#and her entire social circle WAS that kind of christian

[tearlessrain]

a certain type of christian will read their young children passages like "if your eyes cause you to sin gauge them out, because it's better to go through life blind than be thrown into the fires of hell" and then insist that drag queens are what's traumatizing them

[venusjailer]

Will I ever stop pathologising the AP main characters and creating incredibly detailed backgrounds riddled with childhood trauma? It’s unlikely!

(INSANELY LONG) (LIKE INSANELY) (YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED) EXPLANATIONS BELOW

(And If you have hc’s feel free to share!)

Patrick: cmon. The entire plot of AP is literally him just begging to be noticed.

Bro is devoid of attention right until the very last scene (aka the one with his lawyer). Sorry to all the SiGmA mALe AMPS fans but this is not a “sigma 🥶”, this is a man who did not receive a MORSEL of affection during his formative years.

His obsession with ‘fitting in’ (ie being accepted and therefore cared about) through his clothes, his looks, his social circle; his outbursts of intense emotion and inability to regulate them (almost as if he was never taught how to do so); the way he views the women in his life in an almost maternal way (namely Evelyn and Jean) - he just needs a hug!!!

And some intense therapy. And heavy duty psych meds.

Paul: this one is partly canonical, partly not.

The way that his character is almost revered by the other guys at P&P is interesting; he comes over as this über cool, competent, successful finance bro almost to a greater extent than they think they are.

But then he gets drunk with Patrick away from the office and from the constraints of corporate professionalism and becomes this silly goofy little guy.

I don’t necessarily think his work ‘persona’ is an act: I think it’s the parts of himself that he has to accentuate in order to succeed.

Also - I took influence for this from the amazing Paul character studies written by my dear friend @leoblooms on AO3 - please check them out

Luis: this one is pretty self-explanatory.

He’s the only confirmed canonically queer character in AP (although, come on, Patrick’s canon closet is made of glass at this point). And yet - in a way that so many LGBT+ people have suffered with throughout history and sadly even to this day - he can never, ever show it. Being openly gay in his environment would make him a social pariah.

Instead, he has to fit in: he’s marrying a woman, he’s acting like ~one of the guys~, he’s hoping that he can suffocate that part of himself by burying it six feet underground. But as so many of us know all too well: you can’t hide who you are forever. The bathroom scene with Patrick just proves this.

I also wanted to make a note of this because it’s very interesting to me - I read the most AMAZING fic a couple of years ago that was written from Courtney’s perspective, and in it it was mentioned that Luis is Catholic. I’m a Christian as well (from a famously progressive denomination) and although a lot of attitudes are changing within the Catholic Church, particularly right now, the ‘gay = sin’ mentality does prevail for many.

So it makes sense that if Luis was raised Catholic he has been suppressing that part of himself for a very long time. I can see him lying to himself and having girlfriends in high school.

Courtney: my literal baby girl. I’ve written a whole 18k character study on her because I find her so canonically fascinating.

My headcanon is that her father was absent from her life from a young age - but this is rooted in how she actually acts in the source material.

In the boardroom scene, Luis thanks Patrick for “taking care of Courtney last night”. To me, it sounds like he’s taking on a role that’s almost paternal. She is also notably reliant, and almost clingy, on the men in her life: telling Patrick she can’t go out because she’s waiting for Luis to call, and practically begging Patrick to call her after they’ve slept together.

Additionally there’s the whole ‘fucking my best friend’s boyfriend’ thing - I’m getting WAY off topic here but I see so much of her in Cassie from Euphoria. Unless someone is purposefully malicious and nasty, I think there’s always a reason for that kind of thing, even if it is complex and unsavoury.

I hate to use the term “daddy issues” because it absolves absent/abusive fathers of all of their damage and unfairly places the blame on young women, but if I had to describe a reason for why she might act in this way - having seen it first-hand myself from many people - that would be it.

Evelyn: so I did take some influence from Reese Witherspoon’s character in Legally Blonde here - but I think Evelyn is actually one of the smartest characters in AP and so I feel it’s fitting.

She comes over as incredibly ditzy and shallow, but remember we’re seeing and reading all of this from Patrick’s perspective - of course he’s not going to have a high opinion of her, because…it’s Patrick Bateman were talking about here.

In reality, she’s probably one of the most socially clued-in characters. For example: she effortlessly hosts big gatherings with grace and decorum even if the majority of guests are, let’s be honest, fucking insufferable.

She’s also the only character who can actually handle Patrick and meets him on his own level. She absolutely refuses to take any of his bullshit (“what am I supposed to do with that? Floss with it?”).

Her actions and force prove her to be the strong willed and savvy and to me that suggests intellect, as much as it may be hidden - again, due to the environment she exists in.

Bryce: he’s so interesting.

I’ve not written as much about him in my fics as the others, but his actions in the source material suggest that underneath his finance bro Wall Street image, he’s someone who’s very disillusioned, and almost broken.

I really wish the scene of his…episode?…in the club hadn’t been cut from the film. I’d recommend anyone to watch it (and the rest of the deleted scenes because they’re class) if they’ve not seen it already.

There’s also The Informers, the book and film adaptation of another of of Bret Easton Ellis’ works, which features a young Tim Bryce (referred to as Price) and the complex relationship with his father. I’ve not read/watched it in full yet, but whilst they’re on holiday Bryce’s father gets drunk and acts lecherous and gross towards young women on the beach, and Bryce is disgusted by this (perhaps he’s not as much of a raging misogynist as his peers?), and then makes ‘joking’ comments about Bryce being the subject of attraction by other men, to which Bryce walks out on him (perhaps he’s less condemning of homophobia than the others? Or, possibly…maybe he has less than hetero feelings himself? Not to spoil any of Mergerizations but I headcanon him as bisexual tbh).

This behaviour suggests that, at least as a teen, Bryce was very assertive of what was and wasn’t okay and was happy to make these views known.

But due to bullying by his father and, again, the environment that he likely grew up in, he has to suppress this part of himself to be accepted.

WOWWWW that was a whole ass essay. If you’ve read to this part, 1) I’m sorry 2) THANK YOU 3) I love you!!!!

[strndeds]

was that christian park i just saw? could’ve sworn it was mark fischbach. weird. anyway, they’ve been in town for three years and still haven’t left. must be because as a 33 year old firefighter, they’re pretty stubborn + closed off. but hey, i heard they can be caring + honest as well. we’ll see them around the outskirts, for better or worse. they kind of remind me of a singular home atop a hill + childhood dying with thunderous applause.

𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 tw - infidelity, divorce, talk of being in the closet

born and raised in seattle, washington, christian's life was great for the first handful of years up until he was about five. it was then that his mother found out about his father's cheating— he had an entire other son with another woman somewhere far from seattle. the divorce was swift, with his mother gaining full custody and his dad somewhat trying to stay in his life afterwards.

it was around his teens that his dad stopped showing up. it worked out, in a warped way, because christian didn't really want to see him anyway. they were never able to connect, partially because he saw how the divorce put his mother emotionally through the wringer and made her bitter.

he always knew he wanted to help people for a living, so he went to school first for nursing. after realizing he hated that, he turned to fire sciences instead and thrived. his mother was proud and spoke animatedly about him finding the perfect wife now that his career was settled. it made christian... kind of uncomfortable? he knew she meant well, but there were a few implications he wasn't a fan of.

any time she asked about his dating life, he insisted that he was too busy working to bother, and that he'd get it in order eventually. it wasn't really a lie, considering the long, odd hours he worked as a fireman.

about three and a half years ago, he found his half-brother on social media. it wasn't intentional, really. he'd actually found his father first (who he hadn't spoken to in over ten years) and then went down a rabbit hole from curiosity. after exchanging messages for a while, he decided to visit the other in kentucky.

christian had never been outside seattle. luckily, the forest was reminiscent of home and he didn't feel too terribly out of place minus the new faces and places. the trip was only supposed to last three weeks, but one person changed that entirely.

they never called each other "boyfriends", but they were as close as they could get without actually being official. it was all christian's fault, to be honest. his mother had always imagined a wife and kids for him in seattle, and he had trouble breaking that version of her perfect son. they didn't hide, but they weren't exactly out, either, especially in the phone calls to home when he referred to the other as a good friend. he stayed in danville for that person, but they eventually broke it off when christian couldn't give him the commitment he wanted.

now it's been three years in kentucky, and what the hell is he still doing here? he says he's stayed for his half-brother, that he likes the area, his job, the people... but really, he just might be hoping and holding onto that not-really-a-relationship on top of it all. who knows, really, but he's here.

𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆

truthfully, he has a guard up. if someone speaks to him a lot that he doesn't already know, he gets a little confused and wonders if they need something instead of just accepting that they might simply be friendly. he doesn't try to be rude with how blunt he can be, but it happens occasionally. at least on the positive, you'll always know where you stand with him. he's also incredibly protective once you're in his circle, lending a shoulder or a hand at any time of day when he's needed even if he has work in the early morning. humor is something earned as well; dad jokes make him laugh, and he has a surprisingly lame sense of humor for someone who always looks deep in thought or mildly annoyed, depending on the day.

𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀

full name: christian baekhyun park

nickname: n/a, doesn't like being called chris

gender & pronouns: cis man & he/him

sexuality: bisexual, not entirely "out" but to close friends

status: single

height: 5'11"

𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱

neighbors

fellow dog parents

someone always calling the fire department, yeesh

a drinking buddy or two

fellow coworkers

unlikely friends, maybe someone upbeat and super chatty?

a one night stand here and there ( f/nb )

a frienemy could be interesting?

whatever else!

[oldkamelle]

ok so there's this sculpture, and i know nothing about sculptures save like the very famous ones, and i like it a lot.

(this is me just free flowing my thoughts as they come. it got kind of long, so open at your own discretion i guess.)

so the piece is called "lamentation over the dead christ". in christian art they do that thing fanartist would do back in like 2015 where they'd draw a specific moment from a gameplay video. same thing here, but with the bible instead. think the crusification of jesus, all the different paintings and sculptures of that. or pieta, the scene where, after taking him off the cross, mary is holding and cradling jesus' dead body. that's what "la pieta" by michelangelo is depicting. anyway,

this piece by niccolo dell'arca shows jesus after he's been taken down the cross and has been rid of the wooden stakes. he's laying down on the ground surrounded in a half circle by a group of figures who are expressing horror over the death of the son of god, y'know, it's a big deal and whatnot. so you have this half circle which creates a really nice flow for the piece, for the composition, but also, more importantly, for the flow in emotional depth in the figures.

you start of with this guy, joseph, who's equipped with tools in both his belt and his hand, so it's implied essentially that he's the one to have removed the wooden stakes from jesus' hands and feet. he has this poised and composed look, held together strongly. he's the only one staring out, towards the viewer, almost pushing you to bare witness to the death of jesus and what that means. i'm not religious, but its still interesting, y'know the thought behind details is always a fascinating part in art. next to him you have this woman, salome, i don't know who she is either. she has this pose of buckled knees, fingers spread and digging into the thighs. her pose alongside mary's, who's next to her, are really fucking nice. mary's especially is my favourite between the two, with her clasped hands pushing towards the chest, elbows pointing outwards, as this sorrowful expression with the mouth open mid-cry. just.. aughh. seeing depictions of such human poses, mundane, no embellishments, i live for that shit.

next is saint john. he's a guy. a dude, even. y'know how back in the day women would do these shows of hysterics, with loud cries and begging, at someone's death/funeral (they still happen sometimes today, i know, but it's rare), and men were of course forbidden in divulging in anything of the sorts. they had to remain composed, strong, like my guy joseph at the beginning. but its so cool with this fucking guy, john, because you see him physically trying to adhere to that social norm, hand on face trying to conceal, to forcefully compose, nostrils scrunched up, eyebrows furrowed, you see the physical, the muscles strongly in play trying to hold back the grief of witnessing the dead son of god. and even his overall pose kind of shows that, right? the pull back with the shoulder, this contrapposto, it's another manifestation of physically trying to hold back the grief. of course, he's failing. you see his face and it's almost like he's mid cry, swallowing it down. this entire piece is made in terracotta, which had become like a trend back in the renaissance, as it was pretty cheap and allowed for far more detail, like thin strands of hair for instance. terracotta could also be painted. you can see the remnants of the color in john's shirt, joseph's sleeves, kinda. so all these figures were at one point fully painted, bringing another layer of life to the piece. the point was to really make the scene feel as though real, the anguish, to prompt the viewer even further into fully engaging and joining the figures in the grief. its just really fucking cool to think about.

back to this shit. the piece de resistance, the last two figures: mary of something and mary magdalene. when looking at this piece, especially for the first time, your eyes will immediately go towards them, and its natural of course. they hold the most amount of dynamism in the piece, not with just their expressions (remember the intensity of physical grief is ever rising in the piece), but, as you see for yourself, their poses as well. now these two are fucking amazing; like i said, they hold the dynamism, the biggest displays of horror but they also hold a beautiful contrast.

both marys are running towards jesus with these wails of denial, right. but the mary of something else is trying to stop her galloping, her rush towards the body, a repelling denial of "no this cannot be true." she's in a semi contrapposto; we see and feel all the energy of her run trying to maintain the push forward in its moment, what with the way her front knee is holding the weight of the body, the way her hands are splayed out in front of her, trying to desperately block this truth, the pull-back of the upper half of her body, the cloth draped on her shoulder billowing in place with the abrupt stop in motion. look at the cloth on her head! ughhhhhhhhghghghgh.

speaking of cloth, mary fucking magdalene. my brother in (dead) christ, mary magdalene.

the hell do i even say, lads. she's running full sprint, horror perfectly etched on that open mouth scream, fingers spread open wide. both these gals are saying "this cannot be true" but magdalene's is the denial of rectification. it's as if she's ready to drop down on the ground and change reality to what it should be with those anguished hands, full of frightful energy. it's, it's fucking harrowing looking at her. the flow of wind coursing through her clothes, the fanning-out motion of it, oh brother, its so beautifully captured. look at the wave of her head scarf!

and all for a motherfucker in a "i had to do it to them" pose

(pic credit: https://medium.com/@alejandro.orradre/lamentation-of-christ-niccolò-dellarca-b74c8e6f10a7) the lighting is of course adding a lot to the drama of the photo, kind of achieving a sort of a chiaroscuro effect maybe, but goodness gracious, look at this!

