#i love how in this photo you can see tinges of red around the rabbit's ears under the black fur because of the density of blood vessels

[everythingsablr]

The Wanderer

What happens when a Scout gets forgotten, presumed dead, further into the Titan forest than has ever been gone before?

And what happens when that Scout survives, thrives, even? Despite bearing a child that wasn't meant to be, especially not then.

This is the story of a teen born outside the walls, among the trees, knowing nothing but a life a hundred meters above the ground. And finding her way to these mythical walls her mother always told her about

The Wanderer is an in-progress, slow-burn OC/Reader Insert Attack On Titan fanfiction that as of yet has no set character of which the reader will end up with, though the choice will be between Hange Zoe, Jean Kirstein, and Levi Ackerman. Hit read more to read the prologue. ~2k words

PROLOGUE:

EXCERPTS FROM FLORA ALLAWAY'S JOURNALS CIRC. 831

WRITTEN ONE YEAR AFTER STRANDING.

The world had come back to me tinted in red. Upside down and quiet.

I liked the quiet.

You never hear it behind the walls. It’s too crowded. Too cramped and locked in.

I never liked tight spaces.

I guess that’s why I joined the Scouts. I was tired of being trapped like a rat in a cage.

I had found myself strung up in a tree, deep in the Titan’s Forest, deeper than we ever had gone before due to being chased down by multiple abnormals, for many days by horseback; my ODM gear the only thing keeping me up. I was alone. My horse's carcass was at the foot of the tall, tall tree I had somehow found myself in. It appears to have been squashed.

As I hang there, trying to remember where I was or how I had gotten there, I realize it is not silent. Not quite.

I can hear…. Birds?

Their gentle warbling is soft and beautiful, and I see a deer peering through the trees, maybe fifty meters away. This is unheard of within the walls, human desperation devastating any natural wildlife inside them. It’s prettier than the photos Erwin’s shown me, in the books we were never supposed to have.

Erwin…

The thought of him was what finally pulled me out of my reverie.

There were signs of a fight, struggle, everywhere, but far below me, I was.....unusually high. I found no corpses but plenty of blood, plenty of scrapes of my own including a nasty gash across my eye. I'm not that pretty anymore, unfortunately.  

‘I must have been thrown or tossed by a blast…’ I had thought to myself. So I gathered what I could from my horse and started searching through the trees.

I ran out of gas within hours. Food from my pack in days,

Hope in weeks.

My gear off of my horse and the lines out of my ODM gear allowed me to string my tent up high into the trees. And it was there, I planned out what I didn’t know would be the rest of my life.

And the beginning of someone else’s.

The treehouse was the product of six months of nonstop work put in by myself upon realizing that I had no way home. I was too far into the tall trees of the Titan Forest in the deep, deep southeast, with no mode of transportation. I was stranded in a sea of people-eating giants, and it became clear soon enough that no help was coming. They think me dead. I know that now.

A couple of the six remaining blades from my ODM gear were broken and turned into axes; my scout training along with my knack for hunting and gathering that I had picked up growing up in the small population of people in Dauper combining into pure survival tactics.

The sounds of my chopping down branches always inevitably brought a couple of titans but as time went on I became more and more accustomed to climbing trees, to the point where it became second nature. As easy as walking by the river.

Despite the name, the titans I came across were few and far between in the forest, never tall enough to reach me in the hundred-meter treetops; their arrival always preceded by an eerie, breath-stealing silence, as the birds and other fauna go into their own hidey holes.

Once at a certain height, though, I found they eventually lose my scent, and therefore their interest in me. It was rare that I ever had to jump from the trees to dispatch one, but if I did it was almost surely an abnormal. One that would just stand there for days, watching me. Almost seeming to...think. As though it were analyzing how it would be able to get to me. I didn’t like those ones, so they were dispatched with quickly. No one likes being watched. Especially by bulging-eyed freaks. It was four months into my new hell of a life when my stomach began to bulge, and I had to sit down, in my half-finished tree hut and fully realize where I was and what was truly going to happen.

Could I do this? Bring a child up in this world away from the world? Was that possible? Or should I…

The glint of green-tinged sunlight shining off the blade of my knife had drawn my eyes towards it, and as I got closer, I could see myself. Perhaps for the first time in many months.

My coiled red locks were thick and tangled, and my eyes, near the same shade of the leafy treetops above, are bloodshot and raw.

“I could end it all now. ‘ I had thought. I was tired. I was ready. I was so ready…

But when I grabbed that blade again, when I looked into it, looking for myself, I swear to you upon the Gods above Erwin, I saw you. I saw your stupid eyebrows and your steely gaze.

I saw your smile.

I felt your touch. And for a moment it all fell away and you were there with me, a hand on my stomach, feeling the baby kick for the first time. And I realize that I had to survive. I had to survive as long as it took for you to meet your daughter.

If you’re reading this, Erwin, you have. At least I hope that’s who is handing you this note right now. Pretty girl, hair as red as mine and eyes as sharp as yours?

She’s beautiful, isn’t she?

She’s smart. She’s sharp, quick, and everything you could ever imagine. And more. I hope you get the chance to witness it.

I love you, Erwin.

My knight in shining armor I never thought I needed.

Until the Gods bring us together again,

Flora Allaway

Year 847

Sixteen Years After Stranding.

Long, freckled fingers trace over the words written into the pages of the well-worn journal, salty, bitter drops dripping from the teen's face as she reads the journal for the last time where she was now sitting.

Morrigan was sitting on her knees in the middle of their home far above the ground, held up and of thick, woven branches, sixteen years of adapting and evolving turning the structure from something a little more than an unsteady shack- into a sturdy home, with walls made of wood planking, holes sealed in with mud, roof watertight with clay found from digging a bit deeper underground. They even had a small fireplace, and a chimney that chipmunks got stuck in quite often unfortunately for the critters, but fortunate for the women, who had enough to make gloves, and slippers, and even me out of.

The walls were lined with animal skins - over a decade of hunting and recording the local fauna.

Whitetailed deer.

Wild Boars.

Hares,

Even a fox or two.

Arrows made with owl feathers.

Grappling hooks made with ODM wire and antlers, there wasn’t a part of Morrigan’s wardrobe that wasn’t the skin of some animal that had sacrificed its own life for her and her mother to keep their own.

They learned to respect the forest that housed them because you can tell if you’re safe; based on the sounds of the forest. They’ll tell you if you should be quiet.

It had been a week since her mother had last come home. The longest amount of time by far. She was always back within two, three days tops. She had a caution to herself that Morrigan always teased her for, for her daughter was always almost a little too daring with her own life, always wanting to go further, whereas her mother preferred them to be safe.

And they were, for fifteen years.

It was soon after Morrigan’s fifteenth birthday, when they noticed a distinct shift in the Titans’ migratory patterns.

A titan or two would wander by inevitably around three to four times a week, usually coming from all directions, usually right after they would return to the trees after hunting or foraging, their scent being far enough to attract the monstrous beings. But, at one point in the early summer, something changed. Drastically. From the south. They all came, it wasn’t one massive rush, but enough of a stream to keep the forest quiet of all natural life for many days, weeks. By the time the birds started singing again, Flora and Morrigan’s cheeks were sunken in and they were lucky to be alive enough to hunt. Flora knew that something had happened. Something had happened to the Walls. She felt it in her soul. But she couldn’t go. She couldn’t take her daughter, no matter how capable she thought she was. She was just a child.

It was a year after the event her mother called “The great migration.” And they hadn’t seen a Titan in almost a month.

Which is just what made her mother’s disappearance so strange.

‘ Was now really the time where you weren’t careful enough, mother?’ Morrigan thought to herself bitterly, snapping shut the journal and tucking it to the bottom of her leather pack. The cloak she wrapped around herself was rabbit fur, waist-length and various shades of brown to near black, the hood entirely covering her face and wild mane of fiery ginger hair.

Her pack was filled with exclusively essentials, her waterskien strapped to her waist and her knives on various bodyparts, she stares at the two, untouched blades her mother had left. From all that time ago. Morrigan wondered why she’d never really used them, but had simply taught Morrigan how to at the ripe age of 12.

