They haven’t really defined SP and Fangs’s personalities before, so if it turns out that they’re guys who constantly fuck shit up that needs to be cleaned up and that doesn’t line up with headcanons, that’s not the show’s responsibility. Not sure what people want here tbh. “Give them screen time. Tell us who they are. But oh make sure it’s like we think they are on tumblr. Make them more important, oh but also don’t neglect the main cast teens that you neglect..” Recipe to never be happy.
Anon, there are so many reasons why you’re in the wrong here, and the first is that you’re going into the inbox of a blog that obviously loves these guys. What’s your end goal here? To piss me off? To stir the pot? To cause drama? Or do you just have the net goal of making the world a worse place thanks to your half-baked attempts to start drama on a shitty blogging website? Regardless, I hope you do some serious reflection on what you’re doing here and why you think it’s a valid use of your time.
Now, on to why you’re wrong about this:
“They haven’t really defined SP and Fangs’s personalities before, so if it turns out that they’re guys who constantly fuck shit up that needs to be cleaned up”
False. Sweet Pea and Fangs have literally dealt with a body before. Remember Joaquin? They were the ones who dealt with him, and I don’t seem to remember any dramatics then. Both have, on numerous occasions dealt with heavy shit like riots, a gang war, and drug-dealing. They are canonically able to hold their own in a world that’s quite literally beating the shit out of them.
So, this episode was out of character, not character defining, and yes, that is the show’s fault. They’ve literally shifted Sweet Pea’s personality almost 180 from hating Jughead to being his doofy side-kick, so yeah, it’s not that headcanons were wrong. It’s that the show’s incapable of consistent character development.
“Give them screen time. Tell us who they are. But oh make sure it’s like we think they are on tumblr.”
Let me correct this for you. “Give them screen time. Tell us who they are. But oh, make sure it makes sense with what you’ve established so far. Oh, and also make sure that these guys, who seem to be semi-leaders in this gang, act appropriately for their roles.”
We don’t care if they match every little headcanon. We care that they make a goddamn iota of sense based on who the show introduced them as back in Season 2.
Make them more important, oh but also don’t neglect the main cast teens that you neglect.
Now this one’s just silly. This is an absolutely perfectly reasonable request. Ever seen Orange is the New Black? Modern Family? Game of Thrones? This is Us? Lost?
All of these shows have relatively large, sometimes larger than Riverdale, casts, and they manage to have interesting, worthwhile plotlines for all their characters. It’s really not asking for much to want the show to actually utilize all of their characters instead of just using them as props for the four mains.
Recipe to never be happy.
Maybe it is? But you know what? I don’t fucking care. I lead a happy, great life with lots of friends, family, a grad program I love, in a place I adore. I watch tons of TV that brings me great joy, and some that doesn’t. That’s my prerogative.
And the funny thing is, I may hate what Riverdale’s doing right now, but I still love these goddamn characters. I love their potential, their aesthetic, their relationships. So yeah, I’m not happy with Riverdale’s writing, but it still makes me happy to be a fan of it. It makes me happy to write fix-it fics, to focus my time and energy doing the development Riverdale won’t.
I’m happy to be a part of this fandom, and if you don’t like the way I do it, you don’t have to follow me. Likewise, you certainly don’t have to sneak into my inbox under the cover of anon and talk passive-aggressive shit at me and all the other amazing, lovely people who don’t experience the show in the exact same way you do.
At the end of the day, none of us own Riverdale, but we all have every right to feel any goddamn way we please about it. What you don’t have the right to do, though, is shit on the way other people watch it. You’ll never see me going into the blogs that ship my NoTPs and shady-anon-ing them because that’s just poor fandom etiquette. Ship and let ship. Stan and let stan. If you can’t stand someone, block them. But under absolutely no circumstances should you go into someone else’s blog and tell them they’re doing it wrong. That just makes you a miserable troll. Vent on your own blog, not mine.
