methodwriter85

I don't think it's remotely possible for anyone who had the upbringing Will had to turn out normal, especially if you were treated as the Golden Boy who can do no wrong and everyone wants to get turn to for advice. Darius SEEMS like he's normal, but we also don't see much of him or know what his neurotic tendencies are.

Adam Phillips, aka Cross-Currents, said once that he tried cocaine and liked it so much he never did it again. (He has ADD like Travis does.) Like it scared Adam how much he liked it that he never touched it again. I can't even imagine the amount of cocaine stories you have as a Los Angeles lawyer who runs in affluent circles. LOL

Chapter 33 -When Travis plays volleyball and draws a crowd due to his fame. "We Be Burning" by Sean Paul -When Travis pops the Ambien that Kendo got for him, and he sleeps like a baby. "Smile Like You Mean It" by the Killers -When Austin thinks that Will is breaking up with him. (Dude, you were never his boyfriend!) "Walk Away" by Kelly Clarkson I don't know if it's because I was entering my 20's then but there's been so much fun in re-exploring 2004-2006 music for this story.

David James Elliot makes a good Luke fancast, if he's supposed to have dark hair. If he's supposed to be blond, I pictured him as Teddy Sears. I lean towards thinking that Luke is supposed to be a blond. Then again, Greg was blond so maybe Luke was supposed to be a brunette to balance things out during the Land Whore.

That's super-not Will's style, at all. He believes in psychological warfare, not physical threats. Like what Sebastian posthumously does to Katherine at his memorial is much more Will.

Chapter 32 -When Will and Marie talk about her decision to be in a lavender relationship to Travis. "Secret" by OMD -When Travis and Marie fully commit to the beard game by kissing for the cameras. "Breaking Free" by Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens Zac Efron was like a generational touchstone teen idol for that year. High School Musical was THAT big. I remember Facebook hate groups springing up around Zac Efron. LOL Then Robert Pattinson became a thing, and that was even bigger. Oh, god, I can't wait for Twilight. -When Will's friends roast the absolute shit out of their beautiful Granola Gladiator. "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt

Chapter 30 -When T and Kendo are hanging out at a bar. "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers -When Kendo produces some sniffle snacks for Travis, and gets to kiss Travis. "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz -When Will is a good mood after a great game, and knowing that he's going to travel back home and see Travis. "Pump It" by Black Eyed Peas -When Will and Marie arrive back to California, and excitement for the weekend. "Wake Up" by Hilary Duff

Travis comes off as the kind of guy who desperately wants to convince himself he's okay because his entire life has been built on building the facade of the perfectly likeable laconic surfer boy. It kind of reminds me of how when coke first became big in the 70's people thought it wasn't addicting for the reasons you outlined. It's more of a psychological thing than actual body thing the way heroin or alcohol is. Anyway, my Kendo fancast had a moment where people thought he may have been coked up. Coked up, or just pure excitement? If there's anyone I would expect to know cocaine tweaking when they see it, it would be a lawyer who services rich people in Los Angeles. LOL (Or in Mark's case, anyone who attended an affluent liberal arts college in the 1980's.)

Ah, okay. I don't think though that Will is aware that it's a somewhat regular habit for Travis. He might just think it's something he might do once in awhile at a party.

The revelation that Travis does cocaine enough that he "has a guy" was an interesting one. We didn't really have any indication in The Gap Year that Travis did it, right? I like the idea that Will doesn't know that about Travis because they were still in the honeymoon phase in the Gap Year. It makes so much sense- coke is supposed to get rid of social anxiety.

Has anyone watched the Obsession movie yet? I keep thinking the male lead, Michael Johnston, would make a really good Mouse. He even has a squeaky voice. (Mouse was Brad's classmate and later JP's boyfriend in the 80's who died of AIDS sometime between Man in Motion and A Summer Love.) My OG Mouse fancast is Kyle Gallner but Mark rejected him. LOL

I picture you sitting with a client and your trusty legal pad, fighting your urge to roll your eyes as the delusional rich bitch whines over whatever crisis they're having today.

Without getting into detail about what happens, it makes sense for this to be a slow build. It's not like someone does a t.v. show, it premieres the next day, and then they're famous overnight. All this stuff takes awhile. Especially nowadays- usually a show is in the can for like a year because of the current streaming model.

It's part of that Golden Boy thing.

Even if Mark brings back He Who Shall Not Be Named who is part of that cohort?

