(Beta WIP)
Patch notes for 2-3-2015:
In an effort to incentive risk-reward and player interaction, we’ve made some balance changes to Flashbacks for this upcoming patch.
Cartoony Illustration Speech bubbles have been dominating competitive play a bit too highly, so we’re removing their presence from Flashback Mode (please note that this does not apply to situations where the Big ‘Ol Cuss Word buff is in effect. While BOCW is in effect, Cartoony Illustration Speech Bubbles will remain enhanced to 100% presence). To compensate for these changes, Flashbacks will receive a 100% buff to Text Dialogue Speech Bubbles.
Also we’re nerfing Shaman and Irelia because why not.
I need to practice drawing biscotti. This is a thing I've learned about myself.
Hoooooooo boy, seems Mom doesn’t remember. But we do!
So Todd knew she was pregnant this changes things but only a bit. Her mother still has a point this better be about Amanda and not Todd otherwise she’s still doing this for all the wrong reasons.
The flashback clearly showed Todd did know about the pregnancy; but he was told the baby didn’t make it. Andra’s Mom encouraged her to give it up for adoption and they didn’t need to tell Todd since ya’know Father’s rights are kinda shit in terms of the legal system. From what the word balloons inferred, Andra was worried Todd wouldn’t want to give the baby up or something to that degree, so Ma brought up technically she didn’t need to tell him the truth since; well again Father’s rights didn’t matter so says the system.
^^ all of that. Went through the archive trying to find the flashback, but to no avail (I remembered it, but I wanted to be able to link or something for easy reference)
Did find Andi’s awesome “adopting a kid is like being a babysitter” bit though (fuuuuun)
I linked the flashback with the refresher strips yesterday.
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie193/
Although, yeah, it seems to be a victim of missed tags. >_<
could you do me (us) a favor and clarify what EXACTLY went on in at least panel five of that flashback? i ree-read all the comments on that page, and most people seem to thik that Todd was stuck at class and then in traffic… to me it looks like he was at the ceiwing window for the hospitals maternity ward looking for the crib the kid is in and can’t find her, then wondering about when they can take her home, and then the two question marks are his questions to Andi about how she and the baby are… i think i got it wrong, but…
Looks like he’s apologizing for being late.
“I was stuck at the check-out line in the supermarket, traffic jam on the way over here. But I’m here now. Where’s the baby?”
[b]EDIT:[/b]” How are you? How is the baby?”
If you check out the comments under the flashback, Dave already clarifies this. Todd was late. The mom talked Andi (who didn’t want the baby) into adopting out the baby, the doctor takes the baby away, and then Andi tells Todd (who apologizes for being late) that the baby is dead.
You know, even with the hint, and a mention in the notes afterwards… I had not until this point put together that Todd was the baby daddy.
I’m not saying YOU dropped the ball on making it clear, necessarily, but just asking you not to make the assumption everyone picked up on it. Actually the people who “got it” quicker probably appreciate that it wasn’t so easy. Pride and such. 😛
Yeah i’m an idiot. For some reason I didn’t think that was Todd in the flashback.
Don’t feel bad, you aren’t the only one.
It was the hair… And it’s not like we had a photo to go by, just a picture drawn, and kinda small.
He knew and was willing to support her. Andi’s Mom suggested giving the baby up and lied about Amanda dying. Andi is super fucked up and completely in the wrong.
Andi’s mom urged her to give the baby up for adoption. Andi lying to Todd about the baby dying is all on her, though. She lied to Todd to avoid dealing with his reaction over her putting their baby up for adoption without including him in that decision… and now she seems to think that if she magically produces their child, she can get him back. She’s trying to reclaim Amanda for all the wrong reasons.
…I meant Andi. -_- And that’s a disgusting reason. A really disgusting one that probably made him grieve for no reason. She’s a selfish little jerk. And doesn’t deserve Todd.
