Date: July 10, 2021 01:45 pm Title: Beer Bottle
Well seeing things from Jim’s POV was interesting. As usual I have little to no sympathy for Karen. Yes it was wrong for Jim to give her mixed signals, and it was wrong to sleep with her
knowing that he really didn’t want to be with her long term, but Karen knew that Jim had feelings for Pam, and yet she still stayed in a relationship with him. Karen took a risk of getting hurt and that’s what happened. It was good to see that Jim actually defended Pam,especially since he
treated her like trash since he first came back to Scranton. I do want to see JAM move forward in their relationship, but I do think that they should talk out their issues before they get too serious because it will be a dark cloud hanging over them.
I definitely think Jim should apologize to Pam for
his attitude towards her during season 3, because he was a big ass.
Author's Response:
Thanks for this! I am totally with you on the Jim/Karen situation, I do think she was hit sideways by his dumping her the the way he did, but to an extent she knew what she was getting into.
I would like to think that some of what I glossed over in terms of detailed conversation at the restaurant alluded to them starting to make proper peace with each other, but there was definitely more to come from them in terms of reconciling their feelings. And we will explore more of that in the last part, coming very soon ;)
1 [Report This]Date: July 08, 2021 02:41 pm Title: Beer Bottle
I was so excited to see you’d done a follow-up to this! I love Jim’s POV here - the little moments of him thinking exactly the same as Pam (also with the marriage and babies line!), and just his giddiness (him punching is the air is so cute), and the ways he’s noticing and looking at her throughout. It’s adorable. I also really enjoyed the way you fleshed out the scenes with David Wallace and Karen. I always struggled to imagine how the rest of that job interview went, lol, but I thought you got it down very realistically. And the Karen scene was really well done: her anger feels very real, and I really like the acknowledgement that that day did include a pretty nasty break-up for her.
But I think my absolute favourite part was:
He noticed Pam had been fiddling with the same coaster all through dinner.
“Are you going to give that coaster a break?”
“Actually I’m contemplating adding it to my teapot items.”
“Oh.”
“I’m just going to put it away.” Jim felt a small frisson of excitement as he recognised that this evening, this moment, was as important to her as it was to him. That simply blew him away. It had been really difficult for so long, knowing he loved this woman, having to watch her without ever being able to really tell her how he felt, just little scraps that fell into his lap for such a long time. And yet there they now were, on the cusp of something huge, and she was right there with him.
It’s a lovely nod to the coaster from Pam’s chapter, and such a sweet moment for Jim, especially with the throwback to the teapot.
Also: I only just spotted the cover art for this, I love it!
Author's Response:
Ha! The cover art! That was Max's fault, she made me do it, I went for super-cheesy :D
I'm really pleased you found it realistic, I wanted to make it so, sometimes this is at the expense of some humour but I hope I got the balance reasonably well.
1 [Report This]Date: July 08, 2021 11:09 am Title: Beer Bottle
The adventures of Tourist Jim and Evening Jim and Bedtime Jim was a nice touch... does well portraying Jim at kind of a remove from himself, and also it's just amusingly written.
I love the idea of Pam as a siren... captures both the pull she has on him and the idea that her influence at this particular moment is not exactly an unmitigated positive, and that he's aware he may well be abandoning this job and Karen just to crash against the rocks again.
I always appreciate it when folks let Karen be a little self-righteously mean in this break-up scene. This must have been a DEEPLY terrible moment for her, all the more so because of her sense that she should have seen it coming. I think she sounds right here - like there's a lot of things she's had in the back of her mind ready to reel off in this moment.
(Also, this has inspired me to start thinking about a David Wallace POV fic. :D )
His perspective on the date is cute! I love how blown away he is by her, and by the small signs of how important this night is to her, too.
Author's Response:
Thanks Joe - I love that you got this, and you've summed up what I was trying to create perfectly! I felt the metaphor as Pam as Jim's siren was *exactly* because, yes, not an unmitigated positive and she was the unknown. However, his draw to her is irresistible and I wanted to show that we would rather crash and burn against her rocks than take the "safe" route with Karen.
I feel some pathos for Karen, as I think she was led on by Jim and he used her as a mechanism to deny his own feelings. She deserved to have a voice in that moment, even if it wasn't a happy one.
I am so excited that this inspired you to maybe write a David Wallace fic! Looking forward to that.
1 [Report This]Date: July 07, 2021 10:34 am Title: Beer Bottle
I’m not the only one who appreciated how Jim jumped to defend Pam. Say what you want about him since he knew he deserved it but Pam was sacred.
Once again I so enjoyed getting to see the night this time from his POV. His getting to learn more about her (piano) and the things he missed And his realization that he was going to learn so much more. That just makes me happy.
Author's Response: Thanks Max. Jim hid his real feelings for ages and did deserve a hard time for the way her treated Karen. He's also Jim and we do love him (otherwise we wouldn't be on this site ;)) so I didn't want to be too mean to him!
1 [Report This]Date: July 06, 2021 08:39 pm Title: Beer Bottle
Nice to get Jim's POV on everything here. Rewinding to get the scene where he says no to the job and also the break up with Karen are always kind of tough things to write. However you did both justice. I can very easily see Jim standing there letting Karen rip into him, but the second she tries to say anything about Pam, his protective instincts kick in. You got to some key things in all of that. Really there's nothing wrong with Karen other than she's just not Pam. From her perspective Jim breaking up with her like this comes out of the blue and I'm sure hurts. Sadly Karen was unintended damage because Jim and Pam were to scared or prideful to really communicate about their real feelings until now.
Getting back to Scranton and getting back to Pam starts to make things easier. He's back where he belongs and a lot of his thoughts mirror Pam's. The "fifty or sixty years of blissful happiness," line also going through his mind is a great way to show that they're finally on the same page.
The first kisses and making out in the bar was a fun re-visit too from the previous chapter. I'm really looking forward to seeing where we go from here. Great job. Keep it up.
Author's Response:
Thanks Warrior! I wanted to attempt both sides of the situation and think about how both Pam and Jim felt and reacted to their date. I really believe that after everything they'd experienced and their general connection, they would have that mirror response to the day and their date.
I spent a lot of time thinking about Jim and Karen's conversation and how that might realistically look. I felt Karen might have been lulled into a false sense of security that she and Jim were over the Pam "hump" (pardon the allusion) even after the revelations of Beach Day and would rise off into the New York sunset together. Then, exactly as you say, Jim just throws this on her seemingly out of the blue, and I wrote her reaction as a combination of disbelief, resignation and anger all at the same time as her world and her immediate future has just been thrown out of joint.
One more chapter to come to wrap things up.