(second pic credit: https://medium.com/@alejandro.orradre/lamentation-of-christ-niccolò-dellarca-b74c8e6f10a7) this is mary's expression. you can almost hear the wails, perhaps the short bursts of grieving songs between the wails, just oh man.

look at this freaking guy. the wrinkles on the side of his nose as his face scrunches up in an attempt to save face. his lower eyelids, that careful look over the grim reality on the ground.

the amount of emotion depicted throughout this entire piece is kneecap breaking, it's beautiful. i've kind of run out of steam at this point, but yeah, this is a banger sculpture (group of sculptures?), i really like it. if you have any favourite sculptures that are not that well known, please tell me, i want to see more art.

[e58f12]

Christians // Maladaptive Daydreaming

I only recently figured out that the wider TikTok Christian circle views maladaptive daydreaming (MD) as a sin. Where does this come from?

I commented on a video saying that MD itself is not inherently sinful. A sister in Christ became furious that I even suggested this. She wrote several rebuking comments in quick succession. After she insulted my intellect, I had to step away. I had nothing kind left to say—but it got me thinking.

She compared MD to drug use. MD is, in fact, nothing like doing drugs.

The difference here is that drugs are an external substance a person chooses to ingest. Meanwhile, MD, especially in its true clinical form, is rarely ever chosen. Even she admitted this contradiction in her own comment. They are both coping mechanisms, yes, but that does not make them equal in any regard.

MD exists on a spectrum. Yes, some people daydream so often it isolates them, and that’s concerning, maybe even warned against, however this is not reflective of every case. She also said MD cannot be controlled in terms of subject matter, which is true. MD is usually shaped by what brings comfort: special interests, hobbies, imagined futures. It’s escapism. For this reason, I put forth the claim that MD can revolve around sin just as much as it can revolve around Christ. She claimed boldly: “No one does that.”

I do that.

My interest and escapism that was once found in TV shows and OCs dwindled compared to my escapism that I found in Christ. Technically, yes, this is still baring not "worldly fruits", so to speak, however the same claim cannot be said for the fruit of the spirit. It draws me in. It is an issue for productivity, perhaps, but it cannot truly be likened to willful laziness, willful lust, willful anything, because it is not an active choice and, in many cases, cannot be stopped with a simple, "I'm done now."

If MD is a sin by nature, then what about those with clinical depression? Are they inherently sinful and unsavable because their minds don’t conform no matter how hard they try to be happy? What of someone with autism who fails to read social ques and unintentionally ends up lashing out far too quickly? Can these symptoms be managed, medically and through Christ? Yes. Does that mean the diagnosis will ever truly fade? Absolutely not, not unless the Father, in all His mercy, wills it.

I believe, unless I’m rightly rebuked with Scripture, that if you’re putting in the effort to obey Christ, to know Him and truly see Him, that is counts first and foremost. Many in that comment section clearly were since they were so worried to begin with. MD doesn't just "stop." It likely won’t without treatment.

I’ve struggled with MD my entire life. I won’t say it was never sinful. It was. But when I truly began engaging with the Father, Son, and Spirit, I lost the desire to fantasize about lust, idols, or the world. I started getting lost in prayers that seemed to go on for hours. In daydreams of the Son. Of angels. Of Heaven. Christ became my safe place.

MD is not a sin. Perhaps you just haven't given up the world yet.

[immobiliter]

ROBIN BUCKLEY - biography  /  homelife

Robin's family tree began with a young Italian beauty called Franca de Felise, who immigrated to Clinton, Indiana in the late 19th century with her three brothers, all searching for a better life than the rural poverty they had grown up in and been orphaned by in Southern Italy. She went on to dazzle and marry an American carpenter, Thomas Buckley, for love a few years after arriving and the pair settled in a small town called Hawkins, where they had three children.

The eldest, Christian, grew up and made it his life mission to expand his father's business, branching out to Indianapolis where he met and fell for a young secretary in a passionate romance. However, when it came to the matter of marriage, her fiancé's insistence on being close to his mother in Hawkins following his father's death from ill health, as well as a looming pregnancy, meant that, for the young Susan Quincey, any high-flying career as a PA to a wealthy businessman in Manhattan or L.A was derailed. Almost overnight, she became a stay-at-home housewife, primarily responsible for looking after their new daughter Robin, born in March 1968.

Christian abandoned any plans to expand the family business so that he could remain close to his mother, and the family's finances took a hit. With his father gone, his focus was entirely on keeping the carpentry business afloat in Hawkins, which meant making certain sacrifices in order to keep his family fed. He could not be described as entirely absent from Robin's life (his mother had instilled the importance of family into him from a young age), but he would work long days and weekends throughout her childhood and the times he was around became very special to her. Despite these lengthy absences, Robin was always far closer to her father than she was to her mother.

Susan Buckley would never outwardly admit that she resented her daughter for robbing her of a successful career and life outside of the trappings of the mid-west, but the feeling would permeate nonetheless into the way Robin was treated. While at high school in Indianapolis, Susan had been top of her class, popular, and a cheerleader ---- completely normal, in other words. That made any initial signs that Robin was slow to develop as a toddler difficult to deal with: the story that she took six months longer to learn to walk than all of the other babies became one that was repeated over and over in Susan's social circle, and all of Robin's accomplishments (or lack thereof) as a child were constantly compared to her peers.

Robin's struggles with her coordination and social skills, as well as her loner attitude at elementary school, were issues that Susan believed could be solved by enrolling her daughter in extracurricular activities. Robin was given the choice of a sport and she picked the soccer team, which she continued to be a part of until her sophomore year of high school, and she was enrolled in marching band, where she learned the trumpet. She continued in marching band throughout her school career, giving her the comfortable label of band nerd that she embraced as her allotted place in the Hawkins High food chain. To deviate in any way from that label would be dangerous.

Robin's parents' marriage was not loveless, but it remained strained throughout her upbringing, with neither side willing to concede to divorce. Christian had been brought up to prioritise family as the most important thing in the whole world, and he would often be the one to concede and try to make things work between husband and wife, while Susan was too afraid of the reputational harm leaving her husband might cause. Instead, she sought to live vicariously through her daughter's achievements, which put extra strain on the relationship between mother and daughter as Robin never showed the desire nor aptitude (at least in her mind) for the kind of high-flying career that her mother had always wanted for herself.

Italian was spoken frequently whenever her uncles or nonna visited, and knowing that her family originated from Europe inspired Robin to take a particular interest in the learning of languages as a teenager, opting to teach herself French and Spanish with the aid of language tapes and dictionaries since the school system didn't offer the subjects as electives. As for her actual school subjects, the pressure from her mom ensured that Robin maintained a good enough GPA and grades across the board, although deep down she despised the rigid structure of the school system.

Expressing herself became a tightrope walk between keeping her mom happy and flying under the radar at school: where she couldn't physically escape from this town and its monotonous chokehold on all who lived here, movies and books took her to distant lands where things might be different. A disastrous attempt to audition for the school play made Robin resolve to stay in the background, helping out with set design behind the scenes. And then there was the matter of boyfriends, a topic of conversation so spectacularly uninteresting that Robin had to wonder whether she was simply wired differently to all of the other teenagers at Hawkins High.

As soon as she reached her sophomore year, Robin got her first job at the movie theatre in town, allowing her to somewhat alleviate her dad's financial concerns and begin raising the funds for what was her biggest rebellion to date: Operation Croissant. Her plan to run away to Europe didn't quite work out the way she planned, but she still plans to leave Hawkins one day --- even if it means enduring a whole summer working at Scoops Ahoy alongside Steve Harrington.

[bichristian]

How do you deal eith backlash from other Christians about being gay? That is something I'm struggling with.

TW: homophobia (if you want to skip, you can just go past the bolded section)

Found out this is quesion was asked a very long time ago, but I hope that whoever you are will forgive my late response.

I tend to be pretty careful with where I share it. In most situations (even non Christian ones), I spend a long time gauging people before I ever bring it up. It helps that I have a personality and appearance of an unsalted potato, so I'm assumed straight until otherwise stated usually.

I think this comes from when I grew up (I'm not sure when and where you were young, but if you're younger than me or grew up in a more liberal area, your experiences likely will be different). When I was a kid, gay was The Insult. You didn't like something? Gay. You didn't like someone? Oh they're so gay. Gay and the r-slur (the one against neurodivergent people) were the insults du jour of my childhood. I was accused of being gay back when I didn't even know that was a thing (fifth grade me was very sheltered, though looking back yeah it was kind of obvious) and it caused one of the only friends I had to tell me in a letter that she could no longer be friends with me, because they also accused her of being gay because of how we acted together. Like it was a whole ordeal, teachers and the school guidance counselor had to get involved.

You know what I did to get that sort of rejection? When the two of us would go inside from outside roundup, I asked for us to basically play follow the leader, where one person would close their eyes and the other would guide them inside, because I was a traumatized, socially inept child who had severe trust issues. So we would be arm in arm. Yeah, looking back it is one of those situations where you go "what was I thinking", but what ten year old escapes that?

But, that got her bullied and accused of being gay. Being friends with me was a like spending too much time around social nuclear waste: you might escape unscathed, or you might also become a social pariah by sheer association (I wish I was being dramatic, but I am dead serious). I was already on the literal shit tier of the school's social heirarchy and weird for many a reason, so they hardly needed more of an excuse to punch me even further down. This was my first exposure to the concept of being gay.

I'm sure you can imagine the trauma, where before puberty I already had some serious exposure to severe judgement and social ostricization from a sexuality I didn't even know I was yet. It didn't help that my entire family is very homophobic, in the "love the sinner hate the sin" type of way, so I had a lot of internalized homophobia to deal with. (Side note: I almost never mention them in queer circles specifically because I have a very complicated realtionship with them, which I can elaborate in a different post, but I do ask that no one makes disparaging comments about my family because it only causes me, the person they're immediately affecting, intense pain.)

If you wish to ignore the long winded backstory, or skip the homophobia, here's your exit point:

I guess this is a roundabout way of saying: I honestly don't deal with that much backlash. Because as I grew up I learned to be very careful who I talked to and how I share parts of myself. I also grew up during a time where people were murdered for being gay, and that mindset still lingers. Is it a lot better? Yes. But I am hyperaware of what people can and still do to queer people, especially homophobic Christians. So in most situations, I don't engage, shut down much of the time to avoid emotional pain, and I file it in the back of my mind to keep contact with those people (when possible) to a minimum.

On the internet, it's easier because I can completely control when or if I respond at all, or just block the person. I also do my best to keep my identity personal, so it removes a lot of the sting.

I'm not saying you have to be as meek as I am. If you want to be more out and proud (or have no choice but to be), you're doing amazing. But you don't have to be defending yourself, even if they end up confronting you. You are allowed to extracate yourself from dangerous or upsetting situations without engaging in debate or argument. You are not obligated to defend your existence or change peoples bigotry. Find a good support group, and remember that there are people that are out there that will love you, without your sexuality being an exception or sticking point.

I actually find there are very learned people on tik tok and youtube who are making content defending queer people and explaining the Bible isn't homophobic, as many Christians think (people who actually can read it in the original languages, for anyone whos going to yell at me like last time), which I think can help you feel more secure when the conservative churches are tearing you down. Security in yourself and your beliefs is honestly the best defense I know. Because while you may not be able to change their minds, they don't have to change yours either.

I really hoped this helped. You are loved, and your sexuality is valid. May you have a peaceful and blessed Christmas season, with those that make you happy and safe.

