chloe *actually* considering saying something to her about how clair Has Been, but probably knowing that clair will just shut her down or harass her about it or get defensive or whatever else. girls not good at vulnerability and for damn good reason
Once again we see that Chloe cannot and will not directly address her feelings and will misdirect with comedy to avoid doing so. Clair doesn’t meet Chloe at her level and this Chloe doesn’t feel safe to address these feelings the way she does with Pepper, who isn’t afraid to do so.
i’m still thinking about the shines of their hair, with chloe having a jagged shine, following the spikey shape of her hair, while clair has these bubble-like shapes showing a roundness to the form. before i talked about how they’re sorta like tiaras that are on backwards, but now that i’m looking at these shots, a very different idea came to mind.
before i said that clair’s hair shines sorta seemed like a chain of beads or something. but now? now they give me the vibe of teeth, with her usual hair color filling the space where the gums would go. and of course, my nerd ass, pattern-seeking self, looked to chloe with that perspective. and though i dont necessarily see chloe’s hair shine looking like sharp teeth, i CAN see it as the gap BETWEEN a set of sharp chompers, like her hair is this monster that’s got its mouth slightly open, teeth parted, maybe smiling?
i mean as it is now i wouldnt suggest any of this is on purpose, but i got the idea in my head and i could totally see it happening in the future depending on where the imagery goes. like chloe and clair’s heads splitting open in some freaky body horror segment where these hair-skull-brain beasts need to sink their respective teeth into something and consume without end. and for as wild as this is, i suppose it WOULD explain why the world down below looks like its been chomped into everywhere
OOUGH. Great jumping off point to say deranged things. I realized that while Chloe’s got exactly 2 entire colors in her clothing pallet. Clair is by far, the *most complicated* to draw, purely because of the very complex shading.
Personally I feel like this is a really good representation of how the two approach things. Clair will put her entire pussy into her work, to the point of over-complicating things for herself. A large array of colors on her hair and clothes to highlight every part of her light, almost luminescent hair, the way her halo casts a shadow, and her very loose flowy dress. She cares a lot about how she’s perceived. Maybe *too much.*
Chloe wont bother with something if she can’t do it in 30 seconds or less. More than TWO COLORS?! Thats WORK. :chloe-say: She give a rats ass how people view her.. maybe even cares.. *too little.*
Sorry for rambling on you im done
Love how we can see the lighthouse, achilles’ rosebushes, AND the stussy s all in the background. This might be the first time we’ve actually seen where all these things are in relation to each other
I feel like this is kind of clair’s way of saying sorry, and also kind of her way of saying “I deserve to be torn up, let me have it.” chloe probably knows both of those things. so her reaction is a good sign between them
Clair really does set herself up for disappointment and resentment putting the responsibility on Chloe to suddenly be serious when she should just own up and admit fault.. Chloe is trying to communicate with that “You have a funny way of showing it” comment to express how insulted and disrespected she felt about not even being allowed to have a book without Clair trying to take control of the situation in kind of a cowardly backhanded way, and Clair dodged that and moved the goalposts like “Nope, I won’t hear it until you say it right”
Like man… Of course Chloes checked out of trying to salvage this
This is a very good interpretation, though i feel like clair isnt being necessarily obstinate, not saying literally “say it how i want to hear it” but more failing to recognize that chloe is ALREADY trying to open up to her. She says “if you have anything to say… ill listen” but doesnt seem to realize that chloe had JUST said something to her, in her own veiled-in-comedy way.
