methodwriter85

I gotta agree with you on that front. I really thought Mark jumped the gun in picking Will as a narrator- I think his turn should have come in around 2003 or so when he was about to hit 17. I feel like we should have waited until at least after 9/11 before the baton got handed off to Brad's kids. Although I DO think Will's recent character has been pretty good. I think it would have made more sense to follow Wade and/or Matt after Millenium, a fast-forward to the fall 2000/winter 2001 and how they deal with the end of their junior year of college and becoming dads.

Right. That's why Will is a gay pothead surfer with a big dick, to really distinguish him from his dad. Nah, but seriously, the recent Will character development has made him feel like less of a Brad redux. I like that he's into marine biology and the like.

Well, there is Darius. And I think Gathan's friends would be VERY likely to join the army. I'm sure at least one Hayes would join. It's in their blood.

I think now it's less about figuring out who's going to die; more speculation about how this will effect our characters, and if anyone will personally be there to witness it.

Right. I'm not saying that they're not grounded and real. I'm just saying that there is this cynical air to a lot of high-achieving kids I knew, where everything was about checking off the right boxes to get into the schools of their choice. JCashell's quote about the counselors absolutely nailed the mindset of the kids I knew. Like, to the point where I felt like I was in high school in 2004 and talking to one of the Honor Society kids and/or Charter School of Wilmington kids about their aspirations to get into Yale and the like. It's not like a public school where everything is about teaching to the standardized test, but it's also not like the kind of school that I think Mark envisioned where students could opt out of certain requirements if they had a compelling reason not to take the class. I had a friend who went to the "New School", where the children could pick their own curriculum. Yeah. Dude never graduated. I was going over a timeline with Daisy, and it looks like JJ would miss, at a minimum, at least three weeks of school spread out over the school year because of figure skating competition, most likely in November and late Feburary/early March. It looks like they'd have to work something out here. God knows JJ could afford an expensive tutor and overnight express for assignments, but from what JCashell was saying, HW isn't that flexible in that regard. I do think if anyone could argue a school into making an exception, it would be a Crampton/Schluter. LOL. JJ would also have to do most his community work during the early summer, it seems like, unless he could get away with saying that he's coaching little kids at the rink in El Segundo as his community service work. It does feel a little early for online classes, but that could be another solution for the weeks where JJ is traveling. It WOULD be interesting if JJ winds up flunking out of Harvard-Westlake and either just going back to Malibu or dropping out of school entirely, and getting his GED at 15. That would ensure his status as the black sheep of the family. LOL. In any event, it should be an interesting conflict for JJ to deal with. It's hard to maintain high school friendships with people if you're going off for entire weeks at a time.

You make some good points, but I object to the idea of Jeff not being a "main" character. He was. I just can't see how Jeff wasn't a main character, and his death and legacy have been brought up in every single story after he died. I think the problem with Marcel was that he always felt "guarded", and he was somewhat opaque. We'd also been given a chance to meet Marcel at least a few times before he got his own story, but not by much. I enjoy Gathan as a narrator, but you also make a good point- what is he bringing that's new and hasn't been explored before? It reminded of someone I knew who told me they quit reading because it felt like Will was a Brad Redux. That's been changing, though. Even though he's an asshole, it WOULD be interesting to follow Zach as a closeted football player with NFL aspirations. We kinda went there with Jeff, but Jeff's career got sidelined with his drug addiction. I'm voting for him to go to USC so he can try and mess with JJ and Will during their senior year of high school. LOL.

Right, but it's not a given that Darius is an atheist, either. And since he's required to do at least one course on religion, I would imagine it might make him curious to see what's out there. And, of course, he's going to make a lot of friends that are pretty Catholic. Never underestimate peer pressure. What are the Schluters and the Cramptons supposed to be, with the exception of atheist Brad and JP? I would guess Mainline Protestant. I'm just curious as to whether or not Will would have been baptized/Christened, or if Brad would have asked Jeanine not to do it. And of course, with the babies now, I'm curious as to what religion they'll be, since Jeanine and Tiffany don't seem to have any strong atheist leanings. I'd assumed they'd at least get a Christening. Which, if Elizabeth Danfield winds up being the grandmother, I can imagine hell being raised if Tiffany's baby isn't put in the "right" one. Then there's JJ, who is in a sport that seems to like it when their skaters go to church and talk about God, so I'd imagine he'd at least play lip service to being Christian. JJ would certainly never say he's an atheist- his coach and handlers would kill him. There IS an increase in religion in young people, especially after 9/11 hits, so it'd be interesting how that gets reflected here. Are the Danfields really Brahmins, though? I would have assumed that was more of a Yankee/Boston thing, which I'm assuming the Carrswolds are sprung from. I thought the Danfields were supposed to be an old tidewater Virginia tobacco plantation family, one of the first families of Virginia. Still, it would make sense if the Danfields had stubbornly persisted on Anglicanism during the Great Awakening, which then became the Episcopal church, instead of jumping ship to the Baptist religion.

