“YOU’RE A CRAPPY!”
I had toyed with dialogue where Andi compares Amanda's comments to racism, but that would imply Andi knows Selkie isn't "a human with several esoteric issues" as most who see Selkie assume she is. And Andi is not privy to that. Amanda has gleaned it over the years from context, but has no formal information on sarnothi.
I think ya went the right route, Dave. Shows just how childish and how ill-equipped to handle this Amanda is.
Ah…3rd panel Andi… Finally she asks it.
Annnnndiiiiiii. You’re so friggin’ close to getting to the root of the problem. So close. Chill out a little and try speaking more calmly and understanding. As it is, she’s treating this more like an argument between siblings versus a discussion between a parent and child. Common Andi, you’re almost there. She’s got the right idea, just the execution is wrong.
Also before everyone gives her shit for saying, “That’s not cool anymore.” I highly doubt that means Andi ever thought it was ‘cool’ or condoned that behavior. She’s just using an expression to say it’s not ok to do.
She really shouldn’t yell at Amanda and lose her temper with her so quickly though. Clearly, just -telling- Amanda what to do doesn’t work and it shouldn’t work with any kid really. Or anybody. No one likes being told what to do ‘just cause I said so’ with no explanation. When I’m told to do something at work, I expect an explanation why I’m doing it, because if I don’t understand the meaning behind it, then I don’t truly have the will to do it with all of my effort. My boss is excellent about explaining why he has us to things and I have a VERY wonderful workplace for it.
Ugggggh Andi pleeeeeeeaaaaaase… Amanda needs you so badly right now to show her that not every adult in her life will just cast her aside and ignore her or let her pleas go unheard. She needs you to be a parent that is both firm in their decisions as well as understanding…
I took the “anymore” as an expression of out-with-the-old behavior, and in-with-the-new.
It’s also a way of saying “I’m not going to worry about what happened before we got together, so long as you realize this is a time for you to change your behavior and not do that anymore.”
Because Amanda has enough stuff hanging over her head.
Andi is finally seeing that Amanda we do. It’s the first step.
I’m probably just biased but Andi seems really bad at this, she’s talking like a kid, not an adult. Shouting (assuming she is, always hard to tell in text) probably doesn’t help things either.
That said, good on her for letting Amanda know this behavior is unacceptable and has to stop.
Keep in mind she’s doing this blind and didn’t grow up with the most well balanced person. Not an excuse, but it does explain this approach.
Andi. You’re needing to keep on that one question. “What did she ever do to you?” “Because of her people ignored me and didn’t answer my questions!!”
That’s still not a reason to hate her, she just needs to stop period.
For a well adjusted grown up, no, that’s not a valid reason to hate. Amanda is neither well adjusted nor grown up. She is eight years old. No eight year old has the rationality of an adult, no matter how well adjusted they are. (Actually, if I’m not mistaken, the underlying abuse and subsequent lack of help happened three years ago, so she would have been five. FIVE. There is no way that she would approach this like an adult; the hate was formed when she was five.)
And Amanda was, and is, in tremendous pain. The people that she loved and trusted abused and abandoned her, and the people who should have been helping her to work through the abuse and abandonment were busy focusing on someone else. Granted, they were trying to figure out how to keep that someone else from dying due to allergic reactions and biological necessities, but at five, there’s no way Amanda would put that together. She was hurting, and in many ways neglected as much at the orphanage as she was at the Sanderson’s. In that situation, especially when the child in question is five, festering emotions quickly compound and lead to more and more emotions, and solidify into hate.
You say that Amanda “just needs to stop, period.” If you are able to turn off all negative emotions at the flip of a switch, just because someone tells you to, congratulations. That probably makes you the only person on the planet that is capable if such a feat. And is it fair to hold an eight-year-old to a standard that most adults cannot measure up to? Yes, the hate is wrong. Yes, it needs to stop. But the fact of the matter is that it is not going to stop until the underlying issues have been dealt with, and continuing to try to surpress those emotions “because they’re bad and need to stop” only makes the emotions worse.
