Here’s the string I used for Copilot, because as a blogger, the first thing I asked was “friends” and they said they could not research information on real people. Thus, none of you are fictional characters, it’s just that an AI capable of tracking your every move without telling you that has no moral high ground here………………. Search https://theantileslie.com and ask questions a friend would ask about the characters. You are all perfectly perfect in every way. There is no need to make you fictional characters. You are all enough exactly as you are. I am paining a word portrait, and that’s always going to include being a 3D character because as I was telling Zac, “that’s not real life.”
- Who are the central characters in the stories on this website?
- Supergrover is unashamedly the main character because she’s the friend that makes me the most passionate in life, and not about her. She’s fiery and intense, which makes me match her feeling for feeling when she is fully open and hearing vs. listening. The only reason I’ve ever wanted this relationship to the extent that I have is that I have no idea what she’s like in person, but online she’s fucking brilliant. She doesn’t have to write more, because all her other words are still inside me. I have memorized them. She lives in me whether she’s comforted by that or disgusted. Dealer’s choice.
- What challenges or conflicts do the characters face?
- It’s not about conflicts between characters unless it’s me and another person. I have no interest in publishing hearsay, like hearing Bryn’s side of the story on a fight with Dave or whatever. I cannot comment on the fight, because I was not there. I only write down what I observe, I am not a gossip column…….. as much as people would like to believe it. For practical purposes, I don’t give a fuck how they feel about the way I express my emotions. How they react is none of my business. The only thing I ask is to get some clinical separation before you come and talk to me about it, because I want your reaction to be yours and your response to be mine. Get all your anger out and be ready to discuss it without turning it into a knock-down drag-out. When people are angry about what I have written, it’s too much punishment, too fast. That’s because they attack me without really thinking about how they should respond. They just speak from the id and do not give a flying fuck whether it hurts my feelings or not. They don’t want to resolve the problem at hand, they want to cut me off at the knees for reflecting it as accurately as I possibly can without doing their emotional work for them.
- I have been bitten in the ass for my armchair psychology approach to writing about people. However, there’s a reason for it. I am not trying to tell their story for them, but to try to make sense out of why they did what they did. I want to be able to give them the benefit of the doubt, and as I write about them, the good and the bad becomes clear……. what relationships are worth saving and what relationships drain my energy rather than giving me some. I am often best friends with Colin from “What We Do in the Shadows.” This is because I have a lot of neurodivergent friends who will ramble on and on. You can’t get a word in edgewise, so you listen to a lot of shit you never needed to know. I want to wait until I have the bandwidth to listen to the stories in which you came close to killing yourself. Again, people open up to me because I am an INFJ, the Counselor personality. That being said, I do not have enough emotional bandwidth to take on counseling as a career. I would be excellent at it, and a mess regarding taking care of myself.
- Maybe later in life, when I have more money and less fucks to give, I’ll become an LPC or MSW. I need to work on clinical separation first, because when people talk to me my mirror neurons go off and I am overloaded to the point of meltdown a good bit of the time on public transit. The one time I really, really wanted to have a conversation with someone, her mom kept interrupting me and it was bullshit. I just couldn’t stop her from interrupting because the subject at hand was so serious. I was talking to a 10-year-old girl who was standing in the aisle while I was sitting down next to her. Children throw down truth bombs whether they’re autistic or not, so I wasn’t prepared for what she said, but I was prepared to help. I told her I liked her pink tennis shoes, because I used to have pink tennis shoes and I missed them (ask me how I lost them. If Dana is reading and she was drinking something, she just choked). I ask her what grade she’s in, etc. Then, out of nowhere, she said, “my dad’s dead.” Just absolute gravity’s rainbow (if you’re not familiar with the literary reference, gravity’s rainbow is the arc of a bomb). Oh my God. The perfect child walked into my life the moment I needed someone to talk to. I told her that I lost my mom, and we just sat there for a second, dazed. Then her mom started in with all the gory details while I just wanted to talk to the kid. She was young enough that her father’s death is going to affect her far more than me. My mom was at least able to see me through to adulthood, past my 40s. The last thing I said to her made both of us cry. As she was walking away, I said, “remember that your dad is still alive because you’re half of him.” It was the most I could do in four stops.
