Don't Starve is the only game I know that somehow senses my HUBRIS.
I was 2 MINUTES AWAY FROM THE FINAL PORTAL IN THE FINAL LEVEL OF ADVENTURE MODE WITHOUT CHEATING OR ANYTHING. I had spent DAYS working to win the game, 2 MINUTES away from the end! I had Chester! I had a billion pierogies! I had two activated touchstones! I had it all, baby!!!!
I even bragged to my wife that the game was almost easy now!
Big mistake. The Hubris Sensing Technology (TM) of the World's Most Unforgiving Game sensed my complacency and the next thing I knew I was barraged by more Clockwork Bishops than I have ever seen in a single place in my hundreds and hundreds of hours playing this evil evil game!!!
I got through more killer bees than I'd ever seen, and a huge dense forest of 1,000 spiders! All that I could handle!!
But I have NO IDEA what I was supposed to do about a bottleneck that involved 60 ranged attacks hitting me within 5 seconds and stun-locking me to death. I have never been so Humbled by a game, and I've been playing this game for so long!
I have made this art piece to commemorate the occasion.
DISCLAIMER/CREDIT:
To make this, I cut out sprites from the game and from other official art by Klei Games, and then I added all the lighting effects and arranged it all together.
The only other thing I actually drew for this is Wigfrid's hand holding the torch.
Normally, I illustrate every element of a piece I do; but for this, I just wanted to quickly communicate the High-Pitched Silly Screaming Horror of running into this monstrosity in the "all-darkness" level of Adventure Mode!!
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You must try to be brave little one. Make a wish for each sad little tear. Someone's waiting to love you.
When Ivo was much younger, still living under the orphanage’s malevolent roof, he often spent time alone. With no friends and being often forgotten about, he’d take his stuffed little cat named Java and tuck himself in the corner of his shared, dingy old room. There he would tinker with small gadgets, draw up blueprints for his dream machines, and watch movies. He found himself entranced by the stories, the ones that tugged at his aching little heart, the ones that made him feel more seen than he had in his 11 sad years of life so far.
So that’s where he stayed while other kids played. It was lonely, terribly so, but in a sense, these little films, with Java held tight, brought him comfort. In fact, those lonesome days in front of that crummy old tv were some of the better ones he’d had in that nightmare of a place.
He wondered, privately to himself, if anyone would ever love him, too. He dared to hope so.
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Last year at Ferrari feels at the Japanese GP: A Carlos Sainz character study
Word count: 624
“Okay and that’s P3, I repeat P3. Grande, Carlos. Solid race,” he hears over the radio, listening with a distant sense of wonder. It’s not the same thrill and adrenaline he felt two weekends ago, but he’s quietly happy anyway, and the slightest bit stunned.
3 podiums in 3 races, so far the only driver to finish in the top 3 every race they’ve driven this year. He’s gone entire seasons without ever seeing the podium, and now he’s done it three times already. It feels like a miracle.
After the cool-down lap, he pulls into the designated number 3 spot (and what is with that number? 3-3-3…) for parc fermé, and sits in the car for a moment, chest still heaving from the exertion of the race. The cheers of the crowd wash over him like a wave, and while he knows it’s not for him specifically, it still finds its way inside of him and lights him up, in the way that sense of victory and satisfaction always does.
He sits and feels his stomach faintly throb, as if reminding him that he had an open wound from surgery not that long ago. It feels like he’s been walking around with an open wound since before Jeddah, and his success this season is the universe trying to make up for everything that’s happened, licking his wounds like an apologetic cat that scratched him. Too little too late, some would say. But he’s always been more forgiving than he should be, so he just accepts it, and decides to enjoy it while he can.
After noticing that he’s been sitting in his car for a while, lost in thought, he quickly removes his steering wheel and pulls himself up out of the car. He goes to where the Ferrari guys have bunched up at the fence and allows the pats to his helmet, shakes hands and says “Thanks, couldn’t have done it without the team’s help, great race out there today” until it starts to feel like the only words he knows. He gets weighed, does the post-race interviews, and misses Charles and Lando in the cooldown room like limbs he lost and no longer has. (Was that the last and only time he’ll ever have that experience? Will he be able to share the podium with Charles again, while he still bleeds rosso corsa? Will he be able to say “Tell Charles to come closer, and we celebrate this one together” at least one more time before this year is over?)
He is in a bit of a daze until the podium ceremony, when he steps out behind Max and Checo, and suddenly everything is bright, bright.
In that moment, standing on the step for third place, he is reminded of his karting days, when he hadn’t yet learned why he shouldn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, when he didn’t know that he shouldn’t befriend the other kids.
He remembers someone at one of the tracks saying, “It isn’t over until it’s over,” meaning nothing is sure. Meaning even when it looks like you’re on top of the world, you can stumble and fall in the blink of an eye. Meaning fight until the final lap, until the checkered flag, like it’s the last thing you’ll ever do.
He remembers that now, with his heart pumping Ferrari-red blood throughout his body and the awareness of a closing door hanging heavily above his neck like the blade of a guillotine.
This year is his last with Ferrari, and he’ll give all of himself until the checkered flag in Abu Dhabi, just like he was taught.
It isn’t over until it’s over.
He smiles, and lifts the trophy up into the afternoon sky.
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