WEIRDLY SPECIFIC BUT HELPFUL CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS

may I request you to draw me some signalis star/eule? :3 p.s. your art is everything <3

@neon-tundra combined those with a similar style

[ SIGNALIS : The Defects ]

"Oh ho ho, Look what we have here! Two Protektor units hiding in Auntie's secret patch and snuggling each others like a pair of love birds... this is just like that joke i once made and almost got myself Re-corrected! A-hA Ha!"

-"Auntie" the defected ARAR

Cynbel is having a slow shift, but luckily the giant merman™ Salomon turns up to make it even more unbearable

... he's still looking, respectfully

A friend of mine wrote an awesome (NSFW) Isa/Eule fic over on AO3, and here's a little something based on it! GO CHECK HER WORK!

Star, on break, and Eule, not on break. First major piece back after a minor interruption! In mid July I suffered a little bit of art burnout so I took the next month off to recuperate. I think it mainly came down to how much pressure I was unknowingly putting on myself through how I thought about my art as well as not enjoying the process. It was getting unsustainable. How I'm trying to heal my habits is mainly coming down to not taking my drawing as seriously, I have an issue of doing that with things I care about. I've got a piece in the works that has about as many WIPs as my Ariane hell-piece a little bit ago, 8, and I'm not letting it bother me! I'll get it done in time! And I think thinking like that has made this piece come together quicker! (At least in my head, it was still 17 hours.) I think I feel better so far. I'm really proud pleased with how this turned out! There are a lot of little things I like; specifically the linework and the general form of Star and Eule, the colour (though I still think the red should be a bit more drawn back), just like, the vibe; but I think my absolute favourite aspect is the blown-out lights behind them. I did draw some light fixtures but this is better. I haven't really experimented with having part of an image be outside the exposure range. Anyhow, this has made me excited to start finishing big things again! Here's to hopefully healthier habits!

( This description is NEW! )

on signalis characters' voices (signalis spoilers!)

after playing signalis more than once and putting aside the overwhelming amount of feelings this game and its story can and will make one feel, it is easier to notice the more subtle details; e.g. enemies behavior, meaning behind documents and objects, and in this case, the characters' voices.

paying attention to the various living npcs you can talk to, one detail that stands out is that every character has a different tone of voice (similar to undertale).

i like to believe those sounds which accompany the text could represent what each character could sound like; one would expect, since replikas are basically copies, for them to have all the same voice.

well, that's not exactly the case.

here is a video with text and dialogues from all the npcs, without music to hear the "dialogue" clearly. (not all the dialogue is included, only one dialogue per character is present; except for elster as she does not like to speak much).

ACHTUNG: MAJOR SIGNALIS SPOILERS!

the dialogues are in chronological order:

-wounded star unit (STAR-S23?? is her name in the game files) in the aula before classroom 4C in floor B1, S-23 Sierpinski (elster included even if she has two lines);

-Isa Itou in the library, floor B1, S-23 Sierpinski;

-Storch Sieben (STCR-S2307) in the rationing office, floor B2, S-23 Sierpinski;

-EULR-S2312 (probably named Dezember given her number designation; eules in game like to use months as names, using the last two numbers of their designation as a reference) in the nurse station, floor B3, S-23 Sierpinski;

-Adler (ADLR-S2301), presumably in the elevator lobby in floor B4, S-23 Sierpinski;

-Arar (ARAR-S2318) in the vent below the Storch dorm in floor B8, S-23 Sierpinski;

-KLBR-S2302 in the library, floor B8, S-23 Sierpinski;

-Beo (MNHR-S2301) in the third room in the mines where monofilament stockpiles can be found, in the rightmost corridor.

-Ariane Yeong (and LSTR-512, still has an unbelievable amount of max two sentences at once) in the personnel room. floor B2, Penrose-512 (memory);

-Falke (FKLR-S2301) in her own room, found in Home.

you may ask, what purpose does comparing the "voices" serve? probably none, still i wished to know if they were the same sounds for every character or not.

here's what i could find out:

the majority of replikas have a different voice, with some exceptions:

-STCR and LSTR units have the same voice;

-as do STAR and FKLR units;

-a bit more expected, the gestalts npcs we see in the game (Isa Itou and Ariane Yeong) have the same voice.

now, for the fun stuff: by analyzing the frequencies which stood out the most in each "beep" from every character's voice, i could rank them from high pitched to low pitched ones.

again, has no purpose, but the result is actually delightful (to me).

here is the ranking:

1. kolibri

2. mynah

3. eule

4. isa-ariane

5. storch-elster

6. star-falke

7. adler

8. arar

pretty surprising, huh? i'd have wagered for isa/ariane to be in second place, followed by eules; also was expecting for arars to be just after the eules, and have behind them stars, then storches, then adler.

no one is surprised kolibri have the highest voices lmao, but mynah having an almost equally high voice was slightly unexpected but not unwelcome.

what's truly surprising to me is falke having the same voice as stars. i'd have expected something different tbh (stars being the lowest rank of protektors, etc etc, they're silly and stupid and crass; all things falke is not supposed to be).

elster having a deeper voice compared to ariane is the cutest thing ever! (as that post about them says)

that's probably the instance where you can notice the most that there is in fact a difference in most voices.

the funniest thing ever to me is that storches apparently have a higher pitched voice compared to stars, also arars having the deepest voice out of all replika is truly awesome to me (definitely fits).

here are to what musical notes the frequencies corresponded to, in the same ranking as before (visual rendering on a piano keyboard for fun i guess):

kolibri (G6 B6 E7 A7)

mynah (F#6 A#6 D#7 G#7)

eule (F6 A6 D7 G#7)

isa-ariane (F6 G#6 C#7 G7)

storch-elster (E6 G#6 C7 F#7)

star-falke (D#6 G6 B6 F7)

adler (D6 F#6/G6 B6 E7)

(adler has five notes as two close frequencies were distinct from each other, compared to only one in the "feminine sounding" voices. i guess that's how they made him sound different, by overlaying two notes)

arar (C#6 F6 A#6 D#7)

that's it! thanks for coming to my ted talk about signalis voices and listening to me ramble about them :)

come ponder pondwater ..

aka kimerakal yaps about signalis ocs. cute little :3 face @ you.

HELLO. hi. are you ready for a whopper? no? too bad!

see these horribly drawn LSTR units? wonder who they are? well, boy, do i have a lot to tell you. i call this chunk of lore ... pond water.

and it all exists because of a faulty auto-injector ...

well! that’s why it exists, but not where we start. it really started with ariane and 512 - but you know that part already.

so fast forward to an isolated orbital outpost, where an aged LSTR unit (1378) has almost reached the end of its operational lifespan and has thereby been relegated to perform simple routine checks on passing cargo craft. it used to be a maintenance officer on a cruiser, but that, well, was totally annihilated, you could say

going by the “most of the LSTRs on leng are physical and were a product of being hijacked by ariane’s bioressy signals, which made them get overtaken by an approximation of 512’s neural pattern and were, like, totally normal separate guys before this,” “there can only be one active 512ified LSTR at a time” and “the call strengthens by proximity” hypotheses as the baseline for the rest of this lore - we get: pondwater

i feel like there’s a mass recall of LSTRs happening - but 1378 succumbs just before that! oops! 1378 is, naturally, totally overtaken by the 512 pattern. she steals one of the shuttles and ends up on leng - which by the way? amazing mental image is a giant ship graveyard on leng that all the LSTRs that survive the landing walk through in a daze - they don’t even see it.

anyways, business as usual for an overtaken LSTR. fighting the beasts, memory trips, all the way to around the basements 5-8. that’s where dear old 1378 dies. or, uhrm, she was supposed to. an auto-injector kicks in - a little too late. 1378 is dying, her memories are returning (her name’s pike, she’s a senior, calculated LSTR. she served on a proud space battleship, she dreams of the sea) and oh god - another LSTR is falling to the thrall. she is lying on the ground, choking on her oxidant, she feels like she’s drowning - she ... always wanted to see the sea. her name, it’s pike. she’s 1378, she’s 512, she’s - she’s LSTR? bits of pieces of those that came before?

MEANWHILE! that other guy. that.. that other LSTR doesn’t get all the 512 memories, less then half. but in the blur she’s suddenly on.. leng? god. what? where is she? her name is wasserjungfer. she wants to go home. how did she get here?

