PrivateTim

Well lots of confusing stuff here..... people's personal feelings about Zach were formed based on Zach's actions. I would say that has been a very fair judgment. Zach made his bed, now he has to lie in it. He has to work extra hard just to get back to neutral, let alone get people to trust him. You (and others) are willing to cut Tonto slack because she believed she was protecting Stef, but you won't give that same benefit of the doubt to Brad. Who is Will being fair to? Certainly not Wally and Clara who he has completely disregarded. He didn't even have enough regard for them to hear their thoughts on why Zach should or should not have a car. Will decided on his own that he knew best (as he always seems to believe) without hearing any contrary opinions and acted thoughtlessly. Everyone seems to think Brad has control issues, but no one has more control issues than Will who believes there should be no controls of any kind on him. He gets to act as he pleases because he knows more than anyone else. That is the arrogance and ignorance of youth. Actually I love Will and love him as narrator, but that doesn't mean I think he should be free to do exactly as he pleases disregarding anyone elses opinions, feelings or authority. Wally and Clara don't have to allow Zach to have the car. They are his parents and they can remove it if they choose. Zach doesn't have the resources to get emancipated, Wally & Clara wouldn't consent anyway and absent abuse or danger to Zach, no court would grant it. I would believe that Will was growing and maturing if he had gone to Wally and Clara and talked to them first. I believe a "good person" would have more regard for the feelings of Wally and Clara than Will exhibited. I am also not saying Will won't get there, but I see buying Zach a car without consulting any of the adults involved, a step backwards, not forward. Happy Thanksgiving to all the 'mericans and happy random Thursday to everyone else

No, you don't need a car to get in trouble, but getting a car opens the door to even more possibilities. It is like handing a book of matches to a toddler and being surprised when he starts a fire. I also don't get the deification of Tonto. She did grow into a wise woman, but have we forgotten how she reacted to JP and Stef initially? And she was a woman fully growed then, not a 15 year old who has led a rather insular life. It took awhile for her to get there. I am not ready to cede the moral high ground or wisdom of the ages to a callow youth yet.

Man I hope your son is paying attention to this "teens know better than their parents" thread. Pay backs a bitch

Happy cold Thanksgiving to you too rjo. If Wally and Clara didn't care about Zach, I they'd have turned custody over to the CPO in Claremont and washed their hands of him. My issue is that Will didn't even consult anyone else. He is a 15 year old making decisions on his own with no guidance. I think it is great when Will rights wrongs like with Kai's dad and some of the things he has done, but a 16 year old not having a car at his elite prep boarding school isn't exactly in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Children No one giving Zach a chance? Wally and Clara have allowed him to go to an elite prep school in New Jersey. Wally & Clara are raising Zach and they didn't have to do that. What is mature in the situation is precisely talking to Brad and Wally & Clara. What is immature is not talking to them because you assume you know the answers. You assume you know better than them why Zach doesn't have a car. He hasn't even heard from Wally & Clara why Zach doesn't have a car, but Will decides on his own he knows better. Does Will even know the school rules at Don Bosco about who can and can't have a car?

Here is my review because they are some of the issues I want to discuss. I get why Gathan is mad, but why Brad? You'd think after 9-11 trivia wouldn't bother him. Will has the money and buying someone a car at his net worth is like someone else buying an expensive meal. I can see Brad being worried about Will being taken advantage of, but you'd think that would be a casual conversation to do a check on Will's well being not an occasion to get pissed off. If it makes things difficult with Wally & Clara for Brad, then he needs to sit Will down and talk to Will the emancipated minor and talk about seeing more than what is right in front of you.On one hand what Will did was generous, on another it was rather self centered and disrespectful. Zach is still in Wally & Clara's care and they should have been consulted before Will went behind their backs to buy him a car. They could have any number of reasons they didn't want Zach to have a car at that school and that is their call, not Will's. Will has flashes of maturity, but doing what he did to Wally & Clara is sign of immaturity. He owes them an apology. ***revised an extended. Austin was a nice addition, but I still like the younger, shier guys like Cam and obviously much prefer the swimmer/polo player body to the football type.

I get why Gathan is mad, but why Brad? You'd think after 9-11 trivia wouldn't bother him. Will has the money and buying someone a car at his net worth is like someone else buying an expensive meal. I can see Brad being worried about Will being taken advantage of, but you'd think that would be a casual conversation to do a check on Will's well being not an occasion to get pissed off. If it makes things difficult with Wally & Clara for Brad, then he needs to sit Will down and talk to Will the emancipated minor and talk about seeing more than what is right in front of you.On one hand what Will did was generous, on another it was rather self centered and disrespectful. Zach is still in Wally & Clara's care and they should have been consulted before Will went behind their backs to buy him a car. They could have any number of reasons they didn't want Zach to have a car at that school and that is their call, not Will's. Will has flashes of maturity, but doing what he did to Wally & Clara is sign of immaturity. He owes them an apology.

