He doesn’t mince words.
-EDIT- After some thought, I want to officially place a Trigger Warning on the comments section for this strip due to some reader speculations of sexual assault. I don’t like to use trigger warnings lightly, but this is a topic where I’d rather not set off anybody’s bad experiences.
Selkie being half Sar'Teri is the final mutation of one of the original story draft concepts: in some of the first drafts Selkie's Clan was the oppressor, and not the oppressed.
Farm? What is that about? Doesn’t sound good. First!
Scar looks like he’s thinking ‘where’s a giant head-biting eel when you need one?’
I’m getting a very “questionable consent” vibe here. Like ‘I’m indulging your advances because you are not handing me over to the guards and less because I actually want too…. Then he well goes and try’s to hand her over anyway… But I’m really hoping is more along the line of it was a mutual attraction that resulted in a child and he was like “That’s my child you are not leaving!” situation. Also Gien your attitude makes you look worse than a possible committer of (I don’t know if I can use the R word here.)
The R word is what I’m thinking. Especially when Scar said earlier he “was not being a good man when he met Plo Quar”. At first I thought it meant that he was still towing the Sar’Teri line, but this information puts it in a different light.
Doesn’t have to be something like that, especially since they are both echoes in a war. I am getting more vibes like from the plot of Brother Bear, where family members were hurt.
Think Ben mentioned that Scar fought in the slave rebellions, but not on which side. “Farm” makes me think this is gonna tie into that somehow.
I was just wondering about that too.
Indeed, our own history is replete with prisoners of war being used as slave labor & sexual slavery.
The word is rape, you can use it. It won’t burn your house down.
And the first time I read this page, I got kind of the same vibe. But it feels like it’s suggested her Mother willingly spent time there (in hiding maybe) and with Scar, so I’m thinking it is something else he is alluding to.
but it might TRIGGER someone!!!
Actually I got the opposite vibe, I mean, if she had the ability to rip him apart like that, I thought.. Y’know, she was in control. No? Maybe?
Yeah, god forbid someone reads the word rape and loses their mind. I can’t believe Dave actually added a trigger warning. What a tool..
… Yeah, Gien can just go fuck the hell off right now and forever. Whatever bad blood’s there, Selkie deserves to share in exactly none of it, and if Plo Quar ever finds out what you just tried to pul Scar will likely have to get a new nickname.
End and consequences of WW1 flashbacks.
Am I reading that correctly?
Did Gien just threaten harm to Selkie if Scar ever made it public that he was her father?
The look on Scar’s face makes me think Wednesday’s panel is going to be … explosive.
No, he’s saying other people will fear and despise her as they do Scar, her father by rape, apparently.
There has been nothing that in any way suggests rape, as Selkie’s mom is stronger than him. I was thinking farm meant consenteation camp, though, so maybe I’m the one who’s being cynical.
And no, he stated that his blood itself means he owes him.
Right… last comic it was said that they had a ‘tryst’. I think that if it were non-consensual, it would have been called something else.
See, I read “your little tryst” as a snide wink-wink-nudge among men to imply something non-consensual that is “understandable under the circumstances”. Although I kinda think it was more along the lines of either Prisoner Sleeps With Captor To Escape, or Spy Sleeps With Enemy For Secrets sort of thing than a forcible rape. Still not cool, but she has a little more autonomy in the prior two scenarios.
Yeah, no, everything about this conversation is saying “rape” pretty clearly.
Poor Selkie is a war refugee, and there will always be that shadow cast over her.
I do wonder how much Scar was following orders and what his superiors told him to do in the war rather than something he decided to do on his own and then regretted it. Especially with how the society seems to be with superiors and how Scar is an echo (so was probably trained to be a weapon or to be in service to his clan due to that).
I do hope that he helps prevent Selkie from becoming Gien’s perfect little minion.
Selkie: You, Disc Jocky, play “Havoc” for me.
… I don’t care if you just played it, crank it up and “Play it again.”
You, (pointing) Bartender! Let slip the Chippendales of War, and let’s get this show on the stage.
O.k. You wanna piece a’ me, punk? Then lay on, Mac Gien, and darned be him who first cries, “Mommy! I’m going home!”
Ooof.
So Selkie’s dad can’t acknowledge her lest she get a lot of baggage along with it.
That’s kinda sad.
Still, he can be a good family friend and take care of her <3
Also, wow do I want to know more about Plo Quar and her history. This might be quite a story if "she maimed you" comes hand in hand with "I'm assuming you're the father of her child", and I doubt it had anything to do with intimate partner abuse…
TGI=/=F, i.e., no cliff hanger weekend, we only have to wait till Wednesday for our next set of answers, (in theory).
