PrivateTim

How anyone can remember when "bitchin'" or "rad" (was it Summer of '85, Fall of '91?) is beyond me. I suppose I could dig my junior high and high school yearbooks out of the closet in my room at my parents house and see what the comments were. It is easy with the pop phrases that come out movies ('show me the money', 'a frickin' shark with lazers'), but even if I can remember what year I first said "gnarly" that doesn't mean that word was endemic to California, So Cal or even Los Angeles. Beach kids talked different from Valley kids (818ers), barrio kids, ghetto kids and Inland Empire kids. A word or phrase that was popular at the beach in 1995 might not have reached Claremont (CA) until 1997, by which time it was no longer popular at the beach. Kids at Menlo would have a very different local vernacular than Harvard Westlake kids, not a lot of words, but some, but when someone like Will shows up he will bring the latest So Cal/Malibu words to the Menlo School and when he is with Ryan and Alistair he'll use the new Menlo words that are part of his new vernacular they will take that to HW. If I can retire soon maybe I'll take up a study of how slang words spread.

I'm not buying the defication Tony is slinging. Rome is a very romantic city especially to an EYE-talian American. It took Tony a week solid of carnal peccadilloes with Will (and the absence of the Standfurd girlfriend and Stanfurd social circle) to drop the "L" bomb on Will. Until they are back in Palo Alto and Tony drops the GF, they are an official couple and Tony is comfortable with the whole hand holding routine in Cali, I am not buyin' it one bit. Hopefully Will won't either. (but despite the big body, emancaipation, blah blah blah, he is still a 14 year old and maturity comes through experience not a piece of paper from the Superior Court of California)

Seriously...... you just know that Roberto is Vincenzo's boyfriend. I still don't like Tony. He is my #1 candidate for 9-11 tragedy. I'd have been impressed with his "I love you" declaration if it had been the first day in Rome BEFORE they fornicated, not after a week of hanging out in Rome when it is easy to get all emotionally sucked in to the person, the setting etc. What will it be like when they are back at Stanfurd? Talk is cheap but the Grand Hotel De La Minerve ain't, does Tony's family have money?

I don't know if I agree with all of that or none of that, but it was an interesting read and if we could just get Arbour to make Erik a wherewolf and Kyle a vampire we'd have the start of a hit series of books and three picture movie deal......

I won't speculate on what Marie's motivations were or how the overhearing happened because there just isn't enough information. But I do agree with you on Claire because she is a straight shooter. I don't see her telling Will what do or even offering advice, but to ask Will questions that help him to understand and calrify what it is that he really believes. A point I meant to make earlier was that if Will really thought he was doing the right thing or an okay thing, he wouldn't have been mad at Maire & John in the first place.

Well except only you know the exact circumstances of HOW Erik came to hear Marie and John talking about Will and Kyle. It would have been one thing for Marie to run to Erik as a friend and say, "OMG Kyle is drilling Will", but pretty different if John is saying, in what he thinks is a private conversation, "you need to lighten up on Will" and Marie replies, "well he shouldn't be intercoursing Kyle" and Erik overhears. Marie isn't betraying family loyalty in that case, she is being careless, maybe even thoughtless, but not committing an overt act like Will is. That bitch Carmen will bite your ass every time. I am sure Marie has ethical issues but the old playground code of no one likes a snitch takes precedence. If what Will was doing was outright dangerous (mainlining smack) I am sure she would have gone to Claire, but this didn't rise to that level. But there is a good conversation starter, what WOULD Claire have said to Will?

So the first three chapters are a great example of what I am talking about with Will when I talk about ethics and moral philosophy (not religion Jeremy, ethics and moral philosophy). Will wants to create moral and ethical standards of his own whereby inserting yourself in someone else's relationship is okay because it isn't your responsibility to keep them faithful, but betrayal is bad. If Will really believed what he was doing was fine and morally acceptable then he wouldn't have needed to worry about John and Marie talking about it, because if what he was doing was ethically okay then everyone else would think so too. I am surprised no one has brought up how hurt and betrayed Will felt when John was pounding the hell out of Zach. I am surprised Will doesn't remember how hurt and betrayed he felt when he found John plowing Zach, maybe John will remind him. That karma is real bitch when it bites you in the ass. Will wants to judge Marie for her gossiping, Brad for his control issues, Hank as a gold digger, and others for their foibles, but in a world where everyone gets to choose their own ethical standards you have to then live with the choices others make unless you are willing to acknowledge that there ought to be agreed upon standards of ethical behavior and you do have some responsibility to behave within some set of boundaries.

