I love my fandoms

If you are scared of something, do it anyway. If you feel anxious, you must do things that make you scared. Get out of your comfort zone. Tell your fears they are wrong. Act as though you are not afraid. Ignore, ignore, ignore, silence, silence, silence.

It hurt me-- it is a horrible psychological weight to carry for a child to be certain that she will suffer unbearably over and over and that she will never deserve sympathy or compassion for it-- but it is also fundamentally incurious and disconnected.

If your body expresses something that is inconvenient or hard to understand, just silence and ignore it, because the things the body wants are wrong and the things the body communicates are false.

Look, I got to thinking about this when reading scientific articles about nutrition.

So much research is conducted about why people eat foods that are Wrong and Bad. But the research is conducted around an already-known truth, like a tree that has grown around a metal fence: people eat wrong and bad food because people like pleasure and avoid discomfort, and "bad" foods are pleasurable whereas healthy foods are not.

I feel a hole big enough for the wind to howl through: the joyful table, the raw ecstasy of staining my fingers with raspberries in the thicket, the peaceful bubbling of soup on the stove, salsa canned from vegetables in our garden. Stir-fried wild mushrooms, pawpaws messily devoured in the woods, the fragrance of soil and green and growing things. Curry powder. Smoked paprika. Ginger. Allspice. Garlic and onions hitting a hot pan. Nourishment. Connection. Caretaking. Safety. Pleasure. Pleasure.

Why does nobody ask, What is the goodness of food? What makes food good? Why does nobody say, Let's explore and study that goodness. Let's understand it deeply. Let's investigate the pleasure we feel, the condition of satisfaction of the things our bodies crave and need, the sense of belonging and interconnectedness that is present when good food is shared among friends. What does it mean to be nourished? To be satisfied? To feel peacefulness and comfort in the act of eating?

Comfort must be one of the least understood things in the world. No one is curious about the secrets it may hold.

Why was I burdened with the obligation to get over my fear and never encouraged to explore what would it mean to feel safe?

The goal of the therapy and medications was clear, to get my fear to a manageable enough level that I could "function" "normally." Safety was not part of it, the feeling or the reality.

The physiological functions and maladaptive thought patterns of fear were exhaustively discussed and explained to me. They only talked to me about the fear. How to ignore it. How to dominate it. How to force the physiological process of it to stop. How to manage it. How to understand and confound its patterns.

No one talked to me about safety. How it unfolded in the body. What it felt like. How to recognize when I was feeling it.

It was an attitude of profound incuriosity. I was never prompted or encouraged to ask, and no one else in the world seemed to ask: What does it mean for a person to feel safe? What does it feel like when I am safe? What things create that condition of safety? What are my safety needs? How is safety felt in my body? What can my body tell me about what I need to feel safe?

It is this flat, dull insistence that forcing oneself into what causes pain and discomfort automatically orients one in the direction of growth, whereas comfort and pleasure provide no information or guidance.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

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.

2x22 ➔ 3x03

I'll remember to mention that.