It’s a disgusting reason. And yes, she’s selfish. But I’m having a hard time outright hating her. She’s not malicious she’s just young. And even younger when she found herself in that position. She let her mother convince her that everyone would be better off if she put the baby up for adoption – and 8 years ago, that was probably true if this is what she’s still like now. I get the feeling that she really hasn’t changed much in 8 years, and Todd has. Part of her reason for wanting to get Amanda back, I think, is to prove to Todd that she has grown up over the last 8 years and is a responsible person now. She’s still broken. And I’ve learned that Dave sets us up to hate someone only to redeem that character in some way later.
She is just young?! I am sorry but maintaining a lie like that for 8 fucking years is not excusable by saying she was just young. Just young doesn’t even excuse her from falling pregnant! I started being sexually active at 15 you know what I did I went and got a fucking contraceptive implant. (the kind they stick in your arm and last 3 years) Did that by myself at that age because I did not want a baby. It took two trips to the doctor, one to decide the type of contraceptive I wanted and one to put the damn thing in. Didn’t even have to tell my mom about it. At the end of the day she made her choices and while many of them can be reasonably forgiven, not excused forgiven, with her age, the lie to Todd can not
to me it seems like she lied BOTH WAYS… as we know from the flash back she told Todd one lie, that the baby died…
But, from her comment today, about remembering correctly, it ALSO looks like she told HER MOM a SECOND lie: that Todd had Freaked out and was so totally against having the baby at ALL, (vice the reality that he WANTED the baby and cared about BOTH of them as per the 5th panel. notice Andi’s MOM isn’t there) such that her mom came up with the compromise idea of adoption in order to save ANDI from being resented by Todd for KEEPING the baby… my reasoning: in today’s panel it seems that her mom is under the mistaken impression that Andi TOLD HIM that she gave her up for adoption and that he was fine with that at the time, and could have found her in the last eight years too, but DIDN’T, so it’s OBVIOUS that he DOESN’T care about Amanda enough to do so… if THAT’S what occurred, sheesh that’s COLD Andi, COLD… truly selfish and messed up… it seems as though she’s turning “having a kid” into a Tit-for-Tat one-upsmanship GAME, and that right now Todd is “winning” and Andi doesn’t like that… it’s not that she seems to REALLY care about Amanda AS AMANDA The Person, just that “Todd has a kid, so “I” need one TOO” kind of thing.
on another subject: Sure Todd was a “bad male” for NOT being there at the birth if he “could have been there”, but there were probably extenuating circumstances… like the possibility that he might NOT have even been TOLD AT ALL that she was going into the hospital, until MUCH later in the process (probably at schools attendance roll call when it came out that “Oh yeah, she’s not here today because she’s in the hospital giving birth… why do you ask…?” more than likely because they kept WHO the father was secret from the school faculty, so they DIDN’T LET him leave AFTER he showed up, (for no apparent reason mind you, since they didn’t know HE was the father)), and when he DID find out… then at that point he truly WAS “stuck” through the whole school day and unable to get away until after it was over, then the traffic jam afterwards… so don’t blame him TOO hard. again, if this IS what happened, i would kinda still blame Andi… i mean why wasn’t he one of the FIRST people told about her going to the hospital?
Nine months is a long time to go from “Crap, I don’t want a baby” to “I’ll take my responsibilities and I’ve grown to accept the fact I’m becoming a father”
OR, that’s the lie that she told her mom… you do notice that in the cartoon style flashbacks, that the Mom and Todd are NOT in the same frame at the same time, only being TALKED ABOUT?
I have been in Todd’s shoes for that matter.
When I was 21 my girlfriend (19) got pregnant, and we both freaked out: “What are we gonna do?”
Luckily my path didn’t lead to this, but I had nine months to come to terms with what happened. And now I’m the father of a 10 year old son. We’re not together anymore, his mom and I… but yeah: we both took our responsibilities.
I don’t think Andi lied to her mom at all. I think over the last 8 years her mom has carefully edited her own memories, and now believes that:
1. Todd was the villain who got her daughter in trouble,
2. she was the virtuous mother who saved the day and found a solution, and…
3. why OF COURSE Todd was told, but he didn’t care, why would he? Irresponsible young punk!
As for why Andi is looking for Amanda now, after all these years… I think it’s complicated. Not as simple as ‘I can get him back if I…’ I think the lie to Todd ate at her the whole time. Some people are hating on her because she didn’t confess… but it was too big a lie. She couldn’t. She was scared to.