Since Darius is now going to Santa Clara University, it made me wonder about their religion. Brad is an atheist; but I'm not entirely sure his kids followed suit. I'm assuming that the Cramptons and Schluters are/were some Protestant religion. I would have assumed the Hayes were Irish-Catholic or something like that, but Steven in the Box mentioned going to church with Aaron Hayes. Jeanine is supposed to be from an Italian-Catholic family, but it does not look like she really immersed her kids all that much in religion. I'm assuming that Darius at least got baptized/Christened, and I know JJ did, but I'm wondering if Will got any kind of christening when he was born, or if Brad wouldn't let her do it. Will seems like he's atheist the way his dad is, but I can't see Darius as an atheist if he's willing to go to a Jesuit school, and if he does wind up in Iraq I think the boy's likely to find religion pretty quickly. JJ might be secretly atheist but he'd never publically admit it because good figure skaters are supposed to be good Christian heterosexual boys who wait til marriage, apparently. My guess would be that after 9/11, JJ meets some fellow figure skaters who are going crazy on religion and convince him to join a church group or something like that. A LOT of people suddenly got very religious after 9/11, and it'd be interesting if one of the kids reflected that. I kinda wonder how religion might play into what happens with the babies- will Jeanine have her daughter baptized? Mark's also envisioned Tiffany as being Catholic, so I'm guessing the son would be baptized as well. Except, if it DOES wind up being Elizabeth Danfield's grandson, I can see her hitting the roof because he's supposed to be Southern Baptist like the Danfields.(I'm assuming they're Southern Baptist,but I could be wrong.) There's no way a Southern political family, especially post-Rise of the Moral Majority, would ever want to look like atheists, so I would think that if Wade is the father, Tiffany's going to be pressed into having the child put into whatever religion they're supposed to be in. Although if the Danfields are Southern Baptist, that would be an adult baptism, wouldn't it? Maybe the Danfields are Anglican instead? They would fit with them being an old-school, elite Southern family. We do know that Father Tim is Episcopal, and that the Carrswolds switched to the United Methodist Church after they came to terms with Matt being gay, right?

I'm just wondering if the reason why some people seem to be hating Gathan as narrator have to do with Gathan being somewhat straight, or if it's something else.

I'm going to emphasize this quote again, because this absolutely nails the mindset of the Trophy Kids I knew from Charter School of Wilmington. They did what their counselor told them to do to get into college. There was this sense of cynicism to them- like you know they were just checking off the boxes instead of thinking outside the box.

I really thought I'd bump this thread up again. While Gathan isn't straight, he isn't gay either. And he's the first protagonist in CAP I can think of who has a legitimate female love interest; where it's not a given he will end up with a man. This seems to have bothered readers of the story, who regard CAP as the story of gay men. (Not even really bi men, just gay men.) Gathan so far is the closest we've had to an actually straight narrator. Has that turned you off as a reader? I've actually enjoyed that, and don't mind the scenes of heterosexual sex. But I'm curious to see who's been bothered by it, and who wants Gathan to get back to screwing guys as soon as he starts Stanford.

See, that's where I kinda wonder where JJ fits into all of this, because right now I can't see JJ as the kind of guy that would buckle down and get this kind of work done because everything is about figure skating. He could change, but whereas I can see Will really getting into the academic challenge here, I can't see that for JJ. It'd be interesting if JJ wound up flunking out and going back to Malibu, or just straight up getting a tutor. It actually might be good to have that distance, but I guess we'll see how that goes. It'd be interesting if, especially when JJ's career starts to heat up and he's getting more travel invites, the school pushes back on him for missing school and the like. And for not doing the volunteer work he's supposed to be doing. Going by age, you look like you were the class of 2007. So you would have been a freshman when JJ and Will hit senior year. Great! (I knew a good deal of '07 people. You guys really got off on doing the James Bond 007 thing. '05 had nothing but rhyming the "five" with "alive". Damn it.)

You're written 15+ stories in 3 years. Take a break. It's okay.

I feel bad for Gathan that he's become totally irrrevelant to his own story.

I gotta agree with you about that. Brad's inability to control and disclipline his own son really doesn't reflect well on him. I can't see Claire or Jack ever putting up with half of the b.s. that Will does with their own kids. You know for damn sure that if John ever tried to speak to Claire the way Will's spoken to Jeanine, he would be a ripped a new one. I get that indulgent parenting exists and is actually very common for this generation of people, but still, I think Brad's character has taken major hits because it's harder to respect a parent who never taught his kid the word "no".

