I really enjoy the interpersonal interactions and relatio ships in your work. I think it's brilliantly done and extremely thoughtful. But I really struggle with the way the fandom interprets these interactions? Theres so much misogyny in what the comments consider to be evil behavior, what they consider acceptable, what gets to be something that you can grow from and what permanently labels you as toxic at the ripe old age of like, 13. Like Lucy having sex with Paulo to tide him over. We don't explicitly see what she said besides inviting him to make out, what promises were made, if any, or whay Paulo experienced. Because of that, I think its best to just say they had sex and nothing else, but so many commenters act like Lucy did something heinous, like she personally ripped Paulo's heart out. Why does he have no agency in seeing how obviously unwell she had been for weeks at that point? Why does no one acknowledge that he should have seen how hollow and empty she was? With Mike, the same commenters get up in arms about his friends not doing anything about seeing his mental health deteriorating. Why are they supposed to be vigilante for him, but not for Lucy?
And in relation to the recent events of the comic, with her going to Mike for comfort, Lucy is experiencing mental anguish at least equal to what Mike is going through and extremely good reasons to not be able to reach out to her friends for help, but there's absolutely no patience or understanding afforded to her. They scold her like she's doing something bad, when she is suffering from what looks like a pretty extreme episode. They roll their eyes at her pain and lament how it negatively affects Mike, who is by all means living in a hell of his own creation.
How do you handle the constant villanization of your female characters, or, if not that extreme, the general lack of empathy for these girls? I love your characters, and I adore their faults and their growth, but I think I lose my mind a little more every time I see someone treat Lucy (or Sandy even!!) like she is the most evil character ever.
Veronica: I pretty much just find myself laughing over some takes and comments and being like “misogyny is one hell of a drug” because what else can you do when you’re just seeing the result of what society pushes towards you from a young age!
Like it’s hard to feel like I’m doing something wrong! The point of this arc is literally to challenge people’s empathy, and yeah that means people are inevitably going to fail the challenge. That’s part of it being a challenge! That’s why I can’t really do anything else but laugh, haha.
But yeah it’s been crazy to see the change in real-time from “Mike is self-inflicting his current nightmare” to “Lucy single-handedly maneuvered Like in the Sand and is the entire reason Mike is alone now”
Like Mike!!! Can talk!! To Felix!!!!!!!!! Paulo sought Mike to help him and Mike redirected him!! To!! Lucy!! What would have happened if Mike didn’t do that! That’s the real answer people don’t seem to come to because they’re too busy calling Lucy a bitch and an evil mastermind who ruined poor innocent Mike’s life.
You’re meant to feel bad for both of them! Both of them are meant to be frustrating! But also.. there’s a lot of hurt they’re actually doing to themselves. Both Mike and Lucy.
At the end of the day, when you get down to it, Mike has an attentive girlfriend who loves him trying to make amends for her past behaviour he doesn’t talk to, friends who love him he doesn’t talk to, family who love him he doesn’t talk to, and Lucy is doing the same (minus the uhh partner lol)
Like do people really think if Mike walked over to Paulo right now like “I’m thinking of killing myself” that Paulo would let that happen? Be for realllll guys! It’s not that easy to blame Lucy for everything!
