At Patheos: TF: Sock it to me

Fred Clark has posted a new Left Behind post, TF: Sock it to me, at Patheos

This week Fred writes about pp. 417-422 of Tribulation Force.

Excerpt:

But here, in the midst of the Great Tribulation, with relentless unprecedented calamity on the doorstep, such hackneyed, prefeminist, materialist drivel is even more ridiculous. In the context of what is about to come and of all that these characters should be — but inexplicably are not — preparing to face, extravagant baubles like this are just laughably inappropriate.

When exactly is Amanda expecting to have a chance to wear this “magnificent” necklace? During her commute through the once-again-forgotten record-breaking crime wave? Or maybe she and Rayford plan to face the coming plagues in formal dress, like the Astors aboard the Titanic, in top hats and tails as the ship went down. In a few months, I suppose, Amanda may find use for this necklace as a bribe for the Antichrist’s secret police, or maybe as barter to buy a can of beans on the black market. I appreciate that romantic gestures don’t need to be practical, but if Rayford was trying to give Amanda something as an expression of his love for her on the eve of apocalypse, then I’m thinking a good Swiss army knife might’ve shown a deeper concern.

[Fred Clark, TF: Sock it to me, October 3 2011, posted at Patheos.com]


Commentators who would like to share their responses to the new post with all of Fred's fans (old and new) can cross-post to both boards.

 

Comments

[Ruby]

Rayford should have taken a tip from Bill in Big Love and gotten his wife an awesome power drill, so she can fix shit when the worldwide earthquake destroys everything.

[Firedrake]

Well, she could sell the necklace and give the money to the poor... but no, that would be un-biblical.

I suppose the way one reconciles this stuff with the complementarian approach is that if a man wants to plan a wedding ceremony then, as head of the family, he should be allowed to. And if he wants to have nothing to do with it except for turning up on the day, half an hour late, hung over and covered in lipstick, well, he should be allowed that too darnit.

I find the whole idea of a double ceremony quite strange anyway - if you're the sort of person who believes the bride should have control of everything, how do you share power?

Of course Amanda doesn't want to invite any of her friends - she's becoming a real person (well, as much as a woman can be) by marriage, and she doesn't want to be reminded of what her unreal former friends are missing.

[chris the cynic]

But here, in the midst of the Great Tribulation, with relentless unprecedented calamity on the doorstep, such hackneyed, prefeminist, materialist drivel is even more ridiculous. In the context of what is about to come and of all that these characters should be — but inexplicably are not — preparing to face, extravagant baubles like this are just laughably inappropriate.

So I tried to write a story about a more useful gift in a time of world ending chaos. Not between Rayford and Amanda, between two characters pulled from the ether.

-

She was at our usual spot, a nice little pile of rubble that was just about the ideal size and shape to sit on. I sat next to her and tried to figure out what to say, I'd never given her anything before. I'd tried to think of it before hand, I couldn't stop thinking about it in fact.  A thousand different variation had refused to leave my. Until that moment.

I didn't know what to do.

I was so busy thinking, "Is this the right moment? Is this the right moment? What about this?" that I wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying. She noticed, of course.

She asked, "What's wrong?"

I said, "Nothing's wrong," probably a bit too fast, but I was still having trouble with the whole gift giving thing. I couldn't find the right words.

She looked at me with a mixture of confusion and curiosity, and perhaps a bit of suspicion, in the awkward silence.

Finally I said, "I got you something."

She took a moment to process it, and then asked, "What?"

Nervously I reached for the gift. I pulled it out slowly, I made sure that the safety was on and the chamber was empty. I showed her the open the chamber so she too could see it was empty, and I handed it to her.

She looked it over. At first I couldn't tell if she liked it or not.

"It's slightly used," I confessed. "It only has eleven shots in the magazine."

She smiled at it and said, "No, it's..." and I thought she liked it. I wasn't sure what was supposed to come next, but it sounded like it would be complimentary. But, then, nothing came next. The silence lasted for long enough to make me worried, then she said, "You shouldn't have," not looking up from the gift. I wasn't sure what to make of that. She seemed to like it, so why say that?

She looked me in the eyes and said, "You should keep it."

