All Comments on 'Sidechain'

Halfway through, I thought you were gonna break my heart. Instead, my heart is so full I feel I'm gonna burst.

I'm happy for Vivian, and I'm happy for Delia. But I think the thing that made me the most happy was seeing Lucia pull the fake drinking thing instead of giving in. She's there. She's got it.

I seriously love your happy endings <3

Truly remarkable trilogy. This final piece — hard to put into words; thanks for doing so. Perfectly subtitled, perfect ending. Thanks for creating Vivian and Lucia, two uniquely troubled, believable characters and sharing their struggles and joys with us. So many memorable moments come easily to mind: Lucia throwing the guitar in anger when Vivian struggled to play after recovery asking “Huh? Which of you two shitheads thought this was a good idea?"; their poignant grave site moment; Lucia happy to see Vivian Leblanc come to hear her play at local venue. And thanks for Delia, a true soulmate, who loved Vivian so deeply. Close to perfect is beyond good enough.

Beautiful story, I loved this so much. Thank you for bringing this relationship to life, and sharing it with us.

Wow, what a story. So complex, and yet so easy to read. You have woven a tale exploring real insecurities, weaknesses and jealousy. Yet at the same time, leaving me with hope and love for these characters. This is, in my humble opinion, your best work yet. I’ll be reading this again and again.

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That story was "Pretty - Thrash". Vivian / AMD succeeded spectacularly in achieving what they set out to do. A truly beautiful and cutting edge composition: The loops, the beats, the chords, the harmonies, the melodies, the atmospheric backrounds; all there. Music to my heart, mind, and soul. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

5 stars

About 9 pages too long, The woman on woman sex had a sweetness to it that was refreshing. Most of the stories on here seem to treat their lesbians as eye candy for males, these women felt more real and down to earth.

You know a story is good when you finish and realize its 3:30 AM, cause you just can't put it down.

This series gets better and better with every installment. Every piece makes me fall in love with these so very real characters a bit more. So much emotion in every bit, you almost broke me when Lucia faked drinking...the idea that she'd give up after everything she'd been through was heartbreaking. Such a great ploy to get Vivian to open up and release all the demons she'd been holding in, they both needed it. So very, very well written.

This is great work. I always felt the first two stories left some unfinished business. Those were excellent, but this story is the icing on the cake. One thing that came across exceptionally well for me was the emotion that Vivian felt when she was on stage and playing with the band.

Absolutely fantastic ...... This trilogy is a masterpiece ....... The last chapter was a horrible up and down ..... Love hate luck success envy name it and you found it in here ....... Truly like you Art of writing, its extraordinary ...... So ten hearts 💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝🍀💋🏆

Aww wish lucia and viv could have become a couple

OK, read for second time and this piece simply gets better - phrases, intimate moments, pauses, reflections. “Delia and anal sitting in a tree ..” — seriously, so perfect. You create so well.

This was a great trilogy. May I suggest that you could use a tag for the trilogy and put it on all three stories. Then a search for the tag will bring up all the chapters. I really like your characters, they feel very authentic. Thanks

Really loved the final entry in the trilogy. One of my all-time favorites on the site for sure.

Tremendous storytelling! Some really awesome characters (and development), with some genuinely heartfelt and realistic plot beats. A thoroughly engrossing read. Can't wait to see what your next submission is

Phenomenal tale! I love this... I even think I love it, as much as I love yr Sci-fi! 😃 That's saying something! So, because of loving it so much.... sigh! I'm not usually pushy, but I have to let you know I'm thinking of Zane and Tiff. But, hopefully not as much as you are.

And I need you to know, you're one of the few authors whom I don't resent, when you make me snivel. This confession doesn't come easy, even as it's obvious after my last sentence. I dislike intensely, being made to snivel, but you almost always wrap it up so I can live with it. And those other times, I get it, that's life and... I've never known anyone to get out of life alive.

So, after reading yr bio, again (stalling while I get my thoughts in order) wanting to mention some of those things I've thought of or wondered about while reading your stories. I believe now, after Sidechain that there's more than a little of you inside them. (And that may sound naïve, but I'm not meaning the fantasy parts) but the real you. Like Vivian not realizing how much she'd wanted to collaborate.

So, with that thought, I'll take my happy ass off to your brand new (to me) collaboration. With love and meant in the best way possible! 💟☮️🌈💋

Meh. Just kind of fizzled out.

Honestly, I'm *still* not sure I *like* either of Viv or Luc. But then, a cast of completely lovable characters can get pretty boring.

But what I am sure of … is the talent behind these three stories (or one big one really). They're hard characters to love, but you can definitely feel for them.

Will they survive? Maybe yes, probably not. Viv and Delia kind feel like they have a chance. Barely.

Luc and Helen, I don't have a feeling for. I feel like we never got to know Luc well enough to get a true read on her. Same for Helen, to be honest. They were both far more on the raw end of the social spectrum … and I think that kind of kept us from getting close enough. I mean, most everyone (thinks they) can get a feel for music, but roller derby? Not so much.

What I expected to see (and didn't) was the resolution to two issues in the story:

First, what was the meaning and story-usefulness of all the snippets of the accident? I never got the point. They didn't add to the story since they stayed non-sequitors throughout. They showed up so many times that I felt they *had* to lead to something … but in the end, they didn't.

Second, what was the issue between Viv and her twin? She practically had a heart attack over him being the donor, and yet we never really found out what the deal was. I mean, if anything, the story of the dogwoods made us feel quite the opposite. I mean, what happened to change that. And for that matter, what happened that sent Viv off on the music path at all? None of the childhood flashbacks or conversations had anything to do with say … finding a love for music, or say … getting kicked out of the house and falling in with a bad crowd.

