#reverse engineering it based off the sets

[goattypegirl]

Part of what made Bionicle so cool was the synergy between the toys and the story, but there are places where you can tell that they were separate teams with seperate goals. A lot of those friction points were the combiner models; the design team figured out how to smash some of that year's canister sets into a random bird or crab thing, so now the story team has to (not so) subtly draw attention to the random bird or crab thing in the tie-in novel. It's not always the combiner sets though; this shitty bird with a human face that you got if you paid for the Lego magazine is fucking Lore Critical. The funniest friction point imo is the Vahki -> Nidhiki -> Iruini shift, and the downstream effects that had on the Hagah.

[pagesofkenna]

what should i name the planet on my book setting

[trinketstar]

How I made my own vintage Pomni!

Based on this tutorial, with my own modifications and sewing pattern!

Let's begin!

Here's a total list of the things I used here.

Shiny fabric: blue and red

Acrylic paint. Colors: White,red,blue,black

Gold ribbon

White sculpey clay

Tin foil

Mod podge (for sealing the paint)

Jingle bells

Dark brown yarn

Glue

And depending on how you want to handle crafting the body you can either follow the original tutorial and make one out of any fabric you'd like, filling it with plastic beans and stuffing,

Or you can do what I did and cheat a little! I actually used the body of a beanie baby to save time. You'll find tons of these guys at the thrift store, usually for about a dollar each. The one I used for Pomni looked like this.

All I did was carefully undo the stitching on the bear's head and set Pomni's clay head in the opening!

Now for the steps! The first thing I did was gather my materials and make a concept sketch.

Then since I already had a body for Pomni, I rolled a ball of tin foil slightly smaller than I wanted the head to be, and covered it in sculpey clay. Then I molded the face into a nice cute shape! Don't worry if the back of the head is lumpy, you won't see it under the hat and hair.

Make sure to add a neck that tapers outwards at the bottom so the head stays in the neck hole of the plush body!

After baking the clay, I painted the head white and sketched out the face lightly with pencil before painting on the details. I even added a little bit of glitter to her eyes! Then when I was satisfied with the face, I sealed the paint with mod podge. It added a nice shine to her face which adds to the porcelain look!

I'd bought a clown doll at a thrift store with a similar outfit to the one I wanted to make for Pomni, which I reverse engineered to make my own pattern! Here's In-progress Pomni wearing the other doll's outfit.

I cut out these patterns to use for the outfit.

After cutting out the pants they should look like this when put together and folded. Turn them inside out and sew them together at the middle, including the crotch. Leave the top and the pant legs open.

The sleeves should look like this cut out and folded. Make sure they're inside out just like the pants, and sew these at the sleeve openings at the top. Remember to leave the neck hole open!

Here's where we add the ribbon at the ends! Fold up the base of the pant legs and sleeves to hem the ends, and scrunch up the gold ribbon to sew around the borders while you're hemming them. It'll scrunch the ends a little bit, giving the outfit that poofy look.

Then turn it inside out!

I sewed the bells on and put the outfit on pomni! Then I simply cut another piece of ribbon and made a little ruffle for her neck. It's not sewed to the outfit just so it's easier to take on and off.

For Pomni's hair I got the yarn and combed it out with a fine tooth comb until the texture became softer, and then used a flat iron on it (VERY briefly. just for a second!!!!) to straighten it out. For more tips on this look up yarn doll hair tutorials on youtube! Then I just glued it to her lil head and styled it like so.

I don't have any progress pics for the hat but it was pretty simple. Just cut out the shapes and sew them up!

Then add the hem with a ribbon folded in half, and the bells!

TADAA! A baby pompom for you!

[mindfulstudyquest]

❥﹒♡﹒☕﹒ 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲-𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗮𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄

𝟭. set SMART goals ( 📒 )

make sure your goals are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound. this will help you maintain focus and track your progress over time. how many times has it been you and your unrealistic to-do list against the world? well, it seems that a mile-long to-do list is not a good ally at all. remember that you are a person and not a machine, and that just dedicating four hours to deep work and concentration is A LOT. be kind to yourself and don't overload yourself with more work than you can humanly do.

𝟮. daily planning ( 🧸 )

mea culpa because i'm the first one who doesn't plan their day. to-do lists generally stress me out and make me feel overwhelmed as if i don't manage to complete all the tasks an asteroid will end up hitting the earth. but i recognize that it is a good starting point. sometimes i have too many things to do and i end up doing nothing in total confusion, but having at least a general list to follow gives me more motivation. moreover do we want to talk about the dopamine released when you tick an empty box? marvelous. maybe don't write down tasks that are too onerous and demanding, break them into several smaller tasks, also try to write simple activities such as "drink a glass of water" every now and then. having these low-commitment activities will help you stay motivated while completing more important tasks.

𝟯. reverse-engineering method ( 🪴 )

start with the end goal and work backwards to plan the actions needed to achieve it. this helps you maintain clarity on the steps to take and focus on the most relevant actions. the best thing to do is plan based on the time available and do your best to stick to your daily goal.

𝟰. timer roulette ( ⏳ )

choose a task from your to-do list and set a random timer between 15 and 45 minutes. work on that task with all your concentration until the timer goes off. this helps you fight procastination and keep your mind fresh.

𝟱. mind mapping time ( 📍 )

before starting a study session, take a few minutes to create a mental map of the subject you need to cover. this helps you see connections between concepts and organize information more effectively.

𝟲. task batching ( 🫒 )

group similar tasks together and tackle them in batches. for example, reply to all emails in one session rather than doing so at scattered times throughout the day. this helps you reduce transition time between tasks and maintain focus. contrary to popular belief, human beings are not truly multitasking (only a few possess this great ability) and when we do multiple things together we do nothing but shift our attention from one task to another, greatly reducing the quality of our performance. if possible, try to avoid these switches that are harmful to your focus and concentration.

𝟳. the pomodoro method ( 🍅 )

okay, y'all probably already know this one because it became so popular in the last year but if you don't, the pomodoro method is a time management technique developed by francesco cirillo in the late 80s. it is based on the idea of working for short periods of time, usually 25 minutes, followed by a short 5 minute break. after four rounds of work, a longer break is taken, usually 15-30 minutes. this technique helps improve concentration and productivity, as it breaks down work into manageable tasks and offers regular breaks to rest and regenerate energy. i personally prefer the 50/10 ratio while i'm studying but you decide which time ratio is better for you, i find it really useful and it helps me a lot while i'm studying for my exams.

[genericpuff]

Hi there! 😄 Tysfm for compiling the LO brushes, being able to use them (non-commercially of course lol) makes me so friggin happy. 🙇‍♀️ I have a few questions to ask about them though:

Which brush did RS use for laying down color before shading/effects? In the Rekindled tutorial, you use the Lineart Brush for laying down flats, but I'm not sure if what I said in the previous sentence is the same thing as flats (I've been drawing my whole life, but I didn't start taking digital seriously until very recently lol 🤦‍♀️).

When the Splatter Versa brush was used in S1, there are varying oval shapes as well as several other non-ovular shapes that I don't see when I use the brush. Were there other similar brushes used with different shapes? Or am I just doing something wrong with the brush settings? The other shapes look more wilted than the other petal shapes.

Which brush was used for the usual thick, varying lineart? (It's most noticeable with the lines in hair in mid-S1 esp.) This brush isn't really textured, so I'm a bit confused which one in particular it is.

Sorry for being annoying, I'm just not tech-savvy and very intimidated by all the technical aspects of digital drawing lol ("Wtf are 'blending modes'?" /hj). 🙇‍♀️

Hey there, no problem!! I'm glad people are getting use out of them!

Though I'm not entirely sure as it clearly changed often throughout the course of the first season, the Gouache a Go Go brush and Hard Pastel both have those "crunchier" textures that you can see in some panels. There are also watercolor brushes that she used to blend the edges in some bigger panels.

Could you send me an example of a panel? Just so then I can actually see it and mess around with some things and give you a better answer haha That said, if I had to take a guess, either she messed with the brush control / tilt settings in Photoshop, or she may have used the Warp / Liquify tools to warp them intentionally to achieve that "petal" look. But again, send me a pic of the panels in question if you can and I can take a closer look :>

As mentioned previously, an example would help a lot here, but I do know what you're saying that some panels had very thick, varied lineart. Rachel has gone on record on two separate occasions that she used the Gouache Wet Pencil / Wet Round brush from the Kyle Webster Pack. Though the Hard Square Pastel brush can also achieve similar effects. Note that the Wet Round brush is a dual-sizing brush - if you adjust the brush size, you have to also adjust the particle size in tandem, otherwise you'll get a bigger brush size with more scattered/diluted particles. Though this effect IS very helpful for shading!

As mentioned, Rachel has mentioned some of the brushes she's used, and though it's not necessarily relevant to what you're looking for specifically, she's also mentioned these brushes in old FAQ's, specifically the Wet Round brush for lineart.

Here are some examples I whipped up real quick based on some of the panels that specifically depict thick lineart and textured coloring:

Mind you, these are all my best guesses, based on what Rachel has provided and what I've both dug up and been provided by other contributors who have pointed me in the right direction.

Unfortunately, while LO's art style is unique, it also makes it very difficult to reverse-engineer because throughout the comic (esp in S1 when she was still experimenting) while she did clearly have some "favorites" out of the bunch, she also just kind of went off "vibes" a lot of the time, treating every panel as an individual painting. And while that did lend to some of LO's most beautiful panels throughout S1, it also created a lot of whiplash between stylization because after doing one panel with thick lineart and bold texturing, she'd do another with watercolors and softer edges.

That's also not taking into account the software she was using - many of these brushes were designed exclusively with the Photoshop brush engine in mind, not Clip Studio, so they may not work entirely as intended if you use them in Clip Studio or some other non-Photoshop software. We also have to consider other factors like canvas resolution, texture effects added afterwards (such as that canvas overlay), and other adjustable settings within the brushes themselves that Rachel may have tweaked, including the pressure sensitivity, particle size/density, thickness, etc. All of which we can't really truly know, so we can only settle for our closest guess.

This is half the challenge - and fun - of trying to emulate her art style, because even she clearly didn't follow any strict rules 😅 Unfortunately it leaned more towards worse as time went on as it was clear the assistants themselves were given very little guidance or consistency (or at least, didn't have the time to settle on a happy medium) resulting in panels that are even more distinctly out of place as they were being swapped between different artists with different backgrounds and styles.

