B1ue

My dad had nothing to say on the subject of tattoos. The only advice he had for me form his years in the service were, "Don't let a medic work where you can't see him," and "There are only two phrases of Spanish you really need: 'Una mas cerveza' and 'Donde esta el bano.'" He, by the way, speaks Spanish as his first language (or, rather, did at the time) and was a medic during his enlistment. I wouldn't go as far as to say tattoos are being destigmatized in the white collar world. I, for my sins, am a part of that. And the people my age, especially women, who have tattoos certainly find them to be a drawback if they are in a prominant part of their body. One woman I work with wears either a scarf or a turtleneck at all times to cover a tattoo on her neck. Her husband, who is also a manger at my facility (different departments), wears long sleeve shirts. Both of them are very smart and extremely capable at their jobs, and neither regrets getting the ink (the guy in fact has added onto his tattoo during the time we've worked together), but they both report that it would be easier to be taken seriously by customers, subordinates, and upper management without the tattoos than it is with them. Though, I suppose that IS a step forward from: "Get one and you will never get a job doing anything responsible." Note, I'm not disagreeing with you on the prominance of the cultural phenomenon. But I think you underestimate the drawbacks, particularly in fields that deal with a lot of international customers, as mine does. Not that Will or John are likely to be affected. John, if he doesn't go to medical school, will wind up working for Robbie. Possibly cast in a few commercials and minor roles, plus at least one indie film, before moving into the nuts and bolts of the industry as seen form Robbie's company. Coming from that direction, a couple small tattoos that can be shown off on a teen magazine but covered up by normal business attire will probably enhance his career. And no one has successfully told Will that he can't do something, so he will get his shark-shaped tramp stamp and deal with the consequences if they arise. As for Tony and Darius...Darius, yeah, Tony I don't know. It'll depend on how scarred he really is from having a father that died of AIDS. I realize most tattoo parlors really are safe, but logic does not win against paranoia.

And she went out in public like that? I'm having trouble looking at her eyes.

"Drops-out" is a pretty strong description. And a bit premature. I don't think we've seen evidence he's even challenged, let alone struggling. I don't think we've seen evidence either way, actually. I think it's been said that he's not as brilliant as Will, but Will is regularly described as a future "Most Likely to Succeed." There's a lot of room between "less brilliant than Will," and "high school drop-out." Jack wouldn't care, but his parent's would freak the f**k out.

Maybe not where you went to college. I certainly ran into plenty of people of both genders that openly bitchy. Also, MaryEllen dosen't want to be popular. She knows she is; it's an unquestioned facet to her personality. And due to the inherited power of her name and assests, with the various children of families hoping to score a favor out of either her or her father, that has probably been the reality all of her life. In her mind, it's possible Wade doesn't dislike her because she's dislikable, he hates her out of jealousy to be her. And Momma Danfield is probably quite willing to fuel that worldview; it will make it impossible for MaryEllen to follow in her footsteps, true, but it will also keep her from being a challenge.

I was just thinking about that today, Centex. A problem I can see with that is, for a Soap Opera or a character driven narrative (however you choose to classify Mark's stories), the setting and familial relationships are not quite even a start. The real start is that you take that background, use it to pick the absolute worst thing that could happen to them, and then do it. For Claire though, we've covered much of the possible territory. Break-ups, make-ups, and catfights are very much the province of the males in this family, so I can't really see a midlife crisis. Death of a parent, while poingant and will eventually happen again, has been done through JP's eyes. Death of a spouse would be more earth-shaking to Claire, I think, but we saw that with Stef. We've even had a death of a child. Actually, it suddenly occurs to me we haven't had that yet. Yes, Billy died, but that was in Brad's story, filtered through his emotions. Same with Armand, Mouse, and Jake. For someone built up to be a great and superior mother, losing either her actual or adopted children would be hell. But, I think the next narrator is Gathan, JJ, or Zach. For those who can remember September 11, it defined the decade. For those of us, like those three, who were just ending our adolescence when the towers fell, it has defined our entire adulthood. Although JJ isn't ending his adolescence, of course. He's barely beginning it, so may be even more deeply affected. On a tangent, I don't think Beau is necessarily all that close to Wade anymore. They're still brothers of course, maybe even as close as distance allows, but all of Wade's relationships have been redefined in terms of Matt. And that's not a slam, it's inevitbale, but there are consequences. Do you think the Beau/Will comparison may be coming up because, with Will, he can have the relationship he remembers having with Beau, rather than the one he may not even realize he currently has? That Beau may not be terribly interested in being close to Wade, knowing that Matt, and now Riley, would come first?

