Sasha Distan

hands!

worm

I didn't know we could update our banners for each story. This is awesome!

Thanks very much! Well, demons do get everywhere! and you know the company Zai keeps, could be fun

war

I love this idea. I seem to have way too many characters who who have no idea what love is or how to deal with it. Get cracking Cole! Can't wait!

My first Unintended Consequences anthology entry is all done and dusted, just a final read through to be done and sent off to the proof team (next week hopefully). I'd love to write a second story, but since my new characters are keeping me hostage, that might not happen. And thanks to @Kitt for editing such an enormous workload.

rattle

Some people (Su Yin, Jem) take to hell like they were made for it. Others (Jahke, Atoki) have a harder time adjusting. Now we play a fun round of guess-what-Zhi-has-in-his-pockets!

You know my brain isn't logical, Tim! Also, I love a bit of speculation. You need to fall in love with a demon, have him fall in love with you, and move to hell. sorry sweetie. also, fun fact: Orkney has no trees. Soon... ish. I didn't write them all down when I did the research. Wakumi is a Japanese demon, yes. It's an Asian house. Jin-Ha doesn't have symbols. He's Japanese, and he was named back way back when (I was 18) before I knew how to do these things properly.

Like @Graeme said, it's a new diagnosis, which doesn't mean it didn't exist in the past. I agree with @Arpeggio it is a real clinical thing, but I also agree that it is also sometimes used (as almost anything can be) as a crutch by parents who just can't cope. Unfortunately, like with the rise in various mental disorders such as increased rates of clinical depression and anxiety, that our lifestyles as modern westernised humans (who, in broad terms, spend lots of time in front of screens and interacting through social media) are doing little to improve this trend. Various studies suggest that these things have direct correlation (though causation is not fully supported, and not everyone with ADHD, or depression, or anxiety spends lots of time online or playing video games). @Arpeggio your little brother is adorable. Just wait, one day he'll turn round a declare he has a boy/girl friend and you'll go "Wait, wasn't it your 5th birthday, like, last year?"

(and) Afraid

exhibitionist

Yay! Prompts! this was my first ever prompt (sticking with the theme) https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/story/sasha-distan/promptmehard/1

I think we are all singing from the same hymn book. I so like much of what I've read here. I would love to ignore the current cultural climate, but I am also, unfortunately, aware of how in our social media environment, people can jump down your throat and vilify you for the slightest perceived insight. and as a footnote, for @R J Drew's nephew, I do not think writing a black character is less appealing, but to me, the idea is more scary (see above mention potential shouting). I do not have, as yet, any African-American characters, but since I have long admitted to not being in control of my characters, one never knows when this is change.

Chapter 4 is up now, sorry it's late. oh and hey, they stopped having sex long enough to talk!

A lot seemed to happen in the first few days, and Su Yin had a lot of trouble distinguishing between one day and the next. The fire-stars burned in the sky day and night, and in the distance, curtains of red flame burned up into the blackness. Zhihao told him they were the divide between their part of hell, and the outer rings where nobody went, and Su Yin didn’t feel the need to explore the matter further. Unlike his time in the temple, he always seemed to be busy, and there was always som

infuriating

I think the 'difference' we perceive in writing a murderer (easier) rather than a POC (harder) is that the current cultural climate is so incredibly divisive in many respects, seems intent on labelling people, and enforcing socially constructed rules where anything you do which might originally have belong to another culture or race (wearing sombreros or using a canoe) can now get you shouted at for "cultural appropriation" (my most hated phrase of the moment). Everyone is very quick to hand out blame these days, especially on this, and so the subject of writing a POC becomes suddenly terrifying, in case you get it wrong. potentially unpopular opinion: since according to the current cultural climate, you cannot be racist against a white person (especially one who speaks English or who is cis gendered), therefore you could obviously learn everything about this type of person with research and write them convincingly. When applied the other way around, lots of these concerns are highly suspect. I was once told an excellent piece of advice which was given to TV writers on writing believable female characters: write a male character, then change the pronouns. Whilst the exact same considerations might not be entirely perfect in this situation, it the principle stands. Same as my gender, my colour, my sexuality, are not any of the things I consider as my defining features, why should a POC define themselves by their skin tone as a major character trait?

I agree with @asamvav11 as writers we are only limited by our imaginations and the amount of research we want to do. Saying that however, I am always wary of #2 when writing POC. I tend to stick to people's a cultures with which I am familiar and comfortable. I have friends who are Chinese (and married into a Chinese family) and friends who are First Nations Canadian. I have many Turkish friends, which helped me set my first book there. I live in a very white area of the UK, I do not, for no actual reason, have any friends who are black (I don't have that many friend tbh) and so the idea of writing someone from that culture is less appealing to me, because getting it wrong would not only be bad writing, but also rude (at best) and racist (at worst). It's a tricky one. However, if a character shows up in my head who happens to be from a culture I know nothing about (as Bageerah has. He's Mayan) I will happily go and do research until the character is satisfied.

potatoes

dinner

I hope you're right. I like the forums, they allows us to be silly, allow us to talk about issues which span more than one chapter, and give me room to go wildly off topic!

Thank you very very much! i'm so glad you enjoyed the boys and their antics. oh yes, that spark I don't think will ever go out - there's too many good songs to write still! I'm not sure 'normal' is ever going to feature heavily in their vocabulary! Thank you very much. We're so glad you enjoyed.

Would that be fabulous? I love that idea, hope it's true! consistency is not the strong point of the human race...