Welp, play did not become bonding, it made things…not worse, but much clearer. Theo definitely got his answer, Todd is handling this like a champ, and Selkie stood up for herself without mauling Amanda.
Amanda really sounds unsympathetic here, and while context makes it understandable (she still feels unwanted and clearly has emotional trauma from abuse), none of that excuses her meanness.
Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
“Wanted an answer. GOT an answer.” I love Theo more than ever.
If you take a situation that requires a certain type of reaction, and give the wrong reaction because you totally misread the situation and ended up thinking it was something else entirely, you can make bad things worse and even get things spiraling out of control. It’s a good thing to figure out what is actually going on instead of assuming you know it or assuming it’s one of the common things that could be going on.
“Tearing off the masks” is my favorite part of almost any dramatic story. When characters have been through enough trauma that it gets rid of their social masks and shows them for who they really are. My favorite episodes are consistently the ones that do this, whether it’s Sherlock Holmes, Mulder from X-Files, Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, any character in Leverage, several moments in Girl Genius… it’s always interesting to see what they’re usually hiding from the world.
Todd is the most appropriate in the room. The grandparents may be competent and capable, but they shouldn’t be in that role. Andi is way too immature to handle it.
I dunno if Andi is immature in this respect or not. However, she doesn’t have the experience of having siblings, and Todd does — which means he also has the experience of his parents dealing with siblings-with-issues. Plus he can call on them right there for advice if he feels he needs to.
I am looking forward to seeing how Todd handles this. Love his “STOP. NOW.” He obviously used a Stern Dad voice that stopped two furious eight-year-olds cold.
I think Amanda wants Todd as a father, not just he’s her dad. She wants a responsible father figure in her life so instinctively she’s doing what he tells her. A good alpha male (Not in the douchebag college brats but an actual leader) telling her to sit down and talk and just talking.
The Dad voice. The perfect way to discipline a child. No need to whip the child, it’s all in the voice. Works on drunks too.
The synchronized “Yes, Dad” is perfect, btw. Finally kicks in the fact that they are sisters. I know it’s hard to see right now, but I can easily see these two becoming best friends. Not right away, mind you, but with time and understanding.
Wow. Andi is staring daggers at one of the girls. I think it’s Selkie. That kind of surprises me. She seemed pretty cool with Selkie in the past.
Selkie states simply what her issue has always been with Amanda. It really resonates with me. One of my sisters has always been wantonly mean. We are only a year apart and I’ve been her scapegoat as long as I can remember. We are nearly fifty now and I still don’t know why. But she has said Amanda’s lines there almost word for word, in the past. She even has expressed ire that my spouse and kids love me back, like its nothing that I deserve and she can’t understand it.
First, good catch. As a mom, I can see why Andi is doing it. Yes, Amanda marked up Selkie’s face (very violently), but Selkie pounced on her and knocked her down. It’s hard for a parent to stay rational about such a thingāeven when her own child is the source.
Second, I’m very, very sorry about your sister. That’s terribleāespecially not knowing why. š
Mine and I had an on-again/off-again relationship. Most of our childhood we were very close and loved each other. Then mom sent her to live with my bipolar father and his wife. That’s when my sister started abusing drugs and picked up a lot of his traits. I still love her to pieces and hope we’ll reconcile one day, but it’s probably not going to be while our dad is alive.
Best of luck. I’ve finally reached the point where I don’t wish she loves or even likes me anymore. She kind of “has custody” of our elderly mother and tries to arrange things so that we have to go through her to speak to Mom. Fortunately I have an empathetic younger sister who will Skype me whenever Mom is with her so I don’t have to call elder sister to talk to Mom(Mom’s dementia has progressed to where she forgot how to answer a cell phone).
Elder sister apparently has a great deal to say to our vast network of cousins about me. Sigh. It’s like tic tac toe…or Global Thermonuclear War, The only way to win is to not play.
Thank you! Aside from my daughter, I let go of most of my biological family. Terrible choice to have to make. I’d wish it on no one. Even if they are terrible people you leave behind, you go through stages of grief just like losing someone to death. I had to do it, though. It became about safety. Finding sanity and eventually a sense of peace was a nice boon.
Was “adopted” in adulthood by my inlaws and close friendsāand have a couple nice little communities to feel happy in. Hardest thing has been learning what is not healthy behavior, but still keeping my mind and heart open to letting other people in my life. I used to be so afraid. When you grow up being harmed by the people who should protect you, you expect everyone to hurt you.
I saw what you did there, that was a reference to the eighties movie, War Games, am I wrong?
My heart goes out to you, best wishes for your sister seeing reality, people Can change, … But it is usually slow change at best. Fast change is not always bad, but can be, and can be unpredictable … I don’t care for fast change.
Honestly, I think it’s at Amanda – her eyes have shifted a bit too far to her left to be looking at Selkie directly there, from what I can tell. It’ll probably be easier to discern once it’s colored, though.
Andi’s face is towards Amanda (pigtails), but the pupils appear to be far to her left/our right, which is Selkie or the grandparents. It might change in the colored picture.
Actually, I have to say I agree with Theo. It’s better they catch the girls in this moment and nip it in the bud than let these kinds of things happen out of sight. They can get to the source of why the two hate each other. I don’t think we’ve ever heard either Selkie or Amanda even begin to approach it as they have here.
And you’re right. That candid interaction reveals that Selkies problem with Amanda is that Amanda is mean to Selkie, who has done nothing to deserve it(I get the impression that Selkie feels if she deserved it then it would be fair). It shows that Amanda’s problem with Selkie is that Selkie exists, and is in Amanda’s way, receiving love Amanda feels should be hers.
And that all ties into strip 238 (https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie238/).
“She… she got dumped a bit before you came. So, when she tried to ask the adults why they didn’t want her… Everyone was trying to figure you out.”
Cut to today – “Oh, WAAAAAA. ‘Look at me, I’m so special, love me!'”
There it is: The real nature of the conflict. Maybe Andi’s glaring-daggers isn’t just at Selkie. It’s a rude awakening (and very appropriate pun) that Amanda’s aggressive behaviour hasn’t gone away, or that it’s THAT damaging. Amanda, as we’ve seen, works hard to “charm” people she views as important and treats others really poorly. Andi has been on the important side of treatment (yes, including outbursts), and hasn’t seen Amanda interact accurately with others. This is new and probably disheartening for her.
Andi- (inner monologue): wh- who, who are you? And what have you done with my wonderful innocent daughter, y- you b-beast! You bring her back this instant!
Interesting take on Andi. You are right about her facial expression. What I first noticed was her body language – crouched down and hiding from the conflict, while Todd jumps in and deals with the situation like a “real” parent.
This is a complicated thing, though — Todd has “dad” status with both girls. Andi has “mom” status with only one of them. She would only be able to morally exert parental control over Amanda, not Selkie. She’s also not in her own home, which means she can’t exert “my home, my rules; be a good guest, kiddo” authority over Selkie, either.
Honestly, even if Andi were a much healthier, stronger person and more experienced parent, I’d still be unsurprised that she’d hesitated to get involved, in this specific context.
“Crouched down and hiding from the conflict?” Andi is in the exact position she was in before the fight started. She moved there so Amanda could draw on her arm.
In addition to what A.Beth said, she’s been a parent for what? A week? Two weeks? During which time, she’s watched Amanda interact with other children roughly never(If you want to count the aquarium, I guess… though that event was entirely self-paced and the contact was largely incidental). She has no siblings, which means no role model for this sort of thing. She has little to no experience with children, much less being an authority figure to more than one of them. And she did make a vocal effort to stop the marker fight before it started, just like Todd, but Theo egged them on.
Now that they have proof Amanda is an asshole for no reason, she can’t back out and pretend to be a little angel. THE HAMMER IS COMING DOWN MOTHERFUCKERS
Except she DOES have a reason – it’s not a good reason (strip 238), as they’re both victims of circumstance more than anything else. But Amanda still blames Selkie for her not having received some rather critically-needed attention herself in the wake of that abuse.
That would be a bit backwards, since the colloquial “she has a cause” is usually interpreted as “a just cause” (not to be confused with “just because”).
Connotation- a reason for something can be good or bad. An excuse is a bad reason. A cause is a good reason, and implies something that has to be acted on for moral reasons.
Selkie’s right, she never did anything to Amanda, who just kept bullying her for no reason. Really hope they don’t turn this into some kind of “both of you were wrong” thing when clearly just one of them is…
Erm, Selkie just physically bowled Amanda over. Not sure what reality you live in but that’s not acceptable behavior when somebody makes you angry. The whole “you pissed me off so it’s okay for me to escalate to physical violence” thing is an extremely nasty behavior trait that needs to be nipped in the bud. Amanda’s got her own issues that need to be dealt with and she did instigate it but Selkie needs to be called on her own contributions. Selkie is not an innocent in this dance, it’s called controlling your temper. Giving her a free pass because she didn’t instigate it is just going to make problems worse down the line.
We do remember that Selkie’s venom is poisonous right? So controlling her temper and learning the proper bounds to exercise it in needs to be a focused on priority no matter who started it, for the safety of everyone who might piss her off in the future. With four adults in the room, there was no reason for Selkie to escalate it in this situation.
I’m gonna agree because it doesn’t seem like they were in a tussling bout prior to that. But physical tussling/wrestling is an okay sort of activity for kids, if they maintain certain boundaries and are not trying to physically harm each other. And as I point out to my nephews (and niece) frequently, if you’re in on the tussling, you accept there might be accidental harm — you might get hurt. You can’t therefore get mad when you do get hurt, as the only way to avoid it is not do physical tussling to begin with, and clearly you all want to tussle so there you go.
But since this marker fight seems to have been conceived without actual tussling, I think you’re right that it shouldn’t have proceeded to become tussling of any sort, least of all when the kids start to lose their tempers.
There’s a time and a place but it depends a lot on the kids. One of my sibs with berserker tendencies knifed another when the “tussling” got out of hand while our parents were out. (Mind you, it wasn’t a serious wound but still it was a very good lesson for everyone involved in how escalation works.) Altho the older sib antagonized him, a knife was way out of line. Temper control matters and it needs to be taught sooner rather than later.
Not saying Amanda shouldn’t have lessons in it herself, mind you since she obviously was letting temper get the best of her. But claiming Selkie should get a free pass because she was antagonized isn’t helping the situation.
I’d like Todd to be clear about the distinction between the original problems — Amanda wrong, Selkie right — and the behavior they just demonstrated — Amanda wrong, Selkie wrong.
For one, that you can be in the right and still do things that put you in the wrong. Being in the right doesn’t give you a blank check to strike back.
For two, that it’s not appropriate to take a friendly match and turn it into an unfriendly match.
For three, that there are clearly some issues Amanda has about her past that she’s centered on Selkie as the one person she can take them out on, and that it’s not healthy to do so, nor is Selkie deserving of the attack. And that now Amanda has people who do love her, not because she is special but because she IS. Because she exists. That the love is unconditional — some of what Andi was speaking to just before they entered the apartment, that Amanda clearly yearns for desperately — and that Amanda doesn’t have to be anything special to “deserve” love, it is just there, permanently.
You pretty much summed up what I see as the main areas of concern.
Selkie being the target of Amanda’s misplaced anger doesn’t give the former a blank check for retaliation in kind. As a frequent bullying target, I sometimes fell into that trap as a kid and was astonished when there were consequences. Took awhile to really sink in.
By the same token, Amanda has to learn that her anger towards Selkie (and others) *is* misplaced, which is likely to be an involved process. And that love / attention from others *isn’t* a zero-sum game. That too will take time and reinforcement for Amanda to really accept.
Theo and Todd’s parenting skills are pretty good here, I think. Todd has asserted his authority and made it stick (at least for the moment) and Theo (indeed everyone) let Todd handle the situation and now has a better idea of how deep the conflict between the girls goes.
Andi hasn’t impressed me with her parenting instincts yet, but I’m willing to give her a bit more time. She also just got a clearer look at Amanda’s issues; what she does with that information will be crucial for both kids.
In all honesty here, Amanda isn’t at fault for her actions, because the adults in charge of her never gave her the help she so desperately needed. I mean, did anyone even talk to her at all about being returned? It seems like if they did, it was very brief and long after the fact. The adults in charge of her were so very, very wrong to not give her the attention, reassurance and guidance she needed. Plus, they seemed to have never tried to get to the root of her problems later on either.
While Amanda is probably vaguely aware that her actions are wrong, it seems like no one has ever sat her down and given her any sort of guidance. Has anyone even talked to her about how she treats Selkie? My guess is no, they didn’t have the time to do so. It’s like putting down a pitbull that was bred as a dog fighter. It’s not the dogs fault it’s vicious, it’s the people who cared for it. You aren’t malicious ‘just because’ you become that way because of what’s happened. They may not have encouraged her to be violent and lash out, but not giving her what she needed is just as bad.
Ultimately, Amanda is an abused child with so many unaddressed issues that have become ingrained in her because of her lack of structure and guidance. She’s definitely a brat, but no one should be mean to her or blame her for it. She needs help and her violence is the desperate cry of help of a lonely, insecure and abused child she’s been trying to convey to the adults around her.
Lilian probably understood her the best, but couldn’t give Amanda what she needed or never made the time for it.
Also people need to give her explanations. Someone sitting her down and telling her, “Be nice to Selkie because I said so.” Telling someone to do something THEY consider stupid and pointless just because does not help. It’s not going to make them want to do it more because you said so, it’s just going to make them more defiant about it because you didn’t properly explain the why to them. I don’t know how many times I’ve made my life easier at work when explaining things to employees rather than telling. You’d be surprised how many things you consider obvious to be a, “Why would I do that?” question!
i’d have to go back and scour the archives, but i am pretty sure that only 5 people for ALL THOSE KIDS means that, like most other government run institutions, it is UNDER funded, Under staffed, and under appreciated for the job(s) it is REQUIRED to do… there is the two off-screen adult staff that seem to keep track of all the baby orphans (the ones that ?Moonsong? was helping to feed), Lily and the one that brought Georgie over for the visit/surprise inspection, and the goober that was at the reception desk when Andi showed up for her interview… now we have to add in a LOT of kids to the mix… that alone tells me that there are extenuating circumstances for the lack of attention, guidance, and reassurance you say that Amanda is/was lacking from the staff… pretty screwed up, i agree… but REAL… sorry kiddo, but who’s got time for that!
An adult can be in charge of a child’s care and have many other problems and circumstances and even other children, but if a child is neglected, they still get taken away. I’m sorry they’re under funded and under staffed, that doesn’t change the fact they neglected Amanda when I’m sure at least the two main people we’ve seen were painfully aware of the situation. They aren’t bad people by any means, but they neglected Amanda’s needs and are directly responsible for her problems that blossomed from it. The people who abused her were the catalyst to her behavior, but her neglect and lack of proper caring and understanding upon her return are what made her resent Selkie so deeply. The fact that the problems were not properly addressed even later on only made her resentment grow and become more violent upon not being addressed and guided. They never sat down to try and find the source of her aggressive behavior and so it fester ed within her, because she doesn’t even truly know herself. She doesn’t even fully understand WHY she was given back. So of course her mind works a little differently than others. No one has ever explained or corrected her properly.
Don’t know that I can agree with her not knowing why she was given back. Her fairytale story was pretty clear, she was given back because her brothers were abusing her and her “parents” not only didn’t believe her but outright blamed her.
Kids aren’t as dumb as adults want to think they are. The orphanage was pretty well aware of what happened and told Andi, so they already were doing what they could about it. “Explaining” that in words to Amanda isn’t going to heal her and expecting the orphanage to be able to do that is outright wrong. That’s an internal journey Amanda is going to have to take via connecting with friends and family who won’t dump her.