If this is true and Sarnothi follow a Patriarch led society, does this mean Selkie’s full Sarnoth name is Nei Li K’Limdai?! When Selkie finds this out, she is going to go full supervillian mode.
And here I thought it was Gien who was her father… h-uh.
Hm. So yet another reason for her mom to leave her with humans…so she wasn’t punished by some “sins of the father” stuff that seems to be implied here.
“Born in a pond on a farm” is what her mother told her…
Everyone thought it was a human’s farm.
I’m thinking he may have used his position of offering refuge, to get what he wanted…rather than outright rape. Not neccessarily coercion, but, “oh, since you’re HERE…let’s pass the time with a little romance” type thing.
Then when Selkie was conceived and born, and Plo Quar had to skedaddle again and gave their daughter to a human orphanage to hide her away….. Scar protested, and Plo Quar proved the stronger.
OR.
The fight happened AFTER… “where is she”
“I took her to an orphanage”
“you did WHAT”…
fight ensues, Scar gets scarred, Plo Quar gets….???
It would be coercion in my book.
@ai_vin: You could argue coercion in that case, certainly, exploitation could certainly be a perspective, however flings -do- naturally occur in situations where a kind individual covers for another individual. It happens with females offering homes to males, it happens with males offering homes to females. Most people who use the phrase coercion forget that, at its’ roots, coercion is convincing someone to perform an action that they would not otherwise, through kindness or cruelty is irrelevant. The fact is, every inch of romance is, at its’ core, a form of coercion in most forms of current society, as most males will not, randomly, offer food to most ladies on the street, and most ladies will not, willingly, spread their legs for a guy on a date (Ignoring first, second, etc etc.)
However, there are equal possibilities that this is a rape scenario, and you’re definitely correct there, which would be far more nasty. It is also possible the level of coercion was a negative / threat induced form of coercion, as opposed to the more societally accepted positive / romance induced form of coercion. A sympathetic ear to her plights, an agreeable note to her cause, a nice meal with no real requirements demanded of her.
The fact is, most of the theorizing currently is under far too few details, and is too dedicated to demonizing one side or the other either way, and most people have already started to form picket fences to determine their sides while using words that have far too many meanings for their pickets to actually hold solid ground. I apologize for being quite so direct against you, I had intended to be quiet in this discussion, but I will ask everyone to please be polite and patient in this particular discussion. It is entirely possible Scar is or was a scumbag. And I do use the word IS intentionally, while he saved Todd for now, he is by no means entirely visible in his character arc, and it has not been shown how he interacts with females of his species too terribly well, or members of his own caste or etc etc. How things are for him, and how he views the world, are currently alot of question marks, and while I do see a lot of good theorizing, I would like to see people…well….relax in terms of sides. This did get real shockingly fast though, this has been a fairly dark overall arc for Selkie, even if Selkie does normally explore less then sunny terrains.
Has it been confirmed that Plo Quar is dead?
Not even a little, there’s a scene a while back with her walking by (I think she’s tagged too, so it should be easy to find the comic when she pops up). We do have comic 1000 coming up soon, I wouldn’t put it outside the realm of possibilities that some revelation will come to light in 5 pages it so (or it’ll be an amazing red herring)
Here’s the strip https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie122/ The last comment by Dave shows you where she is
Sounds like Gien is assuming too much, and relying on part of what he’s saying to be close enough to the truth that Scar won’t contradict him. Probably also relying on the fact that Scar doesn’t like Gien and wouldn’t want to let any more even-partial-truths slip out.
As for my take on Gien’s unconfirmed allegations, I think that if the tryst wasn’t consensual that Scar would be eel meat, or he’d at least have… a fourth scar in a less obvious place. Besides, rapists don’t generally take interest in the living reminders of their guilt.
Gien could be 100% on the nose with his innuendo, but also he could just be very racist instead of a little racist. Because this page confirms that he’s at least a little bit racist.
There is, unfortunately, a means by which a rapist can use the kid to keep the mom under his thumb — in real life, in certain states, at least. This is when the rapist is considered the legal father of the child of rape, and it’s one of the laws I most wish to see demolished.
There are two specific means by which a rapist can harm their victim long after the rape is over. “I still get legal visitation rights with my kid” is one, and “You’re on the hook for child support until the kid’s eighteen” is the other.
