Hi all!

Chapter 2: A Cosmo Mixer is now up!

This is one of my favourite chapters of the series thus far so I really hope you guys like it!

Please let me know what you thought!

-Kevin

Wheeee Gratz Kev Kev on your new chapter/story, I really liked it so far!

I really liked the part where Juan tries to stop Cosmo from drinking, because it means he does care about him appearantly, but then get shoved into the wall by Giorgio! Brr Never would want Giorgio on my bad side!

Though I didn't quite understand why Aaron would ask where Juan en Cosmo met each other, since appearantly he already knew that!



Anyhow, can't wait for you to post the next part!

It's one of my favorites too. Daisy is such a bitch though. Someone should pimp slap her.

Great chapter Kevin, and thanks

I'd say this chapter has opened up one helluva can of worms.

So obviously Cosmo went to find a person like him at a support group that he couldn't find with his close friends. Did he 'settle' for Juan, or did he actually have feelings for him. I understand both Juan's POV, but as much as I hate to say it, I see Daisy and Georgio's too.

My biggest worry though is this may be foreshadowing of Aaron and Ben's relationship. Georgio was just more to the point of getting rid of Juan.

At the way the story is going, there seems to be more strife between Aaron and Ben's friends, with the exception of Cosmo, I imagine Ben is going have to choose. Stand up for Aaron and put Georgio and Daisy in their places, or just admit that it isn't going to work in the long run.

Yikes.

Now I'm off to copy and paste in Babblefish in order to find out what mean and cruel things that Georgio and Daisy were saying about Aaron, and imagine that Juan told off for doing it in Spanish.

Steve

Bad Georgio, Bad Daisy

Good Juan

Wow, this was a great chapter, Kev.

Daisy is such a jerk! All those snide comments. Why didn't Aaron defend himself? Probably out of respect for Ben. But Ben shouldn't let his friends get away with insulting his boyfriend. That's when the relationship becomes too strained to last...and we can already see the tension among everyone.

I have to admit, Aaron's verbal clumsiness sucked at the dinner party and I wanted to throw something at him. Poor Cosmo! He was so embarassed.

I can see the "family" dynamic here, besides everyone being gay. They're protective of one another. I liked Juan. I hope we'll see more of him, but probably not. Cosmo seems a bit in denial, or wants to have fun even if his health suffers. Juan is being mature and serious about their HIV, so I'm kind of on his side. Juan only said what he said because he cares about Cosmo. Otherwise he wouldn't have had an outburst. While Cosmo's friends obviously care for him too, especially Giorgio, they're not doing him any favors by letting Cosmo get drunk ALL the time. They're all in denial or letting Cosmo get away with stuff because they feel sorry for him. But real friends are honest and lay it all out there. Someone should tell Cosmo to stop drinking, or limit it. Juan was the only one with real balls at that party. And Giorgio was wrong to have beat Juan up. Some curse words would have sufficed, right?

This is one of my favorite chapters of the new sequel, although as it progresses, I'm sure I'll have new favorites. I wonder what will happen down the road, between everyone. Will Cosmo finally come to his senses? Will Ben stand up to his friends in defense of Aaron? How long can Aaron take Giorgio and Daisy's bullshit? I want MICK! LOL.

Anyway, sometimes the nicknames confuses me. I forgot Giorgio's real name was Jose. And then he started speaking Spanish...and I was like, what? Then again, lots of people know Spanish and they're not Hispanic...btw, do you know Spanish, Kevin? If so, I'm jealous. I want to learn.

Can't wait for moreeeee!

Enjoyed the chapter very much.

Where's Mick? I miss him.

Ben needs to stand up for Aaron. The fact that he's letting his friends walk all over his boyfriend (and that Aaron is also letting them) is pissing me off.

And I have a question. Did your writing style change between the two stories? Because when I was reading BMAD, your words just seemed to flow and while I'm reading WAS, it seems like it's more choppy. Maybe it's just me.

Well I think I'm in the minority here, but I'm just gonna say it: I really, really don't like Aaron in this chapter.

Up until now he's just been sort of "adorably clueless", in an endearing way. But this time, his foot-in-mouth disease crossed the line from well-intentioned to downright hurtful.

And I have to say, as bitchy as Daisy is, I'm starting to see his point about a few things. If I were longtime friends with all of those guys, and one of them brought someone like Aaron around, I might be tempted to make snide remarks about him, too. Aaron's blunder in asking Cosmo where he and Juan met was one example; his insistence on the nicknames even though he now knows these guys is another. And even though Daisy's remark about Aaron "doing" Ben at the start is annoying, Aaron's habit of shamelessly mooching off Mick and Ben is kinda annoying, too. Aaron's just playing the helpless ditz, alternately "tolerating"and whining about Ben's friends, and that's not a great way to make friends with them. It makes me wonder why Ben puts up with it.

I have to say, I like Juan. He seems to care about Cosmo a lot, but maybe the age difference between them makes it too difficult for things to work out. Juan seems a lot more mature than Cosmo.

The writing style's a bit confusing in these big group scenes, I have to say. With all the names and all the nicknames, it's tough keeping it all straight in my mind, who is who, and who's talking to whom.

Things are heating up. This isn't the same feel-good story as the last installment. Interested to see what happens next.

I like it Kevin, welldone.

I think that Ben's group of friends are bad. they aren't good friends. yes Aaron may be abit of a social blunder at times but he isnt that bad overall. daisy is entitled to be worried if someone is mooching off his friend but he wasnt polite or interested in at least learning abit about Aaron right from the beginning. Juan is perfectly entitled to annoyed with the group of friends, however it is Cosmo's life and so he shouldnt have been so pushy. Cosmo is obviously struggling though. As far as I could tell Ben maybe about to kind of wake up to what is friends are really like, or he may not and go back to ignoring it and joining in. Hoepfully He'll begin to help and support Cosmo. Anyway, I'm being kind of judgemental. But I wouldnt have any time for people like that.

keep on with the good work,
celia

I'll be honest, I'm not sure what to make of this so far.

There's something very different about Aaron's 'voice' in the first two chapters of WAS, and it's definitely not an improvement. Maybe it's the fact that everything else around him has changed? I don't know. In the first few chapters of BMAD, Aaron had this kind of 'underdog' element to his personality, and it helped bring Aaron to life and definitely made him likeable as a lead character. But now that he's shacked up with a hot boyfriend, the underdog element isn't there anymore.

As a result, I'm not enjoying Aaron's observations as much as I did in BMAD. I think the fact that he was essentially removed from the situation made Aaron's smart-arse comments a lot more amusing in BMAD. But now that he's immersed in 'Ben's world' so to speak, they've gone from amusing to almost rude. I understand that Daisy, Giorgio etc are being equally rude to Aaron, but at least they're vocalising their hatred. I feel like you're trying to make Aaron seem like the innocent party in all of this, and that simply isn't going to work if Aaron's inner thoughts are just as nasty as the abuse he's copping from Ben's friends.

Another thing, and I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in my BMAD review, I think your italicised commentary is starting to detract from the story in places. It worked a treat in BMAD, but in WAS, it almost seems to be there for the sake of it. Fair enough, it's Aaron's 'thing', but I'm beginning to think less is more when it comes to the inner thoughts.

I hate to be so negative, but there's definitely something missing so far. I hope you can find it again in later chapters.

I didn't necessarily think Aaron was rude, but he was acting like a social buffoon. Of course, if this scene was par for Daisy and Giorgio's behavior toward him, then I would never have gone to the party. That's just not acceptable. No wonder he compared it to burning to death!

I liked Juan best, and the chapter had a nice, strong ending. Giorgio used to go out with Cosmo, didn't he? How dare he throw out Cosmo's date after he dumped Cosmo! I guess Aaron can be happy that all they do is sneer and jeer at him.

PS - Kev, you were missing some commas in this chapter (I know you asked about that before).

Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it and I hope to put it to good use.


Well, in my head what I was trying to express was that situation in which you 'know' something, but it doesn't quite make sense so you ask again for confirmation. Plus Ben had told him that before the party. I think Aaron wanted to hear it directly from Cosmo and/or Juan and also see if he could dig up anymore details by broaching the subject.


LOL, thanks Tim


Thanks Steve! Yeah, this chapter does bring up a lot of issues which need resolving.


Hmm, well I can't really answer that either way, but I can say that if, at this point in the story, Aaron had acted in that way toward Ben while Giorgio was around it probably would have resulted in similar behavoiur. Giorgio was more direct in getting rid of Juan but by the same token Juan was more direct in dealing with the aspects of Cosmo's behaviour that he thought were destructive.



Well, I think that Aaron is largely afraid of them. He's definitely afraid of Giorgio and I think he's also afraid to call them out on their behaviour because Ben seems to mostly ignore it and he's not completely sure whose side Ben would be on if he did.



Well, I will say that we definitely haven't heard the last of Cosmo's drinking or his health status.

In fact, even though it's a slight spoiler I'll mention that he and Aaron discuss it a little bit in the next chapter


One of my biggest regrets was that there was no natural, easy, and purposeful way to fit Mick into these early chapters. If this were a third person story I could easily do it, but since this is first person Mick's just not going to make an appearance unless Aaron sees him, and he just didn't have any plans or reason to see him over the span of time that these first two chapters covered. LOL, believe me I tried to figure out a way to sneak him in too, but I thought it would have felt forced.





Regarding the Spanish, nope actually I don't speak Spanish. I can pick up a few words or phrases here and there in conversation and I know a few basic words and phrases, but I'm definitely not able to carry on conversations. A friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, helped me out. I do hope to learn Spanish eventually though.

The main I'm including a 'Spanish element' in the story is because it wouldn't have been all that realistic to have a story set in Houston in today's times in a climate as diverse as the gay community without including at least one or two Spanish speakers. Among my own friends there are quite a few bilingual individuals, either people of Hispanic origin or people of Caucasian/African origin who have learned (often as a result of dating or being close to Hispanics).

Thanks for the comments, Celia!

I'll definitely continue to explore these issues in the future!


Excellent points, CR!

I want Aaron to be believable and to resonate with the reader as a generally decent individual, but he's certainly no angel himself!

His 'fish out of water' thing and his jobless/mooching thing will also come up again in future chapters.

I think you touched on a great point too; it's difficult to say at this point whether it's Giorgio and Daisy or Aaron himself who are 'in the wrong' in a lot of these early skirmishes.


Hmm, well I wanted to do the dinner party scene for Daisy's birthday and that pretty much ensured a minimum of eight people given the four in the core group (Daisy, Ben, Giorgio, and Cosmo) and their respective dates. I also wanted to keep everyone in character and that sort of meant Aaron continuing the nickname thing.

Would you have any suggestions about how I might have maintained the same number of people and general style but made the scene less confusing?





Hmm, Thanks for addressing this, you two!

As a little background, BMAD was written in about three days late last April. WAS has been a more on-going work in progress since then. So, both because the current chapters I'm writing now are indeed written several months later, and because BMAD itself was practically written in one marathon session, I suppose it is indeed quite possible that the voice is a little different.

However, one of the reasons for the second Coffee is because it briefly discusses what was happening during a period of time not covered by either story. Aaron himself is in a different period of his life, and for Aaron the changes have probably been more extreme than a typical few months would bring. Aaron has entered a whole new world. So I also imagine that he too would sound and act a bit different as a result.

Also, apart from both these points, as a writer I want the tone of WAS to be much different than BMAD. As CR said in her comment, this really isn't the same feel-good story and things are heating up.

However, I certainly want the story to continue to be enjoyable to read, so I'll definitely look into this and I really appreciate you guys bringing it up


Well, I think you're definitely correct about Aaron having lost a little bit of his 'underdog' element and he does indeed have a different perspective now. Actually I'm not trying to keep Aaron 'innocent'. As I said I want him to remain believable and I want him to seem like he's generally a decent person, but without giving away too many spoilers Aaron's 'innocence' is definitely going to take a few hits in this story.

On a separate note, you bring up an interesting point in general. Do you feel that it's better to keep mean, sarcastic thoughts to yourself or do you feel that it's better to be honest and vocalize them? Can you be 'rude' if you don't say anything rude but merely think them (well Aaron did say some rude things, but not with regards to the inner thoughts)?

Actually, this all goes back a bit to one of the initial things BMAD was exploring. Basically the fact that sometimes people think one thing and say quite another. I really think this is a very universal part of the human experience and I think it's especially common in people who aren't generally purposely rude and blunt but who are fairly clever and thoughtful individuals.

I thin it's amusing to ponder a 'sweet old lady', grandma type of person who bakes people cookies and listens to their problems and then hear her 'inner dialogue' as she's telling them what she really thinks I don't know about you, but I think such people exist.



Well, as the story and Aaron evolve I intend for Aaron's inner thoughts to gradually taper off, but not disappear. So maybe you'll get your wish


As I said, I really appreciate the constructive criticism


This scene was par for the course for how Daisy and Giorgio have been treating him the last couple of months. I agree that I wouldn't have wanted to go to the party either, and unlike Aaron if I had I probably wouldn't have held my tongue.

Thanks about Juan; I'm not saying either way whether he'll be back (in all honesty because I'm not quite sure myself ), but I definitely wanted to give him a strong ending.

Giorgio and Cosmo did go out. So did Giorgio and Ronnie. The next two chapters touch lightly on both these facts and I'll definitely go into them further as the story progresses.


Ohhh, thanks for telling me! LOL, not to make you do extra work - so don't bother if it isn't convenient I'll just check it out myself - but where?



Anyway, thanks very much for the comments and feedback guys! I'm very interested in hearing more thoughts on these points!

-Kevin

Hi all

Just wanted to let everyone know that the next chapter would be entitled:

Awash with Information


It should be online within the next 5-30 hours (weird time frame I know, but it should be accurate).