I never really intended for the comic to end up with a love triangle, or really much romantic drama outside of the stuff with Carol, Thomas, Ed, and Nina. Everyone else was just sort of going to be set dressing after a fashion, but as I let the characters do things of their own accord these little dramas started to appear on their own. People have already basically forgotten that Maddison liked Reggie very much not that long ago. I think they dismissed her because it's so obviously, on the surface, a bad match. Plus many people are still pulling for John to win Alex back. So there's really a love square even if one corner is pretty weak. If you add in Victoria it becomes a love pentagon.
When i started the comic the first story was just supposed to be the introduction to the premise of Thomas & Carol's relationship. So many stories focus on the courtship, but stop once the leads finally pair off. I wanted the overall story to be the stuff that comes after. So in a way those two are locked in and I don't feel like I can play around with their relationship. Not only because it's part of my overall goal, but also because they are both exceedingly loyal. With the other cast members I can kind of just let them do whatever.
Some people really hated Reggie going after Alex and indeed convincing her that a relationship would be something she would like with him. They are both children of wealthy parents. Both educated, even though Reggie tends to act rashly and without thinking he's not stupid. Alex is selfish and arrogant. Reggie is also arrogant although less selfish than her. They have commonalities that other characters don't have, and a different energy than Alex and John. I think the case could be made that John would be better for Alex in that he has had a much harder life than she has. His struggles are the struggles of the working poor, along with a very dysfunctional family. He's a survivor though. Capable of landing on his feet. Even though he tends to be shallow, he now realizes that his standard of beauty was blinding him to qualities that are also worthy of falling in love with. This time in the wilderness is something that he needs to endure. The journey is the destination however.
As far as Evrina, Jo, Jess, and Ramon go that's a whole other thing. Evrina, like potentially all my antagonistic characters, isn't just a villain. She had her moment, but she's still part of her friend group and a human. It seemed like it would be a lot of fun to give her backstory with Jess because she also borders on being an antagonist sometimes. Although I think really most people just don't like how extremely manipulative she can be and it translates in their mind to antagonism, when she really isn't motivated by unjust causes. Her intelligence has made her arrogant and more than a little amoral. A trait that I have find often accompanies intelligence, especially in the young. She does have a moral compass, but sometimes the magnetic waves of other sources make it act up. I've been criticized more than once that I have a little corner of bisexual women being morally questionable that seems unlikely, but I've always found that all the gays in an area seem to know one another. If out of safety in numbers if nothing else. It seemed logical to me that like would find like and I didn't think about it all that deeply. It strikes me as odd that I always seem to be called out for portraying fluid sexuality while other people are praised for it. Maybe it's just the star I was born under. I'm going to do whatever I want regardless so I guess it doesn't really matter overmuch in the grand scheme of things. The people who call me out are never going to enjoy my work no matter how much I might try to bend it to their tastes anyway, so why even entertain the idea?
This is only tangentially related, but the first openly gay man I ever worked closely with was one of the worst people I ever had the displeasure to know. He was nasty, arrogant, mean spirited, officious, callous, and catty to a degree that was stereotypical. I hated him not because he was gay, but because he was an absolute unrepentant asshole. I didn't hate him straight away though. I gave him many, many, chances to redeem himself by being kind and helpful, but all it ever earned me was scorn. I can see his smug, ginger, face in my mind even today although I'm not sure what his name was anymore. Aaron possibly. The man was a walking talking stereotype of a mean 90s gay. He finally got fired for misusing the company email like an early Tinder service. He managed to bring down the video manager with him (a straight woman who he was friends with) which is what ended up getting me reluctantly placed as the video manager. I have considered adding a character inspired by him a few times since you so rarely see truly unrepentantly nasty gay men in media these days, but I've already got a lot of characters that I actually like writing and I'm not sure I would actually enjoy writing such a character as he. Maybe if I live long enough to run out of other things I can add him in.
Also unrelated to the previous topic; the next openly gay man I worked with closely was named Waylon and he was a very gay Dale Gribble. Looks, voice, attitude, all Dale Gribble except quite gay. He had never heard of King Of The Hill when he started working with us but after I showed him some episodes he began regularly quoting Dale, which was hilarious. Many was the time that I would walk by him smoking outside and he would look at me and say "The only thing that keeps me going is my will to smoke again." He would also do Karate chops after completing tasks and say "Shi! Shi! Shaw!"
I honestly can't remember where I was going with the original thread now. Something about Jo... Oh well, maybe it will come back to me next month when I present all the pages all at once. Probably not, but I'm sure I'll think of some other thing. In any case i appreciate all of you who keep the lights on around here. Even though my sassy mouth lowered your number again there are still enough left that I'm not going to be homeless next month. After that we'll just have to trust in god's plan. God's painful, painful, plan. XD
Until then I will see you in the blogs.