normalphil wrote:
Ptrix wrote:
I don' think it's so much that she doesn't believe Meji, but it's probably more tht she's frustrted by Meji's inability to comprehend that her failing isn't the result of what didn't go her way during the past 2 months, but rather, than it happened because she simply didn't take responsibility for her actions. Keeping in mind that Meji never really did seem to give much of a fuck about anything the events during that time meant, aside from her interest in how she could use them to her advantage. and personal, selfish benefit. (Altruism, thou art NOT a Psychotic Mage Chick).
ie. "I'm going to fail because while i was out gallavanting aimlessly around the world, i didn't get what i wanted, the boy i liked disappeared, etc etc...."
isn't not taking responsibility, and is her deflecting blame to a series of external factors. whereas:
"I'm going to fail because throughout the entire school year, i just barely eked by doing an absolute minimum of schoolwork, relying on my family's position in society to prevent my expulsion, offering sexual favours to my instructors, and putting all my eggs into one basket at the very last possible moment", at the very least, shows some acknowledgement that her problems are of her own doing, and nobody else.
In all fairness, Meji's going to fail because of
both things. She slacked off, but her late-game effort was totally '92 Buffalo Bills. She has a proffessor famous for never having once given an 'A' for a final project, and she pulled off an 'A' worthy concept. Along the way she commited acts of war on a belligerent nation-state, found love, dodged death squads, assembled a team of all-star international assassins, and commited potentially lethal acts of sacrilige. And then everything fell apart on the one yard line. She's perfectly justified in faulting her stars as well as herself.
I actually agree with this and Etsuko, undrestandably less mature and light-years more celf-centered, completely misses it (actually, the bitch doesn't care and only wants the "feel good" of being "compasionate" towards someone. She doesn't care that it happens to be Meji.).
Boss Out of Town wrote:
Foul-mouthed explosions of temper, wise or foolish, are the cultural norm these days among the youth of Amer . . . er, Tsairaku, no matter how "cute" their outer face, so why not?
This exacerbates the issue and I agree with Boss. I've seen a 40-year+ degradation curve here regarding public and inter-relational civility. In the 70's, that would NOT have happened in that way and Etsuko's rant would have been more civil and a whole lot less abrupt (without warning). To me, Etsuko's rant almost sounds schizophrenic/psychotic and in that time, would have been frowned on.
On the other hand, my daughter's friends tend to be mellower than that. Then again, she's fairly passive herself and doesn't deal well with such disruption.
Society changes, non?