#Which feels even more stupid

[muiromem]

Love how I think I'm fine and not as self-conscious as I used to be, but then I'll randomly be hit by this gigantic wave of embarrassment over completely trivial things 😭

So... I installed a new shelf in my room to display some Star Trek memorabilia. Along with some tricorders, a hand-made tribble, etc. this also means I now have room to display my AOS McCoy costume card, and the two Tom Paris cards (regular and a cool film cell one) that I bought last year.

The thing is... my parents (whom I live with) don't know that I have a big stupid crush on Tom Paris???

And it shouldn't MATTER really, but they dunked on his character SUPER hard in the beginning - which, I get - but now because of that, my stupid anxiety brain is embarrassed that they're going to judge me for it. For that same reason, they don't even know that he's possibly my favorite character (they didn't even warm up to him until at least the end of season 3).

Now, admitting he's my favorite character from Voyager and using that as an excuse for having 2 cards of him would be one thing; except that my walls are ALSO full of photocards of Jin from BTS. My parents KNOW that I have a huge crush on Jin, hence the massive card collection (which is my love of trading cards meeting my BTS obsession and crush). So there's no way they won't put two and two together and realize I'm crushing on Tom too.

Now I'm torn between wanting to display my Tom Paris cards because of course I do, but also feeling stupid and awkward like a dumb teenager, because I'm still embarrassed over finding a tv character hot.

UGH WHY CAN'T MY BRAIN JUST BE NORMAL ☠️

[teratomatica]

you always land on all fours

[lazylittledragon]

so uhhhhhhhh. not to be cryptic and bitchy on main but congratulations to everyone in my messages for like 5 months on being right i guess

[classic-jamie]

breaking news: worst roomate in the world both DIDN'T stay on top of his laundry AND talked his roomie into doing something stupid. AGAIN.

this message WILL repeat in 2 weeks when he pulls it off again

[ganondoodle]

theres people that build the entire map of botw in fucking minecraft and im sitting here for the 100th time within less than a year crying bc i cant draw a line how i want

[theswedishpajas]

Based on my favorite gif lately

[5hrignold]

this is all i got

[nylarac]

i stopped shaving my legs for the first time since i was in like. i think late middle or early high school and it's v interesting/freeing

[campbyler]

ik part of it is that life and work just Be Like That sometimes, but every time i check back on your blog it seems yall are going through chronic ao3 author syndrome. sending love and good vibes your way i hope all three of you are doing ok and can catch a break soon!! (ik suni and thea yall are the ones writing the rest of it but sending love to andi as well)

also any tips on writing longer chapters without them sounding like they’re dragging on? i’m a (more casual) fic writer and my chapters always end up a little shorter than i usually hope they’d be

awake at 3am in a fit of jet lag and laughed aloud upon reading this bc you’re not wrong 😭 i feel like part of it is just timing, like thea’s work has a big busy season during the fall every year and her schedule also varies week by week and even day to day so i know some stretches are more difficult than others by default (rn she has been having to work from home on her weekend or after she clocks out which has been extra rough). my work tends to have bursts of insane work days every few weeks or so, and i just have a shitty daily commute on top of that and will sometimes get home like 12 hours after i left in the morning or something. so honestly there is a nonzero chance one of us is having a subpar time on any given workday i fear, and that schedule is pretty unpredictable given the nature of our very full time jobs. i also think it’s just statistically more likely that when we are active there is a reason for our Grievances to be brought up, either organically because we are coming out of a slump and are complaining about the Horrors or because someone checked in on us in a period of absence and we are giving a quick update, but either way, thank you so much for your wishesssss! thea will be getting a break soon (thank god) and i’m actually entering a bit of a busy stretch at work for the next week or so because we have a grant deadline to meet, which always means 10000 last minute experiments that i have to work into my schedule in the middle of the week and it’s really fun and lovely and great. woo hoo. 🙂

