Zuri

In have no clue why YouTube recommended that video to me, but now I have an earworm. I love their vibe!

Someone recommended that one to me earlier this week in another forum with a similar thread, and now I can't stop listening to it.

@drsawzall Thanks a lot for your comment! I'm glad you enjoyed it. The initial idea was if I could write a story like these video games where you have to figure out who you are. But I didn't want to make it too easy. That's when I added additional layers. The idea to Stella was more like a coincidence. I hadn't planned to give her that much screen time in the beginning. Even I couldn't have imagined, she would have the last sentence in the story. What exactly do you mean by "a road less travelled"?

Gareth was having stage fright. Even though, it wasn’t his first time. Yet, every time was a first time. Somehow. Every time was different. Every time was unique. His team leader entered the room. “Five minutes left,” she fluted. She was a drag queen and had been for decades. Today, she was going to moderate this event. Normally, she was always hyped up, but in the critical phase before an event, she calmed down and was on an even kneel—professional. “Just a bigger crowd toda

Stella thinks, that he poses as the victim while in fact she was the victim. I'm not sure how much she remembers, and maybe she ran away before she could witness what happened to Gareth. That's why she thinks, what he does is trans erasure—she's obviously wrong, but Gareth didn't try to talk to her when he left town. When I was plotting the last chapter, I really thought about giving Chase and Gareth a happy ending, but it just didn't make sense to me. There were no possibility for me to write it in a way that wouldn't sound far-fetched. The problem with Chase as a character was, that he confirmed that he'd never come out—not even for Gareth, who he loves (or at least he claims to love Gareth). @NimirRaj Did he say, he wants to return?

“I don’t … understand. Why?” he grasped. “Your video. You were very clear in it. Didn’t you get enough attention? Do you want eternal gratefulness for every little shit you do? I’m tired of this! We are done.” Then, she took off. “What just happened?” he mumbled and headed to his own class. During the periods he couldn’t concentrate. After school, Chase fastened his steps to get to Gareth. “Thanks for keeping me out of that,” he said while breathing heavily. “Tha

That reminds me vaguely of this: I normally don't like that schlager/pop vibe, but in that case, it was okay

Hey folks! Sorry for not posting for a while. I can assure you, I'm still here. It's just that the story is drawing to an end and I want to make sure, it's fitting. It took me a while to consider different possibilities and trade them of against each other. But now I guess, also for me the puzzle pieces seem to fit together now. So stay tuned—the next chapter is on its way!

It was a huge surprise to me when he came out as gay since the last song of him, I knew was "Empire State of Mind" ten years ago ^^

😂 I just wonder if I can get my hands on the original version out of curiosity I guess, I know what you mean. It is hard to find a colleague who's like-minded so that working together actually works.

1. You're totally right. Maybe, to be more nerdy, he could have used RGB, HSL or Hex rather than RAL—but let's not get carried away 😂 2. Of course. When it's a character with very special traits, it's easy to emphasize that in the way they talk, maybe exaggerate that a bit, but that's that. But it's harder with more common tropes, I guess … 3. I'm sure, I should know this, but in this instant, I do not 😅 I guess, you don't, but I have to ask: Does the original ending still exist somewhere or do you know what you changed in general? Yeah, the feedback can be both encouraging and discouraging, but the more you evolve, the more encouraging it gets as long as there are enough readers (a problem I face in another community where the amount of users is currently decreasing :/). 4. If life hogs you completely, that's hard. Maybe you should find a colleague to co-author, so you could only plot and edit if you have a good idea you want to write down and that would help you to get it done.

Much obliged Thanks for the story! Okay, we mostly project ourselves on the main character and a wee bit also on a fair amount of other characters in some aspects. Must be nice to know a real life Ethan ^^

Hard to say who made the most difference: Jacobs family or Ethan. Because I wonder if having Ethan as a friend could help Josh to be more like Jacob. His parents in return, he cannot exchange so easily. @Sammy Blue Besides your inspiration for the twins, would you say that any of your characters is influenced by anyone you know? I wonder if they vote for the Democrats. If that's the case, Mr. Adams would really hate them if he knew them 😂 Gosh, did I miss writing comments! :3 It's interesting, also after Ethan's and Josh's hug at the pool, to hug someone you just met—even though if it's your long-lost twin brother. But it might be easier for Josh to hug his brother than his love-interest Ethan. And it's awesome to see approaches in a non-romantic way in a story. That kind of reminds me of the Netflix series Orphan Black. I would love to see that chemistry as a film or TV show, too. It's totally conspicuous that it's completely new for Josh to have friends and open up to someone. I guess, there was actually one I noticed. But neither you nor me are mother tongues, so that's totally fine regarding that pretty nice chapter and your awesome story which gets better with every chapter 👍

That's pretty true actually:

