3042 Say Not Such Things.

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Before I forget again, thank you to whoever sent me the ridiculously huge gift. If there was supposed to be a note included there wasn’t one, so I don’t know who you are to send a thank you note back. It arrived a while back and I kept getting distracted by things and forgetting to say thank you.

Seeing the box sitting there really threw how working online has sort of ruined me in a way that’s escalating over time. I have stacks of unopened Lego sets, and games I’ve never really touched, because of the idea that I will monetize those experiences. I keep holding off on enjoying anything because of it. It’s not like I never speak about things, but narrating what I intend to do in a game isn’t something I would naturally do. I don’t play games to perform. I play them to not be me for a few hours. Building Lego, or messing with action figures is the same way. I don’t have a narration running in my head for an audience. I just look at the thing and think about whatever goes along with it. At the same time I do want to share some aspect of these things with others, but it’s not something that comes naturally to me. I’m not a born performer. I feel like I have to do something though as a means to keep my house of cards intact.
I’m reticent to start on these things because it’s essentially turning something I do to relax into a job. People who don’t understand performance might well say “It’s not really working.” but it is. It’s just working in a way you’ve never thought about because you haven’t ever done it professionally. If every schmuck had “IT” then there wouldn’t be just a handful of extremely successful streamers. My mother knows who Pewdiepie is, but she’s never even heard of Chibidoki. I’d be willing to bet a lot of you haven’t heard of Chibidoki. She’s out there on my social feed though. The kinds of stress you get from succeeding at video content are different from what I do, but not completely. I’ve spent years dealing with people telling me how much I suck and why I should stop, but not them criticizing my body, or how I talk. More attention means an increase in the negative side too, if you succeed. I don’t want to set the world on fire, I just want to be able to pay for my insurance and go to the dentist sometimes without wondering if I’ll end up homeless later. On top of that, how interesting am I really? How entertaining am I? Do I have qualities that are conducive to that kind of success. My mother is convinced I have a good voice for audio stuff at least. She also, against all evidence to the contrary, thinks I’m smart and interesting. I don’t think I can trust her on that completely because she is one of the very few people on earth who have shown a propensity for tolerating me at all. It’s possible there’s something wrong with her that makes her predisposed to liking me when I’m not really all that likable.
I dunno. I have to try something though. That kind of thing is also a different set of skills than the ones I have. Editing video and audio are disciplines unto themselves. I’m not sure an old dog can teach itself new tricks.

Drawing was always something I did compulsively. I didn’t tend to have a goal, I just drew to keep the voice in my head from overwhelming me. Channeling my anxiety into my hands made me capable of staving off collapse. Taking a core part of yourself like that and making it your job changes the relationship you have with it. When I started doing the comic as a job is when I started having crippling anxiety. It has escalated over time. It’s not an outlet for me the same way it was because on some level my life depends on it and games and toys kind of filled the role of anxiety relief. What fresh hell might I unleash upon myself if I consign those to being conditions of my survival? What is there to take their place? I have had a very limited taste of success as a performer. Even though the comic isn’t me dancing like a trained chimp, it is still a performance. I can extrapolate what an increase in success might be like. Am I strong enough to have even more people tell me how much they hate me every day? Will financial security be enough to offset that potentiality? I don’t know, but I do know that when I see a famous person crashing out I’m a lot more sympathetic about it than I was before I had guts enough to try anything.

People used to try desperately to get me to perform in plays, but I would never do it. It may not seem like it when you read my work here, but I’m painfully shy. Brooksie is very much an illustration of how timid I really am inside. I’ve been alive long enough to have gained some level of confidence when I’m in the outside world, but when a situation starts to spiral out of my control it’s all I can do to keep up the charade of being calm. I like being prepared for situations. When I go to a drive through I want everyone to know what they want before we get there. I want to relay the order in concise, clear, language so as to avoid problems. Being part of a live performance is daunting. I don’t want other people to depend on me. I don’t want to be the weak link. I’m not a team player. You have to be committed to a scripted performance in a way I simply can’t. People really thought I had what it took though. A few pushed me quite a bit. Who was correct we’ll likely never know, but I was the one who made the choice ultimately.

