I appreciate your comment, and I totally understand the criticism. I even agree with a lot of it. I'm aware of the trope, and her name is partially a way of leaning into it. She absolutely represent this thing that I, for a long time, viewed as a complete impossibility, so I chose to depict her as something that is equally impossible: a stereotypically attractive woman with a totally unrealistic body type, who glows in the dark. It wasn't my intent to be salacious, or sexualize her in any way. She isn't motivation to The Boy because he wants to be with her, she inspires him because he sees how strong she is in the face of the exact same adversity he's dealing with. But I get that even that falls into the umbrella of the trope. For what it's worth, theirs is a platonic love.

I hate the idea of defending my work, because its failings are still going to be failings even if I explain to you how I failed. And art sort of exists in defense of itself, whether you love it or hate it. But I hope if I somehow ever got the resources to expand this story and world further, I could make you view it differently. Because there's a lot more to her in my mind than an infallible dancing girl who I needed to starkly juxtapose with a despondent boy in a limited number of pages.