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1moreff-creator · 10 months

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Trying to figure out the DRDT chapter 2 murder method, with evidence! (Theory)

CW: Murder, mentions of suicide, hanging, general brutality.

So, I’ve noticed a lot of people have given their predictions for the second case murderer, the motives and all that. This is obviously what most people care about, and I love reading predictions for it!

However, I am not most people. I also am really curious about the exact murder method.

You see, DRDT has consumed my brain mercilessly, and thus I have decided I can’t wait for the hiatus to end, and want to see if I can figure out the murder mystery with the clues we have. As a warning, this doesn’t actually help much with the culprit, but I will give my thoughts on that at the end.

I think a decent job! It’s not perfect, and I’m fully expecting to get a lot if not most of this wrong. I will be happy regardless of whether I’m right or wrong, so what matters is that I had fun thinking about it! Right? :D

This took me hours.

Spoilers up until Chapter 2 ep 11, and… further? Maybe? It’s just a prediction, but with evidence, so, you decide if you wanna read it.

Where we left off

The cliffhanger currently consuming me, as you may recall, happened just after David started his Tumblr sexyman arc, with Charles cutting in with just a fantastic line (“You’re out of your element!”). He says that, while trying to prove David’s innocence, he realized something bigger, before proclaiming he and Teruko fucked up.

As many have pointed out, Charles cuts in when David mentions the time of death, meaning he’s likely realized something about that.

What Charles has probably noticed is that the note Arei received never mentioned if she was supposed to go to the playground at 7:30 PM, as the characters had assumed because of the fish and the nighttime rule for the Relaxation Room, or AM. The fish could have easily been kept in the water jugs found outside in a trash can, so it’s pretty feasible that the murder actually happened at 7:30 AM. Unfortunately, Nico, the only one keeping track of the fish, likely fed them before David went there, and thus before 7:30 PM, so we can’t tell for sure when they were taken.

(This is because Nico mentions they fed the fish after dinner, and they likely ate before David. Whit mentions having a ‘late dinner’ when he and the gang meet with Suspenders Man in the kitchen and send him to the fish, David even mentioning he wasn’t expecting anyone else to be there. Assuming Nico ate dinner with most of the class, they would have eaten before David went to the Relaxation Room, which we know was around 7:30 PM)

However, if Charles is only bringing the possibility up now, it’s likely the right answer. Also, as you’re gonna see, the murder method I believe was used requires quite a bit of setup that would have been easier to do at nighttime, without potential witnesses showing up out of nowhere.

Now, this is where I’ve seen most people stop. Content with knowing what the cliffhanger itself is about, they don’t think further into the murder method. But I will, because my life is extremely empty.

Let’s get to the evidence!

“Truth Bullets” (let’s pretend)

-First, the layout of the scene.

(Ultimate Artist coming through-)

The exact position of things doesn’t matter, but it helps to visualize. The seesaw, to the dismay of Korekiyo stans, is unimportant and can be disregarded. Here are the takeaways:

•The ground near the entrance is scuffed. This heavily implies something went down in the playground, and we probably aren’t dealing with a crime scene switch.

•The fish, you should be acquainted with.

•The spinny thing will be important.

•Not pictured is a sand pit without sand. This isn’t important, but I do find it funny.

•Then, the swing set. I’d like to point out that the rope attached on one end to Arei has nothing on the other end, and rather remains there via a knot at the top of the swing set. This is important because of:

-Broken Neck: Arei’s neck is broken, alongside:

-Veronika’s Account: Although a hanging can cause someone’s neck to break, it wouldn’t happen to Arei if she were to be hung from that height. She would either need to weigh more, or fall from higher. Because the rope Arei’s corpse hangs from is tied with a knot, it can’t extend further than what we see, meaning she was likely hung from somewhere else (if that’s even her cause of death).

-Bound Wrists: Arei’s wrists were bound with duct tape at some point.

-Duct Tape on Spinny Thing: There is duct tape covering every handlebar the spinny thing has.

-Longer Rope: There was a longer piece of rope bundled up below the spinny thing. Teruko claims it’s a couple yards long. I don’t use that unit of measurement, but it sounds like it’s large.

-Flickering Lights: According to MonoTV, one of the lights in the playground was flickering. The way he acts when inquired implies this had something to do with the murder.

Going away from the playground now, we have the trash can.

-The note: You know this one.

-Eating utensils, food, painting tools. Unimportant.

-Water Jugs: Likely where the fish were kept overnight. Notably, the handles are snapped in the middle.

-Needle and thread?: I’ve seen some people mention there’s a needle with a bit of black thread that none of the characters address when dealing with the trash. Personally, I think this isn’t going to be important, but I do have a place for it if it ends up coming up. That is:

-Ball of clothes: Charles takes this from the dress-up room. It’s apparently held together with starch (not an adhesive, just sticky, but sure), though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually created with the needle and thread. Again, I don’t think it’s important, but you can choose to believe it was used here if you want. It’ll make sense later.

-The gym. I’ll be honest, this is the one thing I don’t know how to fit in. During the investigation, Teruko makes memory to how the gym looked before and after the Nico incident. I’m not great at Spot the Difference, but for the life of me the only thing I could see change was the missing fan and the missing ‘grippy thing’ on the pull-up bar. I don’t know how that would fit with the mystery, so I’ll be glad if anyone can figure something out.

-The motives: Not important for the method, obviously important for other reasons.

So, with the evidence laid out, what can we figure out?

Theory Time

When I said I spent hours thinking about this, I mostly meant running through several theories at once, trying to see which one made the most sense. I went to some weird places: from a crime of passion disguised as a suicide, to drowning her in the Relaxation Room, to somehow getting from the Movie Screening Room to the Playground (MonoTV had mentioned punching through the wall would get you there), to Arei herself being the one originally trying to murder…

But in the end, it was simpler. There are three important facts which help narrow down the options.

-Arei’s neck was broken. This eliminates simpler killing methods such as strangulation. Something happened which broke her neck, yet:

-Her wrists were bound. A broken neck is instant death, but Arei’s bound wrists imply the killer feared she would struggle. This eliminates a crime of passion. This thing was premeditated.

-The murder happened in the playground. The scuffed floor, broken light, duct tape on spinny thing and the other rope all make it clear. There’s no crime scene switching here. This eliminates stuff like the drowning in the Relaxation Room I mentioned.

All of this makes me believe that Arei was hung from somewhere in the playground, likely after the killer bound her wrists to stop her from struggling. The scuffed ground serves as evidence of an initial struggle. It doesn’t quite look like that, but frankly I just don’t know what could have caused the exact shape in the ground, so a struggle it is.

However, how? If Arei’s neck broke from her hanging, as per Veronika’s Account, she would need to be hung from somewhere else first, in a way that she either weighed more or fell from higher. Now, at first, you might assume that she had to be simply hung from higher, since it’s impossible to make Arei weigh more than she does. But what if I told you, there is a way to achieve that?

Enter: the water jugs.

I don’t know about you, but the way those handles are broken looks to me like they were snapped too cleanly for human hands. It almost looks… like someone tied a knot around them, then exerted a bunch of force on the rope.

(WARNING: Geometric depiction of a hanging a bit below)

We know for a fact there are at least two pieces of rope: one longer, one shorter. It would be possible to tie the two ends of the shorter one around the handles of the water jugs, then tie the middle around Arei. Water’s pretty heavy, so the extra pull of the water jugs would exert an additional force to her body once she stopped falling, one which could serve as one of the reasons her neck broke.

…Now’s probably a good time to mention, I have no idea why the killer did half the shit they did. I cannot explain to you why they would do this with water jugs. I’m just telling you how my brain’s interpreting this evidence.

However, this doesn’t exactly solve the height problem. You still can’t hang Arei from the swing set directly, as the jugs would hit the ground. It’s still necessary to hang her from higher up, although thankfully it’s easy to see where that would happen.

Yeah, the railings of the playground. The problem, naturally, is how to get there. Or rather, how to get the rope there.

Well, here’s a question. How would you do something like that if it was lower down, but still unreachable? One answer is to try to throw the rope over the railing, so that one end stays near you, and the other, on the other side of the railing. Of course, that’s impossible with a rope of this length and a railing of this height, but the concept can still be used in conjunction with something else. Thinking about the other pieces of evidence we have, there is one that stands out as particularly strange, doesn’t it?

Exactly. The ball of clothes. Because throwing a ball, especially one as light as this one would be, is much easier than throwing a rope, you can set up the hanging spot by tying one end of the rope to the ball, and throwing that over the railing.

You might think it’s still too far up, but think of it like this. How far can you throw a basketball straight up? Probably enough to clear two floors, at least given enough attempts. The ball of clothes would have more drag, yes, but it would be lighter. Keep in mind the killer had all night to get this right, and they could have even climbed on the swing set if they needed a bit more height. It’d be awkward, but possible.