Even these blog posts have evolved over time because my audience could not tolerate me at my most truthful. Not all of it anyway. I was very much unguarded and straightforward in years past and now you get a much more curated version of me because I got sick of having to apologize for my own thoughts. Very few people want an unfiltered version of anyone. That goes double for someone who has as relentless a personality as I do.
Where does all that leave me? Exactly the same place I was when I sat down to type out a few lines as I set up the page for today. This exercise has left me with no particular insight. At least at the moment. Perhaps having written out the thoughts they will rearrange themselves in my person into something more practical. One can only hope.

Anyway, I hope the new week greets you kindly. As always I will return on Wednesday with more offerings. Until then, use Amiibo accessories in many compatible games.

35 Comments

Mike is big, cuddly, and easygoing, but I enjoy seeing how he takes his “captaincy” seriously.

And Ed never told Jess how well his boss can swing a sledgehammer?

He kinda performed a miracle at that store. He has lasted longer than most managers and even started turning the place around.

The funny thing is a large part of that was simply listening to Thomas about who to hire or not – the mistake known as Wes aside as a contrast and who will likely require extensive oversight or even outright damage control until he is either beaten into something “not a liability” tier or ejected entirely.

Imagine an entire store where all the peons and middle managers are Wes. It would be a dumpster fire to the point of violating time/space causality.

The villain with the highest Challenge Rating in all of tabletop gaming is Scheduling, without contest.

When I was in college that was the first order of business at the beginning of each semester. We would sit down with our schedules and pick the night with the fewest conflicts for our D&D session.

I had a teacher in High School, he taught us Business and Computer Administration, BACA for short. It was a great class, I loved it, got to pick my own topics and learn a lot about computers. Since it was a computer class I figured he was into computers, but he was a cyclist as his hobby outside of work. I always figured I’d do something with computers since thats what I did all day at home, so I was surprised that he didn’t go into a line of work that lined up with his hobby. He told a similar story to yours, about how he wouldn’t want to work at his hobby all day, it would change his relationship with it. After having worked at only a few different jobs all my life, I can say I’m glad none of them have centered around computers enough to make me not wanna look at them when I get home.

I am also sorry to hear that people don’t like pure unfiltered you, when I do look at twitter your tweets are always a treat to see, from both your accounts haha…

The comic is great, I love the little blush on Jess’s face like someone else mentioned heh, and the previous scene between Rullete and Thomas was amazing, I loved every page, really picked up what you were putting down. I always look forward to 9pm every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday for when you post your comic, but don’t want you to feel pressured so I’m torn at putting that in… I’m glad there are people that appreciate you as much as I do who are in a good enough place to lavish you with gifts such that you deserve for giving us such a wonderful story to read. Like the other wonderfully creative comic creators I follow, I wish a billionaire would fall in love with your story like I have and put you up in a corner of their estate or something, though I guess then you’d be under immense pressure to make just them happy with your comic huh? Man money sucks… This is why I don’t usually comment, I ramble on and on >< Keep being awesome Jackie! Love the comic!

I get what you’re saying about wanting to try and monetize more things so that you can live more comfortably, but as you’ve said: it’s a tough cookie if you’re not a natural performer. I’ve done a few “Let’s Play” streams on Twitch, with maybe 2 viewers and one of them found it hilarious and one of them thought it was ‘too forced’. Funny thing is that I wasn’t even performing: I was just talking to myself. It’s a thing I do, apparently, when I’m too focused. I trained myself to keep that reeled in in professional and social settings, but just voicing your thought patterns can do a lot of good on streams when you do a Let’s Play, or Lego unboxing.
The game I streamed was “There is no game”, an indy game that kinda takes the mickey out of the retro point and click games and the top down games like Zelda: Link to the Past. Some of the prompts are hilarious and some hints are so obscure and obvious at the same time, that the talking to myself seemed to have helped make the stream at least funny to 50% of my viewers :D

But yeah, doubt has nestled in my brains that I’m not interesting enough, and most of the newer indy games that I’d love to share are really not my genre. Feels like there’s a trend that for every ‘general’ game there’s about 10-15 horror-survival games created, and that just “ain’t ma thang”.

