one day i am gonna grow wings

i also think your decision to have debbie tell olivia that mark was "dead" was really interesting. i know you're probably gonna dig into this more in the fic, but does debbie recognize mark as her son? do you think she feels more guilty about her abandonment's effect upon mark, or what that abandonment says about her as a mother?

also totally unrelated but would you be willing to share any non-fanfic literature recs? your style/the themes you write about are top-tier and i would love to know some of your favorite books/authors/influences!

tysm in advance!!! sorry for the long-ass yap loll

Helooo nice to see you 🤗🩵

Absolutely no judgement here—I procrastinate on ao3 too lol. But, no, Nolan didn’t teach her any of his language. Members only club, sorry Debbie 😅

I gotta be honest—I’ll need to reread all the Debbie sections to tell you exactly why I chose to do that. But on its face, she told Olivia (and Paul) this because she wishes her and Nolan never happened. She had pretty bad postpartum depression here, hence Grandpa Oliver getting Mark in the divorce between her and Nolan. I’ll likely get to this more in the future, but giving up Mark was the key to restarting her life before it was “too late”. 

I’ll say she definitely didn’t recognize him when he was younger and working at the supermarket, and then at BurgerMart that he only looked familiar. Over the timeskip I’m sure she started having suspicions, but jumping something like that—especially something you don’t want to be true—on a stranger is a pretty big faux pas. 

Hmm.. I think more what it says about her as a mother. All she knows is that Nolan loves Mark and wanted him more than she did—so not a lot of guilt in that regard.

AHH I HAVE SO MANY. Okay, disclaimer. I’m not religious. but two of my all time favorites are biblical fiction—Cain by José Saramago and Judas Iscariot by Leonid Andreyev. 

More general works off the top of my head: 

f in the chat for Debbie, but honestly a win for her---when the gda starts getting suspicious she can just shrug and slam the door on cecil's face. which is, as we all know by now, a time-honored family tradition in this fic.

poor debbie, she really got the short stick with her mental health, and i'm sure nolan was just sooo supportive (a la pedro pascal playing a latina mom on snl, "mi hijo tried to get the depression, so i told him DONT DO THAT"). i don't blame her for the divorce one bit, but i agree that her guilt over abandoning mark is deserved. (now im curious if paul knows his wife's ex and son are aliens...)