Zuri

Yeah, @Codey's A Ghost Of Christmas Past is definitely worth reading 👍

@Mancunian I first learned about GA when @Sammy Blue started posting his story Gemini in a German gay community. Another user told me about Hidden Sunlight, a story by @Stellar who inspired his writing style—one I admire. I have to admit, I forgot about GA for a while, but when that community suffered from fewer and fewer contributions, I thought about alternatives. First, I didn't consider GA an alternative since English is not my mother tongue, and I wasn't sure if I could be good enough for readers to enjoy my scribbling. Users like you, Mancunian, really encouraged me (thank you!), to continue publishing after the first test chapter I felt so nervous about. Have you considered collaborating with other authors on GA to combine each other's strengths and compensate each other's shortcomings?

Thank you 😊 Yeah, I have my difficulties navigating the stories archive—but that's not because of shortcomings on GA's side. I just haven't figured out how to decide on what I want to read and commit myself to. That's why I started checking out contributions of those, I already interacted with in some way.

@MancunianI like your mindset of not being ashamed to admit that you cried and get emotional from time to time when reading stories. It's everything but silly. That's perfectly human, and it would be good if everyone would be thinking like you in that respect. What's the point of storytelling if the plot isn't able to take us on a roller coaster ride and make us experience a wide variety of emotions, just like we were really there? You as an author just like myself probably know that. Thank you for sharing P.'s story with us!

@Mancunian Thanks for sharing your insights. Too bad I missed the chance to start a conversation via messenger with you when you reviewed my story! ^^

Rafe: „Please tell me, my mother hasn’t given me a book on how to properly suck a guy. But of couse, she had.“ Claire Olivia: „But that’s awesome, Shay Shay. Maybe you can send her pictures one day!“ — Rafe about his embarassingly tolerant mother Always being in the spotlight, filmed by his father with his cell phone camera at every turn like a celebrity, and everybody takes him for “the gay”, but nobody just for the person he is. Taking a shower after gym class is odd, all the people are considerate of him, when they say something that could be considered offensive, and expect Rafe to borrow the cliché. To be just like the others, is, despite the openness and acceptance in Rafe’s hometown Boulder, impossible for him on these grounds. Foremost, the novel has a strong message to LGBT* people: Tolerance and acceptance is not enough, as long as everybody sees one as different. We only want to be equal. Coming out is still necessary for many—since others still attempt to assume one’s sexual orientation due to heteronormativity and pigeonhole them. The idea behind the plot is without a doubt good, but after half of the novel, the plot turns into a run-of-the-mill LGBT* coming of age novel, that tells the nth “crush on the best friend” and “is the love interest straight” story. That’s everything but new. For the most part of the plot, it’s not important that Rafe already came out in Boulder. That takes a bit away from the idea of the plot to work opposite of other LGBT* novels. »[...] It was more like: I could eat chocolate ice cream just as well but I like strawberry better. I should tell my parents so that they stop buying chocolate ice cream.« — Rafe's metaphor about coming out Rafe says, one comes out to find a boyfriend. That contradicts his ice cream metaphor. When he meets Clay, everything runs like a clockwork and Rafe acquiesces that as if that’s just what you do, and it was only logical to date Clay. That seems to be quite unemotional, more objective, but not averted. He says, people would stare less, or he would care less if they did, when he had a boyfriend. But these two things are not really linked. There are sections in the novel, that—if one were nitpicky—are offensive, even if one wouldn’t expect that from people in that particular scene: »Rafe, you are not a faggot.« — Rafe's dad, after Rafe was molested homophobically and Rafe was on the verge to bandy blows Isn’t it discriminating, to assume, that faggots are something bad while gays are not, since the former is meant to be an insult and the latter as a rectification? Then, to cheer him up, his father tells him, how great he is. Don’t get me wrong: It’s good to reaffirm to your child that it’s a great person the way they are, and you love them no matter what. But I don’t think, this was the right place and time. I would have liked his father to react by telling him that he doesn’t have to lose his temper and get involved in a fight. Rafe thanks his mother for the coming-out meal, which first looks like a cool gesture that also comes full circle narratively. But at the same time, it also marks the beginning of his plight: He describes that his mother took his coming-out into her own hands and at the same time took away the opportunity of an internal coming-out from him. To really come full circle, he would have had to explain to his mother, what went wrong back then. It’s not about recrimination, but about the possibility, not just for Rafe—or the reader—to learn from it. Foremost, Rafe—pretendedly being straight—doesn’t attend the GSA but decides to do so after his second coming-out. For Rafe, this U-turn might make sense, because only now does he experience his real internal coming-out: To feel safe within the GSA and be able to consider its members friends, quit playing sports, and consider his homosexuality an important part of himself. This might be an important first point of call, but on the other hand, it shows how lapses into clichés—the very ones he distanced himself from. This way, the author relativizes his message, “You don’t have to act gay to be gay”. He tells himself, he hasn’t judged Carlton, a GSA meeting attendee. Yet, the way he thinks about his feminine appearance, discriminating in a way. This shows the classic problem that feminine gays are not necessarily accepted by other gays, and that feminine men were gazed at. And this in return emphasizes the fear to appear feminine besides being gay, and what others might think about that. But there was one thing, they talked about in the GSA, that reflects what I think about it: It is after all just one of many personality traits, even though there is no point in denying it. If one is just at the beginning of his internal coming-out, gay youth groups might be helpful, but in my opinion, one should not get dependent of them. That’s very similar to what he had in Boulder. Furthermore, he mentioned, taking You-know-Caleb as an example, that gays don’t necessarily like each other just because they are gay. Frankly, I don’t really like sports and jocks like Ben, but in my opinion, that matched partly with Rafe. This part of him just shouldn’t have suppressed the rest of him, and instead could have coexisted. After his coming-out, he just turns his back on that part. The end of the novel shows Rafe being back in his hometown Boulder, enjoying its open-mindedness. Thus, he accepts his gilded cage, which he tried to escape. Yet, in my opinion, that last chapter was weak, even though I get the symbolism behind it. I just believe, the author makes a huge mistake this way. Sure, protagonists can and should sometimes be wrong, but hereby he says that the way it was in the beginning was okay and relativizes the critic from the very beginning. The end paints a beautiful moment that actually is everything but, because Rafe just lost his best friend and didn’t seem to have achieved anything with it. Conclusion Despite the shortcomings in the second half of the novel, the plot is entertaining and socio-critical in the beginning and raises questions for the readers that offer the potential for self-reflectiveness. The growing friendship with Ben and the backstory of Bryce are frankly quite beautiful and emotional to follow along with. Also, Rafe’s diary, annotated by his teacher, gives the novel another dimension.

“The Center of the World” is a tessellated coming-of-age youth novel, which is about the 17 years old Phil, who has a crush on Nicholas, who’s a new classmate. Phil and his twin sister Dianne experienced a very different parenting style, practiced by their mother Glass and her friend Tereza, and their mother is well-known to be quite promiscuous in their small town—a fact that doesn’t make life easier for the siblings. Phil’s father (“Number 3”) is somewhere in America and a huge variable in his life. Characters Especially among the characters, there are good and bad examples: Glass is a well-made character. While the “Little People” (that’s what they call the people in their small town) consider her a bad mother, her clients see her as a tower of strength. She is extremely nonconformist and authentic, but especially because of that, lovely. Even though Phil doesn’t like Pascal, she gives him the best advice because she doesn’t mince her words and romanticize reality. Additionally, there are characters, who don’t really serve the plot and their existence is kind of strange. It almost feels like all of a sudden, a bunch of characters manifested in front of the author’s door and demanded the main role in a sub-plot and the author eventually got roped into it. Plot Flashbacks might be good additional plot devices; overused, they lame the plot and feel more like lavish stuffing. About half of the scenes in The Center of the World are flashbacks, and so one gets the impression that nothing really happens. The novel also has a lot of side plots with their own climaxes and plot twists, that feels crowded and make the reader lose the overview. Some things happen as a sideline without having any significant meaning to the following plot so that it wouldn’t really bother anyone if they were left out. Themes Glass raised her children quite laid back and anti-authoritarian, and therefore Phil doesn’t mind nudity or homosexuality. Nonetheless, love turns his head just like it happens to any other teenager. More or less, he only realized on his first date, that it is more complex than this. Especially in this point, the novel isn’t straight-line, but it doesn’t offer any solutions on the other hand. It shows that people who are attracted to each other do not necessarily feel or want the exact same thing. That particular topic would have had a huge potential, but it wasn’t used and is—contrary to the sexual orientation, the author avoided emphasizing—tabooed, especially in youth novels. A lot of novels that deal with (first) love, portray that topic as fairy-tale-like, not to say conservative in a very classic understanding of relationships that isn’t really fitting in our modern-day society. Therefore, there are only really the options “we are heads over ears in love and will be together forever” and “let’s leave that alone in the first place”. The novel also sheds light on Dianne going astray and shows, how she treats Glass and Phil, and they with her. Conflicts are hinted at, but they are more revealed step by step than solved. End Actually, almost every question that arose during the progression of the plot was answered. But it appears to be almost a game for the author, to ask these very questions en masse. Flashbacks bring the possibility to ask even more questions that Phil couldn’t fully understand as a child, let alone answer or just overlooked crucial details, with them. A lot of these questions don’t need to be necessarily answered to advance the plot, and therefore, it feels like the reader is sent on a scavenger hunt with never-ending mandatory side quests involuntarily. Per se, I like open endings. The author emphasizes in the postface, that the quality of the novel lies in the fact that the reader wants to continue accompanying Phil on his further journey because that’s where his self-discovery would start. If I shared that opinion, it might have been a cachet indeed, but in my opinion enough has been said not only between Phil and Nicholas but also between characters and reader. In the end, it doesn’t matter whether he meets his father or not. The focus on the father also feels like the wrong choice because there are more obvious topics. Of course, here and there, this topic is mentioned, but after Phil’s and Glass' conversation in the library, that chapter really feels closed. Postface and sequels The author tells us with a certain elevatedness—a trait that many of us authors that are proud of their work have—in the postface about the development of the plot—something, I would have been less likely to notice if I agreed with his opinion. He calls “The Center of the World” a 100-page-long prologue. When reading the postface, I understood some of his stratagems better—I just don’t like them any more than before. The idea of an everlasting prologue and the prompt towards the readers to imagine the story beyond what the book covers might have seemed to be a nice idea, but it just doesn’t work in my opinion. This stratagem feels like a springboard whose length was decreased to 20 % and so the best run-up in the world couldn’t give you enough momentum to cross the gap of the disillusioning plot. Furthermore, he explains to us how he was inspired by Greek mythology. Granted, a lot of Phil's childhood memories feel like fairy tales and this revelation sure was an aha moment, but ultimately it doesn’t enhance the plot. It’s an inspiration, but not more than this. In his opinion, Phil is annoying—a view I sympathize with. Not that much as a character from the reader's perspective—in my opinion, Phil is actually sympathetic—but as a character from an author’s standpoint. He is bystander of his own life. With “Defender – Geschichten aus der Mitte der Welt”, the author delivers a short story collection that should complement the novel. Without reading that sequel, I have the feeling that this might actually be a form where the author’s strengths are and maybe, it would have been wise, to publish the novel in a similar form. Conclusion The novel gives the impression of a potpourri of a biography (Phil has the urge to tell us about every little detail of his childhood), a novella (internal plot), and many additional short stories, that turn the novel into a compressed form or a series. Despite some lovely characters, marvelously authentic scenes, and the kindling of a gripping plot, the novel couldn’t manage to hide its unwillingness to decide on a text type. There were several wtf moments, that made me consider putting the novel aside without finishing it. With its many flashbacks, the novel appears bloated, but without them and the side plots, the novel appears to be more like warm words.

