I received a Fan Art submission from Selkie reader Beethoven over the weekend that I want to share:
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Thanks, Beethoven!
↓ Transcript
I am as glad as the rest of you to see Selkie re-shirted.
I am as glad as the rest of you to see Selkie re-shirted.
Uh oh
Not much sucks as much as being blamed for something you didn’t do.
Uh oh x 100.
And that secretary is an idiot, IMO. “I was just following procedure so I
made a phone call before taking care of a traumatized child…and then try to tell her it’s not as bad as she thinks…” ho boy.
Somebody throw that “book” at her head, please.
well, “John’s declared this a by-the-book Code Amber”. So I assume that means John (presumably the principal) has said what to do.
Which therefore means that if Lisa does something like “get the poor traumatized girl a blanket” before calling Todd, it could blow up in her face.
Then what’s her excuse for just sitting there after she had called Todd? Why didn’t she go to the very plainly visible cot a few steps away while Selkie was on the phone?
Oh, wait, that would require her to have a brain in her head, which she clearly does not.
She could be afraid of Selkie, or such… a crying monster-child could freak someone out, especially if, as it seems, she only wanted *her* shirt. I don’t know Selkie’s modesty, and if she’s not actually bothered by being nude (if her most comfy place is in a bathtub or something, it’d kinda make sense that nudity would help combat the situation?), it could’ve been beneficial?
Not saying she’s right, but she seems like she’s trying to be comforting and doesn’t know how.
Also, I really hope her dad arrives or she’s detained before shit and fans collide…
I dunno — she doesn’t seem like she’s trying to be comforting. She seems like she’s trying to invalidate the horribleness of this and normalize Being Bullied so that the victim will shut up and go away…
But I may be a cynic who grew up around an emotional abuser.
Since it is an elementary school, how about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, that weighs about three pounds. Also, I think who is to blame will get straightened out. Selkie knows who her friends are.
That office lady needs to grow some emotions or at the very least get whacked upside the head. What an idiot! She doesn’t seem to feel for this kid at all and her half baked ’empathy’ was just stupid. Grr…
Keisha is not going to have a good day. I don’t think Selkie is going to be very forgiving. Also, this situation was handled SO badly that I think it will continue to go bad if Selkie doesn’t go home very, very soon.
Anyone else hear the *shing* of Selkies eyebrows coming down like that (ala anime)?
No, but I did hear an ominous ‘THERE WILL BE BLOOD!’ sound in the background.
For me it was the irises tightening that brought on the *shing* factor…
Anyone reminded of Jurassic Park with that last panel there? Anyone?
Uh-oh. If looks could maim, Keisha would be leaving in a basket.
Someone needs to slap that secretary. With a Buick.
Glad Selkie finally has her shirt back, but poor Keisha’s day is about to get a lot worse I think.
Yeah. As glad as I´d normally be to see somebody get bitten because of this, I´d rather prefer it to be the guilty party.
Just wanted to add: Someone needs to slap the secretary with a Buick and then tell her it’s not as bad as it looks.
“Oh you got slapped by a Buick, one time I bumped my knee on a coffee table.”
“Coffee tables aren’t Buicks”
“I guess you are right, oh well”
Um… I have a bad feeling about this, given Selkie’s bite’s poisonous, or at least skin-irritating.
Life flows with unpredictable tides and eddies, this may just end up being a bonding experience for Keisha and Selkie.
Every update I learn something new. This comic I learned that glasses aren’t shirts. :B
LOL slap her with a buick….. more like throw her under a bus.
I think you forgot her bow though Dave! Or did Heather swipe that too?? Oooooo things could get ugly if someone took THAT…..
She took it off in the previous strip and I didn’t want it to just magically pop back onto her head.
ahhh being blamed for something you didnt do, we’ve all been there. hope selkie doesnt hurt the poor girl…much.
No Selkie she didn’t take it don’t blame her until they’ve got this sorted out nooooooo…
…Sorry, I don’t like when people are unfairly blamed even if the blamer rightfully deserves justice.
Dave> Still don’t like that nurse/secretary person. And boy does Selkie look scary!
Selkie has the advantage of a really REALLY good “scary face”. 😀
Her scary face is awesome! I kinda feel like stealing that tiny panel and making it my chat icon for when I’m in a bad mood… Can I? Pretty please? 😀
Well. Lisa is officially on my shit list. I actually kinda feel for Keisha….and Selkie may do something that gets HER into trouble as well…and since schools take physical injuries more seriously than emotional ones, she may get off really bad.
