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Upload Notes: Massive Mermaid Part II
🕑 Added 2021-11-13 11:45:12 +0000 UTCHeywhoa, bit late on these upload notes! Time has been flying by lately. I only meant to wait a day or two to write up these notes, and somehow, all of October is just gone. This whole year has moved so quickly...
Anyway, giant mermaids -- a more important topic. I hope you all enjoyed this two-parter! As I've said a few times in various places, I struggled to find the right rhythm with this one. I wanted to explore a different dynamic, where the interaction are very indirect: the giant mermaid plays with a ship, and the focus is on what's happening inside. So I had two characters basically living in different worlds, and only one is responding to the other in any way. lol, it was pretty weird to juggle~ In hindsight, I could've kept this a much simpler story, but I'm glad I did things the way I did. Even if it's very imperfect, I'm happy to have at least tried something new.
There's definitely fun advantages to this kind of dynamic! On the plus side, I can give even a one-off character like Eliza some good emotional depth, since everything is through her lens. I could really sink my teeth into those gritty details of being in a sinking ship and flinging yourself to safety, and eventually onto a giant fishwoman body. At the time when I started Massive Mermaid, I had happened to be really into sinking ships (shoutouts to the sinking ship fandom!!!!) having watched the Titanic recently and also a documentary about submarine warfare... I really had these images in my head, very detailed scenes of all the flooding and crowding. Unfortunately, I think I have a long way to go to capture the same effects as James Cameron or Actual World War I Naval Warfare.
A lot I can learn from this story... For one, I should really think to get "to the point" faster. I spent so much time with Eliza flopping around a ship, only for everywhere she went to to be for nothing. It felt like a lot of time wasting. Remember those pillars I mentioned in another upload notes? You don't. Well. I relied too much on trying to be immersive/realistic, that I ended up pushing aside aspects that would be sexier or more fun. Some stories benefit from that, sure, and I think that's what Massive Mermaid was meant to be... but it's not totally my style lol. I think I prefer having more character-based interactions, more chances to develop engaging personalities. Clo, she's cute and all, but she doesn't stand out, does she? I mean, try to describe her personality to me that isn't just "generic giantess but she's in the water." I had so much imagined for her at one point, but as I was writing, I just kept finding my head empty with ways to express her -- she's just a fishwoman, alone in the ocean, playing with toy ships.
I think there's just something about mermaids that makes me think of the logistics of their... existence, and by extension, the existence of giants lol. I was fine enough creating a setting where a giant mermaid can just exist and not be known about in the rest of the world, but it does beg a lot of questions about where and how she lives, what she does and thus why she is the way that she is.
Comments
arris
Clo knows what she is and does what she wants. Playful and curious. Aspects that could be sexier or more fun, maybe depending on how the ship ends up getting held and how things move about that could lead to different angles. Going with the more hopeless situation focus did get more immersive (especially with the rushing waters rushing in and immersing things.)
