Cane23

I must have been blinded by clichés… hence my positive reaction to this development. Though I wouldn’t mind seeing a friendly threesome occasionally… 😉😁

Very interesting development in the story. We were led to believe that Martin and Simon were going to become an item. Instead, Simon and Martin’s cousin Rick have become boyfriends. Whether this relationship will last, especially as a long-distance one, remains to be seen. These two could also be a source of support for Martin. He’s already overwhelmed by his new family and inheritance, so a reexamination of his sexuality might simply be too much for him at the moment. Great story so far - I’m really curious to see how it all unfolds!

I've just seen the short film - A Friend of Dorothy, that was nominated for an Academy Award. I hadn’t watched it before, but it was worth every second of my time. It’s beautiful - I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

“This is our life. Every day. We’re lucky. We’re so, so lucky.” @Boy Mercury X's short stories never stop amazing me, and A Charmed Life is no exception. As the title suggests, it holds an entire lifetime within a few pages - and what a life it is. Not dramatic in a grand, sensational way, but quietly, deeply meaningful. @Boy Mercury X has a gift for painting extraordinary characters who are not extraordinary in the exceptional sense. They’re ordinary people, like you and me...with flaws, missteps, successes, losses, and all the small imperfections that make a life real. Their partnership feels authentic, lived-in, and tender without being idealized. That’s what makes the story so beautiful. In telling Jon and Rob’s story, @Boy Mercury X reminds us that an ordinary life, shared and cherished, is its own kind of miracle.

I can totally imagine Natasha being like: “Oh Martin… you’ve always been the love of my life. Let’s give us another chance… our love deserves it.” And then... “What?! You think this is about money? How could you possibly think so low of me?”

Honestly, after reading the summary, I initially decided not to continue with the story - I didn’t think my nerves were ready for that level of drama. And yet, curiosity got the better of me. I found myself sneaking peeks at a few chapters here and there, feeling more like a voyeur than a proper reader. But this chapter… just… wow. The poetic way you write intimate scenes is simply breathtaking. The lovemaking felt less like a physical act and more like a beautifully choreographed performance - it reminded me of ice skating pairs gliding across the rink (perhaps I’m still under the spell of the recently finished Olympics). There was such elegance and passion in it -intense, yes, but also refined and tasteful. The movements read like a melody rather than something purely physical. Simply beautiful. Cartography Of Skin...or, maybe - Choreography of Skin!

I’m not sure, but something tells me the “glitter of hope” might be very useful at some point!

Maybe Manikato would rather be a queen?

Living with his lover in “Discorama”?!?!?!? Why would he want to trudge off to war or bother with a crown when he’s clearly just out there living the time of his life? 😂

Interesting chapter - we’ve gotten some revelations about Luther and Prince Rae’s past, and there are hints about the future too, especially with the line “two princes, no king.”

I thought it might be a child he didn't know about! Hm, mistery... 🤔

I love the intriguing start - it immediately captured my attention! Really looking forward to this journey!

Interesting question... It feels like choosing between two curses - both tempting, beautiful, and seductive, yet undeniably dangerous. It’s like selling your soul to the devil; whatever you gain, the price is simply too high. By portraying them exactly as they are, @LJCC has succeeded in making me not envy those characters at all.

This chapter was deeply emotional and truly heartbreaking. It revealed that Klebber is far more than just a handsome face or a witty, overdramatic personality - he’s a true survivor, shaped by everything he’s endured.

I’m sure @Summerabbacat has a full arsenal of medieval torture devices in mind for the traitor.

So the real drama begins! Did the COVID lockdown include the beaches too? Are they really going to be stuck in the apartment the whole time?! 😱

It was the first SA contest I actively followed as a member reader at GA, and it was so much fun. @Mark Arbour's story was definitely one of the best that year.

This change of hearts, slowly accepting the bond that connects the three of them, is amazing. Even more beautiful is how it shapes their communication - they become considerate, tender, caring… even respectful. Not that 'the thing' didn’t try to separate them; if anything, it only made their relationship stronger.