What’s the difference between a Code Amber and an Amber Alert? Selkie’s not bodily missing… And what’s the SECOND thing to do in a Code Amber?
Playing keep-away with glasses will happen to any kid who ever has to wear glasses. That retains it’s level of horror at a steady level until alleviated by the glasses’ return. But WTFH makes “Little kid at school shirtless” less bad?? That gets exponentially worse by the second. The return of the shirt doesn’t make it better–especially if the shirt’s been damaged or dirtied.
And school employees tend to be on their best behavior the first day of school. I resubmit, get her some homeschooling, Todd! [Insert continued long angry rant involving Buicks and school boards and the ripping of new ones here…]
Meanwhile… Dave, for instilling so much caring about a fictional character in so little time, you hereby win the State of Wisconsin. 😀
I actually just named Code Amber after the Amber Alerts, although according to Wikipedia in the real world a Code Amber is a means of distributing Amber Alert information.
In comic canon, a Code Amber is a situation involving any form of potential criminal abuse against a child.
Also, I get a whole state?! 😀 Excuse me while I go mad with power.
Don’t go too hog wild. It’s just Wisconsin. You get a lot of cheese and the Green Bay Packers, and a couple of rusty Dodges.
Be careful when doing something like that. Since this is based in a “normal world” setting, calling it a name that has a different real world meaning will diminish your credibility and take the audience out of the story. It would probably be better to just look up what schools would actually call it. Where you can add a bit of extra realism always helps. You don’t want to trip over someone’s suspension of disbelief.
My glasses were always the one thing of my items that were never in danger of vanishing – mostly because I only took them off at school to shower after gym, and none of the girls in our class were among my tormentors.
Also, Dave, with the emotional storm you’ve created, and the very cathartic use of the comment space that you’ve allowed, I think you’ve got a horde of loyal subjects here, too, if you wanted to make Wisconsin, say, a kingdom. 😛
… And now here I am saying poor Keisha…
I’m STILL somewhat hopeful that the gym teacher can prove her innocence, saying as he was watching the class and knows that Keisha was there the whole time, while Heather was sitting against the wall (the usual “out” place I remember being in when I was out in a gym game) and therefor the only kid there without an alibi.
I just reeeeaaaally hope Selkie doesn’t do something to Keisha that will land herself in trouble before (if they ever do) find out that Keisha didn’t do it. Such as, like I saw in a comment above, bite her… we’ve seen the effects of her just kissing Todd and leaving a little rash mark in its place, and we’ve seen how Crook biting her make him throw up.
Selkie, just do yourself and everyone else a favor by playing the victim card. Your daddy will be there soon. <3
Of all the people who are most likely to listen to Keisha when Keisha tries to explain that she didn’t do it, I honestly think Selkie will be the one who does. Especially if Keisha seems like she’s genuinely sorry about what happens.
I was a bullied kid, too, and if anyone ever seemed genuinely sympathetic to what I went through, I generally went overboard to be on their side of things and try to be friends with them. Of course, Selkie is a little more badass than I was, I think.
I’m actually inclined to agree with jediadept. I’m hoping Selkie gives Keisha a chance to say what happened, even though Selkie looks more ready to rip Keisha apart than maturely listen to what she has to say.
I think if Keisha blurts out, “NO! I think it was really horrible what they did to you! I grabbed the shirt from them so I could bring it back to you!” before a tirade starts it could end well. Selkie knows her REAL enemy is Amanda and that Heather would do that to suck up. Selkie so far has no real friends in this strip which is a HUGE thing at her age. She NEEDS to have someone who has her back.
Well, she has Georgie and Sandy and Wu and Moonsong… but I don´t think any of them can stand up to Amanda and her gang.
I don´t think Selkie knows that Heather got adopted (unless she was VERY perceptive when Heather´s new surname came up in class), so she wouldn´t know about the rift between Heather and Amanda/Keisha.
She has a few. George, Sandy and a few of the other “Omega” kids (the ones that get picked on or ignored by everyone else). There was one kid she was teaching a bit of her language to- I think it was Wu.
A little wordy. I’m thinking more like “No! It was Heather! I was gonna tell!”
More appropriate for her age.
Selkie has some friends, they’ve just kind of… faded into the background with all the dramabombs lately. I’ll make it up to them with a between-chapters short. 😀
I realized I should have clarified the day after I posted but didn’t get around to it until now. I see her “friends” at the orphanage as more like schoolmates or coworkers that you get along with and are friendly with, but not REAL friends, like the kind you hang out with or go to the movies with. (Yes I know she’s too young to go out alone, but it’s an EXAMPLE.) There’s a major difference between people you get along with and are on good terms with vs people who you know have your back.
