methodwriter85

I didn't find the scene hot, but if Will really has to get with a middle-aged guy, I guess Scott's an okay choice. I don't want it to be Max because that would require Max to have a falling out with Tim to happen, and I really don't like the way Cody seems to be working his way through the Crampton/Schluter/Hayes family.

-Schluter boys must be incredibly whiny and angsty about all of their love interests, even ones they dated for five minutes. Note: Will has gotten much better about this.

So, now you get why I wouldn't use something like "How Sweet It Is" for Will and Berto. I pretty much had figured that they weren't more than a fling. That song is for a couple that is mature and been through a lot, not for a couple in the rush of new love that might or might not last. I learned my lesson after using "He's So Shy" for Jake(yes, for Jake) in Be Rad to be a little more careful and thoughtful about the music pics. There is seriously a method to the madness here.

To be fair, however, a lot of buildings on the East Coast are pretty old, especially in the New York/Philly/D.C. area, and they can't really take strong earthquakes. I think that was the concern more than anything.

You obviously have never been put in a situation where you had to grow up in a school teaming with teenaged divas. Trust me, JJ could be much, much worse. I'm thinking it is pretty much what Will said it is- JJ's bothered by Gathan getting attention, and they just clash with each other. The Zach/JJ theory is interesting, but I can't really see where Zach would have gotten the time alone with JJ because JJ gets very little time to socialize, or that he would have even had the interest in JJ's pre-pubescent body. Shrimps don't get much interest from 10th grade guys- only the developed ones like Will and John get that. I remember pretty distinctly that, in 8th grade, the only girls who were dating high school guys were the girls who looked like women, not girls who still looked 11 or 12.

Well, if Will's middle-aged hookup is "Scott Slater", that's not so bad. Anything over Cody. I did like Scott being brutally honest about Will's summer fling. If he wants to play with the big boys and have sex, fine, but don't whine every time it doesn't work out like a 12-year old girl despairing over her first crush not calling her back. I liked that Gathan refused to take Will's money. It's probably for the best that he'll be on a strict budget for college; can't have too many distractions.

Chapter 36 -On the ride back, where Gathan realizes he's 70k in debt. -When we meet up with Scott Slater, who is now living in Hawaii. -When Will realizes he's been dumped again, and Scott tells him to snap out of it.

"I have Maryland Pride."

I was sitting on my coach watching the movie "Frequency"- I thought it was a strong gust of wind that hit the house, but then a trophy fell down from the top of hutch in our living room.

See, in the Nifty stories, though, it's always that the straight guy turns gay, falls for you, then you two move in together and adopt children while getting married in some state that accepts gay marriage. So that's where the Nifty Gay Man's Cinderella Effect failed you. LOL.

Hey, would you happen to have a large collection of shirtless pictures? I adore a nice, hairy and muscular chest.

I call the idea that straight men will fall for you the "Nifty's Gay Man's Cinderella Effect". It CAN happen, like Matt falling in love with Andy in Cross-Currents and Brian falling for Sam in It Started With Brian, but it takes a long, great love for that to happen, and I wouldn't get your hopes up. The more realistic situation is with happened with Andy and his friend Trey in Cross-Currents- Trey admitted that sex with him was only really enjoyable because he was closing his eyes and picturing girls, and that in the end he'd never feel the same way. And JWolf, I get what you're saying...but it wasn't a long-term relationship, was it? It's not like you guys got settled down to marry or anything like that. Does he still consider himself straight or has he come out as bi or gay? Kinda curious.

