I do wonder how much stuff the houses come with. Have we ever seen the inside of Mars’ house? Did she get a free gym or something or would she have to buy one?
I was talking about the possibility that Clair has never read The Yellow Wallpaper and was just trying to awkwardly bond w/ Chloe as a fringe theory but I decided to stop writing that bc I want to talk about the common interpretation of events and the one I personally believe. Enjoy!
I think that Clair at least knows what The Yellow Wallpaper is about, whether she’s read it or not, and thinks that Pepper suggesting it to Chloe is a terrible idea because she’ll relate to the boredom, anxiousness, and annoyance the protagonist feels, probably find the creeping thing really appealing (I did, I walked in circles in my living room going “creeping and creeping and creeping” for a truly abnormal amount of time after reading it myself), and then come to the conclusion that she needs to escape her equivalent room. I think some are interpreting it as “can’t let her think she has a chance to escape” but that’s not what I personally get from it.
I think that upon feeling that Halo Head is her version of the room from The Yellow Wallpaper, and that Clair is her version of the husband character who keeps her trapped there with patronising compliments and downplaying reality, Chloe will want to do the same thing that the protagonist did. Which if you haven’t read the story is to spiral downward; tear things apart; sneak the key to her room away from her husband, throw the key out of the window, and laugh maniacally as he becomes frantic and finally takes her mental health seriously; dance around the room in circles stepping over his unconscious body; “escape,” her method of which is implied to be suicide by hanging (she expresses having hidden a length of rope from her husband but is not able to use it because the furniture has been removed from the room, so she stands on her husband’s body to make her vaguely described escape instead.)
In Clair’s mind, Chloe is impressionable and fragile enough for this book to be a death sentence, and Pepper doesn’t know Chloe well enough to know that, so she can’t let Chloe read it and she can’t trust Pepper with Chloe if he’s able to miss what’s so obvious to Clair.
She doesn’t believe that Chloe only stole it to mess with Pepper, probably assumes Chloe is lying to even herself about it, might even be afraid Chloe’s already started reading it which could contribute to how chipper she was acting every time she grabbed it.
I think she cried about being properly called out for multiple reasons. 1. It confirms to her that Chloe genuinely cares about the book. 2. She’s been trying to have a good night for once but her damn anxieties won’t let her leave that concern of hers alone for just a few more hours. 3. She realises that Chloe has interpreted her actions as being controlling and patronising, when to her they’re protective. But she can’t explain this because Chloe will find the explanation patronising.
At this point, she’s thinking about snatching it and tossing it out, but I think she has a few things on her mind. I *don’t* think what’s on her mind is that she should just trust Chloe and leave it alone because she’s obviously done a lot of harm already. I think 1 is that it’s become clear that Chloe was being honest when she said it wasn’t about the book itself, it was about being miffed at Pepper. Now that they’ve made up she doesn’t seem to care about it. 2 is that Chloe still very well may have started reading it, especially having spent the night with Pepper, so she may intend to snoop by asking Pepper about it. 3 is that Chloe remembers her being weird abt the book, and she knows Chloe remembers it. Pepper already doesn’t like Clair & he and Chloe aren’t fighting anymore. If something happens to the book the one time Clair is there, Chloe is going to point out what a freak Clair is about that book and Pepper is going to know exactly what she did immediately.
If the conflict over the book continues from here and doesn’t pause for a while, I predict that Clair will go to talk to Pepper about Chloe and the book, Chloe will be outside looking for Peachy but not be able to find her, the book will disappear & Clair will be blamed, but if we pay close enough attention we’ll see evidence of the culprit being Peachykeen :peachy-menacing:
Ay, minor wording error. I believe that Chloe will want to do the same as the protagonist by escaping, but I think that Clair’s interpretation of what that means is following the protagonist’s actions like instructions, which would lead to her shutting Clair out, self-isolating on purpose, and hanging herself. :clair-surprise:
I think if she didn’t know what it’s about & was worried about it being potentially dangerous, she wouldn’t have backed down here—it’s a fine opportunity to take a look at it and even have an excuse that Chloe seemed pretty interested in it despite having openly admitted to stealing it, so she wants to take a look at what the big deal is (lie to Pepper that she kept taking it last night with the intention of returning it to him)
But I’m not in her head. I do think if I saw Chloe the way Clair seems to I’d probably also be worried my fuckboy dog had given her a reading recommendation that was going to deal significant damage to her psyche.
Since Clair isn’t as literarily oriented she might have an understanding of what the ending means from reading an explanation or a summary, but not an understanding of how vague the writing is about it, so she would not even be able to comfort herself with the idea that Chloe isn’t smart enough to understand the suicide part.
To be clear I think Chloe is very well smart enough to connect those dots but Clair seems to take on a self-appointed maternal role that can make her anxieties, when filtered through it, sometimes come off as assuming Chloe is completely inept and incapable of taking care of herself. They have a whole ordeal man :mewww:
Hey I just thought of something. Clair most likely had to have set Pepper up with that book in the first place right? I see two options here:
1. She consciously put it in his house. This opens up the question of why she would do that, and why she would want Pepper to read the book but not Chloe.
2. She subconsciously put it there when creating him. This could point to it being some sort of manifestation of her own repressed thoughts and guilt.
I find option 2 to be most likely.
We can also rule out Pepper ordering the book as an option, because in #76 Clair refers to his cookware as his first order. Chloe then sleeps over that same night. So the books had to have come with the house. (Also note: he came into Halo Head having “already read” them.)
We do know he CAN order books thanks to Achilles (#195), which raises the question of whether he remembers the titles from somewhere or is picking from a pre-approved list made by Clair.
Books in general seem to be an outlier when compared to the other order-able items. Clair says she “thinks in pictures”, and we know that she draws the items to create them. My guess is that for books, she draws the picture of the book and it automatically gets filled with her recollection of the contents. In this sense, she has less “control” over books than she does other items. This is further reinforced by the fact that Pepper’s hot tub instructions were in picture diagrams rather than written words.
Oh my god she listened to us
Is this character development????
Yesssss, character growth! :clair-happy:
Okay but if the very next comic has her rush back and snatch the book I am going to become the fucking Joker
lolol i considered this too
betting money on this one
so sure of it bestie
No seriously same tho 😭
Praying for this because it would be so funny
CLAIR! YES! I ALWAYS HAD FAITH IN YOU
Well, at least she’s not trying to steal from Pepper. :>
Yes! Some common respect for others’ property
Wow, learning to not touch the stove
She does know it’s Pepper’s book though…
I think she already knew that. He bought it from her.
I do wonder how much stuff the houses come with. Have we ever seen the inside of Mars’ house? Did she get a free gym or something or would she have to buy one?
collect overdue fees later. good thinking
:pepper-surprise:
:clair-sad: “propensity for self-sabotage”
The dutch angle
HOLY SHIT SHE DID THE RIGHT THING
please god dont let her change her mind and come back for it.
I was talking about the possibility that Clair has never read The Yellow Wallpaper and was just trying to awkwardly bond w/ Chloe as a fringe theory but I decided to stop writing that bc I want to talk about the common interpretation of events and the one I personally believe. Enjoy!
I think that Clair at least knows what The Yellow Wallpaper is about, whether she’s read it or not, and thinks that Pepper suggesting it to Chloe is a terrible idea because she’ll relate to the boredom, anxiousness, and annoyance the protagonist feels, probably find the creeping thing really appealing (I did, I walked in circles in my living room going “creeping and creeping and creeping” for a truly abnormal amount of time after reading it myself), and then come to the conclusion that she needs to escape her equivalent room. I think some are interpreting it as “can’t let her think she has a chance to escape” but that’s not what I personally get from it.
I think that upon feeling that Halo Head is her version of the room from The Yellow Wallpaper, and that Clair is her version of the husband character who keeps her trapped there with patronising compliments and downplaying reality, Chloe will want to do the same thing that the protagonist did. Which if you haven’t read the story is to spiral downward; tear things apart; sneak the key to her room away from her husband, throw the key out of the window, and laugh maniacally as he becomes frantic and finally takes her mental health seriously; dance around the room in circles stepping over his unconscious body; “escape,” her method of which is implied to be suicide by hanging (she expresses having hidden a length of rope from her husband but is not able to use it because the furniture has been removed from the room, so she stands on her husband’s body to make her vaguely described escape instead.)
In Clair’s mind, Chloe is impressionable and fragile enough for this book to be a death sentence, and Pepper doesn’t know Chloe well enough to know that, so she can’t let Chloe read it and she can’t trust Pepper with Chloe if he’s able to miss what’s so obvious to Clair.
She doesn’t believe that Chloe only stole it to mess with Pepper, probably assumes Chloe is lying to even herself about it, might even be afraid Chloe’s already started reading it which could contribute to how chipper she was acting every time she grabbed it.