as for chapter lengths, i wish i had more solid advice but my problem is genuinely that i can’t for the life of me seem to trim them down 😭 i guess a part of it is largely how your chapters are structured — i only have a couple chaptered fics outside of acswy, but all of them are planned so that each chapter is quite meaty in terms of content or what i want each scene to accomplish. i will say that the singular thing that consistently drives up my word count is DIALOGUEEEEE!!! a blessing when i’m in a rut or have writers block and am trying to get something down on the page, a menace when im editing a scene transition i left to fill in for later and my wc is right at 29k and im sweating watching the number tick up. i find there’s absolutely nothing wrong with shorter chapters if it’s accomplishing what you hope for and i honestly am working really hard on trying to be more concise, but i do find dialogue to be a good way to slow down a scene that’s maybe rushing or is paced a little quicker than you intended. real conversations often stray off topic, people ramble or get sidetracked or get interrupted by things they’re doing — i love describing people talking while doing chores or eating or whatever because you can break up the dialogue with bits of action — and at least for me, it’s a lot easier to work in some narration or description in with dialogue than it is to just write a couple paragraphs of it straight up, which also sometimes feels a little more blunt and Quick than i intend it to be. one thing we both do a Lot is script out dialogue between characters and then go back in to fill in things like speech tags, action descriptions, inner monologues and thoughts, etc. literally just like:

character 1: ___ character 2: _______ 1, (note on how it’s meant to be said or what they’re thinking/intending to say to cue us in later): _____ 2: _____________ (small description of them moving around/something happening in the background to give a visual for describing later)

so on and so forth. it helps a lot either when we want to establish the setup of a dialogue heavy scene before we forget our inspiration, or we’re feeling a bit too blocked to be able to write more descriptively at the moment, etc etc. it’s a really natural way to focus on the flow of conversation without getting caught up in transitions and repetition of dialogue tags and stuff, and usually is the culprit for a scene taking way longer to finish than expected for me.

all that being said, the times i have actually felt like a chapter is paced too quickly is usually either when the dialogue exchange is too fast and feels like the conversation could be more fleshed out, or maybe likeeee a transition happens a little too immediately and it reads a little bit like one thing happening after the next after the next without much of a pause for expansion. if you’ve managed to get your point across in fewer words and your main concern is driving up the word count, i really wouldn’t worry about it! you could always have someone look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and ask for places they feel could use more explanation or detail (maybe describing a setting more vividly? or giving more insight to some of their thoughts at a certain point?) but genuinely — conciseness is a Skill, and seeing how i have once again accidentally answered an ask with one million words, i’ll actually just trade you some of my internal word vomit right now. here you go -> 🎁

[rapidhighway]

I DID IT

[cynicallyneutral]

very invisible but very mean audience

[skinnypaleangryperson]

I find it sad, pathetic, funny and cute in that cartoon network is airing the old man and his seat two times tonight in a row. All I do is sit around the house and get drunk and cry-I would never waste my precious free time watching Cartoon Network, but I happened upon the schedule for the night and I think it's funny, silly, in a really pathetic way that it feels like Rick has the same drunk sad drunk soulfully loveless aimless energy as much as I do, just sitting on a TV screen instead of real life

[buddietommys]

"Why not?"

"I wish you were a girl."

[necromycologist]

not to sound stupid. but it is still kind of insane to me how sports work.

[headsplit2008]

what is [redacted]? ...is there a weird gay thing going on here ..? aka caves' third theory (THIS theory gives important context for this one!)

Obviously, by the end of 'open', it's implied that [redacted] is santiago cheating on his girlfriend. But... i have reason to doubt this, and reason to believe that [redacted] has more to do with jamie than one might initially think. Just to preface, this theory operates under the assumption [redacted] is NOT the name of a yet-unmentionned girlfriend. If I turn out to be wrong about this, uhh uhh i'm sorry. idk

I think it's safe to say the comic is very clever and well-thought out. it's safe to assume there is a LOT of intention put into the details (for example, the tall girl's jacket having an owl. more on that some other time). So if there WAS a girlfriend, why wouldn't she have been implied to already, even implicitly? when santiago thinks about jamie and the tall girl, his thoughts take their form. when he thinks of the hanna(h)s, we see them.

but there's not even an implication to him even blocking or scribbling out a 'girlfriend'. it feels incredibly odd, for someone who would presumably be so important to him- it's just always jamie this jamie that. i feel like there might not actually be a girlfriend, and that the girls on the couch claiming santiago cheated got a watered down, broken-telephone version of whatever the actual events of [redacted] are (i mean, they thought santiago was mexican, and jamie's childhood friend-- i don't think they're the most reliable of sources.)

I thought at first mmmaybe santiago's gf cheated on him, maybe even with jamie, but on second thought i don't think that holds up. santiago keeps talking like jamie did something to him, specifically. santiago is already furious at jamie PRIOR to the doorslam, citing how jamie does 'this' (does what?! embarasses santiago by making a scene?) 'every damn time'.

this is also something santiago is implied to have liked about jamie, in the past- how jamie would invite him along and go out of his way to make him feel included/a part of things. So what changed?!

Santiago later says, 'why do i keep forgiving him?' which implies jamie has done things on the scale of (or that santiago INTERPRETS as being on the scale of) the doorslam before. but we don't see them, just like how we don't see [redacted]. This makes me think [redacted] and whatever jamie has done are connected, if not the same.

We know [redacted] is something santiago is made very uncomfortable/upset by the mention of, but jamie is able to say pretty easily. we know santiago thinks everyone hates him for some reason. we know that santiago has hated around the last 3 parties he's been to. we know santiago USED to enjoy parties, mostly because of jamie's company and influence. but isn't this the exact same situation as before, jamie bringing him along to try and give him a good time? what caused his opinion on jamie to flip so extremely, when he seemed so enamored with him before? santiago says to jamie, 'things changed, why couldn't you?' ...so what changed? how is it that he wants jamie to change, and why, when he used to be glad to hang out with him as is? this, and the fact that 'brain/silhouette jamie' brings up 'people at parties' (notice how it says PEOPLE, not JAMIE/'HIM') in rebuttle to santiago's defense of jamie,

means the 'people' or 'person' being implied to here is not jamie.

...could it be santiago himself? then santiago's insistence 'he didn't mean it!' 'he doesn't mean it when he does these kinds of things!' works as a double-entendre; he's also telling himself HE didn't mean whatever he did.

Santiago is scared of being recognised on page 8 of open, but is relieved when it's just from the doorslam.

I think this means he's done something (he at least thinks is?) big/public before that he's afraid of being recognised from - this could also explain why he assumes everybody hates him and wants to kill him, because he hates himself and is projecting his own shame outwards. Even though jamie assures him people at the party don't know about [redacted], he still has an inflated idea that Everyone Knows What He Did. This makes me think [redacted] is also whatever 'thing' he doesn't want to be recognised from.

So... if santiago is afraid of being recognised publicly, and he's furious with jamie for previously 'doing something' with him that was public, or... 'open' (as is the name of the chapter)... I think [redacted] is something both jamie and santiago took part in (with maybe santiago doing whatever the more 'visible' part of it is? or maybe it was just a bigger deal to santiago than jamie); probably something jamie has done before/is known for, but santiago hasn't/isn't. when jamie leans down and says 'i'm so sorry.' santiago is obviously... moved? sad?? something!! it's obviously not just his reaction to jamie apologising for the doorslam specifically. jamie has done something in the past that santiago wishes he would apologise for properly.

alright. here's the kicker that all this buildup has been heading towards: i think maybe jamie and santiago may have kissed/made out (probably drunk), and did so where other people could see it. santiago may even have initiated it.

This would explain why santiago freaks out that the girls say he 'cheated on a girlfriend' (they never say who they think he 'cheated' with!)- he's freaked out that people know he kissed jamie (jamie could also be mistaken for a girl because of his long hair!). It also explains why he suddenly hates jamie and wants him to change: he wants to keep being friends, but doesn't want to risk it happening again (&rather than examine within himself why it happened, he pins it on 'how jamie is'). And why he thinks people hate him/want to kill him; because he (a guy) kissed another guy. this could also be why, even though he's so rageful towards him, santiago keeps hanging out with jamie-- he might feel like he's stooped to his level, and that it's on him for going along with or initiating it. a 'he's made his bed, now he must lie in it' kind of thing. all the things he criticizes jamie for, and the intensity of his anger at him, make a lot of (if not more) sense if you look at it like he's projecting his own anger at himself.

(↑ +also why is he imagining jamie's UNDERWEAR?? WTF??????) he thinks other people hate him for what he did, but jamie doesn't. jamie doesn't judge him for it (probably because it wasn't a big deal to him- which may even be another reason santiago is so upset about it), so even if santiago blames jamie, he still... kind of needs him, in a way. it's a weird combination of self-harm and validation. this might also be why he 'keeps forgiving' jamie- because he wants to forgive himself, too.

this also adds a new layer of significance to the amount he stresses calling jamie his friend- not only is he trying to stop himself from being mad at him, he's trying to stop himself from thinking of him as anything more.

There's also some metatextual evidence supporting me that these ↓ are just some of. im not pulling this out of my ass right?? these ↓ r straight from the source. like am i sniffing mold spores or is some 5d chess im too dumb to understand going on here.

n e weys thats all for now. let me know your guyses thoughts 'cause im totally open to changing my mind on anything, if theres any holes in my logic please poke them, i kind of want to be wrong but this is the best explaination i could come up with based on what we've got so far. if anything this thoery probably says more about me than the comic, lol....