But she thinks she understands now, as she puts them in the sheathes she had watched her mother painstakingly take weeks making, sheathes that not only strap to one’s back and provide easy access, but don’t impede ones’ movement while swinging/running through the trees. As she’s about to step outside what she’s known as home for the past decade in a half for what she knows is the last time, she hears the silence. It’s deafening. She pauses, hand on the loop of twisted bark that served as their door handle, holding her breath as she pulled it open, not expecting anything immediately, but the eventuality of encountering a titan was enough to set one on edge. But when she opened the door, it was not green-filtered sunlight that met her. It was the disgusting, hot, wet breath of a Titan.

She felt her heart skip, once, twice, three times, processing what was before her in both slow motion, and the speed of light. It was between ten and twelve meters, it’s hair a ridiculous bang ordeal, with wide, accusatory brown eyes and a sneer upon its lips. It was disgusting. The thing  had climbed the wide-based tree across from their home, using that one to avoid shaking theirs. It was… stealthy. That was the only thing Morrigan could process before a massive hand was reaching for her. She threw herself through the door, knowing that if she didn’t, she’d be stuck and die for sure; her body inevitably being ripped apart and devoured by this vile creature

The grappling hook was swung, and it luckily hooked onto a tree branch, swinging her quickly behind the Abnormal and allowing her to perch just above it, unsheathing the blades and grimacing, eyes staring down its naked form with pity-laced disgust. For all she knew, this is the monster whose fault it was for her mother not coming home. It was that thought that launched her off of the branch, before the creature could even turn around and try at her again, she had done what her mother had taught her, and what those people behind those walls were supposedly “so good at.”

‘ One meter across ten centimeters wide…’ She thought to herself, as she slashed across the back of the Titans’ neck. She knew she had done it correctly when the thing slumped forwards, falling and hitting every branch on its’ way down. It had begun steaming almost immediately, and she crinkled her nose in disgust. “Good riddance.” She said softly, before shaking herself off and resecuring all of her things. This was going to be quite the journey. She wasn’t sure if she was going to find her mother or the fabled “Walls” first. But she knew she refused to die until she found both. The Wanderer is updated weekly on fanfiction.net and archiveofourown.org  and is currently two chapters deep, with many more to come.  I tend to forget about Tumblr so updates here will not be so frequent though I will try and remind that the chapters are up elsewhere. Have a good one and I hope you stick around!

[jerepars]

Lionheart Extended Story Notes

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here.

This chapter was a mission and a trip to write. As such, I think these notes are a doozy. I also think that this is utterly and completely self-serving, just more I can look back on in five years to recall what the hell I was thinking.

Like I said in the notes for the second chapter, I think that this whole story might just be character study and development. 14400+ words of character study. 5500+ words of a final chapter that thoroughly describes an alternative subculture that pretty much anyone reading won't relate to or won't care about. Wow. I think I might have outdone myself this time. I have truly gone off the deep end.

Jughead found American Graffiti on their hotel room TV. He paid mild attention to it while sitting at the small table where Betty had arranged the leftover snacks when they’d arrived before noon. The pitter-patter of his typing barely registered as his fingers flew over the surface of his laptop keyboard, a burst of inspiration from the city’s vibrancy hitting him.

Last time I referenced The Gaslight Anthem and how they often reference Bruce Springsteen. "High Lonesome" is one of those songs and it directly references "I'm on Fire" (actually there are multiple references to a bunch of different bands/artists in this song), the Springsteen song that I took inspiration from for the mood of the previous chapter. The rhythm of this song is always something I come back to when I think about lyrical prose, like the paragraph above. There are lines in the song that go and the pounding in the street was your heart in four-four time and the patter on the bar was just this one night and only to get by. I'm pretty sure I've described a heart beating in four-four time in a story before. So I went with 'pitter-patter' talking about typing, which isn't at all sophisticated, but it's there because of what it makes me think of.

But Betty wasn’t trying to be anyone else other than Betty. Her lips were painted in a mauve tone, the perfect mix of a shy violet and pink, with a brown undertone. That mauve was her color of the night, a study in contrasts. Innocent but sexual. Warm but cool. Ethereal but dangerous. A guiding light tinged with darkness. Beautiful imperfection.

So this is probably a good time to explain the chapter titles for the story. Every chapter title is actually a color in the Kat Von D line of makeup. I originally wanted to name every chapter after one of the liquid lipsticks. But there's no white liquid lipstick, so I had to get a little more creative and name the previous chapter after an eyeliner. One of the first things that came to mind when I decided I was going with the color theme in every chapter was that I wanted Betty to be wearing this mauve tone. Essentially, I wanted her to be wearing Lolita.

The reason I went with the color names from the Kat Von D collection is because of how they're named - they're references, too! The blue-toned red, Nosferatu (Chapter 1), is a horror movie. The rose color, Melancholia (Chapter 2), is not in reference to the 2011 film (I don't think), but the temperament of melancholia. The bold white, Neruda (Chapter 3), is in reference to the poet, Pablo Neruda. And this mauve with brown undertone, Lolita, is in reference to the book by Vladimir Nabokov.

It's weird (I'm weird, I'm a weirdo, have you ever seen me without this stupid hat on - that's weird, etc.) that I chose chapter titles based on makeup, of all things. But it seemed fitting.

They showed their IDs at the will call table set up by the basement entrance (it was an all-ages show so Jughead didn’t have to use his Delaware one) to collect their tickets and checked the set times posted on the door. There were people outside smoking, chatting, and laughing. Betty and Jughead listened to the first band from outside, enjoying the spring air, since the time spent finding parking meant that the show had already started briefly before they arrived. They talked about Hot Dog and Archie’s newest conquest and Jughead’s last collect call conversation with FP from prison.

Their topics of discussion presented them with some irony. They both wanted so badly to get out of Riverdale. They’d even scrambled to make their weekend plan work. So they could leave. But the town never left them.

Honestly, I still feel like this. And maybe a big part of who you are, who you grow up to be, is knowing where you came from and what you've left behind. No matter how far away I get from where I'm from, in distance and in mindset, part of it is always there. I wanted to include this part because I think that for people who don't forget where they come from--which I think is most people--it holds true.

They made it inside the venue during set change, just before the second band took the stage. The album of a not-hardcore band that Betty had on her New Jersey playlist played through the PA system while the stage was set up with a drum kit and amps. It was different than outside. The ceiling was low and the walls were wood-paneled. There was a colorful carpet that resembled a children’s patchwork quilt set down on the stage. The air was warm. But it wasn’t just the room full of body heat and chatter that made it feel that way. It was the same way that Betty’s choice of lip color made Jughead feel. It was an attitude.

Initially when I wrote this, I thought about the details of the all-ages venue that is local to me. But then I got sucked into the rabbit hole of my own love for research again. Over the years, while looking at tour dates and photos and videos for bands in indie/metal/punk/hardcore scenes, the venue that I've seen most for shows in Philadelphia has actually stuck with me. So the above description is based on the basement at the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. I always wondered why a church would be hosting bands that play grindcore or have upside down crosses and demons on their merchandise. Even simpler than that: why would a church be hosting bands that have explicit lyrics in their songs?

Eventually I found out that it's actually a really important venue to Philly's independent music scene. Kids involved in the local scene actually refer to the venue colloquially as 'The Church'. Typing in "First Unitarian Church Philadelphia" on YouTube yields years worth of video footage of bands, including the kind that Bughead would be there to see, playing the basement.

So. From Yelp, here's what it looks like empty, with the wood-paneled walls and low ceilings. Here's a picture where you can clearly see the carpet on the stage. And the not-hardcore band on Betty's New Jersey playlist on the PA system during set change? That's all because I watched a video of Lifetime playing at The Church from 1997.

The kids around all kind of looked like him, dark clothing and too many layers for the temperature of the room. Except instead of the scowl he usually carried on his face, everyone seemed genuinely happy to be there. He noticed the smiles that reached laugh lines. Handshakes and hugs as eyes met across the room; friends catching up and friends making new friends. It was just an all-ages show on a Saturday night. But it seemed to be so much more. Something therapeutic. Something sacred. Something special. In that room, with those kids, everything was unbreakable. The world couldn’t get to them and break their hearts.

I suppose this is the part of these notes where I reveal that a lot of what I was inspired by when thinking about this story, writing this story, writing this chapter, is probably regarded as cheesy hardcore? And that's okay. I know I'm cheesy.

Bane's "My Therapy" and Have Heart's "The Unbreakable" (there's even a Neil Young reference in the lyrics of this one) played a role in that paragraph getting written.

The room was filled closer to capacity when the second band started. They were a pretty big youth crew band from California that had toured for a few years. On another night they probably could have been the headlining band, but it was one of Philadelphia’s very own who’d close out the night later on.

It was a conscious decision to not ever name any bands that Betty listens to, including the ones that play the show. I knew that I wanted to include a youth crew band in the lineup because it's my story, I can do whatever I want, right? The one I have in mind is Fury from Orange County. It's really easy to get jaded on modern hardcore. But Fury gives me hope.

But actually being there to experience it was still different than any video on YouTube. The energy created by the intermix of the band and the crowd was on a different plane of intensity than could be delivered in the high quality of 1080p or even 4K. To be there in person, to feel the beat of the drums in their chests, to stand on the outer edge of the circle pit, and to hear the passion with which lyrics were yelled out with closed (but not clenched) fists and fingers points, it was a warm blood rush. It put the fire in Betty’s eyes again.

I think that video work at shows is getting better. There are videos out there of live sets where I do get chills. But it still isn't the same as being there, in person. The energy can't be matched. I chose to reference Defeater here because "Warm Blood Rush" feels intense from beginning to end.

When the band finished and the house lights came back on, Betty told Jughead that she’d spotted someone eating deep fried zucchini and wanted to investigate. Since the venue was a church basement, there was a kitchen for light concessions. He leaned against the wall and pulled his phone from his pocket as she walked away. There were several people leaning against the wood-paneled walls. He opened the Yelp app and was met with hundreds of results of his earlier query: cheesesteaks. Only he would look up food just as his girlfriend had gone off in pursuit.

One of the articles I read about The Church mentions the serving of vegan chili and one of those probably-inappropriate-to-be-wearing-at-a-church band church that the narrative alludes to. I've never been to this venue or even Philadelphia. But if chili's been served there, I feel like there would be a kitchen somewhere, right, because it's a church basement? And I felt like by the time Bughead makes it to this show, set in the future, there would definitely be deep fried zucchini instead of chili.

“Hey man,” a voice to Jughead’s left interrupted his review reading. “You should check out Jim’s.”

When Jughead glanced up, there was a kid beside him, on his own phone, casually checking NHL box scores. Jughead’s natural reaction was to wonder why the guy was being nosy, glancing at someone else’s business, making comment about it. He was used to the prying eyes in Riverdale; the ones always telling him he didn’t blend in, the ones who dismissed him, the ones that had made him seek solace on the south side. But he remembered where he was, he remembered that this was supposed to be a scene set apart because of open minds and hearts, so he responded, “Is it near here?”

The guy nodded and quickly explained it was just a few miles away on South Street and it would be open late after the show. The kid—Scott—introduced himself and they talked briefly about the band on Scott’s shirt. When Jughead brought out his sarcasm as the conversation continued into a new topic, Scott didn’t seem to mind, and threw it right back at him with his own. It wasn’t with malice or ill intent that either of them did it. Actually, Jughead noted, it was kind of friendly. It reminded him how far from Riverdale he was.

The words open minds and open hearts, the things that set us apart from "Can We Start Again" meant so, so much to me as a teenager. They still do. I think they always will.

So...here's how deep my crazy goes. I looked at a bunch of lists that rank the best cheesesteak places in Philly. And then I checked what time they were all open until on Saturdays. And then I checked how far they all were from the venue. I settled on Jim's, which according to Google Maps is two miles from where they would be. It's open until 3 AM and is on South Street.

I also wanted to include this interaction between Jughead and this stranger to show how different it is from home for him. In Riverdale he's this outcast sarcastic kid who has two friends. But maybe out in the real world it's not like Riverdale. Maybe a taste of the real world would do Jughead some good.

No sooner than the word ‘fun’ was uttered did the drummer begin to build a tempo with his sticks, all kick drum and snare. The low, heavy bass tones were next, producing a hollow rhythm that matched the drumming. The guitarist intentionally made a feedback loop between his guitar and amp as he strummed dissonant chords, creating a sound that was tense, cutting through the air of the room. As the band played together, Jughead recognized when the drawn out instrumental part flowed into the intro to one of their songs.

Like I said earlier, not including any band names was a conscious decision that I made. The same goes for not including any lyrics within the story. That could have been a good way to show what the content of the music is, the meaning behind it, what makes it so special, etc. But that's not how I wanted to do it. So here's the thing. When I was younger, the stories I wrote included lyrics very often. It always felt like I needed them to be there, because they encaptured the feeling of what I was writing. And it was always something I wanted to get away from. I wanted to get to a point where the content was all my own. I wanted to get away from using lyrics as a crutch that was so fully integrated into the stories.

A few years ago when I got back to writing stories, I was finally able to do it. I wrote a story where the main character is in a band (not a hardcore band, haha, an indie rock band), in the studio recording an album. Of course I made references to music within the narrative and dialogue, but there was never a point where I went to typing out lines of entire songs within the story to help build the story. I relied on descriptions and feelings evoked by the character and by the song(s) rather than just plainly using the songs. That wasn't an easy place to get to for me. It felt like something I had to earn, to get my writing to that place.

This absolutely is not a knock on anyone who uses chunks of lyrics in their stories. I still read those stories. And I'll still love them. Just, for me, I don't want to do that anymore. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't want to go back to before. A big part of what I even like about writing is the challenge. So I want to keep challenging myself to be better than I was years ago.

That being said, it took me a while to figure out who this band they were seeing is, and what the intro song is. When I was writing I always imagined "Some Came Running" because it's one of my favorite songs to see live and I know that I have been to shows where it has been the opening song, and to stick with the theme of me listening to so much Bane while I was writing. But then they couldn't be going to see Bane because they're not a band anymore. So then I thought "The Red, White, & Blues" because I still love it (also there's a lot of plaid flannel and shaggy hair going on in this video, which makes me think of Jughead, which I think means that the hardcore scene circa 2010 was Jughead-esque, haha) but realistically I don't think that's been an opening song for a while now. Then it dawned on me that what I needed to think about was what Philly band could play the show and what song could they play first?

The intro that's described in the paragraph is "We Will Not" by Paint it Black. And that would be the band that they go to see. It made a lot of sense. They're from Philly. They might even be the biggest hardcore band out of Philly in the last decade. Their sound is on the melodic side of hardcore. Their singer/vocalist does address the crowd and say meaningful things in between songs. And oh look, they used The Church's carpet for a show flier a few months ago. If the premise of this story was true, if hardcore was the thing that Betty needed, I have no doubt that for her first show she would choose something like this, that's melodic, that's full of venom but also thought provoking and socially conscious.

Once I had this sorted out I started to think about when the last time I saw Paint it Back was. And it was so long ago that I'm pretty sure it was when they played with the band Ceremony around the time they released Rohnert Park, when they were still kind of a hardcore band. As such, I ended up listening to "Sick" over and over again (I think I could listen to that drum beat for hours) and I think that may have leaked into the paragraph, too. I could imagine the "Sick" intro leading into "We Will Not" if it was the same band.

Also, last thing, the vocalist/singer for Paint it Black, Dan Yemin, was the guitarist in Lifetime, who I referenced as one of those post-hardcore bands on Betty's New Jersey playlist. Without even realizing what I was doing...everything is connected. It all comes back around full circle. It's also interesting (maybe just to me) to note that Yemin is actually a practicing clinical psychologist who works primarily with teenagers and young adults. Given what we know about Betty's mental health issues, I think it just makes PIB all the more the right choice.

He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on the sounds that filled the room and ricocheted in his chest. He wondered if the way it made him feel was something he’d never be able to put into words and describe perfectly. When he’d listened to it before, with headphones or through speakers hooked up to his old record player, he’d noted the intensity and urgency of it all. That was tenfold when it was living and breathing, in the flesh, staring him in the face. It gave him chills and hair-raising goosebumps.

This is really just a shout out to Modern Life is War's "Hair Raising Accounts of Restless Ghosts", which is urgent, desperate, melodic, mid-tempo hardcore at its finest. It's a reminder that the intensity isn't just about how loud and fast a band can play. When that shines through and can bring those hynotizing chills even in places that have stupid barricades, it's a beautiful thing.

He was a witness to community that night, more than he’d seen anywhere else. That was a bit baffling considering he was from a small town and had a foot in with a biker gang, two things which were meant to have inherent community qualities. It was different the way these kids treated each other, with a natural respect and even love. To someone who didn’t know, it probably looked violent and turbulent, the same that he’d thought at first listen. But it was actually vehement passion with a purpose. The actions of the room flirted on the edge of violence and danger but always remained at controlled chaos. It was about coming together and letting what darkness they held in their hearts ring out in that safe space rather than becoming destructive in their day-to-day lives.

To Jughead, it was like Betty, like her color for the night. It was a representation of her, part of who she was and wanted to be. It was her big dreams. It was how she saw the world, still with optimism, how she was determined to make a difference with her lionheart.

Speaking of my cheesiness and liking cheesy hardcore, I named the story after the song "Lionheart" by Have Heart. If it's cheesy and it's wrong to love it, I don't ever want to be right. When I was writing and looking for videos of live sets that could give me chills and goosebumps through YouTube quality video, this consistently came up. I watched several different videos of it live and each time it would move me. I even found a version from a show that I was at several years ago and it made me feel lucky all over again that I got to have that experience.

Beyond that, I wanted to choose a song that represents Betty, or at least the Betty that I introduced in the first chapter. I think Betty does have a heart of a lion. And I think she does have a fire in her heart. At Have Heart's last show, Pat, the singer starts off the song by dedicating it "to the prettiest girl in the room" before he goes on to explain what words by singers like Aaron Bedard (the vocalist for Bane, a band that I have severely over-referenced in these notes) mean to him - which totally resonates with me. And I thought, hey, Betty Cooper is probably the prettiest girl in a lot of rooms, right? The song closes with the words I'm doing my best and I'm doing my part, don't criticize me, man, when there's no fire in your heart. It's very Betty. So I had to name the story after this song.

Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail. It was set in the same position as one of her signature ponytails and just as tight, but nowhere near as neat as a signature. It looked like she’d used her fingers to comb her hair into place and tied it back hastily when the heat inside the venue had risen. Stray baby hairs framed her face like a halo. She was a little disheveled—imperfect hair, sweaty temple, flaked mascara fallen to the high points of her cheeks. But her cat eyeliner could still cut a bitch. The pout of her lips was still adorned perfectly in that temptress shade of danger and innocence.

She was good girl Betty and pure Betty and real-life Betty Cooper all at once. Jughead was sure that he loved every version of her. Every marvel. Every color.

I thought it was fitting that through the course of the show, when it came time for Betty to put her hair up, it wouldn't be a messy bun or a quick low ponytail. I thought it should be a classic Betty ponytail as best as she could manage. It seemed to be symbolic for her bringing different parts of herself together in that space, in that moment.

Her indignant outburst earned her a chuckle from Jughead. He’d been too busy letting her take charge, immersing herself in the moment while she’d been discussing ‘zines and an upcoming hardcore music festival, to think about sharing the food that she’d bought. He’d even downed all of the water without a second thought. He looked her in the eye as they continued their walk. “I swear I’m not mad, Betty. Not even a little bit. I’m just thinking. Trying to commit everything to memory. You were amazing.”

The mention of the hardcore music festival is actually referring to This is Hardcore, an annual festival that takes place in Philly every summer. I wanted to work it in to the chapter somehow since it hits two checkmarks of what this chapter is with the city and the music.

And finally, so that I end this on a much poppier note, Jughead's last bit of dialogue is a reference I made to Motion City Soundtrack's Commit This to Memory, an album I listened to a lot in the twilight of finishing this, because in my heart of hearts I'm always just a 15-year-old pop punk kid.