Crange

Look at that good boy!

Emerson - Acquaintance/Former Lover

Certified Good Boy right here! The star of the show, Crange the acorn! Let's learn about him, shall we?

## Background

Crange comes from an old oak tree stood on a dusty hill with a cliffs edge and a meadow nearby. In his early life he had several unnamed "brothers and sisters" who all left the nest before he was forced to. In "Crange Fallls Down A Well," he also calls all his siblings assholes. His graduating class in Crange's High School Reunion also says that they were with him and knew him for 12 years. In "Crange Wakes Up (Again)," Crange mentions that he went to, and dropped out, of vocational school. He lived a dull, unfulfilling life where he didn't take many chances or make much of himself (eventually revealed to be Old Brain Emerson's influence).

## Appearance

He's a brown acorn. His cap and legs are dark brown and his body and arms are a slightly lighter shade. This tends to fluctuate from chapter to chapter as KC Green seems to like playing with lighting and color palettes for the nut.

Later on in "*Crange Wakes Up*," he grows a beard and his stalk grows into a leaf. During this time he also develops permanent red bags under his eyes that don't go away. His beard, however, is later aggressively ripped off of him in *"God Damn, Dude."*

## Personality

Crange is a self-proclaimed piece of shit who burns through all his (stolen, donated, and then stolen again) million dollars getting drunk and high. The death of his parent and house has left him depressed and traumatized. He also holds a huge amount of self-hate, his direct counterparts and alternate versions of himself being the only people he's willing to kill. He fantasizes about shooting himself in *Crange Starts His Day.*

He tends to try and stay out of conflict's way and, according to himself in *"Crange and the Bartender,"* pretty much always has. The only time he's shown to consciously strike anyone else are in acts of self-defense, such as the incidents in *Crange Robs a Liquor Store* & *"Crange Goes to a Kegger."*

However, despite all this baggage, Crange is generally upbeat outside of his intense depressive periods and sort of just floats through everything. Quite a few chapters, in fact, hinge on and emphasize Crange's hyper, almost cartoony attitude in the face of weirdness. He knows how to roll with the punches, strange as they come. It's no surprise then that he also isn't the smartest, as the punchline of a lot of jokes and the plot of many sub-stories is how he doesn't notice anything around him.

He's also relatively self-centered, describing himself as a narcissist in later chapters. He does seem to show empathy for other people, though - his main problem being that he's too much of a coward to stick his neck out for anyone but himself.

## Story

Our story starts off with Crange at home, in his bed being woken up by his tree who isn't in the mood to be ignored. He gets out of bed, tries freshening up in the bathroom, and when the faucet doesn't run, has an unhealthy bout of suicidal idealization. After yelling at his tree for nagging him he finally gets outside and learns the news that his tree is going to die. Crange's tree urges him to leave and go "plant" like his brothers and sisters before him, but he stubbornly refuses and thinks up a plan to go into town to get water for his tree instead.

Into town with his last dollar, Crange walks right past a convenience store and into an occult book store. Here he buys a book and tries to (I kid you not) summon the Devil for a bottle of water. The Devil informs him that's more God's shtick but that he can give him money or make his dick big. Crange takes the offer of money after a spat and buys his water. The huge sack of money proves to be responsibility he doesn't want, and he tosses it at the first opportunity. This just so happens to be the Sad Girl's Orphanage, and because of his accidental "good deed", he is instantly visited by an Angel, who tells him that his demon-summoning has been forgiven. Crange isn't really too concerned with that and walks off, just as the Devil pops back up and starts a yelling match with the Angel. Crange tries to walk away but they both follow him home.

It's here that he wakes his tree up by pouring the bottle of water on them, and sees if this can work. Crange's tree is then immediately and brutally sliced right in half, cueing the title card. Crange is not only front and center to the event but also drenched in his parents blood. Disraught and homeless, Crange winds up in a local bar where he has a freakout at his empty water bottle. There he gets increasingly drunk until the bartender cuts him off, citing his inability to pay. Crange remembers he donated his money. He escapes to the bar's bathroom, breaks the window, and rushes back to the orphanage to steal back his money. He pays for his drinks. He continues to be a depressed piece of shit.

