Alan

Chapter 11 is great. The only possible criticism is the cruel and unusual wait for Chapter 12. I suspect the what if stories are a bad idea and would end up taking as much energy as the 'real' stories, but if you're ever tempted I think you should dispose of Quinn in some instantaneous and painless way and have Jude run away to Arizona in his grief. Where he gets a job in construction And meets this guy Luke...

Aaron's reminding me more and more of George Miniver from The Magnificent Ambersons. George got his come-uppance. Dom writes, among other things, very moral stories and watching Aaron's come-uppance (if that's the way Dom is headed) should be really interesting,

Weirdly enough I was IMing with an Arizona lawyer when I read this post. The judge has no discretion about the record. You can get a criminal record for a juvenile misdemeanour expunged in Arizona, but car theft can be charged as a felony. If asked you can say 'I dont have a record' but you can't say 'I don't have a conviction'. Most universities and employers are bright enough to ask the second question, not the first. As far as Aaron getting it undone, yeah if Aaron fesses up Luke's conviction could be reversed. Aaron's a lovely character to read but that doesn't make him someone you'd want to spend time with. Especially in a car. Leaving aside a couple of minutes fast and furious instant messaging about Arizona's laws, verballing your boyfriend (or anyone else) is serious stuff that goes way beyond the other things Aaron does. It's not cured by saying you're sorry. Aaron may not know about getting the conviction reversed, but that's his problem, not Luke's.

Welcome. Rest assured I feel quite unpicked. When Aaron knew little about Rory all he used was the observable tension between Rory and Luke. As Aaron got to know more about Rory he used other things. My opinion is unchanged. That, except for the criminal record he gave Luke, does not make him a bad guy, just a teenager who doesn't know when to stop. The legal issue is separate and it is not a matter of shades or sides. Somebody stole a car and somebody who didn't steal a car is carrying the blame and the legal disabilities for it. If Aaron's truly changed he's down at the cop shop fessing up.

You're assuming that Aaron's account is actually true. Aaron has a fairly long history of representing himself as badly-treated in order to appeal for sympathy. Rory's flipped on him a few times because Rory has his own issues that Aaron seems interested only in exploiting.

Great, great chapter. It's going to be interesting when we find out if this is really what Seth told Aaron.

An apology does not achieve anything except make Aaron feel good. If Aaron wants to undo what he did, he needs to confess to perverting the course of justice at Luke's expence as well as the original crime. Aaron shares a lot of flaws with Alice, the main one being that they both believe it's all about them no matter what. Aaron's claim to have confessed is actually a self-serving lie that gives his character away. He hasn't done anything at all except demand to be forgiven while Luke keeps the criminal record and the legal disabilities.

I've just spent a fortnight outback in the town of Dubbo, where the men are men and the sheep are nervous. I looked at nothing online while I was away. I get back to Sydney yesterday and the first pages I look at are TOU and DD. I'm blown away by both chapters. I have this great feeling, two whole Dom chapters and surely the Dom addiction will go back in its cage for at least a little while. Yeah, right. I get up this morning after a night's sleep (slightly wild dream where Heath Ledger seems to think he's got a role in the film version of TOU) and the first thing I do is hit reload on the DD page. The addiction beast is right out and roaring again. No matter how frustated you get with the real people in your life, you have all these shadowy fans giving you nothing but praise (and wild dreams).

I'd really prefer to think of Aaron as TLPCJ because to me his perversion of the course of justice is a lot more damning than his TLS side and had much more serious consequences. Sadly, I'm prepared to admit that Aaron TLPCJ is unlikely to get much traction. I don't know that Aaron necessarily wants Luke back. (See Chapter 6, it's canon they were close before Aaron verballed Luke for the car theft) Aaron strikes me as destructive enough to think of Rory as a way of getting back at Luke.

Seth was with Aaron, not Luke.

It's a great chapter. I just read it. I'd write more, but I need to go have a cold shower.

I'd offer a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald, but I think we should just rub his nose in it instead of beating him.

Presumably if Jude was shoving something up there he would already have Quinn's end in sight.

Did pressing the Refresh key work or did it not?

What's more likely is that a new universe gets created every time Snow Dog time travels and the chapters are still unavailable in ours. I still say that pressing the reload key every five minutes or so will work. Eventually.

