Damn, really like the EDIT art. It does feel like that captures the easy-going attitude I liked about the original Mardek.
=> "Which do you think is more important, though: telling a good story, even if things have to be changed, or sticking with what's familiar, even if some things are clunky or they close off opportunities for more interesting narrative turns?"
I think this is narrow framing. It's probably fair to assume many people would agree that the old ideas are not so clunky, and/or could be reworked without deviating from the "core". The question as it stands, almost sounds like "Do you like good storytelling, or bad storytelling?!?!?!"
A fairer framing would be, "Is it best to catter to tropes and symbols preestablished demographically, or to risk new ideas to market for the sake of what I perceive is superior art?"
This framing reveals more clearly what is at issue here. People like what happened before. Maybe they don't trust you anymore, for some reason. Maybe people have grown out of MARDEK (but most people seem to at least like parts of what MARDEK was to a great extent), maybe they trust you a whole lot. But I think that from a pretty basic logistics point of view, because people are not in your head, it's more difficult to trust you than it is to distrust you. The only thing you can really do is to... do your thing. But then, this blog does masquerade somewhat as a platform for feedback, which adds friction to this picture.
Even the richest author in the world, J.K. Rowling, has broken the trust of a lot of people in a lot of different ways. She still has a following, but that's probably more a function of how established she is.
Questions about appropriation of art by the demographic is pretty difficult, and it's even more strange in the fairly unstirred indie scene. In academic terms, we would be talking about "death of the author," or how the author doesn't really have much control over how their art is perceived. But here, it's also kind of pre-art, or at the very least micro-cultural. Who gets to decide what is MARDEK? Is MARDEK even a "thing"? What does it mean for MARDEK to have a legacy?
In marketing terms, obviously, riding the wave of your own hype is useful, so using familiarity is objectively good, especially if you think your personal brand has less recognition than MARDEK itself. But with art? Nothing is objective with art. Except perhaps people's feelings. But talking about art that is yet to be made? That's far removed from objectivity.
As an amateur writer who started off a long time ago writing in Internet forums, about stories of a character named "Tama Yoshi" who existed on "Yoshi's Island" and somehow became a partial hero in repeatedly hyperbolic scenarios, I know what it means to carry over childhood characters over decades. Tama Yoshi is ~13 years old, creatively speaking, but I'm still currently writing him. Several characters that were made from the fanfictions are characters I use, and in some cases, the characters at root are not even my own but widely re-imagined versions of other people's characters. The main character of my first novel is not even my character at root. Interestingly, I've never branched off to the point of completely replacing characters, although I have agressively reimagined many characters with adult lens, sometimes deleting irrelevant characters and creating new ones. For some reason, I'm tenacious in preserving the spirit of the root characters, perhaps because I think they betray a certain speckle of wisdom, even if childlike. Applying mature lenses to a childlike ideation, to me, can go a long way.
Obviously, my situation is different because zero people care, so I can do whatever I want (for now).
Sharing my thoughts on your artistic process is quite a rollercoaster, personally. Sometimes, you frame your ideas in a certain way that makes me think you're headed a way I dislike. Then, you elaborate and I'm suddenly excited about the things you do. Fortunately, I'm not a very bubbly commentator, and I understand the complex dynamics of this whole process. Writing my own story is a rollercoaster too; I judge myself a bunch, and I think so far it's worked. If I project this onto you, it reveals that "judgmental ire" from external insights is wrong, because it's unnecessary. I've learned over time not to share partially unfinished work, because they WILL change, and sometimes getting bogged down in the first draft can be a bad thing, because often the end informs the beginning.
The only real way to change the way people react to you is to change the way you present yourself. Always remember a half-finished project will raise more eyebrows than a fully fleshed out, polished project. It's deceptively difficult to communicate your own uncertainties as an artist, because sometimes you're not even aware of them yourself. That can lead you to present certain things over-confidently, only to be criticized for something which you would likely reframe later along the road.
All projects have stuff which got on the cutting-room floor, which would make people mad. Imagine replacing the final product with the sum of the brainstorm entries in your creative journal. How absurd would that be? What does it say about how people react to creative blogs?
=> "Which do you think is more important, though: telling a good story, even if things have to be changed, or sticking with what's familiar, even if some things are clunky or they close off opportunities for more interesting narrative turns?"
I think this is narrow framing. It's probably fair to assume many people would agree that the old ideas are not so clunky, and/or could be reworked without deviating from the "core". The question as it stands, almost sounds like "Do you like good storytelling, or bad storytelling?!?!?!"
A fairer framing would be, "Is it best to catter to tropes and symbols preestablished demographically, or to risk new ideas to market for the sake of what I perceive is superior art?"
This framing reveals more clearly what is at issue here. People like what happened before. Maybe they don't trust you anymore, for some reason. Maybe people have grown out of MARDEK (but most people seem to at least like parts of what MARDEK was to a great extent), maybe they trust you a whole lot. But I think that from a pretty basic logistics point of view, because people are not in your head, it's more difficult to trust you than it is to distrust you. The only thing you can really do is to... do your thing. But then, this blog does masquerade somewhat as a platform for feedback, which adds friction to this picture.
Even the richest author in the world, J.K. Rowling, has broken the trust of a lot of people in a lot of different ways. She still has a following, but that's probably more a function of how established she is.
Questions about appropriation of art by the demographic is pretty difficult, and it's even more strange in the fairly unstirred indie scene. In academic terms, we would be talking about "death of the author," or how the author doesn't really have much control over how their art is perceived. But here, it's also kind of pre-art, or at the very least micro-cultural. Who gets to decide what is MARDEK? Is MARDEK even a "thing"? What does it mean for MARDEK to have a legacy?
In marketing terms, obviously, riding the wave of your own hype is useful, so using familiarity is objectively good, especially if you think your personal brand has less recognition than MARDEK itself. But with art? Nothing is objective with art. Except perhaps people's feelings. But talking about art that is yet to be made? That's far removed from objectivity.
As an amateur writer who started off a long time ago writing in Internet forums, about stories of a character named "Tama Yoshi" who existed on "Yoshi's Island" and somehow became a partial hero in repeatedly hyperbolic scenarios, I know what it means to carry over childhood characters over decades. Tama Yoshi is ~13 years old, creatively speaking, but I'm still currently writing him. Several characters that were made from the fanfictions are characters I use, and in some cases, the characters at root are not even my own but widely re-imagined versions of other people's characters. The main character of my first novel is not even my character at root. Interestingly, I've never branched off to the point of completely replacing characters, although I have agressively reimagined many characters with adult lens, sometimes deleting irrelevant characters and creating new ones. For some reason, I'm tenacious in preserving the spirit of the root characters, perhaps because I think they betray a certain speckle of wisdom, even if childlike. Applying mature lenses to a childlike ideation, to me, can go a long way.
Obviously, my situation is different because zero people care, so I can do whatever I want (for now).
Sharing my thoughts on your artistic process is quite a rollercoaster, personally. Sometimes, you frame your ideas in a certain way that makes me think you're headed a way I dislike. Then, you elaborate and I'm suddenly excited about the things you do. Fortunately, I'm not a very bubbly commentator, and I understand the complex dynamics of this whole process. Writing my own story is a rollercoaster too; I judge myself a bunch, and I think so far it's worked. If I project this onto you, it reveals that "judgmental ire" from external insights is wrong, because it's unnecessary. I've learned over time not to share partially unfinished work, because they WILL change, and sometimes getting bogged down in the first draft can be a bad thing, because often the end informs the beginning.
The only real way to change the way people react to you is to change the way you present yourself. Always remember a half-finished project will raise more eyebrows than a fully fleshed out, polished project. It's deceptively difficult to communicate your own uncertainties as an artist, because sometimes you're not even aware of them yourself. That can lead you to present certain things over-confidently, only to be criticized for something which you would likely reframe later along the road.
All projects have stuff which got on the cutting-room floor, which would make people mad. Imagine replacing the final product with the sum of the brainstorm entries in your creative journal. How absurd would that be? What does it say about how people react to creative blogs?