SMALL TOWN NANCY DREW

GIRL NEXT DOOR independent, selective betty cooper from the cw's riverdale. show based. penned by: liz

[sluething]

Hey guys, here are some links to check out if you’re planning on following me: 

rules + information

interest tracker

wishlist

plotting call

[sluething]

hello the season 5 trailer just dropped and i am about 0% into bughead but here’s a shot of betty’s back:

[sluething]

ladyreckoning​:

She hears it then – the part she’d missed. When Betty says he doesn’t even know we’re dating the pieces finally fully connect. It’s not just about Hal Cooper finding them, knowing where to find them, wanting to make his daughter the monster that he is or a victim like all of the others. It’s about the rest, the motive; the Black Hood, before he was revealed to be Hal Cooper, before his plan fully came to light, was a man who rid Riverdale of its sins – sinners. And they stand in the living room of the Pembroke, while Betty Cooper holds her hand like a lifeline and offers to help take off her dress. A lump forms in Veronica’s throat for the first time. She smiles anyway, nods, but takes Betty’s hand as she drags her behind her with a little more strength in her grip until they’re in her room. And once they are, she turns again, rises on the toes of her already significantly taller shoes and kisses Betty in her bedroom. Long and hard. Just once. Veronica pulls away, stays up on her toes and runs her thumb over the end of Betty’s cheekbone. “You are good, Betty Cooper.” She reminds her, despite Betty not expressing any concerns otherwise. “There’s no one I’d rather have by my side through a night as horrific as this one.”

There is always something about Veronica Lodge that kept Betty’s feet planted firmly on the ground and in the comfort of her spacious Pembrooke bedroom, a kiss serves to do just that. It reminds her of all the good things in her life, despite all the bad ones, a shining beacon of light in the middle of her darkest of nights, with Veronica’s words reverberating through the fog (You are good, Betty Cooper), like there was ever a doubt. Maybe she does doubt it at times, when she remember who her father is, when she feels like she’s lost a grip on her sanity, but most often than not it remains quiet, muted in the back of her subconscious with the knowledge that someone like Veronica Lodge thought she was anything else but holy. She doesn’t bother correcting her, no matter how much she wants to. Instead, she engraves her kiss into her memory like they hadn’t shared them many times before. But somehow, with Veronica, everything feels like a first. She drapes her arms around Veronica’s neck and swallows the bile in her throat, with a careful, barely-there nod. “Maybe a police escort”. She manages to say, laughing under her breath in hopes of lightening the heavy mood in the room. “We should get you out of this costume. Fishnets don’t make quick getaways any easier. Just in case”. 

[sluething]

ladyreckoning​:

“Betty –“ Veronica wants to calm her down but she’s not sure how. Because she’s right. They both know that she’s right. Still, she tries to keep her composure, gets slowly off the couch to follow Betty to where she stands, like being closer might help. She doesn’t speak out loud that this isn’t 1922, and that they both have working cellphones and Betty had come straight here when she heard for a reason. But Veronica acts on that understanding anyway, reaches a second time for Betty’s hand, just one this time. “My father has a thousand enemies in this time – so do I. You didn’t make a mistake by coming here. It’s exactly what I would have done.” Veronica’s voice is quiet, far more soft and gentle than it should be in a moment like this but she’s well practiced at knowing when to bring the chaos and when to mediate it. Betty needs a calming force right now. “Let’s go to my room. I’ll get out of this costume. Then we’ll make some tea. And we’ll put the news back on and wait it out. We’ll get my father’s gun and stay together. Together is where we should be. Okay?

