#Mrs. Which and the “What do you understand?”/Meg (Main Character) “That it has to be me. Can’t be anyone else”

[twelvebooksstuff]

I just LOVE how Gennaro is the recipient of this line in the book!

(Check out the tags for a full breakdown LOL, what started as a couple tags became a fun little ramble)

[plush-anon]

after many hours spent pausing the show bc good lord why did they do that, i have now finished Love Never Dies

annnnnd yikes 😬😬😬

I’ll start with the few positives I did enjoy from the recorded Australian production on Youtube:

1.) the camera work. This is the kind of thing I dream of for professionally recorded shows - it really allows for some lovely close-up shots of how the emotions play over their faces, it’s lush

2.) the costumes are well-crafted, and I desperately Want the Phantom’s long-ass swooshy trenchcoat cape thing he wore for the first half-hour 

3.) the sets used throughout this are honestly very impressively used and put together for some really fantastic shots

4.) the opening, with ‘Til’ I Hear You Sing Once More’. This song is honestly very lovely, and really articulates the Phantom’s loss and heartache for Christine. It’s sung very earnestly, and had the rest of the show been more like this I might have liked it more. 

5.) the Fucking Song, ‘Beneath a Moonless Sky’, is a guilty pleasure. It’s so over the top, and it is only about recounting that One Time they totally banged yo, and I love it. I think it’s the orchestration, but it’s also enjoyably silly even while it takes itself 100% serious. 

6.) As much as I hate to say this? ‘Devil Take the Hindmost’. While I hate the gist of the song - that being Raoul and Erik betting on who Christine will choose, and pretty much deciding for her who will get to be her one true love forever, completely negating the entire point of the OF musical where her choice was the most important factor for all of them - the pacing and the lyrics as they dance around each other are absolutely fantastic. It’s kind of sad to say, but Raoul and the Phantom, in this scene alone, display more chemistry in their singing than they do with anyone else. Let the hatefcuking commence~

7.) Some parts of ‘The Beauty Underneath’ I enjoy, particularly the ending scene where the Phantom is trying to talk Meg down. It’s very slow, melodic, and shows his more manipulative side, as well as how he can crawl into someone’s head, I love it. 

8.) This very interesting visual with a mirror in Christine’s dressing room. There are two separate scenes where someone is in the mirror singing. The first is the Phantom, between Raoul and Christine. The second is Raoul between the Phantom and Christine. It’s honestly a nice touch.

9.) The main three are excellent singers. 

 Unfortunately, that’s all on the list of what I liked. Everything else is a Giant Fcuking Mess. 

1.) The Phantom is no longer a complex, messed-up, but still somewhat sympathetic character, no; this is just a giant asshole who takes everyone for granted and barely realizes that anyone else exists except Christine, and even then only really as his personal instrument. 

He never actually apologizes to Christine for the shit he’s put her through and continues to put her through, but still demands obedience and forgiveness and understanding. It completely negates the entire point of POTO’s ending, where he actually realizes he’s done wrong by her and his actions pertaining her, and lets her go from his world entirely, and RESPECTING HER CHOICES AND LEAVING HER ALONE. 

Not to mention This Bitch also threatens to kidnap/possible “lose” her child if she doesn’t sing for him, keeps pushing her around and telling her what to do, and manipulating her life to change her decisions for her. 

AND HE’S FRAMED AS THE BETTER OPTION HERE

2.) Which reminds of me of the next big asshat: Raoul de Chagny, who has now become an alcoholic gambler who pushes his wife to do things she’s not comfortable doing to repay his debts, neglects his son entirely, and also is abrasive and controlling of Christine, to the point he yanks her back and forth on doing shit. Play this role! We should leave bc he was an asshole! No now we should leave bc Phantom is back! No take the role he’s paying triple! I’ll make a bet on whether she loves me to pay my debts! No wait you should quit ten minutes before you go on-stage bc I don’t want to lose you! MAKE UP YOUR GODDAMN MIND YOU MISERABLE PISSANT SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Like I can understand being overprotective to a certain degree, which could eventually morph into being controlling. But neglecting your son, your wife, drinking and gambling your fortune away? ALL of that?!? Really???

Shouldn’t he be desperate to keep his wife and son close to him at all times after the events of POTO? Never leave, never go anywhere, only do what’s safe? You COULD have set this up as a continuation of Safety versus Freedom with Raoul and the Phantom, show the good and bad of both and have her choose from there. Show the dichotomies and hypocrisies of both men’s standards. 

But nope! We’re just totes gonna make the husband like this for no goddamn reason, especially since Raoul doesn’t start suspecting that Gustave (his son) isn’t really his until Devil Take the Hindmost. He’s just that much of an idiot!

3.) The presence of Madame Giry and Meg Giry. Oh gods, where to even begin? They’re pretty much only here so that Sir Andy doesn’t have to make new characters with different backstories and motivations and introduce them accordingly. Nope! Now both women are blaming Christine for leaving the Phantom Man-Baby, and talking about everything they sacrificed to help him make his stupid-ass circus, and talking about how they love him and GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH Madame Giry in the POTO musical YOU LED RAOUL DIRECTLY TO THE PHANTOM’S LAIR SO HE COULD RESCUE CHRISTINE WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW SHE BETRAYED HIM

And, oh, Meg... she reaaaaaaaaaaaaally got the short end of the stick here. I just... poor dear, she was horribly treated in this. 

Neither of them deserved to be like this, honestly. 

4.) Christine, to a lesser extent. Experienced Literal Character Assassination, forced to choose between two horrible options, stripped of her agency entirely, used as a bet in a game between said two horrible options, lied to and dragged around constantly, should have taken Gustave and run off with Meg to run a music store together. Fcuk you Sir Andy, for using POTO characters to act out your bitterness and frustration at your ex. 

5.) The entirety of the whole Boardwalk Circus schtick, spawning an additional Fuck You to Frederick Forsythe, who thought this was a tenable option for the story to progress. 

6.) The Phantom’s deformity was literally just four lines drawn onto his face with crayon and some smeared lipstick:

what even the fcuk, you couldn’t make the make-up crayon drawing more detailed??? take more than ten minutes to draw it on???

I never thought I would say this, but even the 2004 film’s depiction was better than this! At least that one partially drew from a real medical condition, Sturge-Weber Syndrome. What the fcuk is your excuse LND?!?

7.)  The Lyrics. Oh gods, the lyrics. Some songs were decent, mostly the ones I listed up top. But the rest? Did someone forget to give the writer a more advanced/creative guide to rhyming lyrics? I wrote better shit in middle school than Glenn Slater did for the majority of these lyrics. 

Glenn my dude, what the fcuk is this nonsense? You’ve written good shit like the Tangled songs and stuff for Galavant! Why are you writing worse than an angst-ridden middle schooler? It is immensely frustrating, to say the least. 

8.) The really WEIRD direction in acting. No one here acts like they know how to move their arms or hands naturally; there’s a lot of really odd and unnecessary gesturing that makes it look like everyone has just had their limbs replaced with faulty robotic arms. There’s also a lot of leaning the characters do, with their arms perfectly straight by their side and it just looks wrong. 

9.) The Phantom’s pseudonym is Mr. Y. No, they never explain why it is he chose that particular moniker. 

10.) Bathing Beauty. Just... all of it, here, tied to POTO, present and here. 

11.) It’s been exactly 10 years since Christine saw/banged the Phantom, and her son is precisely 10 years old. 

That’s... not how pregnancy works. At all. 

12.) This weird scene with the American press, where they are absolutely obsessed with Christine, despite the facts they present, such as:

- She hasn’t performed in 10 years anywhere. 

- She was a French performer, and

- She only starred in three operas at the Populaire (Hannibal, Il Muto, and Don Juan Triumphant, which wasn’t even finished. So technically 2.2 operas that we know of). 

Why, precisely, would American reporters be so obsessed with her upon hearing she’s coming? I could see some interest given the whole shebang with the Phantom, but after 10 years of radio silence, would she really garner an entire crowd of reporters and photographers... in America, no less? 

France I could definitely see. America? Not so much. 

13.) Gustave is a flat, generic kid character, who apparently is totes the Phantom’s son because... he can play the piano well. And also has the same ideas of music as the Phantom, despite never being taught about them, or discussed such things with his mother. 

Is musical talent only inherited through the father’s side of the family in this universe? I mean, we never learn about Christine’s mother, just her famous violinist father. Otherwise, why is it Gustave’s musical talent isn’t attributed to - oh, I don’t know - HIS FAMOUS OPERA SINGER MOTHER?!?

14.) Apparently the Phantom is also now the one who invented cars OH I MEAN “horseless carriages” 🙄 A carriage with no engine and a “ghost horse” appears, and everyone is just fcuking stunned by this, like they’ve never seen a vehicle move without a horse before. In 1907. 22 years after the first functional automobile was invented. Ugh. 

15.) seriously tho who thought basing a sequel on the Frederick Forsythe novel was a good idea why did nobody think to stop him apart from Sir Andy’s pet cat Otto. why.

16) The Phantom’s interactions with Gustave are distinctly creepy and unsettling. I keep getting pedo vibes from him and I Do Not Like It.

17.) The death scene at the end is so goddamn over-the-top and out of nowhere I just want to throw something, ugh

18.) And finally, my last gripe with this mess: This takes place in 1907, and declares that it’s ten years after the original musical. Despite the fact that the OG took place in 1885. Yippy skippy. 😑

I can honestly say I am Not a Fan of this musical as a whole, mostly based on the plot and the character assassinations (one quite literal) and the poor lyrics. I can admire the camera work, the basic singing ability, the scenery and costumes, and maybe two or three songs. But I just do not enjoy it. It took me two days to finish watching it because I kept cringing from what shit kept happening, and had to walk around and listen to other shit to get it out of my head. 

HOWEVER: People do enjoy this one on the sake of it being so bad and over-the-top, and I can honestly see the whys. It helps that most of the cast can sing, and the orchestration is done well. There’s a TON of stupid to mock, and a lot of over-the-top awkwardness to laugh at. This is a good one to watch and mock with friends, IMO. 

For those of you who do enjoy it, I’m afraid I have to disagree on most of it. Still, it is nice being able to watch this one for free, even if it is a giant hot mess.

And that’s all for me on this one! Have a good week guys!

[protectwoc]

thots on little women (2019)

or, y’all are giving greta gerwig too much credit (part two)

The character arc that was changed the least from the source material, but that still manages to personally offend me the most, is, of course, Amy’s. It’s no secret that Gerwig is an Amy stan, or at least more of a fan of her than most people. I am as well, which is why I am so disappointed with this particular arc.

It’s honestly more disappointing because Gerwig handled parts of Amy’s arc extremely well, namely, her relationship with Laurie. Gerwig did an excellent job of making Amy and Laurie’s relationship feel less like a consolation prize since Laurie did not end up marrying Jo and more like a fully realized and reciprocal relationship, arguably more so than Alcott herself. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, the Amy/Laurie relationship is not the only important part of Amy’s characterization in the novel, and unfortunately, it is in the movie.

Amy starts out the novel as a selfish twelve year old girl, which is evidenced in no other but the infamous book-burning scene. However, throughout the novel, she grows out of that selfishness and into a more selfless, self aware woman. (Again, whatever your thoughts on “learning to be selfless” as a trope in women’s narratives are not necessarily relevant.)

For example, in the first half of the novel, one of Amy’s most notable chapters deals with pickled limes. For anyone who only watched the movie or doesn’t quite remember the book, a short summary:

Amy, the only one of the March girls who attends school, is upset because the girls in her school have been trading pickled limes. The limes are seen as a status symbol, which can be traded for little trinkets, bestowed upon favorites, or indulged in in front of your enemies. The pickled limes trend has become so popular that the teacher, Mr. Davis, has banned them in the classroom, which has done nothing to curb their popularity. Amy, who is relatively popular among her classmates regardless of her relatively lower class status, has been gifted several limes but had no way to return them, is greatly “in debt.” When Meg gives Amy enough money to buy a whopping twenty-five pickled limes, she flaunts and preens her way around the classroom until a girl she snubbed tattles to the teacher and gets all twenty five limes taken away.

This scene is a good example of the beginning of Amy’s arc of overcoming her one major personality flaw. It shows how her selfish nature is really just immature behavior, and as she ages, she matures out of that childishness. Another good example of this arc happens when Beth contracts scarlet fever. At first, she complains, saying that she would rather contract the deadly disease than to go to her Aunt’s house, but as she remains there, we see her mature and even grow fond of Aunt March. Her personal arc independent of Laurie was a big part of Amy’s plotline, and it was unfortunately left out of the movie.

The most glaring example of this is the omission of one of the most important scenes of Amy’s arc in the book: the occurrences at the fair. Again, indulge me in a brief summary for those who won’t know exactly what I am talking about:

The mother of one of Amy’s friends, Mrs. Chester, holds a three day fair for all of the girls in Amy’s social circle. As Amy is the most talented and most well-liked of the girls, she has the best table at the fair, at the very front, where she is to sell her beautiful artistic creations. However, her friend, May Chester, is jealous of her, and seeing this, Ms. Chester takes the table from Amy and gives it to May, relegating Amy to the back corner to sell flowers. At first, Amy is incredibly upset, and takes all of her art back to the table with her, however, after talking with her family, who are properly indignant on her behalf, she resolves to be gracious and humble and gives her own drawings to May to sell. Seeing this, Jo tells Laurie to take all of his handsome, college-aged bachelor friends to Amy’s table, which he does, and they spend the entire next day of the fair flirting with her and buying every one of the flowers from Amy. On the final day of the fair Amy, who has entirely overcome her own selfish wishes, tells Laurie and his friends to go do the same to May. This string of selfless acts is seen by Aunt March and Aunt Carrol (who in the novel has half of Aunt March’s role in the movie) and is the premier reason behind Aunt Carrol deciding to take Amy to Europe instead of Jo.

Leaving this scene out of Amy’s narrative in the movie is, I think, unforgivable. The inclusion of this scene would have exponentially improved Amy’s arc, for three major reasons:

This scene is the culmination of Amy’s “selfish to selfless arc”. Again, regardless of your opinions on whether this is a good lesson for her to learn, it is an arc, and as the movie stands currently, she simply doesn’t have one. The occurrences at the fair show her finally growing out of her childhood vices into the mature woman we see in Europe, and to exclude this scene does her a disservice.

Prior to her trip to Europe, this is one of the only scenes in the novel where Laurie and Amy have any sort of interaction. If Gerwig wanted to more fully develop the Amy/Laurie romance I cannot imagine the logic behind leaving this scene out. It would make the romance seem less rushed, which has been a common critique of their love story since the book came out, and would even  provide context for Amy’s “Not when I have spent my entire life loving you” line which Gerwig added to the narrative.

As previously mentioned, this scene is one of the main reasons behind Amy being allowed to travel to Europe with Aunt March/Aunt Carrol. Within the movie, this reasoning is less obvious, especially given the fact that Aunt March had already told Jo she would take her to Europe, and the inclusion of this scene would have made the trip feel more earned for Amy.

Greta Gerwig has made no secret of the fact that she both a feminist and a fan of Amy March. I am both of those things as well, which is why I cannot understand her logic behind robbing Amy of a complete arc. In the movie, the most important parts of Amy’s arc are all tied to a man. Even that arc is not as fully developed as it could be. Gerwig did a magnificent job with Amy’s overall likability, but that is not the same thing as writing a fully realized arc for her.

But even though Amy is my personal favorite character, and I am more personally invested in her arc, Gerwig’s mishandling of Amy is not the most egregious sin committed in this movie. That honor is reserved for Jo’s arc.

Part Two: Jo

A Buzzfeed article entitled “The New ‘Little Women’ Makes Space for Jo’s Queerness” claims that “Gerwig’s adaptation, without being too explicit about it, does gorgeous justice to that [queer] reading.” An Advocate magazine article called “Greta Gerwig Brings Out the Inherent Queerness of Little Women” makes the bold claim that the 2019 Little Women “offers the queerest and most feminist reading yet.” An even bolder declaration by them magazine says that “The New Little Women Basically Proves Jo is Queer”. Gerwig has been lauded both by critics and by her own actors for creating an explicitly queer narrative for Jo March. 

As previously mentioned, I do not generally read Alcott’s Jo as queer. However, upon my first encounter with this headcanon, I could immediately see why so many people did see her this way, and why this interpretation is so beloved. Jo has a lot of non-stereotypically straight traits that have made her something of a queer icon in many progressive literary circles. Both the way she bemoans being “born a woman” and her intense desire not to marry spoke to a lot of queer or non-cis readers, many of whom were excited to see her portrayed this way on the silver screen. And though I am not particularly attached to this headcanon, as a bi woman, I too was excited to see her that way.

And then… I didn’t.

Look, I hate to burst y’alls bubble, but there is literally not a single second in the movie where Jo is anything resembling queer. At best, she could be read as aromantic/asexual, but that’s about it. (Note: Obviously I don’t intend to imply that being aro/ace is somehow “lesser than” being L G B or T, but obviously the form of queerness people were expecting is one in which Jo is explicitly attracted to women.) There are no subtle looks in the direction of another woman, no scenes in which Jo expresses any negative emotion towards the idea of marrying a man specifically. She doesn’t even have a single female friend outside of her sisters.