If you look at the stats, the worst environment a child can grow up in is the foster care system. Even leaving a child in a broken home results in a, relatively speaking, better adjusted and more successful adult than placing them in government care. Government care is an absolute disaster. These results are the same from country to country and no matter how well funded the system is. Nothing is better than coming home to the same Mom and Dad, even if that Mom and Dad are sleaze.
If you honestly think leaving a child in a home where they’re abused, neglected, and molested is better than putting them into foster care, you need your head checked.
And in foster care, children are often neglected, abused, and molested with the blind approval of government agents. At best, few foster placements become permanent; the rest of the kids bounce from place to place, resulting in attachment disorders. (Orphanages are even worse in this respect; they may be permanent, but rarely can meet kids’ needs for attachment.) For that reason alone, a family situation has to be very, very bad before leaving a kid in it is more harmful than removing him or her.
There are many worse cases. Foster parents often take in too many children, either for the money or under pressure from social workers desperate to find someplace for more kids; with the adults attention divided too many ways, the older children abuse and sometimes rape the younger ones. And then there are the _bad_ cases: Kids who disappear but aren’t missed for years, either because paperwork was fouled up or because of fraud by their foster parents. Abusive foster parents who lie to and fool social workers, who often are not very bright. And there are pathological social workers.
I will agree that it’s not Amanda’s fault that she’s this way. However, that does not make what she does any less malicious. Going back to the pitbull example, that specific pitbull is still violent, regardless of the fact that it’s not the pitbull’s fault they are violent.
Of course, I do believe people can change, and that children are the most changeable. While Amanda is currently malicious, she can definitely get better with careful guidance. The older she gets, the harder it will be for her to change, but right now there’s a good chance she’ll grow in a good direction.
As to the neglect issue… There are limits to what the people in charge of the orphanage are allowed to do. Only someone certified as a psychiatrist or psychologist would be allowed to try to address Amanda’s issues. If they don’t have the budget, they won’t have one on-staff. So what you have is a bunch of people who are NOT therapists trying to handle a bunch of kids who need therapy.
They do the best they can. Most of the kids are pretty well adjusted for their situation. Amanda had a bit more than they could handle, and they might not have had the option to go for help. She got food, clothes, her own bed, and supervision. That is ALL that is required to avoid neglect charges. Therapy is not part of non-neglect law, because not everyone can afford to use the services of the people who can provide effective therapy.
“Only someone certified as a psychiatrist or psychologist would be allowed to try to address Amandaās issues.”
If that’s how the law works, then that law is very, very screwed up. I would go so far as to call it evil.
When you are the person responsible for a child’s welfare, and you know the child is going through a terrible time, and you can’t afford to bring in professional help, that DOES NOT excuse you from doing the best you can. An intelligent, empathetic adult can, at the very least, listen! She can let the child express her feelings, and tell her that she has a right to feel that way. That is a thousand times better for the child than doing nothing at all.
Busy and underfunded may explain why emotional neglect happens, but they are not excuses for… for not being a decent human being.
They were listening – remember the notebook? The problem is that wasn’t enough. She needed answers where there weren’t any, reassurance that I’m not even certain she would have believed from them, and overall some serious help that they were not equipped to give at the time.
Also, seriously, they were completely out of their depth with the Selkie situation, there is NO REASON they weren’t given crucial information about her species and such with her and Agent Brown failing to provide that was a serious fault of his. Amanda needed her Safety and Love/Belonging tiers on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs satisfied, and those are major – but Selkie’s needs were PHYSIOLOGICAL, even before we get into her needing to communicate with the others and process her mother leaving her as well.
And they were aware of her situation and trying to give her outlets whenever they could- they encouraged her with the notebook, after all, which could work as a form of art therapy for the desperately underfunded and trying to figure out how to handle her as well as the waaaay out-of-their-depth issue they had with Selkie (remember, they weren’t given information about her diet in advance and had to figure out how to feed her through TRIAL AND ERROR. A terrible situation for Selkie, and also one that ABSOLUTELY required priority attention so they wouldn’t kill her.)
Also, given Amanda’s past experience with adoption and the subsequent abandonment issues, I don’t think fostering would have been a good environment for her. The orphanage was out of their depth with her, but it was also the best option available.
Gonna air out all the dirty laundry, it seems. Maybe, just maybe get some mutual understanding in here and a bit less animosity.
Friday can’t come soon enough.
Welp, play did not become bonding, it made things…not worse, but much clearer. Theo definitely got his answer, Todd is handling this like a champ, and Selkie stood up for herself without mauling Amanda.
Amanda really sounds unsympathetic here, and while context makes it understandable (she still feels unwanted and clearly has emotional trauma from abuse), none of that excuses her meanness.
Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
“Wanted an answer. GOT an answer.” I love Theo more than ever.
If you take a situation that requires a certain type of reaction, and give the wrong reaction because you totally misread the situation and ended up thinking it was something else entirely, you can make bad things worse and even get things spiraling out of control. It’s a good thing to figure out what is actually going on instead of assuming you know it or assuming it’s one of the common things that could be going on.
“Tearing off the masks” is my favorite part of almost any dramatic story. When characters have been through enough trauma that it gets rid of their social masks and shows them for who they really are. My favorite episodes are consistently the ones that do this, whether it’s Sherlock Holmes, Mulder from X-Files, Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, any character in Leverage, several moments in Girl Genius… it’s always interesting to see what they’re usually hiding from the world.
Todd is the most appropriate in the room. The grandparents may be competent and capable, but they shouldn’t be in that role. Andi is way too immature to handle it.
I dunno if Andi is immature in this respect or not. However, she doesn’t have the experience of having siblings, and Todd does — which means he also has the experience of his parents dealing with siblings-with-issues. Plus he can call on them right there for advice if he feels he needs to.
This is plain old “skill-set.”
Todd is also the one with the parent relationship to both girls. That makes him a more appropriate person to be laying down the law here.
I am looking forward to seeing how Todd handles this. Love his “STOP. NOW.” He obviously used a Stern Dad voice that stopped two furious eight-year-olds cold.
That, and a bit of the Vulcan Nerve Pinch as well…
I like how, after what – a day and a half of knowing she has a father TOO – answers, “Yes Dad”.
Seem to have left the word “Amanda” out of my last post.
I think Amanda wants Todd as a father, not just he’s her dad. She wants a responsible father figure in her life so instinctively she’s doing what he tells her. A good alpha male (Not in the douchebag college brats but an actual leader) telling her to sit down and talk and just talking.
There are no alpha males among douchebag college brats. In fact, it could be said that there are no true alpha males in college period.
The Dad voice. The perfect way to discipline a child. No need to whip the child, it’s all in the voice. Works on drunks too.
The synchronized “Yes, Dad” is perfect, btw. Finally kicks in the fact that they are sisters. I know it’s hard to see right now, but I can easily see these two becoming best friends. Not right away, mind you, but with time and understanding.
Love Theo’s ‘I regret nothing’ face š
It will blow their minds to know this has been upgraded to sibling rivalry.
I love some good old Miyazaki hair.
Wow. Andi is staring daggers at one of the girls. I think it’s Selkie. That kind of surprises me. She seemed pretty cool with Selkie in the past.
Selkie states simply what her issue has always been with Amanda. It really resonates with me. One of my sisters has always been wantonly mean. We are only a year apart and I’ve been her scapegoat as long as I can remember. We are nearly fifty now and I still don’t know why. But she has said Amanda’s lines there almost word for word, in the past. She even has expressed ire that my spouse and kids love me back, like its nothing that I deserve and she can’t understand it.
First, good catch. As a mom, I can see why Andi is doing it. Yes, Amanda marked up Selkie’s face (very violently), but Selkie pounced on her and knocked her down. It’s hard for a parent to stay rational about such a thingāeven when her own child is the source.
Second, I’m very, very sorry about your sister. That’s terribleāespecially not knowing why. š
Mine and I had an on-again/off-again relationship. Most of our childhood we were very close and loved each other. Then mom sent her to live with my bipolar father and his wife. That’s when my sister started abusing drugs and picked up a lot of his traits. I still love her to pieces and hope we’ll reconcile one day, but it’s probably not going to be while our dad is alive.
Best of luck. I’ve finally reached the point where I don’t wish she loves or even likes me anymore. She kind of “has custody” of our elderly mother and tries to arrange things so that we have to go through her to speak to Mom. Fortunately I have an empathetic younger sister who will Skype me whenever Mom is with her so I don’t have to call elder sister to talk to Mom(Mom’s dementia has progressed to where she forgot how to answer a cell phone).
Elder sister apparently has a great deal to say to our vast network of cousins about me. Sigh. It’s like tic tac toe…or Global Thermonuclear War, The only way to win is to not play.
Thank you! Aside from my daughter, I let go of most of my biological family. Terrible choice to have to make. I’d wish it on no one. Even if they are terrible people you leave behind, you go through stages of grief just like losing someone to death. I had to do it, though. It became about safety. Finding sanity and eventually a sense of peace was a nice boon.
Was “adopted” in adulthood by my inlaws and close friendsāand have a couple nice little communities to feel happy in. Hardest thing has been learning what is not healthy behavior, but still keeping my mind and heart open to letting other people in my life. I used to be so afraid. When you grow up being harmed by the people who should protect you, you expect everyone to hurt you.
Even if they are terrible people you leave behind, you go through stages of grief just like losing someone to death.
Yeah. This. So much this. I mourned the Daddy I thought I had long before my sire actually died. *offers sympathetic e-hugs*
I saw what you did there, that was a reference to the eighties movie, War Games, am I wrong?
My heart goes out to you, best wishes for your sister seeing reality, people Can change, … But it is usually slow change at best. Fast change is not always bad, but can be, and can be unpredictable … I don’t care for fast change.
Honestly, I think it’s at Amanda – her eyes have shifted a bit too far to her left to be looking at Selkie directly there, from what I can tell. It’ll probably be easier to discern once it’s colored, though.
Andi’s face is towards Amanda (pigtails), but the pupils appear to be far to her left/our right, which is Selkie or the grandparents. It might change in the colored picture.
It did change in the colored picture: face and pupils are straight at Amanda now.
It kind of looks like she’s glaring at Todd’s parents actually.
I think she is looking at Amanda, who had just called Selkie a fish in defiance of Andi’s order not to do so.
It was meant to be a glare at Amanda. Fixed the angle with the coloring update.
I wouldn’t blame Andi for glaring at both of them, really.
Actually, I have to say I agree with Theo. It’s better they catch the girls in this moment and nip it in the bud than let these kinds of things happen out of sight. They can get to the source of why the two hate each other. I don’t think we’ve ever heard either Selkie or Amanda even begin to approach it as they have here.
And you’re right. That candid interaction reveals that Selkies problem with Amanda is that Amanda is mean to Selkie, who has done nothing to deserve it(I get the impression that Selkie feels if she deserved it then it would be fair). It shows that Amanda’s problem with Selkie is that Selkie exists, and is in Amanda’s way, receiving love Amanda feels should be hers.
And that all ties into strip 238 (https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie238/).
“She… she got dumped a bit before you came. So, when she tried to ask the adults why they didn’t want her… Everyone was trying to figure you out.”
Cut to today – “Oh, WAAAAAA. ‘Look at me, I’m so special, love me!'”
There it is: The real nature of the conflict. Maybe Andi’s glaring-daggers isn’t just at Selkie. It’s a rude awakening (and very appropriate pun) that Amanda’s aggressive behaviour hasn’t gone away, or that it’s THAT damaging. Amanda, as we’ve seen, works hard to “charm” people she views as important and treats others really poorly. Andi has been on the important side of treatment (yes, including outbursts), and hasn’t seen Amanda interact accurately with others. This is new and probably disheartening for her.
Andi- (inner monologue): wh- who, who are you? And what have you done with my wonderful innocent daughter, y- you b-beast! You bring her back this instant!
Interesting take on Andi. You are right about her facial expression. What I first noticed was her body language – crouched down and hiding from the conflict, while Todd jumps in and deals with the situation like a “real” parent.
This is a complicated thing, though — Todd has “dad” status with both girls. Andi has “mom” status with only one of them. She would only be able to morally exert parental control over Amanda, not Selkie. She’s also not in her own home, which means she can’t exert “my home, my rules; be a good guest, kiddo” authority over Selkie, either.
Honestly, even if Andi were a much healthier, stronger person and more experienced parent, I’d still be unsurprised that she’d hesitated to get involved, in this specific context.
“Crouched down and hiding from the conflict?” Andi is in the exact position she was in before the fight started. She moved there so Amanda could draw on her arm.
In addition to what A.Beth said, she’s been a parent for what? A week? Two weeks? During which time, she’s watched Amanda interact with other children roughly never(If you want to count the aquarium, I guess… though that event was entirely self-paced and the contact was largely incidental). She has no siblings, which means no role model for this sort of thing. She has little to no experience with children, much less being an authority figure to more than one of them. And she did make a vocal effort to stop the marker fight before it started, just like Todd, but Theo egged them on.
Cut her a little slack.
Well, Theo’s right. He DID get an answer.
Now that they have proof Amanda is an asshole for no reason, she can’t back out and pretend to be a little angel. THE HAMMER IS COMING DOWN MOTHERFUCKERS
Except she DOES have a reason – it’s not a good reason (strip 238), as they’re both victims of circumstance more than anything else. But Amanda still blames Selkie for her not having received some rather critically-needed attention herself in the wake of that abuse.
Maybe you should say she has a cause, but not a real reason.
That would be a bit backwards, since the colloquial “she has a cause” is usually interpreted as “a just cause” (not to be confused with “just because”).
Connotation- a reason for something can be good or bad. An excuse is a bad reason. A cause is a good reason, and implies something that has to be acted on for moral reasons.
She just got attacked by Selkie for no reason.
Selkie’s right, she never did anything to Amanda, who just kept bullying her for no reason. Really hope they don’t turn this into some kind of “both of you were wrong” thing when clearly just one of them is…
Agreed. Amanda is being a jerk. Selkie doesn’t do *anything* to warrant it.
Erm, Selkie just physically bowled Amanda over. Not sure what reality you live in but that’s not acceptable behavior when somebody makes you angry. The whole “you pissed me off so it’s okay for me to escalate to physical violence” thing is an extremely nasty behavior trait that needs to be nipped in the bud. Amanda’s got her own issues that need to be dealt with and she did instigate it but Selkie needs to be called on her own contributions. Selkie is not an innocent in this dance, it’s called controlling your temper. Giving her a free pass because she didn’t instigate it is just going to make problems worse down the line.
We do remember that Selkie’s venom is poisonous right? So controlling her temper and learning the proper bounds to exercise it in needs to be a focused on priority no matter who started it, for the safety of everyone who might piss her off in the future. With four adults in the room, there was no reason for Selkie to escalate it in this situation.
I’m gonna agree because it doesn’t seem like they were in a tussling bout prior to that. But physical tussling/wrestling is an okay sort of activity for kids, if they maintain certain boundaries and are not trying to physically harm each other. And as I point out to my nephews (and niece) frequently, if you’re in on the tussling, you accept there might be accidental harm — you might get hurt. You can’t therefore get mad when you do get hurt, as the only way to avoid it is not do physical tussling to begin with, and clearly you all want to tussle so there you go.
But since this marker fight seems to have been conceived without actual tussling, I think you’re right that it shouldn’t have proceeded to become tussling of any sort, least of all when the kids start to lose their tempers.
