#my bro’s the only person i really play fps games with consistently so i was especially bummed to find out he cant play with me :((((

[xxplastic-cubexx]

If its anything i didnt even think my computer would be able to run it lol ………

[xserpentlife]

Trippin

Requested: Yes - Hey are requests still open? If so do you think you could so one where it's a Jughead or Sweet Pea x reader where the reader is usually super clumsy, so he's usually prepared to save them and stuff, But the reader gets a pair of heelys and he doesn't find out until he sees the reader holding onto one their friends jackets or back packs running through the halls?

A/N: I hope y’all love this. I really love the way it turned out so I hope you do too.

WC: 1845

Sweet Pea’s POV

5 months ago I noticed Y/N for the first time. We were friends, always had been. Walking home from Pops with Fangs on my left and Y/N to my right. We were making our way to our trailers on the Southside. After a long week of school, Pops was our escape. No care in the world we were walking aimlessly along the stone sidewalks and uneven ground. Y/N stepped up and must have mistook how high or uneven the ground was and somehow I instinctively saw her falling as I reached out and grabbed the end of her backpack. I grabbed on to it as she screamed, but I stopped her from falling before she could hit the ground.

“Ahhhh!, What the…!” I lifted her back up placing her onto her feet.  

“How did you...?”

“I dunno” She looked at me before turning back and running into her trailer as we soon made our way into Sunnyside Trailer park.

The second time we were waiting for a meeting. An emergency Serpent meeting had been called and luckily I was in the area, I texted Y/N about it and she was on her way running from her job on the Northside. She was trying to get there as fast as she could but the meeting had to start before she arrived. I heard a bike pull into the lot upstairs, and I heard pounding down the steps, and again I felt that instinctive feeling. I opened the door as she came barreling in landing in the booth in front of her. I went back over and stood next to Fangs as she collected herself, slipping out of her work vest and putting on her Serpent jacket.

“You know if you hadn’t opened that door she would have run face-first into it right?”

“Nah, Fangs she would’ve…”

“Bro did you see how fast she was running”

“But…”

“You two have some weird psychic shit going on or something”

“I don’t know Fangs”

“Hey, guys!” I turned to see Y/N’s makeup done, Serpent Jacket on, beautiful. I saw her.

The third time was when I saw her clumsiness once again, her goofiness, as she was running late to a class, running down the hallway full speed. She turned a corner running straight down the hallway as she turned the corner too sharp and came barrelling towards the lockers, but instead she came towards where I was standing and barreled straight into my chest as I fell and she fell right on top of me.

“Pea oh my god are you ok!”

“Date me”

“What, did you hit your head?” she started standing up as she grabbed my hand “C’mon we gotta bring you to the nurse, get up you big oaf” I started standing but I pulled her back down and put my hand on her cheek waiting for her to react before I did anything.

“I’m serious” I brought my lips to hers slowly. She bit her lip as I pulled away.

“Okay”

“Is that a yes…?”

“Yes Pea, i'll go on a date with you” we were a we

The fourth time was months later, finals had just finished and we were finally graduating. Cheryl was throwing her end of the year bash. Red solo cups everywhere, kids trying to play with the various vases and China that Thistlehouse had locked away. Cheryl yells every 5 seconds for someone to put something down, and Toni follows behind her to calm her down. The normal things that always went on. I couldn’t find Y/N though. I had lost her as she wandered away midway through the party and went with Toni and Fangs as they pulled me away for a game of beer pong. I heard everyone screaming shouting a bunch of “Do it��s” and “yes’s” and “you got this'' from various areas of the party until I looking up and saw Y/N. She was on the small roof of the Thistlehouse guest house, where a couch had been placed, standing on it, dangerous as it was for her clumsiness. Aside from that, she was trying to jump into the pool that stood below her.

“Y/N what are you doing!”

“Hi babyyyyyy”

“Y/N baby get down” I didn’t care that she had fun. That was not my worry, my worry was her and the danger she was in at the moment. I saw her ready to jump, luckily the building was fairly short, I could climb up right now, I knew if she would jump I could catch her, or her falling I could do the same. I had Fangs and Jug come up behind me as a backup, as she jumped I stood underneath watching as she jumped directly down completely missing the pool that Jughead thought she was going to hit the edge of, which caused him to fall in, while she landed directly into my arms.

“Oh nooooooo, Juggy”

“Its okay princess”

“Fangs can you help him while I get her home”

“Course” the 5-minute walk to the truck felt like the calmest moments of my life, her and me the trees and woods surrounding us and the sounds of the birds singing. Her head nuzzled into my chest. I felt love.

And now we’re here month 5, and on the 5th month with the love of my life. We both started working at the Wyrm, shifts on the weekend covering bar shifts. We were the only two who apparently knew each other’s movements well enough to work together efficiently and timely enough in the confined space of the bar. But this night, in particular, she was trying to impress Fangs and Toni. She had been learning some bar tricks from Tik Tok and wanted to show them a few of the moves. She was doing good and all, until one I knew wasn’t gonna end well.

“Fangs, T, wanna see a cool trick?”

