#since most of you figured it out anyways

[threeletterslife]

Hii! It's me again. I was curious how you came up with this? Was the whole series your idea or someone elses, or mabye where you found your inspo and such. And when you started writing it, did you come up with all the plots and stories yourself and did you have doubts on it? OH and also how did you come up with all these characters and fantasy like places and stories and names?You're welcome to answer or just ignore tho. Whatever is nice for you! 💓

wellllll this is quite a long story, so buckle up!

i consistently write a journal documenting my journey with lod, so i will be copy-pasting excerpts here. i am planning to post the entire journal once lod is finished (right now, it is 37+ pages, but it'll definitely be much longer lol. not sure if people would even read the full thing, though.) FYI: below the keeping reading line, words in red omits spoilers (aka the chapers i haven't posted yet) and words in green are commentary (since i wrote this journal a couple years ago)

tl;dr: i was bored in quarantine and had a lot of motivation, so i came up with lod. the entire series was my idea, but i found inspiration from other fantasy/magic series. i did have doubts when it came to plotting, but i had a couple of friends who proofread. coming up with everything was definitely a process—i explain it in detail below:

1. HOW IT ALL STARTED

November 1st, 2020, Sunday was the day I created the first LOD-related Google Doc. I remember for the longest time, I wanted to write an ultra-long series. I had no idea what this series would consist of—the only thing I did know is that I wanted it to be a slow burn. Of course, I began dabbling with the idea of the internet’s most beloved trope: enemies to lovers. I realized that I don’t exactly have much of an interest in developing a story based on modern-day happenings. If this series was going to be long, I wanted to go all-in—that is, I wanted to play around with some extensive world-building. Though I admit I have some experience in world-building, I say this with a grain of salt because I’ve never actually expanded upon my new universes. (Most of my world-building work has been through the Society Series, which included seven stories that ranged from 2k-29k words. And 2k-29k words are barely anything compared to the long series I wanted to write.) So I took on this challenge of creating an entirely new world with new nations and cultures and people.

Except I didn’t know where to start. I think I found it the easiest to figure out who I wanted to write. I definitely wanted to write a somewhat angsty relationship (definitely something on the lines of enemies to lovers). So I knew my main characters had to have a lot of spunk to them. I still wasn’t so sure about the setting, until I realized how interesting it would be to write a story about a war. I’ve never quite done that before. I accepted the challenge. And with this setting in mind, I began to piece together my characters. I typed out a quick: general!yg (26) and general!yn (23) into the Google Doc. It was actually smooth sailing from there.

1.1 Castings, Genres and Plotting

I created two nations: Solaria and Darlae and then split them up as the elemental magic group and traditional “wand” magic group. I wasn’t so sure how to build upon the magic, though. I decided to leave that problem up for the future me. Meanwhile, I assigned Yoongi the role of the cynical, cold yet somehow gentle Solarian General. Of course, to add some *spice*, I cast our OC as the kindhearted, passionate Darlaean General. I took a lot of inspiration from Avatar: The Last Airbender and the Harry Potter franchise but ultimately decided that I’d create my very own system of magic (somewhere along the line). I did know that the Solarians would control the elements and the Darlaeans would use what I later called their birthstones to do their own form of magic. But other than that, I literally let alone the magic. I figured I’d begin to create the magical guidelines when I felt more comfortable with the other parts of the story.

From November 1st to the 7th 2020, I plotted every day. But these were very general plot points—mostly to map out where the story would go. I came up with an introduction that I felt was a good hook, and from there, I focused a lot on moving the plot along. It’s a little problematic considering I didn’t exactly flesh out my characters yet, but I thought it would be better to just word vomit than stay stagnant. I realized I could tweak the plot a little (or a lot) after I got my ideas out. So then, I made the whole storyline of OC’s lost memory, Yoongi being suspicious of her, her feeling a little lost in Solaria, then her assimilating and gaining Yoongi’s undevoted trust. The plot was very much centered around her and the Solarian General. I remember being stuck at a particular plot point, however. It was after the fact that OC went into battle and got “captured” by the Darlaeans. I knew she’d meet her past lover (Jungkook) and it’d be a whole angst parade. But there were a few complications that are plot spoilers of the latter half of the second act, plus acts III and IV, so I will not share them for now. Just know that it wasn't until January 2nd to 14th of 2021 that I finally configured the ending of LOD

1.2 Creating the Title

I also came up with the title on January 10th. I had some possible choices too: ​​Forgotten Memories, Lost Memories, The Legends of Two Kingdoms, Legends of Magic, Legends of Darlaria. At first, I really wanted to incorporate the motif of memory in the title. [Reasons are redacted.] But then I started brainstorming some ideas and realized putting ‘memory’ in the title sounds cheap/an attempt to sound overly deep. I didn’t like it. So I realized I could branch off and talk about the nations. The Legends of Two Kingdoms gave me Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities vibes and I was not there for that. Legends of Magic sounded straight-up stupid. But then came Legends of Darlaria. It clicked. I was so happy with that and it stuck like glue.

1.3 Fleshing the Plot Out

1.3.1 Creating the Acts

January 12th, 8:38 AM, I copy-pasted my plot doc into a new doc specifically for chapter divisions. By 8:46 AM, I had created three acts. Act I is OC’s time spent in Solaria. Act II encompasses the entirety of OC’s stay in Darlae. Act III is the ending. I didn’t flesh out any of the chapters/parts. In fact, I spent the next several days splitting my story into parts. And by January 26th, I had all 65 parts basically fleshed out (plus the epilogue). It ended up being 57 pages, 33 more than my original 24.

January 16th, I first came up with the idea of having four acts instead of my original three. I felt like if I stayed with three acts, act II would be unnecessarily long. [Redacted discussions about acts III and IV].

1.3.2 Major Creations and Edits

From then on, I worked on my chapter divisions doc sporadically. I skipped the whole month of February. Then, I only worked on it twice around the end of March. I remember this was because I was losing a lot of motivation for Legends of Darlaria. I had completed a lot in a pretty short amount of time: creating a title, creating functioning characters, creating a 65-page plotline, etc. It was safe to say that I was (a) getting tired of it (b) realizing my ideas weren’t so great as I had originally thought they were. It also might have had a lot to do with college decisions and online school burnout. I remember I was just tired all the time—even though I was getting more than enough rest. Legends of Darlaria felt so… bland. Every arc I had, I felt like it had been done before, and there was nothing really special about my characters either. In fact, I started to worry that they were really, really starting to look like Mary Sues (especially the OC). 

But I got ahold of myself and began working again, picking up momentum. I entered the chapter division document (my main doc) on April 19th, ready to get back on track. I remember, I felt kind of lost, then. I wasn’t sure if I should add any more details to the plot or whether I should even take parts of the plot out. I felt like to change one little detail, I had to change a billion other things. So in the month of April, I remember obsessively reading over the document and editing every little piece of dialogue, sentence, plot point. I even built upon my characters. On April 19-22, I gave them zodiac signs, IQs and their place of birth. Zodiac signs were easy. For OC, her stubborn nature and willingness to stay grounded made her a Taurus, which is perfect considering that she has an April birthday (in order to have the diamond birthstone). I didn’t plan for that to happen, but it did happen to work out. Yoongi’s an obvious Aries; head on his shoulders, also stubborn and pretty tough (redacted information). I always imagined Jungkook as a Virgo (which he is in real life). On April 20th, I created the five sectors of Solaria—literally on a whim. Each element would get its own sector and there would be a heterogeneous capital sector. Coming up with the names for that was so fun. I basically looked up “names that mean [insert element]” and created my own variations from what I found on the internet. Needless to say, the names did not disappoint. (I’m usually shit at coming up with fantastical names, so this was an improvement on my part.) This was how I was able to figure out that Yoongi’s birthplace is Aithne; OC and Jungkook are both from Darlae, a huge kingdom with no separate cities/sectors [that obviously got changed later LOL]. Figuring out their IQs was a roller coaster ride [even though honestly it shouldn't even have been a huge deal since IQ doesn't define intelligence whatsoever]. In the beginning, I gave OC the highest IQ of 133. Jungkook had the lowest of 127 and Yoongi had a 131. But I thought about those numbers for a long, long time. (The funny thing is, IQ is not even remotely important to the story, so I have no idea why I was fretting so much about it.) But two days later on April 24th, I edited the IQs. Jungkook now had the highest of 131. Yoongi had the lowest of 127, and OC had 130. I remember realizing that I didn’t want the nations’ militant leaders to be too above average; that’s not how usually the military works. But I did want their IQs to be a little higher than average, too—because let’s face it—these characters do some smart shit in the story. But I ended up bumping Yoongi down the IQ ladder (for reasons that are purely intuitive; I can’t explain them with words). Jungkook went up (because I realized he’s one of my most intelligent characters), and OC is just right behind him.

1.3.3 Art & the Quest of Smut

No one asked for this, so I will be omitting this excerpt LOL.

