Strictly on the Q.T.
Giant Days seldom entered a lecture theatre. I always felt that it was cruel to ask an artist to draw one, having done it once or twice myself. But Little Days goes where Giant Days dared not. I’m not going to lie: we’re still in a lecture theatre in the next comic.
She truly is being a beach
(I’m debating the sexiness of that jumpsuit tho’)
Claire should be glad that Mildred’s not here, to encourage Lottie.
Yep, Lottie and Mildred definitely needed Claire and Shauna to protect them from their worst impulses. Or at least try too.
Shauna?
“Will the airport pub be okay, do you think?”
“Definitely not, which means we should definitely go in!”
That Shauna?
After much consederation I realized Shauna ABSOLUTELY would help here. She DOES protect Lottie from herself, but a matchmaking scheme is far too up her alley and both are badly impulsive. At best Shauna would help at least set up crash pads for the Clarem. I THOUGHT for a second like the op shauna was the senseible one but it’s more.. emotoinally. She’s better with people than lottie. When it comes to impulsively doing stupid nonsense, their both pretty much on the same wavelength. Both of Shauna’s adventures recently have started with her jumping into something with no real plan. She’s just better at not moving around the people in their life as if their chess pieces on a board.
The difference between Shauna and Mildred in this situation is, Shauna would help Lottie do what she’s doing. Mildred would amplify it and make it worse.
Ah, “Welcome to the Hotel Chocolat”. A ’70s classic from The Turkey Vultures, no?
They were also known for their hit songs “Relaxed, Easy Notion”, “Take It Less Difficultly” and “Old Boy In The Burg”.
Lottie seems so happy crushing the hopes of the poor boys, you can almost think she wants to help the mysterious character from the antipodes. The reality fine kiw.. peacock.
I think Lottie wanted to instigate some chaos and get chocolate in the bargain, since Claire would obviously share with her.
It could easily be both things. Lottie loves chocolate and meddling in people’s lives. It’s rare she gets both at the same time.
She’s on record as sharing Kit Kats at a favorable exchange rate of 3:1.
Many thanx for that.
I missed the “antipodes” reference to Glenn.
wait, how much older is GRRM than Claire?
George R. R. Martin? Decades, I should think. 😉
Claire’s 19 or 20, depending on when her birthday is. Gurney turned 24 (I think) at the beginning of “Wobbly Head”, on or around Halloween.
So good. I just read a book where someone actually purchased a Fortnum and Mason hamper, so I was thinking of everyone here.
I’m sure we’ve all thought about buying one for John
and it’s the thought that counts – right!
Should I ever fall ass-backward into ridiculous money, a Fortnum & Mason hamper for John A will be first on my list of extravagant purchases.
As I think I said on Patreon or my mailing list at Christmas, sending me a £6000 hamper full of paté and bon bons rather than £6000 cash would be a profound misunderstanding of the fragile economics of webcomics as a career…
Claire does not approve of Lottie’s conspiracy. Especially as it does not involve go-karts.
Nor the Cleansing Fire
No offense to Clair who’s an adorable little bug, but what’s so special about her that she attracts boys like a candle attracts moths? One would think Lottie with the hips that don’t lie and other endowments would have a bigger fan club. (I was always a Mildred fan myself.)
For one, Claire is actually attending the university, unlike Lottie.
Also, Lottie was shown to instantly identify and shut down any potential suitors with a sharp glare, and only Nero got through her defenses. And since he broke her heart, those glares are going to be even more pointed.
Claire’s got that fire inside.
And outside.
Besides James C’s excellent point that Lottie usually isn’t looking, there’s some other factors at play that explain it.
One is familiarity. Lottie is this new element they’ve probably only vaguely heard of. Claire is someone they’ve been pining over for some time and as we saw with Ed in Giant Days and his crush on esther, that kind of pining can be VERY hard to break. I’ve been there, you can tell yourself it’s a bad idea all you like, and the Clarem certainly tried last time, but it can take a lot of time to get over it. Sometimes you can flip through crushes like the telly, but it’s probably harder when the possible new crush is your old crush’s best friend.
The second is approachability: Claire is approchable: friendly to anyone she meets who isn’t obnoxious to her first. She’s got a sweet quality and if I was their age i’d be awkard enough to assume automatically kindness= I have a remote shot. Really.. Claire is just very nice. In contrast with Lottie there’s both a high chance of rejection and of spoling a maybe with Claire when really it’s a hard no from both, Claire’s just caught in that classic social trap of not wanting to break these guys hearts but not returning their affections either. It’s like her not bailing out of her earlier degree to please her parents: She KNOWS what the right path is, but it might upset people she cares about. I do feel she geninely likes the Clarem as friends, she just has no idea how to get out and unlike last time, when Lottie was geninely useful for this, Lottie has instead chosen to force the issue in a way that’s going to hurt everyone involved.
