W_L

Thanks for reading @Wayne Gray, it's sort of like your story, we all have our own issues that we live with and grow from. Also, you and I have different ways of spelling a similarly named character: Jase versus Jace must be some weird cosmic coincidence.

Thank you for reading my story @Mikiesboy, I appreciate it

Thanks for reading. Yes, and I also wanted to point out how a lot of the major achievements (and setback) are equally part of the Supreme Court and the fickle nature of the electorate. Proposition 8 passed in 2008 almost 13 years ago in California, one of the most liberal states out there. I wanted to remind folks life is unpredictable and so is everything we have right now.

Thanks, I tried to give snippets of his life and hoped readers could piece together the character's journey and motivations.

Sexy, dark but colorful, and quite provocative

Very unique and I love the sexy interludes. I'm a huge fan of DC's character Lucifer (and his Netflix incarnation) for the same reason, he represent free will, it's really cool concept for a story.

Pleasant story with the old adage "walking a mile in another person's shoes". Some truths are best experienced rather than heard about. It's simple and good take.

Yeah, liberal cities still has this happening. My ex and I weren't called faggots, but "pretty boys" was the more polite euphemism, while we were grabbing lunch at a Panera. People don't realize the existence of prejudice until they walk a mile in another person's shoes. Good story

I like the characters and the down to earth feel of the situation. People nowadays don't remember the unpleasantness of the past. Without those tragedies, there wouldn't be a Pride Month.

Charming little story about finding the pride within. It's a good story of expression

I love this kind of wholesome, nice story about finding home and family.

I love this story @Valkyrie, it's very sweet and tender.

I liked the rainbow haired Avery, celebrating himself is what Pride is about Express your truth Good little Pride month story

Something for the Hot Summer Months: Chilled Tapioca with Coconut milk and Taro Ingredients: 1 bag of Tapioca pearls 1 can of Coconut Milk/Coconut cream 1 carton of unsweetened Soy milk 1 bag Rock Sugar (add as needed for sweetening) 1 Taro, sliced into bite size pieces 1/2-3/4 cup of water to help cook tapioca pearls Refrigerator space for overnight storage 1 small cooking pot for the Tapioca pearls 1 medium cooking 12 inch pot for the actual chilled Instructions: 1. Cook the tapioca pearls in boiling water over high heat for 5 minutes, then change the cooking temperature to medium heat for about 20 minutes. Do a taste test of the tapioca pearl at 20 minutes, if they are no longer grainy or hold a bite, then you have successfully cooked the tapioca. I know most folks use their eyes to tell wellness based on translucency, but I use the taste test to gauge, both works. 2. In a separate medium 12 inch pot, begin cooking the taro pieces with coconut milk, soy milk, and rock sugar mixture at medium for 20 minutes. At that point the Taro should soften and be soft, if it still feel hard against your cooking spoon, continue to cook a little longer. Taste the mixture once Taro is cooked fully to make sure the sweetness is appropriate to your taste. Add more Rock sugar as necessary or if it is too sweet, add a little soy milk or water to help offset the sweetness. 3. When the Tapioca pearls are ready, strain the tapioca pearls of any remaining hot liquid water and rinse the tapioca pearls substance under cold running water. Do this 2 or 3 times to help separate the Tapioca pearls and reduce their gummy consistency. 4. Mix the cooked tapioca pearls into the coconut/soy/Taro soup base, stir the soup, and let it rest for 10 minutes on the kitchen counter before putting it into the refrigerator. The soup will sit in the refrigerator overnight. 5. Serve as a chilled dessert the following day. --------------- This is a semi-traditional Asian dessert dish, it's not complicated to make and there's a variety of recipe alternatives, some people substitute Taro for Cantaloupe for instance. I like the idea of having a chilled dessert during the summer. If you make it thicker, it's a pudding, or if you add more liquid, it's like chilled soup. Don't worry, very few people judges on consistency, it can be eaten both ways.

(Wednesday, October 13th, 1998) At 10 years old, Caleb was unsure why he focused on the news story, nor why his attention was drawn to a brutal murder thousands of miles away in Wyoming. However, before he could give himself a reason, the TV screen turned black. “You’re too young to know about that stuff, Caleb. Don’t you have a big test tomorrow?” His mother clamored. “Yeah mom, I…uh…Social Studies…” Caleb raced out of the living room, feeling as

June 2021 Pride Month Micro-Fiction Challenge Entry: The Story of Caleb growing up in our modern world

I'll try to write something short for this

Your micro-fiction was fun and evoked a simple kind of game in a fictional universe that has extremely large world-endangering plots. I like the little snip of Percy/Nico relationship, it's a cool what if idea. [In actual canon, Nico is gay and is in a relationship with Will, which works well. However, his first crush was Percy and if only every gay boy's first love could be the one.]