And then the pending disaster that kept her lips sealed happened anyway., BECAUSE she’d been holding that secret in all this time, BECAUSE she was in such a false position, the breakup was nastier and more painful than she’d even imagined.
The worst has already happened. Now she is picking herself up and realizing she doesn’t have to lie any more. And there’s a small person in the world that she’s been letting down. She needs to stop doing that. She can’t ever make it right, but maybe… maybe now she can try to make it less wrong.
Contraception fails. If it worked perfectly I wouldn’t be here.
Then you have young people who are misinformed and believe BS like “You can’t get pregnant the first time you have sex” or have no idea about effective contraception due to being told to just not do it.
Yeah, it should be noted that we have no idea what their sex ed teaching was like. From what I can find, Michigan in 2000 was not federally required to teach sex ed or include contraceptives, though it did have to mention abstinence. I’m guessing the date, but the point stands that we have no idea what exactly they were taught.
“Just young” is bad phrasing on my part. I should have said “immature” or “irresponsible” or maybe “selfish.” If there’s a word that implies all of that, it is escaping me at the moment. I’ve known some incredibly responsible “children” and some very self-centered, irresponsible “adults.” Point being is that she’s still in that kind of emotional state, and 8 years ago it was probably even worse.
She literally didn’t tell him that she gave up the baby. Told him that the baby died. That’s SICK and seriously wrong. Then she says shit about Selkie to Todd’s face. Now she SUDDENLY wants Amanda back?
She gonna lie again and tell her that her Dad made her give her up? Or tell the truth? Because something tells me that Andi couldn’t tell the truth if her life depended on it.
You may be right. I kind of hope not, but she does have a history of lying, so I guess we’ll have to see where Dave takes this arc.
I’m gonna go a little bit more lenient about maintaining the lie for 8 years. Because it’s far easier to let people continue to think the same thing than to man up and tell them the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
I’ve experienced my share of forces that make the status quo much easier than rocking the boat. And once you’ve gotten yourself into a lie, it takes a lot of character to get yourself back out. Especially over a big issue like this.
So I’m more troubled by Andi’s initial lie than by her inability to tell Todd the truth later on… kind of like the difference between starting to push a car down a hill and then deciding that having the car going downhill is a bad thing and trying to stop it: Once it’s going it takes a lot more effort to stop it than it took to get it going to begin with.
She didn’t fucking tell her Mother that she told Todd the baby died? Andi is such a fuck up. I can’t feel sorry for her. She’s despicable.
Honestly, you’d think that this far into Dave’s comic you’d know that even the most flawed characters rarely have bad or evil or “despicable” intentions. Not saying anything she did was right, but I think we owe it to Dave’s writing and characters to give them time to grow.
Telling someone that wanted to support her and their child that the baby died is beyond that. Especially when she demonized Todd to her own Mother. So yeah,Andi doesn’t deserve redemption.
I’m kinda’ hoping Amanda puts Andi in her place…
A child isn’t a punishment. Don’t make her out to be one.
i think what Sierra J meant was that if Andi met with Amanda, that Amanda would go ballistic and SHAME Andi into submission because Amanda was basically DUMPED… not just once (by the people that originally adopted her, and thus the only “mom n dad” that she really knew about (we think)), but now she finds out that she got dumped TWICE!!! once by Andi, and THEN by the other people!!!
and BOY Oh BOY is she gonna be PISSED at Selkie!… once she finds out that Todd is her REAL Dad… and she’s gonna take it out on Andi, because she’s the closest one to her at that time…
She would deserve it and more.
erm, people with andi’s issues aren’t born that way, somebody broke her. andi saying her mother isn’t remembering right is a pretty big clue…maybe because that’s exactly how my mother is. she remembers things how she wants to, not as to how they actually happened…and always in a way that means she doesn’t have to take responsibility for her own screw ups. if andi’s mother can demonize todd, well, then she doesn’t have to accept responsibility for the part she played in the fiasco. it’s all his fault. that’s actually what i like about this comic, the dysfunctionalism is true to life and not glossed over.
