#idk im trying pixel art for funs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aita-blorbos · 5 months

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(tma oc ask content warning for canon typical levels of buried fuckery)

am i the asshole for driving away my friend?

hey reddit . im posting from a throwaway bc i dont want people connecting this to my work (though i doubt youve heard of me anyways) but i think i messed up terribly and i want to know if this is something i can still fix

also sidenote sorry if my grammar or punctuation or word choice or anything of that sort are poor. i have not been sleeping well for some time

i (19m) am a video game developer. its been my passion for years now and i am currently in uni studying computer games development and programming and level design . although i have considered dropping out but thats a point for later . i post on itch io and such and sometimes i make flash games but idk if anyone reading this has played a single one

its been a bit of a hard time for me, if im being honest. i really like games and i really liked making them but i dont think im very good at programming or art or level design or any of the other things that go into the process of making a game . at least a profitable and fun one .

so i ended up coming to this computer science study group in the hopes maybe someone could teach me to be better at programming. and i met this girl. i dont know exactly how old she is, but i want to say she was maybe two or three years ahead of me in her schooling, so probably about 22. anyways lets call her E

E was studying pure computer science and wanted to do it at a high level . so of course she was pretty good at helping me with my really rudimentary programming stuff . and she was friendly and funny and we liked hanging out so we ended up being good friends . she actually complimented my games, once i got them to function, and said my pixel art was cute . my point is we were close . maybe we wouldn’t have been so close if we had anyone else, but i was still new and she was pretty lonely .

really shortly after i met her though i started having fucked up dreams. ok that’s not entirely accurate because i had been having fucked up dreams on occasion for a while . but they got worse and she showed up in them. it was all me locking her in stairwells hitting her over the head and piling earth over her body filling her mouth with mud and cement. terrible things

so i stopped sleeping. i tried not to at least. im pretty sure most uni kids pull all nighters. i know i did even when i was younger. but i wasnt studying for exams or whatever. i was just trying and trying to force myself awake and i started to lose it a bit. my grip on things. it felt like i was sleepwalking through classes and even like i was dreaming when i was awake. id nod off for a moment in a lecture and id feel dirt caked on my hands under my fingernails. and no matter how much i scrubbed and how much i knew with my eyes it wasnt there it just. refused to come off . and it felt like her blood

i don’t remember how we got on the topic but i remember she told me how she always worried a little bit about being trapped . like claustrophobia of a flavor that shows itself in locked doors and thick walls and collapsing underground stations. that made me feel even more odd about the whole thing . of course i felt awful about hurting her but that part of it was like a joke i didn’t get

and then weirdly enough i got really into nineties 3D games. they have these skyboxes that make it really obvious they’re not actually infinite . and i thought that was kind of interesting in context. like the whole world is a box you’re in so why worry so much about if the stairwell door will lock behind you

i kind of started thinking that was something i would like to replicate with my art . like if i put all my issues into one game they would be out of my brain and gone . maybe it could even be pleasant without the whole preying on my friends terror thing

so now we get to the part of the story where i fear i really really messed up . i made this game . and honestly i dont remember the development very well . sleep deprivation is a dreadful thing . i remember again and again while i was making it kind of coming to my senses not knowing where i was and finding massive parts of the game that i didnt remember making at all.

it was set in a stairwell but i dont remember buying or making the models for the door . there was a really weird kind of way the game functioned with an infinite path going up but how that functioned i couldnt tell you . and i dont remember composing the audio or where i might have downloaded it from except that i never liked to listen to it for very long . i dont know why i kept it in the game

i always showed my games to E but i really wanted her to see this one in particular. so she came by my flat and played it and then i remember she just glared at me . there was something to the look she gave me . it was like she was completely horrified and was trying to pretend she was just angry instead

she hasnt spoken to me since . and i think i fucked up . i knew it was playing at her issues and i think maybe i even made it at least subconsciously to pry at them. like the same part of me with dirt under my fingernails was also sitting there typing away on that keyboard .

but at the same time its just a game . and im better at programming now too . like something just clicked there

honestly though development lately has been weird. its been hard trying to go back to the old sort of pixel art platformers and shoot em ups and that kind of thing i used to make. every time i open any program its like im just staring at it and imagining skyboxes. putting it all in a box imprisoning every world i make that kind of thing. like i said earlier ive been considering dropping out. but i dont know. i think id need to sleep on it

i still have weird fucked up dreams but E isnt in them anymore . i dont know where shes gone . i think maybe my idea worked somehow and i did transfer all that shit to my art . and then that just all went right to her . but i dont know if i like that idea or hate it

anyways reddit am i the asshole?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

