MJ85

Sorry, but that rape is a deal-breaker. And I'm not interested in the whole "life's not fair" argument, either. I was enjoying this story, but now I can no longer do that.

I said it earlier, I'll say it again: Claire has to be decidedly less than thrilled with Will making a habit of calling Marie out at dinner. This is the second time in just two weeks that he has, and accusing Claire of snobbery at the same time certainly didn't help either. Frankly, I wonder when Marie will decide to stand up and fire back at Will, however wrong she may be. Point being: It's highly doubtful that she's just going to go on being his proverbial punching bag.

My initial thought was that Marie was the major overriding factor in the guest list...but there's something about what Isidore had to say that makes me think that it just can't be. Oh, she's definitely the one responsible for the parts that set Will off. But I don't buy that she'd also have been pushing for the whole families to be included - and striking Noah is something that could easily be done behind even Isidore's and her parents' backs only to then be uncovered right there at dinner. And Claire, whether Will's accusations of being snobby are true or not, has every right to be upset and defensive when Will makes it a habit of calling out Marie over dinner. And sorry, but when Will expresses an opinion so strongly as this, how is that NOT trying to control the decision through outright shaming? Suppose that JP opposed Will on the guest list issue instead. Do you honestly think that he'd just put up with it?

Maybe Isidore, Claire, and Jack aren't thinking of the kids' grudges -and sorry Will, but you should NOT be the one controlling this family's decisions. But Marie seems to determined to make a full-blown enemy out of Will, consequences be damned. Thing is...assuming that she ever finds out of the legal pitfalls for Tony concerning his relationship with Will - BOOM! There's her trump card. Just please tell me that this isn't headed for the way-too-overly-predictable route of family splits completely apart, then 9/11 happens, then suddenly everyone works to get back together. That would be so incredibly predictable, that it'd be outright cliche.

Well...what you had was a macabre yet madcap story going here. And then...along came the ending. Thanks for nothing.

I wasn't a fan of the abrupt ending. When reading this, I thought it was cruising along quite nicely until...*crash* Suddenly, it's over.

Technically, it's not even a 40-year span. Yet. Not until 2002 gets written. Technically, he's free to stop at any point he wants, even if that means not reaching a year-span of X - not that he would do so lightly.

Except that as a guy headed towards becoming a free agent, he won't be that far from inactive. That's why I have reservations about everyone's proclaiming the distinction, because what happens if he comes out and then for whatever reason, has to go inactive? Then...the only difference between, say, his coming-out and John Amaechi's, would be timing. That's also why I wish it was someone who was in more of an undisputably "active" position. If he ends up getting signed (or re-signed) after this, then...hey, great! But until then...I'll take a step back from the point of total enthusiasm.

I'll agree that I don't think it's likely that he'll be killed off anytime soon. The only reason I could see for that would be if Mark really wants to match Will up with someone else very soon. I don't get that vibe, and I strongly agree that it'd be a waste to kill him off, given what is shown that he has to overcome. That said, Will and Tony married to each other by 2013?? Quite a bit of time has gotta pass before I'll even be close to sold on that one. And this last one may be just me...but I don't even get a "jock type" vibe from Tony. Muscular, obviously, but doesn't one have to have even a slight inclination to some kind of sport in order to be a jock type? Unless I've missed something, we haven't seen even a slight inclination of that with Tony. I'm considering more than just the body type here...I'm also taking into account the attitude, the...personality, that you're saying Tony doesn't really have much of.

Is it though...? Suppose that for whatever reason, good or bad, he never ends up playing again after this.

What happened? Did he feel stronger for you than you did for him and can't seem to deal? Unfortunate reality is that there's probably only so much you can do. On another note: Not to be flippant, but - where's the question? This probably belongs in The Lounge instead.

Well...nothing justifies Gabri'el living after this, whether or not he was duped. He was allowed to live, and just look what happened. He's too much of a liability to leave living. Yes, this is an "I told you so".

Happy birthday.

