Tuesday, October 25th
36.)
We had to leave Sunday afternoon and I never got a chance to try on one of those diapers properly. Blossom and I took separate cars, so we didn't even get to talk about Academy Works on the drive. I admit, I really preferred driving up to her beach house with her.
As the week went on, as Halloween drew closer and closer, I kept running through fantasies in my head. I wanted to write a short Halloween story or something about a haunted house and pink Megamaxes, but I knew that would take away time from Academy Works and I already felt so behind.
Tuesday, in class, Blossom smiled at me. That was the highlight of my day, but my night had other surprises in store for me.
Comments!
One person said they were excited to hear more about Wendy, which made me feel a lot better about switching protagonists halfway through the story. I had never done that before, and I thought maybe people wouldn't like it. If I had to choose between validation and oxygen, it would take a minute.
Another person said they thought Academy A was very "Academy Alice". Chapter Seven ended with an Alice quote, and Aya had an Alice quote in her part too. The commenter also related the perspective shift as "the way you look through the mirror". I really liked that. The reality of one person doesn't define an objective reality, and so far the stories only took place from the perspective of a single character. This story was the first break into what is the Academy? in a very literal way. Wendy was not only a perspective, but a point of reference. She was the second point in triangulation. With her, the third point was solvable.
I also never really thought about what Academy A stood for. Academy Alice was a fun contestant.
I also had a notification from Academy B, the second in the series. It was that same person, the one that left the comment on Academy I. At first, I wasn't sure I should read it. Was this self harm? But my curiosity was that of Ai's: insatiable.
But the comment they left was nice. Actually, it was really supportive. They really like Bala as a character, and her ending was a "gut punch". It really was: Bala gave everything to help Ai escape, and Ai - from Bala's perspective - betrayed her. Bala lost her happy ending because of Ai. The commenter also said they were excited to see the interactions in later stories. Maybe they just needed a little more connectedness to grab onto? Maybe I wasn't a terrible writer?
I kept coming back to three words: "very powerful stuff".
Tuesday was incredible.
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