Every Atom of Me

sir, their age gap is probably the least of your problems atp. personally, i don't love it at these particular ages, but i know most readers would bypass it if literally everything about their dynamic wasn't written to be as creepy and icky as humanly possible. you didn't write a 31yo man gradually falling for a 20yo over the course of their reacquaintance, you wrote him having been attracted to/lowkey obsessed with her since he was her teacher at 16! he was already pining for lyra when they met as adults in spite of barely knowing her

there   was   little   she   expected   when   coming   into   telling   the   story   ;   one   that   might   offer   the   faintest   chance   of   answering   lyra’s   many   questions,   even   if   much   of   it   would   drift   far   from   what   her   daughter   —   now   a   young   woman   —   might   have   wished   to   hear.   &   there   were   many   things   marisa   herself   had   never   thought   lyra’d   still   have   to   face.   much   that   was   kept   unsaid   still.   still,   lyra’s   words   managed   to   stir   something   within   her   —   surprise,   perhaps.   &   more   than   that   —   guilt,   perhaps.   regret.   &   realisation.   it   was,   in   a   way,   wasn’t   it?

love   had   never   been   a   frequent   visitor   in   her   life.   but   she   loved   lyra   —   oh,   how   fiercely   she   did.   &   her   father.   he   was   the   only   man   she   had   ever   truly   loved,   too,   however   scarcely   she   brought   herself   to   admit   it.   ❝   you’ve   grown   rather   sentimental,   ❞   was   the   first   thing   marisa   said.   ❝   there   are   ghosts   of   all   sorts,   however.   like   some   things   simply   can’t   be   brought   back.   ❞   &   she   knew   lyra   carried   that   truth   within   her   as   well.   that   pain.   the   sorrow   &   grief   intertwined.

@evebeforethefall   said : you said   it   was   a   ghost   story.   It   isn't.   It's   a   love   story.

Sentimental? Perhaps she had, Lyra thought grimly. In truth, since her return from the Arctic, she had grown progressively cynical but she supposed her journey east had softened her somewhat. Pan would have probably said it was to do with his leaving, his determination, to recover what she had lost and perhaps that was part of it. But then again, perhaps not. “Perhaps I grew up,” she said, and then in a quieter tone added, “the right way, this time.”

She looked at her mother before her now and considered how things had changed. Before she had ventured east after Pan, after Dust and roses and the answers her girlhood had craved, Lyra would have bet all that she had that she wasn’t anything like her parents. But since returning… and it wasn’t just Anita Schlesinger’s work on changing her appearance, she was beginning to realise how similar she actually was to them. To her mother, in particular. Dark hair, framing her face in a way that both hid her naturally dirty blonde curls and blue eyes and kept her… inconspicuous, but also cemented her status as Marisa Coulter’s daughter. Her scepticism merely added to that. She was imagining again, feeling like her younger self again - just maturer - but she was still so like the woman in front of her. What did that say about the woman she had become?