The more you read and write, the better you get at helping people find areas in which to improve.
But I think there's one area of critiquing that I've actually got worse at recently.
A good critique comes in two parts. You tell your partner what they should work on. But you also tell your critique partner what they are doing well.
The critique is ultimately to help someone improve. But if all you do is list off flaws, it makes it sound like you don't think they're doing anything right.
You tell your partner what works, partly so they know what they are doing right. But also so they don't feel like a failure. It can take a lot of courage to share art with others.
I think I've gotten worse at finding compliments to give my critique partner.
In one case, it was because the writing just wasn't that great.
But another part of it is that my tastes are becoming more and more picky. So if something doesn't fit those tastes, it can be tricky for me to find positive comments.
I still do my best to pick out what they do right. But I feel like some of them are pretty shallow. I wonder if it comes across that way. I guess it does.
I think if something doesn't fit in my tastes, it has to be incredibly excellent for me to compliment it. Otherwise, even if it's good, I don't seem to know what to say.
And there's also a third factor. I had not actually gotten excited about anything since the year started. So it was probably harder than usual for me to find compliments.
Like I said, even the new Steven Universe episodes didn't interest me until about a week ago.
I got super obsessed with Breath of the Wild, but even that wasn't really excitement. It was mostly a really fantastic way to reroute some negative energy.
Last week was the most up-and-down Fanime ever. And this is coming from someone who once lost all of my cash the moment I arrived at Fanime (and then felt like a loser because I had to borrow money from my friends for the rest of the day). Usually I'm obsessive about making sure everything it tidied away and safe, so that kind of thing hadn't really happened to me before. Definitely not on that large a scale, value-wise.
Right after Fanime, there were those Steven Universe episodes I wrote about. And the three minutes where Lars does amazing stuff.
I cannot stop thinking about it.
All the other stuff with Lars feels like it's clicked into place.
Aah, man I want to freak out about it with someone who actually knows what I'm talking about.
I even played a few older episodes for Dad, which I guess he liked, but I think a lot of it went over his head.
I really really like Lars now. Which I didn't expect. Yaay for character development!
But something I expected even less is that I really want him to get home to see Sadie.
I almost never get into romances, and I don't think I've ever rooted for characters to get together. At least I can't think of any.
But now I actually want these two to finally get together?
@_@
I've been letting random episodes of Steven Universe play on my itunes for the past week, since I can't get it out of my head. There are a few moments where Lars drops his "jerk exterior" that are now making me laugh my head off. Mostly the ones that involve Sadie.
Like in "The New Lars," when he falls out of his chair when he learns Steven told Sadie that Lars loves her.
And "The Good Lars" when he says "if I show up to this party with my family's weird purple cake and with Sadie, everybody's gonna know I love baking and everybody's gonna know I love..."
:3
I guess I let myself get carried away in the second half of this post. Considering it started out as somethign incredibly different.
But I'm glad I did. While I was writing this, I realized why I've gotten so into these new episodes. I think it's because that scene with Lars the first thing I've gotten excited about this year.
Thank you Lars.
Just make sure you get home safe. Or, at least with no more damage than you've already gotten.
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