#although i'm not gonna lie; despite the comment being so kind it still reminded me of a type of comment i get sometimes

[impactrueno]

(i got this comment on my comic over at twitter and i thought i'd repost my response here too, because i've gotten similar comments on my other socials)

these are very kind words and i accept the compliment, it makes me happy to see people are enjoying reading through it! but i have to disagree with a couple of things. i think we need to give more credit to the source material here

i am borrowing elements from the sequel. lydia's daugther, beetlejuice and lydia not seeing each other in 30 years, lydia forgetting somewhere along the way what it means to be your strange and unusual self, all of these are parallels i made to the sequel.

i strongly disagree this is how the sequel should've been done. i try to stick to canon as much as i possibly can, but the tone of this comic isn't really beetlejuice. the movie is a dark comedy first and foremost, and the sequel ticked almost every box of what it should be about

beetlejuice's character is gross and weird of course, but every iteration has depth to them. i wouldn't have been able to write this comic otherwise! i'm not really making up BJ's personality here, i'm doing a character study of what is already there, set to a different tone.

i'm saying all this because knowing this is important in order to really appreciate the story i'm presenting. there's no need to praise things i didn't actually do, haha.

i'm aware that there's many people enjoying it without knowing anything about beetlejuice, so i'm not saying you HAVE to be connoisseur or anything. but if you are, you'd notice the callbacks to the show, including the one episode a lot of this conversation is built around.

sorry this got longwinded; i want to say once again that i appreciate the comment! i mean absolutely no offense to Timmy here, it was a sweet thing to say and i hope it's okay that i used this comment as a springboard to say some stuff that's been on my mind

[moonstandardtime]

Part 6: Scars

After about an hour, Wild finally finished sanding down the wood, so he went inside, took a shower(to get the sawdust off), put his swim trunks on, went back outside, put more sunscreen on, and dove into the pool.

"Yay! You finally came to join us!"

Wind had been constantly yelling to Wild about coming into the pool, but Wild kept refusing.

He swam over to Wind, then said, "I wanted to wait until I was completely finished."

"So what were you making?"

"A target."

"For shooting."

"Couldn't you just shoot anything?"

"Yeah, but it's for you to wear."

"What!? You're gonna shoot me!? I never did anything to you!"

There was a pause. Then Wild started cracking up.

"Oh my goddesses... I can't believe you thought I was serious!" He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, then ruffled Wind's hair, saying, "No, silly. I made that because it's safer, and that way, I know how well I shoot. It's like when you use a target for shooting arrows. Although, you would make for a pretty good practice dummy..."

"No! No, I'm a terrible practice dummy! Please don't shoot me!"

Wind swam away, and despite how panicky and scared he was acting, he was laughing and smiling.

Wild laughed and swam after him. "You won't get away from me that easily."

He jumped on top of Wind, making sure he didn't keep Wind underwater too long. He didn't want to, y'know, drown him.

However, when Wind came back up, he squealed and backed up, away from Wild, whose face was rather close to him. He seemed genuinely frightened.

Wild stood up straight and said, "Hey, what's wrong?"

"N-nothing. Its nothing. You're not scary. I'm not scared."

Wild laughed a little. "I can tell you're lying. What is it?"

"What? Me? Lying? I never lie!"

Twilight chuckled. "Really, now? I seem to remember you falling asleep immediately after saying you weren't slept last night."

"What!? You're lying."

Wild looked over at Twilight, who shrugged. Wild looked back at Wind, who seemed to be avoiding eye contact with him. It wasn't very discreet. He was looking in the opposite direction of Wild, and he was being quite obvious about it. However, he kept glancing at Wild, then quickly diverting his gaze. It kind of reminded Wild of a girl he met once.

"Is it my scars? It's the scars, isn't it? I know they're ugly, but I didn't think it'd be scary."

Instead of answering, Wind gave Twilight a panicked look. Twilight pinched the bridge of his nose and said, "I already told you about that, Wind. And I've pretty sure you've seen them before. You've looked at Wild plenty of times."

"Yeah, but it's way scarier up close! It looks so weird! It doesn't look like real skin at all."

"Wild-" Twilight made a motion at Wild with his hands- "is right there!"

Wild laughed quietly. "It's fine. People make comments about it all the time. It doesn't bother me anymore."

Twilight looked at him incredulously. "Really? I thought it would be more of a sensitive subject for you."

"Really. You can talk about it as much as you want. I don't mind. I know it's weird."

Wind reached out and cautiously poked Wild's right cheek. "Does it hurt?"

Wild shrugged and moved Wind's hand away from his face. "No. It's just a little uncomfortable sometimes. And I'd rather you not touch it like that. Well, if you ask first, I guess it'd be okay."

"Can I?"

"Sure."

Wild held his right arm out, and Wind went to feel it, but he hesitated and looked up at Wild's face. "Are you sure it doesn't hurt?"

Wild smiled. "Yeah. It's a been a year since I got these. I think there'd be a problem if it still hurt."

"Oh. Hehe, yeah."

Wind then felt Wild's arm, but he immediately recoiled. "Eugh, that feels so weird. Like... weird, rough, burnt up leather with goosebumps."

"That's... accurate."

"So how did this happen?"

"Oh." Wild thought for a moment, then bluntly answered with, "They had explosives."

"Who's 'they?'"

Legend quickly took Wind's hand and said, "Let's have a contest to see who can make the biggest splash when they jumped into the pool!"

"Oh, uh, okay! Sounds fun!"

Wild shot Legend a grateful glance and went over to the steps on the shallow end and sat down on them. Twilight came over and sat next to him. They sat in silence for a while, watching as Legend and Wind competed for the biggest splash.

After several minutes, Twilight said something.

"What's it like to have scars like that?"

Wild looked up at Twilight, then down at the water.

After a moment, he answered. "It was... weird, at first, but I got used to it. It's a bit of a nuisance when it keeps me from doing things like smile well, or open my right eye all the way, and how the vision in that eye is terrible, things like that. But I've learned to deal with it. And it scares most people off. But I don't really mind. I'm used to it. But what I do mind is when people try too hard to act like they aren't freaked out by it. Or when they make me out to be some sort of hero. It makes me feel like they're trying to make me feel better about something, when to be honest, I barely notice these anymore. But you know what I like the most? When people don't even seem to care that much. They're surprised at first, but then, they kind of just forget about it. Like you guys. I appreciate that."

Wild smiled and looked up at Wind and Legend. It looked like they were having a lot of fun. It almost made him feel, just for a moment, like nothing bad could happen while he was here. Just for a moment.

yALL

I'm writing a new @linkeduniverse fix! It's modern! Here's the description:

What happens when you put 9 people in one house for an extended period of time? They thought it was a great idea, but it turns out it might not be as fun as they thought it would be. Hanging out with friends may be fun, but living with them? Not as fun. Especially when there's so many of them.

Oh, and one of them has a typical "tragic bsckstory," but unlike your typical YA novel protagonist, it actually negatively affected him for longer than a week. So that's convenient, huh?

I'll be posting the first five chapters(and maybe more??) on here. The rest will be on wattpad(same username as my tumblr username) at some point or another. I dunno when tho