of opportunity for angst, so of course he’d chosen that one. BAWN was such an insightful writer, but April had to admit it: some of his fics were depressing as hell.
Less so now than when he’d started, though. Back then, even his Aeneas/Lavinia stories had been bursting with their hero’s guilt and shame when it came to Dido, all dirges and funeral pyres and lamentations. April’s first real conversation with BAWN on the Lavineas server, in fact, had involved her half-joking suggestion that he use the tag misery ahoy! on some of his fics.
For his mental health alone, it was better for him to focus on the Lavinia-Aeneas OTP. Clearly. Writing occasional fluffy fics wouldn’t do him any harm, either.
Tonight, though, she didn’t have time for the Good Gospel of Fluff. By the time she finished describing her own fluffy AU fic idea—Lavinia and Dido would meet as teenage combatants in a trivia contest, their feelings for Aeneas making each round of questions and answers increasingly fraught and hilarious—she was on the verge of losing her courage. Again.
Months ago, when she’d applied for her new job, she’d decided she was done shielding different parts of herself for fear of others’ disapproval. That applied to her fandom too.
On Twitter, to dodge possible professional disaster, she’d always cropped her cosplay pictures to exclude her face. But she’d failed to share her Twitter handle with fellow Lavineas stans for an entirely different reason.
Her body.
She hadn’t wanted her friends on the server to see her body in those Lavinia costumes. Particularly one of those friends, whose opinion mattered more than it should.
For a ship whose essential heartbeat was all about love for goodness, sterling character, and intelligence over appearance, Lavineas fics included a surprising, disappointing amount of fat-shaming. Not BAWN’s, to his credit. But some of his favorite fics, the ones he’d bookmarked and recommended to her, did.
After a lifetime of struggle, April now loved her body. All of it. Red hair to freckled, chubby toes.
She hadn’t expected the same from others. Still didn’t. But she was tired of fucking hiding, and she was done with more than just contaminated mud on her jeans and colleagues she only allowed so close.
This year, she was attending her fandom’s biggest convention, Con of the Gates, which always took place—appropriately enough—within a sunny day’s view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Countless bloggers and reporters showed up to that con, and they took pictures, some of which always ended up going viral or printed in newspaper articles or splashed across the television screen.
She wouldn’t care. Not anymore. If her colleagues could openly discuss their terrible folk-music trio, she could certainly discuss her love for the most popular show on television.
And when she went to the con, she was finally going to meet her fandom friends there in person. She might even meet BAWN in person, despite his shyness. She would give all of them an opportunity to prove they’d truly understood the message of their OTP.
If they didn’t, it would hurt. She couldn’t lie to herself about that.
Especially if BAWN took one look at her and—
Well, no point in imagining rejection that didn’t yet exist.
Worst-case scenario, though, she’d find other friends. Other fandoms more accepting of who and what she was. Another beta reader for her fics whose DMs were beams of sunshine to start her morning and the warmth of a down comforter at night.
Another man she wanted in her face-to-face life and maybe even her bed.
So she had to do this tonight, before she lost her nerve. It wasn’t the final step, or even the hardest. But it was the first.
Without letting herself think too hard about it, she checked a thread on Twitter from that morning, still going strong. The Gods of the Gates official account had asked fans to post their best cosplay photos, and the responses now numbered in the hundreds. A few dozen featured people her size, and she very carefully didn’t read replies to those tweets.
On her phone, she had a selfie from her most recent Lavinia costume. The image was uncropped, her face and body both clearly visible. Her colleagues, present and future, would recognize her. Her friends and family too. Most nerve-racking of all: if she told him her Twitter handle, Book!AeneasWouldNever would finally see her for the first time.
Deep breath.
She tweeted it. Then immediately put down her phone, shut her laptop, and ordered some damn room service, because she deserved it. After dinner, she began her one-shot fluffy,