abetterlie

If you had asked me that back when I was Stephen and had just arrived in this world, I'd kept it pretty simple: get rid of all the demons. That's how I saw things then. Of course the only two humans I knew while growing up were my father and myself, and I had figured out by then that if I was spawned by demons, I couldn't be really human myself, not the way my father was, no matter how much I wanted to be. But he was, and he was good, and demons were things that tried to kill us on a regular basis, so, yeah.

Then I got here, and the first humans I met, other than Angel's friends whom I ran away from, were some guys about to beat up a girl, and a day later I met Cordelia for the first time, and she was half-demon. And Lorne. Anyway, you could say I got a crash course in things being more difficult in this dimension.

If you had asked me that when I was mindwiped, a year later, and being Normal And Happy Connor, I'd have said I wanted to change the fact that networks always cancelled the cool series and put stupid game shows on instead. Something like that. I mean, if I had thought about it I would have gone for some serious reply about wishing poverty or war away, but first I'd have brought up the tv thing, because I'd have still been pissed off they cancelled Farscape.

(Now I wonder whether Cyvus Veil liked that show when he made my Connor Riley memories, or whether that came from someone else. Maybe Wolfram and Hart owns a share of Jim Henson's company?)

Now? Well, I was in a couple of organizations back at NYU because I think some things need change, and some society rules I just don't get and I still do what I was raised to if it's necessary, but I can't wish all demons away. Or all human killers, for that matter. ~~And not just because I belong in the club, either way.~~

But here's one aspect I so would change. No, not the tv stuff, though seriously, what is Sci Fi thinking, switching BSG to Sunday night? ~~That totally ruins my patrol and job schedule.~~ It's the beauty thing people have when they look at other people. Or maybe I should call it the ugliness thing. What I mean is: there once was this person. And okay, she did some terrible things, but the point is, she also managed to make things better for a while. If you were in Los Angeles at the time, you know what I mean. Go on. Tell me it wasn't amazing. No one was hating anyone else and there was peace. Joy. The whole enchilada they use to describe paradise, and it was there, for a brief while. And everyone claimed to love the one who had made that possible. But when they saw her without whatever made her look beautiful to them before, when they saw how she looked like, they turned against her. Sure, yes, like I said, she had done some terrible things, but they didn't know that, did they? Nobody knew except for five people. All everyone else knew was the good she had done, that she had given them paradise for a while. And they still hated her and went right back to hating each other the way they had done before. Just because they saw her as ugly.

~~And maybe if that had not happened, she could have~~

So that is what I would change, if I could. People giving and taking their love away from someone just because of the way they look.

But the only one who could have made such a change come true for everyone is her, and she is gone.