Interrelated Stories Chart/Summaries

Nerdy and Jock
Characters:

I STILL DON'T KNOW FOR SURE IF NERDY AND JOCK TAKES PLACE IN THE SAME UNIVERSE, but if it does it takes place in Noland's school several years after the stuff that goes on in TMSG. Nerdy and Jock kind of takes place in an indefinite time period because TIME PASSES IN THE REAL WORLD AND I HATE TRYING TO DANCE AROUND ANACHRONISMS;;; Basically I just wanna feel free to put pop culture references in Nerdy and Jock w/o worrying about the "canon year" it takes place in.

As far as plot goes, there's really no plot for Nerdy and Jock... I mentioned before that Ned and Jack came from a dream I had, but I mostly wanted to draw them because I love drawing Kool Broz who are In Love. It starts out with Ned and Jack already being a couple, so it's not necessarily about their relationship. The tone for Nerdy and Jock is similar to OFAV, except I want to emphasize how everyone is GREAT FRIENDS!!!! I'm really hoping to avoid high drama between these characters because idk.... I don't always like reading about teenagers being catty and dramatic, sometimes I just wanna read about teens having fun and being cute friend. So I wanna go for a lighthearted and fun tone, even if it's not necessarily realistic. Also everyone swears more in this comic than in my other comics..... IDK WHY THAT HAPPENED...? Everyone has a potty mouth. KOOL TEENZ.

I had something else I wanted to say here, but I forgot what it was. -u-;;; OH WAIT I REMEMBER! This is kind of a random thing, but I don't really make anyone's sexual orientation explicit in Nerdy and Jock (except maybe Lafayette, who's ace). For the most part, the characters don't talk about sexual orientation with each other... well, mainly Ned and Jack don't. I just didn't want sexual orientation to be in the forefront of the comics, so I've kind of left their "precise" orientation kind of ambiguous.

Lafayette and Dmitri's Story

I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS HAPPENED, but I've somehow come up with semi-extensive backstory stuff for Lafayette and Dmitri...???? What surprises me the most about these two is the fact that Dmitri's become a pretty important character to me... Look at this quote I said about him the first time he appeared in Nerdy and Jock: "Ed Sheeran Lookalike, on the other hand, probably won’t appear again." WRONG, HE'S HERE AND HE'S HERE TO STAY, AKIOH-OF-THE-PAST!!!!

Anyway I guess the plot here is just exploring how their friendship changes over time. It's split up into elementary school (when Laf and Dmitri first become friends), middle school (when they grow apart and Lafayette has a lot of drama with himself going on), high school (becoming friends again and coinciding with Nerdy and Jock), and college (mainly a continuation of their high school friendship, but maybe they understand each other better here). Most of the stuff from Lafayette's perspective deals with stuff like the internal fantasies vs. external realities, physical appearance + puberty (and not going through puberty?), gender and sex stuff, and also like power relations between friends... idk. Stuff from Dmitri's perspective also looks at power relations, but a lot of his stuff takes peer pressure/how others perceive him/acting for the sake of fitting in into account. His POV also has less about gender and maybe more about romance and developing feelings for Lafayette (and the standards he learns to set for himself and Lafayette to maintain some degree of normalcy between them). (you may not know this, but... Dmitri's a romantic cornball... he loves those old-school-Taylor-Swift-style fairytale romances............. he's a sweet boi.)

The overarching dynamic of their relationship is that Lafayette appears to be the one in charge between the two because he's the one who talks the most, and the two of them mostly spend time doing whatever Lafayette wants to do; but Dmitri's really the more mature of the two of them. In elementary school both Laf and Dmitri perceived their friendship as Laf = The Cool/Smart One and Dmitri = The Dumb Admirer, but stuff in middle school kind of shook up this dynamic and they had a gradual fall out by the end of 6th or 7th grade. They reflect on things on their own before they reconcile around the end of Sophomore/beginning of Junior year of high school. Over time Lafayette gets better about being attentive to what Dmitri wants (it's especially noticeable that he's making an effort towards Dmitri after the two of them make up in high school), but Lafayette still has a tendency to recklessly act on his own while Dmitri tries to keep him in line. BUT yeah Lafayette becomes more self aware over time. To a degree. Not completely.

IN TERMS OF TONE.... IDK I guess it gets pretty dramatic and ANGSTY, especially middle school stuff. MIDDLE SCHOOL IS A WEIRD TIME, SO...... hm. That said, I don't really want there to be a lot of drama in the high school time period since it's in the same location and universe as Nerdy and Jock. THANKS 2 THE MIRACULOUSLY KIND SCHOOL THAT IS THE NERDY AND JOCK SCHOOL... NORTHWEST HIGH SCHOOL, skool of kindness.

There's also some backstory stuff with Lafayette's mom (?? for some reason), but I'm not really sure where to go with that right now.

Life: 08/26/16 | Posted By: moonlit dream | 2 comments | Tags: info, interrelated stories, interrelated stories chart, nerdy and jock, ofav, tmsg