Mark Arbour

I'm glad I could relieve your tension! I think that it does help that Granger speaks French, but I think his polite demeanor would carry the day, in any event.

Thanks for the review. It's unlikely Granger will escape, and he really has no reason to do so, unless there is a threat that he won't be given parole.

I agree with you, in that the skills Granger brings to the table are a product of his birth and his brains combined. I really do think that the truth with the Leander falls somewhere in between the French and British version.

The moral of the story is that assholes lose. Or at least they should. :-)

Just posted. Saturdays are our Odyssey days.

August 18, 1798 HMS Leander Granger began to climb up to the quarterdeck but paused halfway up the ladder to listen to the conversation going on. An old seaman approached him and spoke directly into his ear. “They got no boats, my lord, so they had to get a young gentleman and two other men to swim over to us to take over,” the seaman said to him softly, even as he stifled a chuckle. “As soon as we repair a boat, we will send your surgeon over with his tools

You said: "how JP handles this that matters more than anything else..." I think that's pretty spot-on. If you think about Millennium (and even as far back as BeRad) there was a power struggle going on between Brad and JP. I think that in Paternity, JP re-established himself in a firm position of leadership, and I think we're seeing the results of that now, where he can have a modifying impact on the others. That they still act the way they do doesn't mean he's not effective, just that they're not beating up cars this time around. :-)

With the drama lovers that they are, it would have to do one or the other. Or maybe both.

August 24, 2001 I walked back toward my room in a really shitty mood. In fact, I was so down I detoured and headed out to the gazebo. I usually had good luck with them, I thought, and made myself chuckle for the first time since I got back from my ride with Pedro. Then I thought of all my issues, and that put me right back into a funk. First of all, I was still sad about leaving Maui, and Kai, and I was sad that Erik left just as I was starting to like him. Two guys who

You make some really good observations, and your comment mirrors Sharon's, in that Brad doesn't talk to Will, he talks at Will.

I love your reviews, even if my ADD (and this kludgy review system) makes it difficult to sift through and comment on all of of your observations. So I'll make a general observation. I think it's pretty funny that people think they can tell Will what he can and can't do with his dick. Whether he's breaking the law or not is pretty irrelevant, since all the people involved in this are blatant lawbreakers (Stef and Brad, especially). But that's alright. I'll have fun with that later on. :-)

I wonder how long it's going to take the two of the to figure out it's not easy to overturn emancipation? Stef should have known better.

It's like one big metaphor.

OK, that was funny. I'll have to visualize some of that dialog when I want a laugh.

You sound like Brad.

I've been in situations where I've had to chaperone 17 year old guys, and in one of those situations, the rules on sexual behavior were laughable. I learned a long time ago that trying to harness and restrict the libido of males in their mid-late teens (depending on maturity levels) is a bit like trying to stop the tides. It's futile. Especially if the guys in question are hot. But I can see why Jack and Claire feel the need to try, I just think it's futile. I'm wondering why no one has raised the double-standard issue? Darius has been sexually active for a long time, probably as busy as Will. Even when he was under 18, no one said anything about that (not even here in the forums). Is there some reason why heterosex is OK, but homosex isn't?

I definitely think there's two sides to this story, and quite frankly, I think that both Brad and Will are just trying to piss each other off at this point. There's enough immaturity between the two of them to go around. I wonder what will happen when Brad and Will both find out that overturning an emancipation degree is almost impossible? Neither one of them seems to have bothered to ask their lawyers about that. That may have an interesting impact on their relationship dynamic. (Insert evil emoticon)

Thanks. I have a lot of personal experience to draw on. :-(

I'm like the narcotics we've been talking about. Hot. :-)

Glad you liked it, and appreciate the pace. I have a 9-11 deadline to make. :-) I think you're right, in that Will is being an asshole to his father, but the process behind that is rather interesting (in my own mind). If we give Will the adult status he demands, we conclude he's an asshole (and so, IMHO, is Brad). If we look at him as a 15ish year old, and cut him some slack, then he's really not acting like the adult he claims to be. But I'll stand by JP and it being solely his decision to evict Brad. Ponder that Will isn't the only one who likes to push Brad's buttons sometimes. :-)

Thanks for the review. I'm so glad you enjoyed the chapter. I think that JP really did summarize things effectively. Brad is acting provocatively probably because Will has shut him down, and out. The fun thing about writing conflicts between those two is that they just cascade out of control, until the real cause of the arguments become obscure.

Brad's attitude here is that he's fighting for his son, to protect him. That's why he is so able to block out all the other people and their rationales. For him, it is primal. I think it's really unfortunate that the family drama is piled up and intermixed with the crap Will has to deal with at school.

I think some successful people think that because they are good in one area, that translates into a skill in another. That has not been my experience. In this situation, there are a lot of egos (and prima donnas) involved.

Thanks for the review. You make some excellent points, but I'd like to nit pick on two of them. First of all, it's hard to generalize narcotics and their impact on cognitive development, since they are significantly different (like weed and heroin). I'm also somewhat skeptical because the studies tend to be somewhat unreliable. There was quite an uproar, for example, in the latest study showing detrimental effects for 14 year olds who smoked weed, when in fact those researchers had a very small sample size and failed to control for environmental factors, which appear to be significant. But in general, I think you're right, I'm just not sure if the effect is significant. The second issue is that Will really didn't throw Brad out, he merely refused to be there if Brad was there. I can see how easy it would be to conclude a causal relationship there, but JP is not the kind of person to be blackmailed into banning Brad. He was angry at Brad for coming to Escorial and threatening Will, and thus eroding Will's sense of security in his home. That is what got him thrown out.

What a fabulous analogy. In my experience, often those who are the closest fight the nastiest battles because they know all the right buttons to push.