filler 56

another folie a dupe strip, and it actually isn't the one that i posted a preview to. that one i ended up feeling less and less comfortable posting as there was no point to making it public (no "lesson" at the end) besides a lot of explanations for the "canon."

for this strip... i wanted to experiment more with folie a dupe. i have at least 10 unfinished diary entries in this format from the latter half of 2018, and i've been thinking about why i've been struggling so much with something i used to cut time out of my sleep for just to be able to work on it for my personal satisfaction.
i drew a similar concept (a strip based on how to start trusting yourself, or centering around the concept of building trust) that i drew at the beginning of this month.

both of them tried to experiment with color a little more. unfortunately, color is really important to the legibility of my experiences, but i can usually fill in the blanks myself reading my own comics. making art, though, coloring takes a really long time... but i do like coloring. it's easy for me. usually.
i was trying to experiment with ways to incorporate quick but satisfying coloring methods. full color didn't really work out... messy, took a long time still, etc.
the above comic was a separate entry, not a take on the same question twice. it happened prior to this finished strip's events chronologically.
the strip itself i'm not really satisfied with. it got really long again, i stopped enjoying the coloring i did for stress relief over the days i worked on it (like the scribble background, and i didn't even BOTHER doing more than one panel of the bar shading in dupe's shots), it felt rushed, and still not very concise about the "lesson" in the conversation. i'm glad it's done, at least.

it also made me want to talk a little more about folie a dupe, because that's a diary comic i've been drawing and sometimes posting since 2015. i think it's been really helpful to process my emotions and issues with art, but i would say after working on it for a handful of years, it's not for every issue and art therapy itself is not for everybody.
spending time to "immortalize" some of these head conversations into art, even simple strips like this, can leave you with a sense of regret if it's to vent an emotional issue. i think it works well for recurring problem patterns in your thoughts or emotions that seem to keep coming back and you can't work through them. that's primarily because the art is a quick and (ideally pleasant to look at) reminder of what you learned while drawing the comic to find peace.
not everybody draws diary comics like this, either. a self-conversation format works well for me, some people just draw slices from their real life, some people draw whatever they want (flowers, expressions, life drawings) that are usually pretty irrelevant with their thoughts written in pretty text next to the art... it all depends on what you need out of it, or even just want out of it. i think the deliberation of drawing out your feelings is preferable for people who tend to ruminate or think in circles a lot out of hesitation/fear in particular.

i also think when i assumed i needed to make folie a dupe more interesting for me again, i might've been a little off the mark... it's hard to focus on art when you don't feel safe, especially hard to focus on trying to work on yourself when you don't. i think i've reached a point where a lot of these strips are dealing with more deeply rooted issues for me, and that makes them not only a lot longer and more draining to work on, but harder to even be open with myself about if i don't feel 100% safe. that's just how it works.
it also means that these are generally issues that don't need just one talk-through and committed reminders like retraining your thoughts or replacing bad habits. you really do have to feel your way through and let the emotion mature just by being able to exist with your undivided attention, without scrutiny. i'm kind of wondering how effective it'll be for me moving forward, but i have to focus on fixing my environment first.

this is getting long, but that's okay, because i haven't talked about anything thoughtfully on here in a while. the last thing i wanted to write up was the continuity of folie a dupe, because i knew it would probably confuse people who are paying attention to it. i made a few references for different parts a couple of months ago and talked about how trist changed functionally because i'd made a fursona for a category of thoughts and behaviors ("not gray and not dupe") rather than an identifiable personality.

1) the house, as the setting in the comic, is an amalgamate manifestation of previous rooms and buildings remembered by all its inhabitants. it changes shape based on memory recall both passive and active (usually passive, but intentionally opening a wall is the most common way of actively changing the house's shape).
it has no functional motivation or objective of its own, but it might seem that way to the inhabitants because there are multiple sources of input as to what it should do. the house is inclined to try to satisfy all inhabitants equally (and, ideally, concurrently), and will fulfill one desire of the most immediate occupant before sending them to the back of a queue. a particularly perceptive occupant might notice that the house does what it wants and warp their desires to interfere with other occupants' wishes.
because the house is a manifestation of explicit and implicit memory, and consciousness is a very complex interweaving of memory recall experience, leaving the house is not possible. there is a latent push to stay there, but if an occupant attempts to exit the house, they essentially lose consciousness and disappear. but because memory is also physically stored, they regain consciousness later and begin to exist again within the confines of the house.

2) the gray aura sometimes encountered in the comics is a state of "anti-change," or a refusal to accept any new information that might alter current memories or encode new memories. much like trying to leave the house, prolonged exposure to this state will result in a similar loss of conscious existence.
it may sometimes be referred to or interpreted as literal death, but it's more accurately the experience of psychic death.

3) contra is often referred to as "god" by dupe due to intentional religious grooming to instill a fear of death in them. they have since reconceptualized her into a more malevolent figure to aim blame and aggression at. she probably won't show up much at any point. she is very introverted and prefers to do her work unnoticed. her presence instills a sense of imminent dread in inhabitants to repel them from various exclusion zones.

4) juno, trist, and liron are split into 3 different individuals.
juno retains the bird-like appearance in the comic. fearful, appeasing, hyper-empathetic side of the original personality. examples of juno's behavior in fad:

trist is a shapeshifting amoeba who retains one of the names. very upbeat and silly. not really a usual for diary strips, will probably continue to be that way. examples of trist's personality in fad:

liron is a tasmanian devil made out of some kind of miasma now. he personally may or may not manifest in other inhabitants' behaviors, as he has a penchant for angrily possessing other inhabitants in a "red haze" (presumably partially out of the desire to be able to communicate quickly or clearly). examples of liron's personality in fad:

any explanation of the splitting doesn't happen in entries because, again, it's really more like... "canon" posterity than something useful to me. they're all identifiable as individuals to each other through habits, manners of speech, etc. alone (but they may not be very happy about being identified separately from each other so accurately now).
so... here's the explanation for that now instead.

anyway, that's all i've got. all in all i think diary comics (and art therapy in general, but sequential art therapy here) can be really meaningful but i would not recommend posting them publicly online for the most part.