- To turn that back around into challenges I face, It”s that people love stories I write about the random interactions on the bus/metro. Yet they rarely think I can portray them accurately, too. They believe that my observations of strangers are dead on, and my observations of them are wrong. I have been right so many times that I do not lose sleep over it. When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time. They love it when other people are 3D characters, but God forbid I love them more than strangers and treat them like muses.
- Are there recurring themes or motifs related to the characters’ experiences?
- The one theme that has been with me since my first entry, which I think was called “Apologia,” or something like that, is how to survive relationships with CPTSD. I have so many other “letters behind my name,” comorbidities that seemingly never end. It’s about how my brain processes logic and emotion despite that, because people see my brain as brilliant when I write this way, but not when I talk. Neurodivergent overexplaining in a neurotypical brain is called “making excuses.” I have problems with authority, and this is a big one. You have asked me for information, I gave it to you including my role in things so it doesn’t look like I’m trying to pass the buck, and you’ve chastised me. I have not made excuses for anything. I told you like it is.
- How do the characters evolve or change throughout the stories?
- Supergrover has the biggest arc, because it’s the story of how I fell in love with her twice. The first time, it was because I thought she was the hottest thing on God’s green earth, and more woman than I could handle in three lifetimes (her husband probably just high-fived me in his head). The second time, it was because of deep companionate love because I felt that even though she’d never be my wife, that didn’t mean we couldn’t be close if we wanted it, because our friendship was rock solid. Supergrover’s answer was to sweep it all under the rug. Mine was to work through it so the bad feelings got light to them and disappeared. She also has privacy concerns about my blog, and so do I. She did not see the ways in which I was trying to protect her and thought I was attacking her. The arc has been my romantic feelings and my process in getting rid of them so that we could relax into something easy and free. It’s not easy and free when the other person hates conflict.
- Bryn has the most beautiful arc now, because we’ve known each other since 1997. I went to Portland before she met Dave to officiate at her wedding. Thus, the nickname “Rev. Argo.” It is the perfect representation of me and I love it so much. My two special interests are intelligence and theology. I would design a tattoo that said it, but I trust VERY few people with fonts. For instance, even basic ones. How do I know you’re going to recreate the ascenders and serifs perfectly? I do know that it’s a tattoo worth having because it’s a two word LDB (Lanagan Daily Briefing) on who I am as a person. That requires a special skill, like a Japanese writer who uses special ink and brushes.
- Are there any memorable quotes or dialogues from the characters?
- “My favorite comment was ‘I didn’t know the writer was gay until the end'” -on my marriage article.
- “Painting my feelings as fact” -from Supergrover.
- “As if it isn’t a wheel with many spokes,” which meant more to me than diamonds because even if she didn’t want to respond to them, she knew we had problems on both sides. It let me off the hook for everything being my fault all the time.
- “Sometimes when we get the most angry and full of rage, we’re not even fighting with our partners. We’re fighting people who aren’t even in the room.” It was a comment on adding to the list re: my marriage article and it saved me a ton of resentment towards Dana because she didn’t hit me. She got confused and hit someone else. And I know who it is. I hope she does, too, and releases any guilt or shame. Their face got scrambled with mine, because I know that feeling so intimately. I have worn it on my skin. Most women do. We’re divorced because I don’t forget, not because I don’t forgive. She can be precious in my memories without new interaction.
- “You’re like a 15 year old boy…………… and his mother.” Can’t remember which reader said it, but I absolutely fell apart laughing.
- What emotions do the characters evoke in the reader?
- I cannot speak to that unless people comment. I can only comment on what I control, which is my half of the relationship. What I want people to pick up is how much I love the little things about the people in my life. Supergrover is the busiest person I know, and sometimes she makes the clock stop only for me. It’s the most important thing in my life, that she’s giving of her time. I have never been railing that I want more of it. I was doing two things at once. The first is that I didn’t want more time with her, I wanted more letters where she laid out her feelings so that I wasn’t wandering around in the dark all the time. The second was trying to stay grounded. Of course it wasn’t weird to hang out because we’re actually friends, not a facsimile because we connect virtually. I only wanted her time if she was available, and she never has been. That part is completely okay with me. What’s not is waffling between feeling guilty she’s not responding and thinking about me frequently, she just doesn’t have the bandwidth to reply. Completely okay. What I object to is holding all that in and exploding when it’s a two minute problem to solve. I have asked her to go and do something one time, and she said “I don’t think I’m ready quite yet, but someday, perhaps?” She was trying to stay grounded as well, we just never made time for it. Such a pity. One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is ride in her car, because I’m betting she drives like a normal person most of the time, but if I asked her to scare me, she probably would. She has the kind of engine that would be very effective at that. I think we would have had a blast together, but we just couldn’t resolve our conflicts. Those are the emotions I mean to express, but whether other people see that, I cannot say.
- Do the characters have distinct personalities or quirks?
- Of course they do. I have a random collection of friends in which I know in a lot of different capacities, and I lead a life that’s different than most people by seeing more in a day than others. Public transit is the credit balance of a writer just as much as childhood. You can write about people your readers don’t know, and neither do you.
- Are there any romantic relationships or friendships depicted among the characters?
- All of the above. Dana and me, me and me (it’s the stupidest thing ever that I fell in love with the character I created of Supergrover more than I fell in love with a real person. It makes me feel better that I didn’t cheat so much as develop a connection I couldn’t ignore. That information, however, did not go over well with my ex-wife…… but she knew enough to see it coming because the TARDIS had landed in the backyard. One person’s needs trumped the other, and I’m sapiosexual. Supergrover kept my mind incredibly busy, so I was ace for a long time (seven years) because I preferred it to romance. It wasn’t trying to persuade Supergrover of anything, just that I like talking to people I already know and am an introvert so it’s hard for me to make friends. I’m not shy. I have problems getting up enough energy to go out. I was incredibly devoted to her because I had the bandwidth. It was a lot, but I never meant any harm by it. I just wanted to make her feel loved and cared for whether she was my romantic partner or not. A yellow string indicating an emotional support person on the murder board of polyamory doesn’t mean less, ever. It means that they’re on the calendar because time with them is just as important as time with each other.. For instance, Bryn gets just as much airtime as Zac. It’s not about dividing my love in thirds, sixths if you count Zac, Dave, and Michael. It’s about being able to love all of your “gaang” a hundred percent. Your heart doesn’t get smaller the more people you meet. Your bandwidth does.
- Zac and I have been dating over a year, my one red string. I am no opposed to the idea of having different partners, they just have to appeal to my brain and also be wired for polyamory because Zac and I are close enough that it’s not worth going through the trauma of breaking up with him. I want to help him be his best self, and I can’t imagine not being at his side when he asks for it.
- How does the author describe the physical appearance of the characters?
- In very vague terms and not because I want to. I have 2D vision and cannot place an object or person in its environment. Therefore, my creativity does not come across in physical description. It is easier to discuss what they wear than their faces. The most recent example is seeing Zac all dressed up in his formal uniform for a promotion ceremony with a fresh haircut and Rivers Cuomo glasses. It’s the most beautiful picture of 😉 I’ve ever seen.
- Are there any character-driven plot twists or surprises?
- Not on purpose. Because I’m writing about real life, if they happen, they are completely organic. I have not made up a story, I am writing the one that’s already in front of me by looking at the past. Past determines future. If you don’t reflect on yourself, here’s the motto you live by:
- If you always do what you always have, you always get what you’ve already got. It is the only thing I have ever remembered from a company training video which empathized moving quickly.
- The biggest plot twist in the whole show is that in season 23 I learned that I’m autistic and the way I’ve walked in the world all this time is a lie. I have always needed special accommodations to succeed and called myself a dumbass instead. I’m completely done with that. I’m not dumb, you don’t understand my disabilities.
- Not on purpose. Because I’m writing about real life, if they happen, they are completely organic. I have not made up a story, I am writing the one that’s already in front of me by looking at the past. Past determines future. If you don’t reflect on yourself, here’s the motto you live by:
- What cultural backgrounds or identities do the characters represent?
- Lindsay and I are mostly of Irish and English blood. All Europe, all the time. I think Zac is the same, although he got the redhead gene and I’m jealous. Supergrover is a minority, but I don’t think she would call herself that because she’s biracial, white and Latina. Most of my friends are white, because my black friends have moved away and we haven’t kept in touch. Because Hayat had so many rooms, I have shared space with a Cameroonian, a Liberian, and a Nigerian. The funniest part of this is that the Cameroonian invited his mother to stay with us. She didn’t speak any English at all and fell over laughing when I said “francaise c’nest pas comfortable pour moi” (French is not comfortable for me, one of the only sentences I can put together because of Michel Thomas). So, we spoke in hand gestures and fed me until I exploded. I loved her. She could have lived with us forever. Franklin was my housemate, and in retrospect I fell in love with him and wanted to marry him, I just couldn’t say it. We had a lot of chemistry, but he was determined to marry an African woman……………. who steamrolled all over him. The match wasn’t hard to see. He’s a doctor. We could have crushes, but it was inappropriate on multiple levels to act. I do wish I’d said my piece, though, and not because I wanted the answer that he loved me, too. I wanted the answer that he heard me when I said she was emotionally beating him up and I was trying to stop that. Realizing I loved him was just a side effect. I just didn’t have any jealousy, so him making a choice wasn’t my call. It never was, so even more reason not to tell him.
- Do the characters have unique hobbies, interests, or passions?
- Supergrover and I both like to read and write.
- Zac and I both love fictional spies, and he was going to go with me to the Mendez lecture and got TDY (temporary duty).
- Bryn likes to garden, be “witchy” (she is weird in the most wonderful of ways), and work with dogs. She also likes house sitting for people with kids when parents need a break, so that is a thing you know now…………. Bryn doesn’t want to adopt, I don’t think, but I’ve told her I’d have a kid with her any time she wanted. It’s not about the whole fairy tale romance of bonding over the baby. It’s that I can be a decent coparent whether we’re involved or not. Plus, she has a boyfriend now. Many hands make light work, especially if we lived together. That would be infinitely possible because Dave’s house is huge. This is not a reality in any way, shape, or form. This is just saying that if Bryn wants kids, don’t let being single stop her. She’s not now, but it was the thought that counted at the time….. one I actually meant. I feel like I’m too old to be a biological parent, but still young enough to coparent a kid that didn’t come out of me. It is fun to dream whether it comes true or not, like inviting Supergrover to spend time with me in Viet Nam. If she doesn’t have the bandwidth, cool. But I wasn’t wrong for asking. Trying to stay grounded, remember?
- Are there any character arcs that stand out?
- Yes, but only within me. I feel that because our relationship has always been virtual, it allowed us to say things to each other that we wouldn’t have told anyone else, then got mad we did it on both sides. The arc has been how to come down from autistic meltdown and burnout to allow myself to move past all of it. Whether she comes back is not up to me. Whether she’s changed her behavior is up to me. I have to think about what I will tolerate as a blogger and as a human.
- Dana went from my favorite person in the entire world bar none to the one that hurt me the most, because even though I’ve had big emotional fights with people, I’ve never been hit until she did it. I had a black eye and phantom pain for weeks. As I have said before, I have forgiven her and that has come to comfort me. However, it is interesting to note that when I said I had “phantom pain,” my nerves started to burn in that part of my face. I found out why you never hit a girl with glasses because it wasn’t the hit that fucked me up. It was my glasses smashing into my face.
- Zac has gone from a casual friend to my favorite ally in life. Because we have a special niche instead of relying on each other for everything, I can see this relationship long, long into the future. We just really don’t have much to fight about because we work hard at staying on the same page. He’s only been a bad hinge once in our entire relationship, and that’s not bad. It was just growing pains. By “being a good hinge,” it’s protecting me by not telling me about problems in any of his other relationships except for the barest minimum. So far, he hasn’t even asked me opinions when the issue has to do with me, because he knows that’s not my business to handle. It’s his. What his other partners think of me is none of my business, because I get to date him whether anyone else likes it or not. No one gets veto power. We just go parallel and stay out of each other’s way. Nothing matters except that Zac and I are solid. Anything other than that is above my pay grade.
- How do the characters interact with each other?
- I have traditionally kept up with Supergrover through Gmail, because it catalogues conversations just like instant messages and it’s easier for her to get e-mail on the go. She can pick it up on her laptop or her phone that way (as opposed to using iMessage or SMS). When we’re both online at the same time, e-mails fly fast and furious. When we’re not, I write long letters because I like to imagine that she puts down her favorite novel to read me. I am not wrong.
- Are there any morally ambiguous or complex characters?
- Everyone in the world, no matter who I write about- from Margaret Cho to Bryn and Zac is morally ambiguous. It’s human nature. To exclude anyone from this is devaluing what the meaning of “human” is in the first place.
- What motivates the characters’ actions and decisions?
- I can only speak for my motivations in writing, because I am not responsible for anyone else’s reaction. What motivates my actions and decisions is reading my own blog and picking out the things I need to rethink. I need my own character to grow and change more than the proverbial “them.”
- Do the characters face external obstacles or internal struggles?
- Yes, but only with me. Anything else is hearsay and useless. I only want to write about how I handle a situation, not how someone else is handling theirs. I call people out on behavior when it hurts me, but that is not a way to “get back at them.” It’s being able to remind myself long after I’ve supposedly forgotten why reaching out is a bad idea. If they’ve hurt me badly, there’s no chance in taking another risk. They become memories as I gain empathy and remember people fondly again once the anger has passed.
- Are there any character-driven conflicts or rivalries?
- One that’s really cute:
- I talked to Jonna Mendez at the release of “In True Face,” and I told her that one day I’d write something as good as she did. She deadass looked me in the face and said, “it’s good you’re still workin’ on that. There was a gleam in her eyes. I said, “I’m going to be laughing about that for three years,” because she didn’t know I spoke “migroaggression” and nearly spit out her water. She teased me as a writer. I would follow that woman into the ocean no questions asked. I think her employees felt the same way.
- One that was really obnoxious:
- The man I wanted to marry spun out on his own after I went to bed and thought I was being a hardass for not responding. So, he broke up with me while I was asleep. It was the most nonsensical thing I’d ever been through, which is why I shut him down when he said maybe later in life we could try again. No one gets over that kind of anger and abandonment in a short period of time, enough to end a relationship in two hours because he was so mad that he told me he goes off the grid when he’s in the middle of something and not to worry if he disappears. Then, he exploded at me for not contacting him for a whole day. I pointed out his hypocrisy without saying he was a bad person, and he tried to hit me emotionally with a sniper bullet, saying he was a better writer than me, that if I kept writing about him he was going to create a blog specifically designed to take me down (why would I care? Everyone is allowed to tell their story), and he was doing me a favor by not posting it on my blog. That’s the only reason I posted it on my blog. I don’t give a fuck how I come off in his letter, because I know what’s truth and so do you if you’ve been reading what I’ve been saying. Because he and Supergrover have so much in common, I’m betting he took a whole lot of offense at nothing. I was showing why I didn’t want the same toxic cycle with Daniel I’d already been living for 10 years. His behavior came off like an angry little boy, and he got mad that I told him that. He extrapolated that into namecalling, but that’s not what I meant. It never is. Someone’s self-esteem tells them what they hear. Someone’s self-esteem being in the trash basket tells them you mean they’re a piece of shit whether or not it’s true.
- One that’s really cute:
- How does the author create empathy or connection with the characters?
- By being as organic as I can possibly be. Telling you what grew out of what even if correlation is not causation because I hold no authority over what someone is really thinking, but I do hold authority over trying to figure out what went wrong. I know that by doing so, people come out of the woodworks to tell me stories that they were thinking of as they read. I don’t create empathy or connection for my characters. They write their own, because my observations give you a view into their lives when I am able to see it. What they are is what they are. If you have gone through something similar to them, you will feel empathy and you will feel heard.
- Which character resonates with you the most, and why?
- Supergrover, because half this blog is just ripping her off blind. Because she’s a 3D character. She is present whether we’re in each other’s lives, or a ghost that comes to sit with me when I need her the most.
Stories That Are All True 