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fox-household · 7 years ago

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Act 4: Education and Moral Standards, Chapter 2

Alright, this one took even longer, I know there’s definitely a pattern here. But this sort of got delayed with personal issues, life stuff, school work and now the end of the school year is coming up, so yeah. While I’m not sure how the length of this chapter really compares to the others, but because of the fact that school is going to get harder soon and my feelings when it comes to progress, I’m going to start trying to post shorter chapters. One of the worst feelings I get is that since I haven’t posted anything for ages, I feel like I’ve made no progress at all, it really pains me sometimes and since I’ve been holding myself to some sort of standard of length, it feels daunting to write a new chapter even if the length probably isn’t as much as others do. Anyway content shouldn’t be lessened overall, just there will be a larger number of chapters. Thanks for being patient, hope it was at least 2% worth the wait if even that. FIRST, PREVIOUS, NEXT, INFO

Asgore The ten-minute drive was completely silent for the most part, all the goat child had to do was listen to the rumblings of the engine and Alphys make a few comments as she drove in her car, which the other two secretly found quite cramped compared to what they were used to. The light green Volkswagen had probably only been bought since the small stature of the owner was the only thing considered in the thought process of the buyer. Asgore continued watching all the familiar buildings go by, day after day he had seen them, yet despite this visual familiarity, he probably only knew about under half of them and what was inside. All these buildings had history, with people who ran it with their own fascinating stories to tell, tragic backstories to tales of luck and fortune, anything was possible within his ignorance and lack of knowledge, he much preferred it that way. The truth would only leave him one conclusion, no room for imagination, where was the fun in that? ‘’So Asgore, anything we should know about the school? Any warnings that we should be aware of?’’ The child turned his gaze from the window and looked to the skeleton in the front passenger seat, leaving a small moment of thought before answering, ‘’Not really, it’s pretty normal I guess. Got a pair of buildings to split the large amount of year levels, it goes P-12. So there might be a decent few people there… otherwise just talk to the people you need to talk to and get out.’’ Asgore’s words were slow and deliberate which appeared to amuse Sci slightly judging from the way he let out an amused huff, ‘’Fair enough. I’m sure it won’t be that bad buddy, everything’s going to be ok.’’ The backseat passenger didn’t appear too convinced, ‘’Well, we’ll see shall we?’’ The car took a sharp right turn and the three of them ended up leaning in the other direction before straightening up again. ‘’Alright, how about this, we go out and do something fun later tonight, something just a little different?’’ This seemed to intrigue both Alphys and Asgore, the goat tilted his head slightly and watched the skeleton while the driver gave a small glance, ‘’Th-that does s-sound nice, d-do you have something in m-mind?’’ ‘’Yeah, like maybe we could go out tonight and get some sweets? Brighten up the mood a little bit. Would something like that please everyone? I’ll even shout for us all.’’ The other two looked at him, both with a smile, Asgore found it was him that was going to speak for the both of them. ‘’Alright Sci, I’ll hold you to that, sounds like a plan. Better not forget buddy’’ He chuckled lightly, a happy smile appearing on his face, ‘’Guess I have something to look forward to now’’. The child’s gaze returned to the window, except this time it was in higher spirits, deciding to now focus on the potential positives of this experiences, whatever they maybe. Eventually the vehicle reached their destination, turning into a carpark outside a large brick building with multiple floors, windows and even a bit of a garden around the edges. Looking from the outside the place seemed a bit unremarkable as the building didn’t really have any decorations or any sort of grand design on it’s exterior and the yard around was just paths and grass for the most part, at least on the side they were on, if it wasn’t for the size of the place there might’ve been a slight question to how much money they actually had. The trio left the car and looked up at the closest building, the silence being broken by Sci, ‘’Uh Asgore, is this…. It?’’. The goat seemed the be in happier spirits now, some of his usual energy being rejuvenated, ‘’Yes of course it is, this is the high school building, you know, 7-12?’’ He crossed his arms and shook his head slowly, ‘’Although I assume you’re talking about the lack of uh… colour and variety? Well we personally think they decided that design doesn’t matter for high schoolers, like all people only care about the facilities, if you head over to the primary building, it looks quite colourful and child friendly.’’ Asgore shrugged and with putting his hands in his jumper pockets, he started to walk towards the front entrance to the school. The other two followed behind, letting him lead the way, ‘’I-it’s uh a l-little bigger th-than I th-thought it would be… do a lot of p-people come to this school?’’ ‘’It holds a good number, a thousand maybe? I’ve never really thought about it before, but there’s enough that I don’t really know everyone, probably don’t take my word for it at all’’. The entrance held a little above ground level, access being restricted by up by stone stairs or a ramp that came from the side, above the glass-wood doors was the name of the school in a bolded, fancy font that he hadn’t ever really cared to co ’McConville Academy’ They went to the front desk at first and signed in at a record book, being greeted by a middle-aged turtle monster who asked the adults a few questions about who they were, a suspicious tone pervasive throughout, they both deemed it was fair enough that they questioned two random people that just had wandered into the school. After a few minutes and one explanation from Asgore about why they were here, they were free to go on their way. Alphys looked at a crumpled piece of paper that she’d been gripping onto, ‘’S-so it s-says here th-that, um E-English is first i-in l-like fifteen m-minutes? You know wh-where to go?’’ Asgore nodded, ‘’Yep, second floor, room 14. Honestly not to bad for a second-floor room. The teacher I suppose isn’t to bad either.’’ ‘’You like English kid?’’ Sci’s question prompted a small shrug from the prince leading them, ‘’English is fine half the time, I think I do ok. Depends on what we’re doing I suppose.’’ Being led by Asgore, the group arrived at a classroom with seats outside it as an obvious station to wait. They sat down on the chairs that were closest to the door and remained silent, thinking to themselves. Asgore looked at the other two, Sci seemed as calm as ever but Alphys on the other hand seemed more nervous than usual, the way she had her hands together twitching and tapping made him worry a little, was she going to be alright, did she realise she didn’t have to do anything except listen? The seconds waiting there turned to minutes until finally a pair of adult monsters left the classroom and they heard a yell from inside for ‘’NEXT, COME IN!’’. They obliged and ended up finding what amounted to a mostly empty classroom, all the chairs that were normally there could be found stacked up at the side of the room, the tables were nowhere to be seen, the windows showed back out to the front of the school, the entrance they came in quite visible from their elevated position. The main attraction, made obvious by being the only thing of note, was the teacher’s desk with four chairs in the front of it, the desk itself was recently cleaned and had nothing except for a small stack of paper and a nameplate that matched the large name written on the blackboard on the wall behind the desk. ‘’Mr Breve’’ Although the blackboard included underneath it ‘Music and English Teacher’. The teacher himself was sitting behind the desk, a Shyren cladded in a white t-shirt, leaning backwards on his chair and humming a slow tune to himself. As the three of them took their seats, he decided to get the opening word in, his voice having some sort of song like rhythm to it. ‘’Something seems off here… one of you may be a skeleton yet, none of you are Doctor Gaster, you are the same Asgore right? Or has there been a mix up?’’ The Shyren’s tone didn’t portray any worry or annoyance as he moved forwards so his chair and himself were properly upright, looking between the visitors. ‘’O-oh uh, n-nice to meet y-you sir, we’re umm… stepping i-in for G-Gaster, he couldn’t make it sir.’’ A sympathetic smile came across the teacher’s face as he watched the female monster fumble her words, ‘’Well that’s a shame, but no worries, I’m just as happy to meet you two. Oh and please, don’t call me sir, just call me Breve’’. Now getting up from his chair to give a handshake, both taking the handshake one after the other. ‘’A-Alphys’’ ‘’Sci’’ ‘’Oh lovely, may I also implore your relationship with this fine young man here? Why you have taken him instead of the good Doctor?’’ Sci gave a shrug, deciding to take this question for the two of them, his smile being a calm one, yet his eyes seemed to be approaching half closed, as if he was just going to fall asleep in a few minutes. ‘’Yeah I guess we’re mostly just friends, at the moment acting guardians I suppose you could say, right?’’ Concerned looks were given towards Sci by the other two as he looked over, but nothing was said quite yet about his tired expression, ‘’Uh y-yeah, we’re his g-guardians.’’ The child spoke up now, his tone rushed as his desire to get things moving along, ‘’So shall we talk about how well I do in English, we’re in here for that reason after all.’’ Mr Breve gave a relaxed sigh and smiled, ‘’Guess you don’t want to be here long huh? Well let’s begin shall we?’’ He brought his hands together and stretched his fingers, making a cracking noise. Using the next few moments of silence to his advantage, he thought about what he was going to comment on first. ‘’Well I suppose to start with negatives… the kid’s not that great at analysing things, just seems to struggle with it… disagree?’’ Realising the question was pointed at him, the goat shrugged dismissively, ‘’Yeah, I mean I guess, don’t really get it honestly, really hate trying to figure out those persuasive articles.’’ Asgore started to smile slightly, his eyes bringing a slight spark of hope, ‘’But I am improving right Mr Breve? My marks are getting better I’m sure of it’’. A kind smile approached his lips, ‘’Yes you are, I think with a little effort you’ll get there… and let me tell you guys, he doesn’t slack on the effort that’s for sure. Real hard worker this one.’’ With that the goat seemed quite happy and prideful, looking to the other two now, Alphys appeared to be happy with that at least, while Sci seemed… almost asleep? ‘’Also Asgore here is quite skilled at writing his own stuff, like stories or even argumentative pieces sometimes. Also, surprisingly, this trooper here is quite the poet, he has a way with words that help portray emotions and sometimes even make you feel things, probably one of the only ones in my class that doesn’t mind when poetry comes up. Even with those argumentative pieces, while he maybe weaker when it comes to using logic, reason and some of the more nitty gritty stuff, he makes fine work when it comes to making you care, making you actually want to agree with him through feeling. All in all, for what he lacks in some areas, I believe he well makes up for in others… anything you would like to add Asgore or even anything you two would like to ask? Man, the compliment part is so much more fun the other stuff. ’’ Asgore beamed at his teacher, ‘’No sir, I’m good.’’ The lizard monster shook her head, giving a smile, ‘’N-no I th-think that’s g-good to h-hear. Thanks s-so much f-for seeing u-us’’. ‘’No thank you for coming in, always appreciated. Also here, catch, can’t leave without the complimentary treat.’’ Mr Breve pulled out two things out of his desk, one being a small chocolate in a blue and silver wrapper which he chucked to Asgore, another being a bouncy ball which he started to throw up in the air once he was leaning back in his chair. ‘’Oh, by the way, I don’t know if you guys knew but Asgore doesn’t actually have to be present for these interviews, you could’ve just left him home, you guys seem pretty chill, so I’ll let you onto a little secret. Bringing the student always makes things just a little more awkward, or at least to me it does.’’ Asgore and Alphys had already got out of their chairs by this point, both looking surprised, the prince a little more than the other. ‘’Wh-what? But I thought it was mandatory, isn’t that why I’ve always had to come?’’ The monster let out a chuckle, ‘’Nah my dude, it was Gaster who was making you come. A real scary time usually, like you guys are cool because you’re chill. But he’s always so serious and down to business, can tell he’s calculating every negative I feed him… the guy could just learn to calm down you know, or at least put on a smile? Maybe he needs a soothing song once in a while… but you didn’t hear this from me alright?’’ Asgore giggled and let out a very amused expression, ‘’Your secret is safe with me Mr Breve, trust me’’ ‘’Also uh, can you make sure you guys take your friend with you ok?’’ The two suddenly became aware of a snoring noise coming from the room and they both could only give puzzled and concerned looks towards their now fully asleep companion, his bones rattling slightly with each breath. ‘’Hey Sci, is something the matter?’’, Asgore closed the door behind him after letting another family into the classroom, now they stood in an empty school hallway. Sci mumbled something inaudible before speaking, he had the type of tone that someone would make when they were trying to brush off a situation, ‘’Yeah I’m fine sorry, j-just not feeling great, maybe I’m getting sick? Would you mind if you let me freshen up or something in the bathroom?’’ ‘’Y-you s-sure you’re going t-to be ok? Th-this doesn’t s-seem r-really n-normal… a-also do y-you need Asgore t-to show y-you where to go?’’ Alphys watched him, no one could tell what doom bringing possibilities she was going over in her head. ‘’Nah I’m fine, don’t worry, I um think we passed one on the way here?’’ The skeleton in a manner that made it seem like he was in a rush, started backing away from them. ‘’R-really… I g-guess I didn’t n-notice it, w-well you stay safe I suppose’’. ‘’Make sure to give us a call if you need anything alright, don’t want you to be our school’s first injury from falling asleep.’’ With a surprisingly hearty chuckle, Sci gave a thumbs up and walked out of view. The remaining two looked at each other. ‘’Hey uh Al, you think he’s actually alright?’’ Alphys stopped her a moment and thought for a second before answering, giving a faint smile and the goat a slight ruffle of his hair, ‘’I hope so, b-but wh-whatever happens, w-we’ll m-make sure to w-work it out.’’ She gave a small sigh and a bigger smile towards Asgore, ‘’Y-you can g-go you know? Do wh-whatever you w-want, wander a-around, I’ll t-take care of th-this ok?’’ The boy crossed his arms with a suspicious gaze, ‘’Are you sure? I mean you’re going to be all by yourself and you don’t know this school… sounds like you could use a guide’’. ‘’N-no, no, d-don’t you worry about m-me, I’ll uh f-figure it o-out, I-I j-just don’t want t-to drag you a-around. Plus i-if all y-your teachers are like h-him, than things sh-should be fine.’’ ‘’Well at least head to the front office and ask for a map, take a picture with your phone or something, that way you’ll know where to go…’’, Asgore grinned and grabbed Alphys in a hug, ‘’…thanks Al, you’re the best, you’ll go great… just uh watch out for the art teach alright? She’s a little full on.’’ The scientist was smiling just a moment ago, giving a tight squeeze, before worry went over her face. ‘’U-uh full on in umm wh-what way?’’ The response she got from that question wasn’t exactly what she was hoping for, a chuckle and an ominous ‘’Oh you’ll see.’’

#SCIENCE SANS #glitchtale alphys #quantumtale asgore #fox household #story #undertale #school life

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samanthasroberts · 7 years ago

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6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

You would think that every pop culture creation would come about one of two ways: as the result either of sudden inspiration from a creative genius, or of a laborious corporate process involving dozens of designs and focus groups. But in reality, famous creators have ideas the same way the rest of us do: via random thoughts, laziness, or last-minute desperation. For example …

#6. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes Was Created To Save Paint

Snake Eyes, the silent ninja commando from the G.I. Joe series, has been a fan favorite ever since his debut, because children love characters who wear cool helmets and never say anything. And hell, look at him!

Eat your parentless heart out, Batman.

But Snake Eyes’ popularity is made all the more remarkable by the fact he only exists because a toy company was too cheap and lazy to paint a damn action figure.

And somewhere, a young Quentin Tarantino gets the idea for The Gimp …

G.I. Joe started as a comic, but it wasn’t long before toy company Hasbro’s profit senses started tingling, and they began to belch out action figures in a stream of screaming plastic vomit. But soon, the toys would come first, then were inserted into the comic as characters — they were simply a bunch of generic soldier designs painted different colors and hastily given names and backstories, because children don’t give a shit.

The most impressive thing about Hasbro’s G.I. Joe line was their dedication to maximizing their profit margins, and nowhere is this more evident than the design for Snake Eyes. To save money, they didn’t even paint the toy. It was churned out entirely in the same shade of black as the plastic that came out of the vat. Their explanation? Oh, he’s a ninja or something.

Because all ninjas carry MAC-11s and wear mini-satchels.

Amazingly, in spite of the fact his creation took less effort and imagination than putting a cape on a potato, Snake Eyes went on to become one of the most beloved characters in the Joe franchise. “He’s so dark and mysterious!” Sure, kids. Oh, and look, here’s his “invisible motorcycle”! Vroom!

#5. Batman’s Harley Quinn Was Created For A Throwaway Joke That Was Never Used

Most fans know that Harley Quinn, one of the most popular characters in the Batman universe, did not originate in the comics. Her first appearance was in Batman: The Animated Series, in one of the rare examples of an adaptation that donates a character to the source material, sort of like how Norman Reedus was created for The Walking Dead TV show and gradually began to appear in other movies.

But in case you think that Harley Quinn was brought about by some stroke of creative genius, think again. Her creators never had anything significant in mind for her. She was made solely because the show’s writers needed the Joker to have a female henchman in order to make one gag in a single episode make sense. And then they didn’t even wind up using the joke.

Or her original design, thankfully.

Quinn’s first appearance in the series came in the 1992 episode “Joker’s Favor.” The idea was that the Joker would make an attempt on Commissioner Gordon’s life at his birthday party by having a girl with a gun jump out of a giant cake, effectively ruining the Commissioner’s big day. Harley Quinn was created to be the person in the cake. You may recognize this as the same role Erika Eleniak played in Under Siege.

’92 was a big year for faux-pastry eroticism.

But while the episode was already in production, the writers decided that it would be funnier to have the Joker himself pop out of the cake rather than some ditzy dame, so they changed the script to make that happen. Rather than go to the trouble of removing Harley Quinn completely, since they’d already written her into the script and everything, they diminished her role to that of a background member of Joker’s gang, fully intending to never use the character again.

To everyone’s surprise, viewers loved Harley Quinn, so the writers brought her back for future episodes, and her popularity grew to the point that DC comics made her part of the official Batman canon. Granted, the official Batman canon also includes Batman turning into a weretiger and the Joker becoming an Iranian diplomat, but still.

#4. Shredder From Ninja Turtles Was Inspired By A Cheese Grater

The Shredder, the eternal nemesis of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is a scowling Japanese man dressed in spiked metal armor like Road Warrior Hawk and/or Animal. As best we can tell, he never takes this armor off, even when he’s just hanging around the Technodrome in between battles. When you think about it, there’s nothing about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that doesn’t sound like it was inspired by a late night of pizza and beer. Every aspect of the original comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird can be boiled down to a conversation that begins with “Hey man, wouldn’t it be funny if …”

Lots of beer.

The Shredder is no exception. According to Eastman, the inspiration for the character came to him one night when he was washing the dishes. There’s no word on how astronomically high he probably was at the time, but while washing one of those flat cheese graters with a handle, he gripped it like a wrist guard and remarked to Laird about how cool it would be for a character to wear them as part of a costume.

Considering how much pizza cheese that suit could generate, it’s a better design for an ally of the turtles.

“We could call him the Grater,” Eastman suggested. Luckily, Laird was either less stoned or generally more level-headed, and came up with “the Shredder” instead, which sounds more like a villainous ninja and less like an irritating shift supervisor. The two then went ahead and wrote a villain into their comic who wore cheese graters all over his body, and a pop culture legend / impossible-to-find action figure was born.

#3. Pac Man’s Inspiration Came From A Pizza

Back when video games were first invented, brainstorming meetings resembled an insane game of Mescaline Libs — which is like Mad Libs, only played with 100 percent more mescaline. “A plumber who gains strength from mushrooms and dodges barrels thrown at him by a gorilla at a construction site? Sure, why not? Kids’ll buy any goddamn thing we tell them to.” Any random object that a programmer saw in their day-to-day life could become the central component of a video game pitch, and Pac Man started in that exact way.

Back in the ’80s, Namco employee Toru Iwatani sat down to eat a delicious pizza. Upon removing the first slice, Iwatani remarked on how much the rest of the pizza now looked like a face with an open mouth. Anyone else would brush off this casual thought with the realization that sometimes stuff kind of looks like other stuff, but Iwatani’s mind started racing about the potential for a video game in which a pizza runs around a maze eating dots (see “mescaline,” above).

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that all life’s problems can’t be solved with pizza.

Quickly, this spark of inspiration ran through the usual hamster wheel of increasing absurdity until it became the story of a sentient pizza man eating his way through a maze while being pursued by vengeful ghosts. Iwatani pitched the idea as “Pakkuman” — “Pakku” being the Japanese onomatopoeia sound for eating. When the game was brought to the west, it became “Puck Man” (because “Chomp Man” would’ve sounded ridiculous and we are a nation of sober adults) and eventually “Pac Man.” And so, one of the most iconic characters in video game history was born — insofar as Pac Man can be called a “character.”

#2. Teen Titans‘ Wonder Girl Came About Because The Writer Never Bothered To Read Wonder Woman

Back in the 1960s, DC writer Bob Haney noticed that basically every major superhero on the company’s roster had a teenage sidekick, and thought it would be interesting to have them all team up. The idea became Teen Titans, and it initially starred Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, who somehow had neither drowned nor been swallowed by a whale at this point. However, Haney eventually decided to rope in the rest of the Justice League’s abandoned plus-ones, including Wonder Woman’s lesser-known sidekick Wonder Girl.

It’s in Robin’s contract that he always gets to be the most scantily-dressed team member.

But Haney apparently didn’t actually read the comics that featured Wonder Girl. Otherwise, he would have realized that she wasn’t a sidekick at all. Wonder Girl was Wonder Woman back when she was a teenager. This would be like drafting a team of Back To The Future characters and treating old Marty and young Marty as two separate people. See, in the ’50s, DC put Wonder Woman in a bunch of bizarre paradoxical time-travel adventures in which she teamed up with two younger versions of herself (one as a teenager and one as a baby) and her mother, and they fought dragons and swordfish, because these are comic books and not gold-leafed tomes of literature.

Remember what we said about the early video game industry? Double that for Silver Age comics.

Haney evidently only glanced the covers of these issues, because he couldn’t be expected to read a comic about a bunch of women. Consequently, he wrote Wonder Girl into the Teen Titans as a completely separate character. Infant Wonder Woman (named Wonder Tot, because comic books excel at being comic books) missed out on a Teen Titans membership card for some reason.

Well, maybe if Wonder Tot had stuck the goddamn landing …

However, fans of Wonder Woman quickly pointed out this bizarre blunder, and DC was forced to hastily retcon Wonder Girl’s backstory. It turns out that this Wonder Girl is a different person after all — a girl named Donna Troy who developed Amazonian powers and decided to take on the mantle. Because in comics, there’s no corner out of which you cannot write yourself.

#1. Where The Wild Things Are Was Created Because The Author Had Trouble Drawing Horses

Ordinarily, if you pitch a children’s book about a little boy getting stranded on an island filled with gigantic, grotesque monsters, international law requires you to phone Roald Dahl and ask for his permission first. Also, your mind’s eye will probably conjure up an image that is more H.P. Lovecraft than Richard Scarry. Author Maurice Sendak turned this concept into the beloved children’s book Where The Wild Things Are — which, incidentally, is full of illustrations that look like H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Scarry got into a fierce doodling war on the same cocktail napkin.

Lovecraft won.

But in Sendak’s original vision for the book, the titular “wild things” weren’t monsters at all; they were horses. He originally pitched the idea to his editor as Where The Wild Horses Are, and was given the green light to write and illustrate it. Unfortunately, several months into the project, it became increasingly obvious that Sendak couldn’t draw a fucking horse if it were the ransom of the Universe.

Eventually, his editor stopped tearing her hair out and asked “Maurice, what can you draw?” The answer was, obviously, horrific inhuman monstrosities. They decided that was going to have to do, considering the amount of money they had already pumped into the project, and Sendak was given the go-ahead to draw whatever the hell popped into his mind, changing the title to Where The Wild Things Are, because “things” could be anything.

Including repressed family trauma.

The idea of trying to endear a platoon of nightmare creatures to children could have been a disaster, but it became one of the most enduring classics of children’s literature, and one of the most successful last-minute audibles in history.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/26/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/

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eddycurrents · 8 years ago

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For the week of 13 November 2017

Quick Bits:

Babyteeth #6 opens the floodgates of story after getting through the initial hurdle of getting Sadie and Clark out of imminent danger. Donny Cates gives us more depth as to what’s going on broader picture of the world and introduces us to the cult geared to protecting and raising Clark.

| Published by AfterShock

Black Science #33 has the shit hit the fan as the confrontation between Grant and Kadir reaches its peak and then reality breaks. The mix of mad science and philosophy from Rick Remender on display here is wonderful, seeing a representation of Platonic ideals mapped onto quantum realities in a kind of unfurling of Gnostic cosmology is impressive. So too is Matteo Scalera’s art. He and Moreno Diniso really get to cut loose this issue and it looks wonderful.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Bloodshot Salvation #3 gives a revelation to the “soon” timeline of what’s happened to Ray, while in the “now” we get a confrontation between Ray and Daddy, Colin King helping out Magic, and Project Omen causing complications. I probably sound like a broken record, but Jeff Lemire, Lewis LaRosa, and Mico Suayan are doing some great things with this series.

| Published by Valiant

Brilliant Trash #1 is an interesting take on superheroes. It’s a mix of government conspiracy and potentially mad science, told from the perspective of a journalist looking for a story in the appearance of a V-like figure, Lady Lastword’s, final speech and death. Tim Seely’s got something interesting here. Priscilla Petraites’ art is also quite nice, kind of a mix between Jamie McKelvie and Phil Hester.

| Published by AfterShock

Dark Fang #1 continues the trend of not naming the protagonist in the body of the first issue. The solicitation copy and end piece are what’s needed to piece together the full premise of the series and name of the protagonist. That said, Miles Gunter does have a decent story here. It’s environmentalism through the lens of a centenarian vampire, Valla, who was friends with a fish until modern industry destroyed her ecosystem. But first, earning money as a cam girl and getting caught up in society’s obsession with cell phones and the internet. The art from Kelsey Shannon is a definite plus.

| Published by Image

Deadpool vs. Old Man Logan #2 is every bit as fun, humorous, and action-packed as the first issue. Declan Shalvey has a great feel for both Wade and Logan and Mike Henderson’s art is truly wonderful. Only two issues in and this is just a fun, must-have wild ride.

| Published by Marvel

Evolution #1 is a very strong debut issue with multiple voices brought together by the singular visuals of Joe Infurnari. Infurnari has a style that is a bit Tom Mandrake and a bit Bill Sienkiewicz and it is absolutely perfect. If you like David Cronenberg’s early horror films, even just a little bit, you owe it to yourself to at least check this out.

| Published by Image / Skybound

The Family Trade #2 continues Jessa’s investigations into Berghardt and Mikkaelsen despite the protestation and outright prohibition by her Family. Her technique of getting close by blending in as a simple cleaning woman is a nice touch. The end, though, suffers a bit in who exactly Jessa is speaking to. I think it’s supposed to be her uncle, but I’m not sure.

