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I believe it was specifically that they went there with Sal, and so it couldn’t be a date *unless* Sal was there because it was a double date. It’s just loopholes within loopholes.
If you’re at a thing with just your partner can be a date, if you’re at a thing with your partner and another couple can be a double date.
If you’re at a thing with your partner and one or more single friends, though, your single friends aren’t on a date, and it can’t at once be a date and not a date. That doesn’t even make sense.
I’ve always figured double dates are for those who have the 4 involved parties as friends together in the first place, so it’s a nice excuse to all hang out and still be hella flirty
alternatively it’s also great for swingers I’d imagine
I love Denny’s. It was my friend group’s go-to weekend hang out space in late high school when we could drive and come home late. And in college, it was the only restaurant most of us could afford, so it was where we went for anybody’s birthday. Lots of good memories at Denny’s.
I just checked Google Maps and there are 6 within 8 miles of my house just outside of Dallas.13 within 10 miles. 2 almost within walking distance in opposite directions.
The Pandemic killed my local late night haunt of choice, CK’s Coffee Shop. Killed most of the late stuff that wasn’t near Beale St or a truck stop, really.
Actually that sounds like something the locals here would love, a miniature wedding cake made from pancakes. And I have lived here long enough to be considered a local, moved to this side of town in 10/1994.
A more useful answer, they are diners you go to when you are drunk or studying late or dancing, etc, and want some cheap food and don’t want to wake roommates/parents/neighbors by cooking.
I always feel left out of these arguments because I have just enough exposure to be aware of all these restaurant chains, but not had any in close enough proximity to be worth eating at outside, and all the local chains were pretty bad.
No no, we have to moralize their dinner orders first and passive aggressively chide them about it before we can divert our attention to raging at each other
Yoto, I had a dream and I feel like you’re the correct person to tell- I dreamed that today/tomorrow’s strip was Joyce talking to Jennifer. In the first panels she was talking around the question, then the final panel was a double wide panel of her grabbing Jennifer by the shirt (the way one might drag someone over a table by their lapels) and yelling “HOW DO I GET A BOY TO LET ME LICK HIS BUTT”
IHOP is 24/7 guys.
You can support Sal’s (and Amber’s and Carla’s and Marcie’s and I guess Malaya’) event and THEN get chocolate pancakes, hopefully not with Danny and Sal since y’all don’t want to be around each other.
Man, I miss IHOP being 24/7. Could definitely be back to that in college towns, but around here that stopped at the pandemic. I sometimes I just want to go out and cry over an omelet at 3am, but there’s nowhere around here to do that now.
In Seattle it was basically IHOP or 13 Coins and the problem with going to 13 Coins in your cups and full of tears at 3:45 in the morning was that it – somehow – managed to feel respectable 24 hours a day. Even in the University District. Even at 3:45am.
Well, I think “supporting Sal” was more of a thinly veiled pretense so Lucy can say she didn’t put out till the third date and thus has her Christian decency intact. They don’t actually want to be here…
Biggest thing I remember from that movie was how obsessed that brigadier general was about flouride in municipal water. Helps me sort out conspiracy theorists from genuine health experts.
A lot of Christians practice what I like to call “Lassez-faire Christianity” where they largely ignore the actual writings and just go based on what sounds right to them.
I think this would be considered a little heretical, but I’m not about to judge
And God said unto thee: “Thou can fornicate on the third date, but *ONLY* if you get a specialty meal from IHOP’s burgeoning menu of amazing selections [Sponsored by IHOP]!”
I wonder if there the ratio of menu prices to pancake quality is a factor in the number of dates? Is it serious if you went to Waffle House? Or if you had sticker shock at Denny’s? Is IHOP the sweet spot?
It doesn’t; it’s a made up rule from decades ago when people wanted to have sex but didn’t think it was proper to do right away; thus an arbitrary “third date is long enough to know someone is serious about this dating thing and has their sights set on proper marriage” rule was invented.
Feels like a thing that somewhat-‘modern’ society adopted, and so ingrained into dating culture(?) that they either have to put up with it if they’re not upfront with ‘waiting til marriage’ or willing to make an exception/being ‘ok’ with it as long as it meant that it’d be a big step in a committed relationship compared to something casual, so some religious leaning women might not deny sex as an option so ppl wouldn’t commonly think “Well, she’s a christian and i’m not so there’s no point in even giving this a chance” but i’d imagine with ‘natural’ chemistry meeting in high school/college they wouldn’t esp think about their religion unless they were obviously christian with wearing a cross and actively trying to preach/convert someone
Depends what you mean by “modern”. Dating culture did not exist before the 20th century. Before that, if you were a young person looking to marry, you could only choose from a pool of suitors that were approved by your family. Social rules about this were looser for lower class people (because there was no property or money to inherit), but it was still unthinkable for proper Christian girls to openly spend time unchaperoned with men, let alone spend time romantically or even have sex.
People still did, of course, but it was never openly and this could not be talked about. “Dates” did not officially exist because young people were not allowed to spending time alone together.
I don’t think it was a single event that shifted society (especially Western Christian society) to view dates -young people seeing each other romantically with the possibility of sex and the possibility of marriage- as socially acceptable.
At some point from the 1910’s to the 1920’s things went from “a young lady is allowed to go to dance hall if she’s chaperoned the whole evening” to “scandalous young people are going dancing together without the knowledge or approval of their parents” to “young people go out dancing to meet other people and potentially hook up”
And that’s why the bicycle was a grave threat to morality. People always think the panic was just about women wearing (gasp!) trousers, but it was also that young people could get away from chaperones and meet unaccompanied.
