methodwriter85

My mom had me when she was 39. Anyway, I'm not saying that Will should wait until he's 40 to have kids, but somewhere around his late 20's/early 30's would work fine- enough that he's done with his education and settled into whatever job of choice he has, and still young enough that he can really enjoy it. If I'm estimating correctly, Arbour waited until he was in his early 30's to have his son, and that seemed to have worked out fine. You gotta keep in mind that this generation is taking a much longer time to finish education and start careers, on average, than generations that went before them. White-collar people usually wait longer before they have kids because of the amount of education they have to get. Plus, being that this is a soap opera- I mean, if you get someone settled down into a family with kids, how much crazy soap drama can you put them in without majorly effing with their relationship or making them look like shitty, neglectful parents? There's a reason why Brad didn't get another story until he hit his mid-life crisis. Domestic bliss is great, but it's not something that makes soap. If you have Will settled in with a kid and a life partner at 20, it's a 'happy ending' but he'd essentially be done as narrator unless Mark decided to screw with Will's relationship with said life partner. Waiting for them to get older before giving them kids keeps the story field more open.

I'm on the verge of flunking a class that I need for graduation, which would mean I'd have to take four classes in the spring semester instead of three. Luckily my record has been pretty good, but my professor and I just don't really see eye to eye on what constitutes a research paper, and she completely trashed my first draft and told me to completely re-write it. I'm going to spend Saturday and Sunday on it, talk to her on Monday, and see where things are. She is probably the most notoriously hard professor at school; I wish I hadn't needed this class but I did. My other classes are going fine, however.

I can't see Billy happening, because figure skating and the vigor of Harvard-Westlake should keep him out of trouble during high school, but I can definitely see a repressed JJ throwing himself into the party scene when he's 20 years old to make up for lost time. That's a pretty common reaction kids have when they finally get to be more independent and with less rules. He also seems to have more of a backbone to him, which Billy never really had, and I think he'd be able to say "no" if some friends wanted to drive drunk.

I'm actually rooting for JJ to be a trainwreck. Someone needs to be of Brad's kids, and Darius and Will don't seem like people who'd go trainwreck-y. Diva personalities come with some pretty big highs and lows, and the crash down should be interesting. I'd rather JJ had drunken sex with Hunter Parrish and some Broadway chorus member at his 5th Avenue penthouse, though. Likely after chasing a bottle of Ketel One vodka with some oxy after spending the past couple of days "up" after downing some Adderall. Hopefully he got into a slapping bitchfight with Johnny Weir at some hot New York City nightclub, as well. It's always going to be cool knowing that Mark gave me a name/birthdate tribute in his signature online serial. The kid's a brat, but damned if I wasn't one when I was fourteen. It'd be funny if, for JJ's 15th birthday, Will gets Gathan to show up, and JJ throws an absolute hissyfit. Goddamn, if he's anywhere close to what I'm like when I throw one...geez...let's just say I have/had the corner on bratty hissyfits.

Happy 26th birthday, JJ. I hope you celebrated it with a threesome with Hunter Parrish and another hot cast member of Godspell in your penthouse that overlooks 5th Avenue.

We finally gave Wade a birthday.

I'm down with this storyline as long as Will doesn't get said girl pregnant. I'd like for Will to be at least in his second half of his twenties before fatherhood comes up...I always thought one of the roots of Brad and Robbie's problems layed in the fact that they settled down too young, and didn't really experience young adulthood as fully as they could have without being tied down in a family unit. Given the CAP track record(Jim, Robbie, Steven, Wade), I'm just a tad bit wary of Will becoming a daddy before his time.

If Will does indeed experiment with a girl, can we PLEASE not have her end up pregnant? I'd like for Will to get to experience the fun of youth in one's teens and twenties without being tied down with a kid like Wade.

That's my guess about what JJ will be like when he's older- he won't rule out finding love, but it's not something JJ will obsess over, because first and foremost his love is his career. I mean Darius and Will both seem like they'll need to be partnered up for happiness, so someone's gotta balance that out. As for Tiffany, I wouldn't blame her if she were thinking about running off with the kid to Canada or something. She's in WAY over her head. The Will and Darius stuff was funny. No one can quite cut you down like an older sibling. Cody's 30 years old at this point and I can't see him letting go of the Circuit Boi lifestyle. Of course, he also may not have any real sense about himself.

Well, considering that it's been speculated for years that Pink is a lesbian, or at least a bisexual, that works well.

Chapter 2 -When Gathan describes his dramatic teenaged breakup to everyone. -When Wade realizes the depth of his bond to his child. "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" by Bryan Adams -When Tiffany and Jeanine have another blowout. Remember when Pink used to be all ghetto? Damn, she changed like woah when 2002 rolled around. -When Tiffany meets La Danfield.

Madison and Riley. How nicely period. I remember when there was a 20-year old Madison on Everwood circa 2003. The amount of bitching about the historically inaccuracy of having a 20-year old girl named Madison was pretty funny.

Thanks. It pretty much seemed like Be Rad served to make JP deeper- he lost his big relationship with Sam, he saw the guilt of what happened with Jeff personified in Robbie and Robbie's El Dorado, and he lost a son. After that, JP seemed to lose his sociopathic edge.

