I’m very sorry everyone, but due to real life issues I wasn’t able to get any further than this for today’s update for the time being. I intend to finish it properly later, although to be honest I will be working on Friday’s update first to make sure this doesn’t happen then too. So worst case scenario, this one gets colored up after Friday.
-EDIT- Worst case scenario achieved. Finally got it done.
In a parallel universe, Felix is offering Amanda and Selkie three wishes for his freedom. But they're monkey-paw wishes...
Lucy … you got some ‘splainin to do!
She just wanted to sing with the band!
Anyone else going on a feel trip right now?
Just me?
I do feel sympathy for Andi, I do. This is not a good situation she got into, lying and having to sit on it. That had to have caused so many problems for her.
They say the truth shall set you free. Let Andi start healing. But let her pay the consequences.
That truth bit is a whole crock of horse shit. Growing up as a kid, it was constantly driven into my head it’s ALWAYS better to tell the truth and I had to learn the hard way it isn’t.
I’ve seen enough people get away Scott free with their bad behavior while I told the truth to know that telling the truth can be really over rated when you could just have avoided everything.
I have mixed feelings about the “always tell the truth” idea.
To begin with, I’m named after it (Alethia is the Greek word for truth, slightly misspelled), so it’s not like I’m impartial.
We try to train kids to tell the truth and not lie. And it’s important to be honest with yourself, and it’s important that you don’t lie to get other people in trouble, and don’t lie just to get yourself out of trouble rather than facing the consequences of your actions (because getting into a trend of weaseling out of just consequences leads to far worse problems later on)… assuming there’s not an element of foreseeable “disproportionate retribution” attached (a kid in an abusive situation, for example, would be justified in trying to cover up their behavior if they thought little things would result in unjustified beatings).
On the other hand, our society ROUTINELY commands children to lie about things. ROUTINELY. You don’t say what you really mean, or what you think, or what you feel; you say things that make it easier on others, that avoid hurt feelings and awkwardness, that go along with the social flow. If Grandma knits you a sweater that really doesn’t fit with your wardrobe in any way and is something you would never wear, then you are pretty much socially pressured into telling her you like it or even love it, so she feels good, even if this results in her making you a sweater just like it every year, a useless exchange of things that help no one. (No one seems to think of reasonable alternatives. For example, “Grandma, I love that you took so much time trying to make me something nice. It’s a style (or color) that doesn’t appeal to me, but it does look nice and it feels very warm — would you be terribly offended if we took this in to the Good Will store as a donation, so someone it looks good on will be warm later? Then it’ll be put to good use and we can both feel good about it.” (And then give her an idea of the kind of colors or styles that do fit with your wardrobe.))
We also have a hard time balancing the concept of privacy, and which people have a right to know (or even ask about) which things, and which people don’t. Like, a random salesperson might try to get information about your household as part of his sales pitch. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m happy lying to telemarketers if they’re of the scammy sort (I had funny today pretending I didn’t know what a computer was, because “Microsoft Tech Support” with a strong Indian accent was calling for like the two-dozenth time this year… if I can’t get them to take me off their list, at least I can get enjoyment out of the calls).
So… yeah, mixed feelings about this blanket “honesty” idea. But then again, tact was a hard concept for me, and still is. I feel like Alceste from “The Misanthrope,” irritated that so many people say things just to grease the wheels of society rather than actually meaning any of the things they say.
“And so, had you but spoken from the heart,
Rejected my advances from the start,
I’d have no quarrel — or, at any rate,
I could complain of nothing but my fate.
But oh! So falsely to encourage me!”
And, on the flip side to these clear and accurate statements, we have times where kids do tell the truth, but it is declared to be a lie because the truth is Inconvenient To Adults.
For a minor example from my own life, I’ve never liked sweet potatoes, particularly baked with honey. It’s the texture, mostly. Stringy, slimy, sticky, I just straight up don’t like it. I’d rather eat just about anything else. But my grandma got it into her head that I was lying and kept shoveling my plate full of sweet potatoes and (shudder) “goody” honey. Just typing it out here in this little comment box is making my skin crawl.
This went on for years, and my mother took it up as well, believing that I liked sweet potatoes simply because her mother did. And every time sweet potatoes come up, she tries to get me to eat them, and I have to go through the whole “I don’t like them” speech over again. It’s been decades. She still doesn’t get that I’m telling the truth, even though I’ve long since grown up.
There’s plenty of nightmare scenarios out there of kids telling the truth and being declared liers just because adults don’t want the truth. Bullying, child abuse, no, parents refuse to comprehend it, and society doesn’t want to deal with it. Say only what people want to hear, kid, or suffer.
Wow. How could they not see that it makes NO SENSE for a kid to lie about disliking a particular food? What could they possibly believe was your motivation for saying it?
So there would be more for others?
“No, Grandma, really. I don’t LIKE sweet potatoes. YOU have another serving. I’ll just sit here and nibble on these carrot sticks.”
Oh that dear, sweet, child. Giving up something she really loves, for me. “Here, Baby. Have a second BIG helping!” 😀
There’s not a damn thing in a sweet potato that can’t be gotten elsewhere. Regular potatoes, carrots, fruit, meat, all far higher on my list of preference. And honey? It’s straight up sugar.
