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[lolaecheve]

*dusts off blog*

I’m about to talk about cats in high school

Mainly that I think it’s really interesting how Mike has already categorized Paulo and Daisy as having moved on and therefore leaving him behind. I could be forgetting some details so correct me if I’m wrong here but…

The last time we saw Mike and Daisy have a one-on one interaction was their… enlightening conversation in Double Down, during which Mike outright explained how he didn’t want to ruin things with Daisy after their experimental make out session, and Daisy affirmed that they were cool, and they just overall seemed to be on really good and level terms compared to how they’ve interacted in the past (ie, Daisy fawning all over Mike).

Since then, they’ve barely been in the same scenes together, with one of those few exceptions being Date Night - where Mike changed the subject when Paulo noticed something was off with Daisy, I might add. I’m not slamming Mike for this, I honestly think he was trying to put Paulo at ease, but it feels worth noting.

Immediately following this was New Year’s Resolution, which ended off with a very vulnerable and open conversation between Mike and Paulo about how Mike didn’t want people to leave him just because he couldn’t share their feelings romantically. It was a legitimately very sweet and important interaction between the two of them and seemed like a major deal in Paulo and Mike’s friendship.

The next time we see Paulo and Daisy is only a couple chapters later in Rain Check when they actually get together, and we next see them and Mike interact in Third Wheel when they’re trying to keep things discreet at school… and then immediately in the following chapters we’re seeing Mike feeling like he’s being left behind, topped off by him being confronted by Augustus, and David and James wanting to run outside.

“It’s so easy to forget me! They just… Once I’m no longer…”

But like… Paulo and Daisy haven’t had TIME to forget about you, Mike! We haven’t seen Mike interact with Paulo or Daisy in any negative manner that would imply they’re neglecting him in favor of each other. James definitely seems to shower his current fixation with attention and had his “We don’t even NEED Mike” comment but it seems pretty clear from an audience perspective that’s a James issue and not a Mike issue. But there’s still the rest of the track team (Felix in particular seems pretty supportive), and it feels to me like Paulo and Daisy literally haven’t had a chance to do anything to make Mike feel forgotten, he has just prescribed that to be the case based on them getting together.

I don’t want this to sound like I’m being harsh on Mike by any means, I’m really just making an observation here, but it’s deeply interesting to me how Mike seems to assume that someone having anything else going on in their life means they don’t care about him. ESPECIALLY if it’s romantic. Basically all this boils down to, in my opinion, is the feeling that Mike has had such a clusterfuck of a social circle growing up that he legitimately doesn’t know how to separate friendship from romance, and doesn’t know how to tell when someone is ignoring you vs. when they still care but just have other shit going on in their life.

Also I just realized - I was under the impression the whole track team was practicing outside during lunch breaks, but it seems like it’s just Mike, James, and David. They’re the only ones we see in Seeing Stars, James and David are the ones who Mike specifically mentioned while talking with Augustus, and the rest of the track team are just chilling in the cafeteria. Not sure if that’s relevant at all, but it just occurred to me as I was writing this.

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Let’s Go to The Mall!!! 🛍

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OOOHHHOHOHOHO I SEE

Legit I honestly have been so enthralled by seeing the descent in how Sandy's dialogue has gone from "Uhh honey I don't think you meant for that to sound selfish but..." to "GUUURRRL WHAT YOU DOIN" throughout this whole conversation lmao

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"It just seems so mean"

Dayum what a game changer in one panel lmao

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Hmm, I find Sandy's response in this page to be... interesting. And I'm about to go into a whole tangent over-analyzing tiny things.

Mike picks up the phone and we immediately find out that Sandy has been terrified Mike "did something bad." And I... find it odd that Sandy immediately jumped to that possibility? I'm not gonna fault her for being worried about Mike's well-being by any means, don't get me wrong. It more just strikes me as noteworthy that this seems to have been the first thought that popped into her head.

She very well may have thought of other things, then that possibility came up and stuck out as the worst possible one. Or she could have gone to such an extreme first because it's so unusual for Mike to not answer his phone the moment she tries to contact him, which is its own bag of issues.

But at the same time, it just stands out to me that her response was to make that assumption when there wasn't really any other indication of it. Disclaimer, of course, that you can never know what's really going on in somebody's head. However, in the case of Sandy and Mike's argument, I don't think Mike said anything that would have given most people that impression specifically. And I don't think Sandy, at least at this point, has been paying anywhere near enough attention to him to have gotten the vibe that he'd do something like that outside of this situation. Girl, you just confessed to cheating emotionally (and maybe physically???) on him and you're surprised that he isn't answering his phone to talk to you?

