Who should Will wind up with?

[PrivateTim]

Okay..... so my thoughts are that Will needs to be with someone who compliments (supplements?) him; meaning Kai is compatible because of the surfing and a love of the ocean, Alistair is going to be a successful something because despite his diminutive stature I get an impression of toughness and determination.

 

Being Ryan's brother-in-law (Jeff) could be interesting and keep Ryan in the story.

 

Tony doesn't really matter since we all know he DIES in 41 days (right Mr. Arbour??)

 

I think Kai would be a good partner only if he goes on to get his college degree or becomes accomplished at something, ditto for Jeff. I can't see Will really being happy with someone who is not accomplished and just going to be a kept man.

Edited July 25, 2013 by PrivateTim

[methodwriter85]

   Will's in 10th grade. Let him at least be done with high school before we start thinking up lifetime partners for him.

 

I think Kai would be a good partner only if he goes on to get his college degree or becomes accomplished at something, ditto for Jeff. I can't see Will really being happy with someone who is not accomplished and just going to be a kept man.

 

     There are a lot of ways to be accomplished without having a college degree. While I can't see Will with a stupid guy, I think Will would have a broad view of what "accomplished" means.

Edited July 25, 2013 by methodwriter85

[PrivateTim]

Make up your mind Jeremy..... you are one of the ones who keeps pushing Will the Man Child, wise beyond years and mature and responsible enough to run his own affairs.

[methodwriter85]

Make up your mind Jeremy..... you are one of the ones who keeps pushing Will the Man Child, wise beyond years...etc etc

 

I don't really see how it's a contradiction. It's not about Will being too immature to settle down. It's more about letting Will figure himself out  what he likes as he gets older. Plus, the things you're attracted to change quite often.

 

When I was 15, I found punk/skater bois to be the hottest. At 25, I started finding 30-something preppy suburban dads hot. People change. Just because Will is more mature than your average 15-year old doesn't mean he won't have a different viewpoint(and things he finds attractive) when he's 25. I'm sure when I'm 35, what I'm attracted to will change again.

 

I will say though that I did think it was being set up for Will and Tony to wind up soulmates- it's such a common soap trope for legacy characters to wind up together, especially if you have the kind of backstory that Tony's dad and Will's grandfather have. But I'm not so sure about that anymore.

 

All that said though...I'm kinda rooting for either Jeff, or someone that we've never met. If Will settles down young like Jack and Claire did it's going to make things so boring.

Edited July 25, 2013 by methodwriter85

[MJ85]

Why don't you just push who you want Will to be with and leave it at that?

 

All things considered though, my answer would be G) I don't really give a fuck who Will ends up with, if he ends up with anyone at all!

[Mark Arbour]

I think that at this point, Will doesn't really want anyone, but that doesn't mean he won't meet someone special.  I think it will be a while before he really settles down, and most of the guys you listed (including Tony) have a lot of evolving to do, as does Will. 

[Miles Long]

It could be interesting to see Will deal with the challenges involved in a committed relationship.  I'm not suggesting a Brad/Robbie thing where boy meets boy and are cosmically bound in a category five hurricane love affair.  No, Will seems like he will be more like JP and Stef when it comes to love: a variety of casual encounters that vary from meaningless (guy a J Bar) to good friends with benefits (Jeff), with a couple/few deep emotional bonds with lovers that leave marks on his soul.

 

It could also be a grief sandwich, like many adolescent relationships.

[methodwriter85]

It could be interesting to see Will deal with the challenges involved in a committed relationship.  I'm not suggesting a Brad/Robbie thing where boy meets boy and are cosmically bound in a category five hurricane love affair.  

 

    I'm not sure Will could survive a Brad/Robbie kind of relationship. Look how badly he's reacted to Tony, and they didn't even have a committment.

 

   I think on some level, the drama IS part of who Brad and Robbie are as a couple. Brad would have never done well with a Max or someone else that didn't make things a challenge.

 

    Will on the other hand probably would settle down with someone who complimented him, rather than clashed with him.

[Westie]

I think we should see this in light of the Author;

 

Generation 1 (JP) is an idealized view of perhaps how the author himself wishes he could be.

 

Generation 2 (Brad) is more how the author is, and the fantasy of a life lead if it had taken a different course, or if missed opportunities had not been missed..  There are some startling parallels  between some Characters in "on the Mark" and "Be Rad", "man in motion" etc - regardless of whether they were intended as such.

 

We know that Mark stopped writing "on the Mark" because being autobiographical it was also painful (an experience I know all too well, as people who read my own story bfore I had it deleted will attest).  I suspect Generation 1 & 2 worked through those demons in a different way.

