#and knew only I could execute this shitty masterpiece

[conspiracygrandma]

commander meouch tbh creature. if you even care

[jayjaysocks]

Listing my favorite animes (because I’m jumping on the bandwagon)

❗️⚠️ *spoilers!! (Duh)* ❗️⚠️

5. Deadman Wonderland

I was really really sad when I found out this anime got cancelled. The music was fantastic, the animation was really good, and the voice acting was incredible. Even the fucking dubbed version (I loved the voice they chose for Senji. God he was hilarious). I binged this show so fucking fast it wasn’t even funny. I loved watching the characters go through their own struggles and grow as people in the very small amount of episodes provided. There was a lot of development within the snippet that we actually saw, and I was thoroughly impressed with how well it was done. I wanted to scream or something when I found out there wouldn’t be a second season.

Sigh. Oh well. At least we got some of the manga’s masterpiece translated into a show, even if we were missing some fucking awesome characters.

4. Guilty Crown

Ugh, don’t even get me started. This anime was beautiful and I got so invested so freaking quickly. I literally go back every few years to rewatch it because I get ship starved.

Shu and Inori’s story was so beautifully done; between Shu uncovering his courage and Inori’s journey of self-discovery, I was continuously awe-struck and filled with feelings—I mean, I had never felt such raw emotion while watching something and I was completely blown away by the affect it had on me. Anger, hatred, sadness, it was all there (even for the main character lmao) and it was one of the first times I had ever felt a ship so heavily that I literally cried at the end. It was one of the very first Animes I’d ever seen and was one of the reasons I got such a taste for them. Thanks for throwing me down that rabbit hole, GC.

3. Soul Eater

This was literally the first Anime I’d ever seen, and my god I couldn’t have asked for a better starter. What I like about this one is that it’s style is so unique and different. It’s very punk and grunge, something I admired and appreciated in a genre that is normally the opposite (like Guilty Crown, for example). Also the fight scenes were badass, like holy shit just look at that gif ??? Freaking amazing.

I loved the way the show transitioned from light hearted to intense and adrenaline pumping so effortlessly. That can be said about a lot of shows, but this one went from *haha cute show* to *holy shit, like they’re actually gonna die ohmygod howaretheygoingtosurvivethis* so smoothly I was genuinely surprised. They made one of the main villains actually cool and each character had their own beautifully done arc. I loved and adored how the show solidified and expanded on the different friendships/relationships that were involved—specifically Soul and Maka’s (also, holy shit, Stein’s arc? Fucking prime, dude). There was a lot of growth in each and every friendship (CRONA!!!), and that really pushed the viewer to invest in the individual characters.

I am fucking delighted that this was my first anime, and (though the ending was a little anticlimactic) it remains one of my top favorites to this day. It set the bar pretty fucking high, and for that I am extremely greatful.

No one asked for Soul Eater: Not! It is the unspoken sin of the Soul Eater world (then again, it is called Soul Eater: Not!)

2. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

If you have been following me for a while, then you are no stranger to my love of FMAB. Some of my most popular posts are about this anime, and for good reason.

Unfortunately, I was late to the party. I actually didn’t watch this until last year, but got invested really damn quick. I have a tendency to be extremely picky about the animes that I watch/like (which is why NONE of these shows are that recent), to the point that I will literally research them before I start watching (a bad habit, do not copy me). I have an incomparably hard time finishing a show when I start, because I get bored really quickly, but this was an exception. I started watching and I just... didn’t stop. I spent a straight week watching FMAB, gobbling it up during any small amount free time I could manage, and finished it before I even knew what happened. I wasn’t picky about it, I didn’t research it, I just dove right in and gosh, I was not disappointed.

The subtle romance that was alluded throughout the entire show was super cute, the devotion the brothers had for each other was to die for, and the struggles that each person went through was more than moving. I never once found myself bored while watching, and that’s saying a lot for my adhd ass. I was invested in each and every second of that damn anime and I was never, ever left underwhelmed. That probably had to do with the fact that every. Single. Character. Had a purpose. I’m not even kidding. Every single person contributed to the big fight at the end and that alone is fucking fantastic.

Not to mention ALL the women, every female character, was a badass bitch. None of them were reduced to sex appeal or romantic subplot, they all had real feelings, real arcs and real, unadulterated badassery that I thoroughly admired and appreciated. I could watch this anime over and over again every single month and I wouldn’t get bored. Between the emotional struggle, self discovery, and personal development of each character, I promise you will not see a lack of plot or meaning here. The more you watch, the more you discover and that is not a lie. There are so many layers to its story, which only makes me wish I had watched this sooner.

There is nothing I have to offer in the ways of criticism, and for that I couldn’t be happier. Thank you, Hiromu Arakawa, for such an incredible piece of art. You deserve every bit of love that this manga/anime gets. You go girl.

1. Cowboy Bepop

Holy shit holy shit holy shit this anime is so fucking good and it has been my favorite for so damn long. I have been watching anime for years, and while some of the shows in my list have moved around, this one has yet to be bumped down from the top (and I doubt it ever will). There’s a reason it became such a cult classic.

For starters, the animation. I mean, just look at Spike and the way they animate his fighting (yes I am aware that this gif is from the movie, but that still doesn’t change my point). The sequences in the show/film have been reused in many other shows and for good reason. It’s good, incredible, actually and they make him look so badass with just a few hand movements. I was consistently impressed with the way the fight scenes were portrayed and wasn’t ever left underwhelmed or disappointed (or, for that matter, feeling like they completely over exaggerated/overcompensated the scene with huge close-ups and tons of debris and lights). I loved watching this and my heart was always pounding with every intense interaction. I didn’t feel bored during any of the episodes and always found myself laughing when they cracked a joke—pretty much all of their funny lines hit and that’s saying something, dude.

The show, while having a lighthearted surface, has a heavy meaning that you don’t see at first glance. It’s about dealing with grief and loss, and how the characters themselves accomplished that in different ways. The most prominent quote is the biggest indication of its moral “you’re gonna carry that weight”. Basically: ‘You’ve gotta pick up your baggage, because the world moves on, with or without you’. Or ‘You’re going to carry that weight whether you like it or not, because life keeps going’. When I figured out the show’s actual message, while staring at my ceiling in the long hours of the night, I almost cried. This realization brought something entirely different to the table, a new understanding of the show’s characters and overall essence.

The main characters, all of them, had depth. They had real, palpable depth, and even if you didn’t want to care you found yourself seriously interested in their lives. Each of them had relatively shitty pasts. Faye with her lost memories, Spike with Julia and the people who fucked him over, Jet with his old flame and the ISSP, Ed and her/his father... throughout the entire show we got to see how all of them dealt with these things, whether they wanted to continue on with life or not. The way they portrayed it was engaging, because the characters individual, contrasting journeys weren’t repetitive or one note. The beauty that the show holds so achinging close to its core, the layers of grief that the characters are wrapped in so delicately is almost suffocatingly real—because they’re all different. It’s something you discover when you think on the subject in a deeper light, which is another reason why I enjoy it so much. It has both a surface story and a deeper one. You can either take the show at face value or choose to understand the underlying moral.

This show inspired my very first, thoroughly fleshed out OC, and continues to inspire me to this day. It has contributed to my own personal growth, and has helped push me to continue my art and writing. It is beautifully written, beautifully executed and even though some of the episodes seem like filler, it has never disappointed me. I rewatch it all the time because there’s something so infinitely refreshing about the beauty of this anime, whether it be the way we watch the characters develop or the overall moral it portrays. This show has given us a message that is essentially timeless, it can be ‘carried’ through generation after generation, and still have the same impact—something I absolutely fucking adore.

I owe so much to this anime, including my very own artistic development. I discovered it during a really shitty time in my life and I couldn’t have asked for better timing. I will never tire of the bittersweet message or the thoroughly fucking fantastic animation. Everyone who contributed to this masterpiece deserves love, because it’s seriously fucking gold.

[betterdaysareatoenailaway]

RANDOM REVIEW #2: ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999)

“This game has got to be about more than winning. You’re part of something.”  Any Given Sunday (1999), directed by Oliver Stone and featuring Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz, Al Pacino, LL Cool J, James Woods, and Matthew Modine, is my favourite sports movie of all time. Of all time.

I’m not betraying my favourite sport by saying this. The Mighty Ducks is a kid’s movie. It’s okay, but it’s not a timeless classic. I don’t like the Slap Shot series, Sudden Death is fun but silly, and the Goon movies were a missed opportunity. The only truly good scene in Goon is the diner scene where Liev Schreiber tells Seann William Scott: “Don’t go trying to be a hockey player. You’ll get your heart ripped out.”

  Such is the sad circumstance of the hockey enforcer. They all want to play, not just fight. Here’s a link to a video in which the most feared fighter in the history of the NHL, Bob Probert, explains that he wanted to be “an offensive threat...like Bobby Orr,” not a fighter: https://youtu.be/4sbxejbMH4g?t=118 Heartbreaking. But not unusual.

Donald Brashear, Marty McSorley, Tie Domi, Stu “The Grim Reaper” Grimson, Frazer McLaren: they all had hockey skills. But they were told they had to fight to remain on the roster, so they fought. As Schreiber says in the film: “You know they just want you to bleed, right?”  If the players don’t bleed, they don’t get to stay on the team. So they fight, and they pay dearly for it later. Many former fighters have CTE or other head injuries that make day-to-day life difficult. The makers of Goon should have taken that scene and run with it. I was so disappointed they didn’t, especially given what happened right around the time the film came out, with the tragic suicides of Wade Belak, Derek Boogaard, and Rick Rypien, all enforcers, all dead in a single summer. So Hollywood hasn’t even made a good hockey movie, let alone a great one. Baseball has a shitload of good films, probably because the slower pace of play makes it easier to film. Moneyball has a terrific home run scene, Rookie of the Year does too. Angels in the Outfield was a big favourite of mine when I was a kid, plus all the Major League films, and Bull Durham. 

Football has two good movies: The Program (1993) and Rudy (1993).    

And football has one masterpiece. The one I am writing about today.

A young Oliver Stone trying not to die in Vietnam. ^ Now, I know Stone is laughed at these days, given his nutty conspiracy theories and shitty behaviour and the marked decline in the quality of his films (although 2012’s Savages was underrated). I know Stone is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but do you want a football movie to be subtle? Baseball, sure. It’s a game of fine distinctions, but football? Football is war. And war is about steamrolling the enemy, distinctions be damned, which is why Any Given Sunday is such an amazing sports film. I love the way it shows the dark side of football. In fact, the film is so dark that the NFL withdrew their support and cooperation, forcing Stone to create a fictitious league and team to portray what he wanted to portray.

This is not to say the movie is fresh or original. Quite the opposite. Any Given Sunday has every single sports film cliché you can think of. But precisely because it tries to stuff every single cliché into its runtime, the finished product is not a cliched mess so much as a rich tapestry, a dense cinema verite depiction of the dizzying highs and depressing lows of a professional sports team as it wins, loses, parties, and staggers its way through a difficult season.  Cliché #1: The aging quarterback playing his final year, trying to win one last championship. (Dennis Quaid) 

Sample dialog: Dennis Quaid (lying in a hospital bed severely injured): Don’t give up on me coach. Al Pacino: You’re like a son to me. I’ll never give up on you. ^ I know this sounds awful. But it’s actually fuckin’ great. Cliché #2: The arrogant upstart new player who likes hip hop and won’t respect the old regime. (Jamie Foxx) 

Cliché #3: The walking wounded veteran who could die if he gets hit one more time. Coincidentally, he needs just one more tackle to make his million-dollar bonus for the season. (Lawrence Taylor) 

Cliché #4: The female executive in a man’s world who must assert herself aggressively in order to win the grudging respect of her knuckle-dragging male colleagues (Cameron Diaz). Diaz is fantastic in the role, though she should have had more screen time, given that the main conflict in the film is very much about the new generation, as represented by her and Jamie Foxx, trying to replace the old generation, represented by Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Jim Brown, and Lawrence Taylor. Some people think Diaz’s character is too calculating, but here’s the thing: she’s right. Too many sports GMs shell out millions for the player an individual used to be, not the player he presently is. “I am not resigning a 39-year old QB, no matter how good he was,” she tells Pacino’s coach character, and you know what? She’s right. The Leafs’ David Clarkson signing is proof positive of the perils of signing a player based on past performance, not current capability. Diaz’s character is the living embodiment of the question: do you want to win, or do you want to be loyal? Cuz sometimes you can’t do both.

Cliché #5: The team doctor who won’t sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (Matthew Modine).

Cliché #6: The team doctor who will sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (James Woods) 

Cliché #7: The grizzled, thrice-divorced coach who has sacrificed everything for his football team, to the detriment of his social and familial life, who must give a stirring speech at some point in the film (Al Pacino…who goes out there and gives the all-time greatest sports movie “we must win this game” speech) 

Cliché #8: The assistant or associate coach who takes a parental interest in his players, playing the good cop to the head coach’s bad cop (former NFL star Jim Brown). 

Best quote: “Who wants to be thinking about blitzes and crossblocks when you’re holding your grandkids in your arms? That’s why I wanna coach high school. Kids don’t know nothing. They just wanna play.” 

Cliché #9: The player who can’t stop doing drugs (L.L. Cool J).

Okay, so the first thing that needs to be talked about is Al Pacino’s legendary locker room speech.  Now, it’s the coach’s job to rile up and inspire the players. But eloquence alone won’t do it. If you use certain big words, you lose them (remember Brian Burke being endlessly mocked by the Toronto media for using the word “truculent?”). The coach must deliver the message in a language the players understand, while still making victory sound lofty and aspirational. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. One of my favourite inspirational lines was spoken by “Iron” Mike Keenan to the New York Rangers before Game 7 against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994. “Win tonight, and we’ll walk together forever.” Oooh that’s gorgeous. But Pacino’s speech is right up there with it. 

