BCB - Bittersweet Candy Bowl

Oh. I thought there'd be some reason Mike felt bad, like he overheard Augustus trying to comfort Lucy or something.
But it's just that Lucy exists, therefor others are miserable.

He's just as much a security blanket to her as he was to Lucy. Sandy just wants Mike around when she's feeling nostalgic.

Using his apple to try to the reset switch on the back of Mike's head that normally only gets pushed at the end of a chapter, that's smart.

He's probably listening to whatever they're saying, we just don't know because AMBIGUITY

I dislike how close this feels to a sperg Mike set up

Attached: 1651518221118.png (304x275, 100.35K)

Well, the page implies that Lucy's right arm is shaking and when Lucy jumped she fell on her right side, so that's what's causing said shaking

Attached: ketchup_spill.jpg (1519x866, 422.58K)

Sure, user. Let's stop making up excuses, he's staring at Lucy's boobs and we all know it.

That would be too much galaxy brain for this comic.

This bitch should have a titanium rod up her spine and walk funny from her ketchup-spilling adventures.

Now trying to say random tremors is the result of The Great Heinz Spill of 2017 is bs. We all know her plot-armor was too thick for her to have any lasting consequences of jumping off a three story building!

God this shit is so predictable. After months and months of reading there is absolutely nothing that ever surprises me about this comic. It's all the same recycled bullshit, with the same story beats, same predictable character interactions..

Yeah, but Paulo's hopes keep getting raised and dashed, does Lucy owe him a genuine chance? Admittedly this is something of a bad faith argument on my part, since in my opinion Paulo is laughably dumb for continuing to fall for Lucy's chicanery, but the idea that Mike owed Lucy is directly contradictory to the way Lucy treats Paulo.

Also it's a nice encapsulation of why Mike >>> Lucy. Mike raised his stalker's hopes before falling back into a miserable status quo and sees it as a failure on his part, whereas Lucy does the same thing and sees it as some woe-is-me sacrifice.

Still perhaps the clumsiest plot point in this entire comic. So easily fixed for the average reader, so nonsensical to anyone but Taeshi.

>He notices Mike's not eating and implies it's been a regular occurrence lately
Got to keep a lid on Mike's anime powers somehow. If mental blocks aren't enough, there's always malnutrition.

Sperg Mike has more of a wind-up where he gets sour first. So far, Tired Mike coincides more with a depressive state of introspection and self-blame.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, with no prior signs? That does sound like a Taeshi move alright.

After years of we finally got to see what Paulo and Lucy said to eachother while they were alone before play, so it's not to far-fetched that we see some of the physical consequences of Lucy's jump

>so it's not to far-fetched that we see some of the physical consequences of Lucy's jump
Yes it is. She's been walking around just fine and even doing taekwondo with no sign of ailment.

While I agree with you you have to take into account Polo is "Lord of fucking up his intentions" so I wouldn't be surprised if he ribbed Mike to that point

I'm pretty sure it's just a way to show Lucy is emotionally upset and is shaking rather then a result of her ketchup-incident.

Exactly, this bitch is in better shape than before she jumped off a building.

The only consequences of her jumping off a building was a week in the hospital psych ward, then going to a private school for 9 months or something.

She never went to therapy, mental or physical and just has to be inconvenienced by her family being weary to leave her alone. But not because they are being mean or anything, they just love her SOOOO much! She's just gotta be tsundere towards them too because "reasons". Though almost always gets a nice ego boost and affection from them regardless of how angsty she is about them caring too much.

He really should've paid attention to what she was saying

Attached: shouldreadtexts.png (1600x2210, 3.86M)

>I think he feels bad about nearly fucking her under that tree and then taking Sandy back less than an hour later.

What's funny is Mike getting back with Sandy could have been done in an acceptable way. All Sandy had to do was threaten to do something to herself if Mike left her and she'd have him. Sandy already cheated so you might as well have her go full villain, even if she's just a frantic mess when she puts it out there.

Taeshi had the route to an easy slam dunk and she didn't even get in the air. She just tripped and fell on her face at the three point line.

>He totally raised her expectations and then completely crushed her revived hopes and dreams of getting the grey barb.

This is what happened but at the same time, Lucy would have gotten off way to easily is things were just dandy after that. She did nothing but pick and screw with Mike since her return and that "I never meant to hurt you" speech at the tree was a crock of boiling bullshit. For them to have any chance of even being basic friends again, she needs to realize how badly she fucked up before and after her suicide attempt and work to fix it.

