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Prescription for hugs did not take. Recommend increasing dosage as needed until symptoms recede. Group hugs may be needed if conditions worsen.

Yikes. I can get the explosive reaction, though. Jeez, poor guy. I feel for everyone in this situation, no one can really benefit from this kind of shock. :/ Wasn’t expecting him to blow up at Ophelia, but I understand why. His whole life’s been ripped out from under him and I guess it must feel like everyone around him is “in” on what seems like a cruel joke. Still, I hope Ophelia and Blanche will be okay. I can’t imagine they quite know how to handle this any more than Tony does.

Random thought to disturb all: except for some waterfowl, birds don’t have genitals as we know them, they have cloacas. If that’s the case and I had my guy junk swapped with a bird’s multipurpose Swiss Army junk I think I’d be similarly irate as Anthony if not worse.

I theorize the kind of harpy he and his mom are DO have human genitals. While they have bird tails and legs they still wear pants and have somewhat human-shaped butts. If they totally had bird bottom parts seems like they would cover them.

They seem to have a stripe of human down the middle, between the feathery bits, so that may go all the way down. Also, while I’d be curious about it, I think this is the kind of conversation about her characters that makes Kory uncomfortable.

Man. Maaaaaaaaaan. MAAAAAN. I love this comic, I really do.

If nothing else, at least Tony is manging to vent and explain his feelings. Progress!

Not really. He is rejecting everything. He is going fast down the track to complete self-destruction. Hell, he already proved he was capable of hurting himself when he cut his feathers. He might pull through if someone decides to forcefully pull his head out of his arse. But if allowed to keep it there because they are too understanding then he might do something stupid.

Headdesk error, Tre.
Anthony wasn’t on a path to self destruction at the start of this story.
He cut the blood feathers because they were getting in his way, constantly, and he, mistakenly, assumed that they were bloodless, like hair.
As for right now, he’s just copped some MAJOR shocks, which until he able to calm down and THINK, will look to him like there is utterly no way back to any part of his old life at all.
Once he does calm down and think, though, he might realise there is some way back to a semblance of past normality. The spell which transformed his mother.

I wonder if Blanche is even understanding the core of why Tony’s so upset. Yes, his whole world has changed, but he’s not like Blanche or his mom.

He can’t turn back.
He can’t go back to the life he used to have for even a moment. Any plans for his future he had were dashed and he now has to adapt completely to a world he never knew existed or wished for.
As far as we know now, he’s stuck like this, for good.

Putting this more in perspective, the gravity of this is the equivalent of losing your hometown in an explosion while your friend and both your (and his) parent’s were on vacation or out of blast range. You ended up losing a limb (or something equally life-changing) through no fault of your own.
Your friend had just moved to town, so he didn’t lose much, but you; you lost your whole life. Everything you knew is now gone through no fault of your own, and you have to re-learn locomotion/movement with your permanent injury.

Everybody sympathizes, but nobody /knows/. Nobody in Tony’s immediate range knows what it’s like to lose absolutely everything they know. He can’t even return to your old home, his safe place.

This is a level of stress that can cause repressed memories, and the fact his mother is only explaining and trying to deflame fault (because despite unintended, it is still her fault and admitting that would likely calm Tony slightly, not much but possibly enough to have a conversation with) is unbelieveable to him!
Blanch who grew up with this life and can still go between is completely different and both him, his mother and Tony’s mom don’t have any clue exactly how much he lost because two grew up in it and the other voluntarily got rid of it.

Poor kid, it’ll be easier for him if he sees the positives, but in the reality of this situation there’s way more bad than good.

Hard to blame him, really.

I have no difficulty blaming him at all. For starters, no one in the world had any reason to suspect that Tony was a harpy. (He is male, and harpies are not supposed to be male.) Everyone had good reason to assume Tony was completely human. The existence of the avalons and their inhabitants are secrets that humans are not entitled to and do not need to know. Being completely honest with him from the beginning risked exposing two avalons. (Just try to get a six year old to keep an important secret.) Not telling kids things–such as where babies come from–is the norm. Blanche came out of the magic closet because he wanted to be completely honest with Tony and trusted him. Now that he has turned, everybody is being truthful with him, telling him things he needs to know. Although it is easy to be initially sympathetic with Tony, he is now being unreasonable and deliberately hurtful.

