Double Date

El Goonish Shive Newspaper Story Arcs
Previous	Nanase and Her Fox
Next	Epic Character Creation

Double Date is the sixty-fourth storyline chapter in EGS:NP. It started with the EGS:NP Comic for 2024-03-19 and ended with the EGS:NP Comic for 2024-09-26.

In this storyline Diane, Lucy, Rhoda and Catalina go on a double date. It is canon.

Summary

Lucy and Diane discussed what to do on the double date; they leaned towards bowling. Meanwhile Rhoda told Catalina that bowling isn't as good a date option as Diane and Lucy think. Catalina thought they should go bowling to make Diane and Lucy comfortable while meeting her for the first time. Thus Rhoda suggested bowling to Diane and Lucy. Rhoda also used her catgirl magic to flirt with Rhoda by transforming her own clothes and Rhoda shrank Catalina to take a picture of her.

In the evening, before going to bed, Diane worried that Catalina would compare her unfavorably to Susan, as Susan looks like a taller Diane and Catalina is friends with Susan but reassured herself that she is as cool as Susan. Lucy worried that she would scare Catalina because she is tall and wished she were cuter. Rhoda thought about showing her magic to Lucy and Diane but didn't want to involve them in anything potentially dangerous and also woried that their magic might scare Diane and Lucy. Catalina wasn't worried about anything; she considered learning bowling but concluded that she didn't need to.

On the day of the date Diane wore a vertically striped dress and Lucy wore a dress and her hair in pigtails. Lucy asked Diane if she looked scary since she worried about intimidating Catalina. Before the two couples met, Rhoda told Catalina about Diane and Lucy; she didn't tell Catalina that Lucy used to be jealous against her and now acted overly nice to make up for it. Lucy resolved to be cute and avoid revealing that she had trained in medieval sword-fighting. When the two couples met, Rhoda was confused by Diane's and Lucy's outfits. Catalina greeted Lucy and Diane enthusiastically and was distracted during the introduction. Just when Lucy was relieved that Catalina didn't find her scary, a man made a loud startled yelp and ran away.

The man excitedly approached Camdin, as he was actually one of Luke and Camdin's friends who think they're superheroes, who had a falling-ut with Luke after a scary encounter with Catalina and Rhoda (in Balance, Part 2). Camdin's friend (whose name was later revealed to be Dave) reported that he had seen Rhoda and Catalina; Camdin still wanted to recruit the girls.

Diane asked Catalina about her bowling experience, and Catalina told her that she had once made the ball zigzag between the bumpers. Rhoda asked Diane and Lucy why they didn't own bowling shoes, which made Diane and Lucy embarrassed since they used to make the boys they were dating pay for renting the shoes. Catalina didn't know her shoe size and the number had faded from her shoe, so she had to show a shoe to the clerk.

When Catalina and Lucy talked about bowling balls, Lucy lifted one ball in each hand without thinking; when Catalina was impressed by her strength, Lucy pretended that it was hard. Meanwhile, while Diane and Rhoda were queueing to buy food, Diane asked Rhoda how she was going to pay since she didn't have a purse; Rhoda revealed that her skirt had pockets. Rhoda asked about Lucy's outfit and Diane explained that Lucy wanted to look cute since she worried about intimidating Catalina; that Lucy is self-conscious about her looks was news to Rhoda and surprised her.

Catalina asked Lucy if she was trying to hide her strength and Lucy explained that she was worried about being intimidating. Catalina reassured her that she and Rhoda liked Lucy for being strong and protective. When the four of them met again, Catalina told Rhoda that she had told Lucy what Rhoda had said about her, which made Rhoda so embarrassed that she ran away, and Catalina followed her. Rhoda had told Catalina that she would like to be tall like Lucy and that she wanted to use her magic to be tall and make others short.

Camdin planned to apologize to Catalina and Rhoda as he realized that chasing them was creepy. He planned to phrase it subtly so that only Catalina and Rhoda could understand it. Camdin and Dave met Lucy and Diane while Rhoda and Catalina were away, and recognized them. Diane and Lucy realized that Camdin and Dave were boys they had dated, but couldn't remember their names. Camdin asked if Diane and Lucy were on a double date, which they confirmed. Camdin and Dave left because they didn't want to intrude on a date.

