methodwriter85

Chris Zylka from the Secret Circle as Klip, the hot blond hockey player?

It's interesting to see how the current generation shares some traits with people of the previous ones. Wade has some JP traits. Matt feels like what a butch version of Stefan would be like. Darius feels very much like Ace, but without the temper problem. Will has some obvious Brad traits, but he's more laidback and not as power-hungry as Brad is. The only legacy character that doesn't really feel like anything we've experienced before would be JJ- Mark's never really covered an il divo before. And having a family member who's in an environment where he's expected to look pristine at all times should cause some interesting tension as well. Gathan also isn't that much like what we've covered before, either. Overall, Mark's given this current generation enough common traits with the previous ones that you can see how they're connected, but at the same time I don't feel like I'm reading a rip-off of Be Rad, which I was really scared about when Mark decided to put the reigns over to Will as a lead character.

I just wonder how this is going to affect JJ, because barring Matt, he really doesn't have a close male figure in his life. Jeanine was his main parent, and with her off into cuckoo land, he's basically alone. Each kid going off to be closest to one of the parents worked while they were children, but we're also seeing the consequences- Will doesn't answer to Jeanine because Brad was his main parent, and JJ isn't really close enough to either Robbie or Brad to confide in now that Jeanine is out of commission. Which could be really interesting, if/when we get to a JJ-centered story, because with teenage Brad we got all the parental scenes with JP, and with Will we've gotten all the parental scenes with Brad. That kind of a father/son bond doesn't really exist with JJ and either Robbie and Brad- I don't think they completely ignored him, as evidenced by the one scene in Millenium, but they're not really close, either. The kind of fatherly scenes you saw between Will and Brad in PMS would feel fake if Mark tried to do those same kind of scenes with JJ and Brad, at least as things stand right now. Those kind of scenes would have to be done with Jeanine, and I'm not sure about the longevity of that character. Cent, I do fully admit that my own viewpoint on this subject is shaded by the fact that a lot of my cohorts are starting to settle down, get houses, getting into careers, and setting up families. The thought of doing any of that within the next five years of my life dumbfounds me, so I'm of course projecting my own fears and anxieties about the onset of adulthood onto how I view the characters. Plus, the prevailing wisdom is that you're not supposed to buy a house unless you plan on living there for at least 5 years, hence why I would view buying a house as settling down. The other thing is, since gay marriage is only legal in a few places, I've run across gays who think that living together in a house basically equals marriage, so that viewpoint kind of rubbed off on me. Of course, I'm willing to concede that it may not be an altogether accurate viewpoint, but there you go.

Well, a house suggests that someone's planning on putting down roots, rather than condos or apartments, which suggest more of a transient experience. It would suggest he's trying to start a family. Wasn't that basically the point of Brad being given the Malibu house by Stefan in Man In Motion? Brad was going to create a home for Darius and his unborn son, and the house signaled the start of Brad creating a new family?

I was going on the fact that Wade's talking about houses and such instead of lofts and condos, which is usually the first step in domestication. Normally I'd think it was dumb for Wade to already be talking about getting a house since he doesn't even know where he's going to law school, but lord knows the guy can afford multiple houses- a house around Stanford whenever he visits the Crampton clan, and of course a nice handsome townhome in Georgetown or whatever that's close to his law school.

Yeah. I usually get told I'm crazy whenever I bitch about my youthful looks. Although the stresses of grad school have aged me up- I no longer get told I still look like a teenager; now it's up to about 22. I think I want to look about 35- it's a youthful age, but with some mileage on it. I think because I've been hanging around older people in their 30's, I feel more self-conscious about looking young. I get that a lot of people probably are the opposite and want to look younger, but I'm definitely looking forward to the time when I don't get carded. It was okay when I actually WAS in my early 20's, but now that I'm within shouting distance of my 30's, it's just not cool to get carded to see an R-rated movie. Back to the story...I can't see Wade and Matt going back to their old dynamic, either. I also can't see them becoming the domestic unit that Wade wants, either. So it's going to have to be somewhere in the middle, I think.

33. "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" by The Darkness, 2002 What a great '70's glam rock throwback. 34. "Milkshake" by Kelis, 2003 God, it's going to be fun to use this one. Methinks it'll be at some senior year party that Will and JJ throw to celebrate Will's 17th birthday.

Best wishes to everyone!