One of the reasons the 2019 Jo (and by extension, Laurie), have been hailed as queer icons is their relative gender fluidity. Jo and Laurie exchange clothes throughout the movie, which was intended to display their “gender fluidity”. I knew about this particular facet of the movie before going to watch it in theaters, so I was looking for these occasions specifically, and I still couldn’t tell that they were supposed to be gender neutral. Maybe that’s just me, because I don’t know a lot about civil war era clothing, but whatever.

The other reason that Jo is considered queer in the movie is her rejection of traditional Civil War era femininity. She doesn’t want to get married, and she has no interest in “girly” things like dresses or parties. But neither of those things are specifically queer. Being “not like other girls” as your premier personality trait is not queer, it’s just garden-variety misogyny.

Even Jo’s big scene where she laments her competing desire to stay unmarried and her intense loneliness, has nothing marking it as explicitly queer. “I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for,” she bursts out. Love. Not love for a man. Not even marriage. She is decrying the entire concept of love.

“But Rae,” I can hear you asking, “what about the ending, where it’s implied she doesn’t marry Professor Bhaer and gets to publish her novel?” To that, there are two important things to consider. One: the ending is intentionally portrayed as optional. Even though it is heavily implied that Jo did not go off and get heterosexual married at the end, it is possible to ignore that ending or do some light mental gymnastics to make the two versions of Jo’s ending coincide. And I’m not just saying this as a worst-case-scenario, I actually have seen people do this, in fandom and my own life.

Secondly, even if you take the ending as completely factual, we still have all the scenes involving Bhaer previous to the ending to give some hint of Jo’s sexuality. We never see her even look at another woman, but she flirts with Bhaer and blushes when he looks at her and asks for his opinion on her work. Even ignoring the straight-as-default setting of most casual viewers, canonically, Jo has only ever shown interest in men. One man specifically, but still.

“But she could still be bi/pansexual, or suffering from compulsory heterosexuality,” I hear. And this is basically the crux of my argument. In fandom, you don’t have to assume straight as the default, and it's probably better not to. Bi/pan headcanons for “straight” characters are a good, positive way of adding to a fandom culture. However, when it comes to canonical representation, the opposite is true. Representation is not representation if it is not explicit.

I’m not saying that queer viewers cannot feel represented by Jo in this movie. I personally  feel represented by Hermoine Granger as a black woman, due to her “wild, bushy hair” and her penchant for social activism (SPEW). However, I cannot give JK Rowling credit for that representation because she had nothing to do with it. She did not do any of the hard work to actually make Hermoine a black woman. In the same way, we cannot credit Gerwig with adding queer representation to Little Women, because she didn’t.

Conclusion: The Response

I know reading this essay probably makes me seem like a Greta Gerwig-hater or like I disliked the movie. Both of those things are untrue. As previously mentioned, I loved the movie. I’ve watched the Amy/Laurie scenes of the movie like a hundred times already. I also don’t hate Greta Gerwig. This is the only movie of hers that I’ve seen, but I heard all about Lady Bird and its popularity, and I think the directing of Little Women was excellent. The fact that Greta Gerwig is a very talented filmmaker is not necessarily an arguable point.

I don’t believe that Gerwig had to fully develop any of the sisters. I don’t even think that Gerwig is required to add queer representation (or racial diversity for that matter) to her movies. Greta Gerwig decided to adapt an extremely white, cishet Civil War era book into an extremely white, cishet Civil War era movie. Hot take time: she is entirely in her rights to do that.

BUT. The thing that bugs me the most about the movie, and is basically the impetus behind me writing this essay, is the response to the movie. For whatever reason, Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation has been deemed more “woke” than it actually is. Little Women (2019) has been lauded for its strong female presence (even though there are only white, cis, straight women), for it’s development of the other, non-Jo sisters (even though it doesn’t), and for giving its lead space to be queer (even though she isn’t).

Greta Gerwig made an excellent film, but she did not do anything that has never been done before. I liked the movie, but I’m not about to go campaign for Greta Gerwig or the movie to win an Oscar. In general, we need to be less willing to acclaim those who do the bare minimum.

Again, I’m not good at writing conclusions. At a certain point I’m going to just start repeating myself, so I’m going to go ahead and cut myself off now. Again, if anybody has any opinions on this, agree or disagree, please come talk to me about it! I’d love to hear any other thoughts.

[mikaey43]

#16 A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Rating: 4/5

Pages: 247 (with “An Appreciation” by Anna Quindlen, and additional content)

Publisher: Squarefish (an imprint of Macmillian)

(I shouldn’t make goals. I’m not good at keeping them. But I digress.) There are books I didn’t read as a kid. They didn’t appeal to me then. I can’t read it with the eyes of a child, but I can still read them. I decided to read the following book before news broke of its theatrical film adaptation—what reader doesn’t. This book has a simple plot, a good cast of characters, character development, and showcases an insight to the goodness of humanity. And above all, it has strong female characters. Not to say that the men are lacking, but it’s always refreshing to read about a girl who simply is. In any genre. I can’t wait to read the other books in this series: A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle.

The plot is simple: after not hearing from Mr. Murry since he went off to work on a top-secret experiment, the mysterious Mrs. Whatsit visits the Murry family one “dark and stormy night” and thrusts our main characters into a journey across the universe.

The story opens with Meg Murry, the eldest of the Murry children. She is the typical awkward mess who excels in the sciences and mathematics but fails in humanities. That is refreshing since usually intelligent female characters are written as being all-around, book-smart girls. It isn’t a bad thing but should not always be the case. Through her journey, Meg comes to understand that a person, even her scientist parents, have both strengths and shortcomings.

Then there’s the youngest and the most brilliant of the Murrys: Charles Wallace. At five years old, he is the most intellectual and wise. The town gossips about him, just as with his father. They presume that because he’s not particularly loquacious he therefore lacks intelligence. But Mrs. Whatsit directs herself to him not just as a mouthpiece but someone who will able to understand the complexity of their mission across the universe.

We also meet sixteen-year-old, Calvin O’Keefe. He is the compassionate son of a family who neglects him, a gifted junior at Meg’s school, and talented athlete. He shares the same gift as Charles Wallace but is more open where Charles is reserved. He is centered and level-headed. He joins them on their mission with no other reason than but that he was “meant” to be at the right time and place.

I don’t focus on too many characters, just those that I feel add significance to the story. I will touch as briefly as I can on Mr. and Mrs. Murry, Mrs. Whatsit, Which, and Who, since I believe they add necessary layers to what is usually a very one-tone genre for middle-grade.

In most young adult fiction, the young protagonist has free rein to push the boundaries as the parents are pushed to the outskirts of the plot. They are often shown as incompetent, not technologically savvy, or just plain “uncool.” In L’Engle’s story, we see not only competent parents with professional careers but who are idolized by their children. L’Engle presents Mr. and Mrs. Murry as what they really are: people. This is what frustrates Meg. She believes her parents are supposed to be different as opposed to the other adults. Meg knows they are a powerhouse couple: intelligent, handsome, and down-to-earth. They are scientists after all, they should be able to solve any kind of problem that comes their way. But they don’t have all the answers and apparently need rescuing too.

Mrs. Murry is a devoted stay-at-home mother and scientist who runs her lab from the basement. She has been somewhat of a “single mother” since her husband went to work on a top-secret assignment years ago. As she awaits her husband’s return, she continues their research, raising their children, all the while trying to find Mr. Murry. But her faith in her husband never waivers. Meg admires her for her strength of character, intelligence, and beauty. Mrs. Murry appears as an unreachable idol because Meg feels she will never attain that level of sophistication. 

We know that Mr. Murry, like Mrs. Murry, is a scientist. He has been working on an experiment since Charles was a baby. It is rumored that he abandoned his family for another woman, but his family loves and respects him very much. They believe that he’s working on this experiment. He is thought of as a smart, loving, reasonable, and sensible man.

Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which are harder to explain. They appear from and disappear back to nothing. They are gentle and kind. They also seem to know a lot about human history and its most influential people. They can bend space and therefore transport themselves easily through large distances throughout the universe.

We find out that the “wrinkle in time” makes it possible to travel through space to other worlds. Through this type of travel, we visit four worlds in a “catch and release” fashion. Only visiting the worlds to pick up necessary information without really “exploring” it, but we do meet strange creatures. By the time we finally arrive at Camazotz, ready to explore the world, it turns out to be an imitation of our world. Only difference is that it is almost completely controlled by IT although, there are glimpses of inadvertent freethinkers.

While I usually spotlight a quote, I would like to focus instead on an idea: the examination of conformity versus uniqueness. The reader is warned about its dangers. Mrs. Murry tells Meg that “people are more than just the way they look” (54). This is the most evident in Mrs. Whatsit, Who, and Which. They are more than what they seem but adjusted their true selves since the children go by the preconceived notion of physical sight.

We also know that the trio—while unique—conform. Calvin, idolized by the town for his brilliance in both academics and sports, miserably conforms to his superficial image when he cannot authentically connect with anyone. The opposite goes for Charles. His intelligence is vastly superior to anyone in that town, but because he fears their rejection, he tolerates the town’s opinion that he’s intellectually slow. Finally, Meg tries and wishes she could conform but cannot mold into the small mind of the small town because of her logical, impatient, impulsive, and awkward personality. She is the question itself. Thankfully, the characters begin to deviate from the idea of how they are “seen” and toward how they want to be known. This begins with Mrs. Whatsit transformation to her original form and completed when she reveals that she is a star. This echoes the second part of Mrs. Murry’s explanation that the “difference isn’t physical. It’s in essence.” (54, my emphasis).

When the children travel to Camazotz, Meg physically sees how radical conformity for “normalcy” can get. Not just in appearances but the exact beat (ie: essence) to which the planet marches, plays, “thinks,” and lives. The inescapable humdrum of IT’s beat illustrates how enticing yet lamentable life is when one is programmed to sameness.

Meg must see beyond the physical into essential concepts to free Charles. A lesson Aunt Beast reminds her of before returning to Camazotz: “We look not at the things which are what you call seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal.” (205).

The question about conformity is answered. Meg decides to face the evil of “sameness” when IT tries to prove that “equal and alike” are indistinguishable. While everyone is equal in worth for being human, we are not alike in essence. Different is okay. And that is why the Murry family and Calvin O’Keefe hug it out in the middle of the twin's vegetable garden.

There are many things that I like. First, that Meg realizes she has put everyone on pedestals, but it turns out, they are fallible. This lets her be free to finally be whoever she wants to be. This leads me to say how much I loved that the women are given equal footing with their male counterparts. The Mrs. Ws, Mrs. Murry, and Meg have gifted and compassionate teammates. These relationships are built on respect, trust, support, and admiration. Mrs. Murry trusts that Mr. Murry’s lack of communication is due to some unforeseen circumstance. The Mrs. Ws know that with Charles Wallace’s help he will not only interpret their information but use it to guide Calvin and Meg. And Calvin helps center Meg during her thought process. Teamwork. I also liked all the science that L’Engle sprinkles throughout her novel, and how simple she makes it.

And while I liked the idea of the story, there were a few instances that had me refraining from exploring it further. There is the constant world-hopping—which I understand is the whole point—but because we were never in one place for too long, I lacked a connection. Even as the final battle takes place in IT-controlled Camazotz, since it mirrors Earth, it lacks its own personality. And after that final battle, I was left with more questions than answers. The most burning question: what happened to IT? Also: was Camazotz able to rid itself of IT? There’s not much backstory of IT’s conquest of Camazotz. We also don’t know why the Mrs. Ws couldn’t go with Meg to help her. We are tied to the facts of the text, which isn't a bad thing, I guess. After all, their only mission was to find Mr. Murry.

I had originally rated this book a five out of five stars, but because of the world-building I had to knock out a star. I am very glad to have read about a brave girl who rescues her father and gains more understanding of the world she also saves. I did like it from beginning to end and can’t wait to read the rest of the books in the series.

[monsters-demons-and-ai-oh-my]

What We Lost and What We Have

Chapter 9:   Wookies, warnings and homophobic grandpas

In which Jack’s sneak stat is a 2, Sam has a weird story about a wookie encounter, and everybody needs a pep talk.

TW’s for this chapter: Talk about past sibling death (not of a main character)

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

AU somewhat inspired by Episode 2x20 - What Is and What Should Never Be, and the season 14 storyline concerning Jack’s illness.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

AO3 Link

Previous Chapter

First Chapter

Complete Tumblr Chapter List

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Jack spent almost the whole two hours or so Castiel was gone on his phone and part of Sam was elated.

He’d drafted the same email about corporate responsibility (for the proliferation of inaccurate information on rechargeable batteries) six times now. It was incredibly dull technical writing and he hadn’t been able to focus at all.

Every line of legal jargon he managed to type was interspersed with his mind screaming.

“Say something!”

Sam had come back to the hospital with a purpose, to be helpful to hold out the olive branch to Castiel and BE there for Jack.

-

But ‘there’ was all he was…

-

He had no idea what to say to Jack. The day before had been easy enough, everything had been one long train wreck fed by the intrinsic emotions that came with serious illness. But now that things had calmed down and everyone especially Jack was not on the verge of emotional collapse? He had no idea what Jack needed from him.

And outside of what Jack explicitly needed or wanted it wasn’t like Sam had a deep well of topics to draw upon for small talk..

-

‘What the hell did Sam have in common with a kid literally half his age?’

“What do you say to your estranged baby brother when at his age one of your main goals was keeping the hell away from him?”

-

It didn’t help that Jack himself seemed to suddenly become incredibly shy, only occasionally peeking at Sam sheepishly when he thought the man wasn’t looking…

“So you like… Star Wars?” Sam finally blurted after twenty long minutes of silence.

Jack blinked at Sam in confusion at the out of the blue question before glancing at the back of his themed phone case and flushing slightly.

“I… Yes?” Jack looked a little unsure.

Sam grabbed onto the subject, “Who’s your favorite character?”

Jack’s phone buzzed in his hand and the kid glanced between Sam and the screen nervously before setting it gingerly aside.

“I think… I think Finn is pretty cool?”

Sam suddenly realized his mistake, he knew absolutely nothing about the new movies, he’d been too busy to get around to watching any of them

“Oh that’s… cool… I used to have a Chewbacca plush when I was a little kid,” Sam tried instead.

There was a long moment with no noise but the passive whirring of one of the machines and a soft cough from Jack.

“Oh?” the teenager said politely.

“Yeah it was pretty cool, original too, apparently those things are worth a few hundred dollars now…”

-

‘What are you babbling about now Sam?’

-

Jack smiled and that made it seem worth it though.

“So do you collect stuff like that or something?” he asked curiously.

“Well no, it was kind of… destroyed?” Sam huffed a little sheepish.

“Destroyed?”

“Yeah… Like I said, I got it when I was a little kid, I chewed on the fabric weapons belt until it tore off and one day I left it outside and it rained so it got all mildew-y,“ Sam quickly explained fumbling for purchase with the Jack’s interest.

Jack pulled a face, "that’s too bad…”

“The final straw though was when Dean called it a moldy sloth and I hit him with it, he tried to take it away from me and it tore raining the carpet with mildew-y stuffing…” Sam chuckled to himself.

“That’s pretty destroyed,” Jack looked mildly grossed out.

Sam missed his cue to let it go.

“Thing was though even after all that I still didn’t want to throw the thing out, I was too attached, So at six I thought it was a great idea to  put this damp mildewed furry thing in a pillowcase, tie the pillowcase shut and hide it in my bed’s box spring…”

Jack’s only response was to stifle another cough in his elbow.

“We didn’t find it again until my bed started smelling like mildew, somehow it spread into the wood of the box spring and the bottom of my mattress, and the wookie… well it was some other kind of furry when my dad finally pulled it out.”

Things were dead quiet and when Sam glanced back up at Jack, he looked uncomfortable, “O-oh?” Jack said diplomatically.

-

‘You… really overshare Sam, for fu-…’

-

“Yeah… it was… nasty, sorry, that was a long time ago.”

Jack’s eyebrows drew down a little and he looked rejected for a moment. Sam wondered if it was something that he’d said.

There was another few minutes of awkward silence before Jack’s phone buzzed again and he glanced nervously between it and Sam.

“Just… go ahead I’ll��� “ Sam awkwardly tapped the side of his laptop and just like that they both went back to their designated devices as if nothing had been said.

Sam didn’t know how to talk to Jack, every happy childhood memory he had was from before Jack was born and didn’t include him, and even outside of that, he didn’t really know Jack’s personality, what made him smile, what bothered him… what he loved.

Jack seemed to be cautiously trying to connect too and somehow that made things worse, like they were both going for a high five and Sam kept awkwardly missing.

-

‘Trying to meet in a middle that might not even exist…’

-

Sam quickly went back to his emails and stayed with his head buried there until Castiel got back a while later.

———————————-

“I’m so, so sorry I fell asleep in the parking lot, Where’s Jack?” Castiel asked anxiously before the door even swung closed behind him..

He looked a lot better, his hair still damp but neatly combed and finally dressed down a little bit in a fresh shirt and no jacket.

“He’s fine,” Sam quickly placated, “the nurse just… took him for an X-ray of his arm. I think they wanted to put on a cast or something.”

The man relaxed a little and sighed going back to his spot beside the bed, “right… yes, they… mentioned they might do that today if the swelling was down… I…” He brushed back his hair wearily, “was everything alright while I was gone?”

Sam shrugged, “it was just like I said, nothing bad happened because you stepped away for a few minutes…”

Castiel shot him a look and for a moment Sam worried if he’d crossed a line but the man quickly relaxed again.

