"Goooood evening Station Square! This is Pulse Nexus TV, your one-stop shop for all the latest news and gossip! I'm your host, Surge the Tenrec, here with the fabulous fantasy author, Amy Rose! Creator of the award-winning series, Whispers of Solaris!"

Amy's burning, tired eyes parted open and glimpsed at the pulsing television screen. All it took was a brief mention of Whispers of Solaris for the live-studio audience's roaring to permeate through the speakers in Amy's living room. Amy couldn't help but roll her eyes.

She always hated rewatching her interviews.

"Thanks, Surge, for having me here. I'm writing more contemporary novels nowadays. Last year I released my coming-of-age novel Through the Hazy Abyss-" Amy finally spoke through the video, sitting politely across from Surge. Her cornflower dress gave her an air of modesty against the outrageous, neon-colored set.

"Of course, yeah. You have your realistic fiction as well. Your standalone novels were also pretty well-received, right? Am I correct?" Surge added as she glimpsed backstage, subtly requesting some confirmation from a producer or something.

'Gee thanks, lady.' Amy thought, digging a hand into the bowl of chips in her lap and reaching for her wineglass. She couldn't help but get pissed at the interviewer's blatant lack of care or even knowledge of her other work.

"Yeah! Heh… I'm very proud of my more recent releases. And I'm happy I'm here to discuss my latest historical biography… If you wouldn't mind." Amy murmured, smiling widely and crossing her legs in the interview seat. The last bit of her sentence was barely above a whisper, as if she didn't mean for the mic to pick it up.

…It rang through Amy's ears.

"Oh, of course! Just hang on one second because, I'll let you finish, but right now I just want to hear about your story. From the beginning. I think the viewers would love to hear about you getting your start." Surge clumsily diverted. Amy's face sank slightly with a hidden dissatisfaction as she clutched at the hem of her dress.

There was a buzzing from the couch cushion next to Amy. She picked up her phone, evading the sight of her notification wall. She skimmed through the email she received. It was her agent, with a link to a separate interview online. She opened it, a gleam in her eye as the TV buzzed in the background.

"Athena Martel on the Power of Online Writing - Dash Now! Online News Outlet."

Recently, I got to talk with the long-time romance novel sensation Athena Martel, a talent who amazingly got her start via online fanfiction.

"So I understand you were first noticed for your writing online. Rumor has it you dabbled a bit in some spicy fanfiction. Any comments on that?" Surge pressed.

Amy let out a polite laugh and waved a hand at her. "It's true! Yeah. I wrote some fanfiction. I wouldn't call it spicy by any means, but it was a good way to get my start, I suppose…"

Your community admires you for your knack for building tension and steaminess. Fans have described your novels as "mind-numbingly amorous and titillating" Has it always been this way since your fanfiction days?

"My writing was a lot more uninhibited in the beginning. I wasn't afraid to set the plot aside for the sexy stuff to take center stage. That's just fanfic culture. It's all about getting to the stuff you're most excited to write, whatever that may be, because that's all that fanfic readers need. Regardless of whatever story principles that the industry makes you believe you need to follow. That's why you never see reviews or analyses of fanfiction, it's just not the point. Not that more emotional or thought-provoking work didn't exist. I wrote a lot of that too. But, my style has definitely evolved since then to suit the publishing industry. That just comes with the transition from a hobby to a career" Martel says.

"...But I sort of moved past fanfiction after a bit in favor of writing original works. So I would publish short stories once or twice a month, you know. I had a blog. Soon I- I saw links popping up in other places like forums and social media and I thought, oh my chaos, I'm famous!" Amy continued.

Athena Martel's fanfiction is mostly inaccessible now. The websites are too outdated. Athena has also deleted many of the works, even on functioning sites.

"A lot of that stuff I'm still proud of, really. But, just because I don't regret writing it doesn't mean it's something I feel the need to showcase as an example of my writing. Gaia, there's nothing more infuriating than a writer who's overshadowed by their past work. Whether the work is good or bad doesn't matter, because a different person at a different time wrote it."

"...And then suddenly I'm getting an email from an agency, which is the agency I'm still with today. And they're like 'Hey, we want to offer you a deal for a book series.' and I was like 'Well, okay!' I wrote them some original ideas and they- they were like 'no, no we want something like- like this.' They're talking about a fantasy story I already wrote. One that I kind of felt done with. But, I was like 'Oh, yeah, sure that's fine, I guess…'" Amy tried to skim through that last part. It wasn't a story for these people.

"...Which like, I get it, it was my most popular story at the time I get why they would want to use that one for like, business reasons and stuff. So, I tweaked it and tried my best- I just rewrote it and expanded it and that became Whispers of Solaris." The audience cheered as if Amy had pulled off a magic trick as memories of sleepless nights, therapy calls, and looming deadlines swam in her mind.

"And a few years later I got a book deal, which was actually for an adaptation of one of my most popular fanfics. But pretty quickly, my fans made it clear they wanted new stuff as well. I'm lucky to have fans so respectful of my art. They're the more subdued types of people and therefore are pretty laid-back and thoughtful. So yeah, that's what launched my career as a romance author."

"Isn't that so great, ladies and gentlemen? I just love that story, but could you also tell us about the um- your face reveal?" Surge continued, looking down at her notecard. Amy cheekily rolled her eyes, a fake smile plastered across her face. "Yeah, the- the fans kind of…"

Don't push it.

"...The face reveal was quite an ordeal. It surprised me to find people were so excited about me revealing my face." Amy tested, not exactly sure what she could say, or how to phrase her thoughts incontrovertibly. "Well, it was certainly a huge career booster for you. It was practically a phenomenon of its own, called Rosemania. The fans, well, they loved it cause… Well, you're just stunning! It was a bit of a shock!" Amy couldn't help but redden at the compliment. She couldn't tell if it was in gratitude or irritation. But memories of how her face grew bigger and bigger on the spines of her novels, the increasingly ostentatious outfits. The cameras, the pictures, the messages, Chaos. She tried her best to push it from her mind.

Athena has confirmed her alias, Athena Martel, to be a Pen name, but the mysterious author has no plans to reveal her identity.

"It overcomplicates things. The more information is out there about me, the more my books are less of a story and more of a biography. It's no secret I appreciate my privacy. It was never about me, it's always been about the stories. And with something as intimate as romance and fantasy, I know fans are likely to become… assertive."

"Your fans have been pretty adamant about a continuation or reboot of WOS. So, would you say that's… in the cards?" Surge continued to push, a hand propping her chin up on the side table. Amy shook her head, perhaps a little too vehemently. "No, sorry. It is not," she said simply. Surge's smile widened, but not warmly. Her eyes widened, too. She knew exactly what she was about to stir. "What do you have to say about your fans and… does it bother you how much they want you to keep writing it? There are rumors that some WOS fanatics can get pretty passionate. Does it make you uncomfortable?" Surge continued.

"Do they frighten you?"

"Fans make or break an artist. They can raise you to the stars and they can tear you down again, chew you up, and spit you out."

"I love my fans dearly. I'll say that… dearly" Amy's eyes wrinkled, and her stomach turned to knots.

"There are also rumors of you being in a relation-"

"That's enough of that bullshit." Amy sighed, taking another swig of her pricey wine. The Image vanished on the TV with a click of the remote. She closed the article, too. Nothing but writing advice she already knew. She would know, she wrote it.

Amy couldn't help but feel unnerved by the two interviews. She hated being so deceptive. But that was the price of a double life.

How long could she keep this up?

Her phoned buzzed again, this time from a text. She looked to find it was a new contact, but she had a sense of who it may be.

'Hey Rose, it's the guy from the bookstore. Want to grab coffee tomorrow morning? My treat.'

Followed by a photo for proof. It was him alright. She typed and sent a response almost instantly.

'Definitely. It's a date.'