Dear, dear reader,

Thank you so much for reading, voting, and commenting. I appreciate each and everyone of you.

In this note, I want to give homage to the main inspiration for this story, which is one of my all time favorite songs:

The Joker and the Queen
Ed Sheeran & Taylor Swift version
YouTube Video in header ⬆️⬆️⬆️

I love everything about this song: the soft strumming, the sweeping strings, Ed and Taylor's clear, intentional voices, the exquisite lyrics, the imagery, the layers, the gentility of it all.

This song is so heartwarmingly gentle and for me, embodies, everything a relationship should aspire to be. It is my go to song when I feel overwhelmed, hurt or sad in this harsh world.

It's like a soft, warm blanket that's large enough to wrap and hold me while soothing me into something of a human being again.

Just take a look at these lyrics and tell me this is not a masterpiece:

How was I to know
It's a crazy thing
I showed you my hand
And you still let me win
And who was I to say
That this was meant to be
The road that was broken
Brought us together

And I know
You could fall for a thousand kings
And hearts
That would give you a diamond ring
When I fold
You see the best in me
The joker and the queen

I've been played before
If you hadn't guessed
So I kept my cards closed
To my foolproof vest
But you called my bluff (But you called my bluff)
And saw through all my tells (Saw through all my tells)
And then you went all in
And we left together

And I know
You think that what makes a king
Is gold
A palace and diamond rings
When I fold
You see the best in me
The joker and the queen

And I know
You could fall for a thousand kings
And hearts
That would give you a diamond ring
When I folded
You saw the best in me
The joker and the queen

In order to capture the spirit of the song and what it means to me, I set out to write a soft story set in a harsh reality, a story about two people who are far from perfect but courageous enough to drop their armor and look past the obvious. I hope I've succeeded in my endeavor but trust you to be a better judge of that.

Perhaps it turned out even softer than I planned for it to be and that's not the first time this has happened, so I'd like to share some reflections I've been making for myself.

I'm a gen X mom raising two gen Z women in a post pandemic world, that instead of trying to take better care of each other responds with a rise of fascism and instead of reinforcing human rights thinks it's democratic to question them? WTF, people!

So yes, like my characters, I swear a lot. Don't you? How can we not?

I've always loved reading all sorts of romance. I've read some wild shit and enjoyed reading all of it, so no shame from me if dark romance is your thing. I get it, like truly get it 🤪

But same as there's a difference between what you like to read and what you would condone irl, there's apparently also a difference in what you can stomach reading and what you can stomach writing.

They say we get to know ourselves through writing and writing my three ONC entries (entries in 2023-2024-2025, not all in one year from this old turtle writer, hehe), all three romances I wanted so badly to be enemies-to-lovers but all turned out rather cute, what I've learned is that I'm incapable of writing bad boys, because I don't want them. I don't want them for me, I don't want them for my daughters, I don't want them for you.

The age of the alpha-hole is over. You deserve soft men and I'll be here trying to give them to you. The fictional kind anyway 😉

Lots of love to you all,
Xoxo, Philou