It's not about my own happiness, though. I've been part of a television discussion forum since I was 13, and the continual theme I've picked up on is that people absolutely despise the practice of "recycling" old plotlines from television shows, which usually happens when a t.v. show has been on for a long time. Little House on the Prairie was unabashedly proud of ripping off their own older storylines and playing them out again with younger characters- they basically replayed the Laura Ingalls/Nellie Oleson rivalry with Jenny Wilder, played by Shannen Doherty doing her damnedest impression of Melissa Gilbert, and Nancy, an orphan who was dressed exactly like Alison Arngrim's character with everyone commenting on how much she was like Nellie. It was really obvious and desperate, reeking of lazy writing by people who didn't want to work on creating new characters with entirely different dynamics. It would be boring and repetitive if this new generation that Mark has set up goes through all of the same stuff that Brad/Robbie/Ace/Claire went through during their youth, or what JP/Stefan/Jeff went through in theirs. I don't think any of us want to see Will staring in his own version of Be Rad, because that story was done right the first time around. I don't think anyone wants a repeat of Bloodlines, either, because it was done right the first time and there's no point in repeating the story. Mark's done a good job of NOT falling into that writer trap, and it seems like he's taking the JJ/Will/Darius/Gathan/Matt/Wade etc etc generation into places we haven't gone to before. I mean, there are callbacks, but he's done a great job of not trying to recreate his older work, which I think we can all appreciate. If we get to a point where there's nothing new to say, or a place to take these characters that we haven't done before, it's probably best to end the series.

No, that would be Lou, the hot french kid who's about Marcel's age. Lou had a drug problem during his early 20's, but he got help and is currently working as a new anchor in Canada. We most recently saw him in Bloodlines, where he pretended to be Matt's boyfriend at the country club to piss off Matt's parents. Brad met Max at a college party in 1985. Wade did indeed meet Matt at Stanford in 1998 because they are teammates. Sam was a bellhop student that J.P. met in 1968 who got denied tenure at Stanford in '80, and that was a factor in the demise of their relationship. Roger was a guy who worked on a vineyard in 1973 that was slated to be developed into houses- Stefan got the idea to build the development around the vineyard because he realized that it would allow the guy to keep his vineyard and increase property values. Roger died in 1985 from AIDS. Greg and Stefan met in '73 as well through all the crazy Hollywood parties, and he died in 1995 from a heart attack. Her name is Jackie. She is notorious for throwing big drunken Hollywood orgies. We last saw her in Millenium, throwing one of her parties in which Hilary Swank was having a threesome and Aaron Eckhart was getting plowed. If Mark goes through with having Ella becoming an actress, it would make sense to bring her back. Although getting to know Ella better by now, I'm not sure that'd be the right thing for her. Honestly, with the amount of characters that are currently on the canvas, I can't see what the point would be in suddenly mentioning the help, who probably came and go because they're not live-ins J.P.'s nanny, I think it was Vella, made sense in mentioning because he grew up with her, as did Sam, her son. Sam got a mention in the last story. The only California help they've had that's been mentioned throughout would be the chauffer.

See, I'm sure it will happen, but in some ways it will feel gratuitious. He's already in love. Gathan's never felt like a guy who's on the order of Andy in Cross-Currents; someone who needs to have sex with both men and women to feel complete. He really is one of those guys for whom gender doesn't factor into his attractions. I don't mind Gathan screwing around with guys, so long as he and Kristin end up together in the end. LOL. We've already met Sam's son. His son is named Tony, he's 18, and he's a rich jock from the suburbs from St. Louis. He and Gathan had a little fun. Tony will be coming out to Stanford in the fall. Seriously, can we retire Stanford after this point? It's been so used. Mark, didn't you say once that you wanted to spread out the characters among colleges? You did just that for the Be Rad crew. Time for new colleges when it's time for the Class of '04 to graduate. Although that discussion is for another time since JJ, Will, and Marie are just freshman, while John is in 8th grade. Mark and I did the research- in Man In Motion, Sam's son Anthony was mentioned as being about Darius's age: June 12, 1985 We drove over to Sam's house in the Italian section of town, “The Hill.” JP had told me that Sam lived near his parents, and had a pretty wife, Maria, who was at least ten years younger than him, and two kids, Anthony and Julia. Anthony was about the same age as Darius, while Julia was younger. By nature of Gathan being truly bisexual and not emotionally gay the way Matt is, things have to be different. Gathan is also from an entirely different background than Matt is from. It can't be a repeat of Bloodlines II for those reasons. Trust me, Mark's writing team will get on him if we feel that he's repeating the same story. I was worried that Mark would turn this current generation into a sequel of Be Rad, but so far it's been entirely different, which I'm happy about.

18. 19.

