#god someone please upload good quality video of the match

[artschoolglasses]

Oh my god.

It looks like Wakatakakage's #1 Superfan, Ichiyamamoto, will be facing his sumo hero tomorrow. Amazing.

Here is Ichiyamamoto showing off his collection of Wakatakakage merch (with help from Asanoyama), in case anyone doubted how big of a nerd fan he really is:

[script-nef]

Ex-girlfriend | Miya Atsumu

Category: crack, fluff

Warning: profanities

1.4k words; just Miya Atsumu feeding his fans with his “girlfriend”

The link to the “interview” is a ridiculously high-quality cover of Colde singing Nabi Bobet Tau. It’s great, have a listen. The second one is “Lovestruck” also by Colde.

Lmao did you guys see the interview Atsumu did

Okay so I was just chilling on my couch, flicking through channels to see what’s fun and guess who I see. Getting interviewed. With his incredibly red “girlfriend” by his side. (In hindsight it could be because of the winter cold but listening to Atsumu, he’s probably the main cause) And feeding us for the next 2 months while MSBY doesn’t have any interviews or appearances.

Bruh the reporter who had the fortune of randomly meeting them, what’s the power to your luck I want them secrets. I need them secrets.

But honestly, I was in a shitty mood all day and his interview made my mood lift up. If you guys wanna see the interview, it’s here.

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LMAO HE SAID “THIS IS MY EX-GIRLFRIEND” ON LIVE CAMERA SHE LOOKED SO MORTIFIED AND I WAS SCREAMING LIKE “WHAT THE FUCK YOU BROKE UP ATSUMU WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING BEG FOR HER TO STAY” THEN HE RAISED HIS HAND UP I SAW THE RING I CAN’T BREATHE

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WHEN SHE SAID “Please stop introducing me to everyone like that” IN THE MOST EMBARRASSED VOICE LIKE BOY NOT GONNA LIE YOU HAD US IN THE FIRST HALF

AND IT WAS SO CUTE HOW SHE WAS SO RED AND HER REACTION WHEN SHE REALISED IT WAS LIVE. IT’S A MEME NOW I CALLED IT

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Did you see her eyes when he started saying all the soft shit they do together? She was staring off into the distance like she gave up everything but she smiled so cutely when he looked back at her like a puppy. This is what I’m talking about. This shit is my life source. I need me an Atsumu. I need me some romance. 

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“What would be different when you’re married?”

“Not much, but now I can use the ‘But I’m your husband’ card whenever I wanna hug!” BOY WHY ARE YOU SO PURE WHEN IT COMES TO HER WHY CAN’T YOU BE LIKE THAT IN YOUR MATCHES THE DUALITY OF THIS MAN

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DUDE HE FUCKING SAID THAT WE STAN THE BIGGEST SIMP PLEASE NEVER BREAK UP I AM BEGGING YOU!! FEED ME WITH THIS SOFT SHIT THIS IS WHAT GETS ME GOING

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They’re so goddamn cute… Are there more clips of them together or anything like that?

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There’s this page where people just dish whenever they see them together outside. It’s basically a massive collection of Atsumu being a lovesick fool for his now-fiancée. Here’s the link. 

Going out

Apparently his girlfriend worked for MSBY and he fell in love with her. But they had some kind of a bullshit “no dating people affiliated with the team” rule or something so he counted down the days until her year-long contract was over.

And everyone was basically rooting for them since they were super obvious and they officially started dating at the small party on her last day. I think there’s like a super grainy video of them hugging for the entire party. And like, she fits into his embrace perfectly like damn what a match I wish my boyfriend hugged me like that.

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SHIT IT’S FIANCÉE NOW I CAN’T BELIEVE BE HAPPY YOU FUCKING CUTIES I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH

Café AU

I own a café and Atsumu comes regularly with his girlfriend. She always orders the chocolate waffle combo which is a plateful of waffles topped off with oreo crumbles and chocolate sauce and a milkshake. But Atsumu doesn’t like sweet things so he just watches her the entire time. You know the “chin rested on hand, leaning onto the table and looking at their significant other like the rest of the world doesn’t exist” move? Yeah, imagine that times 2,000. Then square it. And even then you won’t come close to how lovestruck he is for her.

And whenever she looks up from her waffles, he just grins and asks her if it’s nice in the sweetest voice like. You can make those types of voices??? I thought my ears were malfunctioning for a second. 

They’re just really cute and make me happy whenever I see them. I’m pretty sure a lot of my regulars also support them as well. 

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So they’re getting married!! Ugh I swear I’m going to give them extra food as my way of saying congratulations the next time they come around.

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Wait, are you the owner of ChatNoir Café? Like the one Atsumu uploads onto his Insta all the time??

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That’s me! Yeah, thanks to him I’m getting more and more business everyday. You fans are so amazing I even made a deal for you guys. 

Atsumu just uploaded a video of him going through his new house. There is literally nothing in it other than bare essentials lmao. Hopefully they have similar taste in furnitures because I don’t think Atsumu’s going to back down on his decisions.

Insta upload

Atsumu just uploaded a video of him going through his new house. There is literally nothing in it other than bare essentials lmao. Hopefully they have similar taste in furnitures because I don’t think Atsumu’s going to back down on his decisions.

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Nah, man. He’s always going to back down for her. You know how a lot of couples break up during the preparation for the wedding because they realised they’re too stubborn and get into fights? I was fearing that happening for Atsumu but then the match incident happened and I realised. This guy is whipped for her. Properly whipped. He’s never going to break up with her.

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What’s the match incident?

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It’s probably on YouTube, just search “Atsumu kneeling”.

It was a match where he did a spike which bounded off the opponent blocker’s arm and somehow went straight to her face. I was nearby her and my heart literally leapt into my throat when I saw it. She reacted fast enough and blocked it with her hand, but you should really watch the video to hear the sound. It’s somehow still so strong even after hitting the blocker (powerful boi)

Anyway he immediately ran to her to check up on the damage and literally broke down when he saw her skin turning red. He later said she gets bruises easily and that this left one which persisted for like, 3 months. 

She kept saying it was fine and that’s it’s not his fault, but he knelt in front of her to show how sorry he was. In front of everyone. Like, everyone. I couldn’t see one person who wasn’t watching him. And everyone’s jaw was on the floor because holy shit this guy’s kneeling here. I couldn’t believe it and I was standing right there. 

The coach eventually came to take him back and sent her to the infirmary to get the hand checked out, but she said something to Atsumu first which revived him. He never told us what it was but apparently it’s something really good since he got like, 10 services aces after that.

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Lovesick Atsumu for the win

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LOVESICK ATSUMU FOR THE WIN SAY IT LOUDER SO EVERYONE CAN HEAR

Drawing upload

Atsumu has uploaded yet another painting of him done by his fiancée and it is honestly amazing how someone has that much talent. Like, she’s pretty, probably has the patience and kindness of a God because she’s able to deal with Atsumu, artistic and adorable. Lady, what don’t you have??

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I know right??? How are you so amazing please stop being so perfect and live like the rest of us plebeians down on Earth. How will I ever get a girlfriend when you’re everything I dream for??

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I can imagine her painting and decorating the whole house while Atsumu trails behind her like a loyal puppy. Am I weird if I say I can see in front of my eyes how he’ll carry everything around and lean down for head pats while saying he deserves them for being good. Anyone else think this? No? Just me? Alright then.

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YEAHHHH JOIN THE “ATSUMU IS FOREVER WHIPPED AND WE HAVE EVIDENCE” CLUB EVERYONE IS WELCOME!! In my 2 years of following this man I never thought that someone able to control him would appear but here she is. Our goddess. 

My only wish is for them to love each other and grow old. And hopefully update us on bits of their sweet and fluffy lives.

[cottonloid]

Cotton Playlist: Unicorn

I wanted to write about Vocaloid songs I like, so I did. Here are my thoughts on Teniwoha and their latest song, “Unicorn.”

UNICORN, by Teniwoha

On February 7, 2020, Teniwoha uploaded “Villain” to their YouTube channel. Their previous song, “Bradbury,” had been uploaded in August 2019, and has at time of writing raked up a respectable 261,500 hits. Although Teniwoha had been uploading music to YouTube since 2014, only one song, “Meitantei Renzoku Satsujinjiken” had managed to break the million-view barrier. That song was uploaded in 2016. Teniwoha’s songs over the next four years received decent attention, with a few surpassing 100K and even 500K in views. But other songs languished with fewer than 50K views. Even “9,” a collaboration with emon(Tes.), has only managed to net 33,000 views.

I don’t know why Teniwoha received relatively little YouTube attention during this period. Maybe it was the state of the Vocaloid community during this time. Maybe they were not favored by the fickle gods of the YouTube algorithm. Maybe their songs missed the musical zeitgeist. Whatever the reason, the dry spell ended with “Villain,” which performed like no Teniwoha song before it. At time of writing, it sits at 4,850,000 views on YouTube. That’s not counting covers.

I’ve been a fan of Teniwoha since 2014, and I’m glad “Villain” was a big hit. I love “Villain,” even though it’s not my favorite Teniwoha song. But I’m not here to talk about “Villain” (even though I will actually be talking a lot more about “Villain”). I want to talk about “Unicorn,” which I like a little more.