| Published by Image

Fence #1 gives me the impression that everyone, even the protagonist, involved in competitive fencing is an asshole. That’s not necessarily a good impression of the sport, and gives a poor outlook on who to “cheer” for in the endeavour, but it may be an accurate depiction. Especially since many sports seem to be populated by jerks.

| Published by BOOM! Entertainment / Boom! Box

Generation Gone #5 is a suitably insane conclusion to the first arc of this series. It’s violent, angry, and explosive - kind of like how you’d expect kids to react when they find out that the world is designed to see them fail. André Lima Araújo’s art has just been fantastic on this series.

| Published by Image

Hawkeye #12 is a team-up issue between Kate and Laura (All-New Wolverine) with Gabby and Jonathan in tow as well, illustrated by guest artist Michael Walsh who is easily proving he’s a force to contend with. This issue looks great and is fun as hell.

| Published by Marvel

Jenny Finn #1 now in colour. If you haven’t read this masterpiece of Lovecraftian lit from Mike Mignola and Troy Nixey before, now’s a good time to do so. If you have, especially since this has been reprinted and repackaged a few times before, you’ll have to decide whether or not you want Dave Stewart’s colour. There was something to be said for the original black and white, although the colour version’s not bad.

| Published by Dark Horse

Kill the Minotaur #6 is both an expected and unexpected conclusion to the series. Ariadne and Theseus’ confrontation of the Minotaur is suitably epic. I can’t say much more than that because they’d be massive spoilers, so enjoy this amazing artwork from Lukas Ketner.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Killer Instinct #2 does what I was afraid the first issue was going to do and dumps a lot of characters with intricate backstories from the game on us in one go. Where the first issue mainly focused on one character to ease us into the world, this issue gives us more of the Coven, a bunch of characters fighting over the Killer Instinct Tournament, and Jago. While the Jago and Tsar bits are fairly well executed, the central bit over Ultratech is a bit of sludge. As I said in response to the first issue, I’ve never played the game and know little about the world, so this felt a bit like being dropped right in the deep end. The art from Cam Adams is still nice, though.

| Published by Dynamite

Maestros #2 quickly installs Will as the new Maestro and he begins making sweeping changes to the multiverse’s society, trying to bring concepts like equality and freedom to a world that only seems to know subjugation under magical will. It’s an interesting exploration of sociopolitical ideas from Steve Skroce and naturally it brings about severe pushback from those previously in charge. And betrayal.

| Published by Image

Mech Cadet Yu #4 features the cadets first full on confrontation with the Sharg and it’s about as exciting as you would expect. Takeshi Miyazawa’s art is just wonderful and it’s really nice to see Yu thinking on his feet during the battle to ensure the continued survival of the entire team.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Minky Woodcock: The Girl Who Handcuffed Houdini #1 is interesting. The relationship between Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has certainly been in the zeitgeist lately, this one doing something different and focusing on the end of Houdini’s career, long since the two had their falling out. Cynthia von Buhler sets up Minky looking into Houdini debunking spiritualists at the request of Doyle fairly well, but the main enticement is von Buhler’s art. She has a style that reminds me a bit of Melinda Gebbie and it works incredibly well for the smoky, pulpy atmosphere of the story.

| Published by Titan / Hard Case Crime

Misfit City #7 lines up the dominoes in this penultimate issue. Overall this has been a great series and I’m excited to see how it ends. That being said, I wish there were more. The world needs more girl adventurer books and this one has been excellent.

| Published by BOOM! Entertainment / Boom! Box

Ninja-K #1 is a damn fine new direction for Colin King, looking deep into the past of the Programme, dealing with the history of Ninjas A through L, and putting forth a mystery as to who killed Ninja-D and appears to be targeting the other remaining operatives. Christos Gage gives us a compelling mix of mystery and spy thriller that’s only topped by Tomás Giorello’s incredible artwork. Damn fine work.

| Published by Valiant

Rasputin: The Voice of the Dragon #1 begins another pre-Hellboy, pre-BPRD series tying numerous disparate threads together and giving more backstory on the world. This first issue focuses more on Trevor Bruttenholm tracking down a decrypted Nazi message, but it could be about a talking head describing how to prepare an avocado because Christopher Mitten makes everything look amazing. Thankfully, though, the story isn’t bad either.

| Published by Dark Horse

The Realm #3 reveals some chinks in the baddies’ armour as strong personalities clash. The artwork from Jeremy Haun is again one of the main drawing factors. This series just looks great.

| Published by Image

Retcon #3 finally gets around to the premise that Matt Nixon and Toby Cypress were on about in the interview in the first issue. I’m thinking maybe for a storytelling point, they should have led with this, but it does give the series a better cohesion and purpose. This was the make or break issue for me and Crowley ripped from time to tattoo a baby won me over.

| Published by Image

Star Wars: Darth Vader #8 continues Jocasta Nu’s infiltration of the Jedi Archive to retrieve an artifact from under the nose of the Grand Inquisitor. This issue gets a little...explosive.

| Published by Marvel

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #14 is Emilio Laiso’s debut on the comic and the artwork looks gorgeous. He did a great job on the Rogue One adaptation and it’s nice to see him back on a Star Wars title. Even if I’m going to miss the hell out of Kev Walker’s art.

| Published by Marvel

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #76 allows no rest for the turtles as they return home from Dimension X, also after the brief excursion with the Ghostbusters. Damian Courciero looks like he’s handling the art chores for this arc and it’s a welcome addition. He has a darker, somewhat more realistic style and it suits the chaos and destruction going on with the Earth Protection Force’s first contact with the Triceratons.

| Published by IDW

Unholy Grail #4 continues this dark and twisted retelling of the Arthurian legend. Part of what really works about this series, though, is that it really isn’t that far removed from the other stories of glorious knights and magic, just given a different context,

| Published by AfterShock

Other Highlights: Adrift, Alien Bounty Hunter #2, Amazing Spider-Man #791, Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #10, Bolivar, Champions #14, Curse Words #10, Defenders #7, Descender #26, Doctor Strange #381, Dreadful Beauty: The Art of Providence, East of West #33, Guardians of the Galaxy #147, Horizon #16, Incidentals #4, Incredible Hulk #710, James Bond: Kill Chain #5, Mage: The Hero Denied #4, Mighty Thor #701, Not Brand Echh #14, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #297, Postal #24, Punisher #218, Ringside #13, Secret Warriors #8, Sheena: Queen of the Jungle #3, TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #3, The Wicked & The Divine #33, X-Men Blue #15, Zojaqan #2

Recommended Collections: Ab Irato, Goldie Vance - Volume 3, James Bond - Volume 1: Vargr, Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Star Wars: Captain Phasma, Luke Cage - Volume 1: Sins of the Father, Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie, Regression - Volume 1: Way Down Deep, Rough Riders - Volume 2: Riders on the Storm, Star Wars: Poe Dameron - Volume 3: Legends Lost, World Reader - Volume 1

d. emerson eddy knows that evolution is a mystery, full of change that no one sees. He sees the line in the sand.

#This Week in Comics

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renaramblesaboutcomics · 8 years ago

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Wednesday Roundup 11.10.2017

It’s that time of a week again where I prove to be nothing if not a complete glutton for punishment, which apparently includes having way too many trades preordered on the same week by magical coincidence. It’s like the old saying, when it rain it pours. And sometimes it’s just ridiculous.

But we’re seeing the closing a few storylines, the beginning of a few, and just a general large array of comics at our disposal, including more of the Marvel Primers. So I say we just dig right into it.

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine, Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, DC’s Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, Marvel’s Captain America, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists, DC’s New Super-Man, Image’s Rat Queens, DC’s Red Hood and the Outlaws, Marvel’s Runaways, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine (2015-present) #25 Tom Taylor, Juann Cabal, Nolan Woodard

Will I ever run out of good things to say about All-New Wolverine? No? Good. I wouldn’t want to be dishonest and that would be the only way I’d have negative things to say about my love for this series.

Story: So believe it or not, the relationship between Daken and Laura is something I have desperately wanted to see more of. In the Daken/X-23 crossover they had a few years ago, I really felt like we got somewhere with their relationship, and the bits and pieces since then have really helped my attitude only grow stronger on the subject. So seeing Taylor hint at it growing more in the last arc, and knowing it would be delivered on in this arc has me SO excited about what is to come.

You know. When Daken is around for more than an awesome bar fight that... leads to his dismembered arm being hung from a bridge. THAT old plot device. I’m a little sad to see that Gabby is being left behind (especially since her outfits never cease being adorable and hilarious) but knowing that we’re dealing with Mutant Bigots this time around somewhat made me appreciate that decision. I worry way too much about Gabby to take that at face value.

And then that cliffhanger hits like a freight train and it’s like WHAAAAT. But no like what. Oh my god. Is this real? I know we have to wait a month but. uh. Kudos, Tom Taylor. I am not often surprised by characters seemingly returning from the dead anymore. To say this was not expected is VASTLY underplaying my shock.

Art: There have been a lot of great artists on this title and I don’t think Juann Cabal is an exception to that rule. He has solid character art, lots of good control of backgrounds and paneling, and got pretty inventive with combining flashbacks with Laura’s current travels and actions. And the bar scene with Daken was just fantastic all around like, a simple but highly effective action sequence and I’m really excited to see what action he’ll draw Laura herself in as we carry on.

Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows (2016-present) #12 Ryan Stegman, Brian Level, Jesus Aburtov

We wrap up another storyline of what has quickly become my favorite Spidey series of the ‘10s and it comes with highest of highs and lowest of lows. And lots and lots of adorable hugs.

Story: I was concerned that with the pacing we had had for this storyline up to this point that there would be a lot of things that would have to be knitted together a bit too tight or not at all, and that definitely seemed to be the case. We flew through this issue with revelations hitting in waves. Ms. January was the villain all along, Normie is suddenly a perfectly normal kid who was just misled, the symbiote is removed from MJ using sonic waves, Annie saves her parents, and just overall there was a lot that happened within this single comic. It all made emotional sense, and the hug between Annie and Normie at the end, bringing their family feud at last to an end, felt completely right.

I liked small callouts like having Liz be the parent Normie needed, the X-Men coming to help the Parker family, and the amazing banter between MJ and Peter, but I think because there was so much fit into this last issue there felt like a bit of continuity bending to make logical sense where the emotions didn’t quite carry us. Like Normie’s... complete change in character. And Ms. January’s apparent obsession/love of Harry and need to avenge him. These things make sense if they fed into each other -- Ms. January’s influence inspiring Normie to cut his mother out of his life even more than she had been already and then feeding him more and more hatred toward Spider-Man by saying that it was his fault. But that doesn’t make so much sense with what we read in the issues before, specifically the issue where Normie took up arms to protect his company and revealed his backstory through his own internal monologue and flashbacks.

So while this confrontation has been 12 issues in the build up, the resolution mostly came... only from this issue. Maybe the last two issues, too, if we’re being generous.

The epilogue confuses me. It feels like Renew Your Vows is trying to wrap itself up and yet I know from solicits that it’s not, but we are justifying a timeskip to eight years in the future so that artists have an excuse to draw a teenage girl in a tighter costume -- I MEAN BECAUSE THEY WANT TO TELL MORE TEEN ORIENTED STORIES OBVIOUSLY. But I worry that this change is going to make what has been a unique take on the Parker-Watson family and turn it into Sider-Girl Lite, which is unfair to everyone all around. Also were they... not operating for those eight years? Why is the new costume a big deal for her eighteenth birthday? How much sense would it make for them to just... suddenly find a way to stop Annie from going out as a superhero with them when the whole point of the past 12 issues is that they couldn’t.

What about Dr. Connors and his son? What about Annie’s additional precognitive powers? Did she end up going to the Xavier institute?

I feel like I was asked to bite off a bit too much in this issue, and as much as I enjoyed it and enjoyed this series, I feel this is a rare storyline where I actually would have preferred an extra issue to set all of this up.

Art: The art is beautiful. Soft and textured but also sweeping and animatic like you would want for any good Spidey story. And considering that there has been a fair rotation of art teams on this book since the first issue, I really appreciate how much they worked toward giving the book a consistent style of its own. It was neat and helped even artist style changes feel coherent still and I’m really interested to see if this dedication to that continues, especially since the epilogue appeared to have a different feel to it.

It’ll be interesting to see next month either way.

DC’s Batgirl and the Birds of Prey (2016-present) #15 Julie Benson, Shawna Benson, Roge Antonio, Marcelo Maiolo

Well, I’m sure for 99% of you this is an unexpected addition to the roster. For those unaware, I have put the first volume of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey on blast on my personal blog @renaroo for having some things I consider to be insufferable in regards to the handling of Barbara and specifically the consistent villainization of Oracle. Which you know, I’m about sick of.

So why am I picking up BoP now? Simple: Cass is going to start appearing regularly beginning with this particular storyline and I will support her here since for finances I’ve had to move ‘Tec to trade wait.

and oh boy. This is. Something.

Story: So there’s this old episode of the animated Justice League series where an Amazon OC standing in for Donna Troy unleashed a plague on Earth that only affected men and it was putting all men in comas and the such and it left the only two women of a seven-person Justice League because of course there were only two women to deal with it and save the world... well half of it. It was broad strokes of feminism as written by men which included Diana being the strawwoman feminist who couldn’t understand if losing men (including her friends???) would doom society and Hawkgirl being the relatable cool egalitarian alien bird woman to be all “guuurrrrrlllll you need to respect men more”. It’s like. The episode i remember the most from my childhood and I hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns.