There is nothing but logic to Veronica’s words. They should be safe here, they could spend the night huddled in Veronica’s bedroom and wondering if a tantrum of epic proportions was currently unfolding at Cheryl Blossom’s beloved Thistlehouse. Maybe her father was no different than every man who had Hiram Lodge on their hit-list, or every man Veronica had ever outwitted to be where she is today. So she tries, more for Veronica’s sake than her own, to let her nerves lull, to use the hand holding her own as a tether. Betty takes a shaky, but deep breath, and finally swallows the knot in her throat. She nods, now holding Veronica’s hand with their fingers laced together. “Okay. You’re right. Okay. Maybe you’re right, I’m overreacting. He doesn’t even know we’re dating. I don’t think he ever --” She presses her lips in a hard, pensive line. Would Hal Cooper had ever known that Betty had other intentions with Veronica Lodge? She can only hope that tonight is not the day she’ll find out. “-- I’ll help you take the dress off”. 

[sluething]

ladyreckoning​:

“Holy crap, B.” Veronica takes the phone out of Betty’s hand, her mind barely processing what she was just told. She looks from the texts, back to Betty – wild eyes and panicked expression suddenly making a lot more sense. And she’s certain her own matches it now. Veronica paces, over to the door in a few hurried strides, and checks the locks herself, then finds her own phone in her bag by the door. Seven missed texts from her mother. All worried, frantic. She answers fast, a simple “I’m okay, Betty’s here.” And nothing else. Instead, Veronica’s mind races with a thousand thoughts about all of her father’s enemies, all of her own, all of Betty’s – the number of people they’ve managed to come toe to toe with in a town like Riverdale. Veronica shoves all of those thoughts away and goes back to Betty, dropping beside her on the couch to take both of her hands with as much assurance as she can muster. “It’s going to be okay. You’re in one of the safest places in this city, Betty. We both are. We’re all the way up here. There’s a gun in my father’s desk and plenty of security downstairs. We’re going to be fine. We just have to … ride it out. Okay?” 

She’s all clammy knuckles and shaky fingers when Veronica hurries to her side, only subsided by the feeling of being engulfed by the warmth of Veronica’s hands. However comforting her girlfriend’s words are, and as much as Betty appreciates Veronica’s reassurance, she knows there is something much more sinister at bay. One, she tries to convince herself that the guilt she feels at the pit of her stomach for even bringing herself to the Pembrooke to find solace in Veronica’s arms is nothing but a fleeting thought, even if she knows she’s putting Veronica in danger by being here in the first place. But the Black Hood doesn’t know (he can’t know), that she’s been dating Veronica all this time. Two, even if he didn’t know, the Pembrooke wasn’t only residence to Hiram Lodge and his family, but multiple people who had money and influence in Riverdale. If this was anything close to a night of The Purge, it would be a primary target. “No, you have to think like one of them! Security doesn’t matter, not to the Black Hood, not to whoever else is out there roaming the streets of Riverdale with a thirst for blood to quench. God --” She shoots up, leaving the comfort of Veronica’s hands to slide the curtains shots as the rain picks up the pace, making it harder for her to listen to Veronica over the sound of the heavy falling rain. “-- What if I made a mistake coming here? My mom isn’t home, but once he finds out we’re not there, its only a matter of time before he comes here to look for me”.

[sluething]

ladyreckoning​:

“There you are. I was beginning to worry I’d have to send Smithers to – Betty Cooper, where is your costume?” Veronica comes to the door, dressed head to foot in black, full gothic princess chic. Lace black stockings, the heels, an elaborate set of iron colored jewelry cuffed from her wrists and chained to her fingers, accented by her long black nails, a few extra rings, and a heavy coat of red lip stick. Betty was meant to be dressed as her opposite. Something out of her usual, heavenly Betty Cooper energy. They’d even talked about a white suit, a blazer with nothing under it. It was their first Halloween as a couple and – “Cheryl’s invitations had very specific instructions.”

