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aetherverse-official · 3 years

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AETHERVERSE has been discontinued.

Hey there everybody! Sorry for the notification, but we have an important announcement to make: Aetherverse is being discontinued. Thank you all so much for being part of this experiment and journey with Sylvia and I, and a special thank-you to the guest artists for putting in so much of their time and effort to help us make this comic great. However, Sylvia and I have since moved on from Undertale, and neither of us see ourselves continuing this comic. If you continue reading after this, we have an overview of the plotline we had planned!

As for what we're doing next - Sylvia and I are working on an Original Comic. This comic is still in the works and conceptual stage, and we're worldbuilding, but we feel comfortable announcing it. The title of this comic is ADVANCED - and to give you a bit of a teaser, it follows a shadowy and dark secret investigator on their journey to put an end to a mysterious chain of murders.

Thank you all again for being part of the Aetherverse family. Hail to the Eclipse, we won't forget this experience and we hope you don't either.

Aetherverse Plot Summary {This is somewhat long, as Aetherverse was planned to be LONG}

We all know how the intro starts. Abaddon, Flat, and Xink fight > Xink wins the fight. I actually had a VERY specific image in my head of Abaddon being drilled through with a weapon that Xink overwrote into existence in a move to protect Flat, and him blacking out with blotched colors in his vision.

He wakes up with Aether, isn’t happy with the situation, realizes he not only can’t use his magic, but his own magic is killing him. Crystal Creep - the shit on abaddon’s face - is a result of Abaddon not re-upping his stone with human souls. This is a callback to FMA.

Abaddon trains, and they have their first important mission: Talk to the guardian of the Creator’s Vision, Eurus. They go and speak to Eurus and their guard, Artemis, and get ambushed. This leads to a confrontation between Artifice and Aether, and Abaddon and Xink. It’s a very emotional exchange, and we get to learn that Artifice, Aether, Eurus, and two other unrevealed Guardians by the names of Raksa and Blackout were all raised together.

Abaddon is screaming at Xink for having gone and lied to him, but Xink reveals that it’s only thanks to him that Abaddon even exists. We then get a flashback: Xink was alone in the multiverse as an Ink - and this Ink was Summer. Summer wanted nothing more than to please the Creators, however, it’s revealed that the Creators were growing bored with the multiverse. Becoming disinterested. Unsure what to do, Summer meets with XGaster, who tells Summer he’ll give him the ability to Overwrite timelines, and perhaps that’ll keep the creators attention. Xink sadly accepts, watching as his only friend dusts, before overwriting the world.

This catches the creators attention as he creates his first interesting universe: A blank one, which created a character named Veneer. Happy he’s caught their attention, he continues to do this. Over and over, he overwrites universes until they’re nothing like their original ones. That’s when he gets to a naturetale timeline, and completely recreates it, making Abaddon’s universe. This one seems to really please the creators.

What he doesn’t know is that because each of the universes is so far from canon, it’s making the creators no longer interested in undertale - instead interested in making their own creations. End flashback. We also learn of a character named Grayscale, someone who’s been following Xink around, and Xink orders him to finish Abaddon off. He doesn’t get the opportunity, because Artemis and Aether are in absolute RAGE as Artifice kills Eurus so that Aether no longer can see where they are. This leads into Aether pushing himself too hard, and Artemis barely getting the three of them out of there alive.

It was hidden up until that point, but Abaddon lost an arm to Xink’s attacks, and he has to get a new one. This is where Ash comes in! He’s not pleased about having to assist the same person who got him into this mess, but he’s convinced by Xeidra and Filigry to do so since they do need Abaddon’s help. This is also where a character I never got to use, Drach, makes his appearance. He was going to be a character that represented Abaddon’s past sins and misdeeds, because Drach’s brother was in the Arena and survived, but at the cost of his mental health. Drach hates abaddon, and never will not hate Abaddon no matter how much good he does. More information, the stagnation spreading, more and more people being saved and sent to a place called the Save Point. This is where ATV and Fate Stagnant combine, we get Languish and SR’s help in saving those who were run out of their homes. The Save Point is a massive floating island in one of the doodlespheres, and it’s represented by the only working Save Point in the multiverse.