How do we quantify the success of a song or an artist? I’ve been throwing out a lot of statistics, and sure, we can say that’s a measure of popularity. By that measure, “Unicorn” is the dark horse to “Villain.” Uploaded three months after Teniwoha’s biggest YouTube hit, it currently has 322K views. Not bad. But at this point, it’s not going to replicate the statistical success of “Villain,” despite the similarities between the songs. And there are quite a few similarities. Both videos feature illustrations by Nekoko. Both are about marginalized (pretty clearly queer) identities and create joy out of subversion and adversity. Both have an industrial-rock sound to them.

Comparing the two songs, I think it’s clear why “Villain” was the hit. It has a catchier, dynamic chorus and a badass keyboard riff. In comparison, the chorus in “Unicorn” kind of drifts downwards, then up, then down, then up again, before finally hitting that punchy, “Now! I’m a unicorn now!” “Villain” actually pulls a similar trick in its chorus—after the keyboard comes in, the vocals float back in to sing the title of the song. It’s neat. But it doesn’t blow me away quite like “Unicorn.” The chorus leading up to that part is less flashy, though the jeering/cheering sound at the beginning is a nice addition. But it builds up to a show-stealing synthesizer, and instead of the song’s title sounding like an afterthought, it bursts gleefully forth—“I’m a unicorn NOW!” This part sounds like a prancing horse (complete with clip-clop sounds in the background), and I love it.

It’s the bridge between the verse and chorus that really stands out. It shows up with force and confidence, taking what has until that point been a rhythmically measured song and propelling it forward. The tuning is great, and this is coming from someone who often does not like flower. The little squeak Teniwoha puts into their voice is extremely satisfying. Teniwoha deftly utilizes flower’s gruff low/mid-range, and there’s a tremoring quality to some of the vocals that feels appropriately horse-y (hoarse-y?).

But I don’t actually know shit about music. The real reason why “Unicorn” just barely edges out “Villain” for me is that it’s slightly more playful. And I think play is Teniwoha’s biggest strength. So in “Unicorn,” he gets to show off.

If I had to describe Teniwoha as an artist in two words, those words would be “playful” and “versatile.” Teniwoha primarily makes rock music, but if you listen to his backlog, you’ll hear a wide variety of styles. I’d name some, but again, I don’t know shit about music. And I don’t think all of Teniwoha’s songs fit neatly into genre conventions. For instance, they described their song “Onomatopetenshi” as “neo rakugo funk music.”

“Onomatopetenshi” is kind of the perfect Teniwoha song. It is basically a vessel for them to make a song entirely of puns. My Japanese language skills aren’t good enough to fully appreciate it, and to my knowledge, nobody has translated it. For obvious reasons. For instance, there are lyrics that translate roughly to “drunkenness, a good slave, old age, spirit fire.” That doesn’t make a lot of sense. But those lyrics (酔いどれ良い奴隷養老霊火) are pronounced, “yoidore yoidorei yourou rei hi.” Sure enough, the vocals yodel. (Skip to 0:33 in the song to hear it for yourself.)  

In another song, “Kyuubi goryoue mystery ~tenketsu~,” Teniwoha pens the infuriating line, “Look in fear upon the bon festival.” Which is fine in itself. But that line (恐れ見よ盆挿話) is pronounced “osore miyo bon souwa,” and is phonetically similar to “o sole mio, bonsoir.”

I think a witch cursed Teniwoha to make them write puns for the rest of their life.

Anyhow, my point is that Teniwoha can write a range of songs and have a great time doing it. My favorite Teniwoha songs are the ones that revel in their own deviousness. “Devious” feels like an appropriate word to describe someone who makes as many puns as Teniwoha. Ironically, “Villain” is a song that is textually about being devious. But it’s kind of heavy, thematically. The song finds its joy and soars in some places, but it’s a joy that is painfully earned. Embracing the role of the villain can feel empowering, but it’s a role other people have chosen for the song’s narrator.

As in “Villain,” the narrator in “Unicorn” declares themselves to be a unicorn. But it’s less clear that other people forced the narrator into this role, so this declaration reads to me as self-affirmation. There’s still a sense of bitterness in this song, but it a little more playful, a little more weaponized. (Like a unicorn horn???) The vibe is very, “Feeling abandoned by god? Cool. Let’s burn everything down.” It’s the difference between “hated life/蛇蝎ライフ” and “the joys and sorrows of life/苦楽ライフ.”

Teniwoha also gets to do a little more wordplay in “Unicorn,” rhyming English words like ark/mark/dark, melancholy/holy, and unicorn/you become/unison. Then there are some cross-language puns like “smile” and “数mile” (pronounced “suu mile”). The poetics of these lyrics are just generally great. There was some of that in “Villain,” of course, but the tone of the song is maybe a bit heavy for too many puns. I think that due to the slightly lighter tone in “Unicorn,” Teniwoha gets to flex their lyrical muscles a little. And write puns.

This wordplay also works thematically. Teniwoha bends linguistic meaning while his lyrics challenge a black/white binary. The unicorn’s very existence makes a mockery of this binary, just as puns throw linguistic sense into gleeful confusion. There’s a new meaning being made here.

Of course, this also happens in “Villain” to an extent. As always, my preference is simply a matter of taste. Both “Villain” and “Unicorn” are great queer anthems. But the spiteful jubilance of “Unicorn” matches my mood a little more right now. Or maybe I just like that the song sounds like a horse. And really, I’m just glad that more people are listening to Teniwoha now. After six years, they deserve it.

Now please go stream Teniwoha’s “Mononoke Mystery” album. It’s on Spotify, and it’s their best work.

[wahbegan]

Red’s Retro Reviews - Condemned Criminal Origins

Hello and welcome to the tag where I use my otherwise useless and time-consuming habit of taking very old classic games that I’ve wrung all the enjoyment out of like a troubled child with an injured bird and turn it into entertainment! Maybe one day the editor of some chic magazine will hire me to talk about how much I know about Batman: Arkham Asylum and how much I hate myself for it.

Anyway, this week I thought I’d start off with an overlooked little gem that had a bit of cult notoriety and good critical reception, but which otherwise nobody gave an ounce of rat shit about: the Condemned series. More specifically, the original game.

Now, when I ask you who started the extremely lucrative habit of live-streaming themselves hilariously over-reacting to horror games, you might be tempted to say the Game Grumps, or Markiplier if you’re younger, or Pewdiepie if you’re the kind of person who unironically uses the phrase anti-white racism. But you’d all be wrong and stupid. Also possibly nazi sympathizers, but I digress.

NO! The first college-age white boys who decided it would be a good idea to beam them fucking up a video game to thousands and thousands of people online are..........lost to history because archiving of the exact history of internet trends is such an enormous clusterfuck that for years people were convinced, and some still are, that Slenderman was a real urban legend and not something some dickhead made up for a photoshop competition circa 2009

But ONE of the first was the 4 Players Network, or 4 Players Podcast, or 4PP. I know very little about these guys, so if they all turned out to be nonces and serial killers please don’t @ me, but what i DO know, is that they uploaded a video that changed my life forever. This video was “Holy Crap That’s a Bear !” Certainly not a name that would stand out in today’s massively oversaturated Let’s Play market, but this delightful video documented these two dumb assholes losing their shit over a game. The game of course, being Condemned 2: Bloodshot. Specifically, the level in which you are chased through a hunting lodge by a rabid bear. As an aside, I looked it up, having never heard of the phenomenon, and apparently it’s very rare, but yes bears can and do get rabies, usually with just about as fatal results as you would expect. So sweet dreams!

Anyway, watching this couple of dipshits get jumpscared and mauled to death by a poorly rendered bear again and again as they were repeatedly outwitted at every turn by an entity with a few lines of programming instead of a brain was, in y’know the year 2008,  the absolute most fun a 14-year-old boy could have. Clearly it still is, but you always remember your first time, particularly when the only LPs i have watched since were a handful of markiplier videos with a girl in college who liked to get me very stoned and then put them on because she thought that counted as courtship.

A n y w a y, apart from the unfortunate and definitely a mistake innovation of streaming video games, the sequence of being chased through a claustrophobic environment by a bear which can rip down doors, break through walls, run faster than you, shrug off 15 shotgun blasts to the face without so much as sneezing, etc. seemed incredibly tense and original, an amazing concept for a game. Once again, this was circa 2008 before “Run for your fucking life” had become the norm for horror games.

So then why the fuck are you not reviewing that game?? You might be thinking if you’re still reading this which someone clearly is or my narrative voice would have ceased to exist by now in that tree falling in the woods kind of way. Well, dear reader, while Condemned 2 was better than the first game in a LOT of ways, it’s always worth taking a gander at the one that started it all. Also, Condemned 1 is, if only slightly, probably better known. Also, Bloodshot commits the cardinal sin of over-explaining the first game’s mystery and a result making it kind of goofy and ridiculous see also the entire history of the Halloween franchise, and as a result the ending is....well, a bit shit, to be honest. Finally, and most importantly, it’s not on Steam for 3 dollars, so shut up

The thing about Condemned is that while Let’s Plays and seemingly inanimate objects moving only when you’re not looking at them and unstoppable juggernauts of wanton death have now become the norm for video game horror (and thanks a fucking bunch, Doctor fucking Who, for always being what people say started the inanimate object fuckery even though Stephen King did it in The Shining in the FUCKING 70s and let’s be honest it’s just a primal universal fear and i’ll be in the cold fucking ground before that bloody show sees one ounce of credit where it isn’t due), Condemned as a whole has remained remarkably unique. Not wholly unique, the developers have heavily borrowed from genre-straddling crime horror movies like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en and in fact almost beat-for-beat stole the most infamous jump scare from the latter, but if it still ends with shit in my pants, and it does, I can’t really call it a failure.

