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pozolegirl · 4 years ago

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Utah seems to be a breeding ground for MLS....

I know this auto corrected and you meant to say MLMs haha and you’re 100% right! Multi Level Marketing often starts up in Utah and I hate it so much. I also have a lot of theories about why this happens though. For one, there is a very large amount of LDS members here and a lot of the qualities that MLM’s claim to promote is right in line with what the church here praises. Things like hard working, accountability, family bonds, community engagement, self sufficiency, these are all good things that we focus on a lot, and MLM’s ABSOLUTELY exploit this. They give the illusion of the organization being a ‘big happy family’ when in reality is a money sucking get rich quick scheme.

Most MLM’s also target women, especially women who are stay at home moms with the untapped potential of becoming business entrepreneurs, and are usually hungry for those opportunities. Combine this with the fact that the church has organizations like Relief Society, which is known as ‘The largest and oldest women’s organization in the world.’ I’ve had great experiences with relief society, it’s really nice to know that wherever I move to, there are women who are going to be available to help me if I need it and provide me with friendship (even if we have nothing in common- which has made for some well meaning but awkward get to know you nights for me LMAO). Of course, this is the ideal scenario, and I’ve been lucky enough to only be in genuinely good church wards with good people who actually do reach out and want to make friends. There’s the problem too of some members only using this as a tool to ‘convert as many people as possible’ when the real goal should be based on being a good person who wants to serve and love people with no strings attached because that’s what it’s all about... but anyways, back to MLM’s. When you have such a high number of women at home who want to do something on the side and ‘be productive’, an environment like an MLM may LOOK like the right place to be. After all, it’s modeled on things like Relief Society, a big sisterhood or family who are working hard and gaining success together. But in reality MLM’s are toxic environments that chew you up in their system and often ruin the lives of those within them. My mom has told me about quite a few women in my home church ward who are financially bankrupt from these MLM’s and their houses are filled with boxes of unsold merchandise and products.

The other issue going on, more on the side of essential oil MLM’s (almost all the big ones have started here in Utah, I live near many of the headquarters and farms), is that there is currently an anti science movement going on. This is not exclusive to LDS members, it can be found across tons of religions, but the idea is that you can no longer trust science because it’s putting out things that may be considered challenges to someone’s faith. (For me personally, science doesn’t challenge my faith, it only strengthens it tbh- magic didn’t create this world- complicated science was used to create it- I don’t have to have all the complicated answers about everything I’m just gonna be a good person and live by the impressions that I have that I believe God has given me to feel :) But because science confuses or perhaps frightens people away from doing the research and studying it, they need a thing to replace what science was. So essential oils, which I do think can have small benefits in health- I won’t discount aroma therapy things and the natural medicinal qualities of certain plants- but over all they should NOT be replacing scientific progress and the words and knowledge from ACTUAL SCIENTISTS AND DOCTORS rather than ones who are proven to be scam artists or quacks who slapped a Dr. in front of their name to make their product look official. And when enough anti science people get into essential oils, then the false testimonies or fabricated personal experiences start to get spread around that convince perfectly intelligent people that essential oils are good options as well. When SO many people are into it and it looks SO official, especially when these people are those in your church community that you already feel so similar to- it’s obvious why innocent people get dragged into this thinking that it’s Legit.

The YouTube channel Illuminaughty has wonderful videos about MLM’s, she does tons of research and shows her sources, and very quickly these MLM’s start to fall apart when you look at their shady history and the accounts of people who have become victims from them. I think some people who start their own MLM companies might be under the impression that it is character building and a good opportunity or whatever, but very quickly fall into greed even if they trick themselves into self righteous thinking about it. Especially because those on top make the highest revenue and so when you look down at those at the bottom of the pyramid you might say ‘well obviously they’re just not working hard enough because I’M doing just fine.’ And then the other type of the people who start MLM’s have always been greedy scam artists and I hope everything crumbles to the ground and they have to go get a job that doesn’t exploit thousands of usually well meaning people who are just trying to be a part of an uplifting and motivating company.

Here’s a link to Illuminaughty’s MLM videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSbFZp8s7tcz0FldGCpt34eiE7P7Mkz9_

Sorry for the long post but this is something that directly affects me and my community, family, and friends so I have A LOT of thoughts about it.

#long post #multi level marketing #Utah #tw religion

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busanbunnie · 5 years ago

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the hana & saint story // part two

upon finding out that he has in fact ended up in paris and he has a better life there along with being clean -- hana finds herself happy that he has found himself with that but a little sad. she missed him dearly and wanted to be reunited with him again but he was half way across the world and she was still stuck in korea. yet bumping into one another when he was back home to visit, he seemed a lot happier and calmer. a completely different man to what she was used to and she couldn’t help but feel all those feelings bubble within her again. there was a moment between them before he was asking her to come with him to paris. she had never expected it but she agreed straight away -- any chance to spend more time with him. her own mind was starting to go off of the rails, she was starting to fall for him and he could do no wrong in her eyes.

hana and saint arrived in paris and he was very quick to introduce her to the band he had created there along with the groupies. taking her into a large home where they all stayed, everybody was friendly including the girls. hana started to get a little jealous that he had been sleeping around with these beautiful women even though she didn’t own him and they had only slept together once but after becoming friends with a blonde french girl named rose, she got the inside scoop that saint never touched any of them. if they tried to make a move on him, he was very quick to pull away. they assumed he had somebody back home. it had touched hana dearly and when she had ended up in saints room that night, they ended up spending the night together once more -- this time a lot more passionate, lots of kissing and lots of tender touches. it wasn’t rushed and it wasn’t rough. and that was the night hana genuinely believed she had fallen in love with the man who had scared her half to death as soon as she had met him.