Wrote a fairly long rant, and posted it, but you know? The hell with it. Helicopter parents are a middle class phenomenon. The upper class, like Brad, have personal assitants to do the helicoptoring for them.

That shouldn't happen, but I suppose anything is possible. My sister and her husband are rotated through their deployments so that one is always at home. Now, one could be on maneuvers for several weeks while the other was deployed; that happened a couple times I can think of. Of course, now that the army has well and truly broken my sister, she'll have a bit more time on her hands soon enough. Let's just hope the same doens't happen to my brother-in-law. Maybe they were able to work it out because they were in the same branch? Oh, and option 2. Being busy and succesful are not crimes, even if it's occasionally tough on the kids. On the other hand, JP, Sam, and Isiodore managed, and none of them were stay-at-homes (possibly work from home, but not stay at home). Tea is a conspiracy to make me, personally, fat. I can drink coffee black, but tea demands cream. Especially Chai tea.

I think I remember that one. He was cute. A bit hard on the first guy, though. I rember thinking it was cute he was willing to be a total geek on television. Self-conficence is attractive. Just ask Shane Jackson.

Yeah, Tonto was very passionate. But aside from that one time, she didn't really sleep around, which her husband, neither of her sons (both Crampton and Schulters by blood) and none of her grandchildren have managed. Not that it's either good or bad, it just didn't seem to be in her character make-up, but it was in theirs. Actually, Tonto and her brother were what made me think it's Grandmarie and not the Crampton side that made that branch of the family so wild.

Oh, it's much worse than that for JJ. Offhand, I cannot think of any other character that is a Schulter, a Crampton, and a descendant of Grandmarie. Though it's possible that the Craptons weren't sexpots on their own, and it's merely Grandmarie's blood that made her sons (and their children) so wild.

My high school only weighted for AP classes. Not that there were a lot of honors classes available to me, but they were lumped with my college prep classes. Mmm, I think it can depend. Mostly, I think you're correct, but in this instance, Will does not blame himself for the rift. If he thought they did not love him because he himself was unlovable, which is not an uncommon reaction to rape trauma, then yeah, I think we'd expect suicidal thoughts, cutting, bulemia, etc.. But here, he's decided that he's not the problem, the problem is that his parents are jerks who only make time for him if they have nothing better to do. Which I find a bit ironic. One of the "triggers" to all this was the conversation about JJ's skating competition. I found it very interesting that WIll was willing to rip into his parents for something that I doubt he found very important himself. I don't recall reading anywhere that WIll was a big supporter of JJ. He had his back of course, but it seemed like they lived their lives and occasionally did stuff together when they had nothing better to do. I.e., exactly the relationship he sees Brad and Robbie as having with him. But all of a sudden, he's JJ's biggest fan, and lays into their parents for being a bit slower off the mark? I found that pretty interesting. I also found it interesting that the entire float trip, he spent like an hour with JJ.

Nice summation! I haven't said this in a while, but this story is pretty interesting. It's bringing out all kinds of interest and perspectives on the question f parenthood. Great job in finding a way to make that approachable to us, Mark. You're probably right about this. It's unfortunate that this triggering event is going to delay getting Will and everyone else the help they need, since it is a valid reason to flip out, and will quite possibly mask the deeper issues that led up to this point.