Most of the creativity the game DOES have is in the gameplay itself, or rather one aspect of the two aspects of the gameplay. It’s the combat I’m talking about the combat, seeing as that’s basically all there is. Let’s just get this out of the way first, the forensic investigation shit is........well, it’s a bit shit. Oh yes, there’s a couple crime scenes you have to “solve” in a cursory almost a cutscene sort of way, where you have helpful premonitions about where you’re supposed to look and, as your lab tech helpfully informs you, “the system will choose which tool you need for you, so don’t worry about that!” Well, Christ kill me, thank God YOU know between the three fucking tools I have, one of which is an everything sensor and one of which is just a fucking camera which I’m supposed to use, God knows I wouldn’t have liked to have solved that mystery myself. It’s a shame because some of the crime scenes are quite intricate and yes, I would have liked to have put together myself that “wait a minute there’s a handprint in the paint here that matches the killer but the UV light shows an old blood spatter on the wall right above where he’d be sitting to make it, THAT MUST MEAN-” but nope. No you just have a premonition of the guy getting clobbered over the back of the head because the game is so terrified you won’t be able to put two and two together that it points out both the twos and hands you a multiplication table and nudges you and looks meaningfully at four every few minutes if you hesitate.

Anyway, that’s all the whingeing about the gameplay out of the way, because the rest of it is just delightful. Condemned is the rare first person game that focuses almost solely on melee combat and the almost unheard of one that does it well. In fact, it is the only example I can think of that’s not shit. Weapons all have individual stats to do with their heft and how far they can reach and how much of a man’s skull you can cave in at once with it and you have to choose between the plank with nails sticking out of it you can swing three times a second but you have to beat a man so badly with it it’s tiring just to watch and the sledgehammer, which demands a two weeks’ notice in writing if you’re planning on hitting someone with it, but will basically render every living thing in its considerable swing arc sent to the fucking Shadow Realm upon impact.

Something about the sound effects and the way the weapons in this game control really gets under my skin, I was killed by a 300-pound Subway-dwelling crazy survivalist wielding the aforementioned sledgehammer, and when I went down, I was sure I was familiar with the sound effect that played when it struck my skull, a sort of distant, muffled ringing of bone hitting metal. Wait a minute, I thought, I know I’ve experienced this in real life, how did they get this sound effect? Did they kill a man with a hammer to get this sound effect? Was I killed with a hammer in a past life? Killing people is equally fucking unpleasant as even the most vicious and inhuman looking ones don’t go down easily, and you can see them spit gobs of broken teeth and blood and god knows what, hear the lovingly researched impact noises, and almost feel the impact as you necessitate years of reconstructive facial surgery with one swing of your mighty chunk of concrete attached to a rebar. Then some of them have the gall to shakily get to their knees, not quite dead, trying to mumble something and you’re required to hit them AGAIN, which is always harrowing. To quote another underappreciated piece of media about the joys of gruesome murder: Why won’t you just die?! This is hard enough for me!!

The guns you do get are absolute balls, generally having about three bullets in them, you can’t reload them even if you find the exact same type of gun later, you can’t hold them in your inventory, and if you want an aiming reticle you have to actively turn it on in the options menu, and you can almost hear the game laughing at you for being such a shameless pussy.

Well, you now might be thinking to yourself, cheers for making the effort, but I’m not an insane person and therefore do not think the idea of a brutally beating people to death simulator sounds very enticing, but that’s the thing, it’s not really supposed to be. It does have a strangely addictive quality after a while, but for the most part it’s panicky and harrowing and grotesque and you really don’t want to do it but you have no choice, which is absolutely the best kind of survival horror. See, the combat in survival horror is always a bit of a sticking point, isn’t it? Because if you give the player too much firepower it just becomes an action game with spooky set pieces, but if you give them none at all, as is chic today, you better have loads of other surprises in store buddy boy, because the sheen on that trend has died and now you’re just likely to get slapped with the dreaded WALKING SIMULATOR sticker.

No, the best kind of combat for a horror feel is exactly the kind Condemned delivers, so of course they never FUCKING did it again. You leave every fight low on supplies, exhausted, badly wounded, and a bit sick at what you just reduced a human being’s skull to. Too often, the combat in games is, even that word “combat” it’s clean, it’s cold, it’s detached, it’s a very unique euphemism for butchering God knows how many people. I play this little game in my head when I go through games sometimes trying to keep track of how many unique, thinking, feeling entities I’ve just reduced to a mess for the janitor to mop up, and I always lose track around the third level. Condemned isn’t like that. Its violence is violence: horrible, awful, terrifying violence, and it doesn’t let you forget it. 

The graphics also add a lot to the horror if you can get past the dated polygonal weird-ass xbox 360 at launch faces and cutscenes, which is actually pretty easy once you get used to it. The level and character design is fantastic, and really adds a lot to the whole feel of the game. Everywhere you look is dark and labyrinthine, crumbling with rebars jutting out and exposed paneling and plumbing beneath holes rotted in the walls and grime and blood and god knows what just staining everything. This game is really nihilistic in tone, and you get the sense just from the graphics that you’re somewhere nobody gives a shit about, in a part of a city that’s just been left to die and rot. One almost gets the feeling moving around the fourth or fifth condemned (ohhhhh I see what they did there) building that the whole city is just a ghost town full of nobody but violent lunatics, and also that if you keep playing for too long you might get hepatitis just from exposure.

Plot-wise, I could fill another twenty paragraphs with petty gripes. It’s a bit Kill List which i’m sure is a reference you all understand in that it starts as a crime thriller about catching a serial murderer and ends in some bizarre insane bullshit halfway between Hereditary and Hellraiser, and leads you into it gently enough that you never really notice a sudden lurch.

You play as Ethan Thomas, a very boring and generic FBI Agent called in to investigate a serial killer case by two cops who are REMARKABLY blithe about murdering people, and it’s a bit jarring in today’s political climate. Though distrust, fear, and hatred of the police isn’t exactly new, and violence amongst police officers is brought up at one point, albeit in a loading screen, so honestly I can’t be arsed to speculate on what level of self-awareness we’re operating on here. Regardless, it’s bothersome.

“Oh yeah, this place is full of addicts, hopped up on something, I think, just shoot ‘em. What? Lost your gun, eh? That’s fine here’s a fire axe go nuts, kid, we’ll deal with the paperwork later”

Anyway, you are ambushed by a man you believe to be the killer for.......no real reason, really. He was spying on you checking out the crime scene, but we just established this place is full of squatters, what if one of the 8 people I murdered on the way into this ambush was the killer??? Case solved! 

Anyway, needless to say, without wishing to spoil, the dude IS the main antagonist the yellow eyes are a helpful giveaway, and he takes your gun and swiftly shoots Generic Beat Cop and Generic Dick with it, then throws you out a window, whereupon some other asshole whose main role in the game is to be enigmatic and plot-convenient, you know, one of THOSE characters, spirits you away from the scene, making it look like you just killed two cops and fled.

Now, in real life, as we all know, a cop can’t be indicted for murder even if 50 people saw him do it, but in this world, it means you have to go on the run from the FBI (not your lab tech, though, who is somehow assisting you from the lab and sending confidential data to your phone unnoticed??) while trying to solve the murder.

Meanwhile, in the background, in an “I’m sure this isn’t important and will in no way inform the last level of the game going batshit bonkers” kind of way, all of the people, including the cops, in certain dilapidated and neglected areas of the unnamed City City appear to be going what is medically known as balls-to-the-wall kill crazy, and birds are dropping dead from the sky by the thousands. Even you, protagonist, are prone to horrible screaming nightmare visions coming right the blazing blue fuck out of nowhere and that you never feel the need to comment on or go take a lie-down. I’m sure it’s nothing.

The voice acting is what you’d expect from this era of video games i.e. not good and the writing has an absolutely DESPICABLE habit of having characters tell Ethan things he should already god damned well know for the sake of gameplay or exposition, leading to my current theory that Agent Ethan Thomas has some kind of horrible head injury and can’t remember anything from over 2 minutes ago like Guy Pearce in that pretentious movie where he accidentally kills his wife and then runs around for two hours terrorizing random-ass people about it.

The game never full-on plays the AND THE MAN YOU’VE BEEN PLAYING AS WAS CRAZY THE WHOLE TIME card and leaves things a bit ambiguous, but after caving in the 15th vagrant’s head and the 7th vision you’ve had of being murdered by some Cenobite-looking motherfucker while conducting an unsanctioned investigation during a suspension prompted by you presumably murdering the shit out of two guys, you start to think this may not be standard FBI protocol. 

