#will probably redo this to make it more cohesive and to the point eventually

[tjemegames]

Genshin: TJ's Serenitea Pot Decoration Diaries - Liyue, Part 1

I finally got around to messing with my teapot on pc! I ended up spending an embarrassing amount of time last night/earlier this morning (unintentionally pulled an all-nighter) to renovate and completely redo a couple sections of my Liyue themed pot.

Let’s get into the good stuff, shall we? Keqing will be our tour guide for today’s showing. Yapping about the process is under the cut!

Firstly, I wasn’t liking the empty space surrounding my estate courtyard so I crafted some more stone pathways and wall pieces to expand it outwards and give it a more defined layout. My planters and pavilion both have their own spaces now. Sadly, I ran out of load space in this area so it’s a bit more sparse in the rest of the courtyard than I would’ve liked it to be. I’m not too concerned about it though, the minimalistic nature seems more fitting than not.

Then came the two giant time killers (and the onset of my sleep deprivation). So, the area that I gutted and redid used to be a small little town with a community market and performance stage. The main downside was the layout of everything; no matter how much finagling I did of the space, it didn’t feel cohesive and I ultimately decided it would be easier to start over with a new vision.

The vision was a mountainous village with a market located at the entrance and a separated performance area. My enemy, load space limitation, however, did not agree with this vision so the market had to be sacrificed. While this did put a damper on things, it also allowed me to put more detail into the mountains to make them feel a bit more natural/realistic.

But that wasn’t all. While spending way too much time tediously adjusting rocks and landscape, I couldn’t help but make my life more difficult by adding a secret hideout. I’m pretty sure getting the cave to work took a solid 45 minutes of adjustments… Should I have spent that long trying to do that? Probably not but now I have a cave so that’s pretty cool.

If anyone on NA server wants the replica blueprint ID, just give me a shout. Happy to share these layouts and spare people to pain of trying to do it themselves. Just be warned that you’re going to have to buy a couple thousands worth of rocks/landscape and farm a ton of sand-bearer wood if you don’t already have everything on hand.

That’s it for today! Planning on finishing out the last plot of empty space I have sometime in the next few weeks so I’ll be sharing that when it’s all done. I’ll also be renovating the interior of my Liyue estate at some point in the future too so you can expect to see that eventually.

[sominbs]

hello! this is chey (she/her, 21, gmt-5) bringing you boseong’s very own castle-builder & corndog vendor — chae somin! you can view her pinterest board here, her stats here, her background here and her plots page here. under the cut, i’ll include everything you could ever want to know about her (probably?).

personality.

enfp-a   /   the assertive campaigner.   independent, playful, optimistic, brave, upfront, charismatic, adventurous, communicative, perceptive, affectionate, smothering, unrealistic. as an assertive campaigner, somin is lively and outgoing. it doesn’t matter what’s going on in her head or what kind of mood she’s in; chances are, she’ll still go out of her way to socialize. she enjoys making people laugh and usually accomplishes this by politely teasing/poking fun at those she knows well, but she can read a room and knows when it is or isn’t appropriate. she’s a great communicator which stems from her strong perceptive skills — it isn’t hard for her to get a good idea of what the general mood is and what’s expected of her at the moment. however, she does tend to be overly-enthusiastic which leads to unrealistic expectations both of herself and of others. these expectations accompanied by her somewhat smothering nature can definitely make some uncomfortable. 

aquarius   /   the water-bearer.   passionate, charming, impatient, temperamental, stubborn, rebellious, progressive, humanitarian, abrupt, intelligent. somin is often described as being unpredictable; she rarely makes her whole personality known, so she has a reputation for being surprising or even shocking. most of the time, she comes across as being genuine, warm and helpful, but there are some colder sides to her. she tends to lose her temper extremely quickly — especially when she feels like someone is trying to control her, as there’s nothing she hates more than her freedom being imposed on. will break rules without thinking twice just to prove a point and smile while she does it. overall, she doesn’t mean to be problematic, but it seems to be a part of herself that she can’t escape.

history / trivia.

the result of an accidental pregnancy. neither of her parents were ready for a baby, but her maternal grandmother promised to raise her if her mother would go through with the pregnancy. obviously, she did. her parents are not together and neither of them live in boseong. she’s met her mom a few times, but doesn’t know anything about her dad. either way, she doesn’t feel any sort of attachment to either of them. as far as she’s concerned, her grandma is all she needs.

