Alan

You forget the SLATEs who believe Rory will go back to Nevada and be entirely forgotten by all concerned, except Alice the Incomprehensible and her new trucker. Somewhere on the way back from the airport Luke and Seth look at each through their tears and realise...

Megawow.

Dishonesty almost destroyed the friendship between Rory and Luke. Why would Luke now imperil that friendship by concealing his secret passion for Dave? Embarrassment is not a big enough motive to risk a friendship, nor is it immediately obvious why crushing on Dave would even be embarrassing to Luke. Sorry, but that is simply untrue. In almsot every chapter, especially since breaking up with Aaron, Rory talks about his physical attraction to Luke and how Luke is interested in someone else. Luke has been functioning as Rory's boyfriend, in some sense, since before Rory broke up with Aaron. It was Luke, not Aaron, who provided the emotional comfort after sex. Luke's been with Aaron and knows what goes on. I'm not saying that Luke and Rory are set in stone. All I'm saying is that ascribing everything that happens to a secret passion for Dave is just not supported by the text. Luke is not a convincing liar and almost broke the Vow of Silence twice (without meaning to) before Gina's letter blew it apart. He wanted to tell Rory, even though he did not know Rory is also gay. I don't see any textual evidence for Luke successfully concealing a secret passion from Rory.

The problem with your theory is that Luke has no reason not to tell Rory if it's Dave. And that's leaving aside that it involves Luke, who stands for honesty in the story, getting into a fairly spectacular level of dishonesty towards Dave. The only textual evidence for Luke/Dave is that there's no textual evidence for Luke/Dave and therefore it must be so. I could use the same process and construct an equally convincing argument for Luke/Alice or Luke/Chey. The same process gave us Luke/Seth during the 48 hours between Chapter 20 and Chapter 21.

1. We don't know that it was not a pre-meditated attack. 2. Aaron's had a year to undo his attack and far from doing so is now making up excuses for why it was justified. 3. One of Luke's parents is dead and the other is in gaol. Eddie and Jase may be an improvement but Luke didn't come t them until he was 13. What happened before then sounds like pure hell. Aaron's a sociopath, pure and simple. Other people don't register with him as having interests or rights. He's acted towards Rory exactly as he acted towards Luke. The only difference is that Rory did not end up with a criminal record. We're hearing that Aaron is perhaps not evl, just someone who does evil thngs. I'm not sure that's a distinction wth a lot of difference. Aaron is an issue that really needs to be resolved. We've heard all the way through that Eddie and Jase would be seriously angry if they found out about Rory and Aaron. They found out a week ago and nothing's been said. For that matter, Aaron tried to force Rory to have sex a week ago and nothing's been said.

Don't you mean 'Lucky Alice'? Actually, I'm getting suspicious of Chey. What if she's been listening to speeches by the junior senator from Pennsylvania?

I agree that it would be a good thing, but I'm not giving any reasons and if anyone asks I will hang up the phone immediately. And they can just wait until they apologise before I say anything.

Grrrrrrrr. All older brothers are evil. Even when they try to be good, they're generally evil. They keep on insisting that you're making the same mistakes they did when you're entirely capable of making new mistakes that they didn't have the imagination to come up with. So there...

The Luke/Seth scenario means that Luke would have told Rory 2 direct lies to give himself a chance at getting into Seth's trousers ahead of Rory. That puts him in Aaron's class when it comes to deceit and even if everything we know about Luke is wrong, there is no obvious motive for the necessary deceit. [Lie 1] would be in Chapter 12

It's natural for sharks to eat anything that moves, including the occasional surfer, but I'm fairly sure that when Rory says things feel natural with Luke he is not disclosing an intention to eat Luke with some fava beans and a light Chianti. What's natural to Rory is perhaps a tad more relevant than what's natural to snow, sharks or trips to the bathroom.

Luke has it bad. Now if he'd only say something direct about it. Really nice description of Seth too. Maybe his mum keeps cocker spaniels and he'll run into a reformed Denis at a dog show. And Chey, who sees all and knows all, likes Seth, but not as much as she likes Luke.

Yep. Rick is a barely-mentioned peripheral character. He cannot be Mr X. Luke hates dishonesty. The first negative thing he can think of about Aaron is to call him a pathological liar. The silliness with Seth was actually about honesty as well. Luke kept his promise to Eddie about the Vow of Silence, but he felt deeply wrong about it and was about to tell Rory anyway. That's just not consistent with a secret passion for Rick, Dave or Fred the Mysterious whom we have not yet met. A couple of chapters ago we had people about ready to choose what Luke and Seth would wear at their wedding on the basis of a single scene, even though Luke barely recognised Seth in Chapter 10 and already knew Mr X at that point. Perhaps at some stage Rory will ask himself why Luke, who talks about everything else to Rory, won't tell hm who Mr X is. This story is about Rory's lack of insight and (hopefully) Rory growing some. Rory rejected Luke as a boyfriend for more or less the same reason he rejected Eddie as a father. Rory's lack of insight and his lack of self-belief drove him to Aaron and kept him away from Luke and Eddie. Curing that will send him in the reverse direction, if he can ever bring himself to stop looking at Luke's arse and think about the possibility of Luke actually liking him.

