From: ainsley (ainsleybee@gmail.com)
Date: 05/03/2008 |
Wow. I absolutely love this. Meg rocks, and you make her more wonderful than canon did, richer and more complex.
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From: jadelennox (jadelennox@suberic.net)
Date: 01/09/2008 |
OH.
First of all, I love gen stories, and aren't very many in this fandom. Secondly, I love Meg, and she doesn't get that much love. And thirdly, I love stories which develop characters who are tantalizingly barely painted in canon.
Not only do you do all three of these things, you do it so well. Like most of the ostensibly funny characters in ds, if you look at Meg seriously, she's fairly tragic -- yet simultaneously so strong and so fascinating. You delve into all of this and find such interesting character background.
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From: Zebra (zebra363@livejournal.com)
Date: 12/31/2007 |
You've created a wonderful, rich history for her in this story. I especially like the section where she thinks about what to do with her life and decides to acquire various skills in preparation.
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From: Eledhwenlin (eledhwenlin@gmail.com)
Date: 12/30/2007 |
This is a wonderful view on Thatcher.
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From: Queue (keeyoo@gmail.com)
Date: 12/29/2007 |
Clear, detailed, evocative, direct and to the excellent point. I've never liked Meg Thatcher more than I do at this moment, with your compassionate historical vision of her lingering in my mind.
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From: sage
Date: 12/29/2007 |
beautifully done! There's so little backstory to Meg, but you've pieced together all the bits we know into an entirely believable history for her. I especially love her affection for dogs and her difficulty handling the sexual harassment situation. Human intimacy is HARD for her, and this gives an excellent foundation for understanding why. ♥
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From: exeterlinden (exeterlinden@hotmail.com)
Date: 12/28/2007 |
It's so nice to see Thatcher treated decently. You did a wonderful job of explaning her canon actions with her backstory.
I really liked little Meg being so strategic and determined, planning her own way out of her misery and working hard to better herself. She's very much a *head person*, here, and I think that rings very true to character.
This is Meg Thatcher from the beginning of the show, before they butchered her, and she's a fascinating woman: Strong and ambitious - but without the fierce emotion - an academic and a diplomat, and that's what makes her weakness as well, I guess. That's what makes her seem a little cold, in canon, a little egotistical in her pursuit of her goals - a very different creature from our other canon characters.
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From: J S Cavalcante
Date: 12/27/2007 |
Beautifully written, sensitive character study of Meg Thatcher. I admire the depth of your research into canon for this minor character. She really wasn't treated well by the show, was she? For example, I doubt that a woman who'd gone through that experience with Henri Clouthier would have harassed Fraser in similar fashion. But that's what was in canon, and you did a beautiful job spackling over that canon hole. I think PG treated her better than PH did, but she was still stuck as a caricature far too often. You've reclaimed her here, and I salute you for that.
The parts where she connects with the animals are beautiful and so telling. Especially the way she treated Dief. Her tears over Winston (haha--great choice of name!) rang very, very true. I lost my grandmother when I was almost six, and my dog had to be put down not long after. I cried for the dog for years. I don't remember crying for my grandmother, and to this day I think it's because my parents at least /explained/ about the dog. Whatever they told me about my grandmother just didn't register. It wasn't till years later that I realized the tears were not all for the dog.
Her thoughts about "Call me /Ray/" Kowalski and dancing and how she's danced with princes, and, OMG, her secret desire to shock him with the paintings she'd modeled for--I loved all of that. Would love to see, in another story, either the dancing scene or the revelation of the paintings--with Fraser accidentally coming upon Thatcher and Kowalski there...that would be something. :)
Finally, her thoughts on Fraser are lovely, and I adored the way she noticed that he appeared undecided as to where to go next and that his heart lay in Chicago. :)
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From: Luzula (luzulae@gmail.com)
Date: 12/27/2007 |
Wow, Thatcher gen, that's great! I like seeing the parallells between her and Fraser (their dead mothers, their intelligence), it makes me think of her comment in AtQH about them both graduating at the top of their class. I also really like her musings on Cloutier and her frustration with how hard it is to do something about it, and her comparison of that situation with her's and Fraser's. Also, the section on Kowalski makes me grin.
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From: Nos4a2no9 (nos4a2no9@gmail.com)
Date: 12/27/2007 |
This was an excellent exploration of Thatcher's backstory and a great piece of character observation. It's incredibly evocative and really well-written, and I love the way you draw clear connections between Thatcher's childhood obsessions and the woman she becomes. You've really rehabilitated her here, and given her a history and a multi-dimensional personality that far overshadows the (rather poor) canon material available to us. I think this story should be the first stopping point for anyone wanting to write Thatcher, and I really appreciate all the time and thought you put into crafting this examination of her character. Great job!
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From: Sprat (sprat75@gmail.com)
Date: 12/26/2007 |
This was really cool. We don't often get to see a three-dimensional portrait of Meg Thatcher, and this one was well-imagined and nicely written, too.
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From: keerawa (keerawa@yahoo.com)
Date: 12/26/2007 |
This is excellent!
I really like the back and forth structure, showing the way her past experiences inform her present choices. The moment where Meg aks for lessons for her birthday, acquiring skills that will help her escape and become something more, really spoke to me. Her shame when she realized that she had been treating Faser alsmot the same way that Cloutier had treated her, oooh.
But the real stand-out line for me was this: "And she wonders if he had been able to cry for his dead mother. "
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From: The Moo (the_moo@sympatico.ca)
Date: 12/26/2007 |
Lovely. It's been a long time since I've read such beautiful bit of reflective meg-ness.
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From: buzzylittleb
Date: 12/26/2007 |
You've written a smart and clever fic that carefully draws Thatcher out from what canon has provided and lets her breathe. :-)
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From: Primrose (primroseb@gmail.com)
Date: 12/25/2007 |
I love this story for so many reasons. Thatcher is an underdeveloped character in fic, partially because fandom is so slash-centric but also because she never got to realise her potential in canon (something I don't understand given that the best Thatcher episodes were written by Paul Gross). You've developed her into a person worth admiring, someone whose three-dimensional and human. If she were a real person, I think she'd love what you wrote. Not that she'd tell you, of course, she'd be much too private (and proud) for that. *g*
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From: vienna_waits (v.waits@gmail.com)
Date: 12/25/2007 |
Okay, the tech issue should be fixed, so let me try posting the long version of my comment...
Oh my God, this is such a wonderful present!! It's just exactly what I wanted. It's so carefully observed and beautifully written and covers all the bases of what we see of Thatcher in canon while adding something that makes her...real, a real human being. *squees incoherently* I also have several guesses as to who you might be, dear Seekrit Santa, and I can't wait to find out if I'm right! But on to the story...
"But because he was so quiet, because his arms tightened around her as if he was lost and powerless to do otherwise, she assured him that school was fine. That she had friends, that she was happy. She distracted him with perfect report xxxxs and so he did not question the bruises on her shins. She changed from her school clothes as soon as she got home, hiding the smudges of ground-in dirt and frustrated tears at the bottom of the laundry basket."
I love the contrast here of Thatcher putting on a brave (feminine) face for her dad vs. her real tomboy life, and it rings so true to me. Perhaps the smells of wool and leather are part of what subconsciously attracted her to Fraser decades later.
"Her father did not ask, and Meg did not tell, that her skill had been refined by months of pelting sticks and stones in self-defense; because names did hurt, and bullies didn't hesitate to mock a motherless classmate - but they'd learned, eventually, a healthy respect for her aim and range. ...Though it has been years since she could point to a 1.3 ERA, Meg isn't surprised when her first missile lands true."
Another detail that rings absolutely true, and a brilliant segue into adult Thatcher's life in We Are the Eggmen.
"She named him Winston." Great name, and way to flesh out that tiny little conversation Fraser and Thatcher had on the way to the theatre. And thank you for not killing him off in some horrible way.
"Meg straightens up, hands fisted on her hips. Constable Fraser might be hoodwinked by his clever canine, tricked into believing the wolf feels under the weather - but Meg isn't fooled. The distended belly is most likely due to overindulgence; given his past history, and the trace evidence of orange powder dusting the wolf's lips and chin, Meg suspects that one of Detective Vecchio's notorious poker games is to blame. ...She will work at the small conference table instead - just this once."
I love this whole section SO MUCH. I think little happy squeaks came out of me the whole way through it. She's not made of stone, after all. Of course she loves Dief.
"Constable Fraser puzzles her." Yes, I think when they first met, she had absolutely no idea what to do with him.
"So instead of presents for her birthday or Christmas, Meg asked for lessons of all kinds: languages, dance, horsemanship, etiquette, marksmanship...Her father took her to the firing range himself, bracing her arm and shoulder against his genial bulk until she learned how to school her body to compensate for a weapon's kickback." Again, this explains the contrast between the feminine/cultured side we see of her and her tomboy core. I LOVE that her dad taught her how to shoot.
"At times, when Meg feels most peevish, she is hard-pressed to resist trotting out her diplomas and stunning him into submission with a staggering display of her own talents." Again, I think this is a good observation and very plausible; she often seems somewhat irritated with "call me Ray" Vecchio (LOVED THAT!), and there is a certain undercurrent of...competitiveness, maybe, between her and Ray K.
"For all her scholarly preparation, despite a healthy degree of self-confidence and savoir-faire following Paris and university, and in spite of the fact that she graduated at the top of her class at Depot - Meg found herself badly unnerved by Henri Cloutier's unwelcome advances." Another excellent segue. And I really loved this section too-- she's so angry with herself for not stopping Cloutier, for letting herself look the other way. She, too, has a strong sense of justice, and her violation of both her own dignity and Fraser's trust should and does cause her considerable consternation. And I love that she places the transfer form precisely in the center of Cloutier's desk blotter.
"Constable Fraser is, and ever has been, a puzzle wrapped in an enigma - a unique individual utterly unlike anyone Meg has ever known. He is a good man, and because of him she has become a better officer. She is proud to call him a friend and comrade in arms, and hopes - believes - he thinks the same of her." I like how her attitudes have shifted since she first met Fraser, although I wonder if she isn't still half in love (or more) with him, even though it has become perfectly clear to her that she won't ever be romantically involved with him.
"In the morning, when the home office calls for her report, she will make her choices." Wow, what a perfect ending. Of course, one has to wonder what she ended up telling the home office to end up with Saddam Hussein...
This story was just so gorgeous, like a jewel that keeps catching the light. I want to throw it a wild party, marry it, have its babies, and remain utterly faithful to it for the rest of my days. Thank you ever so much!! You made my Christmas!
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From: Ignaz (ignazwisdom@gmail.com)
Date: 12/25/2007 |
This is absolutely wonderful. What a wonderful backstory for her. You write beautifully -- I really, really enjoyed this.
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From: vienna_waits (v.waits@gmail.com)
Date: 12/24/2007 |
I had two pages of comments, but the filter wouldn't let me post them, so I have sent them to the maintainer for forwarding to the author. In a nutshell, I LOVED this story! So beautifully observed, such absolutely gorgeous prose, with seamless transitions between adult Thatcher and child Thatcher. Just PERFECT!! Thank you so very much!
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From: viciouscats (viciouscats@gmail.com)
Date: 12/24/2007 |
I really liked this. Especially the scene with Dief. And these two lines are just great:
She couldn't remember crying so for her mother.
And she wonders if he had been able to cry for his dead mother.
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