When I found out about my own homosexuality, I was thirteen. I didn’t want people to think, I was a certain way because of my attraction to other men. I insisted on being hetero-like (this concept is similar to cis passing for trans people, as far as I know). But as time went on, I realized that I realized that I had to stop worrying about what other people thought of me. Easier said than done, of course, but at least I took tiny steps in the right direction. Maybe, one day, I won't care about it in the slightest. I still call myself “hetero-like”—which is something I’m totally fine with—but I care less about my gender expression. I have always been a nonconformist and don’t want to play by some rules of society, or I at least dislike them (for example: I’m a man with long hair). When I watched the Vogue interview with Troye Sivan, Troye suddenly grabbed the interviewer’s hand and started polishing their nails. Even though I don’t like nail polish, I admired Troye for being that true to himself. That’s what gives me as well the strength to be my true self. Another milestone in that process was when I learned the difference between gender identity and gender expression. That gave me a better feeling, since I now could sort the former from the latter without the fear to question my own gender identity. I’ve been dealing with people telling me “Only girls have long hair”, “That’s unnatural” and “that behavior is so typical for gay men” straight to my face. That might not be true and just words, but it made me think and question and stir my insecurities. Interestingly, a friend of mine who happens to be trans and I had a conversation about gender dysphoria the other day, and he asked me if cis people had this feeling, too. Of course, I answered, I didn’t know the exact feeling but some remotely distant ones and that I had my fair share of experiences with body-shaming and lookism. About a year ago, a heterosexual man named Mark Bryan went viral on Twitter for his love of wearing a skirt and high heels for work, while at the same time rightly see no contradiction with his gender identity. That emphasizes the statement “cloths do not have a gender”.

@MancunianWhat a pity, you stepped down from that very box. Thanks for sharing that Sounds like a truly remarkable man 👍 You don't necessarily need children to be a role model for. You can educate others, for instance, by sharing your experiences, showing others, you have, and an open ear and a shoulder to lean on as well as stepping up when something is wrong (queer phobia or the like).

@Mancunian Nice to hear! You seem to have great parents! Yeah, I think, that's a good attitude. Wish, more parents would raise their children in that spirit.

@Mawgrim Exactly! Thanks for your comment

The question, of why one should come out in the first place, is probably as old as the coming out as such itself. Similarly, the question of why LGBT* people still need their pride parades and other events. Sure, one could argue, that there are still here and their attacks on queer people in the US or people are killed because of their sexual orientation in other countries of the world. But my answer focuses more on the individual that makes the very decision: Sure, one could argue that coming out is not a necessity since straight people don't have to come out either, but that's comparing apples to oranges. There's an organization called "SpeakOUT", where volunteer speakers hold speeches about LGBT* topics at schools. They have an exercise where each student thinks about three traits that constitute them. Then, they start discussions in groups while avoiding mentioning these three traits. This exercise should emphasize how hard it is, to hide an important part of oneself. And this was one of the reasons for me to come out: I accepted my orientation once I was certain about being gay and even though, I hadn't encountered homophobia personally, I experienced heteronormativity in my everyday life. For instance, if I was asked if I had a girlfriend yet, there were a few possible ways to react: Denying it since having a female partner was simply ineligible Denying but translating "girlfriend" to "boyfriend" in my head since I was single anyway Coming out by correcting "girlfriend" to "boyfriend" verbally The problem with this is, that I were forced to react to this in one way or the other. If I didn't come out, I would hide a part of myself; if I did, someone else determined when I had to come out. That's why I decided to flight forward: I came out on my eighteenth birthday. — From: Ex gay husband, chapter 2 As privileged people, we often overlook it, but with small comments, we hurt marginalized fellow human beings in our everyday life. Social psychologists call that “microaggression”. There once was an interesting discussion on Twitter where somebody complained, that gays always have to rub their sexuality under everybody’s nose because his co-worker placed a picture of his boyfriend on his own desk. Straight people do that, too—with one difference, and that difference is attributable to society. Because of heteronormativity, we don’t question these pictures of straight co-workers. In the case of gay co-workers, two statements could be made in the heads of the beholders: "Oh! xyz is gay!" "Probably, he has sex with that other gay in the picture—possibly anal sex!" Meaning, the problem is not the picture but the triggers that are deeply rooted in our heads. These triggers can be reduced by more diversity.

