2014-02-15
Original: 2014-02-15 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Mother (to her two young children): "Kids, mommy and daddy still love each other. It's just in a different way."
Panel 2:
Mother (continuing, in a close-up of her face): "In a way largely centered around a triangular cycle between loneliness, sex, and guilt, in which each is in turn mistaken for love, only to have its true nature revealed over and over and over."
Panel 3 (silent): A close-up of one of the children, a blond child in a red shirt, looking troubled and uneasy.
Panel 4:
Child: "Is adulthood just terrible?"
(The mother stands beside the child, looking flat and unbothered.)
Panel 5:
Mother: "Imagine childhood, but with no reason to believe anything will change next year."
The two children (screaming in terror): "Aaah! Aah! Aah!"
The mother looms in extreme close-up, calm.
Votey:
Mother (off-panel, continuing): "Also, hair everywhere."
The blond child below recoils with a horrified, disgusted expression.
Mother (to her two young children): "Kids, mommy and daddy still love each other. It's just in a different way."
Panel 2:
Mother (continuing, in a close-up of her face): "In a way largely centered around a triangular cycle between loneliness, sex, and guilt, in which each is in turn mistaken for love, only to have its true nature revealed over and over and over."
Panel 3 (silent): A close-up of one of the children, a blond child in a red shirt, looking troubled and uneasy.
Panel 4:
Child: "Is adulthood just terrible?"
(The mother stands beside the child, looking flat and unbothered.)
Panel 5:
Mother: "Imagine childhood, but with no reason to believe anything will change next year."
The two children (screaming in terror): "Aaah! Aah! Aah!"
The mother looms in extreme close-up, calm.
Votey:
Mother (off-panel, continuing): "Also, hair everywhere."
The blond child below recoils with a horrified, disgusted expression.
Alt text
A five-panel SMBC comic. A mother reassures her two young children that mommy and daddy still love each other, "just in a different way" -- then, in a close-up, clarifies that the different way is "a triangular cycle between loneliness, sex, and guilt, in which each is in turn mistaken for love, only to have its true nature revealed over and over and over." A silent panel shows one troubled child. The child asks, "Is adulthood just terrible?" The mother, deadpan and looming, answers, "Imagine childhood, but with no reason to believe anything will change next year," and the two children scream in terror: "Aaah! Aah! Aah!" In the votey aftercomic, the mother adds, "Also, hair everywhere," and the blond child recoils in horror and disgust.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.