But she’s stopped in her tracks, even as the words keep spilling out, even as Betty stops in her own tracks like she’d forgotten Halloween was a time for costumes at all. Veronica’s eyebrows fold inward, she watches Betty move toward the couch, searching for the remote. “B, what’s going on?” She pulls it out herself, turns the TV on to the news and is met immediately with images of mayhem on the streets of Riverdale. A marquee at the bottom of the screen reads in bold, block letters:  CURFEW ANNOUNCED; ‘FRIGHT NIGHT’ TURNS RIVERDALE INTO A HOUSE OF HORRORS AS VILLAINS TAKE TO THE STREET. A news anchor nervously explains over it. Sheriff Keller is urging all citizens to remain in their homes, with their doors locked. – Veronica eyes her own, as if to double check. The image of Betty fumbling with the locks plays in her mind. She looks back to her quickly, the rain drops and her big eyes, frantic and worried. “Are you okay? I don’t think we have to worry, Betty. I live for a little generous hyperbole on occasion but calling the ghoulies villains feels a little extra dramatic, even for Riverdale.”

She watches the news in horror, horror because The Ghoulies are only half the story. The Ghoulies the police can handle, Sheriff Keller will round up his men and they’ll have them in custody by the end of the night, but its what the news isn’t covering -- possibly in an attempt to avoid unfolding mass hysteria in the streets of Riverdale -- that has Betty’s hands shaking. She snatches the remote from Veronica’s hand to mute the television, as counterproductive as it seems, and finds herself pacing back and forth in front of that pristine white couch of Veronica’s living room. Betty shakes her head and takes a seat on that same couch, pulls out her phone, and slides it over to Veronica. The last five text messages she’d received. 

“Its not just a gang riot, V. It was a prison break. There was some sort of power outage. I heard my mom talking about it with Sheriff Keller on the phone. The guards at the prison could barely contain all the inmates; they got most of them back in their cells before they got the power restored, but some of them slipped through the cracks. It almost looks like... Like it was a very calculated move.” And she points at her phone, a number she doesn’t recognize, but a tone she could never forget. I’m coming for you, Betty. “One of them... One of them was my dad”. 

[sluething]

@ladyreckoning​

“ Something’s happening --” Its the first thing she manages to say when she pushes past the door of the Pembrooke and closes it behind her, dismissing for a second, Veronica’s carefully crafted Halloween costume, to lock the door behind her, all of them, one by one, double checking, triple checking, even taking a look through the peep hole to make sure no one had followed her in here. When Betty Cooper twists the knob of the door, thunder rumbles outside the Pembrooke windows, startling her and sending goosebumps down her spine. She’s covered in tiny little speckles of rain, some stain her shirt and the others fall freely down her pony tail, to her cheeks. She’s shivering, but for some reason, she opts to take off her coat, turning around and noticing -- as she looks at her ensemble (baseball tshirt and jeans) -- that she’d forgotten about her matching costume, and when she finally looks at Veronica standing in front of her, clearly concerned about Betty’s sanity, she forgets why she came here in a rush in the first place. Betty’s eyes drift from the top of Veronica’s head, down, and back up, mouth slightly agape. “ V --” And lightning strikes again, followed by another shake of roaring thunder, loud enough that it shakes her away from her ogling. “ You need to turn on the news”. 

[sluething]

ladyreckoning​:

“It’s not about Archie, Betty.” Veronica doesn’t even know what it is when she says it. What’s not about Archie? The trip, the distance and tension that Betty notices. She shakes it off so quickly that she almost surprises herself. Betty’s not wrong. Perceptive little Nancy Drew that she is, full of intuition and observation. She wonders if Betty’s noticed yet that the thick air and the strange speed of each of their heart rates has nothing to do with the motel. 

Veronica shoves the sudden nerves in her chest back down and straights herself up, criss crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap. She offers Betty a gentle smile that tries to make up for the confusion in her tone just seconds before. Veronica’s no stranger to having to make up for things. She just doesn’t usually come around to them quite so fast. “I mean that I’m not. A million miles away. Unless of course you count us, in this motel, a million miles from normal like the damsels in straight to VHS horror film . In retrospect, it might be about Archie just a little,” she wrinkles her nose, reaches, takes Betty’s hand and tries not to think about how heavy it feels. “It’s about Archie because I want things to be okay between us, Betty. It’s about you.” The words are clumsy to spit out but she manages. “I hurt you. With Archie and I can’t think about him and not think about that. I’m glad you found Jughead. As long as he’s .. what you want. I just want you to be happy, B.”

“I am happy”. She says it so convincingly that for a second, Betty considers leaving it at that. With Archie left behind as nothing but a wishful memory, Betty had moved onto brighter pastures -- she couldn’t hang onto that, she couldn’t let Archie Andrews be the subject of discourse between her and Veronica, not when she’d grown to care for their friendship so much it seems like something that could slip away from her fingertips in the blink of an eye. Not when she found safe spaces in the comfort of Veronica’s Pembrooke bedroom and late night conversations over the phone with someone who, end all, understood her in ways she wasn’t sure anyone else did. Veronica Lodge was a bright light at the end of her abysmal year, despite past indiscretions, despite any ill will she might’ve harbored in the past. 

Veronica Lodge is a good person. Betty reminds herself. Veronica Lodge is your best friend. 

“I’m happy to be here with you, and to go on this trip with all of my friends to get away from everything and everyone in Riverdale, from my mom, and my dad, and Cheryl Blossom and her rift with my sister. I don’t care about Archie, V --” A beat; she lifts Veronica’s hands and holds it like she’s nothing short of getting on her knees and praying, but she holds it between them instead. “-- I have Jughead now. He’s a great guy and he makes me really happy. So forget about Archie too. We’re okay. I want things to be okay between us. You’re my best friend and I don’t want some boy to be the reason we suddenly grow apart and finish high school wondering what happened to us”. 

[sluething]

ladyreckoning​:

When Veronica looks up, Betty’s watching her. Her hands freeze where there are. Veronica isn’t one to freeze or fumble, not one to steady her own movement for anyone let alone – but it’s Betty. And she’s watching her hands like there’s something in them Veronica doesn’t know is even there and she feels suddenly bigger than intended. She wets her lower lip, trying to force her head to say anything but before she can, Betty opens her mouth instead. Like a saving Grace. Like always. V– 

And then nothing. 

The phone buzzes and Veronica wonders if Jughead Jones has a psychic connection to her she doesn’t know about. Like each time Veronica’s heart races he feels the earth shift. She won’t admit that maybe his connection is with Betty instead – that some people just vibrate on the same frequency. The frequency that makes Betty treat a shady motel like a Twilight Zone episode instead of Before Sunset. 

They’ll be late. Veronica exhales, too big too deep. It’s the wrong thing to bring her comfort and she finally tugs her hands off her legs, wipes the remaining lotion on her arms and puts the bottle away before she gets in over her head. This isn’t New York City anymore. She’s not trouble anymore. Her days of seeking out trouble like she loves the suspense are over but – 

“What were you going to say? … Before the phone rang.” 

Old habits die hard. 

She’s on edge, nerves shot up like she expects anything to barrel through that door and make this middle-of-nowhere motel experience into something straight out of her nightmares. Something tells her though, as she hears Veronica exhale and ask her what was on her mind before Jughead’s text message came through the carefully crafted silence, that maybe it has nothing to do with Riverdale’s proclivity for fatality (they’re not even in town anymore), but more so, with the girl who tethers on the edge of the question like that would be the climax of the evening. Not a murderer. Not a small town motel story to scare boy scouts at a campfire. Just her and Veronica, sitting in a motel room with the kind of fogginess in the air that makes her wants to choke out a lung. 

Finally, after letting out a breath she didn’t even realize she’s been holding (she doesn’t even know why she’s nervous around Veronica; they’d been on a car ride, alone, with nothing but the sound of the radio and good conversation to keep each other company), she presses her lips together, tells Jughead not to worry, that her and Veronica will be fine (she hopes), and pushes her eyebrows together, touching one of Veronica’s lotion covered hands. 

“Lots of things”. She shrugs, puts the phone down between them on the bedsheets. “Thanking you for this, wondering why you’re here but you feel like you’re a million miles away. Not just tonight. In the car, at school and if has anything to do with Archie”. 