I realize this is what you meant. That's why I agreed with you. And Martin, I feel, was a mistake. I'm sure they did try and get someone reputable, and he certainly attempted to give them what they were paying for, as he understood it. The problem, I think, is in how they approached the issue. And I'm a bit surprised, to be honest. With Robbie and Brad's experiences with therapy over the years, I'd have thought they'd have tried that first. If they genuinely thought he had a dirnking problem, and their willingness to not search Will's room makes that slightly doubtful, I don't know why they didn't get medical help for Will. If they didn't, and they thought Will was just being a moron (with some justification), then what the heck are they palying at? Do they know themselves, or are they jsut so frustrated and so unable to make progress that they're willing to accept any solution to settling Will down, no matter the long-term consequence of their relationship. Or do they see an ideal long-term relationship between Will and themselves as one where they say jump and WIll doesn't have to ask how high, he just knows? I'm trying to give all parties the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they arne't just being jerks. But I am curious what is going through their minds.

I did say I thought he was being a moron, prior to actually getting backhanded. Also, I don't see how Will putting drugs in the coffee started anything. It certainly finished it in a hurry, but my reading was that Will was going to be backhanded no matter what he did. Martin was establishing dominance, in what's usually an effective manner. And WOULD have been effective, if he'd been dealing with what he thought he had, a spoiled thirteen year-old with no real problems except that Daddy ignored him. While WIll is largely that, he does have a certain amount of cunning and a few experiences that would push his limits out farther than we might expect.

Taking away credit cards, no, that's not major. I'd have expected that, really. And right up until that creep backhanded Will, I thought his plan to escape was a bit too dramatic. Not after. There's a difference between spanking and child abuse, but he crossed it, by one backhanding Will, two by the offense being completely out of proportion to the punishment, and three by adding an uneccessary sexual degredation. Granted, it surprised him as much as it did Will, but it was still uncalled for. There are plenty of kids that wouldn't have shown even as much restraint as Will did. They'd have just killed him. I don't know if I would; the possiblity is there, but I like to think I'd have thought ahead through possible consequences, and just sucked it up until the situation went away. But I'm not totally certain. I did like knives at that point in my life, and didn't have a strong sense of scale myself.

A lot of women, especially young women, are on the pill to control their hormones during their periods. But, yes. And I don't think Tim ever thought her parents were all that conservative. So, I kind of hope that this new guard is actually really good for Will. He could use some counselling, especially resolving the issues between himself and his fathers. And thinking about the former marines I know, and I know a fair few, violence isn't necessarily a part of their personalities. Rigid self-disicpline is. Former and current Marines, allowing for PTSD, are some of the most controlled people I know. So, that inflence, if it rubs off on Will, might be good for him. Of course, I doubt this is what Brad and Robbie had in mind when they hired him, but that might be what they later decide they wanted. As to the punishment itself, I don't think it'll work nearly as well as they hope. That's my perspective showing through though, deprivation punishment never worked well on me. I can lose myself into my own imagintion quite easily, so you have to take away a lot more than my credit card and computer before I start to feel deprived. I don't know if WIll is the same way or not. I do think he's approaching this a lot differently than his parents. Brad and Robbie want to win, whatever that means to them. They seem to want Will to go back to being Brad's clone, except they want a clone of adult Brad, not the teenager he was. Will seems to want his life, and the people in it, to just hold still for five fucking minutes, and he's certainly not going to get that any time soon. I don't know how well I'd react if the biggest source of stability during my teenage years, my parents (who even if they weren't always on my side as I percieved it, at least started out acting the same way they finished), were going through upheavals on their own.

Allowing for gender, I think Brad and Robbie would recognize the character of this song.