Have you figured out a title for that novel you just wrote?
Og no like words. Words make head hurty. Hit wall until words stop. BLARGH!!
Totally agree. Claire’s kindness is both her strength and her weakness. Of course, she could always return to her other strength, fire!
Kudos on the term “Clarem.”
She’s talked to them twice, which is basically a marriage declaration for timid men
It’th the lithp.
I think Claire comes across as… uh, let’s say less intimidating than Lottie does.
“Can you imagine going out with Lottie. I think it would end a man.” — Jack Finch
This chapter has some really strong Claire expression work
John’s skill with expressions never ceases to amaze me.
In an effort to take the narrative heat off of Claire, I am now shipping Lottie × Hazima
I second this ship. They have some good chemistry and it would be nice to see Haizima more. I honestly forgot she existed, this is her first apperance since she debuted in the autumn special years ago and Lottie could use a mischief partner for her antics when Claire isn’t on board. And a partner if she so wishes, nothing wrong with being sequel but I like me a good ship and Linton is presumibly busy setting up THE SEARCH FOR JACK in the background. It’s also very rare Lottie has flirty energy that’s not 90% accidental like with Glenn. Here it’s more 50%. Very promising.
I can get behind this. Until Shauna settles down, and recognizes her One True Love, at least.
Yes, Blossom!
Could you remind me please when was Hazima on before?
Solver Volume 1, chapter “Autumn Special”. (I had to look it up, too.) https://badmachinery.com/comic/2022-06-10/
Thanks for that. I had forgotten about the terrifying existence of the paternoster.
“Hazelot!”
“It’s only a model.”
“Sorry I just have to avert something” is an all time line. Great stuff. I didn’t expect the story to be about Lottie messing with Claire’s love life for giggles, nor for Lottie to sorta flirt with Claire’s roomate but I can’t say i’m not entertained.
I can say that i’m genuinely surprised Lottie is at all aware Glenn and Claire have a will they or won’t they thing. Her tendency for self absorbtion and how harrowing her life has been lately lead me to believe she’d just forget about the subtle clues she was given last time. It’s also hard to tell if this is just her being an agent of chaos, or some subtle plan to either make sure Claire X Glenn dosen’t happen, or make sure it does in fact happen by forcing our hapless mop of a young man to fight for Claire. Lottie can be both very easy to read and impossible to read at the same time. It’s why she’s so great.
Lottie could really trying to do both. Can’t wait to see if this story will reveal more about Glenn’s previous love relationship. He seems to have escaped NZ for that.
It’s the #3 reason we go to the UK, after “career opportunities” and “visiting the beach from Broadchurch”.
It really was poor planning on Claire’s part to leave Charlotte with them boys when they were going to go sit with Hazima anyway
As Claire said in panel 4, she’d forgotten about this side of Lottie’s nature.
The boys had saved a place for Claire. She decided to move seats after it became clear Lottie would stir up trouble if they remained with the boys.
As some mentioned last time, Lottie is on her best behaviour here; Claire would have less of a crisis to avert if Lottie were on Sonny’s or even Shauxna’s best behaviour. “Lottie’s very confused!” would be more true, tho.
Stirring is how you solve, Claire! And Lottie’s a Solver to her core! Bringing all those deep, settled thoughts and feelings to the surface reveals the truth! And often makes things worse but no matter!
Yes, stirring is how you get the precipitate into the solution.
Proving yet again that, ultimately, friends are just people who can hurt and betray you more effectively than most.
Ronald it sounds to me like you are carrying a lot of sadness in your heart. Remember, Lottie has probably protected Claire’s “little secret” since the end of the third Bad Machinery story (there is no way over the years she hasn’t worked it out, and Sonny doubtless told her too) and is always there for her. I think in the context of a loving friendship, there is room for a bit of impishness.
For reference, these few pages cover the matter:
https://scarygoround.com/badmachinery/index.html?pg=370#showComic
My initial emotional responses to your post are uniformly negative so I’ll simply thank you for the attention. 🙂
The therapy evidently worked… ‘I am beginning to feel the kindling of what I believe, allowing for margins of error, to be anger upon having read your reply’ etc