If “be strong and brave” sounds familiar, you may recall Selkie’s mantra.
Also, if you do not usually look at the transcript commentary, this would be a good time to start. I discuss the school’s side of the Selkie story a bit.
Also, sorry the comic was more than an hour late. The dialogue took some tweaking to “feel” right, and I had to type up the commentary twice because I accidentally went back a page before submitting. XD
Gonna be a long commentary today. :D In addition to many moving testimonials about the impact of bullying, the last strip also brought up a lot of questions about how much the school does and doesn't know about Selkie's nature. I tried a coule times to work this information in to the school strips, but it always felt so out-of-character on the dialogue. So, I thought I would delve into some of my background logic concerning Selkie and the school officials. I established previously that Selkie attended this school while at the orphanage, and also that the orphanage only realized she is not human through observation and induction and a little experimentation. My thinking is that the orphanage would share this information willingly with someone like Todd, who will be responsible for Selkie the rest of her life and will need vital information like this to care for her. School system employees are another matter, though. For Selkie's safety and security, certain details and specifics about her nature were/are withheld from the school employees, and many of her odities are explained as an "undiagnosed condition" and/or "birth defects". Her gills are an example of this. Most of the school system employees understands them to be abnormal growths that cause chronic chest congestion issues. Selkie's tried telling a few people that they are gills, btu they just assumed she was compensating for her differences with imaginative stories (she is a kid after all). Selkie has been accustomed to taking a bottle of dechlorinator to school even before being adopted by Todd, and the orphanage has told the school that due to her condition she needs freedom to use the bathroom at will. A couple people have witnessed Selkie inhaling water, but mostly they assume she must have been drinking it and they were mistaken. I make pretty shameless use of the "people create their own context" philosophy. XD
Discussion (74) ¬
Here, she can have my shirt!
Poor thing! Get her out of there for the day!
Well, of course the school hasn’t been told. Otherwise they’d be busily assuring her that if she’d just stop not being human, the other kids wouldn’t be FORCED to pick on her.
This is the most depressingly accurate thing I’ve seen on this matter… kudos for saying it, bummer for the feeling it gives me…
….sad to say, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Schools love to preach tolerance, as long as everyone looks, thinks and acts exactly the same.
that’s so true. I was put in anger management to learn to “deal with the bullying” …much easier than just taking care of the bully.
Oh Goddess so true. (Hello, first time commentator, long time lurker!) I was moved out of the top class in French during high school to the class below because one of my (few) riends was there and it’d be “better” Translation: We can’t stop the bullies so we’ll move you instead, makes it easier for us.
I promptly tanked my French GCSE in revenge. Never liked the stupid class anyway 😛
I just want to reach through the screen and give Selkie a hug right now… 🙁
Carrie
So accurate it’s sad. I got bullied all through elementary school because my family isn’t Christian. The response the teachers gave me always left me knowing that they were thinking “If she’d just convert, then she wouldn’t have this problem” (I live in a very Christian, conservative area). I’m not trying to offend anyone here, but that’s my true story.
My heart. My poor, breaking heart.
Oh my gosh. I might be tearing up just a little. I know exactly what that’s like. To Selkie I say “Be strong Sweetie. It sucks eggs but one day you will come out on top of all of them.” Also as someone who’s had an anxiety attack and an asthma attack in class, it sucks when something you can’t change is the reason you are bullied.
Poor Selkie… distraught enough to keep slipping back into her native language, probably without noticing it.
And she´s touching her hair clip… her mother gave it to her, didn´t she? She wants her mom to come back.
Let´s see if we can translate panel three. If “gen satchu” means “be strong”, and “vahn sient toht” (from strip 39) means “I love you”, then “na satchu, vahn deh…” could mean something like “Not strong, I can´t…”
Keep in mind that her language may not have a sentence structure like english’s. Though in her current state she may be scrambling both languages freely… Ach…
I like the transcript and description, but why does she not have something covering her up by now? Based on last comic’s comments it’s allergies or her choice or something else. Any way you slice it them not covering her to make her feel comfortable bugs me SO MUCH. I’d like to know the reason.
Seeing Selkie’s reaction makes me feel better about how I had to deal with something similar. It wasn’t a shirt, but my swimsuit for high school swimming class got messed with without me noticing. I ended up going into the pool with a see through top without realizing it until I got suspicious of people looking at me funny. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I pretty much hated swimming ever since that. I never realized the connection of that to this comic until she reacted the same way I did to that. At least I found an opportunity to sneak away and get clothes without getting caught any more. The office at our school probably wouldn’t have done anything about it and my parents knew that. They got me a new swimsuit and told me to shrug it off the best I could until I could get an opportunity to get out of that class. I think Selkie has it worse because now she has to let someone look at her inhuman parts and feel very exposed until her dad arrives. Then she might have to have her dad, who she might still have fears about having reject her since he’s still her new dad, see her exposed like this. Also she’s a lot younger and impressionable than I was in high school. By high school I was used to being a target for stuff and could cope better in the aftermath. Selkie’s probably traumatized by this.
Sometimes it’s better not to pretend to be brave and strong. You got to let the emotion out and not hold it all in constantly. That’s one of the many things being bullied taught me. Sometimes you just need a good cry, some comforting activities, and, when you can, to talk it out with someone you trust.
It bugs me too that they haven’t given her SOMETHING to cover up with, even if it’s a towel or a blanket. I mean, if nothing else they would have lab coats, or sweaters that the teachers have lying around.
Outside of that, I don’t think there’s necessarily a risk that her classmates saw her which is the ONLY consolation. It’s more likely that the teacher went to check in on Selkie and found out her predicament. Maybe a few of the school staff saw her but really there’s nothing OBVIOUSLY inhuman about her that you couldn’t already see, unless it’s the gills (I’m guessing that’s what it is) under her arms. The gills on her neck should have been as visible then as now.
On another note, I can’t believe the most evil girl in the strip was labelled “adorable”. Sure she wasn’t the shirt stealer, but I think we can see who is the most horrible child there. Maybe it becomes apparent as you get to know her, and THAT’s why no one adopts Amanda in the end.
She doesn’t have gills on her neck. Only on her torso.
Explains the not-a-shirt (also that she wants *her* shirt back) thing, though.
Part of this is really interesting to me, though. Seems like part of her would get along well with geeks easily enough. It’s similar to people’s reaction to my cybernetics gear, I’d think: most people avoid me (Gargoyle effect), some people take it in stride (mostly geeks, huzzah!), some ignore it. I can imagine any kid who enjoys high-fantasy or asian mythos to get it, though. I don’t know how it works for kids, and I don’t know how early I would’ve been on that line of thought, but it’s an interesting thought experiment.
Also, I assume she’d be able to live in a tank easier than live on land? I don’t know if it was said, and I certainly don’t know much about marine biology (mostly because I’m not a fish <__<).
Anything that makes me ask these questions, whether they have answers or not, is a great show of good writing. The art is constantly improving, and it matches the subject matter rather well (and I assume this is easier than most styles of drawing, and I like more story over more realistic/'better" art anyway). Selkie is great~
Can't wait for Dave to save the day~
I’m curious, what kind of “cybernetic gear” do you have? 😛
See, here’s the thing – I would LOVE to geek out over your gear – but I’m afraid to talk to anyone about theirs because I’ve just been told “ignore it”. So if I were to meet you – I would probably be ignoring it and not approaching you on my own. But if you came up to me and were like “Oh hai, let’s be friends” I’d hang out with you. And if you opened up the dialog, I would have so many freaking curious questions you’d regret it :p
I foresee some heads rolling at this school very soon. Someone is going to be accountable to Todd for Selkie not having something to cover up with, at the very least.
I also suspect that Jessie will be in some trouble or need some extra training when this is over. She left the kids unsupervised, which led to the situation with Keisha being blamed for having the shirt. Her dismissal of Heather’s confession and refusal to mention it to the other teachers (at least as far as we have seen) shows poor judgement. This is why people with no experience or training in education/child development shouldn’t be working in elementary schools. It’s a shame, because I like Jessie, and she is obviously well-meaning. She just lacks all the skills necessary for this job.
All in all, the school hasn’t dealt with this in a very competent manner.
Don’t forget, though, Jessie is just an intern. She’s new at this, and just learning herself. Not enough to excuse her from all the blame, but of all the events occurring this day, her’s are sadly not the worst.
Okay, it looks like there’s a sheet on the cot visible behind her in the last panel. It seems clear from her posture from the last strip that she WANTS something to cover up with. In our society it’s more often than not considered indecent for female bodied people, even pre-pubescent girls, to be without a top*. It is irresponsible, callous, unethical, and borderline cruel that no one has handed her SOMETHING to cover up with, given that she’s obviously in an at least semi-public place.
If I worked there I would be VERY uncomfortable with the way this has been handled, and probably file a formal complaint with the district.
*Which I find chauvinistic and deeply problematic, but that’s a topic for another time.
The only guess I can make about the cot is it has some sort of upholstered pad on it rather than a blanket.
The first steps into corruption were through Rosario+Vampire. After that, there have been others, such as MGQ, Mamonomusume no Iru Nichijou, Pretty Lamia etc. What drove the final nail in the coffin, though, was Selkie: I now think that monster girls are ADORABLE.
Corruption complete.
(Note: None of those should be googled in public places.)
Try reading the visual novel Saya no Uta, she’ll make all those “monsters” seem like angels, yet you can still greatly sympathize with her in the end.
Note: story not for those with weak stomachs and/or innocent minds.
It’s been some months since I did, and I didn’t like it. Its pessimism and bleakness seemed unrealistic to me.
And, remember when Saya was preparing human-style meals for Fuminori? I was hoping that they’d show us a betentacled slimy blob-of-meat thingy happily preparing a meal for her beloved–and they didn’t! I was miffed at that.
Ahah that sounds awesome. Personally I have very strong, mixed feelings towards the novel, but consider it one of the top 3 VN’s I’ve ever read.(the others being Little Busters and perhaps Fate/Stay Night)
…all this speak of monster girls reminded me of Elfen Lied Q_Q *cries in the corner*
Awww 🙁
My heart, it’s broken.
That ‘Tolerance: It’s so awesome!’ poster probably isn’t helping her feel any better either.
Perfect ironic placement, indeed.
The covering thing couldn’t be allergy related. Otherwise, it would have come up when she was clothes shopping at Wool-mart (seems they would not carry specialized clothes like that).
When I was little, my mom often put me in sweaters with a Tshirt underneath, but I would get too hot and take the sweater off. If Selkie and I had been in school together and that had been the case the day this happened, I would have given her my sweater. Especially considering that she probably would have been my friend. I used to have trouble recognizing faces, so my good friends were usually the ones who had something distinctly different about them that I could recognize them by: the one kid with red hair, or the one kid with glasses.
That she can break down like this with Todd is an excellent sign in terms of their relationship, actually. It means she trusts him enough to be open. He’s doing the right things. Many hugs to both Todd and Selkie.
Add my voice to the “why hasn’t someone handed her something to cover up?” chorus…
And if I were in Todd’s place, I’d have been out the door and off to the school like a shot right after the last panel. That last line twists at the heart, man…
Poor Selkie, school kids suck *hugs selkie and cries with her* May you never enter middle school, it’s worse…
Aww, poor little girl!!! My heart goes out to her, it really does.
Dammit this page makes me even more want to beat on fictional 10 year olds. that and i wanna hug selkie…poor thing.
Oh Selkie…..I want to just give you something to cover you up. I am so pissed at the school now. I hope Todd takes up how they didn’t give her a shirt with the school!
My heart goes out to poor Selkie. I’ve been dragged from the shower and shoved out into the hall, still dripping wet, so I know how she feels. I have never lived down being called “naked girl” by my peers. They came up behind me so I don’t even know exactly who did it. And “mysteriously” there were no witnesses.
Did anyone notice the ironic tolerance poster in the last panel?
You guys may think I’m cold for saying this, but I *had* been curious exactly what her gills looked like.
Wait a second. How did Heather know that Selkie would be taking her shirt off in the bathroom?
Was she planning to just, I dunno, beat Selkie up, or steal her inhaler (assuming she believed Selkie to be asthmatic), or what?
I’d have to guess that Heather was simply following her, and saw an opportunity. I remember myself at that age; I was God awful at anything approaching forward planning. In Heather’s case, she knows how much Amanda hates Selkie, so she followed her, and saw the chance she needed to get back in her friends’ good graces.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad to see that flop.
heather came from the same orphanage as Selkie, I’d imagine the other kids knew at least enough about Selkie’s breathing problems to be told that getting in the way of her taking care of them was an incredibly big nono and would have harsh consequences.
Um… Isn’t Heather the halfway decent girl and Amanda was the one with Keisha who hates Selkie so much? And that Amanda took the shirt?
Heather: blonde girl – got adopted, and now Amanda (redhead) and Keisha (black girl) hate her (because they had promised to all stay together forever).
Heather stole Selkie’s shirt, and took it out to show to Amanda and Keisha, and then Keisha grabbed it and said “I’M TELLING”, and then Jesse came in and thought Keisha had been the original thief.
Having seen others “create their own context” and been guilty of it myself, I find your explanation of people rationalizing Selkie’s appearance quite plausible. Non- (or at least near-)human beings would definitely not find it difficult to pass casual inspection without elaborate disguise.
Hiding an entire society / civilization, especially in the modern world, is another issue… but hey, the ocean is a big place, and parts of it are still mapped in less detail than Mars… So I would say the envelope of credulity is not quite strained, there.
It’s good to see that Selkie’s toughness isn’t infinite; makes her believable. All of us have our limits, and she has a harder path to forge than most orphans, even. What makes the whole thing sadder is that her bully doesn’t fully comprehend what she did wrong, either.
Your storytelling is improving by leaps and bounds; keep it up.
I’m still going with my theory that Selkie’s people are known, so it’s not like the entire civilization is hidden, but for some bizarre reason its not common knowledge. Perhaps Selkie is among the last of her people and her civilization has faded into antiquity. That way the only humans that know anything about it are high up in either government or academia. Most likely it’s the former because an article in Scientific American revealing that there were entire underwater civilizations and some of those people are still among us would probably gather just a teensy bit of media attention lol.
And of course there’s always the chance that Selkie isn’t from this planet at all. Tee hee conspiracy theories are fun!
This really brings me back to when I was a kid. While I never got my clothes stolen, there were plenty of mean and every cruel pranks done to me. Mostly I just got whispered at, which in many ways is much, much worse because there’s no proof… and no one believes you.
I once even had two people tell the teacher I said bad words to them and gave them the finger. It was my word against theirs and I ended up crying because I felt like there was nothing I could do.
And to complete the irony of the situation, the tolerance poster in the background.
When I was in 7th grade, someone pulled the fire alarm on a -7 degree day because they wanted to see the girls changing for swimming run out into the cold with very little on. I was the only one in swimming to have winter gear because I was late that day.Teachers got their cars started and had the swim class sit in the vehicles.
The fire department diverted from another fire to come to the school.
The pranksters are still in jail.
Relevance: kids don’t think about consequences very often.
And if I were Todd I’d look into homeschooling over the weekend and never send Selkie back to school.
Wait, how old are you then?
How long ago was it?
I’m 29. It was in January of ’95.
Wait, how old did you think I was??
The question was raised by your closing line. It is now 2012. If this happened in 1995, you’re saying the pranksters have been in jail for seventeen years. That’s an insanely long sentence to impose on minors for a stupid, thoughtless prank.
The whole point about kids is that they are not adults.
Though now I have to wonder, where does she mean when she says home? With Todd, or where she is originally from?
That is exactly what i was about to post.
Same here:)
Same here, after re-reading the comic a few times. I wonder if we´re going to hear her say “I want my mommy” – or if she thinks that her mommy is responsible for her being in this horrible situation, by leaving her in the orphanage, and Todd is “home” now.
First thought: Doom. Second though: Yea, seems about right, for the secretary anyway. But on a serious note, learning to deal with bullies is a hard thing to do. I dealt with both sides of it myself, I was not above being a bully once, a long time ago. But this just pushes about every button I have…that secretary…just…grr…”pain, lots of pain”.
WHY HASN’T ANYONE GIVEN THAT CHILD A SPARE SHIRT?!
