methodwriter85

That's funny you mentioned SAE. The University of Delaware SAE chapter got kicked off in 2008 for a pledge over-dosing on cocaine and alcohol. It was, needless to say, quite the scandal. Sig Ep was the hottest frat at our school, but of course, chapters vary. I think the only frat I can think of that have uniformly bad reputations would be TKE. They've been kicked off UD since the early 00's and legend has it they murdered a coed and dropped her body off at the train tracks. Darius always did strike me as someone who'd join a frat...it's kinda surprising he didn't do it while at Santa Clara. But maybe the frat life wasn't big there? When I went to UD, the school was 15 percent frat- frat life was there if you wanted it, but you could be GID and still have a social life. That was kind of the shocking thing about IUP- it was like more than half-frat there, and frats weren't regulated to death there like they were at UD. It was kind of shame that at 24 I was pretty much over the frat party thing.

No, it's "have some fun with the Schluters, get a new car and/or college tuition from them, and THEN get the hell away from them!"

I'm not sure this is a rule, but...wow, Schluter mothers have almost as bad of a death rate as the Hayes, don't they? There's Stefan's mother, Brad's mother, Bitty, and now Jeanine. Ella should be counting her lucky stars that Darius didn't get her pregnant. It seems like the Schluters in general get a lot of trauma heaped on them in general.

Did my post get deleted? That's kind of weird, but I'll just assume that it got eaten or something after Blue replied to it. I think it's just one of those things where we just have to shrug and figure that's what Darius decided on. I mean, Rivers Cuomo, when he was in his 30's and going back to Harvard, decided to live in the dorms. I don't doubt that Darius will probably get a nearby apartment junior year. Maybe Darius just really liked the dorm life from his year of doing it at Santa Clara? I think despite the negatives, dorms are really the best way of building friendships in college, especially during the first year or two. I gotta admit, when I lived on campus again for grad school after living at home for junior and senior year, there were some pretty fun things about it. What struck me about the peek inside JJ's psyche was that the guy was so incredibly bitter and angry. Understandable, of course, but wow. There was like nothing left of that sweet, happy 9-year old we met in If It Fits. Hopefully by his mid-20's JJ will be okay, and he'll spend the rest of his teen years just quietly keeping his nose to the grindstone and secure his spot at Torino while occasionally popping up to make bitchy comments about his brothers' behavior and avoiding any more trauma. I'm not sure that's what Mark has in mind, though. LOL.

That was true for me as well, and I always had some experience with Residence Life. I had a friend who was an R.A. who stuck around for summer session '09, and I myself had to apply for permission to come early to my dorm for the spring 2012 semester. If Darius was an athlete, an R.A., or had taken summer session, I could've believed it, but otherwise it's just not believable. You can't have college kids roaming around dorms without a reason to be there early. It makes sense from a liability standpoint. Maybe this was something that changed about colleges from the early/mid-90's, when Private Tim's co-horts went, vs. the early/mid '00s, when our generation started going off to college. Kinda similiar to how back when Mark Arbour went to college, they actually used to have on-campus bars, whereas nowadays that seems so impossible.

Thanks, Mark. I think the last time you were that effusive for a chapter was the one I did for If It Fits, so I take that as high praise. The alternative pick for that moment is this: "Gonna Take A Miracle" by Laura Nyro and Labelle I almost picked that, but I wanted something not quite so strong and overpowering...so I went with a quieter tune. I'm sure I'll eventually use this for Brad at some point, though. Plus, Unchained Melody has the Ghost connection...Ghost is easily one of my favorite movies from my early 90's childhood. I probably saw that movie like 20 times on VHS before I was 9.

Chapter 42 -When the gang gets back home, discuss funeral arrangements, and Will comforts Brad again. "Landslide" by The Smashing Pumpkins -When Brad comforts Frank, and imagines Robbie in his place. "Everything I Own" by Bread -When Brad gets comforted by Cody. "Unchained Melody" by The Righteous Brothers -When Will wakes up to find himself being comforted by John. "Dreams" by The Cranberries -When Will loses it while hugging Jeff Grimes. "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" by The Smith

One goof here: The fall 2001 quarter at UCLA starts September 25th- it wouldn't make sense for Darius to have already moved his stuff in. Move-in Weekend will probably be September 23rd through September 24th. If Darius was living at a nearby house with roommates, or if Darius was in varsity sport, it'd be one thing, but he really shouldn't already have his things moved in. Something I didn't catch before: That should be two-thirds, actually. I mean, I'm not sure any of these guys thought of Hank as a parent. They might have as time went on, but she died before they could. Always glad to see Jeff.