It's obviously time for a Seth wolfpack. Now when everyone was convinced, to the very core of their being, that Seth was evil I was mumbling that we only knew about his evil acts from Aaron. Still, tomorrow's a log way away so let's all grab our torches and head for the windmill. :2hands:

I think Rory probably is over Aaron, but I also think blackmail is a real possibility. The obvious thing Aaron could try is a threat to send officers to Luke's door unless Rory does what he's told. Rory's situation and Aaron's willingness to exploit it is fast making this a much darker story than Dom's previous work.

That works on a friend-to-friend basis but it just does not work on a parent-to-kid basis and especally not on a parent-to-depressed, grieving kid basis. We'e not talking about Jase as the primary authority in a group of friends (something I've been trapped into at times). We're talking about an adult with psych qualifications who can be expected to notice the symptoms of depression and grief and at least ensure those symptoms don't get exacerbated by anything he does. Seriously, Eddie's making changes and we hope Jase does, but right now they're looking good for a write-up in how not to deal with a difficult kid. Besides, bashing characters passes the times, makes a New Year hangover easier to bear, and is generally good for the soul. But not as good as another chapter...

There is a lot of room between what you've written and people talking about the characters.

My favourite cousin would probably kick you hard in the shin if you tried to stop her calling her father's partner 'Daddy'.

Yep. It's less than 24 hours since Rory first heard Seth's version and Aaron's own actions confirm what Seth is saying. I guess it can be read as a sign of coming passion, but that's a complicated explanation when we have the really simple explanation that Rory wants to hear what Aaron said. It's also less than 48 hours since Aaron tried to force Rory into sex. Rory's doing a classic trauma thing and trying to lock that reality out of his head.

This is not an ordinary mistake. It's fairly fundamental that Rory goes off to Arizona with no idea of who his father is or what his attitude to Rory's sexuality is going to be. There is just not any good excuse for Alice the Incomprehensible failing to give Rory the letter as Gina asked. It's clear from Rory's last telephone conversation with Alice that Alice did not realise Gina's letter to Rory said that Gina wanted him told about Eddie. As far as Gina goes, the letter itself tells us why she did not tell Rory and Gina's own opinion of her actions:

That's true, but I'm considering issues like the somewhat casual arrangements for Rory's custody. I think everyone is agreed that Alice the Incomprehensible should have told Rory about Eddie, as Gina directed. On the other hand, Rory and Eddie are evidently not the the only people Alice is accustomed to shutting down unless they agree with her, so at the very least Gina knew Alice to be a loose cannon. We actually know that from the text of Gina's letter to Rory where she says:

I sort of agree. Wandering the countryside agreeing to Monopoly games, car repairs, trips to the mall. etc etc without really wanting to or even understanding what he's agreeing to is not a good look. It was bad when Rory put himself in Aaron's hands without thinking. Someone needs to tell Rory he matters. Careful reading of Rory's reactions to Luke's mixed messages almost feels like Rory 'knows' Luke is not interested because Rory 'knows' someone like Luke could not be interested in him. I'm beginning to wonder if Gina was actually such a great mother. Rory thinks she was, but the son she's brought up is really a fairly damaged kid. All that damage cannot have happened during Rory's brief time with Alice the Incomprehensible. Sorry, I couldn't disagree more. Rory's been seeing Aaron in secret because he knew Eddie would disapprove. Apart from putting himself in danger, Rory's relationship with Aaron led directly to getting Luke in a situation where they could have officers at the door. Rory says he's going for a walk and disappears without warning for four and a half hours. That's not petty and if anything Eddie under-reacts. The thing with Seth is really minor and does not begin to compare with Aaron's efforts. If Seth was as Rory described him, it would have been justified. Their attitude to Aaron is entirely and completely justified by bitter experience. Otherwise, they don't seem to have a problem with anyone.

I really enjoyed the chapter, but I'm starting to get frustrated with Rory as a character. I don't mean that I dislike him, I'm just starting to find that he's getting less interesting. Sometime, and probably soon, he needs to start actually making decisions. Most of the Aaron arc consisted of Rory just going along and if we now get a Seth arc that consists mostly of Rory just going along, it will be frustrating. Eddie's getting a little more engaged in the parenting thing, and that's good to see. A grounding is probably way overdue, although that shouldn't mean Rory sitting at the house waiting for the next resident sociopath to turn up and talk him into things.

I'm not sure what will happen next. I suspect the current Rory/Seth boom will last about as long as last chapter's Luke/Seth boom. I also wouldn't be completely surprised if Aaron is still sleeping it off at Seth's. And Eddie finds out. And...

Can I start asking for Chapter 22 now? Can I? Can I? Can I?