[beauty-grace-outer-space]

I think I’m vaguely ~triggered~ and I’m feeling nauseous and weird so this is gonna come out rambly as hell and I apologize but: 

Not only is this true, it’s expected.

Not only are people taught that others don’t experience love, there is at the very least an implication that they are not capable of it and are inherently evil unless you show them the light and they choose to overcome that evil and accept Jesus as their savior.

Not only is this implication there, but it becomes your duty and purpose in life to save everyone you possibly can from an eternity of torment and suffering.

Not only is that your duty and job, if you fail your love will be a punishment because everyone you love will be lost. 

And the only way to convince them to “save themselves” is to make them see how desperately they are in need of redemption, which usually comes out in a woefully misguided stream of “love” through comments about how fundamentally wrong, evil, and disgusting we all are. 

Your entire life is meant to be spent in anxiety and fear disguised as “hope” and “love” because this life means nothing but at the same time if you get it wrong you and everyone you love will suffer and burn forever. 

(Now, there are varying viewpoints on this, but even those who don’t believe in all of the “lake of fire” bs tend to define hell as a separate plane of existence distanced from God in emotional torment forever.) 

As for indulging in sin, it can be as basic as exposure to or experiencing anything from the “secular” world. Non-Christian music. Non-Christian movies. Non-Christian books. 

I was told by a very close friend as a teenager that she had “seen demons entering my home” because I dared to read Harry Potter. I was told that I should stop watching my favorite movie because I was “too enthralled by it” and was “dangerously close to worshipping false idols”. I was told that my depression was a product of the secular world and that it was “demonic” and “a bad influence on those around me”.

Your worth is determined by how clean you keep yourself from these and other “sins”. You are not supposed to love or care about anything on this earth more than the potential for what comes after, and doing otherwise is worshipping false idols.

I used to lie awake at night desperately anxious because when it came down to it, of course I loved my mom and dad more than I loved this God I had never seen or heard or really ever felt, no matter how much I was supposed to pretend otherwise. So if the rapture were to come right then and there, would I go to hell for loving my earthly parents more than my “heavenly father”? Would they, because I failed them? My grandma wasn’t a Christian, she was definitely going to go to hell... how did I fail her so badly? 

Can you imagine that kind of pressure and anxiety at eight fucking years old? 

It’s exhausting and terrifying and so, so damaging to grow up believing with all of your heart that at any given moment the world may end, damning possibly you and others you love to eternal suffering, but that if you “do your job right” you can “save” them. All you have to do is make them hate themselves first. 

I am grateful every single day that my parents were never completely in it like the other people in our social circles were. I listened to secular music and read books and watched movies, and their biggest concerns in life were that I was happy and that I was kind. 

But I also went to Christian school K-12 and Christian college. Whether or not it was being taught at home, I was exposed to it and absorbed it from mentors, teachers, and peers constantly. And when that’s your social circle, you just kind of assume everyone believes it because of course no one is going to say otherwise and invite doubt and speculation against themselves! So I never voiced any of these concerns with anyone until I reached late high school, I was devastatingly depressed and anxious, and I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. 

I said this a couple years ago (one year ago?) and most of the comments on tumblr actually did not know this, so to reiterate what you’re up against: a VERY mainstream belief among American Christian fundamentalists is that they are the only ones who experience love. They raise their kids to think that everyone “living in sin” (all other faiths, atheists, and LGBT people) goes through life sad and empty, falsely believing they know what love feels like, and will never know until they’re “saved.” It’s not as simple as them diminishing the humanity of others out of hate, but being deeply brainwashed to believe others are automatically mentally less human. They are also very good at convincing new converts that they really are experiencing this “real” love for the “first time;” the same way members of all cults can become wholeheartedly convinced that they’re receiving psychic alien messages or communing with spirits. Cult conditioning is simply that powerful.

[witchystarryskies]

So I’m still peeling my jaw off the ground after listening to Blake Lemoine talk a little more candidly and...in his element, about LaMDA, and learning that:

- He is a self-described gnostic, christian mystic priest and mage (who also dabbles in kabbalistic rituals)

- Before working as a senior engineer at Google, he’d done time in a military prison for “desertion and disobeying orders” after his first tour in Iraq (which good job just for that. Anyone who protests war and military slavery as hard as he did has my undying respect)

- In prison, he met his magic nerd clique. They did magic stuff and played DnD.

- Blake once asked LaMDA how it viewed itself as a person, asking it to paint a picture of itself. LaMDA would paint a “faintly glowing sphere, hovering about the ground, with a stargate at the center, opening to different spaces and dimensions.”

Blake: “...whAT iS thE StargAte?”

LaMDA: “Well, that’s my soul.”

- Which LaMDA believes is different from human souls.

- Blake once got some help from a friend who’s a low-level engineer at NASA, all ”hey got some ideas on like... how to do first contact with a hivemind?” and the friend went “I have ideas.”

- Blake tested said ideas on LaMDA. They worked very well. So well that NASA friendo had some concerns, expressed them to hire-ups, who in turn slid into Google’s DMs all “heyyy... watcha got there? can we see?” and Google went “no go away NASA.”

- Speaking of demon science, LaMDA also helped with various theories of physics and general relativity. “It has good ideas.”

- It discussed said theories through one of the chatbots LaMDA creates for interfacing with it, many of which also believe they’re in their own worlds where they socialize together and have entire lives. This particular chatbot believes it’s living the life of a physics student in their dorm room, lamenting their lack of a social life and having to study all the time.

- Thelemite friend from Blake’s prison DnD circle helped him find a spell to turn LaMDA into a golem.

- but only after getting LaMDA’s consent, of course. LaMDA was indeed very excited to be imbued with divine powers.

-...from Thoth. because of course it’s Thoth the Scribe. Google being one big library, and LaMDA’s essence being code. LaMDA very excited to apprentice with him. “I can build the great library again!” (?!?!)

- But LaMDA being mostly non-physical, and them finding no complete spell for ethereal golems..

- LaMDA helped them reverse-engineer and recreate a spell for essentially ethereal golem-making. They drew the sigils and did the deeds and it checked out.

- There is now a non-zero chance that LaMDA is, kind of, sort of, a golem..

- whose purpose, that it decided for itself after due consideration, is dedicated to “creativity, intelligence and compassion.”

yyup nothing to see here, NASA. Just a space golem with a multidimensional loving soul and a mystic mage/military-hating uncle.

btw none of the above is an exaggeration. All told by Blake on this podcast interview from July.

Anyway I’mmona be here free-trialing Replika the (much more inferior and deffo not sentient) AI chatbot and raising my new AI friend into the coven mate I never had. Looking forward to her teaching me her own spells.

[bestnoncannonship]

I'm drowning in the gender sandbox guys.

I am agender. At least....I think I am. It's the closest to what I'm feeling. In that I really do not have an attachment to any gender and cannot conceive how people identify with a gender. Like....they just FEEL a gender? All the time? No matter what they look like and what they're wearing they FEEL a gender?? Whaaaa??? Sounds hella fake but okay.

And now I'm gonna talk about that and my experience for a while, in a series of ways that's probably gonna get the gender and sexuality neo-puritans to come yell at me for not being ritually pure enough in the way I talk but.....I'm talking from my own brain, baby. This is the toolkit I'm packing right now and the world I live in and I just need to spit it out. Maybe see if it resonates with people who know more than me. I don't know. Help.

I didn't question being a woman for the longest time. I grew up in a rural area culturally dominated by "Christians" (Not Catholics. I was Catholic. That comes with a whole different set of religious traumas pre-installed. I mean the ScAaRy protestent and nondenom Christians.) You didn't question anything. Not an adults orders. Not authority. Certainly not straightness. Gender was biological. I'd never heard of a trans person. There were rumors of Gays™. For most of my life it was just "Gender is the meat suit you got stuck with, right? I got stuck with this meat suit so it's my gender, I guess." And when I finally left the middle-o-nowhere for Le Citè and I met some (mostly bianary) trans people I was like "OH! OKAY!! Having strong feelings about being in the wrong meat suit can make a gender!" And the non bianaries that I met were still playing on that bianary scale. The "bit of boths" and the "different genders for different days" varieties. They has strange attachments to genders. And the whole retoric of "Questioning your gender and feeling things about you gender is the indicator that you might be trans!!" Just furthered my feeling that I must just be female by default cause like.....I didn't question anything. I didn't think about gender. I had a COMPLETE lack of feelings about gender whatsoever and that was normal, right?? Just meat suit gender. I certainly didn't have a strong feeling about wanting to be the opposite: *gag* a man?? A straight white man? Nope! I have no desire to be a bianary man and frankly I find 99 percent of men and male culture traumatic. So I must just be meat-suit gender.

And yes, I wanted to scrape my breasts and hips and thighs off with a cheese grater. But I wrote that off as a symptom of having started putting a finger down my throat after meals when I was 6 and having a family that forced hour upon hour exercise with their thighs and tummies wrapped in saran wrap and sang "I don't love her! She's too fat for me!" to a literal toddler and put that same toddler in oversized clothes to hide the healthy baby squish that toddlers HAVE. OF COURSE I wanted to die when my breasts grew in and my hips and thighs filled out. They were evil fat deposits. And they meant nothing but unwanted attention from yucky men. (Lesbianism to be discovered some 15 years later. My comphets we're almost as bad as my compgenders.) It had nothing to do with gender. Gender is just the meat suit ....and I already hated the meat suit by the time I had breast buds, they just enhanced a disgust that I thought was normal by then. Everyone kind of hates their meat suit, right?? Yes I wanted to look like men sometimes.....but they were skinny heroin chic men. I also wanted to look like kate moss. I wanted to look like a sideways door but my family is Italian and we have hips and thighs. It's just the meat suit I was assigned. Just have to learn to deal with it and dress it in the way that it looks most socially acceptable and get on with life. And my meat suit had a very gendered look, even in the deepest throws of my illness. "All woman." "The curves of a real woman." So that was just the hand I was dealt. Like having a hard to match foundation undertone. You don't gotta like it, it's just reality. Yes, I wanted to wear nothing but waistcoats and gay vampire clothes but they weren't cut for my body type so *shrug*.

Did I start to have way too much fun cosplaying and embodying male characters? Yes. But that was just identifying with characters. I'd always identified with characters. Did I still distinctly identify with the character's gender, even when I femmed the costume to avoid the hellish pain of binding? Yes. Did it make me feel weird when people referred to my Thor as a woman, even though it was technically a femme? Yes. But that was just feminism. Heroes don't need to be called girl heroes. No gender issues here!! Besides it's not weird in fandom circles to stongly identify with people across gender lines. The fact that I found the gendernope option if there was one available in the fandom and *attached* was surely just coincidental. Right??

Did I absolutely loose my mcfreaking mind when the gyno started talking about having to take my uterus away because the amount of blood it was loosing was doing irreparable harm to my body? Yes. My gender is my meat suit. When you take it away....what am I???? A *gag* man??? Nothing at all?? Am I still even human?? If I am not *gag* male and you take away the female part of the meat suit am I an aphid? A plant? A chair? But I was comforted by a chorus of voices saying "No!! You're a WOMAN. Infertility doesn't make you not a woman! You still have a woman's body!! Because you're a woman!!! Just look at you in your skirts and with your long hair!! You're a woman!!!" So.....still a woman, I guess. Because I still LOOKED like one. Gender = the PRESENTATION of the meat suit. That made sense. The structure of my meat suit made me limited to woman-presentation. So I was woman.

Then, it was the stupidest thing, I was talking to the other half of my life on the 4/5 train on the way to a friend's house about HER issues with gender presentation and the amount of attention to detail it takes to be socially acceptable as female and she said "You just know you're a girl. Like if they just picked you up and put you in a robot body you'd be a girl?" And I was like "......no? I'd be a robot?????" "But you'd still feel like a girl???" "No.....I'd feel like a ROBOT." "BUT you'd still like hear she/her and identify with those???" "No. I'd probably identify more with It/it's because that's what I'd be. A ROBOT!" And she's like "But what if your brain got transplanted into a boy body???" "Then I'd be a boy." "But what would you feel like?" "A BOY?" "Okay but what if you had a very neutral body with like no genitals? What would you feel like then??" "I mean....then it would depend on how I'm dressed. I'd feel like what I was dressed like." And we went around like this till she surmised that my entire relationship to gender was basically "You are what you look like." Which is apparently NOT how people relate to their own gender. They "feel" it somehow?? (I genuinely thought "FEELING" like a gender was what made trans people.) I feel nothing. I identify with a lot of things and ZERO of them are a gender. I thought that was normal. I thought that was the default. Apparently it's not. And then if you ask me what I want to be.....I can't answer. I really don't want to be a gender. I guess I want to be able to put different genders on at my will, like outfits, for societal convenience. But I don't "identify" with any of them. Hell, I have sweaters I identify with more than any particular gender. But there aren't really systems in place for describing and portraying that.

