Taima Matsumushi

The single biggest factor that can ruin a story for me is the forced gratuitous sex scene. I've read upwards of seven stories at this point which I have loved from chapter 1 through chapter 5-7... and then it happens. You know what "it" I mean. In what feels like a spontaneous need for the author to jack off, either two of the characters have a chapter-long f**k or the obnoxiously underage main character suddenly finds it necessary to tell the reader every single detail of his (often "first") masturbation. This is annoying (and creepy) enough in first person, but in third person, it gets downright disgusting. Here's a tip for the authors of many of these stories: If you find yourself using the word "young" in every description of your characters' bodies, you should probably see to it that your story represents your only contact with adolescent boys. Keep in mind that kids talking in first person never refer to themselves or their body parts as "young" "supple" or "boyish". If you want to continue to present the illusion that you're writing your story for reasons other than jacking off, you would do well to remember that. Sorry if I went off on a rant, but I've had too many otherwise good stories ruined for me by a completely unnecessary sex scene that reveals more about the author's sexual fantasies than about the characters' relationships to one another.

Hey Red, Hope you have a great time here! I'm looking forward to reading your work. I'm sure we'll get along fine. Later, Tai

That's great news! Keep up the good work!

It's fine, don't worry about it. Stuff happens.

I would say they aren't being represented enough, that's true. Most of my gay friends came out between the ages of 14-16, with me coming out to them a bit later at 17. My little sister, who is 16 now, has a friend who has been out of the closet and actively dating other boys since he was 13. My high school, despite what all of us liked to believe, was an incredibly open and liberal one when it came to divergent sexualities. Open hostility (e.g. attacks, slurs) to a gay student or minority would get you a Saturday detention at best, suspended or expelled at worst, depending on the situation. At the risk of getting somewhat philisophical and possibly alienating those outside of my generation and/or Blue State life experience, I would argue that, given the climate in my high school both socially and "legally", there was no real downside to coming out. The first and most noticeable advantage to coming out was that it was MUCH easier for all of us to find dates. Logically, it makes sense. The school administration was very harsh on bigotry, and being a post-Columbine school, they kept the entire place under prison-level surveillance. Luckily, being a relatively laid-back city, no idiots made a point of following gay kids home from school to beat them up or anything. I can only personally remember one incident where a gay kid was attacked during the 4 years I spent there. My friend Alex got punched by a former friend, and the guy who did it was suspended for a month. The only times I heard the word "faggot" or similar slurs were around people who were unaware of my sexuality and didn't assume I would mind. Oddly enough, the majority of those incidents had nothing to do with actual homosexuality so much as the black colloquial use of the word, which is taken to mean something along the lines of "idiotic wuss". Once again, this is just me relating my experience. In literature, openly out teenagers are great as foils for the more shy, in-the-closet types many of us remember being ourselves. They are generally more confident, at least internally, although this could vary a LOT depending on the setting. An openly gay boy in San Francisco circa 2005 would be very different character than an openly gay boy in Bumblef**k, Alabama in 1961. There are lots of ways to work with this concept, particularly issues relating to gay identity, or what it means to be gay. For example, in my novel, there is an openly gay kid of 17 named Lucas (loosely based on a friend of mine) who is both a godsend and a hindrance to my main character, Ezra's sense of identity as a gay individual. Lucas happens to be the type of person who believes that to truly be "Gay" is to embrace and embody the quintessential gay male stereotype. He speaks with a lisp, wears trendy clothes, and in general annoys the hell out of Ezra, who feels no need to behave that way, nor a need to come out of the closet to anyone other than his closest friends. The way these two attitudes play off one another and the characters learn from each other is something I hope to project well by the time I finish the book. It's definitely an underrepresented group in online and published literature, and I think it's an important one to expand upon. This will probably take quite some time, since the majority of us (especially on this forum) grew up in a time where such a thing was unheard of (or if it was, only in the form of horror stories).

