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LAIKA by Elecivil


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Such music links seem foreboding. As long as no shoulders are thrown out and no balls are crushed, I think I'll be fine.

I would read your chapter now, but I am in the college center and there is a band playng and, even thought they suck, the sax player is incredibly cute. I mean, Charlie Hunnam cute. I need to get back to the show.

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YAY! I'm having fun reading Laika Chapter 8.

Um, I did notice one typo. The word shirt, minus the 'r,' for the guy the band meets before going in to set up. I figure it adds to that edgy anti-establishment vibe.

Heh, "tipping," excellent pun. Nick gets my vote once again.

Corey and the jacket also get a vote, as a friend with a magnetic appeal in outerwear. You could say he has the fashion pinned. ...You could say it, but your friends would probably groan and throw stinky veggie hydrator stuff at you....

*Added*

I finished the chapter. Hey, well done on the chapter close, just so you know I was paying attention to more than the humor. Brandon's great as always, and I know there's more to Alex that's still developing, 'cause, hey, I was awake for the earlier comments about Alex from his friends too. (Also, I know things don't just go in at random in EleCivil's writing, aside from the pseudo-random humorous asides.)

:: applauds wildly ::

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Very excellent chapter! :D

I was very proud of Brandon for standing up for himself and wanting to feel "respected" or receive some kind of acknowledgment of what he means to Alex before sleeping with him. I also have to admit that I was a little happy to see Alex have his little "asshole moment," cause I'd really like to see Brandon and "the preacher's son" end up together. I think their senses of humor match up so well together ... it's almost uncanny ... or fate? And of course all the symbolism of being with the fundamentalist's son ... that's always fun.

Two thumbs up!

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Um, I did notice one typo. The word shirt, minus the 'r,' for the guy the band meets before going in to set up. I figure it adds to that edgy anti-establishment vibe.

Aw, shirt. Figures that I'd end up with a typo like that. :roll: Heh...anti-establishment, huh? Yeah, that sounds like a good excuse. "I'm too punx for spellchex."

Thanks, Blue and Buddha!

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Strikes me as a pivotal chapter, plot- and character development-wise.

We're get a glimpse, first-hand, at some of Alex's issues, previously just hinted at through comments from his friends. For all of his confusion over it, the incident provides an opportunity for Brandon to reveal important sides to his character. While there's no open confrontation between Nick and his father, we see that he can demonstrate some level of defiance. All of that makes me eager to see how things play out. Sort of like we've come to the first major hill on a roller coaster ride.

On another level, though, I'm eager to see how EleCivil, as an author, handles it all. Lord knows that some of the elements here, at least superficially, are familiar ones. The hell-breathing fundamentalist gay-basher preacher pops up frequently, and usually interchangeably, from story to story and author to author. If there's anything he ain't, EleCivil ain't interchangeable, so I look forward to his take on this.

On a minor proofing or structural note, I did get momentarily disoriented during the exchange between Brandon and Alex toward the end. After Alex's "Are you saying I'm easy?" there are two separate lines of dialog that seem partially redundant and, though they're separated as paragraphs and opening and closing quotes, both belong to Brandon. Reading straight through the first time, I got thrown off the track as to who was saying what. Maybe a revision that didn't get thoroughly cleaned up?

There's a unique personal vision that comes through EleCivil's writing, something missing from a lot of otherwise competent online gay fiction. That's really what makes me eager for more.

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Oh, thanks for catching the dialogue mix up, I forgot to mention it in my comment above. See the second and third paragraphs, quoted below:

?Are you saying I?m easy??

?What? No. I just?I don?t know. Is there, like, a different standard for gay guys? Are we supposed to go that fast??

?Well, yeah. I did like it ? kissing and holding hands and stuff. But?does it usually go that fast? For gay guys, I mean??

?Um, that kind of depends on the people. You can?t really speak for everybody.? He raised one eyebrow. ?Wait. I?ve got to ask, um?how long have you known that you?re gay??

?Hm. Two, two and a half months? Give or take.?

I took it that there was a missing line from Alex or that something had gotten out of place, a simple editing problem. Hey, and if you're editing it yourself, it's easy to miss. -- Readers may not realize it, but the change from word processor documents to web pages can cause occasional slip ups that can be hard to catch too.

-----

Yup, this chapter has built up the characters.

