➤ Content Warnings
The start of my favourite chapter but also my least favourite chapter: CH7.
The time period I drew these, CH7 was going to be the end of Cycle 1… and, uh, for some reason I made CH7 really bloody long so The End never came. While every other chapter is around 10-30 pages, CH7 is… around 80?
… For the first three parts. This is Part 1.
Anyway, because this chapter goes on forever and is still technically not finished at the time of writing this because I stopped continuing it for over a year (sorry), it is both my favourite and least favourite because some parts of it I like and others I absolutely loathe. Part 1 I feel is particularly strong, then it gradually gets…
Ech.
Well, time for some character infodumping. Personally, I do not care for the personalities of characters too deeply (hence the decision to make this comic more about the general lore of the world than the characters), maybe it is because I lack empathy? I never really relate to people. Nor do I really understand them well. It makes characterisation difficult, but moreover it also means I do not care to show things in the writing itself. I will just tell.
Spooky! Bad writing! Anyway, I do not oppose political or moral messages per se in fiction but I always found it cheesy to directly point it out at times. I feel like it ought to be easily inferred from how it is portrayed. Something of the sort…
Jacques saying 'ableist' out loud here is obnoxious to me for that reason. lol. lmao even. Jacques typically isn't actually a person who is good at asserting any specific boundaries outside of the ones that bother him the most (and, for schizoid reasons, he usually cannot tell even when he does feel bothered: 'alexithymia' is a psychological phenomenon you can search if this experience seems unfamiliar).
The point of him saying this is two-fold: the first is to portray a sense of familiarity he has with Reception, in that he is willing to assert himself towards them more than he does to other characters, even towards Media.
The other, which I think is a bit more difficult for me to portray, is that he usually mirrors the 'style' of how others interact with him. I said this before but Reception is a character who makes 'political' references often hapha-zardly—a recent example being in CH5 where they imply Jacques sees them as a bigot—and Jacques copies this when talking to Reception.
Media often treats Jacques in a way that, while not exactly the same, annoy him for the same reason he gets annoyed with Reception: he does not like being made to feel like he is 'dependent' on them unless he wants to be.
Media is a person who follows certain rules of social propriety as a general extension of his 'sense of ethics', and unlike Reception he is not the type to bring up systemic issues in interpersonal interaction as he considers it inap-propriate… and, well, Media is a person who generally dislikes the assertion of boundaries in 'impolite' ways.
Jacques is dismissive in general but when he talks to Media, I do try to make his 'coldness' different from how he talks to Reception: notably, he will not really point out the ways Media bothers him, or indeed even directly state it at all. While he is still 'impolite', he is so within certain 'rules' that align with what Media expects—explicitly pointing out what a mistake is is 'rude' but doing this is a more indirect way is more acceptable. Jacques often does this by just seeming generally 'annoyed' around Media or demanding distance.
From Media's convoluted point of view, the reason this is more 'polite' is that if a person points out exactly what you did wrong, that is definitely on you. If they are just generally being huffy-puffy and persnickety, you can take away the notion of somebody explicitly being blamed, framing the 'issue' as if it happens incidentally outside anybody's control. I am not annoying the High Judge, rather, he just happens to be annoyed.
Well, something like that. The very nature of their relationship on top of how long they have known each other also affects their interactions, of course. I think Media genuinely tries to be attentive towards Jacques, and it is more Jacques who decides more than anybody else to try and relieve him of the guilt by avoiding explicit discussions of his issues with Media [ which is bad for both in the long run, but neither can be accused of not caring… ]
I realise only now that there is an amusing irony to the media being the one who tries to be polite and avoid conflict while a receptionist brings up the most controversial things they can.
Ah, geez, what a tangent! Well, it is to be expected from these notes at this point.
… not sure what else to comment about this chapter. Urn, the first part with Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned and Charlotte was rushed so the pacing of the conversation is bad. Yeah.
The Breadlings will get a proper introduction in the comic [ I regret not doing it earlier but it is too late to change now so one will have to wait for a chapter in their inner world ] but here are their names for reference.
There are 46 Breadlings but I cannot juggle such a cast so only seven will be relevant (one of them is secret so far…) Here is what Doll they are: