Bittersweet Candy Bowl

Well, at least one of them is

😬 David peaced out but I don’t blame him

YUP. VERY MUCH SO.

If David peaced out it would be very on brand. And would support my theory that he’s not good with confrontation. Considering how he didn’t even react when Mike slammed Paulo’s head into the lunch table.

I raise a motion to include that James is awesome for not just defending Mike

And move to also pass that Augustus was out of line but was right

He may not be blindly sticking up for Mike, but definitely looks like he’s blindly picking sides after only hearing one side about a situation he knows nothing about. I wouldn’t even bother explaining. If I were Mike, I’d just cut my loses. Because James may be sweet, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s also very fickle.

Plus I think he’s too focus on getting with David as well as track team. He wasn’t fully there when stuff like this was happening, so he likely has a very black and white view and perspective on things

Yeah, it’s kind of lame if James really grows some sort of hatred for Mike when he doesn’t fully know the history between them and how both Lucy and Mike were negative to each other. But like you said yeah it’s best for Mike to start accepting some of his losses and focus on himself now and not be reliant on validation from others for being the “good doer” for everyone.

Mike will probably tell him it’s true and that he doesn’t deserve to have James as a friend.

Apparently she is not bothered about that as much as you would’ve like her to be. We waited till the end, she let Augustus talk and she finds support in him. You can keep screaming from the side how bad it all is but clearly Lucy doesn’t view it like you do.

I don’t know what you are on but this is so wrong in so many ways

Drag her into a situation she doesn’t want to be in

Revealed personal medical history to strangers and in public WITHOUT her consent.

Dug up personal history between them and made her confront a situation and relive what she went through.

This isnt healing, this is savagely stabbing open a wound and let it bleed even more.

This isn’t true peace, it was a merciless confrontation with no real solution or proper closure, it just made things worse and for all we know, could even permanently effrct her even more going forward. August caused so much damage of any real closure or true healing, he’s just isolating them both in different ways we can possibly not imagine, causing them to likely be even more co dependent on others.

How is this healing? How is this closure, it isn’t.

This isn’t right and should never be justified! Everyone here isn’t right

Well apparently SHE is ok with it. I think you are too concerned with what’s right and what’s wrong and ignoring how Lucy react to all this.. I agree that the medical information was too much and that Augustus’s smirks were distasteful in some moments, but I do not dismiss his intentions in this. The whole thing started in a storm and she went with it, as gracefully as she could, in that random moment, despite some fuck ups. This conversation is overdue and someone had to start it, badly or not.

Look at everyone else’s eyes, and then look at Mike and Lucy’s eyes. These two are not okay. You think because she’s clinging to Augustus, she’s okay with it? No she’s far from okay.

Because this is the same exact clingy behavior she’d exhibit in the past whenever she’s experienced something traumatic. Lucy and Mike are truly not okay and it’s Augustus’s fault this time.

I already wrote to you my view on her letting herself to look for support instead of dealing with her emotions alone again. She trusts Auggy, even after the medical info blur, what she feels conflicts to what you two are saying. But each to his own.

No matter how much it bothers you, or how bad Augustus’ actions look in your eyes, Lucy seems okay with it and endorsing him, since she hasn’t insisted on going back inside or told him to shut up. She really never got the chance to tell Mike how he made her feel like a Sandy placeholder so openly, specially after December, where she was just bombarded with every single thing Mike disliked about her and their relationship and she was told no one can really love her for her. She needed this so he can finally understand why she treated him that way and stop acting like he was the sole victim.

Now that I think about it, is the medical information thing really that big of a deal now? Like isn’t Lucy’s suicide attempt pretty much an open secret that even uninvolved people know about? Like Jessica, Madison, Rachel, Matt, Amaya, etc. already know about it. Madison didn’t even know until after she let go of her beef with Lucy and didn’t hear about it from Lucy either. If James was was going to hang out with the entire group he was bound to find out especially if he was going to be heavily involved with Mike. Also that entire argument hinges on the fact if Lucy is okay with it or not (since it is HER medical information) and it seems like she is so it kinda seems like a moot point.

Augustus didn’t ‘out’ anything Mike and David didn’t already know and Lucy probably couldn’t give less of a fuck about what James knows or thinks.