Will is simply NOT guilt-free. Sorry, but he's not. Both he and Kyle are guilty parties there. You say it's the responsibility of the person in the relationship to say "no". Normally, you'd be right. But...that doesn't really work, when it's the person in the relationship, approaching somebody else. And this is why Will is a guilty party as well, simply because he knew the full extent of what Kyle was getting himself in to - and yet, HE didn't say "no". I do think that Kyle is much more to blame than Will is...but Will knew exactly what each of them were doing. With Marie...I do wonder just how much Will's acting out, and subsequent emancipation, may have left an influence on her. It...*shudder* reminds me of JJ's initial explanation of how he saw Will hooking up with older guys around the house - thus, how could it be wrong for him to do the same? So: Will acts out, ends up getting emancipated. Now, Marie is starting to act out a bit. Misguided? Definitely. But, nonetheless influential? It wouldn't surprise me. It would certainly show the difference between whether she's headed for being Miss Unapologetic, or whether she's just deep down not sorry for what she did here. As for Claire - Norway doesn't quite make a valid comparison, because at that point Will was on the outs with Brad and Robbie, but not yet legally emancipated. There, she was in a position to give him quite a bit of guidance. Here? ...Maybe not so much.

I hardly think that Claire would think it her business to broach the subject to Will, much less that it would even be Marie's business to ask her to do so. And you don't consider what Marie was doing to be an overt act? Betraying family loyalty? No, not quite on the ultimate grand scale, but - here's a thought: For all we know, maybe Marie wanted to be overheard, to set in motion that which was resolved by Erik's confronting Will, followed by Will's "dumping" Kyle. (As in, maybe she wanted to ruin what Will was doing with Kyle; Erik's confrontation would just have been something extra that happened.)

You say that like either Claire or JP would even want to get involved in Will's relationship issues. I mean...say that she had gone running to either of them with her objections to what he was doing. What exactly do you think either of them would have said to her?

Oh...you mean this guy! Fishy is right - he is very cute. I'll be able to say something besides that once I watch some of his vids.

Well...I'm decidedly not thrilled by this turn of events. In addition...if the plan is to go forward with another longer-term storyline at this point, then I can't help but think that somewhere in the past few chapters (but likely before 34) would have been a great point to call it a day and wrap that up, as Book 1. Book 2, in that scenario, would be the closer-to-most-recent chapters, and so forth, continuing onward. As it stands, this is starting to seem less like aiming for a complete story and more like "The adventures of..." I'm guessing that aiming for a complete story was in fact not in the cards, but with the way you've been able to weave events so intricately, this seems like it could work as such.

See...with most of the earlier stories, I could actually agree with Tim, at least to a point of seeing them more as stories with drama in them, rather than being deliberate soap operas. From Millenium on though, those are definitely soaps - and that dynamic seems to get pushed more and more.

Eh...I'd just think the odds of Will even dabbling in religion are about as great as Elizabeth Danfield becoming a Saint. Not just "saintly", but an honest-to-God Saint.

I have a hunch that the discussion that Erik overheard was one that was initiated by Marie. Given what we're learning about her social interactions and how she's reacted to what Will's been up to...it does seem like the sort of thing that she'd do. So, I see John as a...perhaps unwitting, or even unwilling, accomplice there. I'd direct the brunt of wrath, assuming wrath comes out, onto Marie.

Will being involved with guys who aren't single seems to have become more of a precedent in the more recent days. It remains to be seen, though, if he's truly "learned" a lesson here - in fact, letting Kyle go probably became an incredibly easy thing to do for the simple fact that he didn't measure up to Tony. Never mind the fact that he apparently isn't seeing much of Tony these days. But the point is that Kyle suddenly became a liability that Will decided he didn't want to afford, so...in that light, did he learn the lesson that he probably should be learning from this? We'll see.

I get a strong sense of "everyone will be sorry" once they find out what's really wrong with Kei. Nevermind the fact that not a single one of them will really deserve to have anything to do with him now.

Oh, so it's four now? I'd read an Advocate piece mentioning this a few weeks back, but that had only suggested one coming out. (It does also make me wonder who's saying it'll be four coming out, if only in the interest of having something concrete. ) If in fact four players do come out, I think it'd be kind of nice if at least one of them is a guy who hasn't already spoken up as being supportive - i.e. if at least one of them comes as something of a surprise.

But it was so short...! Makes me glad there's a Book 2 forthcoming.