methodwriter85

Damn, that in itself would have made a great ending to the story. Great job as always, Adam.

A young, openly gay marine does a Q&A session with his straight marine friends. I figured you guys would get a kick out of this. Q&A With My Straight Marine Friends It's incredible when you realize that just two years ago, you couldn't have even made this video without blurring this soldier's face. I like to think that in ten years, teenagers and twentysomethings are going to be flabbergasted that Don't Ask, Don't Tell even existed.

I'd really like to see July 4th, 2001 at Claremont. Mainly because it's the last 4th of July before America is irrevocably changed, and mainly because I'm guessing that given Claremont's history of sending off kids to war, we'll see a pretty significant amount of Claremont youth going off to fight in The War on Terror. I'm also interested in seeing if the ambitious plans for Claremont are working. Maybe the 4th of July celebration can be in conjuction with the opening of the Shoppes At Claremont Factory?

Still, he's REALLY setting off the gaydar here. He wouldn't be the first gay guy to have had a girlfriend at one point in his life.

RIght. It'd be interesting to see the community college environment...it's definitely a lot different than the typical 4-year college environment. I think Jeff would have to attend community college for at least 2 semesters, meaning that the earliest he'd get to USC would be about the spring 2002 semester. And yeah, Sharon, I think JJ has waaaayyyyyyy too much growing up to do before I'd even entertain the idea of him as a narrator. 2003 when he's 17 and Evan Lysacek has moved to El Segundo, yeah. Not now. It's just interesting how JJ seems to parallel my own childhood in some ways. At 15, I was completely and totally obnoxious. It took me until I was 17/18 before I started behaving better.

I agree completely. I don't think he's going to be in the place of mind to be a fun and sexy narrator for at least a couple of years. At 17./18...yeah, I can see a story. But not when he's 15 and a largely asexual kid dealing with the trauma of losing his mother to insanity and having been forced to become sexual when he wasn't ready to be. Dating will always be dramatic, but I'm not sure how dramatic his school issues would be. Menlo is not a school where being gay is a big deal, so something like Patrick's story In The Perks of Being A Wallflower wouldn't work. So much of high school drama is based on the fact that you have no real perspective outside of that world, thus things such as "Who will I sit with at lunch?" become of big, earth-shattering importance. Will's already been emancipated, already played the popularity game and decided to do things his own way instead, and he seems to be setting himself up with Marie's crowd, who seem like a pretty chill crowd. Matt's high school angst storylines worked because he was a closeted kid who had the pressure of being King of the A-Crowd, and it was important to him until they ditched him when he got sick. Brad was similiar, and his outing was dramatic because it was 1980 when the world "coming out" wasn't a very common phrase in college, let alone at high school. I think the only real high school angst I can see Will having is involving his dating life, but other than that...Mark's written Will as a guy who doesn't really sweat academics because he's genius-level smart, doesn't have to worry about people liking him because he's hot, and doesn't have to worry about being bullied for being gay because it's 2001 and a liberal area. So where exactly would his high school issues and conflicts come from? Sometimes people just have a good and relatively easy time in high school, and Will at this point seems like he'd be one of those people.

Seriously, that is one eventful six-month period in his life. I hope Will gets at least a couple of months of normality before Mark starts injecting insane drama into his life once again. Just let him be a kid enjoying his 9th grade year at Menlo for a bit. I do enjoy Will as a character, but having him as a front-burner in three straight stories would be a bit much, no? Mark didn't even do that for JP or Stefan. The other thing is that if you give Will another story right after this one, you've got to completely undo the good place that Will's currently at, and I'd like him to enjoy his happy ending for at least the duration of another story. That's a reason why soaps, when they were good, didn't keep even their lead characters on front-burners all the time. And you also run the risk of running out of fresh stories to give the character if they're always kept on front-burners. That's what happened with the Sonny/Carly/Jason trio on General Hospital, who were kept front and center all the time for the 2000's.

Damn. I'd be 37. (It'd actually be 37 and 2 months. My birthday is December 7th, same as JJ's.) So you really think it'd take us until February 2023 to reach December 2005 in CAP, huh? I wonder what things will be like... I'll have completely gray hair by then, when I'm 37. Still struggling to pay off my student loan bills, but content in a small apartment with good friends while living in a medium-sized city...possibly a college town. No husband or kids, but I'll be okay with that, despite the nagging from my sisters who have 5 kids between them and can't possibly understand not wanting to start a family. How do you guys picture yourself in 2023? Personally, I see Blue as a content 39-year old with a husband and 2.5 kids in a nice Los Angeles suburb, you know the whole white picket fence deal. Sharon is a contented grandmother chasing around happy toddlers in her house during weekend visits. Mark at 60 is semi-retired and spends his off-time traveling the world and writing. Maybe on a small personal yacht? Tim at 46, I bet, will have written several books about being a gay Conservative in California. Maybe he'll join city council or something.