I think she cried about being properly called out for multiple reasons. 1. It confirms to her that Chloe genuinely cares about the book. 2. She’s been trying to have a good night for once but her damn anxieties won’t let her leave that concern of hers alone for just a few more hours. 3. She realises that Chloe has interpreted her actions as being controlling and patronising, when to her they’re protective. But she can’t explain this because Chloe will find the explanation patronising.
At this point, she’s thinking about snatching it and tossing it out, but I think she has a few things on her mind. I *don’t* think what’s on her mind is that she should just trust Chloe and leave it alone because she’s obviously done a lot of harm already. I think 1 is that it’s become clear that Chloe was being honest when she said it wasn’t about the book itself, it was about being miffed at Pepper. Now that they’ve made up she doesn’t seem to care about it. 2 is that Chloe still very well may have started reading it, especially having spent the night with Pepper, so she may intend to snoop by asking Pepper about it. 3 is that Chloe remembers her being weird abt the book, and she knows Chloe remembers it. Pepper already doesn’t like Clair & he and Chloe aren’t fighting anymore. If something happens to the book the one time Clair is there, Chloe is going to point out what a freak Clair is about that book and Pepper is going to know exactly what she did immediately.
If the conflict over the book continues from here and doesn’t pause for a while, I predict that Clair will go to talk to Pepper about Chloe and the book, Chloe will be outside looking for Peachy but not be able to find her, the book will disappear & Clair will be blamed, but if we pay close enough attention we’ll see evidence of the culprit being Peachykeen :peachy-menacing:
Ay, minor wording error. I believe that Chloe will want to do the same as the protagonist by escaping, but I think that Clair’s interpretation of what that means is following the protagonist’s actions like instructions, which would lead to her shutting Clair out, self-isolating on purpose, and hanging herself. :clair-surprise:
I think if she didn’t know what it’s about & was worried about it being potentially dangerous, she wouldn’t have backed down here—it’s a fine opportunity to take a look at it and even have an excuse that Chloe seemed pretty interested in it despite having openly admitted to stealing it, so she wants to take a look at what the big deal is (lie to Pepper that she kept taking it last night with the intention of returning it to him)
But I’m not in her head. I do think if I saw Chloe the way Clair seems to I’d probably also be worried my fuckboy dog had given her a reading recommendation that was going to deal significant damage to her psyche.
Since Clair isn’t as literarily oriented she might have an understanding of what the ending means from reading an explanation or a summary, but not an understanding of how vague the writing is about it, so she would not even be able to comfort herself with the idea that Chloe isn’t smart enough to understand the suicide part.
To be clear I think Chloe is very well smart enough to connect those dots but Clair seems to take on a self-appointed maternal role that can make her anxieties, when filtered through it, sometimes come off as assuming Chloe is completely inept and incapable of taking care of herself. They have a whole ordeal man :mewww:
is she learning?
leave it, *leave ittttt*…… good girl clair!
There are those damned stairs again…
yknow now that i’m looking closer, from this angle it really seems like pepper’s stairs don’t actually lead anywhere………
I think there’s supposed to be a loft just above the edge of the panel
Hey I just thought of something. Clair most likely had to have set Pepper up with that book in the first place right? I see two options here:
1. She consciously put it in his house. This opens up the question of why she would do that, and why she would want Pepper to read the book but not Chloe.
2. She subconsciously put it there when creating him. This could point to it being some sort of manifestation of her own repressed thoughts and guilt.
I find option 2 to be most likely.
We can also rule out Pepper ordering the book as an option, because in #76 Clair refers to his cookware as his first order. Chloe then sleeps over that same night. So the books had to have come with the house. (Also note: he came into Halo Head having “already read” them.)
We do know he CAN order books thanks to Achilles (#195), which raises the question of whether he remembers the titles from somewhere or is picking from a pre-approved list made by Clair.
Books in general seem to be an outlier when compared to the other order-able items. Clair says she “thinks in pictures”, and we know that she draws the items to create them. My guess is that for books, she draws the picture of the book and it automatically gets filled with her recollection of the contents. In this sense, she has less “control” over books than she does other items. This is further reinforced by the fact that Pepper’s hot tub instructions were in picture diagrams rather than written words.
where would she even hide it?
she looks like she feels bad. maybe she will just be more trusting and try to give clair more leash?
*chloe
She’s growing! Well, I hope she’s growing.
Her head covering the compass clock while she reaches for it until she backs off and regains her sense of direction so to speak :the-yellow-wallpaper: