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That’s it – their first crisis of many – quickly and lovingly resolved. I couldn’t resist one more ode to Will’s discretion and skillful handling of illicit cash, the sort of traits Eve once found hot but unviable. With everything distilled, and for all their trouble, they have this love to show for it, and $75. So, we’re done? Just like that? I’ve been writing these posts almost every day for 2.5 years, about as long as I’ve had my son, and I can’t easily imagine stopping. The past few years I’ve mostly quieted down and hid from the noise of the internet, particularly social media which has taken on an odd simulation of life quality, a place that is not quite human. During the pandemic life has gotten even quieter, and I’ve relished sending these small bottled messages into the great big sea, never quite knowing who’s reading them or how they’re being taken, at least not by any numerical standard. Many of you have written during the reruns to tell me what OP means to you. I’ve long known nobody will care for my work as much as I do, and even casual, sporadic enjoyment by an audience does my heart well. But knowing that the comic has grown in the minds of people as they age, that it’s representative of a time and place or has been formative in some way — it leaves me tongue-tied. If I never achieve that sort of connection through my work again, it will have been a great honor of my life. I’ll forever scrutinize the details of my own choices, but the impact leaves me humbled and content. I’ll never regret a minute I gave to this comic, or the possibilities it opened up for me. I want to thank you for taking the time to communicate what OP means to you, or even just quietly seeing value in it over the years. I’ve so enjoyed this 2nd opportunity to talk about it with you, and my heart aches to close the door once again. Once more I’d like to thank Valerie Halla for her enormous contribution to this project, and for offering her own thoughts in the rerun comments. She’s currently selling a digital edition for her gorgeous webcomic Goodbye to Halos, which you can buy here. I’m still hard at work on my next project, Perfect Tides, into which I’m channeling much viscera and creative energy. Lately I’ve been doing game dev streams on Twitch, so subscribe if you’d like a glimpse into that process. I’m hoping in 2021 I’ll have a game I’m very proud to share with you. At some point I’ll also get around to properly archiving the reruns so they can be navigated as easily as the originals. In the spirit of scrappy ancient blogs, and webcomics as I know and love them, this update is long overdue, and I thank you for your patience. -Meredith Gran, October 2020 |
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Thank you again, Meredith. I've really enjoyed these commentaries, and it was fun to visit our friends again and watch them make the same dumb mistakes and sublime decisions. Shout out to all the other folks who've been commenting on this second run. It's been awesome reading your interpretations and thoughts on the plot and characters!
Looking forward to Perfect Tides and whatever lies beyond. All the best to you and your family!
Thank you for all the amazing things you've done, Meredith. I can't wait for Perfect Tides and whatever comes next. Much love. ?
I'll never try to compete about how much this comic has mean to me, but it's been a part of my nearly daily life for 13 years now. Octopus Pie, and you, have been with me in my heart and my head longer than most of my friends. I mourned the comic when it ended, and here I am, crying again, only this time I feel I can let it go a little more gracefully, with a lot more comfort. Thank you for letting us experience this with you, again and again.
Octopus Pie has stayed with me in a way that few other works in any medium have managed to. You've succinctly and accurately captured so many emotions and experiences that I had no way of putting into words before, and I still find myself referencing those insights in my day to day life as I try to make sense of things. For that, I will always be grateful.
Thank you so much for everything, Meredith.
Thank you, Meredith!
When OP ended (the first time) it was hard not to check the site for updates just out of habit.
This second run with your comments allowed me to go back in time, enjoy thinking about your craft (since OP is one of the most important and skillful webcomics of all time), re contextualize my opinions about all the characters now that I'm 29, (during the first run I was an 18 year old who moved to Brooklyn and stayed.)
I have too much to say about OP, and I've told anyone who would listen that they should enjoy this re-run with me. Now that it's over, I'm sure I will habitually check the site again and again once again.
Perfect Tides looks great so far, and I can't wait to see it in its full form.
I remember following along with the original comic as a freshman in high school and feeling like it ended so suddenly. And now here I am as a freshman in college. Eve and the gang's adventures in adulthood seemed very abstract when I first read them, and, of course, they still do… but increasingly less so. It's a little surreal! I know I have a lot to learn, though. I'll try and take some of Will's advice.
Octopus Pie is my favorite piece of media of all time and I can't really express in words how much it's shaped my life. Thank you so much for everything, Meredith. Can't wait for Perfect Tides. And as other commenters have said – all the best to you and your family!!