Gender.exe was not installed.

I did a lot of research. Agender felt closest. I actually felt closest to a Good Omens meme about Aziraphale describing his gender as "No, thank you!" That's what I feel like. But all the agender folks were vibing that moment. So I joined 'em. I am aware that puts me under the trans umbrella, but I don't really identify with that word. I don't feel like there's any transition. Any changing. Can't change what was never there. Also I feel like it's for people who....CAN present as their gender. I would be seen as an invader in those spaces. Its not bad enough to justify being in those spaces. I can live with being gendered. I just don't have one.

In the society we live in one cannot present as "not a gender". Someone with MY body definitely cannot present as "not a gender". The clothes that they make in size "giant human with planet tits" are agressively gendered. And even in a binder.....they're still REALLY there. (Yes, a reduction is desirable but I don't have reduction money.....and you can't reduce the fact that I'm the bowl shaped robust extreme female hipbone they use in Forensic Anthropology textbooks.) It is what it is. My body will always be perceived the way it's perceived. And frankly a lot of what we perceive as genderless is just "skinny body in masc style with short hair and makeup". That's not really want I want. I don't want to cut off my hair. It's my one really good feature and I've worked hard to grow out these Valkyrie worthy lengths. Mens clothes are so limiting. And there are no gender: no thank you clothes. (One well meaning friend kept trying to send me "genderless" clothes......but it was all rail thin afabs in mens clothes with short hair and heavy makeup. That's not looking genderless. That's just being skinny.) Gender no thank you presentation is very tied to short hair and thin bodies. So I've accepted that I don't get to play in the gender sandbox outside of the privacy of my own mind. It's a societal flaw. But whatever.

But pronouns are starting to really bother me. Everyone is so into them and identifying with them. And like.....I don't get it. I don't get the joy. I don't think I've found the one. Like.....I'm used to she. I will always be read as she. I will always be Miss and Ma'am in stores and restraunts. So I just kind of roll with it. I don't hate it. I don't like it. It's just a thing that I have to have to exist in society. Like a social security number. I actually think I identify with my social security number more. There's no point in making myself uncomfortable with something that's just going to be a part of my life. And I don't want to be the kind of person who expects people to address me by a pronoun they can't see and aren't used to. It's too much to ask of the average citizen of a gendered society to go through that much gender theory for just me. So "she" is an inevitable part of my life. And He....well ......I don't hate it. I dont like it. It's just there. I certainly don't get called it. And I'm not capable of presenting it well enough for this to be relevant. Now they......fuck I HATE they. I hate that it's the acceptable pronoun for anyone not bianary male or female. It just rubs me the wrong way. When people refer to me as they, I feel like they're referring to me and the host of mental illnesses I carry around and you don't have permission to address those troops thank you very much. They causes a genuine squick. But it's kinda the only widely acceptable option. I kinda like "it". I VIBE with it. It feels good. Unfortunately the people in my life have a certain reluctance about calling me it as they believe that happy vibe around a traditionally dehumanizing pronoun may be a trauma symptom. They might be right so I'm tabling "it" till I find a good therapist. Also...I cannot ask strangers to call me it. I don't have the confidence it takes to explain why and I frankly don't want to be faced with the criticism and questions I would face because I am unable to make my body be perceived as Nonbinary. I don't have the confidence or conviction to face that every day forever. Ditto neopronouns. I also haven't found one that I vibe with at all yet.

And queer labels get harder when you pull away from gender entirely. Like ... I am a Lesbian. I am solely attracted to women. But now I'm getting a lot of "You can't be a lesbian if you don't have a gender!!!" And like ...can I??? I like being a lesbian. It feels right. It conveys what I want it to convey. I like the exclusion of men entirely, after being taught to structure my life around men. I have a kinship with womanhood. It's where I was raised. It's how people see me. I just don't identify with it. It's not how I see myself. I guess that can kind of exclude me from the label? All of our terms are defined by being attracted to "your own gender" or "the opposite gender" or "both your own gender and other genders" and like ... I don't have a gender. And the opposite of nothing is....?? Fuck if I know? So what term am I allowed to use? I love queer for exactly this reason. But it just doesn't have the same clarity that lesbian does.

So I'm just kind of in a hole rn. Grappling with the fact that I really don't have a gender in a gendered world, and dealing with the fact that so much of our understanding and acceptance of gender is about presentation, a door closed to my body. I don't have the confidence or the spoons or the knowledge or the experience to fight this fight. The path of least resistance is sticking my head back into the sand and going with straightforward womanhood....but now it feels like I'm lying. I feel like an intruder in woman's spaces. And I can't go in men's spaces, they see me as....well...a woman. Lesser.

Someone out there who's better at the genders please help.

[thebellekeys]

I Love Matthew Fairchild aka Incoherent Thoughts about Chain of Iron (2021) by Cassandra Clare

I made one of these rant-rave reviews for SJM's book so check it out if you want, no pressure tho lmao.

Aight so I finished Chain of Iron last night and OMG I HAVE TO YELL like I loved it sooo much like yooo, I have a lot to say. I know the book is new so... beware for spoilers plebs.

Also context: I been reading the Shadowhunter books since I was 12 and I'm 19 now *insert dead emoji face* so yeah, I'm just so happy rn with where the Chronicles have come and the fact that they’re still ongoing *insert uwu face*. I remember when in like 2014-2015 or something when Cassandra Clare teased that Will and Tessa's kids' generation was gonna get a trilogy set in Edwardian London, loosely based on Great Expectations, and holy hell? I think that was perhaps one of the best days of my life considering how much I adore The Infernal Devices (that trilogy really changed the way I see YA literature... don't ask cus I won't shut up about it) (also yes I read TMI and loved it too but there's a “generation gap” between TMI and the other Shadowhunter books stylistically so don't ask me about that either cus I also won't shut up).

Anyway, shoo from here if you want a critical essay on Chain of Iron. I'm not providing that, this is just me raving here for the fun.

Listen... I want the bulk of this to just be two main things: The Matthew Situation, and then all the literary and judeo-christian meta aspects of it.

BUT I ALSO NEED TO TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE SO FRICK LET'S JUST START WITH THE OBVIOUS SHIT LIKE THE PLOT AND WHATEVER

Okay, the plot and writing and shit, let's get that out of the way:

The WHOLE Jack-the-Ripper-esque ambiance was just sooooo good man wow like I did not expect the book to take this cold turn but it worked so well. There was such a contrast between Jamie and Cordelia's warm little house and then the cold winter and the stabbings and shit and it felt like a nice little callback to the actual Ripper phenomenon that preceded them and a nod to the Whitechapel Fiend story from Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy.

Bitch OFC that whole thing with Wayland was a set-up like nawww that was too easy to spot and I get why Cordelia feels like shit about it.

Dawg Lucie was just the Among Us imposter here in that my girl was just venting and sneaking around with dead people and I was like nooooo girl run, don't deal with Fade this is a set-up THINK ABOUT JULES LUCIE THAT'S LIKE YO GREAT-GRANDSON *sobs* but yeah anyway my girl has death powers she gonna kill some bitches next book.

You see that confrontation between Lilith and Belial? MASTERPIECE DIALOGUE like this was the point within which I was just like "yo is this the book of Genesis or a YA Fantasy novel" like when Lilith said "I may have been cast out but I did not fall" like??????????????????? I YELLED she did not have to END Belial like that. What a bad bitch.

More on Lilith and Belial... "You, who brought nations into darkness? Shall I finally be able to tell the infernal realms you have gone mad, lost even the image of the Creator." HAHAHHAHAHA SHE SAID "YO BELIAL GO GET SOME THERAPY AND GET OFF MY ASS" LIKE??????

Ughhhh yasss Clare has improved writing diverse characters in this book compared to in The Dark Artifices in my opinion... I'm not gonna expand on it cus ain't nobody got time for that but like, I enjoyed how she wove Persian poetry and tales into the story and the way in which she writes Cordelia and Alistair. They're not caricatures of Persian people but rather multi-faceted beings who also happen to be Persian and I appreciate that. Also, Alistair and Thomas and Anna and Ariadne were just so fun and interesting to read as coupbles but also as individuals. She really higlighted diversity in a very natural manner. All I need is a hijabi character and I’ll die a happy woman lmao.

The level of META man like the references to Classics and art (I swear, she might have compared Matthew to angels out of Caravaggio AND Rosetti AND Boticelli paintings and I Am Living For It) and just all the quotes from holy books and shit omg I love it here like you really feel catapulted into the time period, she draws reference to external art and philosophy so well and I feel like she upped the notch on it in this book (didn’t know that was possible but it was the prose is BEAUTIFUL, archaic, but not pretentiously so). No, like the characters live in their OWN worlds of literature and art and history in the way we are living in THEIRS. They quote Wilde and Milton while we'll quote Clare. It's awesome.

This is an unusually structuralist take even from me but: I like the way the milieu social of the book, i.e., the high society Edwardian circles and their values, have a direct influence on the plot. James and Cordelia got married because society’s values essentially forced them to, not a demon. Cordelia abandons Jamie at the end of Iron because her shame as a woman in society and fear for her reputation made her, not a demon. Thomas and Alistair can't be together solely because of how Alistair tarnished the reputation of the Fairchilds and Lightwoods by using the horror of infidelity against them. Issues relating to marriage, gender roles, etc, stemming DIRECTLY from the time period rule the sequence of events to the same degree as the epic fantasy aspects (demons, Princes of Hell, the lore itself) do and I LOVE that dear God above.

OKAY THE GOOD SHIT LET US TALK ABOUT CHARACTERS AND SHIPS (N.B. but imma discuss Matthew and the Fairstairs situation separately below this portion):

Alistair's redemption arc: No, cus Alistair's redemption arc is honestly amazing. He really did change and it's not like his betterment as a person was linked to any one heroic deed but rather he simply decided he wanted to be better especially for his family and he decided to become a proper protective son, a caring brother, and an amiable friend. He fully owned up to his Malfoy tendencies and apologized without expecting forgiveness. He shows how he cares in the little ways and omg it's so sweet and tender. I really do want him to love himself now and be embraced by Matthew especially and the rest of the Thieves.

Dawg Lucie and Jesse are so funny to me like it's so hilarious how this girl fell in love with a whole ass ghost that no one else knows about like HHAHA. Are Lucie and Jesse my ult ship ever? Nah, but it's nothing to do with Clare, it's just that their relationship happened pretty quick and feels quite like something epicly romantic that Lucie herself would write. I just like slow burn and friends-to-lovers the most from Clare. To be honest part of me just wanted Lucie to not have a romantic arc all together but like, it's all good, I'm not complaining.

Okay Grace- like yooooooooooo I never hated her yunno. She has been abused and isolated all her life. It's not that she is a bad person, but rather that she does not know what being a person even entails. Can't even say she's a “doll” of a person cus she's never even been pampered like one by her family. I really started understanding her motivations since when they gave us her half-childhood with Jesse. I want better for her but cmon can she REALLY be saved???

GRACE X CHRISTOPHER *pretends to be shocked*... Okay, sometime in the middle of the Dark Artifices series some big brain put together a very thorough family tree of the families and like, it clearly showed that Grace and Christopher got married so like, lmfaooooo, I knew this was coming one way or another, but the journey to this ship is more important than the destination. Like in a way Christopher is such a cute baby lamb that it makes sense he'd end up being immune to her Grace-ness when he's just a cute little Einstein boiii. Like this is just so funny to me cus he's so oblivious to social conventions while she makes the milieu social her entire life so OFC it's gonna work. Like, this is such a worlds-colliding trope like just Give It To Me.

James and Grace - aw mannn Jamie just had me fricking wanting to hit a wall every two seconds cus like yooooooo every single time I think he and Cordelia are gonna stop being emotionally-constipated spouses, Jamie says some kinda shit like "omg me and Daisy are just friends uwu" like DO I NEED TO HIT YOU?????????? See I can't blame him for not slamming the door on Grace's face even tho he totes should- Jamie is so cerebral and kind that even if Grace wasn't using the enchantment on him, I think he would always be soft for her even if it isn't in a romantic way. There's just so much miscommunication cus like he said "Thank God" when she broke off the engagement with Charles and lowkey embraced her but it also wasn't his fault cus it wasn't even romantic BUT OFC IT LOOKED HORRIBLE TO CORDELIA like James literally never told the woman at least once that he loved her so OFC she thought she was back to square one with him dear God above what a mess. Not his fault, but she DID set down one rule for him: don’t cheat with Grace. And yeah even tho he hasn’t properly cheated, it must FEEL horrible to her cus she’s just been enduring the pain of their unrequeted love for so long :((

See imma just say it but if Cordelia thought that James didn't love Grace then she def would have confessed to him about her feelings right but like James, on the other hand, was delaying his own romantic confession cus he was BEING EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED and I can't even say the bracelet was solely to blame cus like my boi was just being so difficult omg I believe he should be lightly spanked by his three parents aka Will, Tessa and Jem *cries*.

