How Elizabeth and Anthony's relationship could have been made convincing without changing the overall plot

1. After Anthony rescues Liz from Howard, they get chatting and he hints at the fact that his marriage is having trouble, but waves off Liz's concern because her ordeal is much more important.

2. Liz is subpoenaed for Howard's trial just before the end of the school year and has to head south early. Susan is called in to replace her. The trial takes up the better part of the summer. Grampa has his stroke while Liz is still in Millborough, and after much soul-searching she realizes she can't leave at this time, finds some kind of contract teaching position, and subsequently gets turkey-dumped by Paul. This gives Liz a perfect excuse to stay with her parents for however long the plot requires (was it actually necessary to the plot? I don't remember it being but I might be forgetting something), and sets the precedent of her changing major life decisions out of consideration for Grampa's health, which makes moving the wedding earlier a less WTF decision.

3. During the trial, we see Anthony quietly being perfectly supportive of Liz. This isn't a plot point, it's just regularly going on in the background while the plot goes on over top. He pats her on the hand and gives her a sympathetic look, he hands her a timely cup of tea unbidden, and in at least one instance he is able to comfort her when her parents' attempts at comfort misfire in that tragicomic way attempts to parent adult children often do. I'll even allow once instance where Liz bursts into tears and Anthony holds her she cries herself out, and, in keeping with general FBOFW practices, I'll even allow him to thought-bubble something schmaltzy about how it feels good or right to hold her or protect her or help make things better for her or that he'll always be there for her or some other such thing that's swoony if you approve entirely of the relationship and the context and nauseating if you don't.

4. After the trial, we see Liz and Anthony socializing a few times truly as just friends before they even begin to consider a romance. It isn't a plot in itself, it's just going on in the background. They're having coffee together in a plotless wordplay strip. They're walking down the street together when Liz's cell rings with a message from the main plot.

5. At some point, any time after Liz returns to Millborough, Anthony confides in her about a parenting issue and she has some insight (since I assume she does have child psych training.) It would read just like other parenting strips (e.g. where Robin wouldn't sleep through the night or toddler April jams a banana in a typerwriter) and could be either a single strip or a week-long plot, depending on what works. The focus is Françoise, not the Liz/Anthony relationship.

6. At some point, Liz and Anthony are shown totally geeking out over something together. Reciting Monty Python or singing musicals or playing Wii together or, since this is FBOFW, having a pun war.

7. At some point, we see them being just completely silly, like snowball-fight silly, and collapsing into giggles afterwards. The giggles can segue into foreplay (or what passes for it in a comic strip) if their relationship has reached that point yet. Or, if it can be executed properly, this can be when and how their relationship reaches that level.

8. At some point, they're seen working together on a projectish thingy - preparing dinner, wallpapering Liz's new apartment (does anyone wallpaper any more? It makes a fictional good project, but I don't know if it's even in style any more), putting together a very complicated toy for Françoise. This can be the plot or the background action (background is better, I think). They can be talking exposition or trading wordplay or talking about The Relationship if The Relationship has started already, it doesn't really matter. The point is that they be seen working well together and taking for granted that they're working on a project together (we don't see any "Thank you ever so much for helping me with this!" "No problem, that's what friends are for.")

9. Once the relationship starts, we see at least two instances of snogging, at least one lustful look with thought-bubble, and handholding whenever realistic. They don't have to be the plot of that day's strip, they just need to be happening.

10. We see at least once instance of snogging interrupted by parenting needs.

11. At their wedding, when Liz finds out that Grampa is in the hospital, Anthony is right there with a protective arm around her or hand on her back, a look of concern on his face.

Someday?

Elizabeth says "I'd like to have a baby someday."

I know it sounds mad crazy nitpicky, but the use of the word "someday" sounds so wrong to me in this context. I'm Liz's age, and I cannot imagine a woman my age - especially when she's married and her career's established and her husband's career's established - using the word someday there. She'd have a timeline - she'd say "I'd like to have a baby within the next five years" or "I'd like to have a baby sometime after Françoise starts kindergarten." Or if she isn't so into strict family planning, she'd just say "I'd like to have a baby" and let nature take its course. (And actually, now that I think about it, she'd probably say "we" instead of "I".)