“You know, when you get old in life…things get taken from you. That’s parta life. But you only learn that when you start losin’ stuff. You find out…life’s this game of inches. So’s football. In either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean…one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it…one half second too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin difference between winnin’ and losin’! Between livin’ and dyin’!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_iKg7nutNY  Somehow, against all odds, Any Given Sunday succeeds. It is the Cinderella run of sports movies. You root for the film as you watch it. The dressing room scenes are incredible…the Black players listen to the newest hip hop while a trio of lunkhead white dudes headbang and scream “Hetfield is God.” There is a shower scene where a linebacker, tired of being teased about the size of his penis, tosses his pet alligator into the showers where it terrorizes his tormentors. There is a scene where a halfback has horrible diarrhea, but he’s hooked up to an IV so the doctor (Matthew Modine) has to follow him into the toilet cubicle, crinkling his nose as the player evacuates his bowels. There is a scene where someone loses an eye (the only scene in the film where Stone’s over-the-top approach misses the mark). There are scenes that discuss concussions (which is why the NFL refused to cooperate for the film), where Lawrence Taylor has to sign a waiver absolving the team of responsibility if he is hurt or paralyzed or killed. I wonder how purists and old school football fans reacted to the news that Oliver Stone was making a football film. If they even knew who he was (not totally unlikely…Stone made a string of jingoistic war movies in the 1980s) they probably thought the heavy hands of Oliver would ruin the film, take the poetry out of every play. But the actual football is filmed perfectly. The camera gets nice and low for the tackles. It flies the arcs of perfect spiral passes. It shows the chaos of a defensive line barreling down the field. When Al Pacino asked quarterback Dan Marino (fresh off his own Hollywood experience acting in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) what it was like to be an NFL QB, Marino said: “Imagine standing on a highway with traffic roaring at you while trying to read Hamlet.” A great explanation. Shoulda made the movie. So the football itself is fabulously done. Much better than what Cameron Crowe did in the few football scenes in Jerry Maguire. The Program had some great football, as did Rudy, but neither come close to the heights of Any Given Sunday. In one of the film’s best scenes, Jamie Foxx insists that his white coaches have routinely placed him in situations where he was doomed to fail or prone to injury, and we believe him because white coaches have been doing that to Black players for decades. Quarterback Doug Williams, who led his Washington Redskins team to a Superbowl victory in 1987, was frequently referred to by even liberal media outlets as a “Black quarterback,” instead of just “quarterback,” as if his skin colour necessitated a qualification. Even now, in 2021, the majority of quarterbacks are white, although the gap is gradually closing. The 2020 season saw the highest number of starting Black quarterbacks, with 10 out of a possible 32.  Quarterback is the most cerebral position on the field, and for a long time there was a racist belief that Black men couldn’t do the job. Foxx’s character is a composite of many of the different Black quarterbacks who came of age in the 1990s, fighting for playing time against white QBs beloved by their fan base, fawned over in hagiographic Sports Illustrated profiles, and protected by the good ol’ boys club of team executives and coaching staff. Foxx’s character isn’t demoted because he can’t play the game. He wins several crucial games for his team en route to the playoffs. He’s demoted because he listens to hip hop in the dressing room, because he recorded a rap song and shot a video for it, and because he’s cocky. Yes, the scene where he asks out Cameron Diaz is sexist, as if her power only comes from her sexuality, not her intelligence and business acumen, but it’s meant to show how overly confident Foxx is, not that he’s a sexist prick. Any Given Sunday isn’t a single issue film. It’s basically an omni-protest piece. It gleefully shows football’s dark side, and there is no director better than Oliver Stone for muck-raking. He’s in full-on investigative journalist mode in Any Given Sunday, showing how and why players play through serious brain injuries. How because they are given opiates, often leading to debilitating addictions (this happens in all contact sports...Colorado Avalanche player Marek Svatos overdosed on heroin a few years after retiring from injuries). As to why, Stone gives two reasons. One, team doctors are paid by the team, not the players, therefore their decisions will benefit the team, not the players. And two, the players themselves are encouraged to underreport injuries and play through them because stats are incentivized. James Woods unethical doctor argues with Modine’s idealistic one because an MRI the latter called for a player to have costs the team $20k. But the player in question, Lawrence Taylor, plays anyway because his contract is stat incentivized and if he makes on more tackle he gets a million dollars. Incentivizing stats leads to players playing hurt. And although I loathe this term, a lazy go-to for film critics, Stone really does give an unflinching account of how this shit happens and why. When Williams is inevitably hurt and lying prone on the field, he woozily warns the paramedics who are placing him on a stretcher to “be careful…I’m worth a million dollars.” It’s tragic, yet you’re happy for him. The film really makes you care about these guys.  Thanks to the smartly written script, the viewer knows that Williams has four kids, and you’re pleased he made his bonus because, in all likelihood, after he retires, his injuries will prevent him from any kind of gainful employment (naturally, they give the TV analyst jobs to retired white players, unless Williams can somehow land the coveted token Black guy gig). Stone is not above fan service, a populist at heart, and he stuffs the film with former and then-current NFL players, a miraculous stunt given the fact that the NFL revoked their cooperation. Personally, I think this was a good thing because it meant Stone didn’t have to compromise (the league wanted editorial say on all issues pertaining to the league…meaning they would have cut the best storyline, which is the playing hurt one). It also meant that they had to rename the team and the league. While I’m sure this took away from the realism for some fans, I’m cool with it. It also allowed the moviemakers to name the team the Sharks, a perfect name for this roving band of predatory capitalist sports executives. In another example of fan service, the call-girl Pacino’s quintessential lonely workaholic character rents a girlfriend experience from is none other than Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls, who had been unfairly blacklisted after the titular Verhoven/Esterhaz venture, a movie my wife showed me one day while I was dopesick, which I became so transfixed and mesmerized by that I forgot I was. As mentioned above, the only misstep in the film is one of the offshoots of the Playing Hurt arc, where a player loses an eye on the field. Not because he gets poked, but because he gets hit so hard his eye simply falls out. A medic runs onto the field and puts the white globe on ice. Stone cast a player with a glass eye in order to achieve this effect. No CGI! Still, the scene is unconvincing, a tad too over-the-top. But this is Oliver Stone. At least Any Given Sunday’s sole over-the-top moment is a throwaway scene lasting all of thirty seconds. It easily could have been a secondary plot-line in which government officials try to sneak a Cuban football prodigy out of Castro’s communist stronghold but the player is brutally murdered the morning the officials arrive at his apartment to escort him to the private plane. Or else the team GM is revealed to be a massive international cocaine dealer. Or the tight end is one half of a serial killer couple. The film follows its own advice, focusing more on the players growth, particularly Beamon’s (Foxx). The anonymity of the title, Any Given Sunday, elevates the game, not the players. Thank God, the movie doesn’t force Beamon to assimilate into Pacino’s mold. He buys into the team-first philosophy without renouncing his idiosyncratic POV or his fierce individuality. This is a triumph. One of my biggest problems with sports is the flattening effect it can have on creative individuals. Players take media training in order to sound as alike as possible during media interviews, a long row of stoic giants spouting cliches. It’s boring. Which is why media latch onto a loudmouth, even while they scold him for it. All sports are dying for an intelligent mouthpiece who can explain his motivations in a succinct, sound-bite-friendly, manner. Sports are entertainment. As much as I love Sidney Crosby, in my heart I have to go with Alexander Ovechkin because Ovechkin is far more thrilling, both on and off the ice. Unlike almost every other NHL star before him, all of whom were forced to kneel and kiss Don Cherry’s Rock Em Sock Em ring, Ovechkin defiantly told the media he simply did not care about Cherry or Cherry’s disgusting parental reaction to one of Ovie’s more creative goal celebrations (called a “celly” in the biz). On the play in question, Ovechkin scored the goal, then dropped his stick and mimed warming his hands over it, as if his stick were on fire. As cheesy as the celebration appeared to the naked eye, it’s both a funny and accurate notion. Ovechkin was the hottest scorer in the league for many years and his stick was on fire, metaphorically speaking. The only celly I can think of that matches up in terms of creativity and entertainment value came from Teemu Selanne in 1993, who scored a beauty of a goal, threw one of his gloves straight up into the air, then pumped his stick like a shotgun while “shooting” his glove. Of course, Cherry took exception to it. Cherry’s favourite goal celebration features Bobby Orr putting his head down and refraining from raising his hands over his head. Cherry’s idea of an appropriate goal celly is no celly at all. This from a man who claims “we’ve got to sell our game.” But when an arrogant player shows up and he’s not white, he’s in for a shitload of bad press. Foxx’s Beamon illustrates this beautifully when he yells at Pacino after Pacino cuts him for an older QB who has lost four games this season. “Don’t play that racism card with me,” Pacino warns. “Okay…okay…” Foxx nods, “Maybe it’s not racism. Maybe it’s ‘placism’…as in…a brother got to know his place.”