There is one more piece of evidence that makes me think this is the case. That is, the flickering lights.

The lights weren’t broken, but they did get fucked up. This is by far the clue which gave me the most trouble when thinking about this, since it just seemed so impossible to achieve. However, this ‘ball of clothes’ theory gives us a solid answer. On the way up, the ball of clothes may have hit the lights:

This wouldn’t break the light, but it could displace it, causing it to flicker… or something like that. I’m sorta banking on J giving a proper explanation with her pre-established expertise, since I’m no electrical engineer. However, I see no other way this could have happened, so it’s the answer I’m giving for now.

So now we have the long rope on both ends, all that’s left is actually pulling Arei up. Except, that’s still quite complicated, isn’t it? Already pulling her up would take quite a bit of strength, but the main problem is the ‘going down’ part.

For Arei’s neck to break, she needs to enter free fall, then abruptly stop halfway. That would mean you need to stop the rope from moving on the way down, but how? Just using your hands is impossible, because you’d get burnt.

Enter: spinny thing.

The duct tape tipped me off that this thing was important, and once the use of rope is factored in, my first instinct was to use it for a sort of pulley system.

Weave the rope through a few of the handlebars, then tie a knot around one of them. That way, if you make the thing spin, it will drag the rope with it, sort of like a roll of film in reverse.

Then, once Arei reaches an appropriate height, you spin the thing the other way, letting her fall at full speed for a bit. When you want to stop her, you would just need to stop the carousel from spinning, which may take a bit of strength, but it’s perfectly doable.

Now, this explains how the murder could have been done, but where does the duct tape come into play?

…

Yeah, good question. My best answer is that the rope somehow burnt a friction mark into the spinny thing, which the killer feared would give away their trick. After all, even if the duct tape is more noticeable, it’s harder to make a connection between that and the murder than a friction burn, which while harder to notice, would point more directly to the pulley idea.

Yeah, it’s not a great answer, and it’s frankly the part which still puzzles me the most, but it’s an answer, so I’m going with it for now. Open to change, though.

Notably, this is also the part of the crime where I feel the gym may come into play. Again, I have no idea what the relevance is, but if it has something to do with this crime and not just the Ace - Nico incident, perhaps the grippy strap of the pull up bar was somehow used to better grip the spinny thing’s handlebars for the pulley trick? Again, this is one piece of evidence where I could use the help.

And so, we’re done! Practically all of the important evidence was used, and I can’t find any contradictions in the reasoning!

Closing Argument

The killer first put water from the Relaxation Room, fish and all, in some water jugs before nighttime.

At nighttime, they stuck together Teruko’s and Hu’s old clothes with either starch or the black string. Going to the playground, they tied a long rope they got from storage around the ball of clothes. They repeatedly threw it up, until they managed to get the rope over one of the railings in the playground. However, on the way up, the ball of clothes hit a light and displaced it, causing it to flicker. MonoTV would later remove this light.

After that, they tied one of the ends of the rope to one of the carousel’s handlebars, possibly looping it around some of the other handlebars to make sure it would work as a pulley. The killer left the water jugs in the room, first tying a shorter piece of rope around their handles, and took the ball of clothes back to the dressing room.

After that, the killer wrote a note. They had overheard the Eden-Arturo-Arei situation, and used that to lure Arei out to the playground at 7:30 AM. She potentially arrived just before the killer, based on the scuffed ground being a bit far from the door, but the killer got there just a moment after, before Arei could understand the situation.

The killer overpowered Arei, scuffing the ground near the seesaw in the process. They eventually bound her wrists together, and wrapped the middle of the rope attached to the water jugs to Arei’s lower body. Possibly around her waist, as to prevent rope burn injuries from giving the trick away.

After that, they tied the unused end of the longer rope around Arei’s neck, and moved to the spinny thing. Using the grippy strap they got from the gym (maybe), they grabbed one of the handlebars and spun the spinny thing so that the rope was pulled in and around its handlebars. This also had the effect of pulling Arei up towards the ceiling.

Once Arei was high enough, the killer quickly spun the carousel the opposite way, then abruptly stopped it just a few moments later. This caused Arei to free fall shortly, before suddenly stopping. The force of that stopping broke both Arei’s neck and the handles of the water jugs. Arei died here, if she hadn’t already asphyxiated beforehand.

All that was left for the killer to do was cleanup. Retrieve the longer rope and hide it under the spinny thing; set up Arei’s body to look vaguely like a suicide; empty the water jugs on the ground; throw them away, alongside the duct tape and the note. The killer’s trick had also left marks on the carousel, which they decided to cover up with duct tape. Finally, the killer reconvened with everyone at around 8 AM for the motive announcement.

And with that, all questions are answered. Well, except for:

What the fuck

Like, why would the killer do this? It’s so unnecessary cruel, when they could have just hung her. I was honestly worried, as I thought about the method, that the killer would end up being Veronika, just because it’s so fucked I genuinely can’t see anyone else doing this. But Veronika doesn’t have a motive to do this: she’s talked about wanting to enjoy the trials for as long as possible, and it’s been set up if she murders, it would be of boredom. Doing that before a motive announcement which would make things interesting doesn’t fit her at all. Or maybe I’m coping.

The answer to the question of why the killer chose this method is only part of a larger question, though. So, knowing the method, how does that change the final question?

Who did it?

EDIT: DISCLAIMER: The following part of this blog is outdated. Go here to read a revised version of the method, with a different culprit. It's a reblog of thebadjoe's reblog of this post, as they pointed out a lot of flaws in my original theory (adult content warning for Arei's corpse). I'm leaving the rest of my original post up, but just know I now believe the killer to be Eden, with an accomplice.

Let me start by saying that I can’t definitively say anything about anyone, even knowing the murder method. However, this *does* paint some of the theories in a different light.

Smaller theories

I’ve seen a few people suggest everyone from Charles to J or even Arturo. A lot of these theories are decent, but some rely too much on certain assumptions which may or may not be disproven if this method is accurate.

Charles is ruled out. The murder required moving the corpse around postmortem, and while there wasn’t any blood around, Charles’ necrophobia would make it impossible for him.

A theory I saw was that J may have used her remote to open secret trapdoors and move around rooms, taking advantage of the placement of the playground in relation to the Movie Screening Room. However, while that theory is interesting, the murder is perfectly possible without these trapdoors, so the main argument kinda goes out the window. Although I guess it’s possible her remote could be used to make the carousel go spin, but that’s kinda ridiculous if you ask me.

Arturo was ruled out from the beginning because the handwriting in the note is too pretty to be a doctor’s. That’s a joke, and Arturo would actually be quite capable of the crime. In fact, he’s sort of become my second most likely culprit, even if he was accused early in the trial.

Hu / David manipulation, in shambles

A popular theory states that the killer was manipulated by David to do the deed. The most common victim of this manipulation theory seems to be Hu Jing. However, in my opinion, the sheer brutality of the method pretty much rules this out. David may be a good enough manipulator to get somehow to kill Arei, but I really doubt he’d be able to convince them to do… all this.

Especially since he has no reason to order the specific method, which would imply it was born from the killer’s own mind. So, even if David actually told them to kill Arei, they decided to use this insanely elaborate method all on their own. And, listen, I don’t care how you feel about Hu, she wouldn’t do this.

Is it still possible? Sure, I guess. Does it look a lot weaker under this method? Absolutely.

The surprisingly strong Whit/Eden allegations

I didn’t make this theory considering these two the killer, I really didn’t. I still don’t think they are. And yet, they are the only ones who could benefit from this method. How? The BDA.

You see that loophole, right? I noticed the moment I saw the rule. The way it’s written seems to imply the BDA only plays when three ‘spotless’ see the body, ruling them out as the murderer. Except, that’s not how it’s worded. It doesn’t say ‘three non-murderers’, it says ‘three people who didn’t witness the murder’.

So, pray tell, what happens if the culprit has their back to the victim when they die? Simple; they didn’t witness the murder, so their eyes count for the BDA.

How does this help? Well, imagine if Teruko had been the one to kill Arei. By making a contraption where she can be sure Arei dies instantly upon something happening (in this case, abruptly stopping the spin of the carousel), she can make sure her back is turned the moment Arei dies. Of course, the moment she turns around, the count for the BDA goes up to one, but it doesn’t trigger, since you need three.

Then, when Teruko ‘discovers’ the body alongside Eden and Whit, the BDA plays; one person (Teruko) had already ‘discovered the body’, so Eden and Whit seeing it would increase the BDA count by two. That makes three, BDA plays.

And yet, during the trial, if the murder method hasn’t been found out, Teruko could claim she isn’t the murderer because of the trickily worded BDA rule.

