Oh cmoooon! Grab the hook! It even has a bow around it! How can you not want to be hooked to that? :3

If only there was a way to cut the hook off the string, or hang a boot on it.

hang a politician on it...they go together...

I'll be honest in saying ouch but eh I understand the feeling, sadly however I grab the hook everytime.

Your sibling needs to learn that the best way to reopen doors is to start small.

Send a Christmas Card. And a Birthday Card. And an Anniversary Card. Nothing more, expect nothing back.

Then send a Christmas gift. Nothing elaborate. Just a box of fruit or the like. Expect nothing back.

Then send a Birthday gift. Again, nothing elaborate. Expect nothing back.

Keep this up, and when you get something back, work from there, slowly and carefully.

Once a relationship is broken, it takes hard work to re-establish it.

And a recontact email shouldn't start with "I never lied to you".

Or at least, "I'm sorry I did."

Oh, SHOULDN"T. Sorry.

WOW. That's right up there with the false apology "I'm sorry you're/you feel that I/you think I hurt your feelings/etcetc"

The sad thing is that I actually presented her with proof in the form of screencaps and AIM logs to show I knew, and all she could do was accuse me of being paranoid. I seriously feel like I'm staring at a kid with crumbs on his face who insists he didn't touch the cookies.

"I didn't touch the cookies, I ate them. And the donuts, too."

I totally understand your situation. My dad and I always got along when I was a kid, but when I got older he started only emailing me when he wanted something. He was amazingly good at guilt-tripping and trying to convince me that the world revolved around him. Now he loves to send me emails saying "I haven't heard from you in a week. Are you disowning me now?" and things like that. I think it boils down to immaturity, myself. Hang in there, Gen.

I wish people with kids understood how much it breaks someone when they realize that they're more emotionally sane and stable than their parents.

Here, here, darling. Here, here.

Great art!!

Yeah...I think almost everyone has gone through similar things.

Good luck!

You can't choose your family, but you can choose not to to buy into their crap ;)

(It's sad, my sis is forty and I always feel like her maturity stopped somewhere around twenty. There's something unsettling about knowing you're one of the youngest and yet you feel like the oldest.)

Butterflies are proof of the existence of God.

Families are proof of the existence of Satan...

I always thought that they were proof that god also has a sense of humor ;)

Actually - these days I hae no family except Mum and Dad. So that's simplified things...

In retrospect, baiting the hook with pie wasn't a good plan. If they were in better contact with you they would've known that and selected a better lure.

On the other hand, it is one adorable little hook. It has a bow and everything!

*squints closely at the corner* ...is...is that a signature? You sign your work? ;p

I remembered!

Mom used to go to Vietnam about every 18 months after they opened the place to tourism in the mid-90s. She doesn't anymore, and it's not because she's gotten old and technology let's her video chat on Yahoo. It's because certain relations went from "It's good to see you" to "How much money did you bring?"

They've browbeaten and bullied the rest of the family out the money Mom gave for medicine and medical care and blew it on cigarettes and the local equivalent of white lightning. When they ask Mom when she'll be back, Mom rather politely claims she's too old for the trans-Pacific flight. Actually, she has at least one last in-person visit in her. She's waiting for the worst offenders to die of cirrhosis.

I wish I could offer some piece of advice... I've always enjoyed good relations with my three brothers.

I hope that either things eventually mend or that your sibling can respect you enough to leave you alone.

Either way, best of luck!

It's all good. I've got a new email filter in place that will delete anything she sends me from now on. I'm just disappointed that my sibling apparently thinks I'm a fool. I have a good husband, great friends, and a wonderful set of inlaws who are all I need :)

Sounds like your sibling needs to take the advice that my grandfather gave me before he passed away. It's advice that he gave while my younger brother and I were showing him our work on our art pieces. I knew mine was *CLEARLY* better and proclaimed so, proudly.

My younger brother went to watch TV and my grandfather called me closer, as he had been suffering from the disease that was eating away at his bones and couldn't come himself.

"Don't put him down..." He said. I asked what he meant, honestly having no clue. Not a damn clue at all. "Your brother. Don't put him down... When everyone else turns their back on you, when your folks are gone, when you haven't a friend left in the world, your brothers will still be there. And so will he. So don't put him down..."

Grandpa passed away a year and a half later, fighting it to the end, and I had taken his advice to heart.

This new way of life led to a friend of ours saying something very simple, yet utterly profound.

'You two are the only brothers I know that act like brothers.'

Grandpa Jerry's advice saved us, utterly.

God I miss that man...

Almost the same with my dad

Ugh. I've had to use the cut direct on people before, when the individual in question is engaging in a cycle of toxicity and my patience is tried. (Fortunately that's been rare.)

