#IN MANY WAYS ITS KIND OF ACTUALLY JUST LIKE RIVERDALE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dapper-nahrwhale · 8 months

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if youre planning to watch riverdale because you like the comics i suggest not because they are very very different.

Thanks for the suggestion but. Well, it is a little too late. You see I have actually seen some of it before. I watched a few seasons of it a few years after it initially came out, then immediately forgot everything about it, like this was way back in 2019 or 2020, long before I even got into the archie comics and other various shows and started this whole thing of watching and reading every single archie comics and adaptation I can possibly find.

(Oh boy this is going to be a long one huh.)

And one consistent thing I've found in my journey is that archie comics, adaptations, and spinoffs, is that it's a mixed bag of quality. And theres always so much going on in them all the time. You've got some good ones, some bad ones, some in between, and the really strange ones.

And boy howdy has there been some strange ones. The 19 issue 70s spire christian archie comics. There was a 2 part collaboration with Barack Obama and Sara Palin in 2010 for some reason. A sharknado crossover in 2015. A live action Archie's tv pilot in 1964 that never really went anywhere for good reason. Many more low budget early 90s live action films. The controversial end to the life with archie 2010 series, wherein we follow parallel universes where archie marries veronica and archie marries betty, and both have the exact same ending: archie gets shot and dies.

Its wild. WILD.

And riverdale as a show fits into that sort of nonsense... surprisingly well tbh. Yes, there things I dislike about the show diverging from the comics and it taking itself way to seriously, but I cannot deny the fact that riverdale does fit with just how bonkers the rest of the archie comics and shows get, no matter how much it differs from those comics and shows.

TDLR (I go into more depth as of why under the cut) riverdale is a fascinating archie adaptation and I need to watch it soon. adaptations that are different than the source material can still hold value. There has never been an entirely accurate archie adaptation because even the comics themselves are inconsistent with each other. But the one thing every single archie comics, show, movie, adaptation has in common is that they're always always just kind of dumb and ridiculous. Can't be an archie adaptation without that. And I'm on a quest to watch and read every adaptation so I kind of am going to watch riverdale regardless.

And I'm not entirely sure of my opinion on the comics is anything more than neutral at best really.

I havent read enough of the old ones to form an opinion on them yet. I cant say I really like all the comics, some sure but. Like the real early stuff, from the 40s and 50s, can be sort of hard to read. As always, the early Archie's do not stand up to the test of time it seems. And some really weird choices made in the 70s. The sabrina the teenage witch and the josie and the pussycats spinoff comics are pretty interesting tho.

I'd say the very cream of the crop (for me so far) is the post 2015 complete rehaul of the series as a whole, in a fresh light. Definitely worth reading the road to riverdale volumes, the archie volumes, and the jughead volumes (I'm biased what can I say), even though they have absolutely nothing to do with the show riverdale itself, or even the storylines in the earlier archie comics. Their it's own thing entirely.

And truthfully, I don't actually mind how different of an adaptation something is. I think a darker, more drama focused tone is a fine thing for an adaptation. In theory. Like afterlife with archie comics started in 2013 where zombies take over the town. Because in practice with the riverdale show, oh boy. The issues I have are real. Like, ok its objectively a kind of ridiculous show that I just can't take seriously. It sure is entertaining to watch it crash and burn though. But. Thing is, I just straight up don't even remember anything that happened in it, went in one ear out the other. So it's going to be a surprise for me either way once I get around to it.

Anyways, an adaptation being inaccurate from the source material but still good (howls moving castle, who framed roger rabbit) and being badly written but still enjoyment can be found in it (the black cauldron), and being a somewhat accurate adaptation but still unbearable (the live action avatar the last airbender and percy jackson movies) are all separate things. And riverdale falls into it's own separate category all together, where it is not an accurate adaptation by any means, where the enjoyment of it is entirely dependent on the individual, where it does genuinely bring up some interesting things and compelling plot points, but at the cost of character assasination, plot inconsistencies, and alot of really really awkward dialogue. And thing is, that's just how most shows are anyways. I don't think any archie show is fully good or fully bad, they're all a mixed bag.

Where as in the past there have been adaptations of archie that dont follow the plots or characterizations of the comics as much, but still keep more of the tone of the comics, Archie's weird mysteries 1999, and there have been some that follow the comics somewhat, but change up the tone to be something else entirely, the new Archie's show 1987, and it really just depends on the writers.

I genuinely dont know if theres ever been an entirely accurate archie adaptation, even with how all the comics and shows do have some sort of consistency, whether it be character traits, the places and people in town, plotlines. But theres also the fact that they had so many people making and writing archie comics and various spinoffs all at once, that there is going to be discrepancy between even the comics themselves. Theres no real one accurate archie. Theres how it started out, and how it has changed, evolved, and morphed over time and decades, into an amalgamation of 80 some years worth of recognizable characters and places and plotlines. And riverdale is just one of many bizarre choices in the long and strange history that is archie.

And it's like the last part of my journey, you know. I don't think I can stop even if I wanted to, I'm in too deep now. I gotta know it all. Everything. The good, the bad, the questionable.

(Quick sidebar but also. Theres this live action movie called the archies coming out on Netflix soon, and it looks really interesting, set in 1960s india. I don't know till I see it if it's good, but that alone sounds like an adaptation worth watching, even if it isnt so accurate to the source material, it certainly has the tone of the 1960s shows and comics down it seems.)

Oops! Didnt mean to make this response this long, riverdale is a fascinating mixed bag of just everything to me. I have a lot of thoughts about archie adaptations as always.

Anyways thank you for the ask anon! I'll take any excuse to talk about archie adaptations.

#b.text #archiethon #is anyone going to even read this entire thing? probably now. oh well i enjoyed writing it.#yeah... at first it was not very long but. i have so many thoughts abt this oki #b.asks #fiiiiiiiiiiiine ill main tag it whatever #riverdale #archie comics #this is 1k of nonsense. but <3

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infinite-hearteyes · 1 year

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#SaveWarriorNun

(contains spoilers for Warrior Nun, Killing Eve, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The 100)

Well, here we are again.

If I’m being honest, this kind of not quite unexpected disappointment is becoming really fucking tiring.

Less than 24 hours ago, I read the news on Twitter that Warrior Nun had been cancelled by Netflix. I've already cried, a bunch of times. I've felt hopeless. And I'm angry. Fuck, I'm mad...

Barely a month after its second season was unceremoniously dropped onto the streaming service without so much as an ounce of promo by Netflix, any hopes for a third season have been stomped into the ground. It’s hard to believe we had to sit through a 2,5 year wait between season 1 and 2 only for this to happen…

2022 certainly seems to be challenging 2016 for the title of ‘worst year for wlw television’. For me, the year started off with the ending of Killing Eve. Being a show that had unapologetically showcased a queer lead from its very beginning, I must admit I had quite high hopes for how they were going to wrap up this story. Admittedly, the quality of the writing had certainly slipped since its incredible first season, but still. There were so many ways in which they could have brought the storylines of Villanelle and Eve to a close, that I really thought they would’ve had it in the bag. It didn’t even have to be a ‘happy’ ending in order to provide a passionate (and largely queer) fanbase the closure they craved.

A great example of queer tragedy being done right, to me at least, is The Haunting of Bly Manor. It portrayed the death of Dani in a way that was incredibly truthful to the overall storyline, but also to her character arc. It wasn’t there just for shock; it wasn’t a simple plot device to push another character’s storyline through. It was tragic, and it was beautiful. Moreover, I would point out that Bly never showed Dani’s actual death on screen, which to me, is another huge difference. It showed a sense of respect, not only for her as a character, but for us as the audience too. Whether that was intentional on the writers’ part or not, I definitely appreciated it. Did I still cry my eyes out for an hour after watching the finale? Yes, obviously. But it felt right.

The writers of Killing Eve season 4, however, clearly did not have this kind of respect for their audience or characters. As someone who was part of the fight against the Bury Your Gays trope back in 2016, it felt like they watched episode 3.07 of The 100 and said, “you know what, we should do that too”. The utter carelessness with which they showed Villanelle and Eve what happiness could be like for them, only to rip it away from them (and us) mere minutes later, was disgusting. And on top of that, unbelievably unoriginal too. Lexa and Clarke, anyone?

So that was the start of 2022 for me. Villanelle’s death left me feeling like nothing had changed over the past 6 years since Lexa, as though we were back at square one. Of course, that’s not quite the case, but the hopelessness that comes with seeing this occur over and over again is certainly quite exhausting.

Then came along one of the most campy tv shows I have ever watched: First Kill. Did I absolutely love it? No, not really. But was it a fun watch when I wanted to shut off my brain for a second? Definitely. Besides: campy, cringey, young adult series are found all over the place, and it was great to get to have that for the lesbians too! Unfortunately, it received nearly no promotion from Netflix (hmm, anyone seeing a pattern here?) up until just before it aired. After that, people went crazy over it. Was it the best show ever? Nope, but not everything needs to be! Not that I’ve ever watched it, but how many seasons is Riverdale at again? It was silly, and weird, and over-the-top, and super super gay. Which, of course, sealed the deal for Netflix. Can’t have a successful show about a bunch of lesbians, now can ya?

During the rest of this year, it’s felt like every other week, you’d hear about a new cancellation of shows centering sapphic, bipoc and trans* characters and storylines. I’ll admit, I haven’t watched many of them, because, well… Hard to commit to a show when you already know what to expect.

And then, Warrior Nun came back. Oh boy, was I obsessed with this show when season 1 came out back in 2020. I was going through a rough patch (who wasn’t, this is 2020 we’re talking about) and this show was a great escape. Although I was at first doubtful because of its title, once I saw a preview, I was sold. I think I pretty much binged all 10 episodes. After that, I joined the (absolutely lovely) cast, crew, and the bunch of us viewers that had fallen in love with these characters, for the weekly WarriorNunWednesdays. Those nights, watching and live-tweeting along with everyone, certainly made it obvious just how much these people cared about the show. Interacting with the incredible actresses, writers, directors and crew was fantastic. One of the few positives about that time in my life, truly.

