all like
emmersmacks: VAGINA EXAM
MirkerLurker: She scheduled the appointment for next Wednesday. Kill me now.
Apocalypse_Cow: can’t, you have to finish monstrous sea.
Apocalypse_Cow: also you should probably stick around to keep doing commentary for dog days. I was scanning some of the forums for trolls after halloween and people were concerned that you were gone.
Apocalypse_Cow: also also i believe you have a foot to eat.
MirkerLurker: Oh, yeah. I saw those.
emmersmacks: We really did miss you though
emmersmacks: Are you feeling better??
MirkerLurker: Actually, I was never sick. . . . I went to a Halloween party with Wallace.
Apocalypse_Cow: wait. you’re telling me . . . hermit eliza mirk . . . went to a PARTY . . . with a BOY?
Apocalypse_Cow: and you expect me to believe the two of you aren’t doing anything?
MirkerLurker: We aren’t doing anything! I went to the party because I thought it would get my parents off my back.
MirkerLurker: Plus there was some really awesome Monstrous Sea cosplay there.
Apocalypse_Cow: is there anything else we should know about? harbored fugitives? cult of cthulhu in your basement? secret love of greek yogurt?
emmersmacks: Leave her alone Max
emmersmacks: E if you want to go to parties GO TO PARTIES
emmersmacks: Go to parties for those of us surrounded by parties but unable to attend due to our unfortunately young age
emmersmacks: . . .
emmersmacks: Also you should definitely go out with Wallace because I am surrounded by cute older boys and CAN’T GO OUT WITH ANY OF THEM
MirkerLurker: I don’t know.
Apocalypse_Cow: don’t know what? if he’s cute or if you want to go out with him? you could send us a picture and we’ll tell you.
emmersmacks: That is true I definitely would
MirkerLurker: Haha I don’t need you to tell me if he’s cute or not. I know he’s cute.
emmersmacks: Then whats the problem
MirkerLurker: I don’t know!
Apocalypse_Cow: look, e. lemme give you some advice.
emmersmacks: Yes
emmersmacks: Advice from the guy who keeps calling his girlfriend a model
Apocalypse_Cow: if you like him, you might as well say it to him.
Apocalypse_Cow: if he doesn’t like you, you can stop worrying about it.
Apocalypse_Cow: and if he does like you, you’re in business.
Apocalypse_Cow: either way, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and pain.
CHAPTER 17
Max and I don’t agree on everything, but we see eye-to-eye on this particular thing least of all. I didn’t think it would be possible, but admitting to Wallace’s face—or even to his username on a screen—that I like him seems like as bad an idea as telling him I’m LadyConstellation. Either bit of information could drive him away.
He has another chapter ready for me on Monday. He has started posting them online—to great response from the fandom—but I still get first look at all the chapters as soon as he finishes writing them. Amity is preparing to leave Nocturne Island for the first time in her life, to hunt Damien Faust for the Alliance; she doesn’t want to leave Faren behind, because she won’t be there to protect him. In it is a scene the whole fandom knows well, a staple of the series.
Wallace nails it.
The early-morning calm while Amity traces the constellation-name tattoos on Faren’s back. The melancholy breakfast where neither of them admits she’ll be leaving soon on a mission that is very likely to kill her. And finally, before she goes, Faren’s gift to her: the discovery that Amity herself was named after a constellation by her birth parents, though Faren doesn’t know what the constellation is called. If Amity can figure that out—what the constellation is called and what culture claims it—she might find out where she came from, and where she belongs.
He had found her in a constellation.
In the comic, Amity repeated it to herself often. “He found me in a constellation.” The fandom altered it slightly, made it “You found me in a constellation,” and put it on posters, shirts, phone cases, bracelets, actual tattoos. One couple even said it in their wedding vows. It wasn’t why I called myself LadyConstellation, but most people thought it was.
I didn’t understand what it meant when I wrote it, when I drew Amity saying the words. I understood what I wanted it to mean. I understood what the words literally meant. But I didn’t understand the truth behind it.
I guess I still don’t. At least now I know it.
CHAPTER 18
As it turns out, it’s difficult to keep up a high page count when you spend all your time after school texting the boy you like.
At five p.m. every day, I force myself to