All that aside, I hope that helps! I do admittedly have to update that brush pack again, I feel like there are a handful of brushes I've found since then that could also be added, but I'd also like to update the included instructions to better reflect what I've learned since then regarding each brush and how they could be used. Ultimately though, they're yours to experiment with! Mess around, adjust the sizes and density and pressure settings, all of these things can contribute to the overall look.

Good luck! <3

[orpheusilver]

i think the common issue that creates boring dnd player characters is like. the fixation on backstory over character conflict. like if you think abt the typical "heres my super cool guy with a super cool design and a dark tragic backstory they dont want to talk about theyre so tortured and mysterious" its like. sure that might be an interesting secondary character for an animated series but thats not what this is.

like 1. nobody is going to see that cool design unless you painted a mini so youre just gonna be that guy who spends 5 minutes of session 1 describing your outfit; 2. none of the other players want to spend ages trying to interrogate backstory out of someone who seems like they dont want to share, they want to find a fight and flex their awesome build, so unless your dm pulls your 15 page backstory document into the main quest its all gonna be irrelevant anyway; and 3. trauma does not an interesting character make! not unless you can roleplay the effects of that trauma in a compelling manner!

imo its a wayyyy better method to come up with a Fucked Up Kinda Guy, complete with quirks and flaws and affectations and sure maybe a voice if thats your vibe, they dont need to be special or unique just fucking engaging to play beside, and THEN reverse engineer the backstory based on what would make someone be like that and usually its something fucked up and traumatic anyway bc thats how existing works. like dont get me wrong theres definitely merit to establishing your place in the setting but like. in taz balance absolutely no part of their written backstories did as much for the early group dynamic as "magnus rushes in" and "taako is good out here"

^ actually new different point based on that. if you show up with a blank slate guy then play off against the other characters! if you have a whole guy do it anyway! if someone is playing it safe then play impulsive or vice versa, if someone else has the same highest stat as you then get weirdly competitive, if someone plays dubious morals then be the ethical voice calling them out on it, there is no reason for your party to always be in agreement and if they are then disagree! be a dick about it! stories thrive on conflict so fucking make some, just please for the love of god do Anything that makes them behave differently than you with an ability

[j-jared]

hello!!! i just stumbled across your resurgence au (i think that's the name lol) and it looks super cool!!!! :OOO may i ask what is maki's whole deal,,,i love her a lot :3

It's Maki time!

So in Resurgence, like the rest of the V3 cast, Maki is saved from the simulation by Future Foundation. I've touched on this in a few older posts, but their recovery took place in a hastily thrown together field base/hospital in a city that's still pretty deep in despair. It was a matter of not being able to get transport in for everyone right away - they had a set date for the helicopters to come for them all.

By unfortunate coincidence (coincidence, huh) - the day the helicopters come, the hospital is bombed by a Despair mob. They weren't so happy with their show being cancelled by stupid teenagers (THH was streamed to the world, then despair audiences kinda gutted and reverse engineered the Neo World Program after the Remnants were restored to their og personalities, I'd say it's probably because of the brainwashed Future Foundation members that it got out to the world - so yeah "Danganronpa" is a "TV" show in that regard, but its not how the V3 ending explains it)

Maki was in a separate wing from most of the others when the bombs went off, and her escape route ended up on the side where the mob was gathered (a lot of the others got around the mob by going out other exits) - So Maki has to fight her way to safety, and unfortunately, she misses out on the helicopter evacuation.

Now, Maki can take care of herself. She might not be Ultimate Apocalypse Survivor, but she has the training to patch wounds, adapt to harsh conditions, and defend herself. So she's doing about as fine as one can in a city that's basically an active war zone.

Then Kaede shows up.

Honestly, I'm not sure why I chose Kaede, I really wanna explore that dynamic but haven't gotten around to it yet - I think their personalities would blend and butt against each other in a situation like this, it's like a hardcore setting for the killing game with no rules. Kaede was with Future Foundation as a field agent, but her squad got separated during an attack (they were probably looking for the missing V3 cast) - Funnily enough Kaito, Tenko, and Shuichi were on that squad so - yikes on missing them.

So now it's Maki and Kaede vs the world!

Until Kaede's radio starts unscrambling itself and picking up Future Foundation communications again - but they can't reply it seems. The signal seems to fade in and out each time they leave this district, maybe they should investigate, right?

... Oh hi Kokichi and Kiibo!

---

That's about as far as I've gotten in the general aspect of Maki's arc! I could go into detail about points up until now, but this post is already getting long on me. There will be bonding, there will be old scores to settle, there will be... forgiveness? Well, it's too early to say. I think the four of them are an interesting squad to shove into the apocalypse together, especially knowing the later game dynamics of Kokichi, Kiibo, and Maki, and me basically having to figure out Kaede and if the blank slate of her not being around for most of V3 is something that helps them all get along or complete ruins the dynamic at moments.

