methodwriter85

Chapter 3 -When the gang discusses Hank, and Will deduces that someone's found their gravy train. -When we meet Hank, who's just a little too aggressive with the family and in particular, Will. -When Will gets a Happy Ending from his massage therapist that looks like Javier Bardem. You gotta love how barely-veiled hip-hop is about sexual references. LOL. Timbaland boots were soooooo popular with the urban crowd back then. It was a weird culture shock when I lived in Western PA, and Timbalands were instead being worn by white fraternity guys.

Yeah...

It just confounds me that the Baby Boomer generation, who tore down the notion of "in loco parentis" when they were in college in the 1960's and 1970's, have basically tried to re-install it for the college students of the '00's and the early '10's. I remember when the University of Delaware sent letters to parents of students who did not live on campus, warning them of the annual block party to get the whole thing shut down. And from what I understand, it's not like binge-drinking has disapeared from college campuses- they just don't do it out in the open at big ragers anymore.

Tom Welling isn't that good of an actor. Henvy Cavill, from all accounts, is and that's half the battle. I mean, last time around they picked a guy who was 6'4" and looked like the All-American superhero, and look how well that panned out.

Tiffany is the daughter of the guy that Brad slept with. Said guy went crazy in the 1980's and tried to bomb the White House in 1983 as part of the Weather Underground.

Chapter 2 -When Will thinks over the triangle with Erik and Kyle, and later on when he contronts Marie, who's not that innocent.

I do seriously wonder if Will would be so cavalier if his committed boyfriend was sleeping with somebody else. I think what Brad did to Robbie's car comes to mind immediately. That is an area that I think Will is going to be similiar to Brad in- as in all reason and logic go out the window during a break-up.

And to think, you've done it in 4 and a half years. "Worlds" is short for the World Figure Skating Championship, which took place in March in Bulgaria. The event you're referring to was the 2001 Nebelhorn Trophy. I'd just refer to it as being "there's an ISU competition in Germany in early September, and there's another in October." Although, that timeline beyond the Nebelhorn Trophy from September 4th through 7th hasn't been set. So I'm kind of confused on this, too. I like Jeanine's New Jersey roots being brought up here, and that she's from Hoboken. I can buy that Jeanine was from north New Jersey- she doesn't really have that south Jersey/Philly/Shore vibe to her.

Touching post there, Westie. I deeply regret that I did not go to Ground Zero when I visited NYC in 2002, just nine months after 9/11. I think at the time, I was more interested in tagging along like a puppy with this guy I had a massive crush on, plus at 16 I do not think I was in the emotional place to handle being at that site. When I heard from the people who had visited there, a lot of the little makeshift memorials were still there. I also had a chance to see the original run of Rent, and I turned that down, too. Ugh. Although I think that was when Joey Fatone was in the cast, so I'm not too torn up about it.

To be fair, Gale does have more of a role in Catching Fire than he did in Hunger Games. I'm impressed they kept the whipping in- I thought for sure that was going to be taken out.