It’s all a bit hard to swallow is me point, a bit hard to sympathize, and a bit muddy if we’re supposed to or not. But you know what? It certainly isn’t boring, and I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t effective. This game is now one of only two to have genuinely given me nightmares, and I think it’s rather telling that after I played the hallucination part I had the nightmare about, I was having genuine trouble remembering if something happened in my nightmare of it or in the actual version.

Condemned is batshit crazy, hilariously easy to write off as “that game about killing hobos”, and very, very dated. But it is genuinely harrowing and unpleasant, and was clearly genuinely made by artists with the intent of saying.....errr i’m not exactly sure what, but SOMETHING! It’s about as far a cry as you can get from the Triple A crawling with microtransactions like your MCM is with crabs milk-you-for-money-until-your-udders-bleed look-at-how-shiny-we-are games, and even a lot of indie horror games who think it’s a measure of a masterpiece being able just to constantly trigger your fight-or-flight response again and again and again so you can make a hilarious Let’s Play out of it not to name any names Five Night’s at Freddy’s. It’s a relic of a different and i think a better time in gaming history, where big-name publishers were still taking chances and hadn’t quite yet worked out the formula for how to distill games into their most skeletal, malnourished, corporate, addictive, glorified gambling form.

Also it’s 3 dollars on Steam and you can finish it in like ffffffffucking...two days? So really why the fuck not. I have no idea how to assign numbers to things i’d probably give ir a 7 or 8 or 4 out of 5 stars but i’m bad at systems like that, just play it if you give a shit. If nothing else, a bunch of people snapping it up out of nowhere will really fuck with marketing, which is always a noble pursuit

[ironstrange-is-the-endgame]

Kidnapped

Whumptober, day 7

tw: canon-typical violence, graphic description of violence, blood

The last thing in the world Stephen expected was a phone call from Peter Parker. Not because he didn’t get along with the kid, quite the opposite, but because usually Spider-Man swung in with a happy smile on his face and spoke with Stephen about his day, school, and Aunt May every couple of days, when he was not interning at the Stark Industries.

Since Strange started to date Tony, the kid and his aunt started to be steady presences in his life too. May was more delicate, never stepping boundaries and always showing up with some threat - and even if whatever she cooked was absolutely terrible, Stephen noted that Wong seemed to enjoy it, maybe it was that famous Sorcerers’ diet Stephen’s body didn’t need still, or maybe the very same reason why May didn’t seem so sad the last time Stephen had to leave the Sanctum, not that he cared, though; while Peter was a little hurricane eager to know new things and do it by touching them. Which was the reason why, at the end of the day, a call from him was weird as fuck.

“It’s Stephen,” He answered, instead of the formal ‘Doctor Stephen Strange’, but, again, it was the kid so no need to be formal. “What’s wrong?”

“Mr Doctor, sir,” Peter’s voice has something wrong, though Stephen decided to let him speak before questioning him about that: if he knew the teen week enough, he would explain himself soon. “I was wondering… Doesn’t happen that Mr Stark maybe is at the Sanctum?”

“No, I’ll meet with Tony after your lab session,” It was a weird question, truth to be told, but maybe Peter was in dire of help. “There’s something I can do for you?”

“It’s just… Happy didn’t hear from him since last night and Friday told me he didn’t come back, so…”

Stephen would have paid for every other answer from him. Even a stupid one about how he would look great in the Cloak and how cool the name Spider Supreme was. Everything was better than those words: “Tony didn’t come back.”

They were together, the previous night. They had a nice dinner and a very, very nice dessert at the Sanctum and them Stephen suggested to portal him to the Tower but Tony insisted to drive. “Did you try to call Nat or Rhodey?”

“Yes, and yes,” Peter’s voice was worried, even more now that he knew Tony wasn’t at Stephen’s. “Mrs Romanoff told me she last saw him yesterday for the afternoon at the meeting, while Colonel Rhodes is on a mission with Captain Danvers. I also called Doctor Banner but…”

“He and Christine are out of the country, I know,” Stephen said, trying to think who he could call. “I could track him but you know…”

Tony still loathed magic. It didn’t matter that he dated a sorcerer, he couldn’t stand the idea of magic and location spells were more invasive than people were willing to admit. Stephen loved Stark too much to do something like that. “What if - I don’t even know.”

Peter was panicking, and Stephen couldn’t blame him. But Tony was a grown man, and he could do whatever he wanted to. “He probably had to go abroad and forgot to tell it to anyone, Pete.”

Stephen didn’t really believe that, though it was better than any other option which crossed his mind.

—

Tony Stark was declared missed one week later, and by now not even Stephen could keep his darkest fears away. At first, it thought that Tony decided he needed a little bit of peace but when he used to do that, he sent something from whatever he was to let them know he was ok. Not that happened frequently since they started to date, but it did after some bad arguments. And, usually, it lasted for a couple of days before Tony texted Stephen to reach him, and the did a lot of make-up sex.

That time was different, Stephen could feel it. And despite hating to voice it, when Wong suggested him to go to the police, Strange took the advice immediately. Actually, the policeman who found himself facing Doctor Strange and a teen telling him Tony Stark went missing looked like someone made him the worst joke ever. It didn’t matter, that wasn’t their only way to look for him they had but was more.

—

Friday went off-line one week and two days after any of them had last seen Tony. Rhodey was the one who awknowdeleged it. He was running through Tony’s last fly paths both with the suit and with his jet when the AI simply stopped to work and any attempt to restart her went in the blue.

Even Shuri tried to re-upload her from remote but there were few things she could do, she said to them.

“Whatever Tony is doing, is bigger than we all thought,” She said, looking almost defeated from her own holographic projection. The problem was that Stephen wasn’t sure there was Tony behind all of this. Whatever it was.

—

The world knew about it three weeks after Stark’s disappearing, when Steve and Bucky rescheduled their wedding. Captain America said that he wasn’t going to getting married until all his family was back, and Tony Stark was part of the said family.

Maybe he hoped that would have brought him back, though Stephen knew better. By now, he was sure that if his boyfriend could go back he would have done that long time ago.

—

The day after they went public with Tony being missing, Peter called him again. By now, there was no news: the kid called him to be updated about Stark or just vent when he needed it, and Stephen was there to help him as far as he could.

“Hey, kiddo,” He answered, trying to sound casual. In the end, he gave up and used magic to track Tony down, with the only conclusion of facing the dread truth: either Tony wasn’t on Earth, or he shielded himself from magic. “How are you?”

“Stephen…” If he didn’t call him ‘Mr Doctor’ or ‘Doctor Dad’ it meant it was serious. “Can you please portal there?”

“Sure, where are you?” Stephen asked he could sense the urgency in Peter’s voice.

“Home, please, hurry up.”

Stephen took his sliding ring and started to open a portal. “Is May all right? Do you need medical assistance?”

“Yes, and no, just… It’s easier if…” The moment Stephen stepped outside from the portal, he found himself facing both the Parkers and he slightly calmed down seeing that May was, indeed, fine. Just very, very pale and visibly shocked. Peter looked the same but he was holding something in his hands apart from his mobile. When he saw him, the boy stood up and hugged the sorcerer. “Stephen… You are here… I… Someone… Mr Stark.”

Stephen caressed Spider-Man’s brown hair looking at him a moment later. “Yes, of course, I’m here, you called me,” He said, receiving a small smile from May. He knew she tried all she could to help Peter with the superhero thing, but she was glad he had Tony in his life for that, and she told him she was glad that Stephen was looking after her boy as well. “What’s wrong?”

“I found this in the daily mails,” May answered. Peter frozen in the hug, and was now holding Stephen’s as if his own life depended on that, the sorcerer didn’t care. He entangled his hand from Peter’s curly hair and took the sheet May was handling at him. It was blank, with just a website printed on it and two words: Tony Stark.

“Did you…?” Stephen asked, and Peter showed him his mobile phone. Thanking a god in which Stephen didn’t believe, the quality of the video was crappy because the man bonded in chains to the chair in the middle of an empty dim lighted room was Tony Stark.

Around him, there were men with dark military gears and dark masks on their faces. One was keeping a gun pressed against Tony’s temple, the other was in front of the genius, asking him something - the video didn’t have audio and they were too far from Stephen to read Tony’s labial while the man’s lips were covered by the mask - and hitting him everytime no answer came from Stark. Stephen’s hands were shaking so violently that he was afraid he would let the phone fall. Though he couldn’t help himself to watch, hoping to find some detail that may suggest him where Tony was.

He had no idea how long it went, but the man with the gun at some point turned to the camera and said something to his companion. By now, Tony was more passed away than conscious. The man with the gun did something because then audio came from Peter’s mobile.

“Doctor Strange, I suppose, or maybe young Peter,” The man said and Stephen shivered. They could see if someone was online. Which meant it was really a live stream. And, somehow, that was good news at least because it meant that Tony was still alive. “We will release Tony Stark once we will have the SHIELD secrets he kept from himself.”

Both Peter and May dumbfounded and Stephen was sure the wear a matching expression. He had no idea about what the man was speaking. He knew of the downfall of the SHIELD, of course, like everyone else, probably, but he couldn’t see why Tony should keep something from himself. Stephen wanted to look at Tony but the man’s silhouette was covering everything else and he wanted just to throw up right there and now. The man didn’t add anything and covered the camera. Stephen looked at Peter and knew he was as pale as the kid.