This is where three new characters are revealed: Chance, Peak, and Lobi. Long and short of it is these are Abaddon’s love interests, and no it’s not a love… square. Abaddon is polyamarous! And these end up being his three boyfriends. Sylvia and I didn’t plan their interactions yet though.

The end of the comic is pretty intense. The multiverse is collapsing, universes are falling apart, characters are losing their homes and can no longer feel connected to their universe. It all ends at the Save Point, a portal to SOMEWHERE opening up there and Xink blocking the way after successfully having gotten Aether’s stone as well.

He’s furious that even with the power of two stones, he can’t overwrite the multiverse and start over, so instead he ingests both of the stones and overwrites himself into this massive, powerful entity that the main cast have to defeat.

They give the fight their all. There’s blood shed, there’s tears wept. Xeidra goes down and Filigry sees it, sees Xeidra about to be killed, and absolutely goes full-on to protect him. There’s a very specific scene in my head where Filigry’s viciously fighting off tendrils of white magic, a sword in his hand and viciously angry, only to have a two-page panel of Filigry’s soul being pierced by a white tendril. He doesn’t dust, he doesn’t cry out, but he completely collapses. Abaddon is the only one left able to stand, and even Xink is running out of ideas. Xink isn’t angry anymore, but instead he’s crying. He wants to know why Abaddon won’t stop, why he’s okay with this going on, why he isn’t just giving up.

Abaddon says it’s because he’s determined.

He doesn’t have his naginata anymore. He doesn’t have magic. But what he does have are his fists, even if one is mechanical, and that same mechanical hand is the one that lands the finishing punch to Xink, punching DIRECTLY through his chest and clasping his soul, only to rip it out.

We’re left with a collapsed, weeping Summer on the ground. Filigry is dead, Xeidra is mourning him. Aether and Artifice are embracing.

Summer cries that he just wanted to keep the creators here. Abaddon looks out at the portal where everyone had escaped to…

And says sometimes it’s better to move on rather than keep holding onto the past.

He doesn’t help Summer up. He goes back to his friends and helps them, gathers Filigry’s body.

The last page was going to be the main cast silhouetted against a white portal, passing through it. The thing I looked forward to creating was an ending pmv, where its revealed how the main cast is doing, and it included a thank you and goodbye to the undertale fandom. I may still create this, because it does have a lot of meaning for me, but…

Thank you all. The undertale fandom was a wonderful experience, and I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful place to spend my time. You guys really did help make me into the person I am today, for better or worse. The past years have been rough, but I’d do it all over again.

Thank you.

#mod roman #mod sylvia #important #aetherverse #aetherverse update

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darklightsworld · 6 years

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Deteriorating manuscripts

Yesterday I had the opportunity to handle Sasaya Nanae’s manuscripts - let me take this opportunity to cry a bit about what misfortunes befalling analog manuscripts >< I saw pages from the second half of the 70s will 1990. It’s not necessarily true that the older the pages the worse the condition: Sasaya sensei’s earlier manuscript papers were thicker and more durable.

There are two big enemies of manuscripts: adhesive tape and glue. The adhesive tape is usually plain cellophane tape, and it is used to fix for example assembled panels or to fix tracing paper to the manuscript the text is glued to in some panels, and sometimes a separate paper is fixed to cover the the page with additional information, like work, chapter, tankoubon page number. Now, nobody knew previously, that cellophane tape is the evil itself. The tape will leave a brown stain on the paper and of course fall off after a time. And even if it doesn’t fall off, the glue might get sticky on the edges and stick to the page (with drawing!!!) behind it! I had to carefully take pages apart, because they were sticking together! I was so afraid the glue would get the ink off or something. In the end that was okay, but there were still traces left by the glue >< Either way cellophane tape is bad. And depending on the thickness of the manuscript paper, it might be that the stain left by the tape is bleeding through to the other side of the paper!!! >< Glue in general is used for the text, and since it’s dying with age the text came off at times :/ Oh, and sometimes there is mysterious sticking, like when the tracing paper was sticking to the manuscript and I couldn’t figure out why, because there was no glue nearby... *sigh*

There was another horror, but only in one work. It seems sensei (or her assistants) used a type of felt pen/marker for beta (shading bigger things black) that has bled through!!! Not on one page or two, but three!!!!!!! I almost couldn’t believe it >< So there’s the page with the beta (page zero, let’s say), it left a stain on the page in front of that, but not only on the back side, but it bled through to the front side of the previous page! And of course the beta of page zero bled through the back side of the page and left a stain on the next page! Horror!!! Btw the same happened to some sound effects drawn with a fibrebonded pen :( The biggest issue is, that nobody knew these tool would behave like this over the years, so they must have been used without a second thought.