One very interesting facet here that someone brought up is that Tony doesn't want to be like his father- i.e. he doesn't want to be the slutty scumbag who screwed around on his wife with a teenager. He probably thought it was gross and disgusting that Sam was having sex with his stepson's boyfriend. With that experience, I think Tony would have a disdain of middle-aged men getting with teenagers/people young enough to be their kids. So, by getting with Will, a boy who hasn't even celebrated his 14th birthday yet or attended his first day of 9th grade, Tony got uncomfortably close to what his father did with Jake back in 1980. Not on the same level, of course, but still something that violates his own sense of what's right and wrong. He felt guilty for it, and dumped it on Will. And I really liked Blue's intrepretation that someone should have said to Will that Tony has enough issues to deal with- coming to terms with his father dying when he was 3, the circumstances/behavior that led to his dad's death, on top of the issues that anyone going off to college has to deal with- than needing to deal with a 13-year old boy who wants a relationship with him. I kinda hope someone calls him out on that. It might be beyond what a 14-year old guy can understand, but it wouldn't hurt to try. I do think without a doubt someone needs to say to Will, "Sex has consequences. Drinking has consequences. If you're old enough to do both of these things, then you are old to deal with what happens when the combination of both leads to some pretty bad situations." Speaking of drinking, I HATED that Brad was doing shots in front of Will. I absolutely hated it. But that's mainly because my alcoholic father used to take me with him to bars(when my gambling addicted mother wasn't taking me to bingo halls), most likely. I get that Brad didn't actually do shots WITH Will, but still, the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth because of my own personal history. I get that Brad wants to be the buddy, and that pretending he doesn't drink to convince Will not to drink would be hypocritical, but getting sloshed in front of your own kid just doesn't seem like all that good of an example to make, especially when they still haven't hit driving age yet. There's a serious lack of boundaries between Brad and Will that I'm surprised hasn't caused any real problems yet. I'm just glad JJ picked Jeanine as his parent, because...I don't know, I think his attitude would be worse if Brad "I Wanna Be the Buddy Not the Dad" was his primary caregiver.

Which makes me wonder- how would someone like JJ fit into the academic environment at HW? He's in a sport that requires him to take a week off here or there to travel and compete, and would make it pretty hard to do any other extracurriculars or volunteer work. And I'm not sure JJ would be gunning to go to college- I think it's more likely that he'd graduate in 2004 and then spend the next year and half training for the Olympics rather than hitting up college. Would JJ get a lot of flack for putting figure skating ahead of school? One thing that Mark hasn't really done yet is depict how insane the college admissions process gets as the 2000's wear on. So far it kinda seems like they all just rolled into college and got into these top schools without all that much effort aside from good grades. That doesn't really jibe with the culture I saw at a competitive high school that was upstairs- these kids were doing National Honor Society, volunteer work, extracurriculars up the wazoo, and were basically mainling either coffee or adderall into their systems to get through it all. Anyway, I'm glad you decided to speak up in this thread!

PMS Chapter 40 -When Will talks to his father, who then does a Jager bomb shot in front of him. Gin and Juice by Snoop Doggy Dog -When Will talks about his mission to get Tony into bed. "Try Again" by Aaliyah -When Will and Tony make love, and Will learns what bottoming is all about. -When Tony freaks out about the age difference the next morning. "Guilty Conscience" by Eminem and Dr. Dre -When everyone says their angsty goodbyes to each other.

Should we put the Pfinsters in the running now?

Is it wrong that I really don't feel all that sorry for Will? He'd been warned more than once that he was playing in the Big Boy League when he didn't have the emotional maturity to handle it. I'm glad he got burned. I think the kid was getting way too big for his britches. I'm looking forward to Will being back in school and not hanging out with college boys or stripping in clubs. I kinda would've thought that Tony would have called Will "thirteen"- I think that would have pissed him off even more, since Will is clearly trying to be twenty years old and likely considers himself the next age whenever he gets within 6 months of his next birthday. All that said, I did like the way things were building before they had sex. I liked that Will was not Will the 13-Year Old Sexpot, but Will the goofy 9th grade kid who likes marine biology and riding on trolley cars. Will felt more like a believable character there than he was for most of this story.

Thanks. I thought you were supposed to be all paternal towards me or something. LOL.

In a trembling voice, Jeremy replied, "It is, Mark." Tears falling, Jeremy walks over to Mark, who envelops him in a comforting and fatherly hug.

I feel like a total dick for saying this, but I'd really been hoping that we were going to get to the 9/11 story in time for the 10th anniversary. Oh, well. It would have been great if Mark could have gotten us there, but I don't blame him for wanting to keep the pace slower. I'd rather Mark take his time and get the 9/11 story right, instead of just rushing to get it done in time for the anniversary. I'm hoping that we can get to the 9/11 story while it's still 2011, at least. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnksnJW_S5c I figure this video would make good reference. It's amateur video depicting various viewpoints of 9/11. The two college girls watching 9/11 from their dorm gets me the most. And there are great shots of what Times Square looked like in 2001.

I think it will work after college, when Gathan goes back to Ohio to help out Nick with his plans for Claremont. But for now...no. I don't think they can be totally done, but I think a "pause" might be good. I gotta agree with you about Will. I'm hoping all along that Will's character arc is not about finding him the perfect boyfriend, but about Will realizing that he doesn't need to get serious about every guy he has sex with- to enjoy the moment and not expect that he's found his soulmate in every guy that gives him a blowjob. That's where I'm hoping he ends up, not settled in some "soulmates" relationship.