#the sense that Julia was ever NOT treated as one of their children at least not within the family

[dangermousie]

S2 ep 4

I love s2!

1. Marcos and Paula continue to break me. He is such an amazing, unstintingly loving brother to her - the way he reacts to her comment that she is forgetting what their home looked like, the way he is talking about the fact that they won’t go home for the holidays. Paula finishes the show a safe, happy, well-adjusted and loved little girl and it’s all due to how Marcos was with her, how he managed to shelter her through hell. He is damaged for good at the end of the show but she is not solely because of his care and just - he is the best big sibling ever.

2. I hated this teacher. (Rightly so, murderer, statutory rapist, sadist etc.) Honestly, except for 3 teachers, every teacher in that hellhole ranged from neglectful and evil to genuine psychopath. Also, I found it pretty telling he honed in on Ivan - I swear the guy was a psychopath magnet, probably because the combo of vulnerability and cussedness drew them in (the fact that a literal adult in position of authority is “competing” with an underage student and enjoys putting him down sums up everything that is wrong with the man. Abusers are gonna abuse.)

3. Elsa, Elsa, Elsa. At the end, she finally learned to put students in her care first but not here. She lets Julia go off with her stepdad because Julia was blackmailing her; learns stepdad was sleeping with Julia and her reaction to Hector is “at least he wasn’t beating her” (!!!) (to which Hector, the only one with moral sense, replies “no he was just grooming her instead”) and when Julia does come back, her main concern is for Julia’s mom not to find out - she threatens to hit her if she tells - your underage student is being “dated” by someone who should be in jail, but nah, keeping your job is priority. Adults in this show keep failing children over and over. Look at Julia’s face.

4. Fermin!!! The sole dude in this show I’d want in RL!

5. All that fighting training is gonna come in useful. I mean, Ivan is going to acquire a body count before he hits majority!

6. Speaking of horrible adults - Julia’s mom. She treats her 40+ husband and her underage grieving daughter as equally culpable. “I forgave you for sleeping with my husband,” “you slept with him because you are spoiled!” THE HELL!!! This is not your 45-year-old friend, this is your 16 year old daughter who was abused JESUS. And then when Julia mouths off, she slaps her and does not apologize. Julia keeps pushing and pushing but in a way it’s the same reason Ivan kept pushing and pushing with Maria - to be convinced they are loved even if they are “bad.” And Maria passes the test while Julia’s mom fails. Julia is still underaged, still a daughter who got hit by her mother. And despite her defiance and shields, you can see her heartbreak.

7. Everything related to Paula is so creepy. But also, in retrospect even before Nazi reveal, it was all pointing that way - the way they threw out Elsa’s “imperfect” twin, the IQ thing, the experiments, and of course:

8. This is the moment I started shipping them the first time around and I still adore this. Maria returning his kindness and trusting him like he trusted her in s1, and also getting his bullet out by herself. She was tough, kind and loyal. And so warm. No wonder he fell hard.

9. Julia turning Ivan in for stealing the test.

It’s interesting to me because what strikes me is not that (she has reasonable basis to believe he did, she doesn’t know or owe him anything, and if she doesn’t, she doesn’t get to go on her Paris trip) but the gang’s reaction. More specifically, Caro’s reaction. She totally jumps to conclusion that he did it which not only is a not great thing to do for a gf who is supposed to trust him (as he points out), but also points out how much she doesn’t know him on a basic level - since when has Ivan ever cared about grades or studying? I mean, seriously! And it turns out that the paper he had were tickets he booked for a surprise trip for them since he knew she couldn’t go see her mom. And she feels bad but (a) the fact that she needed literal proof means this is a broken relationship (b) Ivan is completely correct when he points out she normally supports everyone but not him. When he asks her “why are you even with me?” and she doesn’t have an answer, that is answer enough. Honestly, his basically calling it quits then and there is a healthy thing because it’s healthier to want to be with someone only when they like you back, when they support you, and when the relationship is working for both of you. That is actually a start on the learning curve for him - don’t cling to those who don’t want to be there, seek a real relationship or not at all. Though he asks her to leave and she does and you know what struck me? In a way, even if he didn’t realize it, it was a test (just as his asking why she is with him was one - if she loved him, she’d have then said it) - what he was hoping for though not expecting tbh is for her to try to stay. But she does not. (He does that with Maria and she stays; he later does it with Julia in s7 and she chases! But Caro leaves and that’s fine, she has every right to do so and not be in a relationship that is not working out, but that very fact proves they are a bad fit and are best off apart.)

10. Hector preventing Julia from going off with abuser stepdad was A+++. He is actually acting like a damn adult, and putting the wellbeing of teens under his care first!!! And then the way he takes the man down - telling him he will report him to the cops and asking what he enjoyed more - sleeping with a teen girl or sticking it to his wife. Hector!!! (Side note - stepdaddy tries the usual abuser playbook “Julia is vvv mature for her age” and the way Hector just sweeps this away is A+++)

[alliluyevas]

not to make a completely on brand post but I bought this graphic novel as a birthday gift to myself and overall I am super pleased with it! I think early Mormonism works really well as a graphic story and I like the artist’s style overall, I think it was artistically and dramatically compelling and pretty historically accurate/fair (a couple minor quibbles and one major issue I had with it but overall pretty good)

some of my favorite/particularly interesting/compelling/distinctive pages!

[valaks]

Hey Valaks! I love your blog and your writing!

Please could you do 1, 10 and 18 for the writing asks?? 🌺

Thank you for the ask! I have added a cut to hopefully not be that person clogging up the feed XD

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

I have a few collabs outstanding like Gemini and a Kabir/Alex sequel to Reunion (It’s rated T at the most so still kid friendly) with Lupin and Devil Went Down to Georgia with Galimau. My utter love for both of my collab partners for pulling me through at a time when I’ve been really struggling. I have a WIPs List but I’ll confess to not having touched most of them in quite sometime (partly from life, partly because I’m not sure how interesting they’d be to anyone else other than me which influences my writing more than I would like to admit):

Good Intentions: Smithers never thought he’d be anyone’s moral compass, he was no angel to sit in anyone’s shoulder but trying to keep Alex Rider from following in the ruthless footsteps of his father or worse his former handler, Alan Blunt is as close to hell as he can imagine. (Wherein Alex becomes head of MI6 we watch his morality slip away form the eyes of an increasingly frustrated and heartbroken Smithers - it all culminates when Alex uses a child “just as an informant, simple information gathering” but hidden behind the charming smile of John Rider and the brutal coldness of Alan Blunt’s words is Alex Rider dying as he says them (Smithers just hopes there’s still a part of the boy he once knew in there to mourn)

Walk the Line: Alex thought he was done with SCORPIA. But they kept creeping back into his life in the most unexpected of ways. He thought he could at least count on it being on the other side until he gets teamed up with Walker, his former classmate and current CIA spy. Unfortunately he still hasn’t been able to figure out whose side Walker is really on - attempted deep cover op like his dad, repatriated rogue spy back on the “good” side, or SCORPIA double agent? He doesn’t know but at least he’s nice....in that obnoxious American way.

Temperamental: (Sequel to Sentimental which isn’t all that popular and you would need to read it for the sequel but basically amnesiac Yassen whose memories stop pre John’s betrayal set during the Stormbreaker mission and features him trying to come to grips with the use of chemical weapons against children and how to handle Alex once he snaps back to reality which is where this starts) Yassen had promised Alex Rider that he would be safe from the world of spying but fate had other ideas. In the days after Sarov’s failed plan, Yassen scrambles to find where MI6 have hidden his wayward charge without drawing Rothman’s attention. A request from one of their existing clients to look into suspicious activity at his son’s former school prompts Yassen to investigate under the guise of offering security. He should have known where there was trouble there would be Alex.

10. How would you describe your writing process?

Lordy do I ever not have a good answer for this. Typically it involves an idea hitting me and then the determination: would this idea work better as a short to post on tumblr (because the set up would take away the tension or would require a multi chapter which is not really my strength), as a prompt to lob out into the ether for someone better and brighter to touch on, or a fic. Once fic is decided I determine whose perspective the fic would be the most interesting from either because it would create the most tension or their internal monologue/background knowledge would add the most to it. Then the summary is written and a title is chosen. If it’s something I’m really passionate about and I already have it in my head I tend to write it all in one go, if there’s more I need to chew on then it’s a series of dates with the Evil Writing App. The final determination is whether it’s good enough for Valaks or if it gets sent to an alt account.

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

Allegedly. I’ll try to go in order of posting -

Ruthless has a sequel where Alex just goes *quiet* once the initial dust as settled it’s unnerving to everyone because they’re not used to having to wonder just what Alex is thinking, at least not behind closed doors but what happened isn’t exactly something that can be recovered from easily, not when Alex isn’t sure who all’s in on it no matter what they’ve told him. Failure is the AU where I considered what would happen to Alex to make him want to torture.

Alibi was originally going to have Yassen show up in the end but I found it far more fascinating if MI6 was just testing Alex so out went Yassen and in went Ben. The sequel to it was torn apart and turned into Warm Reception because I wanted to trope flip SCORPIA comes to Brooklands and decided that it was more logical to have a small fight in Mrs. Bedfordshire’s lobby than anywhere else and I wanted to explore some side characters instead of Ben.

Providence’s sequel thoughts ended up inspiring Gentleman’s Agreement but I did write a small short for it “Yassen and Alex encounter each other on mission. Surprisingly they are working to mostly the same goal - Yassen needs to kill the millionaire who Alex needs to get information from. “I suppose I could answer some questions for you, Sasha. /In Russian/“ “Is now really the time for a language lesson?” he ground out in frustration but the man pointedly ignored him “/Fine but I don’t know some of the words/“ “/Then there is no better way to learn/“

I mentioned the Sentimental sequel but changing Sarov to come first and probable for almost a month before Yassen figures out he’s missing made the most sense. It was also a bit of fun at the Yassen would absolutely take Alex away from MI6....just to throw him in a school and throw away the key. Almost had him send him to Point Blanc but decided that wouldn’t quite fit all that well and wouldn’t be as interesting as if Alex had already gotten his feet back under him with MI6 and now sees that Yassen was right that MI6 would just use him until he’s dead but that doesn’t mean Alex wants to be anywhere near Yassen. Julia Rothman might have other ideas when she finds out what her newest second in command is hiding.

Gentleman’s Agreement.....there’s a lot of thoughts on Sequels and AUs, a lot of them have been written by better people, but that fic was written in 45 minutes so there wasn’t much time to recharacterize or change scenes. It did get Turncoat aka the Alex saves Yassen fic I wanted so badly.

Blood Brothers is a fic I really worked hard on considering how John would feel about his son being thrown into SCORPIA assuming Alex was of age. A rocky marriage was characterization that didn’t quite fit what I imagined would have happened but did fit the story so it stayed in. It was a fic that was supposed to get expanded on - the competition between Hunter and Yassen and Nile and Alex who is desperate to beat his Dad and his “apprentice”. I think two teenagers thrown against each other with a bit of a bone to pick, especially Yassen and Alex who can both hold a grudge even if one runs hot and the other runs cold, would have been compelling and a little fun but the premise and specifically John’s characterization doesn’t quite work out to me.

Found and Legends both have their plotting done but it’ll never see the light of day

Little Moments and Sweetest Thing were my guilty pleasure writing pieces for a while and I have about 1000 DMs of scenes for both of them that are lost to the sands of time and an embarrassing amount of self indulgence

Mates has a follow up ending for those who needed resolution in the comments of it. I’m not sure I did a good job of showing that Tom was in a semi abusive relationship since a lot of people seemed to blame him for him and Alex’s breakup. Most of my headcanons for how their relationship goes have them splitting much sooner just because of Tom’s own home life and either being unable to relate/talk to Alex and drifting away because his Mom throwing a plate at his head isn’t being hung over crocodiles but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt or because Alex is just too dangerous/jumpy to be thrown back into a school environment and lashes out even unintentionally especially not under the pressure of being seen as a failure. School is also a barometer of just how much he’s lost of himself and his childhood, bonus points for Alex being completely upfront with Tom about everything he’s done

In My Sights has an AU where this is all post Christmas at Gunpoint and Yassen is there because he knows Ian is already at Sayle’s factory and will have to be...handled. So two weeks of just getting Alex trained for the protection he might need, connecting him to resources, etc. Ian finding out that Yassen had been there was part of a draft at one point which was included Alex wondering about an all too sincere goodbye from Ian “who never hugged him” but I can’t find the snippet anymore ;__;

A Warm Reception was an alternate version. Originally I wanted it to be Alex watching his last chance at normality slip from his fingers and then the crushing realization that it was something that was his own doing, not even MI6 but Skoda who he had picked a fight with and the accompanying breakdown but then decided that Mrs. Bedfordshire was the right way to go upon writing the summary. Because everyone loves some Outsider POV

Adopted was supposed to be a one chapter throw away trope flip of K Unit adopts Alex. I kept it pretty consistent with Amitai and Lil Lupin’s K Units, tried to add in some more characterization just in how they treated some of the details. It has an alt ending/chapter where they find out Alex is Cub when they pull him from Three’s tender mercies almost by accident. I was persuaded into light humored fluff via guilt trip.

