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How to build a Lizardbreath.
Apr. 20th, 2016 12:21 amTo continue on from yesterday, it's fairly obvious that a jerk like John is uniquely ill-suited to deal with normal human adolescence. After all, to be a teenager is to suddenly discover that parents are flawed and to resent that as if one were the victim of a confidence trick. Most of today's comic strips are written from the viewpoint of boomer imbeciles like John and Elly who resent how they've been cast as uncool dorks who can no longer be respected automatically. Point a moody teenager at a vain, petty and self-righteous piss-ant like John who views conflict as a cruel surprise and you come away with the impression that it's lucky that he didn't beat Mike up for being 'smart'. The reason that I mention this is that just as he dropped the ball with Michael owing to his arrogant refusal to understand his son's needs, he made a dog's breakfast of raising Liz and April because of gender profiling.
To explain why this is, we have to remember something he doesn't care to about Elizabeth. What we see, what we always see, is a frightened, passive little child desperately seeking to fit in and convinced that the world is passing her by and trying to leave her by herself, alone and unloved and vulnerable. It's rather sad to have to watch the poor thing look in the mirror and wonder why trading on her looks doesn't work any more and why she never seems to have the happiness and attention and love her cruel, ugly brother takes for granted. She spent most of her teenaged years alienated and lost because she was never allowed to have real friends because she had to fight Mom every step of the way to fit in with the others and be loved.
This means nothing at all to John because he's a dolt who wants a passive doll-child who fawns over him and doesn't complain about her lot in life because that's gross. Time and again, he had to be reminded that no, family wasn't enough and she wanted real friends who weren't obliged to love her and time and again he 'forgot' because it means that he and Elly should not be the only influences in their children's lives. He also forgot that Liz saught to recapture the early, happy days when Daddy loved her and never said to go away because she was in pain. This led to her ultimate ruination as a person. We call this calamity in which she defaulted on being a person in her own right as the dreaded Settlepocalypse.
To explain why this is, we have to remember something he doesn't care to about Elizabeth. What we see, what we always see, is a frightened, passive little child desperately seeking to fit in and convinced that the world is passing her by and trying to leave her by herself, alone and unloved and vulnerable. It's rather sad to have to watch the poor thing look in the mirror and wonder why trading on her looks doesn't work any more and why she never seems to have the happiness and attention and love her cruel, ugly brother takes for granted. She spent most of her teenaged years alienated and lost because she was never allowed to have real friends because she had to fight Mom every step of the way to fit in with the others and be loved.
This means nothing at all to John because he's a dolt who wants a passive doll-child who fawns over him and doesn't complain about her lot in life because that's gross. Time and again, he had to be reminded that no, family wasn't enough and she wanted real friends who weren't obliged to love her and time and again he 'forgot' because it means that he and Elly should not be the only influences in their children's lives. He also forgot that Liz saught to recapture the early, happy days when Daddy loved her and never said to go away because she was in pain. This led to her ultimate ruination as a person. We call this calamity in which she defaulted on being a person in her own right as the dreaded Settlepocalypse.
