Fwoosh.
Also, just feel like sharing the music I inked this strip to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMl8CraRBk0
Scripted sound effects for Panel 6, but I think it's more effective without.
Fwoosh.
Also, just feel like sharing the music I inked this strip to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMl8CraRBk0
Oh Andi, No!
Ouch! Right in the abandonment issues!
To Andi… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YmS_VDvMY
Oh dear…
(It’s like a train wreck now)
We’re almost there! I can almost taste blood on the water. But what is “mit gerne”?
If I Google Translated right, “With Pleasure” in german.
Silly question, then: Is Selkie’s problem with plurals only a problem in English? She doesn’t seem to be doing it in German.
“Gerne” already means “with pleasure”, you say it without the “mit”. Alternatively she could say “Mit freude”.
“Gerne” is actually how Google Translate gave it, but I assumed the lack of “mit” was an error. Woops. Should have trusted my Silicon Valley Overlords.
Google Translate giving a PROPER translation? And someone making a mistake by IGNORING it’s advice? That’s like… bizarro world or something, right?
As German-speaking: In this context I understand “Gerne” (nowdays short “Gern”) with sure (positiv or negative).
“with pleasure” “mit Freuden” says almost noone anymore. Only in a sarcastic or gleeful way or if you try to speak “old”.
“Mit Vergnügen” is probably what you are looking for. It’s uttered often in exactly the sense Selkie is going for in this strip.
“if you try to speak ‘old’ “. I like that. 😀
“Dost thou wish to have speech with mine father? Yea, verily, I shall fetch him. Father, oh Father. Hie thee to us.”
Hey Dave, why is there no “reply” link after djaevienslev’s or Taloon’s name? I had to “reply” to you, because I could not “reply” to Taloon.
I understand why Andi ran, but man, this is going to be hard for her and Amanda to get past.
It looks like once the thread is nested 4 tiers in, the reply function disables. Not sure why or how to fix it off-hand.
Nevermind found it, the nesting was set to 5. I maxed it out to 10.
If you set the nesting too high, you will end up with columns of words rather than paragraphs.
Also, Pohl should have a look at Selkie. She seems to be shrinking rapidly.
Dave, you did that correctly. There are more complicated ways to say it, but that was well done. “Mit Freude” is just too complex for the heat of the situation, and doesn’t carry the concise ‘zing’ of Gerne, as a comeback.
But in this instance Gladly is the best translation, I think.
That’s also the explanation for why it isn’t “Mit gerne.”: “gerne”, like “gladly”, is an adverb. Thus “Mit gerne.” would be like saying “With gladly.”, which neither semantically nor grammatically makes any sense in either language.
Todd might be able to figure it out for himself after this. Andi told Amanda that she’s the one who named her. If that’s the name she & Todd had picked, it’s not a huge mental leap to put it all together on his own now. Like Amanda didn’t have enough abandonment issues to deal with. Poor baby. 🙁
“Are you completely certain your Mom and my Dad aren’t somehow the same person? I never see them in the same room together…”
I think my brain just kind of imploded at the possible implications that could draw. Or maybe I read too much El Goonish Shive and it’s crossing over with the amazement that is Selkie in my sleep deprived mind.
And this is the proof that Andi isn’t ready to be a mother. She just ditched her child. To the point where Amanda doesn’t know where she is. I would hate for Amanda to get more trauma added onto her, but Andi clearly isn’t responsible enough to be a parent.
Hardly that serious – Amanda knows her mother was just beside her, not missing for hours. Pretty sure Andi’s going to cover it up with “I REALLY needed the bathroom!” or “I went to change into my butt-kicking costume!”
I don’t know how much she understands the trauma of her daughter, but there are kids who are perfectly normal and untraumatized and still freak out if they are suddenly and without explanation left alone in an unfamiliar place (or, sometimes, even in their own homes, though that’s mostly with younger kids).
I can recall times in my twenties when I had something just shy of a panic attack over the impression that I was alone and disconnected from the people who were going to transport me home or to the next place. (Might be different if I owned a cell phone, as this was definitely a “What if we miss connections and can’t find each other” feeling.)
For a girl who’s already got abandonment-trauma in her psyche, being suddenly and unexpectedly dumped, especially being alone with only antagonists around her, that’s gonna have an intense effect on her.
Like others, I’ve been adjusting my impression of Andi over time, and giving her a fair amount of slack. But this is really, really bad.
The one potential positive I could see is if Amanda now has a breakdown that Selkie and Todd take seriously and help her with, thus breaking out of the Selkie-vs.-Amanda rut. Though I can’t help but imagine Amanda’s reaction as more like Zuko’s in Avatar, the first time his uncle got wounded and there was a healer right there willing to help but Zuko attacked them (“Get away!” or “Leave us alone!” reaction) rather than, at that moment, accepting the offered help.
I meant that Amanda should be put back into state care, as hard as that would be on her. Ditching Amanda is horrible, and offensive enough to actually call the state. It’s not like Amanda ran off, it’s not like they were playing or anything. Andi just up and freaking LEFT Amanda. As uncomfortable as it would be to face Todd, Andi should have stayed with her child instead of LEAVING her.