Of course, there was a long wait for season 2. But I was okay with that, because holy shit, we got a season 2!! And in the end, wow, what a season 2 we got! More gorgeous locations, awesome stunts, perfectly paced character development… what’s not to love? I was super invested in the storyline and the characters, who each were fully fleshed out and lovable in their own ways. And Avatrice, oh, Avatrice… The type of quality slowburn that I generally seem to only be able to find in fanfiction. Such incredible chemistry between these women, and oh my god, the dancing scene in the very first episode?! Mindblowing.

Was I pissed at the lack of promo from Netflix? The fact that it was left completely up to the fans and the cast to take up that work? … I think you can imagine my answer to that by now. But we did great! Let that be very clear, and allow yourself to be proud of that: we supported this show beautifully. And did y’all see those ‘hours watched’ for each week?! All the awesome reviews, and the audience score?! We. did. great.

Unfortunately, and I think it’s pretty clear by now, Netflix probably never had any intention to renew Warrior Nun for a third season. They don’t care about these delicately told stories, these awesome queer women leads. They have no interest in gorgeous cinematography, or insane stunt sequences. And they certainly don’t give a damn about passionate fans. It sucks that the likes of Netflix hold so much power in this industry, when all that should be important is quality creative storytelling. Fuck you, capitalism…

It’s sad, and sometimes infuriating, that it never feels like you can fully enjoy a show because of the constant threat of cancellation. But we fought well. And if there’s any chance left, we won’t stop fighting, I know that. This show, and these people, deserve nothing less. I’ll repeat that which we were all saying back in 2016: we deserve better. Don’t forget that.

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for sticking with my rant. Know that we can and will bring change to this tv landscape. There are so many of us, so many who care. Seek out community, take care of yourself and others. Let yourself feel all the feelings that come up. Cherish what you love, keep being creative. It will get better. Yeah, cliché, I know, but it will.

To quote Emily Andras: “Everyone’s happy ending is unique. Don’t settle until you get yours.”

In this life or the next…

#warrior nun #save warrior nun #renew warrior nun #warrior nun s2 #avatrice #ava x beatrice #warrior nun spoilers #wlw representation #killing eve #villanelle #the haunting of bly manor #dani clayton #first kill #commander lexa #clexa #bury your gays #cancel your gays #cancel netflix

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sixohsixoheightfourtwo · 1 year

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watchlist tag game!

tagged by @telomeke !

got a bit long so behind the cut

Currently watching -

A Boss and a Babe (Thailand 2023 / GMMTV) - watching this weekly. ok . LISTEN. I said some stuff in the tags of my first reblog about this series, when i had only seen the trailer, basically that it looked like they absolutely nailed what they were going for in terms of the tone, the dynamic, the chemistry, that it might be a bit silly but it looked GOOD. and . i stand by this!

I know there are people who aren't enjoying it... there always are. There are also people who have beef with Force & Book's previous series who are carrying that prejudice into this show. (imo enchante's biggest crime was that filter they used. everyone looking weirdly smooth. freaky tbh.) (also the last 2 eps were basically unnecessary but let's not get into it.) I feel like I saw a lot of people esp. at the beginning making excuses for watching ABAAB - saying well of course it's not good it's not doing anything new, someone even saying 'it's so bad it's good' - which baffles me lol. SO not how I feel about it! it's good! if you like it just accept it; if it's not for you it's not for you.

any way . Force + Book have really nice chemistry, great at showing the characters' comfort / ease / gentle loving care for each other without a lot of fireworks or histrionics. And tbh not a lot of like - tension even! they're too comfortable for there to be tension! eg. the scene where Cher helps Gun unbutton his shirt and they both go very quiet about it. & the scene where Gun accidentally crashes cher's livestream and he's not even really mad about it. It feels kind of like My School President in the tone it's going for, in that it's a bit silly and light but there is some substance beneath it and it can be cute but actually not overly NICE. And it feels like it's progressing towards a more natural idea of how a relationship develops than certain older bl which can be a bit all or nothing (eg. i JUST watched tonhon chonlatee .. scream) And this is surely gmmtv's first office bl since Sotus S which was five years ago? w/ever I feel like this series is maybe a bigger deal than it looks. Also it's a perfect non stressful weekly watch. (really feel like i almost DIED watching NLMG week to week.) check back in with me in uhh six weeks or whenever it's done.

Our Dating Sim (South Korea 2023 / Viki) - watching bc people on my dash were really into it. I'm two eps in and it's well done but it's not making me CRAZY the way I always want to be made crazy. I do love the k-bl short series format and the k-bl style of storytelling often gets to me quite intensely so I'm hopeful.

Bokura no Shokutaku/ Our Dining Table (Japan 2023) - one ep in. made me crave onigiri soso bad. I haven't read the original manga so I am watching fresh, no expectations. the first ep was totally delightful.

SUCCESSION - watching it weekly with one of my siblings . if u follow me u will know I am deeply into it & even a little weird about it & have been since november 2020. hashtag tomgreg rights hashtag kenstewy rights hashtag tomshiv rights. here's my hot take: in some ways i think the most recent ep was BETTER than the previous one.

Riverdale - watching it weekly ... admittedly usually while doing something else eg cooking. Listen. Riverdale is.. not explainable in any sensible way. If you know you know. Many things about it are stupid and unbearable but its derangement is unparalleled and i appreciate that. Almost no one is a full 3-d character it's like watching puppets.

How To with John Wilson - I absolutely love this series, it's on iPlayer in the UK but I think it's originally HBO. ep 1.6 How To Make Risotto actually haunts me. framed as a series of tutorials, it veers and goes off on tangents, in form it's kind of like visual essays edited together from .. fairly random footage shot on the streets of New York. with a lot of visual gags.

Looking forward to watching soon -

Our Skyy 2 ... truly .... I am going to be so insufferable for the next eight weeks. I'm planning to watch all of it - the only series I haven't watched is Star In My Mind. i WAS most anticipating the ATOTS episodes because i just want to see phupha + tian again. But NLMG and Eclipse and MSP look like they're doing some absolutely wild & funky things so yeah i am excited for all of it.

Only Friends - I think they've just started work on it right? but yeah. looking forward to getting a little unhinged about this.

The Eighth Sense - tbh I think i'm going to wait for it to finish before I watch it. I need some of the discourse to die down a bit so I can go in with the right frame of mind.

Still deciding if I’m gonna watch

Probably most of the upcoming GMMTV series I'll at least try but generally I like to read a few reactions before going in.

tagging @phneltwrites @brofisting @missionlameturtle @hexenmeisterer

#My recommendation for getting into riverdale is actually. JUST watch season 3. if that takes then watch season 4. & then proceed in any orde #order. s1 doesn't give an accurate impression of the series as a whole #tv #bl drama #succession #riverdale #kdrama #thai drama #a boss and a babe #bokura no shokutaku #our dining table #our dating sim #our skyy 2 #the eighth sense #tag game #watchlist

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jordoalejandro · 2 years

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The Sixth Annual List of TV Shows I Saw the Past Year

The list kind of caught me off-guard this year. A little while ago I was thinking, “I should check out when the Emmys are” and then I did and it was a few weeks away and then I thought, “Oh dang, better get going on that.”

This is a shorter list than previous years. It’s in part because, again, I forgot the Emmys were coming up and so I just didn’t watch the new seasons of a handful of shows and also, I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t watch that many shows period. I was probably doing other stuff. It’s none of your business.

So anyway, I eventually got going on the list and now here it is: the list of shows I’ve watched since-ish the last Emmy Awards (9/19/21).

40. Riverdale (Season 6 - 2021-2022, CW) (Last year’s ranking: 39) - I don’t know if this is the worst show I watched this year. Probably not. But that’s how it feels to me on a personal level. “Hate watching” implies you’re getting some kind of perverse joy from watching a show you think is bad. I don’t think I’m doing that here. I think I’m “disappointed watching” this. The show just feels tired. The actors feel tired. Most of them seem like they’re phoning it in. The drama feels tired. A lot of repetitive beats. A lot of dull storylines. Even the wild swings the show takes feel tired. The main cast all get superpowers this season. Sure. Why not? The show is going through the motions and I’m going through the motions watching it. Season seven will mercifully be its last. Probably a season or two or three too late but it’s the right choice.

39. The Last O.G. (Season 4 - 2021, TBS) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - The show went through another overhaul in-between seasons. After a really bad season three, I was hoping to see some improvement but unfortunately it didn’t seem to help. The writing wasn’t as terribly broad as it was in season three, but it wasn’t good either. The storylines and jokes were way too obvious. The drama felt forced. The show as a whole came across as weirdly amateurish. The acting from the non-main characters was community theater-level. Even things like the sets, the lighting, and the camera work were all really cheap looking. The whole thing often felt like a college production class. The best parts of the season all came from what was likely Tracy Morgan improvising. He and Ryan Gaul are trying to wring laughs out of the material but you can only do so much. Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who I’ve shouted out multiple times on this blog, was again excellent. Way too strong an acting job for a show like this but she has not disappointed in anything I’ve seen her pop up in.

38. The Endgame (Season 1 - 2022, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - This probably could’ve slotted in a few spots higher, just on a quality level, but it’s down here because I got so tired with its nonsense by the end of the season. It’s one of those shows where the main character villain has this insanely complicated plan with a thousand moving parts and they’re always one step ahead. Even when those types of thrillers are done well they can be exhausting to watch and stretch the boundaries of what you’re willing to logically accept. This one was not done particularly well so it mostly just turned the FBI agent protagonists into complete morons when the situation called for it. Lots of making of decisions that you as a viewer immediately know will backfire (and you usually already know how they'll backfire). A frustrating watch. The central mystery and backstory wasn’t exactly interesting either, so really what are you even getting out of this?

37. La Brea (Season 1 - 2021, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - A mostly nonsense show. A bunch of CGI that is SyFy channel-level bad, as is most of the acting. Weirdly, not a ton actually happens on a show that is about characters being thrown back in time. Lots of uninteresting conversations and walking around, mostly, and then every now and then our heroes are attacked by a Windows XP saber-toothed tiger.