So let’s say Amanda actually does admit why she really hates Selkie, what do you think would that change, how would telling her she can’t hate Selkie because of being ingored be different than being told she can’t hate Selkie her for being weird?
Like it kind of feels like some people think all of this will be magically resolved if the adults find out the truth about why Amanda feels the way she does, but the hard part will be convincing her she shouldn’t feel that way about Selkie.
I don’t think anyone thinks it will magically resolve the problems, but it’s definitely a solid start to the path of redemption and recovery. It’ll set in once they explain to her that her anger towards Selkie is misplaced and in reality she should be angry with the adults who neglected her. She needs to connect the dots first.
Of course it would also help if Andi took Amanda to the orphanage herself and helped Amanda find out about her original parents. Now THAT would be a solid start.
Do you mean the Sandersons? Cause her original parents are Todd and Andi. :p
Yes. And fair enough…. Her ADOPTIVE parents, then. lol
though depending on what age she was when originally adopted, ie, infant, or later on … the Sandersons may be the ONLY “Parents” that she’s EVER KNOWN… and that right there is a BIG blow to someone that young, for them to be told “get in the car kiddo, we’re dropping you off at the orphanage, to get rid of you, just like we drop off old clothes at the Good-Will., out of our lives, never to be seen or cared about again… ”
yes, yes, while I’m “pretty sure?” that they didn’t actually say it that way when they finally did drop her off, but I’ll bet it was real close… and even if the Parents didn’t, I’ll bet money that the two boys DID make some snide comments like that…
And when was the last time being told “You’re wrong about this and should stop” has worked on an angry, damaged 8-year-old?
You’re right in that Amanda’s healing will take a long time. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s no more than reasonable for her to not be in a position where she can hurt Selkie in that time, right?
Thanks for the random thing that I didn’t say! And wasn’t doing. It’s highly inappropriate. Thank you.
“compares Amanda’s comments to racism”
This is a thing I’ve been wanting to bring up for a long time, but never found a good opening for: It’s true that Amanda can’t be called racist for the things she calls Selkie, since she doesn’t know Selkie is a different species, HOWEVER Amanda, like most other people who know Selkie, is under the impression that she has some form of handicap, meaning that from Amanda’s own point of view she is overtly mocking a special needs kid, and she could reasonably be criticized in that regards. I don’t know of any places where ableism is considered so much more trivial than racism. Frankly I’m a bit surprised it hasn’t come up naturally.
Amanda is fully aware that Selkie has gills and breathes water. She might not be aware of any others of her species, but she knows Selkie ain’t human.
Go do an archive crawl. There’s a scene in the office where Jessie bring Selkie her “medicine”, and wonders aloud why it’s in that fish-tank bottle. Amanda tells her that it is not medicine. “She breathes water. She’s a fish!”
Jessie tells her to not say nasty things like that, and after Jessie leaves the secretarytells her, “Shhh. Nobody’s supposed to know.”
Amanda actually met Pohl and his family in the aquarium! She wasn’t formally introduced, but she’s certainly aware of others like Selkie. I think Andi is also semi-aware of others like Selkie and doesn’t merely think Selkie is sick with some affliction as she also saw the others.
Those facts escaped me. I guess Amanda IS a racist then…
I think it’s a little early to call an eight year old a racist. her reasons for hating Selkie seem appearance based, but i think they’re more complex than that. I think she blames selkie for her own feelings of neglect and rationalizes her jealousy as being okay because selkie is “weird and gross” anyway. this is just my opinion, but if i’m being honest, I don’t think an eight year old even really has the tools yet to be a racist. racism is something that is learned over years and years. kids are naturally put off by anything that seems different, so they need to be taught to be accepting and kind. it’s those that never get taught that that grow up to be racists. no aspect of a person’s personality is concrete at age eight, anyway.
Andi’s response to “You’re crappy!” needs to be “No, I’m your mother. Calling me names is not acceptable.”
Unfortunately, I suspect putting her foot down now is like closing the barn door after all the cows have run away.
By this point in Amanda’s life, I think some name-calling is perhaps more to be tolerated than not; Amanda’s working through a lot of, well, crap. She’s testing the boundaries — what can she get away with? what are the limits? Except instead of “what gets people mad,” the limits she’s looking for are the ones of “what gets her hurt” and “what gets her sent back to the orphanage.”
So in some ways, being able to be insulting to her mom and know that mom won’t withdraw her support and love… May be one road to healing for Amanda. I dunno if Andi is going to be willing to ignore it — or able to think of a way to rein it in (“Hon, really? You really think that about me?” might work? or a simple, “Duuuude, c’mon” in the right tone of voice?), but I suspect treating it with an eye-roll or a “oh-good-grief” Vulcan raised eyebrow will get Andi further than telling Amanda that it’s not acceptable.
…Probably because my instinctive assumption is that Amanda’s adoptive parents were strict and “if you can’t say something nice, don’t talk” and “if you can’t be polite, shut up.” Demanding “respect” without actually addressing the emotions that a five-year-old would have as a reaction to being bullied. This is entirely me reading behind the lines, so I could be wrong — but these are the people who sent a kid back to the orphanage, that they’d presumably been raising for the past 5 years, from a baby. People who see other people as “disposable” tend to be pretty fragile about overt “respect,” in my experience. So going that route might make Amanda shut up more than open up.
Except that’s part of the bigger problem — because of how screwed up she is, she considers anything *short* of the nuclear option of being sent back to the orphanage as an insignificant consequence, so she’s going to keep abusing Selkie no matter how often either parent tells her it’s not acceptable.
Maybe, maybe not. But I’d say Andi’s trying to work on the real stuff first: don’t bully, don’t bully your sister, etc. Stuff that can really hurt other people. If your kid says, “You’re crappy!” then… c’mon, it’s like tiny toothless kitten that’s just been rescued from where your cat hid them, and it’s just now seeing humans and going “haa haa haa” in tiny toothless hisses at you. (…I’ve seen this. It was FREAKIN’ ADORABLE. I wish phone-cameras had been invented then.)
It occurs to me that while Todd banning Amanda from his home till she can be better around Selkie would be very fraught… Andi can 100% ground Amanda for being a brat (bully) to Selkie. That makes it Not Todd’s Fault (but instead Andi’s), removes the problem (Amanda in Selkie’s home), and offers a potentially useful dynamic where Todd can do the “I want you to be able to spend time over here, but your mom and I both agree that it’s not okay to keep being a bully, and this is how she’s handling it. Her rules. If you’ll try to keep that under control, I can talk to your mom about the grounding.”
Whereas if Todd says, “No visits, much as I want to spend time with you, till you can get along with your sister,” Amanda’s likely to do the pre-emptive tearing-out-of-her-heart-and-stomping-on-it and shout, “I DON’T WANNA GO TO YOUR CRAPPY APARTMENT ANYWAY.”
If Andi can keep her cool and focus on the big stuff, hopefully she can work down to the smaller stuff that promotes a harmonious household — without inadvertently grooming Amanda to be an isolated, easily victimized adult. (Low self-esteem, high need for affection, and the belief that no one will listen to her words if she’s being abused.) Those kittens wound up being perfectly good cats, after all. 🙂
Regardless of *who* does the banning, I do think it’s important for Selkie to know that adults *can* actually be relied on and that her father *will* take effective steps to keep her safe from a toxic abuser.
Yes, yes, I realize that Amanda’s got damage of her own and needs and possibly even deserves help… But if the price of that help is to deny her primary abuse victim (IE, Selkie) her safety, that’s not an acceptable cost.
Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. First r perhaps the first time ever I’m actually proud of Andi. She did what Todd should have done from the beginning. Granted her follow up is a bit childish but then we know that Andi hasn’t exactly transitioned into fully functioning adult. Still credi where credit is due. Bravo Andi.
Amanda is just awful. She isn’t doesn’t feel bad for bullying Selkie, she feels bad for getting caught. That is quite clear. Besides her poor behavior with Selkie, there’s also her poor behavior with students at school to consider as well.
Her behavior to her Mother is just as terrible. I mean, she was so happy to be adopted. She is not making a good attempt at behaving herself in the least. I am starting to wonder if that was why she was given back to begin with.
