W_L

Chapter 5 I wanted to show off a skilled military operation that wins an entire battle without costing any lives. Some people will say, is that even possible? Technically, it required a lot of precision, timing, and extremely good luck, which are all attributes that Hua Cheng possesses in excess. Hua Cheng was asked by Xie Lian to keep the army of Huan family alive, but simply to remove their threat. Putting them all to sleep through the use of grounded herbs and powders being sprinkled from the summit of the mountain would achieve all those aims, plus gain fame for the Xie Xuan as a capable general and bounty giver. Another interesting fact about ancient Chinese troops of the day, there was a lot of looting and spoils that happened after defeating an enemy, it's how soldiers can make their income beyond the small base pay they get from their lord. A victorious general would attract more followers and soldiers, primarily due to how much booty they can gain from the opposing side. In this circumstance, where 5,000 men robbed 100,000 men of everything including their clothing, you will start seeing a lot of soldiers wanting to join in. Wang Tsai is an original LGBT character, he's probably best described as a bottom-training Some gay and bi guys are just attracted to strong men, but neither Hua Cheng nor Xie Lian will ever cheat on each other, they're so loyal and faithful to each other that in their own novel, married straight couples worship them to keep their marriages intact (Yay, gay marriage is revered for its stability!). I wanted to write that little scene between him and Hua Cheng just so folks don't get the wrong idea, the sleep-inducing powder is not meant to be used as a date rape drug. Now as for the two myths I introduced in this chapter: Yes, the Hmong people are a real ethnic minority in China and Southeast Asia. They are traditionally thought of as an offshoot of the Chinese Yellow river people, who were forced out in prehistory. The myth surrounding those events became part of the legend of the Yellow Emperor and the Battle of Zhoulu, which according to the myth resulted in the banishment of the Jiuli, the ancestors of the Hmong and Miao people. Also after the conquest and consolidation of the Yellow River and Yangtze rivers, the Yellow Emperor did in legend start the Huaxia nation, which is nowadays used in modern China as a form of sino-nationalist philosophy. As for the story of the origin of the snake, it's a legend I heard as a child. I re-adapted it and made the context far more understandable to various audiences on what happened. It's an ugly affair showcasing how cruel the gods were even among their peers if you disobey their commands. It further highlights why someone like Xie Lian would leave the Heavenly Court and just be a roaming knight with his husband rather than having to obey such commands. An interesting issue with ancient Chinese mythology is that "legalism" as applied to absolute law is usually what caused a lot of Taoist gods and mortals to fall from grace. Furthermore, Chinese Buddhism applies a legalist practice in separation between natural and unnatural, essentially it's an early form of discrimination in fiction (anecdotally this may be considered a social commentary on ancient racism toward non-Asian people, since the White snake's human form has white skin). Basically, old-school Chinese Buddhism did not like the idea of natural (an Asian boy) falling in love with someone unnatural (A white snake girl) in the Legend of White Snake, something that western readers I bet haven't heard about or knew behind the "free love" and "spiritual" side that modern Buddhism showcases nowadays. The white snake will be part of the first story arc. I'll see how well this works out

Chapter 5 (The Xie Clan’s Army) Hua Cheng had been a teenage soldier defending his homeland of Xianle in his life, leading spirits in wars against both gods and men in death. He knew the way of the warrior far more than his husband, who possess brilliance in fighting and knowledge of various subjects, but could not wage war or in this case prevent a civil war from starting. Before setting out with the army, Hua Cheng had sent out his Deadly Silver Butterflies to do reconnaissance on th

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Given_(manga) Considered one of the best boys’ love manga and anime series in the last decade, it is only fitting that I end my run of anime and manga reviews with this series. It was one of the first anime series that I started watching after I regained a significant portion of my vision after my cornea transplant in late 2021, so it holds a special place in my heart. The manga series was released in English in 2020, but there were fan translations of it datin

Thanks Gary, Writing short prompt stories is allowing me to play and explore different styles of storytelling.