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lunariamv · 3 months

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its time, im in my charon era

ive made my first three rpg horror games :DDD

there's three because two of them are parodies and then there's one actual legit one

all three are in authentic charon game format: rpg maker 2000, similar art style, similar horror premise, short story

i did it for the aesthetic OKAY

⚠️ Before venturing into any of my works, please heed my disclaimer/rules;; I don't want obstructive people engaging with me or my works ⚠️

✿ warning: running these games is a gamble because rpg maker 2000 is old software that windows is trying to assassinate (i cant even run it on my computer sometimes, i have to use a virtual machine or the game editor lol) so i apologize if it doesn't work ✿

the readme has troubleshooting solutions, and easyrpg exists to combat this, but it's not perfect. for example, it changes the text a little bit, which ruins the aesthetic

if ur like me and u care about the aesthetic a lot, then use a virtual machine, otherwise if you have a laptop and not a hardcore gaming pc, the game will probably run fine.

(the one time that having low quality graphics is good xD)

windows 11 users beware, im sticking with 10-

when all else fails i have gameplays available on my youtube

🌸 HERE IS THE GAME MASTERLIST 🌸 PLAY THEM HERE

!! please care and heed my content warnings when playing these games, as they contain dark subject matter; i promise ill make less edgy stuff in the future its just rn i REALLY WANNA MAKE CHARON GAMES FOR FUN !!

the first two (Akeno Delusion and Carousel) are strictly parody games on the genre, and Doom Stones is the authentic 100% serious charon game

looking back akeno delusion sucks to me but thats cuz its my first one and i gotta start somewhere, the quality only goes up from there

eventually ill stop using rpg maker 2000 and make games with the other makers for more versatility but rn im in love with the retro aesthetic im so sorry

*my art isnt that good but im getting there ok!!

also just a heads up, im not 1 to 1 charon; the aesthetic, artstyle, and story elements are the same, but i dabble in male yanderes instead and i go different places with the story;

🌸 mostly male yans

🌸 protagonist is actually a character

🌸 story goes a little more in depth

🌸 more focus on the horror aspect than sexual

so basically im like a female charon right now heheheh

i plan to make more rpg games, but for sure i want to make at least three more games with similar story beats.

its because i want my own take on the concepts -- doom stones is my take on makoto mobius, but i also wanna make a "scavenger hunt a person's house" type game like makoto nikki and a yanderella equivalent (but the love triangle has more drama)

AND…. MIX ORE BUT YANDERE BUBBLE TEA??????? :DDDD

once im done ill move onto dsp era cuz i wanna make some actual rpgs; like with the cute assets and pixel art

🌸 please follow and support me if you like these and want me to make more; this is just a small portion in the large list of games i wanna make <3

💮 please feel free to contact me regarding game ratings if you sincerely think they're off, im a noob when it comes to posting stuff;; and im just going off code of conduct, if it has any hint of explicit content its going to be 18+, whereas implicit would be like 17+ idk

im not taking any chances lol

🌸 I'd prefer if people don't contact me about troubleshooting problems, but if they have to, carefully go through my instructions first. even then keep in mind i might not be able to help;;

💮 I'm posting these games on tumblr only because they're short. If I make longer games, I'll crosspost them to itch.io or something.

🌸 I'll also make a website in the future, but for now I'll post the games on here. Thank you for stopping by!!

#rpg maker 2000 #rpg maker horror #☏ lunaspeaking #gamestuff #lunaria #lunariamv

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gomzdrawfr · 3 months

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omg so happy to see ur ask is open again!!