“I know you probably think I’m being… paranoid, and I don’t know, maybe I am, or maybe you just can’t understand this, but Jack…” Castiel’s eyes were far away, “I don’t want to take any chances with him…”

Sam felt the same mild discomfort he had for days now, seeing Castiel vulnerable just… felt wrong. The time away had done him good but for every bit less manic he looked now he looked ten times more exhausted.

“You’re right I really don’t get it…” Sam huffed. “I mean the way I see it he’s already in the safest place he could be.”

Castiel snorted sounding unconvinced.

“I but then again I’ve never been a parent so, guess I wouldn’t…” Sam paused, he was coming off all wrong, “I don’t know… what this is like for you.”

Castiel eyed him a little amused, “I didn’t know you even thought of me that way… I… I don’t want you to think I’m some nut but who doesn’t trust modern medicine…”

“I don’t, I’m sure your not…” Sam said quickly.

“It’s just…” Castiel rubbed at his face. “The doctors were doing the best they could when my sister died, sometimes it feels like “the best” still doesn’t mean much …”

Sam paused trying to figure out whether his next words would be welcome or get him another dirty look.

“I mean, I don’t really think things are that bad…”

-

‘Dirty look, it definitely got him a dirty look.’

-

Sam quickly switched gears, “what I mean is, Jack seems better today so maybe the doctors are on the right track. Or better yet this thing, whatever it is, is just sorting itself out…”

“You didn’t hear what the doctor said last night, you don't…” Castiel sighed and rubbed at his forehead.

“Don’t you have a job to get back to… in California?” Castiel muttered wearily.

For a moment, Sam felt affronted and maybe a little hurt, but there was no real malice in Castiel’s words and the message became clear.

-

'Change the subject…’

-

“I asked for some time off…” Sam shrugged, “most of our case prep work is done over the internet nowadays anyway…”

Some of the senior partners hadn’t been too happy about it if Mr. Roman’s rather passive aggressive “I hope your family matter clears up soon,” was anything to go by.

But none of the other junior partners seemed to mind at all…

-

'Probably glad to have a chance to get ahead and prove themselves…’

'Part of Sam wished he still cared, but lately…’

-

Castiel just nodded noncommittally.

“What about you… the high school?” Sam tried, “you’re a teacher right?, how’s that going without you?”

“There’s a substitute…” Cas said simply.

“Oh…” Sam screamed internally, he thought the man wanted a distraction but now it just felt like trying to keep up a conversation with a brick wall.

“I… already had the last few weeks of lessons planned out and review worksheets written up, so while I can’t be there right now,  my classes should be… prepared.” Castiel muttered suddenly, seeming lost in thought, “That’s… one thing I’ve always prided myself on… being prepared…”

Sam caught the implication but decided not to feed into it.

“it’ll be okay…” Sam said simply.

Castiel blinked at him in confusion, “I know they will, Mr. Wyatt is an excellent substitute teacher.”

-

‘Okay maybe Sam was lost…’

-

He snorted further confusing Castiel.

“What?”

“Nothing…” Sam shook his head, “Jack… he… he told me he misses school.

Castiel blinked in surprise, he opened his mouth to ask something but before he could get the words out there was a knock at the door.

"Delivery,” a voice called.

Jack appeared in the doorway being wheeled in by the nurse Meg with a new violently blue cast on his arm and a sheepish look on his face.

“Jack,” Castiel smiled relieved earning him a nervous smile back from Jack.

He seemed much more stable on his feet than the day before when he climbed gingerly out of the wheelchair as the nurse re-hung the IV bags.

“They’re taking him off the oxygen for now,” the nurse said, her tone seemed considerably nicer now that Jack was awake.

-

'She probably had infinitely more patience for sick kids, than antagonistic asshole family members who just act like children…’

-

“It’s getting easier to breathe now,” Jack said brightly, even though his pronouncement was almost immediately broken up by wheezy coughing.

“That’s um… that’s great Jack,” Castiel said gently eyes still distracted back on the nurse.

'With a pang of amusement, Sam caught Jack carefully peeking at his phone beneath his blanket when he thought his uncle wasn’t watching.’

“So um… was everything alright?” Castiel asked the nurse, trying to keep his voice chipper and upbeat.

She blinked at him sardonically, “Nope, his wrist is definitely fractured.”

Castiel’s eyebrows furrowed, “That’s not what I…”

She interrupted, “I know, but that’s all I really have to tell you, everything else is above my pay grade, you’ll have to wait on the doctor for any more papa bear.”

Castiel gave a frustrated huff glancing back at Jack who quickly dropped the covers back down over his phone and glanced around sheepishly.

-

'If Castiel noticed he didn’t say anything.’

-

“You wanna know my professional opinion on this?” the nurse quickly re-drew both men’s attention.

“I don’t know but I feel like you’re going to give it to me either way…” Castiel sighed.

“I can’t guess at what’s going on with your kid, or whether he’ll keep getting better or worse, I could get the hospital sued and lose my job and all that,” Meg shrugged, glancing back over at Jack who was sitting up in bed and playing with his phone “sneakily” under the covers again.

“But…” her voice softened, “he seems to be having a good day… so I’d say try to take today for what it is… and enjoy it.”

Sam wished her saying that did anything to calm the ripples of anxiousness in his stomach, a feeling that must be like waves breaking on the beach in Castiel…

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Dean wished he could say he changed his mind as soon as Sam walked out of the shop, but it took another day and a half…

He’d finished rebuilding the Cuevas’s Jeep’s engine block, changed a fuel filter on some Uni Kid’s car and an engine coil on another’s before he even looked back at his phone again.

No missed calls, no texts. Either everything was fine or Sam also didn’t want to talk to him.

-

'What else was new.’

-

Either way Dean refused to be the first one to call back. He’d meant what he said and if Sam wanted to act all pissy about it that was his business.

But by the next morning his familiar routine tasted like a Kahlua hangover in the back of his throat.

He was already in a bad mood at eight am when Jesse came to pick up his Jeep from the shop.

“I thought you were going to pick up this hunk of junk yesterday…” Dean scowled hands tucked in his pockets a little defensively.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed…” Jesse sounded bemused waving briefly over his shoulder at his husband waiting with the truck running.

“It would have been nice not to be in a time crunch, yeah…” Dean snorted, pulling out a beer from the mini fridge in the garage’s work area.

“Sorry man,” Jesse shrugged guiltily, “I got a call I couldn’t miss. I thought you said you weren’t busy anyway. Something come up?”

“Brother’s in town,” Dean could feel the man eyeing him concerned as he sipped his morning beer.

“You want one?” Dean offered half sarcastically.

“It’s eight Winchester,” Jesse said flatly.

Dean shrugged.

Jesse sighed pulling out his wallet and fishing out an envelope of cash to pay for the repair, “seriously man what’s eating you, 'cause I’ve met Sam and he doesn’t normally get under your skin like this.”

Dean said nothing just took the money and headed towards the office..

Jesse shook his head looking half amused half irritated following him, “look, me and Cesar are meeting with a few friends at Gabe’s to celebrate tonight, maybe come by if you’re feeling less pissy past nine…”

Dean snorted handing over the cash to the teenager behind the desk, “what are you a fourteen-year-old girl? I’m not 'pissy’.”

“You’re one of the pissiest person I’ve ever met Dean Winchester,” Jesse said with a good-natured smile.

“He’s right, you’re like, super pissy…” Claire remarked flatly counting the cash out into the drawer and not meeting her boss’s glare.

Dean snorted tossing Jesse the Jeep keys, “just try the damn engine already…”

Jesse laughed and Dean followed him out to the car, wanting to remain annoyed but significantly distracted.

“What are you celebrating anyway?” Dean finally asked unable to suppress his admittedly childish curiosity.

“Retirement,” Jesse said simply.

Dean blinked in mild confusion, “dude you’re like 36…”

Jesse grinned infuriatingly and climbed into the Jeep cab, “I know right?”

He let the curiosity eat away at Dean as he revved the engine.

It purred like it was fresh off the line and Dean couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride at the pleased look on the other man’s face.

“Beautiful, man,” Jesse said patting the side of the door.

Before Dean could ask Jesse if he’d won the lottery or something he pointed to Dean and said simply.

“Nine-Thirty, Gabe’s.”

Dean shook his head, “fine, fine.”

The man smiled, gave a brief thumbs up to his husband in the other vehicle and they both drove off leaving Dean to sit with his extremely mild curiosity and confusion.

Dean rolled his eyes and tried to get back to work.

“Pissy my ass…”

He hated feeling like this.

He had his mother who was doing better then she had been in years teaching mythology at the University and his standoffish little brother who came for Christmas. That was his family.

A house that was payed off in full and the shop he inherited from John that he kept running like a well oiled machine. That was his life.

Dean had made mistakes in the past, lost people in the past

-

Who hadn’t?

-

He’d made his peace with that and moved on.

He’d decided long ago that Jack and Castiel had their own sad chapter in the Winchester’s life but it was long over. Their lives were two completely separate stories now…

-

'Dean was sure the kid couldn’t want the fact he was born because some guy made a mistake, got drunk, and cheated on his wife following him around his whole life… Or at least… he’d get that was a bad thing when he was older.’

-

As far as Dean was concerned they were better off forgetting that shitty night ever happened, and he knew forgetting was the right thing to do but people constantly questioning his every decision wasn’t helping.

Sam’s self-righteous huffing and puffing.

Jesse’s… amusement.

Castiel’s confusion over the phone.

-

'Don’t act like you care all of a sudden…’

Things were so much simpler when there was just vague dislike and mistrust between the two of them…

-

Why was he even worried about this? Castiel said the kid was doing better, that should be the end of it.

If Dean saw someone hit by a car he’d try to help, call 911, stay by their side and keep them calm until the ambulance came.

-

'He was a decent man, despite what Sam might think.’

-

What Dean wouldn’t do was follow them around the accident victim for the next six months and bludgeon and prod their family for information and acknowledgment.

-

Jack and Castiel weren’t family.

Not really.

-

Jack was blood sure, but he was blood like a great aunt who lived six states away who nobody talked to for some stupid reason no one remembered, why bring up old shit?

There was too much baggage and bitterness.

Better to leave the great dam of 2000’s infidelity up between Kansas and Indiana as a monument to the shitty past rather than go picking at it and have all the crap pour out.

-

‘Dean felt dangerously close to drowning in that bitterness already.’

-

If Sam wanted to swing an ax at that himself (like the lumberjack in business casual he looked like) Sam could deal with the resulting flood himself.

He repeated the last thought to himself until he finished up for the day, leaving Claire to lock up the building.

He was of half a mind to ignore Jesse’s offer and just head home, but…

-

He didn’t think the empty house would do anything to calm his mind and drinking alone was just sad.

-

“Screw it,” He turned at the first red light and headed towards Gabe’s.

He set his phone to silent and decided to act as if that corner of his life didn’t exist for the evening.

He was spotted as soon as he entered the Gabe’s, Cesar grinning at him and gesturing him over to the little group at the bar.

“Hey Dean, sit, first round’s on us,” Jesse called from around his husband.

It was a little bit to Cheers-y for comfort but Dean didn’t fight it sighing and sidling up to the bar.

“Whiskey, neat…” Dean ordered gruffly.

Gabe poured the whiskey one eyebrow slightly raised, “well you’re awful chipper today Deano.”

“Yeah well I don’t even know what we’re supposed to be celebrating yet so…” Dean toasted in Jesse’s general direction smile not reaching his eyes “What’s the party for?”

“New beginnings,” Jesse smiled lifting up his own glass. “Finally bought the property of our dreams.”

Dean blinked, “yeah? How’d you swing that?”

“Finally sold the old shop…” Cesar said smiling at Jesse proudly.

Dean blinked, feeling a slightly bitter pang of nostalgia. He could remember long summers going out with friends and dates to rent kayaks and buy ice cream from Jesse’s family’s old rental shack by Clinton lake.

“Business finally get that bad?” Dean felt how rude the words were in his mouth and cringed internally, but Jesse just snorted and smiled.

“Just the opposite actually, it’s shaping up to be one of the biggest tourist seasons yet…”

“So… going out on a high then?” Dean took another swig of his whiskey.

“Something like that,” Jesse shrugged.

“The Gallager kid turned 25 and he’s been working there since he was 16, we figured he was probably ready to take over,” Cesar explained.

“Wait time out,“ Gabe cut into the conversation brandishing his bar rag. "Dude hasn’t your family been running that place since most of the people in the old folks home were in diapers the first time?”

“That’s the thing though, it’s always been my family’s thing,” Jesse said diplomatically, “I only actually took over because my brother was gone, my grandpa in fact had some strong opinions on ‘people like me’.” Jesse snorted, “honestly I think I only stayed so long out of spite, that and I promised mom… I always meant to let the place go when I found someone to take care of it. It was never what I dreamed about doing…”

“Sam was the same way, never wanted to work at the shop…" Dean huffed a laugh, “He never could get along with dad… so it would have been fucking weird if he stayed.”

-

John had been angry; not so much at Sam wanting to go his own way but just… how vehemently against staying Sam had been. “You just can’t wait to leave your family behind can you?”

“Don’t you dare, you don’t get to say that to me, not you!” Sam spat back.

-

“Why wallow in the shitty past when you can just move on…” Dean muttered coming back to himself in the bar.

Jesse turned his glass in his hands looking pensive, “Sometimes it felt like that… but no that’s not really it.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose.

Jesse quickly explained, “I mean yeah there was a lot of shit there, but I grew up around that old shack, me and my brother worked there pretty much every summer after we were old enough to see over the counter…”

Dean whiskey tasted ashy in his mouth, he remembered Jesse’s big brother, he’d always been the cool older teen who’d give you an extra half scoop of ice cream when “the boss” wasn’t looking.

-

He’d drowned on a fishing trip with his younger brother when Dean was in junior high…

-

Jesse shrugged continuing where he left off, “why would I let one shithead ruin all of that?”

Dean hummed vaguely still feeling a little lost, “but you’re still giving it up now?”

Jesse nodded glancing toward Cesar, “Don’t get me wrong, if my brother was still alive… if I still had family interested in running the place maybe I wouldn’t've… For a long time I thought that was going to be my whole life.”

Cesar gently squeezed his husband’s hand and Dean felt a pang of emotion he pushed away before he could identify it.

Jesse continued, “But I have a family now and I… I just… can’t live in the past anymore.”

Dean felt more lost than ever, “Makes sense I guess, why literally live in all the painful bullshit when you have something better…”

Cesar blinked at Dean, “seriously dude why so dark?”

Dean bit back the need to find a smarmy way to tell his friends it was none of their damn business, “Just shitty family stuff…”

“Your brother?” Jesse asked.

Dean snorted, “you could say that…” he knocked back the rest of his glass. “I just don’t get that kid anymore…”

“He do something stupid?” Jesse asked.

“He’s an adult, he can do what he wants,” Dean snorted and tried to get Gabe’s attention for a second whiskey, “It’s not like we really even talk much anymore, who am I to keep him from shoving his foot up his own ass…”

“Yeah, that’s real convincing…” Jesse shook his head bemused.

Dean hurumphed and muttered a thanks to Gabe who finally came over.

“Are you two still on the same crap from a few days ago?” Gabe asked pouring the second glass.

Jesse and Cesar’s ears perked up and even Gabe’s weird brother Gadreel was watching him from across the room. Dean wondered darkly if there was any privacy left in this town.

“Yeah my own, personal, crap,” Dean said pointedly.

Gabe held up his hands in mock surrender, “okay, okay, fine, don’t talk about it, it’s just seems like whatever "it” is seems to be eating you an awful lot…"

“Yeah well Sam has that effect, he does dumb shit and you worry about him, over and over until it’s just too much and…” Dean wrapped his knuckles on the table, “maybe you have it right and it’s time to cut him loose, move on…”

Jesse pulled a face, “that’s not what I meant at all…”

“Yeah well then what do you mean, because I’m getting tired of guessing,” Dean barked.

Jesse had the courtesy not to smirk at him.

“My point is… I don’t really know Sammy haven’t seen him since he was sixteen but… make sure shutting him out is what you really want, and not just some petty shit.”

It dug like a knife in Dean’s gut, “You’re right you don’t know shit…” Dean muttered taking a swig from his glass…

Jesse smiled more than a little forlornly, “all I do know is, having lost him, if I had a second chance with my brother…” he trailed off, “Make absolutely sure you’re ready to give up your chances at this future, when you’re planning on leaving behind your past…”

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Oof, sorry it took me so long to get back, it’s been a crazy few months and it’s been a struggle to get back to my usual writing routine with everything going on. Hopefully, things will be better now.

[lovemesomerafael]

Cinderella of Chicago             Chapter 1:  The Ball

His outfit was sheer genius. The wings could actually lift and wave, and fold back to their resting position smoothly and silently.  They worked on servos he’d spent way too much for, but it was worth it.  You couldn’t even see him toggle the switch that controlled them, because it fit perfectly within his palm.  Brilliant.

Not only that, but the workmanship on the suit itself was perfect.  His Baba had asked no questions, just taken the pictures he’d given her, drawn up a pattern, and sewed holy hell out of it.  It fit like a glove and made him look pretty damn good, if he did say so himself.  He’d had to make a few concessions here and there on fabric and trim, mostly because the real suit was undoubtedly butter-soft leather that cost about a million dollars a yard, but he’d done superbly there, too.  Well worth the number of days off he’d spent haunting every fabric store in greater Chicago.  