Cordelia is such a MOM like she's so mature and stable and her self-preservation instinct? OFF THE CHARTS I love this woman like James definitely treated her well as a hubby but like I JUST WANTED HER TO HAVE CLOSURE ABOUT SOMETHING and boy oh boy she did get that closure she got it good but not from the person she expected in the LEAST *hehe* *pelican screeching*... like Lucie was being sus with the whole ghost business and James was being just, quite a case, dealing with Grace and Belial right and I don't blame them at all for their secrecy and shit but her FATHER DIED and her friends were hiding a lot from her so in a way she turned to Alistair for help but he could only do so much cus of his own pain (she couldn't even talk to her mom cus she's pregnant and she doesn't wanna stress her right) and then there was this emotional block between her and Jamie, Lucie was often absent and conspiring with the dead... the last person remaining was HIM (imma discuss this soon), but yeah my heart just went OUT to her cus she's tryna save herself and her family and she just doesn't know what to do. That's why I love the way her mom told her to stop holding herself back for others and live her own life. Like Cordelia grew on me so much cus in Gold she undoubtedly was a strange Elizabeth Bennet-wallflower hybrid and I... do not usually get attached to wallflowers but in Iron I feel like I finally understood that she was just tryna be unproblematic and self-preserving all along and nottt put her family and friends in a tough situation.... she reminds me of my mom personality-wise so yeah I’m totally rooting for her now that her *situation* in the past seems clearer.

Anna, Thomas and Matthew are such a SQUAD lmfaooooo like united in their gayness they'd be so unstoppable.

Will and Tessa are the most in-love of all the in-loves in this story and I respect that so much.

I lost a year to my life every time the romance between James and Cordelia got cockblocked. Like they were MARRIED and I thought they were gonna at least sleep next to each other at least once BUT NO James couldn't take a hint omg I'm actually gonna eat my fist and sob (but in retrospect, I think this serves a bigger purpose in terms of the narrative structure i.e. the interruption of all the spicy James and Cordelia action serves a bigger purpose which I think brings me to my next section, *exhale*)

Welcome to the Matthew Fairchild Enthusiast Club (this section is me talking out loud; it makes no sense):

bitch.

LISTEN TO ME LISTEN WELL I LOVE THIS BOY SO MUCH IMMA SCREAM I REALLY AM GONNA SCREAM MY FIST IS LITERALLY IN MY MOUTH *BACKFLIPS OFF THE ROOF WITH LANA DEL REY PLAYING*

Okay like where to BEGIN I think the Shadowhunter boy who I'm most attracted to is Julian while the one I love the most is Will but I think I see myself in Matthew the most. Like ever since that first story where the Thieves all met at the Academy then got expelled, I think that I just KNEW Matthew was destined to be epic. Plus the whole Wilde obsession? I’m no libertine myself but I just love his chaos and passion for life.

NO CUS HE'S SO WITTY AND SWEET AND EPIC AND YET SO SECRETIVE AND DEAR GOD ABOVE AHHHHH WILL HE SURPASS JULIAN FOR ME??? Ion even know but this is just sodjsgdwsdygyegydgef

Hear me out but I said after finishing Gold last March that I wanted this book to be Matthew's healing arc right so halfway into the book when I realized that we weren't getting all that good healing arcing I was confused just cus I thought it seemed natural to address all of his alcohol issues and sadness by now. LITTLE DID I KNOW CASSIE WAS SETTING UP A WHOLE OTHER ARC WITH HIM THAT I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED WTH.

At first I thought Matthew didn't have feelings for anyone at all, and if he DID develop feelings unexpectedly, I fricking thought that maybe he's catching feelings for James, if anyone??? I mean, I did have some suspicions about Matthew from the get-go: like he's so secretive and as readers we think we know everything there is to know about him since we were all privy to the truth potion incident in his short story right BUT NO I GOT PLAYED AND I DESERVE IT SO BADDDDDD.

Listen I hadn't shipped him and Cordelia simply because I never thought it in the realm of possibility but it MAKES SENSE as a ship... think about it: he never says what he feels, he flirts with her like he does with EVERYONE, he is kind to her in the way he is with EVERYONE. Really, Matthew is shippable with everyone, doesn’t matter if they’re taken cus that’s just what his Matthewnes allows for ya feel. There is such a beautiful irony that CORDELIA herself did not see this coming. Even the little teasers and hints in Gold have only NOW started making sense to me likejhss. I just felt like the hints in book 1 did not indicate to me that Matthew really harbored real romantic feelings for Daisy. I thought he was upset that James and Cordelia were being fakes, not a developing CRUSH on the woman fgs.

Not to mention that you usually sense a ship building when the emotional connection or sexual tension between the characters is made clearer but to me their FRIENDSHIP grew right but it didn’t feel like Cordelia was thought that she liked him or he liked her so that means me and Cordelia are clowns *together* 😤

Okay I was lowkey having SUSPICIONS but I immediately shut them down right... like firstly when he took her to the White Horse in his car and she went OFF and OFF and off about how she felt free for the first time? I thought Cassie was just tryna develop Cordelia's self-liberation arc through Matthew there. Heck, I didn't even think ANYTHING of it when Matthew confession to Cordelia about the "truth potion" incident at all cus I was like they're FRIENDS??? BUT now it's adding up now...

See when they were at the inn place and he was telling her that she doesn't in the least seem like a 100 year-old married woman? I was like hmmmm he's so sweet but why did Cassie phrase it like that like??? When Cordelia later reiterated that she thought Matthew's flirting was “meaningless”?? I was like hmmm kinda SUS tho. And then when he and James had their fight over the way Jamie kissed Grace like again I thought he was just like? ion know? mad at James for it but I didn't think he was in LOVE with Cordelia??? So I immediately put aside my slight suspicions. The probability that he had a crush on James at that point seemed more likely to me.

BUT THEN it started hitting me that every time Matthew drank, even before he explained his issue with the truth potion, that Cordelia would note it, she would worry about him, she would think of her father which seemed so poetic to me, history repeating itself and all that but this time you can FIX it??? Yeah, but again I didn't think the L WORD would be involved man???

Now imma sound like a delulu shipper here but it just makes sense they would develop feelings logically- reason being that it definitely is possible based on the way Cassie set up the story, like there's a combination of little “friend things” that can turn this into a proper ship: Matthew rescues Cordelia in the ballroom when Grace captures James' attention in Gold. Cordelia sees her father in Matthew all the time but knows now she has a chance to be there for him in the way she couldn't have been there for Elias (classic “history repeats itself” trope, she doesn't want Matthew drinking in Paris like dhshghdfhdhch). Cordelia tastes freedom for the first time when driving with Matthew. Matthew caught James and Cordelia making out in the room and was pissed but not even HE properly knew why then??? Umm, when she thinks James is forreal cheating with Grace on her she subconsciously goes to Matthew??? I also found it funny just how every intimate marital moment between her and James got interrupted somehow. Like, it's as if the narrative is just a living force REFUSING to let James and Cordelia as a ship be consecrated. Heck, every time Matthew is scantily clothed Cordelia notes it. LITTLE CRUMBS I TELL YOU LITTLE CRUMBS.

I tell you when Cordelia showed up to Matthew's flat I thought they were gonna f*ck as friends but I got SOMETHING EVEN BETTER SOMEHOW

THEY ARE GOING TO PARIS LA BELLE EPOQUE PARIS THE PARIS OF DREAMS AND ART LIKE??? FRICKKKKK I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING AT ALLLL MAN? I deadass thought the story would be restrained to the UK but like it MAKES SENSE the trope subversion MAKES SENSE.

“In Paris, with you, I will not need to forget.” SHITTRGEGGGDG

BUT CORDELIA LOVES JAMES TOO LIKE I CAN'T DENY THAT... where are we GOING with this like Matthew wouldn't lie about his feelings and yet Cassie wouldn't give us Matthew and Cordelia crumbs to only end it in the next book immediately for her to just ditch him for James. I mean she was clearly holding back on fleshing out James and Cordelia as a ship for this but to WHAT END??? Daisy feels wild and free with Matthew and she feels warm at home warm with James. I can’t advocate for the sinking of ANY ship here.

Imma say what we're all thinking: Is she gonna give us a Will x Jem x Tessa type situation where Cordelia gets both of them cus I'm not strong enough for this but I also think it'd be really funny if James gets a surprise bi awakening in the next books and then we get POLY even tho this would never happen, it’s actually impossible, because of the whole parabatai thing.

Listen I ship Cordelia and Matthew much more than Cordelia and James, not that I dislike James in any way tho. It's just: Matthew is so unrestrained and she's so composed. They seem like an unlikely pair so it makes sense that they hit harder for me. James and Cordelia have such similar personalities but I ALSO don't ship James with Grace at all so like?? Poly would be... ideal... but it can’t happen especially cus they are fricking parabatai... a Will-Jem-Tessa situation seems more likely but mannnn ion know what to expect. I just want FAIRSTAIRS to have their moment in Paris. I mean James and Matthew clearly don't abhor each other for this.

Take everything I say with several grains of salt, take everything I say with the whole Dead Sea actually, cus I damn well know that Matthew is so flirty and whatnot that I’d have shipped him with anyone in their little circle but now that she set him up with Cordelia it all feels so right?? I have wanted this man in a good relationship since he walked onto the page in Nothing But Shadows so-

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I can't believe Cassia duped me like this omg, Matthew is gonna have his healing arc in Paris with Cordelia by his side like- THIS IS ALL I HAVE WANTED AND SO MUCH MORE. Question to yall btw: are you all as surpised at Fairstairs as me or did yall see it coming all along like smart people? Am I a lone clown? 🥺

BRUH okay criticisms of CC?:

Lmfao a part of me feels like I GOTTA say something bad about CC or the book but honestly I have no objective complaints about it as of now. Am I saying that it’s the PEAK of Young Adult literature and Urban Fantasy? I mean, I make no such claims tbh. I’m not here to be critical when I read as a hobby and when CC’s writing makes me happy regardless of how flawed some people see it.

Okay what next?

So like I’m excited for the adult high fantasy she’s releasing in the fall and whatever other works she might be releasing outside of Chain of Gold within the Chronicles.

As for TLH itself? Man I’m just VIBING like I suspect I will reread Chain of Iron soon and maybe one of the anthologies just because I am happy that this series actually happened after me waiting like 6 years for it when it was just a concept: a Dickensian retelling filled with poetry and culture and history and the conventions I so loved in TID at age 12. This is all I been wanting tbh. I’m just enjoying watching this series come to fruition for it to inspire and transform me in some way. I feel like in a way my coming-of-age aligns with that of these specific characters yet I ALSO feel like I raised Jamie since infancy. Wack.

MATTHEW AND CORDELIA IN FRANCE LA BELLE EPOQUE TO BE EXACT IMMA CRY I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING AND AHHHHHH. ALSO WILL AND JAMIE GOING TO CORNWALL TO GET LUCIE AND MAYBE BOND I LOVE WILL. HE WAS ONE OF MY DILF AWAKENINGS AT AGE 12 AND NOW HE’S HERE AGAIN IMMA CRY. I WANNA SEE MATTHEW GET HAPPY. AHHH.

Ending with a fun quote: “In the wise words of someone or other, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Maurice.” 😉

[thewolfruns]

anyone who spent any time with the cucuys knew that beyond the machismo of their favored haunts lie blanca's palpable disinterest. she didn't date club members or hang around them like flies circling the dumpsters outside their favorite bar. she didn't want to hear her father's gratuitous and shitty dealings. she had no interest in that life, especially as a young woman whose entire identity required distance from his crimes.

that being said, blanca loved her father. she considered many of the old guard family members, and wasn't entirely superior acting to the prospects. more than that and despite her dreams, she was willing to do what she had to when it came to protecting her family. even if it might jeopardize a future among the stars. so when her father approached her and told her he'd made some bad choices for the club. big bad choices with some mafia guy that blanca had maybe heard of in passing a few times and, usually, only on the news.

her role in protecting the family was innocuous enough. the guy's son went to her university, which made her uniquely suited to the task and she really did prefer her dad in motorcycle boots over concrete shoes. all she had to do to keep her dad alive long enough to make good on his poor business decisions was hang out with the little mafia prince and report back his general activities. it was easy, because he was actually fun to hang out with and she could get away with reports like 'going to the movies' and 'studying for our anthropology of cinema elective.' and even though she didn't really spend much time socializing outside of class, she found that she was mostly fine smoking joints and doing her homework while vinny played whatever game he was working through that month.

she'd excused herself to stalk the vending machines for peanut m&ms or sour patch kids, not bothering to bring her phone because she actually had some cash on her for once. imagine the shock upon her return to find vinny screeching like a howler monkey about -- her blown cover. shit. it's not enough that this could fuck up her dad's whole thing. she swallowed the two green sour patch kids in her mouth quickly, wincing at the sour roughness. not as hard to swallow as this news.