I always wanted to know what's it like whenever you draw something? be it oc or ghoap

love you 😍

Im assuming you mean my thought process? Hopefully? (U can send another ask if it’s not)

I dont have a good flow with things bcuz im really chaotic with stuff but i hope u can somewhat get what im saying

Idea

Most of what I doodled are based on my own experiences, or from other people, sometimes they come to me unprompted

I think lately it depends on my moods as well! Which can be seen when I had an angst period lmfaooo

Honestly, reading poems helps too, I read them and go “yep this is ghoap”

Seeing other people’s art also sparks some ideas, like timelapse videos

Using said idea

So when i get an idea i either scribble it down or scream it to my friend, it doesn’t matter if im going to actually draw the prompt or not as long as i pour it out my head, it helps to visualize things and also make me go, “nwm this was better in my head but hey at least i know now”

Honestly though, 90% of the time once i have an idea i draw it immediately if i can

Im someone who’s very much dependent on vibes, so if the vibes are off i cant draw for shit(bad habit, im aware)

Like “having an idea of Ghost and Soap scuba diving at night, then i try to draw it next day in the morning and i just cant get it right” for example XD

Finalizing

Now i dont do linearts, or like, any thorough clean up when i post for fun, as long as it looks okay its fine, which gives a few problems:

1. Noticing i miss something after posting it

2. Realising that i forgot my signature

3. Mistakes, lots of it pft

I do have a check list before I post which i stick it on my laptop, like Ghost’s tattoo or Soap’s chin scar for example

I think what helps other than adopting the habit to check is if i posted the images into discord first, idk why but it works?! Like you could’ve checked everything when it was in the canvas and exported it, yet somehow some mistakes just flies passed your eyes until u post it somewhere else

Also im always on the move and rushing with uni and life, so i don’t really pay attention to a lot of things and just accept my doodles as it is, and that’s why it’s tagged as such, doodles

They’re not meant to be perfect, they’re just scribbles, which honestly shocks me how much people like them :) 💕

Extra: Commissions work

Same kind of flow except i work with prompts already given to me, though they’re more careful and requires more time and attention to work them through, and obvs the final check-ins are crucial too with every pixels double, triple checked xD

Lastly, love you too, i hope this isn’t messy to read

#ask response #thanks for the ask <3 #fucky advise

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sonyplaytation · 1 year

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what are you using to make games, all your work looks so rad, how does one even begin

Thanks for the ask :)

I use Aseprite for the main sprites (characters, tiles, menu and so on)

I use a lot of CodeManu's programs (JuiceFX and PixelFX Designer in particular) to create a lot of the "effects graphics", stuff like fire, water, jittery movement.

FL Studio 21 for the music (and a lot of publically available video game soundfonts and VSTs)

The little coding ive done has been in Gamemaker Studio 2 which i find good to use even if my coding knowledge is really poor.

Links to all of the programs are below:

Aseprite - https://www.aseprite.org/ CodeManu's itch.io page - https://codemanu.itch.io/ FL Studio - https://www.image-line.com/ (or pirate it tbh) Gamemaker Studio 2 - https://gamemaker.io/en

Aseprite and all of CodeManu's stuff are both very cheap and pretty easy to learn, though Gamemaker and FL Studio are a lot more of a knowledge check and much pricier.

This ends the easy part of the ask.

"How do you begin" is the much much harder question to answer. For me I began doing art and music because i realized no one but myself would do it for me for free.

I have been teaching myself pixel art and writing music for like six years now and i'd say im only really getting good at them now. My advice is really just to keep trying new things, consuming art that you fucking love, and trying to put your own twist on that even if its really shitty.

I am unabashedly a Toby Fox fan, it is completely self-evident in everything I make, and I really think thats a good thing. Being inspired by shit and ripping it off in your own way is like the crux of all cool things.

There is a lot of learning involved, and nothing really comes easily, but patience is literally the biggest thing to focus on. If i were ever happy with Canon in its early stages the game would be completely unrecognizable to the state its currently in. A lot of my creative process is learning to accept that some of your old ideas are shit, and not to hold onto the bad ones. I don't know what i would call it but you almost need to train yourself to get a sense for what direction Forward even really is in terms of moving a project like this along.

But really my biggest point is just make what you fucking love and dont stop. Canon is a joke i started in tenth grade as a funny Undertale parody game that now is actually a narrative universe with like six stories being told within it.

Also keep in mind that ive never released a successful game so uhhh idk lol. This is kinda just advice on how to make a huge ass project to have fun with for the rest of your life. But I hope the rambling at least helped inspire you in some direction. Tbh just have fun with it.

#game dev #indie dev #canon

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sideblogformindtrash · 2 years

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The caretaker with all their whumpees idea was so fucking cute. also very good basis for a 1 hour long story driven game in which you play caretaker and you have to go around and comfort all the whumpees and have flashbacks of listening to their stories. idk man it was just a really cute idea

I'm trying to learn a bit of game dev and its actually an idea for that. Except Im far too much of an amateur so it was more like a fast paced pixel art plataformer where you have 1 minute to collect all the little whumpees.