granted....... she was kinda bratty/ungrateful towards her grandma for a LONG time. she used to think like is easy if you just try & didn’t really understand why her grandma ran a fuckin corndog stand of all things and why they were poor when they could just ~not be~. threw tons of fits in which she swore she’d never sell corndogs.

lit rally..... eunmi was the one (1) person who inspired her to be a little less MEAN. saw eunmi being nice to everyone all the time and eventually started being nicer to her grandma (and other kids lol) as a result.

speaking of eunmi!!! somin fuckin loved her so much. viewed her as one of the very few good things in her life, so she was pretty clingy towards her which evolved into being possessive. hated the idea of her being close to anyone else,,,,, f’s in the chat.

she was pretty athletic in school, so she was kinda popular bc of that? was involved in soccer & cheer, spent too much time on extracurriculars so her grades were trash but she still thought she’d get into snu because ~it can’t be that hard~. told everyone she was gonna go to snu & when she DIDN’T get in, she had too much pride to admit it so she just told everyone she was accepted.

left boseong for seoul after graduation with NO idea what the FUCK she was gonna do!!!!!! wandered around hopelessly for like a year and a half, doing part-time work and trying to get high-paying jobs with trashy resumes. even tried to become a model but no one wanted her whole 5 ft 3 inches country girl vibes </3

met a lot of people who taught her a lot about herself while she was in seoul, but she was STRUGGGLINGGG to make ends meet so she came back to boseong. told everyone she dropped out of snu bc it hurt her pride less than admitting she was never enrolled to begin with.

here’s the real kicker........ now she runs the fuckin corndog stand in the traditional market. it’s karma kicking her ass for all the complaining she did 10 years ago.... </3 p much every day of the week, you can find her down there slacking off or talking a mile a minute to whoever will listen.

always seems to have some great plan cookin up in that mind of hers, but at this point, everyone in boseong probably knows that she’ll never do any of it. she’s destined to be a corndog vendor for life...... please don’t clown her.

reputation for being unsuccessful in love, but it’s literally just because her ~unrealistic expectations~ make her give up on every relationship that isn’t kdrama material in like..... a week.

still lives with her grandma bc she doesn’t make enough money to afford her own place but she’s only 22 so.......  just wait. she’ll live in a mansion someday.....  hopefully

doesn’t necessarily think she’s better than anyone, but it’s easy to assume she does because she thinks she’s destined for greater things. she complains about boseong quite often and says stuff like “i don’t belong here” or “i know my life will amount to something bigger and better than this” but fr.... she doesn’t look down on anyone. she has no right to. she just genuinely, naively thinks that fate is on her side and something HUGE is written in her story. thinks that she deserves a happy ending and doesn’t have to work for it. that kind of thing. main character syndrome u know.

some quick plot ideas:

[0/1]  —  you know somin’s work ethic is nothing to brag about, so you “volunteer” at the corndog stand. in other words, you loiter around and reminder her to do her job and/or cover her shifts for her while she just sits around. she can’t pay you in cash, but she’ll pay you in gratitude and half-assed compliments <3

[0/1]  —  you only know of somin because you used to see her with eunmi all the time. to this day, you believe that she had something to do with her death.

[0/1]  —  you frequent the corndog stand because you have a lot to talk about and maybe there’s something therapeutic about ranting to somin while she cooks corndogs and tries her very best to give you advice.

[0/1]  —  somin pursued you VERY hard, so you decided to give her a chance. however, she dumped you after less than a week. maybe you’re bitter... or confused. (male lock)

[0/1]  —  somin was really mean to you in elementary, middle or high school because you made frequent attempts to get closer to eunmi.

[0/1]  —  you used to play sports with somin OR you used to watch her games/competitions and cheer her on.

[0/1]  —  you don’t like somin because of the way she expects good things to just fall into her lap.

[0/1]  —  you’re either VERY introverted or VERY pessimistic and somin thinks it’s her duty to brighten you up a little bit. 

[0/1]  —  you fell asleep at the one (1) single table outside the corndog stand and when somin woke you up, it wasn’t to tell you to leave but to ask if you want to sleep behind the stand, at least. maybe she thinks you have nowhere to go

[stealthpoptarts]

Random Long Writing Post Time

Okay so I don’t normally make these, but I’m both bored and procrastinating from. Actually working on my book. Which I’ve started over like five times. I think I finally got it right, so hopefully no redoing the entire plot and so on. 