1.3.4 An Obscene Number of Things to Fix

April 27th, I fleshed out the five sectors of Solaria, creating their relative sizes and different ecological biomes. (I literally remember researching the different biomes during my math class—it was a nice bio review!) I also realized I needed to take the initiative on my still ever-so-present dilemma that Legends of Darlaria felt bland. I was ruminating about the reason it could come off as bland for months. But I finally got somewhat of an answer. It was definitely because there was too much focus on the main characters; the side characters didn’t get the time of day! I also thought that the main characters’ flaws were not well-portrayed enough in the plot. So, I came up with a list called ‘THINGS TO FIX.’ It consisted of 10 bullet points: (1) yn’s not good with kids, (2) [HUGE FUCKING SPOILER], (3) [another spoiler LOL], (4) the ending drags on too much, (5) [semi-spoiler but omitting just in case], (6) sprinkle in stuff about sectors, (7) [more spoilers bruh], (8) add seokjin to the flashbacks, (9) add more female OCs, (10) figure out dates/times

(1) OC gets to meet children in chapter 5 where she voyages to the capital with her General. But I realized, it doesn’t make much sense for OC to be a kid-person. Even when she was young, she was mature for her age, and she had to grow up quickly due to the death of her mother [changed this to her parents' neglect instead]. She never got a chance to be a child. So it would make sense for her to be awkward around children. She doesn’t know how to treat those mini-adults!

(2) Nope

(3) Also nope

(4) Semi-spoiling the ending, so will take out just in case

(5) Also a semi-spoiler...

(6) I just created the different sectors, so I realized that now has to be integrated into the story.

(7) Oops also a spoiler

(8) Seokjin is a character we barely see in the whole story, which sucks because his character has so much potential. Even though I didn’t write it down anywhere, I always internalized that Seokjin is a misunderstood character. (Kind of like Jungkook.) He has a lot of potential and is a highly disciplined individual, but doesn’t quite understand how to interact with others. I think he’s a very “rigid” character. He likes to follow the rules. He likes to obey orders. I think a pivotal point in his character is when [REDACTED]. But since Seokjin is such an interesting character, I want to put him in the flashback scenes. He must have played some role!

(9) I knew for a while that Legends of Darlaria would not take in place of a patriarchy. Men and women are literally equal. So it was just sad to see more male characters than females. But that may have something to do with the fact that this is a BTS fanfiction and I kind of promised myself to include all seven men. So, of course, there is an imbalance. My concern, however, was coming up with female characters who could be seamlessly integrated into the plot.

(10) I realized while writing this longass series (which I had no idea would be in several months), I would also have to write descriptions of the setting. But the setting also includes the weather. How am I supposed to write about the setting if I don’t even know what season the chapter is taking place? This last bullet point perhaps stressed me out the most. (For some reason.)

1.3.5 Fixing and Creating New Characters

I worked on LOD basically for the rest of April—almost every day. I was really big on weaving the to-fix points into my plot. I remember I made 81 edits in one day trying to sprinkle in bits of the sector stuff. I also changed a lot of the dialogue and the choices the characters made for them to stay true to their character. At the beginning of May, I focused a lot on rounding out my main characters and fleshing out the world-building. I created a money system, which, I have no idea why I made (but whatever. I guess it made my world feel a little more real to me). I added three things to my to-fix list: (1) add more bits of confident yoongi, (2) add more yoongi character flaws (his willingness to surrender/give up), (3) add more yn character flaws (too trusting, overthinks, workaholic). I still felt like my main characters were Mary Sues (except Jungkook LOL). So I realized to make the audience sympathize with them and root for them, I had to make them seem more human by giving them notable flaws. 

I took a break for a couple of weeks and got back on track in the middle of May. On May 18th, the Lieutenant of the Solarian Army Kang Doyun was born. I didn’t really know much about her other than the fact that she speaks her mind and is a generally likable character. The same day I created her, I also decided that ultimately, she has to die. Originally, I planned it so that OC and Doyun do not know each other too well. That would make it easier for OC to take Doyun’s place as the Lieutenant when she dies. In hindsight, I realize that is definitely not how the military works—even in a fictional nation. But we’re going to let my past self be in blissful ignorance. [Which is why I changed it later so OC never becomes the Solarian Lieutenant General LOL.]

May 19th, Hana was born. She was created for the sole purpose of tripping up OC because she’s so similar to Hajin. Immediately, I knew I had to design her as a very likable character. In fact, I added to my to-fix list: make ALL characters more likable/complex. By the end of May, my original 24-page document became 71 pages. 

I worked on the document for three days in mid-June. Mostly, I was working hard to polish up the plotline; my goal was to slowly get rid of all the bullet points from my to-fix list. I worked on the document for one day in July—mainly to add to some important plot points. I think at that point, I thought I was basically done fleshing out the story.

Anyways, the rest of this journal is me doing a breakdown of each chapter I've written in LOD, which can get quite tedious, so I won't include that. Hopefully, this gives you a better background of how my idea came to be and knowledge of some of my pre-writing processes!