He’s also not overtly pushing back against it either, which I might have expected given his previously expressed reluctance. He has given himself an established out, though, which I won’t be at all surprised if he uses rather than discuss his feelings.
I don’t necessarily think that’s true. He’s nervous, and the use of the L word has thrown him a little bit due to him unintentionally starting it, but it’s been demonstrated on several occasions that he’s definitely into the idea of getting physical with her, including what even started the whole “third date” stipulation.
I’m not sure I got “he wants to bang” out of these comics. The first one especially reads more as “Walky is dogging on Christians for the arbitrary nonsense they drum up again (possibly expecting Lucy to freak out like Joyce used to)” and the second one reads “walky is flustered because this girl has no concept of personal space” as much as it reads “walky thinks this is arousing”
Both of those read to me like Walky is responding to everything* with jokes. Like Walky literally ran away and figuratively grieving being in that relationship when she suggested they fool around. Have we even seen him kiss her? Them kissing seems like something that would be shown.
As much as the 3-date rule is a silly thing Lucy has made up for herself, I think it’s also a silly thing she’s under the impression Walky expects. He makes a joke, instead of just saying what he’s thinking, and that’s all she has to go on when he turns down her sexual advances.
He could have said, at any time sex has come up, that his past relationships got physical too quickly and he’d like to take it slow. That might be a difficult conversation, but just jokes and let her believe the wrong thing and hope the situation resolves is making things worse.
lol i imagine he’s temp distracted by the pancakes but you would’ve think he’d be a bit hesitant or like “Well, i’m fine not rushing into things” lol (unless he plans to stuff himself to where he’d be too nauseous/sick to get out of sex)
I guess getting them to leave vs ruining their night (and his own) is the perfect amount of petty. Danny’s a good egg, better than they deserve.
Also, nice bookends for Walky’s day. Cheeseburger for breakfast at upscale restaurant, pancakes for a late dinner at IHOP. Plus already thinking about how to avoid sex without talking about the real reason.
The Church of Saint Too Horny to Care, plus a number of other smaller splinter churches. And that’s to say nothing of the groups that specify two or four dates as the appropriate number for a relationship to be close enough to marriage that God won’t be too mad.
I don’t think it’s completely an “only sluts” thing. A lot of legitimate relationship experts think that jumping into intimacy too soon can lead to issues later. Like getting involved with somebody who looks hot, until to find out later that they’re a low level mob flunky. You know, things like that.
…I mean, no, it also appears in a certain slightly rude children’s fantasy film. In fact, those who are a bit younger than me probably know it from there.
Burger King did the same thing, with their completely inedible display sandwiches. Somehow, when a place gets famous for making the food it’s named after, it’s arbitrarily allowed to fucking suck and not go out of fucking business. The only reason chain restaurants are allowed to taste worse than vomit is that broke people don’t have the energy/time to cook and people with money don’t have taste buds anyway.
Best quality has to be Wendy’s, or McDonalds if you do the thing I do where you put their McNuggets in the burger. Best quality / price ratio for sure is Jack in the Box.
I absolutely loathe McDonald’s food. It used to be cheap enough to at least say “Hey, it was only a buck or two for the sandwich” and now that same sandwich is like $10 because I asked for bacon, but the bacon is the length and width of my thumb and about as thick as tissue paper but still costs more to add than it does at Sonic, where there are two entire slices of bacon that actually possess reasonable dimensions. $5 for a half a tongue depressor’s worth of “bacon”, Ronald can go McFuck himself.
I don’t know how McDonalds makes all their food smell the same, but I don’t think I want to find out either. The most edible thing on their menu is their fries. They also renovated all their restaurants into big gray and woodgrain boxes. They look like diabetes prisons.
Burger King used to be good, but they’ve cut a ton of corners and they don’t have those nice, gritty shakes anymore. Plus the ones near me spent a bunch of effort replacing all the real 1980s decor with faux 1980s decor. If I want that “flame broiled” taste, I’ll just fire up the Weber.
If I had to pick from the big three burger chains, I’d go to Wendy’s. Their stuff at least mostly resembles real food.
I do occasionally enjoy Wendy’s, despite the patties being somehow bland and cold even when I just watched the fuckers season and cook them not moments ago, the drinks being both too watered down and too syrupy, and the buns being essentially a bread-scented bubble for all the mass they have. Other than that it’s good enough for the price (kinda) on rare occasions. At the very least, I feel like it’s always been consistently passable, whereas the other two were probably pretty good once, before corporations started to unanimously decide it was somehow cheaper to spend millions to, as you said, turn the stores into grey boxes.
That’s a lot of run-on, but the general gist hopefully comes through.
Ngl, this whole interaction is starting to push Lucy from the “boring but harmless” category into the “draining to see on panel” category for me. It’s not often that a perfectly non antagonistic character earns my ire, but I really don’t want her to get what she wants at this point in time.
Like, this relationship isn’t exactly a train wreck, but it is just… so very bland. There is so little chemistry here that I barely want them to continue as friends when it inevitably falls apart. The few cute moments they have are so few and far apart and for some reason never actually involve each other directly. I want literally anybody else for them at this point.
Idk. I want to click with Lucy as a character. It’s just really hard and I’m not sure why. I have no issues finding things to sympathize about with Walky (kid coasted through HS and burnt out, poorly emotionally equipped in general, etc.) but I just don’t get where Lucy’s coming from on anything ever.
Lucy is in that unfortunate place where she’s actually not got very big or interesting problems, isn’t the same kind of relateable to the comments section as the kind of mid queer characters, and whose relationships to the rest of the cast aren’t really well-established yet (and the ones that kinda are are not really tension-regaining).
So she’s cute but she’s not… like, someone we care about yet. I think that’ll change soon.
See, she reminds me of me at that age, which is why I’m rooting for her to get laid and figure out some religion/popularity stuff as a result in a way that’s less fraught than what I went through.
Her problems have also been presented as incredibly shallow, imo. Like, she’s singularly focused on this Disney Channel idea of popularity, her whole arc with Walky has been driven by arbitrary rules she invented for herself, and any moments of earnestness dissolve into mainstream pop culture references. I hope she gets some development because I do think she could be an interesting character once the veneer of false sunniness gets knocked away (and I think it’s gonna happen soon)
Please continue to catalog the reasons why I like Lucy.
I’d enjoy seeing one slow-burn relationship here. There’s plenty of storytelling material in having Lucy continue thirsty and unslaked for a long time while they slowly align. It would be interesting to see if she has that much patience / personal interest in Walky.
I can’t wait until she stops talking about “have to wait for 3 dates” in part because it’s a silly way to reconcile dogma, feminist values, and customs that don’t even apply to her relationship, and in part because each time she says it, there’s like half a dozen comments asking where in Christianity that rule comes from.
And I don’t think it’s a rule she even cares about, if push came to shove. She thinks Walky cares about it. She’s already said she’s ready to fool around, and he ran away. They would already be fucking if he wanted, or she’d stop making everybody else’s problem if he would talk to her about it.
anyways, TLDR: stop asking where in Christianity the rule is from, that’s the joke.
I think people are taking Lucy very literally about this, when no, it’s a rationalization because Walky and her want to bang but both had cold feet about doing that right away, albeit maybe for different reasons.
And since then, Lucy has publicly screamed at bystanders about how having sex on the third date (not before, but also no later) is standard practice for “Christian women.”
What is Lucy, anyway? I’m pretty sure she’s Protestant (certainly I don’t think any Catholic would consider fucking on the third date “Christ-approved”), but I wonder what denom?
I was high when I posted that, so I guess the entire buildup and delivery are missing, leaving that nonsensical punchline. It was supposed to be a play on the frequent comments about Booster’s pronouns (mixed with a second thing I forgot the specifics of but it’s vaguely flavored like another common topic), all aimed at Lucy, and it just really doesn’t work without those missing elements.
Catholics fuck whenever they personally feel like it. I don’t know where people get in their head that every Christian follows the tenets of their denomination to the t.
She’s going to a United Methodist church currently.
walky are you going to confront how you might not be that into this before you sleep with her
or are you just currently too distracted by pancakes to consider this
…man, I want pancakes now
The proximity of Cannabis and Denny’s reminds me of a time that my friends and I got very high and decided to go to Denny’s, only for me to remember beyond the point of no return that my high school crush worked there
These people are something like 18 years old, and Lucy is the very opposite of pushy. She goes out of her way to be nice to everybody, to a tragic degree.
well he did get dorothy’s advice to basically not retract his i love you statement, but hopefully he’d communicate if not blurt out some form of ‘i’m not ready’ if not just being too nervous to perform, or sometimes ppl just act in the heat of the moment without thinking (though audience wise i’d think ppl would prefer a sal/danny slipshine first)
I talked to my cousin with the roller derby daughter. She’s finished college and is actually in her first year of law school. And is still doing the derby. Managed to break her arm recently which is complicating finals and stuff.
“Hire the Derby Girls Law Firm! We’ll hip-check those insurance companies into the boards.”
Although from what I know of her, she’ll probably want to be an environmental justice lawyer or the like.
I will say, while I don’t know how enthusiastic Walky actually is about this, a lot of people are reading a lot into *specifically* him not bringing up how excited he is. He’s acting about as enthusiastic as Danny did a few comics ago. Honestly, I think Willis is probably a little reluctant to write a guy getting *too* excited because a) that’s what we expect, b) it might just feel pestier coming from a dude. Genderflip Lucy’s behavior here and it gets different energies, you know?
i get the feeling that people WANT Walky to be a jerk.
would it have really been better if Walky shouted out something like “im getting some bread and fishes tonight!”, or some other christian sex pun?
hopefully walky would speak up but there’s ways to be intimate/just doing ‘2nd and 3rd base’ as opposed to full on sex and hopefully lucy would be emotionally satisfied
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Good point
Also : WRYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyy
Go Team!
muda muda muda muda muda
toki wo tomare !!!!
or, BOOM, you’re at a thing with Walky, it’s ALREADY a date
never understood the doubles thing anyway
unless it’s board game night, that’s a fantastic double date
the REAL fun starts when your kidneys go =p
I believe it was specifically that they went there with Sal, and so it couldn’t be a date *unless* Sal was there because it was a double date. It’s just loopholes within loopholes.
If you’re at a thing with just your partner can be a date, if you’re at a thing with your partner and another couple can be a double date.
If you’re at a thing with your partner and one or more single friends, though, your single friends aren’t on a date, and it can’t at once be a date and not a date. That doesn’t even make sense.
didn’t see where they went there *with Sal* so if it’s “happen to see Sal there bc they knew she would be”, don’t see how that couldn’t be a date
also how is it a date if half the couple is not actually with the other half
Or bowling, but arange it so you are bowing against your date so you have opposite balls together.
I’ve always figured double dates are for those who have the 4 involved parties as friends together in the first place, so it’s a nice excuse to all hang out and still be hella flirty
alternatively it’s also great for swingers I’d imagine
oh dang, I’m not booster anymore
Re: Alt-Text Damn nice save
The only downside of having a big buffer in a recession.
I wonder if it’s too late to patent the six-month delayed floating timeline. It’s always six months ago.
Alas, poor Corlick Sisters! Where be your gibes now?
I feel the pain.
Gonna pretend that the “Woo!” and “Get Em!” are people cheering on Walky and Lucy’s impending coitus.
“Cut ‘Em Off!” not so much, there’s few good things that could mean in a sexual context.
There’s someone with a Bobbet fetish in every crowd.
Maybe cutting Walky off from eating too many chocolate chip pancakes
+1
I mean, it very well might be, Lucy wasn’t exactly quiet here.
Go Team! Score!
In before the bickering starts about which restaurants are horrible and/or which restaurants have the worst customers.
IHOP over Denny’s for me. Used to say that you don’t go to Denny’s, you end up at Denny’s. Which was true enough for me.
While there are Waffle House and Huddle House locations in Indiana, none are near them, it looks like.
Waffle House is great (pecan waffles).
Huddle House was so bad I never returned (same as Little Caesar’s).
Little seizures
Man, Denny’s is amazing. A/C!
I love Denny’s. It was my friend group’s go-to weekend hang out space in late high school when we could drive and come home late. And in college, it was the only restaurant most of us could afford, so it was where we went for anybody’s birthday. Lots of good memories at Denny’s.
I liie dennys- when i was in college for gamedev it was a good place to hangout and talk about design stuff for a while
Denny’s has a wider food selection than IHOP. Waffle Houses are getting hard to find.
I just checked Google Maps and there are 6 within 8 miles of my house just outside of Dallas.13 within 10 miles. 2 almost within walking distance in opposite directions.
The Pandemic killed my local late night haunt of choice, CK’s Coffee Shop. Killed most of the late stuff that wasn’t near Beale St or a truck stop, really.
Disagree. I don’t want to eat a wedding cake with a couple of pancakes hidden somewhere underneath.
OMG that sounds AWESOME !
Oh how splendid! You got Fuckface as your avatar! =D
There’s always the option of not ordering that, then.
Actually that sounds like something the locals here would love, a miniature wedding cake made from pancakes. And I have lived here long enough to be considered a local, moved to this side of town in 10/1994.
It’s not like I’d know what random food chain names are in some country half the world away from me.
That’s ironic, because IHOP is the International House of Pancakes.
I think we have them in Canada? That’s basically international, we’re nominally independent at least.
They’re in 4 of the world’s 10 most populous nations, US, Mexico, India, Pakistan. Plus less
popularpopulous nations like Canada.A more useful answer, they are diners you go to when you are drunk or studying late or dancing, etc, and want some cheap food and don’t want to wake roommates/parents/neighbors by cooking.
I think that is supposed to mean that they have pancakes from many different world cuisines.
That’d be “House of International Pancakes”.
The first time I heard of IHOP was when some Internet Funny Guy (I forgot who, exactly) was doing a House of Leaves/House of Pancakes mashup.
https://xkcd.com/472/
(I suppose someone else could have done such a mashup before that one, but this is the one I remember)
I always feel left out of these arguments because I have just enough exposure to be aware of all these restaurant chains, but not had any in close enough proximity to be worth eating at outside, and all the local chains were pretty bad.
No no, we have to moralize their dinner orders first and passive aggressively chide them about it before we can divert our attention to raging at each other
If we have a scene there, can we have the same waitress as in, umm, what was that restaurant Joyce, Becky, Jocelyne, and John went to?
[Edit: Round-The-Clock. I realized looking up John’s tag would show it.]
Waffle House is the best breakfast battle arena.
Inserting Black Bear Diner for the hell of it.
I had food poisoning at Denny’s. Twice. I’ve never had food poisoning anywhere else. I’m not going back.
https://www.idsnews.com/article/2023/01/bloomington-dennys-closed-permanently-restaurant-diner
I don’t know how I feel about Willis’ attention to detail but I respect it.
someone told me on the patreon yesterday
so technically it’s somebody else’s attention to detail
We do this to Jeph too. Nit-picked him about health-insurance policies in his canon.
Hey, you went in and edited it. That’s at least partial credit.
it’s ok, doa is a slightly diff alternate universe 5 degrees to the right to where stuff like this isn’t an issue 8D;
I got Wilcox in my corner when I’m choosing teams for Limbo contests.
Yoto, I had a dream and I feel like you’re the correct person to tell- I dreamed that today/tomorrow’s strip was Joyce talking to Jennifer. In the first panels she was talking around the question, then the final panel was a double wide panel of her grabbing Jennifer by the shirt (the way one might drag someone over a table by their lapels) and yelling “HOW DO I GET A BOY TO LET ME LICK HIS BUTT”
Haha! That’s fun.
Granted I dunno if Jennifer’s ever licked anyone’s butt before so she might not be a great help.
I’m not sure either, but I do feel like she’s still who Joyce would ask
So, a banana for dessert then, Lucy?
Banana split.
Ouch, no!
or, walky getting sick/food poisoning, and lucy nursing him the rest of the night XD
Phrasing.
Panel 2 Moment of Clairity
Lucy Makes a Love in a Decidedly Christ-Approved Way: A Dumbing of Age Pornographique
Dunno about the title, but this is definitely the next Willis Slipshine story.
IHOP is 24/7 guys.
You can support Sal’s (and Amber’s and Carla’s and Marcie’s and I guess Malaya’) event and THEN get chocolate pancakes, hopefully not with Danny and Sal since y’all don’t want to be around each other.
Honestly, literally any of them I could see saying this is probably the smarter move if they’re that eager. (Well, maybe not Carla.)
Man, I miss IHOP being 24/7. Could definitely be back to that in college towns, but around here that stopped at the pandemic. I sometimes I just want to go out and cry over an omelet at 3am, but there’s nowhere around here to do that now.
In Seattle it was basically IHOP or 13 Coins and the problem with going to 13 Coins in your cups and full of tears at 3:45 in the morning was that it – somehow – managed to feel respectable 24 hours a day. Even in the University District. Even at 3:45am.
I always do Denny’s for my Lynnwood-awake-at-2am outing requirements.
That was out of my range. If someone had a car, though, it was Beth’s.
We still have 24/7 Waffle Houses almost within walking distance.
Well, I think “supporting Sal” was more of a thinly veiled pretense so Lucy can say she didn’t put out till the third date and thus has her Christian decency intact. They don’t actually want to be here…
And the credit for a good deed (support Sal) helps take the curse off screwing her brother out of wedlock.
It’s after midnight, so 24/7 would generally be the only places open. I expect he picked IHOP to get them out of his hair immediately.
Wait what ridiculous hours are roller derby games running at?
Midnight.
Also, when chapters change and people are still awake, it’s probably because of midnight.
Pancakes would be tastier post-sex, but I also get that’d be failing to satisfy the date conditions.
See, commentariot of almost 15 years ago holy shit it cannot be that old, Danny IS useful!
And I’m with Walky, chocolate chip pancakes taste like love.
Okay, gravitar roulette, what do we got today?
Ah. I see. Well played.
Danny spent a decade getting dunked on he’s allowed to be kind of cool for a bit.
It’s been a while since I’ve read my bible, but where does it say you can fuck on the third date? Is that some of Paul’s bullshit?
Hahaha. I like this notion that the Bible knows what “dating” is.
Paul’s Letter to the Peverts.
Preverts.
Purity Of Essence
Purity of essence is why the Zerg were made, man, don’t go down that route.
A _Dr. Strangelove_ reference? Interesting.
Biggest thing I remember from that movie was how obsessed that brigadier general was about flouride in municipal water. Helps me sort out conspiracy theorists from genuine health experts.
Since this DoA, we should note the General Ripper had sex problems, which is what clued him in the commie threat to our precious bodily fluids,
I don’t think it’s biblical, but it’s certainly one of those rules I remember as far back as Friends. Take from that what you will.
A lot of Christians practice what I like to call “Lassez-faire Christianity” where they largely ignore the actual writings and just go based on what sounds right to them.
I think this would be considered a little heretical, but I’m not about to judge
No, I think it was Ringo.
No, this is Patrick!
It’s in the Gospel of ‘Murica.
And God said unto thee: “Thou can fornicate on the third date, but *ONLY* if you get a specialty meal from IHOP’s burgeoning menu of amazing selections [Sponsored by IHOP]!”
I wonder if there the ratio of menu prices to pancake quality is a factor in the number of dates? Is it serious if you went to Waffle House? Or if you had sticker shock at Denny’s? Is IHOP the sweet spot?
It doesn’t; it’s a made up rule from decades ago when people wanted to have sex but didn’t think it was proper to do right away; thus an arbitrary “third date is long enough to know someone is serious about this dating thing and has their sights set on proper marriage” rule was invented.
I dunno, that’s still pretty “right away.”
Feels like a thing that somewhat-‘modern’ society adopted, and so ingrained into dating culture(?) that they either have to put up with it if they’re not upfront with ‘waiting til marriage’ or willing to make an exception/being ‘ok’ with it as long as it meant that it’d be a big step in a committed relationship compared to something casual, so some religious leaning women might not deny sex as an option so ppl wouldn’t commonly think “Well, she’s a christian and i’m not so there’s no point in even giving this a chance” but i’d imagine with ‘natural’ chemistry meeting in high school/college they wouldn’t esp think about their religion unless they were obviously christian with wearing a cross and actively trying to preach/convert someone
Depends what you mean by “modern”. Dating culture did not exist before the 20th century. Before that, if you were a young person looking to marry, you could only choose from a pool of suitors that were approved by your family. Social rules about this were looser for lower class people (because there was no property or money to inherit), but it was still unthinkable for proper Christian girls to openly spend time unchaperoned with men, let alone spend time romantically or even have sex.
People still did, of course, but it was never openly and this could not be talked about. “Dates” did not officially exist because young people were not allowed to spending time alone together.
I don’t think it was a single event that shifted society (especially Western Christian society) to view dates -young people seeing each other romantically with the possibility of sex and the possibility of marriage- as socially acceptable.
At some point from the 1910’s to the 1920’s things went from “a young lady is allowed to go to dance hall if she’s chaperoned the whole evening” to “scandalous young people are going dancing together without the knowledge or approval of their parents” to “young people go out dancing to meet other people and potentially hook up”
And that’s why the bicycle was a grave threat to morality. People always think the panic was just about women wearing (gasp!) trousers, but it was also that young people could get away from chaperones and meet unaccompanied.
And have a better chance of getting to fuck someone they weren’t related to. Or maybe that’s just Cambridgeshire.
And yet somehow, despite all those rules and restrictions, young people still fucked before marriage.
As the old saying goes, if all you bar all but one window in town, the last window is where the fuck happens.
You’d think that. Until you hear about “Bundling Boards”.
https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/weird-decor-what-is-a-bundling-board-214210
I like that the ambient cheering noises also work for Lucy. Mostly.
Danny: “New Fear Unlocked: Horny Christian Girls”
At least Danny’s ready to dodge Agents in the Matrix.
I was going to say. He sure managed to dodge a bullet already.
Some people have washboard abs, Danny is just a washboard.
Afganastan is the graveyard of Empires
Ihop is the graveyard of relationships
My knees snapped out only reading this strip. Danny’s position may hurt a lot
Yea I don’t think my shoulders even move that way
It hasn’t escaped my notice that Walky isn’t excited at all to have sex, in fact he doesn’t mention it once.
He’s also not overtly pushing back against it either, which I might have expected given his previously expressed reluctance. He has given himself an established out, though, which I won’t be at all surprised if he uses rather than discuss his feelings.
IMO he’s trying to avoid/postpone the issue for as long as he possibly can.
I don’t necessarily think that’s true. He’s nervous, and the use of the L word has thrown him a little bit due to him unintentionally starting it, but it’s been demonstrated on several occasions that he’s definitely into the idea of getting physical with her, including what even started the whole “third date” stipulation.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/04-hompk/chill/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/solution/
I’m not sure I got “he wants to bang” out of these comics. The first one especially reads more as “Walky is dogging on Christians for the arbitrary nonsense they drum up again (possibly expecting Lucy to freak out like Joyce used to)” and the second one reads “walky is flustered because this girl has no concept of personal space” as much as it reads “walky thinks this is arousing”
The blush on Walky’s face alongside “It’s a good thing I asked you out” together are pretty clear indications Walky is into Lucy.
To me that first scene seems about the most flirty I’ve ever seen Walky.
He thinks it’s somewhat under false pretenses since she thinks he said he’s in love with her and that’s not what he meant.
Both of those read to me like Walky is responding to everything* with jokes. Like Walky literally ran away and figuratively grieving being in that relationship when she suggested they fool around. Have we even seen him kiss her? Them kissing seems like something that would be shown.
As much as the 3-date rule is a silly thing Lucy has made up for herself, I think it’s also a silly thing she’s under the impression Walky expects. He makes a joke, instead of just saying what he’s thinking, and that’s all she has to go on when he turns down her sexual advances.
He could have said, at any time sex has come up, that his past relationships got physical too quickly and he’d like to take it slow. That might be a difficult conversation, but just jokes and let her believe the wrong thing and hope the situation resolves is making things worse.
He’s acting more excited about the food, but no, last strip, he was also advocating for this to be a date.
lol i imagine he’s temp distracted by the pancakes but you would’ve think he’d be a bit hesitant or like “Well, i’m fine not rushing into things” lol (unless he plans to stuff himself to where he’d be too nauseous/sick to get out of sex)
I guess getting them to leave vs ruining their night (and his own) is the perfect amount of petty. Danny’s a good egg, better than they deserve.
Also, nice bookends for Walky’s day. Cheeseburger for breakfast at upscale restaurant, pancakes for a late dinner at IHOP. Plus already thinking about how to avoid sex without talking about the real reason.
So what are the odds of Walky stuffing himself just to get out of this?
…what denomination fucks if and only if you’ve had three dates?
The Church of Saint Too Horny to Care, plus a number of other smaller splinter churches. And that’s to say nothing of the groups that specify two or four dates as the appropriate number for a relationship to be close enough to marriage that God won’t be too mad.
No denomination.
It is someone’s idea of only sluts do it on the first date so how long is long enough?
I don’t think it’s completely an “only sluts” thing. A lot of legitimate relationship experts think that jumping into intimacy too soon can lead to issues later. Like getting involved with somebody who looks hot, until to find out later that they’re a low level mob flunky. You know, things like that.
Third date is still pretty soon.
The same one as last time.
Yep. As somebody once told me, in a certain superhero film, I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
That song only appears in superhero films, it’s been said.
…I mean, no, it also appears in a certain slightly rude children’s fantasy film. In fact, those who are a bit younger than me probably know it from there.
IHOP pancakes are kinda sucky though. Like, for a place that literally put pancakes in the name they ought to be better
Burger King did the same thing, with their completely inedible display sandwiches. Somehow, when a place gets famous for making the food it’s named after, it’s arbitrarily allowed to fucking suck and not go out of fucking business. The only reason chain restaurants are allowed to taste worse than vomit is that broke people don’t have the energy/time to cook and people with money don’t have taste buds anyway.
Burger King burgers are okay.
Best quality has to be Wendy’s, or McDonalds if you do the thing I do where you put their McNuggets in the burger. Best quality / price ratio for sure is Jack in the Box.
I absolutely loathe McDonald’s food. It used to be cheap enough to at least say “Hey, it was only a buck or two for the sandwich” and now that same sandwich is like $10 because I asked for bacon, but the bacon is the length and width of my thumb and about as thick as tissue paper but still costs more to add than it does at Sonic, where there are two entire slices of bacon that actually possess reasonable dimensions. $5 for a half a tongue depressor’s worth of “bacon”, Ronald can go McFuck himself.
I don’t know how McDonalds makes all their food smell the same, but I don’t think I want to find out either. The most edible thing on their menu is their fries. They also renovated all their restaurants into big gray and woodgrain boxes. They look like diabetes prisons.
Burger King used to be good, but they’ve cut a ton of corners and they don’t have those nice, gritty shakes anymore. Plus the ones near me spent a bunch of effort replacing all the real 1980s decor with faux 1980s decor. If I want that “flame broiled” taste, I’ll just fire up the Weber.
If I had to pick from the big three burger chains, I’d go to Wendy’s. Their stuff at least mostly resembles real food.
I do occasionally enjoy Wendy’s, despite the patties being somehow bland and cold even when I just watched the fuckers season and cook them not moments ago, the drinks being both too watered down and too syrupy, and the buns being essentially a bread-scented bubble for all the mass they have. Other than that it’s good enough for the price (kinda) on rare occasions. At the very least, I feel like it’s always been consistently passable, whereas the other two were probably pretty good once, before corporations started to unanimously decide it was somehow cheaper to spend millions to, as you said, turn the stores into grey boxes.
That’s a lot of run-on, but the general gist hopefully comes through.
A perfect time to play Mitch Benn’s “Ronald, Your Food Sucks” on the hacked Muzak.
Steak’n’Shake, even after the new owner turned the menu into a three-ring circus.
Its not even like IHOP is particularly cheap, you can usually get less pricey and better pancakes at a regular diner.
danny’s power of reason is simply too powerful
If Danny’s Power of Reason is too powerful, than Dina’s Power of Reason is like frickin Conqueror’s Haki.
Ngl, this whole interaction is starting to push Lucy from the “boring but harmless” category into the “draining to see on panel” category for me. It’s not often that a perfectly non antagonistic character earns my ire, but I really don’t want her to get what she wants at this point in time.
Like, this relationship isn’t exactly a train wreck, but it is just… so very bland. There is so little chemistry here that I barely want them to continue as friends when it inevitably falls apart. The few cute moments they have are so few and far apart and for some reason never actually involve each other directly. I want literally anybody else for them at this point.
Idk. I want to click with Lucy as a character. It’s just really hard and I’m not sure why. I have no issues finding things to sympathize about with Walky (kid coasted through HS and burnt out, poorly emotionally equipped in general, etc.) but I just don’t get where Lucy’s coming from on anything ever.
I feel like Lucy’s religious views are about to fucking come out of the dark.
Lucy is in that unfortunate place where she’s actually not got very big or interesting problems, isn’t the same kind of relateable to the comments section as the kind of mid queer characters, and whose relationships to the rest of the cast aren’t really well-established yet (and the ones that kinda are are not really tension-regaining).
So she’s cute but she’s not… like, someone we care about yet. I think that’ll change soon.
I feel bad for her because her faults remind me of my faults when I was that age. But also she’s irritating to me for exactly the same reason.
See, she reminds me of me at that age, which is why I’m rooting for her to get laid and figure out some religion/popularity stuff as a result in a way that’s less fraught than what I went through.
Her problems have also been presented as incredibly shallow, imo. Like, she’s singularly focused on this Disney Channel idea of popularity, her whole arc with Walky has been driven by arbitrary rules she invented for herself, and any moments of earnestness dissolve into mainstream pop culture references. I hope she gets some development because I do think she could be an interesting character once the veneer of false sunniness gets knocked away (and I think it’s gonna happen soon)
Please continue to catalog the reasons why I like Lucy.
I’d enjoy seeing one slow-burn relationship here. There’s plenty of storytelling material in having Lucy continue thirsty and unslaked for a long time while they slowly align. It would be interesting to see if she has that much patience / personal interest in Walky.
‘thirsty and unslaked’ Um, Daisy? The lame limping gag?
Chocolate chip pancakes from iHop? Not enough protein, far too filling.
Frankly I prefer Jack in the Box’s breakfast sandwiches and hash browns. XD
I can’t wait until she stops talking about “have to wait for 3 dates” in part because it’s a silly way to reconcile dogma, feminist values, and customs that don’t even apply to her relationship, and in part because each time she says it, there’s like half a dozen comments asking where in Christianity that rule comes from.
And I don’t think it’s a rule she even cares about, if push came to shove. She thinks Walky cares about it. She’s already said she’s ready to fool around, and he ran away. They would already be fucking if he wanted, or she’d stop making everybody else’s problem if he would talk to her about it.
anyways, TLDR: stop asking where in Christianity the rule is from, that’s the joke.
the last panel is the hardest I’ve laughed in a while. Danny must be a champ at limbo! (or maybe not? if so, only under some duress.)
Yeah the pose he’s in reminds me so much of shonen manga for some reason. XD
Girl, you *need* to stop reading women’s magazines.
I feel like 18ish is a normal time to start getting back pains
though Lucy’s hurrying it along
With how Walky operates, he’ll never be too full on
Lucychocolate chip pancakes.Also, it’s been a while before someone’s religious values bubbled up, and since it can’t be Joyce’s anymore…
Since it keeps getting asked what the deal is with the third date stipulation:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/04-hompk/chill/
I think people are taking Lucy very literally about this, when no, it’s a rationalization because Walky and her want to bang but both had cold feet about doing that right away, albeit maybe for different reasons.