I think the one-hundred million people who died under Mao Se Dong's decidedly atheist communist regime might have an interesting opinion to hear. I'm certain the victims of China's current persecution of religious groups would wonder why they are percieved as the root of all evil when they are the ones being jailed and killed by their own government for practicing their religions in peace. Curious how self-centered we can be sometimes, eh? Martin Luther King was a Christian Revrend, which is one of the dirty little secrets most kids in my generation never hear about (I only learned about that fact from my parents: NEVER did my schools mention it). Ghandi was a Hindu, and Malcolm X a Muslim. The abolitionist movement against slavery in the US was pioneered and led by Quakers and other Christian groups. Maybe it's because I'm black and (vaguely) Christian, but I get the feeling that, aside from an obviously anglo-centric community identity, the gay community has done a smashing job of keeping black people, who have a reputation for being unapologetically religious, out of their wonderful little white atheist utopian world view. Think about it. Aside from bell hooks and maybe a few others I've never heard of, one almost never sees black homosexuals, or even a non-satired depiction of one in the public eye from the mainstream media or gay groups alike. And NO, prison rape scenes don't count. The sole exception to this rule is a single character on the show "Six Feet Under", which is a pathetic sign. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's a bad sign when the Queer Student Cultural Center at my university is comprised almost exclusively of blonde/blue whites, and the only non-white person (biracial) other than myself had his hair dyed blonde "to fit in". That's beside the point, although I'd love to debate the racial gap and inexcusable insensitivity many white gays have regarding other races. Anyway, this irked me because I recently came out to my devoutly Christian mother, and she loves and accepts me for who I am. She even quoted values she learned from the Bible as her reason for doing so (hate the sin, not the sinner, yadda yadda). Yes, there are a lot of assholes and bigots out there, and the point of this is not to whitewash their evil, but you can't forget that the negatives are not the entire picture.

Neat stuff! I'll definitely take a closer look once I get off work tomorrow.

Awesome sauce!! Can't wait!

Amen, Mike. My greatest fear with Party Monster is that some of my more flaming friends will actually like it... I think it does a hell of a lot more to harm gays than it does to help; if we went back to an era like that, I would probably lose my sanity. To be honest, I think that anyone without an immediate opinion on homosexuals who sees Party Monster is going to have a difficult time forming a positive opinion about them, to speak extremely politely. More often than not, I can see this movie used by Freddy Phelps or Jerry Folwell (probably spelled both of those names wrong) before Elton John or Rosie O'Donnell (man, I can't spell today). Despite being gay myself, that film almost made me ashamed to have something in common with the characters depicted. Sorry about the rant, I had nightmares for two nights straight after seeing that movie. Both of them involved me trapped in a Club Kid party; once inside a huge, two-story boat, and the other in an old warehouse. I think I've been traumatized...

Although I agree Mac is really hot now (and bears a creepy resemblance to my ex), I would advise anyone contemplating watching Party Monster to check their sanity at the door ahead of time. Maybe I'm biased because I just finished watching Party Monster ten minutes ago, and I'm still reeling from the massive loss of respect for Macauley Culkin and Seth Green I suffered while watching it. As a film, I've never seen such shoddy direction work (although there were 2 interesting shots that I can recall), and the acting in the first 2/3 of the movie is cringe-worthy at best. Both MC and SG are forced into playing really, REALLY stereotypical gay guys, with dialogue so bad that a paper shredder would be ashamed to swallow it. Not that I entirely blame the bad acting on the actors. They have to pay rent, too. Unfortunately, this seems to actually be the attitude the actors had while performing some of the more poorly written scenes. Much of the dialogue is delivered in such a way that would suggest that the actors' interior monologue is saying something like, "Oh, the things I put up with to pay rent...". :wacko: The plot, while based on a true story, comes across jumbled and weird. The movie actually begins toward the end of the sequence of events, and the bizarre tendency for SG and MC to speak directly to the viewer as though they are in the room with them crosses the line from interesting and quirky into a real "WTF?" level of obsurdity. The story jumps time rather often, and major relationships between characters materialize with little or no real lead-up or explanation. While I realize that the (80's?) club scene is really shallow, it borders on making the audience entirely apathetic, if not outright hostile to the Club Kids throughout the film. The plot and acting really picks up during the last 1/3 of the film, when the focus suddenly shifts from "free expression" and an apparently inexhaustible supply of costumes (which I fear may be the only actual motivation for making this movie) to a rather standard story about drug abuse. This is probably the strongest part of the film, in that the actors seem to actually care enough about the movie to put 3/5 of their asses into it (as opposed to the 1/32 ass they put into the rest of the film). At this point, the movie becomes bearable, which is good, because you get to see a lot fewer clothes on MC. Yes, I'm being hard on the movie. Just make sure that when you see Party Monster, you're in the same state of mind you would be in to watch a porno movie. Don't expect anything noteworthy, just enjoy the visuals. --I'm Taima Matsumushi, and that's my opinion.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Winter Solstice, etc. :ranger: Wishing you all the best holidays and a blessed New Year.

