In Which People Forget How Thin Walls Are.
I made a meta-writing decision not to fully recap Amanda's past with the Sandersons because the readers have already heard it, so I figure the details can be gone into off-camera a bit. Flows quicker this way.
Atta girl, Amanda.
Let’s recap. Her real father skips over her and chooses Fish Face, her mortal enemy.
Her real mother COMES LOOKING SPECIFICALLY FOR HER (not just some random orphan), and takes her home. And is doing her best to be a mother to her.
Her real father, from all she’s seen today, is, pretty much, a dick.
And to top it off, her real father is screaming at her mother, and looks/sounds as if he might hit her. Maybe the Sandersons had an abusive parent. Might help explain why the boys were so mean.
If so, then she could certainly be expecting Todd to punch Andi
(that’s what dads do when they get that mad), so she steps up to defend her.
I’m impressed.
yeah, I really hope this doesn’t end up with Amanda hating Todd. Something for grown-ups to remember- just because *you* are mad at one of their parents don’t expect the kid to see it as anything other than you being a jerk to their parent.
I don’t think she will. She definitely won’t bond with him as quickly as Andi, though. I’m very glad Todd’s parents came along.
I hope not. She seems to have picked up on Todd’s comment of “wishing she hadn’t started off the way he had”…
What Amanda’s got going for her is that she’s a very bright, perceptive little girl. Huge anger issues, yes, but if it’s survival information, she’s shown in the past that she picks up on it right away. You can’t hide much from her.
She’s noticed that her mom is trying her best.
Father yelling at mother, even on her behalf…
even if he did go through the same thing she did…
NO. DO NOT WANT.
That bit about Todd’s childhood? She heard them all talking. She understood. It’s important to know more. Survival-level important.
But first, he has to stop yelling at her mother! It’s not right. It’s not fair.
Right? Cause it’s not like the mother fucker didn’t fake a death, give his daughter away and then hide it like a forgotten xmas present in the back of a closet somewhere.
More importantly I still don’t agree with the reasons WHY Andi decided to try and find her child. This all started because of her relationship with Todd and him adopting a child. I refuse to believe she didn’t have her own selfish reasons for adopting her.
More importantly, it’s right and fair to hold Andi accountable, what Todd and the rest of the family is feeling is more then fair and acceptable.
Todd’s daughter, who he wanted to keep was put into foster care, adopted by an abusive family and then dropped back into foster care like an unwanted animal suffer directly BECAUSE of Andi.
Trusts have been broken, boundaries have been crossed. The reality is, there may NEVER be any coming back from this. And if the author decides to just get Todd and Andi back together, well he’s a cunt.
Todd may be able to have a somewhat healthy relationship with his new found biological daughter. But the anger, betrayal and resentment Todd has with Andi may never go away and rightfully so.
Jeremy if you wish to comment, please do so under your actual name. I’m not approving any comment from that user name you’ve been using, and I won’t modify your posts to your real identity any longer.
You can interpret the story any way you want.
But Amanda doesn’t seem to see it your way. I was writing from her point of view.
Also, it’s Dave’s story. You don’t get to call him names if he doesn’t have it unfold the way you would.
What Amanda did here is definitely a holdover of abuse-survival tactics: If someone threatens the person who defends you, you defend them. You defend them loudly and with conviction.
I may not always like Amanda’s behaviour, but I am so cheering for her right now. Todd is being a jerk about this–none of them can see alternate timelines, and suggesting everything bad that happened to Amanda is all Andi’s fault is really hurtful. Not a good way to start family-connecting.
Are you kidding?! It’s the BEST way to start family-connecting.
Because it is Andi’s fault. It is indisputably Andi’s fault. If Andi had told the truth and given Todd the chance to raise Amanda, or Todd’s parents, she would never have been abused.
But Amanda doesn’t need to be feeling that. She doesn’t need that burden of resentment against her long-lost mother. Better that she feel protective, that she bond with Andi – who is, after all, the custodial parent, and the one that’s all “hers”. Todd will always be the guy who chose Selkie; Andi is Mom. Let Amanda have her mom, let her feel that protective bond first… so that when the resentment does set in, it won’t sting as badly or cut quite so deep.
Point #2: Amanda is very, very used to being the “bad kid”. She’s the one who “starts trouble”, at school and at the orphanage, and most of the time, if there’s an adult talking to her, it’s to say that she’s done something bad, she’s done something wrong, she’s going to be punished. All the while for lashing out at people for reasons she doesn’t understand herself, and she doesn’t want to be the bad kid; and SHE TRIES, SO HARD, TO BE GOOD.
But it’s never enough. Amanda’s always in trouble, she’s always the bad kid. No matter how hard she tries, all she ever hears is, That’s not good enough. Try harder.
Now Amanda has a mom. A mom who looks like her, red hair and all, who’s swooped in and saved her, and given her princess things like earrings and her very own tattoo on Andi’s skin. But now she has another piece of information, and that is that she ended up at the orphanage because Andi gave her away. Her fairy godmother mom isn’t perfect after all.
But Amanda isn’t paying attention to that particularly devastating piece of information, because Selkie’s dad is telling Andi that she’s not trying hard enough, just like Amanda hears people telling her, every. single. day.
She’s learned that her mom made some awful mistakes, but the part she’s focusing on is that her mom is just like her, and that she’s trying so damn hard, just like Amanda tries, feeling like it’s impossible and still trying…
…Yeah. This is actually a pretty good headspace for Amanda to be right now. When you consider the alternatives.
Just want to say, I really like this insight.
That’s what I was getting, too. Not in as much detail as you got it, but it was visible.
Yet another point in favor of Dave being an outstanding crafter of tales… and characters.
I HATE Andi. I HATE Amanda. Deeply and personally. They’re shadows of real people in my life who hurt me, a LOT.
But Dave has brought me to understand the characters, and from there, maybe a little more about my own past. Damn that man for being that good a storyteller.