And lastly, right to the end, Viv still showed strong signs of substance abuse issues. The immediate need to be drunk over Delia after the concert is no better than needing coke to perform. Potayto, patahto. And yet no one said anything about it. Especially Luc … just playing along with it? Seriously? Not much of a friend to me. But, then again, maybe Viv and Luc never really were friends. They were just two (or three) people caught up in a scene that allowed them to escape the world one performance at a time.

In ADSR, it comes up that Vivian doesn't remember the accident, or much of the month before she entered the hospital.

In the scene where Delia first talks to Vivian about having a baby, Vivian relates that she's been having a lot of things come up recently, like the accident, as well as some other things from when she was younger. Delia says "Wait, is this what you've been having nightmares about?"

Earlier in the story, one of these nightmares transitions immediately into Vivian waking up from a nightmare. In the first baby scene, Delia mentions that Vivian has been having a lot of nightmares lately, and Vivian says it's been taking a toll on her to remember all these things.

Post accident, Vivian has been suffering from Selective Amnesia, where her brain is preventing her from reliving some of the horror of the accident to help her get moving, and get healing. By this point, in the middle of Sidechain and now approximately 7 years removed from the accident, Vivian is in a sufficiently stable situation such that her brain is allowing her to remember some of the harder things so she can deal with them.

***

I do not have a perfect relationship with my sister. We fought like cats when we were little. I could not give you a "Let me tell you the story of the one time we fought and nothing was ever the same" story about her and I. It was a million little things that built up over the years until she and I weren't speaking at all from the ages of 16 to 25 or so. Every time we fought, it got added to the pile between us, and only Cthulu remembers where it started.

My sister and I are not twins, but she was my parents favorite. I did not have to work hard to establish myself as having my own identity, rather than being part of a paired unit, and I tried to show Vivian struggling with a lifetime of being thought of as the disappointing twin. That's a complex thing to explain, though, and Vivian's personal recovery journey has not involved an extensive rehashing and rehabilitation of her family relationships (which is why only Darren ever really shows up). She's been too busy just working on herself, which was the point of the story.

I chose not to have Vivian be self-aware enough to be able to understand why she has a bodily reaction to the idea of getting her brother's help because I didn't think I could do the same with my sister at Vivian's age.

It might be mundane, but it was my experience, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

***

Vivian struggles with substance abuse, something explicitly brought up in TBIM, but she tries. She deserves to be loved just as much as the rest of us do.

You have an amazing ability to bring intensely complex characters to life and make us care about them.

I came in late (after a recommendation from Broken Spokes) However I have just read the whole trilogy in about three days. I guess that tells you what I thought of it. The story structure and the telling of it are superb. Thank you for the effort you put into providing us witha superb tale.

this is intensly, intensly good and I don't have the words to describe all the things I love about it so I'm just gonna say that "Cvrches meets Gabriel era Genesis meets Sybreed" sounds like absolutely amazing music that I really, really wanna listen to.

Read for third time. Yes, background helps a lot, but the pain, poignancy, love between/among simply the best within this piece — one of the best I’ve read. Thanks again. Damn.

Moving.

Helen sucks. She's violent and a jerk. A trans woman punching a cis woman full force is just as awful and dishonorable as a cis man. They have way more strength.

@Anonymous If you'd just left it at "punching people is a jerk move" you might've had a valid opinion, but you had to go ruin it with TERF talking points.

Testosterone plays a crucial role in building and retaining muscle. When testosterone levels in trans women are lowered, either by hormone suppression or by orchidectomy (removal of the testicles), muscle mass and strength gradually drop. See e.g. Alvares et al., Muscle Strength in Transgender Women After Long-Term Hormone Therapy: A Cross-Sectional Study, J Endocr Soc. 2021 May 3, which found long-term suppression of testosterone lowering grip strength of trans women to virtually the same level as cis women.

The series establishes that Helen had her testicles removed something like a decade before the scene you're complaining about took place. By that time, her muscle strength is likely to be well within the normal range for a cis woman.

If you wanna argue that assisting somebody in potentially relapsing into a dangerous addiction isn't enough provocation to excuse a punch, go right ahead, but let's skip the "muscle mass" BS.

(Anybody who wants to invoke the Hilton and Lundberg paper, please note that it only looked at effects of one year's suppression.)

Wow. What a great story, and the characters are so interesting. I’m a sucker for multiple perspectives and really loved having both Vivian and Lucia POV.

Thanks so much - 5 stars is not enough.

Wow! :D

I LOVE a happy ending, and if Vivian and Delia hadn't gotten one I should have been Most Put Out.

(Also, I kinda wonder why characters named "Vivian" get put through the wringer so much?)

Allright! You made me horny and indeed you made me deeply engaged in Vivian and Delia. I was getting emotionally involved. However I wouldn’t be honest if I ranked you the highest. And I don’t think that’s fair to you or to BrokenSpokes, who wrote «the Journey», and who recommended your story «Sidechain» to be voted for the best lesbian story. I really care for Viv and Delia, but the way I got personally engaged in the female protagonists of The Journey is way out of charts. Therefore, I have to vote for BrokenSpokes. But… By all means… If you win, it will be well deserved! Your writing is definitely among the top 3, which I guess distinguish them merely out of preferences. I will eventually read all of your stories. Lastly! Your obviously talented - please keep writing!

I apologize about the voting thing. I just discovered this was 2022 and voting is closed.

I join LiberalMinds in placing you the Literotica pantheon, along with BrokenSpokes (and others).

A really good Story!

Thank you

All's well that ends well.

Wow, just wow. What a fucking awesome story cycle. So good in so many ways. So real too.