I found this comic when the second to last chapter was still going, soon after I had started college. It got harder to understand the further I went, but I loved it anyways. Now, I've started my 20s and reread it a few times. I keep finding new understanding and meaning each time I do it, and I'm excited to keep doing this long after I turn 30.
That's one of the reasons why I love this comic. It's a story that will change and grow with me as time goes on. I've seen people of various age groups saying how well Octopus Pie encapsulates your 20s. That you were going through your 20s as you made this makes me certain it's true. For that reason, I'll keep Octopus Pie close as I go through my 20s and beyond. Each time I revisit it, it'll take on new meaning in my mind.
i think originally, when the comic ended, i'd replied to a tweet of yours to say that i'd been a reader since 2007 – back again!
i just wanted to say thank you, for years and years of octopus pie, and what it meant to me as i grew older; a lot of the things i first read as a 14-15 year old around the comic's start were lost on me – but after going through the growing pains of my early 20s, octopus pie started to reflect more and more of the things i was living through and trying to find my footing on.
it's helped me cope through hard conversations with friends, my first horrible breakup — in the absence of a mentor or kindly wizard sage with expansive advice (and maybe a coffee shop?), octopus pie has really helped me pursue…emotional maturity? intelligence? and it's made me laugh just as much as i've felt the same sad aches as its cast. thank you so much for putting so much thought and care into something wonderful.
(also, i think when i ordered a set of the physical books, i had just missed the deadline for getting a signed first copy, but you did it anyways — i always love seeing it when i go back to page through.)
This webcomic has meant so much to me, and this re-run and commentary even more so. As someone rolling into their mid-twenties and just now realizing the complexities of relationships, witnessing the parallel of my own choices in comic form is obliquely satisfying. But even more so, to hear the wisdom that may one day be gained from them, how we can be better, from someone who has that wisdom, has given me a new view on navigating friends and family. It's also given me a deeper appreciation for your intent and the hidden stories in these pages. When friends ask me why I love this medium, yours is the first I show them. Thank you, Meredith, for taking the time. Looking forward to your next projects <3
It's been fun following the recaps and the commentary over the last few years – almost as good as finishing the original run itself, as I'm sure all the "veterans" can agree 🙂 Thanks so much for giving us a peek inside the process Meredith (and thanks to Valerie for such amazing colour). Congrats on the success of OP – we're looking forward to Perfect Tides and all your future creative endeavours.
I don't think anyone's ever going to see this, but if they do, there's one more wonderful visual metaphor on this page (not sure if it was intentional or not!) :
That classic, inevitable, incorrigible behaviour of cats we have a love/hate relationship with – the "come pet my tummy, now I will disembowel you with my hind claws, and now I will lick your hand tenderly as if nothing happened" routine – really quite sums up Eve's journey, doesn't it? And Hanna's, and Will's, and so on. The idea that you kinda have to jump into your personal relationships with the expectation of getting scratched and bruised before you can reap the rewards. Eve's existence in the early days of the strip was defined by her (sometimes free-floating) constant state of worry. With time she's learned to love herself and be less constrained by her own expectations of how life is supposed to turn out. The fact that Eve endures the painful/playful routine with Manuel shows that she's reached some kind of understanding on this front – or at least, as much as she needs for now. Just a fun thing that resonated with me 🙂
That one day of March 2014 when I first visited this webcomic was a good day.
What I want to say you've probably heard quite a few times now, but Octopus Pie has been an inspiration.
As Eve, Hannah, Will, Marigold, Jane et al. stumbled through their young adult years,
trying to find their footing, as they found themselves either pushing back or working towards their own growth, I often found a lot in common with my own experiences and choices and it caused several moments of introspection.
It still happens to this day while I re-read my OP copies when I'm home, or online when I'm not.
Your work is helping me become a better me.
Thank you Meredith for Octopus Pie, looking forward to see more of your moving and insightful writing in Perfect Tides.
I had barely started highschool when I first came across OP, and neither my English or my knowledge of American trends at the time were nearly good enough to understand a good chunk of the references and the humor. But, even so, this comic gave me a small glimpse into a very different life I always dreamed of. Friends in a city, love coming and going, navigating your 20s. Your layouts and drawings, always so fun, and Valerie’s colors inspired me to begin working on comics as soon as I was done with school.
