Random Jordan's Blog, page 6

Why You Should Write Fan Fiction

My Case for Why You Should Write Fan Fiction

Across the internet, forums, and in plenty of news articles, I often see people trashing on fan fiction, and I don’t always mean it a blatant way. Some people may say Fan fiction is terrible, or shouldn’t be allowed. But many other people often trash Fan Fiction and they don’t realize it. They’ll say something like: ‘I just feel wrong using other people’s characters’. Or: ‘Oh, it was fan fiction of that book before it became this, no wonder it’s shit’.

Specifically we see a lot of this with 50 Shades of Grey, and even more so around Kindle Worlds, which is a new program that I find absolutely remarkable (if it wasn’t for the fact that they legally screw you over with it).

This is why instead of bashing on fan fiction, or the stuff that has come out of it. I want to talk about, why, as an author or writer, you should also be writing fan fiction. And I’m not talking about just stealing other people’s works, or words and using them as your own. There’s a major line between plagiarism and derivative works. And most people freak out about it being the same thing when something is still in its copyright period.

Everyone has different opinions around it. And while I’ve always strongly believed if you aren’t receiving some benefit from it (usually money) you are free to derive what you want (even if the original author asks that you don’t), not everyone does fall in this same line. Which is why if you are concerned you can always ask the author. But I will tell you, as long as you are respectful to the characters the author made, there isn’t an author alive who would not want you to write fan fiction using their characters. Imitation is truly a sincere form of flattery, possibly the only one. So when a fan fiction is done well, everyone can benefit from it.

As for why you should be writing it?

You Should Be a Fan and a Writer

If you aren’t a fan of another author’s work, why are you even a writer? The first and most important thing for any writer is that you read books. And that means reading other author’s books. If you can find yourself being a fan of at least one book in the entire world and the characters in that, you might have a bigger problem that includes all the joy being sucked out of you when you were a kid by a beautiful witch.

Being a fan of someone’s work is a good thing, especially for authors, because it gives you something to talk about besides your own work that still pertains to your world. It also gives you a goal and a way to analyze it. What about that writing or book did you like? Can you incorporate parts of that style into your writing?

Not to mention, you can’t be a geek without being a fan first. And especially in the cases of pop culture references for urban fantasy books, you are able to actually show your likes in your works by referencing them. And believe me, if you don’t think references can’t be powerful, you probably haven’t read The Dresden Files, or watched Castle. References provide a great way of nodding to the fans and the creators of shows and books you were a fan of.

Fan Fiction Teaches You To Plot

Have you ever been so bogged down with the research, or developing the characters, or a back story, that when it actually came to the plot of your story, you just kept falling short? Maybe you looked back over it and realized your character doesn’t do anything worth anything for five whole chapters! Well, that’s exactly what Fan Fiction teaches you to handle.

When it comes to fan fiction, you essentially drop yourself into the writing of a piece directly after the first sentence has been started. You have the characters, their back story, how they act, what they generally do, and most of the research was done for you. That means all you have to handle is creating a real plot! When all that other stuff is handled, it allows you to just learn to focus on what your plot can be. Focus on actually telling the story (or showing it), and that kind of experience will last with you for a long time, because the plot is one of the harder parts. After all, anyone can write a book, you have to prove why your story is worth reading.

Fan Fiction Teaches You To Stay True to a Character

With characters already made, and clearly defined rules and quirks of how that character acts and reacts, you can actually learn how to write that type of character quickly, and then another type, and another, and so on. If you think any character ever is actually original, they aren’t. They are archetypes. A general design of a certain character. They might have the occasional slight twist to them, like having a badass godfather type mob boss, but is also a ten-year old girl. But that is actually just a combination of two archetypes together.

Once you’ve learned how to do the base archetypes and how to combine some, you quickly learn how to not only create your own characters, but to stay true to how they act and what they do. And that’s all because you borrowed someone else’s character to learn how that archetype worked and let yourself get some practice on writing that type.

The Best Way to Learn is to Imitate Others

The single greatest way you will ever learn things, is by imitating others. And this follows perfectly with learning your own writer’s voice. Everyone has one, but often it takes time in learning to create one for yourself. And yes, you don’t find your writer’s voice, you create it. Much like how you don’t find yourself, you create yourself.

Your writer’s voice, whether you choose to write fan fiction or not, will be drawn from all the writers you have read previously. Little pieces of each of them will shine through, added with one or two random quirks from your personal speech patterns. And if that’s the case, why not seek out the best authors and learn to imitate and draw upon strengths in their writer’s voice when creating your own? Imitation isn’t just flattery, it’s an effective learning tool, even for writing.

Sometimes an Original Story is Hiding in You

Believe it or not, living in the Fan Fiction circles you become acquainted to the amount of authors who have actually started their writing careers as fan fiction authors. Most people know about how 50 Shades of Gray was Twilight fan fic that was different enough from the original story that changing the names allowed the story to be copyrighted as its own work. This isn’t unusual either. Fan Fiction writers do this all the time. They take a series or show or book, and add-on some new element to it, and by the time they finish the fan fiction they discover they’ve written something completely different.

It’s a bit like having guidelines in drawing, you erase the guidelines when you get far enough along with the drawing, but they helped you immensely at the beginning. Quite literally using someone else’s words to start your own, which is actually writing advice from the movie Finding Forrester.

Fan Fiction Teaches You COLLABORATION with writing

Above all else, if there is anything you will learn with Fan Fiction writing. It is collaboration.

No matter what you write, you never finish writing the story yourself. There must always be a reader for every writer, and the reader provides just as much input into a story they are reading as you did writing it. They provide the images, and the focus, and the meaning, while you provided the words to get them started with all that. It’s a bit like a writer hypnotizes the reader, and depending upon how subtly you have tried to manipulate your readers will determine how well the story connects with them.

The only way to learn those techniques though is through trial and error. Or more specifically, you have to write, have someone read it, and then get feedback. Quite literally a collaboration of your writing with other people’s reading. Fan fiction provides an area (especially with the internet) where you already have an audience to direct that writing to, and those people are more than willing to critique it and point out areas they didn’t notice when they read the original author’s stories, or when they completely thought everything you wrote was dead-on exactly how they thought those two characters acted in the original stories.

When it comes down to it. Fan Fiction is the breeding ground for the future authors of the world. And chances are, you probably started with fan fiction, without realizing it. Just because something is out of copyright does not mean it isn’t fan fiction. Because nothing is original, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be authentic.

To close I have a quote that is worth it for every writer to know. A quote that has ringed true with me and I’ve wrote about years ago, despite only knowing about it for about three weeks. Because the act of stealing is not what’s important. It’s what you do with what you’ve stolen that matters.

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.’”

- Jim Jarmusch

Rooted Fan Fiction – Grapevine

Another fan fiction, but this one comes from a book I read called Rooted. It’s free and I reviewed it, but it didn’t cover everything. However, instead of an analysis as to why there is romance in that novel just one not everyone sees, I figured it would be more fun to do a fan fiction. As with most of my fan fiction I try to write it as though it had actually been something that could have happened in the media itself. However with this one I can’t declare exactly where it had taken place in the story, other than I definitely know it was after the first book. However because some details are left hanging with the end of the first book I can’t say specifically when this is, since I do know that Rebecca and Chloe do end up going to school together again, but not how.

As normal I will state that this is a case where the characters, premise, and design are all drawn from Amy Good. I have no claim on copyright.

Anyway, enjoy. I like doing fan fic like this

Grapevine

“Have you heard?” Wendy asked as she took a seat at the lunch table across from us. The expression on her face looked like she was trying to lay an egg that was too large for her, and I wasn’t really sure how to take that.

What had me more concerned was Rebecca though. She was glaring at Wendy like they were both keeping a secret from me.

“What? She’s going to find out sooner or later.” Wendy explained with a shrug, when she saw the way Rebecca was looking at her.

“Yes.” Rebecca hissed, “but I wasn’t sure how to, like, bring it up.”

My friend turned to face me, and I swallowed my French fry, which must have stirred the butterflies because suddenly they were flapping around like there was a hurricane in my stomach.

“W—“ I choked on the first word, “What’s going on?”

“Um, well…” Rebecca seemed almost guilty of something as she watched me. Her hand reached over to pat mine on top of the table, but she stopped herself before we touched. Instead she pulled back and bit at a fingernail.

“Just tell her!” Wendy exclaimed and my friend shot a dirty expression back to her before lowering her head.

“Okay, okay.” She sighed and now I was even more concerned. What if Rebecca had to leave again? Did she really tell Wendy that before me? Or worse! Did I do something wrong? Did she hate me for not being able to save her father like I did her?

The butterflies were not settling.

“You know how there’s that whole rumor Lillian started about me?” Rebecca began, as her eyes appeared incredibly soft and wet when she surveyed what my response would be.

I slowly nodded and she let out a deep breath. “Okay, well… there’s some other rumors around the school. And you know I don’t care about them, and I know you don’t care about the ones about me. But, well, recently they haven’t just been about me.”

Rebecca set her hand back down on the table and glanced away from me, choosing to twirl a braid instead. I was still staring at her, but I was trying to register what she meant exactly?

“So, there’s rumors about you and me?” I asked.

“Mostly.”

I felt like this was leading into a conversation that was just going to confuse me more. “What do you mean, mostly?”

Wendy gave off an exasperated sigh and set her phone in front of Rebecca and me. I felt a little sick looking at the picture on it. It was all those dead trees. The ones I caused, to bring Rebecca back.

I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

Rebecca finally just laid her hand on mine and squeezed it, and I was glad for that. But neither of us were looking at each other; just the image on the phone.

“That was just the start of it. The guy on that Daimon site put up a bunch of images of that. And… there’s some shots of you and me at the hospital.” Rebecca explained like she thought it was the end of the world.

“The daimon guy said you were some kind of spirit and the dead trees were proof of that, and that you made me one. And that I’m some kind of like new, never-before existed spirit you created.”

She finally glanced to me, and she looked worried. I honestly didn’t know how to react. The butterflies weren’t helping either.

“Everyone at school kind of disregarded the spirit stuff, mostly. But someone at the school got it in their head to say that… well… we are um… dating because of the picture of me holding your hand sitting at your bedside.”

I swallowed, and felt like a fry got stuck in my throat. Suddenly I was a lot more aware of why Rebecca had been hesitant to grab my hand.

I heard Wendy scoff. “That’s not even all of it. Somebody actually wrote like legitimate fiction of you two.”

Wendy rummaged in her bag, and pulled out a sheet of paper. She slid it across the table and pointed at one spot in particular. It said:

From the diary of Rebecca Reither

I glanced to Rebecca, and she was staring at me with her face flushed bright red. Her hand pulled away from mine. “I swear I don’t own a diary, and I’ve written nothing like this. I swear. Do I really look like I’d write about my feelings all the time?”

I believed her. But I also wasn’t all that mad. Sure, it sucked that people just assumed something about us. But it could have been worse. If anything, I’d rather have to deal with people thinking I was dating my best friend than handle questions about what kind of spirit I am or what powers I had. I think.

“It’s actually pretty well written.” Wendy added. “There’s even a part where you two kiss.”

I sputtered, “K-kiss?”

“Yeah, a whole scene of it. Definitely must have been someone who likes writing.” Wendy continued, but I was watching Rebecca. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Did she still think I might not want to be her friend just because there were actually rumors of us now?

“Why do you have it though?” I asked, while reaching over to pat Rebecca’s hand with my own. She glanced up at me, surprised I think. I smiled at her, before giving Wendy some of my attention.

“Rebecca has one too. It looks like they were photocopied and stuffed in a bunch of lockers. You might have one if you didn’t check your locker since 1st period.”

Wendy then leaned over the table, closer to both of us and whispered. “Honestly, if this was how you two chose to come out, it wasn’t that bad of a plan.”

“You think?” I asked. How was it not a bad plan?

Rebecca amended my question. “You think we wrote this?”

Wendy leaned back in her seat and pulled her phone back to herself. “Oh come on. You don’t have to lie to me. I’ve seen you two. Half the time I feel like I’m a third wheel. If I had a boyfriend it’d feel like we were on double dates all the time.”

“Besides, you both are in the creative writing class. I read that vampire story you guys did; you could totally have done this one.” Wendy tapped a finger on the paper to emphasize it.

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you would think we did this. We aren’t even… Chloe doesn’t even… we didn’t write this.”

My friend huffed and Wendy and I looked between each other. Rebecca was really getting worked up about this. She did say she hated that rumor Lillian started of her. Maybe this just reminded her of more of that?

I wanted to comfort her, but I was afraid that might make things worse.

“Ray-ray, you really think Chloe doesn’t…?” Wendy began with a look toward Rebecca that said she thought my friend was an idiot. She then stood up and came around the table, yanking Rebecca from her seat and away from my hand to leave me alone with all three of our lunches.

I ate another French fry, but they weren’t calming the hurricane butterflies. If anything it was making things worse. So I settled for looking over the story someone wrote about me and my friend, instead of trying to glance around the corner of the door where Rebecca and Wendy went.

The story didn’t make things better either. It was intense, actually. I wish I could show that much passion to someone.

Luckily I felt something poke my shoulder and I swiveled around to see a mousey little girl with brown hair and hipster glasses. She looked like she could have been ten, which also meant she was a bit recognizable. I think her name was Tori.

She lowered her head in one of those traditional Japanese bows and squeaked, “I’m sorry!”

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but she went on, without looking up at me. “I didn’t mean to write that story. It was just an assignment for class, and I had just read that site that showed pictures of you and your friend and I had a story to write. I…”

She looked up, and there were actually tears running down her face. “I didn’t mean for it to get out! I don’t even know how it did. I really am sorry though!”

The girl jumped a bit and frantically glanced over to see Rebecca and Wendy coming back to the table. She bowed again and added, “I’m sorry,” while moving backwards away from the table and smashed herself right into the edge of another table.

I cringed at the sight, but she kept running, not even looking back to Rebecca or me again.

I blinked and turned back just in time to see the words on Rebecca’s red tee. It read: “I like Cats! I just can’t eat a whole one by myself”. I thought it was funny, but Wendy had been dying of laughter earlier in the day about it. I think there was something I had been missing, and she didn’t bother to explain. Rebecca wasn’t much help either, she just grinned about it.

Rebecca sat back down, close to me and smiled. I felt her hand curl to mine and just so the butterflies would shut up I glanced to Wendy. “Someone in creative writing class wrote it.”

“What? How do you know?” Wendy asked.

“I just heard it through the grapevine.” I shrugged. “She didn’t know how it got out though.”

Rebecca groaned. “Well one mystery solved I guess. Even if there are twenty more questions.”

“Oh, you mean like how the writer gave you two a relationship name, combining both of yours?” Wendy asked as she pointed to another spot in the story.

I dropped my next fry, “Chlobecca?”

Rebecca interrupted with her normal grin, “Chewbacca? That doesn’t make much sense, but hey I’m cool with it.”

Wendy rolled her eyes. “You would be.”

Then both of them were looking at me. I think I was supposed to say something?

Rebecca tried to pull her hand away but I wrapped mine around hers. She glanced down and then to me. “So, are you okay with what people might think about us?”

I turned in my seat, so I was mostly facing Rebecca and looked directly into her eyes. It gave me a shiver and I think she held her breath as I said, “What about us?”

“Are you…” My friend lost her grin and looked far too serious for her own good. I had to do something about that. “Are you okay with rumors of us dating?”

I smiled to her and leaned forward.

Rebecca’s eyes grew wide and all the hard edges of her face kind of melted into a peaceful and blissful kind of grin. But as I leaned in closer I twisted my neck and kissed Rebecca on the cheek before pulling away and standing up. My smile was beaming, but my heart was pumping like I had just run all night through the forest, from just that quick moment.

“Oh, that was cruel.” Wendy said before laughing.

My grin grew wider as I picked up my tray with my now free hands. “Like I care what other people think. I wouldn’t have wanted you back at school if I wasn’t willing to put up with what people might think.”

I turned to go toss my tray, but for once in my life I thought of something cool to say; something a non-terrible friend would say. So I glanced back at Rebecca. “The only person whose thoughts matter to me, are yours Rebecca.”

With that I turned and strode to the nearest rubbage bin to dump what remained of my fries. The whole way to the trash my face was burning with heat. It was like those darn butterflies had escaped my stomach on a voyage to my cheeks and brought acid with them.

I just hope Rebecca didn’t see how red my face must have been.

Book Review – Rooted

Disclaimer: As with all my reviews there is the possibility of spoilers, though I work my hardest to avoid them when I can. If you want to know more about my rating system, you’ll find it here.

Plenty to Root for (when it comes to Rooting) in Rooted

Despite having this book for at least a month, it took me a while to actually get around to it, and to more book reviews at large. And I will say up front Rooted actually surprised me in one particular area, but I’ll get to that. First I wanted to see if anyone caught my use of Australian slang in the phrase below the cover art for the book. Really I wanted to mention that I live-tweeted some of my initial thoughts and you can find them right here.

Anyway! On to the review:

I’ll be one of the first people to admit the majority of books and shows that focus on either vampires or werewolves kind of just turn me off for the most part. Usually it’s all about teenage heart-throbs and really terrible or out-dated morals being tossed on you. And while Rooted by Ami (YOU GET AN I, DEAL WITH IT) Good, does draw on a lot of the themes of high school with werewolves and such, it manages to actually not focus on romance really at all, which is a great thing to see, when it easily could have gone in that direction.

Instead we get a supernatural snoop story, with the main character. Chloe, caught up between were-creatures and the hunters killing them. Apt of young high school girls (that aren’t Veronica Mars), Chloe doesn’t exactly have super awesome detective skills, nor is she actually purposely trying to get in between predators and prey, at least in the beginning. Over time, Chloe becomes invested and then tries to pull away again only to get dragged in. And it eventually becomes obviously that she might actually be more than she thought she was.

The supernatural side of the story is a slow build up for the most part. You largely start with an average high school story, which is also why the beginning of the novel is the cloudiest in my memory already, because it just wasn’t all that significant compared to later on events. Maybe it was because there weren’t much for supernatural at the beginning, but I think it’s more because of how things get amped up as the story goes on.

You do get introduced to the majority of the characters you need to know though. Including all the people who are definitely being set up as potentials for Chloe to have a relationship with. And no one finds it more amusing than I do that in the one case it’s a werewolf story without blaring romance, I go and pick out a romance. But it’s not the one everyone expects, which is why I might write another post at some point on it, that is loaded heavily with spoilers, on why Chloe and Rebecca are quite literally soul mates or ahem spirit mates.

But this does bring me to the surprise I found with Rooted (Though it’s a bit sad I’m saying I was surprised by it). Going into it, I only knew of the author and a bit of her background and not really anything about the story, but it manages to actually express diversity in the cast and characters incredibly well. I do believe even the main character is actually Asian (not Japanese or Chinese, but not sure which of the others). And Rebecca, who becomes her best friend in it also kind of has a somewhat not clear non-white origin too.

And it doesn’t just stop at racial diversity either. Rebecca is at the very least bi, and actually has a rumor floating around the school that she’s a lesbian. One of the other character’s father is some type of trans, and the kid was still trying to get a grasp on it. And there’s little things like that sprinkled about in the book. Not to mention I am almost positively sure that Chloe herself is at least bisexual. Which is AWESOME. We hardly ever get bi gals as main characters who don’t always end up with a man. (Well more recently they’ve popped up, like with Malinda Lo’s Adaptation)

Beyond diversity though, we do see a bit of some Mean Girls element tossed in, with heavy use of Valley Girl slang, that does actually dilute the further down in the book you go. That element will probably turn some people away, but much in the same way Mean Girls worked to destroy slut shaming and ‘cat fights’, Rooted also manages to put the majority of all those traits onto the ‘bad guys’. Even though most of them weren’t guys, and pretty much everyone in the book did something bad. Still other than some gossip spots that made Rebecca and one of her friends seem a little vapid, it does a good job of exploring that area without all promoting those traits as a good thing.

Other than the story and characters, which were both well-defined (I just avoided discussing too much of the story), we also get to see some strong imagery throughout the book, usually in Chloe’s narrator voice and often a metaphor or simile that is amusing, like the butterflies in your stomach throwing up. This left some narrative moments that can make you smile, or even laugh, which having genuinely funny female main characters isn’t all that common either.

Overall, while drawing a lot of elements from shows like Teen Wolf and Mean Girls, or books like Twilight, it manages to place itself in a completely different category from those. Sure, eventually there might be a more strongly hinted romance in the multiple sequels that Amy will definitely be writing, but making the main character not focused on how badly she wants to have sex with someone actually made the story more powerful and especially unique in the YA genre that is largely plagued by that (particularly with female protagonists).

With that said, I did find a romance story heavily laid into the plot, but that’s because I’ve spent years reading many books and watching many movies that had to work all the romance in through subtle ways, like how Tara and Willow didn’t kiss on-screen till a whole Buffy season after they had been in a relationship, or how one of the greatest older lesbian movies of all time doesn’t have any girls kissing in it at all (Fried Green Tomatoes). Which means people who are prone to a straight romance focus might not have noticed the romance subplot in Rooted (or the best one anyway).

Anyone who’s had the same kind of ‘practice’ would be more likely to see it too. But based on many of the other reviews and videos I saw, no one even thought of Rebecca and Chloe and how AMAZING their romance is in this book. There was only one hitch, and it actually has to do with summing up the rest of the review.

After the climax of the book, everything is not solved, there are still a lot of mysteries, but some of those mysteries are thrown at us quickly. Including a secret around one of her teachers, and a book that teacher gave her, which included something that said they had hypnotized Rebecca to be Chloe’s friend. But I can excuse it since I do know hypnotism can only be done to make you do things you would consider anyway. So it was a way of pushing Rebecca to Chloe.

But seriously, the number of like uber cute lesbian moments in this book is just like… epic (and more than in MY book).

And with that, I just have my imps to conclude things. With diversity well established, breathing characters that had some interesting and tiny quirks, a story that flowed well and had an intense and homo-romantic climax, a unique way handling supernatural in a high school and a reluctant hero character, we end up with four imps in total. The fifth imp that handles details in the book, was a bit annoyed everything couldn’t be resolved, but eventually gave in as well because of the subtlety in the character interactions, like the amount of quirks Rebecca showed, and even some consistent speech patterns in only certain characters like Lillian.

This means we actually have all five imps enjoying this one. And if you want to enjoy it too, you can read it for free (and I’m all about promoting the free books). So why haven’t you yet?

All Five Imps

I Am Death

I am death.

That was all I could think as I stumbled out of the charred frame of what once was a house and into the bright and loud world around me. My body knew where to go, how to weave through the streets and cars around me, but everything was eerie and strange; Foreign. Or maybe it was just the realization of my brother’s death was sinking in. Actually I know it was the explosion. The impossible explosion that blew everything to floor level on the entire city block.

And yet I was still standing. Standing, moving and clinging to my brother’s jacket, but not really in control of my actions. I was just wandering with no real direction.

It was probably better that way.

If I had been in control of my body I would have marched straight to the nearest government building and set that ablaze too. Instead I was scrambling around like a bumbling idiot with three dead feds  in my charred house and most likely more already here or on the way.

Maybe it was that thought in my head, but suddenly my  body grew faster.

I had to get out of there.

My hands slammed against a car as I keeled against it and hurled what was left in my nervous, twittering stomach.

Oh god… I killed government officials. There was no where I could go.

I might as well already be dead from that explosion. Why didn’t it kill me too?!

“Miss Manhattan, please turn around slowly and put your hands up.” I cringed at the government man’s mention of my family name. Figures I wouldn’t make it a mile before they were already swarming around me.

I didn’t need this today. The last thing I wanted to see was my brother dying in front of me, or an entire city block reduced to charred remains. Why did my stupid brother come to me?

“Miss Manhattan… now.” The man barked again.

I swung around, not at all slow, and threw my hands up. The acrid scent of puke caused one of the men stepping forward with cuffs to falter back for a moment. It didn’t last though, and my head hung as the cold metal chaffed around my wrists.

It was over. They were going to chair me.

“Goodnight, Miss Manhattan.” The same man said again. I looked at him askew right before I felt the slam against the back of my skull. My vision tumbled and I fell through the darkness until I couldn’t even feel myself anymore.

**************

Pain and light flooded through me as I struggled awake, feeling the cuffs against my wrist and looking around at an all mirror room. My sight blurred from the intense glare and I pulled against the metal around my hands to see if I could slip out of it, break it; anything at all.

Nothing.

I wanted to cry. It didn’t help that my head was pounding, or that it was far too bright in this room, or that I was captured by the government after blowing up three of their operatives and a whole city block.

I was screwed.

And that was when the door opened.

A single man stepped in, his hair short and suit pressed, like the rest of them. He was just a face in the federal crowd. He slapped a folder as thick as an elephant’s neck on the table and glared at me. His eyes radiated an impossible blue as his lips parted to say, “Hello, Miss Manhattan. Do you have any idea why you are here?”

Oh sure, I was going to tell them I just killed a bunch of people, burned my brother’s body, and blew up my house before running from federal agents… Oh yeah, and I have no idea how I did any of it.

Instead I lifted my hands up to touch my forehead and rub my eyes. “Mister Suit, I’m not even sure where here is, maybe I’ll work on the why next week?”

He smiled and took a seat at the chair, flipping open the file and tossing a few pages from the impossible stack aside. “Your brother was Harry Manhattan, correct?”

I shook my head and wiped at my blue eye before glaring him over from between my fingers. A heavy breath left me, “Yes.”

“Did you know your brother was a fire elemental?”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“No, Miss Manhattan, if you will excuse me, your brother was the best damn fire elemental this agency had.” The man continued while leaning across our table and staring right into my eyes.

My hands fell away from my face. I was certainly sobering to life fast. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you are even talking about.”

“Yes, you are afraid, Miss Manhattan, but you shouldn’t be. The skill you showed was beyond anything we’ve seen before. In fact, that is what makes the idea of your brother being a fire elemental so very interesting, because you are clearly not.”

I glanced around the room. “Sir-”

“Kem.” He interrupted.

I groaned. “Kem, I have no damn idea what you are talking about.”

He stood and picked up a paper from the top of the stack, then tossed it across the table. I slapped it down and saw the picture of the inside of my house. It wasn’t even charred, most of the house was gone except the fragments of the wall near the floor. There were no bodies left, and everything was ash or black.

“Fire elementals don’t do that, Miss Manhattan. Which brings up the question… what are you?”

I shook my head. My mouth hanging open as I stared at the picture. Kem stayed silent, at least for a few moments. Then he leaned in close to my face.

“You don’t even know, do you?” He peeled away from me just as I looked up at him. “I’m not surprised. As far as we can discern, you irradiated your entire city block, vaporized your house and your neighbors and left the rest on fire. Our scientists have only seen this once before with some of the prototype weapons being produced. They are calling you walking death.”

“Flattering…” I cringed and laid my chained hands on the table. “… But none of this matters to me, Kem.”