Later on, passed out at the bar, Crange is woken up by the barkeep, who tells him that he doesn't have to go home, he just has to leave. Crange disorientedly explains that he can't as his tree was cut in half, this ways, but the barkeep doesn't want to hear it. The barkeep leaves to the bathroom briefly and Crange goes back to taking his bar nap. Unfortunately, he's woken up abruptly by a nightmare of his tree, bleeding and large, squeezing him in it's grasp and telling him that he can stop this. He wakes up screaming, as one does.

It's then that he meets his first Emerson, a rather ominous praying mantis who tells him that she runs the bar in lieu of the previous barkeep, who is taking a "break" at the moment. Crange says he's going to leave to avoid the first barkeep anyways, but Emerson insists that he stay as long as he needs. It abruptly begins to rain immediately following her suggestion that he stay out of the previously nonexistent storm. She says they can't have Crange wandering out in the cold, to which he reluctantly agrees. Emerson suggests he take a nap and Crange sets his head down, insisting he'll change tomorrow, get a job maybe, find a place to live - but Emerson quickly shuts this down, telling him he's perfect the way he is. As Crange finally passes out, Emerson says that he's home, taking his water bottle (the one remnant of his dead parent) in the process.

From there the comic follows Crange's misadventures without much of a structured plot, usually detailing strange encounters with strange people. Important highlights are The Hand(s), which seem to consider him an "error" and take multiple vessels (including Slug Lady and the crow) in order to pursue him, and the Pod People.

He has a few major near-death experiences, one of which involves the actual death of another version of himself (Crange Is Stuck In A Room). *Crange and the Ants* introduces the concept of time spirals with Crange stumbling into an anthill that has banned him from entering - the One-Eyed Ant explains that versions of himself keep encountering the anthill, with the encounters getting closer and closer together and always followed by catastrophe. In this spiral, Crange's presence causes the Hand to run a lawnmower over the anthill.

From there the presence of different Cranges and Emersons becomes a relevant plot point. Crange's original Emerson dies early on in Crange Goes To The Bathroom to be replaced by another, but after this point we encounter Mercenary Crange and his Emerson in *Crange Takes Himself Out* along with several unnamed Emersons working for the Wristchapel.

*Your Changeing Boy (Crange Gets Shot into Space)* is the turning point for Crange and the end of his meandering misadventures in Bugworld. Unsurprisingly, he gets shot into space by Emerson, after reaching a stage of physical stagnation through sheer emotional stuntedness (as detailed in the Wristchapel Guide To Change). After a year-long journey through space where he does nothing but play Moistsun Basin (cough), he finds himself in the Wristchapel the giant cult in space that Emerson has made entirely dedicated to him, where, in an orientation, he's informed of the state of the timeline and the other Cranges. The place is decorated in red and gold colors, much like the various Emersons' cult robes and features a stain-glass portrait of Crange right up in front of the entrance.

During said voyage in space,he grows a gnarly beard and sprouts a leaf, and begins hearing a mysterious voice in his head that provides prompts and snarky commentary..

It's in orientation (again) Crange meets with what looks like a favored Crange in the cult, Chill Crange. CHill Crange walks him through the halls of the Wristchapel and explains that here, he doesn't have to worry about anything because the Emersons take care of it all. And they *really* like him too. Chill Crange shows him a huge mess hall-like room bursting with other Cranges and after getting some food, explains to him to futility of trying to fight against being kidnapped. His captors already won! What's the point? Unlike the other Cranges, our Crange is discontent with living a happy, sheeplike life of being cared for by the Emersons with no responsibilities, so he goes with his Emerson to take their leave. Chaos erupts as the Pod People assimilate all the remaining Cranges and Sleepy Crange is awoken, summoning the Hands, who begin rampaging in search of their missing Wristchapel.

Along the way to The Chamber Where They Keep God, Crange and Emerson talk backstories. That is to say, Emerson has a breakdown over the overwhelming guilt over how badly they screwed Crange up by shooting him into space and even being in the space cult, and expositions in the process. When they reach the Chamber they encounter "Faustus C. Horselady" (aka Pancake Crange, aka an amnesiac Wristchapel), whom the Emersons have been literally pumping Cranges into. It is then that, funnily enough, Emerson finds out what his full name is. Crange, of course, is...just *SO MAD*. Pancake Crange sits with them awhile and talks about how he was found by the First Emerson and had this whole building built around him... and he IS Crange, he's been told that and is very sure that is who he is. The First Emerson bursts in through the chamber doors and screams for nobody to touch their good boy. After not even trying to calm down, First Emerson and exposits the Wristchapel's backstory, before attempting to convince Crange to hand himself over to be planted and create a new array of Cranges to feed to Pancake Crange. In the nick of time Pancake Crange reveals his jesus ex machina - a "B-hole" that will allow Emerson and Crange escape to an unknown future.

