Ais's Blog
September 18, 2017
Now on patreon + Incarnations release
Hey all! Just wanted to let goodreads folks know that I'm now on Patreon: patreon.com/ais :)
tl;dr on how I'm doing it: if you pledge, you're super helping me out! Also you get early access to some content which includes at least 1 chapter a month of Incarnations, plus a wildcard of my choice, plus you will get to vote on something else you want me to do that month. I don't have reward tiers. If you spend $1 or $100, you get the same access to the same things. And as mentioned, if you can't afford to pledge on Patreon or don't want to, most content (including Incarnations) will eventually be released for free to the public too.
Speaking of, I've started releasing the LGBTQIA+ fantasy/police procedural/mystery book I've been talking about for ages, called Incarnations. It's the first book in what will be a series called Wildwood Rising. You can find the first two chapters already free to the public on Patreon.
Read here:
Incarnations chapter one
Incarnations chapter two
More information on Incarnations in terms of what it is and how edited it is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-edi...
I've been super talkative on the posts at Patreon already, and since I started mid-month on this I'm keeping a lot of things open to the public in September so you can get an idea of what you'd get to see on Patreon and/or what you will get to see from me going forward once publicly released.
Also, here's my latest newsletter: http://mailchi.mp/6568f7557ee3/ais-is... If you want to sign up for future newsletters for my stuff, you can here: http://eepurl.com/cjdren
Sorry to anyone who's getting a bunch of notices on all this. There are few things I go across my social media spectrum to tell people about, and this happens to be one of them.
I hope you're all doing well! I'm wishing you all the very best! <3
tl;dr on how I'm doing it: if you pledge, you're super helping me out! Also you get early access to some content which includes at least 1 chapter a month of Incarnations, plus a wildcard of my choice, plus you will get to vote on something else you want me to do that month. I don't have reward tiers. If you spend $1 or $100, you get the same access to the same things. And as mentioned, if you can't afford to pledge on Patreon or don't want to, most content (including Incarnations) will eventually be released for free to the public too.
Speaking of, I've started releasing the LGBTQIA+ fantasy/police procedural/mystery book I've been talking about for ages, called Incarnations. It's the first book in what will be a series called Wildwood Rising. You can find the first two chapters already free to the public on Patreon.
Read here:
Incarnations chapter one
Incarnations chapter two
More information on Incarnations in terms of what it is and how edited it is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-edi...
I've been super talkative on the posts at Patreon already, and since I started mid-month on this I'm keeping a lot of things open to the public in September so you can get an idea of what you'd get to see on Patreon and/or what you will get to see from me going forward once publicly released.
Also, here's my latest newsletter: http://mailchi.mp/6568f7557ee3/ais-is... If you want to sign up for future newsletters for my stuff, you can here: http://eepurl.com/cjdren
Sorry to anyone who's getting a bunch of notices on all this. There are few things I go across my social media spectrum to tell people about, and this happens to be one of them.
I hope you're all doing well! I'm wishing you all the very best! <3
May 17, 2017
2015 charity: water campaign helped build clean water in Ethiopia :)
If you helped donate to my 2015 birthday fundraiser for charity: water, I wanted to let you know that I just received word that they finished the clean water project in Ethiopia! They built a hand-dug well in the Gereb Shagra community in Ethiopia, serving 200 people clean water they don't have to walk hours to get and they know won't be contaminated and won't make them sick!
I absolutely LOVE charity: water so I highly recommend you check them out if you haven't heard of them. One of the great things about them is you can donate your birthday (like I did in 2013 and 2015 and might do belatedly this year) and/or create your own fundraiser -- and then, charity: water pools fundraisers together to raise enough funds to build a clean water project somewhere in the world that truly needs it. You can also donate directly to charity: water.
More information on my tumblr for the 2015 project: http://ais-n.tumblr.com/post/16078455...
Charity water itself: https://www.charitywater.org/
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who donated in 2015! And to anyone who couldn't or who didn't know about it, please do check out charity: water because they're fan-freaking-tastic.
I absolutely LOVE charity: water so I highly recommend you check them out if you haven't heard of them. One of the great things about them is you can donate your birthday (like I did in 2013 and 2015 and might do belatedly this year) and/or create your own fundraiser -- and then, charity: water pools fundraisers together to raise enough funds to build a clean water project somewhere in the world that truly needs it. You can also donate directly to charity: water.
More information on my tumblr for the 2015 project: http://ais-n.tumblr.com/post/16078455...
Charity water itself: https://www.charitywater.org/
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who donated in 2015! And to anyone who couldn't or who didn't know about it, please do check out charity: water because they're fan-freaking-tastic.
August 20, 2016
Julian Files, releases every third Saturday
ok in case you missed it, I posted the first three chapters of Julian Files on tumblr and my blog.
Julian Files is a book set in the past in ICoS, when Boyd was a kid. It followed Julian Jones, a Private Investigator in Lexington, and his friend Cedrick Beaulieu, as well as baby Boyd and Vivienne. Plus others.
**IMPORTANT!! In Julian Files, since it’s set in the past, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS from the start for ICoS! Do not read until after you’ve finished Fade, unless you want spoilers!***
Some of you may have already read the first and third chapter but the second is new, which is why I posted 3 chaps this time. I’ll continue posting a chapter or two every third Saturday of the month going forward until I run out of what I have written so far. The book isn’t finished so at some point I’m going to have to stop before the story is over. Sorry! It’s why I hadn’t been sharing it previously but eh, it’s not like I’ve been finishing it so far anyway so maybe it’s better this way.
btw sorry if the book sucks. I haven’t had any betas or editing help on it and it’s in super draft mode. Feel free to let me know if things seem cheesy or shitty going forward; it’ll help me edit :)
HERE ARE THE CHAPTERS RELEASED SO FAR:
One, Thursday May 12, 2005 - tumblr, my blog
Two, Friday May 13, 2005 - tumblr, my blog
Three, Friday June 24, 2005 - tumblr, my blog
Julian Files is a book set in the past in ICoS, when Boyd was a kid. It followed Julian Jones, a Private Investigator in Lexington, and his friend Cedrick Beaulieu, as well as baby Boyd and Vivienne. Plus others.
**IMPORTANT!! In Julian Files, since it’s set in the past, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS from the start for ICoS! Do not read until after you’ve finished Fade, unless you want spoilers!***
Some of you may have already read the first and third chapter but the second is new, which is why I posted 3 chaps this time. I’ll continue posting a chapter or two every third Saturday of the month going forward until I run out of what I have written so far. The book isn’t finished so at some point I’m going to have to stop before the story is over. Sorry! It’s why I hadn’t been sharing it previously but eh, it’s not like I’ve been finishing it so far anyway so maybe it’s better this way.
btw sorry if the book sucks. I haven’t had any betas or editing help on it and it’s in super draft mode. Feel free to let me know if things seem cheesy or shitty going forward; it’ll help me edit :)
HERE ARE THE CHAPTERS RELEASED SO FAR:
One, Thursday May 12, 2005 - tumblr, my blog
Two, Friday May 13, 2005 - tumblr, my blog
Three, Friday June 24, 2005 - tumblr, my blog
October 5, 2015
inktober + story: John the wizard
I heard about inktober and thought it sounded fun. But then, being me, I complicated things. I thought it would be fun to draw a picture for inktober, and then write a story inspired by/about it, using The Writer's Toolbox to give myself random prompts I would have to incorporate. This is what I did for my first story/inktober combination. I listed the prompts (and the rules I created for this challenge for myself) at the end of the story for anyone who's interested. (I also decided, for whatever reason, I had to do minimal to no editing of the story)
(If the above image doesn't work, first find it here.)
The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating.
He wanted to become a wizard with the hopes that he would be able to see the world, but it hadn't been going so well for him. He was in his finals at school, everything resting on this last full day of skill testing, and he hadn't been doing well. His first attempt at conjuring darkness had somehow resulted in silver glowing smoke trails, and when he tried to fix it he ended up with a pool of blood. No one was sure where it came from, and everyone very specifically Did Not Ask.
He hadn't known how he was going to pass the test, the one that would give him his Wizarding License At Large. Trying to distract himself, he looked all around and saw her. Laurie, the supermodel student with the large cat. It was another one of those things people specifically Did Not Ask About, which was fine with him. John liked cats, for all that he was allergic to them. Something the wizarding world hadn't yet fixed.
The thing about Laurie was that she was brilliant; she'd passed all her tests faster than anyone else, and she was nice as well. So nice that she was the only one to walk over and talk to John as he hovered at the back of the class, worrying over what to do next.
"Want help?" she asked him, and he looked at her in surprise.
"Why would you?" he asked.
A yellow bus full of wizards-who-had-already-passed-the-test flew by, making such a racket he almost didn't hear her answer.
"I was like you, once, except in a different way. People made assumptions. I kept acing all my tests and no one believed it was possible that I'd done it. They thought since I was a girl, I had to have gotten help. When I told them it was just me on my own, I heard: There you go, making up lies again." She paused. "That's what they told me."
"So... you feel bad for me?"
"No, I want you to see your own potential. You're really good. I've seen you in class. You never mess up. What's holding you back now?"
John paused, frowned into the distance, and shifted his weight. "My mom."
"What about her?"
"Well..." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "She's about to get married. My dad died when I was young and she found a new guy lately that she likes. He's okay, I guess. But they don't want to leave this town, and I do. If I get my Wizarding License, no way I'm staying here. But I'm worried about her when I leave. She'll be fine with him, but she'll worry about me when I'm gone, like she worried about my dad when he left before his accident, and... I don't know."