There’s a time and a place but it depends a lot on the kids. One of my sibs with berserker tendencies knifed another when the “tussling” got out of hand while our parents were out. (Mind you, it wasn’t a serious wound but still it was a very good lesson for everyone involved in how escalation works.) Altho the older sib antagonized him, a knife was way out of line. Temper control matters and it needs to be taught sooner rather than later.
Not saying Amanda shouldn’t have lessons in it herself, mind you since she obviously was letting temper get the best of her. But claiming Selkie should get a free pass because she was antagonized isn’t helping the situation.
I’d like Todd to be clear about the distinction between the original problems — Amanda wrong, Selkie right — and the behavior they just demonstrated — Amanda wrong, Selkie wrong.
For one, that you can be in the right and still do things that put you in the wrong. Being in the right doesn’t give you a blank check to strike back.
For two, that it’s not appropriate to take a friendly match and turn it into an unfriendly match.
For three, that there are clearly some issues Amanda has about her past that she’s centered on Selkie as the one person she can take them out on, and that it’s not healthy to do so, nor is Selkie deserving of the attack. And that now Amanda has people who do love her, not because she is special but because she IS. Because she exists. That the love is unconditional — some of what Andi was speaking to just before they entered the apartment, that Amanda clearly yearns for desperately — and that Amanda doesn’t have to be anything special to “deserve” love, it is just there, permanently.
You pretty much summed up what I see as the main areas of concern.
Selkie being the target of Amanda’s misplaced anger doesn’t give the former a blank check for retaliation in kind. As a frequent bullying target, I sometimes fell into that trap as a kid and was astonished when there were consequences. Took awhile to really sink in.
By the same token, Amanda has to learn that her anger towards Selkie (and others) *is* misplaced, which is likely to be an involved process. And that love / attention from others *isn’t* a zero-sum game. That too will take time and reinforcement for Amanda to really accept.
Theo and Todd’s parenting skills are pretty good here, I think. Todd has asserted his authority and made it stick (at least for the moment) and Theo (indeed everyone) let Todd handle the situation and now has a better idea of how deep the conflict between the girls goes.
Andi hasn’t impressed me with her parenting instincts yet, but I’m willing to give her a bit more time. She also just got a clearer look at Amanda’s issues; what she does with that information will be crucial for both kids.
I LOVE, for some reason, how both of them called him dad, and simultaneously.
We have a missing Earring in panel 3
It returned with coloring
Wow. She’s really messed up.
In all honesty here, Amanda isn’t at fault for her actions, because the adults in charge of her never gave her the help she so desperately needed. I mean, did anyone even talk to her at all about being returned? It seems like if they did, it was very brief and long after the fact. The adults in charge of her were so very, very wrong to not give her the attention, reassurance and guidance she needed. Plus, they seemed to have never tried to get to the root of her problems later on either.
While Amanda is probably vaguely aware that her actions are wrong, it seems like no one has ever sat her down and given her any sort of guidance. Has anyone even talked to her about how she treats Selkie? My guess is no, they didn’t have the time to do so. It’s like putting down a pitbull that was bred as a dog fighter. It’s not the dogs fault it’s vicious, it’s the people who cared for it. You aren’t malicious ‘just because’ you become that way because of what’s happened. They may not have encouraged her to be violent and lash out, but not giving her what she needed is just as bad.
Ultimately, Amanda is an abused child with so many unaddressed issues that have become ingrained in her because of her lack of structure and guidance. She’s definitely a brat, but no one should be mean to her or blame her for it. She needs help and her violence is the desperate cry of help of a lonely, insecure and abused child she’s been trying to convey to the adults around her.
Lilian probably understood her the best, but couldn’t give Amanda what she needed or never made the time for it.
Also people need to give her explanations. Someone sitting her down and telling her, “Be nice to Selkie because I said so.” Telling someone to do something THEY consider stupid and pointless just because does not help. It’s not going to make them want to do it more because you said so, it’s just going to make them more defiant about it because you didn’t properly explain the why to them. I don’t know how many times I’ve made my life easier at work when explaining things to employees rather than telling. You’d be surprised how many things you consider obvious to be a, “Why would I do that?” question!
i’d have to go back and scour the archives, but i am pretty sure that only 5 people for ALL THOSE KIDS means that, like most other government run institutions, it is UNDER funded, Under staffed, and under appreciated for the job(s) it is REQUIRED to do… there is the two off-screen adult staff that seem to keep track of all the baby orphans (the ones that ?Moonsong? was helping to feed), Lily and the one that brought Georgie over for the visit/surprise inspection, and the goober that was at the reception desk when Andi showed up for her interview… now we have to add in a LOT of kids to the mix… that alone tells me that there are extenuating circumstances for the lack of attention, guidance, and reassurance you say that Amanda is/was lacking from the staff… pretty screwed up, i agree… but REAL… sorry kiddo, but who’s got time for that!
An adult can be in charge of a child’s care and have many other problems and circumstances and even other children, but if a child is neglected, they still get taken away. I’m sorry they’re under funded and under staffed, that doesn’t change the fact they neglected Amanda when I’m sure at least the two main people we’ve seen were painfully aware of the situation. They aren’t bad people by any means, but they neglected Amanda’s needs and are directly responsible for her problems that blossomed from it. The people who abused her were the catalyst to her behavior, but her neglect and lack of proper caring and understanding upon her return are what made her resent Selkie so deeply. The fact that the problems were not properly addressed even later on only made her resentment grow and become more violent upon not being addressed and guided. They never sat down to try and find the source of her aggressive behavior and so it fester ed within her, because she doesn’t even truly know herself. She doesn’t even fully understand WHY she was given back. So of course her mind works a little differently than others. No one has ever explained or corrected her properly.
So yes, it is their fault. Funding or not.
Don’t know that I can agree with her not knowing why she was given back. Her fairytale story was pretty clear, she was given back because her brothers were abusing her and her “parents” not only didn’t believe her but outright blamed her.
Kids aren’t as dumb as adults want to think they are. The orphanage was pretty well aware of what happened and told Andi, so they already were doing what they could about it. “Explaining” that in words to Amanda isn’t going to heal her and expecting the orphanage to be able to do that is outright wrong. That’s an internal journey Amanda is going to have to take via connecting with friends and family who won’t dump her.
If you look at the stats, the worst environment a child can grow up in is the foster care system. Even leaving a child in a broken home results in a, relatively speaking, better adjusted and more successful adult than placing them in government care. Government care is an absolute disaster. These results are the same from country to country and no matter how well funded the system is. Nothing is better than coming home to the same Mom and Dad, even if that Mom and Dad are sleaze.
If you honestly think leaving a child in a home where they’re abused, neglected, and molested is better than putting them into foster care, you need your head checked.
And in foster care, children are often neglected, abused, and molested with the blind approval of government agents. At best, few foster placements become permanent; the rest of the kids bounce from place to place, resulting in attachment disorders. (Orphanages are even worse in this respect; they may be permanent, but rarely can meet kids’ needs for attachment.) For that reason alone, a family situation has to be very, very bad before leaving a kid in it is more harmful than removing him or her.
There are many worse cases. Foster parents often take in too many children, either for the money or under pressure from social workers desperate to find someplace for more kids; with the adults attention divided too many ways, the older children abuse and sometimes rape the younger ones. And then there are the _bad_ cases: Kids who disappear but aren’t missed for years, either because paperwork was fouled up or because of fraud by their foster parents. Abusive foster parents who lie to and fool social workers, who often are not very bright. And there are pathological social workers.
I will agree that it’s not Amanda’s fault that she’s this way. However, that does not make what she does any less malicious. Going back to the pitbull example, that specific pitbull is still violent, regardless of the fact that it’s not the pitbull’s fault they are violent.
Of course, I do believe people can change, and that children are the most changeable. While Amanda is currently malicious, she can definitely get better with careful guidance. The older she gets, the harder it will be for her to change, but right now there’s a good chance she’ll grow in a good direction.
As to the neglect issue… There are limits to what the people in charge of the orphanage are allowed to do. Only someone certified as a psychiatrist or psychologist would be allowed to try to address Amanda’s issues. If they don’t have the budget, they won’t have one on-staff. So what you have is a bunch of people who are NOT therapists trying to handle a bunch of kids who need therapy.
They do the best they can. Most of the kids are pretty well adjusted for their situation. Amanda had a bit more than they could handle, and they might not have had the option to go for help. She got food, clothes, her own bed, and supervision. That is ALL that is required to avoid neglect charges. Therapy is not part of non-neglect law, because not everyone can afford to use the services of the people who can provide effective therapy.
“Only someone certified as a psychiatrist or psychologist would be allowed to try to address Amandaās issues.”
If that’s how the law works, then that law is very, very screwed up. I would go so far as to call it evil.
When you are the person responsible for a child’s welfare, and you know the child is going through a terrible time, and you can’t afford to bring in professional help, that DOES NOT excuse you from doing the best you can. An intelligent, empathetic adult can, at the very least, listen! She can let the child express her feelings, and tell her that she has a right to feel that way. That is a thousand times better for the child than doing nothing at all.
Busy and underfunded may explain why emotional neglect happens, but they are not excuses for… for not being a decent human being.
They were listening – remember the notebook? The problem is that wasn’t enough. She needed answers where there weren’t any, reassurance that I’m not even certain she would have believed from them, and overall some serious help that they were not equipped to give at the time.
Also, seriously, they were completely out of their depth with the Selkie situation, there is NO REASON they weren’t given crucial information about her species and such with her and Agent Brown failing to provide that was a serious fault of his. Amanda needed her Safety and Love/Belonging tiers on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs satisfied, and those are major – but Selkie’s needs were PHYSIOLOGICAL, even before we get into her needing to communicate with the others and process her mother leaving her as well.
And they were aware of her situation and trying to give her outlets whenever they could- they encouraged her with the notebook, after all, which could work as a form of art therapy for the desperately underfunded and trying to figure out how to handle her as well as the waaaay out-of-their-depth issue they had with Selkie (remember, they weren’t given information about her diet in advance and had to figure out how to feed her through TRIAL AND ERROR. A terrible situation for Selkie, and also one that ABSOLUTELY required priority attention so they wouldn’t kill her.)
Also, given Amanda’s past experience with adoption and the subsequent abandonment issues, I don’t think fostering would have been a good environment for her. The orphanage was out of their depth with her, but it was also the best option available.
Oh, Gawd, I love Grandpa. I wish he was MY grandpa.