The Truth and Other Deadly Weapons has Ben acting exactly like he think he would in front of everyone but my AU was that this interaction happened in the field and absolutely shattered Ben’s trust in him partly because he had worked for the other side and partly because even if it ‘wasn’t as bad as it looks’ it showed a severe lack of judgment. It also featured several chapters of Alex running into the glass ceiling that is having “Member Malogosto Class of 2004” on your resume. Was going to feature Alex running into Walker as well and into problems within MI6 and the CIA but that was eventually cut and it was kept to one chapter.

Guardian....Guardian holds a very special place in my heart. I was given the prompt of a Monster Fic and I wrote what I knew but the interesting parts were all the ones that come after the story but might come across to a general audience as Hogwarts School of Prayers and Miracles. The plotting done post this was going to feature baby Angel Alex reuniting with his parents but...they were strangers to him and so he stayed with Yassen more and more, followed him, learned from him....it encompassed everything from the dynamics of broken families to reflections on theology and references from the Good Book....which is why it’ll never see the fandom but has a very special place in my heart.

In another, more perfect world Glocking Around the Christmas Tree is the Die hard fic this fandom deserves but as Lupin and I untangled the plot of the movie more and more we just couldn’t make it into anything that would be coherent on paper so it was changed and changed and is now a half finished sad abomination that sits on my works list only because Lupin would kill me if I took it down.

Hot Shot was supposed to feature my current favorite character that is not Nile Abara, John Crawley but I wimped out and changed it at the end because I swore I would write the Crawley fic that we all need. Hear me out: John Crawley knew and worked with John and Ian Rider, was respected by both of them, was recruited by SCORPIA within one year in the field, is the Chief of Staff of MI6, the man who “no one gets a knife in the back without him signing off” and is also the man who walks his dog to check on Alex. There’s a mentorship waiting to happen there, preferably in a nice work study program during college where Alex finally gets to see the repercussions of his missions and Crawley helps try and pull him back from the black mark that SCORPIA would have put on him.

My personal fluffy favorite is the spinoff of Devil Went Down to Georgia where Joe Byrne did pull Alex out post Skeleton Key and brought him home. There’s a pretty extended one about where Tom ends up after Mates. There’s also an actual sequel but ask me no questions and all.

Skipping a few collabs and Febuwhump fics but Burning Questions was just supposed to be Branded - a fic where upon being captured by Razim he is brought in and forcibly branded to differentiate the appearances of Alex and Julius (since Razim has decided to have him killed after shooting the Secretary of State). As a result of the pain levels spiking when Alex actually sees that the SCORPIA logo is branded onto his cheek Razim considers that emotional pain might be something to investigate. There’s a couple thousand words on it, one day I might polish it up.

First Impressions is supposed to be a mirror verse of Alex working for MI6 which includes Three as Blunt, Rothman as Jones and of course Sagitta as K Unit while he’s up against his father as Yassen and Yassen as Crawley. But it was cut down significantly even if the ideas are pretty fun to consider.

Sorry this was probably more than you bargained for but it was fun to get everything out there so thank you for asking

[something-tofightfor]

Are there any headcanons some writers have that you don’t agree with? What are some big ones? Do you disagree because they don’t fit your perception of the character(s) or because they don’t fit the character, period?

This is a loaded question, ma’am.  Well, the first thing I’ll say is this: people write what they want to write. They characterize people the way that they want to, and they focus on the traits that they want to when they build their characters. This also goes for what people choose to read, too! Fanfiction allows there to be something for everyone, and that’s amazing. 

It doesn’t matter what genre or fandom, there are always so many interpretations of things to provide a variety of content by a lot of really talented writers - but that doesn’t mean that every single story or headcanon is going to be something that every reader agrees with. And that’s life - it’s no different than published work or TV or movies... which is why we write and read in the first place, right?

There are a lot of characterizations of certain characters that I don’t agree with that I’ve seen and read - but I’m sure that the same goes for people that read my work too.  (Under a cut because I am wordy)

I’ll answer your second question first:  I think a lot of it is that they don’t seem to fit with what we know of characters in canon, and it kind of bothers me when people consistently throw away every aspect of canon just because they don’t like them. There’s a huge difference in reshaping things to work in an AU (what I’m doing with Billy’s injuries in Steel City) or a to give something a different outcome (Logan’s choice to seek help instead of self-destructing in HCtS) and flat out re-creating the character to make them fit into a specific narrative.  When something is a flat out AU, I can look past it much more easily. In that scenario, you’re supposed to look at things as completely different. Sure, names will be the same, maybe professions, certain parts of the backstory... but an AU is a license to change a ton - and when done properly, they can be amazing.  And while I think that everything fanfic writers write is an AU to some extent, the truth is that not everyone reads stories because they want a complete turnaround from canon and from what we know, so everything in a story being different than expected is jarring. That’s a personal preference - definitely - but you asked. I don’t read a story because I want to know how a completely fictionalized version of Billy reacts to XY and Z. I’d like to see him worked into a scenario that’s different - but see how HE handles it. 

Take Logan out of Westworld? He’s just a businessman with some serious familial issues and an addiction problem. Benjamin completely removed from Julia and the Days? He’s a middle-aged man with a shady past and no money or solid place to stay. There are certain core characteristics that need to be kept, otherwise, it’s literally just Ben’s face and you’re Mad Libs-ing in a job and a personality.  And to answer your first question, there are many. And again, it’s just a personal preference because I try to keep my writing as in-character as I possibly can ... so when I read, it’s hard for me to disconnect from that. So while I don’t want to call any specific writer or story out here because that isn’t the point, there are a lot of overarching headcanons and characterizations that it’s really hard for me to get past.

The biggest one - and I know, know, KNOW I’m going to get shit for this one - is that everyone is so quick to write these guys wanting kids and to settle down. Of course, we want to imagine Billy and Logan and Ryan and even Benjamin healthy and happy and with people they love... but the truth is that not everyone’s definition of a happy or fulfilled life includes kids... or marriage. So being quick to include kids or the desire to have kids or just the feeling that children are necessary pulls me out of stories a lot. 

I actually don’t even read ones where I know the characters have kids, because I just don’t identify with that Reader character or that chosen lifestyle. ** The exception is Logan with Emily, because he’s the best uncle ** 

Love is another thing. With Billy and Logan in particular - it’s hard for me to comprehend them going from 0-60 in no time at all and just... being over the moon for someone and then expressing it. Especially Billy. Logan in canon is so much closer to being ready to love someone because he at least knows what love looks and feels like - he had his mom and he had Juliet. Billy didn’t. Benjamin is the only character we’ve seen that foolishly falls in love quickly. And Ryan? You gotta stay in contact with someone or stay in one place long enough to fall in love. You might know you have feelings for someone really quickly, but it’s not just meet - go out to eat once - profess love - drop everything - get married - pop out kids. 

Individual characters:

Billy: 

Without a good reason, Billy’s not going to meet someone and immediately fall in love with them. He spent 20+ years keeping people out, and there’s no way in hell one night is enough for him to drop his defenses entirely and accept someone into his life.  Billy using pet names pulls me out of a story really fast, especially in bed. A sarcastic ‘sweetheart’ is about all I feel like you’d get out of him. I don’t think he needs to rely on talking to someone in bed in order to keep them in the moment. He says NOTHING in bed with Madani, and again with Krusty, and he was straight-up playing Madani, so if he was one to use pet names and dirty talk to bait someone... it would have happened.  Billy never opened Anvil so that he could shower other people with gifts. His money is meant to be his own, and while I don’t think he's stingy, I don’t think he’s going to drop obscene amounts of money on someone, even if he’s in a relationship with them (in canon - and EVEN for HNH reader). Romance - in the knock you off your feet sense - is not EVER going to be in his wheelhouse. 

S2 Billy is not a child. Stop treating him like one. In the beginning, maybe...but the more he learns and grows and remembers, the emotions that he has aren’t tantrums - they’re a very real mixture of fear and anger and misunderstanding. He literally doesn’t know why he did what he did or how everything went wrong - but that doesn’t make him a child. 

Logan:

Logan is more than a sex-crazed millionaire. That is a front. And I know that he’s going to be great in bed and very hands-on with his partners, but canon Logan uses sex and excess to keep people AWAY...not to pull them closer. 

Logan doesn’t want or need extravagant gifts.... because he can get anything he’d ever want for himself. It’s more about the thought than the money for him.  Logan is a lot of things, but him being a dick and belittling someone for being of a different socioeconomic status really bothers me. 

Ryan: 

... Very few people write for Ryan, so there’s little here that I take issue with, except maybe that in some of the stories I’ve seen people seem to confuse his lack of a formal education with him being uneducated in general.  Benjamin: 

Benjamin is impulsive but he is not stupid. 

Caspian:

Every time someone writes Caspian as being hellbent on adhering to tradition and following the Narnian customs and rules of succession I want to rip my hair out.  Don’t sit there and try to tell me that a King has to have a blood heir when the Pevensies are proof that ANYONE can be a King or Queen of Narnia, no questions asked. They weren’t even FROM Narnia, and they got thrones. It’s not about blood - it’s about integrity and a person’s true desire to lead the people and keep them safe and happy. 

** One more overall thing that takes me out of a story faster than anything is the use of Y/N. Maybe I’m an idiot, but every time I see those I think “yes/no” and not “your name”... and it throws me. **

I’m gonna step off my soapbox now. BUT. I will end this by saying: 

As much as I disagree with some of these qualities and traits in writing - when they are done super well, I don’t even notice them. Some of my favorite stories are “Y/N” inserts. One of my favorite Logans calls his girl princess. There’s a coffee shop AU that I absolutely loved and it changes the main character COMPLETELY.  It’s all subjective. I’m not saying any of this to offend anyone, and so I hope that if any other writers read this whole thing and feel as if I’m calling them or their choices out - that isn’t the point. I’m not trying to hurt feelings or pick apart your writing, but this is how I look at characters and the way people portray them when I choose what I want to read.

I write for a living. Like, actual get-paid-to-put-words-on-paper writing. I have to look at details for my work. Things have to make sense. There has to be clear connecting threads. And that makes it much more difficult for me to completely disconnect from that mindset when I write or read. I can’t help it.  TLDR: Write what you want to write. Read what you want to read. Think what you want about these characters and stick to it. But know that not everything you post is going to get the kind of engagement you hope for - because not everyone is able to suspend disbelief about the characters they’ve spent HOURS growing to love and carefully thinking about when you change 95% of their canon characteristics to fit your plot. 

[ibtk]

Book Review: Amber and Clay by Laura Amy Schlitz & Julia Iredale (2021)

(Full disclosure: I received a free ARC for review through Edelweiss and Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. Content warning for child abuse, animal abuse, and sexual assault.)

The children I spoke of before were like that. They weren’t alike, but they fit together, like lock and key. The boy, Rhaskos, was a slave boy. Unlucky at first. A Thracian boy—(Thrace is north of Greece) —redheaded, nervy, neglected. A clever boy who was taught he was stupid. A beautiful boy whose mother scarred him with a knife. The girl, Melisto, started life lucky. A rich man’s daughter, and a proper Greek. Owl-eyed Melisto: a born fighter, prone to tantrums, hating the loom. A wild girl, chosen by Artemis, and lucky, as I said before— except for one thing: she died young. This is their story. When it's over, if you like, you can tell me what it means.

"I want to tell you the things I never told anyone, in case this is my last chance. When I was alive, I didn’t talk much. So much of what I felt was a secret. I think that’s what I loved about the bear. Neither of us had any words."

Again we walked and talked. I never talked to anyone like that. No one ever talked like that to me. I talk to you still, Melisto. I’ve been talking to you ever since.

The red-haired boy variously known as Rhaskos, Thrax, and Pyrrhos is many things, though few of his masters care to know. He's Thracian nobility, with the scars to prove it - and also a slave, belonging to the wealthy Alexidemus and his soldier son Menon in Thessaly, and then to a humble potter named Phaistus in Athens. He loves horses and is as adept at handling them as he will one day become at drawing and sculpting them. He is a contemporary and friend of Sokrates, though he is powerless to stop his execution. He is an orphan, with a dolphin for a mother; a mother who loves him so fiercely that she curses a ghost to help set him free. He is like clay: common at first glance, but also not; capable of transmuting into creations lovely, clever, and full of value.

The owl-eyed girl called Melisto is seemingly as lucky as Rhaskos is not: the only child of a wealthy Athenian, Melisto wants for nothing. But she is a wild (read: untamed) girl child in a rigidly gendered society that has already predetermined Melisto's future for her: marriage, motherhood, a life of quiet domesticity. When, at the age of ten, Melisto is chosen to serve the goddess Athena as a Little Bear, her life opens up before her at Brauron; this is who she was meant to be. Like all good things, it cannot last.

Rhaskos and Melisto's destinies collide when Melisto frees a bear cub that is to be sacrificed to Athena. Or maybe their paths met even earlier, when Meda/Thratta was ripped from her toddler son. Perhaps the gods nudged them towards each other from birth. Alternately, the gods have nothing to do with it. Who can say? (Hermes, maybe. He has a lot to say and loves to hear himself talk!)

AMBER AND CLAY is ... not what I expected. Normally I'd steer clear of a contemporary (or any!) book styled after the ancient, epic poems (I positively labored through THE ODYSSEY and THE ILIAD in high school!), but the visual element sucked me in. I was under the (mistaken!) impression that AMBER AND CLAY would be heavier in illustrations than it actually is, almost as though part graphic novel. As it turns out, the illustrations - of archaeological artifacts - are a little sparser than I hoped, but they tie into the narrative quite nicely and add another layer of wonder and surprise to the story. The "exhibits" are really well done and do not disappoint.

Additionally, the synopsis had me thinking that this would be a supernatural romance; and while AMBER AND CLAY is indeed a love story, Rhaskos and Melisto are entirely too young to hook up, even by the time they finally meet near the story's end. (It's hard not to envision them - especially Rhaskos - as older than they are, both because the story seemingly stretching across years, and so much happens to these crazy kids to last several lifetimes.) Instead, this is a different kind of love story: AMBER AND CLAY tells of the love between a mother and her son; a father and his daughter; a teacher and his students; a girl and a bear; a ghost and her tether to the earth.

And despite my reservations about those epic poems, Schlitz both honors the form and breathes new life into it. While Melisto tells her story in prose, Rhaskos speaks in verse; and the gods sometimes address us commoners in turn-counterturn, occasionally using more complicated linguistic techniques like elegian couplets (which I barely recollect from HS English). This all sounds incredibly tricky and complicated (and undoubtedly is), but Schlitz pulls it off without a hitch. AMBER AND CLAY is fun and engaging, with a surprising sense of humor and expert sense of dramatic flair.

“Oh, Phaistus, look at his hair! He’ll be beautiful once he’s healed. We’ll call him Pyrrhos!” As if I were a dog. Pyrrhos means fiery. Half the red-haired slaves in Athens are called Pyrrhos.

It is, dare I say, exceedingly readable.

Honestly, I let out a little groan when I saw the "Cast of Characters" on page one, complete with various households and multiple monikers for the same people; but the story, the characters, their relationships to one another - all are easy enough to follow.

Schlitz's characters, both those based on historical figures and those spun from imagination and whimsy, are so full of life that they practically jump off the page. Rhaskos and Melisto; Meda and Lysandra; Phaistus and Zosima; Menon and Lykos; and, of course, Sokrates. Likewise, her descriptions of Greek life and customs left me hungering to learn more. Naturally, the most fascinating custom - that of the Little Bears of Brauron - is also that which we know the least about.

The scenes featuring Melisto and the bear cub are among my favorite in the book. In a story filled with animal sacrifice, this little slice of compassion and respect is life-affirming; to wit:

It turned in slow circles and collapsed with its rump pressed against her thigh. Melisto put one hand on it. It seemed to her that she had never touched anything more real than the bear cub.

For a moment her mind slipped back into the past. She recalled the bruises she had carried from her mother’s pinches, and the sore patches on her scalp from Lysandra’s hair-pulling. She remembered the loathing in her mother’s face that struck terror into her soul. She had never been afraid of the bear like that.

and

On the nights when she waded into the bay and watched the moon, she was barely conscious of the fact that it was she who saw, and the moon that was being watched. In the same way, she did not measure how much she loved the bear. She was the bear.

Likewise, Rhaskos's interactions with Grau/Phoibe are so wonderfully tender, my heart aches just to think back on them. From the moment he renames her (grau means hag) - a change of name that's much more respectful than those Rhaskos was forced to accept - Rhaskos treats his donkey charge with decency and kindness. The same kindness that he himself longs for.

Animals know when things get better. People might not know, but animals do. That very first day, Grau knew I was going to be good to her and I swear to you, she was glad.

Cue the "what is this salty discharge" gifs.

AMBER AND CLAY is such a beautiful story, and I'm glad I took a chance on it. Iambic pentameter be damned.      

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3861642614 

[mdwatchestv]

The Magicians 3x09: The Musical

Last week The Magicians brought us a collection of magical vignettes, stepping outside regular television story-telling structure to further the plot in an inventive way. As I talked about last week, one of The Magicians greatest strengths is it's ability to continually reinvent and reimagine itself. If you have ever made it to the fifth season of a drama, you will understand this is a vital (and rare) ability. But one outside of the box episode was not enough for The Magicians, oh no, for this week it gave us something just as special. Last season we were treated to the surprise One Day More sequence, as Margo summoned a spontaneous musical interlude to serve as a pep-talk for Eliot. I remember my sheer delight at watching that scene unfold, the feeling of "Is this really happening? Are they really doing this? Are we going full Les Mis??" It was, they were, and we did.

This season the writer's decided not to let the Fillorians have all the fun, and topped last year’s paltry ONE musical number, with an episode jam-packed with song, dance, and even a bit of burlesque. At the beginning of this episode we rejoin our magical friends already in progress with their various crises. Penny is trapped back at the Library, Eliot and Margo have been sentenced to death in a Fillorian peasant overthrow, Julia and Fen are grappling with their horrific fairy powder revelation, Victoria and Harriet are likely dead, and everyone else is hanging out with Quentin.  With key #4 retrieved from the Underworld, the Book of the Seven Keys reveals the next chapter, which happens to be sheet music. Honestly I had been wondering how long it was going to take them to delve fully into key/key pun territory. I was not disappointed.

Musically minded Kady is able to play the notes correctly, transporting her, Quentin, and Alice into a an alternate party universe! This brightly-lit version of the Physical Kid's House is filled with party people, a rather domineering Todd, and presided over by Josh (who we have not seen in quite a while). I would like to point out that even though none of the other Magicians have noticed Josh has been missing from the show for weeks, I 100% did. Always here for you Hoberman. Even though everything seems happy and musical, and there is even magic (!) something is definitely rotten in the house of physical kids. For starters, any deviation from the good vibes results in an intense stare down, which escalates to an even more intense physical beating. While Kady distracts Todd and the rest of the party crew with a sultry strip number (that I was LIVING for), Quentin and Alice confront Josh about just WTF is going on here. Josh for his part has been trying to get in contact with the main Magicians crew for weeks, but after being continually rebuffed and abandoned, turned back to his party ways in order to numb the pain. Supes relatable. His particular sensitivity to abandonment stems from an incident in his youth when he and his brother were supposed to see David Bowie together, but instead his brother ditched him in order to take a girl instead (bummersville). With a chip on his shoulder, and an affinity for partying, Josh is more than a little reluctant to help his former comrades.

Meanwhile back in the real world, Julia convinces Fen that the two of them need to help Skye. Fen is conflicted, her hatred of all fairy kind butting up against  her strong morale sense of justice. Eventually she agrees to help, and Julia comes up with a plan to teach Skye that she is magical, and not a helpless creature. With Fen's help, Julia is able to get Skye in touch with her inner mojo, but Skye immediately begins to bleed from all of her face holes! Evil Jaime Ray Newman has forced Skye to wear a necklace triggered to kill her if she attempts magic. Real dick move. However just as Skye seems doomed to a bloody ooze death, Julia freezes her in time with golden magic from her eyes!

Speaking of life and death, over in Fillory Margo and Eliot have been sentenced to death in their Trial by Wombat. I found that joke HILARIOUS and I am still tittering about it. Get it guys, wombats! Sorry, sorry. Margo and Eliot select death by infinite waterfall, as infinite suggests there will be more time for a dramatic rescue/escape (seems like they have seen the show). However on board the Muntjac on the way to the falls, there is a shocking Tick Pickwick twist. Appearing as the loyal servant all these many...however long they have been in Fillory.... Tick has really been waiting for his moment to strike back against his monarchs. Citing a constant stream of incompetent Children of Earth rulers (I mean, he's not wrong) Tick wants to rule a Fillory for Fillorians (again not so bad), but he also wants to push my beloved Eliot and Margo over a waterfall and THAT is simply unforgivable. Commanding the Muntjac to go to the Infinite Waterfall, he leaves our fabulous forever friends to confront their pasts and attempt to make peace with their imminent doom.

Back on the ranch, Alice, Q, and Kady discover the 5th key in the back of a piano. Get it, key. Upon touching it a neon sign lights up pointing to this "world's" exit. Handy! But Q won't leave without Josh, who is now being beaten to death. This is when our heroes discover they can all hear one another! It's unifying, it's electrifying, it's the UNITY KEY! This was quite a nice way to get the whole gang back together again, as we haven't seen our core group all in one place in a long LONG time. Possibly not even since season 1 since Julia has been such an outlier (correct me if I'm wrong, I also have a goldfish memory). And what do they do once reunited in such a way? Why use the opportunity to sing Under Pressure of course! This magical melody winds up saving the day for Josh by healing his David Bowie-related abandonment issues, spurs Julia's god-eye magic to save Skye, and even propels the Muntjac over the waterfall - and INTO THE AIR. I am a liar if I said my heart did not grow three sizes when I saw that majestic Margo-loving boat take to the sky. Bless.

The musical key puzzle cracked, "Todd" reveals himself to be a middle-aged German fun-demon (because of course). He also reveals though that someone put him up to setting up this particular puzzle for Q and co. This implies the quests are not simply problems to solve in the world, but rather specifically tailored trials for our magicians. Curiouser and curiouser. The episode also left a number of other pleasing questions over which to mull. What will Eliot and Margo do now that they have dodged death and now live on an intelligent flying ship? Knock a Tick Pickwick out, that's for damn sure. How powerful IS Julia now exactly? Her increasing abilities have been hinted at all season, but the power to stop and reverse time and death is a whole ‘notha level. Also now that she's saved a fairy, will she be the one to perhaps bring peace, or at least broker a better deal, for Fillory? Meanwhile Penny is just chillin' re-shelving at the Underworld Library. Carry on.

With only two keys left to go what could tonight's episode possibly hold in store??!? I hope Queen.

XO MD

[the-knights-who-say-book]

Girls made of snow, language made of thorns, and putting ourselves back in the narrative

I’ve had some ideas swirling around my head ever since I finished reading Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust that condensed while I was reading Leigh Bardugo’s short story collection The Language of Thorns, so I want to talk about it a little.

It started with the realization that Girls made of Snow, while it is a Snow White retelling (or perhaps better called a reimagining), completely leaves out the whole seven dwarves part of the story. In my review, I pointed this out as something I liked — the story didn’t need to sidetrack there, and it kept us focused on the real core of the story: Lynet’s relationship with her stepmother, Mina. Lynet being Snow White, Mina is the Evil Queen.

The book alternates chapters between Lynet’s present day and Mina’s journey from the daughter of a sorcerer to the bride of Lynet’s father, making Mina the second main character. This is where the book’s “feminist fantasy reimagining” tagline comes in. The point of Bashardoust’s story is to explore the stepmother-daughter relationship and how they could come into conflict without it being about who is the fairest of them all.

The point of tension Bashardoust goes for is about politics and power, a much more satisfying reason than “well, women get angry when another woman is prettier, that’s all”. But the framework of Snow White also gives her plenty of room to work with how women’s appearances and age are seen and judged. What if Lynet’s beauty binds her to her dead mother in a way that strangles her, while Mina struggles with knowing her beauty gains her what respect she commands and aging could steal it away? The commentary that emerges isn’t new — I think we all realize how damaging the value placed on women’s appearances is — but using the cultural touchstone of Snow White makes this version powerful. It’s probably my favorite thing about the book, even above giving Lynet a female love interest, which is something we’re going to circle back to.

