Krista

I honestly would love to sit down and read this story for fun someday, all the way through... after I've not been looking at it through the years it has taken me to write it. When I see new readers working their way through it, I don't know how to respond to comments to be honest. I want you to organically read it, I don't want to respond with something that may distract you or detract from that in any way. So I will leave this here knowing that I am reading comments. Not just your comments, but everyone who leaves them. I hope you can stay with the story.

Oh.. hi! lol I wonder how far he will push you? I am finishing up the story's second to last part right now. Been a bit of a long write for me, hope you enjoy yourself.

That's the Dance/Basketball Drama/Mystery, right? It is on Prime at the moment. I watched it when it first aired on VH1, I got 1 and 1/2 seasons into it before I had enough. The writing is awful. Most of the characters are unlikable people, and the ones that are likable end up being not who they claim to be, which ends in a swift heel turn. Or they are so overlooked by all the stupid chaos that you forget them entirely. There is a bisexual professional athlete character, and a gay sports agent, and for the most part, from the parts I've watched, those two characters become the least blameless? But, like I said... most of the characters are flawed to the point where you want most of them not to succeed. You can also literally skip entire episodes and fall back into the plot easily, because it is just that predictable. I am rather picky though, you may enjoy it. The bodies on display are attractive though, I will give it that.

Same.. and I forget my resolutions until I break them... get pissed, and it was all for not. If I was really worried about it, then I would do it regardless. --- I would also have to admit that I'm not perfection, which just upsets my tummy.

You might get the correct appendages everywhere then.

*fingers crossed* Hmm, there seems to be some questions about Luke's commitment. 😮 And yes, they do have a week, maybe Luke will be able to relax. He did leave a bit of an explosion before he left though. There are no invisible fence or wall where that goes away, unfortunately. lol. I always feel better about mini-vacations and such the day after the first day myself. And I disagree, I love ketchup. Although, a lot of it is the too sweet stuff, so I tend to use organic ketchup with lower sugar levels and no corn syrup. A Mother's disappointment is the worst... even if it is coming from Cindy, Luke is definitely feeling it, but compounded with how he left things with her. That is not easily forgotten. I think he's committed to Jackson, he just has to come to terms with what all that means with the rest of his life. But he definitely wants Jackson, you'd have to.. to put up with him, I think. Lol. ---- Sorry for the delays, Holidays isn't my only excuse. Although, I'm sure y'all are tired of those by now. So I will just apologize for the delay again. I have most of Part 3 written. I'm having health setbacks that has slowed me down a bit lately as well. Hopefully I will get answers and that can resolve so I can refocus on these things again. Thank you for hanging in there with me as I continue with this writing thing a little longer.

Same, I caught covid during our Christmas celebrations. I was sick all the way through New Years and my Birthday, so I didn't get to celebrate either. Not bummed about missing my Birthday, but not getting snockered.. or at least buzzed during New Years was a rough one.

His own damn fault for living in Canada. *whistles* Our Christmas isn't looking white either. I want a nice soft powdery snow, the last few winters our snow as come along with wind gusts above 30mph, negative temperature windchills and absolute hell to be outside in. All his fault as well, blowing that junk down here, the windbag.

Mainstream filmmakers and showrunners will always attempt to have a platform with their art, that has been going on for generations in film. They 'want' people to be more hyperaware of social injustices and issues. One can argue there has been a bit of a hijacking of media to the point where the impact is lost and all that. Not the place for it though, really, so I won't get too deep into that. I do not think Comedy and Horror has been good genres for Gay centered story telling, shows, etc. Bros being the primary and most glaring example of Comedy, as it was marketed as a Romantic comedy. It failed... and it mostly failed with its own target audiences. I read articles where the LGBT+ community had more problems with the film than heterosexuals who saw it. And most Gay-centered Horrors are just low-budget gorefests... because the low-budget gorefests it is mirroring are also awful... in a, 'I just can't look away...' way. I can't stand stuff like that. I have said this before, and will continue to say it: Smaller productions, independently funded, and/or foreign markets are the places to go for quality gay films/shows. The nice middle ground between big budget films, and art school student projects films. American mainstream will never hold my attention. I've liked some of them as one-off viewings, like Brokeback Mountain, and Call me by... whatever the rest of that is, Milk, Moonlight, etc but I've never went back to them. Shelter, Latter Days, The Way He Looks, Gods Own Country, Boys, Angels of Sex, Free Fall, the list is endless I can name hundreds and none of them will be backed by Hollywood.

