I planted a lot of little clues to this over the strip’s run so far. Some of it may be overly-subtle, some of it seemed so blatant at the time that I thought I had tipped my hand too early.
The strips next week will be one-strip shorts, then after that Selkie and Todd go for a visit to the grandparents to meet her aunt and uncle.
When I prompted for reader-request shorts earlier, unless I missed something, I only saw two requests. One was to see what the background kids from the orphanage are doing with their new families (like Mark, the lost cast member), one was to see more of Selkie’s aunt and uncle. Since she will be meeting them in the next arc though… I have a free slot for Thursday’s strip. I am brainstorming some strange things for next Thursday’s short. 
oh bugger O_O…..so it’s the end of the world for sure now is it? because I’m pretty sure Amanda and Selki being sisters is a sign of the end times….
Isn’t it one of the biblical signs of the apocalypse?
Oh, man. I thought this might be the case at the last update. Some days it sucks to be right… >_<
Please let her fund her daughter and adopt her. Then let the horror/hilarity ensue when they go over to vist each other and have to share rooms.
Oh, man. What if, on the flip side, Dr. Fishman has a kid s/he doesn’t know about? >.<
Please please please let "Amanda" be a red herring.
I get a feeling that “Dr. Fishman” is one of the adults of the family Dave sketched a while ago.
There were a lot of things I had wanted to say (besides my reply waaay back near the top). But much of it has already been said, argued, rehashed, sliced, diced and pureed. But, I still have to say Dave, Selkie is a fabulous comic and you are one of my most favorite story-tellers. Thank you for Selkie and her world.
Ah, many points for Andy for trying to make things right.
I’d love to see a strip about the teacher and why her husband left or what life was with her daughter. Or maybe more of the cute lesbian couple.
OH
SHIT.
I mean Dear GOD, Dave, did you even expect 108 comments??? You’ve made your own website explode. XD
… I messed up. There have been more comments in the past. But I CAN SEE THE NUMBERS INCREASING AT REGULAR *LARGE* INTERVALS.
Am I the only one wondering how he’s holding those things like that with the webbing?
How did I miss the fishman the first time through?
Seems because he fits in so well there.
I’ve been reading this comic since the first few panels, black-and-white goodness. All this time, I’ve never felt the need to post a comment until tonight, just to say…
I KNEW IT!!!
Also, I really want to know what we’re going to see about Dr Fishman in the future…
Amanda, huh? *face palm* If this is the Amanda I’m thinking of..well, she’s got her mom’s disposition. And proving for me once more that even kids raised away from their parents can end up with a ton of the traits of their biological parents. Amanda’s hurt, she acts rashly and immaturely in the same way Andi tends to.
You forget, she’s also only eight years old. When have you ever met a kid that acts ‘like an adult’ when faced with conflict? This is especially true if she was never very well taught on how to handle the anger issues she seems to have developed over years of her not being adopted.
I’ve met kids that act “adult” at that age. And most kids aren’t as malicious as Amanda.
Called it!
Dramatic convenience being what it is, I figured the baby was probably at the same orphanage as Selkie, Andi and Todd had been together for nine years prior to their break up, so their child would be around Selkie’s age, and given that the parents are a blond and a red head, odds were good that their baby would too. That narrowed it down to either Amanda or Heather, and looking again to dramatic convenience, Heather seems to hate Selkie worst of all and hasn’t been adopted yet.
Actually, I’m what I’m more surprised about is that more people don’t seem to have guessed this, given how shocked many of the comments for this page seem.
I think you mean “Amanda hate’s Selkie worst of all.” Heather’s the blond girl who took Selkie’s shirt and has been adopted.
Though you’re right, it’s a little shocking how this shocked a lot of people. I was already thinking something was up when Andi and Todd had their discussion.
Clues, Dave? What clues? I didn’t have any clues other than the fact that they seem to share the same personality.
Mostly little visual clues, with bits of dialogue here and there.
… well, you know, this is quite a twist.
I wouldn’t mind seeing what’s going on with Asuka
hooo boy somewhere down the line, this is gonna get aaawkward. I *really* hope she isn’t gonna try and use Amanda to try and get back with Dave, because that’s just cruel.
I know you meant Todd not Dave, but I just got the image of Andi stepping out of my monitor telling me “This is your daughter”. XD
Well, in a sense…!
Oh whoops XD; But yeah, you know what I meant
I guessed it could be Amanda and now I’m curious whats going to happen.
I mean… it’s not like Andi could go to the orphanage and say “hey, I want my daughter back” or something.
In addition I’m surprised that Amanda hasn’t been already adopted. I mean she was given away as a baby. I don’t know how it is in the US, but where I came from you have to wait up to seven years, if you want to adopt a baby. (instead of an older child)
But that aside… oooooh what will amanda do, when she finds out, that Selkie was adopted by HER real father? And will she dislike Todd for choosing Selkie over her?
And for this page… I got the feeling, this doctor (or whatever he is), is going to play a role, too…
I’m more thinking along the lines that Andi takes her daughter back reguardless. I can also see a lot of complications later…
>Todd seeing Andi’s desire to find their daughter as a means of trying to force him back into her life…
>Todd saying something that permanantly damages any chance for him and Amanda having a normal relationship…
>Andi attempting to use Amanda to force Selkie “out of the picture”…
>Amanda refusing to acknowledge either parent since they gave her away right after she was born (even though Todd thought she was dead)…
Those are just a few of the things that have occurred to me. Not all the stuff I thought of is bad, just far fetched givin’ Dave’s habit of keeping the situations “real world.” I’m not sure if I can ever see Selkie and Amanda ever being more than civil to each other.
