PrivateTim

I hope Will gets stuck on the MTA and never returns.

He is a snot-nosed kid. Is Will mad because he cares about Jeanine or is he mad because someone said "no" to him? I am not convinced it is out of care for Jeanine, but it is personal pique. Will is a selfish brat. As I said above, I am not convinced he genuinely cares about Jeanine. I could go back abd dig up his rants about "she never loved me", "she attacked me", "I want her out of my life", and so on. That getting people out of your life cuts both ways. I don't think he really cares. I think he is upset someone told him no. The answer is no. He will be the same petulant, my way or the highway, spoiled, petty Malibu Colony kid he is right now. Maybe if CAP moves forward fast enough we will get to see Will in real time. He'd be approaching his 37th birthday in a couple of weeks (Sept 14), but in The Gap Year, the current series, he is still 17 and months away from 18. I don't blame Mark, these characters have to be terribly fun to write, especially in the ages/stages they are in. I just haven't seen any huge improvement in Will and his ability to deal with others or empathize with people not like him from his life of power and privilege. Damn straight skippy. Will needs to experience life outside his bubble. Perhaps dorm life will do that.

Oh Mr. Arbour has some very special things in store for Mrs. Garrett.... Without access to huge amounts of money or power through Jeff, Elizabeth is like a rattler with its fangs removed..... it can just make menacing noises.

Luscious is the only way to describe this chapter. It gets richer and sweeter with every rereading.

As I said before, it will be very easy because the drugs they have her on to keep her loopy will be ones with zero therapeutic value. There isn't going to have to be some big chemical analysis of the pills, because they will be known drugs, just not ones appropriate to treat an alleged dementia patient. They also have the nurse, who knows what she has been giving to Nana and why. She should be easy to turn given the legal problems she is facing.

I just love Nana, she is a kick in the pants, a Southern version of Gail.

OMG I crack me up 😁 “She’s running away and pouting,” I said, chuckling at what a drama queen she was being. Said Wil with zero self-awareness.

“Only it’s not. I’m not going to be everyone’s God damn punching bag,” I said resolutely, with perhaps a bit too much volume. “I’m going to make sure these people understand I’m not putting up with their shit.” Simple. Don't move into Escorial. Get your own apartment. Then you don't need to deal with any of them. “I understand what you were saying, and I get that you were directing a lot of that at me, but I want you to know that it really hurt my feelings.” Hold on there bucko. You just said how much you loved the truth and you swore your fealty to it just last chapter. So what if John Paul hurt your feelings, he told the truth and I thought that was the most important thing to you. Yeah, I calculated it at thirteen whole minutes without him getting mad or annoyed and losing his temper.

“He doesn’t want to control everyone else’s life, but he wants to control his own. He’s fiercely independent.” Absolutely not true, Will DOES try to control other people's lives, as I point out often and loudly in many chapters, yet to come. Will is not mister 'just leave me alone and I'll leave you alone', he is mister 'just leave me alone and I'll tell you what to do'. Will chuckled. “If having good people skills means not telling the truth, you’re wasting your time.” Yes, often having good people skills means not telling the truth. You don't get introduced to someone for the first time and say, 'wow, you are remarkably fat'. Will doesn't like hearing truth about himself, why does he think others do?

Except that Will is going to continue to be a pain in the ass, continue to make demands of others that he has no right to demand. Will doesn't want his decisions challenged, but he somehow thinks he gets to challenge others on their demands. Compromise means each party giving up something. what did Will give up? Say what? Will was the Prince. Up until he was 12 years old, he was shy and quiet, but he got the majority of the attention from Brad. Only during Millennium, was Brad distracted. Today in CAP time it is Nov. 20, 2000. Poor Man's Son, Book 11 of CAP, started July 4, 2000, or just 139 days ago. Just 139 days ago, Will was a virgin. In less than 5 months he has become a complete disaster. He should have gone into therapy the minute they came home from Europe, which I remember he started, but 102 days latter (Oct 14, 2000) he is melting down, destroying cars and clothes and running away. No way he would have been done with the kind of therapy he needed after being kidnapped, raped and his acting out in the club in Rome. Pack in the last 37 days, which includes Norway, and Will is clearly NOT of sound mind and judgment. He most likely in PTSD.

OMG, my best line ever 🤣

No, Will THINKS he has come to the best decision for himself. He didn't consult with any adult, not Stef, not John Paul, not Claire, not Wade, nor anyone to see if there was a better way to handle this. Will is simply too callow to know what is good and what is bad for him. That he thinks he can make such a momentous decision with zero input from anyone else tells you how callow he is, The above theoretical conversation with a judge shows how absurd this is when you stop seeing it through Will's eyes. Will has tiny epiphanies that don't last. He hears from Jeff how rough his life really was and Will gets it for about 15 seconds, that his struggles are nothing compared to people in the real world. Name one negative consequence for his various misdeeds? What was his punishment for Rome? What were the consequences for his meltdown/running away? Whether or not he brought the alcohol on the H-W trip, he did drink and smoke j's, which is still illegal (2023) in CA for minors. Wil thought he didn't deserve any punishment. He wanted a medal for taking the rap for Ryan. Sure Brad should have listened and believed Will when he said he didn't bring it, but would the punishment have been any different for drinking at a school event? If Brad had asked Will if he smoked marijuana on the trip, would Wil have told him? Should there be no consequences for a minor illegally using marijuana? Whether or not anyone else (or everyone else) in his family uses MJ, is irrelevant. For a 14 year old it is still illegal and serious, especially in 2000. Wade called out Will on his inability to have civil conversation without the rage. "No matter how things turned out, I had to do this. I had to take control of my own life, my own destiny, and I had to start out fresh." OMG, can we say self important, self aggrandizing, delusional youth? You really want to take control of your own life, your own destiny, and start out fresh, don't move into Escorial. Get an apartment in Palo Alto, be responsible for cooking your own meals, washing your own clothes, getting to school and back, keeping your apartment clean. Moving into an environment where you have virtually NO RESPONSIBILITY is not taking control of your own life, your own destiny, and starting out fresh.

