methodwriter85

Thank for putting into words why I'm preferring someone like Jeff for Will over someone like Tony for Will. Will needs someone that can challenge him, and Tony so far has consistently shown that he doesn't have much of a backbone, while Jeff has shown that he's a pretty tenacious survivor type. Of course, to be fair to Tony, other than his father's death when he was 3, Tony grew up in a fairly sheltered existence as an affluent guy in a tony suburb who's never experienced want or hunger the way Jeff has. It stands to reason that Jeff would have a much stronger backbone- if he didn't, Jeff probably wouldn't have lasted 6 months after getting kicked out. I never even thought of the fact that Jeff actually is a legacy character- good point. OMG, you just made me think of the hilarious Katy Perry video from late 2008, Hot N Cold. It's going to be a very long time from now, but god- I can't wait to get into the emergence of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga in the late 2000's. Music got fun again in '08.

He's a soccer player that Mark has described as having the maschimo of the typical Italian male jock. Tony's status as a legacy character does make him someone I'd be reluctant to kill off, though. You can't underestimate the importance of having legacy characters on a soap. Soaps allow for the storytelling to expand over decades, and Mark has simulated that ability by having his soap fictionally span over 50 years. He can draw from the wealth of the content of the previous stories while at the same time, not having to wait in real-time to do so. I'm totally looking forward to reading about La Danfield's head exploding when Riley and Madison start dating circa 2017. Dear god, she'll be pissed.

Dude, I'm telling you- I really don't think Tony's going anywhere. He's a legacy character, and on a soap, legacy characters are rarely killed off. (Unless you were a Quartermaine on General Hospital.) The last time Mark killed off a legacy character was Billy in Be Rad. More importantly, Tony is the legacy of a character that was pretty popular who had a tragic end, giving Tony "demons" that will have long-term drama potential to them. Tony's also supposed to be representative of the classic closetcase. We've got Will, who represents the modern-day gay guy who was openly gay in middle school and has never been in the closet, and we've got Gathan who represents the guy who is sexually ambigious and is utterly comfortable with that. It stands to reason that Mark wants to balance that out with the narrative of the screaming closet case, and that's what he's done with Tony. If Tony and Will aren't married by 2013, I'll be shocked. It's classic soap with a modern twist to have two legacy characters (especially if they're the legacy of a character that had a tragic end) end up together. Seriously, Tony is not going anywhere. Even when he finishes Stanford, I'm sure Mark will come up with a reason to keep him in California. All the signs are there that Tony is supposed to be a long-term, tent-pole character for the rising generation, who is meant to "rise against" the demons that his father saddled him with. I'd really try to at least get used to him. I will grant though that I find Tony in terms of his personality pretty bland. If it weren't for his character backstory, he'd be basically just another hot masculine friendly jock type. He doesn't have much of a spine, and I think Will's had much more interesting love interests.

He's not contemporaries with Will, Ryan, or JJ. Damn. That could have been interesting.

Damn. That is an extremely good point. I think I'm just being nitpicky now that I realize that I'm totally Team Hot Jeff when it comes to Will. Tony's a nice guy but I think Will has this banter with Jeff that makes me ship them instead. I wonder if Mark will try chem-testing Tony with other guys in the saga- Gathan could be interesting. As for hating Tony...I can't really hate on the guy or wish him dead like Tim. Mark's never going to kill Tony off. He's a legacy character, and after the Jeff/Billy debacle Mark has been loathe to kill off legacy characters. And with this being a soap, legacy characters are pretty important to have. I'm fine with Tony in general- I just don't find him a good fit for Will. Of course, your mileage may vary.

