Bridget

If you love leaving weird messages for friends and strangers in Dark Souls and Bloodborne, perhaps you’d like to extend your services to the real-world, too.

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I went to a private, all-male high school. In my freshman year, I was a 14-year-old skateboarder, obsessed with punk rock and video games. I had the severe misfortune of being the polar opposite of my classmates, the majority of whom were either from exceptionally wealthy families, extremely talented athletes, or a mind-boggling combination of both.

Psychonauts came out on April 19, 2005, a month before my freshman year ended, at a point where I felt like a complete outcast at school. The game, the first from Tim Schafer's (who we interviewed, not so long ago) independent Double Fine Productions, swept me up instantly. For the first time in my life, I felt a personal connection to a video game. Razputin, Psychonauts' goggles-sporting protagonist, was an outcast too. He was a ten-year-old-psychic carnie, but I could totally relate to him.

A decade later and I still relate to Raz, but I don't see him as an outsider anymore. Sure, he gets picked on after arriving at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, but within a few days, he is universally loved, becomes a hero and gets the girl. Compared to my high school experience, Raz had it made. Looking back, I think Raz seemed like a cool outsider because that's exactly what I needed from a video game at that time. Now I appreciate Psychonauts for completely different reasons.

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It's really not

For all of its humorous dialogue and offbeat charm, Psychonauts tells a complex tale. Raz's journey throughout the game isn't one of an outsider ultimately gaining the acceptance of others, but rather a coming of age story built around the ideas of perception, understanding, and personal identity.

The first time I played Psychonauts, I never noticed just how flawed the game's characters were. No one is perfect, with virtually every important character suffering from some kind of notable fault. But this is among the game's greatest strengths, adding a level of depth to the cast that ultimately allows Raz—and the player by extension—room to see each character grow.

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Sure is, Raz

Psychonauts' early hours revolve around Raz learning more about his psychic powers. Players know little about him outside of the fact the he is determined to become a Psychonaut—highly trained psychic spies—despite his father's distaste for the mentally gifted. Whispering Rock's whimsy serves as a goofy, albeit idyllic, setting for Raz to learn all the skills required to become a full-fledged Psychonaut. He must do so in a hurry, however, because like all exciting endeavors, the eventual arrival of Raz's father threatens to dash his dreams.

Raz is able to grow as a character by learning more psychic abilities. As he comes into his own, Raz makes friends, gets asked to make out with his crush, and uncovers a plot by Coach Oleander—Whispering Rock's military minded counsellor—to harvest the brains of every camper in order to take over the world. The combination of pertinent youthful moments and dire situations are undeniably important, as these events serve as a turning point for Raz, shaping him into a proper protagonist. After he is presented with an opportunity to save others, Raz becomes a new character entirely. He is no longer the strange runaway who snuck into camp, but a capable hero.

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This change, despite being subtle, represents a shift in both Raz's personal identity and how he is perceived by others. From this point on, Raz, aware and accepting of his newfound identity as a Psychonaut (though not being deemed one until the end of the game), takes his talents to the minds of others.

While the time Raz spends at Whispering Rock is a strong representation of Psychonauts' coming of age elements, perception and identity play an integral role during his journey to Thorney Towers Home for the Disturbed. The decrepit asylum is not only the location of Oleander and Doctor Loboto's headquarters, but also the home of Psychonauts' most outwardly flawed characters.

[youtube src='//www.youtube.com/embed/md_8uDtbffQ' width='560' height='315']

'Psychonauts,' trailer

Edgar, Boyd, Gloria, and Fred, long-term patients at the asylum, are introduced as insane. They are a haggard, troubled bunch, racked by delusions, split personalities and tormented by their respective pasts. Despite the reveal of each character implying that they may be beyond help, Psychonauts allows the player to understand the cause of their troubles through the use of the Psycho-Portal.

A literal doorway into another person's mind, the Psycho-Portal allows Raz access into each patient's psyche. In doing so, his perception of them is changed. Inside each mind, Raz sees the characters as they see themselves.

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While every one of the four committed characters are undeniably troubled, the time that Raz spends scouring their brain worlds proves that they are rarely as disturbed as they appear in reality. Much like Raz's growth from a simple psychic boy to an adept hero, Psychonauts delicately allows the player to understand and ultimately correct the cause of these patients' issues.

By uncovering the mental vaults stowed away in the minds of the patients, Raz is given greater insight into the causes of their slip into instability. This added perspective helps with the characterization of each patient. Surviving all four minds often requires Raz to quite literally destroy the cause of their troubles, allowing the patients to overcome past problems and accept their identity and restored sanity.

