#but thats how im doing it for now! the story will obviously keep changing so i shouldnt get stuck on details rn

[lesbianwords]

i’m gonna be ambitious and try nanowrimo again this year!! i wanted to do it last year but i gave up pretty quick, i’ll try to take it seriously this time lmao

i’ll be working on “queen’s echo” (i’ve actually just been calling it “echo” recently) which used to be a lighthearted fantasy romance but has now become darker and horror-ish? idk if it’ll be that scary and i’m not really committed to the genre yet but there will be some horror elements i think. i want to just write it out and see what happens! basically the previous idea was like fun celebrity wedding planning shenanigans in a hotel that’s possessed (in a fun quirky way) but now the wedding happens in the beginning and the bride and groom die bc the spirit possessing the hotel actually possesses one of them and kills the other that way. so yea. the main cast of characters (who all work at the hotel) is pretty much the same the plot is just more unhinged

[thatneoncrisis]

Curious about your issues with the show!! I have my own ofc but always interested In more opinions

spoilers for like. all of the show el oh el

its hard for me to like. properly articulate on the fly but i think its primarily 1. a show that is genuinely trying to build a complicated structure out of the rusted metal and twigs that makes up LoL lore that gets overhauled every like, four years, so often times it feels like a character in arcane will get hard shafted out of a natural arc so they end up where they "should be" in accordance to their league counterpart.

strongest example i have off the dome is violet, where i think in act 1 of arcane shes a really intriguing and well crafted character whos sympathetic and has goals and values you can follow. and then they shunt her off to prison during the time skip and when she comes out shes like. everything she does from that point on just feels Tilted it feels like they gutted out all the parts that would have gotten me from A to Z wrt her going from scrappy kid in the lanes whos like. direct causes of terror and unhappiness in life were from enforcer. to a bitch who joins the enforcers. and its not that i dont think that turnaround is possible, i just dont think they articulated it well with such a truncated amount of episodes split between so many subplots

and then my main Thing 2. uuuh. this is more of like my own issues with this kind of story telling in general rather than an arcane specific issue that i will codify as "liberal progressives attempt to Both Sides the issue of apartheid in their magic story." the creators of the show emphasized that they wanted each character to be morally grey, differnt shades to them and the motivations contextualizing their actions. which is like, fair enough thats just good character writing but i dont think theyre particularly. great at that. especially when trying to marry it to my earlier point about how certain characters essentially have to invert to become their league analogs in some sense. also someone like ekko? not grey. hes just right? he doesnt fuck with enforcers and he doesnt fuck with the kingpin flooding the lanes with shimmer, he just wants to help the people suffering the most. stand up dude.

theres a lot of different levels to which this clashing between intent and execution falls flat for me in arcane but the one ill get into now is silco and vander. from an objective view its a classic story of two close brothers in arms driven apart by ideology/circumstance, weve seen it with professor xavier and magneto, it also reminded me of tchalla and killmonger although they dont have the childhood friends aspect going for them. but the point is its not like a unique idea. two people want to change the world for the better, one of them starts killing civilians about it, the first guy is like hey! maybe dont do that! epic fall out ensues.

and the story is cognizant of the fact that silco IS an antagonist: not just in the sense that he is opposing our protagonists goals, he sold out the children to the enforcers in the first act, he released shimmer onto zaun and keeps a stranglehold on the city with his circle of chem barons like he fucking sucks. and the whole time im watching im noting how his methods to "free zaun" are like, THE thing destroying it. the streets are rampant with nameless mutated homeless people hooked on shimmer he is directly responsible for. and i was kind of waiting for like. a shift within his circle. if that makes sense. obviously people like violet and ekko and caitlyn dont like him but they never did they dont have to be convinced, but to have someone who initially put all their trust into him as the guy to bring zaun into glory and then slowly have to reckon with the fact theyve propped up a mad man who has prioritized power in himself over the initial goal of liberating the city would have whipped ass.

and then it just didnt happen. theres this fascinating thing going on with silco where hes talking mad shit about the likes of vander, oh hes too softhearted, he will never do what it takes to truly ensure the safety and freedom of the lanes bc he cares too much about his damn babies. and then silco finds himself as caretaker of one of those babies. the show meticulously shows me how he cares for her, he softens for her, he lets her tinker in her silly cave all day and blow up cops with harley quinn bombs. so we have three main things to keep in mind with silco:

his primary stated goal is to free zaun from piltovers repressive rule.

his shimmer production is one of if not The thing actively destroying the lanes

he now has Baby, whos safety has become a growing priority for him.

this culminating in the finale where he is presented with the opportunity to hand her over to the authorities in exchange for zauns independence. now THIS could have been a really interesting internal dilemma for him. he is now faced with the exact choice that led vander to becoming "weak" in his eyes. whats one girls life in exchange for his dream finally becoming a reality. but its also an impossible thing to ask because thats his Daughter. so now hes risking scrutiny from his underlings for being wishy washy. ooh intrigue mystery. youd really need some time to steep on his agonies and what hes really willing to prioritizeat this point in his life

and then none of that happens bc hes immediately kidnapped and shot and never has to seriously consider it. he never has to SACRIFICE he always just. has everything he wants. forever. until he dies. powerful chem baron running the show with his army of teen supersoldiers.

another route i considered them being able to do is something more focused on him and sevika. she left vander to join his cause specifically bc she thought vander was weak. as his right hand, she would do anything for silco, including literally giving up her fucking arm when she saved him from the blast in act one. timeskip, now we see she has a fun new mech arm powered by silcos own shimmer, which we are shown the side effects of time and time again. i thought this was leaning into a metaphor about how her emotional dependence on him and his cause was being represented by a chemical dependence on shimmer. like its destroying her physically and mentally but she NEEDS it to work out to know it wasnt all for nothing so shell put up with whatever sketchy bullshit hes got going on, the ends justify the means. and we get like six detailed shots of shimmer being pumped directly into her body i thought for sure they were gonna be like oh this is fucking killing her, like a compound v situation

but shes like. fine. theres no side effects besides a cool scar. shes chilling.

i also thought her antagonistic dynamic with jinx was going somewhere. like if sevika noticed that silco was putting her above what needed to be done for the sake of liberating zaun, and noticing how it mirrored how vander became "weak" and getting that much more pissed about playing second fiddle to a 17 year old. like imagine you get that whole scene where sevika makes it look like shes gonna execute silco, then murders the chem baron who asked her to do it because she trusts him THAT much, then later she hears about jayce's offer to silco and sees him GENUINELY considering leaving the offer on the table JUST for jinx. sorry if i was her id snap. id go crazy id start a coup.

so basically what im saying is. lotta different options to make the characters richer and more grey as they struggle with what they really care about. but the story just kind of shuffles past them and then insists that the bonds were there the whole time you guys jinx and sevika are totally besties now shes a symbol of zaun <3

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

dont get me wrong i love the doctor and i enjoy big lore shake-ups or expansions but if you were to give me the show to run right now i think what i would do is make the seasons about the companion's world-shattering life-changing paradigm-shifting character growth/change/corruption

the doctor is 1) too big, and 2) one character. you start running into walls if you keep telling the stories through them (and by telling the stories through them i mean the driving emotional force from season to season being like,,,their emotional journey. hes alone, gallifreys gone, theres rose, loses rose, theres the master, god complex, he doesnt want to lose his companions, he doesnt want to break his companions, he doesnt want to corrupt his companions, gallifreys hidden, theres the master, the entire universe revolves around them. youre literally running into the walls of the universe here. youve reached the end (and if tv show theory is true im interested to see if that means we'll downscale the stakes after we've broken through these fourth walls))

if you make the narrative universe start turning around the companions (again? im not sure how much it did in classic who), then you open up your possibilities for stories youre able to tell bc as opposed to the doctor, you can keep getting actual new characters, who can vary a lot more in every conceivable way (and obviously we are diversifying if im running the show. nationalities, skin colours, religions, (dis)abilities, time periods, ages, and thats just the humans) which means they care about different things, they start in different places, end up in different places, they can have positive or negative character arcs but the point is that it's their emotionality driving where and when the story goes. youre freer bc youre not stuck with this character after their story ends. you dont need to keep the thing functional so the next showrunner still has a relatively stable jumping off point to write this same character we've been using for 60 years

it opens up the universe! we're running into the walls here but have we seen every corner of the universe yet? no! theres so much to explore even on earth even in one time that you'll never run out. we have not run out of stories we just kinda dont have doors to them bc the camera keeps pointing at the doctor instead of on the people around them

like sutekh is great and fun but why does it have to be the doctor fighting them? you know? personally. why does it have to be the doctor. it doesnt. i think the doctor should function more like the tardis in that this odd pilot-ship old married couple is giving our actual protagonists the opportunities for their stories. that we get to see. i love the doctor dont get rid of him but just like, alien him up on the sidelines. dont even rid him of his character arcs, but like, let his slow changes just slightly influence the companions' stories sometimes, instead of the other way around

and i love 13 obviously but it doesnt have to be the doctor with the timeless child story does it? you could change the names, set it somewhere else, and it could be someone else. sure you wouldnt get the whole thing with the master and i wouldnt want to lose that im not saying literally rewrite 13s era im SAYING. you could tell that story through a companion instead of through her

and i think thats the better choice. and thats what i'd be doing if i were given the show

[afanofmanyth1ngs]

Yellowjackets/IWTV Fanfic

So, about a week ago I put out a poll about doing a weird IWTV fanfic that's basically set in the Yellowjackets verse... And now I'm doing it... YAY!! but I do just want to come on here to basically throw around some things I'm going to do :P So this is going to be where I update people and just basically talk about how I'm going to do this, what my schedule is going to look like, things I need opinions on. This is more so a motivation thing so IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, please please please comment and follow along. I lose motivation quickly, but this is something I'm pretty dedicated to. but either way THIS IS HAPPENING.