“Miss-”

“Emmy, please.” I sighed.

“Very well, Emmy, do you know why your brother came to you? Or what he had been doing?”

I laid one hand across the other and clenched them while looking away. “My brother died hardly a few hours ago and I’m being questioned about what he did? Why would I know? He was doing something for the government and…”

The image of my brother with his hair falling out in clumps and his skin sickly looking was making my stomach boil. Because of these people my last moments of seeing my brother would be the damage they had done to him.

I had to fight back the tears. I wasn’t going to cry like this, not here.

“And he came to you because he was dying from the doses of radiation we used on him to amplify his abilities as an elemental.” Kem continued for me as I heard his squeaky shoes hit the tile of the room. “He was part of a project that had been going on for a while in trying to amplify a fire elemental’s abilities to the point of true weaponization on a massive scale. Entire cities consumed in fire was the goal.”

My body froze. I leaned back against my chair and lifted my cuffed hands to my brow. “And now you just found someone who can do better…”

“Not better, Emmy.” He explained as he stood next to me and lowered down to my eye level. “The best we’ve seen. Not a single fire elemental came close to the damage you caused without even trying. You don’t know it, but everyone on your block is dead. And the fire didn’t even touch many of their houses.”

“They…” My hand fell over my mouth. Oh god, I was going to hell. I… What have I done?

I pulled my hands away and set them on the table before swallowing. I didn’t care anymore that tears were pooling in my eyes to the point of making my vision blurry. “How many people did I kill?”

“Not counting your brother, eighteen people died, four children, Nine women, the rest men, including the men in your house.”

Nineteen people… I killed nineteen people by just being angry… and one of them was my already dying brother.

“Many more are sick, we believe at least ten more might die. But… we can offer you immunity if you work with us, Emmy.”

My tear-welled eyes shot up to glare at him. “And be free to kill more people?”

“Kill people in the name of the United States, Emmy. With your unique elemental talents, we could end the current war.”

The agent looked sparkling with excitement and brilliance, like I could make the whole world better by killing people. Like I was the only option; like death was the only option. It sickened me to the point of tasting acrid bile in the back of my throat. My brother would have been ecstatic to have the power to end a war in his hands, that was probably the whole reason he signed up for this project.

He was dedicated to it… me… not so much.

“No.” I stated.

“Then you forfeit your life anyway, Emmy.” Kem responded without his eyes wavering from me and a hard expression chiseled into his stone-like face.

I lowered my head and my body ended up crumpling with it against the table. My voice had become barely a whisper. “At least it will only be my life then.”

“If that is what you want, Emmy, then I’m afraid we will have to resort to different measures.” I felt cold iron press against the side of my head. I didn’t even move, just laughed through my tears.

“This hardly seems like a different measure.”

The barrel lowered down to my chin and pushed it up so I could see as the door to the metal room opened. My brother stepped through the doorway and pulled his hat from his head. I just stared at him.

“… What?” I didn’t understand. How… how could my brother be here? How… what was going on?

I popped up from my seat and swatted away the weapon, but it was locked back on. Just not to me. Kem aimed at my brother and a sound ripped through the air like a thousand baby cries compressed in a single second.

My eyes widened as I watched the red pour down my brother’s shirt. He dropped to his knees as I threw myself over the table and gripped onto his body. I pulled him against me while my tears weren’t holding back this time. I don’t think I could have held onto him any tighter.

That’s when I noticed my body start to glow. I didn’t look away from my brother, at least until he faded from my hands. My eyes shot around to find out where he had gone, but all I saw was Kem standing over me, before everything just faded till there was only me glowing in the dark.

***********************

My head snapped up and I fell back in the chair I had been placed in. The darkness was gone, my glow was gone, but my eyes were crying. I could feel the wet all over my face. I couldn’t stop crying until Kem leaned over me with a smile.

“Have you had enough, Emmy?” He said so calmly. I wanted to just jump up and throttle him.

“Enough?” I managed to squeak with a voice that felt like I hadn’t used it in years.

“I can keep doing this for a few days. The advantages of being a water elemental is letting you play out fabricated events like a dream. It’s a simple manipulation.”

“S…simple?” All that pain? My brother’s death? It was all fake?

“Not fake, Emmy. Simple, but not fake. It’s almost like a memory I can make you relive over and over. If you think killing your brother and seeing him die each once wasn’t enough, then I can continue many, many times more.” Kem explained and I was suddenly way more afraid of him than I had been minutes ago. What kind of sick person would do this?

“I’m not sick. It is simply my job, Emmy. I coerce people until they give me what I want.”

Shit. He was definitely reading my mind. Just what else could he do?

“A lot. And I’m sure you’d rather not find out, Emmy. All you have to do is agree to fight for us. You’ll sign a contract and you will save a lot of people’s lives.”

I mulled it over for a second.

“Well?”

My answer was a kick to his head, before I sprung up from my fallen chair and shot over the table for what felt like the second time. My hand was on the doorknob, but I couldn’t budge it. Kem’s laughing came from behind me.

“Effective. Your brother taught you a few tricks didn’t he?”

“More than a few.” I growled before turning around to face the water elemental. He was rubbing at a bleeding mark on his head, but otherwise standing fine.

“No matter. You can’t leave here anyway. Even if you kill me, they’ll just send someone else in until you agree. And I can’t guarantee that anyone else would be quite as accommodating as I have been.” Kem continued, while I measured up whether he was lying or not. Honestly I couldn’t tell. But I wouldn’t be surprised. Apparently the military thought ‘elementals’ were easily expendable.

“What if I told you I could give you something that your brother recorded. Would you then be interested in signing the contract?”

My eyes brightened. He had something like that?

No, no. It was just more lies. They’d say anything at this point if I could really cause that kind of death without trying.

I didn’t even want to think of what I could do if I tried.

“Bullshit.” I hissed.

“Oh? You want some proof?” He nodded. “Understandable. Jillian activate the tape.”

My eyes narrowed at Kem as silence held. Then there was some scratchiness. And every muscle in my face relaxed as I heard my brother’s voice. “Test? Test? This is lieutenant—“ there was some shuffling around. “Do I have to be so formal? It feels weird. This is supposed to be for. Oh, okay.”

“Cut it, Jillian.” Kem concluded, and the scratchiness, accompanied with most sound recordings I was used to, ended.

I lowered my head and wiped at my face. Could I really say they were messing with me now?

Just as Kem was opening his mouth I looked up at him and said, “Fine. But only to end this war. Then I’m done.”

I think I surprised Kem, because he didn’t say anything, just looked at me with a strange glance. I had to glimpse down at myself instead and that was when I realized my brother’s jacket wasn’t with me. “And give me back my brother’s jacket, and the rest of that recording. Or I’m not doing anything.”

Kem nodded slowly and finally found some words. “Of course, Emmy. But first we want a test of what you can do at full capacity.”

I tilted my head. “You want me to blow up a city to see if I can blow up a city?”

He laughed.

“Not quite. We need you to go through those doors and then set off an explosion with all you can on the house you’ll see.” Kem pointed to the same door he had come in from. The one I had been locked away from. So I stepped up to it and glanced back at him.

“Fine, but I’m not responsible for your death.”

He didn’t laugh this time, just stared at me before saying, “I doubt you’d feel that way, Emmy.”

Damn him. It wasn’t like he knew me. Have I mentioned how much I hate elementals? Yeah, and I barely just met them too.

He lowered his head in that weird nod thing that guys usually do with each other in passing, and the door swung open.

“You better play that recording.” I said through my gritted teeth before turning my head to look out the doorway. It was already desolate out there; a wasteland of wind, dust and sand everywhere, except for a house in the distance.

“Yes, the recording and the jacket. I understand.” He said, sounding exhausted almost.

I didn’t wait around to hear what else he’d lie to me about. Instead I took my steps toward the house, feeling the wind lash at me along the way. It really wasn’t even that far away, maybe a couple hundred meters.

As I closed in closer to the house though, I started grinding my teeth. Those jerks. They modeled the entire house after mine. It could have been a twin.

I shook my head and sighed while grabbing on the doorknob and pulling the door open. They didn’t say I had to go in the house, but honestly I think I’d be more comfortable inside. Plus I think they knew even less about my power than I did. I’m the center, so the house should be around me. I guess?

I took my steps down to the middle of the living room, as if I were taking my green mile march. In some ways I almost wish it was that. But if I survived the last explosion that wiped charred remains on my original house then chances were I’d survive this one. Right?

I took a deep breath. And then realized I had no idea how to start myself. Get mad? I was already pretty mad. Maybe it was something else, or I wasn’t mad enough.

I must have stood in the center of that room for five minutes before the speakers in the house came on. I could hear their feedback, but nothing was playing but static. And then the scratchiness of the recording came back and my brother was speaking again.

“Okay. So… Hey Sis. You can guess who this is. Your brother, Harry. Sorry, this is really awkward to do. I wasn’t sure how else to start this. I thought for a while about what to say, like maybe starting with some cheesy line from our past or something, but that’s not me. Okay, okay, it is totally me.”

