Testing testing

[thekumquat]

As people have been saying today on Facebook, the Dreamwidth format is much better for a proper conversation.

So... (thinks of contentious topic that hasn't been done to death)

Lawrie: will she grow up to be a bearable human being or a complete nightmare?

Ditto for Peter, Patrick, Ann and the rest of them.

Comments

[thekumquat]

I agree, though I don't particularly like 12-15yo Lawrie and I suspect 16-18yo Lawrie might be worse (add booze and trying to get the attention of whichever sex)

I think her dedication to acting as well as growing up would then improve her immensely. I wrote a story about that: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11870817/chapters/26804166

Patrick, I mostly like and am convinced a bit of growing up and meeting a variety of people would sort him out, but he could go in a variety of directions, partly to please others (and yes, ended up writing two novel-length stories, one a first draft of something fairly Forestian which I keep meaning to edit, the other with a gay Patrick and activities Forest certainly wouldn't have written about!)

Ann - like others I think she'd learn the difference between officious and helpful when away from her family (and given how popular she is at school, perhaps already has, but family has a way of making you act younger again). I wish Forest had managed a book about her - her certain religiosity and authority-is-right view is a mindset I just can't get into.

Peter is the one I worry most about - he has such high expectations of himself and often fails to live up to them. I hope he'd become a happy decent engineer away from the Navy, but I see it equally likely he'd persist in something that goes horribly wrong and, in his efforts to deny how much he himself is to blame, ends up with a drinking problem.

Rowan needs to get some friends or confidantes or will end up with a breakdown and depression.

Giles will either continue a successful Naval career with a little less hubris after RAH, or end up discharged after the Falklands. Either way it'll improve him.

Ginty will probably only become bearable and acquire her own personality after her first divorce.