Thanks Chris, it's a possibility Thanks Gary My sister also sleepwalks too, she once made breakfast in her sleep. In the morning, when she saw the cold omelet, sausage, and gluten-free toast, she asked who did it. We told her she did. Stress contributes to the level of sleepwalking, you do things in your sleep that you may think about doing in your waking moments.

Very true, Adam initially didn't pay attention to Steve, then when the dreams started, he tried to be courteous. However, with the escalation of his suicidal and homicidal sleepwalking, he really had no other choice except to reach out. From the protagonist's standpoint, he was up against a corner and he didn't know what to do. Not sure if I want to pursue this story further, it's a weird in-between story between fantasy and psychological thriller, not sure which genre I'd go down.

Done with #80, a romance with dark undertones, but light at the end of the tunnel: https://gayauthors.org/story/w_l/wls-prompts-short-stories/6

The Beauty of the Dream I don’t know how to keep going anymore, my life has been a mess for a long time. I got drunk at the end of my junior year in high school and had sex with a girl that I didn’t love. She gave birth to my son, Mikey, so out of obligation, I had to stay and marry her. I had several big shoes to fill, so I gave up my dream of attending college with a full-ride scholarship. I took online courses in data entry, then when I gained my certificate, I found out the technical ce

@Myr Aye Amazon should never have gotten into LotR, I'll stick to House of the Dragons for my fantasy fix at least until they ruin it with an incoherent plot for the last season (RIP Game of Thrones, you were the best show ever until your TV show got ahead of your books)

These are great prompts. #79 is a little too close to something I've written 😉 so I'll have to pass on it, but it's a very good prompt and you never know what you'll meet in the woods. #80 is probably one I can play with. I wonder what sort of adventures I can conjure up about a sleepwalking parent

Wait for the 5 elements before getting lost, Pokemon makes it seem so much simpler than it really is.

Thanks Chris for the praise, I am glad you enjoyed it Definitely, I am not sure if my interpretation of him from an LGBT perspective will hold any weight, but Wukong does consider what the Gods stood for like their arbitrary rules or the lack of generosity and mercy in Journey to the West to be quite unjust and unfair, which isn't that far from how traditional pantheons of the world treated subject mortal humans and other creates and gods. Modern-day storytellers like Rick Riordan have explored this issue briefly with Percy Jackson, Magnus Chase, and Apollo's Trials series, but none of the protagonists did what Wukong will do. This is a unique fan-faction story as readers already know what the future will hold, so what I am offering the audience are his reasons for those actions.

It's one of those books that focuses on concepts and plots rather than character though, but they are quite imaginative and provocative concepts. The 19th and early 20th Century were the early eras of Science Fiction, starting with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the idea of modernity and progress were applied to everything with the stories of the human impact of progress or progress impact on humanity.

Thanks @AlexLittel, @chris191070, and @Mancunian To me it's a bit weaker as a story than some of my others, just wanted to put a queer twist to an old fable

Chapter 4 Thank you guys for being such great readers and keeping up with this passion project story. To show my gratitude, I'm publishing an extra chapter this week. I'll go back to 1 chapter a week next week unless the readership grows further, at which point, I might have to do a bit more long-term planning for this story. As for the story, I wanted to show a very important fact to readers: Homophobia isn't unique to only Western societies with Judeo-Christian backgrounds. Any religious or philosophical system that has a rigid orthodoxy without realizing that the world doesn't function under the "ideal" rules set forth in its canonical structure will have bigoted elements for deviations from orthodoxy, whether it's homosexuals, other religious groups, or gender roles. Also, sometimes you just have to confront homophobia if you have the ability to do so, be proud and upfront. I wanted to showcase Hua Cheng, who in the novels is a bad-ass fighter with his sword (so is Xie Lian unlike the Japanese dynamics of Seme/Uke roles both men are equal battlers, Xie's just become more of a pacifist over his centuries of life though he's an even stronger fighter). Swords skills aside, the demonstration in front of the troops was necessary to show authenticity and authority, he needed to demonstrate his ability in combat and his ability to lead, while simultaneous drop the bombshell of being in an openly homosexual relationship (also incestuous to others, who do not know he and Xie are just impersonating Xie Xuan and Xie An). Shock your dispirited audience, then show your skill and ability to awe them. As for Sun Wukong discussion with Xie Lian toward the end, it's important to remember that Sun Wukong didn't grow up naturally rebellious or anti-establishment, he became that way after a lot of life experiences, many of which the novel Journey to the West never touched on. I'll do that here and help frame a perspective on why Wukong eventually rebelled against the Taoist Pantheon. In the ancient world, the Taoist pantheon did not have as many mortal lovers as the Greeks or Vedic gods when it came to mixing with mortals sexually, but they fell on the opposite extreme with how arbitrary their legal standards were and their stiff punishment against innocent beings. I might pull out a few of those stories in here to give you a peek at what I am talking about. As always, I also wanted to offer readers a little glimpse at various aspects of Chinese culture including the weight and distance measurement system that existed in ancient times. I gave metric conversion in the footnotes in case people are wondering how this stuff works.

Chapter 4 In history, the greatest victories are won by the denial of battle; the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting1. Armies of 100,000 soldiers are blunt instruments made to reshape nations, but they take time to wield properly. A force of 5,000 soldiers is nimble and can move two hundred li2 without rest if needed. Hua Cheng and Xie Lian knew that they could devise a strategy to defeat this massive army. However, destroying such a force would also weaken the Jin k

I was debating on whether or not to publish this one, since it wasn't as strong as the prompt from last week that pushed me to write a sequel to Song in the Wind. Still I'll let readers judge https://gayauthors.org/story/w_l/wls-prompts-short-stories/5

What Happened to the Boy Who Cried… I bet you have all heard a version of my story, the one where a stupid lonely boy kept crying to the village that a wolf was trying to eat our sheep, but it was all a lie to gain attention and fame. Until one day, people ignored me and a real wolf showed up that ate all the sheep. Some stories even say the wolf ate me, too, which isn’t too far from the truth depending on your perspective. However, most of that story is just a fairy tale told to kids to hi

While not part of gay fiction unlike Maurice, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel as well. While Forster may not be HG Wells in terms of his futuristic outlooks, he was very prescient with his ideas concerning the mode of living that our society currently enjoys (especially in countries with internet/computer access, where grubhub and kindle is available with a click) Have you ever read Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward from 1888, it was one of the most well-read books at the turn of the 19th century in the US with a futurist premise on a macro scale. It wasn't accurate by any means on all counts, but it did predict the rise of consumerism and digital currency, i.e. credit cards, very well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Fish I was reading up a list of the greatest gay anime and manga series when this series’ name came up. I knew about gay subtext being important in novels, which was used to cover issues of censorship before same-sex relationships became more acceptable in mainstream fiction. However, I had not realized that much of the mainstream gay manga culture that we enjoy today owes a debt of gratitude to writers like Ms. Yoshida, who pioneered several of the conc

@Myr I thought you were introducing the Queerlings to an ancient RPG video game series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_(series)

Thanks Chris, it's fun to write this story. I can let my creative juices flow and play with stuff I never see anyone play with before on GA.

You never know, it really depends on how the characters play in my head.