[lightsoutletsgo]

if you're still doing the previews thing then can I please ask about 6? thank you sm! love your charles series ❤️

yes I am!! tysm for sending in a request, I hope you enjoy this little sneak peak. I actually love this fic sm!

enchanted — ls.2 x reader (■■■□□ 60%) based on “enchanted” by taylor swift. you meet logan at a party and are swept off of your feet

₊˚❀.ೃ࿔*:･

Logan cleared his throat to get your attention, “Look, I know we only just met but would you maybe… wanna get out of here?” You raised an eyebrow at him and he blushed, “N-not for anything like that, I just get the sense you don’t wanna be here and neither do I really… I know a good place for milkshakes, i-if you wanna come that is?” You smiled, he was suddenly so shy, “I’d love to!” Standing up, he offered his hand to you, you gladly took it as he pushed his way back into the kitchen and through the hallway, emerging on the other side of the house to exit through the front door. Just as you reached the front door you remembered Mae. “Hold on, I need to find my fri- Hi!” You turned as Mae draped herself over your shoulders, not quite drunk yet but buzzed from the atmosphere, “Hey babe, you heading out?” Her eyes locked onto Logan, before dropping to where your hands were still linked together, “Oh?” She whispered loudly, “Good choice! Make sure you put a sock on the door.” You shrugged her off, feeling embarrassed at her insinuation. “Mae! We’re just gonna hang out, you have your phone right?” She nodded, “Mhmm, but I’m probably gonna be going home with that guy from my chemistry class.” “What happened to bio guy?” You noticed Logan watching the two of you with an amused look. Mae waved her hand, “Oh, he was totally not worth it. Cute, but he thought Taylor Swift was overrated.” “Definitely not worth it.” You sent Logan an amused look of your own, as if to apologise for the delay, “Okay, love you!” Mae pulled you into a hug “Use protection!” She whispered loudly before cackling and stumbling back into the crowd of people starting to spill out into the hallway. You turned to Logan, “Let’s go!” 

Following him out you looked up and down for a nearby Uber or taxi but Logan pulled his keys out of his pocket, “I was designated driver tonight anyway so I haven’t drunk anything!” You paused, “Don’t you need to be here to you know… drive your friends home?” Logan shook his head, “They’ve told me they’re going to Uber home so, we’re free to go!” Hearing a car door unlock you looked down the road to where a flashy looking car was sitting. “That’s your car?!” Logan nodded, “Why do I get the feeling you’re not just a regular driver?” Logan laughed, “You’re right I’m not.” “You’re totally like Ansel Elgort in ‘Baby Driver’, right?” Logan snorted as he opened your door for you, hand coming up to rest against the door frame so you didn’t hit your head. You couldn’t even argue with the butterflies that you felt then. He was doing these things seemingly without even thinking. Once he was sure you were safely belted in, he closed your door before jogging round to the other side of the car, sliding in and securing his own seatbelt before he turned the ignition and the engine rumbled on with a smooth purr. “Are you still cold?” He asked, fiddling with a setting on the centre console, “A little– oh!” You felt your body relax into the seat even further as it began to heat up, “Let me know if you get too warm.” You smiled to yourself before you had to stop your mouth dropping open. He set the car into reverse and turned to look over his shoulder, the hand not on the wheel resting on your headrest. From this angle his jawline looked even sharper and you found yourself daydreaming about what it would feel like to kiss it, ‘there’s no way he doesn’t know what he’s doing…’ you thought to yourself as he finished reversing and settled back into his seat, smoothly changing gear and pulling away from the party.

[ranticore]

how is the coffee at ur cafe? lol

but also. for ur worldbuilding and stuff, how much do u try to be like super biologically and geologically accurate? and why resources do use? if not, do y have any like alternative backstory and reasoning to things like topography and such?

The niceness of the coffee was completely offset by the €5ness of it

I like to be generally accurate to my knowledge, even if I can build more fantastic ideas off a base of Generally Correct Information. For example the machines built by Jean-Baptiste are doable (I looked up dynamo designs & development for the era. his Contraption is just a cathode ray tube with some magic in it), and the hydrogeomorphology (try saying that three times fast) of Inver should make sense if you were looking at a map in terms of which habitats can be found where, and their association with different bedrock types, though I fully admit to inventing where each bedrock type is without bothering to look at a bedrock map of the actual irl area because I wanted to have distinct calcareous and granite regions as they are, because if I did have a granite region in the south of Inver, and an associated marsh and peat bog, the water of Lough Cánamac would be black, which is cool and fitting. So it was me going "how can I make this water black" and then reverse engineering the geology of the region lmao

For biology well I try. But sometimes it's not appropriate to the setting to get stuck in the weeds. For the big insects it's simple enough to say they are very large because they live somewhere with increased oxygen compared to earth but for them to get THAT big, I need to understand that insect respiratory systems are passive (they don't inhale), and from that understanding make a respiratory system that could theoretically function (they inhale through their spiracles). But that introduces a bunch of other problems to solve in the anatomy of the creature - how does the inhalation work, where do the spiracles go, how do they vocalise, what's their blood like, do they have a closed circulatory system, etc. Some of this we don't need to know, so I think the trick is knowing when to stop justifying the insect anatomy and move on to other stuff lest i fall prey to worldbuilder's disease. And I'm not saying it's bad to work out every single detail forever until you've basically written their genome, but it's not what interests me, and I'm not writing an encyclopaedia.

For resources u can't beat textbooks imo. You could look at academic articles but really to develop a baseline knowledge of something you don't need to be looking at the cutting edge research, you need textbooks with information that's specialised but not so specialised that you don't know wtf it's saying.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I'm working on a series of books. I have character arcs and the series storyline nailed down. Where I'm struggling is figuring out what plot in book 1 will best support my plans for later books. Book 1 is the foundation the rest will build from. What advice do you have to best figure out the beginning of a series when you have a clearer idea for the middle and ending?

