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Yeah like…I wanted to believe in this. I really did. Lucy had started to grow on me. But the same does not seem to be true for Walky, and honestly some of the things she’s done have given me pause. She’s a fine person but taking this way too quickly. I don’t see a happy ending for her with Walky; they seem to want different things.
I think he genuinely likes things about her but he’s definitely got an allergy to the more serious parts of intimacy and relationships. He’s probably also dealing with some emotional stuff from his past 2 relationships and he’s not emotionally intelligent enough to sort them out.
Allergy or not, they’ve been dating for a very short period of time and it’s entirely reasonable for him to be uncomfortable with the rate Lucy seems to be wanting to move
Yeah it may seem weird to have a story arc where the guy wants to take things slow and the girl is ready to mount him right away. Its actually pretty understanding that Walky would want a more casual relationship after the seriousness of the last two.
Oh! And the third date thing is also a trope! Just realized part of Lucy’s thing is that she mentally lives in a trope world and Dumbing of Age is more reality based (toe dad and mafia not withstanding).
While that’s true, we also need to remember that Walky didn’t have much trouble hopping into the sack with Dorothy after a relatively short period of time too. I think the more likely conclusion is that, while Walky DOES like Lucy, he may not be very attracted to her physically. (It doesn’t have to be a looks thing either. You can find somebody beautiful yet not want to have sex with them. Physical attraction is kinda weird that way.)
Though in this case, it’s Lucy who screwed up the communication by misreading a perfectly normal thing Walky said. Now he’s got to figure out how to fix it without crushing her, which isn’t going to be easy.
i mean he said ‘corpse of fortress of solitude’ so i thought that was him saying goodbye/celebrating it in a way? but comic aside i suppose it would be awkward if he had spent 5 mins in silence climbing up
I don’t think Walky doesn’t care. I think Walky is very much associating this offer with Lucy’s extremely-premature-to-him “I love you” (probably accurately), which gives him a choice to either take advantage of a misunderstanding to get some that means something a lot more to her than it does to him, or have a serious feelings conversation that is going to hurt Lucy, or avoid. As in most things, Walky chooses avoid.
Yeah, “doesn’t care” is way off base – unless you believe that’s the only reason a guy could turn down sex. He’s still thrown by her misreading of his casual “what I love about you”. That’s going to be a real awkward conversation to have. “I don’t love you” is much harder to deal with than just not saying it yet. Or even than not saying it back. Even with a “yet” at the end of it.
‘Doesn’t care.” Is probably a bit harsh, but my comment was meant to be more humorous than a serious analysis of the situation. That being said it is probably a sign of his feelings for Lucy (if he has much of any) being nowhere near as strong as hers are for him if he’s ignoring her attempts at seduction. I honestly believe they would not be dating yet if Dorothy hadn’t stepped in.
I think it was pretty clear that his feelings aren’t as strong as her from his reaction to her declaration of love. But that seems to me more of a problem with her than him – at least a week into the relationship.
I suspect his reaction to the seduction attempt would different without that context.
it seems like she’s willing to do some stuff that isn’t necessarily sex but overall that ‘third date’ stuff always seemed rush to me esp at a younger age (would zillenial/gen z kids even know about that ‘tradition’ to begin with [tho other than having been friends for years or so, it seems even faster if it was like a blind date or matching through tinder and attempted relationships through there])
Not necessarily a rush to sex, but with it coming right after her misreading him and jump to “I love you too”, she’s jumped too fast emotionally and is probably upping the physical ante in response. Why wait for the third date, they’ve agreed they’re in love, right? (And of course, like Joyce, Lucy is horny and it’s likely throwing off her emotional judgement. Easy to do.)
I don’t know if Walky would have a problem getting physical, if it didn’t seem like it was under false pretences.
I forget the exact number of days, but haven’t they been Officially Dating for like a week? I know she’s had her crush for months and yadda yadda, but he’s only just decided to make it A Thing. People wanna act like it’s “immature”, but I’d probably balk at this amount of speed from a partner, too.
Walky seems like he’s been dealing with some stuff since his roommate died and probably not in the healthiest way, and I don’t think he’s really ready or interested in a serious relationship.
Yeah. He seems to think he can joke his way out of feeling grief. It can’t be done.
NPR had a good radio story today on grief. Sometimes I think I can feel storybook grief at fictional deaths more sincerely than I can feel grief in real life.
…I think doing COVID work might have just dried up all the grief receptors.
Yup. After all the calamity and catastrophe we’ve seen the past few years, you just get numb to it. Sometimes I worry whether or not I can’t feel it anymore, but when I do feel it, i feel A LOT, and I can’t handle it. It’s the emotional equivalent of trying to use a fire hose made of paper mache!
I don’t believe that’s really true beyond liking cartoons. Dorothy and Amber both have superficial similarities to Lucy but have shown a confidence in their relationship Lucy doesn’t. Amber may be an antisocial hermit and Dorothy is a bookish peopl pleaser, but neither would sit around quietly hoping a guy notices them.
idk how long it’ll last compared to amber and dorothy but i’d hope a part of him would’ve wanted to date lucy as opposed to dorothy ‘telling’ him to but we know they’ve been hanging out and having lunch/dinner as friends before walky called it ‘romantic dinner’/didn’t rly seem like lucy was forcing her way into walky’s free time and him just putting up with her
Oh good it’s not just me. I thought I’d accidentally changed a setting on my laptop or chrome, comic looks oddly lightened or like there’s a thin mist covering it.