What’s worse is how they always LAUGHED about it. I’m telling them the straight up truth, and it’s a joke. Yeah, real confidence booster for the power of being honest, there.
Of course, turning this into a kid’s nutrition debate makes as much sense as arguing over ugly christmas sweaters from the earlier example.
Well, on the flip side, I’m convinced that my nephew routinely says he hates things not out of any real sense of actually disliking the thing he is currently tasting (which he has often reacted to like Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes, going into a “this thing is choking me to death” routine), but because he has learned that refusing to eat healthy food means his mom and/or grandma will cheerfully switch his meal to Top Ramen or Mac & Cheese. So not only does he know he can get a preferred meal, but he doesn’t stop to even taste the stuff we’re introducing him to.
I confirmed the taste thing when I gave the kids a blind taste test on orange and grape sodas. The kids had decided positions on which ones they like best, but their positions didn’t match the ones they rated highest. But my nephew almost had a temper tantrum when I revealed that he had not liked best the one he thought he liked best — he accused me of having rigged the game by “not telling me which one was which.”
I hated sweet potatoes until I was almost 30, and even now I only like them when drenched in brown sugar.
There’s some books i’ve been reading on emotional abused (research for a project, kinda depressing research at that), and one thing mentioned in a few and the full subject of one particular book is when people try to define your inner world.
“Which ice cream do you want, honey?”
“Vanilla!”
“No, you like chocolate.”
“But I want vanilla!”
“You don’t like vanilla. You like chocolate.”
How in the world do parents get this way, anyway? Unless possibly they have experienced before a scenario in which the kid literally got mixed up about which word meant which kind of ice cream.
Telling someone the things they like, or the things they want, or what they’re “really” thinking or feeling… with the exception of trying to help a young child make sense of their feelings and maybe establish some vocabulary for them… is just such a way to erase the person you’re talking to and make a clone of yourself. It’s crazy.
It’s also part of how abusers work — they have an internal model of how their significant other “should” act, and if they act in a different way, however slightly, the abuser can explode. This one guy attacked his wife purely because, when she came home from work, she looked at the mail first instead of noticing that her husband was enjoying cooking and going immediately to help him cook — as his internal model of the perfect soul mate thought was just natural behavior.
It’s called the “Teddy” by the book, as though the people you interact with are dolls whole realities you define.
I recall a time we went out on a boat, and after enjoying that for a while I went inside the boat and found a bed and lay down, enjoying immensely the feeling of rocking on the water (a feeling I still enjoy to this day). But the entire family was convinced that I was seasick, and that all my protests were trying to cover for that fact — I couldn’t convinced them otherwise! It stands out in my head as the moment I understood how easily people, even non-abusive people, think they know the inside of other people.
That’s quite simple, we send them mixed messages, when you’re taught to be polite no matter what saying you don’t like something is considered rude, often resulting in punishment or a lecture. As a result kid forces down the food once and tries to be polite saying they liked it. Parent seeing expression disbelieves, but to a kid we’re told lying is the ultimate wrong, so we double down. Rather than be caught lying. Parent now believes you and you’re stuck choking down whatever crap you just lied about 6ta save your hide because heaven forbid you be rude to a grownup by being honest, and you liked it once you even SAID so.
Even the bible doesn’t call lying a sin. Only bearing false witness, a particularly despicable kind of lie. Human society simply is not set up to survive in a 100% truthful world.
For example: I’m lying to you right now. My name isn’t Robbzilla. I lied to Facebook, gmail, hotmail, and pretty much every loyalty card in existence. I happily do so in the name of keeping my privacy. If they want to get my information, it’ll cost them more than 30 cents off of string beans. And with the way companies are safeguarding my data, I feel doubly vindicated. I had a long discussion with an old high school chum about using my real name on Facebook to make it easier for me to find friends. This was before all of the security leaks. I work in IT and have a degree in IT Security. Trust me, the truth can and will be used against you pretty much everywhere.
Wow, didn’t expect to strike such a nerve there with everyone. Hot button issue here.
What I meant was that this particular lie has been eating at her for a while. Hell, she’s breaking down getting her side out. This needed to happen for her. This truth really is setting her free so to speak. She is as broken as Amanda for different reasons. While she will pay for her part in all this and should, it will help her grow.
In real life I’ve found you can deceive more with the truth, you really can. Everyone expects lies. Through careful use of word choice, mathematician’s answers, omissions of details not directly asked, hyperbole, and only answering what was asked you can tell someone the truth while deceiving them completely into believing utterly opposite of what you said.
Our society operates off lies: Spare people’s feelings, Avoid retribution at all costs, Sell that dress, Get elected, Get that girl into bed. It never ends. And most of the time lies are the best tool to do it. It’s in our advertising, our leaders, our children, our bosses, and us. Phineas and Ferb even had an episode about it. As a culture, nay, as a people, we deceive.
So yes, a nice brisk discussion I have no interest in curbing, based off an observation that lies were tearing Andi apart. (Lisa!)
That’s one of my BIG problems with the concept of honesty as practiced by our society. For some reason people think that saying something factually incorrect, and attempting to deceive people with those words, is a Big Bad Thing, but if you can manage to do so with factually correct wording used to deliberately deceive, that’s somehow not as bad, it’s really okay.
