Oh…oh wow. You know, I wasn’t expecting flowers and it also never occurred to me until this strip how FREAKING CREEPY that would look to have flowers delivered to a middle school student on a random day with no note or card as to who they’re from.
aaand formatting ate part of that. flowers delivered to an elementary school student is creepier than if they were in middle school, as middle school is when (at least in my area) kids start getting enough disposable income to spend on others, getting part-time jobs delivering papers or whatever.
Yeah. One time I had a crush on an exchange student from Japan and bought her chocolates for Valentines Day. She looked at me with all the confusion one person could muster.
Later I learned that in Japan, it’s the girls who give guys chocolates. Oops <_<
The principal questioning them is dumb. If I was a third grader who had a crush on one of the girls, and I sent her flowers at school without there being a note telling who they were from, it would probably be because I was too shy to tell her who I was. “Secret admirer” kinda thing.
So if I didn’t put in a card so Susie would know who they were from, I damn sure am not going to admit it to the Principal so the whole class knows who they were from.
That is a refreshingly pure and honest mindset. However, with all the crazy stuff happening in the real world involving kids (and the fantasy stuff involving Saronthi living with humans) the principal is being fairly cautious imho.
I do agree that in a real-world context, this would definitely be handled more discreetly. It’s kind of a variation on the “people in stories never use common sense” trope. If this was being handled in a purely real-world-appropriate method, we’d be spending four-to-five comics with people discussing how to handle the situation, and lose the “oh god what did Selkie do?!” moment of the flower reveal, so a bit of bending on reality falls into play.
My original draft was for the flower delivery person to be the one knocking on the door, and basically ambushing the class with the flower situation, but that was too much of a bend.
One of the girls in my class did have flowers delivered to her in school once on valentine’s day. Though it was during recess & we high school then and also this isn’t america so it was just kind something for the rest of us to laugh/aww at.
Yeah, the problem is here that either Selkie confesses, thus avoiding problems in the adult world but screwing up the kid world, or Selkie refuses to confess, thus causing problems in the adult world and still not helping so much with the kid world (because the supposed sender of the flowers is oblivious to what’s going on).
Not exactly the best place to be in, and even worse if Selkie doesn’t grasp all the factors, which she clearly doesn’t.
New principal huh? Did the Trunchbulls still get off scott free? I also just noticed that her name is flowers and they got flowers, just alittle tidbit I had to point out.
Yeah. Angela replaced the old guy a while back, when he got drummed out over his mis-handling of everything.
The Trunchbull family (incidentally, I really regret the meta-reference repurposing that is their last name. Can’t ever be more than one thing with a name like that) haven’t exactly been punished, although Tommy has been seeing a child behavior therapist. Mostly behind the scenes, but got mentioned briefly in an epilogue strip.
But why didnât he try throwing them under the bus when he was getting in trouble with the school district, or blackmail them to save his ass or heâd reveal their behavior to all the parents at the meeting, and get the staff and larents from Tommyâs old school involved if they didnât try saving his ass? I donât know why I listed all that, itâs exactly what I meant by âthrow them under the busâ, maybe Iâm just used to trying to not sound retundant.
Because Ashton’s entire presence in that arc was more or less centered around not really trying much to stand up to the Trunchbulls, he wasn’t up for attempting to blackmail them. Besides if he had tried that it probably would have backfired, since the members of the PTA would basically see a T turning on a fellow P.
And in a boring unsatisfying real-world context, by that point I was ready to close out the arc and move along a bit.
Yep, that’s about the amount of subtlety I’d expect an eight year old to have.
On a related note, IRL someone caused trouble for me in trouble in high school with a similar stunt that went even worse than this. In fact, the stunt almost got a couple of teachers in trouble when they started to make things even worse in front of the whole school before they realized what was actually happening. But relatively quickly they caught on to the problem and managed to stop the almost-riot.
When everything calmed down, no one was punished. AFAIK the perpetrators didn’t intend for things to go that far, the teachers certainly didn’t intend for a fist fight to break out in the middle of assembly, and considering the provocation, I wasn’t punished either.
