Wednesday, May 26, 2010

And Elly STILL unhinges that jaw!

Click to enlarge.

27 comments:

DreadedCandiru2 said...

Like I said, the frakking idiot never learned a damned thing; her stupid need to assign her children careers and her hatred of any song she can't sing along to will limit her until she finally improves the world by leaving it. You even have the idiot screaming like a damned banshee...which reminds me of what will happen when Mike informs her that, hey, being the Great Canadian Novelist was HER dream, not his.

Joe England said...

I find it rather cruelly hilarious that this woman is still blithely attempting to behave like a mother towards the child she practically attempted to murder. She cared so little for April that she almost retconned her life away, and now she's going to whine at her over how she should spend her time... when, in fact, she should consider it a significant favor that none of her family members have responded to her company by throwing her out on the street.
I imagine they're all simply humoring her presence out of a sort of warm/cold indifference, a lack of straightforward anger as they tend to their own lives. They'll tolerate her, but will not go out of their way to express affection. And given her complete lack of apparent regret, they may never again. For God's sake, she almost orphaned her own grandchildren. I can't imagine she's as welcome in their homes as she seems to think she is.
She'll probably show up at Thanksgiving all... "Sorry I'm late, I didn't know which house we were meeting at! You all should coordinate more carefully if you can't even tell who's supposed to call and tell me these things. So did I tell you I found a Cosmic Cube recently? This place is too crowded, let's merge those two kids into one..."

DreadedCandiru2 said...

Joe England,

I find it rather cruelly hilarious that this woman is still blithely attempting to behave like a mother towards the child she practically attempted to murder. She cared so little for April that she almost retconned her life away, and now she's going to whine at her over how she should spend her time... when, in fact, she should consider it a significant favor that none of her family members have responded to her company by throwing her out on the street.

The problem, as I see it, is that Elly is incapable of thinking things through; the notion people might think that trying to consign someone inconvenient to non-existence would give her no right to judge that person's life is not one that would ever occur to her. She's not smart enough or wise enough or moral enough to do so.

Anonymous said...

"April, stay away from that jazz-man!"

Anonymous said...

Beyond trying to live vicariously through them, Elly doesn't give a damn about her kids. Having them was a social obligation in her mind and nothing more; she never developed a real attachment to them because she was too busy obsessing over how they 'inconvienced her' by existing.

April got it the worst because she was a complete accident; given Elly's constant fear of John straying, I sometimes wonder if April was the result of Elly having a fling -- or if she just thought she was. (I could see Elly having a one-night stand, feeling guilty about it, sleeping with John, then freaking out when she caught pregnant and blaming April for that.)

Given how she's acted, Elly always seems half a jaw-hinge from bellowing "I wish you were never born!" or "I wish you had drowned!" To which April could easily reply "I know."

howard said...

Unlike Michael and Elizabeth, I never saw Elly show any interest in April's choice to be a veterinarian. It seemed to me like the choice was mainly a nod to the vets in the Cruikshank family than anything else. Given the way Lynn ultimately treated Deanna's career in pharmacy, I would expect that Lynn may actually prefer April to have a more traditionally feminine career, like seamstress or school teacher.

As far as the strip goes, Elly did not seem to have any opinion on April's grades or academic achievements aside from her little lecture about how you don't take your school reports off the internet. That seemed to me to be more of a lecture about the internet than a lecture aimed at April, just like her lecture about how April shouldn't wear pole dancer clothes which culminated in the school principal lecturing the girls for being cold because they weren't wearing enough clothes. Those lectures were for society in general and not April.

April Patterson said...

You even have the idiot screaming like a damned banshee...which reminds me of what will happen when Mike informs her that, hey, being the Great Canadian Novelist was HER dream, not his.

Hee--you've noticed that Elly is making the rounds. :)

April Patterson said...

She'll probably show up at Thanksgiving all... "Sorry I'm late, I didn't know which house we were meeting at! You all should coordinate more carefully if you can't even tell who's supposed to call and tell me these things. So did I tell you I found a Cosmic Cube recently? This place is too crowded, let's merge those two kids into one..."

::snerk::

I can imagine this, for sure. :)

April Patterson said...

The problem, as I see it, is that Elly is incapable of thinking things through; the notion people might think that trying to consign someone inconvenient to non-existence would give her no right to judge that person's life is not one that would ever occur to her. She's not smart enough or wise enough or moral enough to do so.

"Picky-face Martian child! I didn't retcon you away after all! Be grateful!" ;)

April Patterson said...

"April, stay away from that jazz-man!"

:)

April Patterson said...

Given how she's acted, Elly always seems half a jaw-hinge from bellowing "I wish you were never born!" or "I wish you had drowned!" To which April could easily reply "I know."

So true. It's often seemed to me that Lynn herself grew tired of her once she had no choice but to [belatedly] move April out of her "Aypo" phase. That attitude, I think, bled into Elly. If April had drowned, Elly could imagine her forever frozen as Aypo.

April Patterson said...

Unlike Michael and Elizabeth, I never saw Elly show any interest in April's choice to be a veterinarian. It seemed to me like the choice was mainly a nod to the vets in the Cruikshank family than anything else.

A valid point. ISTM Elly's resistance is at least in part a recoiling against change--kind of like "We had an agreement!" Also, she wouldn't have "bothered" with a couple of those Manitoba trips if she'd known April weren't fulfilling her veterinary destiny. (The first trip, of course, was meant to be punitive, just as Mike and Liz's farm trips had been. April broke the mold by liking it and wanting to go back.)

Anonymous said...

Broke the mold, and broke Elly's mind, I'm sure. "She likes it? Hey, John, she likes it! What the hell do we do now?!"

But she probably justified it once she decided it was part of April's 'destiny' to become a vet, as pennance for killing Farley. (And I wouldn't be surprised if she also believed this would be a phase she went through, until she found a MAN to latch onto and abandon her unfeminine career.)

Also, college is expensive, so Elly's probably annoyed that she's changing majors and spending even more time there. Factor in how ELLY never finished college, and now you've got jealousy to deal with as well. "You're already wasting money; how hard can taking care of a bunch of dumb animals be? And now you're changing your mind? Ungrateful picky-face martian!"

Godozo said...

She's given up on her writing dreams, but not on her expectations for her kids.

In a way, sort of your typical mother who lived her life through her kids. The major difference here being that she went the extra mile in trying to re-jigger reality to fit her wishes; and failed to do so.

What this has done, of course, is give the kids a chance to rethink themselves and figure out what they want to do. And now they're beginning to go off on their own paths.

Anonymous said...

...In a way, that's sort of the best gift she ever could have given them, really. If she hadn't attempted to rewrite reality, Michael and Liz might not have ever realized that they were living HER dreams... and decide to change that.

Of course, that's the absolute opposite effect of what she intended, and I doubt Elly is capable of enough insight to realize how she actually made a positive impact in their lives that way... but if she did figure that out, she'd ignore it. Or get pissed off that they didn't appreciate everything she TRIED to do for them.

Destroyer of Worlds said...

I like leaving April's destiny open-ended like you've done...and I agree with everything Joe England says!

DreadedCandiru2 said...

Anonymous,

Of course, that's the absolute opposite effect of what she intended, and I doubt Elly is capable of enough insight to realize how she actually made a positive impact in their lives that way... but if she did figure that out, she'd ignore it. Or get pissed off that they didn't appreciate everything she TRIED to do for them.

That would make her the woman they only think that Mira is; as far as these tired eyes can see, Elly doesn't seem to be able of realizing that she had a great life and doesn't actually need to live through anyone. There's a special Hell reserved for the perennially ungrateful and she's doomed herself to spending Eternity there.

kam said...

Elly obviously subscribes to the "do or do not; there is no try" philosophy in her own twisted way. As she sees it for her kids, what's the point of trying something and then finding you don't like it? Nope, you do something, it obviously is your Destiny.

For herself, it's a whole different matter. Probably the insistence on Destiny for her kids stems from a lifetime of trying and not succeeding, and failing to realize that effort is required to get through life, but it's also okay to discover you genuinely don't like something and then move on.

~kam

john said...

You have to wonder exactly what musicians ever did to Lynn...

Anonymous said...

@john: Her brother became one instead of getting a 'real' job. Because doing something you love can't POSSIBLY be real work.

Also, I suspect she doesn't understand the 'point' of music. Especially any music she doesn't like. Remember how she thought John wasted his money on the stereo? We wondered why she wouldn't use it herself; perhaps she just doesn't care for any music in particular, so dismisses the genre as useless and frivolious.

April Patterson said...

"You're already wasting money; how hard can taking care of a bunch of dumb animals be? And now you're changing your mind? Ungrateful picky-face martian!"

"Can't you save time by dropping out of university and marrying Gerald?"

April Patterson said...

What this has done, of course, is give the kids a chance to rethink themselves and figure out what they want to do. And now they're beginning to go off on their own paths.

And how dare they--from Elly's perspective. ;)

April Patterson said...

I doubt Elly is capable of enough insight to realize how she actually made a positive impact in their lives that way... but if she did figure that out, she'd ignore it. Or get pissed off that they didn't appreciate everything she TRIED to do for them.

"Kids! Hmph! They never appreciate the unintended consequences of a mother's magicks!"

April Patterson said...

I like leaving April's destiny open-ended like you've done...

Thanks. :)

April Patterson said...

There's a special Hell reserved for the perennially ungrateful and she's doomed herself to spending Eternity there.

With her jaw unhinged the entire time.

April Patterson said...

Probably the insistence on Destiny for her kids stems from a lifetime of trying and not succeeding, and failing to realize that effort is required to get through life, but it's also okay to discover you genuinely don't like something and then move on.

This does seem a likely explanation.

April Patterson said...

john and Anonymous regarding music--I think, also, Lynn seems to endorse that "music should be for fun" view that she gave to John in the monthly letters. Lynn's brother (and Elly's) had the effrontery to do this just-for-fun thing as a profession. Evil! Like Becky!