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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 30, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I read Wales’ postmortem on the story a few months back (page seems to be dead now or I would link it here) where he talks about how a certain type of reader probably wanted Valencia to, if not get with Joon, at least eternally pine chastely for him. I guess he got to show them.

Here's a copy. (The Wayback Machine is failing to respond at the moment, so I can't tell whether the page has been archived there. It's on archive.today here.)

The biggest thing she adds to the story is probably an interrogation of rescuing a weak person to have them fall for you, and naïve broken birds in general, and showing what maturity means. I think there’s a kind of reader that doesn’t necessarily want Juniper to sleep with Valencia, but does want Valencia to remain virginal and lusting after him in perpetuity.

Thanks, I had been wanting to give this another read. Nice backup, I’m bookmarking that.