*smile* There’s someone I’ve been quoting a lot lately that I can’t help feeling is relevant here again.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”~Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ultimately, one of the hardest and most important things we can do as humans, is step past our hurts and /look/ at the people who inflicted them, instead of letting our pain, letting /them/ drive /us/ to hurt them or those around us.
It’s all about breaking the cycle, and understanding that we all fail sometimes. Accepting that we /will/ hurt and /be/ hurt, and trying to make the time to rise above it to make the world a better place despite our pain and our baser instincts.
To decide that we don’t want /anyone/ to feel hurt the way we do, because /nobody/ deserves that.
…it ain’t easy.
But it’s worth it.
ayyyy lmao, todd grew a pair. good on him.
**wry** Not makin’ a good impression on Amanda.
Yea no, there’s a difference between being assertive and throwing a tantrum, getting angry and shouty (even if said anger is justified) isn’t how adults handle things. His expression in the second to last panel is outright threatening, not good at all.
Yep, because only “real men” upset little girls by yelling at their mothers in front of them.
lol yeah, least she didn’t get smacked I guess
lol least he’s not a lazy bullying loser who gets sent to jail I guess.
Whoah there, easy on the teeth, Todd o_o
Todd just lost some coolness points with me. Everything that happened to Amanda after she got into the system is not Andi’s fault, once she gave her up it was the authorities job to ensure her safety and well being, they failed.
Though I guess it shows where Amanda got her anger issues from.
He stays in character tho. Anger issues don’t go away, it’s a constant fight. Don’t like how he’s reacting necessarily but is very in line with who he is. We haven’t really seen it to this point and I’m rather glad to see he’s…well, real. Everybody has flaws they have to fight.
Actually, this brings up something that has bugged me all along. I kind of set aside questions of plausibility for reasons of “story”; not everything has to be fully explained or make perfect sense if you have a good story to tell. But if the discussion is about whose to blame for the situation, it is the system’s the systems fault right from the very moment Andi was allowed to place Amanda.
Yes Andi screwed up, because she was 17, scared to death, and under tremendous pressure. No one makes good choices at those times. So we have LAWS and RULES. Who the hell even LET an underage kid sign adoption papers without even trying to find the father? Given that Todd was at the hospital multiple times )even right after the birth while Amanda was probably still there) if anyone in authority had tried even a tiny, little bit he would have been found and could have been asked.
Generally in single mom situations, the mother is put under huge pressure to name a father, if only so the state can dock his taxes for child support. Like Andi would have kept quiet about Todd under those circumstances?
A lot of people are mad at Andi, and not without good reason. But there is a system that is supposed to protect children – Andi and Todd included – that utterly failed a very young and very vulnerable family. There isn’t much that can be done about that now, but it should be recognized.
I imagine Andi’s mother was involved.
I don’t know anything directly, but it’s my understanding that our system has been set up so that if the mom doesn’t care to indicate the dad, she doesn’t have to do that. And this causes some really huge problems sometimes.
I think it’s meant to help the mom — who may even be a rape victim — avoid having to be legally connected to someone she doesn’t want to be connected to.
What it has ended up doing, in at least a few cases, is let a vindictive or weak woman void the parental rights of the father — which is kind of related to some other issues that our society is still tied up in knots about, and which probably shouldn’t be debated on this forum.
But yeah, I can totally see a woman being able to sign away rights to a baby without involving the dad. And I think this is an ethical nightmare, not just for the father but also potentially for the adoptive parents, who in some cases have had their beloved child ripped away from them even though they did everything, everything right. There’s no winner in a setup like that.
To those dissing Todd, please remember he started his speech with the words “I’m glad you brought her back to us… Thank you.”
Everything after the “but” had to be said.
The only (pretty big “only” though) wrong thing Andi did was keep Todd out of the loop and lie about it for years, she’s being attacked for giving Amanda up, which was totally the right thing to do (and her right as the mother) if she didn’t want a child at that point. – only she should have told Todd so he can get custody instead.
Okay, I want to say about the idea that she should have told Todd. They hadn’t broken up back then. They were still a couple, and Andi wanted to keep it that way. It would be super hard for her to do that if Todd was raising her child, and she didn’t want to be a part of that. The option to exclude the father from the process is almost always given for basically this exact purpose. If she had told Todd, he would have insisted that they keep her, and that would have either resulted in them breaking up, or Andi raising a child when she didn’t want to and didn’t feel able to. She didn’t tell Todd, because she was afraid of him putting pressure on her, and I’d say that that’s not something we should hold against her.
If you have to lie to someone or else they’d break up with you – you should probably break up.
Wait, your argument is “It’s right for Andi to destroy Todd’s parental rights over his own daughter, and for the system to be set up to allow her to do this, because she might have to break up with a guy she likes”?
I’m with Mikael here. From the moment Andi decided to maintain a relationship on the basis of lies, she did not in any way deserve to maintain that relationship. That is a total abrogation of Todd’s free will and informed consent. It is, as Todd’s mother pointed out, betrayal — there is no other word for it.
Some decades ago I had to wrap my head around the concept of a person who is in a relationship, makes a decision that would normally kill the relationship (or at least strongly risk killing it), and then maintains the relationship purely through hiding that decision and its consequences. Watching an Oprah show about this topic made me angrier than probably any other talk show I have ever watched (I haven’t watched a lot of them). I’m basing an entire set of characters and character arc on this concept in the story I’m writing.
When you say that you value the comfort of the relationship over the free will and informed consent of the person you’re in a relationship with, you have turned them into an object, you have turned yourself into a manipulative ABUSER, and you no longer have any moral right to remain in that relationship. And that’s before you get into the thought of throwing away a child who had every right to expect a good, loving father who could have raised her, even if it wasn’t precisely the best circumstances in which to do so.
She also gave him a fake dead body and literally disrespected his entire family by devaluing adoption even though she knew his entire family is adopted. So it’s not just the keeping Amanda a secret. It’s that too.
The other things she did wrong? Yeah, definitely wrong. But that remark about adoption? Come on. As readers, we really have to stop holding that against her. Dave has given us enough information. We now know, for sure, it wasn’t actually disrespecting either Todd or his family at all, it was blurted out because of her own intense guilt about Amanda.