I was, originally, going to attempt to turn this into an anthology piece. As I tried to do so, the amount of setting and unpacking needed to make the story stand up falgged to me that I was, at beast, looking at a short novel. More probably a full length novel, if not a series of them. And my dream saw fit to only provide me with part 1. I always suspected I was a bit of a bastard. Parts in purple I added after being awake, to fill in some of the narrative blanks. Parts in black, including the footnotes, are as close as I can recall. One of the oddest things about this dream, actually many dreams I've had, is how deeply imbedded into the setting I get. It's like an entire world, with it's rules set up for me already, is just there for me to wander in. As you can see, there isn't much purple to the infodumps. Warning: Bits of this are pretty distasteful. It starts with me, hungover, escaping through the Citadel back to my quarters1. This was not easilly accomplished. I lived in my mother's apartments in the heart of the military quarter, and the citadel itself was a giant flying aircraft. Giant, in fact, does not do it justice. Biblical might. A rather slowly moving one, but enough that my stomach felt every shudder and heave as I'd never felt it before. But my motehr was a pilot, the best, and I'd inherited her composure and strength. In the end, I was not nearly slick enough. My mother was sitting at the breakfast table, coffee in hand, calmly trading pleasantries with my literature professor2. He was wondering, he said, if I was quite prepared to take my oral exam. Right then. He was free, I only had his class that day, and as I'd been procrastinating scheduling the exam with him, well, he was not so important he couldn't take time out of his day to see me. Especially since he'd needed to consult with my family's archives anyways. I begged off, wanting nothing in the world so much as a shower, and made an appointment with him that afternoon. As he'd reminded me, the course was nearly over, and it was far better to take the exam earlier than later. I did not get in trouble. In fact my mother was faintly pleased. She'd worried about me, was glad I was getting into the young life. One of my duties as an adult was to father two children. The citadel did not get immigrants, but our population was nearly half a million. Inbreeding wasn't quite a worry, especially not with the support of world class genetic testig and cleaning, but maintaining population stability was important. Emigrants were considered traitors, their families under the same scrutiny and scron as the families of murderers, at least by the council who ruled the citadel. Emigrants that took their children were doubly damned, as they were seen to be stealing from the citadel's future. So were those who, for whatever reason, wasted the precious consuables that we lived on, or refused to do their part by siring two children. On top of all of that, mental instability was a serious problem, severe enough that most were driven mad by the time they hit fifty. It was strenous enough that citizenship depended on one's parenthood, though it was not necessary to raise the children yourself, or even have both children with the same person. This whole thing made me farily uneasy, because I knew my interests did not lie with, well, laying with women, but I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. The test he wanted me to take was quite important, to myself, to the professor, and to my mother. It wasn't so much that he was unimportant, merely that I was that important. The best prospective archivist in his class, indeed in some time. As good as my father, many said, though never my mother. Since my father and sister had both been reclaimed within the last couple years3, there was quite a bit of suspicion on my mother and I. My taking my place as an archivist, and then on to forming a family and household, would allievete much of the pressure on us both. We knew, for instance, that my mother's career in the air guard had been stalled some years despite her being the single best pilot the citadel had ever seen, and a very capable teacher and administrator besides. Her advancing from Colonel to general rank was almost a given, becoming air marshall was not out of the question, and quite soon, but only if this cloud could be dispelled from our house. The exam did not test actual knowledge. That could be picked up at any time, and as archivist it would be my lifelong challenge to absorb and classify as much as possible. It tested that, the classification and absorbtion. And my ability to know what to look at beyond what I'd been assigned, and how much to admit knowing, even after a full hour of relentless drilling by a man who knew his work and . I passed, of course. I was my father's