Mischief Night

From Candypedia
Mischief Night
Chapter57 of 129 (list of chapters)
PublishedSeptember 29, 2010 (2010-09-29)
Page count17
Major charactersMike, Lucy, Yashy, Paulo, Jasmine, Sue, David
Minor charactersAbbey, Daisy, Molly, Chirpy, Blur, Lily
LocationsLucy’s house, Abbey’s house, Roseville neighborhood
Collected inVolume Two, Omnibus 1
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Halloween in Roseville brings out two very different vampires: Lucy goes classy, and Paulo goes sparkly. Then a stranger’s doctored candy corn knocks Mike flat, and his drugged babbling drops a name Lucy’s pets were never supposed to hear.

Synopsis

Halloween night begins with a winged, tentacled horror pounding on the door of Lucy’s house.[1] Yashy answers, screams, and punches it in the eye, which is how Mike finds out his Cthulhu costume works a little too well.[2] Lucy appears in a slinky vampire gown with a cross choker, and the two fall into bickering over whether a vampire is allowed to wear one.[2]

On the walk to meet the others, Mike lets slip that this is just where he thought everyone was meeting, and Lucy bitterly answers, “Sorry I’m not worth hanging out with on my own.”[3]

The rest of the gang trickles in, with Paulo turning up in his everyday clothes and announcing that he’s a vampire.[4][5] Jasmine explains the Twilight of it all and completes the costume herself, pelting Paulo with a plume of glitter that sticks for the rest of the night.[6] The sparkling couple spend the evening ambushing small trick-or-treaters with knives.[7] A police officer orders the group home for curfew over Sue’s protest that it’s only 8 PM. The moment he leaves, Sue and Lucy declare “SCREW THAT.” and keep trick-or-treating in secret.[8]

The haul takes a dark turn at the door of a nastily smiling stranger handing out nothing but candy corn. Nobody else wants any, so Mike volunteers to take it all. Within moments he’s gray and foaming at the mouth.[9] Sue sniffs a piece and identifies the candy as “crudely-painted sleeping tablets”, while inside the house a man in an “I am a jerk” shirt laughs at the window.[10]

Mike hits the sidewalk, flatly informs everyone “I am dead,” and demands a eulogy.[10] Lucy refuses to give one, so he points in a random direction and orders, “Sandy, read my eulogy.”[11] He ends up delivering the eulogy himself as a set of wedding vows to death, complete with wishes for a bride who won’t move away and won’t bully him. Lucy kneels beside him in silence.[11]

Paulo and David lug the unconscious Mike homeward, and Yashy wants to know who Sandy is. Lucy tearfully claims it was just a random name, and Yashy doesn’t buy it.[12] A blinding light sends Paulo into tearful surrender, but it’s only Abbey in a homemade cop costume, with Daisy and Molly in tow.[13] Everyone retreats to Abbey’s house, where Mike sleeps it off. Molly sneaks a handful from his candy bag (“Whoa, I love candy corn!”), and Abbey and Daisy find her sprawled across the sleeping Mike, green and foaming.[14]

Character dynamics

Mike lies gray on the sidewalk with blank white eyes and says "I am dead."
Volunteering for everyone’s candy corn works out about as well as you’d expect.
  • Mike and Lucy: Still on shaky ground after Mike rejected Lucy’s confession, the two spend most of the night closer to their old selves than they’ve been in a while, trading costume insults like nothing ever happened.[15][2] But Lucy still doesn’t feel worth Mike’s time on her own. His drugged wish for “Sandy” and a bride who won’t move away or bully him puts all the hurt right back on the table, with Lucy in tears by the end of the night.[3][11][12]
  • Lucy and Yashy: Yashy has been kept deliberately in the dark about Sandy ever since Lucy begged Mike not to mention her around the pets.[16] Mike’s drugged slip is the first real breach of that secrecy. Yashy hears the name, gets handed a flimsy cover story, and refuses to swallow it, telling Lucy “You don’t scare me, Ma.”[12]
  • Sue and Lucy: Sue has been Lucy’s other shoulder since the rejection, and she settles comfortably into the role here.[17] She checks in mid-route, reminds Lucy she’s there if needed, and christens her “Elle” for the first time.[18] The two are even in sync enough to defy a police officer in unison.[8]

Trivia & observations

Costume design sketches for the chapter’s opening pages.[19]
  • The chapter doubles as a Twilight parody, with Paulo proudly billing himself as “Jazzie’s Edward”. Veronica’s commentary notes the reference angered some readers. She defended it as true to a teenage girl of the era, and suggested the angry ones “can project themselves onto Sue”.[6]
  • Sue’s costume is Ema Skye from the Ace Attorney games. David even calls her Ema while congratulating her detective work with “Sharp observation, Ema!”[5][10]
  • Per Veronica’s commentary, the candy-dosing “Jerk” is Bill, the resident bully of classic BCB and one of her oldest characters, first designed when she was around eight years old.[10]
  • Sue’s “Elle” nickname for Lucy makes its first appearance here, and it sticks around, reappearing in Rehearsal and as late as Witch Hunt.[18][20][21]
  • Yashy sneaks in a title drop on the way to meet the others, chanting “Candycandycandycandy candycandycandybowl~”.[4]
  • Page 1 is the only BCB page Veronica has ever drawn on a livestream. Per her commentary, the teasing she got about her art mid-stream put her off streaming pages for good.[1]
  • Veronica’s commentary under the final page marks the close of Volume Two: “End of an era! End of a style!”[14]

Related chapters

Abbey screams "NO!!" at Molly, who lies green and foaming across the sleeping Mike.
Candy corn claims its second victim of the night.
  • A Distance Apart: Lucy confessed her love to Mike on the first day of sophomore year, and he turned her down for Sandy. Because of that rejection, Lucy can’t quite relax around Mike this Halloween, and one name out of a drugged boy’s mouth can leave her in tears.
  • Follow Me: The origin of the secret this chapter nearly blows open. Under the lunch table, Lucy begs Mike never to mention Sandy around Yashy, an arrangement that holds right up until Mike gets a mouthful of sleeping pills.
  • Confrontation: Mike has been taken out by an adult stranger’s doctored treats before. In that chapter, Alejandro goads him into a chocolate-eating contest with liqueur-filled chocolates, and his friends end up hauling home a drunk Mike instead of a sedated one.
  • Just Beautiful: Much later, Lucy finally gives Yashy an honest answer about Sandy. She admits that Mike has a girlfriend, and that the two have been together for a year.
  • Witch Hunt: The gang goes trick-or-treating again in senior year, and this time it’s Paulo who pointedly dumps all his unwanted candy corn into Mike’s bag.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 1
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 2
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 4
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 5
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 6
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 7
  7. ↑ Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 8
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 10
  9. ↑ Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 12
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 13
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 14
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 15
  13. ↑ Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 16
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 17
  15. ↑ Chapter 50: A Distance Apart, page 11
  16. ↑ Chapter 32: Follow Me, page 2
  17. ↑ Chapter 51: Unrequited, page 12
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 9
  19. ↑ “Costume designing for Mischief Night”. 2014-10-28.
  20. ↑ Chapter 59: Rehearsal, page 1
  21. ↑ Chapter 105: Witch Hunt, page 1
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