After Catalina had clarified to Rhoda that she hadn't told Lucy that Rhoda wanted to swap sizes with her, they decided to go back to Lucy and Diane. When Diane and Lucy told them that they had just met two men they had dated whose names they had forgotten, Catalina was horrified by the thought of her and Rhoda forgetting each other. Diane and Lucy thought she was judging them and then realized that they might deserve it since they used to treat boys as disposable wallets. Thus they explained how those dating habits came about (as previously revealed in The Legend of Diane) Catalina clarified that she didn't mean to judge them and Diane and Lucy realized that they had worried too much about making a good impression on Catalina. Diane asked Catalina if anyone had asked her out and Catalina told her that several boys who used to be her friends asked her out and didn't take rejection well, which made it hard for her to trust boys.

Then Lucy apologized to Rhoda for how she used to treat her. Rhoda said that Lucy's jealousy was understandable since Diane made them spend time together and thus she forgave Lucy.

Before they played bowling, Diane and Lucy told Catalina about their accidental double date with Justin and Luke (previously mentioned in Reflections). Dave, who was now is a feminine form, overheard them and again excitedly approached Camdin. They talked about the mental effects of Dave's transformation; Camdin was concerned about Dave doing things he would later regret. Dave hugged Camdin, which Camdin found awkward. Then Dave reported that Diane and Lucy were the girls who had gone on the accidental double date with Luke and Justin. Luke had earlier told Camdin that he had found the girls intimidating, and Camdin had realized that he had checked them for magic, though Luke unconvincingly denied it. Back in the present, Camdin wanted to contact Justin.

Catalina thought the two couples wouldn't have much opportunity to get to know each other while playing bowling, and felt guilty about suggesting it. She proposed that they should tell each other something about themselves after every frame, ask each other questions if they got a strike, and tell each other something embarrassing if they got a gutterball, which Catalina thought only she was likely to get. Diane and Lucy liked the idea but Rhoda was alarmed. However, Rhoda didn't voice her objection and Catalina didn't want to speak for her. Catalina suspected that Rhoda is worse at bowling than she thought.

Rhoda started the bowling with a spare. She couldn't come up with anything to say about herself other than "I have long hair". Diane wondered why Rhoda was so uncomfortable with telling the others about herself; one of the possibilities she considered was that Rhoda was distracted by a secret. Lucy also got a spare and she avoided telling the others that she has trained in medieval swordfighting; instead she said that she would like to try out pizza with pineapple so she could have an opinion about it. Diane said she she is adopted and mentioned her sister Rhea and also said that she had learned who her biological father is (she learned in Sister 3 that her biological father is Adrian Raven) and that she has an adopted brother named Noah (she learned during Brother that Noah is Raven's adopted son and she visited him in Father); Catalina thought that was enough information for more than one frame. Catalina, who hoped that she'd get a gutterball so she could say what she was planning to say but didn't want to deliberately play badly, decided to try to get a strike with what she thought was a risky technique. To her surprise she got a strike. In the second round Rhoda said that she exercises, Lucy said that she like fantasy fiction and would like to see more with lesbian protagonists, Diane said that she used to be a cheerleader and that she learned useful skills while sneaking cookies as a child. Catalina scored another strike.

In her third frame Catalina slipped. Rhoda shrank Catalina and made her hair long to cushion her fall. After Catalina landed, she was changed back to normal. Diane and Lucy were surprised by what they saw. Rhoda got tired from using so many spells at the same time. Several bystanders were confused but the only one who got a clear view (a man who had a scary experience with magical law enforcement in Balance, Part 1 and Balance, Part 2) denied that anything weird had happened. Rhoda realized that she could no longer hide her magic from Diane and Lucy. Catalina pretended to be confused but Lucy didn't believe her. Rhoda told the others about the magic she had used; she had to use a separate spell to keep Catalina's jacket the same size. Catalina noticed that Diane didn't seem as surprised as might be expected and was impressed by Diane's detective ability but Diane had actually heard about Grace's dreams saying that Rhoda and Catalina have magic (which Diane learned about in Reflections). Rhoda wanted to talk about it later. Catalina was told that she got a gutterball and joked that this was her embarrassing thing. Lucy agreed to talk about magic later. She also told the others about her medieval swordfighting training. Diane noticed that Lucy was taking it surprisingly well.