Um, Todd? This kinda isn’t something you can say “no” to. You chose to adopt a “special” kid; most of the time when you do that you are adopting a kid with reduced capacity; however, in some cases you end up with a kid with advanced capabilities.
Now, I know it’s fiction, but the Dursleys couldn’t turn Harry into a muggle, no matter how much they might have wanted to.
This is a capability that you need to understand and embrace; it’s not like you can (or should) take it away from Selkie.
It’s less “I won’t allow this” and more “I just nearly died twice over and you guys are dumping all this crazy magic bullshit on top of me and I can not process any more of this right now, so please stop talking.”
I think Todd is in a lot of emotional distress here. I know, most of the time, he acts like the reasonable parent he should be, but even he is just a human in the end. And he wasn’t prepared for any of this at all. If you adopt a special needs kid, you get the chance to gather information about that condition before you adopt. But a lot of information was held back and it now just crashed on him all at once.
And this is why Scar is legitimately pissed at Smith for not preparing Todd for any possibility of this happening. Smith would have had to break some rules for sure, but I think that is much more preferable to THIS.
This is gonna have serious long term issues down the line. Todd had no idea that he volunteered himself to be the father of a potential superhero. Especially since Selkie could potentially make Doctor Terrorhammer real based on the Echo powers we already know about so far.
This is no where near the same range as the Dursleys though. They knew what they might be in for and tried to *beat* it out of Harry.
If Todd and his parents had been given more than just tidbits of information (which I’m not blaming Avery for, not with all the heavy politics and hoop jumping involved), Todd might have been a bit open.
But as it is, Todd has gotten something equal to a gigantic, ear ringing slap in the face. He nearly got his head bit off by a gigantic eel, he almost drowned and now he’s learning his adoptive daughter might have some capabilities that he doesn’t understand.
To quote Lovecraft: “The greatest and oldest fear, is the fear of the unknown.”
He’s freaked out and overwhelmed by things he doesn’t understand, and everyone else is acting like they have a right to make decisions for his daughter without his consent. I would be putting my foot down too.
Pohl should give Todd some space, a chance to calm down and *think* first, then bring it up again in a place where Todd feels more safe with both him and Selkie.
KSClaw said: “This is no where near the same range as the Dursleys though. They knew what they might be in for and tried to *beat* it out of Harry.”
That is what we find out when we get to the END of the story– that Petunia KNEW what magic was and (mostly) how it worked because of her sister Lily– but in the beginning the Dursleys treated it like he had a birth defect or a bad disposition.
I’m scared that people might hate on Todd now for that. :/ I mean, yes, he might not react too well on it. But honestly, who would in that situation? He almost got eaten by a giant eel, almost drowned, learned, that his adoptive daughter might have superpowers – all in one day.
This disaster coudl have been avoided so easily, and the mistake is clearly on the government here. You won’t let a special needs kid get adopted without making sure the adoptive parent knows what to expect, what could happen, for better or worse. That’s not different if you give a kid from a different species to somebody. They used Selkie and Todd as their guinea pigs, Avery admitted that, without even thinking about Selkie’s wellbeing.
(Just for the record, I don’t blame Avery either. It’s the messed up government behind this.)
I don’t even entirely blame the government: this is *easily* not the worst case scenario. For example, they could have very very very easily gone the Innsmouth route on this entire sorry mess when it cropped up the first time. Instead, everybody involved is making it up as they go along and trying to come to an outcome where people can still sleep at night.
So, basically, it’s everybody’s fault and nobody’s.
In the long run though, it’s for the best if Selkie gets echo training (it’s even doctor recommended!) for health, safety, and psychological well being ….trying to keep Selkie away from something that rightly belongs to her (her powers and her culture) is wrong
It’s like the Dursleys trying to ignore all magic/force Harry’s magic away!
