Krista

Sigh... lol. You have no idea the turns our conversations take... mostly his fault, of course. Spring cleaning for me begins with finding a nice sunny day during the week, and I open every window, every door, any opening to the outside world and I let the breeze recirculate in the house. I hate how stuffy the air gets during the winter, even though I know our heating system does circulate and filter the air, and I do have air filtering. It just feels good when the seasons change and you can open the house to fresh air. But then, yeah.. like you.. I take it room by room, inch by inch.. and I deep clean everything. Rearrange furniture... it irritates everyone in the house, as my spring cleaning takes me a couple of weeks. But they better not backtalk me, I can find them more to do if they have the time to sass me. @wildone you can try to, but I doubt the underwear you're attempting to write off as a business expense will get you through an audit. And, 100% of the profit is still a 100% loss for me. You are my write-off, congratulations.

Yeah, I had a lengthy paragraph written for this, but as I was writing it... and weighing my options on whether or not to post, a few responses came in and rendered my whole contribution moot. I am so oblivious to these little fun things most of the time...lol. I also did not save the paragraph and lines of dialog. I think I copy/pasted it in a conversation I was having with Wildthang, but we talk too often and I don't feel like scrolling through the hilarious mess our conversations can take in order to find it.

I am of the mind that you can smack a pickle on a lot of things and improve it (mushrooms too, for that matter). Peanut butter sandwiches are not one of those things. Although, I've never tried. I think I'll let you continue to be the spokesperson for such a dish and I'll remain in the dark on that one... lol. All the rest of what you listed are good. I do prefer my pickles cold and my PB sandwiches toasted and warm, so that could also have a lot to do with me not being able to wrap my head around the idea. I am a crunchy peanut butter girl as well.

He is a character study that I would have loved to have written, to be fair. I liked the film more the second time, mostly because I saw more of the growth of everyone else. I was too focused on my frustration the first time, so at least you overlooked that and was able to see other side of what makes the film decently good.

The frustration was a good frustration, to clarify. I wasn't knocking the film because it frustrated me. There was so much wrong with one character that to me, he went too far to be redeemable, which is fine some people are irredeemable. I just rewatched it, as I purchased it ages ago just as a refresher. It was 'less' frustrating this time, as I knew how it was going to play out, so there's that.

This film frustrated me. I liked the acting, plot, twist, and overall story. But damn it, so frustrating... lol. Which, I think was the purpose of this film, no one can convince me otherwise. I felt so annoyed watching, it brought out some protective mother instincts in me, I'm thinking.

I personally cancelled Netflix, their new business models are atrocious and I was really only watching a handful of shows. When they cancel popular shows after one season, take two to three years between seasons, and/or split them up into half-seasons and 'still' take two to three years to debut new content for shows that only have 8 episodes as it is... I lost all patience. And yes, since most articles or websites are very limiting in discussing what is available, you would think they would allow people to search content, view it, or know what and when something is available pre-purchase, as an enticement. I'm not sure if Netflix still does this, but others do the 'free month' offer, I guess they hope you come along, create an account, and decided to stay. Or forget, as a lot of people don't remember they're even subscribed and paying for it. You'd be surprised how many people have streaming services and don't realize they still have them... lol. --- As far as Gay Content goes for me, I've hit a wall. I know good content is out there that I've yet to see, but I keep running into duds. I watched Not one, but Two films lately that were supposed to be Gay Romances with characters who are closeted. On screen I think the gay characters maybe kiss and lay in bed together... but have full on sex with their wives/girlfriends. If you're going to market something as a Gay Romance... and depict more straight romance in the film do us a favor and not market it as a Gay Romance, but just a general "Drama..." about a woman who's husband is gay/has a gay lover.

Boo. Streaming availability has become a lot more flexible of late, maybe refresh very so often and some websites will tell you if a service will carry the show/film at a certain date, etc. Although, I'm still waiting on Prisma Season 2 on Amazon. I had to find AI generated subtitles and it didn't generate texts, so I had to pause a very modern series with teens texting every two minutes to know what the hell they were saying.. lol.

I don't know about a "good" translation, but it is on Tubi.com. Unless it is geographically unavailable and all that.

Liked it the one time I sat down to watch it. It had better cinematography than most, being a lower-end budgeted film. So, it looked pretty and was an over all nice film. It has been a bit since I watched it, so I might give it a second watch.

I used to watch two booktubers, but they mostly did YA Fantasy, since I've lost interest in all the one-note stories coming out of that genre I lost interest in them. Some of them had good advice for book writing in general though. A funny booktuber may be a breath of fresh air.

He has a backlog of Krista chores he's not done. Mostly because I've yet to tell him, but I'll rectify that soon. And yeah, he should finish that prompt. But, I can't tell him that, so glad you remembered to.

Just tried to post, it didn't show. So.... may I test here? (Well that worked)

I have a New Year Resolution, but not for me. It tis for a certain Wildthang to not be so cheeky this year. We all know he won't last long into the year before he breaks it, but - maybe 2025 will be the year he 'finally' makes the effort. I do not make Resolutions, I don't stick to them. I know I've made them to do more writing in the past, that lasted about as long as my attention span does when I open a document. I shall try to finish the project I've had started since the 'Secrets' Secret Author contest though. I think I've nearly gotten there. ----- I hope 2025 ends up being a memorable and good year for y'all. Happy New Year!

Yeah, I knew it was misquoted when I wrote it, the way I quoted it. Although, I do like the actual quote and verse; I made the choice to quote it more informally within the tattoo. In hindsight, I should have had Luke explain it, as he would have made that choice himself. To quote it distinctly differently than the actual verse, but still be tied to the verse itself. Or, I could have just chosen to use the actual verse, which would have made it tons easier on me and more correct/clear with my intentions. Thank you for reading and leaving a comment as well. Edit to add: Welcome to GayAuthors as well!

You know something is bad when you press pause or put it down, and think... "hell, even I can do better than this..." lol.

Yes, I bought myself stuff for Christmas. Wine, lotion, candles, and bubble bath solutions for obvious reasons. Krista needs to hide away in her soaker tub for a few hours. None of them are cute enough to get away with disturbing me anymore, either. They know better, husband included. The only time I have ever came out of the 'red' for Christmas is when Aaron and I were still dating, the man still thought he had stuff to prove to me before I married him. A lot of my feelings around this time of year depend on the weather to be honest. Although, leading up to Christmas I feel rushed and bogged down in a lot of the 'extra' to get the whole ordeal prepared and executed. There's a lot on my to-do list that I need a little bit of a respite between Christmas and the New Year to regain some semblance of my peace of mind, patience, and recovery from stress. I've also been sick this season, as seems to be more common every year, so I've had to overcome that. It took a lot of my enthusiasm for Christmas out of me, to be honest... so this little break has always been a welcome one. I also have my dreadful birthday looming, so the slower these days pass the better. I hate winter if it isn't snowing. If all it is going to do is be cold, windy, and/or rainy, a big muddy mess - then I begin to detest the whole season. We haven't seen snow that lasted over a couple of hours, and nothing that really covered the ground. I am a Spring and Summer person, I don't think that will ever change with me. Oh, and you forgot my pressie too, btw. Tsk.. tsk... tsk.

I DNF'd the book, mostly because of your same reasons. It felt like the writing was shallow at best through most of it. It also got really bogged down in the middle by... nothing of importance. As soon as the humor and light writing gets old, so goes the story altogether. I really didn't enjoy it. The film, I would agree the acting from Taylor was so limited, he was completely overshadowed by every other actor on screen, no matter the amount of screen time they had. The ending was entirely too cheap, if the books ended the same way, fine, but the ending ruined what I thought was already rather shallow of a film.

I watched three older films during some downtime whilst sick. I guess they were peaceful little things for me to watch, but I wouldn't say I'd recommend any of them unless you like slow-paced, lulling sort of films. I didn't intend to watch films of that nature, I read the descriptions and they were interesting enough to hold my attention. I just couldn't help noting how similar they all were. Sublime, Five Dances, and Seashore: They all use long periods of visual cues between action or spoken dialog between characters. Sublime is about a teenager coming to terms with his sexuality and falling for his straight best friend. It is focused a lot on music, as they're in a sort of garage or friend-group band. They write and perform their own music, which I thought wasn't too terrible sounding, as some of the films similar in nature have such terrible songwriting it makes the whole performance aspects laughable. So, I do give them credit for that, but a lot of the film is focused on the quiet contemplation of the main character, it is focused closely on his face a lot of the time, or with him looking out in the distance. There's never a ton of dialog between the characters that moves the plot along, until the waning thirty or so minutes, when the character can no longer cope with being quiet about his feelings. So, it is very slow in that regard, to where it leaves you wondering why the first 2/3 of the film couldn't have been shortened a little bit. I did like it though, if you like wandering sort of films, but for a lot of people it more or less could easily become background noise. Seashore is very similar, as in there is a best friend pair that spend most of their screen time together, but they don't really say a whole lot. A lot of the film is them bantering, and one character visits family members that's renting from his father - who doesn't seem like that good of a person, and he's distant from his son and the rest of them. Most of the plot happens in the last thirty minutes, and it seems to come a bit out of left field, because it was so slow and shallow through most of the film. I liked this one the least of the three, mostly because the two characters smoked a lot and I kept thinking both of them would be end-stage COPD by the end of the film and it distracted me. Five Dances is about a group hired to be performative dancers for a show. Most of the film is shot in a rehearsal rental in front of a mirror. There's five dancers, two women, three men. Out of all the films, I thought this one suffered most from the lack of plot and spoken dialog. I wanted to know the main character's backstory more. A lot of the film is of them dancing, the dances are supposed to help move along the plot, as they become more in-depth with what little we get to know surrounding the characters. The main character is likable as he is, but he comes off a bit lost, - which I know was intentional as he's from Kansas and hadn't been living in New York for over a month. He lived with a guy - we never know if they were lovers or just roommates. Either way, after landing the dancing job, he becomes homeless so he sleeps in the rehearsal rental on a sleeping bag, he's caught so he moves in with one of the other dancers. The relationship that drives the last thirty or so minutes of the film happens without a lot of words, so to me it comes across as a bit too awkward for my liking. He wasn't someone that experienced with his own sexuality and dating in general, but that's not what made it awkward. It felt like a very adult version of, I shared a snack with you, so now we're dating... as one moment he's sharing a snack with one of the guys they're dancing with, then the next interaction they have - the guy tries to seduce them after they stay later to rehearse. The side dramas with the other dancers just seemed to fill the space as well, and I much rather would have liked the space to be filled with the main character's story, since most of the film was of them silently rehearsing their dancing. --- Either way, all of them were slow, none of them had a lot of dialog, and all three of them took concentration to stay with it, but I honestly don't know if many people will like films where you could literally skip through large portions of it, and not miss anything of importance. Unless you really like artistically heavy handed scenes that go nowhere. Being used to it, as a lot of indie films are of the same mold, I can get through most of them, unless the story falls completely apart, which I only felt happened with Seashore.

Are you writing in first person perspective?

Well, no... that's the only thing that keeps his cheekiness in check, constant supervision and reminders. We do not get paid enough for this.

I got 8k words into my prompt. It is more February themed, so maybe I'll get it out before then. No promises. Being late to the party and having to prep for and plan a major holiday got me bogged down on time towards the end.

ooo! Congratulations! Very much deserved.

That's how I found out about this mini-event. I've been away from GA for a bit and am just now checking back in. He showed me a little bit of what he's working on. So far, no Santas have met an ill end...

I need to keep in mind that I have an overdue writing project already + two major holidays to prepare for, but this... this is very tempting and I'm already behind.