I didn’t expect flower delivery. But yeah, in real life that would be strange and if nobody speaks up that would probably try to trace things back to the sender.
One flower stories from my life:
An older friend of mine set up ahead a big flower delivery to his wife for their 10th wedding aniversary. But the delivery service wasn’t only a a few days early, they also forgot the note. She was pretty creeped out by receiving flowes out of nowhere and even feared that her husband would suspect a secret lover.
Other story:
During a few years in my combined middle and high school, the school allowed roses to be delivered on Valentine’s Day. The student council even set up a booth for accepting delivery requests (both anonymous and with note were possible).
This happened in my school, but in that context it was the receiving students birthday, so it wasn’t questioned so harshly. The girl got the flowers and school just informed the parents at the end of the day. Turns out they were from her aunt and uncle in another state. We also had pizza delivered a couple times from parents that failed or forgot to pack there kids lunch and decided to send enough for the class XD
Dave, Re:Transcript; see?? This is why I like your comic so very much. Sci-Fi in the old days was thought provoking. As your comic is now, thought provoking. Great like, much fun. Cookies all around, it’s turtles all the way down.
Perhaps, Selkie, you shouldn’t have adopted ALL the features of those evil plans in cartoons. Particularly you seem to have adopted the parts that make those plans ridiculous and undermine their own goal…
Oh…oh wow. You know, I wasn’t expecting flowers and it also never occurred to me until this strip how FREAKING CREEPY that would look to have flowers delivered to a middle school student on a random day with no note or card as to who they’re from.
Selkie, ya dun goofed. Again.
Selkie and friends are still in elementary school. Middle schoolers are generally minimum 11-13 year olds, Elementary schools are 5-11.
aaand formatting ate part of that. flowers delivered to an elementary school student is creepier than if they were in middle school, as middle school is when (at least in my area) kids start getting enough disposable income to spend on others, getting part-time jobs delivering papers or whatever.
Yes, I meant elementary school – I’m in the US so I’m familiar with the age ranges.
Oh, geeze, Selkie. Subtlety is not your strong suit, is it?
Poor Algernon. đ
oh boy. I would noooooot want to be her right now lol. Aaaawwwkwaarrddd.
Called it. XD
This is so dumb though, was Te Fahn just supposed to assume they are from George but never bring it up with him?
Wonder if sheâd even know what flowers mean, seems like they would make a bad gift underwater so prob not a thing with sarnothi.
Yeah. One time I had a crush on an exchange student from Japan and bought her chocolates for Valentines Day. She looked at me with all the confusion one person could muster.
Later I learned that in Japan, it’s the girls who give guys chocolates. Oops <_<
The principal questioning them is dumb. If I was a third grader who had a crush on one of the girls, and I sent her flowers at school without there being a note telling who they were from, it would probably be because I was too shy to tell her who I was. “Secret admirer” kinda thing.
So if I didn’t put in a card so Susie would know who they were from, I damn sure am not going to admit it to the Principal so the whole class knows who they were from.
That is a refreshingly pure and honest mindset. However, with all the crazy stuff happening in the real world involving kids (and the fantasy stuff involving Saronthi living with humans) the principal is being fairly cautious imho.
They should question the kids on their own.
Or just ask the flower delivery company, they got to know who ordered it.
I do agree that in a real-world context, this would definitely be handled more discreetly. It’s kind of a variation on the “people in stories never use common sense” trope. If this was being handled in a purely real-world-appropriate method, we’d be spending four-to-five comics with people discussing how to handle the situation, and lose the “oh god what did Selkie do?!” moment of the flower reveal, so a bit of bending on reality falls into play.
My original draft was for the flower delivery person to be the one knocking on the door, and basically ambushing the class with the flower situation, but that was too much of a bend.
One of the girls in my class did have flowers delivered to her in school once on valentine’s day. Though it was during recess & we high school then and also this isn’t america so it was just kind something for the rest of us to laugh/aww at.