More to the point though, I hope Will eventually becomes the guy who WANTS to genuinely help those less fortunate than him beyond just buying a hot guy three Abercrombie polos. I think he will, especially if he's meant to be the next Tonto. And you've written Will as someone who's genuinely into school and genuinely interested in academic competition- would it really make sense that Will would be okay with getting into a school because of his Grandpa and not because he actually deserved to get in there? Remember his reaction to Darius not going to Anapolis because he realized that he didn't deserve that spot? It'd be serious hypocrisy if Will was in the same situation but decided to take that spot anyway, after applauding Darius so much for that choice. There's a happy medium between either being an Adderall-popping academic zombie who put themselves on a ton of extracurriculars to pad their CV's, and being a slacker who figured his connections would get him into whatever school he wanted to go to. Will strikes me as someone who'd take on a few extracurriculars that he was genuinely interested in and had the added bonus of looking good on his college resume. I don't see him going into heart palpatations over college admissions, but I also can't see him just completely lying back while ignoring the extracurriculars expectation and expecting J.P. and Brad's connections to do all the work for him. Plus, you gotta remember that Menlo does actually require community service. I know that public high schools are moving to require that now; it figures that private schools were the first do this. This is what Will is required to do for his sophomore year at Menlo: So Will has to do community service, although I actually think he'd be pretty keen to do it. This requirement screams "Habitat for Humanity" to me. I'd like for him to get into a volunteer opportunity where he didn't exploit the people he was supposed to be helping like he did with the Shelter. (I'm sorry, but rendering the services of the shelter kids to get fake I.D.'s and roofies IS exploitation, point blank.) Mark does bring up an interesting point about legacy admissions...here's a pretty cool article from M.I.T. that explains why they refuse to have them. I did speak to a friend who worked as a high school counselor in this era who said that the whole "Bush got into Yale with his horrible GPA" legacy admission deal started to become less of a factor in this time period, likely because of how competitive schools got once the Baby Boomers started sending their kids off to college. I mean, don't get me wrong- I get that it happens. Just...why exactly would Will depend on it if we've already seen that he's willing to go the extra mile to procure good grades? Wouldn't it stand to reason that he'd also take the advice of his guidance counselor and take on a few activities that speak of character building and leadership? Of course, he's still a sophomore...he hasn't even taken his PSAT's yet, so yeah, at this point, he wouldn't be worried about putting extracurriculars on his CV yet. At the same time, Will can't exactly disregard it, since his school requires him to do a sophomore retreat and put in 20 hours of community service.

I honestly thought he'd get that when he started volunteering at the homeless shelter, but I don't think that lesson really came through to him. I think part of it was because his main connections there had been with guys he either wanted to sleep with, or guys that he used to get roofies and licenses from. Maybe if Will did a Habitat for Humanity project for his spring break? I did one, and it was a pretty eye-opening experience. This is the 2000's when college competition became really cutthroat, and that's the kind of thing that people wanted to have on their college apps, so I figure something like that should be somewhere in Will's future. I'm pretty sure Menlo has the same kind of emphasis on humanitarian causes that HW has, so I'm hoping that Will absorbs that. Otherwise, I'm not really seeing how Will's the next Tonto Incarnate, because social activism and humanitarian causes were a big part of who Tonto was. We got a little glimpse of that when Will naievely tried to make things better for openly gay people in figure skating, but I hope we see more of that the older Will gets and the more aware he gets of the inequalities in life. I mean, he IS only 14. Not everybody is Matt Price at 14. I'm also pretty sure there's a trip to Africa that upperclassmen Menlo students can do, so that could be an interesting way for Will to gain some perspective, too. Plus, Mark could hook Will up with some hot black guys. Will hasn't been with a black guy yet, right?

What's bizarre is that you've missed the times Mark has explicitly said this is a soap opera. I would love to see the kind of journey you're talking about here, but the likelihood of having a protagonist even dabbling in religion seems zero to nil. Even Gathan, who should have grown up in a religious household given the vibes that Wally and Clara gave off, seemed oddly not all that into relgion. Religion and philosphy just don't seem like things that Mark wants to put into his writing all that much.

You're expecting a journey of morality, philosophy, and ethics on a gay soap opera? Seriously?

Mark has kind of ignored what classes specific to his school that Will would taking(he's kept it vague and general like English and math), so I'm not sure we're ever going to see Will in a philosophy class or a religion class, even though I think both are required at Menlo. I'm not sure religion is ever going to play that much of a thought in Will's daily actions. Mark's atheist, therefore Brad's atheist and it looks like Will is probably going to take after him with that. Darius is probably somewhat open to the existence of God because he went to Santa Clara...I'm not sure about JJ. He'd certaintly never say publically that he's an atheist, that's for sure. I think JJ would be more along the lines of an agnostic...believing in a god, but not really being tied into any kind of organized religion. Although...wouldn't Will being an atheist actually be somewhat of a problem with Catholic Tony, at least down the road when they're talking about how they're going to raise the twins they procured courtesy of a three-some with a lesbian? Not being on the same page religion-wise can sometimes be a big dealbreaker. It would be interesting if Mark tapped into the rush towards religion and God that happened for a subset of young people after 9/11 (my older sisters were part of this), but I'd be surprised if he did.

Can we take a moment to appreciate how damn sexy Mike Vogel, aka Sherrif Shelby, is? Geez. Hot damn. I don't care if the guy is evil, Zach Shelby is hot.

I'm going to take another shot at Middle-Aged Claire...Vera Farmiga?

Hey, what makes you say that? Seriously though, I feel like you and I have been largely on the same page in regards to JJ. I've argued with you waaaaayyyyyy more on the Will stuff than I have with the JJ stuff, because we've been mainly on the same page about JJ. Like here. I totally agree with you on this one. At 17/18 (and when Evan Lysacek moves to Los Angeles), I can see it. Not at 15, when he still has the mindset of a little kid. I cringe at the thought of what a story narrated by me when I was 15 would be like...I was simliar in being very, very immature for my age then. Plus, as I've said in the other thing...being narrator requires you to have lots of sex, and I think JJ's natural inclination is to be somewhat chaste, after the nightmare of what happened with his coach. I think had this not happened, JJ would have been the type of kid you knew in high school who was happy to hold hands with his significiant other, let alone hump like rabbits the way his brothers do. That'll probably change when he gets closer to his 20's, but for now I think where you have him right now - the diva so focused on skating that he's not really so much into dating and mating the way his brothers are and who doesn't get why his brothers get so consumed by it- works really well, as a great contrast to Will the quintessential sexually precocious kid. It's also really realistic and true-to-life- yes, teenagers are typically hornbags looking to sate their hormonal urges, but some aren't. It's nice seeing a supporting character who doesn't fit into the oversexed American Pie high school stereotype.

I don't know how likely this is, but man, how cool would it be if Mark could incorporate the 2001 MTV Music Video Awards into CAP, which took place on September 6th? I mean, we did have Beyonce show up. I remember when 9/11 happened, people were talking about how much fun the week before 9/11 had been in NYC, and this was the last major awards ceremony held in New York before 9/11. For me, I remember the '01 ceremony being a big deal because one of the kids at my school was a back-up dancer for a Jay Z song.

Stanford is on a quarter system, so the 2001-2002 school year doesn't start until after 9/11. Check out the 2001-2002 Stanford academic calendar. According to the calendar, the 2001 Autumn quarter at Stanford started on Monday, September 24th, 2001. Wade and Matt's graduation should take place on Sunday, June 16th, 2002. I checked out info on UCLA for fall 2001, and they're also apparently on the quarter system- Darius's school year doesn't start until Tuesday, September 25th. So Darius could totally be in New York City visiting Ella on September 11th. Aside from that, the 2001 MTV Music Awards took place on September 6th, and I could easily see Darius getting tickets via Robbie's connections for that, and taking a week or two in New York trying to reconcile with Ella. That would be just the type of thing I could see two college kids wanting to do, especially if Ella is interested in seeing rockstar fashion. Plus, Britney Spears was there(that was the snake performance of Slave 4 U) and Ella's in her demographic. We're getting close enough to current times that it's easier looking up internet archived info, thank god.

I'm so damned excited- November 22nd, 2013 can't come soon enough! It really looks like they upped the production values of the film, as well as the design/costume values of the film. It looks consistent with the visuals of the first film, but with an enhanced flair. I love that we're getting more of the Districts rebelling instead of just getting the hints about them, and I love the political intrigue scenes with President Snow and Plutarch. I was a little disapointed that we didn't see Finnick O'Dair and Johanna Mason, but still...I cannot wait for this to come out!

I am SHOCKED, shocked I tell you, that you know where to find a mall with a Neiman Marcus at one end and a Sak's 5th Avenue at the other.

Well, unfortunately for you, Nelly was pretty big from 2001 to about 2004-ish, so...I can't really avoid his music.

Maybe it's not the same thing, but Will clearly set precedent for having sex with people that were in relationships in the previous story, and this story feels like a logical progression from that.

It's actually consistent from the previous story- Will slept with Tony who had a girlfriend, and he messed around with Gathan despite knowing that he was back with Kristin. The latter really bothered me, because Will is supposed to be good friends with Kristin, but I think this is the philosophy that Mark has in regards to his own life and that he's had Will articulate- that it's not your job to make sure other people live up to their committments. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think Mark's developed that as a pretty strong part of Will's viewpoint, and it remains consistent with Will's "live and let live" (unless you try to get in my way) attitude.