Thursday’s Child

Porcelain

She completely understands how weird their relationship is. Yes she has to call him about once a day for work, and yes they talk all the time sometimes for days on end. But she's actually babysitting him (yes he is older than her this does not matter).

Yes she also knows far too much about his personal life, no she is not interested in the slightest in him actually he is repulsive and she hates him (not really). He is also her best friend and it's not close.

Yes she's seen him passed out drunk on the floor, but she's also see him so mangled she wasn't sure if he would make it off the helicopter.

In 2021, Swarovski (the company that makes the very sparkly crystals you see in certain jewelry, on figure-skaters' twinkliest outfits, on red carpet dresses), decided they didn't want the grubby fingers of small-time jewelers, clothing designers and costumers and crafters on their shiny beads and rhinestones anymore. They decided to limit their sales to "luxury" and couture creators, not girls who sell stuff on Etsy. The tenor of their press release on the subject was snide and insulting. Resellers (like your favorite bead shop) would no longer be allowed to carry their product; the average Jane on the street would not be able to purchase them. You could only get them if you had an authorized business agreement that bound you to very strict brand behavior. And those of us who still had good stock of the crystals would no longer be "permitted" to use the brand's name in our listings for sale.

Every bead shop and craft supply place and many, many small clothing makers--wedding shops, prom and dancing dress suppliers, the sort of salt of the Earth mom and pop time machines of shops that are the backbone of the field--scrambled to find something that could replace them. The last of the stock dwindled quickly, all of us grabbing what we could get while there was any chance of it, and then it was gone and we no longer had any access.

I was Big Pissed about it at the time. It was just so goddamn stuck-up, when wholesalers and indie jewelers had made them so much money, when some people I knew--when *I!*--had been brand-loyal for decades. But with no recourse, everyone pivoted fairly quickly, most of us to Preciosa Crystals. Those are Czech, quite sparkly, and considerably less expensive than Swarovski. The faceting method they use is different, but not worse; any differences are hardly noticeable when you're seeing them as a hundred pinpoints of light.

Well, out of nowhere, Swarovski just dropped this: https://www.harmanbeads.com/swarovski-brand-policy-update

"Effective June 1, 2026, Swarovski updated the distribution and brand usage policies introduced in 2021. Businesses may now purchase Swarovski Crystals without signing a Brand Control Agreement, and Authorized Distribution Partners may once again sell Swarovski Crystals to resellers, including bead stores and online retailers. Businesses may also use the Swarovski brand name when following Swarovski’s Proper Use Guidelines. Designers, manufacturers, artists, brands, retailers, and resellers are now eligible to purchase Swarovski Crystals through authorized distribution channels."

They want us back. A lot of the companies who could have kept a brand relationship with them also have swapped to Preciosa, over the last half-decade, in solidarity with indie creators and out of a sour awareness that it could be them, next. And it doesn't hurt that Preciosa was able to expand their line quite a bit now that everyone who wanted sparkle had no choice but to go to them.

And I'm not seeing nearly anyone who intends to return. The feeling is, "Y'all told us to fuck off! Off we fucked! And now, that's what you can do, too!" I'm seeing a lot of "How many of us did you stab in the back?" comments from the people whose money they're hoping to attract.

Because there is this whole unbearable little gap there, isn’t there? Claire survives Raccoon City with Leon and Sherry, and for one brief, impossible moment, they are almost a family, or at least the kind of temporary end-of-the-world family people become when they have seen the same monsters and are still alive at sunrise. And then she has to leave them.

She has to leave Leon, who is probably one of the only people on earth who can understand what just happened to her without her having to translate it into normal-people language. She has to leave Sherry, a child she helped protect, a child who has already been abandoned and used and hurt by adults who were supposed to love her. And Claire still goes, because Chris is out there somewhere, and because loving people in Claire’s world keeps meaning that she has to choose which absence she can live with.

Claire is nineteen. She is not some hardened, untouchable action hero who keeps going because nothing reaches her. She keeps going because everything does. She cares about Sherry. She cares about Leon. She cares about Chris. She cares so much it keeps turning into movement.

And I really hope the remake lets that land. I hope we see the split. I hope we see that moment where Claire has to walk away from the people she just survived hell with, not because she doesn’t love them, but because she does, and because there is still someone else she loves waiting to be found.

But now the company holiday party is upon us.

And I’ve been lying about the girlfriend.

Reasonable: “just say she couldn’t make it!”