#* &. DYNAMIC / VERONICA & ARCHIE.

[wallbeatjournal]

JIMIN MENTION. Riverdale characters as BTS members

unfortunately i did workshop this with the army gc and i think i have a proposal. it doesn't totally work because of gender dynamics and the way the universes of corporate-competitive art performance and riverdale aren't really quite aligned, but i think i got somewhere.

RIVERDALE MAINS AS BTS MEMBERS:

jughead = rm / kim namjoon. iconoclast. the lyricist-narrator of the whole deal. the link to the big corporate-bureaucratic metaplot in the sky. a typewriter kind of guy. there are so so so many of him and sometimes they interact. queerbait-complicit and yet sidestepping it.

reggie = jin / kim seokjin. the negotiator. the big-city boyfriend from the hallmark movie. the nation's son-in-law but DID flirt with your grandmother and your dad at the function. fed that mean old man from his bare hand. schemes and scams, less opportunistically than as a vocational calling. second place to karl marx and knows it.

betty = suga / min yoongi. she's resisting her idol image with her gratuitously-edgy secondary persona but she's still your poor little meow meow, your baby. she's alert! she's fractured! her amygdala is working sooo hard. her shadow grows and grows and she's avoiding it she's looking at it she's avoiding it she's looking. don't say tangerine.

veronica = j-hope / jung hoseok. idk it's about perfectionism. it's about how CRYING 👏 DOES 👏 NOT 👏 FIT 👏 WITH 👏 HER 👏 LIFE'S 👏 VIBE. it's about lean-in girlbossism. it's about success not creating psychological safety (but she wants more anyway bc what else is she here to do). she's nice but she's ruthless but she loves you!! and on several tragic levels iykyk: she da bus driver all of a sudden.

kevin = jimin. compulsive joiner. compulsive people-pleaser. compulsive flirt. compulsive. mapplethorpe fanboy. gender outlaw. a smoke-show, now. most likely to charm a late night talk show host. queerbaiter of the cruising-coded-crowd-scene variety. most likely to put it all on the line for a little cabaret ♥

cheryl = v / kim taehyung. questionable art appreciator. questionable painter. questionable self portrait accumulator. high-aesthetic curator of Scenes and Situations. president of gay fanservice (self-appointed). glamorous alien OR reclusive little freak. if the high-aesthetic, melodramatic-literary closet case lament fits.

archie = jungkook. golden boy all-rounder. beefcake-on-display. designated himbo. Wants To Help. will NOT contribute to a conversation so don't even try. gives kind of a sincere wounded baby animal quality at times. queerbait via lore-relevant chime card sponcon (this isn't jarchie but it does make you ask yourself "is charlie puth sort of jugheadcore, if jughead sucked (derogatory) instead of sucking (complimentary)?")

[mamanbou]

i love the way they love

[strideofpride]

Varchie…again…

[jhsharman]

wonder dude

It might seem as they colored in Betty's midriff, but the other panels maintain her belly. So. Uneven editing. Continuity error created.

I do not know if "real life superheroes" was a subculture at the time (hard not to have issues with this vigilante-light role play fantasy hobby, even if it mostly devolves into showing off your costume on YouTube and knowing that you can't really do anything when you wander around at night -- except have a few more mock-worthy YouTube of you not really doing anything), and I guess it had been done by Archie anyway. I remember seeing a local comic book store having Josie # 22 marked up from the other issues with a notation that this was the "first appearance of Mighty Man" -- I am sure a big selling point for the collectors' market.

[inkedmuses-a]

reggie & henri’s tags

( muse: reggie mantle )

( musings: reggie mantle )

( thread: reggie mantle )

( answered asks: reggie mantle )

( photos: reggie mantle )

( muse: henri fox )

( musings: henri fox )

( thread: henri fox )

( answered asks: henri fox )

( photos: henri fox )

[ilikekidsshows]

The Totally Spies-ification of Adrien

Okay, it's been long enough that I can actually discuss how Adrien's slavery is depicted in the show without anger-fueled exaggerations and hyperbole. I want to discuss how Miraculous treats Adrien's slavery very flippantly and how it is, like everything in this show post-retool, all about Marinette. The show has a lot of stuff that hints that the writers intend for Adrien to be viewed a very certain way. I believe the writers made Adrien a slave for Marinette’s benefit and I will explain how I came to this conclusion.

I’ve joked before about how Astruc has worked on Totally Spies, “one of the kinkiest cartoons ever made”. I’d like to tackle this idea and how it relates to Miraculous more seriously. I’d like to tackle the topic of titillation and how it relates to how this show approaches slavery with such flippancy. My claim is that Adrien being a slave is not meant to be horrifying, which is why the story doesn't treat it as such; it's meant to be titillating.