This is interesting and cute take on Percy Jackson/Nico pairing. It's weird that there's only one fan-fiction, when LGBT characters roam free in this universe. [I love the canon in-universe pairing of Nico and Will, too.]

Glad to help, I love reading and writing. I hope you will continue to develop your story and eventually share with others.

Harper's style is based on the American Southern Gothic genre, normal spoken language of the locale, and settings that are personally based on one own experience. As for characters, Harper had a really good background to create a novel, but she needed a great editor to help her focus her message. The Draft book Go Set a Watchmen was far different from what we as an audience ultimately got, it was darker and character such as Atticus Finch were their polar opposites (Pragmatic traditional instead of honorably progressive). Part of the the story's success is due to Tay Hohoff, her editor, who helped shape the early draft's anecdotes and lack of strong moral center to what we nowaday praise as one of the best American novels of the 20th Century. You don't need to write with a southern drawl or New England alliteration to create stories like To Kill a Mockingbird, just be honest about yourself, your life, and the challenges you face. Then, find a writing partner aka an editor, who can channel your creative impulses and build a story from a draft. I know my stories without an editor are murky and labyrinth-like, filled with great ideas just unfocused like most writers, in order to bring out the best in me, I need an editor to help focus ideas. I can help others focus their ideas and story elements, too, but I can't be unbias towards my own creation and require lens of another viewpoints to help As @Kristanoted, if you haven't done so you should think about joining the Writer's Circle, we discuss everything in there concerning story elements, characters, and themes.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25543022-kick-at-the-darkness (Warning Spoilers ahead in my review) There's something about Zombies that fascinates people to write social commentary in their story. I guess the idea of a group of mindless merciless beings that consume the flesh of normal human beings or worse converts them into one of them has a lot of application to things such as consumerism, human exploitation, political satire, and "mob mentality". I enjoy well written Zombie stories, because they mirror some of the worst flaws in human society, the problem of the group. When I was young, I wasn't into Zombie stories, nor did my upbringing introduce me to the concept of Zombies. In recent years, Korean film makers have crafted movies like Train to Busan and streaming shows like Kingdom, which with its 16th century setting has retcon them into Far Eastern sensibilities. However, in traditional storytelling, East Asian stories don't have an equivalent to the Western Zombie; though we have stories of the undead, ghosts, and ghouls out for "Selective" vengeance. Werewolves are a different kind of story that is more niche than the variable Zombie-genre, which has grown in the last few decades. The idea of man becoming a beast is fascinating in its own right, but there is variability in the storytelling. In Western story tradition, Werewolves are usually viewed as villains, who like Zombie stalk human beings for sustenance and their bites can convert humans to their side. Essentially, the werewolf is portrayed as humanity in our beast state, who have abandoned the benefits of civilization for the nature. However, in East Asian story traditions, where creatures such as the werewolves exist along with foxes and deer who can shapeshift into human beings, they are considered part of the "natural" world, humans intrude on their domains or they are sent by nature to punish human beings for our misdeeds. In Far Eastern folklore, their presence is also malign, but the blame is not on them or their nature, rather it's humanity that prompts them to act, many times in self-defense, to destroy civilizations. Beyond a few odd horror fiction stories, I have rarely read a story that contains both elements until Keira Andrew's Kick at the Darkness. The Zombie-Apocalypse is an old narrative device now with The Walking Dead being a notorious example, but having gay characters confront the Zombie Apocalypse is refreshingly new. There's also a bit of parallel (and horror) if you compare certain early plot elements to current issues: A Pandemic spreads rapidly across the world, news spread with various loose or false narrative, and eerily the hope of people that "Authorities" will control the outbreak to no avail. Yes, this is a story that has aged better with COVID-19 pandemic, written 6 years ago before our current predicament means that the author is not out to make a quick buck from current events. ------------ The setting is not original, but the characters and how they deal with the end of the world are. Let's start off with our first protagonist character: Parker. At first, I found him annoying, whiny, and self-absorbed. His first few chapters feels like I am reading a caricature of a stereotypical Millennial. He's also the reason why he and Adam, co-protagonist, have to go on a road trip across Post-Zombie Apocalypse USA to reach Cape Cop in Massachusetts to find his family. Logically, it is insane idea to travel that far for what may (and eventually proves to be) a futile effort. As the story progress, we learn more about him and if you open your minds a little, enjoy his quirks. As a gay man, I can understand his innate fears and can imagine what he went through growing up, not in the closet but not accepted fully either. He has a very deep yearning to please and "meet expectations". In this way, Parker's self-esteem is probably the lowest of any character I've ever read in fiction. Whether its his father, who appears to push him into an acceptable profession, i.e. law school, before the Apocalypse, or his last relationship with a boy in high school, who used him as a Cum-dump and remained closeted himself. Parker is used to being degraded and pushed around. He's