LSTR-KZ4445. heavy combat frame. she served on kitzeh, as a part of the kitzeh liberation forces. she maintained a ground-based vessel as part of a small strike team. the team’s mission had just ended, she was assisting in vessel maintenance at a fortified ground base. it neighboured a nation settlement & imperial liberation camp. she was awaiting her next tour.

during her time grounded, she’d visit an isolated pond on-site. you know? the lapping of the water? reminded her of something.. something long lost. “wasserjungfer”, that became her nickname. hovering around there, like the little dragonflies? there was an ARAR there sometimes too! 莲, she studied the plants. they never spoke.. until. until.

a mass recollection of LSTR replika units is ordered (they’re all enigmatic as to why! oh, standard inspection procedure, no one buys it) - a fortnight’s notice, to round them up. suddenly, the supply ship the ARAR serves on was to deliver them to rotfront. and suddenly - so suddenly - this ARAR is begging wasserjungfer to help hide two stowaway children. the kids are hellbent on surviving, escaping the war. who knows why 4445 agreed, god, she surely doesn’t. some kind of weird loyalty. she’s been active for a while, seen some stuff, regretted some things, remembered some others. doesn’t help the recall order is so .. ominous. for the while the ship takes to get to rotftont, they become rather cozy. the more she talks to them, the more she gets attached.

they’re saying the LSTRs are getting taken to rotfront for a “routine inspection” but the threat of decommissioning looms in the air. wasserjungfer and lian are hatching a plan to get the hell out of dodge, it’s not like the kids can live normally on rotfront. steal a small interplanetary supply ship, maybe they can head to vineta where they stand a better chance - with all the unsupervised territory and chaos? (hmm .. but the blockade .. can’t think of a better destination though)

all the while, she’s ignoring some weird migraines she’s getting. Hmm. but she knows what she has to do - slip off the supermassive supply ship when the LSTRs arrive at the orbital, steal the smaller cargo ship, go back and fetch her new ‘family’ at a discreet rendezvous. she goes to steal that ship and whoops!! THAT MIGRAINE WAS THE 512 MEMORIES. get 512ed loser!!

so she steals that ship, but arrives on leng. crashes, really. the very first heavy combat frame LSTR on leng. her head is pounding, she’s raging. none of this was in the plan. she isn’t totally overtaken by the memories, she can’t be. she wants to go home. who dragged her here? but she still goes into the hell pit, of course, because she got enough of that 512 junk to fall to the allure. things are blurring together, you know? alina, ariane, lian.. lian.

the deeper she goes, the more she finds out, the more things blur, the angrier she gets. 512’s love for ariane bleeds into her loyalty to her kinda-family. time making less sense means she think she was with that family of hers for longer than she really was. ariane’s eternity with 512 bleeds into it. the not-family starts to mean more and more to her - as she gets further & further from them. her anger compounds.

due to her experiences she gets an onslaught of lilith memories too, more so then your average 512clone. you know, she doesn’t have all of 512’s memories, ‘cause of the fact there’s that other LSTR still alive, holding the rest of them..

speaking of! 4445 finally finds that guy - pike, holed up in a safe room. they journey together the rest of the way - pike’s ... missing an eye. ripped it out, looks like. space magic told her to do it, you know? our dear wasserjungfer never tells pike her name so pike just calls her “四” yeah?

what’s their dynamic... well, it’s interesting? while 四 is overcome with rage, her longing to get home and impatience, pike thinks more in the long term and realises she won’t be making it out of here. she devotes ALL her effort into ensuring 四’s survival. while 四 prefers to avoid corrupted, because she believes killing them takes too much time and wastes too much resources, pike unabashedly mows down corrupted with her shotgun and uses thermite as often as possible. she just wants 四 to have a clear path back out, if she makes it.

well! she does until she loses her arm to a malfunctioning door! a door that really shouldn’t have malfunctioned. hey, is s23 against her? more and more corrupted units follow them, and they specifically target her, are more aware of her. they’re after her.

and just before nowhere - she gives in to her fate, lets herself die in a swarm, forcing 四 to safety. the worst thing is? before she goes out?she wants 四 to promise her that she’ll kill ariane and make it back out, but she couldn’t stand making more promises that couldn’t be kept.

and ohhh wasserjungfer. once pike dies, she gets All The 512 Memories. boy! does that make that headache worse! but they don’t take over her, no, she just “nah i’d win”s getting 512ed. sheer force of will, i guess. not-so-long story short, she marches on resolutely. kills the hell out of s23’s FKLR. and when she gets to ariane, finally, the very first LSTR to make it all the way there - ... she can’t kill her.

her head is throbbing. she’s too tired and confused now! she has no sense of her identity. all she can really understand is loss, and what she sees before her is something that has undergone the same loss. ariane doesn’t see her 512, 4445 doesn’t see her family. so she simply gives up, just craving respite from? an unbearable desire to get home.

AAAAND that’s pond water for you. you read this far? oh.. wow.. i’m ... i’m so sorry. there’s a lot of lost fun details in this .. uh .. messy summary. like, for one, how the shores of oblivion sort of blur into that stupid pond for 4445? also, their preferred weapons paralleling their strategic mindsets ..

so, uh, kicks feet. my signalis ocs. me silly little Elsters .. ponder them a little?

As promised the next replika page is a star!!! I hope you enjoy! I had to get this one done as reference for something else I have in the works so look forward to that! The next replika page will take a lot longer but it will be kolibri! (dumb stuff in the read more)

I'm not the proudest with this one, im happy with some of the poses but it made me realize that i really do not know how to draw hair at all -_ -"" ive also been struggling with some personal stuff so its been bluh i still like her tho.

Very quick doodle of my trans man Ara oc, he has no name yet but he lives before the destruction of Vineta pre gen 5 [so only Ara’s, Mynahs, Eules, and Stars exist right now] and he has a small shed in the woods near the water that he illegally repairs and modify’s replikas at, He also has a Gestalt Boyfriend [rare Signalis yaoi] and a older Mynah best friend who visits him a lot she comes to him for repairs because he used to do her repairs before he left the quarry he worked at, it’s how he got started because eules didn’t exist yet [are they even used to repair replikas or just heal gestalts?]

He looks like your average Ara but I may change his chest plate to be removed? Debating it being removable, His man just comes in and he’s ripping off his boobs like it’s no big deal…

languages in signalis ...

“the vinetan accent”

hi. cultures and languages are cool right. hi i’m stupid, and here’s a stupid take. it’s how i’ve been? interpreting stuff? for a head world i guess. people are free to use it though? it sucks a bit though... i’m not the brightest but i’d like to refine it later!

starting with the nation specifically, what if they’ve established german as the primary language, with a mandatory second language taught in school?

for large scale cooperation, they’d want a national language as a communication baseline - and it’s pretty evidenced by the game it’s german. but the consistent use of other languages in state documents (eg. the titles on known issues) and labels (those korean instructions) to me means that you could justify a solid presence of other languages?

for the headworld, at least, it’s likely there are entire communities who don’t speak or understand german - at all. places with other main languages, before being exposed to nation doctrine.

[aside: hear me out. maybe the empire favoured moving large communities with common languages together, eg. to off-vineta colonies, over re-education and linguistic standardisation. maybe during their initial conquest and expansion to become eusan, still on vineta, there was some imposing of ‘speak the grand empress’s’ language but we don’t know what it was? maybe ...]

take rotfront, for example. i do admittedly headcanon a large chinese-speaking population (creating an overwhelming majority) was placed in rotfront, which is why rotfront has hanzi signage (though? interestingly it’s traditional chinese?) etc. wondering if the overall communities orbiting not-jupiter are chinese-speaking by descent too, explaining 冷. it’s a bit out there though .. once nation control over rotfront was established, it’d be mandated youth learn german as their first language in school. the second is for efficiency’s sake, instead of creating a gap between older and newer citizens of the nation, just make a bridge. the people will figure it out. but because it’s a facet of education, that’d also likely mean standardising school-taught second languages. (which is easier if the empire really moved communities based on language groups when they first expanded eusan to the stars.) so things would also die out - but i do also think minority languages and dialects are still spoken, though shrinking, so lots of people would have a third, fourth language?

so this headworld’s nation’s ideology perhaps doesn’t care for the prevalence of linguistic cultures because with such a large populace to control, they perhaps focus on other things - so long as learning german as the first language remains iron-clad. (like! think about the names. german first names, family names preserved. to get an upper hand in a german-speaking society, perhaps children are named with germanic first names, no matter their hereditary background - soft erasure..)

based on the imperial interplanetary relocation [aside] headcanon too, is the idea that different eusan ‘planets’ have different majorities/minorities, thus different mixes and new, unique accents and budding dialects and such - independent of governmental influence, until, of course, the nation formed? because of that time together, new and interesting social phenomena that whoops. are overshadowed by the looming nature of the nation and the empire.

so - the vinetan accent?

what if! besides german, the itous spoke japanese but they spoke it like how japanese is currently spoken, IRL. and on rotfront there’s japanese too - but one with a significant sino-linguistic influence on it that has reverted or even brought new changes to how japanese is spoken there, maybe resulting in an accent or even a dialect. at least for this headworld. and ariane could tell!

wow, i really did just make up all of that to get to this. i really did. dear god. i am insane. i took one brief phrase and just ran with it. anyways, don’t ask me why i headcanoned kolibri’s unknown gestalt as mongolian. i really have no clue.