We’ve only ever heard Todd’s version of that conversation. Yes, he thought she was insulting him, but — as we’re seeing right here — despite all the healing he’s done, despite the fact that he has grown into a pretty mature adult, there are certain hot button topics still that can make him not entirely rational.
In retrospect, with what we know now, we can see that when the subject of the two of them adopting a child came up, what Andi was thinking… what she might have been trying to start telling Todd right then, right at that moment, if he hadn’t blown up… was that their own biological child wasn’t dead. That before she could think about adopting, she needed to find out about what had happened to their own baby. She was trying to tell him about her feelings. And he not only didn’t listen, didn’t give her any chance to tell him she had lied, their own baby was alive — he blew up, and broke up with her forever.
Todd isn’t whole. He copes very well, most of the time, so it’s easy to forget, and expect him to act like someone who’s never been scarred.
Except no. She lied and did something so wrong. If she hadn’t done that none of this would be happening.
I don’t disagree. What she did was very wrong. I know that, you know that… SHE knows that.
But what she said about adoption? That isn’t one of the wrong things she did.
Read what I wrote, again. She isn’t just a one-dimensional villain. Not everything she does is Bad. Todd took it as an unforgivable insult. It wasn’t an insult at all. Of course, he didn’t have the information to understand it any other way, so it’s not his fault he misunderstood, but… It wasn’t an insult.
Except no. It was VERY insulting. She knew he was adopted. She knew it would hurt. And she probably didn’t want him finding Amanda when he had brought it up at the time. So no. Andi is deeply in the wrong.
Wait, I was under the impression that Andi wanted to “try again” instead of adopting. She was pushing Todd to get her pregnant again, not go looking for Amanda. She didn’t start looking for Amanda until after Todd had gone through with Selkies adoption.
Thank you. I don’t see Todd being the bad guy here. He has had is frustration to a max, and he has to be allowed to let it out sometime. I’ve always had problems with rolling over instead of getting mad, and am only just now after 30 years learning that it’s OK to get angry sometime. Is it the most mature? No. Is it human? Very much so. This just made me feel like Todd could be a real person with very real emotions instead of only perfect-dad
Dealing with my issues in marriage counseling, we learned that everything that comes before a ‘but’ is negated by it. And Todd’s dentist loves him very much; Todd’s repair work will pay for the new vacation to the Islands.
Oh, it’s not the fact he said it. He is totally justified and could have been entitled to say even worse. It’s his timing. For Amanda’s sake, he’d have been better off (and kinder to everyone) sticking it in the happy box until he could talk to Andi alone. With his parents there, though, and Amanda crying out in the other room, maybe this will help him (and everyone else) put it into perspective.
He thought she was playing. How could he know she was listening?
Genre Savviness?
You don’t have much experience with kids? If adults argue in a house (let alone an apartment) kids pick up on the tones and usually listen. They have much better ears than adults do. You wait until kids aren’t in the same living space or are heavily asleep before arguing like that with another adult.
Okay, so
1) Amanda is self-aware, and can notice when adults actually try to be good to her. That’s pretty great;
2) Amanda is already so fond of Andi she gave up her secret spy thing to defend her;
3) so I’m assuming Amanda has figured out that “for some reason, he thought you were dead” is something Andi did, not just a vague mystery. And doesn’t seem to have too bad a reaction to that.
(Which I’d attribute entirely to the part where she overheard adults talking about it, where she could process it at her own pace, instead of being TOLD personally)
In the US, interior walls are 4″ thick, standard. And they don’t contain the sound-blocking insulation you’d find in exterior walls, either.
Not particularly good at keeping emotionally-charged conversations private.
yeah, they’re usually pretty empty inside other than the wires and pipes for the house… unless you get a house that was flipped by shoddy workers…
the wall that separates the living room from the dining room has all the miscellaneous cut off chunks of drywall layered inside and sealed up with the two sides of the drywall surface, instead of bringing them to the dump like they should have done. i only found this out when i tried to put in a cat5 Ethernet jack for the living room and couldn’t figure out why it was so hard to cut thru until i got the first layer completely cut out and could see the stacked layers… i soon abandoned that jack location…
Todd, I’m sorry but you cross the line here. I understand you were angry, but blaming something on Andi that wasn’t directly her fault is wrong. The main focus was to see Amanda and develop a relationship, not going back to the past and bring up the faults.
Ya blew it. Ya *male/female symbol* blew it.
I agree. I also will reiterate that’s not abnormal behavior for someone who’s gone through PTSD has when he isn’t aware of being triggered or keeping a handle on it. Not an excuse at all, but not surprising either. I’m actually impressed he didn’t blow up at her sooner (which also would have been equally horrible and wrong to do in front of Amanda). It’s good his parents are there.
Yeah, I hope they help remind him that lashing out at Andi isn’t actually going to help Amanda any, just make her feel even less stable in her environment. Andi knows she screwed up, that’s why she went back for Amanda, and she had no way of knowing at the time that she would have been adopted by an awful family. But it’s going to be some time before Todd can recognize that because what matters to him is that his daughter got hurt just like he did and SOMEONE should have been able to prevent that.
I love the scene with Todd’s teeth. He has some very legitimate anger issues right now. He needs to get back in control, but I do not blame him one little bit for a brief outburst. I still think Andi has been getting off light in this get-together.
Andi has done some awful things, that’s true. But what happened after Amanda was adopted is NOT. HER. FAULT. She more than likely had no control over what family Amanda went to and had no knowledge of what happened.
You know, as a general principle I agree that if you’ve made the best decision you can given the circumstances, the outcome isn’t something you need to be held accountable for — especially after you’ve handed the matter over to other people. Intention matters, and some allowance can be made for human error.
On the other hand, if you have to choose between a man who’s pretty obviously going to make a good parent, and the questionable foster care system (which has failed many a child), I don’t know that you can just wash your hands of the consequences.
I’m trying to think of a reasonable metaphor…
…and utterly failing. It’s late. But yeah, it’s nice to be able to say that once things have passed out of your hands, the blame for their consequences is in the hands of others. But the way humans deal with guilt and blame isn’t as simplistic as that.
