Selkie451
Mar21
on March 21, 2014
at 12:54 am
I locked myself out of the website due to a caps lock fail… XD Thankfully I got back in quicker than I expected too. Comic is lineart for now though because I’m entertaining guests and don’t have the coloring done. …or even started. :
Webcomic March Madness Round 2 is live, and Selkie is still in the running! My next opponent is Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Tough fight, but lets give ’em a good one!
-EDIT- Updated the colors. For those curious, here is the lineart-only version. 
Just a innocent game of chase your friend down and hit them.
Even as a line drawing Truck gives me the shakes.
Oh, I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s scared of Truck! This story arc is really touching nerves I thought had long healed. But still, it’s too good to stop reading.
What really bugs me about Truck is that bullying is a “learnt behaviour” so I’m forced to ask what he had to/is going through at home. Is the Prof. an even bigger (_*_) than we figure or is he blind to what his wife is doing?
From Truck’s dialogue and his parents’ dialogue, I’m guessing it’s something like this:
1) Truck is super-aware of how his father, and possibly also mother, looks down on others and treats them. His “When I tell you to do something, you gotta do it!” line is particularly illuminating, and is almost certainly his way of imitating one or both of his parents.
2) While his parents are aware of the theoretical fact that their child is not perfect, when it comes to any actual examples of imperfect behavior that they are not witness to, they refuse to believe it. After all, he is their child and while they are also theoretically not perfect people, there are no actual instances of imperfection that they will actually admit to.
3) As a result, Truck has been allowed to believe that he has some kind of legitimate authority over the other kids, because this ideas has been unintentionally reinforced in his mind by his parents’ behavior. In particular, the incident with Selkie in which she was the only one really punished significantly, thanks to his parents and a weak-willed principal, really goes to reinforce this idea. As far as what he’s been told, Truck has absolutely no reason to think he’s in the wrong right now.
Because people are not “equal”. There is a pecking order. And the Trunchbull Kid should be able to enforce his will on others just like his parents do. This is the lie his parents have effectively made the truth by circumventing authority the way they did. His parents obviously never intended for him to view things this way, but they are 100% responsible for it because he’s really just following their example.
It’s entirely possible that Truck’s parents don’t completely spoil him by never punishing him for anything (as would be the more straightforward problem), but that they still neglect to punish him for behaviors that they are also guilty of, because they refuse to admit that they have those flaws. There is reason to believe that there is some (non-abusive) discipline happening in that family, but that their awful attitudes about others their age have led their son to make some parallel conclusions about others his age. (Because that is how kids think.)
Assuming Truck is neither spoiled or abused, this actually makes the problem even worse, because he can then legitimately point out that his parents have (to a certain point) raised him to behave well according to their standards and that he’s acting exactly how he’s supposed to. This is a foolish, immature excuse for bad behavior, but he is also a kid and again: this is just how kids think. Some rules of social interaction that seem perfectly intuitive to adults often seem completely arbitrary to kids. That’s not to excuse Truck’s behavior: he’s obviously being at least somewhat deceitful, possibly to himself, about what really happened. He’s certainly being very presumptuous about Selkie “faking” being sick, but his parents are even worse when it comes to presumptuousness, and he’s probably just taking cues from them. But on top of that, he’s also being outright deceitful, which is one thing we haven’t seen from his parents. They’re conceited, presumptuous, legalistic A-words, but we haven’t seen them actually be deceitful at all. So Truck doesn’t escape responsibility for his words or actions, just responsibility for realizing how wrong he is, because his parents have completely led him to believe he is in the right.
Some very good points there. Truck’s attitude and logic definitely dovetails with what we’ve seen of his parents, particularly his father.
What’s also scary is that the son may have picked up some of the father’s xenophobia towards Selkie, which would only exacerbate Truck’s animosity. I doubt that Prof. Trunchbull has been indiscreet with classified secrets, but he may well have cautioned Truck that Selkie is a dangerous non-human, even a dangerous non-person. That could give his son further reason to escalate things.
Truck is the kinda guy I used to beat up back in school. The bullies didn’t scare me, my marine father did if he ever found out I didn’t stand up to the bullies. To this day, I don’t know why, my dad was never one to whip me unless I really, really deserved it. I guess it was the “Boy, what did you do now?” voice he had.
No one can make you feel like a mollified child like your parents.
Why does Selkie being referred to as a fish give me a fit of rage?
I am looking forward to Selkie’s reaction to her namesake.
Less looking forward, but still anticipating the outcome of this attempt at deception.
On an unrelated note, I think George would have been great in the poly-family.
I know that it makes me a terrible person to hope that Truck has a deathly allergy to Sarnothi venom. That doesn’t make the wish go away.
Usually, when you’re reading or watching a bunch of kids be this awful, they’re teenagers and it’s a horror story, so you know you’re going to get the satisfaction of watching them die messily. Honestly, if this plotline goes on much longer, I’m going to start wishing for it anyway. I can’t imagine how it can wrap up without feeling like they got away with everything.
You think DEATH is an appropriate consequence for bullying? By a child?
Not death, but at least a week’s illness… y’know, like Selkie had to deal with.
Don’t forget the key part: the knowledge that Selkie can inflict such sickness upon him again at any time, so he lives in fear of her like she has of him. He should have nightmares about seeing her grinning fangs again.
9 times out of 10, bullying children grow up to be bullying adults like Truck’s parents. They go through life getting what they want by crushing the people who get in their way, because rules are for little, nice people.
On the slim chance that a bully grows up to be a relatively decent person, they do it by leaving it behind: “Yeah, I was a mean kid, but I grew up.” They forget the faces and the names of the people who will never forget theirs. They’re never called to account. In fact, far too many of them prosper in life, which takes away the only revenge that most bullying victims can hope for – doing better in life than their tormentor.
So to answer your question, I don’t want real-life bullies dead. I don’t think they should have any good things in life unless and until they’ve made personal amends to their victims, but I don’t want them dead. But fictional bullies? Oh, yeah. Why not? And since they’re fictional, what difference does the age make?
Like I said, I know it makes me a terrible person. I never claimed otherwise.
Dave, how could you? “Entertaining guests?” When you could be coloring for US?!? How rude!
Sarcasm aside, enjoy your time with your guests. We can wait. 🙂
Congratulations, Dave, you have officially inspired me and saved my life. I’m supposed to be choreographing a dance to be performed in two weeks. Due to someone critical to my original plan dropping out, I’ve had to change everything: music, choreography, “plot”, EVERYTHING, before rehearsals start TOMORROW. My new idea was a big sister and a little sister playing together, but I was missing about 30 seconds worth of ideas. We are now going to play tag. 🙂
Thank you so much! (Even though I’m absolutely sure that you had no idea of this when you put this strip on today.)
The coloring makes it so much better. I like the way you drew the building. I so enjoy this comic.
Selkie is still neck and neck with SMBC, so vote! I you haven’t yet.
A local insurance company has a signboard that changes usually weekly with some silly comment if nothing else is pressing or noteworthy. This last week the message was: Hashbrowns chasing one another = Hashtag.
Really hoping Selkie licks Truck.
I don’t. Only because you know Truck’s father is going to raise the biggest of stinks about it, and Todd and Selkie are going to be in the center of a really major clusterf that they don’t need at this moment.