Melle-D's Art Dump

We're in a boom of it now, but for a long time, and even as we grow up, most of our media is designed for mass appeal. They're sanded down to be as likeable and non offensive as possible, and anything going against the norm is something the creators had to fight for. This has its place, its not bad, but it's the opposite end of indie media. When a creator or small group has control over their project, they're going to put more of themselves in it, intentional or not. The appeal is going to narrow to the audience that can relate to it.

The thing is, with mass appeal, we usually judge things on if they were well made, because their main goal is to entertain. It's much simpler to figure out if the latest marvel movie was good or bad by pretty standard metrics. Was the writing understandable to the common man? Was it entertaining? Exciting? Well acted? Consitant with lore? Ect ect

But the thing is, you can't really judge indie projects the same way. Of course, there's the factors of less money, resources, actors who aren't famous, ect. But an indie work is not necessarily meant to entertain or just entertain. Its often a very personal story and often from people who aren't part of the majority. You might not be able to completely understand the choices they made or why they focused on what they did. That isn't because you're stupid, or they're gatekeepers, they just had a different goal they wanted to communicate, and you might not have the background to understand it. Now there is a considerable skill to be appreciated in being able to take that minority idea and make it comprehensive for the majority, but that is not always the goal.

Now because of this, I personally take the stance of judging a piece of media, especially one made independently, on how well I think they achieved what they wanted to do, shared what they wanted to share. I'm an anime fan but I don't like shounen action series, the most popular ones. But if I do sit down and watch an episode, I concentrate more on the skill and love I see put into a work. I've often read/watched through things I don't even care for personally, just because I appreciate watching people put their hearts into something they made.

I think we can all see the very personal fingerprints on TADC. I hear a lot of people complain about not enough lore being explained or other characters not given enough time. But from what I see, that was intentional, and the main goal was sharing those stories they wanted to share. And I personally think they were pretty successful.

Criticism is always a good thing to have, but if it's just "I wanted more of this" "the story structure should have been more like this" I think its missing some of the point of enjoying independent media in general. If that's what they wanted to do, did they do it well? How did you relate to it? How did it effect you emotionally?

look out world! I'm LOOSE!

About to get 666 on my ns fw bluesky. Let's see if we can match it here >:3