I don’t understand why everybody seems to think Todd is yelling at Andi.
His mouth isn’t even open. He is speaking through clenched teeth, yeah, he’s very angry but he’s not yelling.
When he says “try harder” it definitely seems like it’s supposed to be getting louder. And with his arm in that position, that extreme look on his face, and how frightened Andi looks… I think if they’d been alone, or Amanda hadn’t said something, he might’ve hit her. I also think he would’ve immediately regretted it, but he might’ve done it.
What makes everybody think he’s yelling is the all-caps and then double-sized type used for “TRY.” “HARDER.”
Yes, clenched teeth. Also, very, very LOUD.
It’s not the punctuation…it’s the facial expressions which lend to the tone of yelling—even if he is speaking at a normal volume. In the second to last panel, he has super spiky grindy teeth and hateful eyes. Andi is cowering. Also, his tone can’t be *that* low as the girls can hear him pretty well.
Yeah, but how was Andi supposed to know about the crap Amanda went through? I’ll agree that karma has caught up with her, but I feel like Todd’s laying things way too thick here.
It’s like if you’re eating lunch with a friend and they want to try something off of your plate. You give it to them and step out to make a call or go to the bathroom. Now you come back and find them dead. You didn’t know they were going to chew badly or eat something that they didn’t know they were allergic to. Are you to blame?
Whether she knows or not is irrelevant to an angry parent.
A high-school-senior skips school to go to a movie, and on the way gets t-boned by another car. He did not plan to get in a wreck. He did not know that by going to the movie he would get in a wreck.
Daddy’s still gonna be all over him like white on rice. “IF YOU HADN’T CUT CLASS, THE CAR WOULD NOT BE WRECKED!!!!!”
Even though it was not his intention to wreck the car, his actions caused the wreck. Therefore his actions will call down the Wrath of Dad.
Yes, that’s part of how guilt and blame work for humans. Even if you can’t see the consequences ahead of time, if you do something wrong and the consequences turn out to be worse than anticipated, you feel guilty for the consequences and others may hold you accountable for them.
Of course, there’s also Disproportionate Retribution. If you happen to start a chain of events that has a huge consequence that couldn’t be at all predicted from the start, and the start was a relatively minor act, it’s not reasonable to say you’re guilty of the consequences.
She’s lied for eight years,gave them a fake dead body and has said some very horrible things about adoption when she knows very well what his family is like. Then he hears about his only child going through abuse like he had. Excuse me but uh. How were you all expecting him to react? Calmly? Cuz that sure as heck isn’t going to happen.
I get that, LadyObvious, I really do. Andi’s reaping what she’d sown (some pretty nasty crops mind you) and I applaud that.
What I’m saying is that that line “But I’m not going to forget to hold you accountable for what happened to her” was unnecessary. Yes Andi’s done some evil and shitty things to them, we agree on that. But while Amanda’s suffering was because of Andi’s decision, it’s not like Andi could foresee this.
Besides, with two ‘rebel without a cause’ parents who were immature, her attitude prolly would’ve sucked still (I’m not saying that teens (or punk rockers) can’t raise a kid, I’m saying that Amanda would’ve still had problems).
If you want to kill evil you have to kill it with good, not more evil.
Yeah no. It is Andi’s fault. She may not have known but she gave her up,lied and did VERY horrid things to Todd. An “I’m sorry” will not make up for it all. It’s going to take more. Like giving Todd space from her for a while and letting him spend time with Amanda without her.
If you take someone to a hospital and the doctor there messes up somehow it’s not your fault, it’s the doctors.
Lied for eight years and the abuse wouldn’t have happened if she kept the baby.
Don’t know that. It’s been 8 years and Todd is reacting like this and probably asked his parents to be here specifically so he wouldn’t fly off the handle.
Andi is cowering.
I’ve seen this happen irl and it generally ended in physical violence when other people weren’t around.
Todd may be a good parent now but Amanda very well may have grown up in an abusive home if Andi had kept her before he learned to take temper control measures.
This is getting very interesting.
…and if the primary reason Andi caved to parental pressure to give Amanda up was fear for what he’d do to Amanda when he lost his temper? What then?
That’s entering dangerous territory there. What if he couldn’t control his temper and hurt Amanda? That there is repugnant. There’s still no evidence he would be violent to Andi even now. And you think it could have been to protect Amanda…..
That is just disgusting. Disturbingly disgusting.
Oh, it’s definitely speculation. Of course there’s no evidence that would have happened. There never is. One never gets to know about might-have-beens.
I think rye is simply pointing out that there is also no evidence to support the blanket assertion that if they had only kept Amanda, she would NOT have been abused. We can’t know that, either.
With a teenaged father, one who had himself been abused, one who was still so unaware of harsh realities that he thought he could support a child on a grocery bagger’s part-time paycheck… Grandparents can only do so much. We can’t just assume it’s a given that everything would have been rosy, if only…
I just think it’s a hazardous road to say anyone would have turned abusive if they haven’t shown signs of physical violence. Would he have been a good father? I don’t know and won’t speculate. I helped raise my sister at 4 and let me tell you it isn’t easy. You don’t know if you’ll be good at parenting until you start.
Just, there is a far step between being a teen father in over ones head and being violent, which I doubt Todd would be. And it bothers me when someone brings it up just because someone has a small chance in this culture that treats father’s as bumbling jokes at best and monsters at worst because they’re men.
Sessine nailed it rather nicely. This absolute belief Amanda’s life would’ve been abuse free just because her real dad adopted her sticks in my craw fiercely. My real life experience puts lie to it.
That being said, I’m wondering what exactly everybody else thinks anger management issues mean that they can excuse it so readily. Because in my life, anger management issues is code for people who think pissing them off excuses hitting, punching, and beating on the person pissing them off. That unwillingness to control one’s self generally results in harsher treatment when the victim does something bad enough they can use it to justify losing their temper whole hog. Case in point, my own suicide attempt was triggered when my mother punched me in the face intentionally, with malice aforethought, upon discovering I was flunking Algebra and didn’t tell them. While there’s more to it I’m unwilling to get into here, justifying losing her temper to the point of bloodying somebody’s nose is a def an anger management issue. This over the top reaction is kind of why most of us didn’t tell her when we had problems she should have known about. We never knew if she’d shrug it off (occasionally) or spaz out violently (usually) so we put it off until we were forced.
While anger management issues can also cover a wider range of behaviors than that, random strangers usually don’t see it as a real issue until physical violence is involved, either in threat or by action.
So excusing of Todd’s anger management issues without correlating them to Andi’s issues leaves me scratching my head. We still don’t know what in story anger management issues mean except in relation to Amanda and if Todd exhibited the same problems Amanda currently has as a teen, Andi probably had reason to see adoption as better for her. Lying about it, not so much.
You forget, I have admitted anger management issues. To me it means an eternal war that never ends. And I have never struck someone. Using it an excuse to hit someone is pathetic and I’m sorry you had to go through it.
That said, if Andi feared his, why betray him in such a base and cruel manner? That makes me say screw her issues. Besides, he’s a trusted architect. Customer service is part and parcel here and trust me, that is the wrong job for someone given to rage they can never control.
Todd’s anger is not out of place here. Many people in his spot would rage and there are countless people with rage issues that truly believe in the management part that stay under control.
Again, Todd is NOT acting disproportionate, the crime is timing.
Very good point. We can’t see alternate timelines. Todd would be outraged if someone suggested this, but he’s proving right now that even today he can be physically menacing to someone who is not a physical threat.
It’s not at all certain that, back then (so much younger, so much less adult control, under severe financial stress) he would have been a safe father.
I totally agree that his anger issues and Andi’s cowering seem like aomething that occurred before… perhaps she never wanted to tell Todd she didn’t want to have a child was because she was afraid of what he’d do to her if she said no? Sure, we’ve seen Todd all sunshine and rainbows about the pregnancy, but what about the sides of Todd we haven’t seen? He very well could have hurt Amanda given his history of anger and abuse. He may have regretted it after, but it doesn’t change the fact that it had been done.
Cowardly women with no sense of direction or self, who let others walk all over them, tend to choose abusive men… and cling desperately to them. It certainly SEEMS like a plausible theory…
I hope he’s never hit Andi before.
Funny cuz I doubt that happened and I am disgusted by how people are treating Todd’s justified anger at someone who lied,traumatized and disgustingly insulted his entire family. Like. Excuse all of you. That’s pathetic.
….he wouldn’t. Ever. But thanks for playing! What she did was wrong and she knows it. Andi shouldn’t have done what she did. Todd is justified here.
No, dear. It’s reality. If I had a nickel for every compliment my parents got for how great and well behaved we were growing up I’d be a millionaire now.
They didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes. We’ve seen Todd publicly, from the angles Dave has shown us so far. We have seen about three scenes of his past and from those scenes everybody is seeing only the worst of Andi and the best of Todd.
If Todd has gotten his anger issues under control enough to be good now, that’s great. He’s a genuine hero in my book because I know how hard that is. That’s even more awesome than if he never had to struggle at all. It’s what I wish my parents had done.
But that doesn’t mean he had it together as a teenager. Coming from somebody who started with a 17 year old mother and 21 year old father (legally married, white knight syndrome saving her from psychotic abusive father), I’ve got some life experience with people who are parents too young.
This is Dave’s story, given I’m not Dave I have no idea what’s going to happen next. However, I would dearly love to see this particular plot twist happen because it would mirror the reality of what happens to so many abused people.
Too many people see only the surface and refuse to recognize there might be ugliness hiding under it. They deny the reality of the victims because the abuser seems too nice to be capable of it…in their limited interactions with him.
It’s one of the reasons abuse victims have trouble talking. It’s also one of the reasons they don’t trust surface appearances or the public masks they see.
Please do not speak for all of us who grew up like that. Abusive behavior is a lot more complex than the parents’ age and childhood history.
And I have not picked up any abusiveness from Todd. His reactions are pretty normal for most people who would have been deceived on that level. The only thing he is doing wrong is losing it in front of (the vicinity of) his kids.
Generally don’t speak for everybody, which is why I use I and me frequently. I speak for myself, for what I saw, for what I’ve experienced.
If it is true for me, it is true for other people. It is NOT true for everyone but everyone gets to speak for themselves.
You are welcome to say you disagree and explain why you disagree. On the other hand, I went through every book on abuse in our library system while trying to make sense of it. When I use sweeping statements as in the above, it’s with the understanding that they are problems for many abuse survivors – not on my experience alone, but from researching the problem. It’s great if it doesn’t apply to you but that doesn’t help those of us for which it does.
No argument there. The thing is there’s a little kid right in the other room. Even if you have a stake to claim and emotions that need to be released (justifiably so), it’s really important to try not to fight like that with another adult in front of your kids—all the more when it’s about them. It’s a terrible thing to put a child through.
As for Andi, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of her actions but I’d like to hear more of why she did what she did. On the surface some comes off as a self-serving sociopath X some other personality disorder. But all her present actions show a meek person who maybe didn’t make all these horrible decisions herself.
17 is really still a child. MRIs show the human brain continues to develop into ones’ mid-twenties. Some of us who had tough start don’t fully grow up until much later.
This is not excusing what she’s done…but the story is more interesting than if she was a complete evil self-serving monster.
I’ve realized that none of Dave’s characters can ever be written off with a simple label like ‘self-serving’, or ‘sociopath’ or ‘bully’ or ‘abuser’ or ‘personality disorder Y’. Those may be traits, but they’re never the whole. He doesn’t write like that. He doesn’t have ‘good guys’ versus ‘bad guys’, either.
He populates his stories with real people. Flawed… and real. When characters seem to fit into a stereotype, that’s always only because he hasn’t yet revealed enough about what’s going on in their heads. There are always reasons — emotions we can understand and identify with.
