LOL, first off, I'm cracking up that you checked what the real life distance/travel time from Chino to Newport was, because I've done the same thing. And second, I'm laughing because you give a mostly fluffy update where Ryan sees his baby girl for the first time, and then in the author note you've already thought of a way to add even more angst to their lives with a seven year separation due to a false conviction. But then, that seems to be your style. ;)
Great update though, and I am glad you didn't drag out Ryan's time away from Newport for too long! It'll be good to have him back there, though it won't be an easy road. I can't wait for Summer's reaction to meeting Lucy, and I hope there won't be too many hurdles to getting custody of her. Theresa as you've written her here seems very aware of being in over her head and looking for an out from this situation so I don't imagine she'll be fighting him too hard.
It's a bit painful to see Ryan refusing to go see Theresa despite her being hurt, because in canon he would have 'sucked it up' and gone to comfort her for her sake, no matter the circumstances....but as hard as it is to see that, that's exactly why it needed to happen, that he needed to stick by his own hurt rather than rush to her side. He didn't refuse out of coldness or callousness, but rather because it hurt him so much that she couldn't stick to her agreement not to see Eddie, especially after what happened the last time they saw him. Course, that doesn't mean he won't feel guilty at some point later on, once the hurt has dulled a little and his usual 'I must comfort all people at all times no matter the cost to myself' convictions resurface, but he put himself first here. He let himself react from a place of hurt rather than a place of obligation, and that's something he's desperately needed to do for a long, long time.
I continue to love seeing this evolution of Caleb, definitely a softer side of him...but at the same time, he's still Caleb and I can easily see him being a bit smug over the fact that he'll always be able to rub it in the Sandman's face that he was there for Lucy's birth and the first family member to see her instead of Sandy. (Caleb's got too much sense to try and rub it in Kirsten's face lol). And it'll definitely help to have Caleb in Ryan's corner when it comes to any possible custody issues.
You know, it struck me when reading this chapter that you've worried about whether or not Ryan should have conflict with the Cohens when it comes time to reveal his sexuality - but I'm thinking there might be a larger issue on the horizon. And that's when it comes time to parent Lucy, and whose responsibility that is. Ryan has been pretty easy going for the most part when it comes to doing what Sandy and Kirsten say and following their advice. Sure, canon had the big upsets like the situation with Oliver and the fights, but for the most part he doesn't object to anything the Cohens ask him to do, expect from him, or try and tell him is 'the right thing to do' or whatever....which, as we've both ranted about, isn't always the right thing for Ryan, just what Sandy and Kirsten THINK is the right thing for him based on their limited knowledge of him, his past and his needs.
But now Ryan isn't just their foster son, he's a father in his own right, responsible for his daughter while still being a teenager living under the Cohens' roof. And there's a LOT of potential conflict to be mined in that, because like you also mentioned in another comment - Ryan won't always stick up for himself, but he never fails to stick up for those he loves or feels responsible for. So it might not be that easy for Sandy, Kirsten and Ryan to reconcile that they're not all going to agree on the best way to raise Lucy...and NO ONE is ever going to convince Ryan that it's anyone's place but his to be the final say in how he raises his daughter.
The Cohens might be Ryan's legal guardians but as often as they treated him like a grown adult rather than a kid, they never got around to acknowledging that he came to them pretty much fully grown, with years of raising himself under his belt...and they never gave him the respect he deserved for that and wrapped their head around when it was time to parent him and when they needed to communicate him like an equal, someone who had been making the kind of decisions they were now trying to make for him, long before they came along. The sad truth is, while they gave Ryan a lot of opportunities he never would have had otherwise, they simply came into his life too late to give him an actual childhood - you can't actually roll back the clock and tell an almost entirely self-sufficient sixteen year old to just...stop being self-sufficient, especially when he can't trust in the stability of his newfound family.
And now that ship has sailed even further, with him being a parent, and the thing is, yeah, he's still underage and they're still his guardians, and he isn't perfect. So if he makes an ordinary teenage mistake that deserves grounding, he's going to be grounded still...but grounding a teenage father doesn't make him any less a teenage father...making a dumb mistake like cutting school one day because he's stressed and overwhelmed, for instance, doesn't mean he's suddenly an unfit father, just that he's still sixteen and made a mistake. BUT I'm not sure that Sandy's going to get that distinction, at least not without someone else opening his eyes to it. My point being, even though Ryan's bisexuality was your initial impetus for this particular fic...I don't know, it might be that it's not ultimately the most central conflict to the narrative you've developed. The conflict from that might actually pale in comparison to the issues that would stem from say, Sandy trying to influence Ryan to parent Lucy in a certain way, confident in his own parenting and his greater age and experience, only to have Ryan stubbornly dig his heels in, because Lucy is HIS daughter, not Sandy's, and just because Ryan won't speak up to point out how Sandy's bullheaded approach to parenting hurts him at times doesn't mean he'll sit back and subject Lucy to the same thing.