Apparently I’m not the only one who remembers it however because that... that is the plot of this storyline. I don’t know why they couldn’t just bring back the ebola plague from Batman: Contagion which was a legitimately good storyline I like but we’re doing the... gender specific plague.

Are they going to address trans men and women? How is this disease preying specifically on men? Is it magical in origin and that why it follows no rules? Why is Lois here? Is Wonder Woman here just because of that Justice League episode?

I don’t know.

I appreciate that we didn’t waste a whole lot of time with Batwoman’s squad duking it out with Babsgirl’s squad over whether or not antiheroes who.... one of which she’s worked with before and... another of which she knows for a fact is... engaged to her cousin. But whatever. Also Steph in her post-Belfry uniform is... going along with this okay. I’m picking too much but there’s a lot of what in those four pages.

I do appreciate that the dialogue seemed to match everyone’s character very well, and Oliver and Dinah were hysterical and lovable together. .... But damn is it difficult to wrap my head around Babs’ character anymore. Like literally falling to her knees and tearing up begging Poison Ivy (who she was friends with in the previous BoP???? which is sitll canon bc they bring it up???) to help because “people she loves” are affected by the disease like. It’s the antithesis of the Babs I knew and was familiar with and admired in the day but. I guess that’s the Babs we have now. And I’m just... supposed to roll with it I guess.

Also enjoyed Helena being a teacher again, that was awesome. Even if her calling up Dick instead of Babs was... still difficult to process but whatever.

Art: It’s good! Really consistent, the lineart was sometimes a little softer than I prefer, but there were varied bodytypes and lots of good action sequences handled concisely enough that it didn’t feel like panel space was wasted. I really enjoyed it overall.

Marvel’s Captain America - Marvel Legacy Primer Page Robbie Thompson, Valerio Schiti

I have been pretty vocal in my disdain for how Marvel has handled Cap for the last two years and I join pretty much everyone in a chorus of “how can you misunderstand something so bad” but at the same time I’m... just tired. And it’s hard to even be excited at the fact that the reign of Spencer is over because it feels like the enjoyment and interest I’ve felt for Cap for all this time is simply used up. which is why a primer like this is really something that I needed. I needed to see a reminder that Cap punches Nazis and Hydra and Marvel -- or at least some people at Marvel remember that still. I don’t want that history gone, cosmic cubed or otherwise. And given Waid and Samnee’s interviews it seems they’re going to push for just that.

Here’s hoping they accomplish it because even these three pages of Cap acting like Cap again was enough to make me smile at least a little.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy - Marvel Legacy Primer Page Robbie Thompson, Marcus To

If I was going for snark and snark alone here I would begin and end this with “why is Scott Lang here” because no really why is Scott Lang with the Guardians of the Galaxy. And it’s something I shouldn’t be asking because I really have still -- even in liking the movies as much as I do -- not found myself any more persuaded to read into the space opera stuff over at Marvel. It’s just not something I want in my life right now.

Marcus To’s art is very nice, though, and usually worth it on its own. Even if I’m beginning to notice a touch of samefaceness in the art style At least it’s a very pretty face.

Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists (2017) #6 (of 6) Kaare Andrews, Afu Chan, Shelly Ghen

Immortal Iron Fists has come to an end and I’m both saddened and yet incredibly enthusiastic about how everything turned out!

Story: So I feel like it should not have taken the better part of 5 issues for me learn that Pei and her friends are sixteen and not... middle schoolers despite how they were drawn and how they acted as way way younger than that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that... it’s not that they’re drawn or written younger, it’s that it’s that unusual to find an American comic that actually shows teenagers appropriately and that helped me gain a whole new respect for a series that I was already very much enjoying.

Everyone coming together and remembering Pei for the impact we have seen her make in their lives, Pei fully realizing her power as Iron Fist, and the general fun of a huge climactic battle that was a three way fight between Pei, demons, and the Mother of All Dragons is probably one of the most bombastic that can be asked for. And I love that Brenda made a comeback after her truly terrible exit from the finale of Immortal Iron Fist under Andrews, but at the same time don’t... really care for how it wasn’t set until last issue.

All the positives of this story almost make me overlook the unnecessary, though appreciably subverted, kiss of life Pei gives her guy friend and I love that Danny, man serial dater that he is, is flumexed by this turn of events.

Everything is fun and delightful and I really really appreciate how dedicated this comic was from beginning to end to be Pei’s story and not letting that focus escape it the entirety of the six issues.

Also Brenda flying off on the Mother of All Dragons at the end and being like stfu Danny you ruined a good thing was hysterical and I loved it.

Art: There was definitely more production in this finale There seemed to be a lot more variation in coloring and textures, and even the characters seemed to keep almost perfectly on model the entire time. The one distraction of note, though, was that Pei... developed more into a traditional teenager look by the end... by which I mean.... boobs are now a thing and I’m not sure if it was just that she wore thicker clothes throughout the story or if it was because much like myself, the art team realized last issue for the first time that Pei was a sixteen year old and not... twelve. Anyway. It was a little distracting, but the increase in panel variation and high number of action sequences definitely made the story far more fulfilling in my view.

DC’s New Super-Man (2016-present) Vol. 2: Coming to America Gene Luen Yang, Billy Tan, Viktor Bogdanovic

After what felt like a long wait, we join Kenan and the rest of the Justice League of China once more on a bombastic quest as written by Gene Luen Yang. And much like last time, the results are rather unexpected and honestly kind of remarkable.

Story: Going off of my experiences with Yang’s work, I really feel like his passion in storytelling lies in finding the balance between the question of identity and how identity is formed by the cultures that nurtured us and how it is formed by the influences of the cultures around us. I think that was the main focus of American Born Chinese but it really is beginning to shine through Kenan’s adventures here as the New Super-Man and how much of the titular’s character is being drawn from the two huge influences he is feeling -- the pressures and dangers of the Chinese government and culture, and the admiration and sometimes oppressive shadows of the American culture that he is both attempting to copy as Super-Man and attempting to circumvent by finding the focus of his powers in Chinese philosophies and values.

And I think that’s where his supporting cast -- Wonder-Woman and Bat-Man and now also Avery Ho’s take on the Flash -- are really coming into play. While Kenan is being torn back and forth by his responsibilities and his bombastic self-absorption both in his internal conflict and his external conflict of learning the truth of his parents, we are getting a broader exposure to what being a superhero in China means as opposed to the normalcy we’ve come to expect from Western comics.

Bat-Man is just as influenced by his family as Batman, but the pressures are more in the focus on building his exceptionalism and in differing from his sister on whether to stay within a system that robs children of their childhoods and individuals of their sense of self, or to find purpose within that system and excel based upon the traits which only he can bring.

Wonder-Woman, like Wonder Woman, is derived from myth and legend but instead of a Western legacy, it is purely Chinese and her alienation and stand offish nature initially toward the rest of her team only makes that much more sense given what has brought her to her current state. She is a myth, a legend herself, but she is nearly forgotten by the current times -- Kenan even has to be told the story of her origins by Bat-Man -- and her finding the will to fit into a China that is so influenced by external cultures and influences are a struggle we’re only now beginning to appreciate.

And finally, with Flash, a Chinese-American, we’re going to receive yet another wild perspective, and considering Kenan’s already developing friendship with Avery I imagine that this is a perspective that will only receive more focus in stories to come. And I perceive that Yang’s inclinations to reference the struggles of culture and self-identity are going to be explored further here.

All around i greatly enjoyed this volume and am looking forward to the continuation now that Kenan has finally learned the truth about his family. There are a lot of interesting new angles to explore and I hope we do just that.

Art: The art is really reminiscent of Greg Capullo’s run on Batman, but has a whole lot more color and variety breathed into it which I personally really appreciate. The colors do a good job of presenting the differences in everyone’s base personalities and also makes the action sequences easier to follow even as the action itself becomes increasingly complex. The page layouts were fairly reserved considering the DC standard lately, but I personally appreciated it because it kept the focus on the storytelling and in doing so enhanced the nuances therein.

Great work all around, and yet another enjoyable volume.

Image’s Rat Queens (2013-present) Vol. 4: High Fantasies Kurtis J. Wiebe, Owen Gieni, Ryan Ferrier

I only recently jumped on the barge for Rat Queens and I’ve been more than happy with the results of caving to the advice of many friends. Because what is better than female-full cast of hilarious and dramatic DnD like adventures with more swearing than a naval ship? I gotta say, not much!

Story: So compared to the previous volumes, I actually found High Fantasies to feel like it had a lot less at stake. Although part of that may just be that I was somewhat anticipating a Betty-centric volume finally to elevate her out of being the shroom eating comic relief and bring more of the assassination attempts and her outlaw past into the forefront. And that’s clearly a problem of my own expectations and not necessarily the story’s fault itself. That said, the focus on Vol. 4 being on a gender bent loser version of the Rat Queens was pretty funny but also not something I would have thought carried enough weight to pivot as the main plot, but that would be just me.

I do appreciate Braga being in a larger role this time around, and really I wish we could see more less human creatures on the roster in general. It was also a huge heartwarming feeling to have Hannah more comfortable around her Queens and even showing some horns now and then in public. It feels like a huge progression of her character, even as she spends a fair amount of time earning the girls’ ire and.... walking in on naked mayors. As you do.

Basically Vol. 4 isn’t as character centric as the previous volumes have been, but it is a great adventure that feels like a good ol’ fashion DnD campaign with the friends you love at the helm and for fantasy nerds like me that’s more than enough to bring me back into the story.

Art: The art is always spectacular with Rat Queens, but I did find that this volume -- mostly as a result of not going to as many unestablished and important/original locations, did have a significant lack f inventive background use. That’s not always a slam on art, really the art was very good, and I actually am just... happy to not have Upchurch as the artist, honestly. That alone is worth three and a half gold stars. Though the whole controversy there is still my largest apprehension with the series at this point.

DC’s Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016-present) Vol. 2: Who is Artemis? Scott Lobdell, Dexter Soy, Kenneth Rocafort

Okay who authorized this? Who made this comic exist and who made it be actually good?? Because I didn’t and I feel offended at the amount of emotions that were forced upon me in this single volume of a comic written by Scott friggin’ Lobdell of all people. You couldn’t have told me a month ago that I would be enjoying anything that was remotely connected to Scott Lobdell and expect me not to laugh hard enough I’d bring myself to tears.

And yet here we are.

Story: Having learned a bit from how lackluster the attempts of balancing the concentration of the narrative was for his previous incarnations of the Outlaws, Lobdell somehow learned how to, y’know, write an ensemble narrative that is still heavily Jason Todd’s perspective, but does not lose any opportunities to expand on or even concentrate on the stories and character development of Bizarro and Artemis. oth of which are shockingly well handled and shockingly controlled, well paced, and interwoven into each other’s stories.

Like legitimately, did someone nab the Lobdell who wrote decent 90s Marvel comics and put him on this project? Because that feels like the kind of bizarre logic that would seem acceptable at this point.

Now, of course, it’s not perfect. Far from it. But at the end of the day we got an intriguing ongoing story, a team building exercise, Jason’s internal struggle personified both through his inner monologue and flashbacks, but also moments like his sparing of Bizarro whic not only didn’t have overly wordy exposition bringing attention to it, but was strong enough and meaningfully enough that from it alone we could see what Jason couldn’t: he is not as lost, he is not as amoral, and he’s not as cold as he has tried desperately to prove himself to be.

I actually found the take on Artemis and the Bana Mighdall pretty interesting in this retelling, and I like that we have a rogue Amazon as a new enemy for the team.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m super excited to see what will come after this.

Art: There was a range of artists, which is fine, the industry standard of pushing out these comics with the turnaround that they do does cause some disconnect, but for the most part an artist stayed for at least the completionof their storyline and then she was. And overall the trade still fel tconsistent, with some artists just standing out more than other.

Marvel’s Runaways (2017-present) #2 Rainbow Rowell, Kris Anka, Matthew Wilson

The new run of Runaways absolutely blew me away last month by shooting any and all expectations I had right through the skylight and beyond, so a good premise with beloved characters and a set in conflict really leads to a question of how do the pieces fall in order?

Story: I absolutely adore how Gert being the heart and glue of the family is being so blatantly emphasized throughout this (and that Old Lace is back). I also love that... honestly the trauma and lingering horrors Chase and Nico have survived in particular are being treated as real and damning in the eyes of someone who knew them only two years ago already. But most of all I love the emotional balance. Gert’s anger and disappointment are justified, but her crudeness and accusatory nature are also clearly shown as being wrong and too subjective. The important thing to her, and thus to the group, is to come together again. And I love that it is her prime motivation through and through.

That all being said, after such a bombastic first issue, it was a little difficult to have the momentum come to a halt so quickly. I don’t want to be taken wrong, I love issues where comics take their time and really meditate on the characters, their reactions to evens former and to come, and really develop relationships and the such. But it does feel a little unnatural to have that only two issues in when the previous issue was SO incredibly packed.

I’m still fascinated with where we can go from here and very excited to see that Victor, Xavin, and Klara might not be destined to eternal obsecurity like I assumed when the book was first announced.

Art: Honestly I’m still amazed at just how fantastic the art really is in this comci. .It’s SO good and the designs for all the characters are simply gorgeous. Though probably the best thing about all of it is the great coloring we see done here. Top notch.

Marvel’s Spider-Man - Marvel Legacy Primer Page Robbie Thompson, Valerio Schiti

I think I know less about what Marvel plans to do with Miles these days than Marvel knows what to do with Miles, which is horrifying because I just set that bar about as low as it could possibly have gone. But we.... have Rio Morales back which is the big reason I stopped keeping up with Miles to begin with so yay? I don’t know.

I feel like this primer is actually aimed at fans like me who got off the wagon back when the Ultimate title lost most of its steam both from killing off too many of Miles’ personal supporting cast and becoming too much about tertiary cast’s origins and then Peter Parker returning to life and stuff’s weird. This feels like a big neon sign that says “Things are back! The origin’s the same! Do not look behind the curtain!” It makes me curious but also apprehensive at the same time.

also can we get robbie thompson to write miles’ book and bendis let someone else write some books already jfc this was such a relief.

IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe (2016-present) Vol. 2 Nick Pitarra, John Lees, Brahm Revel, Ryan Ferrier, Adam Gorham, Sophie Campbell, Bobby Curnow, Pablo Tunica

So unlike the rest of the reviews, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe doesn’t really fit my review format since it’s more like a collection of vignettes across the TMNT universe that feed into the main book and each story is written and drawn by a different team, so it wouldn’t have that same cohesion.

As the giant Ninja Turtle fan that I am and probably always will be, I can’t get enough of the mythos and the characters in TMNT, so having a book that has a solid, even meditative point of just exploring smaller stories and little character developments that wouldn’t fit in the very tight and controlled narrative of the main title is something of a perfect godsend to me. I love it in concept and in execution.

One thing I worry about, however, is that there definitely seems to be a lot of stories here that feel necessary to keeping up with the main series. Such as the story of how Alopex and Angel ran into the Toad Baron and escaped -- that was a pretty crucial piece of information for the Eternals storyline a few issues back in the main book. So it feels like more and more, because of how tight and concentrated the main book is, they’re using books like Universe to fill in everything else, including buildup to larger more important narratives. And while that’s fine and even something I enjoy, it’s a move that will really push people to start being more choosy with their books. It’s much like keeping up with Transformers right now, and that tends to lead to some mixed bags. But I suppose we’ll trust and see.

At the end of the day, I have to pick the comics that really stuck with me the most. And while I was a little disappointed by a few titles this week, there was a pretty intense competition between the ones that genuinely caught me and made me really feel while reading them. And I think by that measurement I have to give the Pick of the Week this time around to the conclusion of Immortal Iron Fists. I was so worried about how this story could wrap everything up and it’s with mother flipping dragons that’s how. I love it. I love Pei and I love her being officially adopted by Danny who is TOTAL ridiculous dad now. This is the kind of Immortal Iron Fist I am happy to support.

As far as trades go... wow I for some reason was not anticipating getting slammed as much as I did, but I really didn’t feel like any of the books let me down. They were all pretty amazing and I felt like I also managed to incidentally cover the entire span of comic book genres and types in a matter of two days, which let’s admit it, pretty impressive. I feel like the new releases this week are honestly a harder competition than the single issues but twist my arm, surprising no one nearly as much as I’m surprising myself here, I have to pick Red Hood and the Outlaws for managing to be a comic that... is unexpectedly good and unexpectedly sincere and unexpectedly emotionally motivating in ways that I wish... more comics... were? I just. have a real hard time complimenting Lobdell after tearing his books a new one for..... six years straight now. But... thank you? for writing well? And making me feel things? For Jason Todd, Bizarro, and Artemis? Am I doing this right?

And those are the comics for this week! Did you happen to agree with me? Disagree? Think I missed out on picking up a comic that was good? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

But before I let you go, I have to (yes have to) plug once more:

I have exactly a month to pack up everything I own and move halfway across the country again which is not helping those financial crunches I mentioned before either.

As such, I really would appreciate if you enjoy my content or are interested in helping me out, please check out either my Patreon or PayPal. Every bit helps and I couldn’t thank you enough for enjoying and supporting my content.

You could also support me by going to my main blog, @renaroo, where I’ll soon be listing prices and more for art and writing commissions.

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#Rena Roundups #Wednesday Spoilers #SPOILERS #New Superman (2016 )#Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016 )#All New Guardians of the Galaxy (2017 )#Captain America (2017 )#Spiderman (2016 )#Immortal Iron Fists (2017)#Amazing Spiderman: Renew Your Vows (2016 )#All New Wolverine (2015 )#Runaways (2017 )#Batgirl and the Birds of Prey (2016 )#Rat Queens (2013 )

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bipilots · 8 years ago

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sooo i got these very cool questions on anon but im replying on here to make it look neater and to separate them properly, also because they’re gonna get long,,

What's your favorite scene from Voltron? there are a lot of super cute and aesthetically pleasing shots, but im horrible at remembering specific scenes and the first thing that comes to mind right now is the one where lance is about to be shot into space because the Caste is “haunted” and keith saves him riiiight in time. It was thrilling and i screamed a little, i think. Oh, and i like the one where Lance is literally knocked out cold and wakes up for the two seconds needed to shoot the bad guy because big mood and i love him?? I also really like every scene of them training because i dream about having a wing of my house dedicated to fighting with cool murderous robots too. let me dream. In general, the Castle is my fave setting for anything.

Why did you start watching it? my tumblr dash started screaming about it approximately two days after the first season came out and i got curious about the mecha setting ((after evangelion if a thing has really big robots im automatically sold)). i made a quick google search and binge watched it all in a night and long story short now i’m here, ta da! i stayed for the giant cats tbh (and because it’s light hearted fun and i like space)

about the ships: i realized that i’m actually pretty simple minded about it, and that the only one i really care about is lance and happiness. sooo,, there’s that. i rest my case. but klance is the love of my life and hance is cute and keith and mothman are a match made in heaven

Favorite character? AHHH well i guess it’s no secret that my absolute favorite is lance. I just find him really interesting, both because of his flaws and the glimpses of his deepest feelings we’ve seen; he has a really outlandish/goofy sense of humor, which appeals to me greatly, and he’s stubborn and outgoing but in a kind of “fake it till you make it” way and that’s exactly what i need in my life. also, because liking the “i joke about things to feel better about shit and i’m really sarcastic and brash but have an actual crisis going on 24/7” character has kinda been my thing since forever. I’m really excited about seeing how he’s gonna grow up and evolve during the series, i think he has a lot of potential. the same can be said about every other character too, honestly. I guess my favorite part about anything is seeing the character development unfold, and this goes for other shows and fics and books as well. I have the annoying habit of taking characters and wanting to dissect them (figuratively, cough) to see what makes them tick, overthinking way too much about little things and quirks they might have. A well thought out plot isn’t enough to engage me if there aren’t complex characters to sustain it, i’m picky.

Galra Keith or Altean Lance? why must you hurt me so?? i don’t think there’s a real reply to this. well, i mean, galra keith is a little bit canon, but i would be lying if i said that him in purple and with giant fluffy ears wouldn’t appeal to me, for aesthetical reasons,, i guess I’m gonna have to go with altean!Lance? because in that particular au he’s royalty, which suits him (im not smitten, what are you saying) and... no, that’s totally just because i’m smitten. My son looks so good in the altean garments, what can I do. It’s also a very cool take on the whole “everyone is an alien someway but they still meet each other and form a great team because of destiny” thing

Who do you think would take the first step in Keith and Lance's romantic relationship? I would love to think about their romance as them taking small steps towards each other equally to meet in the middle? In a very slow burn way, classic “enemies (in lance’s head) to friends to lovers” trope that you can pry from my cold dead hands. I think they’re both very cautious when it comes to love, for different reasons. Keith is closed off, a little wary about human contact, even if we see him gradually warming up to the team, but he’s also a driven character and seems to me his focus right now is on saving the universe. Which is good, but it’s already a lot on his plate, without adding the whole “half galra” thing which further complicates the situation. Lance is exactly the opposite, he barrels on through human (and alien) interactions and flirts shamelessly, but I think that’s more of an ingrained reflex than real pursuit of a romantic relationship? From little clues, we can guess that he knows his flirting is almost never taken seriously (and just how sad is that wtf lance, baby) and that’s why he does it, because he knows nothing is really going to come from it. The only way I see them going is at a relaxed, almost frustrating pace in which they discover themselves first and then each other, as teammates, then friends and finally lovers.

In the more immediate sense of the reply I think you were asking, it could go both way: once they’ve done their share of self-discovery, Lance may accidentally blurt out something about how he thinks Keith is good at something (his compliments are not often based on physical appearance as much as they are on practical things/personality traits which is very sweet and awesome) and then his babbling escalates in way over the top justifications until he actually confesses the deepest, fluttery feelings he’s hiding in his chest; or maybe it’s Keith to take the first leap of faith, kissing Lance square on the mouth (maybe after a particularly taxing mission where Lance does a stupid heroic thing like trying to sacrifice himself // I’m a fan of clichés and that’s romantic af besides being something that Lance would totally do) because he’s not much of a talker and he’s tired about circling around it. Mark down my words, there’s lots of super cheesy ways it could be done, and I love them all. These two are just the first that came to mind.

Favorite lion (overall shape+colour)? My favorite color is red and I like the smaller lions merely because of practical/aesthetic reasons; besides, the way Red leaps right into action to protect her baby (Keith) is adorable and,,,, my fav is still Blue. I don’t know what to say, it doesn’t make sense, it’s what my heart is telling me. But Red is a close second, let’s call it a tie so i feel less bad about it.

Favourite Coran life stage? teenage emo/you don’t get my feelings you don’t know my life and everything I’ve been through!Coran is my entire life

Favourite planet they've been so far? the Balmera, that’s a really wholesome sentient planet, if i do say so myself. I love it.

Favourite episode out of all seasons? again, i’m calling a tie between the “bonding moment” one for obvious, lame reasons and the space mall because Lance is a dolphin and they literally found a cow and fueled a lot of my headcanons where they can totally buy weird things needed for shameless fanfiction-y purposes

Haggar or Zarkon? Zarkon is a grimy, wrinkly turtle and I really want to get his backstory but Haggar is a pot of unraveled mysteries and she’s way cooler in my opinion

Is Shiro a dad or a big brother? Shiro tries so hard to be a big brother (even if he likes making dad jokes) but he’s just mostly done with everything and overall bad at adulting,, just give him a piña colada, a raunchy romantic novel, put him on a beach lounger with sunglasses and let him rest

Princess Allura or Paladin Allura? both are good. She’s a fundamental asset to the team either way, by backing them up during the battles, piloting the Castle and being their support system (helped by Coran) with stuff they don’t understand - which is a lot because they’re basically going blind into the whole thing. Paladin Allura is something that I love, and she will absolutely kick ass, but I reserve my judgement for when I see what the team is gonna make of it. It surely is gonna change the dynamic a lot and depending on what role she assumes it could be good or absolutely amazing. I’m just really curious about how they’re gonna go about it. But yeah, both are cool. I’ll get you back on what is my fave once I've seen both the options in action.

ooook,, whew, im done. AHH this surely was something. Thank you for asking??? They were super interesting questions, sorry it took me a little while but I tried to reply to the best of my possibilities and hope that you got the answers you were looking for. ♥

#bibabbles #replies #anonymous #i totally didn't quote victuuri in the romantic part of the questions i swear #except i did #as i said this got really long and im sorry #but it was still fun #have a nice day!!!!!!!!!!!#thank you really #im lame

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believe-that-you-can-my-friend · 8 years ago

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Hey I just remembered when Jughead was at the sheriffs station and they already ha his records from him 'trying to burn the school down' but could you write a different version where he was trying to do something nice for betty like maybe everyone forgot it was her birthday except jughead so he got birthday candles for her or something like that where it ends up with him almost burning down the elementary? Thanks!!

Arsonist’s Lullabye

(Alright, another prompt is here! I loved writing this one because it gave such a nice backstory to Jughead’s juvenile detention center incident and Bughead as kids are just adorable! Plus, I snuck in there a lot of FP and Gladys (and some Alice mentions I’m sorry I can’t help it) because I really love writing about their family dynamic; I have a lot of headcanons about them in my mind. So thanks anon for sending me this amazing idea! I hope you enjoy it!! ❤️

P.S. I know all of you see Neve Campbell as Jughead’s mom but Cole ruined me after mentioning Eva Green for the role so yeah, that’s who I was picturing in my mind while writing and I have FEELS!)

Bright, cold and impersonal.

He had guessed two out ofthree right.

What he never would haveguessed was that he of all people would be sitting with the head hung low inthis cold and impersonal room; the police interrogation room.

For somebody that was repulsedby the garbage that was labeled entertainment on the idiot box, Jughead had asoft spot for anything detective. Except for the classic film noirs and mysterycentered period films, he enjoyed immensely any program that dealt with crimeinvestigation, with true crime documentaries being his favorite. The fact thatsuch shows gave him the opportunity to follow each step of the policeinvestigation, feel the thrill with each new clue that was being found like hewas a part of the detective team too, listen to witnesses, experience theimmediacy of the situation by hearing the story directly by the people thatlived it, were what had him at the edge of his seat and with eyes round andglued to the screen, unable to press the turn off button even at the wee hoursof the morning. The thought of being on the other side, not watching butactually being one of the people on the screen, never crossed him mind.

The small, sterile lookingroom was surprisingly bright, showered in the hard fluorescent light of anothertypical Riverdale gloomy autumn morning. Such rooms in the shows he watchedwere always pitch-dark and claustrophobic, with only a threatening yellow lampacross the suspects face for torture, not filled with crystal clear morningglow. Maybe that was worst, he thought. He felt like a higher power was judginghim along with the glassy eyes of the sheriff across him, and, even thoughJughead never really believed in God or fate or karma or whatever other abstractionpeople thought was mapping the course of their life, he could still feel astronger tug of guilt in his already heavy chest. If the room was dark, itwould suit the darkness of his soul. Now that it was bright, he reminded him ofall the things he was going to lose.

Things were bad. He wasn’taccused of a wrongly parked vehicle or a mindless trespassing; he was beingcharged with homicide. He couldn’t even fathom it, he couldn’t even form theword in his mind. Him, Jughead Jones, a killer. The boy that was misunderstood.The boy that was expected to end up like his father. The boy that wasconsidered a scapegoat. The boy that right now, with watery eyes and panic inhis voice, pleaded not to be misunderstood.

Sheriff Keller’s voice brokethrough the castle walls of his nightmarish thoughts.

“But what did surprise me wasthis.” The older version of Kevin presented him with his file, turning itaround for the teenage boy to take a peak. Jughead knew where this was goingand it was bad, worse than before.With a small glimpse downwards to the official documents, he averted his eyesto the side, chewing on his lower lip in anxiety and despair. “Your prints wereon file, from an incident that happened six years ago, where you spent sometime with the Riverdale Juvenile Delinquent Center for “Attempting to burn downRiverdale Elementary School”.” He frowned, waiting for an answer, theexperienced officer assuming that there was indeed something off with theteenager at the other end of the steal table.

Jughead shot back the firstthing that came to his mind. “I was playing with matches” he retorted beforecontinuing in a snarky, smart-ass tone “and that’s a pretty tenuous connectionfor a sheriff.” He knew that he should have minded his tongue and lowered thelevel of his usual sarcasm but that was him, he couldn’t help it, sardonichumor was his way of reacting to the world. It got worse when he was beingcornered or becoming frustrated and right now he felt trapped in thedarkest corner and fuming, internally screaming for somebody to help him.

His knee started to bounce,his nails dug painfully on the hard denim of his jacket against his sides ashis arms tightened around his chest, hugging his torso in a desperate need toseal himself, to prevent his body and soul from scattering in a million piecesunder the scrutinizing gaze of the sheriff and the weight of the situation hewas in. He could feel his head starting to buzz, his palms getting sweaty andthe rising and falling of his chest altering, stopping being subconsciousanymore but turning difficult and calculated, like the orchestrated ticksbefore the explosion of a very destructive bomb. Jughead tried to calm himself.Maybe his dad was out there, negotiating with a deputy and offering apersuasive alibi. Maybe Fred Andrews was with him backing his story as Archie stoodby his dad’s side offering his help by praising his best friend’s honorableschool performance and recent involvement with extracurricular. And maybe, justmaybe, she was there waiting for himtoo, ready to offer her supporting words and one or two of her soothingcaresses, telling him that everything was going to be okay and she of allpeople believed him unboundedly. The tedious silence at the other side of thedoor however was crashing his hopes one by one.

Jughead’s eyes darted aroundthe table in panic before they stopped at the picture of him at the bottom leftcorner of his police file, a younger version of him, a somehow happier one inall its childish naivety, sending him a toothy smile full of glee, despite theabiding clouds that always fogged his turbulent family life. He studied theface of his ten year old self; he neither looked like a delinquent nor anarsonist. Then again, he neither looked like a criminal nor a murderer now. Hisboyish, mild-mannered looks didn’t seem to matter though in their smallcommunity that only cared to point fingers and pigeonhole people based onsocial status and family reputation. If only that ten year old boy knew that bythe end of that year he was going to be whisked off his crying mother and heldin a place that felt more like a chill-raising orphanage than an efficient rehabilitationcenter. Maybe he wouldn’t be smiling that big in the picture. And maybe hewould be more prepared now to lose his innocence once and for all.

He remembered that dayclearly; the day he had got accused of a status offence, the day he had sat infront of retiring Sheriff Conelly for questioning, just like he did now sittingacross the old man’s heir on the job. The feeling was the same. That tugging in his chest that the world was falling down around him and suffocating him, thefeeling of drowning and his lungs betraying him, his plead of help never makingit to the surface. He closed his eyes and took a deep, cooing a breath to easesome of his nerves, scatter away the awful feeling of hopelessness and thehurtful memories but failed miserably as the events of that sunny day invadedhis mind, as a distraction and a reminder that happiness was never going to bewithin his reach and that it was his destiny to lose everything the moment hewould start to believe that life was giving him a chance after all.

Jughead became tens year oldagain, on March 15th, the day of Betty Cooper’s birthday…

With a clumsy hop, a pair ofNinja Turtles sneakers landed on the asphalt, the green lights on the whitetrack sole starting flicking but only on the right shoe, two years of everydayuse being a little too long for them to be in perfect condition. Little JugheadJones didn’t care. He loved those shoes, he used to greet them good morning andgoodnight every single day for a whole year as he would pass them by on his wayto school, knowing all too well that they were out of the family’s budget,especially now that his baby sister had come to the world. So when two yearsago Christmas morning came and he saw the cartoon decorated box under theirsmall and unattractive Christmas tree – his mom having saved up some money tofinally grant him his wish – he had vowed with round alit eyes upontaking the precious shoes in his hands that he would never abandon them, evenif now, not only their light-up effect was on its final stages, but they alsoseemed to suffocate his fast growing feet.

The raven haired boy pushedclosed the car door behind him and staggered to the other side of the old andused Suzuki, his bony limps tripping lightly over his undone shoelaces, his appearancedisheveled as usual. His trademark grey beanie was securing his mop of untameddark hair, a little too big for his head and always sliding low on his eyes,making him fidget with it and the rebellious waves against his forehead constantly,and a burgundy zip-up hoodie was misplaced over some dark blue varsity t-shirt,its right hem getting squeezed and wrinkled under the black strap of his heavyneon green backpack. Finally rounding the car, he opened the back door andstarted unbuckling his sister from her carseat – formerly his – immediatelytrying to help, as always.

Gladys Jones emerged from thedriver’s seat sparing her boy a tiny smile in a hurry, before ushering the babyout of the car, three and a half years old Jellybean instantly starting to wailbecause of the rude interruption of her slumber. The mother desperately triedto shush her while picking up her baby things and hoisting a diaper bag thathad seen better days over her shoulder, salty tears and baby drool drenchingthe front of her bright yellow Pop’s uniform and matching the stain of bananaand biscuit puree, Jellybean’s unfinished breakfast, next to her name tag. Shehad just finished her night shift at Pop’s and she had exactly half an hour toget the kids to school, return home to change and get to the Blossoms’ maplesyrup factory at the outskirts of town for her second job as an assembly lineworker. Jughead believed that his mom was actually a superhero in disguise, despite thebags under her tired blue eyes, a little lifeless but always identical to his.

“Alright, JiggieJug, breakfastfor champions.” She addressed him motherly, snatching a Pop’s paper bag fromthe passenger seat containing his lunch for the day. Being a Friday, Jugheadknew that today’s menu were two overstuffed carton boxes of chicken nuggets,maxi-sized French fries and a blueberry lollipop, a typical treat from his momto “pre-celebrate the weekend”, as she always used to say with a lovely smilebefore dropping the candy in his lunch bag. “And the special dessert you askedfor.” Gladys supplied her son with another bag, this one plastic and moresecure than the other, watching in amusement, despite her need to hurry, thelittle boy trying to juggle everything inside his slender arms.

“Thanks, mom.” Always with aheart of gold, he thanked his mom for the simple task he had assigned to herthe day before. “You got everything, right?” he huffed to push his ravenwaves out of his eyes, having no hands to indulge in his adorable little tic.

“Ten of Pop’s famous strawberrycupcakes with pink buttercream and sprinkles-covered strawberries on top andtwo old-fashioned vanilla milkshakes.” Sherecited her son’s order perfectly, while bouncing the fussy baby in her arms. “But,hey, you promised you’re not gonna eat them all by yourself.” The motherreminded him their deal, because she knew his immense appetite and, even thoughhe didn’t seem to gain even a single hint of fat on his boyish lanky figure,she was still worried for her boy’s wellbeing after such sugar overdose.

Little Jughead huffed again,this time in exasperation. “No, mom, I told you they are not for me.”

“Who are they for then?” Gladysscoffed incredulously, a tad amused and with an eyebrow raising for the boy tohumor her, freeing the hem of her uniform over her cleavage from the stronghold of Jellybean’s chubby fingers. When the squirming baby’s attention shiftedand her little fingers became more demanding on violently twirling the end ofher raven, waist-long, flyaway hair gathered in a lose ponytail, the mothersighed, accepting her fate.

Faint blush creeping on hisslightly baby fat filled cheeks, the boy dropped his eyes to examine hisbeloved sneakers, awkwardly scratching their tips over some tiny pebbles.“They’re for…” he shyly started but he choked on the words, always confiding inhis mom about everything but right now finding it really difficult because hewas ten and talking about girls was supposed to be gross and entirelyhumiliating.

As in reflex, his baby bluesraised from the ground and he spotted her, cute as a button little Betty Cooper,hopping cheerfully off her parents’ vintage silver Mercedes right after hersister, toothy smile intact and two buns on top of either side of her head,rather than her usual high ponytail or braided pigtails. Clearly, she was dressedfor the occasion in a yellow balloon dress and a turquoise denim jacket,the colors happy and bright just like her sunlight personality, and she offeredhim an eager wave and an even bigger smile, before running towards the sea ofchildren in the school yard armed with her fuchsia pink Polly Pocket backpack. Pretty, was all that Jughead thoughtwhile barely managing to wiggle his fingers in a small wave, his chapped lipsslightly parted and his cheeks flaming red at this point, as he watched herdisappear.

The interaction wasn’t missedby his mother’s alert and intuitive nature, seeing the little girl mingle withher classmates before turning again to her son. Ah, of course, Betty Cooper, Gladys internally sighed, ultimatelyfinding his reaction cute and wanting to be supportive of her son’s first crushbut her own insecurities about a certain member of the Cooper family – thatright now spared her a not so friendly glare from the passenger seat of thespeeding off Mercedes – were tarnishing the otherwise loving nature of hermaternal instincts.

“I’m sure she is going to loveyour little surprise, baby.” Gladys managed to smile lightly despite her defensivefrown, putting her children first, as always.

Tips of ears turning brightred now as well, Jughead looked up at her with hopeful eyes, face lifting withjoy that his mom, the most important woman in his life, thought so and he noddedonce in excitement, now becoming more confident about his plan regarding theday. He knew it wasn’t much and Betty deserved all the sweet tooth menus atPop’s along with an unlimited pass to all the rides on the fun fair and theTwilight Drive-In for her birthday, and he desperately wanted to be able togive her all that and more, but he wished her favorite cupcakes and choice ofdrink were enough of a good present.

They exchanged sweet smilesbut Jellybean’s frustrated cry made the mother turn to her in panic, once againaware of the hectic reality she had to face. “Believe me, I know you want yourbeauty sleep but please, Jelly, help me out a little bit here, shh.” Shebounced the baby as she pleaded with a small groan, not that the child obeyed.“I really have to run now, Jug.” She kneeled lightly to be eye level with herson, balancing a baby and all her stuff on her slender figure, and brushing hiswavy hair out of his forehead in affection. “Be good at school. I love you.”She squeezed his cheeks between her thump and pointer and Eskimo kissed himplayfully, both grinning from ear to ear at their sweet habit. Jughead saidgoodbye to his sister with fingers tickling her chubby stomach lightly and afunny grimace and ran off to the cheerfully shrieking kids, as hismom took off to the opposite direction, walking fast and ungraciously whilebouncing her baby in pursue for the daycare down the road.

Jughead made a bee linestraight inside the school where he found his blonde sun of a friend bouncingon her feet in front of her sparkly, stickers-littered locker, chatting withtheir redhead best friend. With a deep breath and a huff that sent his hairflying off his forehead, he dragged his lanky limbs to join them, catchinghimself sporting a smile upon locking eyes with the giggly girl. Her big,pearly white grin was contagious, he couldn’t help it.

“… and Polly spent half anhour to do them for me, do you like it Arch?” the raven haired boy came to astop next to the boy in question, catching half of the conversation with asmall frown at Betty’s hopeful doe eyes and bouncing back and forth head incute hyperactivity.

“They look funny.” Theoblivious redhead answered, tilting his head while examining the two buns thatcreated her new hairstyle.

Jughead noticed immediatelythe cloud over her former sunny mood. “I like them. They look like meatballs;and meatballs are always good.” He rushed to offer his opinion to preserve thehappy glint of her green orbs. She truly looked cute, in a princess Leia way kindacute, Jughead being sure that from now on he wouldn’t be able to watch any ofhis beloved Star Wars movies without giddily thinking about the prettiest girlin their school.

His food related complimentmanaged to tug the corner of her lips in a small smile, Betty looking at himshyly under her fluttering eyelashes. “I just wanted to do something differentfor today, being special and all…”she hinted, a tad disappointed that nobody was showering her with birthdaywishes yet. Kevin had briefly passed her by at the entrance with a small waveand an anxious rant about how he forgot to fill the answer sheet for geography,before disappearing into recess room to fix his mess and by the looks of it,Archie was, as always, in his own world too. Juggie didn’t count; Betty knewthat he didn’t care about birthdays so he wasn’t going remember. He was theonly person she wasn’t mad at.

“Save it for Betty to callspecial the day we have a history and a math test and fix her hair in a newhairstyle for that.” Archie laughed wholeheartedly at his own joke, elbowing Jugheadto join, but his friend was too preoccupied with the way that Betty’s entireposture had changed right now, shoulders slouching and down lip wobbling as shepouted. He felt a tug at his chest, almost snatching a cupcake from the bag tooffer it to her because food cured everything and right now he desperatelywanted to cure her blues. How could Archie not have a clue about what was today’soccasion? There was always a bright red circle around the date at all ofJughead’s wall calendars throughout the years, the boy marking the special daymonths in advance in order to always remember, not that he wouldn’t otherwise.

Sparing Betty the tears andJughead the overreacting humiliation, the bell rung loudly over their heads,signalizing the start of first period.

“Whatever, I’ll see you atlunch.” The blonde girl did the fastest one-eighty in the history of twirls.She was ashamed of the fat tears that were threatening to spill from her eyesany minute now and afraid of being labeled as a baby and getting excluded byher friends, especially now that she had gained a rightful free pass toJughead’s tree house, quick feet taking her away to mop around in the littleladies’ room before heading to class.

“Laters.” Jughead heard Archiepromise in the opposite of his inner voice, him not getting the chance to uttera single word, not even a “wait up” or “please smile” at the sad birthday girl,before getting dragged backwards from his backpack by Archie to the directionof their joined class, uncoordinated limps tripping over his loose shoelaces. Hecaught a glimpse of her reaching the girls’ bathroom down the corridor andgrumpily brushing the back of her hand over her cheek to wipe some tears and hisyoung heart sank to his stomach, for the first time wishing for free period to comesooner, and not because he was drooling over his lunchbox as usual.

So when that heavenly subject-freehour came, Jughead was agog to finally go on with his plan and sweet gesture.He didn’t like his birthday; everybody knew that. He thought that it was a hopelesscelebration, a day that caused him more stress than joy because his parents hadto play a part, create the reality of a blissful, breakfast commercial perfectfamily. The fake reality that was soon crashed the next day under thedisappointed looks of his mother to his father that spoke volumes or theirhushed fights, his running away footsteps and her muffled ugly sobs late atnight when Jughead would still lay awake, buried inside the cocoon of hisblankets with a torch lighting the pages of his books that helped him escapethe place that no longer felt like home. Betty’s birthday was another story.Her life was sunshine and rainbows, this day shouldn’t have been an exception to that.More so, it should have been the highlight of her already happy childhood.

That’s why little Jughead wasnow in their biology lab setting the place the way he had envision the weekprior, when he had started mapping up the idea. He had picked this particularclassroom because the window overlooked the small garden at the back of theelementary school, the one that their class was responsible to maintain throughout theyear, bright yellow sunflowers now in full growth creating a nice springsetting. He placed the two vanilla shakes on a desk right in front of thewindow and the plastic plate of cupcakes between them and took out of hisbackpack ten heart-shaped candles and a lighter, carefully lighting each ofthem and placing them on top of every small pink cake. He smiled lightly at hiscreation; he believed the whole setting was so girly and so everything heimagined she would like and the thought made his little heart do a flippy overthing in excitement. And then for the big finish. He pulled out of his pencilcase two sparklers, Betty’s all-time favorite party attraction, Jugheadremembering how elated she always used to be at the sight of them all over townat every July 4th or on Archie’s birthday cake, the only girl notshrieking and running away but giggling while playing with the dancing flames,and he lit them both, bouncing back a little at how abruptly their effect hadstarted. He hoisted one on the right side of the center cupcake and went to dothe same for the left side, trying to avoid the flames of the other candlesaround but that’s when all came crashing down around him, his awkward and prepubescentuncoordinated limbs falling him once again miserably.

His elbow clumsily knockeddown one of the milkshakes. White sticky ice cream stained the linoleum flooras he rushed to somehow clean the mess. The sparkler he was holding dropped fromhis fingers without him even noticing. His urgent feet kicked it involuntarily toroll inches away from the brownish curtain that was pulled to the side of thewindow. Some sparks landed on the cheap material and just like that everythingbecame a nightmare of biblical destruction.

Ten year old Jughead didn’tknow that flames could spread so quickly and easily. So when he turned aroundand half the curtain was burning maliciously, he stumbled back in shock, eyesturning wide and panicky at the sight in front of him. Out of reflex, he threwa wooden chair in front of him, to separate him from the chaos, but this onlyseemed to make it worse, the chair catching up in flames too in a nanosecondbefore the fire fueled more and black smoke started to fill the room. An awfulsound pierced through his ears and he rushed to cover them, the fire alarmgoing off efficiently, and Jughead panicked even more now, thinking about howscrewed up he was going to be upon teachers finding out he was the cause of thechaos. He was moving in circles around himself, at a loss of what to do or howto help, throwing random things to the threatening tongues of flame that werespreading fast, only succeeding in making it worse. At the sound of the doorflying open, he looked up like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Jug?” Archie’s flaming locksthat matched the scenery of the room appeared as the boy rushed inside, comingto a halt abruptly, shocked out of his young mind too. “Oh my— we have to run!”he shouted in alarm, motioning for the door behind him.

“No, I have to fix this.” Jugheaddidn’t spare him a second glance as he rushed to the sink at the corner,filling a small bucket with water and throwing it to the flames, onlysucceeding in making them spread more, now dangerously close to his discardedbackpack on the floor. “My books!” Jughead exclaimed in despair at the thought of his anchorof hope getting lost forever and lashed forward without thinking, Archie doingthe same with wide eyes, in order to pull back his best friend.

The curtain rail gave outunder the high rise of temperature and the iron bar fell to the floor with adreadful sound, spreading a sea of flames, the force causing the two boys toroll back on the floor. Jughead wailed in fear as his pant leg caught on fire, Archiestumbling on his feet in horror and throwing his little league letterman jacketon the denim, effectively putting out the small source of flames but notwithout experience the same pain on the side of his arm. The blipping of thealarm became more vicious, the flames had now spread all over the wall and fewof the desks next to the window, Jughead’s terrified eyes watching the icy cupcakesburn in flames, just like his naïve hopes that he would for once make BettyCooper happy, make her notice him and only him.

The door opened again. Loudmale voices could be heard yelling instructions and rolling something insidethe flaming room. Two firefighters picked him and Archie up, assuring them thateverything was going to be fine, Jughead’s heart getting crushed just like thepiece of pink carton under the stomping feet of the firemen, the comic about aprincess and a poet he had made for her in a form of a birthday card nevergetting the reaction of the big, delighted smile it deserved. Jughead’s babyblues turned blurry with tears as something exploded inside the room and theman he was holding him started running to rush him to safety away from the flames,away from his now crushed childhood dream.

Everything happened in fastforward after that. And he, for some reason, ended up here, scared, shocked, traumatizedin the place that didn’t do much to ease his young turbulent mind; the backseatof a police car. His ruined pant leg was rolled up against his thigh, some coolingblue Jell-O like cream spread on his knee over the irritated skin of his burn,he reeked of smoke and he felt awful with sticky clothes, trembling limps and abroken heart. He was busing himself with picking at his fingers, hands coal blackfrom the carbon dioxide, or stealing side glances at everything that washappening around him; parents dropping by to pick up their terrified kids, firefightersrolling off their gear, having succeeded in extinguishing the fire, theSherriff questioning some teachers and the janitor, Archie being treated byparamedics just like Jughead was before him, Mary Andrews cradling his head andoffering him motherly pecks to ease his pain away while Fred stood by like atrue family protector, his own parents lurking next to the police vehicle tryingto not make a scene, by keeping their full of venom voices to a minimum.

Jughead wanted to scream forthem to stop, to scream that he needed them talking to him, telling him thateverything was going to be alright, not fighting with each other. He felthanging, he didn’t know why everyone was treating him like a bad guy and thatterrified him to no end, a ten year old boy too small in front of thesignificance of the situation. He was trying desperately not to cry, chinwobbly and eyes itchy and bloodshot, blinking rapidly due to the toxic fumesand his unshed tears, and all he wanted was his mom and dad to hug him tightand never let go, never let him alone again in this reality that petrified hisyoung and innocent mind.

“This is all your fault.” His mom’shiss towards his dad made Jughead lower his head even more to his lap, preparinghimself for the shouting match that it was about to break loose.

“He’s just a kid, Gladys.” FPsighed, tired and concerned but not thinking much of the situation. Jughead wasa growing boy; those incidents were expected in his books.

“Kids don’t play with matches.”Gladys bit back and continued with venom and narrowed, troubled dark blue eyes.“This is your doing.”

“You can’t blame me foreverything that goes wrong in this family.” Her husband snapped back, voicestill controlled but eyes pitch black under the red, irritated skin of hiseyelashes caused by another one of his usual alcohol filled nights.

“At least I’m trying, FP.Unlike you that always put us second in your life.” She accused, shaking herhead in despair and dropping a kiss to the temple of the oblivious baby girl inher arms.

“Don’t you dare tell me that Idon’t love my kids.” He sent her a side glance, jaw tightening to not show howhurt he was by her words. “Or you.” He added and he meant it, even if he wasn’tthe best at showing it, he truly meant it.

Gladys huffed in disbelief; shehad heard all that before. “If your love results to this, then keep it.” She shooka hand his direction, indicating for him to stay away from her, from them. “You’returning him into you.” Her voice broke, a choke closing her throat at thethought. “And that’s the thing I’m most scared of; him ending up anything like you.” There was bitternessin her voice, hatred at how the man she had fell madly in love with had changed,at how this wasn’t the life she had dreamed of living.

FP dropped his head to theground, ashamed and beaten. “He is just a kid.” He repeated in a low whisper.

“Yes, and he is being chargedwith a state offence.” Gladys stated the absurdity of it all. “And they keepsaying that they will have to take him away and send him to that place,” hervoice was trembling now, a mother losing her mind at the mere thought ofsomething bad happening to her child “and I don’t even know where this is and whatwill happen to him and— How can they take away my baby?” the tears streamed downin full force and her sharp intake of breath got lost inside the palm that shebrought to her mouth to suppress her dreadful sob, little Jughead feeling hisown tears running down his cheeks silently at her words and her cries. He didn’twant to make his mom sad, God, he hated seeing her sad. And he was afraid;afraid that he wouldn’t see her again, afraid that the Eskimo kiss they sharedthis morning was the last form of affection he would ever receive.

“I’ll fix it, okay?” FP rushedforward, determined, taking hold of her shoulders and connecting their eyes. “Nobodyis taking Jug away from us, I promise.” She wanted to believe him but at thispoint she really couldn’t.

“I’ve heard enough of yourpromises, FP.” Gladys squirmed free of his hold, eyes cold despite the weaknessof her tears. “How are you going to fix this, huh? With a beer bottle in eachhand? Or with your friends over at the Southside?” she challenged, him takingsome steps back, as she scoffed a chuckle with no humor at all. “You think thatI don’t know…”

“Don’t. Not again.” He warned,minutes before losing control.

“You’re hangover, you reek ofalcohol, your eyes are bloodshot…” She listed with venom the telltail signs, hecouldn’t hide from her. “Tell me that you didn’t go; come on, lie to me.” She challenged,the fire and spark that won him over years ago now turning against him. “Tellme that you weren’t at that God awful place all night while you were supposedto look after your kids.” Her voice raised and startled the baby against herchest, Jellybean sensing the tension and becoming fussy once again.

“I…” He couldn’t find it inhim to lie.

“I can’t even believe you.” Shebreathed, disappointed once again at the man in front of her. “It’s about her,isn’t it?” the wheels inside her head turned sharply, the topic of jealousytowards a specific old flame of his coming to surface again, like numeroustimes before in their fights. “You’re meeting her there, go on, for once inyour life tell me the truth!” she demanded with a stern voice, hand latchingforward to grab his chin and force his eyes on her, chipped nails clawing hisscruffy cheeks to inflict some of the pain he is causing her. “If you’rescrewing her Forsythe, I swear to God—” she threatened with vicious passion.

“Stop.” FP freed his face curtly off her claws. “That’s nonsense! You can accuse me of anything, anything, but I’ve always been faithfulto you.” He stood his ground, mad with anger at this point too. “That’s over;you know that first hand.” His eyes darkened with a mix of spite andvulnerability, the old story still holding a grudge in his heart despite theyears, despite them moving on, despite the feeling of emptiness that he still feltat even the most subtle mention of the first girl he ever loved.