That’s why part of the full experience of reading Selkie is following the comments. Readers contribute their different perspectives, and together we can understand much more than we could individually. I cannot count the number of times a comment has made me go, “Ohhhh! Of course! THAT’S what’s happening here!”
This is what my experience with Harry Potter was like, around the fourth to fifth book. I spent most of my time on the Sugar Quill, speculating about upcoming events. Seeing other people point out tiny details that wove together into larger realizations was some of the most enjoyable times in my life.
I’m glad to have found another place to do likewise, with writing just as talented.
On the one hand, Andi didn’t handle the situation well at all – she did give them a false reason to mourn when all in all Todd’s family probably would have been relatively supportive of putting her up for adoption, and otherwise Andi and/or Todd would’ve had a strong support system in the form of Todd’s parents. It’s understandable Todd’s upset, especially given he’s hearing about Amanda having an abusive past, which is definitely a sore spot. I’m not shocked at all that he’s talking to her like that.
But I AM surprised by panel 6. I have never seen Todd this angry. He’s advancing on Andi, growling like that, and with his arm raised? Maybe it’s just due to the pose of movement, but… it looks like he would’ve hit her just then if no one had intervened. And her reaction to this could be due to fear and the feeling that this whole interaction’s gone over really badly, but… it almost looks like she knows what’s coming, and has been through it before.
Yeah, it makes sense that Todd is upset. It makes a TON of sense. But if things are the way they look, it’s still not okay for him to react like this.
As far as I’m concerned, this is Todd’s anger issues coming out. I want to turn to Amanda.
I’m proud of you kid. It takes a lot to stand up for someone when you only know pain. Amanda is showing me something. Something admirable.
Anger issues. Abuse issues. Seeing stuff repeat that remind him too much of the ugly parts of childhood. It’s pretty impressive he’s held it in to this point, and I have a feeling he’s going to quickly de-fuse after hearing Amanda which is still very impressive considering his past. Even people who haven’t encountered abuse on that level might have a tough time roping it in once those kinds of feelings break out.
It’s never easy to hear that our loved ones have been through something we fully expected they’d never have to endure, especially when we should’ve been able to save them from it — that our experience should’ve meant something, somehow.
I kinda feel this way, in a lesser way, when I think about my nieces and nephews and some of my younger friends possibly getting into abusive relationships. Like, my research has brought so much info my way, and walked me through the statistics, and now I’m terrified over how unlikely it is that 100% of the youngsters I know would stay outside the statistics, and how impossible it is to convey to them enough information to keep them safe. And yet what good is all this info if not to help those who are close to me?
So I can empathize with Todd, quite strongly. Who wants to see that happen to their child, especially on the basis of a lie? How much must he be engulfed in what-ifs?
Another possible issue Todd might bring up is the timing. Andi brought Amanda back after he had broken up with her and made it clear he did not want to get back together. He only found out when Andi brings her back out of the blue and the first thing she tries to do is get him to reconsider getting back together because of Amanda. While the reader knows this was not an intentional manipulation on Andi’s part, it would not be unreasonable for Todd to wonder if that was the case..
> While the reader knows this was not an intentional manipulation on Andi’s part
Uhhh, the reader knows no such thing. In fact, as I recall, her decision to go looking for Amanda came directly after Todd telling her that there was no chance for reconciliation, and she found out that he’d adopted Selkie… so, pretty much the exact opposite of what you said.
A response to those events, yes. That’s what finally broke her out of the paralysis of guild and fear and made her take action.
But I think we’ve seen enough of her side of things by now to be able to say for sure that “attempted manipulation” is a totally unfair description of what she was thinking.
Even if Andi decided to find Amanda to “Make The Relationship Be Happy Again,” when she discovered an unhappy kid who needed a grown-up ready to help her… She didn’t back down. Yeah, she still hoped that this would fix things — but she also is trying to do right by Amanda, too. (She’s trying really, really hard.) Like… yeah, maybe there were some shallower reasons for starting on that path, but when the brambles came out, Andi didn’t NOPE away from them.
Sometimes shallow reasons lead to something deeper. I was, honestly, a mercenary brat fishing/teasing to see if I could see another movie that I couldn’t afford to go to on my own, when I emailed the fellow who’d been visiting… And now we’ve been married for over 20 years, yay!
Maybe you have. I haven’t. I still see someone who is only beginning to understand the magnitude of her actions. Just how many holiday dinners did Andi go to with Todd, considering they only broke up a short time before he adopted Selkie? And no doubt there was mention, at every occasion, of the child who “didn’t make it”… That’s a hell of a lie to maintain, for a hell of a long time, and the fact that she only broke her silence after the breakup is telling. If Todd hadn’t split with Andi, would she have kept the secret forever?
No, I am NOWHERE near convinced that Andi isn’t still playing the game to get Todd back. Not even close.
ETA: Dave is an excellent writer, and I remain open to the possibility that he may yet convince me of Andi’s sincerity. But he has not done so yet.
Can’t believe people are dissing on Todd. Have your kid stolen away from you and let me know how calmly you react when you confront the person responsible.
This. Cuz he’s definitely more calm than I was expecting even.
AND his daughter’s previous situation is hitting much too close to home for him, increasing his pain. Chances are that even if he has his suspicions she had gone through something like that he didn’t know for sure so finding that out opened a brand new wound for him. It makes perfect sense that even if he had calmed down about having his kid taken and being lied to by someone he loved finding out his daughter had been hurt just like he was would bring all of his pain and anger to the forefront. Frankly it’s impressive he was calm and quiet when he knew the girls were watching.
There are only 2 more updates till the hiatus, and I’m pretty sure everybody and their momma knows that this ain’t gonna be over in two more pages…
Oh how I’ll hate waiting >_<
I’m actually planning the hiatus for once this storyline wraps up, not squarely on December 1. So no worries about that. 🙂
I’ll probably extend the deadline for guest works a bit.
That is such an awesome thing to hear. Thank you for easing my nerves!
I think the real issue that people have with Todd here is not that he shouldn’t be angry or hurt by Andi’s actions. He should. And I don’t expect Todd to not act on those feelings.