Oh, jeez! Great callback. As someone raised Catholic i can remember The Sermon on the Mount being a big part of (what passed for) sex ed.
And since then, Lucy has publicly screamed at bystanders about how having sex on the third date (not before, but also no later) is standard practice for “Christian women.”
What is Lucy, anyway? I’m pretty sure she’s Protestant (certainly I don’t think any Catholic would consider fucking on the third date “Christ-approved”), but I wonder what denom?
Lucy’s pronouns are she/her.
…that’s not what I was asking and you know it.
I was high when I posted that, so I guess the entire buildup and delivery are missing, leaving that nonsensical punchline. It was supposed to be a play on the frequent comments about Booster’s pronouns (mixed with a second thing I forgot the specifics of but it’s vaguely flavored like another common topic), all aimed at Lucy, and it just really doesn’t work without those missing elements.
Well, I can’t be too judgmental; I’m not high, but I’m pissed.
(And also I’ve been either banned or one-and-done’d at just about every joint on the Cape.)
…and also I was banned from here for about a year and a half.
Well, I laughed!
Yeah, me too.
Was the parent comment edited? I struggle to comprehend how this reply is relevant
No, I’m pretty sure they were deliberately misinterpreting my “what.”
Wait, you didn’t mean my comment, did you? I was asking about Lucy’s denomination, not her pronouns.
Yes I meant I couldn’t understand why pronouns entered three picture at all when you didn’t misuse them at all
Maybe Lutheran? The Lutherans I know (in-laws and several close friends lol) are much more relaxed about sex before marriage.
That would be nice.
Well, now, there’s different kinds of Lutherans, but those I grew up with would probably say “don’t do that, but we won’t shun you if you do.”
Yeah, that’s kinda the vibe I get too. Like… ideally don’t, but if you do, meh. There’s worse things.
She’s After-The-Third-Date-ist.
Don’t you mean “Third Date Adventist”?
Catholics fuck whenever they personally feel like it. I don’t know where people get in their head that every Christian follows the tenets of their denomination to the t.
She’s going to a United Methodist church currently.
Well, yes, but we know to tell the priest after.
So, Danny is here to cheer Sal, and he just solved a problem…
Daniel Wilcox, problem-solving cheerleader!
Danny for new Alpha Bongo confirmed
We could make a joke about Danning up his own vendetta with Walky, but really Danny’s just nice. Head cheerleader, problem solver, good egg.
Danny should just see it as training for Matrix bullet dodging.
walky are you going to confront how you might not be that into this before you sleep with her
or are you just currently too distracted by pancakes to consider this
…man, I want pancakes now
They closed the Dennys here where I live too, in Virginia. It reopened as a Cannabist.
I don’t use cannabis items but boy, do I miss Dennys.
I misread that as “a Cannibalist”.
Man I love Dennys. It was a fave hangout for College students.
Haha, actually a welcome change!!!
It’s just like that South Park episode but with Denny’s instead of KFC LOL XD
The proximity of Cannabis and Denny’s reminds me of a time that my friends and I got very high and decided to go to Denny’s, only for me to remember beyond the point of no return that my high school crush worked there
I have never related to Danny more than in the last panel. Back pain sucks.
Walky, please stuff yourself with pancakes so Lucy can never touch you ever.
Why exactly?
She’s pushy and comes off as way too insincere for my liking.
These people are something like 18 years old, and Lucy is the very opposite of pushy. She goes out of her way to be nice to everybody, to a tragic degree.
Ok but her relationship with Walky is what I find insincere.
Danny’s ‘get off my back’ solution feels like it was lifted from the comment section.
On a related theme, poor Lucy has a long road ahead of her.
You’ve found it, internet traveller! This! This is the strip where someone yells “CUT ‘EM OFF!” at Danny’s junk
Walky doesn’t seem that into it. Then again, he seems happy enough to go along. That’s ok.
well he did get dorothy’s advice to basically not retract his i love you statement, but hopefully he’d communicate if not blurt out some form of ‘i’m not ready’ if not just being too nervous to perform, or sometimes ppl just act in the heat of the moment without thinking (though audience wise i’d think ppl would prefer a sal/danny slipshine first)
I talked to my cousin with the roller derby daughter. She’s finished college and is actually in her first year of law school. And is still doing the derby. Managed to break her arm recently which is complicating finals and stuff.
“Hire the Derby Girls Law Firm! We’ll hip-check those insurance companies into the boards.”
Although from what I know of her, she’ll probably want to be an environmental justice lawyer or the like.
I will say, while I don’t know how enthusiastic Walky actually is about this, a lot of people are reading a lot into *specifically* him not bringing up how excited he is. He’s acting about as enthusiastic as Danny did a few comics ago. Honestly, I think Willis is probably a little reluctant to write a guy getting *too* excited because a) that’s what we expect, b) it might just feel pestier coming from a dude. Genderflip Lucy’s behavior here and it gets different energies, you know?
i get the feeling that people WANT Walky to be a jerk.
would it have really been better if Walky shouted out something like “im getting some bread and fishes tonight!”, or some other christian sex pun?
Lucy’s behavior is pretty bad as it is.
hopefully walky would speak up but there’s ways to be intimate/just doing ‘2nd and 3rd base’ as opposed to full on sex and hopefully lucy would be emotionally satisfied
Obligatory “that could count as assault and battery??”
Clearly what you wanna do is buy alot of chocolate chip pancakes, eat only a bit of them then take the rest home to fill up on after the sex.
Post-Nut Pancake