“Yeah Y/N do it”

“Yeah, I wanna see” I watched the bottle swing up as it was about to land on her head, the spin not quite right on the bottle, she ducked down as the bottle was coming close to her head, I hadn’t even heard anything as I was talking to a customer but I knew. I reached upright as I turned around. Stepping right in front of her catching it before it could even come close to hitting her as everyone around us cheered. She grabbed my hand standing back up again.

“Thanks”

“Anytime” we stared into the eyes of each other, for some reason I didn’t wanna look away. As her lips came to mine slowly.

“Marry me”

“What!”

“I’ll do this again in a fancier way I promise, but… marry me”

“No”

“What?”

“No, I mean I don’t need the fanciness, I just know, Yes Pea!, It’s a yes”

“Its a yes!”

“Mhm” Everyone around us cheered once again. The happiness running through me. She was my person. The connectedness I felt for her I never felt for anyone. The constant clumsiness that she had that always made me laugh. The extra change of clothes I kept in my car because she always spilled food or coffee down the front of herself, not to mention all the coffee that she spilled in my truck on our morning coffee runs. Or even the amount of times I’ve watched her phone drop on her face in the middle of the night and had to kiss it better. Or the hundreds upon thousands of times she's fallen up the stairs. Those are the things I love about this girl. But what I love most is the way I can catch her when she falls, the way I know when she is gonna run into a door and I can open it for her, or even when I can be that barrier and break that fall for her. I can be that cushion that she needs. I love her. I want to marry her.

5 months later we had our wedding, Yeah, it wasn’t a long time to plan, but we didn’t need long. It was small and intimate. I stood at the front of the aisle, the flowers surrounding me as I waited for her to walk down. Our favorite song playing in my ears because she didn’t want to walk down the aisle to the traditional here comes the bride. Fangs was gonna be the one to walk her down, her father, a serpent had been killed years ago on a job, Fangs had been there for her as a brother since she was a kid. A brother to me as well, I was ready. Ready to take this beautiful woman as my wife. Our officiant standing behind me ready to make this whole thing official. FP standing off to the side as support as one of my groomsmen along with Jughead, Fangs my best man once he was done walking her down. Her side consists of Betty, Cheryl, and Toni.

I heard the song start, the music playing as everyone took their seats and began to quiet down. The nerves are beginning to rack through me. FP smacking me on the back as he came and stood behind me. I shook out my arms as I brought my hands together.

The doors shot open as Fangs came running in Y/N holding onto his back *I was wondering why had such a long aisle* She let go soon as Fangs whipped her forward, as she came barrelling towards me, she had a short white poofy dress on. Almost cupcake-like. And I looked to her feet to see Heelys. DaNgER was all I thought to myself. She just kept going as she came barreling into my arms as I caught her and helped her stand upright.

“Fancy meeting you here”

“Oh yeah?”

“Thought I’d make us meet the same way we always do”

“Mmm oh yeah baby, just wanted to live in danger, add a little clumsiness to the wedding huh, you’re the clumsiest person I know so I think you’d do that anyway”

“Hey!” she smacked me on the chest as I leaned down kissing her on the cheek before helping her up onto the step by the officiant. Toni handed Y/N her regular bottoms to the Heelys so that she could wear them as normal sneakers for the rest of the night. The wedding went by smoothly as vows were exchanged and the kiss. The best kiss of my life. I stepped down the stairs about to take her hand but she decided to come down tripping as she did until I caught her so she wouldn’t fall.

“See… clumsy, I look over for five seconds and you end up like this...”

“Hey… well, now you’re married to clumsy MR!”

“Wouldn’t want it any other way Princess” I kissed her before helping her stand up straight, grabbing her hand as everyone clapped and blew bubbles as we exited down the aisle.

[toasttz]

