MerMay Part 2

[olivermoss]

Not sure if I can make it much gooder





Orig sketch:



Hardison needs to be a bit bigger and longer in the torso. I didn't realize how bad Eliot's hand/wrist was until just now, I can tweak that.

The text is ungood, but I don't know font and text things enough to make it better. I can make it worse, but not better.

And it's possible I have a thousand words written that starts to explain my world building here, how it relates to his pendant, him actually being more of a werewolf than a merfolk and also there is an airship for surprisingly logical reasons. (Multiple companies are working on airships as low powered air travel options and falling from an airship into a lake actually worked better than like a helicopter struggle)

I know this world-building sounds like something from a sugar high 13 year old who just discovered fanfic, but I swear it makes sense (to me, maybe no one else, but it makes sense to me)

Comments

[james]

\o/

I for one support your endeavours to have Mer!Eliot.

[olivermoss]

Thank you!

We need more Eliot Is Secretly A Cryptid :)

[mistressofmuses]

Genuinely, world-building that sounds like a sugar-high 13 year old is a DELIGHT, and I want more things that have that sense of unbridled excitement for all the elements. Also, all of that sounds fantastic and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I like it, and the top version cleaned up very nice. I like the face details!

[olivermoss]

I've heard some people say that drawing and writing should be 'fun' or maybe 'joyful'. IDK sounds fake, but I'll give it a try. Actually, I'm kinda glad that I've figured out what does excite my inner 13 year old, that's actually been something I've been trying to figure out sometimes.

Thanks! I've tweaked it a bit, given Hardison a bit more volume and got rid of the dark outline around Eliot's hair. I think it's pretty much where it'll end up, unless I decide to color it.

[mistressofmuses]

Does sound fake, but I DO think it's worth a try! :P
Every once in a while I have stumbled on the "oh, this is that kind of wild teenage enthusiasm I haven't been able to capture in a while" and that really is a fun feeling.

[olivermoss]

It's hard to write when you can't really connect with what makes you feel excited / valid / seen / etc. It's been something I've been trying to work on. It's fun, but also if I don't know what I really want it's hard to figure out a really good plot.

[mistressofmuses]

I know the feeling. I kind of *remember* the enthusiastic self-indulgent feeling, but struggle to recapture it. (And I am using self-indulgent in a POSITIVE way.) I know the usual advice seems to be "write the story you want to read"/"write the story you wish you'd had", and that's not bad. But also, a lot of my favorite stuff to read has been stuff I didn't *know* I wanted and didn't know to wish for.

I DO love that this bit of worldbuilding you mentioned sounds EXTREMELY fun, and I hope it continues to be that fun to play with!

[olivermoss]

It can be hard to embrace your own id, especially if you can't find it. My id apparently involves werewolves, even though there is no werewolf content I've found that I like... including Teen Wolf. I could not get into Teen Wolf. I tried.

[mistressofmuses]

SAME HAT. My id *definitely* involves werewolves, judging from where the most self-indulgent of my story ideas tend to head. But like... not any of the werewolf stuff I've found.

Never got into Teen Wolf, though I read an occasional AU fic and never knew who any of the characters were, lol.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it feels like all the werewolf stories I find are like trying to do something odd with it and not really embrace the werewolfyness. I get werewolves are metaphors for fear of the unknown / things outside one's small town, but ... even then the metaphors are strained.

I watched Teen Wolf because it was such a big thing but yeah, fell totally flat for me.

[mistressofmuses]

I like werewolves-as-metaphor, and I'm a sucker for "acceptance of the monstrous self" as like... queer allegory, but I also want my werewolves to BE werewolves. Sometimes the metaphors are *really* stretching... or the work leans so hard into trying to make it a *perfect* metaphor for whatever thing they want it to symbolize that the rest of the story falls apart. (IMO, the metaphors work better when they AREN'T overstated or pushed too hard.) And at the same time, I really am not into the Alpha Asshole character archetype which ALSO crops up frequently in werewolf stories.

Like with so many shows, I only caught a few episodes of Teen Wolf, and I know it had a HUGE fandom for a while, but I definitely wasn't wildly grabbed by those pieces I saw.

[olivermoss]

I like werewolves as embracing nature/masculinity. Or just general cryptid stuff that doesn't need to be a metaphor.

Like I like witches as embracing nature/femininity, but I do not need yet another instance of it being a metaphor for a young women's brief and sudden sexual power over men. It does not need to be all about the men every single freaking time.

Yeah, metaphors just fall apart if not handled right. A lot of the time they fall apart as the story is wrapping up. Ugh, I really want to get more done on my super dark emo werewolf origfic. I have so many projects to make progress on. At least I got another thousand words of Cryptid Eliot done.

[mistressofmuses]

Agreed. (The witch-as-metaphor-for-sexual-power is just *boring* anymore.)

I feel like a lot of stuff that uses any kind of supernatural component as a metaphor can get way too hung up on trying to turn it into some kind of 1:1 comparison, which just... doesn't work. It's okay for the metaphor to be implied, or just an enforcement of a theme. Not everything has to be a perfect allegory.

I'm glad you made some project on Cryptid Eliot! :D

[olivermoss]

Some people can write supernatural-as-metaphor and have it work, but most people can't. The realism and the metaphor usually come into conflict and like... it's okay to do solid world building and let the metaphors just happen.

[mistressofmuses]

Honestly, I prefer things that are less metaphor and more shared theme. You can have *themes* that are served by supernatural elements as well as mundane ones (nature or internal acceptance or gender stuff or whatever) without it turning into heavy-handed metaphors.

Also agreed - the best metaphors seem to be the ones that just *happen*, rather than clearly being a central conceit that the rest of the story is bent around.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I feel like if a writer is drawn to say, werewolves, there are probably reasons why and they can explore that by developing the story as a story. Starting with the metaphor and slapping in various cryptids feels paint by numbers at best. It's like they are all chasing stuff that worked, but are going about it backwards.

[mistressofmuses]

*Very* much so. "Paint by numbers" is a good way to put it, as is just the feel of it being backwards - that's definitely the vibe that comes across sometimes, I think because the natural flow of the story is compromised in favor of making it adhere to a pre-determined metaphorical thing. It seems like that tend to thwart the natural character or story arcs, as well as character actions within the story.

I mean, I suppose people could say the same about plenty of types and styles of writing, but that feels like at least part of the problem.