History WMG / ForBetterOrForWorse

Farley's HeroicSacrifice and Edgar's TimmyInAWell - and everyone [[BigDamnHeroes rushing to the rescue]] - never happened. By the time they realized April was missing, it was too late. The loss hit the Pattersons hard; on the suggestion of a friend, Micheal tried writing about it. Unable to cope directly with his feelings, he speculated instead on [[ForWantOfANail what might have been, if only things had worked out a little differently]]. This eventually ballooned into the WishFulfillment seen in the published strip; after all, why ''not'' make things perfect in his fantasy version?

Throughout the strip, Elly has attempted all sorts of things to escape the tedium of being "just a {{Housewife}}", something she's repeatedly shown to hate despite [[AcceptableFeminineGoalsAndTraits it supposedly being the only real gauge of her worth]]. She also constantly assumes and fears John having an affair. Factor in her blatant {{Hypocrisy}} and the strip frequently [[HypocriticalHumor showing said hypocrisy]], and we come to the conclusion that Elly may have done exactly what she fears ''John'' might do to her: had an affair. Given her wishy-washiness, it likely didn't last long... just long enough that she felt guilty enough to sleep with her husband shortly afterwards. (Given the unusual interest she takes in [[CasanovaWannabe John's friend Ted]] in the [[AllThereInTheManual monthly letters she writes]], we can [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys safely guess as]] to whom her partner was.)

[[WMG: ''For Better Or For Worse'' is set in the same universe as Series/{{Jericho}}.]]

Combining elements from various [=WMGs=]: after April fell in the river, {{Reality Ensue|s}}d. Farley and Edgar didn't save the day; by the time they noticed April's absence, it was too late. Elly and John were charged with reckless endangerment of a minor, with testimony calling them out for ''other'' questionable acts of "parenting". They lost custody of Michael and Elizabeth, and -- even worse in Elly's mind -- became social pariahs. The strain was too much for their marriage, and John divorced her, leaving Milborough and Elly stuck in the lurch. He eventually remarried a brunette French-Canadian.

ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse

Considering how far away April lives, the unlikelihood that her parents have met the person she's interesting, and how close to her mother's ideals it seems (especially considering April was a rebel by the standards of the comic), it could be that this is just what she's told her parents so they won't realize [[BiTheWay she's dating a girl.]]

** I am so writing that fanfic.......

* Could also be someone with a unisex name, and the Pattersons just assumed she was dating a man. But you know what they say about assuming...

* His own {{Purity Sue}}ness is how he'd ''like'' his life to have gone; even the setbacks all "pay off" for him in the long run.

* April is heavily idealized, yet her parents treat her as TheUnFavorite because Michael can't picture them actually treating one of their children ''well'', thanks to his own shoddy childhood. The best he can come up with is having them ignore her.

*** Meta version: April became TheUnfavorite in the strip due to someone calling out Lynn Johnston on this In RealLife. If I remember rightly, April's near-drowning happened back when Johnston was only getting snail mail, not email from her readers, so I don't know how the fans, or even a later exec at her publishing company, reacted to this. I do remember reading in the author's notes of the collection where this arc turns up: Johnston basically created it to give Farley a Heroic sendoff. A vet friend she consulted with told her that Farley's breed didn't often live beyond 12, so she had to kill him off because of the strip running in real time. Said friend told her that she'd better give Farley a hero's death, and specifically mentioned that creek running at the back of the property. Who knows how that friend reacted to being given 'the credit' for the arc?

[[WMG: The Patterson's dislike of the legal system comes from Elly being arrested and tried for the reckless endangerment of a minor.]]
Not only would the near-drowning and rescue of a four-year-old child and rescue cause the Patterson's neighbors to discuss [[WhatTheHellHero Elly's parenting skills]], it would definitely attract the unwelcome attention of law enforcement. All the times that we were watching Michael and Weed match wits with their landlady, we were being distracted from what was really important: Elly being put on trial for child endangerment. The reason she's not in jail is that they [[BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord convinced Elizabeth]] to commit perjury and [[TakingTheHeat take the blame]] for her mother's screw-up which resulted in her having to do community service off-camera. This explains why they didn't want a police constable as a son-in-law; he might find out what Elly did and take her to task.

At some point in the future of the Foobiverse, April begins therapy sessions to cope with years of being TheUnfavorite. She is a somewhat UnreliableNarrator who paints herself as the OnlySaneMan, Elly as a SmugSnake with a martyr complex and a need to control her family, John as a useless buffoon obsessed with trains, Michael as a {{Jerkass}}, Elizabeth as a whiny, [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered ninny]], and so on. She ''despises'' Anthony, and this comes through in the sessions as she describes him as a NiceGuy InNameOnly who her family raised up as the Best Man Ever for no reason she could clearly see. They ignore her "wisdom" and treat her horribly for no reason whatsoever. Only occassionally do we see April admit that she might have been in error, as she relates her clashes with Becky and her other friends.

* Actually that scarily links up with Lynn herself. And that makes sense: Anthony probably broke up with Therese and wasn't as to blame and Micheal would never put his family at risk to go after something he had a backup of, those were just April's hatred of them: Anthony was Elizabeth 'settling' and Micheal was always the favorite.

Combining elements from various [=WMGs=]: after April fell in the river, [[RealityEnsues Reality Ensued]]. Farley and Edgar didn't save the day; by the time they noticed April's absence, it was too late. Elly and John were charged with reckless endangerment of a minor, with testimony calling them out for ''other'' questionable acts of "parenting". They lost custody of Michael and Elizabeth, and -- even worse in Elly's mind -- became social pariahs. The strain was too much for their marriage, and John divorced her, leaving Milborough and Elly stuck in the lurch. He eventually remarried a brunette French-Canadian.

Rather than face reality and make any effort to [[MustMakeAmends repair things]] or just make a decent life for herself, Elly became mired in self-pity and blaming everyone but herself for what happened. Over the years, she constructed an elaborate fantasy -- one where she could continue to "suffer" through martyring herself raising a family and insulting her own appearance, while at the same time convincing herself that all the agony was worth it and she was the Best Mom Ever. A massive contridiction, to be certain, but this theory isn't based on the imagining of a woman in fine mental health.

Hence, we have Michael fulfilling ''her'' dream of becoming a writer, with a girl she very dimly remembers Michael maybe having his first crush on serving as his "ideal" wife. We have Anthony, the only man she felt that she really understood, raised up as Elizabeth's True Love. His marriage to Therese was Elly's way of dealing with John's "betrayal", while the chain of events leading to his finding his way back to Liz was cribbed from cheesy romantic novels and daytime soaps. April becomes TheUnfavorite and a [[TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong whiny brat]] to assauge her guilt over losing her youngest child in such a horrible fashion.

[[WMG: April is TheUnfavorite due to RealitySubtext.]]

''Stone Season'', judging from [[AllThereInTheManual its samples]], is a 'Poor Woman [[DeusAngstMachina In Misery]]' slogfest in which the [[DesignatedHero heroine]] passively endures her husband's insanely over-the-top abuse until [[LaserGuidedKarma he's finally removed from the equation]] through no effort of her own. Anti-male ''and'' anti-femimist; a perfect fit for Lifetime's brand of "entertainment"!

After the glamor wore off her "token that means I'm taken" and her [[EsotericHappyEnding dream wedding]] ended, Elizabeth soon found that married life wasn't all she'd built it up to be. She turned to her mother for comfort; Elly responded the only way she knows how: [[ItsAllAboutMe complaining about HER life]].

[[WMG: April is TheUnfavorite because she's the result of a brief affair... or so Elly thinks.]]

When Elly learned she was pregnant with April, she immediately went into shock, declaring "[[ButICantBePregnant But I Can't Be Pregnant!]]" This was because she actually wasn't certain [[MamasBabyPapasMaybe who the baby's father was]]... but was secretly terrified that it wasn't John. She's never known for certain, because she doesn't have the guts to try and find out. This is why she openly despises and neglects April: she sees her as a constant reminder of her affair, and worries about the truth coming out.

[[WMG: ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'' is set in the same universe as Series/{{Jericho}}.]]

Francoise becomes ignored by Anthony as he focuses all of his attention on his son from Elizabeth, because Francoise only reminds him of evil, evil Therese, making Francoise the TheUnfavorite and James Allen something of a SpoiledBrat, with her doing all the work and him doing nothing at all, despite Anthony and Elizabeth's claims otherwise. As she gets older, Francoise realizes exactly why her mother left and soon becomes bitter and resentful of her dad, and even plans a time to [[CallingTheOldManOut call him out]]. Upon graduating high school, right in a crowd of hundreds of people, Francoise rightfully calls him out, to the shock and horror of Anthony, as well as everyone else who comes to call him out too, and finally distances herself from Anthony and moves far away to escape from such blatant [[ParentalFavoritism favoritism]].

* Alternately, April started out like this, but soon turned into a child Lynn suspected Rod fathered out of wedlock, one that wasn't hers, hence April being treated like the red-headed stepchild.

But they failed to take Liz's personality into account. She was upset, yes, but stewed in passive-aggressive silence, unable to bring herself to interrupt. Thus, Anthony suddenly found himself in a marriage he wanted no part of. So he improvised, deliberately turning his own passive-aggressiveness up full throttle and irritating Therese. He ''knew'' how important her career was to her, and that she didn't feel ready to start a family yet -- that was why he pressed and cajoled her into having Francoise and acted like he believed she should give it all up to be a stay-at-home mom. He was trying to provoke her into demanding a divorce so he could play the innocent victim.

Could be anything that sets them off, that he has tattoos and dyes his hair, that he refuses to 'do the right thing' and marry April, that he's a bit bohemian for their tastes, that he and April both do some side music gigs, that he's vegetarian, or even that he's not white. SOMETHING will meet with John and Elly's disapproval, and he'll be as much TheUnfavorite as April is.

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<<|WildMassGuessing|>>

Remember how Meredith was conceived? "Whoopsie -- somehow I, a licensed pharmacist, had ''no clue'' that switching birth control would leave me even more fertile during the transition! My bad!" It's not good for a pharmacist to [[YouFailPharmacologyForever Fail Pharmacology Forever]]; if she made mistakes like that with their ''customers''...

Elly seems like the type to demand grandkids from each of them, and the type to take things into her own hands if they don't give her them fast enough. She could have said to Deanna, no, it's fine to have sex while switching birth control medicines, it won't have an effect, and Deanna, being a sycophant to Elly, would have listened to her instead of remembering that she's a pharmacist and can look this up herself. And in fact, this WMG goes with one I had posited on the WMG page for ''TheNewRetcons'', one where I suggested that Elly DID sabotage Elizabeth's birth control in that fanfic, resulting in her coming back from her honeymoon pregnant. And let's face it, she WOULD do this to April, and plead innocence, claiming 'well, I guess it's meant to be' and throwing a fit if April implied she would abort it.

ForBetterOrForWorse

[[WMG: ''ForBetterOrForWorse'' is about BecomingTheMask.]]

[[WMG: ''ForBetterOrForWorse'' is set in the same universe as Series/{{Jericho}}.]]