How to make games: Hero Shooters

So, class, today I posit this little question to you all: Do you want to be the next Blizzard? Fuck no, you don't want to be "Don't you guys have phones?" Blizzard; you wanna be Blizzard from 5-10 years ago when they were at the height of their popularity. But that's not what I'm shooting for here. Do you want a fount of endless revenue? Do you want to do the absolute baseline minimum in terms of engine and game design to actually create a game but aren't creatively and ethically bankrupt enough to make a gacha game? Do you want to build a game whose rules, designs, and themes were just stolen from the effort of others? Do you really like Rule 34? Then it sounds to me like you want to make a Hero Shooter game! Hero shooters are easy to make on account they fundamentally have only three gameplay modes: push a payload, kill the other team, and kill the other team while standing on top of a glowing circular thing. They're also equally easy to design as they require no thematic consistency whatsoever and what little writing you'll be expected to bother with will simply be character bios, which you can keep so vague as to be virtually meaningless. There's never a 'story' in a hero shooter game and what semblance of one does exist is pretense for the non-canon aforementioned three game modes you'll be forced to build around. Best of all, the individual mechanics of each hero are easy to design - just steal them from whatever games came before. Now create about three or four maps with some different sorts of themes, but don't make them in any way mechanically varied - the most complex obstacles on any given map should be walls and maybe elevators that move at a very low speed. We're making a hero shooter, not Mario Party, dammit. If anyone asks why you are essentially just reskinning the same maps you can explain that it's to ensure that the game remains a "test of the players's skills" even though that's a bold-faced lie for the same reasons people who play Super Smash Bros as "tests of skill" are full of shit. Meta-gaming retards make games algebra homework instead of fun, but that's precisely what you'll be banking on in this genre. Once you have that, we need to get into the most important thing about hero shooters: the Heroes. Heroes in these games take one of three major roles: 1) The retard scrub DPS heroes - who will be played by the vast majority of your one-trick glory-chasing mentally-stunted community under the pretenses of being 'the most fun' and will be where the better part of your "cool" themes and motifs will be dedicated toward. These work under the key principle of "Shoot everything until it stops moving" and requires zero brainpower whatsoever. 2) The under-estimated doggedly persistent Tank heroes, played by those with either the willingness to learn something other than "Shoot bad guy with gun" or those who find pressing and holding a single button for the duration of the 10 minute match time to be the highlight of their bleak office-job lives. Though, on the other hand, some of the really cool designs will ultimately end up in this family. 3) The unsung gods among men known as the Support heroes, AKA: the ones no one will actually play. These characters will never be given cool or interesting mechanics or designs, but you'll be at liberty to make as many sexy nurse outfits as you can come up with and no one will be able to tell you otherwise. Like an ungodly amalgamation of tanks and DPS, your gameplay experience will boil down to pointing at your target and holding down the button the entire match - except unlike DPS heroes, you'll be shooting at the blue team and not the red team. Now, some might argue that there are technically other families of heroes, like flankers, zone controllers, pseudo-supports who can debuff enemies, but remember that the key to any good hero shooter is keeping everything rock-stupid. Every hero should have only enough abilities to fill a role for the left and right mouse buttons and the Q and E keys. F or R can be for reloading where applicable, but if you demand anything more of your players, you're going to lose their interest because Hero Shooters are hugboxes for sociopaths who care for nothing more than getting that sweet, sweet 5-second long "Play of the Game" replay at the match's end. This is why the character who invariably rips off Team Fortress 2's Demo Man and can kill people he doesn't have direct line of sight with will always be the most popular, without exception. I mean, sure, you can have 30 or 40 heroes, each with incredibly detailed outfits, backstories, kits, and personalities but everyone will just play the Not-Demo Man so you might as well accept that your userbase is going to be the only thing more toxic than a puffer-fish or a modern-day feminist. But I repeat myself. I don't have the time nor particular inclination to tell you exactly what you need to make but I can give you some character types that are obligatory by law to be in any hero shooter game. This will at least give you a start before you realize that being creative is hard and just steal kits from better games than your own. Call of Duty Man - The main DPS hero and usually the face of your game. Typically a grizzled war veteran man and almost exclusively an American if your game is set in the real world - remember, creativity is hard! He'll have a medium-ranged assault rifle and precisely one movement skill and one healing skill in his kit making him a jack-of-all-trades. Will either be loved or hated by your community with no room for in-betweens. Sexy Healer Lady - The main support hero who is literally just TF2's Medic reskinned and with tits. You really don't need to do anything more with her, as the fanbase will handle the rest. And the less said of that, the better. Big Knightly Dude - The main tank hero who has a big shield that, regardless of origin, will be transparent so Call of Duty Man and Not-Demo Man can fire through it while guarded. Probably wields a melee-ranged weapon even if in a modern warfare setting. By law, they can never be shorter than 6'6" (or 7200 cm. Pretty sure I did my conversion right on that). Flamethrower Guy - Literally just TF2's Pyro. Mechanic - Literally just TF2's Engineer. Sniper - Literally just TF2's Sniper. Probably also a voluptuous woman in a tight suit because creativity is fuckin' hard, man. Not-Demo Man - The cancer in your fanbase you will never nerf. Doesn't matter that he can party-wipe the enemy team single-handedly without being anywhere near them because Hero Shooter maps are literally just a set of narrow corridors so his kit is extremely OP. No, better just nerf Sexy Healer Lady again, since your DPS fanbase is pissing and moaning about her again and, this time, not in the same way a cat in heat does. Next, just make characters around elemental themes. Once you have 30 or so, you can get around to actually doing really mechanically interesting and varied heroes, since there's really only like 10-15 good FPS character ideas to begin with. So don't be surprised if you have some overlap. But by then we should hopefully have completed the next major step after the game is made: alienating your fanbase! This step is easy and requires no particular skill or coordination on your part. First, make some events seasonal, such that you have at least a major event every other month. Any more than that and your fans might actually think you're trying to be anything but another generic Korean eSport event, so be sure to space them out and have at least half of them be terrible. Valentine's Day is a good excuse to dress your female heroes sexily, summer games are a fun and not-at-all tired motif, and of course you need some kind of Christmas event. Just make sure these events only run maybe 2 weeks out of the year, have lots of stuff that you can only get during those times and, as said, that most of them are terrible and not fun at all to play. And don't -EVER- make any of them PvE, as that requires coding AI characters and effort and shit - what do you think think this is? Warframe? No, terrible gimmicky PvP events will be a good start because there is no frustration quite as severe as being told you didn't grind hard enough for: Loot boxes! Shit yeah, your hero shooter's gonna have loot boxes in them! Remember, we want maximum money for minimum effort and there's nothing like a Skinner Box within the hugbox that is the sweet dopamine high of popping a loot box open only to get common drops every time! If MMORPGs have taught us anything it's that Sub-1% drops are TOTALLY good game design and aren't at all unethical and an artificial, cheap tactic to keep people hooked on your game. This is why, in addition to the e-peen bolster that is your arbitrary profile ranking also drip-feeding a loot box upon level up that you have "Weekly Resets" for additional loot boxes. This runs on essentially the same principle as a cell phone games making you wait for additional tries to make it more a habit than a game - but that's okay! You can just rationalize it away as "it was the player's CHOICE to buy 300 loot boxes for the low, low price of 799.99 USD!" and not at all a psychological compunction found in human psychology! You're not an unethical douchebag in the slightest! And speaking of douchebags, it's time for the third and most important step in alienating your fanbase: Balancing the Game! What do I mean by that? You might think it's something like "Oh, this one character has an attack that is way too powerful and so it should be retooled in such a way that it either isn't available as-often, or maybe make its hitbox narrower to make the game more skill-based" but you're dead wrong. That requires actual effort and we all know how we feel about that. So, instead, just start an eSports team. Why? So you can listen only to the DPS players from each team and only implement THOSE changes. That way, only tanks and supports get nerfed into irrelevance and since no one in eSports is ever going to play those roles anyway, who cares? Who needs healers when you respawn to 100% after 7 seconds of dying?! Who cares if the majority of your fans hate these changes and that you end up completely destroying the kits and frameworks of their favorite heroes with needless, superfluous, unwelcomed tweaks? God-damn it, the Not-Demo Man needs to be able to wipe out an enemy team with a 3-second Time to Kill! No questions! I have a very specific vision!! Once your fanbase has been alienated - congrats! You're no longer obliged to release new heroes and levels! The responsibility of server upkeep and releasing new content twice a year are lifted! Now, just reskin the entire game top-down and release a new, better hero shooter founded on the same grounds to re-capture your fleeing audience and fleece them all over again! Now repeat ad infinitum and gain unlimited money. Congrats, you're now another Chinese game manufacturer that shits out products with no care for their fans or reputation but you get to go whaling every single day and fill your bathtub with money. You're ready to work for actual Blizzard now! You're welcome.

[lilacskyent-blog]

Breakfast with Alex Wex

People have a million opinions and false facts about the digital world we live in today, and even more about social media. For a lot of people, they use platforms like Instagram and Twitter to follow celebrities, and some use it to bully celebrities. Most forget that that connection can also be used for good. We live in a world of amazing accessibility and, when used properly, could foster a wonderful connection between people. A prime example of this is the Will Smith Jump event that took the internet by storm, that all started with a video message. It’s incredible what can happen when you reach out to people. That was the main thought in my mind before sitting down with Alex Wex yesterday. Alex Wex is an amazing Twitch streamer, and until recently, was a producer for FBE and REACT on Youtube. As of this interview, Alex Wex has fostered a wonderful community through Twitch and Discord known as the Jank Squad, and recently broke his view count record at 210 viewers for his birthday stream, also hitting close to 600 subscribers. Given that I was in Atlanta and he was in LA we couldn’t actually meet for breakfast like I usually do so we had an amazing video chat instead.

So for starters, I just want to thank you for sitting down with me. I’ve been following your work since I first saw you on FBE and I think you’re an awesome dude so thanks. I wanna start at the very beginning because I’m really interested in your story. So, I know you went to high school in Atlanta, GA. What can you tell me about that?

I was actually born in Manhattan, my family moved to Atlanta around pre-K and I lived there up until I graduated from Riverwood High School. All my friends wanted to go to UGA or Georgia Tech but I was really interested in traveling and branching out, so I went to Ohio for college, and now I live in L.A. I made some truly amazing friends in Atlanta, and having this kind of east coast, south culture mixture has made life pretty interesting.

When did you know you wanted to work in entertainment, and what led to you becoming a producer?

When I was a kid, my family liked to record family videos, and I always wanted to see the recording. I had the eye for production pretty early. Once I started high school I got involved in performing, did Grease, The Wiz, and a few other school plays that got me interested in the performance aspect as well. In college, I majored in video production with a minor in film and sociology so I gained real knowledge of the art that happens behind the camera.

How does one go from school in Atlanta to working at FBE?

As I mentioned before I went to college at Ohio University, what got me was their video production department. I actually still work with the head of the department and speak to the alumni when they come here, advising them on some dos and don'ts. As a graduation gift, my Dad gave me an all expense paid trip to anywhere I wanted to go in the U.S for a few days and I chose L.A. So I was here, hanging out with my current roommate Johnny and we just decided to come out here permanently and live the dream. So I packed up my car and drove from Atlanta to LA and started looking for internships while working at Chipotle.I first joined FBE as an intern, then got hired as a PA and eventually was a writer for some of their scripted shows, and I worked my way up until I was offered the producer position. I loved producing because that involved every aspect of working behind the camera, from writing to filming to editing and seeing the baby from birth to fully grown. Being in front of the camera came back when FBE launched the community team and started streaming on Twitch.

