Good thing there’s no pork on the menu.
– – – –
Got another fanart to share today! LadyChrii drew me this:
Thank you, Chrii!
Please yes cannibalism. (not really)
Good thing there’s no pork on the menu.
– – – –
Got another fanart to share today! LadyChrii drew me this:
Thank you, Chrii!
Amanda is an idiot.
Your comment is true, but its less unimaginable her state if you consider the fact, everyone capable that level of fear, what easly can left out any reason. And if you find out even the possibility is actually exist one of your this kind of fear, you doesn’t need to be actually threatened by it for become panicked.
No, she’s just irrational because of a trigger: perceived danger from a sibling with a parent who is taking the sibling’s side.
Hopefully she manages to calm down and get into a better mindset about this.
But this has nothing to do with her ~intelligence~
There’s no way Amanda should be genuinelly scared of being eaten so I’m back to thinking she’s putting up an act as excuse to be nasty.
Yeah, she’s never seriously believed that Selkie eats people, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t take Selkie’s “tastes like pork” jab seriously. And it doesn’t look like a misunderstanding where she saw someone else (Carrie?), either. But it doesn’t sounds like she’s acting; I think she’s really scared for some reason.
I’m half inclined to believe her this time, only because Pohl established that all kids tend to have an instinctive gut reaction of fear when they see him. Amanda definitely did when she saw him at the aquarium.
Adults are different. Adults generally rationalize what they’re seeing and accept the thinnest of excuses, trying hard to normalize sarnothi into their world view, as humans with a “condition”. Even Todd did it at first. It’s kind of the whole premise of the comic. But kids? Their first response is terror. “It’s going to eat me!”
Amanda’s reaction is complex. Where Selkie is concerned, she has a whole superstructure that’s very like racism, built on top of that instinctual fear. She is very gradually being taught, by one experience and another, to dismantle it, but Dave’s being very realistic here. Racism doesn’t have an instant-off switch.
I think this dinner will be a step forward for her. First, Carrie is the opposite of threatening. And Benny…? well. We’ll see how that pans out, but one factor that might be relevant is that all three kids love video games. (Admittedly, each in their own way. But still. It’s an element they have in common.)
Amanda also has to deal with the fact that her previous experience with siblings was traumatic and ended badly. She has a lot of fears related to family and belonging, added to the unknown of selkie and people like selkie being ‘different’
my thoughts exactly, she´s just being a drama queen – and wanting to be the center of attention. after all, this whole outing is for *selkie* to meet others of *her* kind, so i´d say amanda is feeling left out and plain jealous.
Don’t forget Amanda’s previous terrible experiences with siblings. At this point, this is about Selkie being in position of power over her much more than about details about ‘eating’ or whatever she’s going to do to her. The fact is, Amanda thinks she’s going to be able to do SOMETHING while surrounded by adults who will be biased towards her (because she’s one of them).
There’s not even room for gloating about how any potential hostility from Selkie Amanda has earned with her own shitty behavior thousandfold. I doubt she’d wronged her previous adopted siblings, they attacked her just because they could, and now Selkie is going to be able to, and in Amanda’s mind it means that of course she WILL.
This is fucked up, and with Todd oblivious as ever, to boot.
Dammit.
She’s 8. It’s completely normal for an 8 year old to have a fear that completely irrational. A lot of adults have fears that are irrational but completely genuine. Why is everyone so convinced this is just Amanda acting out for attention? Her desire is to not be there AT ALL not steal the spotlight and to me she’s expressing clear signs of genuine fear and anxiety it is annoying the hell out of me that Todd is continuing to force this and that so many seem willing to write off a traumatized child expressing clear signs of discomfort and distress. I think this is a scenario it would have made a lot of sense to include Andi in on to help comfort Amanda. So maybe Todd should have held off on dragging Amanda along for this first meeting and potentially ruining it for Selkie by scheduling a second dinner with Amanda and Andi coming along.
It just never come up before with all her time around Selkie, not even when she spend an afternoon with the Pohls?
Dunno, I think if she was genuinely scared of Selkie she would have avoided and tried not making her angry rather than harass and bully her all her life.
I think the difference is that Selkie, during her years at the orphanage, displayed herself as a ‘weak’ person and an easy target. Amanda had no problem picking on the person who couldn’t fight back. When she spent an afternoon with the Pohls, it DID come up; the doctor greeted her in a friendly, non-threatening manner, and she was absolutely terrified by him. Amanda isn’t afraid of the ‘weird blue crybaby’, but she IS afraid of the ‘huge green knife-toothed man’, and by extension, all full-grown Sarnothi are scary to her.
But her comment “SHE will” certainly sounds like she ‘wants’ to make Todd think she’s afraid of Selkie specifically. That seems incongruous with the fact that she has lived in the same building as Selkie for years, and has been able to get away with tormenting and bullying her all that time.
Amanda doesn’t want to be there and is just grabbing straws. Like the fleeting nervousness she has over Selkies teeth in the like. When Amanda is really just not wanting to face the idea of more people prioritising Selkie over her again.
I think you’re right. Although you would think that Christmas and seeing them both enjoying family time would have helped with that.
If Selkie DID eat her, it would not be cannibalism anyway. Different species and all that.
This comment needs to be up-voted
BUT, if everyone NOT in-the-know (yet) is being TOLD that “my kid has… A Condition…” then what is that other person to think?… “hmm, this kid is a different species, even though her dad says she’s a human but just sick?” Nope, the server’s response of “no cannibalism” actually IS the correct response because she been told that the kids ARE HUMAN, but sick…
I DON’T think HE meant TO criticize THE comic, JUST to POINT out IT wouldn’T be CANNIBALISM tecnically.
Quite correct
That was my thought as well.
Honestly in today’s society I highly doubt anyone would truly care if anyone was like “yeah I’m a different species, deal with it”. I think it’d be split into three groups: The “Burn them they’re evil” group, the “OH DUDE AWESOME can I see your teeth?!” group and the “Eh… cool whatever, good for you” group.
Don’t forget the ‘no sweatie you are human you just want to be a special snowflake 🙂 ‘ group, the most annoying one.
(Or the most terrifying one, if they’re in position of authority over you and are forcing you into something unsafe because of your differences that they are refusing to acknowledge)
(not referring to anything in particular here at all)
If Amanda did not wish to be eaten, she should not wear a hat that makes her look like a rabbit.
Especially this close to Easter.
Don’t you know? Animal hoods help prevent vampire bites.
So it’s a Bunnicula hat? Wonder if that would make her drink vegetable juices and leave white carrots behind
I thought it’s Max’s severed head from team fortress 2.
Actually, I was referencing Adventure Time where humans wore animal hoods to help protect their necks from vampires who might try to bite them.
No Amanda it’s NOT against the rules. The server said “*Please* no cannibalism.” She’s only making a request. 😉
To be fair,Selkie did make a joke about eating her.
Though this might be just an excuse to try and get out of this. DX Todd,this wasn’t wise.
To be fair, Amanda started it by telling other kids that Selkie would eat them.
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie137/
Yeah. Good point,I almost forgot about that. XD
*admires the fan art!*
Good recovery, greeter-gal. Good recovery.
Amanda is nervous, which is a normal response to meeting anybody new.
She is trying to grab the spotlight by acting out.
Todd is is very close to taking Amanda aside and saying “Stop the crap, Amanda” and that is exactly what is needed. Well, that and “Stop poking Amanda, Selkie.’
This is probably not because of anyone new. This is fear targeted at Selkie even more so than the strangers. Now, does Amanda have any precendent for a reason to fear siblings threatening her with bodily harm while a present parent dismisses the issue entirely while taking their side?… OH WAIT
Good point. I hadn’t put two and two together like that.
You’d think Todd would have twigged to that himself.
Given a lot of people’s apparent immediate impulse to just write Amanda off as a brat in the middle of a tantrum even though we are all well aware of her traumatic background it doesn’t really surprise me that Todd’s willing to do the same. Amanda may be his daughter but he has yet to fully bond with her to the degree he has with Selkie. He doesn’t know her as well yet and he is not as empathetic towards her and he is currently putting what is best for one child over the other. He’ll get better with time but GOD he really should have brought Andi along for this.
Difference is, Todd and Selkie are not Amanda’s previous parent and siblings. And it seems the only way Amanda will realize this is through experience, since Todd’s speech at the end of the drinking fiasco didn’t seem to leave a lasting impact. Todd is not putting one child over the other, he’s addressing two different things at the same time. Amanda needs this to address an irrational fear.
You don’t address irrational fears by forcing the person into the situation against their will, that only makes it more terrifying because of the feeling of loss of control which is terrifying in itself.
Hopefully, Amanda can calm down and feel better, but this right here? Is NOT HELPING.
I’d just like to point out that it would technically not be cannibalism as Amanda and Selkie are different species. Just putting that out there.
Damn, beat me by an hour
I was just signing in to post this.
I think my 7 yr old daughter gave this same scene complete with “Don’t eat me!” comments directed at her older brother the last time we went out for Chinese food. 7-8 is the age of the over reacting drama queen divas. And yes, they do freak out or tantrum over the weirdest little things. I thought it was just my kid until I talked with friends and realized that all of our daughters started similar behaviors about midway through 2nd grade. Good job with the realism Dave. Before I had kids I would have thought you were just making up the kids’ reactions. Now I know better and applaud your ability to capture “normal” behavior.
