I mean, it does makes sense. What’s happening in #41 is easy to understand as:
– being on her way makes her annoyed;
– the more you annoyed her, the harder she’ll hit you;
– she wants money.
So that’s exactly what Achilles does. He’s on her way, he bugs her and he gets her money. That’s how he gets hit again. Makes perfect sense to him. After all, he didn’t even had to ask her to hit him the first time she did.
You know, Pepper really is laying down the facts. Achilles has been very short-sighted about what Mars wanted. And I’m glad he’s actually putting it into words, even if Achilles isn’t listening right now.
“I ‘know’ she ‘wants’ to hit me.” I think Achilles is making a dangerous assumption from their very VERY first encounter (where she shoved him away to intimidate him). He had her all wrong, even back then. Still does now, even if they got along for a bit.
And his thought back then was ‘you gotta keep annoying her until she hits you for real’.
When Achilles normally remembers things, he has a very literal and photographic memory where he does not interpret what’s happening, so it’s curious that he has such a painted perception of Mars.
Putting aside the metaphysics of Achilles’ brain, he clearly did understand and agree to that strategy as per the next page. How else do you interpret slapping her lemonade over and going, “Oh nooooo now you have to beat me up”? Maybe he thought she just needed an excuse to do what she already wanted to do, but the idea that Achilles himself was trying to provoke her, at least at first, is textual.
i’m looking forward to seeing more about what Mars actually thinks about all this, it would be nice for them to acknowledge together that Achilles essentially pestered her until he got what he wanted, even if she has begun to enjoy the dynamic
All debates about whether Pepper made this particular bed aside, he’s a better person than me bc if I heard, “Of course I only think about what I want; what else is there to think about?” I’d be telling that person to get out of my face, my kitchen, my house, and if possible into jail lol
More seriously, I did call this particular Mars angle a while ago, and I’m excited it’s being made more explicit! Achilles apparently not sharing his metaphor self’s interpretation of why Mars pushed him, or perhaps interpreting it as she wants to hit him but needs a socially acceptable reason to do it, is interesting, and the latter is maybe even slightly true. I suppose even a tediously literal mind can be guilty of motivated thinking.
Also, the quiet elision from Pepper’s “she wants other things” to Achilles “no, she really does want to hit me and to get money!” is a little sinister. Like, Pepper didn’t say she didn’t want those things, just that she wants other things, too, and Achilles responds by insisting that actually all she wants is money and BDSM. Maybe he really doesn’t see the deeper parts of Mars, or is only willing to see them when they’re fun for him.
That… is an upsetting possibility. That Mars might finally just own up to it and talk to him directly about her feelings (or whatever is starting to form), and Achilles in his blessed social ignorance may not be able to parse them, or worse, be scared by or rejecting of them. Or double-worse, he is intrigued, but doesn’t know how to navigate it, so not wanting to hurt her he tries to give a “lets just stick to what works, because I’m confused and need time” but Mars hears (or more likely Achilles miswords) it as “I only want the punches”.
So many potential awful (great) hooks and uppercuts getting prepped and it’s unnerving (awesome). Why can’t all these collective dumbasses just hurry up and get a happy ending already. Grumble grumble grumble.
I mean, that is what he just said. What makes Mars special to him is that she wants to hit him. Not that she can climb higher than anyone else in Halo Head, not that she can cut her own hair and do her own makeup, but she has a trait that inclines her to satisfy his desires. Pretty grim!
I think this is untrue, by the way — Achilles clearly really does care about Mars and enjoy her company beyond “his shtick,” but his complete rejection of introspection makes him unable to realize that. That’s why Mars not denying that she does it for the money is devastating and why he wants Pepper to work through that dissonance for him, but since Pepper is prompting him to think instead of thinking for him, he’s unable to piece that together until character development hits. Complete Extremely Literal Visual Metaphor cultural victory, I’m afraid.