Watching Alex grow on YouTube, putting reactors in hilarious challenges, eat crazy concoctions and brave some insane hot sauces that would make Sean Evans proud, his personality radiates through the screen. His passion for both sides of the camera is clear in the quality of every video he makes. However, taking part in one of his Twitch streams gives you an even more full experience. It’s like the difference between a teaser trailer and a full film.

Freddy or Jason?

Freddy is my favorite in Dead By Daylight but I love Jason, in fact, Friday the 13th was the first game I ever streamed. I’d have to say, Jason.

So, we were in high school in the baby years of YouTube, I mostly used it for music videos and anime, I think back then I only followed Phil Defranco and Timothy Delaghetto consistently. Back then, did you ever look at YouTube and think “this is going to revolutionize the world and turn traditional media on its head?”

Yeah, it’s changed everything. Almost every network has a YouTube channel now. Late night shows and things like SNL upload segments that get massive amounts of views. YouTube is still growing, testing out its premium service and channel enrollment and things like that, but it’s exciting to see where it’s going to end up.

It’s even crazier when you think about how much Twitch has already changed the game.

Definitely, I mean we’ve seen what happens when some of the top YouTube creators come over to Twitch and realize that it’s completely different from what they’re used to. It’s more like an improv radio show, you have to be on for two or three hours and avoid dead air, rather than being able to edit something together. It’s hard to be constantly entertaining when you're used to delivering a finished edit rather than a live audience. For example, Logan Paul had over 100,000 people in his first stream but after that, the numbers dropped just cause that’s not his world. Live Streaming is a constant conversation. It’s the opposite of YouTube.

I remember seeing YouTubers flood to Twitch after the adpocalypse and feeling like it made no sense. A lot of vloggers and creators who never expressed any interest in video games were all suddenly obsessed with Fortnite. However, when people like Alex Wex came to Twitch they brought genuine love of gaming, skill, and a great sense of community.

What insight can you give into the world of a producer? Especially on the internet, how to figure out what videos are gonna get views or go viral?

It’s a case by case basis depending on what you make. With Challenge Chalice, we made it during the high point of internet challenges and we had consistent challenges to make content with constantly, but this past year challenges have kinda quieted down so that got more difficult. We revisited and revised a lot of earlier challenges to make them more interesting, and that has to do with being present during every step of the process. You can’t slack off on anything, from script to editing. Being organized is key, and definitely take on the ideas and criticisms of the people working with you. Be flexible and open-minded. It’s not about balance, it’s about harmony.

3 Breakfast must haves?

Bacon

Grits

Belgian Waffles are incredible

Hack-n-slash? RPG? Or FPS? And why?

That’s complicated. Overwatch is one of my favorite games but it doesn’t play exactly like an FPS. For me, hack-n-slash for games like Dead Cells, Rogue Lights, I love games with massive replay value. I’m playing Diablo 3 on switch right now and I love it.

What games are best for streaming? Does the game you play matter?

A little, but it shouldn’t be everything. You want your audience to gravitate towards your personality. Never play something you don’t enjoy playing. I love Overwatch and it’s not one of the current hot stream games but I love playing it. Story games are complicated. If people miss parts of story mode games they tune it out cause they won’t know what’s going on. More than anything put your own spin on what you’re doing. For example, when I do Dead By Daylight I do stream vs chat where my chat helps the survivors escape if I’m playing the killer. In fact, chatting streams are starting to really blow up. It’s more about the person playing than the game they play.

What game has you hype for 2019?

That’s tough, but probably Kingdom Hearts 3. I’m excited for Smash Bros for my last game of 2018 too.

What led you to Twitch?

I’d seen some of it, but Tom had been doing it for 6 months and kept suggesting it until one day I finally did. I had a decent setup with an ultra-wide monitor and Tom’s old video capture device and I started streaming Dead by Daylight. We actually came into the name Jank Squad because of how janky the streams were in the beginning.

What led you to leave FBE and what are you working on now?

I wanted to focus more on my Twitch, and it was exhausting streaming at work on the days when I’m also streaming at home. I wanted to give my audience the most energy I could and be more involved with them as a community. I’m creating new ways to interact with my audience, more active in my Discord, and after working there for 5 years I felt stuck. There wasn’t any new learning experience and things felt a little sour and monotonous with the new direction things were going in. I’m actually getting a new camera and a green screen to upgrade the stream quality. I’d love to make partner with Twitch.

What’s the dream?

I take things to step by step. I’m definitely in a transition right now. I’m looking for another good full-time job at the moment. I’d love to be a full-time streamer but I’d also love to produce my own stuff and then stream after work. Streaming is probably one of the most consistent things I’ve ever done. Funny enough, that’s part of what got me into it cause Tom knew my leisure activity was video games, and streaming just takes that to another level. It definitely takes work, but the community you foster on this platform is unlike any other with the rating system and how everything is set up.

Alright so the zombie apocalypse is upon us and you can have 1 mortal character, one god tier video game character, and one Reactor in your survival squad, who you got?

Kratos from God of War 2 causes his chain blades would tear through everything, my regular would be Leon from Resident Evil 4 cause his aim is amazing and he’s used to zombies, and my Reactor would be Chelsea cause she knows so much about The Walking Dead. That’s my squad.