((sadly, in real life, it often happens when children get adopted by parents from a foreign country. They are expected to learn and follow the customs of their adopted parent’s culture and ignore their own roots until they completely forget altogether (language especially is a “use it or lose it” skill that is very easily forgotten)))
Has anybody even brought Todd a cup of tea yet? A blanket? Avery… whoever is piloting the sub…? One of you guys get on the ball, please! Pohl, I’m ashamed of you. You’re a doctor. He may not be hemorrhaging but you want to at least check if you need to treat him for concussion or shock instead of excitedly gabbling about your new apprentice. Todd here is going to need PTSD prevention support sessions and you didn’t even bring him a cup of tea and let him know that you are bringing him and his daughter safe to the surface.
Let us hope that when the Selkie’s next school field trip goes completely south the way this little field trip went south, it is entirely and inevitably Selkie’s (and maybe a couple of classmates’) fault and her field trip supervisors are much more responsible for their charges!!!
C’mon Todd, from here on out you’re gonna have to realize that there are lots of paranormal stuff that you don’t know about, some of it might having nothing to do with the Sarnothi. Heck they might even have mole people neighbor’s, I’m not specifically referring to the refuge colony or the main city.
Avery, if you don’t do some damage control, right now!, this is going to jump up and bite you in your sit-down-place. Someone may have exceeded their design limits, and be stressed past their breaking point. Now! might be the time to act. (Well, 5 minutes ago, but who’s counting?).
My heart just hurts for Selkie’s troubles; Todd saying “No,” and her races’ gifts and powers saying, “Yes!”
I agree with Todd in the sense of “No, let’s not do that.” There are a few reasons why:
1) Superpowers would blow Selkie’s cover if humans witnessed her using them. Let’s say she was in full control and decides to use her powers and doesn’t realize Amanda is watching.
Everyone mistakes Clark Kent for a human, but nobody mistakes Superman for a human.
2) She’s too untrained to risk #1 happening involuntarily. Right now, she can’t even turn her glowing eyes off. What if another Truck incident happens?
3) She’s too young to handle the responsibility. It’s not a matter of immaturity, as she’s not particularly immature for her age, it’s a matter of age. She’s just not old enough to handle this yet.
4) The suppression field may have been deliberate after all, for the reasons above.
I’m not normally against characters getting cool powers, but in this case it’s just too soon.
@MadTinkerer: yes, I agree wholeheartedly with your four point assessment. I just hurt for Todd and Selkie. Internal head-canon says ‘yes, that is why I made the damn bow’ was to keep this from happening,… One question from me, for Dave is; did Selkie show any echo talents before she was handed over to the ‘humans’ for ‘safe keeping’?
I would say #5 was that she immediately went “So I get to go fight in a war now!”. I understand that she looks up to her mother, but Selkie is still young. She has no clue just what a war is like. Todd is right to be apprehensive about this.
Yeah that is highly concerning. Saying, “Am I gonna beat up the bad guys!?” would be a more normal childlike thing to say. Excitedly saying, “Do I get to kill a bunch of people in a war!?” is pretty disturbing.
I feel like people are sort of mis-reading that line a bit. Selkie’s eight, she doesn’t mean “kill in a war” as it literally sounds; she thinks fighting in a war is pew-pew, HP bar depletes, DRAMATIC GASP, then the faceless enemy fades out of view.
8 is and it isn’t a great age to grasp the concept of death and dying. Let me explain.
There is a “B******t” Epsode (That is the name of a show, not a value judgment on the content) about video games. The argument was that games were desensitizing children and making them more prone to violent actions. One of the kids they got on the episode was about about 9-11 years old who loved very bloody, very violent video games. They gave him an opportunity to shoot a real gun. He did. It showed him as mildly startled about the noise and the shooting…until the very end of the show.
At the end the kid was crying, practically bawling his eyes out over having shot a gun. Not having HIT anyone, not having hurt anyone. THE MERE ACT OF SHOOTING.
Now, I am sure he knows about death and dying. I am sure he as a 9-11 year old gets the concept. But it is one thing to think about dying or killing, and another entirely to PARTICIPATE in it.
