Yeah, that's the guy! (Hee, I'd be happy to say that someone recognized him, but he seems to be popular, already.) I stumbled on that one by accident, couldn't stop reading, and then was left fearing for the youth of America and wondering if there was anything that already overloaded teachers could do.
A messy house says to children, 'I'm not lovable. Otherwise Mommy would dust.'
Seriously, lady and "Stephen"? I haven't finished the book, yet, but I think that quote calls for a lot of expletives, and it smacks of family dysfunction. It also explains a lot in this story, especially issues concerning love, dependency, and the unwillingness to say no. (I think you put the passage in terms of c!Stephen really well, too.)
I'm a little confused about what the next bit means. Are you afraid Stephen would have caved and offered Jon sex anyway, based on the gift basket and the invitation?
I'm not surprised by any confusion, considering the way I word things. :) What I was trying to say is that I think Stephen giving Jon a more "normal" gift basket in this story is a very sweet gesture, but I'm afraid of reading much into the gesture because liberal-Stephen is more aware of people's emotions and feelings than his conservative counterpart, and purposefully tries not to trample on either.
One part of me is thinking, after reading, "How freaking cute is that? The basket is normal-sized and filled with something sweet that Jon would like, chocolate! Oh, and Stephen is still willing, despite all awkwardness, to invite Jon over to play with his dog!" Meanwhile, another part says, "Be careful in analyzing this, not everything any half-way decent Stephen does is squee-worthy, and this one, even though he likes Jon enough to masturbate to his image exclusively, despite believing in sexual freedom, strives to be accommodating to others."
"Or hope for snuggles before they blow one another to bits in the darkest of writings or something."
...well, there's a charming image to end on =P
This Stephen is not likely to go gun crazy, or even be violent towards himself. He does have a tendency to let other people do that for him (by putting himself out there with no defenses and then never fighting back), but I suspect Jon will be trying to train him out of that too.
I may be paranoid, but I want to say now that "darkest writings" wasn't supposed to refer to your fiction exclusively (because I know some of your fics explore the darker side of meta, and P.S., I love you for it,) but rather to just about all the troublesome fictional scenarios out there. To make things even more confusing in my review, I started to ramble about both Jon/liberal-Stephen from this fiction and Jon/any-old-"Stephen" in general.
It just breaks down to something like, "I think, in fiction, it's possible for even the most batshit of 'Stephens' to take something good/some nice moral from Jon, even if the friendship or relationship doesn't work out in the end. Furthermore, in a lot of fiction if the author wants it, the chances of Jon and a regular-conservative-'Stephen' eventually 'snuggling'/getting together/not-hurting-eachother-all-the-time usually aren't that bad. Therefore, even though there are different obstacles for this new liberal-Stephen to overcome and to later get in the way of a relationship, the chances of any sort of long-lasting mutual affection look good to me, if only because this Stephen is more willing to communicate."
I just need to stop analyzing your stuff and just about everything else in some relationship while leaving a review. Either way, comments should be less excitable and jumbled. ^^
My apologies for all that. So, now, I'd like to cheat and theoretically exchange my first comment/review for this chapter, as well as anything confusing and/or weird I've said in this second comment, and replace it with a simpler statement/review:
I never expected to like liberal-Stephen as much as I do now, and finding him a bit annoying; I think some people discussing him was a pretty cool fandom reaction, btw. But yay for progress between Stephen and Jon! I'm glad the date issue was resolved, and I had lots of fun reading. :D <3
no subject
Yeah, that's the guy! (Hee, I'd be happy to say that someone recognized him, but he seems to be popular, already.) I stumbled on that one by accident, couldn't stop reading, and then was left fearing for the youth of America and wondering if there was anything that already overloaded teachers could do.
A messy house says to children, 'I'm not lovable. Otherwise Mommy would dust.'
Seriously, lady and "Stephen"? I haven't finished the book, yet, but I think that quote calls for a lot of expletives, and it smacks of family dysfunction. It also explains a lot in this story, especially issues concerning love, dependency, and the unwillingness to say no. (I think you put the passage in terms of c!Stephen really well, too.)
I'm a little confused about what the next bit means. Are you afraid Stephen would have caved and offered Jon sex anyway, based on the gift basket and the invitation?
I'm not surprised by any confusion, considering the way I word things. :) What I was trying to say is that I think Stephen giving Jon a more "normal" gift basket in this story is a very sweet gesture, but I'm afraid of reading much into the gesture because liberal-Stephen is more aware of people's emotions and feelings than his conservative counterpart, and purposefully tries not to trample on either.
One part of me is thinking, after reading, "How freaking cute is that? The basket is normal-sized and filled with something sweet that Jon would like, chocolate! Oh, and Stephen is still willing, despite all awkwardness, to invite Jon over to play with his dog!" Meanwhile, another part says, "Be careful in analyzing this, not everything any half-way decent Stephen does is squee-worthy, and this one, even though he likes Jon enough to masturbate to his image exclusively, despite believing in sexual freedom, strives to be accommodating to others."
"Or hope for snuggles before they blow one another to bits in the darkest of writings or something."
...well, there's a charming image to end on =P
This Stephen is not likely to go gun crazy, or even be violent towards himself. He does have a tendency to let other people do that for him (by putting himself out there with no defenses and then never fighting back), but I suspect Jon will be trying to train him out of that too.
I may be paranoid, but I want to say now that "darkest writings" wasn't supposed to refer to your fiction exclusively (because I know some of your fics explore the darker side of meta, and P.S., I love you for it,) but rather to just about all the troublesome fictional scenarios out there. To make things even more confusing in my review, I started to ramble about both Jon/liberal-Stephen from this fiction and Jon/any-old-"Stephen" in general.
It just breaks down to something like, "I think, in fiction, it's possible for even the most batshit of 'Stephens' to take something good/some nice moral from Jon, even if the friendship or relationship doesn't work out in the end. Furthermore, in a lot of fiction if the author wants it, the chances of Jon and a regular-conservative-'Stephen' eventually 'snuggling'/getting together/not-hurting-eachother-all-the-time usually aren't that bad. Therefore, even though there are different obstacles for this new liberal-Stephen to overcome and to later get in the way of a relationship, the chances of any sort of long-lasting mutual affection look good to me, if only because this Stephen is more willing to communicate."
I just need to stop analyzing your stuff and just about everything else in some relationship while leaving a review. Either way, comments should be less excitable and jumbled. ^^
My apologies for all that. So, now, I'd like to cheat and theoretically exchange my first comment/review for this chapter, as well as anything confusing and/or weird I've said in this second comment, and replace it with a simpler statement/review:
I never expected to like liberal-Stephen as much as I do now, and finding him a bit annoying; I think some people discussing him was a pretty cool fandom reaction, btw. But yay for progress between Stephen and Jon! I'm glad the date issue was resolved, and I had lots of fun reading. :D <3