I began writing LOD after I settled into my college dorm, and three years later, I'm in my apartment still writing. I will most likely finish and wrap up this story when I soon after I graduate and begin working full-time

#ask #yoongijoon07 #lod #sorry this was so long but i hope i answered your question!! #i can't believe how many spoilers i had to take out LOL #it's cuz shit RLLY GOES DOWN in the latter half of act II LOL #and i honestly doubt anyone can predict what act III's gonna be about #tbh i don't even think act IV is all that predictable #the most predictable thing in this entire story (i'm hoping) is the fact that OC is Darlaean lol #since most of you figured it out anyways

[waterghostype]

what the water gave me by florence + the machine but it's jay and nya

But oh, my love, don't forget me When I let the water take me

im editing this post to put a fixed version here bc i dont like the one i posted but i kept it up for too long

#sorry anon i did nawt realize how long it took for me to do this request #and also sorry it is messy! this was very much an experimental thing since im still figuring out how i want to render #ninjago #nya jiang #nya smith #nya ninjago #jay walker #jay ninjago #jaya #ninjago jaya #seabound #aphid asks #anyways anon you are so correct this song is the most seabound core song ever #the art is jay falling into the water and nya saving him #whether or not he fell on purpose is up to you #theres tons of mistakes on this guy but ill live i think #i also had to crop this guy like crayzay #consider this a half rendered sketch #aphid artisms

[realbeefman]

stacy is sooo interesting because she's in love with house but knows that they will never ever be able to have a healthy, stable, sane relationship because they're too similar so. she finds house-lite instead and marries him and. essentially moves on with her life! and is successful in this because she's a moderately well-adjusted person!

wilson, in contrast, never manages to escape the inevitable, in spite of his best efforts to find a house-lite of his very own, because he's an absolute fucking freak and ends up glued to house to the bitter. bitter end

#yeah im too sleepy to revise this. UNFILTERED posting wooahh #some may b shocked but i do actually read thru most of my posts several times to make sure i didnt accidentally write mein kampfe 2 #recently ive come to the realization that i am in fact not an incredibly chill person #and that the constant paranoia and fear in which i live my life is actually PROBABLY a symptom of severe anxiety #like damn. ive always known that im pretty prone to depression but ive preetty much always been aware of that #my mom is a chronic depressive so i know the symptoms i know the signs i have a pretty good arsenal of healthy coping mechanisms #UNFORTUNATELY mommy's mental health problems did not help her not abuse me as a child #so i ended up being a terribly anxious kid who was constantly being screamed at and told i was overreacting (because i was. because i had #a severe anxiety problem that was making me react irrationally.) to everything all the time #which is you know. it is VERY difficult to deal with a mental health problem when you arent aware you have a problem! #its incredible how much. better. my life has gotten since i figured this out and started actively trying to work out what triggers it #and being able to like. realize 'oookay. there is an Issue here and it needs to be overcome' #instead of just beating on myself constantly for not being able to do things without feeling sick or getting breathing problems! #anyways. trauma dumping in tags is over now! #house md #hilson #greg house #james wilson #stacy warner

[hellspawnmotel]

terranigma, a cool game

#terranigma #terranigma ark #terranigma elle #terranigma meilin #art tag #im going to write a little review in the tags bear with me #first the negative: #the magic system is weird to use and basically useless apart from one boss thats almost impossible without magic #it has some weird racism like most old games where you travel around the world. a little more egregious since its supposed to be real earth #i found the main character to be slightly insufferable for about 3/4ths of the game. i came around on him by the end tho. he grows up a lot #and i found whats by far the largest section of the game (chapter 3) to be the least interesting #im not really into helping cities develop and trade quests tho so it might just be me #oh also it is STUPID easy to permanently lock yourself out of like 15 sidequests #and theres a lot of mandatory things that are really hard to figure out. you need to use a walkthrough for this #anyway thats what i didnt like #what i DID like tho. i dont want to get into too much detail but #its a genuinely beautiful game for so much of it #there were so many moments that left me speechless #its high-concept and thoughtful and fun to play #you dont really need to do much grinding either #at its worst its obtuse and cliche but at its best its breathtaking #and i really recommend more people check it out #special shoutout to my friend seona who modded my 3DS and downloaded a bunch of roms including this one #so in conclusion. terranigma is an underrated gem. play it if youre a 90s jrpg junkie like me #just have a walkthrough open also lol

[unopenablebox]

i admit that i find it a little bit frustrating how Wildly Astonished other antizionist jews act when i tell them my israeli jewish family have lived in the region since [some unknown length of time before 1800 when there start being records about it]

