DEADLINE open thread. Have a party.

I would agree, considering the UGAs have health problems they'd want to eliminate anyway.

Alaric was mad at Shaun because Alaric, as mentioned in chapter 1, wanted Becks for himself.

Maggie wasn't mad at him. She thought it might've been genuine clueless stupidity, and she was right.

Alaric I get, but it annoys me. He raises what is actually a valid point -- that Shaun really is forgetting he's not the only one dealing with tragedy and is being selfish -- but, oh, that's not really the big problem. The big problem is he hurt Becks's feeling, and it's All His Fault, and this is nothing compared to abusing your co-workers, cuz guys hitting guys? It's what guys do.

My apologies if I'm misunderstanding Maggie, but my impression is that if he'd groveled one iota less or if he'd been genuinely interested in a long term relationship with Becks, but, in a moment of exhaustion following being on the run from the CDC following the whole past year, had called out George's name while falling asleep, he was rotten scum who deserved to die.

I also think, based on no evidence whatsoever, that if you change the genders of those involved, reactions change in some pretty interesting ways.

Then again, I thought I was done ranting. Amazing how this, out of everything in the book, is what gets my back up.

I'm on the fence about the abusiveness.

We know he hit Alaric -- just the once, near as I can tell.

The rest of his rage Shaun seems to be able to channel into beating up walls.

...

As for hurting Becks' feelings, I think it was only "All His Fault" because people 1) didn't realize George was literally his everything, and thus had no idea he wasn't the dreamboat heartthrob his fangirls make him out to be 2) didn't realize he honestly had no clue how she felt about him until the second she jumped him in the bathroom because again, George was his everything, he has no romantic experience besides that, and has been scrambling to keep a grip on his sanity which is getting more slippery.

Human reactions, but not necessarily sensible ones. You and I have the benefit of being able to see all the factors involved, but the team? Too close to the problem. To them, it just looked like Shaun was an intetionally thoughtless boor who used Becks and tossed her without thought when he was done.

Er, what does "tossed her without thought when he was done"? If it means "had sex with her and went to sleep without a second thought", yeah, I get it, but given he was told "this is comfort sex", I find it hard to be sympathetic. But, yes, in that case, the reaction is human.

If it means "tossed her aside after sex", no. He fell asleep and woke up to an empty room, was given no opportunity to talk with Becks, and was promptly told he was worthless scum. Unless Becks misrepresented what happened -- which I don't think she did -- what people know is:

1. Shaun is so screwed up that he hears his sister's voice and he talks back to it. This has been going on for months.

2. There was a bet going on as to whether or not he was clueless about Becks' interest.

3. There was consensual sex. (I don't know whether Becks said, "I jumped him when he was coming out of the shower". If she did, this becomes "There was consensual sex initiated by an act that would be seriously creepy if their positions were reversed", given that gender roles don't seem to have changed that much.)

4. He called her by the name of his dead sister, you know, the one whose death broke him so much he's been hearing her voice and answering it ever since.

5. He fell asleep.

Nowhere in there is he culpable of tossing anyone aside or doing more than whispering the name of the person he loves most. (We'll ignore the fact that someone not inside Shaun's head might be forgiven for thinking this love was platonic or even carnal-but-unconsummated.) So, if that's what you were saying, I have to disagree. I'm guessing you were saying the first.

As for the physical abuse, he hit Alaric once. That was when he broke Alaric's nose, which I consider more than just "hitting". He was physically abusive to Dave many times. What we see is him throwing Dave into a wall, and his apology includes his thoughts that everyone will pretend he won't be physically abusive to Dave and they all know that he will. Apart from Dave not being female or in a relationship with Shaun, that sounds to my ears like a classic abusive relationship pattern.

What seems to keep us from crossing the line in how we feel about Shaun is that, for all that he says he has no problem hitting a woman, he doesn't seem to do that for reasons like a woman has said something he doesn't like about his relationship with Georgia or his mental status. Indeed, I can see Becks convincing herself that this Means Something (He must like me -- he hits everyone else, but not me, right? That proves something, right?).

Yes, everyone involved is human. And they're all on edge, and probably all broken in their own ways by this point. I think I'm twitching because there's a combination of a whole interesting set of gender things going off (You know, Maggie hits Shaun and could probably do so lots without ever losing our sympathy) and there's a sense that the entire fictional universe agrees that Shaun is a total shit for what he did to Becks, and that this is somehow worse than hitting male coworkers. I suspect that this is not true, but there's this whole section where three people tell Shaun he's a shit, he agrees and grovels some more, and... it just leaves a bad taste.

I'm not saying that's what Shaun did.

I'm saying that it looks to team like he did that, but with their particular biases, it all got out of proportion.

I don't think he did anything shitty at all.

With regard for the abuse, I get the feeling Dave kind off chose to be the punching bag, as I think I said to you in another comment. But you're right, it is a classic abusive relationshp pattern, which I should've acknowledged up front.

I'm having trouble trying to communicate what my thoughts are about the Shaun/Becks sitch and everybody's reactions to it. I may have to let that percolate before I try to type. Everything I type comes out not sounding like what I'm actually trying to say.

I know how that goes. It happens to me sometimes. I type it, and I look at it, and I delete it, and if it goes on long enough, I have to remind myself that I never sent any post on the subject.

I don't think you said to me that Dave chose to be the punching bag, but it's entirely possible you said it somewhere upstream. I read the whole 770+ comments before going to get dinner, and I'm sure I could have missed it. Heck, I missed that Shaun and Georgia were having sex.

Actually, I got the impression you were saying, "Shaun is really fucked up." Beyond that, I was aware a couple of hot buttons of mine was going off, and that this probably had nothing to do with you, the hot buttons being:

a. Implications that Gender X must be perfect (X varying depending on who's doing the writing) (which I was fairly sure you weren't saying; hot button is hot) blurring with
b. Implications that the party in pain must be pacified no matter what (which I was well aware you weren't saying)
c. Specific Cases where the author was not you, and I was not inclined to give benefit of doubt. (Yes, Star Trek: TNG, I am thinking about the episode where the scripwriters and directors really do seem to believe that Geordie is right and the woman he's been shamelessly manipulating is a frigid bitch to be angry about this. And yes, ST:TNG, I could go on all day, finding other examples.)

And, as I said, I was unaware of the incest, unlike everyone in the book at that point.