I usually don't use Read Mores, since they can lead to broken links later, but this is really long. Strap in, folks.

Titillation for the context of this analysis means “content with the intention to excite romantically or sexually”, basically it’s about “kinky” stuff. The purpose of talking about sexuality in relation to Miraculous is not to paint the writers as some kind of fiends, but to present the fact that many teenagers are curious about romance and sex and will think about sex unprompted. This means titillating content in cartoons doesn’t even need to be related to sex to be titillating. And Astruc has a history of putting titillating stuff in his work, with Totally Spies being a very notable example of how you can include non-sexual titillating content in a kids’ show.

It all comes down to expected audience reactions. Adrien is meant to be sexy. I don’t mean that in a “the writers think this is sexy” way, but a “the writers think the projected audience of straight teenage girls will think this is sexy” way. He gets put into bondage three times in ‘Copycat’, ‘Anti-Bug’ and ‘Reverser’ and all three times the camera seems to like to show him off. He is meant to be an object of attraction for the audience. The people criticizing this show have been pointing out how Ladybug's costume accentuates her butt for years, but this is not something that occurs with just Ladybug. When he isn't posing for the viewers, Cat Noir gets whacked around by Akuma’s a lot, but a lot of the time it ends with him in a prone position that is also titillating, in ‘Pixelator’ it goes as far as having his butt jut out. However, the idea that Cat Noir is the one who gets hit when an Akuma needs to show off how dangerous they are is also part of the power dynamic where Marinette or Ladybug gets to show off, so it’s not purely for titillation, which is why other examples, like ‘Stormy Weather’ are more comedic.

It’s likely that Adrien-as-Adrien doesn’t get to participate in the show’s slapstick much, since that aspect of the character is presented as the perfect beauty, a role usually reserved for female characters who only ever get a little bit flustered or banged up to make sure they keep looking attractive. Marinette screams "waack" and runs face first into a wall in the same episode where the silliest thing Adrien gets to do is sneeze (Mr Pigeon). Adrien is meant to be attractive, sexy, titillating, in different ways in his different forms. As Cat Noir he is more active and more sexy, as Adrien he’s more passive and pretty, much like how female love interests can fall into these categories. It’s the Betty and Veronica dichotomy; in the Archie franchise Betty and Veronica are shown as the wholesome and sexy romance options and the reason the writers go out of their way not to resolve the love triangle is to keep the appeal of these both options going. People’s tastes differ, so it would alienate some audiences to pick one over the other. With Miraculous they solved the problem by having the two romance options be the different identities of a single character.

Frankly, as of the season five finale, Adrien is approaching “sexy lamp” levels of replicating sexist ways of writing a female character but just changing the gender. What else do you call him lying on the floor in despair while his love interest gets his superpowers and uses them to beat up his abusive father, while somehow being perfectly fine and happily kissing Marinette later after said father is dead and gone? Adrien’s trauma is debilitating when it serves the writers’ purposes, but stops being a problem as soon as they need him to smile and look pretty. The main reason Adrien’s trauma is so inconsistent is so that he can act as Marinette’s trophy so that Marinette has somebody to kiss in the final shot. If Adrien was despairing about not being good enough for her, or grossly crying about being an orphan, Marinette wouldn’t have a fun time kissing him. And if Marinette isn’t having fun, the members of the audience projecting onto her aren’t having fun either.

Speaking of how Adrien’s depiction relates to Marinette, here comes the controversial part of this post: while Marinette is not depicted as a literal slave owner in-story, narratively, she is very much treated as Adrien's owner from a meta perspective. We, the viewers, are meant to see Adrien as Marinette's property, and the twist of Adrien being a part of a slave race in a dynamic where Marinette holds all the cards is meant to be a good thing. We have been primed to view everything about Adrien to actually be about Marinette, because Marinette is the center of the universe of Miraculous and Adrien belongs to her because he’s the main character’s love interest. Adrien being revealed to be a slave that Marinette could control but then chooses to “merely” manipulate is meant to be glorifying to Marinette and titillating to the viewer. I will elaborate.

