#hmmmm decisions decisions decisions

[starsnsparkl3s]

you hated satoru with everything in your body.

you hated how his stupid white hair and his stupid blue eyes got both women and men alike. you hated how strong he was and how he could crush you easily. you hated his smile, how bright is was. his humor, how it’s exactly like yours. you hated how smooth he was with his words, words sliding off his tongue like butter. you hated his touch, how it was soft and gentle, knowing he’s killed many and will kill again with those very hands.

you’ve known him since his first day as jujustu high. one of your professors had everyone have a buddy-system. despite your initial connection with shoko, you were put with satoru gojo. and he pissed you off bad. you didn’t even know how anyone liked him, with his constant teasing and flirty behaviour you assumed was for everyone. and everyone fell for it, except you.

you just hated him.

but why, when his hand touches yours, bolts of electricity shoot through you?

but why, when you walk him to class, your heart flutters as he speaks?

but why, when geto and shoko tease you, you just roll your eyes and smile, pushing them away?

but why, when he comes up to you at a party, tipsy but still aware, touching your waist, your heart rate quickens?

but why, when you wake up in his bed the next morning, his arms wrapped around your form, you feel.. safe? like you’re at home.

do you really hate him, or are you just in denial?

[sen-ya]

@heart-pirates-week || Day 2 || Shachi/Celebration

[slutforpringles]

I reflect quite fondly on the session. I don't love 13th, I do feel like we were better than that. It was a call we made at the time, it didn't seem like a silly one at the time, it just didn't work out for us. Q2 we did the first run I think we were there somewhere in the top 10, and then a little bit of rain started to come and we thought let's do the second run before the rain, we were able to improve maybe a tenth or something, but then the rain stayed light enough that at the end everyone was able to improve. So we were in the garage at the end and that's when we got knocked out. That was for sure frustrating but I don't argue with our train of thought up until that point. If it rains heavier we look like the good guys. It just didn't work out for us. I'm definitely happy with the pace and I feel like every time we set a representative time we were in the top 10. This morning we had a few issues so I didn’t really get a chance in the inter condition, so it was a little bit unknown how we would be, and I put up a good fight.

[aegagrusscholarship]

familiarity, the lack thereof, and the only way it could have ended.

the thing is, ultrakill is a very diegetic game. near everything, from the style meter to the bottomless arsenal to the shitass graphics themselves, are explained in some way by some in-universe fact.

so, what with violence and the implication that V1 was designed to counter earthmovers

what with 7-4 and the fact that it is a culmination of this implication

i wonder. when V1 looked up at that earthmover, did it know, with whatever passes for instinct in a machine, exactly what to do? and if it did, then, how is this conveyed to the player?

diegetic as the game is, how does it engineer a situation in which the player, themselves, knows exactly what they have to do?

the biggest factor, i think, is the fact that the earthmover's health bar appears the moment you lay eyes (or camera, or whatever) on it, and it does not leave until you have finally killed this colossus.

but this factor is much more subtle than it appears at first glance. yes, big honkin' boss healthbar on screen for the entire level, what more to it. there's a good deal more, it turns out.

first off- this is the shortest leadup by far to any bossfight in the game. you slide through a single vent, and you are greeted with benjamin right out in the open. even P-1, devoid of any other hazards as it is, gives you a long trek down the spinal staircase before you reach the flesh prison. 7-4 has none of it. you enter the level, you enter the stage, and there you have it. you know exactly what you are up against right from the outset, and it's not quite a feeling of familiarity but it tells you exactly what you have to do. which is the point of this all, isn't it?