 

Generation 3 therefore (Will) is a Generation subjected to the full force of Mark's creativity.  Unlinked to real life (though, I suspect there are parallels to which we will never be party), Will can develop more in line with Mark's political and social agenda in terms of the world he creates.  With this in mind, I am doubtful that Will is going to "settle down" in the conventional sense in the near future.

 

That said, I have never discussed any of this with the author, this is entirely my own opinion (or indeed, fabrication) and so of course, I could be completely off base.

 

West

[methodwriter85]

I think we should see this in light of the Author;

 

Generation 1 (JP) is an idealized view of perhaps how the author himself wishes he could be.

 

Generation 2 (Brad) is more how the author is, and the fantasy of a life lead if it had taken a different course, or if missed opportunities had not been missed..  There are some startling parallels  between some Characters in "on the Mark" and "Be Rad", "man in motion" etc - regardless of whether they were intended as such.

 

We know that Mark stopped writing "on the Mark" because being autobiographical it was also painful (an experience I know all too well, as people who read my own story bfore I had it deleted will attest).  I suspect Generation 1 & 2 worked through those demons in a different way.

 

Generation 3 therefore (Will) is a Generation subjected to the full force of Mark's creativity.  Unlinked to real life (though, I suspect there are parallels to which we will never be party), Will can develop more in line with Mark's political and social agenda in terms of the world he creates.  With this in mind, I am doubtful that Will is going to "settle down" in the conventional sense in the near future.

 

That said, I have never discussed any of this with the author, this is entirely my own opinion (or indeed, fabrication) and so of course, I could be completely off base.

 

West

 

 

    That is incredibly insightful, and likely very true about how Brad serves as Mark's "life unlived". You're right that there are a lot of Be Rad parallels to On the Mark.

 

    And I think you're right that Will's generation is the one that he's making much more fictional. Part of it is because he doesn't want a repeat, another part of it is that the stories of men who grew up in the 1990's and the 2000's are just going to be much different than men who grew up in the 1950's/1960's or the 1970's/1980's. So closeted characters like Tony, while still being around, aren't really the rule anymore when it comes to masculine gay guys. And characters like Will, who've literally never been in the closet, pop up to show how the world has evolved enough that someone like Will can be openly gay by 8th grade and it's not a big deal. Then you're getting characters like John and Gathan, who are "murky" but don't run screaming into the closet. These are experiences Mark doesn't relate to as much, hence why there's more fiction here.

Edited July 26, 2013 by methodwriter85

[PrivateTim]

I think that at this point, Will doesn't really want anyone, but that doesn't mean he won't meet someone special.  I think it will be a while before he really settles down, and most of the guys you listed (including Tony) have a lot of evolving to do, as does Will. 

 

Well maybe at this point on August 1, 2001, but was six weeks ago (?) he was in St Louis and he was full ready to be Tony's boyfriend and just a year ago he was deeply in love with John and wounded when John hooked up with Zack. Will's "new" attitude really is new after a year of heartache with trying to find Mr. Right vs Mr. Right Now.

 

The question wasn't, who should Will settle down with right now at 14 (since he isn't 15 yet), but who would we like to see him wind up with. Stef and JP were an item when Stef was 16 or so when he first moved to Claremont, but it took another 30 years or so before they became a couple again.

 

 

I think we should see this in light of the Author;

 

Generation 1 (JP) is an idealized view of perhaps how the author himself wishes he could be.

 

Generation 2 (Brad) is more how the author is, and the fantasy of a life lead if it had taken a different course, or if missed opportunities had not been missed..  There are some startling parallels  between some Characters in "on the Mark" and "Be Rad", "man in motion" etc - regardless of whether they were intended as such.

 

We know that Mark stopped writing "on the Mark" because being autobiographical it was also painful (an experience I know all too well, as people who read my own story bfore I had it deleted will attest).  I suspect Generation 1 & 2 worked through those demons in a different way.

 

Generation 3 therefore (Will) is a Generation subjected to the full force of Mark's creativity.  Unlinked to real life (though, I suspect there are parallels to which we will never be party), Will can develop more in line with Mark's political and social agenda in terms of the world he creates.  With this in mind, I am doubtful that Will is going to "settle down" in the conventional sense in the near future.

 

That said, I have never discussed any of this with the author, this is entirely my own opinion (or indeed, fabrication) and so of course, I could be completely off base.

 

On the Mark remains my favorite Mark Arbour story and is the one that lead me to this site. I still hold out hope that Mark will finish it one day out of pure selfishness (my selfishness) because I'd love to know how young Mark got to where "old" Mark is.

