HAHAHAHAHA
My original draft had this bit happening at Amanda's home, and Tehk being hurt to find out Amanda just wanted something from him, but the melodrama of that didn't feel right for Tehk's character. Laughing in people's faces is more of a Tehk move.
But can the Sarnothi breathe fire?
They can blow bubbles. But not from their mouth.
Oh my gods, I’m Sarnothi!
Ohh this is not gonna end well…
yep, amanda looks as if she´s about to loose it – again – which is a bit of a good thing, because andi´s method of simply ignoring her daughters issues into non-existence is plain stupid. it never works
I’m actually hopping Amanda turns violent here because dear lord the kids need to learn. The public schools I went to this kid would have had a group beat down five times over. There habit of openly verbally insulting everyone is going to get them killed, I mean literally killed not turn of phrase killed. School shooting happen over this kind of stuff without the ‘they are aliens’ stuff they have to deal with. They need a reality check about running there mouths like before it ends up being a scenario that wont end with just a black eye.
You’re not wrong. Wounded pride is a hell of a thing.
“School shooting happen over this kind of stuff”
Really, is that why they happen? Then where are the hundreds of school shootings that have happened in every other country? Or do you think children do not engage in such verbal insults with each other in all those other countries?
The rest of the world combined does not have the amount of school shootings that the U.S. does. And it sure ain’t because their kids socialize any different.
The story is set in northern Wisconsin, not Thunder Bay. It’s the gun-saturated American society the Sarnothi are going to have to live in, where the response to public humiliation is potentially much more lethal.
That said… none of the kid characters come from a home where they have easy access to firearms. So it’s not an immediate threat. Kitenkaiba is right that this is a lesson better absorbed now, in relative safety.
Kids build up anger and resentment and eventually lash out because of stuff like this. America just gives them easier access to a method to make that lashing out really, REALLY bad. It’s not the only reason school shootings happen, far from it, but it does contribute.
School shootings do happen in other countries, they just don’t publicize them the way we do. Nor do they count them the same way our organizations do. Actual school shootings that involve children are a small fraction of those reported in the US. Our reports include -anything- that happened involving a gun in the vicinity of a school.
I am going to disagree with kitenkaiba though and say it isn’t this sort of thing that leads to school shooting, not without a whole lot of other crap as well. Group beat downs, yeah. Shootings? Not over one individual disagreement. Tehk is likely to really tick off the wrong kid if he keeps this up though.
My point, though could have probably been better explained is that this kind of behaviour normalised leads to violence. Violence that can be to the extreme of murder be it by shooting or a knife ECT. No this one incident would’t cause it in a vacuum but no incident happens in a vacuum. Amanda has a history of domestic abuse and inferiority complex so this one moment is not a single incident but another straw to a back that could break. When incidents happen over over and over again as the school year progresses yes it will lead to reactions that are not about what just happened but months of micro aggressions built up over time from multiple sources. And when we treat every drop in the bucket like it doesn’t matter because on its own it seems trivial we ignore the long term cost of these things. When we tell someone whose bucket is approaching full that the drops don’t matter we only feed there need to lash out. When we say words don’t matter or kids insulting each other is common and normal with no regard for the context the recipient lives in we invite that violence, we encourage it, we teach them that it’s the only way out. Kids will be kids, boys will be boys, that’s just life. Those are the sentences that pave the way to blood and hate.
‘sup? Hey, school nerd here. I wore glasses the size of bottle-bottoms, I had huge hair that I didn’t know how to clean (Nobody ever taught me properly), I’m borderline autistic, I carry a big book everywhere, and I look identical to Harry Potter, to the point people regularly mocked me by referencing me as that instead of my simpler name. I even picked my nose and sucked my thumb, habits I maintained until I was like…16? 17?
Kiten, you’re presenting other issues with your argument, as someone who was bullied, to the point of having to be ‘clever’ to avoid getting surrounded by people and beaten up on more then one occasion, by both students and teachers..It’s not just laughing at people being stupid. Bullying is insulting people, actively hunting them down, beating them, harassing them endlessly, finding excuses to harm them at all points in the day, constantly, unendingly trying to break a person. Now, me? I was a smart kid. I knew how to make a minefield or how to vanish into a crowd but fast when people were planning things, and I knew how to listen, but Amanda? She’s not one of the crowd of kids that’s constantly being bullied, this is an instance of people being mean.
And in an instance of people being mean? Yes, you want/need sympathy, but, frankly, she’s also been mean herself. And actions. Have. Consequences. Go figure. She’d been nice to Selkie for ages? Selkie’d probably be going out of her way to try to include her in the Docs’ lessons, and then they’d both get a lecture that it’s sorta a Selkie only thing.