We all know how Crange feels about holes, so the decision is obvious.

Crange and Emerson descend into the depths of the B-hole, encountering Corrupted Crange and being rapidly pursued by the Pod People and the Hands. He is suddenly overtaken by Wristchapel for realsies, who begins slaughtering his pursuers and attempts to mutilate himself as well, but instead spawns another Crange from himself who dies as well. Wristchapel figuring that something is wrong, reveals through an honestly bizarre turn of events, that Crange has not been alone in his own head. There's been a small, very old Emerson lodged directly into his fucking brain. The source of his seeming inability to die as well as the voice in his head. Our Emerson, upon learning this, ***absolutely flips their shit.*** Old Brain Emerson then has to explain themselves, telling that they're an Emerson from a far-off distant future wherein Crange no longer exists. They then explain that they became obsessed with who he was and what significance he had to the now long gone Wristchapel. Leading them into pouring years into a time machine to go back and time and see Crange, but the machine malfuntioning- having been sucked into Crange's brain by mistake and adjusting his time spiral to avoid death as a self-preservation method.

Emerson, having a breakdown for the third time in the past 24 hours, reveals that they indeed fell for their original Crange, who reciprocated their advances but died after having larvae injected into him by a bar patron. Our Crange admits that they knew Emerson loved him, but ignored it like everything else. It's sort of implied he feels the same.

Wristchapel then overtakes his original body, setting off a self-destruct mechanism that will allow him to experience the greatest pain of all time. Before the explosion goes off, Old Brain Emerson finds a "backdoor" spiral that will allow them to escape. Emerson and Crange say their goodbyes, Emerson refusing to come with him as they've made peace with their own existence as multiple scattered Emersons all across the world. Crange forgives Emerson (but only this Emerson) for all that's happened before being sucked into a wormhole, leaving behind his cap in the process.

Crange finds himself outside the spirals of time, Old Brain Emerson finally leaving his mind, encountering an almighty being that allows him another chance to live back on Earth. Crange is launched into space, where he finally experiences true peace and quiet, coming to a happy state of mind for the first time in the comic.

*He Was* bookends the story with Crange careening into the Earth, assassinating a President in the process, before planting into the ground and growing into a tree. He grows up to be the decrepit tree we see in the beginning with his own deadbeat boy Crange, before having a vision of the *YOU CAN STOP THIS* nightmare that woke him up before. In an act of defiance he crushes New Crange and the timeline continues, ending with him being mowed down by the same lumberjack that killed his own tree in the beginning. The cycle is ended.

So ends the life and times of Crange.

## The Different Cranges

Yeah, there's more than one of them. (Note: list does not cover theoretical Cranges based on the existence of Emersons whose Cranges aren't shown.)

All Cranges except Old Brain Crange are presumably deceased or assimilated by the end of the story. Such is the life of Crange.

* Chill Crange
* Assassin Crange
* Sick Crange (*not to be confused with our Crange from Crange gets Sick*)
* Sleepy Crange
* The First l Crange/Old Brain Crange
* Corrupted Crange
* The Crange That Emerson Loved
* Pancake Crange

## Gallery

(under construction)

The first time we see Crange.Crange summoning the Devil.Crange,without home.Crange meets Emerson for the first time.Crange,within the well.Crange,without guts.The Crange Pod Person, who is here and back.Crange and Crange, really Cranging it up together. A la Crange.Crange meeting the werewolf.Crange,inside the VHS world of a Bugworld KFC Orientation video.Crange,getting his brains electrified!Assassin Cranges first appearance.Crange meeting an alternate dimension Crange for the first time!Crange,digging a grave.Crange and his NEW KICKS!!Crange and Emerson outrunning the Arm!Crange and the Pod People.Crange learning about time spirals.Crange,sick. And parched.Assassin Crange's second appearance!Assassin Crange and his respective Emerson.Crange in front of an open hole to hell.Crange post-kegger, with a killer hand injury.Crange,physically and mentally stagnated.Crange as portrayed by the informational Wristchapel pamphlet.Crange, inside a dreamy delusion wherein he has water.