East Coast or West Coast

East, it’s where I was born and bred.

Top 10 songs or artists on your playlist right now?

Meek Mill- Intro with the amazing Phil Collins sample

Tyler the Creator’s Grinch is great for the holidays

The Cool-Lupe Fiasco

Chance The Rapper’s new songs

Paramore- Ain’t It Fun

You come from the same city I did with only a two year age difference, and you’re the first brown face I saw in relation to FBE and now you’re killing it on Twitch. Do you know how dope you are?

I appreciate that. I like to think I’m dope in some ways but I also do my best to keep it real, keep myself humble, and not letting the numbers get to my head. I hope everyone thinks they’re fucking awesome, cause they are. I have my good and bad days but I like to look at what has been built and keep grinding. Everyone is on a different time stream. I don’t want to rush things, I’m on my own path, and right now I just wanna build this community.

I for one, am excited to see what comes next from Alex Wex, including his stream later this week. You can find him @ItsMrWex

-Strawberry Smirk of Lilac Sky Entertainment

[bigweldindustries]

i just read your tags on that nintendo post and yes,,, pls post your rant about stylisation in modern games i'd really like to hear... well no,, see your thoughts on it :D

SFGFGHGF thank you Angie!! 

(popping this under a cut as I got out of hand kjghjfgkjhfg)

(alsO keep in mind this is primarily about home consoles. i don’t mention hand helds nor do i really touch on arcade games, those are topics for another day)

I’d like to open this by saying that I’m pretty childish in a whole bunch of ways, but one of my biggest is that I am very much attracted to bright colours. It shows in my art - everything I draw is very, very colourful. I love stylisation, I love colour. 

Colour, as it so happens, was vital to video games up until the late 90s - the advent of the 32-bit era. Even the fourth generation (think SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive) could typically only produce 64-256 colours on screen at a time, depending on resolution. 

(The bastard child which we do not talk about is the Neo Geo, which could display 4096 colours on screen at one time, but the Neo Geo was a super expensive ‘luxury console’ and literally a bunch of arcade level components, hence why it was so far ahead graphically.)

For this reason, palettes were bright and expressive. Add in the fact that all home consoles at the time were raster image based (except for the sole, bizarre exception of the doomed Vectrex) and stylisation is the obvious outcome - once we got the graphical output for it, of course. Third generation games began to show stylisation - Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy III may be visually similar, but the nuances in the spritework are still plain to see - and then the 16 bit era really drove it home. 

The late 90s brought home gaming into a whole new dimension - 3D! Glorious, blocky, polygon-y, 3D. And stylisation well and truly went bonkers, maybe even more so than it did back during the sprite-based 16 bit era. 

Something important to keep in mind when considering 90s to early 00s gaming however is that everyone, for whatever reason, had Sonic fever, and so was trying to whip up their own fucking furry mascot. Platforming had always been a prominent genre, ever since the early 80s when Donkey Kong debuted and was immensely successful. Suddenly, we’re platforming in 3D, and there are furry mascots everywhere. Seriously, think of as many platforming game with animal mascots as you can, and I assure you you’re not even scratching the surface. 

Even putting aside the bright and friendly animal-based platformers, there’s still a tonne of fascinating examples of styles. Tomb Raider, Metal Gear, and Silent Hill all went for closer to realism than cartoon styles, and yet were all stark and distinctly stylised in their own different ways. Graphical output still had distinct boundaries, and stylisation was the way it was overcome. 

I feel like stylisation hit it’s peak immediately before it’s decline, with the sixth generation heralding in some of what are, in my opinion, the most wonderfully stylised games out there. the original Ratchet and Clank games, Metroid Prime, Okami, Space Channel 5, the Legend Of Spyro games.....Hell, Jet Set Radio and Jet Set Radio Future come from this time period, and are some of the most famously styled games of all time. Just enough polygons to render some absolutely wonderful models, not enough to warrant photorealism. 

That was, at least, until the seventh generation. Bright and atmospheric stylisation was out, and photorealism was in. 

(Unless you happened to be Nintendo, of course. Nintendo just shrugged, gave us Miis, Super Mario Galaxy, a whole bunch of The Legend of Zelda, and some third party kids games, and carried on like that until today, where they show no sign of slowing. Thanks, Nintendo. Owe you one.)

But with everyone else, stylisation very quickly died. The rise of the FPS definitely didn’t help here, with every studio clamouring to have their slice of the pie, but very quickly studios turned to photorealism. Far Cry, Call Of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted.....Very quickly, stylisation was abandoned. There was also that god-awful period where everyone and their nan was cranking out games with gritty washed out palettes, though we seem to have finally pulled through that one. Thank god. Thanks for that one, Call Of Duty. 

My point is that graphical advancements seem to have killed a lot of the visual creativity that always went into games, and instead everyone seems to be intensely focused on how realistic a game looks. I’m personally sick of it - I don’t give a shit that you can animate every hair in generic white protagonist #897′s beard, when it looks incredibly visually similar to every other fucking game in it’s genre. 

If I were to take a screenshot of a whole bunch of the most popular games from the last 10 years and show them to someone who wasn’t into games at all, they probably wouldn’t be able to tell 90% of them apart, whereas games of literally any other generation can be told apart visually with ease. There is so little visual differentiation in modern gaming, and it frustrates the everliving fuck out of me. We have so much graphical power, and yet all anyone wants to fucking do is replicate real life visuals - why? 

Hell, the 10% of actually visually diverse games make it feel even more sparse. Take for example We Happy Few, Bioshock, and Borderlands (I haven’t actually gotten around to playing any of the Borderlands games but they’re on my to-do list) - wonderfully atmospheric and full of some absolutely fantastic visuals. They’ve found themselves art styles, all gloriously unique and notable in their own ways. Even Overwatch is notable, with it’s stylised characters and bright colours. Hell, I give Fortnite props for it’s fucking style, for crying out loud. 

Aside from that, the only people consistently pumping out games with stylised graphics? Nintendo - and small, independent studios. Small, independent studios who are constrained, much like the sixth generation - not by lack of graphical power, but instead by lack of budget. They don’t have the money to buy fancy software and pay some cunt to animate four billion hair’s on some white dude’s face, so instead they find a niche in the gameplay market and stylise to save time and money.

(Slight deviation here but Nintendo on the other hand are absolutely fascinating to me, in that a lot of their strength is in their franchising.  They’ve got gaming franchises which have been around longer than some other studios have even existed. They’re the sole survivor from the third generation, outliving Sega and Atari. Even their newer franchises, such as Bayonetta, Splatoon, and Xenoblade, still stick to a bright and stylised appearance. Each and every Nintendo property has it’s own style, but they’re still congruent enough that Smash Bros. doesn’t look particularly odd - unlike when Sony tried to do the same with their Playstation AllStars Battle Royale, which was one of the most bizarre things I think I’ve ever seen, to this day. Nintendo well and truly are the family gaming company - there’s something there for everyone, no matter how young nor old.) 

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place for stylisation. One of the very few genres I still take interest in is racing games - a niche in which realism is fantastic and very often awe-inspiring. Realism can be gorgeous, and I don’t hate the style! I just hate the complete and utter bottlenecking of the industry and the fixation on making things look as realistic as possible when there’s so much potential in stylisation. There’s so, so little visual diversity in modern gaming and it’s honestly sad as hell. Also I really miss fun cartoony platformers as a genre and not just an occasional nostalgia-grab but that’s more an Axel thing than an industry thing. 

Jesus fuck I rambled on for sO FUCKIGN LONG BUT. yeah there’s my thoughts on that i guess!!!! O: 

[themjinterviews-blog]

43. ...'cause it was Bobbi with an 'i'...he isn't just one of the guys; in his pink party dress, you would never guess, he benches 335!

Have you ever wished you could start life over?: Because being an infant sounds like a jolly good time? No thanks.

…or at least go back in time?: Yeahhhh – about that…I’m not fucking with different timelines and all the intricate time-travel etiquette.

When did you last eat pizza?: Tonight actually.

Do you prefer to hear the painful truth or a beautiful lie?: Not sure it makes a difference. In the end, it only matters how I see or perceive it to be. No definite way to known for certain whether people are being honest or not. You either chose to believe they are, or not.

How many exes do you have?: “Official” exes? 4, I think?

Have you ever known a pathological or habitual liar?: Absolutely.

Do you enjoy writing?: Love it.

If so, do you prefer writing lyrics, poetry, stories or something else?: Essays, free verse poetry, quotes, quirky self-help journals, lists, song parodies, etc…

Are you angry right now?: Mildly irritated. I keep hitting typos and I am just angry to have to keep correcting stupid shit.

Have you ever punched a wall?: Don’t think so.

Have you ever lived in a motel/hotel?: Yeah for like half a year.

Do you think you would enjoy running your own business?: Hell fucking no. I have very poor follow through and virtually zero concept of or desire to properly manage finances.

What’s the average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in your area?: I’m gonna guess like 650-800$

Do you think rentals are too expensive where you live?: We are renting from friends. Doesn’t count.

Have you ever changed a car’s alternator?: Absolutely no idea what the fuck an alternator is.

Do you have Netflix?: The couple we live with does, but personally, no I don’t.

What about Hulu Plus?: Brandon does.

Do you have an Xbox Live gold membership?: Used to.

Would you rather master Guitar Hero or a real guitar?: I don’t necessarily want to *master* either. Neither are really a skill I could myself pursuing to any proficient degree.

Have you ever used an electric drill?: Back when I helped with drama club sets in high school.

Do you know anyone who’s had brain surgery?: Not that I’m aware of.

Do you like playing FPS (First Person Shooter) video games?: I got somewhat into CoD BlackOps.

Have you ever heard of, the band, Porcupine Tree?: Errr, no.

Would you rather wear boots or sandals?: Boots!

Have you ever rescued a lost dog?: B. sorta found our dog now that way. He escaped a neighborhood yard at a friends place and the lady was trying to get rid of him because her son was throwing out some hard-core Of Mice and Men vibes.

Have you ever adopted a dog from a shelter?: Yeah – my Deandra. R.I.P.

Have you ever cleaned a cat litter box?: Yeah.

Have you ever used a machete?: I own one…never had an occasion in which I needed to use it though.