We have already seen that MOST of the time, when push comes to shove, Selkie does choose compassion over revenge.
So what will most likely happen, is that after she gets over the glee of possibly being a real-life superhero/supervillain, she will probably not find war so enjoyable. Especially if she has to participate in killing.
For those who forgot that bit and want to confirm it, that was in comic/selkie987
While I don’t think it’s the best choice to try forbidding her powers forever, Todd has every right to be concerned about the implications of this new development.
Your reasons make a lot of sense, but then we run into the Frozen problem: If you don’t learn to control your powers early then eventually they’ll spiral out of control when you least expect it.
At this point if she even wants to blend in with humans she’ll either have to be trained to control her powers, or have the bow stuck on her head forever. And if the bow is taken off, then again, it may be days or it may be years before it happens but her powers will go wild and god help any innocent person nearby.
On top of this is it’s implied that there’s some Saronthi looking to turn Selike in to a WMD against humanity, and even though Todd may not know this, that in itself makes training Selkie not a free pass to safety either.
As a parent, I can understand where he’s coming from. He’s in emotional distress, nearly died twice, along with his child going into a dangerous encounter, uncovering technology and magic that turns his reality upside down is a lot to take in at once. but also now knowing his (impulsive) child, and yes, Selkie is impulsive, has power or ability to hurt or otherwise intimidate others and someone wants to let her practice it. that is a hard pill to swallow. Even I would say ‘no’ to that unless my child learns self-control or self-discipline with it. but yeah, I think people need to lay off him, He’s had a rough day and delving deeper isn’t going to help.
Yeah, I kinda saw this coming. Everytime someone would talk about “Sarnothi needs” instead of “Selkie needs” it was kind of a red flag, and it was pretty much inevitable that Todd would be even more resistant to the whole thing than just finding out magic exists and his daughter has it would do.
What they all should have done, was focus on explaining how echo training would be an important connection to Selkie’s culture and possibly healthy for her, and NOT on all the things she could do for THEM.
I’m actually THRILLED that Todd is responding in a realistic way to the kind of effects that turned his worldview upside down. There are way too many stories where major characters are just expected to take this sort of thing in stride.
Was it Sidney Freedman, the psychiatrist in M*A*S*H, who pointed out that when you’re in an abnormal situation, acting normal is a sign that something is wrong? My favorite example is Bronson Pinchot’s character in Stephen King’s “Langoliers”: It’s no excuse that we’ve gone through a space anomaly, humanity has disappeared, jet fuel is somehow running out of power, and these crazy flying mouths with teeth are threatening the group: I must get to that meeting, and you are wrong for not catering to my normalcy.
When you’re in an abnormal situation, a normal person will act in an abnormal manner. That is what Todd is doing. He needs time to process, and cannot just take things in stride — and yes, this could’ve been reduced or prevented with a little additional information earlier on, but “regret is an attempt to prevent what has already happened.”
This is the main reason I love this strip. The characterization is totally Awesome!! Thoroughly believable, and pretty fine consistent, except when people make mistakes, and then that is consistent, too.
Todd if she doesn’t learn her inability to turn it off will give her away. I know you’re scared but you need to calm down and think rationally. This could help keep her safe too.
Todd is actually a pretty open-minded, strong-willed type, as we’ve had many opportunities to see. But he has human limits and needs to process what’s been thrown at him in the last few hours. The man needs space and time for a bit.
Pretty sure Todd is in shock right now. Remember he panicked originally over the scuba lessons? Just the idea of spending a day under water freaked him out. Then the eel, then the magic, then the Selkie powers …
Todd’s having an exceptionally stressful day.
I agree with everyone who has suggested getting him a blankie, tea, and other such comforts.
Even aside from the shock – Todd’s top priority is keeping Selkie safe. He is the *only one there* who has that as their top priority. Until he can parse out what the dangers are and what everyone else wants from Selkie, he is absolutely right to say no.
