Tetherball: For when you need to fill the space by punching something.
Originally had both parents with brown hair until I realized it would make more sense for Tehk's mother to resemble Te Fahn's side of the family.
Tetherball: For when you need to fill the space by punching something.
Ouch.
Yeah, Selkie, good honest reaction and probably the best one. He very clearly does not want a pitty party or touchy feels. Just flat this is what happened. Let’s go hit things.
“This is what happened. Let’s go hit things.” It’s kind of a shame that when you get much past the age they are now, this seems to be less of a viable option.
They’re both processing what the other one told them, and this seems to be a rational response.
That was supposed to be a reply to Rc. I’m not sure why it didn’t work that way.
Hitting things that are not meant to be hit (like walls and other people) in NOT a thing to carry into adulthood. Pillows, punching bags, etc are just fine. Best to do it unobserved if possible. Trust me, I know. 🤔
Oh, I agree! But the kids are talking about tetherball, and it made me realize a couple things. 1) I loved playing tetherball; and 2) I haven’t played it since I was about the age these kids are in the comic.
I miss the therapeutic hitting of things.
Which is why hitting things that are meant to be hit- like tether balls or racket balls- is the better habits to carry over. Points for giving the warning about playing to win, nothing personal.
My friend was murdered 6 years ago. I have never been one to hit things as an outlet (I may have thrown soft things at the ground a few times, but never hit things) but the feels I felt that day… were very ragey-smashy. I took a stick and beat the crap out of some trees in my sister’s backyard, then chopped one of them down (they were half dead and in the process of being removed anyway). It channeled the rage into something at least semi-useful and allowed the exhaustion and deep sadness to surface so the grief could be processed appropriately. I agree though that it is best to do something like that either unobserved, or as in my case, in a safe environment like my sister’s house- watched over by someone who knew me, knew what I was going through, knew that HULKSMASH is not a normal setting, and could keep me from injuring myself in the process.
Ahh cool, so Tehk and Te Fahn are cousins? Hope he realizes how lucky he is to have Any family left, Selkie only ever knew her mother.
Yeah, selkie figured that out when they first met, and she picked up a few sarnothi words from their conversation… “Father brother” was tehk’s guardian.
Yeah, they were previously established as cousins when Te Fahn requested Selkie to not echo zap her cousin, or something like that… I remember George being there and apologized about bad mouthing her cousin when she said he kinda deserves it sometimes. I think that’s what she said…
And this was meant to be a reply to Blue Coyote…I think reply on phone is wonky right now.
Ah right, I sorta forgot that part (also sort of assumed it was like NDN culture where everyone calls each other cousin).
NDN?
One oddity of southeastern US culture (or maybe just the people I grew up around) is that kids often refer to their parents’ friends as “Uncle/Aunt Firstname”. Looser acquaintances tend to be “Mr/Ms Firstname”.
Based on the disambiguation page, probably Indian (as in Native American).
NDN= Indian; Native Americans/First Nations peoples.
(But we didn’t actually refer to each other as cousins, unless we actually were.)
I’m originally from Oklahoma, where a large number of tribes were force-marched on the various Trails of Tears and shoved together. People always called anyone your own age cousin and anyone older aunt/uncle.
So wait…basically the blind mom said something and didn’t know they were there? That’s screwed up!
That’s, uh, borderline Darwin award.
It seems that Tehk’s mom knew there were people there, based on his remark that she didn’t know “who they were,” – it seems that she just figured they were random or regular customers, and didn’t know they were Sar’Teri because she couldn’t see them. On account of being blind. And not being able to see anything.
Which means we can add, “they’re ableist,” to the list of reasons why the current Sar’Teri regime sucks.
And now, I must have some eel.
Wouldn’t he have yelled to swim?
Fair point. Maybe the word he yelled was more equivalent to “run” and there’s not a direct translation. “Swim fast!” would sound kind of silly in this conversation and doesn’t quite cut it anyway.
I don’t know what Dave could’ve used instead. Maybe “Get out!”?
“Fly, you fools!” could have been cute, if only for the literary reference, but would have been unnatural coming from Tehk, unless it was established he read Human novels.
“Flee” is generally a good option, but not one that I can see coming from an eight-year-old’s mouth.
After this terribly sad story, does anyone else really fancy some jellied eels?
No, not really. And I recall reading that a lot of people don’t, so it’s weird to me it’s as popular as it is. Like the mystery that is Surströmming.
All the more for me!
I know what you mean about Surströmming, though. The smell suggests someone’s already tried to digest it…
I think that some bacteria already has. Technically the same thing with cheese and other fermented stuff (alcohols, yeast).
Interesting– not appetising, but interesting!
Now you mention it, the smell is rather like parmesan cheese.
“The strömming used for surströmming are caught just prior to spawning and the fermentation starts from a lactic acid enzyme in the spine of the fish which releases pungent smelling acids as well as hydrogen sulphide!” Cheese is made using different types of lactic acid bacteria, so a similar thing. Wine and other alcohols use yeast. There is also acetic acid fermentation and fermentation in soy sauce. It is rather interesting. I still find fermented meat and fish weird though.
But nothing quite beats the Roman garum, eh?
I actually haven’t heard of that before. I did have a roommate put kimchi in our shared fridge in a non-airtight container and it ruined everything in the fridge and freezer basically. It even overpowered my mint flavored ice cream, making it taste like the kimchi smelled, which is impressive since mint is a strong flavor.
I hope his parents are not dead; well, they could be prisoner, trapped, but still alive…
It might be nice to someday learn that they do survive, and Selkie’s mom was the one who rescued them since that seems to be the sort of thing Plo Quar would do if she could.
“It’s fine. I’d aims for your head too.”
Somehow it never twigged to me that Tehk was actually related to Te Fahn. When her parents came to pick them up from school, I just thought that it was her mom and his uncle who knew each other from being refugees together, not her dad that’s also his uncle.