#and then they're like ''ohhh they're mizrahi!'' [connotation nonwhite‚ virtuously indigenous] #and i have to be like. no. it's just that‚ as palestine was in fact ottoman-administered greater syria for most of the last 600 years‚ #you could get there from other parts of the ottoman empire. such as the part of now-ukraine your ashkenazi family is also from. #it wasn't actually a hermetically sealed arab-only ethnostate that evaporated immigrants on sight. it was a pretty decent place to live as #a jew by at least some accounts. or better than the front of the hapsburg-ottoman war anyway which is where they were coming from. #i'm not sure who you think it's serving exactly to believe that there were literally no ashkenazim in the middle east before the 1st aliyah #however there were some. and this information does not actually threaten a modern anti-state of israel position like at all. #but since apparently you've constructed your new Diaspora-Centric Identity around the idea that 'palestine' and 'diaspora' #are the two mutually exclusive nonoverlapping regions and the former is ontologically a no-european-jews-allowed zone #i guess i can give you a minute to try to figure it out. #ugh sorry this is nothing it isn't anything. for one thing it's fantastically unimportant #and for another thing i don't know how to like talk about it in a way that doesn't make me sound at least kind of like im trying to justify #myself as being somehow less complicit or something. i mean i think my complicity as an american dwarfs the rest of it honestly but. #i just feel really insanely alienated where the rhetoric of my theoretically most closely politically aligned group is not really built to #like. accommodate the facts of my family history. #sorry. i have honestly no idea why im so obsessed with articulating this concept ive just been chewing on it pointlessly for days #box opener

[virsancte]

good days aren't easy to come by

#simblr #ts4 legacy #valentine gen 4 #fun fact for context on why i care so much abt him finally choosing to play the piano on his own #but it's gonna get Long so strap in #basically. the guitar he used to have had been with him since he was like...... my god. probably about 15 #he bought it at a yard sale for pennies from an older woman #it belonged to her late son originally and it wasn't even . supposed to be a part of the sale in the first place. she just took a liking to #devin and figured that really it's better in the hands of someone who would use it than for it to collect dust in her garage forever #and he couldn't really practice at home. his parents... are not exactly the kindest people you've ever seen #he was too afraid of them destroying or throwing it away so he'd sneak off to god knows where and learn how to play it from old #youtube videos on his busted up phone #it quickly became Everything to him. his most prized possession. and it wasn't a shitty guitar either. the son was a professional musician #that's how ellie and devin met in the first place. he was playing at the market she used to sneak out to in the evenings to #and she instantly knew . this boy is going places and really they might as well go together #enough backstory of the backstory. long story short: he was struggling to make rent eventually and was out of vinyls to pawn off #so he had no choice left. it was either that or he'd get kicked out along with his sister. who was still struggling a lot w/ addiction #so he sold it. and it broke him. he's literally just not been the same since losing it #his sister stole him a guitar from a music shop she'd go to sometimes but it just wasn't the same and he had not played an instrument since #until now anyway #still not a guitar. but maybe someday #or he can find his old one and buy it again......... #lmfao if you made it here congrats. you win nothing bc im broke but i do respect you

[cywscross]

You just don't think antis are a problem because they're not in your fandoms. Once they start making posts with thousands of likes accusing you of being a pedophile and threatening to find out where you live and work so they can report your pedophilic tendencies because you ship teenagers (shounen characters), you'll start caring very quickly. Not in favour of that happening to you? Cool, you're a proshipper.

The fuck

#just woke up to get a glass of water #checked my phone and saw this #took me a whole minute to figure out what was going on lmao #it’s way too early to argue and also I don’t care enough at five in the morning #I just want to ask since when the fuck does teen wolf not have antis #holy shit the amount of antis in this fandom even years after the dumb show is over #but anyway I think you’re missing the point #there shouldn’t be proshippers or antis cuz it’s so pointless #pretty sure that’s what op meant #and nobody should care so much about it that they’re attacking ppl over it like you said #cuz don’t like don’t read is like basic decency and common sense #and most ppl have a lot more real life problems to deal with #than caring about what someone else thinks about character A going down on character B or whatever the problem is #but literally nobody is saying antis aren't a problem #we're actually saying antis are ridiculous for making such a big deal about sth that really doesn't matter in the greater scheme of things #that’s my 5am contribution I’m going back to bed

[akkivee]

been reading people’s impressions of the guidebook’s contents and one commented that this verse in wink feels like a death flag for otome and ichijiku and i hate how i kinda feel that lol

#this is vee speaking #i was just going to ignore it all until i got mine but just like you can’t ignore jjk spoilers despite not being in the fandom #you can’t avoid spoilers of the actual fandom you are in LOL #i also checked out the profiles since those were updated and bat’s made me happy lol it’s more focused on who they are and trying to be #rather than some surface level stuff like ‘oh jyushi’s a narcissist!!!!’ and ‘kuukou surpassed his dad at 14!!!’ #like now jyushi’s aiming to be brave is included!!!!! and boy do i have thoughts about kuukou’s lol!!!!!!! #and hitoya’s profile shows he’s moved on!!!!!! great!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶 #the thing that had me most excited from the profiles was juto’s lol since i figured taking down chuuoku was his next step lol #that told me i was following juto’s trajectory well lol #anyway I HEARD WE GOT LIKES AND DISLIKES FOR THE WOMEN!!!!!!!!! #I WONT SPOIL ANYTHING MYSELF UNLESS YOU ASK LOL BUT I THINK ICHIJIKU IS ADORABLE LOL #i actually wonder if they got new profiles???? i don’t think the website updated with theirs lol 🤔

[cottageivy]

some ava outfits ive done recently (with a mini lore? dump? ish? about fucking CLOTHES in the tags lol)

#ava* #ts4 #these are their summer outfits #bc its summer in the technically present day if you wanna like assign a timeline or whatever #however present day has lasted a year so like that is a tentative title lmao #the top left one is one of her frog hunting outfits btw #i just couldnt add a bag with it bc of the headphones and they were such a vibe i just left it #interestingly enough they dont come out until like later in their teens? so canonically she wouldnt be wearing it this summer lmao #or maybe she would bc she kinda was just like. vibing in their sexuality yknow #she does kiss a girl long before she ocmes out so like idk #i also admittedly cannot decide their exact sexuality label? which is odd bc i usually have that known to at least me by now #especially since ive been brainstorming them a ton recently #much to think about #love how i figured out their gender/pronouns before sexuality lol #which was the opposite for me so maybe that has to do with it lol #anyways. summer outfits #she does get a little more put together ish in colder months? #but she really loves baggy tshirts esp in the summer so thats most of their wardrobe #also iher style does evolve in the fall-ish when she meets her best friend so #i still havent determined how exactly since im still working on their current style but #summer is a busy season for her actually #she catches a lot of frogs then and just kinda rolls out of bed and goes about their day #it does change slightly next summer when she like actually has a friend but this summer... very chill vibes #and i did try to reflect that in their clothes lol #anyways. im done now lol #ive just now hit a tiny groove with their style? like im figuring it out more so im excited to share it in relation to the 'story'

[turtlespancake]

i cant believe fontaine finally cleaned up its archon quest writing and learned to Actually Proper Balance its npc screentime with its playable character screentime. and yet. AND YET!!! THIS is the nation where i end up hyperfixating on the historical figures with no official designs.

#rambling #genshin #i am DANGEROUSLY close to speedrunning the “hyperfixated on a blorbo > loosely based in canon headcanons > 'thats just your oc'” pipeline #with the narzissenkreuz institute kids #im dying so much to see what happens next that im just making up shit in my mind functionally 😭 #if they wont give me more quest for like another month then i will do it myself 💥💥 #but actually they should take their time with the quests. my impatience is my own fault and should not be the basis for a rushed story #anyways. i cant believe they finally got solid playable character writing in the archon quests #and instead of hyperfixating on lyney who checks like. almost EVERY blorbo preference box of mine. #im obsessed with an oceanid world quest 😭 and some random journals #something something tragedy something something #i think i just really loved the intrigue and mystery of it all. slowly finding all the notebooks and piecing together #who did what and wtf went down #was SO satisfying. it was so cool to figure out #i was live reacting to the oceanid quest in a discord channel with some friends and you could literally SEE my thought process go from #“this quest boring as shit idc about oceanid roleplay” to “oh wait they're actually commenting on the nostalgia themes now” to #“HEY WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE THE NAMES CONNECT?!?!” #especially since when i started doing all that the wiki didn't have character pages for most of the narzissenkreus institute kids #beyond like one to two sentences #and so the moment i saw that rene's page was like an actual paragraph and mentioned the kvarnah quest i was like HOLY FUCK #anyways!!!! genshin's writing has been surprisingly good recently #but still. i cant believe they finally managed to get me attached to a random npc! a random HISTORICAL npc for that matter!!!! #inazuma and sumeru wishes they had that #i think another part of it is that fontaine has been good about giving its historical figures consistent personality and character voices #and also character drama! like there's a LOT to latch onto here especially since they're letting you see it firsthand instead of only notes #and since they've tied it back to the present in a couple of very obvious ways it makes the connections easier to latch onto #and also since there's less people to worry about #i still don't understand inazuma history tbh. there were too many damn people and they all blended together in my mind... #they all had like overlapping jobs too ueghhjk #“this guy was a master of [weapon] and died in the catacylsm” describes like at least 3 people who are only ever mentioned in artifact sets

[l0ganberry]

UPDATE ON THE WARLOCK STAFF (PART 2.5)

I was meant to do the "rainbow" fabric but I got stumped when I remembered that I didn't had any fabric to do that. Specifically thin ribbon-like cloth that would be wrapped around the staff, below the crystal.

