What's going on with "The Prodigal"?

I'm still committed to getting it done if for no other reason than beyond telling Cameron's story, the Friends' "orientation" for him involves them filling in a lot of blanks about what they've experienced since "The Advocate."  So it's a frame story and the flashbacks are pretty crucial (as in one couple adopted, another got married, and another got pregnant AND married).  I really wanted it to be done before Christmas so we were caught up with everyone by then but I just don't know about that.  So likely the Christmas story will be about a small subset of the Friends... most likely something involving Andrew's, JenniAnn's, and Violeta's new work as a caseworking trio.  (Just to be clear, Andrew is not JenniAnn's supervisor.  That would be very inappropriate.  And she's not become an angel.  She's there to emotionally support him and, honestly, probably keep herself out of the "baby of the family goes to school now" blues).  I like the idea of a sort of "The Christmas Watch" type of story with them working at a small business and bringing cheer to those for whom it's important.  

But, anyway, "The Prodigal" is still a priority.  I won't be starting another long story until that's finished.  But likely other short stories will come out before "The Prodigal" does.  At the very latest, I want to have it done by Easter 2026 because I have a big work project that will likely ramp up around then and I know that zaps my energy.  

I'm also delaying it because I've done a lot of soul-searching and realized that while I love writing and it is probably my favorite hobby (when it's going well), by its very nature, it can completely overtake my life.  It's not like, say, a just-for-fun dance class where you have a scheduled class every week and maybe you brush up a couple times during the week but otherwise it's pretty time-constrained.  You can write and write and write and never feel like you're done.  Because of that, I'd sacrificed pretty much every other hobby I had.  I stopped reading, stopped crafting, watched very few movies, and so on.  I wasn't even exercising nearly as much as I should.  So I'm really trying to live a more balanced life.  I've been carving out time to read (truly read... not just editing my own stuff and calling it reading) and have made several pairs of earrings.  The reading especially is important because I feel like I've been struggling to remember words.  It happens to us all, of course.  But it was becoming frequent to the point of being concerning.  I feel like that's not happening as much now that I'm prioritizing reading.

But, yes, I will definitely get back to it because I miss Joshua.  And now seems like a really good time to hear from him about how politics and religion should and should not mix.  Plus, I just want to write some fun domestic scenes with him.  Love those!

What exactly counts as canoodling for Andrew and JenniAnn?

Generally speaking, it means they're going to get topless at some point.  Since they're both asexual and Andrew's an angel to boot, they're obviously not having sex.  So all they ever do are variations on kissing and cuddling and massages.  Skin-to-skin contact, however, has become something that's comforting and important to them both.  I don't entirely know the mechanics of why.  Something about endorphins, surely.  But I also think it's special for them because it's something they only do with each other.  Everything else, they do with other characters at least in some manner.  Granted, there's a big difference between a parent/child kiss and a romantic kiss.  Same thing with cuddling.  When JenniAnn cuddles up to Joshua or Vincent, that looks significantly different than when she does the same with Andrew.  But they are still the same thing in general terms.  But the canoodling?  They've only ever done that with each other and will only ever do that with each other because they'll never feel the same way about any other person ever.

As for why I went that route, a few different reasons: 1. Since I decided Shelby would be aro-ace, I felt a little freer to have JenniAnn be more overtly romantic.  Because some asexual people still have pretty strong romantic and/or sensuality drives.  She's one of them.  Shelby is not.  So with the two of them, I can better represent the asexuality spectrum.  2. I just think it would be really healing for Andrew, who is sadly used to having people wanting to flee from him, to have someone who is clearly on the other side of the spectrum.  JenniAnn isn't gonna run.  She wants to be more physically close to him than she's ever wanted to be with anyone ever but without putting him in a potentially awkward and sad situation.  I imagine that's pretty nice.  3.  I don't particularly crave romance in my own life (I'm probably more like Shel than JenniAnn, to be honest) but I actually kinda like writing romantic scenes, knowing it's not going to go to a place that makes me uncomfy.  4.  I know I've mentioned this before but it did start to weird me out that, even though the circumstances were utterly unromantic and not sexual in any way, the only shirtless man JenniAnn was having any contact with was Joshua (and, I suppose, Peter).  It just feels healthier for her main "shirtless man" point of reference to be with the guy she's in love with and has built a life with and not the second member of the Trinity (or a friend playing him) whose death make-up she has to do repeatedly.  It's better for her to have experience with semi-nudity that's in no way related to sin or shame or death.

I also suspect they like canoodling because it doesn't impact their ability to talk.  Listen, I don't know a lot about sex but it sure seems like it would be pretty impossible to throw one's self into a monologue about pre-existence and anam caras while in the throes of passion.  But if Andrew and JenniAnn want to have their skin-to-skin contact AND hypothesize about the order of creation and why the heck they have mirror image birthmarks AND why, given their union was apparently fated from all time, did they only meet in 2000?... well, they can do that.

Is there anything I wish I could change?

I've answered this before but in writing "Shooting Star," I thought of another.  Kind of.

Sometimes I really wish JenniAnn was Catherine's and Vincent's biological child.  It would mean a handful of losses.  "God in the Gloom" would have to be radically different, for one, given one plot point was JenniAnn dealing with her bickering parents in that.  I also think JenniAnn's and Andrew's inability to have biological children woulda then taken on a bit of a different tone.  I'd have wanted to make it very clear that JenniAnn wanting to adopt had nothing to do with hoping to avoid passing on the genetic condition(s) that she would have carried as Psyche Chandler-Wells.  And, yes, her name would be different because there's no reality in which Vincent names a child JenniAnn.  And, thus, "Laja" would be lost.  

I do think it would have made for a more straight-forward story, though.  Even as it is, Catherine and Vincent are effectively JenniAnn's parents.  Allison and Robert pretty much only come in to add a little drama that could have come from somewhere else.  I also think it would have made it more believable that JenniAnn, as a mere teenager, helped build a community if she had been raised to believe she would one day take Vincent's role as a Tunnel leader.  As it is, that element is sort of there.  I think current Vincent did hope for that.  But I think the expectation and preparation would have been stronger if Vincent was her biological father.  That would have then created more drama when JenniAnn aka Psyche was like "No... I want to lead my own community here in Dyeland."  Jacob woulda still been found and adopted and resolved the issue but for a bit there it would have been interesting.  

JenniAnn's attachment to Andrew could have also been a lot more interesting if she had inherited Vincent's gift.  For anyone who doesn't know, Vincent can feel what Catherine feels.  Imagine what that would be like if the person you were linked to is an angel of death?  That coulda more than made up for the drama lost by removing Robert and Allison as I imagine Andrew would have tried to impose even more distance than he initially did in order to spare JenniAnn.

But, in the end, I'm glad I went the route I did.  One of the themes I really like in the stories is the importance of making your own family.  I like that there are so many examples of characters that are only related by adoption and yet mirror each other.  Joshua has a lot in common with Yosef, JenniAnn parallels Catherine and Vincent, Andrew's and JenniAnn's kids all have aspects of them, etc.  In the end, I don't think Catherine and Vincent feel any less for JenniAnn than if they did bring her into the world.  They act differently, of course, out of respect for her actual parents.  But the love is there.  

If anything, I wish I just had more time to delve more into that particular family dynamic, particularly now that Behnam and his family are also part of it.  Maybe when I'm retired...  ;-)  Still, Vincent is my OG comfort character so I really ought to bring him and Catherine into stories more.  It felt really good to do that in "Shooting Star."

How would Andrew and JenniAnn handle it if Belle wanted to date a significantly older man given they don't have a lot of room to talk about age gaps?

I think they'd just have to really lay out the ways, even the uncomfortable ones, that their relationship isn't comparable to a human-human age gap romance.  Like...