Hero’s journey In the last part, we talked about it seeming to be difficult to tell origin stories that inweave new concepts. Apparently, there’s something like laws of nature that apply to writing. Let’s have a look at the hero’s journey. Most of you should be familiar with this. In its beginning, the hero (or heroine) lives in their own world until something happens with an impact that changes the hero’s worldview and sets everything into motion—something that makes the hero and their mentor go on that journey. At first, protection and guidance from the mentor are needed by the hero because otherwise, the bad in the world had a too easy job with the hero, but ultimately, the mentor’s destiny is to die and therefore leave the hero on their own. At that point, the hero’s confidence is low, but now that things are already in motion, there’s no turning back. The next confrontation with the villain will be disastrous, but not shattering. Nonetheless, it will be enough to make the hero doubt themself, but that process is necessary to grow realistically. Eventually, this enables the hero to be victorious over the villain in the next encounter and save the world. Even though that is classic storytelling, we also find that method in science fiction stories like Star Wars, which has surprisingly many parallels to earth culture and mythology if you take a closer look. But as we already observed, that’s not a principle that only applies to ancient Greek literature anyway. Plato’s doctrine of forms of literature Speaking of Greek art and culture, Plato formulated his doctrine of forms like that: There’s a mindscape beyond our reality where all ideas exist as templates, and we could only catch an insufficient glimpse at it because we can’t fully grasp it. Therefore, we would emulate these ideas and approximate them, but never completely acquire something entirely equal to the very idea. Maybe it’s the same with the laws of literature or the stories we want to tell. Of course, there’s the hero’s journey, but to tell it in an enjoyable, entertaining, and refreshing manner is easier said than done. When you get what you want but not what you need I found the following conversation on Twitter in German, which translates to this: Who would call themself a “person in need of harmony”? Okay, here and there somebody raised their hand—that’s perfectly fine. When you read a story on Wattpad, chances are that you come across a story written by a beginner. When one writes for the first few times, it can happen, that, when one realized, one can create whole words by just writing, that one attempts to put the perfect imaginable scenario on paper (What if I were president? King? Incredibly rich? Immortal? What if nobody had to feel the pinch of hunger? etc.). Especially from science fiction, we know that in every hopeless bad (dystopia) there is good; and in every phantasmically good (utopia) there is bad. Eventually, we accomplish the opposite of what we wanted. If we are perfectly happy, we get used to it, and soon perfectly isn’t enough anymore. But what to do if there’s no more happiness to gain from anywhere? Or we begrudge the protagonist their happiness because they got it for free, and it, therefore, feels like happiness is worthless. Long story short: Living in the land of cockainage will turn out to be only half as good as it sounds at most at first thought. A recurring topic of discussions are the deaths of beloved characters. It’s said that one could only hate what one had loved before. There is a certain truth to this: We mourn the deaths of these fictional people, since authors brought them to life, since they were able to tell character arcs that were so authentic that we became fond of them as if they were real. Even though their death hurts and moves us, it proves one thing: The story is written outstandingly well. We should acknowledge that at that moment. Fight and battle scenes In German TV we have an action series called "Alarm for Cobra 11 – The Highway Police" which embodies perfectly what could be summed up as “spectacle”. I don’t particularly like that kind of show, since they primarily focus on mass crashes and explosions, but over 20 seasons seem to prove it right. That being said, I have to admit, that I’m not good at writing either fight or battle scenes. Especially with these, it shows if you stick with the rules no matter what: Figure A swipes at figure B with their sword. Figure B dodges and swipes at figure A with their mace. Figure A dodges […] Let’s have a look at a fun fact: Did you know that in multiple-choice quizzes, the correct answer is mostly C? Have you already created such a quiz on your own? If that’s the case, how did you manage not to have a recognizable pattern of which answer is the correct one? The next time when you create such a quiz, watch yourself if you now avoid making C the correct answer after what I told you. Another example is an anecdote from when I was still in school: In geography class, we got the homework to interview seventy people in a neighboring village in our spare time. I wasn’t really a rebel in school, but I couldn’t see the point of doing that. Long story short: I figured, I could just fake these interviews. It turned out to still be a huge amount of work. Besides the paperwork itself, I had to create characters over characters in my mind, and they had to be as diverse as possible. Even though I already wrote stories back then, I never had to create seventy characters for one story only, that stand up to scrutiny. Well, on the other hand, people like George Lucas envision a backstory for every single extra on set. There is a way to prove if books have been cooked or elections have been tampered with. It’s called Benford's law. It’s interesting that, according to Benford, people, who do these kinds of manipulations, tend to make certain kinds of errors, which leads to the creation of numeral series that look random at first sight but wouldn’t occur normally. Let’s get back to writing battle scenes. When I write such scenes, of course, I may show duels, but they do not mean much to the whole. Yet, they can be utilized for character building. But the overall battle has another meaning: Let’s assume, we have party A and party B. Party A should eventually win the battle. It would not be very entertaining if party A was superior to party B from the very beginning and throughout the whole battle. It would actually be pretty boring. One thing is clear: Tides have to be turned at least one time. Of course, it has to be believable. As I told you earlier on, fights are not about the slugfest but what you want to tell in context to the surrounding story. Why does party A win? What does that mean for party B?