More likely he'll just drive Mike deeper into depression or push him into self-loathing. Alternatively, it's just a nothing page where Paulo demonstrates his friendlier attitude and perks Mike up in the short term so the comic can suckerpunch him in the gut. Most likely of all, Lucy sees Paulo being buddy-buddy with Mike and her spiteful victim complex intensifies. Oh, er, I mean we get another reason to feel sorry for her. Yeah, that's totally it.

Attached: 1444330223285.jpg (460x322, 16.92K)

Next page: Mike is sitting in his room alone when his phone vibrates. Believing it's Sandy, he picks up the phone with a twinge of happiness. But it's not a message from Sandy. Augustus has made a selfie video of himself pissing in Lucy's mouth and sent it to Mike using her phone.

Attached: peace-was-never-an-option.png (736x414, 350.69K)

Made the comic immensely better. Sandy isn't allowed to be sympathetic or complex in any way. She has to be the vapid shallow bimbo foil to Lucy's inner enigmatic machinations.

Still, that would be fucking hilarious if that's what she actually said and Mike just tuned all the shit out.

This is the closest we will ever get to a Lucy apology. All she says is that Mike was right to hate her after pushing/slapping and yelling at him 3x over.

He gives her the sappy story of being cheated on and missing her and she quickly slides into being all buddy buddy with him to cheer him up to sucking his face

It's funny how the only thing they seem to have in common is being emotional punching bags for one another and sometimes (but not anymore) playing video games.

Attached: 46.png (800x1105, 430.55K)

The lazy beanface always looks awful, but from the front it's especially ugly. Strong evidence that Taeshi no longer self-critiques.

where's the funny

>quickly
Mike had to literally latch onto Lucy before she even bothered trying to console him, something she was trying to get out of at every turn. It's easy to read everything she eventually said as empty words meant to mollify so she could go the fuck home. Kind of like how she put up with Sue and threw up a front.

this probably would have worked better if they never actually talked until this point. Either it happens not long after she comes back or they just dont get a chance to talk at all for various reasons instead of her stupid girlboss shit and going out of her way to mess with him.

What a shame that Mike forgot to turn his super hearing on for this scene. It would've been really nice to know what Lucy said.

As with a lot of recent developments, I'm tentatively glad that Tae is touching on Mike's guilt, but this should've been done ages ago, preferably replacing sperg Mike purgatory.

>Paulo responds by throwing his apple at him
Faceslam 2: Electric Boogaloo

Mike's anime powers function strictly on the basis of narrative convenience. Much like the rest of this comic nowadays.

>Kind of like how she put up with Sue
No, not really. Word of God says she initiated the kiss, for one, and the morning after, she was in one of the best moods we've seen her in. Her feelings for Mike were buried, but her not giving a shit about Sue is genuine.

You want funny? Maybe we can shove David somewhere uncomfortable to be a non character, that'll do

Will the patreons/discords goons take pity on Mike and understand how shitty of a person Lucy is?

The bit about Frances makes me think she called him, got turned down, then came back running.

rent free

That happened only after Mike dropped is scarf line and Lucy splooshed her panties. Up to that point, the two situations were fairly identical. I do agree that Lucy does not give a flying fuck about Sue and that her feelings toward Mike were buried, not that her approaches differed much if at all.

The phone call was so underwhelming in giving any actual reason or motive for Sandy's sudden turn around that I'm starting to think luggage lad asked Taeshi to keep it out not because of "ambiguity" but because it would only male things worse
>ghost your boyfriend because you're cheating on him, tell him to his face you enjoy the other guy's company and shared interest more, and that getting angry about him is completely unfair
>this is a call very early in the morning at a moment where she couldn't have just strolled out of her room and face something that made her change her mind, and she was having a photo session in a few hours unless that was a lie to try and shut Mike up
>out of nowhere guilt made her dump the hetero hairdresser, cancel some work appointments which her mom would be killing her for, and take Mike back into her life within a few hours
Mike taking her back aside it just doesn't make sense, Taeshi should have at least made Sandy wait until next day

I seriously doubt it. Today's patreon comments are not pure Mike-bashing, but it is still quite present. If this chapter arrives at a direct Mike vs Lucy situation, my expectation is that almost all of them will side with Lucy as per usual.

>Today's patreon comments are not pure Mike-bashing, but it is still quite present.
the only one that could remotely be construed as anything negative is "I am SO HAPPY that Mike's not getting to self-isolate. Poor boy needs a friend and to stay away from Lucy and hopefully break up with Sandy." and its still sympathetic
i cant imagine what you'd get out of lying about this

>i cant imagine what you'd get out of lying about this
Indeed

Attached: verysympathetic.png (747x115, 8.49K)

I doubt it. Mike's still the devil to them. Remember how quickly they flipped on Paulo last chapter only for them to be upset he didn't do anything to Mike over Lucy leaving?

Imagine bald-faced lying about something any rando could easily look up. I just do not understand.

Attached: thesheersympathy.png (703x112, 8.06K)

Such a mystery.

Attached: feelthelove.png (631x171, 11.91K)

Too many people self insert as Lucy to realize she's wrong. It doesn't help that Taeshi put the narrative in her favor for years and spent 5 years writing Mike horribly.

she'll never fully redeem him in their eyes or make them realize Lucy isn't the girl needing their sympathy like they think.

>today's patreon comments
these are mild at worst, who gives a shit. go on the patreon if you want to bitch about the patreon all the fucking time and stop sperging about it here

How can someone self-insert as a character that has no POV? From an external perspective Lucy comes across as a selfish, manipulative asshole, and we've barely seen anything from her side to counteract that.

The story's also set up to give Lucy a huge pile of excuses for her behavior, many of which involve Mike fucking something up. No matter what she does, it can always either be because Mike traumatized her or because her friends/family just can't give her "the help she needs."

I usually see it in the form of women projecting some asshole guy they know/used to know onto Mike/Paulo/whoever Lucy has a problem with and then attaching themselves to Lucy as a result. She doesn't need a POV to be a perpetual victim.

Precisely because she's an empty shell whose main characteristics are "everyone loves her and bends over for her", "gets to get away with whatever she does" and "is a victim who is wronged by everyone else". She's walking plot armor and what would a teenager want more than to be in her place? She threw herself off a building and got better, she gets to be shitty and still have the last word, her family bends over for her and all she has to do to disarm the situation is yell and be a victim

Attached: 1651779823150.png (382x606, 282.37K)

Because she barely suffers any consequences and gets rewarded more than punished. Any POV stuff someone could make up in their own mind to justify how she acts. The fanbase already makes anyone that goes against Lucy to be worse than they really are. They can give themselves a free pass on her bullshit.

>nuh uh there's no negativity you liar
>th-that doesn't count!
>go spend money to bitch where bitching isn't allowed
>stop complaining about these particular retards all the time
>and by all the time i mean just now
Could you please go back and send one of your more intelligent and interesting comrades instead? That'd be swell.

Attached: +_e3a8de562cbab10a3494de3daaa4db3e.png (2000x1400, 689.69K)

>women projecting some asshole guy they know/used to know onto Mike/Paulo/whoever Lucy has a problem with and then attaching themselves to Lucy as a result.
This has been the standard response anytime the question gets asked on the discord. A bunch of teenage girls who went through shit enjoy Lucy as a sympathetic power fantasy. Some of them are pretty toxic, hyper-judgemental individuals, so I wouldn't be shocked if their relationship problems were at least partly self-inflicted.

try again when you dont spend every single fucking thread shitting your pants over the patreon and discord. the only time i have any idea what they have to say about anything is when you come in to tattle on them for everybody. why dont you go find out what reddit has to say about the page too? kill yourself

Should Paulo tell him about fucking Lucy

Friend Besto, you are the only one filling their pantaloons here. Have you considered not blowing a gasket over a random gaggle of retards getting mocked on Yea Forums? Or else you might continue being associated with them for obvious reasons.

Sure, why not? There is no reason for Mike to feel bad that Lucy finally got some from her earliest crush.

jesus christ you talk like a faggot, you have to go back. i hate summer so much

I don't really see Paulo mentioning it unless it's to boast, and even when he was in a position to boast he didn't

Request denied. Thank you for handing me full command of your emotional state. That was a very wise choice.

Attached: 1413574843355.png (297x310, 38.57K)

>Lucy does not give a flying fuck about Sue

Attached: y.png (293x267, 112.36K)

When everyone who dared to offer constructive criticism ended up getting expunged by baglad, are you surprised?

At least Sue getting hit with the reset button over and over again means her self-righteous condescension and presumptuous attitude will factor into Taeshi's ancient plotpoints. There's an arc for Sue in there somewhere.

The funny is that somewhere there's a author who is proud of that page since they made it.

Innocuous observations sometimes get offered but is quickly drowned out by a chorus of excuse-making and affirmations of quality from the peanut gallery.

And how do you think they cultivated that?

Based on Taeshi's commentary, I suspect the only reason she put in effort for the last two pages is because they serve as a Sandy dunking platform.

I'm just pointing out how the situation is even more Stalin-esque than first implied.

I could see it coming up if Paulo finds out about the Eternal Flame kiss, but it depends on the circumstances. I hope the chapter description means that a lot of secrets get out to the entire group.

Thread is spergier than usual I see.

How do you think Mike will make it up to Lucy? He very clearly looks guilty/ feels bad for her and wants to help, but he made a promise.