Marinette has been incredibly possessive of Adrien since day one and she is only occasionally depicted as being in the wrong about this, when she goes too far by the show’s standards. She stalks Lila and Adrien whenever she sees them hanging out together and she’s unreasonably jealous of Kagami. The only time she is depicted as being in the wrong is not when she's sniffing Adrien's pillow after breaking into his room, but when she actually bullies Kagami out of jealousy, and even that is depicted as more of an unfortunate misunderstanding than Marinette actively doing something wrong. Marinette is more sympathetic towards Kagami when she finds out she and Adrien aren't as close as she thought, that Kagami’s pursuit of Adrien is more hopeless than hers. Basically, Marinette is only in the wrong because Kagami isn't a threat, not because she was doing anything wrong by bullying her to defend her “territory”.

This gets flipped near the end of the season, though. When Adrien and Kagami do start dating, it's depicted as this big tragedy even more so than Master Fu losing his memories. Master Fu going missing is an afterthought, while Adrien choosing someone else over Marinette is the big “darkest hour” moment of the season three mid-finale, the cliffhanger moment of her crying in Luka’s arms while all hope is lost. Marinette isn’t directly crying about this, she is crying from “all the pressure”, but Marinette breaking down happens immediately after a scene of Kagami leaning in to kiss Adrien that has a somber dirge playing in the background. The first part of the finale has everything going wrong at the end; Master Fu is missing, Chloé gets willingly Akumatized, Marinette breaks down, and Kagami leans in to kiss Adrien. These scenes being put closely together is telling us that these are all bad things to happen.

Adrien ending up with Marinette is a given, but it's also taken for granted. Every girl with an interest in Adrien is depicted as an antagonist, while Marinette can do whatever she wants in pursuit of Adrien and will still be morally correct. Chloé and Lila, even Kagami to a degree, are villainized for their attraction to Adrien in a way Nathaniel, Luka or Zoé are not with their attraction to Marinette. Chloé and Lila are full-blown villains while Luka and Zoé are some of the most selfless members of the cast. Kagami is aggressive and socially awkward in a way that is used to justify Marinette's initial distrust and dislike of her (in ‘Ikari Gozen’ Alya voices her pity towards Marinette for having to spend time with her) while Nathaniel is just the pitiful bullied loner who’s still a liked member of the class friend group. Girls who want Adrien are bad for trespassing on Marinette’s territory and trying to “steal” something that “belongs” to Marinette.

The writers thinking Adrien belongs to Marinette is also not just subtext. Later in season five, when Marinette and Adrien finally start dating, Marinette even outright states that Adrien “kinda does a little” belong to her when she’s scared that Zoé has a crush on him. The fumbling of the line means that the writers are aware of how toxic it is to consider your partner your property, but they want to include that sentiment anyway, because that’s how they view the situation. Marinette’s boyfriend is her property and other people can’t even look at her property. ‘Emotion’ continues on this increased possessiveness by having the entire Marinette plot happen because she can’t conceive Adrien keeping things from her, because he isn’t allowed privacy from her while Marinette lying to Adrien (or Cat Noir) is a show staple.

This same attitude of Adrien not being allowed to have romantic options outside of Marinette has also been in the fandom for years. Every time a new female character was introduced, there was a worry that she’d “try to steal Adrien from Marinette”. Marinette and Adrien are endgame, the writers know this and the fandom knows this. The characters don't know this, but it doesn't matter because Adrien was already seen as Marinette's (future) boyfriend even back in season one when he barely knew her. And this attitude the writers and audience have is extended to the characters more and more as the show goes on, as almost every single character becomes an Adrinette shipper in support of Marinette in season five, while no one thinks to ask Adrien what he thinks about this. Only once, in ‘Desperada’ did Alya suggest that Adrien could make his own choice on who to date, but it was implied the choice should be Marinette specifically (Marinette smiles at this, while Kagami frowns). The cast is lucky the writers have decided Adrien already is Marinette's, or he’d be really uncomfortable.

Season five episode ‘Pretension’ goes as far with this as having Marinette basically ask Gabriel for permission to be with Adrien, convinced that she and Adrien can be together with no problems if she can just get him to approve of her. And then Gabriel tells her he’s promised Adrien to Kagami. You know, like a piece of property women were treated as before women were allowed to live without a man to control them. The finale then ultimately does have Gabriel agree to hand Adrien over to Marinette by dying and leaving her in charge of Adrien. Just because she uses the privilege to do some things for Adrien’s benefit doesn’t make what happened any less of a patriarchal transaction. In fact, the writers wrote it that way on purpose, with the knight and princess parallels they set up between Marinette and Adrien earlier in the show being something they are prominently proud of (the “reverse fairytale” as they put it). Adrien is the princess the dashing hero Marinette gets to earn with her feats of bravery; he’s handed to her like a piece of property and Marinette is too happy with her acquisition to even be outraged on Adrien’s behalf. And Adrien wasn’t even allowed to know about any of this, instead it gets handled solely between Marinette and Gabriel, like his opinion on the matter didn’t even matter. And why would his opinion matter, since he already is ready to promise himself to Marinette, even as the writers deny him the agency to actually make such a promise.