"Well, you can't let your worries about what might be with her take away your future of what you want for you."
"Easier said than done."
Laurie shrugged, and settled against the wall next to him. "You know what I want to be when I'm out of here?"
"A wizard?"
Laurie smiled wanly. "An actress."
"An actress? With your skills? Why wouldn't you become a wizard or a hunter, or-- or anything else?"
"Because I don't want to just make a new world out of magic; I'd rather be someone new every day. You know? Like think about it. Right now we could make something to eat, but where's the fun in that? Then it's reality, and we aren't playing pretend. Wouldn't it be more fun to sit here, with nothing in my hands, nothing around, and convince people that here in my palms is a bowl of sticky raspberry yogurt that I'm eating? Something cool and refreshing on this hot summer day?"
"Hmm." John considered her with all the gravity of his eighteen years. "You're odd."
Laurie grinned. "I guess." She stood and dusted off her pants. "Anyway, you want to be a wizard more than I do, and I thought it'd be a shame to see your dream go unrealized. So, want some help?"
"Yeah... I would."
"Good." Laurie gestured for him to follow. "They're doing this alphabetically. You're not up for another hour so we have time. I'll give you some tips, but we gotta get out of view or they might think you're cheating."
"Okay."
John followed her as she led him around the side of a shed that was generally used to house the school's spare wands and broomsticks. As they walked, she asked curiously:
"So, where's the first place you want to go when you get your license?"
"Anywhere but here."
She tilted her head, dark eyes taking him in. "Is here really so bad?"
"No, it's fine here. But I want to see the rest of the world. I want to see more than this tiny town. I can't if I never leave."
"Fair enough." She pushed aside a trail of weeping willow leaves and led him through a copse of trees. "Have you ever heard of the Fiery Forest?"
"No. What's that?"
Laurie stopped in a patch of darkness, and gestured for him to sit. He did, and she soon followed, her long legs pulling into a cross. "It's in a place that is now a no man's land where people rarely visit. But it wasn't always this way."
She paused, saw that he was listening, and smile at his attention. In that pale shadow of sunlight, she spoke in a rolling gait that pulled him in and kept him interested.
"The story goes that there was a woman, Kasta, who was in love with her friend-- another woman, who didn't know of Kasta's love. Kasta pined away for her friend for years and years, never telling her the truth, never daring to dream they had a future. Every day, Kasta would go into the nearby forest and sit near a rosebush, crying about her indecision, crying about her hopes. She cried bitter tears, and frustrated tears, and hopeful tears, and hateful tears. She cried tears that fed that rosebush, and sustained it even in the deepest depths of winter.
"But in all those tears, she never gained the strength for words. Her friend never learned that she was so loved, and so she grew up, and they grew apart, and eventually she left Kasta's life never to return. Kasta was devastated, and so she returned to the rosebush again. Crying, yearning, wishing, losing. Eventually, the tears took all the liquid from Kasta's body, eventually even her soul, and so she died there beside the rosebush, and so her body returned to the earth, and so that rosebush lived.
"Its petals became the deepest red of blood, of love, of hope; and it did not falter no matter the sun, the rain, the snow. That rosebush lived vibrantly in all the ways Kasta had been unable to live in life, for it housed her soul and her spirit and all the emotions she'd never been able to express.
"Soon, people heard of this beautiful rosebush, this perpetual flower, which glowed in the deepest of nights and shone in the brightest of days. Rumors began that if one took a rose from the bush and presented it to their love, then their happiness was guaranteed for life; but that if one was cut on the thorns in getting the rose then they would lose that love forever. The rumors became legend, and the rosebush was sought out and plundered over and over and over, and yet it remained, and yet it continued to blossom the most beautiful and fragrant of flowers, and yet it did not falter or fail.
"Decades passed in this way, until the day that Kasta's friend died. In that moment, the rosebush is said to have screamed to the sky, and on that day the forest that housed it grew brittle and dry, as if all the liquid in all the life was pulled into the roses. A great wind blew through the sky. Clouds gathered at the center as angry beasts; swollen and thundering and violent. A tempest raged across the forest, ripping off the leaves and twisting the branches into hands clawing at the sky; the towns in the vicinity were leveled, and all flora was lost. Strikes of lightning louder and hotter and more frightening than the world had ever seen rained down on that forest, casting all into chaos and alighting a fire of endless rage, and endless life. All the rain of that tempest, all the water of the locals, all the tears of the fallen, could not quench that fire's raging thirst. It ate through the forest, ate through the remnants of the town, and burned to sunder all in its sight.
"All that remained was the rosebush, buried in a lake as red as blood, borne of ash and fury-- Still there, faintly viewed beneath the surface, glowing in the depths of the night, and shining in the height of the day. It lives, still, as does the fire that has never calmed in those woods.
"The legend has changed since the storm. Now, they say that if you brave the Fiery Forest, if you have a hope, a dream, that has never been lost no matter the obstacles, if you kneel at the edge of that water and you view your reflection -- they say Kasta's soul awaits. They say that if she sees in you a hope as strong as she had in her life, but with it a determination to see through what she could not when she lived, a single red rose petal will float to the surface. And if you claim that petal, if you hold it to your breast and wish your deepest of dreams and highest of hopes, she will do all she can to see that you have the happiness, the future, she could not have for herself. She will do everything to support your dream the way she could not support her own."
There was a deep silence after Laurie finished. John knelt in that small world framed by draping branches, and wasn't quite sure how to respond. He wanted to view that fiery forest, felt that urge deep in his soul of such a power he hadn't before felt, but he also knew that it was probably foolish to have that hope.
What were legends, but false hopes passed down through the generations? A vicarious wish for progeny to fulfill.
And so he stayed silent, and so Laurie smiled at him knowingly. "You want to go."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because..."
But there was no end to that sentence, for all that truly held him back was himself.
Laurie met his eyes and dropped her hand onto his shoulder. Her palm was warm, and her fingers strong but gentle when she squeezed. "Don't give up hope, John. That's what kills us more than anything else in this world."
Later, John wouldn't be able to recall clearly what happened in his tests. Laurie helped him, and he passed, and he got his license. He stayed long enough to stand beside the altar and watch his mother marry the new love of her life, and to feel the heavy pat on his back from his well-wishing new father. He stayed to gather his things, and gather his courage, and focus his excitement and hope, and in the dawning of a new day he left on his grand adventure. He set out to find the legends others had spoken of, and to spread new ones of his own, and throughout it all he remembered Laurie's story. It was the only clear memory he had of that day; the day everything had changed with the presence of a kind classmate who had reached out her hand and alighted a fire within him he hadn't previously known existed.
Four years later, when he passed through a town in search of a wild faerie said to haunt abandoned wells, he saw a familiar face flash across the screen in an inn; that vision reflected in its warm windows. He stopped and watched as Laurie's bright smile fluctuated between subtle shifts of expressions; her lips moving wordlessly while the world behind her churned with a heavy storm.
"I love this movie."
At the voice, John looked over and saw an old man watching the screen through the window as well. There was something yearning in the cast of his eyes, and the draw of his white eyebrows.
John nodded, although he had never seen nor heard of this movie before, nor of anything else from Laurie. He had spent the past eight months in the deepest depths of the darkest woods, and before then he had been in a remote town that clutched the edge of a cliff. The air had been thin, there. Crisp and cool and effervescent to his mood.
"She's my favorite actress," the man continued. "I forget it's her playing the different parts. I only see the characters."
John couldn't stop a smile; happiness welling within him. She had reached her dream. After pushing him toward his, she had gone on to be all that she'd hoped to be.
"She's wonderful," he agreed.
"Name's Morgan," the man said, reaching out a calloused hand. John shook it, their fingers curling over one another; warmth and strength and welcoming in a simple human gesture.
"John."
"You a traveling wizard, John?" Morgan tipped his gaze knowingly to the faded gold patch on John's coat. The wizard's crest.
"Yeah," John said with a smile. "You need a wizard's service?"
Morgan sighed heavily. His entire body seemed to slump; weighted by the disappointment of a thousand unanswered wishes. "No. Nothing a wizard can fix plagues me."
"What does plague you, then?"
Morgan shrugged, his gaze returning seemingly of its own accord to the screen. He was silent, watching that film, with Laurie now a spot of white against a black storm nearly swallowing her whole. She screamed something at the sky, her hands held above her, and John saw her true magic flying up to quell that tempest. No special effects needed for a wizard like her.
"There must be something," John pressed when that hushed quiet had reigned for too long.
"It's nothing."
"Tell me."
"It's stupid."
"Tell me anyway."
Morgan eyed John askance, taking in the heart and merit of him, and assessing his trust. At length, he sighed again and crossed his arms.
"I always wanted to be a writer," he admitted very slowly; the quaking of a buried dream trembling in his voice. "For movies. Like that."
He gestured to the screen but John didn't take his eyes from Morgan. Another quick glance John's way, another bout of quiet, and upon seeing no judgment, no mockery, Morgan continued.
"I wanted to go when I was young, when I was your age, but I was a poor farmer's son. Had to stay home, help the family. The farm. Had to live the life laid out for me."
"Were you happy?"
Morgan tipped his head, his eyes roaming the town streets as if searching for an answer in the battered wooden signs, and the faded cloth awnings. "At times. I never had a family of my own. Never wanted one. Kept the farm going, all through my parents' lives. They passed three years ago, and last year the flood hit. Took everything."
"Your land?"
"Ruined. The house too." Morgan let out a low breath and smiled mirthlessly. "I was a poor farmer's son, then a poor farmer, and now I'm just poor."
"If you have no reason to stay here anymore, then why don't you try to be a writer now? Head to the big city and start anew?"
"Don't have the money for it, and even if I did I might not have the talent." Morgan shook his head. "An old man like me, I should give up on it all."
"Do you really believe that?"
"I have to. I don't have another choice."
"Hmm." John pulled open one side of his coat, and started digging around for the leather pouch he had hidden in an inner pocket.
Morgan frowned. "What're you doing?"
The small black pouch was smooth beneath his fingertips, and he finagled it from its tight fit with practiced ease. He held it out, and with a smile watched the shifting of emotions cross Morgan's expressive face: uncertainty, distrust, wariness, confusion...
"What's that?"
John didn't answer; just let that small smile live on his lips, in his eyes. He lifted his eyebrows and jostled the pouch as if to say silently: Here. Take it.
As bewildered as he was, Morgan still slowly reached out and picked up the pouch. He slid it open, and peered down in blank shock at the glowing red crystal within, sat atop a telltale blue coin ringed in gold.
"That's--" John started, but Morgan's hushed voice cut him off:
"An Everall. Limitless transportation." His wide eyes met John's. "I didn't think they existed."
"There's a lot more that exists in this world than most people imagine."
"But... how?"
John shrugged. "A lot of things become possible to a licensed wizard." When Morgan reverently held the pouch out, John grimaced and pushed it away. "No, that's yours. Take it."
"What?" There was barely voice to that breath, or color to Morgan's face.
"The jewel's worth four hundred, maybe more. Don't take less than that when you trade it in at the city, but if you get more, then jump on the chance. I'd take it to Cavera's if I were you, but you could bring it to any exchange shop, really. Cavera's owned by a friend, is all."
"What?" The quietest hush.
"That should be enough to get you a small place to start, and the Everall will let you go anywhere on public transportation for life. In the city, that will get you anywhere you need to be. If you need help, seek out the company of the actress you like. Try to get a letter to her, and tell her John sent you. If she can, she'll give you aid."
"This doesn't make any sense..." Morgan's worn old hands clutched the pouch close to his chest, even as he shook his head slowly, as if drugged. "How could... I can't... I can't pay you for this..."
"I don't want payment, Morgan. Consider this a gift."
"But..." Morgan bowed his head over the pouch. "But I can't accept such a gift from a stranger."
"Then consider it a loan, if you must. Go to the city, write all the stories you've bottled up your whole life. Publish what you can. When you're safe from losing everything again, when you've made enough that four hundred is nothing to you, then you can track me down and repay me."
Morgan was very quiet, and though there was a stillness to him in spirit, there was a shuddering of his body. His shoulders shook quietly, helplessly, and when he peered up it was with red-rimmed eyes, shining wet from the tears he tried not to shed.
"Why would..."
John smiled and placed his hands over Morgan's, curling the old man's fingers even more securely on that pouch. On his future.
"Never give up hope, Morgan," John told him. "Nothing kills us faster in this world than that."
This time tears did slip past Morgan's lashes, and rolled down his cheeks in a silent waterfall. "I won't," he promised hoarsely. "I never will again."
John smiled, squeezed Morgan's shoulder, and left. He didn't turn back to see the old man, but he did hear the guttering of breath from his lungs; a great exhale of all the stress and pain and withheld dreams of a long and worn life. And he heard the muffled sob that sounded freer than all the winds in all those lawless skies.
He had told Morgan it was a loan, but honestly John never planned to take it back. He'd learned from Laurie the power of giving a jumpstart for others' futures. He'd learned how it could skyrocket him to his own dreams, and even beyond.
When he left that town, he continued his slow adventure toward the Fiery Forest. What had started as an adventure had become a journey; one which had created more meaning in the journey itself than the goal at the end.
In the future, when he would hopefully step through those burning branches, and duck beneath the raining ash; when he would stand heedless of the heat, and kneel in supplication at the edge of that dark water-- he wanted it to be at a time, a place, in his body, mind, and soul when he was at peace with his life but when he had discovered a new dream for something bigger. He wanted it to be when he had hope anew.
And if that rose petal should float to the surface, and if he should fish it from the cool depths of that lake, he would hold it to his breast as Laurie had once told him, and he would whisper the words he'd stifled since first hearing the story. The words he'd felt well up in the shelter of shadows on a warm summer day; the day another's story, another's actions, had let him finally trust himself.
The dream of another that had never been realized:
"Kasta, I wish for you to be free."
==========================================================
end.
==========================================================
This story is completely random and unrelated to anything else. It's what I came up with when I sat down trying to incorporate the picture, along with the prompts I got from the game.
For anyone who's interested, these are the rules I assigned myself in conjunction with the rules of The Writer's Toolbox. The actual rules of inktober are completely different and can be found when you scroll down at the inktober site.
(By the way, to see the bulletpoints below in a more readable fashion, go to my blog post on this)
My own inktober story rules:
**First, draw an inktober picture with no plans in mind, nor any sort of story. Just free-draw whatever comes to mind.
**Then, draw a first sentence stick.
******For this one, I got: The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating.
**Next, spin all the protagonist game spinners.
******For this one, I got:
********goals: to see the world
********protagonist: Laurie, the famous actress
********obstacles: mother
********action: gets married
**Next, draw all three sixth sense cards but only flip one over.
******For this one, I got: a supermodel with a large cat.
**Then, flip the timer and write for one minute using all this information.
**When the sand runs out, stop everything and draw a non-sequitur stick and flip a second sixth sense card. Then, flip the timer and write for another minute incorporating that.
******In this case, I had written through "Why would you?" before the timer ran out. I pulled a non-sequitur stick and got: "There you go, making up lies again." That's what they told me. and flipped a sixth sense card and got: a yellow bus
**After the timer runs out, pull a last straw stick, and flip the last sixth sense card. Set the timer again and try to finish the story in that last minute, but if you can't then write for as long as you are inspired/until you finish.
******In this case, I had written through "before his accident, and... I don't know." The last straw stick I drew said: the day I loaned Morgan 400 bucks, and the last sixth sense card I flipped was: sticky raspberry yogurt
******I had planned to finish writing it in a minute but in the end it took much longer, because I had to incorporate the picture properly.
Inktober drawing information:
I used four Bienfang brush pens (in Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Orange Hue, Primary Red, and Vermillion), a black ink pen, and hopefully didn't cheat too much with the addition of a silver oil-based paint Sharpie and a white oil-based paint Sharpie (you can't see the white Sharpie bits; I'd just made a few dots around the silver).
You can't tell after it all dried, but in the dark red block on the right I had drawn with a deeper red a faint design reminiscent of a flower, that covered most of the red section.
(If the above image doesn't work, first find it here.)
The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating.
He wanted to become a wizard with the hopes that he would be able to see the world, but it hadn't been going so well for him. He was in his finals at school, everything resting on this last full day of skill testing, and he hadn't been doing well. His first attempt at conjuring darkness had somehow resulted in silver glowing smoke trails, and when he tried to fix it he ended up with a pool of blood. No one was sure where it came from, and everyone very specifically Did Not Ask.
He hadn't known how he was going to pass the test, the one that would give him his Wizarding License At Large. Trying to distract himself, he looked all around and saw her. Laurie, the supermodel student with the large cat. It was another one of those things people specifically Did Not Ask About, which was fine with him. John liked cats, for all that he was allergic to them. Something the wizarding world hadn't yet fixed.
The thing about Laurie was that she was brilliant; she'd passed all her tests faster than anyone else, and she was nice as well. So nice that she was the only one to walk over and talk to John as he hovered at the back of the class, worrying over what to do next.
"Want help?" she asked him, and he looked at her in surprise.
"Why would you?" he asked.
A yellow bus full of wizards-who-had-already-passed-the-test flew by, making such a racket he almost didn't hear her answer.
"I was like you, once, except in a different way. People made assumptions. I kept acing all my tests and no one believed it was possible that I'd done it. They thought since I was a girl, I had to have gotten help. When I told them it was just me on my own, I heard: There you go, making up lies again." She paused. "That's what they told me."
"So... you feel bad for me?"
"No, I want you to see your own potential. You're really good. I've seen you in class. You never mess up. What's holding you back now?"
John paused, frowned into the distance, and shifted his weight. "My mom."
"What about her?"
"Well..." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "She's about to get married. My dad died when I was young and she found a new guy lately that she likes. He's okay, I guess. But they don't want to leave this town, and I do. If I get my Wizarding License, no way I'm staying here. But I'm worried about her when I leave. She'll be fine with him, but she'll worry about me when I'm gone, like she worried about my dad when he left before his accident, and... I don't know."
"Well, you can't let your worries about what might be with her take away your future of what you want for you."
"Easier said than done."
Laurie shrugged, and settled against the wall next to him. "You know what I want to be when I'm out of here?"
"A wizard?"
Laurie smiled wanly. "An actress."
"An actress? With your skills? Why wouldn't you become a wizard or a hunter, or-- or anything else?"
"Because I don't want to just make a new world out of magic; I'd rather be someone new every day. You know? Like think about it. Right now we could make something to eat, but where's the fun in that? Then it's reality, and we aren't playing pretend. Wouldn't it be more fun to sit here, with nothing in my hands, nothing around, and convince people that here in my palms is a bowl of sticky raspberry yogurt that I'm eating? Something cool and refreshing on this hot summer day?"
"Hmm." John considered her with all the gravity of his eighteen years. "You're odd."
Laurie grinned. "I guess." She stood and dusted off her pants. "Anyway, you want to be a wizard more than I do, and I thought it'd be a shame to see your dream go unrealized. So, want some help?"
"Yeah... I would."