not just a snowflake by accident, he's been beaten up emotionally to the point where he expects others to treat him a certain way. He grows eventually, due to his love for Adam. Adam would nurse him back to health over 2 days in the wilderness, he found a guy who would not abandon him for his flaws or lack of "meeting expectations". He realizes he can't live without Adam, they soon become lovers. The Desert motel incident left him feeling incomplete and unsatisfied, which is sadly something I do want to touch on. I think at this point in the story Parker has developed a "sex = worth" issues, Adam loves him for more than the sucking and fucking, but Parker has never known that type of love beyond the sex. It's a testament to the author to display Parker's issues without psychoanalyzing him, he's got deep-seeded problems that a lot of gay guys can see. When Adam meets another werewolf, Parker feels his inadequacy and fears rejection due to the lack of sex as well. Parker's character breakout of this mold somewhat after he saved Adam from a mad scientists, but it remains unresolved (and continues to remain unresolved in Book 2 of this series Fight the Tide). Basically, readers, if you give Parker a chance and think about his motivations with the subtext that I noted above, he's a deeply flawed and intriguing character. Yes, he may come off as a complete bottom-boy stereotype, but I am glad that there's reasons for why he's that way, which asks some tougher questions. Now as for the 2nd Protagonist, Adam. He's basically....Mr. Spock as a Werewolf 😮 Yes, he's stoic and holds his emotions down, but he was trained from a very young age to control his "wolf". I find this take on a werewolf very fascinating. He has a lot of emotions and is deeply in love with Parker, but like Parker, he doesn't know how to express his love. Partly due to his werewolf secrets and partly due to the fact that he's a "lone wolf", since his entire family/pack died in a car accident (They were decapitated, which like a lot of horror stories would prevent supernatural creatures from using their healing factors). Then, there's the whole background of him being in foster case, trying to reveal himself to his foster parents (then being rejected out of fear), and him running away. His werewolf nature is oddly enough a parable for LGBTQ+ kids, who try to come out to their families and being rejected by them. Parker doesn't reject him, though and they became intimate with one another soon after establishing that kind of bond. Adam has an emptiness where his family used to be, which is one reason he became a film major, trying to capture the moments of joy and belonging that he has long lost. We learn a lot about the lore in this stories' universe about Werewolves, they have transformation ability, extreme speed, healing factor (possibly even immunity to Zombie virus), and a deep connection as a species with one another. I can understand why Parker is jealous of Adam's werewolf connection to an ancillary character named Ramon, but if you look at from Adam's perspective, it's a call of belonging that comes naturally to him. In the end though, Adam learns that his natural instincts had led them into a trap, but it's not his fault. -------------- At the heart of the story, I think the author consciously or subconsciously created a split between group dynamic/relationships and Individual drives. Parker is a character driven by his individual drives and seek to find fulfillment in goals/expectations, in romance he seeks his partner's sexual gratification as a result to prove his individual merits. Adam on the other hand seeks group dynamic/relationship, he is trying to fill the emptiness in his life left by his dead family and trying to connect with others, especially Parker, who he has bonded with. A self-centered individualist and a group oriented person is a good dichotomy for a relationship, learning to accept help from others and learning to reach personal goals help both of them in the end. The story ends when they reach a desolate Cape Cod town. I like the call outs and the sex on the Provincetown Dunes was cutely relevant (I know gay guys do that around here). They choose to go out to sea and find a new destination, where there maybe hope. --------- Overall, I give this story 9 out of 10, it was good and it didn't fall into any of the Tropes of Fantasy genre dealing with Werewolves. I also like how subtle the psychological issues human beings are displayed throughout the story. They aren't evil per se, but they are broken. Parker and Adam were broken before the Zombie Apocalypse, but seeing them interact with other survivors fleshed out how strange this new world has become.

🎈 🎈 Congrats @Myr 🎈 🎈

I love UFO studies from the purported crash landing at Roswell to the official investigation by the Air Force with Project Blue Book. I agree with @Myrsomething is going on with these strange aerial phenomenon, but it may be neither extraterrestrials nor human governments testing new technologies. We have nothing to offer an advanced civilization with contact and if they can traverse light years, they don't need to appear to us visibly, we already know how to create our own cloaking devices. As for countries with such Tech, it's possible, but such aircraft test flights could be dangerous if they fail or fall into your enemies hands, why risk such a close flyby, especially when the US Navy is testing Directed Energy Weapons now? Beyond those two explanation, more extraordinary ideas have to be put out there, stuff like: New terrestrial lifeforms, parallel universe/phase interacting with our own, or even leftover automated technology from advanced human/non-human earth-based civilizations. Our planet has been around for billions of year, I can't believe we're the only semi-intelligent species to develop in that time with technology.

I feel old re-reading my list from 2012 on the 1st page of this thread. I've been on this site for a decade Pokemon still seems to be the common denominator for a lot of us. Dorkly had a really interesting/funny video on differences between Pokemon gamers and generations: