Mattyboy

Yeah, could be. Or just an attempt to parry the pretty strong "parents-should-love-their-children" argument he's being told to face up to. Because it's not her actions, its her heart. If that actually parses out to Mr Miller saying "your mother was wrong to love you" well, yep, that's gonna be a pretty permanent dealbreaker. But he did seem to want this reconciliation lunch, even if entirely under his terms. I'm not sure I get it either, but it feels like the long shadow of something.

"She misplaced her heart" is a really weird thing to say. Mr Miller is terrible, but maybe that was about something

In between the Cynthia plotline and Mr Miller's weird line that Todd's Mom had "misplaced her heart," I wonder if we're headed towards some sort of reveal that someone has a bio-parent who isn't named on their birth certificate. Or not. I can't tell. But "she misplaced her heart" was a really weird thing to say to his sons while they were talking about how much they loved their mother.

Yeah, the attempt was honest. And Dad couldn't hear it, he he did get told the work was being shown in a big gallery. Anthony did what he should by backing Todd up. Anthony v Dad 2 should be a doozy.

Good for you Anthony! (not the getting sloshed part, the being a good brother part)

yeah, "it's nothing" might have been a severe understatement. Or they were actually discussing how to make adobo

And changing scripts on how you deal with people when you've been doing it some way for your whole life is pretty hard. This may be Anthony's maximum speed for change. Yeah, it'd be great if it was a little faster, but this might be it.

I like this strange parallel universe where adults actually work effectively on their problems. I wish I lived there

I like this storytelling tempo where the (humanly flawed) characters actually work on trying to be good people. Instead of maintaining some sweet tension indefinitely (a pet peeve of mine), the plot and the characters keep moving along !

Yay it's an art show!

Here's hoping the thing Todd "probably won't go through with" is either a singing gig or maybe a small art show at the bar (or maybe the Fairy Godfather knows a small gallery somewhere)

Yeah it seems like whatever it is that Todd's bitter about, Barrett doesn't recall, and maybe even didn't do?

I think the literary theorist Roland Barthes once said something on the lines of "there's no reason to assume that the author knows what his story is about" So listen to your beta reader !

Finn's dog is named for the mascot of a school he declined an offer from and didn't go to. (also yes, I was kind of on the same arc, CK)

This. This is it.

Good luck with the writing.

So, I have more questions about why is it a sad ending? You've set this up as realistic that "the narrative ends at its most logical point." But you're the storyteller; you've crafted the whole thing, you've imagined the characters and their situation and the events that occur. (I know there's a few stories around here that started as a character study - or a prompt that sprouted unexpectedly - without a narrative endpoint in mind, but mostly authors have a plan). So are you telling a story about people managing to figure it out and find a happy ending (or good-relations-with in some way) ? Or about a world that's too difficult to survive in, or people who have tragic flaws and don't do the right things and suffer for it? Both of those are excellent story-telling modes, and the choice between them rests with the author. So I think it's maybe an evasion to say we need to be realistic and have sadness. If the logical end is tragic, it is so because you wrote a tragedy. I certainly like stories about people figuring out (with varying degrees of difficulty) how to flourish and be in good-relations-with the world and the people around them. Some people like stories with lots of conflict, even as far as genres like splatterpunk. So I voted for happy endings above, but I certainly don't want the story you're writing to be trimmed to fit that preference. Hash out with your beta reader what the point of the whole thing is, and be true to yourself and your ideas . . . which maybe might have evolved beyond what you originally imagined.

wow, those conditions! This is a really nicely constructed story; I'm impressed how you kept the focus on the characters, but the background of the time colors this very intensely

These characters are so human, and sort of rational with their emotions (which is hard). Some writers find a lot of story energy after establishing a character by asking, "what's the worst thing that could happen to this guy?" and making it happen. And then you get the popular guy-gets-into-trouble-and-then-gets-out-of-it story arc. But you can get sick of rollercoasters after a while. (I can get sick while I'm on them, even). This business of of a story arc where people do good/smart/nice things and then good and nice things happen is actually a bit unusual around here. Very fresh and very poignant. Thank you for this one @Connectwriter

okay, so Kenji organizing and paying for nice. Could go either way, but that's a bit worrying that Kenji's early questions are about where Ai and River's guards are, as if maybe they're definitely needed, in what appears to be a nice neighborhood.

I liked this chapter a lot, but 3 & 4 are my favorites so far.

It's heart-warming that someone helped Sev in parallel to the way he helped Hans. Poignant that Sev started with "terrorize" for Lukas' relationship with Christoph, but then walked it back to "takes care of," as if it makes any sense that those are irregular conjugations of the same verb. Of course, Sev is on to something, and goes on to discuss how that works. On the topic of the time of the War, and on this site, and everywhere in literature, I think there's more stories about violence and abuse than stories about people figuring out how to live together and take care of each other. So much so that it's easy for us to find words like "terrorize" to describe "makes sure he heals well." Maybe there's a single english word but I can't think of it - for the opposite of trauma - that Lukas was determined to hunt Severin down for what he did in the Third Reich, so he could thank him, and acknowledge the good he'd done. And put some energy to the system. (I guess a starting a virtuous circle or cycle is kinda the idea for the opposite of trauma, but it's more complicated than the single word).

“I’m beginning to realize that he always plays down how much he does.” “Maybe he’s not the only one who does that,” Severin replied, quietly. What a great description of genuine love. Fingers crossed hoping for Lukas and Christoph, but sure looks like all the ingredients are there.

Yay for Lukas and Christoph! The first days of IKEA were such an absolute milestone of everyday-lives cultural history.

I'm going back to count how many chapters ended in an ambulance and started with sedation wearing off in a hospital