April and Gerald Dunzo?
Today’s strip with Eva and April pretty much sets it into place. Lynn Johnston has been hinting about Becky and Gerald for about 3 years, and I wrote a long piece on the FOOBiverse’s Journal recounting the very subtle development of the idea over that time, which I won’t repeat here.
3 years ago, I think Lynn Johnston’s plan was to end the strip in September and leave April in as much of a career direction as she possibly could. Oddly enough, she has been teasing us with it almost as much as she has been teasing us about the Liz / Anthony / Warren / Paul storyline. Will April stick with music? Will April become a vet?
And there is the more recent and related corollary, where will April live? Mike invites April to live with them. John says for April to live with him and he will redo the basement. However, Lynn keeps giving it away by with the unrelenting and constant references to Elly and John being done with parenting and living by themselves. We snarkers of the strip point it out as “April hate” over and over again, but I think Lynn Johnston thinks she is giving us a clue as to how things are going to turn out, much in the way she has Elly and John lavish praise all over Anthony Caine. Because of those comments, I am convinced April is not going to end up living with Mike or with John. I am also convinced Lynn Johnston has no talent when it comes to writing clues.
John's Letter, June 2005
There are only the three of us at home now, and April is getting to that age where she's gone all the time. She heads into grade nine next year, and has mentioned the idea of going on some of these student exchange trips. France was one of the countries she mentioned. So, amazingly, instead of worrying about the loss of my favourite little buddy, I mentally am thinking about a smaller house with a bigger yard! Just a thought of course!
This was the way Lynn Johnston was going back in June, 2005. John’s monthly letter predictions have been 100% correct so far. However, I still think April is going to live in Winnipeg with Auntie Bev. The setup to get us there is April has to break up with Gerald, and the band 4Evah&Eva has to be destroyed. Just breaking up with Gerald is not sufficient. Presumably the band could continue, even if April and Gerald aren’t dating. However, if Gerald betrays the band by playing with Becky, then it solves that problem also. No Gerald. No band. No music career for April. Vet school all the way.
All we have to have now is one more trip to Winnipeg in August and an offer by Auntie Bev to put her on the veterinarian career track. Ergo, April doesn’t live with Mike or John. End of story. Start the hybrid.
As for April’s Real Blog, nothing is official yet. I have had Becky McGuire engaged to be married to Howard Bunt, but it is a marriage of convenience since Howard is gay, i.e. they both can still have a boyfriend and stay together, just not the same boyfriend. If Becky and Gerald are messing around, that plotline can still continue, with that arrangement. However, I will grant the possibility that Howard and Becky may have to become unengaged and move apart, depending on how Lynn Johnston portrays the relationship of Becky and Gerald in the strip, but primarily depending on the desires of qnjones, who writes both Gerald and Becky for ARB. If qnjones wants to go full out on a Gerald and Becky romance, I will be happy to let her cut loose Howard from Becky, she wants to. I should also mention I am looking forward to reading some fantastic aprilp_katje teenage breakup angst. It promises to be quite lively. Lynn Johnston is finally handing us some juicy stuff.
3 years ago, I think Lynn Johnston’s plan was to end the strip in September and leave April in as much of a career direction as she possibly could. Oddly enough, she has been teasing us with it almost as much as she has been teasing us about the Liz / Anthony / Warren / Paul storyline. Will April stick with music? Will April become a vet?
And there is the more recent and related corollary, where will April live? Mike invites April to live with them. John says for April to live with him and he will redo the basement. However, Lynn keeps giving it away by with the unrelenting and constant references to Elly and John being done with parenting and living by themselves. We snarkers of the strip point it out as “April hate” over and over again, but I think Lynn Johnston thinks she is giving us a clue as to how things are going to turn out, much in the way she has Elly and John lavish praise all over Anthony Caine. Because of those comments, I am convinced April is not going to end up living with Mike or with John. I am also convinced Lynn Johnston has no talent when it comes to writing clues.