______________________________________________________________

First things first. YES I have started working on it. Im not even close to finished with the first chapter because each chapter is going to be LONG. This is not going to be everything that happens in Yellowjackets happens in here, and not even close. Even as I started it... I will sometimes use direct quotes, but thats only if im stuck and cant figure out what im doing.

NEXT as I said this is not going to be yellowjackets word for word, but I will be using each episode as a starting point. scenes might mirror each other, and I will cut between scenes as they do in the show.

Some things that are automatically going to be different from Yellowjackets:

They will not be on a Sports team of any sorts. The one thing each character has in common, is that they all are passionate about one or more forms of art (ex: Louis: Photography - Lestat: Acting - Madeleine - Sewing and dress making and altering (not the right words sorry lol)) SO im having them go to an art school :P little bit of a long shot but not only is it just convinent for me because of all the art forms they like, but also I think it would be kind of cool for just normal (LMAO) IWTV kids who have never touched a sport in their lives to now have to like hunt and stuff... kind of Lord of the Flies with half of the kids being CHOIR KIDS core.

Theyre all gonna be in High school. i was like well im not aging them up cause what fun would that be, so lets just age them down and keep a whole bunch of that trauma and see what happens... and im not super far into the writing process but its working rn!!

Theyre crashing in the Alps. I have zero knowlege of the Alps whatso ever BUT i know i went over them when i flew to Italy so Im having them go to the Uffizi Galleries!!! and then BAM Alps. so get ready for some major inaccuratcies about that cause im gonna make them how they are in Yellowjackets... just in like Italy. Maybe I'll reasearch a bit more... dw about it its ok :D

As I said before each chapter is going to be LONG. so rn I have around 4ish scenes (ones not finished yet) and by the time I'm finished with those and edit it's going to be close to around 4,000 words I'm estimating... that's 4,000 words for not even a quarter of THE KIDS STORY LINE. on that topic, because each chapter is going to be so incredibly long, I've decided to split each chapter in about half. I was originally planning to do one chapter = one episode of yellowjackets but again it's going to be WAY too long, so kids' storyline, adult story line. I like that a lot too because a big pet peeve of mine is in stories where it keeps switching through times and then i get so lost and have to reread like 10 times to understand... LIKE PLEASE JUST SPLIT IT INTO A FEW CHAPTERS SO IM NOT CONFUSED

Last thing! Most of each character's backstory IS WORKED IN... so for example (A HUGE example) is for at least the first few chapters Armand will be called and referred to as Amadeo. Marius is his adoptive father who rescued him from some sex trafficking scandal or something and renamed him, before he eventually changes his name to Armand while out in the mountains. So, like obviously he's not going to get the name Armand from Santino, but you know... working in what I can :P

OK ACTUALLY LAST LAST THING: I don't know when this will come out... I have a deadline for myself and I'm certain I will get to it, HOWEVER I do not have access to the other Yellowjackets episodes, which is pretty crucial if I want to get into a schedule of posting each week regularly. As of right now I am hoping to get the first chapter out on October 3rd... Yellowjackets will be accessible to me AND then I'll be able to post a chapter on Halloween... YAY!! if that does not work out because the following chapters are taking too long and I release before I can make sure the Schedule is set, it will most likely be one of the Thursdays in October because I REALLY want to get one out on Halloween!!

OK!! hope you guys liked my little rant!! I'll keep everyone who's interested updated on here so if you want to be in the loop follow me (or don't! if you don't you can just check my page!) and again comments motivate me, so if you have any questions or just think it's a cool idea let me know!

[cajunfoxnight]

Hi really interested in this reconstruct Au!! Do you have more information about the story?

Oh Anon.. I hope you are ready for the can of worms you have just opened 😬

I should warn you tho, I am not the best at telling a story, and im worse at explaining one. However I also want to share this AU as its been something ive been working on for 8+ years, and while it is mostly a self indulgent Monster AU, full of stereotypical troupes and cliches, its also very important to me. I made this AU when I was not in a good place mentally and was using it as a way to cope with and express the feelings I was having at the time. Its changed a lot and truth be told its actually 2 story lines that combine to become 1 down the line. But for the sake of this ask, I will focus on talking about the Reconstruct backstory.

Anyway if youre still interested in what the story is about, then please continue reading! I will do my best to try not to babble too much but.. its going to happen anyway 😅

TW: So I should probably start off with mentioning that this AU does contain emotional and physical abuse, manipulation, and mention of body mutilation. Not that im going to go into the details of that here but thats just me covering my own ass :v At the point the story is at now, Gladion is much older than he is in the games/manga/anime. His actual age isnt fully known as the theme with this AU deals with time and interdimensional travel, so its hard to keep track of, but he appears to be in his early 20s. But for all intents and purposes he is an adult.

✨The story ✨ So the Reconstruct AU is something of a "bad ending" storyline.

So this story follows that of the canon for the beginning. Mohn disappeared when he fell through an Ultra Space worm hole that was opened, and his whereabouts are unknown. Lusamine still went into her crazy and Ultra Beast obsessed self, only concerned with youth, beauty, and keeping things as under her control as much as she can. Gladion steals TYPE:NULL and Lillie taking Nebby and running away. Lillie going to live with Kukui and Gladion joining Team Skull as their enforcer.

In this timeline, Lusamine, in her desperate need to have control of everything around her, decides that she will create her "perfect world" where she will surround herself with all of the things that she loves. A place where everything will be kept exactly the way she wants them, preserved for all of time, and where she wont ever be alone again. However she knows that she can not do this on her own, but knows who can. Someone younger, stronger, and already has knowledge about the UBs and Aether. Now the hard part is getting him to join her, but she has a plan for that.

Lusamine gets in contact with Guzma (as in this story he still "works" for her) and with the help of some choice words, a good sob story, and probably a fat check, she's able to convince him that she has changed and she wants help from him to convince Gladion of these things as well. Being that he and Gladion are so close, and obviously he trusts him so much, it shouldnt be hard for him to talk some sense into him, right? She does an amazing job at getting Guzma on her side, having him think that Gladion is just being a bratty, rebellious, edgy teen. After all, he comes from some nice rich family, could have anything he wants, and yet still chose to ran away, how bad could it have possibly been? Does he even realize how bad some of these kids have it? How badly HE had it?? So generally he thinks that Gladion is just over reacting/being dramatic. He doesnt know how good he's had it, obviously!

Guzma sets up this whole "ambush". He has Gladion come back to the shady house, getting him inside and cornering him in his room, where he is confronted by Lusamine. She puts on this big show of being the sorry mother just wanting her son back, going on about how she's changed and she didnt mean to do all of those horrible things and so on and so on. All she wants is them to be a family again, like they used to be, is that really so much to ask for? Gladion is already seeing right through this, he knows all of this is bs, but he cant seem to get anyone on his side. After all, the members of Team Skull never really liked him anyway and were only going along with it bc Guzma said so. Now with Guzma against him, he has no real back up. He cant fight back and he cant even escape. Despite his stubborn nature, he still cant overcome the hold his mother has on him after all those years. She very much has him between a rock and a hard place. So not having any other option, he is forced to go back home with her.

Once back home, Gladion's life is turned upside down as Lusamine does everything she can to keep him on a short leash. All freedom that he had is now gone, and he is constantly watched and monitored, its suffocating. Much like before, he's told how to dress, how to act, what to eat and how much, he cant even so much as get near a computer or phone without someone questioning him. He cant even bring out any of his pokemon bc Lusamine has deemed most of them "too dangerous" to have out all under the pretense of doing it for his safety. The only pokemon he's able to have around him is his Umbreon, and even then, she's given a electric collar that keeps her within the property of the house, so no chance of her running off in the middle of the night or anything. While Lusamine insists that shes not keeping him there against his will, she assures him that he's allowed to leave whenever he'd like. Tho she also warns him that if he leaves, then Lillie will be taking his place. She will not be left with an empty nest. Truth be told Lillie probably would have been the easier choice between the two, she also knows that Gladion would do anything to keep her safe. So using her as leverage is how she keeps control over Gladion.

One day Lusamine casually brings up about the "Reconstruct Project" to Gladion (keeping its details very vague), mentioning its something he could help her with, as she thinks he would be interested, He shuts it down saying that he wants no part of whatever she's doing. Lusamine doesnt prese the issue, only expressing disappointment that he wont even consider her offer, but she wont force him. Rather she doesnt want to force him as she wants him to join her willingly. (Even if "willingly" means she'll force his hand) She needs him for this Project. Gladion may be stubborn, but she is so much worse.

After their initial conversation, things only got a lot worse. While he had few freedoms since all of this has started, those are gone now. He becomes cut off from his Pokemon, from the outside, he hardly has a moment of peace where he doesnt feel like he's being questioned or ordered to do something. He really is like a prisoner in his own home (well, a place he once called that). His sanity is being chipped away at, and it comes down to 2 options. -He can either join onto this Reconstruct project, whatever it is. Not knowing what fate could await him or what Lusamine as planned, but at least he'd have a chance at having some sense of a life back and limited freedom.. -Or he can live the rest of his life as Lusamine's puppet, having no freedom or will of his own (<-which is also another story of its own). His life will practically be on auto pilot, forever chained to Aether but never having a say in anything.