Like, there were priests who would save someone they were protecting (I think this was during the Holocaust) by saying like “There’s nobody in here” but pointing up their sleeve and internally meaning there’s nobody up their sleeve. Like somehow a loophole like that makes everything all right. Like God can’t figure out our reasoning for lying or deceiving, and whether it’s okay or not, and like God is not okay with a lie told to protect someone but IS okay with a truth told to deceive someone.
Honestly.
And GallowsNoose, I definitely think that there are times — and this is one of them — where deceptions build up over time to great harm, and where truth can be the first step (though not the only step) in getting out of an entrapment there’s no other way out of. So yes, “the truth shall set you free” does happen, it’s just not a 100% every time kind of deal.
Also, I feel the need to point out that that particular phrase, in context, was not just the general idea that being honest is good and lying is bad, but about knowing Jesus personally (“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”) — the freedom of the Gospel or the Good News, salvation that is freedom from the sin nature, and the power of God to help you experience temporal freedom while you wait for your everlasting freedom.
Interesting how specific contexts get lost over time and powerful statements become general principles that aren’t even that general.
We both agree.
As for Andi, she’s on the road to healing. One step at a time. She won’t like the process, she’ll have to face what she did was wrong and the panic shows she might be starting to do that.
Here’s hoping she continues.
I knew her mom pressured her. She’s been pressuring her daughter her entire life I bet. Amanda wasn’t the only abused child in their family. Andi probably suffers from some pretty hard core emotional and mental abuse. Not only that, but she never had any one to turn to for help from the abuse.
I don’t think what Andi’s Mom did was necessarily abuse. It’s been established that Andi’s Mom did indeed regret raising Andi at such a young age. Raising children is extremely time-consuming. You can’t have career and education and children at the same time. So if you’re not even done your high school education and haven’t started your career, and you have a child, you lock yourself out of any career that requires higher education.
I’m not saying Andi’s Mom was perfect, but she was right to encourage Andi to give up Amanda for adoption for those reasons. Now, if there were any ulterior motives we don’t know about, that could be abusive. But for what we’ve seen of Andi’s Mom, Andi’s Mom was right about the adoption thing.
Advising her daughter to lie to Todd was (probably) wrong, but that’s a separate issue.
But there are better ways to go about it. You could meet the people who would be adopting, for example. And it’s not like the father wasn’t ready. His parents, from what we have seen, would have supported them too.
You are right, it wasn’t abuse, or even wrong. That doesn’t mean she was not largly responsible for what happened to Amanda.
The responsible thing for her to do would have been to put her dauter on the pill.
You don’t always get to meet the parents in an adoption. My brother was adopted privately, and our parents (the ones that raised him) had to pay a huge amount to do so, as did his biological mother. When they adopted me, they still had to pay the fees (this was through the state) but my bio-mom (I think – never met her so don’t know for sure) didn’t have to pay the bills. All the medical bills went to my parents that raised me instead.
I don’t recall Andi’s mother advising Andi to lie to Todd: if I read my pictographs correctly, then Mrs. Mom advised Andi to discount Todd’s preference when deciding whether or not to give up Amanda. Also, when Andi spoke with herother before getting Amanda, Mrs. Mom seemed to think that Todd knew his daughter was alive. Anyway, I’m with you on this one: whether or not giving up Amanda was the right decision, I think Mrs. Mom did what she did for altruistic reasons.
That last frame of Todd… Looks like sorrow is spilling over to anger…
I’m going to say not anger but outright rage
But is it at Andi for doing it, or at Andi for being so wishy-washy and letting Ma talk her into doing it, or at Ma for talking Andi into doing it?
And while I feel for Andi, Todd has every right in the world to be angry. Hulk levels of anger, to be honest. I wonder if he can borrow an Eva from his neighbors?
…Well, it’s going better than I’d expected it to. Andi’s not putting all the blame on her mother (though I think Patricia DOES deserve most of it…) and is admitting that she did allow the lie to continue. Todd’s expression hints that he MAY not let the hurt and anger overwhelm him, which would be such a very good thing on so many levels. Amanda and Selkie have to learn to live together at least part of the time, and that’ll be so much easier if the adults involved are, well, adults about it all.
Now to find out if Todd will have enough time to figure out how to explain to Amanda why he adopted Selkie before the truth comes out to the kids…
On the list of thoughts buzzing in his mind right now, I’m pretty sure that’s so far down you’d need a telescope to see it. He KNOWS why he adopted Selkie: she needed him. That’s settled fact, totally obvious — doesn’t need any justifying, to anyone. She’s his daughter.
Right now he’s thinking a swirling mix of “YOU LIED TO ME,” and “SHE’S ALIVE!” snd “SHE’S MY KID, OHGOD, I HAVE ANOTHER KID.”
When you get that kind of emotional shock, you don’t have energy to spare for anything but dealing with the first-order implications.
After the first impact wears off, there will be anger and recriminations and then some “what the hell do we do now?” thoughts. How either of the kids are going to feel about it…? That’s third-order. I’m betting that won’t enter his head until after one of them says something.
Never said he’s thinking about it now; I’m more worried that it’ll come out today (strip time) before the shock to Todd has a chance to fade a bit. If the news to the girls is able to wait it’ll be better all around.