Consider, for example, Mina’s power to control glass. The idea of giving a woman who is forced to care about her beauty the power to make looking glasses into weapons (the power to control what controls her in the original story) has an inherent message that’s only as powerful as it is because the iconography of Snow White is so well known to Bashardoust’s audience. That’s why she can give us a handful of Snow White parallels and then leave out one of the biggest story points and still have us understand the commentary she’s making. The messages are built in; she doesn’t have to build them first in order to tear them down. They’re already there.

Because we know fairytales. Reference Cinderella’s slipper, Sleeping Beauty’s spindle, or Snow White’s glass coffin and you can easily call up a whole set of values, assumptions, and feelings with hardly another word. Our reservoir of shared stories (consider also the Greek myths) is essentially a resource for writers who want to make it obvious they’re subverting our cultural mores. It’s shorthand for “Society is fucked up, hold my beer and watch this”. It’s a way of making subtle commentary in an... obvious manner? It’s a unique way of balancing obvious and subtle; it’s the equivalent of roadsigns you only need to glance at to know that you’re driving towards; it’s an ocean of potential stories waiting to be overturned. The ability of writers to take any of these classic objects or situations and drop them into their stories and immediately add a whole slew of connected ideas is fascinating to me. It’s magical.

Which brings us to The Language of Thorns. The collection isn’t exactly labeled “retold/reimagined faiytales” anywhere (it’s a collection of stories that would be read to children in her Grishaverse), but Bardugo says in her author’s note, “That unease [with the ending of Hansel and Gretel] has guided me through these stories […] The more I listened to that note of warning, the more inspiration I found.” The stories indeed feature a retelling of Hansel and Gretel, a prequel to The Little Mermaid, and a reimagining of The Nutcracker.

In one of my gleeful posts as I read the book I ended up gushing that “by writing her own fairytales [Leigh Bardugo] gets to play with our expectations, because we get all the references to our own stories — gingerbread houses, labyrinths holding monsters, clever talking animals — so we have a false sense of security that we know where it’s all going, and then she treats the ending of the stories more like writing a novel and adds more complexity than we expect of stories like Cinderella or Hansel and Gretel” and yes I’m going to quote myself in my own essay-thing because I still think that was a good reaction.

The first story of the collection, Ayama and the Thornwood, makes Bardugo’s intentions clear when the main character literally retells three different tales with improved endings to satisfy the boredom of a beast who finds fairytales too predictable and unrealistic. So it’s, you know, meta.

There’s an excitement there, in reading the fairytales you (sort of) know with their seams torn open to make room for you, stitched into something new. In Bardugo’s stories, the Grimm brothers’ female villains are reexamined, blame is shifted, new ideas are put forward (not all connected to feminism, but the treatment of Hansel and Gretel and The Little Mermaid’s villains, and the creation of a new female villain in Bardugo’s The Too-Clever Fox, make a clear argument about the roles women are given in our fairytales).

This is a nice connection to Girls Made of Snow and Glass: the deeper treatment of women’s motives that make familiar tales new. I’m almost disappointed The Language of Thorns didn’t include a Snow White story to compare and contrast with.

But let’s circle back to Lynet’s love interest in Girls Made of Snow: Nadia, the castle physician. It was the promise of a gay Snow White that drew me to the story, and it’s still a wonderful aspect of the book. Putting women into slots reserved for men is almost always a breath of fresh air, especially when the rest of the story isn’t then adjusted to keep it heterosexual. One reason is because it eliminates the “man always saving the woman” aspect by making it one woman saving another — consider Nadia filling the prince’s role in awakening Lynet from her coffin, and the female river spirit of Little Knife winning the hand in marriage of the beautiful girl. But of course the major reason is getting to see non-heterosexual people in fairytales.

We don’t get this when we’re younger. At least, I didn’t, though I hope that starts changing for kids now. So to read stories where the women love women, where men can love men and women (to reference The Language of Thorns specifically, since we get a bisexual protagonist in one story and a wlw couple in another) feels like — to quote a certain musical — putting ourselves back in the narrative. I can’t change the stories I was read when I was little, but I can (we all can) read the stories that are slowly but surely filling up goodreads’ “lgbt retellings” shelves.

(Possibly it’s weird to use the phrase “putting ourselves back in the narrative” when I’m actually not sure about either author’s sexuality, but this is mostly about the perception of queer readers getting queer retellings anyway. If I read Julia Heslin’s Once more recently I would have loved to add something about her version of reimagining queer fairytales but it’s been a bit too long for it to be fresh in my mind.)

“I put myself back in the narrative” isn’t a flawless parallel for other reasons as well. After all, the whole point about “Eliza and the narrative” is that she took herself out of it in the first place, and then put herself back in. The first action was as much an act of power as the undoing, and queer people never took ourselves out of fairytales in the first place (I don’t think that’s really a thing that happened, anyway). But I couldn’t get that line out of my head as I thought about this, so it seems like the right way to end this ramble.

When we put ourselves back in our narratives, when we tell our touchstone stories with us included, it’s automatically a powerful statement that we belong there. So yes, while this has mostly been me trying to figure out how to say “we all recognize fairytale elements at such an essential level that it gives authors an amazing tool to work with to make their works more nuanced and gives them a basis to build social commentary on”, I want to end this with the point that works created with these tools, narratives constructed on these foundations, are so liberating and important and wonderful because they not only make use of our childhood tales but tell us we belong there.

[densi-mber]

Sneaky Pyromaniac Monkeys

A Densi-mber Drabble 

by Psyched

“Leave it, we’ll clean up later,” Kensi insisted as Julia and Bertie tried to rinse off their dinner plates.

“We, angel?” Deeks teased.

“Okay, maybe I’m hoping for a Christmas miracle and we’ll find everything washed and put away when we wake up in the morning.”

“There’s a better chance of Monty licking the dishes clean and burying them in the backyard overnight than Santa and the reindeer straightening up, Ms. Claus,” Deeks said as they settled in the living room and he topped off the ladies’ wine glasses.  “Everything was delicious, Moms.  You two are goddesses in the kitchen, I don’t think I’ve ever had a better Christmas Eve meal.”  He popped open another beer for himself, realizing he’d had more than his fair share of holiday libation tonight.  But it seemed to do the trick, as it really had been a nice evening with their parental units.  Even better because Guy was out of town visiting his own grown children.

Kensi smiled at their mothers, “You know, the first time you guys met, when we were trying to get you to come out to a restaurant for Christmas dinner and you both wanted to cook, Deeks didn’t think it was a good idea to have you share a kitchen.  I for one knew it would work out beautifully.”

“Wow, sugar plum, way to throw me under the bus.”

“In all fairness, it would have been awkward that first year, considering we’d just met,” Julia conceded. “But after all the time we’ve spent together since then, Bertie and I have become good friends and it’s a treat to cook beside her.”

Bertie held up her wine glass, “Here’s to something good coming out of Kensi’s coma.  Aside from Kensi, of course.”

They all toasted, and Kensi kept her glass aloft.  “And to spending the holiday with family.”

Bertie jumped on that opening.  “Speaking of family, when will you two be adding to yours?  Julia and I aren’t getting any younger, you know, and we’d like to spend time together doing more than cooking.  Maybe visit a hospital for something good for a change, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.”

“I think you need to put that glass down and keep it there, Mama,” Deeks told her.  Apparently he wasn’t the only one who’d had too much to drink tonight.  Not that Crazy Bertie wouldn’t have made that same statement when perfectly sober.

“Maybe you should set a wedding date first,” Julia suggested.

“Nah, I already told them they didn’t need to wait for that.  It’s not like either one of them is going anywhere, they’re so in love,” Bertie replied.

“That’s true, but we’re thinking we’ll try this the traditional way: wedding first, kids some time after that,” Kensi said.

Julia was thrilled to have confirmation that they were still planning to have children, “You’ll be wonderful parents.”

“Well, heaven knows with all your secret agent experience, you’re ready for it if yours end up as rambunctious as Martin here.”

“Thanks for the love, Mama. You sure you’re not trying to talk us out of having kids?”

“Aww, come on.  You know I love you,” she reached across the coffee table pat his cheek.  “But do you remember the Christmas you were eight?”

“You’ll never let me live that down, will you?” Deeks said.

“I should have realized then you’d make a living snooping into other people’s lives.  Good thing you seem to have gotten better at it.”

“What happened?” Kensi asked.

“Your fiancé couldn’t wait for Christmas to open his presents.  About a week before, I heard noises in the middle of the night and thought someone had broken in.  I crept out of my room with a hardcover book as a weapon only to find this one had snuck into my bedroom closet while I was asleep and pilfered all the presents. He’d unwrapped them, took inventory, and was trying to re-wrap them when I found him.”

Kensi and Julia laughed.

“Oh, no,” Julia said.

“Except he didn’t realize until it was too late that he had no idea how to wrap a gift.  He had more tape, glue, and paper on himself than on any one box.  Every roll of wrapping paper was completely unrolled and strewn around the living room, and half of it somehow ended up stuck to the walls.”

“Glue?” Kensi managed to ask.

“I was desperate!” Deeks shrugged.  “I needed to know if those were the same presents that would supposedly be from Santa.”

“Lucky for both of us your father was at the bar.”

“I may not have known how to wrap a present at that tender age, but I knew enough to wait until the old man was gone to pull a stunt like that.”

Wanting to keep the conversation light, Julia shared, “You know, Kensi could be pretty sneaky too when she was curious about something.  We used to decorate our tree a few weeks before Christmas, but we always put the star on top after Kensi was asleep on Christmas Eve.  Don told her it only appeared then because it was full of the spirit of Christmas.”

Deeks grinned, “I can see where this is going.”

“One year, I think Kensi must have been about four, shortly after Don and I went to bed, we heard a huge crash.  We ran into the living room to find the tree toppled over and Kensi inside it.  Seems our little angel wanted to see the spirit of Christmas up close, so she moved all the gifts out of the way, crawled under the tree, and tried to climb up from the inside, where the branches were thickest.”

Deeks burst out laughing and turned to his blushing bride-to-be, “We are so going to have to tie our kids into their beds every night in December!”

“And take the knobs off the stove,” Julia advised.  “I think she was eleven when she almost burned the house down because the rule was that we didn’t open presents until after a family breakfast.  Kensi thought she’d work around that by waking us up with the aroma of French toast at three in the morning.”

Kensi took over, “Instead it was the smell of burnt bread and eggs that did the trick.  And it just got very smoky; I didn’t even come close to starting an actual fire, Mom.”

“Yeah, she was saving that up for after we moved in together,” Deeks joked, knocking Kensi’s shoulder with his own.

“Right, because you don’t drive Kensi nuts with your obsession about the Christmas lights, Martin,” his mother said.

“What?  What are you talking about?  Kensalina appreciates the appealing appearance of our Christmas lights.”

Kensi said, “You mean with all the,” Bertie chimed in and said with her future daughter-in-law, “clean angles and smooth lines?”

“Go ahead and mock me, but we have the best-looking house on the block.”

“You ought to after all the time you spent practicing hanging those damned lights inside the house year-round.  Not to mention climbing all over things like an ape because you didn’t want to use a ladder.”  Bertie looked at Julia, “With your monkey and mine as parents, our grandkids will be primed to join a travelling circus.”

“Nice, mom,” Deeks reproached.

Chuckling, Kensi said, “Things make so much sense now.”

“Honey,” Julia said slyly, “I have to apologize for saying you nearly set fire to the house that Christmas morning.  I was wrong. It was during one Hanukkah that you were practically a pyromaniac.”

“Okay, Mom, you’re cut off too,” Kensi moved Julia’s glass away from her.

“No, I want to hear this,” Deeks encouraged.

“There’s nothing to hear. I brought the menorah outside during the day to try to light the candles with a magnifying glass,” Kensi defended.

“And when that didn’t work…?” Julia prompted.

“Wait, let me guess!” Deeks all but shouted.  “She tried flint and steel, a stick and shoestring, and a battery and steel wool.”  He could read on Kensi’s face that he was exactly right, so he put his arm around her and kissed her cheek, “Props to you for keeping the fire outside the house, baby.”

Bertie loudly cleared her throat and glared at her son.  Deeks’ smile quickly faded.  Catching on, Kensi said, “Oh ho ho!  Deeks set fire to something, didn’t he?!  In the house! What happened?” She looked between her fiancé and his mother.

“Martin was eleven when that movie Home Alone came out and he was convinced someone was going to break in and steal his Christmas presents since his father was out of the house for good by then.  He borrowed a blowtorch from that delinquent Ray’s garage and rigged it to ignite if someone came in the back door.”

“It would have worked too if Mama hadn’t made me take it down.”

