Black Widow (Story Discussion)

[methodwriter85]

And the thing is, JJ has built this squeaky-clean image of himself. Who are they going to believe- the oversexed slutty Senator's daughter, or the squeaky-clean Disney Friendly figure innocent-looking boy? And it feeds into the double standard- men can't help but be tempted into having sex with the femme fatale. JJ's just an innocent young boy who got seduced by a knowing, older female.

Edited August 29, 2015 by methodwriter85

[Headstall]

Just a thought, but I wonder if ED will threaten to attack Zach/Will by releasing the photos of them unless charges are dropped against ME? This could really escalate quickly with what the families know about one another. I really have the feeling Brad will try to take the initiative, and won't be so eager to make deals without extracting his pound of flesh. If I'm right, and the battle-savvy Brad has been awakened, He would be hard to rein in. Damn... I'm speculating again...

[impunity]

Just a thought, but I wonder if ED will threaten to attack Zach/Will by releasing the photos of them unless charges are dropped against ME? This could really escalate quickly with what the families know about one another. I really have the feeling Brad will try to take the initiative, and won't be so eager to make deals without extracting his pound of flesh. If I'm right, and the battle-savvy Brad has been awakened, He would be hard to rein in. Damn... I'm speculating again...

I think the only way the charges can truly be dropped is if JJ admits to lying about having had sex with ME, which would again damage his own image. Once the allegations have been made, it is the duty of the authorities to investigate a potential case of "child abuse".

[Headstall]

I think the only way the charges can truly be dropped is if JJ admits to lying about having had sex with ME, which would again damage his own image. Once the allegations have been made, it is the duty of the authorities to investigate a potential case of "child abuse".

Oh, yeah. Good point. The authorities would have to 'decide' not to follow through on the charges. But I guess anyone can be bought, especially those with political aspirations??

[mmike1969]

Not really. All JJ has to do is tell the authorities to drop the charges as it's been settled.

 

Look at Michael Jackson.

[methodwriter85]

Not really. All JJ has to do is tell the authorities to drop the charges as it's been settled.

 

Look at Michael Jackson.

 

Pretty much. And even if/when JJ drops the charges, MaryEllen is always going to have that label of "pedo" on her. Good luck navigating her new social scene with THAT label!

 

Again, this was just so brilliant on so many levels.

Edited August 30, 2015 by methodwriter85

[Timothy M.]

Good luck navigating her new social scene with THAT label!

 

Again, this was just so brilliant on so many levels.

 

Ha, ha, I can just see all the aristocratic British mothers hiding their teenage sons from her - although Alex would probably be the real 'danger' to their virginity.

 

For once I like the silly age of consent limits / laws of the US. Here it's 15, unless the other part is in a position of authority (teachers etc), then it's 18. So I'm always having to remind myself when reading or writing of US teens.

[davewri]

Let's not forget the long list of men who had sex with the under age Will.

[impunity]

Let's not forget the long list of men who had sex with the under age Will.

Ah, but Will would never do this. Too much to lose...like all his recurrent older lovers.

Edited August 30, 2015 by impunity

[imgoingslightlymad]

'Just a thought, but I wonder if ED will threaten to attack Zach/Will by releasing the photos of them unless charges are dropped against ME'

 

I think if that happened (and if it is all ED etc. [all the usual qualifications]) it would be bluffing, in the respect that ME (person whose interests that blackmail would be in) doesn't, as far as we know, have anything valuable enough to give ED to sacrifice just about her most significant card for. Even if the two have quietly allied, it will be in the interests of both parties, with neither likely to make any sort of sacrifice for the other. 

[methodwriter85]

I'm pretty sure Elizabeth's reaction was somewhere along the lines, "Well, you sure fucked up THAT plan, MaryEllen. Oh, well. Good luck on getting him to drop those charges, sweetie! I'm off to Cape Cod for the week to visit some of my college friends. Bye!"

[Headstall]

I can't see ED doing this ONLY for ME in the first place. I think there had to be something in this for her as well... revenge?...satisfaction?... regaining power? I don't think it's likely that she will bail so easily, and I would go so far as to suggest she was planning this kind of move against 'the family' for a long time. Maybe this whole thing is a distraction while she tries to accomplish something as yet undetected? Damn...I just can't stop speculating

[imgoingslightlymad]

I don't think Im trying to suggest that ED's doing anything for ME alone, and to be honest, I think it's more like this whole ME drama is part of something far more serious with ED  at the centre; there's something in ED's plans for ME rather than the other way around. I'm not suggesting she's bailing, but rather that a powerful card in her hand is unlikely to be wasted to save a fucked-up diversion with no real significance to her. I agree in thinking it is just a distraction, and something that's served its purpose now. ED knows when to cut losses she would have thought likely from the start.

Edited August 30, 2015 by imgoingslightlymad

[Headstall]

I don't think Im trying to suggest that ED's doing anything for ME alone, and to be honest, I think it's more like this whole ME drama is part of something far more serious with ED  at the centre; there's something in ED's plans for ME rather than the other wait around. I'm not suggesting she's bailing, but rather that a powerful card in her hand is unlikely to be wasted to save a fucked-up diversion with no real significance to her. I agree in thinking it is just a distraction, and something that's served its purpose now. ED knows when to cut losses she would have thought likely form the start.

I agree... I just want to add that Wade concluded ED was going to sacrifice Zach anyway, just for the sheer cruelty of it...

[Canuk]

I cant belive that the Black Widow herself wont have a plan B (and C and D for that matter). She hasntbeen is this game for as long as she h as without learning to take care of all contingencies.

 

So now we have three "combatants" for want of a better word.

the graingers; financialy probably the weakest but huge amount of societal clout and probably political as well.

JP and Stef (and family); finacially the strongest, but consistent unity has never been a strong point. Also quite a few skeletons that can be produced for neferious effect

The Black Widow herself. Main strength - a sense of purpose that could only be described as singular: revenge. Also she has manipulatable "plants" in both other families that she can work to her advantage seemingly at will.

 

All in all it looks like the scene is set for a wonderful read!

[Grienne]

I agree with the comments above. I think the point that Zach was to be sacrificed anyway is interesting.

 

What bothers me is that "the plan", as Wade discribed it, is doomed to failure regardless of what Zach does. Say everything goes as intended, he cuts off Will and Will doesn't come slash his tires... Zach knows he didn't do drugs. The moment that test happens zach knows he's getting screwed. At that point he'd have two choices: get help (probably from Frank or Wally) or likely lose his football career. In the former scenario, either Frank or Wally would almost certainly get the story out of him. In the latter, the blackmail is rendered useless without football to be considered and Zach has every reason to tell the whole story.

 

Wade is pretty rigorous, so it's hard to believe that he hasn't also considered that ensuring Zach goes down regardless means Trevor is implicated regardless.

 

On EDs motives, we should probably remember that at this point it seems ME may have more money than ED. To those that have a hard time believing she'd burn assets for ME, I think if ED is doing this for ME, she's doing it for more than the love of her child.

[imgoingslightlymad]

I'm not sure that Zach has really been sacrificed yet; the drug test is a significant problem, but with sufficient doubt/resources/legal intervention etc thrown into the mix, it seem unlikely to be fatal to his career. The arbitrary destruction of his career idea would ring more true of the pictures had been released, and ED's specific motive for wanting to harm Zach (aside from adding to a smoke screen) seems missing.

I like to think that ED is slightly too objective to be deliberately cruel without a significant personal benefit (aside from the sort of long-standing personal ABC-style feuds); it seems more like Zach disobeyed her, and her insurance policy had to be cashed. The photos are something she can still hold over Zach and, by extension, Will and his family, whose guilt/sense of responsibility is likely to motivate to sacrifice a lot to protect Zach.

It's interesting that Trevor is so easily implicated; if this whole thing is a sideplot then ED is unlikely to sacrifice someone so easily linked back to her, and if it has some crucial importance she'd be more eager to cover her tracks.  She might want Trevor to be found/implicated for whatever reason.

 

ME was given access to $50 Million as part of the dowry arrangement (I think?), despite ED losing her warchest etc, it seems hard to believe that Nana managed to leave her penniless when she's likely to have had significant amounts in her own personal trusts, and to have salvaged large amounts from the divorce (from original dowry & to offset the value of Goodwell)

[Kitt]

There is a possibility we all overlooked. Where did the compromising pictures come from? Perhaps whomever is responsible planned to pin the pics on Will? From a personal standpoint Will has very little to lose by the pics being made public. He is openly gay and the age difference is small enough to not be an issue. He does have a lot to gain by Zach being outed and his career ending. Perhaps BW had (has?) plans to blame Will for Zach's misfortunes?

[Headstall]

I reread the the conversation between Trevor and Wade, and I think it's clear ED is the one behind the pictures (although one ever knows with Mark ). He states pretty clearly that he will be ED's bitch as long as she is alive, and he was the one who showed the pictures to Zach. I think her plan of Isolating JJ makes sense. Zach was a way to occupy Will's attention, and the meth was a way to ease Zach's going along with the plan... scrambling his thinking. I think the drug test was evil retaliation for Zach telling Will. The pictures still have power on their own... maybe a killing blow to Zach's career that ED will use to her advantage... when they come after her...

[Mark Arbour]

I reread the the conversation between Trevor and Wade, and I think it's clear ED is the one behind the pictures (although one ever knows with Mark ). He states pretty clearly that he will be ED's bitch as long as she is alive, and he was the one who showed the pictures to Zach. I think her plan of Isolating JJ makes sense. Zach was a way to occupy Will's attention, and the meth was a way to ease Zach's going along with the plan... scrambling his thinking. I think the drug test was evil retaliation for Zach telling Will. The pictures still have power on their own... maybe a killing blow to Zach's career that ED will use to her advantage... when they come after her...

 

Only Elizabeth didn't know that Zach told Will, and that's what Wade is frustrated about. 

