Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

When Jughead mistakenly ends up on a date with Sabrina - yeah, the teenage witch, it would be an easy way out of writing him as asexual - and I half-suspected that the comics would go this way.    But the thing is that Sabrina was originally hired as a talking burger - she dressed up as a huge burger - which sent Jughead into fits: he loves burgers in an almost sexual way, but ladies, meh.   At first he just wants to talk to a giant burger, so when he asks Sabrina to do something, it's completely innocent.   When she assumes it's a date, everyone gets excited: Jughead on a date!   I think, on some level, they believe the magical properties of a vagina - any vag that gets all up into a burger costume - will 'fix' Jughead.   Although I suspect this is shaded by me basically being told to just have sex, because I'll like it, and people assuming there's something wrong with me.   

To be fair to the comic itself, it never comes out and says this with most of the characters.  And it could be that they're simply excited that Jughead is showing interest of some kind of romantic sort towards anyone - or anything.   (Again, he likes her best in her burger costume.  In an elaborate fantasy in which they get married and have a child, she never takes off her costume and their baby is a baby burger.)

Jughead, afraid of insulting Sabrina, doesn't correct her - which means she assumes he has romantic, or at least sexual, interest in her and when he's nervous and has his friends crash his date to help him out, Sabrina gets angrier and angrier.   And you really don't want to anger a witch.   Archie, oblivious to the fact that Jughead is still asexual, but trying to help the only way he knows how tries to get them to kiss.

Still, Jughead works through his confusion and eventually apologies to Sabrina.   Basically, he figures out he's not so much into ladies as talking burgers.   It's pretty awesome that they stuck to this, and somehow found a way to explore alternatives to the asexual aspect without undermining him as a character, or saying there was something wrong with him.  I personally really appreciated this because I know I've done the same thing: explored, hell, even denied, and it didn't make me any less wrong or different.   It just meant I needed to try.   (And I have a friend who saw Paula Poundstone, who is openly asexual and a comedian.   Apparently she made a joke about trying sex every ten years to see if she changed and likes sex, and nope.   My point just because you are something, there can be confusing times, times that you question, but only you can decide what you are.   And because of that, I found this storyline realistic, honest, and I love that it didn't retract Jughead asexuality or change him to try and make him more palatable to the mainstream.)

I'm loving this so, so much.