methodwriter85

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.

Chapter 39 -When the boys enjoy the touristy SF stuff. -When the boys ride the trolley. -When Will and Tony ride the ferry, and finally kiss. "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid -When Gathan and Kristin talk about the Turkey Day Dump, and pledge to make their way through it. Through sex. "Jamaica Say You Will" by Jackson Browne I saw this song on an episode of The Wonder Years, and loved it. Was the Wonder Years basically what your own adolescence was like, Mark? I heard the show basically nailed the Baby Boomer experience.

I get that 13-year olds have sex, and believe me I knew lots of 8th/9th graders that were doing it, including 9th graders who were going to clubs and tripping on X, but Will is so much more interesting when he's not having sexual adventures. Will talking about his love of marine life and having Tony talk about BMX biking was a 100 times more interesting and memorable than him stripping in a club, because it was Will as the person with real interests, not Will as the sexually precocious teenager. I think the other thing is, essentially- this is an introduction story. It's about introducing the next generation of Cramptons and Schluters and Hayes and how they all interact with one another. So there isn't a tight, concise narrative thread here like there were with Millenium or The Box. It's more slice-of-life stuff, which makes sense because we're back to following teenagers and not high-powered business executives. Yeah, they're high profile kids with one pursuing the Olympics, but they're still kids, and the day-to-day of going to school and having homework and trying to have fun with your friends all still apply.

So he'd be doing them just about now, in our time, then. Cool.

Well, Mark, it looks like you're getting some pretty solid answers here, with pretty good reasoning. What's your take now? In any event, it IS pretty cool that you're written characters people care enough about that we're debating over their fictional class schedules. I'm glad that people seem to agree on the schedule I picked out for JJ. LOL.Contemporary dance should be fun. I wonder if he'll get to learn hip-hop. "Save the Last Dance" was out at about this time. And without a doubt he'd take French- I think there's a very good chance JJ will become an ex-pat and move there. JJ would fit in well there- his attitude would just be taken as him being French. LOL.

Okay, so I took my computer to the ITech department at my school. They told me that the Windows Recovery boot is damaged, and they can't do anything without a Windows XP operating system disk. Problem is that I don't have my disks with me. I could ask my sister...but, err...I'm saving that for a last resort. Do you know where I could find a cheap, certified copy of Windows XP for a Dell laptop? It looks like the only thing they can do now is completely wipe the drive and reformat because the Recovery drive is damaged.

On the age thing, it made me think of something someone wrote to me when I was on online boards back when I was 14 or so years old. They told me that gay adult men can often be pretty uncomfortable around children, because of the way in which gay men get decried as child molestors and pedophiles. So they don't want to act too nice to kids, or else people would get suspicious. Peter Paige actually did a fairly funny movie once called "Say Uncle" about a town that decides that this man MUST be a pedophile because he's middle-aged and friendly to kids and, of course, gay. I wonder if that might behind why some people are just uncomfortable with the Will stuff- the scenes make them feel like a pedophile, regardless of how physically mature Will is, and it reminds them of some pretty harsh judgements they may have gotten from people who thought they just wanted to perve on little boys because they were gay.

Currently crushing on Cubbie Fink from Foster the People. I'm a sucker for his kinda look. And musicians are always sexy.

Mark? Response? Please?

Gathan's more along the lines of not seeing gender when it comes to attraction. It's different from the bisexuality of Andy Sharpe in Cross-Currents, where he distinctly needs both the male and female form in his life to be happy. Gathan isn't attracted to someone's sex- just whether he likes them or not. It's why if he gets married to a guy he won't need to be with women to be satisfied; if he gets married to a woman he won't need to have sex with men to feel fufilled.

We had two very prominent Catholic schools in our area, Sallies and St. Mark's. Sallies was an all-boys school known for its snobbery, arrogance, and homophobic treatment of people. We HATED their sports teams. St. Mark's was the co-educational school that was basically known for the fact that you could roll a joint in class and teachers didn't give a crap. You don't get much in the way of Christian fellowship there. I don't know, that doesn't really make sense. What would be the point in making Will take a foreign language if he already knows 3?