If Mike and David already knew the specifics of what was said, then why would Augustus bring it up other than to make Mike look bad in front of James? To drag some third party into this shitshow of a drama? If it’s something everyone knows, why did Lucy initially shout at Augustus as he was about to bring up the personal details of that disaster? She clearly cared enough to try to get him to stop at first.

Mike told David and the rest of their friends about the parasite incident from December in the Happy Hour chapter. He brings it up on page 25, page 26 is a montage of everyone’s silent reactions, Paulo proceeded to lose his shit on page 27. Augustus does not mention the suicide attempt but Mike and Paulo at least know about it so odds are David does too. I think Lucy is just so used to keeping a stoic front that her reaction to stop Augustus from talking about her past was a knee-jerk one that she got over fast in favor of finding it cathartic. Page 17 of this chapter I interpret as her deciding to grit it out and let this conversation be had instead of denying or running away from the truth of her own feelings like she usually does.

Oh I’m not disagreeing that Mike and David didn’t know. I’m saying that since everyone but James knew what Mike said, the only logical reason for Augustus to repeat what Mike had said was to sabotage his friendship with James

Really hope Lucy outs him or humbles August hard cause she just can’t accept this and the fact he outed her personal medical history and drag her into a situation she didn’t want to be in

She doesn’t like to be coddled or babied

James may be fickle, but to be fair to him, what would you think if your relatively new friend got accused of all this stuff, and rather than deny it, he assaults the accuser and deflects blame from himself? Mike acted guilty as hell

Yeah but still let’s at least hear his side of the story

@WashingtonBC: I dunno. Still seems kinda harsh.

@Nev I agree, but I can understand why he’s being harsh, given the information he has. We as readers know there’s more to the story than what’s been laid out but James doesn’t have that benefit. It doesn’t mean I like how it turned out, but I don’t really like how any of this turned out 😅

This dude, I feel for you. And although not similar experience from you I had a similar fallout and it’s best to cut ties and work on yourself.

Yeah, I had a similar experience. No one ever bothered to ask my side, so I assumed it was better to move on. I was in college and used the free time to volunteer and make better friends. The fortunate thing for Mike is that in the grand scheme of things, high school friend groups are pretty low stakes. Shame he’s gonna feel awkward in track, though

Yeah, honestly James isn’t much of a friend. And he’s done some questionable things too.

No, James is looking at him in both panels. Augustus is in front of Mike. If James were talking to Augustus his eyes would be looking to the side instead of trained at Mike

Yeah, I thought the same. Why would he have to turn his head if he was talking to the same person with both lines?

Look at both Lucy and Mike’s eyes, then tell me what’s so aww about her clinging to Augustus? Final Fantasy Cat has literally just opened an unnecessary wound based on his own speculations about Lucy’s current behavior. And then he keeps going, twisting the knife deeper and deeper. Not just into Mike, but Lucy too.

Lucy’s clinging to Augustus isn’t an aww moment. It’s a, he chose to derail whatever healing process she was making. Which is why she’s back to clinging to people in a co-dependent manner again. Just like she has done various times in the past whenever something traumatic had happened.

Nothing about this is adorable or cute in any way. They’re both hurt even more than before and it’s Augustus’s fault. What he did was beyond wrong, so let’s not glorify his actions. Because a real protector wouldn’t purposely re-traumatize the person they’re claiming to protect.

And saying Augustus isn’t wrong about what he’s saying? There may be some grains of truth in there, but we know that was not the sole reason their friendship ended. It’s such a small part of everything that happened on both sides. Yet only Lucy’s side ever seems to matter and no one ever wants to revisit the way Mike was also hurt.

That’s your opinion. I come from different experiences in my life that make me see more sides to this. Ofc this conversation hurts, that’s why Mike and Lucy never said anything. I don’t approve everything Auggy said, but dumping all the blame on him and ignoring the positive side is kinda ignorant, emotionl intelligence wise. Also, I don’t see her clinging to him like she use to do with other, she’s letting herself to find support in a friend instead of staying stubbornly alone with her negative thoughts and pushing everyonr away again. That’s progress in my opinion.

What is the positive side? Who did this help? Lucy isn’t helped. Mike isn’t helped. If either of them had been helped by this exchange they wouldn’t have eyes resembling dead fish right now. Which we’ve seen before leading up to the events of December. So who actually received help because of this situation? Augustus!?

No -_-… what is this reasoning? The positive side (or how you say, the fuller part of the cup?) , that Lucy sees what a loyal friend she has, that despite it being done in a not so great “ripping off the band-aid “ way the topic was finally brought up to Mike in words. Lucy managed to say some of the things she probably wanted to tell Mike for a long long time, so at least something came off her chest. The wound may have been reopened but it was infected and not truly healing. This opened an opportunity for possible future continuation on this topic between them. Those are some points I see. (English is not my main language so I apologies for butchering metaphors)

Man, I’m glad that another person is vocal about these facts, as I am 🌸.

Do you not see how Lucy’s clinging to Augustus? It’s the same way she does whenever she’s hurt or traumatized. Yeah, he may be on Lucy’s side. Yet let’s not pretend he’s a protector.

Since a real protector wouldn’t have done what Augustus did here. He was a protector the day he asked Mike to promise not to speak to her anymore. A promise Mike had kept, and didn’t need to be approached a second time for anything else.

However, Lucy’s recent nightmares. We don’t know what they’re about, and it may not even have anything to do with Mike. Augustus doesn’t even know what’s causing her recent behavior. He just speculated that Mike was the cause and created this situation.

In which he told a stranger Lucy’s medical history, pushed Mike into a corner without a legitimate reason, and made Lucy relive bad memories. Augustus then ignored Lucy’s tears and shaking which he caused! Because he was too busy rubbing it in Mike’s face. Something a true protector would never do.

You’re worried about people trying to burn bridges between Augustus and Lucy. Yet you should be more concerned by the growing dead eyed look in both Lucy and Mike’s eyes this chapter. While Lucy who had started to heal is now defaulting to her co-dependency ways, because of Augustus’s actions which were completely unnecessary no matter how you spin it.

Like I said before, i see it as her breaking her walls to deal with everything alone and finally let herself to find support in a friend. The healthy kind. She’s not gonna fall to Augustus’s bed again, something that MIKE coused her to do, and revert to, because of his actions that he never think of their consequences. If anything, Lucy’s SOURCE of pain is Mike. The whole issue is happening because of Mike’s actions and inactions.

@Elmanii, finally someone says it. this seems to go around lotta peoples head. They keep mistaking that we are defending Mike and that Augustus should burn. In reality this is nothing to do to protect Lucy and is more to ensure Mike has no way of redemption from this point as like he now has to suck it in and dwell on this for the rest of his life on top of that being seen by others on what a true monster he is when he is just a teen like Lucy who is just as in need of help as Lucy. Augustus is literally back tracking and undoing all his growth and even being a hypocrite as he was all about ensuring Lucy safety and reminding her that words shouldn’t affect her and she has lots of great things ahead and yet is using her to rub it in Mikes face of the damage he did when right now the damage is coming from Augustus. He literally went out of his way to create a scene that didn’t need to even happen to not to make Lucy more upset and possibly go back to feeling like shit because Augustus feels the need that in order to protect Lucy again he has to get “rid” of Mike.

Yes yes yes all of this, Lucy absolutely could have gotten Augustus to stop if she wanted, but I’m sure there was a huge part of her that really wanted Mike to hear just how badly he messed up from someone that wasn’t her. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she did (or even does later) tell Augustus he went too far but he’s proven to her that he does have her best interests at heart, having their friendship implode over this would be ridiculous with who these two are as people.

Except this is clearly not healthy behavior. The reason we even got to this point in the first place is because of unhealthy behavior on both sides. It was never one-sided on Lucy or Mike’s end.

And man, I hate to say this because it’s so distasteful. Yet sometimes, it feels like because Lucy jumped off a roof her past actions from Mike’s perspective are being dismissed. Which has led to only Lucy’s perspective in their friendship being looked at properly.

It makes me wonder. What would have happened if in December it wasn’t Lucy who tried to end her life? What if it had been Mike up on the roof instead? Would we currently be invalidating Lucy’s past experiences in favor of Mike’s?

The problem I have isn’t Lucy’s perspective. It’s that we’ve seen both Mike and Lucy’s perspectives of what happened in the past. Yet Mike’s experiences are being dismissed based solely on the fact that people feel like Lucy’s pain now outweighs his. Even though his pain is still valid.