I’m not saying the damage could have been hindered, because artists usually have no time to care about preservation, the manuscripts are just put in a corner as they come back usually, not to mention for them the manuscript finished its task with publication, so I have no illusions there, but it’s still sad.

Of course there were fun things too, like seeing remarks here and there - at one point a snarky remark aimed at a magazine that didn’t give her an extension of her deadline when another magazine did XD Or the above-mentioned panel constructs for example with a photocopied map carefully glued in from behind, or a photograph background with separately drawn and glued in figures. Also the separately drawn figures for a tankoubon cover and flap or the background pattern, the smaller sized manuscript of a short story, the handwritten manuscript of the afterword and so on. There are many things you only realize when you see the manuscript pages.

#manga #manga meta #manuscript

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davidegbert · 7 years

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Lenovo Yoga Book Review

Ever since Intel kickstarted the 2-in-1 movement and Microsoft made touch support a core feature of Windows, Lenovo has been trying all sorts of designs and ideas for the next wave of PCs. In fact Lenovo is easily the most innovative, or at least adventurous, of today’s PC manufacturers. The company sells a range of flip-around 2-in-1s and tablets under the Yoga name, but also uses Yoga as a modifier for 2-in-1 models in its ThinkPad and IdeaPad lines.

Now, there’s a new product, and it is simply called the Yoga Book that retails at Rs. 49,990. Lenovo has retained the flip-around design, but that’s about all this device has in common with today’s 2-in-1s. It’s unlike any other product that Lenovo sells – in fact, it’s unlike any other product, period. What Lenovo has done is reinvent the ultraportable, and we’re absolutely dying to put the Yoga Book to use so we can figure out what to make of it.

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Lenovo Yoga Book look and feel When we first took the Yoga Book out of its box, we were amazed by how small it actually is. It’s almost impossibly thin – thinner overall than Apple’s ultralight MacBook, but thicker than any current iPad model when closed. We really liked the matte black texture of the exterior, which looks minimalist and is thankfully not slippery. In stark contrast, there’s Lenovo’s bright silver multi-segmented watchband hinge, which we first saw on the top-end Yoga 3 Pro, and more recently on the equally luxurious Yoga 900.

The Lenovo logo on the lid is placed vertically in one corner, making the device look more like a hardcover book when it’s closed. It even feels like one, except when holding it in one hand with fingers curled around the hinge – the watchband segments are rough and scratchy, unlike the spine of a book.

We weren’t expecting a lot of ports on a device this thin, but Lenovo has really crippled the Yoga Book in this regard. There’s only one Micro-USB port for charging and connecting peripherals or storage – Lenovo didn’t even include a dongle in the box, but any phone’s USB-OTG adapter will work. This also means you’re limited to USB 2.0 speeds. At least there’s also a Micro-HDMI video output and a 3.5mm audio socket, but if Apple’s MacBook can be criticised for having only one USB Type-C port, this is worse.

There’s single tray on the left with cutouts for a microSD card as well as a Nano-SIM. Cellular data connectivity could be really handy, and of course the ability to augment storage is good too. The power and volume buttons are on the right. There are no air vents since no cooling fan is required, but you will see matching speaker grilles on either side of the lower half.

As with all Yoga products, the Yoga Book can be opened and flipped around with its screen facing outwards like a regular tablet. The watchband hinge is just as sturdy as ever, and allows the device to stay in place at any angle. However, the entire upper half does wobble when touched, which makes using the touchscreen a bit difficult sometimes. The Yoga Book can also be positioned in “tent mode” which looks awkward but is more stable.

The screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio which is more common on tablets than laptops. Unfortunately, there are thick borders on all sides as well as a distracting reflective silver Yoga Book logo in one corner. The device has a 2-megapixel webcam in the standard position above the screen as well as an 8-megapixel one on the inner surface of the lower deck, which will point outwards when the Yoga Book is folded into its tablet mode.