Anyways, I’m a pretty weird person, and so I’m not sure if anybody else thinks like this. But here I go anyway. I’m going to talk about character development. NOT character development arcs in writing or other media, because I don’t feel qualified to write about it? And I have a bad habit of not finishing things? No, I’m gonna talk about all the developing and thought and detail that you put into your character before writing, drawing, etc them. The stuff that you might know, but that might never show up or even directly relate to their story.

This includes, for some examples, why they have the name they do, why they might wear their hair a certain way, how they drink their coffee, how they might react to hypothetical situations that have zero relevance to the book/story/whatever, that one time they got lost on the subway, that one person they met that one time who told them that one thing, why they get upset about xyz thing, why they disagree with x but not y, and so on and so on. All the research into whatever you need to research to be able to write accurately and correctly. Basically. A lot.

The way that I have always looked at it is that this information is already out there. All this stuff, knowledge, scenarios, the characters and their friends and families and loved ones, already exists somewhere out there in multiverse. Or maybe in this universe, although I hope not because several of them would punch my lights out if they could. But all of it is real somewhere, somehow, and I just need to find it somehow or another. 

That means a lot of my writing is instinct, does this feel right? Would they really act this way confronted with this? What about this? 

It also means that if anything, anything at all catches my attention and/or makes me think/reminds me very strongly of one, specific character... I pay attention. It usually stands out for a reason, and if I can figure out why and make myself accept the reason (whether I like what I’m thinking or not), then it saves a lot of trouble in the long run.

This is how I’ve developed almost every character, and half the time I’m not sure that I’m completely sane or that I’m making any sense or going about things the right way at all. A lot of it’s just random, spur of the moment thoughts and ideas.

Half the time I’ll start writing a scene with an idea in my head of how it will happen, who will say what, etc., and then actually sit down to write the scene only to find that the characters had an entirely different idea in mind. This happens more than I like to admit, and I almost always like “their” version better than what I thought of originally. But it happens less and less the more I write. I take that to mean I’m getting better at writing. I hope.

I seize on completely random things, objects, ideas, I make completely random off the cuff jokes. I reference one particular detail over and over again. And then, it just sticks. Like how one grain of sand inevitably changes, however minutely, the entire pile when it’s added, everything added to them changes my characters just a little bit. 

Why does Luke like to cook? I wrote a joke story during a class when I finished all my work early. He got high*, ate all his friends food, “borrowed” his car while he was sleeping, bought an air horn (with $5 he found in the car), and woke him up with it at exactly 12:00am on April first. What does that have to do with cooking? Well things got more and more complicated from there. With the first things I write, I sometimes end up with more questions than answers.

Why was he high? Because he smoked something or other (in this particular story, weed. I even had a friend check that it was accurate cause I do not have experience with being high on anything, nor do I want to). Why? Because he was bored, and he had some with him. Why did he have any to begin with, on a random sleepover? Why did he even start in the first place? He self-medicates, and a whole host of other reasons on top of that, not all of which he’s conscious of. So, being high on weed, he’d get the munchies. He also loves doing and making things for other people, but never has a lot of money or resources. And he wants an easier, better way to cope. What do all these lead to? Learning to cook when he was still in middle school. It turns into something he loves doing just to do it, regardless of anything else.

In other cases, it really is completely random and/or not entirely under my control. 

For example, Luke especially loves making pastries. And has an unusual love of poptarts. How did this happen? Well in the story mentioned above, he eats all his friend’s poptarts, and his friend (understandably, having had several unopened boxes at that time) was upset about this. My friends, who I had shown the story to, thought that the inclusion of this detail was especially funny. Luke stealing the poptarts anytime he was over there and eating every one became a running joke between me and my friends, in our roleplays, and eventually in other stories I wrote about these two characters. This also helped lead to the love of cooking I came up with later.

I wrote this story three or four years ago, and while other parts aren’t entirely accurate to the character(s) involved, these ones are. And stealing the poptarts is still a running, inside joke.

Sometimes it’s, loosely or more directly, based on a dream I had. Or something I doodled or drew because I was bored, and couldn’t think of anything else to draw.