Reading the epilogue, I remembered a line Alexander said about Lyn, just before that disastrous meeting with Brad: “And you have these strong beliefs. Once someone is good in your eyes, only something earth-shattering can change your view. You saw him as this great person, this amazing guy, right? While I was your demon. Always your demon”. The epilogue confirms these Alexander's words - it’s about how Lyn loves. We can see now that, Lyn’s “strong beliefs” aren’t moral principles so much as fixed emotional verdicts. Once he places someone into a role - the good one, the chosen one, the ideal - that role hardens. It becomes a lens through which everything else is filtered. With Brad, that lens cracked painfully. With Alexander, it simply… shifted owners. The important thing is - Lyn hasn’t moved from illusion to clarity - he’s moved from one absolute to another. In the epilogue, Alexander is no longer the demon - he’s the husband, the figure Lyn is proud of, praises, almost reveres. And while Alexander does deserve love, respect, and admiration, what’s slightly unsettling (and very on-brand for Lyn) is the totality of it. There’s little ambivalence, little space for contradiction. Lyn loves Alexander with the same all-in certainty he once reserved for Brad. What’s changed in the epilogue isn’t Lyn’s psychology, but his luck. This time, the person at the center of his belief system is someone capable of carrying that weight - older, more self-aware, more grounded than Brad ever was. Alexander can live with being adored without being mythologized too far, or at least he can push back when needed. Lyn still moves between extremes, but @Laura S. Fox quietly suggests that adulthood doesn’t always mean shedding your flaws. Sometimes it means finding someone whose flaws interlock with yours without shattering the whole structure...and that’s very Misaligned - not a clean arc of self-improvement, but a compromise between temperament and love. So, Lyn doesn’t “grow out” of himself. He doesn’t undergo a personality overhaul, a therapeutic breakthrough, or a moral re-education. What changes is his relationship to truth, not his temperament. Lyn remains prone to absolutism in love, emotionally loyal to his own internal narratives, slow (sometimes painfully slow) to revise first conclusions and more observant than interpretive (he sees but often misreads) - that’s consistent from college to the epilogue. What finally realigns him with Brad and Alexander isn’t maturity in the conventional sense, but clarity without illusion. The truth doesn’t transform Lyn's personality - it stabilizes it. It removes the emotional static that kept him misaligned with both men for years. With the myths gone, he can finally stand in the same emotional present as his friends, rather than living half in memory and half in longing. That’s why the ending feels earned rather than redemptive. It’s not “Lyn becomes better.”, it’s - Lyn finally stops being wrong about the most important things. And for someone like him, that’s growth enough. Finally, to be totally fair to Lyn - being loved by Lyn is not casual, not partial, not negotiable...it’s total investment. That’s why the gesture with Alexander’s family matters so much. No one asks him to do it. No one even expects it. And that’s the point - Lyn’s love expresses itself through repair, he tries to heal fractures that predate him, that technically aren’t his responsibility at all. It’s almost instinctive - if you are his, then your wounds become part of his moral landscape. There’s something quietly radical about that. Lyn isn’t a grand romantic in the performative sense - he’s not making speeches or demanding devotion in return. Instead, he acts, he intervenes, he does emotional labor on behalf of others without announcing it, sometimes without fully realizing how extraordinary it is. Of course, this generosity has a shadow side because it can tip into self-erasure or place an impossible weight on the beloved. But in Alexander’s case, it reads less like self-sacrifice and more like chosen responsibility. Lyn isn’t trying to fix Alexander instead of him; he’s standing beside him and saying, you don’t have to do this alone anymore. That’s why being loved by Lyn is such a rare prize. You don’t just get affection - you get advocacy. Someone who will argue your case even when you’re not in the room. Someone who believes you’re worth reconciliation, even with people who failed you first. Love, for him is not a feeling - it’s a decision to carry part of another person’s unfinished history. And very few people are capable of loving like that without keeping score.

You've taken us somewhere between fantasy, reality, and drunken memory… Dennis and Klebber are stuck in that space between the past and moving forward. I hope we don’t have to wait long for the next chapter.

Alex is named after Alexander, the man who saves Brad’s heart, but more deeply, Alex is named after the man who made it possible for Lyn to stop confusing love with longing. And the beauty is that no one in the room is threatened by that meaning, that’s not just homage - that’s harmony. Nevertheless, it's wrong to read Alexander purely as “the savior” - although medically, yes, he saves Brad’s life. But the novel is careful not to let this slide into myth. What the name does instead is express gratitude without debt. Earlier in the novel, Alexander and Brad were linked through Lyn’s conflict - here, they are linked through continuity. The name doesn’t overwrite Brad’s role as father; it doesn’t diminish Alexander. It quietly acknowledges that both matter, in different, non-competing ways. Finally, one last mirror in the story! 🙂 Alexander’s transformation mirrored in the child - it's another subtle layer... young Alex embodies traits associated with Alexander - but softened. He's serious, observant, quietly ethical...admired rather than feared. Alexander, in youth, was rigid, intimidating, emotionally armored. Alex (Brad and Bella's son) carries the best of him, stripped of the defenses. In that sense, as I've already said, the name isn’t just homage - it’s redemption by inheritance. Alexander’s legacy isn’t brilliance or control - it’s steadiness, care, and presence.

Misaligned is a character-driven drama centered on three men whose lives have been intertwined since their college years: Lyn, an intelligent but emotionally unreliable narrator; Brad, charismatic and elusive; and Alexander, brilliant, disciplined, and quietly intimidating. Told through two parallel timelines, the present and a series of memory chapters, the story gradually reveals how friendship, rivalry, desire, and misunderstanding shaped their bond long before they understood what they were losing. The dual structure allows the past to echo constantly into the present, not as nostalgia but as unresolved tension. Lyn notices details, gestures, and words with precision, yet repeatedly draws the wrong conclusions - making memory itself an active, unreliable force in the narrative. A quiet melancholy runs through the story, not as despair but as delayed understanding - the realization that clarity often arrives too late to change what mattered most. Despite its emotional depth, Misaligned is never heavy-handed. @Laura S. Fox's writing is marked by wit and dry humor, softening the drama with sharp dialogue and human warmth. At its core, the story is not about betrayal or grand gestures, but about emotional timing - about growing out of alignment with oneself and others, and the difficult, hopeful work of realignment. This is @Laura S. Fox ’s most accomplished work to date - confident, psychologically precise, and quietly resonant. Misaligned lingers long after the final page, carried by its melancholy, its intelligence, and its deep understanding of how love, memory, and time shape who we become.

Watched the opening of the Winter Olympics last night! I love the Canadian outfits. 😍 Since my country isn’t exactly a winter sports powerhouse, I’ll be cheering for Slovenia (my mom is from there)… and for Canada too - because I really like the people! 🙂

In the Balkans, we usually resolve these situations with violence… Just kidding! 😁

Aww...