When writing, there are rules based on the experiences of countless authors from several literary periods on one hand and the expectations of readers that are somewhat trained in what stories look like. While it’s never bad advice to play along, for the most part, good writing oftentimes resorts to some unusual surprises. That’s where stories might shine. Don’t always tell the same old story and dare to break some rules https://gayauthors.org/story/sammy-blue/gemini/ is partly a very classic story—just like ”The Prince and the Pauper” or “Lottie and Lisa“. Seen one, seen 'em all? My answer to this was: It doesn’t matter if the story has already been told but if you’re capable of telling it again. The probability that a story has already been told in a certain way, in fact, isn’t that low. Many cultures know these stories—some of them were inspired by one another; some seemed to have evolved independently. How is that possible? (see "Is it unoriginal to write about dragons?") To answer that question, I’d like to digress a bit and start by asking how I can be certain that the story, I’m writing, is a qualitative one. I’d say, two important components are rules and laws. Do I have to know all of these? Certainly not. But it might help. Every author has a different writing procedure. Some prefer to plan ahead for the most part before they start writing; others tend to write intuitively and might come to the same conclusion: That they are satisfied with their writing. So they avoided rules altogether? I don’t think so. Would they reverse engineer their work, they’d realize they actually did apply these principles, but intuitively. But how can you apply principles of a craft without knowing them? Well, the answer is rather easy: Even if a craft wrote down these principles, they didn’t lay them down in the first place. The craft just did the same thing, the author did: Reverse engineering. These principles are universal—natural laws, if you will. Because they are in all of us. Because we want to be entertained. Surprised. Astonished. But also scared. To be left in the limbo. We authors react to that needs. So that would mean, you only have to obey these rules to have a perfect story, right? Of course, that’s nonsense. Especially in that case, a story feels staged or even artificial to us—and not unique at all. That reminds me of the German or English lessons I had in school: You’re taught dos and don'ts which work in theory (e.g. when writing term papers or the like) but not in the field (e.g. everyday verbal communication). The best example is the double negative: If I would form grammatically correct sentences in that case, that’d cause a lot of confusion. Not to mention the creative use of language in poetry. You see: If obeying to these rules means turning a blind eye on reality, it might cause more harm than good. Returning to the initial question, does that mean, that all stories are already told anyway, so it’s pointless to attempt to tell something new? That isn’t entirely true, either, as we already observed. In the following parts, I want to explain to you my thoughts and conclusions I had when writing stories and discussing them, which led me to dive into how other authors write and did write, and which key levers to adjust to write and improve good stories.

@riaan.bloumThank you 😊 Yeah, such a story would be interesting and educating but as a cis dude I don't thing I'm the right fit for telling that story 😅 My next adventure is already around the corner:

I usually rarely try new music on my own, but I wanted to know if—as it is often times the case—only like one particular song of an artist. Turns out, I was wrong in this case—boy do I love the following ones: Btw: I didn't know, he was queer 😅

"We'll be late for the dancing fountains!" Mark shouted and jumped on his feet when he saw us approaching him after waiting for us on a bench. The dancing fountains were located in Planten un Blomen which was just across the street. He was right: We were indeed late and had also no clue where to find them in this spacious park. When we finally found the spot, the dancing fountains were already well underway. Mark thrusted himself forward through the crowd closer to the water. Colin and I st

In the evening, they returned to their place and I to mine. Shortly after my arrival at my shared flat, Colin texted me and we talked about the day. It wasn't long until we got to my sociophobic moment earlier that day on the Alster. He assured me that I could have asked him and encouraged me to do so the next time. So I planned to be more courageous then. Somehow, his words helped. ∞ The next day, we met again. Together, we visited Planten un Blomen—a park in Hamburg's district St. Pa

The next logical step was to meet with Colin in person, and so he and Mark—whom I already met on an earlier occasion as you already know—planned on visiting me for a week. I wasn't allowed to have overnight guests at the shared flat I was living in at that time, so they found a place to stay via Airbnb. Mark made sure, the landlords were gay, too. I don't know about you, but oftentimes, when I meet somebody for the first time in real life, the experience is somewhat different, not completel

It was Friday evening. The last days, Colin and I texted every evening without exception. He had gone to the kitchen and returned with a bowl of oatmeal. "You eat oatmeal as well?," I asked. "I don't mean ready-made muesli, but freshly homemade. That's why I call it oatmeal and not muesli. To distinguish that." "Sure, it's delicious. A lot of people call it muesli—but I'm also not one of them." When the conversation continued, he inquired: "I hope, I don't restrain you from doing

Hey @James K, thanks for stopping by! I had both possible reactions (both "I had a certain feeling" and "wait, what?") ^^ In the end, I guess, it comes down to if you are willing to stand the constant microaggressions, heteronormativity creates. I can assure you, it was as interesting to write. Before that, I thought, autobiographical stuff would be easier to write down, but it turned out, that this had its very own challenges ^^ Sometimes, I couldn't remember certain details such as dates or the exact order in which things happened. Let alone, scrolling through endless instant messenger conversations 😂 It's said, that fact is stranger than fiction. I didn't give that much thought until I wrote this story down. There were so many occasions where the protagonist did something incredibly stupid despite the obvious solution. Much obliged. Oh, don't get me started 😂 That's the second story, I'm translating from German into English. The first one was a short story (thank god) and I frankly absolutely hated it because it was quite exhausting. I wanted to stay as close to the original while, at the same time, having an as authentic as possible result. I'm glad, this process works a lot smoother with this one. But I must say, writing directly in English is just so much more fun 😉 Thanks for sharing your story as well. It was quite interesting

However, sympathy was rather not the reason to rush into marriage. Nonetheless, the word "husband" had a meaning for me: Friendship and closeness. Eventually, we also started a conversation in a private chat and skyped. Once—that was at the very beginning of our acquaintanceship, and therefore our marriage—I told him about a gathering I had with two friends from another group chat the weekend before: Mark and Leander. At first, I thought about declining the invitation, since I was dead broke, bu

Lately, I've somehow fallen in love with some of the songs by Jamie Campbell Bower (also known for playing the young Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts)