October 2020 Howler

6
November 6, 2020
A&E
A guide to Northwood’s art gallery
By Rachel Gima
Staff Writer
The virtual art gallery on the
NHS Den website displays the art of
several VAPA students, showcasing
their talent despite the limits that the
pandemic has placed on creative collaboration
and appreciation.
The fine arts commissioners junior
Haley Chan and senior Katelynn
Pi asked students to share a piece of
art they created in one of their classes
here at Northwood. The gallery displays
varieties of artworks from 11
students, including photos, sketches,
dances, embroidery and even old
school projects, all of which have
interesting messages and backstories.
“For my Humanities 9 Capstone,
I decided to make a cartoon to make
the historical content interesting for
my class who had to listen to my presentation,”
junior Simran Patel said.
“I included a giraffe with a picture of
my English teacher, Mr. Wroe, as its
face, because he’s insanely tall,” “I
entered it into the gallery because I’m
proud of my project, not just because
I got a 100%, but also because I really
like how art can make everything
more fun.”
Artists also used this platform to
convey various symbolic messages
through their depictions, drawing
inspiration and parallels to famous
artists and pieces, the environment
and social justice. The end result is
a collection of meaningful works that
advocate for different issues and can
connect with a wide audience.
“What I wanted to illustrate
through my piece was that women,
no matter their background, can
come together and create change and
further the fight for gender equality,”
senior Jin-Kim Niu said about her
piece “Hand in hand.”
Other featured artists drew inspiration
from their personal lives,
incorporating their unique experienc-
By Ryan Wu and Helena Zhou
Staff Writers
Simply put, “Among Us” is one
of the greatest online party games
to have ever been created. Available
on PC and mobile devices, the game
was released over two years ago, but
it only recently surged in popularity
in September of this year.
Similar to the popular parlour
game, Mafia, this social deduction
game revolves around identifying
crewmates and imposters. While
the players who are crewmates must
complete tasks around the map and
vote out the imposters during emergency
meetings, the imposter’s objective
is to unsuspectingly kill the
crewmates until the number of imposters
equals the number of crewmates.
Discussions are the only times
players can talk, and they can be triggered
if a dead crewmate body is
reported or if an emergency meeting
is called, in which players must logically
deduce who to vote off. Dead
players cannot speak during discussions
but can communicate with other
dead members in the ghost chat.
Here are some tips to improve your
imposter skills:
1. Look the part.
In order to win as an imposter,
you must act like a crewmate. Pay
attention to your fake tasks listed
at the top left of your screen, and if
worse comes to worst, just say you
were at electrical doing wires when
questioned. Pretending to do tasks
and acting inconspicuous under security
cameras offer opportunities
to blend in with crewmates, but be
careful: Crewmates can easily spot
Joy Kim The Northwood Howler
ONE, TWO, THREE, SMILE: Senior Kamryn Scott was inspired
by a painting in a restaurant in Buffalo, New York.
faking tasks if the task progress bar
does not increase or if you complete
the task in an unrealistic time. During
the discussion rounds, conceal
the quiver in your voice and gear up
your psychoanalysis skills. You must
be reasonable during voting rounds,
and that includes agreeing with crewmates
to vote out an exposed imposter
if it means that you can win some
trust from other players and time to
continue killing. If the other crewmates
agree to skip voting, do so as
well so you don’t look suspicious being
the only one voting someone out
while others don’t.
2. Be smart about sabotages.
Imposters have the ability to
sabotage specific areas of the map
to distract crewmates. For example,
door sabotages lock crewmates in
different rooms for ten seconds, allowing
an imposter to hide a dead
body or kill a crewmate secretly. On
the common skeld map, the main
sabotages are lights, O2, reactor, and
communications. The lights sabotage
reduces crewmates’ field of vision,
and O2 and reactor both require
crewmates to head to a room and stabilize
the sabotage in a given amount
of time. (Otherwise, if time runs out,
crewmates lose). Sabotages are most
effectively used in separating crewmates,
which an imposter can exploit
by picking off lone wanderers,
and preventing emergency meetings
from being called so the imposter is
not voted off.
3. Frame a crewmate.
Always target killing cleared
crewmates and make suspicious
crewmates even more suspicious. A
ess and cultures to create narratives
that resonate with people despite
their personal nature.
“When I created ‘Weight of the
World,’ I was inspired by the idea
that people, even myself, tend to
compress the emotions that we’re
sometimes too scared to confront
up until the point that it all suddenly
explodes,” sophomore Yusrah Khan
said. “The project was based on expression
and at the time, I thought
that it was a relatable emotion for
many people.”
The gallery will remain on the
website throughout the school year.
It will be updated periodically with
new additions, and all Northwood
students who would like to are encouraged
to submit their own artwork
to be featured at bit.ly/nhsartgallery.
Although all of the artworks
displayed in the gallery are unique
and interesting in their own ways,
they are more meaningful as one collection
that highlighted our student
body as a whole.
“Providing the opportunity
to show off artwork created by our
peers furthers our goal of preserving
and advocating for creativity
through art,” Pi said. “For a lot
of people, the arts are a safe space
where their emotions can best be
expressed. Our virtual gallery highlights
our twolves’ creativity, and we
hope it inspires you to create just as
much as it does for us.”
fundamental skill to be a good imposter
is the ability to think quickly
on your feet and produce reasonable
lies. If a player is skilled enough as
an imposter, they can kill someone
right in front of another crewmate,
and then immediately self-report the
kill. Another strategy is to kill near a
player in an otherwise isolated room
and vent out of the scene. The other
player will then report the body, and
during the discussion, the imposter
can frame the onlooker as an imposter
by producing a realistic alibi.
This has a higher chance of success
if the framed crewmate in question
has a more ambiguous status among
the other players, and you are in good
standing with the rest of the group.
A popular strategy is the stack kill,
where the imposter can kill a person
while many players are standing at
the same place, doing tasks or fixing
a sabotage. In these instances, it
The Northwood Howler
Thrills for chills
By William Baik
Staff Writer
A chill travels down your spine
as you feel a cold sweat, the dark
screen in front of you mirroring your
room. You’re huddled into a blanket,
glancing occasionally to see if something
happened. It goes silent. You
slowly look back, thinking it’s over
—and then you scream. A jump scare.
Although movies have always been
the most popular way to display horror,
mediums like manga, anime and
novels have their own unique qualities.
So with the holiday of spooky
superstitions nearing, let’s take a look
at Northwood’s taste in horror.
Movie: IT
“Horror portrayed through movies
gives the audience an authentic
experience because it influences your
visual and auditory senses. Comics
don’t really deliver that same,
all around experience that makes
the scare genuine. My favorite scene
makes full use of the flexibility that
movies have, which is the jump scare
from the projector scene. It really
bended reality as Pennywise morphed
into the woman on the screen and
jumped out.” - senior William Shin
may be difficult to determine who the
imposter is, but doing stack kills will
drive suspicion towards them as well.
It is only wise to stack kill when almost
every player in the game is in
the stack; it may be too risky otherwise.
4. Coordinate double kills.
A chain is only as strong as its
weakest link, so you and the other
imposter must be working together
throughout the game. However, cooperating
with the other imposter
without verbal communication takes
teamwork to a whole new level. A
perfect scenario is double killing
with your imposter partner, locking
doors while you wait for the kill
cooldown and guarding the bodies.
Imposters can also call a sabotage at
a fatal location, such as the reactor,
and wait near it, double killing those
who enter.
Manga: The Promised Neverland
“Manga doesn’t necessarily focus
on jump scares and rather builds
genuine suspense through the story
itself. The Promised Neverland is a
manga that places humans in a world
where demons have taken over, yet
begins its first chapter by setting a
happy, idyllic atmosphere. The real
horror comes through how the manga
progresses its storyline through the
thriller portions and gradually builds
suspense.” - sophomore Karen Luo
Anime: Death Note
“Anime is a bit different from
other mediums because the pacing
of the story fluctuates a lot. There’s
a lot more time to develop themes
and ideas that you can’t really find all
the time in movies because of its run
time, which I think is really good for
building horror. The Death Note follows
the journey of Light Yagami, a
high schooler who discovered a book
capable of killing anyone he writes
their name in. The development of
this main character through scenes
that show his descent into a psychotic
mirror of himself shows how the pacing
can be pushed and pulled several
times to create thriller.” - senior Matthew
Pham
Rachel Gunawan The Northwood Howler
Top 5 Among Us tips and tricks for true imposters
Nicole Curtis The Northwood Howler
5. Manipulate a crewmate to play
third imposter.
If you’ve ever watched the renowned
Among Us player Disguised
Toast on Youtube, you’ve likely
come across his viral video, “The
greatest Among Us IMPOSTOR
game ever…,” where he achieved a
game-changing win using this unique
strategy. Having a crewmate act as
third imposter means having them
continuously act as your alibi during
discussion rounds to clear you from
any suspicion. To do this, you need
to follow a crewmate throughout the
entire game while faking tasks, so it
seems like you had no time to complete
a kill.
Being the imposter can result in
an embarrassing failure or awe-inspiring
win. By following these strategies
listed above, you can achieve
the latter.