36. Welcome to Flatch (Season 1 - 2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - A shockingly unfunny show. I’ve wondered this about comedies, how some of them seem incapable of even just accidentally running into something hilarious. You have all these writers and directors and actors working on this and you still go three or four episodes without a solid laugh. Not a single person pitched even an A- joke over that span. A show like this might actually be able to get away with that lack of humor if it made up for it in the story or characters. Come up with a plot that has some surprises or some heart or something. This show has just about none of it. Flat plots, flat characters. I say all of this generally. There are moments in this – which is why it’s a few spots up from the bottom of the list – where there’s a glimmer of hope. You squint and go, “Oh, okay, maybe…” So I do think there’s still some potential here for the show to be better but the writing must improve. A lot.

35. The Flash (Season 8 - 2021-2022, CW) (Last year’s ranking: 40) - Another CW show, like Riverdale, that feels like it’s limping to the finish line. A disjointed season. A lot of stuff from seasons past thrown at the wall but nothing sticking. Instead of feeling like, “Ooh, a blast from the past” it comes off more like they’re out of ideas. I think the problem is that, look: the guy’s superpower is running fast. This show is eight seasons and 170+ episodes in and though the writers have tried here and there to make the Flash have something different to do than “run faster than he’s ever run before,” at the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. It's probably hard to keep finding new stories when that’s the core you must return to every time. At least, I assume it must be because it seems like they haven’t been able to find those new stories for several seasons now.

34. Batwoman (Season 3 - 2021-2022, CW) (Last year’s ranking: 38) - In some of Arrow’s (and to a lesser extent, Flash’s) better seasons, you forgot it was a CW show. The quality of the writing, acting, and production was good enough to do that. Batwoman, in its three seasons of existence, never got there. It frankly never got close. It started out fine-ish and got worse. The characters were not compelling, the acting was mostly sub-par, and the writing, in terms of both dialogue and plot, was almost always weak. It’s a show that didn’t know its third season would be its last but which limped to the finish line all the same. It’s become a CW tradition!

33. The Walking Dead: World Beyond (Season 2 - 2021, AMC) (Last year’s ranking: 34) - Ultimately a forgettable, disposable show. No real high points or low points in the second and final season. It was probably slightly worse than the first season just because it split up the main cast for most of it but not by a whole lot. In the end, the show ran its course, told its story, and left very little impact.

32. The Blacklist (Season 9 - 2021-2022, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: 28) - Here’s how you know The Blacklist is in some trouble. In the early seasons, when an episode’s title would appear at the start of the program, it would have the name of the character on the titular Blacklist who would be the focus of the episode and then it would have their number on the list. So you would get some in the low 100-150 range and know, “Okay this is more of a weird, side villain.” Then you’d get a few in the 20-100 range and know they were a more serious foe. And then, around the end of the season, you’d start to get to the people under 20 who were like the big bads of the season or other main characters. Well, the creators of the show clearly didn’t plan for it to go on this long. They had probably put about 150 names on the list and now, almost 200 episodes into the show’s run, they’ve run through all the good numbers and have had to expand the list, putting themselves in a place where they're constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel. Every episode now starts with, like, “Bad Guy of the Week. No. 179.” or some similarly high number. It sounds very silly but it has to be this way to logically work with the show’s lore. You can’t suddenly introduce someone who’s extremely dangerous because James Spader’s know-it-all character at the center of the show would’ve placed them nearer to the top of the Blacklist. Thus, you end up with a season here that feels kind of lame. (And, by the way, it’s not going to get better on this front. You can’t invent new numbers.) Look, even trapped into this lore corner, the show could’ve written its way out. It didn’t really. It was a pretty weak season and probably an indication they’re going to need to switch some things up going forward to inject some life into this thing. (In fairness to the show, they seemed to understand this and there was some indication at the end of the season that they might be doing just that. Guess we’ll see.)

31. Bob’s Burgers (Season 12 - 2021-2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 30) - For the last few years, the show has been hovering down here on this list. It tends to reel off an excellent episode once a year, but outside of that it feels like it doesn’t have a lot of surprises left. The plots have familiar beats. The dialogue, especially, is starting to feel stale. It might have to do with the bones of the show. It’s about a pretty basic family and its stories are told in a pretty grounded way, more so than the other cartoons it shares a Sunday evening lineup with, so maybe there’s just so many places you can go with it and after a while, it feels like you’ve seen it all.

30. Abbott Elementary (Season 1 - 2021-2022, ABC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - I’m shocked this show has received the level of praise and accolades that it has. As of season one, it’s a supremely average show with just a few high points. Its characters are broad, bordering on one-note caricatures. Its plots and jokes are basic, often going exactly the way you think they’re going to go. There’s definitely potential here if they can sharpen things but it’s wild to see people falling over themselves to laud what is an unremarkable workplace comedy.

29. Tales of the Walking Dead (Season 1 - 2022, AMC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - As I’ve written before about anthology shows, they’ll really only take you as far as the story of the week connects with you. Some weeks are better, some weeks are worse. I will note that this particular show, so far, seems to have a problem getting there. Like, some of these episodes will have a good nugget of an idea (episode two being a time-loop story) but then fail to really deliver a truly satisfying episode (it doesn’t use the time-loop structure particularly well and then ends on a pretty flat note). It feels like they haven’t done a good job of figuring out how to tell a sharp story in just an hour’s time. I think this show has potential (one-off stories in the zombie apocalypse that can get really wild and weird) but it needs to figure out how to hone its storytelling to reach it.

28. Fear the Walking Dead (Season 7 - 2021-2022, AMC) (Last year’s ranking: 11) - Season six of the show ended with a bunch of bombs going off, creating a nuclear wasteland. On last year’s list, I noted this set up an intriguing seventh season. I’m here to report it was not as intriguing as I’d hoped. It honestly felt like the show just got away from the producers. They wanted to pit main characters against one another but couldn’t kill them so a lot of the season became this back and forth dance where characters would fight and yell at each other and then retreat and do it again an episode or two later. Unclear character motivations. Janky plots. A real disjointed season. The show ultimately did kill off quite a few characters by the end of the season which is probably a good thing. It’ll make it easier to do another hard-ish reset. This show has gone through one before and been made better for it. I think that can be the case here.

27. Ghosts (Season 1 - 2021-2022, CBS) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - A fine freshman season for Ghosts with a handful of solid episodes and a few above-average ones. It’s not a particularly funny show. Maybe a couple laughs throughout the whole thing, but it will occasionally nail a story and show off some surprising depth. Still, I do wish it was funnier. It’s in love with the joke of the main girl who can hear the ghosts responding to something one of the ghosts said and then scrambling to cover up when a person who can’t see the ghosts goes “Excuse me?” It also particularly likes having the ghosts yell continuously at someone, trying to get them to hear them even though they’ve been dead for centuries and know they cannot be heard. They keep yelling though, because the writers find it funny when the main girl snaps at them and, once again, has to weakly explain to someone who can’t see or hear the ghosts why she yelled. They overused these joke setups to the point of embarrassment. The show also has another problem: its whole concept is that this couple obtains a mansion deep in the woods and then starts seeing and interacting with the ghosts that are stuck there. Something like 80-90% of the show takes place in said mansion in the woods. This leads to plot after plot of some guest character randomly visiting. You really quickly start seeing the sitcom writing gears turning underneath (“Don’t forget, my boss is coming to stay the weekend.” “I can’t believe your sister showed up uninvited!” etc. etc.). This is coming off more negatively than I feel about the show. I’m sort of neutral about it. I’d like to see where it goes and if it can improve, but I am worried about these things I mentioned. They could turn this into a very grating show very quickly.

26. Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas (TV Film - 2021, The Roku Channel) (Last year’s ranking: 32) - Listen, should this have been on the Movies I Saw list? I guess? It's not really a movie. It's more of a TV show holiday special. And really what it was was a sort of pilot for the Roku Channel to see if there was value in trying to produce more episodes of this show. So in this increasingly blurred area between TV and film, I’m calling it TV. Also, it just felt like TV. It was like a decent two-part Christmas episode of this show, so that’s why it’s in this post and that’s why it’s landed here on this list. Sue me.

25. The Simpsons (Season 33 - 2021-2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 23) - I’ll pass on writing too much about the 33rd season of The Simpsons. I’ll just note it was a decent season, with the high point being a two-part homage to Fargo that was a lot of fun (33.6 and 33.7 - "A Serious Flanders Parts 1 & 2").

24. Snowpiercer (Season 3 - 2022, TNT) (Last year’s ranking: 21) - Snowpiercer had an alright season though I do think it’s reaching the end of the line (pun absolutely and thoroughly intended). It’s been renewed for a fourth and final season and that feels right. It’s been three seasons of basically battling back and forth for control of the train and it’s starting to get a little tired. They do a decent job of flipping the script every now and then and keeping the show fresh enough to be enjoyable, but there’s probably only so many times you can do that.

23. The Walking Dead (Season 11A - 2021-2022, AMC) (Last year’s ranking: 29) - It’s not the most inspired season The Walking Dead has done, but it’s pretty good overall. It has dipped its storytelling toe into classism in a post-apocalypse high society (what seemed like a utopia has a dark underside! whoa!) and it’s like: do we have to? Aren’t there enough shows already doing this in some form or another? The Walking Dead has always worked better as more of a survivalist story. It’s dirtier. And it has zombies. I would’ve preferred that but this is, like I said, pretty good overall still.

22. The Great North (Season 2 - 2021-2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 24) - Solid sophomore season. I don’t have a ton to add. It’s pretty comfortable in its role already.

21. Duncanville (Season 3 - 2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 22) - I’d come to enjoy this show. I think it was starting to find its groove. At times, its tone and humor reminded me a little bit of one of my favorite animated shows ever, The Critic. Duncanville wasn’t entirely close, in terms of consistent quality, but there were moments where I saw it. Anyway, the show got canceled. (Maybe. They’re going to put the remaining completed episodes on Hulu and see if Hulu has interest picking it up for more but I’m expecting it’ll probably join the graveyard of so many other shows that went unsaved by a streamer.)

