She reminds me a lot of those ~*~wounded souls~*~ who make a big to-do about how they were teased in middle school
What you improperly call "teasing" has a name. It's "harrassment."
I do not mean in any way to lessen your experiences in middle school with my statement - I definitely agree that pre-teens and teens often go much to far, and that teasing quickly turns into harassment. However, the line between teasing and harassment differs for people (unless the harassment is pretty blatant). The way I read laizeohbeets's statement concerning the "wounded souls" was that these particular people did not go through anything that most people would view as much beyond teasing. Such 'souls' are typically people who are not necessarily nice, or are whiney, unpleasant people to begin with - even people who don't tease may lose their patience with such 'souls'. And these 'souls' like to blow things out of proportion, hopefully to get sympathy. It's something akin to the bored-white-suburbs-kid who likes to play emo. Anyway, that's how I read the comment, not as an attack on those genuinely teased-leading-to-harassment.
Now that I've typed that all out, I really do begin to wonder about Marigold's experiences. So whee, archive binge to find out. We learn she was at a
pool party in eighth grade. This tells us that either someone invited her with the intent of either niceness or meanness. She was hit in the face with a pool noodle, but that may or may not have been on purpose, we don't know for sure. Angus tells us about college where people
speculated, but no one particularly interacted with her. Then again,
Angus tells Faye that people made fun of her through school, but he has to be referring to college, since that's apparently it. However, it's unclear if "making fun of her" means to her face or behind her back (in other words, how aware was Marigold of the behavior - was she so into the anime/gaming stuff that she just ignored it or did she get into anime/gaming as a way to ignore it?) Finally, the
frog gets referred too - it was a dissected frog, so that means it wasn't bloody at least. It's unclear if this happened in high school or college, and it is referred to as being mean, but hey, Marten once let a girl know he liked her by
putting a frog down her shirt (ok, he was in 3rd grade.)
So, I'm not sure. What we don't know yet is Marigold's past behavior. Was her initial problem simply shyness, and teased for that, but then it turned cruel after the pool party incident, culminating in the dissected frog incident, which is why she buried herself in anime/gaming? Has she always been into anime/gaming and teased because of it (and then the teasing turned into harassment). I could see Marigold's impression of the pool incident being skewed (could have easily been an accident) but the frog thing seems pretty obvious. We do know that at least by college Marigold is a shut-in. I'm not sure if she's always been a shut-in (shy in general) or if she gradually grew to that state. I do believe that her social-ineptness draws from shutting herself in, not just from being shy. Then again, she's shown herself to be fine around one or two people - it seems to be the "going out into the real world" thing that stresses her the most.
Sorry, rambling.
My archive binge also brought about this:
Incidentally, as far as Angus being a good friend to Marigold and trying to get her to overcome her social-ineptness, he apparently has tried to
invite her out before - she always turns him down. As far as I can tell, Angus has done what should be expected of him. Marigold has to make the decision herself. Of course she won't (until Momo pushes her) because she "
doesn't know how to talk to people". Right after she holds a conversation with Marten. Of course, once out, she does manage to wear the most revealing outfit of the bunch, despite calling herself a "
fat ol' nerd". So it does seem to be that she's fine around one or two people, around her place, but going out is terrifying. Hm. (Although, according to her she is
trying to be less of a shut in, but I think that was an Angus specific thing.)[/url]
As far as her own behavior towards others goes, she's already missed
one epiphany. She seems to have a skewed sense of what will make her liked by others. She will stoop to
anything to be liked, even by the online nerd boys, but
leaves and sits by herself from conversations that uninterest her, rather than trying to keep up, or ask questions, or bring up a new topic. It's the whole 'to have a friend, you must also be a friend' thing - Marigold seems to try in the smallest way possible, and it sort of feels like Angus, and Dora, and even Faye a little, run with that. Granted, they're being friendly, but I wonder if they will ever tire of doing the bulk of friendly stuff and cooing over Marigold's awkwardness, or if it'll eventually get tiresome to them and they'll gradually want to hang out with her less.
Finally:
She's so great because she's a freaking attractive young female gamer.
As has been said, attractive young female gamers are actually not quite that rare. Also, if her only qualities are her looks, age, gender and one specific thing she's into, that's not a lot to go off of on "greatness". Two of those she'll lose, one is just her, and gaming is just something she does. She really hasn't done much since we've seen her, other than act a lot awkward, a little rude, a bit demanding, and slightly klutzy. She apparently has some odor to her (though she seems to be learning that people appreciate showers), she's chubby at the nicest (and fat according to herself), and can't hold a conversation half the time she's around someone. Her skin's bad (though she's making the effort!), she's terribly messy (though again, seems to be making the effort), and she's prone to killing conversation. Most of the characters, when with her, talk for her, or assume she can't handle whatever. She doesn't really seem to listen when told someone's just not that into her. There is a lot about her that a lot of people would find pretty annoying, not particularly great. I think the social circle she's been lucky enough to have been dropped in on has been pretty awesome and understanding to her so far (and enabling too, but eh), but I wonder how long her welcome will last as long as she continues to behave as she does. I'm waiting to see if she grows like Hanners (and Faye too), or if she continues to sit stagnant, perfectly willing to be 'taken care of', rather than stepping out and initiating things on her own.
Sorry, that was a long ramble, but yeah, if personality has nothing to do with being great, I think a vital component of the equation is missing.
I too would like to know if Angus finds anything particularly awesome about her, or if he was simply saying that to make her feel better. If he were put on the spot, what would he say?
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Topic: WCT (Weekly Comic Thread) May 31-June 4, 2010 (1676-1680) (Read 69840 times)