Bittersweet Candy Bowl

i swear to god if you confess your love rn michael

NOOOOOO

....I cautiously await the next page. I am nervous where this is going

Mike i SWEAR if you do this NOW

Are we gonna get into the fact the 90% of his hate towards her was internal guilt because he had feelings for her? Or nah?

I have always felt this, it seems so obvious! Especially when you look back, notice how often his angry outbursts are triggered by him feeling affection or fondness for her!

Oh wow!!! I didn't actually think of that! I always thought it was more because it dawned onto him that she was pretty abusive and everyone let her get away with it but he didn't want to tolerate it anymore. Then when she confessed he was all "That ship has sailed, you think I'm just going to run into your arms now?" but I guess if he STILL kept a torch for her, that would make sense!

Personally, I've always thought it was on the nose. The anger didn't start till after the confession and the only time Mike got mad was when he questioned his relationship. Sure they needed a talk about how she was too rough but that conversation never happened.

Oh my, are we gonna get the origin story of Mike's first blue scarf?

Mike. MIKE. No. Not now. Don't do it.

Oh don't do it

MIKE

Oh God, fear

MICHAEL, /NOW/ IS NOT THE TIME

Mike: I sold it on eBay.

Lucy: How much did you get for it?

Mike: A hundred dollars.

Lucy: Sweet!

Made my day

Nooo! And we have to wait until Monday to see the next page.

Is Friday a livestream?? Of all times! DX

No.... Why can't we be selfish and get both? Lol oh well, I shouldn't be greedy, we're still getting more than one a week.. I just can't get enough of it!! >¬<

End that scarf!

NO NO NO NO

Just go home Lucy...

Do not rebound do not rebound do not rebound

MIKE NO!!!!! also my christ why is she still not allowed to leave

Right?????? Let her go!!!

Yeah, why did she come back to tye same school where she physically and mentally abused Mike?

@Friosis you mean the same school where she attempted suicide? It does kinda seem weird but then again she’s (15?), most of her family lives in this town, and it’s the only high school within commuting distance from her family home.

@friosis it's not that easy. sometimes life makes you have to confront trauma. lucys family is here, her friends are here, her life is here. leaving her trauma behind would mean leaving all of that behind too

As much as I don't want Mike to do what I think he's going to do (confess to Lucy), I...can't call it rebounding either. Looking back on some previous chapters, he really has been thinking about her this whole time and its obvious he never got over her either. I'm not exactly into Lucy/Mike, but the writing seems to be on the wall...and if that's the case, I really hope Mike doesn't say how he feels right now. He needs to be single for a while and Lucy needs time to trust him again if things are to go that way.

By the way, it is very possible to be cruel to someone you have feelings for. Mike and Lucy were very cruel towards one another, but their feelings are undeniable. Again, not really into Lucy/Mike - I prefer Lucy/Augustus and Mike with either Stacy or Paulo - but things like mental illness can easily make romantic feelings very ugly. It's not at all a black and white thing, especially for teenagers who don't quite yet understand the world.

I fucken knew it and i live for this shit MikexLucy 4ever ❤

*nervous laughter* what the f

Mike don't!! BAD!

I can't read this page, it keeps breaking. Either my connection was disrupted, or it can't verify my account, or the link just loads to a blank page :( nooo

Maybe part of this is because I’m not a MikexLucy lover in any capacity, so I’m biased, buuuuut…yeah please tread carefully here Mike!

This is not a good time for a love confession, lmao.

I mean, hell, I am a MikexLucy shipper myself but I really don't think this would be the time to confess. It's so full of Y.I.K.E.S right now!

i miss them so much T_T seeing them actually properly interacting with each other now without jumping to conclusions or harsh feelings just.... man. i mean yeah mike is rly pushing it on lucy rn but at least hes ATTEMPTING to be somewhat considerate and less volatile-reactive....

This is complete bullshit

Ah but from good Fertilizer, lovely Flowers can sprout .

This is like.... Dude again this is hard to read. The shit mike is doing right now is exactly the bargaining phase of manipulative abusers and like, this is THE SAME DUDE WHO CAUSED HER TO WANT TO SELF HARM? And suddenly we're getting this weird touching moment? No. No way. Please don't glorify emotional abuse like this. This is NOT what healthy relationships or healing, or even conversation, looks like.

Wasn't she also physically abusing him?

And she's now had therapy, and tons of it! And Mike, still, has not. Mike has not made any progress, and instead is now reverting to emotionally manipulating her, in a very cruel way, after he made darn well sure she knew how much he hated her. Remember, he said that - to her! So, yes. She WAS, past tense here, WAS not doing the right thing. She now is, has owned up, and made strives to be better. Mike CURRENTLY is emotionally abusing her - And that's the difference.

What's even more messed up is she's stated clearly several times now she's trying to leave and he. Still. Won't. Let. Her. This isn't some tender moment; This is someone asking for validation and disregarding boundaries at the emotional expense of another person.

Coming to the defense of the one who physically abused him.

Coming to the defense of the one who played upon her insecurities and pushed her to a suicide attempt.

@Friosis - Your comment is a weird take, but I will not be engaging in it after this comment. Are you suggesting it's okay Mike drove her to self harm, despite her now making amends and trying to be better, and it is now okay that Mike is currently, in this very moment, emotionally abusing her? Lucy was, for all intents and purposes, a young child who needed a ton of therapy. Mike, however, in this moment, is a budding young adult. They'll be graduating soon. He doesn't get a free pass here.

Everyone taking this story personally as if it’s happening to them. Smh

Guilty as charged

Oof

oh jesus christ

SHEESH

Mike, no. Don't. Stop. Let her walk away, and just go home. Lucy doesn't need to be part of your life and doesn't need any of this.

Yeah and mike doesn't need the person who physically assaulted and abused him, using his feelings to trap him in her life.

Okay, you need to calm down. I see you commenting on other posts trying to start arguments and using inflammatory language meant to provoke people. That's really not okay.

And Lucy doesn’t need the one who abandoned her and was beyond cruel to her. 🤷‍♀️

oh no

oh geez

No no no no no no no nonononono *beatboxes* NO!

Everyone be like "Mike bad! Mike is manipulative!" But conveniently forgot Lucy physically abusing him and effectively manipulating him to stay close to her.

It’s not that we forgot.

It’s that Mike crossed a different line -trying- to get her to kill herself, and Lucy’s grown out of her abusive ways. She was already working on them when Mike finally blew up and went way beyond reasonable, and she’s made it clear she’d be willing to try making amends if she could trust Mike to not abuse her right back in his chaos/for revenge.

The older someone gets, the harder it is to excuse being abusive as not understanding the consequences of your actions. Lucy behaved like a small child for a very long time, refusing to grow up, until she had to or die. Mike had seemed to be the mature one through most of that, but he’s still behaving like a child incapable of comprehending the consequences of their actions, and he hasn’t taken a whit to address that, a full year after he saw the consequences when he became aware Lucy had attempted suicide. And still, he treats her as much like his emotional toilet as she treated him. Regardless of how Lucy used to treat Mike, this section of this chapter has played out like a textbook of how to emotionally manipulate your ex who is trying very, very hard to be over you.

Oops I accidentally hit delete lmao

This is a good comment with many good points! However I feel like I am missing something here. When did Mike actually try to make Lucy kill herself? He did tell her that he hated her and never felt like her friend and shouted all her flaws like a POS, but i don't recall him actually trying to make her kill herself? :O

Yeah, I caught that too, esinololly. Going off of memory, since it's been a while since I read those chapters, but I recall Mike saying he hated Lucy, and always hated her. Basically said a ton of awful things prompted by Sandy. (which Sandy very clearly did not intend, she just didn't like how often Lucy was hurting Mike) But I don't recall Mike ever going to far as to tell Lucy to commit suicide. At that point, it seemed more like he was doing what he thought Sandy wanted, and as soon as Sandy scolded him for what he said to Lucy, he immediately started trying to make amends. (which, clearly, was too little too late)

That said, I think I vaguely remember him making a comment to Sandy that it might be better if Lucy was gone for good or something along those lines, which Sandy instantly scolded him for. So yeah, entirely possible he was still in that mindset for a bit, even if he never outright said it to Lucy.

Basically, it's been a shitty situation on all ends, and Mike is the only one that hasn't really learned or grown due to his over-dependance on Sandy.

Personally, I really hope Lucy starts bringing the things Mike said back up. Because intentionally or not, his words WERE the driving force for her suicide attempt, and as has become apparent the last couple times Mike's tried to breach the subject, it seems like he really hasn't come to terms with that fact. If he's able to finally admit fault and apologize sincerely, it'll be a step in the right direction, which I'd be all for.

But this? This page we just got? This is a bad call on Mike's part.

@esinololly That’s my bad, I had the timeline around “December” mixed up a bit. I *thought* that Mike’s “you have no friends” rant was longer, and *after* he suggested to Sandy that things would be easier if Lucy died. With that misremembering, it looked like Mike’s statements were at least partially calculated to remove Lucy’s trust in her entire support network, and that if words were weapons he could be charged with attempting 2nd degree murder (“crime of passion”).

HOWEVER that’s not the case and rereading, he’s just a stupid little shit who’s as manipulative as he accuses Lucy of being. He still crosses a massive line telling her that all their friends are really only HIS friends and that she’s an unlovable parasite. As well, with the events in the following chapters, especially where he immediately cottons on to what happened after harassing Jordan in Breaking Up, it’s clear that at least some part of him knew/suspected what the end result of the rant could be. My theory however that December was partially, even if subconsciously, calculated to drive her to suicide is completely unfounded now. There’s still the scene in Dial Tone where he can’t honestly tell himself that he didn’t want her dead, but there’s still no evidence of intending to cross the line in his rant.

Well, his apology during the play as well. Mike never hated Lucy.

Mike hated how he felt about Lucy and the fact that he felt stronger about Lucy than he did Sandy, who he was a "good boy" for.

@Leroy Fontaine

No worries! I was just sitting here thinking I might have forgotten something or if there was a part of the comic i hadn't even read yet somehow. Great comment, A+!

You're absolutely right though no matter how you cut it: Mike crossed a lot of lines he shouldn't have. We all know Lucy treated him poorly and his rant in December lead up to him unleashing his bottled up emotions, but those were without a doubt the driving force to her attempt as you said. Him unleashing all of that steam into unfiltered words and his actions afterwards points in the direction that he wanted her to be permanently removed from his social life at the very least. But straight up death didn't seem to be where his mindset was to me? I have a feeling that if he wanted her dead that he would have straight up said it to her face since he was already in the heat of the moment and being brutally honest. That angry dude was on a roll and boy did he have a lot of butter to spread. But that is just my perspective on it!

HOWEVER, some "evidence" that Mike wanted Lucy to die during his rant in December: in "Just Beautiful" which is a few chapters after December, he did say that "Maybe it'll be fixed if she just died"(page 19) when Sandy advised him to talk to Lucy again (though that can be seen as stupidly defensive and immature behavior of him being angry that Lucy texted Sandy using his phone). However! During "Dial Tone" (page 12) when Dream Lucy told Mike that he wanted her to die, he didn't exactly deny that? he just looked around guiltily. I think that's the solid piece of evidence for that but we can't know for absolutely sure that those feelings were connected directly to when he yelled at her, or afterwards. But it makes you think!

edit: oof, I am so sorry my mind bled together Alec's and your comments together and I just made a mess of a comment because of it. I hope theres some cohesion in here LMAO

@Borkzilla

Oooh, I completely forgot about his apology during the play. haha! For what it's worth he also approached Lucy after the play and said that "he didn't need to yell at her like that" and that they "weren't the right things to say". (Curtain Call, pg 36)

@Alec

Nice, I am glad I wasn't the only one to catch that. I would also love it if Lucy gave Mike a grocery list of his flaws and the things he did wrong for transparency sometime in the future. I am glad that she knows the error of her ways and was upfront and honest about telling Mike how terrible she treated him a few pages ago, but now I'd love it if he was held accountable for his words and actions too. I'd love her to especially point out how hypocritical, manipulative, and overly dependent he was being himself!

That being said, this page completely caught me off guard. Of all the things i thought would happen after them finally departing in the last page, the potential "blue scarf backstory" is NOT what I expected. Mike..please. please let her go so her family doesnt worry about her absence. Please.

I hope Mike doesn't ditch the scarf. He looks dumb without it.

Or should I say, dumber without it

Lucy, this is why comforting him wasn’t your responsibility…! Good on her for being the better person for a while there but she made herself vulnerable with a known emotional carousel of pain and by the looks of it, got sucked in. Dang it.

we really gotta watch a tender moment with someone who drove the other to attempt suicide less than a year ago, huh

im not tryna put all the blame on mike, lucy defs drove him to that point, which is another reason why this is so uncomfortable. i would love to see them be friends again, but they need to take it slow. it also doesnt help that mike got dumped literally <20 minutes ago and is emotional af

.....I really dont want to read any further if this gets worse.

Really curious whether Lucy was being supportive to Mike just to be done with it, or because she wants to be friends, or if she actually (maybe reluctantly) kinda still loves him. Guess we'll find out sooner than expected! Or something vague and dramatic happens! Woo, cats and drama!

Oh I just noticed Lucy's hand in the last panel... Maybe I'm over-analyzing but that's not a relaxed pose. D:

That is most definitely not a relaxed pose :(

It’s part of the subtle signalling that no matter what she says or does to try to cheer him up, she didn’t want any part of this and is going along with it to try and make her exit. Multiple physically prevented attempts to leave, her uncomfortable/unengaged looks during the hugs, and just as she’s finally on her way he comes back for her. It’s clear she’s been on edge this whole scene and trying not to show it

Oh Mike, this is really inappropriate right now. But ok, you've already started and I want to see how it ends. I hope at least in the current state you will be completely honest with her and yourself. A little bit of sensitivity would also be helpful. And god, don't demand an immediate response from her.

Lucy's expression in the third frame hurts me. It seems like this chapter is focused on Mike, but despite my compassion for him, I'm more worried about Lucy right now.

"I don't want you to be [my friend.] I've never been your friend. I hate you."

-December, page 23-25



So... yeah, Mike, foot, mouth, now. I'm personally hoping you can eventually make amends with Lucy and get back around to being friends, but you're kinda skipping a bunch of steps here.

RUN LUCY RUN

AND DON'T LOOK BACK

Kinda hope Augustus just strolls in worried about how long Lucy's been out. Think that would make things really awkward lol, but in all honesty, dont think he knows where she went.

CALLED IT! Back on page 49, haha!

Yes you did :)

It was always Sandy or Lucy for Mike

(Doesn't mean I ship either of them with him)