Few games deal with identity in the way that Psychonauts does. Video games, as a relatively new medium, often struggle with presenting a compelling narrative at all. Psychonauts, by giving its main character a chance to grow and genuinely understand and accept the identity of others, excels at crafting a story with conviction. Even ten years after its release, it still serves as a humorous yet powerful reminder that identity is what you make it. Sometimes, all it takes is a yellow-skinned boy poking around your head to keep that in mind.

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Martin Starr hangs out with Gil to talk about his role on Silicon Valley, the new season, and much more!

Follow @mutantseason on Twitter!

Mortal Kombat X seems to be a great game.

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The PC version of Grand Theft Auto 5 hit earlier this week, and not even two days later, we are already reaping the benefits of its new built-in video editor thanks to extraordinarily stupid videos like this one from YouTube user TMulharin.

It's hard to pin down what's so special about this video: Is it the pacing? The immediate escalation of conflict for no reason? The shot of Franklin dejectedly driving the forklift in circles juxtaposed with Yung Gangsta's "I'm A Real 1"?

Is it the forklift? It's probably the forklift. Whatever the reason, you can see more of TMulharin's videos on his YouTube channel, or directly on his Rockstar Social Network profile.

Below, you can see our first attempt at making something with the Rockstar...

Bloodborne is a difficult video game, people will tell you. You'll die a lot, they'll say. It may make you want to snap your controller in half, they'll warn you.

Those people aren't necessarily wrong, but Twitch streamer Benjamin "bearzly" Gwin ignores their words. He's made a name for himself with, as he puts it, "challenge runs of Dark Souls using terrible controllers." Last year, Gwin completed Dark Souls with a Rock Band controller, and later managed the same feat with Dark Souls 2. Last month, he even beat the game with the bongos from the GameCube title Donkey Konga.

Naturally, Bloodborne was next on Gwin's hit list.

Gwin's run of "Guitarborne" included the challenging boss battle you see above, the Shadow of Yharnam. The fight...

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bakelite-clatter:

‘Dark Room’

Via Renata IsIllusion

Residents in Tokyo have recently reported several sightings of possibly the most patient pet-walker in the world: an elderly man who takes his enormous African spurred tortoise (or sulcata) out for walks around the town.

Judging by the tortoise’s size, the mysterious pair has probably been together for a very long time, and the tortoise always plods faithfully by its owner’s side. It even tolerates the occasional silly costume!

More info: togech.jp (h/t: rocketnews24)

Learning to tattoo takes skin. Yes, fake skin and other synthetic materials are available for artists to practice on, but the general opinion in the industry is that skin alternatives are bullshit. You can only really learn to tattoo by actually tattooing, and tattooers tend to begin with the most readily available skin they have—their legs. Some of New York's most prolific tattoo artists—who are, more often than not, covered head-to-toe in gorgeous tats—keep their early efforts in their pants, hidden from view. I spoke with tattoo artists from Saved Tattoo, New York Adorned, Greenpoint Tattoo Company, and Kings Avenue Tattoo to learn more about how they honed their technique and style by experimenting on themselves.

John Reardon, Owner of Greenpoint Tattoo Company

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Self-done tattoos pictured: dragon, gray wash test strip. All photos by Graham Hiemstra

VICE: When did you get your first tattoo? And how soon after that did you first tattoo yourself?
John Reardon: I got my first homemade hack tattoo in maybe 11th grade. It was some stupid circle thing and some Black Flag bars. Then I got my first professional tattoo in January of my senior year, 1996. I was 18. Freshman year of college is when I did my first tattoo—an outline that fell out—and then sophomore year, I did the dragon.

What was the first tattoo you gave yourself?
I outlined a Celtic piece above my knee using pelican ink and the entire thing fell out. I grabbed the wrong pelican ink. Thank god my fucking leg didn't fall off. That was the first one and it really fucking stung down by the kneecap. But then that completely fell out and just left a scar, so a year later is when I did the dragon in that same spot.

I was at my parent's house and my dad came down and yelled at me because I was supposed to draw a similar dragon for him and I hadn't done it yet. I was sitting there tattooing myself and he was pissed. He was like, "Where the hell is mine?" Sorry, Dad. I eventually did it.

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After tattooing yourself, how long did you wait until you took the machine to do someone else?
Oh, I gouged right in on people. The first tattoo I did was on my buddy's knee actually. Everyone came out of the woodwork to get tattooed. I didn't really need to tattoo myself—I had plenty of people to get tattooed. I just did it because I knew that I had to. I always needed the practice but, you know, you gotta fucking tattoo yourself. It's just something you gotta do.

Will Sheldon, Saved Tattoo

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Self-done tattoos pictured: palm tree and pyramids, dagger, black snake, mouse character, hammerhead shark, globe with script, butterfly, multiple hand pokes

VICE: When did you get your first tattoo? And how soon after that did you first tattoo yourself?
Will Sheldon: I started getting tattooed pretty regularly when I was 17, so five years ago. I got a tattoo machine in 2011.

What was the first tattoo you gave yourself?
The pyramid with the palm trees and the dagger, those were the first. I did them both in one day. I had a Sailor Jerry outline book and that design was in there, and I thought it could be a really simple, funny, fun tattoo to have.

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Your legs actually inspired this story. Why did you do so many on yourself?
I was fucking up so many of my friends, so I thought I needed to fuck myself up, too. After I started seeing all these tattoos I was doing on my friends heal up and seeing how shitty they were, I was like, Oh my god. It became a thing where I had to just keep on doing them on myself and practicing. They are little reminders of how shitty I was, of me learning. It's great, you know. Having bad tattoos is part of it. Having something that reminds you of where you came from is good.

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Virginia Elwood, Saved Tattoo

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Self-done tattoos pictured: flowers

VICE: What was the first tattoo you gave yourself?
Virginia Elwood: The two flowers were the first ones I gave myself.

After tattooing yourself, how long did you wait until you took the machine to someone else?
I tattooed someone else first, a tattooer named Dave Shoemaker. I did a rose on him because he was blacking out his entire arm. He was like, "do whatever you want." So I tattooed him first, then I probably did a couple other ones, and then I did these ones on my leg.

So most of your learning was done on other people?
All of it, yeah. And that's why I don't live where I learned to tattoo.

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Stephanie Tamez, Co-owner of Saved Tattoo

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Self-done tattoos pictured: Gallic inspired tribal designs, top of foot design, skull

VICE: When did you get your first tattoo? And how soon after that did you first tattoo yourself?
Stephanie Tamez: I got my first tattoo when I was 29. I'm 52 now, so that was 23 years ago. I first tattooed myself about a year later. I got my first tattoo by a very well-known tattooer. At that time I didn't know anything about tattooing, I just lucked out and we became friends. I was doing a lot of art and design, replicating album covers and things like that, and he saw what I was into and he put the bug in my head that maybe I could do this. He was able to guide me and show me the basic principles of things. I did one on myself, did one on a couple of friends, and by the end of it I knew this was something I could definitely do for a living.

What was the first tattoo you gave yourself?
It's the little question mark shaped doodle on my ankle. Looking back I think it was probably inspired by Tibetan art that I had seen somewhere that just stuck in my head, but at the time I didn't know my vocabulary. That's the cool thing about tattooing, it's a life and art lesson. You really do learn about so many different art styles from different cultures. It opens you up to a tremendous wealth of knowledge about art you wouldn't have otherwise have been exposed to, whether it's from fellow tattooers or even clients. It's like the best art school, really.

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What's the story behind the tops of your feet? And the skull?
I did the tops of my feet a few years after doing my first tattoo. I was going to New York a lot and would always bring my gear. One time I was visiting my best friend who I grew up with in Texas, and I had just broken up with some gal and I was bummed out so I was like, I need to tattoo myself. I'm gonna do something for me and stay on my own path.

I didn't realize how awkward it would be to do something on my feet. I hadn't been tattooing very long. I was still learning. As soon as I got into it, I had to bend myself in all these crazy positions trying not to tangle up the machine and when I was all squished up in the corner of my friend's apartment she came in and was like, "What the fuck are you doing?" I was dancing around like a monkey trying to get the right angle. Who knows what the hell I was thinking at that time. It's funny, sometimes when people see it and say it looks like an old ruin. I kind of like that idea. It really is an old ruin.

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Related: Check out our video series,Tattoo Age.

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Frankie Caraccioli, Kings Avenue Tattoo

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Self-done tattoos pictured: casket with web, star, boombox

VICE: What was the first tattoo you gave yourself?
Frankie Caraccioli: A star. I thought I'd do that one to practice straight lines. It seemed simple enough but it was too simple—every mistake was going to show. I should have gone with something sketchier, you know. Any bump or messed up line is going to show.

After tattooing yourself, how long did you wait until you took the machine to someone else?
It was the same night that I got the star actually—a tattoo machine tattoo party. I tattooed the star, then tattooed my buddy, then tattooed the boombox on my ankle right after.

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Bart Bingham, New York Adorned

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Self-done tattoos pictured: green rose, bic lighter, skull

VICE: When did you get your first tattoo? And how soon after that did you first tattoo yourself?
Bart Bingham: I tattooed myself before I was old enough to get a legal tattoo. I got my first legal tattoo when I was 18 and I did my first tattoo on myself at 16 or so. My friend James from high school worked at a tattoo shop and because I could draw I would always give him a hard time like, "Oh, that's easy, I could do that." And one day he just got fed up with me and set up a tattoo station and picked up a machine and stepped on the pedal. It went zzt zzt and he said, "That's how it works. Go ahead and tattoo yourself." So, I tattooed myself and it was a disaster. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.