Here is the original theatrical trailer, featuring Garbage’s classic “Push It.”

Above Lawrence Taylor begs Matthew Modine for Cortazone.  There’s also a great scene where Pacino is trying to figure out where he has gone wrong and Diaz just looks at him. “You got old,” she says simply. No enterprise is more cruel to an aging human being than sports. And this movie makes football a big giant corporate machine that chews players up and spits them out, injured and drug addicted, after four or five years. Those who play for a decade are lucky. This is still how the NFL works. And the NHL is increasingly becoming a young man’s game. Experience matters less and less.

When I started watching hockey in the 90s, players regularly competed into their late 30s. Not so anymore. Players peak at 23-24 now, and are often out of the league by age 35. Thornton and Chelois are exceptions, not the rule. After more than two hours, Any Given Sunday finally lurches across the finish line, bravely refusing to give its viewers a traditional happy ending, in the great tradition of underdog sports films like Rocky and Rudy. The bombshell dropped by Pacino’s character at the end feels less surprising than inevitable, but by now the movie has explored so much of professional sports' seedy underbelly that you're glad it's over. The film is great but exhausting. Stone seems to be advancing the notion that the sport itself is pure, but the people in it are corrupt. If money weren’t involved, the game would be played for its own sake.

I agree with this. People playing pond hockey are engaging in wholesome fun, not necessarily practicing to make a professional league. Commerce corrupts the purity of the game, and the extent to which it corrupts is directly proportional to how badly the individual in question needs the commerce. Of course, the sport is highly racialized, with people in positions of authority white, and those being told what to do with their bodies Black.

Any Given Sunday is an important film, but it never sacrifices entertainment for the sake of moralizing. That it pulls off such a strong moralistic stance is a testament to the actors, who are all incredible, and the material, which is among the strongest of Stone’s career.

He never really made a great movie after this one. So check it out sometime.

[ur-mom-kayn]

Loyalty Chapter 3: Revelation

Kayn Pov

When Kayn woke up, he felt the same way he did two years ago. His whole body was fucked up. However, he found himself again in a soft and comfortable bed. But not being. Looking closely, he recognized the room in which he was. It was clearly Master Zed's room. But what was he doing here? As far as he could, the young acolyte turned his head to the right, where Zed's desk was. Just as he already thought, a man sat with his back turned to him in a chair. Seemed like he was writing something. The light in the room was very dimmed so Kayn could venture to guess. Nevertheless, he could swear that the man wore short, white hair. Was that really his master? Without a mask?

As he continued to turn to him, a violent pain ran through his whole body. "Nghh!" He said unintentionally. "Kayn? Are you awake?" The boy had no doubt. The voice usually sounded rougher and more echoing through the mask, but it was definitely Zed. "Master, why am I in your room?" Kayn could feel the bandages all over again. Was he his savior? So he hoped.

Zed got up from his chair and started to turn to Kayn. He quickly turned his head away and closed his eyes. Somehow he did not feel right to face his Master. "Kayn, why are you turning away?" He could feel his Master approaching him and sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You do not have a mask on." Kayn could hear a slight snort from his master. "If that's your only problem, I'm glad." "Sorry Master, but I do not deserve it."

"No Kayn. I'm the one who did not deserve you." For a moment he had to swallow hard. He understood nothing. Where the sudden change of mood. What did his Master want to do? "I do not understand ..." "Then let me explain it to you,  Kayn. I ordered the torture. I wanted to test your loyalty. And frankly, I have never felt so shitty. Such a good student like you does not deserve a master like me. "

"M-master?" Kayn's voice trembled. It was a shock. He would never have thought that the man he so trusted could do such a terrible thing to him. Everything just a test? "How? H-how did I give you a reason to distrust me? I have always been loyal to you. I have always executed every command. So please tell me the reason." Kayn had to really pull himself together. He did not want to show weakness. Neither sad nor angry. He could not explain it to himself, but he still trusted him.

"It was not something you did wrong, it was me. You are very similar to me. That's all. " "That's all? That's one reason to torture your beloved student?!" For a moment Kayn could not control himself. In all honor, but does his master still have all the cups in the cupboard? "Well, that's not all. I'll tell you. A few years ago, I killed my master so I could steal the chest. I was worried that you would do the same. That's why the whole shit. I'm sorry Kayn. I have failed. I just wanted to let you know that you have my fullest confidence now. "

"And what if I'm craving revenge now?" "You do not. I understood that now too. Please forgive me Kayn." Master Zed was right. He was not angry or resentful. Not to him. Even if he wanted to, his hatred stopped at Zed. He adored him too much. And somehow he could understand him. Kayn was the evil in person. So why should not he deceive his master? Very easily. Because he loved him. Since the first day. Zed had something that fascinated him. No matter what it was, he would always be faithful to him.

"Kayn? Could you please say something again?" The boy only realized after he had regained his voice that he was quite absorbed in thought. "If you still trust me and want to stay true to me, then please look me in the face." Suddenly Kayn's heart beat a few bars higher. He could not believe it. His Master asked him to face him? He really insisted? For a moment the boy quarreled with himself. For one, he was afraid of what to expect, but for another, his master considered it as a vote of confidence.

Somewhat pained, he turned back to the other side and opened his eyes. He had to blink a few times until he got a sharp picture. On the bedside table some candles were lit, so he had good visibility. His gaze shifted from Zed's thigh to his upper body and a little further into his face. As he had guessed, his master wore short, snow-white hair. He had an amazingly beautiful face. Something scarred, but that did not break his leg. The most visible was one vertical on the lip and left eye and one horizontal on the bridge of the nose.

But that was not the most noticeable thing about his face. Kayn just could not resist a grin. "What is it?", His master asked almost annoyed. "Oh, nothing. You look just fucking young." "Really? What better do you not think? You're really killing me, boy." My boy. That almost sounded wrong without a mask. "Well, as a dad I can not look at you anymore. All at most as a big brother. How old are you?" "I'm just 22 years old. The Order exists not that long. What did you expect? "

So 22 was already fucking young. Amazing that he was so strong. Somehow, Kayn was even more impressed with his master than before. "So with the mask, I thought about the mid 30th. Without, I could even give you the 19 years. But seriously, Master, who were the two of them and why did they even enjoy it?" Zed's gaze became more serious again and he jammed aside. It was the first time he could really see his feelings. And it killed Kayn. He did not want to see that sadness in his fire-red eyes.

"Hm ... the pigs really enjoyed it? I'll have a serious talk with them. So I told them that you knew the hiding place and they should get it out of you. They really have no idea. This made it very close to a real scenario. However, I have forbidden them to rape or mutilate you. That would go too far. Therefore only punches and light cuts. I know, not exactly encouraging or even a justification. I'm so sorry. I should have really trusted you. I wish I could turn back time. "

As good as he could, Kayn tried to sit up so he could hug his Master. It hurt like hell, but he did not care. Zed just should not be too worried about guilt. "All right, master. Let's just take it as a ritual of reception and hook it all together, okay?" Zed returned his hug and stroked his tied hair. At last a nurse checked that it was impossible to sleep node-free for a certain length of hair.

Kayn enjoyed this closeness to his master. Then he noticed for the first time how incredibly good his counterpart smelled. He almost did not want to let him go. This moment between them could last forever. "Kayn, why are you so good to me? How did I earn it?" "Quite simply. You gave me a home. A reason to live. And above all, strength. I do not need more. Until recently, you've always treated me well. I always get a hot meal and enough to drink. I have enough friends here and I'm generally very happy. And most importantly, although I'm one of your best men, you've never sent me to war or on a mission. You renounce my talent. That is really impressive."