Get over yourself, Tony, the whole world isn’t about you and you’re too old to be throwing tantrums.

I agree that he’s being unreasonable, but I also understand that his entire world has been turned upside down, he’s been traumatized, and it’s kind of hard for him to *see* reason at the moment, especially given how young he is. Hopefully, he’ll eventually realize that these secrets were kept for good reasons, and that Blanche brought him to the Avalon because he did trust Tony and want to not have to hide from him any more. It’s reasonable to be angry if someone hurts you out of willful negligence, but nobody here had any good reason to think this could happen.

well, what would you prefer she had done? what are mad at her FOR exactly?

I doubt he’s really mad at *her*. He’s mad at the situation. Since he can’t yell at the situation, he’s yelling at the person that he feels is most directly related to it at the moment. It’s a pretty normal reaction.

Ding ding ding, right you are once again. *shots of scantily clad women holding expensive prizes*

Indeed. I’m in full agreement with Maurice on this, and most anyone who’s ever worked a telephone tech support line would agree too.

See, I used to work for XBox Live! tech support… and many times I got yelled at as if I was the cause of their problems. (I didn’t work directly for Microsoft. The firm I worked for, was under contract to Microsoft.)

To work that kind of job for long, you have to realize that it isn’t YOU that they’re really mad at. They’re mad about whatever problem they’re having, and you’re just a convenient target because you were unfortunate enough to be the one whom their call was routed to.

In this case, Tony’s mad at the situation he’s been put in (and I don’t blame him), and lashing out at the people around him NOT because he’s mad at them, but because they’re targets of convenience.

For that matter, I’m not sure how I’d react, either. It would be one of two things (or some combination of the two):

(1) “Cool, wings! I can fly without an airplane!” (I used to be an Air Force pilot) OR
(2) “Well, crap, who do I know that can build a custom keyboard for a harpy?” (I work as a programmer now.)

Aww, I feel sorry for all of them really. :( Such a tough situation and there’s nothing Anthony can do – he can’t really run away. I don’t think he knows enough about his new world yet or what being a harpy means and being flightless is certainly a disadvantage!

I like tony’s story a lot. It’s a nice juxtaposition from Michelle’s story- both of them aren’t supposed to exist(In one way or another), one of them takes it pretty well, the other one- not so much. Can’t wait for the conclusion to this one :)

Tony has it objectively worse, all things considered. He’s STUCK being what is basically a freak to him, since he doesn’t have a medallion that just lets him shift back to being human. In his mind, he’s -trapped- in a crazy world he didn’t know even existed until only a small time ago.

Well, Michelle had the whole “being in the crosshairs of multiple fantasy creatures’ conspiracies and thus the victim of kidnapping attempts” thing going on, so I’d say they’re pretty even. Not that this is a competition of any sort.

Tony definitely has it worse, the only thing he gained was flight (until he clipped his feathers), and being able to pick stuff up with his feet.
Michelle got flight (and someone she knew before turning to teach her), healing powers, (probably) psychic visions, and vision good enough to read a magazine from the top of a cliff, while retaining the the ability to (more or less) use her hands.

Also Michelle is a mystical, thought to be extinct, legendary super creature, while Tony is a mutant monster (monster=harpy, mutant=he’s male)

Yes, but Tony isn’t being hunted literally EVERYDAY by actual, real demons and all of their nasty agents (undead bigfoot monsters, dragons, nightmares, and so on). Both’s got it bad, in different ways.

Michelle was level headed enough to let her friends show her the benefits and guide her through adjusting to her new life. Tony is working very hard at being an insufferable git. I understand why he is upset by this…but really he is taking it too far. It isn’t about the things they hid…hell, he actually was shown by his friend this world and couldn’t know what being brought into it would cause. It is about Tony’s idea of what his life should be and how it is now ruined wah wah. Poor, poooooor Tony. I can tell you what Tony needs. Someone to punch him in mouth and tell him he is a self-entitled prick. Good thing is I bet there is someone all too happy to do the honors for us :D

tony just had his old life removed from his reach, all his old friends will no longer be in contact, and any career/academics he had are now basically gone as well. Its kind of like moving out of your mothers house when and if you grow up Times 100k

I call BS. Just because a mundane version is closed doesn’t mean you are unable to pursue what you desire. Sides, hasn’t Tony overlooked the obvious? A spell caused his mum to go human. There is perfectly capable sorcerer in the Avalon. Now that it is known how Tony’s predicament came about then if he is that dead set on being human he could just go ask the guy to look into putting another spell on him. Maybe not as effective as the first but hey, options are there.

It might seem like he’s being unreasonable on the outside, but it’s really hard to BE reasonable when you feel completely trapped. Up until now, Tony’s probably taken this far better than a lot of people would. I highly enjoy Bing’s consistency on keeping characters realistic and believable as people. Not everything’s gonna have a happy ending where everyone’s all hunky-dory.

Somehow, deep down, he’s wishing that one of these people [maybe his mother] is a “normal” human being who will, upon seeing a freakish creature, have a “normal” freaking out over what they’re seeing.

It might make him feel better, in that he wouldn’t be alone in his opinions on this.

Everyone being all “Monsters? That’s cool man. What species are you?” is probably not making him feel particularly good about any of this at all.

Theres old, deep anger and pain here.

Getting this freaked out over what he continues to insist on seeing as a lie just doesn’t seem normal without deeper issues being involved.

My guess is, he has resentment over his father leaving.
Theres are likely other issues as well, but those are likely what is fueling this rage over his fate.

-Badger-

I had assumed Blanche had no idea, so this opens up some rather unfortunate information (pardon the wording, I’m online because I couldn’t sleep).

Blanche knew his mom had been a harpy and he let him touch the medallion anyway.

Why on EARTH would he have thought that was a good idea?

Tony has every right to be pissed, knowing that Blanche knew all along and actually HAS been actively lying this entire time. He’s a good actor, at least?

I think for Blanche’s case, it’s simply that Blanche had been some kinda crazy deer thing all this time and this whole thing started when Blanche decided to crack the secret open. So, Blanche could potentially be to blame, at least in Tony’s mind currently. He’s stuck in a world he didn’t even know existed until just a little ago, so he feels trapped. It’s not easy to be rational when you feel trapped by any means.

No Renzal.
Marly is on the right track.
Blanche says, “We didn’t do it to hurt you, mate.”
Why else would Blanche have said ‘we’, if he wasn’t on the inside of the lies?

Ah, but here https://www.skindeepcomic.com/archive/heartaches-26-the-best-artist/ Blanche states: “But I’ve known Anthony and his family for years, they’re all human!” Maybe his parents knew better. Maybe their parents knew each other. Maybe their friendship was engineered, along with the situation where “How come we never go round your place, Blanche? I don’t even know where you live!” didn’t cause problems. Perhaps Blanche has since been given some knowledge on the situation that had previously been kept from him.

Also, once again I raise the question of whether Blanche asked anyone before revealing himself to Tony and inviting him into the LA, and how far up the line it went. Door warden Django Henja just waved Tony straight through, while carefully checking Rhonda Phelton’s medallion. Then they met Alec Hyde, who would have just known what was going on, and whether it was supposed to. Considering Paulbert’s concerns over Tim and Alec doing their own vettings, it looks like Tony would have needed some approval.

Indeed, maybe it was the parents, not Blanche, who started the ball rolling on this. Maybe it came as a surprise to him…

Adelle: Blanche, before you go out… your father and I recently asked the elders about letting your friend Anthony Gillis into our fold…

Blanche: Really?! They said no, didn’t they?

Adelle: They said yes! It’s all approved! Just bring him into the Avalon. All the wardens have been briefed.

Blanche: But… I thought… what, today, even?! Like.. WOW!! And, ah… how do I… how am I going to… what’s the best way-

Adelle: (amused) Just tell him, dear! And try to pick a place where you can show him a quick transformation without anyone else spotting you. And then invite him in – today or any time! *chuckle* You can even bring him home, if you can bear the embarrassment!

Blanche: Right… right… oh Herne’s teeth, I can’t believe this is happening… right… okay… I can do this… he’s my friend… this won’t be a problem… well.. see you later, mum!