I could hear him laughing in the tape and I shook my head and bit back a laugh myself. My idiot, cheesy brother.

“Look, I guess I shouldn’t ramble too much…” God, no. Please, please ramble. If there was any time in the world now that I would want to hear one of your stupid, way off topic stories it would be now, dammit.

“So, you should know I’ve known for a while that you were special. I mean, I figured you were at least a fire elemental like me, but it wasn’t until I was visiting you frequently around the times they were training me to try to level a field with fire, that I realized you were something completely different.”

My heart was sinking. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear this recording now; despite how much I just wanted to hear his voice. Could they just replay the beginning over and over again? The part that made me want to smile?

“You see, Sis. They weren’t dosing me with radiation to amplify my power. They wanted to, but the higher-ups weren’t clearing that kind of thing.” I could hear him sigh as he paused. “I know, I know. I told you they were, but that was only after I realized I was getting stronger. And no one could explain it. None of the other fire elementals going through the same training were having any noticeable increase. But I was.”

Why was he telling me this? I didn’t need to know. My hands tightened in to fists and I swallowed what I could. Tears were already streaming down my face, because my body knew what I didn’t want to admit yet.

“It took two more visits to see you before I came to realize you were the connection. Every time, after I visited you, my power was more out of control, but a lot stronger than the last time. At first, I thought maybe you were giving me something in the food or something like that, but I knew deep down what it was.”

Don’t say it. Don’t say it, you idiot.

“You were doing it. In fact, I should have realized it long ago. Remember the first times I ever showed you the fire I could create? They were sparks, hardly even a match worth of fire. There are still some fire elementals on the base that can only do that. I should have known that over the years it was because of you that I was able to work up to the level of exploding entire cars with fireballs.”

My tears were dripping down my chin and I licked at the trail one left. I wanted to wipe my face again, but my hands weren’t cooperating. Instead they were glowing again.

“It wasn’t until a medical check, when they discovered my body was starting to finally give up that there was confirmation it was definitely radiation poisoning. Funny, I last for years near you and as soon as I go away the effects really take hold. I was dying, but I knew now that you had a very special gift. Something better than a fire elemental, I’m not even sure what. A sun elemental?”

He laughed. I wasn’t quite in the mood to laugh along this time. My face felt like it was cracking and spilling out water, while my body was overheating. Why the hell did he record this? Why?

“Eventually, when I knew I didn’t have much time, I told my officers. Some of the scientists speculated you could have been something like a ‘light elemental’, and you just always give off some low levels of radiation, but that it could be heightened to toxic or power-altering levels when moments of stress or high emotion were caused… like every time I came home to see you and then had to leave again when you weren’t sure you’d ever see me again.”

I shook my head and tears scattered around me as the glow had spread up my arms. “Stop it. Stop talking. Please, Harry.”

I knew he couldn’t hear me. I just wish he did.

“You are probably wondering why I’m mentioning all this… Well, I know the only reason you are hearing this is because I’m dead and you are probably being forced into a position to where you have to use your ability. And well, you used to always say that knowledge was the real power.”

I laid my glowing hands over my ears, gripping my head as the light spread to my shoulders and worked along my chest.

“I’m sorry I’m dead. I know, it probably sounds weird for your own brother to try to comfort you about… well, your brother’s death. But I wanted you to know that it wasn’t your fault. I could have been treated, survived. But I refused. And you probably know why already.”

My fingers slipped through the strands of black hair around my ears and I screamed up at the speakers. “Because you are an ASS!”

I hated the sound of my screeching voice, but not as much as I hated my brother in that moment. How could he do this to me? How?

“I know, sis. I know you are probably listening to this recording now as you are attempting to show that you can explode to a degree the United States needs. And I know you will probably hate me for it. But I chose to die for my country. I chose to die, because I knew it would be the only way I could get you to do the right thing. The only way I could get you to release your power for this country. And I really am sorry.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear anymore. Just make it stop. Make it stop! This wasn’t my brother, this couldn’t be. It couldn’t.

But I knew it was too late. I knew it was my brother. And worst of all, I knew I could never forgive him for this, especially as the glowing light engulfed my waist and legs.

“I’m so sorry, Emmy. I do love you though. I love you enough to tell you, no matter what. Whether you do have the power to explode, or not. They can’t hold you down. They can’t contain you. You may not be a sun elemental, but you are a star, Emmy. A star that shines brighter than anyone I’ve ever known. And no matter what they say, no matter what you might do for them, you should know: You can make a difference. You can change the world, Emmy. And it starts with doing what needs to be done. So let your power go.”

The glow consumed my face and my hair. I couldn’t hold it back even if I wanted to anymore. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I gasped, and spread my hands to my side as I felt the energy coil inside my body. And just as my brother spoke one last time, all that energy shook free from me and spread out in every direction.

“Shine, Emmy. Shine like no one else can.”

My Open Letters – The Sixth

Dear ——-,

Caring. Care. I guess in a way it was expected that you didn’t care about me anymore. I do think you did at one point though since I did worry you a lot. But I guess over time that care turned into anger. I don’t know. I honestly wish I knew what made you so angry with me. And it’s not even like one of those situations where ‘if you don’t know I’m not telling you’ or anything like that. Cause I can actually think of and point to in previous letters about how many things you could be utterly pissed at me about. There’s a fair share of them, and I wonder if I do something more wrong each time I actually talk to you. Like I’m just adding another thing to the list of stuff you hate and despise me for.

It is probably weird then to say that despite that I still care about you. It’s more than just care, and it always will be. Regardless of whether we eventually never talk to or see each other again in all our lives. I won’t ever forget you, and I won’t ever stop caring about you, and occasionally wondering how your life is going, how much better off it probably is without me in it.

I can’t say you are totally unique with that though. I care about everyone, and I want to see everyone do well and be happy. I’ll always care about my other relationships, but you are special in one area. And that has to do with the weight I’m holding. Maybe that weight won’t last forever, it might be lessened by someone else coming along, but it’ll always be heavier than any of the other people in my life, from this time and going back, because you are the first person I legitimately fell in love with. Like 100%, there was no doubt for me, and it was obvious to me from really even before the first time we kissed.

I know, that doesn’t mean much. Because you didn’t feel the same way. In some way I’m surprised you stayed around as long as you did. Maybe it was because you were enjoying yourself at the time. I’d like to think that’s why. Kind of like how when you are doing something really boring you constantly look at the clock and are very aware of the time, but something fun just kind of shoots past in time before you realize it. I think that might of happened. And then when things stopped being fun for you, you looked at the clock, and never stopped looking at it.

I really wish I could say I’m sorry for falling in love with you. But I’m not. I am sorry for the stress I put you through, and that I couldn’t be a person you could love. I wonder if that’s some of the reason you are mad at me. Here I was, giving you what love I could muster, but the whole time not giving you a person you could love in return.

I don’t know.

I’ve gone round in circles about this. Why are you mad? Why do you ignore me? Why do you hate me? The problem isn’t that I can’t come up with an answer. It’s that there are a hundred different answers and none of them feel right, none of them feel like they cover it all. Maybe it’s all of them. Maybe I’m completely off and it’s none of those. I just wish I knew. It’s like one of those fates worst than death for me. Out of all the things you have said to me, like not loving me, or not caring about me anymore. The worst of all of them was definitely saying you didn’t know when I asked why you are so angry with me.

I can understand not knowing why. I really can. But understanding your side and reconciling my side doesn’t always match. I can’t ever let you go until I know why you are mad at me. I literally, mentally cannot let you go. I’ll always keep looking back at our moments, wondering what I did where. Whether it was a number of things, or just one. And it’s worse because it’s not like I can just demand you give me an answer to that, especially when you aren’t sure. Which means, I have to make my answer, and when I’m left to my own devices… it’s always bad.

Your answer becomes everything I did wrong, and even things I did right, and things that aren’t clear whether they are right or wrong. Maybe it was the time I was a cunt. Maybe it was when I teased you. Maybe it was when I said I love you. Maybe it was being so emotionally fragile, maybe it was my fluid gender, maybe it was… the same reason I’m saying all this now. Because I have to analyze everything. Because I have to look at the negative, and not always mention the positive.

There’s a lot of things I should be thankful for with you. And instead of saying sorry, I should have been saying thank you. There are so many things I should have said thank you for. All the rides, the weekends, the walks, to see you happy, your reactions and facial expressions, your lips and kisses, your understanding, sharing your past, sharing your life with me, and especially all of our simple moments.

If there was definitely anything I would redo, it would be to say thank you more. I said love you enough, and sorry far too much, while thank you sat on the side lines most of the time.

So thank you. You have no idea how much the things you did for me has helped or changed me for the better. And you probably never will. But thank you.

Signed,

The Imp

P. S. Terra says Hi.

My Open Letters – The Fifth

Dear ——-,

Why is it that we don’t talk? It’s not like it’s all just me or all just you that is causing this. We do still talk about the turtle in common, but maybe once a month, and maybe for a few sentences. Otherwise, nothing.

Are we afraid? There’s a lot of things to be afraid of. Maybe you fear that I’d think you want to get back together. Maybe I’m afraid that I really have nothing meaningful to offer you in conversation. I’m not sure. It could be a combination of things, but I definitely think fear is involved at least.