To solve that, I decided to do some online shopping on Etsy to get the things I needed.

This is ribbon I ended up buying for the "rainbow fabric". (I'm gonna paint it with the fabric paint I already have.)

I got red LED lights for the crystal. (I haven't decided on how I'm gonna do the crystal. 3D printing is not my thing but I have been thinking of just doing moldable plastic? Maybe???? I might need some help on what to do to make my own crystal that looks like that.)

Then lastly (and for fun) I got the last of this type of yarn for the base of the crystal. So that way there's visual texture to make it look really cool.

#I'm really excited when I get this all done #other than cosplay #I might even use this staff for my d&d club #I'm already like the process so far but there's still a lot to do #So thank god I got Christmas money to get these things to make this staff really cool #I'm very serious about all of this if you can't already tell #but seriously #How does one make their own staff crystal?? #is it 3D printing? #moldable plastic?? #clay?? #glass?? #I'm glad that I know what it is now but still #the crystal might actually be the most difficult part out of all of this #but I'll try to figure it out since I'm already putting effort to this project #No way I'm stopping now #anyways #wh fantasy au #rambles #welcome home #project progress #art project

[liquidstar]

I'm working on my next oc set rn (as always) and this one is going to be the first, like, trinary guild to have more than 8 characters on account of twins sharing a spot lol

#they're actually replacing a different character i felt didn't really work well lol #my concern so far is to not design every single character to have a blue color scheme since they're naval themed #I'll have to like work around it for some. some blue as highlights maybe #shades of green or ourple #at least one character will have a red and orange color scheme and I don't want them to stand out too much also #I'll figure it out lol #anyway the secondary guilds have 10 characters. and the knights have 14. obvs the main one has the most at 31 #i feel like you can assume theres more members of those guilds beyond what i show. theyre just not all as relevant lol #bc having 30+ for a side side guild would be sort of pointless and detract more than add #but a lot of them are big guilds so. i think you can assume theres more than 8 that just happen to pop up around the main characters lol #also anyone who wants to play with ocs like dolls could make their own characters for those side guilds and it will not mess w the story #even come up w relationships to other characters and say we just dont see them for the same reasons. not relevant to the main bunch #bc even tho i have a lot of fun w the more gimmicky side characters focusing on them too much would take away from the main guys #thats part of why they have to be gimmicky to stand out too. not as much focus to give them like detailed backstories and hypothetical arcs #so you get the gist of them based on what their Thing is and they can stand out w that #like i dont want them to be too intrusive. but i want them to have character! #not just bland extras and all. if they were i wouldnt keep drawing these sets for them #i have too much fun designing them to do that! #anyway after this current set (cobalt heart) ill only have 2 left #and one of them is actually on the smaller side! the timber scouts only have 5 characters #w similar outfits so they shouldnt take as long i think? also 4 of them are children #then is tartarus which will probably take longer but im really stoked for them #especially pluto. and deimos and phobos and juliet (dumbass duo and their fucking babysitter) #i also have some solo characters i wanna do too #i for sure have to do the royals . and some historical characters maybe #but i want atlas to be the last one i draw. my insane guy who tried to claw his own eyes out because he saw it #i wonder what the next phase will be after i finish everyone tho

[lesbianmellori]

finally got the outfits i want for all my wizards mostly figured out!!! here they are in order of level

death -> life -> ice -> fire

#can you tell i really love the skyfarer robe since i used it twice #i got the fire one while trying to get the life one so it worked out pretty well and i figured id use it anyways #ignore that my death has poorly matching boots. i havent found a good replacement for them yet and theyre not the most egregious thing #also their wand. i need to farm for a good one but ive been so lazy about it #wizard101 #my wizards

[arolesbianism]

Ok no one asked but I've been tempted to make Jackie and Olivia stalien designs since I've been working on some new icons for the eternal gales stalien kiddos and it's been making me also think abt how disastrous it would be if they were in the same stalien society that the main cast are from because dear god would they either die instantly or make things so much worse. Even if they did get lucky enough to be able to be remotely near a position to found a stalien version of gravitas, no way in hell they'd be able to get far enough to even begin their own morally corrupt downfall before one of the other big companies forcibly assimilated gravitas into their own corporations and do the same shit but way WAY worse. Even if Jackie Was in a position to eventually climb the ladder enough to get to a more ceo position shed probably end up painting a target on her back way before she could get there, as her and Olivia's whole infinite power research would be very much unwanted by most of the ceo elders. Oh and Olivia would be fucked even beyond that because she's a biologist lol so at best she's going to be forced to drop every last one of her morals and barely scrape by