The last strip they were in front of the pile, their silhouettes were a light black (brightness of 18/100), but the black in the close up (hair) was true black (0/100). In today’s strip, a bunch of what’s normally the true black has been set to the light black. The rest of the pallet seems to be approximately the same as before.
That actually threw me off, because geek that I am, I was specifically trying to match it to the Fortress of Solitude theme (a variation on the one for Krypton).
Oof, but yeah if I had just realized she was way more serious about it than me (from the love word, not from the proposition), that would probably be my first reaction
THEN I’d actually have the conversation, because I’m not Walky.
Yeaaaah, I cannot blame him for trying to immediately put distance but I definitely think he needs to have that conversation ASAP. It’s doing neither of them a service to avoid it.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen how Walky deals with problems already, and “ignore it hoping it will resolve itself” tends to be pretty high on that list. Oh dear.
Now that’s a fair critique of Walky. To be fair, this is a really tricky conversation to have and it’s not unreasonable to let him have a bit of time to deal with it. There are a lot of responses here that basically end the relationship right now.
Q. “Walky’s fortress of solitude is that huge snow pile.
Where is your fortress of solitude?”
Or, alternatively, “If you could build a fortress of solitude ANYWHERE, where would it be?”
A. My fortress of solitude is and always has been the bathroom. Sorry. I can just get lost, reading, in the bathroom.
Alternative “anywhere”: Paris. Just walking in Paris by myself on a misty springtime night. With a cheap room in a 1-star hotel waiting for me somewhere, where I can sleep by myself.
Alternative “anywhere”: The oilcans out by the railroad tracks in far Southwest Philly.
So glad Tetris works to get you there! For the past few years, it has been really hard for me to get to that mindspace fortress of solitude. At least I have Ritalin to make it at least a little bit easier, when I remember to take it.
My fortress of solitude is my room; it has some of my knife and sword collections, my games, my writings, my computer. I can go days without needing to leave the fortress.
If I could have my fortress of solitude anywhere; I would want it to be in colorado in whatever area has the best internet speeds and stable connection.
A. Barnes and Noble is my fortress of Solitude. I go there, read the manga, jam out to music and I feel at peace. I can honestly say I am never happier than I am at a bookstore.
B. I’d like to buy an RV or something and like…live in it and just fill it with a computer and all the shit I need to still do what I already do but just travel around America and see the sights while effectively working from “home”.
Yoto, your “B” dream is my “B” dream. I keep telling my spouse, “Let’s just do it. Let’s just hop on some wheels and GO.”
And honestly, “A” is, too. Ever since I was a kid, I could hole up in a library or a bookshop and just read ’til my heart’s content. I was SO fortunate that most places didn’t chase me away because I couldn’t afford to buy stuff.
I’ve always just liked this idea of running away. Songs about running away, stories about running away. Just the idea of just leaving where you are and not coming back for an indeterminate amount of time is so interesting to me.
Back when I had no fixed address, it was kind of like that. I’d just walk out by the highway onramp, stick out my thumb, and then see where life took me. Half a lifetime ago.
I’d totally put a solitude box right in the middle of a big important politics building, like the Capitol or the White House, directly in the middle of a hallway or table so they’d have to work around me. Just to be a nuisance.
As kids, my cousins and I would build great fortresses inside snow banks, with tunnels everywhere and piles of “defensive artillery” (aka snowballs)… till one year when the best piles were too close to the road and the fortress was obliterated by a county snowplow, about two minutes after we left to go get lunch…. I don’t remember obsessing about it at the time, but every now and then I remember that and absolutely cringe at what almost happened.
My Fortress of Solitude is a 2 lane with gentle hills and a wide shoulder to ride my bicycle on and good cell phone coverage (minimum of 3/5 bars) in case of accidents.
I think Walky’s recoiling here less out of a lack of attraction so much as realizing that Lucy is falling way deeper than he might be and putting sex on the table is only going to further his “guilt” at not feeling the same way.
An angle I’m not seeing much commentary on is that this whole thing is probably bringing up flashbacks to his previous relationships, in that both of them could be read as having burned twice as hot for half as long “because of him,” which sadly tracks with Walky’s self-deprecating tendencies. He loved Dorothy, but from his perspective, he was ultimately a drain on her time and stopping her from achieving her dreams. He liked Amber, but he’s hopefully had time to accept that he fully screwed that up through his actions on Halloween. Both of those situations are up in the air to differing extents, but the bottom line is that their connections changed irrevocably, and I don’t think Walky’s ready for Lucy to be another girl he was once friends with who barely talks to him anymore.
So, now that the thing with Lucy is moving fast in similar ways to the last two relationships, he’s either petrified that he’ll screw up again or convinced that him screwing up is an inevitable outcome that can’t be avoided, that he’s damaged goods and that Lucy deserves someone better than him (as *somebody* just *had* to keep telling her =/).
Way I see this going, he’s either gonna hurt Lucy’s feelings by trying to break up with her “for her own good” and ultimately creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, or he’s gonna make Lucy sad for *him* by exposing his own low opinion of himself to her, which could honestly throw her for a loop or could potentially lead to a touching moment of her confirming her feelings for him do in fact go deeper than just “nerdy boy hot.”
Idk, lot of people seem resigned to sounding the death knell on these two, but I’m gonna wait and see how this plays out.
Yeah. Although Lucy has said as much, Walky understands that she made her suggestion of sex in the belief that he loves her, which he doesn’t. He is afraid that to accept would be deceitful. On the other hand, he is afraid that to decline would be insulting or at least hurtful.