It’s a bit of whiplash that would be the conclusion he comes to since in #365-366 it *appears* he sees her for more than that. He thinks she’s nice to look at, he admires that she can climb up high places (he did say he hadn’t thought of that before, all he saw claws for were scratching and cutting). Or they could just be him calling out what’s obvious to him instead of trying to wax poetically or be sweet on her. All the times he’s given complements are accidental.
My whole comment got deleted somehow but basically what he said in #365-366 complementing her seemed to be completely accidental and more a literal observation. Which is like should Mars be blamed for not seeing that? I took it that he was being sweet on her but I guess that wasn’t the case at all so I’d say no, though recently he’s been a bit contradictory about his desires. It’s hard not to be mad at Achilles but at least Pepper’s able to parse his thought-process (or lack thereof) to see his intended meaning and not be too reactionary.
(There’s an comment approval thing lol; idk if it’s manual and the author herself/a mod has to look at it, but longer comments tend to get caught more often. They’re usually released within like an hour!)
I really do not think that we’re building to a reveal that Achilles doesn’t actually value Mars outside of the hitting thing, if only because if he’s that truly, unrepentantly and pathologically selfish and myopic, then his tender interactions with Clair, Pepper, and even Mars herself during the Clair nap arc becomes incomprehensible. He definitely cares about her and legitimately enjoys her company and sees more to her than her ability to hit people; like, what do we make of him spending an afternoon playing with a toy skateboard if we think that? His comments to her that night were real and sincere. I think his failure to consider uncomfortable truths is making him factually wrong not only about obvious facts about the world but also how his behavior impacts others, and these comments and the apparent contradiction are a casualty of that flaw. It would imo be insane if the takeaway from this conversation is that Achilles is a genuine psychopath user or something!
ooooooo the drama.
i’m glad someone’s finally talking to him about it. i’m kind of a huge fan of characters whose flaws are often played for comedic effect receiving a wake up call about their behaviors.
the next part is whether Achilles will actually have the intended takeaway, which is thinking “I should have an honest conversation with Mars about the direction of our relationship and what she wants from it.”
yeah pepper. the first time she hit him she was crying because she thought he was fucking dead. so there
he could also mean the first first time when mars just pushed him. when mars was barely acknowledging his existence and then said some shit he took too literally. she did instigate the hitting in that situation for whatever it’s worth. moral don’t bully people if you aren’t ready to become romantically entangled with them
achiles serious has to wear the Im sorry women hat. and pepper too. and Clair just because chloe wants her to do that. i tried to draw this But i failed.Maybe some day
He doesn’t read subtleties or cues like other people do. They all know this.
He’s the living embodiment of “When people tell you who they are, believe them”. This isn’t so much an indicator of him being a selfish person as it is him being pragmatic and placing all his stock in the idea that they will just be up front with their thoughts and feelings.
When given clear indication of someone being upset, he pays attention, his one-track mind switches to that track. Sadly, the social ebb and flow wears many guises. Short of saying “I’m sad” or being caught crying by him, he’s going to miss the cues if his mind is elsewhere. Like right now. Human (animal?) interaction is a bizarre puzzle to him, and he fixates on trying to ‘solve’ it. Not because he’s selfish or manipulative, but because he tries to understand what intrinsically doesn’t make much sense to him.
But right now? As shown in the previous strip, a big part of what is puzzling him, is his own thoughts and feelings. So he sticks to what he knows. Or at least, what he THINKS he knows, because in his confidence in already having navigated that, he doesn’t have to worry about ‘getting it wrong’. Everything is built upon the things that seem stable, simple and obvious.
Yes, he is an idiot baby. Empty head. A precious catastrophe.
There are plenty of autistic people who are far better at understanding others than Achilles is. This is a comic about responses to trauma and one of Achilles’ responses is to try not to think, including about other people’s thoughts and feelings. You can’t just reduce that to autism.
I’m autistic and even I have the thought to be like “don’t take it literally, smartass, just respond normally.” If he’s a segmented part of a persons psyche however he could be a pure distillation of that kind of literal thinking. Saying he’s just autistic though is too simple a conclusion.