things seemed to be going well, everything was all lovey dovey -- she was able to hug him and kiss him. that smile and those bunny teeth she adored so much, it was nice to be able to see him with his friends and while they weren’t anything exclusive, she felt as though he was hers and she was his. he took her to a show where she stayed back stage for a bit and was with the rest of the groupies before being pulled out into the crowd with rose and a few of the other girls. they were all lovely but as hana looked around at the crowd and then to the boys on stage, she began to feel her insecurities slipping through. everybody was dressed in black, leather, chains and metal -- they all had the look to them. women in fishnets and ripped shorts and crop tops or tight dresses. all in muted colours such as black and grey while hana stood out like a sore thumb in her pink attire. that was when she started to hold herself, she wanted to go home and get changed but as she caught saints eye while she was in the crowd, she gave him a small smile only to slip away from the venue.

she went for a walk in the dead of the night, wanting to clear her thoughts -- the other girls that were their groupies were so beautiful. they were his style, they were clever, funny and stunning. they didn’t argue with him and they didn’t dress like princess bubblegum. she looked down at her clothes and grit her teeth before closing her eyes and sobbing in the dead of the night. when saint had finished the gig, he had gone back into the waiting room with his bandmates only to ask where hana had gone and the girls telling him that she had left half way through. they were all over the other band members, some even making out but saint was quick out of the building and trying to find hana. when he noticed her near a bench, all hell broke loose. her insecurities came out and she started ripping out her clothing, the frills coming off and the accessories being pulled out and thrown to the floor. shirt ripping and having a mental breakdown as she cried that she wasn’t suited to him. they were all beautiful and edgy and she was just a mere embarrassment. he tried to get her to stay but she told him to leave her be and be happy. it was hard but she ended up leaving to go back to korea.

once back in korea, her parents and minhwan are furious for her up and leaving without telling them and they are convinced saint is a bad influence. things get tough and they end up telling her not to see him anymore. while hana acts out, they become even stricter and the loving family that she once new begin to control her and become so horrible that she thought they were strangers. they were only doing it for her own good but they ended up going overboard. truth be told, it scared her a lot. she didn’t like the fact that they were controlling her life and before she could even say anything, she was engaged to be married to a man named cheol who is minhwans best friend. hana protests a lot and tries to call saint but she has her phone taken off her and his number deleted. she is forced against her will in an arranged marriage and after getting in contact with saint’s father who is more than happy to make his sons life hell and knows of his involvement with the girl, he is more than happy to help with the wedding of cheol and her which only makes it more heartbreaking.

with both of their family members working together, little setups are formed for saint and hana to see one another without their knowing and it’s only when they’re at a small bar in hongdae when saints band who are visiting korea end up performing that he sees hana with cheol. her eyes widen as she sees him and cheol amps up the affection on purpose knowing exactly how much it would hurt them both. she tries to get away but with minhwan there as well and telling her to be good, she is forced to sit there and watch as the love of her life plays while watching her with another man. but she is almost positive he doesn’t know that she doesn’t want to be with him. trembling, she knows that the groupies would be there too and that means that rose should hopefully have come with them. an idea clicks in her mind with the wedding not too far away and she hopes that they will have stuck around for that time. that evening when everybody was asleep, hana sneaks into her fathers desk where she knows her phone is hidden before writing down rose’s number -- a number which they didn’t think to delete because they didn’t know who she was. keeping the paper scrunched up in her pocket, she waits until she is out by herself in the next coming days to call her from a telephone box.

once she explains the situation to rose and the others, she is overcome with relief when she hears that she will help her with the downfall of cheol and her family. while she would have never done anything to hurt her family previously, she has been shown an ugly side to them and she is almost positive that they don’t care for her anymore. all care goes out of the window at this point and the plan ensues. making sure all the details are set but nothing prepared her to walk down the aisle and see saint and his band there at the alter. it had all been planned and as their eyes meet, she sees the tears in his but she keeps it together as best she could. she could see the sickening smiles upon her families faces along with saints fathers and she has to do everything in her power not to crack before the initial plan. she stands there in front of her smiling groom which makes her want to scream as she watches saint and his band play a lovely song having been forced by his father.

it was only when the ceremony truly begins that once they are asked if anybody isn’t in favour, please speak up now -- that is when hana does. giving a speech to everybody that saint is the one that she loves and pointing to him so they all know, she calls out his father for being a disgusting piece of scum who doesn’t care about anything but himself, she then proceeds to spread the truth about what her parents and brother have done to her which causes uproar from the rest of her family and friends and then she turns to cheol who had really tried to ruin her life. the truth is out and before anybody can fathom what is going on -- a surprise to saint as well, she is pulling a gun from her garter which rose had managed to get a hold of for her before shooting cheol in the leg not wanting to actually kill him. she points it to saints father before her own parents and then her brother but she is unable to shoot them and within seconds, she is running out of the church.

saint is very quick to follow her but not before he is stopped by minhwan just outside the church. the threats begin once the truth is out and saint is very quick to punch minhwan in the face before screaming that he would do a lot worse if he wasn’t about to chase after hana. then he takes off and finds her sobbing in the middle of the woods just outside of his father’s church. she’s on the floor and he is quick to pick her up with her muddied dress and blood splatter from shooting cheol in the leg. apologies utter from her lips as she grabs onto him and she tries to explain but they needed to get out of here before the police arrive. so quickly getting changed and packing things up, they get on the first plane to new zealand with a one way ticket and figure it out from there.