Knowing EleCivil's way of doing things, we'll learn more about what's up with Alex, and it won't be one-dimensional.

You what I think the most important thing we saw about Nick? Not only can he make his own choices, but he is at ease in making them, not angst-ridden (or apparently not). He even shows a sense of humor about it all.

I notice that Rev. Brimstone Patton and his supporters have been mostly in the background, and haven't been totally off the Richter scale. EleCivil has been careful to treat them as credible and not as caricatures. That's better storytelling.

Shaping up nicely!

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Oh, thanks for catching the dialogue mix up, I forgot to mention it in my comment above. See the second and third paragraphs, quoted below:
?Are you saying I?m easy??

?What? No. I just?I don?t know. Is there, like, a different standard for gay guys? Are we supposed to go that fast??

?Well, yeah. I did like it ? kissing and holding hands and stuff. But?does it usually go that fast? For gay guys, I mean??

?Um, that kind of depends on the people. You can?t really speak for everybody.? He raised one eyebrow. ?Wait. I?ve got to ask, um?how long have you known that you?re gay??

?Hm. Two, two and a half months? Give or take.?

Aww...shirt. Again. Next time I write a story, I'm going to try to find an editor. Yeah, disregard that third paragraph. Part of an earlier draft that I thought I had gotten rid of.

It's weird - the Nifty version of the story ends up being the better edited one, since readers from AD tell me about typos and misspellings and things like this, that just don't make sense. Thanks for pointing this stuff out!

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Aww...shirt.

:D That's the best way to take it. Self-editing is quite difficult and no one does it very well. Let he without typos cast the first bottle of white-out. It takes a sharp eye, and a different one to notice these things sometimes.

I'm sure that you'll have no trouble finding an editor. Heck, they might even fight over you.

:roll: You should see my text before Talon beats the dents out of it.

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“My Dad’s trying to convert your friends to Christianity. They’re trying to convert him to secular humanism. I’ve got plenty of time.”

Priceless... :D

This remains an utter joy to read; easily some of the finest dialogue around, and absolutely original characters to go with. We are truly fortunate to have access to such an talented and original voice.

-- Pete

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Aww...shirt. Again. Next time I write a story, I'm going to try to find an editor.

I'll edit your stuff. We can trade.

Finally, he gets rid of the man-whore. I knew that Brandon and Alex were going downhill fast, and now we can continue with the timidly innocent romance of Nick and Brandon, unless your are a literary sadist, like myself.

That was a fun chapter. I like how you?ve been telling the story from the perspective of the people?s lives and not just focusing on gay romance/issues. I had a straight friend reading over my shoulder about the part in the movie store and he loved it. He really liked the parts about being afraid of nipples and whatnot. But I had to get rid of him before we hit the inevitably gay part of the story, so I told him I had to do speech homework and he left.

And I feel sorry for Alex. He is so afraid of letting someone get to know him. He is starting to remind me a lot of William Brewer, but far less dark, and cuter. But if it came down to it, I think Will could kick Lexy?s ass, easy.

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I was VERY pleasantly surprised to stumble across Chapter 9 so quickly! And I must say, it was an AWESOME chapter, so kudos to EleCivil for yet another great one!

I don't want to give any spoilers, but the ending was a REAL surprise ... and a cliffhanger ... and that means that Chapter 10 had better be out REALLY soon, or else I'll have to ... I dunno ... do something ...

And this thing with Nick ... he just keeps popping up randomly and nothing of note really happens ... yet he keeps popping up ... and he's cute, the son of the town's radical preacher ... there's gotta be something there ... would EleCivil just toss in this character and potentially dramatic, tension-filled plot-line just for the fun of it or to mess with our minds???

Anyway, if it turns out that Brandon doesn't want Nick, I'll take him ... I'm already halfway in love with him, and I ain't scared of his dad ... I can quote scripture with the best of 'em ... whoever said a B.A. degree in Religion was totally worthless? hehe

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Also, thanks to Ryan for editing this chapter. 8)

Sure thing. It was a ton of fun getting to see the chapter early. And LB is right, it was sure a surprise/cliffhanger ending. And I have had very high hopes for Nick from the begining. Someone that cute can't go unattended for long.

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Hoo-hah! Now that's the kind of cliffhanger I like.

Again, a really excellent job. After reading so much online fiction that's padded with inconsquential action and repetitive introspective narration, it's a pleasure to read such well-paced plotting. The events move the story along, help develop the characters and are witty and entertaining to boot.

I wonder if it was a temptation to title the chapter "Riots of Spring"?

I'm glad to see that the game here called "In Bed" is still played. In my day, we called it "Between the Sheets," which I personally feel has a bit more panache.

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I wonder if it was a temptation to title the chapter "Riots of Spring"?

Actually, yeah, I did consider that for a while.

The beach-ball riot was based on one that actually happened at my high school, by the way. It got a little more violent, there, though - people started throwing full water bottles at each other, whipping tampons and condoms at the teachers, plenty of fistfights breaking out...rumor was that somebody pissed in a bottle and threw that, but I can't confirm that one. Unfortunately, that was my senior year, right before I graduated, so I never got to see the next assembly to see what kind of security measues they implemented.

I'm glad to see that the game here called "In Bed" is still played. In my day, we called it "Between the Sheets," which I personally feel has a bit more panache.

Haha, yeah. "Betwen the Sheets" still has a following, too. Same with "In the Sack" and "All Night Long". It's a very versitile game.

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Now I'm really interested in Alex.

Is he:

a) kid who lives in his van

b) prep school rich kid poser

c) preppy slumming

d) disowned preppy

e) all of the above.

If you weren't hooked before, after this chapter you've gotta be.

Something tells me that there is more to Alex than meets the eye.

:geek: :cat:

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?No, computer memory. Remember the sticks of RAM that we replaced when we upgraded? I?ve got ninety-six megabytes in my history book, and one-twenty-eight in the novel I?m working on.?

=)) :rotfl: That's...bwahahah! I love it.

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Hello Peoples! I'm Tim TS, Longtime reader, First time poster here at Awesomedude. I'm active at GA, But until now I was lazy and hadnt joined any other forums.

The reason I joined now you might ask? Well it's probably pretty obvious, seeing as how I'm already in a certain section of the forum.

I just had to tell Elecivil that I have no clue how to pronounce his name.

Ok, so besides that, I am a sucker for a cliffhanger. And I think I may have just read the best one ever conceived. And that says a lot, considering I'm a recovering domaholic.

I absolutely love Laika so far, And Now I have to beg of you, Puhlease don't leave us hanging on this one too long!!

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I just had to tell Elecivil that I have no clue how to pronounce his name.

Heh. Don't worry about it - I didn't know how to pronounce it when I started using it. Now I read it mentally as "ELL-eh-SIV-ill", but it still sounds awkward to me.

Ok, so besides that, I am a sucker for a cliffhanger. And I think I may have just read the best one ever conceived. And that says a lot, considering I'm a recovering domaholic.

Whoa, thanks! I'm a Dom fan, too.

Welcome to the board, TTS.

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The beachball riot reminded of a game that used to be played on Yale University's Old Campus called "Bladderball." There were no rules, only a series of teams , each of which anarchically decided what its own objectives would be. Perhaps the best summary of the game was "a formal confrontation with the absurd." A nice history of the game can be found at http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=14884.

--Rigel

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Ok, so besides that, I am a sucker for a cliffhanger. And I think I may have just read the best one ever conceived.

I strongly second that. As an experienced practitioner of dangling readers off cliffs, that one completely blindsided me--I had to read it again to make sure I?d just read what I?d read--and those are the best kinds of cliffhangers.

Kudos, Elecivil, kudos.

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A word about cliffhangers.

I really don't like cliffhangers in general - they're hideously overused, and are usually done exceedingly badly - drama for the sake of drama. (There are authors I trust with cliffhangers, including several notable authors here, but they are few and far between, especially in this genre).

There is however, a frustratingly rare class of cliffhanger - ones which leave you going "But ... what ... he ... huh?", cause you to question large chunks of what you've just read, and make you want to physically grab the author, and demand that they explain what they just wrote, because there's no way you want to wait for the next chapter for an explanation.

I adore these, because they make you think, take enormous skill to pull off, and are the sign of a highly creative and inventive author. This one was one of the finest of these I've ever seen. Bravo!

As for the rest of the chapter - hey, it's by EleCivil, of course it's great. :D

(Although, given my age and background, ‘Riots of Spring’ was always going to trigger Stravinksy...)

Thanks as always for making me smile.

-- Pete

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