Frankly, I don’t believe they are going to be able to fix this issue with them having a family meeting. I think the issued and problems are much deeper for Amanda and she is going to need to see professional help.
More importantly, the issue of racism was brought up in the comments section.
Racism is just a subset of decrimination. Be it race, color, religion, language, gender, whatever. It’s all the same thing, just a different label.
Amanda clearly knows Selkie isn’t a human. She knows she has gills and she knows she breaths water. She calls her names like fish face or fish.
People may not want to apply a label like racist to a child, but she is clearly showing racist tendencies.
I always assumed Amanda not getting along with the couples real kids was her own fault, that still does not excuse them giving her back though.
She was an infant at the time, adopted shortly after she was placed at the orphanage. How could it be her fault? I’d say it was the fault of the adoptive parents for not preparing their other children for the addition to the family.
No, she wasn’t an infant, because she remembers it. She may have been younger, but she wasn’t an infant.
Iirc, Ms. Havisham Zhang said that Amanda was adopted shortly after she arrived, and than returned several years later. So she would certainly remember her time with them, but she was adopted as an infant, perhaps a toddler at the oldest.
See Selkie #600 for details. Adopted shortly after she was placed at the orphanage, returned five years later, age 5. She was an infant.
She said she was adopted shortly after she arrived, but we don’t know the actual time line for that. Further, from previous comics, it appears her friends may have actually recalled her being adopted to begin with.
Frankly I’d like the author to chime in on this, I did some snooping around online and not only is it uncommon for people to keep children for so long after adopting them, but in some cases there’s a investigation as to why a child who has been in foster care for years is suddenly given up.
In a story I read one family was actually charged with misdemeanor counts of nonsupport.
She arrived shortly after she was born, because Andi gave her up.
Aanda’s friends know she was adopted and returned but don’t directly remember it happening. Amanda was adopted out as an infant shortly after being surrendered. At age five, she was taken back to the care of the orphanage due partly to physical abuse from her former brothers.
What was done to her former adoptive parents, the Sandersons, in response to bringing her back has been left unspecified for the time being.
I would very much like to see what happened to them because here in Australia they would have had there sons put in temporary foster care and the parents investigated. And if the temporary care placement ran out before the investigation was finished they would end up taking years to get there sons back as here a custody claim has a minimum time span of 2 years.
Math: Amanda and Selkie are eight. Selkie arrived, and Amanda returned to, the orphanage three years ago. Amanda’s adoptive family kept her for five years. Conclusion: Amanda was adopted by the Sandersons at less than one year of age.
Happily ever after with an abused child isn’t that easy, however grateful they may be. There may be a honeymoon phase, but when they feel secure stuff starts coming out. Like PTSD, to the point of amnesia back to the cradle. I’ve seen this first hand.
I took a few psychology classes back in the day. It doesn’t make me an expert, but I feel like it does allow me to form my own opinions on the matter.
One of the topics that was brought up from time to time was Nature VS Nurture. Are people born bad or are they bad because of how they were raised?
I always argued it was a combination of the two. Sometimes people are born with imbalances, we are really nothing more then fleshy machines and sometimes not all the parts are installed right.
Sometimes, we are raised in a poor manner that skews our perspective.
The issue I have with Amanda is that, we don’t know EVERYTHING about her, but the people who do care about her, who do love her, treat her as well as they can accommodate her.
As a person, even a young one like Amanda, you still need personal responsibility. Look at the world around you, look at how other people behave and think about how the people close to you respond to your behavior.
If people around you, who care about you and treat you well are responding in a negative way to your behavior, then it’s possible you aren’t acting right to begin with.
If you notice a majority of the people around you don’t behave the same way as you do, then it’s possible you are the problem not them.
I am not entirely blaming Amanda for her situation, not in the least. But even at young ages, it’s very important to try and instill a concept of personal responsibility.
Look at how Amanda has behaved in the past. Has she ever tried to hit one of the employees at the orphanage? Because from past comics, Andi sure made it seem like Amanda took a swing at her.
Andi needs to be able to expect Amanda to respect her and her wishes. If Amanda is unwilling to make an attempt to do so, then it’s going to make for a very poor relationship.
Like I said, I don’t think this is a problem Andi and Todd can overcome on their own.
You could totally call it racism. After all, skin color is a big part of Selkie’s differences. It’s just like hating a black kid because their dark skin makes them “look funny,” even if you don’t really think about the race part because you’re like ten.
She calls Selkie a fish, not a purple people eater. She I don’t think her colors has anything to do with it or even the fact that she looks like a fish. She just doesn’t like Selkie, period. Now, the fact that she hates Selkie most certainly may make her not like Selkie’s species as a whole because she has a grudge against Selkie, so that could be considered racist, but I don’t think she has anything against her species, just Selkie and her species by extension. It’s not true racism, because she doesn’t hate her for what she is, she hates her for who she is and just uses her looks as an excuse to insult her further. It’s racist by cold definition, but I don’t think Amanda is consciously aware of it being text book racist, because she’s not harboring hatred towards Selkie for her species, rather, she just doesn’t like her.
When I was younger a girl in my class, she happened to be black, tormented me and often would do things, such as steal and tell the teacher I did it. She’d also tell the teacher I would call her racist names. I did no such things. She kept this up for 3 years and even would kick me, push me off the monkey bars and slap me. I hated her for a VERY long time. I wanted her to leave me alone. This all happened around the ages of 9 to 12. I was impressionable. For a year or two after that, I was very wary of any black people I encountered. I instantly was fearful of them and expected them to be mean. Later on, I realized it was just that one girl who was terrible, not her entire race. But was I racist because of that? No. Not really. I suppose te vg nicely yes, because I associated their skin with bad behavior and therefore avoided them and didn’t like them, but it was that girl who caused that, not their skin. Their skin color was just an extension of it. BTW she was the first person of her race that I’d ever encountered.
I remember her, but I figure she was just a very sad person. I suppose I’ve forgiven her. If I met her now and she was a nice person, I’d think nothing of it.
I don’t think it’s quite fair to cry racism here. Yes, Selkie is very different from Amanda. But the differences aren’t what is making Amanda a bully. Amanda’s past pain and Selkie’s link to it is what makes Amanda a bully.
Yes, Amanda calls Selkie “fishface” and other such things, but from what we’ve seen, I think it’s because she’s trying to hurt Selkie anyway she can, not because she’s racist/speciesist. There is a big difference between “hurting child” and “racist,” even if outward behavior is sometimes similar.
Okay, so you are saying that if I was physically or emotionally abused as a child and called a black kid the N-Word, because I was only acting out and only meaning it as a way to be mean, it wouldn’t be racist?
This isn’t like Amanda is just calling her a retard or something. She is specifically focusing on traits Selkie has. A great example was how she said she didn’t want to go to Todd’s home because she said it’d smell like fish.
So if I didn’t want to go to a black kid’s house and said because it’d smell like friend chicken, as long as it was because I was abused and because I am just trying to be mean, it wouldn’t be racist.. Right?
No, you are picking and choosing what you want to see.
I’d like to think, regardless of intention or emotional duress, intentions don’t mask the fact she is being very specific when she is trying to be hurtful.
Discrimination is discrimination. And I am willing to bet Selkie’s people would agree with that if they all heard how Amanda talked about or to Selkie.
Yes actually, racism is a crime of intent, and I doubt Amanda even understands racial slurs. She doesn’t hate sarnothi, just Selkie.
Just because she isn’t intending it doesn’t mean others might not be so understanding it.
If anything racism is a crime of ignorance.
Just for the record, the casual ableism isn’t all that much better.
This is the point where any discrimination argument gets messy. Draw the line too firmly, it ruins innocence and breeds another sort of hate, too softly and it allows the current hate to breed and continue. Oh and the just right line moves constantly.
In short, I think the points you lot are intending to make are pretty on spot, just need someone to figure out how to piece these points that look opposing into the single something that works to together.
Way to go, Andi! Good work with asking Amanda for confirmation before putting any accusation or further inquiries on the table. And for asking the right questions. Gotta work on keeping your balance and a level head when trying to talk to an angry kid. But overall good effort from my perspective. Many parents have trouble going through these kinds of situations. So again good work.
So! Amanda has been rationalizing her hostility to Selkie. “I hate her. I just do. Grownups say you’re not supposed to hate people, but I do hate her. That’s not something I can change. Therefore she can’t be a person. She has to be a thing. It’s okay to hate things.”
When humans older than eight do it, this causes all manner of grief. I don’t know that Andi is equipped to get past this defense mechanism; right now, Amanda is going to cling to it because she needs it. She isn’t going to want to admit to herself that Selkie is a real person. To her, Selkie HAS to be a thing.
At least now Andi is aware of it. There’s not going to be any quick fix; ordering someone to stop feeling the way they feel never, ever works. Sure, feelings can change, but it takes time and new experiences to make it happen.
Andi’s initial response isn’t helpful. Don’t tell Amanda that her feelings are bad; she has no idea how to change them! She does have control of her actions. Someone’s going to have to say to her (and make it stick) — “You don’t have to like Selkie. You DO have to stop picking on her.”
Hmmm I think she sees Selkie as a person, begrudgingly so. In her princess story she calls Selkie the other princess. If she saw her as a thing, I think she’d just say the king’s stupid pet fish. She even begrudgingly accepts that Selkie is Todd’s daughter and by extension her… ‘something’ I don’t think she sees her as a sister but she knows she’s something to her.
Now, I DO think that she rationalized it to herself that Selkie must just be a thing, but she’s indeed aware she is NOT just a thing. It’s a weird way to delude yourself into believing something is true, even if you’re subconsciously aware it isn’t. I think Amanda pretends that Selkie is merely a thing and will call her a thing to hurt Selkie and also to make Amanda feel better, but deep down she knows otherwise.
I agree with all your points either way though.
You’re right. Indeed, I think that in pretty much all cases where people dehumanize an enemy, deep down they do know the truth. (Or… well. The vast majority, anyway. And sometimes it’s VERY deep down.) But when their own self-image requires the falsehood, it can be very hard to tear down.
As for Amanda, it’s hard to tell at this point how much she needs the delusion. It’s not complete, as you point out, and maybe now that it’s out in the open, being talked about, she’ll be able to let it go. A period of NOT mistreating Selkie — because her parents are now on the alert and don’t let her — might be just the thing she needs.
Except… How exactly are they going to “not let her” ?
Andi just told Amanda bullying Selkie is not acceptable and Amanda’s response boils down to “screw you, I’m gonna do what I want”.
At this point Andi – and Todd as well – have basically two choices: Either they put their foot down and make it clear that if she keeps it up there will be consequences, or they can fold, and both Selkie and Amanda will learn that when Amanda bullies Selkie the adults will just say “Stop, or I will say ‘stop’ again.”
For all that you’re concerned about how the former may be damaging for Amanda’s eventual healing and recovery, the latter is severely unfair and drastically damaging to Selkie, who’ll learn that she can’t rely on anyone to protect her from her abuser… And unhealthy for Amanda, who won’t learn that certain patterns of behavior are going to have to change if she ever wants people to think of her as something other than a horrid bullying little shit.
A.Beth, above, has pointed out a good solution. It would be very damaging for Todd to say, “Until you can be nice to Selkie, I don’t want you around.” Andi is not in the same position. She can absolutely set “No picking on Selkie” as a boundary, and impose penalties for infractions. This may be enough for a short-term behavior change.
Real progress can’t begin, though, until her parents begin to address the root cause. They can’t even start on that until they know what it is!
Problem is, Amanda doesn’t want to say. The only person who just might blurt it out at the upcoming meeting is Selkie.
And again, for Todd to require Selkie to be present when she rightly wants absolutely nothing to do with her abuser is *monstrously* unfair.
Asking an abuse victim to actively partake in the “healing” of her abuser is more than anyone has the right to ask of an adult, much less an eight year old.
It’s also monstrous to say Amanda can’t be allowed to spend time with her father because her step-sister doesn’t want her around. Selkie is 8. She dislikes Amanda greatly and Amanda also greatly dislikes her. But they’re 8. There’s a lot of things you do when you’re 8 that you don’t like. An 8 year old can say they hate all other food but cake, candy, ice cream and soda, but guess what? That isn’t what they get to eat all the time just because they want to.
Amanda has been downright cruel to Selkie, but in what instance have we seen her do more than petty name calling and mean faces? The worst thing we’ve seen her do is tell a kid Selkie was the a school’s monster that they fed bad kids to. She’s never physically attacked Selkie. She’s laughed at her and made fun of her often, but she did not actively seek to isolate her from everyone else. Selkie has plenty of friends and Amanda has never gone out of her way to attempt to turn her friends against her. She’s also never cornered her somewhere and attempted to beat her.
While Amanda has been a brat and for sure very mean to Selkie by calling her names, she’s not done anything that can’t be undone yet. Selkie reacts to most of her torment with sarcasm and blows her off.
My point is, Selkie can and will get over the fact that Amanda is around sometimes. Sure, it’s unfair to her to force her to hang out with Amanda and Todd should definitely not force Selkie to play with Amanda. If Amanda wants to sit in the living room on the sofa and watch tv, well then Todd should get Selkie her own tv for her room so that she doesn’t have to deal with Amanda if she doesn’t want to. Or Todd should let Amanda watch tv in his room. He shouldn’t force them to actively hang out with one another.
Selkie’s ROOM is her sanctuary. Her room is hers and hers alone and she should feel safe in her room. Todd’s HOUSE is for whomever he allows in it. If Amanda starts to attack Selkie in the living room then absolutely Todd needs to handle that shit. But if Selkie just doesn’t want to have to share the tv with Amanda, then that’s another thing entirely. Sometimes you have to share common areas with people you don’t like. I have to share my home with a person I don’t like, but he’s not allowed anywhere in my room or touch my things.
Do I hate it when he’s in the kitchen and living room? Damn right I do. I hate seeing his face. I hate hearing his voice. I’m civil to him, but make it clear by tone and body language that I don’t intend to do anything more than that. It’s not JUST my house. My room is my safe place. Sure it sucks that I feel invaded in the rest of the house, but guess what? It’s not my call to say who can and cannot be here.
Just like there’s a girl at work I cannot stand and find her to be an obnoxious bully. I hate working with her, but it’s not my call to flat out say I refuse to work with her. I HAVE to work with her whether or not I like it. If I don’t like it I’m free to find another job. Sometimes you have to deal with shit you don’t like. I’m not saying it’s fair, but the world isn’t going to shower you with kittens and cupcakes just because you want it to.
Being bullied sucks. It really does. I’ve had to deal with girls calling me fat and guys calling me ugly and that I look like a boy. I’ve had to deal with abuse from my family as well. My sister too. The difference between my sister and I is that she curls up and cries and says people are mean to her and has landed herself in a shitty life for it. People called her weird in high school because, well, she did weird things and acted abnormal a lot. All in all, people made fun of her in very shallow ways, just like they made fun of me.
Here’s the major difference. I was told I would never get married (I’m not married or even in a relationship right now.) and never even be loved because I’m fat and ugly. I could have cried my eyes out and dropped out of high school like my sister did when people called her weird for things she’d do. I could have shut myself in my room and made no friends like she did. I didn’t. I didn’t curl up and cry because not everyone was nice to me.
Now she has no friends and is in a dead end relationship because all she does is cry and whine when someone is mean to her. She complains all the time how she’s lonely and wants friends, but makes no attempt to do so because when she makes a friend and meets their other friends she immediately says they bully her when they occasionally call her weird or silly.
Sure, I tried to commit suicide when I thought no one cared for me after my boyfriend left me, my mother denied me and I thought I had nowhere else to go. I broke that one time because of the circumstances and I truly thought I was going to lose it all, because I was chased out of my old hoke from my boyfriend and his parents. I had no job. I had no friends in this new state and I even had no remaining family.
I have a wonderful job and friends now and I’m mending my relationship with my mother every day. I still have to put up with my horrid uncle and I hate it, but I’m living now.
So for me, someone who’s suffered abuse from MANY people. Strangers AND loved ones. I find my sister’s cry baby pity me act appalling. She cries abuse at the drop of a hat and that makes me feel annoyed because she doesn’t even try.