The fourth book is out- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was released in July 2000, and with the first movie coming out, Harry Potter mania should be in full-swing in summer 2001. So you just agreed with me that the books should be huge at this point. Cool. I love it when we agree. I just remember you saying that you graduated from college early- that must be why I thought you skipped a grade. Just when DID you graduate from college? My guess would be like December '05. We would have just barely overlapped- I started college in August '05. And wow, you just reminded me- Orlando Bloomania is coming up soon. Remember this commericial? I think it's from '02-

Chapter 5 -When Will and Tony try and lay out what this whole declaration of love deal means. -When Will and Tony have their post-coital love talk.

Wow. Tim must have loooovvvved this chapter. I'm not on the "Kill Tony" contingent, but the bit about how Will compared Tony's smile to Robbie's creeped me out a little bit. I'm sorry, it's just weird to date people that remind you of your parents.

Nah. I only saw the first two movies because I thought Cedric from Harry Potter was hot and stopped after I realized how blatantly sexist the movies are. I tried to read the first book, and couldn't get through the first chapter because Bella came off as a humorless, stuck-up little bitch. I do have friends my age that watched it because they liked to make fun of it. Hunger Games all the way! Seriously though, how freakin' awesome is Katniss Everdeen as a feminist heroine? Loads better than Bella Swann, for damn sure. In any event, Ace's daughter does hit at exactly the right demographic to be into the Twilight craze. Courtney's 13 when the first movie comes out in '08, I believe. Madison and Riley might be a bit too young, though. It'll be interesting to see what Courtney is like when she's Marie's age- methinks as bad as Marie's Princess complex is, Courtney will be much worse, given that she's the only child.

There are times when I feel like I must have gone to high school in an alternate universe, because at my school, the bitchy Mean Girls type totally embraced being in AP classes. It wasn't seen as dorky to care about your grades and to actually read. It was seen as wanting to go to a decent college. Then again, I did not go to a traditional public school. Then again, neither do these kids. That could be kind of an interesting contrast, if Wade/Darius/Matt didn't get what the big deal about Harry Potter was, while Marie/John are going apeshit over it. And then later on, Courtney is going apeshit about Twilight (she'd be 13 when the first movie comes out), while Marie and John just don't get it. Anyway, these characters are a little younger than you- they were born in 1986 and '87 respectively...plus, didn't you also skip a grade? In any event, while it might not be a big deal to Will and Wade, we do have it established as cannon that Marie is into the book series. From Chapter 25 of Millenium, set December 1, 1999: “It is. And we got into looking at our new projects and I’m fucking stoked. We’ve got some great movies in the pipeline. These last two bombs are history. I was hanging out with Claire and Marie yesterday, and Marie was reading this book called Harry Potter and some bullshit. She was completely into it, and she says all her friends are too. Seems like it’s this sensation or something. They’re turning them into movies, so I made a few calls, and it looks like we have a chance to be part of the production group.” I'm guessing it was Harry Potter and the Prison of Azkaban. (Released in September of 1999.) I think the high school people who were into the books pre-movie got into them when they were in middle school(the books came out when Marie/John were 11 and 10, respectively) and then after the movies were released, you started seeing the older people like Wade and Matt getting into the movie series/books. It's kind of similiar to what's happening with the Hunger Games triology right now- it was mainly the domain of middle school kids, then when the movie was getting ready to premiere older people jumped on the bandwagon. (Myself included.) t'd also be funny to get in the Lord of the Rings stuff, the other big franchise about to debut that year. Apparently, Elijah Wood was the major boywhore of Hollywood at that time. I do think it'd be weird to by-pass Harry Potter entirely, because Robbie is producing the movie, the stakes are pretty high because this was not a cheap movie to make, and with it being June/July 2001, there should already be promotion efforts underway for the movie, which premieres in November. (It was originally supposed to premiere in July, but that got pushed back, which likely would be frustrating Robbie and worrying him a little.)

Nah, the thing about Harry Potter was that hot girls were into it, too. I've seen sorority college girls talk about Harry Potter. It really did appeal to everyone, especially after the movie came out in November of '01. And we've already established that Marie and her friends are major Harry Potter fans, so the upcoming movie should be a big deal to them. The fact that Marieand her friends were big fans of the books is what convinced Robbie to make the incredibly wise decision to invest in the film series, is it not?

Hey, Blue, you're closer to Matt and Wade's age group than I am...I'm curious...in 2001, were the upcoming Harry Potter films a big deal, or were things more about The Lord of the Rings? I was in 9th grade in 2001, and I remember both movies being pretty huge, but my age group was leaning more towards Harry Potter. I'm absolutely positive Harry Potter would be a big deal for people Will/Marie/JJ/John's age, but I'm not so sure about the Matt/Darius/Wade college-aged group.

Yeah, that's what is pretty fascinating about this- it's really hard to pinpoint the spread of slang, especially once we get to the post-MTV era. The movie Clueless in 1995 was extremely influential- that movie basically signaled the end of the Grunge Era, and how people talked throughout about 1995 to about 1997. TV is also pretty big- The O.C. and Laguna Beach had a lot of slang terms that spread pretty fast in 2003 and 2004. Then there was Jersey Shore that influenced slang in 2010 and 2011- suddenly people were saying things like "grenade." Have you ever seen the 1983 movie Valley Girl? It was pretty cool, because it showed the differences in slang between Valley kids and Hollyweird kids, kind of what you're getting at. In my case, I tend to think if it's something I heard in Delaware, it was probably in California at least 2-3 years before, because Delaware tends to be behind in slang. What's even funnier was when I lived in Western Pennsylvania,and people were still wearing popped collars and Livestrong bracelets like it was the mid-2000's. It was a weird time-warp. I remember when Mark started writing Bloodlines, he asked Adam about slang terms he used when he was an 18-year old jock in 1998. Of course, the slang wouldn't be exactly the same, since Adam is from Texas and Matt is from Ohio, but it should probably come close. That's part of what this thread is all about- sussing out slang words we've used that might turn out to be just things that were particular to our friends/region. We can't ever really get it perfect, but it's fun to try, because part of what Mark tries to do is recreate the particular mindset of a time period, and slang is part of it.

Since by virture of it being Matt and Wade's graduation year, I'm assuming we'll hit that year, too... I think of 2002 as being the Year of Avril Lavigne, as the trend of the pretty blonde pop pwincess went out, although not nearly as fast as the boyband fanom . Avril represented the anti-dote to that, as the "punk" girl who was supposed to be more "real" than the Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera/Mandy Moore/Jessica Simpson brigade. Although the pop deal did continue in the U.K., it felt pretty dead in the U.S. In terms of '02 pop culture references, I'm looking forward to , The Osbournes, Maroon 5 (shut up- was an awesome song), (okay, I know), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Chicago. I also really liked Far From Heaven, which I caught at the local university cinema in early '03. Dennis Quaid was pretty damn hot for an old guy in that film, I thought. (You might remember him as Lindsay Lohan's dad in the Parent Trap.)

Alright, I'll try another Darius. Since you want darker coloring (but you still seem to envision Darius with high cheekbones), I like the idea of Rob Wilson, the male Price Is Right model, and a new actor for the online revival of All My Children. I think he does have an ambigious racial mixture that I could totally buy as being Persian. I could also see Rob Wilson as the slutty Latino boy that lived with the Schluters and Cramptons for a few years because Mexico wasn't that forgiving to the gays.

Wait, I thought the Greek system was based on friendship and philanthrophy.

Dirty-mouthed Delawarean making most of gaffe AJ Clemente is from Delaware. You gotta love how small this world is.

*shrugs* It was the . That's where I got it from. *sigh* Matthew Goode is sooooo hot.