At the last set, Zed had to laugh diabolically. As he always did when he cracked a joke in his eyes again. Unfortunately, Kayn said it dead serious. He really counted himself among the best. However, it did not bother him when Zed made fun of him again. The main thing he was not sad anymore. Well, the man behind the iron mask was just a human with feelings. Maybe that's why he was hiding. Or he felt too beautiful for this world. Kayn's thoughts darted in the wrong direction again.

After Zed calmed down, he broke away from the embrace and helped Kayn lie down again. He covered him up again and got up. "Hey master. If I rest here in your bed, where do you sleep then?" That was a most legitimate question. "Oh, we can find a solution. The bed is big enough for 3 people. Let's just tweak two." "How? You and me on a bed? Would not it be better if you carried me into my room?" "No." Zed's voice sounded very serious. As if he had said something wrong. "I want to take care of you personally. No other acolyte, only me. I owe you a lot and I hope you accept my services as a nurse. "

A dream came true for the boy. His master really wanted to take care of him personally. Did that also mean that he had doctored him and ... "Master? Did you braid my hair?" Even in the faint light, Kayn could see that his master was blushing a bit. "I realized that it's not that easy. Sry, if it's crap." Kayn felt his way along the pigtail, realizing it was not a masterpiece. In the end, no matter. Alone the thought counted. The young Akolyth hoped for this event, a future friendship between master and student. Although they were still far away, Kayn was only 12, but maybe when he turns 18.

Even though his master was currently losing his role, he did not lose his authority over the boy. He liked the nice Zed anyway, rather than the strict teacher who constantly ignored him. He enjoyed the attention. Since the few scratches and stains did not matter. As long as Zed would not treat him shitty again as soon as he gets well again, the torture was forgiven and forgotten.

Zed Pov

One hour later, his young pupil finally fell asleep. Zed did some cautioning paperwork before closing time. Unfortunately, he did not do much, because his mind was on Kayn. He was deeply impressed by him. After all the shit he still held to him. Somehow he had hoped that the boy would chat. But no. The idiot did not tell the lie any further. As a precaution, Zed had put a dummy under his bed, but even he did not try to steal it. The only way to test his loyalty was by trying to squeeze the secret out of him. A fatal mistake, since Kayn is silent like a stone. Respectively his attacker provoked and insulted.

Actually, it was not planned for Kayn to escape. He wanted to inform him about the situation the same evening. But he was not there. Instead, he found a broken chair and a fresh trail of blood. Not far from the track, he found Kayn fainting on the floor. Immediately he took him on the quickest way to his room and looked after him as best he could. He did not want anyone to hear about this scenario. That's why Kayn had to stay in his room. Zed was not a doctor, but luckily Shen had taught him first aid. That fool insisted that he could at least get the basics.

Fortunately, he was able to retrieve this repressed knowledge. Kayn actually deserved real medical help, but as he said, no one should get wind of torture. He explained to the two idiots who took the job that everything was just fake. Kayn was innocent. His knowledge was falsified anyway. When the two learned the truth, they got a pang of conscience. Zed begged them to shut up and best keep away from Kayn. Should he recognize their voices, there could be serious consequences. The two would not stand a chance against Kayn even in a handicap match. And knowing his devilish side, Zed believed he would punish them with death. But maybe he was wrong again in Kayn. He really had to stop comparing him to himself. After all, he was far more funnier than Zed. The reasons he was loyal are a joke to Zed. The boy had really low expectations. In addition, he was allowed to take Kayn anyway only with 16 years according to ionic law. But of course, he should calmly believe that he renounces his talent out of love and care.

Zed put down his pen and went to his dresser. He quickly dressed in more comfortable clothes and went to bed to Kayn. The boy was so sweet moved slightly to the side so that he was no longer in the middle. Amazingly,  for Zed, it was not an overcoming to show him his face. He was ashamed of his scars. It was a sign of weakness to him, but the boy could only look for one thing, his age. He would never have expected his reaction like that. Kayn seemed happy and relieved. According to the motto: My master is not an ugly old man.

That he deleted him from the father list was okay for Zed. Then he was his big brother now. With 10 years difference much more realistic. Nevertheless, Zed could not help but behave like a guardian. Even if he was obedient, he still needed a lot of education. But all with his time. In the next few days, he can still be his cool brother. With this intent, Zed cuddled up behind him and took his arms before falling asleep.

[vitasexvalis]

It tasted like... + Chuuya x dazai

Send In “It tasted like...” + A Ship For a description of our muse’s fanfiction kiss

Mint, Thunder, and Ambition I’m gonna commit sudoku for this--

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, gather around, for it is time for another Mori Ougai bad fujoshi fanfiction.. Tonight’s subject?? Soukoku. 

Mori taps his pen on the paper, rubbing his chin in thought. “It needs to be rough.. Passionate..” He murmurs to himself, before beginning to write.

‘Another job gone wrong, because of this asshole. Chuuya was beginning to find being partnered with someone like Dazai to be unbearable, and yet.. There was something about this man that he couldn’t quite look away from. Was it that smug demeanor he always kept wearing? No, too obvious.. Was it that oddly mysterious luster within those dull brown orbs of his? Not sure. One thing was for sure, that whatever it was, it had Nakahara hooked. 

“Oi, Mackerel.” Chuuya demanded, staring up towards the much taller Executive, his eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Get your ass down here.” Whether or not this was a joke was left up for audience speculation, but Dazai seemed intrigued, leaning down with a small smirk curving his lips.

“What do you need, Chuu~y-” His sentence was cut off by the smaller executive aggressively mashing their lips together, attempting to achieve some form of ecstasy. The taste of Dazai’s lips alone were enough to send the redhead into a whirl of emotions. The taste was only something he could describe as mint, crackling thunder, and a hint of heated ambition.

Once their lips parted, Chuuya glares towards Dazai, snorting faintly. “Don’t you ever let anyone know about this, you got it, asshole?” He speaks out in an almost aggressive tone of voice. If anyone knew about this forbidden love, Chuuya’s career in the Port Mafia would be totaled.. Or would it??

A smile curves Dazai’s lips, before he looks up to the sky. “Don’t worry, Chuuya. Nobody will ever know.” ... Except Mori Ougai, Chuuya’s current, and Dazai’s former boss.’

Stacking the papers neatly, Mori was more than content with his deliberately shitty excuse for fanfiction. “I believe I have devised the fanfiction to end all fanfictions..” He would then calmly offer the single sheet to whatever poor sap played secretary for him this time. “Submit this to that one fanfiction site everyone reads at. This is a masterpiece nobody should pass up..” Of course, he wanted to laugh, but instead, he kept a straight face, before staring ahead, just waiting for two specific men to stop him...

@gravityruled, @demonprodigydazai

[ntslttrspxls]

Games I finished in 2016

(not necessarily from that year) Sooo, I’m a bit late when it comes to my personal gaming retrospective of 2016. BUT here goes. It has been a successful year when it comes to gaming for me. I completed a few titles that have been really fun, long overdue or just surprisingly surprising because I hadn’t heard of them ever before. I completed 16 games, which not necessarily came out in 2016 but were still on my list. So here’s what I played last year and below you’ll find detailed opinions on them. 

