Bittersweet Candy Bowl

I get it though Augustus’s friend is hurting and Mike is the one who caused it (originally), he’s just looking out for a friend and Mike quite simply doesn’t matter to him, ergo he’s not interested in his feelings or troubles. That being said I’m not sure Augustus really understands how bad Lucy’s PTSD is and is therefore focusing his energy in wrong places.

I agree but it was never gonna be Augustus he’s not Mike’s friend he’s Lucy’s id be weird if he cared at all tbf

Maybe a couple chapters ago I’d have agreed but this seems more like him feeling like those he cares about leave him not for Lucy but just in general all his friends leave him

I can see that

Mike is many things, a coward certainly, but I don’t know about selfish. If that were true, he wouldn’t have thought twice about being romantically available with Lucy while dating Sandy, wouldn’t have cared about being labeled a cheater, and/or would have pushed for more time and transparency from Sandy as to never have gotten so bitter towards his friends. He’s not selfish, he’s actually the opposite. He’s a doormat. Has been from chapter 1. And this entire comic has been showing the slow building of resentment that comes from that willingness to please others without taking care of your own emotional needs first. Mike has been absolutely awful at setting boundaries, and has only ever actually voiced what he wants when his emotions boil over and he just can’t bottle things up anymore. This is honestly the most painful thing about Mike. He does care about people. He cares a LOT. He’s gone so far as to put himself at serious risk to help people, usually Lucy, MULTIPLE times. He’s got all the makings of a good kid, and that does usually show. But he’s reached his emotional breaking point in high school and started lashing out, usually followed by serious regret when he realized the true depth of pain his words inflicted. He’s not some irredeemable monster, he’s a kid who is hurting, lashing out as a result, and needs serious psychological help.

His cowardice has pushed him to make extremely selfish decisions. How he torments himself after does not matter, he inflicts real damage by being too scared to have healthy boundaries.

I wish more people understood this people really out here attacking him like he fully understands the pain he’s causing during id say he’s kinda the opposite of Paulo cause while Paulo was a jerk who grew to be a better person over the years Mike has made one unintentional mistake after another and each one sends him waves of hate some deserved some not as deserved but he more and more gets emotionally drained by them and normally he’d go to one of his close friends to talk about it but they’ve all moves on with their lives and now he’s the only who’s alone (in his mind)

It’s important to recognize that there’s a very real difference between being selfish and being hurtful. I’d argue maybe once in his life, when his world felt like it was crumbling around him and his relationship was falling apart in Eternal Flame, did he ever allow himself to be truly selfish by pursuing Lucy as a rebound, something he deeply wanted for a long time but couldn’t allow himself to show in order to be faithful to Sandy in his mind. This is why I usually focus on Mike’s relationship with Sandy in conversations like this, because it really illustrates how it shaped Mike into the cold, broken, resentful guy he is at this point in the story. When the comic started in middle school, he was happy. He had a good friendship with all his friends, (though it was more of a rivalry with Paulo at the time) allowed himself to be fairly emotionally available with Lucy, hell he even approached Lucy romantically then too, before he became official with Sandy. But ever since he got Sandy’s number, as well as her infrequent visits to Roseville, he’s sacrificed more and more of his life in an attempt to appease her. (not something she wanted him to do, mind, but something he chose to do, literally being selfless to a fault) She was frequently unavailable to chat, so he stopped calling or texting her first, and waited with baited breath for upwards of weeks for her. When Sandy first visited, she got frustrated at video games and called them childish, so he packed up everything he owned and stopped going to the arcade. All his peers started calling him a cheater for being open with Lucy, so he started closing himself off to Lucy. (which, in turn, caused her to cling to him more, and Mike’s resentment started to brew) Then, obviously, there was his conversation with Sandy about Lucy being abusive with him, and Sandy voiced that she didn’t like Lucy because of it. So naturally, Mike took that to mean he should hate Lucy too. Now, importantly, I’m not excusing ANYTHING Mike has done, because yes, he has done a lot of awful things he needs to answer and atone for. But the kid needs therapy and self improvement for that, not to be kicked while he’s down and made to feel like everyone would be better off if he just stopped existing. You can acknowledge someone has done wrong, understand why they did it, call for them to take accountability, and STILL advocate for them to become better people in the future. And even if that person is hurting, you can still empathize with them and hope that it doesn’t push them to make a rash choice. Because there’s one more truly selfish choice Mike may make in the future, and most people who make it do so under the pretense that it’s for the sake of others around them. So yeah, of course people are going to hope that doesn’t come to fruition, even through the writing has been on the wall for a LONG while now, narratively speaking.

Dude I’m not here to debate. Not reading that

Don’t forget in that scene where they kiss its been stated that Lucy kissed him so thats not a great example of him being the most selfish there as he was broken up with in like one of the worst ways 5mins prior to that

I dont think that was a reflection of everyone siding with Lucy but more a reflection of everyone he cares about slowly abandoning him (whether its his fault or not)

I’m unsure if I am understanding your comment right (not sure exactly what the “that” in “i don’t think that” is referring to) but I figured the panels on this page weren’t about people leaving for Lucy specifically, due to the presence of James, but her being centered there is what made me think of that old quote. Just me thinking too far into composition, like, in my mind there’s a reason SHE is centered, but like I said, prob just me making connections where there aren’t any. I definitely agree that this is actually about him being abandoned in general by those he perceives as friends, not people leaving him for Lucy. Sorry if I was unclear, I ramble too much in these comments. (I hope this replies to the right person this time haha)

You’re good lol, I think he’s got alot of misunderstood feelings for her like she does for him. These two are both like the worst two people to ever be together but also they were the closest shame its come to this but man they gotta work on themselves Paulo has grown so much compared to these two lol

I think Mike has always sort of been fixated on abandonment as a punishment and is kind of looking for it and finding it where it isn’t. It’s why that’s exactly what he threatened Lucy with and promised would happen. Because it’s something HE’S so afraid of that he wished it on her and tried to subject her to it and now that haunts him so much he kind of keeps waiting for the opposite to happen to the point of a self fulfilling prophecy and pushing others away.

That makes a lot of sense! 🤔

Excellent point! One of the many interesting similarities between Lucy and Mike is their fear of being abandoned

On God I wanna see one good punch

Going to? My friend, we’re already circling the drain at this point. :p

At this point I’m just wondering how many chapters we have until Mike tries something stupid… and what method he tries to use (IIRC men have a higher success rate because they tend to use more lethal methods)

That is perfect, and I don’t think I could agree more, either way this can’t really help much with everything that’s going on, I have a hard time thinking this is an actual solution, and more importantly, what’s Auggy gonna do when he graduates in the upcoming months?

yes, exactly. Honestly all Augustus knows is that Mike (obviously not single-handedly, but) long-windedly drove Lucy to suicide, and that when she had just started getting better, he made her think he wanted to be with her, then literally broke her heart again the next day. Of course he doesn’t care about what, to him, just looks like a self-pity party

Yeah this is how I interpret it. I re-read Burnt Bridges a few days ago and it’s kind of nuts that Augustus sought Mike out so soon after what happened in Eternal Flame just to hear his side of things. He’s clearly not a fan of Mike, but I don’t think he straight-up despises him. I think he truly believeds that Mike felt bad about what happened with Lucy and was pleasantly surprised in a way by Mike asking him to take care of her. Auggy probably doesn’t like Mike all that much, but he also doesn’t believe he’s going outside to hurt Lucy on purpose and can be reasoned with for her sake