Strong disagree on this read tbh. Achilles is very literal, but even when people like Pepper or his own internal monologue tell him in very frank terms, he refuses to consider them. “Don’t you want to know?” “No.” Being very literal-minded doesn’t cause this outright refusal to think about anything besides what he wants, it just makes it easier for him to avoid challenges to that mode of being.
Like, we see Achilles successfully read other people’s sadness and automatically move to comfort them several times. Pepper after the stairs, and Clair after Chloe leaves the party. This is an ability he unambiguously has. But when he saw Mars crying after he got his money, he fully ignored her tears to try to complete the transaction, and when he repeats it to Pepper, when describing the tears in her eyes, he has no comment. He is usually willing to stop and comfort and ask what’s wrong, but when it was Mars in tears, he didn’t, because it would delay getting what he wanted. And “what else is there to think about?” I don’t know how you avoid calling that selfish. “I only think about what I want and don’t know why you would think about anything else” is possibly the most succinct description of selfishness possible, and it’s from his own mouth!
i agree w/ this. overall, Achilles is generally cognizant of other people’s emotional displays; he cares about and wants to help people, but when it comes to Mars, he unfortunately seems far more interested in what she can do for him. a different person being very literal likely would see Mars’ initial intimidation tactics and conclude that she didn’t like them or want to spend time together, but Achilles saw it as an invitation to harass her.
Achilles might not be selfish about EVERYTHING, but he’s definitely selfish when it comes to Mars.
boy time!! :achilles-happy: :pepper-surprise:
I mean, it does makes sense. What’s happening in #41 is easy to understand as:
– being on her way makes her annoyed;
– the more you annoyed her, the harder she’ll hit you;
– she wants money.
So that’s exactly what Achilles does. He’s on her way, he bugs her and he gets her money. That’s how he gets hit again. Makes perfect sense to him. After all, he didn’t even had to ask her to hit him the first time she did.
You know, Pepper really is laying down the facts. Achilles has been very short-sighted about what Mars wanted. And I’m glad he’s actually putting it into words, even if Achilles isn’t listening right now.
poor cat has poo brain :achilles-onedge:
Very funny to see Achilles doing the thing of knowing what others want without asking them. Very funny indeed.
“I ‘know’ she ‘wants’ to hit me.” I think Achilles is making a dangerous assumption from their very VERY first encounter (where she shoved him away to intimidate him). He had her all wrong, even back then. Still does now, even if they got along for a bit.
And his thought back then was ‘you gotta keep annoying her until she hits you for real’.
When Achilles normally remembers things, he has a very literal and photographic memory where he does not interpret what’s happening, so it’s curious that he has such a painted perception of Mars.
Technically, those weren’t really Achilles’ thoughts, that was just something ELVM told him to do.
Of course, that is assuming that ELVM is a being that is spiritually connected to our guy, but has thoughts of his own.
Thinking about it now, ELVM has been pretty much responsible for getting everyone into this mess, huh?
Putting aside the metaphysics of Achilles’ brain, he clearly did understand and agree to that strategy as per the next page. How else do you interpret slapping her lemonade over and going, “Oh nooooo now you have to beat me up”? Maybe he thought she just needed an excuse to do what she already wanted to do, but the idea that Achilles himself was trying to provoke her, at least at first, is textual.
He can’t tell what others are thinking, only what *he* is thinking, and he’s applying those thoughts to others without realizing it.
i’m looking forward to seeing more about what Mars actually thinks about all this, it would be nice for them to acknowledge together that Achilles essentially pestered her until he got what he wanted, even if she has begun to enjoy the dynamic
It completely rocked his worldview so I GUESS it’s fine that he doesn’t remember it entirely
he WAS very sweet with her during the evening they spent together
he’s just not entirely grasped that being a sex pest might be wrong
Selfish little dumdum. I’m gonna squish his head like a grape. :hearts:
God, it hurts knowing Pepper’s mostly right but is losing out on key context. The boys are fighting and we’re all the losers
All debates about whether Pepper made this particular bed aside, he’s a better person than me bc if I heard, “Of course I only think about what I want; what else is there to think about?” I’d be telling that person to get out of my face, my kitchen, my house, and if possible into jail lol
More seriously, I did call this particular Mars angle a while ago, and I’m excited it’s being made more explicit! Achilles apparently not sharing his metaphor self’s interpretation of why Mars pushed him, or perhaps interpreting it as she wants to hit him but needs a socially acceptable reason to do it, is interesting, and the latter is maybe even slightly true. I suppose even a tediously literal mind can be guilty of motivated thinking.
Also, the quiet elision from Pepper’s “she wants other things” to Achilles “no, she really does want to hit me and to get money!” is a little sinister. Like, Pepper didn’t say she didn’t want those things, just that she wants other things, too, and Achilles responds by insisting that actually all she wants is money and BDSM. Maybe he really doesn’t see the deeper parts of Mars, or is only willing to see them when they’re fun for him.
That… is an upsetting possibility. That Mars might finally just own up to it and talk to him directly about her feelings (or whatever is starting to form), and Achilles in his blessed social ignorance may not be able to parse them, or worse, be scared by or rejecting of them. Or double-worse, he is intrigued, but doesn’t know how to navigate it, so not wanting to hurt her he tries to give a “lets just stick to what works, because I’m confused and need time” but Mars hears (or more likely Achilles miswords) it as “I only want the punches”.
So many potential awful (great) hooks and uppercuts getting prepped and it’s unnerving (awesome). Why can’t all these collective dumbasses just hurry up and get a happy ending already. Grumble grumble grumble.
I mean, that is what he just said. What makes Mars special to him is that she wants to hit him. Not that she can climb higher than anyone else in Halo Head, not that she can cut her own hair and do her own makeup, but she has a trait that inclines her to satisfy his desires. Pretty grim!
I think this is untrue, by the way — Achilles clearly really does care about Mars and enjoy her company beyond “his shtick,” but his complete rejection of introspection makes him unable to realize that. That’s why Mars not denying that she does it for the money is devastating and why he wants Pepper to work through that dissonance for him, but since Pepper is prompting him to think instead of thinking for him, he’s unable to piece that together until character development hits. Complete Extremely Literal Visual Metaphor cultural victory, I’m afraid.
It’s a bit of whiplash that would be the conclusion he comes to since in #365-366 it *appears* he sees her for more than that. He thinks she’s nice to look at, he admires that she can climb up high places (he did say he hadn’t thought of that before, all he saw claws for were scratching and cutting). Or they could just be him calling out what’s obvious to him instead of trying to wax poetically or be sweet on her. All the times he’s given complements are accidental.
Uhhh ok there it is. That was weird.
My whole comment got deleted somehow but basically what he said in #365-366 complementing her seemed to be completely accidental and more a literal observation. Which is like should Mars be blamed for not seeing that? I took it that he was being sweet on her but I guess that wasn’t the case at all so I’d say no, though recently he’s been a bit contradictory about his desires. It’s hard not to be mad at Achilles but at least Pepper’s able to parse his thought-process (or lack thereof) to see his intended meaning and not be too reactionary.
(There’s an comment approval thing lol; idk if it’s manual and the author herself/a mod has to look at it, but longer comments tend to get caught more often. They’re usually released within like an hour!)
I really do not think that we’re building to a reveal that Achilles doesn’t actually value Mars outside of the hitting thing, if only because if he’s that truly, unrepentantly and pathologically selfish and myopic, then his tender interactions with Clair, Pepper, and even Mars herself during the Clair nap arc becomes incomprehensible. He definitely cares about her and legitimately enjoys her company and sees more to her than her ability to hit people; like, what do we make of him spending an afternoon playing with a toy skateboard if we think that? His comments to her that night were real and sincere. I think his failure to consider uncomfortable truths is making him factually wrong not only about obvious facts about the world but also how his behavior impacts others, and these comments and the apparent contradiction are a casualty of that flaw. It would imo be insane if the takeaway from this conversation is that Achilles is a genuine psychopath user or something!
ooooooo the drama.
i’m glad someone’s finally talking to him about it. i’m kind of a huge fan of characters whose flaws are often played for comedic effect receiving a wake up call about their behaviors.
the next part is whether Achilles will actually have the intended takeaway, which is thinking “I should have an honest conversation with Mars about the direction of our relationship and what she wants from it.”