I absolutely love the way that this comic portrays the struggle between people. Rarely in life is there ever a real good / bad dichotomy between two people who struggle to get along. If you are always fighting with someone and you go to therapy expecting your therapist to tell you that the other person is just bad and mean and doesnt really get you, then you’ll be disappointed. The struggles between us are often borne of small misunderstandings that the other person doesnt see in quite the same light. Often times both people in the argument are at fault in their own ways, and cannot move forward because they refuse to acknowledge the part they play in the conflict. Clair is clearly at fault for making chloe feel unwelcome. She resorts to manipulative methods to try to get chloe to do what she thinks is best for her. While she clearly has good intentions at heart, she does not see the fact that what she is doing is only pushing chloe away, and is toxic and manipulative. Still, she recognizes, to a point, that she is not doing what she intends to, and feels remorse for that. She tries to give chloe opportunities to tell her what she should do to make chloe feel more welcome. Meanwhile, chloe feels persecuted by clair. She feels, perhaps, as if everyone wants her to be something that she isnt, or dislikes her for what she is. She wants desperately to be cared for and accepted for who she is, but does not understand why she isnt good enough, and adopts a rough and uncaring attitude so as to not have to address her feelings. This however, prevents her from telling clair what she truly feels, only perpetuating her own cycle of abuse. She is incapable of seeing that it is not only clairs problems holding her back, but also her own, and so becomes hostile toward clair, and belligerant to her genuine attempts at communication. These small misunderstandings hold them back from finally reconciling, and seeing that they only want the best for eachother. To grow as a person, one must address the ways that they themselves can be better before addressing the problems of others.
As a certified Clair hater, it really grinds my gears seeing her always want Chloe’s affection as if she’s entitled to it somehow. It’s frustrating to se Clair fumble constantly and then act like it’s everyone elses fault.:mars-what:
I get that she acts like its her obligation to control how chloe feels and what she sees but ive never seen what she does as entitled, more just horribly misguided. She even admits that she hasnt been the best she can be in panel 2 and tells chloe she can express her feelings to her and tell her whats wrong right there. That doesnt sound like acting like its “everyone elses fault” to me, especially when chloe takes said opportunity to insult her for being friends with someone. I think maybe she feels like shes the only one who cares about being better.
i have to say it kind of shocks us how consistently hostile this comments section is to clair* when this comic is explicitly an allegorical story about trauma responses. like, as gently as possible, of course she is overbearing and overcontrolling and *desperately trying to prevent the others from registering what happened*. she is very familiar to us.
(*this is sincerely not a response to anyone in particular, it is such a dominant sentiment)
i suspect the immediate response to this comment, should anyone care enough to reply, will be something like “uh, trauma isn’t an EXCUSE to mistreat people”. and like, first of all no it isn’t. but clair is trying very hard to keep something unsustainable together— she is protecting chloe *at all costs*, very much including detriment to herself. second of all, the thing she is mistreating people about — the mistreatment itself — *is* the trauma response??? she and everyone she knows is an allegory for some kind of ingrained response to trauma, and the thing she is being overbearing and weird about is *the awareness of what happened*? i just feel like this is kind of special circumstances??
anyway. we see a lot of our most abjectly hurt aspects in clair. the lack of empathy for her is not only hard to watch but sort of surprising given the explicitly laid out subject matter of the comic. and dumb as it might be i really do wish people would give her more grace. she’s not a machiavellian sicko mastermind who’s doing this out of an inherent love for manipulation, she’s trying desperately to keep a house of cards stable because the alternative is unthinkable.
Thank you! this is exactly what ive been feeling! watching everyone act like its a football game and chloe is the scrappy underdog who everyone wants to root for. It just feels so weird to me when you can see pretty easily that theyre both struggling to be honest and kind to eachother in their own ways.
Yeah, tbh I think because the comic presents Chloe as definitely a victim of some kind of trauma, whereas we only know by implication that Clair has either the same or similar baggage, and because she is the more passive of the pair, it’s easier to continue seeing her as the definitive victim in the conflicts we see downstream, and thus the people we see her in conflict with as definitive aggressors. And also perhaps because Chloe’s general vibe of “funny rebel who is sad underneath” is more relatable to many readers than Clair’s uptight control freak thing? I think it’s completely fair to think Chloe is more in the right in this or even all of their fights, but I’m sort of baffled by people seeing, say, the scene where Clair cries to Achilles that she knows she makes mistakes but Chloe always punishes her for them, especially combined with the implication in the fort that Clair is not the one causing the Bad Thing on the abandoned layers, and going “well obviously she is The Bad One.” Even beyond the shades of gray of what we know, obviously there is more to their history and the context of their relationship that will illuminate why Clair behaves the way she does about Chloe (and vice versa, of course).