He was WILLING to support Andi and the baby. Andi lied to him and made him unnecessarily mourn. She’s despicable and a horrid human being.
I think when Rye said “it’s all his fault,” it was referring to the perception of Andi’s mother.
^ exactly. people like my mother irl and andi’s mother in comic put their own twist on things. for example, in the long and ago, my brother backed into my friend’s car one day when she picked me up for work. obviously my brother’s fault for not checking right? (not even a big deal, it was only a minor fender bender on private property.) but no, that was all my fault according to her. mine because i wasn’t ready to leave when my friend showed up even though my friend showed up half an hour early because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to find our place. same thing here, on a more life shattering note. according to andi’s mother this is todd’s fault because he didn’t want the baby. which obviously bears no real resemblance to the truth. it’s her own twisted and manipulative spin to justify herself when the truth is she didn’t want to put up with having another baby around and is projecting her own issues on todd. once you realize what’s going on it’s obvious but a person growing up with somebody like that as a parent can get pretty screwed up before they realize that isn’t “normal” or right.
So, at the end of a sad, gloomy strip you put humor, kind of awkward. Also, how is she doing this for all the wrong reasons?
Because in eight years she never once tried to claim Amanda from the orphanage… until after Todd rejected her attempts to get back together with him. She’s either trying to reclaim Amanda so she can have at least that piece of her broken relationship or she’s thinking that magically producing a child he thought was dead will suddenly make him love her again. Andi is probably a decent person but she’s broken and not thinking very clearly about her motivations right now.
She’s obviously doing it for selfish reasons. Amanda deserves a better parent.
And you’re obviously biased.
Because I don’t trust a person who lied about their baby being dead? Who just SUDDENLY wants her baby back after all this time? Suddenly when Todd has one?
Yes. Totally biased.
“She’s obviously doing it for selfish reasons.” “OBVIOUSLY.” Given what Dave has shown us about her motives so far (WHICH IS NEXT TO NOTHING), saying her reasons are selfish is an ASSUMPTION. It’s not based on fact, it’s not even based on interpolation, it’s based on guesses and interpretation. Therefore, it is (so very likely that it almost MUST be) bias.
By the way, she said she’s been thinking about Amanda ever since she gave her away. That doesn’t sound like “suddenly” to me. Maybe she’s just looking for someone to love who will love her back (and is not her mom), and when Todd mentioned adopting a kid, it reminded her that there was someone to love already waiting for her.
Any other comments from me will be made tomorrow, as it is actually eleven thirty at night here. Goodnight.
Bullshit. Andi is doing this for sympathy and it’s obvious. She’s not responsible enough to take care of a kid even now.
Amanda deserves better.
Sorry, Lady, I didn’t realize you were the ultimate authority on Andi and Dave’s characters. We should all refrain from arguing from this arbiter of infallible judgment.
Because it’s not like Dave’s written characters that have been unanimously hated who have turned around to show a more sympathetic side, no, not at all. It’s not like people make mistakes of all sizes at different parts of their lives. No, Andi’s clearly a malicious monster who’s out to ruin everything ever and we as readers shouldn’t be satisfied until Dave stops with this silly “character development” he’s doing and drops her into a vat of acid.
/sarcasm
/hyperbole
Yes because I think Andi is an asshole,I must want her dead. Yeah that’s logical. -_-
I know this is serious and all but…
I laughed so much at Nerf Irelia… I seriously get that joke
i’m glad you did… “I” didn’t… is it an inside joke, or something from some tv show?
Its a League Of Legends reference
gotcha, game reference to a game i don’t play… it’s cool, thanks.
Ye Olde selective memory
selective memory… maybe not… see my post up a few before this one, i have a possible theory about that, but it’s too long to re-post it here.
Very grim. Means that Todd, when he decided to adopt Selkie—when he decided *to* adopt—he completely bypassed and rejected his natural daughter.
He had no idea that Amanda was his natural daughter. You cannot fault him.
But will Amanda fault him?
Absolutely she will. You think Amanda’s fucked up now? To realize “your real dad came by, decided not to adopt you, and instead adopted A Fish”…
incidentally, I’m amused to note that the bright orange in Andi’s hair is apparently her natural color.