I’d say Georgie is definitely the sort to have her back, though.
Wow, I get the feeling she’s going to start yelling at Keisha in her native language scaring the crap out of everyone and getting right up in Keisha’s face baring her teeth and her iris’ shrinking to thin slivers and a low growl or something.
… And then will look like she needs to be exorcised… o.o””
Now THAT
I GOTTA see!!
(Damn you hitting the enter button with my pinky!! >.< STOP BEING SUCH A SENSITIVE ENTER BUTTON!!!!!)
It could end up that Keisha says something along the lines of ‘I wasn’t the one who pulled it off her!’ We know that it wasn’t on Selkie when it was stolen, but everyone THINKS it was, with the exception of Heather who is the actual thief.
With something like that blurted out, Selkie could either agree with her and say she couldn’t have, or she could be so angry that she doesn’t actually hear her say it.
Good thinking, Sherlock Terah :-). If it comes out that Keisha doesn´t actually know how the crime was committed, I guess people will start believing her that she didn´t do it.
Oh, dear. Poor Keisha… there’s no getting out of this one.
Oh snap, this can’t end well. Selkie’s a great girl but unfortunately I don’t think she’s in a stay calm and listen to reason kind of mood. In other words Keisha is going to get it!
However I think that things could work out eventually. Especially if Heather remains honest. And I don’t think that home schooling Selkie is a good idea in the long run. It would get her away from bullies, which is great, but sooner or later Selkie needs to be in the outside world for an extended period of time, such as college or her first job. Home schooling in this case is a band aid solution that will only postpone Selkie’s problems in this area. Now having said that switching to a new school or bringing the hammer down on the current one could work just fine.
We have a whole bunch of Story now about the relationships amongst this group of kids. It wouldn’t make any sense to switch Selkie to home schooling; that would leave too many loose ends dangling. Will Amanda get her come-uppance? Will Heather keep on trying to get back into her good graces? What about the other kids in the class? They all know who took the shirt. How will they react?
The story’s not going to just walk away from all that, so it can’t be home schooling, or a different school. I’m guessing Selkie will be staying.
Yeah, you’re right. Story-wise, it would be bad…but I don’t want to go all Author on Selkie and dip her in boiling oil. I want to play Mom. 😉
Um, also… a lot of people think homeschool=lock the kid in the house and don’t let them outside so they never know how to act around people. That’s a big misconception. There’s a homeschool group in my area that I’m part of even though my kid goes to public school–the kids all get together and go on field trips and have lunch/recess at a local park, and whenever I can, my daughter and I go with them. I really support parents who are willing to take on the job of teaching their kids AND doing all the paperwork the state requires to get their kitchen table certified as a school. [/soapbox]
Code Amber is a child abduction. And I agree…that secretary needs a kick in the face. How challenging is it to throw a blanket over a half-naked child?
I’m pretty sure the point here is to underscore how incompetent grade school administration often is when it comes to dealing with crises.
And boy, is it working.
You need to remember, public school regulations are written in such a way that the faculty and staff do not have to think about anything. Look at event, look up rule, administer punishment. It’s where we get all these lovely zero tolerance rules. Like a zero tolerance rule for violence, where the victim that’s curled on the ground in the fetal position is just as guilty as the brute kicking him. Or the zero tolerance policy on drugs that gets a kid expelled for bringing an aspirin to school. Or the zero tolerance policy on weapons that gets a child brought up on criminal charges for bringing a PARING KNIFE to cut an apple for lunch.
Wait… Code Amber? An Amber Alert is for missing children, not horribly pranked children. And why didn’t she get the poor gal a blanket while Selkie was talking on the phone, or get someone else in the office staff to grab a blanket? And how long does it take to dial a phone number? With everything that’s happened it has to have been at least several minutes.
These school officials suck. This is worse than the time I was hurt in gym class, lying dazed and unable to even stand for a few minutes and the teacher is shouting that it wasn’t that bad! I was completely knocked off my feet to the ground! It had to have at least looked bad! At least in that situation someone had the force of mind to grab me an ice pack. I don’t care what the “book” says, when a little girl is traumatized and shirtless, the natural first reaction should be COVER HER! These people should be fired! Where’s the rest of the office staff? It’s not a one-person show! One person can call the dad and another dig out a blanket or the before-mentioned spare shirt! You can’t blame the government for your lack of judgement here!
THE STARE OF VENGENCE
oh of course its the idiotic principles fault. I’m not gonna say anything else so I don’t spoil it for people who haven’t read this.