For example, Ichiko’s pyromania. The very first time anything involving this character and fire was a strange dream I had, and it was strange for two reasons: one, it had actually had and followed a cohesive storyline, and two, my character(s) showed up in it. The second has only happened one other time that I remember. 

They, random dream-people, and me, and Luke, Ichiko, and Dyllan were also there, were stuck in a large underground maze. Think underground brick labyrinth, unused/abandoned mall/subway tunnels, old greenhouses, high school gyms and auditoriums, movie theaters and movie theater concessions stands, complete with mysterious, unspoiled food and drinks. Basically a hodge-podge of places stuck together.

I don’t remember any other part of this dream, and probably only remember this because I later drew it. But there was one point were Ichiko grew frustrated and punched the wall. I don’t know why I remembered that scene specifically, but I do. It may be part of why, later on, his character grew to have a short temper. Another time they were, I don’t know why, trying to get the sprinklers to come on. So they found a bottle of vodka or whiskey somewhere, and he blew fire at them. I drew the fire-breathing part later on, and my friends joked about him being a pyromaniac. And that, for some reason, stuck. 

I avoided writing about or considering that aspect of his character until later, though. One because it really had started as just a joke. And, later, two, because I was uncomfortable thinking about the ramifications and problems that arise with an unhealthy obsession with fire. And why he might’ve developed or had such an obsession. 

A lot of what I think up or decide or discover about my characters boils down to one question, though, and that’s why. And the answer I give, or even that they give, could be very, very simple. But that’s only on the surface. It’s always, always more complicated than that. 

There are also always contradictions. Two characters remember the same event differently, or believe and struggle with two contradicting ideas. Two aspects of their personality are at conflict with each other, and this causes problems. Nothing is ever as simple as A + B = C. 

Delarin is obsessed with control, but he is at the same time wildly unpredictable and chaotic. He wants as much control over any given situation, his surroundings, events, and even other people, as possible, but he can’t even really control himself.

Dyllan believes that he is a normal, even (mostly) functional person. He doesn’t believe or doesn’t want to believe that he has any problems. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it, and its what he tells himself everyday. But at the same time, he struggles with addiction and he knows this. He knows he should quit, or at least try and cut back, but that would be an admission of there being a problem in the first place. He hates crowds, he hates the feeling that someone, anyone, is watching what he’s doing. But he can’t stand to be alone, it is terrifying to him. He wants to pretend certain things haven’t really happened, or if they did, that they don’t affect him, but he still needs to have at least one light on. He can’t work in his apartment, it’s too empty, he always ends up in a busy, crowded, public space.

Another thing that I’ve learned is that I can’t avoid certain aspects of a character’s personality just because they make me uncomfortable. The character always ends up losing dimension and focus, and I have more and more trouble writing about them until I confront what I’ve been avoiding. There aren’t any shortcuts, or loopholes. Either I consider and include everything when deciding or figuring out a character’s actions, or I don’t write anything at all. 

In conclusion, cause this is getting way too long, here are the basics. The TL;DR I guess. 

Consider everything, big or small, important or not, that shapes a character. Everything has an effect on them as a person, and therefore an effect on what their actions or reactions will be in any given scenario.

Everything is complicated and complex in real life, so if you want realistic characters, everything has to be just as complicated and messy. If the answer to any “why?” you might ask is only a sentence or two long, you may (or maybe not, this is just how I do things. I don’t judge) have some more thinking to do. 

Names are important, and, if you have to change it, think carefully about how changing the name will end up changing your character also. 

Don’t avoid aspects or parts of a character or characters’ personality just because they make you uncomfortable. If you’d rather not write while keeping every piece of them in mind, maybe write a different character. 

This probably won’t work for you, or maybe it will, or maybe you already do things the exact same way that I do. I don’t know. I think of characters almost as real people. Not literally, but in the sense that they teach me as much about themselves as I come up with on my own, if not more. I’ll sit down to write, and they’ll (figuratively speaking) go, ‘hey, by the way...’ I can’t change this, I’ve tried. I know there is at least one or two published authors who do the same. So I thought that maybe I’d write this in case there’s anyone out there who feels awkward or weird or as though they’re doing things wrong, just in case. Because with writing, and just art in general, there really is no right or wrong way of doing things, no matter what some people might tell you.