Plus, the elders might have some pointed things to say about this surprise foul-up… unless the events leading to the foul-up weren’t such a surprise to them. I’ll bring in Occam’s Razor on the rest of my wilder speculation. But I think it’s reasonable to assume that nobody thought this could happen, and nobody wanted it to happen. Contrariwise, the only sane reason I can think of that anyone would have wanted to risk doing this to Tony would be to eliminate a dangerous unknown variable: if he did somehow turn permanently into a male harpy while inside the LA, they could detain him and keep him safe; if he did it spontaneously in public, it would be far worse news for him and the rest of the mytholo community. Of course, if he didn’t change immediately, in the usual fashion, he was officially in the clear – nobody would have expected him to change in the manner that he did.

Blanche did not know that Anthony’s mother was anything but human. As stated by Greenwood Goat he said as much earlier, and in that situation he would have had no reason to cover – he was freaking out as much as Anthony was.
Blanche says ‘we didn’t do it to hurt you’ not in reference to hiding what his mother was, but to hiding in general. Anthony accuses them both of keeping huge life changing secrets from him, and they did – his mother that she had once been a Harpy, and Blanche that he was not human but actually a giant magical deer. They kept two different secrets, but Anthony is upset about both of them, and Blanche is simply saying that neither of them wanted to hurt him, not implying that they kept the same secret.

He’s going over the top a bit! You can’t just tell your kid “Son, I used to be a bloody big bird-woman”, you’ll be sent to the loony bin! And it’s not like she knew Blanche was a Stag. She probably didn’t even know where the Liverpool Avalon was, because she was a human and didn’t know any-beast from here. He needs to take a chill-pill!

Tony’s really rubbing me the wrong way. I hope his attitude improves soon somehow, because he’s become a very unlikable character. ever since his introduction he’s been pretty whiny with some good points, but now he’s just… ehhn. but we’ll see, I suppose.

Maybe not likable exactly, but I do find him extremely sympathetic. His entire life’s been turned upside down, and unlike Michelle, he can’t go back to passing for human. He’s trapped. People don’t react well to being trapped – if anything, they’re lucky he’s stayed rational enough to restrain himself to words over actions.

Having Blanche sitting there trying to tell him he should like what he’s become has not helped in the slightest, either. Then finding out that – from his perspective – his mother knew what was going on and didn’t tell him? Yeah, no, I’m not surprised he’s pissed. I’m mainly surprised that he’s reacted so well.

I’m looking at this and I think Anthony’s mother’s avoidance of her past is the most cause for fault here. She knew what to look for and for as close as Blanch and Anthony have been I am asking myself Two questions ‘did she ever talk to blanch?’ ‘did she ever talk to Blanches mother?’

As near as I can tell with rereading this is Anthony’s Mother kept very hush-hush about this as Blanch seemed to be fully in the dark about this. After all its not like he dressed up as a white-deer-stag thing once a year and wore a magical talisman around his neck all the time. Something that an informed mind should of picked up on.

Or the other thing I am looking at is Maybe Blanch Did Suspect something and took him out to Madams to try some talismans. But If Blanch fully knew what was going on I don’t think he would of done that. So that still makes me think that Anthony’s mother was less then forthcoming.

As for her talking to Blanch’s mother I am not sure at this point. For some reason I don’t think there has been any face to face talks between them. Phone talks I think may of happened often but. I don’t think there has been any face to face. Otherwise I just think that some of these important topics would of come up.

Anthony? Sweetie?

You need to take a breath, close your eyes, and CALM DOWN. You are burning bridges that you will probably regret burning, right now.

If those bridges burn under these sparks of what could be viewed as a normal outburst from someone in an abnormal situation. Then most likely he did not wish to walk on them anyway.

Yep. Like, no one’s said Blanche *has* to be passive in this situation, but Tony is definitely not in Normal Mode. The guy needs a shrink or a confidante, pronto. 8(

Now you’ve done it. You got me thinking of that old song by Mike Curb, the one that was used as the title theme for the movie “Kelly’s Heroes”:

“All the burning bridges that are falling after me,
All the lonely feelings and the burning memories,
Everyone I left behind each time I closed the door,
Burning bridges lost forever more.”

*sigh* Could be worse…. he’s got a veritable city of creatures that have gone through similar discoveries, and managed to deal with it. He may be the only male harpy as far as we know, but he’s got a lot of similar company to consult, this could have happened and he had nothing but family to approach. Also… being the only male of a species might have it’s benefits too.

