“Don’t lie to us!” another person shouts. “Are they killing Starfield?”

My nails dig into my palms.

“Get a better Carmindor!” someone else shouts. “Reboot it again!”

“Kill it!”

“Bring back David and Natalia!” another person cries to more shouts of agreement.

Beside me, Darien’s face begins to pale. He sits back in his chair, but his shoulders are bunched together as though he’s getting ready to spring from the table and leave. Other people shout slogans I’ve read on Tumblr and Twitter, more obscene things that I’m sure Darien has read before but never experienced in person.

There are dark sides of every fandom. The pockets filled with a certain kind of nostalgia where everything is sacred and shouldn’t be tampered with. Where new things are always trash, or judged too harshly, or not up to some unknown holy standard. Where new people with new ideas can’t touch an old sinking ship even if it’ll repair it—make it better than before.

This is that toxic side, bubbling up, boiling over. It’s the side that I’ve had the pleasure of staying far away from because it’s so small and inconsequential. But now, sitting up here on the panel, that sludge of toxicity is pushing right to the edge of the stage.

Jess is always so much closer to it than I ever was. Is that why she hates Starfield?

Is this all that she’s seen of it?

By now, my fingernails are leaving crescent-shaped indentions in my palms. This is my chance to tell the haters off. To make my argument that Amara should be saved—that she deserves to be saved and—

And in saying that, would I be any better than these people shouting that they want Natalia and David back? These people arguing that Jessica Stone can never live up to the dress she slipped into? Haven’t I, too, done that in a certain slant of light? For better reasons—good reasons, I daresay—but I don’t think my heart has been in the right place. I think she holds an important place in the Starfield fandom, but that isn’t why I want her back. I want to bring Princess Amara back because she has become a reflection of my own self-worth.

And Jessica Stone—the girl I’m supposed to be playing, the actress in this Greek tragedy—never wanted that.

Because the fandom never gave her a reason to want it.

Oh, starflame. Now I understand, and it took almost three thousand manbabies to show me.