The goal of making it obvious that Adrien is cool with being objectified like this is probably why they make Adrien so obsessed with Marinette in season five, constantly repeating her name to himself and saying stuff like: “I can’t stop thinking about you” in ‘Pretension’. They need to drive it home to the audience exactly how okay Adrien is with everyone forcing him to be with Marinette. After all, you can’t force the willing. As of ‘Confrontation’, Adrien’s official goals for the future are: “I love Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” I guess, from the perspective of the writers, the childhood dream of wanting to be what his parents wanted from ‘Wishmaker’ wasn’t sad because of Adrien’s lack of agency; it was sad because he wasn’t forsaking all of his personal pursuits for Marinette specifically. As far as the writers are concerned, Adrien should only care about Marinette and nothing else.

This same entitlement is also present in Ladybug and Cat Noir's relationship. Every time Cat Noir is upset with Ladybug, like in Frozer, Glaciator, Syren, The New York Special or even Kuro Neko, they never talk about what caused it. This is especially blatant in cases where Ladybug has wronged Cat Noir personally, like Kuro Neko or the NY Special, where she never has to face up to what she did wrong because Cat Noir comes back because she “needs him”.  Cat Noir will always come back to her without her having to do anything because she is the main character and she says she needs him. He exists for her and her needs. He exists for her; it’s just another way he’s hers.

Speaking of how Adrien is treated affects Marinette, even Adrien’s trauma actually belongs to her in the writing.  I pointed out earlier that Adrien’s trauma shows up when the writers need to put him out of commission, but disappears as soon as he needs to be Marinette’s trophy, but it goes further than just inconsistency. The early seasons spend several episodes on how Adrien is being locked up by his father and unable to hang out with his friends and, between him and Marinette, Marinette is the one shown to be more upset and hurt by this. They don’t do this in every episode, as ‘The Bubbler’ actually does a phenomenal job of making Adrien’s upset actually about him, but the big point in ‘Glaciator’ is that Marinette is so upset that she can’t see Adrien that she accidentally leaves Cat Noir on read so he’s upset about that. Adrien is only upset because he didn’t get attention from Marinette, while Adrien’s literal abuse at the hands of his father is only important because it makes Marinette upset. Even Adrien himself gets in on this action in ‘Conformation’ when the writers go as far as having Adrien chastise himself of not being more worthy of Marinette’s love when his dad is once again busy ruining his life. Even Adrien himself makes his abuse about Marinette; him being abused is bad because it’s inconveniencing Marinette and inconveniencing Marinette makes him less worthy of her.

‘Cat Blanc’ is possibly the worst offender of all, though. This episode should be all about how Adrien is abused by Gabriel, culminating with Gabriel turning him into a monster that destroys the world. And yet, what is the episode actually about? It’s about Marinette. The worst thing that could happen to Adrien is about Marinette. Only Marinette gets to remember or even know about the possibility of Cat Noir getting Akumatized and only Marinette is traumatized by it happening. After all that the writers later dare to use this event that didn’t actually happen anymore, that Adrien doesn’t know about, to justify him giving his powers to Marinette, because he’s “scared of getting Akumatized” when something like that has never happened as far as he knows. But the writers had him reason this way anyway, because apparently the culmination of Marinette’s character development in the show means taking Adrien’s power as her own and then failing to win even with that at her disposal.

Another note about ‘The Bubbler’ that has to be pointed out is that it’s also the first example of Marinette being presented as good for Adrien simply because she treats him better than Gabriel. The final scene of Marinette giving Adrien his best birthday present yet and letting him think it comes from Gabriel is done to show how selfless Marinette is by letting Adrien keep thinking good things about his abuser. This idea that Marinette is morally good simply because she’s better than pond scum Gabriel is also present in the season five finale, where Marinette manipulates, gaslights and keeps important information from her abused slave boyfriend. Marinette is presented as being in the right because at least she didn’t literally control him with a magical geas like Gabriel did and gave him the object with which to do so (while notably not telling him what it does). Marinette will do the bare minimum of not taking literal ownership of Adrien and we’re meant to see her as a paragon of goodness for it, while she still has no respect for Adrien’s autonomy and hasn’t had any since the show started.