Chapter 28 -When Travis gets ready for his first day of shooting a movie called Disturbia. "I Just Want to Celebrate" by Rare Earth -When Travis gets transformed into his character Ronnie. "Swing Swing" by All-American Rejects I thought Tyson Ritter was so hot. LOL -When Travis excitedly tells Will on the phone about his great first day of shooting, while he navigates the notorious 405 expressway traffic. "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield -When Travis turns down the official watch party and he and Will "reunite", so to speak. "Luxurious" by Gwen Stefani -When Will contemplates Travis's birth as a celebrity. "Catch Your Wave" by the Click 5

I don't think Shia went off the rails until Indiana Jones in '08. Something snapped once he started getting those big leading man roles. I actually had a crush on a guy on my high school cross-country team who reminded me of Shia in terms of mannerisms, but like later Disney star David Henrie in terms of looks. He absolutely hated me which made me want him more. LOL Anyway, nice cameo from Dylan O'Brien. He was absolutely adorable! Here he is 2 years later at 16: YouTube really starts hitting in the middle of 2006, if I remember right. I think I started watching YouTube around January 2006, mainly for the 90's music videos that would get posted that you could no longer see on MTV. Then I got into the whole LonelyGirl15 thing, which was a spring/summer thing. I had the experience of having friends who were born around that 1990-1993 range and it always kind of struck me how pretty much everyone I knew who was in that age range had a YouTube channel. There was such a massive shift in culture once YouTube became a thing and everyone started having video capable phones. (We're not quite there yet in CAP-Land, though, at least in terms of the video phone thing. That's more of an '07 thing.) So yeah, 2006. Ooh, that means I can use Amy Winehouse soon. LOL

I don't think you're wrong, but I do think Mark is probably going to work on that with Will.

As Mark had put it, Will is at to evolve into Tonto. The problem is that Tonto as a teenager was likely a big asshole.

Happy birthday!

Or the Hemsworth boys. Man, it'd be funny if Will or Travis ever ran across Liam Hemsworth given that Zach's face is supposed to look like his. LOL (His acting career doesn't start until '07, though.)

Yes. Mark has repeatedly told me that he's going to use me as his source of pop culture references because my mind is font of Gen X and Millennial pop culture up to about 2016. LOL (Except for anime. That stuff is beyond me so he's going to have to recruit people to help him with those references once the story shifts to the Gen Z characters like Riley, Maddy, and Bobby.) Gary, Fraternity Memoirs is a Nifty Archive story that started posting around 2000-2001. It follows a young man's journey being initiated into a frat at a party school on the American East Coast sometime during the early to mid-1990's. He starts off as small-minded Irish Catholic kid from a conservative middle class Brooklyn neighborhood and his mind gets "opened up", so to speak, by a snobby rich kid named Kevin who is bisexual and very experienced with gay sex. The story attracted a pretty dedicated online following, including a Yahoo group that I started participating in when I was about 17 years old in 2003. (It's where I know Mark from. When he started posting CAP and I became his beta reader, that's why I went over to here.) The author had cultivated a strong friendship with Adam Phillips, who was inspired to write the semi-autobiographical story Cross-Currents. That story was actually pretty big here. At one point, John Walsh had a breakdown and realized he couldn't continue the story because he didn't want to relive the traumatic experience of being outed in college. Adam Phillips kind of "took over", so to speak, the Fraternity Memoirs fandom and turned the focus into his own Cross-Currents story. Adam himself would have issues with keeping the fandom going (there was an online stalker who had gone to high school with him, he had a lot of issues in dealing with his own bisexuality, etc) and a few years after he finished Cross-Currents, he ended the discussion group for good and retreated off of his online persona. John Walsh has never publicly resumed his online persona, as far I know. He might have posted other stories under different names but he's never gone back to finish Fraternity Memoirs. Fraternity Memoirs (and the book Cross-Currents) is actually pretty important to genesis of CAP, because they inspired Mark to write his own semi-autobiographical story, On the Mark, which is on Nifty Archive. Mark posted about 15 chapters of this story but decided he could not continue it because he did not want to relive his traumatic experiences. If you read the story though you can see a lot of elements that go into CAP.

*paging John Walsh of Fraternity Memoirs* I mean, okay, I'm sure he probably would have eventually come out as gay/bi/whatever (during his last public chat in 2005/2006 he mentioned that he still felt attracted to women but felt it more convenient to stay gay), but I don't think it would have happened in college if he had instead attended a GDI school. Short for Goddamned Independent; essentially means Greek life is minimal or not there at all. Like UD was GDI- Greek life was there, but small enough you didn't need to do it to have an active party life before age 21. But yeah, Kevin and his fraternity experience definitely gave John the boost he needed towards his gay awakening.

Chapter 26 -When Will decides that Travis has blown him off, and not in the good way. "Don't Forget About Us" by Mariah Carey -When Austin and Will finally give into their attraction to each other and have sex in the plane. "Hung Up" by Madonna -When Travis has a panic attack as he realizes that Will was disappointed by the present he got him because he didn't put enough thought into it. "Marching Bands of Manhattan" by Death Cab For Cutie It is so fucking weird to me that we're covering time from when I was 20 years old. We're less than three years off from when Mark started writing CAP. lol

He's seriously lucky this is happening before social media and camera phones blew up everything. Remember the Hot Math Teacher Who was Also A Underwear Model? Pietro Bosselli welcomed the attention, though. The interesting thing is that Will is the ultimate extrovert but he HATES this attention because he knows it's fake, instead of his actual friendships with people that actually like him for the loveable rake that he is. Anyway, I ran across this update video of the Pacific Palisades from a plucky L.A. realtor named Shelby Church. It's interesting to see how that area will get re-developed.