Posted by: Inflate123 in Etc
So back when blogs were young, I had an idea of creating a blog in character, and telling an entire inflation story/soap opera from that person’s perspective. Hopefully, I would leave the reader wondering whether what they were reading was real or not (or at least hoping it might be real), and the narrator could respond to comments and stuff like that, things that would acknowledge the audience.
It was to be quite a commitment, in both time and energy. I mean, that’s a lot of details, an entire fake life, written not as erotica but as pure character development? I was afraid of doing it myself, for fear that I would not be able to sustain it, but the folks I approached weren’t sold on the idea. It never got done. I think the time has passed; the novelty of blogs has worn off and people would see through it.
I never said anything about it because I thought one day I would eventually do it. But I just don’t think it will ever get done. So here’s to what might have been.
Posted by: Inflate123 in Etc
After the text version of Little Red Riding Hood came out, Pballooned contacted me and asked if he could do some drawings to accompany it. Naturally, of course, yes! He did that months ago and I have finally worked them into a PDF storybook for all your naughty nighttime reading! It’s available for free download from the main Airy Tales Collection page.
The story text is slightly different from the existing version on the site. A different format called for a different edit.
I would love to see more of these. In fact, I have the next story ready to go — a spin on Goldilocks and the Three Bears — and I would rather not just release it as text. If you’re an artist and want to take a stab at illustrating it, drop me a line and I’ll send you the text and we can discuss what you want to do with it. It would be awesome to have multiple illustrated versions to unveil at once!
Posted by: Inflate123 in Etc
Airy Tales was originally going to be a for-profit venture, just to cover costs. I think the combined nature of the belief that “everything is free on the internet” and the inflation customer’s desire for anonymity makes this a losing battle, so I launched with a different concept and a lot less content. But if I’m a creator, shouldn’t I get something for my efforts? I think so — the answer is credit.
Recently, LutherVKane spotted a blatant case of plagiarism at Deviant Art — see BalloonFan’s original “Dark Red Hair” and its bold ripoff from the ironically named TheStoryWriter, dubbed “Her Dark Dark Brown Hair”. It occurred to me that even if you take credit for what you make, it’s only really given if people want to honor it. So, just out of a sense of feeling a little proactive, and to support the future of copyright in general, I’ve decided to add a Creative Commons license on Airy Tales. For instance, this license will cover everything posted on Airy Tales unless otherwise noted:
Airy Tales: Little Red Riding Hood And How She Became Not So Little by Inflate123 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
It basically means that if you like it, you can send it to friends, post it on public archives, leave a printout in the hollow knot of the old tree in front of a spooky house — it’s officially free to distribute. The way I see it, I don’t have to fight piracy if I choose to give it away from the start. But that doesn’t mean there’s no copyright; it’s just a more sensible one. If you want to pass it around, you can — but you have to give proper credit to the file’s authors and origin (easiest if you don’t alter the file when you give it to someone, and most people don’t). And if you want to create your own version of on an Airy Tales work, you can do that too, so long as you a) still attribute the source material as above and b) don’t sell it.
I like this CC license; it’s fair to me as a creator, and, whether you want to put your own spin on something or simply want to share it with friends, it empowers you, too.
Also, this decision was not reached in a vacuum; I should have something interesting to post shortly!
