Sally Forth versus common sense.

[dreadedcandiru2]

The interesting thing about Sally Forth these days is that Cesco has injected a sort of audience surrogate named Cynthia into the strip. Her function is to talk to Sally and ask questions that she would rather not face because answering them honestly means that Sally is doing something intensely stupid for an absurd and counterproductive reason. She doesn't mind it at all when Cynthia talks about Ted's daddy issues or the need he has to win all the time or his need to hold onto his childhood like a starving octopus engendered by his complicated relationship with an unyielding father, neurotic, negative mess mother and loutish jock older siblings because she can't make a secret of being ashamed of him.

What she does mind is being told hurtful things like "quit giving your neurotic, domineering asshole of a mother power over you because the petty, selfish bitch would sooner die than let you win." Sally can't follow this advice because doing so would pretty much destroy who she is as a person because she wants to think that she can actually fix her mother. Realizing that she can't isn't going to proceed as it normally would. A normal person would shrug, say "Well, I'm never going to really get along with my parents or siblings so I don't need more abuse. If they don't like it, f*** them all through the heart." Admitting that she can't do anything to make Laura wonderful would send Sally into a death spiral of apathy and despair quicker than realizing that she's doing the same damned thing to Hilary for the same damned reason Ted channels Mussolini whenever he coaches Little League. Simply put, Sally cannot do the sensible thing because she's irretrievably broken and doesn't want to be fixed.