T.T I think a situation like this would constitute Selkie being able to be sent home for the rest of the day… I had a situation in kindergarten as well as… either second, third or forth grade (memory is hazy about elementary school) where I was sent home for the rest of the day.
And I highly agree with all of the comments on why Selkie hasn’t been given a shirt to wear yet. Stealing a shirt from a girl is a lot more serious than stealing one from a boy (for obvious reasons not even worthy of being stated…) The professional think to do would be to have asked Selkie’s teacher to bring Selkie’s jacket with her to the office, EVEN though we know Selkie doesn’t have one today, the teacher should have been asked to check and bring it if there was one.
If Keisha is brought to the office and sees Selkie like this, even though she was falsely “caught red-handed”, I’m sort of expecting her to see how upset Selkie is, and may even empathize for her depending on what may or may not run down. Keisha does seem to be the most mature of the three girls who keep on ganging up on Selkie and teasing her, so I have hopes for this girl.
Also… I didn’t notice until just now that Selkie removed her hair clip and started to cling to it.
I think that was a nice touch, Dave.
I noticed:)
I do believe, above all others, this is the most emotion-provoking of any strip you’ve done to date. Brava, Dave. Brava.
Anyone else notice in the second-to-last panel that Selkie is not speaking with ending s’s? Was this on purpose, Dave?
Yes, it was. :3
Poor girl!
First-time commenter, long-time lurker here. Just wanted to say that Selkie stoles my hearts. Really makes you identify with her, and feel for her. Even though this strip was a sad note, I think it’s the best one yet. Hope Selkie gets her daddy (and her shirt) soon, and feels better.
Breaking my heart Selkie. I wish I could scoop you up and send you to my character’s school and you’ll be surrounded by kiddos that are kinda like you (granted that Ari’s school has centaurs, satyrs and mer people but she will be in good company)
Hang in there kiddo
Another long-time lurker, except I’m commenting on a webcomic for the very 1st time.
I can seriously empathise with Selkie in that I never fitted in at school either, so was a natural target.
I’m almost fifty and I still get nightmares of being I was bullied in school. It does get better as an adult, though, eventually.
Hang in there, kid.
As the comic is getting more popular an “I agree” or like button would be useful on comments so we don’t have to read too many repeats. (Someday you’ll have a thousand comments a day dude :D)
This whole scene is bringing back nasty flash blacks from when I was in school. I’m joining the chorus of the “Give Selkie a Hug!” club.
Seriously, though, I’m upset that no one gave her anything to cover up, but I think I know a reason why they might not have. I’m wondering if the secretary was too scared/disgusted by how Selkie looks to get near her or accidentally touch her, even if it was just to cover her with a blanket. And, unfortunately, I’ve been on the receiving end of that, so I know it happens.
Another reason she might not be covered up is even though this is happening over weeks to us, technically it’s still been only a few minutes and, in the school I was at, the blankets were kept in a closet that was locked by the nurse. If the nurse wasn’t there, you were lucky to get a plastic pillow to rest on. What I’m trying to say is maybe the blankets are locked up with the rest of the bandages and someone *is* out to find something to cover her with, but just isn’t back yet.
That said, I still hope Todd brings something. She’s cold blooded, so as soon as the adrenalin wears off she’ll be passing out if the AC is on.
*sigh* Been there…except I’m human… What really made me sad here is the poster of tolerance… I’ve had my head bashed into them because I’m different…
Poor girl. I’d love to give her my shirt. I’d glady trade places with her.
When reading this through for the… forth time? I really feel that this is an extremely well thought-out and powerful point in the story. Todd has inadvertently used the words that Selkie’s mother said when she dropped her off at the orphanage. “Be strong, be brave, be good.” And so Selkie is clutching the thing her mother gave her at that moment, years earlier. She says those words every morning when she puts it on.
So when she says, “I hate being brave, it sucks,” she’s not just saying that she dislikes her shirt-less situation, but that she’s frustrated with these events in her life, being asked to do things on her own, in a scary place, without someone to look out for her.
And that’s something we can all relate to. Heck, I felt that way as an adult, moving overseas with just my wife. “What the heck life, you want me to do this hard thing, on my own?! This sucks. I want to go home.”
It’s deep man, real deep.