@WitchDoll, and this is how we resolve the situation? We have seen how Lucy has clearly stated that she was willing to accept that there will always be places where her and Mike would have to be in the same space but they don’t have to interact. We get to see her nightmares and we see it goes back to the alley incident, we even see part of the people that she has nightmares, and we can see how she still has some sort of trauma from them since then because even after everything they still want something from Lucy. Mike already has been keeping his deal of distance. And for those to come that he broke the insane terms that Augustus cornered him to agree without even being able to speak his side. Mike has all this time already been doing every other thing Augustus has asked of him to do. But Augustus sees that Lucy isn’t opening up to him as often because she doesn’t want him to become further more worry but what he is doing is only reinforcing the idea of Lucy not wanting to open up at all. He is using Lucy as a weapon against Mike to further more bring Mike even deeper to a spiral and if he takes the route that Lucy took… how do you think Lucy will end up? I’m sure this will only make Lucy go even further more spiral as now she’ll also have the reason to blame herself if Mike led himself to that path.

I’m so over the whole medical history thing, this isn’t a doctors office and the school knows lol, James didn’t but he was new.

If the whole school knows. Why didn’t James know? Since, you know. The whole school supposedly knew already, so someone would’ve likely jumped at the chance to fill the new kid in. So what was the point of Lucy trying to stop Augustus, before Mike upset her with what he said? Just asking. Especially, since no one from the original friend group really seemed to know what exactly happened either when she came back and ignored them.

Cause James probably isn’t in a drama filled group. Also it doesn’t matter what you the reader wants or feels for Lucy. She clearly wants and feels the opposite. You guys keep defending Mike because you’re coming from the perspective of the reader who sees other readers who are also criticizing Mike. Mikes feelings and actions towards Lucy have also been mixed with jealousy and pettiness that she confessed too late about her feelings and also that she was “rebounding”. Mike is literally being insane

The way she turned around to hold onto Augustus, you can see she genuinely feels like she has a friend. It helps that when she tried to regress and make it romantic he cut that out quickly too. Augustus makes questionable decisions but you can tell he takes their friendship seriously.

holy passive aggressive batman, chill out dude. it’s a webcomic about cats. there’s no reason to be so rude to someone cause they’re making a point you disagree with. this chapters made people unhinged I s2g

😔 sorry 🫶🏼

oh no I was talking to elmanii, not you!!!! patreon get a better reply system omg….. you’ve been respectful and cordial through all your comments lmao dw!!!! (゜゜;)＼(—;)

OMG OK ily, it’s fun to talk to everyone but I try to be as straight forward as possible. I will apologize when I’m wrong tho!!!

I too have been discouraged to speak my opinion on here and debate because of some very rude commenters 😞 thank you for sticking up for some of us! I don’t hate any main characters in the story line but when I say an opinion, people lately on this chapter have been quick to jump on someone and tear them apart just because they are bringing up good points about each character :c it’s a bit overwhelming 😬

My apologies y’all. I know I can get a bit too passionate about the story sometimes and it can come off rude. Yet if you ever feel comfortable enough to share, please do. I really do like reading the takes everyone has. ❤️

np!!! I saw in a previous comment u have some personal experience so I super understand emotions run hot!! there’s for sure been ppl on all sides of this debate who’ve been getting a lil too spicy in their comebacks, so it’s easy for people to feed off one another and get intense…..

no matter our differing opinions we all stand united in eating popcorn while watching the cat drama. let us know peace through second hand relationship woes more complicated than a rubix cute with six hundred sides ＼(^-^)／

That’s pretty much the idea here, Augustus wasn’t able to see why Lucy kept struggling and since Lucy wasn’t willing to open up why she was so bothered and uncomfortable especially from falling into her nightmares he saw the best solution is to take it out on Mike and make sure he becomes an outcast.

Like, the only good thing that came out of this I can think of is Lucy being able to get her feelings out. Which is great! But in exchange, we have Lucy’s private medical information being outed, a burgeoning friendship most likely sunk, outbursts of physical violence, and a likely acceleration of Mike’s spiral. Was that really worth it when we could have gotten the benefits from more civil conversation?

Augustus really doesn’t care about that. This was for his self-satisfaction. He wants to feel like he’s fixing things and putting someone else in their place to feel superior about himself lmao

Both honestly. He was using her emotionally for support and a replacer (not out of malice intentions) and she, not knowing any better, physically lashed out her suppressed frustration on him.

He never verbalized his unhappiness, though. He just blew up at her and socially isolated her. Even when she got the message & tried to change. Like even now he’s the same dude from “December” except he just feels bad about it. That’s not growth. Acting like a doormat and then blowing up at his own convenience over and over and over. It’s old.

Eh. I remember that he checked out and she kept being pushy and insisting while he wanted space. Then, he blew up.

And honestly, that’s too little, too late. He can decide for himself how much someone has hurt him.

Mike

appreciate you!

THIS. I’m so glad someone sees what I’m seeing. It’s hard to put into words but you took it all right out of my mouth. I absolutely agree with you!

Yes, yes, yes! He drops that smirk, and Augustus looks *tired* because putting up that front takes a lot out of a person—it’s an act! Deep down, the kid just wants things to be at peace. He’s not a monster.

Yeah except he’s the abuser here. Mike was leaving Lucy alone. He didn’t start shit.

As much as I think Augustus is acting like a piece of shit, I wouldn’t go far as to call him an abuser. I think it’d be more accurate to describe him as someone who initially had good intentions (help stop Lucy’s nightmares) but let those intentions be overrun by spite towards Mike.

Except Mike wasn’t fully leaving Lucy alone. Augustus told Mike that Lucy’s not doing well and asked him to give her space because Mike has *every other* friend group to fall back on, while Lucy internalized him telling her that they would always take his side. (They have, every person besides Augustus who’s found out about Mike’s treatment of Lucy still remained his friend). Mike even said he understood and would give that space, and then actively chose to chase James. And he tried to double down on his narrative about how awful Lucy was when confronted in this chapter. One painful conversation isn’t abuse, Mike just got verbally backed into the hole he dug himself. How many times is he allowed to break his word before it’s reasonable that someone would bite back about it?

@Sugar I don’t disagree with your point about Mike doubling down or about who everyone sided with after learning what happened, but I don’t think it’s fair to characterize the hallway conversation as Augustus simply asking for space and Mike agreeing of his own volition. Augustus clearly pressured Mike into it and Mike folded because he has the spine of a wet noodle. Like seriously, just look at Mike’s body language. You can’t expect me to believe that Mike was anything but uncomfortable during that. He should have said no because it wasn’t really a fair thing to demand - Augustus has no right to tell Mike where he can or can’t go. And it’s not like he was breaking his promise to leave Lucy alone. He stuck to the track and his friends. He never approached Lucy. Hell, even she said it was fine. The only person to have an issue with this was Augustus.

Also sorry if I got a little short, I just keep seeing people say “oh he just asked Mike nicely, it was a polite exchange” as if Mike didn’t look like he wanted to be anywhere but there. I know what I saw, and what I saw was an agreement made under duress.

@Washington You got me to go back and re-read that interaction! 😆I do agree that Mike was uncomfortable with that conversation, but if we’re looking at the body language and expressions from both of them, Augustus did try to approach things gently. He didn’t get short with Mike at all until Mike tried to start explaining his side, which most others have let Mike do when something comes up. Augustus seemed to make Mike uncomfortable just by existing and being connected to Lucy, so even when he was doing his best to be civil but firm about things, Mike starts squirming because of his own doubts and fears.

Augustus wasn’t actively antagonistic or harsh in that conversation in my opinion. Just not particularly sympathetic to Mike’s own turmoil (which boy oh boy does he have a lot of right now). To me it really reads like a request, and Mike wanted to say no, but when Augustus didn’t give him the chance to try to justify his ‘no’ he folded. And yeah, it wasn’t what he wanted to agree to, definitely. But I do wish he at least could have accepted the other track team guys’ invitation for the day it happened instead of chasing James.

And no worries! I definitely don’t mean to dismiss how bad of a state Mike’s in. I think it just comes back to the perspectives there- Augustus seems to be under the impression that Mike still has every bit of support that Lucy felt she had to remove herself from, and he really doesn’t care to hear about how isolated Mike has made himself. I really wish things hadn’t gone the way they did this chapter, but it feels like everyone is acting in line with their own beliefs instead of reality and hoo boy does that make things messy.

@Sugar I feel bad for getting a bit annoyed now, sorry about that! I’ll give you a proper response but I want to start with that

Oh yeah, Augustus was never directly rude or harsh to Mike, but I think it’s also clear he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Which I find unfair, because I also find the nature of the request unreasonable. But that speaks more to my subjective personal outlook, which is that as long as you’re not hurting or imposing on someone else, you should be able to live how you please. To my knowledge, Lucy has stated that Mike also being on the track is fine, so Mike’s not hurting anyone. So when Augustus starts trying to dictate where Mike can and can’t go, I take issue with it.