son. We had a celebration. Madeline Glace and her son Pierre were not given to parties, either attending or giving, but we made an exception. Passing the exam meant my future as an archivist was assured. I was quite jubilant, and wondered why my mother was not. Oh, she played the part well enough4, but I knew her better than anyone. The deaths of Nicolette and Stephen, my sister and father, had drawn us together. And, well, the food was a clue. Tacos. I hated tacos. Despised the taste, the seasoning, the consistency. Which my mother full well knew. I dared not spurn the food, of course. Throwing back up food once eaten, throwing food away, that was what got Nicolette reclaimed, six months previous. Waste was treason, as far as the council was concerned. But, there was a trick to it. Eating wihtout eating. Serving a partial plate of broken pieces made the food seem eaten. The rest I gave to one of my friends, who'd already passed her exam the year before. Soon after, my mother came beside me, materilizing out of air, apparently. "Come with me, Pierre," she ordered in her Colonel voice. I followed her into the kitchen, noting more than one eye upon us. "What I have to show you is the secret of the citadel. One every adult must learn, does learn the day they become an adult. Now it is your turn." She drew me into the cabinent, a coolroom that kept food inside perfectly preserved indefinetely. And then, once in there, she pushed aside a second door, one I never knew existed. She pushed it aside, then drew back. Revealing the partially canabalized body of Nicolette. Her hand over my mouth kept me from screaming. "I'm sorry," she whispered, over and over. "There was no good way to tell you this." I wasn't really listening, only the knowledge that I had not eaten any food that night kept my from puking my guts out. That and the strong stomach I'd inherited, of course. We eventually slid to the ground, me crying in my mother's arms, as she told me the rest. Four generations before, the world had warred. And the world itself had lost. There was simply not enough life to suport the surviving human race, not really, though backbrekaing efforts started right away would evenutally change that. The citadel, nalled Citadelle de Papillon by it's European builders, was key to that effort. It was no less than a massive teraforming device, and the scientests within it worked tirelessly to take back the world from the death that gripped it. But, fast and hard as they worked, they were not fast enough. It was not many, of course. Certainly not most. Just a few, here and there, but they were everywhere, people that turned on each other rather than die themselves. And while not many, there were enough that they banded together, and another war was fought. The Eaters, as they were called, swiftly lost. But the Pure could not bring themselves to put an entire new race, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, to death. Even after it became clear that an odd disease gripped the Eaters, robbing anyone above middle age of their mental health. So instead, the citadel that was slowly becoming less needed became their prison. Much of this was surpressed. My father, an archivist, had delved deep into records to piece it all together. Along with the secret that as far as the City, which the new capital of the Pures came to be called, the war had not been called off. We knew we constantly fought against the city, in small skirmishes, but not why. Between my parents, and their access, they'd figure it out. Unfortunately, my father had been caught, and reclaimed. We'd nearly been reclaimed as well, but my mother was extremely good at her job, and was considered too valuable to throw away. But we'd been watched like hawks, and they were eager to kill us given the slightest excuse like my sister had handed them. What was common knowledge, among the adults, was that the madness of the eaters still held their descendants in thrall, and only three things had been proven to hold the madness at bay. The first were the archivist exercises like I'd been tested on, everyone was taught them, though only the best could master them. Both my parents were such masters. The second was the eating. The third was, strangely, forcing the same madness on the next generation. But not everyone accepted that fate. The people that tried to emmigrate were almost always parents trying to gain a better life for their children, one where they were not forced to learn how to carve and serve their own families to the elders of the city. Tried being the operative word; my mother was quite certain the City had killed any citadel child they'd gotten their hands on, testing for the madness and killing anyone associated with a person that had it just to be sure. She suspected, in fact, that the citadel