Amanda don’t hit people, but especially don’t hit people built like weightlifters and carrying robot arms.
Today's edition of the Secret Commentary is empty, because Dave failed to come up with something for it.
Amanda don’t hit people, but especially don’t hit people built like weightlifters and carrying robot arms.
Seeing this new protective side of Amanda is awesome, and heartwarming!
Stupid onion chopping ninjas…
I know there is unlikely any way of selecting ads, or the location of it on the webpage, but you should know that below your comment is an ad for child karate classes for me, and I thought Dave had responded to you with a img file
Ugh, I need to figure out why the mobile pages slap ads right between the comments.
Haha! My ad-blocker pretty much keeps all that stuff out, I never saw it.
AND my question about eggs is answered.
I like the way Amanda is — improving? “She’s my sister. I might not like her, but she’s my sister, and nobody is allowed to screw with her but me. Somebody did something to her? I’ll go punch their lights out. NOBODY is allowed to screw with her but ME!”
“Nobody breaks my toys but me.”
She really is Selkie’s big sister. <3
I think that some people get so far on the side of nonaggression that they fail to appreciate the positive forms of aggression. Such as defending the weak/innocent from those who would do them harm. So yes, this is improvement, and it is heartwarming, especially how quickly Amanda came up with it, even while sleep-deprived.
…although perhaps the sleep deprivation is the only reason that her filters are off.
Aggression and violence is a tool. Excluding it can be just as bad as making it your go to. We must all recognize that violence can sometimes be your only option, and people should also recognize that other people have that option as well.
On a side note I want to mention that people who act like assholes because they feel protected from violence are just as bad as the violent themselves. Basically it is two situations of people ignoring social norms for their own befit because they feel there will be no repercussions or they will be minimal. Both of these kinds of people show a horrible lack of empathy and consideration for other people which is a trait of narcissism and antisocial behavior.
Okay I will get off my soapbox now.
….you’re giving me hope that Amanda is actually improving.
Unexpected wisdom is unexpected; “I take out the trash on Tuesday, and Im good.” She and Selkie are just kids. She doesn’t know about Selkie’s “calling” but even Amanda knows you don’t expect a CHILD to do anything majorly important…
Also, just as an aside… Could Selkie handle vegan cheese, or does it have to be made with real dairy? I’m guessing it’s gotta be real cheese but, sometimes vegan stuff tastes real.
That’s about how me and my sister get along.
Whoops, wrong comment. That was supposed to go to the one above…
It is so awesome to see Amanda switch around from picking on Selkie to being protective of her instead, that is some character growth!
I don’t think vegan cheese would work for her, it isn’t about the taste it’s about what it is made of and Sarnothi can’t handle plants other than as like tea. And just as a personal note- vegan cheese doesn’t pass the dog test. I’m lactose intolerant and I tried some vegan cheese once and found it too gross to eat so I thought I would feed it to my dog with her pill. She ate the pill and spat out the cheese.
EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! Amanda acting like a big sister is truly a welcome change! I remember back a few years ago when a guest comic showed them going into middle school and Amanda saying she had Selkie’s back and it’s to see that their relationship is heading that way!!!!! So looking forward to the first time someone tries to bully Selkie and Amanda stands up for her saying “Hey, that’s my sister and no one pushes her around, except me!!”
You left the apostrophe out of “I’m” in the last frame. “Im good”.
“Amanda, don’t hit people”:
Advice or command to Amanda.
“Amanda don’t hit people”:
Assertion about Amanda, that she is the type of person who doesn’t hit people, but said in a particular register that many people consider to be substandard English. As I understand it, it’s an intensifier, much like “ain’t”:
Plain: “I’m not doing it.”
Intensified: “I ain’t doin’ it.”
Plain: “Amanda doesn’t eat liver.”
Intensified: “Amanda don’t eat liver.”
Anyway, that’s how much difference a stray comma can make — turn a sentence into practically its opposite: Is Amanda the type of person who hits people (and needs to be advised against it) or emphatically not that type of person?
Ah, the quirks of language.
