For Chloe who is not in the loop “being busy” means “doing things for Clair” when from the beginning Mars was her ally in rejecting convention and making fun of Clair for trying too hard to stick her nose in their business. She was the one who could bitch with her and it would be like “Dude how come you don’t get a house and I do I’m a cat that’s so fucked” “RIGHT??? Uh-oh freak in the room” “Aw shit I hate this dude” instead of being like she says one thing about tensions with Clair & it’s suddenly “therapy dog NEEDS to know your emotional location PLEASE OH MY GOD PLEASE auauauauuguAUAUAGH”
So it’s like the same force that makes her other loved ones impossible to be around sometimes has sunk its claws into her very best friend. Her best friend whose presence was offered as an olive branch and was promised (by a version of Clair who from Chloe’s pov was annoying and neurotic but well meaning and caring, and who in Chloe’s eyes and ours as the viewers no longer exists as such an uncomplicated person) to be explicitly The Most Compatible Person for Chloe’s happiness.
It’s one thing when the mysterious “Everyone is boring and takes shit too seriously” disease has Clair flip from “Chloe you mean the world to me and I feel bad for not letting you eat bugs even though it’s literally just common sense I’m not budging but I’m sorry to disappoint you and I am always here for you” to going all “Mother Knows Best” sometimes & that makes Pepper go from :pepper-1: to all :pepper-onedge: sometimes. She is not pleased with it but at least understands it based on their personalities being more “mature/responsible/reasonable” than hers. But Mars? That’s a whole nother thing. Mars isn’t supposed to be like that!!
So I would imagine from Mars’ POV it’s like “damn I feel bad for missing out on some hangout time with Chloe but it would be fucking Mortifying if she found out I’m babysitting catboy & anyway that dog would lecture me if I told her about the fraud thing…”
But for Chloe it’s more like “Another person who had my trust is doing things that feel out of character and importantly like she’s suddenly centring ‘maturity’ over anything else, everyone’s leaving me and I can’t grow up and what kind of hurtful is MARS gonna be with that brain disease that makes Halo Head and Pepper get all awful and scary on me because literally I can’t even imagine it and I don’t wanna be stuck with the freakazoid catboy and the fruit bitch being the literal only people who don’t turn evil sometimes and also don’t know enough about me to harm me if they did but also I am SO scared to find out what flavour of hurtful Mars will be that I would literally rather lock myself in a lighthouse with Halo Head going Mother Gothel on my ass than spend another second near her risking finding out the hard way”
Which is great because truly Mars has no way of knowing that whatsoever. Also the connection between “maturity” and “acting weird” comes from her words but my framing of it as a mysterious disease that takes her loved ones away is me using a metaphor and not what Chloe canonically actually thinks. She has only called it “everyone [being] weird” afaik.
Mars was hanging out with Achilles and then lied to Chloe to get her away. Chloe thinks Mars lied so she could ditch Chloe for Achilles and that hurts Chloe.
In reality, Mars is just embarrassed to be seen hanging out with Achilles, but that doesn’t make it come across better to Chloe.
Am I…. am I the only person who thinks Chloe and Clair are two avatars of one person’s psyche and that Clair isn’t evil so much as trying to cope with/protect themselves/hide from the memory of the scene from the closed eye in maladjusted ways different in practice but same in function as Chloe
dw youre not. chloe and clair are pretty expressly two different aspects of the same person’s trauma response (“HFHH is an irreverent, allegorical comedy that explores the multitudes of a person’s response to trauma”); the villagers as clairs ocs also inherit echoes of that same trauma that inform their behavior; unprocessed trauma can make people behave in toxic ways, and literally everyone in halo head is toxic sometimes.
ive seen many folks speculate on whether the cast as a whole or c&c in specific are meant to be a DID system, & they kind of remind me of internal family systems therapy where a psn conceptualizes different aspects of their behavior or emotional response to things as sort of a pseudo system to sort thru & understand themself better. so your readings not unusual at all!!
but ya wrt clair i think some folks just find her emotional manipulation & secretiveness (fawn response) particularly annoying or upsetting, + our not having full context yet on everything clair knows makes her behavior harder to understand and easier to read active malice into for anyone who already finds her unlikable
I like chloe’s strong commitment to her feelings, enough to walk back out the door into the fucking mud and rain just to slam the door back on mars. it’s kind of like, principled? sort of?
Oh:clair-despair:
I wonder if Clair is gonna try and explain it to her… or stay out of it
Chloe does spend more time with her since they “fell out” (only one party knows)
I ask myself how would a date with Achilles and mars go:achilles-rose:
And yes Clair or Pepper have to be near by for support :clair-what2:
Mars, my babygirl, they could never make me dislike you. I know you’ll get around this.
She hasn’t even done anything wrong sobbbb she was busy like twice
Okay okay I know I know it’s different for Chloe.
For Chloe who is not in the loop “being busy” means “doing things for Clair” when from the beginning Mars was her ally in rejecting convention and making fun of Clair for trying too hard to stick her nose in their business. She was the one who could bitch with her and it would be like “Dude how come you don’t get a house and I do I’m a cat that’s so fucked” “RIGHT??? Uh-oh freak in the room” “Aw shit I hate this dude” instead of being like she says one thing about tensions with Clair & it’s suddenly “therapy dog NEEDS to know your emotional location PLEASE OH MY GOD PLEASE auauauauuguAUAUAGH”
So it’s like the same force that makes her other loved ones impossible to be around sometimes has sunk its claws into her very best friend. Her best friend whose presence was offered as an olive branch and was promised (by a version of Clair who from Chloe’s pov was annoying and neurotic but well meaning and caring, and who in Chloe’s eyes and ours as the viewers no longer exists as such an uncomplicated person) to be explicitly The Most Compatible Person for Chloe’s happiness.
It’s one thing when the mysterious “Everyone is boring and takes shit too seriously” disease has Clair flip from “Chloe you mean the world to me and I feel bad for not letting you eat bugs even though it’s literally just common sense I’m not budging but I’m sorry to disappoint you and I am always here for you” to going all “Mother Knows Best” sometimes & that makes Pepper go from :pepper-1: to all :pepper-onedge: sometimes. She is not pleased with it but at least understands it based on their personalities being more “mature/responsible/reasonable” than hers. But Mars? That’s a whole nother thing. Mars isn’t supposed to be like that!!
So I would imagine from Mars’ POV it’s like “damn I feel bad for missing out on some hangout time with Chloe but it would be fucking Mortifying if she found out I’m babysitting catboy & anyway that dog would lecture me if I told her about the fraud thing…”
But for Chloe it’s more like “Another person who had my trust is doing things that feel out of character and importantly like she’s suddenly centring ‘maturity’ over anything else, everyone’s leaving me and I can’t grow up and what kind of hurtful is MARS gonna be with that brain disease that makes Halo Head and Pepper get all awful and scary on me because literally I can’t even imagine it and I don’t wanna be stuck with the freakazoid catboy and the fruit bitch being the literal only people who don’t turn evil sometimes and also don’t know enough about me to harm me if they did but also I am SO scared to find out what flavour of hurtful Mars will be that I would literally rather lock myself in a lighthouse with Halo Head going Mother Gothel on my ass than spend another second near her risking finding out the hard way”
Which is great because truly Mars has no way of knowing that whatsoever. Also the connection between “maturity” and “acting weird” comes from her words but my framing of it as a mysterious disease that takes her loved ones away is me using a metaphor and not what Chloe canonically actually thinks. She has only called it “everyone [being] weird” afaik.
Mars was hanging out with Achilles and then lied to Chloe to get her away. Chloe thinks Mars lied so she could ditch Chloe for Achilles and that hurts Chloe.
In reality, Mars is just embarrassed to be seen hanging out with Achilles, but that doesn’t make it come across better to Chloe.
not to mention chloe learned it from achilles, who doesn’t even understand the context of everything
Mars didn’t speak for 115 pages straight
Is…is this next page not gonna be the first time everyone is going to be in the same room/close vicinity?:mars-point:
Barring Peachykeen, of course…
…unless Pepper is bringing her in for whatever reason…???:pepper-surprise:
Am I…. am I the only person who thinks Chloe and Clair are two avatars of one person’s psyche and that Clair isn’t evil so much as trying to cope with/protect themselves/hide from the memory of the scene from the closed eye in maladjusted ways different in practice but same in function as Chloe
dw youre not. chloe and clair are pretty expressly two different aspects of the same person’s trauma response (“HFHH is an irreverent, allegorical comedy that explores the multitudes of a person’s response to trauma”); the villagers as clairs ocs also inherit echoes of that same trauma that inform their behavior; unprocessed trauma can make people behave in toxic ways, and literally everyone in halo head is toxic sometimes.
ive seen many folks speculate on whether the cast as a whole or c&c in specific are meant to be a DID system, & they kind of remind me of internal family systems therapy where a psn conceptualizes different aspects of their behavior or emotional response to things as sort of a pseudo system to sort thru & understand themself better. so your readings not unusual at all!!
but ya wrt clair i think some folks just find her emotional manipulation & secretiveness (fawn response) particularly annoying or upsetting, + our not having full context yet on everything clair knows makes her behavior harder to understand and easier to read active malice into for anyone who already finds her unlikable
Mars my beloved :thesmoocher:
Is panel 3 a new angle for in here? I love it, don’t think we’ve seen it used before
mars shares a certain obliviousness with achilles. also achilles is still full of dirt
I like chloe’s strong commitment to her feelings, enough to walk back out the door into the fucking mud and rain just to slam the door back on mars. it’s kind of like, principled? sort of?
Mars Did Nothing Wrong
Hhhholy moly :clair-surprise:
I’m more of a Peachy Gusher guy myself
Slam.. Is that Peachy Keen again?
Achilles with that little tail wag when he sees Mars. So cute!
Huh
Has this room always been so like.. short? From the door to the file cabinets, I mean? :mars-point:
I guess not since batty redrew it :clair-happy:
I think some of you guys are misinterpreting the last panel. No one else is coming in, that’s Chloe leaving
ohhhhh shiiit i didn’t even see her tail leading from the slam, now that you mention it though
Her hair shine reappeared when mars walked in meaning it’s a mars detecting mechanism. Like foehammer
Little Businessman just vibin’ in that drawer :achilles-prrr:
i love the watery outline around mars in these panels..