And it’s not like the kind of fears of things like spiders. Concrete fears of physical and existing things is actually way easier to handle than the more abstract ones. That’s why courage is such a powerful trait to have. To overcome those every day fears and anxieties that most people don’t really think of as fear. We might call it avoidance, or hate, or any number of things and sometimes we might even say we are afraid but we don’t really register that it means we need to overcome that fear.

I guess mostly I’m rambling though. I’m not really sure why we aren’t talking. I think the last straw though was when you were talking about your new partner. I didn’t actually mind you talking about him, it was part of your new life. And that was actually the problem I had. You were moving forward with your life, completely leaving me behind, forging new memories, and I was continually dragging you back into the past, just by you looking at me, dealing with me. I hated that you could just move on so quickly, and eventually even just forget me.

That’s why I’m not sure if I should even apply for this new job. It’s weird. It’s the job I wanted, in the right place, and I’m a good fit for it. But it also means it’s a job that requires interaction between us. That means it’s a job that moves me forward with my life, and at the same time pushing me right back into your face. A professional setting, but I’ve already seen how you handle dealing with me professionally and I don’t think I can put up with that.

Worse yet, I fear you would go the route of just completely ignoring me except when you absolutely have to deal with me directly. Would collaboration between teams be stunted because you won’t answer my message? You’ve done it before to me, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened again. Then again, it’s not like I’d even get this job. Despite having the highest seniority on the team, ironically my failing is my perceived gender. The bosses are interested in putting a woman in the leadership role and like two writers already for it neither of which is me.

It just seems like there’s a lot of things stacked against me for getting this job. But I think it’s worse that I just don’t know how I’d deal with either of those writers taking the job. I trained both of them. ME. And then they are going to be telling me how to do my job?

It’s a terrible thing to think, but I figure you’d feel the same way in my situation. I’m pretty sure you did feel that way somewhat, since you had been in my situation a while back. All the other people going for the job came after you, though I’m not sure if you trained any of them. I wonder if that’s what had you so angry, or primed for anger before I added to the furnace?

I guess I should apologize for that, but you’ve gotten enough of them from me. Probably too many. And we both know it doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t change anything with us. With how our life is going. So instead, I’ll give you the courtesy at least, to ask how you would feel if I took the new job. I know, your feelings shouldn’t affect what I do to make my life better, but they do. A lot of people’s feelings do. That’s why I avoid people. And I don’t want to see you hate me even more because I forced us to work together.

Anyway, hope you are having fun. I know you are. You always do. Or try to. We both know that’s why you put up with me as long as you did.

Signed,

The Imp

P. S. Terra says hi.

My Open Letters – The Fourth

Dear ——-,

The chalk monster came to my memories again today. That day was really the first time we actually interacted. And I guess it makes sense that I was a horrible person right from the beginning. I kept laughing at you because you had all these chalk marks on your butt. But really I was just super nervous. My mind tends to craft and imagine really ridiculous and funny things when I’m nervous and I kept thinking of this TV show called Chalk Zone, which led to the Chalk monster, and then I couldn’t stop laughing. It really was pretty terrible, and I’m pretty sure I made you all self-conscious that day.

But looking over our first interaction kind of made me look at the first times I’ve ever really interacted with people in my life that I eventually came to know better. Most of them are a bit blurred in my memory. The one person I can really even call my best friend doesn’t even have such a vivid first meeting as the one I had with you. Although when I say first meeting, we had seen each other plenty before, but I think the day of the chalk monster was really the first time we actually noticed each other, which is what I consider the first meetings.

The more I look at our moments, the more I don’t even understand how you put up with me in the first place. I demanded a lot of you, and I can see why you thought our relationship had become pretty unbalanced. Really it was unbalanced from the beginning. You kept doing everything for me, and maybe once in a while I was doing things for you. It’s strange the way that works, since I was the one that invested more emotionally.

At some point, I think you honestly just kept me around for the sex, and cuddling. I wonder if I ever really even broke through emotionally to you. There are a few instances I feel like I might have, but that could have just been all the pleasant feelings from initial crushes. But this does remind me of something else. You asked me at one point why I had been crying before you even broke things with me. And I can’t really remember my answer, but I know it was something stupid, like I just knew it was coming or something. But that was because at the time, I really didn’t know why. I just knew something was wrong.

I know why now though. Everything seemed to change when we took our trip. And by our trip I mean you pretty much paid for the travel expenses, found a place for us to crash, and I just spent money and bugged you the entire time. (That wasn’t all it was, I liked the hike and I think we had fun with that?). But during the trip, we stopped in a shop, and I picked out a rainbow ring that I still wear even today, but while I was deciding I was definitely trying to convince you to get a ring with me, and I think at one point I even pushed these really dorky heart rings that said something ridiculous like ‘True Love’ and something else after that.

The pushiness I showed though, and how you just didn’t seem like you wanted to do any rings didn’t really hit me consciously at the time, but I definitely felt it when we got back. It’s why I just had this dreading feeling that things had somehow become different after that trip. I never minded when you didn’t want to do cheesy stuff before, but you liked the romantic things, like picnics, and matching rings are definitely a romantic thing, but I don’t think I realized exactly the kind of weight a ring brought emotionally too. Getting matching rings too early can really be equivalent to saying I love you too early. And I think maybe it might have finally been the last straw to scare you off. Among a collection of other things I had done, and needs I wasn’t meeting for you with a relationship.

I don’t know. It’s only a thought, that makes a lot of sense now as to why I had been crying, and dreading talking to you after that trip. I know I kept wanting to give you your space, even though a few times I gave in. Like I really should have not gone home with you when you got drunk at the Irish bar. And I think you resented that in the morning, having to deal with me.

Don’t you just love how you can pick out all the horrible mistakes you made, after you made them? I know I wasn’t just a pile of mistakes all the time, I’m sure I had my moments that you liked about me, or that I did something fun once in a while. I just weigh the problems and negative points in me and our moments more than anything else, because I may have had some good qualities, but wadding through so many bad things for a few gems in the dark just doesn’t seem… worth it in the end.

But considering you say you’re a terrible person too, maybe you thought the same thing. People usually say you are blind to your own faults, but I think most people are blind to other people’s faults more than their own. Or that you may be blind to the most terrible parts of you, but recognize others.

Who knows?

I just know, for a while I think you put more stress on the positive parts of me, but eventually we all stress the negative. And maybe that’s the people who stay together, they stress the negative eventually, but the positive still outweighs or at least matches the negative?

It’s just a theory.

Signed,

The Imp

P. S. Terra says Hi

Do You Know Your Gender and Sex?

I’m going to discuss a topic that many people have gone back and forward about. But it is currently how I have come to understand its concept. Some of the theories and ideas I’m going to discuss, are my own, and some are drawn from scientific research. Unfortunately I can’t always draw properly from scientific research due to many studies being swayed based on the way you take your scientific sample when it comes to social science. I will link to what sources and information I can along the way so you can always gather more information yourself, but this is meant to be a quick and basic understanding and look at Gender, Sex, and Orientations. I heed everyone to read this (and this), and take it to heart, because it is meant to get you to think.

Gender and Sex and Orientations

This topic can often be frustrating for a lot of people, because I’m about to break down your understanding of what you’ve likely originally assumed about gender and sex. It’s not anyone’s fault, it’s merely a psychological effect brought on by societal weights, and your own understanding of what certain words mean. Unfortunately there is not always language around these concepts which is why I did have to create some of my own.

First. Every single person has a particular connotation connected to what they consider is a woman and what they consider is a man. If you live in places like India you might even have a connotation of what Hijra is. There are countless more types, depending on where you grew up and what you’ve exposed yourself to. Either way, you do have some idea of what your particular society has deemed a man and a woman. You may have even heard yourself say ‘Real men do…’ or ‘Only women do that’. It is the same idea.

It is crucial that you understand the connotation before being able to move anywhere else, because many of the words I’m going to discuss might not have a connotation for you. In fact, some of them don’t even have legit definitions. And I want you to be able to create a proper connotation on some of these words. So let’s start with the basics.

Gender: The Mental and Social aspects of a portion of your identity or who you are.

Sex: The physical aspects that make up a portion of what you are.

Orientation: A structure designed to assist in determining the main types of meaningful interactions you have with other people.

That is the very basic I could get with all three of those without going into further details that require breaking them down further. As you can imagine by simply looking at these definition, they could seem quite vast, and they are each only touching on a small fraction of the whole of what and who you are, socially, emotionally, physically, and mentally. To go into further detail you can look at my cruddy figure above while I explain them.

Gender Identity: This is your internal understanding of what category of gender you fall under the best. Worldwide there are over 20 different types of ‘accepted’ genders, including man, woman, third, hijra, x, and many others people make on their own. In essence, this is what gender you currently self-identify as, and does have the potential to change over time based on whether you have a fluid gender or a static one. Self-identity being the key here, as only you have control over determining this identity and no one else can tell you your gender identity. This can often determine the pronouns you use for yourself.

