this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024

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Friday Roundup (2024-03-08) (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hey everyone =) Time for our weekly tradition of telling each other we're damn tired and gush about fandom ;p How have you been? Anything you want to share?

I'm... well, tired of course, duh. Tempted to add "boring" because I don't have anything new to say lol. Thanks to the FanPrompt game for keeping me vaguely in the loop.

Oh, and someone started a lemmy instance dedicated to fandom, so that could maybe be of interest to someone here.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ahaha! I AM TIRED actually...

But, that aside, I actually have a couple fics I am hoping to start on this weekend... one of them is more like a restart for the umpteenth time.

I'm trying to allow myself to be a bit more "ridiculous" when it comes to storytelling... to not worry if something is too goofy or over the top. It's a weird thing to worry about, especially in fanfic, and yet I feel like it's relatively common.

I've also been toying with drawing, but my attempts to transfer anything to digital have been largely thwarted by a missing stylus so.... >_<

Ah well. At least it's not my primary medium.

How is everyone else doing?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh I'd have a special meltdown if I lost my drawing equipment!

To be worried if something is too wild is a very common worry in story design, fandom and original! Perhaps because I'm on that side of the spectrum that has no shame in pure crack fiction I've not had that issue. But it is fascinating to watch people overthink such things. Especially when they are writing fanfic for a setting that has Mario level amount of thought into it's design.

Best wishes on this next restart!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I do it with drawing too. I've been doing a lot of sketches geared toward playing with expressions lately. Somewhere along the way, I became convinced I needed to draw things in some undefined "right way" (not life drawing, purely comic) and that's been interesting.

Unwinding it has been fun, though.

I am jealous of your powers. Overthinking is my special skill, but often it results in just not being able to get something done...or only being able to blitz through it (minimal edits to avoid getting trapped) which leaves me something far less refined than the amount of thought I dumped into it would suggest.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh good catch! I absolutely do that in drawing depending on the art style my brain has decided to focus on. Usually the more "simple" looking the style, the worse it gets. The less details there are the more vital that each line is shaped just right. (The oneshot I tried to draw in Humongous Entertainment's style was a special hell.)

The only reason I'm getting things done is that I'm largely embracing that if I want anything done, I have to allow stories to be short. Notes that were 30+ pages long (mixed with notes I forgot were for other stories (80% being doodles)), taking out the most clear parts and making that a 18 page comic. But I also enjoy cold opens and open endings. Those who prefer more traditional pop culture western story structures would 100% be in hell.

And for certain fandoms there is less meta pressure because the official works are astoundingly poorly written/designed. They dare ask people to give them money for massive plotholes. Some plotholes easily fixed if they tweaked a handful of lines (hi SwordShield).

If companies can charge for rushed jobs and earn billions for it, I'm clearly doing fantastic for being a team of one giving shit out for free.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, taking a critical eye to what sells--even things that I think are masterful--is a great way to realize that a lot of those things are also not nearly as refined as the standard I'm holding myself to. Not all comics are smooth or hyper detailed. Their lines aren't always 100% PERFECT (whatever that means for fictional characters portrayed in a style that isn't even pretending to be close to realism) and yet... they're great.

They're also laden with shortcuts, sensible shortcuts that sane people implemented for efficiency.

Simple, non-detailed backgrounds are an example. It took me far too long to realize I did not need to draw and redraw the same chair in the room I envisioned this conversation taking place. I didn't even need to draw the room. But, just as I am wordy I am...whatever the drawing equivalent is. It's taken me a long time to learn to be "concise."

Suddenly, it's become a lot easier to progress as I've learned. But it's been a very conscious effort. Lots of letting go of things too.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

There are a handful of comic peers I know who have either bought or made their own visual assets that they can drag/arrange for misc backgrounds and so on. Saves so much time and I deeply envy not being able to hold a consistent enough of an artstyle or POV to be able to take advantage of that as well.

I'm glad to hear that some parts have gotten easier. 100% always effort but as with all art forms can catch us off guard where said efforts actually have to be applied!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sending you strength for the writing, and luck to find the missing stylus. Seems like these things evolved for camouflage or something, when I hear people talk about them x')

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I suspect this is true. I can think of no other reason and honestly it does not endear the digital medium to me in the least. However, for sharing and playing with color (and not making a mess) digital can be very nice... I think. I'll let you know if/when I find that wretched stylus.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While I have been exhausted I've finally gotten some clarity in my anxiety fog. Here's hoping it lasts more than a few days!

Watching the reactions of my latest oneshot. I started exasperated but now I'm just... observing? The particular surrealness of being lucky to be in a fandom where OCs are the norm but also still being hit with the "where is basic media literacy please help" one often gets hit with in bigger fandoms.

My main project is going to be 5 years old soon. Project that has established multiple times that I'm taking full advantage of the isekai setting and that people are not always falling into the new world with their preferred gender identity (or any other body-type identity they may have originally relied on). Yet I still get people going, "what is gender of this character I'm going to assume X because they have this one physical feature".

So if anyone has to deal with someone complaining about other stories doing "why are they being so blatant this character is trans do they have to rub it in my face" you can always point them to fucking me lol.

I'm struggling to get kbin to see your lemmy instance so that's annoying. I will join when I figure out why I'm messing this up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hooray for less anxiety fog! =D

The comments you get sound frustrating ='(

The instance I linked is not mine at all, I'm just sharing in case someone was looking for something like that, but I don't know the admin and I don't understand what the communities hosted there so far are supposed to be for. And frankly it might be the instance that's set up wrong because I struggled hard to see posts there from the lemmy instance I'm logged into...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Having a few meltdowns but of the expected neurodivergent sensitivities, so overall still avoiding that fog!

Not all comments are like that! Heck, just the other day got a beautiful one from a fellow comic creator~

Ah, that’s very true. Thank you for informing me. Just feels bad when people are trying to create communities away from the hells of the bigger sites but can’t.