So… Was Walky already gone when Lucy made her offer? I would hate to think an offer of second base would be enough to make a (technically) adult male bolt.
I assumed Walky was realising he’d have to break things off or at least talk about taking things slower emotionally, but this sounds more like he intends to commit to this harder despite not really wanting to.
That’s a lot to read in to a single line though, he could just be making a sweet superman reference.
I have a hard time seeing Walky actually doing that. He reminds me of a guy in college who dated most of my friends and was dumped by the Dorothy and uh Sal types (Jess was more of a Sal than an Amber, but not his brother!) and then dated a girl he wasn’t really into in the same way Walky is but couldn’t dump her— he just behaved progressively worse and more irresponsible with lots of ghosting in the hope she would eventually dump him. It was the first time I saw someone do that. So much worse than pulling off the bandaid immediately would have been— it killed her self esteem for a long time. (After that he found some other friend group to date with freshmen girls that were more his maturity level when he was a junior.)
Tbh probably like, talking about kinks n stuff, what we like, what we wanna try in the future. Or even just non sexual talks about the future, like what we want for our wedding, what type of place we wanna get together, etc. I’ve been long distance forever now so “intimate” is a lil harder to reach, but i always feel the best after those conversations. Especially when they come with fun revelations, like i gained a lot of weight recently bc of my meds and I’m really insecure about it, but it turns out my guy finds my belly attractive :3
Stuff like that really makes you feel close when you can’t physically be
Sharing body heat under a blanket. Even fully-clothed that is intimate as all get out. I used to be very popular for that because I could crank up my thermostat and just RADIATE/i> heat. I once looked up and had 5 girls huddled next to me while I was doing the human space heater thing. The one girls I knew and 4 total strangers.
I hope Lucy finds someone better. It’s not Walky’s fault he’s not af the same level as her at this point in the relationship, I just want her to be with someone who appreciates her and will reciprocate accordingly.
Or just that she relaxes a bit, enjoys what they’ve got and gives him a chance to catch up.
It’s not going to be easy to find someone who will fall in love with her in a week. She’s probably not really in love with him either at this point, just infatuated. New relationship energy is a hell of a drug.
Walky just had his first sexual relationship with Dorothy and he’s just not that into Lucy, it seems. She’s also moving way-way too fast for him when he’s still trying to get to know her.
Still not quite sure how much Walky’s actions here are even related to his relationship with Lucy. I mean sure, there’s a certain drama/comedy in it, that she wants to get intimate and he is sad to lose a fortress of solitude. But looking at his face, i get the impression he doesn’t listen to one word she says after panel one. He just sees the snow melting and runs up the hill maybe?
I mean, i still got to admit, the two run at different speeds and probably even different directions in their relationship too.
Every once and awhile, Lucy makes me think she’s devious, conniving, just as predatory as some others (Panel 3, for instance). But those are very rare, and few and far between. She follows up her calculating eyes in Panel 3 with the insecurities shown in EVERY OTHER PANEL.
Is she a naïve waif, trying to live the fiction of the steamy romance novel genre, or is she a calculating follower of Raidah? I’m not actually sure what her end-game is here.
I was thinking for a while that Walky doesn’t need a girlfriend and that he needs a girl who is a friend, but then I realized that he just needs friends. It seems like every relationship he’s had throughout the story (save for, like, his dad and MAYBE Booster) has either been romantic/sexual or contentious (or, in the case of Mike, a source of trauma; and in Amber’s case, both). The closest thing he has to a platonic friendship with someone he can confide in is with Jennifer and she’s actively pushing him away.
I hope Walky can find some people who aren’t put off by his emotional immaturity, make some friends, and get emotional support and validation from people who aren’t his romantic partners because relying on that isn’t healthy.
To be fair, they’ve been spending a lot of time together that isn’t formal dates. And they’d been doing so for a while with her already crushing on him before they started dating.
I remember one time back in college when I’d been seeing a girl for months and we were out somewhere and realized it was our first actual “date”.
But yeah, it’s been about a week and Walky’s got good reason to be flustered here.
I mean it probably doesn’t help his reputation that superman in the DC movies is the garbo most annoying interpretation of superman ala Zach snider’s pessimism.
Excited for him in Warhammer, i fell in love once i found out he’s a massive fucking nerd irl and almost lost the superman role bc he was doing a wow raid
I normally don’t like Walky but I feel for him here, I’m assuming he heard exactly what Lucy said and doesn’t want to take advantage of what she’s offering and doesn’t know how to handle it (because of course he doesn’t) so he does what any boy would do and runs away
I also feel for Lucy because its extremely vulnerable for a young, inexperienced girl to freely offer herself up like this and to be possibly rejected by her boyfriend…that’s gotta sting
I hope that these two break up soon and Lucy can be with someone who appreciates her and Walky can be with someone to whom he’s attracted. Love em but they’re a bad match.
Was inspired to draw a little Lucy in colored pencils today. I really want her to have everything she ever wants, but it’s not looking so good right now. :,)
a lot of people calling them a bad match and i don’t that’s entirely the problem. i think they’re both just extremely immature when it comes to relationships. well, walky’s immature at everything, but particularly relationships. this is lucy’s FIRST boyfriend, she’s romanticizing a lot of things about their relationship and completely ignoring others. they COULD be a great couple, but they both have a LOT of growing up to do. One maybe more so than the other. lol
breaking up would probably be the SMARTER thing for them to do, but i can also see them both growing and learning together.