20. 9-1-1: Lone Star (Season 3 - 2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 13) - I like most of the characters on this show so that keeps me interested, even when things get pretty silly.

19. CSI: Vegas (Season 1 - 2021, CBS) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - The original CSI was always solid as a crime procedural but was particularly good at creating likable characters. This reboot/sequel series isn’t quite there yet but shows some promise. It did a fine job with the crime stories, but the new characters were just alright. It was a smart move to bring William Petersen back as he injected immediate likability, but he only joined for a one season arc and won’t be returning for season two. The success of the show is going to rest on how well they can continue to flesh out the new characters now that he’s gone.

18. Impeachment: American Crime Story (Season 3 - 2021, FX) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - It certainly has its moments, and it picked up momentum as the season went on, but I do think there was just not quite enough meat on the bones for the full 10 episodes. Strong acting performances.

17. Family Guy (Season 20 - 2021-2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 18) - Good year for Family Guy. No real stinkers, though nothing that really stood out as exceptional either. Lots of average to pretty good episodes, which is a nice quality level to maintain for 20 shows, at least.

16. American Dad! (Season 19A - 2022, TBS) (Last year’s ranking: 9) - This show aired the first eight episodes of this season in January and just aired the ninth episode of season 19 this past week. So I guess I’m just reviewing the first eight episodes of the season, which I’ve dubbed season 19A, and I’m here to report: they were good.

15. Ms. Marvel (Season 1 - 2022, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - Good humor and characters. Clever visuals. Decent action sequences. Probably the one knock is that it was trying to show off so many aspects of Pakistani Muslim culture throughout that a lot of times it came off a little too much like a Wikipedia article on the subject. The dialogue was so clearly written to give the viewer cultural information that it came off extremely unnatural and pulled you out of things.

14. Archer (Season 12 - 2021, FXX) (Last year’s ranking: 25) - Another strong season for Archer. I mentioned last year that they returned the show to its spy roots and I think it’s been a positive move. They’re only doing eight episodes a year now and it’s back in their comfort zone so they can focus on what they do well and put out good episode after good episode.

13. Legends of Tomorrow (Season 7 - 2021-2022, CW) (Last year’s ranking: 15) - Remember what I wrote about Batwoman? How you never forgot it was a CW show? The same could be said for Legends of Tomorrow, but in a good way. Low budget, silly concept, sort of no reason to exist. And yet, basically from around season three on, everyone in the cast and crew realized that that CW-ness of it all freed them up to do whatever the hell they wanted. The show took big swings – sometimes missed, often landed – but they were never afraid to go for the wildest thing they could think of. Very few shows on the basic broadcast channels do that and I’ll miss this one because of it.

12. Animal Kingdom (Season 6 - 2022, TNT) (Last year’s ranking: 10) - I’ll miss this show, too. For me, it was the perfect summer show. Fun escapism, a great vibe. This is the exact kind of show you want 10-13 episodes of from late May through August. As for season six of this show, though? Last year, after a somewhat weaker fifth season I predicted a very good final season. And well… look, this final season was fine. It was probably my least favorite of all the seasons but it was fine. I enjoyed it for the most part but ultimately, it felt uninspired. Let me get spoilery and dive deep into it for a little here. So the thing is: this show, for its first four seasons, was really about Ellen Barkin’s character Smurf. She was the matriarch of this crime family and her extremely complicated relationship with her sons and grandson was the primary driving force of this show. What was being set up through the early seasons was the final clash between Smurf and her grandson J. It was pretty clear -- because this was a crime show and crime shows all sort of head towards the same bleak ending -- that things would get bad and bloody and the empire would fall and the only question would be who would survive in the end. But then something interesting happened. Smurf was killed off in the penultimate episode of season four. (From what I can tell, this was more a personnel-based decision rather than a plot-based one.) And then another interesting thing happened. The episode after Smurf’s death was fascinating. It wasn’t a revolutionary episode but the vibe was totally different. It was like a cloud had been lifted. Smurf had been this domineering, abusive presence in all these characters’ lives for so long and for the first time, they were free of her. And you saw hints in that episode that maybe these characters might be able to change course. That the show might be able to explore what it would be like to get out from under her shadow and try to build their own lives (while still doing fun stuff like heists and what have you). Season five kind of built on this idea, but you could tell it was struggling a little bit with what to do without Smurf as the big bad at the core of it. And season six was kind of a mess in a similar sense. It spent a lot of time sort of searching for stuff to do. There were a lot of subplots for the majority of the early part of season six that never really paid off and, in retrospect, now feel like they were killing time until we got to the endgame of the season and of the show. And what was that endgame? Basically what it always had been. That's really the most disappointing thing. That after everything, it came back to J needing revenge against a woman who’s been dead for a while. Of course, it’s hard to write out a satisfying plot revolving around getting revenge on a dead person, so the writers had J instead turn his vengeful eye towards Smurf’s sons, essentially for not standing up to her in their youth. They were victims of her abuse, too. That’s something the show showed us multiple times while she was alive and weirdly, drove home even harder with flashbacks after her character was dead. And yet the writers chose to lean back into the most obvious ending. One that felt like it was outlined in season one. For me, if you’re going to do something so bold as to kill off the main villain of the show in season four of six, you have to be willing to adjust. To change things and explore new paths and new endings. By not doing that, by sticking with what was likely the original ending, it made basically everything we’ve seen since Smurf’s death feel pointless. Why did we go through any of this? Why not just end the show at season four then? I want to stress again: I didn’t even hate this season. It more or less worked. But I think I’m just disappointed. This show had always done a good job of surprising me. Of swerving when I didn’t expect it. And for its big finale, it rode right along the rails to an inevitable, unsurprising finish.

11. The Book of Boba Fett (Season 1 - 2021-2022, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - There’s some fun stuff in here and certainly some wonkiness. It’s weirdly more The Mandalorian season 2.5 than its own separate thing. It’s like if a TV show took four episodes in the middle of the season and followed a side character for a while, which I guess is the sort of experimental thing you can do in the age of streaming. In that sense, it’s certainly not my favorite season of The Mandalorian, but entertaining nonetheless.

10. Mr. Mayor (Season 2 - 2022, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: 7) - This was a very funny show and I was really enjoying it which meant it was only a matter of time until it was canceled. It felt like it had a lot of life left in it and it’s a real shame that it’s already gone.

9. Love, Victor (Season 3 - 2022, Hulu) (Last year’s ranking: 8) - Love, Victor is another show, like Animal Kingdom, that had a messy final season. Also, like Animal Kingdom, I enjoyed it anyway. I can just also acknowledge that it was a bit of a mess. For the first five or six episodes this year, everything was rolling along like a normal season, and then, sort of suddenly, in the last couple of episodes, everything picks up the pace to an extreme level. Plots are wrapped up, characters break up and get together with other people, big life decisions are made, and then the show kind of just ends. I have no real knowledge of the situation, but seasons one and two had ten episodes apiece and season three had eight. My guess is that the producers were told late in the process that season three was the end and they needed to wrap things up, so they tried to do that as quickly as possible in the remaining episodes they had. And it wraps up fine – the characters all sort of sprint to their satisfying endpoints – but you definitely don’t get a lot of time to catch your breath as it does.

8. American Auto (Season 1 - 2021-2022, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - Created by the same guy who created Superstore and it has a lot of that show’s DNA in it. Not that it’s particularly original DNA. It’s a workplace comedy. But this is a good one. It performed well right out of the gate and had a couple of really excellent episodes in its first season.

7. Our Flag Means Death (Season 1 - 2022 - HBO Max) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - A delightful comedy that had a surprising amount of layers to it. You think it’s going to be a silly pirate show but it unfolds into this unexpectedly sweet love story. Great characters.

6. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Miniseries - 2022, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - Like The Book of Boba Fett, there’s definitely a little wonkiness to this, but there’s a lot of excellent stuff as well. It’s great to see Ewan McGregor back in this role and he does a wonderful job with it. Really strong finish.

5. Only Murders in the Building (Season 2 - 2022, Hulu) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - It’s fun enough just watching Steve Martin and Martin Short play off of each other and do their thing. It’s even better when you add Selena Gomez, who is, weirdly, a fantastic third person in this grouping. It’s even better when you add in a compelling mystery at the core of the season. This is a cleverly written show with a fun cast of characters and a surprising bit of humanity as well.

4. Moon Knight (Miniseries - 2022, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - First off, Oscar Isaac is so good at the center of this. He plays multiple characters in this and each one has his own charm. The show itself is a real ride. It’s only six episodes but it reinvents itself like three times throughout. It’s funny, it’s trippy and mind-bending, it has solid action pieces. If there’s one knock against it, the ending is fairly weak. It’s a shame it couldn’t really stick the landing, but what came before was very strong and that’s why it’s up here.

3. Succession (Season 3 - 2021, HBO) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - I’d been meaning to catch up on this show for a while and finally did and it is as good as everyone says. So sharply written. Great score. Fantastic acting from the entire cast.

2. Hawkeye (Miniseries - 2021, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - The MCU’s Die Hard. It’s six lean episodes that are all a ton of fun. The heroes are great, they have plus chemistry and play off each other well. The villains are unique. The action scenes are excellently done. The dialogue is strong. There are some fun twists and turns. It’s not the most groundbreaking show but it just delivers episode after episode and I enjoyed it immensely.

1. Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (Season 1 - HBO) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - I love what this show did with the sports drama. It understood that the story it was telling, about the 1980s Showtime Lakers, had all these personalities that were larger than life, so it decided to tell the story like that. Go bigger than big. Everything about this is going for it. It’s shot and edited over the top. The plots are exaggerated versions of what happened. The acting is big. John C. Reilly is doing an amazing job as Jerry Buss but there’s great acting from just about the whole cast.

I do feel like it’s almost a little unfair to have so many Disney+ miniseries near the top of the list. They have huge budgets and only have to support six episodes versus twenty or so. I should probably have some kind of weighted system or something to balance that out but that’s way too much math so I’m not going to do that.