Now, we obviously know Teruko didn’t do it, but Eden and especially Whit are common theories. This could be used as evidence, except…

There’s a pretty obvious problem there. It’s not them, but Teruko who asks to team up in a group of three for the BDA, and it’s also her who suggests going to the second floor. Then, the playground is the last place they check, and Whit even questions Teruko when she suggests going there (the infamous ‘hanging out there’ line).

I wouldn’t rule out Teruko’s bad luck making her pick the absolute worst possible partner possible, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that neither Eden nor Whit were proactive in the search method, which goes against this potential ‘BDA alibi’ plan.

As for the rest of the theories, I don’t quite believe them. Yes, Whit definitely has more issues than he lets on, but he has no motive to do this (remember; he asked an entire group of people to reveal his secret if they had it, so the only reason his secret lasted until the trial was Rose throwing it away). Eden even less so.

And in the end, it really is the motives which points us to what I believe to be the killer.

Yeah, it’s Levi

As does what I believe is most of the fandom by this point, I think Levi is probably the killer.

Many have already theorized about the remaining motives, so I’ll spare you the ordeal and tell you: Just with the information all the characters have access to, it’s possible to narrow down Levi’s secret to ‘murdered someone’, ‘poisoned competition’ and ‘dead family’ (I know the last one’s Xander’s, but the characters don’t really have access to the Bonus Episode).

However, Eden can eliminate the ‘dead family’ one, as Levi has talked about his family with her, and they’re not dead (He also mentioned having brothers in the present tense during the trial, but just in case).

Min’s Bonus Episode makes it likely her secret is the ‘poison competition’ one, though how the characters are gonna figure that one out is beyond me. The point is, Levi’s secret is the ‘murdered someone’ one, the one Arei had. And, listen, in-game logic aside, you don’t just give that secret to the victim of the case and then have it mean nothing for the murder.

Other suspicious behavior has been noted, such as him wanting to start voting time quickly when David did his thing, him quickly checking the motives when they became public (keep in mind, as some characters mentioned, it’s possible the killer thought just killing someone before the motive reveal would be enough to prevent it), etc. Also possible foreshadowing such as Ace claiming Levi could ‘snap [his] neck with his bare hands’ and Levi promising to protect Eden in the trial, which is exactly what Arei did before dying.

However, something I feel people overlook is that not only did Arei get Levi’s secret, but it was also Levi who got Arei’s secret. A secret which, keep in mind, wasn’t public knowledge until the trial, when Levi finally revealed it. Sure, David and Teruko knew, maybe Eden at best, but other than that, only Levi knew of that secret.

And this is where the murder method may come in. I’m still unsure. Because the only reason I can find for this amount of elaborate planning and brutality, beyond the BDA thing which I mentioned likely isn’t important, is the killer having a deep grudge against Arei.

Levi is a guy who cares about his family. Sure, he was disowned, but he claims it was good, because he and his family were ‘bad influences on each other’. He seems like he genuinely wants the best for his brothers, it just so happened that the best thing was going their separate ways.

So, how do you think he feels when he learns that Arei, someone who had already insulted and belittled him, calling him a pushover and stuff, did horrible things to her sisters? If he doesn’t have the full picture, it’s not impossible to see how that may make him angry at her, especially with his already established anger issues.

Not to mention, keep in mind the setup for the crime was done one night after the Nico - Ace incident, one which ends with Levi grumbling ‘why do I even bother?’ as he locks himself in his room. This could imply a complete loss of faith in the group in general, which could lead to him deciding to kill.

Of course, that theory has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Levi’s outbursts of anger don’t really last long enough for it to explain such a long and elaborate murder scheme. Not to mention, if he really did react negatively to the motive, he’d have done it the moment he received it, not several days later. He has murdered without remorse before, if his secret is to be believed, but until we get the specifics, we can’t know for sure how okay he’d be doing something like this.

However, the important question Levi as the culprit answers isn’t the ‘why?’, but the ‘how?’.

I’ve sorta glossed over it until now, but it would take quite a bit of strength to stop the spinny thing in the trick. I don’t think Levi’s the only one capable of it, but he’s certainly the most capable, if that makes sense. Not to mention, actually overpowering Arei in the first place wouldn’t exactly be easy. Plus, the ball of clothes being involved implicates him in a meta-sense, as it could technically count as his talent being involved in the murder.

The problem, of course, is that I have no definitive evidence. His custom weapon, brass knuckles, wasn’t involved at all, and there’s no way to place him at any of the important scenes. No one has an alibi for nighttime, no one has an alibi for 7:30 AM, and pretty much no one has an alibi for the Eden - Arturo - Arei incident (afternoon of the day of Nico’s attempted murder, when for now we only know Hu, David, Nico and Teruko where talking in the Relaxation Room. Though of course, the exact time is impossible to know).

I suspect he’s going to be suspected for the motive and the strength thing, and either someone will come up with something incriminating, or he’ll make a slip-up a la Mondo. I have no idea.

So… what did we learn?

Kinda nothing. As you can see, the murder method doesn’t really point to a killer in any definitive way, so we’re just back where we started, basically. But hey! It was fun! I guess.

Now, back to crying over the hiatus. See you!

#danganronpa despair time #drdt #fanganronpa #arei nageishi #drdt chapter 2 #drdt theory #levi fontana #whit young #eden tobisa #this took way too long #i need therapy #veronika grebenshchikova #arturo giles

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hollycircling · 10 months

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would you consider dropping some tips on how you color? your art always has such a nice feeling to it

Thank you so much, and yes, absolutely!

So... I have been agonizing over how to answer this question for over a week because I tend to make a lot of my major decisions based on what looks and feels good to me in the moment. It’s sort of hard to explain. Then I started getting philosophical with it (“how does one color? How do I explain aesthetic?”), and I started rambling, and had to cut the answer way, way, way down lol.

But here’s what I can help with right now. I think the most important part of how I color is my tools and what they allow me to do. These are currently my favorite brushes to use:

From top to bottom, I use Kyle T’s Gouache for just about everything. A lot of my recent pieces are done entirely in that– I love the chunky texture and how the pressure mimics traditional gouache. It’s great for children’s book illustrations, and filling linework, and realistic portraits. She is my soft wife and I love her.

I practically never use the default hard round. Ignore that.

The roller brush is another one I use for painting. It was my go-to before KT’s gouache, so you’ll find it a lot in my older work (and as a big texture thing in my current works). The “Sampled Tip” below that one I usually use for children’s book styled illustrations. It’s like a really dense, waxy crayon, so it’s fun for textured lines and details.

I always paint in my own shadows and highlights, but I like to use the soft round if I want to blow the shadow or highlight out. It’s for extra large areas.

And finally my pencil. I use it for sketching as well as linework, if I plan on doing a linework-centric piece. I don’t think there’s much of a difference between the two there… one is probably smoother than the other.

______________

The reason why I like textured, pressure-sensitive brushes so much is because they’re important to how I paint. When I blend, I don’t use a blender brush or a smudge tool. What I do is layer two colors– lightly– then use the eyedropper to select the color between them and continue painting with it. That’s probably the key to most of my work. I’ve gotten pretty fast at it, so I’m constantly selecting colors from the painting and reusing it throughout my painting.

I still use the color-wheel to hand-pick what I think will look best, though. This is probably going to be a really frustrating answer, but I choose color palettes based on basic color/lighting theory combined with personal aesthetic preference. It can take some studying (of both theory and other artists’ work). If you’re ever looking for a really great reference on the former subjects, I highly recommend Color and Light by James Gurny. Even if you’re not into watercolor or dinosaurs or realism, the guy is a master at explaining all that different stuff in depth.

Shape and negative space are also pretty important to me, but that's a whole other thing. And as a side-note, I recommend following more children’s book illustrators. Their work may look simple, but a lot of intention goes into how they use color, shape, space, and texture.

Also, on texture, I hand-draw most of mine. I love to add little scratches and drops and splashes when the painting is almost over. It's one of my favorite things to do :')

____

Now, the other most important tip:

Once I’m happy with the sketch/linework, and once I’ve laid down the basic colors of my piece, I do a Really Terrible Thing. I become a graphic designer’s worst nightmare and collapse everything onto one layer.

Then I paint directly on top of it, linework and all.

I do this for a lot of reasons, but mostly because 1) my tiny brain is overwhelmed by the clutter of too many layers, and 2) it forces me to approach a piece as if it was traditional media– a process which I find a lot more comfortable and rewarding. I paint right on top of the base colors, and right on top of the linework, effectively redoing and cleaning up what I already have there. Even if I'm working with a blank background, I'll paint a new blank one on top because it gives the feeling of a more unified piece, if that makes sense.

Basically, I approach my drawings as if I’m using traditional media. I like chunky brushes, utilizing (what I personally think are) interesting color combinations and textures, and smashing everything down onto one page so I can just paint.