I think you’re being a bit harsh aren’t you? Everyone does stupid sh** when they’re panicked, and Andi is quite clearly panicked.
I don’t agree with her leaving Amanda alone, and I do think it was a stupid move on her behalf, but I don’t blame her. She’s freaking out about this, I would do the same if I were in her shoes. Kid or no kid.
I do feel for Amanda though. She’s going to hate looking ‘weak’ in front of Selkie. And the oncoming panic attack is going to suck. I hate panic attacks.
And if I were in Amanda’s shoes? I’d give Andi crap. “Abandon me once, sure, you were dumb and young. Hey, you came back. Abandon me twice? C**t!” Okay, a bit harsh, but we know she knows some cuss words. Also, I still dislike Andi.
Also, I would never treat my kids this way, nor condone anyone else doing so. I do not consider this a “screw up”. I consider this as going back to her old ways of running away and someone — hopefully her daughter — tells her to fess up and stop the b.s. cuz boy does it stink! 🙂
I cannot even COUNT the number of times I’ve screwed up like this in front of my kids. Even Amanda, with her past, is gonna be resilient. She might have some trust issues for a while, but Andi has time to get plats this.
Now, Todd being Amanda’s father, that’s gonna be a shit-storm.
I’d hardly consider being out of her daughter’s sight for less than a minute a “return to orphanage” offense. Amanda is 9, not 2. Yes she may be freaked out but I doubt Andi is more than 10 feet away, most likely hiding behind a plant or something. It’s not like she jumped in her truck and went HOME without the girl. They’re in an aquarium, the most harm she could come to without her mother would be what? Tripping and falling?? There are security guards, a front desk agent, and other parents around she can go to for help if she deems it necessary.
While we don’t yet know how far she’s run or how long she’s going to be separated, I largely agree with you.
However, much of that is logical thought. And emotions, particularly emotions based on trauma, are the polar opposite of logical. They lead us to flinch away from good people, form relationships with bad people, react to non-threats in a way that causes greater harm to ourselves and others… they can be a mess.
I know that when I started getting into half-panic mode over my dad being three minutes late to pick me up from college, logic had very little sway over the feelings. This despite feeling safe at college, knowing several nearby locations that were also safe (including the house of a friend), being just one town over from home, being comfortable with the bus system, and having actually walked from college to home (several miles) at least once. My emotions had nothing to do with the actual impact of the disaster scenario of my dad forgetting to come pick me up.
Even without Andi around, Amanda is still technically not without parental supervision in that Todd, the person approaching her, is her father.
Todd has no legal rights regarding Amanda, as custody was given to the state and then given to Andi.
Nor does he have consent from Andi to be her guardian in any form.
Unbeknownst to everyone except Andi, Todd is her biological father. That does not make him her parent. He is simply the source of roughly half of her genes.
So Andi quite clearly having a panic attack is offensive? Offensive? Really?
Yeah. Yeah, let’s stick a horribly traumatized kid back into the orphanage because her mother’s panic attack is *offensive*. Right.
Oh, man. Poor child. Abandoned again.
Y’know, I excused Andi’s previous booking-the-heck-outta-here on the grounds that it really wasn’t the time or place for the big reveal. But apparently she hasn’t learned a thing. Did she really think that was going to be the last occasion she and Amanda would encounter Todd and Selkie? The girls go to school together! She knows Amanda is determined to show her off! And yet she has done nothing either to prep Amanda or face Todd privately and ‘fess up. She’s still too feckless and weak to be a good parent.
I’m pretty sure ‘good parent’ is a state you transition into, not start out at. Everyone screws up, and Andi isn’t that terrible. She’s going to have to learn fast, though.
I really hope Andi stops running away from Todd. I know, She’s learning parenting 101 , but this is getting ridiculous . Amanda’s been abandon before .
I do think, that Andi has potential to be a good mom.
Andi, you’re running out of sympathy from me…and I’m a notorious sucker.
Cue Todd establishing himself as the better parent. Freaked out kid in need of comfort is gonna trigger Parental Reaction in 3…2…1…
Yep, definitely did NOT / pussied out on having that talk about using your parents for weapons of rivalry, but maybe Todd will have the talk with bith of them and set them straight, although they’ll be disappointed.
Selkie seems to have not fully absorbed that “don’t use friends and family as weapons” lesson. Amanda hasn’t either, though in her case Andi didn’t state it the way Todd did.
I never had that as a kid, myself — I occasionally saw (print) comics that featured a line like “My dad could beat up your dad”, but I never heard it used in real life, and it would never have occurred to me to use it, whether or not it was true. (Why on Earth would I assume that our parents would want to get involved in our personal dislike? And why would their involvement take the form of a fistfight, rather than them just telling us to settle down and behave?)
Kids don’t think that logically though, I used to as a kid think that just because I didn’t like this girl, that my stepmum wouldn’t like her either. I was proved massively wrong when she tarted using the girl as an example of what I should be.
Well, the only response Selkie will get when she says “I’s not supposed tos weaponizes my familys” will be: “Yeah, that’s loser-talk, fishface”
While I never even considered saying anything of the sort, I once heard something very close to “my dad is better than your dad” in *high school* (if memory serves, by someone adopted, no less).
It was embarassing to everyone in the room and resulted in a fair amount of shame for going there, but it demonstrated to me that people do, indeed, do that kind of thing in real life.
This was one of the potential scenarios I imagined. Andi disappears without Amanda, and Todd picks up the slack. It’s also the scenario I LEAST wanted to happen, as it is possibly the worst thing that Andi could have done to Amanda outside of direct physical or emotional abuse.
G*d d*mm it Andi.
Hopefully Todd will be able to get to know and bond with Amanda a little bit, making the eventual realization of their true biological relationship easier for eachieving of them. At least then some good will come of this.
Awwww…
Poor Amanda – suddenly abandoned… 😕
Bad Mom! Bad Mom, bad, bad, bad mom. You are so fail, you are made of fail. You abandoned your child to hide from your Ex- ?
You are built of 100% fine, pure failure. I hope you get scurvy, and athletes’ foot, and scrofula, and scoliosis, and seborrhea, and six other diseases beginning with S, … that’s S for Stooopid
Oh, no, no. She did not abandon her child to hide from her ex. It is more heinous. She abandoned her child and went back to her old tried and true of “running from reality” A SECOND TIME. This of course is not the first, nor will Amanda forget that, or regrettably this second time around of abandonment. So much worse than fail. This was true neglect in that she put herself before her child. This was a moment in Life Fail 101, people. It seems Art and Life Fail 101 are two things Andi truly is good at.
I really hope Andi hasn’t gone too far – the bathroom or something.
It’s like watching a train wreck. You can’t watch and yet you NEED to watch.
I agree it’s a morbid fascination. I don’t wanna watch, but I’m compelled to stick through to the end.
This is definitely a major misstep by Andi, and she loses a lot of the benefit of the doubt I’d been giving her earlier. Is it a fatal misstep, and should she lose Amanda? No, not yet. But she needs to do better.
Specifically, she needs to realize that, since she’s living in the same town as Todd (and their daughters go to the same school), she will see him from time to time, and running away in a panic isn’t going to be an option. If she can’t do it herself, then she needs to get some help. I’ve never been a huge fan of counseling, but it may be appropriate here.
If she can’t do that, then the solution is to move someplace very far away from Todd and Selkie and hope she and Amanda never see them again.
I don’t know why anyone’s even giving her the benefit of the doubt anymore.
She is _not_ fit to be a parent. The minute you do something like abandoning your child because you’re afraid of an awkward confrontation is the minute you lose your rights to be that child’s parent.
… As someone who still has abandonment issues in her 30’s from her army-dad having to go on week to month to a year long things away from me while growing up… Andi you peice of shit.
Strike one.
I’m surprised. Only one?
“today”… we’ll see how many more she does later on… the other ones were from the last inning.
Love the story line….
Poor child got separated from her mother. Luckily Todd is a nice enough guy that he might be willing to help her find her mother. 😉
Sure is a lot of little self entitled shits in here passing judgement mighty quickly… I’m sure all of you have kept your noses perfectly clean in your lifetime, right?
Aw, I dunno. I think it’s mighty wrong of her to do everything she did, and then she starts to gain a spine and undo the bad by going back for her daughter, but not balls enough to confess it all, even slowly, to her ex. That might be just my opinion but, yeah, I don’t think it is harsh to say what I see.
Keep in mind that the author is well aware what reaction such behavior will have on his audience. In fact, I am pretty sure he knows we will hate Andi. Isn’t that good writing? Especially because I have a feeling his other goal is to (I have no idea how) have Andi in the end be redeemed? The biggest fall has the most impact on character development and on the readers because it has also the biggest climb back up:)
Andi has been trying to reconcile with Todd. Andi fears that once he learns the truth about Amanda, it will end any hope of reconciliation.
I guess I am wondering why Andi wants back with Todd? Seriously, what is her motivation? Mid-life crisis? Looks at her life and says “What a big mistake that was. I wish I could undo that. Hey, let’s call him up and see what sticks.”? Or maybe the biological clock ticking? Just regrets of the past? I honestly would like to know. Just saying she wants to get back with him and then have her go full throttle to take Amanda back seem to be going in either opposite directions or the bass ackwards way to restart a relationship. I stand by my point that Andi is the best teacher of Life Fail 101 next to Honey Boo Boo’s mom and perhaps her own mom.
Haha! I just realized that Amanda and Todd have the same color eyes. I dunno about Andi. Been so long since I’ve seen more than scared or mad pupils, I can’t recall her eye color.
Yep, she has his eyes. :3
Andi’s eyes are green.
I guess “the ugly encounter” was inevitable—it’ll be the aftermath where things get really jumping. So many questions, so many possibilities.
I just got “Selkie Volume Two” yesterday—fast delivery, thanks—and, boy, it brings back a lot of memories…
Andi, are you insane?!? You ditched Amanda! Oh, for the love of octofishies!