To paraphrase a great wizard: “As the number of punches increases, the number of social situations they are incapable of solving approaches zero. And that would be wrong.”
That way lies the tragedy of Superboy Prime and the punching of reality. Think of the horror of Billie Prime punching the Walkyverse in the face to change reality.
The ensuing horror…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
No, it’s never a good idea to allow an abuser to hold leverage over you, If you have any family besides him you should see about moving Howard with them. Besides (I know we haven’t seen him do it so it’s still up in the air) but, real sibling don’t let the other take shit form people like that, My sister and I bicker a lot but, we both know we aren’t going to stand for the other getting shit on by anyone stranger or family. Besides Howards what 16? he ought to be able to handle the old man by now.
You know, both yesterday and today you replied to a comment in such a way that I have to assume you meant to reply to a different comment. So, if that’s the case, what comment was this reply in reference to?
TheAnonymousGuy
I’m kinda following up on the first comments statement and replying to Ruth directly if that makes sense.
Yumi
It just doesn’t really seem to flow logically from what foamy said, and I was similarly confused yesterday. I mean, this is really superfluous, really, when there’s a lot to get into with the content of your comment in itself. I was just…confused.
honestly maybe…start with not assuming that Ruth isn’t doing the best that she can, and go from there. just because it’s not a good idea to allow an abuser to hold leverage over you doesn’t mean that it’s avoidable; that’s why abusers get away with as much as they do, because their victims either don’t have options or don’t know they have options. like. bickering is not abuse, AnonymousGuy. it’s not even remotely the same situation.
…I mean I get that this is hard to deal with and cope with but like that is the point: that brick wall, that you slam up against over and over again
Jhonny
Yeah, uh, and with the sibling dynamics…my sis and I, we bicker yet stand up for each other when it’s like, strangers or friends but….family? That kind of standing up for each other usually does Not happen with adults/guardians that will continually have power over you.
Yes, Ruth should not let her grandfather have leverage, yes, she should get Howard out of that situation, but you don’t have to pull that “real siblings” line like…if you can’t escape the adult the “best” thing to do is step aside and just comfort your sibling after the guardian has left them alone. There’s no reason to jeopardize both of you, and if you seem impartial to the situaltion, they may ask for your stance and then you do a “well, yeah, that was bad but maybe they only deserve X and not X, Y, and, Z”
I know siblings are often fiercely loyal, but we have to make do with the situation.
zoelogical
i mean. pretty much!! your parent/guardian gets mad and you are effectively screwed.
i mean. Ruth is not more responsible for letting her grandfather have leverage over her (as her guardian!!) than her grandfather is for using that leverage irresponsibly. he has a duty to both her and her brother to support them as they begin their lives!! that is why he is their guardian! he is refusing to fulfill that duty by his manipulation and cruelty and abuse.
foamy
I’ll say this: I’m honestly curious if Ruth has talked to Howard about this at all.
zoelogical
honestly!! considering how oblivious he is i really kind of doubt it
and like it is the kind of conversation that would honestly be very good for Howard and Ruth both. like. they are the only two people who have enough context to really get each other’s shared experience and understand what they’ve been through
but honestly i bet that Ruth felt like she was protecting him by putting up with it, because the more damage she took the less he had to. which is. actually false. because Sir was always going to do whatever the hell he wanted to do
but the happier he could be the better she was doing, probably
zoelogical
so much honesty going on in this post it is simply drooling in it
Halpful
yeah, like… when i found out my mum had been talking to at my sister the way she talks to me, that’s when I finally saw how bad it was. the shit she said to me, I could find excuses for, but to say such horrible things to someone she didn’t actually raise… to think she had the right to ignore all boundaries just because Motherhood.. ugh.