“Call Nat, she can help us hacking the site and we may know from where they are streaming,” Stephen said tracing runes with the point of his hands on the sheet. Maybe there was a track of it as well.

—

It was Afghanistan all over again, that was what Rhodey told him, looking at the screen of his own StarkPad. With the only difference that back in the day they knew what the kidnappers wanted.

Stephen has always been the best working under pressure but he couldn’t think right now. Not with the image of Tony in front of his eyes even if he wasn’t looking at the screen.

Natasha was trying to track the signal, but whoever those people were, were fairly equipped to protect themselves and the fact that magic couldn’t help was another proof of that.

“They took down Karen too,” Peter said, walking into the room. Nat was speaking with Maria Hill, trying to understand if she knew something about those files. Steve and Bucky were looming in the corner, more men of action, Sam was trying to find some background sound from the video, but without Friday it was all pointless.

“Probably because if Tony can use her to track you, it works both ways,” Rhodey suggested.

Stephen was trying to think about what he could do, though the room was too loud and everything that came in his mind every time he dared to think about Tony was his bloody face. Rhodey closed the video after one of the men kicked the genius on the floor but in Strange’s mind that scene evolved and grew worse.

He almost punched Captain America when Steve approached him.

“We will find Tony,” He said. The two of them had never spoken, not for things which didn’t concern missions or Wanda’s well being in Kamar-Taj, so everything Stephen did was nodding at the man who tried a smile before going back at his fiancé’s side.

—

It took them four days of no-stop searching before some progress had been made. Stephen was physically exhausted and more than once Peter and May tried to force him to sleep until Wong grew annoyed and dared to drug his tea if he didn’t get some rest.

And he was kind of sleeping, or better his body was resting while his astral projection was trying to find Tony’s aura which was still shining in all those wonderful colours - the thing calmed him only slightly: it just meant that Tony was alive -, when Peter’s mask went on and Karen’s voice filled the Compound. Apparently, Ned and Shuri successfully hacked into Spider-Man’s AI and bring her back online.

Stephen didn’t even care to go back in his physical body and all but rushed in the Tower main room. At some point, during one of their numerous brainstorming, Pepper suggested running through Stark Industries employers because the only way someone could hack Friday was being in touch with the AI and Tony kept her running also for the R&D teams. Stephen didn’t lose a second to look at the information which appeared on the screen connected to Karen. He rushed back in his body and opened a portal to the closest location he knew from the man’s address.

Stephen has sworn an oath. That was what he was repeating to himself while he climbed two steps at the time of the building where the suspect lived. He swore not to take lives. He never killed, just once and it was because his own life depended on it, and the sorcerer still felt guilty about that. He sworn not to cause pain in others, he sworn to do everything in his power to protect lives.

He swore those very same things when he became Sorcerer Supreme, though he wasn’t protecting just lives but the entire multiverse. He has sworn those things to Tony too, holding the man between his arms. And he kept swearing that every night Tony woke up after a nightmare.

But he broke those oaths. He choose between lives when he was a surgeon, he harmed nobody but he could have taken more risks, save more people, he broke the laws of nature, back in Hong Kong, and now he let someone take Tony. He wasn’t able to protect him. So, now, all that Stephen Strange wanted was revenge. What he didn’t expect reaching the seventh floor of the building, though, was facing Peter, Rhodey and Clint outside the suspect’s apartment. “What?” He asked.

“I heard Karen’s message too, and she called Peter probably. Nat, Steve and Bucky are on the main entrance, Wanda, Shuri and Bruce on the back,” Clint explained to him, a cocky smile on his face. “We are a team, Doc, we do not avenge by our owns. Now, if you mind, we should knock the door.”

Which meant shooting an explosive arrow without warning, apparently. The point was, Stephen couldn’t think straight or he would have waited for back-ups. According to Karen, whoever the man was, he was a made up identity and he was probably a former Hydra agent went in the dark after Natasha exposure of SHIELD’s files.

How he passed Stark Industries background controls what a mystery, but he most definitely didn’t work on his own.

The apartment was empty and after having checked with the outside teams who reached them inside, it was clear that the man didn’t leave the building after their arrival. “He probably left when they took Tony, but it was worth a shot,” Nat said searching for something between the man’s stuff.

“Wait, that’s Tony’s, isn’t it?” Clint came out from the bedroom with a SarkPhone. “It must be his at least our friend hacked into Tony’s private server.”

Tony’s screensaver was, indeed, a very private picture the genius saved from one of the multiples videos he had Friday recorder. In that one, a six-armed Stephen was stripping Tony off of his clothes holding his hands above his head. None of them was naked, though it was clear how it would have ended. Stephen had no idea that photo even existed and he would have been more flattered in any other occasion.

“We couldn’t track his mobile, which means whatever they are using to shield both tech and magic must be close,” The sorcerer said, taking the mobile from Clint’s hands.

“We can search in the other buildings around there,” Bucky suggested. “Rhodey and Pete can use the thermal view, to shield that is harder.”

They divided again. The area wasn’t so close but, at least, it was smaller than the entire world, or space as he feared at first. Though, what was driving him crazy was that he had seen how Tony had been tortured. They couldn’t fail. If the man went back in the apartment and realized the phone was missing before they found Tony, he was gone, for good.

Searching for Tony’s aura, Stephen could almost say how close he was to his beloved boyfriend. It wasn’t as precise as a location spell or a GPS position but it could work as in he was on the right path. Which was how he found himself rushing the moment Peter’s voice reached him from the roofs: “Doc, six different sources of heat in the building in front of you.”

Too few for being an apartment complex, too many for being a casualty. He nodded. “Get it, alert the others.”

And before Peter could say something, the Cloak lifted him and Stephen was on the building roof.

—

One month, three weeks, four days and ten hours. That had been the last time Stephen had seen Tony. And all that time he had been in New York, in the hands of some psycho former Hydra agent. And Stephen thought the man just wanted to broke up with him and didn’t know how to say it. He had been terribly stupid, and if Tony would have broken up with him after that, he could understand.

But Stephen didn’t care. He only wanted to see the love of his life breathing. That was the only thing that mattered.

One month, three weeks, four days and ten hours. And Stephen was rushing down the stairs, entering from the emergency stair into what looked like an abandoned factory, the Cloak on his shoulders flipping to a nonexistent wind.

Peter told him there were six heat sources inside the building. Five enemies, between him and Tony. He didn’t even care about being silent, at this point, while he rapidly summoned two orange shields shining in the otherwise pitch-black building. The first bullet melted against them, the Cloak was on the man in an eyebeat, dragging him down from his sniper position. Stephen didn’t even stop when he heard the deaf sound of a body against the concrete.

Other two men were on him the moment he walked in the dim-lighted room. It was probably the one from the videos, and Stephen tried not to think about the fact that the floor was bloody red. The sorcerer knocked one of the men out and used his magical ropes to tie the other. His hands were shaking and hurting, but Stephen didn’t care.

One month, three weeks, four days and ten hours. And only two other men between him and Tony. Without thinking about the amount of blood Tony had possibly lost and about the other men who might have reached the building - he doubted that if they were Hydra there were just five agents guarding Tony Stark, it didn’t matter how advanced their technology seemed to be - he followed the bloody footsteps into another room. This was larger, but Stephen didn’t mind to look at it because Tony was there, probably passed out seeing how he was lying on the floor, and no, Stephen refused either to believe or think that he might have been dead, also because it was clear that they wanted him alive.

“Tony,” He said, rushing toward the unresponsive body. He was breathing, though, and that helped Stephen to control his own respiration. “I’m here, I’m here…” He whispered, holding his boyfriend’s body between his arms. He could hear footsteps at his back and he imagined those belonged to the kidnappers who wanted to attack him while he couldn’t protect himself but he didn’t care. He was there, with Tony, and he was alive, the other Avengers were arriving so he just had to protect him, didn’t matter if they try to kill Stephen instead. And then, a red shield rose in front of his eyes and he was sure that it belonged to Wanda.

“We have this under control, Doctor,” Steve said, and Stephen didn’t even notice they entered the building. “Bring him home.”

Stephen didn’t wait for them to have second thoughts and portalled Tony to the Sanctum.

—

Stephen took care of Tony thanks both to his own magic and his studies. He didn’t want anyone to get close to the genius without him being in the room but for Peter and Rhodey and didn’t sleep in the two days Tony slept.

When he woke, Stephen wasn’t in the room, but he could hear the fretted breathing of his boyfriend. It took some minutes for Tony to realize he was safe in the Sanctum and he stopped to shake only when he saw Stephen walking inside the room. “Steph…” He let out, and Stephen’s lips curled in a smile.

“I’m sorry,” Stephen whispered his hands softly on Tony’s face still marked with bruises. “I should have realized before you didn’t run away, I should have…”

“It’s not your fault, babe,” Tony’s voice was weak, raw because of his sore throat. Stephen let a glass of water appeared in his hands, placing it on the duvet between them because he knew Tony hated when people handled things at him. Tony drank without opposing. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Stephen pushed softly his lips against Tony’s, and they stayed like this for some minutes before the genius tried to stand up. Only to meet Stephen’s stoniest expression. “You are not going to leave anytime soon, Mr Stark, you are officially my prisoner until you will have rest and all those bruises will have fade.”