And I got to go through that life. I got to move to the big city and make friends and watch our friendships fall apart. And though OP’s characters were never role models exactly, all the notes I took from them, all the thoughts you shared both as you posted originally and during this rerun helped me understand how to navigate my own life a little bit better, and know that I never was in any unique kind of pain through all of it.
Thank you so much for all the ways in which Octopus Pie changed my life, Meredith. It was wonderful reading along for the rerun.
Hi, Meredith! I love Octopus Pie!! I started reading Octopus Pie when I was in college and it ended about a month after I graduated. Despite being A Kid, I knew it was something special and I very awkwardly tried to communicate that one year at TCAF before buying Volume 4 and fleeing.
Re-reading it alongside your commentary now that I’m in my ~mid-20s~ has been its own wild experience altogether. It resonates on a level I didn’t know was possible. Maybe that’s intensely silly for me to say as someone just approaching 25, but it feels true! It’s been fun and comforting and insightful, and Octopus Pie is truly one of the greatest things I’ve read. Re-reading has felt like revisiting an old friend who is much, much wiser and funnier than me. I love comics and I’m trying to call myself a cartoonist as well, and you’re an inspiration. If I could make a comic that’s even a fraction as plain Good as Octopus Pie, I’d count that as an immense victory.
Thank you so much for sharing your work with us. I wish you and your family all the best. I’m looking forward to revisiting Octopus Pie once again in the future, and I’m very excited for Perfect Tides!!
Thank you for doing these reruns and for all of the commentary! It's been fantastic taking it all in a linear fashion again. I started reading OP in my early 20's and now I'm at the end of them and will be joining Larry as old 30 year old next year. This comic has really made me examine a lot of things in my life, relationships with my partner and friends, navigating the career world, and growing up in general. And a lot of tragic moments but a lot of unbridled happiness. To say how much this comic has impacted me, I don't think I can properly express it. You've captured, so well, a lot of emotions that are tough to handle but are presented beautifully. And much of it without dialogue! And when there is dialogue it's funny, it's truthful, cruel, and realistic.
I wish best of luck with Perfect Tides and well wishes to you and you family. Thank you so much for everything!!
I can't believe we're here again. This comic started when I was in high school, and now I'm sitting in my classroom where I teach, reading this comic and getting teary-eyed. Thank you so much for this beautiful story.
I’ve spent my nearly entire adult life, by choice, in an arrangement that seems to have become more and more common for people of our generation, where the basic domestic unit is a rental, and the primary domestic bonds are between friends. I’ve never seen, for example, a section at the pharmacy among the greeting cards for “housemates.” There’s no “housemates day.” Yes, it’s nice that these deep, ongoing connections remain fit the most part uncommodified and uncategorizable. Still, it is precious and rare and should be more common these days to see those relationships at the center of a story, especially a long, serialized story where we can see the characters grow and change and influence and push away from and return to one another! Yours is one of the finest, and feels in many ways the closest to a certain midatlantic late-capitalist truth. I have no idea how I’ll now spend the time that I once spent checking to see whether you’d posted a new comic. <3 <3
I never comment anywhere – as someone who has to deal with comments as my job I find extra value in staying silent – but. But. I started reading this webcomic when I was in high school, not quite speaking the language perfectly yet, so often there were times when I didn't understand what was going on. Now, at 27, I know the issue was not only language, but age as well. Regardless, I can't count how many times I re-read the entire comic, over and over again from the very start, and as long as this website stays on I will continue to do so. I now speak English so much better and I still can't find the words to tell you how much it means to me, how many things I learned from it as a story teller, how much love I have for the art and the characters, and of course, for your comments and insights. I dislike any show running on for more than a couple seasons and episodes because I prefer definite starts and endings within a reasonable time, but I could keep reading Octopus Pie forever. Reading it is a part of my everyday routine. I keep making "the fukken shit" jokes even though noone knows what I'm talking about. This is the only friend group I have ever really been part of. It means… so much.
Thank you for everything,
a forever-fan from Hungary
Tears to my eyes. Thank you so much.