WHen you scare them away it would make a lil coin falling noise and they'd spread around like the rings falling out of sonic when he gets hit

games are such an interesting and fun plataform to work with but also demands lots of skills i dont have, at least not yet, like animation and well, coding :''')

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kaidenshenandoahknapp · 1 month

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this was an absurd amount of effort for what was ultimately an offhanded-joke but i needed to procrasinate lmao

if you watched @henrykathman's "Melody of Moominvalley" stream, (hi, hello, i made the thumbnail art, that was a cool surprise to see in my sub-box lol) Kathman made a comment about being glad no one has made him into a Moomintroll (or Snorktroll, i guess) because he thinks he would look like Snork

i had two thoughts in reply to this VOD:

that's probably because i would assume most video-essayist are on the spectrum of Hemulans (oversimplification: academics) to Teety-Woo/Woodies (oversimplification: big fans, arguably obsessive). you're probably more of a Hemulan? based on how you present yourself in videos? idk, i dont know you in your personal life lmao Hemulan just seems likely considering the hobby being so analytical (and also is easier for me to look at the different styles of since Woodies seem to have less general rules towards their appearance. and Teety-Woo is the only one of its kind that i know of, idk what is Teety-Woo's species and what is Teety-Woo's individuality there. but, like, that's not nearly as fun as my bullshit quiz lmao)

fucking bet

*: assets in not-gif form below Read More

(psa: please do forgive me for misspellings. i am dyslexic and will probably edit this repeatedly for quite some time, but im tired atm so Now It Is Posted)

anyway, i whipped all these up in about 2 or 3 days? idk, my chronic health issues have been a monster lately, its hard to keep track of days rn

but i made:

comics Moomintroll/Snorktroll

90s Moomintroll/Snorktroll and Hemulan

Tales From Moominvalley inspired illustration art of Hemulan where it has those lifeless "bug eyes with tiny pupils" style i love (but that i also understand why Jansson went back and gave them bigger pupils after a certain edition, and drew with more expressive eyes after a while)

why did i do three different styles + 3 different species? because i was torn on which to do and ended up pulling a classic Kaiden-Shenandoah and going "ill do more work and let them choose which one they like best". something something anxiety, i dont know what to tell you, im trying to learn self-acceptance lmao besides, it was fun to do a quicker shuft through style changes than the usual heavier studying i make Google Images help me do

speaking of, i dont often share my references because i worry about clutter, but i want to include it today and i also used less ref than usual, so you get clutter lol

(i learned last time that Tove Jansson doesn' often draw mugs; so i did my best guesses based on the references here + the result of my references the last time i drew in Jansson' style, which was more so her later novel-illustrations, if i remember right, as opposed to today. lots of best guesses today.)

first of all, i guessed on Kathman's eye-color based on zooming in and it was too pixelated to tell for sure even with the eyedropped tool. secondly, very fun tying in the blue hair dye since 90s Snork has a pink edge to his hair and Mr Hemulan has a green edge to his. last of all: i made them with (and without) a light beard/stubble, since i saw Kathman has one now. but also that was enirely guesswork on my part: Tove Jansson drew heavy-duty moustaches/beards or completely facially-hairless characters, no in-between. so i used educated guesses on how to adapt that. and i feel a bit like i did the male version of that one Snorkmaiden lipstick comic for my efforts lmao but hey! i tried!

my only thing is idk which set to upload to instagram, bc doing all the assets of with/out facial hair feels oddly excessive and maybe goes past instagram's images-per-post limit, idk, ill upload these there someday i guess. really wish instagram would let me post a gif but idk how to do that. c'est la vie

you also may notice one of the Hemulan sets includes a magnifying glass. i just thought it was thematically appropriate for someone analytical, especially since one of my references above did have it available for me to also reference lol

as a fun detail, i did a more Police Inspector color palette for the 90s Hemulan design, and a more Moominpappa palette for the 90s Moomintroll/Snorktroll designs. hence why those colors aren't the same

and the last thing is that i made the comic assets yellow-y to reflect the aging of paper and the quality of the photo references i have. (Henry Kathman, if you want to edit them to be white for the aesthetic of something, feel totally free)

here's all the assets i made in total. the gif version felt the most succint but yeah. also, Henry Kathman, if you are reading this: same rules apply. feel free to use these in anything you want, credit would be nice. (also, very sweet that you saw my name change away from my childhood nickname, i appreciate that 🫶). credit in the future can be to either here or my instagram (which i changed to match this hyphen-less url, since tumblr terminated my last blog for unknown reasons) i hope you are not upset that i went against your wishes of gratitude that nobody had drawn you as a Moomintroll/Snorktroll, but i hope the fact that i think you don't look like Snork even as a Moomintroll/Snorktroll helps. i hope you also dont mind the Hemulan additions lmao. but yeah, i wont blame you if you prefer the more human (or arguably Mymble? idk species) style i did beforehand in the last batch and don't use these. that one has way more references with lots of drafts and this is more of me messing around and finalizing the first draft i made each time around lol but i think they came out fun! very silly distraction, thanks for the idea lmao

thanks to Henry Kathman for the fun VOD and the much-(un)needed procrastination excuse. it was a good distraction from a pretty bad flare-up in my disability and a full plte of things to do that i needed an escape from. hope youre having a great day!

#my art #henry kathman #me #moomin #moomin valley #hemulans

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tostawafle · 6 months

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i need answers.

right here's the thing... i dont feel confident im my artistic skill...

if im being honest i never really did, but i adore drawing my brain onto paper or in pixels or whatever. but when my "good" or at least passionate art is going unnoticed while easy second meanings and non original art are being held above my own things... it feels like im failing as an artist and developer...

this is my activity chart. now here's a fun game for you: try to guess the labeled spikes. its not hard.

1- Petra "why are you staring at me?"

2- peeper stek

3- Enoch "we're like gods here"

4- Fardy Hernandez "idk the other two"

now note the post with only my original things. yeah just one

now if im doing something wrong i'd love to know, im asking how do i get original art to be better/more "attention-ed"? because i feel like im doing something incredibly wrong...

-Tósta

#pls help #send help #help #i neeb helbp :(

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rrxnjun · 1 year

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i just want to know why is it so rare tho?😭and so true every 03 liner i see has a special place in my heart!!! and yeah we are pretty similar in that🤭🤭

i just get angry when i do it but it also calms me in some way idk dude it's a whole mess lmao😔THATS MY PROBLEM AS WELL but i'm trying to learn whenever i get impatient to just leave it and continue when im in the mood again!!! ahh writing is hard tbh so u have all of my respect actually!!! like every time i have to write something i just rush it and never look back on it cuz i cringe so much🤣so genuinely hats off to u!! (and i also saw what u reblogged earlier so i just want to say that i love ur storylines and how u just write the emotions and the people in them!!!) more plants are always amazing🥳🥳 i'm glad free styling works for u!! tbh i never knew how to look up how to actually take care of what plant so i think free styling is the only option🤣 thank u for wishing luck!!💘 if u tell me ur fav colors i would actually make one and just send a pic to u of it once i get back to my hobbies sometime in may (and this is an ask for help cuz i never have ideas on what colors to use.-. and i will keep it in the name of u lmao😌)

WILL SEND U ALL OF THE PIXELS OF HIM!!!!

actually being a silly like that is so fun in a way ngl (i am in the biggest parasocial relationship known to mankind with sunwoo from theboyz and i would never change that fact lmao love being silly like that) yeahhh it's so great to just see how much growth they had since then!!!🥹🥹but i genuinely don't understand how they just get better and better each time they do a cb:o

GOOD LUCK WITH UR EXAMS!!!!!! they are more important than that drabble so I HOPE U WILL DO GREAT IN ALL OF THEM!!!

thank u🥹🥹🥹u are not pressuring me at all so thank u for that as well🥹💞and also thank u for welcoming me with open arms!!! i think i get closer to getting of anon every time i send an ask/reply🫡

no problem cuz i'm also very late with my reply so sorry😟 exams suck so much!! i hope u will only have better weeks than that then!!! i hope u are doing well as well and that u will ace all of ur exams!!😌💗💖💓 (liebestraum anon🥳💞💗)

bro thats me with art omg 😭😭😭 its like a weird mix of rage impatience but at the same time relaxation and creativity altho i havent drawn or done any art in ages 😔💔 SJSJS sometimes when i read back my work i cringe too,, esp my older fics but considering that i write the content i wanna see i read my own fics sometimes LMAO so theres that. thank u so much for complimenting my storylines and emotions i think those are the two main things i focus on in my writing 🥺💓 also my fav colors and combos are literally anything + white (esp black, red and blue) and also cream, sage green and shades of gray 😌😌 keep it and wear it like a declaration of love to me /j

now. to the topic that i already hinted at during our convo on my main- our similar taste because tell me why am i the biggest bitch for sunwoo i dont fucking stan the boyz??? LOOK AT THIS DJSJSJSK

i fully support your parasocial relationship with him i am actually your biggest fan 💓 BUT SUNWOO IS A DEVIL EVERY TIME I SEE HIM I HAVE TO TAKE A MOMENT BC OH LORD-

thank u!!! i have one final down (got an A from it ❤❤❤) but i have 5 more to go and it only gets more difficult LMAOO so ill be back to writing in june hopefully :')

DJSJS was actually so glad to see u on mosviqu too i am happy you are getting more comfortable 💓 hope youre doing well im cheering u on always!!

#💌ask #liebestraum anon

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heystephen · 1 year

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idk how to go online in animal crossing there is some issue whenever i try

i found this out when i decided it was time to download some of the amazing clothes i saw on pinterest that people have made

aaaand i couldn't i didnt get why and i didnt have the patience to figure it out

so i decided id remake them on my own. because i have patience for that lmao

and that's taken up the entirety of my sunday

i now have like 5 different "coats" that are a jacket, a shirt and a skirt painted on that i copied pixel by pixel

tomorrow, im gonna do some more

today, they were season-themed

tomorrow, fiction

the day after that, who knows?

but this game is getting more and more fun the more i play it

it's now been two months and im obsessed

oh and i caught daisy mae and her turnips twice and almost lost money when selling because i didnt know when the prices were changing lol

AND i bought two fake art pieces before i found out there are guides about that online

god i love this game so much

omg did you just get the game? i love when ppl first get it and i get to witness their descent!! ur so much stronger than me though, i don’t think ive ever put in the time or effort to design any clothes because i would get soooo frustrated lmaooo.

#omg nooo not the fake art 😭#when will they give us an update where i get to rob jolly redd of the funds he’s stolen from me #i got mail*#anonymous

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scrixels · 5 years

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480. Power

I’m only 3 eps into She-Ra and the Princesses of Power but ohhhh its so pretty and fun!

#pixel dailies #pixel art #she-ra #magical girl #idk the tags u guys use :(#power #i really love all the colours they use im thinking abt trying to make a palette from them #also swoopy hair and capes are so much fun to draw #and are u living yr best life if u dont ever make art w sparkles #fav

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mohth · 7 years

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lgbt+ nasa logo gif for all ur gay space needs

(please credit me if u use it for anything!)

#draws #pixel art #lgbt+#lgbt+ art #idk what else to tag it as lol oops #im rly happy with this pixel art is so fun & i was so excited to animate it!! im so happy it turned out good #i dont animate things much so this was like.. big success #got it good on first try

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queenlua · 3 years

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hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue. see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP. and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP. so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on. there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc. you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

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favoniuscodex · 3 years

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ok so there’s like a quadrillion anti-k*eluc things in my inbox (like every time this topic comes up)

yea these all shit on k*eluc but if you like that ship idk why you’re here cw: death threat mention (NO ACTUAL THREATS), typical k*eluc bullshit

anon said: if we're talking about incest, I've seen some shit in this fandom k*eluc could not compare. I wish there was a way to block people/tags in ao3... everyday I roll my eyes so hard to go blind and never see some of the shit in ao3 again

i like... dont want to shame people for their interests because ultimately fanfiction is a way to get some like... weird shit outta your system without harming anyone but like... MAN... some of the fics i’ve seen make me wonder if the authors have ever gone outside and touched grass before,,, and im saying this as someone who fantasizes about 2d pixels for fun.

anon said: The thing about kaeluc, i heard from somewhere that some ppl tend to go overboard with the warnings.. true, that ship is disgusting, but to warning them with death threat/su*cide? They talk about toxicness of kaeluc but without realizing it, they themselves are toxic. I'm not defending kaeluc stans cuz i've had some bad experience with kaeluc stans too. But I wish they realized that block button exist.

i mean, yes. this is basic human decency (blocking people and not harassing them). the internet has always been pretty reactionary to things they don’t like and is pretty toxic as a whole. idc if you dont like something, death threats are never a viable solution. but imma be honest, i’ve never seen that happen when it comes to that ship and therefore i have no time nor energy to devote to yelling at people for it. not my place.

anon said: I've seen some people saying k*eluc was ok in eastern side of the fandom because it is a cultural difference kind of thing. I don't agree with this because like... that means eastern people want to fuck their siblings??? that's a stupid argument. I don't ship it bc it weirds me out but I also don't really care people shipping it since it's just fiction

though this doesn't mean that it's okay to ship them imo. I just try to stay away from conflict

yea as a white person this sounds like some bullshit lie some asian fetishizing white person made up to justify shipping two brothers. additionally diluc is clearly like... germanic/white ancestry so like... is this argument even still valid? anyways that argument just reeks of racism and holds 0 ground. it’s weird as fuck. also anon, its cute that you want to avoid conflict, i wish that was me. i think this ship is overall pretty nasty and i will take sides LMAO

anon said: “ayo how can we ruin a fandom” *red/blue ship* sounds an awful lot like kl*nce shippers 🦍💨

yea i wasnt even in that fandom and i heard about it which shows how bad it is,,,

always the red and blue shippers ong

anon said: Just a little snippet from what they said because I constantly have to go back to it and laugh about that because it doesn’t take more than a few secons to go on google an be like “are diluc and kaeya brother” to which the big fat answer will be “yes”"…kaeya has basically disowned himself…Either way it’s fine and not incest if that’s the issue!”How do you disown yourself-

d... disowning yourself means you no longer want contact with your family, it doesn’t change the fact that you once viewed them as family.... what the.... FMKLDSMFLMSD,,, that person you were arguing with is WEIRD

anon said: if people want to ship an ice/fire dynamic that badly why not ship chongyun and bennett or something. sighs. why do people have to be Like That

TRUE,,,, true,,,, this is 100% facts and lowkey thats a big brained ship nonnie

anon said: I've just been reading through the asks about a certain *cough* fire/ice *cough* ship and let me also add something. Everytime i search Genshin on Ao3 I have to make sure one of the excluded tags is said said ship so that it cuts down alot and I mean alot so I can see others but at the same time, some good fic has that tag, not really the focus but still has it, which saddens me because I try to avoid it as much as possible. Also any fics on twitter that talks about the individual (either the fire or ice) in said ship I tend to just "nope" and quickly scroll down(unless it's a het ship weirdly enough it's a little calmer) I just wanted some good fluff and someone just had to ruin the good fluff by arguing that the fire/ice ship is superior than the one in the fic. Like I just want GOOD FLUFF 😭 WHY DO YOU HAVE TO RUIN IT?!I FEEL NEUTRAL BACK THEN NOW I AM JUST ANNOYED. Also sorry for ranting peace 🕊️

i literally only look at ao3 at this point for zhongchi or xiaoven shit so i cannot relate but like gjldgkmldfkglg. k*eluc shippers are inescapable on twitter though i hate it. remember the time the genshin official account reblogged some k*eluc art JSKLD:FKFSMP:GDL i hate it here,

anon said: broke: shipping kaeluc

woke: shipping yourself with both of them and thus creating a love triangle full of angst and a lot of tension and competitiveness between them

bespoke: having them realise that they value each other as brothers more than having petty arguments over the same person they like and thus instead of reader becoming a s/o to one of them we become best friends with both of them and the gang's all happy

i can’t tell if this is oomf trying to convince me to alter the ending of inheritance gjkdsnjskdlskj or if it’s just a genuine big-brained idea. either way... i can get on this train of support. OR the reader picks one of them but the other moves on and lives a happy life because why spend time being hung up over reader when you could find someone else.

anon said: all this kael*c (🤢) talk reminded me of the first scene in which we see diluc (yk the one with collecting dvalin's tears with kaeya in the temple? and at the end diluc comes in and destroys the hydro abyss mage? yeah that one) so I went and rewatched it and hrueizkxbd i now remember why i am first and foremost a diluc simp

diluc was fine as fuck especially in the scene where he interrogates the abyss mage,,, ugh /chef’s kiss/. thank you fellow diluc simp.

#im gonna go to class and get even more k*eluc hate in my inbox #i am the new anti-k*eluc safe haven apparently #this happens every time i mention how much i hate the ship #but fr this was NINE ASKS at some point im gonna stop responding to them #//mail

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