So, the rabbit rum finally exploded. This may be one of the most foreshadowed events I’ve ever written, mainly because I kept pushing it back.

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Remember this, from all the way back on page 11? It was nearly a banner ad for LotH, but it was also the first mention of the alcohol content of the rum, which is well past the point of flammability. The original idea was that Molly would show up at the end of this scene, fire-blasting things left and right, until Jill through the rum at her. Molly would blast the rum, accidentally napalm herself, and be the first miniboss defeated.

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But then I decided that we got too into the magical world too fast, and we needed to meet Jill (a lot of the first chapter of this comic was not-very-well plotted out, and there were a lot of these little janky soft reboots as a result; this is one of the most important lessons I’m keeping in mind for part 2). I still had the self-napalm idea in mind, just pushed back. Jill’s favorite band being “Cat Torcher” was a subtle nod to that.

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This is also why I made of a point of establishing Molly having Peggy’s fire gloves, a weapon she never wields or indicates having. Perhaps she wasn’t listening to the order because she was too busy playing with her cat’s cradle.

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The big fight was pushed back to around the Doink Burger scene, home of the dumbest joke in the entire comic. Plans were made involving Amaya showing up, a “high-speed” chase in Boston rush-hour traffic, and an eventual confrontation in the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts. Kind of never panned out. I wanted Jill to choose to be a hero, not simply get bullied into it by bad guys and good guys alike.

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Finally, it ended up getting pushed back to Molly and Helen (!) attacking Jill when she was at Riley’s place. Molly would challenge Jill to a 1-on-1 duel over pride, and end up napalming herself in accordance with the original plan. This got far enough along that I wrote the above line establishing the Rabbit Rum as being around, but Drowemos killed the scene on the basis that he didn’t like Helen, an established good guy, on a mission to kill Jill, even if it was to help Helen’s friend.

But we did, eventually, get it all sorted out. So that’s nice.

And that’s the long and winding story of the rabbit rum foreshadowing.

And a good explanation of why book two will have a lot more outline in the outline