Ask MuppetFace Stuff

I'll just give you examples of ppl I find sexy.

Alexander the Great
Joan of Arc
Caravaggio
Blaise Pascal
John Keats
Buster Keaton
Jimi Hendrix
Susan Sontag
Herbert West, Re-Animator (Jeffrey Combs)
Rain Dove
Data from Star Trek TNG
Doomguy / The Doom Marine
Eric Andre
Bjork
Tara Jane O'Neil
Zola Jesus
Stefan Burnett
Michio Kurihara
Joel from The Last of Us
Joel from MST3k lol

Some artists, some historical figures, some fictional characters.
Some for mostly aesthetic reasons, others for purely intellectual reasons. Or both.

 

The MFAH and Menil are great. I go there a lot.

Museo del Prado in Madrid is reeeeally good.
Worth it just to see Saturn Devouring His Son alone.
I really wanna visit the Guggenheim in Bilbao someday.
The Tate in London is pretty good.
The British Museum is awesome though.
The Louvre is good but kinda overrated IMO.

From watching The Russian Ark alone, I'd say The Russian State Hermitage Museum is one of the most breath taking in the world, for sure. Add that to the list of "someday."

 

I'm bummed I can't go to the SBAF meet.
Ask me questions to help fill the void left in my heart.

 

The first was in high school when I got my Minidisc Walkman. The earbuds were cheapo Sony stuff, but as a package it sounded so much more alive and dynamic than the Rio MP3 players at the time. I remember listening to the Neon Genesis Evangelion OST, Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses," and Geggy Tah's "Whoever You Are" a lot at the time LMAO.

Next major WOW moment was discovering the world of vinyl in college thru a modest Rega turntable and some Sony bookshelf speakers.

Shortly thereafter I discovered good headphones with a used Stax Lambda Nova system.

 

@TwoEars

Thanks for the recommendations!

I've only played The Witcher games, never had a chance to read the books, so maybe I'd appreciate the story more if I gave them a try (since I can't say I'm really a fan of the games).

Being the Dark Souls obsessive that I am, Berserk is something I am quite familiar with haha. Miyazaki loves his Berserk references. Speaking of high fantasy manga / anime with a humanist bent, I'm also really fond of Claymore. Seen it?

 

Never been to Chicago. I've got friends there, so I really should visit sometime.

 

@TwoEars
One Punch Man is fun; I enjoyed the first season of the anime and am looking forward to more. Hellsing is one of those anime I probably would have liked in junior high, but I never saw it, so it holds no nostalgic value for me. When I saw bits of it recently, it didn't really appeal to me. Especially the art style. Too "90s edgy" in a bad way. Like... the anime equivalent of Rob Liefeld art or Spawn or something.

The Claymore manga is better story-wise than the anime, especially as they had to end the anime mid way thru. Still, it's one of the more faithful adaptations out there (ending aside). I feel like the strength of the series lies in the characters, both human and monster (nice and freaky designs among the Awakened Beings are a plus). It does that whole tired "power level" trope particularly well with the rankings among the Claymore and uses that to drive home a true sense of strength among the Awakened Beings, giving the fights a nice sense of monster hunting tension; later on the story even does a decent job exploring the ramifications of such a ranking system. It's mostly to build the protagonist up as bottom-of-the-barrel yet specialized enough to do a singular task better than any of her compatriots, which is an interesting take on the hero meta.

Also the music in the Claymore anime is just tits.

The Witcher games mostly turn me off for two principle reasons: firstly, the combat mechanics don't feel good to me, with the exception of the third game which is OK in that area, as it tweaks the Assassin's Creed system enough to be interesting. I've never been a big fan of that fighting system, though it works well for me in the Arkham games because it gives me a lot of flashy hero stuff for minimal input, and that suits something like Batman over a fantasy game IMO.

The second reason is Geralt. In role playing games, I vastly prefer making my own characters and thinking up back stories for them versus being handed a character who already has all that waiting for me to learn like I would any other character. That personal connection one has with an OC just isn't there. Now, ironically, if a character is well designed but vague enough (like the Doom Marine), I feel as thought I can fill in those blanks myself which in turn fosters more of that connection. Another example would be the protagonists from Ico and Shadow of the Colossus; the latter in particular got under my skin, and his vague but purposeful quest had me in tears by the midway point of the game.

As a side note, I'm not at all adverse to story driven games. The Last of Us for instance floored me. Dragon Age: Origins is one of my all time favorite games of last generation. How that story is told however definitely impacts my enjoyment of such things. I'd rather be shown---or better yet do---things instead of told them, and if I'm told things, I'd rather it be indirectly through lore and background information that builds upon the game's world. Games that just dump tons of info on you or use lots and lots of cutscenes are not my idea of good story telling in this particular medium. Which is not to say The Witcher is guilty of this, btw! This was mostly just an aside.

But yeah, getting back to Geralt: If I'm handed a highly pre-constructed character in an RPG, I tend to be very picky. Geralt is just not a character I want to role play as, and at the end of the day that's a big reason why The Witcher games never really stuck with me.

That, and all the awkward "HBO does the Middle Ages" sex scenes LMAO.

 

I've yet to get into DS9 as much as TNG, but I like the character(s) and the concept behind them. More treacherous characters are only really satisfying IMO when they feel their actions are justified.

Nothing outdoes his role in Re-Animator for crush-ability, tho.

 

Personally, my motivation as a player in games like ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, and Dark Souls is directly related to the compelling mystery those games present. Going as far back as the old Kings Field games, I've always enjoyed finding my character in the midst of these gloomy, impossibly violent, yet oddly beautiful worlds From Software creates.

The story of Dark Souls begins simply enough: you are an undead, a human being who is effectively immortal, yet cursed to continue to deteriorate both physically and mentally with each death from whence you return. You are locked away in an asylum for such pitiable wretches, where you will presumably go hollow: losing the very essence of who you are, becoming a mere husk. Yet unlikely circumstances see you freed, and you suddenly find yourself in a strange land filled with mystery and brutal challenges. You are told almost off-handedly in dialog about two bells that are said to bring about a prophecy involving a chosen undead. Could this be you? Does such a ritual point toward a cure? You thus set off on a journey which leads you from the deepest pits of decay to the shining city of the gods themselves, all the way trying to piece together what happened to the lands around you and the strange souls which still inhabit them.

What I enjoy most about Dark Souls' style of storytelling is that once you have the initial experience of leaping into the unknown---of exploration, wonder, and mystery---it then provides an incredible stage and a set of tools for building characters. I still fondly remember my Velka-obsessed adventurer who sought the legendary Painted World and the half-breed within it. Using the half-breed's Lifehunt Scythe, said adventurer saw herself as a tool of Velka's divine punishment, to be metered out against the gods themselves for their misdeeds. Another favorite was my awkward magician in training who wanted more than anything to meet his hero, Bighat Logan. After the initial disappointment wore off (they say "never meet your heroes" after all), he dedicated himself to learning about weapons forged from dragon tails, eventually discovering---and wielding---a greatsword of dazzling moonlight and a greatsword of blackest obsidian. Exposure to the abyssal dragon however left him warped. A bit off his rocker. He never did finish the chosen undead's quest, and to this day he still roams the lands looking for other undead to fight, his magic swords ready to stab them in the back (all too easily since we're talking about DS1 here).

Did I mention I'm a nerd? I think I mentioned that at some point.