Very true. Unless you're like an accountant or something, which is kind of ironic, if you think about it. Accountants, nurses, and business majors are pretty much the only people I know who got jobs right out of school.

Have a good one!

So, there's this Youtube vid that's already garned 183k views after being out for a day, and I thought it had some pretty thought-provoking material there: If I'm interepreting this video correctly, it seems to be saying: "Please do not denigrate our generation as being lazy and self-indulgent, because we're not as far along in established life goals as the Baby Boomers were. Our parents brought us all up to think that we were special, without having to really work much towards being special. Therefore, we were shocked when we graduated with an average 30k in college debt(which you guys are responsible for jacking up tuition, BTW) and no chance at a decent job (which is the fault of you Baby Boomers for gutting manufacturing in the 90's and creating the housing bubble), and we're facing a massive federal deficit to pay off because of the two quagmire wars that your generation began. Oh, and since you guys didn't save anything towards retirement, you're not retiring in droves like you should be, keeping the Gen Xers in middle-management and us either in entry-level or shut out completely. But yes, given that you guys are so awesome and did such wonderful things for our country, we'll try harder to model ourselves on you!" Pretty scathing, I thought. Is it valid criticism, or do you find it whining self-entitlement? I lean towards thinking that it'll be nice when the Baby Boomers finally start retiring more (the Baby Boom peaked in 1957, I believe, so the bulk of them should be retirement age by 2022), but I think the processes that they're talking about are far more complex than just the narrative of, "The Greedy Baby Boomers fucked us all over!" For example, with college tuition...my impression is that the reason why college tuition went up so high is based on several factors. The first is that there was an Echo Boom, so college populations expanded in the late 90's and 2000's after being dormant in the late 1970's through the early 90's, which seems like the last time period college was actually pretty affordable. (Seriously, I listen to Gen Xers tell me what they paid for tutition and I want to weep.) When college populations expanded after being dormant for so long, colleges had to scramble to keep up with the demand, leading to major college renovation/projects. Students had higher expectations for their dorms and general campus buildings, and since the 1960's/1970's era buildings that were put up to house the Baby Boomer College explosion were substandard, they were replaced with brand-new sparkling buildings. It made the colleges more competitive with the potential freshman giving tours, but those costs had to be passed on somewhere, right? I don't feel like I know enough about the gutting of the manufacturing, the gutting of unions, and the 90's housing bubble to try and explain the complexities, though... Although I will say...didn't the Silent Generation actually have a lot of power throughout the 80's and the 90's? I'm not really sure it's accurate to say that all of that happened under the Baby Boomer's watch- yes, we've had a Baby Boomer president since 1992 (Obama is borderline Baby Boomer/Generation X), but I don't really feel like the Baby Boomers had a monopoly of power since the 80's that they used to drive all the major direction of this country. What are your thoughts, if any, that you have any on this subject?

Well, to be honest, there's been a timeline roughly worked out to 2006 with JJ's career. Daisy and I came up with it...I wanna say in 2010 or so? It's actually a pretty fine line between adding JJ into actual figure skating history without really re-writing it, although how true to the real timeline we'll stay is up to Mark. The career timeline isn't a set one- we originally had JJ going off to Scotland for the December 2000 Junior Grand Prix, until Mark decided that there was too much going on and had it turn out that JJ was flunking out of HW, making Brad force JJ to stay at home instead. I believe JJ is due for a competition in November in Colorado, but I'd have to check on that. His first competition for the '01-'02 season was the Nebelhorn Trophy in Germany from September 4th through 7th. This is his first season as a senior, so we're assuming that he does well enough to look good and promising, but not enough to beat people like Todd Elderidge and the like. In male figure skating, you're not really a threat until you're closer to 20...even wunderkid Johnny Weir didn't really hit his stride until closer to '06. Evan Lysacek was actually still in the juniors for this season.

I thought this was pretty true and funny, at least from what I've observed from my lofty view of age 27. Totally nails the difference between being 22, and being 26. 7 Absolutely True Ways Guys Change from College to Mid-20's The sleep thing is probably the most true. Also the bit about how 25-year old guys have girlfirends, whereas in college you almost never see that. For me, personally, the biggest difference from 22-year old Jeremy and 27-year old Jeremy is that I'm a lot less inclined to need to attend to a huge rager to have a lot of fun. I mean, every once in awhile it's fun to dance in a bar, but I lean more towards having a few drinks with a friend in a bar where I can talk to them, not with blaring music. Anyone else wanna note differences they've seen in themselves or their friends as they moved from their early 20's to mid-20's?

Chapter 41 -When Wade and Matt have morning/mourning talk. "Porcelain" by Moby -When the family has their grief counseling session. "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas -When Wade stands off with his mother and declares a truce. "Killer Queen" by Queen This is La Danfield's "theme" song that Mark picked out, so this one is to his credit.

I watched Chris Hemsworth in the trailer for Rush and thought, "Roger?" Guy does rock the hell out of the 70's asethetic. (Which makes sense- the 70's WERE the decade of the blond.)

So, I'm going to get more serious here. The Miss America racist backlash really made me think again about the upcoming anti-Middle Eastern sentiment. It's amazing to me that it's 12 years after 9/11, and someone of middle-Eastern descent will still get a comment like this: It's just really frustrating and saddening that with all of the coming together that happened because of 9/11, you also had along with it some pretty bigoted beliefs take root in the minds of some Americans. It's also really important to remember that racists don't make the distinction of, "Well, Al-Qaeda was from Aghanistan, and Nina Davulari is Indian, so it's all okay." Nina gets lumped in as being an "Arab", and "Arab=Terrorist", so then you get the "Miss America is Terrorist!" bullshit mindset going on. Ugh. So disgusting.

So, history was made last night when the first Indian-American Miss America was crowned. And quite predictably, racist comments were made. Ugh. Here's this wonderful response video by a guy basically saying what I think about this: America is basically defined by the fact that it's a melting pot that has never had any kind of singular culture, given the fact that it's the size of a continent. Even before Columbus got here, you had a pretty big variety, from the Mohawks to theLenni Lenape to the Plains Indians. There was a time when the Irish weren't considered American. Being Italian was a taboo well into the 20th century. And if you proclaimed to be Catholic? Woo-wee. I guess this is the price we have to pay for the freedom of speech- having to listen to bigots spout off really horrid things.

I stand corrected. I still don't think Elizabeth would be pleased given that neither Jeanine nor Cody come from prominent families, and she's very much of the "who are your people?" old money South mindset. Even though Wade's relationship with Matt is a gay one, I imagine that Elizabeth was still on some level good with it because he's carrying the Carrswold name. It's probably not a nationallly prominent name, but Mark's written them as being a pretty regionally prominent, well-regarded name.

Thanks. When I first stared doing music recs, I had this rule that I wasn't going to back more than 3 years- it was all going to be from 1977-1980. Given that it was kind of a sucky era for music (transition periods usually always are), I eventually had to break that. So I generally try to keep things within a three-year period, the bulk of it, but oldies get thrown in as well. The only hard and fast rule I stick to is that I won't use music that came out after the year the story is set. I mean, of course, I used Linkin Park for scenes set in summer 2000 when their album didn't come until October 2000, but that's about as much fudging as I'm willing to do. I think music acts like a time machine, in some way- it really has a way of connecting you to where you were and who you were when a certain song was popular. I hear The Way I Are by Timbaland, and I immediately connect to 2007/2008, when 22-year old me would dance my ass off to this song at bars and college parties. Or I hear Quit Playing Games With My Heart, and I remember the summer of 1997, when 11-year old me rushed over to a loudspeaker blaring this at the Italian festival and the total joy I felt singing along to this, while my sister and the carny guy she was flirting with looked at me like I was crazy. The farthest back I can go is 1989, with She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals, We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel, and Like A Prayer by Madonna...I remember seeing those on T.V. as a three/four-year old.

