Trick or treat? Treat, hopefully. I’ve just posted the third of the Airy Tales, Goldilocks and the Free Airs. It’s a little longer than LRRH, but like the others, it’s covered under a Creative Commons license that makes it free to pass around and remix. So if you like it, share it; if you really like it, take it to the next level.

I am really hoping that it will one day be illustrated in a style similar to what PBallooned and I did for Red. If you are an artist and would like to take a swing at illustrating it page-by-page, just drop me a line; I have a script version that I can send you. You do the illustrations, I’ll handle the layout and PDF.

I have several classic stories that I’m considering for the next Airy Tale. If you have one you would like to write, just let me know — I don’t have to write them all, and even if I do, I think multiple versions of the same stories are fine. The story of Little Red Riding Hood has lasted this long; I don’t think two inflatable versions from two authors is going to kill it.

I have noticed conspiracy theories come up a lot lately. Rosario Dawson’s character was the subject of body inflation in both El Superbeasto and Pluto Nash? That can’t be a coincidence! Butt-inflation on Producing Parker? There MUST be one of us on the inside!

Or is it all wishful thinking? Honestly, I think it probably is. Never underestimate the human mind’s desire to create connections where there are no connections. The technical term for it, apophenia, is well documented as a psychological phenomena. The conclusions are easy to jump to, but there’s no data to support them. And inflation fetishists seem to like to put the “pop” in “apophenia.”

It’s understandable, because inflation folks are outcasts. We have a niche fetish on the far side of normal; we regularly feel isolated. The hope that someone out there with more influence or success shares our values, or that our powerless little community has somehow infiltrated the mainstream culture and is now promoting our agenda on the sly, is a powerful dream — but it isn’t the kind of dream you can simply wish into existence, or ignore other factors because they don’t fit the theory.

Two roles by the same actress, seven years apart with 20 roles in-between, from different writers/directors/producers, split between live-action and animated, that both involve BE jokes? That’s a coincidence. A butt-inflation scene in an animated show, played for humor? It’s more likely…humor. A joke about body image, like so many other comedians have written before, without any thought about a community of sexual deviants numbering a thousand strong at best.

This stuff is fun when you’re trying to piece together parts of Lost. But I worry that some of us really believe that there’s an inflation conspiracy, simply because we want to believe it.

All I’m saying is, don’t worry about mainstream validation, and don’t change your reality to get it. You will only frustrate and depress yourself in the long run. If the world doesn’t understand your kink, be happy enjoying it with the people who do.

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.