I also think people forget that while Pepper was correct that Chloe never asked for any of this, we see on the very first page something that Pepper did not: Clair didn’t exactly drag her kicking and screaming into Halo Head! Clair told Chloe what she was offering her and what it was for, Chloe clearly mocked Clair for the effort and the idea, and then accepted anyway. Chloe is not a completely innocent person who is getting accosted by Clair who refuses to leave her alone; hell, the interaction that kicked off the huge fight was Chloe, upset about Pepper and Mars and the unflattering comparison to Peachykeen, pelted Clair and her house with peaches completely unprompted. The idea that either one is clearly the victim or the aggressor consistently across the board and the idea that the only growth Chloe needs to demonstrate is remembering the trauma and dumping her toxic friend just… isn’t what the comic shows.
Putting aside how well you portray the conflict of outlooks, needs and contrasts between people… it still bums me out how disproportionately the uncharitable interpretations of intent / etc get levelled at Clair from viewers.
Still hoping there’ll be real catharsis for her too at some point. Its one thing for the characters to not see the cracks, but for viewers to so often assume unflattering things, to a degree not shown with other characters weaknesses? Egh. Gives me a very specific flavour of ache.
I love that both of them are so so flawed. Chloe HAD a chance to talk, but chose a low blow joke. But we don’t know how many times clair has told her that exact thing before and not meant it. My mother pulled the ‘if you have anything to say, I’ll listen’ card couuuuntless times but it always ended in an hour long lecture and bitterness. Maybe chloe isn’t risking that anymore. But I love how messy they both are :chloe-XC: :mewww:
chloe *actually* considering saying something to her about how clair Has Been, but probably knowing that clair will just shut her down or harass her about it or get defensive or whatever else. girls not good at vulnerability and for damn good reason
Yeah, that checks out. :3
It seems she’s expecting Chloe to apologize while knowing she was in the wring but refusing to acknowledge her blame
I mean, she’s not even wrong.
Once again we see that Chloe cannot and will not directly address her feelings and will misdirect with comedy to avoid doing so. Clair doesn’t meet Chloe at her level and this Chloe doesn’t feel safe to address these feelings the way she does with Pepper, who isn’t afraid to do so.
not to mention chloe had already started to open up to her in the bathroom but clair messed up that bonding moment with the book
i’m still thinking about the shines of their hair, with chloe having a jagged shine, following the spikey shape of her hair, while clair has these bubble-like shapes showing a roundness to the form. before i talked about how they’re sorta like tiaras that are on backwards, but now that i’m looking at these shots, a very different idea came to mind.
before i said that clair’s hair shines sorta seemed like a chain of beads or something. but now? now they give me the vibe of teeth, with her usual hair color filling the space where the gums would go. and of course, my nerd ass, pattern-seeking self, looked to chloe with that perspective. and though i dont necessarily see chloe’s hair shine looking like sharp teeth, i CAN see it as the gap BETWEEN a set of sharp chompers, like her hair is this monster that’s got its mouth slightly open, teeth parted, maybe smiling?
i mean as it is now i wouldnt suggest any of this is on purpose, but i got the idea in my head and i could totally see it happening in the future depending on where the imagery goes. like chloe and clair’s heads splitting open in some freaky body horror segment where these hair-skull-brain beasts need to sink their respective teeth into something and consume without end. and for as wild as this is, i suppose it WOULD explain why the world down below looks like its been chomped into everywhere
point in this theory’s favor is that batty REALLY likes drawing precisely-rendered mouths in this comic.
OOUGH. Great jumping off point to say deranged things. I realized that while Chloe’s got exactly 2 entire colors in her clothing pallet. Clair is by far, the *most complicated* to draw, purely because of the very complex shading.
Personally I feel like this is a really good representation of how the two approach things. Clair will put her entire pussy into her work, to the point of over-complicating things for herself. A large array of colors on her hair and clothes to highlight every part of her light, almost luminescent hair, the way her halo casts a shadow, and her very loose flowy dress. She cares a lot about how she’s perceived. Maybe *too much.*
Chloe wont bother with something if she can’t do it in 30 seconds or less. More than TWO COLORS?! Thats WORK. :chloe-say: She give a rats ass how people view her.. maybe even cares.. *too little.*
Sorry for rambling on you im done
To be fair, there is a lot wrong with Claire, but then again there’s a lot wrong with all of us.
Reminds me of the saying: we’re more alike than we are different.
