Comments? Concerns? Questions? Random quotes about frogs or kittens?

All go here.

Bethy

Ummm....Wow. I would actually really like a sequel to this.

Anni

Wow. Intense yet funny. I really liked the sneezing...

Bowed yet unbroken.

Ooooh, yes! What Anni said!

Wow, that was really good.

You set the scene, made us feel the time frame, then Whammo! I actually got tears from this...

Oh man, that was really sad. Please please, a sequel, and make it all better!

Melisma ( under her Rock)

I thought, when Lois started chopping away at her hair, that this was going to be a comedy...

...and then WHAMMO!! You have got to put this right!!


Wendy (tapping foot)

Bethy

WOW! This is excellent.

I love the way you set the scene.
Then WHAM! Poor Lois!
This is so heart-wrenching.

I can definitely see Lois cutting her own hair to show that she is in control.

Thanks for sharing this very sad story. I would love to read a sequel.

Tricia

Absolutely needs a sequal!!!

James

< mutter mutter hate it when I sucked into darkfics mutter mutter>

Very well written, Bethy. I figured it out as soon as she said "Pre-emptive strike" but by then it was too late to stop reading.

Definitely intense and definitely satisfies both challenges.

I'm not sure I'd give it a G rating, though. I took that as a sign that nothing too bad could happen, but this is a pretty serious subject matter. You might consider changing that before sending it to the Archive.

As I said, though, it was well written.

Kathy

Kathy -- good point about the G rating, hadn't thought about it that way. Should I edit and add a warning that it's darkfic? Or just change it for the archive?

Sorry you got sucked in...I didn't want a warning because of the way it started out chipper and then twisted, but I forgot that some people really, actively avoid darkfic.

Bethy (who will reply to comments in detail soon -- for now: THANKS everyone!)

Bethy, well done, well written story.

An original, yet poignant situation for the ultimate haircut for Lois. I too could see Lois taking shears in hand just to prove that she had some control over how she has to deal with the disease.

I didn't understand the bit with the sneezing (and I supposed Lois tweezed her brows rather then just easily shaving them off because she was just stubborn) but it was funny.

Nicely met, the darkfic conditions too, but you'd be able to easily alleviate that part, (and the concerns of the skittish gentle readers) by just adding a short epilogue set some resonable time after the incident that mentions how, even though Lois beat the cancer, she liked the bald look and kept it .

Tank (who just might have a few more challenge vignettes in him... imagine that?)

Bethy,
excellent
needs sequel
merry

Well written, and very Lois. A diagnosis of any kind of cancer can cause extreme reactions in anyone, and this is very much in character.

The emotional upheaval in the story is very realisticaly shown - almost too well done for comfort.

BTW, Chicken pox is quite nasty when you're 'old'. My wife caught it at 31 from our youngest daughter, and didn't enjoy it a bit. It took a long time to get over it. They came out with a vaccine the next summer ( timing ) Of course, she enjoyed even less her bout with kidney cancer seven months later.(She made it through both, and is still cancer free after 9 years)

Frank (who's been there)