1.  They aren't having sex.  What physical intimacy they do have has always been initially instigated by JenniAnn.  Andrew never pressured her to do anything.  For example, it's pretty clear that Andrew is a lot more comfortable with nudity than JenniAnn because he was born in a place without shame.  But he never expected JenniAnn to be in that same headspace so they never saw each other naked until she decided it was time.  There is no guarantee a human man would be that way and when there's a big power differential, the risk of Belle being manipulated would increase.  Even leaving sex out of the equation for a bit, a much older man is likely to have more romantic experience than Belle would have.  Compare that to Andrew who, despite being waaay older than JenniAnn, actually had less romantic experience than she did.

2.  Safety nets that exist for JenniAnn would not automatically exist for Belle.  Obviously Andrew would never, ever be abusive towards JenniAnn.  But if, hypothetically, he were... that's a straight ticket to Joshua's Island/the Netherworld.  Additionally, while JenniAnn is to some extent financially dependent upon Andrew, it's not the same as, say, a trad wife situation.  If Andrew up and abandoned her (again, something that would NEVER happen) then I think things would get pretty biblical.  And by that I mean Andrew's family would be responsible for supporting JenniAnn and their children.  So, yeah, if Andrew goes AWOL... Joshua is on the hook.  What exactly that looks like, I have no idea because it's a hypothetical that would never happen.  But as Andrew's father, God would be responsible for ensuring JenniAnn and the kids were provided for.  He's not gonna pull a Judah and leave her high and dry.  Belle would have no guarantee of the guy's family upholding a similar moral code.

3.  Andrew's whole personality.  It's not that Andrew would never hurt JenniAnn.  He has.  He's not perfect.  But he'd never, ever purposefully set out to do that.  There's not a mean bone in his body.  He still feels bad that his early aloofness hurt her.  To the extent that it's relevant given they're not married, Andrew takes Ephesians 5:25 very literally.  He can't die for JenniAnn... but he would if he could and if it became necessary.  

4.  Entitlement.  This may verge into controversial opinion territory but... I also have some experience with this so feel I'm entitled (ha) to weigh in.  Sometimes... and only sometimes... I think older people feel entitled to younger people's time without also allowing that the younger person has boundaries they need to respect.  This has happened to me multiple times within the realm of friendship.  And every time I have had to completely cut the person off because they just didn't get it.  I can't imagine how harmful this dynamic could be within a romantic and/or sexual relationship because it's darn freaky (as in I actually installed security cameras after one case...) just within friendship in my experience.  Andrew never felt entitled to JenniAnn.  Belle would have no guarantee her hypothetical partner felt the same.

Honestly, I think what it all boils down to is impressing upon Belle that her parents aren't necessarily representative of age gap romances.  The nature of who they are, together and apart, has made them immune to a lot of the issues.  That doesn't mean Belle would be doomed to fail in an age gap romance.  It might go really well.  But Andrew and JenniAnn would want to make sure she's not thinking "Well, he's only 17 years older than me and Mama and Daddy made it work with thousands of years between them!"  There's just no comparison.

Will the Friends ever have their own church?

I think St. G's, the theatre, is the closest they'll ever have to a church.  While they're all some variation on Christian at this point, there's a lot of denominational differences.  A bunch of the characters are Catholic, some of the Catholics then ended up joining the El-Chananite Church, the Wilsons are Baptist, the Albany set are some non-descript branch of Protestantism, a handful are members of a queer-friendly progressive church, and the majority aren't attached to a particular church.  I don't think they feel a need to have their own church.  If someone wants to get married or have some other life event celebration, St. G's is a perfectly good venue for that.  It's like a second home to them.  And that's how a church should feel.


This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye for inspiring me to buy a bunch of charms to make TBAA related charm bracelets back in the day.  The extras are keeping me busy and content now!

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(Photo Credits: The photographs used on this page are from Touched by an Angel and owned by CBS Productions, Caroline Productions, and Moon Water Productions.  They are not being used to seek profit.)