I don't think Will's moving back to Malibu- Mark really seems to like the Menlo crowd, more than he did the HW crowd, and he really likes the idea of Marie, Will, and John going together through school. I kind of assumed that Tiffany would have to move back to Malibu at some point, given that she's JJ's coach, and JJ's moving back to SoCal given that it's got a better figure skating scene there. I'm not sure where Maddie ends up, but I really hope it's not with Tiffany. We can't have Riley and Maddie raised as siblings- it'll kill the future storyline potential of Elizabeth Danfield hitting the roof about her precious grandson dating the no-name granddaughter of an 80's terrorist! I feel like Matt is screaming to be a narrator again, if not here, at least in the next story. There's so many questions and issues that this guy is going to be dealing with- not just his grief, but adjusting out of college (which will probably be harder for him than it is for Wade as Matt really did relish his BMOC title) I can see what you mean about that. For the bulk of my life (18 out of 27), I've never lived more than 90 minutes away from an ocean. The sound of sea gulls and such are a comforting, familiar thing. That was the weirdest part about living in Western P.A., which is pretty close to being in the mid-West- no seagulls, and seafood didn't seem like that much of a big deal around there. I met people who had literally never been to the ocean and my mouth just dropped.

Chapter 40 -When Wade gets the news about his father, and it becomes Matt's turn to comfort him. "Across the Universe" by Fiona Apple I used this song to close out Bloodlines, when Matt was happily celebrating Father's Day, 1999 with his two different fathers, and Wade actually mentioned calling his father. I thought it fit as a "full circle" kind of thing. -When Will and JJ grieve together. "Glory of Love" by Bette Midler -When Brad goes through the task of telling Frank that he's lost his beloved son. "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum -When Brad gets through his gut-wenching phone calls, and takes comfort in his two sons. "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan

Thanks for the clarification. The closest I've ever gotten to being in the Mid-West was being in Pittsburgh. I totally thought Stefan's adventures in 1995 Boystown meant that he lived there.You gotta admit, Mark, the Obama connection WOULD be pretty interesting. And there's no way that Obama's election isn't eventually going to become pretty important to the characters, because racial justice was a huge part of what the original CAP story was all about. Yeah, I was assuming that Wade's getting a J.D. and Matt would get a MA or higher, likely in economics. Chicago or Northwestern are good for both, right? My view of JJ is that he's very comfortable with the temperamental, "I want all of the M&M's in my hotel room bowl to be green" kind of act. But when it comes to sincere emotions, it's something he runs away from. I can't see him dropping skating, though. JJ's invested too much and has given up too much for him to drop out now. He's given up school, friends, time with his family, and his childhood innocence for the dream of someday getting an Olympic medal. It's probably going to be the thing that helps him deal with it and not concentrate too much on his parents dying.

I could see this making Matt get closer to them. Maybe he'll decide to go to U Chicago for a master's degree in economics to be nearer to them, thus utilizing Stefan's recently renovated Chicago condo? Which makes me wonder if that happens, would Wade change his plans about going to either UCLA or Cal for law school? (I mean, in 2002 Chicago was ranked 6th while Northwestern was ranked 12th as law schools, so it's not like he'd have to settle for mediocre.) .But....would a condo in Boys Town be remotely anything resembling a decent place to raise a kid? 9/11 is hitting right when Matt and Wade are in the middle of making major decisions in their lives as seniors in college. That's pretty interesting. They made a committment at the end of Paternity, but they made it without really thinking hard about "what happens next?", as 20-year olds usually are wont to do. I love that the major questions Matt and Wade are going to have to wrestle with have absolutely nothing to do with jealousy over other potential love interests and the like.

I saw Kate Winslet as Jeanine Matthews in the Divergent trailer, and I thought she'd make a really good Elizabeth Danfield: I've been thinking of Elizabeth Danfield as a brunette, but I don't know if Mark's ever specified her haircolor...we know that Beau is a swarthy brunette, Wade and his dad look like Nico Tortorella, and MaryEllen rotates between blonde and brunette, but I can't remember if Mark has specified all that much what she looks like. Anyway, I could see Kate Winslet in the part...just ignore that she's about 5-7 years too young. (Kate's nearly 38...I'm assuming that Elizabeth Danfield is probably more in her early/mid-40's.)

I really don't think Robbie could have lived with himself if he had left Hank and Jeanine up there.