#she makes subnautica creature sounds

[emma-heart-art]

This is Chimera Country, something I've been working on for the past year. This was originally my final project to get my BFA in animation, but now that I have graduated I'm wondering if I can make this into something more.

More info about it under the cut, but TLDR; Chimera Country is a pitch for a video game about making friends with chimeras and using a "mount system" to deepen exploration and combat.

STORY:

In Chimera Country, you play as a feral child named "the wildling." She has spent her whole life away from humanity and has thusly learned to bond with nature in ways that most people cant. One day, the wildling comes across an abandoned farm who's owner has, for unknown reasons, turned into a flying talking book. With nothing better to do, the wildling teams up with this book and begins to rebuild the farm. With the book's knowledge of building, and the wildling's ability to bond with wildlife, they set off to find answers. Why did the farmer turn into a book? Why do some chimeras have cybernetic implants? Why are there chimeras here in the first place? All these questions have answers, though they may be hard for our protagonists to swallow.

GAMEPLAY:

I have previously described this as a "top-down metroidvania," but a better comparison would be basically a top-down zelda game with resource gathering components and deeper combat. I'm a sucker for games with an in-depth combat system, so I would love to have crazy stuff like frame perfect dodges, parries, counter attacks, and maybe even a few upgrades to your weaponry. This will not be a procedurally generated world, as I already have mapped out the general geography of this "country." I'm taking inspiration from Subnautica's map in the way its designed for exploration and resource gathering, having different biomes with different fauna and flora thought out in detail. I would also like to add puzzle/ parkour areas that can only be accessed using the mount system. And speaking of the mount system...

MOUNT SYSTEM:

This is the lifeblood of Chimera Country. Everything from the combat to the map layout will be designed around this system. As of right now, there are only five mounts that are in development. They are as follows:

LISA

An elderly Shetland pony who hasn't let her age get to her. She is the only creature in this game that is not a chimera, as she worked on the farm as a work horse during her prime.

Lisa is the first mount obtained in game, being given to the player right after the intro. Her main abilities are running at high speeds and jumping over obstacles. Very basic stuff.

She's also named after and inspired by my mom!

CAMILLE

A mix of a peacock and an emu. She is troubled with horrible anxiety, the type of creature jump at every small sound around her.

Her gimmick is that she can run around at road-runner levels of speed, but she is unable to be controlled by the player in that state. She can crash through fragile objects and give the player access to previously hidden away areas.

My fav of the mounts tbh

JOHN

Not actually a turtle, but a living, moving coral reef that has simply taken the shape of a turtle. They can be found in a above-water coral reef biome that fits they're aesthetic.

They're main ability is that they can bite through almost any material. Weather you need to gather stone for a build or if you need to break into a cave, John has got you covered!

They're a little slow though, so please be patient with them.

JAMES

A mix of a moose and a mountain goat.

His legs have begun to fail him in his old age, but luckily he has been equipped with cybernetic legs that let him jump higher than any other of his species.

His main use is to traverse the mountains located in the northern most region of the map, but if you backtrack you may find some other areas he can help out in!

Named and designed after my dad!

APPLE

Apple's segment had to be cut out for time, but she is still vital to the Chimera Country experience. She is a mix of a barn owl and a bat, and is a rare variant of the "owl-bat" enemies that are common in the game world.

Despite being last on this list, she is actually the second mount the player will obtain. Her main ability is her flight, witch can be used as a form of fast travel.

As said before, these are the only mounts in development right now. I doubt there will be more added to the game, thought. You will not be able to tame every chimera you see. I want to preface this now because I would rather have a highly polished experience with only a few mounts than have another "collect them all" type of game. Chimera Country will have some collection elements to it, but that will be limited to the bestiary.

I also want to mention that this is very much so a work in progress. All the abilities I have mentioned above are strictly for exploration. I'm planning on adding the mounts into the combat system, I just simply need to do some experimentation to see what works and what doesn't.

WHATS NEXT:

I've said before that this was my final project for art school, so as of right now everything is simply animation. The pixel art sequences were made in a program called Asperite and were sewn together in adobe aftereffects. There is no build of the game as of right now. However, I do know enough about the unity engine to confidently say I can make everything seen here a reality. Other than that, all of my development plans are up in the air. I just graduated, so right now my biggest concern is to just get a survival job so I can stand on my own two feet. Once I'm stable though, I can see myself working on this as a side project, kinda like how Stardew valley was made. Regardless of what happens next, I'm proud of the work I've done thus far and I hope I can continue working on this idea. It would be a dream come true if this became a real game people could play, but for right now it is still just a dream.

[ohpossuhm]

i started playing dredge on Nov27 and finished yesterday Dec3. I also got the new DLC before did the final quest and did all of that. i love catching fish i love Dredge, I think I ended up with almost 28 hours played over the past 6 days

A pattern in some of the games i enjoy the most:

1wholesome at the surface, ie gameplay, with some darker undertones

2collecting creatures to fill out a compendium/encyclopedia of sorts

3somewhat “simple” graphics, clean or stylized may be a better word, when the visuals are too complex it makes it harder for me to process

My favorite games I feel this pattern(major spoilers btw)

Bugsnax, Subnautica, even Breathe of the Wild, and now Dredge

in Bugsnax you collect bugsnax to fill out your bugapedia, The surface gameplay being catching bugsnax, solving puzzles, exploring, giving your new friends bugsnax they want and being able to make funny looking characters with them, you also get your won hut to upgrade and decorate with trinkets from your friends. The darker undertone is you learn these snax are actually parasites, and the more you have fed your friends, the more vulnerable they are in the last battle to being overcome by bugsnax- your friends are troubled you have the option to help resolve their inner (and outer) conflicts but it is an option, and they can die without ever confronting their shortcomings.

In Subnautica you collect data on creatures by scanning them, sometimes while being actively attacked. On the surface/gameplay, you catch fish and explore the ocean/planet collecting resources to build your base and you can do some decorating, hatch eggs in an aquarium. The darker undertone is of course you crash landed, all your crewmates are dead, the rescue ship tried to save you and got shot down and died, youre infected with a bacteria and can not leave until you are cured, you discover this is actually a planet that has really suffered from this bacteria, the leviathan that could cure it is much too old and her eggs struggle to hatch.

In BoTW: i will admit, it fits a little less on multiple accounts but i can still fit it here so its staying- the compendium does not play as center stage as the other games, however you can still find and take pictures of all the creatures in the game. the surface gameplay is solving puzzles, helping strangers and old friends, taking in beautiful scenery. its dark undertone is ofc calamity ganon, not exaactly an undertone more of a looming overtone that you can ignore but its close enough.

In Dredge you’re a fisherman and you catch fish and fill out the encyclopedia, you also can catch all the aberrations of the fish. on the surface, you catch fish and do sidequests for all sorts of people, theres a dog to rescue too! the music and the water sounds are so calming(during the day) and you can upgrade your boat and unlock all sorts of rods, nets, engines and crab pots. The dark undertones are partially unknown ie how did the aberrations come to be this way? what the fuck IS that in the “bad” ending? and partially known, our playable character seems to have experienced some memory loss, on purpose. hes separated himself into fisherman and collector (and also old fisherman iirc?) to bring back his dead wife using dark magic, the lighthouse keeper is the only one who knows him and she is very old compared to our character, presumably also kept alive by dark magic. Our character apparently also had major cognitive dissonance about himself and the collector, he tells the lighthouse keeper he has the book, and she says hes had it the whole time. throughout the entire game the character is plagued by perils of the sea and his own hallucinations, the line between them is often hard to draw clearly. It is definitely true the perils are made worse if we are also hallucinating.

[haamuart]

Subnautica x BNHA AU! From 2021 most likely.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. I LOVE this AU! Some story under cut. Should hopefully be understandable even if you know nothing about Subnautica.

First two images: very big part of the AU, check the story under the cut. TL;DR: Izuku comes to planet 4546B to find out what happened to his mother, finds alien Toshinori, finds once-dead-Inko, helps to build bodies for both. Final image: Other characters float somewhere in the universe. Momo is a well-known and well-liked astrophysicist and a budding engineer! She's kind of high up in the Alterra hierarchy because of her family's connections.

I have had different initial settings to this AU so I won't go into those. The end result is always that somehow Midoriya Inko ends up as a researcher on 4546B (the alien planet in Subnautica) and ends up dead.

Midoriya Izuku gets a VERY RUDE letter informing him of his mother's death. He immediately smells bullshit, does not tell anyone and takes off. I like to think that he hires Shinsou as his pilot to 4546B.

On 4546B, Midoriya finds an alien creature which gets sucked into his head, and they get along A LOT BETTER than Robin and Al-An do in Subnautica. I have not made up a name for the alien but the alien is Toshinori so Al-Might works pretty well.

Izuku helps his new father figure to build a body while he studies the planet and tries to find out what happened to his mum. Toshinori gets a body and starts getting ready to leave, but Izuku is still not done. He still can smell the shit even down to the Crystal Caves and begs for more time. Not that he needed to, Toshinori Will Bow Down All Izuku's Whims.

And... Izuku does find out what happened to his mother.

Inko had found out something really bad her employer Alterra had been doing, sabotaged it, and somehow survived, though Alterra thought she was dead. (Or did they?) A badly hurt Inko managed to drag herself to her seatruck because she knew she needed to escape. She ends up finding an alien structure somewhere and limps there to gather herself up and think on what to do next. She could not admit to herself that she was dying.

She felt herself fading. Slowly, everything stopped hurting or feeling, until there was nothing. She did not know how much time went by, until she started to... sense.

The world had suddenly changed. She could observe things, but everything looked different. She could talk in a voice that was nearly hers, but not entirely. She did not feel the voice coming up her throat. She did not need to breath. She could not move.

Her consciousness had somehow been transported into an alien machine.

And that's how Izuku finds her. (Luckily, her body had been cleaned up sometime during her wait.) At first he doesn't believe it is her, and neither is Inko entirely sure she is who she thinks she is, and Izuku calls Toshinori for help in panic. Toshinori practically FLIES there feeling more worried than he did during the first Kharaa breakout. Combining Izuku's, Inko's and Toshinori's knowledge and experience, they work out that it is Inko.

Izuku obviously cries. Toshinori, at this point, knows how to comfort the boy a little. Inko watches on.

Izuku still has some things to do on the planet (for real!), so they do not talk about what they should do, not immediately. Toshinori sets up his working station in the building Inko is in to keep her company and teach her some things she can do now. They grow close.

At some point, Toshinori suddenly gives Izuku a task to collect some resources. He does not tell Izuku what they are for, and both Inko and Izuku are very irritated with Toshinori's secrecy. (Toshinori is bad at keeping secrets.)

When Izuku gets back with all the stuff, Toshinori finally reveals his plan. He is going to build a body for Inko. Izuku cries again, and Inko makes noises that sound like crying, and Toshinori feels odd things through the fledgling connection Inko allowed them to have.

They all move to the Fabricator Base. Izuku puts all the resources into the machine while Toshinori mans the computer. Inko looks on.

In the second picture is what comes out of the Fabricator. She looks VERY alien, but Toshinori gave her a body that's somewhat similar to her human body to the best of his ability. He used the memories he had witnessed in Izuku's mind and whatever files on bodies they had left on the computers. Inko is extremely glad, because while she would have made it work, she had been very nervous about becoming a creature like Toshinori... Not that there's anything bad in it!

And that's it. Izuku, Inko and Toshinori spent a little more time on 4546B to finish up with things, and then they take off to new adventures. This is obviously a Toshinko story as well, though the romance is almost nonexistent in this part of the story.

[scarvin]

Anyway... D... Dementor Scarlett :pleading emoji:

I don’t know??? What I’ll call this AU but I guess I’m making Devin a sorceress?!?!??!?

[llamagoddessofficial]

do the subnautica skeletons have heats? how do they court MC?

👀 They most definitely have heats. Because I said so.

Mc probably gets an alert on her PDA... letting her know that the aggression levels of local apex fauna seems to be rising, and that it may be better to remain inside her little base.

Sans: Late at night, when the ocean around her is terrifyingly deep and dark, she's used to hearing those little incessant taps and calls right outside her door. She's used to her pestering friend; the ghost that won't leave her be, the twinkling eyes in the pitch black, thing that drives her indoors every sunset.

... If she has windows on her hull, she's going to see a wonderful glow. It's him, watching her, with literally all of his bioluminescence aflame... every inch of his back that can glow lit up as bright as he can make it, a monster wearing a stunning night sky to impress the one he adores. And if he sees her looking... he creates swirling patterns, intricate ripples in the bioluminescence, to show her just how powerful and precise he can be.

It's hypnotising, she'll give him that. And the fact that she's behind glass does make her feel like... maybe there's nothing wrong with just watching for a little while.

... So long as she never makes the mistake of going outside.

Red: We know his kind court by interlocking their mandibles. He has juuust enough presence of mind when in heat to realise that he can't do that with her, because she doesn't have mandibles... but that won't stop him from trying to grab her with them. In heat his determination to grab her is at its strongest, his aggression has ramped up to insane levels- anything that gets in the way of him pulling her into his den by the torso is a threat that needs to be crushed.

... That includes animals in the area, any creatures who gets too close. And possibly any kelp or rocks that he feels like are too much effort to go around. And... anything she's travelling/hiding in, like a prawn suit or a seamoth...

... When he's unhappy, those mandibles will go through anything.

Skull: ... He lurks on the edges of the reef, in the darkness where the land falls away like a wall into nothingness... singing. It's a low note, sweet and barely audible, it sounds like distant harmonising sirens. But it carries through the water for miles around.

... Like the reaper leviathan, it's sonar- as soon as she can hear it, he can see her. And he’s not just skirting about the territories anymore... as soon as he realises he’s got sights on her, he’s going to follow, no matter where she goes or how deep into unfamiliar ground he has to tread. He wants to bundle her up in his tentacles, press his face to her neck, listen to her squeak...

... There’s not many ways to stop him. He’ll claw apart cliff faces if she hides in caves, he’ll tear seamoths and prawn suits apart, he’ll crack cyclops’ like eggs to get to her. Climbing into her habitat will delay him, sure, because he knows that’s her ‘den’ and it’s cruel to desecrate a nest... but she’s completely trapped in there, with limited resources and time.

Her best bet is to deliberately lead him toward Sans and Red, so the three end up in a brawl. Sans is surprisingly lethal in battle. Then, when they’re distracted, clamber onto the nearest island and wait it out. They’ll calm eventually... but not while they think there’s a chance to get their hands on her. 

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Will the eldritch horror squad, ever like, be better or learn things like speech

Fun question!

Incomplete Cadavers don’t have the same anatomy as Inorganic and Organic Cadavers, so they tend to lack several organs and muscles as they should. One of these is the voice box, which restricts them from speaking. Edward is a unique case, of course, because he was mutated with a living creature (a rat) that had a full internal system, which the Necrosis was able to use as a reference, hence why he is able to speak. Just imagine a human voice box inside of a rat larynx.

However, the other six CAN make noises.

John makes very human sounds like moaning and groaning and growling. Juana has be said to make clicking noises like The Predator, but I could also totally see her sounding like a Crabsquid from Subnautica. Isabel has no mouth, but she can make a deep purring/cooing noises that sort of sound like rainfall. George makes a variety of chuffs and whines. Mary is the most animalistic in her noises, so just imagine monster noises. But also, in Chromosomal Rearrangement, when she “talks” Anne noted that she can almost hear the pronunciation of some syllables if she listens hard enough. And Thomas sounds like if you tried to speak with a pillow smothered against your face while underwater.

Or they could just go “wwwwwwwwwwww” and Joan will be like “Yeah”

[seerasworld]

Below Zero Headcanons:

Been messing with these for two weeks, they went from 3 to 14 lol

WARNINGS: vague spoilers for "Subnautica: Below zero", the last one is shippy, my english is not perfect

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) Robin was indirectly responsible for the accident that killed her mother back in Auwell; She was pretty far from the colony, playing around with some "newly discovered creature", when her mother went to call her back home and unknowingly startled the animal, which attacked her. Robin has still nightmares and guilt episodes to this day, but she tries to always keep herself busy enough to not let her mind wander. Sam blames her too to some degree, but none of them is willing to talk it out.

2) Robin and Sam's relationship is a little bit weird, a little bit strained. They're only half sisters to begin with and had trouble getting along even as kids because of their big age difference and contrasting personalities. After the accident involving their mother they coped each in their own way and kinda went in separate directions from there. When they were finally reunited on the Vesper, Robin "went straight to the planet" to avoid confrontation, but she still loves her sister dearly and is now trying her best to smooth things out. Sam is receptive enough but still on the fence about it. They're generally not as tightly knitted as they could be.

3) Robin is calm and laid back in nature, but she strongly dislikes to idle about for prolonged periods of time as she gets ansty very quickly. This sometimes leads her to be careless and not give a second thought about the fact she may or may not get injured while doing something. She is actually the most relaxed when multitasking.

4) Once he's sufficiently warmed up to her, Alan slowly starts fretting over Robin's safety in his own indirect way: providing her new technology to fish more efficiently so she won't starve to death, giving her teleportation devices so she'll escape faster if needs be, even sometimes nagging her about safety hazards and potential risks. They complessively make a good team.

5) Robin can also be extremely stubborn at times. Once she makes one choice and her sight is set on an objective, she usually see to it no matter the cost. This is both a blessing and a curse as trying to persuade her in any way usually gets the opposite result.

6) Photography is another passion of Robin's as well as it being a basic requirement for her job in documenting new species. She built up quite the skill over the course of the years and can handle any kind of equipment. She also has a knack for gardening and interior decorating and prefers to keep colorful clutter around to contrast Alterra's white and gray environments. her indoors often looks more like they're actually outdoor.

7) She has quite a number of tattoos under that wetsuit. She's gotten a big flowery one all around one of her thights and down to the knee, then another on her lower back and a smaller old-fashioned alien head on her shoulder. She's mortified when Alan takes notice of that particular one

8) Alan is very nearly Robin's exact opposite in many aspects. While she is a woman of action, Alan is the kind of guy who believes a problem will solve by itself if he just waits long enough. Being stuck in the sanctuary for over 1000 years was quite the good training in patience. He is also very cautious and easy to scare off whereas she is courageous and impulsive.

