So. You may have noticed that I've been making a lot of fanart for this little thing called "the 21 grams experiment" lately.
And I pray the obsession doesn't die until I get all the ideas out of my head! I joke about how it's made me lose all control of my life, and yeah normal people probably don't spend months obsessively making art for a single longfic but I mean, I dunno what to tell you other than that I like making art and also I like good writing/games.
(Little diary moment where I talk about Ultrakill, art, and 21ge because I can't hold the yap inside any longer! This is gonna be long and rambling)
kiva's fic was how I learned about Ultrakill - I'd already read, like, probably 200k words of their FFXIV stuff (so good) (I WILL finish the Catfishing comic someday) so even though I was canonblind, I was strapped in for the ride. So perhaps my obsession with Ultrakill - which is itself an endlessly interesting game - is intertwined with 21ge? Or because 21ge captures everything I like and has exactly the same takes I have about Ultrakill with a juicy plot, be still my storytelling-loving heart? The hilarity of V1 being a little shit and Gabriel being an arrogant hothead, the existentialism, the post-apocalypse setting, the sheer COOLNESS that oozes from every pore of this game... is it super edgy, yeah, do I unironically enjoy and indulge in it anyways, also yeah... Maybe one day I'll write a 5k word analysis essay on everything I like about 21ge lol. Just for funsies.
And the Ultrakill fandom has been so fun! (And surprisingly queer for a video game that's basically DOOM in gameplay? Or maybe that's just tumblr?) It's a crowd I've never been around before (as I'm mainly a danmei fan) but I am so here for it.
(Hi Skongers! There seem to be a lot of you here ;D)
I'm not usually into sci-fi (or robots or shooters or gore or horror or ships where the characters legit want to kill each other), but Ultrakill does something to me and suddenly all these things are Utterly Fascinating and Super Sexy.
Hell, I've recently picked up and finished All Systems Red by Martha Wells now because of Ultrakill. I think anybody who likes Ultrakill would like it! Here's the first paragraph to give you a taste:
I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.
Anyways... you guys know that thing called a "muse"? Where an artist inexplicably finds a font of inspiration for their work, becomes obsessed with studying it from every angle through art? I think that's 21ge and Ultrakill for me right now. I have a BACKLOG of art. A BACK. LOG. It's honestly a first for me. I've actually been a fan of one other epic fic (GOL HAH DOV by 99corentine) that's received this much fanart, but only after it had been finished for a while, so I am just a kid in a candy store now. I love to see all the doodles people make for 21ge please please feed meeeeee it helps me make more art aaaaaaa
*Ahem* I don't think I'll be making Ultrakill art forever - I'm honestly a very capricious artist, which is why my subject and style fluctuates so much, and also why this is such a strange experience for me. But I'm not afraid of that, of "losing my hyperfixation". I'm just happy to be here for however long I am.
Well, this has been fun! The voices in my head are a little quieter now at last. Tell me how you got into 21ge/Ultrakill down in the comments? Maybe I'll do another writeup focusing on art later.
May your woes be few - and your days many!
Edit: Every time I look at the little art overview on the right side of my blog it looks like this and I'm just like... yeah that's a lot of art huh...