 

I don't think think Will is unlinked to real life though, I think Will is directly linked to Teen Son Arbour and that pieces of TS Arbour are in many of the teen characters that we see, but especially in Will.

 

As to the question of who would I like to see Will wind up with, if I had to choose one person at this point it would be Alistair since I see a lot of JP in Alistair and I think he would be a good balance to Will's Brad tendencies and Alistair is someone that I could see being completely loyal and faithful. That might make for some boring stories in 2020, but I would be okay to trade off drama for happiness.

[B1ue]

I have a difficult time seeing Will with anyone, at this point. I never particularly bought Tony and Will, I see Jeff as even less likely, Kai would be rough going. And I figure John is mostly straight, but, then, I thought the same of Lark, and look how that turned out. In the end, I voted for "protagonist unknown," since I think Will will eventually hook up with someone close to his own age, once guys close to his own age actually catch up with him in terms of emotional and physical development. Actually, that's an interesting catch-22. Him dating Tony, while actually statutory rape, is less likely to be remarked on by strangers, because Will passes for so much older; while if he dated Alastair right now people would accuse him of being predatory. And, considering their relative development, it would actually be kind of true.

 

Maybe he needs to date women for a bit. They stereotypically develop faster than boys, yeah?

[mmike1969]

Pick someone. Give a name, any name. Will falls madly in love and stops being a slut.

 

Then on September 12, he goes in deep depression requiring a hospital stay because he tried to kill himself.

 

Yeah. I like where this is going.

[centexhairysub]

Okay, I actually wanted to vote for some as of yet unseen protagonist but really feel that is not in the spirit of the poll...  Of those listed, I really think that only Alistair is the kind of person that Will would really be with in the long term.  I think that John is basically straight but will play on the side; I actually could see him with Tony, if Tony did major amounts of therapy and dealt with his issues but...; I just don't feel that Jeff is a fit for him; and while I really like Kai, I don't see him growing to the level that Will would require to stay with him forever, Kai may go to college or may not but he will never leave Hawaii and will never really do anything more than surf.  There is certainly nothing wrong with that but it isn't what is going to hold Will at 35 to him...

[Mark Arbour]

Okay, I actually wanted to vote for some as of yet unseen protagonist but really feel that is not in the spirit of the poll...  Of those listed, I really think that only Alistair is the kind of person that Will would really be with in the long term.  I think that John is basically straight but will play on the side; I actually could see him with Tony, if Tony did major amounts of therapy and dealt with his issues but...; I just don't feel that Jeff is a fit for him; and while I really like Kai, I don't see him growing to the level that Will would require to stay with him forever, Kai may go to college or may not but he will never leave Hawaii and will never really do anything more than surf.  There is certainly nothing wrong with that but it isn't what is going to hold Will at 35 to him...

 

One of the problems with trying to think that far out is that all of these guys are a work in progress.   It's hard to know what Jeff will be like when/if he finishes college and burnishes his self-esteem, or what Tony might be like after therapy (if he gets it).  And you really made an excellent observation about Kai, because while he and Will connect well, their relationship is pretty much based on surfing and sex.  Not sure that's the vital thing when you're 35. 

[methodwriter85]

 

One of the problems with trying to think that far out is that all of these guys are a work in progress.   It's hard to know what Jeff will be like when/if he finishes college and burnishes his self-esteem, or what Tony might be like after therapy (if he gets it).  And you really made an excellent observation about Kai, because while he and Will connect well, their relationship is pretty much based on surfing and sex.  Not sure that's the vital thing when you're 35.

And of course, even in present time, Will is only not-quite 27 years old. I know a fair amount of guys that are married and settled down at 27, but I also know a fair amount of guys at that age that are still totally playing the field.

[Daddydavek]

From the discussion including the input from the author I get that it is likely to be sometime before Will settles down with his forever love and that makes sense.   Most intelligent people expect that they need to finish their education and get a little experience before they are ready for lifetime commitments.  While it is true that life happens and you could meet your soul mate at anytime, most young people are just looking for some happy relationships, not a permanent ball and chain.  

 

I picked a "yet unknown protagonist" upon visiting the thread and I just hope Mark continues to write so that I can see that someday.   

[Canuk]

I agree that it is probably way too early to tie Will down to one person, but I can imagine that he ends up with someone he already has met (my guess is Alistair) ultimately getting together years or a decade further on.  Will is going to need an intelligent partner, he is going to need someone who is not his lapdog, he will need someone that keeps him interested, physically and emotionally. No matter how good the sex is with Tony - it is no basis for a long term relationship.