Kensi laughed her scary laugh and the family stared at her.  Once she regained her composure, she ruffled Deeks hair and explained, “You sound like every villain at the end of Scooby Doo, Shaggy.”  

Julia teased, “Well, they’ll be a handful, but at least your kids will be beautiful to look at while they get into all that trouble.”

“Oh yeah,” Bertie said. “Those good looks and the well-practiced ability to feign innocence will keep you two on your toes for sure.”

“That’s it,” Kensi threw up her hands.  “I’m not raising any sneaky pyromaniac monkeys.  Thanks Moms, you’ve talked me out of giving you grandchildren.”

“I’m with my ladybird on this one,” Deeks agreed, taking one of Kensi’s hands in his own.  “Sneaky pyromaniac monkeys don’t sound nearly as cool as mutant ninja assassins.”

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a twist,” Bertie said.  “You know it’s not all bad.  There’s also plenty of good about having high-spirited and clever children.”

“Such as?” Deeks asked.

Bertie was quick with an answer.  “You had so much energy you were super excited about pretty much anything.  I could have given you an empty coffee tin for Christmas and you would have found about a dozen different ways to play with it.”

Deeks looked at her askance, “You did give me a coffee tin one year.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t a gift or anything,” his mother waved him off.  “Just something to keep you busy for a while.”

“Kensi, you were just as well-occupied with any reading material about the Marines or whatever base we were living on.  You really were quite easy growing up,” Julia said sincerely.

“I wouldn’t give back a second of it.  Even though he may have been a little devil at times, my Martin was all heart,” Bertie said.

“He still is,” Kensi added, squeezing Deeks’ hand.

Eying her son, Bertie asked, “Do you remember when you were in seventh grade and you got caught doing other kids’ homework for money?”  The woman’s eyes misted as she turned to Kensi and Julia and explained, “He wanted to buy me something really special for Christmas.”

Julia exclaimed, “Oh my goodness!  Kensi was in fourth grade when she did the same thing, only it was so she could buy more presents for the Marines’ Toys for Tots drive!”

The foursome hadn’t finished laughing when Deeks furrowed his brows in thought.  “So I was twelve and you would have been, what, nine?  That happened the same Christmas, Kens!”

“I guess great minds really do think alike,” Kensi said, leaning into Deeks to give him a quick kiss.

Bertie stood up and toyed with her phone.  “And on that note, I think it’s time to hit the road.  What do you say, Julia, should we leave these two great minds to their baby-making?”

“Or wedding planning, whichever they prefer,” Julia said.

“Perfect, there’s a Lyft less than ten minutes from here.  I’ll drop you off on the way home.”

Fifteen minutes later, Deeks locked the door behind their mothers as Kensi set the alarm.  Putting his arm around Kensi’s waist and making their way toward the bedroom, Deeks asked, “So did they really change your mind about having kids?”

“Nah.  But I know one thing for sure.”

“What’s that?”

“The moment our kid starts to crawl, we need to put security cameras in every room and the perimeter of the house, linked to our phones,” Kensi suggested.

“Obviously.  And taking the knobs off the stove probably isn’t a bad idea either.”

“We can do that now as far as I’m concerned,” Kensi half-joked.  “Oh, and we should probably only ever live in a single-story house. No telling what havoc our kids could wreak with stairs and a high roof.”

“Done,” Deeks agreed, yawning.  “And maybe we can get our hands on a lifetime supply of Overwatch spray…”

[lowcarbnutrients]

Coming Clean on Cleansing

After a winter season of being an overall sloth that wrapped up with excessive Easter benefits, I intended to begin the week (and spring, if it would ever before get here) with a cleanse. The strategy was easy: follow the recommendations of the item I had actually decided to sustain my clean, lose the puffed up sensation as well as at the very least 5 pounds, as well as boast to everybody that I had actually simply done a cleanse!

The cleanse I had actually selected to do dictated that I invest the first 3 days consuming only these protein/probiotic shakes plus as much veggie broth as well as water I desired. Days 4-7 incorporated one low-carb dish, as well as the second week implied just drinking the shakes for breakfast. Easy peasy, right?

Of program, this is not how points went down. A short timeline of

Karen's First Cleanse

Pre-day 1:

- Go out for all-you-can-eat sushi. What? It's been a lengthy long-weekend, and also I didn't wish to cook. Plus, duh - clean the following day. I had to replenish my store of spicy dynamite roll memories.

- Feeling ill from all the sushi. Rally to prepare the following day's veggie brew.

- Understand I do not have carrots, cauliflower, parsnips, or any other veggie suitable for soup, really. Prepare onion brew.

- Falling asleep sensation pumped and also all set for my cleanse.

Day 1:

8am

- Wake up sensation wonderful. Evaluate self. Scowl.

- Prepare first shake. Damn, the powder won't actually dissolve as well as the floaty little bits won't quit drifting. Mix. And also mix. And mix. As well as stir.

- Taste.

- Retch.

- Add cinnamon (permitted) as well as vanilla extract (permitted) and also maple syrup (banned).

- Taste.

- Better, however still chalk-dusty, like when a lump of flour does not obtain integrated right into the muffin batter.

- Drink. Feel invincible.

10am

- Pour brew into thermos as well as go out with five-year-old to mother-daughter food preparation class.

- Today's theme is Dairy. That's ok, I think as I pat my reliable thermos, I don't much like dairy.

- We are sampling cheese. I don't much like cheese.

- Except goat's milk cheese. Yum. Pass.

- And Brie. Deep breath. Pass

- Pass on the chocolate soy milk.

- And the make-your-own quesadillas.

- And the make-your-own smoothies.

- Sip my onion brew with a smile as the scent of quesadillas assaults my cleansing nostrils.

- Swear that the guac and salsa are mocking me.

- Get from there asap. Say no to earning the bonus.

2pm

- Oh god, I'm hungry.

2:15pm

- More bloody broth.

2:30pm

- Watch TELEVISION to distract myself. Just things on are The Chew, Food Preparation with Julia, Lydia's Italy in The U.S.A. as well as America's Test Kitchen.

- Cry a cry that cannot be heard over the roar of my belly.

- More disgusting onion broth.

- Head to the net for a far better disturbance.

- Wonder why EVERYBODY IS POSTING ABOUT FOOD TODAY.

3pm

- Get older youngster from college. She is hungry.

- Spend 45 mins preparing one treat after an additional for my ravished children.

- Start to ask yourself why I am suffering in this manner.

- Begin to ponder the idea of suffering as well as the injustice of a society that would certainly make me believe I have to suffer to come to be acceptable using fat burning.

- Think regarding the Jews that roamed the desert. They would certainly not want me to experience.

4pm

- Eat a banana. Healthy!

- No longer feel like I desire to pass away.

4:30pm

- Eat a vegan healthy protein bite. Healthy!

- No longer seem like I wish to experience for an oppressive society.

6:30pm

- Prepare a healthy and balanced, low-carb dish. Choose that tidy, healthy eating is the means to go. Say goodbye to clean! But this I can do! Healthy and balanced, low-carb consuming I can do!

7pm

- Eat the last of the homemade dessert sitting at the rear of the fridge.

10pm

- Get ready for bed early as a great night's rest + healthy, clean consuming is comparable to a foolish clean.

- Chatter to other half regarding why I have chosen not to proceed the oppressive, misogynistic cleanse.

- Husband admire my sense of socio-political justice and also my outstanding will-power. He wonders if I had thought regarding exactly what privilege is as well as regarding that I could not go also one mid-day really feeling the pang of appetite.

- Decide that I would certainly instead read than chatter to husband.

12:30am

- Finally shut off the light and also falling asleep.

Day 2:

- Eat a bagel and also lotion cheese from Tim Horton's. Clean officially over!

Anybody desire to get a can of protein shake mix?

[joyofcrime-elinorhigh]

Powerpuff Grils 2016 REVIEW: Part 1

So for those who are somehow unaware, the Powerpuff Girls has recently gotten a new rebooted series that premiered on Cartoon Network on April 4th 2016. People's opinions have been varied on the series, some people say it's worse that Hitler, while other people are saying that it's worse than the illegitimate lovechild of Hitler and some kind of eviler Super-Hitler. Okay, before you kill I'm obviously joking, but yeah people really REALLY hate this reboot! People are comparing it to Teen Titans Go! While I agree with some of the criticism made I feel people are being a bit...harsh on the reboot. And if you don't like the series I get it. I understand why people wouldn't like this show, it has serious problems. I'm not going to call you hater or anything if you don't like this show. I just want to give my opinion because everybody seems to have unanimously decided that this show is bad and somebody has to have the unpopular opinion. If nobody does then the majority opinion will be seen as fact, and I believe that there is always pros and cons to any piece of art. All I ask is that you don't hate me to much for having this opinion. I'll respect you and you respect me, and if you have some thoughts about the reboot leave it in the comments bellow, I would love to have a  civil discussion about it. Also I will be breaking this review up into multiple parts because have a lot I want to talk about. And if you don't want to read something this long that's fine, but if you like deep analyses about a cartoon for children and watching some idiot try to be insightful and funny than strap on in and get ready, this is my Review of the 2016 Powerpuff Girls Reboot. Point One: The Talent Behind the Show. It must suck to be Craig McCracken. According to the man himself Cartoon Network did approach him to be in charge of the reboot but he declined because of him contract with Disney. Than Wander Over Yonder ends and he's out of a job and has to watch commercials for the new Powerpuff Girls show, that could of been his new job but he said no. This isn't even I joke I kind of feel bad for him. Anyway on to the point, a lot of people where angry that Craig McCracken is not in charge of the reboot, saying that without the original creator of the show the series cannot be good, as the 98' series dropped in quality according to most fans after he left the show after season four to work on Foster's. I understand this argument but I disagree with it. This show is a reboot. Now everyone has a different internal definition of what is and isn't a reboot, but to me a reboot is when you take the same characters but set the story in a new universe, while changing the details of the show to fit a new tone or style. In my opinion getting Craig McCracken back to remake his own show doesn't make much sense because he most likely wouldn't make the show that different form the 98' series. Craig McCracken may have created the girls but personally I would mind seeing some new talented artist put there own spin on the property. Powerpuff Girls has always been a franchise, remember Powerpuff Girls Z? People are getting so mad at this reboot and it's not even the only reboot. People seem to only care about who isn't working on the show in stead of focusing on who is. This show has some good people being it, such as Bob Boyle who worked on "Clarance" and created "Wow Wow Wubzy", Nick Jenning's who was an art director on "Adventure Time", and painted many of the title cards, and Julia Vickman the creator of the popular pilot "12 Forever." While Craig McCracken has criticized the show for not getting the original voice cast back, and criticized a few bad looking shots he has given this show his blessing, at least according to voice of the Mayor himself, Tom Kenny. I mean it's possible Tom Kenny was lying and Craig McCracken doesn't approve of the show but I see no reason to assume this. And speaking of the voice cast... Point Two: The Voice Cast. I'm going to be honest, I'm a little disappointed in the choice of voice cast, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think. I think they should of changed more. I was hoping for a fresh, new interpretation of the characters of the Powerpuff Girls universe, but in stead we're just getting the same voices we already got for six seasons. And if you wanted the old actors back that's fine, I understand why. The old show had an all star cast of great voice actors but for me and what I was looking for I was a little let down. What I kind of don't get though is why everybody is mad at the new voice actors when there are only a few new voices and 90% of the cast are people from the original series, but whatever. I don't mind the new voices for the girls honestly, I mean there not great but I wouldn't call them bad. Kristen Li is probably my favorite of the new voice actress, as she just has a really cute voice. Though I will admit she can't really yell very well in the Bubbles voice, which makes things kind of awkward when things are suppose to be intense or if she's suppose to be angry. Haley Mancini is a lot less whiny in her version of Princess, whether or not that's a plus or not is up to you. Jennifer Hale is now Miss Bellum and she seems about the same as Jennifer Martin, at least to me. There's a lot controversy over the original actresses for the girls not being called back to reprise there roles. While I find weird that everybody except them was called back I just don't feel like this is a big issue. They've talked about how there mad that they weren't even offered there old roles back but why should they automatically get first dibs? Just because they voiced them in the old show? They don't own the characters, and on the matter of Bubbles Tara Strong wasn't even the ORIGINAL voice, Kath Soucie was (She voiced Bubbles in the pilot, technically making her the ORIGINAL voice.) I mean just because an old cast member is still willing to reprise a role doesn't mean they always get it, and they way they seemed so angry about it on social media just seems weird to me. I mean it's not like when Ben Affleck was announced to voice Batman in "Batman v Superman" Christian  Bale went on twitter was all like "Well, I didn't order a stab in the heart today!" It would be like if in the upcoming "Justice League Action" people where angry that they didn't get Adam West back to voice Batman. I mean he was the original voice of animated Batman and he still does voice acting. I don't want to be mean to these actors, as they did pretty much voice my childhood, I just really don't understand why these actors seemed to think they deserved first dibs on this show. If you wanted the old cast back I'm not bashing you at all, I would never do that. They are great voice actors, I just feel like this whole controversy was handled very unprofessionally (But what the heck do I know?) Point Three: The Animation. I want to make it clear here that I'm not going to just blindly praise everything in this show. If I did that I would lose all my credibility as a critic and I've only had that credibility for four paragraphs so far. Anyway back on point I think the animation has it's advantages and it's disadvantages. The colors are really bright and the girls are particular in this version which makes things even brighter. This is actually a flaw to the show, at least for me, because it can often come off as to bright. That being said scene at night or with special lighting makes things look really awesome! The dark colors contrast the bright colors and looks really good. It feels like the writers knows this because a lot of episodes seem to take place at night, or in the rain, or with some kind of special lighting, so they do work to there strengths. Now that being said that doesn't mean the animation is always good. If you look online you will see a lot of awkward shots of off model animation or janked up perspectives. I don't mind this two much as there usually on screen for less than a second but technically speaking it's not very good,. Granted a lot of shows have animation errors, but this series seems to have a lot more than other shows Cartoon Network out there. My theory is that it's because it's a lot of modern animators with 90's character designs and they don't know how to draw in that style as well as they would a modern style. There's also one scene where they use a live action stock photo as a background and while that is bad, especially sense it wasn't even treated like a joke it was only one joke and it was in a dream scene where things are suppose to look off. It's not like in Teen Titans Go! Where they use stock photos as backgrounds all the time, so I don't feel like it's anything to get that worked up about. The designs of the characters are pretty much the same as the old show except more circular. Bubbles has scrunches now, which I like because now there's an actual reason on why and how Bubbles has her pigtails. Buttercup has a cow lick and Blossoms bow is bigger, but those differences are so small I'm not even sure if there worth talking about in detail. I like the changes, again I wish they altered the designs more, especially with the villains. I mean look how different the characters look in each TMNT or Batman incarnation. Now the biggest problem with the animation is that for some reason the animation is really slow. I don't get why as the theme song music video has some of the most fluid animation I've ever seen in a Cartoon Network series. This slow animation really hinders the action sequences and I really hope this improves in later episodes. I mean some fight scene look good but it could definitely use some work. The impact of the punches just don't feel like they have the same amount of weight as they should and it makes the girls feel a lot less strong than in the old show. Granted this show focuses on the fight scenes a lot less than in the old series but I still think it's a pretty big problem. And that is part one of my multi-part Powerpuff Girl reboot series review. I know I haven't really talked much about the show yet but other people have been talking about these points for months and I just wanted to give my opinions on what other people have been saying. If you disagree with my point that's fine, I'm not try to convince people to agree with me, I just want to show a new view point, and show that not everyone has to like or hate something for the same reasons. I hope that even if you disagree with me you still found this review entertaining. What do you think of the new reboot? I would love to know in the comments (as long as we can keep it civil.) Part two should be up soon, where I'll talk about the show proper. Please Fav, follow and comment if you liked this review and tell me if you would want me to do more of these. Since I can do this all on my tablet it would not effect Elinor High or Joy of Crime in anyway as of right now. And if you like things like this maybe check out some episodes of my Cartoon Thought series (sorry if I may have repeated some things from my Reboot Cartoon Thought and my PPG Cartoon Thought, but I feel it was kind of inevitable.

