Mann Ramblings

About 3 or 4 years ago my brother and his GF got me a very colorful hardcover book of maps and stuff of The Pirates of the Caribbean. For ages 10 and up. I question their sobriety during shopping excursions sometimes.

A couple dvds, clothing (including items that can not be shown in the gallery ) and money towards the purchase of an art fair tent for future sales. All stuff I asked for!

Get me past Christmas and I'll finally have the time to sit down and read the various holiday stories that have appeared. Now I can add these as well. Thanks for showcasing these.

Awesome! An early Christmas present! As soon as I can get the presents wrapped I can start reading!

Busy, busy week and now we're so close to Christmas! Glad to see there's still so much going on even with the oncoming holiday!! Welcome back, Trebs!

Oh god. If only I could have witnessed that. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall of that McDonald's... wait... that doesn't sound right.

All of mine are very personal so I'm fortunate that I likely won't tire of them. I planned the design and placement of all of them. Hope yours isn't too painful to remove. Ouch.

Tattoos are not for everyone. I have a number and will still be getting more as I come up with the proper ideas. But there is still a residual stigma that began from feudal Japan using tattoos to mark criminals. The Yakuza took that idea and began tattooing themselves as a mark of their allegiance. That viewpoint is still persistent in some form, although nowhere near as strong now. It's a matter of self-expression and I myself find tattoos utterly fascinating when done well. I have certainly seen some awful ink as well as stupid. (I've seen a woman who had an outline of the state of Michigan tattooed large across one cheek and a series that looks like ink vomiting out of her mouth, covering her chin and down her neck. I'm not kidding.) I don't subscribe to the automatic concept of all body modification is mutilation. I also don't subscribe to the "too much is when it can't be covered" mantra. That just implies that there's something wrong with it in the first place. Granted, it does potentially create friction in the work environment and depending on the job you're looking for, it may be smart to be able to conceal them. Or at least until people realize that tattoos are not just for the depraved and criminally inclined.

Can you come to my house next?

But Christmas is on Wednesday which gives you Thursday to write both during the day of rest! You can do eeet!!!

This is an amazing well written and researched short. The setting, relationships and sword crafting information is so genuine I doubt anyone would contest it. I haven't read your work yet and now I'm going to have to find the time to dig into your others. Fantastic.

Aww... she'll be destroying something in your absence in no time, the little cutie!

Boxers, Briefs or Other?

In case I'm not on at the requisite time I'm posting a question in advance. Of all the sites hosting gay authors what brought you and keeps you here at GA?

My best answer is: A pizza with no meat on it? There's just no point in that...

Thanks, Ron. Even though it's a short story, I tried to be as thorough as possible in its handling. Glad to see it's responding so well for so many readers. Thanks for reviewing.

I tried to imply with the military directive that a society paranoid enough to place slavery-like controls on a section of its population might have organized a final solution to deal with them. All of the para-humans were catalogued; it would make sense that they would be prepared for them, sadly.

You have no idea how hard it was not to blow this out into something huge, but I really wanted to keep this tale contained as a short. I keep this world in the universe of the Santa Claus tales just in case I wanted to tie things together somehow. We shall see. Thanks for reviewing as always.

I tried very hard to maintain an air of "this could happen if para-humans existed." I embraced the idea of disaster and felt compelled to write this one much darker than previous works. Society can be a fearful and scary thing when they believe their way of life is threatened. Thanks for reviewing.

It was my pleasure. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I didn't take an easy route on this story and I'm glad to see it being received well. Ones and Zeros as a prologue? Hmm...

Happy Birthday, John!!! :D :D

It's so nice to see KC and Layla's name on the P.A. list again. Let's all poke them incessantly until they produce more.

Thanks for reading! I love hearing from new people who find my stories even after they've been posted for a while.

I definitely tried to make the world (future Earth) plausible with the addition of para-humans in the mix even if it took a decidedly dark direction. The theme just seems to take it there. The story was one of those "sudden inspirations" and we were off and running. While it may not be everyone's cup of tea, I'm very happy with the work. Thank you so much for reviewing.

I couldn't envision anything but a cascade of disasterous events for this story. I think sometimes it's very hard to write something dark and visually vivid. I hope I've managed that to some degree. Thank you so much for the review!