Whatsifsowhatsit2

Darn, I kinda hoped this would not happen before Brandon would find out about the things Billy had kept from him. If I were in Brandon's shoes, I might feel almost abused at finding that out after the fact. I suppose it was too much to hope for. Good chapter though. I liked the Sam bits especially.

Yeah, so I think this was a good thing to have happen to AJ, but I don't share in the "Ha! In your face! Yes!" mentality. AJ was probably hurt, and that's never something to be happy about. Again, it was a good thing in this case, and hopefully he'll learn something from it, but that's a separate issue to me. It was a necessary evil, as far as I'm concerned. (Not that I think the act on the side of Robin/Rodney was evil, of course—not at all.) I wouldn't even say there's anything wrong with AJ wanting to "just get his rocks off" and have casual sex with lots of people. He just has to be honest and upfront about it. It's not enough to never say he wants a fullscale relationship (which actually he did more or less say implicitly, and he has used words like "love" and such, which makes things worse); he has to explicitly say that that is not what he is looking for. The culture he lives in is such that there is often an implicit suggestion of a relationship following from sex, so he has to negate that explicitly. If he does that, as far as I'm concerned, he can have as much casual sex as he wants. Although I do wish he'd be safe about it.

Taylor/Garrett? Really? I didn't get that at all. But who knows? Sunday is going to be an interesting chapter.

I agree that things are not going to stay this good for good between Brandon and Billy, but I don't think it'll be because Brandon goes off to "get his rocks off with some other dude" this time. I do think he's learned that much, at least. Probably. But yes, to be honest, I'm kinda looking forward to Brandon finding out what Billy has held back. Hopefully it won't be too long. Also while I agree we're not done with the AJ character—probably some kind of climax is coming—I hope it won't be that his exes gang up on him and hurt him I'd rather they kept the high ground. That's why I liked AJ's last encounter with AJ so much.

Well, although Billy obviously made a mistake in not telling Brandon everything this chapter, I must admit I actually kind of understand it in this case. Those kinds of confrontations... they can kind of do that to you. And he's still young; it's difficult to muster that kind of emotional resilience especially at that age. Billy seems to kind of realize his mistake; hopefully he'll use that awareness to fix it as soon as possible. If he tells the truth still, I think the situation can be resolved. However, I kind of feel like he's not going to do that, unfortunately... By the way, I don't think talking about how Bobby threatened to withold access to his house is very significant. Billy just used that as an excuse to sleep with him. Clearly it doesn't excuse it, however. It's all but irrelevant.

You know, I honestly can't understand why Billy has a hard time just using the male pronoun for Dizzy... but I must say, aside from that... he's been really impressing me lately. I hope he'll keep it up

There you go! He'll get there someday.

Yeah, so it's not quite the same level as when he was sleeping with Bobby, but what Billy is doing now still feels like cheating to me. I know he and Brandon aren't together officially or anything, but that's not always the only thing that matters. It's not always such a clear line. He should just realize how he still can't think of Brandon and Stevie sleeping together even though that was a while ago now and there was nothing going on between Brandon and Billy at the time. He's hurting both Jimmy and Brandon by this behavior. I feel like Billy is growing, maturing, but it looks like it's not going to be fast enough for all this to end well anytime soon. Well, we'll see I guess. I'll just have to keep reading! Indeed, excellent chapter

I still feel a little bit like that, Manu, or rather, I worry about Brandon getting hurt again. (I don't tend to think in terms of who deserves what very much.) But, as they say, the heart wants what it wants. It's clear Billy's heart wants Brandon (or at least until he starts thinking about sex again) and it seems to be vice versa. So I guess it's going to happen. I just hope it's going to go better this time around. Very enjoyable chapter!

Holy crap, Billy... that was awful! Why does he mention Brandon lying? When has Brandon ever lied to him? And why won't be remember that Stevie told him Brandon wanted to work things out?

Well, so that took the romance out of it rather quickly. I guess it's okay, as I wasn't really feeling the whole Billy–Jimmy relationship to begin with. I could see it before, but not anymore now. Anyway, loving the story

For crying out loud I saw it coming in the paragraph with the word "enigma" in it. And I felt really stupid for not seeing it before that, because it's classic Billy. Precisely what he does. Of course that sort of heavy emotion and passion (of a sort) is going to lead to confusion and then to sex. Still, even through that confusion, it seemed a bit strange to me when he made these kinds of comments, "Thinking about it...Jimmy is the ONLY guy who has expressed an interest in me over the last few weeks. The ONLY one." without stopping to think, "Oh wait, that's because HE stopped everybody else from doing so!" He also seemed to conveniently forget that Stevie told him that Brandon had been looking to mend things between Billy and him, but for Jimmy's meddlings. Ah well. I guess we'll chalk it all up to confusion, and Billy's inability to have a coherent thought in the face of the possibility of sex. Well, most of the time. My list at the moment: Stevie Joanna Brandon Sam Simon Trace Jimmy Jamie Ian Bobby Billy

There's definitely hope for Billy yet. I'm quite familiar with his predicament with Jimmy, although personally I think I would've felt uncomfortable long before he did. (In fact, I also remember him writing how it was kind of nice to be looked at through those kinds of eyes. I definitely would not have felt that way to begin with.) I think he did really well today, from not making that joke to Sam, to being nice to yet worried about Jimmy, to helping his mom with the dishes. I hope we'll see more of him being like this, and maybe I'll begin to like him a bit more

What's FC?

Nope, not just you, Manu. In fact, this chapter kind of converted me to Jimmy, as well. The thing is that Billy doesn't seem to quite have those kinds of feelings for Jimmy, at least not yet. But I guess what isn't yet still could be. On a related note... poor Brandon.

Kind of wish one of them had taken a swing at AJ (not really)

Actually, this was the 332nd chapter. Still would mean more than a school year (especially when you take into account that the story started in March, not September), but the discrepancy's not as large as you might think. I agree in principle, though, it was just to make it a bit easier to manage planning-wise.

Trace is the last person I want Billy to be with. The first would be Brandon, second probably Jimmy, although I certainly don't see that happening. Don't see it happening with Sam, either. As for Billy's cheating, I for one don't consider these mitigating circumstances all that mitigating. It's just that Billy did not have the patience or the self-control to wait to have sex with Brandon. Yes, there was some blackmail later on, but that still wasn't a good excuse in my mind. Not that I could think of many excuses that would be good for actual cheating. I also don't understand seeing Brandon as the bad guy. He doesn't owe Billy anything. In fact, I was surprised that he got over his anger so quickly early on. As for him being the bigger obstacle in their getting back together... well, Brandon was with Stevie until very recently. Also, Billy hasn't exactly been showing a lot of newfound (sexual) maturity recently.

I agree with Manu. Sorry johnnyjon1, but I don't see where you got any of that from. Unfeeling is the last thing Brandon is. He's clearly just dealing with his own thing at the moment—perhaps related to Stevie, perhaps something unknown to the reader entirely. Even Billy himself suspected a couple chapters ago that it was something other than the whole cheating thing. Also, Billy's thing was more than a little indiscretion and it wasn't just before he knew he and Brandon would really be together. Billy's having second thoughts about meeting with Robin, but I'm almost certain he'll go through with it anyway. The thing Billy is lacking is any semblance of emotional resilience, where he doesn't go hiding in sex with anybody he can get his hands on the moment he gets hurt. It's hardly Brandon's responsibility to keep Billy from that given that it's so easy to push Billy in that direction. Finally, Sam's clearly not going to get with Billy on any permanent boyfriend level. I also agree with Manu that the amount of sex teens have is a bit unbelievable, but that's fine—willing suspension of disbelief and all. In my case, I have to suspend my disbelief about the size of their libidos as well (especially Billy's), but perhaps I'm the one who deviated from the norm there, not these characters.

Just a reminder that Sam knows about the whole Billy-cheating-on-Brandon thing (and so does Joanna) (book 4, chapter 26). Doesn't know it was Bobby though, if I recall.

It does sound like Billy may be back to normal, from this. I'm glad. I prefer him that way. That was a clever bit about the contradictions, by the way. Some might see this apparently sudden realization he's having about the emotional and moral value in being vulnerable as contradictory or unprecedented as well, but I was wholly convinced by it. Especially after someone—I forget who, but probably Jimmy—basically suggested this to him a while ago. The canon could be that he had that working on his subconscious for a while, and now it was finally consolidated. Makes a lot of sense to me. I think the character development is done rather well in these chapters. I like that insight anyway. I argue with people sometimes about being optimistic. My point of view is essentially exactly what the senator in a House MD episode (S01E17) says, "I would rather think that people are good and be disappointed, once and again." Better be disappointed sometimes than to always have to see things as all bleak and negative. Not just with people, either, just generally. I like to expect goodness from people and from life, and act in accordance with this expectation. Ideally, my disappointments will just build up my character. So, yes, I like that perspective from Jimmy, and, hopefully, from Billy.

Strange that the first time Billy broke up by telling Lee pretty much exactly the same thing wasn't brought up. I would have been angry as well, in Lee's position, but because Billy had pretty much strung Lee along by coming back for just sex, only to then again make it all pretty much Lee's 'fault', or at least Lee's pathology (even though he kind of phrased it like a "it's not wrong, just different and thus incompatible" kind of way). That conversation should I think have been more like, "I know I've been giving mixed signals, and I shouldn't have, but what I said when I broke up with you the last time still applies." Along with a pretty serious apology from Billy. Ah well.

Seems a bit unfair of Billy to start talking about how he wants to break it off with Lee because Lee doesn't think about his needs. He had already done that before, and the only reason they were back together was because Billy had gone back to Lee to have his own needs met. Also, Randall had apparently been trying to get Lee to be better about things, and it's not like Billy has given Lee the opportunity to make good on that, either. But I guess being unfair is rather typical of Billy. I also don't like the whole casual threesome sex thing, but I guess it was to be expected. Mind you, these complaints are not about the story itself, which is still good and well written just the characters. And even then, I think they're good characters in the sense that they're well designed and they make sense psychologically. They are just frustrating. I wish I could tell Billy he's wrong whenever he says that any teenage boy would make the same choices in his shoes. I just wanted to make sure you didn't take my complaints about the characters or certain storylines as complaints about the story itself, or the writing.

Well put, Rano! As for doing the dishes, it's actually rather fun if you just put on some music to sing along to. Also why not do it together with your mother? One washing, one drying. Good times, let me tell you.

See, now, that's the kind of thing I like to read him do. Give his mother a break for once, and listen to Jimmy's wisdom without immediately throwing it back in his face with a lot of cynicism thrown in. Go Billy!