Social Gender: This is the external understanding of what category of gender you fall under the best, based on outside and sometimes physical factors and the way those physical factors correlate to the types of known gender in your society. Essentially this is the gender that everyone else assigns you. It has just as many categories as Gender Identity, but the distinction is that other people you socialize with determine what your social gender is. Again this one can change, but that change is based on manipulating your physical or expressive cues that other people would see. This often determines the pronouns other people use for you.

Gender Expression: This is your outward expressions and cues, meant to convey either parts of your gender identity, social gender, or your personality in relation to what your genders are. The level of expression is varied in the same way as the types of gender, and can also change from minute to minute. Often times, gender expression is used to determine a person’s sexual orientation, however it does not always denote a correct sexual orientation, since it is only meant to represent gender. E.G. Not all socially gendered men with a flamboyant gender expression have a gay sexual orientation.

Genetic Sex: This is the genetic code of your body, based on your DNA and genes, which are often set directly from the time of your conception. Most people are under the belief that there are two genetic sexes: XX and XY. However there are a number of them including XXY, XYY, XXYY, and many more. Your genetic sex is more likely to determine certain physical, hormonal, and birth sex conditions on your body, but it is not always the case. E. G. Someone can be born with XX genetic sex, but have a birth sex of ‘Male’.

Birth Sex: This is most often based upon the genitalia you possess when you are first-born. The two most common systems of genitalia are penis/testes, and vagina/ovaries. However there are a number of people born with ‘undetermined’ genitalia, which has resulted in questionable medical practices meant to make the genitalia look like one of the two common types, done on children just born. There is also sex reassignment surgery or sex affirmation surgery which is meant to change one set of genitalia into another set. E. G. Molding a penis into a vaginal canal and removing the testes (the penis is not removed).

Hormonal Sex: This is based upon the hormones circulating through your body thanks to your endocrine system. Most of the effects are not triggered until puberty starts to occur, but also trigger at other stages of life. But some subtle manipulation is started at a young age to mold your skeletal structure, such as your facial bones. Your genetics, internal body clock, and food consumption often determine the levels of hormones present in your body. Your birth sex can also have an effect on hormonal sex, if you have working endocrine glands in your genital region. The result of these hormones are secondary sexual characteristics, which are not always physical characteristics, and can include: breast growth, body hair thickening, emotion masking, sex drive increase or decrease, and much more.

Sexual Orientation: This is based upon the people you are sexually stimulated by. There are a number of various sexual orientations including homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, asexual, pedosexual, pansexual, and many more. Sexual Orientation is unique in that it actually has two systems for it. The first is the orientation, and the second is how fluid or static that orientation is. Someone who is static in orientation can’t ever see themselves as anything else but that orientation, someone who is fluid is more willing and open to change from one orientation to the other. Often if you are fluid in gender identity you are fluid in sexual orientation and vice-versa, but this is not always the case.

It is also quite unique in that your sexual orientation can be dependent upon your own birth sex and your partner’s birth sex, or upon your gender identity and your partner’s gender identity. This means one person’s sexual orientation identity could be completely different in their mind from another person despite both people having the same sexual orientation. E.G. One lesbian may identify as such based on their own birth sex (female) and their partner’s birth sex (female). While another lesbian may identify as such based on their gender identity (some type of female), and their partner’s gender identity (some type of female). It all comes down to personal connotation of what their sexual orientation means to them.

Romantic Orientation: This is based upon the people you are willing to create a romantic relationship with, for more than just sexual stimulation. Sometimes, but not all the time, your sexual orientation and romantic orientation will match. For when they don’t, it is possible for you to have multiple sexual orientations or romantic orientations, but is not always the case. (E.G. You have a romantic orientation of Pansexual, but a sexual orientation of homosexual with women, and asexual with men). These are by large the people you could see yourself with as a life partner or soul-mate (I.E. the people you would date, and not just have sex with). If you have ever heard someone say they are bisexual but lean toward women, it likely means they have a romantic orientation toward women, but sexual orientation with women and men.

Sexual Expression: This is based upon the sexual acts in which you are most stimulated by and interested in. No one sexual expression is exclusive to a specific sexual orientation. E.G. You do not have to be a homosexual male to have a sexual expression with anal sex. Sexual expression can also be known at times as Kinks, especially in BDSM communities. Much like gender expression, your sexual expression is less about being an actual identity and more about expressing your sexual identity through sexual acts.

Each one of these categories or sections can largely be separate from each other. Although some do have correlations with each other, that is not always the case. This means you can have instances where one person might have a female gender identity (feels themselves as female), a male social gender (others see them as male), a gender expression that is largely androgynous (possibly a mix of masculine and feminine expressions), a genetic sex of XX, a birth sex with a penis and ovaries, a sexual orientation that is heterosexual based on their gender identity and their partners, but a romantic orientation that is pansexual.

As you can imagine this already seems quite complicated and we’ve only discussed the gender, sex and orientation areas of a person’s identity. On top of that, each one of these categories are still largely generalizing. This isn’t necessarily the end all of what gender and sex it, it is just meant to show that there are in fact many facets of what gender and sex can mean and that each one of us has one of these markers regardless of who we are.

For the final note, I think it helps to discuss the spectrum in which most people seem to base their decisions on explaining the categories of these. For the most part a spectrum with female on one end, male on the other end, and androgyny in the middle can cover the majority of people.

       |——————————————————————————–|——————————————————————————–|

Female/Feminine                                     Androgyny/None                                   Male/Masculine

By plotting yourself on the line for each of the categories (except the orientations), you could be leaned toward androgyny but on the feminine side, or vice versa. It allows a more in-depth look, but still doesn’t provide a whole picture, since there are far more identities than just the ones that could be expressed on this single line.

Sexual Orientation has a similar line that is largely known as the Kinsey Scale. While again this line does represent a greater number than just homosexual or heterosexual, it still lacks in many areas of sexual orientation that do exist (such as asexual, or those that do not draw upon the binary gender system like Pansexual), And specifically has been stated to not be a true explanation of sexual identity. These scales are merely to assist people in helping them find the kind of language they can use to discuss themselves and what they know about their identity.

Kinsey also does not discuss the fluidity and static possibility of sexual orientation, firmly choosing to believe that everyone is fluid with sexuality. However, in using this scale. Those who do exhibit a 0 or 6 on the Kinsey Scale are more likely to have a Static sexual orientation (that will never change over the course of their life), while those that exhibit a 1-5 on the scale are more likely to have a fluid sexual orientation.

Still these scales are just meant to assist you. So I urge everyone to look over them, and try plotting what they know about themselves with each of these categories, using these scales (or not using them). Feel free to add to the scales if you have more you could include, or make your own spot if your type isn’t expressed in the current system. As I said, the above nine categories are merely my choices. Some of them are known and widely used, like sexual orientation, others I have literally made up like Sexual Expression, to explain an area that has largely not been discussed when dealing with sex, gender, and sexual identities.

I hope you learned something today

- The Imp

My Open Letters – The Third

Dear ——-,

I’m more comfortable with just being who I wanted to be. I’m not afraid to wear heels, or skirts, even to work. I thought I’d see a bigger backlash, but I’m glad for what I got. Really, I’m incredibly lucky and have a far easier life than many other people I know that have dealt with the same identity problems I’ve been dealing with.

I know, it’s kind of a touchy subject between us. I usually avoided talking about it because I always got the notion that either you just didn’t care about that aspect of me, or you weren’t comfortable with how you felt about trying to handle it.

I know, screwing with gender screws with a lot of people. I do remember having a conversation about it though at some point. The main question I remember asking you was about how you would feel with being taken as being in what much of society would call a lesbian relationship, since you’ve had those very words thrown at you before with you and one of your friends. I wanted to kiss you with your response, and with so many other responses you gave around this whole situation.

You were amazing when it came to gender and sexuality. Respectful, honest, and open. And maybe, looking back at it, it was really me that found it to be a touchy subject. You accepted me better than many people in some of the LGBT communities did. And that has a big impact for me.

It showed me you have a lot of love, and somewhere near the end of our moments I remember you even said specifically that maybe you were part gay because of being in a relationship with me. And that phrase made me so happy, and yet makes me feel so terrible now. Here you were, accepting all my craziness and following along with me without tacking on labels, and yet I couldn’t extend the same courtesy to you. I couldn’t give you your space to let you figure out things as you needed and wanted to. Instead I kept shoving books and ideas, and stories onto you. And I wonder how much of that might have made things worse. Forcing you into things you weren’t ready to handle, when you hadn’t forced me into things I wasn’t ready to handle.

Really, the more I look back. The more I see so many of our moments that I was disrespectful, wrong, stupid, and in some cases downright mean. I remember a few times where I totally brought you down when it was your moment to shine. But there are two moments in particular that stand out.

The first interview you had with your job when we were taking our regular walks. I did and said everything I could think of to try to make you not quite so nervous about the interview, and you thanked me for it and seemed genuinely glad and I think I even remember you saying that I was able to handle your pre-interview freak out well. I can’t even really remember the specifics of what I’d done, but I know it didn’t entail any of what I did the second time you had an interview with your job and we were no longer taking our regular walks.