And, like, she wasn’t anywhere near as bad as a lot of other commenters have experienced, but… there are some things I have in common with Ruth. I’m not allowed to fail. These days, my mother gets the flowers-and-sunshine version of what news I still give her, so that she doesn’t get the idea she needs to “help” me. That’s probably not a long-term solution but it’s holding things together for now.
zoelogical
there was this one time when my mom and sister were fighting in the kitchen and my brother and i snuck the cats down the stairs to my room and actually, like, talked about how much This Sucked and it was just like. this really rewarding moment of connection and not being alone, just us and the cats in a little island of peace among the pandemonium. wOw.
but yeah!! it’s okay if someone says it to you but if someone says it to someone else??? what kind of fuckery
…lying is weirdly freeing in that way. like. every time i lie i feel so guilty about it but after a point if people are just…going to react the way they react…they don’t deserve the truth, that’s something you have to earn
CoMa
I think what Halpful meant (@ Halpful, if I’m wrong, please feel free to correct me) is that one can fail to realise how badly they’re treated by someone who’s supposed to care about/love them (with low self-esteem, they might think they deserve being shouted at constantly, or being hit, or they get to hear so much about how they’re incompetent, or nobody will ever want them, or ugly things like that, that they start to believe them).
And this someone then only fully realises the badness of their own treatment when observing it applied to someone else, thus from an “objective” point of view.
My sister only realised how wrong our family worked with how discussions were held as she had her first fights with her boyfriend-no-husband. We had never learned to objectively discuss things in our family with my mother, as she always either started to shout, insult, use “argument supporting examples” from years ago that had – logically speaking – nothing to do with the topic of discussion, or other things like that. Basically not respecting you as a human in an argument, as someone who was allowed to have a deviating opinion.
And my sister only realised that this was not exactly the way to effectively discuss problems after she had a few fights with her husband. It took her years to get over this kind of style of discussing (aka actually verbally fighting).
CoMa
Mhm, I meant to say at the end “aka actually being verbally abused” – must have mixed something up, my bad.
The gist of the story is: we never got to know “normal” discussions as children and teens, as they always were full-blast fights with emotional abuse happening.
zoelogical
yes that does seem to be what halpful meant
and. yes. it does. so much. it takes so many years and so much therapy and so much distance to find healing for the things that were done to you
Seespotbitejane
Howard does act oblivious but I also wonder how much of it stems from different perception/experience. My father treated my brother and I completely differently and our reactions to his abuse were different. I got angrier and angrier but my brother would buckle and feel guilty. There’s still a lot of abuse he got that he still doesn’t really register to him as abuse. It puts me in a weird situation where I don’t want to insist to him that his childhood was crappier than he thinks but I also want to make sure he knows what stuff was 100% not OK.
It’s possible Sir holds Howard’s well being over Ruth’s head but never says anything about it in front of Howard. If Ruth is his main target he might just leave Howard alone except when he’s punishing Ruth. If Ruth has been towing the line for a while now (especially since she’s been out of sight for so long) Sir might have been laying off Howard entirely for a while. It’s real easy when abuse eases up to go, “Well I’m glad that’s over. Now I can give this person with whom I’m supposed to have a loving relationship another chance!”
zoelogical
there is an entirely legitimate possibility that Howard is being trained to be the same kind of abuser as his grandfather. in which case. the abuse not only registers as abuse, but as what he ought to be dealing out. and if Howard refuses to deal it out, that may entirely be why his grandfather thinks of him as weak
which is funny because that is the sort of thing that would actually make Howard strong
anyways i wonder who Howard identifies with most in Game of Thrones. (i hope it’s sansa. it would make my heart squee if it was sansa, bless him.)
I badly expressed my belief Ruth should talk to Howard about this because I think they both have a lot of misconceptions which Sir is fostering about them–even if there’s no easy way out.
Minder
It is also likely impossible for them to talk between Ruth’s desperation not to deal with this, Howard’s desperate fantasy escapism, and Sir’s ability to nearly always monitor them both or simply turn them against each other if he decides to pull another string.
Temperaryobsessor
Basically, even if keeping their heads down for two more years is really the best solution because fighting Sir for custody might not work and could make it tougher for Ruth to be financially independent when Howard is of age it might help if they could at least commiserate and fight Sir’s gas lighting.
The impression I personally get is that if it was just Ruth, she’d have it out with Sir. However, she is trying to protect her brother as best she can. I COMPLETELY disagree that a 16-year-old young man (and Howard seems pretty young for a 16-year-old) is “ready” to take on a much older, powerful abuser.
Siblings of abusive parents often try to protect each other. It’s actually really common that an older sibling will take on the responsibility of trying to keep their younger sibling(s) from being abused.