I AM BEING CALLED OUT SPECIFICALLY IN THIS ONE. :achilles-serious:
OUGHHH THEY MAKE ME SO SAD BUT SHES SO FUNNY OUGHHH
traumady accomplished!
The face Clair makes in the second panel reminds me of the expression Chloe does in the second panel of page 421
https://halo-head.com/comic/421-do-you-think/
Good catch, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s another intentional callback.
her EYE????????
oh. nevermind. i think i’m just hallucinating.
Girl—do YOU have anything to say??
Love how we can see the lighthouse, achilles’ rosebushes, AND the stussy s all in the background. This might be the first time we’ve actually seen where all these things are in relation to each other
Yeah who could possibly relate to him. Cant think of a single person. Nope
(SHE’S TALKING TO YOU, JAMES)
I too am one of these freaks who relates to Achilles! :achilles-wonder:
Olive branch swatted.
Dark Souls typeface:
Panels 2 and 3 are yuri. It’s not just me right
So near and yet so far.
Loving the morning palette in these last couple of strips.
I feel like this is kind of clair’s way of saying sorry, and also kind of her way of saying “I deserve to be torn up, let me have it.” chloe probably knows both of those things. so her reaction is a good sign between them
this reads to me as Clair trying to say “I don’t know how to apologize. Yell at me so we land in familiar territory again.”
Clair really does set herself up for disappointment and resentment putting the responsibility on Chloe to suddenly be serious when she should just own up and admit fault.. Chloe is trying to communicate with that “You have a funny way of showing it” comment to express how insulted and disrespected she felt about not even being allowed to have a book without Clair trying to take control of the situation in kind of a cowardly backhanded way, and Clair dodged that and moved the goalposts like “Nope, I won’t hear it until you say it right”
Like man… Of course Chloes checked out of trying to salvage this
This is a very good interpretation, though i feel like clair isnt being necessarily obstinate, not saying literally “say it how i want to hear it” but more failing to recognize that chloe is ALREADY trying to open up to her. She says “if you have anything to say… ill listen” but doesnt seem to realize that chloe had JUST said something to her, in her own veiled-in-comedy way.
I absolutely love the way that this comic portrays the struggle between people. Rarely in life is there ever a real good / bad dichotomy between two people who struggle to get along. If you are always fighting with someone and you go to therapy expecting your therapist to tell you that the other person is just bad and mean and doesnt really get you, then you’ll be disappointed. The struggles between us are often borne of small misunderstandings that the other person doesnt see in quite the same light. Often times both people in the argument are at fault in their own ways, and cannot move forward because they refuse to acknowledge the part they play in the conflict. Clair is clearly at fault for making chloe feel unwelcome. She resorts to manipulative methods to try to get chloe to do what she thinks is best for her. While she clearly has good intentions at heart, she does not see the fact that what she is doing is only pushing chloe away, and is toxic and manipulative. Still, she recognizes, to a point, that she is not doing what she intends to, and feels remorse for that. She tries to give chloe opportunities to tell her what she should do to make chloe feel more welcome. Meanwhile, chloe feels persecuted by clair. She feels, perhaps, as if everyone wants her to be something that she isnt, or dislikes her for what she is. She wants desperately to be cared for and accepted for who she is, but does not understand why she isnt good enough, and adopts a rough and uncaring attitude so as to not have to address her feelings. This however, prevents her from telling clair what she truly feels, only perpetuating her own cycle of abuse. She is incapable of seeing that it is not only clairs problems holding her back, but also her own, and so becomes hostile toward clair, and belligerant to her genuine attempts at communication. These small misunderstandings hold them back from finally reconciling, and seeing that they only want the best for eachother. To grow as a person, one must address the ways that they themselves can be better before addressing the problems of others.
Both of these women have built very tall walls around their emotions
As a certified Clair hater, it really grinds my gears seeing her always want Chloe’s affection as if she’s entitled to it somehow. It’s frustrating to se Clair fumble constantly and then act like it’s everyone elses fault.:mars-what:
I get that she acts like its her obligation to control how chloe feels and what she sees but ive never seen what she does as entitled, more just horribly misguided. She even admits that she hasnt been the best she can be in panel 2 and tells chloe she can express her feelings to her and tell her whats wrong right there. That doesnt sound like acting like its “everyone elses fault” to me, especially when chloe takes said opportunity to insult her for being friends with someone. I think maybe she feels like shes the only one who cares about being better.
i have to say it kind of shocks us how consistently hostile this comments section is to clair* when this comic is explicitly an allegorical story about trauma responses. like, as gently as possible, of course she is overbearing and overcontrolling and *desperately trying to prevent the others from registering what happened*. she is very familiar to us.