And then she follows up with "Don't scare me like that." I'm not trying to villainize the distressed 17-year old for not using better phrasing, I genuinely don't think she meant any harm with that. But it's not lost on me that it comes off as a little bit manipulative in this context, especially combined with her and Mike's relationship as a whole. When she's been ghosting Mike, admits to cheating or practically cheating on him depending on how you read the situation, and then responds to his outburst with "You scared me, don't do that again!" it isn't really the prettiest combination. It just comes across as her sounding like she's the victim here.

But the point of my whole tangent here isn't to claim Sandy's a terrible person (at least not for this page alone, the whole Mr. McHairdresser situation is a whole other matter), it's more just to point out the train of logic that seems to have happened here and wonder the why's behind it. Why is it that this is where Sandy's mind went in particular? Why did she use the phrasing that she did? Really this isn't a Sandy callout post so much as a "what makes Sandy tick" post because this page brought up a lot of questions about that for me. It really boils down to the fact that we don't know a whole lot about Sandy for certain aside from glimpses of details, and we don't know what's going on in her head or her life that taught her to use the words and phrasing and behaviors that she uses, and that's nothing new. But I just wanted to make my own comment on that fact.

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It's me hahaha

In all seriousness though, Daisy potentially has a point. Not that getting a hobby is an instant fix-all for his relationship problems and the absolute decimation between him and Lucy, but like... Has Mike touched that game console of his aside from with Paulo? Just saying, it's hard to get a read on what he's doing in his life outside of schoolwork and his chats with Sandy these days.

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This most recent page: *exists* Me: *SCREAMING INTERNALLY*

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Notice how all hell broke loose the moment Sue disappeared from the comic

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So aside from all of the other escalation on this page

Lucy implying Paulo can't care about her if he doesn't have romantic feelings for her, huh

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god i love parallels outlining how similar these two are

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And there it is, the never-ending cycle at the heart of half of this. Lucy's friends haven't really helped her in the way she needs (thinking about Sue forcing Lucy into a play she didn't want to take part in), but they don't know what she needs because Lucy never says it, so they just sort of force their help onto her by wildly guessing or they don't notice anything's wrong in the first place, and so Lucy doesn't trust them to help, which means that they still don't know how to approach her...

Anyway, just rambling here about how both sides in this argument are equally right and wrong at the same time. Paulo may not be handling the situation well, but he's not wrong that Lucy's never going to discuss this if given the choice. But does she NEED to? With this friend group? That's also up to her, and if she wants to distance herself from Paulo and the others, she can.

But then, let's not forget Lucy walking up to Paulo with obvious intent to use his (former) feelings for her to her advantage to get Jordan and Augustus off her back, and her negative reaction to finding out Paulo doesn't care anymore. What was that, less than an hour ago from this moment? That action and response from Lucy implies either she does at least want some connection with Paulo if not anyone else, or was straight up manipulative if she genuinely doesn't want to be around him and the others anymore. The latter's not a good look and the former means that she's again pushing away people that she cares about for wanting to actually try to fucking help her.

So yeah, in summary, Paulo shouldn't be grabbing Lucy but he's trying to help in the way this dumbass teenager who literally isn't qualified for this shit knows how, and Lucy needs to either set boundaries or be clear about what she wants (or both!!!) instead of being flirty with Paulo when it benefits her and then screaming that she doesn't want anything to do with him. But then also the friend group needs to listen to those boundaries because they haven't always been good about that, and then the above cycle... Perhaps I should say, "In summary, it's a mess."

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Lmao right? Mike, I'm glad you're having this talk, but that's not it my dude.

shout out to mike messing with the emotions of the girl whos been crushing on him for centuries and finally got over him and then saying to her face that he was using her to feel better about his girlfriend cheating on him

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Also, y'know, I hadn't noticed on my first read but I'm realizing now how weird it is that Lucy's dependency issues are most directly addressed for the first time via Mike having a near-death incident.

I get the intent, but Mike straight up falls down a cliff into a river, could be dead, and Lily's concern is Lucy attaching herself to Paulo immediately. I get we're bringing up the issue with Lucy but Mike could have literally died. Someone having a mental breakdown over the unknown well-being of their best friend isn't all that strange.

Side effects of the shift from silly comedy and anime tropes to drama and serious implications over time I suppose.

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Seeing comments on the Webtoon now that we're at the beginning of the end along the lines of "I'm remembering all the reasons I hate Mike" and "Mike's asshole arc begins"

And man, I'm gonna have to be the weirdo to defend Mike. But, like, only the beginning of his arc.

Thing is, I was sympathetic to Mike when this whole arc began. I understood what his problem with Lucy was. Lucy treated him badly - a lot. Sure, she also had moments to show she cared about him. But she also, again, treated him badly a lot.

And as a kid, when I first started reading the comic, I took it as face value standard tsundere stuff. Oh, Lucy is mean and rude to Mike, these two are competitive and rivals with each other, they argue a lot, but they have sweet and genuine moments together, so obviously by the laws of anime, they are totally super best friends who will fall in love.

Interestingly, reading the earlier chapters again via the Webtoon after all these years, those sweet and genuine moments... Don't feel as pronounced anymore. It could be cause I know how this goes. It could be cause of retcon tweaks for the redone version. Maybe it's because I'm an adult and know what toxic behavior is now. But, reading these chapters again, sure we have moments like Confrontation and Hot Pursuit, which are pivotal moments for Lucy and Mike... But there's just so many petty little exchanges between the two, most often instigated by Lucy, that it feels like those moments don't make up for it on the second go around. I don't have a feeling of "Oh man, it's so sad to see them so happy together only to know how badly it ends," I only have a feeling of, "Oh, so things were shitty from the start, man I totally forgot."

But anyway, moving on from the comic then vs now, we get to Mike finally getting fed up with Lucy's behavior. And I understood that back then. I was a Mike to a Lucy. I had a friend who was possessive and clingy over me, and treated me badly, and basically used be as a security blanket to feel better when no one else wanted to put up with her bad attitude. I eventually spent most of my time walking on eggshells around her and closing myself off from her.

So, when Mike started to distance himself from Lucy and became, just... done with her by the time December happened, I got it. Lucy did make her efforts to make things better or at least back to the way things used to be while working on their essay. Was she doing well at that? Would that have meant anything? People have a tendency to fall back into their old habits and not actually change when they say they will, so we can't be sure. But hey, in that moment, she understood things weren't okay, so maybe that could have been a start.

But it was too late for Mike. The relationship was beyond repair for him. You can argue that he took misguided advice from Sandy. She only knew some girl was hurting her boyfriend, and Mike idolized her to the point of letting that warp his view of Lucy. But, like... She literally gave him a bloody nose. She gave him injuries. That's not acceptable behavior, and if Mike wanted to break things off, he was 100% allowed for his own mental health. You're not obligated to be anyone's caretaker. Especially when you're a kid.

I mentioned being the Mike to a Lucy. Actually, two of them, one was less of an outright asshole but was still toxic in his own way. (No points for guessing they came from the same social circle.) When I broke things off with each of them, I kept things quick, matter of fact, and straightforward without going any attempt to make any hurtful actions. I explained to each of them why I didn't want to be friends with them anymore, why their actions had hurt me, and then I cut contact and left it at that. Blunt maybe, but I didn't do anything intentionally meant to be hurtful.

So, when Mike began to explain to Lucy all the ways she hurt him, I completely understood. But, uh...

You know. Then that part happened. And suddenly I wasn't so sympathetic to Mike anymore. Mike knew. Mike KNEW Lucy's insecurities and actively used them to HURT HER. Does that make him just as bad as Lucy or worse? Lucy genuinely seemed oblivious that what she was doing was harmful, Mike had no reason to say this except to dig a knife into her insecurities. Both are bad, I'm not excusing Lucy's behavior, but this just feels so much more planned and malicious, like Mike's pent up hatred drove him down to Lucy's level and below.

And then pretty much everything after that is Mike's own fault. He's exceedingly unsympathetic in how he's had SO MANY chances to learn from his mistakes and from the reactions of people around him to his actions, and he just hasn't. Even when he know it's a problem, and he just keeps giving in to that cycle. Sure, it's not an easy cycle for him to break out of, but it IS his responsibility to fix, and he has only taken steps backward so far.

So, in summary: Mike is still an asshole, but I felt the need to point out that him being an asshole at the very start was really just him finally getting tired of toxic behavior. The problem was him becoming toxic in turn and thus far failing to do anything about it.

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Hey am I the only one who's kind of uncomfortable with Lucy's sudden turnaround with jumping straight onto both Augustus AND Paulo!? I might be the only one, but it's kind of feeling like Lucy's being thrown under the bus character development-wise to maybe make Mike seem a bit more forgivable in comparison. Like, in one page all those rants Mike had about Lucy... Doesn't seem so far-off now that she's working her way through all her friends. It'll be disappointing if she has a lonely breakdown

This makes the assumption that therapy makes you immune to having your heart broken.

I think the difference between then and this time is it isn't just Mike anymore; Lucy has other people, especially those more than willing to help her and help manage her feelings. Lucy is showing signs of what we would initially suspect is regressive behaviour, but I think it's just a moment of weakness stemming from the result of another one where her independence is being questioned. The others around her are preventing her regressing. She's absolutely growing by having the others support her. These moments are also crucial to learning she didn't become an entirely different person when she returned to Roseville. She's the same old Lucy, but now she has friends and support from more than one person.

The point of the last few chapters was to show that Lucy absolutely still harboured deep feelings about Mike even despite her absence. Everything that happened earlier where Lucy appeared to want to have absolutely nothing to do with anyone let alone her friends was a façade and a way to cope and manage herself in a way that protected her from them. She made predictions about her friends having ulterior motives (if Mike was right), which proved out to be wrong, but that prediction being rendered false made her lower her defenses expecting the same from Mike when she learned that Sandy was no longer a factor in their relationship, only to be heart-broken when she finds herself used and the result of a rebound. Her prediction about Mike turned out to be true.

So, yes, Lucy would rebound when the revelation came to light, she's had her heart broken and I suppose it's the third time considering. But the difference between last time and this time is that Lucy has confided her feelings between Augustus and Jordan. Augustus more so and is able to manage her before things go too far and he's able to confront Mike about it afterwards to protect her. After everything she did for him, there is no way he's going to allow her to hurt herself.

She isn't regressing because of that factor, she isn't being allowed to. So while we are seeing moments of weakness, Lucy IS developing because there are others to help manage her feelings.

We're seeing two more moments of weaknesses in this recent chapter as Lucy attempts to try to salvage her independence from Augustus and Jordan given an earlier moment of weakness. The other is that while she is appearing to rebound to the same person she rebounded to the first time, she's found he's moved on from her from no less a result of her own actions, leaving her one less person to gravitate towards romantically, if things do happen to go that far.

Honestly can't wait for the next few pages to see what happens.

I don't think people will consider forgiving Mike until he forgives himself and pulls the pin on Sandy. Letting go is going to be one of his biggest accomplishments.

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UGGGHH I'M DYING OVER HOW WHOLESOME THIS IS.

Man I know folks have had their takes on how the kids are handling this topic in this conversation, and that's all valid, but also I don't think this is a situation where any of them can be wrong or right. They are teenagers who are literally not qualified or educated to handle Lucy's mental/emotional concerns, they're doing it because they care about her. Having been in that position, I can confirm that shit can be way more damaging to yourself than helpful to the other person depending on how things go, and I honestly think this whole thing is going about as well as you can hope a bunch of kids can manage.

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i seriously hope people don`t think lucy is in the right here because this no healthy way to react to someone caring about you... i mean she said it like it was a mischief what she did instead of something horrible

i think a teenager responding this way to a bunch of people noticing that she's doing badly & it being Extra Emphasized that she had a previous suicide attempt is... pretty understandable, actually

yes, augustus and jordan are both coming from a good place here! they're concerned about her, care about her feelings, and don't want to write them off as unimportant based. they're making sure that she is cared for so nothing bad happens to her.

but it's easy to see that from her perspective they're crowding her, making a scene, and doing the rough equivalent of babysitting her. it doesn't seem to me like jordan and augustus could have handled this any more calmly or quietly than they already are, but Everyone in the watching group Knows What Happened. it's embarrassing to have made the choice to hurt yourself in the past. it's embarrassing to need help. it's embarrassing, especially, to have a bunch of people you aren't close or comfortable with have their eyes on you while someone else makes it obvious that you could be a danger to yourself again. especially with all of the stigma around depression / suicide attempts / etc.

it's not necessarily that she's in the right -- it would probably be easier for her and others if she had accepted quietly that they were going to come with her, and then had a discussion about better ways for them to show their support elsewhere. it's not necessarily that this is healthy, either -- but i wouldn't say it's necessarily healthy OR unhealthy. it's understandable.