CHICAGO – Friends of Chicago gamer Brandon Proski, avid collector of horny video game and anime statues, have staged an intervention following his latest purchase of a statue depicting Street Fighter’s Chun Li mid-squat.
“I was on my way back from meeting my dealer, mentally rearranging my display shelf to make room for Chun Li, when I noticed all of my friends’ cars outside my building,” Proski said. “I didn’t think I had a problem. I guess they saw it differently.”
Amanda Smith, Proski’s ex-girlfriend, says the collection began while they were together and was the catalyst for the dissolution of their romantic relationship, though they have remained friends.
“We used to make fun of the type of people who would buy those things. Then one day he showed me a tweet from Wario64 that had a coupon code to get a discount on a 2B statue, and that was how it began,” Smith said. “Nier is one of his favorite games, and I believed him when he told me it would be a one-time thing. You know, just to see how it felt to have one. And, well, now we’re staging an intervention for him so you tell me how you think it’s going.”
What began as a “one-time thing” quickly escalated into something far more serious, friends and family confirmed.
“I remember when I found his stash,” Smith recalled, “I was cleaning out a closet and opened a box labeled ‘DVDs’ that I didn’t remember being in there before. I’ve never seen so many suggestively posed and scantily clad women in my life, and I used to work at Hooters. That was when our relationship began to dissolve. He told me it was under control, he would only look at them sometimes, and he could quit collecting them whenever he wanted,” Smith said, holding back tears. “That was the first time he lied to me about his habit, but it wasn’t the last.”
Longtime friend of Mr. Proski, Patrick O’Connell says things haven’t been the same between them since his friend started his collection.
“I remember a time when Brandon would have laughed in the face of the person who tried to tell him this is what the future had in store for him. Funny world,” O’Connell said. “He had it all: an amazing girlfriend, a steady job he loved, and a supportive family. And he threw it all away, for what? A room full of plastic cleavage? It’s just a tremendous waste of a life that had nothing but potential, and I hope this intervention can get him back on the right path.”
Mr. Proski put on a brave face after the intervention concluded and his friends left his apartment with boxes full of his statues, which he agreed to sell or donate.
“I didn’t realize how much my collection was impacting the people around me. When I started missing appointments and dates because I had to get to a store at opening or be online when a new set dropped, I told myself it was no big deal, that I was basically just collecting art. And isn’t the preservation of art a noble and good thing?” Proski said. “But when you are going through something like that you make all kinds of excuses for yourself. I know that now. I won’t make the same mistake again. Will we, 2B?”
After much negotiating, Proski’s friends agreed he could keep his first statue since it wasn’t nearly as tasteless as those that came after, and as he pointed out. “What’s the harm in one?”
As of press time Bill Proski had managed to stay clean for two weeks, but relapsed when Amiami held a fire sale. Reports are he uses the box his 1:1 Nami statue was shipped in as one of the only pieces of furniture in his apartment.