And maybe it was too soon to joke about Stephen kidnapping him, but Tony laughed anyways.

[aharris00britney]

ASKS 04

wow I let this build up didn’t I.... updates on the ViVi inspired hair, Sim download info, some sweet people, some K-Pop, and other stuff below

@agentwashsims​ said: I️ knew you wouldn’t disappoint on the curly hairs!

Thank youu! lmao it is a pretty basic edit but I’m glad you like it ;-;

Anonymous said: Could you convert the solid colored EA Cruella DeVille style for girls or tots?

Actually it has already been converted HERE (warning: she uses an ad thing :( )

@pierce-the-rachel​ said: Okay hello I just love your cc so much!!! Like you're amazing I what you do. Much love<3   

Thank you so much omgg I am not nearly close to being amazing but I appreciate it <3

Anonymous said: Hi! Is there any chance your sim that modeled the Braxton hair will be up for download? Along with his cc?

Yes! In the next week he 100% will be. Taylor will be posted tomorrow :)

Anonymous said: What skin do you use on your male models? It looks the same as the female one but I can’t find it in CAS.

Check my resource page for my default. I don’t have the overlay labeled on there but in the next few days when I have my male model for download it will be listed there.

Anonymous said: I love your whistle skinny jeans alot, I was wondering if you were ever thinking about making one without the jacket around the waist? Sorry for wasting your time :P

That is sadly out of my ability :( but I am glad u like my whistle skinny jeans!! Not a waste of time to give someone a compliment

Anonymous said: Not exactly an ask but. I love your cc, you create beautiful content, and no matter what others say someone is gonna like it :)

Thank you soooo much omfg I really fucking appreciate stuff like this.

Anonymous said: Your creations are so awesome! I always love coming to your page and seeing all of your amazing creations!!

Thank you!!!!!! omg I feel bad that I never respond to these until I do these things, you guys that send these prob think I ignore them ;-; but for the people who read these and who send them: I really appreciate it like so much ;-; it has been a meh couple of weeks which is why CC has been slow but I love you all so much <3

@raivynmoon​ said: Omg why do you always get so much hate from anons? I’ll tell you why, because you’re doing things right and toxic people get jealous. Don’t mind the haters, you’re amazing! Happy new year ❤️ 

I actually don’t get that much hate! I never really pay them any mind bc I know as long as it is something I like that I will release it. People do def prob get jealous they can’t mesh stuff that well, not saying I am the god at it, but I do have some talent in that area from doing it for a while. Happy new year to you too!!! and thank you for the ask <3

Anonymous said: hey i just want to say that all of your cc is amazing, you put so much time and effort into it. of course everyone can give you feedback and opinions about what you make, but you are the creator so you can do whatever you want with it. that anon below was just rude, inconsiderate, and isn’t really helping anyone. that person obviously doesn’t make cc hair, because im sure then they would understand and not be a total jerk about it. maybe they should just stick to makeup, instead of hating.

<-- what she said (thank youuu)

Anonymous said: well I think that all of the hair you make is really great, even if not everyone likes it. You spend so much time making these amazing hairs and shout-out to the person below: why would you waste your time hating on somebody else’s hard work when you could be creating makeup cc? You don’t put your effort and time into creating this kind of stuff, of course I know you were also giving feedback.

Thank you <3

Anonymous said: THE HAIR IS CUTE AF

Anonymous said: Wcif the hair in your "In The Time Spent With You" post? Thank you!♡

Deleted :( I never got it to look how I wanted so I never finished it

Anonymous said: I'd just like to say that the hair looks pretty, honestly your hairs are always high quality and never fail to dissapoint, I'd just say that it could be a little puffier on the sides, and over all ignore the haters, they probably couldn't make anything close to what you're making! Luvs. 

Thank you!! I tried puffing the sides up some, here is a comparison pic:

(brown is now) (blonde is before)

@twirlyb​ said: I love the idea of the hair and I think it looks good so far but so you think that there's anyway to add for volume? I love the hair that it's based on and I really want to have it in game. I Completely understand if it's not an option but I though I would ask anyway. Btw I think your hairs are amazing. I went mostly cc free for a while (not anymore could handle not having cc but) and the only things I kept were my defaults and some of your hairs that I absolutely can not live without.

Refer above lmao

@cutesimmer23​ said: Hi , anonimus , I have a message for you. If you think Austin's cc is trashy , it's just your opinion. His ccs are one of my top favourites , and I support him in all that he does , even if that's not too good. He tries to do something and , even it's not perfect at the first time , he tries to perfect it. I really love his cc . And I have something more to say. If you are that good at cc give Austin a message (not anonimously) and then we will see who's the best. We love you, Austin!

Thank you <3 You're lovely for sending me this

Anonymous said: heyy love your blog and all of your creations. wcif ALL of your sims? do you ever upload them to the gallery?

Macie is already posted, link on my resource page. Taylor will be posted tomorrow, and my male model will be posted next week. The rest idk

Anonymous said: um can that damn anon piss off. your content is absolutely amazing and some things aren't for everyone but someone out there will love and appreciate it. also the hair in your profile picture looks gorgeous. is it released yet? and the wip you posted is cute af. ignore those haters <3

Thank you <3 Hair in my profile pic is my HyunA hair :)

Anonymous said: Hi, so sorry if anyone has already asked this, but I was wondering hat your origin ID was, since your sims are super cute!? Ps. I'm totally in love with your blog!!!

My origin is Spotharris but it does not have much on it right now, Ps. thank you

Anonymous said: Do you have any K-Pop albums? Which ones?

Oh my! I have a few! I have Red Velvet’s Perfect Velvet, and 6 LOONA albums (Kim Lip, Jinsoul, Choerry, Yves, Mix & Match, and Max & Match)

 Anonymous said: I miss you having Macie as your icon :(     

Me too jush she needs to make a comeback     

Anonymous said: Hey I was wondering if you could do a tutorial on how to make a middle parted hair side parted ?? please

I might do a livestream sometime in the future that is me remaking a hair like Joy or something where I did that. I am really bad at video stuff though so like... someone help?

Anonymous said: Can I just say how much I absolutely love all of your hairs? Like your so talented in making cc. Please keep up the great work!

Thank you!

Anonymous said: Can you convert the cupid eyes you posted for dogs/cats? It's fine if you can't, jw!

rip I can but I really don’t want to ;-;

Anonymous said: I just want to say I love you so much! All your creations are so beautiful and I use them ALL the time. Happy Holidays! ~ V

Happy late holidays!

Anonymous said: Do you have all of your own CC in your game?

Nooooo lmao

Anonymous said: does ur hyuna hair work with the ombres?

She does not :(

Anonymous said: make more diverse sims

gotcha

Anonymous said: yo i remember when you first started out and you were just starting.  now you've improved a HELL of a lot. like WOAH (i love your cc)

we don’t speak of those times in my life ok

Anonymous said: I don't know if you are open to cc requests, so if you are, would you ever consider separating them utility jacket from cats and dogs? I've seen so many people recolor it but I can't find it as an accessory, and I've looked everywhere.

A friend of mine tried it but it was really glitchy :( Maybe in the future I could give it a go?

Anonymous said: LIPS, HIPS LIPS, HIPS (ahh, ahh) L-LIPS, HIPS (ahh, ahh) Hi-hi-hi-hi-hip (POP!)

yes i agree with everything

Anonymous said: I have the same b-day as you

only legends were born on that day. and December 2nd.

Anonymous said: Your birthday is the day before mine and the day after my sister's            

So close to being legends.... sad

Anonymous said: I thought, you're female😅😅🔫

rip ur mind after i blew it up by being a male

Anonymous said: damn didnt know u were homophobic lol

oh

Anonymous said: fmk: danny devito, shrek, and jim carrey's the grinch

fuck danny bc idk who it is and i know a hot danny. marry the grinch bc he i like mayor of whoville after the movie. kill shrek and take the donkey.

Anonymous said: ahHHHhhHh idk why but i love you so much(not in a weird way u pervery xddd)

thanks babessss

Anonymous said: You should start a gameplay

I dont have the computer or the time for that I am sorry to say

[joh-gaming]

Why is this affecting me so much?

This is probably going to be an incredibly long post, one that I don’t expect many would read but that I feel I have to write. If not for Epic to read it at some point, then for myself, to remember this and why this game was so important.

I will have a lot of personal opinions, unfair comparisons and highly critical comments in those comparisons that may or may not be accurate. There will also be speculation as there’s more going on than what they’ve been willing to say.

If you care, then please, click on Keep Reading to continue.

How did I learn about it?

Honestly, I have no idea and that’s an issue that lead to its current situation. This is what I remember hearing back then. Paragon is a new game by Epic Games, creators of the Gears of War series (which I’m not really a fan of) and the Unreal Engine (which has always fascinated me) It was going to be a MOBA (which I hate, don’t like any MOBAs except Paragon but I’m getting ahead of myself here)

Clearly the above isn’t enough to get me to try it, on the contrary. So what was it, I must have seen something that made me think, this is worth a try. As great as that announce trailer was, none of the heroes in it speak to me, not even Sparrow whom ended up as my first mastered character and the one I own the most skins for. It wasn’t a gameranx before you buy thing which to this day I haven’t seen nor plan to, nor Angry Joe’s first look which again, I have no interest in watching. I’m not being critical of those channels, it’s just that I already experienced the game, most if not all of its iterations, so I really don’t care what they had to say about it.