What’s the last gift you gave to someone?: A weird drink coozie thing.

What’s the last gift you received?: A gift card to Carrabba’s.

When was the last time you rode a bicycle?: Last summer when I lived at the motel I think?

Do 2 wrongs ever make a right?: Right and wrong are up for interpretation.

Are you a vengeful person at all?: No. Vengeance to me is going on with life unscathed by and unfixed upon the malicious actions of other people. Seeking vengeance literally just gives them the satisfaction of knowing they got under your skin. Which was btw, exactly what they were hoping to do.

Do you have a good memory or do you forget things often?: Hit or miss. Going to lean more towards forget things, though. I tend to live in my own little world and if I don’t use the information frequently, it quickly becomes irrelevant and eventually forgotten.

Do you know anyone who suffers from chronic fatigue?: Probably.

Have you ever felt like you “lost yourself”?: I think for the first 29-30 years of my life, I didn’t even have a self to lose.

Do you judge people based on their weight?: No, what would that accomplish?

Do you know anyone who’s hardworking but still struggles to make ends meet?: I feel like I qualify; I work my ass off but have 0 priorities or sense of financial self-discipline.

What do you think is more harmful? Cigarettes or Marijuana?: Ummm, cigarettes are widely-accepted and scientifically determined to be absolutely more harmful than weed. Regardless, I smoke both.

Is your air conditioner on?: Either that or the fan. Not sure what the friends who own the house have it set on.

Is your heater on?: The fucks wrong with you. It’s May in Southern Arizona.

Do you enjoy going on walks?: Explicitly the manageably short, non-strenuous variety.

Do you like having picnics?: They're okay. Eating inside is fine, too.

Have you ever had a panic/anxiety attack?: Yessum.

Have you ever dated a co-worker?: “Dated” isn’t exactly the word I’d go with. But I’ve done the work-mance scene. Almost always culminates to awkwardness.

Do you still buy CDs or do you just download music?:Still buy CDs. The car we just bought was old enough to still have a CD player in it.

Do you like iPod/song shuffle surveys?: Not really.

Do you suffer from social anxiety?: Not really anymore. I mean, once I realized it was all in my head, it sort of depleted the level of social anxiety noticeably.

Are you more introverted or extroverted : Introverted. But I know how to appear extroverted in situations like talking to my tables at work.

Do you enjoy organizing things?: There is no consistency when it comes to what kinda shit I like to organize, nor how frequently I do it.

Have you ever watched “Mystery Science Theater 3000”?: I have not

Do you know anyone who plays Tuba?: Random. Nope.

If you had to get a tattoo of someone’s name, who’s name would you choose?: Like maybe a pet or a family member. Or my own name.

Have you ever been to Catalina Island?: No idea where that even is.

Would you rather swim with dolphins or sharks?: Yo, what sick fucker voluntarily chooses the sharks? Is that even a serious inquiry?

Do you know how to change a vacuum belt?: You buy a new vacuum or you simply never vacuum again.

Have you ever given a business a bad online review?: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”

Do you know anyone who used to be a stripper (that you know of)?: Yeah, one of the bartenders I knew from the dive bar.

Do you know anyone who’s a hoarder?: I know people with tendencies, but not full-blown hoarder-ness.

Do you know who Maynard James Keenan is?: Ummmm, no…sorry.

Do you take responsibility for your actions or tend to make excuses?: I’ve gotten better at understanding what taking responsibility for myself actually means.

Have you ever used the shower at a gym?: . Yeah.

Have you ever felt trapped in a relationship: Trapped is an understatement.

Do you believe that “love is blind”?: I believe love is almost always something else in disguise…and that it all generally relates back to the image we want to create and embody. I swear I’m not being cynical, I'm just saying “Love” will always be too subjective and misinterpreted to come to any finite opinion about it.

What’s the furthest distance you’ve ridden a bicycle?. Like 7 miles? Could be more or less. I’m a terrible judge of time and distance.

Do you rate every survey you fill out, here on bzoink?: Don’t know what Bzoink is.

Do you know anyone who gets way too angry when playing video games?: Not currently.

Do YOU get too angry when playing video games?: It’s been awhile, but I usually don’t get raging mad – I was likely never expecting to do all that well in the first place.

Do you like to sing karaoke?: I’d rather sing along to the radio/iTunes. I need to hear the artist singing in order to match pitch and sound half decent.

Do you know what micro-expressions are?:. Not remotely.

If so, do you have a talent for seeing/reading them?: Assumingly not.

Have you ever had insomnia?: Medically, no. I don’t think it counts if you just do a lot of uppers and electively decide not to sleep.

What’s the longest amount of time you’ve been awake?: Like, 6 days. It gets trippy. I am in no way suggesting anyone try it.

Have you ever been in denial?: Lol it’d be obvious denial to deny being in denial.

Have you ever been in The Nile?: Sure. King Tut and I go Lazy-River-Drunk-Tubing together.

Have you recently used a nail file?: I honestly don’t think I’ve ever used one.

Do you know anyone named Kyle?: Yeah. This kid I went to HS with. We talked for a bit like a year ago and got Margaritas once.

Is it annoying that I started rhyming my questions?: Nope. You do you, bro!