I think the reason you're getting a few excitable replies is because your question touches so many issues at once. As it happens I think TOU would be incomplete, as story, without Quinn and Jude dancing the two-backed beast. TOU is about trusting other people, about unmasking yourself and trusting that people close to you will like and respect you as you really are. There's no real way to complete it without a sex scene. Besides...

I don't think that this chapter showed anyone as "Trouble" <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So, to me, Bree is a wild card in the making and "trouble" brewing for Quinn. She may surprise us all and become supportive, which is my hope, but I sense she is one angry woman....with potentional "drama" and "trouble" in the making depending upon what she does now and how she expresses her feelings about Quinn, about Jude and about Quinn and Jude being together (in her mind, I am betting she was hoping she had a shot at being Jude's girlfriend..quite the contrary to what has occurred). Hence, my use of the word 'trouble'....well, Chapter 18 will be very interesting to say the least. Michael <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Bree's pretty much doing a Quinn. She's magnifying everything and blaming other people for events they really do not control. The 'stealing Jude' idiocy is classic Quinn, and evidently classic Bree as well. Quinn's getting over it. I guess Bree will in tme. She may make life difficult for people around her until she does. I'm surprised by the counsellor, who really should not be discussing Quinn with his younger sister.

I don't think Quinn is crying out for help and I don't think he shows many OCD symptoms. Okay, he's got a fetish for tidiness. He doesn't have rituals, he doesn't have repetitive washings, he doesn't seem to have a problem touching other people or encountering dirt. A fetish for tidiness, without the other things, is, well, a fetish for tidiness. I do think he has one problem - his mother is (or was) clearly using him as a confidant and giving him adult responsibilities he's not ready for. A kid should not be parenting a sibling to the extent Quinn is. A kid should not be managing sleeping pills without any supervision. Mrs Moore then goes into reverse, Quinn gets sacked as confidant, gets told to obey Bree, and loses the door to his room. But with all these exciting measures his mother cannot even be bothered finding out why he doesn't like the counsellor, or to be aware that a forced relationship with a counsellor is unlikely to work. The family, perhaps, has been crying out for help for some little time.

In Gina's letter she promises to tell Rory herself 'if I find Eddie before I run out of time'. Gina did not see not knowing what the hell is going on as any kind of character-building exercise.

Even in places where a juvenile conviction is officially secret, it gets out. There are jobs Luke is not going to get because of Aaron's actions. That is going to stay with him his whole life. Aaron wants to be forgiven (and always minimises what he did anyway) but doesn't want to put it right. There's a path of redemption. It runs through the sheriff's office and right past a signed confession. Talking about Aaron's fear of the consequences only measures what he was prepared to put Luke through for something Luke did not do. Grandma Alice does not get off the hook by saying that Rory's mum should have told him about his dad. It's a bit strange to say it's wrong for Gina to withhold knowledge but okay for Alice. Whatever Alice's motives were, she did not have the right to impose it on other people - Gina, Eddie and Rory - without their knowledge and consent. Consent runs through this story like a big red flag that goes up again and again. The way the characters respond to it is one of the things that makes this such a great story.

Gee, pressing reload again and again really does work. I don't know why people say it doesn't. I've been pressing reload every day since TOU14 and hey presto, suddenly TOU15 is right on my screen. This may be my favourite chapter yet because of the variety of feelings it raised. Quinn getting outed was funny without in any way taking away from his feelings. Great mix of misunderstandings and reactions. I'm surprised Brad didn't drill a hole in the floor to sink through. He's certainly never encountered two men being all hot and sweaty over each other before. He's worried about Quinn. And best friends often don't deal with boyfriends all that well to start with. Chapter 16 cannot arrive fast enough. I'll go back to pressing the reload button now. It works, I tell you!

Only unfortunate duggles could prefer HP to TOU.

I will abandon the speculation that Benedict Aaron is Alice's secret lovechild, that she actually stole the car because she'd forgotten to get him a birthday present, and now fears disclosure and prosecution if Rory stays in Arizona. More seriously, I agree that flawed characters are entirely realistic and human and drive a good story. Alice may have realistic and persuasive motves for what she's done. That doesn't necessarily make them good ones. Her motives for speeding and driving unlicensed are realistic and persuasive. That doesn't mean we'd vote to acquit if we found ourselves on her jury. I will continue sharpening the cactus spikes.