Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The memories will remain

Click to enlarge.

18 comments:

DreadedCandiru2 said...

Well, that's a potential deal-breaker right there, ain't it? The last thing on this Earth that the mean-spirited adult child in the ponytail wants is to have to take responsibility for her own hateful idiocy.

Holly said...

I love Elly's look of delight in the second panel: "Aha! No consequences!" It so perfectly balances the bug-eyed expression of horror in the final panel when she learns the truth.

April Patterson said...

The last thing on this Earth that the mean-spirited adult child in the ponytail wants is to have to take responsibility for her own hateful idiocy.

It's definitely not her favorite thing. ;)

April Patterson said...

I love Elly's look of delight in the second panel: "Aha! No consequences!" It so perfectly balances the bug-eyed expression of horror in the final panel when she learns the truth.

Heh--thanks. Looking for reference pictures to use, I was surprised to see how seldom she wasn't bug-eyed. ;)

howard said...

There could be some potentially delightful consequences in this. For example:

The younger Nichols boy remembers being born and unborn.
Deanna remembers Michael not as the cute, annoying little boy; but as the psychotic obsessed boy.
Michael remembers Deanna as being even more physically violent than she was the first time.
Lawrence remember getting into more fights with Michael and getting beaten up more often, and his sudden development of a difficulty with going to bathrooms other than his own.
John remembers the hot loving he got from the Super Vac.
Farley and Mr. B are joined by Fred/Frank the fish.
Phil and Connie remember how they got together for a full year before she visited him in Montreal.
The Sobinskis remember moving away from Milborough 2 times.

Lots of possibilities.

April Patterson said...

howtheduck, of them all, I suspect Richard Nichols will be most in need of therapy. Christopher, too, will have some disturbing memories of wild age swings.

Joe England said...

Small price to pay, really. Everyone will regain their proper place in space and time and will have their original memories, along with another "pocket lifetime" of experiences to draw on. Many of them might well benefit from the perspective this offers, granting them a unique kind of wisdom.
Of course, I'm saying it's a small price for everyone else... it's less small for Elly, who'll now have to deal with the fallout. "You broke my leg again!" "You stole my book!" "I had to experience toilet training fourteen times!" "You almost destroyed my life! Literally!" and so forth. Maybe she'll attempt to duck the backlash by saying what I just said, and telling them all they should be grateful for the experience. Not that I expect that tactic to work worth a tinker's damn.
Though it's to her credit that she recognizes what she did as "damage," and that she's willing to see it undone. Maybe we're being too hard on her. Maybe there'll be some forgiveness, in the end. After all, for all her flaws, she's still their moth--
Nope, I can't do it. I keep coming back to that whole "retroactive abortion" thing. She honestly almost wiped out her youngest kid, that's just... grotesque. And stealing Michael's book, of all the cheap, underhanded ways to squirm into a career... I'm an artist and writer myself, and nothing pisses me off like intellectual theft. I picture everyone throwing a party when they get back and taking their kids to a fun restaurant, and Elly standing outside with her face and hands pressed against the glass, watching everyone laughing while a miniature rain cloud hovers over her, and I just wanna laugh. Twit deserves what she gets.

April Patterson said...

I picture everyone throwing a party when they get back and taking their kids to a fun restaurant, and Elly standing outside with her face and hands pressed against the glass, watching everyone laughing while a miniature rain cloud hovers over her, and I just wanna laugh. Twit deserves what she gets.

Hah--I might just have to steal that idea. ;)

DreadedCandiru2 said...

I should think that Joe England's idea is close to what you have planned in the first place.

April Patterson said...

I should think that Joe England's idea is close to what you have planned in the first place.

I've got certain aspects more fully planned out than others. :)

Anonymous said...

Maybe John will finally man up and divorce her. Tell her something like "You wanted a fresh start -- here. Here you go."

Michael could draw off the experience to write a horror novel. Could make a nice parallel to how she wanted to steal his work; cribbing off of her actions for inspiration.

Will any police or public officials remember the incident? She could get arrested on some trumped-up cover charges; it'd be a nod to how hatefully the law is treated in the source strip.

Actually, what if the entire adult population remembers what she did? Yeesh... Elly may have to leave town. But then again, would she actually be CAPABLE of making such a drastic change in her life, even unto threat of massive consequences for her thoughtlessness?

April Patterson said...

Will any police or public officials remember the incident? She could get arrested on some trumped-up cover charges; it'd be a nod to how hatefully the law is treated in the source strip.

They will remember, but they won't know why/how it happened.

Actually, what if the entire adult population remembers what she did?

Same as above--most people will be aware that they've been through this strange experience but without having an inkling as to why.

Joe England said...

Wow, if that many people were affected, there must have been a lot of other babysitters taking care of a lot of other kids!
Anyway, I imagine most people will simply be relieved to be able to put the whole strange incident behind them and get on with their lives. No real point in agonizing over any of it. All that matters is that they're back, it's over, and perhaps they can even say they're wiser for the experience. Nothing like being a kid again for a while to make you really appreciate what it is to be an adult. So yeah, I see this as a good thing.
But come to think of it, perhaps that will be Elly's final undoing... everyone else will just be happy to get back to normal, but Elly... Elly won't be able to put it behind her because, well... she's Elly. This whole thing has been about how she's not able to let go of the past.
Furthermore, she'll become convinced that everyone else will be similarly unable to let bygones be bygones, though her family has had enough of their lives revolving around Elly and will be glad to just not pay attention to her. But Elly, being Elly, will see in every action a sign of condemnation and rejection. She'll make herself an outcast and alone because she'll be convinced that they're all out to get her. This will satisfy her need to feel victimized and penitent, assuaging both her ego and her guilt. And since everyone remembers, she'll be on her guard for the rest of her life, feeling all eyes on her, ultimately devolving into an obsessive, paranoid wreck. Perhaps after a while some of her family will be generous enough to reach out to her and try to make amends, but by then Elly will be too afraid to let anyone get close again. Afraid of consequences, afraid of the embarrassment, afraid of judgment, and, secretly, afraid to see everyone moving on without her. Maybe what she'll regret most of all will be that this amazing magic second chance she found didn't work out, and in fact just fudged things up. She'll dig herself into a hole because she just didn't get her way and, worse, she knows now she wasn't meant to. Who wants to live in a world that doesn't revolve around yourself?
The worst thing to face would be that no one even cared enough to hate her. She'll pretend that she's the object of everyone's loathing just so that deep down she can feel like she's the center of attention again. This incident will become the defining subject of her future life... a new focal point in the past for her to cling to. Anything to avoid moving into the future.
So in the end, her family won't have to punish her for what she's done... she'll do the job for them. She'll lock herself in another fantasy world, but this time, she'll be alone.

Godozo said...

Interesting...people will not only remember what they lived, but clearly an alternative world in which their lives were different...somewhat radically.

Of course, one wonders how this will affect how people lived their lives, so we may end up with a third life: The attempt to combine one's lived life with one's shadow life will end up causing adjustments, as the better parts of the shadow life are grabbed at (and the characters try to avoid the worst parts of one's life).

So...will the people we see at the end of this be the same as the people whom we saw when the story began? The dirty and easy answer would, of course be "yes," but I'd be curious to see what changes might happen.

Especially since we're talking about kids who've had to raise themselves (and another group of children in addition to that) for over a year and a half. Who knows how that will affect THEM.

Anonymous said...

Can I just say that these last analyses are starting to sound like a LOST discussion? :-)

April Patterson said...

She'll pretend that she's the object of everyone's loathing just so that deep down she can feel like she's the center of attention again.

This does sound exceedingly Ellyesque.

April Patterson said...

Can I just say that these last analyses are starting to sound like a LOST discussion? :-)

I don't watch Lost, but based on the interesting comments I've heard about the show, I'm going to have to catch up on DVD sometime. Originally, I had the impression that the show was nothing but a scripted version of Survivor, a premise that didn't interest me at all.

Joe England said...

It'll be nicest, I think, to see Elizabeth freed from this nonsense. She'll be anxious to get back to being an adult, to returning to her husband and finally getting around to... what they were "about to" do. She's probably had to deal with so much impotent frustration, by the time they're reunited she'll be about ready to tear the poor guy apart.
I'll bet she'll be ready to chew Elly's ear off, too... imagine being stuck with that idiot all this time armed only with a two-word vocabulary. Someone's going to get quite a lecture.
"And another thing! You almost drowned me in that bathtub, you moron! How could you raise so many kids and not know how to wash a child?? And those insipid nursery rhymes... no wonder you can't write a book!"