(*this is sincerely not a response to anyone in particular, it is such a dominant sentiment)
i suspect the immediate response to this comment, should anyone care enough to reply, will be something like “uh, trauma isn’t an EXCUSE to mistreat people”. and like, first of all no it isn’t. but clair is trying very hard to keep something unsustainable together— she is protecting chloe *at all costs*, very much including detriment to herself. second of all, the thing she is mistreating people about — the mistreatment itself — *is* the trauma response??? she and everyone she knows is an allegory for some kind of ingrained response to trauma, and the thing she is being overbearing and weird about is *the awareness of what happened*? i just feel like this is kind of special circumstances??
anyway. we see a lot of our most abjectly hurt aspects in clair. the lack of empathy for her is not only hard to watch but sort of surprising given the explicitly laid out subject matter of the comic. and dumb as it might be i really do wish people would give her more grace. she’s not a machiavellian sicko mastermind who’s doing this out of an inherent love for manipulation, she’s trying desperately to keep a house of cards stable because the alternative is unthinkable.
Thank you! this is exactly what ive been feeling! watching everyone act like its a football game and chloe is the scrappy underdog who everyone wants to root for. It just feels so weird to me when you can see pretty easily that theyre both struggling to be honest and kind to eachother in their own ways.
Yeah, tbh I think because the comic presents Chloe as definitely a victim of some kind of trauma, whereas we only know by implication that Clair has either the same or similar baggage, and because she is the more passive of the pair, it’s easier to continue seeing her as the definitive victim in the conflicts we see downstream, and thus the people we see her in conflict with as definitive aggressors. And also perhaps because Chloe’s general vibe of “funny rebel who is sad underneath” is more relatable to many readers than Clair’s uptight control freak thing? I think it’s completely fair to think Chloe is more in the right in this or even all of their fights, but I’m sort of baffled by people seeing, say, the scene where Clair cries to Achilles that she knows she makes mistakes but Chloe always punishes her for them, especially combined with the implication in the fort that Clair is not the one causing the Bad Thing on the abandoned layers, and going “well obviously she is The Bad One.” Even beyond the shades of gray of what we know, obviously there is more to their history and the context of their relationship that will illuminate why Clair behaves the way she does about Chloe (and vice versa, of course).
I also think people forget that while Pepper was correct that Chloe never asked for any of this, we see on the very first page something that Pepper did not: Clair didn’t exactly drag her kicking and screaming into Halo Head! Clair told Chloe what she was offering her and what it was for, Chloe clearly mocked Clair for the effort and the idea, and then accepted anyway. Chloe is not a completely innocent person who is getting accosted by Clair who refuses to leave her alone; hell, the interaction that kicked off the huge fight was Chloe, upset about Pepper and Mars and the unflattering comparison to Peachykeen, pelted Clair and her house with peaches completely unprompted. The idea that either one is clearly the victim or the aggressor consistently across the board and the idea that the only growth Chloe needs to demonstrate is remembering the trauma and dumping her toxic friend just… isn’t what the comic shows.
Putting aside how well you portray the conflict of outlooks, needs and contrasts between people… it still bums me out how disproportionately the uncharitable interpretations of intent / etc get levelled at Clair from viewers.
Still hoping there’ll be real catharsis for her too at some point. Its one thing for the characters to not see the cracks, but for viewers to so often assume unflattering things, to a degree not shown with other characters weaknesses? Egh. Gives me a very specific flavour of ache.
*lovingly knocks their heads together*
I love that both of them are so so flawed. Chloe HAD a chance to talk, but chose a low blow joke. But we don’t know how many times clair has told her that exact thing before and not meant it. My mother pulled the ‘if you have anything to say, I’ll listen’ card couuuuntless times but it always ended in an hour long lecture and bitterness. Maybe chloe isn’t risking that anymore. But I love how messy they both are :chloe-XC: :mewww:
That last panel was an attack :clair-despair: