Storytime.
Just another heads up, I am taking a two-week hiatus beginning December 21st. I am still acepting guest strips to air during this time until December 15th!
Everything is stupid
Storytime.
Just another heads up, I am taking a two-week hiatus beginning December 21st. I am still acepting guest strips to air during this time until December 15th!
Yay number 1 comment!
Elvis has entered the comment section! (Sorry, couldn’t help myself).
Elvis is everywhere!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knc9LKjukSQ
Man, I love that song.
YAY MOJO NIXEN!!! <3 <3 <3
Love the Princess Marie face in the last cell in her story
Reminds me of Crayon Shin-Chan :p
Oh, come on now. There’s not NEARLY enough fecal matter for that. ;D
Roflmao
Excellent
Everyone stops being stupid huh? Including you? Plus there’s stuff you don’t understand about the situation that they’re not telling you because you(r) to young / will get mad.
Well at least she is venting on paper instead of out loud for a change.
Really hope Andi talks to her about this, Amanda is the one who’s behavior needs to change here and the sooner she sees that the better.
I agree her behavior needs to change, but it’s understandable for her to have severe trust issues after what happened with her adoptive family. The fact that she’s decided to step back and see what happens instead of (purposefully) causing more problems to ‘test’ people is a big step for her, I think. She’s not had a lot of healthy emotional role models. The staff workers at the orphanage are good, but they have to take care of a lot more kids than just her, and when she critically needed the most help SELKIE also critically needed the most help, and was a bigger priority. It’s a messy situation, and I agree Amanda’s behavior patterns are bad, but I’m a little wary about ‘tsk-tsk’ing her here.
Well, Amanda is fully justified in being annoyed with everyone acting hostile to her mom
like I said, for all that Andi is at fault in this situation, to make it any better, everyone needs to stop dumping this on Amanda and start acting like a good family
Hang on, I agree that it’s good for Andi to call her out on swearing and on calling Selkie Fish-Face during the get-together. I think it would be grossly inappropriate for her to call Amanda out on what she writes/draws in her sketchbook/diary, unless it involves physical violence, property damage, etc. That’s basically art therapy and expressing her inner feelings, which is a *positive* thing that she really needs right now. Having to self-censor it to the degree you’re asking for would be extremely counterproductive.
She certainly does print neatly.
Thank you for that laugh. You made me smile 🙂
I’m astounded that she can form perfectly shaped serif letters
Good calligraphy is not difficult, it’s easier than handwriting, … Ugh, why do they call it hand writing if you only use the fingers. Fine finger control is harder for children than fine arm control, right?
they call it HAND writing, because you are not using your FEET to write the letters on the page… as well as you aren’t using a machine-produced printing method ie, printing press/computer printer, etc… as for Calligraphy being EASIER than handwriting, i assume you mean cursive, rather than block-letter writing, correct? if so, I’m not so sure.. i know that “I” can barely read most common forms of Calligraphy because it disguises the individual letters inside flowery-over-decorated “extra” crap… and cursive is so very much dependent on the fine-motor-skills of the writer to be able to be legible at all… think “Dr. Scrawl” for how bad it can be if they aren’t careful, also nigh impossible to read most people versions of it… nope.. block-letter text is the easiest to learn, and for others to read… especially at a young age.. you do notice that schools DON’T teach cursive, or calligraphy that young? there must be a reason why, right…
There is a school of penmanship which teaches that you should not move your fingers to write, but move your hand and the pen by moving your arm. When I write left-handed I write that way.
Also, the Russian word for ‘really bad hand-writing’ translates literally as ‘foot-writing’.
What can we say, Amanda? Some people outgrow their stupid, some people don’t. (BTW: *You’re* not always a paragon of smart yourself. Just sayin’… [although I think that you *do* have the potential to grow into it.])
I’m trying to remember how old I was the first time I really realized I was just as stupid as everyone else. I think I may have been 12.
Oh, that won’t ever happen to me. I’m good at rationalizing!
Good for you. For most people it’s around the age of 34.
I have older brothers, so I had plenty of ‘help’ in making that realization.
Oh, child… Here comes another life lesson; this one in managing expectations and disappointment.
That portrait of Selkie…. Such a speaking likeness! It shows that Amanda is the daughter of an artist.
What old age has taught me, Amanda Marie, is that “What we find to hate in others, is what we most need to heal in ourselves. … Just a thought, Mandi, you might want– either now, or later, you pick.
But everything -is- stupid after going through hell.
All the trivial interactions that seam to take up everyone’s time, they don’t make sense for a long time to someone who has had to focus on survival for an extended period.
It can take a long time to regain a sense of perspective.
Amanda Marie, Future Webcomic Artist.
okay but did anyone else notice that the last ‘everyone stops being stupid’ is basically about Todd and Selkie as no-one else ‘stupid’ is directly mentioned
Amanda includes Selkie in her ‘trial version family’
awwwwwwww
Selkie has graduated from “Fish Face” to “Other Princess”
I noticed that too, a small sign of hope. If she can stop calling Selkie Fish-face in her mind it will make calling her by name easier in life.
Also I love these insight in to her mind bits, we’ve had a bunch of insight into Selkie’s thinking via dreams and thoughts/flashbacks.
Dave> When you said “Everything is stupid.” I of course hear in my head “Everything is awesome!”… Yes, the catchy song from the Legos movie. Also, I will try and think up another submission for ya:) Also, love Amanda’s style of art:)
Everything is stupid!
Everything’s going straight to hell!
Everything is stupid!
My standards sharply fell!
Still waiting for Amanda to learn who was really responsible for what happened to her as a baby.
The Sandersons or the orphanage? I meam, I think she’s pretty aware of her previous adoptive family being bad and directly hurting her.
Yeah. Not talking ’bout the Sandersons. Waiting to see her reaction to what Andi did… and her bio grandma on her mom’s side… but I know that’ll just create more anti-trust issues and I’m sure that’s why it isn’t being brought up by the characters. Honestly, I think Todd is being a really big person right now by not calling Andi out on exactly what she did — in front of Amanda. So he lets Amanda hate him, to save her the pain of knowing the person she now trusts more than anyone… was the one who abandoned her and was the real “stupid” one.
That’s not fair at all. Saying someone is horrible for giving their child up for adoption I’d a very low thing to do. Further blaming them for any abuse that the system and other families do is even worse. I’ll say it til I’m blue in the face, the orphanage was supposed to place her in a safe, loving home and FOLLOW UP to make sure it was such. They failed her.
Andi -should- have given Amanda to Todd if she didn’t feel like she could adequately care for her, yes. But as Amanda’s birth mother, she absolutely has the right to give up her child for adoption. Blaming Andi for what other people did to Amanda is wrong. That’s like blaming Todd for all the wrong things that have happened to Selkie during his care. It’s NOT SOMETHING THEY COULD PREVENT.
The point is that Todd is taking the blame for not knowing that his daughter was “out in the wild”, and not recognizing his daughter when he saw her. That’s Andi’s fault for making him believe that their child was dead. Giving Amanda up for adoption wasn’t the bad/stupid choice. Not letting the father know that there was a (living) child was the bad/stupid choice. Especially when it was quite clear that the father was really excited about the potential child.
Saying that people are criticizing Andi mere for “giving a child up for adoption” is disingenuous at best. Because she did a lot more than that.
I don’t know if it legally counts as kidnapping, but morally that’s what it was. It’s fine if *she* doesn’t want a child, but Andi STOLE Tod’s daughter from him.
SpringPop> Yup. The orphanage is also to blame, unless the Sandersons seemed to be perfect parents just to them but were so negligent of Amanda’s feelings that it’s borderline evil. But I don’t hold Andi in any regards as innocent. Todd was too baby blind in the beginning to see Andi’s pain, yes, but Andi never spoke up about it for fear of losing him. Her fear of losing him was more important than the life growing inside her when it came to decide if her mother was right and she should give up her baby, lie about it dying to the man she cared so much about, and try to carry on with life for years after. Just… doesn’t seem right, or healthy. I think we can all agree that Andi has issues. Is Todd perfect? Nope. But I still say he’s a better person and parent than Andi and I think that’s what her character is supposed to be like. She’s the antagonist for Todd, just like Amanda is Selkie’s antagonist. It’s basic storytelling. What isn’t basic is how Dave is crafting such an in-depth, trying-to-grow-past-her-own-face character in Andi and he does it very well:) Look at all the chatter that’s generated just in the last six months for the comic JUST for Andi:) I’m proud of him.
Um… Do we know EXACTLY what happened to Amanda? Did they beat her? Let their other kids beat her? Lock her in her room and make her do chores? I’m just curious what really happened to her and how long she was there for. Did they return her to the orphanage after their trial 6 week run because she “didn’t mesh well with our bio kids”?
if she got THAT messed up after ONLY six weeks, I’d be VERY surprised… and while I’m not an expert on adoption, i find it hard to swallow that you could get a “trial period” with your adoptee, i always figured that you get tested and interviewed to hell and back, before they sign on the dotted line and that kid is “yours forever”… and again i think it’s been said already that the whole “returned to the orphanage” thing was also not possible… UNLESS during one of the inspections it was found that abuse WAS occurring and the orphanage TOOK her out of the home, versus the Sanderson’s “dumped” her off?… either way, i would imagine that the Sanderson’s adopted her as an infant direct out of the orphanage of the time, and raised to be ?five? i think when both her and Selkie got dropped off at the current orphanage and they were both there for what, three years? as for the abuse, i’m pretty sure that it WAS physical, and it was mostly done by the two other kids, probably the same way that Truck was bullying kids at school but his parents refused to believe anyone until they had VIDEO EVIDENCE of it, the two other kids were doing the same thing to her and the parents refused to believe that their “little princes” were doing “anything” wrong, and that it MUST be HER that was lying, from the way she was telling her story at school…
I actually really hope it never happens. I’ve seen dear friends learn horrible things about their origins like that, and it was very crushing for them—and they learned these things as young adults. I don’t see much good for Amanda if it happens to her beyond learning her mom was the one who made the choice to adopt her out.
So the Agent guy and Selkie’s birth mother are responsible for everything that happened to her at the orphanage and at school before Todd adopted Selkie, since they arranged for her to be there? 😉
Waiting for the nuclear bomb to drop…when Amanda meets her maternal grandmother (who is really the one to blame imho). Hoping Andi has cut all ties with her before this happens….(and yeah, it’s something that should be explained to Amanda eventually…hopefully in a sensitive manner and not as a freaking bombshell.
I hope Amanda doesn’t meet her maternal grandmother. Andi already knows that she wants nothing to do with Amanda, so having the two of them meet is pointless.
Yeah. I doubt Andi has cut off her mom. Her mom cut Amanda out, however, so that won’t mean visits anytime soon — if at all — from Andi anymore. Amanda doesn’t need to know about that person yet. I think that’s on every one of the characters’ minds who is in the know of what she did (namely Andi). I am impressed actually at Andi and Todd and what they don’t say to each other because it isn’t the right time. I am sure, however, that Amanda will ask about her mom’s mom.
I get the feeling that there might be a “certain-point-of-view” comic somewhere down the line wherein Andi has to explain to Amanda that her maternal grandmother is, for all intents and purposes, “dead” and they won’t be seeing her even if she is still physically/biologically still living.
I actually think this is the sweetest and most hopeful Amanda strip ever. Very awww.
I agree. Amanda is finding an outlet for her feelimgs. Although she’s still hostile it’s a sign of improvement. Also she sees Andi as her mother. The identification of Andi being on her team is very hopeful.
Hopeful, unless the “drama bomb of finding out her mom was the one who gave her up and said she was dead” drops too soon for that trust to cement. Waitin’ to see on that.
I think she already knows. She mentioned it to Todd.
And Todd is portrayed as an angry scowly man. Interesting.
4 of the 5 times she has met him (all but at the orphanage where she felt he rejected her) he has been angry and scowling. Granted, he was angry at Andi, not at Amanda, but Amanda doesn’t understand why, and is defensive of Andi. So, knowing that he was mad at Andi wouldn’t change her mind at all. Granted, her back is turned in some of the frames where he looks the most scowly/angry, but she could easily have seen him in her peripheral vision.
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie643/ through
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie649/(aquarium, every single strip)
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie667/ through
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie668/ (getting dropped off at school)
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie671/ and
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie675/ (getting picked up at school/parent teacher conference)
Oops, forgot to link in the ones from the current (4th) time, but they’re recent enough I’m sure you’ve seen them.
Yup:) Nice references btw:)
“But then Princess Marie thought, Maybe they will stop being stupid.”
This broke my heart.
After all the kid’s been through, after her fairytale happy ending turned into something ‘way more complicated than she imagined, and Selkie STILL in the way…
…and she’s still trying, in her own way, to hope for a happy ending.
Good on you, Amanda.
Yea, what exactly is she hoping for though? Her new family accepted and welcomed her with no questions asked, she’s the one being standoffish and not accepting what they offer. Like what do they need to do to stop “being stupid” in her mind?
For them to stop treating her mom like crap.
They’re not treating her like crap. Granted, they’re not warm and welcoming. And yes, they’re kind of stand-offish. But given the depth of their hurt, they’re being awfully civil. Expecting them to go beyond civility to be all loving and happy-family-ish is unreasonable.
If someone had basically *stolen* my child from me, I’d have a hard time being in the same room with them.
Amanda thinks they are because she heard Mari and Todd yell at Andi. They really should have waited until they were in a private location but I can understand them not being able to hold back.
Todd did straight up apologize for that though already.
>Yea, what exactly is she hoping for though?
For them to stop being stupid.
She’s never known any variety of normalcy – she has no idea what things might look like after that.
For them to prove she can trust them and that they are always going to be there for her. Like her grandparents said (I believe Mari) this will take time. It is very positive Amanda is deciding to wait and see versus shutting them all out.
I think that’s because Amanda is desperate for family. She even wanted to be with her adopted family. Being abused didn’t matter to her nearly as much as being abandoned.
I took it as them to leave Andi alone, too, I guess. Not quite sure, but the explanation for that would be not from our perspective but from hers. Look at the picture of her mom. Happy and smiling and perfect. Her dad? Scowly and angry. As referenced by Lyric, this is how Amanda views Todd — angry at her mom who came and rescued her. Her mom’s a saint and people are mad at her — including her grandparents (whom she did not draw as I assume she is unsure what to make of them because they are being honest but… can she trust that?) So in “being stupid” she is seeing maybe a situation that she pastes that label to because she doesn’t know what else to do. Selkie is also labeled as “being stupid” because Amanda has lumped that into “weird”/”I cannot even understand what you are about”. It’d be like when I was in school and I would say that I like dinosaurs and I happen to be a girl and my peers would say “Yer dumb…”. Do they think I am stupid? No. That’s their immature way of saying they don’t get me and don’t want to try to. Eh. I never changed my ways so I got that a lot in school, and sometimes as an adult. Eventually, growing up isn’t just heartache and a harsh learning curve. Sometimes it gets ironed out into “Yeah, I get you, man.” and I like those moments:)
Except her idea of a “happy ending” involves Selkie no longer being around.
Actually, I’m not so sure about that.
It does involve Selkie not being “stupid” any more — which, as others have pointed out here, is kid-speak for ‘someone I can’t understand and don’t want to.” But tonight seems to have altered her view of Selkie a bit. They interacted on a different level. Yes, they’re still very much rivals, but they’ve both been told emphatically by ALL the adults that they are now sisters and will have to figure out a way to get along.
I think she’d settle for Selkie turning into “someone I know how to deal with.”