That’s an excellent point in your first sentence. We’ve already seen someone (Michelle) being helped through this trauma in “Orientations,” but mostly it’s from friends doing their best to clumsily help, like Blanche is trying to do for Tony.

You’d think by now there would be some sort of formalized support groups in the Avalon trained for this sort of thing.

More likely, unfortunately, it means he’s sterile. Male tortoiseshell and calico cats are super rare, like 1 in 3000 rare, and they are almost always sterile. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a tortie male that wasn’t, honestly. Add that to the previous comment about the possibility of Tony’s usual junk being replaced with a “Swiss Army junk” cloaca (though that phraseology makes me laugh) and you have a pretty unique terribad situation. XD

I don’t think he’s sterile. Male calico and tortoiseshell cats exist because they have an extra X chromosome, which is known as Klinefelter syndrome. If Tony had that, he would have had evidence of that even before he turned into a Harpy (or revealed himself as a Harpy, I suppose). I think it’s more likely that the spell that was placed on his mother messed with the way her form got passed on. I can’t imagine that she was the first Harpy to have a child with a human. We might find out as the comic goes on though.

It may be rare but not necessarily unheard of. My mom used to have a Tortie Tom when she was a kid who was very popular with the ladies making lots of little mini Mischiefs, including completely viable male tortoiseshell offspring.

Add the fact it’s possible, With the human mixture causing part of his mutation, or the fact that this is magic mixed with genetics rather than just pure genetics, its quite likely that Tony’s still possibly viable IF he ever wanted kids.

“Swiss Army Junk” would prove a slight challenge, but if one’s ever seen scientists handling ducks when doing tests about their business, its not like it’d prevent him from doing anything, especially if the females of the species he finds himself the boy of is physically compatible: even if other harpies are NOT compatible, its been shown that couples are often cross species and just produce one or the other, and there are likely other one of a kinds out there.

Its more likely than not that he’d find someone who’s compatible, and even if he does turn out to be sterile or physically incompatible with anyone, in the long run, reproduction and doing the dirty isn’t the only reason for companionship, romantic or not.

What a CRYBABY! At least he has people who care about him, of course if he keeps acting like that he won’t have caring people around him for much longer.

Good job from a narrative standpoint, though. These characters are definitely engaging as if they were real people.

Well, he does have a point. Hurting through rampant negligence may not be as bad a crime, but it’s still a crime.

Odd way of defining negligence. He was not neglected, just not told things people thought were -impossible-. There are no male harpies outside of him. The father is human. Who in their right mind would think he would go harpy? Blanche, who didn’t even know his friend’s mother was anything but human, obviously didn’t. Maybe hoped he had some heritage of a medallion wearing kind so they could be in on the secret, but harpy? His mother seems to know it had to come from her but give her a break for not believing an impossible thing could happen to her son. No reason to keep him away from magic if you don’t believe he can turn into something all of a sudden. Blanche’s Mother may have known about Tony’s mother but why should she think an impossible thing would happen either? In everybody’s mind this should just have been bringing someone who would never be a magical being(maybe a magic user?) into the family secret of the magical world. Rainbows and butterflies and kittens all frolicking in a meadow kinda stuff. Now, by some perverse accident of magic, the rainbows are dashed, the butterflies are fumigated and the kittens drowned while the meadow is paved into a highway.

This feels like every origin story of a superhero or supervillain. A normal person get’s they trust, love, believe in etc. violently and dramatically ripped away from them. In Tony’s case it’s any future plans, plus his trust for his best friend and mother. It happened to the Joker, Batman, Magneto, Spiderman, Superman, Deadpool, Lex Luthor, like… everyone.

I think that’s pretty unfair. Blanche came out to him about being a stag BEFORE he became a bird-dude. Don’t be angry at Blanche.

You’ve forgotten things, Kaye.
Blanche is intimately tangled up in this mess Anthony is in, as the instigator of it.

In Exchanges, Blanche revealed himself to Anthony as being a White Stag, then took Anthony to see the LA. At Prestor John’s Blanche got Anthony to be Tested by Vadona, which set off the spell break on Anthony.
To help Anthony out, Blanche set things up so Anthony could stay in the attic room at Pwyll House.

Since then, Anthony was comprehensively frustrated by how his feathers were getting in the way of him doing ordinary tasks. This lead him to try to cut off the long blood feathers at the start of this series.

At Stereophonic, in this series, we learned that Anthony is chafing more and more at having to accept the charity of the person who Anthony sees as having kicked off the whole mess. Blanche.

At this point, I think someone needs to take him to a corner and point out just what an ass he’s being. And if that doesn’t work, smack him around a little.

Yes, because giving him more reason to be pissed off at them is going to help loads!

Regardless of their intentions, regardless of how much they meant well, they still kept a major secret from him that has flipped his perception of reality completely upside down and caused him major pain and made him unable to trust his own friends and family. Actions always have consequences, and having good intentions does not make you immune to those consequences.

What happened to Tony is no small thing, and it’s unsurprising that he’s not taking it well. His entire anatomy has changed unexpectedly, he’s had to relearn how to walk and use his hands and nearly killed himself because he had no knowledge of all the new crap that got thrown in.

Tony can’t really be expected to handle any of this well. Good intentions or not, he just learned his friends and family have been lying to him his whole life, on top of already having to deal with turning into a bird-monster-thing with no prospect of becoming human again (up until this point anyway, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony had completely missed that particular detail amid the realization that he’s been lied to all his life).

He’s going to need a lot of time, not just a few weeks to truly get past this, especially with this new piece of crap that’s been thrown to the fan. They’ve made their choices and had their good intentions, now they need to accept the consequences of their actions and give Tony the patience he deserves.

Cornering him and chewing him out for how he’s treated them after all he’s gone through because of what they had done to him, and smacking him around when that obviously doesn’t work, just gives him grounds for disowning them completely.

I don’t see it that way.

1) Tony needs to learn that other people have feelings and get angry too. 2) Tony IS responsible for the way he treats other people, and that is something he needs to learn too. 3) Everybody has secrets, and they are entitled to them. 4) It was not the secrets that changed his life, it was the accident with the medallion. 5) The medallion thing WAS an accident, an accident that no one knew could happen, therefore no one can be held accountable for it. 6) Knowing why and what happened to cause an unfortunate event can help in coping with it, but Tony is choosing to act like a brat instead. 7) Tony is abusing the people who are best able and most willing to help him. 8) Not taking something well is understandable, but not even trying to cope is just mean spirited, immature, and self destructive.

I see no way Tony can get over his anger and self pity unless he owns up to all of the above. People have been quite indulgent toward him, and that has not worked. Smacking him around is definitely out, but holding him accountable for his own actions and insisting that he honor other people’s prerogatives (i.e. chewing him out) would present him with an opportunity to adjust to his situation.

Readers need to keep in mind that, while we’ve been watching this drama play out for months, Tony has only been dealing with the shape change for a week or so and has only had something like five minutes to process the fact that his mother has been lying to him his whole life.

COPING TAKES TIME.

For a teenager whose life has been turned completely upside-down, momentary anger is a normal and healthy reaction. Yes, he will need to get over it. Yes, he needs to come to many of the realizations that people keep posting about, but it would be unrealistic for him to reach that point right away.

At this point in time, the best thing anyone can do for him is probably to let him be alone for a couple of hours to think. Let him do whatever yelling or crying he needs to get his emotions out, and then he might start thinking and acting like a rational being again.

It would be fine if he simply threw a fit, because it would be natural to be angry about this, but he is systematically abusing everyone who cares about him and wants to help. There is no reason to do that. It won’t even make him feel better because he will prolly start feeling like the jerk he is pretty soon. He could have just have yelled and screamed his rage over this screwed up situation, went to cool off and then came back when he was ready to be a rational being again. None of that though actually requires he be cruel to his loved ones. Blanche -did- in fact tell him the truth. That is what the outing that turned Tony was about. Telling him the truth. Tony’s mother…why should she say anything about something she wouldn’t believe could be? She isn’t gonna turn back into a harpy. Tony shouldn’t be a harpy as a male. Why worry him for what she must have seen as being no purpose. It isn’t Blanche’s mom’s job to tell Tony about a magical world with magical creatures and that she and her son just happen to count among such. Tony is just setting himself up for heartache or to have someone who has a backbone stiffer than a marshmallow to give him what for.

Tre, you have forgotten things.

This story started with his attempt to cut off the long blood feathers, which were driving him up the wall, due to how much they were getting in his way. Adelle helped him by properly fixing the feathers.
Leaving Pwyll House, to go to Stereophonic, Anthony was in a reasonably good mood, it didn’t get to last long though. Blanche’s offer of yet more charity, to cover the cost of a customised guitar angered Anthony. So when they got back to Pwyll House, Anthony was still in a very sour mood.
And then, just to really cap the day off perfectly, Anthony learns of the full extent of lies he’s been subjected to, for his whole life.

Right now, Anthony has not had time to throw a proper fit over these latest revelations.
At most all the events in these, so far, 18 pages would have taken about an hour all told.

THIS. And Tre, put yourself in Tony’s shoes for a minute (figuratively speaking); if this were happening to you, would you react calmly? Remember, we the readers are seeing this from a distance; the characters are LIVING it.

Yes, they kept secrets from him. Their secrets wound up biting HIM in the ass. He has a right to be angry at them over it.

At some point, though, you have to get the hell over it. Shit happens. Life happens. What happened to him is, really, no different from him getting in the car with his mom at the wheel, and he didn’t know she was drunk; she crashes, and he winds up a double amputee with no arms, or reduced use of them anyway. That’s the best real-world analogy I can think of.

Would he have a right to be pissed at mom over that? Damn straight. Should he learn to live with it? Also yes. The past happened. It’s done. Mistakes were made, and now they have to be dealt with. Tony, however, is refusing to actually deal with them. He’s just wallowing in his anger, like a pig in shit.

Someone needs to point this out to him. Probably Blanche’s mom; she seemed pretty down-to-earth to me. “Stop abusing my son and your mother, or get the hell out of my house. I refuse to play host to you like this.”

So wait, you acknowledge that Anthony has a right to be angry, but you think he is wallowing because he’s not past being angry a week or so after the initial change and within moments of finding out what part his mother played in the situation. Am I understanding you?

I admit that I had momentarily (well, I guess for the week) forgotten the in-comic time scale involved.

Still, it IS getting about time to get past it and start learning to deal with the situation as it IS, not as he feels it ought to be.

Tony is instinctively seeing to his immediate need: time alone, preferably to think. He may be heading upstairs to his room, but I think it’s at least as likely that he’s on his way out into the greater Avalon. That’s where he may fulfill the need that comes after that: conversation with the right other person. (Any smacking around will have to be figurative.)

I was pondering who that person might be when I had a wicked idea. In this situation, would it be a Good Thing or a Bad Thing for Tony to speak with Isaac’s mom?

The idea of a run-in between Lynn and Anthony, with his current frame of mind, would be a VERY BAD idea, Lynx-Eye.
Very public argument is a certainty.
Public brawl, better than odds on.
One of them trying to kill the other during the brawl, odds on.

I love skin deep so much because it has an amazing storyline and deep characters and THEYRE ALL FURRIES

No character, so far, in Skin deep is a member of the furry fandom.
All the anthropomorphic characters seen are, supposedly, mythical creatures. NOT furries.

I was thinking the same thing.

Yes, Tony has a right to be angry. He’s pretty distraught over the entire situation–and as a result, he isn’t thinking clearly.
Yes, his mother could have told him, but as he pointed out sarcastically, it would have been traumatic for a child to grow up fearing he might turn into a bird monster.
And Blanche is a trusted friend, but even so, Tony freaked out when he learned about Avalon. If Blanche had turned him earlier, Tony might have a) stopped being his friend or even b) tried to expose the underground network of mythical beings. You have to be able to trust your friends more than you trust your own family before you can reveal that kind of secret.

His reaction is a natural part of the healing process (the stage of anger against those who had to lie to follow the stage of denial, ie the wing-clipping debacle). But once he progresses through this step, he’ll realize how irrational he’s being and let go of his feelings of betrayal. I just hope it comes soon, before the emotional damage he’s letting loose causes a rift in his relationships.

It seems like he overcame the first stages of grief by coming to terms with the fact that he had turned into a harpy, but now he has to overcome more stages of grief to come to terms with the problems attached to his new identity. So many grief cycles!

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