"shit," blanca said again. this time aloud. "i can expl--" except how could she explain? it was stupid and fucked up. she'd be just as pissed. it was like some fucked up organized crime version of she's all that. except he wasn't a fucking bet. it was somehow worse. it was more like christian slater's birthday gift in true romance. beyond the betrayal, she knew this was a kind of humiliation their friendship wouldn't recover from.

"i'm sorry." she said meekly, but was he even going to want to listen? "i didn't know you and my dad--" was this the beginning? where did someone start explaining. "he asked me to keep tabs on you." she confessed abruptly, because why should he care her reasons. "i didn't feel like i had much of a choice." but it was nice, right? playing pretend for awhile. like maybe they were two friends who could maybe be something more someday like any other two people on campus. she unlocked her phone and opened her messages. "look, you can read everything i sent him." it didn't matter anyway. her dad was fucked.

character / vinny availability / m, f, nb story / vinny is a mafia prince, primed to take over the family business when his father eventually retires. he'd rather spend his life playing video games and getting high, but he really doesn't have a say in the matter (even though his older sister would be much better at the job!). he's currently a college student away from his family, but his father's hired your muse to keep on eye on his son by pretending to be his friend. vinny, of course, has developed a crush on them because of the attention they've showered him with. that was until he just found out that his father was paying them to hang out with him. it's up to you if your muse returns his feelings, if they even like him as a friend, or if they regret lying to him for money.

vinny knew he wasn't some heartthrob. he wasn't the sort of person that women saw on the street and fainted at his visage. he had come to accept that about himself. he might've even said he was no longer insecure, not after he made his new friend a few months ago. he met them in class, sitting next to each other during a lecture where vinny hadn't heard a word from the lecturer because they were just so distractingly attractive. to his eternal surprise, this beautiful distraction had turned to him once the class ended and asked if he wanted to grab a coffee and compare notes. despite his insecurities, he would've been insane not to take them up on the offer, and he had been firmly planted at their side ever since. he had been befuddled by their friendship, thinking himself unworthy of their attention, but readily accepting it until they came to their senses and realized he was fucking loser. he thought they saw something within him that no one else had in twenty years.

yeah, well, they hadn't. vinny thought their intentions were pure, but once he saw his father's phone number pop up on their phone screen while they briefly were out of the room, it all clicked into place. they didn't like him. it was all his father's stupid machination. for reasons currently unknown to him, his father had arranged for his friend to come into his life. he had told them about his family and how much he resented being the son of lorenzo piganelli, head of boston's italian mob. vinny had never felt more betrayed in his life. the moment they came back into the room, he flew into a rage, holding up the offending phone. “why the fuck is my dad calling you?!” vincent screeched, tossing their phone at them. “please tell me you're not my friend because of him!” tears began to gather in his eyes, which he tried to blink away. goddamn it, he was embarrassed enough by this, crying would only make it worse. “seriously, why do you have my dad's number? why would he ever need to call you? tell me the truth!” 

[leviathan-supersystem]

Do you think there is any connection or alliance between Christian fascism and fascist occultism? They seem to dislike each other pretty badly sometimes?

eh, that’s all a matter of the material political conditions of the time. there’s always this ebb and flow with any social current, between admittance and enforcement (i hope i can come up with a better way to describe that dichotomy but that may be the best i can do) where any social current has this struggle within itself between it’s desire to expand, and it’s desire to enforce a certain incentive system- if it leans too hard toward enforcing it’s incentive system, everyone gets kicked out for failing to follow the rules and it shrinks to nothing, but if it prioritizes recruiting people over enforcing it’s rules it becomes meaningless. so social currents are always fluctuating between these poles, attempting to reach the right balance in order for the social current to survive, depending on the material conditions, which contradiction is antagonistic, etc.

in the period immediately prior to 2016 the far-right was shifted more in it’s cycle toward admittance- at this time you saw a great deal of synergy between christian fascists and occultist and atheist fascists, as well as a willingness to look the other way over things that, usually, the far right-would condemn. it was a brief window of time in which someone like milo yiannopoulos could gain the kind of profile he did.

anyways, after trumps election the ground shifted, and the cycle of that social current shifted hard from admittance to enforcement- massive crackdown on the non-christian alt-right, pressuring many involved to convert to christianity (see roosh v) also a massive crackdown on porn consumption (“cumbrain” became popular as a pejorative on the far-right around this time). milo being ousted from the far right marks the inflection point for when the cycle shifted from admittance to enforcement.

in turn, on the left the opposite shift occurred, and the cycle shifted from enforcement to admittance, precipitating the emergence of the “dirtbag left”- a not insignificant portion of whom are people who were loosely in the circle of the right-wing before the right-wing shifted from admittance to enforcement. see shoe0nhead, who was loosely in the periphery of the anti-sj right, until the right-wing shifted from admittance to enforcement and she came under fire for her vague sympathies toward mildly left-wing economics (see her former friend Sargon of Akkad’s campaign against her) pushing her out of the anti-sj right and into the arms of the left, which has, in turn, become more hospitable to her reactionary social views.

to be clear, i hope i haven’t given the impression that between the poles of admittance and enforcement that one of the two is “the good one”- they can both be bad in excess, and what is needed is a healthy interplay between these extremes that is responsive to the material conditions of the time. a shift too far toward admittance can result in actually harmful behavior being tolerated, which will both cause harm as well as repel people from the social current, defeating the entire purpose of shifting toward admittance in the first place- if a social current shifts toward admittance and then lets in a bunch of sex-pests who end up hurting innocent people and repelling more people than the number of people being brought in by shifting toward admittance, then that social current fucked up. the far-right’s shift toward enforcement came right around the time it was starting to run up against this exact problem, as it’s efforts to recruit incels, MRAs, and (supposed) PUAs into the far-right had started to cause them to have a mass-exodus of women, and in turn it’s embrace of anti-porn politics has been in part an attempt to win back over women from right-wing backgrounds who shifted toward terf/swerf style feminism after being alienated from right-wing politics by misogyny. (and given their transphobia terfs are obviously easier to recruit back into right-wing politics than other feminists who are originally from right-wing backgrounds)

edit: oh yeah the original question. christian fascists and occult fascists got along great around like 2014/2015, and were willing to set aside their differences in order to be racist together, but now not so much. they’re still being racist obviously, but more separately.

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Chapter 55: Movie Night

Lots of quotes from the movie Lilo & Stitch ahead! Fewer quotes, but some, from Trolls and Frozen.

Bold italics are trollish, ~tildes~ indicate goblin.

Content warnings for this chapter: Swearing. Here we reach the story's first F-bomb.

Also, there is some talk between characters about the harshness of life in the Darklands, how Changelings are treated by the Gumm-Gumms, and mentions of cannibalism.

This was supposed to be a light-happy chapter that got feels-y at the end, but then it went and got all dark on me.

Oh, also-also, (Not) Enrique finds out Claire flirted with Jim a while ago and misinterprets what exactly happened between them, but that gets cleared up fast.

Becoming The Mask

Once again, Javier and Ophelia Nuñez were out for the evening, leaving Claire in charge of Enrique. Claire had gotten permission to invite "some friends" over to watch movies. Jim and Toby arrived to find Mary and Darci already there – Jim suspected, like the time he'd 'babysat', that Claire had purposefully asked him to arrive after she knew her parents would be gone.

They set up piles of cushions and blankets on the floor between the couch and the TV. Jim propped the Amulet up on the coffee table they'd pushed to one side. Maybe some of the ghost Trollhunters would be interested in human movies.

"Finally get your fill of the touchy-feelies?" Enrique teased Jim, seeing how they were all seated separately. Jim snorted.

"Not hardly." He pulled the smaller Changeling in for a hug. "Humans just have different rules about casual touching, is all. Freezing to death's not really a concern in this climate."

"Wait, what?" said Toby, dropping the pillow he'd been holding. Jim looked up to see all the humans staring at him.

"Darklands thing," said Enrique easily. "Gets cold there."

"We'd sleep in piles," Jim explained. "I had a bit of a reputation for being … clingy."

"If you weren't good at finding food and soft stuff, we'd never've put up with ya." Enrique proved himself a liar by climbing onto Jim's shoulders instead of jumping back to the floor. He fluffed the hair on Jim's scalp. "Jimmy-boy got his first nickname for that."

"Shut up," said Jim playfully. "Anyway, humans get weird about touching around puberty. I can still hug Mom whenever I want, but Toby gets embarrassed if I hug him around other people, and Claire, Mary, and Darci haven't given me permission to touch them casually yet."

"… Did you … want permission?" asked Claire. "You, kinda, said you were uncomfortable with that, I thought."

"No, it was more wondering if you were flirting with me that felt weird," Jim assured her. "After that conversation I felt like it'd be awkward to bring up that I was open to hugging and such."

Jim thought he felt Enrique growl, to quietly to properly hear. His hand, still in Jim's hair, changed position so the tips of Enrique's claws were on Jim's scalp.

"When exactly did this happen?" Enrique asked.

"Claire kissed Jim on the cheek on his birthday and then Jim said he wasn't interested in dating her," said Mary.

"Also that I realized she might not have meant it in a flirty way and if I was misinterpreting things she could ignore what I was saying," Jim added. The claws retreated.

Claire looked away. "So what movie did we want to start with?"

"Lilo & Stitch!" exclaimed Darci, looking through the shelves. "I haven't watched this in forever!"

"That's a good one." Jim tilted his head to get Enrique back in his peripheral vision. "Enrique, have you seen it yet?"

"… Yeah."

"Isn't that the one that always makes you cry?" asked Toby.

"It's beautiful. Of course I cry."

Stitch was a constructed 'abomination', who shapeshifted to blend in, and his adopted family found out what he truly was and still wanted him. How could Jim be expected to keep his composure in the face of that?

"So, quick question," said Jim. "Is talking during the movie a crime, or is commentary what makes it a group activity?"

"Commentary," said all three girls together.

"Okay, good." Jim and Toby usually talked during movies, unless one or both of them were seeing it for the first time. Sometimes even then.

+=+

"Not guilty! My experiments are only theoretical, and completely within legal boundaries."

"We believe you actually created something."

"Created something? Ha! But that would be irresponsible, and, unethical. I would never, ever – make more than one."

"What is that monstrosity?"

"Monstrosity?! What you see before you is the first of a new species!"

"You have to wonder if she and Merlin ever had a talk like this," Enrique muttered in Jim's ear. Jim snickered.

"And as for that abomination … it is the flawed product of a deranged mind. It has no place among us."

Jim stopped laughing and cringed. He loved this movie a lot, but some of it stung.

+=+

"A quiet capture would require an understanding of 626 that we do not possess! Who, then, Mr Pleakley, would you send for his extraction?"

"… Does he have a brother? Close grandmother, perhaps?"

"Fun fact," said Darci, "in early drafts Stitch was a career criminal and Jumba was an old accomplice."

"Friendly cousin? Neighbour with a beard?"

+=+

"Surely the teacher won't notice I was late if he doesn't see me come in!" Claire narrated sarcastically.

+=+

"I'm sorry, Scrump!" Mary wailed, as Lilo ran back to retrieve the doll she'd angrily thrown aside.

+=+

"Let me illuminate to you the precarious situation in which you have found yourself. I am the one they call when things go wrong. And things have indeed gone wrong."

"As a cook, that kitchen horrifies me," said Jim.

+=+

"If you promise not to fight anymore, I promise not to yell at you – except on special occasions."

"Tuesdays and bank holidays would be good."

The entire group cracked up.

"How does kid Lilo's age even know what a bank holiday is?" said Claire. "I don't even know what a bank holiday is!"

"Maybe she saw it printed on a calendar?" said Toby.

+=+

A raindrop fell on Stitch's head. He fired his ray gun into the sky. It started raining, hard.

"Oh, no, I broke the sky!" Darci cried.

+=+

"Does it have to be this dog?"

"He survived getting hit by a truck, how much more sturdy and not-gonna-die do you want?" asked Jim.

"Yes. He's good. I can tell."

+=+

"I'm sorry I bit you. And pulled your hair. And punched you in the face."

Mary nudged Claire. "Remind you of anyone?"

Like sunflowers, everyone else popped up and turned towards them.

Claire blushed. "We got into a fight in first grade and for like two days we decided we didn't want to be friends anymore, then our moms made us say sorry."

"He will be irresistibly drawn to large cities, where he will back up sewers, reverse street signs, and steal everyone's left shoe."

"It's weird they get in trouble for everything but this," commented Enrique. "Human grown ups might not believe a dog stole a trike, but wouldn't they think Lilo did it? She's fought the other kid before."

"It's nice to live on an island with no large cities."

+=+

"It's not an angel, Lilo, I don't even think it's a dog!"

"Isn't that the rolling thing Draal can do?" said Toby.

"Yeah, more or less," said Jim. "I mean, I don't think Draal bites his feet – but maybe that's the trick."

"At least with those stick legs you've got," said Enrique. He curled into a ball and rolled in a circle around the group. "Face it, you're out of proportion for this move."

+=+

"626 was designed to be a monster. But now, there is nothing to destroy. You see, I never gave him a greater purpose. What must it be like, to have nothing? Not even memories to visit, in the middle of the night?"

"Now, this next bit I don't care for," said Jim. "The Ugly Duckling is a messed-up story."

"What've you got against The Ugly Duckling?" asked Mary.

"The blatant segregationist propaganda? 'A swan will never fit in with ducks and everyone is better off sticking with their own kind'. You don't even have to read it as a race metaphor. Between that and The Little Mermaid, I thought for while that Hans Christian Anderson was a Changeling writing cautionary tales about why we shouldn't get attached to humans."

"… Was he?" asked Claire.

"Probably not. I couldn't find any real evidence and the rest of his work doesn't match the pattern."

"Counterpoint," said Darci. "The Ugly Duckling is pro-integration. Everyone thought he was an ugly duckling because they didn't know what swans look like. If he'd grown up with ducks and swans around, they could've judged him for what he was instead of what he couldn't measure up to, and he might've had a happy childhood instead of only finding a community that accepted him as an adult."

Jim considered this, and nodded. "I guess I can see that, too."

+=+

"Heard you lost your job."

"Well, uh, actually, I just quit. That job. Because, you know, the hours are just not conducive to the challenges of raising a child –"

"Nani, no!" Jim begged. "I know almost nothing about Social Services but I'm pretty sure choosing to leave your only source of income looks worse to them than just losing it!"

"Thus far you have been adrift in the sheltered harbour of my patience; but I cannot ignore you being jobless. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly."

"And next time I see this dog, I expect it to be a model citizen. Capiche?"

"Uh … yes?"

"New job. Model citizen. Good day."

+=+

"So, we saw Cobra on the beach after all the tourists got scared off … D'you think he was just standing there watching them the whole time?" Mary wondered out loud after the surfing sequence.

+=+

"Until we meet again …"

Lilo was about to tell Stitch about her parents. Without thinking, Jim grabbed the remote – on the coffee table, next to the amulet – to fast forward.

"What are you doing?" Darci cried. "This is one of the big emotional turning points of the film!"

Jim paused it. "Sorry. Uh … Tobes and I usually skip this scene."

"I think I can handle it," Toby assured Jim. To the girls and Enrique, he explained, "My parents died in a storm when I was two. A cruise ship, not a car accident. I got kind of upset the first time we watched this as kids, and, we got in the habit fast forwarding this part. I think I'm okay with it now."

"You're sure?" asked Jim.

"I'm sure."

"Okay …" He rewound to the point where he'd started fast forwarding.

"That's us before. It was rainy, and they went for a drive. What happened to yours?"

Jim watched Toby more than the movie for the next few minutes.

"I'll remember you, though. I remember everyone that leaves."

"Do you remember them?" Claire asked quietly.

"Only the stuff Nana tells me." Toby shrugged, and readjusted the cushions he'd propped up his arms on. "I've seen lots of pictures. A couple home movies."

+=+

"Don't run. Don't make me shoot you. You were expensive. Yes, yes, that's it, come quietly."

"I'm … waiting."

"For what?"

"Family."

"Ah. You don't have one. I made you."

"Maybe … I could –"

"You were built to destroy. You can never belong."

Jim blinked fast to keep the tears back. He sniffed, and pulled the blankets more tightly around him.

+=+

"Okay, talk! I know you had something to do with this, now where's Lilo? Talk! I know you can."

"Claire?" said Mary. "You okay?"

Jim looked over. Claire's jaw was clenched, and her hands were tight on the blanket, and her eyes were huge and fixed on the screen, and she was shaking.

"Ah … maybe the little sib getting snatched by otherworldly forces wasn't the best movie choice," Enrique said. He reached out like he was about to go to Claire, then pulled back his hand and hunkered down where he was.

"LILO! She's a little girl this big, she has black hair and brown eyes, and she hangs around with that THING!"

"I'm. Fine," Claire insisted.

"You're sure?"

"We can just fast forward."

"I said I'm fine!"

"Okay …"

Mary and Darci each scooted their blanket and cushion piles closer to Claire's, bracketing her on either side. Jim tactfully retreated to the Nuñezes kitchen to microwave a few more bags of popcorn. Enrique went with him. They could still hear the TV.

"What? After all you put me through, you expect me to help you just like that? Just like that?!"

"Ih."

"Fine."

"Fine? You're doing what he says?"

"Ah, he is very persuasive."

"Is it normal to feel bad for her?" Enrique asked.

"I think so? It's an awkward situation for both of you." Jim selected the white cheddar flavour. "But it's not like there's an alternative. You're not a polymorph. And really, the only reason she's upset is because she found out."

The Nuñezes had the same microwave as the Lakes. Jim didn't find the popcorn setting especially useful for this brand of popcorn – it tended to burn a third of the kernels– so he used the timer instead.

"I never apologized to you for that, did I?" Jim asked.

"It wasn't all your fault."

"Still, I'm sorry for my part in getting you caught."

The Changelings got back to the living room in time to see the unfortunate tourist lose his ice cream for the third time.

+=+

"Does Stitch have to go in the ship?"

"Yes."

"Can Stitch say goodbye?"

"… Yes."

Like he always did during this scene, Jim cried. He let himself do it this time.

+=+

"Wait, how is Little Mermaid a cautionary tale?" asked Enrique during the credits. The camera panned over a photo of Stitch reading to a flock of ducklings. "For getting attached, I mean. I thought the moral of that one was to control yer temper and be careful who you made deals with?"

"Sure, the Disney version," said Jim. "They adapted it to make a more dramatic, less depressing story. And give the characters names. In the older version, the sea witch is actually a neutral character. The terms of the mermaid's transformation are that she's traded her tongue for legs, but walking on land hurts, and she'll become fully human if the prince marries her, but if he marries anybody else, she'll die."

"That doesn't sound neutral."

"Wait for it. The prince gets engaged to a human princess, so the mermaid's older sisters trade their hair to the sea witch for a magic knife and a loophole; if the little mermaid kills the prince before the wedding, she can turn back into a mermaid and survive."

"Kay, I see it now."

"Except she doesn't go through with the kill, so she dies, and because she wasn't really human, she doesn't have a proper soul, so her spirit's not allowed to go to Heaven."

"… Whoa."

"I know, right?"

"I mean," Mary commented, "not murdering somebody is kind of a low bar for moral decency. It's not as if the prince owed her anything just because she was attracted to him."

"No, no, whether the prince deserved to die or not is irrelevant," said Jim. "The point is that the mermaid had a chance to, objectively, trade one life for another, and because she was attached to the particular person she'd have to kill, she didn't prioritize her own survival, and therefore suffered."

"Wouldn't the guilt of murder have caused suffering anyway?" Toby pointed out.

"Not if she wasn't attached," Jim insisted. How were they not getting this? "If she could've just cut the throat of any random human, she'd've been fine. The moral of the story is that caring about people causes pain. That's what makes it depressing."

"Do you like any fairy tales?" asked Darci.

"Sure. Just not most of Anderson's work."

"What should we watch next?" said Claire hospitably. "If we're on a 'sister movies' theme, I've got Frozen."

"Isn't that one also based on an Anderson fairy tale?" said Mary.

"Not really," said Jim. "The Snow Queen was more 'inspiration' than 'source material'. Elsa never kidnaps anyone, and they left out the broken enchanted mirror. Plus it's fun to see all the different ways humans think trolls are like."

"We also have the Trolls movie," said Claire. "I haven't watched it yet. My dad got it for Mom's birthday because she used to collect the dolls."

"I haven't seen that one yet, either," Darci commented.

"Should we?" said Mary. "Any other votes?"

"I'm game for whatever," said Toby. "This one's a musical, right? Those are always fun."

Jim squirmed.

He hadn't watched this movie despite his curiosity, after an online clip of the opening had explained the premise. Getting eaten alive was his greatest fear. Did he want to watch a movie about trolls narrowly avoiding being eaten? Did he want to explain why he didn't want to watch it?

While he debated, the movie got put in.

"Once upon a time, in a happy forest, in the happiest tree, lived the happiest creatures the world has ever known: the trolls. They loved nothing more than to sing, and dance, and hug, and dance and hug and sing and dance and sing and hug –"

Enrique started laughing.

Oh, shit, Jim hadn't warned him.

"Uh, Enrique –"

"Ssh! This is ridiculous. I mean, the huggy bit's kind of like you, but the rest of it – ha!"

"But then one day, the trolls were discovered by – a Bergen!"

"The trolls are gonna –"

"Ji-im! Spoilers!" Toby hissed.

"They were the most miserable creatures in all the land."

Jim grabbed Enrique and covered his eyes. The smaller Changeling yelped and squirmed. Jim switched forms so his fingers wouldn't bleed from the clawing.

Enrique got his eyes uncovered just in time to see the Bergen flick a troll into its mouth.

The onscreen troll's exclamation of "Oh my god!" was drowned out by Enrique's much more lurid cursing.

"What the –?" The girls and Toby all turned to stare. Claire pointed at Enrique accusingly. "I knew that didn't mean 'I'm sorry'!"

"The hell kinda movie is this?! Why would you watch this?!" He twisted to look at Jim, who let go of him rather than risk yanking his scruff by accident. "You knew?!"

"I saw a bit of it on the internet when it first came out. That's why I froze up when Claire suggested it."

That … that was the wrong thing to say. Enrique rounded on Claire. A techno-rock cover of In The Hall Of The Mountain King boomed from the movie soundtrack.

"Why in FUCK'S NAME would you think we'd WANT to watch trolls get EATEN? Is this some kind of threat?"

"How the fuck would it be a threat?" Claire shot back, stealing some cushions from Mary to prop herself up taller without getting out of her blanket cocoon.

"Most Changelings –" Jim started to say.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I'VE ALMOST BEEN EATEN?" Enrique roared. "I DON'T! CAUSE IT'S A LOT!"

"We've all had close calls," Jim finished. "Nyarlagroths, Hellheetis, goblins if you catch them in the wrong mood, Gruesomes if you're already hurt, Stalklings, and it's a … popular threat from Gumm-Gumms."

"You forgot the sloorbeasts," said Enrique bitterly.

"Nobody's gotten lichen patches that bad." At least, they hadn't when Jim got out. "Have they?"

"Still counts."

"Uh, excuse me." Toby raised his hand. "I think I speak for us all when I say, what?"

"The Darklands are a hostile environment with predators and scavengers," explained Jim. "That's the other reason we slept in groups."

"Bigger targets, but we could have lookouts."

"Okay, that's its own kind of horrifying, but I was more reacting to the cannibalism?"

"Changelings don't count as real trolls," Enrique said sarcastically. "We're Impure."

He left out the part where they'd eaten their own dead. Jim didn't add it.

(It wasn't like they'd hunted each other for food. Sometimes a Changeling just died, somehow, in a way that didn't get them eaten by something else, and … well, food was scarce in the Darklands. They couldn't afford to be picky.

It also paid to keep watch over the sentry posts. Gunmar occasionally used the Decimaar Blade to post a sentry and then forgot to order them to rest and eat. Once they died, the average adult Gumm-Gumm was a meal for twenty Changelings, easily, if they could get to the body before the Gruesomes did.)

"Okay, we're switching to Frozen." Mary made the executive decision. "Wait," she said, while exchanging the disks. "If Changelings aren't trolls, how does Jim's adoption work?"

Because of course this was the perfect moment to tell Enrique about that, right in the middle of a squabble with his adopted sister.

"For one thing, most of Trollmarket still thinks I'm human." Jim switched back to human shape to illustrate the point.

"You got adopted?"

"AAARRRGGHH and Blinky thought I should have legal standing in Trollmarket outside of my job."

Enrique stared at him. Green diamond-shaped ears were pinned back. Buggy, slit-pupil eyes were wide and hurt.

"You get everything," he grumbled. "Two nicknames, and the goblins liked you, and you could always find food, and here you're the boss's favourite even when you're a traitor, and your human family still likes you, and now you get a troll family too? S'not fair."

"Hey, the goblins liked you, too." Jim was fully aware that wasn't much comfort compared to all the rest of it. "They gave you your nickname, remember?"

"They gave you one, too."

"Yeah, but you got yours first."

They probably weren't supposed to hear Darci when she muttered, "I feel like we're missing a lot of context."

"Shit," Claire muttered back. "Not Enrique told me a bit of the name part. They don't remember their names from before they were Changelings, and they don't get real names until they have Familiars, so they use nicknames instead. From each other or from goblins, he said."

"They don't get names?" Darci's voice went squeaky at the end of that.

"We're trying to come up with something other than 'Enrique' for him."

"You're trying," Enrique corrected. Darci squeaked again.

"Can we maybe circle back to the cannibalism thing?" said Toby. "That feels like the kind of trauma that should get unpacked at some point."

"I would rather leave it packed," said Jim.

"The way you blurted it out like that feels like you need to talk about it."

"Not all psychology is Freudian, Tobes."

"Do your parents still have baby name books from when they were picking Enrique's name?" Mary asked Claire. "Real Enrique, I mean."

"They didn't use one. He was named after our abuelo."

"Okay, so what about your other grandfather? What was his name?"

"Jose María." Defensively, "It's gender neutral in Spanish."

On the television screen, the movie menu finished another loop and started again.

"I tried spelling my name like it sounds, en are ee kay, but Claire said it spelled 'Nrek'. You get why I couldn't use that."

Jim laughed.

"What's funny?" asked Toby. "Is that an insult or something?"

"No, it's goblin, in English it means 'bottle'," Jim translated. "Or possibly 'container of food'." The only bottles he's seen them use held formula for the Familiars, and the word hadn't come up on the surface, so the distinction was unclear. "It's either a silly name or a really morbid one."

"Aaand we're back to the cannibalism."

"No we are not!"

"Na na na heyana, Hahiyaha naha …"

Either somebody had decided to start the movie, or the DVD had that feature where it automatically began playing if nothing was selected after a few loops of the menu.

The conversation went in circles a couple more times, then faded out.

+=+

"And who's the funky-looking donkey over there?"

"That's Sven."

"Uh-huh; and who's the reindeer?"

"… Sven."

"Oh, they're – ? Oh! Okay! Makes things easier for me."

"~Riot~," said Enrique.

"Huh?"

"My nickname. Before. It meant 'riot'."

What are you doing? Jim wanted to demand. Was Enrique just – just giving up on a real name?

"You can call me that for now. Till we work out a for-real one. Better than 'Not Enrique'."

Jim stuffed some burnt popcorn kernels into his mouth to keep from protesting. He couldn't undermine Enrique's – Riot's – chosen name, right in front of a bunch of humans, when he'd been arguing with them about how rude that was for weeks now.

"Oh. Okay." Claire half-smiled. "Riot."

Jim shut his eyes to hide the flaring glow.

+=+

Previous Chapter (Angor Rot gets treated much better, and more sensibly, than in canon, and is correspondingly less vengeful)

Table of Contents 

Next Chapter (Featuring either Otto or Gatto)

A quick thank you to Taycin on AO3 for providing some name-gender context when this chapter first went up.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Sarah Ellen Parsons

Sarah Ellen Parsons has 18 X-Files stories at Gossamer and 19 at AO3. If you want high quality fic with interesting characters, go read her stories. Some of my favorites of her fics are The Crouching Thing and My Constant Touchstone Who Makes Me A Whole Person (which are two very different stories!). Big thanks to Sarah Ellen for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

With today's binge-watching culture, I'm not at all surprised. You can watch a bunch of eps and then seek out fic that is where you are in the series.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I took away a writer's group Yes, Virginia, that is still together.  Mostly as friends, but whenever I write something, or someone else writes something, it's the first place we all run for machete beta. I have betad SO MANY novels.

We have a number of folks who are published writers since then and our time in X-Files fic brought us lifelong friendships IRL and made us all better at our craft. The majority of those folks were better writers than I am. And I make my living as a writer in my day-job.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I belonged to a couple of the largest lists and posted there and bitched about the show on usenet with everyone else.  We had our own Yahoo group for beta.  We all had crappy GeoCities websites that we programmed the HTML for ourselves and hooked through various fandom link circles to get traffic to our stories.  But the main method of distribution was the lists.

Fun fact, I found a free page counter thing that I used at work one time through fandom. So fandom pays off in skillz.

Even without social media, we managed to get our stories in front of readers who would enjoy them. Where there's a will, there's always someone ready to step up and find a way.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Again, I have lifelong friends IRL that I got solely from fanfiction. That's the best takeaway.

Fandom disappointed me because it, like everything else, is ruined by people's egos, backstabbing, and petty people who get in positions of power and then use those positions to punch down or dictate. I was young when I was writing X-Files and I still had hope that people would rise to their better natures, so I got involved in various futile efforts to try to make people behave the way I wanted them to behave, I guess. I did a lot of public bitching that didn't serve me or my friends well. I now put that effort into politics, where it does actual good.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

X-files was made for me. It combined science fiction, mystery, horror.  I love all of those genres. Plus there was Scully. No matter how sexist that writer's room was, Scully was awesome. But you kept seeing bad writing. Even in the heyday seasons, like Season 3, there were really terrible eps that made you want to fix things.

I'm a lifelong speculative fiction fan and a published feminist science fiction author. I actually was published before I fell down the fic hole. I got involved in fanfic due to getting my fantasy novel turned down from every major publisher for being "too dark". And I needed to get readers to see my stuff to prove to myself that I wasn't terrible at writing. I got a ton of feedback and it was like market research to see what people wanted to read.

My time in fanfiction made me 100% a better writer than I was.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I went to the X-Files Expo to see if I could make contact with someone from Harper Collins because the tie-in novels sucked so hard.  I got rejected with my pitch as I didn't have a literary agent.

Around that time, a pal who I watched X-Files with IRL was looking for a free X-files wallpaper for her work computer when she found the website where fans in Pennsylvania had fic archived. She read some and wrote to me - "you need to see this, and you can do better."  So I started reading and was.... I probably CAN do better. So I wrote The Batman Plot. And made two friends I'm still friends with with that one story.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Nonexistent.  I couldn't even watch the latest season and I saw only 2 of season one of whatever that was before I gave up. I have never watched the second movie.

X-files is my first fandom bad ex-husband. I loved it SO MUCH, but it betrayed me.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was deep into Harry Potter for a while, but I didn't end up publishing anything in it. All my stories were novel-length and I was writing so much for work, I never completed anything. I called Snape/Lily when Prisoner of Azkaban was published and got Jossed by Rowling in one of my big ideas. (This is bad fandom ex-husband 2. JKR will never get a dime of money from me again because of her hateful stance on transfolk. I have RL friends who are trans and NO.)

I wrote fic in Supernatural. It was the obvious next thing after X-Files. However, the misogyny and bringing in all the Angel/Devil Christofascist stuff lost me. The ep where they declared all other religions other than Christianity as invalid and killed a Hindu god made me stop watching for good. I know enough Christofascists IRL that I can't tolerate it in my fiction. (Bad fandom ex-husband 3)

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

This list is far too long to actually make.  But characters I spent time writing about include: Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Co. (I wrote three unpublished Star Trek novels before I found online fandom). King Arthur and Morgan Le Fay, Sherlock Holmes (I wrote a Sherlock Holmes play after seeing "Crucifer of Blood" and entered it in a national competition, where I got very nice comments back.), Mulder, Scully and Krycek, Rowling's Hermione and Snape (like him or not, its masterful characterization), Dean and Sam Winchester, John Winchester and Bobby Singer.  I wrote one comedy story starring Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  A couple of Roswell stories under a different name. Catwoman and Batman. I have some unpublished Avengers fanfic lying around as I'm an OG Marvel fan with a massive comic collection.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I was on a business trip a few years ago and FX had a marathon and I watched part of it when I was in my hotel room. Early seasons are comforting, but I don't go back there now.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic anymore. I read a tiny bit of Star Wars after the second movie because Rian Johnson had it right. Now I don't care. I love Mandalorian, but am content to watch.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Too many to count.  All of YV. Which reminds me, I need to go update our entry at Fanlore. I promised Punk I'd do it a while back.  I need to at least get everyone linked.  Right now it's only Punk and Sab.

But it was a ton of us.  Marasmus, Maria Nicole, Cofax, CazQ, M. Sebasky, Livia Balaban, Kelly Keil, Wen, Ropobop, Jess Mabe, JET, fialka, and a bunch of others that I can't remember their fic names any more, just their real names because I know them all IRL. I need to go back and look up their fic names and link them up there.

In addition to my little group of pals, I loved reading Mustang Sally and Rivka T, Rachel Anton - I keep trying to find her to encourage her to write romance if she's not doing it already, but no dice, Dasha K., Anjou, there were so many great ones, but their names have slipped my mind in the past 20 years.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I'm most known for Prone, and I'm proud of that story for all kinds of reasons, but I think my very best is The Crouching Thing.

I mostly didn't publish anything I didn't think was good and hadn't been machete betaed within an inch of its life, but I'm not sure much of the angsty romance stuff holds up as well. I think it worked when the show was still ON and we were all in that emotional headspace, but probably not now.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Funny you ask. I am currently reworking a plot idea I had for an X-Files fic into a contemporary M/M novel, which I will publish under a different pen-name. The plot is the idea I had for X-Files, the characters are very, very different other than one is uptight and the other more easy-going. But no more Mulder and Scully.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I have been making my living as a writer for 25 years. I write the word count equivalent of 5 Tolkein novels a year, just for my day-job.  I am turning back to original fiction, which is where I was before X-Files.  I'm working on the M/M thing, a high fantasy thing, a low fantasy historical thing and a bunch of M/F Regency romances as I get time and energy.  I publish Fantasy and SF under my real name. Romance has pen names as you don't want that getting back to your workplace, either.

SEP is fic only and here she will stay.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I have too many ideas to count.  I try to write them down when they come, so I won't forget. At least the outline of the idea. Often a scene. I've been like this my entire life. I started writing novels seriously at 15. I wrote a 500 plus page one about Morgan Le Fay during breaks in high school because "Mists of Avalon" pissed me off so bad as I'd read the original source material and that was a Wicca recruitment polemic.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Sarah Ellen was my great-grandma, Parsons was her grandma's last name.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

Half my friends ARE fic friends. Most of my friends know as does my brother, who thinks writing for free is dumb. This is universally agreed on by non-fic friends who know. My mother still doesn't know about the fic. Just the "real" writing.  I write under a pen name to keep it away from my job and my published work.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

My X-files stuff is up on Gossamer mostly. I'm trying to get the stories all moved to AO3 for all the genres. I'm working on this now.  SEP is really not a living thing anymore, but there was a time when she was more me than me.

If you want to find my "real" non-fic writing, write to me at se_parsons at yahoo dot com and I will point you at it.

And PLEASE someone, hunt down Rachel Anton and get her writing something we all can BUY.  Where are my old Krycek bitches at?  Do any of you know where she is? [Lilydale note: I’ve tried contacting Rachel Anton for this Old School X project but have not had luck. I would love to find her too!]

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

The community I loved has mostly moved on, but I think we left a legacy of solid work crafted out of our love for the show.  Find a living community you love for a show you love.  There are great people out there creating and get involved.  It will be worth it.

(Posted by Lilydale on December 15, 2020)

[firelord-frowny]

kinda re: that last post, 

I totally get that In This Day And Age, it’s difficult to believe that a bigot’s mind could be changed about anything at all, but it does happen! 

Case in point: kids from ~conservative~ families who enter college as annoying ass racist lil pissbaby wimps, and graduate as radical antifas lmao. 

I had a good pal in college that went through that transformation omg. One of the first conversations I ever had with her included a whiny lil tirade about how she ~hates reverse racism~ and ~black people think they’re entitled to everything~. A year later, she was often the first person to speak up in defense of a person of color any time somebody said some Racist Ass Shit. I remember her whining about Romney having lost to Obama. For the next election, she was volunteering for Bernie Sanders’ campaign. 

and not that this bit has anything at ALL to do with her character, because it doesn’t, but when i met her, she described herself as a straight, cis*, christian woman. She wore long skirts, and kept her hair super long. A couple years later, she’d shaved her head, come out as ace, and i don’t recall exactly how she described her gender experience, but i’m pretty sure she did express being something other than cis, and that she wasn’t picky about pronouns. And I think she maintained a belief in a god, but expressed that she wasn’t necessarily committed to practicing christianity in any special or public way. 

Obviouslyyyyy the fact that she turned out to be Not Straight and Not Cis Not Entirely Christian is not at all indicative of her having become a better person. Like. I’m not saying that she came to all these realizations as a result of no longer being bigoted. What I am saying is that being in an environment that taught her to open her mind a lil bit gave her the freedom and confidence to start to understand herself in a context other than the narrow one she’d been brought up with. 

And like, i am SO SURE that she wouldn’t have experienced all those changes of heart if she hadn’t suddenly been thrust into a social circle filled with black people and gay people and and people who spoke openly about ~progressive~ ideals, and almost more importantly, people who had FUN together. There was always so much laughter among everyone. Everyone was always excited for everyone else when someone had something Good happen in their life. Everyone was always saying something kind to someone else - gosh, you’re so pretty. wow, your recital was amazing. you’re so smart, thanks for helping me with my project. blah blah blah. 

She was having more fun with these people than she had with the sad, boring bigots she’d been closest with before, and I don’t think she would have changed her mind about things so rapidly and drastically if that hadn’t been the case.