Davide

Of course it makes it easier to know the basics in advance, although you can get by with English at the start in most places. But, past that, it's easier to learn a language when you hear it around you every day.

Stephen's parents took the news well, as expected, they love their son a lot and didn't seem like the fundamentalist type. All they wanted was to be sure he wasn't being taken advantage off, that's just parents protecting their son. But Stephen was very convinced it would go wrong, that has to be a big relief. Meanwhile, I understand Michael wanting to be careful. It would suck for him if he caught feelings, only for it to turn out Stephen was only experimenting and ultimately concluded he's straight. Which isn't the case, but Micheal can't read Stephen's mind. Stephen trusting Leon and Jeff to see him naked is a big step and a surprising one. Maybe knowing he finally has supportive friends makes him more likely to accept the risk of how they may react. Then Leon, in conversation with Jeff, uses a homophobic word. But I don't get any malicious vibe from the way he talks, I think he probably just doesn't know the word is offensive. This leads to a conversation that, unfortunately, fuels Michael's doubts because of how vehement Stephen is that they aren't boyfriends and then saying he doesn't know if he's gay.

Right, even though I read the other comments, I forgot she's a real person until you reminded me. True, it is a good quote. Plus I was joking, I can survive mentions of [redacted female body part].

The moment I saw the moderator approval thing, my reaction was "I think I know what word is causing this, I wish I could just retract the comment and submit a new one with a different word choice". I was mainly worried I might have been in trouble for using a word that isn't allowed, but now you're telling you approve it on mature rated stories, so I was fine in this case. Thanks for the clarification.

(Edit: Nevermind, what I said here is now irrelevant, but it seems I can't delete it.)

I like Christine. She says what she wants, I don't like it when people start hinting at stuff, I'm terrible at reading signs, except maybe if I already know the person very well. She's willing to listen to Tyler's Dilemma without blabbing about it to other people. She has a good sense of humour, “Are they going to come up for air sometime soon?” was hilarious. Plus she has great taste in tv shows, and so does Tyler, I love Community. Tyler is very honest with himself about his feelings and resulting confusion, which is refreshing. But, while talking to someone tends to help, it's not easy to do that and keep it a secret in a town where everyone knows everyone. That's why having someone new to town, Christine, is refreshing. Tyler is clearly not straight, even if he's not sure yet, but that still leaves gay and bi as options. Him not being interested in a woman he says has spectacular tits* could indicate he's gay, but not necessarily. Another option is him being so attracted to Brandon that no one else interests him anymore. The banter between Tyler and Devin is fun, I like the back and forth about Tyler doing this to help Devin. Devin saying "I got you a blowjob last night, fair is fair.” is the funniest part for me, considering they both know how much Tyler didn't want to do it. But it's all in good fun, they both knew Tyler would help out Devin and Devin would have done the same if the roles were reversed. It's a good friendship. *I can't believe you made me talk about spectacular tits on a website focused on gay male stories.

Noted, I'll remember it. Ah, so it's a scene you had in mind because of a real situation that you decided to put in a story, not something integral to the plot. I see. Damn, that sucks. I'm very sorry to hear that. I'm aware of what you said and what you didn't say. Brandon's parents are like yours, you didn't comment on the way Brandon acts towards them. But I stand by what I said about him, the burden of trying to reconcile things is on the people who acted wrong in the first place. The person who was wrong can attempt it, but they shouldn't be expected to.

It helps a lot to have an incentive to learn a language, such as having moved to country that speaks it or dating someone who has it as a native language. Without that, I'd get bored too. And learning English as a second language, which I did, is different because we need it for so many things.

I wish the story was being posted here so that we could talk about it. The more AwesomeDude gets ahead, the less I'll remember which chapters each of my thoughts were associated with.

@Jason Rimbaud on Encrypted chapter 2: "I can't binge this story as I have a very busy time right now". 9 chapters later, still on the same day: That's how you know the story is addictive.

I know "you absolutely kill me" is a common expression, but it's a funny one because it implies it's possible to partially kill you.

No worries, I know this story generated a lot of comments and that's on top of everything else you had going on. And yes, I'm looking forward to more of that.

The bullies ended up in juvy, great news. But I get how knowing that doesn't magically make everything fine for Bobby. Going through that was scary, so of course his natural reaction is to be worried about it happening again. The situation not even being about him means he had no reason to even worry about anything happening, there hadn't been any indication of bullies having something against him. Meanwhile, Pete was a good help, he had to trust Sam not to talk and he did it because of how much Steven helped him. Things then got tense between Sam and Virgil, but I wasn't worried about them breaking up, although I expected it to take a while for them to get over this. Thankfully, Virgil saw how much this hurt Sam and resolved it. But I get Virgil's reaction, he was taken by surprise, while Sam had time to think about it.

The truck in that one other story, I think it was Darren's New Life, was epic. Although I wouldn't wish something so final for teenager villains.

Brandon's father wants him to have dinner with them to try to have a normal family interaction with his son, but then he makes zero effort in attempting to make it remotely pleasant, so that was going to be a fail from the start. Admittedly, Brandon is very antagonistic from the start, but the difference is he has a good reason to be pissed, their homophobia. His father claims he moved on from those ideas, but I don't see him apologising, plus he doesn't deny Brandon's claim that he thinks his son is going to hell for being gay. If Brandon tried to be nicer, maybe his father would do the same and things would be better, but I can never place the burden of taking the first step on the guy who faced bigotry. I don't know why Brandon went to that cabin, wether he was there to do something and was distracted by what he saw or that's a spot stuff like this happens in and he was hoping to see something. Dylan feels a bit too insistent of not being gay, especially when he says "I can’t be gay". "Can't" is an interesting word to use, it makes it sound like he doesn't want to be gay, rather than him thinking he isn't. That being said, enjoying a blowjob from a guy doesn't make someone gay, a mouth is a mouth and there's a biological reaction. But it seems Billy is attracted to Dylan, considering he was crying at the end. It sucks for him, with Dylan, the guy he wants, seemingly being straight and having a girlfriend.

I really like that you have a scene with Michael exploring Stephen's body. While the masturbation is the catalyst to Stephen discovering he's gay or bi, this exploration is an important moment for them as what will eventually be boyfriends because, with Michael being blind, this is the only way he can get to know Stephen's body. It's a sweet intimate moment. Jeff is improving more than I expected, he even threw Stephen to the pool this time. Although he still used a homophobic word, but he apologised. We'll see if the military school helps or hinders his evolution in how he treats Michael and Stephen. Meanwhile, Stephen is already getting close to Pete and Alex. Him willingly showing his dick to his new friends is a big step because of his feelings about it. He's embarrassed about it's size, but yet he still does it. That willingness to do something embarrassing shows how much he trusts them, that's great to see. Of course Stephen and Michael were going to end up together, but Stephen figured out his sexuality quickly, after just one night sleeping in the same bed. So his isn't a case of a guy who thought he was attracted to girls and started to get confused after one night physically close to a guy. Maybe he would have known he's gay sooner if he had the opportunity to experience closeness with anyone that isn't family earlier in his life, but he didn't have friends. Stephen being worried about his parents' reaction is natural, but I think they'll be fine, they're very supportive of him.

There are machines in this world, but the people we met avoid them. So who built them and where are they? Maybe some advanced race once lived there, but then moved somewhere else and some machines got left behind. If the machines in the mountains including anything like the ones in the Hazardous room, no wonder they say they're dangerous, people being sent through a portal would just disappear from their perspective. But it could be anything, maybe even Earth technology sent through the portal Malik went through. Malik trying to fight them wouldn't end well for him, he needs to think of a strategy that goes beyond just fighting. But they're not going to let him go the mountains to see if the machines are useful for him, so he will have to escape at some point. I think, for now, the best he can do is stay with their hosts temporarily, while he studies their routine to try to find some kind of opening. A couple of them hate him, but they're balanced by the ones who think otherwise, plus the priest's order. They won't do anything too bad in these circumstances. The Selma look and Malik's bedroom was a cool way to communicate. But it also means that, although they lack technology, the priests have an ability human don't, one that's very useful to communicate with aliens (from their perspective, Malik is the alien).

Congrats, it's deserved. Comparing Encrypted, Black Sun and I'm Gay: A Nifty Story, it's crazy how fompletely different they are.

I only translated one sentence and Google Translate guessed Albanian. It's possible, and likely from what you said, that other sentences are meaningless in Albanian. That does sound difficult, but also interesting, and you did a good job of it in this chapter.

I do strongly prefer when characters who go through a lot of problems have at least one positive aspect in their lives, and Tyler has great supportive parents.

Pete and Alex are good guys. Martin warning them was a good idea for them to not be shocked but, with the way they acted, I believe them when they claim wouldn't have said anything mean, regardless. Jeff is still a dick, but it turns out the cause is him being an idiot. He was actually afraid of catching "the gay" via genetics, despite never having seen evidence of him having those thoughts, and afraid that Stephen's birth defects could be contagious like a freaking virus. The potentially good news about that is maybe Jeff can change if he learns he won't can't be "infected". While the military school punishment may seem harsh, we were told a couple chapters ago that the discussion at dinner where Jeff said some homophobic stuff was a "three or four times a month ritual", so his parents must have already tried everything else and it didn't work. Leon is fiercely protective of his brother and this chapter showed us the extent of that. Jeff was very confident on his ability to win a fight against Leon and maybe that would be true in vacuum, but it all changes when Leon has personal and important motivation, it gives him extra strength.

Absolutely! I can read between the lines. I'll be waiting for that trope with a different character when you go further back in time. But wait... When a character comes out as gay to his parents, uncles and grandparents pop out of nowhere to join his parents, forming a full on troupe to perform a dance number about not accepting him. My brain may need sleep.

Tyler was surprisingly okay with waking up to a guy grabbing his dick while poking him with a boner. It seems he enjoyed that and, like you told me in the previous chapter, he's not in denial because the reaction would have been very different. He's probably just genuinely unsure about his sexuality and that's fine, that sometimes takes time. As soon as Brandon said “Pissing on people doesn’t really do it for me”, I knew what was about come and I was waiting to laugh at Tyler's shock. Tyler is also discovering what he likes, not just which gender(s), it seems he's into smells. Tyler's parents were upset for a good reason, they just want to know he's safe. But they're great parents, they didn't take it far, they made their point and moved on. Even with the waffles, his mom only made him believe he wasn't going to get any for a short time before she started making them. The fake courtroom exchange was hilarious, I like that his mom immediately played along when Tyler called his father counselor. I lost it when Tyler got to the “My doctor informed me I should watch my dairy intake and absolutely avoid all processed cheeses" part.

Oops, how did I not quote this one? Thank you! That's wild. It felt like such a clear reference.

Noted, I'll make sure to not take funny retorts at face value. I'll reply to all three at once. I like to make theories, so I'll keep speculating about things I know will be answered later. I see on the confusion, that does fit better. Interesting on the dilemmas, I'll keep an eye out. Pretend I included the rest of the text, I cut it because there's no point in repeating everything. I was aware that Glacier Bay is a connected world but not the rest. Based on what I read of this story and the Christmas ones, I thought it was all separate stories that place in the same town and sometimes share characters. A connected story being told in reverse order is wild, I'm very curious to see that play out.