MJ85

A response to the NYT article: Bisexuality: What NYT and Slate Got Wrong

And because life imitates art once again... Neon Trees' Tyler Glenn Comes Out as Gay in Rolling Stone

The band I'm about to name would never ever be close to Instinct's sound, but for a band with the lead singer and drummer as lovers, one need only look to - Culture Club.

And back again, if their latest song is any indication.

Their Lump-era sound makes me think of heavier bands that were popular around that time that straddled the line between Alternative and Active Rock - Three Days Grace, Seether, Linkin Park to an extent. Post-Lump, though, it gets much more vague and harder to come up with "soundalike" bands in the rock spectrum. @ the Panic! comparison though. Sorry - never been a fan of them.

UPDATE: Appeals court issues temporary stay in Michigan's gay marriage case AG Bill Schuette's request for a stay is still pending. Until then, a temporary stay has been ordered, effective until Wednesday, and the Rowse-DeBoers attorneys have been instructed to respond to Schuette's stay request by Noon on Tuesday.

Federal Judge Strikes Down Michigan Gay-Marriage Ban Finally. Here is also the legal-ese of Judge Friedman's decision: http://www.mied.uscourts.gov/Opinions/friedmanpdf/12-10285DeBoerFindings.pdf

I feel like an alternate title for this story could be, Futility. This takes us on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, with great highs and lows. Very well done in that regard, including the after-feeling that it's such a shame that his own breakthrough treatment will now likely never see the light of day, and Jason himself is very likely headed for a dead end road of not fully successful treatment followed by...the same fate as Rick. Damn it.

Indeed, aside from learning who the inside help was, it seems like there's really not much to this chapter. Evil evil man for making us wait and, I suspect, for Chapter 9 as well...

On the one hand, the payback that the bullies got here isn't so bad at all. On the other hand...something about Nate's perspective on how it went down gives me a chill. It's like the bullies succeeded in bringing out a dark side of him. I will say though that I definitely agree that this was a rather creative take on the theme.

I really don't know what to make of this. It definitely captures a moment more than it "goes" somewhere, but that doesn't make for a flaw since it does do that so well and vividly. At the same time though, I can't help but feel like this ends with a thud, probably because during their moment it does actually try to really go somewhere, only to yank the rug out at the end and then just like that, story's over. But is there really a better way that this could have turned out given what was meant to happen here? I'm really not sure. Suffice it to say it's easy to feel a gamut of emotions throughout the spectrum when reading this one. I want to think there's something that could have made this better, but I can't quite put my finger on it - so, that could just be me.

What's this? Our overlord has written a story? Honestly, at first as I was reading this I was worried that Feng would turn out to be some kind of traitor. The actual result is not only a relief, it is...a lot more interesting to say the least. Definitely looking forward to the next one.

Yeah...the layers of deception and/or pseudo-deception are definitely getting a little thick by now.

By now, it's abundantly clear that a great deal of this story is indeed very personal for those involved - and there's still the split as to what kind of personal. Helen knowing most of what Eric's up to might be fine as a fallback, but it still makes his planning being realized feel choreographed.

Again this makes me wonder if we could be dealing with an evil sentient being on the loose...

The story plots that Eric and General Bradson are carving out make for a very oddly interesting sort of ying-yang setup. With the latter, we're starting to scratch beneath the surface, though with the former, that's not the case quite yet...

Things that make you go, hmmmmm. We're already off and running, but there's definitely a lot to wonder about here.

My, my...appearances can be quite deceiving... This starts off a lot less heavily than Let the Music Play did, and there's maybe only one hint of heavy drama ahead, with the General's visit. What it doesn't do, though, is lose the engaging pull that Music had.

Someone needs a new title.

A very engaging story, one that makes you want, no - need to come back for more, and more, and more, until it's over...at which point, we're almost disappointed that it's over. As I said in a previous review, I like the down-to-earth details throughout that make this feel not as hokey as other LGBT "music" stories. The giveaway tells, though, do bring this down a bit since they temper quite a bit of suspense. There's definitely more than enough suspense still in the story, but there could be even more without them. All in all, easily one of my favorite stories here and one of the first that I read during the few months that I lurked around before registering. So glad that it's now in GA Stories.

While it's great that Helen pulled through in the end, it almost feels like you cheated to pull that off.

When is a cliffhanger not a cliffhanger? When one is very clearly no longer hanging on and there is no danger. Which proves to be not entirely true here. Which makes this ending a cliffhanger that is not a cliffhanger. If you can follow my meanings exactly. Also, never let it be said that small details never matter - the Air Force operator who put Eric on hold, The Scar's changing one of the trigger codes on Dimitri... very nice use of "what if"s here.

This feels 24-esque in terms of who has been or could have been killed.

Nice try avoiding a cliffhanger ending with that last sentence. Doesn't work, though. What's oddly interesting about how this is set up is that there's the chance that The Scar's larger plan could still fail since Paraguay is still far from accomplished, while Dimitri's very quickly advancing towards victory (though his would be Pyrrhic).

Two attempts to kill have failed...third time's the charm? In a way this is like that awful awful dream where you're about to witness something horrible go down and can't do a thing about it...