[riverdalecentral]

i find it kind of funny, i find it kind of sad…

[riverdalecentral]

Thirstdale presents Veronica Lodge, featuring her overwhelming sex appeal 

[sluething]

“ are you scared of me? ”

meme / a short question based sentence collection

“Why would I be?” She says it like Josie’s question falls somewhere between ridiculous and impossible. It almost is, to think that witchcraft is real and Josie holds magic at the tip of her fingertips and can wield it at will. To think that she knows, probably more than anyone, more than Sheriff Keller and more than anybody else in this town what’s been happening right under her noses. Its why she meddles, why they both meddle, but its given Betty an insight to the town’s gruesome murders, a way to tie loose ends on the murder board she keeps in her mother’s house in the Southside, on the back of that whiteboard that she turns back over every morning in case her mother decided to come snooping into her room. Again. 

“I’ve seen a lot of horrible things. Serpent initiations that are borderline brutal, crimes that go unanswered and unsolved in the Southside, people getting involved in shady business, Hiram Lodge... I think I might be going a little off the rails, or that one day I’m going to wake up in a hospital bed and find out I’ve been dreaming this all after hitting my head on the edge of the bathtub while I showered, but I’m not scared of you, Josie Saltzman”. 

[sluething]

ladyreckoning​:

Veronica’s eyes fall. Betty says it. She uses the word. And Veronica’s knows it’s true. VAMPIRE. Like she’d secretly been waiting to hear Betty call her nuts, even when she knows she isn’t. But now that Betty’s said it – out loud – it’s real. Cemented. And all the things Veronica had been burying since she sat down on that bench boil to the surface. The things she’d buried, the guilt that had been the very reason this all felt so much like a confessional. She can’t look Betty in the eyes but she nods, swallows down the lump that rises in her throat and once she finds control over her own body again, Veronica slowly, tentatively pulls her hands out from under Betty’s warm ones like they’re bombs about to go off. 

“I think so too,” she says quietly and then shakes her head. “I’m afraid I know so. I killed someone.” She puts her hands on the bench to steady her, fingers pressed into the wood but Veronica still can’t look up. Somewhere, her parents are chastising her lack of pride in this moment. Somewhere a better version of herself is doing it too. They reprimand her posture and the shame in her shoulders and the way she can’t stop staring at her own hands. She’s a Lodge. They’ve bloodied a thousand things and never once looked them in the eye. But she’s never been the kind of person her father wanted – surely now even more so. “There was a man in the alley. When I woke up. It was like I was possessed. I couldn’t stop myself. And then he was dead. I didn’t know what to do so I ran. I keep thinking I should turn myself in but I wouldn’t know what to say,”

How could she even begin to explain how she knows? How, when Veronica confesses to a murder right in this locker room, she knows the precarious situation Nick St. Claire had put her in was something way beyond her control. Even for a Lodge. How she knows about her nature, and her bloodlust, and how the first time its so obscenely overwhelming anyone would fall victim to the predator inside them. Veronica Lodge, no matter how poised, is no exception to the rule. Her heart is racing, she can hear it, Veronica can hear it, but its not because she’s afraid, but because she’s concerned about what this will mean for their relationship and for her secret. A secret she’s kept well hidden from Veronica for too much of a long time now. 

Hey, Veronica -- I just wanted to let you know, I’m a vampire slayer, and its kind of my responsibility to kill your kind. But we can be cool.

Most importantly, what it will mean for Veronica. Will she choose to keep her distance, should Betty be keeping it first? She can’t begin to imagine a life without Veronica Lodge. But one thing she knows, one thing Betty is certain about, so certain that when Veronica puts distance between them, she closes her palms until her nails dig into the skin: she need to find Nick St. Claire and kill him. “Don’t --”. Betty says so surely. Like someone who knows way too much about this. “-- They won’t know it was you. You wouldn’t have been able to help it even if you tried. It’s part of the... transition process. You wouldn’t have survived without drinking someone’s blood for the first time. That man was unlucky, but its not your fault”. But it is, in theory. Maybe not in practice. And she doesn’t say how she thinks Veronica was lucky enough to find a stranger to feed on before desiccating in that alley, or worse, killing someone in her family or a friend. “You’re going to need to keep drinking blood, Veronica. It’ll keep you alive. Especially if you’re planning on coming back to school”. 