I kept her gaze while I struggled with what to say. 'When I was digging through the rubble and found it I thought of you'? That'd go over well, I'm sure. 'There's a very real chance one of us might die in the near future and should that come to pass I'd really rather it not be you'? 'I like you and wanted to get you something and that's pretty much all I have'?

I didn't know what to say so I just said, "I want you to have it."

And for a while we just looked at each other. I don't think it had anything to do with the gift really. She set it down, barrel facing away, for a moment I thought she was going to say something, and then she hugged me so hard it knocked the breath out of me.

[Jarred]

“The right guy just came along,” Rayford said, slipping a small box from his side pocket and pressing it into Amanda’s back.

This is Rayford's idea of a proposal? And she said yes??????

[sarah]

Y'know, I feel like L&J just don't know how to pace a story. Didn't Amanda just get introduced? Suddenly she's the love interest and then bam! they're getting married? What? If I'd been them, I'd have at least introduced her in the beginning of the book. Or at the end of the last one. Or something. Am I missing something here? I haven't been paying attention to the Left Behind posts as much as I should.

[Jarred]

@Sarah: I think this goes back to the whole 18 month time period that L&J skipped over. Rayford met Amanda in that gap. Eighteen months is plenty of time for a serious relationship to develop. But when the reader doesn't get to see the events of those eighteen months, I agree it seems pretty choppy and disjointed.

But then again, I'm not sure I want to see what passes for a growing relationship in L&J's twisted minds....

[Ross]

Y'know, I feel like L&J just don't know how to pace a story. Didn't Amanda just get introduced? Suddenly she's the love interest and then bam! they're getting married? What? If I'd been them, I'd have at least introduced her in the beginning of the book. Or at the end of the last one. Or something. Am I missing something here? I haven't been paying attention to the Left Behind posts as much as I should.

I suspect they'd written themselves into a corner due to their morality system. They can't show us a proper relationship becuase every second Ray isn't married to Amanda is a second that their relationship is in the SINFUL STATE OF UNSANCTIFIED EVIL. A Man is supposed to be master of a wife and a wife is supposed to be subservient to a husband in their world, so wifeless-ray and marriageless-amanda are "broken" as characters in their little morality play. (Chloe is in a less urgent situation, since she's got a father to be subservient to). Until Amanda is safely married, she's a feme sole -- a woman who isn't under the coverture of a man. She owns her own property, is responsible for her own purchases, gets to make decisions on her own without receiving instruction from her ownerhusband. That's one step shy of wearing sensible shoes.

I also think there's a deliberate contrast between Amanda, who, being a good person, must be safely covered by a man ASAP, and Hattie, who pre-saved Rayford strings along endlessly

[Mmy]

There is also a strong stench of stalkerism and potential domestic violence in both of these relationships. Ray gets to decide for himself that he is the "right guy" for Amanda. If Amanda had responded by turning him down it would not (in a book such as this) indicate that Ray was a pushy, self-absorbed guy it would indicate that there was something wrong with Amanda.

Meanwhile the "set-up" of the proposal to Chloe reminds me of those stomach turning public proposals you see on Monday night football where some guy gets the people who run the jumbotron to flash a public proposal to a woman who if she turns him down will be mocked and stigmatized.

[Lonespark]

Being completely alien to a social milieu in which anyone would do that, I guess I tend to charitably assume that the woman is a huge sports fan who may not have been expecting the jumbotron stunt per se, but is planning to marry the guy and might be kind of embarrassed and annoyed but more likely will enjoy watching the replay. I am probably being overly optimistic about couples treating each other like people.

Otherwise, we were discussing performative sexuality on the other site, except Ray and Buck and Jumbotron Guy seem to be practicing something along the lines of performative matrimony, which, just...eeeeeww.

[sarah]

[[Jarred: I think this goes back to the whole 18 month time period that L&J skipped over. Rayford met Amanda in that gap. Eighteen months is plenty of time for a serious relationship to develop. But when the reader doesn't get to see the events of those eighteen months, I agree it seems pretty choppy and disjointed.]]

Hmm, yeah. That makes sense. I'm going to chalk it up to them being bad writers, I think.

[MaryKaye]

Oh heavens yes.

I guess you can justify a public splashy marriage proposal if there has been previous private discussion to the point that *both* parties know there is consent. It's not enough for the proposer to be sure the proposee will accept; s/he also has to have consent for the whole huge public embarrassment thing. But otherwise...ugh. It reeks of coercion.