I've noticed that a lot of people like this will escalate their behavior in a frantic attempt to get you to give in or engage just one more time, and that's all the in that they need. Which, given the image, you're well aware of and smart enough not to fall for. :)

Sometimes the fish learns not to bite ;) Took me darn near thirty years, but eventually I learned. If this had happened a decade ago when I was in my twenties I probably would have bought into it. But now? Really, I expected her to be a little more clever.

Still, I'm wiser from the experience. I'm nigh impossible to emotionally manipulate and can see through little ploys like glass. You take the bad and use it to make yourself stronger.

She sounds as though she is frightfully self-absorbed x.x

*hugs* I love the artwork :)

The hook should have some kind of altruistic bait. Like Hegel speared to it talking about your duty to family.

Hahaah!

If my sis had actually been clever, as opposed to vaguely condescending and passive-aggressive, I might have considered it.

Your personal life is your personal life, and there is nothing I can say or do to make it better. But, I do like what you did with the drawing. The 'sepia' inks make it look worn and aged, which is a very neat effect.

oook. * throws the bag of smarm he brought out the window* any way. um yeah.. great art gen as usual..

hooray moochers. :/ i think that if my brother started doing that to me i would book a flight to wherever hes living at that time and as soon as he opens his door id deck him and lay his ass flat.

At least the inks actually look sepia this time! XD

And it's kind of insulting when they don't even TRY to put something appealing as the bait, no?

*offers a baseball bat and an allibi*

Hook Feep by her collar to that trap. :) Then for reasons unknown, your sibling will no longer bother you. (And then give Feep some tuna for her 'adventure')

There seems to be a white block near the right eye there. It took a bit of the linework with it.

That said, some of my family is like that...

Yur sister sounds like 95% of mah family, the only two I speak with is mah older brother (who barely speaks with me, except t occassionally check up on how I'm doin') and mah Gran who is helpin' me survive from month to month.
The rest of mah family... no contact at all unless it's a family funeral (the last time I saw more than one of them was at mah mother's funeral, the time before was mah grandfather's a year previous. I was 19 when I lost mah mum, I hit 29 in September) as they assume they're gonna get somethin' from the wills (Mah mum had the last laugh by havin' a lawyer show up at her hospital bed and legally disavowed the entire bunch so they had no legal rights to anythin' she'd leave behind, and mah grandfather had a small speech at the beginnin' of his will which went, "To my swarm of vultures, which doesn't include my granddaughter Alyx, her brother, my daughter Annetta and my wife... GET THE FUCK OUT!! YOU AREN'T GETTING SHIT!!!! I laugh at you from beyond the grave!!! Go home and cry!!!! *orders the lawyer to wait until the family except the named leave* And now onto the people who treated me like a person, right up to my death, and the only ones who aren't crying crocodile tears...."), or when they want somethin' from me (usually money or someone to babysit their satanspawn... er... kids, which I don't even know the names of...) and act all offended and try to guilt trip me with the usual startin' line of "Why are you bein' so hostile!!? We've given you plenty of assistance!!!" Which just has me scream and shout and bitch mahself hoarse at them, after which they'll answer with, "So that's a no then?"
I can honestly say I hate mah family, mah boyfriend's family help me more than mah own family does.

Sowwie Gen, kinda went into rant mode... but I have discovered a line to use on them that has the effect of blessed garlic washed in holy water to a vampire, "So where's MAH money?"

I'm glad I've gotten rid of the people like that in my life. Took much work and stress too.

I'm going through something a lot like that with a sibling.
I know that feeling all too well.

People like that don't think "little" of anyone else... they don't think ANYTHING of anyone else. They are a universe unto themselves, around which the sun and moon and earth orbit, and other people are these chattering things with wallets and running cars and cosigning-signatures that flick into and out of existence as they are needed and used. It's not that they actively want to hurt others as they use them, it's just that it simply doesn't matter.

Yeah, I've run into the archetype before.

Beer is wise.

Although, by 'little' that's about what I mean. That instead of being a blood relative they grew up with I'm a wallet, a means of getting a cheap vacation, and I think in this case someone to emotionally leech off of for a little while so they don't feel like their life has been wasted (she turned forty on Monday). The part that I find sadly amusing is that my dad could charm the skin off a salamander and my sis is a lot like him, so when the message I get begins by sparking off the very reason why I cut ties... really now. Really.

why not do like me when this happens. "oh you need this? sure when you need it by? tomarrow? ok ill send it within a few hours" *2 weeks later "what you never got the money? well thats because i never sent it you fucking douche" *click*

Sounds like a sibling I have. I had to do everything for her but she couldn't be bothered to do squat for me. She's gotten better about it now though.

It's a sad thing to see, but some people don't seem to be "people" so much as a collection of habits and beliefs.

I pray God shakes your sister out of her well-built fortress, before she locks herself in.

Going through something with the family as well, but at least the blame was on both sides. I offered the olive branch and now we on speaking terms. It's a different situation and outcome. I'm happy for it.

Well if you want my advice an I warn you may not, you do this to get even with that brother and/or sister you save up $10010 wait for their birthday go to their home with a card that has $5 in it and you bring a $10000 cake and give them the cake and card and in the card is said enjoy the cake you'll never taste any thing this rich again. But that's if you want to burn that bridge once and for all.

Clever, but I can think of a lot of better things to spend ten grand on ;)

Thanks for that. Yea new computers parts, cloths, and medical care is good to have as well.

People pretty consistently underestimate your intelligence, don't they?

I suppose that's a good thing in the long run. I always tell people that if someone accuses them of being stupid that they need to revel in it. Someone who thinks they are smarter than you will always underestimate you.

Precisely! It's all part of the master plan.

There do exist people in this world who only see other people as... tools. Things you manipulate to get what you want. And, sadly, some of them have family.

My brother and I... well, we don't get along. We're each other's pet peeve, a lot of the time. Our relationship improved to lukewarm when he moved in with a nice girl and her kid. Least selfish he's ever been. When she was in the hospital, and the little one was asleep... we chatted a bit online. He was stressed. I understood. I offered, in the dead of night, to babysit. I told him I know we don't get along well, but when you need to take care of your loved ones, this is something I will absolutely do for family.

And... he didn't take me up on it. Just having the option let him relax a bit and see that he can't do anything a hospital can't handle... and that she was counting on him caring for the little one, last they'd spoken. He was in the best possible place at the time, and most of his problem was just... feeling powerless in the situation. Best gift I ever gave.

While he and I have nearly come to blows before, and outside of his new family, I still believe he's an incredibly self-centered, selfish prick... he's also never used me. He's slacked off and forgotten to fulfill more than a few promises, but never asked for a dime.

And every time I read about someone with kin that lamprey on like your anecdotal sibling... I feel lucky to have my douchebag brother. Life's weird, ain't it?

... I have to admit that I saw the preview image and thought it was just some random cat toy hanging down, and Gen was going, "Dangit, I'm a fox, not a cat!"

Hey Gen, great art as usual.

I am blessed that the only family drama I have these days is that my sister wants to move home from Utah and keeps trying to guilt trip the family that she is out there with no friends and a handicapped child and needs help. The long and the short of it is she is always trying to get us to bring her home, and we don't have the money.

I understand that she is lonely out there and wants to be home with us, but when you don't have the money, you don't have the money. We had several things that went wrong this year that took the money we were going to bring her home with. She just doesn't seem to understand it. I am pretty sure she wants us to take out a loan of several thousand dollars in order to bring her home. My parents are both retired, mom goes to the doctor more and more every week and yet my sister keeps trying to guilt trip us.

I have learned not to even talk to her if I can help it. I have become very aggressive lately to people that are always trying to pull drama lamas lately. Apparently my job is making me more of an Alpha personality every day. ROFL

I want to tell her that she is being selfish and that people have problems that she doesn't know about and how it is breaking our father's heart that he has to have one of his daughters unhappy because she is a long way from home. However, I just keep myself quiet and just remind her that we have no money to bring her home and find a way off the phone.

I am glad that you have learned that no matter what they bait the hook with, that you will resist. I have always admired your strength of character despite your family. *hugs* You are a great person and I am truly glad to know you.

Come on, grab it, you know you want... IT HAS A BOW, A BEAUTIFUL ONE

I really like the look on your face in this picture. It's really convincing. I also like the idea of how it's a hook that should have bait and instead it only has a bow. It seems to me like it's saying; "I don't owe you anything... You should give me something... Here's a nice bow to put on it when you give it to me." Instead of any action to show apology or any sign of the hook-owner having done wrong, it has the nice little bow. "Don't worry. I won't hurt you."

My sister tries really hard to be manipulative and I've got rather good at ignoring her... The new distance between us has made it even easier. If she tries to pick a fight, I just hang up the phone. Even when she tries to bait me with calling me different curse-words. Blah.

As always, great art, Gen. I'm glad that you chose the path that you know is best for you.

Yep. Been there too. Many a time.

had to do the same with a friend from school days... had to break up all contact.

art-wise, I have once experimented with ink-wash and sepia ink. turned out that if you thin it down enough the pigments turn pink. :)

Gen, I have something to hang on that hook. This is the marque decoration from a car manufacturer named for its founders Misters Everitt, Metzger, and Flanders. Should your sibling be clever, they may notice a similarity in names between this car company and a one-hit-wonder from the early 1990s.










For those that are confused, EMF was a car brand from the 1910s, but there was a britiash band called EMF that had the hit "Unbelievable."