idletry update: may 2025

this scene... got a LOT of rewrites, including a very impromptu one. it is now really short. it may end up being changed by the end of idletry's production.

in the original scene, jessie leaves it at telling ruth to kill herself, and never helps at all, feeling that she's being told what to do. ruth is never seen again after this point, and it was up to the reader to decide what happened to her. this was supposed to establish that jessie's desire for a sense of autonomy takes priority over her moral compass in her mind.
however, before moving to the second phase of this scene, i posted all of the pages i've drawn so far on a burner account to be able to read them all in sequence, and i noticed the overpowering antagonistic role jessie has in the story, even when it's played for comedy. this is act 1, and while jessie has a "small dog syndrome" pattern of behavior, and a lot of resentment towards a lot of people, she's not supposed to come off as someone inclined to murder. i would say she's ill-adjusted, not quite exposed to brief, neutral social interactions often enough to notice how aggressive she can come off -- but still someone who generally wants to be a positive participant in the society she lives in and someone fairly capable of regulating her emotions if she wants to.
the characterization of jessie as "not that bad" in the beginning of the story is necessary not only for her character arc to be... an arc, but for the central themes in act 3. over time i will probably massage her expressions and such to come off just a little less like someone who would legitimately attack you over a minor disagreement. her anger is defanged, and she's interacting entirely with people who are already REALLY familiar with her and how she behaves.

BEFORE she meets ruth in this scene again, jessie also had a much larger monologue, but it was just kind of... mush. ranting about her mother. i removed it, because this act is already getting really long, and not much quality is lost. it did contribute to the sudden shortness of the scene, though.

the last and perhaps biggest change, however, was that this scene was merged with another scene where jessie kills a more typical "bad guy" she meets at night -- which was also deleted. that part of the scene was almost twice as long as the interaction with ruth, but it was also never part of the original scene with ruth anyway.

there are now 3 scenes left until the end of act 1... but i also have to finish drawing the one where jessie makes herself immortal, which may help with the pacing and incessant hostility from jessie as well, because she is entirely alone, with no one to be angry at.
the next scene is the one that i initially thumbnailed to try out the process of thumbnailing.

also, as an aside, a long time ago i mentioned the idea to someone i was talking to of a story that had both a comic version and a prose version, and how it would be cool to see the different information either could naturally present. this was, in my head, more of a mystery plot, but it was just a passing concept anyway. idletry is probably the most thematically relevant story i will draw, so i've been starting to write a prose version, but i'm still on scene 1. i'm very rusty with the actual act of writing fiction, but i will try to post these with the corresponding scenes once they're actually lined and colored or add some kind of update on that.