was betraying their escapees to the City themselves. But my mother had a plan, and now I was ready for my part in it. It was a simple plan. First, she made sure I did not, in fact, posses the madness, by presenting the human food in such a way that I was sure to refuse it. Only adults ate other humans, it was our rite of passage, the real one. There weren't enough people to go around, after all, and anyways only a bit every so often was enough to keep the madness at bay. The older you were, the more you needed, but new adults didn't need much of any at all. The citadel needed to be convinced I had it though; that was necessary part of citizenship. They'd not test, they were content after the party that I had eaten form my sister's corpse, and would soon have it. Or, if not then, soon enough, at another party, now that I was an adult and could be invited to the real ones. Where other family's slowly fed the bodies of their reclaimed to elders or anyone who needed a fix. My mother admitted that she had it, of course, but to have a chance I couldn't. Which brought us to the third aspect: I would escape. She would not. Originally, she'd planned to get both my sister and I out. But Nicolette proved too delicate to wait. The full secrets of the citadel hit her too hard, and her revulsion towards food sprang form paranoia that anything she ate could be a human. My mother had almost abandoned the plan then, but it bcame clear that I needed to escape, even more than Nicolette had. Homosexuality was, to put it mildly, forbidden on the citadel. Too much cultural pressure to breed, to replinish the population. Just the whisper of it would get me reclaimed for sure. But in the City, the still partially incomplete efforts to teraform the land had forced an opposite cultural pressure. They saw themselves as severely overpopulated; homosexuality was not just approved, having such a relationship was considered a cultural service. Getting me out to that was a priority above mere survival or distaste. I asked, quietly, how she knew. I'd kept myself hidden, I'd thought. She shrugged, and told me my father was homosexual, so she sort of expected it of one of us. It wasn't immedietely that she did this. Too soon would arouse suspicion. But, soon enough, after I was a full archivist and soon to be pressured into taking a household for myself, we took ourselves to her airship bay. She was still only a Colonel, but her next rank needed only to be confirned, so no one stopped us. They would have, had I not been an adult, which was why the delay was necessary, but any adult was allowed into the hangar, if accompanied. They didn't even mind when she loaded us up into her stingship, idling for this very visit. Our flying out of the hangar did cause a bit of a stir, but nothing a few missles didn't take care of. Madeleine Glace was not considered the greatest pilot ever for nothing. It was a long, grueling dogfight of a flight. I was her co-pilot, the simulators she'd long forced on my sister and I coming to my aid. We were missing our third and fourth pilot positions. but the stingship could be flown by one, if needed, though not as well. But again, she was very good. And I was my mother's son. We were shot down well within the City's cordon. Outlasting the pilot police my mother had trained herself, the City's own stingships, and the anti-aircraft defenses of the City itself, though it was the last that finally brought us down. My mother was knocked unconcious, and I was simply not good enough to control our crash well. But I did good enough, managing not to kill us, or even injure myself. But my mother was dying. With her final moments, she told me to escape. I said it was useless; they'd know there had been more than one pilot, and they'd not stop looking for me. She smiled, and said that was why she'd loaded my father's still mostly preserved corpse into the cargo. As soon as I was away, she'd fire the stingship, making it impossible to tell who was what, only that there were two DNA traces in the ship. It'd be enough, she thought. So I escaped into the City, the exploding stingship lighting my way. 1Actually, the dream did not start there, but this was the first bit I carried into my waking memory. And, internal cues tell me this was the beginning anyways. 2This is, damnably, what so convinces me there was more to this dream than what i recall. I don't know what exactly he taught, or what he tested me on, but I strongly suspect he'd already been introduced to this persona. 3 Killed. Even in the dream, I knew my sister had been killed. I'm less certain I knew my father had been killed, he did not get invented until sometime later. 4 As an aside, this is the first scene my mother actually appear in, though her approval and touch was apparent in my earlier thoughts.

