This is one of those situations where it feels so heavy that I’m not sure if I should even say anything, don’t even know what I’d say if I could find the words, but still think something should be said.
ive been viewing this comic through a DID / dissociative parts lens. peachy being representative/an introject of the peach on the side table is wonderful.
oh thank gosh I’m not the only one who views it like that. As someone with OSDD it’s so hard finding good DID representation and this webcomic felt like a gift from the heavens
I’m not sure whether to view the POV as the person on the bed dissociating and watching what’s happening to herself or not, since in the first page it seems like Chloe is watching the memory of entering the room, and the more definition we get the more we see people who are already there? But there also seems to have been a bit of a time skip, so I can’t really say. I feel weird theorising about it, especially since the story seems very personal to Batty herself, but my media understander brain struggles to not.
I get a very strong feeling Peachy has some idea of what’s going on. She’s definitely the key to whatever ending will be fruitful (pun unintended), as we all know all paths lead to Peachykeen xD
so, what i’m seeing in it (and assume others are seeing also) is a sexual abuse situation. it’s the body language in the way they’re both kneeling on the bed, with the taller (presumably adult) figure looming over the other (presumably child) figure, holding them by the shoulders, and pushing their head down in the second panel. it’s ambiguous enough that you can’t really say definitively that’s what’s happening, but combined with the framing of this being the traumatic event that clair tries so hard to keep chloe from remembering, that’s the conclusion i draw from it
Here’s what I’m seeing: the POV character is someone with bangs and glasses sobbing in the corner of a room with a disheveled bed and a half eaten peach. On the bed, there is what appears to be an androgynous child and an adult man. The adult man pulls the child’s head closer. The half eaten peach is specifically framed—peaches are often symbolically associated with innocence, so while there’s still a lot of context missing from the scene, one can make an assumption as to what is happening and it’s a very impactful assumption to a lot of people.
Now whether I’m tapping into what others are seeing or not I cannot say, and there’s so much room for me to be wrong about what’s actually intended that I don’t want to say that my description encapsulates Batty’s intentions in the slightest! Just that I think that’s what’s hitting people so hard.
Batty said on bluesky simply “handle with care” and I deeply wish to respect that request so if any of this is too much for her comfort I do understand and will edit/accept deletion of my comments! I just was hoping to help a confused viewer
The fact that there’s usually a silly message made me feel like this one away a bit more serious! Nothing about feeding us, just “page up, handle with care.”
It looks like the kid is turned slightly away from the adult in the second panel. So there’s a couple different things that could be happening. To me it looks like he’s holding her head in the way someone might comfort a kid after something traumatic has already happened.
That was something I saw myself but didn’t mention since it didn’t answer OPs question—I’m wondering if our POV character walked into the room and found something, took her glasses off to avoid seeing it, and that’s someone else receiving comfort that she isn’t getting? It’s possible I’m just seeing what’s more relatable to me, though. It seems deliberately ambiguous. :clair-sad:
The POV character is outside of the bed, with a trail of blankets leading to their current position.
I could see a different interpretation:
The kid got into POV’s bed cause POV is a caretaker or older sibling, and the kid had nightmares or something. When POV woke up, they got startled(maybe due to previous trauma) and punched the kid in the eye. Then, the fallout from that caused more trauma.
like someone else said I feel weird theorizing and being excited to know more about what’s happening, because I know the thing happening is something traumatic and probably personal. but it IS exciting to find out more, too, because it’s so important. but, I still don’t really feel like theorycrafting about it.
The memory is getting clearer :clair-despair:
The peach is actually on the night stand :clair-despair:
Please let my girls be happy at the end of this cycle :achilles-serious:
Hm. There’s a peach on that nightstand.
And when the splatter effect occurred, only the people on the bed & that lone peach weren’t covered… oh Peachy’s definitely more aware of how things work than anyone in Halo Head cares to believe. Who exactly did you make Clair…
oh and also all the diamond patterns. hm. I wonder if that has any relevance. probably does considering Ares. What exactly is unsure, for all we know this could imply that Ares is Chloe’s fursona.
coming back to say it really speaks to how incredible batty is at building up the scene and knowing just how much to show that this hits like such a gut punch while not being explicit at all
We finally get a small glimpse into the trauma part of the traumedy, only to get forcibly ripped back into the comedy part.
I’ve theorized for a while that Chloe and Claire are split aspects of a single person’s psyche and that the villagers are the mental equivalent of programs on a computer running diagnostics on solving the “problem” aka trauma at the root of the island. This is probably the closest equivalent you could get to a program causing a force stop in order to prevent the computer from blue screening.
It’s kinda interesting how like, Claire is usually the one trying to prevent Chloe from remembering, keeping that second eye closed, but often enough she starts remembering/opening after Claire frustrates her or even if she gets caught up thinking about how she does.
In the bottom right corner of the first panel, with the ragged edge of those pants, the diamonds look like more signs of wear. The floating diamonds look like light filtering in from the window in a pretty way, though. Like this memory has mixed up positive and negative associated feelings, perhaps. That of course makes it only more difficult to untangle, and I absolutely don’t say this to make any judgements or doubt anyone’s trauma. I would find that extremely gross for someone to do to be clear! Final note, if the memory is how a lot of people are interpreting it, well… that might explain Achilles.
This might confirm some of our fears of what the previous bedroom scenes represented, I still don’t want to jump to conclusions though, I don’t want to over-simplify a subject like trauma.
Oh, wow, this is so much. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on. It could be comforting after a trauma, it could be CSA. I don’t think we’ll know for sure until Batshaped is ready to tell us.
speaking from the “intuited This from Very Very Early into the story” part of the crowd its a lot of feelings to experience & unpack, seeing everyone else realize + the varied reactions of the audience.
one thing i defo can say is that once folks have recovered from their initial reactions, super go back and reread from page one to really appreciate how much skillful foreshadowing batty’s been setting up thru the whole comic for this, in writing & visuals both. you could teach hfhh in a class on planting & payoff i think. good comic is good more news at 9
OH ANOTHER THING I CAN SAY IS im delighted that peachy, whos always been sort of a cassandra figure alongside the lolrandom + cult evangelist manic energy of pure id & whom clair created so impulsively, is the one to bap chloe out of staring into the abyss (which can be just as harmful as clair’s avoidance instinct if done in excess–in fact the situation clair set up halo head to prevent). batty’s set up for a long time that peachy understands halo head in some fundamental way the other villagers don’t & im excited to learn more.
damn until this point i legit thought the memory was The Composite getting in trouble for cutting their jeans into the shorts. like how mars wears. i can see now that it was…. not that. :achilles-onedge:
FUCKKKK THERES SO MUCH TO PICK APART HERE.
the eye, half open. the focus on the peach in the splatter. the focus around the people, like how memories just that One thing is zoomed in on. the ! in chloes open eye. the shadow almost looks like a monster to me
I don’t have anything to add about the heavier aspects of this page – however, I would love to hear thoughts about the half moon we’ve been seeing, echoed here around the figures on the bed.
This has had me thinking about how the body stores traumatic events. If you’ve been through something like that you know remembering it is more like reliving that experience than just remembering other things that happen in your life. It’s like your brain takes a snapshot of the environment in extreme detail. And you might fixate on some of those details to move your attention away from the worse thing that’s happening. Those details become your allies in one way in that moment, but they’re always connected to that event. And it’s strange how later in life you might not be able to voluntarily recall any of what happened, until some similar detail in your environment makes it all come flooding back without your permission. It’s almost like it’s best to make friends with those details again and desensitize yourself to the power they have, knowing they were just trying to protect you.
Also love the many interpretations that can be made of Peachykeen! When someone casually asks “How are ya?” I’ve more than a few times heard the sarcastic response “Oh just peechykeen!” meaning they ARE NOT ok lol. But when Peachy says “All paths…!” She’s clearly not being sarcastic, and even though she’s a weird little gremlin, I believe her. I think she’s saying there’s hope and eventually things will be ok no matter what path you take!
:hearts:
FUCK
Okay I’m. Im. Cannot gather my thoughts iiiii. Just, holy shit. This was a FIST to the chest.
What an incredible story to make me feel so much
Bitch Princess of Everything? More like Queen of Subverting Our Expectations! But also everything
But also I was checking the website like not even 15 minutes ago!
This is one of those situations where it feels so heavy that I’m not sure if I should even say anything, don’t even know what I’d say if I could find the words, but still think something should be said.
Thank you for sharing this story.
oh.
:peachy-aaa:
this update made me get out of my chair and walk in circles around my room. oh my god
I have a feeling Peachykeen did that very much on purpose… :clair-what2:
ive been viewing this comic through a DID / dissociative parts lens. peachy being representative/an introject of the peach on the side table is wonderful.
oh thank gosh I’m not the only one who views it like that. As someone with OSDD it’s so hard finding good DID representation and this webcomic felt like a gift from the heavens
!!! What they said x2^^^:achilles-plush:
I’m not sure whether to view the POV as the person on the bed dissociating and watching what’s happening to herself or not, since in the first page it seems like Chloe is watching the memory of entering the room, and the more definition we get the more we see people who are already there? But there also seems to have been a bit of a time skip, so I can’t really say. I feel weird theorising about it, especially since the story seems very personal to Batty herself, but my media understander brain struggles to not.
The pose looks the same, and the blanket connects the two figures. I’m not sure.
is that a peach on the nightstand
It sure is O.O
I get a very strong feeling Peachy has some idea of what’s going on. She’s definitely the key to whatever ending will be fruitful (pun unintended), as we all know all paths lead to Peachykeen xD
and the splat highlights it!
okay maybe im stupid but it seems like all the commenters know what’s happening in the black and white flashback and i just. have no idea? help??
sorry *what’s happening in the flashback on this page specifically.
so, what i’m seeing in it (and assume others are seeing also) is a sexual abuse situation. it’s the body language in the way they’re both kneeling on the bed, with the taller (presumably adult) figure looming over the other (presumably child) figure, holding them by the shoulders, and pushing their head down in the second panel. it’s ambiguous enough that you can’t really say definitively that’s what’s happening, but combined with the framing of this being the traumatic event that clair tries so hard to keep chloe from remembering, that’s the conclusion i draw from it
Here’s what I’m seeing: the POV character is someone with bangs and glasses sobbing in the corner of a room with a disheveled bed and a half eaten peach. On the bed, there is what appears to be an androgynous child and an adult man. The adult man pulls the child’s head closer. The half eaten peach is specifically framed—peaches are often symbolically associated with innocence, so while there’s still a lot of context missing from the scene, one can make an assumption as to what is happening and it’s a very impactful assumption to a lot of people.
Now whether I’m tapping into what others are seeing or not I cannot say, and there’s so much room for me to be wrong about what’s actually intended that I don’t want to say that my description encapsulates Batty’s intentions in the slightest! Just that I think that’s what’s hitting people so hard.
Batty said on bluesky simply “handle with care” and I deeply wish to respect that request so if any of this is too much for her comfort I do understand and will edit/accept deletion of my comments! I just was hoping to help a confused viewer
Batty normally puts silly messages with updates. It never occurred to me “handle with care” was a request. :clair-despair:
I actually thought it might be a joke because “handle with care” is what you put in baggage, but I took it to heart just in case
The fact that there’s usually a silly message made me feel like this one away a bit more serious! Nothing about feeding us, just “page up, handle with care.”
*was
It looks like the kid is turned slightly away from the adult in the second panel. So there’s a couple different things that could be happening. To me it looks like he’s holding her head in the way someone might comfort a kid after something traumatic has already happened.
That was something I saw myself but didn’t mention since it didn’t answer OPs question—I’m wondering if our POV character walked into the room and found something, took her glasses off to avoid seeing it, and that’s someone else receiving comfort that she isn’t getting? It’s possible I’m just seeing what’s more relatable to me, though. It seems deliberately ambiguous. :clair-sad:
The POV character is outside of the bed, with a trail of blankets leading to their current position.
I could see a different interpretation:
The kid got into POV’s bed cause POV is a caretaker or older sibling, and the kid had nightmares or something. When POV woke up, they got startled(maybe due to previous trauma) and punched the kid in the eye. Then, the fallout from that caused more trauma.
like someone else said I feel weird theorizing and being excited to know more about what’s happening, because I know the thing happening is something traumatic and probably personal. but it IS exciting to find out more, too, because it’s so important. but, I still don’t really feel like theorycrafting about it.
also, into the ocean peachy goes
You get me!!
The memory is getting clearer :clair-despair:
The peach is actually on the night stand :clair-despair:
Please let my girls be happy at the end of this cycle :achilles-serious:
oh:pepper-surprise:
Oh god the circle of detail around the memory
and the peach on the nightstand..
congrats on making my heart sink fast enough to make me a little sick
Hm. There’s a peach on that nightstand.
And when the splatter effect occurred, only the people on the bed & that lone peach weren’t covered… oh Peachy’s definitely more aware of how things work than anyone in Halo Head cares to believe. Who exactly did you make Clair…
oh and also all the diamond patterns. hm. I wonder if that has any relevance. probably does considering Ares. What exactly is unsure, for all we know this could imply that Ares is Chloe’s fursona.
The diamonds seem (to me) to symbolize things outside Clair’s vision/control.
coming back to say it really speaks to how incredible batty is at building up the scene and knowing just how much to show that this hits like such a gut punch while not being explicit at all
We finally get a small glimpse into the trauma part of the traumedy, only to get forcibly ripped back into the comedy part.
I’ve theorized for a while that Chloe and Claire are split aspects of a single person’s psyche and that the villagers are the mental equivalent of programs on a computer running diagnostics on solving the “problem” aka trauma at the root of the island. This is probably the closest equivalent you could get to a program causing a force stop in order to prevent the computer from blue screening.
PEACHYYYY :peachy-1:
I just realized: when Chloe said “Halo Head always stops me” she was probably talking about the place in general.
Interesting that the way the peach is framed invokes the shape of a teary eye, glaring up at somebody.
This is so raw… 🙁
It’s kinda interesting how like, Claire is usually the one trying to prevent Chloe from remembering, keeping that second eye closed, but often enough she starts remembering/opening after Claire frustrates her or even if she gets caught up thinking about how she does.
There’s a peach on the night stand!
Oh god the hands placed on the head in panel 2. Oh god.
oh.
oh no.
this is. definitely too heavy for me to comment on, so all i will choose to say is…
nobody’s mentioned the diamonds on this page yet.
Omnia est aliquid
In the bottom right corner of the first panel, with the ragged edge of those pants, the diamonds look like more signs of wear. The floating diamonds look like light filtering in from the window in a pretty way, though. Like this memory has mixed up positive and negative associated feelings, perhaps. That of course makes it only more difficult to untangle, and I absolutely don’t say this to make any judgements or doubt anyone’s trauma. I would find that extremely gross for someone to do to be clear! Final note, if the memory is how a lot of people are interpreting it, well… that might explain Achilles.
This might confirm some of our fears of what the previous bedroom scenes represented, I still don’t want to jump to conclusions though, I don’t want to over-simplify a subject like trauma.
Thanks for sharing the story so far!
Oh that doesn’t spark happy thoughts 🙁
Oh, wow, this is so much. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on. It could be comforting after a trauma, it could be CSA. I don’t think we’ll know for sure until Batshaped is ready to tell us.
speaking from the “intuited This from Very Very Early into the story” part of the crowd its a lot of feelings to experience & unpack, seeing everyone else realize + the varied reactions of the audience.
one thing i defo can say is that once folks have recovered from their initial reactions, super go back and reread from page one to really appreciate how much skillful foreshadowing batty’s been setting up thru the whole comic for this, in writing & visuals both. you could teach hfhh in a class on planting & payoff i think. good comic is good more news at 9
OH ANOTHER THING I CAN SAY IS im delighted that peachy, whos always been sort of a cassandra figure alongside the lolrandom + cult evangelist manic energy of pure id & whom clair created so impulsively, is the one to bap chloe out of staring into the abyss (which can be just as harmful as clair’s avoidance instinct if done in excess–in fact the situation clair set up halo head to prevent). batty’s set up for a long time that peachy understands halo head in some fundamental way the other villagers don’t & im excited to learn more.
When I saw that splat, I was worried that Chloe fell into the mud. But nope, it’s just Peachykeen!
damn until this point i legit thought the memory was The Composite getting in trouble for cutting their jeans into the shorts. like how mars wears. i can see now that it was…. not that. :achilles-onedge:
FUCKKKK THERES SO MUCH TO PICK APART HERE.
the eye, half open. the focus on the peach in the splatter. the focus around the people, like how memories just that One thing is zoomed in on. the ! in chloes open eye. the shadow almost looks like a monster to me
I don’t have anything to add about the heavier aspects of this page – however, I would love to hear thoughts about the half moon we’ve been seeing, echoed here around the figures on the bed.
This has had me thinking about how the body stores traumatic events. If you’ve been through something like that you know remembering it is more like reliving that experience than just remembering other things that happen in your life. It’s like your brain takes a snapshot of the environment in extreme detail. And you might fixate on some of those details to move your attention away from the worse thing that’s happening. Those details become your allies in one way in that moment, but they’re always connected to that event. And it’s strange how later in life you might not be able to voluntarily recall any of what happened, until some similar detail in your environment makes it all come flooding back without your permission. It’s almost like it’s best to make friends with those details again and desensitize yourself to the power they have, knowing they were just trying to protect you.
Also love the many interpretations that can be made of Peachykeen! When someone casually asks “How are ya?” I’ve more than a few times heard the sarcastic response “Oh just peechykeen!” meaning they ARE NOT ok lol. But when Peachy says “All paths…!” She’s clearly not being sarcastic, and even though she’s a weird little gremlin, I believe her. I think she’s saying there’s hope and eventually things will be ok no matter what path you take!
:hearts:
peachy should stop battering homeless women
Nnnnoooo. Nooo. Nooo fuck I wanted to be wrong
Thank you.