1.  Transformers Devastation (PS3)

First game I finished in 2016 ‘cause I got it for Christmas in 2015. First things first: I love Platinum Games, although I don’t love all their games alike. But the company itself I appreciate a lot, especially for the Bayonetta series. And they made a Transformers game that looks like the old 80s cartoon and not the dark, modern Michael Bay crap the Transformers have become these days? ‘Awesome’, I thought and I wasn’t disappointed. Yes, the level design is very repetitive and has a lot of, well not back tracking but let’s say they recycle the setting a lot: there’s a city, one part is active for one mission, then you proceed to a different part for another mission and eventually come back to the first part for the third mission. Not exactly refreshing but you still get to shoot or punch Decepticons in the face with Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Grimlock, Sideswipe or Wheeljack. Plus later in the game the settings vary a little more. The gameplay is classical Platinum games style: run around, beat shit up, collect stuff mainly to get stronger, proceed, repeat. Exactly what a proper Transformers videogame needs. It has the typical Bayonetta-style “witch time” effect where you evade an attack at the right moment just to enter a slow-motion mode for a few seconds where your enemies are slow and you keep on banging. All is well. It looks totally like the TV series which kiddo-me loved to death, the soundtrack is a mixture of badass metal, dubstep (ugh, I used the word) and neo-/modern metal. RAD! So: nothing to complain here. Sure, it could be more diverse and stuff, but it gave me exactly what I wanted and expected from the game. I had a hell of a time with this one. And you could even get more out of it because there is a looting and crafting concept where enemies drop parts and weapons which you then can combine into more powerful or more diverse weapons (take a strong machine gun and combine it with an ice-effect machine gun and you get a strong ice-effect MG; you get the point). It’s fun to experiment with different weapons and combine so many until you find the perfect weapon for every Autobot. So if you’re a fan of the 80s cartoon series: pick it up! Now! It’s become dirt cheap pretty quickly. No excuses. (picture credit: Steam)

2.  Yoshi’s Woolly World (WiiU)

Got this as a present, too. For my birthday in 2015 by my good friend and gaming buddy Christian.  Not much to say here, either. It’s a Nintendo game. So naturally it looks gorgeous, the gameplay will work just fine and it will be a lot of fun. To be precise: yes, it did exactly this. But in a really great way. The graphics are extremely unique and innovative. The wool&yarn setting provides so many new takes on level design, art direction and gameplay ideas that the Nintendo team could just go nuts with it. With Yoshis tongue as a tool you can for example untie parts of the level to “unravel” (sic!) hidden passages it’s just adorable how you go “Aaahh”, each time you find something. Everything looks like good ol’ grandma knitted it herself with all the love she can put into a woolly stuffed animal or pillow. Everything looks organic and handmade which sets the game into a very graspable and physical world. Plus, typical for Nintendo: it’s not only for kids. Sure, it’s cute and all but the levels are actually pretty challenging. Especially if you want to collect all the thingamabobs and collectibles you can get in each level: collect five balls of yarn in each level to unlock a new colored Yoshi you can pick to play with. So the completionist really gets something out of this. Long story short: it’s a wonderful title and not just another Nintendo game but really creative, especially in game design and level design.  (picture credit: Amazon)

3. Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture (PS4)

I heard about it shortly before I got a PS4 and I simply don’t play games on my PC or Mac that often. So I bought it right away because the idea and art style stoked me. The art style is not very, unique, since it’s basically pretty realistic. But the town they created is selling it. It’s authentic. You can visit the houses, they look as if people lived here a short time ago. Which is what actually happened.  It’s one of the slightly patronizingly named “Walking Simulators”. I don’t think that this genre specification is derogatory because it just says what it is: you walk around a setting and explore things without too much interaction. In the end the voice acting and the mystical story behind the game took me by the hand and led me through the experience and left me thinking. I love it when games make me think about what I’ve just witnessed. So here’s to a great Walking Simulator with wonderful sound, story and voice acting.  (picture credit: Polygon)

4. Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of The Moon (Wii)

This was recommended to me by a friend who told me that I’d love it because he knew my preferences in videogames, which he does. Farewell Ruins of the Moon is some kind of, well, it feels like a survival horror adventure at the beginning of the survival horror genre. Think early PS2 or Dreamcast era. The battle mechanics are dusty and wodden, the item management is tedious and a little annoying, the graphics are one step behind what was standard on the Wii. But still I grew to enjoy the game because of the beautiful setting, characters and story. Your main character is kind of left in a world where there’s not much left at all. He has to find out what happened and if there are others left, too. You find a girl which then runs away. From then on you try to find her. And after accepting that it’s like playing a good PS2 game instead of a polished Wii game I started loving everything about it (apart from the things I just criticised). I played it with original japanese voice and subtitles which made me enjoy the game a helluva lot more. I love japanese culture and it made the game better! Now it felt like an early take on what later became NIER, which I totally adore. The battle system is not really similar, but in a small scope I guess does have comparisons. But setting and look feel a little bit like Caviars masterpiece on Xbox360 and PS3 NIER. Over the course of the game you meet different characters and their respective background stories, which is really similar to NIER.  All in all I recommend this game to anyone who can overlook the obvious flaws and who still enjoys PS2-era action-adventure games in an anime setting with a great story. (picture credit: Romulation.net)

5.  Until Dawn (PS4)

Well, this is interesting. I heard a (german) podcast (Insert Moin) about Until Dawn before I owned a PS4 and heard them speak about this horror game with stereotype story, stereotype characters and overall very flat features. But they still said that the looks and the execution of these uninspired basic ideas totally hooked them. So I tried it and MAN was this a good horror game. And not only because they hired so many good actors to play the parts of the characters (like Rami Malek from Mr. Robot) but because the horror just kept up with the pace of the game. Each time I thought, “All right, brace yourself for the next expectable jump-scare” - it didn’t happen. The setting was just about right, the sound, the camera angle, the tension and then… nothing. “Whoops, okay. Maybe lat— BOOM”, and there it was. Shocked me to the core. Every_flippin’_time! I love myself a good horror game. But I’ve played so many that most of the “scary effects” just don’t touch me anymore. So here’s Until Dawn which actually has an intriguing storyline that makes you want to find out what’s behind all of it, with it’s stereotypical characters who actually react pretty well to each other depending on how you decide to play each and everyone of them. It’s a little like Heavy Rain with more characters that you can all play and a more horror setting (and with less shitty controls and a less shitty ending). Any horror game or -movie fan should play this! (picture credit: Until Dawn Wikia) 6.  Uncharted 4 (PS4)

Well, it’s Uncharted. It’s like Indiana Jones but without Nazis and, well, that’s about it. I loved Uncharted 2, didn’t care for part 1 too much and haven’t played 3 because everybody said it’s boring and focused too much on the failed 3D-TV feature. But part 4 really got me again. I think it’s the best Uncharted after 2, as far as I can compare them all. Pirates, wonderful graphics, good ol’friends and foes, nice acting… A very good game.  (picture credit: Playstation.com)

7.  ABZÛ (PC)

I already posted something about this game right after I played it. Short: It’s JOURNEY underwater. But it’s not just that. It’s very beautiful, a lot of fun to just swim around and for every diving-fan a must play. The more you play it the more gorgeous it gets. Wonderful game.  A story told without words. Always totally gets me. Plus like its spiritual predecessor Journey the soundtrack was written by the amazing Austin Wintory (link in the next bit). (picture credit: abzugame.com) 8.  Journey (PS4)

There’s not much to say about JOURNEY these days. Anyone who hasn’t played it yet misses out on one of the best and most artistic approaches to videogames in the entire history of the medium. It is the first video game that was ever nominated for a Grammy for its marvellous soundtrack by amazing composer Austin Wintory (it didn’t win, but it was nominated!). It has one of the best online-multiplayer experiences ever where you meet other players along the way through the game who are in the same level as you and you then simply meet. Since there is no teamspeak, nor can you see the gamertag of that person, you have to communicate (if you want to approach the other player) through jumping, making a noise and walking and waiting if the other player follows you. Play it. Please play Journey. I finished it about 4 times now since release and in 2016 for the first time on PS4. It’s always a unique experience.  Here the story is also told without any words, spoken or written. Absolutely my joint. (picture credit: thatgamecompany.com) 

9.  Love You To Bits (iOS) 

This little 2D-puzzle adventure on iOS comes from a few artists behind Tiny Thief (which is very visible, but not in a negative way). You are are guy who’s in love with a robot girl. She gets destroyed and you have to search the whole universe to collect her bits and reassemble her. It’s incredibly detailed and shows a great deal of thought they put into the level design, little anecdotes and reminiscenses to other games. For example in one level there you go to an arcade and have to collect tokens from the arcade machines in order to exchange them for a prize that you need. These arcade machines are all teeny tiny games on their own. One Zelda-style, one Metroid-style and one other classic I just forgot about (I think it wasn’t Mario but something similar). Also it has the classic point-and-click humor to it that you want to click on a person or an item more than once because it’s just funny to watch what happens each time. There’s not only one single reaction. Each level has so many different layers of obvious beauty, deeper design of the puzzles and incredible re-defining ideas of how the level design and game design can be altered in order to keep up the playing experience. Very well done and it has a lot of levels that kept me playing for a long long time for a mobile game. Plus there are some collectibles that are actually fun to discover because they mostly are incorporated in little extra puzzles that you don’t have to solve to complete the level but if you like the challenge it’s great.  Again: story without words. I LOVE it to bits.  (picture credit: loveyoutobits.com)

10.  The Bug Butcher (PS4)

Buddies of a buddie of mine made this Super Putty-like game. It kinda looks like some sort of Super Meat Boy in space with the Super Putty game mechanics. It’s good, short fun with very well animated enemies, a good weapons and upgrades system and a nice fast paced gameplay. Definitely a recommendation for all of you old school gamers out there.  There’s really not much more to say about it. You play some sort of pest-control bug smasher and have to rid a lab from alien bugs and other creatures. Level by level you eliminate waves of bugs, trying to keep up your combo and collecting nice temporary weapon updates. It’s good fun and also a great co-op title, I suppose (haven’t played in two player mode yet). (picture credit: awfullynicestudios.com) 11.  Shovel Knight (WiiU) 

Wuahahaha, Shovel Knight is SO MUCH of everything I loved about the NES. It’s Mega Man, Castlevania, Metroid, Contra, Faxanadu and Zelda II in ONE GAME COMBINED. I love it a lot. The gameplay surely is inspired by all the aforementioned games but Yacht Games made it clear that they simply took everything they loved about these kinds of games and forged something beautiful out of it instead of just copying the good. It’s highly detailed in art style, music, game design and feel of the game that I couldn’t leave my hands off of it until I finished it. Some levels were actually too challenging so I left them out (well, the optional ones, naturally; otherwise I couldn’t have finished it) but overall it’s never too frustrating. Like in Super Meat Boy (my go-to example of perfect game design) Shovel Knight lets you know where you went wrong when you die and gives you a chance to make things right in collecting the loot that you lost dying. All in all it’s a great game for all the NES-lovers out there. Play it! No matter the system (Wii, Vita, PS4, 3DS) - it’s awesome! Oh, and check out the soundtrack by Jake Kaufman who also did some wonderful soundtracks for my beloved Shantae series, Double Dragon Neon and Mighty Switch Force. Get it here on Bandcamp for name-your-price (and please pay a buck or two for it; it’s totally worth it). (picture credit: yachtclubgames.com)

12. Pony Island

Yeah… one of the weirdest and still most intriguing games I’ve ever played, I’d say. It makes you think that the game actually f*cks with your computer. It’s fascinating how for example it tricks you into thinking that your computer does something regularly only for you to realize that it was a decoy. Overall the coding sequences, the weird jump’n’run passages and the general “genre”… it’s one of a kind. I also wrote a seperate review on this one. For that check this older post.  (picture credit: giga.de) 13.  The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PS4) 

Yet another “walking simulator”, but with a twist. We have some strange meta-puzzles going on here, some David Lynchian shenanigans going on and overall a sad but interesting story to unravel. You’re a detective or PI of some sort who tries to find out what happened with Ethan Carter. The story is told via ghostly visualizations of past events of the former townspeople. Setting/graphics is good and the whole game is always good for a surprise. Check it out.  (picture credit: theastronauts.com)

14.  Adventure Time: Finn&Jake Investigations (PS4)

“Who wants to play videogames?” I love Adventure Time and this game feels basically like playing Adventure Time. It’s an adventure (duh!) and this genre suits the TV show very well. The dialogues are funny, the voices are real (except, I’m not sure and too lazy to google but Lumpy Space Princess didn’t sound quite right; she might have been voiced by someone else) and the graphics are beautifully detailed. Just as in the show. And you have Marceline, Ice King, Tree Trunks, Finn and Jake of course, Beamo, LSP, Cinnamon Butler, Starchy, Bubblegum Princess, Flame Princess… everyone you love. The puzzles are rather simple and overall it’s a game for kids, I’d say. Still I had a lot of fun with it.  (picture credit: Steam)

15. Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (3DS)

Now here’s my discovery of the year! I actually downloaded the Game Boy Color game on my 3DS before after a buddy of mine recommended it to me. But I haven’t spent much time with it. Then Humble released a 3DS bundle, so I got Shantae and The Pirate’s Curse, too. And this is one of the best (even if it’s not the deepests but still good) Metroidvania games I have played in a long long time. The setting is utterly fresh and unique with Shantae being a half-genie who protects an island from pirates and such. The graphics are like a mixture of anime and Disney and the characters are adorable, even the bad ones. The level design is beautiful and very diverse. There’s Metroidvania-typical back tracking which is still fun because of the great level design and art style: you can remember where there was that one particular item you could only get if you are able to jump higher, if you know what I mean. The boss fights are great, the items are good, the only thing I would have wished for is more character development as in Super Metroid or Symphony of the Night. There are some permanent improvements of Shantae but some of them I didn’t use that much. But I guess that’s true also for Metroid and Castlevania.  I fell in love with the franchise, bought XSEEDs boxed version of the new “1/2 Genie Hero” for PS4 (finally HD sprites) and the older versions from Limited Run Games. I’m happy that Shantae is in my life now. :) Awesome Soundtrack by Jake Kaufman again. (picture credit: Playstation Store)

  16.  Dragon’s Crown (PS3)

And finally I completed Dragon’s Crown. I simply adore Vanilla Ware’s art style. It’s perfect. It’s manga style with a traditional japanese AND a traditional medieval touch. It’s so unique. Although the overly lascivious looks of some female characters in the game stirred up quite the discussion. I myself think that it’s beautiful and not sexist. The women characters are just as overly exaggerated as the male ones and just so they are equally strong. But it’s not just the looks of Vanilla Ware. They make astonishing games, too. The gameplay of Dragon’s Crown is basically a simple side scroll hack’n’slash like Castle Crashers or Golden Axe. There’s much more character development though, like in Diablo. With the use of Runes you can use magic, you grind for nice weapon drops and stats increase and you constantly mix up your party with the revived warriors whose bones you brought back from your battles. The story is told well without cinematics but with great slightly animated still pictures of the characters, each of which you could print and hang on your wall easily. So well made. Plus after one complete run (it took me 18 hours) there’s the new game + with new tasks, side quests, harder enemies and basically the same levels in more difficult if you want to get the most out of the game. I highly recommend this to any fan of the aforementioned games or any real time RPGs. 

(picture credit: dealspwn.com)

 P.S.: all pictures I took from teh internets. I credited each page where I got the pics from. If any owner of these pictures wants me to take them down, just let me know and I’ll follow accordingly. 