The way the Sentimonster “reveal” is handled shows this utter lack of respect for Adrien’s autonomy that the writers, and Marinette by extension, have. The reveal is not for Adrien, but for Marinette, just like every other piece of Adrien has been made to be about Marinette. Marinette gets to know and she gets to decide if Adrien gets to know, and she decides “no”. She will manipulate him and lie to him to keep him happy for herself, she will keep important information about him to herself that he might never find out if anything happens to her, because Adrien is hers and no one else’s and she has the right to make that decision because the world revolves around her because the world of Miraculous was created to be her playground. “Adrien” is just a toy on that playground for Marinette to play with as the writers see fit.

Now we’re coming back to Adrien’s role as the sexy, titillating love interest character that I talked about at the start of this essay. If Marinette granting Adrien the bare minimum of freedoms as a slave while manipulating him “for his own good” is meant to be a good thing, why is Adrien even a slave? Well, outside of the writers wanting to add a plot twist that doesn’t come with any messy plot they’d have to write about characters other than Marinette, Adrien being a slave is also meant to be titillating. What really is magical super slavery than very, very off the wall bondage and power play stuff? The idea that Marinette could rob her love interest of his free will with ease but won’t because she cares about him so much is very empowering in two different ways. It gives Marinette all the power in the relationship and it makes her out to be such a good person that even having ultimate power over another person won’t corrupt her. Adding to that, we have Adrien’s people pleaser abuse victim personality, which makes him fawn over the people he loves. If Marinette ever wanted to have control over Adrien, Adrien would give it to her of his own volition, no need for magical super slavery or unbreakable geases.

As I stated earlier, Marinette is meant to be the point of view main character the audience of teen girls projects themselves onto. So, really, Adrien’s slavery and abuse responses are all about that fantasy of having a cute boy you have all the power over but not needing to use it because the boy is so nice and devoted to you anyway. Adrien really is “perfect”, the perfect object of attraction, a being who technically has free will but whose free will you never have to take into account because he’s been designed and trained to value other people’s wants and needs over his own.

Marinette doesn't literally own Adrien within the story, but the writers make it very clear that they think she should. In fact, in all ways except the literal, she already does.

[stargazinglesbian]

this is gonna get like 3 votes but. lisa frankenstein jarchie au. archie is the creature.he and veronica are from the 1800s and jughead is from the 1980s (i am nothing if not faithful to source material). question is where do i put betty

pros and cons to each

we'll start with 1800s betty. potentially it could have a little arc where jughead helps archie do some sleuthing to find out what happened to veronica after archie died, and they could find out (via cheryl because yk family history) that veronica opened her own business and lived for years and years with her close best friend, cheryl's great great great whatever aunt betty, in a one bedroom flat and adopted two cats. i could give cheryl a line about "of course that means they were lesbians" and then jughead would have to explain to archie that his dead ex gf was bisexual + i could write a cute 1800s beronica romance prequel if i was so posessed

or

betty was jugheads childhood best friend, they're very close and there could be like minor crush territory. she could be cheryl's cousin and although the bughead would not be endgame i do like them quite a lot so there would probably be some of that. i just like betty tons and i wanna write her and cheryl and their dynamic because it's hilarious to plusssss it would be fun if she had more presence in the story. downside is that i'm unsure how i'd end up resolving her arc and doing her justice with so much else going on

no see results option because why do you gaf

god all this for a fanfiction i'm not gonna write ffs

[nomsfaultau]

Here me out

Techno to Gold!Phil

[Image ID: a panel from an Archie and Friends comic, with Veronica demanding: "Down boy!!" while Archie nervously complies, saying "arf!"]

I think this would work, only because Weight in Gold![Philza] doesn't know what dogs are. So I guess he wouldn't bark but he would get down, probably looking confused.

However, this would NOT work if he had the slightest inclination about the dynamic implied, and he would stare at Techno very flatly and be offended by being so demeaned by the comparison to a pet.

Golden Apples!Phil, however, is totally willing to grovel to get back in his kids' graces....

[serialkillerbettycooper]

what if hiram and archie but they're both girls

Short answer: toxic yuri <3 yay <3

Long answer: I've been mulling over this one all day because masculinity is so wrapped up in the way Hiram and Archie's relationship manifests in a way that doesn't really translate to femininity. 'mob boss' and 'capo' are both such heavily-gendered roles, and their dynamic is constantly being expressed through ritualized, homoerotic violence in the form of boxing, wrestling, and blood oaths (the rituals. they are so intricate). And while I think women beating the shit out of each other rules, the cinematic language and commentary on gender and masculinity inevitably changes a lot with the gender swap. They're both very different people with the confines of masculinity removed, and the confines of femininity added.

That said, I love toxic yuri and this is a fascinating question to me, so facing god and walking backwards straight into fanfiction territory here, but if i was writing Archie and Hiram as women, here's how I think I'd do it:

Veronica doesn't get her gender swapped, but Hermione does. Hermione becomes a lot more distant, no longer having the shared experience of womanhood to bond with Veronica over, and remains cognizant and jealous of (insane that she just. said that out loud. by the way) the intensity of Hiram and Veronica's relationship, but is even less likely to step in. I've gone back and forth but I think it's interesting to keep Fred a single father, whose already-shaky abilities to relate to Archie and assert appropriate boundaries only diminish with Archie as a teenage girl instead of a teenage boy.

Also, f!Archie is butch/gnc, f!Hiram is not.

Hiram's had to navigate the male-dominated mob world as a woman, and has to play the careful gender balancing-act that requires, presenting her femininity as powerful in a way that remains palatable to her male peers, think eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man femme fatale vibes. Hiram deeply cares about gender presentation and being seen as 'correctly' masculine - 'a real man' - in canon and in this AU, 'correctly' feminine. Which naturally leads to feeling threatened by and disapproving of Veronica's relationship with Archie, a sporty butch girl from a working-class family whose very existence undermines Hiram's ideas about gender. Hiram would be so gay and homophobic about it. Archie becomes a canvas on which Hiram can project her own issues about gender, and then blot them out, controlling and destroying masculinity in another woman/girl, shaping her into the image of someone worthy of her daughter in the process.

Thinking about the suits Archie wears while working with Hiram, the tone that takes on if it's Archie slowly becoming more femme under Hiram's influence. About the subversion of femininity used to signify maturity. About the parallels you could draw with Alice's control of Betty's appearance, about Hiram giving Archie pearls, about the differences in the rituals men and women construct to touch one another.

Toxic yuri of the century.

[pansyfemme]

out of curiosity did you ever read the one archie comic about betty and reggie dating? and how it made them both happier / made reggie less of an asshole and it was genuinely so good but in the end they went back to dating their ‘correct’ partners (betty with archie and reggie with veronica) i was genuinely obsessed with that comic as a kid and was so upset when they (amicably) stopped dating

okay okay you dont know how happy this makes me. i have stated before that im a massive betty/reggie shipper and im pretty sure that comic singlehandedly convinced me. like reggie is always a fascinating character to me bc he’s mean and rich but.. also kind of a loser? like at least veronica is popular, the people reggie hangs around the most literally. hate him. and i feel like betty is so often alienated from the friend group as well as she’s so often fucked over by both archie and veronica, and jughead’s not into girls.. so reggie and betty kinda.. makes a weird sort of sense? on the surface its like ‘reggie’s such a jerk and betty’s so nice..’ but like. not to defend reggie a bit too much but both of them share a common trait: trying so hard to impress the same people in their lives who will always choose someone else over them (reggie with veronica and betty with archie/also veronica) so like i think genuinly they could really be a good pair .. but it would throw off the group dynamic totally. also, yes betty is nicer- but archie clearly likes veronica more. she’s always the first pick. so i think betty trying out a new partner makes.. a lot of sense. she dated adam for a while (character they made up literally for that purpose, he’s super bland and boringggg) and jason blossom, but lets be real. jason blossom is similar enough to reggie that it’s the same dynamic.. so i think reggie and betty makes so much sense. i want more talking about what a loser reggie is and exploring how he’s not really all that, and more development for betty outside of her relationship to archie and veronica.. so give me more reggie/betty content PLEASE

[fizzlehead]

*thinks about how every instance of betty and veronica actually fighting over archie after the pilot has been them doing so in a narrative that a man has written for them (ie. jughead’s comic book from tales in a jugular vein and kevin’s musical from archie the musical) meanwhile irl they’ve always been friends even when they were kissing each other’s boyfriends and swapping archie back and forth between them and now they’re finally turning those narratives that so badly want them to be fighting over archie and hating each other completely on their heads in order to be with each other instead, proving that there really has never been the betty vs. veronica dynamic everyone always thinks of and wants because it’s always been betty AND veronica instead* *goes insane*

[theultimatewildcard]

What do you think of hirarchie now? Do you think of hirarchie now?

i think of hirarchie every day, anon. every day.