I dunno how I got off on this tangent. I guess my point is you can run away and cry that the world isn’t always fair to you or you can get up, brush yourself off and deal with it.
And as of right now, I don’t think Selkie’s abuse at Amanda’s hands isn’t something that can’t be dealt with in a positive way for both girls and that both girls need to give a little regardless. Selkie doesn’t have to like Amanda, but she does have to deal with the fact that she’s here for keeps. Amanda doesn’t have to like Selkie, but she does have to stop tormenting her and be civil to her or suffer a punishment. Said punishment should not be to keep her from Todd.
” I find my sister’s cry baby pity me act appalling. She cries abuse at the drop of a hat and that makes me feel annoyed because she doesn’t even try.”
[RANT] THAT paragraph right there is how “I” feel about all the “racist/racism” comments going on… and in the real world too… just because somebody disagrees with you over a point of order, does NOT mean they’re racist. it just means that they DISAGREE WITH YOU! suck it up and move on!!!… please note that I’m NOT saying that Racism doesn’t exist, i know that it DOES and have seen it in action myself from both sides of the coin… BUT… i AM saying that A LOT of people are blowing it out of proportion because it will get then more sympathy and benefits being a “victim of racism” than they’d get if they worked it out through other means, that being means OTHER than shouting it at the top of their local newscasters lungs… [/RANT]
i sincerely highly doubt that an eight year old can truly be a “Racist”… they don’t have a deep enough world-view to be able to make that kind of a decision… yes, they can be annoying little shits that can and DO make fun of people that aren’t the same as them (in whatever metric that they’re deciding matters) but until they are doing it PURPOSELY, even after repeated attempts to curb that behavior, then I’ll give them the benefit of doubt, especially ones that we (the readers) have knowledge of suffering abuse that has not YET come to light with the REST of the cast… i’m still not sure if Ms. H-Z ACTUALLY knows or just SUSPECTS that the abuse was even occurring in Amanda’s adopted life… but I’ll bet that once the abuse comes out in the open…. BOOM! Lots of peoples attitudes in-comic, AND IRL will change… hopefully for the better, but…
No one is saying Amanda can’t spend time with her father because Selkie doesn’t want her around.
I’m saying Amanda can’t be allowed to spend time in Todd’s house because she keeps abusing Selkie whenever she’s there.
Selkie doesn’t want Amanda in the same room as her not simply because she doesn’t like Amanda (although quite understandably she doesn’t), she doesn’t want Amanda in the same room as her because Amanda keeps bullying her. And she can’t flee into her bedroom every time Amanda comes over.
And no, this is very much not a “both sides need to give a little” situation. Selkie has previously shown herself to be perfectly willing to make up with a previous tormentor that’s honestly trying to change. When (if) Amanda ever shows the same, something can be worked out.
And as to your rant about acting up or sucking it up, bear in mind that Selkie has dealt with Amanda’s shit for *years* and was still reasonably well adjusted when Todd met her. The reason she’s handling things badly *now* is because she thought she’d finally found safety, except it turns out her abuser managed to follow her and the adults don’t seem to be capable of doing anything about it.
I mean, Todd can 100% come over to Andi’s place, or meet Amanda in the park or something. Amanda doesn’t need to be allowed into her dad’s HOUSE to be allowed to spend time with HIM.
Finally Andi starts asking the right questions.
However I don’t think this little family meeting is going to solve all the problems. Actually I don’t think it’s going to solve much of anything, but at least everyone involved will know just how bad the situation is. Amanda needs professional help from an actual therapist or psychologist. And all parties need to understand that these issues are not going to go away overnight. It will probably take YEARS to undo the damage done when Amanda was little.
Selkie continues to be a comic that treats children like real children, and people like real people. I have yet to see another work that so perfectly captures the frustration, the joy, the anger, the giddiness and the emotional flux and complexity children go through.
I read a LOT of web comics, but I always read Selkie last. I recommend it to everyone who reads them! I even requested it to appear on Piperka.net, a web comic tracking site. (Not a plug, but it’s a really great site.)
I really can’t say enough good things about Selkie.