There's no reason, Parker would only bully Josh. @Sammy Blue It's not necessary to give the other victims names or screen time. It's enough to know they exist. But to me, it's not that surprising that it was just a random locker. If Parker was really pissed, destroying the locker might have been affect based, so he might not have chosen a particular locker to destroy but just the one right next to him. n Honestly, I never noticed Josh having a special eye color when I read the German version. Shame on me! 😅 So I'm not the only writer with that "problem"—very relieving 😂 I guess, as Josh pointed out, they might not be much interested in sex. Even though, at least Mr. Adams is noticeably conservative and might want to see his family tree continued, it might be possible that for them having a child is more of a necessity than cause for celebration. Family can be just pragmatic for them. Because he sees queer everywhere what constantly to makes his blood boil. Btw it's enjoyable to see how happy Ethan is just to watch the twins ^^ Could be some kind of Stockholm syndrome—the situation is kinda similar to domestic abuse, even though I only noticed some kind of verbal violence (or microaggression to be more precise). I'm pretty sure, we all do. But there are so many factors that can make an author stop posting. Even you had a longer period of writer's block at chapter 23. And a mutual friend of ours never completed his story either. And even though I complete most of my stories, the first story I started posting is still incomplete and will probably be for eternity (who knows? If anyone, that would be me, I know 😉). We can only lead by example and encourage other writers to continue writing and not to be undeterred too easily.

Well, she won't. But I wouldn't be so sure about Mr. Adams if he finds out that his own son is gay. Jokes aside, until this point of reading I don't know him well enough to know how serious to take what he said and implied in the TV scene in the last chapter. It's good that Josh now has a rescuer. But as he said it doesn't free him from Parkers constant torture. Parker's right about the fact that Ethan won't always be there to help him. Josh still needs a more permanent solution. I knew most of it, but I learned one or two new colloquialisms among a couple of other words—you never stop learning 👍 So, does that mean that he gets in trouble a lot? He probably just read Good Omens 😂 The first thing that came to my mind was: "He must be so glad he isn't related to these cold homophobic people". But of course: They raised him, and he's used to that image of parents. So would be frightening to feel like having no parents. Now, it's getting interesting as it seems. Looking forward to reading the next chapter—luckily I don't have to wait 😅

I totally get that, I guess ^^ It totally makes sense. The adults don't need to be understood nor do they need screen time. We don't need more information to know that Josh fears his father for example. It's enough to understand Josh's world and how and why things happen the way they do. Frankly, I experienced the same issue in my own last two stories. My readers described the parents as "cold"—now it's hard to figure out whether that's because I wanted them to be that way or it's because something's off and the characters are not realistic anymore. It's not much of a comparison but at least you seem to have made a better job than I.

I haven't read it, let alone heard of it. But I'll put that book on my read list (it's too full already 😅). Thanks for the recommendation anyway Well, it's not mainly about being naked, but I get what you mean ^^ It just sounds like I observe Josh being naked 😂

Oh boy, I've been there, too, so many times. It doesn't matter what you do; as long as you attract attention, it's embarrassing. You just can't do it right. Fun fact: In the early days, it was the democrats who were more conservative. Now that I follow American politics more closely, I can imagine Trump saying exactly that 😆 I really wonder to what church Josh's parents belong. Maybe Mr. Adams even watches televangelist TV channels or just FOX News? Is this energetic, crazy guy his love interest? By the way, @Sammy Blue you kinda destroyed my creativity in some way: Whenever I need a villain parent for my own stories, I first think Mr. and Mrs. Adams 😂

I can relate to Josh being bullied. I've never seen teachers joining in, but I noticed another misconception about dealing with bullying at school. Teachers, parents and classmates always say stuff like "it's just normal social interaction", "they have to deal with that themselves to learn" and so on. Back then, I wondered why they always picked me. Something about me must have been different (I wasn't bullied for being gay). And damn right, it was: I always looked to the ground and wore that ugly-as-hell second hand clothes (of course, second hand can be awesome as well but not if my mother bought them). Nonetheless, even though that was what attracted bullies, it wasn't my fault. So I guess, Josh is asking himself very similar questions. One interesting similarity between Josh and his parents even though, at the same time, it seems to be more or less the only thing they care about in regard to their son: His parents as well as Josh himself focus on good grades. Of course, Josh was raised this way, and they still push him, but psychologically, I bet there's more to it: Given that being naked before going to sleep is the only "freedom" he can experience, there's nothing else he can strive for, no friends that could hold him back from focussing on getting good grades. So he just does what he can do best.

Sounds like a fantasy/medieval age setting 🤔 Quite interesting …

I really enjoyed reading resp. listening to the recording by Ben W. Blue. Yet I still don't fully understand why Ricky see's himself in the future. Maybe I just have to re-read it some day.

Hey Sammy, wow, I didn't know this. Quite interesting. Thanks for that in-depth research!

Heartbreaking but an understandable decision, even though I wonder if it is more common to give your children to a baby hatch. Will they ever see their mother again? Will the situation of their mother have a huge impact on their later lives?