I just wanted to add a little something.
Amanda is still a child. A child that had a history of abusive parents. I’d imagine that right now she is feeling really scared. Scared that her real mother might abuse her as well, not sure if what she’s feeling now is abuse or not and probably a bit embarrassed too.
On that note, Amanda is not a villain, she is an antagonist. There is a world of difference between the two.
Me, I’m just whimpering and pawing at the screen, whispering “Shh no iz okie bb there will be hugs later THERE WILL BE HUGS LATER just shhhh no fear no fear no no Amanda you emotional sponge iz okie rly srsly shhh iz okie.”
Now this might be in part because of what Andi’s going through, but showing your parents off to others with the attitude Amanda has about it seems really really selfish.
It’s also how society is expected to function under normal circumstances. I don’t expect Amanda to fully understand that because–yes–she is the child in this situation, but that doesn’t mean that I would allow her to behave in a manner which is inappropriate; i.e., the only way to fix bad behavior is to set the line, explain it, fend off every crossing of it, explain again, remind them you love them, and not yield just because you hurt their feelings. I’m a teacher–I deal with this behavior every single day from over a hundred students (children) who’ve been through similar and worse things than Amanda.
TL;DR Version:
Her past is bad, yeah, but it doesn’t resolve her of the duty of growing past it or of adults teaching her how to.
Which then brings us to the part where this parent (Andi) is equally clueless about where/when to step in, especially considering that if the orphanage doesn’t approve, they take your kid away. Yeah, I think the next month or so is gonna be one wild ride for the both of them…
Which then brings us to the part where this parent (Andi) is equally clueless about where/when to step in, especially considering that if the orphanage doesn’t approve, they take your kid away. Yeah, I think the next month or so is gonna be one wild ride for the both of them…
Andi has already put Amanda Marie in her place multiple times (for saying “I’ll kick you butt” to her, cursing, being snotty to Selkie). Pretty sure she’s not going to be one of those “BFF moms”, but will give her kid the rules and consistency she needs to heal properly. Boundaries are excellent in that they establish a safe zone. Letting her run around and be a little shit would be setting her up to be another Truck.
not totally, i think. Truck definitely CHANGED his behavior around his dad that was in keeping with the “MY boy is a GOOD BOY” image… Amanda is acting the same whether a parent, or any adult for that matter, is present or not. She ISN’T changing her behavior. so it’s easier to see and to stop that same behavior for her, than it was for Trunchbull to see the bad in his son, and why it took so long for it to come to a head. in the long run, if Andi get’s it right i think Amanda will come out better off than Truck will. her root problem is external to her and she’s just reacting to what happened to her as an even younger kid in her first family… however, i’m pretty sure that Truck IS a sociopath, and to my understanding of that condition, it isn’t a “learned” thing,but that it is internal wiring differences and that any help he gets is really only teaching him how to blend in better and not actually “fixing” the real problem.
I’ve literally never seen it happen in the years I went to school. The only time I’ve ever saw some kids trying to compare and “win” with parents were on stupid ass TV shows.
Deer in the headlights!
But you know, there is being happy to have someone want you, and then there is unholy glee in rubbing yourself in someone else’s face. That’s just wrong.
And Andi slipped, and I think Amanda missed it.
Oh dear, did Andi just accidentally say word for word something Amanda’s first adoptive parents said? That looks much more than a simple “I messed up”, that looks more like she’s having a horrific flashback. She’s sort of shut down, as well. I don’t think Andi has noticed either.
That’s what I was thinking upon seeing this page. I also noticed that Amanda feels she has to prove she is worth keeping, her rude behavior was morphing into panic before Andi snapped.
I think alot of people forget that Amanda went through both mental and physical abuse at an extremely young age. If this kid doesn’t have ptsd I’ll be surprised. (It was clear the boys hurt her as often as possible along with tearing her things. The parents the emotionally abused her and may have even hit her for her “lying”. ) Technicallyrics Amanda is just as much a special needs child as Selkie is.
I only hope Andi is up to the challenge of a young girl who desperately needs discipline but also needs to feel safe at all times.
*BTW what Andi just did is why I won’t be having kids, I know how I react to stress and it’s a lot like that.
Well I can say this: “Sorry” is more than I ever got from my parents snapping at me (yes both emotionally and physically) so it’s a good start
this is going to be a rocky journey but Andi doesn’t have the “I’m always right don’t you dare disrespect me I don’t have to apologize for anything” attitude and I think this is going to work out
I feel for Amanda here, but she is also being a brat and needed to be shut down a bit. I don’t think Andi was overly harsh, she actually apologized for snapping (something my dad has to this date never done) and even explained her reasons for not wanting to meet Todd (again ditto). So in some ways this may be upsetting for Amanda but it is also teaching her the limits of what her mom will put up with and that she is actually being treated with a great deal of respect for her age. Andi has read her whole file, I think she knows to be careful in how she handles her girl. She feels completely responsible for the troubles Amanda has gone through so far in life and I think she is doing well so far in meeting her needs. She’s gotten her a bunch of nice stuff and kinda let her be overjoyed and a bit of a snot because she was so happy for once, but when Amanda was really behaving badly Andi just told her to stop, explained why and even apologized for her own tone, I think she has more of a handle on things then people think. That said she needs to come up with some sort of plan vis-a-vis Todd.
For the record, most parents lose their temper in stressful times like this. Andi did pretty well, too, even though she probably raised her voice to terrifying levels. It’s not losing it that makes you a bad parent. It’s keeping yourself from losing it too far and also learning to do damage repair—acknowledging you did wrong and apologizing. These things teach a child very important skills, because no one is perfect.
I know Amanda may be freaked about wrecking her shot with her real mother, but I just don’t think she’d be this overly cowed because her Mom yells at her for something like this. It was not particularly harsh or angry, and it just seems like Amanda’s reaction is overblown for making her Mom annoyed.
Remember, she was adopted to (and then taken from) an abusive home before. This might look overblown to someone who’s never faced making a parent /really/ angry and getting beaten for that. /We/ know Andi is just annoyed and overloaded and doesn’t know how to deal, to Amanda this probably looks like a complete off-the-rocker anger that might turn into action any moment.
Not fun.
i agree almost completely with your statement., the only quibble i have is with the () part… Amanda wasn’t TAKEN from the adoptive parents… those “parents” such that they are, went and GAVE HER BACK to the orphanage (WTF?!)…THAT’S where she gets most of her reaction to the “they DUMPED me” attitude. I’ll bet that when Amanda finally cools off a bit towards Selkie and they start actually TALKING to one another rather than just trading insults like they’ve been doing, that it’ll be a big shock to her when she realizes that Selkie was dumped TOO.
We know that, Todd probably has some idea of it, but Selkie almost certainly doesn’t. She got the “this bow will keep you safe” message, but she doesn’t know about the war so she has no idea why beyond a vague parental gift thing. (Also we still don’t know precisely why Plo Quar gave up Selkie – I’m almost certain we’ve seen her in the background of another strip so she’s still alive, so it could be that to go into hiding they had to be split up to limit attention or something, but it’s going to be hard for Selkie to swallow if/when she finds out that.)
This is the first time Andi has lost her temper with Amanda. While her words weren’t super harsh, I’m sure her tone and volume made up for it. This had to be a big shock for Amanda. Once in a blue moon I have situations like this with my own daughter. It’s not a good, fun thing for either of us, but all parents have human moments…all the more so if we are trying to take more positive paths than how we were raised.
I think some people are reading a little too much into this.
Up until now, things with Amanda and Andi had been all ponies and rainbows. I think Amanda just got a reality check.
Exactly! Honeymoon’s over. 🙂 I do think Andi will always be a fun parent, but she will quickly pick up the importance of setting up clear boundaries, rules, and routines. She strikes me as someone who has good intuition to do this—despite her lack of experience with kids.
I don’t think Amanda got a reality check, I think she got triggered — that’s what the reaction shot seems to be meant to imply. This is not an ordinary “Okay, Mom’s not the pushover I thought she would be.” This is a serious emotional moment. I think people are right to connect this both to Heather’s “please don’t send me back!” and to Amanda’s foster parents.
Andi does seem capable of stepping in the role of parenting eventually, but I still think it’s going to be tough. She’s still kinda immature and volatile, and with a kid like Amanda, unpredictable is the one thing she doesn’t need in a parent.
I think Kilyle is spot on. Amanda’s triggered. Amandas frozen expression and meek voice suggest a “if I don’t move, the monster can’t see me” sort of reaction.
And the “‘Kay” of “I’ll just be quiet and agree and then they’ll leave me alone for a while.”
“Spazzing” is a pretty mild term in the US (compared to the UK, where it’s r-slur levels of bad), so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the brothers who she’s flashing back to as well – it’s just the kind of word elementary school kids would learn isn’t QUITE a curse, but paired with tone and deed it’s pretty easy to turn a word into a nightmare.
