The_Round_One

Y_B, and Arpeggio, You two are the sorts of craptastic people, along with immoderate moderators, and some self-righteous youngsters that make this place thoroughly undesirable and not nearly the kind of place it thinks it is. There have been nice people on here...haven't seen them lately though, that's for sure. You two and others I could name certainly aren't among them. Your snotty messages amount to "put up with our shallow, stereotypical, or insulting crap or get out." That's hardly the friendliness this place claims. As for Y_B's name-calling, that's pretty infantile. I certainly don't need Texas rudeness in my life. The "privilege" of being able to give a review to the rare story that I like certainly isn't worth enduring the likes of you, Y_B. No doubt you'll think yourself superior to me regardless because of my "rotundity'; that just speaks to your own shallowness. Farewell to the good people; good riddance to the others.

Don't worry, Hayden. People here can be real fusspots...or tosspots, depending on what they're on about. You've felt some of their wrath already. Though it isn't described well, apparently The Lounge is really only for shallow things and Happy Birthdays. If you do decide to blog, I'll definitely follow.

Kudos to you, Hayden. Keep up the good fight against all the stereotypers, both straight and gay!!

Evanston (IL/US)

What's "hot" and what's "not hot" are really only concerns if you are well off financially (for the techie things) and skinny/scrawny (for the clothes things). Either way, they're generally pleas for outside validation and thus transient at best.

Happy birthday!!

Happy birthday, Johnathan!

Karl and I had a nice long chat on here just a couple of nights ago; I think one of the last things he might have done on GA is approve my friend request. I'm so glad I had the chance to "meet" him and am terribly sad about his passing.

One of the things you should try to work on is bringing a more apparent structure to link the various chapters as you go further into this tale. How do they link together? How do they get you closer to the end point of the whole story (if you've planned that out, of course)? You've got a suitable tone for the dialogue parts (chatty, using text speak, etc), but I think adding a contrasting tone for the narration (those links I mentioned) would help the story out. For example, I'm getting the impression that Chapter One is "the present" for the story and that Chapter Two starts a flashback to when the narrator and his love met. You might try laying that out more clearly. I hope you keep at this as the ability to tell a story is a great and grand thing!

The attention that two gays winning a game-show brings on this website brings to mind a set of questions of rather more importance. Should we be celebrating (or be expected to celebrate) the win of two people just because of who they have sex with? Boiled down, what's more important? Their sexuality or their individual merits? A corresponding question would be: Should I like Adam Lambert's music just because we share the same sexual orientation?

Niagara Falls (NY/US)

If the alternative really is to kill off Finn, I'd vote for "Infinity" being a one-off piece as you had intended. Perhaps the idea for Jack's next chapter could be usable (with tweaking) in some other fictional world you've yet to create.

I don't know if many people actually see the Story Cafe on here, but I want to recommend the 10-part story "From the Heart" on Codey's World. I find it amazing that someone who died before his 18th birthday was able to write something so wise and touching. I recommend it heartily!! http://www.codeysworld.com/codey/from-the-heart

The happiest of birthdays, Andrea!

Edina (MN/US)