Well... funny enough it was Overwatch the reason I gave Paragon a try. While Paragon is relatively older than Overwatch, it was in closed beta for the first few months. After trying, and falling in love with Overwatch’s beta, I felt the need to fill that void but with another, hopefully similar game. Then I saw the announcement of Paragon’s own free open beta weekend

I don’t remember if I took part on it or not, the next thing I wrote of Paragon after that was Digital Foundry’s graphic comparison of the game on PC and PS4 vanilla (at the time, the only PS4 there was) praising how a console game let you use mouse and keyboard.

Now, going back to Overwatch for a second, there are a few things you should know. 1. I have a friend that is part of the Overwatch team 2. I bought the game myself, no free keys and it was the PS4 version 3. I didn’t have enough money to buy it at launch, I ended up buying it late June or mid July, can’t remember and it’s not THAT important right now. 4. I tend to prefer cartoon like graphics as they are pretty much timeless

With that being said, this was my first impressions on Paragon, having tasted Overwatch.

“I feel really bad for the artists working on Paragon. Clearly a lot of effort was put into the design and modeling of the characters but good God they're so damn boring. The maps are also bleh with a palette that doesn't help things at all. Animations feel like over a decade old with awkward jump and run. I will be surprised if this game is actually successful 'cause it's a MOBA and what's the most important part of a MOBA? The damn heroes.“

I’ve been wrong before, but this is probably the top one. The map in question is what we now call Legacy. After spending a long time in super colorful maps in Overwatch, I found myself in this semi realistic map with ruins and a jungle that looked old and boring. Movement was too slow and I’m not sure what I was talking about with the animations, maybe they were bugged at the time ‘cause Paragon’s animations are impressive. Some of the best work in gaming.

Needless to say, I had a rocky start with Paragon, mostly because I didn’t understand it. I don’t know how long I tried it before I deleted it but that’s what I ended up doing. I got frustrated and instead of doing research I just quit.

So, going back to Overwatch for another second, how long was my honeymoon after I bought it? It lasted for about a month, after that I started seeing all the issues the game had and has (most of them are still there) especially on consoles. Broken heroes, Play of the game that encourages nonsense, the “scoreboard” that highlights the wrong things, lack of content, lack of heroes, easily exploitable on certain maps, etc. So I guess, thanks to Overwatch, not only did I dare to try Paragon, but fell in love with it. (btw, I did check, bought Overwatch mid June and by mid July I was sick of it, only made worse in August trying to get the limited time skins I wanted) And that’s not even talking about how Overwatch popularized Loot Boxes (yes, they have existed for a long long time, they just made it seem OK in a full priced game, ‘cause it was $60 on console)

Now, I couldn’t find this anywhere but I remember I returned to Paragon when Lt. Belica was announced. Gave it another go but again, failed to understand the character and gameplay. I will get more into the true problem for new people later on, but for now let’s go with why did I delete the game a second time. Well, it wasn’t out of frustration this time, rather than HDD space on my PS4. At the time it didn’t support external HDD. When did I return in a more permanent manner? When Countess came out.

She became my main for a while, which is funny ‘cause part of her kit was taken from the hero that would completely grab me forever. I started understanding the design decisions of the characters and the graphics, I got past the part where they wouldn’t last a few years, I was wrong about that too. I think they found the right balance between realistic and somewhat cartoonish to make the graphics last. That and they weren’t shy on retouching characters later on.

On November 2016 I said this

“Now I have a better understanding of the game, mind you that if I were to read about it I MAY learn it faster, but I prefer to learn from my own mistakes rather than trying to play like someone else that is probably more skilled. I can accomplish a similar standard just playing with things that work for me rather than what is "optimal". Or that word that gets on my nerves, the META. Fucking meta...” 

Funny, I still agree on that.

Paragon growing on me

I’m going to quote myself again, but I’m going to edit said quote for context purposes, not trying to say something different than I said before. For instance, the post was made with a video that I won’t include here, so anything mentioning the video is out of context.

“The more I play Paragon, the more I like it, but at the same time the more I notice its problems. Paragon currently has 24 heroes with a new one added every 3 weeks. Only has one map and one game mode, but it's free and high quality so no complaints here. However if you're like me, you tend to pick certain characters based mostly on looks not on play style. This is one of the biggest issues in Paragon and even Smite for that matter. The character design in Paragon is on point but at the same time it’s dull and boring.

You have your human characters, your robots and your beasts. They decided to go with a semi realistic look for the game instead of doing the cartoon like design from popular and unpopular  MOBAs. Which is fine I guess, you want to differentiate yourself, especially when now everyone that does it is instantly going with "an Overwatch look". On PS4 they had to lower the graphics quite a bit.

Paragon has a hero limit since launch and you can't switch heroes of course. The character selection process is completely random (I was the first to pick this time by pure luck) there are no rules for this other than what common courtesy SHOULD dictate. Personally, even if I get to pick first, let's say if the third player selects Countess before I do, I consider that a priority so I leave Countess open for him. You should learn how to play at least 4 characters. Game actually wants you to learn five characters, that's why you get 5 deck slots by default.

I prefer to play Countess, but I'm better with Sparrow and already have experience with Belica. That being said, the whole mastery system induces people to rage quit when the character they wanted gets picked by someone else. It starts off fine, but eventually leveling up your character becomes a chore and a grind.”

This was still back in November 2016.

On December 2016, I had this to say about the game

“There were a few things keeping the game from being as good as it could be. One of them being the learning curve. This wasn't your go in spray and pray your way to victory while you press a button to get a highlight at the end of the match to feel great about your awesomeness. No, in Paragon you needed to learn a lot about the mechanics, you had to build your character from scratch, and you had to find a way to balance your build to be ready for what's to come. It was amazingly refreshing to be honest. Sure it took me some time to like it, mostly 'cause I still feel the graphics aren't what they should be and the characters, while having an interesting design, they lack a palette that makes them unique.”

“This past Tuesday, Epic Games decided to upload Monolith. Basically Paragon is now a whole different game. Taking into account player feedback, mostly for how slow the game was, they applied a lot of changes to the mechanics of the game. Some of the changes would have been enough in the Legacy map to make the game nearly perfect, but no. Monolith is a smaller map than Legacy, character speed is improved but then it creates other issues when you fight other heroes. Certain classes are now having a tougher time. You gain less card power, forcing you to stay on the map longer rather than going back to base to level up. That in theory would be great if you weren't so fucking weak for half of the game. So what are people doing to combat this? They basically have the same builds. Build for attack speed and power, then some life steal and you're good to go. It's boring now, it's more like a shooter. “

I ended up that paragraph with something I regret and therefore won’t repeat. Even if it didn’t happen... I didn’t uninstall the game and have no plans to do so. Not even after it’s gone (unless it keeps affecting my health, more on that later)

“The simplification of Paragon, as a whole, made it more accessible to regular players, you know your regular multiplayer bro. So it's kind of funny to see the rage quitters because the early game is so painfully slow (in terms of levels) and how easy it is to die when you don't understand how minions and towers work. They changed more things in Paragon than what Massive changed in The Division. Paragon is like a different game, one that doesn't require you to be as smart as before. You now stack attack and go play. That's why I'm a little disappointed with the update. Thankfully they are listening to the feedback so perhaps they can find a middle ground between this version and the previous one, because both have great ideas, they just need to remove the bad ones. A match in Paragon is still more fun than a match in Overwatch though.” 

2017, a roller coaster of emotions

Last year alone Paragon went through at least 3 big changes. Many think these changes lead to its current downfall but I don’t agree. In a community corner video (I may edit this if I find it again) they said (a bit arrogantly I may add) that Legacy won’t ever come back. Keep in mind that while at first I was one of those that felt betrayed by the changes Monolith brought to the game, I was still playing and having fun. Originally the thought was, “we don’t want to split the community” and at the time I agreed. But looking back I failed to see the same thing they missed, the community was already divided. Bringing Legacy as a mode, or a more strategic version while Monolith would be more fast paced wouldn’t be bad.

Look at Smite and Overwatch, both games that wouldn’t want to have a split community, now their games have plenty of modes. Keeps players in because if they tire of one thing they could test another ‘cause at the end of the day, it’s the heroes that will keep you coming back. So it wasn’t the changes, more like a pinch of arrogance and a lack of modes. The player retention they later complained about, was of two folds, lack of ranked mode and a poor tutorial.

What made Paragon different and special, besides the heroes I will come to love even more than those in other games, was the card system. You’ll find videos from ‘tubers that are now jumping to conclusions just to talk about the closure of a game they never even heard of. You’ll hear them say something about it being pay to win with buying cards and what not, which funny enough was true in 2016, nobody said anything about it then, but all of that was removed when they added the card crafting system so long ago that I don’t even remember when that was implemented.

Building a deck was crucial to success in Paragon, just as much as understanding minions, towers, your role, buffs, rotations and kills. For most of the 2 years, the jungle was crucial too, that was changed in one of the latest patches. Some say for the worse, I’m not too sure it was. If it was simplification they were after, then the current jungle makes the jungler job easier to understand. Farm, get some levels and skills, then go help the lanes. True that had it been a mode in Monolith with Legacy being the more strategic match, it would have been better received, or at least that’s my perception.

