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The Old Hack

Story Friday September 9, 2018

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Meh, it's less about him being a gamer and more about him placing his own hobbies above paying attention to the girl he is with and anything that she might be interested in. It would be just as stupid if his obsession were about sports, or books, or collecting memorabilia, or anything else.

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Panels four and seven may be artistic exaggeration to display Diane's emotion and probably should not be an indicator of shape-shifting abilities.

But her look of frustration / disgust / disappointment / fury / confusion / fatigue in the final panel just screams "PANDORA" to me.

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If Chad's job is to be a country, it would be absolute bollocks. :demonicduck:

Then again, I forgot the last time someone expressed in heart eyes.

Also, panel 4 is everything, more than the anger face.

Also also, I love the warmth this strip exudes. All until the arcade. Cold as the side of the game machine.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

I was really hoping all of Diane's dates would be "D's" like Nanase's were all "G's" before Elliot.

Ye of little faith. C's might be Diane's test run, then it becomes D's. That, or she walks around the "C", "D", "E" blocks.

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Ok, so "Get boys to buy us stuff" had a reasonable logic behind it originally, but seems like that became cynical about it after too many dates didn't do the way she'd hoped, can't say I blame her, but junior high and even early high school age boys probably have other things on their minds, or ideas of what's fun.

Also wondering if Diane's plan is based on her own adopted family, as in her dad had a good job that provided for everything and her mom stayed at home and Diane had come to understand that her mom also worked hard to keep the house together (cus kids can be so destructive ;) ). Also also, maybe the "have two kids the icky way, and adopt at least another two!" is based on her family as well, in which case my older theory that Rick might have been a brother (as in he wasn't adopted) could still fly?

 

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5 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

;I owe Scotty a cookie. Another new character.

I keep telling y'all, The Dan likes to intro new characters when ever he can.

 

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So, I guess I'll go more-or-less panel-by-panel here to organize my thoughts...

Panels 1-2: Diane has a point here, this is how dating traditionally works. (Though I think it's not so much that giving up allowance is meant to show a willingness to sacrifice as the rules of dating as we know them came to be during a time when boys too young to make their own money wouldn't be dating. Some kids are just too anxious to get to romance/sex - though I suppose you could think of it as practice.)

I can see the connections between this and what the girls were doing at the start of the comic; I wonder if Diane realized when her priorities shifted? I suspect Lucy was aware of the change.

Panels 3-4: Again Diane is right: parenting is work, and parenting young children in particular is a full time job. Some people manage to fit in a paying job alongside it, but those people essentially have two jobs; it's quite disrespectful to stay-at-home parents to say they're not working.

That said, Diane's phrasing (particularly the "mommy") is on the more juvenile side; it's very odd to see Diane like this.

I think it might be worth noting that Diane calls sex>pregnancy>birth the "icky way" to have children. Is it just because she's so young, or does she have a similar aversion to having sex that Susan does?

It's also interesting she has such a detailed plan. I wonder if she's just imagining she'll follow in her parents' footsteps, or if she's actually thought it through and decided that's what she wants?

Panel 5-6: Well, here we get back to the idea of "practice", though it looks like Diane is much too optimistic about the likely long-term success of a relationship begun at such an early age.

Panel 7: It's really weird to see Diane so innocent; clearly like Susan she went through some rough times to become so cynical in the present. I feel a bit sorry for her. ...Still, I can't resist: Yay for bubbly background!

Panel 8: Um, Chad, your sick combo seems to be making Diane feel a bit sick. (It's probably just the weight of the loss of her dream of him being a perfect guy (though if this is the first time he's ignored her like this and she's already this upset she might have set her hopes too high - nobody's perfect, and he is still young enough for inexperience to be a valid excuse)... But I can't help but imagine he's playing Mortal Kombat or a similar game, and the results of that combo are why she's looking so sick.)

3 minutes ago, weirdee said:

I'm assuming the main issue with the plan is that dudes aren't thinking about that kind of thing until they're out of high school

Well, I would think that many guys assume they will grow up to have a partner and children, they just aren't particularly concerned at the moment about whether that the person they're dating now is going to be that partner. I'm sure there are also some romantic types who do assume their current partner is "the one" - but that doesn't mean they're any more likely to be right than Diane is here.

(I know I would have been looking for "the one" if I had ever dated back in Middle School or High School... But while I thought of myself as "male" at the time for lack of awareness of more accurate terms, looking back I see myself as having been just as gender-fluid then as I am now, so it's questionable how much I truly count as an example of a "dude" thinking long term at such an early age.)

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Up until TLoD began (Dan's abbreviation, check the filenames), Diane's adoptive father was never mentioned. He didn't need to be. The only fathers who've really been a presence for the whole series have been Tedd's and Elliot's. However...

Diane's attitude toward her dad was a bolt from the blue in the first comic of TLoD  She may still hold him as the gold standard of men in this latest comic. But did he get devalued by the time we first saw Diane as a gold-digging high-school junior?

It just might be possible that Dan didn't have any concept of Diane's family at all until he decided to create Rhea. But Dan probably has some backstories in mind for the mommy and daddy Diane and Rhea grew up with. And maybe even a last name for Diane, but that may be too much to ask for. The backstory for gold-standard-Dad might include Dad getting caught having an affair before Diane took Rhoda under her wing.  Sound vaguely familiar?

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28 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

The backstory for gold-standard-Dad might include Dad getting caught having an affair before Diane took Rhoda under her wing.  Sound vaguely familiar?

It would explain even more things if Diane's father was caught having an affair with Rhoda's father. However, I'm guessing that this didn't happen.

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9 hours ago, mlooney said:

I keep telling y'all, The Dan likes to intro new characters when ever he can.

 

It's not so much that, but that the ratio of characters given even minor dialog bits has been skewed towards the MNHS group for a while, MSHS is getting some love now.

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12 hours ago, weirdee said:

I'm assuming the main issue with the plan is that dudes aren't thinking about that kind of thing until they're out of high school

Close.  Very close.

12 hours ago, weirdee said:

the main issue with the plan is that dudes aren't thinking

Actually, that statement pretty much covers human history.

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15 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Well, I would think that many guys assume they will grow up to have a partner and children, they just aren't particularly concerned at the moment about whether that the person they're dating now is going to be that partner. I'm sure there are also some romantic types who do assume their current partner is "the one" - but that doesn't mean they're any more likely to be right than Diane is here.

(I know I would have been looking for "the one" if I had ever dated back in Middle School or High School... But while I thought of myself as "male" at the time for lack of awareness of more accurate terms, looking back I see myself as having been just as gender-fluid then as I am now, so it's questionable how much I truly count as an example of a "dude" thinking long term at such an early age.)

Believing that every girl I was interested in was my potential Soul Mate mostly got me into suicide-grade depression whenever a breakup happened, and got me into a place emotionally where Fear Of Rejection became the driving force in my entire life at the time.

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