Stuck Plotting Book One in a Series

First, I think it might be helpful at this point not to think of your series as individual stories, but rather as one cohesive story that you'll eventually break up into individual books as the story unfolds. That way, you're just figuring out the beginning of the story rather than thinking of it as a story contained within a book.

Next, remember that stories revolve around conflict, or in other words a problem in the character's self or world that needs to be solved. When you eventually break the bigger story into its individual parts, each one will revolve around its own conflict. The resolution of that conflict should play a role in setting off the events of the next book. For example, the conflict in The Hunger Games was the event itself, and the fact that Katniss needed to survive it so she could continue to take care of her mom and sister. Because of what she did to win the Hunger Games (thus resolving the conflict), President Snow called a Quarter Quell to force her and Peeta back into the arena, which is the conflict of the second book, Catching Fire.

This is why it's so important to figure out your first book's conflict and--if you already know the conflict that will be at the heart of later books--how it relates. You can probably reverse engineer the first book's conflict based on what needs to launch the conflict of book two.

I would suggest using a story structure template/beat sheet to map out the events of your first book. This will help you get a better picture of what needs to happen, which will help you figure out how everything connects to later books. I suggest some options in my post Creating a Detailed Story Outline.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[not-that-syndrigast]

F2 is not F1 and people need to start realizing it.

I see it again and again, people trying to judge things that happen in F2 by the measurements in F1 and i understand that the official titles and descriptions are misleading many fans into believing they are the exact same but they are not so here is a small explanation;

What is the goal in F1? Obviously, winning titles, both drivers championship and constructor championship. How do you achieve that? Build the fastest car, get the best drivers, and make the most points. Now what's the goal in F2? You’d think it's winning the title, but actually it's showing off skill and attracting F1 teams. How do you do that? Again, you’d think you would win and get the most points, but that hasn’t been the focus in years, today it's showing off your skill.

But shouldn't skill translate to wins? Well, technically yes, but there's two more huge differences between F1 and F2. First of all, the drivers are younger, they are more reckless and crash more often. The drivers DNF a lot more and oftentimes they are not at fault but they don't get points, also there's things like the reverse grid which are active tools so drivers can show off their overtaking skills too. 

More importantly though, is the fact that F2 is a spec series while F1 is also an engineering contest. For explanatory reasons; in F2 every driver has the same base car, the teams can change set-up and such things but generally the cars perform very similarly. There's still some performance differences because certain teams work better with the cars but it's not comparable to F1, where every team more or less builds their own car.

Now here is the point where a lot of people misunderstand the use of F2; F1 teams look at F2 drivers and choose who they want for their teams and this year, Oliver Bearman and Kimi Antonelli are closely discussed while Paul Aron with more points is pretty much ignored. A lot of people expect the F2 champion to get an F1 seat, but in this year, even if he makes less points, Antonelli is proving himself to be a world class driver with overtakes like this one. Antonelli suffered through, with multiple DNFs, getting involved in crashes and other things out of his hand, while Aron was very lucky, at least until Spa where we could see how even good drivers can get really unlucky. 

In the end, F1 teams know the best which driver is really good and which drivers fit their cars the best. They are observing the drivers in all the younger categories, so if Aron is really good enough for F1, a team will pick him up, but at the moment he doesn't show the results.

The same goes by the way for F3 

[angelkitty54]

Sonic Prime AU time! (coz this has been everywhere in the last month or so.) Basically just some ideas I had for shatterverse versions of Sonic and Shadow, set after the end of the series.

New Yoke City: Based on the idea in SA2 where it's kinda implied Sonic was also made on the Ark like Shadow (which is never brought up again). Basically Nine stumbles across a pod that contains the New Yoke version of Sonic (Spirit) and excitedly wakes him up. However he quickly finds that this is not the Sonic he met before; Spirit has never been out of his bio-tank thingy before, he is basically a newborn in a full grown body, with the mentality of a newborn too. Spirit is a wide-eyed innocent child, sweet, kind and trusting, a stark contrast to the world around him and the people in it. Nine is having a hard time adjusting, especially since Spirit's keeps chewing on all his power cables. He is also constantly being accused of having cloned Sonic. Which he totally did not! He found this Sonic fair and square thank you very much!

Meanwhile, having lost their power source, the Chaos Council has lost a lot of ground to the resistance. In searching for new power sources and weapons, they discover Project Umbra (three guess who this is). Umbra leans a little more into his alien side than Shadow does, he is also less of an angsty teen and more of a scared, grieving child lashing out at a world that hurt him. He agrees to work for the council only due to the distant family connection, but he doesn't particularly like them or care about their goals. He just wants to see the world burn. Of course, things change when he finds out his baby brother survives the raid on the Ark. Tho he is not particularly happy about this strange fox hanging around, acting all buddy buddy with Umbra's brother. Ugh, the nerve of that guy!

Boscage Maze: Got inspiration from movies like Nausicaa and Origin: Spirits of the Past. So the instead of the prism, the massive jungle was actually caused by a bio-experiment gone wrong which set off an apocalypse. There are effectively three groups of survivors, those that escaped into space (mainly GUN people), those that survived on the surface (whose descendants became groups like the scavengers) that live more or less in harmony with the jungle, and those that made it into underground shelters and were put into stasis chambers where they have slept for several hundred years. The latter two group are often at odds with each other, one wanting their old world back, the other wanting the jungle to stay as is. Dr Nightshade Robotnik and his assistant, Sunny, are among the stasis group.

In this universe Gerald went down the road of cybernetics as well as genetic engineering when creating his Ultimate Lifeform, Nightshade. Their Maria got to live her life to it's fullest, becoming a scientist like her grandfather. Nightshade also dedicated his life to science, wanting to follow Maria's dreams of making the world a better place, even after she passed away. Sunny benefited from their research, as it's thanks to their work into cybernetics that he is able to walk (and run) again. Upon waking in the post-apocalyptic world, Dr Nightshade has made it his mission to find out what caused the plants to grow out of control and hopefully reverse the effects. Sunny, someone who sees the benefits of both the old and new world, hopes that he can help the good Doctor find balance between the natural and mechanized worlds. Meanwhile GUN is up to something rather suspicious up there in space...

No Place Sea: Yay pirate AU!! Honestly didn't have a lot of ideas beyond just pirates tho... Shadow is Captain Blackheart and is like super duper cursed. He is captain of a ghost ship, whose crew is also super cursed and/or undead. All save a single member, his navigator Tempest (Sonic), who is immune to the effects curses due to him being half siren. Tempest does not speak much as his voice is imbued with the charming power of a siren, which he lacks much control over. He has a knack for reading the winds and currents making him an ideal navigator in treacherous waters. He is both drawn to and fears the water, as something in those dark depths keeps calling to him, eager to drag him down down down into darkness... However he can't bring himself to stay away despite the danger, and luckily whatever is hunting him seems to steer clear of the ghost ship. In exchange for shelter aboard his ship, Tempest is helping Blackheart track down and decode ancient sea charts that will lead them to a great treasure he's been hunting. One said to be able to grant wishes: the chaos emeralds!

[aphroditeslover11]

the jealous oppie fic is def going to win the poll but you should still write him teaching the reader how to drive another time that idea is so cute!!! i adore your writing

Driving Lessons

This was very fun to write, I'm a horrendous driver and there is nothing like the fear of stalling in the middle of a busy road! Sorry that this is so short, but I hope we were thinking along the same lines.

As always, based on fictional Cillian Murphy Oppenheimer, if you don't want to read it you don't have to.

Oppie teaching you to drive would certainly be an interesting experience. His own terrible driving was legend, especially among his friends who had all experienced his habit of cornering at seventy, driving at break-neck-speed purely for the thrill of it and making them all fear for their lives. When he found out that you had never learnt to drive though he was insistent that it would be him who taught you, he thought that it would be something fun that you could do together at the weekend. Boy did he have no idea what he was in for!

Though Robert did have an old Buick that he drove around the base, he decided to steal one of the army Jeeps, making sure that he found the most battered one possible so that any accidents wouldn’t have too many implications. He started off by heading into the desert, him driving and getting you to watch what he was doing, explaining it as he went.

“I’m going to change gear, we’re only quite slow so I’m just going to go up from second into third. I’m taking my right foot off the accelerator, putting my left foot on the clutch and moving the stick right and straight up. Make sure you take your foot off the clutch before putting it back on the gas or all hell will break loose!” He carried on doing this until he got to a straight stretch, turning off the engine.

“Right, I’ll give you a go,” he said, getting out of the driver’s side, coming around to your door as you shuffled across into the seat he had just left. “Don’t worry, there’s nothing to crash into out here.” 

All he asked you to do the first time that you took to the wheel was drive in a straight line and move from first into second gear, within moments you had managed to stall the damn thing, sending you into a fit of panic. You just sat there, ridiculous things about having broken the engine going around your head. Robert was quick to figure out what you had done wrong though. Gently encouraging you to start again. After a few tries you eventually figured out the gear change and he decided that your clutch control was good enough to try your hand at some steering. He set you off in second gear to drive around a sizeable boulder in the middle of the open area. 

“You don’t need to panic, you can’t do any damage to anything out here, you just need to take your time and hold your nerve.” He was forced to eat those words when you panicked, completely mis-steering and careering off into the huge rock. He had tried to dive across you to grab the steering wheel, but it was too late and he ended up trying to shield you from the impact instead. You were both startled, taking a moment to breath before Robert immediately turned to you, making sure that you weren’t injured.

“Maybe that was enough for today,” he suggested, trying not to touch any nerves or appear as condescending - he knew that you would be absolutely furious with yourself. “We’ll try again tomorrow maybe, I think you probably need a rest though after that.” You let him take back the driver’s seat, putting the banged up Jeep into reverse and leaving the scene of the crime.

[jayde-jots]

Atlantic Sir topham let’s goooooooo!!!

Idea actually, the engines all assume sir Topham would suck ass at driving himself, but he’s surprisingly capable?

(Based on season one when he first purchased Percy because it looked like he drove Percy himself and Percy wasn’t too surprised)

Turns out Sir Topham does just fine if not splendid at driving himself. That’s how the engines find out Sir Topham learned how to drive an engine before a car. That’s why he sucked when he first learned to drive with Elizabeth (for those who know who she is.)

Actually head cannon: Sir Topham hatt still sucks at driving on the road. Just not as chaotic as he once was. He almost gave Dowager Hatt a heart attack once from his poor driving skills back in the day.

Also how would Sir Topham hatt feel when learning engine culture so to speak?

