a couple of little tumblr writings from recently

[avia]

jail bird

A criminal, they call eir, a murderer. It’s an obvious crime… everyone agrees “murder is bad”, right? No choice but to lock eir away.

After all, you can’t go around murdering innocent Ideas. Capitalism, what did that do to ever hurt anyone? No, Capitalism was just a sleeping dragon, long tail curled around the political centres of the world, its gentle purr soothing the minds of the leaders, its claws buried in jewels and gold. No need to kill something so good, so pure.

Now, what will the leaders do without its song? They mourn. They mourn.

This can not be allowed, not at all. And… also… ey has such a strange looking face.

So ey must be killed, and while ey waits for the injections, ey won’t be allowed any of those writing tools, also. After all, everyone knows ey spends too much time playing with dangerous Ideas.

But, what they forget is that ey sheds feathers, and ey can bleed. That is pens and ink, and if ey calls, eir flock will come to the bars. They will carry messages, fly away into the world, continue the spread of underground Ideas.

It’s not over yet.



sleep when i want to

i don’t remember anything
and i sleep when i want to
i don’t remember your name, birthday, face
and i dream of you dying, only
it’s a nightmare, my rubber hands pushing against fragile glass cage of reality-dream trapping me sitting on me like monsters in myths except
this monster has my face, and i am killing you anyway so
maybe it’s all the same thing
little glass knife heart girl
little bitter feral forest girl
we don’t need you here, but it’s okay, i am here
i don’t remember how to hold the knife at the table
but i remember how to hold a knife to your heart
“you lost all your memories of us, your half-friends?
shame”- but i am still trying to forget you
but i’m soft, gentle, i love you, i’m your rabbit
and a swan girl, wings and breaking, the echoes of mountain voice
cracking your heaven, rain bleeding down
you are ancient, don’t you remember?
you and me
in this together
rabbit, swan, blood rain
washing away your wrong rubber face
there’s light behind it
ssh.
don’t be afraid.


I want to write more stories in the universe of the first one. Where Ideas are creatures, and they can be killed.

The second one was just a rambling thing. But I like it, in some way.

I've been working on a children's book project thing most of the day, but right now, I'm struggling with converting pdf to epub... when I have it worked out, I will talk more about it and offer downloads ^v^ It's going to be a paper book too (because it is a children's book, I think that a lot of people will want the paper version to let the child hold, or to read to them at night, it's not the same reading from a computer), so, I have the proof that will be mailed to me soon, so I can see if it looks okay... I really hope it looks okay. It did in the pdf, but, computer stuffs can be so much problems....

Comments

[redsixwing]

Ooh, I kind of love that drawing. (It is now my new work wallpaper. I shall see how the coworkers respond.)

Ey has feathers, and can bleed, indeed. Ey can send out missives even from prison, and conquer those who would conquer eir.

[feathertail]

I was just looking at ePubness here. Thinking of publishing something. >.> Don't know if that link helps or not.

[avia]

*nod* I did a little research also, and, it seems like that is true about picture books, which this is... I think, I might be just offering it as pdf, not epub in the end, it doesn't really suit for the epub format....

[squeemu]

i don’t remember anything
and i sleep when i want to
i don’t remember your name, birthday, face
and i dream of you dying, only

This is achingly beautiful.

[avia]

Wow, I had forgotten I had written this!

I'm impressed by it too, looking back （´・ω・｀;） When I got your comment email, I thought, "this is something that someone else posted in my thread, right?"

Also, your icon is beautiful.

And also, I should add you. (If you want? I just think you might enjoy some of the things I say and I think I would enjoy some of the things you say.)

[squeemu]

I actually read this a few weeks ago and never got up the courage to say anything about it, but it kept catching at my mind and I had to come back and say something.

Thank you! I originally uploaded the icon for one of my characters (she's a shaman whose totem is Crow) but keep using it for my own posts, instead. Then again, I've been thinking about wild magic a lot lately, so I suppose it's appropriate.

I would be very happy to be added/add you!

[avia]

Then again, I've been thinking about wild magic a lot lately, so I suppose it's appropriate.

Ooh, I would definitely like to hear your thoughts on this. Being a swan (and not a tame swan) who sometimes identifies as a hissy clawed monstery fae swan girl thing, and believes in magic and practices it, this is definitely interesting to me.

Yay! ^v^

[squeemu]

I wish I had more thoughts on it! I've always yearned to see magic, to find that wildness I know is in the trees and the stones and seeps through the concrete of cities, but I've always had both feet planted solidly in the mundane world. Lately I've been finding my magic and spiritual intensity through music and bits of it through writing, but I'm feeling kind of restless.

That picture is fantastic! It's so wild. <3

[avia]

Ahhh, just these words are beautiful. I think the restless feeling is good... it hurts, it can be terrible, like something clawing at you from inside wanting to get out, but it drives you, and if you use it, you can do amazing things.