Yeah but Pohl isn’t thinking “What happens if we train her to use her powers on the surface where she also has to pretend she’s a normal human girl.”. He’s thinking “What a great opportunity it would be for Selkie to live here and learn how to use her powers! She’d love it!”.
Pohl is only thinking of Selkie as a Sarnothi girl, and not as a Sarnothi girl who must live with humans and pretend she’s a normal human girl. Pohl is certainly not thinking of Todd or Agent Brown or any of the humans right now.
It’s probably not outright racism, it’s just that whole “fourth surviving wizard in all of the surface world” thing is making him forget his priorities.
For all we know about how being an echo works though – not using her powers might also be something she might have to learn first. I mean her eyes are still glowing!
Yeah. At least give him a chance to first get his heart rate down to normal first before he even starts considering the pros and cons of one of his kids getting powers.
Tilt has officially been reached. Poor guy. Did anyone check to make sure he isn’t in shock, didn’t get water in his lungs, didn’t get injured in the eel attack?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt that comparison
Goku hitting his head also comes to mind.
Also, strangely, the fact that rat moms have control over when their babies are first able to excrete. They can’t do it until she stimulates them properly, and that way if she needs to hide them, they won’t smell right away. Rats are weird.
Do you mean Dave, the Creator, running Dave.exe or do you mean Dave’s character Todd running Todd.exe? And personally I am running Me.bin, but that has been running for decades. Unfortunately they no longer manufacture the upgrade kit for my motherboard style, so I am stuck with the chips I have. Which is good because the RAM does not have chip-creep as a problem, but is bad because the HDD has some faulty sectors.
I find the bad sector counts and the ECC errors get pretty problematic after a while, as does chassis bloat. Not a big fan of the higher costs and shorter times between servicing, either. The diagnostics just get longer and longer, too…
Had a Trojan subroutine that was stuck in an infinite loop, …Service Tech stopped it right away. Fortunately no hardware was damaged, but *dang*, that was scary!
Well, as an adoptive parent if Dave is TRULY attached he is only worrying about his child. Once attached you’re attached. I choose to believe Dave is attached; unique abilities are something you get to celibate and explore. The Sarnothi will help him out with the details.
On one hand, I’m worried about what effect Todd’s reaction is having on Selkie.
On the other, she’s -probably- tougher than this, and Todd has a right to NOPE right now. Just, no context, just NOPE.
Um, Todd? This kinda isn’t something you can say “no” to. You chose to adopt a “special” kid; most of the time when you do that you are adopting a kid with reduced capacity; however, in some cases you end up with a kid with advanced capabilities.
Now, I know it’s fiction, but the Dursleys couldn’t turn Harry into a muggle, no matter how much they might have wanted to.
This is a capability that you need to understand and embrace; it’s not like you can (or should) take it away from Selkie.
It’s less “I won’t allow this” and more “I just nearly died twice over and you guys are dumping all this crazy magic bullshit on top of me and I can not process any more of this right now, so please stop talking.”
Yup. Hoping this is just a bad time for it and he’ll get reasonable once he’s had time to calm down.
He probably will but right now he’s well beyond his capacity for dealing with unexpected shit.
I think Todd is in a lot of emotional distress here. I know, most of the time, he acts like the reasonable parent he should be, but even he is just a human in the end. And he wasn’t prepared for any of this at all. If you adopt a special needs kid, you get the chance to gather information about that condition before you adopt. But a lot of information was held back and it now just crashed on him all at once.
And this is why Scar is legitimately pissed at Smith for not preparing Todd for any possibility of this happening. Smith would have had to break some rules for sure, but I think that is much more preferable to THIS.
This is gonna have serious long term issues down the line. Todd had no idea that he volunteered himself to be the father of a potential superhero. Especially since Selkie could potentially make Doctor Terrorhammer real based on the Echo powers we already know about so far.
Brown, not Smith.
Wrong name, my mistake.
This is no where near the same range as the Dursleys though. They knew what they might be in for and tried to *beat* it out of Harry.
If Todd and his parents had been given more than just tidbits of information (which I’m not blaming Avery for, not with all the heavy politics and hoop jumping involved), Todd might have been a bit open.
But as it is, Todd has gotten something equal to a gigantic, ear ringing slap in the face. He nearly got his head bit off by a gigantic eel, he almost drowned and now he’s learning his adoptive daughter might have some capabilities that he doesn’t understand.
To quote Lovecraft: “The greatest and oldest fear, is the fear of the unknown.”
He’s freaked out and overwhelmed by things he doesn’t understand, and everyone else is acting like they have a right to make decisions for his daughter without his consent. I would be putting my foot down too.
Pohl should give Todd some space, a chance to calm down and *think* first, then bring it up again in a place where Todd feels more safe with both him and Selkie.
KSClaw said: “This is no where near the same range as the Dursleys though. They knew what they might be in for and tried to *beat* it out of Harry.”
That is what we find out when we get to the END of the story– that Petunia KNEW what magic was and (mostly) how it worked because of her sister Lily– but in the beginning the Dursleys treated it like he had a birth defect or a bad disposition.
I’m scared that people might hate on Todd now for that. :/ I mean, yes, he might not react too well on it. But honestly, who would in that situation? He almost got eaten by a giant eel, almost drowned, learned, that his adoptive daughter might have superpowers – all in one day.
This disaster coudl have been avoided so easily, and the mistake is clearly on the government here. You won’t let a special needs kid get adopted without making sure the adoptive parent knows what to expect, what could happen, for better or worse. That’s not different if you give a kid from a different species to somebody. They used Selkie and Todd as their guinea pigs, Avery admitted that, without even thinking about Selkie’s wellbeing.
(Just for the record, I don’t blame Avery either. It’s the messed up government behind this.)
I don’t even entirely blame the government: this is *easily* not the worst case scenario. For example, they could have very very very easily gone the Innsmouth route on this entire sorry mess when it cropped up the first time. Instead, everybody involved is making it up as they go along and trying to come to an outcome where people can still sleep at night.
So, basically, it’s everybody’s fault and nobody’s.
Todd is scared, stressed, and panicking
(I don’t blame him!)
Now ISN’T the time to make *final* decisions on anything important, until he can calm down and the trauma fades…
I agree, emotions are running high and…
…wait, “The Cat Using the Computer”? That’s hilarious!
The computer is nice and warm! Lots of cats like to use them!
((Also, this was the most unique username I could think of that wasn’t already taken by someone else))
In the long run though, it’s for the best if Selkie gets echo training (it’s even doctor recommended!) for health, safety, and psychological well being ….trying to keep Selkie away from something that rightly belongs to her (her powers and her culture) is wrong
It’s like the Dursleys trying to ignore all magic/force Harry’s magic away!
((sadly, in real life, it often happens when children get adopted by parents from a foreign country. They are expected to learn and follow the customs of their adopted parent’s culture and ignore their own roots until they completely forget altogether (language especially is a “use it or lose it” skill that is very easily forgotten)))
Oops, Dave, you forgot Pohl’s markings on this page 🙂
Has anybody even brought Todd a cup of tea yet? A blanket? Avery… whoever is piloting the sub…? One of you guys get on the ball, please! Pohl, I’m ashamed of you. You’re a doctor. He may not be hemorrhaging but you want to at least check if you need to treat him for concussion or shock instead of excitedly gabbling about your new apprentice. Todd here is going to need PTSD prevention support sessions and you didn’t even bring him a cup of tea and let him know that you are bringing him and his daughter safe to the surface.
Let us hope that when the Selkie’s next school field trip goes completely south the way this little field trip went south, it is entirely and inevitably Selkie’s (and maybe a couple of classmates’) fault and her field trip supervisors are much more responsible for their charges!!!