"Good." Laurie gestured for him to follow. "They're doing this alphabetically. You're not up for another hour so we have time. I'll give you some tips, but we gotta get out of view or they might think you're cheating."
"Okay."
John followed her as she led him around the side of a shed that was generally used to house the school's spare wands and broomsticks. As they walked, she asked curiously:
"So, where's the first place you want to go when you get your license?"
"Anywhere but here."
She tilted her head, dark eyes taking him in. "Is here really so bad?"
"No, it's fine here. But I want to see the rest of the world. I want to see more than this tiny town. I can't if I never leave."
"Fair enough." She pushed aside a trail of weeping willow leaves and led him through a copse of trees. "Have you ever heard of the Fiery Forest?"
"No. What's that?"
Laurie stopped in a patch of darkness, and gestured for him to sit. He did, and she soon followed, her long legs pulling into a cross. "It's in a place that is now a no man's land where people rarely visit. But it wasn't always this way."
She paused, saw that he was listening, and smile at his attention. In that pale shadow of sunlight, she spoke in a rolling gait that pulled him in and kept him interested.
"The story goes that there was a woman, Kasta, who was in love with her friend-- another woman, who didn't know of Kasta's love. Kasta pined away for her friend for years and years, never telling her the truth, never daring to dream they had a future. Every day, Kasta would go into the nearby forest and sit near a rosebush, crying about her indecision, crying about her hopes. She cried bitter tears, and frustrated tears, and hopeful tears, and hateful tears. She cried tears that fed that rosebush, and sustained it even in the deepest depths of winter.
"But in all those tears, she never gained the strength for words. Her friend never learned that she was so loved, and so she grew up, and they grew apart, and eventually she left Kasta's life never to return. Kasta was devastated, and so she returned to the rosebush again. Crying, yearning, wishing, losing. Eventually, the tears took all the liquid from Kasta's body, eventually even her soul, and so she died there beside the rosebush, and so her body returned to the earth, and so that rosebush lived.
"Its petals became the deepest red of blood, of love, of hope; and it did not falter no matter the sun, the rain, the snow. That rosebush lived vibrantly in all the ways Kasta had been unable to live in life, for it housed her soul and her spirit and all the emotions she'd never been able to express.
"Soon, people heard of this beautiful rosebush, this perpetual flower, which glowed in the deepest of nights and shone in the brightest of days. Rumors began that if one took a rose from the bush and presented it to their love, then their happiness was guaranteed for life; but that if one was cut on the thorns in getting the rose then they would lose that love forever. The rumors became legend, and the rosebush was sought out and plundered over and over and over, and yet it remained, and yet it continued to blossom the most beautiful and fragrant of flowers, and yet it did not falter or fail.
"Decades passed in this way, until the day that Kasta's friend died. In that moment, the rosebush is said to have screamed to the sky, and on that day the forest that housed it grew brittle and dry, as if all the liquid in all the life was pulled into the roses. A great wind blew through the sky. Clouds gathered at the center as angry beasts; swollen and thundering and violent. A tempest raged across the forest, ripping off the leaves and twisting the branches into hands clawing at the sky; the towns in the vicinity were leveled, and all flora was lost. Strikes of lightning louder and hotter and more frightening than the world had ever seen rained down on that forest, casting all into chaos and alighting a fire of endless rage, and endless life. All the rain of that tempest, all the water of the locals, all the tears of the fallen, could not quench that fire's raging thirst. It ate through the forest, ate through the remnants of the town, and burned to sunder all in its sight.
"All that remained was the rosebush, buried in a lake as red as blood, borne of ash and fury-- Still there, faintly viewed beneath the surface, glowing in the depths of the night, and shining in the height of the day. It lives, still, as does the fire that has never calmed in those woods.
"The legend has changed since the storm. Now, they say that if you brave the Fiery Forest, if you have a hope, a dream, that has never been lost no matter the obstacles, if you kneel at the edge of that water and you view your reflection -- they say Kasta's soul awaits. They say that if she sees in you a hope as strong as she had in her life, but with it a determination to see through what she could not when she lived, a single red rose petal will float to the surface. And if you claim that petal, if you hold it to your breast and wish your deepest of dreams and highest of hopes, she will do all she can to see that you have the happiness, the future, she could not have for herself. She will do everything to support your dream the way she could not support her own."
There was a deep silence after Laurie finished. John knelt in that small world framed by draping branches, and wasn't quite sure how to respond. He wanted to view that fiery forest, felt that urge deep in his soul of such a power he hadn't before felt, but he also knew that it was probably foolish to have that hope.
What were legends, but false hopes passed down through the generations? A vicarious wish for progeny to fulfill.
And so he stayed silent, and so Laurie smiled at him knowingly. "You want to go."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because..."
But there was no end to that sentence, for all that truly held him back was himself.
Laurie met his eyes and dropped her hand onto his shoulder. Her palm was warm, and her fingers strong but gentle when she squeezed. "Don't give up hope, John. That's what kills us more than anything else in this world."
Later, John wouldn't be able to recall clearly what happened in his tests. Laurie helped him, and he passed, and he got his license. He stayed long enough to stand beside the altar and watch his mother marry the new love of her life, and to feel the heavy pat on his back from his well-wishing new father. He stayed to gather his things, and gather his courage, and focus his excitement and hope, and in the dawning of a new day he left on his grand adventure. He set out to find the legends others had spoken of, and to spread new ones of his own, and throughout it all he remembered Laurie's story. It was the only clear memory he had of that day; the day everything had changed with the presence of a kind classmate who had reached out her hand and alighted a fire within him he hadn't previously known existed.
Four years later, when he passed through a town in search of a wild faerie said to haunt abandoned wells, he saw a familiar face flash across the screen in an inn; that vision reflected in its warm windows. He stopped and watched as Laurie's bright smile fluctuated between subtle shifts of expressions; her lips moving wordlessly while the world behind her churned with a heavy storm.
"I love this movie."
At the voice, John looked over and saw an old man watching the screen through the window as well. There was something yearning in the cast of his eyes, and the draw of his white eyebrows.
John nodded, although he had never seen nor heard of this movie before, nor of anything else from Laurie. He had spent the past eight months in the deepest depths of the darkest woods, and before then he had been in a remote town that clutched the edge of a cliff. The air had been thin, there. Crisp and cool and effervescent to his mood.
"She's my favorite actress," the man continued. "I forget it's her playing the different parts. I only see the characters."
John couldn't stop a smile; happiness welling within him. She had reached her dream. After pushing him toward his, she had gone on to be all that she'd hoped to be.
"She's wonderful," he agreed.
"Name's Morgan," the man said, reaching out a calloused hand. John shook it, their fingers curling over one another; warmth and strength and welcoming in a simple human gesture.
"John."
"You a traveling wizard, John?" Morgan tipped his gaze knowingly to the faded gold patch on John's coat. The wizard's crest.
"Yeah," John said with a smile. "You need a wizard's service?"
Morgan sighed heavily. His entire body seemed to slump; weighted by the disappointment of a thousand unanswered wishes. "No. Nothing a wizard can fix plagues me."
"What does plague you, then?"
Morgan shrugged, his gaze returning seemingly of its own accord to the screen. He was silent, watching that film, with Laurie now a spot of white against a black storm nearly swallowing her whole. She screamed something at the sky, her hands held above her, and John saw her true magic flying up to quell that tempest. No special effects needed for a wizard like her.
"There must be something," John pressed when that hushed quiet had reigned for too long.
"It's nothing."
"Tell me."
"It's stupid."
"Tell me anyway."
Morgan eyed John askance, taking in the heart and merit of him, and assessing his trust. At length, he sighed again and crossed his arms.
"I always wanted to be a writer," he admitted very slowly; the quaking of a buried dream trembling in his voice. "For movies. Like that."
He gestured to the screen but John didn't take his eyes from Morgan. Another quick glance John's way, another bout of quiet, and upon seeing no judgment, no mockery, Morgan continued.
"I wanted to go when I was young, when I was your age, but I was a poor farmer's son. Had to stay home, help the family. The farm. Had to live the life laid out for me."
"Were you happy?"
Morgan tipped his head, his eyes roaming the town streets as if searching for an answer in the battered wooden signs, and the faded cloth awnings. "At times. I never had a family of my own. Never wanted one. Kept the farm going, all through my parents' lives. They passed three years ago, and last year the flood hit. Took everything."
"Your land?"
"Ruined. The house too." Morgan let out a low breath and smiled mirthlessly. "I was a poor farmer's son, then a poor farmer, and now I'm just poor."
"If you have no reason to stay here anymore, then why don't you try to be a writer now? Head to the big city and start anew?"
"Don't have the money for it, and even if I did I might not have the talent." Morgan shook his head. "An old man like me, I should give up on it all."
"Do you really believe that?"
"I have to. I don't have another choice."
"Hmm." John pulled open one side of his coat, and started digging around for the leather pouch he had hidden in an inner pocket.
Morgan frowned. "What're you doing?"
The small black pouch was smooth beneath his fingertips, and he finagled it from its tight fit with practiced ease. He held it out, and with a smile watched the shifting of emotions cross Morgan's expressive face: uncertainty, distrust, wariness, confusion...
"What's that?"
John didn't answer; just let that small smile live on his lips, in his eyes. He lifted his eyebrows and jostled the pouch as if to say silently: Here. Take it.
As bewildered as he was, Morgan still slowly reached out and picked up the pouch. He slid it open, and peered down in blank shock at the glowing red crystal within, sat atop a telltale blue coin ringed in gold.
"That's--" John started, but Morgan's hushed voice cut him off:
"An Everall. Limitless transportation." His wide eyes met John's. "I didn't think they existed."
"There's a lot more that exists in this world than most people imagine."
"But... how?"
John shrugged. "A lot of things become possible to a licensed wizard." When Morgan reverently held the pouch out, John grimaced and pushed it away. "No, that's yours. Take it."
"What?" There was barely voice to that breath, or color to Morgan's face.
"The jewel's worth four hundred, maybe more. Don't take less than that when you trade it in at the city, but if you get more, then jump on the chance. I'd take it to Cavera's if I were you, but you could bring it to any exchange shop, really. Cavera's owned by a friend, is all."
"What?" The quietest hush.
"That should be enough to get you a small place to start, and the Everall will let you go anywhere on public transportation for life. In the city, that will get you anywhere you need to be. If you need help, seek out the company of the actress you like. Try to get a letter to her, and tell her John sent you. If she can, she'll give you aid."
"This doesn't make any sense..." Morgan's worn old hands clutched the pouch close to his chest, even as he shook his head slowly, as if drugged. "How could... I can't... I can't pay you for this..."
"I don't want payment, Morgan. Consider this a gift."
"But..." Morgan bowed his head over the pouch. "But I can't accept such a gift from a stranger."
"Then consider it a loan, if you must. Go to the city, write all the stories you've bottled up your whole life. Publish what you can. When you're safe from losing everything again, when you've made enough that four hundred is nothing to you, then you can track me down and repay me."
Morgan was very quiet, and though there was a stillness to him in spirit, there was a shuddering of his body. His shoulders shook quietly, helplessly, and when he peered up it was with red-rimmed eyes, shining wet from the tears he tried not to shed.
"Why would..."
John smiled and placed his hands over Morgan's, curling the old man's fingers even more securely on that pouch. On his future.
"Never give up hope, Morgan," John told him. "Nothing kills us faster in this world than that."
This time tears did slip past Morgan's lashes, and rolled down his cheeks in a silent waterfall. "I won't," he promised hoarsely. "I never will again."
John smiled, squeezed Morgan's shoulder, and left. He didn't turn back to see the old man, but he did hear the guttering of breath from his lungs; a great exhale of all the stress and pain and withheld dreams of a long and worn life. And he heard the muffled sob that sounded freer than all the winds in all those lawless skies.
He had told Morgan it was a loan, but honestly John never planned to take it back. He'd learned from Laurie the power of giving a jumpstart for others' futures. He'd learned how it could skyrocket him to his own dreams, and even beyond.
When he left that town, he continued his slow adventure toward the Fiery Forest. What had started as an adventure had become a journey; one which had created more meaning in the journey itself than the goal at the end.
In the future, when he would hopefully step through those burning branches, and duck beneath the raining ash; when he would stand heedless of the heat, and kneel in supplication at the edge of that dark water-- he wanted it to be at a time, a place, in his body, mind, and soul when he was at peace with his life but when he had discovered a new dream for something bigger. He wanted it to be when he had hope anew.
And if that rose petal should float to the surface, and if he should fish it from the cool depths of that lake, he would hold it to his breast as Laurie had once told him, and he would whisper the words he'd stifled since first hearing the story. The words he'd felt well up in the shelter of shadows on a warm summer day; the day another's story, another's actions, had let him finally trust himself.
The dream of another that had never been realized:
"Kasta, I wish for you to be free."
==========================================================
end.
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This story is completely random and unrelated to anything else. It's what I came up with when I sat down trying to incorporate the picture, along with the prompts I got from the game.
For anyone who's interested, these are the rules I assigned myself in conjunction with the rules of The Writer's Toolbox. The actual rules of inktober are completely different and can be found when you scroll down at the inktober site.
(By the way, to see the bulletpoints below in a more readable fashion, go to my blog post on this)
My own inktober story rules:
**First, draw an inktober picture with no plans in mind, nor any sort of story. Just free-draw whatever comes to mind.
**Then, draw a first sentence stick.
******For this one, I got: The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating.
**Next, spin all the protagonist game spinners.
******For this one, I got:
********goals: to see the world
********protagonist: Laurie, the famous actress
********obstacles: mother
********action: gets married
**Next, draw all three sixth sense cards but only flip one over.
******For this one, I got: a supermodel with a large cat.
**Then, flip the timer and write for one minute using all this information.
**When the sand runs out, stop everything and draw a non-sequitur stick and flip a second sixth sense card. Then, flip the timer and write for another minute incorporating that.
******In this case, I had written through "Why would you?" before the timer ran out. I pulled a non-sequitur stick and got: "There you go, making up lies again." That's what they told me. and flipped a sixth sense card and got: a yellow bus
**After the timer runs out, pull a last straw stick, and flip the last sixth sense card. Set the timer again and try to finish the story in that last minute, but if you can't then write for as long as you are inspired/until you finish.
******In this case, I had written through "before his accident, and... I don't know." The last straw stick I drew said: the day I loaned Morgan 400 bucks, and the last sixth sense card I flipped was: sticky raspberry yogurt
******I had planned to finish writing it in a minute but in the end it took much longer, because I had to incorporate the picture properly.
Inktober drawing information:
I used four Bienfang brush pens (in Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Orange Hue, Primary Red, and Vermillion), a black ink pen, and hopefully didn't cheat too much with the addition of a silver oil-based paint Sharpie and a white oil-based paint Sharpie (you can't see the white Sharpie bits; I'd just made a few dots around the silver).
You can't tell after it all dried, but in the dark red block on the right I had drawn with a deeper red a faint design reminiscent of a flower, that covered most of the red section.
May 5, 2015
New author site!
aisylum.com is my new author site, guys! :D :D One really cool feature is the filterable portfolio that lets you find books I'm working on based on what's in them. But it's not just about books... I also have a section about Doing Good, one on art, videos, music (including a centralized location for most of my Ais' Terrible Art), plus I have photography available under a CC license. (I'll be adding a lot more photography as I go) And more! What I'm saying here is: you should go check it out. :D
http://aisylum.com/
Somehow I thought to tell all my social media about my new author site EXCEPT the one social media actually devoted to books where I have an author page. Go figure XD
http://aisylum.com/
Somehow I thought to tell all my social media about my new author site EXCEPT the one social media actually devoted to books where I have an author page. Go figure XD
March 22, 2015
Donating 32nd birthday for clean water; please help
I’m donating my 32nd birthday to raise $320 to help build clean water facilities through Charity: Water. Please help if you can, even just by clicking the link to read more information: https://my.charitywater.org/for-lucas. 100% of your donated money goes straight into building clean water facilities, so you know that every penny counts.
As you know if you've read my previous blog entries, 2 years ago I donated my 30th birthday and together we raised $210, which with other campaigns helped build a piped water system- tap stand in the Daduwa community in Nepal, which provided clean water to 144 people.
There’s more information at this year's campaign link (https://my.charitywater.org/for-lucas). I donated $32 to the campaign already to get it started. No matter how small an amount you may be able to donate, if you can donate (or share my campaign with others), will you please help? (If you can’t help me with my campaign, please consider donating your own birthday so that more people can get clean water in the end)
I started this campaign early in honor of World Water Day today.
As you know if you've read my previous blog entries, 2 years ago I donated my 30th birthday and together we raised $210, which with other campaigns helped build a piped water system- tap stand in the Daduwa community in Nepal, which provided clean water to 144 people.
There’s more information at this year's campaign link (https://my.charitywater.org/for-lucas). I donated $32 to the campaign already to get it started. No matter how small an amount you may be able to donate, if you can donate (or share my campaign with others), will you please help? (If you can’t help me with my campaign, please consider donating your own birthday so that more people can get clean water in the end)
I started this campaign early in honor of World Water Day today.
February 4, 2015
Charity campaign finished! Water installation in Nepal!
Some of you might remember that in 2013, I donated my 30th birthday for mycharity:water to help fund a project that would bring clean water to a village somewhere on the planet that really needed it.
I posted on my blog about it and with all of your help, we went past my goal! $210 was raised for my $200 goal.
mycharity:water has been keeping me up to date as time passed and I've been telling all of you what they say. I just got an email saying the project is complete!
Read about it at the Daduwa Community in Nepal project page! You'll find a bunch of pictures of people using the different gravity-fed taps that were built to bring clean water to the community, as well as a google map pinpointing the location.
Thanks to all of your help, 144 people now have access to clean water.
Thank you so much to anyone who donated to my fundraising campaign! I will likely do more in the future. And if you want to contribute to mycharity: water, they are an awesome campaign. 100% of donated funds go straight to these projects, and they do a fantastic job of keeping you up to date as the project progresses.
If you don't have money to donate but still want to help, consider donating your birthday.
I posted on my blog about it and with all of your help, we went past my goal! $210 was raised for my $200 goal.
mycharity:water has been keeping me up to date as time passed and I've been telling all of you what they say. I just got an email saying the project is complete!
Read about it at the Daduwa Community in Nepal project page! You'll find a bunch of pictures of people using the different gravity-fed taps that were built to bring clean water to the community, as well as a google map pinpointing the location.
Thanks to all of your help, 144 people now have access to clean water.
Thank you so much to anyone who donated to my fundraising campaign! I will likely do more in the future. And if you want to contribute to mycharity: water, they are an awesome campaign. 100% of donated funds go straight to these projects, and they do a fantastic job of keeping you up to date as the project progresses.
If you don't have money to donate but still want to help, consider donating your birthday.
January 2, 2015
An asexual's view of love
A week ago Sonny mentioned a blog post he was writing about tropes vs reality and said he wasn't sure how to conclude it, because tropes don't always work out the same way in reality. I wrote the below post but then forgot about it in the holiday rush. Today he wrote a post about what descriptions or exposition to use in a diverse cast (read here), and through the ensuing conversation I was reminded of this post.
Everything below is what I originally wrote.
The question of tropes vs reality got me thinking about the romance genre (regardless of whether it's straight, LGBT*QA, or something else) and how it seems to me it's a fetishization of love.
You might have seen me mention in the past that I'm semi-asexual. There is a specific list of terms I can call myself that gets at what I am but I don't really go by that. Basically, I'm not often attracted to other people, and when I am it's usually first for their personality, and then I'm only interested in other women. But most of the time, I have no romantic interests in anyone.
As a result, I've spent most of my life seeing the idea of "love" from the outside. Throughout high school, I couldn't understand why all my friends seemed obsessed with constantly cycling through boyfriends, and in college when others seemed to have hooking up and/or partying as a priority, I wanted to sit in my room and watch anime with friends. After college, when people started to settle into long-term relationships, I lamented that I couldn't get a dog.
This may or may not be normal for other people who identify as partially or totally asexual; I really don't know, you'd have to ask them. I can only say what it's been like for me, regardless of whatever labels I might give myself to try to understand why I am how I am. Even now, I don't know how asexual I am except I think I must be because when I've read the descriptions of different terms, they fit.
As the years have passed, I've watched the lifecycles of all these other people doing the things that are "expected." Friends and family settling down with their significant others (SOs), moving in together, getting pets together, buying houses, getting engaged, married, having kids... All of this feels so disconnected from me as a person, yet as a writer I've found it to be interesting to watch the way "normal" people progress.
I don't truly understand love. I mean, I understand it in terms of how much I love my dog, my family, my friends. But I don't understand the human connection of love between two significant others: the way it might differ from other forms or the way different people experience it. All I know of love I learned from books, fanfiction, movies, and the way people interact around me.
Despite not understanding it on a personal level, I've come to recognize the variations in other people. Friends ask me for advice in dating or love a lot, and I always say, "Well, I don't really know anything, but it seems to me..." and I explain based on my objective view of what seems to happen with two humans in love.
What's interesting to me is that I've started to notice trends.
There are people who, when I look at them, I can fundamentally understand that they are in love the way I understand love to be. It's layers of subtleties, often, and not in the extent to which they proclaim their love verbally or through public displays of affection.
It's in the way I watch them interact, the silent looks that pass between them, the body language of whether they are open to the other person or not, the distance which they stand apart from each other, the way their eyes search the other out in a crowd, the way the lines in their face relax at the other's presence. It isn't always handholding and smiling and kissing and saying, "I love you," in public or even on the phone. It's the way the person talks to me about their SO when they aren't around, the tone of their voice or implications of their mood combined over vast periods of time. It's whether they seem truly happy or content or okay with themselves, around their SO or in comparison to how they were before the SO came into their lives. It's in the doofy, quiet smiles they have when looking at their phone texting the person back, or the way they worry over whether they have gotten them the right gift. It's in the anecdotes I learn of their lives, and the stories the person doesn't always realize they're telling in the negative space between those words.
There are people who tell me, "Oh, I love them" "Oh, we've been together for __ years" oh this, oh that, and I look at them and think to myself, "This doesn't seem like love." But I feel like an alien many times, like a being from outer space that might not understand the intricacies of human interaction, so maybe, I tell myself, maybe I just don't know their love. Maybe I've never understood what love really is.
But so far, all the people who I've thought, "I don't think this is love, I don't understand why they are together" have ended up breaking apart. Sometimes it took a decade, sometimes less, sometimes a divorce and sometimes not, and every time the person was devastated at first but then said, "It's better this way."
It's better this way.
I hear the quote that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, and it tells me there's something wrong with me for not loving the way other human beings love, but I look at that decade of tight lines and snipped words and frustrated phone calls overheard, and I wonder if that's really true.
I remember the first romance novel I ever read. I was a voracious reader as a kid and read above my grade level. I spent summers on the family farm, being the lazy city kid who found it quaint and cute to feed the calves as they slobbered all over my arms trying to reach the milk bottle but getting bored when it came to milking the cows as the machines droned deafeningly (literally; one of my cousins is deaf in one ear from not having used proper protection during his life).
One summer, I raided my cousin's bookshelf. I don't even know what the book was called, or what it was about, except I know it was a romance novel and it must have seemed intriguing to me from the outside. I don't know how old I was. Tween probably.
All I remember is starting the book while laying on my cousin's bed in the upstairs room, with the window open and the white sheers drifting in and out on the gentle breeze; summer heat infiltrating the room, and the whir of the fan as it oscillated back and forth from head to toe, head to toe, only stirring the heavy, warm air rather than cooling it. Distantly, I heard the horses neighing, the drone of the milking shed a comforting tonal sound that lulled me to sleep when far enough away, and the bustle of my aunt heard through the open floor grates. That grate opened into the living room below, which was itself open to the kitchen and right next to my grandparents' attached apartment.
Grandpa was probably down there, zoning out in his old lazyboy, the tiny black and white TV playing old movies in the corner while he sat in his ubiquitous striped overalls. Grandma was probably picking berries in the garden with her flock of animals following her everywhere, while she snapped at any child who came too close and didn't act the way she expected. My aunt was probably waiting for when my uncle and cousins would troop in, coated in grime and dirt and ready for a meal that dwarfed the small island they inexplicably used as a table despite there always being at least 7 people in the house.
It was a day like that when I started reading the book, alone in the room but included in the background sound of life and living around me, and I don't remember anything next until I got to the sex scene. It was shocking to me at the time, and I mention it now only because it's a funny memory.
Just as something wholly unexpected was happening on page, I heard my cousin running up the stairs--stomping up two by two--and just before she got to the bedroom door I threw myself down on the floor between the bed and the wall. My cousin burst into the room, calling out for me but stopping mid-syllable when she saw I wasn't there. I stayed very, very still, a spider not wanting to be seen by prey or predator, while she stepped further into the room. After wondering aloud where the hell I'd gone, she went back out the door and jogged downstairs. I shoved the book somewhere safe, and tiptoed over to the bathroom where I made sure to flush the toilet, and then came down the stairs a minute later asking confusedly, "Did you call my name? Sorry, I was in the bathroom..." (Real smooth, right? I certainly thought so at the time.)
I read the rest of the book later, but I couldn't tell you what it said. But I think that was the first time I connected the idea of love as I was supposed to see it as love that was presented on a page.
The thing is, even from childhood I understood love to be represented by the way I saw family interact, and as I grew older I looked for the cues in the way I saw peers and acquaintances interact. But meanwhile, I was informed by books, fanfiction, shows, and other media that This Is What Love Is.
I know the idea of fetishizing people (or types of people, such as someone who is a gay man for example) has come up in the past, particularly in the m/m genre-- but when I thought about the topic after talking to Sonny, I realized that from my asexual perspective, the romance genre fetishizes love-- or at least the idea of Romance As I See It Presented in Media.
When people are fetishized you end up with stereotypes of "well one has to be ___ and the other one has to be ___" but when you fetishize love, it doesn't become this idea of what the people are, but rather this idea of what the people are together. The idea that the interaction of two people easily slides into a neatly packaged happily ever after no matter the disparate beginnings of the characters themselves.
It's how I repeatedly see stories of one character who comes from another era suddenly falling in love with someone more modern, who seems to be just like anyone else but somehow is The One to the older character. The way they don't often have moments of confusion from conflicts in their vastly different norms from having grown up in entirely different lifestyles; instead, somehow they're just suddenly perfect for each other, because Love.
Or the way a story takes Sad Story One meets Sad Story Two and They Click In Their Imperfections, but there aren't always times where they stop and realize that they're both damaged in a way that requires they work on themselves first to address their issues or else miscommunication will keep pulling them apart. From most things I've seen, that miscommunication seems to just not happen or if it does, it's there for a dramatic plot point and disappears easily a chapter later, because Love.
It seems like the characters/story doesn't often acknowledge that maybe there are variations of love, and maybe sometimes Love As They Believe It Should Exist is simply not enough.
The common denominator is that fetishizing love oversimplifies the interactions between people, and makes it into Love Is This One Thing (like marriage and kids, or devotion for life until they die of old age) in order to give the pun-intended climax of the book.
Without a backdrop of deeper topics, the exploration of a relationship can become one-dimensional and fall really easily into connect-the-dots simplicity of what, instead, should be two very complicated human beings finding themselves and each other, and then who they are together as a whole.
It turns that Single Idea into The Only Idea, when truthfully love might exist in many forms across the board, and different people may have different happily ever afters, and some people never wanted a HEA in the first place, and so on. (This is sort of like what I think of when I consider Chimamanda Adichie's TED talk about the danger of a single story.)
Tying it back to Sonny's post and the idea of tropes vs reality, it's not necessarily that the tropes are bad or wrong, but rather that if they make it seem like it's this way all the time for everyone, it discounts a huge portion of the way things happen, and it denies variations of love or respect or mutual admiration or interest that might otherwise exist in reality.
Because some of the people I know are in love don't meet the qualifications I saw put forth in all the media that told me what to expect, told me how to identify and label love. And other people check every box on the surface of their relationship, but I see their unhappiness in the shadows of their face and in the words they won't quite say. The pauses in conversation, and the moments when they seem ready to break down, to question it all, but they stop themselves because they've allowed themselves to believe in That Idea Of Love. They say to themselves, "No, I must be wrong because this is just what love is" or "We had that love before so it must still be there, it must be my fault or we must have to work harder to achieve it..."
It can be in the way that all characters are expected to develop a sexual relationship at some point, despite the fact that people exist (like asexuals) who might never want that sexual aspect but it doesn't mean their love or respect for one another is any less in comparison.
Or it's in the way I see people view others in love, particularly in celebrity couples where especially the younger fans can't understand that love is fluid, and sometimes people break apart but can still feel love for each other, and sometimes things just don't work out. Or the people who can't wrap their minds around a love that isn't personal to them, like love between people of different orientations or identities or even ethnicities.
I'm an asexual lesbian who doesn't truly understand romantic love. I've felt like an alien for most of my life because of this, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.
But from my perspective, a lot of the "love" I see portrayed in romance media is the sort of thing that falls short of the love I see reflected in people I know in person, while simultaneously and conversely sometimes that media version of love represents the real-life relationships I see on a slow downward spiral, unwinding the thread of connection and respect until it's nothing but frayed pieces of string, liable to break at any given pressure. It seems like it's that connection to The Idea Of Love that makes them keep trying, because they think love is what they were told it was, and in that belief they find conviction rather than finding that dedication in each other.
But the love we're told to emulate seems to me to oftentimes be unbalanced, codependent, unhealthy or with a weak foundation that wasn't later strengthened with communication. It's often portrayed as grand gestures and dismissing problems and ignoring red flags in favor of lust or idolization. It's portrayed as reckless and wanton and because people think that's hot that makes it right, and for some people that probably is their ideal love, but it isn't the only love that is out there.
I don't think what I'm talking about is confined to the romance genre, but it seems to be most evident there in my personal experience, because those are the stories that tend to put emphasis only on the relationship and not on the context in which the characters live, or if it's mentioned it's only specifically for the development of the relationship.
I want to be clear that I'm not saying romance shouldn't exist, or that it's wrong, or anything like that. I've found it to be informative over the years, and I think there's definitely something to be said about the fantasy of romance as it's often presented, this idea of a forever that's tangible no matter the cost of reaching it.
I would definitely label myself a romantic at heart, because despite never having felt it for an SO I do believe in the idea of true love, of devotion and loyalty and weathering all odds. I believe in a chance for happy endings, and I believe in contentment in small and large measures.
The danger I see is in mixing up the fetishization of love with the reality of loving, and how people sometimes trap themselves in something that under any other umbrella term would be seen as unhappy or unhealthy or unwise, but when the idea that This Is Love is thrown into play they makebelieve it into something desirable and needed.
I think if we all let ourselves be our own version of happy, own version of content, and give ourselves our own version of forever, we will open ourselves up to our own version of love. It might not match the movies or the books; it might not check off all the boxes that we're told we're supposed to find. But it will be attainable, and it will be meaningful, and it will be ours. And when that asexual lesbian friend of yours views it from the outside, she will understand what it means to you, because it will be written in the story you don't even realize you're telling with every unspoken word and every quiet smile.
Everything below is what I originally wrote.
The question of tropes vs reality got me thinking about the romance genre (regardless of whether it's straight, LGBT*QA, or something else) and how it seems to me it's a fetishization of love.
You might have seen me mention in the past that I'm semi-asexual. There is a specific list of terms I can call myself that gets at what I am but I don't really go by that. Basically, I'm not often attracted to other people, and when I am it's usually first for their personality, and then I'm only interested in other women. But most of the time, I have no romantic interests in anyone.
As a result, I've spent most of my life seeing the idea of "love" from the outside. Throughout high school, I couldn't understand why all my friends seemed obsessed with constantly cycling through boyfriends, and in college when others seemed to have hooking up and/or partying as a priority, I wanted to sit in my room and watch anime with friends. After college, when people started to settle into long-term relationships, I lamented that I couldn't get a dog.
This may or may not be normal for other people who identify as partially or totally asexual; I really don't know, you'd have to ask them. I can only say what it's been like for me, regardless of whatever labels I might give myself to try to understand why I am how I am. Even now, I don't know how asexual I am except I think I must be because when I've read the descriptions of different terms, they fit.
As the years have passed, I've watched the lifecycles of all these other people doing the things that are "expected." Friends and family settling down with their significant others (SOs), moving in together, getting pets together, buying houses, getting engaged, married, having kids... All of this feels so disconnected from me as a person, yet as a writer I've found it to be interesting to watch the way "normal" people progress.
I don't truly understand love. I mean, I understand it in terms of how much I love my dog, my family, my friends. But I don't understand the human connection of love between two significant others: the way it might differ from other forms or the way different people experience it. All I know of love I learned from books, fanfiction, movies, and the way people interact around me.
Despite not understanding it on a personal level, I've come to recognize the variations in other people. Friends ask me for advice in dating or love a lot, and I always say, "Well, I don't really know anything, but it seems to me..." and I explain based on my objective view of what seems to happen with two humans in love.
What's interesting to me is that I've started to notice trends.
There are people who, when I look at them, I can fundamentally understand that they are in love the way I understand love to be. It's layers of subtleties, often, and not in the extent to which they proclaim their love verbally or through public displays of affection.
It's in the way I watch them interact, the silent looks that pass between them, the body language of whether they are open to the other person or not, the distance which they stand apart from each other, the way their eyes search the other out in a crowd, the way the lines in their face relax at the other's presence. It isn't always handholding and smiling and kissing and saying, "I love you," in public or even on the phone. It's the way the person talks to me about their SO when they aren't around, the tone of their voice or implications of their mood combined over vast periods of time. It's whether they seem truly happy or content or okay with themselves, around their SO or in comparison to how they were before the SO came into their lives. It's in the doofy, quiet smiles they have when looking at their phone texting the person back, or the way they worry over whether they have gotten them the right gift. It's in the anecdotes I learn of their lives, and the stories the person doesn't always realize they're telling in the negative space between those words.
There are people who tell me, "Oh, I love them" "Oh, we've been together for __ years" oh this, oh that, and I look at them and think to myself, "This doesn't seem like love." But I feel like an alien many times, like a being from outer space that might not understand the intricacies of human interaction, so maybe, I tell myself, maybe I just don't know their love. Maybe I've never understood what love really is.
But so far, all the people who I've thought, "I don't think this is love, I don't understand why they are together" have ended up breaking apart. Sometimes it took a decade, sometimes less, sometimes a divorce and sometimes not, and every time the person was devastated at first but then said, "It's better this way."
It's better this way.
I hear the quote that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, and it tells me there's something wrong with me for not loving the way other human beings love, but I look at that decade of tight lines and snipped words and frustrated phone calls overheard, and I wonder if that's really true.
I remember the first romance novel I ever read. I was a voracious reader as a kid and read above my grade level. I spent summers on the family farm, being the lazy city kid who found it quaint and cute to feed the calves as they slobbered all over my arms trying to reach the milk bottle but getting bored when it came to milking the cows as the machines droned deafeningly (literally; one of my cousins is deaf in one ear from not having used proper protection during his life).
One summer, I raided my cousin's bookshelf. I don't even know what the book was called, or what it was about, except I know it was a romance novel and it must have seemed intriguing to me from the outside. I don't know how old I was. Tween probably.
All I remember is starting the book while laying on my cousin's bed in the upstairs room, with the window open and the white sheers drifting in and out on the gentle breeze; summer heat infiltrating the room, and the whir of the fan as it oscillated back and forth from head to toe, head to toe, only stirring the heavy, warm air rather than cooling it. Distantly, I heard the horses neighing, the drone of the milking shed a comforting tonal sound that lulled me to sleep when far enough away, and the bustle of my aunt heard through the open floor grates. That grate opened into the living room below, which was itself open to the kitchen and right next to my grandparents' attached apartment.
Grandpa was probably down there, zoning out in his old lazyboy, the tiny black and white TV playing old movies in the corner while he sat in his ubiquitous striped overalls. Grandma was probably picking berries in the garden with her flock of animals following her everywhere, while she snapped at any child who came too close and didn't act the way she expected. My aunt was probably waiting for when my uncle and cousins would troop in, coated in grime and dirt and ready for a meal that dwarfed the small island they inexplicably used as a table despite there always being at least 7 people in the house.
It was a day like that when I started reading the book, alone in the room but included in the background sound of life and living around me, and I don't remember anything next until I got to the sex scene. It was shocking to me at the time, and I mention it now only because it's a funny memory.
Just as something wholly unexpected was happening on page, I heard my cousin running up the stairs--stomping up two by two--and just before she got to the bedroom door I threw myself down on the floor between the bed and the wall. My cousin burst into the room, calling out for me but stopping mid-syllable when she saw I wasn't there. I stayed very, very still, a spider not wanting to be seen by prey or predator, while she stepped further into the room. After wondering aloud where the hell I'd gone, she went back out the door and jogged downstairs. I shoved the book somewhere safe, and tiptoed over to the bathroom where I made sure to flush the toilet, and then came down the stairs a minute later asking confusedly, "Did you call my name? Sorry, I was in the bathroom..." (Real smooth, right? I certainly thought so at the time.)
I read the rest of the book later, but I couldn't tell you what it said. But I think that was the first time I connected the idea of love as I was supposed to see it as love that was presented on a page.
The thing is, even from childhood I understood love to be represented by the way I saw family interact, and as I grew older I looked for the cues in the way I saw peers and acquaintances interact. But meanwhile, I was informed by books, fanfiction, shows, and other media that This Is What Love Is.
I know the idea of fetishizing people (or types of people, such as someone who is a gay man for example) has come up in the past, particularly in the m/m genre-- but when I thought about the topic after talking to Sonny, I realized that from my asexual perspective, the romance genre fetishizes love-- or at least the idea of Romance As I See It Presented in Media.
When people are fetishized you end up with stereotypes of "well one has to be ___ and the other one has to be ___" but when you fetishize love, it doesn't become this idea of what the people are, but rather this idea of what the people are together. The idea that the interaction of two people easily slides into a neatly packaged happily ever after no matter the disparate beginnings of the characters themselves.
It's how I repeatedly see stories of one character who comes from another era suddenly falling in love with someone more modern, who seems to be just like anyone else but somehow is The One to the older character. The way they don't often have moments of confusion from conflicts in their vastly different norms from having grown up in entirely different lifestyles; instead, somehow they're just suddenly perfect for each other, because Love.
Or the way a story takes Sad Story One meets Sad Story Two and They Click In Their Imperfections, but there aren't always times where they stop and realize that they're both damaged in a way that requires they work on themselves first to address their issues or else miscommunication will keep pulling them apart. From most things I've seen, that miscommunication seems to just not happen or if it does, it's there for a dramatic plot point and disappears easily a chapter later, because Love.
It seems like the characters/story doesn't often acknowledge that maybe there are variations of love, and maybe sometimes Love As They Believe It Should Exist is simply not enough.
The common denominator is that fetishizing love oversimplifies the interactions between people, and makes it into Love Is This One Thing (like marriage and kids, or devotion for life until they die of old age) in order to give the pun-intended climax of the book.
Without a backdrop of deeper topics, the exploration of a relationship can become one-dimensional and fall really easily into connect-the-dots simplicity of what, instead, should be two very complicated human beings finding themselves and each other, and then who they are together as a whole.
It turns that Single Idea into The Only Idea, when truthfully love might exist in many forms across the board, and different people may have different happily ever afters, and some people never wanted a HEA in the first place, and so on. (This is sort of like what I think of when I consider Chimamanda Adichie's TED talk about the danger of a single story.)
Tying it back to Sonny's post and the idea of tropes vs reality, it's not necessarily that the tropes are bad or wrong, but rather that if they make it seem like it's this way all the time for everyone, it discounts a huge portion of the way things happen, and it denies variations of love or respect or mutual admiration or interest that might otherwise exist in reality.
Because some of the people I know are in love don't meet the qualifications I saw put forth in all the media that told me what to expect, told me how to identify and label love. And other people check every box on the surface of their relationship, but I see their unhappiness in the shadows of their face and in the words they won't quite say. The pauses in conversation, and the moments when they seem ready to break down, to question it all, but they stop themselves because they've allowed themselves to believe in That Idea Of Love. They say to themselves, "No, I must be wrong because this is just what love is" or "We had that love before so it must still be there, it must be my fault or we must have to work harder to achieve it..."
It can be in the way that all characters are expected to develop a sexual relationship at some point, despite the fact that people exist (like asexuals) who might never want that sexual aspect but it doesn't mean their love or respect for one another is any less in comparison.
Or it's in the way I see people view others in love, particularly in celebrity couples where especially the younger fans can't understand that love is fluid, and sometimes people break apart but can still feel love for each other, and sometimes things just don't work out. Or the people who can't wrap their minds around a love that isn't personal to them, like love between people of different orientations or identities or even ethnicities.
I'm an asexual lesbian who doesn't truly understand romantic love. I've felt like an alien for most of my life because of this, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.
But from my perspective, a lot of the "love" I see portrayed in romance media is the sort of thing that falls short of the love I see reflected in people I know in person, while simultaneously and conversely sometimes that media version of love represents the real-life relationships I see on a slow downward spiral, unwinding the thread of connection and respect until it's nothing but frayed pieces of string, liable to break at any given pressure. It seems like it's that connection to The Idea Of Love that makes them keep trying, because they think love is what they were told it was, and in that belief they find conviction rather than finding that dedication in each other.
But the love we're told to emulate seems to me to oftentimes be unbalanced, codependent, unhealthy or with a weak foundation that wasn't later strengthened with communication. It's often portrayed as grand gestures and dismissing problems and ignoring red flags in favor of lust or idolization. It's portrayed as reckless and wanton and because people think that's hot that makes it right, and for some people that probably is their ideal love, but it isn't the only love that is out there.
I don't think what I'm talking about is confined to the romance genre, but it seems to be most evident there in my personal experience, because those are the stories that tend to put emphasis only on the relationship and not on the context in which the characters live, or if it's mentioned it's only specifically for the development of the relationship.
I want to be clear that I'm not saying romance shouldn't exist, or that it's wrong, or anything like that. I've found it to be informative over the years, and I think there's definitely something to be said about the fantasy of romance as it's often presented, this idea of a forever that's tangible no matter the cost of reaching it.
I would definitely label myself a romantic at heart, because despite never having felt it for an SO I do believe in the idea of true love, of devotion and loyalty and weathering all odds. I believe in a chance for happy endings, and I believe in contentment in small and large measures.
The danger I see is in mixing up the fetishization of love with the reality of loving, and how people sometimes trap themselves in something that under any other umbrella term would be seen as unhappy or unhealthy or unwise, but when the idea that This Is Love is thrown into play they makebelieve it into something desirable and needed.
I think if we all let ourselves be our own version of happy, own version of content, and give ourselves our own version of forever, we will open ourselves up to our own version of love. It might not match the movies or the books; it might not check off all the boxes that we're told we're supposed to find. But it will be attainable, and it will be meaningful, and it will be ours. And when that asexual lesbian friend of yours views it from the outside, she will understand what it means to you, because it will be written in the story you don't even realize you're telling with every unspoken word and every quiet smile.
November 27, 2014
Thank you
Thank you.
Thank you to everyone who has ever read one of my stories or looked at any of the drawings I've done. Thank you no matter how you felt about it-- whether you tried to read the story and just couldn't finish it, whether you hated it or loved it, whether you'll always remember it or forgot it the second you looked away, or whether you haven't checked it out yet but still plan to someday. Thank you to everyone who has never been interested in anything I created but has still interacted with me.
Thank you to everyone who has been there with me, or us, throughout the years, and to everyone who has been around more recently. Thank you to everyone who's ever reached out to me, and to everyone who is too shy or introverted to speak up but silently lends support anyway. Thank you to anyone who isn't there now but reads this message in the future.
I still don't quite understand how I was lucky enough to be in a situation where I could meet so many amazing people around the world. I don't know when you'll see this, what your mood will be, or what you'll be doing--but if you're reading this, know that I appreciate you. I know you're there, and you matter to me.
And more than anything else, I hope you are able to let yourself be you--that you don't feel pressured into being someone you aren't, and that you take a moment to appreciate yourself. See the brightness inside, all the pieces of you that are unlike anyone else, and all the parts that fit together with everyone else into a greater whole.
I had something special, a small token of gratitude, that I wanted to include with this message but I was unable to make it with the current equipment I have. If I'm able to make it in the future, I will share it with all of you and reference back to this post.
No matter the season, no matter the setting, I'm wishing you the best and hoping for your happiness.
Love from the internet,
Ais
Thank you to everyone who has ever read one of my stories or looked at any of the drawings I've done. Thank you no matter how you felt about it-- whether you tried to read the story and just couldn't finish it, whether you hated it or loved it, whether you'll always remember it or forgot it the second you looked away, or whether you haven't checked it out yet but still plan to someday. Thank you to everyone who has never been interested in anything I created but has still interacted with me.
Thank you to everyone who has been there with me, or us, throughout the years, and to everyone who has been around more recently. Thank you to everyone who's ever reached out to me, and to everyone who is too shy or introverted to speak up but silently lends support anyway. Thank you to anyone who isn't there now but reads this message in the future.
I still don't quite understand how I was lucky enough to be in a situation where I could meet so many amazing people around the world. I don't know when you'll see this, what your mood will be, or what you'll be doing--but if you're reading this, know that I appreciate you. I know you're there, and you matter to me.
And more than anything else, I hope you are able to let yourself be you--that you don't feel pressured into being someone you aren't, and that you take a moment to appreciate yourself. See the brightness inside, all the pieces of you that are unlike anyone else, and all the parts that fit together with everyone else into a greater whole.
I had something special, a small token of gratitude, that I wanted to include with this message but I was unable to make it with the current equipment I have. If I'm able to make it in the future, I will share it with all of you and reference back to this post.
No matter the season, no matter the setting, I'm wishing you the best and hoping for your happiness.
Love from the internet,
Ais
October 27, 2014
Google history... what??
Sometimes people have said they'd love to see my Google history. Well, friends, I've just discovered that this is possible!
For example, this was apparently my bizarre mindset on June 30, 2013 (randomly chosen date)
full size if you can't read above
So now that I'm thoroughly amused and baffled by the combination of Lindsey Wixson and apparently needing to know VERY BRITISH WORDS (sorry, my British friends XD) I thought I'd open this up for some amusement.
If you want, give me a date and I'll see if I can find anything funny that I searched for on that day. I figured out it has somewhat tracked my history back to 1/1/2007 so you can throw out a date basically in the last 7-8 years lol
And if you want to amuse yourself with your own google history, go to history.google.com
For example, this was apparently my bizarre mindset on June 30, 2013 (randomly chosen date)
full size if you can't read above
So now that I'm thoroughly amused and baffled by the combination of Lindsey Wixson and apparently needing to know VERY BRITISH WORDS (sorry, my British friends XD) I thought I'd open this up for some amusement.
If you want, give me a date and I'll see if I can find anything funny that I searched for on that day. I figured out it has somewhat tracked my history back to 1/1/2007 so you can throw out a date basically in the last 7-8 years lol
And if you want to amuse yourself with your own google history, go to history.google.com
