Okay, so every now and then a story will provoke my imagination enough that I start coming up with wild ideas as to what's to follow. Here's my prediction for where Let's Do It is headed from chapter 16:

Brian and Davey never get back together. Davey's stubbornness and outrage at seeing Brian with another guy create a deep resentment toward Brian. He stays with Julie... and gets her pregnant when a condom breaks, sealing the split between him and Brian forever as Davey gets married to Julie, wanting so much to believe he is really straight. Brian never really recovers from losing Davey; he can't focus enough in college and drops out. 10 years later He ends up as the manager of a small restaurant that gets robbed one fateful night and Brian is shot. Davey learns about it and finally comes to Brian's side in the hospital. On his deathbed, Brian instructs Davey to publish a journal online. Davey agrees, not realizing that it's purpose was to attract Sean's attention.

Sean finds himself in disbelief as he reads through Brian's journal, learning of Davey's infidelity and of how much it affected Brian. As he reads the last few lines Sean's eyes go wide, realizing what Brian is asking him, and understanding. With a heavy sigh, Sean activates the time machine and sends himself back to the day Brian apologized to him for stuffing him in a trash can. Brian needed help, and Davey needed a good metaphorical slap in the face about what it means to be gay, and none could better do that than Sean. His last thoughts as the machine activates are "Damn you Davey Jones..." which is the title of the next installment in the Do Over series, from Sean's perspective.

And I thought I had wild ideas!

Actually, I predicted back at the beginning of LDI a better than even chance that when we met Shawn, he would have come back as well. Clearly this didn't happen. That is not to say it couldn't happen, but the logistics are far from simple. Remember that there was only enough power to send one person back and Shawn sent Brian back as far in time as he had power to do so. That meant that after Brian went back, the machine was virtually out of power and the bubble would have collapsed, obliterating Shawn, perhaps before he even had a chance to observe the effect of Brian going back on the time line.

Let's suppose, however, that Shawn was able to observe the changes in the time line long enough to read Davey's journal or whatever. If he decided he needed to go back, could he do it? Technically no, but there might be some options. Firstly, if he's still around in the revised time line, he could go back a matter of a few years, assuming there is enough power to do so, build a new time machine, since none would exist, and use the new time machine to send himself back. Secondly, if there is enough power to go back to 2004 (doubtful since he would have undoubtedly used the extra power to send Brian back farther in the first place), he might send himself back to the Shawn that helped to build the first time machine. Knowing how the blocking signal worked, he might be able to find a way around it to send himself back further in time. Finally, rather than sending all his memories back in time, he might find a way to send a message back - perhaps instructions on how to get through the blocking signal so that the previous instances of time travel would be restored.

Now as to the idea of Julie getting pregnant, that's actually something I contemplated. If Julie did get pregnant, you can bet that everyone in Davey's family would push for him to do the right thing and he undoubtedly would marry her, crushing Brian's heart. Unlike your predictions, however, I think that Brian would still be driven by his mission to fix the future, no matter the personal cost. I predict that should Davey end up married to Julie, the marriage will be a disaster and he'll end up divorced and back in Brian's arms.

Given that Dan has stated in his blog that he doesn't intend for LDI to go much beyond 17 chapters, I would vote for a quick reconciliation.

Unfortunately, LDI is now at chapter 23 and continuing. Sigh.

yay!!!!!! When I read what Altimexis said about ending near Ch 17, I was sad. But now I'm happy



Sigh good!!!!!

Always an interesting story though.

a very wicked idea....but i don't think it would go this way...after following Dan's stories, i think he doesn't have a repetitive streak in him (i may be wrong here). This scenario has already played out in the second timeline(when davey goes back for the first time n dies as a result of the sub attack).

therefore, i don't think Dan would do this again. Nevertheless, ideas like Julie getting pregnant...have a lot of potential in them...n i think the thought did cross Dan's mind....Did it Dan????

What are you doing giving him ideas shut it Cause it could end up happening now lets just hope that don't happen.

I haven't read much on the forums, so I won't pretend to have much "insight" into Dan's mind, but if I were in his shoes, I'd be thinking "damn, I've written 8MB on this topic already [i copied them all to my local comp since my internet connection here is sporadic sometimes, and the 115 text files take up just over 8MB]. If I leave even a hint of a possibility of another Do Over machine happening, everyone's gonna push me to keep going." On those lines, I'd come up with some fancy way in which Brandon comes up with a device to jam the jammer, seals himself in a bubble, and uses all his power to reactivate the sending of Davey back to 76. This would, of course, create an unbreakable cycle - Davey's fourth timeline plays out, and Brian is sent to 86, then that timeline plays out, and Davey is sent back to 76, then that timeline plays out ...

Of course, what would be more fun (for us, not Dan), if Dan were willing to write ANOTHER series, would be to block the jamming, then send Brian back into the Davey-in-76 timeline to eventually stop the bombing of Washington, but now they might have a chance to prevent 9/11, but doing so might leave W in office for four more years, but ... it might be a little on the repetitive side, since Brian wouldn't want to change anything major, but with some clever writing, it could make for another interesting series. Besides, I tend to find the best parts of these stories to be when people find out about the time-travel thing, and combine Brian's lesser ability to think on his feet, with his younger body's lack of emotional control, and it could make for some very ... interesting scenes.