C’mon Todd, from here on out you’re gonna have to realize that there are lots of paranormal stuff that you don’t know about, some of it might having nothing to do with the Sarnothi. Heck they might even have mole people neighbor’s, I’m not specifically referring to the refuge colony or the main city.
Avery, if you don’t do some damage control, right now!, this is going to jump up and bite you in your sit-down-place. Someone may have exceeded their design limits, and be stressed past their breaking point. Now! might be the time to act. (Well, 5 minutes ago, but who’s counting?).
My heart just hurts for Selkie’s troubles; Todd saying “No,” and her races’ gifts and powers saying, “Yes!”
I agree with Todd in the sense of “No, let’s not do that.” There are a few reasons why:
1) Superpowers would blow Selkie’s cover if humans witnessed her using them. Let’s say she was in full control and decides to use her powers and doesn’t realize Amanda is watching.
Everyone mistakes Clark Kent for a human, but nobody mistakes Superman for a human.
2) She’s too untrained to risk #1 happening involuntarily. Right now, she can’t even turn her glowing eyes off. What if another Truck incident happens?
3) She’s too young to handle the responsibility. It’s not a matter of immaturity, as she’s not particularly immature for her age, it’s a matter of age. She’s just not old enough to handle this yet.
4) The suppression field may have been deliberate after all, for the reasons above.
I’m not normally against characters getting cool powers, but in this case it’s just too soon.
Right now she can’t even turn her glowy eyes off is exactly why she needs to be taught.
@MadTinkerer: yes, I agree wholeheartedly with your four point assessment. I just hurt for Todd and Selkie. Internal head-canon says ‘yes, that is why I made the damn bow’ was to keep this from happening,… One question from me, for Dave is; did Selkie show any echo talents before she was handed over to the ‘humans’ for ‘safe keeping’?
Thus confirming head cannon… Boom!
I would say #5 was that she immediately went “So I get to go fight in a war now!”. I understand that she looks up to her mother, but Selkie is still young. She has no clue just what a war is like. Todd is right to be apprehensive about this.
She said something along those lines back a few pages.
Worse, she excitedly said “Am I going to go kill a bunch of people in the war??!” My blood went cold bc it was so NOT out of character.
Yeah that is highly concerning. Saying, “Am I gonna beat up the bad guys!?” would be a more normal childlike thing to say. Excitedly saying, “Do I get to kill a bunch of people in a war!?” is pretty disturbing.
I feel like people are sort of mis-reading that line a bit. Selkie’s eight, she doesn’t mean “kill in a war” as it literally sounds; she thinks fighting in a war is pew-pew, HP bar depletes, DRAMATIC GASP, then the faceless enemy fades out of view.
Dave I don’t know about your child hood, but 8 is a perfectly reasonable age to grasp the concept of death and dying.
Regardless of her age, the comment was really creepy.
8 is and it isn’t a great age to grasp the concept of death and dying. Let me explain.
There is a “B******t” Epsode (That is the name of a show, not a value judgment on the content) about video games. The argument was that games were desensitizing children and making them more prone to violent actions. One of the kids they got on the episode was about about 9-11 years old who loved very bloody, very violent video games. They gave him an opportunity to shoot a real gun. He did. It showed him as mildly startled about the noise and the shooting…until the very end of the show.
At the end the kid was crying, practically bawling his eyes out over having shot a gun. Not having HIT anyone, not having hurt anyone. THE MERE ACT OF SHOOTING.
Now, I am sure he knows about death and dying. I am sure he as a 9-11 year old gets the concept. But it is one thing to think about dying or killing, and another entirely to PARTICIPATE in it.
We have already seen that MOST of the time, when push comes to shove, Selkie does choose compassion over revenge.
So what will most likely happen, is that after she gets over the glee of possibly being a real-life superhero/supervillain, she will probably not find war so enjoyable. Especially if she has to participate in killing.
For those who forgot that bit and want to confirm it, that was in comic/selkie987
While I don’t think it’s the best choice to try forbidding her powers forever, Todd has every right to be concerned about the implications of this new development.
Your reasons make a lot of sense, but then we run into the Frozen problem: If you don’t learn to control your powers early then eventually they’ll spiral out of control when you least expect it.
At this point if she even wants to blend in with humans she’ll either have to be trained to control her powers, or have the bow stuck on her head forever. And if the bow is taken off, then again, it may be days or it may be years before it happens but her powers will go wild and god help any innocent person nearby.
On top of this is it’s implied that there’s some Saronthi looking to turn Selike in to a WMD against humanity, and even though Todd may not know this, that in itself makes training Selkie not a free pass to safety either.
As a parent, I can understand where he’s coming from. He’s in emotional distress, nearly died twice, along with his child going into a dangerous encounter, uncovering technology and magic that turns his reality upside down is a lot to take in at once. but also now knowing his (impulsive) child, and yes, Selkie is impulsive, has power or ability to hurt or otherwise intimidate others and someone wants to let her practice it. that is a hard pill to swallow. Even I would say ‘no’ to that unless my child learns self-control or self-discipline with it. but yeah, I think people need to lay off him, He’s had a rough day and delving deeper isn’t going to help.
Yeah, I kinda saw this coming. Everytime someone would talk about “Sarnothi needs” instead of “Selkie needs” it was kind of a red flag, and it was pretty much inevitable that Todd would be even more resistant to the whole thing than just finding out magic exists and his daughter has it would do.
What they all should have done, was focus on explaining how echo training would be an important connection to Selkie’s culture and possibly healthy for her, and NOT on all the things she could do for THEM.
Guys, just give Todd a moment alright? You too, Selkie.
I’m actually THRILLED that Todd is responding in a realistic way to the kind of effects that turned his worldview upside down. There are way too many stories where major characters are just expected to take this sort of thing in stride.
Was it Sidney Freedman, the psychiatrist in M*A*S*H, who pointed out that when you’re in an abnormal situation, acting normal is a sign that something is wrong? My favorite example is Bronson Pinchot’s character in Stephen King’s “Langoliers”: It’s no excuse that we’ve gone through a space anomaly, humanity has disappeared, jet fuel is somehow running out of power, and these crazy flying mouths with teeth are threatening the group: I must get to that meeting, and you are wrong for not catering to my normalcy.
When you’re in an abnormal situation, a normal person will act in an abnormal manner. That is what Todd is doing. He needs time to process, and cannot just take things in stride — and yes, this could’ve been reduced or prevented with a little additional information earlier on, but “regret is an attempt to prevent what has already happened.”
This is the main reason I love this strip. The characterization is totally Awesome!! Thoroughly believable, and pretty fine consistent, except when people make mistakes, and then that is consistent, too.
Todd? I get where you are coming from on this, but you’re not doing Selkie any favors with this “no” sh|t.
All good comments, guys. And, Dave? Love the transcript bit:)
Todd if she doesn’t learn her inability to turn it off will give her away. I know you’re scared but you need to calm down and think rationally. This could help keep her safe too.
Todd is actually a pretty open-minded, strong-willed type, as we’ve had many opportunities to see. But he has human limits and needs to process what’s been thrown at him in the last few hours. The man needs space and time for a bit.
Very good point. The man almost just died, and was saved by things that threw physics out the window, and they directly impact his daughter.
Time and a chance to think things through will do far more good than arguing the point right now.
Pretty sure Todd is in shock right now. Remember he panicked originally over the scuba lessons? Just the idea of spending a day under water freaked him out. Then the eel, then the magic, then the Selkie powers …
Todd’s having an exceptionally stressful day.
I agree with everyone who has suggested getting him a blankie, tea, and other such comforts.
Even aside from the shock – Todd’s top priority is keeping Selkie safe. He is the *only one there* who has that as their top priority. Until he can parse out what the dangers are and what everyone else wants from Selkie, he is absolutely right to say no.
