Davide

It's been so long without a chapter here that I honestly think there's a chance of the author not posting any more chapters of Medellin or other stories (although Modelling will be finished on Awesome Dude, regardless)

The name Ali felt unusual because it didn't sound posh, but Alister fixes that, that's plenty posh. Bastien inviting Lawrence to the so called Golden Circle’s table is intriguing and seems to support him being interested in Lawrence. It remains to see if that's for friendship, or even romantic, reasons or, on the contrary, wanting to learning more about Lawrence out of suspicion. I get why Ali thinks rejecting it was a bad idea, but Bastien seems very interested in Lawrence, so he won't give up just because of that. Maybe this shows that he doesn't play by the same rules, which could intrigue Bastien more about Lawrence. Lawrence also seems to act differently when he's alone with Lawrence than with other people, this it better seen when in the shift when Anton arrived in chapter one. It feels like he's not faking it as much, although he's probably still faking it to some extent. But inviting him to that table is not a private thing and I expect some of those guys wouldn't like having someone like Lawrence there. But Bastien surely must expect this reaction, which intrigues me more about why Bastien is so interested in Lawrence that he'd go against that. We're also introduced to an easily obtainable poison and I took note of that, but I don't have anything to say about it at this time. With this, I'm caught up, I commented on every chapter in a row, but it wasn't short like I intended.

Ali didn't show up by accident, he's trying to sniff out information about Lawrence. But I also don't think he was sent by anyone, I get the impression he doing it for himself. And he may not even have nefarious intentions, maybe he's just curious. He seems to be from one of those influential families, with the way he talks about who really calls the shots. But he barged into Lawrence's room without waiting to told go in and listens to a kind of music that you wouldn't expect from rich snobs. This contrast gives me the impression that he is from that world, but he doesn't fit into the kind of personality you'd typically expect from it. He may just be happy that someone who isn't like that joined the school. But Ali seems like he's smarter than he looks and takes advantage of his quirky personality to both hide that and to get people to lower their defenses. He didn't ask innocent questions, he probably knows more than Lawrence realises and is trying to get nuggets of information to add to what he already knows. He even asks if he's going to be a spy, then calls him sleeper, this makes me wonder if he already suspects Lawrence is there to investigate. But something about him makes me trust that he doesn't have bad intentions.

Interesting first encounter with Bastien. Like Lawrence, I wondered if he was planning on jumping, but he seemed too cheery for that after Lawrence saw him. Maybe he's just good at faking being happy, being part of an influential family seems to involve perfecting faking skills. But I don't think so, something about it makes me think he wasn't about to jump. As for him being barefoot, I have no guesses. Bastien seemed very interested in Lawrence right away, like he wants to befriend him. But I got that impression since right when he met, which suggests he probably already knew something about him, so the school probably told them about the new student. Maybe he wants a friend that doesn't come from a posh background. As for Anton, that's an instant dislike, but him being an asshole doesn't mean he's a murderer. I won't guess it was him just based on that. Herr Becker's claim that his amenities are caused by the short notice stinks of a bad excuse. They put him on a tower separated from other rooms to remind him a person of so called humble provenance doesn't belong among what they see as his betters. That's a big load of bullshit, but, thankfully, it seems Lawrence isn't fazed and he already expected the class snobbism.

I read through the chapters you posted so far this week, I'll quickly comment on them all. Interesting premise, presumably mixing murder and mystery with high school drama is a curious combination. It probably won't be easy for someone who isn't from a rich family to get people to trust him on a posh and probably elitist environment. I'm going to stick to the basic rule of murder mysteries and assume the most obvious suspect, in this case the guy the Von Kellers suspect, is never guilty. Since that suspect, Bastien, was Lukas' boyfriend, I wonder if homophobia could a factor in the Von Kellers suspecting him.

Is this where kids, or sometimes grown up kids, say "first"? You weren't kidding when you said heavy, Jesus! A death out of nowhere is difficult, her being a child is worse. Unless I'm misremembering, she and Arrive were twins. It's already very hard for a kid to lose a sister, but his own twin is harder. Of course it hits everyone hard, but it's different for kids. It also hitting Malik this much shows that he already feels attached to that family. Rhaelce and Nirra feel guilty because they think they're supposed to protect the family, even though there was nothing they could do. And Malik does too because he wonders if she would have been alive if he hadn't done this or that. ut that line of thinking is awful for out mental health, plus he couldn't have predicted it. As for Malik's mom, who "sobbingly admitted that she wished it was Malik that had died, instead of her husband.", what the actual fuck? I don't care that she was grieving, there's things you never say and never even think. I have no words for what I think of that woman.

Time for me to comment on the actual correct chapter. “I don’t think you could do anything to make me stop talking to you” tells me how big Dylan's crush on Tyler is, damn. I have no idea what to even guess about where this storyline with Billy crushing on Dylan whose crushing on Tyler will go. With how much Tyler told Christine about Brandon, I wouldn't be surprised if she's close to figuring out he's the one Tyler is crushing on. Her suggesting Brandon if things don't work out with the mystery boy was funny. That was really a dick move from Tyler years ago, no longer hanging out with his friend just because he's not popular. And especially with him being bullied, he could have used the support. Thankfully, Brandon gives me the impression of being strong in regards to dealing with that. But he realised that now, he should apologise when they stop ignoring each other. Meanwhile, he decided he needs to do something about Brandon, but seems to not have decided to act on what he needs to do. The interaction with the tutor was funny, particularly his embarrassment at Tyler's sexual jokes. Him asking “Are you thirsty?” right after a sexual joke made my mind go in a different direction. The math teacher, though, is a dick. He gives me the impression of the kind of teacher that says stuff like "Only fifty percent of you will finish this class with any grade higher than a C" because they need to feel superior to compensate for something. He says "And I don’t have the time nor the inclination to coddle those that can’t keep up", but that should have been his job as a teacher. Noted, but I think you're fine. It's not that he already went far enough for me to hate him, I definitely don't like him, but I'm not that far yet. It's that it's clear that the kind of teacher that starts a class like this will give me reasons to hate him.

The word traditionally carried a negative connotation and was used only for women, but some people thankfully use it differently now. But that's bad in two ways. The first part is shaming people for their consensual sexual habits and the second part is discrimination against women when you consider people tended to not react in the same way when it was men doing it. So I'd encourage using without any negative connotation and for any gender, which I sometimes see nowadays.

Thanks for including the death story after my comment. The circumstances explain why they got so much money as a result. Everything went well the boys, they had enjoyable new years. I chuckled at them thinking they were fooling the adults, forgetting they know the tricks because they've been teenagers once. I appreciate that the future section wasn't all perfect for everyone, which makes it more realistic, but that things still eventually worked out. Not everyone was very successful professionally, not everyone had great personal lives, and not everyone married their middle school partner. But, even in the case of Seth, who went through something horrible, he still managed to get his life together afterwards.

But now I found a use for the comment that had ended up empty, I replied to one of the things you said in your reply to me in there. Specifically Dylan.

You're right, it's not just teenagers, adults do it too and it's most frustrating when it happens between couples. Good point, he did cause people seeing him this way, so he's a victim of his own mistake. But I still feel for him to some extent, even with it being self inflicted.

I'm going to leave a trail on the original comment for anyone who cares enough to figure it out.

No, I didn't know why Dylan was. I'm bad at remembering names, but I looked it up and holy shit. He's the allegedly straight guy from the cabin. This makes for a whole mess, I love it. This means Brandon suggested Billy not go after Dylan, but, unknown to him, leaves Dylan more free to go after Tyler, which Brandon very much wouldn't want him to if he knew that was a thing.

Christine flat out told Brandon she doesn't have a boyfriend but, considering how much of an asshole he continued to be to her, he probably didn't believe her and still thinks she's with Tyler. I hope I'm wrong because thinking Tyler has turned straight again plays into Brandon's worries about dating guys confused about their sexuality, making it harder to resolve this situations. Matt once again makes a comment about Tyler's father that the person he's talking to thinks doesn't match Mr. Scott. The difference this time is, unlike other people, Brandon will remember this. It doesn't mean anything to him now, but maybe it will if more evidence of something fishy about who Tyler's father really is comes up. Dylan is not very good at lying, his excuse for asking Tyler for a ride got blown way too easily. It sounds like's attracted to Tyler, but I think Tyler is too in love with Brandon to consider dating anyone else, so I don't know what to guess about where this plot is going. As for Devin, it's quite telling that even his brother, who is younger than him, thinks he's childish. I said in the previous paragraph that I think Tyler wouldn't date anyone besides Brandon at this point. He did call an ex-girlfriend, but that was different, he doesn't want to date her. That was a desperate attempt to convince himself he's straight because being gay would mean he lost Brandon. It failed epically, which had never happened to him before, so now he can't pretend Brandon isn't the cause.

Edit 1: Nevermind, I posted this comment on the wrong chapter. I'm going to move it to the right one. Edit 2: In an unfortunate timing, Jason replied while I was moving the comment. So, in case anyone wants to try to understand this, I'll eave a link to where I copy pasted the comment Jason replied to. https://gayauthors.org/stories/chapter/68512-part-one-its-not-you-its-not-me/#findComment-739864

How did we end up on lashings in a topic about good parenting? That's awful parenting!

It feels likes James' boss set up the situation to leave with no choice. It sounds like he knew the outcome was probably going to James taking over the project, but didn't tell him in advance of going to Toronto because he could try to push back against being away for so long. By waiting until the client already wanted him, it was too late for James to try to wiggle out of it. Things are going great with Evan, with both guys putting in the work, but I wonder if James' work situation could become a risk. With work forcing him to spend multiple weeks at a time away from Evan and giving him more responsibility, he needs to be careful to not risk dedicating too few of his time to Evan. He's doing great for now, but I wonder about a potential reversal of the past. However, after rereading the story summary, it sounds like it will go in a completely different direction from what I was saying above.

What do you mean offtopic? This topic is about parenting and you've been talking about Krista as you and Jason's mother. See, totally on topic. 😛

I don't know how me joking mentioning pineapple pizza somehow resulted in subscribing to bacon facts, but I'm enjoying it.

I know about that argument. The joke was I was agreeing to lay off of the pancakes vs crepes debates, while casually igniting two more heated debates at the same time. I expected people to read it as a joke, not actually start those debates.

That and the pizza comment were bait for the sake of humour (although I do like pineapple on pizza). According to the cube rule, as seen on https://cuberule.com/, a hot dog is actually a taco because it's covered in three sides.

Ok, ok, I'll lay off the crepes vs pancakes discourse and I'll go eat a pineapple pizza, or maybe a hot dog sandwich. 🫣

To be honest, it's probably only luck that landed us in this situation. There was a time when enough Portuguese adults couldn't read that would have justified dubbing. But the country wasn't in a good financial situation, so I think we stuck to subtitles because they're cheaper to make.

Sure, not at a young age. But, once they learn some English in school, the internet helps a lot, they learn faster because of it. But movies and series help here in Portugal, because we don't dub them, unless they're animated because young kids can't read the subtitles. So hearing English and reading Portuguese helps. Even if they're not paying active attention to the spoke words, some stuff still seeps in passively.

I meant to write straight guy, that was central to the point I wanted to make and I used the wrong word. I'm going to fix it.