Body horror, Annie and the real wedge between her and Elly.

[dreadedcandiru2]

As we all know, Stupid As A Rock Elly's reason for not wanting to have anything to do with Annie after the mess with Steve is that she thought that Annie let her rat husband take her dignity away because she didn't divorce the skirt-chasing idiot like television said to. The countervailing image of the power-mad wife cackling with glee because she finally has a bludgeon to wield over a sucker husband never appealed to our hero for a reason that isn't a default belief that a weak little wifey should never pose a threat to a big strong man. (Note that I didn't say could. This is important.) The reason that this made a lot of sense to Elly is that aside from her 'letting her children run hog wild' (or, as we say in English, not being a crazy person screaming in rage about every little thing), there was another reason that she thought Annie's IQ is PU.

The reason that I have in mind is that Elly stopped having faith in Annie's common sense when it became obvious that unlike fellow whack-job Connie who fed into a delusion that she shared, Annie had the bad taste to tell Elly to her face that no, she wasn't a hideously obese blob and no, it wouldn't be the end of the world even if she were....which she isn't because she's only ten pounds over an 'ideal' weight decided on by a crazy man who thrives on female misery. The indulgent smile and warnings that Elly is making a masochistic fool of herself trusting in the health advice of a TV huckster who feeds into her self-loathing to make a life and living are clearly signs that Annie isn't aware of her surroundings and that her advice can be disregarded. It's only a step from telling a crazy lie about her being almost underweight but afflicted with a psychological disorder that makes her see herself as being fat to letting Steve win. Said step is right the Hell offa the deep end.

Comments

[josephusrex.livejournal.com]

It must be conceded that John and Elly have an apparently healthier, more functional marriage than do Steve and Annie, and that the Patterspawn are paragons of All That Is Decent compared to those Little Shits Who Need Killing over at Nichols Manor. However, we cannot excuse the Pattersons' basic rottenness by an appeal to worse problems.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

Nor can we excuse their laughable belief that their tractable, docile children are Hell-spawn because (GASP) the ungrateful brats dare to think that they're people in their own right instead of the extensions of their parents' will everyone knows they are. John and Elly had great kids but they're too damned vain and full of themselves to see it.

Hell, none of the stupid bastards had the least idea who blessed they were. Must be why none of them are grateful. The closest any of them came to being remotely glad he lived the life he did was John and that was in the most left-handed way possible. "I don't want to fuck up having a superior servant like Elly" isn't the most flattering or nice way to put it but it's the closest to gratitude a Patterson can get. As for Annie, her gratitude begins and ends with having a knife to twist.