slackbeard | (no subject)

★ PLAYER INFORMATION

NAME: Lee
AGE: old
CONTACT: kinetotype
CURRENT CHARACTER(S): N/A

✩ CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Forsythe Pendleton “Jughead” Jones III
CANON: Archie Comics (2015 reboot)
AGE: High school (16ish)
CANON POINT: Post-issue 11
BACKGROUND: The wiki on the history of Jughead in the comics, which is a good summary of the character but doesn’t cover the events in the reboot so far. So:

Statistically average high school Riverdale High is chosen by a disgraced CIA employee to be the testing ground for his secret super spy creation program. “Principal” Stanger takes over the school, hires a crack team of “teachers” to train the students in key subjects such as drone assembly and stealth, and replaces the cafeteria menu with nutritionally balanced gruel. This was his big mistake. Inspired by the menu switch, Jughead Jones and his trusty team of meddling teens (including Archie Andrews, and Betty Cooper) uncover the plot. Through some misguided hacking, a trip to the mall to investigate a previous attempt to brainwash a high school, and Jughead’s idea to show evidence of military-grade drones in a high school to a military colonel, the teens kick Stanger out and get the school back to the way it was.

Afterwards Jughead enjoys his summer vacation by going into the woods with his best friend Archie for some bonding time that ends in the two of them getting lost in the wilds. When they get back to civilization, Jughead accidentally agrees to go on a date with Sabrina Spellman because she was wearing a burger costume. After some awkwardness he explains the whole asexual thing and they part as friends, with Jughead having no idea Sabrina is actually a teenage witch.

PERSONALITY:
Jughead comes across as a slacker mooch who only rouses himself for two things: food, and video games. He’s a dreamer who slips into weird flights of fancy whenever he’s bored and would legitimately marry hamburgers if it was legal. He’s gone entire days without sleeping a wink, too deep into his video game quests. The guy pays for his meals at the local malt shop maybe one time out of five, relying on flattery and the good nature of his friends to foot the bill the rest of the time.

But there’s a lot more to him than it seems. Jughead will be the first one to call himself lazy, but the laziness hides a guy both clever and capable of great things when motivated. His GPA is high and he studies fairly hard. When pressed, he can answer questions perfectly in class and always has his homework in on time. He knows the school rulebook like the back of his hand-- all the better to come up with loopholes to keep himself out of detention. The cafeteria can’t serve burgers? Fine, he’ll make and sell his own, and then give the proceeds to charity. All totally legal according to school rules!

Jughead positions himself as the outsider, the wise observer of the group. Part of this comes from being the asexual best friend of the axis on which one of the world’s most infamous love triangles turns. Jughead doesn’t understand how or why Archie’s hormones have this grip on him, or why dating seems to be at the forefront of literally everyone’s mind. So he claims the title of unbiased judge of how the world really works. His mind is unclouded! You can trust him! And how the world really works, he’s decided, is in a decidedly cynical way. Even after he successfully saves his school and his favorite restaurant from being ruined by Principal Stanger, Jughead still sees most efforts to change the world in major ways as doomed. Betty says his life is “hollow”, but he prefers to think of it as just accepting things the way they are. You can’t do much about the big things, so you have to settle for the little things.

His friends won’t settle for the little things, though, and if there’s one thing Jughead will fight the hopeless fight for (besides food, his first and truest love) it’s his friends. He places a lot of importance on his friendships and cares a lot more than he’d like to let on about making them happy. He’ll sign useless petitions for Betty and donate money to her cause, he’ll play down his intelligence to make Archie feel like less of a useless goon, and he’ll call in favors from everyone he knows to get Sabrina into school. The boy has a good heart that he almost always tries to cover up with flippancy and zingers.

After all, he’s got an image to maintain. He’s the cool teen with the soul of a slacker who doesn’t let things get to him! No matter how weird the thing is, Jughead can roll with it. Always with a clever comeback, that Jughead. Whether it’s injuries to his body or his pride, Jughead is ready to diffuse the situation with some kind of joke. When he can’t keep that persona up-- like, say, after he’s been expelled from school and is genuinely stressed out and in a funk-- he cuts off communication. He’d rather have radio silence than have his friends think there’s something actually wrong with him.

Most of the time the jokes he makes are harmless, gently poking fun at Jughead himself or his friends. He walks the line between loveable and slightly irritating on a daily basis and he does it well, usually making sure he never goes too far when messing with his buddies. But when someone actually gets under his skin then Jughead goes back at them hard. Archie slips up and implies that Jughead isn’t “normal” for not wanting to date anyone after the two of them get lost in the woods on a trip outside Riverdale, and Jughead doesn’t take it quietly. He rips into Archie’s insecurities about Betty and Veronica that causes a nearly friendship-ending rift between the two of them before both boys get over themselves and apologize.

ABILITIES/POWERS: Iron stomach: Jughead has a huge appetite. Like, alarmingly huge. He spends his lunch hour offering to eat whatever stuff other people decide they don't want, and only turns down the most heinous foodstuff. He’s never full, and he’s never suffered any negative repercussions

Chef: He’s a home economics prodigy who, the first time he ever attempted to cook for himself, made a flawless hamburger. He could probably make other food if he tried, but why mess with perfection.

INVENTORY: Jughead has nothing but his smartphone and his trademark hat (a sweet whoopee cap).

SAMPLES: TDM with Wash and Vitani | TDM with Ax

WRITTEN SAMPLE:

Missions to new planets are, even a jaded young man such as himself has to admit, seriously pretty neat. It’s cool as heck to see stuff like orange skies over auburn mountains majesty, and Jughead takes a moment to reach for his phone to take a picture to send to his friends before he remembers-- right, hey, he left that on the ship so as to preserve the battery life not worry about cracking the screen. There are also a ton of pictures of the burgers he’s run into so far, and to lose those would be heartbreaking. The Universal Burger Tour: My Life in Space is gonna be the biggest hit when he gets back to Earth.

He’ll just have to paint everyone a word picture later. Until then Jughead knows he has to continue with the search and explore part. It’s not as great as hacking and slashing, or stabbing and grabbing, or literally anything else he prepped for with those hours and hours of medieval fantasy games. Jughead feels a twinge of regret at not picking up Massive Space when he had the chance. Maybe if he’d played more space games he’d be better prepared for the slow pace of the space missions. Better prepared to just walk quietly, not stab things for diplomatic reasons, and say hi to trees with like six eyes. Like the one right in front of him.

“...huhhh.”

Jughead stops and looks at the tree…. person? being? In front of him, doing his best to remember the polite way to stare at someone without staring. It’s about looking at the eyebrows. But where are the eyebrows on a treeple.

“Hey team, Jughead here. Sector… five? X? In the middle of those big trees with the greenery, you know the ones. I have made contact. Please advise, leave a message, Jughead will get back to you even before it beeps.”