And now a rant about piracy

It's 2009 and I still see stupid shit like this posted on inflation community forums:

"Sorry, but I'm a personal believer of, 'If you don't want your stuff stolen, don't put it on the Internet.'"

Do I even have to explain why that's fucking moronic? Attitudes like this are what kills communities like ours. It certainly demotivates anybody who

It always starts with a bedrock of amateurs following their bliss, nice enough to publicly post their private fantasies as stories or drawings or morphs or renders or what have you. That's awesome; it's the lifeblood, and the main investment is the creator's time. But every so often you get someone who wants to take it a step further. What about animation? How about video? What about actors? The desire is there; the ambition is there. But the costs are there too.

So, more sophisticated content means higher costs. The obvious answer is to charge for the content and help defray the costs. There's a difference between a backyard camcorder movie and an art-house film, even if the spirit that drives them might be the same.

The logic behind the "don't post if you don't want it stolen" is beyond asinine. Similarly, "If you don't want a bullet in your head, don't walk outside when I have my gun in my hand." Or "If you don't want to get run over by my car, then don't leave your house when I happen to be driving on your sidewalk." The suggestion that personal responsibility no longer counts because the delivery medium is digital is staggeringly stupid.

I've seen both Bambi Blaze and Johnny Swell fight leech communities to have their paid material removed from public postings. I don't begrudge BB and JS for charging for their work. But if they can't win against pirates, what does that say to the next person who would like to aim their content-creation sights a little higher than average? There's no motivation to even try to raise the bar, because jackasses will beat them to death with it if they so much as try to ask for compensation for that effort.

It's 2009. For fuck's sake, we need to grow up.

Heliumgirl77's "Photo Enlargement"

This is the best story I've read since...well, since "Nozzle." It's well crafted. It's creative and clever, a riff on something that until five seconds ago seemed tired and played out. It's intensely erotic, and the expansion scenes are described with gently insistent care. I wish I could write like this; I wish I could plant such rich scenes in people's minds.

I'm a little short of breath.

What's up with Airy Tales?

A quick update about Airy Tales. It's still a going concern, but we have hit a few snags. I had kind of hoped to have the whole site launched by now, but a few things set the plans off the rails.

First, the creative team behind the project had to swap some members around. I know I haven't said much about that team, but it was not just me and a crazy idea; it's several people working together. Real life got in the way and one of the people had to bow out. So that was an adjustment.

Second, a technical/artistic issue hit the project, and we've had trouble navigating around it.

And third, of course, the good old economy. Frankly, most of the people involved (myself included) have had to focus on real-life work that pays instead of putting time into the fun side project. I am not upset about that -- disappointed, but not mad. I mean, c'mon. Airy Tales isn't paying anybody's rent.

So, Airy Tales is still happening. But the schedule, which I never wanted to discuss publicly anyway for fear of things beyond my control changing it, has to remain flexible.

This week in Jessica Rabbit news

When it rains it pours. Here I am, sitting at home, thinking that everyone had forgotten the world's most voluptuous fictional redhead, and wham, she's suddenly back in the zeitgeist. At least for a week.

It started when folks in the UK who participated in a Cadbury survey voted Jessica Rabbit the sexiest cartoon character of all time. Please note that the news article says that Jessica beat off several other characters. Way to go, copy editors.

That news snippet led to a Saturday Night Live sketch with a retort from Cathy and a guest appearance from Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel. The video is below or you can see some stills here if it's not loading right below.



Frustration squiggle! LOL.

Also? Yum.

Violet (a chemist's view)

I love the web. It brings you to weird things like this page for a physical chemistry class at the University of Illinois.

Of special note is the page of homework helpers, where it would appear a teacher's assistant with a dark humor streak created a series of chemistry problems set in the world of the candy magnate/munitions factory owner/brutal murderer Willy Wonka and the chemistry behind his various ways to eliminate the sweet innocent children who visit his factory. (There's also a series of Hellboy problems in there, not to mention Robert Browning. That that, English department.)

They are posted in reverse chronological order, and as it happens, Violet is first and provides the setup for the series. Problem 3 on her page asks -- and answers -- the question, "Does Violet keep expanding till she’s no more or does she return to her normal size and live?"

I am not a chemist so I did not understand a word of it. However, all of them are funny and I recommend taking a few moments to poke around. He also tackles such burning scientific questions as the nitric acid content of a chocolate river and how many children Wonka does in every week.

