Selkie446
Mar10
on March 10, 2014
at 12:01 am
If you need a reminder, this was Tony’s role in the events of last week.
(and as always, corrections to Tony’s french are welcomed happily. Don’t be shy.)
I can't hear "How you doin'?" without flashing back to the 1990s and "Friends".
Why Tony is that guilt mixed with regret I see?
Or else he likes her. If “desole” is a cognate, it might be “desolated,” meaning that he is really upset that she’s ignoring him.
désolé means I’m sorry in french.
He’s apologizing – (Je suis) désolé means “(I’m) sorry”.
Oh. Which just goes to show how much I know about non-ballet French. 🙂 Oh well, that works too.
Yeesh way to be a brat when someone is trying to apologize/show concern for your well being. Very unbecoming.
Well, as a bullied/teased mercilessly kid myself, after a while you just assume any overture is going to be negatively meant. Hence you come across as brattish, stuck up, Aspergerish.
Not really an excuse. Plus it’s very easy to see his remorse over what happened to her. I see your point; nonetheless.
This pretty much happened to me my entire life up to graduation from public school. I ended up getting burned so often that it is only now that in starting to give people a chance again. I was and mostly still am holding a very negative and untrusting view of people in general. Just some contex it has been 7 years since my graduation from school. It sort of like getting burned on something, get burned enough and you just start saying screw it.
I just had my twentieth reunion. And I’m just NOW warming up to some of my classmates. Forgiven because they grew up, never forgotten.
Sorry about the rant. I tend to relate to characters in these type of situations.
I’m with you. I still have a hard time trusting people. I tend to have a very dark view of people and freely tell them what I feel and think of them whenever asked. It’s hell on the old love life.
On the other hand, it’s very liberating to not be afraid to walk away from people that bore me. It also feels very good to not hold back when asked a question because polite society says you should use little white lies to protect feelings.
Get punched and watch your blood on the ground too many times for stupid reasons, and misanthropy is the route you will take.
I’ve seen ‘remorse’ turn into ‘sadistic glee’ on far too many faces when growing up. And even if his remorse is genuine, I do not have any pity for Tony, or any bully, for regretting a situation that he actively contributed to.
Misanthropes and outcasts are all too often created by others. Look upon your work, ye ‘mighty’, and despair.
Yup.
So confused it took years before I could hear someone say “Hey” without going on defensive.
I would applaud Tony’s effort, but I would not blame Selkie.
A “perfect” tragedy is one where no one is really holding the idiot ball, but the circumstances lead to decent people on opposite sides, screwing up a situation.
Which is to say: glad that Tony seems to have remorse; understand Selkie not believing it.
While it’s understandable that a person who has been bullied would be slow to trust that one of the bullies has changed, and certainly I wouldn’t be going “Aww, it’s so sad that there was some fallout from that cowardly act you pulled!” AND it’s sometimes more reasonable to be suspicious than to open up and let yourself be hurt…
… it’s also important, both in stories and in real life, to allow (most) people who have done bad things, and who would like to change, to get a second chance. (Maybe not right away, I’ll grant you.) To think otherwise is to think that there’s a class of bad guys and once you’re in that class you can never get out – and that’s a really sad way to look at the world.
I was picked on from second grade through high school. By the time I hit fourth grade I just assumed that whatever “overture” was made was a set up. It’s quite possible that some were in fact genuine, but I’ll never know because I just closed everyone out and kept to myself except for the few people I trusted.
I was plagued by it as a kid, and went into auto-defense mode after a while. Considering her history with those kids, her reaction is not surprising. Especially for a child. I still struggle to forgive some of the bullies that effected my well being so much as a child (and therefore, in some ways, as an adult). It’s not their fault specifically, as I didn’t have the skin to deal with it. And they were just being Kids. But then, that’s the point. Kids don’t know why they do stuff– they’re on autopilot.
He started off by calling her fish, which from her reaction is obviously the mean nickname that usually preludes teasing. How’s she then supposed to think he’s really sorry or sincere? As a bullied kid, often said bullies would start an apology, and just as I was feeling relief or hope, holler “psyche!” or “not!” to indicate the apology was fake, reaffirming the nastiness. Easy to see why a shaken, bullied Selkie is not receptive.
Jeez, that brings back memories, leoness. Kids are so mean.
Evidently, Tony doesn’t realize how sensitive Selkie is to “poisson”. Had something similar happen to me in school with “Yank”. Some kids used the term because they were stupid brats who wanted a convenient insult that they could argue wasn’t an insult. Others, I later learned, were just trying to use it as a term of endearment or friendly nickname, but it was kind of ruined at that point.
Obviously, being a mature adult, it doesn’t bother me now, but at the time…
One thing in Tony’s favor, though: he seems to be the only kid who was worried about her being sick for a whole week.
Even if he’s trying to apologize, there’s no reason for Selkie to just forgive him. She was physically and truly hurt as well as being punished (the “suspension due to assault” would also go on her permanent record), and even though the one who went too far was Truck, it all happened BECAUSE OF Tony in the first place. Since Tony was trying to make the fight unfair and changed it from a fun game into an all-out assault from the start, some weak sauce apology doesn’t even come close to atoning for what he created.
It doesn’t help that he addressed her as ‘fish’ right off the bat. Probably not the best way to gain face, especially in the mood she’s currently in.
Yeah, when you hear a name you get called a lot by one of your regulars in the torment business, you’re going to shut off. Selkie’s scared after seeing Tommy and she’s probably going to be bitter about the way things went for a long time. Even at the kids who were just there because it was a snowball fight and it sounded awesome. Tony doesn’t have a chance until he changes his approach.
Kudos by the way Dave. You taught me a little French tonight by making me want to confirm everything Tony said. I feel like I should remember a mention of Tony having some issues with loneliness himself. I like how he shows genuine remorse and concern for Selkie. Even if old habits make it sound like he’s setting up for another jab at her.
(Todd) Here Selkie, this is a tape recorder with 12 hours of battery life and recording time. I want you to keep it hidden on you all day at school and tell NOBODY, not even Georgie about it. …and now we can have proof of all the BS.
I’m wondering if what he gave her when they parted wasn’t just that, or a cell-phone with that capability–the something that could make things easier.
* Back in #438.
Well, if Tony wanted to express sympathy, he shouldn’t have opened by calling her “poisson.”
My selkie-sense is a-tinglin’. Something not very cool is about to go down at full speed.
I was really hoping Selkie would take the advice she received from Sai Fen and give Truck a “big smile”. That certainly would have sent him packing.
Why doesn’t Tony get that Selkie doesn’t understand french. (90% sure he wouldn’t call her a fish in french if he was trying to apologize)
It could just be a habit. After all, with languages if you don’t use them, you do lose them. I wish I still knew Portugese. Sometimes a person just peppers their speech with foreign languages, I know many people that do and I use plenty of Brittish slang.
More than likely, the people around Tony, Selkie included; understand a few French words thanks to him. Context can tell you a lot about what someone is trying to say.
“Still knew”? How long have you gone without speaking portuguese, cara?
You know it could also be a term of endearment to him. Poisson may sound /pretty/ to him and therefore not meant to insult. I had someone call me mermaid in high school in a different language and while it sounded ugly to me, he meant no harm and was actually trying to pay me a compliment.