#not shippy but mentions bughead as this is my version of the possibility and it makes sense for the purposes

[thestaredown]

The Comic Verse Ending ....it was all written by  Jughead...maybe

Posed situation. Jug is writing as the last shot of the show in some capacity implying the whole show has been written by him. Not a theory that has been uncommon in these parts we’ve certainly seen it batted around though for the most part we all think its a huge cop out.

Lets take the posed situation again we come upon Jug writing one of these abominations( Betty is there in my version but hey choose your own destiny while you imagine it), as comics not books...and that is very important as it is the magic “a wizard did it” moment that will make things have reasons.

This is just a  take of the possible series of events that could have taken place to create all of these AUs if in fact we find out Jughead is behind it.

We should know I’m wordy by now...hope you enjoy this explanation for what could possibly be.

After the success of his first book ,which ends up being a fictionalized YA retelling of his and Betty's love story in high school, as per the show; Jug struggles to write as he has always drawn from the craziness of his life. (To give it nuance perhaps he’s still working on the more autobiographical version of the original novel but isn't ready to put himself out there like that. )

Regardless there is the somewhat dicey part where we aren't sure if anyone outside of Riverdale knows that the book is a fictionalized account of real events or not ( considering some more ...interesting events could have some legal consequences if not kept under wraps) however the town we are told went to shit cause of Hiram not cause Jug made them look bad in a  book, so lets say  as far as people know it’s not a true story.

This leaves a lot of interesting, shocking and downright outlandish content for Jug to have that can easily fold into his existing book universe. So he decides hey there's stuff I didn't add, but no one knows it’s real so lets make it a comic book extra.

It turns into a comic series based on his novel, however the novel is limited in that it has an open yet happy ending, danger gone and two people waiting on the future with a little epilogue and all. But the comic is popular and he is pressured into more ( and under a contract) but leaving Riverdale helped make life much less dramatic and he was at a loss so when he was pressured to write more, he ended up just coming up with the craziest stuff he could and they ate it up before he could say just kidding.

Being involved with life in general and attempting to write another novel to get out of the universe he created ( spend bulk of life trying to get out of Riverdale....end up in several different versions of Riverdale) because of this ghost writers were brought in, or rather secondary writers to create and continue working on the comic universe. Jughead,adamant that he needed to fix the comic universe from the death spiral he put it in ( pretending to loose Betty and succumbing to his fathers failings was tough for him to parse out on paper) didn't want the help.

So they tell him....don’t you know how comics work? Think of your part as world one. We can keep cranking out some comics with these characters in different universes. Diversify the story, give some fantasy elements, shake things up by rearranging couples. Drop the readers into a new version of the world. Create something bigger than it started that can last for a long time in 5 different ways if we play it right. DC and Marvel do it all the time.

To a Jughead who is relatively young, having pressure put on him to produce and a life outside of his writing....financial security seemed worth loosening the reigns. It’s your property, it’s like they are playing with dolls, they can tell you the story and you can contribute.

He thinks the stories are insane and hates how shallow the characters seem out of their original story.He asks them to give the female lead a new look so she looks a little less like the person shes based on.

 In the end he contributes sarcasm and it’s taken seriously.

When asked how do we segue into a new universe while the old one is on pause he posits...Just blow it all up and then have the main character announce it, make it obvious its a new universe. Thus Narrator Jughead is born.

He writes the special anniversary issue himself and hopes he brought some levity to people waiting on the original story to continue.

But the new worlds multiply. There’s an straight cult AU, there's superheros, witches, all tenuously “connected” but also their own entities.

But he’s done, it needs to end. He got out of Riverdale once and needs to do it again so he begins finishing the original story, then he picks up and finishes the others for good measure. It’s imperfect, the new universes feel like incomplete puzzles and the usage of characters baffles him but saying anything about characterization that implies real life counterparts is a big no, though plenty have figured that the characters looks are inspired, enough changes were made that real life has not been dragged into this.

But its over the chapter can close Frankenstein's monster defeated and they can continue to live happily ever after.

As we close Jughead lets his harshest editor take a look.

Betty says time to finally create some original characters, I think we’re all tired of looking at ourselves.

....He never sells movie/tv rights.

Find the beginnings of a more detailed fic version of this here.