I get what you are saying, but that is not where this conversation started. It was specifically about Jeremy's comment about JJ being rude to Kai's dad and specifically because the father was disabled and I will repeat that I don't see anything about JJ to indicate he would be rude to an adult and especially not one in a wheel chair. I can see JJ being rude to Zach because he is family of a sort and a peer. I can maybe see him being unthinking towards Kai, but not necessarily rude. I don't think we've seen enough of JJ and his interactions with people outside the family and skating world to make the kind of comment Jeremy did. Maybe it was just a throwaway comment, not meant to mean a lot, but I thought it an unnecessarily harsh judgment towards JJ based on nothing.

To me there has never been an indication that JJ would be rude to someone who was disabled. Rude to fellow skaters, sure, rude to family members, okay, rude to other people in the inner, maybe; but not to strangers, not to fans and not to someone who was less advantaged.

It sounds like you are implying that JJ would react rudely or badly and I don't get where that notion comes from. JJ may have been a bit self involved or self important the last couple of years, but nothing suggests he would be mean or rude to people or that he doesn't know how to behave towards strangers no matter the circumstances.

I am not saying Zach is kind or generous, I am saying Zach is like most people, much more complex than the one dimensional character we've seen up to now. We've seen that he has genuine feelings and that maybe part of the persona we've seen so far are his defense and coping mechanisms. His evaluations of his cousins and siblings seemed honest, which I'd rather hear than flowery BS, even if they are catty. His perceptions form how he acts and reacts. I forget how old Zach is now, say 16, by the time he is 25 and then 30, his $1,000,000 trust will be considerably more by the time he reaches 25 and then 30. With the time value of money, by the time he hits 30, even in a conservative portfolio his trust could be spitting out over $200,000 in income.

Here was my review of the last chapter..... so go read the chapter before you read this.... A most brilliant chapter. The characters are so real, vibrant and deep. Zach is no longer a one dimensional douche, he is a normal, confused, scared, belligerent, horny teen. He sees Gathan as the manipulator, so now we have doubts about Gathan's purity. Gathan's comebacks now we doubt if Zach was sincere, but not too much because Will picked up on the clues in Zach's body language and moist eyes as he was leaving. So it seems maybe Zach is just an ordinary guy who wants to be loved and accepted, but doesn't really know how to properly express himself given the time and culture he grew up in. I loved the cute little scene with John and JJ, but I wish JJ had explained to John what was going on. I assume John and Marie don't know JJ was molested, just Jack and Claire. It would be nice to see John and JJ get closer and John be someone who is there for JJ because he wants to be. Looks like Brad and Stef are moving to make a killing in the aftermath of 9-11. It isn't predatory, its business. I know of a couple of billion dollar companies that were bought essentially pennies on the dollar, but the thousands of the employees of those companies didn't care that the investors lost their shirts or that their stock options were now worth zilch when they had been millionaires on paper a year earlier, they were grateful to have jobs and that the companies lived on.

A most brilliant chapter. The characters are so real, vibrant and deep. Zach is no longer a one dimensional douche, he is a normal, confused, scared, belligerent, horny teen. He sees Gathan as the manipulator, so now we have doubts about Gathan's purity. Gathan's comebacks now we doubt if Zach was sincere, but not too much because Will picked up on the clues in Zach's body language and moist eyes as he was leaving. So it seems maybe Zach is just an ordinary guy who wants to be loved and accepted, but doesn't really know how to properly express himself given the time and culture he grew up in. I loved the cute little scene with John and JJ, but I wish JJ had explained to John what was going on. I assume John and Marie don't know JJ was molested, just Jack and Claire. It would be nice to see John and JJ get closer and John be someone who is there for JJ because he wants to be. Looks like Brad and Stef are moving to make a killing in the aftermath of 9-11. It isn't predatory, its business. I know of a couple of billion dollar companies that were bought essentially pennies on the dollar, but the thousands of the employees of those companies didn't care that the investors lost their shirts or that their stock options were now worth zilch when they had been millionaires on paper a year earlier, they were grateful to have jobs and that the companies lived on.

Should you be writing and posting stories to amuse me and not dilly dalling, shilly shalling around forums??

Yes, but they mentioned the Navy and Naval Aviators. No one mentioned the USMC or SEALs.

But what you are talking about is anecdotal, your personal experience, not some big, generalized effect that was happening in "Los Angeles". There was no great wave of anti-brown person discrimination in a city with a white (not Hispanic or Latino) population of less than 30% and certainly not in the circles that Darius travels in. Could a Darius get an odd comment from an individual, sure, but so could anyone for any reason. There were not reports of widespread (key word, 'widespread') anti-Islam incidents in So Cal. Even nationwide the anti-Islam "hate crimes" did spike, but even spiking post 9-11 they were still less than half of the anti-Semitic incidents. Uh.... uh..... where do you think Marine Corps officers come from? There are also SEAL teams in Afghanistan & Iraq constantly. And a large number of Navy helicopters that have gone down.