I'd have called the police. He still bought illegal drugs and gave them to two people BEFORE he was assaulted.

If Brad has made bad decisions for Will, Will has made worse decisions for himself. I think I know Will as well as anyone can, based on the character provided in these stories. But I do know is how California courts view family matters and I do know how courts view 14 year old vs 17 year olds. This chapter is written from Will's perspective so we get to see how Will thinks he's been grievously wounded and why he thinks a court will see it the same way. We haven't seen the counter argument that Brad's attorneys could make about Will's lack of maturity, starting from about a year ago when he was dancing nude and ejaculating in a nightclub in Rome, the number of adults he has had sex with, the number of people he has had sex with*, his drinking, his buying illegal drugs, his actions before he ran away, his running away, and how he has been since then, including Norway. If Brad opposes Will's emancipation, he won't get it. The court will order family counseling, possibly individual counseling, but it would not remove Brad's custody, and not even Jeanine's. If Will doesn't like Brad telling him what to do, he is really going to hate a judge telling him what to do. *in California it is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to have sex with anyone, including people under the age of 18. While there may not be prosecutions in CA, a judge cannot ignore black letter law when a case is presented. Brad's point of view would be good, but I think most people get it. He loves Will. He doesn't think Will is capable of making decisions on his own. I think he is right in that, but I think he has completely bungled how to handle Will, but I blame Arbour for that 🤣 He has turned Brad into complete moron, but I also don't blame Mark for that. It is needed to move the story in a direction Mark wants to take it. Brad is no dumber than any male in a Shakespearean drama or a Puccini opera. Mark is the reincarnation of William S. I am sure there would have been a lot more sex in Hamlet were Shakespeare allowed to write it in his day.

Ha ha, it is just because he is named after you.....

Wade is too honorable to be a politician. The best people I've known are those who serve two or three terms in the House and figure out how fruitless and soulless it really is. I see Wade more as leading a non-profit organization that does grass roots works along the same lines as the Stanford GLB Club, playing small ball.

Will is obviously not mature enough to run his own life, based on his actions the past few months, but Brad isn't not just not handling the situation perfectly, he is like in bizzaro opposite world. Other than for the needs of the story, I do think Brad would be more contrite and accommodating, but an epiphany this time through is, I think Stef and JP would be "monitoring" Brad a bit to be sure he didn't backslide and talking to Will more to keep up with where he is. No one in the family wants to go through the Will disappearing act again. I do think, given the stress and heartache Brad suffered while Will was gone, he'd be more careful with his words and actions. Will thinks JJ is easy to figure out and manipulate, I think Will is just as easy to figure out and manipulate; involve Will more, listen to Will more, explain more to Will and Brad could have done all the things he did without the drama.

No, Judge Judy.

For sure Wade's...... Will's looks damn near normal compared to the Danfields.... and we haven't even gotten to Thanksgiving yet.

He is 6'2" and considerably larger than his mother. The notion that a policeman would arrest his mother is beyond laughable. Mood swings where you destroy two cars, two entire wardrobes, drug two people and steal $50,000? Yikes.

I think Claire and Brad are both more respectable than John Paul was at their age. Only as JP aged has he gained respectability. It is good that Wade is learning to not jump to his initial conclusion on his mother's actions, but to look for the hidden agenda buried inside.

JJ is simply confused. Who knows what he'll end up doing. I don't. I think we'll see Shane again. You really are evil 😵 I've never understood the need for labels and boxes to put people neatly in. I am sure I knew what stress behaviors were in 2012 the first time I read this. I took my first Myers Briggs in my final year at Boalt Hall and continued to be tested and analyzed at my law firm, which was/is very big into understanding the psychology of everyone, associates, clients, judges, opposing counsel, etc, so I wonder why I didn't pick up on originally that Brad used work as a hiding place. Jung would have loved Brad and Will, I know I do.

I tend to agree with that. I meant to say, I think he (Brad) should have learned that lesson when Will ran away. If they (he) decided not to fire Michael in Norway, but wait until they got back to the U.S., Brad should have called Will and explained to him what was going on. Letting Will find out by seeing Michael with the family, in the arena, was just stupid. It was good for the dramatics of the story, and maybe that is the real point and purpose, but to keep the story flowing in the same direction, I think Brad would have been a better communicator and Robbie would have been better at challenging Brad when he was making poor decisions. All that aside, I still cringe at 14 year olds offering up ultimatums.

OMFG gimme a break..... attack.... Will is like 6'2, 165 or some such thing. And Will has no stones to toss in that glass house of mental instability.

Don't you think Will would have something with Travis's DNA on it? A clean-up cloth (I refuse to use the other name 😁), a toothbrush, hairbrush?