Yeah, the problem is here that either Selkie confesses, thus avoiding problems in the adult world but screwing up the kid world, or Selkie refuses to confess, thus causing problems in the adult world and still not helping so much with the kid world (because the supposed sender of the flowers is oblivious to what’s going on).
Not exactly the best place to be in, and even worse if Selkie doesn’t grasp all the factors, which she clearly doesn’t.
Thatâs a good $60 of flowers. How did she pay?
Free if she took them from random lawns
Todd’s credit card.
New principal huh? Did the Trunchbulls still get off scott free? I also just noticed that her name is flowers and they got flowers, just alittle tidbit I had to point out.
Yeah. Angela replaced the old guy a while back, when he got drummed out over his mis-handling of everything.
The Trunchbull family (incidentally, I really regret the meta-reference repurposing that is their last name. Can’t ever be more than one thing with a name like that) haven’t exactly been punished, although Tommy has been seeing a child behavior therapist. Mostly behind the scenes, but got mentioned briefly in an epilogue strip.
But why didnât he try throwing them under the bus when he was getting in trouble with the school district, or blackmail them to save his ass or heâd reveal their behavior to all the parents at the meeting, and get the staff and larents from Tommyâs old school involved if they didnât try saving his ass? I donât know why I listed all that, itâs exactly what I meant by âthrow them under the busâ, maybe Iâm just used to trying to not sound retundant.
Because Ashton’s entire presence in that arc was more or less centered around not really trying much to stand up to the Trunchbulls, he wasn’t up for attempting to blackmail them. Besides if he had tried that it probably would have backfired, since the members of the PTA would basically see a T turning on a fellow P.
And in a boring unsatisfying real-world context, by that point I was ready to close out the arc and move along a bit.
Oh, Selkie, honey… you are REALLY bad at this.
shes about as subtle as a turbo charged jackhammer
Damn it Selkie, what did you do?
Yep, that’s about the amount of subtlety I’d expect an eight year old to have.
On a related note, IRL someone caused trouble for me in trouble in high school with a similar stunt that went even worse than this. In fact, the stunt almost got a couple of teachers in trouble when they started to make things even worse in front of the whole school before they realized what was actually happening. But relatively quickly they caught on to the problem and managed to stop the almost-riot.
When everything calmed down, no one was punished. AFAIK the perpetrators didn’t intend for things to go that far, the teachers certainly didn’t intend for a fist fight to break out in the middle of assembly, and considering the provocation, I wasn’t punished either.
I didn’t expect flower delivery. But yeah, in real life that would be strange and if nobody speaks up that would probably try to trace things back to the sender.
One flower stories from my life:
An older friend of mine set up ahead a big flower delivery to his wife for their 10th wedding aniversary. But the delivery service wasn’t only a a few days early, they also forgot the note. She was pretty creeped out by receiving flowes out of nowhere and even feared that her husband would suspect a secret lover.
Other story:
During a few years in my combined middle and high school, the school allowed roses to be delivered on Valentine’s Day. The student council even set up a booth for accepting delivery requests (both anonymous and with note were possible).
This happened in my school, but in that context it was the receiving students birthday, so it wasn’t questioned so harshly. The girl got the flowers and school just informed the parents at the end of the day. Turns out they were from her aunt and uncle in another state. We also had pizza delivered a couple times from parents that failed or forgot to pack there kids lunch and decided to send enough for the class XD
That’s the world people think we’re in… a kind gift must be either manipulation or predation.
And they think they’re helping.
But also they are probably being extra sensitive because itâs (presumably) for a sarnothti.
Dave, Re:Transcript; see?? This is why I like your comic so very much. Sci-Fi in the old days was thought provoking. As your comic is now, thought provoking. Great like, much fun. Cookies all around, it’s turtles all the way down.
Bloody hell.
I loved that book so much. And hated it, too. It made me cry so hard at the end. I was in grade 7 or 8.
Gnnnnnngggg…!
Perhaps, Selkie, you shouldn’t have adopted ALL the features of those evil plans in cartoons. Particularly you seem to have adopted the parts that make those plans ridiculous and undermine their own goal…