One thing many seem to overlook, is Andi used Amanda’s “middle” name when addressing her. To Andi, it was supposed to be two first names, but to Amanda it was her middle name. I am not sure about you, but when my mom used my middle name; it meant I was in serious trouble. Add that to an abusive relationship? Darn tooting Amanda is freaked out.
I haven’t commented before, but I just wanted to say that your portrayal of Amanda here, as a kid whose gone through a lot of trauma (abandonment, abuse, abandonment again), is spot on. I work with kids with trauma and that “deer in headlights” look, as well as the immediate withdrawal in speech is very much what many kids with trauma do when confronted with an angry adult. Keep up the good work!
Being that Amanda and Selkie are actually now sisters, Andi’s long term goal is that the two them get along. With that, a play date would eventually be in order. It would, however, be best to hold it at Andi’s place since Amanda might try to damage or destroy Selkie’s possessions.
Nope. Never ever host a playdate at an insecure kid’s home unless you want to spend your time breaking up turf battles and fears of the insecure child thinking all her things are going to be stolen. Playground or somewhere neutral.
I concur that insecure children need to have rights to privacy, property, and locations they can call their own. (Right to privacy can be waived for a while if the child is known to deliberately hurt themselves.)
When you’re insecure, you need stability, and one of those things is knowing that the things you have and the space you inhabit is your own and not going to be encroached upon. This is an area where an insecure person can be more aggressive than normal because it’s the one thing they know they have to defend at all costs.
Say, May the Fourth is coming up. Maybe do a Star Wars themed sketch day or something? Or at least a bit of Star Wars background detail… a poster, a movie playing offscreen…
Also, I love how often you respond to references like this with a totally appropriate “how it would go” kind of thing. You did it with my Darkwing Duck note too 😀
I completely spaced on May the 4th, but especially with the new movie trailers everywhere… well, I may just have to agree that something could be whipped up. :d
you should read thru the comments on the comic “Grrl Power” sometime, we ended up calling those type of errors “easter eggs” and almost made it a contest to see if he made any in every new strip… the one i think that had the most re-occurrences was a bruise on the cheek of the main character that she got during her first Superhero Boss-Battle… he kept forgetting to add it in on some panels, then the next one he’d put it in, then forget again.. it was hilarious…
Have you gotten to the point where you have a series “Bible” set up? You could have sheets for each of the characters in their basic getup, with notes pointing to little details to remember, like earrings. You’d have to change that with each new outfit (like, a base “no matter what outfit” thing and one specific to each outfit), but you could print them out on card stock and have the characters right next to you when you’re drawing.
Then it’d work a little like a checklist, and you wouldn’t have to worry about missing small details so often.
P.S. Don’t feel too bad — Howard Taylor from Schlock Mercenary said he didn’t know *what* he was thinking when he invented an alien who had four upper arms that each split for a total of eight forearms. That he had to draw, per alien, each time they were onscreen.
If Todd had agreed to make another baby with Andi and they had not broken up, Andi would never have gone looking for Amanda. What happens if Amanda ever finds out that Andi’s first plan had been to make a replacement baby? That would be soul crushing I think.
I don’t remember that being the case exactly… I think when the subject of getting married and having kids came up between them, Andi just said she wanted biological children while Todd was rather dead-set on adopting kids, like how he was. Because, if I remember the way he said it correctly, he said he “didn’t want what went wrong the last time to happen again.” Ergo, because he thought Amanda died after she was born or was stillborn, he didn’t want to have biological children.
Right, thanks, it’s just been a while since I last read this through from the beginning (I do that with webcomics sometimes just because) so while I remembered the words I just didn’t remember correctly who said them.
For all the hate she got earlier, I am loving Andi right now! Sure she got to skip the sleepless nights and poop and vomit everywhere, but she’s going to pay what she owes on that with this Todd confrontation and Selkie revelation.
You know, sitting here, reading the comic, I just realized that Andi has done one of the most stupid things in the universe.
She literally adopted a kid to get back together with Todd. Granted before she may have felt guilty about how the whole thing happened, but she didn’t really appear to think about finding her daughter or getting her back until after Todd told Andi to get out of his life and he adopted another little girl anyways.
This is actually really unfortunate for Amanda, because in the long run Andi may eventually decide that she simply cannot handle having a child or being a parent isn’t for her and give Amanda back.
The biggest contrast between Andi and Todd is Andi never grew up, Todd did. You can tell from Todd’s mannerisms, not only that, but the way he speaks and even his own hair cut. As teens Todd and Andi both had some pretty stupid hair styles, but Todd eventually adopted a hairstyle more conductive to the real world, the business world, meanwhile Andi still looks like a fucking dumb ass troll doll and talks like she’s still in middle school.