Here's a letter, written by an Iraq War veteran named Tomas Young under hospice care, to Dubya and Dick. His body has been ravaged by paralysis and resulting complications that he's decided to go off his feeding tube and "fade away" instead of the conventional suicide. The Last Letter Pretty powerful stuff. It saddens me to think of how many lives were destroyed because of Haliburton war complex, and how so few of us gave a crap about what was going on over in Iraq because we were more interested in important things like Britney Spears Meltdown '07-'08 or buying McHouses in McSuburbs we couldn't afford to take advantage of that red-hot real estate market of the early/mid- '00s. I didn't personally know anybody who died in the Iraq War, but the school upstairs from mine was rocked by it in '05 when an English teacher's son died...I think he would have been just about Adam's age now if he had lived. I did have an acquaintance I'll call Mike who was there. He was Mr. Funny Class Clown in high school, and he was our best runner. He had some jerky qualities to him, but Mike was overall a nice guy. Mike joined up with the army after he graduated from high school to pay for college. He didn't get hugely maimed in the war...he just lost a pinky or something or something like. But I'll never forget one night I ran into Mike at a bar...I think it was probably '08 or '09. Mike was so fucked up drunk that he could barely stand...I remember saying to him, "Dude, please don't die in Iraq." (In my defense, I was 22 or 23 and very drunk, so tact wasn't easy to come by.) Mike looked at me, and said, "I honestly don't care if I die." I will never forget that. Ever. Seeing this guy who had been so damned full of life and jokes at 17 turn into this alcoholic who could look me straight in the eye and say he doesn't care about dying shocked the hell out of me, and it made my own problems like whether or not I could pass math class seem so small in comparison. I've followed his postings on FB and it seems like he's gotten his life together- he's sober and has a girlfriend, from what I've gleaned...but god, what he must have gone through to have gotten to the point he was at a couple of years ago. Mike got a second chance and did well with it...it's just such a damn shame that this 33-year old guy is basically already done with his life. Tomas Young truly is a sacrificial lamb to the Hailburton war complex that gripped the world during the Dubya Years.

Nah, I don't think that's necessary. Just send JJ back to Harvard-Westlake for his 10th grade year and continue the friendship he has with Alistair and by extension, Will. I'm sure any tutor they get JJ would impress upon JJ the importance of education, and I think from a character-standpoint, JJ will eventually come to the realization that he needs a balance so he doesn't end up like Shane. Going back to school and proving that he CAN do the work would do wonders for his self-image, I think. I did like the parallels drawn to Billy also dying at 15, although I was wondering if Mark was going to kill off JJ at 15, it makes sense that it was Shane instead. Shane kind of serves as the mirror to JJ, to show him where he could've gone without people like Will to give a shit about him. Of course...JJ doesn't turn 16 until three months after 9/11, so the "family member dead at 15" could still happen with him.... Because Jeff would wind up a registered sex offender if the wrong people found about it? I did find it ironic that given all the instances of statutory rape encounters in CAP, the one time someone's called out in it, it wasn't even actually statutory rape because the age of consent in Ohio is 16 and Kristin Hendrickson was 17. In Will's case, the age of consent is 18 in California, and he's hooking up with guys that are at least four or five years older than him, which is just out of the range of leniency that a judge might have taken on a guy he got with. I do like Jeff and I think when Will's 16 and he's 20, it'll be less of a big deal. Will's incredibly lucky that "sexting" isn't going to become popular for another five or six years, or else he probably would have gotten a LOT of people in trouble with that. (Possible future storyline with Courtney Clerrault, Ace's daughter?) Hey, I'm curious to see if you could figure this out...if you average out how time has passed in CAP years vs. real years since Mark stopped having full-year jumps with Bloodlines...when JJ hits his 20th birthday, about how old will I be? (We have the same birthdate, only he's currently 15 years and 1 month old and I'm currently 27 years and 3 months old.) I wanna say 32.

As someone who doesn't have a father/son bond...I'm really glad you gave me a little insight into what one is like. Thanks, Mark.

Chapter 100 -When Will reflects over what an awesome bond the one between father and son can be. "Over the Rainbow"/"What A Wonderful World" Medley by Israel

On March 20th, 2003, the United States began their combat operations in Iraq, as part of Bush Junior's "Operation Iraqi Freedom." Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War. I would like to take a moment and dedicate this song to all the people who were personally effected by this war. I still remember the start of the Iraq War like it was yesterday. I was in 10th grade. Sometime before, I took part in a student walk-out that protested the upcoming war. At 9:11 a.m., during my French class, I walked out of class and met the protesters. We stood at the corner of DuPont Road and Lancaster, holding up signs that said things such as "Drop Bush, not Bombs" and while chanting slogans such as "To Hell With This Oil War Shit!" It wasn't a lot of people...maybe 20-30 people at most, and in the long run it didn't mean much...we didn't even get media coverage. But there was just something about being a teenager who was absolutely convinced they held all the answers to the world's problems. It was a great moment...one that got broken up when our dean came out and threatened to expel us from the school if we didn't go back in by lunch. So after the protest ended, I ran through my school courtyard for one lap, while yelling something along the lines of "Peace in Iraq!" or something. Then when I got back to class, my English teacher Mrs. Swann, who was involved in protests back in the 1960's, berated the total lack of organization and media coverage in our protest. It really disapointed me that the Iraq War didn't lead to a major hippie movement like in the 1960's...I was really hoping for that. But my peers cared more about downloading "My Humps" ringtones on their phones than whether or not people were getting slaughtered over in Iraq.

I think older guys are pretty sexy. Check out ...that is one sexy older dude. He's not a young buck, but there's just something about his air of experience and the way he moves that makes him so much more interesting than some young 22-year old Abercrombie model with no body hair and unlined skin. I like getting older...I definitely wouldn't go back to 22 for anything. 25, maybe. The best part about getting older is that it becomes less important to try and be "cool" and impress people and fit in. And I'm totally looking forward to when I start getting my first wrinkles and the like, and stop looking cardable. Getting carded is so annoying when you're almost 30. Anyway, I agree with you about Will. I mean, I get he's 14, but come on...if you're spreading your legs for every guy that so much as smiles at you, it's really difficult for them to take you seriously or look at you as anything more than an easy fuck. The only real "friends with benefits" situation Will has had that hasn't gone south would be with Jeff. I don't think it's really come through to Will yet that sex has not just physical benefits, but also some major emotional consequences.

He should be fine on that, because it's satire. Satire is protected by the first amendment. He also didn't really use any of the actual Disney songs- Paint sung in the style of them, but didn't actually use the trademarked lyrics and the like.

The prequel is actually supposed to take place in present-day, which is just weird, but I'll roll with it. I've got a major crush on Max Thieriot because of House at the End of Street. He kinda looks like a beefy Cam Gigandet, which is nice.

Thanks. I was orginally thinking "Adam's Song", but that's just so overdone. And I've recently seen The Perks of Being A Wallflower, and that song just fit.

Mark's been incredibly respectful about portraying mental illness, and he really takes our input. I remember there was this storyline in Bloodlines, where Cole had tried to kill himself. Originally, Cole was just going to go back to his dorm afterwards, but having experienced something along the same lines, I knew there was no way that Cole would be allowed to live on campus without having demonstrated to residence life that he is no longer a threat to himself and the community. I insisted on this, and Mark worked out the great little storyline of Cole living at Escorial for a quarter. I spent my 22nd birthday in a psychiatric care ward, getting treated for suicidal ideation. I had what amounted to a complete nervous breakdown at the end of 2007, and it took me until the summer of '08 before I lifted out of my depression. It sucked to go through it, but in the end I think the experience made me think a lot about how I interact with people, the kind of relationships I chose to have, and what I needed to do in order to make sure I never get like that again. Five years out from that experience, I haven't had anything remotely close to that kind of prolonged depression again, and I think it's because I forced myself to go to the bare studs to figure out why my thought process was the way it was. I also had an incredibly good therapist. Mark did a fantastic job recreating what that kind of environment is like. It'll be interesting to see if JJ will have a permanent recovery from his depression, or if he'll have more occurences. I think a time that would be ripe for it would be late 2005/early 2006, when there's going to be enormous pressure to medal at Torino. JJ would also be vulnerable to tabloids looking for dirt, and there's definitely a lot of material there, starting with how he was concieved. I can already hear Johnny Weir calling JJ the "incest crackwhore baby." Shane's loss probably creates a void in the fictional West Coast junior figure skating scene, which means that JJ will probably have a chance to step up and try to fill it. I thought Shane served as a cautionary tale to JJ about what could happen to him if he made his life entirely about figure skating and had no real identity outside of being a figure skater. It'll be interesting to see, a few years down the road, how JJ's processed all the stuff that's happened to him. I think what happened to him between the summer of 2000 and this point will take him years to fully process and heal from. It kind of felt like Mark took JJ, who had been the last "innocent" one in his generation because of his delayed adolescence, and just smashed all that to pieces. It's definitely dramatic and I thought the storylines were good, but man, I wish JJ'd been able to hold on to his childhood for just a little longer than he was able to. It's not like he's John or Will, who had basically grown out of being one- JJ's was just taken from him before he was ready to let go of it.

