methodwriter85

Chapter 43 -When Jackson comforts Maya over her rape. "Run" by Snow Patrol -When Travis cracks. "Hurt" by Johnny Cash -When Will finds Kendo and Travis, gets gutted, but starts formulating a plan. "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers -When Will meets up with Jeff and decides to engage in some party n play in order to understand what he's up against. "Running Up That Hill" by Placebo

Eh, I get it. Dude aged exceptionally well. Reese Junior is getting a push in the gay media lately if you're wondering why I'm referencing him. Bizarrely they're trying to push the narrative that he looks like his dad when dude clearly has his Mommy's face.

You might like Reese Witherspoon Junior. Not that he looks like Young Leo, but if you're into the category of blond twinks and don't mind the pointy Witherspoon chin, he's not a bad entry at all.

Chapter 42 -When Will ruminates over Travis, feeling like he's losing him but still hoping that he can make things work on May 26th. "Where'd You Go?" by Fort Minor -When Travis mopes yet again about his life as a television star and tries to talk to Aaron about how the storyline is affecting him. "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter -When Travis takes the GHB and goes on a big fluffy cloud with Kendo driving the fluffy crowd train. "Message In A Bottle" by The Police You know, it's funny, despite being exactly the intended target for Leo Mania (I was 11 years old when Titanic debuted after I had already seen Romeo and Juliet) but Leo never did much for me. I preferred tall brunette guys like Josh Hartnett, Brendan Fehr, David Boreanaz, Joshua Jackson, and Ben Affleck.

Yeah, I forget the biggest rule of a soap opera is that once a couple gets their happily ever after, they're generally shipped off (Matt/Wade) or they drop down to recurring while they give out advice to the young couples (Stefan/JP.) Anyway, this is trending on Twitter, and it's making me laugh because Travis would probably see Zac as his competition. LOL I remember when Zac was held up as a child actor/teen idol who actually turned out normal with people citing his supportive family as why, and then it came out that he's also had several stints in rehab.

I'm trying to remember if Will ever really got to that stage with anybody, and I'm failing. He and Zach's slow breakup pretty much started after Zach began college. I'm laughing now as I say this, but when Travis was introduced, I really did think to myself, "Aww, Mark is finally giving Will a nice stable relationship instead of drama all the time."

Well, I adore Travis. There's nothing more fun than a neurotic television star. LOL

My Tiffany fancast Kristen Bell took a moment to remind us again why she's so fucking awesome. LOL

Unfortunately I think the likelihood of Will ever ending up with a nice, normal guy who isn't a neurotic mess is pretty much nil. Like his father, tortured blond jocks are Will's kryptonite. At one point a long time ago I think Mark considered writing Will a nice Mormon love interest but stopped because of how boring it was. Lol

It's not naivete. It's Travis being a junkie and telling himself what he needs to tell himself in order to get his fix. I do agree that they need to consider a clean break up for now, and then re-consider things when Will inevitably moves back to California after he graduates from Harvard in 2008. (Or 2009. It's always possible Mark might let Will be a super-senior like Darius.) I wonder if Mark would consider letting Will settle into San Diego. That's always felt like a city I've wanted to see more of in CAP.

Chapter 41 -When Kendo gives a high Travis a blowjob. "How Soon Is Now?" by the Smiths -When Travis walks up naked in bed with Kendo next to him. "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Donovan -When Travis feels euphoric at the start of his shooting day after he's convince to add Klonopin to his cocktail. "Dance, Dance" by Fall Out Boy -When both Travis and Will seem to feel their relationship slipping away over their long distance call. "Where Did Our Love Go?" by The Supremes The funny thing is, I don't think I've ever actually used this song despite doing this now for like 17 years. Damn. LOL

I imagine Stef reacting in horror the first time sees one of the Gen Z boy characters wearing this monstrosity: I'm leaning towards it being Bobby Carrswold. He'll have the right hair texture for it because Hayes boys tend to have curlier, poofy hair. Riley would probably stick to the classic 90's haircut that comes back in when he's a teenager because I can't see any scenario in which Wade would tolerate a trendy but ugly hairstyle on his heir. LOL

I feel like I'm seeing this one a lot, too.

One more attempt at a Palisades cast photo. This vibe feels like the cast is promoting a fall American Eagle line. LOL

Using Grok to create a cast photo for Palisades has been fun but a bit frustrating. Still, I like how this one turned out.