#this is bloody long #s&h #part two

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persephonestourrp · 7 years ago

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@quinnfabray:

♫ I used to hold my freak back ♫

Lucy Quinn Fabray was born to a life of which most people could only dream. The Fabray family was, after all, rich and beautiful. Her dad, Russell, was a partner of a major law firm in Dallas, Texas, and his wife, Judy, was the most beautiful woman in their country club, which was saying something. Of course, Lucy knew from a young age that their marriage was far from the picture perfect ideal they showed the rest of the world, but she also knew not to say that. The world didn’t need to know that Judy drank or that Russell worked mysteriously late hours some nights. It just wasn’t what good, Christian people like her family talked about. Ever.

Oh, and there was one more member of her family: her older sister Frannie.

Frannie...well, Frannie was nice, really, even if she initially resented Lucy for ruining her only child status. And Lucy has always loved her sister, but it was hard growing up as the younger Fabray. Everything Lucy did, Frannie did first, and due to the age difference, she was doing even more important things than her baby sister. When Lucy got straight check pluses in kindergarten, Frannie got elected president of her class. When Lucy had her first school dance in fifth grade, Frannie won Prom Queen. The only thing she ever got to do that Frannie did was band. Her school made everyone play an instrument or sing in fifth grade, a policy they started after Frannie had left. Lucy took a liking to it rather quickly and became fascinated by making music. She easily made first chair, but her parents weren’t really amazed by it, especially not with Frannie getting her Ivy League acceptances. It was a relief when Lucy started middle school and Frannie went to college (Harvard, of course), since at least she wouldn’t constantly be overshadowed.

The other thing that made being Frannie’s little sister hard was that she was...well, Lucy. While Frannie grew up slim and svelte and with naturally blonde hair, puberty turned Lucy into a brunette, chubby, glasses-wearing, awkward loser. At school, everyone called her “Lucy Caboosey” and she was constantly picked on. It made her develop a thick outer skin and made her start spending more time alone. She spent most of her free time playing her flute and reading books.

Eventually, Judy made Lucy sign up for dance classes and put her on a diet, since it seemed even a growth spurt didn’t help her lose weight. And somehow, that actually started to work. And as Lucy’s body trimmed down - and as she, frankly, got a bit obsessed with lowering that number on the scale - some of the teasing stopped. And for the first time, Lucy felt like she could actually be like the rest of her family. So after sixth grade, she started bleaching her hair and got contacts, and for her thirteenth birthday the next year, she begged and pleaded until her dad took her to a plastic surgeon and gave her a nose job. In eighth grade, she finally found the right medication to clear her skin. And for high school, Lucy got to transfer to a new school district and managed to convince her family, including her cousin Kitty Wilde, to call her by her middle name, Quinn.

The transformation was completed.

Quinn, of course, was totally different from Lucy at that point. Quinn still got straight As, of course, and still had parents who fought all the time, but she quit band and, instead, was the only freshman on the varsity cheerleading team. She was a Homecoming Princess, a member of the services club, and the founding member and president of the Celibacy Club. Quinn Fabray, after years of taunts and jeers thrown her way, was now the person throwing them, and Lucy Fabray was just a mere memory.

But at the end of her sophomore year, things collapsed.

Just a few months after Frannie’s perfect wedding, Russell ran off with his secretary, leaving Judy and Quinn alone with the house. She was his little girl, the apple of his eye, and yet he just left her, like it was so easy, like she wasn’t even worth staying around for. But that didn’t make sense. She was Quinn. She wasn’t Lucy. She was the perfect example of a Fabray. She had changed everything about herself to make her parents proud, to make him proud, and yet he still left. Quinn was devastated.

To make matters worse, when her boyfriend (some football player she didn’t really even care about that much) comforted her, Quinn fell into bed with him in order to just stop thinking. That wasn’t the bad part, though. Well, yeah, he wasn’t that good and she didn’t really orgasm or anything, but that wasn’t what was bad. The bad part was when some girls at school spotted her buying Plan B the next day. No one believed Quinn’s insistence that it was her first time and that it was an accident; the whole school soon assumed the whole Chastity Princess deal had just been an act. Her reputation was ruined. Between her home just having her lush of a mom and her school full of kids calling her a slut, Quinn felt like she didn’t belong anywhere. The only person who seemed to still be there for her was Kitty, but she lived all the way in San Francisco.

So she spent a lot of time after that at church. Judy found a new one after the divorce to avoid judgment, and their new church had some college-aged youth minister who wanted to start a worship band. Since Quinn was there a lot, she figured she’d volunteer to at least sing back up or maybe set up instruments or find a way to play the flute, since she picked it back up (colleges loved musicians). But the minister ended up teaching her guitar. After a few months, she was confident enough to perform at the band’s first service. While her life had become a bit weird, she still felt some spiritual connection, and putting that in music was amazing.

