Davide

Now that stuff with Tucker is fully known, I can say something about a couple chapters ago without risking spoilers. Let me get this straight, Jason. The last time you went to Tucker's place, knowing when you were going to arrive, he was dressed in short shorts and a tank top while free balling when you did, then proceeded to not need any of the tutoring you were supposed to be there to give, and you were still unsure late if he was flirting with you?

This may be the best chapter on this story so far. You described everything in a way that made me really feel what was happening, how strongly it was affecting Nick and going through a variety of emotions. There was confusion, concern, worry and even fear for Jack, but, most importantly, I could feel Nick's pain throughout, not just objectively know the pain is there. The kind of pain he was feeling evolved throughout the episode as things started to unravel, first showing he should be concerned about Jack instead of angry at him, and then revealing the magnitude of the issue, but there was pain the whole time. This means, that the multiple times Nick cries, it hits harder because you conveyed his pain very strongly.

I like the slow burn of the Kris-Dean tension, it fits this story in particular more than the common faster pace at getting guys together. Here we see that they both feel something about each other, but neither of them has figured out what it is, or at least they don't want to admit it to themselves. Kris' potential developer job interview is good news but, after the hope this giving him and his mom, I'm worried about how hard it will hit them if he doesn't get it. Plus his mom won't be working for some time and his savings will take a hit because of the car, so money will be more difficult if he doesn't get the new job.

Exactly. And I'm curious to see what's going on in Jack's head that he has such an opposite reaction to Tommy, which was never anything to Nick, than the one he had to Jonah, which actually kissed Nick.

I get the impression Nick's mom genuinely doesn't know about the one sided tension between Jack and Tommy, it feels like there's no way she could know. Jack and Tommy hit it off when the last time they were together, Jack's jealously only later and they didn't talk about it in front of Nick's mom. If she had been at home during the day today, that might have been enough time to notice something was going on. But she was with them for a single dinner and that wasn't enough to notice the tension, so I think she still didn't know when she suggested the sleepover. So I think she meant well and I can't blame her for what I think it's natural for her to not know. Here's a quote from a previous chapter I want to reference: “I don’t have anyone else, Nick,” he choked out. “Just you. And your mom. And Mr. Bojangles. That’s it. You’re my whole life.” I understand that Jack is probably terrified of losing Nick, considering he said this in chapter 34 and that's the cause of the jealously, which makes it somewhat understandable. But the bit of jealously he had after the other time he was Tommy is one thing, the magnitude it turned in to is too much. I'm thorn because I'm simultaneously upset at him because of how he's acting in regards to Tommy and feel sad for him because I get how much the fear of losing Nick in his life situation hurts. And I feel sorry for Tommy, who got thrown into this whole awkward tension without knowing why Jack is acting like this, nor how to avoid it. He even tried avoiding the sleepover, but Nick's mom caught his bad excuse. Maybe tomorrow, instead of repeating today's failed attempts at diffusing the tension by talking about neutral topics, it would be better if Nick faced the issue head on by bring it up to Jack and Tommy, which would put all the cards on the table and almost force them and himself to discuss it together.

3. Yes, I meant true. I misremembered which was the question goes. 4. The reason I know Porto, Portugal's second biggest city, is at almost the same latitude as New York is it having a much milder weather. It's used as an example of Atlantic conveyor's big impact on that. Googling the exact values tells me New York is at 40.7128° N and Porto is at 41.1579° N, a difference of just 0.4451°.

1. I don't know, (and I don't want to throw a random guess for a 50% chance). 2. Northern (educated guess because this is true for most of Colombia). 3. False (I know South America goes significantly further east than North America). 4. True (I know New York is at about the same latitude as the north of Portugal, my country). 5. No clue (and I wouldn't even know where to begin guessing).

Between the previous chapter and this one, we know both Dean and Kris have experienced difficulties in life, but in very different ways. The main source of Dean's difficulties were on a personal level, the way his father treated him, while the ones Kris experiences are professional, a job that barely pays enough to scrap by. That combination of similarity and difference should be interesting when they interact. Kris is hanging on to his game in development as his hope for changing his life and I get the impression that could also be what's making him stall instead of actually progressing on it. For as long as he manages to lie to himself by pretending he's working on anything relevant, Restart remains a theoretical salvation from a sad life hanging in his future. But if he finishes it, there's a chance the game may not work out in terms of sales, and then he'd have to face losing his only hope of improving his life. I think he may be trying to avoid finding out if this happens without admitting to himself he's doing it.

No problem, it happens.

You pointed out Tommy as the natural source of drama and suggested a few options of what kind of Tommy could happen. I gave an opinion on which option I consider most likely among the ones you listed, which was Jack being insecure about Tommy/Nick.

After rereading the Tommy parts of the chapter Nick comes out to him (chapter 29), I don't get any impression of Tommy potentially making a at either of them. And that's even if he's gay/bi/etc, may not be. As for insecurities, I think it will be that, at least on Jack's sidea. Note this passage about Tommy from chapter 30:

I don't know for sure, but I got the impression Medellin is separate from SFTF. The sentence "When sixteen-year-old Hunter moves to Colombia, he falls for Miguel—then learns Miguel’s father is a powerful cartel boss." from the Medellin blurb feels to disconnected from anything in SFTF to have a chance of it being related.