“I’m gonna leave.” Gladysthrew to his face, chocking on the words as new tears ran down her face. “I’mtelling you, FP, one day I’ll just crack, take the kids and get the hell awayfrom you.” She promised around her sobs, Jellybean starting a crying duet withher mother, like she understood the situation, and FP’s eyes dropped to her, despair painted upon them. “I cannot keep livinglike this, okay? Juggling two jobs, two kids and a ridiculous excuse of a man.”The force of her sobs overtook her slim body, narrow shoulders shaking at theintensity of her breakdown, her young and beautiful face getting wrinkled indespair. “Do you understand what I’m saying? If they take Jughead away, it’sover between us. This version of you, the person you’ve became, you ruined us,you ruined him. Hope you are proud.” She spat to his face and turned away fromhis filled with sorrow and regret face, hugging her daughter tightly and shushing herbetween her own violent cries.

And as little Jughead wassome meters away in the threatening silence of the police vehiclecrying too, lonely, afraid and now in the verge of an ugly panic attack at the possible walking away of his mom, his beacon of calmness and hope shined just like the blondeof her hair under the afternoon sun.

“Juggie.” He heard his name inthe most beautiful whisper and that startled him, abruptly snapping his head toface the source and quickly brushing his cheek over the material of his hoodieagainst his shoulder to hide his moment of weakness, upon seeing Betty’s nosepressed adorably against the window of the car. She motioned for him to roll itdown and he hurried to do so but only up until the middle fearing to even moveat this point.

“Are you okay?” she whisperedin a hushed voice, green doe eyes more rounded than ever in concern, scanningher friend.

He just nodded, still in shockabout the events of the day and the fact that she was there talking to him and notalready at the safety of her home.

“I snuck out of the car whilemom was talking to the Sheriff. I couldn’t leave without seeing if you wereokay.” Betty let him know and Jughead’s heart did that flippy over thing again,lips parting at a loss of words. “Juggie, your leg!” the little girl gasped inhorror, eyebrows knitting while examining the nasty redness on his knee.

“It’s nothing.” He whisperedin a small, scratchy voice, the first time to form a single word to anyoneafter the incident. “Archie got hurt too.” He was utterly confused that she washere asking him how he was and not holding the redhead’s hand.

“His is just a scratch; he’sjust being a baby, he’ll be fine.” Betty wrinkled her nose in disapproval, still hurt by the obliviousness of the redhead boy. “Where are theytaking you?” she asked in all her child naivety.

“I don’t know.” Jugheadshrugged his little shoulders, picking on his fingers again. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Betty. You have to believe me.” He pleaded with sad eyes forher to not start treating him differently from now on.

“I know.” She answered in a heartbeat.“I know you, Juggie, you are my friend.” Her small, lovely smile was everythinghe needed for his spirit to be lifted a little and to breathe again. He repliedwith an equal smile of gratitude, everything being dealt easily in the childrenworld, but the corners of his smile wavered as the hushed angry voices of hisparents could be heard again on the background.

His face dropped in sorrow andshame and Betty briefly looked over his head to the quarreling duo. “Think ofsomething nice.” She urged him on, focusing again on him.

“What?” the boy asked,clueless.

“When my parents are fightingor I’m feeling anxious or scared, I always close my eyes and make up a storywith my favorite place and my favorite people.” The cheerful girl explainedfurther. “It helps.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Do it!” Her sparkling forest-likeeyes didn’t leave room for discussion and Jughead felt himself complying,dropping back on the leather seat and closing his smarting eyes.

He imagined Pop’s, two burgersand a chocolate milkshake and he saw her, yellow dress and all, smilingbrightly at him with vanilla ice cream creating a silly moustache over her rosylips. Lost in the fantasy, Jughead smiled.

Betty grinned to herself uponseeing his reaction. “It’s nice, huh?”

“Yeah.” Jughead murmuredblissfully, eyes still closed and unwilling to let go of the lovely image.

There was something thatstartled him again though, that made his eyes snap open and his heart startdancing in his chest. A loud smooch noise filled his ears and wet, warm lipscollided with his still damp cheek and he would swear that he dreamed that tooif it wasn’t for Betty’s smiley face inches away from his bewildered one. Shewas bended over the half opened window, resting on the tips of her dusty goldbow-decorated flats, and grinning from ear to ear lovingly before dropping backon her heels, Jughead’s heart running a marathon at the fact that in the miseryof it all, toady he had gained his first kiss by Betty Cooper.

“Wherever you go, I’ll visit.”She promised and held out her pinky, the raven haired boy curling his around itstill in a state of shock, before Alice Cooper’s demanding voice broke themapart, Betty running quickly back to her mother, sparing him one last ofhis favorite Betty smiles.

The smile that never changedover the years, as well as its effect on his poor heart. The smile thatJughead, sixteen again and in trouble once more with the police, keptenvisioning behind closed eyelashes at a booth at Pop’s over his own smileylips during one of their many now teenage appropriate kisses.

“I’m not talking to youanymore.” The image of her brought him courage and determination to fight forhis rights this time, eyes snapping open and darting to the side still troubled and sad. “I wanta lawyer.” He demanded into the silence of the interogation room before it got interruptedby the sound of the creaking metallic door being pushed open.

“No need.” Like awild wind, Betty appeared, strong-willed and confident, her worried eyesconnecting for a minute with his now relieved ones upon seeing her, the Sherriffjumping off his seat as the deputy behind Betty silently apologized for notbeing able to hold her back. “Jughead is innocent. I’m sure Mr. Andrews willclear everything up for you, Sheriff Keller.” The girl held her ground like atrue Cooper, the man raising an eyebrow at her behavior but following hisdeputy out of the room with a huff, leaving the two teens alone. And as Bettytook a seat across him with the same lovely smile she had sported six yearsago, Jughead knew that as long as she was on his side nothing would be able tobring him down.

Sprawled on the Andrews’ porchstairs, Jughead could feel the freedom on his skin and the evening air easingout his mind after the events of the crazy day he had. Betty was seated nextto him, legs curled under her and knees brushing his ribs, her concerned eyes never leaving him, the girl being on the lookout for any sign ofdiscomfort or sorrow or insecurity so she could vanish it the moment it will cloud his brilliant mind with her encouraging words and her soothingcaresses. His breakdown after the encounter with his father was ugly and heartbreaking,Betty holding him tightly through it all and urging him to unleash all thepined up anger and frustration he held in his heart and now that it was overand calmness was spread between them she just couldn’t leave him out of hersight, wanting with all her power to never see him that way ever again.

“Whatever Fred did, I’ll beforever grateful to him for letting me have this.” Jughead sighed, elbowsresting on the step behind him and eyes darting around before landing on hisbeautiful girlfriend smiling down at him.

“I told you, Jug, we were goingto get you out.” She brushed the single wave away from his forehead lovingly,before letting her fingers caress down his jawline, feeling him sigh in contentunder her touch. “Believe it or not, even my mom offered to help.” That spikedthe boy’s attention, who rose his eyebrows in surprise.

“Thank God she didn’t. I wouldstill be in there, sceduled for a death penalty.” He groaned in his usual sardonic manner and formed a smallsmirk at Betty’s rolling eyes and cute grimace of amusement.

They fell into their previouscomfortable silence, Betty sliding closer to him to start drawing abstractshapes over his chest with her fingers. “I still don’t understand; why just youand not me?” she questioned in exasperation, feeling him sigh and curl his armsaround her waist.

“You don’t have a criminalrecord.” He reminded her, leaving a peck on the side of her arm over her maroonbomber jacket.

“You have one because of thosetwo months at the rehabilitation center, right?” she toyed with the sheepishlapel of his jacket, green eyes focused on his baby blue ones.

“It was juvie, Betty.” Hethrew in apathy. “Don’t use fancy words; there was nothing fancy about thatplace.” There was some bitterness in his voice and Betty decided not to pushhim further since everything was hard on him that day.

“You never told me why youstarted that fire in the first place.” Betty wondered out loud, eyebrowsknitting in confusion as to why she still didn’t know what went down at day inelementary school. “Was it you and Archie playing pranks again?” she cracked aside smirk in amusement, remembering the relentless teasing between them. Hefelt him stiffen under the weight of her question and she frowned more, notknowing what caused the sudden discomfort.

“No.” Jughead shook his headand waited a second, scanning her face before giving up with a defeated sigh. “Itwas for you.” He might as well come clean once and for all, he thought.

Betty bounced her head back indisbelief. “Me?”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded inconfirmation. “May 15th, your birthday. I wanted to do something special,cupcakes, milkshakes, the whole thing. The fire was a result of my ten year oldself being a spaz and not even being able to execute the simple task of lighting tenlittle candles.” His scoff of second-hand embarrassment complimented the brightred color on his cheeks, Jughead averting his eyes to the front and not daringto look at her after sharing with her how much of an awkward boy he used to beand, truth be told, still was.

She blinked a couple of times,flabbergasted and at a loss of words at the boy in front of her that seemed toorbit his whole life around her. “You started a freaking fire and went to a juvenile hall because of me?!” her tonewas high-pitched and incredulous, having some difficulty to wrap her mind aroundthe new revelation. “Jughead!” Betty semi-gaspedsemi-whined, not sure what her reaction should be. Feel flattered by the grandgesture or offer him an earful about how he had no need to impress her so nosuch incidents would happen in the future? The only thing that she was sure ofwas that he was crazy, wonderfully crazy, and she was too; for him.

Jughead just shrugged, turningslowly to examine her reaction and giving her a sly smile upon seeing the lookof love in her green eyes. “That clearly wasn’t part of the plan.” He musedsarcastically before he continued serious now. “That day you taught me a littlegame.” Betty shook her head confused, solemn focus on his handsome face and hewas occupied with lacing and unlacing their fingers over his stomach, his eyeswatching the action. “To close my eyes and escape to my favorite place with myfavorite people when life got hard. And I kept doing it all those years, todaytoo.” He nodded to himself before looking up at her, feeling his heart swell atthe look of love he received back. “Thinking of you chasing all of my demonsaway. It always works.” He confessed truthfully, vulnerability and a tad of embarrassmentin his calm voice, sharing with her parts of himself he never thought he would.

Betty just shook her head,leaning down to capture her lips with his, slow and sweet, both of them sighinginto the kiss and holding each other tighter, happy that they had finally foundeach other at the end. “You, Jughead Jones, are the most amazing guy I evermet.” She breathed inside the kiss, lips dancing against his soft ones as shechanged the angle of their kiss, Jughead feeling his whole being gettingovercome by the soothing aura of Betty Cooper. “I’ll slay your demons one byone, I promise you that with all my heart.” And as their kiss deepened and thesensation of her lips was all he could focus on with every fiber of his body,his worries and fears and insecurities got chased away just like that day when that chaste kiss on his cheek reminded him that in the mist of chaos hewould always have somebody anchoring him back to shore; his one and true love,Betty Cooper.

#bughead #jetty #bughead fanfiction #bughead fic #bughead prompt #riverdale #riverdale fic #anon #riverdaleships #otp:sundaes & plaids #Anonymous #mywriting

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adambstingus · 7 years ago

Text

6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

#6. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes Was Created To Save Paint

Eat your parentless heart out, Batman.

But Snake Eyes’ popularity is made all the more remarkable by the fact he only exists because a toy company was too cheap and lazy to paint a damn action figure.

And somewhere, a young Quentin Tarantino gets the idea for The Gimp …

Because all ninjas carry MAC-11s and wear mini-satchels.

#5. Batman’s Harley Quinn Was Created For A Throwaway Joke That Was Never Used

Or her original design, thankfully.

’92 was a big year for faux-pastry eroticism.

#4. Shredder From Ninja Turtles Was Inspired By A Cheese Grater

Lots of beer.

Considering how much pizza cheese that suit could generate, it’s a better design for an ally of the turtles.

#3. Pac Man’s Inspiration Came From A Pizza

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that all life’s problems can’t be solved with pizza.

#2. Teen Titans‘ Wonder Girl Came About Because The Writer Never Bothered To Read Wonder Woman

It’s in Robin’s contract that he always gets to be the most scantily-dressed team member.

Remember what we said about the early video game industry? Double that for Silver Age comics.

Well, maybe if Wonder Tot had stuck the goddamn landing …

#1. Where The Wild Things Are Was Created Because The Author Had Trouble Drawing Horses

Lovecraft won.

Including repressed family trauma.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/173336373617

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allofbeercom · 7 years ago

Text

6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

#6. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes Was Created To Save Paint

Eat your parentless heart out, Batman.

But Snake Eyes’ popularity is made all the more remarkable by the fact he only exists because a toy company was too cheap and lazy to paint a damn action figure.

And somewhere, a young Quentin Tarantino gets the idea for The Gimp …

Because all ninjas carry MAC-11s and wear mini-satchels.

#5. Batman’s Harley Quinn Was Created For A Throwaway Joke That Was Never Used

Or her original design, thankfully.

’92 was a big year for faux-pastry eroticism.

#4. Shredder From Ninja Turtles Was Inspired By A Cheese Grater

Lots of beer.

Considering how much pizza cheese that suit could generate, it’s a better design for an ally of the turtles.

#3. Pac Man’s Inspiration Came From A Pizza

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that all life’s problems can’t be solved with pizza.

#2. Teen Titans‘ Wonder Girl Came About Because The Writer Never Bothered To Read Wonder Woman

It’s in Robin’s contract that he always gets to be the most scantily-dressed team member.

Remember what we said about the early video game industry? Double that for Silver Age comics.

Well, maybe if Wonder Tot had stuck the goddamn landing …

#1. Where The Wild Things Are Was Created Because The Author Had Trouble Drawing Horses

Lovecraft won.

Including repressed family trauma.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/

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