you know it kind of astounds me how much energy this fandom can spend on Strider ManpainTM when on the other hand 13-year-old Rose didn’t even know where her mother slept
I mean consider that for a moment
Mom Lalonde’s actual bedroom was in the lab. She presumably left the premises every night, leaving Rose alone in the house, and Rose had no clue
YOU LIVE IN A FREAKING MANSION WITH A GODDAMNED PONY
WHY ARE YOU SO MAD
I think that’s the joke
same with John hating his dad who does nothing but bake for and support him.
They’re 13. They want to be angsty. They want to be independent. Their parents and general lifestyle are in the way of both things.
But when they finally got that freedom they realized how much they missed their parents and their lifestyles. But it was too late to go back to all that, with their parents dead and their homes either in some strange place or just fucking gone completely.
Character development: Some people don’t realize that in order for it to work characters have to start-off flawed and imperfect.
And also let’s not forget that pony and mansion notwithstanding, Mom is obsessively doing housework while drunk in the middle of a blackout which will shortly (if it has not already) escalate from “crazy fucking rainstorm” to “multiple meteor strikes and massive forest fire that threatens the house,” that she and Rose are nigh-incapable of effectively communicating with each other on any level, and that Rose is at this point completely unaware that Mom does not sleep in the house. The Lalondes have major problems with emotional intimacy, communication, and substance abuse, and that Mom can buy Rose a pony but not understand that Rose mistrusts and resents her is a symptom of this, not a remedy.
Rose will eventually grow, learn, and gain perspective on the situation, but that doesn’t mean that Mom Lalonde didn’t have some pretty severe issues in how she related to her daughter, or rather, how she couldn’t relate to her daughter.
Cheloneuniverse 