I wish I could bring you to a bonfire like the one I had with niya and rubyprism and whatawaytoburn last year. I think something about a raw open fire, with masks and stories and maybe some alcohol to make nerves more loose, can help you to feel like you are connected to something more wild. Or just, to go out and touch things, helps a lot for me. Put my hands on stone and soil, feel grass and sticks and puddles of rain.

Hee, thank you~ (Well, not that I drew it, but it is sometimes-me, so, I feel a need to say, thank you~~)

[squeemu]

Oh, thank you! I agree with you about the restless feeling... there's a twisting inside that wants out, but hopefully I can focus it into something productive. Even if it's just a better understanding of myself, it will be worth it.

It's been years since I've gone to a bonfire, and even then, the power and freedom from the fire was muted because of the company. It was still a great experience, but I'd love to have a bonfire with people who would appreciate it in the same way.

I recently moved from the middle of the United States to the northeast coast, and getting into the cold water and feeling the power of the waves was an amazing experience to me. I really miss going to the beach... it's still too cold to be outside for long, and the roads are probably snowy.

<3

[avia]

Ahhh, yes, water can be a good thing. Raw elements: a bonfire, the ocean, sharp wind, lying down on the earth. It's an old old myth and an old old way of seeing the world, but I think they call them elements for a reason. It's not just an idea. They wake up something inside us.

When I was at the beach one time, I was with a friend who loves the ocean. She talked a lot about how it's a completely other world under there, a world of darkness and sea creatures that can survive things we can't survive, like huge pressure of water. It's completely alien. And so, when I'm at the ocean now, I always feel like I'm touching another world.

[squeemu]

That's a very good point! I never thought of it in quite that light, but it's very true. And it just occurred to me that I find something very spiritual in being surrounded and almost overwhelmed by all of them, with the possible exception of earth. I love the feel of wind blowing so hard against my face that it sucks my breath away.

I recently read a book that described humans being transformed into something that could withstand the pressures of the deep ocean and it gave me a whole new respect for the things that can live in such an alien world. It's so fascinating to me. And you're right, it really does feel like it's another world. (I was also amazed at seeing wild lobsters for the first time. And hermit crabs! I had only seen them trapped in aquariums before.)

[avia]

Oh wow! What was that book? I really want to read it now. (I search a lot for good fiction that deals with non-humans or shapeshifters or humans who choose to become non-human, and of course, because paranormal romance is popular after Twilight, a lot of bad books get in the way, or books that are more focused on romance than the non-human nature.)

And yessss, I feel the same. I feel very alive and raw when I am standing at a bonfire, or I can feel the water spray from the ocean, or I am being pulled and torn by the wind, or I am lying on the ground feeling the pulse of it.

If you are interested in old cartoons, if you ever watch the episode of the "Moomin" anime called The Midwinter Bonfire (you can find it in this torrent), it's a really good description of what I feel about the magic of bonfires, particularly in winter. It's very magical and a little creepy, in a good way.

[squeemu]

It's called Starfish by Peter Watts (it was recommended to me by thiefofvoices, actually!). The change happens thanks to technology, but I got a definite feel of not-quite-human from the characters, especially as the story goes on. It's so frustrating looking through the fiction section now! I really like a lot of the ideas of urban fantasy or paranormal shapeshifters but haven't found anything I've enjoyed reading.

Have you read anything by Charles de Lint? He has a lot of wild magic, especially forest-centric. I really loved Forests of the Heart a lot.

Yes yes yes, all those elemental things are so wonderful and so very important.

I'll have to check out that episode! Very magical and a little creepy sounds perfect. :)

[avia]

I read Someplace To Be Flying~ For some reason, even though it should have everything that works for me, it didn't quite? I didn't think it was bad, it was just hard to get through for some reason about his writing style. But I will try that one!

And thank you! I'll look at Starfish, definitely. And yes... it's very hard to find stories that are not using magical things as a way to write a perfect lover vampire or "smokin' hot werewolf" (actual description from a blurb on Amazon), or writing the world too ideal and perfect, or writing it dark in the wrong way (I'm as much bored by now of "faeries are nasty and creepy!" as "faeries are pink and sparkly!" Stereotyping people as all anything is a bad way to write a species or group, and I would like to read a story from the perspective of someone who is one of the "nasty" faeries, so I can see their reasons, instead of seeing it from the human perspective?) I also don't like most traditional adult fantasy (it tends to be written by a particular type of white male writers who are very sexist and don't think about POC at all, and also likes to copy Tolkien with long descriptions that I can't get through... not because it's bad writing, but just because I have attention problems), so when you erase those groups, I have a lot of trouble.

I end up reading a lot of children's books and YA stories that are metaphors for being outcast, because it's the only place I have found shapeshifters or nonhumans that make sense to me. At least "outcast nonhuman" is an experience I have had, unlike "mysterious perfect lover nonhuman who is there to be a romantic interest" or "evil nonhuman who is there to show how creepy this world is", who are not three-dimensional people and so it's not an experience that it is possible to have. And I'm not a human looking at the nonhuman world with wide eyes, I'm a nonhuman who wants to find my self in the nonhuman characters... so it can be frustrating.