Got a fanart from VoodooHorde over the weekend to celebrate the big scene. Celebrate it my making it so much more traumatic.
Thank you!
↓ Transcript
TODD: What in the hell!
AMANDA: OH MY GOD, THIS IS HELL?!? AAAAHH!!
POHL: What happened?
SELKIE: HOLY SHIT!
AMANDA: What did you DO TO ME?!
SELKIE: ME?!
SELKIE: If I could do that, I'ds have done it to MYSELF, you thief!
AMANDA: AAAH!
TODD: Amanda, it's going to be ok. Can you turn it off?
AMANDA: I DON'T KNOW HOW I EVEN TURNED IT ON!
TODD: Pohl, what's going on here?
POHL: I have no idea what in the Frenzy I'm even seeing right now.
AMANDA: OH MY GOD, THIS IS HELL?!? AAAAHH!!
POHL: What happened?
SELKIE: HOLY SHIT!
AMANDA: What did you DO TO ME?!
SELKIE: ME?!
SELKIE: If I could do that, I'ds have done it to MYSELF, you thief!
AMANDA: AAAH!
TODD: Amanda, it's going to be ok. Can you turn it off?
AMANDA: I DON'T KNOW HOW I EVEN TURNED IT ON!
TODD: Pohl, what's going on here?
POHL: I have no idea what in the Frenzy I'm even seeing right now.
"Thief! Thief! Give me back my thunder!"
Wild theory: the hair bow didn’t sabotage Selkie’s ability to echo, it altered it so though she can’t use it herself any child merely being near her while she attempts to use it will slowly allow them to echo.
As a sort of extreme way to make echoes equal with everyone else by making everyone have it over a few years with Selkie being a sort of test/patient zero.
Oh no. No no no no no. It’s bad enough that Selkie might have had her birthright taken from her. But to have it go to Amanda, who despite her recent improvements, is still the one who tormented her for years? Oh that is a horribly cruel twist of fate. I am worried about where this is going.
I am REALLY hoping that no one suggests that in-world, ESPECIALLY in earshot of Selkie. Perhaps Humans are ‘Echo-Capable’, too, but never were exposed to the right combination to encounter it. Thus, what we’re seeing is Amanda Awakening due to leakage from Selkie and Pohl’s practicing, the same way Selkie was awakened by Scar’s Replacement of Todd’s helmet.
100% this. Humans have never been sufficiently exposed to an Echo to awaken before. It is just a cruel twist of fate that Amanda was always Echo-Capable.
Which raises MASSIVE complications for human-saranoth integration. Considering how rare Echos are amongst Sarnothi, I suppose it was unlikely that any echo capable humans were esposed to Echoes during the initial test integrations.
But given how many more humans there are than sarnothi on earth….hey! Sarnoth’s Echo shortage is solved! 🙁
Given the secrecy around Echoes, I doubt ANY humans were exposed to working Echoes during the initial test integrations.
This is heartbreaking. “Thief.” 🙁 Oh, Selkie. No, honey. Please please don’t go down that road.
Same. I don’t like where this is heading. And if it turns into well you should forgive her she’s your sister I am done with this comic. I could not stomach that to read.
Forgive who for what?
I doubt she actually thinks Amanda stole her power, she’s just annoyed that Amanda is unexpectedly better at it than she is. I had the same annoyed reaction when my little sister accidentally got published (she won a kid’s book contest).
I was wondering, can Echoes see properly when they’re doing fire-eyes, or is everything tinted green?
green and undulating
Oh nooo, the undulating. Amanda is susceptible to motion sickness. This must be a special kind of hell for the poor kid.
hey guysss this might not be the best comic to propose this on, but oh well!
I’ve been wanting to make a dub of some comic for a while, and with Mr. Warren’s permission, I’m going to start work on a Selkie dub!
I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, and I’ll need all the help I can get! Also voice actors. Lots and lots of voice actors.
To confirm, Dubdubdub Helicopter Noises emailed me asking about a Selkie voice dub, and I gave consent to do it and to ask about interest in the comments. That said, beyond giving the okay to use the comments to scout talent I’m not directly involved in the effort. But if it can happen, I think it’d be fun to see.
Dubdubdub do you have a place for people to contact you about voice work?
I have a Casting Call Club project set up! (idk if it’s ok to post links so I put it as my Website URL)
If you don’t have an account or want to sign up, you could contact me on Discord (Dis#3843)
sounds fun tbh! will keep an eye out for more info
I will gleefully volunteer incidental music if you’d like.
oh heck does that mean I am going to have to *actually* compose the Sue & Kathryn themedang yes please
Not a fan of the bully getting superpowers but okay.
Dude have a little compassion. Yes, Amanda was a bully, but she was also a scared and abused 8 year old kid.
Also, the reason she targeted Selkie is because when she needed adult support the most (after she was dumped back at the orphanage), everyone was busy tending to Selkie and had no time to help her. It was an unfortunate timing of events, and things were never properly resolved following this.
Not saying this excuses the bullying, just noting that it’s deeper than “this kid is weird/weaker than me, I’m going to make their life a living hell”. Amanda has been through hell and back, and never received the proper therapy/mental health support she needed.
Also this is less “getting superpowers” and more a green-themed ramping up to that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where everyone’s heads exploded.
If it IS the children who had the most exposure to Selkie and her bow who now have Echo potential, that would be Amanda and Georgie. I would love to see Selkie and Georgie working together to be Echos.
Exposure to the bow, which is a resonance dampener, wouldn’t make the human children more receptive to the resonance.
That’s like saying being soaked in water would make the people around you more likely to burst into flame than if you were there.
What if the bow didn’t dampen her resonance? What if it dispersed it?
Selkie doesn’t have Resonance, the clue is in the name, Echo. Echoes don’t have power, they just pick up the Resonance that is already all around us and tune themselves into it.
Even if they can channel the song, humans aren’t well adapted to it. I’m expecting her to be raw power and no finesse.
I wonder if there are ‘echos’ with almost no power and wide skill sets, like programers or artisans.
I really don’t like this…poor Selkie. She was bullied for years and then she learns she has superpowers and finally feels special…only to find out, not really, the kid who bullied her has them instead. And right when the two were starting to get along too. Don’t get me wrong, Amanda is definitely a sympathetic character, but this is so unbelievably unfair to Selkie.
I’m glad no one is calling them on the language. XD
Same here. Fortunately none of the adults present are petty enough to even notice “language” in the presence of A Much Greater Situation.
As Surek said, “The cause is sufficient.”
Can’t believe how many people think that Amanda having to suffer this is unfair to Selkie. It isn’t Amanda’s fault she’s sensitive to this. She didn’t steal anything from Selkie. She’s currently terrified and hates this and NO ONE can help her. Selkie being bummed that Amanda’s powers manifested so quickly comparatively is completely secondary right now. A little kid is terrified and potentially in pain right now, that takes priority.
Selkie will undoubtedly manifest her powers properly soon enough. Maybe Amanda can help her do it too.
On a meta level though, it’s unsatisfying for some readers to see the person who tormented a character many are identifying with, usurp that character. We like to read stories to see fantasies fulfilled, and one of those is often “I, as the person who was bullied, am now cooler than the people that caused me trouble.”
Meta Level can go negatively, too. The guy who bullied me to the point that I needed suicide prevention counseling grew up to be an Army doctor, while I make $1 above minimum wage. Life doesn’t always give you that “the bullies grow up to be losers” tripe.
That being said, don’t take that statement to mean a 1:1 correlation of “Amanda = Dave’s Bully”. Amanda comes from an inward place as much as Selkie does. And she’s nowhere near as bad as mine was to me.
Incidentally, if I ever put into this comic a kid named Eric… well, then you’ll probably see what it really looks like when I use fiction to bitch out reality.
To me, that’s a bit of the point of fiction — to be a “correction” on life. That said, I didn’t want to come off like I was telling *you* what to do — I was commenting to Dizzy on why people may think the way they do. Some people might really be wanting fiction to “fix” life here. It burns my biscuits that life *doesn’t* have karma, and I love reading fiction about karma as a result.
Don’t let me tell you how to do your narrative. I’ve enjoyed it thus far, and it’s your story to tell. I’m just one among many commenters. 😛
I assume you’re never putting your bully directly into the story because you don’t want a blatant butt-monkey to abuse for personal vengeance (tends to be kind of an immature author thing to do), but if you do, I’ll wait with popcorn lol.
Time for an emergency call to Agent Brown; this does not seem like the sort of thing you want to handle without help from the experts.
Long-shot speculation that I’ll encrypt in case I turn out to be right, to avoid an accidental spoiler.
WTAGL NBZRT KXUDD QJYHW SNSER MEHDB MTVRV OSJJL NUCJW KBLVY QBCII IZIEY WEXPX NJVNQ CJMZU MAKHV JEEHK UEPPB AHWGV IAVMZ COBOH TRRYG FZAYA ETGAP WYZQR HQXSZ FQPOO
Just go ahead and post your speculation, no need to ‘encrypt’ it. If you’re right, it’s just a good guess.
If you’re going to do something like that, please use ROT13 so those of us who want to read it can.
Crazy theory, *all* humans can be turned into Echos as kids
This is just the first time that a human kid has been exposed enough to it to happen
To VoodooHorde: that is an absolutely marvelous depiction. Congratulations.