F.N. Manning's Blog, page 3

Artistic Sam

Even getting into this class means I’m among the best artists at my high school, chosen by the notoriously eccentric Alessandria French herself. She only accepts a dozen seniors or less every year, those whose potential ‘speaks to her senses.’

My parents were so impressed they stopped telling me about the starting salaries for accountants. For a few weeks.

–The Boy Next Door

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Make the Yuletide Gay

Have you ever wondered how to make Christmas gayer? I haven’t, which is weird because I always think everything should be gayer. Fortunately, Norway took care of it.  

Norway’s postal service does a holiday advertisement and this year’s is called When Harry Met Santa.

I am assuming most people who see my blog speak English, so this one has English subtitles. Combined with the original, this already has over two million views. Yes, it’s a love story involving Santa. It’s really sweet too!

So, I saw this earlier on Queerty and bookmarked it for later. I thought, ‘hey, I’m a gay romance author and I’m gay—bi if you wanna get technical about it—this will be on-topic and something fun for Christmastime. This will be fun!’

True story though, the commercial is a bit of a tear-jerker? I literally choked up and was not ready for all the feelings. (No spoilers, but don’t worry, there’s a happy ending.)

Full disclosure… when I actually watched, yes, I’d been offered limoncello and was a tad tipsy, so the video, which has nice production values and is almost a mini movie trailer, was a lot more emotional than I was expecting. Though I’d argue a little tipsy is the perfect way to watch this because then you’ll tear up and be invested in the ending and think, ‘OMG santa/this guy, it’s totally great, I hope they end up together!!!’

An actual queer Norwegian person said this about the video, “For many of us, Christmas is a time we spend with those we love, and it’s nice to see Norway Post show that love belongs to everyone, regardless of orientation, age, or whether you live at the North Pole.”

Happy holidays!

P.S. if you’ve never experienced limoncello before, try it! It will change your life. I rarely drink much lately, but I always say yes to limoncello.

The Boy Next Door

The school doors open, light from outside hitting him just right and making his blue eyes sparkle. And his hair color, a rich chestnut brown, is new and makes my knees weak.

“Hey, Bell!” he greets, calling me by my last name as usual. I ignore the popular people at his side who sometimes clearly wonder why we interact. “What’s up?”

–The Boy Next Door

5 Superheroes Who Should Come Out Already

I’m not a huge comic book person, so I had no idea about the newest version of the Superman character until I heard a stray comment on TV from a critical pundit. He said something like “Superman is bi now but nobody cares.”

Well unfortunately, homophobes gonna homophobe (slightly less catchy but just as true as haters gonna hate) so somebody always cares and has a problem when our world gets publicly gayer. But people mostly seem to be reacting well, which is awesome. And perhaps by ‘nobody cares’, he meant ‘an angry mob isn’t freaking out and clutching their pearls’ and this is just being treated as a regular thing humans experience, which is even more awesome. I originally assumed this meant Clark Kent was bisexual but apparently his son is the new Superman and likes his friend with pink hair.

More bi representation is awesome, though my only experience with Superman is the ooooold show with Dean Cain and Terri Hatcher. I’d eventually like to watch the newer program with Tyler Hoechlin because he looks very Superman-y and I adore almost everything about him as a person and beautiful human being.

So incredibly pretty, right?

So seeing as I don’t have a big interest in Superman, the comment about nobody caring got me thinking. Which other heroes could come out and generate more excitement? I came up with 5 heroes that the whole world… or at least fans… or at least me would care about extremely if they were gay.

5 Superheroes who should come out already

1. Spiderman (Peter Parker)

Come on, Spidey! Deadpool is already canonically pansexual and he’s waiting for you!

2. Captain America (Steve Rogers)

Despite only seeing a handful of Marvel superhero movies, I caught onto support for bi Steve Rogers being a thing and am wholeheartedly in favor of this development.

