I know exactly how you feel. I grew up with a father who was homophobic due to having been sexually assaulted as a teenager, which made even talking about how I feel nearly impossible and a high school that, charitably wasn't the most socially progressive in the world. All the loneliness Zack feels is exactly how I've felt for much of my life. Reading/going through this story is very cathartic and helpful, fiction or not.
Wow. I feel so sorry for your experience. Is everything alright now?
For the family part, my parents made me think of suicide as they knew about my relationship in highschool. I struggled to discover myself and confront my family at the same time. I had no one to ask for help or talk to. I completely feel you bro.
I think, we don't have the right to choose where we are born but we do have the right to choose the way we live. Maybe it's not an easy path to walk through but we still survive and become who we are today. At least, we can be sympathetic to others and even our own children if one day they come out of the closet. (Trust me I really want to have kids around 👨👧👦 ) Now, being about to graduate from college as a teacher, I am trying my best to help my students having problem discovering their sexuality. We can't change the past but we can make an impact for a better future.
For all the things we have been through, we all deserve a Zach or Braden in our life.
Things are better now. One of the biggest additional problems in the day is, that my first language is English and I live in Quebec, Canada. I grew up during the height of the nationalist era there where the English were absolutely hated on by a large chunk of the province (to the point that I was assaulted more than once). I could only really deal with 1 crisis at a time and that one went on for years. It's better now, and I have a good friend I can talk to about things, but I have an empathy for what others go through with discrimination and overthinking (as I do it all the time). I think that, more than anything is what I empathise most about the Zack character; what he does is something I've been doing for most of my life.
I'm just glad to hear that you are doing ok now. We all have the part of Zach inside where we collect all the thoughts and start digging around. Sometimes we make things even more complicated than they truly are. For me, having someone to talk to is a great way as they are your anchor whenever you are submerged in the train of thought. I'm trying to think simple and listen to my inner feelings more so I can help myself even when there's no one beside. By the way, I'm just 21 but I have to think twice more than others being at the same age. Thanks for sharing your story even you don't know me. That means a lot to me.
It's somewhat designed that way. That's why Zack laments and works through so much logic in the game. For some it can be perceived as overthinking. For others, it shows several different reasons that could hold individuals back and then Zack's way to reason through those obstacles.
And yeah, there's more updates coming. Next update is gonna be a rough write so I'm doing heavy outlining right now
I agree. It takes time to gradually overcome those issues as he has been haunted by them for the whole time. Most of my logical friends seem to have the same problems of trying to explain everything. Love or sentiment in general is somehow more than that, which is hard to explain just by using logic.
Seriously, you can hold a fanclub and I would love to be a big fan of you guys and this story.