What happens when you die?

I know what happens when you die -- you become worm food. I mean, when you live a secret life online and you have surrounded yourself with a community of friends who do not know your real identity and have no way of contacting you outside of a web forum or an anonymous email...how will they ever know?

I got to thinking about this because someone in the community that I know pretty well suddenly went silent for a month. This was someone who I talked to every few days, maybe every week, in e-mail. They aren't much for forums, but they are also kind of busy in real life and it was the holidays, so I wouldn't usually freak out. But we were talking about an active creative project back and forth, and then, nothing. There was a lot to talk about and they're usually pretty gregarious.

So I started assuming the worst. The person lost their job and had to restructure their life for a while. The person got "found out" and has to manage their face-to-face relationships with people who now think they're an online pervert or predator. Maybe they took ill, got hit by a bus or something, and have been laid out in a hospital bed. Maybe they had a death in the family and were grieving privately and didn't want to focus on such frivolous stuff as this.

Or maybe it was both of the last two combined -- maybe they got hit by a bus and the death in the family was their own. Oh fuck.

I care about this person, so after a month of emails and a few phone calls -- a friend of a friend had their number -- they wrote back, which seems to confirm that they are alive. I don't know why they've been quiet, and perhaps it's not my business -- but I'm happy just to know that they are still here, which is all I was trying to learn.

My wife knows about my fetish; she knows my alias, she knows my password, and she knows who I know in real life. When I snuff it, she can log in to my account, write to one or two people, and tell them to spread the news, so the community doesn't endlessly wonder "What happened to Inflate123? Why doesn't he post any more? When is the next story coming out? And what about Airy Tales? He's such a slacker." She'll be able to say, no, he's not a deadbeat; he's just dead.

Do you have a death plan for the community? Is it even feasible in your situation? Or do you not even want people to track you that much?

Videos by Violet

We know Bambi. We know Taylor. And now here's Violet, another inflation video actress with clips for sale who went online earlier this week. Hey, the more the merrier. I'm personally not a fan of the messy food or traditional BBW stuff, but the body inflation does interest me. However, I'm not sure what to think about the inconsistent pricing -- one clip is $9 for five minutes, while other is $8 for seven minutes, and a few other seemingly random pairings of price and length.

The worst part is that I do not see links to a sample; both Bambi and Taylor have always been good about showing both short teasers/trailers of clips as well as multiple still frames from the film. I suppose some people will just download the stills but they help me figure out if a movie is my cup of tea before I buy it.

What it boils down to is that I'm interested in that button-bursting one called "Violet Pops," and I might cave and buy it -- but at a costly $8.99, if those five minutes don't utterly knock my socks off, I probably won't ever come back to buy another clip. And that makes me wonder which of us is taking the bigger financial risk.

2008: The Year of OMGDRAMA

2008 was...quite a year.

My personal highlights include being interviewed by Forum and, after several years of talking online, I finally got to meet Sievert when business brought him to my neck of the woods. We went out for lunch and it was the most bizarre thing to talk about our fetish through codewords and euphemisms in a public place. I wrote a new story ("The Corset") in a rush of inspiration, which felt good, and I got to announce Airy Tales after working on it behind the scenes for several months, so that felt very good.

I think the lowlight for me was being banned from Bambi's sites for differences of opinion that have already been amply discussed. It was also the year where we saw Bambi accused of horrible things that she didn't do...followed by everybody pointing fingers, which didn't help. Actually, between not having any useful information and not liking how people publicly made baseless accusations, that left me feeling helpless on multiple fronts.

On another down note, I tried to rebuild the Video Vault on YouTube, and got mysteriously shut down (even though other people have posted plenty of clips from my old site and they're fine). I tried to rally behind a friend on TopHeavy, and she was getting great votes...until suddenly her feedback went all negative in a matter of hours. I have my own suspicions on both of those, too, but since I can't prove either theory, I'm just taking the experiences for what they were and moving on.

Then again, we saw some interesting new folks emerge on the scene -- TaylorMadeClips and KinkyKingLatex really made a positive impact on our scene this year with (respectively) new videos and latexwear aimed at inflationists.

For me, the Story Of The Year award goes to "Nozzle" by heliumgirl77, hands down. I'm still impressed with the narrative skill on display there.