Like wheeshing steam at another engine is the equivalent of hugging or patting a fellow engine or slapping them in the face deepened on the circumstances of it.

Buffer to buffer touch when both facing each other is the equivalent of a hug or holding each other, ect.

Also I feel like Percy would wheesh steam at him to make him feel better but forget that he’d have to explain why he did that because the “engine” he wheeshed at didn’t understand the meaning of it and saw it as offensive but it was meant like a hug.

I think Edward would explain engine stuff to Sir Topham or at least try to, maybe they all would

Wow, I had an entirely different viewpoint to this. My first thoughts were that yes, he knows how to operate a steam engine, we saw that he can when he had to become Thomas's fireman in Thomas and the Royal Engine. As well as I'm just assuming it is a requirement of becoming a controller of a railway. Also, I don't think it was implied that STH drove Percy all the way to Sodor, he probably rode back with him while a crew operated Percy. There is a very good reason why 2 people operate a steam engine and not one person, that one person would be in charge of keeping up the coal intake, keeping an eye on the gauges, as well as just driving the thing in the first place. Imagine if you had to do that all in a car. That all being said, yes he knows how to operate an engine, driver and fireman, being an engine is an entirely different experience. Probably a lot of mixed phantom sensations. Like his buffers feeling like hands until someone touches them, then they feel completely different and alien. Or that he can't sense his tender or cab all that well until someone makes them known to him, like an engine bumps him or a worker steps in and operates him manually. Also driving himself is something he struggles with, not being able to sense the levers he needs to move, or being able to turn his head to see what's behind him when reversing, and when he expects to go down one set of tracks but he instead gets put onto another. Train etiquette I believe he understands well enough, a harsh weesh of steam is meant to be a harsh gesture, but slowly letting off the steam and letting the hot air waft to you he knows are two very different things. I imagine it could be a whole Tidmouth team effort, Thomas might show him the basics of shunting, Edward mixed traffic, Henry goods, Gordon express, James passengers, Percy night trains, Toby might do livestock, Duck may give a lecture on what sensations mean what in terms of maintenance, and Donald and Douglas might show him how to plow snow. He might need to build up his muscle memory for a bit before he begins to drive himself, so whoever his crew is probably needs to manually drive him until he gets the sensations correct. During his time with the engines he might say some human expressions to the engines that they don't understand, as well as see some sides to his engines he wasn't aware of before. He might just get fed up with Gordon and James's boasting, and vent about it to Edward I can imagine one conversation already- STH: "Ugh, there should be a clock in that shed. I don't know how long James and Gordon were arguing for but it felt like hours. How you all managed to sleep through that is baffling, their bickering was about driving me up the wall." Edward: "Driving you up the wall??" STH: "Oh! No, sorry Edward, it's a human figure of speech. It means they were making me cross over a stretch of time." Edward: "Oh dear, well, to answer your question sir I guess we've sort of grown accustomed to it. And if it is really bothering us we tell them to stop, it's sort of like what I believe you refer to as an unwritten rule that you don't keep an entire shed awake because everyone knows what the consequences of that are in the morning. Remember when we were all exhausted that one morning last year? That was because Thomas, James, Gordon and Henry all got into a squabble for most of the night and kept me and Percy up." STH: "Oh good grief that happens far to often doesn't it?" Edward: "The expression is 'Bust my buffers', and yes, yes it does."

[ariaverge]

wait you made a genesis controller that's so fucking cool

Hell yeah I did!! I was making custom arcade sticks for a while with my best friend. We made one as a proof of concept for a decently popular speedrunner and when he used it on stream a number of other streamers contacted us looking for controllers. One was a classic Sonic runner that asked for a Genesis controller and I was like "Sure, that sounds like a fun challenge!"

It wound up being... Ultimately not that bad?? But it required a lot of experimentation and learning on my part the details of which are about to be inflicted upon you because you dared to ask

When I started I looked at the Genesis controller pinout my first thought was "oh, that's super easy" - it's 9 pins: 2 that carry power, 6 that carry data, and one SELECT line that changes which pins represent which buttons. This is a hilariously easy C program to write so I got the Pico SDK set up and cranked it out, flashed it using my janky homemade picoprobe carrier, and immediately ran headfirst into problems.

See, my thinking was along the lines of "The Pico runs at like 8x the clockspeed of the Genesis, I just need some level shifters to convert between 3V and 5V signals and we're golden" and that was... Actually mostly true. However, every like 20-30 seconds it would produce either phantom inputs or drop out entirely for half a second or so, which is just laughably unacceptable for speedrunning purposes.

I tried pursuing that implementation for a while - down to comparing signals from my controller and a stock Genesis controller with an oscilloscope - before I ultimately decided that it wasn't worth the effort. I think the final straw was that it was basically working in game but the everdrive menu wouldn't work with it at all?

It was at this time that I finally decided to crack open an old Genesis controller and look at what integrated components (ICs) it used to try to reverse the circuit. The one I had was worthless - after copycat controllers started showing up on the market back in the day SEGA switched all their official controllers to use a single proprietary chip that they produced specifically for this purpose. They even put a glob of some dense cured resin shit over the chip and the traces around it to make it impossible to lift off the board or reverse.

