#riverasks

[sumquiasum]

top three riverdale references or riffs?

NOT RANKED because I cannot possibly rank them but three references/riffs I think about a normal amount.

One:

Two:

Any and all references to Archie's Weird Fantasy, including but not limited to Veronica's undercover name being Monica Posh.

Three:

@horrorlesbion already visualised it better than I ever could. I very much credit Riverdale for the five (5) Leopold and Loeb related books on the display shelf in the living room.

Shoutout to Bret Weston Wallis and Donna Swett, the conversation therapy anti gay PSA and Riverdale's take on the satanic panic via GnG. Mwah, great stuff.

[sumquiasum]

A crazy spell puts all of the riverdale characters in separate decades. What decade do you put each character in, and how are they fairing?

1900s: Cheryl. Turn of the century, between the old and the new, industrialisation in full swing but not everywhere. More of a clash of the centuries. She would fare alright, though she wouldn't thrive.

1910s: Archie. Trench war-fare 2, electric boogaloo. Guess how he's doing.

1920s: Veronica. She'd THRIVE. She already owns a speakeasy in canon.

1930s: Kevin. US-American reaction to Nazi Germany, rising fascism in the US as well. Kevin's complicity turning into refusal as he realises the leopards would 100% eat his face too and finds community with other marginalised people. He doesn't thrive. (Alternatively: Jughead gets to be one of those Great Depression authors.)

1940s: Betty. Rosie the Riveter but it's Betty. Charles is fighting in WW2. The Coopers mysteriously always have meat. Unrelated, sometimes people disappear without a trace around Riverdale. She'd be doing alright.

1950s: Fangs. Rockstar Fangs was pretty fun so let's do it again.

1960s: Jughead. Cold War. Conspiracy theories. He also gets to get involved in civil rights in a very 2x11 way where he learns racism exists, is outraged by it and becomes a fierce ally for a week before getting distracted by space aliens or something.

1970s: Toni. Free love, black power. She is THRIVING! Also maybe she'd get an afro.

1980s: Tabitha. She's just having fun living a John Hughes movie, but more diverse.

1990s: Josie. Disco revival. Need I say more.

2000s: Reggie. Partially responsible for the economic crash. Scammed a lot of people out of a lot of money. He's thriving.

[sumquiasum]

if you had to base a new riverdale season off three movies, which would you choose and why? they could be tonal choices or you can pluck entire elements of the movies and work them in.

One theme of the season is (un)reality, with plots loosely inspired by World on a Wire with a touch of Videodrome. The latter would be emulated in its vibes more than its plot. Regarding World on a Wire, they'd realise they're trapped in a narrative instead of a computer simulation (But can they escape? Can you ever truly escape? Doesn't escape from the narrative equal death? Do they WANT to escape??)

One episode is called "The Archie Show" in direct reference to The Truman Show and features the voice of the creator (RAS) directly communicating with the characters at some point.

I know you said three but also if I got to pitch even just an episode of Riverdale, there would be a Chucky reference somewhere in there because I still can't believe they never did one. Also I made up a The Devil's Carnival musical episode for season 5 that doesn't work with this concept, I just wanted to mention it.

[sumquiasum]

Riverdale characters as rodents?

Cheryl: Porcupine (Basically has sharp quills to deter predators.)

Jughead: Gotta go with rat.

Veronica: Squirrel (Always busy & running around, highly adaptable, starts so many projects that she sort of forgets about some of them and they grow into trees (?))

Archie: Prairie dog (Extremely social, does not thrive unless he's part of a community)

Kevin: Guinea pig

[sumquiasum]

rate riverdale villains on a scale from physical -> psychological in methodology. who do you think was most effective in their villainy?

rambles under the cut

doing this made me realise most riverdale villains are actually pretty effective, up to a point. also most of them function more on a psychological than a physical level. basically I sorted them as effective if they frequently succeed in what they set out to do through their methods (in a way, thus, "effectiveness" = "success"). dodger could rank higher but I just don't care about him. at all. the stonies rank so low because most of them died and they didn't actually manage to kill jughead. charles is not on here because he never did anything wrong in his life, edgar and evelyn are missing because the effective psychological quadrant is already overcrowded.

why are some ppl on there multiple times? well, the black hood is very much a primarily physical threat who only fails to kill one person. he psychologically torments betty, of course, but mostly he just kills people. hal in s3, on the other hand, is primarily a psychological threat. he tries (and mostly fails) to manipulate betty hannibal lecter style, only having a short stint as a physical threat in the back half (covered by the black hood in the upper left quadrant). s2 Chic is not physically imposing at all, he is very much insidiously trying to worm his way into the cooper family whereas s5 chic does not care about finesse, he wants to get married and also have his husband's ex stabbed.

I struggled placing hiram but I decided to put pre-time jump hiram smack in the middle between physical and psychological because he does use both methods to get what he wants. he is, without a doubt, the most effective villain (after percival). yes, he suffers setbacks, but at the end of the day he gets everything he wants. post-time jump hiram is a different story, though. more of a psychological than a physical threat (do the bombs count? I sort of counted them, thus more physical than Percival) and, starting towards the middle of the season, a broken man who's a shadow of his former self who gets left by everyone and chased out of town with pitchforks. he still gets the last laugh by blowing up archie's house, which is why he's still ranked so highly in effectiveness.

regarding percival: I hate the guy but wow did he succeed. in basically everything. of course he was defeated in the end but... not without literally wiping riverdale off the map. what gives him the edge over hiram is that he did All That after finding himself in a new universe and within only one season. chapeau.

I could keep talking about this and I could keep tweaking this but for now I'm done and I'm setting it free.

[sumquiasum]

curious now as to what dark jarchie entails

There's various flavors of Jarchie but one compelling aspect, to me, is Jughead's unending devotion to and idolization of Archie. Archie is basically a saint who can do no wrong, he stands for all that's good in the world and even if he missteps he doesn't MEAN it like that. No matter what Archie does, he will always forgive him, but there is one thing Jughead cannot let Archie do and that is leaving.

This can have two outcomes: Archie snaps and Jughead helps burry the bodies and cover his tracks or Jughead snaps and pours molten bronze over Archie's body so he stays perfect forever. Neither of those things actually have to happen for jarchie to be compelling to me, but the potential is there. And I like exploring the lengths Jughead would go through for Archie while also refusing to fully see Archie as a person rather than an ideal.

[sumquiasum]

if freud came to riverdale, which character would he most be interested in?

If Freud came to Riverdale I'd shoot him on sight.

[sumquiasum]

would you rather have a hiram redemption arc or a veronica villain arc? and what would they consist of?

VERONICA VILLAIN ARC!!!! I think post-time-jump she should have been a villain, truly her very worst self, she should have hurt the people she cares about only to realise that this isn't her and claw her way back to herself. Veronica has always been somewhat morally grey in a fun way but I would have loved if they had actually leaned into the fact that growing up as she did her moral compass is all kinds of messed up. There's potential in s5, especially since it's somewhat implied she has been in touch with Hiram during the time jump, but I also would have loved something in s6, her spiraling worse over literally being toxic and seeing that as sealing her fate. Anyway. Would give anything for a proper Veronica villain arc.