I think they could be together, but first they need to break up and have three other relationships each. Then they can get back together and be endgame.
I honestly can’t tell if Panel 3 Walky is reacting to what Lucy’s saying or if at that point his attention has already drifted to the melting snowhill and he’s completely oblivious to what she’s doing and saying.
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 15h
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
It's #webcomicday? We have a special day???
Well, my name is Pat McHoarney and I draw 69 Mouse-Ear Blvd, a multigenerational story about women who all have sexy legs and probably other features. There was a grandmother, but she wasn't hot and so she died off-panel.
Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. Her partner, Billy Evans, is now trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics.” nyti.ms/3FbtZm9
www.ebay.com/itm/23609767...
selling my netflix war for cybertron megatron -- the walmart exclusive one that came with pinpointer and lionizer (but being sold here without pinpointer and lionizer)
Gran... IS ALIVE?
okay, juliette still has brown hair, so this is probably definitely a flashback
i'm just surprised that the comic has remembered her, at all
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 15h
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
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preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 3d
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Farmer: “Walky, WTF”
Snake: “YOU KNEW MY NATURE”
Walky just doesnt really seem to enjoy dating lucy.
And everyone else notices except her
I’m literally cringing all the time. Please let it end. Neither character deserves this.
Yeah like…I wanted to believe in this. I really did. Lucy had started to grow on me. But the same does not seem to be true for Walky, and honestly some of the things she’s done have given me pause. She’s a fine person but taking this way too quickly. I don’t see a happy ending for her with Walky; they seem to want different things.
I think he genuinely likes things about her but he’s definitely got an allergy to the more serious parts of intimacy and relationships. He’s probably also dealing with some emotional stuff from his past 2 relationships and he’s not emotionally intelligent enough to sort them out.
Allergy or not, they’ve been dating for a very short period of time and it’s entirely reasonable for him to be uncomfortable with the rate Lucy seems to be wanting to move
Yeah it may seem weird to have a story arc where the guy wants to take things slow and the girl is ready to mount him right away. Its actually pretty understanding that Walky would want a more casual relationship after the seriousness of the last two.
In reality though it’s really not that weird. It’s just weird in the land of tropes.
Part of our “the talk” is going to include (along with the tea video on consent) that it is 100% ok for boys to say no and to not be ready too.
Oh! And the third date thing is also a trope! Just realized part of Lucy’s thing is that she mentally lives in a trope world and Dumbing of Age is more reality based (toe dad and mafia not withstanding).
Willis is brilliant. OMG.
While that’s true, we also need to remember that Walky didn’t have much trouble hopping into the sack with Dorothy after a relatively short period of time too. I think the more likely conclusion is that, while Walky DOES like Lucy, he may not be very attracted to her physically. (It doesn’t have to be a looks thing either. You can find somebody beautiful yet not want to have sex with them. Physical attraction is kinda weird that way.)
Or he’d be fine with doing sexy things with Lucy, but he’s currently too freaked out by her declaration of love.
The hell is communication?
Well, this IS Walky, he of “I GIVE TO YOU!!!!” flirting.
My apologies, it’s actually “I GIVE IT TO YOU” https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/02-uphill-from-here/throw/
Though in this case, it’s Lucy who screwed up the communication by misreading a perfectly normal thing Walky said. Now he’s got to figure out how to fix it without crushing her, which isn’t going to be easy.
But, Walky, you’re Sal’s brother! Any date you go on is going to involve somebody’s brother.
Beat me to the punch.
I think Lucy just offered some good old fashioned grab ass and Walky doesn’t care. Ouch.
i mean he said ‘corpse of fortress of solitude’ so i thought that was him saying goodbye/celebrating it in a way? but comic aside i suppose it would be awkward if he had spent 5 mins in silence climbing up
I think the corpse bit is a reference the snow hill melting
I prefer good old fashioned grab ass to the modern, updated grab ass. Grab ass was perfect, they never needed to come out with a reboot.
“I used to be ‘with it’, then they changed what ‘it’ was!”
Slapass!
*rebooty
No? No? ok
I don’t think Walky doesn’t care. I think Walky is very much associating this offer with Lucy’s extremely-premature-to-him “I love you” (probably accurately), which gives him a choice to either take advantage of a misunderstanding to get some that means something a lot more to her than it does to him, or have a serious feelings conversation that is going to hurt Lucy, or avoid. As in most things, Walky chooses avoid.
Yeah, “doesn’t care” is way off base – unless you believe that’s the only reason a guy could turn down sex. He’s still thrown by her misreading of his casual “what I love about you”. That’s going to be a real awkward conversation to have. “I don’t love you” is much harder to deal with than just not saying it yet. Or even than not saying it back. Even with a “yet” at the end of it.
‘Doesn’t care.” Is probably a bit harsh, but my comment was meant to be more humorous than a serious analysis of the situation. That being said it is probably a sign of his feelings for Lucy (if he has much of any) being nowhere near as strong as hers are for him if he’s ignoring her attempts at seduction. I honestly believe they would not be dating yet if Dorothy hadn’t stepped in.
I think it was pretty clear that his feelings aren’t as strong as her from his reaction to her declaration of love. But that seems to me more of a problem with her than him – at least a week into the relationship.
I suspect his reaction to the seduction attempt would different without that context.
I’m not entirely sure Walky even heard the grabass offer. I think he started climbing as soon as he was off-panel.
*plays Styx’s “Snow Blind” on the radio of a passing car*
What’s the timestamp/range of the Doppler effect? (do we get a secret “Wah-wah” embedded in the song due to its method of presentation?)
Lucy’s that girlfriend that moves way too fast. She’s such a nice person, but…
I mean, she’s moving at her own speed, she just needs a partner who moves that quickly too and she’ll be fine.
Being incompatible with someone doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with her.
It’s argue she isn’t moving that quickly considering she was “dating” Walky without him knowing for a couple months.
He just hasn’t caught up
it seems like she’s willing to do some stuff that isn’t necessarily sex but overall that ‘third date’ stuff always seemed rush to me esp at a younger age (would zillenial/gen z kids even know about that ‘tradition’ to begin with [tho other than having been friends for years or so, it seems even faster if it was like a blind date or matching through tinder and attempted relationships through there])
Not necessarily a rush to sex, but with it coming right after her misreading him and jump to “I love you too”, she’s jumped too fast emotionally and is probably upping the physical ante in response. Why wait for the third date, they’ve agreed they’re in love, right? (And of course, like Joyce, Lucy is horny and it’s likely throwing off her emotional judgement. Easy to do.)
I don’t know if Walky would have a problem getting physical, if it didn’t seem like it was under false pretences.
yeah. I’m the type to start with sex and then consider a relationship, and I’m *still* highly uncomfortable with lucy’s behaviour.
I forget the exact number of days, but haven’t they been Officially Dating for like a week? I know she’s had her crush for months and yadda yadda, but he’s only just decided to make it A Thing. People wanna act like it’s “immature”, but I’d probably balk at this amount of speed from a partner, too.
He asked her out in Hompk! so they are a few hours short of exactly one week.
Kind of feels like something’s about to collapse here.
Yeah, that fortress-corpse is definitely not a safe place to stand.
Dumbing of Age Book XIII: Just Let Me Stand Atop the Wretched Corpse of My Fortress of Solitude
Dude, I am UP for it. I could GO for a fortress of solitude, sometimes!
Yes
Works for me coming off a night with sub-zero wind chills.
On paper, Lucy would seem to tick a number of boxes for Walky. I guess the chemistry just isn’t there.
Don’t be so sure. Walky’s just a bit distracted, that’s all.
Walky seems like he’s been dealing with some stuff since his roommate died and probably not in the healthiest way, and I don’t think he’s really ready or interested in a serious relationship.
Yeah. He seems to think he can joke his way out of feeling grief. It can’t be done.
NPR had a good radio story today on grief. Sometimes I think I can feel storybook grief at fictional deaths more sincerely than I can feel grief in real life.
…I think doing COVID work might have just dried up all the grief receptors.
Yup. After all the calamity and catastrophe we’ve seen the past few years, you just get numb to it. Sometimes I worry whether or not I can’t feel it anymore, but when I do feel it, i feel A LOT, and I can’t handle it. It’s the emotional equivalent of trying to use a fire hose made of paper mache!
I don’t believe that’s really true beyond liking cartoons. Dorothy and Amber both have superficial similarities to Lucy but have shown a confidence in their relationship Lucy doesn’t. Amber may be an antisocial hermit and Dorothy is a bookish peopl pleaser, but neither would sit around quietly hoping a guy notices them.
idk how long it’ll last compared to amber and dorothy but i’d hope a part of him would’ve wanted to date lucy as opposed to dorothy ‘telling’ him to but we know they’ve been hanging out and having lunch/dinner as friends before walky called it ‘romantic dinner’/didn’t rly seem like lucy was forcing her way into walky’s free time and him just putting up with her
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/04-hompk/romantic-2/
It even sounds like he’s checking off boxes :'(
Are you reading this as him just not being interested in the offer? Because of a lack of chemistry?
RE: alt-text, is that a meme I missed or a song I can’t identify?
Also, is it just me or is there a subtle change to the color scheme here?
Superman(1978) theme song.
They look kind of like they’ve got dirty snow grime on them.
No I mean like, in the middle panels Walky and Lucy look like they’re more saturated and less contrast than usual in the colors
Oh good it’s not just me. I thought I’d accidentally changed a setting on my laptop or chrome, comic looks oddly lightened or like there’s a thin mist covering it.
That’s what I mean. Like a car that’s been driving through slush has that dusty grayness fading it’s color.
The last strip they were in front of the pile, their silhouettes were a light black (brightness of 18/100), but the black in the close up (hair) was true black (0/100). In today’s strip, a bunch of what’s normally the true black has been set to the light black. The rest of the pallet seems to be approximately the same as before.
Or it would have been the Superman theme but Willis missed a ‘bwa’ D:
That actually threw me off, because geek that I am, I was specifically trying to match it to the Fortress of Solitude theme (a variation on the one for Krypton).
Haha, I thought it was Careless Whisper and was in regards to what Lucy had alluded to.
Also, I fat fingered the reply and accidentally flagged your comment :/ sorry
Maybe it’s fog…
Oof, but yeah if I had just realized she was way more serious about it than me (from the love word, not from the proposition), that would probably be my first reaction
THEN I’d actually have the conversation, because I’m not Walky.
Yeaaaah, I cannot blame him for trying to immediately put distance but I definitely think he needs to have that conversation ASAP. It’s doing neither of them a service to avoid it.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen how Walky deals with problems already, and “ignore it hoping it will resolve itself” tends to be pretty high on that list. Oh dear.
