Krista

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.

Liked Smiley, absolutely despised uncoupled. I would rate uncoupled as one of the worst gay themed shows I've ever watched.

Yes, I do a cringe when I see the notifications. Especially for my first two stories, the ones I wrote when I was in High School. Thank you for taking the time to read this though. I've forgotten most of what this story was all about, details-wise. I know the main plot points still, but the writing surrounding all that would be new to me if I were to give it a try at a reread. I'm glad you think so, please do not read Something Unexpected or Good Guys Finish Last.. lol. Your opinion may change. I only keep them posted and not hidden from view, because they've been here since I've been here. They aren't good, and that isn't me being self-critical. They suck. But, I am so glad you liked this earlier work of mine. It is sad, I couldn't write this type of story now... I don't think. I was in a place in my life where I didn't see a husband or children, or dogs for that matter. I wasn't seriously committed to anyone, I was just... living. Now as a Mom with a Husband and dogs... I don't think I could have robbed Alex of that. Not after writing him so deeply into the story.

😮 I didn't know this was happening. Going wayyy back, in 2008 when I was still a wee fledgling author with Finding Alex. That was also when, if starved for names, I would pluck them from GA members. There are a lot of former members' names flittering about in this story, I do remember that aspect of it. Lovely banner as well! Thank you for the feature.

Thank you! I am always a bit... nervous when an older story of mine gets featured here. I know the writing isn't the strongest. 2008 though, I would have been just four years out of high school when that was written. In college.. at the time. Wayyy back.

I didn't think so. I thought the characters were all boring and the writing extremely slow-paced and weak compared to the Film it is loosely based on. It also brings in Love, Simon characters in later to make some sort of attempt at combining the worlds? But they turned those characters into two "old" gays, even if they were still young men... who "knew how to be out and gay..." even though they've been out and gay all of a few months to a year themselves. It was just awkward. I 'hated' that it was on Hulu. I feel if a different streaming service took it from the start, the writers would have had more freedom. A lot of what the characters were involved in were just completely unnecessary. You may enjoy it though. If it is available to you, might as well give it an honest effort. lol Also, Prisma is renewed for a second season, so I'm happy about that.

IS THIS WHAT YOU'VE DONE? Is this why you've been asking me if I've been on GA lately with a little Halo emoji? I KNEW it wasn't anything good.

I was out and about at work, so all I got was the phone alert. And I just pressed okay and went about my business. We did have a nurse come back to the office laughing, because her devices all ran the alert and the client's television went off. She had forgotten all about it and until she read the text along with the alert thought all hell had broke loose. Her poor client is over eighty years old and restricted to a walker, I couldn't imagine what that looked like in that house at the time. And, I did come up on car accident around that time, and wondered if the alert caused it, but it was a minor accident and first responders were already showing up.

Thank you for keeping up with my story so far, especially through the slow posting. It means so much to me. The Tattoo was on Luke's list. So far they've crossed off... two of those? I want to say. I think I have them saved in my notes.. lol. And yeah, I can see Cindy going cross-eyed on that one. "Tattoo, young man!" and then be like, "Well sweetie, at least it is a bible verse.." Good thing she doesn't have Jackson in class, and notices his hand writing, because... that.. that would be hard to explain. lol. Woops, if it reads that Jackson has a tattoo, that's a goof on my part. He's not supposed to get one/have one. Some sports organizations have weird requirements for uniform coverage, and what a person has on their body, and jewelry, etc. I'm not sure if a lot of those are still in place or enforced though. I do know Women's basketball had minor upheaval over women celebrating by popping their shirts, like men do.. to highlight the team logo/name on the front. If it showed stomach and sports bra, you got a "conduct warning" or a foul. Either way, tattoos are rather common these days on all athletes. Good point, I know a lot of very promising high school sport stars completely lose interest in college and decide to focus on academics. I was the opposite, I wanted to play in college. I just had some bigger injuries and not a lot of recruiting coming my way for that to happen. Big fish in a very shallow pond sort of player, I had great numbers against bad competition. At least my high school appreciates me and retired my number and put my name on the banners.. lol. And, this is the last chapter... of sorts. I'm still writing, but the next chapter starts the "Epic-log" chapters. I call it Epic-log, because I don't know how long these parts will be. I will be jumping around and covering parts of the story I wish to cover, and not have them being a nice and fancy linear timeline. I don't jump too far with the next part, just a few weeks really... we'll see if y'all like that jump or not. Ohhh no, no piercings. I guess not yet for them anyway, neither of them seem like the piercing type. Although, if Luke didn't have the tattoo on his list, he didn't really seem like the tattoo sort either. If there is one, I once wanted tattoos, they were meaningless unlike his. They hurt worse coming off than going on, or at least I think so. And yes, I did mention a jewelry store. Thank you for keeping up with this story for as long as you have. Sometimes characters are just ghosts in the periphery. I mostly wanted to convey a sense of.. normalizing their relationship with everyone in the room being completely okay with two gay guys being in their spaces. I guess now-a-days people aren't as obviously against sharing spaces as they once were, but that's all she was to me. And it is finished, in one way, and beginning in another? The Epilog chapters are starting after this part. I hope I wrapped up a lot of the house cleaning sort of things in the last few chapters. He beat Pete, solidified his plans, found out Luke's plans. There are some things left for them, but not a whole heck of a lot. So we'll see. The best year cannot turn into the best half of a decade though... lol.. which mind you, is how long it may take me to write the thing.. if it hasn't already.

The horn rang out and I dove off the block, the cool water hitting every nerve in my skin. Under the water, it was muddled silence. The violence of ten pairs of feet kicking hadn’t erupted yet and the swollen crowd couldn’t be heard at all. Kicking underwater, I knew I had to be fast. Tony told me not to push beyond what I could do in the first fifty, but this was the last event of the long weekend. It was what I had been waiting for, the entire night before it melted away and as I surfaced. Bre

Happy Birthday! I guess I have to be nice to you today. Sigh.... I'll see you tomorrow.