#that's not me being sarcastic i do love random asks. l'interactione...

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Do you think theres a reason Jared brings up Connor throwing the printer when they were in 2nd grade beyond just exposition and establishing Connor as 'troubled kid'? Like why is it something from when they were like 7/8 that sticks out to him and not something more recent?

yeah i think like you say it has that Exposition purpose where it’s like, telling us that connor shoving evan is not the only violent outburst of connor’s life, and that jared and evan have known each other since at least second grade (and connor maybe has known of them back, but idk, he talks to evan in the computer lab like it’s the first time)

and then another way i interpret things is that i always think of jared as being sort of generally afraid/wary of / intimidated by connor especially, like, As I Always Say jared’s the character least willing or able to deal with confrontation / conflict, and like yeah sure the one time we see Real Jared interact with Real Connor in the wtaw scene can be (and is) played out a range of ways like, can be fairly tense and elevated or a bit lower energy, but no matter what it’s still being jared thrown by connor making this into a confrontation (even though people wanna interpret this as jared just wanting to start shit and Fight Connor like.....so then why does he go “it was a joke” and then bail when that doesn’t deescalate things......explain it to me) and just like, yeah, i think jared’s a bit extra Nervous re: dealing with connor

and i think that one thing about this having been when they were all like, presumably 7ish yr olds, is that yeah it says connor’s been dealing with this for That long which is sure something, but also natch it’s different if he throws a printer when he’s 7 than if he did it like, just last year as a 16 yr old.......we have no known Age re: what zoe’s talking about, but like, even though we sure don’t get the idea that things have improved much for connor in these later years, it sort of makes sense for an elementary schooler’s emotional regulation/processing and etc to be worse, and to maybe result in shit like throwing a printer. and then i Also think it’s relevant that jared as also 7 or whatever, and might’ve been affected more strongly by an incident like that than if happened way more recently (though i mean. still alarming at any age.) and it could easily have had this more dramatic impression on jared at that younger age where like, by now he doesn’t think quite as much of it, yet that sense of “he did some shit that really freaked me out” isn’t wholly gone either.......it happened around a decade ago and it’s coming to mind this easily for him.

(and a sidenote there that Fake Connor refers back to this as like, evan thinking that that’s what defines connor in jared’s mind and is apparently extrapolating from that to suppose it’s what defines connor just in anyone’s mind.........interesting stuff lol. but yeah i think if it *does* define connor in jared’s mind, there’s a bit of a reason for that, b/c jared Also has littler kid feelings back then and the takeaway was probably more along the lines of [aaaaa] than like. nuanced reflection on connor and his motivations. lmao just remembered the “b/c he didn’t get to be line leader that day”.........i’m still bitter about this time in kindergarten where there was just like daily tasks like Put The Date On The Calendar to, idk, teach us what a calendar is, and there was also the Wheel Of Weather Conditions and that was fun b/c there was room for interpretation. and unlike rotational Roles like line leader, kids were just picked at random for things like Put The Date On The Calendar, and i just was never being the one to do the weather wheel, and in my case my Dramatic Response was to inform a teacher of this fact eventually, who naturally being a kindergarten teacher just sort of was like uh huh sure and did not exactly retain this crucial info lmfao. i just also remember that a) i also took the dramatic step of Raising My Hand to do the weather wheel one day, and the kid who was chosen got picked b/c they were the only person Not raising their hand, which was very annoying b/c it’s like oh okay so the shit you tell us to do is This arbitrary?? now i’m in the Wrong for raising my hand to volunteer for something??? i hate this and b) i just never did the weather wheel lmfao they never picked me. i’m still like, the hell)

anyways yeah i think that that well could’ve been this wedge between jared and connor (not that i’m assuming they were particularly close before, but i won’t say they weren’t, b/c who knows) b/c jared was just wary of him after that and it sounds like maybe other Incidents have probably occurred and yeah like not like jared’s terrified of him, he’s obviously willing to engage with him, he’s just still nervous around this person and clearly neither of them have the first clue how to interact with the other lmao. i was gonna be like “rip” and then i was like, right....anyways yeah like i just suppose no adults were like “hey other 7 yr olds here’s a grown person explaining a bewildering incident to you so that you might realize that that outburst wasn’t just your classmate being a force of Chaos” lol like, kids that young do some wild shit sometimes and it’s like, explanations can be needed and helpful here. but i guess one day connor threw a printer and jared was like “holy shit” and he’s never stopped thinking about it Really