It’s that his attitude basically says: “You haven’t suffered enough for what you did to her.” And Amanda picked up on it. That’s what’s pissing people off.
“You don’t understand just how bad you’ve made things and think this makes up for everything.” That’s how I interpret how he’s speaking.
Has he bothered to find out what Andi understands? What she thinks? No. He’s too angry to listen. He doesn’t want to listen.
This is, given where he’s coming from, entirely understandable. I don’t think many, or any, people are blaming him for feeling the way he does. Or even for yelling.
But he’s wrong.
Amanda just told him so.
Except no she isn’t and Andi isn’t understanding. She’s really not.
Are you kidding me? People are acting like Todd is an abuser! That his anger isn’t justified at all! Haven’t you been reading the comments?
Todd’s not an abuser. His anger is justified. I’ve grown up with abusers, he’s not acting like that at all. Neither is Andi.
Andi does get it. She really does. Todd doesn’t believe her and has no real reason to.
Amanda is, hopefully, giving him a reason.
So many charged emotions. Andi really is completely responsible for what happened. True, she didn’t know what would happen, and she can’t control the actions of other people, including the adoptive parents (forgot the name) But…she refused to consider all options when she placed Amanda for adoption. She denied Todd a chance to raise Amanda, and she is responsible for the consquences of that. And at the same time, Todd does need to dial his anger back. He needs to be reminded that he needs to focus on easing Amanda’s pain, not the cause of it.
Well, no, Andi is not completely responsible for what happened. Unless you’re basically going to apportion complete responsibility to EVERYONE there (which is something that happens in some worldviews, this is true). Andi’s mother urged this, and signed whatever papers Andi could not (not being a legal adult); Andi’s mother is ALSO “completely responsible.” Amanda’s first foster parents permitted abuse and/or perpetrated it. THEY are “completely responsible” (and even more-so than Andi, frankly). Her foster-brothers are responsible for their actions, to the extent that children-who-are-not-being-permitted-to-be-sociopaths are responsible. The administrators who missed the signs are responsible, as they permitted the adoption.
There is a lot of responsibility to go around here.
The thing Andi is solely responsible for is the lie (probably, if her mother didn’t prime her on it, which I could see going either way), and maintaining the lie.
Andi is also responsible for going back for Amanda.
I just feel like it should be said that Todd insinuating that it’s Andi’s fault Amanda was abused is horrific. She gave up Amanda thinking she’d be with a family that would raise her in a loving, financially stable home. It’s the orphanage’s fault for letting an abusive family adopt her and the family who adopted her. The orphanage is supposed to make sure Amanda goes to a safe home and the family who adopted her is supposed to love her and not abuse her.
I’m sure the family seemed nice, but this is what inspections are for. The family ‘returned’ her so I assume the orphanage did not reclaim her because they suspected abuse. So they failed twice to protect Amanda, not just once.
And to go even further, they failed her yet again because they didn’t give her the help she needed when she was returned. Instead they ignored her. So if we’re going to point fingers and play the blame game here, it’s the orphanage who is at fault, not Andi. Andi thought Amanda would be safe. People who give up their children are not monsters and are not at fault for what happens to the child after that. They are assured the child will be better off and going to a loving home. What happens after that is out of their control. Don’t insinuate a person must keep every child they give birth to. In a perfect world, that would be ideal, but some parents realize they just aren’t capable to support a child and think there is a parent out there, maybe one who doesn’t have the ability to have a natural birth, who can.
So to me, right now, what Todd is doing disgusts me. I understand his rage. His daughter was hurt. That’s justifiable. He wouldn’t have hurt her (as a young father, it’s not absurd to think he would have gotten frustrated and hurt Amanda in a rage. He has anger issues, he was abused. It’s not crazy to think he’d do something he’d regret.) but that isn’t a free pass to blame Andi. Andi did something horrible too, by lying to Todd and his family. Again, understandable, I know her feelings, but that doesn’t make her right. Just like this doesn’t make Todd right. I hope Theo gives Todd a talking to.
Side note, I’m feeling much better. Enough so to comment. 😀
Also, mad props to Dave for finally making one of the supposed ‘good’ and ‘flawless’ characters show some real flaws and humanity! Although I’m currently very upset with Todd for his actions, he’s much more real now to me! Seeing a ‘good guy’ be on the wrong and being mean really resonates with me as a reader. It makes the story that much more real. No one is perfect, not Todd, not Selkie, nobody. Todd has finally arrived for me as a real, relatable character. The first was the kiss he messed up on, but this, this is the real down and dirty. I’m so happy to see this sort of character development and diversity among characers who are seen as the main characters. So often do creators end up making their main characters flawless angels who always are level headed and do no wrong. Those types of characters are garbage to me.
1: Yay that you’re feeling better! 🙂
2: Yeah, even as I think Todd is wrong to go off on Andi over *this* aspect, it’s within character. It’s human. Go, go, author! ^_^
I actually give a lot more leeway to the orphanage than to Andi… because the system is not set up to have the funding or manpower to handle all the problems that are going to crop up. It’s the same with day care. That’s why a parent focused on raising and caring for their own child is generally superior to an group home, day care, or even school classroom where one adult tries to deal with a bunch of kids all at once. (There’s a reason homeschooled kids consistently test higher than school kids, but that’s a different issue.)
That’s also why our system got rid of the orphanage and moved into foster care — because having a small family focus on a single child, or even a small handful of children, allows more individual attention and need-focused care than any group setting ever could.
Of course, it’s unreasonable at this point to throw out the services we’ve got going (including day care and school), because a lot of families depend on them to be able to make a living. But the fact remains that these systems are not given the resources necessary to be better at raising kids than families would be. So I don’t hold the orphanage accountable for failing Amanda, even though clearly there were some things that should have happened differently. There’s only so much you can do with the resources you’re given.
And there really was enough going on around Selkie’s introduction that the focus HAD to be on her. If Amanda got neglected during that time, it is certainly sad, it shouldn’t have happened, but I can’t see any way that it could have been avoided, given everything else that was going on.
