Bittersweet Candy Bowl

This!! 😂

We all love drama so yeah haha, guess it’s nice to see him cause problems from the audience seats! 😂 Where would this comic be if Mike (and the rest ofc) didn’t make bad decisions? 💙

Mike’s got a habit of finally getting one thing right while managing to make so many errors in the process it kinda stunts the actual growth he should be experiencing and making it a net negative for him

like let’s take Eternal Flame for a second. him finally getting out a no-strings-attached apology for his behaviour is good! except it came as part of a whole string of bullshit where he physically stopped Lucy from leaving multiple times, did that phenomenally bad idea of a rebound attempt, and afterwards proceeded to act in a way that gave the impression that the whole thing didn’t mean anything for him, leaving his relationship with Lucy worse than it ever had been

here? Mike has been in critical need of finding his spine for years now (December does not count, as he believed he was acting on behalf of Sandy, as can be proven when he folds instantly when Sandy tells him he took it too far. that’s not standing up for one’s self, that’s being whipped). he’s finally got it, except he timed it so badly to get the worst reaction out of Augustus possible, and also blew off multiple people who are trying to reach out to him and be his friends, in favour of a guy who he rejected romantically, and so far has not proven to be a particularly good friend platonically. it’s pretty much a guarantee this is going to backfire

I love him, number one trainwreck in Roseville, continues to be undefeated in causing disasters even when he does a good thing

Abusive people will often manipulate and gaslight their victims into staying with them. If it wasn’t for “unsolicited opinions” of people close to them many would never escape the harmfull situation they are in

Also demanding where you can or can’t be is not “the bare minimun” that is straight up a violation of your basic human right

Not to mention it isn’t doing Lucy any favours. No matter on which side you are in this situation, letting her keep running away from her problems will never fix anything for her . Augustus’s actions while conciderate were very misguided and only harmfull to Lucy

After what he did in “eternal flame” i think it is actually affecting lucy. Mike played with her emotions once again.

This isn’t about “basic human rights to be there”, it’s about “recognizing your presence might be harmful and being mature enough to give someone you hurt only a few weeks ago(!!) some space, even if it’s a minor inconvenience”

@Kiall To be fair to Augustus, it was a request, not a demand. He’s just doing what he can for Lucy, and thought that would help. It’s an unreasonable ask sure, but it WAS an ask. And has been mentioned by others before, Mike had no trouble avoiding Lucy before. He does have people he could hang out with instead of James. He’s just convincing himself that he doesn’t without actually talking it out with anyone else, because Mike has always been one to avoid uncomfortable conversations and bottle up his emotions until they blow.

Nah, Augustus’ request was unreasonable. Sure, Mike should have told him to eff off that morning, but Mike has every right to be outside no matter what anyone thinks

My mother has been abused by several people, and one thing they all had in common was some kind of tragic story.

Tragic stories which were very real and any person would have empathy for, Just like what happened to Lucy.

What abusive people often do though is what our therapist described as an empathy trap. They weaponise that empathy for their own benifit.

They always had some excuse for their abusive ways. Always “you made me do this” and they will play the victim to make you second guess yourself or undermine your support group. What is what happened in this story too, when Mike told what he said to Lucy only Daisy was able to see through the trap and remember that he had a reason to say what he did.

It’s easy to look at what Mike said in December and blame him for Lucy harming herself but when you look at the broad picture we are talking about an abuser who, when her victim stood up for himself, harmed herself and then blamed the victim causing him to regret standing up to her. That is pretty much a textbook example of gaslighting

Now do i think Lucy is doing this maliciously? No, she isn’t aware she’s doing it. But not being aware of the gaslighting you are doing doesn’t make the harm it causes any less, in my eyes Lucy has never stopped abusing Mike and this is the first real step Mike had for healing from what Lucy did to him. The realisation that Lucy holds no power over him anymore.

One thing I’ve also come to realise from the reactions to this is that people who have no experience with abusers just can’t comprehend just how naturally manipulative they really are. To the people who think Mike is a bad person for not accomodating Lucy  here. I sincerely hope you will never have to have an experience that will make you realise just how misguided you are about this situation

With respect and sympathy please consider talking more to your psychiatrist about the things that are still bothering you about your family’s past rather than letting yourself project evil malicious manipulative gaslighting intentions on a fictional teen cat girl who is literally just eating her lunch minding her business.

mobsterseeker, thank you for saying that, genuinely. This does feel like projection, coming from someone who themselves has been through severe abuse for pretty much the entirety of their life. So I do get how it’s like.

Lucy is not abusing Mike anymore. She isn’t doing anything wrong here. She is just eating her lunch. That being said, good on Mike for realizing that he has the right to be wherever he wants, and good on Lucy for stopping Augustus from interfering more than he already did. They both need to learn to exist within the same space. They don’t have to interact, but neither should have to hide from the other and avoid public spaces because of it.

so I see where your coming from but I personally have been abused in a lot of really horrible ways and personally have cptsd chronic trauma that deals with constant night Terrors, flash backs and daily torment, and I personally think Mike is more in the wrong than you see. Yes Lucy had a toxicity towards Mike for a while but when she finally tried to apologize and work on that about herself and make things right- Mike exploded on her (yes rightfully but he shut down everything she was trying to make right) it wasn’t that she decided to try to end her life in spite of Mike. She isn’t doing this for pity. Many folks confuse us PTSD survivor’s for trying to use our trauma as a crutch when we don’t wish it upon anyone else, not even our worst enemies. We just want to love normally and we can leave the past behind us all we want but these flashbacks and triggers will haunt us the rest of our lives- and therapy only helps try to cope with it so it doesn’t hurt us as badly or as often but what Lucy is experiencing isn’t her milking her trauma for all it is for attention- she actually is suffering. Yes Mike deserves to stand up for himself but at the same time he made a lot of wrongful moves and has said horribly hurtful things and hasn’t taken an ounce of accountability for any of it while Lucy did at least try to own up to what she did but Mike shut it down before she could. He isn’t the perfect one in this by any means. If you bully the bully your just as in the wrong as they are, especially if you drill them so bad it makes them want to Ctrl alt dlt themselves :/ people make mistakes, Lucy made a big mistake but wat trying to fix it. Mike quite frankly stomped her into the ground when she was trying to make things right. Still hasn’t even acknowledged that he has done anything wrong. He deserves to stand up for himself but it doesn’t validate him stomping on someone who is trying to make things right again. Like I said he is just as bad.

I’m sorry for what happened to you, i know it’s hard to live with the constant memories of what happened

As for the comic, my perspective is strangly the complete opposite. The way i saw it was that Lucy didn’t try to fix her mistake. When she found out her actions were hurting Mike what i saw was that she either avoided him or try to force their friendship regardless. Lucy has said the words “I’m sorry” to Mike only a single time in this entire comic and that was right before confessing to Mike

Meanwhile in my eyes Mike has done everything he could to fix the situation and has apologised about him snapping on her 4 times already. He tried to make things right a week after he snapped but got send away, he apologised after the play and even said he wanted to try again. Lucy even accepted this apology only to flip him off when she returned and he apologised the third time. 4th time being eternal flame

Don’t get me wrong, i do believe that Lucy is suffering, i just don’t think it’s right to put the blame of that suffering on Mike

I think it might be a good thing for me to reread the comic again cause it happens quite often that i remember events completely different from what others say.

Thanks for your conciderate but honest words, I’m going to reread the comic again and trying to keep a more leveled mind during it. And regardless of wether i change my opinion or not i’m going to try and keep it more to myself or at the least not be so confrontational about it.

While this comic does touch on hard subjects i now realise it’s not really the right place to unload on them when people are just trying to enjoy the story

Kinda related to the topic of doing a read-through, the early chapters are the ones (that I recall at least) that had all the physical bullying and name calling Lucy used to pull against Mike and my take on things is that as readers we weren’t *really* intended to read it as abuse, it’s the byproduct of a comic that started off light-hearted and slapstick that eventually evolved to a more serious tone. In my opinion some of the debate of who’s in the right and who is in the wrong with Mike and Lucy is derived from how serious one takes the early chapters. I don’t take the early chapters seriously at all personally so I don’t look at Lucy as an abuser. Instead to me she’s just a kid with low self-esteem whose crush on her friend manifests in the awkward way it often does when you’re young, teasing and fighting and inability to regulate the emotions you feel toward the person you fancy. I have to think this way because otherwise if I take these chapters serious then I’d have some pretty strong opinions myself about Yashy sexually harassing minors…

This isnt about “December” its about “ Eternal flame”