I remember as a little kid going to the market with my dad and him singing a Russian song ‘for children’ that went like this: Buy onions, green onions, parsley and carrots, buy my little daughter, mischievous and sly…
and I was fucking TERRIFIED that he was actually going to sell me. Like there was a part of me that said ‘no way’ and then there was the part that was listening to the song and just !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t think I actually expressed the fear in any way, I was a very subdued child, and when I recently brought up with my dad how I don’t like that song ever since then, he was VERY SURPRISED.
But yeah, little children aren’t ‘divas’, they just can’t put their experiences in context to make them comparatively smaller the way they are for adults, everything is just THAT MUCH OF A BIG DEAL.
Like, obviously there are exceptions, situations where a kid will just act out because they see nothing wrong with the idea of trying that, but a lot of the time adults will dismiss a child’s emotions as ‘pretend’ when it’s anything but.
oh god, that fan art, its horrifying!!!
(jk chri’s my sister)
C’mon, didn’t Amanda try that “Selkie the monster girl will eat you” thing on one of her classmates? Also Selkie’s “eats me” at the end was pretty clever, I think I laughed a little and I don’t laugh easily.
Good memory:
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie137/
Amanda is the REAL monster
…Amanda does not feel safe around Todd.
She does not want to meet strangers when her bio-dad is promising it’ll be safe, and the more he insists, the more spooked she gets, because the more triggery the situation gets for her because of the reminder of ‘parent+sibling in a situation I am spooked of’.
Goddammit.
How many details from Amanda’s file has Andy shared with him?
This is not about the sarnothi anymore. This is ‘unsafe situation with family’, and the strangers are the least scary thing there.
It’s Selkie she’s trying to fall back on the rules to protect herself from, despite how irrational the whole idea of ‘getting eaten by her’ is. Amanda has just emphatically found herself for the first time in a situation where it’s Selkie who has more power.
…on one hand, I think this might be a good experience for her, assuming her fears DO get assuaded and she figures out that this time, things really ARE different for her. On the other hand, if Todd mishandles this and keeps pushing, it might get much, much worse, even if nothing worse than being pushed happens…
Dammit. How much information DID Andy share with him???
Because if she didn’t share the key points – and even if she did but Todd is failing to process and apply that information – from his perspective it’s absolutely coming across as coming from nowhere and probably a tantrum for attention and an attempt to bully Selkie more. Which is… the exact opposite of what this is.
Hell, I was tempted to take that position myself, but what stopped me was the “Iaaahhh…” in the first panel. That is not normal Amanda behavior, that is a genuine reaction to a sudden fear – something that just happened or appeared that paralyzed her with terror for a moment. Now, what is in that panel prior to this that she might have this kind of reaction to?…
urrrgh
Or its Amanda being difficult because she isn’t getting things her way. Far more evidence of Amanda behaving bratty and difficult than believing she is even remotely in danger.
Or Amanda’s a traumatized child whose “bratty” behavior was a coping mechanism from years of abuse, abandonment, and attachment issues and interpreting her very real cues of anxiety and fear as merely acting out for attention is probably something that a lot of people have done to her over and over her entire young life (like for example her former adoptive parents) and not paying attention to this and handling this better is potentially a completely irresponsible parenting move on Todd’s part when his and Amanda’s bond is very new and delicate? Like it would be nice if Amanda trusted Todd enough to believe he wouldn’t willingly put her in danger but she is a child who has already had it shown to her that adults do NOT always protect you. So him saying, “Nothing bad will happen to you I promise.” doesn’t really mean shit. She doesn’t trust Todd as much as she needs to. She doesn’t fully trust Selkie (even if she doesn’t really hate her anymore) and she doesn’t trust these strangers Todd is dragging her kicking and screaming to met who look like MONSTERS to her.
And it’s not irrational for her not to given her entire life experience leading up to this.
(Posted too soon before.)
Except she’s lived for years with Selkie, and hasn’t seen Selkie hurt anyone even when she was picked on, kicked at, had balls thrown at her head, etc. And that is who this comment was directed at, not at the Browns.
Oh, but previously, Selkie’s status compared to her was different. She was just ‘a girl in the orphanage’ but now she’s ‘the favored child’ in Amanda’s eyes, and it’s that and not her personality that’s the trigger here. It doesn’t mean SHIT who Selkie is as a person, because I’ll bet you people who abused Amanda previously were also perfectly tame and nice and safe to everyone other than her in all situations other than when they had the opportunity to hurt her.
Like, yeah, not all people are like that, but Amanda HAS NO MEANS TO TELL at 8 years old…
Look at that first panel. Your explanation fits with everything but that )=