I just thought of a GREAT prank! On April 1, Dave needs to make the Spam Protection force people to solve an algebraic equation to post! 😀
….it already does: a + b = x, solve for x.
I suggest “differential equation.”
Too easy! People can just use Wolfram Alpha to solve them.
I suggest a proof of the Riemann hypothesis.
Maybe he could do what Nanchatte mentioned and drop Andi into a vat of acid. 😉
I sure hope the, “And Todd didn’t, either” bit is coming from a place of “I lied to him and I feel super bad about it because it was NOT A GOOD THING TO DO,” rather than, “I lied to him, and now our relationship is screwed up, and maybe if I produce our kid it’ll help.” Really, really hope.
Oooh Andrea, you don’t realize the huge can of worms you are about to open. I really hope she wants to find Amanda, not for “Maybe being a parent will get Todd to fall back in love with me” but is from a genuine feeling of “I feel awful about abandoning my kid” And just springing the fact that Todd has an actual biological daughter who not only is really emotionally damaged as it is, but has bullied his adopted daughter becuase of it? Oooh….not cool, the tension! Agh!
Boy the Andi-haters are out in force. I’d like to point out 421 https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie421/ she has a new tattoo on her arm that says “Amanda Marie” in a heart, Amanda, not Todd. I know people like to think she’s a total flake but I don’t actually think this is a ploy by her to get Todd back, I think she honestly does want Amanda back. Now it is probably partly for idealized reasons- she’s thinking it will all be better if she just swoops in and scoops up the kid, I don’t think she’s thought that hard about what she’s going to tell her (but you know we don’t actually know what she’s been thinking about all this because we haven’t seen her much! Give Dave a chance to actually show us her motivations) The prenancy flashback was really abrupt, we have one page of them getting out of HS and being in a band together and then finding out she is pregnant, the very next page has Andi giving birth and freaking out, we have no idea how Todd was in the interim, we don’t know if he tried to get her to abort and that she might have been perfectly justified in telling him the baby died if she thought that would make him happier. People are just assuming she was being selfish about the whole thing, we have no idea what he offered her or if he wanted to be involved in the whole thing. Rushing to the hospital is what you do when someone you care about has to go there, I feel like people are maybe reading more nobility into his actions and automatically assigning blame to Andi. If a teenage guy knocks up a girl and jets afterwards no-one blames him but she still has to deal with all of the fallout, this whole discussion is just an extension of the usual misogyny- what a guy wants is somehow more important than what the woman whose body is being taken over wants.
Not starting with the assumption “every woman’s actions, no matter what they are, are of necessity justified and defensible” is not “misogyny.”
Also… “she might have been perfectly justified in telling him the baby died if she thought that would make him happier.”
What the actual fuck?
Azkyroth- And assuming that a woman’s actions For Which You Have No Actual Knowledge Why are bad and selfish just cause she is a woman IS misogyny. I was pointing out there is a huge 9-month gap in the whole birth flashback, and we don’t know what Todd did or said during that time. I said that maybe he wanted her to abort and that was why she told him the baby died. Reading comprehension much?
Todd was willing to support her and the baby. Don’t you dare demonize him just to defend someone as awful as Andi with fauxminism. Because literally traumatizing someone and making them unnecessarily mourn while shitting on their background makes you despicable. She’s a horrible person and she doesn’t deserve Todd or Amanda.
There is no justification in lying to someone about the state of their child. Especially when they are excited by the idea. How do we know he was involved? We were shown he was.
Lying about it to avoid responsibility is just horrible, which is what she did. No justifications are available.
Todd’s parents gave *him* up for adoption. He had an unpleasant life until he was adopted by the Smiths. Andi presumably knew this.
She therefore concluded that he would be horrified to know that she gave their daughter up for adoption; thus, she told him that the child had died. When he subsequently found out about this, it destroyed their relationship.
Actually the constant fighting and the fact she called adopting “like babysitting” was what destroyed the relationship. At this time it is assumed he never found out about that the lie is a lie.