Omg... a challenge for me to write about Joey (expletive) (expletive) (expletive) Votto?!!?! Sign me up. I can write about that smirk and contoured jawline for days.

Hmm.. I had to train my husband to be a cuddler... which is odd because he's a severe mother's boy and s'mothers liked to cuddle their children. He's quite good at it when there isn't a game on the television he's really into. I have been dumped out into the floor before. Although, if we're actively having a conversation or something, I don't like to cuddle. I want physical touch, like I'll rest my legs in his lap or something.. but I want to be able to look at him whilst I talk to him. Cuddling to me, is more for a comfortable silence. I wish my children were still cuddly, they are not... they have grown into their full on pre-teen brat phase and I fear for my sanity.

And this is when I put in "Ugly young adult male.." I imagine his photographer telling him to make an ugly face and that's as far as he could manage.. lol.

Yes, that is the problem with 'this' IA. I've seen other IA's manage a lot better. This one is severely limited, but it is a free use AI that is highly restricted, for obvious reasons. I haven't really attempted to word things specifically like, "Ordinary looking young male..." to see if I can get away from the Airbrushed model look. Most AI generated images try for clarity over flaws, like scars, stretchmarks, etc unless you ask for them. The first picture I put.. "Average.." the one below it.. "Ordinary.." there's little difference between the two. --

I'm sure the acting will be top notch with the line-up it has going for it. Plot is where I will lack enthusiasm for it overall. It isn't my cup of tea at all.

Aww. You big ol' Nadian softy. Thank you for keeping up with this story all this time! It is much appreciated, I am glad you liked the chapter as well. Woops, don't sic the lawyers on me, I got kids.. lmao. 😮 Thank you for reading, that entire family's dynamics is the one knock I have for writing this story in 1st and not 3rd, because I would love to be more involved in that. I feel Henry would make for a lovely character to write... and a more in-depth Cindy would be a masterwork for me to struggle through. But, in these little scenes I'm glad you like their dynamics. Aww. I'll be happy to see this story end. Not that it hasn't been a fun ride, just a long one. LOL. I want to put it down as a completed story so that people who have no faith in me, can read it all the way through. Glad you have stuck with it so far as well. It is a bit of an action packed ending to the first epilog chapter. Lol. Drama seems to follow poor Cindy around... 😮 I wonder why that happens.. poor thing. Thank you for liking the chapter! I really liked writing this scene, I struggled with it. I think I rewrote it twice, because I didn't like how I approached it the first time. Then the second, I made more of a deal about Jackson, and decided nah, I wanted Luke to shine here. Glad I did, I think. Juke is a decent ship name.. lol. They "juked" Cindy a bunch anyway.. lol. The Grandma, I have a deleted scene about her as well. I wish I had Charlotte living with them, in hindsight I would have put her living in Luke's household, just so I could use her dynamics. I haven't really used a Grandparent in any of my stories in any prominent way, and I would like to maybe.. in the future. I'm glad you liked her, and I wanted her to be the contrast to Cindy. I wanted to show that Cindy was of her own creation.. her mother didn't teach her these things, her church didn't teach her these things.. it was her. I think that is important. Aww, sorry. It 'had' to happen at some point. Or else, I'd be writing this a lot longer...

Luke didn’t come back to life until the first ‘Welcome’ to a new state popped up. Everyone got excited and he smiled and scooted up in the seat. Music was blaring, shitty music that no one liked, because Heather’s playlist sucked. No one overruled it, mostly because Toby had been riding shot-gun and had more control. Derek drove longer than he wanted to, only handing it off to Toby and by the time he got tired we were within a few miles of the beach house, I had fallen asleep only waking up when

So now I know who to send bribes to... --- Seriously though, thanks for stepping up! Very nice work you all have done.

