Fetch

The resemblance is uncanny!

In Irish folklore, a faerie might take a shine to a baby and replace it with a changeling, a magical creature that sort of resembles the child, but is different enough for the parent to suspect something is wrong. I don’t know of any stories involving teenagers, but I imagine there are a few. Adolescence brings a lot of changes to children, and their parents don’t always manage it well, and all parents to some degree can be surprised or taken aback by them. “Why is my kid suddenly so snarky?” Hormones, or you’re a dick, or both.

As with all folklore, the changeling has a long and troubling history. The real life stories of people who believed their children were replaced by changelings is full of violence, ableism, misogyny, persecution, and abuse. While I don’t want to Disney-fy anything, I won’t address those issues in this webcomic, because, man, that really is a whole other story. I’m not saying things aren’t gonna go sideways, but it won’t go down that dark road. We’ve already got homelessness, gentrification, state-sponsored violence, civil war, and cancer in this story. And it’s a comedy!