And no, insulting/meanspirited laughing normalized do not lead to violence. I’m a radically pacifistic individual -because- hearing all of this stuff, hearing all of these people who think insulting me will make them feel better, etc etc? Because of all that? I understand -exactly- what physical harm can cost. What this stuff does is it makes a -target- for where your rage would want to go out. It’s not ‘microagressions’ that cause this sort of insanity, it’s macroagressions and poor parenting. The heavyweight stuff of a lack of proper parenting (Which Amanda has definitely lacked), poor teaching in regards to issues, and usually a more introverted personality (Letting out your emotions less often) can all combine to create the stereotypical school shooter.
Don’t belittle exactly how bad schools are for the outcasts and loners by pretending that it’s little things like this that make all the difference. All these little things do is encourage people to snap more at their ‘rival’ and create new little ‘clans’. This is honestly lightweight, Amanda’s also a lightweight though. Amanda might also discover here exactly how far out of her weight class she is physically though, because Sarnothi are REALLY friggin’ fast, and…they’re also predators. So….this may end up with Amanda in the hospital.
“School shootings do happen in other countries”
Indeed they do, but don’t think for a second that they occur at anywhere near the same rate as in the U.S. Trying to foist the difference off on simple “reporting” is willful ignorance at best.
No it’s called taking the time to educate myself on the subject. I didn’t claim they happened at the same rate just that you can’t compare them. Our statistics are highly inflated because there are lobby groups who use them for their own gain. Other countries not only don’t inflate them many of them don’t even keep tallies. It is almost impossible to even get a number with any degree of accuracy. They also may have other types of violence we don’t see as often. Kids are kids but how they act out can and does vary by culture and dead is dead. So making comparisons between the US and other countries to make any statement on the subject is a false flag. It does nothing to address the actual issues while waving a flag about how “terrible” the US is.
Decry the situation all you want, it is terrible. But please leave false comparisons out of the conversation. it doesn’t help anyone.
School violence is far more nuanced than most people realize. Hear me out.
The initial requirement is not guns or knives or anything like that. It’s time and pressure. School violence never ‘just happens’, it is always something that has been building up over years. Pressure that has been applied for as long as someone ‘remembers’, to the point where they can’t really recall anything else. What kind of pressure? Well, competition is a global constant, our species is just wired to compete. And when it’s children, well, they don’t know where the ‘too far’ lines are. So you get bullies, physical, psychological, verbal, every kind of approach to demean and belittle people. And if it’s not caught and corrected (either by ignorance or indifference), then kids learn that it is ‘accepted’. They see others doing it, and decide to do it themselves. But then tribalism kicks in, and a few unlucky souls get declared the ‘acceptable targets’, and every bully descends upon them. Worse still, adults can even magnify the impact by declaring these ‘acceptable targets’ as ‘troublemakers’ (as everything bad seems to happen around them), regardless of circumstance. You end up in a self-perpetuating cycle of persecution on one or two people that never ends, going on for years, from a role that was forced upon them.
But just having a kid in a pressure cooker isn’t all there is to this. There are also underlying principles of every society that get involved. These principles aren’t actually aimed at children, but the environment generally pushes these principles towards them, so the kids can learn and be ‘useful members of society’. They’re usually positive in isolation. Britain’s seems to be ‘hard work and resilience’. Japan has ‘obligation’. And the US leans towards ‘solve the problem’. There are, of course, less desirable elements of society that each also ends up pushing, not entirely intentionally but still pushing them hard. Britain, ‘don’t question your betters’. Japan, ‘blood’. US, ‘BLOW **** UP!’
Now take these factors together. Children who have been persecuted by everyone around them, feeling abandoned by ‘the system’, with these societal images forming their decision-making. What’s the result? In Britain, it’s a lot of depression, resentment, and hidden (and not so hidden) rebellion. Which actually keeps kids alive but also has resulted in the loss of very large chunks of territory over the last two-hundred-ish years. Heck, Scotland keeps muttering about leaving the union, the last big surge of it was only a few years ago. They’re still part of Britain, but the muttering will come back. Japan has a truly staggering suicide rate among teens and young adults, as obligation and blood merge into taking their own lives. Japan even has traditional sections of land where society expects suicides to happen, that’s something that takes centuries to become the ‘norm’.
And then there’s the US. What happens when kids try to solve their own problems, in a land where celebrations are literally about explosions? Gun availability doesn’t help, no, but it’s not really the cause. The cause is children getting relentlessly persecuted because the ‘tribe’ has decided they should be, mixed with an individual society’s interpretations on how to live life. This has been happening for most of our species’ lifespan, it’s only gotten so bad lately because of technology, both in terms of violence, and the spread of information.
If we want to actually solve this problem, then we’re going to have to stop forcing real people to suffer for the amusement of the community.
Damn, Sam! That was very well thought out.
Very well said.
I’m with Selkie, this is fun.
No sympathy for Amanda as… yea she really just wanted to use Tekh.
I am not happy with Amanda loosing her temper, every time she does it reenforces that behavior, making it harder for her to change.
While Mandy is the character I love to hate, my heart really goes out to her. Its King Lear (Princess Leary??) all over again!
Amanda was reading Dave’s early story outlines and thought she could hack the plot and become an earth bender.
Amanda won’t stop until she’s the Avatar itself.
She must think that Tehk can do the glowing eyes. Does she believe that *all* Sarnothi can do it? Obviously she doesn’t think it’s specific to Tehk, since she’s seen Selkie glow.
is an interesting question, maybe all sarnothi have a *tiny* echo ability. its never really been said they don’t, just that only a few can actually do anything with it.
but has anything ever been said as to if a human can tap into the echo things at all? find it hard to be believe the government would not have checked, but then again they plans for intergration were rushed so they may not have had much time. kind of curious if selkies adopted dad might not accidentally become the first human to awaken to echo abilities from being around selkie…. would be one more level of awkward for amanada if that happened.
we do know that their agent friend was able to see Then while wearing his cloaking field. but that could have just been from knowing what they are and what to look for though. but it does suggest humans can have some level of interaction with echo abilities.
Did Amanda deserve to be called out for trying to manipulate people?
Yes. Yes she did.
Are the kids going a bit overboard in the “justice” department?
Yes. Yes they are.
This isn’t going to end with the “bad guy” storming off screen and all the “good guys” laughing together, learning valuable life lessons, end credits. Because in the real world, the “bad guys” are people too. There are dire consequences to humiliating a person that prides themselves on being a manipulator. Those kids are not gonna like what happens next.
If Amanda throws a punch she’s in trouble. Heck she has a history of bullying and now there’s the species angle, if she “retaliates” for this percieved slight it’s gonna be hell for her.
Mockery and derision have their place- usually on the outer side of an airlock
I don’t think being mean is okay, even if Amanda is somewhat shallow and quick to anger. This is bullying. I feel bad for both of those girls. Selkie for learning that it is good to seek satisfaction by repeating the example she’s been given. Amanda for being subject to humiliation. There is no good news, here.
This is NOT bullying. This is a kid getting called out by her peers for sneaky, nasty behavior. She tried to play nice to the new kid to get something from him, and he figured it out. Given that Amanda has yet to face consequences for her actual persistent manipulation, name calling, and even physical attacks?
Mocking and laughing at someone and then calling your friend’s to mock, jeer and laugh at said person to further make fun of them is the very definition of bullying.
“Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate or aggressively dominate others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception, by the bully or by others, of an imbalance of social or physical power, which distinguishes bullying from conflict.”
Thank you.
Does this mean Amanda is going to up her game?
No sympathy at all for Amanda here. She got called out hard, her “plan” blew up in her face, and I never thought I would enjoy the frustration of a fictional child quite this much.
In all honesty, I don’t know what to make of this situation. This could either end badly or not… But what I’m more curious about is WHY Amanda is wanting to learn about the eye glowing in the first place. Up until recently, she never seemed interested in the eye glowing.
Surprised? Yes.
Interested? Not so much.
Is she wanting to one up Selkie? Is she seeking attention? Or is she hoping to learn magic because it’s cool? Or even to get the Sarnothi students on her side?
The motivation is not clear to me. It seems weird that Amanda is taking interest NOW rather than back when Selkie revealed her eyes to her.
I dunno. Maybe the next page will explain something.
I had to go back and reread the lunchroom scene but Amanda wasn’t shown to be in the near vicinity so she probably didn’t see or hear that Tehk was freaking out about as much as everyone else was. Word probably got back to her and she might’ve figured out that Selkie was the one who was glowing. But she had no reason to suspect that Selkie and Pohl, the one other Sarnothi she’s met more than once until now and who she knows is giving Selkie lessons are special cases among their people.
Sooo…Amanda made some assumptions and decided she wanted a piece of the ‘magic’ action too after she saw and heard so many of her classmates going on about how cool the whole thing was. The comparison made above between Amanda and Aunt Petunia from Harry Potter was an apt one.
Amanda might not have had the best motives, but she was a human who was acting nice. Tehk might regret laughing at the one human who was willing to try to be his friend, even if Amanda doesn’t get violent.
Also, violence aside, aren’t there some very mean things Amanda could say? Things Selkie and Tehk definitely wouldn’t want her to say? Nobody is thinking ahead here. Kids will be kids, I guess.
Glad someone else caught this. The worst thing she could say is the one thing she doesn’t realize is the worst:
She could just whine about why Selkie has the glowing eyes and she can’t.
Within earshot of EVERYONE in the room.
Including Tehk and Tae Fahn, and all of Selkie’s friends who can confirm it.
Because she already knows Selkie can do it.
Because no one told her that Selkie’s power is supposed to be a secret.
She can easily get revenge without even trying just by letting her jealousy take over.
Friend? Not. She was after him to use him. It was the standard manipulative behavior she displays, sadly. Look at how ahe treats her “friends” Heather and Keisha. Minions at best. It’s quite sad.
Give Amanda this much, though: Whining is not her style.
Was she though? Doesn’t seem like the “friendship”’ would have lasted beyond finding out she can’t be taught magic.