I proposed to my boyfriend back in 1991: "You know, if we got married my health insurance would cover you."

He thought about it for a minute and said, "Okay."

I thought at the time that the other likely possibility was "How about domestic partnership instead? The marriage laws are unfair to gay people." (And we did talk about that, but decided that pragmatically we needed the protections of marriage and we'd work for marriage equality in other ways.)

But he could have just said no. Life would have gone on. I didn't think he would, because I thought (and still think) that the big serious question was the previous year's "I just got a postdoc in Seattle. Will you come with me?" Marrying just acknowledged an existing situation, whereas the move was a real decision to commit.

What Buck and Rayford are doing is so alien to me personally, I have trouble relating. It sounds a bit like what my mother did. She went to graduate school and found her degree program so cut-throat and competitive that she dropped out after a year and came home demoralized and confused. My birth father proposed to her. Her friends pressured her to accept (this was 1959, women are supposed to get married!) She did. The marriage lasted only four years. When he chewed her out for accepting handouts from her mother in order to feed me--we were very short of money--she divorced him. It was the only way she could think of to keep me fed.

Fifteen years later I proofread her PhD thesis. (The family joke is that this is the hardest way to get a proofreader *ever*.)

It is not a model I would recommend that anyone follow. All of my college romances got tested against the standard of "I don't want to do what my mother did." When I finally married at age 28 I felt quite sure I knew what I was doing, and--stories don't usually end this way!--I *did* know what I was doing.

If I knew Amanda and/or Chloe I would advise them to run. It should be easy to lose yourself in the crime and civil disorder, and hopefully Nicolae will have better things to do than help his favorite servants search for their erring womenfolk.

It's a measure of how low my esteem for Buck and Rayford is that I find it perfectly believable that they would ask the Antichrist--knowing who he is!--for help in a matter like that.

[Spalanzani]

The Increasingly Nervous Bruce Barnes' Death Countdown: 26 pages

The Probably Final Double Wedding Countdown: 3 pages

[Mmy]

@Lonespark: Being completely alien to a social milieu in which anyone would do that, I guess I tend to charitably assume that the woman is a huge sports fan who may not have been expecting the jumbotron stunt per se, but is planning to marry the guy and might be kind of embarrassed and annoyed but more likely will enjoy watching the replay.

I have actually overheard (male) college students giving their friends advice on "how to ask her so she can't turn you down." They sound like they are graphing out football plays "do this and then she will have to respond in that way and then you can do this other thing and then she will have to say yes."

I understand that when people have to "perform" their gender roles within such limited parameters there are enormous pressures on them to do so successfully but when these young men talked about proposals they weren't talking about "how not to lose the woman you love" they were talking about "how not to receive a blow to your ego."

[Nick Kiddle]

I sort-of-proposed to my fiancee by telling her I would visit her, get down on one knee and say, "Darling, there's one way the border agency won't be able to screw with us." But when we met, I had too many other things to think about, and after a while it was just taken as read without an official proposal. I think she might like a splashy theatrical formal proposal, so I may yet do it.

The wedding planning just made me boggle. Our planning is currently stalled because I want to look for venues together and don't have the funds to make a trip. But having one of us make major decisions without the other just seems *wrong*. The whole point of a wedding, as far as I'm concerned, is that it's a collaborative effort.

[Will Wildman]

I'm not normally a huge fan of the slash, but it seems weirdly adorable to me that Buck'n'Ray plan their weddings together like this. It's sad, because they're so repressed and oppressed, and because Amanda and Chloe are victims of their negligence, but if I look to their Metas, the characters who are trying so hard to escape the hellish universe they've been dropped into, I see them excitedly planning out exactly how they'll wrangle things so make sure that they end up side by side in a ceremony where Bruce marries them (to other people), and, well, I have sympathy for the devil. Buck and the Captain's relationship may still be a weird I RESPECT YOU SO MUCH contest, but it's still healthier than any other social connection they have.

But then again, I'm not sure I want to see what passes for a growing relationship in L&J's twisted minds....