1. She didn’t adopt Amanda. You can not adopt a child you gave birth to. She retrieved her. Big difference.
2. It’s really not clear why she did it. From the little we’ve seen of her explanation she’s trying to right wrongs. She has not at all said anything about hoping it’ll bring Todd back into her life.
3. I agree the haircut thing is weird. I have never met anyone who’d hang onto such an extreme haircut—especially from childhood. Most people I know who do those kinds of styles often change them for the sake of creativity more than anything else—this even includes the most immature people. Perhaps she has hung onto it for other reasons.
Sorry, i dont agree. You cant just give up a child and then pick it up when its 8 and act like nothing has happened. She adopted her own daughter. Im not sure how the entire process eorks but im willing to bet that parents who give up their kids for over half a decade are inspected just as closely as prespective parents.
The thing is, after re-reading comic #162 (referenced above) I don’t think she retrieved Amanda to “get Todd back.”
She has, obviously, been rethinking her life and her past choices. When she told Todd that she wanted to “fix what went wrong the first time” she had adifferent context than Todd did. She knew what really happened with Amanda. Todd didn’t and she knew what that did to him and she felt a great deal of guilt. Guilt that poisoned and ultimately wrecked their relationship.
I’m not denying that this is a *really* bad way to go about fixing things, but, at least, she’s trying to address the root of the situation. She’s also had the opportunity to see the other, unforeseeable, consequences of her (and her mother’s) unilateral decisions.
If she found it too hard to think up how to approach Todd about the matter — or even thought it was a bad time, given the new child in his life and all the adjustments he’s got to make for that, to be bringing up something this earth-shattering — would it have been better for her to leave Amanda in the orphanage for a few more days or weeks or months until she figured it was the right time to talk to Todd?
Because I think if you can see two things that need to be done, and both of them are important, and there are reasons that you don’t or can’t do Thing A, then it’s generally better to do Thing B rather than sit on your hands until everything else is perfect. Speaking from the experience of a good deal of procrastination and regret over things I could’ve done but didn’t do, many of which still sit on my to-do list under the idea of “someday but not for a while.”
The falseness that has been nagging at me ever since we learned Amanda’s provenance is: How was Andi able to drop the infant at an orphanage without a paternal consent? Has she lied to everyone, all of the time? Because surely orphanages don’t accept children from mothers who know the fathers – and who are still alive and contact-able – without some kind of formal sign-off from the father, do they? Or is my assumption of how orphanages “must” work that far off the mark?
I mean, I can understand a mother saying that “she doesn’t know” who the father is, and that explanation would have to stand, in lieu of any proof to the contrary. I can understand that the mother could say that “the father has died” or “has left the country” or some other version of “gone and unreachable” (though they should ask for proof of that, at least in my imagining of how the process ought to work). But she could never get away with, “I told my boyfriend, Todd Smith, that the baby died, and he believed me. Here you go.” No institution this side of a black market in children (which I have no doubt exists in parts of the world, but not in Wisconsin) would countenance a story like that on its face.
So, there’s more the back story, unless it was put into comments somewhere that I haven’t read.
BABY
Reminds me of Heather, and the shirt incident.
“OOPS!!. I screwed the pooch big time. She’s gonna send me back.”
Yeah, that’s where I went too… And now I want to give Amanda a hug and explain how she doesn’t have to be afraid of being sent back…
Darn it, I get messed up when villains turn woobie! 8S
I just wanted to add a little something.
Amanda is still a child. A child that had a history of abusive parents. I’d imagine that right now she is feeling really scared. Scared that her real mother might abuse her as well, not sure if what she’s feeling now is abuse or not and probably a bit embarrassed too.
On that note, Amanda is not a villain, she is an antagonist. There is a world of difference between the two.
Me, I’m just whimpering and pawing at the screen, whispering “Shh no iz okie bb there will be hugs later THERE WILL BE HUGS LATER just shhhh no fear no fear no no Amanda you emotional sponge iz okie rly srsly shhh iz okie.”
Yeah my brain also went to Amanda’s abuse history. 🙁
Wouldn’t be surprised if there was some PTSD in there too.
Now this might be in part because of what Andi’s going through, but showing your parents off to others with the attitude Amanda has about it seems really really selfish.
It’s also one thing to do it to fellow classmates, but completely disrespecting an adult is crossing other lines.
i don’t know about that. “respect” looks a lot more important to the one on top of the pecking order. doesn’t make them right.
It’s also how society is expected to function under normal circumstances. I don’t expect Amanda to fully understand that because–yes–she is the child in this situation, but that doesn’t mean that I would allow her to behave in a manner which is inappropriate; i.e., the only way to fix bad behavior is to set the line, explain it, fend off every crossing of it, explain again, remind them you love them, and not yield just because you hurt their feelings. I’m a teacher–I deal with this behavior every single day from over a hundred students (children) who’ve been through similar and worse things than Amanda.
TL;DR Version:
Her past is bad, yeah, but it doesn’t resolve her of the duty of growing past it or of adults teaching her how to.
Which then brings us to the part where this parent (Andi) is equally clueless about where/when to step in, especially considering that if the orphanage doesn’t approve, they take your kid away. Yeah, I think the next month or so is gonna be one wild ride for the both of them…
Which then brings us to the part where this parent (Andi) is equally clueless about where/when to step in, especially considering that if the orphanage doesn’t approve, they take your kid away. Yeah, I think the next month or so is gonna be one wild ride for the both of them…
Andi has already put Amanda Marie in her place multiple times (for saying “I’ll kick you butt” to her, cursing, being snotty to Selkie). Pretty sure she’s not going to be one of those “BFF moms”, but will give her kid the rules and consistency she needs to heal properly. Boundaries are excellent in that they establish a safe zone. Letting her run around and be a little shit would be setting her up to be another Truck.
not totally, i think. Truck definitely CHANGED his behavior around his dad that was in keeping with the “MY boy is a GOOD BOY” image… Amanda is acting the same whether a parent, or any adult for that matter, is present or not. She ISN’T changing her behavior. so it’s easier to see and to stop that same behavior for her, than it was for Trunchbull to see the bad in his son, and why it took so long for it to come to a head. in the long run, if Andi get’s it right i think Amanda will come out better off than Truck will. her root problem is external to her and she’s just reacting to what happened to her as an even younger kid in her first family… however, i’m pretty sure that Truck IS a sociopath, and to my understanding of that condition, it isn’t a “learned” thing,but that it is internal wiring differences and that any help he gets is really only teaching him how to blend in better and not actually “fixing” the real problem.
I’ve literally never seen it happen in the years I went to school. The only time I’ve ever saw some kids trying to compare and “win” with parents were on stupid ass TV shows.
Deer in the headlights!
But you know, there is being happy to have someone want you, and then there is unholy glee in rubbing yourself in someone else’s face. That’s just wrong.
And Andi slipped, and I think Amanda missed it.
You know, saying “your,” but not finishing with “friend’s dad”…
Oh dear, did Andi just accidentally say word for word something Amanda’s first adoptive parents said? That looks much more than a simple “I messed up”, that looks more like she’s having a horrific flashback. She’s sort of shut down, as well. I don’t think Andi has noticed either.
That’s what I was thinking upon seeing this page. I also noticed that Amanda feels she has to prove she is worth keeping, her rude behavior was morphing into panic before Andi snapped.
I think alot of people forget that Amanda went through both mental and physical abuse at an extremely young age. If this kid doesn’t have ptsd I’ll be surprised. (It was clear the boys hurt her as often as possible along with tearing her things. The parents the emotionally abused her and may have even hit her for her “lying”. ) Technicallyrics Amanda is just as much a special needs child as Selkie is.
I only hope Andi is up to the challenge of a young girl who desperately needs discipline but also needs to feel safe at all times.
*BTW what Andi just did is why I won’t be having kids, I know how I react to stress and it’s a lot like that.
Well I can say this: “Sorry” is more than I ever got from my parents snapping at me (yes both emotionally and physically) so it’s a good start
this is going to be a rocky journey but Andi doesn’t have the “I’m always right don’t you dare disrespect me I don’t have to apologize for anything” attitude and I think this is going to work out
I feel for Amanda here, but she is also being a brat and needed to be shut down a bit. I don’t think Andi was overly harsh, she actually apologized for snapping (something my dad has to this date never done) and even explained her reasons for not wanting to meet Todd (again ditto). So in some ways this may be upsetting for Amanda but it is also teaching her the limits of what her mom will put up with and that she is actually being treated with a great deal of respect for her age. Andi has read her whole file, I think she knows to be careful in how she handles her girl. She feels completely responsible for the troubles Amanda has gone through so far in life and I think she is doing well so far in meeting her needs. She’s gotten her a bunch of nice stuff and kinda let her be overjoyed and a bit of a snot because she was so happy for once, but when Amanda was really behaving badly Andi just told her to stop, explained why and even apologized for her own tone, I think she has more of a handle on things then people think. That said she needs to come up with some sort of plan vis-a-vis Todd.
Where’s the like button? 😀
It’s hard to tell on an unfinished comic but I think Amanda just figured out where she get’s her temper from. Not pretty, is it little girl?
For the record, most parents lose their temper in stressful times like this. Andi did pretty well, too, even though she probably raised her voice to terrifying levels. It’s not losing it that makes you a bad parent. It’s keeping yourself from losing it too far and also learning to do damage repair—acknowledging you did wrong and apologizing. These things teach a child very important skills, because no one is perfect.
I just cannot get the Chiyo (from Azumanga Daioh) pony tails out of my head when Amanda gets sad-tails going on.
Not that that’s a bad thing.
I know Amanda may be freaked about wrecking her shot with her real mother, but I just don’t think she’d be this overly cowed because her Mom yells at her for something like this. It was not particularly harsh or angry, and it just seems like Amanda’s reaction is overblown for making her Mom annoyed.
Remember, she was adopted to (and then taken from) an abusive home before. This might look overblown to someone who’s never faced making a parent /really/ angry and getting beaten for that. /We/ know Andi is just annoyed and overloaded and doesn’t know how to deal, to Amanda this probably looks like a complete off-the-rocker anger that might turn into action any moment.
Not fun.
i agree almost completely with your statement., the only quibble i have is with the () part… Amanda wasn’t TAKEN from the adoptive parents… those “parents” such that they are, went and GAVE HER BACK to the orphanage (WTF?!)…THAT’S where she gets most of her reaction to the “they DUMPED me” attitude. I’ll bet that when Amanda finally cools off a bit towards Selkie and they start actually TALKING to one another rather than just trading insults like they’ve been doing, that it’ll be a big shock to her when she realizes that Selkie was dumped TOO.
It’s not the same. Amanda was basically discarded, Selkie was placed out of harm’s way.
We know that, Todd probably has some idea of it, but Selkie almost certainly doesn’t. She got the “this bow will keep you safe” message, but she doesn’t know about the war so she has no idea why beyond a vague parental gift thing. (Also we still don’t know precisely why Plo Quar gave up Selkie – I’m almost certain we’ve seen her in the background of another strip so she’s still alive, so it could be that to go into hiding they had to be split up to limit attention or something, but it’s going to be hard for Selkie to swallow if/when she finds out that.)
This is the first time Andi has lost her temper with Amanda. While her words weren’t super harsh, I’m sure her tone and volume made up for it. This had to be a big shock for Amanda. Once in a blue moon I have situations like this with my own daughter. It’s not a good, fun thing for either of us, but all parents have human moments…all the more so if we are trying to take more positive paths than how we were raised.
Oh, ouch. For both of them.
Heh. Amanda has Chiyo-chan’s expressive pigtails.
I think some people are reading a little too much into this.
Up until now, things with Amanda and Andi had been all ponies and rainbows. I think Amanda just got a reality check.
Exactly! Honeymoon’s over. 🙂 I do think Andi will always be a fun parent, but she will quickly pick up the importance of setting up clear boundaries, rules, and routines. She strikes me as someone who has good intuition to do this—despite her lack of experience with kids.
I don’t think Amanda got a reality check, I think she got triggered — that’s what the reaction shot seems to be meant to imply. This is not an ordinary “Okay, Mom’s not the pushover I thought she would be.” This is a serious emotional moment. I think people are right to connect this both to Heather’s “please don’t send me back!” and to Amanda’s foster parents.
Andi does seem capable of stepping in the role of parenting eventually, but I still think it’s going to be tough. She’s still kinda immature and volatile, and with a kid like Amanda, unpredictable is the one thing she doesn’t need in a parent.
I think Kilyle is spot on. Amanda’s triggered. Amandas frozen expression and meek voice suggest a “if I don’t move, the monster can’t see me” sort of reaction.
nah, NOT the “MONSTER”… but “The QUEEN”…
Remember her book reading? Amanda was the Princess and the other two kids were the “princes”. that made the mom the “queen” and the dad the “king”
And the “‘Kay” of “I’ll just be quiet and agree and then they’ll leave me alone for a while.”
“Spazzing” is a pretty mild term in the US (compared to the UK, where it’s r-slur levels of bad), so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the brothers who she’s flashing back to as well – it’s just the kind of word elementary school kids would learn isn’t QUITE a curse, but paired with tone and deed it’s pretty easy to turn a word into a nightmare.
One thing many seem to overlook, is Andi used Amanda’s “middle” name when addressing her. To Andi, it was supposed to be two first names, but to Amanda it was her middle name. I am not sure about you, but when my mom used my middle name; it meant I was in serious trouble. Add that to an abusive relationship? Darn tooting Amanda is freaked out.
I think giving her a hug would help right now.
Unless, when Andi reaches for her, Amanda flinches away. “Arms go up, I’m gonna get hit” kinda thing.
I haven’t commented before, but I just wanted to say that your portrayal of Amanda here, as a kid whose gone through a lot of trauma (abandonment, abuse, abandonment again), is spot on. I work with kids with trauma and that “deer in headlights” look, as well as the immediate withdrawal in speech is very much what many kids with trauma do when confronted with an angry adult. Keep up the good work!
You’re going to make a playdate with someone your daughter obviously torments?
Although I guess Andi is kind of shellshocked right now.
Being that Amanda and Selkie are actually now sisters, Andi’s long term goal is that the two them get along. With that, a play date would eventually be in order. It would, however, be best to hold it at Andi’s place since Amanda might try to damage or destroy Selkie’s possessions.
Nope. Never ever host a playdate at an insecure kid’s home unless you want to spend your time breaking up turf battles and fears of the insecure child thinking all her things are going to be stolen. Playground or somewhere neutral.
I concur that insecure children need to have rights to privacy, property, and locations they can call their own. (Right to privacy can be waived for a while if the child is known to deliberately hurt themselves.)
When you’re insecure, you need stability, and one of those things is knowing that the things you have and the space you inhabit is your own and not going to be encroached upon. This is an area where an insecure person can be more aggressive than normal because it’s the one thing they know they have to defend at all costs.
yeah I also love the drooped pig-tails:)
Andi *breathing hard* Amanda Marie, he is your father!
Amanda *backing away, clinging to door for support* NOOOOOOOO!
Sorry, kind of got a flash back to the I am your father scene from Star Wars here.
Then Amanda gets a robot hand and Selkies jealousy skyrockets
Say, May the Fourth is coming up. Maybe do a Star Wars themed sketch day or something? Or at least a bit of Star Wars background detail… a poster, a movie playing offscreen…
Also, I love how often you respond to references like this with a totally appropriate “how it would go” kind of thing. You did it with my Darkwing Duck note too 😀
Oh snap, that’s an Update day too. O_o
I completely spaced on May the 4th, but especially with the new movie trailers everywhere… well, I may just have to agree that something could be whipped up. :d
Time for Andi to have a sit down talk With Amanda.
My OCD is screaming in my head that her earrings are missing again. o.O”’ Out of everything else in the strip, that’s all that’s bothering me!
…I knew it, I knew it, I KNEW when I added those things it would come back to haunt me. XD
I’ll fix the OCD trigger tonight, thanks!
I guess OCD readers are a godsend for reminding you what you’ve forgotten then? XD
you should read thru the comments on the comic “Grrl Power” sometime, we ended up calling those type of errors “easter eggs” and almost made it a contest to see if he made any in every new strip… the one i think that had the most re-occurrences was a bruise on the cheek of the main character that she got during her first Superhero Boss-Battle… he kept forgetting to add it in on some panels, then the next one he’d put it in, then forget again.. it was hilarious…
Have you gotten to the point where you have a series “Bible” set up? You could have sheets for each of the characters in their basic getup, with notes pointing to little details to remember, like earrings. You’d have to change that with each new outfit (like, a base “no matter what outfit” thing and one specific to each outfit), but you could print them out on card stock and have the characters right next to you when you’re drawing.
Then it’d work a little like a checklist, and you wouldn’t have to worry about missing small details so often.
P.S. Don’t feel too bad — Howard Taylor from Schlock Mercenary said he didn’t know *what* he was thinking when he invented an alien who had four upper arms that each split for a total of eight forearms. That he had to draw, per alien, each time they were onscreen.
If Todd had agreed to make another baby with Andi and they had not broken up, Andi would never have gone looking for Amanda. What happens if Amanda ever finds out that Andi’s first plan had been to make a replacement baby? That would be soul crushing I think.
I don’t remember that being the case exactly… I think when the subject of getting married and having kids came up between them, Andi just said she wanted biological children while Todd was rather dead-set on adopting kids, like how he was. Because, if I remember the way he said it correctly, he said he “didn’t want what went wrong the last time to happen again.” Ergo, because he thought Amanda died after she was born or was stillborn, he didn’t want to have biological children.
Actually, those were Andi’s words
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie162/
Right, thanks, it’s just been a while since I last read this through from the beginning (I do that with webcomics sometimes just because) so while I remembered the words I just didn’t remember correctly who said them.
For all the hate she got earlier, I am loving Andi right now! Sure she got to skip the sleepless nights and poop and vomit everywhere, but she’s going to pay what she owes on that with this Todd confrontation and Selkie revelation.
Wow…there’s a whole lot of “broken” in that car right now.
Let’s hope Selkie and Todd have some Krazy-Glue somewhere. The group’s gonna need it it.
You know, sitting here, reading the comic, I just realized that Andi has done one of the most stupid things in the universe.
She literally adopted a kid to get back together with Todd. Granted before she may have felt guilty about how the whole thing happened, but she didn’t really appear to think about finding her daughter or getting her back until after Todd told Andi to get out of his life and he adopted another little girl anyways.
This is actually really unfortunate for Amanda, because in the long run Andi may eventually decide that she simply cannot handle having a child or being a parent isn’t for her and give Amanda back.
The biggest contrast between Andi and Todd is Andi never grew up, Todd did. You can tell from Todd’s mannerisms, not only that, but the way he speaks and even his own hair cut. As teens Todd and Andi both had some pretty stupid hair styles, but Todd eventually adopted a hairstyle more conductive to the real world, the business world, meanwhile Andi still looks like a fucking dumb ass troll doll and talks like she’s still in middle school.
1. She didn’t adopt Amanda. You can not adopt a child you gave birth to. She retrieved her. Big difference.
2. It’s really not clear why she did it. From the little we’ve seen of her explanation she’s trying to right wrongs. She has not at all said anything about hoping it’ll bring Todd back into her life.
3. I agree the haircut thing is weird. I have never met anyone who’d hang onto such an extreme haircut—especially from childhood. Most people I know who do those kinds of styles often change them for the sake of creativity more than anything else—this even includes the most immature people. Perhaps she has hung onto it for other reasons.
Sorry, i dont agree. You cant just give up a child and then pick it up when its 8 and act like nothing has happened. She adopted her own daughter. Im not sure how the entire process eorks but im willing to bet that parents who give up their kids for over half a decade are inspected just as closely as prespective parents.
The thing is, after re-reading comic #162 (referenced above) I don’t think she retrieved Amanda to “get Todd back.”
She has, obviously, been rethinking her life and her past choices. When she told Todd that she wanted to “fix what went wrong the first time” she had adifferent context than Todd did. She knew what really happened with Amanda. Todd didn’t and she knew what that did to him and she felt a great deal of guilt. Guilt that poisoned and ultimately wrecked their relationship.
I’m not denying that this is a *really* bad way to go about fixing things, but, at least, she’s trying to address the root of the situation. She’s also had the opportunity to see the other, unforeseeable, consequences of her (and her mother’s) unilateral decisions.
And yet she could have discussed this all with todd Before jumping the gun. Shes a coward.
If she found it too hard to think up how to approach Todd about the matter — or even thought it was a bad time, given the new child in his life and all the adjustments he’s got to make for that, to be bringing up something this earth-shattering — would it have been better for her to leave Amanda in the orphanage for a few more days or weeks or months until she figured it was the right time to talk to Todd?
Because I think if you can see two things that need to be done, and both of them are important, and there are reasons that you don’t or can’t do Thing A, then it’s generally better to do Thing B rather than sit on your hands until everything else is perfect. Speaking from the experience of a good deal of procrastination and regret over things I could’ve done but didn’t do, many of which still sit on my to-do list under the idea of “someday but not for a while.”
The falseness that has been nagging at me ever since we learned Amanda’s provenance is: How was Andi able to drop the infant at an orphanage without a paternal consent? Has she lied to everyone, all of the time? Because surely orphanages don’t accept children from mothers who know the fathers – and who are still alive and contact-able – without some kind of formal sign-off from the father, do they? Or is my assumption of how orphanages “must” work that far off the mark?
I mean, I can understand a mother saying that “she doesn’t know” who the father is, and that explanation would have to stand, in lieu of any proof to the contrary. I can understand that the mother could say that “the father has died” or “has left the country” or some other version of “gone and unreachable” (though they should ask for proof of that, at least in my imagining of how the process ought to work). But she could never get away with, “I told my boyfriend, Todd Smith, that the baby died, and he believed me. Here you go.” No institution this side of a black market in children (which I have no doubt exists in parts of the world, but not in Wisconsin) would countenance a story like that on its face.
So, there’s more the back story, unless it was put into comments somewhere that I haven’t read.
Hah!
Amanda’s a spaz!
Even mother know it.