That would be Amanda rolling a 1 on her Insight check.
Drawing Process VOD on Twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1123649766
-EDIT-
I’ve changed the dialogue in panels 3 and 4 based on reader feedback on the tonal appropriateness and undesired implications. You all were in the right on that one.
↓ Transcript
JESSIE: I'm sorry, it's just, you ran away so fast, and I WAS gonna go but that felt crappy, and I wanted to make sure things were okay and...
AMANDA: Waaaiiit...
AMANDA: You can't fool me. I know why you're REALLY here.
JESSIE: I'm so sorry.
ANDI: Jess, I--
AMANDA: YOU'RE GIVING ME EXTRA HOMEWORK!
ANDI (VO): Amanda!!
JESSIE (VO): WHAT?!?! NO! I was on a date with your mom!
ANDI (VO): Jessie!!
SELKIE: Dad, is this goings to be one of those nights where things keep happening, ands it feels like it lasts for three months?
TODD: Always has been.
AMANDA: Waaaiiit...
AMANDA: You can't fool me. I know why you're REALLY here.
JESSIE: I'm so sorry.
ANDI: Jess, I--
AMANDA: YOU'RE GIVING ME EXTRA HOMEWORK!
ANDI (VO): Amanda!!
JESSIE (VO): WHAT?!?! NO! I was on a date with your mom!
ANDI (VO): Jessie!!
SELKIE: Dad, is this goings to be one of those nights where things keep happening, ands it feels like it lasts for three months?
TODD: Always has been.
Oops
I am laughing as I type this. Oh, lordy.
“Always has been.”
Thanks so much for this one, Dave! <3
A bit of brushing up against the fourth wall there.
“Brushing up against” it?
Heck my friend, Selkie and Todd all but punched in the drywall, pulled out the rockwool, and rewired the electrical cabling.
Rockwool? haven’t heard that one before, I assume you mean insulation, likely fibreglass?
Rockwool is a brand of artificial fiber insulation.
Well, mineral or ceramic wool. Glass has a lower melting point, before Owens, Corning, Pink Panther themed adverts took over the market, rock wool, spun from melted down slag and other stuff, was spin like cotton candy for insulation. Wikipedia has a lot of good into on this product invented in like 1840
In many ways, rockwool is a superior insulation product. It has a higher R-value per inch compared to fiberglass, about a 22-37% higher R-value. It contains 70% recycled material, making it a greener product than fiberglass at 20-30% recycled material.. With a density over three times that of fiberglass, mineral wool has superior sound-deadening properties. The stiffer batts don’t tend to flop over as easily as fiberglass, making it easier to put in place, and they don’t require staples or wire to keep them in place. It’s hydrophobic, so it won’t absorb water or encourage the growth of mold and mildew. Mineral wool is also very fire resistant and can act as a fire stop.
Drywall? No, the fourth wall is made of cake.
for an architect, Todd should really be paying more attention to the fourth wall.
Small 4th wall break here, nothing to see. Move along, move along.
Did she roll a 1 on her insight check or did she pull a master trick in getting her to admit that Jessie is dating Andi?
What? I think its been obvious the entire time that Amanda likely inherited her father’s intelligence and growing up around Selkie probably gave her some ingenuity. At that age she likely knew that if she straight out asked “Hey, are you dating my mom?” She’d never get a straight answer, how ever if she said something that sounds stupid like “Hey, do you have a crush on me?” with someone like Jessie who is crap at keeping secrets… Well here ya go.
Prepare for long girls talk between Andi and Amanda… maybe with a chime in from Selkie. Todd likely ducking out to try to stay out of the drama llama. Though he might just suggest to the lot of them to come into the living room to not have this scene happening right at his front door anymore.
Let’s see how Andi deals with this. I think not too well by the look of her clenching her fist in the last comic and her facial expressions in this one.
She’s either going to have an outburst (wonder where Amanda got her anger issues from?) or she’s going to be saved by Todd AGAIN so she can have her outburst in moderate privacy, or she somehow manages to count to 10 and just say “we’ll talk about this in the morning”.
It’s not Jessie’s fault: she certainly lacks the experience of dealing with situations like this where you feel like just leaving is wrong but forcing a meeting with “the kid” is also wrong.
With my experience, I would’ve texted “I’m gonna leave so you can do your thing. x”
On the other hand, why would Andi show up WITH Jessie to pick up Amanda, and then be mad about her still being there… it’s not like they were called by Todd “You gotta come get Amanda NOW”
Yeah, with you there. I really thought it was the emergency call thing – but that just doesn’t make sense at this point. Maybe the plan was to walk to the door together then go their separate ways, and the plan got derailed by the drama?
Neither of them lives there: it’s Todd’s appartment building, not Andi and Jessie’s. So that doesn’t work either.
Let’s hope Dave doesn’t keep us in suspense too long.
She gets them from Todd. It was shown that he was a very violent kid when he was younger and that he had anger issues just like Amanda. I’m sure Todd was someone’s bully as a kid too.
Somehow, I think Todd was the kid that stood up to the bullies even though he never won a fight.
Might as well admit it NOW. Amanda’s prior guess would get you fired.
Incidentally, it feels really weird that, although Amanda correctly identified Jessie’s behavior as crush-motivated, she assumed it was directed it at *herself* rather than at, say, Todd. The notion of a child – particularly one who, like Amanda, has a history as a victim of abuse – assuming herself to be the target of romantic interest from an adult… it hints at directions in which I really, really don’t think you intend the story to be going.
I remember nights like this. Back then the best solution was to close and lock the dorm room door and take the phone off the hook.
This was hard to read as a queer person. I work in a school, and the idea of a student accusing me of having a crush on them is sickening and humiliating. The fact that the accusation is baseless just depresses me more – just goes to show a lot of students and parents are less likely to trust queer people around children. This is exactly why I’m not out at work. I’m sad that’s the first place Amanda’s mind went to, and it’s hard not to take it personally.
Yeah, teacher’s worst nightmare. So often any kindness, or extra attention can be misunderstood by staff, other students, and the kid themselves. Filthy minded parents projecting extra concern for a kid’s undiagnosed problem for “interest.” It is just the worst.
Heh…. Can someone check to see if the Fourth Wall is still intact? 🙂
Mmm is it a full nat 1 though? She got the subject right, just not the target it IS about romantic feelings which do make people awkward, and since no one is immediately asy about Jess being here and she isn’t supposed to be so far it’s good Amanada noticed this. I grant it a roll of 5 of 20 at most, personally. Definitely not an UBER HIGH roll for that bull-in-chinashop approach and astronomical miscalculation of gravitude. But some aspects are correct, and it’s not entirely baseless. If still completely untrue.
I respect those above that ache to hear this against a queer person and might know other situations where it was not warrented, such happens unfortunately too much. So let’s be a little CLEARER:
that this page is VERY MUCH in a suspicious context. Amanda didn’t know she came with Andi. Jessie had a very suspicious smile in the last page while making the subject Amanda. She is not old or wary enough to be suspicious in all directions at once. Amanda, also having implicitly gotten a few stranger danger and queer folk talks from her QUEER MOTHER Andi, knows only that being a girl does not disqualify you from girl-crushes nor from being “evil”, which be clear, IS CORRECT and NOT BIAS. You, further, don’t have to be either queer nor evil to pose a potential or percieved threat to a child, small and aware of it that they are. Jessie here is supposed to be in her MOTHER’S appartment building, NOT her dad’s. This is NOT where Jess is typically “supposed to be,” making her “out of place” and being thus, a little “stranger danger” IN THE CONTEXT.
1+2+3=6 and change, not 1+2=fish. It’s NOT out of nowhere. And it’s very much NECESSARY AND GOOD for Amanda to have that type of awareness. It’s just unfortunate, because of course it’s definitely not true.
(Tbh i think Jessie handled it well too, considering. I would just have screamed, wordlessly then “nuuuuuuuuu no way!” It very much would not have helped. I am not a patient teacher in training.)
I give her credit for basic deduction and having noticed the reappearance of someone in entirely different locations and suspecting being followed. WHEN the subject was her and WHEN her mother is glaring and every adult around is wary or nervous about it. That’s another aspect. Her mother is not relaxed. That’s big to a kid who’s just got a mother and is still very enamored and adjusting.
Look I do understand the pain but it is NOT out of nowhere. And this shows healthiness, not in fact, the baggage you and I both carry. I had to think about it before I got passed your very same reaction. But really, it’s good. It’s just definitely a loaded subject. Look, she and Selkie are what, 9ish? She’s in the presence of her parents and feeling safe, and is processing two different, one confusing and one alarming ideas and trying to see if they fit together here. It’s a little natural for Amanda to be confused.
Now hopefully Amanda doesn’t have any experience with adults “crushing on her” or I shall have to go into “crusher mode” >:|
WOOT!
Amazing.
Love the last panel.