Both of these can happen even if the victim was underage at the time. So you could have a 14-year-old guy who legally has to pay child support to his adult rapist because she had the kid and put his name on legal paperwork. Even if, by all rights, that paperwork alone ought to ensure that she gets locked away (how DO you get a child whose parent is that far underage without it being rape, hmm hmm?).
And you can have a young woman forced to decide whether to abort the fetus, or, by keeping the child, risk the court forcing her to continue having the rapist in her life, due to visitation rights — and maybe, at some point, being forced to let the rapist get alone time with the kid. Even if the mother was like 14 at the time of the rape, and might reasonably be afraid that the rapist would also abuse his daughter.
So, the line about rapists not caring about their kids… they can care. Just, in a way that makes the whole situation WORSE. Not all rapists feel guilty about what they’ve done.
Indeed, but does Scar seem like that to you?
Gien seems to want more from Selkie than Scar does. That might just be because we haven’t heard anything from Scar’s inner monologue yet, but based on the evidence so far, I think Gien is just being a manipulative S.O.B. who assumes too much. Besides, if Gien had Selkie’s best interests in mind, why would he be so cool with Scar hanging out with her?
I’m not saying Scar can’t be guilty, just that he isn’t yet guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and so far his only accuser is shady as heck. I was stuck on jury duty for over three weeks last year, so all this stuff is fresh in my mind. 😉
EDIT: Oh, Dave clears this up below. I hadn’t read that far yet. 🙂
Oh, there are much viler uses for that particular legal atrocity.
“My client feels that this is a clear case of tragic misunderstandings getting out of hand and that we’d all be best served by forgetting about it. As such, he is willing to waive any and all parental rights if the young lady agrees to not press charges…”
Oh my, was my other comment too racy for the filters? Oh well. 🙂
I think Dave will approve it, though.
Watching someone else raise your child must be pretty tough. . . especially when that child is in a world you cannot live in. Mixed heritage in this case is kind of a Romeo and Juliet thing – possibly. Maybe it was something else. Oh the mystery of only getting 5 or 6 panels per episodic online comic at a go.
General comment because it’s come up in more than one thread apparently: Rape is not where I am going with this. I’ll get a bit heavier story-wise than stuff would normally be with a child protagonist , but I’m not touching rape.
I normally try not to discourage speculation, but on this point I’d rather not trigger anybody with sexual assault PTSD by having the conversation float around. There’s no rape involved, and lets not have that topic floating around more than needed, okay?
honestly, i didn´t get an r-vibe reading this, quite frankly i think it would be impossible to do given her powers, but rather that he betrayed her. basically, he played the harmless farmer, seduced her, only for her to find out that he was ordered to do so to spy on her and/or lure her into a trap….whatever it was though, i´d say he is genuinely sorry and deep down cares for her.
Now gien on the other hand….i was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt so far, but not anymore! that blackmail was totally unwarranted, in more ways then one. not only did scar already keep his quiet for selkie´s sake, but threatening to punish a kid for the sins of the father is low.
moreover, i´m suspiscious *why* gien wants to keep her true parentage quiet, surely not to protect her…..if anything, a mixed kid might be sign of hope that their clans can overcome their hatred and eventually live in peace again. ….but her having an official sarnothi relative would block gien from claiming selkie for their clan.
Thank you for easing my worry. Gien’s wording was just so ominous and implying. I’m glad that it wasn’t that and i’m going back to my mutual attraction situation that resulted in pregnancy and he was not happy with her taking the child away from the city. Gien’s has just been confirmed as a monster though because god he’s letting those implications hang loud and clear on top of threatening a child.
Dave, I totally understand that if it wasn’t your intent, you’d rather just shut the whole thing down right away, I get that.
But I also want to point out things like trigger warnings and avoiding topics that may make people uncomfortable isn’t exactly healthy either. All it really does is allow people to avoid sensitive, uncomfortable subjects instead of addressing them head on. That doesn’t help promote healing, all it does is encourage people to avoid and expect others to avoid touchy subjects.
We are seeing it every day with websites that have trigger warnings, with schools pulling books from circulation and colleges warning and allowing students skip classes and subjects that make be considered uncomfortable.
How are people supposed to grow and learn to overcome obstacles when some of them can’t even handle reading a word?
O Elements, this? No, trigger warnings allow people to engage on their own terms. (I have been told this, outright, by people in courses; knowing that “there will be X” means they go “okay, make sure that I have my loins girded and am braced for X, so I can engage and not hit something unexpectedly and shove the book away and spend the rest of the day unable to concentrate on anything.” Trigger warnings enable engagement in course materials. Do people try to abuse this? Some, sure. Does this mean we should hurt other people when we could be decent, caring, compassionate folks? Well, I know that I’d rather have compassion.)
And in this case? It’s no more than a slightly more-specific form of the movie ratings: G, PG, PG-13, R, X. We do this for entertainment already, and it is PERFECTLY FINE for a webcomic to say, “If you are reading this, you DO NOT HAVE TO WORRY about something upsetting cropping up in your entertainment.”
Stars know that after I had a kid, I did not want to have entertainment with Child Endangerment of certain kinds as part of the plot. Heck, there were cartoons where I would have been very upset, except I knew the genre (PBS little-kid-oriented cartoon!) would not support actual traumatic danger to the character in question. Without that assurance, I woulda been nope-nope-nopeing right out. The godsblighted news is full of enough pain. I don’t need it in my entertainment.
Beth, the way you are typing makes me hope there aren’t any kids under your care because you sound insane.
What?
I think you should re-read A.Beth’s comment. I’ve no idea what you thought it said, but it isn’t that. It’s an entirely sensible point about the value of trigger warnings.
Why would you call that insane?
Yeah, I agree with your point that trigger warnings are overdone, but I can’t figure out what on earth you think is insane about what she said.
Not your job to be trying to make anyone “heal” or “grow”, if someone doesn’t want to and would rather avoid some topics that should be left up to them.
I do kind of agree, in a very loosely-general way, that people nowadays are being a bit too quick to just shove uncomfortable topics under the rug and not address them, but I can’t agree that rape and sexual assault qualify for that. When people have gone through those ordeals, even the mention of the subject can bring up a lot of really bad memories that directly affect their ability to function. So I’d rather it just not continue as a topic of discussion since it isn’t even relevant to the subject matter.
As someone who’s recently been dealing with trauma from a past sexual assault coming to a head
go to hell. trigger warnings are valuable and needed.
*nod* I am not sure if Gien might not have been implying it to Scar — possibly guessing to see if anything “stuck” (like he did earlier) — but from what Scar said about Selkie’s mom, I get the impression that their falling out was afterwards and “comfort/hiding” was where a Selkie came from.
I didn’t figure you were going that way — it seems somewhat out of keeping with a story that has routinely dismantled “villain”-type characters into much more understandable and well-rounded people we can like — but the speculation was interesting.
I didn’t even think about triggering people, though. If you think we can manage to keep the rape discussion on this comment page only, perhaps you could put a disclaimer in your commentary there, pointing out what’s going on down here and that it shouldn’t continue into the comments sections of later pages.
I was surprised people went down that road to be honest. I’ve never gotten the sense that you would write rape into this story.
To be fair, he does tackle a ton of very sensitive topics in this webcomic — more serious fare than you might expect from the premise. Besides the whole war orphans thing, there’s abandonment and something like PTSD in Amanda, something uncomfortably close to sexual assault when a kid steals Selkie’s clothes, body shame, prejudice, bad parenting (most notably with Truck)…
It’s not exactly a tame comic, it’s just that Dave has chosen (correctly, I think) to keep the portrayal of these situations and events to a level that could be shared with most of the kids in my life without worrying about them picking up on bad things or being traumatized by the content. Wide audience, but plenty of depth to the material.
So it would be conceivable for him to include rape, but it would be fairly hidden and subtextual or background-y. Although, like you, I didn’t really think the material was headed in that direction.
To be honest, I don’t think (I could be wrong here) that Scar would have raped Plo’ Quar. But I do think that Gien would be enough of a asswipe to *imply* that Scar would have. As I could see Gien being a “blood purity” kind of asshole, and the only reason that a Jin’ Sorai would EVER have a sexual interlude that would result in a child with a Sar’ Teri is force.
Seems a lot more like she wanted to give Selkie up and he did not, so they fought over it. Or perhaps which clan she would be raised as.
I don’t appreciate the whole, “You forever need to repent for what you’ve done.”
That’s very closeminded thinking.
And “Your daughter will forever need to repent for what you and your kin has done” is ever so much worse.
It’s terrible that some people think that because of what people of your heritage, no, even just the same culture as you, you need to repent for something you never even did.
It’s sickening and far more racist and xenophobic than what the initial people who committed the sin.
The length of serious guilt — and how it impacts your ability to lead a productive life thereafter — are major themes in a project I’ve been working on, off and on, for a couple decades.