I have commented on Nick's flaws, but these aren't story complaints, realistic humans have flaws. And I agree that Nick's flaws are relatively minor, it just sucks for him because the main one mostly hurts himself. I read the Medellin synopsis on your blog, that sounds like a very interesting premise. I don't know anything about the city, but you lived there for enough years that I can expect it's depiction to be authentic. With that novel, I'll get to be in a place with a comment section for it from the start. I missed out of that for a good chunk of SFTF because I was reading on Nifty without knowing GA exists.

Recently, I thought you had said 50 chapters. Then, today, I thought I misremembered and it's actually 40 chapters. But what you're saying means I was wrong twice, lol, it's actually 45 chapters.

Hmm, an author with the word Buddha in his username wrote a character saying "Talking about how Buddhism spread to China from India through merchants and missionaries felt less like an exam and more like something I wanted to lecture about for hours", that very much feels like a self-insert and I like it. Before this chapter, I wondered if reading about the finals week would get a bit boring. But you managed to make me feel Nicky's stress, while keeping the story interesting. I'm glad they worked things out with Jonah, the way he was so unsure about any kind of physical contact with Nick and Jack (Nack? Jick?) makes me believe his apology really was genuine. Nick needs to stop catastrophising everything, the exams and going home with Jack this time, although I get it because of his past. But that's why he needs to go to therapy and to stop thinking his struggles are small because he compares himself to Jack's admittedly bigger ones, he still gets to be broken despite comparisons.

Good point. Him realizing it by himself means a lot more than if it came because someone called him out, although the second one would itself be a start.

@drsawzall @Summerabbacat @SilentandBroken His name is Grant, not Greg. As for this chapter itself, it contains Olly unequivocally realizing that what he did with Mack the previous time was messed up. Thankfully, Mack was awake and reciprocating, so there was no harm.

Thank you for the clarification and I'm sorry about my accusation.

Re the reaction on my previous comment: Laughing at someone for having a different opinion than yours about a character, really? You can disagree with me without being like that. Edit: Unless you were actually laughing at my spoilers disclaimer. I don't see how that would be funny, but at least I wouldn't be upset at someone for laughing at that.

My opinion is that, if someone doesn't want their friend to share something with another friend, they should ask them not to do it. Since Olly didn't say anything like that to Declan, I think his telling Grant was fair game. And, while Olly was surprised that Declan did that, he wasn't upset about it. Plus it actually led to Olly receiving some information that was relieving to him. (I only wanted to say this specific thing, I won't comment on anything else because I don't remember what I thought when I first read this chapter, and I don't want to risk spoilers for future chapters that I already read influencing the thoughts I share here. And maybe this is a good time for me to say that, because I've read further, I'll never reply nor react to any kind of speculation for future chapters.)

Dean has a sad story between his past with his father and his asshole boss in the present. I hope to eventually see some comeuppance for both of them. And I'm curious about why his mom didn't take him, I can't imagine there would be a reason she'd lose a custody fight against a man like that if she tried. So this chapters tells us Kris knows he's attracted to men while, based on the previous one, Dean seems to denial about the same thing (see below). Let's see where that goes.

Interesting premise, I'm curious to see the impact the difference between the two main characters will have on both of them.

Regarding the "but won’t think twice if a guy puts out" part, that's not the impression I got when I first read chapter 6, the first time Olly approaches Declan, he seemed surprised and unsure of what to do, looking like he had never been with a guy.

I didn't remember Nick was only 9. I already thought he had put too much weight on himself following his father's death, but doing that at 9 is a whole other level. I agree with you on everything in that post. I'm sorry to hear about your own father. 16 is also very young to deal with that, and your situation has the thing that it's not a fictional story.

Regarding Jonah, he said all the right things in his apology and that's a good start. But a lot of it was based on what Christian told him. So it remains to be seen if he continues to act accordingly to what he said. The apology means Nick and Jack can start to work towards trusting him again, but that trust requires actions to be earned, not just words. Now that he said he has a crush on Nick, he can't do anything that could be interpreted by him or Jack as being related to that. I do think he genuinely wants to do better, but we'll see if I'm right. While Jack took Nick's news better than I expected, I also know he would never take it remotely close to as badly as Nick feared. Him thinking 10 seconds of not pushing away before doing the right thing could make a guy that loves him more than anyone ever break up with him tells us something about Nick.While stuff like this would normally point at a lack of confidence for me, with Nick it feels more a matter of anxiety. And that led to the panic attack, which is scary stuff. But, once again, Miss Charice was awesome. Plus Nick always diminishes his problems, sometimes by comparing them to other people, and ends up not taking care of his mental health. It's true that Jack's problems in regards to mental health are bigger, the whole thing with his parents is horrible, but that doesn't change that Nick also needs to take care of his own. Plus there's the paragraph about his dad's death, this has probably been going since then. Between losing the person Nick considered his anchor and him imposing more weight on himself by unilaterally deciding he had to be the "man of the house", it feels like he hasn't been allowing himself enough breathing room to deal with the mental health impact of that.