Which is why Brian Zvonecek could not be blamed for maniacally bouncing his foot and checking the clock every seven seconds as he sat ignoring the morning talk show on the common room TV, waiting for this shift at Firehouse 51 to end.  When ChicagoCon started in approximately three hours, he planned to be there, and he planned to be the best Sumendi anyone had ever seen. Including, hopefully, Anthony Lang, the guy who actually played Sumendi in all three movies, and was going to be on a panel talking about the upcoming movie that would have all the Planetary Saviors in it.  Brian couldn’t wait.  

************

At this stage of her nursing career, not much bothered Meg Armstrong, but this was a bunch of shit.  Literally, the largest amount of feces she’d ever seen, which had issued from a homeless woman who had come in to Chicago Med’s Emergency Room after not being able to “go boom-boom” (her phrase) for a week.  Well, they’d solved that problem.  And now, here was Meg, four years of college and fifty thousand dollars in student loans later, dealing with the aftermath of their success.    

At least her shift was almost over.  The minute she had Mrs. Carlsberg cleaned out and cleaned up, she could, at long last, catch the El to her friend Karen’s apartment where the girls were meeting to get ready for ChicagoCon.  After all the planning and all the work to make it, Meg was dying to put on all the pieces of her Tabiti costume and hit Rosemont.  

 ************

The hall was huge. Actually, if Brian was being honest with himself, it was a little overwhelming.  Half of Chicago was here, and a good third of them were in costume.  He’d get used to the crowd, and the more people in costume the better, because he knew he looked good.  He’d already lost count of the number of people who’d asked for permission to take his picture, or to be in selfies with him.  He graciously agreed every time, while his roommate Joe Cruz rolled his eyes and made annoyed faces.  Well, Cruz could be getting this kind of attention if he’d chosen to dress up, but he’d absolutely refused.  So there he was, wearing a T-shirt and jeans and absolutely invisible next to Brian.

“C’mon, Otis, we’re not gonna get a good place in line for the panel.”

Brian accepted yet another high five on his costume and joined Cruz for the short walk to join the throng in front of the doors to the main auditorium.  The panel wasn’t for another hour at least, but if they didn’t get in line now, they’d have lousy seats.  Brian wanted to be sure to get great pictures and – although he didn’t admit it to Cruz – he hoped someone on the panel would notice that he was looking crazy good as Sumendi.  

For the next hour, Brian and Cruz stood cheek by jowl with an odiferous mass of Planetary Saviors fans, many in costume.  There were a fair number of Sumendis, but none that could approach Brian’s costume, even without the real, working wings.  Unfortunately, there weren’t many women in the vicinity of Brian and Cruz to make the wait more enjoyable.  There were a few mediocre Tabitis and one group of all the female Planetary Saviors, but they were all too young to be interesting.  

Being taller, Cruz could see further into the crowd.  He mentioned a few particularly cool costumes, but Brian couldn’t see them.  It would be easier to check out the costumes when they were released from the horde into the auditorium.  For now, he was stuck among a mostly-male group of younger fans, all of whom smelled like they needed either a shower or a lesson in moderation when applying Axe body spray.  He wished he was wearing his SCBA apparatus.  It would’ve ruined the look of his costume, of course, but no one could really see it in this crush, anyway.  

At last, the doors opened and Brian and Cruz were propelled into the auditorium by a suddenly frenzied mob, having all they could do to keep upright.  But they had a plan.  Cruz was pretty big, and could use his arms and elbows to basically swim through the crowd. All Brian had to do was stay tucked right behind him, and Cruz would get them to the front.  Which he did with a minimum amount of elbowing teenagers and a very clever “accidental” de-helmeting of a Boba Fett.  

 ***************

Meg and her friends were not as successful, mostly because they didn’t have a plan beyond “get great seats”, and they didn’t feel like waiting in a huge, jostling melee for the auditorium doors to open.  Still, they got in for the panel and had seats.  They counted that as success, especially since all five women were seated together. Karen was determined to get to ask Ken Terhune, who played Sumendi’s wicked brother, Adranos, a question.  He was so hot, she was sure she would have an instant orgasm if he actually spoke to her, and she was going to do whatever it took to make that happen.  

The first thing she’d done to get his attention was to come dressed as Afi, wife of Adranos.  Another thing she’d done was to make sure that her boobs looked spectacular in her Afi costume.  Not that much of her boobs were in her Afi costume, but that was kind of the point.  

While they waited for the panel to start, the women looked around the auditorium, admiring all the costumes and looking for cute guys.   Liz saw one cute guy, right down front, in a really great Sumendi costume.  She elbowed Meg and pointed.  

“Look over there! That guy’s Sumendi is almost as good as your Tabiti!  You should totally get a picture with him,” Liz told Meg.  

“Whoa!  That is a good costume.  He’s cute, too.  But I’m not going down there.  What would I say?  ‘Hey, dude, I see we’re dressed as a couple, so let’s get our pictures taken together?’  I’d die of embarrassment.”

“Then I’ll say it.  You look really good, and it doesn’t look like he has a Tabiti with him.  Come on.”

“Not happening, Liz. Thanks, though.  Hey, look over there.  Is that dude supposed to be a zombie from The Walking Dead?”

“I don’t think so.  I think he just needs to eat some vegetables or something.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Highly.”

 *******************

“Cruz, Cruz… look at that Tabiti up there!”

“Whoa, dude, she’s checkin’ you out, too.  You should go meet her.”

“I can’t go meet her – we gotta… protect these seats.”

“You’re such a weenie, Otis.”

“Are you really willing to give up these primo seats just to -  Oh! They’re starting!”

 **************

The panel was awesome. Nobody on the panel said anything about Brian’s outstanding costume, but he was sure they saw him.  Both Brian and Cruz were hoping to get picked to ask their questions, which would have given Brian a perfect opportunity to show off his Sumendi wings, but that didn’t happen, either.  Still, it was a great panel.  Well worth the hassle of getting in and getting these seats.

After the panel, it was time to cruise the main exhibition hall.  That was going to take some time and coordination, because Anthony Lang was going to be signing autographs and taking pictures at three O’clock, and Brian had pre-paid for his photo op.  He was not going to miss out on that.  Cruz had thought that the $75 price tag was too high, but that was ridiculous.  How could you put a price on getting your picture taken with the real Sumendi?  

 ***********

Meg and her friends needed a break after the excitement of the panel.  They’d do the Exhibition Hall, but right now coffee was a must.  Karen was bummed that she didn’t get to ask her question, and that Ken Terhune hadn’t commented on her Afi costume (or her boobs). But they all thought a little caffeine would fix her right up.  

They’d been right, and for a while, they’d had a great time shopping the booths and checking out the costumes.  But after lunch, Susan and Lita were getting a little tired of the Con.  The others wouldn’t say it out loud, of course, until after they’d gone home, but Susan and Lita weren’t really “fans” so much as just there for the experience itself.  Maybe Susan and Lita wouldn’t even understand that was an insult.  But best not to say it out loud anyway.  

“Come on, you guys, we’re only halfway done with the Hall!  We’re never gonna see everything if we take another break,” Meg urged, pulling on Lita’s arm.

“We’re getting smoothies. We’ll meet you after.  We know the pattern you’re following around the Hall, we’ll just find you.”  And just like that, Susan and Lita ducked into the crowd and were gone, leaving Meg, Karen, and Liz (wearing a Sumendi T-shirt, which was closer to being in costume than her friends had thought they’d get) to shop the rest of the booths.  

The next booth they came to sold nothing but hoodies – from traditional ones printed with pictures and logos from all sorts of fantasy franchises to ones with attachments on the hoods that made you look like your favorite character.  They spent a long time looking through them all, especially trying to find one with Adranos’s crown in Karen’s size.  They were ultimately successful, and she waited in line to pay more than Meg ever would have for it.  Liz continued to hunt through every hoodie with a Dr. Who theme, afraid she would miss The One if she didn’t look at every single one to make sure she hadn’t missed a design.

Meg’s feet were starting to hurt in Tabiti’s signature stiletto-heeled red boots, so she took the opportunity to lean against one side of the booth so she could stand on one foot at a time, giving the other a rest.  

“That is an outstanding costume,” a voice at her ear said.  

Meg turned to face the cute guy in the really good Sumendi costume they had seen at the panel.  

“Oh, hi,” she stammered, immediately embarrassed at the overzealous squeal in her voice.  “Yours is great, too.  I saw you, at the panel.  It’s really… great.”  Could I be more of an idiot?  

“Thanks.  Your headpiece is awesome.  Isn’t that heavy?”  He asked. They had to practically shout to be heard over the jostling, milling throng hemming them in.  But it was worth it.  Brian couldn’t believe his luck finding the Tabiti they’d seen at the panel, who was even cuter up close.  

“It isn’t that bad,” Meg answered, self-consciously touching her headpiece and knocking a shower of glitter onto her shoulder.  “It’s papier-mâché, mostly.  So not that heavy.  You can, you know, touch it.  If you want.”

Brian touched Meg’s headpiece, knocking on it a little with his finger.  “Wow.  I’d swear it was metal, from a distance.”  From a distance?  Nice one, moron.  She’s gonna punch you.

“Thanks.  What did you use for the red streaks in your hair?”

“That?  That’s natural.”

Meg laughed, but then began to cough as she inhaled a bit of spit down the wrong tube.  Oh, for fuck’s sake.  Kill me now.  You, Aquaman over there, if you could just impale me with your trident, that would be great.  He’s gonna think I have fucking tuberculosis.  

The problem was that he had smiled.  This Sumendi, who was pretty cute to begin with, and had made a very funny joke, had smiled after he said it.  And his smile was… electrifying.  He had gorgeous, white teeth and, with his dark hair and dark eyes, and the little moustache and soul patch he wore (which Meg usually hated), it was just… well, it was enough to make her choke on her own spit like the gargoyle she was.  

He patted her on the back. “You gonna be OK?  I’m a firefighter.  If you need CPR, just say the word.”  

Meg flapped her hands around, trying to signal that she would be OK, and desperately tried to control her cough.  She could feel the tears smearing her mascara and knew for a fact her face was beet red. Yeah.  Some Tabiti.  She’s supposed to hold Sumendi spellbound with her charms, which I’m dead certain don’t involve hacking up a lung at his feet.  

“I’m…  I’m OK…”  Meg choked. The taller guy behind Sumendi handed her a bottle of water, which she gratefully accepted.  He was kind of cute, too, she noticed.  The water helped.

“I’m sorry.”  Meg covered her face with her hand.  “I just… something went down the wrong way, I don’t know…”

“As long as you’re OK.” Sumendi was looking at her with a sort of serious expression.  That looked good on him, too.  Did he say he was a firefighter?  Meg really, really liked firefighters.

“Yeah, yeah.  I’m fine.  Thanks for the water,” she said to the taller guy, handing back the bottle.

“Keep it.  Just in case,” he said, smiling.  “Hey, would you mind if we got a picture of you guys? You know, together?”

Sumendi smiled again. “Yeah, that would be great!”  

Meg was still working to calm her spasming trachea, and knew what her makeup must now look like.  “I’d like that, but…  Can I just…”  She pointed to a mirror in the jewelry booth next to the hoodie booth.  

“Oh, sure!”  Sumendi said excitedly.  Could I sound more like a fourteen-year-old?  Damn it!

Meg went over to the next booth, bending down to survey the damage to her eye makeup.  It was bad.  She pulled her small backpack off her shoulder and rummaged inside.  People kept bumping against her in the overcrowded Exhibition Hall, making her work much harder.  She was eventually pushed over to the other side of the booth, where there was another mirror.  She had to wipe a lot of smeared mascara off her cheeks, which messed up the rest of her makeup, which meant she had to re-do that, too, before she could re-apply her mascara.  It took a solid five minutes, with added time to deal with all the pushes and shoves from the crowd and those wanting to get closer to use the mirror themselves to try on jewelry.

“You ready to go on?” Meg heard Karen’s voice at her elbow. She looked up, surprised.  

“Oh, well, we’re gonna get a picture together, me and Sumendi.”  She looked over to where Sumendi and his friend had been, but couldn’t see them in the seething crowd.  

“What Sumendi?”

“The cool one, the one we saw at the panel.  They were right there-“

Liz stepped up beside Karen. “They didn’t have any good Dr. Who shirts.  Let’s go.”

“No, but… wait-“

“Meg, I don’t see any Sumendi around here.  Maybe he bailed.”

“He didn’t bail!  They were right there!”  She moved toward the hoodie booth as best she could, but there were so many people crowded around it was difficult to maneuver.  Pushing a bit, she got further into the walkway but couldn’t see Sumendi or his friend.  

“Damn!  They’re gone.”

Karen and Liz hustled Meg along to the next booth.  They still had a lot of ground to cover.  Meg was crushed.  That Sumendi had been really cute.  And he said he was a firefighter.  And that smile!  

Meanwhile, Brian and Cruz had been shoved into the hoodie booth, and were trying to get back to the walkway, but it was taking forever.  Finally, Joe used his elbow-swim move to escape the booth, with Brian in tow. By the time they got out to the walkway, Tabiti was nowhere in sight.  Brian sighed. He had really liked the deep copper color of her hair, especially with her green eyes.  Plus, she’d remembered him from the panel!    

 ****************

“OK, this is where I leave you,” Cruz announced as Brian joined the line for his picture with Anthony Lang.  It was only two thirty, but he wanted to be sure to get his picture and autograph.  

“You sure, Cruz?  This is Anthony Lang we’re talking about.”

“I know, but I’m not paying seventy-five bucks for a picture with a dude I can see in a movie for less than twenty.  You’re crazy. I’m going back in, to finish the Exhibition Hall.”

“Fine.  You’re missing out.”  

Cruz gave a little wave and disappeared into the crowd, just missing colliding with Meg as she maneuvered through the crush of people to join the line for pictures and autographs with Anthony Lang.  Looking around, she figured out where the end of the line was and stepped up behind the last person, who happened to have a really good Sumendi costume –

“Hey!  It’s you!”  Brian greeted Meg, again giving her that blinding smile.  She blinked a bit, momentarily confused by his sudden reappearance and by the effect that smile had on her.

“Oh, hi!  We got separated.  I’m sorry, I really wanted to have a picture with you.”  

“Yeah, so did I.  But we can do it now.  You know, if you want.”

Meg’s face fell a little. “I’d like that.  I guess you’ll have to text it to me, though, because my phone died.”

Now Brian’s face fell. “You are not going to believe this.”

“What?”

“I don’t have a phone, either.   I gave it to my roommate, because there’s no place for it in my costume, and I didn’t want to be bothered with it.  He has it in his jacket.”

Just Brian’s luck.  Here he was, looking great as Sumendi, with a long wait ahead next to the best Tabiti he’d seen at the Con, who seemed genuinely excited to have their picture taken together, and neither of them had a phone. His choices were laugh or cry.  Or swear a blue streak, he supposed, but he didn’t know this girl and she seemed really nice.  Maybe she would be turned off if he swore.  But he was brutally disappointed.  

Meg laughed, so Brian joined her.  She was no more thrilled than he was not to have a camera, but maybe they could find her friends, or his, when they were done with Anthony Lang.  Or maybe they could get a picture taken in the booth with Anthony Lang.  That would be really cool.  In any event, she was pretty happy to get to spend the next hour or so with this cute Sumendi while they waited.  They were going to get a chance to actually talk.  To get to know each other.  She wondered whether he was single.  She also wondered, based on the excellent craftsmanship of his costume and his obvious closeness to the guy he’d called his “roommate”, whether he was straight.  She really hoped so.

“I’m Brian, by the way,” he introduced himself.

“Meg.”

“Meg.  Nice name.”

“Short for Margaret. Call me Margaret and you’ll get Tabiti’s scepter up your nose.”

Brian held up his hands. “Meg it is.  That tip looks like it could do some real damage.”  

Meg smiled and took a look at the tip of her scepter, which had a lampwork glass flame at the end.  It was fairly pointed.  “Just letting you know the rules.”

“That scepter is great. You’re really talented.  How’d you make that?”

Meg explained the rather simple process of fabricating the scepter.  The basic idea wasn’t too complicated; she’d started with an old baton. But she made Brian laugh with her story of the lengthy and heated negotiations she’d had to conduct with the friend who made the tip.  

The friend, Alice, made lampwork beads, which was a fairly expensive hobby that required a great deal of practice to master.  Besides that, the flame tip had to be both intricate - woven of several different colors of glass - and strong enough to withstand whatever abuse it would get at the Con.  Alice’s initial price had been far too steep for Meg to afford, so Meg had offered to clean Alice’s apartment in addition to paying what cash she could.  No deal. Meg had added a week of cat sitting, but still the price was more than she could pay.  In the end, Alice had agreed to accept the price Meg offered, along with the apartment cleaning and cat sitting, plus one more, hideous cost.  

Alice had a cousin named Harold.  Harold’s mother, Alice’s aunt, was very concerned that Harold, who was going on twenty, hadn’t met the right girl yet.  Alice’s aunt kept pressuring Alice to set Harold up.  So Meg had ended up having to accept a date with Harold.  

There was a reason Harold hadn’t met the right girl.  Several, in fact.  First and foremost, Harold had the worst breath Meg had ever experienced.  He was also extremely shy, but only at first. Once the lights had gone down in the movie theater, suddenly he was all hormones and hands, and Meg had spent the next two hours ignoring the movie in favor of fending off almost-continual frontal assaults.  

In the end, the guy behind them in the theater had actually leaned forward and hissed to Harold, “Dude, even I can see you’re not gonna get there with her.  Give it up and let’s all leave with what little dignity we have left.”