The second time I remember I just kept saying you definitely had the job. I kept saying that, I know because it got to the point that it pissed you off. But mostly I kept saying it because it was different. You didn’t bother saying to me you were nervous, and I guessed you were, but since you didn’t say it I wasn’t sure if that meant you even wanted me to help settle your nerves, or if you even had any nerves going that time. It didn’t help that we had a conversation recently about you needing your space, especially at work, and I didn’t know what to do in that situation. I’m just sure I made things worse.

Especially afterwards, when I gloated about being right with you getting the job. I was horrible that day, I think I even said I was at some point. I’m not even sure how I made you feel that day because I never got the chance to really communicate with you about it. But it was definitely one of those moments where my complex or even just my know-it-all-ness kind of just helped put a further screw between us. We both already knew I was a terrible person, but I get the feeling I made you feel a little like shit and like I was trying to take your moment away. I wasn’t, but I really don’t know what I was trying to do. It just kind of all came out, like vomit, before I could think about what i was doing or why I was doing it (or get to a toilet).

But if that’s my natural state, what I just do without thinking about it. I’m way worse than I thought. To be that horrible to someone I’m supposed to care about and love? That’s something I only see in shows, or fiction. It’s like combining every possible negative person or persona you could think of and rolling it all into one. Psychology actually has a theory for it. A theory that actually touches on everyone, but I can definitely see to be true in some of my actions.

When a person is given a choice. They make the drama choice. That is, the choice that is going to cause the most drama in their life, or let them be the most dramatic in their life. I could have gone for silence that day, I could have just said ‘good luck and do your best because you deserve it’, or hell I could have even asked if you were feeling nervous about the interview and if you wanted to talk. And you know what I did? I choose to keep telling you all day long that you had this job, and I think I even told you reasons why you were going to get it. I chose the most annoying option that would almost guarantee a dramatic reaction. Or at least guarantee drama to occur between us.

And this isn’t the only time I’ve made that choice.

It’s thinking of things like these that make me realize exactly why you ignore me. Exactly why we don’t talk. I’m not just a terrible person. I’m exactly the kind of person that every advice columnist would say to get far away from. You made a choice to be happy, and when you choose to be happy, you cut off the people who make you miserable, or tear you down. I can’t blame you for cutting off me. I really can’t.

I’d have done the same.

Signed,

The Imp

P. S. Terra says Hi

My Open Letters – The Second

Dear ——,

Some days, I feel like the worst person in the world. Maybe that’s why being an imp fits so well. I know I’m terrible, many people say it to me, and yet I keep on being an imp.

I know, looking back, there were a few times I said to you that my identity was always a hard thing to grasp. And then one day you said I was an imp and it just kind of clicked. There was no doubt in my mind, from the time I met you, that you would end up showing me who I was. Or at least helping me mold the major part of who I am. I know, because I wrote a piece back when I was first talking to you. That got a lot about you wrong, but everything about you that pertained to me was accurate. I said you helped me find myself, or create myself, even though at the time you hadn’t, not completely.

But thinking of my identity, I also remember saying to you or maybe even writing in that piece that I often became exactly what people needed. Every relationship in my life came down to being what other people needed, or even wanted in their life. This is why I was never myself. And I think when you had read the piece you told me that you felt the same way. That you became what other people needed and you mentioned that you were largely still trying to find yourself.

At the time, I did wonder if that meant you were becoming someone I needed. A persona, or mask as it was. I knew we were both good at taking on a persona, though ever since I started looking for myself, it’s certainly become less powerful for me. But you, you are good at it. The more I think about the parts of your life I saw, the more I could see it. Becoming this person for your mother, this one for this friend, this one for that friend. They are small things, small changes that are made that make such a difference. The way you think about something, or how you move might be all that’s needed for people to have different ideas of you.

So, I can’t exactly blame you for making a persona for me. I even have a name for it, that I gave it. And that you’ve since abandoned, because I’m no longer in your life. I also can’t blame you for making that persona, because I’ve done the same to far too many people, and some of whom I’ve been in a relationship with.

Really, we are a lot alike. To the point that you’ve even said you wondered if we were too much alike. Maybe that’s true. Too much alike in the sense that one of us would always be in a persona. But, in working to discover myself, and with your help in creating myself. I did manage to realize one discovery. You shouldn’t feel bad about becoming a persona for some people. Because that persona is still you. The only way other people ever came to believe that persona was real, was because you put life into it.

You may have played a part for me, but that doesn’t mean that part isn’t real or part of you. Through the simple act of having played it, you gave it life and brought it into you. Even if it never comes up again, which it will, if you ever look back on our moments.

I also said or wrote at one point that you poisoned my memories. That I could never be sure if you were really happy, or enjoyed your time with me. That every moment I’d look back on with you, would just make me question whether you actually cared, whether you actually wanted those moments. But that was placing a lot of unnecessary blame on you. I poisoned those memories by thinking they could be impacted by things you said well after those moments had been made.

And even then, they aren’t poisoned. Sure, some of them make me cry, and drawing on them can certainly bring tears, but tears aren’t caused by poison. They are caused by emotion. And those emotions aren’t always sad or bad, or caused by the memory. Instead they are caused by the idea that I won’t see that part of you again. I smile and cry thinking about all the times you would shake your head in a teasing or playful manner, and give that cute expression with your eyes getting big when you were acting all innocent and nodding while agreeing with something like the fact that you are a brat.

I have a lot of your facial expressions stuck in my memory actually. I even do some of them without thinking. I think, that’s one of the ways you had an impact on who I am. I draw on parts of you, much like I’ve drawn on parts of a lot of other people over the years. I’m the sum of the parts of all those I’ve met and many more.

Maybe you are too. Maybe we all are, which is what makes it so hard to figure out who we are. Cause we are always adding on new parts, from new people we meet, and trying to solve where the parts we already have came from. Except, it’s like trying to solve a rubix cube when you think you are supposed to be solving a jigsaw puzzle. We don’t pay attention to the parts, not the ones we gain, or the ones we already had from past memories. Not unless someone else points it out to us, or we are being especially self-aware when we use those parts.

And here I am, analyzing again. It’s an obsession. Actually someone else analyzed one of my personas at one point, and I realized it applied to the real me. I like to solve problems, and fix things. Even when they aren’t broken, even when I’m the only one who thinks there’s a problem. And it’s not like I care about the recognition of solving it, otherwise I wouldn’t be picking things that can ostracize me, or make my relationships, friends and lovers resent me for touching on them. It’s just cause I need to solve it. It’s quite literally an addiction or a complex.

A complex, psychologically, would mean it started when I was a kid. And I can see the pattern for that. Especially since I can’t seem to stop doing it. It’s just, built into me. It’s part of who I am, like all complexes. The interesting part is there’s actually name for this complex. I know, because it’s been said about Sherlock Holmes and a more modern version, House M.D. Just minus all the drugs and hookers (for now). It’s called the Rubix Complex.

You see a puzzle and you have to solve it. Maybe it started because I always had to finish my puzzles when I was a kid. It was the only thing I could control. I always had control over my puzzles, and I could always solve them.

And I apply the same thing to us. I keep looking back over, wondering what I can do now that would change things. What can I say? What can I do? That would just at least get you to talk to me. How can I fix the rift between us? Even by writing this I’m still giving into that complex. I’m still trying to find a way. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop it. No matter how many times you tell me to just leave it be, to stop talking, to go away. I’m not disrespecting you, I’m not stalking you. I’m just trying to solve the one thing that is dependent upon you to solve.

It’s why I asked you ‘Why’ so much. It’s the only thing I could think to say. Why. Why. Why?

Sure, it left a hole emotionally for me, but that repairs. That mends, and eventually I know I’ll be fine. I know, emotionally I am starting to manage to move on. But mentally, I can’t. It’s why I think about us, it’s why I keep looking back. It’s why I keep thinking about you, even though it can leave me in tears. I have a puzzle that I can’t solve without you, because you won’t give me the pieces to finish it. And it’s not like you are doing it on purpose. I don’t think you are trying to be malicious. I know you can be terrible like me, but purposeful harm wasn’t your thing.

It’s more like we are sitting next to each other and yet we can’t see or touch each other, instead we can only talk. But I can only speak Russian, and you can only speak Italian. And I have the puzzle on my side, with the edges all set in place, and you have the remaining pieces. But you can’t understand what piece I need next, and I can’t understand why you can’t give it to me.

It’s beyond frustrating, it’s exhausting. I can’t go a week without looking back at it and then feeling like shit because I can’t fucking solve it, cause I don’t have the pieces.

But maybe I do have the pieces, and I’m just not solving it. No matter how much I look in front of me, I don’t see the pieces and I keep thinking you have them, even though you gave them to me.

Maybe, the problem is that I didn’t want a piece. I wanted you to slide over the whole puzzle, completed so I could just understand, because this is the one puzzle I didn’t want to even start and now I have to finish it, somehow. Even if it means overcoming my blind-area bias or a communication problem I have no idea how to begin to solve.

I just don’t know. And I’m so tired of saying I don’t know.

Signed,

The Imp

P. S. Terra says Hi.