DA Link: https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/Powerpuff-Girls-2016-REVIEW-Part-1-602969689

[sakurablossomstorm-blog]

Bringing up Baby.

Here’s another drabble to accompany my new ‘Little Wonders’ series! Here we get a little backstory of Ben having to raise Zoey by himself.

Also on a03

~~

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Ben tried to soothe the crying baby and rocked her against his chest.

But it wasn’t ok. Nothing was ok. Because Jessica had walked out on them. The cries from baby Zoey weren’t cries of hunger or the need for a clean diaper. They were for her mother.

Ben’s mind reeled as he desperately tried to calm Zoey. But he kept thinking about Jessica, and how she abandoned them, didn’t want anything to do with him or the baby. Not even her parents could convince her to stay.

Jessica had left behind just two bottles of breast milk. Not enough to keep Zoey happy for a day. Ben knew he’d have to go to the store to buy baby formula, but he couldn’t bear to step outside and have people coo over Zoey, telling him that he and his wife must be so proud.

Because Jessica didn’t care. Her senses clouded by postnatal depression.

How could she leave her? He didn’t understand how someone could just walk out on someone so tiny and helpless.

Zoey wailed louder and Ben hugged her closer to his chest.

“It’s okay” Ben whispered to the baby again, trying to focus on anything else but the tears falling down his face. “It’s going to be ok.”

~~

“Trust me, we’ve got it all under control,” Henry said as he ushered Ben towards his bedroom. Cathy, his wife, was cradling Zoey and swaying her to the side.

Ben tried to resist. “But what if she needs feeding, and you have Georgia?”

“Georgia is having a girls only sleepover with Steph, so we are spending the night here to relieve you,” Henry told him. “Come on, Benji, up to bed.”

Ben looked over his shoulder to Cathy. “She has this cry and when she does it, it means she wants her pacifier.”

“Georgia made every weird sound in the book, trust me, Ben, we’ll look after her,” Cathy said softly as she carried on rocking Zoey.

“But what if-”

“Oh for crying out loud it’s like having to deal with two children,” Henry snapped. “Up to bed, Wyatt. Come on.”

Henry marshalled Ben up to his room, ordering him into bed and closing the door behind him.

Ben flopped onto the bed weakly. He wasn’t going to sleep. Paternal instincts had taken over in full swing and he didn’t want anyone other than him looking after Zoey.

He wanted to be there for everything, just watching over her. It didn’t matter how exhausted he was or how his eyelids drooped. He wanted his daughter…

Ben wasn’t sure when he finally drifted off into a deep sleep, but next thing he knew, he was being poked awake by Henry.

“Rise and shine, buddy. You’ve been asleep for nearly 14 hours,” Henry told him as Ben sat up, rubbing his bleary eyes.

“Really?” Ben said, astounded. “God, I haven’t slept that long in ages.”

Henry patted his shoulder. “It takes it out of you, parenting.”

“How’s Zoey?” Ben asked quickly, a little alarmed that Henry didn’t bring her in.

“She’s fine, she’s asleep on Cathy. She was fine during the night too. Eating, sleeping and pooping just as she should be.”

That comment made Ben smile ever so slightly, and tears cloud his eyes. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this, Henry.”

Henry shifted on the bed and sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you, it’ll be hard. It’s never easy being a single parent. But you’ll cope. Me and Steph are going to take it in turns to watch each other’s kids so we can keep an eye on you if you need it. Mom’s on standby to come and stay with you for a week. Even Dad and Ulani are coming to see you next weekend to help out.”

He placed his hands on Ben’s shoulders and gripped them firmly. “You’re not alone on this Benji. You’ve got a kick-ass family behind you ready to help out.”

The tears started to fall, and Ben sniffed. “Thank you, Henry,” he whispered through his tears.

“Hey, it’s no problem. We’re happy to help. Zoey’s freaking adorable. If I’m honest, I think being here is making Cathy broody, so thank you for that,” Henry grinned at Ben.

Ben chuckled and wiped his eyes, just as there was a faint knock on the door. Cathy walked in with Zoey, who was fussing in her arms.

“Sorry to interrupt. I think she’s getting sick of me and wants her Daddy,” Cathy said as she made her way to Ben, handing him the infant.

Zoey stirred a little in his arms and made tiny bleating noises, before finally settling, curling against his chest and nestling into his shirt.

“Hi, Zoey,” Ben cooed softly. “We’re going to be okay, right? We’ve got this.”

Zoey didn’t respond, she just cooed against Ben’s shirt.

~~

“Dada.”

Ben looked down at Zoey who was in her playpen. “What did you say, Zo?” he asked, crouching down to her level. “Did you just say Dada?”

“Dada!” Zoey chattered again, and Ben’s heart swelled with pride.

“That’s it! Good girl, I’m your Daddy,” Ben said happily, about to scoop her into his arms when she turned, pointing at a lamp close by.

“Dada!”

“Wait. No that’s a lamp. I’m Dada,” Ben tried to explained.

“Dada!” Zoey said defiantly, pointing eagerly at the lamp.

Ben sighed and bowed his head in defeat. “Fine.”

~~

“I can’t believe how big she’s gotten,” Julia Wyatt said as she watched Zoey toddled across the floor into Ben’s waiting arms.

He pulled her up onto his lap. “I know. She’s growing so much. Anything I buy for her, she grows out of instantly.”

He kissed the toddler’s head, and Zoey clapped her hands happily.

“Covfefe!”

“What’s she saying?” Julia asked, leaning in, trying to get Zoey’s attention.

Ben just grinned. “I don’t know, I’m just putting that down to nonsensical baby babble.”

Julia chuckled, and reached out her arms. Zoey slid off Ben’s lap and slowly waddled towards her grandmother, grinning widely as she tried to keep her balance.

“That’s it, come to Grandma,” Julia cooed and lifted Zoey into her arms. “She looks just like you, Ben.”

Julia wasn’t just saying that. It was true. Zoey had brown hair that was growing longer by the day. She had brown eyes with a yellow tint to them and Ben’s nose.

He was sorry for that.

~~

Ben heard the patter of tiny feet, and sat up from his bed. He knew what this meant.

The door pushed open and Zoey came rushing in, tears streaming down her face as she hurried to Ben’s side.

“Daddy!” She sobbed. “Scary monsters.”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright, baby,” Ben soothed, tucking his arms under her and lifting her next to him in bed. “They can’t get you in here.”

Zoey’s eyes soon dried as she snuggled closer to Ben. “I sleep with you?” she questioned.

Ben grinned and wiped her cheeks. “Yes, you can sleep here.”

Zoey let out a large sigh of relief and flopped down next to Ben on the pillow. Ben chuckled and tucked her under the covers and lay down next to her, a hand resting on her back.

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to find a new girlfriend or wife. He’d have to break the news to Zoey that she was losing her side of the bed.

~~

Work kept Ben busy. Sometimes his hired nanny, Mrs Henley, had to pick Zoey up from school. He always tried hard to make it there at 2:30, but sometimes it wasn’t possible.

The best days were when he got out from work early and made it to the school gates on time. There he’d see Zoey walk out, chatting animatedly to her friends, her adorable R2D2 backpack weighing her down ever so slightly.

Then she’d lay eyes on him, and sprint across the yard, a huge smile on her face. He’d never tire of that smile.

Ben lifted Zoey into his arms. “Hey, kiddo!”

“Hi, Daddy!” Zoey said excitedly as he kissed her cheeks several times.

“Happy Friday,” Ben said as he lowered her back down to the floor. “What do you say we go get some ice cream, a special treat?”

Zoey’s eyes lit up. “Yes please, I want ice cream!”

Ben chuckled, and then noticed the letter in her tiny fist. “What you got there, Zo?”

Zoey looked at the letter and thrust it into Ben’s direction. “Ms Knope said to give it to you. She said she wants to meet you.”

Ben looked at the slightly crumpled letter. It was details about a parent/teacher evening and how Zoey’s teacher wanted to meet them individually for one on one sessions.

Ben sighed, he’d have to ask Mrs Henley to watch her for the evening while he did this. But hey, it would be worth it to find out how Zoey is really getting on at school.

It seemed like she was doing well, for a first grader, at least. But it would be good to get an honest opinion, rather than just hearing from Zoey about how great school is.

He put the letter into his suit pocket, and took Zoey’s hand. “Alright, Padawan. Ice cream shall we get?”

Zoey giggled loudly. “You sound like Yoda.”

Ben chuckled along with her. “Hmmm! Yoda I am?”

They walked over to Ben’s car, and as he buckled her into the backseat. He suddenly realised that he couldn’t remember a life before Zoey. She was a part of him, and always would be. This beautiful six year old, with long dark brown hair and amber coloured eyes. She was his angel.

He kissed her nose, and Zoey giggled again, wiping it off. “Slobbery,” she told Ben. So he did it again.

“Alright, ice cream time. Let’s go, Zo,” Ben said, after he climbed into the front seat. He put on a Wiggles CD and watched in the rear-view mirror as Zoey bounced along to the music in her car seat.

Ben wasn’t sure if it was possible. But he loved her a little more as every day passed.

[remembertae]

Party of Five “Before and After”

(Photo: FOX) S2 E18 Feb. 20, 1996 WRITTEN BY: Amy Lippman & Christopher Keyser SYNOPSIS Teenager Julia Salinger has just visited a physician and confirmed she's pregnant. Her boyfriend Justin meets her outside the clinic; she tells him she's scheduled an abortion for the following afternoon. He's annoyed she made a decision without his input, but she says she needs to just get it over with. Later at school, she brushes off his attempts to discuss the matter further and refuses to let him join her for the procedure. She says her older brother (and legal guardian) Charlie has already agreed to take her.

In truth, Charlie has no idea Julia's pregnant until he discovers her home pregnancy test in the trash. When he confronts her, she admits she's pregnant and having an abortion but tells him not to worry because Justin is taking her to the clinic. The next day Julia goes to the clinic alone but when the nurse calls her back, she abruptly leaves. She finds Justin waiting outside and tells him she's not sure she wants to abort. He's befuddled, which she reads as disappointment, so she storms off in anger. The next day, an emotional Julia returns to the clinic for advice and runs into her brother Bailey's girlfriend Sarah. After Bailey learns about the run-in, he asks Julia if she and Justin are planning to have sex and encourages her to be safe. He's shocked when she says she's pregnant. Later, Justin comes by the Salinger house to tell Julia he's willing to raise a baby with her. After he leaves, she talks with Charlie about carrying the pregnancy to term. She wonders if giving the baby up for adoption would be a more "moral" choice than terminating. He refuses to answer that question, but doesn't argue with her when she supposes that pregnancy would interfere with her college prep plans. When she talks about keeping the baby, he says they'll support her but he isn't sure she's ready to be a mom. She argues that he's adjusted to being a young dad (in addition to serving as legal guardian to his younger siblings, he also adopted baby brother Owen after their parents' untimely death). But Charlie reminds Julia that he was 24 at the time, and had at least "lived a little." A panicked Julia calls Justin to the house, and they have an off-camera discussion. Tween Salinger sister Claudia later finds him crying in the backyard. Claudia heads to Julia's bedroom to ask what's wrong with Justin, spots Julia's pregnancy literature from the clinic, and quickly deduces that her sister is pregnant. When Julia won't say that she's keeping the baby, Claudia freaks out. She later tells Julia she can't believe she'd consider aborting when their baby brother Owen was also an accident. Julia tells Charlie she's scheduled an abortion for the next day. He confides that he once took his college girlfriend to have an abortion, and that he felt bad about it at first but the feeling went away. However, Julia doesn't believe that she won't carry a sense of guilt forever. Justin comes by again and tries to comfort Julia but she tells him he'll never understand how this is affecting her. The next morning, Julia tries confiding in Sarah because she needs a lady to talk to. But Sarah begs off because she was adopted and doesn't feel comfortable with Julia's decision. Meanwhile, Justin comes by and insists upon taking Julia to the clinic. Bailey blocks Justin, who has a tantrum because nobody cares how he feels. Surprise - Julia has a miscarriage before she gets to the clinic. Later at home, she apologizes to Justin for having been mean to him and they make up. He thinks that having a miscarriage must have made things easier for her. But she says it doesn't because she would have made the choice to abort anyway, and no matter how things end it's still hard.  Though Justin is relieved that it's over, she still feels sad. Later, Charlie tells Julia he's sorry that he can't be their mom in this situation. She reminds him that the mistake was all hers and he needn't apologize. KEEPING IT REAL QUOTIENT The best thing about this dreary, laborious episode is that it clearly demonstrates how stigma and shame compel abortion-seeking individuals to feel shitty about themselves. Julia torments herself over this decision even though she has no desire to be pregnant or raise a child. The only reason she's considering choices other than termination is because she thinks abortion might be immoral, and that she'll carry a terrible guilt with her for the rest of her days. Sadly, she's not completely wrong. It's really hard to not feel bad about having had an abortion, especially because talking about it openly is still considered distasteful, if not downright evil. I never regretted having an abortion, nor did I ever consider it an immoral act. But until I started discussing my experience openly, I carried the guilt of having made the initial mistake. How could I have been so foolish, getting pregnant by mistake at the ripe age of 22? In fact, it's a common mistake that people of all ages and backgrounds make all the time. Telling my story, reading other stories from the "1 out of 3" women who've also had abortions, and engaging in open dialog about this topic helped me get over that bad feeling. But if you're in a position where you don't feel like you're allowed to discuss your experience, it's easy to harbor feelings of self-recrimination. And why would Julia want to talk openly about her situation when she has unsupportive friends and family like Sarah and Claudia? I'll give Claudia a break for being young, but when she tells her older sister, "If you do this, there are people who are gonna say that it's murder. And you have to tell me what to say when they say that about you," I couldn't help hollering at the screen, "You tell them to fuck off!" As for Claudia's notion that Julia shouldn't abort because it's an insult to their little brother, who was also an "oops" baby - I'm sorry, what? I know this character is just a tween, but that seems more like 8-year-old logic. Obviously, most abortions are chosen because the pregnancy was unplanned. Also, your mom choosing to abort instead of bearing a fifth child would have been a totally legit decision. Even I (the sixth of seven children, and most definitely an "oops" baby) can understand that. So neither do I have any sympathy for Sarah's "OMG what if my birth mom had aborted me?" angst. This idea that one person's situation and set of options is transferrable to another person's life creates so much dumb conversation around the subject of abortion. Suddenly, the pregnant person's choice isn't about them anymore. It's about someone else's mom or baby brother. How irritating that we're supposed to take Claudia and Sarah's judgments seriously. Justin's point-of-view throughout this episode struck me as pretty authentic. He's trying very hard to be the good guy, to support whatever decision Julia makes. But he wishes the situation were more about him. He wants Julia to ask what he wants, to let him be there for the procedure. She spends lots of time explaining to him that this is only happening to her, and that he's not going to be dealing with the residual weird feelings she's bound to experience. And of course she's right, because he's quite eager to move past it all after she has the miscarriage. I think it's hard enough for some guys to relinquish control over an unplanned pregnancy, so oftentimes their coping mechanism is to treat it as a fleeting experience that stops being a big deal as soon as the pregnancy is over. Anyway, I could see why he found Julia's behavior hurtful, but I could also see why she found him incredibly irritating. Julia's only confidant with any sense is Charlie. He actually does a great job of helping her consider all her options without judging or telling her what to think. But he's also wise enough to remind her what she'd be giving up by becoming a parent, and refuses to let her compare her situation to his own (did ya hear that, Claudia and Sarah??). Of course, the miscarriage is a total cop-out. I'm guessing the writers inserted it because they didn't know how to deal with the horrid taint on Julia's soul had she actually gone through with the abortion. But just to be sure she doesn't get off without some sort of punishment, they added that bit about her still feeling guilty because she would have terminated otherwise (shades of Dawson's Creek). We don't have to talk about abortion this way. I'm glad that contemporary shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and  Bojack Horseman are helping us move away from such stigmatizing depictions of unplanned pregnancy, but watching this episode reminds me that there's decades of dumb discourse that must be undone. GRADE D Julia's inner torment feels very real, but this episode is so self-unaware that the stigma and shame brought upon her appear inevitable. I give some credit for the nuanced portrayal of a well-meaning but unhelpful boyfriend, as well as the sensible older brother/guardian. Points deducted for the miscarriage of convenience. Also, this episode is just so boring. How many times do we need to see Julia tell Justin that he just doesn't understand? - by Tara

[artemisreads]

Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell

First published in 1949 (and by Penguin in 2003), Nineteen Eighty Four is available as a Penguin Classic for just under 10 Australian dollars in most Australian bookstores and online. Usually content warning are at the end but given that I discuss them in the review I’m putting them above the cut. Warning for torture, death and rape.

As he looked at the woman in her characteristic attitude, her thick arm reaching up for the line, her powerful mare-like buttocks protruded, it struck him for the first time that she was beautiful. It had never before occurred to him that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up to monstrous dimensions by childbearing, then hardened, roughened by work till it was coarse in the grain like an over-ripe turnip, could be beautiful. But it was so, and after all, he thought, why not? The solid, contourless body, like a block of granite, and rasping red skin, bore the same relation to the body of a girl as the rose-hip to the rose. Why should the fruit be held inferior to the flower?

‘she’s beautiful’ he murmured.

‘She’s a metre across the hips, easily,’ said Julia.

‘That is her style of beauty,’ said Winston.

A novel of ‘what could have been’, this novel follows the perfectly unremarkable Winston Smith (remarkably subtle name choice there...) as he lives within a totalitarian system of English Socialism (or Ingsoc). Coming into power during WWII, altering the past to align with what the omnipresent Party do today, he displays aptitude for his job despite secret inner feelings of hatred towards them and their ever watching figure head Big Brother. He meets Julia and despite immediately hating her, to the point of wanting to rape and kill her because she was young and pretty and he would never have her, they end up having a secret love affair with the knowledge that it will one day ruin them.

The backbone of good writing is good characters, you may not like them, but it’s an author’s job to make sure you know them, maybe not everything, but understand at least the way they act. They are the eyes through which you view their world. This is usually helped along by the situation characters find themselves in, and indeed it is easy to understand the way Winston acts in such an austere environment. His questioning, his fear, are very relatable. And then there’s Julia. Julia does not read as a character meant to be relatable or sympathised with, if she can be called a character at all. She is an accessory. Winston’s limited reflection on Julia places her attitude to life within Oceania beneath his, she sees the Party as immutable, but finds ways to take pleasure and exist within it without ever wondering why. Why is Winston’s biggest question, why would the Party be like this? Why does the Party exist at all? He tells Julia she is ‘only a rebel from the waist down’, and she finds this ‘terribly witty’ and we’re left wondering why Julia is so engaged by the common man (and I do mean common) embodied by Winston.

But even Winston questions Julia’s motives, why should she be interested in him? He is old, ugly and somewhat sickly. The simple answer is the one Julia gives, she doesn’t care about any of that, presumably because she just likes sex and human connection and doesn’t really care who gives it, and that Winston is special because he sees through the Party, but the truest answer is because Orwell has written a symbol of all an average (but enlightened and therefor above average) man wants and expects to find. She performs as the perfect citizen for the Party without believing in what it says, and in doing so becomes the perfect woman in Winston’s eyes, being young and attractive didn’t hurt either. I do not think Orwell intended Julia to be an object, in the way that many men think they don’t think of women as objects, but still consider them a single monolith or maybe imagine a few archetypes they all fit into.

This book is far older than me, written in a not so different, but rawer climate just after WWII, so I remind myself to be bit more gentle than I usually would in regards to Winston’s general reflection and philosophising on the world, the nature of the past and its ability to be mutable, and immutable at the same time (which is only a problem to spend literally most of your adult life wondering about if you never take your head out of your arse to consider that things happen whether you know about them or not, and you KNOW this, because you know the Party, and it’s your job to change records people will never see and write stories about people who never existed and no one will ever hear of, except your superior. But I’m rambling.). I am sure that when this book was first published it was considered an important and intelligent work, and indeed there are some (but not all) agreeable and important messages regarding being critical of the government, and what seems heavy handed and so pointedly obvious now might have actually been new and powerful, but the way Orwell uses women is infuriating. They are not people, ever, only things to be remarked upon, and most of the time, hated.

As a woman, in the 21st century, Orwell’s and his character Winston’s musings are a bit unbearable. If Winston Smith had a tumblr, most of his posts would be reblogged with the “it’s not that deep” picture attached. If he had a reddit, I’m told he’d be linked to the ‘I’m 14 and this is deep’ thread. The quoted passage opener, written in stark contrast to the totalitarian Party’s erasure of sex and human connection, goes on for a bit more than two pages, with Winston comparing this woman to Julia, and then just ‘philosophising’ over just her for a bit longer. The passage revels in the ‘natural’ beauty of a woman allowed to fulfil her natural function and role within life, making children and being a caretaker and maid for eternity, which is very strange, because this is what women of the Party are meant to do as well, but in a clinical joyless way. Winston is personally offended by the way his wife flinches from his touch, but insists on once a week ‘doing her duty to the Party’. As it turns out Orwell may have been right about it not mattering what kind of government is in charge, women will always be treated as objects in nature rather than fully human persons participating actively in the world.

This book is a man’s account of what it might be like to be a man under totalitarian socialism, presented as a cautionary tale and deep reflection of political unrest, that should ordinary but aware men let power become too absolute there can be no revolution. It seems to say it is important to be critical and aware of your governments actions (and that all governments are more or less the same, no matter the ideology), but also gives the impression that there is nothing that one can do with this knowledge, which seems rather weak for such a revolutionary book.