9) Staying so long at the bottom of a damp and half-collapsed cave also made him a little iffy when it comes to humidity and water in general

10) He was not one of the minds involved in the Kharaa research efforts. Alan was left behind to guard and operate their various installations in a completely different area and wasn't allowed anywhere near the primary containment facility as he did not have permissions to be there. You know the stabby thing at the quarantine enforcement platform? yeah, THAT little shit was Alan.

11) While he IS an extraordinarily powerful alien with a superior intellect, Alan is also rather peaceful and relatively harmless as long as you don't threaten him or put him in a spot where he has no choice but to defend himself; behind his high and might front he's actually a sweet weakling who'd rather not fight. He never lifted a single thing his whole life and has no idea what physical extertion is.

12) Being confined inside a human mind whith no physical form is obviously immensely limiting. Among many other things, he'd normally have actual telekinetic abilities which he'd use to hover about and would have no need for transportation as he could just teleport himself wherever like a warper. His own body is both a computer and a vast comprehensive of various tools.

13) Robin's bad habit of cracking her bones first thing in the morning never fails to leave Alan disgruntled and quite baffled. At some point she starts doing it at random intervals just to irk him and get some good ol' banter.

14) After years Alan asks Robin permission to upload her mind into a vessel to interrupt her aging process. Robin tells him being virtually immortal together sounds a whole lot like a proposal. He says he does intend to spend forever with her and that he means forever in the literal way. She tells him to go get a ring and ask again because she loves to tease the crap out of everyone.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTES: Do you ship these two dorks as well? help us decide on a ship name for them by voting HERE. poll will be closed on Monday!!

[urbanteeth]

Novel Prep

Thanks to @dimawriting and @maple-writes for tagging me!!

WIP: The Inbetween

Tagging: @drist-n-dither @theforgottencoolkid @minny-santa and uhh anyone else who sees this!

This gets pretty long so I’ll put it under a read more.

First Look

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

The crew members abroad the Perseus Space Station were tasked with investigating the first signs of early human-like civilization on an exoplanet. The truth behind the ruins scattered across the dying planet, however, is stranger, darker, older than anything they ever expected. 

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

As of right now, The Inbetween is a single book divided into 5ish parts. The POV will be third person. Still not sure if I want to switch between characters for each chapter or if I want each of the 5 parts told through the perspective of one of the main characters. I am playing with the idea of a sequel. I also want to write about the before and after the events of The Inbetween. There are also at least two AUs running around my mind so I might explore those too.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Dark skies full of stars, floating weightlessly, lonely planets, geometry, singularity, the smallness of existence, amorphous shadows on the wall, empty corridors, static, flickering lights, hearts racing from adrenaline, the taste of blood in your mouth as you run for your life

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

The Inbetween originated from me wanting to take some of my unused characters beyond them just being characters. The earliest drafts of The Inbetween were short stories inspired by Wolfgun’s music. The story eventually grew into what it is now thanks to a few episodes of Star Trek and Welcome to Nightvale. Lots of the scenes I currently have written were born from daydreaming to Carbon Based Lifeforms’s music. I would say CBL has had the biggest influence on the story.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

This one is for the last part of the book.

Main Character

6. Who is your protagonist?

There are five protagonists:

Emmett Reyes: Mexican-American, 19 (at the beginning of the story), aro/ace, trans, biologist

Johann Herschel: British-German, 20 (at the beginning of the story), bi, nonbinary, pilot and navigator

Neveen Jalal: Egyptian-American, 19 (at the beginning of the story), lesbian, chemist, starship medic, lowkey inspired by my high school chem teacher

Oliver West: Korean-Canadian, 20 (at the beginning of the story), gay, mechanic

Alternis: A.I., years active unknown, primarily used for security and scouting 

7. Who is their closest ally?

Their closest allies would be each other. Here’s some specific friendships:

Overall: they grow as close as family. Nothing like a near death experience out in the middle of the cold, indifferent void to make five kids bond for life. 

Neveen + Emmett: Nerd friends! With him being a biologist and her becoming a medic, they share a love for the subject. They bond over their love for their cultures. They teach each other words in their native tongues. 

 Johann + Emmett + Oliver: Partners in crime!! These three are as ride or die as you can get with a group of friends. While Johann isn’t always keen on the chaos, he still goes along with it because “who’s going to serve as your guys’s impulse control???” Secretly, he loves it. 

Oliver + Johann: Oliver becomes pretty supportive of all his friends and his relationship with Johann is no different. Oliver makes for a pretty good listener and he doesn’t mind hearing about his friend’s worries. He’ll offer some pretty good advice as well. 

Neveen + Oliver: Oliver is, without a doubt, the most social of all the crew members. Unlike him, however, Neveen is the exact opposite. He will respect her space if she needs it, but he is also there to make sure she doesn’t lose herself in it. In a lot of ways, he reminds Neveen of her own sister.

Emmett + Alternis: These two form a pretty close bond. Both share feelings of becoming static in life. Both struggle with insecurity and general feelings of anxiety that they are not good enough. However, they both also share a deep curiosity for the world around them. She likes to ask him questions knowing he won’t brush them off and he feels comfortable enough to ramble on about whatever subject is most interesting to him knowing that she is willing to listen with interest herself.

Bonus: 

Commander Mitch Connor + his crew: At first, Mitch was pretty hesitant to be this mission’s commander. They’re all kids, two of them fresh out of high school almost. However, he quickly learns that this crew is more than capable. They’re adaptable and fiercely resilient. They know how to use their strengths to their advantage and do so creatively. Most importantly, though, they genuinely care about each other.

8. Who is their enemy?

The story’s main antagonist is a weird hivemind entity that is partially made from various alien life forms and part alien tech. It’s main purpose is to find creatures its programming deems perfect specimens and then merge with (eat???) them to take on their abilities. The creature was once a technologically advanced alien race from a different dimension who sought to create the “perfect being”. No one’s really sure what “perfect being” meant for them, but eventually they, and most of their old universe, were all consumed by their creation. The entity then traveled across many other dimensions still seeking specimens to consume. While it has no definite shape or can even be considered a single animal, it’s still very much sapient. It’s hard to tell the age or if it was supposed to be machine or animal or even what species it originally was. However, the minds and voices of its creators live on with it. 

If you want an idea as to how it sounds, it’s a little like the Warpers from Subnautica but with multiple voices. Here’s a clip. 

9. What do they want more than anything?

They all have different dreams that they are pursuing, but they basically all want a life where they can be happy and have closure.

Emmett wants to be at peace with himself.

Johann wants to find a place that he can call home.

Oliver wants to protect the little he already has.

Neveen wants to achieve her dreams.

Alternis wants to belong.

10. Why can’t they have it?

Emmett is, first of all, much too doubting in himself. He worries so much that he can’t appreciate the things he has done right or the things he can do. He isn’t very kind to himself.

Johann misses the life he had on Earth. He and his family moved to a new planet because they don’t really like Earth and want to experience something new. But Johann never feels the same sense of “home” as he did on Earth. 

Oliver’s job is helping out his mother with their repair shop. So, when the shop is threatened with closure, he is desperate to find another job, but since he dropped out and never finished school, he’s having a really hard time coming up with something that will provide enough. This is why he ends up joining the space program. 

Neveen is in a somewhat similar boat. She has dreams of working as a doctor and all of her time and effort goes into studying for that. She, however, ends up getting rejected from three different schools in her area. She starts to feel like time is somehow running out for her.

Alternis has had a hard time. When she didn’t fit the expectations her creators set, she quickly discovered that her differences were seen as something flawed. She spent a lot of her early days either alone and she grew to be resentful towards people. But she wants to be accepted, so when they told her she was to be assigned to the Perseus Station, she had a lot of mixed feelings about the situation. 

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

Emmett: not smart/good enough, not allowed to make mistakes

Neveen: her success determines her worth, has to do things just right or Else

Oliver: dumb for dropping out of college, is not much other than the comic relief in his friend group

Johann: thinks he can run from facing what’s really bothering him

Alternis: needs to have a purpose to be worth something to others, needs to change to be accepted

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

Emmett: 5′2, curly brown hair, brown eyes, tan skin, a scar running from jaw to cheek, there’s a picture @auroradrawing made here!

Neveen: 5′5, long black hair, brown eyes, dark skin, red hijab

Johann: 6′2. dark blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin

Oliver West: 5′10, black hair, brown eyes, pale skin

Alternis:  i made a post on her appearance here

Plot Points

13. What is the internal conflict?

I would say that the overall internal conflict for all the characters is them struggling to understand that they are human which means that they are allowed to be wrong, make bad decisions, have emotions, and fail and none of this undermines their value in any way.

14. What is the external conflict?

The main external conflict is survival. They come into contact with a powerful interdimensional creature who is possibly hundred of thousands of years old or more and they have no idea how to stop it. After their station and only way home gets destroyed and they find themselves stranded with no way to let anyone know what’s happening, they realize that they have to find a way to at least repel the creature as it’s not just their survival at stake, but also that of their friends and family back on Earth.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

Death, probably. There’s a lot of things that would be left undone and unsaid and also literally no one else knows what is going on, so it could be a while before anyone back home realizes they’re never coming back. And that thought is one of the scariest things they can imagine.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

Basically the purpose of the entity and them figuring out what it is and what it wants changes everything they were led to believe at first about the planet and the origin of the ruins.

17. Do you know how it ends?

Yes. They all get a happy ending because I’m done with the sad shit. Also happy endings are good?? Like give me more happy endings dammit! They go through so much shit and get tested so much, like, they deserve their happy ending. 

Bits and Bobs

18. What is the theme? 

You are stronger than you think. Let yourself be flawed. Things might not be okay, but they will work out. You have a place in the universe, no matter how small. Tomorrow is a new day.

19. What is a reoccurring symbol?

Darkness, geometry/symmetry, fire (?),static, lots of the names of things have meaning behind them

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

There are two made up planets on which this story takes place. The first planet is Thesan-4. This planet is a desert-like planet. It’s in the Milky Way for sure, but I haven’t exactly figured out where yet. This planet is primarily used for military/astronaut training. At least 40% of the story will take place here. The other planet is an icy, Earth-like planet. I call this planet the Mirror World in my head but the actual name is pending. Here is where the remains of early civilization are found and this is where the Perseus crew is assign for their mission. At least 60% of the story will take place here.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

Hell yeah! Scenes and a general outline are all I have right now. A lot of the little details are still pretty vague though.

22. What excited you about this story?

Oh man, is “everything” an answer? I always wanted to write a story set in space, but my biggest issue was finding a good plot. Like, I had the characters and I had some vague idea of a setting, but no actual plot or conflict. This story spent a lot of time on the back burner and I honestly thought about abandoning it a few times. However, it has come to grow so much and I’m really happy I didn’t abandon it. I love the lore behind the antagonist and the character interactions and uhhh well damn. Everything!

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!

I think the very first thing I come up with is either the setting or the characters. Then, I make the characters that I feel would go best with the setting or vice versa. Other details like names and stuff come way later. 99% of my writing process is music. If I need a certain mood for a scene, I’ll put on some music that fits and I’ll listen to it a few times before actually writing. I find that this helps me come up with scenes so I don’t really struggle at that. Putting them down on paper is harder lol, especially when I can see at least three different ways to write the opening. But once I start writing, everything flows much easier.

