Faefyx Collington

March 31st is Transgender Day of Visibility, so this seems like a great time to discuss trans representation in the media for the past 30 yeats and the rise of the incidentally trans character.

The last few years has seen trans characters in mainstream media move from being defined by their transness to being incidentally trans. And that’s important. We can be very enthusiastic about saying “representation matters,” but sometimes that can be misread as “any representation matters” when really “accurate representation matters.” To really understand why the current trend is so important…

The Disappearance of the “Queen of Crime” - A dive into the a real mystery from the 20th century and why so many have failed to solve it.

Author’s Note: I’m trying something a little different this week. I’m diving into an old story that crops up in popular culture from time to time and trying to get to the bottom of it. I’d love to hear what you think of this sort of content. Content Warning: Mental health, depression, and suicidal ideation. Agatha Christie With sixty-six mystery novels, fourteen short story collections, and a…

Popular Fiction: What Does That Even Mean? As a term, “popular fiction” has always bothered me. Or, perhaps it’s fairer to say that the term “literature” has always bothered me. Here's why that's important.

As a term, “popular fiction” has always bothered me. Or, perhaps it’s fairer to say that the term “literature” has always bothered me. Or, perhaps the issue at heart is that these terms are set up to suggest that the two things are in any way different. They are two terms that carry weighty value judgements and are applied as objective labels. Indeed, the distinction between the two is clear…

Rolling Stone Magazine and the Dangers of Pay-to-Play: Why this system is damaging to both writers and our culture.

Today The Guardian broke the news that Rolling Stone magazine would be giving people the opportunity to write for its website and giving them the chance to “shape the future of culture,” referring to such people as “thought leaders.” On the surface that sounds a little suspect. Having been in the writing biz for a while to some degree or another, I’ve become very aware that whenever someone says…

2020: Guilt & Progress. Faefyx's brief review of their year.

I’ve felt kind of guilty about my 2020. On a global and national level it’s been so terrible. And it’s certainly been stressful and terrible on a personal level in many ways as well. But it’s also been a year where I’ve done so much good for my life and set myself up for a great 2021. I came out publicly about my gender identityI changed my name- I finally got out of retail (admittedly I now…

America has a very strange relationship with immigrants. A nation built on immigration will eagerly elect politicians that denigrate them at every turn, and you can see the symptoms of that out in the wild just as easily.

America has a very strange relationship with immigrants. A nation built on immigration will eagerly elect politicians that denigrate them at every turn, and you can see the symptoms of that mindset out in the wild every day. While I’m an immigrant, I have a very different experience of this than many immigrants do: I am white and from the United Kingdom. My English accent is a fun fascination to…

I'm making a pretty big personal change: my name. I'm picking something that will align better with my genderfluid identity and I've sought to answer some common questions here. #NameChange #Genderfluid #NonBinary #Gender

Hello! I am changing my name to Faefyx (or Fae or Fyx for short). [Pronounced Fay-Fix]

Why?

I am genderfluid (a subcategory of non-binary) and use they/them pronouns. Having a distinctly gendered name leads people to make certain assumptions about me, and interact with me in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. This can be as benign as addressing me as “sir” or “mister” (terms I have…

A Brit in America #7 – The Fourth

Living as a Brit in America is always a little strange around July Fourth. People tend to assume that you hold certain beliefs about two countries, and are often wrong. I usually laugh it off by sharing a meme to the effect of “Happy Treason Day, you ungrateful colonials.”

I’ll go on the record here: colonialism is bad. Hot take, I know. The Americans were right with what they did, and their…

A Brit in America #5 – Let Them Eat Cake Mark rants about the duplicity of American language as pertains to their beloved homeland treat: coffee cake.

The duplicity of the American use of language knows no ends. I’ve ranted on here before about Guinness and tomatoes, and this is certainly in the same vein. However, given not only the magnitude of the disappointment perpetrated by this particular issue, but also the repeated occurrences in which I forget that it is a thing and make the same mistake again, I feel that it requires its own post.