what specifically do i think of it now? so so many things it's hard to put into words, it's such a layered dynamic and represents so much in the show. for now i am focusing on the abuse/reshaping hiram forced upon archie and his immense impact on archie's life and self-conceptualisation of his identity , so basically attempting a mini-essay version of my greatest achievement in amv creation (my hirarchie would've could've should've by t swift amv). so if this doesn't make sense. basically just watch that.

i think what makes hirarchie so compelling is that hiram is possibly the single most impactful character on archie's entire life and plot throughout the show. he is constantly getting groomed and exploited by authorities (grundy -> hiram -> the army), but hiram is the longest running of those and continues to plague archie even in his dreams well into his 20s after not seeing hiram for years!!

we watch archie go from a kid who just loves music and his friends to a young man who conceptualises his entire self through violence and his capacity for evil, largely (or perhaps entirely) due to hiram's influence, intentionally trying to disassemble archie and build him back up in the attack-dog image he sees fit, starting immediately in season 2 when he suggests archie take the black hood issue into his own hands, and continuing to reinforce this over and over (making archie his capo, sending him to juvie fight club, assigning him a fantasy identity and defining him through violence with the red paladin boxing match, being the reason archie missed senior year and couldn't graduate, which is what lead him to joining the army, etc etc etc)

all the riverdale kids experience extreme trauma but i think archie's hiram-related trauma is the clearest narrative line, you can really follow it through and see all the direct lines and echoes of hiram in archie's mind and choices as he grows up and into adulthood. it's just so clear and satisfying as a piece of the riverdale trauma plot/symbolism puzzle, and there is always more and more to unpack upon every rewatch.

and that is without even touching on the many other things going on with hirarchie - the fact that hiram is the one to instigate this rivalry with a TEEN basically over masculinity, the (sexual) grooming subtext that is constantly lurking right there, the #cycles we see in their life parallels, the veronica of it all, etc. these things all tie in to each other and you cannot really ever have any one without the others but i haven't had breakfast and we would truly be here all day.

[jhsharman]

"The Reel World"

Interesting to note that the 'Sugar Girls' predate their story in Cheryl Blossom. Also interesting that their first appearance --in "Tell Me What You Really, Really Want" (ahem) where "in attempt to get Archie's attention, Betty and Veronica dress up like the girls in his favorite band, The Sugar Girls" is drawn by the same creator for the Cheryl Blossom comic book stories, though not written by her. Did Bill Golliher create the Sugar Girls?

I guess it becomes no longer important or germane to reference the events of her stint with the band.

Curious. Did Holly G sneak something past there? I suppose it is a pun a tabloid would run, except that the dynamics of the wordplay wink at incest.

Threre is no accounting for musical taste with the Archie gang. Understandably, everything with anything close to a one to one stand-up recognization will be dead middle of the mainstream, "rocking the suburbs" as it were. But the mid oughts Reggie is apparently, ret-conned comic strip, a fan of Lindsey Logan's musical output. Would a Reggie be big into Lindsey Lohan? Back to the early oughts, and everyone -- Archie! Betty! Veronica! Jughead! Reggie! -- are camping out and incredibly jazzed to get tickets to... Floppy Biscuit. Closing my eyes and picturing a Limp Bizkit concert -- and I am not seeing it.

[palegreenchlorine]

what if hiram and archie but they're both girls

what if we were hiram and archie . and we were both girls

interesting premise, anon! it could go lots of different ways imo. really depends on the configuration. see one of the things that really creates the unique dynamic of hiram/archie is the fact that it’s built on the very patriarchal patterns of father-son relationships and ALSO the mafia/mob/cartel whatever (crime rings, essentially, are a male business.)

(there is also the question of race, but.)

hiram is brought into the mob the same way that archie is turned into a capo in season 2. i think before anything else, that is what shapes their dynamic that hiram does Wrong and archie Tries to Do Right. that’s the thing that shapes the entirety of season 2, right? archie wants to Do Right (protect fred) -> hiram offers him a way to do that by Doing Wrong (suggesting he start a vigilante group). archie then gets sucked into hiram’s world, with the lure of what i would call very male narrative motivations (this doesn’t mean these apply to men alone, but in fiction, are often seen as inherent traits for a male character to have) such protectiveness - over fred and veronica, power - over those who would seek to hurt fred and veronica. there was a point somewhere in the thousands of meta posts i’ve devoured in the last two days that fred getting shot makes him weak in archie’s eyes, and that hiram’s traditionally “powerful” persona becomes very attractive to him in the time following the fred incident.

have you ever heard of the theory of homosociality, anon?

