Buhbye.
In an early draft, Amanda deliberately refused to bring Keisha along since it was her biological mom reclaiming her and not an adoption. I feel like Amanda is closer to Keisha than anyone else and wouldn't deliberately reject or deny her, but she'd still much rather not share her new life if given a choice.
No wonder Keisha was originally going to turn to the dark side, sheesh! Way to throw away your friends, Amanda Marie.
She isn’t trying to throw her friends away. She is a kid and happy that she is finally being chosen by her mom. Sometimes you say the wrong thing and you don’t realize it! If you haven’t accidentally hurt a friend’s feelings cause you got picked for something you both wanted then you have lead a sheltered life. Amanda will apologize when she realizes she hurt her. Keshia is her best friend. Remember Heather hurt them when she got adopted
Yeah, Amanda isn’t being cruel here, she’s just being oblivious.
Sensitivity is a LEARNED skill.
Generally the motivation to learn that comes from remembering how shitty insensitive people made us feel during childhood.
She’s a “Work-in-Progress”.
She’s being a typical 8 year old. Most of the time they have NO clue that they even HAVE an effect on the world, much less their friends.
*facepalm* Ooooh….I’ve been there. You say things without thinking about subtext. She’s a kid, what is subtext? It’s…hard to get a kid to think about things like that. And Amanda has shown to be rather impulsive anyways. She’s overjoyed, why shouldn’t she be?
It’s just an unintended consequence that her joy and happiness makes her say this stuff.
Straight out of Lillian’s report:
“Empathizes with other children poorly”.
Panel one: Lillian is too awesome to use apostrophes in word contractions.
Panel four: Aaaand damage control undone.
Panel six: Salt in the wounds.
Panel seven: … Pain.
I know it won’t make everything better, but Keisha really needs a hug right now.
Also, whoa, WHAM! Panel three. “I knew they’d come back!”
They?
Amanda does not yet realize Andi is a single mom and that this isn’t a case of both parents tracking her down. So, even before she finds out about Todd specifically, there may be an awkward conversation once they’re at the apartment along the lines of “Hey Mom, when does Dad get home?”
(Still mostly feeling bad for Keisha – right now, this is rating up close to Futurama’s “Jurassic Bark” for “if you aren’t sad you have no empathy” – but the sudden realization could not be unrealized.)
I’d say she’s using the generic “they” here; she didn’t *previously* know who might eventually be coming back for her. She knows about single parents, same-sex parents, and polyamorous groups, so I don’t think she’s falling into the assumption that she’s joining a man-and-wife sort of family. I bet she even picked up on Lillian’s use of “Miss” rather than “Mrs” or “Ms”.
“I’m walkin’ on sunshine, wooaa-oh-oh”
Ooh, I didn’t think about that. She’s gonna have TWO rude awakenings. One that there IS no Dad at home, and then finding out that her own Dad actually picked “fish face” over her.
She is NOT gonna understand THAT one AT ALL. Probably not until she’s an adult herself, and maybe not even then.
I had to read it a few times to realize Lillian wasn’t copying Selkie’s speech pattern.
Is Truck an orphan too? I thought that was unclear originally.
Truck’s parents are a major presence in his life; in fact, his father (Prof. Trunchbull) has appeared repeatedly, and has played a major role in multiple scenes.
Oh poor Keisha. Just when I had a smidgen of hope for Amanda Marie…..pleaseeeee let Keisha get adopted soon, she’s my second favorite character
She’s alright. I stopped liking her after that one scene with the giant snot dripping out of her nose. Her hair bothers me too.
I wonder what happened to the lesbian teaching assistant’s girlfriend?
*SIGH* I get that she just got a wonderful life changing surprise but really she needs to watch what she says to her friends. I hope later she thinks back and realizes what she did. I also hope they get counseling for them both (Amanda and her mom) they are going to have to work thou alot.
Oh honey,that was too harsh. DX Poor Keisha.
Poor Keisha! If I were her mom, I’d do what I do for my kids when they’re sad: A trip to McDonalds for a burger and fries, then some milkshakes on the way home. If they come home and tell me the kids were bullying them again, we go right out and bring home a pizza for dinner to perk them up before the whole family sits down to watch a movie.
Whoa, geez Amanda, I know something really good just happened to you but … Geez.
Kids say the darnest things.
Classic example of not thinking before you talk.
otoh, should we always hold back on joy in case we hurt someone?
it is good to always be aware of other’s feelings, but we can’t stop living either
When she realizes her dad is Selkie’s dad….. horror and disbelief will ensue.
I hope Dave is planning to delay that for a while. There’s plenty of other interesting stuff happening right now!
Dave doesn’t even know, and it’s not clear if Andi knows that Todd adopted Selkie from the same orphanage Amanda ended up in. I think she probably doesn’t, so here’s to hoping she doesn’t tell Amanda who her biological father is until she’s well settled in and over some of her abandonment issues. I think we can all see that conversation going baaaaadly.
Oh, I think Dave has a lot of it figured out… LOL
Poor choice of words Amanda.
Little Miss Sensitive.
Best parting phrase EVER.
I’ll be sure to use it every time I move on to a better job or whatnot.
“Yeah, I’m very happy SexyWebCorp hired me… Sorry they didn’t want any of you lowly hacks! See you never!”
I’ve been on both sides of big events as a kid. While not this situation I remember very Cleary just speaking straight from excitement and unwittingly hurting others feelings. I also remember being the person having my feelings crushed in someone I cared about’s excitement. Neither of us meant to hurt the other but even as an adult we say things before we think and hurt the people closest to us.
This only shows how painful it is for children in these situations. Whenever one child gets a home at least one other kid will be hurt no matter what. Human nature makes all of us selfish to a degree and every child wants their own home and family. All kids want to be the center of thier parents attention (in a positive way only) if you expect any thing else you really don’t understand people.
I feel for both kids.
Hell every single kid in the orphanage is going to hear that Amanda’s mom came back for her. Do you realize the damage this is going to cause? It won’t just be Keisha wondering why her parents didn’t come back too. This is going to be painful.
Oh, man… you bring up a good point. This makes me wonder exactly how insufferable Amanda is going to be at school. Hell hath no fury like an Amanda who finally learns that her real father passed her over and chose “Fish Face” instead. This is about to get a lot worse, in several different directions.
Interestingly, Kevin and Kell is going through a little bit that’s kind of like this, but where the Keisha character expresses how much life sucks with one “YEESH!” and the Amanda character gets upset at them for not being instantly supportive because “I thought you KNEW how much this meant to me!”
The comic is treating the Amanda character as right for going off in a snit about it, and the Keisha character as wrong for having an emotional reaction to an extreme upset… the comments, on the other hand, are going quite the other direction, from what I’ve read. Some of the readers are getting quite sick of seeing the Keisha character treated like they’re always in the wrong when the two of them fight.
I love Kevin and Kell, and that comic has done a lot of great storylines and astounding analogies over the years, but I’m still hoping that the Amanda character will turn around and realize that their reaction to the Keisha’s character’s reaction was out of line. Though it’s been a few weeks since that plot took center stage.
This is why this comic is one of my favourites. Characters are never wholly vilified, but by that same token they’re never fully redeemed. They’re so real, and this is such a great instance of it – just as we’ve gotten to see Amanda at her most sweetest and vulnerable, this episode reminds us that she’s still ultimately a kid, and has never been the most compassionate kid. And none of it comes out of left field either, it makes perfect sense and is within what we know of her.
Seriously, Dave deserves a lot of credit for his stellar characterization. This kinda stuff isn’t easy!
Amanda… you great… Glittering IDIOT… one little line and you could have turned that around… ” I wish that didn’t mean having to leave you, too…”
But then she wouldn’t be Amanda At That Age. When she gets older and more “healed” she’ll probably be more sensitive to that kind of thing.
Amanda, you are as bad as Truck.
Truck is oblivious to the suffering he puts others through because of what he was taught by his parents, while Amanda is oblivious… to the suffering she puts others through… because of what she was taught by her parents…
Ooh, good call, and my bad, all at the same time. Damn!
I think I disagree. It didn’t seem to me that Truck was oblivious to the suffering he put others through, it seems to me he was aware of it and did it intentionally as a way to enforce his will.
Amanda’s being callous here, but mostly because she’s too excited to think straight. I’ve been there.
What Batty and Nanchatte said.
And yet, if you were to explain to Amanda that she had been very hurtful towards Keisha, she wouldn’t understand. She *did* say “sorry”! She even hugged Keisha!
Poor Keisha…I just want to give her a hug right now. 🙁
Augh. Amanda you FUCKED UP.
Shouldn’t that be, “Augh. Amanda, you man-symbol-on-woman-symbol’d up”?
Dave should intersperse that symbol with like, woman-woman or man-man or something.
Little trivia on that: which gender symbols are included when illustrating the F-Word correlate to the speaker’s orientation.
I love your realistic interpretations of kids. If nothing else it truly shows passion for your work.
Amanda has no issues with any of this, and means no ill will, but Keisha is wanting the same things, but has no will/means to externalize it. She hasn’t learned to happy for others getting what they want, and Amanda knows nothing of subtlety. It’s pretty spot-on, and I love it.
Your writing, as always, is amazing~
Ah, the unthinking cruelty of children.
Dammit Amanda you were not sucking at being a decent human being for FIVE MINUTES
*sigh* The worst is that she’s not meaning to be cruel, at all. She probably even thinks she’s being nice. She’s just too over the moon to realize what this is like or how she’s saying it.
Poor Keisha. She’s one of my favorite characters and she’s just so…alone. Honestly, I have to wonder if she and Selkie couldn’t be good friends.
Oops.
Aaaaand… The warm fuzzies are gone. Dang, Amanda! Leave your beloved friend high and dry!
Ouch… mega heart break city!
Ooh Dave right in the heartstrings. Ouch.
Unconsciously hurting friends and influencing people… This is Amanda Marie. *shakes head* This… is going to be a very interesting mother-daughter relationship.
She said any of the OTHER stupid kids, she’s obviously excluding Keisha.
Hopefully.
I would like to see Keisha’s reasons for being in the orphanage please:) Did she know her folks? Was she abandoned? Were they druggies? Died? … ??
No more sharing? Not so fast, kid. Just wait ’til you find out who you share a dad with.
THIS.
OUCH! >_<
Word choices, Amanda!
WORD. CHOICES!