After the movie, Harold had taken Meg to a bar he said he frequented.  Meg was completely uninterested in Harold, but after what she’d been through, she was very interested in a drink, so she’d agreed.  “They know me here,” Harold said proudly.  

They didn’t know him there. And, apparently, he didn’t know them, either, because the bar’s clientele, while sparse, was mostly female, and entirely gay.  When they had their drinks (Meg didn’t usually do shots, but it was an emergency), Harold had once again begun relentlessly trying to grope her.  Meg was usually a very nice person, but she’d had enough. So she said, quite loudly, “Listen, I have asked you more than once to stop trying to touch me like that.  No means no.  Knock it off.”

Harold was very unceremoniously escorted from the bar by a lovely woman named Bud.  Meg had enjoyed getting to know Bud over a few drinks, and they’d had a few laughs at Harold’s expense, but Meg was honest about her preferences when Bud handed over her phone number.  Bud didn’t seem to mind that Meg wasn’t planning to call, which Meg actually found pretty attractive.  She kept Bud’s number.  She didn’t even mind having to pay for the cab home.

Brian liked that story a lot.  He had really appreciated the opportunity to simply stand there, listening to Meg and appreciating the way her green eyes sparkled when she smiled, and the cute way her nose wrinkled when she laughed.  Meg was funny, and Brian especially liked that the story indicated quite clearly that she wasn’t seeing anyone.  Which, of course, was part of Meg’s reason for telling it, in addition to introducing the topic of lesbians in hopes that Brian would share something that would let her know which team he played for.  

“Now it’s your turn to tell me an embarrassing story about you,” Meg invited.  

“The problem with that is there are so many choices,” Brian mused.  “Stuff seems to… happen to me.”  He hemmed and hawed for a few moments.  He needed to find a story that would let her know that he, too, was single, and preferably one that also reminded her (in case she’d missed it the first time) that he was a firefighter.  Women loved firefighters.  

“Well, there was this one time on a fire – did I mention I’m a firefighter? – when this really, really huge guy was stuck in a hammock.  We never did learn why he had a hammock in his living room, but…”  

Brian told a very funny story that ended with the man being rescued (if not very gracefully) and the man wanting to reward Brian with a date with his sister.  He had tried valiantly to get out of the “reward”, explaining to the man that it wasn’t necessary, and that it was really a little frowned upon for firefighters to be rewarded for just doing their jobs.  Baked goods or something, sure, but…  Brian had been entirely unable to talk the man out of it. The entire firehouse had given him endless shit about it, because all of them imagined the sister as, basically, the brother in drag.  

Until she showed up at the firehouse for their date and was one of the most beautiful women any of them had ever seen.  

“So?  Did you marry her and live happily ever after?”  Meg asked, laughing (on the outside, at least – she was finding that she cared more by the moment whether he liked girls).  

“I’m afraid not,” Brian answered with a cute twist of his lips.  “She was about two feet taller than I am, and she was, um…  let’s just say we should set her up with your friend’s cousin.  They’d never be heard from again.”

“I thought guys liked women with, um, an appetite.”  

“Well, sure, to a point.  But that one… I don’t think I want to marry a woman if I’d be afraid to fall asleep around her.”

They both enjoyed a long moment of laughter.  Hmmm. So he’s single and apparently straight. Well, well.  

The conversation moved on to the Planetary Saviors.  For quite some time, Brian and Meg enjoyed talking about what they liked – and didn’t like – about the Sumendi movies thus far and what they hoped to see in the new movie that would include all of the Planetary Saviors.  The fun of that conversation was that they didn’t always agree – Brian thought Sumendi’s look in the movies was nowhere near as good as in the original comics, while Meg had to admit to not having read the comics themselves.  Somehow, whether because they were intentionally trying to humor one another due to their mutual attraction, or because they really didn’t mind, they found that their differences actually made them see the Planetary Saviors universe just a bit differently than they had.  Rather than being annoyed, they were each favorably impressed with the other’s slightly different take on the franchise.    

“Sumendi’s made of fire, right?  I mean, he’s basically the son of a volcano, so why doesn’t he have any glow to him? In the comics, he does.  He has a sort of inner light that makes him look sort of… molten inside, you know?”

Since Meg hadn’t seen the comics, they borrowed some comic books and a couple of artists’ renderings that people around them in line had purchased at the Con.  She saw Brian’s point.  He liked that she was interested in his thoughts, and was especially impressed when she began to think out loud about ways he could make his costume have that same lit-from-within quality.  

“That’s genius!”  He cried.  “I would never have thought of that.  I’m going to-“

The crowd noise, which had been fairly deafening, suddenly ceased entirely as the air was split by a scream.  All eyes turned in the direction it had come from, behind and to the left of the booth at which Brian and Meg were waiting for Anthony Lang.  A knot of people were standing around a woman on the floor, but the thick crowd had parted so that there was a few feet between the people with the woman and the staring mass just beyond.  The woman on the ground was jerking violently and appeared to be very pregnant.  

“She’s seizing,” Meg cried as she slipped quickly under the ropes that demarcated the line she and Brian had been in.  Running over to the woman, Meg dropped her belongings as she knelt on the floor beside her.  She reached out and took the woman by the shoulders, helping her to turn onto her side, and was surprised to find Brian kneeling next to her, bending one of the woman’s legs so that she rolled smoothly and easily.  

Meg whipped off her Tabiti headpiece and set it on the floor next to her, beginning to assess the woman quickly.  She determined that she was breathing shallowly and irregularly as she seized, and had a strong pulse.

“Who’s with her?” Brian asked loudly, using a tone that instantly commanded attention.  

“We are – she’s my sister. This is her husband,” a thin, terrified-looking woman in a pretty bad SuperGirl costume answered, pointing out the blank-faced teenager next to her.

While Meg commandeered a sweatshirt from a bystander to put under the woman’s head, Brian continued to ask the right questions.  

“What happened?”

“She just…  fell down.  She started jerking like this and she won’t wake up!”  

“How far along is she?”

“She’s thirty two weeks,” the sister answered.  “What’s wrong with her?  What’s happening?”

Brian looked at Meg, who almost imperceptibly shook her head.  

“We’re going to figure that out.  Who has a phone?”

Brian pointed to the first person whose brandishing of a cell phone caught his attention.  “OK, you.  Call 911.  Stand right here next to me, and when you get them on the line, put them on speaker. You-“ he pointed to a spray-tanned Superman.  “Go get help. Security, anyone with a walkie-talkie. Tell them what’s happening and get us whatever medical equipment they have here.”

The woman appeared to have stopped seizing for the moment.  Meg looked at the teenager who had been identified as the woman’s husband. “Talk to me, Dad.  What medical problems does she have?”

“N-n-nothing.  She’s been fine.”

“Has she ever had a seizure before?”

“No!  What’s wrong with her?”

“What medications does she take?”

“Nothing.  Prenatal vitamins.”

Meg took her pulse at her wrist again, and then felt for her pulse at her throat.  She leaned toward Brian and muttered quietly, “Her pulse is bounding – we’ll know more when we can get a BP, but I’m thinking eclampsia.”

“That woulda been my guess. Pregnant, seizing…  You a doctor?”

“RN.  We need help.”

“It’s on its way.  For the moment, it’s you and me.”  He looked up at the person he’d asked to call 911. “What’s the holdup?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t have much of a signal in here…”

Sharply exhaling in exasperation, Brian looked up at another person who was holding a phone and appeared to be filming the incident.  “You. Call 911.  And nobody else better be filming.  This woman has the right to privacy, same as you.”  

The second person got through immediately and handed Brian the phone.  He put it on speaker and, as Meg fed him information, he relayed it to the 911 operator.  They worked smoothly together, and Brian had time to notice the expertise with which Meg worked with the woman, who was beginning to regain consciousness.  They were both experienced first responders, so their teamwork was not entirely surprising, but there was also an element of natural communication between them.  They’d gravitated to their roles in this situation without thought or discussion.

Meg reached up and unclasped her cape.  Brian caught the movement and immediately understood.  He helped her remove it and cover the woman with it, then removed his own (which was a little more difficult due to the wings) and put that over her, too.  For the next five minutes, they did what they could to make the woman comfortable while Meg got as much medical history as possible and monitored her vital signs.  Then the woman began to seize again, and they kept her safe while she thrashed and jerked, making sure she didn’t hit her head and getting people to give them extra clothing so that they could keep something soft between her spasming limbs and the hard floor.  

Brian leaned in to Meg. “This is lasting too long.”

“Yeah.  And she’s stopped breathing.  As soon as she stops seizing, we need to be ready to do CPR.”

“Got it.”  

At that moment, three people came running through the crowd, pushing their way into the circle around the woman with cases of emergency equipment.  They were all EMTs stationed at the facility for the event, so Meg moved aside and reported to them that she was an RN and Brian was a firefighter, and told them what they knew so that the EMTs could take over.  She wondered what was taking the ambulance so long, since there were two hospitals within minutes of the facility, but she thought she was probably just dealing with the distorted sense of time that comes with an emergency.

“Do you have any medications in your kits?” She asked the EMT who appeared to be leading the team.

“No.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, don’t get me started.”  

“She seems to be coming out of it, and I think she’s breathing again.  Want me to get a BP?”

“Nah, I got it.  But thanks.”  

Not long afterward, the sound of a siren was clearly heard, even over the sound of the mob that was now getting back into the swing of the Con.  A fair number of people were still huddled around the scene, watching, but the circle around them was only a few people deep now, since beyond that, no one could really see anything.  The rest had decided to go back to their shopping.  As the ambulance crew hurried through the Hall, Brian could follow their progress fairly accurately by the disturbance in the throng.  He began to back people up so that the paramedics could get through with the gurney.  

The ambulance crew was one he didn’t know.  Their arrival caused quite a bit of excitement and hubbub in the area, and Brian lost track of Meg in the group of milling, pushing people.  He wasn’t needed to help lift the woman onto the gurney, so he stepped back a bit and tried to control the crowd, to give the paramedics as much room as he could get them in the press of curious gawkers.  Soon, the woman had been given some medication to stop her seizures, and the gurney carrying her was rushed from the scene, her sister and teenage husband in tow.  

The crowd flowed back together as though they had never been there, except for Meg’s Tabiti headpiece, which Brian saw on the floor and picked up.  He found himself unable to resist the tide of movement, and was swept closer to the booth where he was supposed to be having his picture taken with Anthony Lang.  He didn’t see Meg anywhere.  Without her Tabiti headpiece on, it was impossible to identify her head among the seeming thousands around him.  

He thought she would probably make for the booth again, though, so he fought his way over to it, only to see a large sign:

Anthony Lang Appearance Cancelled For Today.

The sign gave a website people could go to in order to try to reschedule or get refunds.  Meg wasn’t there.  

Brian carried Meg’s headpiece under his arm as he looked everywhere in the huge Exhibition Hall over the next hour.  There were simply too many people, moving in too many directions, and the Hall was just too big.  Meg was nowhere to be found.  All he had to prove she had been real was the papier-mâché headpiece she’d worn as part of her costume.

[thisguyatthemovies]

Little Women, big statement

Title: “Little Women”

Release date: Dec. 25, 2019

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothee Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Louis Garrel, Jane Houdyshell

Directed by: Greta Gerwig

Run time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Rated: PG

What it’s about: Based on the classic novel by Louisa May Alcott and the author’s personal writings, “Little Women” is the story of the March sisters – Jo, Amy, Meg and Beth – as they come of age in a lower middle-class home in Massachusetts during the Civil War era.

How I saw it: Making a movie version of the classic novel “Little Women” fresh and contemporary would seem a formidable task. Louisa May Alcott’s timeless story of the March sisters has been made into seven full-length feature films (dating back to 1917!) and countless TV adaptations (including a Japanese animated version), musicals and stage shows, and its Civil War era setting and way of life would seem to have little in common with today’s technology-saturated world. Alcott’s book is beloved, popular upon its publication in two volumes in 1868 and 1869 (and then combined) and still read, revered, dissected and discussed 150 years later. Any moviemaker wanting to rework it had better tread lightly.

But writer/director Greta Gerwig, not surprisingly (and thankfully), did not tread lightly. Nor did she stomp all over Alcott’s work. Her version of “Little Women” gives the story’s feminism 21st century bite while also paying respect to the source material. It’s still a period piece, still a captivating story of four sisters’ bond, still a warm family drama, still about romantic love, still about practical love, still about unrequited love, still about restraints society places on women, still about women’s struggle for identity. But Gerwig’s version feels like it is of the here and now. And it’s an outstanding film.

Alcott based her book loosely on her own life, and the main character (representing the author) is Jo, a determined, hot-tempered, tomboyish writer played in the film by Saoirse Ronan. She is the March sister who most questions what is expected of women in the mid-1800s. At times she is the family’s breadwinner. She is the one who puts her life in New York on hold when her sister Beth (Eliza Scanlen) falls ill. She has a rivalry with her mischievous, boy-crazy youngest sister Amy (Florence Pugh). She does not understand the choices made by her oldest sister Meg (Emma Watson), who is content with getting married (and marrying for love, not money) instead of pursuing a career in acting. Jo also is loved by a neighbor, Laurie (Timothee Chalamet), who is loved by Amy, though she plans to marry for money. Jo has decided to go it alone, to be her own woman, to be more than someone’s wife. “Women, they have minds, and that have souls, as well as just hearts,” Jo says in one of several bits of empowerment dialogue in Gerwig’s film. “And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it!”

Jo, as in the book, eventually does marry (though Alcott did not), though the middle-aged Friedrich Bhaer of the book has been reimagined as a hunky young man (played by Louis Garrel) who shares a kiss with Jo under an umbrella at a train station. In this movie version, Jo is told that women in books either must get married or die (and, according to her publisher, it does not matter which). Gerwig’s version shows Jo driving a hard bargain with the publisher (Tracy Letts), and her insistence on doing her own thing and being heard as a woman in a man’s world seems as if Gerwig, who has been outspoken about a male-centric Hollywood, has interjected herself into the story. Gerwig has said that Jo March was her hero growing up but that she now most admires Alcott, so Jo becomes a natural extension of Alcott and the filmmaker simultaneously in Gerwig’s screen version.

Ronan is, as usual, outstanding, her Jo full of spunk and heart. Pugh’s Amy gets her own epic speech about love, marriage and what is expected of her; Pugh is strong as the young adult Amy but is too much an adult to pull off 12-year-old Amy. Laura Dern brings a touch (but not too much) of her edginess to the role of Marmee, the girls’ mother. Chris Cooper stands out as Mr. Laurence, the March’s wealthy neighbor who befriends Beth. Chalamet is perfect as the young Laurie, especially in the scene in which Jo breaks his heart by being honest with him.

Any criticism of Gerwig’s film (and there isn’t much criticism) has centered on her choice to make this version a non-linear story. This “Little Women” jumps around in time, and it can be hard to follow until you get used to it (hint: look for the change in color palettes during different periods of time). But the non-linear format works in the film’s favor. For one, we meet Jo when she already is a young adult, which helps reinforce the film’s emphasis on strong women over the younger March girls. It also allows Gerwig to juxtapose scenes for effect, like when the girls are shown having fun at the ocean and then the story shifts to Jo reading to a weakened Beth on the beach. The format also seems to keep the pace lively and perhaps adds spark to a story already familiar to much of the audience.

No matter how “Little Women” is sliced, though, it is a powerfully emotional story, one that is engrossing and certain to bring more than one tear (and cheer). Gerwig, by making a few key changes along with some minor tweaks, by coaxing strong performances out of her cast, and by offering a lovingly made film that is beautiful to look at (and hear), has made “Little Women” seem like her own, a time period movie fully in touch with the world in which Gerwig resides. It is clear much work and thought went into its making, and the results are wonderful.

My score: 93 out of 100

Should you see it? Yes. As with the book, it will have more appeal for women, but it is a film of importance that just so happens to be immensely entertaining and should be seen by all.

[emma-what-son]

Little Women reviews are in

I’ve noticed that some reviews are just simply overwhelmingly positive. I just don’t trust that. There has to be something you disliked! The pace, any changes the director has made... Something! Anyway, as always I’ll only post reviews mentioning Emma.

Vanityfair: I won’t go through all the other players in the ensemble, but most of them inhabit their roles with just the right pep and insight. (Only Watson, as dour eldest sister Meg, runs into some flatness.) Gerwig has a lively, natural directorial rapport with actors, creating comfortable spaces in which they can more easily form organic bonds. Little Women is nicely textured in that way, possessed of all the easy chatter and squabble of people who genuinely know one another.

Indiewire: “Little Women” isn’t always perfect: A few line readings fall flat — whenever Watson slips out of her American accent, all bets are off — and a handful of characters aren’t given nearly as much dimension as the sisters. Laura Dern’s soft-hearted Marmee is almost too good to be believed, and Bob Odenkirk’s boisterous initial introduction as the March family patriarch feels out of place (though it’s later redeemed during one of the film’s more amusing final sequences). And yet Gerwig and her girls know the hearts and minds of the sisters through and through. “Little Women” is about them above all else.

Empireonline: And while Meg gets a few good scenes, she’s still underserved compared with her younger sisters.

TheHollywoodreporter: Among the large cast, Watson somewhat fades into the background, possibly because the pretty, vivacious girl makes way so early for the thoroughly good wife who married for love, not material comfort. Dern at times seems a tad contemporary as Marmee, but then that could partly be because her delectable skewering of a quintessential L.A. type in Marriage Story remains so fresh in my mind. But even with limited screen time, all the actors register as fully formed characters.

Variety: A long way from her days as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies, Watson portrays Meg as the sister who most knows what she wants, which makes the character’s choice feel like less of a compromise. Pugh has the tricky part, since so many find Amy’s personality off-putting, whereas she makes it possible to understand the difficulties of living in her sister’s shadow.

Screendaily: But this is an all-star marquee line-up. A somewhat miscast Emma Watson - she’s just too modern a presence - plays Meg, Eliza Scanlen is Beth, Laura Dern is Marmee while Meryl Streep plays Aunt March. On the male side, Timothee Chalamet is Laurie, with Louis Garrel playing Professor Bhaer and James Norton as Mr Brooke, the hard-up apple of Meg’s eye. The hair department must have worked overtime.

Screenrant: But while Jo is perhaps the closest Little Women gets to a single protagonist, and Ronan carries that starring role well, Gerwig's script makes sure to give each of the March sisters' their due. Watson brings a great deal of depth and empathy to Meg, while there's a steel to Pugh's Amy that allows her to hold her own alongside Ronan's Jo in a way that's fascinating to watch. Scanlen's Beth has all the sweet charm that the youngest March sister needs. Dern and Meryl Streep round out the exceptionally strong main female cast, bringing warmth and cold sensibility, respectively.

Dailymail: So the performances are terrific across the board, and that includes Watson (who reportedly replaced Emma Stone). She’s a limited actress magicked by Hermione Granger’s wand into better roles than her talent deserves, but she’s perfectly lovely as Meg, the eldest sister.

Telegraph: Emma Watson, supplying her usual finished charm, has no challenge lending consistency to dutiful-but-dull Meg, the eldest; and Eliza Scanlen gives a pale vulnerability to sickly piano prodigy Beth, “the best of us”.

Nerdist: The film isn’t without its weaknesses. The back-and-forth editing is occasionally confusing, and sometimes hinders the power of Jo’s arc. Her growing dissatisfaction with her work and her isolating loneliness is powerful when chronological, and suffers a bit here interspersed with happy memories of togetherness. There’s also one puzzling addition to her relationship with Laurie that rings false to Alcott’s story and Jo’s character, although not detrimentally. Laura Dern’s Marmee feels a little too sparkly compared to the hard-worn and exhausted character of the book, and Emma Watson’s Meg fails to make much of an impression, though she has a few touching moments that contrast her desires with her sisters’.

Flickeringmyth: If anything, the only noticeable flaw with Little Women is that for anyone that’s not Jo or Amy, it feels like there should be more that was probably edited down to keep the running time from going any higher than 2 hours and 15 minutes. That goes for Meg’s relationship and inevitable marriage, the bad boy behavior of Laurie who doesn’t know how to deal with rejection at first (he decides to pursue Amy following that, with Florence Pugh eliciting a great deal of emotion and making a case for Best Supporting Actress choosing between lovers and what’s best for her own passions), and one or two more scenes centered on Beth.

Moviecitynews: Emily Watson seems to be the #2 little woman as Meg, but she unselfishly lets the second dominant character come slowly into focus through the film in the form of Florence Pugh, whose character, Amy, is not as clear about what she wants. Both just get better and better through the film. And Beth, played by Eliza Scanlen, has the least to do in the film, but still comes through as a fully formed character.

Butwhythopodcast: As Meg, Watson is stunning. She carries a calm emotion, embodying her role as the older sister, the template for the girls behind her. Each of the women carries a burden with them, while they carry it differently, they share it all the same. Gerwig nails the burden of family perfectly, while also showing us how a family carries together.

Lenoirauteur: Speaking of a lack of there there, poor Emma Watson. Her Meg has a really interesting story on face value but the story doesn’t get to really dig into her interior life. Which is a shame, because I felt Meg’s desire to know and want fancy things only to fall in love with a man who doesn’t have much is very interesting! But what good does interesting do me, if we barely spend time with her and everyone else gets a much more epic Laurie moment. It’s in the moments we spend with Meg where Gerwig’s changes strain against what you can do with a text and still maintain its effectiveness.

Timeout: But it’s Midsommar’s Florence Pugh who wows you the most as youngest Amy, gliding from bratty competitiveness to a hard-headed realism. (If Emma Watson and Eliza Scanlen as the other two March girls, Meg and Beth, don’t make the same impression, it’s by intention: Gerwig has designed them more as mirrors.)

Everymoviehasalesson: The titular Chatty Cathys are the four March sisters of the 1860s at different coming-of-age stages. The two youngest, Beth (newcomer Eliza Scanlan of Babyteeth) and Amy (rising star Florence Pugh), look up to their older two sisters, Jo (three-time Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan) and Meg (the now nearly-30 Emma Watson) with shifting notes of reverence and jealousy.

Denofgeek: Watson’s Meg, meanwhile, feels like wallpaper despite leading many scenes, although this might simply be the result of Watson’s limited range in comparison to Ronan and Pugh.

 Thespool: Ronan continues to prove a beautiful creative partner for Gerwig; her Jo’s an iconoclast and a spitfire, but that just makes her moments of vulnerability that much more deeply felt. Watson turns in fine, elegant work as Meg, and Scanlan commands the screen with quiet stoicism. But Pugh’s Amy March is a particular standout, her pouty brattiness belying her genuine insight into others, especially Laurie.

Forbes: Watson has perhaps the most challenging (and least audience-friendly) role, as the proverbial straight woman of the sisters who is put on the defensive when her dreams end up being the most conventional of the lot.

[ghostmaggie]

hey so in your MKAT post (which you’re 100% correct about) you also mention you’ve had some issues with RT in the past. i’m fairly new in the fandom and also watch his other show iZombie, but i wanted to ask what issues they were?? i like to be informed about the media i consume lmao

Oof okay so I'm on mobile and therefore this will probably be more rant-y and opinion-based than you might be looking for, so I invite anyone with opinions or sources or thoughts or contradictions to reply or shoot me asks and I'll share them (plus I'm curious of other thoughts) but,,

Idk if this was clear in my original post, but my issues are mainly contained within the actual show as opposed to things about him irl, because idk that much outside of secondhand info, so take it with a grain of salt I guess, lol

Also, I feel like I need to say that this is really negative about vmars--which, to be clear, is a show I love dearly--and I know sometimes I like to avoid negative commentary on things I enjoy because it gets stuck in my head and ruins my enjoyment. So if that's you, feel free to skip this! I wont be offended and you shouldn't feel bad about it! It's also just one person's opinion, and I'm most definitely not always right :)

So mostly setting aside the brand new season because I have no clue how to talk around spoilers effectively, in short (with spoilers up through the movie and maybe some spoilers for the books and new season, I cant really tell at this point):

(Editor's note post finishing writing: it's not even all my thoughts, but it's not short. Sorry.)

RT shares in the grand tradition of showrunners I do not care for along with Steven Moffat and Jason Rothenberg, for many parallel reasons. Moffat thinks hes cleverer than he really is, jroth is a douche about romance and character motivation, and both are smug jerks who drove me away from shows I used to love, so.

So number one I guess would just be the sense that he really fucking does not care about the fans. It's especially egregious, as I've seen others point out, when he literally would never have gotten his show back (after driving it to the ground) without the LITERAL MONEY donated by devoted fans. I'm not saying you have to do things just because fans want them, but to go out of your way to do things you know fans will hate just to be contrary is,, yeah.

He thinks he's so very smart, and yet his plots are riddled with holes and inconsistencies (hello, Moffat). It speaks, to me, of a lack of respect for everyone involved--fans, writers, actors, crew, critics, just everyone. Write down a timeline. Something. Try.

One of my bigger issues, though, is that the misogyny in vmars is just...beyond appalling. Not just narratively--i understand representing the flaws in society, I guess, but veronica is honestly one of the most misogynistic parts of the show, and she is never ever ever held accountable for it. Ever. The show never sends the message that she's wrong for the atrocious way she treats, to name a few, Madison, Kendall, Gia, and even Carrie during the s1 plot with Adam Scott. The carrie thing is especially fucked up bc iirc the narrative only condemns her for guessing the victim wrong. (As another note, her treatment of other marginalized groups or basically anyone she ever treats badly--logan, Keith, Wallace, weevil, the list goes on--is rarely or never narratively critiqued. Veronica mars can do no wrong, apparently, even when she's obviously wrong.)

She's far from the only example of misyogny, of course--duncan's s2 dream about madonna/whore meg/veronica comes to mind in screaming color, yet donut is somehow treated like a prince forever and ever and v's lost true love even though he's basically the scum of the earth (pardon, my true feelings are coming out a little here).

Somewhat connected is, of course, the show's treatment of rape in general (hi, season 3), but especially Duncan's rape of veronica. I'm still not over the way they walked it back to "not a rape" and took back holding him accountable. I live for all the fanfiction that addresses it, because at least there people remember that, whether he "thought she could consent" or not, he literally thought she was his sister and didnt know. That's uninformed consent at best, babe!

And if that wasn't bad enough, to "resolve" that plotline and then come back at the end of season 2 to be all, "jk! You WERE raped, by SOMEONE ELSE [too]! Enjoy that reenabled trauma, and some chlamidya to boot!"

Speaking of retconned instances of sex, how about that piz/veronica tape that suddenly became full on sex in the movie? Fun times.

My favorite bout of misogynistic writing, you ask? That would have to be "narratively-enforced nicest girl in school who stands by her friends and is sweet and loyal becomes a raging hell bitch yet also the representation of misogynistic virginal innocence because she was knocked up and abandoned by Mr. Narratively-Claimed-to-be-Perfect-but-Actually-the-Worst and completely undergoes a 180 personality change then dies for plot reasons" because holy fucking shit.

Okay sorry I got way more into that than I meant to. I'll try to wrap up.

RT does a very jroth job of treating fans like shit for giving a shit about a romantic relationship he created. He acts like fans are a bunch of stupid girls for caring about romance, but then pushed it at every level of promo to reel us back in. Make up your mind, asshole. It's desperately unfair to bait fans with romantic promo (even in the form of an inane and ooc love triangle) and then snap back with "oooh it's noir, shut up about the romance!"

If that's how you feel, stop making every other plot point and promo about the fucking romance.

RT seems to want to be making a show that he isnt. He wants to be grimdark and angsty and awful, I guess, and while there have been elements of effective darkness throughout vmars, they have been tempered by the show as a whole. That made it (mostly palatable) for people like me. To flip the script now does a disservice to long term fans and does nothing to attract new viewers. If you want to make a different show, make a different show. Don't drive beloved characters into the ground because you're bitter about how your work is perceived post-death of the author.

To wrap up--he hates character growth. He must really hate it. This is dipping a little into the new season, but he just. Won't let anyone develop. Well. Maybe some people. A very few. But not veronica. Never veronica. Because heaven forbid your main character, the person we've followed for 15 years, be anything other than she was at 16. Her personality, her approach to the world, none of it has changed. Which begs the question: what has been the fucking point?

Sorry this is so long. I'm not sure I even answered your question, so feel free to ask me to try again 😂

[eallfan-1]

With Greta Gerwig adapting this book in a new movie coming later this year (with the amazing Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson and Thimothée Chalamet) i found convenient to reread such an American classic that marked my teenage years as one of my faves.

Little Women is written by Louisa May Alcott, and deals with the life of 4 sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March (in order of age), with the context of the United States in the 19th century.

When I started reading I had no idea that anything was going, I had not read reviews of this before, and the edition that was in my hands did not contain a prologue.

In short: almost perfect.

Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. With saying, I finished it in three hours.

The Marchs are a beautiful family that I would love to be part of (I understand you, Laurie, really), and this story tells us the adventures of the 4 sisters. An united and cheerful family, but very sad at the beginning because of their father’s absence, being everyone’s desire for him to return from war.

They are all girls with a very good heart, and a totally different perspective on life, as well as their personalities.

Jo the rebel with manly behaviors (for that times)

Amy a little vain

Meg the most mature

Beth the most tender and quiet.

I am used to read in the classics rather submissive protagonists for our current era, resigned and fickle, with no other desire but to marry. I loved that, despite being a classic written so long ago, we have a protagonist that is rebellious and has strong ideas, who fights for what she wants, it’s true to her heart and doesn't let herself be tainted, very well Jo!

Our main characters fight every day to improve and overcome bad times, although there is no shortage of fights and pranks, which are the best in this story.

Beside them we can highlight their mother, who is always there as a friend and advisor, Hanna, Mr. Laurens and Laurie.

Laurie

For the goddess, what a cute boy. More than once I got a smile reading him.

Theodore Laurens, Teddy or Laurie (as he prefers to be called) is the sister's neighbor, and initially Jo's best friend. I love the dynamics that these two shared.

But this is not a book of romance, in my opinion, but one of overcoming and seeing their development, how they mature, grow and learn, never abandoning their values ​​or neglecting their family.

The book was almost perfect, but there was a little thing I didn't like, and it can be explained by my shipper heart.

Spoiler alert: I really loved the book and everything, but I really wanted Laurie and Jo together. My God, Jo, how could you let such beauty go! Why, why, whyyyy!! ??

And let's admit it, at least at the end of the first part I was sure that Jo loved Laurie. Hello, decisions of the author that I do not support, but ultimately that can not be changed.

End of the spoiler

If I have to choose one of the two parts, (in the edition that I read two separate, Little Women and More than Little Women) I choose without doubt the first, which is when the little women are younger and live together, the best one , in my opinion.

Little women, a mandatory classic (although I think most of the classics are mandatory. I mean, they are classics for a reason, right?) That offers you a moment of fun and I'm sure you'll fall in love with each of this characters.

Now, time to see how the new adaptation goes, it looks like it’s gonna be different form the past ones

[aboysbestfriendishismum]

FanficAskGame: C, F, X and Y.

C: What member do you identify with most?

There’s a tiny bit of me in every single character of mine, from Angie to Melanie. But it’s no secret I relate more to Miss Pacifico.

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

I’m choosing an Eddie/Angie dialogue. I love their interactions and they’re not that easy to write because I tend to have Eddie talk too much, whereas he’s a man of few words. So whenever I’m done with one of their dialogues I feel proud of my work! This is also pretty representative of them and their personalities, as single characters and as a (at that point, future) couple.

***

[Chapter 43, Angie’s POV. The whole gang is in a club watching a concert and Angie’s dad is there too. Eddie has just embarrassed Angie not recognizing her father and acting jealous. They’re watching the show by themselves and Eddie tries to confess her his feelings]

The set goes on and Eddie’s behind my back the whole time, resting his hands on my shoulders from time to time. And for me prana, ki, meridians and chakra were, are and always will be nothing but a bit pile of shit, but the heat Eddie’s hands radiate is real, it goes through my spine, travels down across my legs down to my feet, then goes back up to my head, giving me really annoying goosebumps. Apart from that, my dad even managed to spot us in the crows and take a couple of pictures, all with a smart-ass smile on his face. Did Eddie notice?

“Anyway, I really like being with you” he says during a break between songs.

“At concerts for sure, I don’t block your view”

“Haha shut up!” he says grabbing my shoulders once again.

“And I’m comfortable to lean on when you’re tired” this time I turn around a little more, making eye contact with him, and at the same time pat him on his hand, which he immediately takes away.

“I’m sorry… see, I’ve been really all over you recently… I mean, literally”

“I can also be a small ladder when needed”

“Anyway… what I wanted to say before is that I’m not just at ease with you”

Ok, now comes the moment he tells me I’m such a good friend, that he’s comfortable talking to me, because I can listen and it comes natural to him to open up, that he feels better after we talk, that he feels understood and not judged, etc.

“Mm mh?”

“With you I…” Eddie stops because the band starts playing again, but then goes on, speaking at a little louder volume. Do we need to discuss this right now? Sure, he probably thinks it’s better to talk about something like this with the diversion of the concert, as if it was just chit chat between friends at a show, rather than sitting around the table and talk about the matter like it was some big deal. “ With you, I feel like home. And it’s not something to take for granted, because I’ve never felt completely at home, not even at my place. I don’t know if you understand…”

“Yes! More or less…” I go back to my previous pattern, quick answers and turning my head just a little, keeping my eyes on the stage.

“It’s like with certain songs, I don’t know if it’s like this for you too. Those songs you turn to whenever you need to feel safe, cuddled, soothed, backed up, understood. Like, I don’t know, Bruce Springsteen”

“So… I’m Bruce Springsteen?” I ask after being silent for while, not because he shocked me, but mostly because I liked the idea of putting a dramatic pause right there, I think it sounded good.

“Hahaha in a certain sense, yeah. I don’t know if it works the same for you with music”

“Yeah, but not with his music”

“You don’t like Bruce Springsteen?” Eddie grabs me from the shoulders more tightly than he did before and turns me around 180 degrees until I’m facing his inquisitive eyes.

“Sure I like him, of course I do, he’s the Boss, but…”

“But?”

“But I think I can’t appreciate him fully yet, I think it’s too soon”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a long talk and it’s also not easy to do it in the middle of a concert” I half yell, still with my back at the stage.

“I have a good hearing”

“Ok, well… I believe there are artists you can fully comprehend if you don’t have enough experience, if you haven’t lived enough”

“So I appreciate him 'cause I’m old?”

“Hahaha no! Well, yeah, but not exactly. It’s multilevel”

“It’s… what?”

“Oh let me think about it… it’s like… it’s like The Simpson’s”

“The Simpson’s?”

“The animated series on Fox”

“I know what The Simpson’s are, but… what’s the point?”

“The point is it’s great, a masterpiece, one of the few good things worth watching on tv. And literally anyone can watch an episode and appreciate it because it’s  multilevel”

“That is…?”

“That is it has more levels of understanding. There’s the main story, then humor, then different parallel comedy stints and a list of quotes and references, more or less famous, more or less hidden. A few weeks ago I saw this episode where Mr Burns was running for governor and there was this scene which basically was identical to the speech scene in Citizen Kane, and of course you must have seen the movie to get the reference and if you get the reference the suggestion works. But what if I hadn’t seen that movie? Would that have prevented me from understanding the scene on the whole? Not at all, I’d have understand what was literally happening, I’d have got the literal meaning, but I’d have missed so much, I wouldn’t have enjoyed all of it. And that’s how it is for me with Springsteen, I feel I’m missing something, that there’s some emotional reference I can’t get yet and that prevents me from appreciating him completely. It’s the same with Bob Dylan, I lack some levels”

“YOU DON’T LIKE DYLAN?!” Eddie’s literally screaming now.

“Dylan is huge, but I think I’ll appreciate him more in a few years. And between you and me, I can’t wait” I state right when the song ends, then I turn around towards the stage and clap and cheer at the band.

“What you say is right, but isn’t that the case with any artist and any work of art?”

“Yeah, but it’s stronger for some. Some artists just bring the baggage of a whole iconography with them, they always carry that burden on their shoulders, and Springsteen and Dylan aren’t just themselves: they’re themselves plus what they represent, they’re lifestyles, they’re whole lives, and it takes time to take a life and make it completely yours”

“See, it’s things like this too. This kind of conversation. The fact we talk about these things, it’s just… I love all this”

“Screamed conversations throughout concerts?”

“Yeah. And tell me one band or artist that’s home to you” Eddie insists, still talking into my ear behind my back.

“The Cure. And The Smiths” I answer without hesitation.

“I’m pretty sure Robert Smith and Morrisey can’t stand each other”

“Nobody can’t stand Morrissey. Even Morrissey can’t stand Morrissey”

“And you don’t need more life experience to understand them, right?”

“Nah, their music floats around in the limbo of pure eternal teenage, it’s the beginning of life. No, it’s the wait, the wait for your life life, waiting for it to finally start, for real”

“Ok… so The Cure and The Smiths”

“If you add Patti Smith you’ve just verbalized my personal Holy Trinity”

“Robert Smith, Patti Smith, The Smiths… there’s a whole lot of Smith in your triad”

“If I ever hit my head, go into a coma, wake up and decide I want a child, I’ll call him Smith or Smitty”

“Or you should just get married with someone whose surname is Smith”

“Yeah, that’s just what I need, more selection criteria to make things more difficult for me in social interaction and life”

“I like you, Angie”

“I like you too” I distractedly answer, trying to understand what the singer from Inspector said that was so funny to make the crowd suddenly laugh.

“YOU ARE MY CURE” Eddie unexpectedly yells into my year as soon as the band starts to play again. I roll my eyes. You just need to find yourself a girlfriend.

“Nah, you should see a therapist for that, a good one”

***

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

Since there’s no single character I torture, I could answer this multiple times. I do not enjoy making her suffer, not regularly at least, but I had to give Meg a jolt so she would understand she has to get her shit together.

Y: A character you want to protect.

I’ll protect Jeff and Laura forever and ever.

Thank you baby! 

[douxreviews]

Sense and Sensibility (2008) - Series Review

By sunbunny

“Happy Elinor, you have no idea what I suffer!”

Sense and Sensibility is not my favorite Austen story. It felt like a rough draft of Pride and Prejudice and Marianne was always over the top to me. That being said, this miniseries is an utter delight.

This version reunites the 1995 Pride and Prejudice screenwriter Andrew Davies with the work of Jane Austen. It also features Doux favorites such as David Morrissey (The Walking Dead’s Governor), Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), Dominic Cooper (Agent Carter, Preacher), Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey), and Mark Williams (…everything).

As I said before, it’s not my favorite Austen novel but it may have my favorite beginning. Fanny and John are the most comical villains, if we can call them that, of Jane Austen’s oeuvre. The way John is talked down from a gift of £3000 to an occasional present of venison over the course of a short series of scenes is so funny.

And then…enter the romance. Edward and Elinor have the cutest meet cute over rug beating (not a euphemism, get your mind out of the gutter, this is Jane Austen). I haven’t really cared for Dan Stevens since he left Downton but he stole my heart as Edward. He’s just so…earnest. The way he treats Margaret (here dubbed “Meg”) is always a big reason Elinor (and the audience) fall for Edward. Never more so here. It’s honestly a wonder that he came from the same family as his rude sister and repulsive brother.

One of the weaknesses of the story, in my opinion, is that Edward is removed from the main action for so long. It’s not as discernible here with the miniseries’ truncated timeline but the time between the Dashwoods’ departure from Norland and Edward’s visit seems like ages in the book and it’s followed by another long absence.

Edward is a tricky character for modern audiences to understand because his behavior seems so odd, though it was perfectly mannered for the time. Why didn’t he just leave Lucy? Isn’t it weird for him to stay engaged to her for four years even after their affection had died away? There’s a simple answer for that. It wasn’t within his power. Of course men were legally allowed to break off engagements but it really wasn’t done. Women could (Jane Austen herself did). So it’s really Lucy’s responsibility to end the relationship and, her goals being what they were, she wasn’t likely to do that.

And then, why should Edward have gotten engaged to her in the first place? She’s so mean and petty. I have no answer for this and it’s always annoyed me. Others have theorized that it was a form of youthful rebellion or that Edward was just so happy to be away from his family it rendered her more (in Austenian terms) amiable. I just…don’t see it.

Far easier to see is Marianne’s attraction to Willoughby, cad that he ends up being. He’s everything her novels and poetry have taught her to value in a man. Their canonical meeting is reproduced exactly here (Edward and Elinor’s was invented for the miniseries). It’s so…romantic and Romantic. Mysterious, handsome stranger saves young damsel. Obviously she falls for him. I don’t know if it’s the writing or Cooper’s performance but the miniseries seems less harsh on Willoughby than the novel or the 1995 film. Even with the opening scene of the seduction of Eliza (it should surprise no one that specific scene wasn’t in Austen’s novel), he seems less hatable than he perhaps should seem. Or maybe I just have a crush on Dominic Cooper.

As for the romance between Marianne and Brandon…I have to admit, it’s part of the reason I don’t love this novel as much as Pride and Prejudice or Emma. The age difference weirds me out. It was normal for the time as Mrs. Dashwood says point blank but it’s still a bit gross to me. There’s a large age difference in the main romance of Emma, too, but Emma’s a bit older at the time. Marianne is seventeen. Seventeen. That’s…weird.

But, moving on from that, David Morrissey does a splendid job as Brandon, which can’t have been easy, having Alan Rickman to live up to. Striding about all brooding and still grieving his long lost love, he’s the true Romantic hero of the narrative, as Marianne will eventually come to realize.

And I haven’t even mentioned our main actresses yet. Both Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield acquit themselves beautifully and neither Dashwood girls are easy roles. One has to communicate so much emotion with so few words while the other needs to make Austen’s most over the top heroine believable.

Every actor really embodied their character perfectly in this piece. There’s no one who strikes a false note. Mark Williams deserves a special shout out for being pitch perfect as the jovial but embarrassing Sir John Middleton. The score is lovely, the show is shot beautifully, I honestly have no complaints about the miniseries aside from those I have of Sense and Sensibility in general.

four out of four engagements

sunbunny

[rubykgrant]

I’ve been re-watching A Wrinkle In Time, and there is this one part of the movie that got changed from the book (and I know, books-to-movies is a whole can of worms), and it isn’t that I just don’t like the change... it is sort of weird that it was changed at all

(putting this under the cut for mentions of abuse. also, this is totally just the thoughts in my head, not a serious judgement on what is right or wrong with the movie)

If you haven’t seen the movie OR read the book (please do, one or the other, if you have the time); A Wrinkle in Time is about 3 children who go on a journey through time and space, traveling to other planets and not only learning about the science that makes all this possible, but also deep lessons about emotions. Two children are siblings; older sister Meg and her little brother Charles Wallace. One reason for the journey is to rescue their father, who has worked out a way to travel long distances in short amounts of time, but has become trapped on a planet controlled by an evil entity. The other is a boy Meg’s age named Calvin. The children also have companions, 3 characters who go by Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which. They aren’t human, and sometimes they don’t have physical forms at all, and perhaps the best way to describe them is living embodiment of stars or guardian angels. The children themselves are very important because they each are capable of different ways of thinking, and even qualities that they feel are unhelpful at home make them unique on their journey

OK, some SPOILERS now, in regards to a change the movie made from the book...

Movie- Calvin is a good-looking, athletic, and generally popular boy at school who gets good grades and seems to fit in easily. Meg has trouble at school, and doesn’t understand why a boy like him even wants to spend time with her. Calvin remarks he is pressured to stand-out and go above and beyond what he’s capable of. In some scenes of the movie, we see that his father constantly yells at him when he’s home, insisting that he needs to get perfect grades and be the perfect son. Calvin’s father bullies his son rather than motivate him, and as no other family is mentioned or seen, it could be that Calvin’s mother has died (or left his father) and Calvin is an only child, thus the only one for his father to focus on

Book-Calvin is again is a good-looking, athletic, and generally popular boy at school who gets good grades and seems to fit in easily. Meg has trouble at school, and doesn’t understand why a boy like him even wants to spend time with her. This much is the same. However, Calvin mentions that he is one of 11 children. He often is forgotten at home, and even says nobody there really cares about him. At one point, a vision shows Calvin’s mother in her home, where she picks up a wooden spoon to smack one of her children with. Calvin also tells Meg (and the rest of her family) that at school he has to hold himself back. If he were to truly be himself, he might be so exceptional he’d be considered strange by adults and other kids

This was an odd change to me. This is nothing against the narrative of a parent pushing a kid too far to perform, because yeah; that happens in real life, and it is terrible. Stories like that definitely need to be told so other people can understand situations like that, and so hopefully some people might notice patterns like that in their own lives and see how harmful it is (not too many people will watch a movie and have a sudden change in personality, but I’ve actually known a few who watch a movie/read a book and the message hits them really hard).

However, stories about other forms of abuse are important as well. I personally think that it is especially important to see one with a kid who seems like what many adults would call “perfect”. Plays sports, gets along with people, fits in, gets good grades. Nobody would think a kid like that has any problems. Obviously, that isn’t true. Anybody can come from an abusive home. Just because you see a child that looks happy doesn’t mean they are never sad. There is also something to be said of adults who ignore abuse because “Well, my parents hit me, and I turned out great”

The 2 main reasons this change bugs me is... well, for one; I don’t get it. One type of abuse isn’t exactly more important than another (there might be an argument for certain situations and how extreme actions were, but in general; verbal/mental/emotional/and physical abuse is BAD). Calvin being pushed and yelled at is not a better story than Calvin being neglected and hit. If it were reversed, and the movie changed the story the other way around, I’d still say it isn’t needed to amp-up Calvin’s abuse from verbal to physical, because BOTH ARE BAD. This change doesn’t really make sense to me. There might be something to the idea that “well, one might have been to harsh to show in a kid’s movie”, and in that case we could have not had a scene where a child is struck (but still implied somehow). The movie already has several scary action scenes and violence, and I think one of the important points of the story is creating similarities between extreme problems and mundane problems (a planet where everybody is forced to act and think identically thus robbing them from any real identity, and how Meg feels at school where she is looked-down on for not being “perfect”)

The other reason I don’t like this change is purely personal; I related to book-Calvin in this regard. He also mentions that even though his family doesn’t care about him much or even hurts him, he still loves them. Both of my parents hit me. I’d stand up to them often (which they considered to just be bratty back-talking), resulting in me getting yelled at or hit again. I still loved them. I won’t say that being hit for the majority of my life didn’t create any negative behavior in me (because hey, trauma can mess you up as a person), but one thing that never happened was me becoming submissive. My parents would insist that hitting me was “the only thing that worked”, yet they had to keep doing it. The results sure didn’t add up. I also have a vivid, and especially upsetting, memory of my last few years of high school. My parents were fighting, they were both taking it out on me, and I could not even be bothered to think about school work. One teacher wanted to know why I hadn’t kept track of my grades, and noticed I was failing, and asked for make-up work. I didn’t really tell my teachers much about my home life, because I was very aware of the fact that if my parents ever got arrested, I’d get placed in some other house somewhere. I liked my home. This time I was about 18, so I actually tried to be honest and explain how upset I was. The teacher told me “I’ve seen you laughing in the hall with your friends at lunch. You don’t have any problems”. I told a lot of lies as a little kid, usually because of a self-esteem problem or because I didn’t trust people. Now here I was, pretty much an adult, being brutally honest, and being disregarded. Not just that, disrespected

I know, TMI, but that is why this is just my personal reason. I probably had the most in common with Meg in the book (feeling like you aren’t good at anything, not getting along with other kids at school, having absolutely no filter when it comes to crying), but even when I first read A Wrinkle in Time as a child, I saw the relevance in Calvin’s character. I’ll also say, just from a story point of view, we don’t see characters with his life too often in recent movies. Or, if we do, it is the back-story of a villain. All in all, this isn’t a change that alters the main theme of the story, so it might not matter too much, but it just kinda bothered me

[dotshiiki]

I read it.

Cut because spoilers, of course.

Okay, it’s kind of hard to sum this book up because, ouch, it’s a real knife in the gut. And I guess I should thank all you guys who read it first (or knew things about it) for not dropping any spoilers at all because ... the thing I thought was a spoiler? Totally wasn’t.

I guess I’ll start with one point I noted somewhere towards the end, which was that the series plot is really heating up now (literally, lol, burning maze heh). And it sort of mirrors what I felt about TC in the initial PJO series. The first two books were lighthearted fun, and then things started to get real in book 3. People died. Characters got deeper. Here we see Meg changing and showing a ruthless side when her ‘roots’ are threatened—and coming into a power she’s not sure she deserves or can control. We see Apollo shocked into really understanding what humanity means. (And I agree that the character death was necessitated to spur that revelatory moment. So from a plot perspective I can accept its necessity. From a I-love-these-characters perspective, I’m gutted that we had to trade Jason for Apollo. Because, you know, four thousand year old god. How’s that fair? But more on my feelings about this later.) We even see ruptures and upheaval in Jason and Piper’s relationship, and Piper on a likely traumatic journey through all of it. The kid gloves are off—We’re not in your average ‘fun adventure’ territory any more and I will admit I was wrong ... RR DID go dark with this one. (To Melpomene indeed.) It will be interesting to see how he moves on after this.

I found the tone shift interesting. It’s really hard to pull off angst with a first-person narrator like Apollo, whose every second sentence is a humorous aside. And I did find that transition tough to swallow. The jokes and comedic references were jarring in the last few chapters, and it makes me wonder if the main character is really capable of matching the overall plot set-up. But ... I guess we’ll see with the next book. (The Tyrant’s Tomb, hmmmm.)

Speaking of the next book, it’s also interesting that we didn’t get the full sonnet prophecy unravelled after all. And yeah I totally messed up predicting that they’d get to Camp Jupiter and then get into the Labyrinth. We didn’t even see anything on that—the whole bad news stuff happened entirely offscreen! (And did we even get a resolution on what that was, or just a cliffy? Surprise surprise, Mr Supreme Lord of the Cliffhangers strikes. You guys think I’m evil with my weekly cliffhangers? We’re waiting a year with all of his!) The only things I managed to guess were Caligula and Incitatus.

So on the character deaths. Wrong about that too: I did not see it coming. I started out this book deathly afraid for Grover. Because at the end of Ship of the Dead, with Percy and Annabeth crying when Magnus contacted them, I was sure they’d suffered a great loss. And since Grover had been summoned at the end of TDP, that seemed to be the logical answer.

So every ‘spoiler’ I came across that hinted at RR actually killing off a character, or alluding to whatever I feared—well, I thought it’d be Grover. I really didn’t even expect Jason and Piper to be a big part of this book, but once that prophecy about one of them popped up, I kind of figured this might be Grover’s get-out-of-Erebus-free card.

Am I relieved Grover didn’t die? Tremendously! (Do NOT mess with the sacred trio, man!) Am I thankful it was Jason instead? Sadly ... yes. I’m sorry. I do love Grover more than Jason, and that’s just that.

Jason still strikes me as this too-perfect character (the kind we’d have called a Gary-Stu in the old days). Always doing the right thing, his ‘flaws’ coming across as not really that deep. (And go ahead and change my mind on this, I’m open to changing my perspective.) I didn’t have a real connection to him, possibly because first impressions—well, he knew nothing about himself ergo the reader knows nothing too. But one thing that IS evident about him: he’s a good friend. He’s still a good guy. And thus the impact his death has—it is tremendous.

So yeah, I’m still gutted that Jason kicked it. And his death scene was pretty darn powerful. Also, the fact that he died broken up with his girlfriend whom he obviously still loved—okay that’s the stuff broken hearts are made of, you know? We got to see all these reactions as well, and more are definitely coming. Remind me to prepare stacks of hankies for next year’s book release. When I think ‘Jason’s dead,’ I just get this sense of ‘huh. Okay.’ (As opposed to the jitters I had all week anticipating this book and thinking we’d lose Grover.) But then I think about Annabeth and Percy getting the news. Of Thalia hearing about it. I got Leo popping in at the end, oh gods. And Reyna, who is certain to be in the next book and probably the third quest member. And I think of all of them dealing with the loss of a good friend and my heart crumbles into teensy tiny pieces. Guys, I do not know how I’m going to drag myself into work tomorrow and attempt to tackle editing my papers because of this devastation.

