Supercell Comic #0444 (Patreon)

At this point in the scene, I started to have some difficulty writing my way through this situation. On one hand I have the inherent drama of the situation and it was tricky having to juggle the realism of the moderator handling everything vs the narrative weight of not having that happen.

On the other hand, something else that's been sitting in the back of my mind is that, for all intents and purposes, Oz's family is a victim of police brutality. So, like it or not, I can't really divorce the story I'm trying to tell from the very real social and political issues surrounding that subject. 

Part of what made it tricky is that I made a lot of these narrative decisions way before I was properly familiarized with the real life issues that inform them, so I've had to put a lot of thought into it to try and surgically pursue the story I'm going for without trivializing the subject in favor of just having a dramatic arc or whatever.

I had a similar process way back in chapter 2 where Oz picked up that gun. At the time I was just thinking "well, of course this particular student in this high school would go grab a firearm in this particular situation" but then I became accurately aware of the school shooting epidemic in the US and... well, having him keep the gun just felt wrong knowing all that. Thankfully, having him think his way through the issue and responsibly putting it back ended up being a much stronger character beat for him, and that's what I'm hoping will come from how I'm trying to handle this subplot.

Anyway, enough rambling, enjoy the page ^^;