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FaD strip: fact check
🕑 Added 2019-12-09 01:06:55 +0000 UTCthere are a few things i wanted to talk about after finishing this strip, so i'm going to do my favorite thing: make a numbered list.
1) the editing decisions.
first of all, this comic was going to be longer. like, probably 2 times as long. i'll talk about what got cut in the next item. i decided to cut it because it was getting substantially long in terms of physical height and this point in the comic still got across a lot of info on its own. it looked enough like a cohesive punchline on the ending expression that i just called it there.
there was a bit of editing as this comic had to be relined, but not enough to go over every panel like in a start to finish post.
this panel was redrawn entirely because it was really bothering me. i should have sketched based on the most important information first, which would have been dupe in the foreground, but i drew gray first in the original take. for some reason i compensated with the fact that i did that by trying to shove dupe into the left-most part of the panel's foreground because i knew technically LtR readers will look at the left first.
this also kind of established the sense of where the final part of the comic took place better than the first shot. because the comic was going to be longer initially, there was more time to establish the space and just let this panel be with the first take.
all of the panels with dupe talking needed to be resized because they were originally drawn at more of a head shot size than a bust shot size, but gray was drawn at bust shot level.
this panel's size was also opened up because dupe is moving towards the edge of the panel and it would be most intuitive to open there. dupe's dialogue was reworded due to having more space.
the resizing thing i do a lot is VERY subtle and probably only noticeable to me a lot, but it really bothers me. dupe can be challenging to draw at the correct angle because their neck takes up a large portion of a bust shot. ultimately i'm aiming for gray and dupe to be proportionally sized with each other during a conversation more than "they both need to have the panel cut off at their chests."
this was a last-minute change. i liked the contrast balance of the first take more, but i noticed that it made the floor look like grass and it really bothered me.
the palette was going to be just one shade of "black," one shade of blue, and one shade of green, initially, but i ended up adding another shade of blue, because it looks nice, but also, because the number of different scenarios in the intro part of the comic worked better if i had more palette combinations to swap for dupe.
even though they were obviously in different settings for every shot, having dupe be a notably different color in every one helped it feel... MORE different, or more chronologically spaced out, rather than happening in one day.
2) dupe's dialogue is a real challenge to write because when communicating with other self-states they will REALLY take advantage of the telepathic link.
dupe builds what they're saying on references and recall to prove their point. when speaking to other people they'll instead opt to simulate this by picking a specific uncommon word as "most accurate" and then repeatedly reference that word when soliciting rhetorical recall instead. the use of the word "conjecture" here is an example of that.
so, for example, when dupe says, "for example" -- they're often not stating something verbally at all. if it was more accurate to the actual exchange it would be like:
"gray, i know that you ALWAYS mind my input, but, i believe i've noticed a thought pattern of yours that may cause... 'undue' stress."
"whuh thuh process"
"well.. [interruption to pick up mawkish] zum beispiel. [recalls specific incident of the thought] [recalls second specific incident to indicate it is a pattern] [recalls 60 seconds ago to indicate what incited the conversation] these are extremely unlikely scenarios. [recalls census data of violence committed by strangers compared to total population] while the intent of these thoughts is obvious, [recalls "hrngh protect self" joke] it's ultimately unproductive. conjecture [recalls study about brain activity during imagination] is practice. only practice positive and predictable. imagining VERY unlikely, [recalls gray mentioning in conversation that they struggle with accurately measuring perceived risks in situations] extreme [recalls therapy worksheet about catastrophizing] scenarios will, over time, [recalls what conditioning is] distort your ability to identify [recalls situation where gray didn't listen to a bad gut feeling about someone] and adequately react to a real one. [recalls "practice makes perfect, so be careful what you practice" post] as much as i love the idea myself, i believe that is an outcome contradictory to your own desires. [recalls gray directly stating referenced desires]"
this is obviously a ton of information being pushed, so it's a challenge to try to figure out how to condense it, and it doesn't always work as well as i hope. it is what it is, though.
after the cut-off point, dupe was going to explain that facts are tools with limited contexts in which they are relevant. they used the example of age, stating that while gray could say "i'm 25 years old" right now, in a few months, this would no longer be factual, and if they'd said it a few years earlier, it also wouldn't be factual.
however, it would still be perceived with a specific purpose, even if it was known to not be a fact by all parties involved. this implies that one exchanges information that always has an immediate contextual relevance, even if the only context that's immediately relevant is the intent of the person communicating the fact. therefore, you should keep some observations to yourself unless you feel there is an immediate relevance, even if you know that the observation is true or "factual."
this is a conversation dupe has had to have several times with needle in front of gray already, so it was also a lot of referential material to have to sort through -- a big reason it got chopped.
3) i said way earlier this year (and maybe this is just confirmation bias in action) that the folie a dupe strips this year seemed to consist of a synthesis of real information and internal information -- or basically that they're shown outside of The House more often, or happening specifically in somebody's head sometimes.
it gets more overt and absurd when 2 of them are interacting with real space at the same time like in this entire comic. you're not really 2 people with 2 bodies interacting with things in tandem, so usually when it's 2 of them in one real scenario, they're either REALLY close together in the personal space bubble, or only one of them is actually physically interacting with something in real space while the others are focusing on something else entirely.
it feels intuitive where to place them both at the same time, but it does feel like sometimes i have to rationalize or rearrange. for example like... if there was somebody ELSE occupying the seat in panel 2, i guess you could assume gray and dupe should just cram into the single seat actually being occupied, but i feel like standing far away in an unoccupied part of the sidewalk instead or just A Thought Balloon at all would be my more immediate decision.
i guess i don't really have to rationalize it, though -- it's just like when your head is really stuck feeling like it's somewhere else. it's hard for me to not focus on how absurd it is though. it isn't irreconcilable entirely because i've been drawing dupe and gray both interacting with real situations separately in folie a dupe strips occasionally since i started making them, indicating that neither one of them is like... "the real one," per se.
looking forward to when i can draw just one of them straight up jumping back into the other one's skull like a cartoon because they feel like the situation is being handled adequately enough to just zone out. there's also another short comic i still haven't drawn where needle just pulls gray's entire face into their head like a lemon pucker to talk to them "inside" too... there are a lot of equally absurd solutions.
anyway, that's all i have to say about this one i think. i'm kind of out of it today because i've been vacillating between "not enough sleep" and "too much sleep" so i feel like i could've been more comprehensible about what i wanted to say.
