ICONIC queer mentorship moment

[felinejumper]

‘…Let’s go for a really long walk, shall we, dear? I’ve been wanting a really long walk now for weeks.’
Liar — most kind and self-sacrificing liar! Puddle hated long walks, especially with Stephen who strode as though wearing seven league boots and whose only idea of a country walk was to take her own line across ditches and hedges — yes, indeed, a most kind and self-sacrificing liar!

The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall

I emote everywhere every single time Puddle enters the narrative (on name alone, among other reasons), and I actually laughed at loud here. Just imagine the sigh you'd heave trying to connect to a 21 year old who thinks nobody understands them! It's a glorious little bit, her self-sacrificing grumbling walking, if wistful—the scene just proceeding is Puddle ruminating on the conspiracy of silence :( One of my narrative things is mentorship, and when I started Well earlier today I was not expecting to find it at all, really. Foolish me, since Part 1 and Part 2 are about, among other things, mentoring relationships succeeding and failing in so many different relationship structures! Is there fic, guys? Am I going to have to write "remembered Puddle/OFC"?

Comments

[little_brisk]

I'm just here to say that anyone who jumps directly from The Waves into The Well of Loneliness is someone of whom I will never be entirely unafraid.