Heya,
Thank you sincerely for the long, well-written response and thank you for reading and taking the project as a serious attempt. No worries on the horny reader approach, you're among thousands, lol. I actually take that as a compliment: that you downloaded for the horny reasons and stayed for the story.
That being said, I have no idea how this story stacks up with other "romances." Honestly, I dont even know if it's a romance-- i've never read one either. But it felt like what I'd want a romance to be. I've actually never seen a gay themed movie or read any gay-themed literature or novels-- I purposely avoided them while writing this because I didn't want them to influence this story.
Sorry about the upset stomach throughout this thing. If it makes you feel better, you're not alone there; I had the same stomach pains the entire time that I was writing it. It was cathartic but brutally honest and difficult sometimes for me to accept or share. I'm glad to hear you're in therapy. While I don't know your situation, I was going through my masters program in clinical psych when I wrote the majority of this so I'm familiar with therapy and have worked in the field. That being said, please don't take this story as "truth" or some type of "correct" way of doing things. It's simply a template on communication and honesty and self-acceptance that worked for these particular characters. Not everyone has the same journey so remember to listen to yourself, but if any of these interactions spoke to you or helped you, please take them and use them to your heart's desire. I tackled a lot of heavy issues in this story and it was even more fun to do all of that under an "adult" tag. Hell, the Discord was full of churning emotions-- especially for the ending. I'm glad it spoke to you and I'm glad you checked in to share your thoughts and your experiences. Good luck to you. Thank you for reading, thank you for leaving an emotional response, and thank you for your being a part of this for me <3