Wade's bit about not wanting to look like a college boy made me think of myself. Sometimes I try to dress up in a grown-up outfit, like a pair of chinos and a button-down shirt with the hopes that I'll look like I'm at least in my early 30's, only to get told I still look 22. I'm thinking about dying the rest of my hair grey in hopes that I can look about 35. I hate looking so young- it's annoying to get carded all the time. One time I even got carded to see an R-rated movie! I heard that you can create realistic wrinkles using latex makeup- I'm curious to try it. I would love to look at least in my mid-30's, with greyer hair and crow's feet.

Chapter 7 - Matt's ringtone theme. -When Wade goes to one of Cody's Hollywood parties. Moby got a hell of a lot of play out of that one album. Just hit after hit. He pretty much dominated the non-pop and non-rap world from about '99 to '01 because of that album.

There's an invective that Adam Phillips wrote about why JP should have died of AIDS in the 1980's for his callous treatment of Jeff in 1968. It was interesting, to say the least. I don't think JP needs to die, but I do feel like his character has run its course, at least as a lead character. The Box felt like a nice wrap-up for JP and Stefan as the leading characters. Now they work as the gentle patriach characters who give advice out to the younger ones. As for Matt, I see where he's coming from. He's a junior. These are the best years of his life, and things are lined up for him to have a great two years. Matt realizes, on some level, that life will never be as fun and open again as he found it to be in college. Matt thought that he and Wade might have pitched in some money for Tiffany, as well as some babysitting duties, but he did not expect that Wade was going to try to turn them into active parents living together. Matt wants to spend the rest of college having fun and big parties, not spend it changing diapers and chasing after a growing toddler. I can see why he wants to hang out more with his college friends, because Wade's priorities have changed and he can't really relate to it. I don't think Matt's become an asshole, but he has basically reverted back to the self-absorbed Golden Boy he was for most of high school, before he got sick and his friends abandoned him. I don't feel like the way Matt is acting came out of nowhere- he was a guy who was Mr. Golden Boy for most of high school, and then saw it all get wrecked when he got sick. Now he's Golden Boy again, where he's the King of his inner circle, and it went to his head again just like it did in high school. Only this time around, he doesn't have to pretend he's straight or have parents to answer to, so Matt's "wave" is even better this time around. He can't say no to it and become Mr. Supportive Dad to Wade and his kid, at least not yet.

Chapter 6 -When Matt and Wade talk on the way back. -When Matt and Wade go back to their freshman year dorm to chill with the new guys. -When Wade loses it after finding out that Matt told him about what happened with his dad. Just Go by Staind

With the year almost over, what songs did you either like the most, or just could not get out of your head? For me it's... So hilariously bad. Brought some great laughs. Dancing to this at a club called Wolfie's. Always fun. I did not like this song until I saw the video. The video is absolutely hilarious, and made me love the song. Deborah Gibson AND Hanson in the same video? Love. Prolly my second-favorite song of the year. What a fun, chill song to listen to. My favorite song of this year. Just hits the right emotional chord with me.

Am I the only one who's sympathetic to Matt here? He didn't expect Wade was suddenly going to jock hard to turn the four of them into some big happy family when he's simply not ready yet to play "Daddy". They were supposed to be the sperm donations for Tiffany, not the active parents.

The funny thing is, I didn't even know "Tenderness" was from 1985. I thought it originated in the 1995 movie, Clueless. So Wade and Matt would definitely know that song because of the movie. Clueless was one of those "generation-defining movies" that represented the end of the grunge era and the beginning of the 90's economic boom, as seen in the scene where grungy Tai is made over into a Beverly Hills Betty. As well as Cher's constant mocking of Josh, the stereotypical college grunge guy.

Chapter 5 -When Wade and Matt have a little morning love, then fight in the woods. -When Wade almost leaves Matt's ass in the woods.

Darius seemed like a relatively easy child and teenager to raise, but as Brad and Robbie seemed to realize, they were lucky on that front. When you've got a diva personality on one side and a guy who is just as pushy and aggressive as his father is, it's just not going to be easy. They'll be fine, but we'll have to wait until they're in their 20's before we stop wanting to throw things at them. LOL.

Maybe I'm guilty of doing that, but believe me- I'm able to see nuance and things going beyond black and right. I'm just pointing out that there are some specific rhythms that go into the time period in which a person develops, and that even when you have an exceptional family, your peers who grew up at the same time you did are still going to shape you in some way. For example, Brad may have grown up in a family where being gay was acceptable. At the same time, however, Brad grew up in a generation that was still pretty homophobic and did not have that many examples of gay men who were able to do the kinds of things that the Cramptons were. Therefore, Brad was closeted through most of high school. If Brad would have been completely free of the mindset of the time, why would he have been so reluctant to come out? The other interesting thing was when Brad was observing Matt and Gathan in The Box, and how they weren't so quick to peg themselves as gay the way Brad's generation had done- there was only "gay" or "straight" for Brad's generation, which was again reinforced later on when Brad ponders the sexuality of his children and "bisexual" never seemed to come up as a legitimate possibility. My point is that while you may be right that this is an unconventional family and certain "rules" may not fit on them, I still believe that a person's generation influences them on both macro and microscopic levels, and that's something Mark has done continually with the CAP saga. He tries not to just recreate the time period itself though the use of fashion, clothes, and music, but the mindsets of the time. It's been a part of CAP from the very beginning, and it's what has really elevated CAP from just a typical soap. The orginal CAP represented the dual side of early 1960's America- Cheerful and optmistic, but oppressive as well. 1968 represented the divisiveness of the time- Jeff and JP falling apart; and Jeff's descent into the madness of drug use as a representative of the darker side of the anti-war movement, which saw a large amount of drug abuse in the belief that it would cause a person's mind to tune in and turn on the world around them. The Land Whore represented the beginning of a hedonistic 70's gay culture that saw more men coming out of the closet as the homosexuality was no longer defined as a mental illness. This brief time of total sexual freedom would then be silenced at the end of Be Rad, with the arrival of AIDS. Also in Be Rad, you had Claire as the representative of the materialistic 1980's, fitting the stereotypical preppie in her devotion to all things preppy and chic. Though she was given depth after going through the trauma of having an abortion and being given depth, Claire was used to represent a typical 1980's archtype where having money and flaunting it at every moment was considered not just cool, but divinely, given the widespread belief that the spending of money by the rich would "trickle down" to the poor. The loss of the innocence in total sexual freedom was reflected in Man In Motion with the AIDS crisis, and here you would see Robbie and Brad deciding to choose monogamy over promiscuity, a move that would probably save their lives. In Bloodlines, you saw the newly emerging mindset of people Wade and Matt's age- people who were not so quick to slap a label on what they were. Now here in Paternity, we're seeing Will represent an emerging generation of young guys who are coming out at earlier and earlier ages, and who were never "in" the closet because they never had a reason to be. I get that this is an unconventional family and that some rules can't fit, but to say that they should be completely outside of the thinking of the time would be ignoring the way in which time, peer interactions, and history have shaped the series, which has been apparent in every single story. It would be suggesting these characters live in a bubble where only their rules apply, and that hasn't been the case. If it had been, would Andre have died? Would Brad had stayed in the closet for most of high school? Would JP and Stefan have lost past friends and lovers to AIDS? Etc, etc etc. Agreed. Probably not to Nick and Bitty levels, but yeah. Brad, Robbie, and Jeanine did not seem to set up boundaries for Darius, JJ, and Will, and we're already seeing the results of that. They're not bad kids, but they also can't deal very well with hearing the word "no" because their parents never said that to them. This is what I find interesting with Wade and Tiffany. They seem more inclined to take a different kind of parenting style, to try and keep the kid as grounded as possible, which will probably be better in the long run for Riley.

It's not even a rich people thing. This is a generation of American kids who were brought up constantly being told they were special combined with indulgent parenting, and the end result levels of narcissism are pretty astounding. I've heard so many horror stories about how Baby Boomers and Gen Xers are trying to deal the entry of Gen Y into the workplace- not going so pretty. *Waits for Westie to scream at me for about how the Schluters and Cramptons are so avant-garde that generational values don't apply to them at all, even though the CAP saga was actually built on reflecting the mindset of the given period*

I liked that Chris just up and disappeared...though CAP has made it a point to try and save wayward kids, you can't save everyone, and it was really realistic and emphasized how easily those kids slip through cracks. The Will and JJ stuff felt pretty spot-on. Dude finally got over his denial of what's going on with his mother, which had to have been hard for someone being raised in a sport that tells you to deny anything that might not be perfect about you.