I can’t wait to see Todd’s reaction to Andi’s lie revealed. Dave, nice way to keep us chomping at the bit, so to speak.
I wonder if Amanda was never adopted, or if she was adopted as a baby and something didn’t work out (her adapted parents died, or something screwed up in the legal system and by the time things were sorted out she was out of the “adoptable infant” age to “the unique challenges of adopting an “older” child stage.
I knew it! xD I think Shabon is right though. If Amanda finds out that the man who favored Selkie over her is her father…ooh, it ain’t gonna be pretty!
Dr. Fishman has the Innsmouth look!
I’ve been trying not to think of Innsmouth and all that follows, but it’s getting harder and harder… although Selkie is prettier than Lovecraft’s creations.
I WANT TO KNOW MORE OF THIS FISHMAN DOCTOR!
Whoa….we’re headed towards three pages of comments!
okay been thinking. There’s so much plausable ways it could go. One is Andi adopting Amanda and using her, as cited above, to get back with Todd to fix things. But I’m more thinking about Amanda. She’s got some massive adoption issues. Some kids don’t care that they were adopted when they find out, and some will always wonder -why- they were given up. Yes she’ll probably react badly to all aspects of it. Selkie was adopted by her birth dad, her mom gave her away without telling dad. She’s just in general hated Selkie for whatever reason. What could be more volitile then that? And if Andi does use Amanda to fix things and come clean that will not make Amanda feel any better. Sure she’s a kid but kids can be rather smart, and feel really upset and or conflicted to be used as a playing card in a relationship gone bad. When I split from my kids dad for our safety he constantly used her as a playing card to keep us under his thumb, but he’s also a true dead beat and it wasn’t fair to our kid. She’s nine now and even though we’ve bent over backwards to accomodate his every wish to see her, he chooses not to. I have seen the effects of it on our daughter. On some days she’s angry at him for “hurting mommy.” and other days she’s angry at him for “not coming to visit like he promised.” and other days she declares she wants us back together as a family, but understands that it could be dangeruse. The situations are different, but I used this as an example to point out the the conflicting emotions Amanda could have.
The one thing I canNOT see here is for Todd and Andi to come back together – not after Todd realizes how she´s been lying to him for the last eight years.
At best, Andi adopts/takes back Amanda, and Todd becomes part of Amanda´s life by visiting and/or having Amanda visit him and Selkie – they live in the same city, it should be easy enough to arrange.
I wonder how Amanda would develop in such a situation. I think her personality might mostly be the result of being in a constant contest for adoptive parents, so perhaps she mellows once she lives with Andi; on the other hand, she could also develop a superiority complex… after all, she unlike the other orphanage kids has real parents.
Excellent points both of you, I look forward to Monday to find out the new update.
Nope never said they would get back together. I was merely pointing out the plausable scenario of Andi using Todd as a playing card to “fix” what she lost. Which is Todd. Then dove head first into how Amanda may feel about it, based on experiances used as examples of what happens to my own nine year old. Emotions in kids are strong and very hard to control.
correction Andi using ‘amanda” as a playing card.
I didn´t mean to imply that you said they´d get back together… sorry. But you´re probably right that Andi is going to TRY to use Amanda to get Todd back… just like Amanda is likely to TRY and replace Selkie with herself in Todd´s heart.
I don’t think Andi would be quite stupid enough to try and use Amanda for that. With Todd’s background, letting him know she put their daughter up for adoption is going to be damaging enough to any remote possibility of making up. Reclaiming/adopting (don’t know if adopt is the right term for biological parents) Amanda is still a long haul process (took Todd 4 months to get the okay for Selkie) and she may not qualify anyway.
Even if she did, Todd would see right through it and that would be the end of any willing interaction with Andi. She may actually understand that it is over between them.
I was looking for those visual and dialogue clues and I am now wondering about how Selkie’s ribon being a gift may fit with the game that Amanda broke being a gift. *shrugs* There could be nothing in that though.
Ah jeeze… This makes me dislike Andi even more. She gave that kid up and now she just wants to uproot the kids life like that? She doesn’t even know if the kid was adopted or not, and yeah if it’s the same Amanda then she hasn’t but will the state even allow her to adopt the child she gave up? Overall I agree with Anderhail here and hope Andi doesn’t get taken back.
awesome comic. Just one question. What is the fish-man holding in fromt of the receptionist’s face? The red line kinda looks like blood, especially the way it blends into her shirt.
I don’t understand that panel either – it looks like he’s stabbing her in the face with something.
one thing i wonder is what if this is a different child? Or if it is the Amanda from the orphanage, if Andi doesn’t adopt her. She still seems to be seeking out the threads of her old relationship though, and this would be a huge twist in the story, for better or worse
It’s a pen on a red string, so it doesn’t get lost when the clipboard gets passed around. You seem them almost anywhere that there is a clipboard in constant use.
Quick comment: We’ve just seen someone who looks like she is of Selkie’s species in panels 5&6! In the maternity records place? I’m surprised there haven’t been more comments there. . . .