Somehow that confidence spread throughout the rest of her, and she went back to school her junior year determined to do what Fabrays did best: win. So by the time she graduated, Quinn had become the captain of the cheerleading team, the founding member of the God Squad, president of National Honors Society, vice-president of the student body, and the school’s valedictorian, all while still playing Christian rock music in the basement of her church. Of course, her popularity never returned to her pre-Plan B level, and she never got that Homecoming or Prom Queen crown. Though that bothered her a bit (and she hated that it bothered her), Quinn was satisfied with her high school experience, but she was ready to get the hell out of Dallas.

She had applied almost exclusively to Ivies and a few other high profile schools. After some debate, she settled on going to one of her Ivy choices, Columbia University. If anything would be different from conservative Texas, it would be New York City.

♫ Now I’m letting go ♫

New York City turned out to be just what Quinn needed. Immediately upon moving into her dorm, Quinn found herself among people that were so unlike anyone she knew back home. All the women were defiant, worldly, and proud to be women. She ended up bonding with a lot of the women at Columbia’s sister school, Barnard, and took classes there when she could. Those classes introduced her to feminist texts from multiple points of view, all of them challenging her own feminist beliefs and developing her thoughts. She really lived up the college freshman experience that way, while doing other dumb freshman things, like experimenting with weird hair colors, cutting her hair, and getting piercings in places that weren’t her earlobes.

Of course, feminism and politics and hair colors weren’t the only thing Quinn experimented with. In yet another clichéd college experience, Quinn found herself kissing a girl and liking it. Really liking it. Kissing led to touching which led to clothes coming off and Quinn having her first real orgasm ever. And, okay, it freaked her out a little. Okay, a lot. But pieces of her life started to fall together as she realized that, holy shit, she was not straight. Those things she had thought and felt about other girls were not heterosexual.

And while she wished she could say she took it in stride, she ended up feeling a lot of self loathing. She panicked and stopped talking to that girl, bleached her hair back to blonde, and tried to go back to “normal”. She couldn’t be gay or bi or anything because she was a Fabray and Fabrays are not gay. Quinn hated the whole Fabray brand, but if she wasn’t a Fabray, who the hell was she? And what would happen if her dad, who was paying her tuition to this very expensive school, ever found out? And was it wrong for her to want to still be on her dad’s good side despite the divorce and abandonment?

Quinn had a bit of a crisis and it got bad enough that she did another thing that wasn’t Fabray approved: therapy. Though it took a while for Quinn to open up, since she was a very private person, she eventually poured everything out to her doctor: how she felt inadequate compared to sister, how she always wanted her dad’s attention and how that possibly influenced her trying to get guys’ attention, how her mom drank, how she was attracted to girls...She told her therapist things that scared her and disgusted her about herself, and her therapist never even blinked. In fact, her therapist, while sympathetic, was direct about how she wasn’t completely alone. Through talking about it and realizing she was normal and not some freak of nature, Quinn started to get better. She let herself experiment more and focused on finding herself, not on living up to the last name she had. Of course, she was still stressing out a lot over school and needed some kind of release. So she may have slept with a few other girls to help, and maybe drank a bit too much and started to smoke. It wasn’t that bad, though, because she only smoked at parties. Or when she was really stressed.

What really got her interest, though, was a flyer for auditions for an all girl band. They needed a rhythm guitarist, and Quinn had honestly come to miss the confidence that came with playing live music. While she played a lot alone in her room, it was never the same as performing with a band. She probably wasn’t the best, but it was worth a shot, right?

She never expected to connect with the other girls as much as she did. After her audition, she talked with all of them and honestly felt connected to all of them right away. Marley Rose was sweet and funny, with this sassy side she loved. Kat Hummel was very similar, but also gushed with Quinn over her clothes and makeup. And Norah Puckerman...well, there was a connection there right away, and it wasn’t just a mental and emotional one.

The Sirens, the band name she suggested, quickly became her best form of release after hours of studying, and she also made some money with the gigs they kept getting. Eventually she graduated Bachelor of Arts in Women Studies a year before the rest of her band mates were scheduled to graduate. Quinn had planned on going straight to law school in the area in order to become an attorney focusing on women’s cases, but she ended up deferring her enrollment. After graduating summa cum laude, the idea of going straight to another intense program scared her. Also she honestly wasn’t sure she wanted to go to law school, either, not when the highlights of her days were writing and singing and hanging out with the other members of The Sirens.

Somehow she managed to get a job as a receptionist at a dental clinic, and it was enough to foot the bill for a studio apartment. It also provided some health insurance, which meant she could see her therapist for some sessions, though they weren’t as often as she liked. Still, Quinn was enjoying her life and truly felt like she was living the way she always wanted to.

Then Sabrina Smythe came to a show and things just got better.

Quinn threw herself into writing for the album, spending time at work writing out lyrics or coming up with chord progressions. Eventually she got to give her two weeks and, just a few weeks after she left, their first single came out to critical praise and commercial success, with the album following a similar fashion soon after. Now Quinn has an actual loving family with her bandmates and is successful and basically living the dream. She’s even started to accept her sexuality and came out to her bandmates (not that they were surprised, because, well, Norah, but more on that later) and even to Kitty.