John's Letter, June 2005
There are only the three of us at home now, and April is getting to that age where she's gone all the time. She heads into grade nine next year, and has mentioned the idea of going on some of these student exchange trips. France was one of the countries she mentioned. So, amazingly, instead of worrying about the loss of my favourite little buddy, I mentally am thinking about a smaller house with a bigger yard! Just a thought of course!
This was the way Lynn Johnston was going back in June, 2005. John’s monthly letter predictions have been 100% correct so far. However, I still think April is going to live in Winnipeg with Auntie Bev. The setup to get us there is April has to break up with Gerald, and the band 4Evah&Eva has to be destroyed. Just breaking up with Gerald is not sufficient. Presumably the band could continue, even if April and Gerald aren’t dating. However, if Gerald betrays the band by playing with Becky, then it solves that problem also. No Gerald. No band. No music career for April. Vet school all the way.
All we have to have now is one more trip to Winnipeg in August and an offer by Auntie Bev to put her on the veterinarian career track. Ergo, April doesn’t live with Mike or John. End of story. Start the hybrid.
As for April’s Real Blog, nothing is official yet. I have had Becky McGuire engaged to be married to Howard Bunt, but it is a marriage of convenience since Howard is gay, i.e. they both can still have a boyfriend and stay together, just not the same boyfriend. If Becky and Gerald are messing around, that plotline can still continue, with that arrangement. However, I will grant the possibility that Howard and Becky may have to become unengaged and move apart, depending on how Lynn Johnston portrays the relationship of Becky and Gerald in the strip, but primarily depending on the desires of qnjones, who writes both Gerald and Becky for ARB. If qnjones wants to go full out on a Gerald and Becky romance, I will be happy to let her cut loose Howard from Becky, she wants to. I should also mention I am looking forward to reading some fantastic aprilp_katje teenage breakup angst. It promises to be quite lively. Lynn Johnston is finally handing us some juicy stuff.
posted by howard at 12:09 AM
5 Comments:
Lynn being awful at writing clues--as you've mentioned before, she seems to be writing backwards from the outcome she knows will happen, without paying attention to how illogical that writing appears to the reader. It would be like writing a piece where there's a surprise death, and having the characters discussing how they are going to manage living without [character] before there is any indication that [character] is doomed.
As for the angst, I expect you are correct. :)
aprilp_katje,
I suspect the angst will be all yours. If April follows suit with Liz's break up with Paul Wright, then she will yell at Gerald over her shoulder while running away from him, having made the presumption that because Gerald has played a gig with Becky, they are now officially a couple (like the presumption Liz made because she found Paul visiting with his old friend Susan).
Then she will storm home, cry, and Elly will say something patronizing. You will feel the call to fill in all the story which Lynn will leave out, which is probably going to be a lot.
There were hints in April's monthly letters a long time ago that Jeremy Jones was interested in a romantic relationship with April, but the more recent strips have painted Jeremy as villain (ditching Becky at the Gym-Jam, calling Shannon Lake retarded), so I suspect we are not going to see April do anything with him.
The other possibility hinted at in the letters more recently is the April love for Duncan Anderson. A Duncan / Eva / April triangle might be interesting, but since Eva was created to be Duncan's love interest and also so the band name could be that awful pun 4Evah&Eva, I doubt this will happen also.
With September looming, I think April breaking up with Gerald, breaking up the band, and getting April settled with Auntie Bev is about all Lynn has time to do, and she certainly doesn't have time to do any of that properly.
This doesn't mean that we at April's Real Blog can't play with it. Once April cuts Gerald loose, she is a free agent, and there is a great potential in snarking the Liz / Anthony / Warren storyline with April / Jeremy / Duncan / "Fill in a weird aprilp_katje made-up name" parallels.
And maybe when April is settled at the farm, she and Steve will rekindle their romance. ;)
Now that brings back memories. Yes, I think Steve would be just perfect. Of course I don't remember much about Steve except April went over to his place to play video games and make out a lot. That was 2005, wasn't it? Yeesh! How long have we been doing this?
I started ARB in late June 2005. IIRC, your Howard posts began in August, during the "going after" arc. :)
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