That makes no sense, in his flashback to HIS adoption did you miss the fact that he was visibly beaten up? i don’t think his parents PUT him up for adoption, i think that he was TAKEN from his parents, probably due to child abuse issues. whomever took him OUT of his biological family and put him into adoption was doing him a great service, and that as he said to his adopted dad (i think?) that he was “paying it forward”, to suggest that he would treat his ACTUAL kid the way HE was treated is beyond imagining… for her to tell him that Amanda DIED… to avoid some “bad feelings” is, no offense meant… idiotic… I’m agreeing with Lady Obvious here in that Andi’s doing it for totally screwed up reasons, and she’s a pretty bad person… i’m going to wait patiently for Dave to finish the arc, and if she CAN be redeemed, GREAT, but with her comments about Babysitting, and “do 8 year olds need diapers?” shows that she has NOT been “thinking about her for ALL this time.” in fact, look at her face, she can’t even look her mom in the eyes/face… one of the classic “tells” that someone is LYING… nope, i don’t see her redemption happening anytime soon…
The tattoo being reletively new is a good point to bring up, though without being able to get into the characters head ourselves we can’t be 100% sure of all its significance/why she got it now. It could be that Amanda was unnamed when she signed off to give her up, so Andi didn’t know a name to put (if that weren’t the case I’d be pretty sure Todd would have had a memorial tattoo somewhere)
Anyway, tattoo aside, from the exchanges, dialogue, and general feel of everything from the story so far, it looks when the pregnancy was first found out, Todd & Andi freaked out. They’re young, they’ve got plans, and suddenly they have a huge change thrown their way. At no point was it ever shown that Todd would suggest abortion (but again, without getting into the characters heads it could have been a thought he had) His & Andi’s talk showed that he was the one who wanted kids, marriage and all that stuff, yet she was the one who was opposed to those things (back then, at least) It puts Andi in a bad light.
Now, seeing as she’s only (as far as we know) started looking for Amanda after her talk with Todd, and not in the 8 years since letting her go to the system, it really makes it look like she’s doing this less because she wants Amanda, and more because she wants what Amanda represents (her & Todd’s child, and possible life together) I’m not suggesting that she’s seeing Amanda as only a means to an end, as she does appear to be eager & truly wanting to meet her, but there is that nagging feeling from her earlier words & actions that make me uneasy about the situation.
However, I hope the meeting goes better than it probably will, and I want to see Andi grow more. She was a kid, she made mistakes (the whole lie about the baby dieing though…that’s a hard one to forgive) and it seems like she wants to make things right, even if it’s at a point where that’ll take years to accomplish (and a boatload of therapy) If she were to come clean to her mom and Todd about everything (especially the joint lies they both recieved from her) then things could begin to heal from there. As it is, if she just pops up to Todd at some point with Amanda & proclaims “here’s your daughter I told you died 8 years ago lets be a happy family!” then things will just get worse & worse for her. I hope that doesn’t happen, but we have seen Andi make some poor decisions.
“If he wanted to”? Didn’t they tell him the baby was dead?
Seems like Todd isn’t the only person that Andi lied to.
Or, you know… Andi’s mom is the kind of person who’s very very good at rewriting her past. Note that Andi says, “Ma, I don’t think you’re remembering things right.” There’s a good chance this isn’t the first time she’s had to say that to her mother.
Or Andi is never willing to take some actual responsibility ever and blames everyone else for her issues.
I think there’s a horse apiece in this argument. It looks like Andi’s mother did some heavy duty pressure/guilt tripping on Andi to get the adoption pushed through.
I’ll give Andi the benefit of the doubt and say that she’s trying to grow up and make amends for past mistakes, but she’s got a bit more growing up to do before she can be the kind of mother Amanda needs (however much she wants it).
nope… Andi told Todd the baby died… and apparently told her mom something… different… what that was we don’t exactly know, BUT her Mom is seemingly under the impression that Todd KNOWS that Amanda is ALIVE AND in an orphanage… when in reality he DOESN’T know any of that.
Wait, Amanda as in the girl who picks on Selkie? she’s the daughter of Andrea and Todd, who just happens to be the dad of the girl who Amanda cant stand? wow that’s going to be a fun meeting when everyone finds out. Great comic by the way!
So many people are going on about Andi “demonizing” Todd to her mother, and I’m just sitting here going “What the frack are you talking about.”
Also, one thing that I’ve learned from experience, the longer you keep a horrible secret from someone, the harder it gets to tell nem.
She literally told him that their child died and shat on his background. Andi KNEW Todd was adopted and said her thoughtless shit. She is literally a hideous human being.
“Literally.”
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Or you seem to be so loving of a lying bratty kid who traumatized the fuck out of another person unnecessarily. And seems to have lied to more than one person.
And what the heck is she going to tell Amanda? “You see,Amanda. Mommy and Daddy didn’t raise you because she decided to give you up without Daddy’s knowledge. Why didn’t he try to find you? I told him that you were stillborn. Gimme a kiss!”
So, wait. Everybody else in the whole freakin’ world gets what the right half of the last panel is about? And I’m the only one scratching my head here and hoping someone will explain?
It’s a game reference, okay, And a joke, which it’s now too late for me to laugh at — but I would still like to understand it. In the spirit of Explain XKCD, would someone please, very kindly, in words of one syllable, belabour the obvious for me?
nope, no joke per se’… the + sign is the indication that her self-administered pregnancy test has come up “Positive” (yes, YOU ARE Pregnant!), Todd and her are both desperately hoping that it is an error, and for to her to redo the test. the usual method of operating these testing devices is to pee on the gizmo and wait for a reaction, if a + sign shows up (on this brand at least) then she’s pregnant.
what she’s trying to tell her mother (lying?) is not the TEST itself, but the “Todd FREAKED OUT” reaction, and consequently the “HE didn’t want the kid” idea she planted in her moms head. (lies?, who knows but Dave… we’ll find out in due course.)
the only game reference “i” know about, was a comment that Spliced said about “Nerf Irelia”, not about the actual comic strip.
Um, right. Thank you for clearing that up. Guess I’m showing my age…!
here’s a thought… going back to the phone call a few days ago where Lillian calls her to set up the appointment. does anyone ELSE get the feeling in the back of their mind that Lillian has already done the background checks and has REJECTED her as a suitable parent and that the meeting is to TELL HER face to face? to me it seems that Lillian is the “bad cop” of the orphanage, and that Mary Ellen is the “good cop”… I’ll bet Mary Ellen is the one that probably called him and told him that he was approved… the “good cop”, but if someone is rejected, LILLIAN is one one to break it to them… “bad cop” i mean seriously… would YOU get up in Lillian’s face and ARGUE with her over ANYTHING?!
and add to that Andi is clueless about kids in general… yeah, i think she’s gonna get shut down hard about being able to adopt…
Geez I think a lot of people have jumped the gun. Or I could be wrong but what I got out of the flashback was, Andi talking to her Mom expressed concern she wasn’t ready for parenthood, while Todd was ‘manning up’ and ready to embrace it. Then we have Andi’s mother suggesting the adoption and it’s her word balloon citing ‘Todd doesn’t need to be involved’. So to me it looks like Andi was suggested by her Mother to start the lie, not the other way around nor did Andi demonize Todd.
I could be wrong but you gotta really take a good look at that flashback page to put it together. Admittedly it could use a bit more clarification. Unless yuk, yuk I read it right or someone else did.
Yes, you have it right—except it was all picture balloons. However, Dave actually summarized what was going on in the comments under the flashback, too. While Andi’s mother may or may not have told her to lie about the adoption, she did say that Todd did not need to be involved.
Now I’m not saying the lie was right, heck no, and Andi needs to woman up about that to Todd. I’m just a bit surprised at how many people seemingly mis-read the flashback strip, and think Andi was demonizing Todd to her Mother.
One thing I’m wondering is if Andi’s mom told her to lie to Todd… I really wouldn’t be surprised if she did, because, she had pressured Andi into giving up the baby for adoption without talking to him in the first place. Even if she didn’t tell Andi to lie, it really seems she is partially at fault as it was very wrong of her to pressure Andi into adopting the baby right away—especially without giving the baby’s father any say in the matter. It’d be one thing if Todd was an abusive monster or an irresponsible jerk, but throughout the flashbacks he seemed to really be trying hard to be responsible after he got over the shock.