Nah, the real fun is going to be when John knocks up his date to the junior prom. I mean, what can they possibly say to that?

This is a good point, but I'm guessing you allow for the possiblity before accusing someone else of not trying to contact you. I am willing to believe that Brad and Robbie simply missed the calls. It can happen to anyone. It doens't sound like they did, but it could have happened like that. But where I take exception is that Robbie lays into Will for not contacting them. And he clearly either didn't check his missed calls first, or DID know Will called and did not pick up. I can't think of a third possiblity for his hesitation to hand over his cell phone. At least Brad was quicker on the uptake on that score. There's hope for him yet. Claire, in the stories she's been in, has not taken crap off anyone for any reason since she was about fifteen. Losing her brother and child very close together, and seeing the mistakes she made that led up to those losses, grew her up very quickly. Not something I'd wish on anyone, but it appears to have been a mixed damnation, in some ways. And Jack, for all his exuberance and horseplay, acts as an authority next to god for a great many people. Quiet, but firm, authority seems to be their style. I doubt either one of them has an issue with making "no" stick like Brad and Robbie seem to.

Lies. I was the only gay guy in my high shool drama class, and I wasn't even out at the time. Granted, there were only about ten kids in the class anyways, six of them female. And, uh, no Tim. I don't go to West Hollywood very often. I get quite enough drama at work; and even there I don't understand those that are dramatic to be dramatic. I find that they usually want something, even if that something is as simple as being so obnoxious that we'd all rather just work around them then try and get them to work their fair share of overtime. As an aisde, is Mike gay?

Oh thank goodness. I was afraid my rampage broke the thread. Okay, explanation about Pat makes more sense. And I don't really blame Brad or Robbie for thinking Will might lie about sleeping with Pat. Although, nah. Will wouldn't cover it up. He'd have been bragging about it at every opportunity, not even wondering that anyone else might not approve. If Will doesn't think Max is too old for him (and that scene where he was watching a naked Max in the pool sort of suggests he doens't), Pat is certainly fair game. But if you don't really know Will, if you grew up in a time/cultural space where being gay had to be hidden, then I could see where you'd assume Will would not be totally forthcoming. Doesn't look like they thought Will was being molested and the side-effects were turning him bitchy, but we'll see. I have three "boos" to hand out. First to Brad. At some point, he's going to have to admit he handled things wrong. Or at least suboptimally. Not necessarily to Will, though that might help, but to himself. I don't think he's there yet. Second to Robbie. For backing down and getting pissed instead of ripping a strip off Will. I was hoping he'd say something along the lines of, "No, you are not going to try and make me feel guility about spending time with the man I love. I know you feel like we've neglected you, but we've been neglecting each other just as much. If you cannot understand that, I'm sorry. But it's going to happen anyways." And the last to Will, for not wondering what Brad was talking about when he mentioned a young guy with an older lover. I know that's expecting a lot out of a kid, but he expects a lot of himself. And he expects others to expect a lot out of him. And three yays. A yay for Will. Nice way to stick up for your brother. And yourself. Next for Kristin. Way to go after what you want. Last yay for JJ, for just being so cute in this chapter. Not a whiny moment to be had. I too am curious about Mike's motives. Hurting WIll aside, what does that benefit him? If he's trying for control over both Will and JJ, I suddenly don't trust him. And neither should Brad.

Like I said, I think that's a typical parent's reaction, but not necesarilly true for this particular parent and child. Not impossible, just off somehow. For instance, if this had been JJ or John, I would buy it all a bit more. And with Ella, even though she's proven herself capable, Gathan is not going to react calmly to the slightest threat towards his sister. Nor are Zach's parents, despite all evidence that he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. I would also more readily believe Brad thinking that Will was sleeping with Pat willingly, or wanting to (after all, that's true), and that Pat either was or was planning on abusing his position in such a manner. That would elicit just as strong a reaction, and be a heck of a lot more believable with both principles. And be lots harder to prove form the outside. As to Brad being in Pat's corner, is he? Or is Will, with Brad just being forced to back him to save face? And even Will's motives are going to be suspect. Pat would understandably be nervous about a gay teenager that has shown quite a bit of interest in him. Some corner of Pat's mind has to wonder if Will would be sticking up for him so strongly if he didn't want into Pat's pants. He'd probably like to believe the best of Will, but can he afford to? And he has to wonder if this situation is going to repeat itself a couple years down the road.

