Lucy F-bombs for the first time!!! MULTIPLE times!!! Yippee!!!
This is very very very good development for her, giving up on the impossible goal of gaining Walky’s parents’ respect, instead focusing on her own self respect.
Finally, the [Adhesive Medical Strip] is ripped off!!! 🥹🥹🥹
I don’t normally do “hacked muzak” gags, although I appreciate them in others, but I swear “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia just actually came on the raido…
I see this as a bad development. Lucy has finally figured out part of the problem, and her immediate resolution is that it is everyone’s fault but hers. Especially to look at Walky and essentially say, ‘and this is your fault for letting me drive myself to hurt me’.
Yes. Lucy is young. But she’s washing herself of responsibility almost as fast as she identifies responsibility to be taken.
Well at the very least acknowledging that Jennifer was right about Walky’s parents’ moving goal-post is a really really good start.
But yeah, she has yet to become aware of her complacence to the culture that herds her and other cast members into living the result of other peoples’ thinking. In other words, dogma/.
How do you parse this strip as Lucy evading responsibility? Do you not see the first 2 panels? Just because those introspective revelations led her to also experience a bit of righteous indignation directed outwards doesn’t mean the acknowledgement of her own culpability vanished.
“and FUCK getting to know people and developing genuine love after months or years of devotion to each other instead of overinflating infatuation at first sight!”
Yeah, like… this might just be me being very, very demi, but developing feelings for somebody after spending a lot of time with them will always feel more genuine than a crush at first sight. He’s not really at fault here (though I appreciate Lucy saying “fuck your parents, they suck,” lol)
Why I have always had a hard time getting into relationships. I need to know a person and be friends before getting into that level of commitment and that is not how online dating systems work. Not that I can’t think that someone looks nice, it just isn’t the foundation for me wanting to be in a relationship. It is like looking at a piece of beautiful artwork, pretty but not what you are looking for with everyday tasks, if that makes sense. I want my computer to be functional, not a beautiful piece of art that drives me crazy with its functionality. If it is both, that’s fine, but support before beauty. Also tends to mean that people I might have wanted to be in a relationship with had already found a girlfriend by the time I knew them well enough to consider it (in places like college).
I wanna date someone I’m friends with first. I care way more about personality than I do physical appearance. But I’m bad at making friends so that’s also really hard for me. And so I kinda feel like I have no choice but to be up front about romance and the like.
*waves* Socially awkward demi introvert who lucked out and was friends for 2 years with a lovely guy before realising she like-liked him, round-about told him (“I like somebody, and this is like the third time it’s really happened. Guess who?” by text at stupid o’clock) – and have been with him since the next time we met up in person. That was almost 19 years ago…
I misheard my eldest describing me as being madly in love with him as me being mad to be in mad with him the other day though 😂 Sometimes, that would also be a totally fair description…
That is really sweet. I have a fair bit of demi-traits myself (for a straight bloke especially) and that’s not a million miles from what happened with me. I’ve never hooked up with anyone who I didn’t really like either, but I’ve had intimate relationships with several of my friends, and definitely stayed friends later on as well.
*joins the demi/ace crowd* Not 100% clear on if I’m demi or ace but my one attempt at dating mostly just confirmed my orientation doesn’t include that guy.
Walky . . . even if he didn’t feel the insta-love that she did, he’s trying. He doesn’t entirely know how to be a good boyfriend, but he wants to be one. And if he were wise enough regarding his parents to be able to tell her she didn’t need to win their approval, he wouldn’t be scrambling to maintain his own.
I honestly just thought I was really slow about relationship things until I came across the term and realised being demi was a thing. Like, how could I not notice I like-liked him??
Although in fairness when I first met my now husband he was just about under the age of consent (3 years younger than me, so at that point the sort of age gap that would have been ooky for anything other than friendship, but that rapidly closed up), and dating a friend of mine (between us in age)… They’d been split up I think about a year and a half, and he’d had a few not serious girlfriends between seeing us, and she was living with the guy she was seeing after him by then, and confirmed that she was fine with it!
But yeah, genuinely didn’t notice I liked him like that until after it had probably been socially acceptable for a while, which I can live with!
I think of it as moving through the stages of a process of development.
(1) Initial infatuation brings you in for a closer look. So you learn more.
(2) Maybe you fall In Love for reals. It’s said that lasts about six months on average. It keeps you two together as you learn even more.
(3) Eventually the newness wears off and you find that either no, this isn’t someone I can commit to; or yes, I want this person by my side, faults and all.
Long-time friends can skip (1) and even (2) if that’s how it works out, because they found other reasons to learn each others’ characters and personalities.
Yeah, I was raised in a culture that does arranged marriages and although I did Western-style dating myself I still think many of the things I was taught about arranged marriage growing up is super useful. Namely, that attraction is an emotion but loving someone is a choice you make. And ideally, yes, you’re attracted to the person you’re with. But ultimately loving them isn’t about attraction, it’s about doing the work of caring about them (and letting them care about you).
Yeah, that’s something that I feel a lot of our western culture is missing. If you want things to work, you have to put in the work to MAKE them work.
First, when you as a couple have an issue with one another, it isn’t you vs your partner, is you AND your partner vs the problem, simply reframing the conflict like that helps keep things civil and puts the focus on a negotiation to find a solution that ideally you can both be happy with, this is a major stumbling block for a lot of couples as it requires both parties to have that mindset to really work, otherwise it’s like trying to compromise with a wall.
Second, as you encounter things about your partner that you don’t like, you need to recognize that part of compromise is about deciding what you can live with, some things you can learn to like or at least not care about, but a lot of small annoyances are things that you just have to accept are going to annoy you, and you have to decide if the relationship as a whole is good enough to be worth dealing with that. Like, absolutely bring up any such issues with your partner and have a conversation where you see if they are willing and able to change whatever it is, but there will always be something or other inherent about them that bothers you, that’s just the reality of being with a unique individual with free will. Some things can be changed, some things cannot, and there are also some things that they CAN change but don’t want to, for instance I have a very unusual fashion sense, I dress like a weirdo, I love the way I look but I recognize not many people do, otherwise everyone would dress like me and they simply don’t, my GF likes my fashion sense, but if she didn’t, I wouldn’t change it for her and she’d have to decide if being with me is worth being with someone who dresses in weird fashion.
Third, bear in mind that perfect is the enemy of good. You will not find someone who treats you *exactly* the way you want, at least not without training, lol, and you will not find someone who doesn’t have *something* about them that bothers you. You will not find someone who loves every aspect of you, or does not wish some things about you will change. Everyone has flaws, everyone has aspects of their personality that will be in conflict with yours, and circumstances will inevitably arise that cause a fight of some kind. The goal shouldn’t be to find some mythical person that fits together with you like a puzzle piece with no gaps or friction or jamming. The goal should be to find someone good *enough* for you that they are worth the effort of bridging those gaps, dealing with the friction, and jamming the pieces together until they fit. They should be someone willing to be better for you, someone who makes you want to be better for them, someone you are happy to be with more than not, and someone who is happy to be with you more than not. Don’t get stuck on finding “The One”, find someone good enough and then put in the work to *make* them “The One”. The One isn’t destined, they are chosen, loads of people *could* be your One, but you have to decide to put in the work to make it work for one of them to *become* The One (and for you poly folks out there, obviously you can have multiple Ones at a time, just because you have multiple relationships doesn’t mean they aren’t each a singular individual of importance in your life, therefore “The One” still applies as a term, even if you have many, personally that sounds like too much work, but to each their own).
Western cultures seem to have a worse track record with figuring that stuff out, at least for the last few generations anyway. It would be easier to find someone with those values if we bothered to teach them the way cultures that still practice things like arranged marriages do. I think part of the issue is that stuff gets lumped in with “traditional family values” and a lot of those are fairly toxic stuff that I’m glad isn’t being passed down as much anymore, but sadly the positive parts are being excised with the negative, hopefully we as a society get a wakeup call soon and we relearn the parts that are good and start passing them down again so the future generations can be better off.
I always cringe a little at the “love is a choice” but thats just because it sounds too close to the rhetoric I grew up claiming gayness was a sin you chose.
I do agree that the commitment to someone is more important than just initial infatuation, and i think western culture sometimes overglorifies the initial infatuation to the point where people ignore the important aspects that make a long term relationship work.
Simple emotions, like attraction, are not a choice, they just happen. Complex emotions, like love, *can* be a choice, by continuing to choose to be in situations that cause those emotions to build, in the case of love, by choosing to continue to be in a relationship with the person and foster that relationship. I can’t choose who gets my dick hard, but of those people I did get to choose my GF, and I intend to continue choosing her.
I mean, I don’t think we can really accuse her of overvaluing love at first sight in the comments beneath a strip where she is asking whether what she feels for him is really love.
Exactly this, and saying she hasn’t done it the “right demi way” when they have known each other for four months and hung out a lot as friends, nothing has been rushed into, especially compared to other relationships exhibited so far.
Yes her feelings were bigger, because she misinterpreted what Walky had said, and he didn’t correct her and it snowballed into this situation. Again one of them knew where both of them were at and hadn’t corrected the other’s clearly mistaken impressions until like 5 strips go.
Well, to be perfectly factual, she did blush the first time she saw him (though it may or may not be because of what Jennifer was saying rather than actual attraction), and then admitted being interested in him shortly after their second encounter, which she rationalized as him having desirable traits for a life companion rather than sexual attraction.
Sooo… that’s not saying much in terms of sexuality, and my guess is the sexual attraction probably came after they started dating, which made it more acceptable in her mind : as of today (in-comic), Lucy would never actually consider having sex with someone she is not dating, so any of those lusty feelings would simply not be acted upon.
I still think what happened with Lucy is that she found Walky hot and wanted to get into his britches. Because this isn’t how she thinks a good christian girl behaves, she decided she loves him and made up an ideal in her head about what he is like.
Le sigh. Just be a college student and bang the hot guy because you want to.
Yep. Like yes for Walky the dating is new and her having feelings for him is new. And I think he’d be gun-shy regardless after the way his last “I love you” exchange went! This is Lucy’s first relationship, but it’s Walky’s third, and he’s used to being with women whose expectations for dating are…….
Well, I don’t want to say more realistic, especially wrt Amber; Amber’s dating history has probably been. Fraught. But certainly neither she nor Dorothy had starry eyed expectations of true love, the way I think Lucy did.
When you are that age, nobody tells you that those super powerful feelings that affect you even physically is infatuation and not love. And if you are so lucky to have someone to tell you that, you not only will not believe them but also feel very offended. No need to judge her for something that is the experience of most people when falling “in love” for the first time.
I find that’s more a failing of our vocabulary than anything else. For the record, there are many different and distinct feelings that are all called “love”, some have other terms also associated with them that can be used for disambiguation, but some of those terms are fairly obscure and I’m not sure that all distinct forms of love actually *have* other terms for them beyond “[qualifier] love”.
For there record, the term for the infatuation of a new relationship is called “limerence”, and as far as I am concerned that is technically a *kind* of love, just not necessarily the kind of love we often think it is. It’s kind of between what the Greeks called Eros and what they called Mania (and both can be translated as “love” into English, but inspired rather distinct terms via etymology that I feel are sufficiently obvious to indicate what the distinction is). Limerence is sadly generally temporary by it’s nature, there are ways to extend it and even to rekindle it later, but it naturally ebbs and wanes over time and it’s natural for it to calm into something else, ideally a more stable kind of romantic love, but unfortunately it often calms into something else.
Then there’s platonic love, familial love (which is often different depending on the kind of familial relation, so this one can be broken down further if needed), devotional love (often applied to objects of worship, such as a god, but technically can be applied to a person, and often is), lust (Eros proper), passion (this term *can* be treated as a synonym for lust, but in this case I’m using it to describe an interest or desire for knowledge and skill-mastery, this can be applied to a subject, an activity, a field, or a person), etc.
These various kinds and categories of love are pretty thoroughly overlapping and inter-connected, it’s not particularly common to experience only *one* of these, and part of the reason so many people disagree on what constitutes “true” or “genuine” romantic love is that romantic love is generally the most *complex* form of love, being any of a variety of combinations of some or all of those different kinds of love, to the point where it is entirely possible that *every* relationship with genuine romantic love has it’s own unique combination of loves composing the overall romantic love.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that limerence is *not* romantic love, and I get why people dislike having the sincerity of their feelings dismissed like that. I think it’s probably more accurate to say that it’s an unstable, *early* form of romantic love, and a big part of nurturing it *into* romantic love is to be aware that it can be destabilized before it can fully flourish into romantic love, this can happen due to time (the seven year itch is a common example), discovery of something so unattractive it bursts the bubble of limerence (The Ick), or simply recognizing that things will not work long-term due to deal breakers or other irreconcilable incompatibilities and ending them before the limerence actually goes away to minimize emotional damage. I think being aware of this instability and the common ways limerence can be lost can go a long way toward stabilizing it, hence why relationships that were built more slowly or between more mature individuals tend to be more likely to reach this more stable romantic love and go the distance.
You are not wrong here. However, the point that I am trying to make is that for a teen/post-teen experiencing such feelings for the first time (beyond, say, silly crushes), they feel all-consuming and divine. Even if you ofer them 200 shades of nuance with proper, unique labels to define all the types and kinds of love and adjacent there are, they will always point straight out to whichever label you are using for the most sublime and pure kind of romantic love. They don’t have that many other examples to give them perspective nor do they wish to consider for a second that the way they are feeling is “inferior” to the presumed existence of “real love” as they would put it, childlishly.
I don’t speak for all people in that demographic, but when I was *in* that demographic I was able to identify the distinctions, largely because I was educated that such distinctions exist.
And to be frank, I don’t think there is any one such thing AS “pure” love or “real” love or “true” love or whatever. Romantic love is a complex emotion, made up of several simple emotions, including things like lust, contentment, joy, attachment, adoration, the desire to help, platonic love, familial love, etc. Sometimes romantic love includes elements of devotional love, sometimes it doesn’t. The list of simple emotions that CAN combine into romantic love is significantly longer than the list of simple emotions that make up any one person’s romantic love, and even if yours is made of the same components as, say, mine, they could easily have different proportions, maybe mine has more lust, or more familial love, maybe yours is more about contentment and adoration. Either way, it’s still love, even if we are both experiencing it in entirely different, potentially in completely incompatible ways.
So, once again, the issue is in how it gets presented, by saying one kind of love is somehow better or more “real” than another, of course they are gonna say theirs is the “real” kind. The point is that you don’t try to tell people their feelings aren’t real or are lesser in some way, and then they won’t have an issue with the overall point you try to make about it. Who cares if their love is less stable than someone who’s been in a 50 year marriage that’s still going strong? Who cares if odds are good they’ll break up in a few months? Don’t go telling people their love isn’t real, because it IS real and it IS love, just a different kind of love than whatever it is you’ve decided is “true” love. It’s a vocabulary issue.
Speaking from my own perspective, I was very much educated on the different kinds of love but that didn’t help at all when those powerful feelings steamrolled over me the first time. I was too befuddled to think and as I said above, I didn’t want to consider that those overwhelming feelings were anything less than the highest ideal of romantic love. Stupid, I know, but I got it bad.
As I said, I agree with you and definitely if everybody could be well informed AND in perfect control and understanding of their feelings, they would spare themselves lots of pain and bad choices. I’m just not sure that everybody can? Seems like a special sort of psychological/emotional makeup and everybody is different.
In her defense on this, she’s calling out Walky not for leading her on, but for playing his parents’ (more accurately, his mother’s) game in trying to get their approval of her.
And in time she may come to realize that. But in the moment she’s realizing the disparity and so is lumping everyone together. I don’t get the sense that she’s mad at Walky in that second to last panel so much as incredibly sad.
Yep. There was a definite shift between anger and sadness in those panels. I could hear her voice losing steam between the gritted teeth of “fuck them” and the quiet despair of “fuck you too”.
i mean it’s not his fault she put him up on a pedestal but he probably should’ve communicated that he wanted to take things slowly or so
as far his parents i can get not being willing to cut them off/confront them, esp at a younger age where you don’t have a safety net versus being old enough to move out and get as much distance between them as possible and never deal with them again
It can be difficult to cut off abusive parents even when you ARE older and have that safety net (I speak from experience). Especially when they become elderly and start to rely on their offspring more and more; while their favourite offspring (no, that’s not me) lives 6 hours away and the second favourite offspring (and no, that’s not me either) lives close enough but can’t be bothered – leaving them constantly badgering their least favourite offspring (yes, that’s me, folks) and that offspring’s spouse who’s from the ‘wrong’ country.
They want stuff from me, nothing I can do for them is ever QUITE good enough, and they are GREAT at making me feel like that’s entirely my fault.
Wow that was very close to my parents situation with their families like eairly so, it’s like a blend I mean my moms mother and father favored their male offspring over my mom and my dad’s mom didn’t like my moms religion, yet both relied on them to take care of them. So yeah that really sucks I’m sorry your in that situation I’ve seen it from the outside and it takes a toll.
Walky is doing Ok to just stand up to them a bit for his sister. He’s already struggling.
And you are right, is he supposed to disown his parents and drop out of college and be homeless for a girl he just met and didn’t want to introduce to them?
It’s probably helpful for Walky to be able to say “my parents will never tolerate me having a girlfriend who looks like my dad, dealing with them and their racism is a chore either she or I are going to have to do.” And it’s definitely helpful for Lucy to be able to dump him for some serious shortcomings on his part (perceived or real) instead of like thinking if she can stop idealizing him and idealizing her expectations of the relationship maybe it can work.
Ehhhhh. It feels like they both had the idea at the same time and she happened to speak first.
Either way, the enthusiasm for the hijinx was very mutual. But only Walky had first-hand knowledge of Linda, so he should have been the one to realize it wasn’t going to work and say so.
You have all the vocabulary you need. Profanity is so over-used nowadays that it’s lost its impact. “That makes me very angry!” is more likely to get your feelings noticed. You can even try to say it like Marvin the Martian if you want to take the edge off.
Seriously. Describe your emotions instead of just venting them. Try it and see.
He specifically avoided the topic and conversation, and just hoped it would fix itself over time, and that was his mistake. I don’t think she’s right in blaming him for this though as not sure I remember it completely right but I think she was the one that wanted to do that.
There is a world where this broke the ice to start a road to conversation how they both made mistakes and can grow from it together.
Lucy for setting some unrealistic goals and expectations for an early relationship.
Walky for avoiding some major conflict that he obviously recognized. He knew the love component would be an issue as he both died inside when it happened and then spoke to Dorothy about it. But instead of sitting Lucy down and addressing it, he just let it fester and was flippant about it when getting the coat.
But again, they’re both 18ish so this stuff does come with age after some proper dumbing.
Sure looks like it. Walky could probably talk her down from it if he played his cards right — tell her he may not love her yet but he’s still invested in making this relationship work, say he’s sorry for everything he’s put her through with his parents — but it doesn’t seem like he’s even trying to mount a defense. This could just be a side effect of needing to fit conversation beats into strip-sized chunks, but it looks like writing on the wall to me. Either he’s never been as invested in the relationship so much as going through the motions because it’s proper, or the whole church thing has wigged him out too much to try and stop what’s coming
Maybe. Or maybe this is the point at which the strain is relieved and breaking becomes less likely. If even one of them gets defensive, I’d guess it’s over. If not…this moment is probably the most vulnerable they’ve ever been, and could take them further.
ISN’T IT? These storylines usually stretch for longer, but all of her insecurities went off at once. And now I’m wondering how long had they been simmering.
now we’ll have to see if she’ll stand up to raidah and billie if she disapproves of their actions/choices tho i imagine she’d tell off sarah first if anything
The good news is, I don’t think Raidah actually wants her as a member. Making “friends” with both Jennifer and Walky is about getting back at Joyce for what happened with Jacob, and Lucy isn’t good enough friends with either Joyce OR Sarah for Raidah to expand any extra energy on luring her any further to the Dark Side.
Raidah not wanting her might be what saves Lucy. We don’t know what Lucy’s major is, but without connections… She might be even academically ambitious and all, but I wonder if it would be enough to set aside how she’s “a nobody”. I sure hope it isn’t.
I will be heartbroken for her if she goes to Raidah now and Raidah rejects her, though.
Because BOY does Lucy need friends. :c Jennifer… tolerates her??? She was making some inroads with Walky’s friend-group, but it’s still Walky’s friend-group. (I just keep thinking of the strip where she was running to catch up with them after the timeskip and even though it had been several months she was still calling out with, “Hey, wait up! It’s me, Lucy!”) (Also I think Sarah really struck a nerve by telling her she wasn’t a “real” part of the friend-group.)
To go to Raidah for sympathy, only to find be brushed off because Raidah doesn’t like anyone in that group except probably Carl… would really hurt her a lot, even though it would also be the better outcome long-term.
………Ironically that would be a good moment for her to run into Sarah, who I think would force herself to let her shields down and show what a kind person she can actually be when the chips are down. After a bit of ill-timed gloating over Lucy seeing how wrong she was about Raidah, ofc.
idk, the other character I feel like Lucy’s made a real connection with is Becky, but I think Sarah would be the more narratively satisfying choice.
I love Carla, but I don’t think Lucy has the self-confidence just yet to really hold her own in a scene with Carla, so in my head it’s pretty one-sided.
I agree that Raidah’s goals would not be well-served by inducting Lucy into her circle. But I also know that Raidah’s very, very stupid when it comes to advancing her own goals. (Her decision to undermine Dorothy is an excellent example of this–a ~real~ Machiavelli would have either tried to draw Dorothy into her side of things [thereby isolating Joyce from her strongest local support at the time], OR would have supported Dorothy’s goals in the effort to get her to continue her plans for getting into Yale. By digging at Dorothy’s self-confidence and sending her off the rails, she both keeps Joyce’s biggest supporter around, AND keeps someone on campus who might actually A: succeed later in life and B: would have reason to actively resent her.
Raidah is a big ball of stupid wrapped around an ugly core of spite.
I’m sad and happy??? Happy that’s she’s processing, and realizing that she doesn’t have to put up with all this- while also starting to reflect on if what she felt was really ‘love’. Just… Go, Lucy, go! But also sorry, Walky. Before reading I went “This is such a desolate strip.” it already conveyed what was happening before I even read the words, haha.
True. It’s so good and sad. I feel for Lucy here too, and I’m impressed she sees all this about herself. I wonder how long she’ll let herself keep this clarity.
the dorkiness and bit of attractiveness does seem like it’s fine for a crush, tho i imagine walky is better as a ‘first bf’ when ur like, 14 rather than college age, tho i guess immaturity isn’t limited to younger age lol
Speaking as an afab who went through a similar situation, when you’re that young and inexperienced with relationships but are super into the idea of finding Love, it really can just take someone being like “hey you two would look cute together” to start a deep infatuation. Lucy only started seeing Walky in a romantic light when Billie brought up him dating Lucy.
I don’t think she was that fixated on Walky, really. I think she just really wanted A Boyfriend, and Jennifer put the idea in her head that Walky might be available / interested. After that, Walky was just around, cute, nonthreatening, and shared her interests. Then he asked her out!
Like, it ticks all the right boxes, especially for an eighteen-year-old’s first boyfriend.
Did he want her to jump through his parents’ hoops though? Didn’t he specifically stand up against that and show that she’s cool (by high-lighting that she’s better than Amber?)
Lucy has been the one pushing for him to get the parents to like her.
He knew they were racist and tried to have her not interact with them, but after Jennifer spelled it out for her, Lucy really wanted them to realize her worth instead of not caring what they thought.
The whole thing with Amber was a result of trying to make that happen, which did result in an invite to the next night’s game, only to find out Linda still didn’t care for her.
But, long story long, changing their minds was what Lucy wanted, vs avoiding the issue altogether as Walky wanted (which still wasn’t a great way to handle it).
So the hoop jumping was on Lucy, not Walky.
There was no good way to handle it, not letting them screw things up for them is essentially the best Walky and Lucy could do because the only person who could actually do anything about it was Linda. But she doesn’t even have the self awareness to know there’s a problem apparently.
He definitely didn’t want her to meet his parents at all. But he did sort of… validate the hoop-jumping by helping her concoct wacky schemes to get her into his parents’ good graces, instead of, for example, taking Lucy by the hands, looking deep into her eyes, and saying: “My parents are never going to like you. But that doesn’t matter to me, because I like you. So screw them, let’s go get Taco Bell instead of having dinner with them.”
I’m pretty sure that’s what Lucy means by her comment in the last panel, anyway. Maybe she’ll expand on it tomorrow.
I think Lucy would have been very moved by him taking her hands and saying that to her!
I also think, long-term, it still would not have been what she actually wanted. Because she wants a relationship where she can meet her boyfriend’s parents. She wants at least the possibility of someday being a beloved daughter-in-law.
That’s not an unreasonable thing to want, even though it’s by no means Walky’s fault that his parents suck. Someone else’s bigoted parents are often too hard to get past.
Do you really think it’s over? I’d prefer it, but you can never tell what will happen when Walky opens his mouth. This could even be the introduction to DOA’s It’s the Rain equivalent.
this is a terrible analogy, especially with the previous panel. If it was one sided Walky wouldn’t be giving Lucy the time of day but he does like her.
The most we can say for 100% certain is that he likes her as a friend. Friends would do things to not hurt other friends, and do things they don’t want to to make people happy. This does not mean there is love, only that Walky values her friendship and company. It isn’t going to mean he wants kissing, banging, a family, or will ever grow to love her (things which she all desires). He hasn’t really been given a long enough time to, but he’s been going through the motions without really feeling it.
I once started dating a guy whose opinion I cared for a lot. I think about him often. He proposed to me and I said yes. I realized before it was too late that I had zero sexual or even true romantic interest in him—and that it was something that I wanted in my life (not that someone needs to be physically attractive forever, but it was almost a repulsion). I confused a really good friendship for true love and messed up that friendship forever through being too immature and young to handle it.
Basically, going to church with Lucy does not mean the relationship isn’t mostly one-sided.
I feel you there, and I’d like to throw in another anecdote. I have had this situation with someone I liked but didn’t love, I’ve also had probably the opposite, with someone who liked me a lot like walky with Lucy, and I was deeply infatuated with him like Lucy. It didn’t really work for a lot of reasons, it ended up being his affections came around to meet nine but I’d already resolved to take a different path, and we’ve tried to be friends again many times over the year but I feel like when we do we always end up back on that road to romantic affection, a wonderful friend I can no longer enjoy time with because romance got in the way.