But, of course, nothing’s perfect. And, even after years of therapy, Quinn still wants her family to approve of her, even though she still feels betrayed by her father. In order to do that, she’s a lot less honest to them than she is to her real family (her bandmates and Kitty). They don’t know about the little flask she keeps with her, the cigarettes she smokes when she’s stressed, and they definitely don’t know about her sexuality - or how she’s used it to her advantage in the past, but, again, more on that later. They see her tweets sometimes have Biblical captions and assume she’s spreading the good word. They assume she’s a virgin since, well, she hasn’t even dated a guy in years and only hangs out with girls (oops). For now, Quinn’s okay with that. After years of having to be the black sheep of the Fabray family as Lucy Q, Quinn is okay with pretending she’s still the perfect Fabray Girl™.

Oh, and that Lucy thing? Well, her bandmates know her real first name is Lucy, and she’s mentioned a few things about being a bit awkward and overweight as a kid. But Quinn’s not the most open person to begin with, even with her favorite people, so they don’t know the whole story. They don’t know how much she changed herself. They don’t know that the whole Quinn Fabray thing is someone she invented. They don’t know that they don’t know the real her.

They don’t know that she doesn’t really know who she is, either.

♫ I make my own choice ♫

Norah Puckerman: Norah’s like a cigarette; she provides physical release when Quinn’s stressed and Quinn has a hard time quitting. Quinn was automatically attracted to Norah from day one, and she could tell Norah felt the same way. After a few months in the band, a private rehearsal went from Norah helping Quinn on a fingering of a chord to Norah doing something much more pleasurable with those fingers. They constantly would resolve to stop, only to end up with the two of them stumbling to rehearsal together with mismatched buttons and messy hair. They managed to stop for a while when they started working on their debut album, but after the release and subsequent tour, weeks on the road brought them back to each other’s beds. Of course, it was clear from the get go that this was just about sex and desire, enough so they wrote a song about it. They finally stopped again, and the two have managed to get back to the “just friends” thing pretty easily. After all, they’ve always remained friends the whole time; they just don’t want to risk anything by feelings turning to more than friendly feelings. Quinn loves Norah with her whole heart and she knows the feeling’s mutual, but it’s for the good of the band...though they may have already slipped a few times before the tour has even started, though they’ve been better at keeping it a secret this time. And thank god Kat and Marley are going to help keep them separated on tour.

Kat Hummel: Quinn truly admires Kat in several ways. Kat knows more about fashion and makeup than anyone and she can pick the perfect outfits for anyone’s style/body shape - and, god, don’t get Quinn started on her gift giving abilities. Not only that, but Kat is so confident in who she is that it’s insane. Quinn always felt like she had to be one way while growing up - hell, she still feels that way around her family - but Kat is always true to who she is and has even come out to the whole world with no problem. And while Quinn’s religious beliefs are a complicated subject on their own, Kat has always known what she’s believed in that area; they’ve actually had some interesting conversations on the subject. All of that and more are why Quinn’s glad that her cousin has bonded so much with Kat. Quinn has also received endless lectures on smoking and drinking from Kat, since she’s kind of the mother hen of the group. They’re annoying, though accurate and warranted.

Marley Rose: Ever since Quinn met Marley, she’s felt a bit protective over her. Yes, even before she knew about the eating disorder thing. Marley just gives off this sweet and kind vibe, and Quinn loves that about her. Of course, Quinn’s style of protection isn’t as intense as Norah and Kat’s, which is ridiculously suffocating. Seriously, how do they not realize how frustrated Marley is with them? Quinn’s kind of seen herself as the cool, older sister type with Marley, so she’s always felt protective in the sense that she wanted to be there when Marley got interested in things like drinking. She shouldn’t have to experience parties and the like alone. So now that Marley has said she wants to rebel a little, Quinn’s grinning from ear to ear. She’s more than happy to help her explore the world and get out of her comfort zone - and she’ll keep her safe while doing so. And now that Marley’s eating disorder seems to be affecting her again, Quinn can keep an eye on her without suffocating her, either. After all, Quinn knows what it’s like to hate your own body.

Kitty Wilde: Kitty is the only family member Quinn actually looks forward to seeing. While she feels a need to please her parents and sister, and while she loves her nieces, Kitty was always her favorite. They were as close as cousins who lived in different time zones could be. They’d see each other at least twice a year and spent several nights talking on the phone or instant messaging or texting. Kitty’s family was even super helpful during Quinn’s parents’ divorce, even thought Kitty’s mom is her dad’s sister, and Quinn was always there when Kitty needed to talk about the sexual assault she faced. So when Kitty sent Quinn some recordings of Divine Influence, Quinn was more than happy to pass the recordings to higher ups at the label. She’s thrilled for her cousin’s success and is excited to spend months with her on tour. However, she’s still nervous as to how Kitty will react to the “new” her, since once Quinn entered college they spent less time together. So they haven’t even spent much time together since Quinn came out to her. Kitty knows she’s into girls, but she doesn’t know about Norah or anyone else. Quinn’s afraid Kitty will be disappointed if she finds out about the meaningless hook-ups, not to mention the smoking and the feelings she’s developing for her best friend. And while Kitty has gotten used to calling her Quinn, at least in public, Quinn’s afraid of what name might slip out of Kitty’s mouth on accident - especially if it’s not just her name.

