All Comments on 'Knife's Edge Pt. 04'

Wonderful ending!

You are a really really great writer. And I remember in your earlier stories, even though it's just as brilliant, I sometimes had difficulties keeping track of who said what. I don't feel that anymore. Right now I can keep up with the dialogue easily.

I know your stories will be well written and great reads, but this one was especially amazing. I enjoyed the many facets of the growth of both Ruben and Joel individually and as a couple throughout the story, but you really got me at the end as Ruben launched into and through getting closure and justice. I was already delighted that Joel nudged Ruben into topping – vers partners are a favorite of mine from my own experiences – but it just kept getting better!

And I think I just found a new favourite story. Wow. Incredibly written. An amazing and heartwarming love story wrapped around a very difficult topic in way that makes you reevaluate the way things seem and how the feel. Just wow.

I loved this and you are just an excellent and brilliant storyteller and author.

Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing your gift of prose.

I am, as always, in awe of you and your work. Your characters have the flaws and complexities of real people and real life. Thank you for sharing your work with us!

As an abuse survivor and someone in the BDSM world, I think you did an amazing job showing balance and how to practice BDSM after bad abuse safely. This was such a well written story and I love what you did with it.

Beautiful work!

I personally didn’t see any overlap with the BDSM stuff and the abuse. Honestly, that stuff was so well written, that I was inspired to have a check-in conversation about some of the kinky stuff we’ve been doing with my boyfriend, and it went well!

This story was important to me not just because I have been where Rubes was but because it was told by one of my favourite storytellers. And I knew that no matter where it went, it would be handled with empathy, respect and attention to detail.

It's not easy reading stories like this. Obviously. Everything made that much more difficult, I think, when real life & story mirror one another even in the smallest of ways. And in all honesty, most of the time it's really not worth it to even try.

But when it's one of your stories? When the care and love and willingness to go hard so that a truth - or many - may be uncovered and shared like a shining jewel in the darkness and be allowed to seep deep into the hearts & minds of the readers? When the purpose is community, building people up, alleviating despair and making folks feel that the things they want might not be as impossible as they seem?

Even if you do need a beer, a really big stick & a pair of wellies to see you through it - it's worth it.

So absolutely fucking worth it.

Because it's you.

Thanks man. Like seriously, the biggest thank-you.

- full_metal_dragon (being too lazy to log in but not too lazy to leave long rambling messages. or take responsibility for them... haha)

Wonderful ending to one of the best stories recently published at Lit. You wrote you are 'not a mental health professional' but your approach to the topic, details and descriptions speaks the opposite. You did amazing job. Bravo!

You, dear Author, have struck close to home from half a world away. This feels like a different HEA: healing ever after. Bravo!

Eh, you've done an amazing job with some very difficult material here, with the postscript as much as the story. In terms of people being unwilling and/or unable to perceive themselves as victims, this quote is burned into my brain forever: "Causing a person to feel complicit in their own exploitation is the most insidious form of abuse."

Where does it come from? I don't know. I just googled it and got no hits. It may have leapt out at me when I watched 'Leaving Neverland', which, amongst its many MANY uncomfortable and difficult scenes includes a recounting of the moment when one of the victims is finally able to perceive himself as such - now that he himself is the father of a young boy. He understands that if what happened to him were to happen to his son, it would not be okay, and that's the moment of revelation.

As a therapist, I think you wrote about the abuse extremely well! Interesting and captivating without talking about it casually or disrespectfully. As always, your stories are some of the best on here. Always looking forward to rereading one or getting a notification that you’ve posted something new. Much good energy being sent to you from my way!

You continue to amaze me