Enjoy the Emmys.

- - - - -

Annual Lists of TV Shows I Saw the Past Year

#reviews #Annual Lists of TV Shows I Saw The Past Year

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googledocsdyke · 3 years

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thinking incredibly earnestly about like why i unironically love bite me (a google slides social media au) as much as i do and why it’s so fucking funny and i think a huge part of it is that it lays bare the process of total decontextualisation that generally is at work within the self-contained world of like, fic in general. like, in many ways most fic is the same fic. i think we can generally agree on this. obviously there are like fics that transform the way you view the source text, or fics that generate their own world and fandom (down to agincourt), or fics with profound complex thematic engagement (so says the sword) or fics that have their own specific cult status (my immortal, twist and shout). but like the reason the fic ecosystem chugs along, the reason bajillions of fics are posted to ao3 every day, is because of the kind of fic that is so clearly based off other fic, maybe just shifted 2 degrees to the left.

like fanfiction IS by and large a repetitive medium that is often primarily interested in working off and re-articulating very widely accepted tropes. think of all the largely identical 15x20 fix-it codas you may have read. or this harry potter au i wrote when i was fourteen years old that could not have ANYTHING less to do with the actual characters dean, cas, or charlie as written in-show, or even like, anything to do with hogwarts as a setting. there was NO reason it needed to be a harry potter au. why the hell were the x-men there? there was no characterisation. the presence of potions homework, and gryffindor dean, and “charlie ships it,” were all just empty signifiers towards a narrative that i knew better from reading other fics than from watching the show itself. actually, i think at this point i hadn’t even watched any charlie episodes, but you wouldn’t be able to tell! because i lifted my concept of charlie wholesale from other fics that asserted that this was her “characterisation” and her place in the story. like it Was a 1600-word exercise in copy-paste, which is what large amounts of fanfiction are and historically have been. and is so fundamental to why we keep coming back to them

and i’m not saying this as like. a normative or “judgmental” statement in any way! i think there’s no point in insisting that all fic be like. deeply grounded in discrete characterisation or a sincere engagement with the complex themes of the original text, or whatever. firstly because a) most people writing fic ARE young teens/young adults who do so as a kind of participatory gesture, a low-effort way to signal their earnest investment in a particular ship or imagined narrative, and b) decontextualisation is like… at the beating heart of what fanfiction is. like most fanfiction is not “literary” (in huge skeptical quotes bc of how contested that very term even is) but it also feels like it’s a mistake to… ask it to be? i’m thinking along the lines of this post, where gothhabiba asks that we “articulate an actual theory of how and why fanfiction is created, its relationship to other kinds of media and writing, and what it does for the people who write and read it,” rather than “arguing about whether or not it’s ‘good’” . because that is truly a moot point!

i think as most of us return for the renaissance, some 6-7 years older, we’re now at the point where we’re able to engage (more) critically with the substantive text of the show, the actual themes it engages and (mis)handles, the cultural context in which it was produced, the texts it builds off of, intentionally or unintentionally, and the critical frameworks we can apply to it. and all of that is like overall a very good and interesting thing!! but it’s also so interesting when paired alongside the decontextualising impulse that drives a LOT of fandom engagement

ANYWAYS. all this to say that like 95% percent of the joy of bite me is how unapologetically ooc it is. like this is the continuous thing i’ve been talking about other people with. you could copy-paste any characters from any broadly popular media into this situation and the characterisation/speech would be no more or less jarring; it would still make the same amount of “sense” from an in-universe perspective. nothing about this au is really about dean and cas so much as it’s about decontextualised figures LABELLED dean and cas (and again, this is not some literary condemnation or smth, the majority of fic does this in some way! i’m just using bite me as an example). we are told to believe that sam winchester, a grown white man & published author, says “yall wildin” unprompted and that kaia nieves tweets things like “oomf famoose” and it’s fucking hilarious. it’s so good. because intentionally or not, it DOES reveal how much of fic, as a genre, is utterly separated from the characters they propose to be telling a story about.

i said earlier today that bite me is a social media au written in a riverdalian fashion, and i don’t just mean that in a general “it’s bad but good but outrageous” way, but more specifically that both bite me and riverdale decide on something objectively absurd and instead of shying away from it or trying to cover up the writer’s lack of knowledge, it faces it head on. like we ARE told unapologetically and continuously that actors live in their trailers when they’re filming a movie, that a hashtag trending for one day is enough to get a magazine writer that hasn’t been accused of sexual misconduct fired, that dean and cas are starring in a gay romantic comedy called fucking trainspotting. and the writer doesn’t/won’t/shouldn’t apologise for a word of that. in the same way that riverdale will look you dead in the eye and say “archie is going to war and world war ii-era combat aesthetics never ended even though it’s 2020” or “jughead got into the iowa writer’s workshop despite never having been an undergrad” and like what are you supposed to do? make fun of it?? the text doesn’t CARE if you make fun of it! it’s light years ahead of you! it’s so totally unconcerned with this “realism” you’re supposedly chasing that the joke doubles back on you.

so like tldr: bite me is emblematic of the decontextualising urge at the heart of your average fanfiction, lays bare its own ridiculousness, and raises genuinely fascinating questions abt what fanfiction as a text is meant to be or do. also kaia and claire fall in love on stan twt. UNPARALLELED media experience

#and that's not even GETTING INTO the way it really uses the smau medium. and like the FASCINATING questions circulating around that. oh my g #anyways congrats if u made it this far and sorry for this but like #i truly am not posting about this fic in a haha let's make fun of this stupid au way #like do i think it is hilarious and is it perhaps unintentionally hilarious YES #but i genuinely think it is fascinating and a great reading experience #sasha.txt #spn #fan studies #NOT sure how to tag this but like yeah. yeah #bite me

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thatiranianphantom · 2 years

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tabitha has been giving "big hero sacrifice" vibes for a while now so actually your theory isn’t off base but i don’t think rvd would be brave enough to kill her off because they know it will be criticized (you know, by the people that consume media in the lenses of performative activism) so even if they do a good send off for her character i don’t think rvd would be able to do it unless erinn is leaving which i don’t see possible because i don’t think she has another job waiting for her but who knows. also, you are 100% right about a lot of people not actually liking or caring about her character but don’t voice it because not loving a bland and underdeveloped character of color is racism according to the 'activism' of social media.

Yes and no, Anon.

I can definitely see being doubtful that they'd kill off one of the principal cast. It's not common, particularly for this show, and I think the only way it'd really happen is if Erinn wanted to leave.

Again, this is entirely speculation. I don't know Erinn personally at all, she seems like a lovely person but I am not likely to ever know exactly how she feels until the inevitable "Secrets of Riverdale" tell-all book in a decade or so (we all know it's going to happen).

That said, it really doesn't seem a huge stretch to think that she hasn't been received well. That's, I think, in large part due to the unpopularity of Jabitha. People aren't warming to her character, and if you're not in the core 4, as most know, your screen time is limited at best. So she's currently in an unpopular ship, which is making her engagement as an actress demonstrably drop, her character is not looked at favourably, and if they were to drop the ship, her screen time would be dramatically reduced. I also hear ~rumours that she is not thrilled with the direction of her character (again, reinforcing, pure speculation).

Given that, I would understand if she wanted to leave? Especially if she were to leave on a high note that would make the fandom remember her fondly, such as having a heroic sacrifice. That would also cut down the criticism the show would face for killing her off. Given that the show isn't actually doing her many favours besides the steady job (again, their fault not hers!) I can see her wanting to just move on.

So given the amount of leading us towards a heroic sacrifice, her literally being sainted, the battle between good and evil and her tether being Pops, which is literally looking to be led to be a battleground, I don't think it's a crazy theory. Could it go entirely differently? Absolutely. Tis but a theory, as I said. But one wonders....

Oh, anon, the amount of times I've been called a racist for my character preferences, and it doesn't seem to matter that I am just as apt to criticize the white cast. I'm pretty prolific for that, actually. The show, and by extension, its fandom, really seem to only view things in terms of performative activism, and it's really kind of concerning.

#Answered #Anti-J*bitha #Riverdale speculation

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handsmotif · 3 years

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The Queercoding of Pinky and the Brain

This originally was just me infodumping to my friends on discord, but I decided it might be interesting to some people on here, so I polished it up and made it an actual essay lmao

To start, we’re going to break this into 2 sections -- the relationship between the mice, and Pinky’s relationship with gender, because queercoding doesn’t just mean gay!

For a 90′s show, Pinky and the Brain (and its mother show, Animaniacs) was very progressive for its time! But there were still lots of things that they couldn’t slip by censors, and thus, that’s where we have to read between the lines. And that is something I wanted to clarify here before we dive in, the actual meaning of queercoding. It’s NOT the same as queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is when the people producing certain media purposefully dangle the possibility of queer representation to lure in audiences (most prominent examples are BBC Sherlock, Riverdale, and Supernatural I GUESS? who knows abt that last one anymore), but never follow through, purely for profit. Queercoding is when media producers WANT to write in queer representation, but can’t, usually because the censors won’t let them. So, they must resort to subtext. (example: the policemen from Gravity Falls) It could also be unintentional, simply assigning certain characteristics associated with the LGBT community to characters. (example: Bugs Bunny, many Disney villains) Either way, it heavily relies on the audience picking up subtext, but whether it’s malicious or not varies, depending on the media. Bugs Bunny is an example of positive accidental queercoding, while a lot of Disney villains are negative examples.

Now, to actually discuss the gay little mice! Pinky and the Brain, whether it be intentional or not (based off comments from Maurice LaMarche, Rob Paulsen, and Tom Ruegger, signs strongly point to intentional, but it’s never been explicitly confirmed), is an example of positive queercoding.

There are many moments that I could pick out to discuss here, but we’ll start with some VERY on the nose gay metaphors.

Remember Romy? If you don’t, that’s their actual biological son! Romy came about due to a cloning accident, where their DNA got combined and spat him out.

There’s SO many things I could say about Romy. Every appearance he makes has an overarching gay metaphor as the plot. His first appearance in the episode Brinky (yeah it’s literally titled their ship name), it deals with his dads (WHICH I ALSO WANT TO POINT OUT, he DOES call them both dad, and they do both call him their son) disapproving of the fact that he wants to leave home and not follow in their footsteps of taking over the world. Brain even goes as far as disowning him whenever he tells him, which is certainly something a lot of queer people can unfortunately relate to. Also seen a lot in this episode is Pinky and Brain arguing even more than a married couple than usual, which pushes Romy away even further. Later, when Romy eventually does leave, and Brain starts to regret chasing him away, he tries desperately to reach out to him, but Romy doesn’t want anything to do with him. They end up tracking him down to an apartment building, where Romy is now living with his human girlfriend. When questioned about their relationship, the girlfriend, named Bunny, goes off on a tangent about how people shouldn’t judge others based on labels or relationships (hello?), and that Brain needs to be more tolerant. Brain apologizes and Romy forgives him. Happy ending.

Romy’s only other appearance is in the comics. Essentially, the plot of this one is that Brain wants to become the president of the local high school’s PTA, but he needs Romy’s help to make it look like he has a normal home life. He also enlists the help of Billie, the obligatory Woman introduced to make sure Brain doesn’t look as gay as he actually is, that he has a crush on. She pretends to be his girlfriend, and Pinky pretends to be Romy’s uncle, while they make up the story that Romy’s actual mother was lost at sea. Because if the organization found out that Brain has a son with a MAN??? THINK of the controversy! Anyway, the plan works, and Brain actually manages to get elected as president. Throughout this though, Pinky gets WEIRDLY jealous that Brain keeps brushing him aside for Billie. To the point where during Brain’s inauguration, Pinky actually dresses up as the wife/mother lost at sea and storms into the room.

[ID: Comic panels of Pinky, Brain, and Romy on stage at the inauguration ceremony. Pinky busts into room wearing drag, saying, “Yoo hoo! I’m back from years lost at sea to be with my son and ungrateful husband! Narf!” He then hugs Romy, while glaring at Brain. He goes on to say, “I’ll stand by your side, even though you left me behind!” The people in the audience begin to question this, saying, “Oh great fuzzy bangs!”, “What’d she say?!”, “He deserted her to be with that other woman!”, “What kind of monster is he?!”. Brain then rips off Pinky’s wig and says, “This isn’t my wife! This isn’t even a woman! It’s my roommate, Pinky.” Pinky replies, “Well, yes... But Romy really is my son! Poit!” And Brain responds, “N-Nonsense! He’s my son!” More people in the audience angrily speak up, saying, “What’s that?”, “He lives with a guy who likes to dress up in women’s clothing and the both claim to be that kid’s father!”, “Grumble! Mutter!” /END ID]

Needless to say, this doesn’t end well for them. What we can conclude from this is that homophobia exists in the Pinky and the Brain universe, and our characters are directly affected by it.

Moving on, And-There-Was-Only-One-Bed is a pretty common occurrence with these two. Their cage is big, they have plenty of room for two beds, but? They choose to sleep together? Even in some times where this has been inconsistent and they DO have separate beds, they’re always RIGHT next to each other. (what if we put our minecraft beds together ❤😳)

I would like to mention the episode, You’ll Never Eat Food Pellets In This Town Again! This episode is interesting to say the least. Deals with a lot of the meta of the show. Anyway. In this episode, Brain has a nightmare that he’s in a loveless marriage with Billie. You know, the woman he’s supposed to have a crush on. In the end, he wakes up from the nightmare in the same bed as Pinky.

Speaking of female love interests, Pinky is seen having multiple relationships with characters of different species. Any time this is brought up by Brain, Pinky counters with Brain being too intolerant. An honorable mention with this is in Wakko’s Wish, when Pinky is with Pharfignewton, and Brain’s constant pestering about their relationship could be read as jealousy. Pinky needs a mousy date, after all!

Something else I would like to mention is in one episode (I forget what it’s called, I’ll try to look it up later and edit this), Brain is applying for a job. The employer asks Brain if he’s married, and Brain hesitates before saying he “has a roommate,” but that he’s occupied with his own things, which then cuts to a shot of Pinky applying lipstick.

Leading into part two of this essay, Pinky’s relationship with gender! Pinky has always been very gender nonconforming, and loves to wear dresses, do his makeup, and make himself look pretty. For the most part, this is played pretty straight, and not as a gag, like a lot of shows tend to do! It’s just a casual fact about him that he likes to present femininely sometimes.

This does play into their taking over the world plans pretty often, where Pinky wears drag, usually either to sneak into somewhere. Like in one of their earliest appearances on Animaniacs, Noah’s Lark, where they pose as a couple to board Noah’s, and I quote, “love boat.” After boarding, Noah says to himself, “Who am I to judge?” Okay. Yeah. Alright. Anyway.

I actually had less to say on this than I thought I did, but I wanted to make sure to emphasize that Pinky at the very least is coded as being Not Quite Cis, and that he’s played a key part in helping a lot of people watching the show figure out that they’re also Not Quite Cis.

Wrapping this up because I’m hungry, but I want to throw in some more honorable mentions that I really do not see any type of cishet explanations for:

They literally go on a romantic date at a very fancy restaurant in Brain’s Night Off. This is played extremely casually, and the only remark from anyone that they receive is that they are “much smaller than the usual clients.”

Pinky, on at least one occasion, daydreams about him and Brain being a married couple, and wanting to be a housewife (the original malewife ❤)

There’s an issue in the comics where Pinky has a crush on another male mouse, and when Brain gets annoyed, Pinky reassures him that he thinks Brain is cute and quite the catch too

Brain attempting to kiss Pinky in the reboot??????

Brain actually did conquer the world once in the Halloween special, because Pinky made a deal with the devil for it, and thus Pinky got sent to hell! Brain actually went to hell and gave up the world to bring him back

Brain was extremely close to conquering the world once more in the Christmas special, but after reading what Pinky’s feelings for him were (nothing romantic, just Pinky basically just praising Brain for being so hardworking and an amazing mouse, and lamenting that he never gets anything for it), he gets so emotional that he sabotages himself and wishes everyone a Merry Christmas instead

TLDR; these mice are very queer and need therapy, and are probably the most heavily queercoded characters that I can think of in children’s media.

#animaniacs #pinky and the brain #patb #brinky #FLOPS ON THE FLOOR this took a long time to write

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thefudge · 2 years

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i feel like the last episode of the show euphoria embraced it’s inner glee/riverdale but in a good way? like i’m not saying glee or Riverdale were good, but I am saying that euphoria’s interpretation of glee/riverdale was either good in a bad way, or bad in a good way im not sure

"good in a bad way, or bad in a good way im not sure"

honestly these are my thoughts about the show atm. i've been dipping in and out of this season out of curiosity, because it has become truly inescapable and dominates internet discourse every week, and there's a lot to like about it, especially this last episode, which was v creative and over-the-top fun (i didn't watch all of it, but the stuff i did watch i liked). but i can't help feeling there's a weird hollowness and holier-than-thou attitude at the heart of this show. it feels like everything is happening, while at the same time nothing is. there are momentous emotional moments that are so lavish they hinge on the ridiculous. sam levinson's writing can be sharp and tender one moment, and the next it feels like he's shoving (sometimes literal) dicks in your face because fuck you that's why. the way he writes gendered violence and just violence in general can be effective, but it rarely feels visceral to me. and i think this last episode kind of showed me why. it's cuz at its core, euphoria seems to be a show about tv shows about teenagers. like you said in your message, euphoria "interprets" or performs an "interpretation". and yeah, you could say riverdale does a poor-man's version of this too, but euphoria takes it extremely serious. it's like if a leslie nielsen parody suddenly decided to play it absolutely straight (pun kind of intended). it's like a meta paradox of heightened, but also rehearsed emotions and devastating, but also ridiculous existential quandaries. to give a recent example, there was that pretty intense scene of kat being mentally hounded by all those positivity gurus earlier this season and it was legit terrifying and effective, but then it was undercut by not actually tackling the raw emotions it brought to the surface, by ignoring kat and just making the whole thing feel like a cool sequence they used for the trailer (also her viking/dothraki fantasy? played off as humorous, but without actually exploring kat's sexuality or desires). and zendaya, bless her, acting her heart out, has to keep playing the same "addict" scenes with increasing despair but little variation. idk, many of these actors on this show emote so hard and seem to be giving it their all, and sam levinson sees those emotions and just...doesn't do much with them, imo. the only emotions he seems to be paying attention to are his own.

anyway sorry for the long rant lol, but i've been meaning to air my thoughts about what i've seen this season

#replies #my thoughts #euphoria #i have other complaints about it but i do think it does some things quite well #it's just...levinson being way too infatuated with himself sometimes

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scorpionwins · 3 years

Text

Alright everybody today we're losing it over 3 things:

Pastel Jughead

Northside Jughead being adopted by Fred

Jughead & his many lady friends

SO HERE'S THE THING- IM CRYING, JUST, - JUG. JUG ALWAYS WANTING TO WEAR PRETTY PASTEL THINGS BUT HE COULD NEVER BC IT WOULD MAKE FP LOOK BAD, THEN BC he doesn't want to put a burden on fp. From a painfully young age, he knew they weren't well off, so yes, hand me downs would suffice, no worries.

There's also that lingering, possessive fear digging through his hopes, that maybe it won't matter, that people won't care, but-

but then he remembers Kevin getting slammed for wearing lip gloss on the playground, or how Archie stopped writing his songs with glitter pens after some douchebag made fun of him.

Or how Jason loved playing dolls and match dresses with Cheryl until he was stopped. And he's just- there's gentle advisory to hide all of that, and so he does?

But then they grow up, and Riverdale, at least in some places, does too. So when Betty kindly offers him some clothes to try on, offers to teach him how to do make up, Val, Polly and Veronica fast on call, having their little fashion shows, it felt... free.

SO, ns jug and ss sweet pea who met through fangs, whom jug found battered up behind the movie theater and took him home to patch up, and it was infatuation at first sight.