After tattooing yourself, how long did you wait until you took the machine to someone else?
I was tattooing straight out of high school, at 17. I did a lot of bad tattoos for a long time. I probably tattooed from '93 until 2000 just doing crap on people until l got into a good shop and started learning how to tattoo.

I never planned on being a tattooer. I thought tattoos were silly. I still kind of think tattoos are silly. I was going to school, working full time, and living out of the back of my car, so I needed what I thought would be an easy second job.

So I just walked into a shop and told them I had been tattooing for years. I lied. This was back in '93. The world was a very different place then. There was no Instagram, people didn't have portfolios. They didn't give me the job off the bat, so I went to a friend's place and drew up the same stuff they had on the walls and went back to that tattoo shop and showed them what I had. Next thing you know, they hired me and I went to work tattooing the general public the next day with zero experience—no apprenticeship, no teaching. I couldn't ask for help because they were under the impression I knew what I was doing already. I just made it up as I went.

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What's the story behind the sketchy Popsicle tattoo on your calf?
That's my favorite tattoo on my body, just because every time I look at it I remember what a great time I was having. It's such a ridiculous looking tattoo—it's a vampire popsicle. My friends and I were in a hotel room drunk, giving each other tattoos with the door open and this really cute girl walked by so I was like, "Hey you, come here. You wanna get in on this, you wanna do some tattoos?" And she was like, "hell yeah." She had never even held a tattoo machine before that. Somewhere I have pictures of my bloody leg with her no-gloved hand rubbing ink into my tattoo.

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Filmmaker and outspoken Scientology defector Paul Haggis says somebody in the Church recently tried to get to him by pretending to be a Time magazine reporter. [ more › ]

New research explains why we love our dogs so much: They've taken over our brains.

Researchers at Azabu University in Japan discovered that as dogs gaze into their human owners' eyes, the hormone oxytocin, the "love hormone" which strengthens emotional bonds and links to maternal bonding, releases in both the dogs and the people.

It's also what our brains release when we orgasm, leading to a stronger feeling of connection after sex.

"Dogs successfully coexist with humans because they have adapted the bonding mechanism [used in] relations with humans," says author Miho Nagasawa in a video statement, according to Smithsonian  magazine. "On the other hand, humans also likely went through some sort of evolution that allowed them to bond with another species."

Source: Mic/YouTubeJust like how humans bond the more we look into another human's eyes, owners and dogs become closer when they share the same long gaze. Read More

nicevagina:

“Yesterday I was a puppy, today I will dog.”

rare-shots:

The first photo following the discovery of Machu Pichu in 1912.

Andy Chen, the CEO of Jay Z’s highly confusing and unlikable music streaming service Tidal, has left the company, along with around 25 other employees. A Tidal rep is calling these departures “streamlining” and “redundancies,” which are nice fancy words for everything going to hell. Via Business Insider, we’ve got the official company statement:

Read more...

outdoormagic:

Barred Owl pair grooming each other (Strix varia) by Paul Hueber on Flickr.

On April 24, Paradigm Gallery + Studio in Philadelphia will debut two solo shows that explore humans' connection to nature: Nicomi Nix Turner's "No God for a Wanderer" and Sarah Louise Davey's "The Garden of No Distant Place." While Davey works in clay and Turner, in pencil, the two artists share a common interest in feminine, nymph-like characters that seem to belong in the wild.

There was a day not too long ago when how and where you obtained your sack of weed was nobody's business.  But the hush-hush pursuit of marijuana happiness has turned into a legitimate topic of conversation with a new generation of pot-smoking, social-media obsessed millennials.  The folks at Leafly, a...

The Sunset Strip Half-Marathon starts this Sunday at 7 a.m. [ more › ]

Closing downtown Los Angeles streets for the Jay Z-curated Made in America festival in August caused no end of City Hall criticism, especially from the area's councilman, Jose Huizar. This time Huizar's on-board: Steve Aoki, the SoCal-bred superstar DJ who co-headlined that event, is doing a free solo show Saturday,...

I need your support: An amazing film-team has come together to make a documentary about Prey Taxidermy’s trip to the World Taxidermy Championships. 10 ladies, from LA and the largest Taxidermy event in the world: We’re basically like ‘Cool Runnings’. We need your support to document this adventure: Share, Give at TaxidermyKickstarter.com or even talk to those you know who may be interested in investing in this feature length documentary. Thank you in advance for your support and belief in our art! TAXIDERMYKICKSTARTER.COM

Brace yourself

darkestdee:

Bloodborne

al-grave:

“What do you play?”

“The Clarinet, you?”

“I play the fucking HAMMER”

The road most traveled