#sorry just a lot of thoughts lmfao

[drbatsponge]

My main concern is what they'll do with Stephanie, I think Cass has a lot of factors that'll prevent DC from trashing her again.

1. James Gunn is probably using her in the DCU.

2. Cass is a good way to tap the asian market, as much as I don't like saying that it's true. She checks all the boxes being a Batman related character and some representation for that crowd.

3. I think Cass fans will support the heck out of Spirit World, even those who were adverse to Batgirls, it'll likely get extended.

Steph is my primary worry, like DC doesn't need her if they can just give Babs her personality and headline her.

So yeah, I am concerned for Stephanie Brown fans.

[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

[tchaikovskaya]

🥴

[gregoftom]

TO ME, THAT’S CINEMA

[moe-broey]

6/10 • Day 2 • Resplendent

I Am Once Again Presenting You -- Summer Sharena!

No thoughts head empty. Intsys. Where is she.

Actually One Thought. I want you to imagine that she's a tome or maybe even dagger user, and her weapon is that volleyball! And if you've ever been smacked square in the face with a volleyball. I want you to hold onto that feeling. Also imagine her potential attack animations being volleyball-based. It would be SO FUN AND CUTE LMFAOO

@sharenaweek

[darlin-djarin]

I wanna hear your helmet thoughts when you have time

helmets to din’s version of the creed are literally so amazing because of the connections and similarities of other religious/cultural head coverings. ofc, i’m not implying that the helmet is the SAME as a hijab or a turban or a niqab, they obviously have different rules and implications, but there ARE similarities, ones that a lot of people (such as hijabi’s) find comfort in seeing that sort of representation on screen.

helmets to din’s version of the creed are sacred and are to never be removed. not all mandalorians think, believe, or practice that way of course, and din’s covert specifically are the ‘warrior’ type of mandalorians, different from the pacifist type of mandalorians that were shown during saltine kryze’s rule of mandalore during the clone wars.

the pacifist type of people were not shown to be wearing helmets, and even some of the royal guards who DID wear helmets (shown under satine’s rule) did not wear the same type of helmet as the warrior mandalorians that lived on concordia, one of mandalores moons.

^^ the pacifist mandalorians during the clone wars (why are they all white and blond lol space racism)

^^ satine's royal guard helmets (they have similar armor but the helmet design is ofc drastically different)

most of death watch wore helmets, but they removed them casually. pre vizsla, the leader of death watch (until maul beheaded that bitch) removed his helmet openly and so did many others in the group. though they held on to the ‘warrior’ ideals of the mandalorian culture, they weren’t clearly as religious as the children of the watch.

^^ pre vizsla and other members of death watch. most wear helmets while doing their goofy little terrorism but they're seen having their helmets removed often.

after the children of the watch formed from the warrior ideals of death watch, the religious aspect of the helmet and the creed formed out of necessity. the children of the watch refuse to remove the helmet for probably many reasons, as it has protected their identity and preserves their culture and creed. one thing i LOVE about the warrior culture is how because of the helmet and armor, the mandalorians have created ways of expression that are SO interesting. they’ve adapted to create the keldabe kiss, which is a tap of the foreheads of the helmets. they also have cheers such as tapping their vambraces and pounding their chest armor. they have other forms of expression that i DESPERATELY hope to see more as the mandalorian progresses.

the rules of the helmet are simple. don’t remove it. if you remove it, you become an apostate and are deemed “mandalorian no longer”. ofc because of chapter 21, the armorer has clearly shown that the adaptation of accepting helmetless mandalorians is necessary as they progress with reviving mandalore. so more recently, they’ve begun accepting other mandalorians who do not follow the Way the same as they do. that does not necessarily mean that THEY will stop following their version of the creed, it just means that they will start accepting other versions of the creed regardless of their own personal beliefs.

anyway the helmet is clearly a religious head covering that DESERVES to be respected, as it is often a window and mirror towards the audience who relate to and who learn about religious head coverings. for me, personally as a hijabi, i see the helmet as a mirror. not that the helmet IS a hijab or niqab or anything, but because it’s the head covering is a CHOICE and it PROTECTS. i know a hijabi (my lovely mutual @hinderr) who personally views the helmet as a mirror because it is an identifier. when you see the helmet, you identify the person as a mandalorian, same way as if you see a hijabi, you (usually) identify the person as a muslim.

the helmet plays a good window as well, to show the audience more religious head covering representation. not that the audience has an excuse to complain about how they don’t agree with the religion, but just to understand a new viewpoint.

moving on, i really like the idea of warrior mandalorians not being able to sneeze. you sneeze when something foreign enters your nose that your body rejects, but since the helmet filters everything, nothing foreign is entering and therefore your body has nothing to sneeze out. kinda funny honestly but it’s cool to think about the technicalities of the helmet.

one thing i HATE about this whole thing is the designs of the helmet. specifically the stupid t-visors being for men and y-visors for women. like great job favroni, way to destroy gender roles. anyway, i think the most effective style (for any gender) is the y-visor (like bo-katan’s) because it gives you a greater vantage point for the eye position. t-visor (like din’s) is fine, i just think it’d be more comfortable to have a y-visor.

^^ bo-katan's y-visor helmet

^^ din's t-visor helmet

you can probably get why i think y-visor has a better vantage point for vision. din's t-visor does have a ton of resources and functions that help him though. i'm not gonna assume all helmets have seals, but some of the warrior mandalorians (such as din and bo) do have seals that make it impossible to remove the helmet without force (proven bc y'all can hear the pressurized hiss when they remove the helmet)

thank you SO MUCH for asking about this, i just LOVEEE talking about din’s covert and creed and ofc the helmet is my favorite thing about it. feel free to ask or follow up with anything else you wonder about.

[astrxealis]

if i do "?" in text i'm genuinely tilting my head like a dog if i do "!!" my eyes are sparkling and i am figuratively wagging my tail if i am IN ALL CAPS i'm screaming from the top of a mountain with all the power i can with love and the strength of RAGHHH within me

[that-gay-guy-from-hell]

So I always get disappointed when people dont add body hair to characters who should have it, however, after spending 30 mins adding hair to some Rust doodles/sketches, I 100% understand why people skip it cause my hand is fucking cramping lmao

(/silly + /lh)

TLT MASTERLIST

[iiboronii]

Everyone strap in for my reply to Artic's post about the confneection building. I threw it in a Google Doc because Tumblr wasn't auto saving for awhile and that makes me antsy and the entire thing is one and a half pages long in 11 point arial font.

[tobisaw]

hi hiii i’m a little low on drawing ideas right now so if you want to give me a drawing request my inbox is very open!! it would be very appreciated

[mikashisus]

answering this in an ask cuz yeah it' easier anyways kaveh because (1) you're a writer /j and (2) i feel you're kinda ambitious and you seem to have a lot of creative ideas in your head i really admire

personality wise or vibes you're probs haitham ☠️ you don't give a shit HAHAHAAH + you did say you're kinda antisocial so hmmmm + you're really straightforward

watch me just accidentally straight up mischaracterise you

HAHA yeah i definitely count my creativeness as one of my best traits. i was always in an environment where i could be as wild and creative and imaginative as i wanted bc my mom always supported and nurtured that side of me.

though, i did have one teacher in middle school who tried to shut that part of me down and told me to “grow up.” i’m glad i never listened to her bs.

when kaveh went on a whole tangent abt his life falling apart, it def hit way too close to home for me, so i do see a little of myself in him + we r a bit similar! esp bc we both start projects we know we won’t be able to finish 😭

on the topic of alhaitham… the only similarities between us r that we’re both autistic LOL 💀 the headphones, the not wanting to be bothered, the bluntness, etc.

IM A FAKE IDGAFER, I AM WAYYYY TOO SENSITIVE LMAO, like i fr cant take jokes sometimes and my irls know that and r super understanding. i rlly hated middle school bc ppl would always say to me “why cant u take a joke”, so then i started masking 🙃

[strawberrybyers]

let me tell you as someone who survived pop music artists stan twitter or whatever it’s called, marvel twitter, game of thrones twitter, and bts twitter (i wasn’t really involved with stranger things twitter but i trust you guys when you say it’s terrible)— it’s a shit show over on that app. like when people say they don’t want twitter users here, they’re not saying it to be gatekeep-y or whatever. they’re saying it because they don’t want to deal with seeing or experiencing any harassment.

twitter thrives off of toxicity. i think you can definitely attempt to create a healthy space for yourself depending on what your interests are, but i imagine that’d be hard because even if you don’t interact with anyone, you’re still seeing others interact with people in a horrible way. i know that being a part of fandoms that are big always led to there being drama every single day and drove me away from even wanting to talk about my interests. people really do help curate the experience you have with whatever you’re a fan of and when the people are bullying, harassing, and being rude; you suddenly do not like that thing all that much anymore.

you really have to experience twitter to fully understand it in my opinion. there’s a certain way that it works and it becomes very cliquish/cultish and idk it sounds dramatic for sure but the ones who have been on twitter and are saying it’s a bad place understand 100%.

[navxry]

I don't know why but I had those thoughts come back and my first response was "damn. This will work well when I write this"

[moe-broey]

Like also about that Ryoma "Hinoka and the others (Takumi/Sakura)" moment like. Like esp given the circumstances you might not think to list everyone by name but like . There's. A word you can use. "Everyone". Why are you singling Hinoka out??? Or am I just reading into that as well (esp out of context like, the reason I didn't rb those isn't a huge one it's just been so long since I've done a full Fates run that I didn't have the context on hand/in my memory, so. Felt maybe it could have been an unfair reading?? Idk idk the most impactful thing Ryoma has done to me is going "I'm gonna kill you. Badly. Right Now." [Ryoma will wait 25 turns])

[trujellyfish]

thinking too hard abt how this rise of "mental health" discussion still only seems to focus on the Cute and Quirky symptoms and still demonizes other mental health (personality) disorders

like my carefully curated tumblr space is fine, but everytime i get sucked into insta reels i inevitably see tens of different reels of the same 3 symptoms of autism/adhd

like im glad theyre getting this positive moment but it just kind of fucking sucks to listen to people talk about how they ToTaLlY have a "touch of the 'tism" and ur friends are sending u "relatable adhd memes" so u think u have a little more support and understanding but then u mention how ur struggling with self harm and suicidal thoughts and violent/disturbing intrusive thoughts and suddenly everyone's like

😳

whats the matter babe, my mental health problems not palatable enough for you? :/

[umemiyan]

sometimes i can’t decide if i need to curate my experience with things or if i’m just being an intolerant bitch who needs to do better LOL