That brings us to the most fascinating part of the Yoga Book, it’s so-called “Create Pad”, which replaces a traditional keyboard. This is a flat surface with a rough texture very similar to that of graphics tablets – in fact, it pretty much is a graphics tablet, just with a few extra capabilities. If you look closely, you’ll see the faintest grid pattern. Hitting the illuminated pen icon on the upper edge lights up what Lenovo is calling its “Halo Keyboard”, transforming the surface into a usable typing tool.

The Halo Keyboard has a surprisingly conventional layout, and each key is cleanly defined. The backlight is perfectly even, and the whole effect is extremely edgy and futuristic. The whole thing is still a flat touch-sensitive surface of course – it’s just that specific areas are marked off as individual keys and a trackpad.

Tapping the same button deactivates the keyboard and you go back to a blank slate. You use this with Lenovo’s Real Pen stylus just like you would on any drawing tablet such as Wacom’s popular Bamboo and Intuos models. The Yoga Book recognises 2048 levels of pressure which allows for subtle nuances in sketches. Microsoft’s OneNote app is tightly integrated with the OS, but you can of course use any Windows software to draw or write with.

That’s not all though – Lenovo has yet another trick up its sleeve. You can swap out the Real Pen’s stylus nib for an actual ballpoint refill and use it like any other pen. With a sheet of paper or even a pad laid over the Create Pad surface, you can write or sketch on an actual surface, while the Yoga Book automatically and instantaneously digitises the exact same strokes on screen. Lenovo bundles a paper pad which is just the right size for the Create Pad’s surface and snaps into place magnetically. Anything you write or draw lines up perfectly with the screen.

The Create Pad clearly recognises writing through several sheets of paper and a backing board, which means there’s a fair amount of flexibility in terms of the kinds of paper and pads you can use. This lends itself to lots of interesting possibilities.

Lenovo Yoga Book specifications and software Everything about the Yoga Book so far, from its size to its capabilities, has given us the impression that this is far more of a tablet than laptop. Lenovo even offers it with Windows or Android in most markets (with a ChromeOS version reportedly in the pipeline). Only the Windows version has been launched here so far, so that’s what we’re reviewing, but the two are identical in all ways other than software. While Android has its appeal in terms of touchscreen-native apps, Windows could potentially be more versatile, especially for multitasking and general productivity.

At the heart of the Yoga Book is an Intel Atom x5-Z8550 processor, which has four CPU cores running at up to 2.4GHz and integrated Intel HD400 graphics. Based on Intel’s Cherry Trail architecture and fabricated at 14nm, this is a thoroughly modern low-power processor which sips only 2W of power and doesn’t need active cooling.

You also get 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. That latter number is very low for a Windows-based PC, so you’ll most likely have to rely on a microSD card or online services for most of your storage needs. The screen is a netbook-sized 10.1-inch panel with a relatively sharp resolution of 1920x1200. The battery’s 8500mAh capacity is surprising considering how little space there is in the Yoga Book’s body.

The Yoga Book supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular data. While Lenovo’s spec sheet says that LTE is supported on bands 3 and 40, our test unit only ever detected 3G HSPA+ networks when using our Airtel and Vodafone test SIMs.

Lenovo Yoga Book usage and performance The Yoga Book is certainly thin and light, which means that carrying it around is no problem whatsoever. It comes with a smartphone-sized charger and can even run off a standard power bank. The problem is that to make full use of it, you also have to carry the stylus, at least two different nibs, and Lenovo’s magnetic paper notebook. We would have really appreciated some kind of carrying case or sleeve – at least a way to store nibs so they don’t get lost.

We had to learn to check whether the Real Pen is fitted with an ink refill or stylus tip at any given point, and we accidentally used ink on the surface of the digitiser more than once. We also found that the stylus tip left visible marks on the digitiser, even after the first use. Having gotten used to iPads and Microsoft’s Surface tablets that allow styli to directly manipulate objects on screen, using the digitiser felt like using a Wacom tablet – in other words, a step backwards.

