Gravity (Male x Male)

Final Word

For those that have successfully navigated their way through 'Gravity,' thank you for reading to the end, and I hope you enjoyed the ride.

I thought I'd add something so that you can see where I pulled my inspiration from and why I made some of the choices I made, for those that are interested.

Believe it or not, one of my inspirations was 'Frozen.' (Yes, I know I'm a fully grown adult, but I actually love that film.)

When I was first watching it, and Anna met Hans, I rolled my eyes and thought this was another dull "Princess-Meets-Prince-And-Falls-In-Love-Immediately" story. I almost switched off mentally but continued engaging for the sake of the five-year-old girl who was snuggled on my lap.

And then Elsa piped up, "You can't marry a man you've just met."

And suddenly I perked up. This was different. Disney were telling youngsters that they shouldn't just jump into a committed relationship with people they barely know, and I loved that.

So, I liked the idea of a story with a character jumping head-first into a relationship with someone without really knowing much about that person. Because we've all been there, right? At first, we just see what we want to see, and often ignore the obvious signs of questions it might be a good idea to ask, because we're high on lust. And I'm sure we all know that most of the time, that doesn't end well.

However, I'm a sucker for happy endings, so for my own enjoyment, I needed it to end on a positive note. So, unlike Hans, Keleon was never going to be the 'bad guy.'

The other main inspiration for this story was my own current relationship. I can't count the number of times that my 'special person' and I have talked at cross-purposes to each other and got tangled up in knots because we haven't been able to communicate with each other effectively.

One example that always makes me smile, was the organisation of a birthday cake for the aforementioned five-year-old. She was having a 'Frozen' themed birthday party, and we were in charge of the cake. We're both rubbish at making cakes, so I suggested we buy one. (I was pretty sure Tesco did one with a picture of Olaf on top in pretty icing, so in my mind at least, that was the kind of thing we should be buying.)

Anyway, my request for a 'Frozen Cake' resulted in my 'special person' returning home with a chocolate gateau from the freezer section. Not exactly what I had in mind. I pointed out that I meant Frozen like the film, not frozen like ice cold! Frozen with a capital 'F', not a lower case one. I thought this was obvious from the fact that the whole birthday party was themed around the film 'Frozen.' But apparently that wasn't obvious to everyone...

So, miscommunications can happen to any of us. What's 'obvious' to one person may not be 'obvious' to another. But I wanted Damon and Keleon to take misunderstandings to another level.

There were other ingredients to this story too. I read a lot of male x male romance, and a lot of the time, at least one of the males needs some kind of acceptance from either friends or parents or society generally because he is either gay, bisexual, pansexual or for some other reason.

Don't get me wrong, I get it, I've been there myself. It's difficult, and maybe I like reading about that stuff because I can relate. My parents are homophobic, and I didn't get a lot of love from classmates when my sexuality was revealed to everyone at my school. (The revelation was not my choice by the way.) So, I've enjoyed many stories like this and will probably continue to enjoy many more.

But for Damon and Keleon I wanted something different. I made Damon deliberately out and proud, accepted by everyone with no sexuality-related problems. Then I wanted to reverse the situation so that the main gay lead character had to be the one doing the accepting if he wanted his relationship. (And let's face it, there's quite a lot here for poor Damon to get his head around!)

Accepting someone else can be hard if you've not been in the situation where you're the one that's needed acceptance, but luckily for us, Damon managed it.

Finally, Keleon's shifts in gender reflect my own gender fluidity. Being queer is a very personal journey and I think there are probably as many different versions of queer as there are people that might categorise themselves as such. I believe everyone naturally draws their own conclusions about whether gender is important to them and to what extent, but some have to consider and reflect on it to a greater degree than others.

'Gravity' was my way of exploring whether identifying as a particular gender is necessary or important for me personally, and then being prepared to accept myself the way I am regardless of the answer to that question. Damon's acceptance of Keleon represents my own acceptance of myself, regardless of which gender state I find myself in. This is the reason you won't find any descriptive gender pronouns on my profile; because I'm still undecided on what works for me. And thanks to Damon and Keleon, I also know that even if I never figure it out, that's OK. I can just be me anyway.

So, now for some trivia about the story:

'Tarnung' is the German word for 'camouflage' or 'disguise.' I thought this might be a good name for a doctor that could change his appearance to adapt to his environment.

'Pavo' is a constellation in the southern sky whose name is Latin for 'Peacock.' And in the words of Damon, "I like peacocks."

'Kikorangi' is a Maori word meaning 'blue.' I think I mentioned it in the story already, but I liked the sound of it for humanoids with blue skin. 

'Vacillator' generally refers to someone who changes a lot. It's probably intended more in an emotional sense, but I decided to apply it in a physical sense instead.

'Aderyn' is a Welsh word that means 'bird,' and I liked the idea of this for a race that could control gravity to make it look like flight.

And finally, I have written an Epilogue for these two explorers, but it contains mature sexual content. I didn't want this story categorised as 'mature,' so I've put this as a bonus chapter in a separate book on my profile called 'Mature Chapters' for those that are interested. It's a bit of adult fun about what they get up to when they take their relationship to the next level, and you won't miss out on anything to do with the plot at all if you don't read it, because the actual story has finished at this point.

Thanks again for getting involved in 'Gravity,' and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.