It was with this chapter that I realized that I kind of find Tony boring. Of course, your mileage may vary, but I don't find much that distinguishes Tony from any other hot, macho jock from a rich family that we've had in CAP other than the fact that he's a legacy character, and he has freak-outs similiar to Robbie back in Be Rad. Hot Jeff is way more interesting, and he has a great banter with Will. Tony and Will feel to me like a rip-off of early Brad/Robbie, only I don't find Tony nearly as endearing as Robbie was in 1980. They can't really become an official, open couple because of Will's age (and because Tony is more than 4 years older than him), and because this is the post-Megan's Law era where officials start to really slam down on statutory rape. Will can't exactly hold hands with him at lunch, he can't take Tony to his prom (Will doesn't turn 18 until he's in college), Tony can't tell his soccer pals at Stanford that he's dating a 14-year old, etc etc etc. I'm pretty sure Tony's family has stock in Schluter Entreprises (or whatever the hell the conglomerate is called)...it was implied that Tony grew up in a pretty upscale suburb of St. Louis. He doesn't have Crampton/Schluter riches, but I'm guessing that he's probably close to where Matt's family is on the socioeconomic scale, only Matt's family would have more cache as older money. The 2000's were not a pretty decade, that's for damn sure. They were some positives- like the advance of gay rights and all the cool technology that came out, but god this decade was turbulent. There's that stuff, then there's the D.C. sniper, the Iraq War, The Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Virginia Tech Massacree, the Economic Crisis of 2008-2009, etc etc etc. Should give Mark a lot of material.

I can't with "Follow Me." I'm sorry, that's a song from 2001 that still makes me twitch today. Chapter 4 -When Will contemplates high school relationships, and doesn't know if he'd want to get that wrapped up into someone. -When Will has his threesome with the future Anakin Skywalker and his Disney Channel Original Movie boyfriend. -When Will and Tony have some sexytimes. God, this song was everywhere back in early '01. There was even a running gag about that song in this 2001 movie called Orange County. -When Will and Tony declare their love for one another. I remember Tim kind of bitched about the fact that I didn't use opera music the last time we were in Italy, so I thought I'd change that. You're welcome, Tim.

Very good point. It's not as if Will was being particularly discrete about his affair with Kyle, either- that it took six months to get discovered kind of shocked me. Eric must have been incredibly dense. Menlo is a fairly small school- I'm estimating there are probably about 100 to 150 students per grade, and there's no way there wouldn't have been some whispering going on. I've gone to the small school that holds 7 grades. It's not like a large public school where there are 2,000 students and you can just disapear- people are always in other people's business. That Marie didn't crack sooner does show some restraint on her part. You can see both sides- Will is not responsible for Eric being faithful, and Marie is not responsible for the fact that her cousin wanted to bang her friend's boyfriend. But I'm getting the feeling that things are being skewed so that things are entirely Marie's fault and Will's once again blameless; then again, that's also what happens when you follow in first-person perspective.

I always thought it'd be cute if a character said someone's car was "sick", and the mid-Western boy asked what was wrong with the car. What an incredibly cute call-back that would be. I first heard "sick" used in the context of being cool on the O.C. in 2003; it also gave us "rager." Laguna Beach in 2004 confirmed that Cali teens were using sick and rager, so I figure that "sick" should be around by 2001. On the other hand...does anyone remember saying things were "the bomb" in 2001? I'm from a state that lags behind culturally behind states like California and New York, and I don't remember anyone still saying things were the bomb in 2001, but Mark insists that his research shows that teenagers in the early '00s were still saying that. I guess maybe it's one of those things where people just kept saying old slang words. I'm starting to cringe a little when Will's saying things are the bomb, because that feels so 1997. Maybe Will's just kind of a dork who doesn't keep up the latest slang? Because we did have JJ and Kristin saying something was beast, so it's possible that Will's just a quirky guy who's attached to an outdated slang term. I had a friend named Steve in college who insisted on saying things were "dope" and "fresh" in 2010.

He's 24 now, though. No longer a whippersnapper, I believe. The mid-20's. Which were pretty much my favorite years, so go, Yang.

Have a happy birthday!