#rat rambles #oni posting #eternal gales #posts that will immediately isolate every last one of my followers rip the the recent oni followers sorry for the no context #anyways realistically olivia and jackie wouldnt be in positions of power just statistically and as such would be dead in their early 20s #well by their early 20s most dont make it that long #but assuming they ended up in jobs that sort of line up with their canon jobs theyd both likely be working at the convieor facility #aka where mason was supposed to work at and where dancer and helmet where both held as lil kids #and if you know anything abt that whole situation then you know that olivia and jackie are not winning in the job lottery here lol #now assuming that they stick to similar specialties olivia definitely has the more extreme shit to be stuck doing here since well. y'know. #but jackie might theoretically be able to luck out a bit and not be hands on in the surgons branch #she would probably still have to work with them but shed be more so in charge of collecting the data and deciding what to do with it #this means shed be more closely working with the twos boss for better or for worse #most likely for worse but yknow #olivia and jackie Could stand a chance at making it past the first culling checkpoint due to them being useful enough but thats a maybe #it mostly just depends on what direction they try to take their research and if it's smth their boss would take interest in #so less 'bettering society' and more 'making our lives specifically easier' #so no infinite power or at least not with any intent on wide scale application #if olivia could figure out the whole biolengineering thing somehow without ever having seen an animal then that could save her #one big issue that the facility is meant to be solving is the whole corpse crisis #aka stalien corpses dont rly decompose well especially without other wildlife to help #and as you might have been able to gleam there are a lot of corpses on these guys hands #so finding methods of body desposal is a big research point of the surgons branch #now ofc this research does indeed make more corpses but hey at least theyre smaller ones. iykyk. #anyways the main question for me when it comes to hypothetical jackie and olivia stalien designs is what color energy do they have #because usually I just go off eye color but they dont have canon eye colors so I could get more creative #also if I just go with my designs for them then theyd both just have red or yellow energy #which I could certainly work with but idk if I want either to be red and I dont want both to be yellow #plus red and yellow are technically both based in the same color energy anyways so it still feels unapealing #I could make jackie a pale purple or black varient and olivia a particularly dense yellow varient

[hua-fei-hua]

nice writer feeling is being able to read your own stuff from four-ish years ago and finding it's still pretty good. maybe not quite like how you'd write it today but definitely not painful to read

#花話 #was rereading diary entries from like 2020-ish last night tho i also read a bit of late 2019 #and stumbled across the entry from the time after i published my first ~lime~ lol n so in order to reflect back on my changing character #since then (i.e. currently working on. A ~*Lemon*~) i figured i'd read it #i also published that one anonymously for a while... it's kind of funny bc i expressed the same feelings then as the ones #that eventually contributed to my decision to publish anonymously for gnshn altogether #so like yeah fear of living in the shadow of my own bn/ha days forever; but having skimmed the like late 2019/2020 part of my life again #after the. Ordeal(tm) of my late 2018/early 2019. n stuff. and also the 'who would ever wanna read smth You wrote' thing from The Ordeal(tm) #it's occurring to me that perhaps... my bn/ha days were much more Marked by my late high school life than left Unmarked. if that makes sense #like i knew they were related n all like the resentment n jealousy n whatnot but looking at it now #the first year fresh out of Suffering is always the most fragile i suppose. which isn't smth i noticed then bc i thought i was Over It lol #anyway. learning to love one's own art is hard work but i'm glad to have put in the effort hehe

[run-down-that-dream]

#so. funny story bc I want to be a little melodramatic right now and I've earned it #this became one of my favorite songs back in 2018 ? maybe 2019 ? and it has been since #tom was not even a thought in my mind at that point in my life #when I found it. I had no idea #I loved stevie. she led me to tom. but not YET #but there's THIS. mike was right there this whole time akdhjsjs #and sometimes I wonder if we're kinda. Meant to find these people. our favorite people y'know #I didn't get that it was him back then but I figured it out through tom eventually. and you know what? #I couldn't be more grateful #I literally cannot express how grateful I am that I found him lol #so when I'm in the tags like aaaa I love him. and being totally annoying about it. (don't sugarcoat I know I am) it's REAL. #his music has been there for me and is more reliable than anyone I've ever actually met and I love it #and I'm just now realizing how much more his music has been there for me without me even realizing it at the time #ANYWAY. he's also possibly one of the most talented people ever in the world and no I don't take criticism on that #and it makes me sad sometimes that I don't really have a lot of people anymore to share that with #seems like once I stopped posting about tom all the time my blog kinda. died #so. I've been getting a little bit frustrated about it being the tom show around here #and I'm sorry if that ever came across or made anyone uncomfortable. not my intention at all #I just took it all a little too personally when I shouldn't have #kind of an.. isolating experience tho #aaand I don't remember where else I was going with that but enjoy the song akjshdjs #it's really good 💞 proud of my favorite guy #(as always 🙈) #did I mention most talented ever? #ok shhh I'm done