It could be a way to ultimately get at a lot of the core disconnects between Ryan and the Cohens, the stuff that kept him from fully becoming part of an actual family. From Sandy's perspective, it would make a certain amount of sense to try and steer Ryan's parenting based on his own views as a parent, because in his mind, how could Ryan possibly know what to do here, having grown up with no adequate parental role models for him to base his parenting on? But that's the entire problem, at the root of all his conflict with Ryan. Because Sandy was good at always acknowledging Ryan's potential, I'll give him that. He never failed to point out all that Ryan COULD be, with the right opportunities. And when Ryan did screw up, Sandy was okay at defending him with the approach 'of course he's gonna make mistakes, look at his life before now, the kind of environment he grew up in, what kind of a kid raised like that isn't going to make mistakes?' But where Sandy failed was he was always so busy focusing on Ryan's potential and how living with the Cohens could steer him away from making the kind of mistake that landed him in juvie....he completely missed the boat on ever focusing on how amazing it was that Ryan is as moral and capable as he is already, in spite of how he grew up. That any mistakes he's made are nothing compared to the other teenage characters who grew up in Newport surrounded by limitless opportunities and supposedly more attentive parents.
What Sandy's never really grasped is yes, Ryan's life pre-Cohens was defined by his parents being shitty and utterly failing in their responsibilities to him, but that didn't mean he didn't know right from wrong, didn't know how to be a good kid (and now, a good parent) just because he didn't have good role models to look up to....that he didn't need a Sandy Cohen in his life to teach him how to be a good father for Lucy, because he already had developed all the character traits he needed to be a good father just from looking at how his parents had been with him....and then doing the complete opposite. He might not know what to do all the time, but he knows what NOT to do, and sometimes, that can be just as informative.
So Ryan and the Cohens butting heads over what's best for Lucy might be a way to finally get the Cohens to recognize that Ryan raised himself and is ultimately the only person truly responsible for the honest, decent, caring man we saw on the show. Might be a way to force Sandy and Kirsten to finally confront the flaws in their own parenting, and recognize that they make their own mistakes, no better or worse than the ones Ryan makes, and if that doesn't make them unfit parents, Ryan's certainly don't invalidate his ability to decide what's best for his own daughter. And if nothing else, it at least makes for some dramatic family fights, lol!
Sorry, my usual tangent, comments get away from me. But you seem to like it when I ramble incessantly about one angle or another, so whatever. LMAO.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2017-06-01 08:26 am (UTC)Great update though, and I am glad you didn't drag out Ryan's time away from Newport for too long! It'll be good to have him back there, though it won't be an easy road. I can't wait for Summer's reaction to meeting Lucy, and I hope there won't be too many hurdles to getting custody of her. Theresa as you've written her here seems very aware of being in over her head and looking for an out from this situation so I don't imagine she'll be fighting him too hard.
It's a bit painful to see Ryan refusing to go see Theresa despite her being hurt, because in canon he would have 'sucked it up' and gone to comfort her for her sake, no matter the circumstances....but as hard as it is to see that, that's exactly why it needed to happen, that he needed to stick by his own hurt rather than rush to her side. He didn't refuse out of coldness or callousness, but rather because it hurt him so much that she couldn't stick to her agreement not to see Eddie, especially after what happened the last time they saw him. Course, that doesn't mean he won't feel guilty at some point later on, once the hurt has dulled a little and his usual 'I must comfort all people at all times no matter the cost to myself' convictions resurface, but he put himself first here. He let himself react from a place of hurt rather than a place of obligation, and that's something he's desperately needed to do for a long, long time.
I continue to love seeing this evolution of Caleb, definitely a softer side of him...but at the same time, he's still Caleb and I can easily see him being a bit smug over the fact that he'll always be able to rub it in the Sandman's face that he was there for Lucy's birth and the first family member to see her instead of Sandy. (Caleb's got too much sense to try and rub it in Kirsten's face lol). And it'll definitely help to have Caleb in Ryan's corner when it comes to any possible custody issues.
You know, it struck me when reading this chapter that you've worried about whether or not Ryan should have conflict with the Cohens when it comes time to reveal his sexuality - but I'm thinking there might be a larger issue on the horizon. And that's when it comes time to parent Lucy, and whose responsibility that is. Ryan has been pretty easy going for the most part when it comes to doing what Sandy and Kirsten say and following their advice. Sure, canon had the big upsets like the situation with Oliver and the fights, but for the most part he doesn't object to anything the Cohens ask him to do, expect from him, or try and tell him is 'the right thing to do' or whatever....which, as we've both ranted about, isn't always the right thing for Ryan, just what Sandy and Kirsten THINK is the right thing for him based on their limited knowledge of him, his past and his needs.
But now Ryan isn't just their foster son, he's a father in his own right, responsible for his daughter while still being a teenager living under the Cohens' roof. And there's a LOT of potential conflict to be mined in that, because like you also mentioned in another comment - Ryan won't always stick up for himself, but he never fails to stick up for those he loves or feels responsible for. So it might not be that easy for Sandy, Kirsten and Ryan to reconcile that they're not all going to agree on the best way to raise Lucy...and NO ONE is ever going to convince Ryan that it's anyone's place but his to be the final say in how he raises his daughter.
The Cohens might be Ryan's legal guardians but as often as they treated him like a grown adult rather than a kid, they never got around to acknowledging that he came to them pretty much fully grown, with years of raising himself under his belt...and they never gave him the respect he deserved for that and wrapped their head around when it was time to parent him and when they needed to communicate him like an equal, someone who had been making the kind of decisions they were now trying to make for him, long before they came along. The sad truth is, while they gave Ryan a lot of opportunities he never would have had otherwise, they simply came into his life too late to give him an actual childhood - you can't actually roll back the clock and tell an almost entirely self-sufficient sixteen year old to just...stop being self-sufficient, especially when he can't trust in the stability of his newfound family.
And now that ship has sailed even further, with him being a parent, and the thing is, yeah, he's still underage and they're still his guardians, and he isn't perfect. So if he makes an ordinary teenage mistake that deserves grounding, he's going to be grounded still...but grounding a teenage father doesn't make him any less a teenage father...making a dumb mistake like cutting school one day because he's stressed and overwhelmed, for instance, doesn't mean he's suddenly an unfit father, just that he's still sixteen and made a mistake. BUT I'm not sure that Sandy's going to get that distinction, at least not without someone else opening his eyes to it. My point being, even though Ryan's bisexuality was your initial impetus for this particular fic...I don't know, it might be that it's not ultimately the most central conflict to the narrative you've developed. The conflict from that might actually pale in comparison to the issues that would stem from say, Sandy trying to influence Ryan to parent Lucy in a certain way, confident in his own parenting and his greater age and experience, only to have Ryan stubbornly dig his heels in, because Lucy is HIS daughter, not Sandy's, and just because Ryan won't speak up to point out how Sandy's bullheaded approach to parenting hurts him at times doesn't mean he'll sit back and subject Lucy to the same thing.
It could be a way to ultimately get at a lot of the core disconnects between Ryan and the Cohens, the stuff that kept him from fully becoming part of an actual family. From Sandy's perspective, it would make a certain amount of sense to try and steer Ryan's parenting based on his own views as a parent, because in his mind, how could Ryan possibly know what to do here, having grown up with no adequate parental role models for him to base his parenting on? But that's the entire problem, at the root of all his conflict with Ryan. Because Sandy was good at always acknowledging Ryan's potential, I'll give him that. He never failed to point out all that Ryan COULD be, with the right opportunities. And when Ryan did screw up, Sandy was okay at defending him with the approach 'of course he's gonna make mistakes, look at his life before now, the kind of environment he grew up in, what kind of a kid raised like that isn't going to make mistakes?' But where Sandy failed was he was always so busy focusing on Ryan's potential and how living with the Cohens could steer him away from making the kind of mistake that landed him in juvie....he completely missed the boat on ever focusing on how amazing it was that Ryan is as moral and capable as he is already, in spite of how he grew up. That any mistakes he's made are nothing compared to the other teenage characters who grew up in Newport surrounded by limitless opportunities and supposedly more attentive parents.
What Sandy's never really grasped is yes, Ryan's life pre-Cohens was defined by his parents being shitty and utterly failing in their responsibilities to him, but that didn't mean he didn't know right from wrong, didn't know how to be a good kid (and now, a good parent) just because he didn't have good role models to look up to....that he didn't need a Sandy Cohen in his life to teach him how to be a good father for Lucy, because he already had developed all the character traits he needed to be a good father just from looking at how his parents had been with him....and then doing the complete opposite. He might not know what to do all the time, but he knows what NOT to do, and sometimes, that can be just as informative.
So Ryan and the Cohens butting heads over what's best for Lucy might be a way to finally get the Cohens to recognize that Ryan raised himself and is ultimately the only person truly responsible for the honest, decent, caring man we saw on the show. Might be a way to force Sandy and Kirsten to finally confront the flaws in their own parenting, and recognize that they make their own mistakes, no better or worse than the ones Ryan makes, and if that doesn't make them unfit parents, Ryan's certainly don't invalidate his ability to decide what's best for his own daughter. And if nothing else, it at least makes for some dramatic family fights, lol!
Sorry, my usual tangent, comments get away from me. But you seem to like it when I ramble incessantly about one angle or another, so whatever. LMAO.