I found a couple grainy scans online of REEEEEEALLY old controller models that and could sus out a multiplexer chip and that's about when things started making sense to me. Previously I had only worked with digital controller protocols like xinput (Xbox/PC) or joybus (N64/GameCube) but that was a level of sophistication only achieved later in the development of game consoles - there is no protocol on the Genesis.

There are 9 pins on the Genesis main board (18 for both controller inputs) that are connected directly to the pins on the controller port. Your controller takes a Long Ass Wire and connects those pins to buttons on the gamepad, with a multiplexer sitting in between so it can swap out a couple buttons based on the SEL line. It didn't matter how fast my chip ran because 1. This is gonna be a noisy signal and measuring it digitally is going to be imperfect, and 2. Literally any latency whatsoever is a problem because this is going to be read at a hugely variable rate. This has to be implemented with logic gates.

For those of you that have a college education (in say, comp sci or comp eng or electrical eng or mech eng) this is likely not that much of a challenge. For me, as a professional software engineer, expressing the logic was trivial:

(I know I probably could've done that with just NAND gates (and the inverter is COMPLETELY unnecessary) but a girl loves easy-to-read circuit diagrams that directly reflect the intended logic)

But manufacturing the damn thing?? THAT was the hard part. My dumb (white, self-taught) ass had never worked with ICs before, so my first draft was literally just sticking all of these together with no resistors or capacitors in there whatsoever. I had basically just made an antenna - moving the controller around in space (or bearing near enough to other electronics) caused voltage fluctuations which resulted in erratic signals being sent to the console.

My SECOND draft however - after consulting with an Actual Electrical Engineer ™ and learning the benefits of capacitors and resistors in logic circuit design - worked fucking great. According to EE friend it was slightly overbuilt - I had given each IC its own power input smoothing capacitor located right next to those pins when just one would likely suffice, and similarly every input pin got its own pull-up resistor - but I was 100% okay with that. Overbuilt is better than underbuilt and this is a handmade low-volume good, a couple cents on electrical components made no meaningful budget impact.

One "oh god fuck doing this by hand" and run of FreeRouting's Auto Router later we had ourselves a PCB layout!

I placed an order for 3 of those from our good friends at OshPark and then it was just a matter of assembly! Soldering it together was easy as hell, the final product ended up looking this (short a few capacitors I was still testing to see if I needed)

Then it was time for assembly!! The client requested black acrylic panels to kind of resemble a B0XX so I took our CAD model of the controller and I added circuit mounting holes to the bottom panel, cut each panel out with my laser cutter, and started piecing the panel joints together with a tight friction fit. To seal the joints I carefully filed the seams of each edge until I had a rounded and near-seamless corner filled with ground acrylic and then used a very fine plastics glue to flood the micro gaps in there and give it more long term sticking power. Notably I didn't do this on the bottom panel as it's meant to be popped on and off by the user if they wanted to replace the buttons or wiring harnesses or something.

Then...it was done!! Because of the raw amount of fuckery involved in this process (and the fact that this wasn't my main source of income/I was selling my house/meeting my fiance/MANY other things) it took about a year between me receiving the commission and actually shipping the finished product, but I'm really proud to say that we did do it and the client LOVES it!!

[vossprime]

2, 12, 13, and 17 from that ask game for Zlatko 🫡

Hiiii~

2. How long was the process before the character reached its final version? (or a version that would be clearly recognizable as the character?)

It definitely took a few months! In the beginning I played him much more dogmatic and based off vibes rather than a specific mindset as he did not really have a set backstory beyond the Triumph and Darkest Hour yet (now reflected in him getting more and more iconoclast later in game). Visually, It was always pretty clear-set - i just jumbled something together in the character creator and went from there and took a few body parts away. The fact he looks a bit like me was actually reverse engineering - I got the buzzcut AFTER making the character :'D I don't think he has a definite final version, as of right now I am re-designing his augment based off the art @systembug made for him and I've also tweaked his backstory multiple times to allow for new learned lore and worldbuilding so he is steadily evolving..

12. Do you have a playlist for the character? What songs do you associate with them and why?

I have a completely un-sorted Spotify playlist called "Golden" here

Most recent addition Is Tear in Space (Airlock) by Glass Animals because look at those lyrics :D

I'm here, but you aren't sure What are you waiting for? Stretch me like leather rope Make me invisible Shape me into your form What are you waiting for? Hostage, so in love It's an airless black chasm You turn the airlock on

Actually this could be an unskippable cutscene but you know what? I will be so normal. but barely.

13. Do you have a voice claim for the character? What do you imagine the character sounds like?

A few people have joked that I should just use my own voice but he's a lot lower than me + has a flatter tone of affect. Niko suggested Yasuo from Lol with the pitch of Twisted Fate and I also kind of imagine it a bit like that of the singer of the band Korben Dallas in this song.

Honestly, my voice claim in terms of intonation and delivery is how @goofgoofdildo reads him. He did such a banger job in the three times I've had the pleasure that now whenever I have to write Zlatko I imagine him reading it in my head, facts.

17. Are there any motifs or symbols associated with the character? How are they represented, in their design, personality or in some other way?

Gold, of course, hence the name, it appears in every iteration of the character :D Also ye olde dog motif because I am not immune and hey, commissars ARE dogs of the Imperium, I don't make the rules! I like to throw birds in there too because Tzeentch (and Mayrie, whose symbol is the eagle). I also like to bring in hunting/hunter imagery.