But I digress: what I wanted to say is that I recognize that crippling doubt and it IS a very bold step to make to try and monetize your escapes from reality, because you’re bringing them back to reality that way. All I can say is that if you talk to yourself from time to time, it’s less of a performance. You don’t have to involve the chat for example, just let them enjoy the ride and answer some questions when you see them… but you’re not obligated to turn a “what am I gonna do with this?” into a “Chat? Let me know in the comments! What should I do with this?”
They’ll make their suggestions regardless :)

IF going that route with lego, start with something you Have done with others. Like tips and tricks for setting up a diorama scene with lego that you did with family. …Nephew I believe.

I too am familiar with the big-headed gremlin known as Chibidoki. Cheeb is a wonder in her own little way. She’s not afraid to embrace balls-to-the-wall weirdness and run with that ball past the goal line, out of the stadium, and down the street to the Starbucks.

And it’s good to see Mike standing up for his people like that. Good man. This is the guy who’d cut everybody’s hours by one a day to keep from firing one guy outright.

Was it the Lego jazz club? I’d still like to see you happily build it/have it completed in your city some day.

No, it was the city square, or something like that. i forget the exact name. I think someone sent me the jazz club but I don’t have it in my records here for some reason. I try to keep a folder of that sort of thing but it doesn’t seem to be in it.

I dont know. i would place such streams more as performance art, and a fee for participating in an action that you would normally do privately for your own recreation kinda makes sense in my opinion. While i dont believe it will explode to say CR levels (and lets face it, part of CR’s popluarity was/is due to the number of folks who want to participate in rpgs but dont have the friend group or resources to play)

I’m honestly not sure if streaming would even do anything for you. Not to be a downer, it’s just such a saturated market that few people go into it and get anywhere now. Which is fine if they just like doing it, but if you’re not that into it, and it’s like a job you’re making yourself do, I just don’t know that it’ll be worth it. Almost better to find some sort of online job, even if it’s just a few hours a week.

Of course his hands are strong, Jess. His forearms are probably as big around as your thighs.

[I am speaking from a place of bias as someone with a… –I hesitate to say ‘large’ as I’m only 5’5″– robust frame who’s used to having forearms bigger than the calves of mist people around me. My shoulderspan is 21″ BTW.]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

after reading this on and off for the last decade or so, I’ve reached the current comic. never commented before. am sad

thanks for a lovely comic

Goodness do I know that feeling! It happened to me with haenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells’ comic Skin Horse, Evan Dahm’s 3rd Voice, the Foglios’ Girl Genius, Red’s Aurora, and Atomic Robo.

On the one hand, all evidence suggests that you are indeed smart and interesting. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with your mother if she’s biased, she’s your mother! She’s supposed to be biased.

The main problem with streaming is for most people it means making themselves the performance art, and very few people have what it takes to do that.

Which is why when one does, they are able to make mad money doing it, but not everyone can be Michael Jordan, as the saying goes.

Imagine if Michael Jordan disliked basketball, or was at least ambivalent at it. It would be doubtful that he would have reached the level of success he did otherwise. So I’d venture that one needs to have a certain drive/desire for exposure to be successful at streaming in particular. So if for example the thought of being in the drama club in school bored or agitated you, odds are streaming is not for you either, as it overlaps the profession of acting to a degree.

There are other ways to create art and display it though, not everything has to be a live performance with a hot mic in your face.

“It’s possible there’s something wrong with [my Mom] that makes her predisposed to liking me when I’m not really all that likable.”

Could it be that the thing that’s “wrong” with her is that she loves you?

Many people tend to forget this about “hefty” people. They move their own body weight around all day, every day. Unless they’re so morbidly obese that they can’t do that any more, they’re never going to be weak people.

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