the thing about the mafia, like i said before, is that it is a predominantly male business. the women, like hermione often cites in s2 to veronica, are supposed to stand behind their man as he makes his moves. the issue with hiram is the same issue that logan roy had in succession, which is that he had no acceptable male heir, so he does, again, what logan roy did: used his idiot son-in-law as a conduit for power. (idiot here used affectionately for archie, derogatory for tom wambsgans) what’s interesting to me is that hiram obviously prides himself on veronica having turned out to be such a cunning, self-sufficient young woman - and while this frustrates him as well, i have to believe that as some point he must’ve considered handing his empire over to her. but the fact remains that ultimately the mafia is a male business, and archie-and-veronica would’ve been a really odd, controlling couple because veronica would be running everything from behind archie’s stature. she does so, even, with nick st. clair and the speakeasy/casino side hustle in s2. she still has to rely on a man to pull the strings.

you know the riverdale genre theory? because of the way that hiram’s entire character is constructed around the mafia, and by extension, so is veronica’s relationship with archie, i think a lot of archie and hiram’s relationship has to specifically with their gender. think about it - none of the women on riverdale have such an intense relationship with the girls on the show who aren’t their daughters. even though alice HATES hermione and veronica, she doesn’t do anything more than forbid betty from being friends with veronica. mary doesn’t really interact with veronica the same way that hiram does with archie. gladys never even comes into meaningful contact with betty - for that matter, neither does hermione. all the girls have very complex minefield-esque relationships with their mothers, but none of the rivermoms ever reach out to the other daughters.

i would say on some level archie and hiram’s relationship cannot be replicated if they were female; say, for example, that hiram were to be woman, and still married to hermione; a lesbian mob boss would always be fighting her way into again, what is predominantly a male space. i don’t think she would’ve had the time to groom female!archie the same way into becoming her capo, because it wouldn’t supplement her position in the mafia to have more female capos. i believe if hiram were female, also, and veronica was still her daughter, there would be no focus on female archie (veronica’s gf in this scenario) and instead, veronica would have a very fraught, tense relationship with hiram instead, because hiram would be actively trying to groom her to take over the empire (?) instead of spoiling her and treating her as someone who would eventually marry into a different position of power. veronica would then fight hiram on all these things, because her girlfriend archie would be protesting against all the evil things that fem!hiram is doing, because fem!archie would be able to see it from the outside of the relationship. riverdale loves a mother-daughter struggle.

if, say, instead, this was a genderswap situation, where hermione is male and hiram is female, and veronica is male and archie is female, i believe nothing would really come of it either. again, fem!archie would be trying to convince veronica that male!hermione is evil, but male veronica would’ve been indoctrinated a long time ago. hiram being female and archie being female completely sap all the tension from their relationship, because all of a sudden fem!hiram would be using her cunning to ensure male!hermione stayed on top of everything, and fem!archie would be busy trying to ensure male!veronica wouldn’t succumb to the dark side. they would simply never interact! riverdale wouldn’t put them in the same room, even. it is possible i just lack imagination; but i just think the layers of repression and violence that form archie and hiram just don’t click in the same way if they were women. i don’t know.

(i do think, though, that fem!hiram would be a very possessive boymom over male!veronica. perhaps there’s something there? fem!hiram beefing with fem!archie over male!veronica’s attention? even so, riverdale, for all its female characters, doesn’t really do non-familial intergenerational interactions all that much. i have a jughead-meta reason for why this is, but that’s a story for a different time.)

[wallbeatjournal]

"and they're not even related" if Archie and Hiram are the only main character abuse relationship in Riverdale where they're not related is that the secret sauce, avoiding incest?

oh! no not at all lol. i mentioned that in the other post because it's fairly unique for fiction imo - audiences kind of expect family abusers to pop in and out of the picture (though they do still blame lol - the way some people react to veronica as though she herself is responsible for protecting her friends from her adult father who has all the powers of the law over her......)

but it's unique to see the same story treatment for a non familial abuse dynamic, where archie is the one who can't cut contact meaningfully - or he can, but it will cost him his whole support network. he just can't expect not to have the guy around like an unfenced swimming pool level attractive nuisance, lobbing emotional-or-literal bombs and cultivating other victims in front of his face. idk i think that's neat, the metaphor of it all works for me really well.

also no way is hirarchie pure and free of incest subtext imo. riverdale straight up made veronica<>archie<>hiram and fred<>archie<>hiram the big emotional triangles of s2. someone just sent @horrorlesbion an incredible post that calls out v eloquently how the hirarchie sexual tension AND the way archie views hiram as a paternal figure and role model go hand-in-hand. there's no winning any abuse dynamic purity tests here lol.