oc info dump/introduction to the story they're in i guess YAY

[theobobeo]

okay hiiiiiii
i really havent infodumped about my OCs in a minute so i thought like. this would a good place to do that! so! [DEEP INHALE]

Belonging (infodump)

content warnings for allusions to childhood abuse, cw for blood and injury in some of the illustrations

i'm writing this supernatural/psychological horror graphic novel called 'belonging'. it's set in rural northern england in 1995 and explores the themes of generational trauma, the paradox of avoidance (in running from something you refuse to confront, you can become it) and the subjectivity of memory. it's set in 1995 for a lot of reasons but one of the main ones is the limited technology available and how it forces one to keep physical tokens of things - photos, books, albums, etc - as a way to remember. it makes things feel more tangible, but also the items take up physical room. you have to decide what to keep and what to leave. also, the tangiblity of memory through photos you have to go to the effort of printing contrasts with the surreality and subjectivity of the psychological horror of it all. 'you can remember it, but there's no evidence for it. it happened, and it was real, but how do you prove it?' type beat.

the main characters (jamie, the protagonist and kit, the deuteragonist) are both searching for a sense of belonging. both of them are trying to determine what home is for them - emotionally and physically - but there are things in both of their pasts that are obscured to them, so there is a physical (and emotional) search to uncover what they're not remembering.

the premise of the whole comic is that jamie moves back in with his estranged father following the death of his mother. he and his mother, marjorie, left jamie's dad, Jim, in the middle of the night when Jamie was 6. He doesn't have many memories of the house or his life before he left, apart from an unrelenting and pervasive dread that accompanies any thing to do with the House and his father. Leaving the House was a big deal, because it was Marjorie's through inheritance but she really needed to Leave with Jamie and whatever she could take. Jamie extrapolates that his dad must've been Terrible, but he really doesn't know how terrible until he has to live with him again.

James Sr and Jamie's illustrated character introduction

There's a lot details on Jamie's character sheets like his history of delinquency, a letter from his social worker, a note from Jamie's (gay) maternal uncle Nick, with whom Jamie is close but whom Jim detests for being gay and, of course, Marjorie's funeral program. There'll be more pictures of Marjorie in a bit cos she's a HUGE huge part of this whole story.

Anyway!

both of the main characters are trying to figure where 'home' is for them - emotionally and physically - and have different things they cling onto as a way to trying to solve that issue. Their character introduction sheet illustrations kind of reflect that.

For Kit, it's his polaroid camera. his mum travels all the time for her job (photojournalist for nat geo) and he never stays anywhere for long enough to make friends or feel grounded. eilieen (ginger baddie in the bikini) his mother, had him when he was super young, is very vague about who his father is and why they can't stay in the british isles or return to ireland (where she's from). she leaves him alone all the time and as a result, he's very independent and craves connection. he and jamie are neighbours - their gardens back onto a field where both of them go to spend time - and also are in the same classes at sixth form (the final two years of school). they get close very quickly and that's mostly due to kit wanting to get close with him and figure out what his deal is. he is very much like a kit (fox cub) in that way - endlessly curious and a little mischeivous.

he's also go a LOT going on mentally. he's not as squeaky clean as he might seem at first (ahem the blood on his boots). being left alone in countries completely foreign to him meant that he was desperately lonely, and also not always in the care of good people. eileen is a very fun person, but not the best mum. kit has a lot of complicated feelings about her and what he was forced to endure...  we must hold him gently.

For jamie, he's got his mum's journal and letters that she wrote to him before her death in the spring of 1995. her journal is in a repurposed book of edgar allen poe poetry, hidden for reasons that will be revealed (i literaly never know how much to spoil teehee). He has a handful of pictures of her but they're all very bittersweet. neither jamie or marjorie were having a great time in any of the photos they have when jamie was a kid, apart from the handful they look after just leaving.

Here, you can see the corner of the book of poetry that kit's polaroid is sitting on, and then again a bit more prominently with the photo of him being carried as his mother as a kid

marjorie's presence is very much a constant throughout the story. we've not even really gotten into the psychological horror aspect of things, but that's where she shows up. as jamie lives in the house and stays there, everything starts coming to the fore but in bits and pieces. the abundance of evidence that jamie lived here through all the photographs on every wall (despite them being covered sometimes) makes it very much feel like jamie's living in a tomb to the past.

jamie is, in many ways, haunted by the past. the degree to which he is literally haunted remains to be seen. lowkey i havent decided the degree to which i want it to be ambiguous. i like the idea of jamie being an unreliable but reliable narrator. what is happening to him is real, but it is real? one of the early sketches i did to try and play around with this concept:

its set in 1995 in england, where discussions of mental health really weren't what they are in general but especially not for queer teenage boys. i joke that kit being gender non conforming and he and jamie being in a queer relationship is least of their problems.
as for the reality of what jamie (and eventually kit) experience becomes clearer as the story goes on. maybe a bit of a spoiler idk (this shit isnt coming out for a good few years and is subject to many edits), but sometimes what exists in memory and mind can BECOME real. not that we manifest bad things, but. idk. something something oedipus and in your efforts to avoid something makes them nightmarishly real.

Kit and Jamie's relationship (friends to lovers, aw) is very much the vehicle through which both of them plumb the depths of their families' respective secrets. they recongise something in each other that makes it easy for them to be open with each other in ways they are with no one else. soulmatism lowkey just because im indulgent like that. they do match each other's freaks lowkey. (btw all of these illustrations kind of jump around in the timeline so there's no REAL continuity yet but. yeah)



this is a page im working on when things start getting a little less theoretical and a little more 'oh, we need to address this':



ummm. i think that's everything? everything i can think of right now. my main inspirations for this comic were my mad fat diary, the end of the f****** world and undone, so if you're familiar with those things then maybe the vibes will feel more legible? but uh yes that it's okie bye <3