You really should Red-box The Perks of Being A Wallflower, if you haven't already. You will come out of the experience absolutely adoring Charlie/Logan Lermann. What a beautiful and talented young man.

I remember you and I kicked around the idea of Shane killing himself, and I gotta say, it was very well-done. I had a friend(he wasn't a close friend, but he was my science partner sophomore year) who killed himself during the summer of '09. I didn't know about it until around September/October, when I noticed his dad was asking people for remembrance stories about Billy on his Facebook. We had this mutual friend, who basically told me that he jumped off a bridge the summer after he failed to graduate from college. I was so shocked- this was a guy who had gone in front of a crowd sophomore year and tried his hardest to pull off a stand-up comedy act. (Not entirely successful, but I thought he had major guts for doing it.) Billy was going to be a school teacher, if I remember correctly. It's still pretty hard to think about all the potential life experiences this guy gave up...I mean, he was only 22. There's so much he's missing. I think you've done a good job of capturing those emotions. I also loved you played JJ's breakdown- he's feeling like shit, but sometimes you've got to tear everything down to the studs before you can rebuild. I loved, loved, LOVED that Will and JJ finally had a bit of a tussle- not a full-blown fight or anything, but I thought they were overdue for a scuffle, and I loved Will realizing that JJ is actually much stronger than he looks. Finally...Lark being Jeff's dad. Good on the people who guessed that. It's not a legacy character, so to speak, but it's always nice when Mark brings in characters that have connections to other characters.

Chapter 99 -When Will reads what he realizes is Shane's suicide note. "Asleep" by The Smiths Thank you, Perks of Being A Wallflower for this one... -When Will tells JJ about what happened to Shane, and JJ breaks down. (reprise)

It was pretty popular during the fall of 2000. It was during 2000-2001 that it seemed like N'Sync was eclipsing BSB's popularity, if I remember correctly. Then 9/11 came, and people were no longer in the mood for boybands...they didn't come back into style until the Jonas Brothers in the mid/late '00s. Although the Jonas Brothers really weren't in the vein of the BSB/N'Sync/98 Degrees type...the first really big boybandin that vein to break out close to that level would be the whole One Direction thing. 2001 was actually a much better year for music than 2000 was, and I'm pretty excited about soundtracking a new year for the next story. Some tracks from '01 that I'm eager to use include: Probably one of my favorite "graduation-themed" songs. It's just too damn cute. Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz God, this would have been soooo perfect for the Millenium scene where Brad wrecks Robbie's car. Unfortunately, that scene took place in 1999 so I couldn't use it. Missy Elliot was flying high this year, and I remember after this song, slang was influenced, to people saying things like "get my math on" and the like. And it's a pretty safe bet that I'll be able to find a spot for "Get Your Freak On." I remember we were a school dance showcase...I'm not sure if this was fall '01 or spring '02, but this 7th grade girl put on a performance to this song. And let's just say that her moves quite matched what this song is about. I'll never forget after the performance, when everyone was back in our science class and couldn't stop talking about how slutty this 7th grade girl's moves were. I'm not a huge fan of her now, but I loved her when she first came out. This kind of music- straight up soul- just wasn't around much during the boyband vs. Puff Daddy era. Alicia Keyes was such a breathe of fresh air at the time. What a great dance track. I can totally picture an 17-year old Blue boogeying down to this at the local gay club.

The other thing I liked? Matt and Wade saying "partners", not "husbands." In a couple of years, you'd start to hear that terminology change- I think when Will settles down he'd considered his guy a "husband", but it was much more common to hear that term back around 2000. Back when I was 14, I was at a summer camp, and I asked my two male camp counselors if they were "partners". I was such a dick at that age. LOL. Maybe not next story...but Wade and Matt have some serious issues to work out when they graduate from college in 2002. Did you notice that they never really did have that conversation about what happens when their Stanford years are over? Or not. It all depends on what Mark wants to do with them. This really could work as their "happily ever after"...of course, when you have a happily ever after, it's hard to do another story with them unless you wreck it, like what Mark did with Brad and Robbie for Millenium. I'm not sure how receptive the fandom would be, though.