Hi there, everyone, For anyone who has had a chance to check out my story "Talents" in the Library, I would be eternally grateful if you would post anything you have to say, positive or negative, in this section. Please bear in mind that it is a Sci-Fi story first and a quote, "gay" story second, so the emphasis won't be on the boys' relationships per se. Obviously, let me know if you believe I'm neglecting the characters, but don't say I didn't warn you. Anything you've got to say is thoroughly appreciated! Don't be shy, I relish constructive criticism as much as positive reinforcement (actually more). :ranger: Hope to hear from you all soon, :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: Tai :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

Thanks for the warmhearted messages, all! movieguy47- Thanks! WEP- Thanks! I'll try, but I've been missing you online these days. I'm at work or class for the entirety of the daylight hours lately, so it's been hard to get on AIM at a time to see you guys as much as I'd like. Rainbow- Thanks a lot! I'd love to get to know you better. :-) Do you have writing here? I'll look for it if you do. Miguel- Thanks a lot! Same explanation as per above--lots of stuff to do makes it hard to come online very often anymore. Being on GA should help stem some of that poor communication, though. Can't wait to talk to ya again! Crackerwriter- Hi there! It's so nice to meet you! I'll definitely take the time to check your stories out in more detail as I mill around here. I'm still working on my novel, which I'm going to get published eventually (hopefully sooner rather than later), so it'll appear here in pieces as I complete it. Hope we both enjoy each other's writing!

Welcome, one and all! o^_^o

Myself, I have no problem with fanfiction. In fact, I think it's actually more difficult to write it than normal fiction--mostly because the author is charged with writing a story true to a precedent set by another writer, and readers will eat an author alive who mischaracterizes a character, gets obscure (or not-so obscure) facts about the fanfic's world wrong, or a smattering of other complications (not the least of which the obsessive fans who know more about a given franchise than you could hope to). The same principle applies to celebrity fanfiction, especially, because you're dealing with a human being who is, albeit extremely rarely, perfectly capable of reading your story him/herself. Of course, the problem of ultra-specifics comes back into play here, because you have to keep a balance between getting enough facts right to keep the fanboy sharks away and artistic license. I've never written one about a celebrity myself, but it always seemed kind of creepy to me somehow (no disrespect to those who do). I always end up asking myself what the object of the story would think if he happened to read it. The answer has almost never been positive in my experience. Most often, I end up writing the story anyway, but with changed names (and thus, increased freedom to alter the character). On the other hand, I suppose it's part of being a celebrity to have stories written about you. Come to think of it, my argument thus far has been under the assumption that the stories are erotic in nature. Leaving that assumption behind, I would only abridge my argument to say that non-erotic fantasies might still be thought of as creepy, but considerably less so. I suppose since I'm not a celebrity (yet), I can't predict with 100% certainty how I would react to fanfiction written about me, specifically. Maybe I'd be a little flattered, but most likely I'd be a little creeped out. Still, I don't really have a problem with fanfiction as such; I just have a hard time writing it without considering the feelings of the celeb I'm writing about. I'm rambling now, aren't I? o.O ... ... ...MY MIND!!?