“Do you really think your mother is going to let you go peacefully?” I asked as Luke helped me pack one of my two bags to my car. Despite having more space for my shit in the bed of his truck, I didn’t trust Luke to get us where we were going without having a Cindzilla sized roadblock in our path. “I already told Dad I was going,” he sighed, glancing towards the woodline that separated both our houses. Every time I brought it up he got more and more annoyed, it would have been funny if I wa

This one has been my favorite for story-telling purposes though. It can go a lot of ways plot-wise, it actually looks similar to a Prompt that I already have written. Or at least a possible imagery source for a second part. Still an issue with his hand.

-- None of them managed to have correct hands. And unless you describe a group of people individually, you get look-alikes/twins/sibling sorts. And even when you do, it gets mixed up.

I am seeing a repeated theme of this AI not really knowing what to do with Hands/fingers/toes... lol. For example, I wanted a "Phoenix" depicted as a woman with red hair. She is gorgeous, I love the picture over all, even with the addition of the phoenix itself that matches her. But that hand....if it was balled into a gentle looking fist resting on her chest - which is what the AI was going for, it would have been perfect.

I am up way too late for my liking, but when I get to writing, I like to finish the part that I am on. Just that, this part was bigger than I anticipated. Part 2 is written though. But with Parts 1 and 2 of the Epic-log of TBY also written and needing my attention, I don't know when this will be ready to be posted. Maybe in between Part 1 of TBY and Part 2 of TBY. I don't know. Or I can wait and just finish Learned to Lie completely, before I start posting anything from it. I guess, this is just me telling you that I am working on it, if at least a little bit.

I watched Merli most of the way through as well, it was... interesting, to say the least. lol. Smiley for the most part is better. I watched Young Royals season one, but couldn't really get into Season 2, I think if I sat down and really wanted to focus on subtitles, I would like it. Elite - if you like outlandish soap-style writing and characterizations, I've watched a few seasons of it as well. It is rather repetitive, and I'm not a fan of 'every' character being flawed to the point where you have a hard time wanting good things to happen to them. I imagine that being fun to write though. I couldn't get into Looking the series, I thought it was rather boring. I say all of this knowing that I am picky with what I read and watch. I always say I suck at watching television. After one or two seasons I lose complete interest. I have a track record of never finishing anything I tune in to watch. The few shows that I have watched all the way through have been: The Golden Girls, Big Bang Theory, Friends, Will and Grace, and Frasier.

I was attempting to make Jackson and Luke from my story, and out of all the images these are the two that I liked most. The first image they're way too old looking, late college, instead of late high school. The second one, the brunette dude's hair is blurry and his fingers look strange, as they're not placed at the angle where it would cut off the tips of them in the image, but their ages are closer to the characters.. and I really like the 'Luke' in the second image. They both look very 90s Abercrombie Ad-ish.. lmao. My results for Elias and Ridley were far less productive... but it is fun to do. I personally would caution against using AI-generated stuff for writing, such as these, as with my own writing, I don't specifically iron out my characters down to their last freckle, I let readers picture the characters however they want to, I just guide them slightly, but the rest is up to them. I personally don't see Luke or Jackson in either of these images.

You have to be more specific with AI, otherwise, if you have more than one "character" or object, you get errors, or mirrored images. I went through nine-ish attempts, and at least this AI struggled with making organically different looking people within the same image. Unless, I detailed exactly what I wanted. Dark haired young adult man, embracing a blond young adult woman - for example. I tried, Two men, walking along a beach, holding hands. The dudes looked like twins, it was a bit unnerving. I found out fast that I needed to try harder and be way more clear. Minimal demands are also better as I tried: Horses running in Snow, on a farm. - The AI made the attempt to include everything, but the only image that looked natural, was the image with the fewest horses. Even then, two of them were running headlong into a fence, because the "Farms" generated with the horses, weren't in line with the horses themselves. So you may want to limit it to, Three horses running in the snow with a farm landscape, backdrop, or whatever - for example. --- If you're good at photoshop or editing, you can fix AI generated images simply enough. That is also the draw of it. It is quick, and easily fixed. More advanced AI tools allows you to do quick edits on the spot, then generate hundreds of images with the small change you want. Which makes it a lot easier to create your perfect image faster. It takes away the waiting time a team of Digital artists and concept artists. That is also why my enthusiasm for it wanes immediately. It also cannot create by itself, it is a function of what we have already supplied it. There is no 100% organically created AI image out there. Neat toy, but not something I really like.