I will go out on a limb and assert that friendship is the foundation of every healthy positive personal relationship, and is its own kind of love. You can add other kinds of love, if that so happens.
There is definitely a wealth of free real estate between “doesn’t give a damn about her” and “is in love with her”.
Walky’s response in tomorrow’s strip could still go either way, but like, nothing Walky’s done so far has proved he’s in love with her. You can care about people without being in love with them.
Dunno what your fascination with insisting that’s what Lucy did to me specifically but I am very tired of repeatedly explaining why I don’t agree, so maybe just leave me alone
since “we’ll have to agree to disagree” didn’t work.
Scrolls down the page reading other comments, sees you just jumping on every single person who thinks Lucy’s even slightly in the right here so that you can doggedly insist that actually everything that’s ever gone wrong in the relationship is her fault, and she dragged him to church, and he supposedly tried his best to get her to stay away from his parents while she singlemindedly strongarmed him into sitcom hijinx that I’m sure you also insist he only put up with for her sake, l m a o
Okay, I stand corrected, you do not have a fascination with browbeating me with your weird biased read of this ‘ship, and indeed you might not even be paying enough attention to what people say in response to even realize you made some variation of the exact same argument like five times to me specifically.
But like, I will not be responding to this line of reasoning any further in the future except to reiterate that I’ve asked you to stop repeating yourself lol, and if you don’t switch up your tactics I think you’ll probably find I’m not the only one who’s just refusing to engage with your copypasted “but Lucy can’t keep DEMANDING [thing she never demanded]” while you just ignore their every rebuttal.
But Walky isn’t giving Lucy the time of the day though, he’s doing the bare minimum cause he doesn’t really care.
Look at how he is caring around Dorothy, for instance. Even now, he clearly cares more about her than he ever really didi around Lucy.
I feel like I’d reverse them, though timeline-wise yours fits better. In terms of feelings though I think Walky’s energy towards Dorothy is way more like the scott-ramona energy.
Respect for Lucy shot up incredibly high.
Is it perfect? No. But god it’s a step in the right direction. Good for her. It takes time to realize your own fault that played into situations but acknowledging that the situation’s shitty and you ultimately deserve better is a great first step towards growth.
I don’t know, she basically accepted his explanation that he didn’t say he loved her and didn’t feel that way yet because he said something nice and acted like she was okay. Then just started it again and blamed him for things that she herself wanted.
I get that she’s hurting and is venting, but it’s also not exactly a great look.
But it’s the logical progression. She has a lot of big feelings that have gotten shattered in the last half hour, it is a completely logical reaction to not process that 100% objectively in the first instance. It may be addressed in the next strip or it may come later on down the road, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she does reflect and apologises or at least forgives him and confirms that he was only trying to do right by everyone, including her. But also, intentions don’t make up for inaction, and walky enabled this whole situation by trying to coast and not being willing to have uncomfortable conversations until they blew up in his face.
I haven’t exactly been in Walky’s situation here (my parents decided my ex-partners were Evil on arbitrary traits unrelated to race. Once it was because they asked for water at our house, and then they yelled at him for getting it himself the next time.), but I have been in the position of when you’re too afraid of your parents to stand up for your partner the way you should. And no matter how many problems it causes, it’s really hard to push yourself out of that fear. Because partners come and go, but parental attachment messes with you because it’s a bond that’s not supposed to break. It’s like something we instinctively cling to, even if it tears us apart.
I’m not quite sure how Walky is going to handle his parents. I’ve mentioned that mine backed off after my husband physically ejected my mother from our apartment Fresh Prince of Bel-Air style (she loves him now), but I think this is going to be the last straw that pushes him to realize that things can’t continue like they are. Because even though I don’t think he had romantic feelings for Lucy at all, I think he cared for her deeply as a friend—maybe loved her platonically even, and losing his last big support net is going to force him to confront some things and make a change. Only thing is, I have no clue what he can do or how.
Some people may have been premature in claiming Sarah was right and at the risk of doing the same myself I think this moment here actually validates Sarah’s opinions. Regardless of where this relationship goes Walky is not worth dealing with his parents if he’s not going to even have the courage to speak up for you. Ironically he actually defended Amber to them more than Lucy.
I mean yeah it was part of the plan, but the plan was for Amber to make a bad impression, which worked. What part of the plan was him defending her but leaving his real girlfriend out to dry by essentially the same comment?
Walky didn’t say anything because that’s just as much a dig at him as it is at Lucy, only more open, and he has trouble defending himself against his mom.
It doesn’t make it any easier when he partly agrees with what she’s saying, not the “slumming it” part, but the guy knows he doesn’t try as hard as he can and has no real plan for the future.
When you add on that she makes a passive aggressive comment about Lucy vs the naked aggression she had towards Amber and it’s easy to see why Walky didn’t suddenly start talking back.
But he needs to get his degree and get a job first or he’ll be out on the street with no health care. This is America.
Our precarious situations and near zero social safety net makes it hard to leave abusive situations and gives overbearing parents far too much leverage.
It’s worse – because his parents are well-off, he’d effectively been cut off from what little support there is, since even for nominally adult students, they look at parent income etc to determine eligibility for help.
So while it’d be very satisfying, and probably quite healthy, for Walky to give his mom a much deserved what-for, the price, to him, would be considerable.
Then, keep in mind that he grew up having seen what his parents were prepared to do to HIS TWIN for failing to meet their expectations – essentially sending her away, banishing her to a prison-like existence far away from themselves, her brother, and everyone she knows.
I don’t think he’s got any doubts that he’d be cut off and cut loose in a heart beat, if he seriously challenged his mom, nor do I think he trusts his dad to provide protection from her, or to work to soften her blow against him.
Lucy likely do not – can not – understand that parents would even be capable of doing things like that to their own children, even with her recent experience of his parents in her rear-view mirror. She’s very sheltered and naïve, and partly as a result of that, also quite self-centered.
Not saying Walky is innocent in all of this, but her anger is misguided and seem to stem, at least in part, from embarrassment over her misunderstanding, thinking he’d said “I love you” to her. Which in turn were due to her being so desperate and in such a hurry to move their relationship forward.
I guess “chill” isn’t a word that’s ever going to be associated with Lucy, and it might be this makes her a supremely bad match with Walky. Otoh, Walky could have done with someone who really cared for him, who were willing and able to push him to do what’s needed.
Not as his permanent engine of progress, but providing a “push start” on a few cold mornings when his own batteries are low.
Genuinely proud of her for this moment, even though some of what she’s saying isn’t wholly fair.
Many things can be true at once! It can be not Walky’s fault that he struggled to stand up for her with his parents AND it can be unacceptable for Lucy to be not-stood-up for.
It wouldn’t make Lucy a bad person if she wasn’t willing to wade through Linda and Charles’s microaggressions for the rest of her life when she doesn’t have to, especially for the sake of a boy she still hasn’t known that long and doesn’t know that well.
It wouldn’t make Walky a bad person if he wanted a more casual relationship, one that doesn’t involve looping his parents in, one that doesn’t require him to make a serious commitment when his heart still has bruises from Amber and possibly also from Dorothy, one that doesn’t require alienating his parents any more than he already has.
Still withholding judgment, though. Walky’s response to all of this is very important and there ARE things I can imagine him doing and saying that could still prevent a breakup here. Or at least postpone one.
I’m hoping that Walky doesn’t respond too quickly, just stands there looking morose while Lucy continues to examine her emotions and consider the options. I think this relationship is hers to save. They can work out the details after.
I do think it’s clouded by the fact that Sarah doesn’t like Walky that much to begin with and definitely does not think he’s worth dating even without the racist parents, but..
It could open up the possibility of an evil scheme on Raidah’s part to get them to reconcile, at worst convincing Jennifer to participate in said plan.
I can only think of the (smaller) probability that in a use of manipulation and bribery, Raidah will be able to offer Lucy what is apparently the best.
Plus she’s Raidah, she’s capable of doing whatever she can to screw up Joyce and Sarah and maybe Lucy is a pawn in her possible evil game.
Given how ‘ladder climbing’ raidah seems to be, other than being jen/billie’s roommate, i wonder if there’s incentive because i dont’ think anyone in lucy’s family would have that much ‘influence’ unless she’s esp ambitious enough herself to ever be ‘useful’ to each other in the future
I have been on record that I liked Lucy x Walky, and I would have been ok if they’d managed to patch things up because WALKY developed some assertiveness, but I am also super on board for Lucy doing so as well, regardless of whether this means they break up or decide to keep going.
WTG Lucy! Now go get some ice cream or M&Ms or whatever, cry it out for a while, and know you’re a good woman and deserve much better than an apathetic dork and his asshole parents.
Needed to happen, but still sucks in its own way. But props to Lucy for figuring it out on her own and not getting slammed (too hard, anyway). I get why she blames Walky, but Walky went along with this because others basically told him to, and he a) doesn’t know what he wants out of life, and b) needs to grow a spine and make his own independent decisions. Hopefully this sparks a growth stage for him to get on the path for at least one of those.
Yup, at minimum, he needs to learn to never, ever let a girlfriend meet his parents. At best it will go badly, even if he dates the whitest Dorothyest girl. It’s not nearly as funny as he thought to date a black girl just so his parents would hate her. Which is what he told Dorothy. Ugh, Walky, face-palm.
well i wouldn’t be an exhibitionist but i can imagine some ppl might find it satisfying if one were to fuck someone’s partner in front of parents who don’t think they’re good enough for him
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to say that. 23 minutes: a record?
If they re-envision their relationship on a more realistic basis, I could see that happening as part of making up, but somehow I think that “more realistic basis” would preclude it.
Lucy is finally growing up and seeing the world as it is rather than as she wants it to be. She is lashing out at Walky for being complicit when, you know what? it’s fair.
Walky did try to warn her, as did Jennifer, as did Sarah (well, less “warn her” and more “warn her off”), but she was too adamant that she could Disney Channel protagonist win her love interest’s parents to her side. A lot of it is on her, but she does have a point that Walky didn’t stand up for her minimally. She’s finally seeing that they’re very incompatible people and she has a right to lash out at Walky right now, especially since she’s also self-reflecting about her role in the whole relationship.
So, yeah, you go, Lucy. But also, you go and self-reflect and grow some more, Lucy.
Yeah it’s a weird thing where like…Walky didn’t wanna open that pandora’s box of meeting the parents at ALL. Lucy kinda pushed it on him and is now telling him off for being a coward about it. When like…it kinda ISN’T easy to stand up to your parents. The reason he felt like she needed to be “good enough” is because Walky himself felt like he needed to be “good enough” to earn their affection, which is why he’d rather just…not interact with them.
Also, Linda was acting gross and disdainful, but it’s not like anyone told or asked Lucy to jump through any particular hoops. My way of seeing this is if Linda wants to stew in her own resentment and misery that’s a her problem.
I agree, and Walky did warn her, but he should also have done something. Like, literally anything. Unless I’m mistaken he didn’t even apologize for the way Linda acted or anything.
He clearly bit off more than he could chew with the church thing. Happens to the best of us, and it’s honestly about on par with suggesting a Chinese restaurant your partner likes and finding out their pot stickers are hot garbo and now you’ve wasted $15 (tip inclusive) on crappy dumplings.
The problem is that if he’s gonna date Lucy or any poc person in the future this will happen again. It’s tough to stand up to your abusive parents, but he’s gonna have to deal with it or he’s not ready to date anyone…or he should just date Jennifer because that would solve all his problems.
Given he never wanted to subject her to them at all, that’s a perfectly reasonable way of handling it.
Lucy wasn’t willing to listen to his warnings and while I can’t speak about the experiences of PoC, I can say if my boyfriend told me he’d rather not subject me to his parents because they’re homophobic I’d listen? It’s not an exact 1:1 but you get the idea I’d hope.
I don’t know if that means you’re a better partner to your boyfriend than Lucy or if your boyfriends a better partner than Walky, probably both, but in your comment is the point. You’d respect your boyfriend’s warning instead of pridefully trying to impress people who don’t deserve it or your boyfriend would draw a line saying you matter more to him than his parent’s approval. Walky took a half measure and Lucy disregarded it. This might have been a bad relationship.
Nothing against Sarah, love her… But that would be such an appropriate “Fuck you” from both Lucy AND Jacob. Also I genuinely just want to see them interact cuz I suspect they’d be cute together??
I used to ship Lucy and Jacob because they seem good on paper, but I’ve cooled on that a lot after seeing what dating Lucy is like. She needs to learn more about relationships first. She seems to be having an epiphany which I hope sticks because I wouldn’t wish current Lucy on anyone. Putting her unhealthy infatuations aside, just her horniness and the pressure she places on eventually having sex isn’t something I want Jacob to deal with. He deserves something chill.
Then there’s the fact Lucy is a manipulator. Her friendly, and naive persona is in some ways a mask. Just concocting the fake girlfriend scheme is a sign of that. She also idolizes Raidah and I don’t think Jacob deserves to deal with any ex drama he’s doesn’t already have coming to him. Lucy has a lot of factors that make this not a great ship even if she seems to superficially check a lot of boxes.
I honestly feel it’s un unknowable level and much of her innocence act is just an act.
But I also feel this is Willis fault. He’s keeping it close to vest if he’s fixing her or breaking her. ( Feels like fixing today) . He could turn her into Raidah. Or Walkyverse Mary.
She’s really the pair of Malaya. Both characters deserve each other. One has to be a surly contrarian. The other a smiling passive superficial scold.
Lucy and Jacob would honestly, I think, be a good match in that they would be good for each other. And that it would chap Sarah is a bonus. (I can like Sarah, but have not often done so lately, and the woman wants to be a LAWYER. She needs to develop social skills at some point!)
I will say that as someone who squarely been on Sarah’s side in the spat between her and Lucy that would be fun to read. If there is one thing that Lucy has over Sarab it’s emotional honesty and we know Jacob’s taste in girls is Joyce-like and Lucy is like the third most Joyce-like person in the cast.
This conversation is kinda weird to me philosophically. One person’s feelings aren’t dependent on a different person’s feelings. Unrequited love isn’t non-love, those feelings are still real and deserve to be seen as real. But, Idunno, I feel like the narrative is confirming that it’s not love because it’s akin to worshipping God?
My rule of thumb is that if there’s disagreement over the meaning of a word, try to talk about the topic without using that word.
In this case, I’d say that the experience of feeling affection for a loose friend or acquaintance is a very different thing from the experience of feeling affection for someone with whom you have a close and long-lasting mutual relationship. A bit like how watching a sport is very different from playing it.
I wonder when Lucy will realize that Walky encouraged her not to be around his parents and it was actually her who wanted to have them like her, once Jennifer explained they were already biased against her, which led to the Amber deal.
Not to say Walky’s avoidance strategy was the best way to handle things, but you can’t jump through hoops if you’re not around the hoops in the first place.
Lucy asked for the hoops, or at least the chance to jump through them.
In a very real sense it was everyone else going “yeah they just aren’t gonna like you” and then Lucy unprompted going “but surely there are at least some hoops I can jump through!”
Yep, if my boyfriend told me he didn’t want to subject me to his parents because they’re homophobic my response would be “Oh yeah, that sounds awful. Fuck that then.” because that seems the best strategy.
Not necessarily – if you can afford the meltdown of your relationship with the parents, and you’re prepared to go there, as a couple, protecting each other to the hilt, getting it all out in the open and settling issues once and for all can be a good thing.
The problem here is that Walky simply can’t afford the resulting meltdown. He needs to keep his parents somewhat placated. After seeing what they were prepared to do to his twin in their young teens, I don’t think he’s got any doubts or illusions about if they’d be prepared to cut him off and leave him to fend for himself, without tuition or living expense money, but with the added obstacle to getting help of having well-off parents.
Recent strips have also kinda made it clear that he couldn’t rely on his dad to defend him or even soften the blows from his mom, leaving him truly alone to fend for himself, if he crosses her.
Lucy do not understand any of this, and it’d take a long time for her to overcome her preconceived notions and truly absorb the enormity, from her perspective, of the situation Walky is in.
The whole encounter with Linda was the result of her own machinations and refusal to hear what not just Walky, but others around her, were telling her. While some part of her anger might be justified, the bulk of it isn’t, really.
No more so than anger at others for the pain in her hand if she’d reached out to touch a hot stove she’d been told was hot and not to touch by both her parents and siblings.
Yeah, it’s a thing that would have to happen eventually.
But not now. Not when he’s still dependent on them and not a couple weeks into the relationship.
I know Lucy was overly optimistic, but I think Walky could have been a lot more reassuring after it went poorly. Instead he made a dumb sex joke. And the next day we see Lucy worried that Walky’s feelings have cooled because his parents don’t approve.
He could have been, but one thing we generally seem to ignore in worrying about how upset Lucy was over his parents’ behavior is that she really just caught some shrapnel from the blast. All of that was really aimed at Walky and he’s far more vulnerable to it than she is – thanks to a childhood of abusive conditioning.
Walky hides it under a layer of dumb jokes, but he was almost certainly more affected by his parents abuse than Lucy was, but we focus on his failure to reassure her rather than the other way around.
It was a bad idea to date in the first place but I can’t help but think Walky is going to be glad she pulled the pin on this grenade. He felt like doing it himself would be a betrayal but he’d rather date Dorothy or Amber.
She wasn’t in the strip for the first year, so she missed all of the scheduled character development. That’s why she seems so consistently immature compared to the rest of the cast.
She dated no one in highschool. She helped Walky but monopolized his Time after Amber dumped him.
Neither one seemed to grow or date anyone during this time. This is 4 years late. In Development.
I think she’s immature because she is. This is like when a hs freshman gf writes “I , ❤️david4eva” all over her notebooks.
I mean no, he told her upfront it was not a good idea to attempt at all. They were there because it’s what she wanted, not what he wanted. a lot of the things they did are because Lucy wanted to.
She’s talking about Walky going along with, and even instigating, attempts to make Lucy “acceptable” to them. And just because Lucy wanted to try to get along with them – because HE didn’t make clear to her how hopelessly racist they are – doesn’t mean she was wrong.
Genuinely proud of her for this moment, even though some of what she’s saying isn’t wholly fair.
Many things can be true at once! It can be not Walky’s fault that he struggled to stand up for her with his parents AND it can be unacceptable for Lucy to be not-stood-up for.
It wouldn’t make Lucy a bad person if she wasn’t willing to wade through Linda and Charles’s microaggressions for the rest of her life when she doesn’t have to, especially for the sake of a boy she still hasn’t known that long and doesn’t know that well.
It wouldn’t make Walky a bad person if he wanted a more casual relationship, one that doesn’t involve looping his parents in, one that doesn’t require him to make a serious commitment when his heart still has bruises from Amber and possibly also from Dorothy, one that doesn’t require alienating his parents any more than he already has.
Still withholding judgment, though. Walky’s response to all of this is very important and there ARE things I can imagine him doing and saying that could still prevent a breakup here. Or at least postpone one.
/edits so this will hopefully show up where it’s supposed to. fingers crossed.
I just don’t think she’s necessarily blaming him- she knows she’s at fault too. She’s just processing her emotions and the situation she’s finding herself in. This is a wholey emotional response, and I’m looking forward to seeing Walky’s. So far these two’s arc has been very REAL, like every arc in this comic is very real but this just feels like- raw, mundane messed up teenager things? If that makes sense. I’ve been both loving and dreading it.
It just feels like she blames herself here, but at the same time realizing she deserves respect from both herself, and others. Walky isn’t a bad person, and while the way he handles his parents isn’t the best- it’s the best way for him at this moment. I just also think he’s complacent in general, and tends towards avoidance for anything that seems too difficult to deal with. I do wish this also pushes him to grow and change like I do for Lucy. Aaghhhh I wish the best for them bothhh
I don’t think she’s really blaming him, either, apart from what’s implied by “fuck you”, hah.
I think the comments are definitely looking for one or the other of them to be “at fault”, but I’ve always read this pair as having mutually incompatible but perfectly understandable goals and motivations.
No one’s in the wrong here. They might just be… wrong for each other. At least where they both are emotionally right now.
Same here! I do agree with what you said, just wanted to add words of my own. No one’s really at fault, but they both do need to grow as individuals. I do hope they can stay friends, depending on how the next few strips go- I think their relationship might end up stronger for it. Aaaa, they just really upped my investment in the both of them tbh.
I am a little weirded out by a few comments kind of weaponizing Walky’s incompetence for him. For a lack of a better phrase (like, I don’t think he’s incompetent)? Like he’s being defended for something he doesn’t need to be defended for.
Like the whole, “But he went to church for her” thing just strikes me as odd.
As a non-religious person going to church is like being locked into one of those time-share seminars. A lot of high-pressure sales tactics, a lot of regressive propaganda, a lot of weird conformity to rules you don’t understand and are pretty sure you don’t approve. And there is even bad music and worse singing. Going to church for someone is a big sacrifice!
I think it’s important to remember that he didn’t think it would be like that.
He was expecting boring and annoying and he didn’t like having to be up early on a Sunday, but he wasn’t expecting to end the experience totally creeped out and feeling like his girlfriend was in a cult.
It was a bigger sacrifice than he intended to make.
And…… mm. I dunno, we all project onto fictional characters to a greater or lesser degree — it’s kind of what fiction is for. So I’m not saying anyone is wrong to do that…? I do feel like I’ve seen a fair bit of defensiveness of Walky’s right to grow to love Lucy over time, when Walky hasn’t really done a whole lot to indicate that that’s a right he wants.
But there’s not a whole lot of representation for that pov, so I absolutely understand jumping hopefully onto the metaphorical bandwagon, and I sympathize with holding on tight.
Hmm, well, looking at it that way I guess I can get it. It’s just not something I think really reflects on the character, as in, he hasn’t been moving in that direction so far. Unsure. I relate to a few of the character myself, so I’ll just let it go. I’m kinda too happy with this strip to feel hung up on anything rn, LOL.
Rooting for the both of them, in the end. And it’s been a pleasure reading your comments Li.
The church thing is to point out its not one-sided, he’s making an effort too it’s just not the same intensity.
Its also important to note, the shit with his parents was literally because trying to win them over was what she wanted to do. Walky never wanted or expected her to put up with them.
I mean I think we know what the point of bringing up the fact that he “went to church for her” is. Blume was pointing out that he doesn’t need defending, I was pointing out that there’s a certain vocal segment in the comments rn insisting that Lucy should back off and give Walky time to fall for her, but Dorothy’s the only one who’s suggested in-universe that Walky even wants to be in love with Lucy.
Does Walky want to be given more time to fall in love with her, or does he want her to calm way down because “being in love” was never his goal with this relationship?
I’m pretty sure that if loving Lucy was completely off the table, he’d never go along with the idea that love would develop in time.
Walky has an idea of relationship tropes and I doubt he’d engage in a relationship that he’d never consider a positive trope to be a part of, and love is a positive trope in romantic relationships, just as sex is, something he also has expressed a lot of desire to get into with Lucy, but is still willing to explore.
I feel like you missed a word in that last bit (maybe you meant to say he hasn’t expressed a lot of interest in having sex with her but is still willing to explore it), but.
Anyway, we might be reading Walky very differently, or just remembering the exact way he said what he said differently, but he really seemed kinda fixated on trying to symbolically undo what he felt was a past mistake with Dorothy than he did on… what he actually felt for Lucy, in this scene.
It bugged me at the time, and I feel like I’m seeing that validated by the current strips, but I probably shouldn’t get ahead of myself because there are still lots of ways this could play out.
Also just to reiterate: I have trouble reading Walky’s tone. I think it’s gotten harder since the timeskip, probably on purpose because he closed down a lot more after Mike’s death. So I am open to the possibility that I read him totally wrong in the linked strip. But hopefully you at least get where I’m coming from now. 🙂
And no, I do not think Walky is trying to symbolically undo a mistake he made with Dorothy (I can see why one might think so, tho), and you’re right that it’s not about what he’s feeling.
Regarding Dorothy, despite quitting each other 3 times, he made no real mistakes with her.
Even the hiccup of him saying he loved her to remove the phrase’s power was resolved the next day when she said she knew she was in love with an idiot.
And while he did mess things up with Amber, that was not about their feelings for each other.
I think Walky realizes that saying “I love you” is a much bigger deal for Lucy than it was for Dorothy (it’s some of characteristics she shares with Joyce), and he simply doesn’t want to hurt her.
But we KNOW he doesn’t feel the same way, which is why he went to Dorothy for advice (and thus we know his own feelings for Lucy didn’t matter in that strip as it was a given that they weren’t the same).
I guess I feel like… he definitely doesn’t want to hurt Lucy. And he knows that never loving her WOULD hurt her. So I will agree that it’s not that he consciously had that thought.
I feel like the overall thing he got out of talking to Dorothy was “don’t worry so much”, and he tried to take that to heart.
Also I’m still holding out to see what his actual response to Lucy is going to be here, especially his considered response to it after he’s had a bit to digest what she’s saying.
Or does Walky want to slow things down because he has no settled objective — because he wants to enjoy their times together and find out, at some point, whether he will love Lucy or that he never will? Doesn’t want to fall in love, doesn’t want not to, doesn’t know which it will be in time, and doesn’t want to be made to decide now.
I dated this girl for two years or so, never once even thinking about a long-term commitment. Then, one day, I did. We’ve been married 45 years, and it’s still good.
I very much want to reiterate that, whatever happens here, it’s not a condemnation of the possibility of growing to love someone. Whether Walky does with Lucy or not, whether that’s Walky’s love style or not, it won’t make stories like yours any less true and valid.
So far the narrative is keeping a pretty balanced, and nuanced view on the both of them (Walky and Lucy), but while Walky is kind of defended by some commenters, Lucy- for every mistake she has done- is read in a more bad faith. Walky doesn’t really need to be defended, there’s not much blame on him. There’s not much blame directed at either of them. This is a messy situation, and relationship that needs communication.
Lucy’s vent here is completely valid, and understandable from her point of view. My personal reading on it is that she isn’t necessarily blaming Walky for these problems, she’s just recognizing that this whole thing has been messed up. She seems to mostly be frustrated with herself.
Even if she did somewhat blame Walky for whatever, I think that’s fine too. This relationship that she has was started for reasons she wasn’t aware of, and her misunderstandings were never addressed until like, a few strips ago. He just tended to skirt around the issues. Even then Walky doesn’t even remember what he said haha (with the “I love you” misunderstanding). Walky has a problem with avoiding the issue, that’s a thing he’s done pretty consistently I think, even before Lucy. Including with his parents, I don’t expect him to argue against them, I don’t think he’s in a place for that right now, but that’s another part of his whole thing.
He has made mistakes, but it’s still not exactly anyone’s fault for… All this. They’ve both messed up, and then like, you add in racist/colorist parents, imbalanced affections, your boyfriend’s friend(?) yelling at you, your girlfriend being in what’s basically a cult to you, your dad encouraging you to go with the other girl (while acting like he totally didn’t do that???)… Yeah.
I’ve very interested in what Walky’s gonna say too. Especially because he struggles with getting real in an emotional way. Also, three break ups in one year, IF they break up here then man that’s gonna crush him a bit. Poor dude.
Like she’s definitely getting through to him. I think so far she has felt very much like “the reason why he isn’t saying anything is because I’m completely right”. And that’s one possibility, of course, but it’s only one…
No for real, the way so many people are showing up NEEDING this to be Lucy’s fault for wanting more, or NEEDING this to be Walky’s fault for not wanting (or being ready for) more… Who hurt you? What incompatible relationship hurt you and made you need to project a villain onto every breakup?
There’s a lot of Realness in this comic, and we do often get folks going, “Hang on, this is MY life,” and taking criticisms of characters — in-universe or in the comments — as being at least exemplary of how other folks who make or defend those criticisms… would react to THEM, too.
It can get very personal around here, for better and for worse.
I think the biggest thing you could blame Walky for (which Lucy isn’t even privvy to) is that Walky DID go to bat for Amber when his parents started to dogpile on her. He was willing to sacrifice his peace of mind and make himself a target from her, even subconsciously.
The sad thing is that…Walky doesn’t like Lucy enough for her to be that person for him.
When Linda went after Amber, she insulted her multiple times with naked aggression.
When Linda went after Lucy, it was actually a backhanded comment that was about Walky “slumming” that didn’t reference Lucy at all and could have been referring to several other things; we have no doubt that she was referring to Lucy, but if she said she was talking about his grades, about his webcomic, or even his past relationship with Amber, and not Lucy at all, it would be plausible.
So the only direct comment was about Walky not living up to his potential, and the guy knows he doesn’t, which makes it hard for him to stand up to her for himself, let alone for Lucy when she wasn’t openly attacked.
It’s even possible that Linda chose to use a dog whistle instead of a megaphone because she figured it would make Walky less inclined to stand up to her.
Yeah, that’s a big difference. With Amber, it was at her directly with malice because of the link to Sal (and to the kidnapping as well).
With Lucy, that was all aimed at hurting Walky. It was only spillover that got Lucy. They didn’t care about her at all.
See I don’t agree in a sense, because I believe we are giving Wally way too much leeway for the “I love you too” “I love hamburgers” comment – the point where he gained awareness that he’d accidentally set a precedent and Lucy rose to meet it, and didn’t correct her, setting up this entire week of delusion and raised stakes. I don’t think he’s solely to blame, but I do think only one of them had awareness of where both people’s feelings were, and that person did not try to clarify literally what he clarified before. It isn’t just that one, he did similarly on their first date where she was trying to get him to tell her when he started to develop romantic feelings for her, and he tried once again to go along with it without clearly establishing where his feelings were different.
Just as examples, with the first date, “oh wow you really liked me as long ago as that? Oh that’s so sweet! I like you too, though I haven’t really considered you romantically before now, so I still need to warm up a bit there. Could you bear with me while I find my feet here?”
With the exchange with her brother: “oh sorry that’s not what I meant; I really like you and I love a lot about you, but I don’t think I can qualify that as being in love with you yet after a few days of dating. Don’t feel like you need to tell me you love me yet either! We like one another and one day that may become love, let’s enjoy the ride together until we get there.”
Sure, those are examples of what he could have said.
But they don’t really seem like examples of what any 18 year old would say in those moments, let alone Walky.
Those give off big “hindsight is 20:20” vibes rather than coming off as organic choices one would make.
That said, a middle ground between these examples and what he chose was definitely possible.
Sure, there are things he could have done better, but those are big asks, especially in the heat of the moment. And the longer he puts off the “love” conversation, even if it was just to not have it right in front of the brother he’s just met, the harder it gets and the more it sounds like a “I don’t love you” potentially relationship ending talk.
this whole thing has been a nightmare.
forget being on different pages, they are reading 2 different books.
she’s going as fast as humanly possible, while walky is just trying to enjoy the dang relationship.
she loses her schluppity schlup because she thought walky said he loved her, when he said he loves burgers.
Now she’s mad at walky for trying to show his parents that she is good for him, even though walky wanted to leave his parents out of the relationship, but he gave in for her so……F him for giving her what she wanted?
this whole thing feels like the pokemon “it hurt itself in confusion” thing.
I think the reason this is so juicy, so heavy to so many fans… Is because it’s relatable. Walky isn’t a bad guy and in his mind he’s trying to do good things and eat his cake too. But his choices are selfish and short-sighted. Lucy is growing up and figuring out what she wants.
Neither one is a BAD person, they’re college kids and they’re going through a very relatable college kid series of blundering choices. …Freakin’ Willis is honestly really talented at showcasing this very real, very awkward stage of life development.
How is Walky being selfish and short-sighted? He’s been doing his best to navigate a really difficult relationship situation under a ton of stress.
He’s not as invested as Lucy is, but that’s at least as much on Lucy for getting over invested really fast. Lucy might now be growing up and figuring things out – as in this particular strip, but up to now she’s just been in a teen fantasy romance.
He said he loved that she knew him well enough that he said something to do a meme. When she said she loved him too, he panicked and said he loved ham burgers. She had a reasonable misconception for a teen in her first real relationship, and walky had a standard panic response for someone who struggles with confrontation and feelings.
Way to go Lucy! Good for you, dump his loser ass.
Honestly happy that she didn’t fuck him before breaking up with him cause the way she was associating things, it would have made for a very poor sexual experience.
I hope that Walky talks to Sal about this. And I hope that Lucy stays friends with Becky, and maybe Dina. She could use more friends that aren’t Jennifer.
Jennifer did try to save Lucy from meeting his parents. She honestly and clearly laid out that nothing Lucy ever did would ever be good enough. She didn’t make it clear how miserable it would be for Walky, too. Let’s hope they still pay for his schooling.
I think I get what you mean, in that Lucy, having been set reasonable limitations (“I’m not in love with you but I really like you and we’ve only been together a week so please can we slow down”, essentially), is lashing out at walky and blaming him for the fact that she thought she was in love with him, which feels a lot like nice guy behaviour for sure. There are a few differences, one is the implicit assumption with nice guys that because they got angry at you that you’ll suddenly see how much they did for you and fall back into their arms, while Lucy is absolutely saying this because she means it, she’s done with this situation, she feels ashamed at herself and has become quickly disillusioned in the last several minutes.
There are other differences, in that if Walky had tried to set expectations earlier in the relationship then Lucy may have still been ashamed of herself but less likely to reflect negatively on Walky, while a nice guy will likely react with this level of vitriol to a reasonable and gentle rejection/ reality check whether you’ve known them four months or four minutes.
Yeah there is a little of that, its also kind of annoying because some of these issues are explicitly because Lucy ignored Walky. Like with his parents.
That’s not a situation he ever wanted to subject her to and she asked for it despite multiple people warning her. Granted he could have handled it better once it happened.
A lot of blame on both sides and hopefully Lucy realises her part. Because the “This is all your fault even though you communicated with me about some of these things” is probably where the nice guy vibe is coming from.
So real talk it isn’t an adaptation it’s a sequel/au situation, and it’s extremely worth watching in full, I’m not sure the original comic will resonate well but they both have their charms for different reasons. The netflix adaptation is clearly Bryan O’Malley trying to confront the problems in the original that became more obvious with the passage of time. It is a much more interesting story thanks to that.
Is Walky going to have it together enough to remind her that he was very open about NOT wanting to jump through those hoops? That was her idea, before and after the warnings.
When was this? I can find strips where he says “My parents hate you and I don’t know what to do about that” but none where he says “My parents hate you and that doesn’t matter”.
Because his parents are terrible, obviously. And also because he hates confrontation and them not knowing about her isn’t the same as them disapproving of her.
My point is that once she does start trying to impress his parents, there is -as far as I can see- no point where he says anything remotely resembling “This is not a thing you need to do.” Just “I’m not sure how we’re going to do this.”
I want to say: not a good move at this moment? Let her work that out?
If I were him, I’d just shut up and let her finish. I can’t think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t make it worse, until she’s done making it worse for herself.
I know Walky wanted to sidestep the whole parent thing, but after it happened he could have told her “It doesn’t matter to me what my parents think, you’re great and I like you a lot.” The idea didn’t even occur to him, possibly because of his own desire for parental approval. I think that’s why Lucy is making a sad face in her last panel.
It’s possible, but I think this would have happened either way because they openly were disrespectful and contemptful of her and his method of dealing with it was to just not deal with it at all. Lucy is realizing he’s not going to be a “man” for her, which is sending her down a path of realizing he’s not actually her storybook lover.
I agree with the first instance, I think I have to give him some credit that dealing with his parents already seemed to be causing him to shut down as a coping mechanism and he may have been already stuck in his head waiting for Lucy to leave him over his ahole parents. Like he may be internalising a lot of his difficulties with the situation out of pure fear and desperate will to cope.
We really need to remember that as bad as that whole meal was for Lucy, it was far worse for Walky. We focus a lot here on how mean they were to her, but it was all aimed at him and he’s more vulnerable to them.
Some of that is probably an overcorrection. I know at the time there was also a fair bit of talk about how awful the dinner was for him that treated her like she wasn’t also under attack.
Both things are just true. It was a terrible evening. She tried to talk to him about it afterward, and he wasn’t really emotionally available — which would be fair, as a trauma response, while still sucking for her. Then he dealt with his feelings by repressing them and trying to ignore the situation for a few hours with Amber.
He did that because he was in pain, almost certainly. (Again trying to acknowledge that I find Walky hard to read.) It also still sucked for her.
I don’t think Walky could reasonably have been expected to have handled any part of this any better than he did, given who he is and his level of acceptance with regard to everything to do with his parents. In fact, everything considered, he’s doing pretty well.
On the other hand, Lucy is entirely right to want someone who does do better by her with regards to this specifically. Some of her expectations of him are not realistic; this one is.
The problem with Walky is who he is, which is honestly just how adult relationships work. Some people just shouldn’t date.
Actually you know what? I’m jumping the gun here. He… doesn’t even have to save this, he doesn’t fumble and I get way more on board with this ship. I like that she’s maturing so much.
She doesn’t have to be in the right to not be wrong here. She’s not wrong. It’s a complicated situation, many things can be true at once, but I like this Lucy moment. She deserves a good old-fashioned outburst.
Lucy, let’s face it, Walky’s parents are a nightmare, and you knew it. Despite the warnings, you went full speed ahead with that ridiculous Amber plan, expecting someone to fall head over heels in love with you in what, two or three weeks? That’s not just naive, it’s ludicrous. Sure, Walky forgetting his parents were visiting is a mess and deserves some anger. But let’s be real, you’re not exactly standing on high ground here. Desperate for love, for some kind of cool status, driven by sheer horniness, you threw yourself into this disaster — devil take the hindmost. Sarah saw this trainwreck coming and told you bluntly, rudely, brutally honestly. She leaned into the brutality more than the honesty. But Lucy, you can’t ignore your part in this. It’s not fully Walky’s fault, as much as you’d like to claim. Now, what? You’ll run to Radiah, who, let’s be honest, probably won’t give you the time of day unless you’re Walky’s plus one
If Lucy actually hit him, she would be in the wrong, and Walky would have every reason to cut her out of his life entirely.
If I was in Walky’s position and she hit me I would hit her back. Doesn’t matter what gender both parties are, if you strike someone then you have to accept you might get hit back.
You took it to “person A should hit person B due to being upset/blaming them for being complicit in what upset them” which many people would find wrong (also, it’s hard to tell how serious you are in that statement).
They responded seriously with “this woman should not hit this man in this situation and, if they were this man and they WERE hit, they would hit back, regardless of being hit by a woman” because they do think being hit in this situation is wrong and because they want to preemptively respond to anyone claiming a man should never hit a woman, a perspective that many share.
It’s really not a big leap to bring in the gender part of their statement, though it wasn’t necessary, as no one had expressed the point they were trying to preemptively respond to.
You’re reading way too much into the original comment. All that “due to such and such” stuff has nothing to do with me wanting to see Lucy hit Walky. It’s a simple, unattached wish for cartoon violence. They took it to an “If I were there I’d hit someone” place. There’s a difference.
That’s why I said it was hard to tell how serious you were being, but that they responded seriously.
Do you normally make comments asking for violence when no one in the strip is upset?
If so, then I can see why you would say we read too much into it.
But if not, then it’s reasonable to assign your call for violence to the feelings the characters have.
This requires too many layers of thought to answer in any way that might feel satisfying to you. I just want Lucy to beat Walky into the dirt in this specific instance, and I don’t think that’s worth all this extrapolation.
Seems pretty simple to me, but if you can’t or won’t explain, that’s ok.
My point was that their comment was not completely out of left field like you imply it was, but I already agreed with you that it was unnecessary.
Oh, that was the explanation. “Me want violence in scene, no strings attached.” But people have more complicated opinions about the comic so I guess it makes a type of sense to assume there’s an unspoken layer behind it?
Truth be told, I’m surprised anyone thought enough about the comment to warrant any sort of response at all. Usually these get ignored, probably because they don’t add anything to the overall discussion. Idk, it’s weird.
Long time coming and honestly I’m glad for it. They were never right for each other.
Lucy fell for the puppy love, and fell hard. She needs better standards for herself and to be willing to expect more than table scraps from a romantic partner. It’s not Walky’s fault he can’t say “I love you” at week 2 — that’s entirely unrealistic and kind of childish to even expect in the first place.
And on the other hand, Walky was never going to stand up to his parents, but he also clearly didn’t put full effort into this relationship. Not that he had to say “I love you,” but even a bit of positive reinforcement would be great. I think I can count the compliments/admirations he’s given Lucy on one hand. He was terrible at reciprocating and making her feel wanted, *even considering* that this was a relationship of convenience for him.
I have a strong suspicion that Walky is either in some sort of depressive state after Mike’s death, or he’s still suffering from the Dorothy/Amber breakups and is unwilling to put himself back out there again. Wondering if he’s afraid to open up or if he’s just going through the motions. Possible that he DOES care for Lucy, deeply even, but just doesn’t know how to show it without “ruining” it like he did his last two relationships. I suspect we may get a breaking point from him soon.
I definitely think he’s in a depressive state after Mike’s death, though compared to Ethan’s clearly sad sort of depressive state, I think Walky’s is more of a ‘numb’ sort of depression.
Plus in addition to Mike’s death there’s the kidnapping, being in peril, seeing other people in peril, and I’m sure the Dorothy/Amber break ups are a sore spot for him too.
I dunno that he’s depressed but he’s definitely running away from having to confront growing up. Which as we’ve seen repeatedly and Booster has said outright, is literally his primary weakness.
Numb is probably more right than depressed. He complains about his parents every step of the way, and he complains about Lucy doing things to impress them.
But at no point does he do anything to stop the flow. He’s just letting it happen around him, even when he doesn’t agree with it. He’s hoping that bongoing about it will be enough to get someone else to take action.
When it comes down to it, that’s his biggest fault.
I’d point out Walky’s strategy was to not subject her to his parents at all. That entire situation is what Lucy wanted. If she had actually listened to him that never would have happened.
Lucy has an idea about how these things should work and it causes her to ignore pretty obvious warnings and ride over them roughshod.
Once they were in the situation could he have done a better job defending her? Sure. But his inability to do so is probably one of the reasons why he never wanted to do it in the first place.
I never expected him to defend Lucy to his parents faces…but he should have been able to more effectively support her AFTER the terrible interactions with them. Even an “I’m sorry for how shitty they treated you” would go a long way. Or just a “hey, forget about my parents. *I* like you, a lot, and that’s what matters.” Pretty low bar to clear imo
I mean she’s wrong on the hoop front. He told her outright trying to impress his parents wasn’t a good idea and she wanted to jump hoops to get their approval when he would have rather not subjected her to them at all.
Some of these things were literally Walky giving her what she wanted even though he knew it was a bad idea and told her so.
I’m both glad and sad that Lucy is finally realising that this isn’t going to be the relationship she was hoping it was going to be. Glad because now she doesn’t need to keep chasing after something that probably isn’t going to happen, and sad because it hurts to see her not getting a break after having to deal with Walky’s parents and Jennifer’s Jennifer-ness.
You know I do want to say that it’s not Walky’s fault that Lucy had a starry eyed belief that she could just wow his parents with her kindness, but she was trying VERY hard and he just wanted to get out without having to do anything that might upset Linda, and now he’s here outright telling her he hates church and God and her faith…
Like I don’t like Lucy’s naivity but she’s absolutely right that he’s not trying hard enough and she’s putting everything she’s got into him.
I disagree. On a subconscious level Walky is more and more coming to the idea that he doesn’t always like being made to go in certain directions, but his entire ego-level personality is ‘if you direct, I will probably be moved’. Lucy pushed him into a relationship at a tempo he wasn’t comfortable with. His parents have been the whirlpool that have kept him orbit all his life.
It is VERY specifically Lucy’s choices that have driven this relationship, and Walky’s unwillingness to be firm in any position completely contra to her drive is why the brakes on the relationship were effectively cut. You’ll notice that Walky repeatedly tried to warn Lucy about his parents, but not stopping her when she didn’t want to stop. Walky was not trying to push intimacy, but was willing to give in when Lucy pushed. Walky tried, harder than anything else, to not be in that church. But Lucy wanted it. He has been vocal about it because despite being very upfront about hating church, he went along for Lucy, and it was antithetical enough to his own feelings he was willing to be harsh about it.
If two people are dating, one of them is a 100% full on Christian and the other somewhere between once-a-year churchgoer and agnostic, and the 100% wants the 1% to go, and the 1% says, “you know I’ll hate this, and you will owe me” and the other goes “I love you for doing something you hate for my specific happiness” then its foul business on both sides and God is probably wishing he invested in bouncers.
Walky is trying far more than he would in most circumstances, and yeah, he’s being a brat about it, but Lucy knew all of this. He told her before. He told her after. He mentioned it in the middle. Lucy’s response has been, “I love you for doing this” (emotional blackmail) and “I am hurt that you aren’t invested in this and me as much as I expect you to be” (more emotional blackmail).
Lucy is trying very hard, and in the process doing as much or more damage to the relationship as Walky does by trying as hard as he very much feels he has to and no further.
Honestly, these two are not functional. But that line at the end – Lucy is right about most of what she says. That line at the end? Putting it on Walky for going along with her pushing? Lucy looses me. Completely. She had agency at every step, and she generally listened to what Walky actually said to her as little as she could get away with.
Blaming Walky for never stopping her when she set up or directed herself to every hoop she jumped through?
Lucy has just revealed that she’ll own up to her flaws as long as she can blame someone else for them.
You are mostly right.
But this is a huge advancement for Lucy. She has nearly taken full responsibility.
The problem is she lied about her anger last night and buried it.
And the Feeling logic on Walky not defending her when his mother said slumming is hurt, shock, anger and dumping him, telling her off. This is all misplaced and Should be on Linda. But it’s probably preferable for Walky she didn’t.
Feelings have their own logic. Yeah it does seem like Walky is getting the blame. But that’s also self respect Walky framed his going to church was a way to make Lucy look better to his parents. Doing that while putting her down hurts her for something she doesn’t want. This is a huge step from inside the church.
Point of clarification: Lucy framed his going to church was a way to make Lucy look better to his parents.
He did repeat that to Becky the next day, but when he brought it up the night before, he mentioned nothing about making it look good to his parents, and it really came off as the unspoken apology for dealing with them.
Not to mention that there was nothing Walky nor his parents have said that would indicate that they care about people going to church, the closest indication that it would matter at all being that they sent Sal to a catholic reform school.
I don’t think they’re contradictory at all! Lucy took a hard look at what Walky was saying, about one-sided obsession, and realized that’s what she thinks love is, and it’s not good or healthy or even love. She then connected the logical dots that what she truly wanted was someone to fight for her as much as she’s fighting for him — and Walky didn’t do that, nor would he. He has made it abundantly clear that’s not the guy he is.
It’s not really blaming Walky as much as looking at him with fresh eyes and realizing she’s been wanting him to be something he isn’t with kindness, and that’s not fair to her.
I don’t disagree with a lot of that but I don’t recall Lucy ever pushing Walky to come to church with her or pushing religion on him at all. She asked him once, early on last semester before they were dating and accepted the no. I don’t think it came up again until he offered after the dinner with his parents. She was happy about that, but still didn’t push him.
He was bothered by it more than he expected and she’s tried to defend it in this conversation, but going was his idea as far as I can tell.
Going was Walky’s idea.
Doing it for the parent’s approval was Lucy’s.
Walky repeated that understanding to Becky the next day, though whether that was his original intention (I personally took it as an apology for being around his parents) or just going along with what Lucy jumped to is unclear.
True, but Firseal was making a big thing of Walky avoiding the church and Lucy pushing for it, which just didn’t happen.
In fact, as you suggest, even she was more interested in the idea of doing it for parental approval than for anything more specific to her being Christian.
Sorry I missed the thing with it being Walky’s idea in this instance. Sometimes I miss days. Appologies.
Church being Walky’s choice (as much as immedialy veiwing said choice as fun as a root canal) does shift several points, especially making Walky’s behavior in the church a heck of a lot more grey. Still, this made Lucy a lot more happy, and she sort of skated past it making Walky miserable. He made it clear he’d go, but wouldn’t like it, sounded to Lucy as ‘I’ll give it a chance’. Walky clearly wasn’t going to give it a chance, he would go to make Lucy feel better.
Another point that changes with it being Walky’s choice is… damn, he was close to realizing his bad actor behaviors at almost the same time Lucy does, just on the opposite time. She sees the disparity of emotion, and starts to see what’s wrong (even if her reaction is… subpar…) and Walky almost saw the weak response of the passive part of a relationship reacting to strong impulses of the active part of the relationship. Walky’s had a very long and often damaging habit of choosing to be passive, and responding weakly to more aggressive actions of the people around him, and while she absolutely didn’t intend to, Lucy has had that advantage of him.
Lucy realizes the power disparaty of being the active but worshipful side of ‘Human and God”. Walky failed to quite realize the worshipped.
Which, granted, is probably the only positive I see in this particular step of the slow train wreck for Lucy/Walky romantic experience.
She invested a lot of herself in the fantasy relationship that she’s built up, and it just died in her arms. She’s invested in the relationship per se, the idea of the fairytale romance. She’s lost a piece of herself.
Or mine is an instantaneous reaction to something that I read and I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Maybe I’m projecting some of my history onto her.
I thought you were saying that she was already grieving for something and that was affecting the relationship, rather than that she’s now starting to grieve for the relationship.
I think this was a long time coming. Lucy jumped into what she thought was gonna be long term and had expectations that things were just gonna fall into place and I don’t think Walky knows himself well enough for a long term relationship. Lucy is taking a step forward in figuring out who she is and I think is learning she has outgrown who she was and outgrown Walky.
I think what we’re seeing is that Lucy doesn’t know herself well enough for a long term relationship either. She was just following the romantic plot she imagined.
Willis, one of the things that most impresses me about your writing is your patience. You had this massive cast, with a dozen character arcs in different stages, and still you introduced Lucy slowly as a side character, gradually letting us get to know and feel comfortable with her, so that this big ol’ character moment simply feels like you’re shining a spotlight on a part of the world that’s always been there.
This feels like comparing apples to oranges for me, since QC is a sitcom with such a vastly different premise than DoA! QC can easily move 1000s of miles and multiple months between literally any character that’s remotely connected to Faye and Marten, as long as that character’s situation fits the overall tone of the comic (and probably involves robots somehow). That enables it to quickly introduce characters and move on from them once their punchline is delivered.
In contrast, DoA may seem chaotic, but it’s also very solidly set on a single college campus, time moves at a relative snail’s pace 100% of the time (except for a single time skip 1/2 way through), and all the main characters have to be directly involved with the college. That means that while it might have a sprawling cast and lots of wacky hijinks, they all have to be much more permanent and lasting than the characters and hijinks in QC. It’s not necessarily the writing quality that makes this difference, it’s just very different premises that encourage different styles of storytelling!
She doesn’t get credit till she acknowledges that situation happened because she ignored him when he told her it was a bad idea. He never wanted to bring her to the hoops, she asked for hoops and despite never planning to subject her to it he took her to the hoops as she wanted.
Once they were in that situation he could have done a better job, but not listening your partner like that because you have an idea of how things should work and then blaming them for the experience is not great.
Except she’s blaming him for the hoops she asked for. He never wanted to make her jump through hoops, he told her meeting his parents wouldn’t go well, Jennifer told her it wouldn’t go well.
She has a right to be mad about him not standing up for her, but she’s the one who wanted to jump through the hoops not him. Lucy is actually really bad about listening when it contradicts how she thinks things should work.
I think Lucy’s problem wasn’t not listening, but processing what she heard in a sitcom perspective, a thing that Walky also does. She certainly misunderstood many things, but Walky never really tried to correct her, he was fine with almost everything and protested little or nothing. For me, he’s more wrong than her because he was too passive. I’m glad Lucy is moving in a direction. The problem is that the direction will probably lead her to end up being part of Raidah’s circle.
Reread the relevant strips, and I feel like some commenters are misremembering how hard Walky pushed back on the idea of Lucy meeting his parents. He tried to warn her, yes, but he was actually thrilled with the idea of doing wacky fake-dating Amber shenanigans to fix the problem. And at the end of that scheme he came back to proudly tell Lucy that it worked, his parents hated Amber and liked her now, they solved racism, etc. For all his trepidation, he did indicate pretty strongly to her that he wanted his parents to like her and was trying to make that happen, only to then not stand up for her at all and just say ‘I told you so’ when it went badly. I am very sympathetic to his avoidant/freezing behavior around his mom, but I think it’s more than fair that Lucy feels let down by all that. Especially since she’s realizing ‘going along with things’ is a pattern of behavior with him.
I mean in this case they’re passing it through a “Lucy is always wrong” filter. We are talking about folks who are mad at Lucy for blaming him even a tiny bit, instead of solely blaming herself, because they’re misremembering Walky as having tried much harder to keep Lucy away from his parents.
The situation sucks, for sure and Y get why she’s angry. But she’s a big part of why this happened, she’s the one who refused to listen in the first place. Ignoring your partner because you have your own idea about how these things are supposed to work is… not great.
The thing is the scheme was for Lucy, to try and get her what she wanted because she made it clear it was important to her despite the warnings.
I get she’s lashing out right now though so that’s not always perfectly directed or expressed.
Except, like I just said, she didn’t refuse to listen. She listened to his explanation that his parents (especially his mom) are racist and therefore prone to dislike her and believed him, and then they both decided to conduct a wacky scheme to make them like her in spite of that fact. A scheme that, again, Walky fully believed in himself and outright told her worked perfectly once it was done. Framing it as her bulldozing him with her idea of how things ought to be is simply not accurate – if anything, it’s one of the few instances where they were genuinely on the same page and of equal enthusiasm.
Holy crap,
Lucy in short order, stops lying! She see stops lying to herself above loving Walky. She stops lying to Walky about her anger from last night! She admits she’s chasing a fantasy relationship.
Holy Crap, she’s about to either dump Walky or actually fix this broken relationship.
< They don't belong together but… They do more than yesterday, a,
I should feel bad for Walky getting jerked around. But I can't! Walky deserved to hear this yesterday. And this is from a place a honesty and no malice. This is a breath of fresh air.
Walky, if you want to save this relationship, you must tell her that's it's not really true.
Tell her that you do love her. But she's put you in a rock and hard place so you can't say it. You don't believe she will find the love you have, from dating 2 weeks adequate. Or she will spin it into something bigger.
Tell you love her. But it's ordinary love. The kind that makes you have faith in someone and try to grow a new relationship with. Plant a seedling, and let it root. And if she actually wants you, you aren't scared away.
If that is not how he views love, then he should definitely not tell her that as then he would be actively lying to her.
He has already said he liked her.
He has already said he was an idiot who didn’t realize a pretty girl liked him.
If he has to frame that as love for her to suddenly feel better about that information, then they really do need to break up because it would imply that the framing matters more than the substance and/or, even worse, that she’s only happy if he tells her what she wants to hear.
If conflict builds to a climax, this would be a kinda “meh” climax. I don’t think we’re quite out of this yet if my narrative senses are acute. There’s at least one (hopefully metaphorical) knife to be twisted in someone’s heart.
I think he deserves a little flack. He gave her hesitant, veiled, borderline encoded half-warnings because he still wants to cling to some innocence and not acknowledge the truth about his parents. That’s not protecting her. That’s plausible deniability.
On a first reading, I thought it was unfair of Lucy to throw a “fuck you” in Walky’s direction, even if I think it’s driven by her being equally upset with herself, him, the situation, just all of it. I get the sense that Lucy feels like an idiot right now, and I feel bad for both of them even though I’ve never liked them as a couple.
On a reread, there’s one thing I think Walky really did do wrong, and that was not clarify the “I love you” misunderstanding before Lucy met his parents. He tried to spare her that interaction altogether, but she thought she was putting in the effort and enduring some bullshit Walkerton racism for someone she loved who loved her back. Going through that emotional wringer had to be brutal. Doing it for a relationship that isn’t what you thought? Even worse.
Right, “fuck you for going along with it”, like along with all of it, is a reasonable sentiment, and even if she was wrong, it’s still pretty normal for people to lash out when badly hurt, Lucy has realised some painful truths in a short timespan, there’s no guarantee where she aims her anger initially will be objectively right, and that’s human.
But she wanted it based on stakes that didn’t exist (winning the approval of the parents of the man who loves her). He could have and should have told her how he felt, for that reason and because it would have been healthier for their relationship.
It doesn’t make Walky a bad person. It’s just a mistake he made, IMO. He’s trying.
I also feel like Lucy’s in a bit of a more “adult” place regarding “meeting the parents” than most kids their age? I mean, when I was in college, you met the parents of the person you were dating because THEY WERE PAYING FOR GOOD FOOD, and you never passed up the chance to have your parents pay for a meal.
It certainly wasn’t one of those fraught relationship steps like it is once you’re an adult and on your own entirely.
Equally plausible that wanting to get in good with Walky’s parents was part of her whole “If we’re in love and on the get-married track, I’m allowed to bang him!” thing.
Well, it kind of just happened. It’s not like Walky called home and invited them up to meet her. They showed up and there was a thing with them assuming he was dating the white girl.
I’ve tumbled as to why I’m way more grumpy with Lucy than I should be. It’s how she phrased her last comment. “Fuck you for going along with it.”
Because Walky wasn’t going along with his parents. He was going along with *Lucy* in her quest to win his parents’ approval. Was that a good decision? No, probably not. Does it merit a “fuck you”? No. Walky straight-up told Lucy “hey my parents are racist”. He didn’t act like he needed their approval to continue seeing her. Lucy was caught up in her desire to have a perfect relationship.
Has Walky been perfect? No. But he gave Lucy the knowledge she needed and then let her make the decision about whether or not to try and “jump through the hoops”. He straight-up said to her “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to” in https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-14/01-everybodys-looking-for-nothing/fixon/ And the “fuck you for going along with it” completely ignores that.
I hope Walky gets a chance at a rebuttal next strip.
Indeed. To be fair to Lucy, standing by and letting your partner have to work for this kind of approval IS a shit thing to do. But at the same time, it stems from what Lucy just realized; that Walky does not love/care for Lucy to the same extent that she does for him, and therefore his reaction is also understandable. If he DID truly love Lucy in return, he (ought to) have protected her from that. A good person would do it anyway, but I’m cutting Walky some slack here because he IS still pretty emotionally immature and he likely hasn’t learned this important lesson yet.
I feel like also missing in all of this is that the “Fuck you for going along with it” is at least partially her looking for reasons to be mad at him because he didn’t want to say “I love you” after about a month of dating.
Props to Willis for writing a perfectly written scene of moral ambiguity here. What Lucy’s saying is a perfect combination of “You go, girl!” and “Oh no, girl!”
On the one hand, good for her for realizing she has to respect herself, and especially for realizing she shouldn’t have to put up with racist parents. On the other, she’s mad at Walky for not being willing to say “I love you” after maybe a month. It’s not his fault she regards the period before they were actually dating as part of the relationship, and the fact that she fell super hard puts him at no obligation to do the same.
She’s also kind of making Walky’s parents being abusive to him all about her. Walky’s mom was shitty to him, and maybe a little bit tangentially shitty to her. But Lucy’s more mad about something she was (accurately) told she’d have to face at some point than anything she’s actually faced thus far. Walky hasn’t really gone along with anything yet. Lucy has yet to see the full shittiness of Walky’s parents, she’s just been warned about it.
They kissed for the first time (onscreen at least, no idea about offscreen or patreon) last night comic time, right after he suggested going to church.
You know what? I think it totally is and it happened to me before. It’s just so hard to know the difference between infatuation and love. For all we know, it could be the most arbritrary line we humans invented with our silly words and labels.
Lucy is not being entirely fair to Walky here, but her feelings are still valid. She does not deserve to be in a position where she has to navigate the racism of the parents of a boyfriend who for whatever reason (and Walky does have reasons!) cannot or will not forthrightly stand up for her.
As so many people have been saying for months now, there’s a fundamental incompatibility between these two that made their romance doomed from the off. I hope their breakup can be amicable and that they can remain friends, but I think the more likely scenario, simply because it provides for more dramatic storytelling, is a fairly acrimonious split that pushes Lucy cloer to Billie and Raidah’s circle.
Lucy is using hard words with Walky, but last panel doesn’t show a lot of emotional anger. From either of them. No, I see this being a learning lesson for Walky (/maybe/) and obviously growth for Lucy. But neither of them are the sort to be acrimonious. Still, it too neatly wraps things up for Walky re: Lucy, and leaves him free to go back to being pantsless and eating nachitos and gaming with Amber. Failing from one relationship to another *and back again* isn’t a huge growth opportunity for Walky. Which sucks, because there is a lot of growing he could do as a character.
Good-guy dating sucks, but it’s been a necessary step in many a good dude’s education on what not to do. Don’t date a girl just because she wants to date you, it’s not gonna be pretty when she realizes.
Same for genders reversed! It’s much more humane to stick to your no than it is to date someone because you feel like you can’t say no to repeated asks. Feeling sorry for a guy who wants to date you means it’s better for him to never date you than to date you and later be dumped by you. The inevitable breakup is way worse than if you’d never started. #learning #thingsIwishI’dknownincollege #stupidpatriarchy
“I mean, did he stand up for her? Or did he silently sit by as his mother said he was ‘slumming it’ by dating her? Angry eyebrows don’t do shit” “He had the chance to apologize for the situation and chose to make a sex joke about his dad” and “
I knew fully that this was going to come bite him in the ass. It’s not his fault that his mother did that, but it was his responsibility as a boyfriend to at least comfort his girlfriend after the fact.
Let’s not forget!! He also started that day by sitting in his ex’s room playing video games while she was in her undies. He also ignored his phone in his room, acknowledging that “Lucy’s nothing is always something,” and that she probably blew up his phone while he was ignoring her.
He defended Amber the night before. He didn’t even clear his throat when Lucy was being attacked.
Silence is being complicit, and I will stand by this statement every time.
TLDR: Walky should have comforted Lucy when his parents were shitty. He brought this on himself. (Bonus: I still think Lucy’s boy craziness contributed to this failing)
I’m 100% with you on Walky failing to comfort her after the fact, but re: silence being complicity in the moment, I think Linda’s a more cunning racist than that (slash completely in denial, which I feel like in this case defaults to “good at bullshitting herself, not just others”). If he confronts her on it, all she needs to do is say, “I wasn’t talking about Lucy, and I definitely didn’t mean because she’s Black”, and suddenly Walky and Lucy are at risk of being perceived as “causing a scene” and “making everything about race” by “being offended by everything”, even though they’re reading the situation 100% accurately and doing nothing wrong.
And of course you know that, even though she treats Walky better because she sees him as “the white one”, Linda would still be 100% willing to weaponize racism against her own son if it meant she got to save face.
Not being silent doesn’t mean standing up to his mom. He could have talked to Lucy about it properly, which is part of being complicit to Linda’s words. He didn’t defend his girlfriend even in private, in their moments together.
Why didn’t she comfort him? If I was there to see my partner’s parents being abusive to them, I’d like to think I wouldn’t upset with my partner for not comforting me afterwards. I can blow off their parents. I’m not the one who’s vulnerable or targeted.
I think, because Walky’s defense mechanism is humor, we don’t recognize that the whole scene hurt him.
Thank you for linking it. Your take was right then and it’s right now.
I had, and still have, a lot of sympathy for Walky not knowing how to stand up for her in the moment. But like you said, the aftermath was bad. He didn’t even say he was sorry things didn’t work out.
The whole scene on her doorstep feels like she is trying to get him to talk to her in ANY way about what just happened, while all he’s doing is waiting until the date is officially over so… that he can go home and process privately, maybe?
Which is his right, but not what she needed in the moment, and… yeah. Incompatible needs.
Also @ anyone already scrolling down this comment to yell at Mym that Walky wasn’t cheating with Amber:
lol we know. Spending the morning in his underwear with Amber is a bad look, it WOULD have upset Lucy and Walky knew that, but the real problem was ignoring her texts all day when he knew she was upset.
And yeah, he was probably also upset, but he still should have texted her back to say “sorry, I really can’t right now. Talk to you later” so that she didn’t keep trying, or get increasingly worried / anxious about possible reasons why he might not be answering.
500%. It would have cost $0 to send her just one short text so she knew he wasn’t, like, mad at her, and didn’t feel ignored on top of everything else.
And yeah it’s not called Smarting of Age, and yeah Lucy’s baseline level of insecurity isn’t Walky’s fault, but I do think this was a moment where them not being a great match really shone through. I hope they both eventually find someone who can meet them where they’re at.
I feel like Lucy might need to address her anxiety a little more closely, just thinking in general. –And that being said, she and Dorothy should work through their anxieties together.
(IT GOT SO LONG, MYM, YOU DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW.)
Yeah, I can agree with that about Lucy and anxiety. I made a whole list on tomorrow’s comic of things Walky tried to do to be a Good Boyfriend, and every time he talked about an issue with Dorothy I thought, “Lucy would not be thrilled that he was talking about this with anyone other than her, but an ex-girlfriend would probably be the worst option.” Even if she, as Walky said, rainbow-flowers (is jealous of) Jennifer more than Dorothy.
And ffff you really do make it appealing. X3 eyes emoji at the concept
ADDENDUM: he left his phone at home before going to Amber’s, so it’s not the same as having it with him and ignoring Lucy actively, but. also, he was very much trying to ignore Lucy in every other part of that outing, so I stand by around 98% of my words.
Honestly, Lucy is way more mature than I was at that age about finding out that the object of her crush doesn’t feel the same way about her. I probably would have kept my one-sided infatuation so long as I still got to make out with my person of interest, at least until they got a different significant other.
This relationship is how many weeks old again? Is there some ground between “I love you” and “Fuck you” we can find? I mean, before Walky starts to sound like the well-adjusted, mature one in the room. None of us are ready for that.
I figure this is a joke bc Dorothy has not been the most stable lately but I mean I could ‘ship that. It’s more interesting in my head than Dorothy and Jacob, if for no other reason than that I think Dorothy would’ve checked a lot if not all of the same boxes Raidah checked.
I kind of wish the misunderstanding with Walky’s statement about love hadn’t happened. That made everything worse, since she assumed after that they were in the same space, but exploring the difference in investment would have been interesting without that complication.
Of course, if they do work this out and stick together, that can still get explored.
I dunno, this strip is along the same basic lines, I think, and shows it as more of an underlying issue than a one-time glitch.
Lucy mishearing Walky’s “I love that about you” as “I love you” is because the very different emotional place she’s in, and getting so distracted by him talking about her being part of his family that she doesn’t really process the “rough” part is the same thing.
Jesus almost a minute of scrolling to get down here…
And Ana wasn’t first!?!? Holy crow…
And I agree with her so much.
Hate to say it, but Walky is pure toxic.
Call me crazy, but I’m getting the impression this isn’t actually about Walky’s parents – that is to say, Lucy is projecting her festering angerand frustration towards a lot of somewhat abstract things onto just one specific incident and a few specific people. She only just met Walky’s parents and started jumping through hoops to earn their respect yesterday, but I think she’s been jumping through hoops to earn a respect that wasn’t there for a LOT longer than that, for a number of different people and/or things.
So whether or not Walky is technically to blame for how he acted during his parents’ visit is sort of immaterial to her speech here, I think. Or at least, it’s only a very small part of it.
Also, very mixed feelings about the fact that this relationship seems like it’s finally ending for real. I was 100% holding out for this garbage fire to last even longer, purely so that people in comments section could just keep getting angrier and angrier about it. It was such good entertainment!
That, plus I think she’s probably transferring a lot of her anger over the “I love you” miscommunication into looking for other reasons to be angry. She does go from explicitly telling him she doesn’t think any of what happened with his parents is his fault to “Fuck you for going along with it” awful fast.
One thing I think Willis does really well is never forgetting that his characters are mostly teenagers. We’re not going to get the ending where Walky stands up for himself by making salient points and says what the comment section has been saying, because it would be completely out of character for Walky to be that eloquent under pressure. He’s probably just going to say, “Nah, fuck you too”, and both parties will leave the encounter feeling like they never did anything wrong.
I dunno he’s not really that vindictive most of the time
he might go along with the break up or he might manage to say something about how he didn’t mean it to go like that
at worst we’ll probably get something like “well you were dating me before I was dating you” or “I didn’t ask for you to love me” or even just a sitcom reference that doesn’t help
at worst, general stupidity rather than “fuck you” is my guess basically
congrats on realising some things lucy
if this is the end for these two I really hope her next partner dates her on purpose
walky really needs to learn to be less passive in relationships man
like yeah he didn’t want to do the parents thing but he should totally have insisted that doing it would be bad for lucy and turn out bad. maybe he’s not there yet with his parents.
finding it hard to blame him too much for going along with the relationship at large though
also man
walky has been doing what he thinks A Good Boyfriend is Supposed To Do, Officially
his mother has been trying to make him into A Good Son, By The Books
maybe he should talk to someone about understanding how there’s no rulebook and he’s following a lot of ideas someone made up in their head
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Lucy F-bombs for the first time!!! MULTIPLE times!!! Yippee!!!
This is very very very good development for her, giving up on the impossible goal of gaining Walky’s parents’ respect, instead focusing on her own self respect.
Finally, the [Adhesive Medical Strip] is ripped off!!! 🥹🥹🥹
*plays “Rain” by The Seatbelts on hacked muzak*
too bad the parents can’t be here to see it tho
The Walkertons don’t matter. The most important person to see Lucy find her self-respect is already here. Lucy.
Lucy coming out strong!
In the UK we just call them “plasters”.
I don’t normally do “hacked muzak” gags, although I appreciate them in others, but I swear “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia just actually came on the raido…
“You couldn’t be that man that I adored…”
*Scott Pilgrim noises*
“LUCY gain The Power of Self-Respect!”
I see this as a bad development. Lucy has finally figured out part of the problem, and her immediate resolution is that it is everyone’s fault but hers. Especially to look at Walky and essentially say, ‘and this is your fault for letting me drive myself to hurt me’.
Yes. Lucy is young. But she’s washing herself of responsibility almost as fast as she identifies responsibility to be taken.
So, yeah. Not a positive development.
Well at the very least acknowledging that Jennifer was right about Walky’s parents’ moving goal-post is a really really good start.
But yeah, she has yet to become aware of her complacence to the culture that herds her and other cast members into living the result of other peoples’ thinking. In other words, dogma/.
Question: “What am I chasing?”
Answer: “Daniel, I don’t believe you realize the pretend, self-placed hoops a Christian woman will jump through to justify getting RAILED.”
How do you parse this strip as Lucy evading responsibility? Do you not see the first 2 panels? Just because those introspective revelations led her to also experience a bit of righteous indignation directed outwards doesn’t mean the acknowledgement of her own culpability vanished.
“and FUCK getting to know people and developing genuine love after months or years of devotion to each other instead of overinflating infatuation at first sight!”
THIS^^ SO MUCH THIS
Yeah, like… this might just be me being very, very demi, but developing feelings for somebody after spending a lot of time with them will always feel more genuine than a crush at first sight. He’s not really at fault here (though I appreciate Lucy saying “fuck your parents, they suck,” lol)
Why I have always had a hard time getting into relationships. I need to know a person and be friends before getting into that level of commitment and that is not how online dating systems work. Not that I can’t think that someone looks nice, it just isn’t the foundation for me wanting to be in a relationship. It is like looking at a piece of beautiful artwork, pretty but not what you are looking for with everyday tasks, if that makes sense. I want my computer to be functional, not a beautiful piece of art that drives me crazy with its functionality. If it is both, that’s fine, but support before beauty. Also tends to mean that people I might have wanted to be in a relationship with had already found a girlfriend by the time I knew them well enough to consider it (in places like college).
I wanna date someone I’m friends with first. I care way more about personality than I do physical appearance. But I’m bad at making friends so that’s also really hard for me. And so I kinda feel like I have no choice but to be up front about romance and the like.
*waves* Socially awkward demi introvert who lucked out and was friends for 2 years with a lovely guy before realising she like-liked him, round-about told him (“I like somebody, and this is like the third time it’s really happened. Guess who?” by text at stupid o’clock) – and have been with him since the next time we met up in person. That was almost 19 years ago…
I misheard my eldest describing me as being madly in love with him as me being mad to be in mad with him the other day though 😂 Sometimes, that would also be a totally fair description…
That is really sweet. I have a fair bit of demi-traits myself (for a straight bloke especially) and that’s not a million miles from what happened with me. I’ve never hooked up with anyone who I didn’t really like either, but I’ve had intimate relationships with several of my friends, and definitely stayed friends later on as well.
so first demi relationship in real life that develops from Willis comment threads when?
–Dave, and will he be proud, or horrified?
*joins the demi/ace crowd* Not 100% clear on if I’m demi or ace but my one attempt at dating mostly just confirmed my orientation doesn’t include that guy.
Walky . . . even if he didn’t feel the insta-love that she did, he’s trying. He doesn’t entirely know how to be a good boyfriend, but he wants to be one. And if he were wise enough regarding his parents to be able to tell her she didn’t need to win their approval, he wouldn’t be scrambling to maintain his own.
Honestly, I think a lot of us who are demi got to notice it more as the dating dynamic shifted over the last few decades.
I honestly just thought I was really slow about relationship things until I came across the term and realised being demi was a thing. Like, how could I not notice I like-liked him??
Although in fairness when I first met my now husband he was just about under the age of consent (3 years younger than me, so at that point the sort of age gap that would have been ooky for anything other than friendship, but that rapidly closed up), and dating a friend of mine (between us in age)… They’d been split up I think about a year and a half, and he’d had a few not serious girlfriends between seeing us, and she was living with the guy she was seeing after him by then, and confirmed that she was fine with it!
But yeah, genuinely didn’t notice I liked him like that until after it had probably been socially acceptable for a while, which I can live with!
I think of it as moving through the stages of a process of development.
(1) Initial infatuation brings you in for a closer look. So you learn more.
(2) Maybe you fall In Love for reals. It’s said that lasts about six months on average. It keeps you two together as you learn even more.
(3) Eventually the newness wears off and you find that either no, this isn’t someone I can commit to; or yes, I want this person by my side, faults and all.
Long-time friends can skip (1) and even (2) if that’s how it works out, because they found other reasons to learn each others’ characters and personalities.
Whatever works is good.
Yeah, I was raised in a culture that does arranged marriages and although I did Western-style dating myself I still think many of the things I was taught about arranged marriage growing up is super useful. Namely, that attraction is an emotion but loving someone is a choice you make. And ideally, yes, you’re attracted to the person you’re with. But ultimately loving them isn’t about attraction, it’s about doing the work of caring about them (and letting them care about you).
Yeah, that’s something that I feel a lot of our western culture is missing. If you want things to work, you have to put in the work to MAKE them work.
First, when you as a couple have an issue with one another, it isn’t you vs your partner, is you AND your partner vs the problem, simply reframing the conflict like that helps keep things civil and puts the focus on a negotiation to find a solution that ideally you can both be happy with, this is a major stumbling block for a lot of couples as it requires both parties to have that mindset to really work, otherwise it’s like trying to compromise with a wall.
Second, as you encounter things about your partner that you don’t like, you need to recognize that part of compromise is about deciding what you can live with, some things you can learn to like or at least not care about, but a lot of small annoyances are things that you just have to accept are going to annoy you, and you have to decide if the relationship as a whole is good enough to be worth dealing with that. Like, absolutely bring up any such issues with your partner and have a conversation where you see if they are willing and able to change whatever it is, but there will always be something or other inherent about them that bothers you, that’s just the reality of being with a unique individual with free will. Some things can be changed, some things cannot, and there are also some things that they CAN change but don’t want to, for instance I have a very unusual fashion sense, I dress like a weirdo, I love the way I look but I recognize not many people do, otherwise everyone would dress like me and they simply don’t, my GF likes my fashion sense, but if she didn’t, I wouldn’t change it for her and she’d have to decide if being with me is worth being with someone who dresses in weird fashion.
Third, bear in mind that perfect is the enemy of good. You will not find someone who treats you *exactly* the way you want, at least not without training, lol, and you will not find someone who doesn’t have *something* about them that bothers you. You will not find someone who loves every aspect of you, or does not wish some things about you will change. Everyone has flaws, everyone has aspects of their personality that will be in conflict with yours, and circumstances will inevitably arise that cause a fight of some kind. The goal shouldn’t be to find some mythical person that fits together with you like a puzzle piece with no gaps or friction or jamming. The goal should be to find someone good *enough* for you that they are worth the effort of bridging those gaps, dealing with the friction, and jamming the pieces together until they fit. They should be someone willing to be better for you, someone who makes you want to be better for them, someone you are happy to be with more than not, and someone who is happy to be with you more than not. Don’t get stuck on finding “The One”, find someone good enough and then put in the work to *make* them “The One”. The One isn’t destined, they are chosen, loads of people *could* be your One, but you have to decide to put in the work to make it work for one of them to *become* The One (and for you poly folks out there, obviously you can have multiple Ones at a time, just because you have multiple relationships doesn’t mean they aren’t each a singular individual of importance in your life, therefore “The One” still applies as a term, even if you have many, personally that sounds like too much work, but to each their own).
Western cultures seem to have a worse track record with figuring that stuff out, at least for the last few generations anyway. It would be easier to find someone with those values if we bothered to teach them the way cultures that still practice things like arranged marriages do. I think part of the issue is that stuff gets lumped in with “traditional family values” and a lot of those are fairly toxic stuff that I’m glad isn’t being passed down as much anymore, but sadly the positive parts are being excised with the negative, hopefully we as a society get a wakeup call soon and we relearn the parts that are good and start passing them down again so the future generations can be better off.
I always cringe a little at the “love is a choice” but thats just because it sounds too close to the rhetoric I grew up claiming gayness was a sin you chose.
I do agree that the commitment to someone is more important than just initial infatuation, and i think western culture sometimes overglorifies the initial infatuation to the point where people ignore the important aspects that make a long term relationship work.
Simple emotions, like attraction, are not a choice, they just happen. Complex emotions, like love, *can* be a choice, by continuing to choose to be in situations that cause those emotions to build, in the case of love, by choosing to continue to be in a relationship with the person and foster that relationship. I can’t choose who gets my dick hard, but of those people I did get to choose my GF, and I intend to continue choosing her.
Yeah, Lucy definitely over-hyped the relationship to herself.
I mean, I don’t think we can really accuse her of overvaluing love at first sight in the comments beneath a strip where she is asking whether what she feels for him is really love.
I’m actually really happy that she’s openly examining her feelings here. It’s going to be god fr her.
*good for her.
Sorry, apparently I can’t spell after 3am.
Me too. 🙂
Exactly this, and saying she hasn’t done it the “right demi way” when they have known each other for four months and hung out a lot as friends, nothing has been rushed into, especially compared to other relationships exhibited so far.
Yes her feelings were bigger, because she misinterpreted what Walky had said, and he didn’t correct her and it snowballed into this situation. Again one of them knew where both of them were at and hadn’t corrected the other’s clearly mistaken impressions until like 5 strips go.
Well, to be perfectly factual, she did blush the first time she saw him (though it may or may not be because of what Jennifer was saying rather than actual attraction), and then admitted being interested in him shortly after their second encounter, which she rationalized as him having desirable traits for a life companion rather than sexual attraction.
Sooo… that’s not saying much in terms of sexuality, and my guess is the sexual attraction probably came after they started dating, which made it more acceptable in her mind : as of today (in-comic), Lucy would never actually consider having sex with someone she is not dating, so any of those lusty feelings would simply not be acted upon.
I still think what happened with Lucy is that she found Walky hot and wanted to get into his britches. Because this isn’t how she thinks a good christian girl behaves, she decided she loves him and made up an ideal in her head about what he is like.
Le sigh. Just be a college student and bang the hot guy because you want to.
This.
She’s not demi. She’s just not assertive.
She roped Danny, vanilla salad, into her Christian pious kink, and nearly beat him up.
Nobody was calling her demi, my dude. The mention of demi above was about her not being demi.
Yep. Like yes for Walky the dating is new and her having feelings for him is new. And I think he’d be gun-shy regardless after the way his last “I love you” exchange went! This is Lucy’s first relationship, but it’s Walky’s third, and he’s used to being with women whose expectations for dating are…….
Well, I don’t want to say more realistic, especially wrt Amber; Amber’s dating history has probably been. Fraught. But certainly neither she nor Dorothy had starry eyed expectations of true love, the way I think Lucy did.
When you are that age, nobody tells you that those super powerful feelings that affect you even physically is infatuation and not love. And if you are so lucky to have someone to tell you that, you not only will not believe them but also feel very offended. No need to judge her for something that is the experience of most people when falling “in love” for the first time.
I find that’s more a failing of our vocabulary than anything else. For the record, there are many different and distinct feelings that are all called “love”, some have other terms also associated with them that can be used for disambiguation, but some of those terms are fairly obscure and I’m not sure that all distinct forms of love actually *have* other terms for them beyond “[qualifier] love”.
For there record, the term for the infatuation of a new relationship is called “limerence”, and as far as I am concerned that is technically a *kind* of love, just not necessarily the kind of love we often think it is. It’s kind of between what the Greeks called Eros and what they called Mania (and both can be translated as “love” into English, but inspired rather distinct terms via etymology that I feel are sufficiently obvious to indicate what the distinction is). Limerence is sadly generally temporary by it’s nature, there are ways to extend it and even to rekindle it later, but it naturally ebbs and wanes over time and it’s natural for it to calm into something else, ideally a more stable kind of romantic love, but unfortunately it often calms into something else.
Then there’s platonic love, familial love (which is often different depending on the kind of familial relation, so this one can be broken down further if needed), devotional love (often applied to objects of worship, such as a god, but technically can be applied to a person, and often is), lust (Eros proper), passion (this term *can* be treated as a synonym for lust, but in this case I’m using it to describe an interest or desire for knowledge and skill-mastery, this can be applied to a subject, an activity, a field, or a person), etc.
These various kinds and categories of love are pretty thoroughly overlapping and inter-connected, it’s not particularly common to experience only *one* of these, and part of the reason so many people disagree on what constitutes “true” or “genuine” romantic love is that romantic love is generally the most *complex* form of love, being any of a variety of combinations of some or all of those different kinds of love, to the point where it is entirely possible that *every* relationship with genuine romantic love has it’s own unique combination of loves composing the overall romantic love.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that limerence is *not* romantic love, and I get why people dislike having the sincerity of their feelings dismissed like that. I think it’s probably more accurate to say that it’s an unstable, *early* form of romantic love, and a big part of nurturing it *into* romantic love is to be aware that it can be destabilized before it can fully flourish into romantic love, this can happen due to time (the seven year itch is a common example), discovery of something so unattractive it bursts the bubble of limerence (The Ick), or simply recognizing that things will not work long-term due to deal breakers or other irreconcilable incompatibilities and ending them before the limerence actually goes away to minimize emotional damage. I think being aware of this instability and the common ways limerence can be lost can go a long way toward stabilizing it, hence why relationships that were built more slowly or between more mature individuals tend to be more likely to reach this more stable romantic love and go the distance.
You are not wrong here. However, the point that I am trying to make is that for a teen/post-teen experiencing such feelings for the first time (beyond, say, silly crushes), they feel all-consuming and divine. Even if you ofer them 200 shades of nuance with proper, unique labels to define all the types and kinds of love and adjacent there are, they will always point straight out to whichever label you are using for the most sublime and pure kind of romantic love. They don’t have that many other examples to give them perspective nor do they wish to consider for a second that the way they are feeling is “inferior” to the presumed existence of “real love” as they would put it, childlishly.
I don’t speak for all people in that demographic, but when I was *in* that demographic I was able to identify the distinctions, largely because I was educated that such distinctions exist.
And to be frank, I don’t think there is any one such thing AS “pure” love or “real” love or “true” love or whatever. Romantic love is a complex emotion, made up of several simple emotions, including things like lust, contentment, joy, attachment, adoration, the desire to help, platonic love, familial love, etc. Sometimes romantic love includes elements of devotional love, sometimes it doesn’t. The list of simple emotions that CAN combine into romantic love is significantly longer than the list of simple emotions that make up any one person’s romantic love, and even if yours is made of the same components as, say, mine, they could easily have different proportions, maybe mine has more lust, or more familial love, maybe yours is more about contentment and adoration. Either way, it’s still love, even if we are both experiencing it in entirely different, potentially in completely incompatible ways.
So, once again, the issue is in how it gets presented, by saying one kind of love is somehow better or more “real” than another, of course they are gonna say theirs is the “real” kind. The point is that you don’t try to tell people their feelings aren’t real or are lesser in some way, and then they won’t have an issue with the overall point you try to make about it. Who cares if their love is less stable than someone who’s been in a 50 year marriage that’s still going strong? Who cares if odds are good they’ll break up in a few months? Don’t go telling people their love isn’t real, because it IS real and it IS love, just a different kind of love than whatever it is you’ve decided is “true” love. It’s a vocabulary issue.
Speaking from my own perspective, I was very much educated on the different kinds of love but that didn’t help at all when those powerful feelings steamrolled over me the first time. I was too befuddled to think and as I said above, I didn’t want to consider that those overwhelming feelings were anything less than the highest ideal of romantic love. Stupid, I know, but I got it bad.
As I said, I agree with you and definitely if everybody could be well informed AND in perfect control and understanding of their feelings, they would spare themselves lots of pain and bad choices. I’m just not sure that everybody can? Seems like a special sort of psychological/emotional makeup and everybody is different.
In her defense on this, she’s calling out Walky not for leading her on, but for playing his parents’ (more accurately, his mother’s) game in trying to get their approval of her.
This is hardly walkys fault
And in time she may come to realize that. But in the moment she’s realizing the disparity and so is lumping everyone together. I don’t get the sense that she’s mad at Walky in that second to last panel so much as incredibly sad.
Yep. There was a definite shift between anger and sadness in those panels. I could hear her voice losing steam between the gritted teeth of “fuck them” and the quiet despair of “fuck you too”.
You can see it in her face.
She really hates what she’s saying, but had to say it.
It’s not, but he could have handled the whole thing better
everyone involved alike.
i mean it’s not his fault she put him up on a pedestal but he probably should’ve communicated that he wanted to take things slowly or so
as far his parents i can get not being willing to cut them off/confront them, esp at a younger age where you don’t have a safety net versus being old enough to move out and get as much distance between them as possible and never deal with them again
It can be difficult to cut off abusive parents even when you ARE older and have that safety net (I speak from experience). Especially when they become elderly and start to rely on their offspring more and more; while their favourite offspring (no, that’s not me) lives 6 hours away and the second favourite offspring (and no, that’s not me either) lives close enough but can’t be bothered – leaving them constantly badgering their least favourite offspring (yes, that’s me, folks) and that offspring’s spouse who’s from the ‘wrong’ country.
They want stuff from me, nothing I can do for them is ever QUITE good enough, and they are GREAT at making me feel like that’s entirely my fault.
Wow that was very close to my parents situation with their families like eairly so, it’s like a blend I mean my moms mother and father favored their male offspring over my mom and my dad’s mom didn’t like my moms religion, yet both relied on them to take care of them. So yeah that really sucks I’m sorry your in that situation I’ve seen it from the outside and it takes a toll.
Walky is doing Ok to just stand up to them a bit for his sister. He’s already struggling.
And you are right, is he supposed to disown his parents and drop out of college and be homeless for a girl he just met and didn’t want to introduce to them?
It’s probably helpful for Walky to be able to say “my parents will never tolerate me having a girlfriend who looks like my dad, dealing with them and their racism is a chore either she or I are going to have to do.” And it’s definitely helpful for Lucy to be able to dump him for some serious shortcomings on his part (perceived or real) instead of like thinking if she can stop idealizing him and idealizing her expectations of the relationship maybe it can work.
Well, the plot of pretending that Amber is his girlfriend again came from him. That was the time he was “Going along” jumping their hoops.
The plot came from her. He did pick Amber, but the idea started with Lucy.
True. She may be thinking, “you should have stopped me.”
oooh no, Lucy is right. She shouldn’t have accepted the whole Amber shenanigan
The shenanigan that Lucy came up with and pushed on Walky?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/commended/
I’m sorry, she pushed it on him?
Good grief yall.
Not pushed it on him, but certainly not the other way around either. She did suggest the idea.
Ehhhhh. It feels like they both had the idea at the same time and she happened to speak first.
Either way, the enthusiasm for the hijinx was very mutual. But only Walky had first-hand knowledge of Linda, so he should have been the one to realize it wasn’t going to work and say so.
Haters gonna make good points
Aw, jeez, Lucy.
Lucy beat Joyce to dropping a “fuck”. Is Willis trolling us with the possibility, and Joyce will never drop one?
Meh. F-bombs are overrated. I wish I had a cleaner vocabulary sometimes instead of swearing being a habit.
i’m sure you can get creative with it if you tried lol
You have all the vocabulary you need. Profanity is so over-used nowadays that it’s lost its impact. “That makes me very angry!” is more likely to get your feelings noticed. You can even try to say it like Marvin the Martian if you want to take the edge off.
Seriously. Describe your emotions instead of just venting them. Try it and see.
I profanity used more than it used to be? Seems like there are still lots of contexts where swearing is Significant.
My parents always swore a lot and I got in trouble at school because I talked like them.
Lucy is not really a believer like Joyce was, we’ve seen what a surface-level “sex after x dates” belief system she has.
You seem to have misspelled “Lucy has a different belief system from the one Joyce had”.
No, that’s a different phrasing. All of the words are spelled correctly.
I feel like Walky tried to warn her, and it should speak to something that he went to church for her…But I get it that it’s not… *Enough*. I guess.
He specifically avoided the topic and conversation, and just hoped it would fix itself over time, and that was his mistake. I don’t think she’s right in blaming him for this though as not sure I remember it completely right but I think she was the one that wanted to do that.
It was better that they never start dating in the first place:
* Lucy would always be under scrutiny from his parents.
* Walky doesn’t want anything to do with religion and is repulsed by it.
Either compromising would be a failure for the other.
True, they aren’t a good match but Lucy is drawing the wrong conclusions here. Walky just wanted to watch cartoons with her.
Well is this the breaking point for Lucy and the relationship?
Most likely, unless Walky can produce another miraculous save.
There is a world where this broke the ice to start a road to conversation how they both made mistakes and can grow from it together.
Lucy for setting some unrealistic goals and expectations for an early relationship.
Walky for avoiding some major conflict that he obviously recognized. He knew the love component would be an issue as he both died inside when it happened and then spoke to Dorothy about it. But instead of sitting Lucy down and addressing it, he just let it fester and was flippant about it when getting the coat.
But again, they’re both 18ish so this stuff does come with age after some proper dumbing.
Sure looks like it. Walky could probably talk her down from it if he played his cards right — tell her he may not love her yet but he’s still invested in making this relationship work, say he’s sorry for everything he’s put her through with his parents — but it doesn’t seem like he’s even trying to mount a defense. This could just be a side effect of needing to fit conversation beats into strip-sized chunks, but it looks like writing on the wall to me. Either he’s never been as invested in the relationship so much as going through the motions because it’s proper, or the whole church thing has wigged him out too much to try and stop what’s coming
Maybe. Or maybe this is the point at which the strain is relieved and breaking becomes less likely. If even one of them gets defensive, I’d guess it’s over. If not…this moment is probably the most vulnerable they’ve ever been, and could take them further.
I have wanted her to realize this for SO LONG. Not the breakup, mind you, but how badly she needs to learn self-respect.
The delivery left me all “WOAHHHH” because yeah, that was unexpected. And cool as hell.
Seconded.
PS: I meant “cool” as a “damn u Willis” (affectionate). It’s great writing. Poor Walky, though. He tried so hard, this isn’t really fair to him.
Yeah, she needed to go through this sooner or later.
Just wish she could tell Linda off too.
I’m crossing my fingers. Aren’t the parents still around? It’s a Sunday and if memory serves they were going to stay for the weekend.
I would say the proper thing to do with Linda is to stop caring what she thinks, because it’s all rubbish.
It is really surprising that this bomb exploded so soon, I calculated that it would explode within a year at most.
ISN’T IT? These storylines usually stretch for longer, but all of her insecurities went off at once. And now I’m wondering how long had they been simmering.
now we’ll have to see if she’ll stand up to raidah and billie if she disapproves of their actions/choices tho i imagine she’d tell off sarah first if anything
Super yelling at the universe she doesn’t join Raidah’s clique. I like her, she deserves better than the black hole that group of “friends” is.
The good news is, I don’t think Raidah actually wants her as a member. Making “friends” with both Jennifer and Walky is about getting back at Joyce for what happened with Jacob, and Lucy isn’t good enough friends with either Joyce OR Sarah for Raidah to expand any extra energy on luring her any further to the Dark Side.
//nodnod
Raidah not wanting her might be what saves Lucy. We don’t know what Lucy’s major is, but without connections… She might be even academically ambitious and all, but I wonder if it would be enough to set aside how she’s “a nobody”. I sure hope it isn’t.
I will be heartbroken for her if she goes to Raidah now and Raidah rejects her, though.
Because BOY does Lucy need friends. :c Jennifer… tolerates her??? She was making some inroads with Walky’s friend-group, but it’s still Walky’s friend-group. (I just keep thinking of the strip where she was running to catch up with them after the timeskip and even though it had been several months she was still calling out with, “Hey, wait up! It’s me, Lucy!”) (Also I think Sarah really struck a nerve by telling her she wasn’t a “real” part of the friend-group.)
To go to Raidah for sympathy, only to find be brushed off because Raidah doesn’t like anyone in that group except probably Carl… would really hurt her a lot, even though it would also be the better outcome long-term.
………Ironically that would be a good moment for her to run into Sarah, who I think would force herself to let her shields down and show what a kind person she can actually be when the chips are down. After a bit of ill-timed gloating over Lucy seeing how wrong she was about Raidah, ofc.
idk, the other character I feel like Lucy’s made a real connection with is Becky, but I think Sarah would be the more narratively satisfying choice.
(OK, I’m now writing fanfiction, fff.)
For opportunities of narrative humor and weirdness,Lucy and Carla forming a friendship could be something.
Ehhhhh.
I love Carla, but I don’t think Lucy has the self-confidence just yet to really hold her own in a scene with Carla, so in my head it’s pretty one-sided.
I agree that Raidah’s goals would not be well-served by inducting Lucy into her circle. But I also know that Raidah’s very, very stupid when it comes to advancing her own goals. (Her decision to undermine Dorothy is an excellent example of this–a ~real~ Machiavelli would have either tried to draw Dorothy into her side of things [thereby isolating Joyce from her strongest local support at the time], OR would have supported Dorothy’s goals in the effort to get her to continue her plans for getting into Yale. By digging at Dorothy’s self-confidence and sending her off the rails, she both keeps Joyce’s biggest supporter around, AND keeps someone on campus who might actually A: succeed later in life and B: would have reason to actively resent her.
Raidah is a big ball of stupid wrapped around an ugly core of spite.
I am not going to lie, this makes me feel a little sad. That is how you know its good art.
Yeah… I’m feeling for both of them, too.
I’m sad and happy??? Happy that’s she’s processing, and realizing that she doesn’t have to put up with all this- while also starting to reflect on if what she felt was really ‘love’. Just… Go, Lucy, go! But also sorry, Walky. Before reading I went “This is such a desolate strip.” it already conveyed what was happening before I even read the words, haha.
True. It’s so good and sad. I feel for Lucy here too, and I’m impressed she sees all this about herself. I wonder how long she’ll let herself keep this clarity.
the duelling sad eyebrows
–Dave, playing Deliverance on the hacked banjo-based VHS
Yeah, yeah this is all true…I kind of wondered what made Lucy so fixated on wanting to date him to begin with.
But I think she’s missing a very important statement of- “And fuck me for not realizing any of this sooner!”
There’s a chance it was mostly physical, given how Walky got super hot after the time skip
Lucy was into Walky way before he “got super hot.”
Given the surprising way she’s bombarding everything, it’s surprising she didn’t say it.
the dorkiness and bit of attractiveness does seem like it’s fine for a crush, tho i imagine walky is better as a ‘first bf’ when ur like, 14 rather than college age, tho i guess immaturity isn’t limited to younger age lol
i think she did explain it in a comic on their first date like “the way you were when you were asking for advice…also i saw your butt”
Speaking as an afab who went through a similar situation, when you’re that young and inexperienced with relationships but are super into the idea of finding Love, it really can just take someone being like “hey you two would look cute together” to start a deep infatuation. Lucy only started seeing Walky in a romantic light when Billie brought up him dating Lucy.
I don’t think she was that fixated on Walky, really. I think she just really wanted A Boyfriend, and Jennifer put the idea in her head that Walky might be available / interested. After that, Walky was just around, cute, nonthreatening, and shared her interests. Then he asked her out!
Like, it ticks all the right boxes, especially for an eighteen-year-old’s first boyfriend.
Oh, Lucy 🙁
Main character Lucy
LETS FUCKING GOOOOO
— they yelled while agonized
Did he want her to jump through his parents’ hoops though? Didn’t he specifically stand up against that and show that she’s cool (by high-lighting that she’s better than Amber?)
Lucy has been the one pushing for him to get the parents to like her.
He knew they were racist and tried to have her not interact with them, but after Jennifer spelled it out for her, Lucy really wanted them to realize her worth instead of not caring what they thought.
The whole thing with Amber was a result of trying to make that happen, which did result in an invite to the next night’s game, only to find out Linda still didn’t care for her.
But, long story long, changing their minds was what Lucy wanted, vs avoiding the issue altogether as Walky wanted (which still wasn’t a great way to handle it).
So the hoop jumping was on Lucy, not Walky.
There was no good way to handle it, not letting them screw things up for them is essentially the best Walky and Lucy could do because the only person who could actually do anything about it was Linda. But she doesn’t even have the self awareness to know there’s a problem apparently.
He definitely didn’t want her to meet his parents at all. But he did sort of… validate the hoop-jumping by helping her concoct wacky schemes to get her into his parents’ good graces, instead of, for example, taking Lucy by the hands, looking deep into her eyes, and saying: “My parents are never going to like you. But that doesn’t matter to me, because I like you. So screw them, let’s go get Taco Bell instead of having dinner with them.”
I’m pretty sure that’s what Lucy means by her comment in the last panel, anyway. Maybe she’ll expand on it tomorrow.
True, that would have worked to avoid this scene. But Walky is not that masterful, more a go along with things guy.
Heh, I mean, for a lot of reasons.
I think Lucy would have been very moved by him taking her hands and saying that to her!
I also think, long-term, it still would not have been what she actually wanted. Because she wants a relationship where she can meet her boyfriend’s parents. She wants at least the possibility of someday being a beloved daughter-in-law.
That’s not an unreasonable thing to want, even though it’s by no means Walky’s fault that his parents suck. Someone else’s bigoted parents are often too hard to get past.
It doesn’t help that Walky has a weakness for wacky schemes.
one might even say a vulnerability
–Dave, Walkyverse: the CCG
FINALLY
So Lucy and Walky’s “relationship” is over.
And nothing of value is lost.
Do you really think it’s over? I’d prefer it, but you can never tell what will happen when Walky opens his mouth. This could even be the introduction to DOA’s It’s the Rain equivalent.
You’re beautiful, Lucy. It’s my mom that’s ugly.
This is triggering something in my mind, but I can’t place it.
Hunchback?
this is a terrible analogy, especially with the previous panel. If it was one sided Walky wouldn’t be giving Lucy the time of day but he does like her.
he was encouraged by dorothy, not like he asked her out, out of pity but it is imbalanced at least
Because he’s clueless. Someone telling him “Hey she’s into you. You should ask her out if you think it’d work.” isn’t a big deal.
The most we can say for 100% certain is that he likes her as a friend. Friends would do things to not hurt other friends, and do things they don’t want to to make people happy. This does not mean there is love, only that Walky values her friendship and company. It isn’t going to mean he wants kissing, banging, a family, or will ever grow to love her (things which she all desires). He hasn’t really been given a long enough time to, but he’s been going through the motions without really feeling it.
I once started dating a guy whose opinion I cared for a lot. I think about him often. He proposed to me and I said yes. I realized before it was too late that I had zero sexual or even true romantic interest in him—and that it was something that I wanted in my life (not that someone needs to be physically attractive forever, but it was almost a repulsion). I confused a really good friendship for true love and messed up that friendship forever through being too immature and young to handle it.
Basically, going to church with Lucy does not mean the relationship isn’t mostly one-sided.
I feel you there, and I’d like to throw in another anecdote. I have had this situation with someone I liked but didn’t love, I’ve also had probably the opposite, with someone who liked me a lot like walky with Lucy, and I was deeply infatuated with him like Lucy. It didn’t really work for a lot of reasons, it ended up being his affections came around to meet nine but I’d already resolved to take a different path, and we’ve tried to be friends again many times over the year but I feel like when we do we always end up back on that road to romantic affection, a wonderful friend I can no longer enjoy time with because romance got in the way.
I will go out on a limb and assert that friendship is the foundation of every healthy positive personal relationship, and is its own kind of love. You can add other kinds of love, if that so happens.
Walky likes her, he just doesn’t love her. Those are very different things.
There is definitely a wealth of free real estate between “doesn’t give a damn about her” and “is in love with her”.
Walky’s response in tomorrow’s strip could still go either way, but like, nothing Walky’s done so far has proved he’s in love with her. You can care about people without being in love with them.
But expecting someone to be in love with you after a week of dating isn’t fair?
Dunno what your fascination with insisting that’s what Lucy did to me specifically but I am very tired of repeatedly explaining why I don’t agree, so maybe just leave me alone
since “we’ll have to agree to disagree” didn’t work.
Scrolls down the page reading other comments, sees you just jumping on every single person who thinks Lucy’s even slightly in the right here so that you can doggedly insist that actually everything that’s ever gone wrong in the relationship is her fault, and she dragged him to church, and he supposedly tried his best to get her to stay away from his parents while she singlemindedly strongarmed him into sitcom hijinx that I’m sure you also insist he only put up with for her sake, l m a o
Okay, I stand corrected, you do not have a fascination with browbeating me with your weird biased read of this ‘ship, and indeed you might not even be paying enough attention to what people say in response to even realize you made some variation of the exact same argument like five times to me specifically.
But like, I will not be responding to this line of reasoning any further in the future except to reiterate that I’ve asked you to stop repeating yourself lol, and if you don’t switch up your tactics I think you’ll probably find I’m not the only one who’s just refusing to engage with your copypasted “but Lucy can’t keep DEMANDING [thing she never demanded]” while you just ignore their every rebuttal.
But Walky isn’t giving Lucy the time of the day though, he’s doing the bare minimum cause he doesn’t really care.
Look at how he is caring around Dorothy, for instance. Even now, he clearly cares more about her than he ever really didi around Lucy.
It’s a Scott/Knives relationship with no age gap.
I guess that makes Amber Ramona Flowers.
Dorothy would be Kim Pine.
Hehe the reference, and suposse Lucy is Knives
I feel like I’d reverse them, though timeline-wise yours fits better. In terms of feelings though I think Walky’s energy towards Dorothy is way more like the scott-ramona energy.
damn I think you nailed it
He’s definitely not doing the bare minimum just because Lucy was all in immediately.
Respect for Lucy shot up incredibly high.
Is it perfect? No. But god it’s a step in the right direction. Good for her. It takes time to realize your own fault that played into situations but acknowledging that the situation’s shitty and you ultimately deserve better is a great first step towards growth.
I don’t know, she basically accepted his explanation that he didn’t say he loved her and didn’t feel that way yet because he said something nice and acted like she was okay. Then just started it again and blamed him for things that she herself wanted.
I get that she’s hurting and is venting, but it’s also not exactly a great look.
But it’s the logical progression. She has a lot of big feelings that have gotten shattered in the last half hour, it is a completely logical reaction to not process that 100% objectively in the first instance. It may be addressed in the next strip or it may come later on down the road, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she does reflect and apologises or at least forgives him and confirms that he was only trying to do right by everyone, including her. But also, intentions don’t make up for inaction, and walky enabled this whole situation by trying to coast and not being willing to have uncomfortable conversations until they blew up in his face.
It taked time to re-sculpt one’s model of reality to integrate startling changes to its central theme, like this.
I dunno. Of all the people Lucy should gain a backbone to I find that she consistently picks the wrong targets.
Like there are a lot of people who deserve to get chew out by her before Walky.
I haven’t exactly been in Walky’s situation here (my parents decided my ex-partners were Evil on arbitrary traits unrelated to race. Once it was because they asked for water at our house, and then they yelled at him for getting it himself the next time.), but I have been in the position of when you’re too afraid of your parents to stand up for your partner the way you should. And no matter how many problems it causes, it’s really hard to push yourself out of that fear. Because partners come and go, but parental attachment messes with you because it’s a bond that’s not supposed to break. It’s like something we instinctively cling to, even if it tears us apart.
I’m not quite sure how Walky is going to handle his parents. I’ve mentioned that mine backed off after my husband physically ejected my mother from our apartment Fresh Prince of Bel-Air style (she loves him now), but I think this is going to be the last straw that pushes him to realize that things can’t continue like they are. Because even though I don’t think he had romantic feelings for Lucy at all, I think he cared for her deeply as a friend—maybe loved her platonically even, and losing his last big support net is going to force him to confront some things and make a change. Only thing is, I have no clue what he can do or how.
And it seems that this time he will be alone in all this.
You go girl.
Some people may have been premature in claiming Sarah was right and at the risk of doing the same myself I think this moment here actually validates Sarah’s opinions. Regardless of where this relationship goes Walky is not worth dealing with his parents if he’s not going to even have the courage to speak up for you. Ironically he actually defended Amber to them more than Lucy.
But don’t forget that she also agreed with that plan.
I mean yeah it was part of the plan, but the plan was for Amber to make a bad impression, which worked. What part of the plan was him defending her but leaving his real girlfriend out to dry by essentially the same comment?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/unimpressive/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-14/01-everybodys-looking-for-nothing/raised-2/
Admittedly Amber’s a lot tougher than Lucy so maybe that gave Walky some courage, but this is not a great look for him.
Walky didn’t say anything because that’s just as much a dig at him as it is at Lucy, only more open, and he has trouble defending himself against his mom.
It doesn’t make it any easier when he partly agrees with what she’s saying, not the “slumming it” part, but the guy knows he doesn’t try as hard as he can and has no real plan for the future.
When you add on that she makes a passive aggressive comment about Lucy vs the naked aggression she had towards Amber and it’s easy to see why Walky didn’t suddenly start talking back.
I think that with this, it leads to Walky’s true growth, and the first step would be for him to really face his parents.
But he needs to get his degree and get a job first or he’ll be out on the street with no health care. This is America.
Our precarious situations and near zero social safety net makes it hard to leave abusive situations and gives overbearing parents far too much leverage.
It’s worse – because his parents are well-off, he’d effectively been cut off from what little support there is, since even for nominally adult students, they look at parent income etc to determine eligibility for help.
So while it’d be very satisfying, and probably quite healthy, for Walky to give his mom a much deserved what-for, the price, to him, would be considerable.
Then, keep in mind that he grew up having seen what his parents were prepared to do to HIS TWIN for failing to meet their expectations – essentially sending her away, banishing her to a prison-like existence far away from themselves, her brother, and everyone she knows.
I don’t think he’s got any doubts that he’d be cut off and cut loose in a heart beat, if he seriously challenged his mom, nor do I think he trusts his dad to provide protection from her, or to work to soften her blow against him.
Lucy likely do not – can not – understand that parents would even be capable of doing things like that to their own children, even with her recent experience of his parents in her rear-view mirror. She’s very sheltered and naïve, and partly as a result of that, also quite self-centered.
Not saying Walky is innocent in all of this, but her anger is misguided and seem to stem, at least in part, from embarrassment over her misunderstanding, thinking he’d said “I love you” to her. Which in turn were due to her being so desperate and in such a hurry to move their relationship forward.
I guess “chill” isn’t a word that’s ever going to be associated with Lucy, and it might be this makes her a supremely bad match with Walky. Otoh, Walky could have done with someone who really cared for him, who were willing and able to push him to do what’s needed.
Not as his permanent engine of progress, but providing a “push start” on a few cold mornings when his own batteries are low.
I’m not convinced that this Warp 9.9 romance drive is central to Lucy’s character, and it may be the thing that’s breaking here.
Genuinely proud of her for this moment, even though some of what she’s saying isn’t wholly fair.
Many things can be true at once! It can be not Walky’s fault that he struggled to stand up for her with his parents AND it can be unacceptable for Lucy to be not-stood-up for.
It wouldn’t make Lucy a bad person if she wasn’t willing to wade through Linda and Charles’s microaggressions for the rest of her life when she doesn’t have to, especially for the sake of a boy she still hasn’t known that long and doesn’t know that well.
It wouldn’t make Walky a bad person if he wanted a more casual relationship, one that doesn’t involve looping his parents in, one that doesn’t require him to make a serious commitment when his heart still has bruises from Amber and possibly also from Dorothy, one that doesn’t require alienating his parents any more than he already has.
Still withholding judgment, though. Walky’s response to all of this is very important and there ARE things I can imagine him doing and saying that could still prevent a breakup here. Or at least postpone one.
I don’t think Walky has the verbal or social skills to patch this up or even stand up for himself. He’s just soaking in self-loathing.
:c
I’m hoping that Walky doesn’t respond too quickly, just stands there looking morose while Lucy continues to examine her emotions and consider the options. I think this relationship is hers to save. They can work out the details after.
book #N title: Many Things Can Be True At Once!
cool that wasn’t supposed to go there sigh
anyway have a real reply:
here’s the strip in question
I do think it’s clouded by the fact that Sarah doesn’t like Walky that much to begin with and definitely does not think he’s worth dating even without the racist parents, but..
O O F
Would “Stupid Wannabe Love” be a good name for a band?
i wouldnt’ be surprised if there was already a similar band or at least song title named that lol
Ah, so this is how Lucy fully joins Raidah’s circle of friends.
Well crap.
Does she? Raidah wanted Walky for connections.
It could open up the possibility of an evil scheme on Raidah’s part to get them to reconcile, at worst convincing Jennifer to participate in said plan.
I dunno. I just don’t see any benefit on Raidah’s part for that. What could see even use Lucy for? If anything I can only see Raidah rejecting Lucy.
I can only think of the (smaller) probability that in a use of manipulation and bribery, Raidah will be able to offer Lucy what is apparently the best.
Plus she’s Raidah, she’s capable of doing whatever she can to screw up Joyce and Sarah and maybe Lucy is a pawn in her possible evil game.
Given how ‘ladder climbing’ raidah seems to be, other than being jen/billie’s roommate, i wonder if there’s incentive because i dont’ think anyone in lucy’s family would have that much ‘influence’ unless she’s esp ambitious enough herself to ever be ‘useful’ to each other in the future
I agree, we haven’t really been given any indication that Raidah has any interest in Lucy as a person or as a potential connection
Oh… OH NOOOOOOO! I think you’re right!
YES LUCY
I have been on record that I liked Lucy x Walky, and I would have been ok if they’d managed to patch things up because WALKY developed some assertiveness, but I am also super on board for Lucy doing so as well, regardless of whether this means they break up or decide to keep going.
WTG Lucy! Now go get some ice cream or M&Ms or whatever, cry it out for a while, and know you’re a good woman and deserve much better than an apathetic dork and his asshole parents.
Agreed
*ice cream & M&Ms
Good for her!
Wow Lucy speedran ‘you don’t love me?’ to ‘actually, you suck’ really quickly.
The ‘Walkerton parents are never gonna like you’ must have really been festering.
It’s just the bookend for how quickly she speedran “I don’t know you” to “we’re in lurrrrrrve!”
Well there it is.
Needed to happen, but still sucks in its own way. But props to Lucy for figuring it out on her own and not getting slammed (too hard, anyway). I get why she blames Walky, but Walky went along with this because others basically told him to, and he a) doesn’t know what he wants out of life, and b) needs to grow a spine and make his own independent decisions. Hopefully this sparks a growth stage for him to get on the path for at least one of those.
Yup, at minimum, he needs to learn to never, ever let a girlfriend meet his parents. At best it will go badly, even if he dates the whitest Dorothyest girl. It’s not nearly as funny as he thought to date a black girl just so his parents would hate her. Which is what he told Dorothy. Ugh, Walky, face-palm.
I’m not recalling that strip exactly. Link?
And then she fucks him for going along with it.
well i wouldn’t be an exhibitionist but i can imagine some ppl might find it satisfying if one were to fuck someone’s partner in front of parents who don’t think they’re good enough for him
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to say that. 23 minutes: a record?
If they re-envision their relationship on a more realistic basis, I could see that happening as part of making up, but somehow I think that “more realistic basis” would preclude it.
Lucy is finally growing up and seeing the world as it is rather than as she wants it to be. She is lashing out at Walky for being complicit when, you know what? it’s fair.
Walky did try to warn her, as did Jennifer, as did Sarah (well, less “warn her” and more “warn her off”), but she was too adamant that she could Disney Channel protagonist win her love interest’s parents to her side. A lot of it is on her, but she does have a point that Walky didn’t stand up for her minimally. She’s finally seeing that they’re very incompatible people and she has a right to lash out at Walky right now, especially since she’s also self-reflecting about her role in the whole relationship.
So, yeah, you go, Lucy. But also, you go and self-reflect and grow some more, Lucy.
Yeah it’s a weird thing where like…Walky didn’t wanna open that pandora’s box of meeting the parents at ALL. Lucy kinda pushed it on him and is now telling him off for being a coward about it. When like…it kinda ISN’T easy to stand up to your parents. The reason he felt like she needed to be “good enough” is because Walky himself felt like he needed to be “good enough” to earn their affection, which is why he’d rather just…not interact with them.
“This is why i only date orphans, way less baggage” 8D;
Also, Linda was acting gross and disdainful, but it’s not like anyone told or asked Lucy to jump through any particular hoops. My way of seeing this is if Linda wants to stew in her own resentment and misery that’s a her problem.
I agree, and Walky did warn her, but he should also have done something. Like, literally anything. Unless I’m mistaken he didn’t even apologize for the way Linda acted or anything.
Going to church was the apology.
And he spent the whole time bongoing about that too.
You don’t drag a church averse atheist to church if you don’t want to hear some griping.
That was not the best choice on either side.
He volunteered. He wasn’t dragged.
He just found the service worse than he’d expected.
He clearly bit off more than he could chew with the church thing. Happens to the best of us, and it’s honestly about on par with suggesting a Chinese restaurant your partner likes and finding out their pot stickers are hot garbo and now you’ve wasted $15 (tip inclusive) on crappy dumplings.
The problem is that if he’s gonna date Lucy or any poc person in the future this will happen again. It’s tough to stand up to your abusive parents, but he’s gonna have to deal with it or he’s not ready to date anyone…or he should just date Jennifer because that would solve all his problems.
Given he never wanted to subject her to them at all, that’s a perfectly reasonable way of handling it.
Lucy wasn’t willing to listen to his warnings and while I can’t speak about the experiences of PoC, I can say if my boyfriend told me he’d rather not subject me to his parents because they’re homophobic I’d listen? It’s not an exact 1:1 but you get the idea I’d hope.
I don’t know if that means you’re a better partner to your boyfriend than Lucy or if your boyfriends a better partner than Walky, probably both, but in your comment is the point. You’d respect your boyfriend’s warning instead of pridefully trying to impress people who don’t deserve it or your boyfriend would draw a line saying you matter more to him than his parent’s approval. Walky took a half measure and Lucy disregarded it. This might have been a bad relationship.
Man, I can’t make a radiation joke to this, the Chernobyl miniseries of this relationship has officially gotten to the sad-ass final episodes
If my ship has to sink I’ll take Lucy getting some backbone.
The only way this could be better is if Lucy and Jacob ended up together as a middle finger to Sarah.
…fuck. Lucy and Jacob might be too cute for me to physically handle.
I *like* Sarah but my God that would be some truly delicious tea.
Nothing against Sarah, love her… But that would be such an appropriate “Fuck you” from both Lucy AND Jacob. Also I genuinely just want to see them interact cuz I suspect they’d be cute together??
I used to ship Lucy and Jacob because they seem good on paper, but I’ve cooled on that a lot after seeing what dating Lucy is like. She needs to learn more about relationships first. She seems to be having an epiphany which I hope sticks because I wouldn’t wish current Lucy on anyone. Putting her unhealthy infatuations aside, just her horniness and the pressure she places on eventually having sex isn’t something I want Jacob to deal with. He deserves something chill.
Then there’s the fact Lucy is a manipulator. Her friendly, and naive persona is in some ways a mask. Just concocting the fake girlfriend scheme is a sign of that. She also idolizes Raidah and I don’t think Jacob deserves to deal with any ex drama he’s doesn’t already have coming to him. Lucy has a lot of factors that make this not a great ship even if she seems to superficially check a lot of boxes.
Agree on Lucy’s manipulative streak.
I honestly feel it’s un unknowable level and much of her innocence act is just an act.
But I also feel this is Willis fault. He’s keeping it close to vest if he’s fixing her or breaking her. ( Feels like fixing today) . He could turn her into Raidah. Or Walkyverse Mary.
She’s really the pair of Malaya. Both characters deserve each other. One has to be a surly contrarian. The other a smiling passive superficial scold.
Lucy and Jacob would honestly, I think, be a good match in that they would be good for each other. And that it would chap Sarah is a bonus. (I can like Sarah, but have not often done so lately, and the woman wants to be a LAWYER. She needs to develop social skills at some point!)
Eh.
She can the kind that focuses on paperwork.
I will say that as someone who squarely been on Sarah’s side in the spat between her and Lucy that would be fun to read. If there is one thing that Lucy has over Sarab it’s emotional honesty and we know Jacob’s taste in girls is Joyce-like and Lucy is like the third most Joyce-like person in the cast.
Who’s the second?
Jocelyn, probably
This conversation is kinda weird to me philosophically. One person’s feelings aren’t dependent on a different person’s feelings. Unrequited love isn’t non-love, those feelings are still real and deserve to be seen as real. But, Idunno, I feel like the narrative is confirming that it’s not love because it’s akin to worshipping God?
I think Lucy may be having an emotional rather than purely logical response, which is kind of reasonable for her to do right now.
Totally agree.
But that’s because she’s been lying about her feelings and their nature, good and bad.
Once she’s cleared the air, maybe we will get something more evenhanded
I think for the first time she’s had to examine her feelings instead of just going along with the endorphins and telling herself a fantasy story.
Don’t think about it too hard.
My rule of thumb is that if there’s disagreement over the meaning of a word, try to talk about the topic without using that word.
In this case, I’d say that the experience of feeling affection for a loose friend or acquaintance is a very different thing from the experience of feeling affection for someone with whom you have a close and long-lasting mutual relationship. A bit like how watching a sport is very different from playing it.
I wonder when Lucy will realize that Walky encouraged her not to be around his parents and it was actually her who wanted to have them like her, once Jennifer explained they were already biased against her, which led to the Amber deal.
Not to say Walky’s avoidance strategy was the best way to handle things, but you can’t jump through hoops if you’re not around the hoops in the first place.
Lucy asked for the hoops, or at least the chance to jump through them.
In a very real sense it was everyone else going “yeah they just aren’t gonna like you” and then Lucy unprompted going “but surely there are at least some hoops I can jump through!”
And now she’s saying “Walky! Why did you tell me to jump through those hoops after I asked you to set up those hoops.”
Bingo. Somehow this is all going to be Wally’s fault.
It’s always Wally’s fault
I think avoidance was a perfect strategy. Especially when your parents are hard headed bigots you know you can’t change the opinion of
Yep, if my boyfriend told me he didn’t want to subject me to his parents because they’re homophobic my response would be “Oh yeah, that sounds awful. Fuck that then.” because that seems the best strategy.
Not necessarily – if you can afford the meltdown of your relationship with the parents, and you’re prepared to go there, as a couple, protecting each other to the hilt, getting it all out in the open and settling issues once and for all can be a good thing.
The problem here is that Walky simply can’t afford the resulting meltdown. He needs to keep his parents somewhat placated. After seeing what they were prepared to do to his twin in their young teens, I don’t think he’s got any doubts or illusions about if they’d be prepared to cut him off and leave him to fend for himself, without tuition or living expense money, but with the added obstacle to getting help of having well-off parents.
Recent strips have also kinda made it clear that he couldn’t rely on his dad to defend him or even soften the blows from his mom, leaving him truly alone to fend for himself, if he crosses her.
Lucy do not understand any of this, and it’d take a long time for her to overcome her preconceived notions and truly absorb the enormity, from her perspective, of the situation Walky is in.
The whole encounter with Linda was the result of her own machinations and refusal to hear what not just Walky, but others around her, were telling her. While some part of her anger might be justified, the bulk of it isn’t, really.
No more so than anger at others for the pain in her hand if she’d reached out to touch a hot stove she’d been told was hot and not to touch by both her parents and siblings.
Yeah, it’s a thing that would have to happen eventually.
But not now. Not when he’s still dependent on them and not a couple weeks into the relationship.
I know Lucy was overly optimistic, but I think Walky could have been a lot more reassuring after it went poorly. Instead he made a dumb sex joke. And the next day we see Lucy worried that Walky’s feelings have cooled because his parents don’t approve.
He could have been, but one thing we generally seem to ignore in worrying about how upset Lucy was over his parents’ behavior is that she really just caught some shrapnel from the blast. All of that was really aimed at Walky and he’s far more vulnerable to it than she is – thanks to a childhood of abusive conditioning.
Walky hides it under a layer of dumb jokes, but he was almost certainly more affected by his parents abuse than Lucy was, but we focus on his failure to reassure her rather than the other way around.
Is this true. The Slumming it comment seemed to be a dog whistle that Walky didn’t hear
Oh Walky absolutely heard it. It was aimed at him and it hurt. That’s the point.
Good for you, Lucy.
Walky should also thank her for doing this.
It would be good if they broke up. I hope she doesn’t just pay him pay for it forever.
Aaaaand she’s lost me again.
It was a bad idea to date in the first place but I can’t help but think Walky is going to be glad she pulled the pin on this grenade. He felt like doing it himself would be a betrayal but he’d rather date Dorothy or Amber.
Lucy truly is the worst of all his potential suitors
She wasn’t in the strip for the first year, so she missed all of the scheduled character development. That’s why she seems so consistently immature compared to the rest of the cast.
She is still the worst
She dated no one in highschool. She helped Walky but monopolized his Time after Amber dumped him.
Neither one seemed to grow or date anyone during this time. This is 4 years late. In Development.
I think she’s immature because she is. This is like when a hs freshman gf writes “I , ❤️david4eva” all over her notebooks.
The people who knows better? Well of course.
You can’t just expect that to change after a week of dating.
Okay but we’ve had to deal with Lucy for like 6 years idc how little time that is in comic she’s annoying and certified almost worst girl
She’s right and she should say it!!!
I mean no, he told her upfront it was not a good idea to attempt at all. They were there because it’s what she wanted, not what he wanted. a lot of the things they did are because Lucy wanted to.
She’s talking about Walky going along with, and even instigating, attempts to make Lucy “acceptable” to them. And just because Lucy wanted to try to get along with them – because HE didn’t make clear to her how hopelessly racist they are – doesn’t mean she was wrong.
YOU are the one that wanted to deal with his parents Lucy. Walky was content with leaving them out of all this
Yeah but now she can frame it so it’s his fault and not hers, so…
“so anyway, let’s go to my room and get it done already”
And they had the most epic of strained-friendship f
Genuinely proud of her for this moment, even though some of what she’s saying isn’t wholly fair.
Many things can be true at once! It can be not Walky’s fault that he struggled to stand up for her with his parents AND it can be unacceptable for Lucy to be not-stood-up for.
It wouldn’t make Lucy a bad person if she wasn’t willing to wade through Linda and Charles’s microaggressions for the rest of her life when she doesn’t have to, especially for the sake of a boy she still hasn’t known that long and doesn’t know that well.
It wouldn’t make Walky a bad person if he wanted a more casual relationship, one that doesn’t involve looping his parents in, one that doesn’t require him to make a serious commitment when his heart still has bruises from Amber and possibly also from Dorothy, one that doesn’t require alienating his parents any more than he already has.
Still withholding judgment, though. Walky’s response to all of this is very important and there ARE things I can imagine him doing and saying that could still prevent a breakup here. Or at least postpone one.
/edits so this will hopefully show up where it’s supposed to. fingers crossed.
+1 to everything here
hah thanks 🙂
Like, Walky’s eyes are very glassy, especially in the last panel. He looks emotional. I’m… very interested in what he’s going to say here.
He’s thinking about Monkey Master lol. He’s completely checked out. Would be funny, anyway.
Hahaha
All the points above were great, but this got my laugh
I’m flagging you for making me laugh too loud. I got neighbors here
I just don’t think she’s necessarily blaming him- she knows she’s at fault too. She’s just processing her emotions and the situation she’s finding herself in. This is a wholey emotional response, and I’m looking forward to seeing Walky’s. So far these two’s arc has been very REAL, like every arc in this comic is very real but this just feels like- raw, mundane messed up teenager things? If that makes sense. I’ve been both loving and dreading it.
It just feels like she blames herself here, but at the same time realizing she deserves respect from both herself, and others. Walky isn’t a bad person, and while the way he handles his parents isn’t the best- it’s the best way for him at this moment. I just also think he’s complacent in general, and tends towards avoidance for anything that seems too difficult to deal with. I do wish this also pushes him to grow and change like I do for Lucy. Aaghhhh I wish the best for them bothhh
I don’t think she’s really blaming him, either, apart from what’s implied by “fuck you”, hah.
I think the comments are definitely looking for one or the other of them to be “at fault”, but I’ve always read this pair as having mutually incompatible but perfectly understandable goals and motivations.
No one’s in the wrong here. They might just be… wrong for each other. At least where they both are emotionally right now.
Same here! I do agree with what you said, just wanted to add words of my own. No one’s really at fault, but they both do need to grow as individuals. I do hope they can stay friends, depending on how the next few strips go- I think their relationship might end up stronger for it. Aaaa, they just really upped my investment in the both of them tbh.
I am a little weirded out by a few comments kind of weaponizing Walky’s incompetence for him. For a lack of a better phrase (like, I don’t think he’s incompetent)? Like he’s being defended for something he doesn’t need to be defended for.
Like the whole, “But he went to church for her” thing just strikes me as odd.
As a non-religious person going to church is like being locked into one of those time-share seminars. A lot of high-pressure sales tactics, a lot of regressive propaganda, a lot of weird conformity to rules you don’t understand and are pretty sure you don’t approve. And there is even bad music and worse singing. Going to church for someone is a big sacrifice!
I just kinda fell asleep whenever I had to go to church. I no longer go, but those songs are quite disturbing.
I think it’s important to remember that he didn’t think it would be like that.
He was expecting boring and annoying and he didn’t like having to be up early on a Sunday, but he wasn’t expecting to end the experience totally creeped out and feeling like his girlfriend was in a cult.
It was a bigger sacrifice than he intended to make.
Yeah, totally there with you. 🙂
And…… mm. I dunno, we all project onto fictional characters to a greater or lesser degree — it’s kind of what fiction is for. So I’m not saying anyone is wrong to do that…? I do feel like I’ve seen a fair bit of defensiveness of Walky’s right to grow to love Lucy over time, when Walky hasn’t really done a whole lot to indicate that that’s a right he wants.
But there’s not a whole lot of representation for that pov, so I absolutely understand jumping hopefully onto the metaphorical bandwagon, and I sympathize with holding on tight.
Hmm, well, looking at it that way I guess I can get it. It’s just not something I think really reflects on the character, as in, he hasn’t been moving in that direction so far. Unsure. I relate to a few of the character myself, so I’ll just let it go. I’m kinda too happy with this strip to feel hung up on anything rn, LOL.
Rooting for the both of them, in the end. And it’s been a pleasure reading your comments Li.
Aw thanks 🙂
The church thing is to point out its not one-sided, he’s making an effort too it’s just not the same intensity.
Its also important to note, the shit with his parents was literally because trying to win them over was what she wanted to do. Walky never wanted or expected her to put up with them.
He definitely should have said something though.
I mean I think we know what the point of bringing up the fact that he “went to church for her” is. Blume was pointing out that he doesn’t need defending, I was pointing out that there’s a certain vocal segment in the comments rn insisting that Lucy should back off and give Walky time to fall for her, but Dorothy’s the only one who’s suggested in-universe that Walky even wants to be in love with Lucy.
Does Walky want to be given more time to fall in love with her, or does he want her to calm way down because “being in love” was never his goal with this relationship?
I’m pretty sure that if loving Lucy was completely off the table, he’d never go along with the idea that love would develop in time.
Walky has an idea of relationship tropes and I doubt he’d engage in a relationship that he’d never consider a positive trope to be a part of, and love is a positive trope in romantic relationships, just as sex is, something he also has expressed a lot of desire to get into with Lucy, but is still willing to explore.
I feel like you missed a word in that last bit (maybe you meant to say he hasn’t expressed a lot of interest in having sex with her but is still willing to explore it), but.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/02-turning-saints-into-the-sea/particular-2/
Anyway, we might be reading Walky very differently, or just remembering the exact way he said what he said differently, but he really seemed kinda fixated on trying to symbolically undo what he felt was a past mistake with Dorothy than he did on… what he actually felt for Lucy, in this scene.
It bugged me at the time, and I feel like I’m seeing that validated by the current strips, but I probably shouldn’t get ahead of myself because there are still lots of ways this could play out.
Also just to reiterate: I have trouble reading Walky’s tone. I think it’s gotten harder since the timeskip, probably on purpose because he closed down a lot more after Mike’s death. So I am open to the possibility that I read him totally wrong in the linked strip. But hopefully you at least get where I’m coming from now. 🙂
*seemed kinda MORE focused on trying to undo a past mistake with Dorothy
Yes. Has not.
And no, I do not think Walky is trying to symbolically undo a mistake he made with Dorothy (I can see why one might think so, tho), and you’re right that it’s not about what he’s feeling.
Regarding Dorothy, despite quitting each other 3 times, he made no real mistakes with her.
Even the hiccup of him saying he loved her to remove the phrase’s power was resolved the next day when she said she knew she was in love with an idiot.
And while he did mess things up with Amber, that was not about their feelings for each other.
I think Walky realizes that saying “I love you” is a much bigger deal for Lucy than it was for Dorothy (it’s some of characteristics she shares with Joyce), and he simply doesn’t want to hurt her.
But we KNOW he doesn’t feel the same way, which is why he went to Dorothy for advice (and thus we know his own feelings for Lucy didn’t matter in that strip as it was a given that they weren’t the same).
I guess I feel like… he definitely doesn’t want to hurt Lucy. And he knows that never loving her WOULD hurt her. So I will agree that it’s not that he consciously had that thought.
I feel like the overall thing he got out of talking to Dorothy was “don’t worry so much”, and he tried to take that to heart.
Also I’m still holding out to see what his actual response to Lucy is going to be here, especially his considered response to it after he’s had a bit to digest what she’s saying.
Or does Walky want to slow things down because he has no settled objective — because he wants to enjoy their times together and find out, at some point, whether he will love Lucy or that he never will? Doesn’t want to fall in love, doesn’t want not to, doesn’t know which it will be in time, and doesn’t want to be made to decide now.
I dated this girl for two years or so, never once even thinking about a long-term commitment. Then, one day, I did. We’ve been married 45 years, and it’s still good.
I very much want to reiterate that, whatever happens here, it’s not a condemnation of the possibility of growing to love someone. Whether Walky does with Lucy or not, whether that’s Walky’s love style or not, it won’t make stories like yours any less true and valid.
So far the narrative is keeping a pretty balanced, and nuanced view on the both of them (Walky and Lucy), but while Walky is kind of defended by some commenters, Lucy- for every mistake she has done- is read in a more bad faith. Walky doesn’t really need to be defended, there’s not much blame on him. There’s not much blame directed at either of them. This is a messy situation, and relationship that needs communication.
Lucy’s vent here is completely valid, and understandable from her point of view. My personal reading on it is that she isn’t necessarily blaming Walky for these problems, she’s just recognizing that this whole thing has been messed up. She seems to mostly be frustrated with herself.
Even if she did somewhat blame Walky for whatever, I think that’s fine too. This relationship that she has was started for reasons she wasn’t aware of, and her misunderstandings were never addressed until like, a few strips ago. He just tended to skirt around the issues. Even then Walky doesn’t even remember what he said haha (with the “I love you” misunderstanding). Walky has a problem with avoiding the issue, that’s a thing he’s done pretty consistently I think, even before Lucy. Including with his parents, I don’t expect him to argue against them, I don’t think he’s in a place for that right now, but that’s another part of his whole thing.
He has made mistakes, but it’s still not exactly anyone’s fault for… All this. They’ve both messed up, and then like, you add in racist/colorist parents, imbalanced affections, your boyfriend’s friend(?) yelling at you, your girlfriend being in what’s basically a cult to you, your dad encouraging you to go with the other girl (while acting like he totally didn’t do that???)… Yeah.
Yeah, co-signing all of this. 🙂
I knew this younger guy who begged me to go his his Brazilian Catholic church. He did the music or something.
But I’m like first of all, I just met you and this is crazy, and you just sucked my cock in a park, ( minutes ago)
( He’s not persuaded by this logic)
And I m Jewish.
This might be a true story.
I’ve very interested in what Walky’s gonna say too. Especially because he struggles with getting real in an emotional way. Also, three break ups in one year, IF they break up here then man that’s gonna crush him a bit. Poor dude.
Yeah, yeah!
Like she’s definitely getting through to him. I think so far she has felt very much like “the reason why he isn’t saying anything is because I’m completely right”. And that’s one possibility, of course, but it’s only one…
He’s got 2 girls that want him. Slipshine
No for real, the way so many people are showing up NEEDING this to be Lucy’s fault for wanting more, or NEEDING this to be Walky’s fault for not wanting (or being ready for) more… Who hurt you? What incompatible relationship hurt you and made you need to project a villain onto every breakup?
There’s a lot of Realness in this comic, and we do often get folks going, “Hang on, this is MY life,” and taking criticisms of characters — in-universe or in the comments — as being at least exemplary of how other folks who make or defend those criticisms… would react to THEM, too.
It can get very personal around here, for better and for worse.
Fuck yeah Lucy!!! Our girl is growing a spine.
I think the biggest thing you could blame Walky for (which Lucy isn’t even privvy to) is that Walky DID go to bat for Amber when his parents started to dogpile on her. He was willing to sacrifice his peace of mind and make himself a target from her, even subconsciously.
The sad thing is that…Walky doesn’t like Lucy enough for her to be that person for him.
Now see, I disagree with that.
When Linda went after Amber, she insulted her multiple times with naked aggression.
When Linda went after Lucy, it was actually a backhanded comment that was about Walky “slumming” that didn’t reference Lucy at all and could have been referring to several other things; we have no doubt that she was referring to Lucy, but if she said she was talking about his grades, about his webcomic, or even his past relationship with Amber, and not Lucy at all, it would be plausible.
So the only direct comment was about Walky not living up to his potential, and the guy knows he doesn’t, which makes it hard for him to stand up to her for himself, let alone for Lucy when she wasn’t openly attacked.
It’s even possible that Linda chose to use a dog whistle instead of a megaphone because she figured it would make Walky less inclined to stand up to her.
No one knows how to dig into your vulnerabilities and cripple you into inaction like your parents.
Yeah, that’s a big difference. With Amber, it was at her directly with malice because of the link to Sal (and to the kidnapping as well).
With Lucy, that was all aimed at hurting Walky. It was only spillover that got Lucy. They didn’t care about her at all.
See I don’t agree in a sense, because I believe we are giving Wally way too much leeway for the “I love you too” “I love hamburgers” comment – the point where he gained awareness that he’d accidentally set a precedent and Lucy rose to meet it, and didn’t correct her, setting up this entire week of delusion and raised stakes. I don’t think he’s solely to blame, but I do think only one of them had awareness of where both people’s feelings were, and that person did not try to clarify literally what he clarified before. It isn’t just that one, he did similarly on their first date where she was trying to get him to tell her when he started to develop romantic feelings for her, and he tried once again to go along with it without clearly establishing where his feelings were different.
Just as examples, with the first date, “oh wow you really liked me as long ago as that? Oh that’s so sweet! I like you too, though I haven’t really considered you romantically before now, so I still need to warm up a bit there. Could you bear with me while I find my feet here?”
With the exchange with her brother: “oh sorry that’s not what I meant; I really like you and I love a lot about you, but I don’t think I can qualify that as being in love with you yet after a few days of dating. Don’t feel like you need to tell me you love me yet either! We like one another and one day that may become love, let’s enjoy the ride together until we get there.”
Sure, those are examples of what he could have said.
But they don’t really seem like examples of what any 18 year old would say in those moments, let alone Walky.
Those give off big “hindsight is 20:20” vibes rather than coming off as organic choices one would make.
That said, a middle ground between these examples and what he chose was definitely possible.
Sure, there are things he could have done better, but those are big asks, especially in the heat of the moment. And the longer he puts off the “love” conversation, even if it was just to not have it right in front of the brother he’s just met, the harder it gets and the more it sounds like a “I don’t love you” potentially relationship ending talk.
this whole thing has been a nightmare.
forget being on different pages, they are reading 2 different books.
she’s going as fast as humanly possible, while walky is just trying to enjoy the dang relationship.
she loses her schluppity schlup because she thought walky said he loved her, when he said he loves burgers.
Now she’s mad at walky for trying to show his parents that she is good for him, even though walky wanted to leave his parents out of the relationship, but he gave in for her so……F him for giving her what she wanted?
this whole thing feels like the pokemon “it hurt itself in confusion” thing.
A very well written teenage mess
I think the reason this is so juicy, so heavy to so many fans… Is because it’s relatable. Walky isn’t a bad guy and in his mind he’s trying to do good things and eat his cake too. But his choices are selfish and short-sighted. Lucy is growing up and figuring out what she wants.
Neither one is a BAD person, they’re college kids and they’re going through a very relatable college kid series of blundering choices. …Freakin’ Willis is honestly really talented at showcasing this very real, very awkward stage of life development.
thank you this comment is very good
i just woke up from a nap and this isn’t vrry eloquent but i swear it’s sincere
Agreed. It’s so painful.
How is Walky being selfish and short-sighted? He’s been doing his best to navigate a really difficult relationship situation under a ton of stress.
He’s not as invested as Lucy is, but that’s at least as much on Lucy for getting over invested really fast. Lucy might now be growing up and figuring things out – as in this particular strip, but up to now she’s just been in a teen fantasy romance.
He said he loved that she knew him well enough that he said something to do a meme. When she said she loved him too, he panicked and said he loved ham burgers. She had a reasonable misconception for a teen in her first real relationship, and walky had a standard panic response for someone who struggles with confrontation and feelings.
He said “I love you” to her once, well before they started dating. She’s been chasing that high ever since.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/proselytize/
Way to go Lucy! Good for you, dump his loser ass.
Honestly happy that she didn’t fuck him before breaking up with him cause the way she was associating things, it would have made for a very poor sexual experience.
Yeah, the loser who gave her everything she asked for even meeting his parents despite explicitly telling her it wasn’t ever going to end well.
There’s stuff he could have handled better, but he’s not a loser any more than Lucy is for not listening.
I hope that Walky talks to Sal about this. And I hope that Lucy stays friends with Becky, and maybe Dina. She could use more friends that aren’t Jennifer.
With all this that just happened, I dare say yes. I just wonder
Will she also realize that Jennifer is not the person she expected?
Jennifer did try to save Lucy from meeting his parents. She honestly and clearly laid out that nothing Lucy ever did would ever be good enough. She didn’t make it clear how miserable it would be for Walky, too. Let’s hope they still pay for his schooling.
I mean I wouldn’t say they’re friends, but you don’t have to be friends to want to spare them an evening with racists.
… should _Lucy_ talk to Sal about this
Maybe a little unfair but I get “nice” guy vibes from Lucy now
Can you explain further?
I think I get what you mean, in that Lucy, having been set reasonable limitations (“I’m not in love with you but I really like you and we’ve only been together a week so please can we slow down”, essentially), is lashing out at walky and blaming him for the fact that she thought she was in love with him, which feels a lot like nice guy behaviour for sure. There are a few differences, one is the implicit assumption with nice guys that because they got angry at you that you’ll suddenly see how much they did for you and fall back into their arms, while Lucy is absolutely saying this because she means it, she’s done with this situation, she feels ashamed at herself and has become quickly disillusioned in the last several minutes.
There are other differences, in that if Walky had tried to set expectations earlier in the relationship then Lucy may have still been ashamed of herself but less likely to reflect negatively on Walky, while a nice guy will likely react with this level of vitriol to a reasonable and gentle rejection/ reality check whether you’ve known them four months or four minutes.
Bassicly this, I cant better formulate this vibe and also differences.
Yeah there is a little of that, its also kind of annoying because some of these issues are explicitly because Lucy ignored Walky. Like with his parents.
That’s not a situation he ever wanted to subject her to and she asked for it despite multiple people warning her. Granted he could have handled it better once it happened.
A lot of blame on both sides and hopefully Lucy realises her part. Because the “This is all your fault even though you communicated with me about some of these things” is probably where the nice guy vibe is coming from.
There’s a lot more. Lucy is a “nice girl” and that self identity blinds her to her aggression and entitlement.
She befriended Walky only because she wanted more. She admitted this explicitly back in October.
Any comic where Walky gets a serve is a good comic
Walky and Lucy’s relationship in a nutshell
I’ve started watching the Scott Pilgrim netflix adaptation… it’s kinda interesting? Does make me interested in the original comics.
I have only watched 5 episodes because it hurt me terribly by pulling the rug out from under me.
Having seen the whole thing, please watch the rest it is just so good.
So real talk it isn’t an adaptation it’s a sequel/au situation, and it’s extremely worth watching in full, I’m not sure the original comic will resonate well but they both have their charms for different reasons. The netflix adaptation is clearly Bryan O’Malley trying to confront the problems in the original that became more obvious with the passage of time. It is a much more interesting story thanks to that.
I have Scott in bucket list since i saw the movie, netflix is good pretender or i should read comic?
You should read the comic at some point, but if you’ve already watched the movie you should have enough context to better appreciate the show.
Sounds like a Final Fantasy VII Remake situation. Stuff you have to do homework before enjoying is getting more and more popular.
Is Walky going to have it together enough to remind her that he was very open about NOT wanting to jump through those hoops? That was her idea, before and after the warnings.
When was this? I can find strips where he says “My parents hate you and I don’t know what to do about that” but none where he says “My parents hate you and that doesn’t matter”.
He literally had zero intention of exposing her to them. Why do you think that is?
Because his parents are terrible, obviously. And also because he hates confrontation and them not knowing about her isn’t the same as them disapproving of her.
My point is that once she does start trying to impress his parents, there is -as far as I can see- no point where he says anything remotely resembling “This is not a thing you need to do.” Just “I’m not sure how we’re going to do this.”
+1
He said “we don’t need to do this” before the basketball ball court.
He said his family was bad to belong to, and her mind took it a marriage proposal not a warning
I want to say: not a good move at this moment? Let her work that out?
If I were him, I’d just shut up and let her finish. I can’t think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t make it worse, until she’s done making it worse for herself.
I swear if this time around we don’t get 666 comments imma be very disappointed
I’m typing as fast as I can!!
Wow Go Lucy!
I know Walky wanted to sidestep the whole parent thing, but after it happened he could have told her “It doesn’t matter to me what my parents think, you’re great and I like you a lot.” The idea didn’t even occur to him, possibly because of his own desire for parental approval. I think that’s why Lucy is making a sad face in her last panel.
It’s possible, but I think this would have happened either way because they openly were disrespectful and contemptful of her and his method of dealing with it was to just not deal with it at all. Lucy is realizing he’s not going to be a “man” for her, which is sending her down a path of realizing he’s not actually her storybook lover.
Well, yeah, but since Bash is saying “supposing he didn’t do that”, I’m not sure why it would have happened “either way”.
I agree with the first instance, I think I have to give him some credit that dealing with his parents already seemed to be causing him to shut down as a coping mechanism and he may have been already stuck in his head waiting for Lucy to leave him over his ahole parents. Like he may be internalising a lot of his difficulties with the situation out of pure fear and desperate will to cope.
We really need to remember that as bad as that whole meal was for Lucy, it was far worse for Walky. We focus a lot here on how mean they were to her, but it was all aimed at him and he’s more vulnerable to them.
It was not all aimed at him, tho. Some of it was definitely aimed at Lucy.
I think it was terrible for both of them and that we don’t need to decide who got it worse, tbh.
Fair – though I think it really was focused on him.
The talk around here now seems very heavily how bad it was for her and thus on how bad it was he didn’t defend her or comfort her afterwards
Some of that is probably an overcorrection. I know at the time there was also a fair bit of talk about how awful the dinner was for him that treated her like she wasn’t also under attack.
Both things are just true. It was a terrible evening. She tried to talk to him about it afterward, and he wasn’t really emotionally available — which would be fair, as a trauma response, while still sucking for her. Then he dealt with his feelings by repressing them and trying to ignore the situation for a few hours with Amber.
He did that because he was in pain, almost certainly. (Again trying to acknowledge that I find Walky hard to read.) It also still sucked for her.
The whole thing was awful for both of them.
I don’t think Walky could reasonably have been expected to have handled any part of this any better than he did, given who he is and his level of acceptance with regard to everything to do with his parents. In fact, everything considered, he’s doing pretty well.
On the other hand, Lucy is entirely right to want someone who does do better by her with regards to this specifically. Some of her expectations of him are not realistic; this one is.
The problem with Walky is who he is, which is honestly just how adult relationships work. Some people just shouldn’t date.
Actually you know what? I’m jumping the gun here. He… doesn’t even have to save this, he doesn’t fumble and I get way more on board with this ship. I like that she’s maturing so much.
She doesn’t have to be in the right to not be wrong here. She’s not wrong. It’s a complicated situation, many things can be true at once, but I like this Lucy moment. She deserves a good old-fashioned outburst.
100%
+1
Love reading the Bad Decisions comic and commenting “wow, why would she make such a bad decision?”
Lucy, let’s face it, Walky’s parents are a nightmare, and you knew it. Despite the warnings, you went full speed ahead with that ridiculous Amber plan, expecting someone to fall head over heels in love with you in what, two or three weeks? That’s not just naive, it’s ludicrous. Sure, Walky forgetting his parents were visiting is a mess and deserves some anger. But let’s be real, you’re not exactly standing on high ground here. Desperate for love, for some kind of cool status, driven by sheer horniness, you threw yourself into this disaster — devil take the hindmost. Sarah saw this trainwreck coming and told you bluntly, rudely, brutally honestly. She leaned into the brutality more than the honesty. But Lucy, you can’t ignore your part in this. It’s not fully Walky’s fault, as much as you’d like to claim. Now, what? You’ll run to Radiah, who, let’s be honest, probably won’t give you the time of day unless you’re Walky’s plus one
She’s not hitting him. This isn’t fair.
Your current avatar is a very bold statement.
What is their avatar? On my screen it is just blank.
Exactly. :p
It shouldn’t be. Probably just your browser.
Nope, blank.
If Lucy actually hit him, she would be in the wrong, and Walky would have every reason to cut her out of his life entirely.
If I was in Walky’s position and she hit me I would hit her back. Doesn’t matter what gender both parties are, if you strike someone then you have to accept you might get hit back.
I don’t know why you felt the need to take it to that place.
I mean you’re the one who took it to that place first.
Nope.
You took it to “person A should hit person B due to being upset/blaming them for being complicit in what upset them” which many people would find wrong (also, it’s hard to tell how serious you are in that statement).
They responded seriously with “this woman should not hit this man in this situation and, if they were this man and they WERE hit, they would hit back, regardless of being hit by a woman” because they do think being hit in this situation is wrong and because they want to preemptively respond to anyone claiming a man should never hit a woman, a perspective that many share.
It’s really not a big leap to bring in the gender part of their statement, though it wasn’t necessary, as no one had expressed the point they were trying to preemptively respond to.
You’re reading way too much into the original comment. All that “due to such and such” stuff has nothing to do with me wanting to see Lucy hit Walky. It’s a simple, unattached wish for cartoon violence. They took it to an “If I were there I’d hit someone” place. There’s a difference.
That’s why I said it was hard to tell how serious you were being, but that they responded seriously.
Do you normally make comments asking for violence when no one in the strip is upset?
If so, then I can see why you would say we read too much into it.
But if not, then it’s reasonable to assign your call for violence to the feelings the characters have.
This requires too many layers of thought to answer in any way that might feel satisfying to you. I just want Lucy to beat Walky into the dirt in this specific instance, and I don’t think that’s worth all this extrapolation.
Seems pretty simple to me, but if you can’t or won’t explain, that’s ok.
My point was that their comment was not completely out of left field like you imply it was, but I already agreed with you that it was unnecessary.
Oh, that was the explanation. “Me want violence in scene, no strings attached.” But people have more complicated opinions about the comic so I guess it makes a type of sense to assume there’s an unspoken layer behind it?
Truth be told, I’m surprised anyone thought enough about the comment to warrant any sort of response at all. Usually these get ignored, probably because they don’t add anything to the overall discussion. Idk, it’s weird.
I read the “you” in their response as the generic you: if someone strikes someone else then they have to accept they might get hit back.
Rather than specifically the “you” as in Taffy.
My sarcasm meter quivered when I read it, so I just accepted it as such and went on.
And now I’m thinking I misread what Taffy was saying, so just ignore me.
Long time coming and honestly I’m glad for it. They were never right for each other.
Lucy fell for the puppy love, and fell hard. She needs better standards for herself and to be willing to expect more than table scraps from a romantic partner. It’s not Walky’s fault he can’t say “I love you” at week 2 — that’s entirely unrealistic and kind of childish to even expect in the first place.
And on the other hand, Walky was never going to stand up to his parents, but he also clearly didn’t put full effort into this relationship. Not that he had to say “I love you,” but even a bit of positive reinforcement would be great. I think I can count the compliments/admirations he’s given Lucy on one hand. He was terrible at reciprocating and making her feel wanted, *even considering* that this was a relationship of convenience for him.
I have a strong suspicion that Walky is either in some sort of depressive state after Mike’s death, or he’s still suffering from the Dorothy/Amber breakups and is unwilling to put himself back out there again. Wondering if he’s afraid to open up or if he’s just going through the motions. Possible that he DOES care for Lucy, deeply even, but just doesn’t know how to show it without “ruining” it like he did his last two relationships. I suspect we may get a breaking point from him soon.
I definitely think he’s in a depressive state after Mike’s death, though compared to Ethan’s clearly sad sort of depressive state, I think Walky’s is more of a ‘numb’ sort of depression.
Plus in addition to Mike’s death there’s the kidnapping, being in peril, seeing other people in peril, and I’m sure the Dorothy/Amber break ups are a sore spot for him too.
I dunno that he’s depressed but he’s definitely running away from having to confront growing up. Which as we’ve seen repeatedly and Booster has said outright, is literally his primary weakness.
Numb is probably more right than depressed. He complains about his parents every step of the way, and he complains about Lucy doing things to impress them.
But at no point does he do anything to stop the flow. He’s just letting it happen around him, even when he doesn’t agree with it. He’s hoping that bongoing about it will be enough to get someone else to take action.
When it comes down to it, that’s his biggest fault.
I’d point out Walky’s strategy was to not subject her to his parents at all. That entire situation is what Lucy wanted. If she had actually listened to him that never would have happened.
Lucy has an idea about how these things should work and it causes her to ignore pretty obvious warnings and ride over them roughshod.
Once they were in the situation could he have done a better job defending her? Sure. But his inability to do so is probably one of the reasons why he never wanted to do it in the first place.
I never expected him to defend Lucy to his parents faces…but he should have been able to more effectively support her AFTER the terrible interactions with them. Even an “I’m sorry for how shitty they treated you” would go a long way. Or just a “hey, forget about my parents. *I* like you, a lot, and that’s what matters.” Pretty low bar to clear imo
I mean, she ain’t wrong.
I mean she’s wrong on the hoop front. He told her outright trying to impress his parents wasn’t a good idea and she wanted to jump hoops to get their approval when he would have rather not subjected her to them at all.
Some of these things were literally Walky giving her what she wanted even though he knew it was a bad idea and told her so.
Maybe I was too hasty in giving up on the idea this would lead to a break up. Fingers crossed.
I know.
We can pray
And tell Willis how much we ship them, cuz we know he, Will give Lucy’s mother cancer and turn her into a grieving comic book hating harriden.
Or push someone in front of a truck
na na na na, na na na na
TRUCK-KUN
They are awesome. No don’t want cross the street.
I’m both glad and sad that Lucy is finally realising that this isn’t going to be the relationship she was hoping it was going to be. Glad because now she doesn’t need to keep chasing after something that probably isn’t going to happen, and sad because it hurts to see her not getting a break after having to deal with Walky’s parents and Jennifer’s Jennifer-ness.
And they say going to church can’t give you enlightenment. 😛
One trip there and this whole relationship is… recalibrated.
You know I do want to say that it’s not Walky’s fault that Lucy had a starry eyed belief that she could just wow his parents with her kindness, but she was trying VERY hard and he just wanted to get out without having to do anything that might upset Linda, and now he’s here outright telling her he hates church and God and her faith…
Like I don’t like Lucy’s naivity but she’s absolutely right that he’s not trying hard enough and she’s putting everything she’s got into him.
I disagree. On a subconscious level Walky is more and more coming to the idea that he doesn’t always like being made to go in certain directions, but his entire ego-level personality is ‘if you direct, I will probably be moved’. Lucy pushed him into a relationship at a tempo he wasn’t comfortable with. His parents have been the whirlpool that have kept him orbit all his life.
It is VERY specifically Lucy’s choices that have driven this relationship, and Walky’s unwillingness to be firm in any position completely contra to her drive is why the brakes on the relationship were effectively cut. You’ll notice that Walky repeatedly tried to warn Lucy about his parents, but not stopping her when she didn’t want to stop. Walky was not trying to push intimacy, but was willing to give in when Lucy pushed. Walky tried, harder than anything else, to not be in that church. But Lucy wanted it. He has been vocal about it because despite being very upfront about hating church, he went along for Lucy, and it was antithetical enough to his own feelings he was willing to be harsh about it.
If two people are dating, one of them is a 100% full on Christian and the other somewhere between once-a-year churchgoer and agnostic, and the 100% wants the 1% to go, and the 1% says, “you know I’ll hate this, and you will owe me” and the other goes “I love you for doing something you hate for my specific happiness” then its foul business on both sides and God is probably wishing he invested in bouncers.
Walky is trying far more than he would in most circumstances, and yeah, he’s being a brat about it, but Lucy knew all of this. He told her before. He told her after. He mentioned it in the middle. Lucy’s response has been, “I love you for doing this” (emotional blackmail) and “I am hurt that you aren’t invested in this and me as much as I expect you to be” (more emotional blackmail).
Lucy is trying very hard, and in the process doing as much or more damage to the relationship as Walky does by trying as hard as he very much feels he has to and no further.
Honestly, these two are not functional. But that line at the end – Lucy is right about most of what she says. That line at the end? Putting it on Walky for going along with her pushing? Lucy looses me. Completely. She had agency at every step, and she generally listened to what Walky actually said to her as little as she could get away with.
Blaming Walky for never stopping her when she set up or directed herself to every hoop she jumped through?
Lucy has just revealed that she’ll own up to her flaws as long as she can blame someone else for them.
TLDR – words! Lots and lots of words!
You are mostly right.
But this is a huge advancement for Lucy. She has nearly taken full responsibility.
The problem is she lied about her anger last night and buried it.
And the Feeling logic on Walky not defending her when his mother said slumming is hurt, shock, anger and dumping him, telling her off. This is all misplaced and Should be on Linda. But it’s probably preferable for Walky she didn’t.
Feelings have their own logic. Yeah it does seem like Walky is getting the blame. But that’s also self respect Walky framed his going to church was a way to make Lucy look better to his parents. Doing that while putting her down hurts her for something she doesn’t want. This is a huge step from inside the church.
Point of clarification: Lucy framed his going to church was a way to make Lucy look better to his parents.
He did repeat that to Becky the next day, but when he brought it up the night before, he mentioned nothing about making it look good to his parents, and it really came off as the unspoken apology for dealing with them.
Not to mention that there was nothing Walky nor his parents have said that would indicate that they care about people going to church, the closest indication that it would matter at all being that they sent Sal to a catholic reform school.
Then it’s Lucy all the way off down. Blaming Walky for her self imposed expectations
I don’t think they’re contradictory at all! Lucy took a hard look at what Walky was saying, about one-sided obsession, and realized that’s what she thinks love is, and it’s not good or healthy or even love. She then connected the logical dots that what she truly wanted was someone to fight for her as much as she’s fighting for him — and Walky didn’t do that, nor would he. He has made it abundantly clear that’s not the guy he is.
It’s not really blaming Walky as much as looking at him with fresh eyes and realizing she’s been wanting him to be something he isn’t with kindness, and that’s not fair to her.
I don’t disagree with a lot of that but I don’t recall Lucy ever pushing Walky to come to church with her or pushing religion on him at all. She asked him once, early on last semester before they were dating and accepted the no. I don’t think it came up again until he offered after the dinner with his parents. She was happy about that, but still didn’t push him.
He was bothered by it more than he expected and she’s tried to defend it in this conversation, but going was his idea as far as I can tell.
Going was Walky’s idea.
Doing it for the parent’s approval was Lucy’s.
Walky repeated that understanding to Becky the next day, though whether that was his original intention (I personally took it as an apology for being around his parents) or just going along with what Lucy jumped to is unclear.
True, but Firseal was making a big thing of Walky avoiding the church and Lucy pushing for it, which just didn’t happen.
In fact, as you suggest, even she was more interested in the idea of doing it for parental approval than for anything more specific to her being Christian.