What it seems like to me is Andi never wanted the baby in the first place, but she knew Todd loved the idea of having a baby and didn’t want to upset him and have him possibly leave her over her not wanting the baby. So she stayed silent about not wanting it, maybe dropped little hints, but never out right said it out of fear. It looks like she told her mom, “I don’t want to have a baby I’m not ready for this.” and her mom said it was ok and she loves her and she should give up the baby. To which Andi responds, “But Todd loves children! He wants to have a baby!” to which her mom says, “We don’t have to tell Todd.” and probably told Andi to lie about it. I can’t imagine what else that speech bubble with Todd would mean. Andi, being young and confused, trusts her mother and gives up the baby because her mom said the baby would go to a loving home and be better off. She clearly felt guilty about lying to Todd but she didn’t know what else to do at that point. She was scared and effectively alone. Todd wanted a baby and if he knew she wanted to give the baby up he would be upset and leave her over it.
I see no reason to hate Andi for that. She made a horrible mistake, but she was a teenager listening to her mother. She was scared her boyfriend wouldn’t understand. He’ll, maybe Todd inadvertently pressured her into having a baby, we don’t know what he did or said to her.
She thought Todd would be happier not knowing. Was it right? No. Can you really blame her? She was going into labor and her mom was telling her what she thought she should do. She wasn’t rational at the time. And really, how do you recover from that later? “lol oops btw it baby is alive I gave her up without ur consent sorry!” she didn’t know how to recover from what happened, she saw no way out so she lied.
She knows Todd will hate her for this. She knows he won’t forgive her for this now, that’s why she kept up the lie all these years. She has nothing to lose at this point. She just wants to make it right, I hope. But logically, she knows, based on her lie and Todd’s love of children that he will hate her for this. So telling him isn’t her plan to salvage their relationship, I think she just wants to make it right. He deserves to know, he deserved to know then, why not now? This is her way of facing up to her actions and she’s scared still.
Good on her.
Everything I said is pure speculation and any conclusions I’ve come to are based on information we do have. Before people jump all over me keep in mind we don’t ACTUALLY KNOW Andi as a character or her motives very well at all.
And keep in mind we have no idea what Todd did or said during the pregnancy. Andi could say he pressured her into having a baby and Todd could say he was loving and supportive the entire time. It is effectively a he said she said situation and you can’t just take either of their word on it. Just because we all like Todd doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of being a dick.
Try and imagine what she went through before you crucify her. She was a pregnant teenager and was scared and irrational and IN LABOR when she was convinced to make a choice. Give her some leeway at least for that. She made a terrible mistake, but she is not the devil.
Let’s at least wait until we have solid proof she’s doing this for all the wrong reasons before casting judgement upon her. And remember… It takes two to make a baby. Don’t blame just her for getting pregnant. Todd is equally to blame in that respect.
I can blame her for traumatizing him and shitting on his background. Especially since she KNEW he was adopted. She’s awful.
So what if he’s adopted? What’s that got to do with anything? He loves his adoptive family very much. Why are you treating it like it’s terrible, I don’t understand that at all.
You mean the whole babysitting comment she made? Yeah, that was pretty insensitive of her, but she even said she didn’t mean it and apologized for it. So she’s more inclined towards biological children, there is nothing wrong with that and that it her choice. Yes, she shouldn’t have made that comment, but she said sorry and I think Todd was a little overly sensitive about it. He’s also inconsiderate to her if he kept pushing to adopt when she didn’t want to or kept pushing for kids when she didn’t want to. They’re both very young and she’s well within her right to not want kids yet.
Just as he is well within his right to break up with her over it even if it seems like a pretty mean thing to do. At least he didn’t lead her on, so that’s good of him to have the guts to actually leave someone he doesn’t agree with instead of trying to change her to suit him.
I think the both of them have a lot of growing up to do still.
To him that seemed bad because she told him their baby DIED. He seems afraid that if one died then maybe another MIGHT. Also it was complete crap what she said about himself and his siblings. Andi is disgusting.
Everyone needs good Biscotti Art Skillz.