Stealin' memes again

Name: Aidan, spark, SPark, Bladespark...
Fandoms: My Little Pony, Good Omens, Legend of Zelda, lots of others.
Where you post: Ao3, Fimfiction, Furaffinity, Sofurry, wherever they'll let me, lol.
Most popular multi-chapter fic: Angel's Grace Loosed and Black Starfire Bound. A Good Omens fic playing with the "Crowley was Raphael as an angel" fannon thing, and also BDSM, demon-binding as a kink, and the Ineffable Pair causing trouble in Hell.
Favorite story you’ve written so far: Eeeeugh. Pick just one? Uhm. Er. Uh. TBH it's probably still The Sacrifice, which is original, not fanfic. I love doing original works, and sometimes it makes me super, super sad that they're so hard to get a following for. (And not even for money reasons.) I can get over a thousand kudos on a Good Omens fic, and dozens of comments, but getting one review/comment on my original books feels like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one, and happens about as often.
Fic you were nervous to post: Kiss Against the Wall. And for good reason, though it's only bitten me badly once so far. I keep it up out of sheer stubbornness. Read the damn description, at least, and not just the tags before you judge me for it.
How you choose your titles: I have no method, only madness.
Do you outline: I make notes that go "Somewhere in there X reveals his feelings" "Don't forget Y has to happen before Z" etc. but I don't do proper outlines, no.
Complete: ...it's really hard to count? 109 on Ao3 but 423 on Furaffinity, but then that's chapters, not stories, and some of those overlap but not all, and there's the published books and the stories in anthologies, and the things I've finished but am sitting on for later, and the things I've finished that will never see the light of day, and...
In progress: My work method is any time a story gets stuck/blocked I just swap to a different story, and I start a new story any time I feel enthusiasm for actually writing it, so at any given time I have at least a couple dozen things in progress. Currently mostly concentrating on some Patreon commission stuff about a cat-girl slave that's pure fun smut, and on an upcoming original novel, Heart to Heart. In fanfic I've been noodling with a grimdark non-con smut Legend of Zelda story where Dark Link doesn't get redeemed, but is just evil and does very bad things to Link. :D
Coming soon/not yet started: Nigh-infinite things, but most "not yet started" wouldn't be "coming soon" given how I work. My next published novel is going to be Paladins of Desire, a hurt/comfort original fic wherein I am very mean to my original character Iarun, but he gets a happy ending eventually. Next fanfic... Probably the Cybersix story I wrote for a swap whose organizer seems to have abandoned it.
Do you accept prompts: Nope!
Upcoming story you are most excited to write: I really am stoked about finishing Heart to Heart. It's a fun fantasy mystery-adventure-romance with a transmasculine protagonist. It's stuck right now, and the rough draft is rougher than usual, too, but there's so much good stuff in there!
Tagging: Anyone! Maybe silveradept if you need more December questions? :3

I've always been the different one.

I used to feel it was just because I was the book nerd. And in fact I still feel that many of the differences stem from being a feral child, raised by books because my parents were too busy with my "difficult" brother. (Who, btw, was a totally normal child? Mom said once the goober reminds her of him. I was just an unnaturally biddable baby, so when he came along, they were shocked and confused, and also let one bad teacher influence them into giving him a label that ruined his life. But that's an entire other rant, really.)

ANYWAY.

I was thinking about an incident today, that shows that even when I was neck-deep in Mormonism, utterly devout, super dedicated, absolutely fully bought in, I still thought differently from those around me.

I was a missionary, and of course I met a lot of interesting people. If there was somebody who invited us back that I liked seeing, I would draw them "furry" self portraits. "I draw people as animals, if you were an animal, what would you be?" I'd say. A lot of people had no idea, so I'd come up with one for them.

Stephen was rail thin, super smart, and a little manic. I drew him as a cheetah.

I also drew him wearing a (clean) wifebeater that showed his shoulder tattoos, smoking a cigarette, and leaning in a doorway. That was how he looked every time we talked to him. He smoked like a chimney and didn't seem to notice he was in Ireland where it's chilly and damp. It's probably the best of those portraits, and maybe I'll see if I can dig it out and add it to this story. I made a copy for him, but I still have the original.

When I got home, I was going through my missionary journal with my mother, and I showed her the portrait of Steve. She was horrified that I'd drawn him doing something as evil as smoking, and also with the tattoos, and told me I should have drawn him as the good person I knew he was deep inside, just waiting to be converted to the truth.

Thing is...he wasn't. We didn't convert him. We talked to him a lot, and we tried to help him quit smoking (there's a funny story there about my nutball companion, she was great) and we attempted to get him to church, but frankly I think he had more impact on my thinking than I ever did on his.

The thought that I should draw him somehow perfected and made Mormon hadn't crossed my mind, even though the very idea of drawing a cigarette at all shocked and horrified my mother.

I've never been horrified by the "evil sins" of the world.

I just haven't!

I've been uncomfortable with them. You could ask my husband about my early request that he stop drinking and swearing. (He did for a while, and ironically does both now much less than I do.) But even while I did think of them as sins, they didn't horrify or shock me. Stephen's cigarette and tattoos were part of who he was. I was drawing a portrait. The very idea of drawing him as some other person I wanted him to be made me deeply uncomfortable, in fact. It's not my place to do that, not even in a sketch. (And btw. I always thought the "we make you Mormon after you're dead" thing with posthumous baptism was only morally acceptable because I was taught it only "takes" if the dead person accepts it, it's just that with them being up there with God now and all, able to clearly see the truth, they probably all would, right?)

This all goes to show, though, that I never thought like most Mormons seem to. At the time I didn't realize, but it turns out that I was seeing people as full, complex humans and coming to like them that way, even when I would have been pleased if they changed and improved themselves, while the Mormons around me were seeing Horrifying Sinful Others who needed fixing.

P.S. Found the picture! Stephen the cheetah.