Alright, here's another attempt at my Palisades cast photo. God, this was fun. LOL

I do think it's telling that aside from the beginning of the story, we really haven't seen Travis have all that much interaction with his castmates aside from Kendo. Kendo is pretty much aways on Travis, which probably turns off the cast. Travis is singled out as the star; Travis is doing movies on his hiatus; Travis comes from a rich family and therefore he might be pretty intimidating to those who meet him. Not to mention that Travis is desperately trying to stay closeted because he wants the A-list and he doesn't trust anyone on the cast. I did think he was going to befriend the girl playing Maya but that seems to have completely not happened at all. Sometimes you get t.v. shows where the cast is the best of best friends (the Riverdale cast), and sometimes you get a t.v. show where the set is extremely toxic and everyone is off on their own entourage and nobody talks to each other. This show seems to be the latter. Anyway, Mark, I decided to have some fun with Grok and did a cast photo. Grok was able to get Paul Walker and Olivia Wilde fairly close but the other fancasts didn't quite turn out right. Still, I think it looks great. LOL

Ryan Murphy is dropping a new show that's set in 1981 Los Angeles. This one (he's the lead) makes me think of Cary, who later showed up as a villain in a later story. (Right? That was Cary who teamed up with Brad's evil half brother and evil ABC?)

What I do find interesting is that the Danfields are pretty much the opposite of that. In no way are Elizabeth Danfield or Mary Ellen Granger (?) on a pedestal, and both are more than capable of scorched earth tactics. Riley Danfield and Bobby Carrswold are being raised by Tiffany, as well, and I can't see her nurturing the patriarchal Crampton/Schluter example with her kids. I don't see her getting bowed over like Jeanine was by Brad and Robbie. I'm really hoping that Tiffany gets back into coaching soon. Riley and Maddie are currently 5 years old, which means they should be in school. Bobbie should be 3 years old, which means school is coming in soon. Of course, it helps that I believe Tiffany has her own inheritance money from her grandparents. I mean, not billions, obviously, but as she put it, her grandparents "did alright."

I remember feeling outraged during the events of Paternity (that was the emancipation storyline, right?) at how it seems like Will gets away with murder but I've since mellowed on him. Will won me over during his Zach/Will romance storyline. I think it helps a lot that Mark has had characters in the story actually pointing out Will's Golden Child status and how much that seems to annoy Will when they do. More of that please, Mark. I was kind of hoping that Mark would take a cue from Love Story and have Will fall in love with a beautiful scholarship student who called him "Preppie" and played hard to get, but so far no dice. I'm like Private Tim longing for the Alisdair/Will storyline that will never come. LOL Speaking of Alisdair...hello, 30-year old Alisdair! I've also got Jamie Bell as a 40-year old Alisdair because they really do look like they could be the same person at two different points in their lives. LOL

Chapter 39 -When Will walks with Travis on campus, and he notes how much more popular Travis is now that Palisades is airing. "Fame" by David Bowie -When Will and Travis have reunion sex, but something is just somewhat off, and Will can't figure out why. "The Shoop Shoop Song" by Cher (It's In His Kiss) -When Travis and Will have an afterglow discussion where he talks about the difficulty he's having in acting out his scenes on Palisades, but it's worth it because of how good his performance is. "Sleepwalker" by Santo & Johnny -When Will brushes aside his suspicions about Travis to engage in another session of energetic love-making. "SOS" by Rihanna SOS. Feels really apt, right? -When Will and his volleyball team win their game. "Poppin' My Collar" by Three 6 Mafia -When Will gently tries to ask Travis about his pill popping in the middle of their after-glow, and gets shut down pretty quickly. "Sweet Jane" by the Cowboys Junkies

Llama or broccoli or Roman curls.

It's a consequence of fancasting with current hot young studs, Mark. A lot of them roll around with curly hair these days, to the point of some of them even getting perms. In the 2000's guys tended to wear shorter straighter hair, unless they were feathering (think Zac Efron who is currently the It Boy as High School Musical just came out) or spiky bedhead.

Niko fancast, Mark? Thoughts?

It reminded me that we can now start to use the term "hipster." Although I don't think either Will or Jeremy have run into that species just yet. They really begin to flourish once the Great Recession starts to set in. Joy Division was your time, but I get the feeling that they didn't really take off until the mid-80's after the remnants of the group made it big as New Order. I'm really fascinated by child star/teen idol stories. That is why I was so excited when Mark told me what the plot of this book was. It's been a thing for one hundred years at this point and there are still so many throughlines and similarities in all of the stories. It really comes down to that you need to have someone guiding you who actually gives a shit about you and not what you can give them. I have noticed that if someone comes into fame later (say the age of 25 or older), you tend to see better outcomes. Austin Butler took a loooonnnngggg time to break through as a star but it's probably going to be much better for him in the end that he became famous at 30 rather than at 19. KJ Apa is technically not a child star (he started acting at 17 and got his big breakthrough at 19 with Riverdale) but he's been sharing his story with a podcast co-hosted by Dylan Sprouse and it's been a wild ride. Dude came to America from Australia all by himself to become a star and it sounds like things got wild for a bit. At one point KJ crashed his car after he fell asleep at the wheel and it was blamed on a long work day but now I'm wondering if that may have been a cover up.