[nexusvorti-deactivated20251005]

IDK how to be more forward about this. I know my boo @geminaes was posting about it yesterday too but like …..

why does no one like plotting calls? why does no one fill out interest trackers?

if we’re mutuals, i want to write with you. i can only write with you if we plot. if you post an interest tracker or a plotting call BET YOUR ASS i will like it/fill it out. But people rarely post plotting calls so I have to rely on my own and people really really rarely like them. I’ve been posting one on my Veronica blog for days and exactly one (1) person has liked it. 

I know people like random interaction and memes and stuff. they just don’t vibe for me. I have it in my rules, i have it in my ‘how to RP with jj’ post. i say it on just about every plotting call i make. I don’t want it to stop us from writing. I love you guys, i want to write with you, please please please if you want to write, fill out my interest trackers or like my plotting calls, or post one of your own if you’re scared to like mine and i’ll like yours instead. 

all i want to do is write with you please just like the plotting calls or fill out my interest trackers. those are the things that tell me it’s okay to approach you for plotting. if we’ve been mutuals and you never do either of those things, i assume you’ve seen them the 2340892834 times i have posted them and that it is not okay to approach you for plotting. but if it’s not okay then why are we mutuals? you know? i get it we’re all anxious beans who don’t want to overstep. so i will say it louder: PLOT WITH ME I BEG. 

[sluething]

𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄: 𝐍𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐄

(note: this information can now be found on my google doc, but I’m putting it out on the dash/blog for reference)

THIS TIMELINE CHANGES THE COURSE OF RIVERDALE’S STORY. ANYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THIS SMALL, 5 STEP TIMELINE OF ALICE AND FP’S PAST COULD BE ALTERED. IF YOU WANT TO PLOT SOMETHING IN THIS VERSE SHOOT ME A MESSAGE!

Alice and FP have a scandalous high school affair, which leads her to get pregnant with Polly.

After high school, Alice and FP get married. Polly Jones is born.

FP goes to prison after he’s framed for possession and distribution of illicit substances. Alice has an affair with Hal Cooper and gets pregnant with Betty.

FP is released from prison and dropped of all charges. Alice frames her affair as a random one-night-stand and doesn’t reveal the identity of Betty’s father. FP and Alice separate during this period and FP gets involved with Gladys, who later has his son, Jughead who also joins the Southside Serpents.

Betty is born Elizabeth Smith, as FP refuses to recognize her as his real child, though is allowed to join the Southside Serpents once she’s old enough.

Being a Jones means Serpent Royalty. The gang that once upon a time terrorized the streets of Riverdale has been under the ruling thumb of FP Jones since before Betty was born. She’s not FP’s daughter, even when she sports that infamous serpent jacket and her serpent tattoo, she always feels like an outsider. They all know, they all talk about it, about her mother’s scandalous affair with an unknown man while FP was in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, how Betty carries her mother’s last name and somehow; it makes her feel like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. But they don’t know, no one knows, not even the students of Riverdale High School, after Hiram Lodge demolished Southside High in an attempt to “better” the image of Riverdale and mount a prison for his lucrative gain, they don’t know what it feels like to walk around with the weight of a jacket she wishes she could sport just as proudly as her mother, or what it’s like to wonder who her father is. She climbs on a bus back home and looks at every man steady on his seat and she wonders if any of them  could be him. Wonders if someday, the Serpents will look past a prejudice beyond her control, and truly accept her as one of their own.

[sluething]

me: writing details about betty’s serpent verse sb: clicks my google doc to read it me: sudden performance anxiety

[sluething]

Now that I’m ready to rumble and not fearing my body shutting down like i did last night: THIS IS A PLOTTING CALL. Give this a like and I’ll come to you for a plot. Remember that I also have an INTEREST TRACKER that you can fill out if that makes you more comfortable.