As the adult child of someone raised in Asia, always looking for a balance between Eastern and Western cultures, your comic meant so much to me. The first time around, and, now that I am past 40, even more so now. I want to give it to all my friends who turn 30. What a graceful way to say goodbye.
it's so strange, reading this now at such a different part of my life. i was in my early college years when i started reading this the first time–so much of my personality was still so malleable! so many ideas i was so sure of have since been completely rewritten! i am a wildly different heidi from the one who started reading OP back in like, idk, 2010. and reaching the end of OP a second time, reading your commentary about how things change and grow? that hits in such a beautiful way.
thanks for taking us on this journey again. it's so clear how much this was a labor of love, and it has been so appreciated.
I'm sad to see this end a second time, but thank you for bringing us through this with a new (to us) perspective! Good fortune on your other projects!
I've been reading this comic since 2009, and just wanted to say this comic has been a huge part of my life. I grew with it, ages 19 to 30, and it was very relevant and insightful as I navigated my own weird 20s. Thank you for this rerun, and for sharing your insight and these amazing, wonderful, kooky characters. I loved every part of this journey, and I'm keeping a close eye on Perfect Tides! <3
Thank you, Meredith. It all means so much.
Thanks so much for doing this Meredith. It's been twice as good reading the series again, with your commentary and also because I'm in a slightly different place where I understand it better this time through. OP is, I really think, perhaps the best depiction of Ordinary Millenial Life I can name: you really captured something about the confusing, sometimes isolated, sometimes aimless, often sweet tone of my generation. I can't wait for Perfect Tides!
I really appreciated your comic, both the first and second run through. It certainly spoke to me and I love sharing it with others when given the opportunity. I hope you keep making content into the future.
Thank you Meredith. Reading OP is one of my favorite parts of being alive.
Your commentary has been a treat. I wish you the best.
I wanted to say thank you- I've been reading since about 2015 and there are so many remarkably familiar and relatable moments through the series. I don't think I've seen a comic which has so perfectly nailed these small fragments of everyday life as well as OP.
I really enjoyed the re-runs and your commentary. Looking forward to Perfect Tides!
Every instinct I have tells me to write an elaborate ode to this comic and what it meant to me, but with age I've lost the ability to shamelessly indulge in my joys the way I used to. All I can say is that over and over again I've described Octopus Pie as the best encapsulation of my generation I've ever read. In a better, fairer world it would be properly rewarded with Peabodies and Comic Laureates and some other awards I'm not familiar with. College professors of the future would make it required reading in their classes and students would argue over completely inaccurate reads of what Marek is meant to represent.
Octopus Pie is up there with the best works I've ever read. I'm so thankful that you were able to assemble the experience of living in such a specific time so succinctly and eloquently. In a lot of ways that mattered, this comic kept reminding me that I wasn't alone, and getting to read back on it in a years-long-book-club style was a great reminder of this time in my life now that I'm in a time that feels so incredibly different. Thank you for making it, thank you for sharing it with us again, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm looking forward to whatever you choose to share with us in the future.
First time I found Octopus Pie it was midway through the original run. I binge-read from the beginning.
It has been such a treat to see the comic on a daily basis, web server logic cooperation assumed; to read your comments about the craft, what you like, what you’d change. The characters in the comic start out smart and end up wiser, still snarky but also more empathetic to themselves and to others.
This time, the last panel reads to me as if Will is teasing Eve—Olly left her a couple thousand, but just to get her goat, Will says “Seventy-five dollars.” That would be a very Will move to keep the giggles going. Even after all the crap, we want to believe that the world can be a generous place. Is that a very United States-Ian thing to think?
Many thanks Meredith for one more tour through Everest Ning’s adventures in the big city. I hope you are all doing well.
I love this comic deeply, with my soul.
And in a simple way, I love you, too Meredith and Valerie. Thank you for bringing this comic to life and may you both live as happily and fulfillingly as you can.
-Random Reader over the years.
I'm going to be that greedy, awful fan that still longs for an epilogue one day. These living, breathing characters, I just can't say goodbye to them. But I have to, again.
Every re-read of OP is a treasure, but your commentary, reflection and musing alongside every strip was truly a gift. Thank you for everything you put into this, and best wishes to your family and what will certainly be another wonderfully crafted work with Perfect Tides.
It's so weird that Octopus Pie is over again. I've really enjoyed this series, it found me at an interesting time in my life. And it's meant a lot to me. Also your recaps have been a joy. It's been neat to get inside your thought process for each strip.