Hah. Nice. I feel the same way about 2002 and "Follow Me" by Uncle Kracker. *shudders* I like the song a lot. I should have used it somewhere in Man In Motion, but it never really came up. Back when I was doing the recs for your '09 stories, I was pretty strict about not repeating songs, which means I'd hold off on using songs in case a better moment arrived. Man In Motion did wind up being on the shorter side for your stories...I'm kinda tempted to do a "MiM Remix" thread. I really did enjoy doing the music for this. Now let's continue. 27. 28. Wishing (I Had A Photography of You) by Flock Of Seagulls, 1982 29. 30. Cruel Summer by Bananarama, 1984 "Let's Hear It for the Boy" is sooooo Robbie circa Man In Motion.

Not so much business, but the way in the which Darius cross-examined his mother at custody meetings was pretty damn impressive for a 13-year old. He'd make a good lawyer, which would work well with him being the military. I'm guessing Darius joins the ROTC at Santa Clara University? He could wind up going there for a year and then transferring to somewhere like USC or something. That could be interesting.

26. I Want To Know What Love Is by Foreigner, 1985 I am now kicking myself for not using this when I was doing music recs for Man In Motion. This song seemed like it was everywhere in 1985! It was used on Miami Vice, on One Life to Live, on Quantum Leap for a scene set in 1985, etc etc.

I do think Kristin and Gathan need to have an understanding, but I'm not sure they're mature enough to get past the whole "OMG WE'RE TOTALLY IN LOVE FOREVER AND EVER AND WE'RE TOTALLY COMMITTED!" ideal that most teenagers seem to have about relationships, and be realistic about what it means to be in a long-distance relationship. I'm sure Gathan will screw up and Kristin will go ballistic. Then Gathan will go find comfort in Sam's son Tony or something. That's how it goes in a soap. If people interacted in their relaitonships with total honestly and maturity and understanding, it'd be pretty boring to read. Soap characters need to be illogical, overdramatic, and jumping to the wrong conclusions about their relationships, or else it wouldn't be a soap.

I thought about this, and I realized that the reason why I got particularly vehement about that this week was because I had to deal with a teenaged friend who quite literally spent hours sobbing her guts out over a guy who dumped her. It was me, her, and three of her other friends, and it was a rather intense experience. The staff at Waffle House were incredibly understanding, but yeah. I really do wish young people could see that they don't need someone to complete them; that having someone break up with you isn't the end of the world, and that there's so much more to life than dating someone. Kinda funny how personal experience can make you have an almost visceral reaction to some fictional situation for reasons you can't quite grasp until you really think about why you're having it. Pot, meet kettle. I do think this plot is a good learning experience for Gathan- if he's going to be a mayor someday, especially if it's a mayor of a town in Ohio during the Great Recession, he needs to learn how to balance and stick to a budget.

I can get really, really insistent about stuff, especially when it comes to JJ, and I keep repeating the same thing over and over and over. Some might call me muleheaded. Sometimes I'm not even sure why I get into this mode, but when I do it usually requires a virtual bitchslap from someone to get me to stop. So thanks, Blue. LOL. It's realistic that the teenagers mope around about their love interests, but god it's annoying. I'm just hopeful that JJ will stay annoying for other reasons that are very him rather than the whole "Teenager Gets Bit By the Love Bug and goes insane" deal. I don't blame Mark for writing the main teenage protagonists this way, because it IS realistic and all. I just kinda wish more teenagers would be able to think, "Hey, in the long run, this current crush I have isn't going to mean much in the future, and there are things like education and my career that I need to think of first. I don't need to be settled into a serious relationship at 14 years old." It personally bothers me when I see kids that age losing their head over some meaningless crush, and it'd be great to see a teenager who can like someone but not lose their shit over them. JJ's my big hope on that because his career makes it so that he doesn't have time to date, anyway. Darius and Will have already lost it over their love interests, so it's up to JJ here. LOL. Of course, this is the hazard we're running into because we're following more of these guys' adolescence by nature of the smaller time jumps. As Mark put it, he could have made them nice and likeable, or he could have made them teenagers. LOL.

