Original Commentary

This comic was originally going to run before yesterday's, but we missed it. Could've skipped it, but we needed the extra day to finish up the next few comics. And it gives us a bit of tension between them before they start to really talk - Terrence

Modern Commentary
So, a little while back, Brisbane asked a lounge guy to give Kimberly the key to give to Lola. The lounge guy just gave it directly to Lola, who hadn't said anything to Kimberly; best to just let the kids figure things out on their own this time. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Yes, waiting for something that everyone knows to be said is a major theme of the comic. It's the title, even. -Terrence

Ok, yes... things are moving slowly- but what do you expect, from two people acting rather stubborn for all this time. I wouldn't think that they would instantly jump right into talking about what matters. They would be awkward about getting there- after all, Brisbane is rather new to this whole "being assertive" thing and while Kimberly is quite good at making deals and barging with business things- this isn't business- no matter how hard she tries to picture it as such. These are matters of the heart- matters she hasn't had much practice in during her life. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
It's a tenuous situation here. Having coffee together is a big step; what if you say the wrong thing and everything falls apart.. - Terrence

Original Commentary

This was one of those comic that made me want to pull out my hair- at first it looks like Kimberly is just being mean- and for 24 or so hours everyone would be thinking "OMG how mean Kimberly is!" but then the next comic would shed a bit more light onto it.

But by then the damage had been done and I would have received a ton of e-mails demanding to know why Kimberly is being so horrible to Brisbane and why is he talking this and blah blah blah...

It was one of those inappropriate bouts of laughter- I know I've had at least one of those in my life and I'm sure if you think about it, you can think of a moment where you laughed at something that made people look at you sharply. Only you have the next moment to defend yourself while Kimberly has to wait a whole 24 hours. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
Mean? Yes. But the dude did just ghost her for a month...

That's the thing about daily updates. Sometimes it's just "Trust me, we're going somewhere with this". Not all the time. You shouldn't train the audience to always expect a swerve. But sometimes, the next comic will change the context of what you saw. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Isabel and I had another one of our competitive writing sessions for the end of this arc. Isabel actually came up with something useable. I had tried to adapt her notes during work, only to discover that I cannot write comics there. Don't feel comfortable doing it.

I lettered this comic. There are a lot of small changes, but no one big change. I don't know how to describe it exactly. Since the previous comic was Brisbane's monologue and this one is Kimberly's, it gives them very different tones. It wasn't really intended, but it works. - Terrence

Modern Commentary
That's one of the things about our joint writing sessions. You know how 3d vision works? Depth comes from viewing the same thing from two slightly different perspectives. - Terrence

Original Commentary

I just want to say that this is the one of the few YSIF comics as of late that I've been really happy looking at- maybe it's because Brisbane is happy- I like seeing him happy (Kimberly, eh, I can leave or take).

And now things are finally wrapping up, I'll have (a lot) more on this on Sunday... -Isabel

Modern Commentary
That went better than expected. The anger has faded and loneliness has set in. They've been apart long enough to really miss the other. - Terrence

Original Commentary

My goodness, what has it been, 3 months? In retrospect, three months isn't so bad for a major story plot, considering other comics make you wait years upon years for a romantic interlude.

So what was the point of this story arc? To bring these two to their breaking point and try to both have them grow as people. If they grew as much as I was hoping, who knows. I think they both learned a lot about dealing with other people and about themselves. Did it set their relationship back a few steps? Yes, but sometimes you have to lose something to gain something. As for those who complained about things taking so long or not liking this or that: I have a lot of things to say, and despite not being very-lady like I'm going to hold my tongue on THAT matter except for this: it's our story to write as we see fit: nagging us or complaining to us isn't going to make things go any faster. When I came up with the idea of the break-up twist to the story arc I thought of the basic plot all in one day- didn't WRITE it in one day, but I knew of the basic steps the story would have to take and needed to take as much time as I needed to make sure I got my story done. Sure I didn't know exactly how many steps it would take, there were a lot of times when I thought the story arc would end that month, but then I recalled aspects of things I was forgetting to add and thus needed to write in. I'm not sure if some of you out there would have rather been told every month "Oh yeah, it's ending now" only to have it go another month or more.

Oh yeah, so what was the original plot twist going to be, the one I couldn't tell you all about back then because I wanted to use it later? It was Sofia returning to the story. Now I don't know about most of you out there, but I'm personally glad I didn't mention it. It would have made her entrance a little lukewarm.

Quite frankly, I'm a lot annoyed about a lot of things now- there were quite a few times where people's comments about this story arc made me extremely depressed and honestly a lot of those comments made it hard to write the story. Heck, on particularly bad days it made it hard to get out of bed. There were days when I was so frustrated I literally ripped up the drawings I did for the day and vowed I would never work on You Say it First again. Fortunately I'm a stubborn ass whose determination is only fueled by her hormones.

But would I do it again? Heck yeah. Would I do it again while stranded on a desert island, so no one's comments would get to me while I was working on it? Hell yeah. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
People had the right to say how they felt. I don't blame them for it. It's not their fault I couldn't take it, but sometimes it gets to me.

On one hand, we want people to be invested in the story. We want them to want things for our characters. We want them to feel things when they read the comic and let us know, because otherwise we're shouting into the void. On the other hand, sometimes things could get a bit much and seeing folks get angry about our stories is unpleasant. - Isabel