I don't think I've ever commented here and I don't have much new to add, but I want to say that I genuinely love this comic — now even more than when I first read it — and seeing your commentary over the past few years has been a constant delight. Thank you so much for creating such a wonderful, joyful thing. I can't wait for Perfect Tides!
Delurking just to say thank you for doing this — both the first time and on the rerun. It’s been fun, and I look forward to seeing what comes next with whatever you get up to.
Thank you Meredith & Valerie, both for the series, and the joy that has been this second run. The peek behind the curtain into your minds has truly been a gift.
I don't think more than a few days have gone by without me checking this site, either for an update, or just to reread a favorite story, since I started reading back in the Occupy storyline during the original run. Like so many of my fellow readers, I feel like I grew up with these characters, having spent so much of my twenties visiting their lives.
I can't wait to see Perfect Tides, and wherever you go next.
Thanks for these, Meredith! I started reading the reruns I think like 8 posts in, and I can't believe it's been 2.5 years. It's been a really satisfying arc and I'm so glad to have found it. It's sad to unpin the tab from my browser 🙁 I hope your next venture goes great!
Long time reader, first time poster.
Meredith, thanks for OP, it was a great ride for both me and the friend that introduced me to it.
Coming back to this story with 10 more years of life experience allowed me to take everything in differently having now experienced some of the things that at the time I was only reading about.
Hope to read more from you but in the meantime I will be waiting for Perfect Tides. =)
Wow. It didn't hit me until I automatically went to the website today that the reruns are actually over. I followed along for maybe the last third of the comic as it was coming out, and then was so pleased to read along through the whole comic again with the reruns, and now I don't know what I'm going to do without my daily(ish) Octopus Pie. I love the storytelling and characters so much, and this whole project has been one of the most meaningful works of art I've ever encountered. There's a kind of magic when something is interwoven in your daily life for years. Please keep creating things, no matter what they are–I'm excited for Perfect Tides and whatever comes next.
Thanks so much for these. Thanks for rerunning them w/commentary. I didn't think I'd cry when it ended again, and yet here we are.
Thank you for taking us along with you on this re-read. It has been wonderful hearing your thoughts on each page, and it has been an incredible chance for me to re-contextualise this strip that has now spanned my entire 20s as well. (I started reading it when I was 16, and I turn 30 in a couple months).
I will say I personally connect with the ending a lot more now than I did just a few years ago, although I still loved it then. My partner and I actually have the inks for the first couple. Pages of this update (up to the point where Eve opens the envelope and swears), and they have pride of place at the top of the stairs, where I get to enjoy them every day.
Thanks for giving us this gift of a comic in the first place, and now for walking us back through it one more time.
I fell in love with OP during its original run, and it has been such a pleasure reading your commentary on this second run and experiencing the comic through a new lens. This comic means a lot to me and many others; thank you so much for crafting such an incredible and dynamic work.
I'm looking forward to Perfect Tides. Best of luck in your future endeavors, and all the best to you and your family!
It's been such a joy to read this comic in both runs and to get the "behind the scenes" commentary! Thank you for everything you put into it, Meredith!
Thank you for making this comic for all of us. This is a comic that felt so alive both the first time I read it, and right now. I think about it still. And thank you specifically for this re-telling and commentary, I loved the little things that I missed, connections to real events, and the connections to your life that somehow gave this story even more life and substance.
This comic will always have a special place in my heart. It has been such a pleasure getting to enjoy it all over again. Thank you so much
So many lovely sentiments posted here, and I share so many of them. Thanks, companion readers!
Me, I was in my late 20s and in grad school (and lining up shitty relationships and disaffection) when I first discovered OP and fell in its thrall. I'm 42 now, and my toddler loves my "The duck seeks only bread" t-shirt. Meredith–thank you so sincerely for this work that I've returned to in rereads over the years. Having your company this time around has made this read doubly special.
Believe me, I'll devour epilogue material if the time is ever right for it to come. But I never leave the story feeling that this story is anything but a complete loop as is, and I expect to keep savoring it in rereads to come.
(And: I'm very excited for Perfect Tides, especially having grown up with Sierra games, esp Roberta Williams' clutch–and apparently kindred–titles.)
Even more amazing the second time through, thank you so much for this whole project!
Thank you Meredith. Your work captures a time and place that seems unbelievably distant now, and reading your commentary on it has made revisiting OP all the more enjoyable and insightful!
The cat behaviour represented here is true to life, as always.