Rachel Berry: Quinn heard a lot about Rachel Berry growing up. She was Kitty’s best friend, after all, so Kitty talked about her on the phone or when she visited the Fabrays or when Quinn visited the Wildes. It took a while before Quinn ever met Rachel (sometime after she had become Quinn and wasn’t Lucy anymore) and, sure enough, she got why Kitty liked her. She was a good friend. While Quinn never bonded with her as much as she bonded with Kitty, they still had each other’s numbers and IM names and Facebook accounts. They would message or text from time to time. The fact that Rachel was the lead singer of Kitty’s band was just an added bonus, since it met they’d get to hang out some more, too. So, months ago, when Quinn heard hyperventilating in the bathroom and found Rachel, she immediately flew into action. She knew the signs of a panic attack all too well. They talked a lot and Quinn got her in contact with her therapist with Sabrina’s help. Rachel asked her to keep all of that a secret from Kitty, though Quinn hopes she can convince her to tell Kitty about it eventually...which is kind of hypocritical when she hasn’t told Kitty a lot of things. She’s actually told Rachel a lot of things that Kitty doesn’t know. She’s never been so open and vulnerable with someone as she’s been with Rachel. And the fact that Rachel’s smile makes her heart skip a beat really doesn’t help matters.

Fiona Hudson: Like all The Sirens, Quinn was invited to Carole and Burt’s wedding, and she met Fiona there, and she’s seen her a few other times when the band was in town or her family visited them elsewhere. And now Fiona’s playing drums for them on tour. It’s just kind of weird, because the four girls in the band are so close and even end their tour set with a song sung by just the four of them, and Fiona’s just...there. Quinn knows that Kat isn’t too fond of Fiona, even if Kat hides it behind jokes, and that was also why Quinn chose to house Fiona for the rehearsals in New York City. While Quinn only has a one-bedroom, she figured keeping her away from Kat and easing Kat into seeing her step-sister more often would be preferred for everyone. So Fiona’s graciously taken the couch and the two of them have started to talk more. It’s surprisingly nice, actually, having someone else there, and Fiona’s been extra nice to her because of it. Seeing as they could use an official drummer at some point, Quinn has to say that Fiona might end up being a good fit, at least if Kat gets on board with it.

Santana Lopez: Santana is someone Quinn’s known for a long time, as well as someone she’s known in the biblical sense. The two of them shared a class their freshman year at Columbia, and Santana...Santana was Quinn’s first. Well, technically only her first girl, but still her first. So, as mentioned before, after her first time with a girl, Quinn went into deep denial and self-loathing and pushed Santana as far away as she could. When Quinn started to accept herself, though, she never really talked to Santana again, only to have her show up as their new publicist...and it’s weird. Really weird. If Santana wasn’t acting so professional, Quinn would be afraid of what Santana would do to her career. She wants to apologize, but, really, it seems better to just, like, not bring it up. After all, Santana’s been with enough people that maybe she doesn’t really care? Maybe?

Sabrina Smythe: Quinn is truly grateful for Sabrina. Somehow Sabrina stumbled upon one of their shows and ended up changing their lives for good and for the better. Sabrina not only discovered them, but she truly launched their careers mostly from her own manipulation of the public eye. Quinn, a fairly good manipulator herself, can appreciate that. She also appreciates that she sets up her therapy appointments as well as Rachel’s. Sabrina also happens to be smart and a great person to talk to for some intellectual stimulation. Whenever they talk, however, Quinn can tell Sabrina is looking for a lot more than intellectual stimulation...and while Quinn has no interest and knows that Sabrina would flirt with a rock if it had boobs (she’s like Norah in that way, honestly), she doesn’t mind flirting with her to get an advantage. And if flirting with Sabrina helped get her cousin a record deal? Well, Quinn’s a-okay with that. It’s not like she promised her anything or slept with her for it, but using her sexuality to her advantage is totally cool.

Blair Anderson: Quinn and Blair hit it off ridiculously easy. Blair brought up going to Cornell and Quinn “joked” that it wasn’t a real Ivy. Thankfully Blair took it as a joke, or at least wasn’t offended, and the two have been getting along ever since. While Quinn can’t necessarily understand turning down an Ivy education, she’s enjoyed having Blair to talk about books and films with, and she finds her similar background with an overshadowing older sister interesting, too. She can definitely relate to feeling like a stranger in her family, and Quinn just finds her easy to talk to. Ridiculously easy, really. But seeing as it’s not hard to notice the animosity between Blair and Rachel, she’s not sure what to make of her just yet.

Jackie Puckerman: Honestly Quinn has enough drama to deal with that she hasn’t thought much about Jackie at all. The two haven’t talked much, anyways. In a lot of ways, Jackie just reminds her of a younger version of Norah, and seeing how Jackie obviously looks up to her, it makes sense. But beyond that, she hasn’t put much thought into Jackie Williams and doesn’t necessarily plan on doing so unless she has to. She’s nice to her and Jackie seems nice back, and that’s about it since, again, it’s not like a mean thing or anything. Quinn just has enough to deal with.

Sam Evans: When Quinn found out Sam didn’t go to college, she was a bit shocked. In her mind, everyone should go to college and everyone deserves a right to an education. She even talked to Kitty about it to find out more, and Kitty mostly shrugged it off and said that Sam wasn’t confident about her abilities and she didn’t have the money. Since then, Quinn’s been very politely trying to correct Sam on grammar mistakes and trying to educate her as subtly as possible. What? All women should be smart, and while Quinn can’t replace a college degree, maybe she can inspire Sam to go after one in the future.

♫ Bitch, I run this show ♫

Do you plan on coming out publicly at some point in the future?

[answer here]

Do you regret changing from Lucy to Quinn?

[answer here]

JBI asks: Do you have any books or authors you want to recommend to your fans?

[answer here]

#quinn fabray #bio #c #the sirens #canon #qf #o

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theessaflett · 5 years ago

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Wicca & Whispers: My Unexpected Month as a Pagan Convert

My first and, to date, only, experience of a spiritual revelation happened in the summer of 2017.

Half an hour into a meditation session, eyes closed, legs crossed, I had a startlingly clear image of a gigantic oak tree growing out of the ground in front of me, unfurling its leaves and stating in a deep voice: I am Mother Earth. I am the one true religion. Convert to the Wiccan Faith.

This spiritual revelation, crystal clear in my mind’s eye, was a little unexpected…not least because that meditation session was part of a Christian retreat. When we went round the circle afterwards sharing any godly moments we’d had during our prayerful meditation I, unsurprisingly enough, kept quiet. Right sort of experience. Wrong religion.

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With no small amount of trepidation and some curiosity, I recently asked around my friend group and requested that they describe me in one word. Some responses were:

Focused Self-Assured Unique Creative Warm Versatile Funny

And, my favourite: “Essa” …Fair enough.

Now, this is a wide reaching list, but there was one word that didn’t make a single appearance from anyone: religious. I am not surprised by this. I am generally known as the cynical one, the sardonic one, the pessimist, the sensible thinker, and rightly so. (I am Scottish, after all.) Essa the logical. Essa the skeptic. Many, if not most, of the people who meet me in my day to day life would probably expect me to be agnostic, even atheist.

And yet.

And yet the institution of the church and Christianity itself has had a profound and far-reaching importance in my life. My mother is a lay-reader, church organist and choir leader. My dad is also a church organist. My Mum’s family are Church of Scotland Elders, My Dad’s folk are Salvation Army, some of them even founding members of the London branch of the institution. My family tree is heaving with religion, my own childhood spent in church buildings and prayer meetings. I was playing violin in the praise band at aged 4, playing the organ and helping run local church summer workshops by age 12, arguing on theological issues with church camp youth leaders by age 13. When people ask what my relationship is with the church, I usually just say, “I grew up in the church and my family is very involved with our local church community” and leave it at that. At that point most folk presume this to mean that I have given up on religion myself and leave the matter be, much to my relief.

And yet.

And yet I do still go to church, when I can. I am a congregation member of a very liberal C of E church in London, the type of church where God is referred to by female pronouns, people don’t guard ‘their spot’ on the pew and metropolitan gay couples bring their aesthetically flawless children with them every Sunday morning. I don’t tend to experience much great spiritual uplifting during the service but I enjoy the sermon, which usually has a disruptive, feminist slant, the sense of community, the feeling that here is a group of people who care about each other and are trying to just generally be nicer to everyone. I’ve told myself for years that there isn’t a need for a powerful sense of the otherworldy, of godliness, to make church worthwhile: surely a sense of that community and a reminder to be kind is a generally good thing, worthy in of itself.

I was the church organist for this tiny yet friendly congregation in Tayport between the ages of 15-17. They did excellent cups of tea. I’m the one with the ginger hair. (2013)

And yet.

And yet since I was very small, I have yearned for that ‘aha!’ moment. That euphoric experience of spiritual enlightenment where I would know that God was out there in the world. An unmistakable KA-POW.

“You just need to send one sign!” I remember fervently bartering late one night when I was about eight during my bedtime prayers. “Just send one sign to show you exist and I won’t ask again and I’ll be extra good!” I was unaware then, in the midst of my doubt, of the irony of my paternal grandmother’s maiden name: Thomas. (Theology joke).

Years passed, and my wish for clear ‘godly proof of life’ faded into the background but didn’t entirely dissipate. From the ages of 10-13 I went to increasingly evangelical church summer camps where everyone else and their pet dog had seemingly had a personal meeting with Jesus, throwing myself into bible study groups and arm-waving to cheesy pop worship songs in the desperate hope that some sort of visitation from the Holy Spirit might eventually happen by Day 9 of camp. Nothing.

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My teenage diaries are filled with fears of a malignant God, or a long-dead God, or a God that simply had decided that I personally was worthy only of being ignored. By seventeen I had given up on God entirely and announced myself agnostic. …This proved to be a very short-lived phase. Homesickness and a wish to find that specific sense of belonging that only churches can truly give led me to my current liberal C of E church in 2014, but that wish for that ‘just one sign’ was still a background hum.

You can perhaps appreciate my frustration, then, when I finally got my sign in that prayer meeting in 2017. This was it. The visitation I’d been waiting for since eight year old me had laid down the gauntlet, demanding proof. It was just such a shame that it was the wrong bloody religion.

What would you do? On the one hand I was a church goer, who came from a church family, who had been brought up in the Christian faith.

On the other hand I had been wanting a spiritual sign from the heavens for about 14 years by this point and there it was. Ridiculous in nature and almost certainly brought on from a combination of severe sleep deprivation, high caffeine intake and end-of undergraduate-degree existential stress, but there nevertheless.

Reader. I went for it.

