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V1's special encounter

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The nature of dying

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fun idea: w1 with roller skates (I thibk they would have fun)

YES THEY WOULD!!

learning to balance on them and exchanging commands would be entertaining!

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what do you think the significance of mirage looking like v1 is

in function, i think that it's originally supposed to be comedic. mirage's appearance is, after all, a big old joke in the beginning. if i can remember correctly, the developer(s) said that 2-S was intended to be a spoof on romance visual novels. there's also a lot of buildup to her reveal to emphasize the humor - you know, the whole text passage about being late for school being written like a haunted diary entry, followed by the sudden reveal of mirage for greater effect. so in that moment, you understand that her design is for the laughs, the comedy coming from the subverted expectation of "woah, i thought this was going to be a dark and haunted level and it's actually a visual novel!" as well as "haha the murder robot is a schoolgirl now!". that's the intial impression of mirage, at least. (this is perhaps why her character isn't taken as seriously by many. the cruelty of the world...).

this interpretation of mirage, however, doesn't take into consideration mirage's story, or how her story intersects with v1's story. an obvious conclusion we can draw from mirage's strong resemblance to v1 is that mirage IS v1, that v1 has transitioned to become a regular schoolgirl or that this is an alternate universe of the gore-infused ULTRAKILL you usually experience.

i don't really think that's it, though. i think that - especially with what little I've seen of the recent ultrakill updates - mirage and v1 are so visually similar because they parallel each other and demonstrate very different, very human methods of dealing with death/violence.

but let's just talk about it first. if you've been on my blog anytime over the past few months, you probably know that i posit that mirage has depression, operates from a nihilistic viewpoint, and ultimately desires something/someone to help her out of the cycle of self-devaluation. that's why she takes a chance on you (player character) and why she actually gives you her thoughts and pessimism towards life - mirage needs someone to understand her pain. she needs someone to just get her, someone to share the burden.

perhaps the most interesting and meaningful point in her dialogue is the point at which mirages delivers a long speech about the utter worthlessness of her (and your) life, how human intelligence only leads to fear, how animals (irish elk, if i remember correctly) go extinct as a natural and inevitable process, and how running from death is pointless. it's a big hint giving up on life, but specifically mirage is talking about suicide. death is a constant idea in mirage's speech because she fears it. mirage won't act on her fear/fascination with death, but she keeps thinking about it and the fear keeps preventing her from doing anything to fix it. and all of this has caused her to center her life around this fear of death.

in contrast - what the hell is v1 doing out there killing demons and bathing in blood? i am sure as hell not the first person to analyse v1's characterization, but i can tell you that it has character (i will be referring to v1 with it/its pronouns because that's swag and i like it that way). v1 is all about death - specifically causing death so that it can - ironically - continue living. it could be argued that v1 enjoys killing or perhaps holds grudges deep enough to kill (as seen in its interactions with v2 and gabriel), but what i want to focus on is v1 and mirage's shared fear of death. i think that v1 and mirage both have complex and interesting relationships with death, and their physical similarity is meant to tie them together as examples of reactions to violence/death.

v1 indulges in death - but, hey, have you seen that interesting new death screen? v1 fears death - innately, deeply, as mirage does. mirage, of course, has absolutely no relation to the type of violence v1 partakes in, but both her and v1 have centered their lives (is a robot alive?) around avoiding death. mirage resembles a human in her school uniform and her mostly mental struggles with accepting death, and v1 demonstrates the physical side of struggling with death by constantly breaking bones and ending lives (is a demon alive lmao?) in order to continue existing. i don't have a super developed point here, but i do think that v1 and mirage's shared physicality speaks to how they both suffer from the same conditions - that is, being able to die and being able to REALIZE they're going to die.

i haven't even MENTIONED the violence layer and i WON'T because i am not as well versed in the more recent stuff. 7-3 is, of course, about suicide, and the connections with mirage are there. but i can't tell you much about the symbolism or the themes as i don't know enough ultrakill lore, nor have i read Dante's Inferno.

but what i DO know is that my interpretation of mirage - particularly her loneliness combined with paradoxically pushing people away - is FASCINATING in contrast to v1's isolation. i'm not going to say that v1 is necessarily experiencing human feelings of loneliness, or that v1 is as similar to a human as mirage is. but i Will say that the constant emphasis on v1 being just One, being the last one alive in every fight, being the best, being the last inhabitant of Hell - that feels very connected to mirage being alone. v1 embraces death to survive - eventually, in its quest to live infinitely with finite resoures, it will be all alone. mirage is already alone and suffering the consequences of feeling like the only person in the world (and, might i add, she IS the only person in the context of 2-S). they could probably understand each other.

to me, v1 and mirage aren't the same person (robot? machine? character?), but they Are supposed to represent the same thing, and that thing is humanity. i didn't make the game, so i obviously can't speak with certainty about the developers' intent. but i will say that v1 and mirage looking like each other is most likely intentional no matter what purpose. and i think it's because these two characters are ultimately trying to convey the same thing, that you need to give up your (self) destructive ways and move on before it all consumes you. thats just me though

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To Live

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Welcome To The World!

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Obey

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You were in my dreams while I slept forever

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I don't want to die.

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v1 dies lol. Gabriel's probably alright idk.

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Do machines see mirages?

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peacemachine is dead

dream's end come true

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I found a corpse and it was beautiful.

I want to try a different drawing style and try to further spread my favorite ship "Minos and V2" in this way.

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END OF NEUROTOPIA || ULTRAKILL comic

The original comic is "DREAMS END COME TRUE" by @/mothcpu, you can read it here!!

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held by your own wires