Amy Skuller

So today I had a little talk with my dear, lovely mother, and it basically boiled down to the age-old question: will she love me no matter what? (there’s a lot of backstory here but that’s for another time)

Now this is a question I’ve asked my mother since I was a teeny tiny tater tot of a kid. It’s a question most people ask at some point or another in their lives. 

But with my mom, I have a hard time believing her. She says that she will always love me, and yet almost every day I hear her talking about how disgusting homosexuality is, and how we should always, always consult God before making a pretty much any life decision. How if there’s a difference in our thinking from God’s thinking, we’re automatically the bad guy of the situation. How people of other beliefs, other religions are stupid for not seeing her religion and dropping everything to join. 

And guess what. Everything up there, everything I just said I hear trash talk about every day? I believe the opposite.  I think it’s okay to be gay. (I mean, I’m Pan) 

I think it’s okay to not believe in God, or to believe in whatever the fuck feels right to you. If you can jive with it and it doesn’t hurt you or other people, then do it. (I personally am not part of her religion but she doesn’t know that yet.)

I think it’s okay to think differently from other people, even God. 

And you know what she told me? She said she’d love me even if I practiced black magic. (That’s a whole other can of worms, because I actually study that stuff but yeah it’s for another time.) She said she wouldn’t talk to me or look at me, but she’d love me. 

But let me ask you this: does that sound like love? Does not looking, not speaking to your child because they believe in something different than you sound like love? Does shunning your kin on matters of simple, personal belief, really, actually, sound like love?

Go ahead. Laugh at it. Laugh at my attempt that took my wheezing-ass self five minutes to scribble out because I was bored. 

THE WEEKLY RAMBLE: 

This week I’ll be rambling about the villain of my writing adventure: Iralis B. Maxwell. So many questions, so little time to sit in the dark with my laptop and write. Let’s begin, shall we?

The story of Ira and how she began starts all the way back in February of 2019. I was so excited to write, to shower the world with my endless knowledge of characters and their attributes. (If anyone actually cares about my character’s favorite foods you can put it in the ask box.) I found out rather quickly though that no one really bothers with your story and your characters when they’re just 2D edgelords in a crime-filled world where it’s always raining. (Unless you do it right, and make it incredibly funny and enjoyable.) So what did I do? I went back to the core of it all.

First off, I didn’t really have a villain to begin with. Close Your Eyes was a villainless story, and that simply wouldn’t do it for me. My cast needed a reason! A bastard to fight! So I created a character named Gray, who was rather short and mean and hated everyone simply for the heck of it. They just seemed so dull, and reminded me of a garden gnome for some reason. Of course, being the first draft didn’t help Gray be very appealing either. I was back to square one after trying for two months to make Gray fit into the world of CYE. They just weren’t the right person for the job.

One day, while discussing the villain character with my best friend over text, I was hit with inspiration so fast it was the brainstorm equivalent of being run over by a semi-truck and then dunked in a pond still half-iced-over from last winter’s big freeze. I named the villain right then and there and pretended to my friend that it had been their name all along.

I named her Ira.

Ira, a wonderful unisex name, means watchful, (although in the character’s native tongue Ira is a nickname for Iralis, which means “little dragon”, a great description for her) which was a nice clear quality to start with. From there, I added a love of coffee, a mixed-race heritage, a personality made up of both roses and thorns, and a slightly obsessive tendency to try and please her best friend in hopes of something romantic blooming. This somehow melded well with this character’s hatred of Willum, her competitor at work, and her passion for fixing things. I don’t know exactly how all of it came together, but it did.

So now, we’ll try to discuss how and why Iralis B. Maxwell is the “villain” of CYE. She cannot be blamed for most of the core problems that the people of CYE face. She simply can’t. It’s not her fault that Wither escaped from IRIS and its not her fault that Deema suffers from night terrors. Although she is the villain, Ira is not heartless, and she is not evil. She can’t even really to called a villain. That role better fits Wither, but Wither cannot be called a villain either in her child-like innocence and fear of crying. So the burden of the title falls to Ira, and Ira alone.

The last thing I’ll attempt to ramble about is what makes Iralis tick. She doesn’t exist just to spite her co-workers. She has her reasons, just like everyone else. Her motivation for her work as an executive supervisor at IRIS is to fix the things that are broken, the teams that don’t work and the projects that have fallen apart. Her impulse to please Cora and be deserving of praise stems from a lifetime of telling herself she is not worth the air she breathes and the space she inhabits. Ira’s entire presence in CYE derives from the fact that she plays the part of the sad, twisted creature that learned from her mistakes and grew past them, but is yet twinged by moments of weakness.

All in all, Ira is my favorite character, and by far the one I have spent the most time developing, with eight-plus months of work put into her design, personality, and place in the worldbuilding of this hot mess I call a novel.

I’ve seen a lot of stuff within the last couple of weeks about COVID-19 (Coronavirus). It’s a bit scary, yeah, and quite a few large chunks of the world have been hit hard. Even Trump finally decided to declare a state of national crisis last night. But while the world is falling down around our feet, and we all stay indoors and yell back and forth over the thing that is the Internet, here is a list of 3 books to read while we’re all quietly dying. (keep in mind I’ve read all of them at least twice and I'm literally writing this post all in one sitting because I have nothing better to do with my life)

BOOK 1: Some Kind Of Happiness (by Claire Legrand) Some Kind Of Happiness is...well, a bit of a mind twister. The book begins with an introduction set in italics, fixing the stage for the rest of the story. It introduces you to Finley Hart, a 12-year-old girl armed with a notebook and a mind full of clever fantasies about her personal haven, The Everwood. Her parents are gearing up for a divorce, and while they work things out over the summer, they’re sending her to live in the country with a grandma and grandpa she’s never met. As soon as she gets there, Finely discovers that The Everwood is indeed real, and is quickly breaking down from darkness unleashed within itself. To save it, she’ll first have to save both herself and her family from the secrets that they are slowly being smothered in.

BOOK 2: Milkweed (by Jerry Spinelli) This book leaves a slightly more bitter taste in the mouth than the last. Set in one of the most mortifying times in history, Spinelli weaves a tale of a little boy living in Nazi-occupied Warshaw, with nothing to him, not even a name. Stealing food to survive and bearly getting by, this orphan meets Uri, another stray. Uri takes in the nameless boy and together, they find a better way to survive. Be warned, however. Milkweed is a possible trigger for those who have actually been through a war, though it depends on who you personally are and what are your limits. But nonetheless, this book is truly a magnificent mix of heartbreak, hope, and confusion.

Oh look, it’s a sassy spider.