And definitely, I have my complaints about Augustus’ behavior in this situation (and Mike’s, and to a tiny extent Lucy), but I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. It’s why I try to push back on some of the more hyperbolic stuff I hear towards Augustus. He’s not evil, he’s just someone who was trying to help his friend but let spite overtake him somewhere along the way. (But it won’t stop me from placing the blame of this on his shoulders. If he had just left Mike/David/James alone, this wouldn’t have happened.)

You’re so right here, and it’s not talked about more. Augustus started this fight for his own self-satisfaction over “helping” Lucy. Even if he doesn’t want to get with her romantically doesn’t mean he didn’t basically use her and he trauma to basically attack another person to feel superior.

He’s not a good person.

No, I think he’s still a good person, just acting like a shithead. He’s doing what he thinks is right—he’s just misguided and going too far with it

@Washington No worries! If it helps your comment hadn’t come off aggressive at all. I’m enjoying the chatting, so hopefully it’s not a bother to you!

But yeah, I definitely see where you’re coming from. Honestly, I do think it’s unreasonable to expect someone to restrict themselves like that or impose that restriction. My thinking with it is that Lucy’s done the opposite to herself, so I think Augustus might have been coming from a point of “She has given you the rest of the pie, can’t you leave her this slice?” And being under the impression that Mike theoretically still cared about Lucy. So he didn’t want to force Mike to cave, so much as try to convince Mike it would be better for him so he would agree. Gus didn’t know about Mike’s feelings for James until this chapter, so I think he was figuring Mike could pick from any of his friends to hang out with for a bit no problem.

Unfortunately both Mike and Lucy are terribly unreliable advocates for themselves and what they want or need (cuz they really don’t let themselves figure that part out or admit what they do know out loud generally) so anyone trying to ‘help’ is running off a lot of assumptions like Augustus, or blind spots like James was. The perspective we get being readers is so much more nuanced than what any of these kids want to tell each other, cuz man, this whole confrontation could have been an email 😆

Phew, I’m glad! I knew that I was getting a bit annoyed like I had said earlier, I’m glad I was able to keep a lid on it - wouldn’t want to have an outburst like Mike here. And it’s not a bother at all, I’m a bit of a chatterbox myself ever since I joined last month. I think the novelty has me excited, hopefully I’ll mellow out a bit lol. I generally agree with everything you said, though I still personally feel like Gus wasn’t gonna take a “no” in that discussion. And lol it’s so true, so much of this could have been avoided if this was handled over an email. Side note, thank you for calling him Gus; I’ve gotten sick of typing out Augustus and “Auggie” felt weird to type 😅. I’m stealing that for myself now.

😆 Glad to help! For real, who does Augustus think he is, having so many letters in his name when the rest of the cast mostly has like 5 max?? True proof he’s the big bad, too many syllables 😤 (Joking, of course! Hopefully that’s obvious but I never know lmao)

Also for the record I absolutely agree, Gus had a set outcome in mind for that conversation. I really do wonder what he would have done if Mike stood his ground there.

You’re good, I could tell! Still, definitely better to be safe than sorry. Also ughhhhh I WISH Mike had stood his ground (without exploding as he is apt to do), we could have avoided so much headache. I still primarily blame Gus, but Mike did himself no favors by going back on his word

Yepyep, everyone involved shoulders some of the blame and in this instance specifically Gus definitely instigated things. There’s so many layers of history that the blame could be passed back and forth forever (as it seems to be doing) without anything productive coming from it. Hopefully these kids start looking ahead instead sometime soon to stop blaming and poking and just try to chill and heal.

bro is just vibing while watching the cat fight happen

Sitting on the bleachers with popcorn I think

Let David hide in peace. 🤣

so many people feel very passionately about the relationship dynamics of these cartoon cats and i kind of love it

i do get excited to see yall’s names and read the discussions lol

Same it makes the work day go by so much faster :3

Admittedly same, I recently joined because I just HAD to know what happened after Mike first put his hands on Augustus; I stayed because of the discussion 😅

Side note, I try to be level-headed and fair to other people even if I disagree, so if I’m not feel free to call me out

ONGOMGOMOMG!!! See aren’t you happy you decided to get the early page tier ?? I remember I was like WAIT IM AN ADULT I CAN BUY THIS! Haven’t looked back since. But also recently just started participating in discussion because I was nervous before, everyone is honestly so fun to talk to tho ahhahah

Lol I really do enjoy reading the comments on here and sharing too.

@Elisa I am enjoying it! It’s really nice, being able to chime in and add my two cents.

Def opens alot of views and discussions.

And meeting different walks of life and philosophy here

That would seriously be so nice right about now.

This!!!

i mean he should, hes theoretically got like 80 more years of life ahead still

I mean, some of us thought the same thing about Lucy. And look what happened there.

fair fair

PLEASE MUCY REALLY IS A SITUATIONSHIP ITS SO EVIL

Good taste good taste

Real David fans knows he just wants to be friends with everyone but that also gets harder as the years go by

And to be clear, Mike absolutely has some growing he needs to do. My big concern is just that right now, he’s teetering on the edge. Self-inflicted or not, he needs a hand to keep him from falling. But instead, Augustus is shoving him off. That’s really fucking bad

Dudes willing to push him in the same area Lucy was for the sake of Lucy getting better.

I appreciate this perspective honestly. I hope- maybe a bit too optimistically- that maybe the rest of the track guys can become that support system. They’ve been around longer, heard about all Mike’s stuff, even saw him lash out at Paulo in the cafeteria iirc and had their eyes on Mike for his running ability for a good while. I’d love for them to reach out and catch him, even if James’ faith in him is shaken. (James seems a bit too… surface-level to be someone Mike could really depend on, anyway, imo)

I hope they do too - they seem like they’d be support system he needs (and hard agree with James, chasing him is silly). The question is if Mike’ll see it. I fear he won’t, but that might be because I see a bit of myself in Mike and I think that’s how I’d feel, though I’d never consider something as drastic as suicide 😬

Agreed. I don’t want that for him either and hope he has some growth. Yet not gonna lie, I’m worried for both of them right now. Why do the adults always seem to be missing when you need them? 😭

At this point, it’s time for the adults to step in Now

Since when has that happened, lol?

This wasn’t for Lucy as much as Augustus is telling himself it is.

Main thing would be if Mike actually gives Lucy the break from him on the day to day that Augustus had asked him to. Remember that that’s the core of things- Augustus asked Mike to be considerate of Lucy’s feelings for once, Mike said okay, and then he immediately broke his word. He said it himself- he’s “not letting Mike break another promise”.

@Sugar while I do understand that, that’s just between the two of them. Based on what I know of Lucy’s character, I don’t believe she’d have liked that kind of meddling on her behalf if she was actually aware this exchange occurred. Frankly I think he crossed several lines that I would personally be losing trust in him for were I in her position(at least based on personal experiences), but I am not the storyteller either.

@Xiro Totally fair! Honestly, with where she is now, I could see Lucy going either way. I do think she’ll be irritated/upset with Augustus, but I also think she’ll recognize his reasoning- especially with the way she turns to hold on to him after she composes herself a bit. She doesn’t want to be the bad guy and make things worse for Mike and prove him right on all the awful things he’s said about her, but Augustus took that burden with this one. And I’ll totally admit that honestly, my own personal experiences definitely color how I see the interaction too. 😆 So I’m curious to see what comes from it all.

@Sugar Yeah I totally hear you. If anyone does draw her ire it’ll be him, *I just hope it’ll be productive for everyone in the end.

This is the first time I can recall Lucy being open and honest about the fact that Mike hurt her feelings, especially to Mike himself. Even if she had to literally hide behind a wall (Augustus) to get the words out. It’s not fun to go through but any movement Lucy makes toward expressing her feelings honestly instead of covering them with bravado is good growth for her imo

That’s great for Lucy (genuinely, it is!), but did it really have to come at the cost of Augustus airing out Mike & Lucy’s dirty laundry to David and James? Couldn’t that have been done elsewhere?

This is basically ALL of augustus’s self satisfaction honestly. He created a problem where either Mike can’t exist in places him and Lucy wanna be, which means he wins, or he gets to snap at Mike “justifiably” and make him look bad.

Frankly this chapter has basically made me want him to get reality checked extra hard lmao

When you say “this social circle”, do you mean the track team or…?

Also, I don’t think David’s gonna say anything about this.

Pretty much all his friends, once word gets out. He has little reason to stay on the track team since David’s taking his spot. He’ll have nothing and nobody, neatly fulfilling his prediction for Lucy.

Why all of mike’s friends, don’t they already know about what happened from the drunk birthday party?