7-4 is also... not a bossfight! it is a full level! it is a full level framed as a bossfight. the health bar frames this full complete level as a bossfight.

and on one hand, this is not new news. on the other hand, i think this is the crux of it. the thing is, most bossfights are near-to-entirely new. you do not know how the boss acts. you do not know their attack patterns. you do not know their capabilities. you are learning something new. levels, though, you have done a thousand times over and so the player knows how they need to play through this bossfight in a way that is not quite present with any other boss in the game.

the content of the level is new, of course, because that's how it goes. but you know the motions. you have done this for two acts prior, you know the motions. you know exactly what to do.

also! this level does not exist in a vacuum. what i am saying is this: the rest of violence layer shifts its storytelling and its tone and even its graphics. it is something completely new in contrast to the rest of the game. 7-4, though, returns to environments and graphics more akin to what you have experienced before, bringing you back to familiarity and again knowing what to do here in a way the rest of violence hasn't let the player experience.

one more thing about this level: it plays directly into expectations. which is something that the rest of the game actually does not tend to do.

the game, at base, is just not a typical FPS. it gives you movement like a roguelite or a platformer, it takes guns you expect to know the mechanics of and goes utterly wild with how far the archetype can be changed.

in a smaller scope, here is a comparison of the earthmover and the corpse of king minos as two separate colossal bosses foreshadowed in similar ways. and i mean, minos's bossfight isn't unprecedented in other works. but i think the thing that matters here is that you are not, in fact, the underdog as is the case with so many other bosses of its ilk. riven of many voices, destiny 2, similar bossfight similar scale. you are hiding from her you are a fireteam of many you are triumphing over a dragon larger than life. project gestalt, madness project nexus, you are pulling out every stop you can to take down something so far over your head (both literally and metaphorically). corpse of king minos- V1 looks up, stands its ground, and parries his god damn fist.

and the thing is, the earthmover plays into a different expectation, but it's playing into an expectation nonetheless. you look at this thing and you climb it and you dismantle it from within, like you have done in many games prior. you know what your goal is from the moment you see that healthbar and you hook onto the conspicuously placed hookpoints that tell you- you will climb this machine; you will fight your way up to whatever its core is and you will kill it. you play through the entire level with this expectation and you get exactly this expectation. you destroy its core and it begins a countdown, and so very many games have countdowns before the collapse of whatever level you have just beaten, and you know exactly what you have to do.

i don't know. i love diegetic storytelling. i love this level.

it's just familiarity, i think. this level runs off familiarity. it gives you, the player, things and tropes and designs you are familiar with. it signals to you that you should know what to do, and it lets you do exactly what you expect to do.

if i were any more cheesy i could absolutely end this by restating something about the only way it could've ended, but uh. i am not that cheesy. this time.

aw crud now i don't know how to end this oh well goodbye then

[moeblob]

OC

[sainz100]

Carlos Sainz | F1 London Live in 2017 | x x x x x

[lil-inky]

Little Noots just chilling…🍏

[crow-posting]

My most popular doodles of RZ-3, according to my friends. Might make a sticker pack for them.

[plutonianplaything2]

back from my outing, time to play Firewatch in my Smokey Bear shirt!

[deus-ex-mona]

mona’s self liner notes for fukutsu no idol!

This song was the first of my new songs to be released. I sang it with many thoughts and feelings about everyone I know and everything I’ve gone through up till now in mind. I really love the MV and my costume too. I did fret about how well the song would be received, but I was really happy to receive many comments about how excited people were for my album♡

[tiredflowercrown]

Can't stop thinking about the bang

[youcanthandelthetruth]

I'm close to assembling this end table and idk if I love the vertical support, need outside thoughts. Pictured are two orientation options. Third photo is my reference for the shape, it's an end table my mom's great uncle built and they'll be in the same room. There will be a circular tabletop.

[storiesoflilies]

hi lily! i’m here for the chef au again hehe do you have any ideas for who would be the pastry chef?

wahhh i don’t!!!

i was originally thinking nanami, but for plot purposes he has his own bakery across the street from sukuna’s restaurant.

hmmm, ngl i’m quite unsure on this one jess :(

Lily xo

[satans-knitwear]

What colour should i dye my hair next??🤔

My links

[tsscat]

See. Cait locking Jinx up pisses me off but I actually like it as a decision bc it shows 1) that Cait hasn’t changed all that much and 2) gives her a purposeful decision to fully show if she does