It takes some time but eventually Gladion does break, and asks to join the Reconstruct Project, even tho he still has no idea what it is, but anything is better than the life he is living now.

Lusamine is absolutely delighted by this news! And almost instantly, life then turns around for Gladion. He finally is given back some freedom, if not more than what he had before. He is able to move around his home without question. He gets to eat more and better than he did before, putting on some much needed muscle. He's even getting a chance to walk around outside and around the property without having some kind of chaperone. Lusamine even invites him to join her at Aether to over see some projects that they are working on as well as helping with pokemon there. She lets him join her in outings in town, taking him to eat and so on. She's essentially love bombing him, and he hesitantly accepts. All the while this is going on, he still does not know what this Reconstruct Project is bc he cant seem to find any information on it, like it almost doesnt even exist. Whenever he asks about it, Lusamine either skirts around the question or tells him that then only thing he should be concerned about is being in his best physical condition as possible. She assures him that it'll all be worth it, and shes going to give him what he's always wanted: To be stronger. But in order to that, he's going to need some "upgrades. None of this does well to ease any concerns or fears he has, but he's already gotten this far, and he doesnt want to risk going to how things were before so.. whatever it is, he's in it for better or worse. Gladion undergoes a very extensive surgery, with about 80% of his body being "Reconstructed" (hence the name) from the ground up. Its some time later that he wakes up from a induced coma and when he does the reality of what has happened to him is made clear. He is no longer human, or rather, not completely. His body a patch worked mess, a terrible jigsaw amalgamation of human and (shiny) Silvally. Lusamine delivered on her promise to make him stronger, even if she left out the finer details of it.. So that is the Reconstruct story line, or the start of it anyway. From here the story follows along with Gladion changing his name to "Reconstruct" as he has convinced himself that who he once was is no longer him. That part of him died long before it got to this point. His job is that of a glorified errand boy and protector of Aether. He mostly travels through Ultra Space and to different worlds/time to gather up UBs for Lusamine so that she can create her "perfect world". He travels through the worm holes with the aid of an altered Dusk Mane Solgaleo who has been fitted with pieces of Necrozma Armor, that acts a lot like NULL's inhibitor helmet. While its an odd life and something he would have never imagined for himself. He is still very much tied to Aether, at least in this way he has some sense of purpose and freedom. Tho in his time of traveling he has seen much, including other versions of himself (Gladion) living out lives that he knows he could never have, being with people that he cared about, knowing that he cant ever go back to how things were. He's very lonely, bitter, and jaded at the world and others. He's closed off, quick to anger, and untrusting of others. His only real reason to keep going despite everything thats happened is bc of Lillie, as knowing that at least this way he can still protect her. He is content enough to live the rest of his life like this. Even if he has to do it alone. Trying not to think about what might happened when he finishes his mission.. but, well, life certainly has a way of surprising you. And that is the story! I admit that I am going to be very surprised to know if anyone actually read all of this, but if you did please know you have my many thanks and my apologies 😅

[esosage]

Just had a bit of an au idea. Idk if its an au, since its still the characters from the movies only they get transported into another universe, but still.

(Also, this is just an idea, nothing here is concrete. Some parts are still not finished quite yet.)

So how this universe works is that everyone has "rolls." These rolls being fictional archytypes, aka "the hero," "the main villain," "the side kick," "the damsel in distess," ect, ect. Now, each roll has a main objective. The main villain wants to conquer the world, the hero wants to stop the main villain, stuff like that. How you do it is irrelivent, getting there is all that matters.

Im thinking this world kinda revolves around stories, and the creation of them, but i still need to figure out how that would work. (Im thinking its kinda like shrek where a bunch of fairytale characters are thrown together into the same world, except the fairytale's are being made while everything plays out.)

Overall though, the world is very fantasy themed.

Now somehow, and idk how yet, stone, robotnik, and sonic get transported to this world. Each getting their own role and objective, with them needing to complete it in order to get back home. Not sure how completing it allows them to get back home, but i'll figure it out. Maybe they fucked with something they shouldn't have, and the price for it was needing to craft a story/fairytale in order to return, idk. Either way they need to do it.

So, as for their roles and objectives: Stone gets cast into the role of the main villain. He has two objectives, to 1. Conquer the neighboring kingdom (although thats subject to change,) and 2. To keep the damsel in distress to himself, forever. Of course, as the main villain, he has them captured already. But, when stone came into this world they were already captured for him, so he has never met them.

This is very important to note, because the damsel in distress, is robotnik. Honestly, i just made him the damsel on distress for shits and giggles, (and because hed look sick as hell in a wedding dress,) but its also semi important story wise.

As the damsel in distress, robotniks main objective is to "escape his roll as prisoner." Not to escape the castle, but to not be a prisoner anymore. Obviously, being a very litteral person, robotnik takes this as needing to physically escape.

Anyhow, sonic is important because he's the linch pin here.

You see, in order to escape, they have to complete their main objective: But, completing the main objective only returns the person who completed it home. So if robotnik were to escape then he would return home, however, since stone failed his quest to keep robotnik as his prisoner forever, he would be trapped in that world forever since he cant finish his main objective with robotnik gone. This naturally puts stone and robotnik at odds, even if they dont want to fight, but this is where sonic comes in clutch.

Sonic's roll here is "the evil henchman." Meaning he works for stone and helps stone. but, since stone's busy conquering the neighboring kingdom, he also looks after robotnik and makes sure he doesnt escape.

this is an important position for him to be in since his main objective is to "get the damsel in distress, and the main villain married, withought telling them his objective." If you were wondering, this, is why robotnik and stones objectives are so vauge. Its so that each of their objectives can be completed through marriage. Because Robotnik isnt a prisoner anymore if he marries stone, and stone has technically kept robotnik forever if he marries robotnik.

The only problem here is that sonic cant tell them his objective, otherwise, he fails it. Meaning he has to get them together in secret, which is harder said than done.

So while robotnik and stone (once they meet) are freaking out about how their going to complete both of their objectives.. with robotnik straight up avoiding stones proposed plan to sacrifice himself: sonic is in the backround loseing his mind over trying to get these two idiots to just KISS ALREADY!

Anyways, i might talk about more of the ideas i have for this au, because i do have more. But eh, idk. Depends on how motivated im feeling to flesh this out.

[bumofthewild]

what are your thoughts on the stormblood characters. did you like fordola at all

i wanted to organise my thoughts (oxymoron) on the sb chars actually so this is a good opportunity to start. none of my thoughts are positive though bc i think sb's writing is really bad so when i probably start to sound aggro during this while remembering this expansion i'm sorry.... i try not to be mean when criticising things but i have very little respect for stormblood. also this is about to be extremely long like im not kidding but i figure ppl expect that by now? i hope

i can't really talk abt the stormblood chars without mentioning how much this expansion worships whiteness. and thats even after playing heavensward????? with all of the stuffy white (though beloved) elves who love their white elf history??? fantasy rpgs in general ig. and from square enix. idk why i was so shocked by sb... its a fantasy rpg from square enix....that was truly my bad...................

but fordola isn't who bothers me the most anymore at least. while i was playing sb she used to be the worst sb character to me bc i just thought she was silly and hard to take seriously. initially i was just uninterested in her personality solely being a traitorous attack dog for the empire. that's not to say i don't think sellouts are interesting--i actually think characters like that are very interesting, hence why yotsuyu is one of the more interesting chars (but not by much). it's more that i dont think a single stormblood character was doing anything interesting enough for me to really appreciate, or if they were, it went nowhere or was so poorly developed that any new thing i learned about a character felt random. i feel like anything that could have been interesting in sb was squandered constantly. a lot of them had the potential to be interesting, but were instead so bizarrely flat and almost kind of cliche that i genuinely struggle to put it into words how sb managed to achieve this. possibly bc the story was so preoccupied with repeatedly driving home the same uncomplicated ideas about war and oppression (this would require a separate post) that any sort of actual personality was more or less lost? maybe because it didn't really have a foundation it was working from to keep itself focused? i feel like a lot of time would pass with the characters making the same realisations over and over again (we have to defeat zenos...!) and then when it came time for actual developments it had to rush, thus the feeling of being random. of course, unless, the character was from othard, which the game obviously gave more of a fuck about developing as a location.

like i think fordola's really serious and unwavering personality, the fact that she would do literally ANYTHING to accomplish whatever it is she wanted, could be interesting. if there wasn't so little else going on with her. and also that unlike her fellow ala mhigans she's white. i can't stress how ridiculous it was to watch her or lyse be presented as so important/be the more relevant ala mhigans and everyone else is brown and they're just white. but it wasn't only that she was white. there was just nothing else really going on with her whenever you saw her that provided any kind of intrigue or texture to her scenes. nothing about her character ever changed. until they reveal her motivations for joining the imperials (????)