I tried to not comment, tried to wait for Brad's motivations to be revealed, but this made me twitch. Look, I get that I'm not a parent, and that the parents in the crowd are going to feel differently on this topic than I will. That because I don't have a child, I have more emotional distance from the situation. But I think that in order to properly evaluate this, that emotional distance is necessary. People keep bringing up "what every parent would do," but that's taking what you, or the parents you know, would do in a situation and and applying it to Brad. And I don't think that's correct. The reason for this is that the previous two opportunities that Brad had to completely overreact in a typical parent fasion, he didn't. There may have been other situations, actually, but these are the two that I can think of at the moment. When Will did his pole dance, Brad did not forbid Berto from seeing Will. Quite honestly, I'd have had the little bastard fired if I thought I could get away with it. There's no way that was a good palce to take a thirteen-year-old, whatever the cause, and whatever the thirteen-year-old in question had to say about it. Later, in this story, Brad does not forbid Will from partying with the college kids. Oh, he doesn't like the idea, but he doesn't try to make Will promise not to go to parties with them. I would have. I'd have even had a logical answer to Will's inevitable protest: in anyone's reasonable judgment, Gathan, Matt, boyfriend #4 (Sam's kid), and Wade have proven they're unable to act as adequite chaperones to Will. If Will cannot promise not to partake when the opportunity arises, fine. Deny the opportunity. These two moments would also be situations where Brad could be expected to pull the "because I am your parent," card, and he's backed off from doing so. Perhaps this is comparing apples to oranges, but I don't think so. I think both Berto and college parties are both pretty glaring threats to Will's upbringing. Of course, we don't see everything. Brad may have pulled Berto aside for a quiet, friendly chat at some point, and we just never saw. He may have done the same with either Gathan, or Matt. Or both. And unlike with Pat, Brad simply managed to take care of the situation without Will being clued in, which allowed him the gumption to attempt it this time around. Or maybe these attempts have taught Brad that when he tries to proscribe behavoir to Will, it doesn't really work, so that's why he's now trying to rearrange the background without Will's iinput. I guess my point is that while his overreaction towards Pat is understanable in general, it's jarring in this instance. Brad and Robbie have been more the "teach competance at living dangerously" school of parenting rather than "protect from all dangers." I'm not saying it isn't possible that they switched it up now, but I would be interested in hearing what's in Brad's head. Does he really think Will would allow such abuse to take place? I know it's asking a lot of a child to be able to stand up to an authority figure like that, but Will has proven to us and to Brad he's a pretty capable kid. And if he really does think that, does he also imagine that the pain from thaat is what's causing Will to act up lately? I can see that being seductive to Brad and Robbie. It would make the great rift yawning between them and Will Pat's fault, not theirs or Will's. Edit: Also, I'd have expected better tactics out of Brad than to just fire Pat. I mean, he can never trust Pat again, can he? Right or wrong, justified or not, Brad's already proven disloyal to Pat, so why would Pat be loyal to Brad? That is just plain dangerous in a post with that level of access to the entire family and thie schedules. Even if he doesn't think like that, Brad's enemies might try to use that, and they may not take no for an answer.

While this kind of thing might make a normal parent go nuts,I don't know that it is an appropriate reaction for this particular parent/child combination. I'm willing to wait for the next couple chapters, as Brad's motivations unfold, but it's not like they think Will is a virgin, or uninformed when it comes to appropriate sex versus inappropriate sex. I would, in Brad's place, wonder less that Pat made unwanted advances and more that those advances were both wanted and consumated. Or, possibly, Brad's own experiences with Adult/youth sex are creeping back into his psyche in an unepected way. THAT i could completely see both the panic and the unwillingness to make any kind of justifcation for that panic, if he is in fact more traumatized than we'd been led to believe. Only reason I wondered was that Brad seemed surprised that Will ditched Mike. I know we have the benefit of being inside WIll's head, but Brad has the benefit of being inside the head of someone quite like Will, and I wonder how he could expect any other reaction towards someone he actively disliked and distrusted. In my opinion, it's the trust issue that makes Will's point. All kids have to deal with people they do not like. It's a basic skill necessary for adulthood, after all. But it's unreasonable for Brad and Robbie to bring someone Will distrusts into that much of his life. I hope that WIll, aided and abbeted by the rest of the cast, gets that point across.