The thing about JP was that he always had this detached quality to him; like he was a sociopath that knew how to play by the rules and could mimic human emotions, but there was always an internal coldness to him. Even when Jeff died, it seemed more like JP was grieving for himself than he did about Jeff, because it was still all about JP, and the emotions felt empty and more of an act than anything. That didn't really change until Be Rad. Wade, although being reserved, has never felt cold and detached the way young JP did. I think it helps that Wade was never awkward socially- Danfield basically came off as the nice sociable jock that everyone liked, not the awkward geek that JP was supposed to have been.

Have a good birthday!

2025. I'll have my 40th birthday. Yikes.

I'm looking forward to 2001 and the rise of Alicia Keyes. She was definitely a breath of fresh air when she first came out. 2001 was a decent year. 2002 kinda sucked, but the White Stripes really elevated it. And 2003 was just awesome. My "era", so to speak, would be from about 2003 to 2008, i.e. when I was 17 to about 22 years old. There's just something about the music that you listened to when you were coming of age that always holds a special yen in your heart. My main "like" for this start-of-the-2000's era would be poppy punk stuff like Blink 182. I'm looking forward to when I can use Brand New: This was like, the best high school angst song ever.

Actually, to be technical, Riley signals the start of Generation 5. Generation 1 would be Tonto's generation. Generation 2 would be the JP generation. Generation 3 was Brad's generation. Gen 4 is Matt/Wade/Will/JJ/Darius, etc etc. I'm kinda looking forward to a Southern Gothic Christmas.

Which is why I used music from that album in both "Millenium" and "Poor Man's Son". Again. Third story. I'm not happy about having to repeat stuff, but I've had to because of the total lack of actual time jumps since" Bloodlines". 2000 was pretty dry musically, save for Eminem, Moby, and later that year Linkin Park. Cody...I don't know. He really doesn't strike me as a father type, but we'll see whether or not he'll try to step up as a dad, if Jeanine wants to him to. Right now I'm just going with "sperm donor" here for Cody. Shouldn't Harry Potter be ramping up production in England right about now?

That's right. Which is why I used "Music" for a scene in Millenium, and "Don't Tell Me" for a scene in Poor Man's Son. I'm actually looking forward to using Linkin Park. They were, in my opinion, the first big rock band that came out in the 2000's.

*Finishes off his second pitcher of Yuengling to deal with the fact that he has a third story set in 2000 to soundtrack, then sobs hysterically for 5 minutes* You're really killin' me here, Mark. Now that I'm finished ranting, nice start to the story. I've always liked Danfield. Tiffany's always been fun. And I'm thinking she's not going to be down with all of the blue-blood traditional shit that probably comes with being a Danfield. She seems like someone who'd want Riley to be raised as grounded and low-key as possible, which is not going to be easy with La Danfield as a grandmother.

Chapter 1 Music Recs -When Wade deals with the rush of emotions that comes with finding out that he's now a father. I was originally going to use "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed, but I decided to go with something a little less obvious. -When Wade talks on the phone to his mother. "Beautiful Day" by U2 -When Tiffany dumps Jeanine. "Bye, Bye, Bye" by N'Sync God, look at baby-faced Justin Timberlake there. Damn, I'm old.

I mean, I can kinda relate to you there. Part of me is a romantic who'd love to find a nice guy and settle down and frolic on a beach and get a house with a white picket fence. The other part of me finds that kind of life boring, and would be more interested in being a guy who just traveled a lot and never really settled down. I don't think I want to be married, but it's great to see that more gay guys now can feel they can lead that kind of domestic lifestyle, as opposed to the guys I know who don't think two gay guys can lead a committed, monogamous life together.

I was more on the order of "out" as in if you asked me, I would tell you, but not everyone asked. My friend Steve had a habit of telling our mutual friends that I was gay. It didn't piss me off, but it was funny to have people tell me that they didn't think I was gay. As a former 12-year old gay boy who could quote Clueless and devoured Sweet Valley High books, the idea that anyone wouldn't immediately pick up on me being gay was hilarious. Being gay was generally met with, at UD, a general "it's whatever". I did go to a more narrow-minded school for my first year of college, and I had a guy who stopped talking to me after I told him how hot I thought he was in front of a bunch of people that were drunk. There was also this baseball player who stopped talking to me after I told him I was gay. We had this weird homoerotic encounter when spring of freshmen year; the whole deal with that guy was weird.

Come on, you know me better than that. It would go like this: Me: You know, Will's stick up his ass feels really representative of his generation. I think that's a great idea. You're doing a great job of representing how different this generation is from Brad's generation, which preferred fisting over the stick. I must stress again how important is to differentitate the two generations, to keep things from feeling repeitive. You've done a great job of doing so, thus far. Mark: Thank you. Me: At the same time, I like that you stressed the differences in between Will and JJ, as JJ has opted out of having a stick put up his ass. Having JJ instead opt for an ice pick was genius. I really feel that does a great job of setting JJ apart from his brother, and represents his own determination to forge a path of his own as he naviages the tumultous decade of the 2000's. Mark: As always, you are right, Jeremy. I am so lucky to have such a bright young man as my muse. Me: I'm just happy to be of service. You know I'll always have your back. Mark: And I'll always have yours, son. *Mark envelops Jeremy in comforting and fatherly hug*