ok anyone can correct me if i'm wrong, but her goal is to free the ala mhigans from the imperials.....?????? like i'm 100% sure that's what she said. but how does upwards mobility in an imperial nation that relishes in using the word "savage" to describe your people seem even remotely like how that's going to happen? i actually could not fathom for a long while that was what she had said. like i fail to find another way to describe this aside from idiotic, and i often try not to consider things in those terms, but i really don't know how else to describe this. like. this is what i mean when i say the backstory for the characters feels so poorly constructed it genuinely feels random. nothing about her behaviour to me suggested she gave a fuck about ala mhigo. it didn't turn out to be some grand farce when she had her skulls or whoever stomping on the brown guy who they collect dues from in the middle of the road the first time she was introduced. so i just have no idea why that's what her goals are or how i'm meant to believe that's what she wants. i have no idea why she would care about ala mhigo except that her father does or something? but that explained so little to me bc it was lazily done and she definitely does not demonstrate any resolve re that memory except for the one time you see it so okay

similarly, nothing suggests to me that she's deluded enough to believe this path she's on will lead to freedom, either. she didn't seem unaware of the cruelty of the imperials. she's actually meant to seem very capable and smart considering she's established her own unit amongst the other garleans and ends up getting the apparently desirable prize of being zenos' little pogchamp but then what???? why does she think that zenos will give her what she wants?? i literally do not understand what her angle is supposed to beeeee

so i considered the angle that what she said is actually not what we're meant to believe and we're actually meant to extract from the story that she's on a revenge quest for her father against the ala mhigans, and the best way to enact that would be to join the side that's oppressing them. except how she's expressed her motives and how the game makes it clear shes carrying on her father's beliefs for a better ala mhigo doesn't really imply that this is out of revenge either? also she'd be doing the exact same thing yotsuyu is doing, which could be possible bc this expansion can't write. but i just don't think that's it. i think if she truly believes that's what will help ala mhigo like her father did i don't care about it being wrong or right and whether she learns that won't work... but then it just seems so silly.......like girl there is literally no way..................... i am stumped trying to think of what this was supposed to mean or what insights her character could possibly be providing aside from the extremely banal "everyone deserves forgiveness" argument stories about colonialism are OBSESSED with trying to make. hmm i wonder why that is, square enix japan? why cant you properly research colonialism? why is media so obsessed with sympathising with colonisers and pretending its even remotely original to keep saying "if we kill this imperialist...we're just as bad as the people who have been systematically oppressing us for decades...." well...!!

im ngl i actually forgot about fordola until u brought her up bc post-sb really seemed to be gearing her up for the aforementioned redemption arc. but then i forgot how much ala mhigo gets pushed aside to put the spotlight back on doma. bc after she helps you fight sri lakshmi (another character who they just had to make white btw despite the vira/qalyana being brown bedlah babe snake women. they worship a white god. whatever i hate my life) she just vanishes. i thought that was maybe the most interesting thing they did with her character even despite my hatred for lazy redemption arcs for colonialists and cheap backstories about dead parents, bc i liked that she wasn't forgiven and that she herself didn't seem to know what was in store for her own life anymore, but stubbornly chose to help everyone fight and was still really driven despite all her L's. and then you just never see her again. as far as i can tell anyways, and i do not want to know actually bc im still in shadowbringers.

in a parallel world where stormblood is well-written i see myself liking fordola a lot. but this is not that world and i can't keep spending my time imagining a world where sb could be good. like... she just lacked a foundation that really made any of her actions make sense to me. was i meant to feel bad her dad got stoned for selling out to garlemald? i'm not being sarcastic i genuinely dont know if thats what the game wanted. i assume it is bc this entire expansion reeks of endless humanisation for white characters, but ive said the writing is so bad as to leave me genuinely confused abt its purpose many times already.

anyways the absolute worst waste of a char to me is zenos. i haven't had such a hard time taking a character seriously in a long time, and asahi gets introduced shortly after so competition was definitely fierce. i think part of it was that he was one of the few chars id seen fanart of b4 i got to him in the game which gave me the impression he was going to be insightful or something, so maybe i had given myself expectations. but ultimately i was left with maybe the most simplistic main villain this game has produced thus far. which is a shame, bc like fordola there's aspects of his char that i found really interesting, only for them to be routinely squandered with each new cutscene. initially i thought his disinterested, calmer demeanour was interesting in comparison to the other imperial chars, like gaius, who had a lot of thoughts about/passion for what he was doing. i like characters who feel a sort of existential boredom...like a real dead inside char who discovers a sort of esoteric way to live or regains meaning thru someone else--i love that trope! wanting to forever be locked in a cycle of violence with wol. sure. why not! i like that sort of thing! i was even willing to ignore the blonde hair and blue eyes (i wasn't) like i've done this before as someone who used to devote a lot of time to dimitri fe3h. this is not new to me.

but the thing is the moment zenos started talking about the thrill of the hunt i felt something in me wither and die. that trope is not interesting! i will never find it interesting!!!!!!!! if you do i'm happy for you but not me. his nihilism could have been interesting if it wasn't manifesting itself thru the subjugation of the fantasy brown people this game invented just to subjugate like...can we be serious. even just the scale of that was so beyond moronic to me. i had such a hard time suspending my disbelief whenever he opened his mouth... that i was supposed to care about this prince who was deathly bored of it all but somehow still gave a fuck about maintaining the occupation and fetishising the struggle? it was so hard to reconcile any of what he said with his actual apparent years of behaviour. like okay, i already know whiteness is synonymous with violence and ppl are unwilling to take that seriously, but seeing that realised in the sheer scale of colonial violence zenos apparently engages in and then for him to turn around and be like grr i'm gripped by such potent ennui and this is really deep. what about this was supposed to be complex or interesting or well-thought out. i genuinely have no clue

what made it even funnier (worse) to me was that before i got to stormblood i was back at home watching my dad play two separate video games where the main villain was a white guy with the exact same motivations: everything else in life now bored them except for this very specific (and not socially constructed at all apparently!) thrill of hunting real people/framing life as some social darwinist thought experiment that definitely has to be true bc look at how many ppl ive killed and conquered? what's left for me in this life now that i'm at the very top of the very real and not invented and not racist social pyramid.........? but it's not just a me thing humans are just like violent and actually love killingand i am very smart <- like how is this not just a blatantly normalised concept in life in general. nothing about zenos having this outlook reads as crazy or interesting to me, it actually just feels monumentally simple. he was just reading from the coloniser textbook. my sis actually told me while we were talking about the game that there's a book called "the most dangerous game" where i'm assuming this trope as it exists in media probably stems from, if not just the like usual racism/unfortunate fascination with imperialism over and over and over and over again. i just...that his thoughts on the consequences of his actions, the sheer amount of conquest he's engaged in, are largely due to some fatalistic boredom that comes from just being way too strong and too powerful and elevated above the savages. like okay dude.

i think if they had just removed that shit (except idk if thats possible the colonialism is so entrenched in this expansion bc ff couldnt conceive a non-white race without oppressing them) then his character would have been a lot better......maybe..? idk all that shit he says to you before he goes shinryu mode about violence or his being self-serving wouldn't have been original but at least it'd have been a lot easier to believe as his ideology without this nonsensical pile of bodies behind it that i literally could not take seriously. his final monologue was hard to sit through bc it all felt so random. my sis also pointed out that he doesn't feel relevant to the story, especially ala mhigo's story, at all, and i genuinely agree. i feel like they must have had a lot of ideas for him separately and then shoved him into this expansion because they needed a strong villain or something to keep their already thin plot running. with other villains you can see where they get their ideas from or why they're doing what they do and how their actions might progress the story. gaius for eg is a char i find really interesting bc i thought his opinions on primals in arr which is about primals was really interesting, and his conceptions of an ideal empire as well. like he actually has a leg to stand on and compelling things to say. nidhogg is also a good enemy to me, and i dont care so much for thordan but i still think he had interestingly selfish motivations and contributed ideas to the story. maybe that's because hvw didn't wallow so much in a simplistic good vs. evil like stormblood did...like hvw isnt just war its revising centuries of propagandized history and learning to change your own beliefs and going thru a lot of interesting discomfort (to put it mildly). stormblood i thought tried to be complicated at times when for eg meffrid (one of the only chars i liked in sb btw) would occasionally argue with lyse on what's "right" for occupied ppl to be doing during their occupation, like how a lot of ala mhigans wanted to keep their head down. you can see where that idea gets used throughout sb like in namia, but it never actually gets complicated into something worth thinking about bc again the chars are constantly reachign the same realisations over and over by the end (we have to kill zenos...! ANDTHEN THEY DONT EVEN FUCKIGN KILLGHI). like the ideas don't go anywhere, which might be for the best bc in my perfect world this game would not be writing about any of this. and now meffrid is dead bc ff doesn't give af about the ala mhigans or developing their thoughts/beliefs beyond the occasional potentially interesting idea on the map dialogue. atp i just feel blessed zenos doesn't have a backstory so that his personality isn't the result of some lazily done traumatic event. well i say that but the game couldn't even keep him dead so fuck my life. who knows what's in store for me. plz dont tell me.

all the thoughts i have are negative i'm so sorry but the chars i actually liked like gosetsu just get ruined by the time post-sb gets its evil evil hands on them so this expansion is genuinely just dead to me. i used to like gosetsu a lot, and i thought the shame he carried with him for abandoning hien a long time ago was a fun addition to his character. one of my favourite tropes is when a character just wants to die...like they feel like they've emotionally exhausted themselves and don't know what to do with the end of their life. i find that kind of thing really poignant. and i'm pretty satisfied w how they wrapped up his arc, actually, with him deciding to go on a sort of pilgrimage. it was just how they got there i absolutely hated.