The fact that the digitiser is physically attached to the screen means that positioning can become a bit awkward. We had to either twist our wrist or our neck, and hand-eye coordination wasn’t totally natural. However, the key advantage of this is that note-taking is super easy. With the screen in portrait mode on the left, and our notebook positioned over the digitiser on the right, we were perfectly comfortable.

We tried out a variety of programs including OneNote, Autodesk SketchUp, and the included trial version of ArtRage. A OneNote shortcut pops up on screen when the Halo Keyboard is turned off, allowing you to jump right into to a new blank page. Digitisation works best with OneNote running fullscreen in portrait mode, so that the digitiser and screen line up. Drawing apps were great fun, and we were able to manipulate nuances with tools like airbrushes and knives brilliantly.

Lenovo only supplies 15 leaves in its notebook, but promises to sell refills and replacements via its website. You’ll definitely need to buy these, as regular notebooks and pads are either too wide for the digitiser, or slide around easily, throwing coordination off. You also have to tear sheets off in order to use the other side. We wish Lenovo had gone with a common standard paper size, because proprietary supplies are bound to get expensive over time.

Windows 10 still isn’t perfect when it comes to touch-based interaction but you can always use the Halo Keyboard’s trackpad or even the stylus as a pointing device. The keyboard has a touch surface but works exactly like a desktop keyboard, which means you have to hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys rather than tapping them once to activate them. The layout is actually more sensible than we’ve seen on many small laptops. Haptic feedback did seem to help, but the Yoga Book also makes a really annoying beep every time a key is struck, and we couldn’t find any way to turn this off other than muting everything.

In terms of comfort, we had to make do with staccato jabs rather than our usual typing flow. We were simply unable to touch type with any viable degree of accuracy even though the layout allowed us to have all fingers on the surface. It was a lot more comfortable than an on-screen keyboard or even some of the cheaper cloth-backed 2-in-1 keyboard covers we’ve encountered, but it still took time to get used to.

Connectivity was a significant problem. It isn’t possible to charge the Yoga Book and have any USB device plugged in at the same time. Files transfer at USB 2.0 speed which is just painful in this day and age. We also cannot understand why Lenovo wouldn’t toss a simple USB-OTG adapter into the box like it does with other products. This is a prime example of how Type-C would have been an advantage.

There is simply no way that the Yoga Book can take the place of an everyday laptop if you do a lot of typing. It might be tempting to go for something this slim and portable, but it really is a specialised tool for specialised purposes. It should only be considered a secondary computer, unless you really understand and can live with the tradeoffs it requries.

As far as more conventional aspects of performance are concerned, the Yoga Book was a mixed bag. The screen is brilliant, but too small to really enjoy videos without leaning in. The speakers were surprisingly rich and loud – Lenovo somehow found a way to push a lot of air through a really tiny chassis. Battery life was also excellent, with a score of 5 hours, 12 minutes in the Battery Eater Pro benchmark. Cellular data connectivity was handy, but we never did manage to connect at 4G speed.

On the other hand, general performance is weak. This is an ultraportable with an Intel Atom processor, after all. We logged 141 in the WebXprt test, and PCMark 8 was unable to run. CineBench R15 showed only 134 points, and POVRay took 15 minutes, 15 seconds to complete its benchmark run. Graphics performance was also just about okay, with 250 in 3DMark’s standard Fire Storm test. Gaming is pretty much out of the question, though high-resolution videos played flawlessly thanks to the CPU’s hardware acceleration capabilities. We also found that the 64GB of internal storage became a limitation to us within a week.

Verdict The Lenovo Yoga Book is something completely new. It’s edgy and exciting in a way that few other computer products have been for as long as we can remember. It has a surprisingly reasonable price tag, but we’re quite convinced that this will never be anyone’s primary PC, and so it should be seen as an additional indulgence. This could be a great device to travel with, but that’s a waste of the digitser. On the other hand, serious digital artists might want to use software that the Yoga Book is too lightweight to run. There is a middle ground, but it seems pretty narrow.

That won’t stop the Yoga Book from being a success, though. It’s like a futuristic concept design that somehow made it to market, and people will love it for that. Anyone who sees the Halo Keyboard lighting up for the first time will just want to own this device. The Yoga Book can be shown off anywhere, anytime, and is sure to go down in history as one of the most memorable experiments ever.

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