As my girlfriend at the time watched in mild, and then moderate alarm, I went out on what can only be described a ‘Wiccan Spree’, where in the space of about three weeks I obtained four spell books and a brand of incense called ‘Dragon’s Blood’, started following about eight different ‘Witchy Aesthetic’ Instagram accounts, watched countless YouTube spell videos, joined a Facebook group called ‘Divine Goddesses’, signed up for a MeetUp event where you joined a ‘coven’ and casted spells in woods, guilt-read a blog called ‘So You Used To Be Christian And Now You’re Pagan: An Introduction To Your New Faith’, collected leaflets for a Pagan festivals that included activities such as ‘Tree Yoga’, drew my very own pentangle, made a wand and repurposed tea-light holders as containers for random household items that I decided represented the four elements. I was, in retrospect, almost certainly having some sort of small nervous breakdown, but at the time the sense of sudden purpose was truly wonderful. Wonderful, that is, until I got to the chapter about gender roles in my new, shiny Wiccan textbook.

The enthused, evangelical pages about the powerful, strong energy of men and the sensitive, delicate energy of women left a sour taste in my mouth, particularly when it became clear that male and female energies were always expected to ‘intertwine’ exclusively with each other. I’d thought I was pursuing a fresh, exciting new way to explore my spirituality, a way that left the more archaic views and beliefs of the church behind. It was a disappointment, then, to discover that heteronormative expectations of gender and sexuality permeated more than just the ‘mainstream’ religions. Wicca wasn’t going to be my ‘true path’, after all. The vision of the tree suddenly seemed like a silly figment of my imagination, and I was glad that I’d kept it mostly to myself. The spell books quietly and sheepishly went to the charity shop.

…And yet.

As I write this here in late 2019, there is still, somewhere in my brain, that eight year old child who is waiting for the moment of indisputable proof of a higher power. I am, of course, in good company, as countless Christians have searched for exactly that proof right from the beginning of the faith: the New Testament is chock-full of disciples needing massive, indisputable signs from the Heavens before they’ll believe practically anything, much to Jesus’ frustration. In John 20:29 a newly resurrected and very irritated Jesus says to Thomas, a disciple so skeptical that he’s known as Doubting Thomas (…told you my earlier Thomas joke was a theological one) and who has refused to believe in the resurrection of Jesus right up until the moment Jesus literally appears in front of him, “ Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed!”

…A phrase probably written into the Bible for the early Christians, encouraging them in their belief in a Messiah they hadn’t personally met, and a phrase that still holds comfort for Christians around the world today.

It’s one of those deceptively easy-sounding sayings, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’.

I’ve always been someone who’s a stickler for facts - for instance, I worked out that Santa didn’t exist when I was five and then couldn’t understand for the life of me why everyone else was perpetuating a lie that was, in my mind, simply unnecessary. (It took quite a lot of persuading from my parents for me not to share my newfound knowledge with my friend group. I settled for pitying looks and pointed questions along the lines of, “But how exactly does he get down the chimney, Karen?”)

People who are Fact People don’t like the concept of blind belief. We don’t like it at all. It makes us feel exposed, and icky, and foolish, and like we’re being played for suckers.

I am a Fact Person. I am also not many people’s typical idea of a Christian.

I have tattoos. I am openly queer. I believe abortion and birth control are fundamental human rights, I don’t believe Mary was a virgin or that non-believers need ‘Saving’, I consider the Bible to be a fascinating tapestry of sociological history best read with the expectation of cross-culture misunderstandings rather than it being the undiluted Word of God, and I think that in institutionalised religion there is often too much fixating on a possible future Heaven when Hell is already happening now, in this lifetime, to so many people who need Earthly help rather than lofty prayer.

I am, in short, too much of a questioner to ever be a ‘true believer’. Blind Evangelical faith is just never going to come easy for this Doubting Thomas.

And as for my tree vision? My queer, feminist relationship with gender and gender roles stopped me from identifying as Wiccan, the restricted binary expectations making that path an instant no-go.

And yet. I am far from an atheist.

Me (now with blue hair) at a spiritual retreat with members of my current church community (Spring 2019)

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As I move away from my teens and deeper into my twenties, I can slowly feel a subtler understanding of what God might be beginning to lap at the edges of my understanding of the world. Be it Mother Earth, be it the Holy Trinity, be it whatever you want to call it, I have noticed the small things I do in day to day life to honour the unexplainable.

The fact that I knew that lighting a candle and conducting my own small service for the flat I was about to leave after living there for 3 years was absolutely the right thing to do, despite the fact that that building was theoretically just bricks and mortar? Unexplainable.

The fact that I sometimes enter a house and go “yep, this is good” and sometimes am like, “ABSOLUTELY NOT, NOPE, DO NOT WANT TO STAY HERE THIS HOUSE DOES NOT LIKE ME”? Unexplainable…and ridiculous to witness.

The fact that, every so often, in the woods or on a deserted beach, I get a strange sense of flickering connection? A sense of an electric undercurrent that could be sparked into life if only two wires were connected? Unexplainable, unexplainable, unexplainable.

Celtic Christianity, that ancient and now largely forgotten Spiritual meeting-place between Christianity and Paganism, has a term for these moments where the Other can be felt, if only for a half-second: they are ‘thin places’, the places ‘in the world where the walls are weak’.

In the words of 1 Kings 19:12,

After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

I’m beginning to suspect that perhaps in all my straining, in all my looking for divine ‘massive earthquakes’ and ‘impressive firestorms’, I’ve missed countless gentle whispers.

My relationship with faith is destined to wax and wane. The only certainty is that it will never stay the same. That, I’m beginning to realise, is allowed. Normal, even. For now, unsure of what the future may bring, I am content to search for those thin places and whisper into the quiet.

You never know. I might hear a whisper in return.

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