PrivateTim

Will THINKS he is trying to be nice to JJ based on how Wil defines "nice" in his own mind. In JJ's mind "being nice" would to be in the background and no one would know who he is. In Will's mind, being "nice" to JJ and dropping a few compliments is what is "being nice". It never occurs to him that "being nice" would mean being invisible and sublimating his own desires to let JJ have the spotlight. As to Evan and Will, mark that down as the 1,031st time that someone in CAP has not locked a door and been caught in flagrante delicto. Jeanine needs LOTS of pills and Brad needs to follow up on his promise to Elizabeth to keep her under control. Tiffany jumped in because she is probably the only person who really gets how bad and damaged Jeanine is. Brad had completed his Junior Year of high school when Be Rad started, Will is barely into his Freshman Year and he is pretty much out of control. Will is a pampered, spoiled, sheltered kid. Brad's first six years of life he was verbally and psychologically abused by his mother and siblings, which continued until Janice killed herself. I haven't seen a marked improvement of Will in The Gap Year, just a lot of the same self indulgent behavior. I am a big believer in self responsibility, but Shane and Evan are hormonal teens. Paternity, otherwise known as Chronicles of a Teenaged Predator, is the story of a lustful youth, preying on the weak, meek and vulnerable. 🤣

It was an awesome chapter, but it doesn't feel like Will learned anything in running away. He is that spoiled rich kid's son who says to 'the little people', "do you know who I am?" My favorite sign I've ever seen in a small diner was, 'It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice.' At the slightest slight Will gets mean, snarky and demanding. He wants respect, but never seems to give it. He also never considers the danger he puts someone else in, just so he can please himself. What is it that DOESN'T make Will look spoiled? So he cares about Pat, but he doesn't about Jeff. He is abusing Jeff in my mind. He sure has no consideration for Shane and the consequences for Shane if they are caught, no consideration for JJ, by making himself the centerpiece of the trip.....

It does bother me that Will is on his third hook-up in less than 24 hours and that two of them were skaters, even after Tiffany explained how fanatical U.S.F.S. is on protecting their image. Sex with a family employee is another issue. Sure at 14 I was a horndog too, but I had a modicum of common sense.

Will needs to tell his father and his father needs to call Curtis Buck and tell him in no uncertain terms, the possible consequences of contacting Will again in any way, shape or form. I am wondering what the scene at the Foundation was really about. There was a lot of detail NOT about grants, but personalities. There is a large amount of plastics in the oceans, but despite the popular notions, it isn't plastic bottles, drinking straws and grocery bags and it isn't mostly from the U.S. Abandoned or lost fishing gear is almost 50% of the total and Japan and China are responsible for two thirds of the garbage in the GPGP. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try and control ocean pollution, but the banning of plastic straws and every company in the U.S. falling over each other to prove who cared more about ocean pollution was pointless. Plastic drinking straws are not a significant amount of ocean plastics pollution. I am looking forward to the coming chapters when all will be revealed.....

Rereading this for the third time, twice in 2023, I do with the new and improved, more thoughtful, more self aware Will had talked to Jeff Grimes to find out what was going on and that he hadn't pulled the stunt with the airlines; two stops would have been sufficient to make his point. And yes, Peter Hudnut is smoking hot and one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet.

Hey, if you ever do a Paternity rewrite/refresh, I wanna see Beau plowing Will, in a walk on the wild side.

Yeah, I guess I don't see what Wade likes about Matt so much over anyone else, but isn't that just like real life? There are people who float our boat and we can't really explain why.

I'd almost forgotten the rating system for stories (and people). Glad it is gone, people abused it. As to Maddy, she is a baby. Babies are boring as hell. We only see Riley because Wade is the father. Maddy falls by the wayside because babies make lousy narrators. I think Tony would be a lousy partner for Will. I think Travis is perfect and I still think Alistair would be a good match. Tony is too much of a goomba. Darius will continue to fade in storylines as Ace did and we'll see him at Thanksgiving and Christmas, unless his son turns out to be gay..... and really the son of a Crampton or Hendrickson... or maybe a Carmichael.

It is sexual chemistry. There is a lot more to compatibility than sex. We don't know much about Jeff, his background, upbringing, ambitions, interests, really anything other than he was on the streets at one time. I think we learn more as we go along, but at this stage Jeff and Wade aren't a match for lots of reasons.

That was Brad's first email. Will hasn't read Brad's newest email. I am guessing it is very different from the first.

My only additional thoughts this third time through is how much I'd like to see this chapter acted out by actors. It is gripping drama.

Exactly. And had him in counseling for PTSD. The part that makes it unbelievable is that surely Martin would realize Will was going to show the abuse to Stef when he came down in a few days and he'd be toast. Man that reviewer was brilliant! 🤣 If Brad was treating Will with a corporate strategy, he would have been assembling a team and working on getting consensus on what to do. Autocratic management in public corporations started disappearing in the late 1980's (except in Hollywood) and was replaced by cooperation and consensus. But it needs to be said again, the chapter was gripping drama and wonderful and all the hard work that went into it are much appreciated.