 

Imgoingslightlymad mentioned that the drug test may not be devastating to Zach's career, in and of itself.  I would think that the meth thing was Elizabeth's way of sending a warning shot across Zach's bow (to coin a George Granger-era term). 

[Timothy M.]

Only Elizabeth didn't know that Zach told Will, and that's what Wade is frustrated about.  

 

She would if she has a tap on Will's phone - or if she has someone informing her of Wade leaving Kenya.

 

Hmm I went back and checked, and Zach got called in for his drug test more or less at the same time Will was talking to Wade. Not even ED can act so quickly. But Julius could have informed her earlier about Will turning up and Zach leaving with him, and this might have been the trigger.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Timothy M.

[KevinD]

Timothy's last sentence is right on the mark, it would seem. It was Julius advising whomever in the ED chain, that Will showed up and apparently has been hanging with Will.

[PrivateTim]

Not really. All JJ has to do is tell the authorities to drop the charges as it's been settled.

 

Look at Michael Jackson.

 

It isn't up to JJ to "drop charges" unless he claims to have lied, then he opens himself to liability both criminally and civilly.

 

A more likely outcome is a lesser charge, a misdemeanor not requiring registration and a quiet dispensation; no time and unsupervised probation.

 

 

 I think the drug test was evil retaliation for Zach telling Will. The pictures still have power on their own... maybe a killing blow to Zach's career that ED will use to her advantage... when they come after her...

 

There is no way anyone could have set up a drug test that fast and that isn't how drug testing works in NCAA institutions. The actual programs (football, volleyball, etc) have zero input into when they occur.

[methodwriter85]

 

Thanks Tim. I haven't always liked JJ; it's taken me some time to warm up to him. When I write him, I have to be in the right frame of mind. Sometimes it's a challenge to do both him and Will in the same setting. Having said that, I'm getting my groove on where JJ is concerned, and I'm enjoying him more and more.

 

I think the inherent difficulty with you writing JJ is that he's really not anything like you- most of your lead characters have something about you in them, or they remind you of people you know. JJ is not really like anybody you've met before, or anybody that we've had in the story, and he's got this aloofness to him that makes him harder to understand and get into the mind of.

 

The other thing about JJ is that he's not a generous person, the way your usual CAP protagonists are. The story often gets driven by the fact that the CAP protagonists want to do what they can to help other people, while JJ is generally too self-absorbed to do that. Carullo is a step in the right direction, but it wasn't his idea to help the guy in the first place. This might be the first time I've seen JJ do something for somebody that didn't serve his own self-interests.

 

 

Great chapter. I've always been a JJ fan and I like him more and more. I hope we get to see more of him in subsequent books.

 

I think there are reasons why JJ has been a limited character until recent books...the biggest off all, I think, is that JJ's general tendency is to isolate himself. He might focus on one person, and then he shuts everybody else out. While that might work well for an indie drama film about an intense relationship that spirals out of control, that's not really something that can work for a soap opera like CAP. What I think has been interesting is that Mark has essentially written JJ on a three-year character arc, if you really think about. JJ in Millennium started out as a 14-year old diva, happy to be in his little skating bubble with Tiffany and Jeanine and the ice as his entire world. If JJ didn't like something, he could stomp off and hide away at the ice rink. I think the last three CAP years, Mark's basically stripped away all of that- JJ doesn't really have a safe little bubble he can hide in anymore. He can't even stomp off to the ice rink.

 

Also, as JJ put it, he's pretty "boring" in the general CAP sense. Not into casual sex, not into drugs, not into partying, etc etc. While that's a great thing he leads such a healthy lifestyle, again- it doesn't really jibe with the hedonistic fun vibe that CAP often gets.

 

I do get the feeling that Mark's having JJ work a little bit out of his whole Disney self-image...I can't see him EVER doing some of the shit that Will has done (namely performing a solo porn routine on an Italian club stage), but I do think Mark is getting JJ to be just a little bit less prissy. Because as Blue once said, a Disney guy just isn't going to cut it long-term as a CAP protagonist.

 

I do like JJ's conflicts about wanting to jump Carullo's bones, while at the same time, not wanting to date him and thinking that's wrong because of that. He spent 5 years of his life in the world of figure skating...he had to have taken on some of their values internally.

Edited September 4, 2015 by methodwriter85

[Canuk]

I cant belive that the Black Widow herself wont have a plan B (and C and D for that matter). She hasntbeen is this game for as long as she h as without learning to take care of all contingencies.

 

So now we have three "combatants" for want of a better word.

the graingers; financialy probably the weakest but huge amount of societal clout and probably political as well.

JP and Stef (and family); finacially the strongest, but consistent unity has never been a strong point. Also quite a few skeletons that can be produced for neferious effect

The Black Widow herself. Main strength - a sense of purpose that could only be described as singular: revenge. Also she has manipulatable "plants" in both other families that she can work to her advantage seemingly at will.

 

All in all it looks like the scene is set for a wonderful read!

 

Could I apologise to people for this comment?  I typed it on my Tablet and obviously its spell check and my powers of observation were on holiday; spelling/grammar/etc are appalling!