"Someday" would be used by teenagers or by people who don't know whom they'd have the baby with or who don't know when they're going to be able to afford to have a baby or for whom there are too many factors still up in the air to allow for long-term family planning. It sounds so wrong coming from a 27-year-old newlywed with a stable career. If this were a translation, I'd cross it out as being unidiomatic.

If you feel the need to make a friends forever pact, you're too immature to get married

I am the same age as Elizabeth Patterson, so I can tell you on the best of authority that this is not age-appropriate behaviour.

I do have a few very awesome friends with whom I very much hope to remain friends forever, and I cannot imagine any circumstances under which we'd be moved to make a friends forever pact. Occasionally we do sit back and marvel at how long we've been friends, but we'd never make a pact about being friends in the future. We just do it.

Actually, maybe that's what this is commenting on. A friends forever pact is the sort of thing you'd find in like Baby-sitters Club, where they can't imagine a bigger world than the one they inhabit now, but you know they'll have gone their separate ways by the end of grade 9. Come to think of it, Elizabeth hasn't seen Dawn and Shawna Marie on camera outside their own weddings (although we don't often get to see her IM/email conversations) so maybe they aren't as friends as they think they are, and maybe, despite her sojourns to university and on the reserve, her world hasn't gotten bigger yet.

How many things can you find wrong with this picture?

We've secretly replaced today's For Better Or For Worse with one of those "how many things can you find wrong with this picture?" games to see if anyone would notice.

1. I assume it's Elizabeth's wedding day since everyone is all dressed up. So why hasn't she been informed of the transportation arrangements until just now?

2. And why does her teenage sister have this information before her?

3. And didn't she already make transportation arrangements of some sort?

4. And the limo drivers are apparently picking everyone up at their homes. But in this strip we see April, Liz, Meredith, and Dawn(?) - all of whom live in different homes. Where are they right now? Are the limo drivers up on all this?

5. And why haven't they done anything at all with April's bangs? You can't do a formal updo but completely ignore the bangs!

Wisdom

Open Letter to Elizabeth Patterson

Dear Elizabeth:

You can't expedite your wedding in the hope that your grandfather will still be alive for it, because there's something more important. Your first priority when setting a date for your wedding needs to be that Françoise is prepared for the major life change of having a stepmother in the household.

Having your grandfather there for your wedding day is nice, but his presence at one important day isn't nearly as important as a smooth transition for Françoise, who is not only the most innocent party in this whole situation, but is also the one person who will be most affected by it.

Restraining orders

Once upon a time, mi cielito and I came up with the idea of getting a restraining order against someone and then running towards them, forcing them to run in the opposite direction.

XKCD has just topped us.

Elizabeth Patterson is not Elizabeth Bennet

I blogged previously about how Elizabeth and Anthony in FBOFW do not make a convincing couple.

It occurred to me today that what Lynn Johnston is probably trying to do is set up a Jane Austen-style marriage-as-happy-ending sort of thing.

Now Anthony actually would make a good Jane Austen happy ending bridegroom. He's kind and decent, fulfills his responsibilities, gets along well with Elizabeth. He's make a perfect match for an Austen heroine. But the problem is that Jane Austen's heroines need to get married. Austen is very careful to set up situations with entails etc. that leave her heroines in a situation where marriage is the only thing that will allow them to continue living in the manner to which they were accustomed. So for them, a kind decent man who fulfills his responsibilities and wants to marry them is a total score. It's like if any of us thought ourselves unemployable, then suddenly landed a job for life that pays enough and has decent benefits and involves work we don't entirely mind doing.

But FBOFW is set in Canada in the 21st century. Elizabeth Patterson has no special need to be married in and of itself; marriage only makes sense for her if she wants to spend her life with a particular person. It's like if you were already independently wealthy and didn't need to work, you wouldn't take a job just because the compensation was decent and you didn't entirely mind the work. It would need to be valuable or fascinating or mad crazy fun work that you actively enjoy.

Elizabeth Bennet needed to get married so the fact that a man was kind, decent and responsible was reason enough to marry him. Elizabeth Patterson does not need to get married, so we need to be shown, on-"camera", why this is the right choice for them.

The problem with Elizabeth and Anthony as a couple

Most of the fandom grievances against Anthony have been described here far more eloquently than I could. Now I don't object to Anthony as much as the average fan, although I've blogged before about why Liz's arc doesn't work, but their engagement just isn't convincing.

Now, unlike most of fandom, I don't mind that he's awkward and geeky - I can identify with that. I do think the fact that both Liz and Michael end up with their childhood sweethearts is a bit much, but I can accept that if it's done well enough. But the problem is that they don't have any romantic chemistry, or even friendship chemistry. They simply are comfortable with each other.

Don't get me wrong, I can totally appreciate being comfortable with your partner. I swooned the first time mi cielito wore sweatpants in my presence, because I was so flattered he's that comfortable with me. But we don't see anything beyond comfort with Liz and Anthony. We've never seen even a glimmer of lust - even if you've been with someone a long time, you occasionally still look at them and just have to...pounce. They didn't even kiss when they got engaged! We've never even seen the signs of deep and abiding friendship. We've never seen them finish each other's sentences, anticipate each other's needs, surprise each other with the perfect thing, share a geeky delight in something, or even know how the other takes their coffee. Right now the chemistry between them is like the chemistry between cousins who aren't the best of friends but have nothing against each other. No pretense is needed, you're automatically entitled to be in each other's presence and ask each other for favours of reasonable scope, you can chat without awkward silences, and you wouldn't be embarrassed for them to see you in sweatpants and without makeup. But you can't say to them "So I was in the bathroom squeezing my zits..." and they probably wouldn't be on your list of people you'd be roommates with if absolutely necesary.

I'm getting the same vibe from Liz and Anthony, and that's no basis for a marriage. So show them singing showtunes together. Have Liz pour a cup of coffee and Anthony wordlessly hands her the milk. This isn't an arranged marriage; just comfort isn't enough. Get their hair messed up every once in a while! FBOFW should be able to do better than this!

Strange cartoon?

I'm trying to figure out if I'm reading today's Toronto Star editorial cartoon right. (Yes, that's the Hamilton Spectator cartoonist - that's what the Star printed today.)

I'm seeing in that cartoon the passing the torch symbolism from In Flanders Fields, but it seems to be endorsing that passing of the torch. The characters might be smiling, and at any rate they certainly don't look particularly grim about it. Because they're all soldiers and only soldiers, and because they're all labelled as wars, it really looks to me like the poppy is symbolizing warfare itself. But then he passes it on to a child? With what looks like a smile on his face? Without hesitating or questioning why he's doing so? So they're essentially declaring warfare inevitable without questioning that declaration, or even bothering to look grim while they do it? I don't think that's what my great-grandfathers had in mind when they were sitting in muddy shitty rat-infested holes shooting at each other.*

The text to the right doesn't give a clear interpretation (I think it's a newspaper article, not the artist's own commentary), but it certainly doesn't do anything to make me think my interpretation is wrong.

(On a purely artistic note, the transition from sepia to b&w to colour is particularly good.)

Update (maybe?): No reply from the cartoonist yet, but it occurred to me in the shower that it would make much better sense if all those soldiers were dead. That would also explain why the Afghanistan soldier has a different colour background than the child (I assumed it was due to geography). Mr. MacKay? You still out there?

--
*I can't trace every branch of my family tree back to WWI, but based on pure geography it seems quite possible that half my ancestors were on the other side. I'll never know this for certain, because my surviving ancestors would not tell anyone if this were true. The more I learn about WWI, the less confident I am that it actually defended our freedoms or way of life, but even if it did then surely any gratitude I'm supposed to have to WWI veterans for trying to preserve half my ancestors' freedom and way of life is cancelled out by the fact that they were trying to destroy the other half of my ancestors' freedom and way of life? At any rate, all WWI seems to have done for me is created the conditions for WWII, which created the conditions for my family to flee Europe, which made it possible for my parents to meet and make me. And I'll tell you right now, as the person in the best position to know, my existence isn't worth all that trouble.

Eddie Izzard reference in Cornered?

(I didn't mean to do two Izzard posts in a row, but we'll blame the composition of today's newspapers.)

First, watch Eddie.

Then, read Cornered.

An Eddie Izzard reference in ZIGGY????

First, watch Eddie.

Then, read Ziggy.

"A two-liter bottle of soda"

Peejee told Davan's father that Davan drinks "a two-liter bottle of soda" every day.

"A two-liter bottle of soda"???

Do they even use litres in the US? If so, why? Y'all don't use the metric system anywhere else outside of hardcore science, do you? Is liter even a legitimate spelling variation? It looks so funny! Do there really exist people who say both soda and litre? I figured if you said litre you'd also say pop.