Well, we did have the stuff between Buckyboy and Chloe - I think what feels most imbalanced about this, to me, is that their 'romance'* got so much pagetime and Amanda didn't, even though she basically showed up right at the beginning of the timeskip period. If Jenkins wrote more than one draft of a novel, he might have gone back and patched in the scenes that introduce Amanda, even if we didn't understand right away why she was so important. Just have her show up to tell Raydude how amazing his wife was before she got vaporised, and let Ray's thoughts keep drifting back to her when he's supposed to be trying to divine God's Will For His Life regarding being the Antichrist's chauffeur. If nothing else, it would have kept him too busy to play his stunningly horrifying role in hooking up Buck and Chloe (did we give them a portmanteau couple name? Chluck?)

*Sometimes I wish I had the perk some religions get, wherein after I say something spectacularly wrong like calling the Chloe/Buck interaction 'romantic' I could make a handsign to ward off evil and, with any luck, get the hideous taste out of my mouth.

[JK]

Well, she could sell the necklace and give the money to the poor... but no, that would be un-biblical.

'Money'? That might be worth even less than the diamond, after Carpathia outlaws economics in the next books.

[MaryKaye]

Will Wildman writes:

*Sometimes I wish I had the perk some religions get, wherein after I say something spectacularly wrong like calling the Chloe/Buck interaction 'romantic' I could make a handsign to ward off evil and, with any luck, get the hideous taste out of my mouth.

Here's one:

Extend your right hand toward whatever is bugging you and make a sharp movement as if drawing a greek lower-case sigma with your outstretched first and second fingers. (That is, you start by moving to the left and down, then quickly loop back to the right.) If you need to be subtle this can be a tiny movement of the wrist; for emphasis it can be a big hand circle. You can say "Avert!" if that helps. I've been doing this for years--it's effective psychological theater. No religion required.

Or, in this case at least, you could consider washing out your mouth with soap....

[Ruby]

Jarred: “The right guy just came along,” Rayford said, slipping a small box from his side pocket and pressing it into Amanda’s back.

This is Rayford's idea of a proposal? And she said yes??????

And the next lines make it even better...

She pulled away. "What is that?"

"What? This? I don't know. Why don't you tell me."

Now, leaving aside the "Is that an engagement ring box you're shoving into my lower back, or are you just glad to see me?" joke (okay, so I didn't leave it aside), these lines squick me out. I cannot stand that kind of "teasing." I don't think it's cute or funny or clever. To me, it just feels like one party absolving himself of emotional responsibility for his actions. Rayford wants to propose, but he's too chickenshit to ask Amanda directly, so he essentially forces her to say the words for him. It's an incredibly manipulative move.

"Ray! Is that...an engagement ring?"

"Oh, gee, Amanda, I don't know. Does it look like that type of ring to you?"

"Well...I...Yes! Yes, it does! Ray, are you asking me to marry you?!"

"Do you think that I am?"

"Um...I guess."

"Well, you tell me."

"Of course I'll marry you, Ray! I love you!"

"Hey, I don't recall anyone asking anyone else about marriage!"

...and so on.

[Ross]

Anyone else find commenting via Disqus to be borderline unusable? It keeps claiming to accept my comments, then throwing them away without any indication that it's doing it. I'm reluctant to post at all now, since it's so unpleasant to spend the time to write something just to have it discarded.

[Mmy]

@Ross: Anyone else find commenting via Disqus to be borderline unusable?

A couple of people were having so many problems that they thought Fred had banned them from the site (someone got in touch with us thinking that Fred still read the email from here -- that is how I know). I gather that the glitch cleared up since I have seen them posted subsequent to their problems but I have a suspicion that Disqus is having intermittent issues.

[Ross]

Nice to know I'm not imagining things.

This business with the prairie muffins and submitting to their husbands' will reminds me of a zombie story I read not long ago. It's framed as the last journal entry of an RTC housewife as she works up the courage to go do what she knows she is commanded by her lord and savior to do: submit herself to her husband's will and obey him in all things. Because her husband is a zombie locked in the next room, and he seems to will that she let him kill and eat her. And she doesn't much like the sound of that, but she knows that as a christian, she really doesn't have any choice; her husband wants her dead, so as a dutiful wife, she must comply.

[Amaryllis]

"Hey, I don't recall anyone asking anyone else about marriage!"

"Yeah," Rayford continued. "This ring isn't for you. I was just asking your opinion on it. It's really for my... good friend, Cameron..."

[Kit Whitfield]

"What? This? I don't know. Why don't you tell me."

Er - because if you don't want to marry me enough to put it into words, you don't want to marry me enough?

Is that real dialogue from the book, Ruby, or are you extrapolating?

[Kit Whitfield]

I guess you can justify a public splashy marriage proposal if there has been previous private discussion to the point that *both* parties know there is consent. It's not enough for the proposer to be sure the proposee will accept; s/he also has to have consent for the whole huge public embarrassment thing.

It depends, partly, whether they'd find it embarrassing. A good friend of mine got engaged in the following way: she and her then-boyfriend had been together for years, were totally in love and knew they'd get engaged at some point. They'd discussed it, and among other things, he'd stressed that he couldn't afford a big engagement ring. He didn't tell her that his mother had passed down a family diamond to him, and that he'd been able to afford to have it re-set.

So they went on holiday, and one evening in a nice cosy pub, he got down on one knee in front of everyone and surprised her with a beautiful diamond ring. She found this very romantic, and they're still happily married.

He had good reason to believe that she'd say yes, so he wasn't coercing her: the presence of witnesses was more a way of saying, 'I'll tell the whole world that I love you.'

Both of them are singers and musicians, so public performances were nothing new to them, which might also have been a factor; some proposals do have an element of theatricality to them, not because the proposer is showing off or manipulating, but because they're trying to make a gift of a dramatic memory. I know my husband planned to propose for a while before he did, and delayed because he wanted to make it a nice moment. (In the end, he decided to seize an opportunity: we went to the park on a beautiful day, there was a band playing, and we were lying under a tree looking down on the city, so he decided, 'You know what? I've been wanting to make a nice moment of it; well, this is nice...') And I appreciated the fact that he made it romantic. If he'd proposed in public, I wouldn't have felt manipulated - but again, we'd discussed marriage before and were pretty committed.

I don't think that public proposals necessarily embarrass people. Some people are more private than others. A marriage is, after all, a public declaration of your relationships, so if a person isn't bothered by attention from strangers, a public proposals can be in that spirit.

[Ruby]

Kit: Er - because if you don't want to marry me enough to put it into words, you don't want to marry me enough?

Is that real dialogue from the book, Ruby, or are you extrapolating?

The two lines in blockquotes are from the book. The rest just happened in my head.

[Elizabby]

some proposals do have an element of theatricality to them, not because the proposer is showing off or manipulating, but because they're trying to make a gift of a dramatic memory.

Agree with Kit here. My husband proposed very romantically, in a restaurant on our 7th dating anniversary - it was great and a moment I'll never forget and have told many people about. The proposal itself wasn't a surprise (we'd been together 7 years!) and we'd even been ring shopping together. But there was an element of surprise about THAT night, THAT moment. And the ring was perfect - I'd seen something similar a while before and said "Oh, I like that except for this and this..." then forgot about it. I didn't know he'd been back and got them to make up one just like the one in the window, except for this and this...

So yeah, for those of us romantically inclined, the proposal is an important and memorable moment, and I think it is nice to pay a bit of attention to how it is put together. Putting a ring box into someone's back? That ain't it...

[Froborr]

I don't think that public proposals necessarily embarrass people. Some people are more private than others. A marriage is, after all, a public declaration of your relationships, so if a person isn't bothered by attention from strangers, a public proposals can be in that spirit.

This!

My fiancee wanted a big public proposal, but I chickened out. I ended up proposing in a restaurant--but I did arrange some matters with the restaurant staff beforehand, so it was semi-public enough to satisfy her without freezing me. (Must... not... show genuine emotion... in public!)

(Plus, now the restaurant staff remember us and treat us really well and occasionally give us discounts when we go back!)

[Nick Kiddle]

//I don't think that public proposals necessarily embarrass people. Some people are more private than others.//

There's also the fact that not all embarrassment is bad. Last year on my birthday, my dad and xCLP told the restaurant staff that it was my birthday, which resulted in them bringing out my dessert with a lit candle on top while the piped music played Happy Birthday. I blushed fiercely and had no idea where to put my face for five minutes, but that being the centre of attention was very pleasant in spite of being embarrassing. I asked my fiancee how she felt about public proposals, and she said that she would be embarrassed in a similar way but very happy.

[Alex]

I have a lovely idea for a crossover fan-fic, but I'm not the right person to write it: it requires a Christian perspective, and I'm an atheist. The crossover is between the RTC apocalyptic genre represented by Left Behind, and Atlas Shrugged. Thesis: John Galt is the Antichrist. Ayn Rand, after all, was one of the most effective prophets of the Cult of Mammon, successfully converting hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who still mistake themselves for Christians (and Real True Christians™ at that!) to the unwitting worship of the corpulent archdevil of greed. (Teabagger rallies often have a few randroids in the crowd waving "Who is John Galt?" signs. It would be fun, if somewhat risky, to counterpicket them with a sign saying "Who is John Galt? He's the Antichrist, of course!")

Front page posters, please feel free to steal this idea and post it where more people will see it; I'd love to see what some of the Slacktivites do with it.

[Firedrake]

Mmy, "how to ask her so she can't turn you down" sounds to me exactly like the "pick-up artist" approach: women are incomprehensible black boxes, but if you provide the right inputs they'll provide the outputs you want.

JK, yes, but money is still worth something now, and I don't suppose people have stopped starving since the Event.

Ross, I'm not at all a fan of Disqus - they make their money by tracking you from site to site, after all...

I think that the acceptability of a public proposal depends entirely on the people involved - some would find it utterly horrid, some would love it. Isn't that the case with most things that involve people? Looking on the bright side, if person A thinks that person B will love a big flashy proposal and is wrong, B can be pretty sure that A doesn't know B as well as A thought A did...

Alex: we are all front-page posters these days...

[Phoenix]

This is beyond creepy. I got married on Saturday, and it was the most awesome experience of my life. Maybe I'm selfish, but I wouldn't have shared the ceremony with my own sister, let alone my father's new wife not even two years after my own mom had passed away, no matter how much I liked her or how well we got along.

I can appreciate that at a time like this, it would be frivolous to spend thousands of dollars on a huge party the way my new spouse and I did, so I could understand opting for a small, private, quick ceremony. I might even go for having two ceremonies on the same day. But I would still want to write the vows myself, choose the music, and have the attention focused on me - even if it was just for an hour.

The picture of Chloe and Amanda walking down the aisle together (because who's going to escort either one of them?) and walking Stepford-like up to Buck and Rayford is all kinds of sickening.

And Chloe is going to be walking down the aisle towards her own father. How is that in any way okay? Ugh.

[Brin]

Congratulations to Phoenix and Phoenix-spouse!

[Phoenix]

Thanks, Brin :-)

[MercuryBlue]

\o/ Phoenix & Phoenix-spouse!

[Ruby]

Congrats, Pheonix!!!

[Ruby]

Phoenix: Maybe I'm selfish, but I wouldn't have shared the ceremony with my own sister, let alone my father's new wife not even two years after my own mom had passed away, no matter how much I liked her or how well we got along.

I feel the same way (although I have not personally had a wedding yet).

And Chloe is going to be walking down the aisle towards her own father. How is that in any way okay? Ugh.

I agree it's creepy to share a wedding day with your father. But the ceremony takes place in Bruce's office. So, no aisle (unless Chloe and Amanda decide to walk down the hall to the wedding march or something). It's just the five of them.

So, you know, totally romantic. :D

[Phoenix, who wanted her kitten to be the ring bearer]

Thank you, MercuryBlue and Ruby! MercuryBlue, I'm digging the martini glass emoticon. In fact, it has inspired me.

@Ruby - Somehow I managed to forget that little detail. Wow, an OFFICE. These people have no imagination. Despite the "crime wave," they could at least have had it outside... I bet Chloe and Amanda could have recruited two of the invisible horsies with swords to ride on toward their bridegrooms. Novel AND themed! I mean, if you're going to have a double wedding at least make it somewhat unique.

[Mmy]

Congrats Phoenix & Phoenix-spouse

[Phoenix, who is naming a drink after MercuryBlue]

Thanks, Mmy!

[Ruby]

Phoenix: Somehow I managed to forget that little detail. Wow, an OFFICE.

Yanno, I was never one of those little girls who imagined my big, fancy wedding. And I still don't. When I get engaged to my as-yet-faceless guy, I just want a small wedding. But that doesn't mean I want it in some loser's office holy crap!!

And it's extra, extra weird because Chloe and Ray-gun know they'll see Irene again in just a few years.

