drawn with some volume. It literally looks flat, as if it has no ribcage. The worst place for me is upper right of the image (left on the actual guy). I thought maybe it was just how it sat on the guy's collarbone but it looks like that everywhere it loops back. I actually like the colorscheme because it matches the rest of the guy's ink. It's just drawn like he had no idea how to make any of the stuff look like anything other than ribbons.

Jesus. That looks even worse close up. The snake looks more like an eel...is it just me or is it super flat-looking? It's a fight between a parrot, an eel, and a dragon with no anatomy and the head of a schnauzer. A battle royale indeed!! It's almost so bad that it looks intentionally bad.

This season finale makes me wonder why I watched the whole season. I think the tattoo I liked the most was Matt's bearded lady tattoo in the first episode. I skipped forward the second I saw kleen. Didn't care the last four times. Don't care this time. GO AWAY. Christian can also go away. Why do they think we want to see more of these thoroughly unpleasant people?

Somehow I feel like Miss Vanjie is going to get the biggest career boost from this season, especially in proportion to her amount of actual screentime. I thought the Vixen's plan to roast Aquaria and Miz Cracker was delicious and I was here for it when they were planning it, but it was executed so poorly that the whole scene was cringeworthy. This challenge was kind of looking for escalated ridiculousness and I'm not sure enough of the pairs were throwing things out that could be built on by their partner. Even if Eureka/Aquaria's premise was one of the least appealing, they did the best in building up their narrative to something funny. Miz Cracker did some of that, too, but I don't think it seemed quite as naturally built. I still don't really have a favorite this season yet.

"An inkmaster should be able to draw!" So why is Roly still there? He's probably a competent tattooer. He can probably put ink in skin, and given enough time to do a decent design and the ability to trace stuff he can't draw, he could probably do an okay pinup even if it's not his thing. But what the fuck, that's one of the worst pinups this show has seen. The thing I hate about this season is that more than other seasons, this has really highlighted how much contestants are being set up to fail, which results in people getting really BAD tattoos, and you would think that someone like DJ or Anthony, who both claim to be about art and integrity, would not intentionally make it so that somebody gets a terrible tattoo mistake. I hope that person gets a free coverup. And then you would think the judges would, idk, let the worst tattoo of the day actually go home. I don't want to bag on Roly because the show being bullshit isn't his fault, but holy fuck.

On the one hand, I think this was a ballsy rockstar two-fingered salute to the bullshittery of the all stars format and can get behind it based on that. On the other hand, Ben was my favorite of these queens and now we have to watch less delightful queens for the rest of the show. Don't get me wrong, I also like Shangela and Trixie, but everyone who said this was Ben's competition to lose, yep. It was. And she literally demonstrated that. I don't feel like it was as staged as the recap makes it out to be. It does seem in line with Ben's personality...but damn girl, we were all rooting for you!!!! (to probably misquote the non other Tyra) This is why Katya will always edge out Ben as my favorite. Bullshit elimination format or not, Katya would never deprive us of more Katya.

i think it probably would have detracted from the narrative the show is trying for this season if they had touched on every way in which the decks were arguably stacked. if you start off with a bunch of non vets and then none of them make the finale, you don't want to bring attention to ways in which the competition might have been more difficult for them. they already had the contestants bringing up every other thing that they felt was unfair. a lot of the original shops weren't that great or only had one good artist, or weren't consistent. i just wish they'd stop bringing people in midway. let your vets show up at the same time as the new people and let them fight it out from the beginning instead of bringing them back like mini-bosses you have to defeat. doing it the second way probably amps up the interpersonal drama more so i'm sure that's why they do it that way.

If she'd told him, I doubt he would have believed her, yeah. Aaron might have but probably would have been shut down by cleen claiming it was just Katie playing head games. He seemed pretty practiced in the art of defending fucked up anatomy mistakes so I would bet money that's not the first set of backwards hands on a tattoo that he's had to bullshit someone about after the fact.

I also wish Erin had been on a different season where she wasn't as hobbled by Doom. I don't think he's so much terrible as he is really significantly inexperienced. It's almost like they approached this season like the Master/Apprentice one but this was something that required two masters or near-masters. They might have done okay on the Masters/Apprentices season. I like that Erin refused to join in on the namecalling. Doom, you guys still have to work in the tattoo industry and pitching a fit at people in it is probably not going to keep professional relationships very friendly. A major advantage the vets had this season that wasn't really gone into on the show was that it's very likely the canvases have seen the vets' seasons. Somebody who's been on a previous season had the advantage of being able to say, well, I was a finalist on this show before so if you trust me, you'll get a really sick tattoo by a famous artist. The newbies couldn't really do that, which meant any time a canvas wanted something wacky, they had more of an uphill battle to climb to talk the canvas off the mountain. I guess I'm rooting for Matt and Katie? They're the only team where I don't dislike one of the artists. I also figured out what Christian reminds me of. A big angry american badger (not as docile as eurasian badgers). I think it's the face tattoos and general demeanor.

I assumed it was something the client requested since he wanted it to be like a "victorian portrait" or something, and so they just glossed over it.

everything cleen draws in "his" style looks like a bad copy of an ed roth drawing a teenager drew on his trapper keeper in the 90's. ulyss reminds me of one of my cousins, right down to the body language, mustache style, and dramatic style of ranting. i like that cousin so that's not a bad thing. i think it's interesting that erin fell on her sword about failing to find a way to play to doom's strengths. i also think it's interesting that they're trying to give her more talking heads (they're kind of forced to since some of the louder people have left) and that she really doesn't seem comfortable having the camera on her. i'm on team not!cleennot!christian. you guys already had your shot at a "rivalry," go away.

Thinking about this some more, Christian shouldn't have been allowed to tattoo what he did when the challenge parameter was "no reference." How many human women were walking around the shop that he could have quickly glanced at? His canvas was also a woman. He had several live references and the face he did was still jacked up. If Dane had an entire pack of wolves roaming around the shop to look at, maybe his tattoo would have turned out better.

it drives me a little insane that neither of the "death" horses were white. also Cleen's horse has some majorly jacked up anatomy everywhere. It might be colorful but that's not something I would want on me. i would rather have Dane yelling at the camera about how dumb the flash challenges are than cleen yelling dumb crap at the camera about whatever he's yelling about. "I'm a man! I got some powertools! Someone shot us in the foot! i'm a man so i tattoo like a man!!!" put on a shirt or something and calm down. it also somewhat annoyed me that they gave them a challenge to do anything they wanted and we got a: jacked up skull with some triangles jacked up woman's face a clipart of a flower a weird wolf head that was weird but probably not the worst thing there Do none of these people draw? I don't get it. Why do you decide to be a tattoo artist if you don't, idk, know how to draw?

ES said he "actually owns that painting." I'm going to assume he meant a copy of it, but I like the idea of ES, collector of fine arts and stuff. I'm also not sure I agree with Doom's assessment of ES as "loud" when he's probably the lowest key person in that argument. I'm glad that Black Anchor went home several episodes ago because an episode of Black Anchor, Black Spade, and Black Cobra might have been confusing.

I think peck and nunez are trying to make themselves look better after being dicks the entire last season. I'm rewatching season 8 as background noise while working on projects and had forgotten how unpleasant and petty the both of them were about everything. It seems like in putting the focus back on the contestants and then trying to amp up the drama, it might be trying to scrape off some of the tarnish the judges put on themselves in season 8.

I've been rewatching the last couple of seasons and just watched the episode of last season where they had to do space tattoos, and Old Town's astronaut basically looked like the tattoo Gian did but not as cool and also less new school looking. It seems like every episode, classic trilogy gets someone who wants a new school tattoo, thom is excited about it because finally they get to do their style and they will show them all how it's done, them doing what they do best!!!! and then....them not doing a very good tattoo and then making excuses as to why. Hasn't this happened like every episode? Why did boneface even bring hobo ink if he doesn't do anything? Wasn't he supposedly the artist of the two? And why did he let him finish the tattoo instead of letting him do, I dunno, the art and then boneface could finish it off with his supposed technical ability? Black Spade's tattoos are kind of hit or miss but ES is kind of cute, so they can stay however long.

If cleen is partnered with aaron, shouldn't he have to change his last name to am? So we have aaron is and cleen (rock) am? Also, the thing they're going to test cleen on, uh is that "not losing when it counts?"

I hope valentina uses some of that money for a good therapist because girl has something going on...and I don't mean that in the positive way.

I just want a full season of Teets & Asky where Katya is Asky's ex from Russia who is now their evil arch nemesis. (Also can I guest star? My drag persona (which i made up before I knew about Katya) is Boris "Biff" Stroganov, a mail order husband who came to America to meet rich women but finds himself somehow just as popular with the men.) Alexis is just a bitch, but not the fun kind. She should take notes from Trinity on how to be a bitch without everyone hating you for it. I'm surprised and yet not surprised at the lip sync. So far, this season has been about queens that seemed promising before the season started disappointing us in some way, so Valentina blowing it didn't really deviate from that. Nina did slay the hell out of that lip sync, though, and the way she does her makeup always emphasizes her lips so she's mesmerizing to watch. I like what she does as a performer but as somebody said upthread, she's so hard to watch when she's interacting with the other queens. I think she's talented, and I hope getting as far as she has on the show gives her the confidence she needs to pull herself out of whatever funk she's in. I think part of the problem is that she's very introverted and probably could use a little alone time to recharge, but she's always got people around asking her why she's not being part of the group. I'm also very introverted (INTJ, and can be outgoing but need a lot of alone time to recharge after being that social), so that's the thing I would have trouble with in a long format competition show, too. I like all of them at this point, minus Alexis who can go home anytime. I hear that she's got a lot of talent, but she's so in her head about why these people don't realize her greatness at this point that I really don't think she can recover. I also didn't think I would like Trinity but she's grown on me a lot and seems to go farther out of her comfort zone than other pageant queens have in the past, who kind of stuck to what they knew and made excuses. She seems pretty ready to tackle new things. I just wish she'd done a funnier Snatch Game character.