People don’t like to feel dumb, even less to realize they actually are. If what I’m writing here makes me sound dumb, then perhaps I am, but it doesn’t matter as this post has nothing but my sincerest thoughts on the matter, even if I’m trashing Overwatch along the way. I think Paragon was a great game, unique in a sea of MOBAs, that people just failed to understand and that the developers didn’t support correctly.

Was Fortnite the issue?

Epic Games is often accused of doing popular things then scrapping them, fad chasers is what they call them. Paragon started when MOBAs were a big thing, just like Fortnite started when Minecraft was a thing. Sure at the time you had Cliffy B on board so he wanted a gritty and scary thing in Fortnite. Fortnite was one of those games that went through development hell, a game that if not by PUBG catching fire (see what I did there) and they being able to rip it off, it would have crashed and burned by now. Fortnite was sold as an Early Access game

I clearly bought into Fortnite’s Early Access, hence the screenshot of the banner unlocked. What made me buy Fortnite when I knew it wasn’t done? If there’s one thing I learned from playing Paragon, is that Epic will change everything trying to find the best system for the gameplay. I wanted to be a part of that too, I wanted to see the game change and grow (keep that expression in mind) over time. I also wanted to thank Epic for Paragon, so I thought this would be the best way to do so.

I was aware of Fortnite before I knew anything about Paragon, I mean like I said, it’s one of those games that went through development hell. I was watching one of their livestreams when they were giving away keys to almost everyone, they didn’t give me one (at the time it was a PC only game) so I never got the chance to try it myself. Over time I stopped paying attention to it as I never got a key, nor even acknowledgement that I wrote them asking for one. Why was I interested in Fortnite? Well, obviously the cartoon graphics as I mentioned before, then there’s the whole building thing which I enjoy a lot (main reason why I like Fallout 4) and Orcs Must Die 2 is one of my favorite Tower Defense games. (Keep that game in mind too)

If I had known that everything they said about working on developing what is now a mode (Save the World) was a lie, I would never have wasted money on Fortnite. The game is as incomplete now as it was on launch. Sure they have had events but almost every resource is going into the Battle Royale mode. Again proving that they are indeed fad chasers. If you feel like I’m wrong here, that it was a logical business decision and that justifies whatever you’ve spent on Fortnite, then fine, that’s what you think. But personally, I can’t recommend anyone to spend money on ANY Epic Games game from now on. This will sound like Blackmail and maybe it sort of is, but I do mean this, if Paragon is completely closed (as in I can’t play it in any way, shape or form) to me, I don’t see myself giving EG money again in the future. I don’t just say things like that and change my mind when it’s convenient, I haven’t bought an EA game since they burned me with SimCity 2013.

The Heroes of Paragon

Paragon has a bunch of great heroes, my favorite hero would come out in May 2017. That would be Phase. I’d say it was love at first sight but it wasn’t, it was love at first try. Before Phase there was Aurora, a controlled type character that had the looks and mobility, not to mention damage output. I often play range roles or control types, while Aurora was melee, I felt she has more mobility than Countess plus her control abilities were great to set up team attacks. I never thought a support would be far more interesting to me.

Phase’s kit was amazing, actually it was too good to the point where she broke the game for some people. One thing is a good support, another is a support good at everything. Good at healing, dealing damage and controlling the enemy. She got nerfed a couple of times, with her healing being affected the most, she’s still my main. For whatever reason, Phase felt like a part of the Phantom Thieves in Persona 5. Granted that after reading her lore I completely understand why that was the case, but the fact that I thought about it without reading it says a lot about the work put into the character itself

There are so many nuances in her animations, even her new launch pad animation. While not as involved or defining as most of the characters’, it still feels like a Phase launch. Her relationship with Shinbi was explored later, it was interesting but it didn’t change what I thought the character was like. She is the character I’ll miss the most, but don’t think she’s the only character I like a lot.

1. Countess 2. Aurora 3. Lt. Belica 4. Sparrow 5. Dekker 6. Serath 7. Morigesh 8. Zinx 9. Drongo 10. Wraith 11. Yin 12. Gadget 13. Muriel 14. Twinblast 15. Murdock 16. Shinbi

I will miss all of them. There are a few I haven’t even tried.

The greatest game I couldn’t play

From September 19, 2017 to January 9 2018, I didn’t have internet access. Hurricane Maria had destroyed our infrastructure leaving many of us in a terrible situation. Originally I was OK, I was prepared for around 2 months of no power, let alone net access. My house held fine (or so it did at first) and my family was OK. Then it started, the following days it started raining what felt like non stop and the damage Maria did, was now evident. Water was pouring in, my things were getting damaged, first I lost my bed, then my desk, well to cut to the point, I pretty much lost my house. I don’t have the money to fix it and with the situation my country is in, I don’t think it’s even worth it.

All I kept thinking about was, man I wish I could play Paragon again. Sounds silly but everyone has something that helps them disconnect from whatever terrible reality they are in. For nearly 4 months that’s all I wanted to do. Late October I moved to my brother’s house, it had power, water would come later but at least it had power. I started playing some games to avoid thinking of what I lost and had yet to lose, as I couldn’t save everything important. Nothing clicked, all I wanted was to play Paragon. I would watch my captures of my game time, over and over and the “music video” I did of my first coop match playing her

I missed the October event, I wanted that mummy Yin skin. I almost missed the winter event skins, got net back right when they extended the event 1 more week, so I was able to buy Morigesh and Aurora’s skins. Those weren’t the last skins I bought, no. The last skin I bought was the Panda skin for Phase. The day before they announced that Paragon would close.

So you see, the answer to my first question, why is this affecting me so much? well, after losing my house and some of my things, the game I wanted to play the most is going away too. It breaks my heart, I saw Paragon from almost every stage in development, highs and lows I loved playing it, I still do. There are terrible games that somehow are still up (Day Z comes to mind) yet this amazing game that is making so many people cry, it’s going away. Or is it?

Were we lied to?

It all points to yes, something happened that they can’t talk about. In their open letter they said

Here inside Epic, we’re talking about the future of Paragon in pretty much the same terms as you’re talking about it. The core challenge is that, of new players who try Paragon, only a small number continue to play regularly after a month. Though Paragon has evolved, no iteration has yet achieved that magical combination of ingredients that make for a sustainable game. (As an aside, the problem isn’t marketing or how to make money with Paragon. We have good ideas that would solve those problems if we can find a way to make Paragon grow.) 

So, if the problem wasn’t marketing (which btw it was, it wasn’t even promoted 1/5 of what Fortnite has been) nor making money with it, the problem was making it worth the effort. At least that’s my opinion. Fortnite success came over night, so it was an easy decision to ditch their less popular game even though it is their superior product. But is that even the case here? While Paragon is going to close for us, in China it started its closed beta

What the flying fuck is going on here?

It’s hard not to feel betrayed, it’s hard not to wish Epic Games failure (I try not to) but nothing is harder than seeing a great game close, with some relatively true explanation but no real logic behind it. Closing Paragon, even if it was to make development on Fortnite easier, is a mistake. Leave it in life support until you can come up with better ideas for it. The rank mode they were working on was never implemented in Paragon, instead it was moved to Fortnite. So don’t tell me you did everything for the game, it died because you didn’t support it Epic. It died because you killed it not because we left, I never left. As the final months are quickly going by, and I try to enjoy my final moments with it, in an analogy I rather not say, I feel myself getting sick. I get this massive headaches now, Paragon may have nothing to do with it but coincidentally, they come after playing a few matches. It hurts to know it’ll be gone and that I won’t be Phase anymore.

On the other side, I hope Epic Games have realized that Fortnite is more of a platform than a game. Quickly being able to transform itself from tower defense building game to a battle royale with building elements. I mentioned Orc Must Die series, well their latest game was one of the many MOBA attempts that kind of failed. They had to add the classic gameplay that made them popular in order to keep their fans, because they were bleeding players like crazy. Now, the current version has plenty of modes, kept the MOBA, (EDIT: They removed the MOBA mode) added the classic and created a few more. Fortnite can be Paragonized if they wanted to, they could even add some of the Paragon characters to Fortnite, I would gladly pay for Phase.

Soldier Class

1. Belica 2. Murdock

Constructor Class

1. Terra 2. Greystone

Outlander Class

1. Phase 2. Twinblast

Ninja Class

1. Shinbi 2. Kwang

And clearly, I’m not the only one that thinks that’s doable. naastika.deviantart.com

Final thoughts

I may be angry and disappointed, and I do mean it, that if I can’t play Paragon or Phase (mostly Phase) any more, that I truly won’t support any more Epic Games games, but I do appreciate the rare opportunity to play such an amazing game. I’m too old to like video games for the gamey aspects of it, I prefer the media side of it, the opportunities it offers as a story telling device that surpasses books and movies. I started my gaming on the Atari 2600, I’m done with jumping around for hours or shooting for no reason. It is extremely rare for me to get attached to a game with no narrative, and the fact that Paragon pulled this off, speaks to the talent working on the game.

Thank you for Paragon, and fuck you if you do close it.