[caveartfair]

What Makes “Bad” Art Good

Anonymous, Charlie and Sheba. Courtesy of the Museum Of Bad Art.  

Occasionally, bad art is easy to spot. Take the famously botched restoration of Elías García Martínez’s Ecco Homo, which transformed the work into the “Beast Jesus,” or a Ronaldo bust that is decidedly less handsome than its source material. Oftentimes, however, the designation is not so obvious.

Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Manet’s Olympia were both reviled upon first viewing. (One contemporary critic wrote that the latter resembled nothing so much as “a skeleton dressed in a tight-fitting tunic of plaster.”) These opinions have since been heavily revised, and today both works are considered modern masterpieces—as “good” as art can get.

Understandably, then, the genre of “bad painting” is a slippery one. Rather than a cohesive movement, the label has been applied to a wide-ranging group of artists throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. What they share, wrote curator Eva Badura-Triska in an essay for the 2008 show “Bad Painting: Good Art” at the Museum of Modern Art in Vienna, is a refusal “to submit to artistic canons.”

She goes on to qualify this as a willingness to “oppose not only traditional academic concepts and rules, but also—and this is crucial here—the concepts and rules established by the avant-gardes and isms of the twentieth century, which ultimately threw old dogmas overboard only to replace them with new ones.”

Première recontre [First Meeting], 1925. Francis Picabia Moderna Musee, Stockholm

Le Stropiat, 1948. René Magritte "René Magritte: La trahison des images" at Centre Pompidou, 2016

French artist Francis Picabia, for example, could never adhere to one art movement for long. He ping-ponged between Impressionism, Surrealism, and Dadaism, before finally eschewing the art world establishment altogether in the 1920s. It was then, beginning with his “Monster” series, that his painting veered into the realm of the intentionally “bad.”

These bizarre, hallucinogenic works are painted with clumsy brushstrokes and garish colors that belie the artist’s true skill. Decades later, during the start of World War II, Picabia turned to female nudes, sourcing material from movie posters and soft-core porn. Gauche and distasteful, several of these paintings actually ended up in North African brothels serving Nazis and Italian Fascists during the occupation.

These phases of Picabia’s work can be seen as a precursor to later artists who dabbled in bad painting, including René Magritte and his 1948 période vache. Although the Belgian painter’s best-known works were always unbelievable—men in bowler hats hovering in the air, a daytime sky paired with a street at dusk—they were also crisp and illustrative. His roughly 37 période vache works, on the other hand, were looser and more spontaneous, in the manner of comics or caricature.

As the focus of Magritte’s first Paris solo show, the paintings were meant to offend the Surrealist establishment. (They had the secondary effect of offending buyers; the exhibition was a commercial flop.)

City Limits, 1969. Philip Guston Brooklyn Museum

Decades later, Philip Guston began making work as a reaction against another dominant art movement—Abstract Expressionism. He himself had been a first-generation AbEx painter until the late 1960s, when abstraction began to seem too removed from the tumultuous global political climate. So Guston returned to figuration, populating his paintings with cartoonish hoods reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as bulbous, disembodied heads and tangled clumps of legs.

He first exhibited these works in 1970 at Marlborough Gallery, to the shock and dismay of the art world. Hilton Kramer of the New York Times called him “a mandarin pretending to be a stumblebum.”

As Guston began work on these new paintings, across the Atlantic, American artist Neil Jenney was beginning to feel similarly disillusioned with the Photorealist movement. Speaking over the phone, Jenney said that during a 1968 trip to Germany, “the whole scene was suddenly infected by it. And Photorealism was basically second generation pop. Pick an image of America, like a storefront or a pickup truck, and do it over and over again. It was a stale idea done pretty.”

Instead, Jenney thought, “you’d be better if you had a good idea and did it terrible.” So that’s what he did, beginning a series that would later become known as his “bad paintings.”

Dog and Boy, . Neil Jenney Tobias Mueller Modern Art

These works were quite literal, exploring what Jenney called the “narrative potential of imagery” with cause-and-effect titles like Sawn and Saw (1969) or Fisher and Fished (1969). Accident and Argument (1969) depicted the aftermath of a car crash in Jenney’s faux-naive style, the grass a sloppy series of green brushstrokes and the black paint for the asphalt dripping down the canvas.

Whitney curator Marcia Tucker “was the first one to really get it,” Jenney said, and she included one of these works in the 1969 Whitney Annual. A decade later, Tucker featured Jenney’s paintings in a New Museum group show provocatively titled “‘Bad’ Painting.” (It also featured artists such as William Wegman, Joan Brown, and William N. Copley.)

Although Tucker emphasized that “in no way can this work be said to constitute a school or movement,” in her catalogue essay she notes that it is linked “by its iconoclasm, its refusal to adhere to anyone else’s standards of taste or fashion, and its romantic and expressionistic flavor.”

These figurative works were a reaction against both Minimalism and Photorealism, but not in the way that Pop art was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism. Bad painting, according to Tucker, sidesteps artistic “development” in the traditional sense by using unfashionable mediums or styles. “The freedom with which these artists mix classical and popular art-historical sources, kitsch and traditional images, archetypal and personal fantasies, constitutes a rejection of the concept of progress per se,” she explained.

Installation view of Jim Shaw’s “Thrift Store Paintings” at the New Museum, 2016. Photo via @jenna.kowalke on Instagram.

Eventually, Jenney left bad drawing and painting behind. But the term, coined by Tucker, continued to circulate. German artist Albert Oehlen first heard about the New Museum show when he was a student in the 1980s. “I liked the name, and then, after years, I realized that no one was using that anymore, but it had a big impression on me,” he recalled in a 2009 interview.

Oehlen—and his artistic accomplice at the time, Martin Kippenberger—was out to shock and appall the art world with works like Morning Light Falls onto the Führer’s Headquarters (1983) or Self-Portrait with Shitty Underpants and Blue Mauritius (1984). These vulgar, provocative subjects were shoddily rendered, and Oehlen’s 1983 Self-Portrait as a Dutch Woman earned Kippenberger’s highest praise: “It is not possible to paint worse than that!”

Bad painting collided with outsider art in 1991 at Metro Pictures. California artist Jim Shaw had spent decades collecting paintings from secondhand stores and flea markets, finally exhibiting them in a show called “Thrift Store Paintings.” From Man With No Crotch Sits Down With Girl to Psycho Lady (Shaw titles the works himself), these paintings are delightfully bungled in their execution.

Anonymous, Blue Tango, 2014. Courtesy of the Museum Of Bad Art.  

Anonymous, Eyes on the Fly. Courtesy of the Museum Of Bad Art.

Shaw has called them “unquantifiable,” a term that might resonate with the staff of Boston’s Museum of Bad Art. Founded in 1993, the institution avoids collecting the merely incompetent. Instead, said curator Michael Frank, they seek out “pieces that exhibit good technique used to create images of questionable taste.”

Unlike the artists behind many of Shaw’s thrift-store paintings, the “bad painters” of art history were often technically skilled. They made a conscious decision to ignore the standards of good taste and good style, which wasn’t always intuitive. Jenney, for example, said he used to get the itch to fix his bad paintings.

“In the beginning, I said, ‘Whatever happens, I accept it.’ But I did one that had a little boy, and a big glob of green grass landed right on his face.” The rules, he knew, dictated that it had to stay. But “the more I looked, I realized, ‘Wait a minute, that is out of line. That is too distracting, it’s like losing the mood here.’ And I went over and wiped it off while it was still wet.”

There is such a thing as too bad, after all.

—Abigail Cain

from Artsy News