Sorry I missed the thing with it being Walky’s idea in this instance. Sometimes I miss days. Appologies.
Church being Walky’s choice (as much as immedialy veiwing said choice as fun as a root canal) does shift several points, especially making Walky’s behavior in the church a heck of a lot more grey. Still, this made Lucy a lot more happy, and she sort of skated past it making Walky miserable. He made it clear he’d go, but wouldn’t like it, sounded to Lucy as ‘I’ll give it a chance’. Walky clearly wasn’t going to give it a chance, he would go to make Lucy feel better.
Another point that changes with it being Walky’s choice is… damn, he was close to realizing his bad actor behaviors at almost the same time Lucy does, just on the opposite time. She sees the disparity of emotion, and starts to see what’s wrong (even if her reaction is… subpar…) and Walky almost saw the weak response of the passive part of a relationship reacting to strong impulses of the active part of the relationship. Walky’s had a very long and often damaging habit of choosing to be passive, and responding weakly to more aggressive actions of the people around him, and while she absolutely didn’t intend to, Lucy has had that advantage of him.
Lucy realizes the power disparaty of being the active but worshipful side of ‘Human and God”. Walky failed to quite realize the worshipped.
Which, granted, is probably the only positive I see in this particular step of the slow train wreck for Lucy/Walky romantic experience.
Reading this, I just realized: Lucy is grieving. And that’s a process, a long one. She’s got a lot of work to do.
What is she grieving?
And what makes you think that?
She invested a lot of herself in the fantasy relationship that she’s built up, and it just died in her arms. She’s invested in the relationship per se, the idea of the fairytale romance. She’s lost a piece of herself.
Or mine is an instantaneous reaction to something that I read and I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Maybe I’m projecting some of my history onto her.
Oh, okay. I can see that.
I thought you were saying that she was already grieving for something and that was affecting the relationship, rather than that she’s now starting to grieve for the relationship.
I think this was a long time coming. Lucy jumped into what she thought was gonna be long term and had expectations that things were just gonna fall into place and I don’t think Walky knows himself well enough for a long term relationship. Lucy is taking a step forward in figuring out who she is and I think is learning she has outgrown who she was and outgrown Walky.
I think what we’re seeing is that Lucy doesn’t know herself well enough for a long term relationship either. She was just following the romantic plot she imagined.
Willis, one of the things that most impresses me about your writing is your patience. You had this massive cast, with a dozen character arcs in different stages, and still you introduced Lucy slowly as a side character, gradually letting us get to know and feel comfortable with her, so that this big ol’ character moment simply feels like you’re shining a spotlight on a part of the world that’s always been there.
For real, this arc is really making me appreciate their storytelling all the more.
Compare this to what’s happening in QC and its like day and night
Seriously. It’s like the Gallant and Goofus of “how to develop characterization and keep people invested in a slow-paced arc.”
This feels like comparing apples to oranges for me, since QC is a sitcom with such a vastly different premise than DoA! QC can easily move 1000s of miles and multiple months between literally any character that’s remotely connected to Faye and Marten, as long as that character’s situation fits the overall tone of the comic (and probably involves robots somehow). That enables it to quickly introduce characters and move on from them once their punchline is delivered.
In contrast, DoA may seem chaotic, but it’s also very solidly set on a single college campus, time moves at a relative snail’s pace 100% of the time (except for a single time skip 1/2 way through), and all the main characters have to be directly involved with the college. That means that while it might have a sprawling cast and lots of wacky hijinks, they all have to be much more permanent and lasting than the characters and hijinks in QC. It’s not necessarily the writing quality that makes this difference, it’s just very different premises that encourage different styles of storytelling!
Lucy ripping off the band-aid
She just described every relationship I’ve ever had. No one has ever cared for me anywhere near as much as I did for them.
Wait, something I just realized.
“What am I chasing?”, she asks herself.
She unironically had it in her own words:
“Daniel, I don’t believe you realize the pretend, self-placed hoops a Christian woman will jump through to justify getting RAILED.”
In other words, damn they’re all really fucked up aren’t they? 🥺
Lucy isn’t climbing the ranks of respectable characters, she’s erupting through them
She doesn’t get credit till she acknowledges that situation happened because she ignored him when he told her it was a bad idea. He never wanted to bring her to the hoops, she asked for hoops and despite never planning to subject her to it he took her to the hoops as she wanted.
Once they were in that situation he could have done a better job, but not listening your partner like that because you have an idea of how things should work and then blaming them for the experience is not great.
You know what they say, whoever falls in love first loses
Love is war
92 minutes of standing ovation. GO LUCY! Now let’s see if Walky will say or do something.
Except she’s blaming him for the hoops she asked for. He never wanted to make her jump through hoops, he told her meeting his parents wouldn’t go well, Jennifer told her it wouldn’t go well.
She has a right to be mad about him not standing up for her, but she’s the one who wanted to jump through the hoops not him. Lucy is actually really bad about listening when it contradicts how she thinks things should work.
I think Lucy’s problem wasn’t not listening, but processing what she heard in a sitcom perspective, a thing that Walky also does. She certainly misunderstood many things, but Walky never really tried to correct her, he was fine with almost everything and protested little or nothing. For me, he’s more wrong than her because he was too passive. I’m glad Lucy is moving in a direction. The problem is that the direction will probably lead her to end up being part of Raidah’s circle.
Why are my comments always “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” and then they simply disappear?
That’s weird. That one made it. I was using a gmail account. Are they not allowed?
If you never used that address before, it has to be approved before your comments will appear to everyone.
Once your email address has been approved, you’re “in” and all future comments with that address will appear immediately.
Reread the relevant strips, and I feel like some commenters are misremembering how hard Walky pushed back on the idea of Lucy meeting his parents. He tried to warn her, yes, but he was actually thrilled with the idea of doing wacky fake-dating Amber shenanigans to fix the problem. And at the end of that scheme he came back to proudly tell Lucy that it worked, his parents hated Amber and liked her now, they solved racism, etc. For all his trepidation, he did indicate pretty strongly to her that he wanted his parents to like her and was trying to make that happen, only to then not stand up for her at all and just say ‘I told you so’ when it went badly. I am very sympathetic to his avoidant/freezing behavior around his mom, but I think it’s more than fair that Lucy feels let down by all that. Especially since she’s realizing ‘going along with things’ is a pattern of behavior with him.
They aren’t misremembering they’re passing it through the Walky is always wrong filter.
I mean in this case they’re passing it through a “Lucy is always wrong” filter. We are talking about folks who are mad at Lucy for blaming him even a tiny bit, instead of solely blaming herself, because they’re misremembering Walky as having tried much harder to keep Lucy away from his parents.
The situation sucks, for sure and Y get why she’s angry. But she’s a big part of why this happened, she’s the one who refused to listen in the first place. Ignoring your partner because you have your own idea about how these things are supposed to work is… not great.
The thing is the scheme was for Lucy, to try and get her what she wanted because she made it clear it was important to her despite the warnings.
I get she’s lashing out right now though so that’s not always perfectly directed or expressed.
Except, like I just said, she didn’t refuse to listen. She listened to his explanation that his parents (especially his mom) are racist and therefore prone to dislike her and believed him, and then they both decided to conduct a wacky scheme to make them like her in spite of that fact. A scheme that, again, Walky fully believed in himself and outright told her worked perfectly once it was done. Framing it as her bulldozing him with her idea of how things ought to be is simply not accurate – if anything, it’s one of the few instances where they were genuinely on the same page and of equal enthusiasm.
Holy crap,
Lucy in short order, stops lying! She see stops lying to herself above loving Walky. She stops lying to Walky about her anger from last night! She admits she’s chasing a fantasy relationship.
Holy Crap, she’s about to either dump Walky or actually fix this broken relationship.
< They don't belong together but… They do more than yesterday, a,
I should feel bad for Walky getting jerked around. But I can't! Walky deserved to hear this yesterday. And this is from a place a honesty and no malice. This is a breath of fresh air.
Walky, if you want to save this relationship, you must tell her that's it's not really true.
Tell her that you do love her. But she's put you in a rock and hard place so you can't say it. You don't believe she will find the love you have, from dating 2 weeks adequate. Or she will spin it into something bigger.
Tell you love her. But it's ordinary love. The kind that makes you have faith in someone and try to grow a new relationship with. Plant a seedling, and let it root. And if she actually wants you, you aren't scared away.
Or I dunno. Go sleep with both your exes for fun.
Both? Sounds like he’s about to add a third to the list.
Lucy or someone else?
She still lying a bit.
She hasn’t acknowledged the hoops were her idea.
A bit.
But she admitted the really big things. She’s still blaming him in words, but I think it’s feeling logic. Not logic, -logic
If that is not how he views love, then he should definitely not tell her that as then he would be actively lying to her.
He has already said he liked her.
He has already said he was an idiot who didn’t realize a pretty girl liked him.
If he has to frame that as love for her to suddenly feel better about that information, then they really do need to break up because it would imply that the framing matters more than the substance and/or, even worse, that she’s only happy if he tells her what she wants to hear.
Lucy Should catch Walky sleeping with Asher.
Asher would.
Thank glob it’s over. Walky is far from perfect, but I don’t think he deserves the hate here.
“It’s over”, said the audience after every five sentences. “It”, of course, continued anyway.
If conflict builds to a climax, this would be a kinda “meh” climax. I don’t think we’re quite out of this yet if my narrative senses are acute. There’s at least one (hopefully metaphorical) knife to be twisted in someone’s heart.
YES! LUCYYYYYY! THIS SUCKS BUT I LOVE THIS FOR YOU.
Blaming him for the situation he never intended to put her in?
I think he deserves a little flack. He gave her hesitant, veiled, borderline encoded half-warnings because he still wants to cling to some innocence and not acknowledge the truth about his parents. That’s not protecting her. That’s plausible deniability.
On a first reading, I thought it was unfair of Lucy to throw a “fuck you” in Walky’s direction, even if I think it’s driven by her being equally upset with herself, him, the situation, just all of it. I get the sense that Lucy feels like an idiot right now, and I feel bad for both of them even though I’ve never liked them as a couple.
On a reread, there’s one thing I think Walky really did do wrong, and that was not clarify the “I love you” misunderstanding before Lucy met his parents. He tried to spare her that interaction altogether, but she thought she was putting in the effort and enduring some bullshit Walkerton racism for someone she loved who loved her back. Going through that emotional wringer had to be brutal. Doing it for a relationship that isn’t what you thought? Even worse.
Right, “fuck you for going along with it”, like along with all of it, is a reasonable sentiment, and even if she was wrong, it’s still pretty normal for people to lash out when badly hurt, Lucy has realised some painful truths in a short timespan, there’s no guarantee where she aims her anger initially will be objectively right, and that’s human.
But it’s also not something he ever asked of her or wanted from her either. It’s entirely about what she wanted.
But she wanted it based on stakes that didn’t exist (winning the approval of the parents of the man who loves her). He could have and should have told her how he felt, for that reason and because it would have been healthier for their relationship.
It doesn’t make Walky a bad person. It’s just a mistake he made, IMO. He’s trying.
I also feel like Lucy’s in a bit of a more “adult” place regarding “meeting the parents” than most kids their age? I mean, when I was in college, you met the parents of the person you were dating because THEY WERE PAYING FOR GOOD FOOD, and you never passed up the chance to have your parents pay for a meal.
It certainly wasn’t one of those fraught relationship steps like it is once you’re an adult and on your own entirely.
Equally plausible that wanting to get in good with Walky’s parents was part of her whole “If we’re in love and on the get-married track, I’m allowed to bang him!” thing.
I imagine that being described as “slumming it” forced Lucy to grow up a little quickly in that regard.
As adults, we don’t introduce girlfriends of like 3 weeks to our parents. This is a very “I’m in college, but want to be adult” vibe.
Well, it kind of just happened. It’s not like Walky called home and invited them up to meet her. They showed up and there was a thing with them assuming he was dating the white girl.
They showed up, because it was a parents’ weekend at college. This doesn’t happen to adults.
I’ve tumbled as to why I’m way more grumpy with Lucy than I should be. It’s how she phrased her last comment. “Fuck you for going along with it.”
Because Walky wasn’t going along with his parents. He was going along with *Lucy* in her quest to win his parents’ approval. Was that a good decision? No, probably not. Does it merit a “fuck you”? No. Walky straight-up told Lucy “hey my parents are racist”. He didn’t act like he needed their approval to continue seeing her. Lucy was caught up in her desire to have a perfect relationship.
Has Walky been perfect? No. But he gave Lucy the knowledge she needed and then let her make the decision about whether or not to try and “jump through the hoops”. He straight-up said to her “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to” in https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-14/01-everybodys-looking-for-nothing/fixon/ And the “fuck you for going along with it” completely ignores that.
I hope Walky gets a chance at a rebuttal next strip.
Yeah I…kinda have beef with Lucy. She made most of the mistakes here and is pushing them onto Walky.
Indeed. To be fair to Lucy, standing by and letting your partner have to work for this kind of approval IS a shit thing to do. But at the same time, it stems from what Lucy just realized; that Walky does not love/care for Lucy to the same extent that she does for him, and therefore his reaction is also understandable. If he DID truly love Lucy in return, he (ought to) have protected her from that. A good person would do it anyway, but I’m cutting Walky some slack here because he IS still pretty emotionally immature and he likely hasn’t learned this important lesson yet.
I feel like also missing in all of this is that the “Fuck you for going along with it” is at least partially her looking for reasons to be mad at him because he didn’t want to say “I love you” after about a month of dating.
Not even 2 weeks of dating, yet.
4 months of hanging, but less than a fortnight of dating.
100% this
Hell yeah, good for her.
AYOOO
LUCY STANS TURN UP
She is slay queening. She is doing girlboss shit. I love this
Props to Willis for writing a perfectly written scene of moral ambiguity here. What Lucy’s saying is a perfect combination of “You go, girl!” and “Oh no, girl!”
On the one hand, good for her for realizing she has to respect herself, and especially for realizing she shouldn’t have to put up with racist parents. On the other, she’s mad at Walky for not being willing to say “I love you” after maybe a month. It’s not his fault she regards the period before they were actually dating as part of the relationship, and the fact that she fell super hard puts him at no obligation to do the same.
She’s also kind of making Walky’s parents being abusive to him all about her. Walky’s mom was shitty to him, and maybe a little bit tangentially shitty to her. But Lucy’s more mad about something she was (accurately) told she’d have to face at some point than anything she’s actually faced thus far. Walky hasn’t really gone along with anything yet. Lucy has yet to see the full shittiness of Walky’s parents, she’s just been warned about it.
Have they kissed? I don’t recall them kissing.
I’m not sure you can stay infatuated with your friend for 2 months, is that even possible?
They kissed for the first time (onscreen at least, no idea about offscreen or patreon) last night comic time, right after he suggested going to church.
Wow my memory is top notch! Thanks!
It is absolutely possible.
You know what? I think it totally is and it happened to me before. It’s just so hard to know the difference between infatuation and love. For all we know, it could be the most arbritrary line we humans invented with our silly words and labels.
This is where the word “Limerence” can come into play
There was a young Walkerton student
whose girlfriend hoped more than was prudent…
Lucy is not being entirely fair to Walky here, but her feelings are still valid. She does not deserve to be in a position where she has to navigate the racism of the parents of a boyfriend who for whatever reason (and Walky does have reasons!) cannot or will not forthrightly stand up for her.
As so many people have been saying for months now, there’s a fundamental incompatibility between these two that made their romance doomed from the off. I hope their breakup can be amicable and that they can remain friends, but I think the more likely scenario, simply because it provides for more dramatic storytelling, is a fairly acrimonious split that pushes Lucy cloer to Billie and Raidah’s circle.
Lucy is using hard words with Walky, but last panel doesn’t show a lot of emotional anger. From either of them. No, I see this being a learning lesson for Walky (/maybe/) and obviously growth for Lucy. But neither of them are the sort to be acrimonious. Still, it too neatly wraps things up for Walky re: Lucy, and leaves him free to go back to being pantsless and eating nachitos and gaming with Amber. Failing from one relationship to another *and back again* isn’t a huge growth opportunity for Walky. Which sucks, because there is a lot of growing he could do as a character.
Lucy asks “what am I chasing?” (such that she is willing to ignore flags that Walky isn’t on the same page)
Thing is, she already told us:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/sportings/
Good-guy dating sucks, but it’s been a necessary step in many a good dude’s education on what not to do. Don’t date a girl just because she wants to date you, it’s not gonna be pretty when she realizes.
Same for genders reversed! It’s much more humane to stick to your no than it is to date someone because you feel like you can’t say no to repeated asks. Feeling sorry for a guy who wants to date you means it’s better for him to never date you than to date you and later be dumped by you. The inevitable breakup is way worse than if you’d never started. #learning #thingsIwishI’dknownincollege #stupidpatriarchy
Yeah, something that needs to be said.
Long post alert, but I’ve tried to break it up. Tldr at the end.
I made this comment on this comic:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-14/01-everybodys-looking-for-nothing/hadtove/
“I mean, did he stand up for her? Or did he silently sit by as his mother said he was ‘slumming it’ by dating her? Angry eyebrows don’t do shit” “He had the chance to apologize for the situation and chose to make a sex joke about his dad” and “
I knew fully that this was going to come bite him in the ass. It’s not his fault that his mother did that, but it was his responsibility as a boyfriend to at least comfort his girlfriend after the fact.
Let’s not forget!! He also started that day by sitting in his ex’s room playing video games while she was in her undies. He also ignored his phone in his room, acknowledging that “Lucy’s nothing is always something,” and that she probably blew up his phone while he was ignoring her.
He defended Amber the night before. He didn’t even clear his throat when Lucy was being attacked.
Silence is being complicit, and I will stand by this statement every time.
TLDR: Walky should have comforted Lucy when his parents were shitty. He brought this on himself. (Bonus: I still think Lucy’s boy craziness contributed to this failing)
Can’t post long posts cuz I make mistakes. The third comment was “he doesn’t want to step up for Lucy’s feelings”
I’m 100% with you on Walky failing to comfort her after the fact, but re: silence being complicity in the moment, I think Linda’s a more cunning racist than that (slash completely in denial, which I feel like in this case defaults to “good at bullshitting herself, not just others”). If he confronts her on it, all she needs to do is say, “I wasn’t talking about Lucy, and I definitely didn’t mean because she’s Black”, and suddenly Walky and Lucy are at risk of being perceived as “causing a scene” and “making everything about race” by “being offended by everything”, even though they’re reading the situation 100% accurately and doing nothing wrong.
And of course you know that, even though she treats Walky better because she sees him as “the white one”, Linda would still be 100% willing to weaponize racism against her own son if it meant she got to save face.
Not being silent doesn’t mean standing up to his mom. He could have talked to Lucy about it properly, which is part of being complicit to Linda’s words. He didn’t defend his girlfriend even in private, in their moments together.
Okay, on that front I totally agree with you.
Why didn’t she comfort him? If I was there to see my partner’s parents being abusive to them, I’d like to think I wouldn’t upset with my partner for not comforting me afterwards. I can blow off their parents. I’m not the one who’s vulnerable or targeted.
I think, because Walky’s defense mechanism is humor, we don’t recognize that the whole scene hurt him.
She kind of does try to comfort him. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-14/01-everybodys-looking-for-nothing/respectable/
She says, “Hey. I’m sorry, none of this is really your fault.” and puts an arm on his shoulder.
I was going to reply with this but you beat me to it.
@thejeff But maybe that’s a good way to say this point: they’re fucking terrible together and don’t understand each other’s needs.
Thank you for linking it. Your take was right then and it’s right now.
I had, and still have, a lot of sympathy for Walky not knowing how to stand up for her in the moment. But like you said, the aftermath was bad. He didn’t even say he was sorry things didn’t work out.
The whole scene on her doorstep feels like she is trying to get him to talk to her in ANY way about what just happened, while all he’s doing is waiting until the date is officially over so… that he can go home and process privately, maybe?
Which is his right, but not what she needed in the moment, and… yeah. Incompatible needs.
Also @ anyone already scrolling down this comment to yell at Mym that Walky wasn’t cheating with Amber:
lol we know. Spending the morning in his underwear with Amber is a bad look, it WOULD have upset Lucy and Walky knew that, but the real problem was ignoring her texts all day when he knew she was upset.
And yeah, he was probably also upset, but he still should have texted her back to say “sorry, I really can’t right now. Talk to you later” so that she didn’t keep trying, or get increasingly worried / anxious about possible reasons why he might not be answering.
Ahahaha right? It was just a bad look!! You’re a delight.
Like if Walky had just sent her a brief “ttyl” it would have completely changed the entire scene for me.
I hope Walky learns better communication skills, and Lucy as well. I’m so excited to see if tonight’s strip will be these two, which is refreshing!!!
500%. It would have cost $0 to send her just one short text so she knew he wasn’t, like, mad at her, and didn’t feel ignored on top of everything else.
And yeah it’s not called Smarting of Age, and yeah Lucy’s baseline level of insecurity isn’t Walky’s fault, but I do think this was a moment where them not being a great match really shone through. I hope they both eventually find someone who can meet them where they’re at.
(Edited down a lot fff)
Exactly!!
I feel like Lucy might need to address her anxiety a little more closely, just thinking in general. –And that being said, she and Dorothy should work through their anxieties together.
(Bless you omg.)
(IT GOT SO LONG, MYM, YOU DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW.)
Yeah, I can agree with that about Lucy and anxiety. I made a whole list on tomorrow’s comic of things Walky tried to do to be a Good Boyfriend, and every time he talked about an issue with Dorothy I thought, “Lucy would not be thrilled that he was talking about this with anyone other than her, but an ex-girlfriend would probably be the worst option.” Even if she, as Walky said, rainbow-flowers (is jealous of) Jennifer more than Dorothy.
And ffff you really do make it appealing. X3 eyes emoji at the concept
ADDENDUM: he left his phone at home before going to Amber’s, so it’s not the same as having it with him and ignoring Lucy actively, but. also, he was very much trying to ignore Lucy in every other part of that outing, so I stand by around 98% of my words.
Thank goodness, I’m not crazy- it was a bad look to me too. Him saying that “Lucy’s nothing is always something” was just… Damn, dude LOL.
Yeah. Even if he means that in the most neutral way, it’s still fundamentally: “I can’t relax with my girlfriend.” :c
Honestly, Lucy is way more mature than I was at that age about finding out that the object of her crush doesn’t feel the same way about her. I probably would have kept my one-sided infatuation so long as I still got to make out with my person of interest, at least until they got a different significant other.
This relationship is how many weeks old again? Is there some ground between “I love you” and “Fuck you” we can find? I mean, before Walky starts to sound like the well-adjusted, mature one in the room. None of us are ready for that.
A little over one week.
Lucy should get with someone stable: Dorothy.
I figure this is a joke bc Dorothy has not been the most stable lately but I mean I could ‘ship that. It’s more interesting in my head than Dorothy and Jacob, if for no other reason than that I think Dorothy would’ve checked a lot if not all of the same boxes Raidah checked.
Raidah X Lucy
(Nah, I’m just shipping hard. Dorothy is totally “stable”…Stable like that one mc escher stairs drawing.)
The middle ground is “I love fucking you”.
I kind of wish the misunderstanding with Walky’s statement about love hadn’t happened. That made everything worse, since she assumed after that they were in the same space, but exploring the difference in investment would have been interesting without that complication.
Of course, if they do work this out and stick together, that can still get explored.
I dunno, this strip is along the same basic lines, I think, and shows it as more of an underlying issue than a one-time glitch.
Lucy mishearing Walky’s “I love that about you” as “I love you” is because the very different emotional place she’s in, and getting so distracted by him talking about her being part of his family that she doesn’t really process the “rough” part is the same thing.
Jesus almost a minute of scrolling to get down here…
And Ana wasn’t first!?!? Holy crow…
And I agree with her so much.
Hate to say it, but Walky is pure toxic.
Call me crazy, but I’m getting the impression this isn’t actually about Walky’s parents – that is to say, Lucy is projecting her festering angerand frustration towards a lot of somewhat abstract things onto just one specific incident and a few specific people. She only just met Walky’s parents and started jumping through hoops to earn their respect yesterday, but I think she’s been jumping through hoops to earn a respect that wasn’t there for a LOT longer than that, for a number of different people and/or things.
So whether or not Walky is technically to blame for how he acted during his parents’ visit is sort of immaterial to her speech here, I think. Or at least, it’s only a very small part of it.
Also, very mixed feelings about the fact that this relationship seems like it’s finally ending for real. I was 100% holding out for this garbage fire to last even longer, purely so that people in comments section could just keep getting angrier and angrier about it. It was such good entertainment!
That, plus I think she’s probably transferring a lot of her anger over the “I love you” miscommunication into looking for other reasons to be angry. She does go from explicitly telling him she doesn’t think any of what happened with his parents is his fault to “Fuck you for going along with it” awful fast.
One thing I think Willis does really well is never forgetting that his characters are mostly teenagers. We’re not going to get the ending where Walky stands up for himself by making salient points and says what the comment section has been saying, because it would be completely out of character for Walky to be that eloquent under pressure. He’s probably just going to say, “Nah, fuck you too”, and both parties will leave the encounter feeling like they never did anything wrong.
Damn you, Willis!
I dunno he’s not really that vindictive most of the time
he might go along with the break up or he might manage to say something about how he didn’t mean it to go like that
at worst we’ll probably get something like “well you were dating me before I was dating you” or “I didn’t ask for you to love me” or even just a sitcom reference that doesn’t help
at worst, general stupidity rather than “fuck you” is my guess basically
congrats on realising some things lucy
if this is the end for these two I really hope her next partner dates her on purpose
walky really needs to learn to be less passive in relationships man
like yeah he didn’t want to do the parents thing but he should totally have insisted that doing it would be bad for lucy and turn out bad. maybe he’s not there yet with his parents.
finding it hard to blame him too much for going along with the relationship at large though
also man
walky has been doing what he thinks A Good Boyfriend is Supposed To Do, Officially
his mother has been trying to make him into A Good Son, By The Books
maybe he should talk to someone about understanding how there’s no rulebook and he’s following a lot of ideas someone made up in their head
Truly, Walky needs Eleanor Shellstrop.
Overall opinion currently –
Lucy, this is what happens when you take your god to church and find out he doesn’t fit.
SCOTT EARNED THE POWER OF SELF RESPECT!… uh, Lucy.
….
FIGHT!!! Fight… fight….
Hell yeah
this is even worse than when becky got rejected by joyce