How to make friends and love people.

One of the main things while developing characters is to make sure they operate in different environments. OK it’s not, but I guess part of the creative process is plopping people in different scenarios and seeing how they might perform. I’ve been doing the same with Jack, now it’s Skylar’s turn to get wet…

Whilst I want to avoid the ‘female in peril’ cliche (not least because it’s a fcking misogynist BS idea that women are helpless and need men to save or ‘fix’ them), I do like the way Skylar’s face kinda suits the helpless vibe. I think for the comic, I’ll have both Jack (also does a good ‘helpless’ face) and Skylar get in a spot of bother, and Charlie can be the one on the ‘journey’…

Reason for this is there are FAR TOO MANY comics/stories/films (like 98% of them) where the first-person story is the guy who becomes the hero, and it’s just not helpful ~ because we (society) end up with this skewed idea that ‘females’ (if you literally identify someone purely using the gender identifier I will punch you in the dick/minge) have things happen ‘to’ them, whereas males are the ones doing the things. So societally we subconsciously pick up this bullshit that men are the do-ers of the good and bad, and women are just sort of pretty decorations that hang around and either have a good time or a bad time, depending on what’s occuring. Toxic. Toxic for our attitudes, and that means we become isolated and it hurts all genders, all people, starting with the individual with the toxic approach.

So, I mean for anyone who’s actually met/touched/been a female, you’ll know how annoying this constant drip-drip of saturated media becomes, because it just quietly feeds the most toxic masculine philosophies (that damage us all), rather than challenge them.

Seems a good point to mention Fight Club – a satire written by a gay man to challenge toxic masculine philosophies, and ironically held up by toxic douchebags as a good example of how to be awesome! Amazing face-palming head-desking moments all round there, bros. The author of Fight Club puts it; “So much of my process is to take a social model, take somebody’s fantasy about how the world should be, fulfill it, and then run it so that its flaws start to show”. Brilliant author, misunderstood by critics and certain fans alike!

Anyway I don’t mean to put men down – it just gets to me because I care for guys!!! Men are awesome. Women are awesome. Men are dicks sometimes, women are dicks sometimes. Men are inspiring and funny and stupid and fart, women are inspiring and funny and stupid and fart too.

So please let’s see some better gender balance in the stories we tell? Pretty please?

I do realise the irony of saying that and then dumping a bunch of renders of a helpless girl in a goddamn tube! Like Chuck, I am trying to write a story that highlights the douchebaggery that is so easily avoided; I’ll try and be more clear in its picking-apart though. So this is just a batch test, one of many. We’ll hopefully see in the next comic there’s a good shove in the direction of equality.

Because people, all people, are awesome.

Why am I in a goddamn tube?!

Uh-oh! PERIL!!!!! I HATE PERIL!!!!

“Jack; Skylar’s afraid of baths, come on please; just until she gets her confidence up. Just sit there.”

Playing with skin texture finishes – this looks like oil rather than water. Still. It’s not totally awful.

Oh wait I called this post ‘How to make friends and love people’ – better resolve that one. If it’s a caustic principle to dishonour certain folk, then the symptoms are (1) isolation [loneliness and secrets], (2) chaos [explored heavily in Fight Club; feels like turmoil in your guts, insomnia, etc etc], and (3) self harm [can mean wasting your money, wasting your own time watching all of Netflix or whatever – that’s all self harm].

So to make friends and love people I guess we do the opposite: (1) recognise destructive patterns [mindfulness, journalling, honesty], (2) share whatever we can [connecting with people, real people in the real world in a bar or cafe or whatever, whoever we can – this is the opposite of isolation and is a crucial part of who we are because humans seem to be at their best in community – search Meetup or local groups that are into what you’re into, then turn up and help them out: give.], (3) Choose what to change. We can change, move on, let go, seek help, we can choose to sit in our own filth or we can choose to have a spring clean, to drop certain things or at least try to. Choice is good and we have more of it than we think.

Something that helped me make friends and love people was to recognise my privilege – what do I have lots of that other people are struggling with? Then give that thing away. Expecting nothing in return. Act like you love people and, pretty soon, you find the love permeates everything, connects us and sets us free. And unexpected and unearnt freedoms are the best.

If I act like I’m a selfish douchecanoe then the person who really suffers … is me.