3. The Falcon (Sam Wilson)

Not having Disney+, I can’t say how gay the series The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is, so this isn’t the reason I think he should be queer. It’s more because… I got confused somehow and definitely believed he was already canonically gay? I’m not sure what happened but the only thing I (thought) I knew about him when Anthony Mackie first started appearing in the movies was that The Falcon was one of the earliest black gay superheroes. I even remember an interview where Mackie said he wanted his character to hook up with Black Widow and everybody laughed uproariously as if this was hilarious and impossible, and I have literally no idea what the joke was if he wasn’t being comically ignorant about his character’s sexuality. I only realized Sam Wilson wasn’t gay like a year ago and it’s still slightly weird he’s apparently straight.

4. & 5. Old Married Mutants

I ended up seeing First Class randomly in theaters because friends wanted to watch it. I had no idea what to expect and was surprised how good, and gay, the movie was. I remember turning to my friend twice when Professor X and Magneto seemed really in love and saying ‘is it just me…’ and each time she told me I wasn’t crazy, they were acting hella gay (blog title!) Seeing as she is straight and more objective than me, this is totally proof.

Zach

Zach Ahmad is a fun character from the One More Thing Series. I would explain more, but I think this quote showcases my point without needing more context. This is from One Little Lie, which is now available as a box set.

Zach nodded his head at her words, then changed tracks. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re a bitch and we can definitely be friends. But is this seriously the only reason you guys are here? To talk about our big gay feelings?” He grimaced. “I’m already getting enough of this from Luke.”

Dylan Cruse

Dylan was always caring, sweet, good. The perfect guy for anybody. The right guy. Yet I suppose I never truly stopped to ask myself whether he was right for me.

From The Boy Next Door

Maybe things were always weird

One Little Word involves pretend boyfriends, secret fake relationships, regular fake relationships, and actual feelings. All of this refers to one couple. In One Little Lie, there are secret relationships and fake relationships. Luke is one of the parties involved in both scenarios, but there are three people and two different relationships. I’m not sure why, but when talking about pretend dating scenarios, I like making everything sound as complicated as possible.

In one sense, I suppose fake dating is complicated enough. But if you like fake dating stories, then you like the kind of extra drama that can only happen in romcoms.

If you haven’t read One Little Word, no worries. One, it’s included in a box set with One Little Lie. And two, Ryan will also get you up to speed:

It started when an idiot from the baseball team (Luke Chambers) got himself in trouble. There was foul language, high stakes, dire consequences, and then… things got weird. The idiot, being an idiot, decided the best way to get out of the mess he created involved pretending to date me.

Wait, Luke’s moroncy aside, the whole thing worked out great for me. The broken leg sucked, but I healed, and now I had an awesome hottie boyfriend.

A picture is worth…

No matter how many times I paint the feelings, he doesn’t understand. The canvas displays the buttery yellow curtains of his room, the wide-open window and all the hope there painted in shades of pink and possibilities, but he never understands my message. He never hears my love for him.

The Boy Next Door

Hunter Cruse

Here’s a quote from Hunter Cruse, a main character from my YA M/M Kindle Vella novel, The Boy Next Door.

“Hey, losers,” says a voice from the side. Whoa, I was too busy agonizing about the new girlfriend to notice Hunter’s here, leaning against his car. “We can chat while we eat. Let’s go.”

“In a hurry?” Dylan teases.

The older brother looks around with contempt. “I’m done standing in the parking lot of my old high school wondering if maybe I just applied myself like all those teachers begged, I wouldn’t have ended up back here.”

“You can take Sam, right?” Dyl asks as he heads to his car hand-in-hand with Renee. No, no, no.

“Sure, we definitely need two cars for four people.” Hunter tosses me a dry look over his shoulder as he walks to the driver’s side, though it seems more at their expense than mine.

-The Boy Next Door

In the garden

Despite a lack of fence or other divider line, it’s still obvious where our property ends and the Cruse yard begins. Our yard is sparse while the side closest to us on the Cruse property has a pond and archway that leads back into a vibrant garden. Flowers bursting with color perfume the air with an intoxicating aroma as I walk into the backyard.

Mrs. French might call their garden an artist’s dream, a place to stimulate the senses and inspire creativity. Even in the fall, their garden flourishes, and some flowers are always blooming until the first frost.

Plus, their pond kicks ass.

-from young adult romance novel The Boy Next Door