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riverdale-retread · 1 year

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Riverdale S7 E 15 (Chapter 132) Miss Teen Riverdale

Betty’s idea about giving a forum to the young women of her high school to air their grievances was a huge hit immediately, as we saw at the end of the last episode. The first letter she gets is from Veronica. We know it’s from her, but Betty doesn’t immediately scream “Oh this is Veronica!” even though Veronica basically outs herself wholesale: “I’m sick of living in a world that doesn’t take me seriously as a young business woman.” Who else talks like this or thinks like this or runs her own business in the entire high school? Nobody but V. Lodge! However, Veronica says she can’t open a checking account and I’m confused because then how does she own things? What? Also, I do understand that this is supposed to go towards women not having access to full adulthood by being denied participation in financial life, but nobody should ever take a high school student seriously as a business person. This… is not… a real problem.

Toni also outs herself in her letter: “I’m Black, I’m bold, I’m beautiful” and wants to be celebrated for those things. The only other black girl who gets to talk in Riverdale High School, Tabitha, is out of town and has been for weeks (months). First, I don’t understand why Toni doesn’t have any sort of feminist/ gender consciousness. If she’s presented as so smart, why is she dumb enough to want to fuck with fashion magazines of all things? I thought she was so off the beaten path? Secondly, she keeps pretending that her real issue is racial justice but she does not give two hoots. What she wants is to be celebrated not for being Black, which is a political stance and a still (sadly) radical one, but celebrated for being pretty, which has never not happened in the history of men objectifying women. You see, I think Toni’s real problem isn’t that Black women are not yet, in 1950, a large enough spending demographic for glossy magazine advertisers to target via fashion magazines. It’s that she’s decided to be the prettiest of the Beats or the Outsiders or whatever, but actually that she is super square and super mainstream and very very boring. What she wants is to be a cheerleader, and thought just as hot as a blonde cheerleader. She’s a stolidly normcore provincial pretty girl pretending to be an outsider. In short, being Black was and remains the main framework of oppression and injustice for millions, but it is NOT TONI’S ACTUAL ISSUE.

Cheryl, being in the closet, manages to actually not out herself except in her very formal way of writing “forever worried that I will reveal myself.” She posted this letter - in an abundance of caution - from the post box downtown when she was on a fake heterodate with Kevin. She is wearing a marvelous outfit. Navy coat with red collar, and perfectly matched red leather gloves and patent leather red handbag which has a very very 2023 fashionable shape (it looks almost exactly like Prada’s reissue of the 1990s bags, and I suppose if we posit a 25 year fashion cycle, these bag shapes and materials really were de rigeur in the 50s??). OK so this really is a problem. Cheryl is the first girl with a real problem here. Her dad and mom are psycho, and she’s gay.

Next up is the pregnant Midge, who - pardon the pun - has the mother of all problems. She’s pregnant, inexplicably determined to keep the baby and marry Fangs and also has not told her parents about this. I’m so sorry, but Midge is so dumb. I’m shocked that she knows the word “stigmatizes” and also apparently how it’s spelled.

Evelyn is so annoyed at the poster that was shoved into her locker that she sends Betty the first hatemail. “Should I say Little Miss Busybody? What makes you think that you have all the answers anyhoo?” She is not wrong. She is not wrong! Why is this show making me agree with goddam Evil-Lyn Forever-Never. Also sidebar to gush that the cream sweater navy skirt 1950s cheerleader uniform, worn with the bright red lipstick everyone sports, is SO FLATTERING on all of them. I wonder if some lucky souls nabbed one of these at the Riverdale going-out-of-business sale.

Then comes Ethel. Ethel is sketching a long legged thin woman with a tiny waist, wearing a swimsuit and sash. She says that she’s finding it difficult to be grateful because she’s surrounded by beautiful people and the world “constantly reminds her” that she’s not. Betty, looking not coincidentally exactly like the imaginary beauty queen Ethel is sketching, arrives just in time to see it. She says, “That’s a beautiful sketch.”

It turns out it’s not for art class, but for the sign up sheet for Miss Riverdale Teen Queen Pageant. The person who conveys this information is Alice Cooper. The very strange echoing of clothing that’s going on between Ethel and Alice in this scene creeps me out. Ethel is wearing a yellow inner top that matches the gold-ish tone of the Cooper sofa, and over that, an unadorned magenta cardigan. Standing right behind her, Alice is wearing a blue inner dress or top, and the exact same shade of magenta cardigan, except hers is bedazzled all down the front.

Ethel is so polite. She says that Alice has ‘asked her’ to be the assistant for the pageant (instead of, you know, made it clear that Ethel is in no position to refuse Alice Cooper anything if she doesn’t want to be sent back to the 19th century insane asylum). Betty finds the entire affair an “embarrassing cattle call” but Alice is extremely proud that it’s going to be broadcast live on national tv from the RIVW studios. Betty is not interested in participating, even though Alice lays it on very thick, saying it’s “glorious, and wholesome, and all-American.” She tries to manipulate Betty into participating by dangling the prizes - a new car, Hollywood screen test, or a scholarship.

OK that last one is huge. I mean the US college tuition inflation has been extraordinary, but this is from a Time Magazine article I just googled: At the University of Pennsylvania, students were charged $600 in 1950 (nearly $6,000 today) (This article is from 2016, and $6,000 in 2016 has the same "purchasing power" or "buying power" as $7,642.05 in 2023). $30,000 is not anything to sneeze at!

Betty is very enticed by this scholarship money, as Alice knew she would be. Apparently this is the first time this particular pageant is giving an actual scholarship. Riverdale is 10 years behind Miss America, by the way, which made itself a scholarship program in 1945.

While Betty is thinking about it, Ethel is trying to hide her bitterness at Alice’s assumption that she wouldn’t even want to try out.

At school, Betty runs into Veronica giving a speech to the other girls about how Edith Head wants to design something for her to wear that would be perfect for the pageant. What is it with Veronica insisting that these very ancient people born at the end of the 19th century (Edith Head was born 1896, a few years after Cole Porter) are all about Veronica Lodge. Is there a chance she’s lying? I mean, that song that she sang with Betty which she insisted was written by Cole Porter didn’t sound like his style whatsoever. Betty is very disapproving, but Veronica says that if she won a beauty pageant it would be great publicity for her movie theater business. It’s a business decision.

Her saying this doesn’t seem to ring any bells for Betty in terms of the letters she’s read, but maybe she’s fixated on the one singular hate mail she got, which okay, fair.

Betty says that the pageant objectifies girls. Cheryl is very defensive of this pageant, so she attacks Betty. She brings up the fact that Betty flashed Archie from her bedroom that one time and also that Betty flashed her underpants on live television. This is very interesting though, that Betty outwardly pushes back against her mother while Cheryl appears to defend the family against any and all attacks (while insisting on being herself to much higher risk of peril).

Anyway, Veronica agrees that pageants are objectifying to women but since she “loves being beautiful” she enjoys participating in a game that she can win. Cheryl rolls her eyes at hearing her say this as Veronica leads the way to the In Group Sofa. Ahead of her is Midge and behind her is Toni, who is wearing a really very odd outfit. All the other girls are covered up right to the collarbone but Toni is wearing a super low cut, like, barely covering her nipples low-cut, top with extremely thin spaghetti straps. She looks like she forgot to put on a shirt. Veronica’s logic gets very very twisted up. Even though she is going to be participating in a pageant in which “old fuddy duddies will decide” - this is literally what a pageant is - she says that in the end, she “decides if I’m beautiful or not. And I am, as are we all.”

This is something I find myself between a rock and a hard place about. In my country & culture (I’m not born or raised in America, I just sound like I am, because cultural softpower of the US is immense) there is no such thing as ‘we are all beautiful.’ Exactly one type of body is beautiful, exactly one shape of face is beautiful, and they will tell you down to the last cm and kg what beautiful is, and you can see how far you are from beautiful using the metric. The inability to meet this standard means all sorts of indignities happen to you, ranging from people being mean and dismissive of you all the way to being unemployable regardless of your qualifications. This sucks.

HOWEVER, this same shit is reported to exist in the US (fat women are underpaid by factors more than thin women are, even though all women still lose vis a vis comparison to men doing the same work) but the American cultural norm is to tell this stupid fucking lie about it, which I find insulting to my intelligence. Every time I hear this idiotic “we are all beautiful” bullshit I want to holler NO I’M NOT AND FUCK YOU FOR LYING.

If you aren’t the ideal, I think it’s just more efficient to know you’re not and flunk out of that race and do something else with your time. This is our way. The American way is to keep insisting that being beautiful is essential to being allowed to exist as a woman, which I find truly offensive.

Plus, it’s only standard issue pretty girls who are thin (like Veronica Lodge and the actress that plays her) that say bullshit like this. Are all men tall? Do all men have good hair? No, right? So it can’t be true that all women are beautiful.

Now, in the context of the show, Veronica is saying this to Betty, Toni, Cheryl and Midge, who all of them have perfect skin, lovely hair, symmetrical faces,perfect teeth, huge doe eyes and very narrow waisted shapely figures soooooo - Veronica is correct that “we all” are beautiful if you limit it to these five people.

And this is the point at which I started to truly, deeply, genuinely despise this episode. I hate this even more than the very strange Racism Against Koreans is Bad episode with Reggie.

Veronica says that the way to subvert the girl-on-girl implicit violence of a beauty pageant is for all the participants to stick together and ‘support’ each other.

No it isn’t. This is just reinforcing toxic femininity in the American style where women are never allowed to actually openly compete and show actual human feelings like aggression, power-hunger, the urge to dominate, disappointment or anger.

Toni of course is all about hypocrisy. Betty is shocked that Toni is going to participate because unlike me she believes Toni’s hype about herself. There is something VERY INSIDIOUS going on with Toni’s character hideousness this season. I hate it so much. I know that ‘playing the race card’ is a racist tool specifically designed to prevent racial minorities in the US from bringing up any topic which might lead to their being given fair compensation and recognition. The thing is, Riverdale the show keeps having Toni actually use ‘the race card’ over and over. Riverdale thinks playing the race card is a real thing for black women. The stupidly reductive thinking seems to be that if you’re a ‘real’ black woman who ‘really’ cares about racial injustice you should just disappear from white society like Tabitha Tate and deal with the problem of wrangling the ‘really bad’ white people who are elsewhere, not here. If you choose to continue your education and not place yourself in mortal danger all the time, then you forfeit your right to bring up racial prejudice unless you’re a ‘race card player’ like Toni. Toni just wants to do what she wants to do - indulge in her inner square that wants to wear ball gowns and have the other squares smile at her and call her pretty - but she will stick some racial element (“This is the first year this pageant is integrated” but see also, “I am the first black cheerleader”) as justification.

The only two with rights about this ar Cheryl and Midge. Cheryl says very simply that she has to compete because her family sponsors the pageant. Casually, she drops the fact that she wins every year. It made me wonder if this is why Betty is truly not interested - she’s not any more interested in playing a game she can’t win than Veronica, and she has insider information to know that it’s more likely to be Cheryl than anyone else. But see, at least Cheryl’s answer is honest, both to herself and to others. High marks.

Midge later tells a concerned Fangs that the reason SHE is participating is because she just wants to do something silly and lighthearted, where she gets to be a mainstream one-of-the-girls before her pregnancy is inevitably revealed.

Veronica comes to find Betty later in the locker room to finally come honest. She wants one of those prizes - for Veronica it’s a toss up between the car and the scholarship (I’m pretty sure she’s had her Hollywood screen test). That’s why she’s participating. She openly admits that she was bullshitting the other girls. She only tells Betty what her real intentions are. Then she asks Betty if she isn’t deeply tempted by the scholarship - the ability to pay for college.

Sidebar - a 4 year full expenses paid scholarship, which is what Veronica seems to think the prize is, is massively more powerful an incentive than the actual prize given to the Miss America winner in 2021. She would’ve gotten $100,00, which would cover literally 1 year and some change at Yale University which costs $88K a year minimum, all in.

Of course, Betty is extremely tempted. In the direct antithesis of a Cheryl slow-mo walk down the hall, which are usually to express Cheryl in a really great, world-conquering mood, Betty does a nervous, worried slow-mo walk full of hesitation towards the sign up sheet immediately after. She signs her name right under Veronica’s.

In the kitchen of the Cooper house, Alice needles Betty about having signed up after all. She interrogates Betty, wanting to know if Betty plans to win and then pull off some stunt (“pull down the temple”). When Betty says she genuinely wants the scholarship money for college, Alice scoffs at her, telling her that she could probably earn an academic scholarship. Alice wants Betty to not go to college, which makes this Alice consistent with the Alice of the OG timeline. And this is how you know Betty is not going to get the scholarship money - Alice is involved.

Alice reminds Betty that she won the pageant one year, calling it a major highlight of her life, before she reveals that she had a dream of a career as a stewardess, which she gave up as soon as she married her husband and had two kids in short order. Betty is so nice - she wishes that the dream could’ve come true for Alice. But of course, Alice always has to puncture any kind gesture by Betty by bringing on the bad news: The pageant is not a one-and-done event. It requires spending a huge amount of time with Alice as she makes the participants ‘rehearse’ for the pageant. Betty is deeply aggrieved by this news. Too bad there wasn’t any fine print on that poster Ethel drew up.

All the participants in the pageant are walking in a circle with a book on each of their heads to give them better posture. Apparently this is going to be a two hours-long ordeal - Alice orders “one more hour of posture work.” Alice sounds absolutely deranged as she lists out the femininity checklist for all the things the girls are supposed to aspire to be. Toni, even though she’s participating just as obediently as all the other sheep, pretends to be above it all and makes a little self satisfied joke about how she’s proud of her “shapely backside.” Evelyn calls her “Greaser Garbage” to which Toni shoots back “Preppy Troll.” I’m with Evelyn. Shut up, Toni.

In the corner is poor Ethel, who is so humiliated at being disregarded that she has a full on hallucination. She imagines herself as having won the pageant. And it turns out her parents are still alive! Ethel also wants her paintings - not comic book work - to be hanging in a gallery or a museum. And voila - her self portrait is at the Guggenheim!

(By the way, I’m reading The History of Art Without Men and this is history -accurate. Many of the earliest Renaissance women painters’ most famous works are their self portraits at first, because that was a permissibly feminine topic and you could just look at yourself in the mirror so it wasn’t a disadvantage you weren’t allowed to learn anatomy). The final thing that Ethel wants in this perfect night to start the rest of her perfect life fantasy is to have Jughead Jones be her boyfriend. (“Just the ginchiest” is what she says.) Alice thinks that this is a terrible choice, because Miss Riverdale Teen Queen as the pick of the litter and Jughead is substandard. (I mean. I love Jughead Jones but he kind of is - and especially in this universe. He was last seen flipping his shit about milk.) Jughead comes up to the stage in a suit with a bowtie, tells Ethel she’s always been his best gal, and gives her a little peck on the cheek.

I WAS ROBBED.

I suppose 1950s and on live tv and her lipstick can’t be messed with and all that but I AM ROBBED.

Ethel deserves to fuck Jughead Jones’ brains out just the one time to get this fixation out of her system. She’s so much cooler and more talented than he is.

I am very discomfited by the way that the way Ethel is being treated by Alice is both accurate to life (if you are a child that all the adults around know you have no other adult advocate, you tend to get fucked over) and yet extremely annoying because Ethel is and always has been so interesting and so shafted all the time and this is more of the same.

Alice treats this orphan exactly like a hired servant - “I hope you did the thing?” is such a nasty way of giving a work instruction, and she’s making Ethel do all this for FREE.

The appointment that Ethel was supposed to have made is at Mary Andrews’ dress shop, which is called Perky Peach. I mean it says “Perky IN Peach” but from afar it will look like PERKY PEACH. “Shop for Ladies and their Daughters.”

While the young girls are all standing silent like mannequins in a circle, Alice and Mary chitchat “back in the day” when they competed for Miss Teen Queen. They are both wearing flower patterns (Alice, tight-ass ones, Mary, blowsy ones) but the girls are all in single colors. Red for Cheryl, purple for Veronica, Toni in emerald, Evelyn in maroon, Betty in hot pink, Midge in blue.

Mary and Alice start out pretending they don’t hate each other. Alice tells Mary that she always “gave me a run for my money” to which Mary concedes that Alices always won. They sound like they’re joking but they’re not, and Betty is the only one who picks up on the fact that these are the first shot of a battle to come. Mary says she thought being Miss Teen Queen might have been “a stepping stone to doing something important with my life, like… being the First Lady.” As in - Alice may have won this crown every single year of high school, but she has *not* done anything at all important with her life. Alice picks up on it immediately, saying that there’s “nothing more important than being a wife and mother.” This is an aggressive thing to say to a woman whose husband is dead and so she can’t be a wife to him for one, and for another, Mary owns a business and Alice doesn’t. Alice also has more than one child too. Mary pivots to say that she thinks these girls of the new generation can do “anything that they want.” Which indicates that she didn’t actually WANT to be either a wife or a mother or perhaps even a dress-maker.

Veronica, who doesn’t really fight other women, seems not to understand that the old biddies are actually fighting, so she suddenly pipes up to ask the group if they think there will ever be a female president. (FYI, Hilary Clinton was born 1947, Geraldine Ferraro was born 1935, Sara Palin and Kamala Harris in 1964).

Evelyn is (of course) immediately repulsed by the idea but see, I like how she puts it. She just says it outright: “I wouldn’t vote for a woman.” I like this better than coming up with some stupid statement about why women can’t do the job or whatever. Just own your misogyny.

Toni, of course, doesn’t really care about women but she also can’t stand it when she isn’t the one who started a social issues conversation so she brings up an entirely different topic when she says, “Or a black president for that matter?” She does tack on man or woman but then it just makes things unclear what the hell they’re talking about thereafter -The Civil Rights Act was in 1964 and women in the US could not open bank accounts on their own until l1974.

Betty is the most optimistic of everyone and *almost* correct - she says (from the context) that she thinks there can be a black woman president within her lifetime. President Obama aside, since Betty was born in 1938, she would’ve been 83 when Kamala Harris became a female, black and asian Vice President in 2021. Cheryl clearly thinks that there would have to be seismic changes in society for either scenario - a black president, a woman president, a black woman president - to be possible.

Alice doesn’t like where this conversation is going because being political is not good for ratings on her beauty pageant, so she comes bearing down on Mary to say that it’s “important to manage expectations.” It’s just for a second, but Mary sneers directly at her even as she says “Of course,” to keep up a united front of adults against the girls.

This entire time however, Ethel has been kneeling at Betty’s feet pinning Betty’s dress.

Mary said at the start of the segment “Look at all these gorgeous girls,” but she didn’t mean Ethel. Ethel was left out of both gorgeous and girls and nobody noticed except Ethel. Because she was implicitly told off by Alice for not keeping the conversation on track, Mary takes it out on Ethel by suddenly remembering to issue an instruction to the charity case: “Can you make sure you pin Betty’s dress all the way around the hem?”

Alice is totally shit but so is Mary, no exception. Not even waiting for any sort of response from Ethel, Mary turns to one of the ‘gorgeous’ people who still counts as a girl - Midge - to ask how the fit is on her dress.

Ethel has a choice between a) homicide and b) tears, so she starts crying. I would d

too. What a horribly pitiful thing they’ve reduced by Ethel to, the one who can kill a man with her bare hands when she has to! Betty asks her if she’s crying, to which Ethel promises to “not get any tears on” her dress which just broke my heart. Betty though is a nice person in this universe, so she does care about Ethel, but she’s not very bright, which is why she asks Ethel WHAT THE MATTER IS. What the fuck do you THINK the matter is, Betty??

This is something Riverdale the show consistently does by the way. Betty has had immense difficulties in previous seasons - her mother was and is both insane and abusive - but she’s also privileged and very blinded by that privilege. As a consequence she has a sort of stupidity when it comes to even the most obvious kinds of empathy - like the situation that Ethel is in right now, forced to work as a slave seamstress for her classmates because she is living on charity in one of their homes. Her only other option is the insane asylum. I think this is why Betty stans are completely unable to cope with any criticism about Betty in any way whatsoever - not just because they’re stans, but because the show is very adamant that Betty for all her aspirations to goodness is actually very unkind and unjust in action because she is blinded by her privilege, and being able to stan Betty Cooper requires totally tuning out this very important point about her. Her privileged blindness is inexcusable and obnoxious, and so is yours.

Ethel like all disadvantaged people who are wronged knows exactly what is happening, including the fact that if she were to try to tell Betty the truth, Betty would take offense at being called privileged, at being called blinded by that privilege, which are all true, and so she just gives up. “Nothing” is wrong, Ethel weeps, “You’re just so beautiful, Betty.”

There’s a lot in there. Why is it the oppressed and wronged always feel so protective of other people? (Don’t answer that. I know the answer. Fuck me if this didn’t get me right in the feels.).

Betty really does not understand why she’s crying. She’s trying, but she just doesn’t get it, at all. Because blinding pretty woman privilege, blinding middle class privilege, etc etc.

There isn’t time to go through any of this though because Mary announces to everyone that she’s going to have let out Midge’s dress a bit. Somehow this is taken as a huge BANG sort of realization on Alice’s part. Evelyn is very smart. She says a sentence perfectly constructed to out Midge’s pregnancy to Alice: “You better start cutting back on those desserts, otherwise that cute Serpent boyfriend of yours might decide that you’re too much woman to handle.” Though she means well, Cheryl only makes things worse by overreacting, telling Evelyn to kill herself (“Take a long walk off a short pier.”) Midge is smarter than Cheryl. She’s smarter than Midge as well.

And can I also just put in a word for us ruler shaped girls who only gain weight fore and aft -directly in the belly? I’ve always had a fat tummy but I’ve never been pregnant. When I gain weight I gain it in the FUPA first and most.

Midge needed to have more of a plan and a lie ready - like “Oh yes I’ve been gaining weight in my middle giggle giggle”???

Alice approaches Midge like a shark to demand a conversation later.

Later that evening Betty is hanging out with Ethel. Since she’s essentially a kind person in S7, she is still worried about why Ethel burst into tears at the dress shop, but appears to also be no smarter or less blinded by her privileges than she was earlier in the day.

What ensues is an INFURIATING fumble of a conversation. Ethel says that she wishes she was competing with all of them. She wants to be considered a girl, in other words, in her cultural context. Betty says - and she both seems to mean it and it is true - that Ethel is beautiful, so she should be competing if she wants to. Ethel counters that Betty’s mom said Miss Teen Riverdale is supposed to be an embodiment of the ideals of the town, which Ethel has understood she can’t be because “I’m the girl whose parents were murdered, quiet, likes comic books, draws creepy pictures.”

What she doesn’t say is made deafening by the fact that she doesn’t say it. She’s fat. Ethel is beautiful and fat. But the show absolutely refuses to address the fact that all the actresses other than Ethel for that generation are extremely slender - even the ‘expanding with pregnancy’ Midge has stick thin arms and the whole of her clavicle bones show end to end through her skin.

Because the show can’t let Ethel say she’s fat, Ethel doesn’t say that it’s because she’s fat that she’s not being allowed to compete in the beauty contest, and Betty, because being cosseted lessens her intelligence, simply takes Ethel at her word. But Betty not knowing that the beauty standard of the 20th century leans towards extreme thinness for women is exactly like Toni having to ask Tabitha what it’s like to be black in the rest of America.

Betty says true things about Ethel - that she’s inspiring because she’s overcome so much adversity. That Ethel has as much right as anyone else to be competing for the prize and the title.

Because the show - and Ethel and Betty - won’t address the obvious visible physical difference between the two characters, Betty’s line about Ethel having “more pep in your little finger than the rest of us do in our whole bodies combined” comes out really really cringe.

Ethel can’t stand it anymore and takes off, saying she shouldn’t have said anything.

Betty means what she’s saying, but how seriously can Ethel be expected to take this sincerity? Not very, honestly.

Meanwhile, Midge is getting the third degree from Alice, who knows she’s pregnant. Teedum.

And now we are five (plus Ethel standing in the back). Alice announces to the group that Midge is “no longer with us” and is no longer a student at Riverdale High, because she’s been carted off to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. Alice Cooper is so obsessed with depositing girls with the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, isn’t she? She’s the type of person who can’t stand the thought of having to suffer something alone - she has to inflict the same suffering on others.

She drops the hints as heavy as anvils: “When you see her in six or seven months, Midge will be right as rain.”

Veronica finally gets it. She seems to know the duration of human gestation anyway. She tries to ask if Midge is pregnant, but Alice, wearing pink gloves (she’s pink handed rather than red-handed, I guess?) makes ‘close your mouth’ motions with her hands so she can continue her lecture about how “we must treat our bodies as temples.” Alice does have a way with words. She wants the girls to “guard against defilement” and instead regroup that afternoon to have some “good clean fun” preparing for the pageant.

As she exits the room, we see that she was using Ethel as a literal clothes hanger tool to hold on to her purse.

Later, wearing what looks like a dinner napkin as a scarf, Betty, who is really very dumb this episode, just simply does not understand why Midge was sent away. I was a bit taken aback by this. Betty Cooper is supposedly a straight-A student but she just does not know at all how long pregnancy lasts (Uhhhh does Midge also not know??). Evelyn AGAIN SAYS EXACTLY WHAT I AM THINKING because she snaps, “I thought you were supposed to be smart” before explaining to Betty that “Midge has a bun in the oven.” She just keeps the truths coming! “She let a greaser paw at her like a dirty rag.” I meannn I hate Fangs so yeah, I’m even going to excuse her misogynistic language.

Why does this keep happening to me, the humble Riverdale episode recapper? In S4 I was BRET. I had to identify with BRET WESTON WALLIS and now in S7, I’m Evelyn. Thanks Show, for the realizations I did not want.

Evelyn is just laying all the truths out on the table - that Midge is pregnant, that Betty is not very smart, that everyone knows that Cheryl and Toni are a dyke pair, and that Fangs should never be allowed to breed and now he’s gonna have offspring.

She gets threatened by Toni with physical violence which is just comical. I’m a short girl myself, but dude, Toni should never threaten people with physical violence. You’re literally like 90 lbs, Toni, shut up.

Betty really is dumb.

Like, actively stupid.

Look at this face:

Betty finally FINALLY puts it together that Midge has fucked Fangs and that’s why she’s pregnant. When she seeks confirmation, Toni clearly thinks she’s stupid just as much as Evelyn does, so she’s short with Betty, “Yes, Betty.” Betty wants to know if it was once or multiple times. The femme superdykes give her identical, OMG faces because they are both the type of queer girl who didn’t realize for a long time that they were queer because they thought they were just smarter than the majority of other girls, who of course happened to be straight.

Veronica’s love for Betty is everlasting, plus she’s a virgin herself, so she is willing to meet Betty on the same grounds. “I’m guessing they were doing the deed on the reg,” she says, trying to elevate Betty’s grotesque stupidity to the level of something akin to banter.

Toni starts to try to explain the ‘situation’ to all of them like they’re all 4 years old. “Midge loves Fangs and Fangs loves Midge.” Evelyn comes in once again with the correct take: “Quite the cautionary tale if you ask me.” Cheryl is completely unable to come up with a good come back beyond a very paltry No One Asked You type of comment, because I think Cheryl also thinks fucking around with boys is stupid and for the weak and always is going to end up with a cautionary tale type situation. She dislikes Evelyn, in other words, but doesn’t disagree, and only wishes she wouldn't keep spouting truths.

Betty continues to be extremely idiotic - “I’m wondering how Midge could have ended up getting…” is what she says. Not even Veronica knows how to salvage this. Both dykes, Evelyn and even Ethel, who as I’ve said wants to preserve Betty in her innocent stupidity rather than have her face the hardness of the world, give her looks. I think Betty is lying when she says that she “of course” “understand[s] how it happened.” But she’s seen now that her ignorance has shaded fully over into just a lack of intelligence, so she makes something up about "wondering if they were using…” because she’s heard that a man and a woman need to ‘do’ something ‘at least once’ to have a baby but there are ways to maybe make that not happen. Betty Cooper simply does not understand the mechanics of sex.

Veronica continues to want to adore Betty, because she just does, so she supplies the word - protection! Using protection! - because she can’t in good faith adore someone who is irretrievably stupid, and she doesn’t want to admit that about Betty. I am rather surprised to hear from Cheryl that she asked about birth control to Midge, with enough specificity to receive an answer: “Midge said they were, but once it slipped.” And then even more squick- Toni asked Fangs about birth control too, and heard about his incompetence with a condom directly as well. Ew. Cheryl does make an annoyed, oh these damned hetero morons type of eyeroll face as she tells her tale, to her credit.

This makes Veronica burst out that this is why the birth control pill is necessary, that birth control needs to be in the hands of women (not on the dicks of men) because “we’re the ones who have to live with the consequences.” I wish Veronica could be more radical in her feminism -that there should BE NO consequences, but as she’s said at the start of this episode, she likes inhabiting a face and body that’s considered beautiful too much to want to topple the whole thing over.

It’s clear from Betty’s expressions that she still isn’t sure how exactly Midge got pregnant, she doesn’t at all understand what ‘protection’ means really or what ‘it’ is that could’ve have slipped nor what it slipped from, and isn’t following Veronica’s train of thought whatsoever. But the looks that even Evelyn and Ethel gave her has had a silencing effect.

It’s really kind of a violation of human rights, isn’t it, that Betty just does NOT KNOW simple basic facts.

Anyway, Veronica is going on about how boys who impregnate girls have proven their manhood but girls who get impregnated by that same boy are treated as ‘fallen’ to which Betty starts to voice a very conventional fact; "Midge’s life is just… [ruined]."

Cheryl is a leader.

Can I say that again?

CHERYL BLOSSOM IS A REAL LEADER.

She cuts Betty off at the pass: “Her life is not ruined,” she says, categorically. Cheryl Blossom is not going to LET “this”- i.e. Fangs’ incompetence with keeping a condom on his damn dick - hurt one of ‘her’ Vixens in some irretrievable way.

Toni only WISHES she could exhibit this sort of moral, almost compulsive, valor.

Anyway.

Evelyn is so very even keeled. I kind of love that about her. She hates everyone at a very chilled temperature. Even her bright red lipstick has a chilly blue undertone. Evelyn points out that Cheryl and Midge are neither of them Vixens.

Toni wonders if Fangs even knows what has happened to his baby mama, to which Evelyn again acts as oracle to say everyone will eventually know. Cheryl and Toni take off to try to find Fangs so he can learn the bad facts from sympathetic tellers.

Veronica is still worried that she’s very in love with a very dumb girl, so she checks in with Betty to ask what she’s thinking about. Betty says that she’s thinking about how one night can change everything for you. I mean. That isn’t true though, not when you’re Alice Cooper’s daughter. Ethel had two very big nights - one was when her parents were murdered, which is the same night she got sexually assaulted by Julian Blossom, and then the night she killed the Milkman, which made all the adults back off from hauling her directly to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy again. Betty by contrast got caught doing a long distance strip tease with Archie, and then flashed her panties on live television but she has had to deal with no consequences whatsoever, other than her mother continuing to be crazy. So no, it isn’t true that one night can change everything - it only is true if you don’t have the right combo pack of protections.

Betty follows up with Ethel. Ethel is thinking about Midge at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. Betty basically Yes-ands her, by saying she cares a lot about Midge being sent to an insane asylum (she doesn’t) as lip service so she can get Ethel to agree to take Midge’s spot at the beauty pageant.

You know what? I think I understand now why Betty has nothing to say about Ethel being beautiful and fat and how her fatness might be a problem for a beauty pageant. She’s too stupid to know the facts of heterosexual reproductive intercourse - so by extension she’s too stupid to know that fat girls are given a much harder time in life, a harder time than girls with bad skin, girls with glasses, girls who are too skinny, girls with bad teeth. All she sees is that Ethel is beautiful (factual) and deserving (also true) and so in a true genuine way, thinks she should compete if she wants to. Rather than Ethel being judged ineligible by reason a biography marred by violence and her body type by her mother, Betty genuinely thought Ethel didn’t want to be in the beauty pageant (because she herself didn’t) and genuinely also thought Ethel didn’t mind playing scullery maid to Alice Cooper and her own classroom peers. There’s clueless and then there’s criminal levels of clueless. Betty is fast approaching the latter.

Ethel in any case does not need to be asked more than once. She is so very conscientious though. She is immediately worried that Alice will be left high and dry without an assistant. Betty says she has a plan for that.

Meanwhile, Fangs has been told. He is hollering about how he’s going to “go out there to that convent.” Toni stops him from developing this scheme any further. Cheryl also chimes in, saying two kidnappings does not a solution make. Both these girls are betting that Midge’s parents don’t know that Fangs is the father. Cheryl says something weird - “We need to keep it that way so that you’re not arrested.” Why would Fangs get arrested? Are there anti miscegenation laws in Riverdale? Will they accuse him of raping Midge? What?

I also wonder about Toni playing the Friar Lawrence role to this pair. Her advice has thus far been singularly bad, hasn’t it? She knows how to rig up a home pregnancy test using frogs but doesn’t know any abortionists or even advise Midge on trying to find one. She ASSUMES that Midge’s parents will simply not accept the whole truth, and so steers Fangs and Midge into trying to get their ‘romance’ accepted first before dropping the pregnancy bomb, but that just isn’t how conservative families work. If Fangs and Midge had gone to the parents to say, do you want Midge to have a bastard child or do you want the baby born in matrimony, Midge’s mother wouldv’e gotten her an abortion whether Midge wanted one or not OR allowed them to marry. Here again, if Fangs let’s say showed up in all his biker glory and just burst into the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, wouldn’t that have been materially better for them both? Toni has done no research about this. She hasn’t asked Ethel anything. Ethel got out - why not ask HOW she made that decision stick?

I think Toni has a lot of unexamined hidden motives here -she simply does not want Fangs to have a happy romance with Midge in any direction. She’s very pleased, actually that Midge has been sent away.

When Fangs wants to know what he should do, Toni smirks and giggles as she tells him to write a hit song that becomes a gold record so that he becomes “undeniable to Midge’s parents.”

Yeah so what conservative racist parents (as per Toni’s assumptions about them) would want their child impregnated out of wedlock by not just a guy who is of color but a rock’n’roller of color?

This is insidiously evil of Toni.

Cheryl, of course, never liked Midge being with Fangs to begin with. But she’s moved by his plight, so she actually comes up with useful solutions. She’ll arrange a phone call between Midge and Fangs, and she wants Fangs to remain calm.

Meanwhile, I assume Betty and Ethel have made good use of the insider information that Ethel has access to from her days of slave labor as Alice’s assistant and have gotten Ethel a really gorgeous pageant dress. Ethel really does have “perfect poise” as Betty says. She can do spins in a ball gown with a book balanced on her head. That’s a neat trick.

Alice is very startled to hear that Ethel will be replacing Midge but lies in a white way (“That’s WONDERFUL” she screams) before insisting that she must have an assistant.

Turns out Betty has roped Long Duk Dong - no sorry, Dilton Doiley, into the role of the assistant. I hope she gave his extra huge Asian cock a blowjob.

Sorry. Sorry. I hate S7 Dilton and I hate this actor and I hate what they’re making him do.

Alice asks to speak to Betty in the hallway. She is enraged. Alice yells at Betty about trying to undermine her. Betty says she doesn’t understand what the problem is. I think she genuinely is stupid enough this season for this to be actually true. Alice tries to explain: “Ethel does not represent the ideals of Miss Riverdale Teen Queen.” Betty snaps back, “Why? She’s not pregnant!”

Alice says that Ethel has “an unsavory history.” Betty is again struggling to catch up, asking if this is about Ethel’s parents being murdered or if there’s “something else.” It occurs to me that maybe only a handful of adults other than Jughead and his editor, that is, Sheriff Keller, the principal, his husband, the head nun at the Sisters, Alice and maybe also Mary know that Ethel managed to avenge her parents and kill a man in self defense.

Alice doesn’t actually say if it’s the parents being killed or something else, to which Betty comes to some sort of conclusion that makes her put on a a horrified face to say “Woah, you are awful.”

Uh. What is this, by the way? It’s entirely not clear. Does Alice in fact blame Ethel for her parents being killed? Like, are we doing an Oscar Wilde thing here? ( “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness”??) I’m still inclined to think that this is about Ethel being fat, but Alice and Betty both think fatness is unspeakable on the level of leprosy so they can’t even say it to each other. I say this because Alice says, “I am not gonna let you turn this competition into one of your crusades!”

Crusades for what? Advocacy of murder attempt survivors? Surely not.

Alice is very clear about her priorities. She wants “to protect the office of Miss Riverdale Teen Queen” first and foremost, because it seems to have been the only competition and externally validating thing she ever went out for and won. Ethel’s well being is a secondary priority, and again the wording is so weird. She wants to protect Ethel from “the scrutiny that Miss Teen Queen demands.”

Scrutiny like somehow a tabloid somewhere is going to take an avid interest in a small town electing a teen beauty queen to say OMG TWO PEOPLE WERE MURDERED THIS ONE TIME IN THIS TOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE? Or scrutiny like, if you include a fat girl in a beauty contest everyone will mock her and the contest because that’s how fatphobia works?

Betty, who has been steadfast in calling Ethel beautiful, makes me lose faith in her. She says it plainly to Alice. For Betty, participation in this entire competition is purely pecuniary. To her it’s quite simple - Ethel is an orphan and she needs the money. But this carries no weight to Alice, because she can’t stand the only competition she’s ever won to be reduced to a mere charity. Alice screams at her that she must be the one to get Ethel to withdraw from the pageant. Betty stamps her foot in frustration.

Then she goes exactly to the Dyke Triumvirate for advice, down in the Dark Room. Veronica, for whom this is really just a lark to assuage her everlasting boredom and loneliness in Riverdale, Alice’s decision to not allow Ethel into the competition doesn’t make sense.

Betty finally fully (well as much as Betty can be fully honest about anything which isn’t much) admits that she knows the issue is Ethel’s non-ideal body type (“Ethel doesn’t represent the ideal blah-blah-blah”). After saying a bunch of things she may or may not have meant about Ethel’s looks, Betty really doesn’t want to be the one to admit to (a) cooking up this whole plan to sabotage her mother (because it’s plain now that this was the intention) and (b) telling Ethel she can’t participate. She tries to get the other three on board by talking about Ethel as a charity case. - “Imagine what winning would do for her.” She’s saying this to one girl with hereditary wealth, a daughter of major Hollywood players who owns her own apartment and her own movie theater (somehow, without also having access to a bank account) and Toni, about whom nothing is known but who doesn’t at all seem lacking for resources.

I don’t know how Ethel would feel if she knew this conversation happened other than humiliated. These four skinny girls held a round table ABOUT her without her, silently agreed among themselves that she doesn’t represent the ideal, but decided that she deserved their charity and graceful self abnegation for the scholarship money (which assumes that she’d choose the competition money and not the Hollywood screen test or the car by the way, which nobody has asked Ethel about).

Cheryl because she has the most leadership chops comes up with the best solution - all the thin, telegenic participants will withdraw if Ethel doesn’t get to participate. Without competitors, there can be no competition. Furthermore, all four of them seem unduly certain that Ethel doesn’t actually represent any sort of threat to their own bid for the title.

When Betty says she will confront Alice about all this again, Veronica stops her. Veronica knows Betty is not just kind of dumb, and that Alice Cooper might not be. She assumes that Hal Cooper is just as stupid as Betty, for one, and for another, Veronica Lodge is an expert at patricide (actual and metaphorical across all universes). She suggests threatening Hal Cooper, and volunteers herself as “a more seasoned negotiator.”

Right away, the girls go to “bend” Hal’s ear. Veronica immediately says that Ethel must be allowed to participate in the pageant. Hal says he’s already been yelled at by Alice about the Ethel issue, so that’s all already decided. Veronica knows a lot about TV so she starts dropping references that make Hal Cooper very vulnerable - “ad spending” “money brought in by live television” “sold all your commercial spots” and “cash those checks.” Having softened him up, they threaten to have all the participants pull out. They also want the swimsuit promenade cut. Hal says, grossly, that the swimsuit segment is a judge favorite event. Veronica incongruously points out that it’s the swimsuit competition that is “Plainly sexist.” My dear pretty little hypocrite - THE ENTIRE THING is sexist. WHY even bring up sexism? Do any male competitions exists that look anything like this pretending to be scholarship competitions? NO THEY DON’T.

Veronica, I love you, but fucking stuff it. Don’t bring up critiques about sexism if you’re going to participate at all. You’re disqualified from feminist discourse.

Hal and Alice have a big blow out fight right before the competition about Ethel. Hal says that since the judges like thin girls (he doesn’t say this but this is what he means) there is no way that Ethel will win the contest (because she is fat) because all it comes down to in the end is does the girl conform to the conventional standards of beauty, which in living memory has NEVER been not skinny and Ethel is fat (he doesn’t say this either but this is what he means). Alice is simply freaking out.

They are screaming the name ETHEL but Ethel pretends not to hear, and asks Betty if they are fighting about her (because they are screaming ETHEL MUGGS at each other). Betty does what Betty does and lies.

With 13 minutes of this episode to go, we are finally at the Miss Riverdale Teen Queen Pageant. The audience that we see for this is 100% all the boys who have ever had a speaking part this season. Not a single girl who is not in the pageant is shown watching this. They just weren’t selected so they disappear from existence. This pageant is entirely for male eyes only. Any talk about these sort of events being anything other than pornographic entertainment for the era when actual pornography was not readily available for private viewing is completely disagreed with by Riverdale the show.

Julian says he is mad they cut the swimsuit bit. Jughead makes fun of him, asking why he wants to “see your sister prancing around like a bathing beauty.” Archie totally looks like he has taken something, he looks so manic, and when Jughead calls Julian pervy about the desire for the swimsuit competition, guffaws. Jughead also laughs a lot as his own joke. Julian is annoyed, telling Jughead to drop dead. Is this - is this the first time they’ve actually said anything to each other? I can’t recall.

The judges for this event are Cheryl’s father, the high school principal and the high school child psychologist. This is very gross. The thing is being emceed by Betty’s father. Kevin is singing in the most oleaginous way over the girls silently parading around modeling their gowns. Jughead whistles at Veronica’s turn on the catwalk. Fangs wants Toni to win (why?).

Alice is in some sort of culty fugue as this event goes on. There’s an in studio audience cheering.

Veronica’s trick was tightrope walking. WHAT? WHY COULDNT’ WE SEE THIS? Reggie thinks this was awesome (“Who knew she was an acrobat!”).

Ethel closes the evening with a big song. I found it immensely cheesy though wow, Ethel is graceful and can sing really well, who knew?

Oh and Betty delivered the Gettysburg Address, apparently, which Jughead found “stirring.” Uh OK. Now THAT is really pervy.

Julian wants it just to not be Cheryl (we aren’t told what her talent was) that wins

Clay says they should’ve made the musical about Ethel instead of Archie.

Then they announce the winner. I realized at this point that I misunderstood what the prize was - you get ALL of the above. A car AND a screentest AND a scholarship. It wasn’t Or. It’s AND. For all her money having ways, neither of Cheryl nor Veronica have a car of their own so I see now why they want to be in this competition still. Everything else I said still stands though!

There’s a drum roll. Julian is intensely begging it to not be Cheryl (Why doesn’t Julian want Cheryl to have a car? Selfish dipshit.). Fangs is not thinking about the locked up knocked up Midge at all, focusing all his nervous attention on Toni, just like she wanted. Clay, despite thinking Ethel should win, does not expect her to, so he braces for impact with a wince.

The Coopers open the envelope with the winner’s name in it. Alice takes it from Hal, who look happy, and announces that it’s Ethel Muggs. Hal looks unhappy. The judges glare at each other. The boys in the diner lose their shits, screaming and hollering. Ethel is overjoyed. Betty looks overjoyed. The only one with a very honest, human reaction is Evelyn Evernever once again - she is upset and finds this whole thing incomprehensible. She also refused to do that deeply insulting thing of making the girls who are standing in a row begging with their tits for scholarship money hold hands with each other as the one winner among them is announced. I stan Evelyn Evernever for this. When she competes against other women she competes wholesale. I find this much more honorable. Why the fuck do the girls have to hold hands?

The next morning, Fangs runs into the diner to get a call from Midge. These two not very bright people being guided by Toni Topaz with ulterior (possibly unexamined) motives are very miserable. Midge’s despair at the end of the call is entirely Toni’s fault. Because all she has is this one phone call, Midge has to pretend she’s fine. Fangs should’ve driven into the convent on his bike.

That same morning, Betty walks into her mother’s kitchen. They have the scariest conversation I’ve ever seen between mother and a daughter on television. I’m not sure that this moment of complicated terror borne out of two women who represent the absolute most insane sides of white culture (I’m not white by the way, just in case that wasn’t clear) is worth the cost of having to sit through this horrible episode (because it truly was horrible) but this is what happens.

Betty launches the first attack. Is Alice exhibiting ‘sour grapes’ because Betty lost and Ethel won? Alice counters by showing Betty that she was in fact the winner. Betty has a hard time (Because as I’ve said for the umpteenth time, she is really stupid for this episode) wrapping her mind around what she’s lost. Alice says that all the men were deeply unhappy but live television’s demand that they put on a ‘flawless’ show forbade any of them from contradicting her.

As I’ve said, winning this contest multiple times is the only accomplishment Alice Cooper has had in her life, and Betty, by pushing a fat orphan to compete in a beauty contest, tries to besmirch exactly the things Alice values about her winnings by turning into a charity. It stamped her as beautiful and rewarded her apparently painful conformity with standard hetero culture. So in turn, Alice took Betty’s win away from her and gave it to Ethel.

If the winner had been any of the other girls, it’s strongly implied, she wouldn’t have done it. She even says it herself - “Maybe I just didn’t want you to win.” Alice tries to have a total victory - for all of Betty’s “grandstanding, Ethel would still have lost,” and moreover, it’s Alice, not Betty, that changed Ethel’s life for the better. And she also got to take something away from Betty that Betty really wanted - a way to go to college, without having to ask Alice for permission. I cut your achilles tendon and popped all your balloons, basically.

Then Betty does the most white woman thing of all time and tells her mother that she will think well of her. She stabs her mother in the face with the words “I love you.” Instead of expressing a natural human feeling - I am angry with you - which white women are not allowed by their culture to feel, Betty says “I know you are a good person” but in the most stony-faced, glassy-eyed way possible.

I think the victory belongs with Betty though. Sure, Alice materially hurt her daughter, and did that thing of cursing her daughter to “live the life I lived." But in retaliation, her daughter announced that she thinks she’s a piece of shit and she hates her, using the Opposites Day language of white womanhood. Moreover, it was Alice’s dream to a) keep Miss Teen Queen a validation of womanly perfection and b) to have some sort of legacy in the world which for her boiled down to being a Miss Teen Queen who raised a second generation of Miss Teen Queen. By hurting Betty, Alice hurt herself, because Alice cares about this competition and Betty does not want to give her mother any sort of legacy.

White anglo culture takes insidious passive aggression to a HIGH ART level and these people scare the shit out of me.

Secure in her victory, Betty goes to write an answer to all her girls who wrote into her newsletter. “There is a hope for a better tomorrow. In fact, we girls are that hope.”

This is completely unearned. Betty just engaged in a final battle of mortal combat of the soul with her mother, and has come out with like severed limbs and severe blood loss, though she won because she took away the one happy achievement her mother ever had in her life. She made Alice kill her own one shining earned-it-myself achievement. This event that Alice told the world on national TV is something more special to her that Christmas itself has been permanently tarnished for her, because in a desperate bid to survive this hate-filled battle with her daughter, Alice stabbed herself in the heart. There is absolutely nothing hopeful here. Betty is lying as per usual.

#be forewarned: i say a lot of very broad out of pocket things in here because it's the only way i could get this written #i disliked this episode so much i almost gave up doing any more write ups #i procrastinated for three weeks and i am not a procrastinator #anti betty cooper #riverdale s7 #riverdale 7.15 #miss teen riverdale #riverdale opinion #riverdale recap

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btcwriting · 2 years

Text

Friendly Refuge

The holidays kicked my butt. This piece has been sitting around partially written for like a month and I finally finished it. Have some light mostly fluff to start out the new year.

CWs: Stalking

Sem felt a pressure on his arm as he walked. When he looked down, he found a young woman wrapping her arms around his. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a braid with a small light blue brimmed hat adorning it. She wore a matching long blue blouse with a decorative black and silver belt around her middle, and a mid-length light blue skirt underneath it. Her dress was perfectly modest, but the way she pressed herself against his arm went against it. Though she smiled, her clear aqua eyes glanced behind her and her expression was strained.

“I found you!” She giggled.

“Cyan?” Sem inquired quietly. At first he was amused but the feeling died as soon as he saw the worry haunting her face.

In a heartbeat she switched to a more serious expression, and mouthed the most important answer to his question.

“Play along.”

Sem smiled. “Took you long enough!” He finally responded at normal volume again. “I was getting tired of wandering around.”

She smiled sweetly back. “I wanted to get a surprise for you!” She pulled back but kept a casual grip on his arm, close and familiar.

“Oh yeah? What kind?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?” She stuck her tongue out him.

“I suppose.” He exaggerated rolling his eyes in amusement. “Well, shall we start back then?”

Cyan nodded, and they started down the sidewalk together. After a few moments of quiet he shifted his eyes to her again and entreated her with a light whisper.

“What’s wrong?”

“A guy’s been following me.” She finally responded, keeping her eyes forward. “Can’t think of any reason other than bad news.”

“Gotcha.” Sem frowned to himself. He hadn’t known Cyan was nearby before she had pulled him from his thoughts. He’d only come to town recently, but he had no idea how long she’d been there. How long had this guy been following her? He decided to hope that this was mostly a stroke of luck for the both of them, especially with how his friend was acting.

They passed all kinds of shops that had settled on the edge of the square, one of them being an alternative fashion clothing shop with brightly colored mannequins in the window. Sem paused with a noise of interest and turned to look at them, pulling Cyan out of the walking path beside him as he did so.

They marveled at the flowing outfits, but Sem flicked his eyes down the line of windows as they did so. Just beyond another display of mannequins, the road reflected off the windows frosting them in shades of gray. A few shops down he saw the reflection of a man who had just finished shifting to look in the window of a cafe. His clothes were plain, features sharp, his eyes focused intently on the hours chart in front of him. The man stayed planted as long as they did, patient.

“They’re cute, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely.” Sem’s eyes darted back to the displays in front of them, finding something reasonable to comment on. “Though I think a bag like that would be much more useful with a purse strap than left as a hand bag. It’d bring the color out more, too.”

“I don’t know why people only want to sell purses as handbags these days. Especially since less pants even have pockets these days so you have to put even more in them.” Cyan pouted. “This skirt doesn’t even have pockets, I haven’t gotten around to altering it yet. It feels next to worthless sometimes to have to alter all the clothes I buy, but the alternative is not having pockets.”

“Seems like a fruitful endeavor to me, then.” Sem smiled at her.

“Well sure, you don’t have to worry about spending the time and fabric on it.” She rolled her eyes in his direction. “Some dresses are so hard to alter. And some things look nice but they’re so shoddily made if you pull one thread the entire thing falls apart and you have to practically resew the whole thing.”

“At least you get to make the pockets as deep as you want when you do it yourself.”

“That is nice. I’ve gotten used to big pockets. Makes it even harder to go back.” She agreed, and they turned together back to the sidewalk.

Sem listened for the steps of the man behind them, but it was hard to pick them out over the sound of cars passing them on the road. His shoes didn’t click, and he kept a leisurely pace behind them. He was tempted to slow down, but there was no assurance that he wouldn’t slow down as well and make them both look suspicious.

Cyan tugged his arm and pointed to a sign ahead of them. “Look, there’s an ice cream parlor! Do you want to stop for ice cream?”

Sem beamed. “You know, that sounds like a great way to end the day. Sure, let’s do it, my treat.”

She tugged him up and through the door of the parlor, a bell chiming happily as they entered. They stepped up behind the few people in line and looked over the menu, shifting to be casually holding hands as they did.

“Do you think they have many fruit flavors?” Cyan looked up at him.

Sem craned his neck to look through the glassed-in counter to see the barrels of ice cream. “I think so. Plenty of interesting colors, too. They should have something tasty, at least.”

They stood in line, idly chatting as the groups in front of them got their orders. As they progressed, Sem felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. There was a flicker of a shadow on the floor, but they kept their eyes on the line in front of them. He listened for the sound of the bell, but the sharp chime never cut through the conversations of the patrons.

Sem forced himself to smile as they reached the counter, and Cyan looked into the freezer and told him about the options. Soon they paid and turned to find a spot to sit, ice cream in hand. He looked up at the large windows at the front of the store, but they were empty, the sunlight shining through them unperturbed. People passed a few feet from the front of the store, but any trace of the man he’d seen earlier seemed to be gone.

They slid into a small table near the front of the store with a sigh of relief. Cyan glanced out the window and down the street as far as she could see, but shook her head.

“Good riddance.” Finally she relaxed and dug a spoon into her bowl of strawberry creme, well formed scoops of white ice cream crisscrossed with ruby red veins.

“Hopefully that will be enough to get him to leave you alone. Thankfully most people lose interest if they think you’re in a relationship.” Sem agreed, taking a bite out of his chocolate chip cookie dough, scoops piled high on top of an individually fashioned cone. They ate a few bites in silence as their nerves settled.

“So, how have you been, Sem?” Cyan asked finally. “It’s been a bit.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been better, but it hasn’t been… too bad recently. Getting used to a new coworker is always a trial.”

“Oh, yeah, how has that been going?” Cyan looked up at him more attentively.

“Well… He’s better than the last guy.” Sem chuckled.

She frowned. “That’s an incredibly low bar.”

“I know. I’m trying to be grateful.” Sem sighed. “I think he’s doing alright so far, but he’s already decided we’re enemies and is sticking to this idea, as far as I can tell.”

She blinked. “How’d that happen?”

“Suddenly and without warning.” He cringed at the memory. “Apparently we have a few moral… disagreements. A few particular areas where he’s more, let’s say conservative than I am.”

“Conservative? Conservative how?”

“Conservative in the ‘fish that grew up in a small pond thinks the big ocean is a salty hedonistic wasteland’ way. I’m hoping that he’ll get over it given a bit more time, but for now he is looking for comfort in the familiar and not finding it. And on our second meeting I happened to introduce him to a few of my major hobbies that he did not much agree with, so now I guess he’ll never agree with me on anything.” Sem rested his head on his hand tiredly.

“Oof.” Cyan furrowed her brow sympathetically.

“He’d probably get along with you great.”

“Well, I’ll let you know if I ever run across him. That’s a better starting point than the last one at least, but hard to say how he’ll turn out.”

Sem nodded. “For the moment he has a goal and he’s busying himself with pursuing it. No telling how long it will last, but he’s figuring things out, and he’ll get the hang of it in his own time. At the very least, I think he’ll last. Not that he’d probably be given a lot of option to bow out at this point.”

Cyan ate in thoughtful silence for a minute.

“What about you? How’ve you been?” Sem prompted in kind.

“Mostly the same old, same old.” She picked at her ice cream as she talked. The intricate blue crystalline bracelet folded around her wrist glinted perfectly in the sunlight as it poked out of her sleeve, filling it with colors as if it captured the light and stored it as vibrant hues. “I found a clinic I can volunteer at, but I have to give my ‘advice’ on the down low. Getting a first aid certification is easy enough, but at the moment I’m loathe to work out the actual paperwork I’d need to be a practicing doctor around here. They want a lot of paperwork, and it’s not even interesting like it is in other places. Just schools communicating and filing, all the worst parts of a medical degree. So for now I just give advice if they ask for it. I think I’ve helped more cats with injuries recently than I have people.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Sem said, imagining Cyan kneeling down and putting a bandage on an ornery cat’s leg. “Do you think you’ll stick around here long?”

“I’m not sure yet. I was originally planning to be here for a while, but the competition’s pretty high and people are fairly healthy. If that keeps up, I’ll probably just cut my losses and go looking for employment opportunities elsewhere.”

“If that’s what you’re feeling, then it makes sense.” He agreed. “I know I’ve seen some places on the outskirts lately that could use someone with your kind of qualifications around, I’ve found the new guy and myself spending more time there lately. Could be something for you to work on there.”

“I’ll consider it. Maybe I’ll check it out when I feel like I need a change.” She nodded.

With a few more bites they both finished off their ice cream, picked up their trash and exited the shop after Sem left a nice tip for the workers. The sidewalk was clear, the sun slowly working its way towards the horizon.

“Do you want me to walk you home the rest of the way? It wouldn’t be any trouble.” Sem asked her, stepping between the buildings, away from the glass panes of the ice cream shop.

Cyan smiled. “I think I’ll be alright the rest of the way, you’ve been more than enough help. And thanks for the ice cream, as well. That was a nice change of pace.”

“Of course. It was well overdue.” Sem beamed. Cyan stepped forward and hugged him, and he gently wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. He felt her squeeze him, gleaning what more comfort she could from his presence before she finally eased up. After another moment he let her go and stepped back.

“Hopefully I’ll see you again, sooner this time.”

She nodded. “I hope so too. It’d be nice to hang out again. But unfortunately someone needs to at least try to keep an eye on our new coworker, and gods know that Scar isn’t going to do it.”

“That’s an understatement.” He frowned, but smiled again before long. “See you around. Take care.”

“You take care as well. Stay out of trouble – doctor’s orders.” She crossed her arms and gave him a meaningful glare.

He laughed and gave her a salute. “Doctor’s orders. Got it.”

They parted ways, Cyan continuing the way she’d gone before and Sem taking the alleys, hands in his pockets and a spring in his step.

Words: 2136

#original writing #semsenir #cyan #stalking #(it's fairly minor tho)#fluff #just. a friendly conversation. you know #definitely no strangely couched language here

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