[ithisatanytime]

  one of the worst examples of this is a game called subnautica, that game is a flawed masterpiece, and its also an example of this weird truism where sometimes you really do need some kind of interloper stepping over an artists vision. subnautica is the story of the lone survivor of a space ship crash in some distant future, and as the lone survivor you have to explore an almost completely aqautic planet to collect resources and escape. and its a beautiful game, the underwater environment they created is incredible and its amazing to explore, the main artist had a vision and the world building is phenomenal except for one thing, the story. scattered throughout the world are these little futuristic tapes essentially and you pop it into your little pip boy style device and theres these voice acted skits that tell this long overarching story, and one of the characters is this totally bad ass babe, shes like a salty sea captian and the story culminates into this mono e mono batte between herself and some giant underwater creature in which she harpoons it and its implied she dies a warriors death (or did she?) and i gotta tell you, its some of the most cringe inducing shit ive ever come across. the main artist, the dude with the vision, was kind of a fag, and we benefit in some ways from that, only a fag like him could have come up with such a spectacular vision of an alien ocean, but there wasnt anyone to reign in his fagginess during the games development which leads to shit like this bad ass lady having a harpoon battle against some underwater leviathan, while you the player character dont really have any offensive weapons to defend against the giant undersea creatures, you will spend the majority of the game running from these creatures when their encountered. it doesnt sound like a big deal, but it does matter, in a game like doom, where the men are extra masculine in a stylized way, that salty sea bitch would be a forgivable character i guess. honestly i just hate the bad ass female trope, it stopped being a twist in the early fucking eighties and has long passed the threshold into cliche, its practically a requirement now in art, but especially video games. 

   its just obnoxious because lets face it, it isnt believable, and if you find those characters believable i hate to be the one to tell you this but you’re fucking retarded or such a massive pussy that the huge gulf between men and womens temperament seems non-existent to you i dont know. you can write strong female characters without making them macho men. a great example is in the film le samourai, i wont spoil it, but a woman does something amazingly heroic and she doesnt resort to violence at all, because thats ridiculous. ah fuck it im gonna spoil le samourai so if you ever plan on watching it and you havent yet stop reading, i cannot recommend this movie enough, when i watched it i realized that this movie was the source text for every “cool” movie ever made and it did it better somehow than all of its predecessors. its a stylish brooding movie about a hitman living in an empty dingy apartment with his bird, we see his lonely life, hardly a word is uttered throughout most of the film adding to the sense of loneliness. a job goes wrong when hes spotted leaving the scene of a hit and the rest of the movie is a cat and mouse game where he desperately tries to avoid both the police and the wrath of his employers who blame him for being seen and attempt to have him killed. describing the plot points like this does not do the movie justice, its incredibly atmospheric and stylish. there are two prominent female characters in the film, one is one of the protagonists associates,  he goes to her after his hits and establishes and alibi with her and then leaves, and like with all of the other characters in the protagonists life, it appears that they have a very business like bare bones relationship, but later in the film when the main character becomes more desperate, some cracks begin to form and you start to think maybe theres a little something more, certainly the woman has some feelings for him, but while he shows an uncharacteristic amount of warmth towards her very briefly, its clear the relationship is mostly one sided. so later in the film when the murder detective is hunting our main character down shows up at her house and starts picking apart his alibi with her, you are made to feel pretty certain shes going to crack. the detective start threatening her with prison time, and despite the protagonists earlier spurning her romantic advances, she doesnt sell him out. it sounds so minor, but the film is so well done, everything is so perfectly executed its this incredibly triumphant moment, and you feel this deep sense of respect for the character. i mean it was pretty good, but i wish when the detective threatened her with being sent to prison, she did a spinning kick to his face and her stilletto heel got stuck in his eye socket and she said something bad ass like “suck my crotch, bitch!” but no movie is perfect.

[otsenasportfolio]

I’d have a Picture but...

WORD ASSOCIATION DESCRIBING THE GAME:  colours influencing emotions, atmospheric, music, tranquilizing, tranquility, colourful, bright, moody, choir, surreal, fantasy, history, message?, beauty, peace, transition, change, evolution, nature, architecture, industrial, fish, shark, death, resurrection, friendship, bonding, spirituality, pray, mediating, Sumerian, Mesopotamia ( funny how you just look up one word and suddenly you realize you need to research more! I’m so excited to research the stories, culture, social norms, etc of the Sumerianians! It might just answer more questions about this game....), Egyptian feeling (but again because it’s Sumeranian...the earliest civilization that existed...) 

So let’s do the important thing first: research! 

First take away:

Sumerians were very well known for their innovative ways, bonus points given to them for having very few resources unlike their time-line neighbours the Egyptians were far richer. 

Sumerians worshipped hundreds of gods (this actually makes me wonder WHY we as human beings just began to worship so called Gods? HOW did we come up with this idea that there are larger forces than us and that we must worship them? Is this imbedded in the human DNA? If the Sumerians (the FIRST civilization!) were worshipping gods...then this idea of ‘a bigger force out there’ is just as old as time.  What’s interesting is that they believed that there were MAJOR gods and less major/smaller gods. They worshipped the MAJOR gods by worshipping the smaller gods, believing that the smaller ones will pass the prayers/worship to the bigger gods. 

Now let’s do some research on the very word used for this game ‘ ABZU ‘  Abzu or Apsû , is the name of fresh and pure water from the underground. The Sumerians believed that this water was what filled the lakes, the rivers, the ponds, and whatever other bodies of water on the surface.

The Abzu is what they believed to be an ancient sea underground that is deep, deep underground, past the underworld. 

Abzu’s were also tanks of ‘holy water’ in Babylonian temples which were used for rituals, which mean sthe water is possibly the most pure. 

“ABZU - I’m just going to write down the first thoughts that came to mind..while a little intoxicated and very tired. I’ll definitely be re-reading this again, lol. 

This is a gorgeous game, hands-down one of the most visually appealing games I’ve ever played. The use of colours enhance the experience of emotion and atmosphere. 

The graphics are so unique, for instance the character you play as isn’t entirely round. She/He/It is shaped by numerous geometrical shapes and angles but they are still so 3D you don’t notice how block-like their body is.  The music is so calming and nostalgic, Wintory did an amazing job at creating atmosphere within the msuci. As all games should be, the music should be an addition to the world that you see and interact with. It shouldnm’t take the spotlight and throw you off (unless it’s a horror game) and it shouldn’t be so dull that it wouldn’t make a difference if you muted it. The music of ABZU just adds..more to the game. It’s immersive and cinematic and it helps tell the story of this game..

The style of narration of this game is so, so cool (lack of better terms for now oops!). There is no script (other than the events) in this game. No dialogue other than the game telling you objectives/actions.... No one speaks in this world. Everyhting is just communicated through actions. 

For instance, there are these two little robo buddies that you find at the start of the game. They do not speak to you but they do have a similar communication style as your character (let’s call her Pip because that’s the first thing that came to mind and she’s as innocent as ol Pip from LOTR lol)....  But the two communicate in thesame way. They....chirp, and a little sound wave emits off their heads with a little golden light. And that’s it. You hit space bar (or one of te buttons on the game control) and Pip chirps in greeting while the robo-buddies chirp in return (and sometimes, fi you’re lucky, they’d do a little flip!).  Now this was interesting to me because it indicates that language in this world ...isn’t the same as ours. And this place...this world? Feels like a whole other planet (much like Subnautica is) where the whole space is made of JUST water and a bit of islands/lands.  However...When you enter one of the palaces near the end of the levels you see a big mural with figures that look like Pip dressed in togas/suits/dresses that resemble Egyptians....And all around them are what appear to be Hieroglyphics. So they MUST have some language, right? Or used to? Spoken? Unless each chirp, or frequency of each chirp is the equivellent to a syllable/word of a sentence ?  Either way, that was just really neat to see and it was a fantastic start at showing the world to the players at first.  Now another important thing to note about Pip is that she (or he but I’m going to stick with she since that’s how I’ve always seen Pip)  clearly has an affinity towards the sea creatures...and the sea creatures are connected to her somehow.  There is a speed boost you can activate by pressing a certain button (on PC it’s the LMB) and each time you do boost any school of fish near by would swoop by and join Pip as she turbo zips through the sea! I found myself grinning at that beautiful sight... I mean how many animal lovers would LOVE to have a whole school of creatures just follow you like that so sweetly?  And of course there’s the fact that Pip can hitch a ride on almost any creature (that is big/strong enough) around! THey’ll swim around and you can get from place to place much faster aaway. Not only a really REALLY cool game mechanic but another fascinating trait about our little deep sea diver!  There is something that’d I’d consider...almost spiritual within the bond between Pip and the sea itself. 

This is proved by the ancient (and empty) towers we discover throughout the levels and dive through their pool rooves to enter this galaxy world which I honestly believe is the underworld/upside down world of the sea world we normally swim in.  I did a quick search and found that ABZU means “fresh water from underground aquefiers” (yes, that IS very specific, lol)  but it is religious in Sumerian culture.  Next point (i’m trying to get everything I can remember down in one go!)  The stages you experience throughout the game....the shark, i mean. A really interesting character as at first you see it and you don’t know how you feel about it. You’re swimming around, minding your own business, enjoying the lovely music, still grinning after shooting out of the water like a dolphin and hitching rides with big fishes.....then all of a sudden Pip stops swimming and there before you is a FREAKING SHARK just chilling there, waiting for you.  At first you still think you’re controlling Pip since the transition to cut scene is so smooth. You spot the shark, the shark is swimming around..to the equivllence of pacing? and then wooooosh it aggressively swims through a bunch of kelp to disappear in the cavern away.  I remember I felt a sense of dread but also a lot of curiosity.  To me (as of right now) i believe that shark may represent the Unknown in life. 

More on this later!  Though one curious thing is the way Pip reacts to the shark....Which isn’t really easy to read...since Pip doesn’t react at all. She’s just willing to follow where you want her to go, go questions asked, no hesitation. 

Though the way she watches the shark, the way she looks at the shark an dthe way she runs to save it immediately makes me wonder if she has some sort of kinship with it. Like a soul mate, a connection?  It was a strange feeling to experience but that theory became more stronger when I found another one of those temples/palaces with murals. there was one with several hallways showing ...some kind of story from the past. The pip-people seemed to have worshipped the shark, and I believe that shark had something that sort of...controlled whatever in the sea? It was like the heart of the sea, almost?  I say this because there was little glowing sun that was attached to it and...and shark seemed etheral or very, very sacred because it was painted the same luminescent blue colour that the sacred Abzu was coloured in the pictures. That shark has a connection with that water, and perhaps with whatever spiritual compounds its made of.  

----shark=unknown in life that we chase?  definitely stages of living  life, dying and rescurrecting? or new life replacing? Not sure.. 

[idratherlivefreetofail]

Screenshots from SEA EMPEROR FINALLY IN THE GAME | Subnautica #45! :D

THAT WAS FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!! :D 

Seriously the Sea Emperor is so incredibly cool and gigantic I love it! :D I wasn’t expecting Seán to upload another Subnautica video until the game came out fully but I am not complaining at all because again this was fucking awesome. xD I can’t wait to see how the Sea Emperor will play into the full game and to hear what she sounds like too. This is the kind of stuff I love to see the most in Subnautica. The creatures and their impressions they leave are what make the game memorable and what make the world that that game takes place in feel so incredibly authentic. I loved this video just for the Sea Emperor alone but I also loved the parts where the two Sea Dragons in the lava zone where trying to kill Seán and his reaction to seeing the Sea Emperor for the first time and getting the crap scared out of him when the eggs started to hatch. xD  Honestly I can’t wait to see the full game and watch him play it! ^_^

[scithemodestmermaid]

Thoughts on Shallow Water

Yeah yeah, its only a short film thats going to be just a part of an anthology, but I backed it on kickstarter so I feel like I should say a bit about it.

Definitely worth both the money and the wait.  :-)  Short version: its Creature of the Black Lagoon by way of Alien.  Long version is the next paragraph.

The cinematography was not like most other movies.  A lot of it was in this first-person shaky-cam style that just made me think how much i want a horror game where tiburoneras are chasing you around an island.  The main actress never says a word and nonetheless provides one of the best performances of 2017.  You can really feel the panic and anxiety that she’s experiencing from what’s happening around her.  She better win SOME sort of award for her performance.  And the tiburoneras were beautifully designed and the suit performers made them so disturbing.  And the ending carries a lot of implications that just change everything about what they are and how they live.  The pack rising from the water was one of the most tense scenes I’ve seen in a long time.  Soundtrack was intense, and the creature sound fx was reminescent of subnautica (really, sounded like a mix of the reefbacks and the crabsquids to me, and thats great).

It was pretty hype, but it just makes me wish that it could’ve been its own full-length presentation.  There was so much that went unexplained, which added to the intensity and creepiness but subtracted from actually understanding what’s happening.   And understanding the life cycle and behavioral ecology of the tiburoneras wouldn’t subtract too much from the horror, I don’t think.

i just want more tiburonera.

[son-of-a-duck]

February 21, 2018

This morning I woke up before my alarm so I played Subnautica for about an hour before running on the elliptical and getting ready.  In that time I built my first Seamoth (a one-person submarine), and also had my first Seamoth destroyed by a scary sea creature.  Luckily I wasn't killed, but it was close.  Then, I managed to gather the resources for a second Seamoth, which came very close to being destroyed by another scary sea creature.  The second time around it only did 60% damage, as opposed to 90%, and I was able to get away and repair it.  Fool me once and all that.  I'm going to be more careful now, and hopefully avoid avoidable accidents.

When I got to work I had two walkthroughs.  When I wasn't doing that, I refilled my DVD and Mystery displays, and I also refilled the tax instruction books.  And then it was time to deliver homebound books. Our first stop was a small, hole-in-the-wall bookstore.  I don't know how profitable it is but it's the kind of place I would like to have when I retire (as long as I wasn't depending on the income).  I could just hang out and read and maybe sell a book or two.  After that it was business as usual, just driving around, talking, and delivering books.

When we got back I got all the bookmarks out of the books, and left the books with circulation.  Then I returned some large print books and the van keys to the basement and talked with a couple people down there for a little bit.  Not long after that it was time for dinner.

After dinner I was on desk for two hours (and more than that because yeah, night stuff with only two people working in our department).  A decent amount of that time was spent coming up with a template for making physical buttons (with a button machine).  I wanting to have a masking layer, so you could take a square picture, center it how you wanted, and then put it behind the masking layer, leaving you with a round image and a black outline to cut along.  It involved a lot of math and converting inches to pixels and using an online photo editor to create the masking layer that I then dropped into Publisher, and it's not perfect, but I think it's passable.  I did a test print and it looked good, but I didn't actually try making a button.  I also found that the black and white printer doesn't print at the correct size (and inch in Publisher turned out to be significantly less when printed from that printer) but thankfully the color printer was pretty much spot-on.

I got a brief start on updating homebound stuff but then there was another situation with one of our front doors.  I think it was the last time I worked that the elbow joint on the door broke.  In that case we just locked the door and all was well.  There was actually a repairman there today fixing it.  But tonight the lock fell out of the door.  What the hell.  The custodian looked at it and couldn't get it back on securely but decided we could just set it back in place and lock the door.  This was relayed to me over the phone and it sounded good to me.  Later on in the night he came up and gave me the lock and I decided I would go down and take a look.  It took me about five seconds to stick my finger in the hole left by the lock and discover and little lever.  It didn't appear to do anything but when I locked the door from the inside, I was able to unlock it from the outside by pushing on the lever.  So that wasn't good.

We couldn't get ahold of the head of the maintenance department, but that wasn't surprising because it was getting late and he's usually at the library by three or four in the morning.  I tried calling my boss but she was picking up her son and didn't answer, so I called her house and her husband said he would track her down.  She ended up coming in later but we had just solved the problem.  We called the assistant director in the meantime and he stopped by to look at the problem.  I ended up suggesting we just lock it and tie the two doors together.  The assistant director tracked down a chain and some locks, and that ended up working pretty well.  I didn't get any credit for coming up with the temporary fix the last time the door broke so we'll see if I get any this time.  I'm just glad we got it sorted, and with about ten seconds to spare before the closing announcement went off.  

On the drive home there was some freezing rain.  It hasn't started snowing yet but it is supposed to snow throughout the night and during the day tomorrow, with the possibility of rain tomorrow night. I have to open tomorrow so I wouldn't mind a snow day, or at least a delayed opening.  Snow sucks but snow on top of ice is kind of the worst.  I won't be holding my breath though.  Don't want to get my hopes up.

When I got home I ate some dry Cheerios and watched videos for a little while before starting this.  And now I will be recording my audio journal so I can go to bed.  Sleep sounds pretty good right now.

[llamagoddessofficial]

OH! OH! OH!!! Okay, so one thing I absolutely loved about Subnautica was the sound design.

So…what do the boys sound like? Especially when, say, they see MC for the first time in the morning, or she returns to their territory after it’s been a while? (I’m a sucker for happy monster noises, especially water dwelling monsters!)

Sans Happy: His is pretty strange. He makes more traditional low whale-like noises, some sounding eerily akin to a human, but that’s only when he’s very excited. In a more general pleased & calmed state it’ll be a low thumping, like a giant’s heartbeat, or the distant sound of a ship’s hull cracking underwater. He lowers the volume to gentle tap-esque sounds when he’s got her close but if he sees her at a distance and he just can’t help himself, the sounds are so loud they vibrate through her entire body as if she’s been strapped to a subwoofer. Anger: Like a ghost leviathan; the best way I can describe it is like three demons screaming at the same time. One is deep, one is high, and one is almost like a whistle it’s so sharp. His is unique insomuch as it’s a traditional dark and low roar, while at the same time having a horrible, ear-splitting shriek quality over the top.

Red Happy: A rough ‘purr’ that comes out like a loud growl, if you weren’t paying attention to his body language you’d definitely think he was snarling at you. He usually doesn’t start purring until he’s right up close to her, too, so every now and then he’ll make her jump out of her skin by coming up behind her and starting his affectionate noises. Anger: His roar is the most... ‘normal’ sounding of all the roars. Echoing and deep and lion-like- so lion-like, in fact, that Mc notes it down. It’s very strange to hear a sound that familiar coming from the jaws of a monster residing on a planet so many light years away from home.

Skull Happy: Mc doesn’t realise that Skull is usually a very quiet, borderline silent leviathan, stalking his territory like a giant ghost. The sounds she hears from him all the time aren’t normal- smelling/seeing her in the area makes him very happy and the whole zone fills with a fluttering ‘bubbling’ whale call. Like a humpback combined with a dove. His happy sounds are surprisingly high-pitched for such an immensely massive creature. Anger: Reaper leviathan. Dark, low, animalistic, monstrous- a true roar. What more can you say?