I mean, the whole "bottomless pit of cash" deal has been fun to read about, but I like that we're finally seeing some limitations here- like the Hendricksons and what's happening with Gathan. It'd be great to see how the gang would deal with financial troubles when the Great Recession hits. It would definitely shake things up rather than these characters always being able to do whatever they want money-wise because it seems like a bottomless pit of cash. My money would be on Ace getting screwed. And Stefan pulling out of real estate in late 2005, when the housing market is peaking. Because the CAP rule is that Stefan must always make savvy financial decisions. Robbie is invested in Harry Potter so he'll be good for the next decade, and I'm sure Brad will invest in Haliburton to the pissed-off reaction of J.P. If they ever wanted to bring back Drew, they could always bring him back in 2009 as a 25-year old dealing with his family in Orange County having been hit incredibly hard by the recession. I have Drew's family pictured as being likely the type of people hit hard by the real estate crash- formerly upper-middle class who moved up to upper-class and lived in a Coto de Caza McMansion, lives heavily on credit, and then gets hit hard when real estate hits bottom. Finally, I appreciate that JJ's main function right now is to occasionally show up and make bitchy comments to Gathan. Because again, having yet another teenager whine about dating would be just a bit much. LOL. Especially since we're talking someone who doesn't have the time to date. In any event, I'm happy that JJ doesn't sit around in his room moping about so-and-so not calling him back, thank god. JJ stands in his room working on his stance for hours like a good career-focused boy should. His function right now works well. Until, of course, it's time for JJ to get run over by a bus and have everyone shrug their shoulders and go off to IHop for blueberry pancakes.

Some thoughts: 1. Will is, as Tommy put it, way too big for his 13-year old britches. I can't believe Brad spilled the whole story to him. Well, actually, I can, but it's like Brad doesn't have any kind of backbone against his 13-year old son, and it makes me lose respect for him that he can be manipulated into talking about things he shouldn't have shared with Will. There's trust and then there's putting Will into the big leagues with stuff no child should know about. He's way in over his head. I hope Will gets a reality check and soon. 2. The dynamic between Matt and Gathan is interesting. Matt is a blue-blood, at least by breeding, and Gathan is nouveau-riche. It'll be cool to see what will happen when the team starts having practice. 3. I know that it's realistic, but GOD it is annoying to listen to teenagers whine over romantic love interests they dated for like five minutes. Will, it's a summer fling. Get over it. Ugh. 4. I'm glad JJ is not allowed to have a social life so I'm spared reading about yet another teenager whine about a romantic love interest. LOL. If JJ doesn't date until he's eighteen or so, hopefully he'll be a little less whiny about dating than Will is. Or maybe, just maybe, JJ will be a guy who likes to have fun hookups and doesn't lose his head over a romantic interest because the focus is always on his career, which would be realistic. 5. I liked the Vegas plot, because it allowed me to use "Big Pimping" by Jay-Z. And I liked Gathan 'effing up big time. 6. If Gathan wants to be an effective town mayor someday, he's really going to have to learn how to budget. He should take some accounting classes while at Stanford. 7. I really liked the Batman reference. Batman was the first movie I ever saw in theaters, in 1989/1990 when I lived in Spain. I used to have Batman velcro sneakers. Ah, the '90's. Can Will reference Home Alone next? For years I would only eat plain pizzas because Kevin didn't like toppings on his pizza. And I used to pretend to set up booby traps to catch the bad guys. It was fun. You do have a damn good point about Gathan, Blue. He wasn't some overprotected kid, and you'd think he'd actually have a harder time with spending money because of the way he grew up and never knowing where the next meal would be, like the Great Depression Generation. His immaturity and impulsive spending doesn't really jibe with the background of someone who essentially had to raise his sister by himself before Wally and Clara took them in. He's 18, but he's an 18-year old with a background that forced him to be the adult as a little kid, and that wasn't really reflected here.

I know this is realistic, but god it's annoying to read about teenagers whining over love interests. Thank god JJ isn't dating because he's focused on his career and no one's interested in pre-pubescent figure skaters anyway. Gathan is really going to need to learn how to manage money better if he's going to be mayor of Claremont in '08.