Now that’s a fair critique of Walky. To be fair, this is a really tricky conversation to have and it’s not unreasonable to let him have a bit of time to deal with it. There are a lot of responses here that basically end the relationship right now.
“I’m trying to tell you how horny I am”
“I’ve just come to tell you how horny I am”
“This is how you remind me of how horny I am”
I just want…
To say…
I’m horny!
Man, he hauled ass up there.
OK, anyone up for a game?
Q. “Walky’s fortress of solitude is that huge snow pile.
Where is your fortress of solitude?”
Or, alternatively, “If you could build a fortress of solitude ANYWHERE, where would it be?”
I can go first.
A. My fortress of solitude is and always has been the bathroom. Sorry. I can just get lost, reading, in the bathroom.
Alternative “anywhere”: Paris. Just walking in Paris by myself on a misty springtime night. With a cheap room in a 1-star hotel waiting for me somewhere, where I can sleep by myself.
Alternative “anywhere”: The oilcans out by the railroad tracks in far Southwest Philly.
Alternative actual fortress: while playing Tetris, off in my own mindspace.
So glad Tetris works to get you there! For the past few years, it has been really hard for me to get to that mindspace fortress of solitude. At least I have Ritalin to make it at least a little bit easier, when I remember to take it.
The chemical fortress… a classic!
Ideally, like an island on a river. With trees that turn brilliant yellow in the fall.
Lovely!
My fortress of solitude is my room; it has some of my knife and sword collections, my games, my writings, my computer. I can go days without needing to leave the fortress.
If I could have my fortress of solitude anywhere; I would want it to be in colorado in whatever area has the best internet speeds and stable connection.
Colorado is so gorgeous. That SKY.
A. Barnes and Noble is my fortress of Solitude. I go there, read the manga, jam out to music and I feel at peace. I can honestly say I am never happier than I am at a bookstore.
B. I’d like to buy an RV or something and like…live in it and just fill it with a computer and all the shit I need to still do what I already do but just travel around America and see the sights while effectively working from “home”.
Same here with Barnes and Nobles bruh, that place is like sacred to me! 🥰
Yoto, your “B” dream is my “B” dream. I keep telling my spouse, “Let’s just do it. Let’s just hop on some wheels and GO.”
And honestly, “A” is, too. Ever since I was a kid, I could hole up in a library or a bookshop and just read ’til my heart’s content. I was SO fortunate that most places didn’t chase me away because I couldn’t afford to buy stuff.
I’ve always just liked this idea of running away. Songs about running away, stories about running away. Just the idea of just leaving where you are and not coming back for an indeterminate amount of time is so interesting to me.
After college, I ran away and joined a circus. Highly memorable. Go for it.
WOW! That’s amazing! What did you do in the circus?
Back when I had no fixed address, it was kind of like that. I’d just walk out by the highway onramp, stick out my thumb, and then see where life took me. Half a lifetime ago.
Probably in NYC. I could turn such a profit from that…
Yeah, no kidding! So many New Yorkers NEED to get themselves into a little solitude!
I’d totally put a solitude box right in the middle of a big important politics building, like the Capitol or the White House, directly in the middle of a hallway or table so they’d have to work around me. Just to be a nuisance.
Sounds like a SCIF pod. I think they have those there.
My mountain bike. Good Q
Oh how wonderful. I used to mountain bike, when I was younger. Joy!
As kids, my cousins and I would build great fortresses inside snow banks, with tunnels everywhere and piles of “defensive artillery” (aka snowballs)… till one year when the best piles were too close to the road and the fortress was obliterated by a county snowplow, about two minutes after we left to go get lunch…. I don’t remember obsessing about it at the time, but every now and then I remember that and absolutely cringe at what almost happened.
Oh WOW.
Lucky kids!
My Fortress of Solitude is a 2 lane with gentle hills and a wide shoulder to ride my bicycle on and good cell phone coverage (minimum of 3/5 bars) in case of accidents.
That sounds just heavenly!
I think Walky’s recoiling here less out of a lack of attraction so much as realizing that Lucy is falling way deeper than he might be and putting sex on the table is only going to further his “guilt” at not feeling the same way.
Yeah if nothing else they’re out of step and her wanting to go further makes him even more uncomfortable because she’s already clearly ahead of him.
An angle I’m not seeing much commentary on is that this whole thing is probably bringing up flashbacks to his previous relationships, in that both of them could be read as having burned twice as hot for half as long “because of him,” which sadly tracks with Walky’s self-deprecating tendencies. He loved Dorothy, but from his perspective, he was ultimately a drain on her time and stopping her from achieving her dreams. He liked Amber, but he’s hopefully had time to accept that he fully screwed that up through his actions on Halloween. Both of those situations are up in the air to differing extents, but the bottom line is that their connections changed irrevocably, and I don’t think Walky’s ready for Lucy to be another girl he was once friends with who barely talks to him anymore.
So, now that the thing with Lucy is moving fast in similar ways to the last two relationships, he’s either petrified that he’ll screw up again or convinced that him screwing up is an inevitable outcome that can’t be avoided, that he’s damaged goods and that Lucy deserves someone better than him (as *somebody* just *had* to keep telling her =/).
Way I see this going, he’s either gonna hurt Lucy’s feelings by trying to break up with her “for her own good” and ultimately creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, or he’s gonna make Lucy sad for *him* by exposing his own low opinion of himself to her, which could honestly throw her for a loop or could potentially lead to a touching moment of her confirming her feelings for him do in fact go deeper than just “nerdy boy hot.”
Idk, lot of people seem resigned to sounding the death knell on these two, but I’m gonna wait and see how this plays out.
Yeah. Although Lucy has said as much, Walky understands that she made her suggestion of sex in the belief that he loves her, which he doesn’t. He is afraid that to accept would be deceitful. On the other hand, he is afraid that to decline would be insulting or at least hurtful.
Bah! Curse the lack of an edit function!. Lucy has not said as much.
100%, he’s freaking the fuck out and doesn’t exactly have the communication skills or experience needed to address it.
Remember, Walky’s way of managing issues is to deflect with jokes and then repress as hard as humanly possible…
Watching “a man” sulk in his grief is pretty fuckin intimate.
So… Was Walky already gone when Lucy made her offer? I would hate to think an offer of second base would be enough to make a (technically) adult male bolt.
No. He’s clearly standing right next to her. He heard it and ran.
If that guy is already mentally screaming and running away about the commitment status of the relationship? Very easily.
I don’t know why but I suspect that’s a line Lucy has been rehearsing and then blushing wildly every time she does.
Possibly practicing in a mirror. That expression really turns up the heat.
Still mulling over the ‘I love you too’ moment I see.
Lucy, you’re a fellow comic nerd, you know nerd nonsense takes precedence over anything else.
In the last panel it feels like Willis intentionally wrote Walky’s line to use as a book title later
I assumed Walky was realising he’d have to break things off or at least talk about taking things slower emotionally, but this sounds more like he intends to commit to this harder despite not really wanting to.
That’s a lot to read in to a single line though, he could just be making a sweet superman reference.
I have a hard time seeing Walky actually doing that. He reminds me of a guy in college who dated most of my friends and was dumped by the Dorothy and uh Sal types (Jess was more of a Sal than an Amber, but not his brother!) and then dated a girl he wasn’t really into in the same way Walky is but couldn’t dump her— he just behaved progressively worse and more irresponsible with lots of ghosting in the hope she would eventually dump him. It was the first time I saw someone do that. So much worse than pulling off the bandaid immediately would have been— it killed her self esteem for a long time. (After that he found some other friend group to date with freshmen girls that were more his maturity level when he was a junior.)
There’s also face kneading with buttocks. Or– or so I’ve heard.
Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that one.
Oh, my face Needs Buttocks.
I actually read her line as “kneading buttocks with face.”
Or is there an inside joke that just went whizzing by?
Joyce wants Joe’s butt on her face.
Yeah we can try soaking. That sounds sexy AND boring!
Self disciplined. Never boring.
Yeah he is uh. Not having a good time.
I feel for ya, Walkerton. But you got to have an honest-to-goodness heart-to-heart with Lucy before this blows up catastrophically.
A girl like Lucy, frankly, would scare the crap out of me.
Might be a bit too dirty but I’m curious.
What’s your favorite non-sex intimate thing to do with a partner?
Last time I made out with a girl she pet my head affectionately and I…cannot describe how much I enjoyed that.
Does making out count as sex?
I can’t imagine it does.
Smelling their hair. Intoxicating!
Lying in each others arms and one of us reading their favourite book to the other. One of my favourites.
Making out. I love love LOVE kissing
Anything to do with the belly button!
If only I had a partner to do them with
Head scritches (think Charlie Brown and Snoopy, or maybe those cat videos with the multi-pronged tool on the cat’s head).
My girlfriend is the same way. She loves head scritches and it’s nice giving them to her as well.
Unironically hand-holding. Or being able to lightly massage my partner’s joints.
I guess I have a thing for certain tactile sensations.
Back scratches
Tbh probably like, talking about kinks n stuff, what we like, what we wanna try in the future. Or even just non sexual talks about the future, like what we want for our wedding, what type of place we wanna get together, etc. I’ve been long distance forever now so “intimate” is a lil harder to reach, but i always feel the best after those conversations. Especially when they come with fun revelations, like i gained a lot of weight recently bc of my meds and I’m really insecure about it, but it turns out my guy finds my belly attractive :3
Stuff like that really makes you feel close when you can’t physically be
I’m so glad you have that. That sounds wonderful.
Sharing body heat under a blanket. Even fully-clothed that is intimate as all get out. I used to be very popular for that because I could crank up my thermostat and just RADIATE/i> heat. I once looked up and had 5 girls huddled next to me while I was doing the human space heater thing. The one girls I knew and 4 total strangers.
Sorry, looks like I missed the angled bracket on the close tag.
Sounds like quite a story!
Third panel Lucy got ne feeling a certain way
WALKY used TELEPORT!
And he didn’t even have a lizard on his head.
I hope Lucy finds someone better. It’s not Walky’s fault he’s not af the same level as her at this point in the relationship, I just want her to be with someone who appreciates her and will reciprocate accordingly.
Or just that she relaxes a bit, enjoys what they’ve got and gives him a chance to catch up.
It’s not going to be easy to find someone who will fall in love with her in a week. She’s probably not really in love with him either at this point, just infatuated. New relationship energy is a hell of a drug.
It’s like Lucy and Joyce got hit by teh horny at the same time
Walky just had his first sexual relationship with Dorothy and he’s just not that into Lucy, it seems. She’s also moving way-way too fast for him when he’s still trying to get to know her.
Still not quite sure how much Walky’s actions here are even related to his relationship with Lucy. I mean sure, there’s a certain drama/comedy in it, that she wants to get intimate and he is sad to lose a fortress of solitude. But looking at his face, i get the impression he doesn’t listen to one word she says after panel one. He just sees the snow melting and runs up the hill maybe?
I mean, i still got to admit, the two run at different speeds and probably even different directions in their relationship too.
Walky really is just pure adhd energy
Every once and awhile, Lucy makes me think she’s devious, conniving, just as predatory as some others (Panel 3, for instance). But those are very rare, and few and far between. She follows up her calculating eyes in Panel 3 with the insecurities shown in EVERY OTHER PANEL.
Is she a naïve waif, trying to live the fiction of the steamy romance novel genre, or is she a calculating follower of Raidah? I’m not actually sure what her end-game is here.
Calculating??? Those are bedroom eyes. She’s just horny.
I think her expression is a regular ‘come hither’ look.
To which he responded, for the immediate time being, by “going yon”.
Poor Lucy. But, at least, I’m happy one way or another, because she’s not afraid for more intimacy. You all know: fundamentalism and shit.
What Walky is doing isn’t a bad idea. It’s worth stopping and thinking if for you is better solitude or being with someone.
Lucy, if you wanna grab his dong, you can just grab his dong.
Ask first!
I was thinking for a while that Walky doesn’t need a girlfriend and that he needs a girl who is a friend, but then I realized that he just needs friends. It seems like every relationship he’s had throughout the story (save for, like, his dad and MAYBE Booster) has either been romantic/sexual or contentious (or, in the case of Mike, a source of trauma; and in Amber’s case, both). The closest thing he has to a platonic friendship with someone he can confide in is with Jennifer and she’s actively pushing him away.
I hope Walky can find some people who aren’t put off by his emotional immaturity, make some friends, and get emotional support and validation from people who aren’t his romantic partners because relying on that isn’t healthy.
Wait, shit, I forgot. They haven’t even had their second date and she’s already dropping the L bomb? Yeah no wonder Wally’s freaking out
To be fair, they’ve been spending a lot of time together that isn’t formal dates. And they’d been doing so for a while with her already crushing on him before they started dating.
I remember one time back in college when I’d been seeing a girl for months and we were out somewhere and realized it was our first actual “date”.
But yeah, it’s been about a week and Walky’s got good reason to be flustered here.
Walky: Just let me stand atop the wretched corpse of my Fortress of Solitude. Oh hey, Henry Cavill, what are you doing here?
Henry Cavill: Same thing.
If anyone ever wanted to know just how dumb Hollywood really is
Henry Cavill should be the biggest star in the world, he should be Geralt, Superman, James Bond, Napoleon Solo (I want a sequel)
I really hope he smashes his Warhammer series out of the park and the maybe, just maybe, he’ll get the recognition he deserves
I mean it probably doesn’t help his reputation that superman in the DC movies is the garbo most annoying interpretation of superman ala Zach snider’s pessimism.
Excited for him in Warhammer, i fell in love once i found out he’s a massive fucking nerd irl and almost lost the superman role bc he was doing a wow raid
Exactly, a nerd that cares about the source material
Fair warning: I’m saving these Lucyfaces.
Also telling her “I adore the guy” meant so much more from short-attention-span Walky. I can’t imagine he was thinking of this for half an hour.
(Signed, a guy who will prepare some things he says to his wife so I can express myself as I want to.)
I normally don’t like Walky but I feel for him here, I’m assuming he heard exactly what Lucy said and doesn’t want to take advantage of what she’s offering and doesn’t know how to handle it (because of course he doesn’t) so he does what any boy would do and runs away
I also feel for Lucy because its extremely vulnerable for a young, inexperienced girl to freely offer herself up like this and to be possibly rejected by her boyfriend…that’s gotta sting
Everybody shut the fuck up on commentary about Lucy and walkys relationship this is important.
Look at panel 3.
Lucy’s hot.
That is all, you may continue.
In this you are correct. That’s the most important information in today’s comic.
I hope that these two break up soon and Lucy can be with someone who appreciates her and Walky can be with someone to whom he’s attracted. Love em but they’re a bad match.
I’m glad they’re trying, though!
They are trying, I will give them that.
Was inspired to draw a little Lucy in colored pencils today. I really want her to have everything she ever wants, but it’s not looking so good right now. :,)
https://twitter.com/namioshiro/status/1606413360165265408?s=20&t=e9js_EPaS1nqGzhwHzckOA
OMFG, THAT’S SO CUTE!!! You did such a good job!!
Thank you!!
Lucy IS a cutie, I wanted to do her justice.
Agree with Taffy. Didn’t think she could be more of a sweetie but the animesque eyes up the ante.
Awww that’s cute as all heck. Love the technique too, makes mw want to try it =)
a lot of people calling them a bad match and i don’t that’s entirely the problem. i think they’re both just extremely immature when it comes to relationships. well, walky’s immature at everything, but particularly relationships. this is lucy’s FIRST boyfriend, she’s romanticizing a lot of things about their relationship and completely ignoring others. they COULD be a great couple, but they both have a LOT of growing up to do. One maybe more so than the other. lol
breaking up would probably be the SMARTER thing for them to do, but i can also see them both growing and learning together.
I think they could be together, but first they need to break up and have three other relationships each. Then they can get back together and be endgame.
I honestly can’t tell if Panel 3 Walky is reacting to what Lucy’s saying or if at that point his attention has already drifted to the melting snowhill and he’s completely oblivious to what she’s doing and saying.
Dang, he’s a fast climber!