In 2009, I hope we have more of that and less drama. More creation; less politics. Less negative competition; more positive communication. I sound like a broken record, but the community is whatever we make it. And next year, as always, I'm determined to keep trying to make it a good thing.

The Corset: The follow-up

I am only slightly disappointed that my latest story only rated a 6.3 out of 10 at ExpansionStories.com. No, what I am really disappointed about is that out of 400 downloads, only six people rated it at all, and of those six, nobody bothered to explain why they rated it the way they did.

I really do want that kind of feedback. How can I figure out what that number means without a few words to support the score? Was it something that I didn't explain well that I could have done better, or just a matter of "it wasn't a pregnancy story" at a site where there are a lot of those highly rated?

Maybe I was wrong when I said good things about the site being a home for open feedback. Has the system broken down already, and it's just another story archive full of leechers?

The Corset - new story

I don't write stories often because I'm not inspired often. I sadly admit that to be inspired, I generally have to be intensely horny, leap on a vaguely novel idea, and then sustain that feeling until I type "the end." It requires a bit more discipline than I'm usually willing to exercise.

So...last night, the planets aligned and through the magic of delayed gratification I suddenly found myself writing a short story. I was somewhat embarassed to find that it was my first in something like three years. Time flies when you're busy doing other crap. It's called "The Corset" and I've posted it at Expansion Stories and DeviantArt, and it will show up at BodyInflation.org in time, too.

Feedback is always welcomed.

The Forum story, downloadable

The folks at Forum UK have decided to be uncommonly awesome and they have granted me permission to post the body inflation article from Forum 42.12 -- so much so that they sent me the files so I didn't even have to scan them. I can only assume it's a promotional effort, so...remember the nice people at the magazine who gave you something for free when they totally didn't have to! They don't make money giving away content for free (there are no ads in this PDF) but hopefully they'll make some friends and fans.

I'm really happy with the article. I mean, all I did was answer questions, but it's a nice, fair overview, with lots of direct quotes from CV & me. Anything people don't understand is therefore our fault! :)

Thanks to our old pal Pixel Prevert for the file prep!

Forum UK is out...with a tease

The issue of Forum (UK) I talked about last month is out -- Volume 42, Number 12, as stated -- and the "little article" on body inflation is significantly more than little. When I did the email interview, I expected it would be a 250-word piece in the "here's a whole bunch of little articles" up-front section that most mags have. Maybe 300 words, tops. A cartoon, pinup, or illustration, with any luck, to drive the point home.

What we got was an eight-page feature and a line on the cover. See it there on her ankle?

Holy shit.

Most of the article is from my e-mail interview with the author, but Critical Volume supplied illustrations as well as added his experiences as a member of the community, how he got into it, stuff like that. It's a very non-judgmental piece; it's more "look at this unusual interest" and not the "look at these sicko freaks" approach we sometimes get.

And if you read the article, you'll see a note about an upcoming project I'm working on, and have been for over a year now. It's pretty ambitious (for me, anyway) and involves several people working together. I expect it to go live in early 2009. I'll stop short of announcing it just yet, but the project is going to happen -- and if you buy the magazine, the project's URL is right there on page 61.

Did I mention Volume 42, Number 12 of Forum is currently on sale at fine British smut purveyors everywhere?

The risks of creating quietly

In early 2008, someone in the community that I have known for years and respect greatly kinda hurt my feelings. The gist was that he felt I didn't really deserve to call myself part of the inflatable fetish creative community because I didn't really generate enough content.

He had a point. I'd been the curator a video website, and even though I'd captured and edited (and even morphed) some of the clips that appeared there, I'd chosen to pass the site on to someone else several years ago, in part to chase some new ideas. I was involved in Cyndi Irresistible's voice-over projects, but well, even though I instigated that whole thing, I was just the engineer and editor, not the performer or writer. I don't have the Photoshop skills to do photo morphs. I clearly can't draw. And when it comes to writing stories, my output has been very weak, maybe one new tale every two years. And I've worked on a few projects that were never announced or released -- one was a collaboration with LVKane that I still hope to revisit -- but you know, nobody knows you're creating stuff unless you actually release it, so I don't get any credit for those half-done attempts. Ditto for all the private edits I've done for writers looking for direct feedback on their incomplete stories. A good editor is, by nature, invisible, and doesn't get credit for their work.

So, looking at my visible output over the last few years, his point was, maybe I shouldn't offer criticisms to other people who were actually making new inflation content, since I'd clearly stopped making new stuff myself.

What he didn't know -- and what I didn't feel comfortable saying -- was that I was already spearheading a large project that had taken several months of development and would take several months more. But what if the project got derailed? Multiple people with different schedules are involved. I wouldn't want to have talked up a project that was so far away only to have it dissolve and have his accusations basically come true.

But I think we're out of the woods. A website has been purchased, it's now being designed, and the content to go with it is in development. I'm happy to say that I will soon be talking more freely about this mysterious creative project. And maybe I'll earn that creator title after all.

The Bambi Investigation

Remember last post when I suggested that Bambi's lack of response was weird, and might be a sign of the economic hardships? Um, wow, was I wrong -- and I've never been so sorry to hear the truth: Someone reported Bambi to the authorities -- falsely -- for child pornography. Bambi explains.

This is not even remotely amusing. I don't know if someone did it as a prank, as revenge, as a way to kill her business...doesn't matter, really. Actually, it matters in that the motive might lead to the culprit. But I think the authorities are already on that.

Every so often the words "inflation fetish" and "child porn" get lumped together, and it's usually because of the Violet scene in Willy Wonka. "Eew, they're into little girls!" they cry. No, you're wrong; we're not into little girls, we're into the expansion and transformation. You're being disgusted by the completely wrong thing. And we've always worked hard to nip that in the bud when people try to make the connection, since it's so wildly off-base.

But Bambi? I mean, look at the videos. There are no kids in there. There are no suggestions of kids in there. There are no mentions of kids in there. There is nothing at all to do with children, childhood, underagers, NOTHING. All of the fantasies are of an adult nature and they have never even flirted with the things they were accused of doing. (The authorities now know this, as Bambi cooperated and was cleared; the investigation into who is wasting the sheriff department's time is now the focus.) It's a claim without any merit whatsoever -- and it horrifies me to think that someone made that baseless allegation, came close to ruining someone's life (thankfully, she's not giving up or giving in), and might actually get away with it. They are currently looking for the anonymous tipster with the spoofed internet phone call who started it all.

It's not fucking funny. If you know who placed the internet tip call, please, come forward and tell them. This isn't the least bit acceptable. This is not what our community is about.

But at the same time, I want to remind everybody that it's not a witch hunt, Please don't throw around more baseless allegations in the form of hunches; only come forward if you have information that can legitimately help. I'm sure they're already up to their eye teeth in "you know who I bet it was" and "I wouldn't put it past this person" stuff, and I'm sure they have a list of suspects. But what they need is the perpetrator.

If you can help, I implore you to do so.

Inflation, recession, and videos

The economic downturn is a matter of public record now. I figure the first thing to go is luxury purchases like custom pornography. I know I've had to adjust my habits and be pretty critical of how much I'm spending on things that aren't rent and gas. I would not be surprised if we see an upswing in bartering between storytellers and artists and whatnot -- the "let's swap cheap thrills" approach has always been popular, way back to the mid-90s when I got involved. But while people can swap text files or JPGs with just personal effort and basic gear, the original video content in our community isn't something that's usually traded that way -- it's traditionally been pay content, and for good reason, with all the production and editing and props and equipment that goes into making that stuff. So I got curious as to whether that relatively new aspect of the community is established enough to make it through, say, a year or more of hard financial times. I visited both of the main purveyors of inflation video to find...very different situations.

Things look pretty healthy at TaylorMadeClips lately. Every two weeks or so there's been at least one new inflation clip, and usually more than one. They've got a belly prop now and they're using it often; it's not quite as slick as Bambi's gear -- you can see wrinkles in the belly prop in the early inflation stages, so it must be built differently -- but it's a pretty big jump from where Taylor was even a few months ago in regards to inflation vids. The close-up camera work is still a good trick, I think, and it helps sell the scenarios. I hope to see less food-oriented vids (and more logic -- why are Doritos a source of inflation?); I still don't like the mixing of weight gain with inflation. I know some folks don't have a problem with that, and there was certainly imagery and phrasing in those clips (like "Bunny Will Not Burst" and "Roly Poly Irresistible") that made me happy as an inflation fan. I still haven't seen the scene of my dreams from Taylor but I'm not sure what that clip would or should be, so I can't complain. As has been stated many times, they're open to ideas, so maybe I should get off my ass and offer some. But at least they're still in business and showing healthy signs.

