soloing

Since the guild wars 2 addiction has started creeping back in, I’ve been reflecting on how I used to relate to it, what has changed and what still lingers. When I was competitively speedrunning, I would almost never take up the offer to do group runs – 5 manning the dungeon as intended, to push the time to its absolute lowest. I stayed in the category of solos. Jerma once said when they tested his IQ, there was a huge gap between his “normal iq” and his “performance iq”. I don’t know how much of that is bullshit (its jerma, so probably at least mis-remembered and incorrectly simplified) but I think…me too. Some people thrive under pressure but I feel like 90% of my brain shuts down whenever I’m in a situation where there is pressure to not mess up. If other people will be annoyed or disappointed based on my performance, I just avoid it all together. I do the solos where I can mess up as much as I want, reset as much as I need to, and have complete control over the goal/expectation. 

This is reflected in my art as well – commissions really scare the shit out of me. Someone putting money down and having faith that I can do justice to their vision, expecting a certain level of quality — what if I forget how to draw? Inspiration doesn’t come on demand, what if I get artblock but now I have a deadline? What if they realize there is someone better they could get? What if they see what I make and regret choosing me? It’s so much easier to just let people buy art that is already finished. 

But to be fair, I have sometimes found that commissions give me challenges that level me up much more than what I choose to do. That expectation creates an incentive to push through the discomfort when something is out of my wheel house, and I need to problem solve. Sometimes I come up with or discover new tools and strategies that massively benefit my personal work, in ways I did not expect. And sometimes, through collaboration, what is created is more than the sum of its parts.

I’ve continued to be paralyzingly overwhelmed by this comic project – I know comics are commonly created by one person, but for some reason what I’m imagining feels like it’s an impossible mountain of tasks. It could take months to just get worldbuilding in a state where I could make a series of real pages. The start of the story. It’s like stubbornly doing my dungeons daily solo and it takes 2 hours, when it could have taken 20 if I swallowed my pride and pugged a 5 man. I’d have to accept losing the DPS race to someone who’s kept up playing, and facing the reality of how washed I am. Was I really learning anything new by doing a dungeon I’ve done 100 times by myself, slower? There is some challenge, but there is probably more growth to be found in softening the ego and learning the new meta strategies.

I love how I can’t even let myself play a video game wrong, we have to maximize self actualization at all times. All the material comforts and privileges in the world are no use when you still have to live in your inner nightmare. I’m laughing at how emo and dramatic that comes across – it’s real but I’m also such a drama queen. The external facts of my life are so mundane and drama free, yet I am constantly on a hypercoaster because I just fundamentally lack chill. 

But my fear of collaboration does come up when I think about animation. That is a process and a medium where you are very, very limited if you want to do it yourself. You just cannot make an animated tv show as one person, at best you could put out little shorts once every 3-6 months like worithikids. 

I’ve been told I have a style that fits animation, and I am entranced by it as a medium – it is pure magic to me. The creative freedom you have with the expression, how you can layer the humor with visual gags/acting that would never work in live action…..it’s just intimidating. I don’t want to be bad at it, and animation is one of those skills like playing violin where you just have to accept sounding like a screeching banshee for at least 2 years if you want to sound good. You can’t skip the ugly phase. And – at some point, that ugly phase may overlap with collaboration. I would have to face my biggest of all fears – being a small fish in a big pond. Potentially being a dissapointment. But if you shy away from humanity’s most important super power – cooperation – you could be denying the world something beautiful just for the sake of your pride. Just like Han found out, there’s a price to completely shielding your ego and your heart. Your life becomes much richer when you can trust, when you aren’t only ridin’ solo. 

Hey Robyn, very inspiring but are you going to follow your own advice?

…..I guess I’ll pug my next dungeon run. A bit of low stakes ego death exposure therapy. We can work up to an “art thing” being the activity I suck at. That one is really going to test me.