Also never said TODD doubts why he adopted Selkie. AMANDA, however, will suddenly be getting the news that her “REAL DADDY” came in and chose another daughter over her. When dealing with an emotionally damaged eight year old, figuring out how to give that information in a way that will keep additional damage to a minimum is kinda important. “Sorry, Amanda, you’re such a good actress I thought you were better adjusted, and I didn’t realize you’re really my daughter, and Selkie so obviously needed me and reminded me so much of myself as a kid” isn’t the best way to deliver that news.
I’m worried that Amanda will be fine with it, and tell Selkie that she is more important to Todd than Selkie because he’s her real dad and Selkie’s just adopted. Selkie will probably be extremely sad, angry, and jealous, which will make Todd only stress out more.
Clarinets brings up a good point that I hadn’t considered fully… andi probably did have to suffer a LOT of abuse (whether mental/emotional, physical, or both). I can only imagine just forceful and downright stalwart her mom must’ve been when it came to Amanda. “I refuse you let you ruin your life” was probably the nicer, public way of addressing it. Behind closed doors it was probably “I can’t afford another child and I don’t WANT another child. If you don’t give her away, you’re out. And don’t even think about telling Todd the truth because you will regret it.” I feel like Andi adopting Amanda was probably one of the first times she stood up to her about anything serious…. and even then, her mom still said “She’s not my grandkid I want nothing to do with her.” This whole scenario is SO much bigger than Andi just being an immature/selfish teenager. She was frightened to death, plain and simple. If she didn’t do what her mom wanted, she probably would have had to raise Amanda by herself at the age of 16. Yeah Todd’s family would’ve helped but in retrospect, Todd would’ve forfeited his life for the happiness of their child. They’d both be penniless, uneducated, and miserable… depending on the charity of Todd’s parents bc Andi’s mom rejected her.
From what we’ve seen, Todd has a loving, supportive family. Add in that teenage Todd warmed up to the idea of having a child, it doesn’t seem like his parents were being overly critical of his desire to raise said child. He likely would have had a great deal of family support.
That teenage Andi never seemed to consider that as her own mother pushed her to get rid of the baby does speak volumes about their relationship.
The thing is, if the abuse Andi has experienced goes as far and as deep as we assume it goes, she was probably not preparing, unconsciously, to trust Todd´s parents to support whatever decision she and Todd made about the baby. She´d be too damaged by her experience with her own mother (and we don´t know whatever experience she may have had with her father, since he´s never appeared so far).
I’m on with this idea. It’s one thing to accept that there are trustworthy people in the world; it’s another to specifically decide that this particular person is someone you’re going to be able to trust when the chips are down. And when your own parents fail to provide that trust-nurturing foundation, you’re going to have a hard time seeing it in anyone else.
Plus, is there any evidence that she had ever even met Todd’s parents at the time?
I’m going to say, some of this is on their decision not to get married then — it sounds corny, but the legal baggage that accrues can provide a certain amount of quasi-stability. It’s at least slightly harder to walk away. It does bespeak a certain commitment, overall.
And Andi grew up in a single-parent household, so her subconscious impression of parenthood would’ve been as a Single Mother. That could take a lot of work to overcome.
(On the other hand, diving into marriage would’ve had its own risks. On the gripping hand, it would have given a certain amount of ability to toss the kid on the other grandparents’ door…)
Having a Mother who encourages a unwed teenage mother to give her baby away is not abuse, I don’t care what anyone says.
It isn’t her Mother’s responsibility to take care of her baby and two stupid kids, who are still in school have better and more important things to worry about then raising a baby.
If I had been Andi’s Father I would have pressed her for the same course, it was best for everyone. At the time no one could have guessed what would happen to Amanda.
There’s a difference between encouraging someone to do something, and wholesale overriding their free will and bullying them into it.
That’s pretty much the difference between a good friend or family member, and a Well-Intentioned Extremist, the latter of which is a common sort of villain. Take Rayek from ElfQuest: Just wanted to save people from a life of suffering and misery, and to see his kind lifted to the glorious state they were capable of — but in trying to accomplish this he so ignored the free will of everyone around him that he physically kidnapped his ex-girlfriend (along with her two young children and a good friend) because she wasn’t making the decision the way he thought was best, and later he almost deleted the entire earthly population of elves from history, minus a few he was offering the chance to quickly escape this fate.
If you want a more concrete real-life example, just look at the classic attitudes of abusive men: I want things my way, I know best, you don’t get a say because clearly you are inferior to me and I don’t even recognize that you have a fundamental right to have a say in matters that directly concern you.
That kind of attitude isn’t less abusive just because it’s coming from a mother toward a teenager.
Except stupid kids DONT know shit.
In a lot of cases, “you don’t have the experience to know this is bad” is not sufficient cause to take the choice away from them — and, in fact, taking big choices away from people can be worse in the long run.
You can justifiably take away a kid’s choice to play with fire, a teen’s choice to skive off schoolwork or to drink alcohol.
You might choose to let a willful child continue an activity that is pretty clearly going to end in pain, so that the pain will be a better teacher than your words. Depends on how bad the pain or harm is likely to be — that’s a judgment call.
But when a teen dates the wrong type of person, or defers too much to peer pressure, or decides to stop attending church, or wants to get a tattoo you’re sure they’ll regret later, all sorts of decisions like that, you don’t just take the decision out of their hands. Or at least, mostly you shouldn’t. Being too controlling leads to worse problems than an unwise tattoo.
I’m not really sure how far this goes or what types of decisions it covers. But the mere fact that something is pretty obviously a dumb decision and that it’s going to affect their life and that you could spare them that, that is not sufficient reason to take the decision away.
Yeah it is.
Not in this case. It might have been the right course of action if they had been honest and forthright and involved Todd and his family in the decision, but they didn’t.
Yes, that’s the other side of the coin.
Maybe this would’ve led to a situation where Andi wanted to adopt the kid out to strangers, while Todd wanted to maintain custody. If this issue split them strongly enough, then their relationship would’ve ended, and that would have been a good thing (as it would demonstrate that they’re not mature enough for the relationship).
Maybe it would’ve led to Todd getting custody of the kid while Andi goes her own way; maybe Andi and/or her mother would’ve thought that’s a worse scenario for the kid than getting adopted by strangers. But that’s not Andi’s mother’s call to make, and Andi can’t make custody decisions over the child without Todd having equal say.
And maybe the kid would’ve been raised by Todd’s parents. Grandparents are certainly capable of raising grandkids that the real parents aren’t capable of raising right then; this happens a lot in the world, actually, and is a viable foster care option if the parent loses her kids for legal/CPS reasons. Andi’s mother made the executive decision to completely overlook this option — and, again, that wasn’t her decision to make.
The thing that concerns me is Todd looks like he’s ready to punch Andi in the face. Like, I’m not gonna say he should be all, “Awww poor Andi I’m so sorry for all the pain and suffering you went through.” but I’d hope at the very least he’d have some sympathy for her. I mean, granted, he seemed far more concerned with his own dreams and happiness than Andi’s state of mind and her happiness and feelings during the pregnancy, but he was still young then at least. I mean, really, if you think about it, poor Andi was utterly alone. No support from her mom and a boyfriend who couldn’t tell how miserable she was and she was too scared/concerned about his happiness to tell him how she really felt about it all.
Poor thing was backed into a corner with nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Seems like her life was pretty isolated to just Todd and her mom.
I really hope her doesn’t hit her…
He’s angry but it doesn’t mean he’s going to hit her. And he really has no reason to sympathize with her. Regardless of what happened when they were teens, she chose to cling to a lie for eight years. She didn’t have the decency to tell him when she was looking for Amanda again.
Well, that last bit is indeed true. She chose to lie for 8 years. But really, who knows how much control her mother had over her? Who knows what sort of fear she lived in. At the very least, Todd should say he’s sorry he never noticed her misery and never asked her what was bothering her. While he has every right to be angry with her, he really can’t just blame her solely for this. Hell, even he plays a small part in terms of not being attentive enough to notice how unhappy she was. He was all wrapped up in his own thing, which isn’t his fault entirely, he was a teenager with big dreams and had a huge fantasy life planned out. Andi too, was a teenager. Who knows what her dreams were, because now that she was having a baby she felt like those didn’t matter. Did Todd even CONSIDER the idea of an abortion being what she wanted? Did he even allow the thought? Perhaps he made it clear that he wanted the baby and talked about how they were going to have it, without even considering what Andi wanted? Maybe he never outright told her abortion was off the table, but he may have never even considered it a possibility and to Andi, coming from an abusive, controlling single parent, perhaps her own abuse made her believe Todd would not allow and abortion? Who knows how twisted her views are from her mother? She may have been warped into believing Todd would FORCE her to have a baby she didn’t want.
We have no idea how deep her emotional and mental abuse may go. We have no idea what sort of fear and deluded ideas she may have thought. We have no idea what a scared, virtually alone (in her mind anyway) little teenage girl was going through.
Cast ye not the first stone and what not.
Considering her mom’s attitude, I’m pretty sure if abortion had been an option her mom would’ve pushed for it. Most likely, they found out after it was too late to abort. But the way the birth scene was presented, it looks like Andi wanted the baby, but her mother pushed her to not keep it. Best guess is that Andi said nothing about being pregnant until abortion wasn’t an option, if she even knew she was pregnant before it was too late for that.
As for Todd asking Andi what’s wrong when the baby supposedly died… really? Todd is supposed to do something other than assume that Andi is upset because her baby just died? Forget that Amanda is alive for just a moment, and look through Todd’s eyes. Amanda just died, and Andi is upset. Why would he need to ask what she’s so upset about? Even mothers who don’t want the child get upset if the child dies late in the pregnancy or during the birth.
You paint a picture in which Andi is mortally afraid of anyone who could have the least bit of claim of authority over her. That is not the personality we’ve seen. Andi is afraid of her mother. She’s never shown the least bit of fear when it comes to disagreeing with Todd. She was pretty darn strong in front of her ex-roommate. And her personality is not the type to say nothing and endure in silence when it comes to Todd.
I get that everyone has been coming down hard on Andi when all evidence points to her having had an emotionally abusive mother, but please don’t twist Todd’s role in all this. He’s been nothing but loving and supportive throughout the comic. He’s made some mistakes, he’s not perfect, but he’s nowhere close to the guilty party here.
“ex-roommate” ? What?
Are you referring to Alexis, her neighbor across the hall?
If Andi truly did not want to go through with the pregnancy she wouldn’t have, regardless of what anyone else felt.
Ive eventually come to the conclusion that nearly any case of “if ____ truly ____” falls apart under closer scrutiny.Mostly because it assumes the moral/quality/etc in a vaccuum devoid of other such values. In this case andi could have easily had other values interfering… like “truly not wanting conflict with her mom/todd”. Its this conflict that makes some things so scarring… youve not only doing something you dont want to… but totally betraying an aspect of yourself in the process.
If you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it damn all else. Regrets com later,
That really ain’t how life works, you know.
There are plenty of people who want desperately to do a certain thing, but find it’s out of their reach because of how friends and family will react, how they’re going to get the money (especially without revealing the reason to said friends and family), how it might conflict with their moral understandings, etc. etc. ad infinitum.
People who do something they want and damn the consequences aren’t the sum total of humanity. The push and pull of social consequences can have a much stronger effect than you seem to accept.
And people do things they don’t want to, all the time, just to avoid social consequences. Like attending parties they don’t care for, looking after siblings when they’d rather be over at a friend’s, drinking or doing drugs they’d prefer not to do, having sex when they don’t want to… a wide range of activities with a wide range of consequences for both accepting and rejecting the activity.
(My mom just went through a painful waxing of her upper lip to get rid of a mustache, and near as I can tell she did this primarily because of comments other people made about how she looked — she literally hurt herself enough to cry, just to avoid social consequences. And it’s not the only thing she’s done because people make comments, where the thing she ends up doing (or wearing) is far outside what’s comfortable for her, yet she prefers doing (or wearing) it to having social conflict.)
And if people can do things they don’t want to do, just to make other people react in certain ways, they can certainly avoid doing something they really want to do. That’s just human nature, bizarre as it might be. Only a few of us manage to do that “I am a rock, I am an island” thing.
Uh… Hit her?? I don’t think Todd is capable of hitting any woman for moral reasons. He just strikes me as that kinda guy. Punch another dude, sure. Snitch a smooch from his daughter’s teacher, I guess so. But punch Andi?? *shakes head* Nope. That expression is so far beyond shock and awe but still able to rope it in to just-above-jaw-drop. That’s what I read it as:)
Not capable of hitting any woman, and yet he strikes you?
I don´t think Todd looks like he´s going to punch Andi. He looks like he´s in utter, wordless paralyzed shock.
Rule number one: don’t hit the women folk. Being bigger and stronger doesn’t make you a god.
Rule number two: practice rule number one at every moment. Finding out the reason you are fighting and fixing that dynamic is the most important trip you can go on ATM.
Rule number three: when you look at the dynamic, you will find that the real reason for your battle, isn’t about who is right and who is wrong. The reason for the battle is not what the fight is about.
Rules number 1 and 2 can only be modified if she’s attacking you and you don’t have another way to stop her from attacking you. I’m talking, last resort, not first, second, third, etc…
Otherwise, I agree 100%. NEVER initiate force. Ever.
I would like to modify rule 1 a bit more. Don’t hit anyone regardless of gender unless forced. This don’t hit women because you’re bigger and stronger is bupkiss. Women can be dangerous. Avoid violence when possible because no one deserves being hurt for no reason.
Just saw a Jackie Chan movie with friends, wherein they were having an awesome and comedic fight scene in which three women were beating up guys, using helmets as weapons. Totally played for laughs and awesome because these are three of the least effective female characters I have ever seen.
Then the tide of the battle shifted when a bad guy with a gun came along and melee was no longer a viable option.
The guy the women had beat up punched one girl in the stomach, slapped another twice, and punched the third in the face.
My group of friends then had a discussion about what made that uncomfortable, when we had been laughing along at the previous violence going the other way (and being, overall, worse violence).
Why is it okay to see women beat up a man, but turn it around and something it’s wrong for the man to punch her back?
We concluded that for this movie, it was the change in tone — from funny to deadly serious — and the fact that it had been a battle but now the battle was over and it was just revenge, attacking someone already in your power who couldn’t fight back.
But the double standard annoys me. If a woman punches a guy, I expect the guy to be free to punch her back, and if you don’t want to get punched then don’t punch him to begin with. Pretty simple, right?
And yeah, it applies to all genders and all physical builds. Don’t initiate violence. Use violence only to protect yourself or others, when lesser responses are inadequate to the job (as far as you can tell from the information you have at the time).
Violence can totally be appropriate. But it’s not right to be the aggressor, and when you initiate violence you’ve just proven that you lost the debate and the right to be considered a civilized person.
I think I missed that one.
I believe the reason it’s seen as ok is because of this supposed belief that women are always weaker than a man. Even if she’s a body builder and he’s a computer programmer that never works out. Since comedy revolves around the absurd, it must be a joke when women get violent right? Women aren’t strong, pshhhh. That statement is categorically wrong, but invasive.
I have initiated a total of one fight in my lifetime. I would much more prefer using tactics to avoid violence because we should avoid it. But avoidance doesn’t always work sadly. And if I have a woman screaming in my face and hitting me, she’s getting decked. After all other avenues are exhausted.
Sorry GeneesePaws, it’s true.
Rule number one: Never hit *anyone* unless you need to defend yourself and have not other way of getting away. Even a woman hitting a man can be prosecuted for assault if she has no strong proof she was defending herself. Learned this working in a domestic violence group.
If I believed in never hitting a woman I’d be dead. A nasty piece of work I was engaged to made it clear that if I wasn’t willing to match force with force I’d have gotten a knife between my ribs.
So yeah…. I can’t back up the don’t hit women ever attitude. Violence is bad, but sometimes needed
I’ve had that face on a few times in my life and I’ve never raised a hand in anger to anyone, let alone a smaller, weaker person than myself. (That’s about 99.9% of all women out there)
Todd’s a civilized guy. He wouldn’t go there, I’m figuring.
I just don’t see Todd throwing a punch. Consider his own background of abuse – I would give really good odds that Todd would never hit the mother of one of his children, especially knowing that she’s alive and in the room with them.
however, looking at his mental image of himself when HE got adopted, it looks like he was fighting, and fighting a LOT… who or why he was involved in the fights with is unknown, but I’ll bet he didn’t go down easy… THAT is hard to forget in the heat of the moment… i sincerely hope that he HAS outgrown that instinct for violence, and that he will scream and shout, throwing his hands up in anger/disgust, etc, and NOT throw a fist, but with that look on his face in panel six. i don’t know… he’s got a REALLY REALLY angry scrunch to his eyebrows there… it could go either way…
That’s a neat take on this (and I know I’m a day behind). When I saw him with the bruises I immediately jumped to him having been beaten by parents, not having fought anyone else. I like the thought of yours better though – much less heartache for him.
lol, monkey paw wishes! Also, it looks like Felix is eyeing Amanda in particular, interestingly enough…
And… wondering what that last panel is…
Remember the kids Todd. Don’t curse Andi out loud enough for them to hear you.
I love the look on Todd’s face, I hope he jams his car keys into one of her eye sockets.
Todd’s too nice for that. I think he’ll just grip his car keys so tight he starts bleeding, hoping to forget about it via pain.
Nicely done. I’m with you, I’m following Rule Number One. (See above)
Well I follow rule 34.
Eyew. What kind of person are you to wish those things? I know Andi is fictional but it speaks to me volumes that people are wishing violence on her for all this—especially from another person.
It’s the internet, get over it piss ant.
You really are a treat.
Ladies, this boy does not speak for all men. Most of us men do like to show style and class. Or at least more than Jeremy, which isn’t hard.
And Jeremy, if you don’t like how nobody thinks you’re worth anything because of your attitude, it’s the world. Get over it piss ant.
I had to zoom in on him at first it looked like pure anger (possibly because the comic isn’t finished) but if you zoom in the eyes look like pure unadulterated surprise
Todd is handling way better than I think most folks would at this point.
Wait until the shock wears off. He doesn’t have his forgiving face on right now.
Knock her out, Todd.
This dips into the kettle of fish that we call father’s rights. It sucks that we live in a society where people don’t
A> Take responsibility for their children (I’ve seen this in both genders)
B> Communicate honestly with other people about such an important decision
It also sucks that the law almost always sides with the mother, no matter what. What she wants goes, and the father might not even be told that he HAS a child out there somewhere. That’s probably not what’s best for the welfare of the baby in a large number of cases.
Todd is a good example of this. Well written Dave. Thanks.
On top of that, our laws are set up so that the government can assign a “father” to a child, a funnel for funding to ensure that the child isn’t deprived, but where the “father” in question is having his paycheck confiscated for no logical reason.
This has happened with men who have no genetic connection to the child, where the excuse was “but you had a right to contest the decision and since you didn’t, you’re screwed.” Never mind that paperwork could avoid getting to a person in a timely manner, or that the person might go “I’ve never even had sex, how does this concern me?”
It has also happened, most alarmingly, with teenage boys who were victims of rape. Because being raped, and then having zero say over the outcome of the combination of your DNA with another person, and then having zero contact with this kid, is totally a setup that should result in a government-enforced financial penalty for 18-20 years.
There is no way a fifteen-year-old boy should be forced to pay for a twenty-year-old woman’s child. And the very existence of the child, with DNA proving it’s the 15-year-old’s kid, should be grounds for statutory rape conviction. Because that’s the likely scenario, and the unlikely scenario still involves child abuse (how else does his sperm get inside her?), and the fact that she tried to get money out of him should entail yet another conviction, though I’m not sure for what. Legalized extortion?
Doesn’t matter if the 15-year-old is cool with it. According to our laws, a 15-year-old CANNOT consent to sexual activity with an adult. This is a fundamental concept, so his feelings about it shouldn’t even enter into the equation at trial.
And the bomb has been dropped.
The sketch feels very appropriate, really. Finding out your kid didn’t die after so long and everything would feel distorted.
so anyone else think right after they leave the aquarium todd heads straight for a custody lawyer.
No, I don’t think he is that petty.
Nope. Why would he do that? Andi has made her confession. She’s caught, she’s admitting she did wrong.
I think once he gets over the shock and finishes reaming Andi out, he’ll have to think seriously about what he actually wants to have happen. Andi’s only motive for keeping Amanda apart from Todd just vanished. Todd’s not vindictive. Running off to a custody lawyer at this point would not only be stupid, it would be quite out of character.
Did Todd know Andi was going to name their child Amanda? If so this could be a way to explain to Amanda why ‘her dad didn’t pick her’ in such a way that that her pain/anger is lessened.
If I was doing the explaining I’d say: Your father didn’t pick you because he was told ‘his Amanda was dead’ so having ‘another Amanda’ fill that role would have been too painful for him and disrespectful to you as both the first and second Amandas.
I think you are on the mark. He received an urn supposedly containing Amanda Marie’s ashes.
Source on this? If so, that makes Andi downright fucking evil – forget about stupid and heartless.
the urn didn’t have a name on it, but it pictured here
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie621/
Dave confirmed in comments that it is an urn.
I wonder how pulled that off, actually.
God wow, she’s awful.
Ok I just noticed this page answers my question: In the last panel, Andi says “Todd, that IS her. That IS Amanda Marie.”
So he did know his child was to be named Amanda.
I am glad you are finishing the Friday strip first, but I do hope you can come back and complete this one; it is very hard for me to figure out what I’m seeing and it is so important to the story arc.
Anyone else think Andi should be arrested for this? There must be some law on the books somewhere about adopting someone’s child out from under them…
Maybe Dave could just kill off her character. Have Todd falcon punch her into oblivion.
Flying off into the sky… “Looks like Andi’s blasting off agaaaaaaiiinnnn……..”
So you will kill her off? 😀
Seriously, it’s ok to kill your characters. Just give her a spontaneous heart attack.
You might have liked the first draft of this arc, then. Semi truck, deathbed confession.
What made you change your mind?
I decided I could do better than that. Killing someone off is a crappy way to do character development, and I think Andi’s more interesting if she has backstory and struggles instead of being a “disposable love interest” trope.
Can we at least have the octopus fling another lock and hit Andi in the head with it?
Mwa ha ha ha. >:D
Better idea.
A conveniently contrived cart of pies. Maybe named “Ye Olde Plot Device” or “MacGuffins”. Felix gets a little enthusiastic and a scientist falls on it sending every single pie to hit Andi. All of the pies!
This is much better. The world of storytelling has far too many deathbed confessions, it’s like the easy way to make someone spill the beans.
Actually not really, you’d be surprised at the LACK of regulation and laws when it comes to a father’s rights and their children.
A woman can abort a baby without a father’s consent.
They can give away a baby without a father’s consent.
9 out of 10 times a court will side with a mother in custody battles.
Of course ironically, a father gets very little respect and almost no control what happens to their child, but they are financially responsible for 18 years. Despite financial support, there are cases in which perfectly good fathers are refused even the most basic right to see their children.
The way I see it, in the worst cases fathers are nothing more then sperm donors and have almost zero rights. But they are always the first ones people scream about taking responsibility and shit.
It’s enough to make someone consider turning gay.
There’s also cases where the father is abusive, but the court orders the children to regularly have unsupervised visits with him, even as they’re begging their mom not to make them, and nobody in the court system pays attention.
Also, see my post somewhere up the page about how rape victims have been forced to pay child support — and how people who have zero connection to the mother have been roped into the process even when it can be demonstrated that there’s no DNA link, just because of paperwork snafus or whatever (sometimes because they share the same name as the person the mother claimed was the dad), and when they try to contest it they’re told it’s too late, legally they have to keep paying.
…also, there are women who have stolen their boyfriend’s sperm from a condom just to get pregnant to have some hold over him. There are some real jerks in the world, you know?
I don’t like Andi but I don’t get the lot of violence towards her. I have known people like her but my grandmother taught me not to hate people. Dislike immensely, sure, but not hate. Pass it on:)
Dave> on your unused idea of the semi and deathbed, lol:) And miss out on all this drama??
I hope she gets broken shards of glass in her vergina.
It’s starting to get excessive, dial it back a bit please.
Would wooden splinters be better?
No violence. She’s done wrong yes, but violence is inappropriate as there are better punishments. She should pay the price, but through humiliations and other legal recources. Not excessive violence.
You know damned well what I mean.
Looks like school’s gotten out.
Dave, what *is* your threshold for this? He’s a troll posting imagery that nobody here wants to think about. I know you’re permissive with your forum censorship but this stuff is disturbing me — and I’m the one here talking about rape laws, so it’s not like we can’t take some adult content in our discussions, but still.
Kilyle is right. Makes very a very hostile atmosphere for those of us who actually are here to enjoy and contribute to the comic. It’s one thing not to like a character and/or disagree, but that was all pretty nasty.
” contribute to the comic” -> contribute to the comic discussion.
I’ve been permissive with him because sometimes his comments, even the angry and negative ones, have valid discussion points to them. I’m not interested in making the discussion threads some hyper-sanitized place where negative feedback and criticism gets stealth-deleted. I’ve been on forums like that and they sucked.
But that doesn’t mean I want shit like this being posted either. I want it clear that comments like today’s are over the line and need to stop.
I like your stance, ser:) *applaud*
Thank you.
Thank you, Dave.
Well that’s pretty neat Dave, I guess you’ll need to be on your toes, because I got an almost unlimited number IPs I have access to and now you’ve kind of issued me a challenge.
You’ve posted comments about wishing eye-gouging and genital mutilation on my character. Why should I permit that to go unanswered?
As a side note, I want to praise Andi’s speech bubbles in the last panel. I can basically hear her voice breaking into sobbing while reading that.