Bittersweet Candy Bowl

SET HIM STRAIGHT LUCY

TELL HIM LUCY. THATS MY GIRL

GOOD FOR YOU, LUCY. Even if he refuses to remember your friendship, I’m glad you do, even if it hurts you to

Sorry, Mike. Nobody is willing to come to your pity party. Maybe 3rd time’s the charm.

Mike always being the victim…. Everyone isn’t obsessed with him or his bad choices.

Its starting to mimic narcissistic tendencies, honestly. Even his own breakup isn’t about the situation, its about how much of a victim he is.

DANG RIGHT, LUCY!

Even if Mike’s friends and Lucy care about him, Lucy’s right in how he’s a jerkface.

Wooooow why am i not surprised that he can’t be a dick for two seconds

Man good for Lucy! I appreciate her growth so much. She cares but she’s sticking to her boundaries and not getting sucked in to comfort someone who deeply hurt her.

That’s RIGHT girl! You DON’T need this! So proud of Lucy here. Much as I know Mike is hurting right now he still hasn’t even done the bare minimum of acknowledging what he did to her. Damn shame.

Wow he wants lucy to be the enemy so bad ? its like he is doing stiff like this intentionally to make her go off on him so he can point and say “see she is a bad person and deserved every thing i said to her!!” So he wont have to feel guilty about what he did but its just not ganna happen make GROW UP ?

Truth

I hope he actually lets her go because he is not smart or sensitive enough to have any meaningful conversation with her. He’s plainly just a jerk.

dude imagine trying to make your own victim feel like the shitty one.

Go Lucy go! She has grown so much as a character and it’s truly wonderful to see. I’m proud of her, even if she is not real

Lucy wasn’t perfect, but every time she saw he was genuinely hurting she did stop and care for him. She definitely needed to change her behavior, but even now after everything they have both been through she is simply deflecting accusations he makes.

I feel this is off-character? I mean, this page suits completely how Mike has been lately but it does not suit the “i’m so sad Lucy please why do you hate me i need you i want you and your friendship back and please help me” that Mike was just two minutes ago

Keep in mind he’s done this before to Lucy, Paulo, and even Sue. He acts all sad and wants sympathy but when he doesn’t get the answer he was looking for he lashes out.

Hmmm… maybe I was just hoping this time it was a genuine breakdown

man I’m really impressed that she’s still being really civil while also not letting him treat her poorly! I’m so proud of her!!

I love how Lucy doesn’t have eyes for most of this page. It really hits at how much she doesn’t feel seen by Mike which is just **chef’s kiss**

also does anyone know off the top of their heads if/when Lucy called him a joke? I feel like “pathetic loser” could have been smth she called him Back In The Day but I’m just a little…..? about that? especially with how much he’s projecting weird shit onto her already

I don’t think she ever has. She’s called him immature, a jerk face, a loser but never a joke. I think he was doing what he did with Paulo and projecting how he feels

Just a couple pages ago she said to him something along the lines of ‘What a joke.’ in response to something he said, I think it was about how he ‘hates seeing her hating him’. You’ll see what I mean if you read back a couple pages. I think maybe that is what he is referring to but she was obviously talking about his statement not ‘him’ directly, but he often gets shit twisted ?

ohhh ty! yeah it seems like he took that the wrong way

Not a Mike hater. Also not a fan of schadenfreude, like a lot of folks here. But Lucy dropped a truth bomb here, and good on her for doing so.

Same!

MIKE just a couple of pages ago you were crying to Lucy how you basically miss her to death and then you turn totally aggressive again towards her?! >_< boy why must you destroy you everything for yourself, you’re both delightful and painful to watch and I’m rooting for you

Tell him Lucy! You don’t deserve that bs victim crap he is pulling

The sadness may have come out, but eventually the fear starts to creep back in, which can quickly turn into anger all over again. Full circle.

She’s not the person Mike tries to convince himself she is. He just wants to believe she’s bad so he can avoid feeling even more guilt over how he treated her. He needs to learn the difference between blame and responsibility. Then again we all do. It’s hard to master.

I really like Lucy’s response to Mike’s self-victimization here. She’s right- while she wasn’t always a good friend to Mike, she was always there for him when he needed her most. She genuinely tried to support him and Sandy as much as she could, even when it hurt her.

I understand Mike is hurting like crazy right now and is feeling defensive, but he needs to learn that:

1. His friends and even Lucy are not his enemies trying to kick him when he’s down and experiencing something awful

and 2. He does have people who will give him love and support, but he can’t keep lashing out at them like this.

Hard lessens for learn when you’re a teen in pain tho. :(

But seriously even though you can’t see Lucy’s face there, she looks so hurt and disappointed for that moment there…

Mike : “Me me me me me me, and you laughing at me”

I’m so so so proud of Lucy. He’s feeding back into that hurtful place and she is standing up for herself. He may be hurting, but the words he chooses are hurtful and manipulative and she doesn’t need that. She’s right. She doesn’t need this. I’m so proud of her for listening and hearing him out, but putting down a boundary to walk away.

No lie, I felt this was coming. That growth put into play. Lucy doing her thing it is great to see how she did all that from the Lucy we know with a hint if maturity. She’s getting prepare to walk that final year in soon. She’s in 11th now. That mindset about to progress to 12th transgression now. Glad for her to stop him, from he need to just lean back. For him to say everyone laughing at him. He was the end of the joke yeah but come now, not everyone was laughing at you all the time. They legit gave him advice that they are also understanding. Pablo of all people telling him stuff that even he have a few flaw intentions. Daisy stood up to him from how he said Lucy and Pablo wasn’t a small hint thing. She had to break it down that she’s better now then before. It’s like Mike showing his true colors to the situation at hand. Showing what he can to get a rile out of someone. Okay he legit shown them pictures of thus girl they didn’t believe him before. Then he brings her they see he wasn’t lying. But even they saw how this girl travel she’s still.a teen herself. Sandy even matured while in the industry of modeling. Like everyone changing but mike. I see everyone had a time to recoil their actions and just see they all growing with or without their flaws. It’s nice to see everyone preparing for the bigger world soon. I got a feeling when we hit 12th grade it’s gonna be like that most emotional road we’re about to see at this point. This is just breaking the ice what’s about to happen.

oh yeah because it went so well when you made literally this exact same accusation at Paulo like fifteen minutes ago. It’s interesting that Mike has already shifted gears from caring about his actual breakup to instead just obsessing on how it makes him look to other people.

TOXIC TOXIC TOXIC! And Lucy is rightfully having NONE of it. That’s our girl! <3

You go girl.

that ‘is that all you really think of me’ HITS

because he’s spent so much time assuming things of other people, so much so that he’s stuck in a loop. when they do care, he shrugs them off and thinks they don’t actually care, but when then leave him alone he’s upset they don’t care about him… man… I hope this continues to be a turning point for him. he can’t keep projecting on people like this

You see how he goes back to that lie he has told himself again. Towards page 17, how he told Paulo that “Just make another shitty joke and go call Lucyand have a good laugh behind my back. I know that’s all I’m good for anymore. An endless source of entertainment.” the thing that started this, him taking Paulo trying to give advice (Admittedly a bit crass but still it was advice and trying to help in his own way), and now telling Lucy to her face that’s what he thinks she does with him.

That just shows he is so within his own victim complex, somehow he’s always the joke, even if someone is *trying* to show concern. Even when trying to get sympathy, but so convinced that Lucy was a “Bad Friend” that she would just enjoy seeing him in this state, and go to make more jokes.

*Boy* you need therapy bad. Earth to Planet Mike, you’re not the true center of the universe, or your social circles. I know you hurt right now, but that delusion now put a new wedge in the attempts to fix that relationship. All that following, all that wanting to talk… You just told her that even if those were earnest attempts, that would have been worthless.

Lucy, having grown and actually changed, reacting in the BEST way she could in the face of all this.

I honestly see this coming. Not really surprised at all on Mike’s lack of growth. It’s obviously pathetic. And this is why I’m rooting for Lucy. I hope she’ll get out of this awkward situation unscathed.

Also, why do I have a bad feeling that Mike will carelessly say or do something stupid again? -_-

Because he usually does

YES YES LUCY STAND YOUR GROUND!

Lucy and everyone else deserves so much better than a friend with a victim complex

I do hope that someday Mike properly remembers how good a friend Lucy was. She’s standing her ground but you can tell this is not how she wanted this to go. She needs to get home and leave Mike be. Rereading the old chapters just blatantly pointed out, she was a little too rough, but she was a friend that would always be there that Mike could’ve had for life.

I love the nuance in this scene!

He is fixated on this narrative that people are laughing behind his back and is unable to believe anything else.

Even when Paulo took his phone and called Sandy, it was not out of malace or humor, it was because he cared about how he was being blown off by Sandy.

When Lucy left after their big fight, she texted Sandy about leaving him alone, doing it FOR him with zero malice

In his lucy flashbacks, he saw how enthusiastic and supportive she was trying to be about his relationship and was being a good friend…

He wants to be the victim so bad that none of this matters.

Lol get fucking rekt mike

Fucking moron. I feel bad for him, I used to be like that..

damn right you dont need this! you go lucy!

Mike: Not really, I think it’s from all the concussions you gave me.

Lucy: Yeah, I did hit you over the head with a steel chair almost everyday, so it makes sense why you have memory problems.

Lucy’s poise does show that slow “I’m not upset. Just disappointed. I’m leaving.” tone well. And again, she asks him a question, almost the same way she asked him in Unspoken Rule, page 25. And all he can answer is Silence. She’s not there to give him the answers, he needs to come to them himself, and realize that even his words do have impact as well. So good on her that she repeatedly continues to establish her boundaries.

Lucy please please PLEASE have grown up enough to not tear Mike down when he’s so vulnerable like he did to you; I don’t know if MY heart can take that!

Lucy has grown enough to decide when enough is enough. Mike used to be the most mature out of the group but was stunted by his obsession on his ideal version of Sandy. On becoming latched onto Sandy he stopped advancing and allowed himself to become bitter and resentful. He wants to believe everyone else stopped growing too. He wants to be proved right that he is the same Mike and Lucy is the same Lucy as if he can undo all the awful things he has said or done to everyone and regain control of his life.