Reading and rereading this has been a joy, and one I'll miss very much in these troubled times. I remember reading the comic on a friend's recommendation partway through its original run and just trying to figure out who all the characters were. So glad I stuck with it. Thank you, Meredith and Valerie!
The commentary has been fantastic and just cemented in my mind how much of a masterpiece this comic is. Like many other readers it's also been a treat to slowly re-read everything with the benefit of extra life experience. I am a little younger than Meredith and didn't always get the motivation of many of the characters on the first run, but second time around it really does capture a certain messy time and place in life. Beautiful.
I came across this comic in its rerun and am so very glad I did! Thank you for your insights on the process and your impression of your own work now. It was awesome to share this in realtime.
I've been following since midway through the first run, and getting to follow OP again, both with new eyes, and the years behind me to understand much of what I missed the first time, has been like going over memories with a good friend.
Thank you for bringing this to us. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with it.
I never comment on anything, but rereading this has been an incredibly powerful experience – a true joy, even in the hard parts. Thank you, so so deeply.
Thanks a million times over for walking through this comic with us again, especially during one of the most stressful times in many people's lives. This comic resonated so much with me when it was originally released, for the wit and the heart and a similar, parallel of coming of age experience.
To read through it again at the gentle pace of page-release many years later brings back so many memories and reflections of both the characters and my own life, with what little wisdom I've gleaned since you first wrote Octopus Pie.
I read this comic during my post-college years, and it reminds me of a time that seems so long ago but was also just yesterday. I remember discussing them with a friend at Sunday dinners at their place. I wonder if they've read these re-runs with your commentary? Those were good days.
Thanks so much for the behind-the-scenes glance into how you made all of this, Meredith. It feels so intimate and yet there always seems to be more I'm sure we won't ever get to see. I can't wait for Perfect Tides, and hope you're having fun creating it. It's been an amazing ride and I love your writing and drawing, all the jokes, all the sad moments, oof! All the heartache, good and bad. Lots of love.
Also, awesome, I just got into Twitch a few months ago!! Hope to catch one of your streams sometime.
I was incredibly sad the first time it finished. This time is a little less tragic, although I know I'll feel a little lonely without it.
I was in New York some years ago and dragged my then bf to a comic shop to buy one of the printed volumes: I refused to fly back to Spain without it. He indulged me, although I'm pretty sure he didn't quite get the point of it.
It's been a real joy. Thank you, Meredith!
It's been wonderful seeing behind the scenes, and I'll miss your thoughtful ruminations.
I've been struggling for days to figure out what to write here, because I HAVE to write something. Octopus Pie is one of my favorite comics EVER, and possibly one of my favorite stories ever, medium disregarded. I love these characters so much, and it's been so inspiring and great to go through the comic again with updated commentary.
I don't play many games, but because it's you, I'm really interested to play Perfect Tides. and I hope I have time to draw some fanart of these lovable losers sometime soon. <3 <3 <3
Thank you for this trip down memory lane. It was interesting to look back and see what changed and what stayed the same. Your post-commentary on these was something I looked forward to every day these past couple years.
Thank you once again Meredith! This rerun made me tear up once again one two many times and screenshot to save parts to later remember that life itself passes on and we still have these memories. I began reading this webcomic i think while i was in the middle of college, and it had well been already a bit more of the middle of the comic when i started. It was at my beginnings of my webcomic addictions, so this was one of my firsts and most treasured one of the ones I've been reading and read. It has made me quote a few many times, i have referenced this before, showed it to so many people, ans also meditated on what i was reading. I really loved this as someone that was entering her 20s and now is in her mid 20s, rereading it again for comfort during lockdown, in a country that is not my own. Once again thank you, i really apreciate your work, and looking forward to Perfect Tides
Throwing my typed words to the chorus singing the praises of OP. So cool to re read it like this with commentary from such a gifted writer. So thankful for you and this comic series, I am lucky to have had this as part of my life and soul. Psyched for Perfect Tides!
It's been over a month and I still instinctively go to Octopus Pie for updates. Is it too soon for a commentary on the commentary?
Another reread done. I don't think I've ever experienced something so many times before, but every time I plunge back into OP I get new things from it. It's such a gift and I'm so, so thankful you shared it with us. I've been reading this story for over a decade now, from a high-school teen to the cusp of 30. Thank you, Meredith. I'll see y'all again in a couple years <3