Sweet Pea is bold and confident and makes gold feel lesser and he loves the blush preening, bashful but fervid across Jug's face, illuminating the freckles he's found himself counting more than once, and he says he'd like to see it more often.

So Friday. Jug better be ready.

And so - so Jug IS, invites Sweet Pea to his room until he goes to tame his brother Archie, his sister Cheryl (bc in a perfect world Fred adopted Cheryl ok don't tale that from me) and Papa, " protective cave people. You know."

And sweet pea just watches him, a ball of indigant fluffy bed hair, hopping down the stairs.

" You can't ruin this for me! This guy is so sweet and smart and cool, why aren't we talking about Archie's unrelenting habbit of bringing a new girl over every week. I don't want to shame anyone but its really mean I'm the only one targeted!" And he snorts.

This dork will make such a good boyfriend, yes, he can already see it, boyfriend to husband to maybe possibly father of his children.

But he's not thinking too fast. No.

It's just- Jug is a good boy, starry eyed bright, sea water calming and tranquil, makes you want to drown, and sweet pea would. He doesn't know how something that pure goes hand in hand with all the dark he's wearing. A dark he doesn't even enjoy, by the look on his face.

But then. Then sweet pea sees. Pretty pink clothes, shirts and sweaters and skirts, pastel everything, some on the bed, some on the bean bag, and his insides freeze over. They look awfully close in resemblance with the other ball of pastel, sunlight forrest green that creep him out. And Sweet Pea assumes the worst.

Just- Jug coming back, excited, saying that he actually convinced Fred to let him ride on a motorcycle, but sees the dark on sweet pea 's face, watches fingers casually tear his pretty fabrics apart, then fling it at jug and jug- he's he's so upset, water pooling around his eyes, " w- why?"

" why? Cause you're fucking disgusting. THIS is disgusting," gesturing to the mess and rags of Jug's precious things, sliced by a talented blade, precise, masterful, gleeful. " God, I'm so glad I didn't let you touch me. You've got to be one of the sickest fuckers I've ever met. WHY would you bring me here, knowing I'd find out?"

Lips trembling, shaking like fluttering petals blew by wind, Jug, shame eaten, mortification boiling him from the inside out, " I- I didn't think you'd- you'd care."

There's betrayel, soft but noticeable, because he TRUSTED sweet pea, trusted Fangs' promises of their youthful viewpoints, how they're progressive even with their slightly traditional tracks.

Sweet Pea, floored, scoffs, like Jug is spewing some of the most offensive words he's heard in a lifetime, and shakes his head. " Northsiders are something else. Crazy fuckers, the lot of you. Dont look for me, or that pretty face of yours won't stay pretty for long"

He carries that bravado with him out the door, but as soon as he reaches his truck, Sweet Pea cries, you know he does, because there goes his heart, broke open by another northsider with too much time on their hands and not enough life in their hearts.

Meanwhile, Jug is cleaning his room, sobbing quietly, because the boy he likes hates his pretty clothes and thinks Jug is disgusting.

there's nothing Cheryl does better than revenge.

She watches Jug, shoulder to shoulder with a paired of concerned amber eyes, angry, wrathful, as her baby brother gently packs the clothes into a bag, shoulders trembling as if he's carrying so much weight on them Atlas would bow.

Watches him, head down, little trash bag filled with the same things that nerd was so bright eyed with excitement at just a few months ago, and knocks on Betty's door.

He apologizes, Cheryl knows, because of the loving, fond crease between Betty's brow, when Jug would apologize for seemingly nothing and shed say "why"? With her face alone.

She spots the blankness taking over as she opens that bag, slowly, eyes not changing once her and Cheryl lock eyes.

" Fetch my phone, Archie. This is a Code Red."

So here Jug is, under his fluffy blankets, cuddlin and hugging FP's serpent jacket, hoping a gentle hand would materialize out of thin air and brush through his tangle of curls.

When suddenly, it's yanked, and he makes a sad sound of dejection, upset because he wants to SNUGGLE and forget that he's but a mere goldfish in this bitch of a world but surprise surprise, lady friends.

Lady friends holding hair brushes and cosmetics, clothes of all kinds, all comforting, mischievous storms.

Jug whines, low in his throat, uses the leathers as shield. The bed shifts under multiple weights, but he can recognize them all- the soft, private gentleness Cheryl secures only for him, now more tender than ever through his curls.

Betty's ginger squeezes around his thigh, Val, feline agility, perfect grace snuggling around him.

Ethel's timid but strong pat on his shoulder, accompanied by Ronnie's playful tickle to his sides, sending him in a shriek that he needed. They're all there, all pieces of his heart that he'll never forget. " wh- what are we doing?"

" Revenge, dear hobo. Revenge. You know the best way to get it?"

" ...Success?"

" yes. And the best way to kill?" When he doesn't responded, Cheryl's eyes thunder. " Beauty."

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itsclydebitches · 2 years

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to offer something to the previous anon, i could probably say the Voltron reboot (2016?ish? i dont remember)(i did truly adore it, warts and all), in that it shares a trajectory with rw by. Started strong, some minor missteps, but as it went on it just got progressively worse, with execs just completely butchering it six ways to sunday to where they basically massacred the last two seasons and frankensteined them for publishing. Its a fascinating topic, seeing how much a solid franchise can be driven into the dirt when the people at the helm are straight up fuckwits.

rw by beware, you thread the same path

("Previous" anon being the one discussing bad media, since I'm always a few days behind in responding lol.)

I actually watched a good portion of Voltron, though I never got sucked into it like many others did. Given everything that went down in the show and in the fandom, I'm rather glad I was never that emotionally invested. But yeah, that's a good RWBY comparison in many ways, right down to the problems with queer rep, harassment in the community, and — as you say — a strong start that ultimately collapsed in on itself the longer it went on. Alongside everything I mentioned in the other ask, admittedly another reason I stick around is just pure, morbid curiosity. We've seen train-wreck shows in the past (plenty of them) and there's a legitimate investment in wondering just how bad things might get, even if you're simultaneously, honestly hoping that they'll somehow get better. It reminds me of the long-running joke on here that yeah, at this point we expect bad things to happen, but hopefully whatever bad thing we get next will at least be funny? Whenever RWBY/the fandom hits another snag I'm going, "Please let this be the kind of nonsense we can all laugh over and not, you know, more offensive behavior, horrible revelations, or changes that fans are legitimately upset by." Sadly though, RWBY doesn't have too much of that nowadays. I suppose the confusion surrounding RWBY: Ice Queendom falls into that category, helped along by legit interest in its potential, but by-and-large, yeah, it's more of a Voltron vibe of fans getting angry and/or upset the more RWBY stumbles. It's not (from what I've heard second-hand) a Riverdale situation where a good chunk of the community expects stupidity and is wildly entertained by it lol.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

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haileygarciasunshine · 3 years

Text

Soft as Silk

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Fem!Reader

Written: December 22nd, 2020

Posted: December 22nd, 2020

Warning: None

Word Count: 1,000

Requested: Yes! @kpopgirlbtssvt Hii!! (This is a lot omg, let me know if it’s too detailed!) Can I please request a Sweet Pea x shy/quite!innocent!fem!reader where when the Serpents first go to the Northside school, at some point during the school day, Sweet Pear hears soft music (a violin) and he’s curious, so he follows it. Which leads him right outside the orchestra room, where he sees Y/N (for the first time as she’s really shy and doesn’t talk to many people), by herself, playing her violin. Awhh and she would so blush when she sees him (through the window on the door) watching her play, but shyly smile too. She doesn’t hold the same beliefs as the other Northsiders do, she’s actually kind and accepting to all the Southsiders. They get closer and closer and their relationship eventually develops into boyfriend and girlfriend. Sweet Pea would be soft for her and veryyyy protect and the other Serpents would be as well. The Northsides (especially Archie and Reggie) would be shook lol. I honestly love the “opposites attract.”

---

A/N: I loved writing this, especially because it was a Violin reader request! I used to play Violin all through school, I even won competition medals and even got my Letterman’s Jacket Letter from playing Violin in high school. Even though I haven’t played since, I still enjoy listening to orchestra music, if you’re like me I suggest listening to Lindsey Sterling, she’s great with her electric violin. Okay I’m done ranting lol. I also included a lot of the things I did / experienced. Like having to take a music class to graduate, swaying as playing the violin. ect.

---

Sweet Pea Masterlist

Walking into Riverdale high, you gripped your Violin case handle just a little tighter. The Southside High students would be attending classes today as they transferred to the Northside school.

Everyone seemed to be a little on edge since the announcement of the merge. Reggie seemed to be a little angrier since then, as well as Archie. They had both been your friends since you could remember. Both guys were often very protective over you since you were shy and didn’t have a lot of friends. It seemed like an odd friendship as an outsider looking in.

As you walked through the hallways, you made your way to the Orchestra room. Nobody would be in the classroom until at least the third or fourth period, which allotted you enough time to play to your heart's content.

Shutting the door, you let out a content sigh. The overwhelming feeling of home washed over you. The Orchestra room, was your home away from home since you were always there practicing.

Opting for a change of scenery, you decided to take a seat in the back row. Grabbing your sheet music, you placed it on the stand in front of you. Turning towards your case, you had placed it on the chair beside you. Opening the case, you pulled your bow out before tightening it ever so slightly, then you grabbed your rosin and began moving it up and down on your bow.

Once you were satisfied with the amount of rosin on your bow, you pulled your violin out, placing the shoulder rest on it then placing it on your shoulder. Angling your head you held the Violin between them. Reaching underneath the violin you began twisting the tuning pegs, allowing you to tune your violin.

After tuning, you felt as though you were ready to begin playing. You glanced at the key before checking the tempo. Placing your bow on the strings you began moving your fingers to hit the notes. Losing yourself in the music you began to sway slightly as you played.

---

As Sweet Pea entered the Northside school, he couldn’t help but have a foul mood. He hated the North siders and now he would have to go to school with them. Luckily, he had his closest friends beside him to help him get through the day.

Naturally, they arrived late to school. Walking towards their assigned lockers, they placed their belongings in them before making their separate ways toward their respected classrooms.

Sweet Pea grumbled to himself as he made his way towards the Choir room. Each student was required to take some sort of music class to graduate. The soft sound of instrument melody filled his ears.

Glancing around the hallway, he was alone which allowed him to follow the sweet melody. The music led him straight to the orchestra room. There he gazed through the window and saw an innocent looking girl playing her violin.

---

Losing yourself in the music, you continued playing until you felt the sensation of somebody watching you. Glancing towards the door, you saw a guy with a black leather jacket gazing at you.

You could feel heat rising in your cheeks as you locked gazes with him. Normally, you weren’t one to play for an audience, however, you couldn’t bring yourself to stop playing.

As you gazed at each other, you didn’t miss the blush that made its way to his cheeks nor did you miss the soft smile he sent you.

The sound of a bell interrupted your moment, as it signaled the end of class and the start of a new class.

Sighing, you broke the gaze you shared and begun putting away your violin. Once you were finished, you held onto a small inkling of hope that he would be waiting for you. As you exited the orchestra room, you glanced around only to see the mysterious serpent nowhere in sight.

“There you are!” Reggie exclaimed throwing his arm around your shoulders. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I should’ve known you’d be in the music hallway.”

You rolled your eyes, before shrugging off his arm. “You should’ve looked there first, that’s where I always am.”

“Clearly.” Reggie scoffed. “Come on, you don’t want to be late for next period.”

---

The rest of the day, your mind was clouded with the thought of the mysterious guy from this morning. You couldn’t help but think back to the intimate moment you shared. It was a moment you hadn’t shared with anyone before.

In one of your classes, you were sitting beside Tony and Fangs. They were quick to introduce themselves to you. A grin made it’s way to your face as you had become friends with some of the South siders.

“This is, Sweet Pea.” Fangs spoke introducing you to the guy you had seen earlier in the day.

“Nice to meet you, Sweet Pea, I’m Y/N.” You grinned shaking his hand.

---

Since that day, you had developed a close bond with the younger Serpents. It was rare that you were seen without one or all by your side. They had taken you under their wing and protected you as their own.

You and Sweet Pea began developing a close bond. He would often skip classes, to spend time listening to you play your violin in the orchestra room. Fireworks always seemed to erupt in your stomach anytime he was near you. “What is he doing with her?” Archie questioned as he stared daggers at the sight of you and Sweet Pea walking through the halls.

“I don’t know man.” Reggie shrugged. “It’s crazy that they excepted her into their group.”

“This is Y/n,” Toni spoke introducing you to FP.

Fangs had convinced you somehow to hang out with the younger serpents at the wyrm.

“Hi.” You shook his hand, as your voice came out meek and meager.

“Ah, so she’s the North sider you’ve all been talking about.”

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riverdale-retread · 3 years

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Riverdale S5 E18 (Next to Normal) - 5 Things I Loved/ 3 Things To Consider.

5 Things I Loved

1. Charles Smith (son of Jones) is much more terrifying as a Gene Kelly type grinning dancer in his All American Boy High School outfit than he had been as Chick’s lover or killer or FBI agent. I loved this - that Alice’s vision of normal is completely horrifying. The completely lobotomized version of Polly, a Polly without the pain, undercurrents of frantic hysteria or the bitterness at opportunities lost that the actual Polly had, is also extremely soulless and false. Alice Cooper absolutely never understood her daughter, even if she did love her. And it was terrific that even the vision Polly ‘turns’ on Alice. This was very well done.

2. Jughead making his bid for Tabitha and her accepting it was just all kinds of cute. I mean, this is Jughead the Failman of Messy Mess, so he’s doing this only after getting two of the broadest possible hints ever provided by a beautiful woman to a man in the history of narrative (“I’m his girlfriend” to his ex girlfriend, and then “He’s also my boyfriend” to her dad, and forcing him to act along) but nevertheless - good for you Jughead!

I know nothing about this musical so I don’t know if this is how it really goes or if they reworked most or all of the lyrics, but in any case, his progression was extremely funny to me and very in character with post-time-jump Jughead. He says Ask Me To Be Your Real Boyfriend and she refuses (good for you Tabs) then he says, The World Sucks So We Should Date (um?) and then he says, I Suck In So Many Ways So We Should Date (??!?!) but it works! She doesn’t even mind that he wears the most hideous jacket to a Meet the Folks dinner.

I like this relationship between these two very strange people so much, these two very pretty oddballs who make an extremely wholesome commitment to each other before they’ve ever been sexually intimate. Also I got a kick out of the smoochy smooch sound effect noises that sounded like they’d been added post production. Because the word ‘normal’ is worked to death here, I liked that the way Tabitha and Jughead are using the much more loaded word “perfect” in their numbers was a nice antidote.

Sidebar: Tabitha was running away from an overweening closeness with her father, apparently, so she is similar to Veronica in that way. Is that why I’m so in love with her? I absolutely adored S1 Veronica so hard.

3. I loved the interesting and very ‘visible’ directorial/ photography decisions in this episode.

One is the way Tabitha’s tall elegant parents are framed to be absolutely gigantic and enormous compared to how Tabitha and Jughead are framed. Jughead is not actually a short person and everything I’ve seen of Tabitha indicates she’s quite long limbed herself, but the two of them are photographed to be constantly peering ‘up’ at Tabitha’s parents, who are both framed to fill up the entire screen and seem to be constantly looking down from ‘on high.’ Tabitha and Jughead look completely adorable and diminutive together.

The other was when Archie and Veronica are discussing breaking up, and both their worlds are cocked at an ‘off’ angle. The Andrews’ kitchen, which is usually lit orange and warm, is suddenly in slate and is full of sharp hard angles, and it’s tilted. The camera doesn’t feel like it’s doing a dutch angle thing - it feels like the house itself is wrong. And of course it is all wrong, for Veronica.

Veronica tiny and alone in the beautifully lit and nicely appointed solid-Americana bedroom she shares with Archie, all wrong and bored, was very moving to me as well.

4. I loved the fanservice they put in for us Cheryl Blossom stans. During Cheryl’s number in her emptied church, she sprays water on her mother’s face accompanied by whip sounds that used to happen when she flipped her hair around in all the other musicals we’ve had to date. So I stand corrected. It wasn’t that Cheryl’s magnificent hair comes with its own sound effect. It’s that the sound of a whip cracking is actually Cheryl’s musical leitmotif. Ha!

Sidebar: The fact that people who were in it for the ‘new spirituality’ and cult drop out once the religion turns out to be an old spirituality and an old god (Gaia) was extremely funny to me and felt like a very Catholic thing to say about religion: that everyone wants the new shiny thing, because the old stuff carries actual duties and responsibility.

5. More fanservice - Reggie in his slick outfit with his hair all smoothed back studying for an exam and talking about his 5 year plans. I do not understand this way of studying, where you have another person present and they’re talking to you AND they are making you talk to them but also I am an ultra introvert who would rather go without than have to make a phone call to talk to a person so maybe this is a me problem. Anyway, Veronica coming to an introspective realization when helping the most unintrospective person in Riverdale do something was a nice touch.

3 Things To Consider

a. Why does nobody in Riverdale know the word NORMATIVE. Normative does not mean good, and normative rarely actually reflects reality. This obsession with ‘normal’ and equating that as some sort of standard - when there’s literally not a single ‘normal’ family in the entirety of this city made me feel like I’d been powdered with fleas. Part of this is personal - I knew from the get-go that what I was born into was not normal, not the people, not the circumstances, and even worse, a lot of what I had looked “special” (super-normative?) (see e.g. being a dip kid in boarding school) - so I could not view normal as aspirational, only as a method to hold things over people’s heads and make them feel bad.

b. Marriage: I’ve noticed that marriage, once entered into, seems to be a really addictive lifestyle, and they’re kind of saying that in Riverdale.

I do not mean this to be disrespectful but when someone’s beloved dog dies after a long illness, I’ve seen a significant number of dog owners go off the idea of having a dog ever again, and stay dogless (though absolute adoring and showering love on every single dog they see) because they’re so heartsick, for years.

Marriage, though, seems to be the opposite of that. People who’ve married once keep getting remarried no matter how vicious the breakup and how costly the divorce. So Veronica, her first marriage having come to a pretty spectacularly bad end (killing her husband in the middle of her divorce proceedings) jumping immediately into cohabitation while talking about children and making marriage-like compromises looked very realistic to me, and also created a wry commentary about trying to find footing in an unmoored world. Too bad that what Archie wants to do is live with the man who had been in love with him as a boy (I am talking about Jughead) and his father-substitute uncle.

The thing is, traditional marriage (the only kind that Veronica seems to know how to make - further commentary on Catholicism??) is shit for women entirely and always has been, which is why she can’t bear it even with Archie.

c. Primary Relationships in the Main Four: After the extremely brutal way that the show ended Bughead 1.0 two episodes ago, where Betty simply does not (cannot?) give a shit about Jughead’s problems, I think this episode was the show trying to offer a gentler explanation for why it’s not going to work.

Jughead Jones has no primary attachments to his actual family of origin - his primary relationship is always with the girl in his life, for good or for ill. However, Betty Cooper’s primary attachment is, very sadly, to her very fucked up mother, Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper’s primary attachment was I think to her son Charles, that she gave up, and that’s why she’s the way she is.

This is the problem for Veronica and Archie as well. Archie’s primary attachment is to Riverdale (he can’t even fuck when he’s not in Riverdale, people). Veronica’s primary attachment is to competitive achievement, and this just ISN’T available in Riverdale.

The arrows are all pointing in different directions, and not towards each other.

#Riverdale S5 #riverdale positivity #riverdale opinion #jabitha #veronica lodge #i don't know what is supposed to be happening with Fangs and Toni #poor little babydyke britta with literally nowhere to go ending up in the spooky mansion with the unhinged lesbian is a CHOICE #also did cheryl stop building her house and also stop mining and wasn't she running out of money - has all that been fixed now?

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