Thanks for reading @VBlew I thought it would be a good idea to give folks an introduction to Ancient Chinese mythology, I also bridged it with a popular novel that I have absolutely fallen in love with. It's rare that anyone explores Chinese Historical fantasy in a LGBT fiction context, but even rarer still to re-interpret classic mythology with a LGBT perspective. I combined all these elements into a passion project that honestly I didn't anticipate anyone would read

Chapter 3 is Live I just opened up several can of worms in this chapter. Ancient Chinese and Asian mythologies are seldom explored for their LGBT potential in storytelling, probably due to the main source interpretations being orthodox Confucian intellectuals or moralist leaders, who judge things through a narrow hierarchal structure. However, if you think about it, the ancient myths of Asia were notorious for gods shape-shifting and masquerading as human beings. Sometimes it's males becoming females () or female gods pretending to be males to be accepted into society. For example, one interpretation in Buddhism of the famous Guanyin goddess was that she was a male prince of India, who chose to become a woman to leave behind the temptations of position, flesh, and earthly possession. This kind of stuff is rife for exploration about gender and sexual identity, I am just taking a small dab at it for a historical fantasy/fan-fiction Readers will probably already have ascertained based on the themes my interpretation of Sun Wukong is along the lines of a gender fluid character, different from transgender or non-binary since Sun Wukong can identify as male or female. One of the monkey king's great powers is his ability to create "perfect transformations" into any human, god, ghost, spirit, demon, animal, or object in existence. So it would not be outside the realm of thought to interpret the character as gender fluid. Sun Wukong did transform a few times in Journey to the West into a female and seduce male characters with his feminine wiles, but most intellectuals over the centuries overlook that stuff and chalk it off to his "amoral" behavior. He also can transform into various male characters and perform the same kind of manipulation or use the male persona for intimidation. In his base form, Sun Wukong is a male biologically and uses titles of males in authority when needed like a king, but he doesn't like the rules or mores of a society that forces him to take on those titles and roles. There are also real-world implications in the story with various characters, Xie An and Xie Xuan are famous in Chinese history for creating a stable southern Dynasty, while northern China went through a period of constant invasion similar to the European Dark Ages. Xie An is noted as a great statesman, who weighed various issues equally and guided the southern kingdom through a potential civil war with powerful ruling families like Huan and invasion by the Northern Di people of the Qin Empire. On the flip side, Xie Xuan, his nephew, is one of the best generals of the Southern Chinese Dynasty. His battlefield strategies and maneuver tactics enabled him to use numerically inferior troops to defeat much more powerful and numerous forces of Qin under Fu Jian. For folks interested in a bit of palace intrigue akin to Game of Thrones, opening this can of worms will give you that and much more. I intend to incorporate a bit of history in this fantasy, slightly altered with a few naughty bits of course Finally, I have not mentioned the appearance of the mysterious white-haired figure that only Sun Wukong saw. Who is this being? Why was he stealing food from a god? There's a very famous Chinese fantasy story that I am referring to here. This story thread will be related to how Wukong could emulate his Sifu and Baba in attaining immortality. In Journey to the West, the method of immortality that Sun Wukong first achieved is considered forbidden and frowned upon by the Heavenly Gods of the Taoist pantheon. Usually, Taoist immortals attain and maintain their power and rank through spiritual cultivation of energy, either through training in the mortal realm or through worshippers as gods (The same concept exists in the book Heaven Official's Blessing, too, so Xie and Hua fell out of normal immortal circles due to what they do). I wanted to explore this a bit more with a major long-term story thread. Xie Lian and Hua Cheng can exist for so long due to their soulmate bond, which feeds off each other. Unlike most gods, Xie Lian does not need temples or worshippers/believers to stay alive or powerful due to his spiritual energy being drawn from his husband Hua Cheng. In turn Hua Cheng, being an immortal ghost king, who has access to all the limitless energies of the underworld and spirits is an inexhaustible power source as long as his essence, aka his ashes in the form of a ring on Xie Lian, are not destroyed. The union of a god and a ghost is a forbidden union, add to the fact that they're gay, it's like giving everyone a middle finger who gains their power naturally. I've set up a bunch of story threads and themes in this chapter, I hope readers enjoy it. They may not all pay off immediately, but it hopefully will be a fun ride.