it just keeps going back to an inability to write. for eg, if what they wanted was to complicate gosetsu's character by demonstrating how someone extremely self-sacrificial and devoted to his country's cause could actually really want to indulge in something, they choose to do it by having him play an uncomfortable game of house with someone who's murdered an innumerable amount of their country's people. but its okay bc instead of giving that idea any meaningful thought, here's a throwaway line about how he had a granddaughter so it makes sense he's doing this, also we're going to age regress the coloniser so its okay she's basically a child now which isn't a total slap in the face for everyone involved including the player, and then we're going to play these scenes for laughs and everyone is totally fine with it and it's not lazy writing at all.

asahi too i thought was an example of just poor writing, bc why is a single almost zero-context scene of zenos saving him supposed to do anything to explain his behaviour. does that not just seem lazy? he doesn't like zenos for any other reason...? we don't see asahi's thoughts on zenos except for this one cut scene where the chars could be replaced with how meaningless it is and then from then on his suddenly passionate behaviour is just supposed to be engaging...? i personally thought he was a lot more interesting when he seemed to genuinely believe in the bullshit he was saying about the empire being gracious and forgiving and rubbing his hands obsequiously at wol and being overly flattering and just a sort of greasy spoiled bastard. but then of course this totally obvious reveal happens and he's just some "crazy" guy who just wants to be his coloniser's lapdog bc he's sooooooo strong. fascinating. post-sb felt like a bad tv drama. its like the ideas in somewhat isolation are alright but they just stopped caring

tbf to asahi i did like his moments with yotsuyu. if they weren't so steeped in like....the weirdest plot points ever (random-ass yandere behaviour and yotsuyu behaving like a child) i would have been a lot more invested in the punishment they enacted on their parents for grooming one to be an imperial officer and the other being sold off. yotsuyu's backstory is still kind of typical but i thought she was like. interesting enough. she was ok. i could believe in/enjoy their callousness a lot more readily than a certain other character ive already said too much about. i think their truly awful sibling relationship had potential. dare i repeat myself about what happens to potential in this expansion

i wish i had more to say about hien and yugiri and lyse but they kind of just...idk. they just feel kind of shallow......... i don't think they really get developed much, i mean i definitely have things to say but there's just nothing really there that inspires me to do so and this post is already way too long. maybe when i finally write like an essay on how mjuch i dont respect stormblood. i like yugiri though. her hometown is very cool but she just gets relegated to "dutiful ninja" that they use when something needs to be done that wol isnt going to do, and they don't go into much detail about what really pushed her to leave or how exactly she felt, they just kind of have her parents tell you thats what she did. i liked the part though where she was like WE NEED TO KILL ZENOS RN bc it suddenly seemed out of character almost but then well where did that go...ok. hien just feels genuinely evil to me like his vibes are so off and i could not tell you why but he's kind of just there to move the plot forward so i really don't have much to say about him. and talking about lyse would just make this post even longer and more hateful. i used to really like her too.

time for something positive...? i really liked the azim steppe when it wasn't being so randomly misogynistic. that was where i was most interested in what was going on bc it had less to do with the war, but then you bring the war to them so...*screaming*. like it's a shame to me that the xaela are still framed by a focus on war, but the dotharl's concept of rebirth and the other practices the different groups had were maybe the most interesting things to me in the entire expansion. also how gosetsu had that moment with one of the dotharl warriors who died without it being some weirdly ignorant clash of beliefs. i liked that part a lot. sadu and magnai and cirina arent developed enough for me to have much of worth to say about them rn bc like yugiri and hien they kind of just become channels for the story, but at least they have a lot of personality and there's a lot to work with. also its 2am. i'm hoping to have more ideas re the xaela when i get around to doing the sidequests in that area, which i think will help me round out their characters more. i called cirina having a thing for hien from like a mile away btw bc this game is so unserious. anyways i think there should be like a spin-off about sadu magnai and cirina and if it doesn't come to exist soon i will grow like ten extra hands and make it myself

[fel117]

I NEED HELP WITH MANIFESTATION!!!

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ HIII this is like my first post ever on here!! i wanted to just yap and rant a little here about my stories and stuff here because i think it would be fun and everything and maybe there will be someone who can somehow relate to anything i say! no pressure well i basically kind of need help?? with manifestation SO THE THING IS im seeing my friend in june and im so nervous because i feel not ready at all, and yes, its just a month and i know and i believe i can do a lot of things to improve myself in that time, literally hop on higher stages of myself and become better yknow?? and achieve my goals and everything. one of my goals was also to manifest some physical appearance stuff because not gonna lie i never succeeded to manifest something big about appearance stuff even though i was regularly trying, affirming and all that stuff for it which made me so unmotivated because i couldnt manifest simple things like that as others do. after some time i kind of gave up with manifestation, now im getting back to it!! and im more than ever motivated to accomplish my goals (at least try to and be consistent with it) i noticed how i was comparing my manifestation to others manifestation and all that stuff and i believe there is a lot to fix about my mindset and all that kinda things i cant lie that im not nervous about the meeting i have in june (btw keep in mind that im not seeing regularly the friend im meeting there and i just wanted to yknow look awesome feel awesome and everything!!!) BUT MAN......i got horrible haircut. and maybe more like, not like its actually horrible but it just doesnt suit my face you know?? and im not quite used to having haircut like this, it just doesnt suit my face AND TRUST ME IM REGRETTING DECISION ABOUT CUTTING MY HAIR SOOOO BAD LOLLLL i wish i could reverse time or something FR the thing i want to manifest is obviously hair growth, like really rapid hair growth, and hair volume and all that stuff since lately my hair is just falling out like crazy and nothing seem to help?? LIKE HELP IDK and i definitely want to change my face features and all, i always struggled with baby kinda face and i know some people might say like ahahha baby faces are cute YEAH MAYBE THEY ARE TO YOU but i personally feel really bad with having one and i feel like puberty is not hitting me at all and my face just doesnt change how it look so i definitely want to try manifesting to change my face and make it more attractive!!! thats the main two things i want to focus on right now!!! though im not sure what to do to fr manifest it?? i mean i know that im the one who makes the rules about my manifestation and that its easy but seriously im seeing all those success manifestation stories and im like whaat how do they do this?? and btw if someone has any methods and tips please spill some because its really useful I SWEARRRR i want to get a total glow up or whatever you call it and manifest my desired appearance changes because i just really want to know how it feels but also because its part of my goals!!! im just quite unsure how to do all of that stuff because so many things didnt work for me in the past that i feel like its impossible for me to get results or something okay thats it for my little rant, also i feel just by letting this out i realized i might have some potential limiting beliefs and blockages that might be stopping me from getting results AND YK ALL OF THOSE THINGS!!! if someone read this THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!! and have a nice day or nighttt!!!! BYEBYEBYE <3

[acaciapines]

hey! for the fic ask game: 3, 5 (for the wolf 359 daemon au), 8, 38 and 42?

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

somebody being a least a little bit nonhuman <3 but more broadly i really like writing about human/animal dynamics, both in the nonhuman sense obviously, but also even in my daemon aus--what do humans say about animals? how much is true and how much is just something humans have put onto the animal, rather than what the animal is?

i also think i write a lot about grief, and the ways grief and trauma both can manifest in ways seen as 'unpalatable.' how youre supposed to survive these sorts of things, and how a lot of times the answer is that maybe things dont get better, but they do get different. ie i have a lot of bittersweet endings and i dont think that'll ever change.

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about [insert fic]? Answer it now!

oooh ive always hoped somebody would ask what the hell doug-nix and miranda-alphaeus would get up to after the epilogues, 'cause this never got in there (i dont think at least), but i've always had it in mind that they move out eventually! get a place of their own, which would leave minkowski, hera, jacobi, and sometimes lovelace whenever she stops by living together.

i just feel like. miranda and doug are outsiders to that crew, yeah? neither of them remember the people they once were, so. might as well try making something new and better together.

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

this one is particularly topical 'cause a song is actually the inspiration for the current fic i'm writing! grand canyon by the wind and the wave. literally such a frisk and chara song, ALSO a really good roadtrip song, so ive meshed those together and now im working on a post-pacifist chara&frisk centric roadtrip fic! coming out....idk. may probably.

i also think twelve feet deep by the front bottoms could make a real fun onesided dessriel fic. something about 'i get left out of every plan they make / that is what i have to do / to be the only kid from highschool who is still in love with you' REALLY gets to me.

38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful?

i think the one that surprised me the most was garden of earthly delights, which was my madoka magica daemon au. seeing as its been Forever since anything madoka has come out (plus daemon aus are Not popular anymore lol), i didnt know there was still an active fandom there, but there WAS, and all my commenters were amazing and lovely and it was so fun seeing everyone trying to uncover the mystery in real time!!! if i had to guess WHY it got popular, i think i'd guess it was the aspect of mystery...something to keep people coming back and commenting!

42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?

the comments that always stick with me the most are the people who come to tell me that it was my fics (usually either i know im not well or alterhuman) that either helped them feel SEEN as otherkin/therian, or helped them discover that this was a thing they even could be. i think thats been one of the most rewarding things about sharing those stories. theres not a whole lot out there in the ao3 otherkin tag, yknow? and it makes me so happy to know i've been able to help people.