Wow, the chapter came so quickly I didn't even notice it! I wonder how Julian (beta reader from Paternity) feels about his flouncy namesake It is about time we had a flamer in CAP though, especially a young flamer, because it raises so many issues in the gay community. And no, I don't considerate Stef a flamer...... he is French, which while it is pretty much the same thing, is still different. Good to see the names Alistair and Ryan come up, I love their characters and love that Will actually has friends his own age. I assume at some point we get to see Jeff & Ryan interact? Do we know if Ryan now knows he has a half brother? I forget if that was addressed in the last story since it was Paternity, not Maternity. It is nice to JJ getting back to normal, or as normal as a nationally ranked athlete can be. I am not overly worried about the Hank character yet, Hankis just being a cop, who like all cops is used to having people be intimidated and defer to them. On the good side she can provide Jeannie some much needed structure, on the bad side she could dominate too much so her indivaduality is submerged, and that would be healthy.

Great set-up for the actual 9-11 day, any number of characters can/will be in NYC the day of the attack. I agree with B1ue on Marie, but for a different reason that I'll expound on more in the forums, the gist is though, Will wants to set up his own moral code and his own standards of right and wrong, he doesn't want to have to conform to traditional standards of right and wrong. But I am not sure that even Will thinks his conduct was okay, again, more on that in the forums.

Actually Chapter 3 got published so quickly I thought it was Chapter 2, even the notice in my email, I get so many GA updates of the stories and authors I follow, I delete most of them out of hand.

You are the only person talking about "religion". I keep talking about ethics, morality and the philosophy associated with those and you keep yammering on about "religion". Mark has laid out many philosophical viewpoints and lots of moral and ethical dilemmas whether or not you choose to recognize it or acknowledge it. From JP conking the campus cop on the head all the way through Erik punching Will in the nose CAP has been full of actions that occur because of someone's ethical and moral point of view even if the person doesn't understand or even acknowledge that that is what they are doing. And yes Mark it is literature and a monumental work at that. Ditto for Odyssey.

CAP is literature not a soap opera and it has had morality, philosophy and ethics all through it. Bizarre that you do not recognize that.

Mere Christianity isn't about religion per se, it is a discussion of morality and right and wrong and where the understanding of right and wrong come from from a series of radio broadcasts that Lewis made during WWII when the outcome of the war was very still much in doubt. The Dream Weaver is 14 year old Ian's walk through philosophy, morality and ethics. A journey young Will, also 14 should embark on. Since Jack starting writing the novel in 2001, Will very well could have been the model Bowen used....... interesting.

Maybe Will will read Mere Christianity at Menlo, or even just an excerpt from "The Law of Human Nature" before the epiphanies bite him in the ass again. Hopefully Ian, er I mean Will, will be in water polo coach Jack Bowen's philosophy class and read Bowen's first novel, The Dream Weaver.

Okay.... so not sure what I am missing here but it was BOOK FOUR and you READ IT (and assuming you read the first three as well). Hope you have a safe word.

There was a time when "Do unto others, as you would have them to unto you" was more important than "Do your own thing baby".

The difference is Will seems to know it is wrong and he was hunting for outs...... it didn't occur to him in the other instances because the circumstances were so different.

Not the same, Will had Tony before the chick did and Kristin was mostly out of the picture. The encounters with Gathan were random things, not a twice a week scheduled event with someone you go to school with and see everyday. You have to know when you are peeing in your own pool you're gonna get popped sooner or later and with ramifications far beyond the one offs.

Will's rationalization of sleeping with Kyle because it is Kyle's job to say no and not cheat on Eric seems out of character for Will. Will might be a slut, but he's never been a shithead and I think sleeping with someone you know to be in a relationship a shithead thing to do. Glad the story is back.

I am all for JJ being the narrator if Chapter 1 is like my favorite BBC drama, "Death of Mary, Queen of Scots" <media>

PrivateTim, on 01 Apr 2013 - 22:09, said: Actually my Mom always said "the truth will out" and Grannie said "handsome is as handsome does".

You shouldn't call Jeremy names...... he can't help his rantings (as he's already admitted), nor his delusions.

And yet he is still twice the President with half the deficit of the Bamster.

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