Meanwhile, Bambi Blaze's network of sites have been quiet to the point of being worrisome. The clips have been infrequent (one BE clip and one belly clip in two months' time -- and since they appeared on different sites, that means there was an entire billed month with no content in each arena) and worse, no information is coming out as to the source of the delay or an ETA on new content. It's starting to get a little heated in the forums at bambiblazebelly.com. I was asked not to link to her sites so I will respect that, but you can find it yourself if you are curious -- it's the thread called "Goin on a month now...." I hope the economic downturn isn't to blame -- she'd just set up a new studio, which had to be an expense, so I wonder if that turned out to be bad timing. Maybe it's time to consolidate all the subscriptions into one site. No real insight here, as very little has been said. I hope it gets resolved soon. The good news is that there are new props in her videos -- a butt/thigh apparatus that makes for some killer hourglass shapes in the previews -- and that could spark some fun new creative stories. I don't think the slowdown is intentional; I'm betting it's some unfortunate circumstance. One forum post suggests that it may be a computer problem combined with a move into a new house. Certainly plausible, but still -- why not call someone and ask them to post on your behalf? Seems like the customer base just wants to be updated.

[EDIT: Good news. Bambi released a new video on the belly site on November 12. There still wasn't any posting to suggest what the delay was or if anything is wrong. With any luck there isn't, and I hope it's one of many regular releases in the works. But the lack of communication is still weird.]

Meanwhile, I do encourage people to keep circulating new content; if you make or write something original and release it, that can in turn inspire someone else to do the same thing, and the free cycle of smut continues on. I spotted several new stories at BodyInflation.org this weekend, which made me happy. I haven't taken my own advice, mind you, so I have no new stories to share, but I conveniently have excuses. I have been stupid busy with work and a second job, but I've got something unusual in the queue that will hopefully see the light of day next year.

Inflation in Forum UK

Notice to UK folks: Keep your eyes peeled for the next issue of the jolly ol' edition of Forum (as in Penthouse). There's an article in there about inflatable fetishism. Seek issue 42.12 when it comes out, and I believe I'm quoted in it from an interview I did recently. I'm trying to figure out what the cover will look like, but the article won't be in the US edition, so -- those of you with access to British smut, report in!

Inflation Holiday 2008 - today!

It's here! The Expansion Holiday is this weekend, and there's a lot of content that's already been posted. You don't have to contribute to enjoy it, but you also shouldn't feel like you can't contribute if you missed it. I wasn't able to do much; I just re-released an older work that's been offline for a while, but hey, it was something. Happy holidays...

Helia's latest blog

It's here, if you'd like to check it out. I suggested she might have been gone but she's just been lurking. Yay.

The Inflation Holiday

When I suggested an inflation fetish holiday three years ago, some said I was crazy. Well, actually, some said it was a waste of time and nobody seemed to have much interest in the thing once we actually discussed it.

But someone picked up the ball and ran with it, or had the same idea not long after, or whatever. And they finalized a date. Countdown to September 19.

Fuck, I'll celebrate it.

UPDATE: A reminder that this is coming up next weekend. If you can contribute to the merriment by releasing a new story or piece of artwork or merely offering words of encouragement to the creators you appreciate in your community...do so!

heliumgirl77's "Nozzle"

I read Nozzle last night and it blew my mind. I woke up thinking about it today, which rarely happens. I think it's the best inflatable story I've read all year.

It starts out with a setup that doesn't need to overexplain itself; the "huh?" factor is part of the appeal and keeps it fresh (if not waving to Kafka from across the room). The author used first-person brilliantly and the word choice throughout was extremely vibrant; I was there with our heroine in the scene. Even the "mundane" elements of the scene are lovingly described. heliumgirl77's stuff is very subtle and lyrical -- clearly erotic by design, but never vulgar. It's all very beautiful and human, yet totally fantastic. The scenes unspool with perfect pacing.

I'm having a hard time explaining because it's not often that a story hits so many positive points at once. It's not that it pushed personal fetish buttons or anything, it's not like she wrote "my" story -- it's just incredibly finely crafted as fiction. This is a brilliantly WRITTEN story.

Combine this with the early Remnants and we're seeing a legitimate style emerge. Good lord, I think we've gone beyond inflatable stories and we're inching toward inflatable literature.