I think the epiphany I had this third time through is that this reaction to the drinking isn't about the drinking on the trip. It is about how Will is making Brad look to the rest of the family. I don't think this is even the worst thing Will has done. Harvard-Westlake wouldn't have expelled Will even if they believed he brought alcohol on the trip; they expect kids to try and sneak alcohol and pot into the trip. So no, this is about Brad's ego. Robbie is along for the ride because he is too much of a wimp to assert himself and his opinion. As I said before, I understand the dramatic and poetic license, but Brad took this situation from what should have been being grounded for a week to DefCon IV and he never paused for any of the steps in between.

The scene with Will and Ryan wasn't unlike a couple of my hook ups with straight friends in high school, except they were usually well lubed with alcohol while I pretended to be. Very hot. My fantasy was that the straight guys I hooked up with would like it enough to want to do it without the cover of alcohol, but ironically, I think they were afraid I'd think they were gay. I think Brad and Robbie are being exceptionally stupid, but I also think somewhat they are just reading the lines written for them. Surely by now they'd be getting enough grief from Stef and John Paul to fix their relationship with Will and to a lesser extent, JJ.

It would not work legally. Even if he drew Travis out, harming him at that point would be fruitless because he could not gain from a criminal act and kidnaping Will, Curtis Buck would be dead man walking.

“Look Will, you can’t throw these high powered barbs at him and not expect to take a little return fire. You want things to be civil; you have to act that way.” “This kind is the only kind I seem to be able to get from him,” he said bitterly. “I guess it will have to do.” Trying to not do a spoiler here..... I wish Will had listened to Wade and I wish Brobbie (Brad & Robbie) had listened to Will and Stef. Of course then the book would have been shorter and duller.

Will whipsaws from mature to petulant teen. No excuses for Brad and Robbie.... I blame Mark. Bummer of a birthmark Robbie.

Maybe in the rewrite of Paternity we can see the police interview of Will...... I think Will is at his best when he lays out facts like he did with Robbie. The calmer he can be when he does, the more effective he will be. One thing I've noticed from officiating water polo; I'll listen more to the coach who talks calmly with me, just asking questions, than the screamer coach. Not only will the screamer coach not get what he wants, even if he is right, he might get a yellow card.

I think Stuart Wells was cuter.

IF Stef were hiding Travis on the yacht, he would be absolutely justified in keeping it from Will as Will is completely incapable of keeping his mouth shut, as we have just seen. Will should NOT have said ANYTHING about his and Travis's relationship. It is not Will's place to out Travis to his mother, even if she seems to suspect it. It is still Travis's prerogative to come out or not and to expose relationships or not. As I remember some chapters back there was some kind of a morals clause in Travis's inheritance whereby Travis being gay might be enough to derail the inheritance. Will "Wise Beyond His Years" Schluter would just have to deal with it. He cannot control his temper or his togue. Have we forgotten Connie so quickly? And Travis?

I said some chapters ago that Wade is who I relate to the most of all the CAP characters, because he is the one most like me. His advice to Will was sound, but I think he should have talked to Brad as well. Brad is the one who is expected to come around, because he is the adult.

I think Will handled the situation badly.... even for an angsty teen, but Brad handled it even worse and so did Robbie. Brad is supposed to be the mature adult, more experienced, etc. He should have talked to Will about the allegations from the beginning. But Will has to understand too that anyone accused of a crime against a child wouldn't be allowed to any other children while the accusations were pending. Brad should have found Will a new bodyguard/driver immediately; Stef should have insisted on that. And as I said before, Brad and Robbie need to put their travel plans on ice until their kids are squared away.

I guess I am confused, because the quote from Sir Walter Scott in Marmion is: O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive! The context doesn't quite fit with Elizabeth because she is deliberately weaving a web. The context we use it in now is someone who lies and has to lie again to cover the first lies and the lies get more complicated as more need to be told to cover the other ones.

I didn't think I'd reread Paternity this soon again. After being gone from GA for awhile, I reread it the first time to remind me about Will and his meltdown so I could put Gap Year in perspective, then I decided to reread the entire CAP series starting with Book One, Chronicles Of An Academic Predator. It seemed funny to me that I'd forgotten what John Paul was like as a young man since he is so different in later books as he ages and matures and the younger generations start carrying the story. Wade is possibly, probably, my favorite character in the story since in so many ways he is very much like me. But even so, I never had the kind of drama he does in his life. He is dealing with fatherhood with a lesbian, who isn't quite a partner, a boyfriend who isn't quite a partner, classes at Stanford where he needs to perform well enough to get into Harvard Law or Boalt Hall, a molester for a father, an evil schemer for a mother, a $600,000,000+ trust to manage (while his evil schemer of a mother tries to mess with him), a guy who likes him and would be the kind of partner Wade wishes the man/boy he loves would be and now his sister involved with the brother of the man messing with his relationship with Matt. It would be easy to crack from any one of these. So let me pause and praise the masterpiece this story is and the Talent that produced it.

I still can see Wade falling for Sean and vice versa, but not anytime soon. Not to give the author any evil ideas, but if Matt dies 10-12 years from now, I can see Wade returning to SF as a CEO for a tech company, Sean has just been abandoned by his boyfriend of 8 years and he and Wade find each other to console each other. Now isn't right because they aren't equals, but 12 years from now they will be.