Winston has a small deep seated sense of being incomplete, like there is more to life than being kept on the edge of poverty and being employed by the party who keep it that way, but doesn’t do much about it except drink, until he meets Julia. The horrendous way the Party keeps power, and the constant knowledge that anyone you know, at any moment, may suddenly cease to exist (in society at least, they all know the person now exists in a cell being tortured and brainwashed and then maybe killed) doesn’t seem to touch him any more than as a nagging feeling that surely, life has been, and could be better, than it is. This resigned attitude removes us from the power of what is happening, it makes what the Party does seem less horrible. Intellectually we know that what is happening is bad, but Winston’s view, and Orwell’s writing, make it hard to feel. I’m a sensitive person, I grieve over fictional happenings a lot -I still wonder if the girls from Saddle Club grew into people that they wanted to be, but this book did not make me feel. Even when I turn the books happenings to true events (particularly East Germany during the cold war) I do not feel the horror or shock at being taken from your bed into a cellar and tortured for weeks.

As I stated before, I’m sure this book was gripping and powerful in its day, but I have read (and will review) other books dealing with similar themes of government control, socialism v capitalism, and the feeling of being a powerless citizen that are much more visceral and poignant.

I’d only recommend this book to a male libertarian (if I for some reason wanted to let him continue feeling smug in his knowledge that all governments are bad and not remind him women are people) or if I knew you very well and we wanted to have a groan filled gossip book review date, which I am open to, by the way.

[ljones41]

“MANSFIELD PARK” (1983) Review

"MANSFIELD PARK" (1983) Review Long before Patricia Rozema wrote and directed her 1999 adaptation of "Mansfield Park", Jane Austen’s 1814 novel, the BBC aired its own adaptation some sixteen years earlier. This one came in the form of a six-part miniseries and is regarded by many Austen fans as the definitive screen version of the novel. 

"MANSFIELD PARK" told the story of Fanny Price, the oldest daughter of a former Royal Navy officer, who is sent by her parents to live with her wealthy aunt and uncle-in-law, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, at their estate called Mansfield Park, during the early 19th century. Viewed as socially inferior by her new family, Fanny is treated as half-relative/half-servant by the Bertrams. Only Edmund, the family’s second son, treats her with great kindness and love. Because of Edmund’s behavior, Fanny finds herself in love with him by the age of eighteen. But her life and the Bertrams’ lives soon encounter a force of nature in the arrival of Henry and Mary Crawford, a pair of vivacious siblings that are related to the local vicar’s wife. Henry ends up stirring excitement and romantic interest within the breasts of the two Bertram sisters – Maria and Julia. And much to Fanny’s dismay, Edmund forms a romantic attachment to the alluring Mary. In compare to the 1999 Patricia Rozema version and the ITV 2007 movies, this 1983 miniseries is a more faithful adaptation of Austen’s novel. Considering its six episodes, I do not find this surprising. Literary fans tend to be more impressed by cinematic adaptations that are very faithful to its source. However, "MANSFIELD PARK" is not a completely faithful adaptation. Screenwriter Ken Taylor completely ignored Fanny’s questions regarding Sir Thomas’ role as a slaveowner with an estate in Antigua. Whereas Austen’s novel and the 2007 movie briefly touched upon the subject, writer/director Patricia Rozema literally confronted it. Only the miniseries ignored the topic, altogether. Judging from the fans’ reaction to this deviation from Austen’s novel, I suspect that many of them are willing to pretend that the subject of slavery was never broached in the miniseries. Did I enjoy "MANSFIELD PARK"? Well . . . the miniseries certainly had its moments. It allowed me to become more aware of the plot details in Austen’s 1814 novel than the other adaptations did. I enjoyed the scene featuring the Bertrams’ introduction to the Crawford siblings. I enjoyed the ball held in Fanny’s honor in Episode Four. It struck me as very elegant and entertaining. I also enjoyed the constant flirtation and verbal duels between Edmund and Mary, despite my dislike of the former character. And much to my surprise, I really enjoyed the sequence featuring Fanny’s visit to her family in Portsmouth. For once, the miniseries’ pacing seemed well paced and I enjoyed the details and production designs in the setting for this sequence. One of the actors portraying Fanny’s younger brothers turned out to be a young Jonny Lee Miller, who later portrayed Edmund in the 1999 production. But the best aspect of "MANSFIELD PARK" turned out to be a handful of first-rate performances and Ian Adley’s costume designs. I usually do not harbor much of a high opinion of the costumes designs seen in other Jane Austen’s adaptations from the 1970s and 80s. But I cannot deny that I found Adley’s costumes not only colorful, but very elegant. I am not surprised that he earned a BAFTA TV Award nomination for Best Costume Design. As I had stated earlier, I was also impressed by a handful of performances featured in the miniseries. One came from veteran actress Anna Massey, who superbly portrayed one of Fanny Price’s aunts, the noxious Mrs. Norris. Depended upon her sister and brother-in-law for their support, Massey’s Mrs. Norris walked a fine line between toadying behavior toward Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram and her malicious tyranny over Fanny. Samantha Bond gave a subtle and complex portrayal of the oldest Bertram daughter, Maria. Bond conveyed not only the shallow and selfish aspects of Maria’s personality, but also the dilemma that her willingness to become the wife of the disappointing Mr. Rushworth put her in. I also found myself impressed by Bernard Hepton’s performance as Sir Thomas Bertarm, owner of Mansfield Park and patriarch of the Bertram family. Hepton’s Sir Thomas came off as superficially generous, intelligent and morally absolute. He seemed every inch of the ideal English landowner and gentleman. Yet, Hepton also conveyed the corruption that lurked underneath Sir Thomas’ façade – namely the man who seemed more concern with the financial suitability of his children’s spouses than any emotional regard. Hepton also revealed with great subtlety, the baronet’s egomania and tyranny in scenes that featured the character’s efforts to coerce Fanny into accepting Henry Crawford’s marriage proposal. I will be brutally honest. I have never been a fan of the Edmund Bertram character. Despite his kindness to Fanny and occasional wit, he strikes me as a self-righteous and very hypocritical man. Whenever I think of that scene in which Edmund rejected Mary Crawford, it still makes my blood boil. But his characterization still worked, due to Nicholas Farrell’s performance. He really did an excellent job in conveying all aspects of Edmund’s personality, both the good and the bad. Despite my negative feelings regarding Edmund’s personality, Farrell made him seem very interesting. But "MANSFIELD PARK" would have never been bearable to me without Jackie Smith-Wood’s sparkling portrayal of one of Jane Austen’s most memorable characters, Mary Crawford. Like Fanny Price, many fans have either loved or disliked this character. Count me as among the former. I absolutely adored Mary – especially in the hands of the talented Ms. Smith-Wood. With great skill, the actress conveyed all aspects of Mary’s personality – her barbed sense of humor, dislike of the clergy, her talent for manipulation, her moral ambiguity, her charm, her wit, her great warmth and generosity. I suspect that the main reason I like Mary so much is that as an early 21st century woman, I find it easy to relate to her way of thinking. Smith-Wood managed to convey the modern sensibilities of Mary’s personality, while still portraying the character as a woman of the early 19th century. Unfortunately, the bad tends to go hand-in-hand with the good in many movie and television productions. And there are aspects of "MANSFIELD PARK" that left a bad taste in my mouth – including a few performances. One performance I did not particularly care for was Angela Pleasence’s portrayal of Fanny’s other aunt, the languid Lady Bertram. I am aware that Ms. Pleasence possesses a rather high voice. But I noticed that she had exaggerated it for her portrayal of the childish and self-involved Lady Bertram. I wish she had not done this, for I found this exaggeration very annoying. And now that I think about it, I realized that Pleasence’s Lady Bertram hardly did a thing in the miniseries that allowed the plot to move forward, except use her selfishness to protect Fanny from Mrs. Norris’ spite . . . sometimes. But I cannot blame the actress. Lady Bertram is a role that has never impressed me. I have yet to find an actress who has ever done anything with the role. I truly believe that producer Betty Billingale and director David Giles selected the wrong actor to portray the charming Lothario, Henry Crawford. Robert Burbage seemed like an affable presence and he wore the costumes designed by Ian Adley very well. But his portrayal of Henry seemed wanting. I will go further and state that I found his performance by-the numbers and his acting skills rather mechanical. Burbage’s Henry did not strike me as the attractive and sexy man who managed to flutter the hearts of the Bertram sisters. Instead, I felt as if I had been watching an earnest schoolboy trying . . . and failing to behave like a rakish seducer. Finally, I come to Sylvestra Le Touzel’s performance as the miniseries’ leading character, Fanny Price. I am not a fan of the Fanny Price character. Yes, I admire her willingness to stick to her conviction in rejecting Henry Crawford’s marriage proposal in the face of Sir Thomas’ attempts to coerce her. But Fanny also strikes me as being priggish, passive-aggressive, illusional (to a certain extent) and worst of all, hypocritical. I also dislike Edmund Bertram, but at least I was impressed by Nicholas Farrell’s portrayal of the character. On the other hand, I WAS NOT impressed by Le Touzel’s performance. I realize that she had portrayed a socially awkward and introverted character. But I have seen other actors and actresses portray similar characters with a lot more skill. Le Touzel’s performance struck me as wooden, mannered and at times, slightly hammy. Hell, she made Burbage’s performance seem positively fluid. Le Touzel eventually became a first-rate actress. I saw her very funny performance in 2007’s "NORTHANGER ABBEY". But I wish that Billingale and Giles had cast someone with a lot more skill to portray Fanny, twenty-eight years ago. I find it odd that screenwriter Kenneth Taylor took it upon himself to be as faithful as possible to Austen’s novel . . . with the exception of his deletion of Sir Thomas’ role as a slaveowner.  However, he had failed to change some aspects of the novel that I consider to be very flawed. Taylor never allowed Fanny and Edmund to become self-aware of their personal failings. Edmund managed to self-flagellate himself for becoming emotionally involved with Mary. But I do not consider that much of a failing. Because of the pair’s failure to become self-aware of their failings, I believe they lacked any real character development. Taylor’s script could have assumed a third voice and criticized or mocked Fanny and Edmund’s lack of development. But it did not. The sequence featuring the "Lover’s Vows" play dragged most of Episode Three. By the time Sir Thomas had returned to Mansfield Park, I nearly fell asleep, thanks to the episode’s slow pacing. In fact, Giles and Taylor’s efforts to make "MANSFIELD PARK" faithful to the novel nearly grounded the miniseries to a halt on several occasions, almost making the entire miniseries rather dull.  Almost.    More than anything, I had a problem with the miniseries’ finale. One, I never understood Edmund’s decision to reject Mary Crawford as his fiancée. Although Mary had condemned her brother and Maria Bertram Rushworth’s affair and elopement as folly, she had a plan to save the honors of both the Bertram and Crawford families. She suggested that they convince Henry and Maria to marry following the latter’s divorce from Mr. Rushworth; and have both families stand behind the couple to save face. This plan struck me as very similar to Fitzwilliam Darcy’s plan regarding Lydia Bennet and George Wickham in "Pride and Prejudice". Why did Austen condone Mr. Darcy’s actions regarding Lydia and Wickham in one novel and condemn Mary Crawford for harboring similar plans in this story? Did Taylor, Giles or Willingale even notice the similarities between Mr. Darcy’s actions and Mary’s plans and see the hypocrisy? Apparently not. My last problem centered on Fanny and Edmund’s wedding in the final episode. How on earth did this happen? The miniseries made Fanny’s romantic feelings for Edmund perfectly clear. Yet, Edmund never displayed any romantic regard for Fanny, merely familial love. Even when revealing the end of his relationship with Mary to Fanny, he still expressed love for his former fiancée. But the next scene jumped to Fanny and Edmund’s wedding, without any explanation or revelation of their courtship. At least Patricia Rozema’s 1999 movie conveyed Edmund’s burgeoning romantic feelings for Fanny, before his final rejection of Mary. Giles and Taylor failed to the same in this miniseries. I might as well say it. I will never harbor a high regard for "MANSFIELD PARK" . . . at least this version. Although its faithfulness to Jane Austen’s 1814 novel revealed the story in greater detail than the 1999 and 2007 movies, I believe there were scenes in which it should have been less faithful in order to overcome some of the novel’s shortcomings. The miniseries can boast a few outstanding performances from the likes of Anna Massey, Nicholas Farrell and Jackie Smith-Wood. But it was hampered by other performances, especially the wooden acting by lead actress, Sylvestra Le Touzel. In the end, "MANSFIELD PARK" proved to be a mixed bag for me.