Oh, hey! Ain’t English grand?
Try Lojban, works much better as a language.
Languages are fascinating, yeah ^_^
I recall my impression of Lojban being “interesting thought experiment, not useful for humans trying to speak normally.” I vaguely recall that it had gotten pared down to the point where there was no room for “fuzz” — where every single piece was important to the understanding of the whole — which eliminates a key feature of human languages. Srsly, we need some level of “fuzz” to be able to operate in a multiple-levels-of-lossy medium, which is why human languages developed all manner of redundancies.
Which, I suppose, ought to make me reconsider the use of punctuation in the wild. If a stray piece of punctuation can completely change the nature of the communication, maybe it’s a flaw, not a net benefit. But then, we rarely interpret these things out of context, and I knew exactly what was intended by the sentence.
I grew up a Prescriptivist, but somewhere during college (when I had only a handful of languages under my belt) I turned into a Descriptivist. I still have a number of Prescriptivist tendencies, though, and a bit of a mechanics pedant in me. Studying fifty-ish languages has reduced that problem, but not eliminated it.
But then, there’s something to be said for helping people to achieve the register they’re after. The little distinctions in mechanics change which register you’re conveying, which may or may not be the one you intend to convey. “Ain’t” is a perfectly fine word to use, but in some registers it marks you as an outsider or lesser.
(To clarify: Using a “substandard” word in a register that doesn’t allow for them (academic papers, job applications, etc.) marks you as someone who is *incapable of* using the correct word, rather than *making a conscious choice* to use a word most others in that register avoid. So it sends a message beyond merely the one you are communicating with the strict meaning of your words, and it may be a message that you wish to avoid.)
Yeah, in a college setting with many exchange students, one sees the native speakers using words like gonna, ain’t, and lemme, and correcting the flat-land feriners when they use that correctly. Like really, WTF.
I love the Kilroy impression Amanda is doing in the third panel. Made me smile, along with her protect-her-sister comment.
This is very interesting, a female character expressing a character conflict that is very typically male, this fear of having a monster inside you and hurting others.
There’s lots of portrayals of it, like werewolves being a metaphor for puberty (growing hair in strange places, uncontrollable emotions). Edward Scissorhands is also a very clear metaphor, this young guy who is afraid of hurting anything he touches because his hands are literally made of blades.
It’s not typically something girls go through, though it makes sense with Selkie’s powers and family history.
Not sure where you’re getting that it’s such a gendered experience, something that’s not common among girls as well. I’ve heard similar lived experiences from people of a variety of genders. I tend to worry about being “poison” myself.
…now I’m curious how things play out in the media. In films and TV shows, are characters who have this “internal monster fear” male more often than characters in general are male? Which female examples can we point to?
Off the top of my head, I can recall many tortured vampire types, but female vampires tend to embrace the role rather than feel bad about it… at least, in my experience.
River Tam and River Song immediately leap to mind.
I’ve been thinking that Elsa from Frozen is also a bit like that, what with her hurting her sister with her powers at first. They kinda move on from that though, and her whole storyline is interpreted more as fear of rejection, of being different (and the consequent embracing of that difference).
I never meant to say it’s NEVER an experience girls have, just that it’s more rare, and even more rarely portrayed.
I think maaybe a lot of it is that girls are on average portrayed as physically weaker- they don’t usually have to worry about killing someone in a fistfight for example. Elsa, River Tam, Selkie, all have in common that their power is magical in nature (or at least supernatural telepathy)
How to sell Amanda on having a sister: now she has a legitimate excuse to hit EVEN MORE people!
I love how open and specific she is about this.
“What happened and who do I get to hit?”
That one sentence hit me in the feels like a freight train. Just to think of the evolution of their relationship over time. It’s a well-written line and a culmination of excellent writing over the years. Kudos to you!
I like the difference in personalities between Amanda and Selkie. Selkie can be a brat sometimes but deep down shes a good person while Amanda deep down is… not a good person but can control herself to act good. It is an interesting dynamic, Selkie is afraid she’ll become a bad person while Amanda tries her hardest to become and stay good.