[fictionfixations]

talking about past me playing hsr cause. idk i like talking.

since im not sure if im going to be doing much with her so brr

(ive seen full quantum teams and now i get how they work but idk if id ever do so since i prefer playing my favs ngl, and any weaknesses i dont have on my main team i can switch in with a support [as in someone else's] so. any story bosses without imaginary weakness im kind of fucked though LOL.)

in all honesty

there is a period in my playing hsr history where i quit the game. i came back obviously (for aventurine lOl) but so (i played the game cause hoyo. also honkai. but i quit so i could focus on genshin entirely. then genshin took too much space so i switched back to hsr haha. i remember playing honkai impact a LONG time ago on mobile but at one point i stopped. i dont know why.)

anything before that period i honestly dont remember that well but

i have silver wolf (i recently found out she can implant weaknesses on enemies lOl. apparently past me did not read what characters did)

i also had 5 star dan heng and clara (i remember because i was so confused on how clara was played. idk what i did with 5 star dan heng i dont even remember getting him 😭)

like like listen i still have what all my teams back then were cause when i changed them i went to the next number

(it was either destruction trailblazer or preservation trailblazer. no idea where i was in the story at that point)

so this is likely how long i was playing? keeping in mind i probably logged in very infrequently

its. kind of interesting to try to think 'wtf was i doing a year ago'

also its been long enough since i came back that i cant remember exactly where i stopped in the story. all i know is that i hadnt done phantylia yet, and it was either i stopped somewhere where we're in the the water area (??) deciphering the the the vidyadhara thingys on the stone wall (im i cant remember this shito k)

or i stopped before that i just remember doing that part more because i was kind of confused

i have no idea. (also idk why i pulled for silver wolf or dan heng. i think i just pulled because i could. i know this because silver wolf isnt a favorite of mine [and i pulled based on favorites instead of if theyre a good unit or not..]. idk about dan heng tho. i like dan heng now but idk if past me liked him or not. i have like vague memories of pulling sw but none for dan heng.)

past me's reasoning for stuff will forever remain a mystery

at least this me will not be because yall can read my thoughts. and i can read my thoughts. because i can remember making this post and find it. yay. brr.

oh yeah also i remember my favorite being jingliu at the time

unsure if it was still when i was playing or if i was watchin someone else but i loved her blindfold and ahidawhsudi

especially cause when i went back to hsr (i didnt keep up with it at all LMFAO i just got spoiled avens backstory and was like 'holy shit really? thats cool!' ...and then i came back to play penacony for him. haha.)

i came back DURING avens banner but that meant i didnt have anything saved so i unfortunately missed out

but i think jingliu was running with his banner and i remember thinking 'do i pull for jingliu or aven' and i wasnt sure

but now nahh its aven for the win

[its-no-biggie]

mannnn rereading orv really makes it clear just how well the constellations represent readers. like literally from chapter one, so many times a constellation sends an indirect message and im like "omg thats what i was thinking!" and just in general, the way they comment on the story in such a detached way really feels like readers leaving comments on a webnovel.

but thats just the superficial aspect: orv takes it so much further than that. cause first of all, we have the way constellations can band together to change the outcome of the story. even if its cruel, even if it wont lead to the right ending, they can force the direction of the story with donations (and the unspoken threat that theyll leave if they dont get their way). the dokkaebis practically have no choice- they live for donations. no viewers means they get demoted and no one will watch their story. (which is an incredibly relevant struggle to any artist who wants to do it as a career- feeling like you have to choose between artistic integrity and paying the bills.)

like, you ever wonder why most successful tv shows keep running until theyre no longer good? because the people want more content! you know how long fans have been BEGGING alex hirsch for more gravity falls content, even though the finale was the perfect ending for that show? the fans dont know whats good for the story, they just follow what theyre feeling in the moment. and when the writers cave to that (in order to avoid losing their job) the story suffers.

but theres ALSO the aspect of not only commenting on and interfering in the story, but dehumanizing the characters. now, this one isnt so much a criticism of real life, but more of an exploration of what it would be like from the characters perspective. from uriel shipping joongdok, to the constellation banquet where all the constellations are trying to project their own stories and experiences onto the "characters", to the "chemistry awards", to every instance where the constellations demand to see the incarnations struggle for their own satisfaction..... at every turn, the constellations dont treat the incarnations as people. theyre just entertainment. and these are all normal fan behaviors, which obviously isnt a problem irl because fictional characters dont have feelings. but when seen from the perspective of the character its incredibly fucked up. no wonder yjh hates the constellations so much, i would too!

and i especially like this aspect of it because instead of it being a commentary on the reader/writer/character relationships irl, it becomes about them growing past the roles of constellation/incarnation/dokkaebi and seeing each other as people. this is really shown when kdj becomes a constellation and yjh has to come to terms with that (and similarly with tls123, much later in the story). but also, over time kimcom makes genuine connections with both constellations and dokkaebis, and a lot of the characters sort of shed those roles and start to work together for the sake of telling the right story together.

[devondespresso]

1, 25, 81, 94 for the fanfic ask game! <3

KOKO HELLOOOOOOO ad thank you so much for the ask 💕💗💖💞💝 i went a little wild and had to reign it back in a bit and its still pretty long so apologies in advance

(ask game we're talking about is here but i also have questions next to the answers)

1. do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

for the vast majorty of my fics i think i have a pretty good idea of where its going to go, i think because i get the ideas of these cool scenes usually set in act 2 or 3 or i at least the vibe i want from the start and The Point is usually clear the second i put thought into it. currently the only exceptions are 1) this super secret (woooo~~~) ficlet im working on that came from a prompt so i had to spend like 3 or 4 days writing it to properly understand the direction i wanted to take it, and 2) the steve henderson au, which is fucking massive already and it's even bigger in my head stnzgns. that one you obviously know how it ends y'know, it aint the steve henderson au if steve doesnt become a Henderson, but for all the arcs i have along the way it took a while to properly figure out what i doing and how to do that and im just now figuring out what that looks like for the first major arc.

so tldr: usually i know, sometimes i gotta figure it out, but i do need to have it figured out before it can really take shape

25. what’s your revision or rewriting process like?

oof ok so i tried writing this and good fucking god explaining everything i do in editing took up so much space. so this is the short answer for convenience but if anyone wants a long answer im foaming at the mouth to talk about writing stjsnystn (the rest under the cut)

the majority of my process is editing and sometimes first drafts are literally unrecognizable from the final. a lot of how i edit line by line is intuitive/vibes based, and whole scenes/arcs/pacing/flow/theme etc etc is based on a really deconstructed thought process for storytelling, to put it as briefly as i can (because this is one of the parts that got really long) its about The Why of everything going into the story. Picking details or making decisions not based rigidly on formula or trends but instead whats best for the kind of story you want to tell (and then making sure to implement it in a way that actually does that in the story).

for small works i prefer to just change shit as i see it and not worry about doing focused passes through the work, but in the steve Henderson au i literally cannot its too fucking big smhdmyxyn so in that case i do passes that span like whole writing sessions just hyperfocused on this one thing. one of my favorite passes is in-character passes where i pick one person (often dustin bc hes a main character), rewatch them a ton to get in their headspace, and go back and make sure everything they say or do fits them as if they were the sole focus if the story. I'll also do passes to focus just on medical accuracy, passes for a specific character duos to keep their story progressing and consistent, passes for ideas that stay between the lines making sure they stay consistent and understanding how much information im conveying, character's specific mindsets that their arc is about and making sure they dont have any unintentional exceptions, literally if its a thing in the text i probably need to do a pass for it so i know its consistent

also more lighthearted stuff tends to need wayyyy less editing time and its a more balanced half solo half beta process. the easiest was the claudia henderson drabble because it was really just a backstory with an active scene or two all rooted in her outside persective.

also sometimes i just start from scratch halfway through, like mr crayola henderson has one previous half-complete version in my doc fhdlas tho i guess thats how drafts are supposed to work

and this is the tldr im sorry i dont want to cut it down any more just read this one its my favourite fdhaskl

81. if you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of writing advice specific to you, what would it be?

honestly i wouldn't have much to tell them. i didn't start writing fanfic until july of last year?? something like that and i started with the steve henderson au. maybe don't write that one about the triggering thing lol.

actually wait no. id tell them its okay to abandon projects (and maybe tell them not to make some purchases dgnxngsyn) but ye i spent a while mourning projects because they felt like they ceased to exist, but i had several screenplay outlines that probably helped me a ton. in my writing and those experiences never leave me so their existence still had a purpose and value

tldr: dont write your very recent triggers silly goose, dont cry over abandoned art

94. do you prefer dialogue or description?

i definitely prefer dialogue, and with it action descriptions because i still think in movie-medium (tho i am getting better at understanding how the FUCK prose works and especially prose pacing oh my god why can't i just hold on an actors face for several seconds of silence gAAH!!). i like saying things without saying them, i like subtly building towards something body language until a snap, i looooove making blocking relevant in a medium where you're not even seeing the movement with your eyes, and i love getting into a characters head so far that each person has a different way to word something or a different detail they focus on or a certain tick that tells the other character whats in their head.

but i struggle with internal monologue sooooooo hard, its a practiced skill im actively working on to write a characters internal logic about something but still keeping it from being too on the nose about whats really going on. like i can do it but i struggle to fill page time with it because exploring ideas at least for me usually leads to the source and thats decidedly not where the characters going! its a tuesday afternoon! they're not unpacking shit they're trying to have a third coffee!! i also struggle finding the best words for the reader to feel the text, like idk man maybe im using the onelook dictionary wrong but it just does not get me what im looking for in under three looks zgnshnsyn

tldr: dialogue and blocking, good description is witchcraft

_

but yee thank you again for the ask dude!! this was so much fucking fun i fucking love talking about writing and the logic process behind everything. thanks anyone seeing this for actually reading this far 💕

[narwhalandchill]

(4.6 beta changes) (again) (guys this is so long im just. many thoughts and me thinking out loud abt arle and my pulling plans. & other nonsense etc. my bad)

ooookay so yeah def glad i didnt jump the gun and attempt some sorta "is this a buff or not" feelscrafting nonsense on arles adjustments jkwjkwdjkwdjkwdkjjk and waited for TC (mostly zajef lmao) analysis and opinion on the real changes that ended up happening

anyway so like. it appears to be an universal buff for her p much? but how big of a buff it ends up being depends on some mechanics we still dont have a definite answer as to how they function (mostly how her BoL stacking from E works during the ECAQECA reset thing, if it enables 140% total stacking = massive dmg buff overall)

firstly my fears of her becoming too ult dependent for overworld appear to be? not as bad as i thought? so thats nice at least very pog like if she can do her thing decently enough just for fun running around thats very good

secondly. the ER situation is literally on a 50-50 😭 because its all about whether she has particle ICD on her E. if she doesnt, thats actually like. 0 ER needed or at the very least incredibly little of it. if there is particle ICD. well. thats going to be another story

the way her rotations have changed now seem to gear her towards overload teams with chevy? since they have very long rotations and characters like fischl and yae can have full uptime over those whereas vape teams lose hydro application from yelan or XQ and buff uptime from characters like bennett over time when a rotation stretches past 24s

like from what ive been reading it seems to be a pretty common sentiment that these buffs will make the biggest impact in chevy overload teams specifically (even tho shes obvi buffed just in general in all teams) for that reason and that chevy teams Especially w her at c6 with arle should be the best bennettless teams ultimately. which is definitely an interesting turn ?

(and this isnt all of the changes btw im just talking abt the ones that matter most for my considerations rn)

anyway. my thoughts then.

so im obviously glad the changes turned out to be buffs so far. but. theres still stuff im a bit. ehhhhhhhh on

firstly the survivability situation (which in turn leads back to the teambuilding issues). bc her self heal did get nerfed. so arles no longer going to be able to risk taking very high dmg during a rotation and dragging herself back to full once the next one starts. which to me feels like an emphasis on dmg mitigation for her and shielding.

(not to even get started on the. spam NAs to reduce her now 30s E cooldown so its up in time for the next rotation meaning you Do Not want to be staggered and tossed out of her attack string. and gee would you look at that! neuvillette level interruption res on c1 now! great!!)

(like again. to be clear. its hard to say exactly how much interruptions to her NA spam will end up fucking her over. i could just be overtly wary about how bad it might feel. but at its worst. with enemies that run away from u or go invincible. or stunlock you. the fact that it will at least heavily risk arles ability to reduce her E cooldown the amount she needs for fluid rotations. could definitely end up feeling like shit to play in practice without that interruption resistance. be it from c1 or a shied)

but then if we go back to her synergies and look at. those more interesting (imo) chevy teams that should perform well even without bennett. like arle/chevy/fischl/yae. whos keeping ur arle from dying there 😭 its giving lyney spreadsheet impact vs actual reality trying to play him without a shield 😭😭 guess we know who he got it from...

and yea could replace yae for beidou for damage reduction but her dmg will TANK in single target. as a whole. defensive options list in pyro/electro units only just isnt that good. beidous the one who tanks team dps the least as long as ur in AoE, but outside of that its just. thoma and dehya. and they will 100% tank the team dps

whereas defensive options like zhongli to me feel like they will just end up w her teams just wanting to lean towards that. traditional vape and mono pyro angle. bennett and kazuha and yelan/XQ. the usual stuff. and shes not getting benny and kazuha from childe so we have an issue 💀💀

unironically i will prolly be looking for some double geo zhongli/chiori/yelan vape team calcs for arlecchino (hope someone makes them. all double geo team calcs ive seen so far assume bennett 😭) just out of curiosity in terms of. how much worse it is than her best teams. bc if i can just slap her in that setup its a big bonus to how flexibly i could use her but eh. prolly will end up weaker than any chiorinavia nation core i could play so who knows

but. all this yapping and im only now getting to the point JSWJKDWJKWDJK so. heres the BIG problem

i dont have a single fucking chevrolet 💀 but i do have like 38 pity on a guarantee.

and like people are suggesting that maybe chevy will be on arles banner and fair, especially with these new beta changes incentivizing arle chevy teams way more than before, it would definitely make sense for hoyo to put chevy with her. and i definitely am overall a fan of this possible chevy overload team direction for arle (anything thats not bennett for father. ANYTHING) so id love for that to be the case

but. thats not guaranteed at all. and the same sentiment i had over arlecchinos hypothetical best support in the form of the pyro archon (or honestly. with the lack of electro shielders for chevy teams even clorinde could end up being that missing piece) where id almost rather wait to guarantee that synergistic unit before getting arle herself on a rerun. actually applies to chevy here too. even just a c0 one

and like. yes. if i spend that guarantee now on c2 chiori. and it turns out chevy is indeed featured with arlecchino. i will Not be able to guarantee her anymore - ill get one 50-50 and all the chances for a few solid chevy copies on the way but thats it.

however. the other scenario here is that arle does NOT get chevy. she gets fucking. kaveh noelle mika. and then chevy is going to rerun with like. idk. random banner. clorinde who may or may not have synergy with arle

...and im not really sure if id even want to pick arle up on that guarantee from that sort of banner SJKDKJADJKDJK but ok id skip her. buuut im still sitting on a guarantee i might not want to use on a character i feel just eh abt. but who might be with chevy (and like. i do pull for 4* when im on a 50-50 and low pity, idm the early. so as long as thats the case i can see myself tossing a few pulls at Any chevy banner in the future).

... which brings us back to. okay yeah saving the guarantee for clorinde IF chevy isnt with arle and IF shes an electro shielder sub dps support for those arle chevy teams. and getting arle on rerun as ive considered. doesnt sound that bad. but clorinde might also Not be that. uncertainty uncertainty.

like im fairly sure clorinde Will be an unit i wont mind pulling at 17 pity xianyun style on a 50-50 no matter what. but if shes not that mythical arle BiS support she prolly wont be worth that guarantee is my whole complex here lmao

whereas. c2 chiori. isnt an uncertain factor here. like im investing in her im getting her c6 eventually, c2 is like almost 25% personal dps increase (also my husk pieces LOVE rolling ER so itd actually be useful) it feels like the "safe" option in a sense ya know???

like. yes id leave arlecchino up to a coin toss . (Jail for jen!! fake lesbian!!!) but id also be left with the option of skipping her banner (if no chevy rateup to be clear) in favor of seeing whether she gains any synergistic units in the future and seeing how the various aspects of her kit that i do somewhat worry about end up panning out ?? and i think. id be fine with that ? Over the alternative

ultimately tho. im super happy arle got overall buffed and that at least some of my fears abt her kit changes were indeed unfounded, but some concerns still remain. its kinda wild and still sad to me that she went from an absolute 100% must pull character just bc its Her to like. curse of pyro on fielder idk if i Need this right now 😔😔 but i Will be getting her eventually!! no matter what

anyway have a sticker if u stuck around for all of my bullshit. this is literally just arle buff thoughts into gacha pulls stream of consciousness rambling 😭😭😭

[rollercoasterwords]

hi i would like to rant to u if thats okay because i saw ur rant u wrote like 6 days ago and it just kinda made me think so i hope u don't mind.

i love writing. i always have and when im writing i always get excited, except then i started posting on the internet. at first i got some attention which actually pushed me to write more and then i wrote this fanfic that blew up and got a lot of attention which dont get me wrong was GREAT like im proud of it, but it also changed my perception of writing

all of a sudden this silly little thing i wrote was now something people were talking about with their friends and reccomending and that was great but it made me feel different about my own work. it changed how i percieved writing, and more often than not i catch myself writing for them, not for me.

recently i started writing this fic that made me giggle and kick my feet while writing it. i wrote it SO fast because i could not get enough of it, and then i started publishing and it didn't get much attention. i've had other fics that didnt get attention before and it was like meh, but after the work i wrote that blew up, it felt like my fics NEEDED to become popular to be good, which is like,,, shit

and whenever i posted a chapter of my new fic or talked about it, i'd get comments on my fic asking about my popular one, if i'll make a second one ect.

it made me lose interest in my story because i'd gotton hooked on others approval and i didn't want to write something they weren't interested in, because then they wouldn't read it and it would all be for nothing.

i forgot the original reason i started writing. for me. and its been so hard to try and just get back into that headspace of writing for me and not others because of the attention i'd gotton from my previous stories.like how i felt now that i had a fair few followers i owed them stories THEY wanted to read.

i'm not sure how to get back into writing for myself, because i don't want to delete my works or stop posting, because i do enjoy it when people say nice things and help my motivation, but at the same time it also makes me feel like i have to write what they want and not what i want, because if i write it and they dont like it ive failed

anyway thats my little rant, i dont know if u even understand what im talking about but it was nice to get off my chest

thank you <3

no i feel u i can def relate 2 a lot of that experience! it can be a weird experience 2 have a fic go viral & it is definitely not always entirely positive. honestly think the only reason i've escaped a lot of the harassment + hate i've seen directed towards other people who have had fics go viral is that my fic that went viral was a rewrite of someone else's story, so most of the discourse remains centered around the original story + writer which honestly. feels like i managed 2 dodge a bullet lmao

but i can def relate 2 the sudden pressure of abruptly finding urself in a situation where tons of people are reading something u were just casually writing 4 fun, and suddenly feeling like u need 2 meet certain demands or live up 2 expectations. honestly feeling this pressure to keep up w those expectations led to some burnout 4 me last fall/winter, which is why i stopped posting for a few months. and like obviously i can't say what would be most helpful 4 u--that's something u kinda have 2 figure out 4 urself--but i do know that for myself + for some other writer friends who i've talked to, taking a break from posting can be really helpful in like...reframing ur mindset. i think getting some distance from the constant expectations + demands + feedback can help sort of clear the air and strips away both that pressure + that attention + sort of makes it easier 2 focus on writing just to write for urself. 4 me it helped me figure out that while i do love sharing my writing + getting nice comments + messages + talking 2 people abt it etc, that's just icing on the cake, and writing still brings me a lot of joy even without any attention. and once i was able to like...center that attitude + ground my writing in personal enjoyment rather than the online attention economy, it made me feel steadier abt coming back + posting again, and also helped get rid of some of the anxiety of meeting people's expectations, bc i realized that at the end of the day i genuinely don't really care if someone dislikes my story so much that they need to stop reading it; in fact, i think it's better for everyone involved if someone who feels like they're not getting what they want from my story goes and looks for what they want somewhere else! it's not a failure on my part to sufficiently like...entertain an audience or provide a product, because that's not what i'm trying to do in the first place, y'know? and i think that shift in mindset helped a lot, and continues to help when i start 2 feel that pressure again from posting my writing online. it's counterintuitive at first bc i think we're all sort of conditioned to think there's no point to making art unless you're making it for an audience, but once u realize that The Audience is not the be all end all of creating art, i think it makes the process of creation a lot more freeing + fun.

anyway hope u are able 2 navigate the weirdness that can come with sharing ur writing online + find a way 2 write that brings u the most joy!!

[magnoliasandbeardedtooth]

LEGO MONKIE KID S4 INTRO

IM GOING NUTS

so the last shot of season 3, we've all seen it, we all know it

also heavily featured in the s4 intro, this is obviously the next Big Thing

however!!! unlike previous intros, there are very few enemies featured, even major ones, besides the opening shots that summarize the previous seasons. either the show is keeping its antagonists very close to the chest, or the main conflict may come from the effect of this artifact, rather than a character with agency

where before there were shots of minor enemies, now there are shots that appear to be from swk's past, which means BACKSTORYYYYY AND I AM LOSING IIIIIIIIITTTT

WE GET TO SEE THE HERO AND THE WARRIOR BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mac's always been a sourpuss uiervuivefriubviub

now THIS ONE I am also VERY interested in seeing. doesn't seem like an enemy, possibly someone that used to be an ally of swk's? obviously theres tension, it looks like someone leaving flower fuit mountain. when it zipped by the first time I watched it, the location and hair made me of the other celestial monkeys, but now that I've got a good look at him, I'm not so sure they would be, yknow, blue with bright pink eyes

also swk hanging out with demon buddies

demon buddies FIGHTING HEAVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe swk is the small figure next to dbk's right arm, though in the two frames he's in, it looks like he's got a cape, which he doesn't have in the other shots we can see him in. I'm also noticing that if that is swk with a costume change, macaque and the other demon buddies have the same clothes and armor they did in the previous, more relaxed shots

the other thing Im SUPER FUCKIN HYPE ABOUT!!!!!!! IS THAT THE GANG GETS POWEEEERSSS

tang's is no surprise, as it was started in s3, but bro it is such a RELIEF to see him doing something other than screaming

BUT LOOKIT PIGSEY HES SO FUCKING COOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

here are some comparisons between the character shots from the s3 intro vs the s4 intro (s3 above, s4 below). mei and tang's are pretty similar (mei's has been badass from day 1, MEI is badass from day 1, cant make cooler what is already the fucking coolest), though mei's features a new location (I imagine her great-times-a-thousand grandpa's house), and tang's seems to be hinting toward Tripitaka's story, rather than a generic feature shot

BUT THE OTHER TWO O H

LOOK HOW FUCKING BADASS ZHU BAJIE LOOOOOKKKSSS

AND MY MAN SAAAANNNDDDAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SHA WUJING FUCK IT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SHAKES HIM SHAKES HIM SHAKES HIM

ALSO!!!!! NEW OUTFIIIIITTSSSS

I WOULD be hype about sandy fighting, but the s3 intro also had him throwing punches, which he never actually did (except to scare the piss out of the one spider hehehehehehehe)

BUT. THE BIGGEST THING, THAT I AM SO FUCKING EXCITED FOR

IS THIS SHOT RIGHT HERE

THATS THE WHOLE GROUP. THATS BOTH WHOLE GROUPS

THATS SUN WUKONG ON THE RIGHT. AND NOWHERE TO BE SEEN ON THE LEFT

YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

WE'VE GOT MIND CONTROL TO MAKE LOVED ONES FIGHT AGAIN

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

FINAL THOUGHTS!!!!!!!! between the flashbacks and the period-style outfits, seems like that scroll thing's effects have something to do with time travel, and the gang gets blasted to the past. my impression is that they either get powers, or are imbued with their predecessor's powers in the possible case that they take their places, cause of the whole, black goop thing. and it looks like we might even get a full history on swk, before the journey to the west takes place!!!!!

I'm so excited for those more familiar with the mythology to parse far more information than this, such as what artifact that black scroll actually is, the black goop, who is in front of (what I believe to be) the jade emperor in the fight with demon buddies, predictions for how that information might effect the plot, etc

as a bonus, some extra comparisons that arent really important, but I am still very happy to see

the new shot of the fight with lbd im SOBBING

mk's staff is back!!!!!

and something I only noticed now that Ive gone through both these intros frame by frame

mk flashing to swk during the above shots AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

this expression goes by so fast I never noticed how FUCKING CHEEKY HE LOOKS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!

MY BOY GO KICK SOME AAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[famous-pprophet]

I've been trying to learn how to draw and I love your art style so much I've been practicing by copying it (just in my notebook not like sharing it anywhere) as I love the way you capture characters and emotion but I was wondering how do you go about simplifying a character? I'm not sure if this makes sense but like what do you look for when taking realistic looking characters and translating them into a stylistic version?

Thank you for the ask! keep tracing and copying, its a great way of building the muscle memory and familiarizing yourself with breaking things down into shapes. It means a lot that my art is something that you wanted to use that for! https://twitter.com/meatgirI/status/1606375868959543298?s=20&t=ve-GgU0nMrUBRZnTj0kI3Q I would say that this tweet by meatgiri is a good way of finding different facial features and breaking the face/eyes/nose into shapes, and that its a really good way of getting started. However I also think that learning proportions and anatomy is a really good way of further pushing this skill. im going to explain it a bit, but if it feels overwhelming or makes art something thats not fun, you dont have to use any of it. youll pick up these things through practice and observation.

I like trace out these lines on my face. they follow these proportions that are applicable to almost all people. once ive got this figured out, i start to fill in the eyes, nose and mouth.

(some examples of characters... see how this rule still applies even though they look very different.

again see the tutorial i linked above to get a feel for breaking these facial features into shapes. this is what i would suggest to practice different types of faces if you dont have a super good understanding of facial structure

as you observe more in faces, you notice a lot of difference in face shape and structure. but this is a really good way to play with JUST facial features and maintain them consistently

if you want to get into facial structure, then you wanna start looking at the actual anatomy

try to picture where your face sits on your skull. this can help you decide how MUCH of the bone sticks out from under the face. if you are underweight, older, or have shaper facial features, youre going to see a lot more off things like cheekbones

so now even though im using the same skull as a base, i can still have a different face shape. because this person might be older, they have a stronger jawline, and their features are sunken in

and the cool thing is that this isnt just applicable from a 3/4th angle. the proportions are always like that!! they might change because of perspective or the angle but honestly at that point youd want to start trying to develop your sense of 3d space

this is just a really simple way of diversifying one single method of drawing faces. notice how i only used the one "base" shape

and here you can see examples of how their faces sit on the skull. obviously you dont need to be drawing perfectly anatomical skulls every time you draw a person, but it does make good practice to trace those shapes. basically training yourself to get better at observing different features!

you can get into even more varying features when you start to use different skull shapes too. all of these characters have different skull shapes and their features change depending on how they sit on that skull

here is a good demonstration of anatomically correct differences in skulls of different races. Obviously i tend to think of it as masculine/feminine rather than male/female, but this is a scientific model used for identification (which is based off of sex and not gender)

age can also play into your skull shape and facial proportions. combining all of this knowledge you can not only have a wide range of different characters, but you can also tell a story.

again the less fat you have on your face, the more sunken in your features are going to be. so you can tell your audience about your character just from this alone

this is a good example. its a soldier before and after war. you can see how the stress, trauma, living conditions, etc, have all changed how he looks.

obviously this is getting into the real nitty gritty anatomical aspect of it but i do think its a really good way to have your characters feel like they belong to the environment they are in. it also just further illustrates my point earlier, how you can have MANY different types of faces even if you are using the same base for all of them. again if this seems overwhelming, its ok! a lot of this is stuff you pick up via observation as you continue practicing. draw what makes you comfortable, draw what you think is fun, and start off simple. Also know that you really dont need to be going into such detail and drawing the skulls haha. thats really just moreso to demonstrate the fundamental understanding. Good luck with art, keep pushing yourself to learn more and draw what you see!! youll pick up on all these subtle details as you keep at it