Achilles is making me hate him and I *love* it! Hell yes Achilles, be your worst self (but also booooo) :achilles-plush:
very ayn rand of achilles here.
yeah pepper. the first time she hit him she was crying because she thought he was fucking dead. so there
he could also mean the first first time when mars just pushed him. when mars was barely acknowledging his existence and then said some shit he took too literally. she did instigate the hitting in that situation for whatever it’s worth. moral don’t bully people if you aren’t ready to become romantically entangled with them
achiles serious has to wear the Im sorry women hat. and pepper too. and Clair just because chloe wants her to do that. i tried to draw this But i failed.Maybe some day
He doesn’t read subtleties or cues like other people do. They all know this.
He’s the living embodiment of “When people tell you who they are, believe them”. This isn’t so much an indicator of him being a selfish person as it is him being pragmatic and placing all his stock in the idea that they will just be up front with their thoughts and feelings.
When given clear indication of someone being upset, he pays attention, his one-track mind switches to that track. Sadly, the social ebb and flow wears many guises. Short of saying “I’m sad” or being caught crying by him, he’s going to miss the cues if his mind is elsewhere. Like right now. Human (animal?) interaction is a bizarre puzzle to him, and he fixates on trying to ‘solve’ it. Not because he’s selfish or manipulative, but because he tries to understand what intrinsically doesn’t make much sense to him.
But right now? As shown in the previous strip, a big part of what is puzzling him, is his own thoughts and feelings. So he sticks to what he knows. Or at least, what he THINKS he knows, because in his confidence in already having navigated that, he doesn’t have to worry about ‘getting it wrong’. Everything is built upon the things that seem stable, simple and obvious.
Yes, he is an idiot baby. Empty head. A precious catastrophe.
Yeah he’s autistic.
There are plenty of autistic people who are far better at understanding others than Achilles is. This is a comic about responses to trauma and one of Achilles’ responses is to try not to think, including about other people’s thoughts and feelings. You can’t just reduce that to autism.
I’m autistic and even I have the thought to be like “don’t take it literally, smartass, just respond normally.” If he’s a segmented part of a persons psyche however he could be a pure distillation of that kind of literal thinking. Saying he’s just autistic though is too simple a conclusion.
Strong disagree on this read tbh. Achilles is very literal, but even when people like Pepper or his own internal monologue tell him in very frank terms, he refuses to consider them. “Don’t you want to know?” “No.” Being very literal-minded doesn’t cause this outright refusal to think about anything besides what he wants, it just makes it easier for him to avoid challenges to that mode of being.
Like, we see Achilles successfully read other people’s sadness and automatically move to comfort them several times. Pepper after the stairs, and Clair after Chloe leaves the party. This is an ability he unambiguously has. But when he saw Mars crying after he got his money, he fully ignored her tears to try to complete the transaction, and when he repeats it to Pepper, when describing the tears in her eyes, he has no comment. He is usually willing to stop and comfort and ask what’s wrong, but when it was Mars in tears, he didn’t, because it would delay getting what he wanted. And “what else is there to think about?” I don’t know how you avoid calling that selfish. “I only think about what I want and don’t know why you would think about anything else” is possibly the most succinct description of selfishness possible, and it’s from his own mouth!
i agree w/ this. overall, Achilles is generally cognizant of other people’s emotional displays; he cares about and wants to help people, but when it comes to Mars, he unfortunately seems far more interested in what she can do for him. a different person being very literal likely would see Mars’ initial intimidation tactics and conclude that she didn’t like them or want to spend time together, but Achilles saw it as an invitation to harass her.
Achilles might not be selfish about EVERYTHING, but he’s definitely selfish when it comes to Mars.