Anyway, please let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like me to go into detail on, any pieces of mine you’d like to know how exactly I went about it, etc etc etc. I’m happy to answer ^^

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nightfurylover31 · 11 months

Text

I really love Adam Bryce Thomas's cover for the 5th Year Anniversary issue! It's so cute! I was hoping the mini issue we were getting was centered around it, but we got something else. So I decided to write something about it! Capturing everything that happens in every picture, keeping it within canon range. I hope you all like it.

*takes place before #57*

The air was refreshing. Much warmer than it had been, yet the breeze had a bit of a chill. The cherry blossoms had bloomed and some of their petals had begun to fall. Other flowers had started opening. A clear sign of early spring. As such, the Riverside Romp was the place to be.

“Wow, it just started but the place is already packed,” Sonic said as he and Amy walked through the entrance.

“It is one of the biggest celebrations around the villages in this area,” Amy responded.

The river in this zone branched out into several villages. As such, everyone gathered in the field outside of Riverside, celebrating the new season. Sonic recognized folks from Vista View, Windmill Village, Barricade Town, Spiral Hill, and more. There were tents and food stands set up all over. The festival lasted all weekend, but even the first day was filled with guests.

“I’m glad you decided to join us, Sonic.” Amy was going with Cream and Vanilla, but decided to ask Sonic as well. Things had been tough on him lately, so she thought he needed to relax a bit. And she figured having the Rabbit family would put him more at ease about coming.

“Sure thing, I’ve always wanted to come to one of these.”

“With all that’s been happening, this is just the kind of break we needed. Especially you.”

“Oh come,” Sonic rolled his eyes. “don’t start that again. The last few adventures were rough, but nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Amy put her hands on her hips. “You were violently electrocuted, and then nearly brain swapped with a robot. And both times your leg was injured.”

Sonic let out a sheepish chuckle. “What can I say? Trouble always seems to find me.”

The pink hedgehog sighed, resting her hand on her forehead. While she admired Sonic’s spirit, she wished he didn’t take these kinds of experiences so lightly.

“My point is there’s nothing wrong taking it easy.”

“I know, and you’re right. Let’s just enjoy today. I hear they got special chili dogs at these things.”

Amy couldn’t help but laugh as Sonic licked his lips at the thought of trying the food.

“Mr. Sonic! Ms. Amy! Hurry!” The two turned to see Cream calling them as she and her mother had already entered the gate.

“What are we waiting for?” Sonic smiled. “Let’s go!”

The group spent some time together until Cream saw a face painting booth. She got the artist to paint Cheese’s face while Sonic and Amy continued. There were souvenir stands with handmade clothing, bags and accessories. Naturally, the former stopped when he saw a hotdog stand. With so many toppings he had to try one with everything. Next to it was a backed goods stand, which Amy was drawn to. The large heart-shaped cookies hanging overhead looked especially delicious. As the two headed over to the picnic tables to eat and rejoin their friends, Amy noticed a familiar woolly figure making their way to the river.

“Sonic, go ahead,” she said as she gave her treats to him. “I’ll catch up.” The blue hedgehog shrugged but did as he was told.

Outside of the festivities, Amy met up with a lone girl sitting on a log.

“Hello Lanolin.”

The sheep turned her head. “Oh, Ms. Rose. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Lanolin was part of the Restoration. She joined just after the Neo Metal incident. She had been helping regularly. If memory served correctly, she was now an assistant to Jewel.

“I came with my friends, and please, call me Amy. No need for formalities.” Amy sat down beside her. “What are you doing here instead of the party? It looks like something’s bothering you.”

Lanolin hung her head low, looking at her hands folded in her lap. “I just wonder… if I’m really making a difference.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you and Sonic saved my town, I realized how helpless I was. I couldn’t do anything. I wanted to do more. So I joined the Restoration to help. But even so, I feel like I haven’t done anything.”

“That’s not true,” Amy quickly defended. “You’ve helped with the evacuations when we were dealing with the Metal Virus. You even protected the survivors when we were in Spiral Hill and Angel Island. That’s something.”

“Barely. Most of the Zombots were focusing more on the areas I wasn’t in. And when the Zeti attacked HQ, I didn’t fight back either. I just grabbed as many people as I could find and hid. I feel like a coward.”

“Protecting people is just as important as fighting. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“But it’s…” The sheep went quiet.

Sensing her discouragement, Amy took a deep breath and sighed. “It’s not enough. You want to contribute more.”

Lanolin nodded. “You and the others do such amazing things. I know I can’t do anything like that, but-"

“You just haven’t found it yet.”

“W-what?” Lanolin was caught off guard by Amy's interruption.

“You haven’t found your special skill yet. Something only you can do. I had my own problems figuring it out, but I kept trying.” With that Amy started fidgeting with her fingers. “Honestly, you remind me of how I used to be. I wanted to go on adventures with Sonic, but I was just getting in the way. Even after getting my hammer, I still felt like I was a bother most of the time. But even if I can’t run fast, fly, or anything super special, I still try to help in any way I can. No matter how small.”

Hearing this caused Lanolin to smile. She rubbed her cheek, as if wiping a tear. “Thanks for that, Amy. I’m still not sure what I could do to help more.”

“Well, is there any way you can think of to make the Restoration more effective?”

The sheep blinked for a moment, then put her hand to her chin to think. After a while, she spoke “Considering all the havoc Dr. Eggman has caused… if there was some way to get the jump on him…”

“Like a response team? That’s a great idea!” A way to stop Eggman before things get too out of control. That way there would be less collateral damage, and less Sonic would have to deal with. Amy knew he loved the thrill of the fight, and she didn’t want to take that from him, but so much weight had been put on him lately. Some have even blamed him for certain events due to his actions. If people did more, they wouldn’t have to keep relying on him or turn any distress towards him.

“It’s just a thought. I don’t know how to pull it off—”

“But it’s a start, and that’s what matters,” the hedgehog assured. “As a very special friend of mine says, ‘nothing starts until you take action.’”

“Smart advice,” Lanolin agreed.

Amy got up and motioned her hand. “Come on. Let’s get back. There’s still plenty of fun to be had.”

The two headed back to the festival. Lanolin saw her friends before Amy did, so they split up. She saw the gang still at the tables eating. Though she couldn’t help but notice a few bites missing from her cookie.

“I’m sorry Ms. Amy,” Cream apologized. “Cheese was hungry, and I couldn’t stop him.” The Chao still had crumbs on his face. His face painting had also been smudged trying to wipe them off.

Amy simply patted bunny on the head. “Don’t worry about it, Cream. There’s still plenty left, and we’re here to have fun."

After going around to more of the stands, the last event of the day was about to start. Sparklers were passed out some people. Amy watched the lights dance around, careful that the sparks didn’t hit her hand. Everyone gathered as the mayor of Windmill Village stood at the front. The old ram cleared his throat and began to speak.

“Thanks to all of you for coming out and joining us! I know the last year has been hard on us all, but that’s exactly why we need to celebrate the good days we have. We must cherish everything and everyone around us and let them know how they mean to us. Spring is a time of new beginnings. I’m sure new stories and opportunities are awaiting each and every one of you. So let us welcome it all with open arms.” He raised his fist in the air. “To a wonderful year!”

“Yeah!”

The crowd cheered with absolute bliss. Amy was so in the moment she didn’t even realize she was holding Sonic’s hand. Soon the music picked up, and everyone was singing and dancing. This went on for a few more hours.

As the sun began to set, everyone began to head home. Cream and Vanilla waved goodbye as they parted ways from Amy and Sonic.

“That was so much fun,” Sonic exclaimed as he stretched his arms in the air. “Thanks for inviting me along, Ames.”

“I’m glad you joined us too,” Amy beamed. She felt much more at ease than she had been in a while, and she could tell Sonic did as well. The way his quills bent down, the way he smiled. She knew how to read him by now when he was tense. She did not see that now. All cares and troubles were out of mind. It felt great to finally be able to relax without Eggman or anyone else ruining it. “We should come again next year. We could invite Tails, Knuckles, Tangle, Whisper, and the others to come too.”

“Or it could just the two of us and make it a date,” the blue hedgehog said casually.

Amy froze in place. Her face turned bright red. She looked at Sonic, who was sporting his smug grin.

She gave him a playful shove. “Don’t tease me like that!”

“What? I thought that’s what you wanted, right?”

"Sonic, you-"

The two friends continued laughing as they made their way home.

#sonic idw #idw sonic #idw sonic spoilers #amy rose #sonic the hedgehog #lanolin the sheep #cream the rabbit #vanilla the rabbit #fanfic

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yan-may-fire · 9 months

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ive struggled with art block for years and feel very discouraged because im already 19 and feel really behind so many people. im really stuck and dont really know what to do to get out of it and try and improve. as an amazing artist, do you have any tips on how to kind of start from scratch? like how do you learn ... stuff

I’m really sorry that you feel stuck, it’s not a pleasant feeling and I’ve experienced it myself many MANY times. First, let me preface, that your age is not that important. I’m turning 26 in a couple of months and I know there’s still SO MUCH I can improve on, I know artists who are younger than me and can do breathtaking art. I also know artists who didn’t even start drawing at my age, who started drawing a little later in life because they felt like doing art. So, who are you competing against? Why are you competing? Is self expression not goal enough? I’m not a professional artist, I don’t want to adhere to some industry standard, and most of all I don’t want to feel behind in an area that is so, SO personal to me.

Now, to the feeling stuck part. I’d love to say that in art, you’re always improving. Well, it’s not exactly the case. There are artists whose work doesn’t change for years and they feel content in what they do. Are they stuck? Not really — they feel fine. When you feel stuck in your art, it means that your brain has caught up to your physical ability and went beyond, it starts seeing flaws you haven’t noticed before. You’re very young still and have PLENTY of time to work up the pure handcraft of visual art. What I recommend is, start analysing what your hands are doing. Find an artwork in which you admire the skill of the artist and try to replicate the way their brushstrokes or lines work. Find a screenshot with really good colours and try to make little thumbnails with the colours and the shapes that you see. Don’t go for actually replicating screenshots, define a goal and don’t worry about the rest. If it’s the creative part you feel stuck on, my go to advice is always — stop and take a break. Go outside and look at your surroundings. Watch a movie, go down the rabbit hole of YouTube tutorials on how to restore a night stand (not obligatory), go to your local museum and just. Look. Let your brain wander in how beautiful mundane things are. How pretty are the faces of the people on your bus. Love what you see and with love comes art.

Now on to the learning part. This one is way less poetic because, well, the theory behind art is an academic field and I’m not an expert in it. There is a sea of decent art tutorials on YouTube, ranging from colour theory to multiple point perspective. If you have an artist who’s very skilled and happens to have a YT channel, watch them and really think about what they’re doing and why. I can’t stress this enough, if you want to actively learn something, you have to watch critically. If you have any spare money, you can invest in an art basics course too, god knows my brain expanded 40 times when I finally attended one, and I’ve been drawing for years before that. If you don’t have the finances for that — don’t worry. First, learning is a process and attending a class just sometimes accelerates it. Second, attending a class later in life does NOT mean you missed an opportunity. Rounding up, outside of any means of formal education you can still learn some useful things. Start with the basics, with the “boring” stuff (and I use parenthesis because drawing boxes is really fun actually), with “how to draw a straight line and what is line weight” and not “upper limb anatomy” or “advanced colour theory”. You’ll get there eventually, I promise. Just like I mentioned all the way in the beginning of this awfully long reply: it’s not a competition!

I hope this was useful in any way and I wish you lots of luck and patience. And love what you do, regardless of what other people do.

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reamnosart · 23 days

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Can you share some of your Ikabod headcanons

Ok thank u for asking because I’ve been holding onto headcanons for so long that I was afraid to share bc I didn’t know how other people would react D: I don’t engage in fandom spaces very much since I used to strictly enjoy canon, but I’m letting myself take artistic liberties with The Upturned since I like it so much!!

In my brain there are two Iks; the real one and the funky little self indulgent one that lives in my brain

“Real” Ik

-Gay and nb (he/they)

-he has adhd!! And probably some other neurodivergence. I relate a lot to how impulsive he is, and I also relate to his problem solving skills (the whole thing with him getting the historic database files)

-Ik’s dad didn’t treat him well because he acted soft (he’s such a sweetheart and a pushover I love this guy)

-I used to think Ik’s line about thanking his dad for killing him would suggest a repression of his sexuality/ associating it with him dying and wishing he was different, but I’m more convinced that he was forgiving/ thanking his father since the afterlife has been a better outlet to experience his interests without being afraid of being himself

-The reason Ik has yellow eyes is because they resemble truck headlights

-traveler isn’t the first person Ik tried to be friends with at the hotel

-the reason Ik doesn’t fight back against sob is because he’s a victim of sob’s experiments. The only things keeping him from becoming a monster are fear and his customer service skills

-I asked Zeekerss once about why souks vary so much in size. He doesn’t have a straight answer for it, but suggested it has to do with characteristics of the person’s soul. Ik was probably around 6 feet tall when he was alive, but his towering stature in the afterlife represents the lengths he goes to make others happy

-same reason he’s got his big goofy smile. He’s like a beacon of hope in such a miserable place. He’s a kind soul who chose to help others instead of wallow like sob or the artist

Self indulgent Ik (basically an OC at this point)

-so basically everything is the same except Ik and Sob are transmasc butch lesbians (just like me fr)

-in canon Ik died at 15 and met sob around 18 but my version of Ik is 21 when he dies and meets Sob (just. Like me)

-it’s easier to have creative freedom with a character when I relate them to myself let me have this

-Ik is Sob’s willing assistant and works with him to find more subjects/ victims for experiments. The suffering of Sob’s victims are a small price to pay in the search for an end to the afterlife, a concept that millions of souls could benefit from (and may even be a way to connect back to the land of the living?)

-Ik has become numb to the idea of connecting to guests after meeting millions of them and being berated/ harassed by lost and confused souls. Traveler is the first person in 40 years he’s related to, so Ik goes out of his way to keep traveler safe from Sob’s traps.

I have so many more but it’s like 5 am so I can’t remember them all rn,,,, thank you again for asking!!! I always love talking about this game.

#the upturned #ikabod kee #the upturned ik #personal #reamnosart

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cakeboxie · 2 months

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Patience love, you’ll be with me soon.

sfw

Charlie(tav)/Zevlor post game angst.

cw. death and grieving.

I wrote this on a whim like a week ago and finally got around to doing all the reformatting to make it not look like dogshit on tumblr.

A man stands inside an empty home, early in the morning, snow falls lightly outside, and the man is thankful for the darkness of winter. It allows him the time to savour the morning just a touch more before the sun rises.

There is something shiny on the windowsill.

A pair of rings, one meant to be worn on the hand and the other at the base of one’s horn. Set one inside another on top of a neatly folded piece of parchment.

Their wedding bands, to be left in the morning sun. Were he an artist he’d paint the scene.

But he’s not, so he picks up the parchment and returns the rings to their spot.

The parchment is soft still, written not even 2 days ago.

I miss you my love.

Though I get the feeling it won’t be much longer before I join you. I find myself having trouble getting up in time for my morning prayers for the first time since I was child. Kerrith- that’s the cat that showed up and demanded I care for him- clings to me, I don’t think i’ve spent more than a moment or two without him at my side in the last tenday.

Perhaps I will visit Halsin before my time. I feel a bit bad asking for his help yet again, he’s done much for me since your passing. But I know that he would not mind, as much as I would find peace with a traditional Lathanderite burial i’d much prefer my body find use in the soil.

He misses you terribly, we both do.

A part of me wishes we’d met in Elturel, perhaps I would have had reason to stay after the fall of fort Morninglord. Though I suppose you hadn’t been alive for me to meet, not for another- what was it, 40 or so years? And even then you would’ve been an infant and I a mostly grown adult. Not that I felt it, I don’t think I truly felt like an adult until the brain.

I suppose I only wish I had more time with you my dear. There’s a cruel irony in having been born 130 years before you, then live just short of 60 more.

Your entire lifespan could’ve happened thrice in mine… I hope Halsin and Astarion will be okay after the rest of our little band passes, of us all only myself, Shadowheart, Halsin, and Astarion remain. I do hope shadowheart is in good health. It’s been an age since i’ve heard from her. Astarion as well, there’s some things I’d still like to apologize to him for, even if he won’t hear me.

I would love to write more, I have plenty to say. But Kerrith demands his dinner, and I should arrange for a letter to be sent to Halsin. I ought to bother Rolan to connect a portal for me aswell, i’m not sure I have the time for the full trip.

He hadn’t, nor for the portal. Hence why Astarion is stood here with a chubby little cat rubbing itself on his shins whilst waiting for Halsin to come and collect the spoiled little creature.

He carefully slides the parchment back under the rings, pulling his hands back just as the sun starts to bite at his skin.

Perhaps he will commissions a painter.

#cakewrites #Charlie [tav]#bg3 tav #zevlor x tav #zevlor bg3 #Hellbright

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haikyuupaladin · 2 years

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TLDR; Beyoncé’s “Break my Soul” lyrics video was dangerous to photosensitive viewers and this is a scary step in what seems to be a trend of less and less accessibility for photosensitivity.

This has been bothering me for a few days since I first saw warnings for Beyoncé’s “Break my Soul” lyric video. Apparently there is a warning on the video itself now, but this is due to charities such as Epilepsy Action reaching out and asking for the video to be taken down due to the dangers it posed. There was not a warning when the video was first posted.

We are running out of media that photosensitive people can assume are safe or are at the very least only mildly dangerous, and this is part of a trend of increasingly dangerous strobe usage in media. I first noticed this trend with Incredibles 2, and a few months later with Spiderverse. Cartoons used to be something I could count on to be relatively, if not completely, safe, as a lot of lighting effects can be demonstrated differently and in less dangerous ways in cartoons vs live action. Then I started trying to watch Netflix shows like Stranger Things and The Umbrella Academy, which granted, I expected to be a little more dangerous due to their genres, but still wasn’t necessarily prepared for just how intense most of the effects would be. Then came Cyberpunk 2077, which again, I expected to be dangerous because of the genre, but I don’t think anyone could have expected that they would actively choose to simulate the strobes used during an EEG for the “brain dance” sequence (and if the fact that they called it “brain dance” doesn’t clue you in to the fact that they knew exactly what they were doing, I don’t know what will). The Weeknd was proud of his videos being pulled from before screenings of Suicide Squad for being so egregiously dangerous to photosensitive viewers (which I’ve never seen happen before. Incredibles 2 got barely a slap on the wrist and a warning was issued after opening weekend, and Spiderverse to my knowledge still has no warning from Sony to this day, for comparison). And now Beyoncé makes a lyrics video, the one genre of visual media I still felt I could trust, as they’re mostly just plain text on a plain background, and she not only used strobes, but she used red strobes, which are particularly dangerous. Most of the other examples had “artistic vision” to hide behind, which is still not an excuse or acceptable, but it was at least something where I could vaguely understand why the shitty decisions were made. In a lyrics video, there is no such excuse to hide behind, and I have to wonder, have these previous examples shown people it’s ok to endanger the lives of photosensitive people to the point where they feel comfortable putting in dangerous effects for literally no reason at all? What else will become more dangerous?

And while some of these pieces of media I’ve mentioned above have had warnings, usually after release, I think it’s important to note that they made conscious decisions that led to the media needing a warning and that the warnings really shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place, at the very least not to the degree they were.

Please remember to include photosensitivity in your opinions of the quality and inclusivity of media. Because right now, media is becoming less and less accessible to photosensitive viewers and without people outside the photosensitivity and epilepsy communities taking these things into consideration, I can only see things getting worse in that respect, and the “Break my Soul” lyric video is already a scarily low point in that.

#beyonce #break my soul #photosensitivity #epilepsy #disability #actually epileptic

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insertdisc5 · 1 year

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Devlog #9: Play and Testing

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, which is the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!). You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!!

Anyway, this month's devlog is gonna be about playtesting!

LET’S GET TO IT

Playtesting!!! Has finally started!!!

So a few weeks ago, I gave a code to the game to a few dozen friends, and they’re all slowly playing through it and giving me their feedback. Finally, a small sample of people (that are not me or QA) get to play Da Game…

To elaborate a bit more on QA vs Playtesting (at least for this game??? I don’t know if that’s how it is for other games???), my publisher Armor Games has a QA team whose job it is to play through the game and check for bugs! As a QA team member from Armor Games puts it, QA is about

1. Making sure the main path functions correctly (aka no soft/hard locks, no blockers, etc),

2. Attempting to check every interaction in every possible situation, and,

3. Confirming previously known issues that are stated as fixed are actually fixed, and that no new issues resulted from the fix!

What I’ve been doing for the past few months is wait patiently for the team to tell me “Adrienne, this thing happened and we’re not sure if it’s intended or a bug” and I go “it’s a bug” and I fix it and then the game is better. Know that their work is irreplaceable and SORELY needed. Thank you QA team, and thank you to QA teams everywhere.

Playtesting is (again, for this game) me giving the beta to some trusted friends and telling them “what do you think? Is it good? Do you GET IT? Also you’re a Normal Gamer ™ and play like a Normal Gamer ™ and not like me (the dev, I made the game, I know the game so I won’t do anything “”weird””) or the QA team (who are trying to break the game so it can be fixed, so they play in very specific ways) so your experience is valuable please tell me everything you’re thinking plz”.

Having some people playtesting the game is very, very fun. I told them right away “If i had my way i would want to stand behind you really close and look into your brain to hear every single thought you have, but once every so often is fine <3” so I’ve gotten a lot of very excited livetweeting my way, which is. The Best Thing Ever. For me, the most important part of playtesting was figuring out if the story was good! Beyond “does the story make sense?”, I asked a few times “so, what are your theories Right Now”, to see if my crumbs of foreshadowing were leading them where I wanted to, or if it led them in completely the wrong direction (which is also fun teehee). Also yes I did get a lot of screaming already. Love it when my friends yell at me that the story made them feel something <3

Having Normal Gamers ™ play the game means I also got some valuable feedback on some other important stuff, like: Does the game feel good to play? Are the battles too easy, too hard? Is there anything I can do to make the game better? Do you get what’s going on, or are you completely lost as to what you should do next? Thanks to them, I figured out where the game needed more explanations or tutorials, so hopefully this should make for a smoother experience!

Having a bunch of different eyes on the game was also VERY useful for typos and various writing mistakes. Did you know “discretely” and “discreetly” are two different words??? I learned that this week!!! Wow!!! And also did you know that I am bad at remembering the difference between East and West? I messed it up three times in the script!!! Oops!!! I’m bad at directions!!!

Of course, with feedback comes not-positive feedback as well! I did get some feedback on a potentially upsetting scene- I didn’t warn for it enough, and a friend thought it was too sudden and shocking, and would’ve appreciated some warning. I left the scene in, but I made sure to warn for its contents before it happens, so players can avoid it entirely if they’d rather not see it! In Stars and Time deals with some heavy subjects, but I want to make sure players can skip some of it if they know it would upset them. As a note, we don’t have the content warnings written down yet, but we definitely will before the game comes out! They’ll be pretty similar to START AGAIN: a prologue’s.

Overall, I’m very glad I got over my apprehension and showed the game off a bit. I’m getting some extremely valuable feedback (negative AND positive!) that I wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere. Anyway, this just turned into a “hey if you’re making a game you should have people play it BEFORE it comes out. I know it’s scary. I know you’re afraid of showing people something you made. I know you’re afraid of The Feedback. But also it’s better to have The Feedback now from people you love and trust, rather than all at once from strangers. Please make people playtest your game” manifesto for small indie devs. This is also addressed to past me. I didn’t ask enough people to playtest my previous game before it came out and I missed some obvious bugs. PLEASE ASK YOUR FRIENDS TO PLAY YOUR GAME THEY’RE YOUR FRIENDS AND WANT TO PLAY YOUR FUN GAME

(In other non-playtesting news, I had an interview with Pocket Tactics if you wanna read it! It's good!!!)

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

#devlog #in stars and time #start again start again start again #'wow its playtesting time which means the game will be out any second now huh?!?' hahahahahahahahaha! no.#still many things to do still lmao... thank you for your patience!!!!

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spiritshaydra · 1 year

Photo

Okay yeah gonna say screw it and just post the fullbody I finished back in November because her ref is taking too long and I wanna share my cringe ass nae nae hellspawn 😭

OKAY SO

THIS IS REQUIEM (Or just “Em”)

And she’s a Megasound fanspawn,, bear with me, I’ve never made an oc like this before so I’ve been extremely nervous to show the creature off. 💀(especially since this is the fancharacter type I avoided making at all costs when in high school despite it leading to some very interesting character development.) Eventually I just said screw it, I’m proud of the design and character work I’ve been developing since August, I’m going to show her off.

I don’t really take her all too seriously as I originally made her to shitpost because I thought it’d be funny. And like my main TFP OC Quantum, she eventually grew past that and became something more. (While still keeping her silly at the same time)

I have. A LOT. Of development for this single celled organism that prolly won’t fit in one post, so on here I’m just going to do a sort of character bio thing (based on the format of Quantum’s Toyhouse bio) to introduce her. (Maybe I’ll do a Q&A sort of thing if anyone’s actually interested in that?)

HERE WE GO:

Name: Requiem (Em for short)

Name Origin: This is what happens when you put a poetry/mythology nerd and a music nerd in a room together and have them name something. You get a name with origins in both music and literature (A music or literary composition that acts as a form of remembrance for the souls of the dead.) annnnnnd a reference to a mythological figure (the name of Megatronus/The Fallen’s weapon, the Requiem Blaster. Gee sure wonder who’s idea that was.) Unfortunately, the goblin who was given that name has a grand total of two brain cells and has as much class as a hagfish.

Gender: female

Pronouns: she/her

Species: Cybertronian

Height: 12ft approximate (for design depicted above)/ 30ft (adult; not pictured)

Alt-Mode: (Base) Cybertronian heavy bomber/ (Earth) Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack

Home Planet: Earth

Faction: Decepticon

Pre-War Occupation: Did not exist before the war.

Personality: Requiem is loud, stubborn, rude, mischievous, a little naive, and all around a feral mess. Absolutely no filter. Textbook example of “curiosity killed the cat”. The champion of the age-old schoolyard discussion of “my dad can beat up your dad.” For… obvious reasons.

She’s easily bored and easily distracted, and thinks it’s entertaining to mess with other bots in the form of stupid pranks and barrages of questions.

Has a bit of a potty mouth and gets creative with her insults.

A fembo (but a lil mean) was told to use her head in a fight, but ended up head butting the opponent and subsequently knocking them out as a result.

As a result of (EXTREME) helicopter parenting combined with adrenaline junkie behavior, Requiem has the tendency to be an escape artist and to purposely seek out potentially dangerous situations such as but not limited to: Diving into a hurricane (to see what would happen), storm chasing (the bigger the better! Also to see what would happen), playing Icarus and getting struck by lightning on the Flight Deck of the warship (STRIKE ME DOWN ZEUS), sneaking out of the Nemesis and simultaneously smuggling all sorts of creepy crawlies and other organic critters back on board (has to be shaken out just to be sure.), being a little too interested in volcanic activity, sneaking weapons out of the armory and attempting to join the fight, and sneaking away from the ship to “explore”. Em wrangling is a very tiring objective.

If Rumble and Frenzy were alive, they would’ve definitely gotten along. (And would’ve been an unstoppable force of chaos oh gOD.)

She likes the pastel magical horse show about friendship, LOVES stickers, and her absolute favorite color is the most obnoxious eye bleeding shade of pink imaginable. (She was denied changing her PRIMARY paint job color to it for obvious reasons. Honey, that is a LOOK and not exactly a good one.) She likes to pretend to be a gladiator. She likes to give people really stupid and bad nicknames for the hell of it. A favorite being combining the first few letters of a name or descriptor with “uncle”. She thinks it’s hilarious. A little too interested in arson and explosives. Her music taste can be described as “2012 Warrior cats amv” and “noise”. Really likes slasher films for some reason.

She exhibits several behaviors that could only be described as those of a cryptid. (…or cat.) These range from being able to sneak up on others and move without making a sound, staring unblinkingly and expressionlessly at things and other bots, climbing up and perching on top of things, noise mimicry, recharging facedown in a deathlike manner, and the worst thing being how she used to skitter across the walls and ceilings of the Nemesis as a sparkling. There were a handful of instances where she got into the vents of the ship and it was a nightmare trying to coax her back out. Oh yeah. There was a biting problem.

Requiem either hates or actively dislikes things ranging from water, being told to stay still, the thunder part of thunderstorms, the medbay, and being quarantined.

Her social ability leaves much to be desired, as she was raised in total isolation from her own age group, so she lacks most social skills as a result. Because of this, she often comes across as “weird” and as a bully, even if unintentional. Due to her isolated upbringing, she is a very lonely individual despite not exactly acting the part. Being routinely quarantined does not help that feeling of loneliness in the slightest. Em wants nothing more than a friend, or at least an acquaintance to spend time with. It’s just that, given who her parents are, that makes things impossible.

She has a very unhealthy view on death, as it isn’t exactly rare onboard the Nemesis. Surprisingly, she was actively kept away and shielded from most of the fighting as a child- however, in wartime there’s only so much one could be protected from even as the child of the highest ranking individuals of the faction.

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faithfromanewperspective · 25 days

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was just thinking about how easy it is to compare the current president of Israel (whose name I don’t even remember) to hitler. it fits the way we think, doesn’t it, foreign people do bad things, what we see as familiar is good. but then the more I think about it, about how this whole thing has been set up and the extent (which I have to learn more about exactly still) to which usamerica is driving a literal genocide then the person I’ve gotta do that comparing to is actually… joe biden??? like that’s such a curveball in our brains we never expected but if you trace the power structures, yes there’s a fair deal of being a puppet going on but only because he never stands up against it. because he doesn’t actually care to stop it. and actually how fucked up is it that we’re literally talking about how the best thing is to continue voting for him for president because the other guy is worse like ??? none of us expected it of usamerica. we respected that country. we still respect its people and hang out with them every day

but like. let that sink in for a second. the guy encouraging and allowing a genocide is the better of two options?? if that’s the case I’m sorry but the civilians really don’t have any power. I’m sorry but if that’s the standards we have we have to start imagining better. this is like when your parent asks you if you want to wear a red shirt or a blue shirt but you never got the option to wear a dress instead or simply no shirt at all. it’s the illusion of choice. and as a world how do we turn a blind eye to this?? how do we not call out our dear cousin usamerica who is clearly in a bad state right now? whose leadership desperately needs to do better especially if they’re going to be in a position of leadership in the world as the power structures would have that they are?

because people live and breathe economy I was thinking, what if the rest of us simply boycott usamerica like we boycott Israel?? that would send the global economy to shambles. and I know it’s not gonna happen all of a sudden (so no need to hurriedly account for all the people that would get hurt) but what if we did? simply stop buying and consuming things that come out of America?

now I’m probably one of the biggest and most long-standing swifties you’ll meet (tumblr doesn’t count it’s an echo chamber) but could I? could I simply hold off listening to the tortured poets department when it comes out and stick to her older stuff I already own on cd’s and the like? Taylor doesn’t need my money or my numbers next to her songs and I’m going to be missing a lot if I do this but when this is over, her music will still be there. My favourite author is American. that one might be harder since I really want to read the second sword catcher book (I’m not worried about twp since it’s not coming out til 2026). I know a bunch of technology comes out of usamerica but I don’t need to update any of my devices and if I do there’s probably other brands I can buy from. I think because my iTunes is Australian I might be okay with it?? but I’m trying to transition away from it and buy more cds anyway. And I don’t watch tv, I rarely watch movies now so I could probably forgo that too.

I was actually just thinking about how there are so many songs out there I probably won’t get to listen to. what if, in boycotting some this is my chance to broaden my horizons? and I will preface with the fact that I know many non American artists do live and record in LA: im not gonna boycott them for that. In fact I’ll support their music because I want them to come home. and I might make an exception for green day and good charlotte for generally protesting much about usamerica?? but tell me guys, what do you think?? is this feasible? I might actually do it. I’ll make an exception for tumblr probably and use meta social media to the minimum (maybe I should for tumblr too and google). but also. is this racist?? is it going to do any harm?? because damn it I want to support the people. I want to support marginalised groups and native americans but I also want to be part of a boycott that’s meaningful rather than a token gesture. and I know the usamericans of us can’t do this, but please if I do it see it as me supporting your rights to having your opinions heard on a political level because I come from a country that isn’t great colonialism wise but at least we have that and I can’t imagine not having it

#boycott usamerica #boycott usa #<-genuinely can’t believe this is a tag in the wild gonna check it out #anyway. this is gonna hit hard for the fandoms I’m in on here #if I do it fully #luckily we still have 5sos #but I feel like I’m being up myself about it when Australia’s not really better #at the same time albo has finally gotten mad at israel and we don’t have anywhere near the international power #usamericans please weigh in on this #free palestine #human rights

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wingsoverlagos · 3 months

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Lewisohn vs. Sheff: The Rest of 'Em (1 of 2)

Update: After comparing these citations against available audio of this interview, endnote 3-6 has been removed from the post, and endnote 9-13 has been updated. I have yet to find audio for the other citations included here :(

We are nearing the end of my comparison of quotes from Mark Lewisohn's Tune In against their cited source, David Sheff's 1980 Playboy interview of John and Yoko. This was supposed to be the last post, but all thirteen citations would be a bit much, so I've split it into two.

Before I get to the comparisons, I wanted to address the possibility that Lewisohn might be working from Sheff’s original recordings, and thus might be privy to material not included in the 2000 version of the interview I used for comparison, All We Are Saying. I have considered this, and I can’t rule it out entirely, but I’m fairly confident that this doesn’t explain the differences I’ve found between Tune In and All We Are Saying. Lewisohn recommends the UK edition of All We Are Saying as “[t]he best-available publication of this Q&A” (see Tune In endnote P-22), and in two of his endnotes (5-2 and 30-2) he notes transcription errors in the text. Why note these two transcription errors but not the other differences between his source and his “quoted” text? If he’s quoting a part of the interview that wasn’t quoted at all in All We Are Saying, I would expect him to note as much in his citation—he does this for other unpublished sources (e.g. the manuscript for A Cellarful of Noise). Moving on…

For discussion of alterations to citations 10-9 and 36-16, click here. For 11-31, click here. For further documentation and dissection of Lewis-sins, check out @mythserene's excellent posts on the matter.

I'll be presenting these in the order the appear in Tune In, save for this first one. It's the wildest one in this batch by a mile, so I wanted to feature it outside the cut.

