W_L

Life at Le Coq accelerated over the next year. In the run-up to July 4th, Jasmine came on full-time. She and Dexter settled into an exacting rhythm. He executed with ruthless precision; she pitched ideas with fearless curiosity. True to his words, Dexter taught her techniques beyond his classical wheelhouse. He wasn’t an innovator by instinct, but a decade on the line had given him a deep command of ingredients and chemical reactions; he could translate Jasmine’s concepts into plates. Dexte

Hmm...sounds familiar And it kind of leads into what I am writing right now:

Just saw this post now, good question While I do agree to the notion that showing something can establish emotions, the limitations of first-person perspective make character 2's emotions unknown to the MC, unless you establish situations to give context. For example, say character 2 shows joy when he's walking his dog at a certain spot, everyday. MC investigates the reason behind it and realizes character 2 was looking at the spot where character 2 found his future dog, abandoned and injured on the street. This establishes character 2's characteristic of liking animals and creates an opening for MC to develop deeper ties with character 2. Another example, MC and character 2 are rivals from different cliques in high school. MC is misunderstood by character 2, so he snipes at MC from time to time. Put the two in a situation like a field trip or special event, where they must work together to accomplish a certain goal outside of their normal interactions. That will establish friendship and deeper relations if you desire.

@Seraph28 Thanks for the praise, I really enjoyed this chapter. It brought out all my inner foodie-ness, which I've never put into words. Plus, romance is one of those genres I've always wanted to write in. @peter rietbergen Soufflés are great, and there's a lot of different ways to get to the right consistency, if you have friends or family have dietary issues. I wanted to show off a little bit with Jasmine and Dexter both "chef-ing it", the culinary version of nerding out @chris191070 Dexter has come a long way, I wanted to drop those subtle hints in the conversations. Between Dexter and Sara, you can hear his alcohol consumption has gotten way down due to Reese playing lifeguard. It's imperfect, but Dexter tries. @Calvin Funny meme

A week after their fight, only one application had landed in Dexter’s inbox: Jasmine Teal. Dexter understood why no one else wanted to be his sous-chef. His reputation still clung to the place like the smoke over a stovetop after service. Still, Dexter warred with his doubts at hiring a new female chef, hearing old voices of mentors berate him for making a foolish mistake. But he also knew he couldn’t keep this pace alone. Experience and fear wrestled with his plain pragmatism. He scheduled

I've never written a zombie story before, I should take notes from our old friend, @Comicality, Gone but never forgotten Thanks for the list of horror stories

When writing Eldritch and ancient horror beings, it's very hard not to use descriptive language. Take a look at the classic H.P. Lovecraft stories, like "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Call of Cthulhu". GA doesn't split the subgenres or add tags for this variant of horror, but folks familiar with the subgenre know this is normal. I usually don't write to this level of description for horror, you've probably seen in my other horror works, but it's part of this genre. I'm one of GA's few writers, who adapts to the genre that I write in. PS: The Eldritch beings should be very inhuman, so their perspectives on the humanity is usually off-putting. It's one reason why many enjoy these kinds of stories, alternate frame of reference is one reason why description has to be used.

@Inkognito @Zombie @Ron I guess I probably should tell you that I got the card before with a 150K point promo that paid for the membership benefits, including the lounge It made sense on paper, I didn't think of it as anything fancy. If the credit card companies weren't trying to reel in middle-income people, why start the spending to be $600 for a year to get free rewards? Raising new limits to $75K after they figured out folks like me were joining in without being big spenders, it's pretty bad. I just never realized that "lounges" were supposed to be for "wanna be" rich people, it never crossed my mind based on what was offered.

I was just watching this documentary on youtube, probably due to my algorithm giving me hits on travel-related items from searches for my upcoming Japan trip (All hail our mighty AI overlords, please do not smite me with an outage ) I didn't realize that my use of airport lounges was based on a false notion of "affordable affluence". Never considered it for the status symbol, just loved the idea of getting food, coffee, and a place to unwind on long international flights. Fascinating documentary, I agree that the crackdowns by credit cards like AMEX with recent increases to $75K spending a year for access to these lounges is sad as a consumer for what amounts to "faux luxury" services like a buffet, a fancy coffee machine, an open bar, and comfortable seats with wi-fi. Maybe that's the problem, folks like me who want a place to relax at an airport instead of at a food court or outside a gate aren't the target audience, but we somehow got roped in. Anyone else got airport lounge access for "affordable affluence" or were you like me and just wanted a nice place to rest/refresh at a long layover?

@Calvin Yep, it's a French dining-inspired story after all, those things can take forever to finish, but they're so good.

@chris191070 Reese is doing a great job, and he's very honest about his own capabilities. The argument over Jasmine was a necessary segway to introduce some things about the restaurant industry, it's not as easy as it seems on TV where representation is more even. @Seraph28 Glad you are enjoying the various tastes of life @peter rietbergen Realism is part of why I wrote this story. I do love GA authors for giving folks hope from despair, but my approach to modern stories is different.

