Wednesday, 2 October 2024

Sep 30, 2024 00:37


The one where we're reminded that Lindy spent her teen years lamenting not having the body and the language. 

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dreadedcandiru2 September 30 2024, 08:55:15 UTC
Also, we're supposed to sympathize with Elly when she over-reacts to non-events and invents motives:

... )

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jjamele September 30 2024, 10:47:41 UTC

Go ahead and hit the kid and get it over with, Elly. You know you want to. Just do it and make it official: you wouldn't know how to communicate with a child if you had ten of them, and your ego is so fragile that a "look" from your son is enough to set you off and drive you to the brink of violence.

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dreadedcandiru2 September 30 2024, 11:06:42 UTC

The third pre-Patterson collection hints broadly as to why: we're meant to slobber over the unfairness that is a child thinking for him or herself.

What's more, she never learns from her lifetime of flying off the handle


... )

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jjamele September 30 2024, 13:51:29 UTC

"April, please close the door." If you raise your kids even half-competently, that works much better.

"I admire your determination to finish a task before taking a break" also works better than nagging.

"I've had it with motherhood, I quit!" Add another panel for a much better, more accurate punchline- "when did you ever start?"

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dreadedcandiru2 September 30 2024, 13:56:21 UTC
The woman is not interested in effective parenting. She cannot bleat about the unfairness of her existence if she is not actually suffering.

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jjamele September 30 2024, 14:04:46 UTC

And the way a deflated, long-since defeated John slumps into April's room to tell her to apologize to her mother reminds me of QualiaSoup's video about living with his own narcissist mother; especially how his frightened father would constantly tell him and his brother to walk on eggshells around Mom and Do Whatever Mom Says Immediately and Avoid Mom She's Having a Bad Day etc. Eventually his father died of cancer; in his final months, QualiaSoup was unable to have a phone conversation with dad because he learned Mom was berating Dad after each one for absorbing so much attention and taking so much of the spotlight from her. I think Iris was a sneak peak into what Elly would become with John- a controlling, dominating loon with a martyr complex that only punished her husband and made him long for death.

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dreadedcandiru2 September 30 2024, 14:19:48 UTC
This makes the strip a social horror story with a human monster.

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jjamele September 30 2024, 13:54:58 UTC

"Don't look like that. Don't stand like that. Don't have that attitude. Stand there while I define everything you've done since you walked into the house in a way that makes me look like a victim."

Meanwhile, I'm assuming, the door got closed rather quickly.

Elly, you are the Queen of Narcissism. Get over yourself.

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dreadedcandiru2 September 30 2024, 13:58:53 UTC
She cannot because then, she would have to face a hard fact about how she is the chaos she sees in her life

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jjamele October 1 2024, 12:51:51 UTC

The other kids are wondering why Liz never came back outside. Eventually they'll remember who her mother is and figure that she's probably been sent to her room for absolutely nothing, again, and should just bring an extra pair of gloves, a hat, a scarf, and everything she needs out with her the first time rather than risk returning to that horrible house.

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dreadedcandiru2 October 1 2024, 14:26:07 UTC
April but, yeah, Elly has a reputation that she doesn't know about and would call unfair because it's the truth. Another example of this is when Liz parrots passive-aggressive crap John says about Elly without really thinking about it much because that's been.....ah...disincentivized:

... )

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chocolate_frapp October 1 2024, 18:55:44 UTC

"we don't ask for much"

LIE

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dreadedcandiru2 October 1 2024, 19:11:11 UTC

If those horrible people have a motto, it's likely to be It's not a lie if I believe it.

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chocolate_frapp September 30 2024, 17:38:52 UTC

I still say most parents would KILL to have a kid who actually WANTS to do homework!

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chocolate_frapp September 30 2024, 17:37:25 UTC

"Horse buns"? Really?

Elly looks like she took some skin in panel #8.

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