Seriously? I grew up with three older sisters, and I thought the nastiness was spot-on. Especially the way JJ and Will interact- I have siblings who are only one year apart, and they used to go at it constantly. They wound up going to different high schools, which helped, but it could still get pretty nasty. There's no one except for a sibling that knows exactly where all of your biggest weaknesses because aside from your parents, no one else has known you for your entire life. Here's one thing that you have to think about- Brad and Robbie's behavior in Millenium had consequences, and I think we've seeing a little bit of it now- Will loves his father, but he doesn't have the respect for Brad that he used to, and Brad is no longer on that pedestal for him. And in Millenium, it was made pretty clear that JJ is not all that close to either Brad or Robbie, so it's easy to see why he's being nasty.

I picked the Yes song because it was in the cold open of a Cold Case episode about a woman who gets killed by a bomb in 1983. Cold Case can REALLY influence the kind of music I picked, especially when we were doing music for the 80's and early '90s. That particular BSB song, for whatever reason, was hard to find on youtube for a good amount of time.

Blue, you posted this in my "How the CAP Saga Should End" thread. I was talking about how I thought Mark should probably skip 2007 and go straight into 2008, because 2007 was more of a quiet year aside from Virginia Tech while '08 was just freakin' insane. The professional surf stuff and Wade waiting until he's about 27 to tackle parenthood were off, but the bit about Matt's sluttiness is coming to pass. Wade is not okay with it anymore.The JJ stuff seems likely as well- I'd love to see JJ finally go off to college in 2007 and go crazy because he no longer has to fit the pristine figure skating image. And he'd be 21. Everyone goes a little crazy at 21. I'd pay to see JJ do his first kegstand. LOL. I just hope JJ's 21st year doesn't have the same outcome that mine did. Ugh. *Meaningful look at Mark* Anyway, I liked this chapter a lot because of how thoroughly 9th grade the chapter was. The bit about Mike Crawford leaving made me remember this girl who started high school with us at Cab Calloway School of the Arts. She only stayed a day or two- girl absolutely hated it. In retrospect, my guess was that the girl figured out the strong diva streak in the school and got out before she had to spend four years of high school dealing with bitchy diva types. And the stuff with Ryan with pretty cute and fun. Before you guys dogpile on JJ, consider being a kid dealing with the fact that the one parent you're close to is going crazy, and the one good friend you have, you can't talk to anymore because you have to remain loyal to your mother. Some kids can be mature and empathetic, but a lot can't. That doesn't excuse his behavior, but it's also understandable why JJ is acting the way he is- he's hurting and freaked out, and he's only 14 and therefore doesn't have the emotional maturity or resources to figure out a better way than lashing out at his brother because he can't bring himself to put the blame on his mother.

Chapter 4 -When Will and JJ bitch at each in the car, Will gets all whiny inside, and Will realizes that he got screwed over by his friend Jason. -When a desperate Will puts aside his dislike of douchey Ryan Grafton, and asks him to be his camping partner for the upcoming 9th grade camping retreat. -When JJ makes the call that his mom needs to go to the hospital. So...I'm wondering...can you guys tell I had poppy punk friends in middle school, with a sister who did rave promotions? LOL.

That's pretty much how I'm reading it. I don't think it's out of character for Matt, because as he's been written Matt's always felt more like a party kid. I mean, he can get the grades and it's not like he completely shirks his responsibilities, but Matt never felt like someone who was in a hurry to grow up the way Wade did. Wade never really was a kid, because of his upbringing, and Wade being more mature than Matt feels consistent. I think that's one of the reasons why I wasn't on-board with Matt becoming a dad- he just didn't seem ready, and I wanted him to enjoy more of his youth first before getting tied down with the responsibility of parenthood. You only get to be in your early 20's and young once. Then you turn 25 and it's all over. LOL. (Nah, I don't really consider myself old at 26- just not all that young, either.) The interesting thing about this is that it reveals a split that I noticed starting around junior year- people either get really into their future, or double down in their efforts to enjoy college because on some level they realize it's almost over. I knew kids who did a 5th year, or did a whole new degree program, purely because they didn't want to leave University of Delaware. Plus junior year there's usually a spike in partying because that's usually when you and your friends are turning 21. Matt and Wade are probably starting to attend more 21st birthday parties during this school year. Anyone ever attempted 21 shots for 21? I couldn't even get close. I think I got somewhere around seven shots, a Mike's hard lemonade, four beers, and a screwdriver. And that's about when I passed out on the bathroom floor of a bar for a few seconds and got kicked out. LOL. You gotta love 21st birthdays.