I thought I’d address something that readers may or may not be wondering about: no, Michael isn’t some old perv who wishes to bang any of the girls. I revealed in an earlier chapter that he used to be a teacher. The girls are basically his students and yes, the man does have some ethics. It basically comes back to him compartmentalizing things again, though…G, M, & S go in the student compartment, Laurie was in the employee compartment, Finn is in the friend compartment, Krysta is in the lover compartment… Michael doesn’t like those compartments to mix. I imagine his arc will eventually involve some crossover, as he’s already borderline friends with at least Mer, and shares a connection with Sage, but that’ll probably just serve to mess him up.
Oh, yes, and Laurie is briefly mentioned. If you read the companion short story, SURFACING, you’ll remember her. I just figured I should mention her, so that story doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it makes sense that Finn would know her.
Actually, it kinda surprises me how nice Michael’s been the past two chapters. He’s dealing well with Sage and helping her, then it turns out he’s looking out for both Merri and Gen. No, I don’t know what happened. I’m sure he’ll do something prickish soon, though. I also like how he gets to be kinda normal-ish in this chapter. I’ll chalk that up to Finn being around.
Ah, Finn. I have this problem in that I really want to give characters accents, but I hate writing them in because it gets distracting. Scottish can get kind of ridiculous in literature, so I figured I’d just say, “Yeah, he’s Scottish. Spends a lot of time in London, though. You can decide what he sounds like.”
Finally…you’ll notice two familiar faces in this chapter. It’s only semi-canon. Yes, if you revisited those characters in ten years, that’s what you’d find: they have two daughters (Desdemona Emily and Maya Louise, if you care), they’re still together, etc. However, Catharsis doesn’t actually exist in the same universe as CotA (I mean, the timelines wouldn’t mesh at all). I just thought it would be fun to do a semi-canon crossover.
Now, it was important for me to actually *do* something with the characters while they were there. I didn’t want it to be pointless, so I had them help Gen along a bit. I hope the scene didn’t drag a whole lot.
This has turned into a really long commentary, but I’m about to make it longer. What bugged me a little about this chapter is that it covers three days story-time with no decent segues in between the scenes. I’m sorry about that. I just got looking at everything I needed to cover and realized this was about the only way to do it.
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"She wrapped evil around her like a large, evil Mexican serape."
Author Commentary
I thought I’d address something that readers may or may not be wondering about: no, Michael isn’t some old perv who wishes to bang any of the girls. I revealed in an earlier chapter that he used to be a teacher. The girls are basically his students and yes, the man does have some ethics. It basically comes back to him compartmentalizing things again, though…G, M, & S go in the student compartment, Laurie was in the employee compartment, Finn is in the friend compartment, Krysta is in the lover compartment… Michael doesn’t like those compartments to mix. I imagine his arc will eventually involve some crossover, as he’s already borderline friends with at least Mer, and shares a connection with Sage, but that’ll probably just serve to mess him up.
Oh, yes, and Laurie is briefly mentioned. If you read the companion short story, SURFACING, you’ll remember her. I just figured I should mention her, so that story doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it makes sense that Finn would know her.
Actually, it kinda surprises me how nice Michael’s been the past two chapters. He’s dealing well with Sage and helping her, then it turns out he’s looking out for both Merri and Gen. No, I don’t know what happened. I’m sure he’ll do something prickish soon, though. I also like how he gets to be kinda normal-ish in this chapter. I’ll chalk that up to Finn being around.
Ah, Finn. I have this problem in that I really want to give characters accents, but I hate writing them in because it gets distracting. Scottish can get kind of ridiculous in literature, so I figured I’d just say, “Yeah, he’s Scottish. Spends a lot of time in London, though. You can decide what he sounds like.”
Finally…you’ll notice two familiar faces in this chapter.
It’s only semi-canon. Yes, if you revisited those characters in ten years, that’s what you’d find: they have two daughters (Desdemona Emily and Maya Louise, if you care), they’re still together, etc. However, Catharsis doesn’t actually exist in the same universe as CotA (I mean, the timelines wouldn’t mesh at all). I just thought it would be fun to do a semi-canon crossover.
Now, it was important for me to actually *do* something with the characters while they were there. I didn’t want it to be pointless, so I had them help Gen along a bit. I hope the scene didn’t drag a whole lot.
This has turned into a really long commentary, but I’m about to make it longer. What bugged me a little about this chapter is that it covers three days story-time with no decent segues in between the scenes. I’m sorry about that. I just got looking at everything I needed to cover and realized this was about the only way to do it.
----
"She wrapped evil around her like a large, evil Mexican serape."