How Do Fans Remix It S Not Supposed To Be This Way Into Fanart?

Nothing beats the weird joy of seeing a song twist into visual art, and 'it's not supposed to be this way' is one of those lines that invites a hundred interpretations. I usually start by listening to the track on loop and jotting down images that stick — rainy streets, cracked mirrors, a character's hand hovering over a photograph. From there I sketch quick thumbnails: alternate outfits, different ages, or an AU where the characters swapped roles. Often the fanart ends up as a small comic page or a single dramatic portrait that leans into one lyric.

I love mixing media for this sort of remix. Sometimes it’s watercolor washes for the mood, inked linework for clarity, and then a layer of photo textures for grit. Other times I’ll animate a tiny loop—flickering neon or falling rain—to match a beat in the song. Sharing process clips helps other fans connect with the interpretation, and using tags like the song title plus mood tags makes it discoverable. Personally, I adore when people transform an emotional lyric into a visual story; it feels like a conversation across mediums, and I always come away inspired.

I like quick, visceral reactions when remixing 'it's not supposed to be this way.' My go-to is a single striking image that captures the emotional core: a silhouette against a crushed skyline or hands holding a torn photograph. Limiting myself to one frame forces choices—what to show, what to leave out—and that constraint often makes the piece stronger. I play with color palettes to push the mood: muted blues for resignation, saturated reds for anger.

Sometimes I make a little animated GIF where a lyric line types itself over the art, syncing text speed to the song’s tempo. Other times I stick to stickers and icons that fans can slap onto avatars or messages—tiny remixes spread the line across platforms. I enjoy how compact, repeatable fanart turns a lyric into a motif people use in everyday chats; it’s small but meaningful, and it always makes me smile.

Bright energy here: I treat 'it's not supposed to be this way' like a writing prompt you can draw. I scribble a list of scenes, pick the one that hits hardest, then decide the style. Manga-influenced panels? Soft pastel portrait? Pixel art with tiny animated tears? All fair game. I often make three versions: one literal—showing the lyric happening; one symbolic—using objects like wilted flowers or a broken clock; and one humorous—completely subverting the melancholy for a meme-style take.

Tools change the vibe: Procreate gives smooth washes, Photoshop helps with compositing, and traditional markers bring warmth and texture. Even simple typographic pieces where the lyric itself becomes the art are popular; designers play with fonts, spacing, and layers to echo the song's cadence. Posting drafts and polls can turn the remix into a community event, which I find super fun and social.

Fans take so many different directions when they reinterpret 'It's Not Supposed to Be This Way' into fanart, and honestly that variety is part of the joy. For me, the process usually starts with picking the emotional anchor — is the piece meant to be quiet and aching, furious, resigned, or oddly hopeful? That core feeling then shapes everything: palette (muted grays and blues for loss, harsh reds and blacks for rage, warm ambers for bittersweet acceptance), composition (tight close-ups to capture a single tear or wide, empty landscapes to show loneliness), and the visual language (realistic render vs. stylized cartoon vs. surreal collage). I love watching fellow fans pull a single lyric line out of the song and build an entire scene around it — a cracked mirror reflecting a different life, a door half-open to an impossible horizon, or a zodiac motif that matches a character’s fate. Those little choices turn a cover image into a narrative moment.

In practical terms, artists remix the song into fanart in a few recurring ways. One popular route is literal lyric illustration: text becomes part of the image, either hand-lettered across the sky or integrated into props like newspapers or tattoos. Another way is character-driven reinterpretation where an artist draws their favorite character reacting to the song’s events — maybe seated in the rain humming the chorus, or showing a flashback sequence in a comic-strip layout that visually narrates the lyrics. Then there are stylistic mashups: combining the song’s mood with the look of another universe (a noir take, vaporwave aesthetics, or turning emotional beats into a pastel, sleepy dreamscape). On platforms like Pixiv, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok you’ll also see animated snippets: subtle looped GIFs where a tear forms and falls or a character’s expression shifts on the beat, sometimes synced to the song itself. Those micro-animations are addictive to watch and share.

Tools and community play a big role too. Digital painters use Procreate, Photoshop, Clip Studio, or Blender for 3D mood pieces, while traditional artists rely on watercolor, ink, and collage to give the work tactile, analog warmth. Fan challenges and redraw prompts are huge — someone posts a line from the song and asks for interpretations, and suddenly you have fifty takes ranging from painfully sincere to hilariously campy. Collage and glitch art are a favorite for this song’s theme: tearing up old photos, layering static textures, and introducing visual 'errors' to echo a line about things falling apart. Crossovers are another delicious angle — putting the song’s themes into the heads of different characters or universes makes new emotional connections (and sparks discussions in comment threads). I also love when fandoms create zines or printed artbooks centered around a single track; they become these intimate collections of small, beautiful variations on the same emotional core.

What keeps me coming back is seeing how personal each remix gets. Two artists can interpret the exact same lyric and produce art that feels like entirely different songs because of their choices in light, gesture, and color. That range — from raw sketches to polished animated shorts — makes the fandom space feel alive and generous. Whenever I scroll through a tag and find a fresh take, it reminds me why remix culture is so fun: everyone brings a little piece of themselves to the song, and the result is a chorus of visuals that keeps the music alive long after the last note fades.

I tend to approach remixes of 'it's not supposed to be this way' like a small world-building exercise. Rather than just illustrating a single moment, I imagine why that moment exists and sketch scenes before or after it. Sometimes I create a short zine that expands the lyric into a four-page mini-story: flashbacks, a pivotal decision, then the aftermath that reflects the chorus. That longer format lets me explore character expressions and how wardrobe or setting communicates history.

Another angle I use is crossover remixing: dropping characters from a favorite series into the scene implied by the lyric and letting their established relationships color the meaning. Lighting choices are crucial—warm backlight makes the line feel wistful, harsh spotlight makes it accusatory. I also experiment with layout: diagonal panels to show instability, panels split by a lyric line to fuse word and image. Sharing scanned sketches and the final printed zine at cons or online feels rewarding because people recognize the lyric and then see how I turned it into a tiny narrative; it’s always neat to hear which panel people latch onto.