I would put Pohl’s intentions in favor of Selkie as well. I think he truly likes the little girl, even if she wasn’t his patient.
Yeah but Pohl isn’t thinking “What happens if we train her to use her powers on the surface where she also has to pretend she’s a normal human girl.”. He’s thinking “What a great opportunity it would be for Selkie to live here and learn how to use her powers! She’d love it!”.
Pohl is only thinking of Selkie as a Sarnothi girl, and not as a Sarnothi girl who must live with humans and pretend she’s a normal human girl. Pohl is certainly not thinking of Todd or Agent Brown or any of the humans right now.
It’s probably not outright racism, it’s just that whole “fourth surviving wizard in all of the surface world” thing is making him forget his priorities.
And as I’ve said before, “Fourth surviving wizard” is no small deal. But Selkie’s “normal human life” comes first.
For all we know about how being an echo works though – not using her powers might also be something she might have to learn first. I mean her eyes are still glowing!
And at least once she was his patient, when she got so badly chilled that she had to go to the Hospital.
Yeah. At least give him a chance to first get his heart rate down to normal first before he even starts considering the pros and cons of one of his kids getting powers.
(Reality is reality, and will still be reality even if you bury your head in the ground…)
Tilt has officially been reached. Poor guy. Did anyone check to make sure he isn’t in shock, didn’t get water in his lungs, didn’t get injured in the eel attack?
Sorry Pa Kent. It’s too late to put Superman back in the spaceship. 😛
I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt that comparison
Goku hitting his head also comes to mind.
Also, strangely, the fact that rat moms have control over when their babies are first able to excrete. They can’t do it until she stimulates them properly, and that way if she needs to hide them, they won’t smell right away. Rats are weird.
…well that’s my TIL for the day….
Yeah, now isn’t the time for any more of … any of what Todd had to put up with today, honestly. Give the man some room to breathe and process this.
Dave.exe ran into a problem that it can’t handle and needs to restart…
Do you mean Dave, the Creator, running Dave.exe or do you mean Dave’s character Todd running Todd.exe? And personally I am running Me.bin, but that has been running for decades. Unfortunately they no longer manufacture the upgrade kit for my motherboard style, so I am stuck with the chips I have. Which is good because the RAM does not have chip-creep as a problem, but is bad because the HDD has some faulty sectors.
I find the bad sector counts and the ECC errors get pretty problematic after a while, as does chassis bloat. Not a big fan of the higher costs and shorter times between servicing, either. The diagnostics just get longer and longer, too…
Had a Trojan subroutine that was stuck in an infinite loop, …Service Tech stopped it right away. Fortunately no hardware was damaged, but *dang*, that was scary!
Well, as an adoptive parent if Dave is TRULY attached he is only worrying about his child. Once attached you’re attached. I choose to believe Dave is attached; unique abilities are something you get to celibate and explore. The Sarnothi will help him out with the details.
You mean Todd?
I meant Todd, sorry Dave – really cool comic!
Personal question for Dave that he’s under no obligation to answer: Are you yourself an adoptive parent?
The reasons I ask are 1) you write this story so well; and 2) Everyone’s constantly name-swapping you with Todd.
🙂
1) No, I a not any sort of parent. I just try to write the characters in… a way that makes sense, I guess? Can’t really put words to it.
2) I chalk the name-swapping up to people assuming Todd is a self-insert. 😛
🙂 Thanks for the reply, Dave! If you aren’t a parent and are still able to make these characters believable, you have an amazing gift for writing! <3
On one hand, I’m worried about what effect Todd’s reaction is having on Selkie.
On the other, she’s -probably- tougher than this, and Todd has a right to NOPE right now. Just, no context, just NOPE.
yeah no poor todd’s about done honestly.
oh, also, no offense, pohl’s eye markings are missing.
but anyway, dave, dude, you have improved so much and i’m excited to see where this story goes. rock on