I honestly find that his lack of sympathy and the cheap shots he's made leave a lot to be desired.
His blackmail attempt (though morally reprehensible) never yielded any fruit, and when the tension escalated between Steven and himself, Shawn rapidly folded and expressed unease as well a lack of willingness to press on with his very poorly calculated attempt. His attempts to get something out of Steven appeared clumsy and unnatural...which makes sense considering he was acting well out of his comfort zone and taking a page straight out of his older cousin's extensive book of shady failings. More on that later.
My opinion of Shawn (before his frictions with Steven began) was always somewhat neutral, so had we still been at the chapter 190-200 mark, I would've most likely rated him a two or three like [mention]KidnappedCowboy[/mention] and [mention]Pup[/mention].
Shawn has, for me anyway, won some points back for having been a surprisingly decent caretaker following the events that saw him and Steven coming to a sort of truce. He was, as usual, completely out of his element and at a loss on how to deal with the tasks Nick had dumped on him prior to his leaving on a family emergency.
As a 21-year-old college student who spent most of his time playing sports and gaming with his buddies, Shawn had virtually no insight into the tasks that were thrust upon him by Nick. There he was, being instructed to impose a very strict nine o'clock curfew on a guy who was several years his senior, and then instructed to use brute force to impose the issue if Steven should refuse to abide by it. Shawn was handed a sleepsack, a muzzle, an inflatable gag and was practically forced to take over Nick's fatherly role without even understanding what was going on or how/why Nick & Steven were involved together in the first place.
With his older cousin being such an outwardly stoic manly-man and not one to show public signs of affection for his ward, Shawn had only ever seen a purely transactional Master/sub relationship between his cousin and the boi he was being placed in charge of.
When Shawn was finally made aware (through Steven) that the relationship was not what Nick had allowed him to see, Shawn appeared puzzled and became far more receptive to his cousin's lover. It's almost as though something clicked within him and made him realise that Steven was part of his family.
The exchanges between him and Steven continued on a far more positive note from that point on.
As some of the readers have pointed out, Shawn was always a little cold and aloof, but never to the point of being overly harsh or summarily unfair. So I won't take another point off him for being a little apathetic.
He did get something out of Steven, but as opposed to his poorly executed blackmail attempt, it was the product of negotiation and even gave way to Steven being rewarded.
Shawn allowing Steven to slip away with Joshua and ignoring Nick's curfew orders won him another point with me.
His outrage and ensuing vow to take revenge on Phil for that crafty switcheroo he pulled off also can't be ignored, though that doesn't win him any points since most of his outrage probably stemmed from the fact that he'd been played rather than the effect it had on poor Steven.
Lastly, sharing his bed with Steven and protecting him instead of taking advantage of him on that final night of the babysitting adventure was a nice moment. Intentionally allowing Steven to get up close to Chris' feet and even rewarding him with that mystery sock after having noticed a bit of chemistry between the two was also kinda nice.
Considering the fact that Shawn was given a very diluted and flawed outlook on the nature of Dom/sub relationships (by Nick and Brad) and considering how he and Steven seem to have parted on semi-amicable terms at the start of the 7th volume, I'm going to rate my current approval of Shawn at 6 - AMBIVALENT/CONFLICTED (SLIGHT APPROVAL).
OrdinaryWorld wrote: ↑3 years ago I went for a 6, mostly because he seems decent, albeit unconfident and a bit confused...but some incidents have soured my opinion a decent bit. Ex: near suffocation of Jeremy and Steven through hand gagging...
I'd totally forgotten about that until you brought it up!
Though I can't hold that against him seeing as how that was completely unintentional and that Big Mike, Nick and Zack are all guilty of the same, but it definitely does bring back the memory of [mention]LK3869[/mention]'s crude-yet-brilliant rendition of Shawn "The Handgag Machine".
Poor Jeremy (and Steven). Shawn was so completely oblivious to the hardships the size of his paws was causing them