Bittersweet Candy Bowl

I’m going to enjoy this.

ooooh, fascinating reaction to Augustus! also, YES YES I WANT TO REALLY SEE WHAT REALLY HAPPENED BOOOI

If you're running for office, Augustus, you already got my vote.

My boy Augustus 💕

Did not see that coming at all

I wonder if mike is going to tell the truth fingers crossed him and sandy are just friends but I highly doubt that i just dont want lucy to get hurt again she deserves to be happy

Augustus next page: *stabs Mike in gut*

Yes! This is going to be good!

... huh.

fair point to get both sides of the story before coming to a conclusion about something

also like esinilolly said, fascinating reaction to Augustus 🤔

does he think he'd try to harm him?

even if that was his intention lucy would never allow it

It’s been so long, I think we’ve forgotten about the whole Daisy thing.

We also forget August was held back, so he’s about 19 now and (hopefully) a bit more mature as well.

Considering those two things, I think he doesn’t want to completely assume or judge and has realized he can’t truly help Lucy either, by only hearing things from one side.

trueee true! I'm wondering what mike's interpretation is + where this conversation will lead 🤔

Hmmm… You know what? I think it miiiiiight also have to do with the fact that Mike is very jealous of Augustus? A grudge of sorts?

I says this because Mike started showing jealousy when he saw that Lucy was hanging out with Augustus after he rejected her and stopped hanging out with her. (c62/p5) There’s other hints such as in December when Mike and Lucy entered the library he immediately became even more displeased when he saw Augustus there too because he knew the two were buddies. (c68/p7) I’m sure there’s more examples of this dynamic before Lucy came back but I’m coming up blank.

It’s also been hinted other times after Lucy came back that she picked up on Mike being jealous about Augustus when she refused to sit at the lunch table with the rest of them because she didn’t want to be glared at by an envious Mike. (c103/p19) Then there’s pretty much the whole chapter of ‘Witch Hunt’ where Mike obsesses over the fact that Lucy hangs out with Augustus and thinks she’s desperate and using Augustus to get his attention. (c105/p10)

So I think that in this page his reaction is like "wow this is the LAST person I want to see after I pissed off Lucy” because of the deep seated resentment he’s built over the years? This is all just speculation though. He does seem pretty scared too.

that's a good point! their previous interactions came flooding back to me, and mike definitely has some sort of gripe with augustus ever since lucy started hanging out with him. I wonder why mike's always thought she was hanging out with augustus to make him jealous though 🤔 I wonder if this will surface during their conversation

its so very funny augustus brought a book to this

Big bro Augustus!!! What a refreshing sight, can’t wait to see how he handles this information

As I said before...this death will not be swift!

Oh Augustus, you've grown so much!!!

Augustus is so grown now 😭

Augustus being a good boy

Just about what I expected him to say—he wants to hear what the heck happened. But I’m in love with how intimidating he’s clearly trying to look, lol!!!

I really, REALLY hope Mike understands that Augustus is his very last chance to mend ties with Lucy. The fact that Augustus has absolutely no reason to lie to Lucy, and that he's willing to hear Mike out, should override Mike's fear of him (due to his connection to Alejandro, which Mike doesn't know is severed). I hope that Mike has the maturity to acknowledge that he has possibly ruined forever his relationship with Lucy, and would prefer to be just friends with her. But I'm not holding my breath.

yes yes yes please tell us why you got back together with sandy and how it just went a total of 180 from -this is broken why fix it?-

oh my god with those words augustus really just became my favorite didn't he

Augustus really has come a long way

Honestly Augustus is the best person to talk about anything in regards to Lucy and Sandy with Mike. Mike fears him and that’s the closest thing anyone is going to get to respect. I don’t think he’s going to go off on Augustus to avoid properly talking…. I don’t think he had the guts to

I'd like to think the seemingly left field situation (I'm sure augustus is the LAST person he thought to see) he'd at least TRY to hear him out out of pure curiosity

doctor i'm in love

I really like how Augustus has shown change and growth from his past. A lot of people nowadays seem forget that people can learn and change overtime.

BEAT HIM UP

BOSS MUSIC INTENSFIES

Omg it's up to Augustus to patch everyone up again

Augustus wasn't the final boss...he's the hero we all need

I love the implication that Lucy confided in Augustus after it all went down. I’m absolutely living for the “we went and adopted Augustus into our family” dynamic.

OK fine, I hope Mike has a good reason why he keeps making the same mistake. How did the phone call really go.

i do wanna say that, for everyone who's angry at mike and cheering on augustus, mike is the dude who got physically assaulted by his friends for years and ended up sucked into an emotionally neglectful relationship because he was so used to getting shit on that he gravitated towards the one person who seemed most tender to him, and augustus is the person who stalked and harassed people before trying to force himself on daisy. don't get me wrong, augustus has gotten much better, and mike is being cruel to people, but i just think folks are being a liiiittle unfair in the way they treat both characters at the moment lmao

also as someone who was in an emotionally abusive relationship for years that i couldn't leave and who knew i was hurting my friends each time i went back to the abusive person, i do feel sympathetic to mike <:')

I agree everyone's poo pooing on mikie and sure he was being a "pissy bitch" however he has also been is a shitty situation

Thank you. People just seem so willing to sweep female on male abuse because either males who get abused by females either laughed at or swept under the rug.

Dont misinterpt me now, mike isnt any better how hes been doing lately, he had a moment of weakness/something messed up in his head from the abuse.

I applaud augustus giving mike the chance to explain his actions even if he doesnt have the full picture of whats going on.

I love this post! I am a bit biased though as I actually love both Augustus and Mike since they are pretty fascinating and complex characters to me who made some pretty bad mistakes. I can’t wait to finally see them properly interact for the first time in this comic! Whoooo!

RAMBLE ALERT:

It’s an ongoing theme of this comic that Mikes feelings are often not put into consideration and are even straight up made fun of so it’s no wonder that he turned out to be the person he is now. This particularly sucks because he’s an emotional kid who isn’t afraid to express himself! There is an overwhelming amount of examples of the people around him treating how he feels with disregard well before he became the defensive teenager with a “victim complex” that we know today. You can only push a person so far before they cave in on themselves and turn out like that. It doesn’t help that getting out of a defensive cycle like that gets hard especially when you think the world is against you as is and doesn’t give a damn about your feelings. Some of the attempts his friends have made to genuinely show that they care about Mike may seem obvious to us, the audience, but to Mike they are seen through a different lens that was crafted from how he was treated by them for years.That being said, I’m just glad other readers don’t completely hate Mike’s guts, lol.

But of course, that doesn’t mean Mike off the hook for anything that he did. He really needs to learn self respect as well as take accountability for his actions. He messed up A LOT in this comic, but so did Augustus! And Augustus gives me hope that if someone like him can turn around and have developmental breakthroughs as a person then I have faith that Mike will pull through for us too. I really do. Granted Mike is a much different person than August so his development will require a much different solution so I can’t wait to see how it plays out. :D

That being said, I do believe that Mike at his core does care deeply for the people around him, but that part of him doesn’t shine as brightly as the ‘bad’ side, the side that we the audience tends to focus on. Not that it’s a bad thing that we tend to focus on that though, especially if his bad side is showcased for a reason in the narrative of this comic.

Oh? Surprising

Threatening aura, is Augustus going to do what Paulo is too nice for?

What do you mean? Paulo’s style is guns blazzing. This is kind of ooc for gus imo.

I think it feels pretty on-brand.

Mike: Which side of the story, up, down, left or right?

Augustus: ……….Never mind.

What if this chapter is about both August and Mike. Like how they both burned bridges just in different ways.

Rambling...

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I have been in both Lucy's situation and Mike's (more so the laters as of late). It didn't take me to get out of my bad habit of going back and forth to the toxic relationship (mine isn't romantic and I am not quite out of it but I see it for what it is) without the help of someone completely not involved to point it out for what it was and support me for who I am.

Lucy has that in August and vice versa. And maybe August wants to help out Mike like Lucy helped him out. August and Mike have both been there for a girl because no one else showed them any kindness but THE GIRL. Am seeing way too many similarities with the two boys who are about to have a conversation.

Controversial take, but I'm looking forward to this talk and consider it highly interesting with a lot of potential because in my head Mike has fucked up for many of the same reasons Augustus once did. If there's anyone who can understand Mike's emotionally confused actions, I think it might be who he's talking to now.

Back at that tree, Lucy tried to make her boundaries clear, and Mike responded with a lot of grabbing and touching, keeping her from leaving, and eventually kissing her. He acted on intense loneliness and insecurity and partly out of displaced affection for someone else entirely, which is something I think Augustus might know a thing or two about. Even though there were also clear differences, I think there are parallels. He disregarded a girl's feelings and boundaries to get what he wanted in that moment.

That said, at this point in his development, I think that's why Augustus will also recognize better than anyone that Mike needs to understand what he did and can't be let off the hook for it, just as he himself wasn't.

This is an excellent point! If there's someone who can talk some self awareness into Mike at this moment, it'd unmistakably be the "cartoon villain" himself, Augustus. I can't wait for some personal development for Mike, but not without some well overdue apologies and respecting boundaries.

Augustus is an excellent choice here as he doesn’t have the same sort of history nor personal investment with Mike like most of the other characters. He has the best potential of being as unbiased as it can get while still being relevant to what happened in the last chapter. He’s obviously on Lucys side, of course, but the fact that he is willing to hear Mikes side of the story in a quiet, isolated setting shows that he doesn’t want to make a scene. Granted the bleachers are his usual hang out spot but he could have easily approached Mike in a much more confrontational way considering he is solely responsible for Lucys emotional roller coaster in the last 12 hours. I am curious as to what exactly his intentions are, but I know that it is with good intentions and I can’t wait to see how this chapter plays ooouuuut~