Sheff 2000 p.210 vs Tune In 11-24

In yellow, we have the part of the “quote” that is taken with only minor alteration from the source. In pink, we have two original sentences courtesy of Mark Lewisohn.

The fun thing about these made-up sentences is that they completely recontextualize the quoted passage. In the source, John isn’t talking about painting or art school at all, but Lewisohn decided he needed this particular quote about something else entirely to drive home how cool and original John was compared to the art school beatniks. If anyone has a source for the claim that John’s art school peers were destroying their paintings, I’d love to see it.

It’s particularly outrageous because Lewisohn frames this as something that “brought [John] to a crucial creative junction.” Imagine writing a biography, highlighting something as some big turning point in your subject’s outlook as an artist, and for supporting evidence, pulling out, “Shit I made up + something my subject said in relation to a piece of work he made more than a decade later.”

Also, let me shout out the brackets around “the paintings” in the part of the quote Mark Lewisohn invented. What clarification is indicated by those brackets? Was the original source (Mark Lewisohn’s brain) too vague about what the other students were destroying?

Finally, there’s the part of the quote that Lewisohn chooses not to use. He’s not wrong for doing this, but I think it’s indicative of the story Tune In is trying to tell. The quoted passage goes on to say “…and it hurts me when they hate [my work], or hate me, and it’s pleasing when they like it.” I don’t think Lewisohn is interested in showing this level of deep insecurity from John.

Sheff 2000 p.156 (?) vs. Tune In 2-45

John Lennon mentions Lewis Carroll three times in the 1980 Playboy interview. He references Alice In Wonderland specifically three additional times. He does not reference The Goon Show at all. That’s why there’s a question mark after the page number: this was the closest wording to the quote in Tune In, but frankly, I consider this more a Lewisohn Invention than a Lewisohn Alteration. I can’t rule out the possibility this is from some un-transcribed piece of the original interview, though.

Sheff 2000 p.85-86 vs Tune In 3-43

In the first picture, I’ve highlighted the parts of this quote that Lewisohn used in yellow (note lack of ellipses despite two large omissions). In the corresponding passage from Tune In, I’ve highlighted changes to the quoted text in green; the pink text is a line that seems to be made up by Lewisohn. Lots of small changes here. Unsure why Lewisohn decided to insert the pink sentence—perhaps to make John seem a little less bitter and a little more philosophical?

Sheff 2000 p.159, 164, 155-6(?) vs Tune In 5-1 & 5-2

I’ve highlighted phrases here to show how they were taken from two pages in the source, shuffled around, and made into a giant quote in Tune In. Small changes and a made up phrase are marked in red.

Our setting for these quotes in Tune In: staring down his O-Levels, a young John Lennon is asked what career path he envisions for himself. Setting aside the quoted passages, the general premise is made up: Lewisohn posits that “Eggy” Bacon, an actual Quarry Bank teacher, asked John these questions and rejected the idea of him going into journalism. This isn’t the case: in the text, John only refers to a nebulous, authoritative “they”, not a specific instructor, and he indicates no pushback at the thought of him being a journalist, only an artist.

In 5-1, the first sentence has a single minor change. The second sentence (“Nobody ever said that I already was, and we already are”) is a Lewisohn Original™. It shares a general tone with two quotes from Sheff 2000 pp. 155 &156, in which John discusses the lyrics of “Strawberry Fields.” As part of a longer response to the question of whether a lyric represented a “new awakening”, John said “I was awake all my life. You understand? I’ve always been, all my life” (Sheff 2000 p.155). Later on, relating to the same topic, John said, “I was hip in kindergarten. I was different from others then. I was different all my life” (Sheff 2000 p.156). It seems like Lewisohn liked the ~vibe~ John was giving off here, so he grafted it onto something he wanted John to say.

As for 5-2, there isn’t too much to discuss that isn’t apparent from the phrase-shuffling. Do note the brackets around “didn’t” in Tune In. I find it amusing that Lewisohn has highlighted that one change, as if he didn’t make three others in that one sentence alone.

Sheff 2000 p.162 vs Tune In 9-13

Audio: 1:44:28

The changes I originally noted are actually faithful to the audio source. There's one minor change made in Tune In vs. the audio: the sentence ending in "bitter" doesn't end, but continues, "and the underlying..." The audio segment cuts off before the final sentence/fragment, "It was very traumatic for me."

#mark lewisohn #the beatles #tune in #john lennon #lewi-sins #david sheff

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bemamar · 2 years

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I am sorry if this ignorant but in my country there’s a common belief that autistic adult people cannot develop adult brain, many times on TV they showed us these type of autistic people who their brain stop developing but after seeing so many autistic on social media I found out that I may had misinformation ever since I was a kid.. I could not found helpful articles because of the lack of awareness here so if it’s ok to ask you why do people share this kind of info and how true it is ?? Going through social media I came with the idea that there was some misunderstanding about this.

Hey anon, glad you seem to be seeking information. That is... yeah. Definitely a no. There are of course, many other disorders that can happen alongside autism, just as they can happen with non-autistic people, and those can be of course a challenge, but that doesn’t mean that is the reality of every autistic person, or that those people should be infantilized either. On the contrary, really.

Just to give you my personal experience, I grew up autistic and I didn’t even know it until one year ago, so that might tell you something. I’ve graduated highschool and I have a degree in Architecture and Urbanism. Nowadays I am an English teacher, and I also work with translation, design, publication and selling of books. A lot of autistic people work in very complex industries that take care of things such as infrastructure, health (like vaccines!), technological development, and so on. Others don’t. Others teach, others are amazing artists, others live an academic life, others like working with their hands. That doesn’t mean one is more developed than the other, we’re just different people with different interests, same as anyone.

This is a very complex subject and I can give you two wonderful channels to get you started if you really want to learn more: Chloé Hayden and Paige Layle who have tons of research on those things.

From my own dedicated research, the central (summarized!!!) points I can give you are these: there are two main reasons (and a consequence), as of my understanding, for why people believe that autistics are only children, that we “disappear” when we grow up, or as you said, that we stay stuck in a childish mental age.

The first one is that most referenced, known, and used studies for autism are still ones that were done decades ago. Back then, professionals thought only young male (white) boys could be autistic, so all of the stablished research for autism is based on how a very specific demographic could behave, or react, or present the disorder. So if we’re talking about a whole rainbow spectrum, we’ve only ever studied one shade of one color and one length of that color, and nothing else. That’s also the only image that’s ever been projected for people on media, so whenever anyone thinks autism, they think of the caricature of the young white boy who’s nerdy and quiet and lonely and prone to outbursts if upset.

The second problem is that a LOT of the organizations who claim to study autism to help autistic people, are run by non autistics that have no interests in helping adult autistics, or listening to us, and actually just keep looking for ways to either get rid of it (which would be like trying to get rid of my bisexuality, or the color of my skin) OR they’re trying to identify all of the genetics so they can stop us from being born at all by identifying autism in the womb (eugenics).

The consequence of those things, and of the fact that many autistics have different ways of communicating (like non-verbal autistics, who would communicate via text or other means), means that the people who are actually represented when talking about autism are the non-autistic parents of autistic children. They are the ones the studies, the organizations, the aid etc are meant to help. The parents. And parents have to parent children, not adults. So any articles, any programs to help, any government aid, it’s all aimed at the parents, as though like I said, children grew out of their autism eventually (impossible), or as though, like you said, we didn’t grow up at all. There is a major focus on autism as a burden for the poor neurotypical parents who can’t understand their child, while ignoring the autistic person themselves.

Yes, there are many of us who have more special needs than others, and those should be respected, there are as I’ve said, co-conditions that can occur, there are a lot of us, as I’ve mentioned, that have difficulty speaking up or speaking verbally at all, but not being able to communicate what is on your mind in a way that is comfortable for non-autistic people doesn’t make your mind underdeveloped. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be listened to when decisions are made about your own life, it doesn’t mean you can’t accomplish whatever you want to do with accommodations, and it doesn’t mean you can’t understand the world around you or have amazing talents, or just want to sit on your couch and watch tv and have a regular job.

We’re people of all kinds because we’re people. We have different needs, and only the people who have them can tell you about that, I could never speak for them, I can only speak of my own needs. But you can research more and learn the nuances I could never put into a singular answer. That’s the gist of it. I hope you do continue to learn! And I wish luck to autistics in your country, I’m sure there are many more of them than you imagine, and there must be communities over there too, because we exist all over the world, and we definitely don’t stop existing or become neurotypicals at 18 years old.

#tag; an original answer #i hope this helps #i feel frustrated #because i know it's not as nuanced as the topic is #but i hope it's a start for you #this is a very heavy #complex #topic #filled with things like #eugenics #and ableism #and medical abuse #and even experimentation #but there is also fun things #and amazing fact #and accomplishments #like in the history of any kind of people

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