If life were a fairy tale, Dexter’s vow would have solved everything. Reese would be happy, the restaurant would thrive, and the credits would roll. Reality isn’t a fairy tale. Dexter did try—earnestly at first, then awkwardly, then with a flash of anger when effort didn’t equal relief. He cycled through half a dozen approaches: a few AA meetings where he sat in the back and kept his coat on, a mindfulness app that he abandoned by day three, a pain-management consult that mapped a taper off

Read this story for a fluffy and upfront love story without any drama.

Lovely story @chris191070 Jeremy and Pete are a fun couple; though I get your husband's critique. If some guy says he loved me so quickly like Pete did, I'd be wondering, which cult or ponzi-scheme is this guy part of.

Well, glad I gave you a little scare. Should I be asking for a treat later, maybe in the form of a story? Glad you noticed @drsawzall I've been working on my plot twists. Plus the story even has a moral: If he seems too good to be true, there has to be an angle

Thanks @Cia, was wondering if there's something I did by accident that caused it. Like you said, it's been years and I can count all my posting issues on 1 hand

Hello Folks, I wrote a horror story that I wanted to upload and publish, but there appears to be a moderator queue request. It's rated "everyone" and does not contain mature content (well nothing that can be perceived by humans at least ) The story link is: The chapter link is: https://gayauthors.org/story/w_l/a-queer-encounter/1 Was wondering if there was something I should have done or not do in the future to prevent this as my other stories publish fine?

I met Griffin under the sycamores behind the library, where the lamps don’t quite reach and the light breaks into gauze at the edges. He was all shoulders and easy grins, the kind of upperclassman who made freshmen feel seen. He caught my eye after Intro to Folklore and, as if the campus itself had steered him, found me that night. “You’re Jonah, right?” he said, low, like we were already sharing a secret. I was eighteen, new enough to college that I still got lost between the old bric

2025 Halloween Horror short story: Jonah, an eighteen-year-old freshman, is invited to attend a fancy Halloween formal party at an old fraternity house by Griffin, a flirty upperclassman.

Thanks for reading

I was just browing Youtube for something to pass my time on Saturday and came upon a list of Cold War era movies about nuclear annihilation. Like many folks, who were born near the end of the Cold War, I've seen movies like Dr. Strangelove and Day After with the detached thought of, "they're just actors" and "Everyone is being stupid in this movie". Well, I noticed a movie I never heard about on the list and it caught my attention, since it was co-produced by PBS (an odd choice for an old nuclear apocalypse film). The movie was made in 1983 and is called "Testament". No, it's not a religious meditation on nuclear warfare, but an average person's view of the nuclear apocalypse. The nukes have already been launched and the cities are already gone, the ones left in small towns and suburbs are isolated, lost, their supplies running low, and radiation poisoning is coming in. It's very haunting and brutally honest portrait from a human angle without any semblance of hope. It's bleak and unapologetic about the future. Children dying, people going insane from radiation poisoning, and suicide is common without any humor that you might see from modern apocalypse films. If you want to watch, I'll leave a link below, but be forewarned get some kleenex tissues ready. Here's the youtube full version of the movie, it has ads.

Thanks, I'm really happy that you enjoy this chapter. It is the culmination of various things that happened earlier, tentatively setting up the rest of the story. Yes, Reese is open-minded and careful. He knows who he likes and what the needs are. Nice GIF Yeah, Reese is good for Dexter. Addiction is not something you can fix by turning off a switch, it's a long-term struggle and has many unexpected results. It's a good first step to admit you have a problem and Reese has been gradually acting as a stabilizing factor in Dexter's life. I know it's a trope in romance, but some folks do need this stability to handle issues like substance abuse.

Sunday’s light found Dexter first. The hangover hit hard, but his attention landed on the man beneath him—Reese, asleep on the dining room floor of Le Coq. They were both naked. Memory came back in flashes: kisses, the heat of skin, the blur of too much wine. Reese’s arm lay around Dexter’s hips; Dexter felt an exhaustion and sensitivity that suggested how fully the night had been used. He eased free, gathered the wreckage of their clothes, and winced. Reese’s shirt and socks were torn to r

Technically my story is a Xianxia, but I am alone in either genre

This is one of those situations where "was it consensual or not?" will have to play out. Basically, they were both doing foreplay for weeks under the excuse of training sessions and healing afterward, so it's not that they don't find each other attractive personally. Reese has been under a lot of stress, like Dexter, so the relief clouded him. Dexter had tried cutting back, but he's developed a habit that in reality is very hard to quit completely with alcohol and painkillers. They're not teenagers and both understood what they wanted, but held back. Sex just happens sometimes, imperfect as the setting may be. Like I said, I wanted to touch on some realism in this romance, an imperfect first time is normal.