Steps and Stairs

I've gotten such lovely comments from everyone, and some of them raise a very good point: the ease with which Sarah accepts Henny's confession is rather anachronistic and unrealistic. I'd like to talk a bit about that, just in case anyone is interested -- I certainly don't mean it in an argumentative or defensive way, and I apologize if it comes across that way.

I knew early on that this was not going to be a realistic portrayal of coming out in the early twentieth century. I struggled with figuring out how much I wanted to balance historical accuracy with the happy fic that my recipient and I both wanted, and I soon chose to err on the side of unrealistic optimism. There are various reasons for that, but by and large it's because the issue hits very close to home for me, and to be honest, a more realistic coming out story is not really something I'm emotionally ready to write. (Fun fact: although the story is written in Sarah's POV, I overwhelmingly identify with Henny here. Another fun fact: Henny's coming out scene bears a bit more than passing resemblance to one of my own, except that (among many other unflattering things) I hid under the covers -- even though it was already dark, so the other person couldn't see me anyway! It turned out fine, not surprisingly, but, well, you can see I am not exactly rational about these things. /o\)

Of course, my personal issues don't invalidate the point about realisticness at all, and I'm glad that people brought it up, because I'm a big fan of being mindful of history and not taking modern privileges for granted. But just in case anyone was puzzled why I wrote such unrealistic optimism, or simply interested in the behind-the-scenes writing process, hopefully this note was of use.

Finally, thank you so much to everyone for their comments; they truly mean a lot to me, every single one.