A related theme in the same piece is self-forgiveness, and how being able to forgive yourself for major things can/should make you more willing to forgive those who’ve hurt you. But it also tease the concept of “forgiveness” apart: Doesn’t mean you need to maintain a relationship with the person, doesn’t mean you need to forget what they did, or fail to protect yourself against future harm… stuff like that.
My story includes a variety of characters dealing with a variety of guilts, and explores the various ways in which forgiveness can happen, as well as delineating it from certain incorrect ways of approaching forgiveness. (Most notably, a young woman with an abusive boyfriend forgiving him but making the decision to never return to him. Because, according to my research, the only chance an abuser has of changing is if he has no victims to put up with his abuse.)
Fascinating. Are you practicing, teaching, or learning psychology?
Actually, I’ve put a lot of research into various facets of psych, and I did study psych in college. I’m neither teaching it nor any sort of practitioner, but I use that knowledge in my writing, with the intent of providing good mental models for readers (such as in one fic that specifically delineates Consent from Desire). I do like my work to have some level of learn/improve/grow to it.
It’s my belief that bards/storytellers, at the highest expression of their calling, provide far more than just amusement/enjoyment. The story of Heidi, for example, says that if you’re stuck in a situation you can’t escape from (especially as a child whose wishes are not being taken into account), you do the best you can within it until something changes — and look to a greater purpose that maybe you can’t see right now (God’s plan).
Heidi’s situation improved her (she got over her resistance to reading) and those around her (her grandpa rejoined humanity, Klara regained the use of her legs, Peter learned to read, the grandmother on the Alps got some comforting improvements to her house, etc.)… and those would never have happened (or would have happened much slower) if Heidi had been able to leave the situation as early as she had wanted to.
(As far as my writing, it’s currently Person of Interest fanfics, though I do have other projects that I work on, off and on. The one most likely to get written “soon-ish” is about a foster-care experience, using the character of a kitten ending up in one negative home after another before getting a positive home and finding closure with his original “mommy.” It’s meant to give foster kids / orphans some means to contextualize and discuss their experiences, including their feelings toward the parents they can’t be with right now (or possibly ever again).)
Also, just looked at your webcomic. Looks neat! Have you read Cheshire Crossing? It’s got a similar conceit of multiple fairy tales crossing paths, and it’s sadly unfinished, but it did manage like four comics’ worth of story that I felt was really engaging.
IIRC, it’s Dorothy (Oz), Alice (Wonderland), Wendy (Peter Pan)… that’s the main trio, I think, and their mentor is Mary Poppins. Turns out each of the girls has the ability to switch through dimensions in a different manner.
(looked it up) Yup, I got ’em right. Link in the Website URL under my name there ^_^
I suspect this is what Gien is alluding to: how would other jin’sorai view Selkie knowing she’s half sar’teri?
Gien? I abdjure you.
Scar… I’m so sorry.
Also my comment on the last comic is now rendered moot.
Gein, you’re a manipulative monster. And I hope he gets his in the end.
Also kind of hoping that Scar can keep her safe from him. He seems like he’s atoning for any damage he’s done well enough. Despite whatever he’s done, I trust him a lot more than I could Gein.
Yeah, that’s fair. Hold individuals accountable for what their entire race did, whether they did (or, in Selkie’s case, could have) have anything to do with it.
Fuck you, Gien. Fuck your racist ass right to hell.
I actually think that Scar and Plo Quar loved each other. I think that the part where he wasn’t a good person happened BEFORE he got the scars, and that happened BEFORE he became Selkie’s dad. I think he and Plo Quar were thrown together on the same ‘farm’ after his injuries (makes sense if he can’t fight anymore) and her running… they first are uneasy and hostile, then they find common ground, then … a spark!? And then everything else is consensual, child conceived, they plan her escape together because of the backlash if anyone found out Selkie was a bridge between their people… I think Scar knew everything about Selkie going to the surface but not the part about the suppressor… I think Plo Quar hid that from him because they quarreled about it. I am a romantic at heart though, and I believe that he would fake ignorance to protect his wife and child… and I do think that she is his wife (while we’re at it). So there 😛
correction… I think they love each other still.
First, let me note that I still think that Gien is a p*n*s, or whatever the Sarnothi call that part of the male anatomy.
However, he is, for his own reasons, thinks he is doing Scar a favor. He firmly believes that the Sar’Teri are gonna be “first up against the wall” and he is telling Scar that if he doesn’t talk of Selkie’s mixed heritage, he won’t either. Now, he is doing it for personal reasons, (he desperately needs that fourth Echo) but he is kinda doing Scar a solid by keeping the secret.
He’s still a member of the male anatomy, though.
Shlong is appropriate 😉