Also, you’re totally right about the humanizing flaws. It’s one of the draws of Selkie after all 🙂
The last panel says sadness more than anger or frustration, at least to me.
Hey dave I don’t know how long your hiatus is gonna be…im really busy with school right now (i attend university) and my last final is on dec 10th so I cant make your cut off date for guest strips… but I still want to draw one. If I can only send it post dec. 10th is that still ok?
Yes, that’s fine. My hiatus will be for two weeks, but I won’t begin it until I finish this storyline. The previously stated deadline of December 1st is going to be extended a little bit. I don’t think I gave enough time anyway.
I hope … I really hope! that Amanda’s outburst calms this situation down and doesn’t end in open recriminations in front of her. As others have said, she’s smart enough that at this point she’s probably put all the pieces together on her own. And still loves her mother. She’s in the best situation to know how hard Andi is really trying.
Andi has made mistakes. Lots of them. Andi has done things that go beyond mistakes. She’s trying to make amends for that. Todd is justified, but not one person has bothered to look at why Andi might have made the decisions she did when Amanda was born. Y’know … when she was a scared teenager with a domineering mother, who didn’t know what to do, wasn’t happy with the idea of being a mother herself… and caved in to the pressure.
And spent the next eight years regretting it and hating herself. I doubt there’s much more Todd and his parents could say or do that she hasn’t already done to herself. Even taking Amanda away from her wouldn’t hurt as much… because this time Andi would at least know her daughter was with her family, and loved.
Oddly enough, I think this situation is going to bring Amanda closer to Andi than ever — as well as helping her to control her own temper a bit, and being more willing to work with Andi as far as discipline (overcoming some of the influences that, for example, made her try to strike Andi in the truck).
It’s an odd way to bring people closer together, but these kind of things can clarify and solidify understanding of other people. It’s great to see this happening.
Then there’s hope for both of them.
I’m not understanding the hating on Todd.
He has been amazingly calm and kept it together in every single situation thus far. He has held it together for the sake of the kids even at the moment of realization. He is now brought face to face with the incredibly painful knowledge that exactly what happened to him happened to his child. There is even a thread above discussing his anger issues and how maybe this was why it was ‘safer’ that Andi not tell him.
I wonder, at what point did it come to mean the man is a potential abuser if, god forbid he is angry and raises his voice? My friend and her husband have never struck their child in anger in their life, but when he is yelled at he still throws up his hands as if warding off a blow. Andi “cowering” doesn’t mean she’s been hit by him.
Todd has the right to get angry. He has the right to express it. And he is still doing so in a way that is amazingly collected – he isn’t screaming insults at her, he isn’t calling her names, he isn’t issuing threats, he is telling her, from a place she herself cannot understand, what she has to do if this child has been abused.
As far as holding her responsible being a bad thing? Because she didn’t know? If they had both agreed together that it was better for the child to be given up for adoption, this would be one thing. No, she couldn’t have known Amanda would be abused. She gave away his child, lying to him about her death, continuing the lie while still in a relationship with him, when at any time, ANY time, she could have told the truth. Todd is seeing 8 years that didn’t have to happen because of Andi’s lies.
People seem to forget the one we know has actually been physically abused is TODD. He is face to face with a deep and long-lasting pain and he is hurting badly, Andi is the cause of that pain by her actions.
Oh, a man is not an actual abuser because he raises his voice when angry.
POTENTIAL abuser, though? Yep.
It’s all in the maybe’s and who-knows’s.
If people were less up in arms about every suggestion of someone they like having anything to do with being abusive, life would have been so much easier for the abuse victims.
I am not seeing it with Todd, personally. He feels like if he did something wrong (which he well might), he’d recognize and take the blame, not push it onto another person for ‘making him mad’, which is what truly makes an abuser.
But people snarling at the very start of this discussion? You are the problem.
Glad you’re feeling better. We were worried. Not all of us have helpful advice to offer…but we’re glad you’re still here.
Erg, this is to Springpop.
Wow… that’s quite a mess. So many things to solve. O.o” And there are so many interesting thoughts. 😀
But what makes me wonder is the fact, that nobody asked so far why Andi decided to give Amanda up. In my opinion one of the first things people want to know is why somebody betrayed them. Especially if you love/like that someone.
On the one hand, what she did at the time was inexcuseable and I do not blame Todd for his anger. On the other…the decision to give away Amanda was made when she was seventeen, and it looked like Andi was still pushing Amanda out of her canal when her mother approached her with the idea. One of the reasons a doula or having a spouse in the room is recommended nowadays is that when a person is in labour, they are usually under a lot of pain and duress https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie193/. As someone who gave birth, I remember getting pictocin, and forgetting how to breathe and just screaming and crying. So it is not an optimal time to make hard decisions, and also remember that she is a teenager when doing this. Prior to being 25, I was a bit of an ass. In fact, if I could get a time machine and punch younger me in the face, I would have done so. Thankfully, I was not in charge of a kid at the time (I was 28 when I had my first). She probably said the first thing that she thought would get Todd to not look for a long lost child. I am guessing that this lie and the escalations after it were signed off by mommy dearest (Because I would imagine that a broke 17 year old would not be able to get a convincing urn to give to her boyfriend parents on her own). And considering Andi’s mom made it clear that she thinks that a kid would have been a burden https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie590/, I could imagine that she did not correct Andi’s woefully stupid decision to lie. And what would have happened if the Sandersons were good parents? Or if she was given into a kind, loving home like Todd was? There was no guarantee that her life would have been better if she had not been adopted, there is a lot of speculation, and some of it is even spot on. But outside of being a fortune teller, Andi would have no idea. And Todd blaming Andi is not any better for Amanda than Andi blaming Andi. https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie601/ Yes, he should be angry. Yes, he should talk to someone about it. And yes, he does not have to make all nice with Andi. He however does need to remember that Amanda has NO REASON TO TRUST HIM YET, and try and get along with Andi (who in Amanda’s eyes is “the one who saved me from the orphanage” while Todd is the one “who chose Fishface over his real daughter”).