Things would be very different for Darius for a variety of reasons. 1) He is rich. 2) He is only half Persian and is native born so he doesn't talk funny or dress funny and his looks are exotic, not easily pinned as "A-Rab" (and yes, Persians ain't A-Rabs) 3) He is rich. 4) Los Angeles, especially West LA and UCLA/USC has a huge Persian population that moved here when the Shah fell in '78-'79 so the area is full of guys who looked like him, in his age range, all native born Angelenos and I never heard of a single violent act in Los Angeles in the immediate post 9-11 period. In fact I think there were surprisingly few given the magnitude of the act. 5) He is rich and good looking. I am curious where you think Darius would get comments or have doors closed to him especially in L.A.?

Your numbers are very misleading, of the 24, 219 dead on the "allied side", only 4,805 were the foreign coalition, and most of those were U.S. troops. The huge majority, 16,000 plus are the Iraqi Security Force that came into being after the actual combat war (overthrow of Saddam) ended and the battle for post war power began. JP is not a professor emeritus is he? Isn't he still actively teaching even if he is no longer department chair? In any case, Iraq did not come up until 2003, it was Afghanistan that was the immediate focus in 2001 with the invasion starting three weeks after 9-11 and it was then that passions were running high. Maybe if the kid that Darius gave up his appointment for died in combat, Darius would feel guilty that it should have been him and then he goes to OCS.

I think, "It Started With Brian" is one of the finest stories ever written. https://www.gayauthors.org/story/dank/itstartedwithbrian Love the stories of Dom Luka and Mark Arbour, they are definitely a cut above. And the stories of Cole Parker. http://awesomedude.com/coleparker/index.htm I also loved Lem. It was one of the first gay stories I ever read that wasn't stupid. It opened my eyes to the idea that there could be great literature in gay stories. https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/user/14603-milos/

It isn't the point of the book. It is the point of the movie. It made millions.

What a narcissistic, self involved, self important twit. You can see this performance art nightly on Cam4, Chaturbate, Omegle and probably a dozen other sites or more. And he is butt ugly to boot.

I don't think most families have that dynastic outlook. If there was in the Hayes Family, it seems to me Frank is the obvious titular head. Its not just the "Danfield way" it is not the way I'd ever let one of my athletes to act for a variety of reasons. 1. It is bad sportsmanship. Athletics is supposed to teach you about winning and losing with grace so you can learn those lessons in life. Showing sportsmanship doesn't mean you like losing or playing badly, it should be a motivator, but internally. 2. I would NEVER let an opponent see how much I hated losing, it is like letting them see a weakness. 3. It displays a lack of discipline and self-control and a big part of the educational value of sports is to learn those two things.

My previous "Why I Love GA" has been archived. https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/34340-why-i-love-ga/ So here is part 2 of why I really appreciate Mark so much. I've been reading another story in the 9-11 slowdown and I've genuinely enjoyed it. I have noticed a couple of things though, one is that the writer only seems to care about accuracy in the story as it relates to topics that interest them and another thing is they don't respond to each and every review as Mark does. I think it is amazing that Mark cares enough to respond to each review and even when he is criticized, thanks people for the feedback. I also think it is amazing that Mark cares enough to care about accuracy and that details matter. Way to go Mark!

Ethan

Great chapter and lots of new potential storylines, I love that! Nice to see Brad healing a little..... and still hope to see Will spend time with Cam before we move on to the next book

The question is not is it consensual, the first question is is a 13 year old mature enough to consent, the second question is is promiscuous sex for a 13 year old healthy, not merely sex, but promiscuity. In the Supreme Court ruling that banned execution of juveniles (Roper v Simmons) the court relied on and cited the immaturity of those under 18. Here is a short quote from that decision: The law recognizes that juveniles have a diminished capacity to make good decisions, often make bad ones and are susceptible to outside influences. That is why there are age of consent laws and other laws that deal with the age of majority. Can you point me to the studies that German legislators relied on in deciding that 14 was the appropriate age at which to consent to sex? If you read the footnotes and the amici briefs in Roper, you can read the studies that helped inform the Court on the recklessness of youth. Do you seriously not see a difference in sex with someone else and whacking off? Has anyone ever gotten an STD from their right hand? Been wounded emotionally by their right hand when the right hands ignore them at school the next day? Been outed by their right hand? Gotten their right hand preggers? The "deal" with consensual sex is as it relates to a 15 vs 20 year old is obviously does the 15 year old have the necessary maturity to consent and does a 15 year old have the resources and maturity to deal with the consequences of sex (disease, pregnancy, psychological effects, etc).