"Hi, Mom! This is my husband, Buck. Yeah, we had a beautiful wedding. Wish you could have been there. Remember that church you used to beg and plead and threaten me to go to? Well, I got married in the assistant pastor's office! And Dad got married right next to me, to a woman who wasn't you! Aren't you thrilled? Oh, it was everything I always dreamed my wedding day would be."

[MercuryBlue]

Martini glass? *frowns at it* I always thought it was, and was using it assuming it was, a head and outstretched arms. You know, \o/ (o) (o /o\ it's fun to stay at the \o/ (o) (o /o\, or cheerleader pompoms *\o/* but martini glass works with the look and makes sense in context, so let's go with that.

Ooh, a drink? What's in it?

[kisekileia]

Phoenix, a kitten ring bearer would be SO CUTE!! I'm not sure how you'd have the kitten carry the ring without the kitten eating the ring, though. Congratulations on your marriage!

[Amaryllis]

Congratulations, Phoenix!

[Mary Kaye]

If I were an underground freedom fighter I could totally see getting married in an office--or a bunker, or a scrap of forest, or a moving van. Whatever. And being married alongside my dad could just be an acknowledgement of the camaraderie of the group. It could be sweet, actually. My siblings and I had minor roles in my father's wedding when he remarried, and in a pinch I'm sure we'd have been willing to consolidate ours with his.

Harder if you *know* the world will end in 5 years, though I think a good writer could still make it work.

But this group hasn't got enough camaraderie to light a squib. Partly because the oppression that's supposed to bind them together isn't really in evidence, and partly because they are such very unpleasant people.

[hapax]

Congratulations, Phoenix and Phoenix-spouse!

~{S}?&~
\o/ [wildly flings confetti]

[Phoenix, who had three]

Haha, shows where my mind is at... it looked like a short glass with an olive in it to me. Of course, I did spend the better part of this week in Vegas with NewSpouse.

MercuryBlue Martini (not really a martini at all, and it's not exactly blue but whatever):

1 part Seagram's Sweet Tea vodka
2 parts lemonade
Splash of blue curacao

[Phoenix, who had THREE]

Be careful with it.

[MercuryBlue]

Ooh. (Mixed drinks fascinate me. Why, I'm not sure, since I can't drink them or anything else with alcohol. Yay meds.)

[Firedrake]

The version of the double wedding in the films - actually near the beginning of the third film, World at War - is clearly shown as happening in the basement of the mostly-demolished New Hope Church, at dead of night. 'Cos, y'know, there's actually a curfew, what with the total breakdown of civil order and such.

Yes, even these very bad films are better than the books.

[Brin]

Firedrake: actually near the beginning of the third film, World at War

There's more than one Left Behind film?

[Lonespark]

Well, yeah, the movies seem to just be not-good, as opposed to an atrocious affront to good sense, decency, and art.

[cjmr]

"There's more than one Left Behind film?"

Yep. Direct to DVD productions, like so many other EC films.

[Phoenix]

@MercuryBlue- the virgin form is pretty tasty as well!

[Lonespark]

I just spent a minute trying to figure out whose virgin form we might be tasting...
But yeah, non-alcoholic drinks are good.

[Ruby]

Firedrake: The version of the double wedding in the films - actually near the beginning of the third film, World at War - is clearly shown as happening in the basement of the mostly-demolished New Hope Church, at dead of night. 'Cos, y'know, there's actually a curfew, what with the total breakdown of civil order and such.

World at War was very sad. And I don't just mean because the world was at war and stuff. There was a sense that the filmmakers were throwing in the towel, knew this would be the last Left Behind movie, and just didn't care.

Well, that made me sad, at any rate, because I would love more LB films of which we could make fun!

[Firedrake]

The films are a fascinating mix of "let's put on a show in the barn" enthusiasm from the amateurs and "gimme my money, I'm out of here" from the pros (especially Brad Johnson). I'm inclined to agree with Ruby that the crew knew the third film would be the last; there's stuff from the end of Tribulation Force, but also a pile of events from later in the series. (And still no large-scale supernatural activity - no demon locusts or anything like that.)

Apparently LaHaye sued Cloud Ten because the first film was so bad. They eventually settled, and Cloud Ten is starting to make new versions of the films.