#but 1. i don't want to give any encouragement to whoever is making these 'creative decisions'

[teawithotome]

oof yikes okay little rant

so after discovering that many interesting looking games (such as twisted wonderland and idolish7) are as of now not available in english, I took to the appstore to find something to fill the void that was created in my heart

and among other games, I came across this

and I thought "oh! a girl idol game that looks cute and fun and

what the fuck why does that girl have a drawing of a face instead of a face-"

you know, like you do

but anyways I started playing this game and for the past two hours I've gone on a very uncomfortable rollercoaster

because the game itself? cute high school setting, pretty mild rhythm game, scout/level up system, not too different from what I'm used to

I even like the game mechanics and wow it's fully voiced and even has animated cutscenes that's pretty neat

but um

after finishing the tutorial I was met with this

and uhhhhhhh this

this is a high school age girl correct?

and my brain was like

oh no no

there must be some mistake here

so I did some research

and unfortunately

there is no mistake

all the characters in this game are in high school, and like

listen I get that there's a certain demand for fanservice in any fandom okay I understand that, I really do

and I get that these are fictional characters

but I am uncomfortable playing a game that's going to so blatantly paint this sort of picture about high school age girls, and then pass it off as innocent fun

No offense but I'm not okay with that. Full stop.

EDIT: another thing [which is bad for a different reason] is that the first "extra" story I was given was about one of the girls winning a coupon for an all you can eat buffet, another of the girls thinking that this is her "chance to make girl A chubby" ???? and then girl A worrying that she needs to go on a strict diet and limit how much she eats to prepare for this buffet

like uh

huh???

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

You've probably been asked this question before, but...how do you deal with self-doubt/impostor syndrome as a creator? I'm no artist, but I channel my creative energy into being a writer, and I have a ton of ideas that I want to explore in my writing, but I fear that if I don't utilize those ideas to their absolute fullest, I'd be letting down hundreds of people who like to read my work. Do you have any advice? I'd love to hear it. P.S. I love your WD!Steven comic.

OH! Ha, yes, imposter syndrome. Let’s... let’s talk about that. 

For those that don’t know, imposter syndrome is the phenomenon many creative people go through where they doubt their own abilities. Especially if a creator has gotten a lot of attention for their work, they begin to succumb to the pressure of being “good enough” to have “deserved” their audience. 

To put it simply, you feel like you’re an imposter that has somehow fooled people into believing they’re in for a ‘good’ story, and you will inevitably disappoint everyone when they figure out you’re not as ‘awesome’ or as ‘talented’ as they’ve been led to believe. 

It is self-doubt in its purest form, it is the fear of doing well and the fear of doing poorly all rolled into one bitter, stress-inducing onigiri. 

Let’s discuss self-doubt. I’m going to describe 3 things specifically to keep in mind for this. 

1) The Horizon Goalpost

You may have already read this in my other post about unrealistic goals. 

Basically this boils down to: Don’t set unrealistic goals. 

Utilizing Your Ideas To The Fullest is a wholly unrealistic goal to have, to be honest. No single idea can ever be ‘fully’ utilized because the concept will be different for everyone. Everyone will have a different idea of what the perfect, plot will look like. People literally argue about how shows ‘should’ have ended all day and all night. 

Saying ‘I need to write this story perfectly otherwise it’s garbage!’ is the same as looking at the sun on the horizon and treating it like a finish line.

We know the sun isn’t AT the horizon, and it is impossible to arrive at the horizon in the first place because it only exists as the limit of our vision... your story is like that. You do have limits on how much potential you can see. But that doesn’t mean your goal should be to catch up to it. Take it one step at a time. Many people don’t even START their story, let alone finish it. Set achievable goals. 

2) The Man Behind The Curtain

The second fallacy of self-doubt is the idea that anyone is at all competent. 

It’s false. No one knows what the fuck they’re doing - you included. That’s just how the world is.

Look, I’ll give you an example. Maybe when you were little you would go to your local grocery store and think ‘wow, everything is organized and works so well! The cashiers do their thing, the self-check-out is working... everything is running like a well-oiled machine!’ 

Then you grow up, work in retail and realize that everything except the storefront is held together with chewing gum and cello-tape. No one is ever 100% adequate, at least one person is having a mental breakdown every day, and everything is five minutes away from collapsing like a house of cards - all the while customers are none the wiser. 

This holds true for practically EVERYONE and EVERYTHING.

Sure, we may our good days where we function relatively well. But this is not a held constant and on average, most of us are struggling to maintain the illusion of Everything Is Fine while simultaneously worrying that we’re the only ones that do this. 

On average, we are all incompetent. The people that succeeded are not always better - sometimes they were just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. For many of them, that moment happened when they were born to wealthy parents. For some, it was just about utilizing their 6 degrees of separation right. 

The truth is, there are THOUSANDS of people who COULD have been Beyonce, or JK Rowling, or whoever. The popular are not inherently more talented. They just happened to have the spotlight on them. 

3) Schrodinger’s Fanbase

The third thing to keep in mind when you write, or draw, or compose, or CREATE - is that your audience is not a set auditorium of people. 

And statistically, the beginning of your story is always going to be the point at which you have the largest number of potential fans. 

When you START your story, you only have to worry about satisfying people about the premise. You get them hooked and they’re more or less appeased - because the rest of the story is in their expectations. It’s in their head, and they will make up whatever they need to keep them happy. At that point, your story is still 90% their story (or whatever they think your story will be). 

The further you go into your story, the more you will narrow down your fanbase. People who expected it to take a different turn in chapter 2 will drop off. Then people who wanted something specific to happen in chapter 3 (but it didn’t) will also leave. 

And you know what? THAT’S FINE. That’s the normal way stories go. You cannot appease everyone at the same time - you will always have people who will be dissatisfied with the way you decided to do things. 

The important bit is - that doesn’t mean you are a worse writer. It just means that your fanbase organically shifts and expands as necessary. Your story will speak to different people at different stages. Let them enjoy it or not enjoy it. You cannot force someone to like something - but you CAN form connections to those people that do like it! 

In other words - let the fanbase exist as its own separate ecosystem, and don’t depend on it. It will morph and evolve as you write, and you and your fans will find each other and drift away as necessary. 

I also encourage other people - fans specifically - to allow consider this approach! 

I know we all love to kvetch, and yeah, it’s good sometimes to let off steam... But I don’t think hyperfocusing on something you dislike is healthy. If a story doesn’t satisfy you, don’t waste time forming an anti-fandom for it. Don’t fuel more effort and time into something that makes you unhappy. Just... go find something that you DO enjoy! Give THAT your time and attention!

Anyway, that’s just the way I think about it. Maybe it’s because I’ve been around long enough to know that pretty much every author and artist suffers from self-doubt and it’d be silly to hold myself to unrealistic standards that no one else is able to meet?

Hope that helps!