Krista

Yeah, some things are left a bit open-ended, but they're pointing to good things, linear, how life moves on if given the time to do so. The most unknown would be what happens at the Benton household after Joel's father stood up for himself and his children, but yeah. Thank you for reading, I loved these characters and still think of them often.

Yeah, I tended to change my mind a lot when I had darker opportunities. I know I'm not that sort of writer really. Some of the themes are baseline on the edge, but I tend to stay on the 'lighter' edge of that, if that makes sense.

No truer words have been spoken, especially since I've not written a word of, "Ellis," for over two weeks, I'm thinking. Not of any significance anyway. I don't want to call it dead yet, I hate to think me being almost 40k in and 6 parts in, for it to be 'dead.'

I think washing his hands of them and showing himself to be 'different' from their nature is better for his character than someone that grows to put it get his revenge. Although, they definitely needed it with everything they did to their own family, and how they did business to be fair. They're not good people.

I think part of that was that Jason, as healthy as their relationship seems to be, did begin it being a but codependent on Adam. People who are slightly codependent do forgive easier, but it is one of those things that can still be 'healthy' if both people are stable and equal within the relationship and there aren't any abuse or underlying things that goes alongside the dependency. But, I'm saying this not remembering exactly what happened in this late stage of the writing either or how bad Adam messed up. I still can't believe I called him Adam. In my head when you started reading this story, it was Rhett or Brett, but then I remember "Roommates" has a similar dynamic going on with the two main characters and I'm thinking one of those characters names are Brett. You would think since I wrote every word to these stories that I could remember such details, but I can't. Mind you, I'm decades removed from some of these stories, and by removed from them I mean completely. I don't think about them, I don't discuss them with people, they are essentially 'buried' in my mind as long distant memories. My favorite projects I remember, but some of these have fallen to the wayside. I enjoyed writing this story, but I know it isn't the strongest story I have, and if I am being critical, then I tend to avoid it, because I don't like to affirm my critical nature.

When you put it that way, it sounds ominous? Slightly.. lol. "To do what needs doing..."

Ellis, Elias is the "ghost story/light mystery," story I wrote shortly after 'Ridley.' I am seriously going to have to come up with a new Title for that story. I have confused multiple people. *Sighs* I hate naming stories. Ellis I like the name, and the name for the character and the story came before Elias was even a thought. So, my stubborn mind is telling me that Ellis cannot be changed. His name won't be, but the title of the story most definitely can be. I need to wrap my head around that and get over it.

Yeah, I tend to do slice of life stories. They come in out of nowhere, and they leave after those initial main resolutions are 'hopefully' resolved within the writing itself. I'm remembering how I ended this story. I think it is slightly different than how I typically end these writings of length that I do. I honestly forgot and didn't check how many chapters this story had. I know this story began as an Anthology that went too long and got too wordy, so I decided to keep going. Story of my life really... Ridley, this story, Learned to Lie, Elias all were born of failed Anthology attempts. That is why I don't participate in them often, it gives me 10x the work I expected.

I'm seeing that I need to go back through and fix the hidden formatting bug. It has smacked this story it the face. Those large spaces between paragraphs are irking me and I'm not even actively reading. I think I said you're well in the middle of all these soap opera/fast shooting information chapters where a lot comes to light very quickly. I think this is where I lost some readers, because the story started feeling a lot less linear and more.. bomb after bomb, punch after punch.

It had to be something trivial, an inconvenience. Although any reason isn't a good reason, to be fair. Unless you absolutely felt like you couldn't handle the situation and you would be doing the child more harm than good. Someone as privileged as they were, could have learned. Or at least kept her in their lives. Seeing her being deaf as an impassable imperfection makes them rather cruel.

I guess you're getting into the meat of the "soap opera" portions of the writing where there's a lot of information and such coming out of the woodwork. The manipulating and selfishness was fun for me to write in these characters.

Hot you say? Hmm. I like the character dynamics between them. You made the connection I wanted them to have, to be honest.

The first two episodes are a little bit of a chore, to be honest. The show finds better pacing and overall more enjoyable after Episode three, which I found middle, not bad, not good. It points to improvement heading into the next season, the show getting better as it went. Who knows though, it may regress and become unwatchable. I suck at television.

And she's mostly unapologetically blunt, correct?

I mean, I know the primary character study and most of the major plot devices and twists I pulled with this story. So, those are familiar to me, but I can't remember every little detail. The finer points and nuances that I could possibly find. But I do remember 'most' of this story, just not scenes within chapters and when exactly they happened. I know he has a perfect angel of a dog, Sadie is her name, I'm thinking.

I think I remember Tania. Tania I loved. Who is Lexi? Adam's sister, I want to say?

You wouldn't be able to behave yourself in that Cottage. (you have trouble behaving anywhere, lets be real) I need to send them your name and tell them to put you on their decline list.

I'll take your word for it, because I thought the names for this story were Rhett and Jason.. lol. Jason I remember, because I very much liked his character study. I guess it is Adam though. I want to guess on where you are in the plot, but my guess may be wrong and further down the line. Sigh... these older stories they're so forgetful for me when I've been so far removed from them. I'm happy that people take the time to read them, although by the looks of the comments, I didn't feel the need to respond to them back then. No wonder I'm paranoid about engagement now. I saw myself not engaging all over the place.

I remember the mother being a piece of work this story. This is a soap opera sort of story, the pacing isn't slow, if I'm remembering correctly. Also, I must've just made up my mind to not respond to comments with this story? Or what is this... lol.

It's been a bit of time between this story and my other ones, but I do remember the ring. The hand crafted gift, and yeah, I can see why Abigail Henry wouldn't want Elias walking around, a living reminder.

There are a couple of streaming services dedicated to just LGBTQ content. I'm not going to link them, as I think some of the content is borderline too adult and I don't know where that line is. If you're American Tubi has stuff. Dekkoo? I want to say is the streaming service Here TV -- as well. That is likely why other streaming services don't have a large catalog, even if they are smaller streaming services than the giant that is Netflix, they likely have bought the streaming rights for films for extended periods of time simply because Netflix doesn't have a vested interest. I also have no idea what either of those offer and whether or not the price for their streaming being worth it.

Hopefully it was ugly yet happy crying.

Thank you for taking the time to read this story. Glad you liked it.

Thank you for taking the time to read through my stories. I'll admit that a lot of my earlier works are roughly written and in need of edits/rewrites. Some of the themes are a bit out there as well. But I'm proud of my stories, even if some of them make me a bit anxious when I see people reading them. We all have to start somewhere though.