In a perfect world, yeah, Ruth and Howard would “stand up” to Sir and there would be a support structure (family or otherwise) so that Howard had someplace else to go. However, in the DoA world (and, sadly, often in the real world as well), things don’t always work that way. As Ruth says, “Sometimes there is no good, cathartic thing to do.” She is trying to minimize the amount of abuse that she and Howard suffer. It’s a sh!tty situation and it seems like neither of them have a lot of realistic options. Hopefully medication and therapy will help Ruth gain some personal agency; maybe once Howard turns 18 the two of them can “join forces” and divest from Sir’s manipulation and abuse.
ischemgeek
Hi yes this. From experience: it is half you don’t want them hurt and half you’ll catch hell if they act up. Abusers are really fond of divide and conquer like that. Blame the eldest for not controlling younger sibs, play the “why can’t you be more like [older sib]?” game with the younger ones.
I bet Howard gets a lot of “at least Ruth has a spine” talk.
thejeff
And it’s worth remembering that she’d “have it out with Sir” in that case because she’d have nothing worthwhile to lose. She wouldn’t expect to win or anything, just that she’d be willing to lose.
Isn’t that so curious how it’s generally understood to, maybe, be not the best idea to let people that have and have asserted power over you and made you aware time and time again that they can rob you of everything, continue doing that? Thank god we all know how to make good decisions or make up complex plans for potential others when we can’t even muster the will to live.
Jaime
Um…I am confused by your comment. Was that directed towards me? I am not in any abusive relationships right now and I certainly have the “will to live.”
I think it’s a credit to David Willis’ creation that so many people are invested in his characters and spend time thinking about and analyzing them.
(Apologies if this wasn’t directed towards me or if I missed sarcasm or other nuances.)
I think they were responding to TheAnonymousGuy, if I’ve got the comments lined up right.
Jaime
That makes sense – thanks! 🙂
Minder
@Jaime No, oh my goodness, no, not you!! It was sarcastic but it was just a very low-placed comment caused by a drop in the formatting layout but this was definitely to TAG’s comment
I was the middle child in a very abusive household from 10 to 12. My mother and I were his lightning rods. He was my step father. I had two older step siblings and one younger by blood. Only the eldest ever crossed him, like twice.
Morrison
Growing up like that, hearing your mother suffer far worse, having yourself isolated from other family, and all the other special, unique abuse a child can suffer in their formative years, saying you won’t let your sibling take shut hypothetically doesn’t amount to bubkiss when compared to all those little nightmares that is your childhood home.
Responding to TheAnonymousGuy. Some reason really pissed me off. Had to have that said.
Jaime
*appropriate gesture of support*
While I’ve suffered some abuse (see below), my mom grew up in an INCREDIBLY abusive family. She did what she could to protect her younger sister and brother from her father. And what from I understand (mom won’t tell me a whole lot, for reasons that should be obvious, but from what she has I can make some guesses) anyone in her family, her mother and older brother included, who tried to “stand up” to her father got beaten within an inch of their lives.
I really hope that TheAnonymousGuy never has to suffer through that and I am so sorry that you and my mom and her siblings did. I understand why he p!ssed you off. It’s “easy” to theoretically make judgements about what abused people should and shouldn’t do – until you’re in that position. 🙁
Poor Ruth. She doesn’t need to second guess herself at this point and I say that as someone who thinks she should work together with Howard rather than around him. Then again, I think I have a lot more mature picture of Howard than a lot of people here.
I am a little doubtful over whether their working together would be possible as even if literally all of his obliviousness and lack of awareness is a facade, we haven’t seen that facade drop even when his grandfather wasn’t around except slightly to ask Billie to look after his sister.
Well, Billie is his sister’s girlfriend. He doesn’t know if she knows what Sir is. That’s the problem with family secrets. You don’t know who you can trust. For all he knows, it could go right back to his grandfather. I may, of course, be misreading Howard completely and he’s not just playing the devoted fantasy geek to hide his hidden pain as well as terror Sir will abuse Ruth if he acts up.
I.e. I see him as the Mirror Ruth in this.
Sam
I find it quite likely that he does have hidden pain, I find it quite likely that his Game of Thrones obsession is a coping mechanism, but I also find that if the whole thing is just a mask, it doesn’t come off even when just with Ruth as even in moments he could have spoken to her alone or asked to, it didn’t drop. And she seems very used to him behaving this way as well.
Halpful
maybe he doesn’t even know it’s a mask any more. I’ve certainly consented to having other parts of my mind hide troubling information (including the memory around deciding to hide it).
zoelogical
…….honestly….game of thrones has so much violence in it that it’s probably a validation of his experience that Things Suck
10LettersIsTooLong
Ruth and Howard interact almost exactly like my little brother and I did before we moved out. Three years of independent living later, we reconnected and compared notes. Turns out we were both just keeping our heads down, and we were both hurting. All of a sudden, three years and three hundred miles from our abusive parents, we were having our first really conversation. Howard knows exactly what’s going on. Working together is the healthiest thing they could do–but my brother and I didn’t figure that out until we were safe.
297 thoughts on “Angry”
Ana Chronistic
“Perhaps we should test this scientifically: How many punches will it take to get to the submission of an asshole grampa?”
“Billie–”
“We can keep Howard in a bunker as a control!”
“…?”
Lokitsu
“Let’s ask the owl!”
y3k
“HOOT HOOT MOTHERFUCKER”
Pablo360
(read to the tune of Go Go Power Rangers)
Steven
I’m going to be singing that all day now.
Abel Undercity
One, two-hoo-hoo, three.
CRUNCH!
Three.
Amy
I would also like to see Sal, Amazigirl, and Carla in on this punching. For science, y’know?
…also because I’m pretty sure they all have a mean right hook.
Pl0x
Carla doesn’t do violence though
Needfuldoer
She can be the barker, set it up like a carnival game. “Step right up and take a crack at Gramps McEvilguy! First to draw blood wins a prize!”
Anikiki
I wonder what would happen if Gramps meets ToeDad.
ValdVin
Sal is left-handed, as are Ruth, Joe and Dorothy.
But of course having a mix of dominant hands will only help a team in a fight.
AnvilPro
You can’t punch all of your problems Billie. No matter how good it would feel.
Fart Captor
…but what if she tried punching “not being able to punch all of her problems”?
Like, really hard?
Pablo360
To paraphrase a great wizard: “As the number of punches increases, the number of social situations they are incapable of solving approaches zero. And that would be wrong.”
Doctor_Who
This is exactly what I was going to quote.
I should probably not consider Vaarsuvius a role model.
Clif
It seems to be working surprisingly well for him.
Freezer
If you consider “Accidentally fucked over the world through deliberate genocide, and knows it” “working well.”
Silly Name
Yeah, but V got a cool new hairdo.
Proxiehunter
Some of them need kicking. Or a hammerlock.
David Alexander McDonald
That way lies the tragedy of Superboy Prime and the punching of reality. Think of the horror of Billie Prime punching the Walkyverse in the face to change reality.
The ensuing horror…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Rowen Morland
Is, married to Danny journalist Billie, Billie Prime? Or this Billie?
foamy
Pretty insightful of Billie, there.
TheAnonymousGuy
No, it’s never a good idea to allow an abuser to hold leverage over you, If you have any family besides him you should see about moving Howard with them. Besides (I know we haven’t seen him do it so it’s still up in the air) but, real sibling don’t let the other take shit form people like that, My sister and I bicker a lot but, we both know we aren’t going to stand for the other getting shit on by anyone stranger or family. Besides Howards what 16? he ought to be able to handle the old man by now.
Yumi
You know, both yesterday and today you replied to a comment in such a way that I have to assume you meant to reply to a different comment. So, if that’s the case, what comment was this reply in reference to?
TheAnonymousGuy
I’m kinda following up on the first comments statement and replying to Ruth directly if that makes sense.
Yumi
It just doesn’t really seem to flow logically from what foamy said, and I was similarly confused yesterday. I mean, this is really superfluous, really, when there’s a lot to get into with the content of your comment in itself. I was just…confused.
zoelogical
honestly maybe…start with not assuming that Ruth isn’t doing the best that she can, and go from there. just because it’s not a good idea to allow an abuser to hold leverage over you doesn’t mean that it’s avoidable; that’s why abusers get away with as much as they do, because their victims either don’t have options or don’t know they have options. like. bickering is not abuse, AnonymousGuy. it’s not even remotely the same situation.
…I mean I get that this is hard to deal with and cope with but like that is the point: that brick wall, that you slam up against over and over again
Jhonny
Yeah, uh, and with the sibling dynamics…my sis and I, we bicker yet stand up for each other when it’s like, strangers or friends but….family? That kind of standing up for each other usually does Not happen with adults/guardians that will continually have power over you.
Yes, Ruth should not let her grandfather have leverage, yes, she should get Howard out of that situation, but you don’t have to pull that “real siblings” line like…if you can’t escape the adult the “best” thing to do is step aside and just comfort your sibling after the guardian has left them alone. There’s no reason to jeopardize both of you, and if you seem impartial to the situaltion, they may ask for your stance and then you do a “well, yeah, that was bad but maybe they only deserve X and not X, Y, and, Z”
I know siblings are often fiercely loyal, but we have to make do with the situation.
zoelogical
i mean. pretty much!! your parent/guardian gets mad and you are effectively screwed.
i mean. Ruth is not more responsible for letting her grandfather have leverage over her (as her guardian!!) than her grandfather is for using that leverage irresponsibly. he has a duty to both her and her brother to support them as they begin their lives!! that is why he is their guardian! he is refusing to fulfill that duty by his manipulation and cruelty and abuse.
foamy
I’ll say this: I’m honestly curious if Ruth has talked to Howard about this at all.
zoelogical
honestly!! considering how oblivious he is i really kind of doubt it
and like it is the kind of conversation that would honestly be very good for Howard and Ruth both. like. they are the only two people who have enough context to really get each other’s shared experience and understand what they’ve been through
but honestly i bet that Ruth felt like she was protecting him by putting up with it, because the more damage she took the less he had to. which is. actually false. because Sir was always going to do whatever the hell he wanted to do
but the happier he could be the better she was doing, probably
zoelogical
so much honesty going on in this post it is simply drooling in it
Halpful
yeah, like… when i found out my mum had been talking
toat my sister the way she talks to me, that’s when I finally saw how bad it was. the shit she said to me, I could find excuses for, but to say such horrible things to someone she didn’t actually raise… to think she had the right to ignore all boundaries just because Motherhood.. ugh.And, like, she wasn’t anywhere near as bad as a lot of other commenters have experienced, but… there are some things I have in common with Ruth. I’m not allowed to fail. These days, my mother gets the flowers-and-sunshine version of what news I still give her, so that she doesn’t get the idea she needs to “help” me. That’s probably not a long-term solution but it’s holding things together for now.
zoelogical
there was this one time when my mom and sister were fighting in the kitchen and my brother and i snuck the cats down the stairs to my room and actually, like, talked about how much This Sucked and it was just like. this really rewarding moment of connection and not being alone, just us and the cats in a little island of peace among the pandemonium. wOw.
but yeah!! it’s okay if someone says it to you but if someone says it to someone else??? what kind of fuckery
…lying is weirdly freeing in that way. like. every time i lie i feel so guilty about it but after a point if people are just…going to react the way they react…they don’t deserve the truth, that’s something you have to earn
CoMa
I think what Halpful meant (@ Halpful, if I’m wrong, please feel free to correct me) is that one can fail to realise how badly they’re treated by someone who’s supposed to care about/love them (with low self-esteem, they might think they deserve being shouted at constantly, or being hit, or they get to hear so much about how they’re incompetent, or nobody will ever want them, or ugly things like that, that they start to believe them).
And this someone then only fully realises the badness of their own treatment when observing it applied to someone else, thus from an “objective” point of view.
My sister only realised how wrong our family worked with how discussions were held as she had her first fights with her boyfriend-no-husband. We had never learned to objectively discuss things in our family with my mother, as she always either started to shout, insult, use “argument supporting examples” from years ago that had – logically speaking – nothing to do with the topic of discussion, or other things like that. Basically not respecting you as a human in an argument, as someone who was allowed to have a deviating opinion.
And my sister only realised that this was not exactly the way to effectively discuss problems after she had a few fights with her husband. It took her years to get over this kind of style of discussing (aka actually verbally fighting).
CoMa
Mhm, I meant to say at the end “aka actually being verbally abused” – must have mixed something up, my bad.
The gist of the story is: we never got to know “normal” discussions as children and teens, as they always were full-blast fights with emotional abuse happening.
zoelogical
yes that does seem to be what halpful meant
and. yes. it does. so much. it takes so many years and so much therapy and so much distance to find healing for the things that were done to you
Seespotbitejane
Howard does act oblivious but I also wonder how much of it stems from different perception/experience. My father treated my brother and I completely differently and our reactions to his abuse were different. I got angrier and angrier but my brother would buckle and feel guilty. There’s still a lot of abuse he got that he still doesn’t really register to him as abuse. It puts me in a weird situation where I don’t want to insist to him that his childhood was crappier than he thinks but I also want to make sure he knows what stuff was 100% not OK.
It’s possible Sir holds Howard’s well being over Ruth’s head but never says anything about it in front of Howard. If Ruth is his main target he might just leave Howard alone except when he’s punishing Ruth. If Ruth has been towing the line for a while now (especially since she’s been out of sight for so long) Sir might have been laying off Howard entirely for a while. It’s real easy when abuse eases up to go, “Well I’m glad that’s over. Now I can give this person with whom I’m supposed to have a loving relationship another chance!”
zoelogical
there is an entirely legitimate possibility that Howard is being trained to be the same kind of abuser as his grandfather. in which case. the abuse not only registers as abuse, but as what he ought to be dealing out. and if Howard refuses to deal it out, that may entirely be why his grandfather thinks of him as weak
which is funny because that is the sort of thing that would actually make Howard strong
anyways i wonder who Howard identifies with most in Game of Thrones. (i hope it’s sansa. it would make my heart squee if it was sansa, bless him.)
C.T Phipps
I badly expressed my belief Ruth should talk to Howard about this because I think they both have a lot of misconceptions which Sir is fostering about them–even if there’s no easy way out.
Minder
It is also likely impossible for them to talk between Ruth’s desperation not to deal with this, Howard’s desperate fantasy escapism, and Sir’s ability to nearly always monitor them both or simply turn them against each other if he decides to pull another string.
Temperaryobsessor
Basically, even if keeping their heads down for two more years is really the best solution because fighting Sir for custody might not work and could make it tougher for Ruth to be financially independent when Howard is of age it might help if they could at least commiserate and fight Sir’s gas lighting.
Shiro
Yeah, it’d be nice if all abuse victims had options like that, but that’s a real cavalier attitude you got there.
Pat
I guess my sisters are fake.
Jhonny
SAME wow I can’t believe so many of us were tricked into thinking we had siblings!!!! #justonlychildthings!!!
Jaime
The impression I personally get is that if it was just Ruth, she’d have it out with Sir. However, she is trying to protect her brother as best she can. I COMPLETELY disagree that a 16-year-old young man (and Howard seems pretty young for a 16-year-old) is “ready” to take on a much older, powerful abuser.
Siblings of abusive parents often try to protect each other. It’s actually really common that an older sibling will take on the responsibility of trying to keep their younger sibling(s) from being abused.
In a perfect world, yeah, Ruth and Howard would “stand up” to Sir and there would be a support structure (family or otherwise) so that Howard had someplace else to go. However, in the DoA world (and, sadly, often in the real world as well), things don’t always work that way. As Ruth says, “Sometimes there is no good, cathartic thing to do.” She is trying to minimize the amount of abuse that she and Howard suffer. It’s a sh!tty situation and it seems like neither of them have a lot of realistic options. Hopefully medication and therapy will help Ruth gain some personal agency; maybe once Howard turns 18 the two of them can “join forces” and divest from Sir’s manipulation and abuse.
ischemgeek
Hi yes this. From experience: it is half you don’t want them hurt and half you’ll catch hell if they act up. Abusers are really fond of divide and conquer like that. Blame the eldest for not controlling younger sibs, play the “why can’t you be more like [older sib]?” game with the younger ones.
I bet Howard gets a lot of “at least Ruth has a spine” talk.
thejeff
And it’s worth remembering that she’d “have it out with Sir” in that case because she’d have nothing worthwhile to lose. She wouldn’t expect to win or anything, just that she’d be willing to lose.
Minder
Isn’t that so curious how it’s generally understood to, maybe, be not the best idea to let people that have and have asserted power over you and made you aware time and time again that they can rob you of everything, continue doing that? Thank god we all know how to make good decisions or make up complex plans for potential others when we can’t even muster the will to live.
Jaime
Um…I am confused by your comment. Was that directed towards me? I am not in any abusive relationships right now and I certainly have the “will to live.”
I think it’s a credit to David Willis’ creation that so many people are invested in his characters and spend time thinking about and analyzing them.
(Apologies if this wasn’t directed towards me or if I missed sarcasm or other nuances.)
Shiro
I think they were responding to TheAnonymousGuy, if I’ve got the comments lined up right.
Jaime
That makes sense – thanks! 🙂
Minder
@Jaime No, oh my goodness, no, not you!! It was sarcastic but it was just a very low-placed comment caused by a drop in the formatting layout but this was definitely to TAG’s comment
Jaime
Gotcha – my bad! 🙂
Morrison
I was the middle child in a very abusive household from 10 to 12. My mother and I were his lightning rods. He was my step father. I had two older step siblings and one younger by blood. Only the eldest ever crossed him, like twice.
Morrison
Growing up like that, hearing your mother suffer far worse, having yourself isolated from other family, and all the other special, unique abuse a child can suffer in their formative years, saying you won’t let your sibling take shut hypothetically doesn’t amount to bubkiss when compared to all those little nightmares that is your childhood home.
zoelogical
-offers hugs-
Morrison
-Take hugs, give back hugs with back pats.-
Morrison
Responding to TheAnonymousGuy. Some reason really pissed me off. Had to have that said.
Jaime
*appropriate gesture of support*
While I’ve suffered some abuse (see below), my mom grew up in an INCREDIBLY abusive family. She did what she could to protect her younger sister and brother from her father. And what from I understand (mom won’t tell me a whole lot, for reasons that should be obvious, but from what she has I can make some guesses) anyone in her family, her mother and older brother included, who tried to “stand up” to her father got beaten within an inch of their lives.
I really hope that TheAnonymousGuy never has to suffer through that and I am so sorry that you and my mom and her siblings did. I understand why he p!ssed you off. It’s “easy” to theoretically make judgements about what abused people should and shouldn’t do – until you’re in that position. 🙁
Morrison
My mom and my siblings.
Pablo360
“It’s never a good idea to allow an abuser to hold leverage over you.”
“It’s never a good idea to allow a cancerous tumor to cannibalize your bloodflow.”
“It’s never a good idea to allow a nuclear explosion to vaporise your body.”
zoelogical
yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
billie sees through all the bullshit
C.T Phipps
Ouch.
Poor Ruth. She doesn’t need to second guess herself at this point and I say that as someone who thinks she should work together with Howard rather than around him. Then again, I think I have a lot more mature picture of Howard than a lot of people here.
Sam
I am a little doubtful over whether their working together would be possible as even if literally all of his obliviousness and lack of awareness is a facade, we haven’t seen that facade drop even when his grandfather wasn’t around except slightly to ask Billie to look after his sister.
C.T Phipps
Well, Billie is his sister’s girlfriend. He doesn’t know if she knows what Sir is. That’s the problem with family secrets. You don’t know who you can trust. For all he knows, it could go right back to his grandfather. I may, of course, be misreading Howard completely and he’s not just playing the devoted fantasy geek to hide his hidden pain as well as terror Sir will abuse Ruth if he acts up.
I.e. I see him as the Mirror Ruth in this.
Sam
I find it quite likely that he does have hidden pain, I find it quite likely that his Game of Thrones obsession is a coping mechanism, but I also find that if the whole thing is just a mask, it doesn’t come off even when just with Ruth as even in moments he could have spoken to her alone or asked to, it didn’t drop. And she seems very used to him behaving this way as well.
Halpful
maybe he doesn’t even know it’s a mask any more. I’ve certainly consented to having other parts of my mind hide troubling information (including the memory around deciding to hide it).
zoelogical
…….honestly….game of thrones has so much violence in it that it’s probably a validation of his experience that Things Suck
10LettersIsTooLong
Ruth and Howard interact almost exactly like my little brother and I did before we moved out. Three years of independent living later, we reconnected and compared notes. Turns out we were both just keeping our heads down, and we were both hurting. All of a sudden, three years and three hundred miles from our abusive parents, we were having our first really conversation. Howard knows exactly what’s going on. Working together is the healthiest thing they could do–but my brother and I didn’t figure that out until we were safe.
Stephen Bierce
*plays Weird Al’s “One More Minute” on the hacked Muzak* (re: alt text)
TooOldToBeCool
…and the lightbulb snaps on.
spam