I’m feeling a bit guilty as well because besides feeling relieved that he died not Grover, it’s almost like as a reader I was all, naaaah don’t like Jason. And then RR goes, I see. All right, he’s expendable, let’s kill him! Do you love him now, huh? It’s almost like the Dobby thing. Everyone probably called him annoying at some point, but you wanna tell me you didn’t shed a tear after Malfoy Manor?

And one last thing that strikes fear into my heart. I am no longer confident that RR will keep the body count down. I mean, he did the Big One—killing off a main character. That’s like a turning point. Like when Sirius died in OotP, you know the books will never be the same. Before I was so excited every time one of the old crew turned up. Now ... I don’t want to see them any more because WHAT IF THEY DIE? Pleeeeeease do not kill Reyna in the next book, for instance. And I am uncomfortably aware that Greek mythology Ends In Tragedy, even though none of the book series have yet ... the idea that this could all end in Everybody Dies frightens me so bad. I’m not sure I’d stay in PJO fandom if there was no more Percy and Annabeth. (And I guess I need to hurry up writing my fic then because I was actually afraid I’d lose motivation if Grover kicked the bucket. I feel like I’ve got a stay of execution here, but next year ... the year after that ... *shivers*)

Okay. Now I need to go and write a ton of angst because thank you, Melpomene, I hope you’re happy.

[mothermaidenclone-blog]

A Wrinkle in Time or Can Giant Oprah Winfrey be my Fairy Godmother Please?

As soon as I heard about A Wrinkle in Time, I was very excited about it. The first ever live action movie with a budget of over $100 million to be directed by a black woman (Ava DuVernay), and it’s a science fantasy adventure starring a black teenage girl who’s a scientist - what more could you want? The costume and set design were both out of this world, pun very much intended, and I thought that most of the characters were three dimensional, well thought out and had meaningful interactions with each other. The plot, however, left something to be desired, as I felt it was a little all over the place and had a tendency to trail off in places. Admittedly, I have not read the novel, so this could be a problem with adaptation rather than writing.

*A Wrinkle In Time spoilers follow*

A Wrinkle in Time is predominantly the story of Meg Murry (Storm Reid), a young, teenage girl who is angry and disillusioned at the mysterious disappearance of her father, Dr. Alexander Murry (Chris Pine). The very first time we see Meg she is a child, enjoying and engaged in a science experiment with her father. She continues to be portrayed as a scientist throughout the film, explaining apparently magical phenomena, such as flying, using scientific terminology, as well as practically employing principles to save herself and her friends; for example, using strong winds to slingshot them to safety. S.T.E.M. fields are still overwhelmingly dominated by men that it’s so important for a children’s film, that many young girls will hopefully watch, to exemplify a black, teenage, female scientist as a role model.

Science aside, Meg sets a good example in a number of other ways. As an understandable consequence of feeling abandoned by her father - as well as being inexplicably bullied by other girls at her school because of his disappearance and a string of awful teachers talking about her behind her back, telling her that she’s not living up to her potential - Meg has very low self esteem at the start of the film. She aggressively rebuffs a compliment about her hair from her friend Calvin (Levi Miller) and she has trouble tessering - the means by which the characters travel instantaneously through the universe - because she does not entirely want to appear as herself again on the other side. Furthermore, Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) constantly and loudly professes her disappointment and lack of faith in Meg. At the end, this is presented as a sort of tough love and that Mrs. Whatsit really did believe in Meg all along, but a grown woman continually putting down an already troubled teenage girl gave parts of the film a weird tone that I did not enjoy.

However, Meg’s character develops, which is crucial for a young, female audience to see. This is partly shown through positive interactions between female characters; for example, Meg tells the Mrs., “The three of you are beautiful,” and one of them replies, “Thank you, and so are you.” This might seem banal, but to just blatantly show women positively supporting each other in a way that children will understand is vital. So often in Hollywood, women are portrayed as rivals, especially where looks and beauty are concerned, so to attempt to normalise women giving each other compliments and accepting them in return is so important. Continuing with this theme, A Wrinkle in Time firmly cements Meg’s rise in self esteem by showing her to accept a compliment about her hair later on in the film - she is beginning to like herself more without having changed how she looks at all.

This isn’t just limited to the physical, Meg comes to terms with her own faults, thanks to the originally seemingly ill-intentioned gift of honest self appraisal from Mrs. Whatsit, and realises that yes, they are a part of her, but they do not define her. Meg’s winning move against the evil entity of the film, the IT (David Oleyowo) is to boldly declare, “You should love me because I deserve to be loved.” She finally appreciates her own self-worth and has confidence in her many abilities. This is finally confirmed by Meg opening the portal that takes her and her brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), safely home - she is content with who she will be on the other side. It is so important to leave the audience with no doubt that Meg is comfortable, confident and happy with herself as a person - whilst not depicting her as being unattainably perfect, she is aware of and at peace with her flaws - because much of that audience will be young girls. I think this film has succeeded by portraying and praising this development and extolling a teenage girl who believes in herself.

Although Meg is the main character in A Wrinkle in Time, she is surrounded by many other wonderful female role models. Most predominant is her mother, Dr. Kate Murry (Gugu Mbatha Raw). Kate is presented as a scientist with equal standing to her husband, which is wonderful in and of itself, seeing as he is a white man and they usually dominate this field. In fact, Kate is seen as more respectable, as Alex is tutted off stage for his wild theories, but the same audience seems more willing to listen to her. When Alex goes off on a tirade after being rejected by the reputable scientific community, Kate offers him some sage advice, “In order to be great, it isn't enough to just be right, you have to actually be great, and we are. So why can’t you just help them along?” Not only is she a rational scientist, but an empathetic and practical person. Furthermore, Alex gives Kate all the credit for the science behind his journey; “Your calculations gave us the universe.” On top of all of this, she copes as a single mother for years and never gives up on her absentee husband, despite all the rumours about him. Kate is a very admirable woman, capable scientist and caring mother who provides a solid, realistic role model amidst all the fantasy.

More ostentatious exemplars take the form of the three Mrs.; the aforementioned Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) and Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling). This trio comprises of one white woman, one black woman and one woman of Indian descent, so that’s a move in the right direction as far as representation is concerned. These women are self-proclaimed warriors in the name of light who display a variety of incredible powers such as physical transformation, bestowing magical gifts and being able to traverse the universe using only their own will power. Other than Mrs. Whatsit’s previously stated slights, the three are constantly encouraging, and do everything in their power to help the children on their quest. Even Mrs. Whatsit is positive to other women, declaring Kate as, “dazzling”. Speaking of which, the three women look completely magnificent; they have a variety of costume changes throughout the film, all of which serve to make them look regal, majestic and powerful. Another striking visual choice was to make Mrs. Which massive - I don’t mean fat or muscly, just like three times the size of a normal human. This simple manoeuvre immediately imbues her character with an innate sense of grandeur, prestige and strength. As far as their names are concerned, we never find out who they are married to; no husbands are ever mentioned, so can we infer that they are all married to each other? I hope so, because a triad of resplendent lesbian lovers who are warriors for the forces of good in the universe is just about the coolest role model I can think of for a children’s film.

One final named female character remains, Veronica (Rowan Blanchard). She is maybe the ringleader of the - to it’s credit, surprisingly ethnically diverse - group of girls who are bullying Meg for the baffling reason that her father is missing. Veronica doesn’t factor much into the film, except that she mirrors Meg’s journey of self-love and acceptance. She is a bully at the the beginning, but we gain a glimpse into her personal life and see that this could be because she is self-conscious perhaps to the point of an eating disorder - she has written all of the foods she won’t allow herself to eat on her mirror. However, at the end of the film she is starting to become more friendly towards Meg, and we can only hope towards herself too. Veronica is symptomatic of what I believe to be so important about the female characters in A Wrinkle in Time; she is on a journey of development and self acceptance.

Overall, there is a great variety of wonderful female characters in A Wrinkle in Time. They are diverse not only in looks, but also in personality, and between them display a remarkable list of laudable traits including curiosity, scientific aptitude, bravery, confidence, magical powers, determination and the ability to love - their friends, family and, perhaps most importantly, themselves. What is arguably most crucial about these characters, especially Meg, is that they were not presented as being unbelievably flawless from the start, but as real human women who develop, interact positively with each other and become stronger as the film progresses. It doesn’t matter to me that the story was sort of nonsense, I think A Wrinkle in Time has triumphed if it gets these messages of self-love and belief to a wide audience of children.  

And now for some asides:

Wow, Chris Pine can grow a beard really far up his cheeks, that was an important revelation.

Creepy, homogenous suburbia was one of the best portrayals of hell ever.

I think Charles Wallace as a baddie was one of my all-time favourite villains, his fashion was definitely on point at least.

[soloragoldsun]

My Review of “A Wrinkle in Time”

Okay, so I just got back from “A Wrinkle in Time,” and I want to talk about it while it and my most recent reread of the book are still fresh in my mind. I’ll list the pros and cons, and give my overall review at the end.

 Spoilers ahead!

Pros:

-Meg and Calvin: Both of these characters were portrayed perfectly! Meg is an unsure, suspicious, awkward kid who hates herself and isn’t sure why she was chosen for this quest. Calvin is a kindhearted person who sees the beauty in Meg, and is a kid who is forced to hide behind his popularity and success from his abusive home life and the pressures he feels due to his position in school.

-Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which: These two were completely true to their book counterparts, with Mrs. Who quoting other people because she can’t verbalize thoughts on her own, and Mrs. Which being more of an immense entity, and rarely adhering completely to a human form. Mrs. Which was especially good. Kudos to Oprah!

-Alexander Murry: Chris Pine did a great job as Meg and Charles Wallace’s father. He has always been a great actor, and he was perfect as the loving, but goal-oriented father in this. His best moment was probably when Meg found Dr. Murry and he realized that he was on Camazotz for four years. Superb acting!

-The cinematography: Visually, this was a gorgeous film. The CG was used to its fullest potential, especially when they were on Uriel. The scenes taking place on Earth were also well-shot.

-That scene in the film when Meg asks if it’s possible to tesser back as someone else, and Mrs. Which tells her to think about all the choices, all the circumstances in the universe since the beginning of time that led to her being born exactly as she is. As someone who struggles with feelings of self-hatred, this was a very important and beautiful scene that I think everyone should see.

-The chemistry between (some of) the characters: I’ll get to why some of it didn’t work in a moment, but where the character chemistry worked, it worked! Meg and Calvin, Meg and her father, Meg and Mrs. Which, Calvin and Mrs. Who, Meg’s parents... Through most of the movie, I strongly believed in the bond between these characters and in what they were saying and doing while interacting. Most of the people in this movie acted out their parts very well.

Cons:

-Mrs. Whatsit: Two of the three ladies were flawless, but I’m sorry to say that my favorite of them, Mrs. Whatsit, was utterly ruined. In the book, she was the youngest of the three, but that manifested in a charming way, with her talking too much and getting over-excited about things. In the movie, she acts ditzy, snarky, and downright mean sometimes.

Also, she expresses her disbelief in Meg throughout the plot, when book Mrs. Whatsit was her strongest ally. She believed in her from the beginning, and they had the strongest bond out of all the bonds between the humans and the ladies.

-Charles Wallace: I can’t believe they ruined Charles Wallace so completely. I’m not sure why they decided to make him adopted in the movie, first of all. In the book, it’s stated that both he and Calvin are “biological sports,” meaning that they carry qualities that their families don’t possess, despite their blood relation to them.

Also, he was meant to be an introspective child who could read his mother and Meg. He never talked to anyone outside the family and the ladies. Calvin was the first other person he talked to. In the movie, he’s loud and obnoxious, and his abilities, along with his mental connection to Meg, aren’t properly explored.

He gave in too quickly to IT, as well. In the book, his pride is what causes him to get absorbed. He thinks that his mental abilities are strong enough for him to go into IT and figure out what IT was, so they can then defeat IT. Instead, he is overcome. In the movie, he just recites some multiplication tables, and is taken over in an instant.

-Sandy and Dennys: Or rather, the complete lack of them. The twins weren’t major characters in the first book, but they are important in their own way throughout the series, and even get their own book later on. I guess this means we won’t be getting a Many Waters adaptation any time soon...

-The removal of the star scene: Not only was Mrs. Whatsit’s character ruined, but her backstory was removed from the movie. In the book, while they are with the Happy Medium, the ladies show the children a star defeating a portion of the Darkness before going out. It is revealed that Mrs. Whatsit used to be a star, but she died in that form in order to keep the Darkness at bay. While she can manifest in other forms, she can never be a star again. That act of sacrifice adds a whole new level of tragedy to her character, while showing the children that the Darkness, while strong, can be defeated.

-The Happy Medium: I don’t know what they were thinking with this interpretation of the character. The Happy Medium is supposed to be a cheerful entity who uses a crystal ball to view the good things in the universe, and expresses reluctance at showing the unpleasantness of Camazotz and the Darkness engulfing Earth. The Happy Medium in this movie isn’t cheerful at all. While he’s certainly empathetic and good, he’s too stern and sarcastic overall to really be what he’s supposed to be.

Side note: In the book, the Happy Medium is a woman. I’m a bit disappointed that Ava DuVernay, who wanted this movie to have a diverse cast, missed a perfect opportunity for lesbian representation. When Mrs. Whatsit first referred to the Medium as “cute,” I got super excited. Oh well.

-Camazotz: So, imagine a world that used to be like Earth, a world where individuality and emotion have been forcibly sucked away. Imagine a world where a pulsing beat overcomes everything and everyone, even the children at play. Imagine a great, gray building that is the center of it all, full of workers dressed exactly the same, processing the same paperwork under yellow lights that turn their faces a sickly green color. Imagine rooms that are used to reprogram people who deviate from the norm, including a little boy who dares to bounce his ball outside the rhythm of the pulse. Imagine a world where, if you become sick, you are killed so that you won’t be an inconvenience to anyone. Imagine being in the center part of the gray building, in the presence of a brain that is just large enough to be truly repulsive, where a pulsing light goes into you, making even your breaths and heartbeat adhere to the unrelenting rhythm that permeates everything.

Now, look at the movie, which briefly shows the scene of the children playing in rhythm, followed by a random beach scene, and the man with the red eyes, who almost immediately takes over Charles Wallace. There’s no talk about what IT has done to the planet, no look into CENTRAL Central Intelligence. No scene with the little boy. Not even a look at the fear that fills the inhabitants of Camazotz. No, they just make the planet a magic place that changes forms, and throws tornadoes at our main characters. The hell?!

Also, the climax when Meg is fighting IT is too loud and overblown. IT isn’t supposed to be an Eldritch Horror that tosses her around and physically attacks her. IT is literally a brain sitting on a dais. IT enters the mind and destroys you from within, not by throwing you around with tentacles and bashing you until you’re unconscious.

-The removal of Ixchel and Aunt Beast: Arguably one of the most important scenes in the book is after Dr. Murry tessers Calvin and Meg away from Camazotz, leaving a possessed Charles Wallace behind, and they arrive on Ixchel, a planet inhabited by blind creatures that can detect the very essence of the world around them, seeing not what things look like, but what they are like. During this time, Meg, who was nearly overcome by the Darkness, is in the care of a kindly creature who she calls Aunt Beast. She has to fight the Darkness in her, and overcome her feelings of betrayal and anger toward her father for leaving Charles Wallace behind. It’s here that the ladies return and inform her that she’s the only one who can return to Camazotz and save Charles Wallace.

In the movie, she just refuses to tesser, and we go right to the climactic showdown with IT. Her father leaving without Charles Wallace isn’t addressed, and Meg isn’t properly able to overcome her grief and her realization that her father isn’t perfect.

-Mrs. Whatsit’s love: Again, Mrs. Whatsit is unfairly shoved to the side. In the book, when Meg is sent back to Camazotz, Mrs. Whatsit tells her “You have my love.” Also, Mrs. Which tells Meg that she has something that IT can never have or understand. When Meg is trying to get through to Charles Wallace, IT tells her that Mrs. Whatsit hates her. This causes her to remember Mrs. Whatsit giving her her love, which leads to her realizing that her love for Charles Wallace is what separates her from IT and what allows her to save her brother.

~

Overall, I was disappointed. The movie did come close to grasping the essence of the book several times, especially in the scene with Meg and Mrs. Which, and most of the actors did a great job. However, too many vital scenes were cut out, taking away from the overall meaning. Also, the ruination of Charles Wallace and Mrs. Whatsit, two of the most important characters in the book, convinced me that enough time was not paid to actually reading and understanding Madeleine L’Engle’s masterpiece.

A Wrinkle in Time is about many things: love, the fight between good and evil, the bonds between people, overcoming your own demons, and forgiveness. Several of these things were touched upon, sometimes very well, but it unfortunately fell short of what it could have been.

That being said, I hope this movie will end up being successful enough to allow for an adaptation of A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I hope that Ava DuVernay reads the reviews of her movie and is able to do better, because I do think she, and the cast she has put together, can do it.

In the meantime, if you want to see a more faithful adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, check out the 2003 movie, also done by Disney. I think it did a much better job overall.