#archie's all american

[teenbeachmovie3]

as always

[templeofshame]

I know I'm behind on this but it's wild to me that the Archie folks didn't go for Joe's musical pitch but they liked it enough to put the song on Riverdale all these years later. I guess not as wild as them sending Roberto Aguirre Sacasa a cease and desist and then hiring him as cco though

[lonelysocksclub]

Riverdale took seven seasons to get here, but it was all worth it

[bleachersgirl]

the thing that people who hear about the core four polycule via an article they saw on twitter will never understand is that it wasn’t like a crazy twist for shock value it was very much set up throughout the season

[onthesubjectofanything]

julian blossom didn’t just go on a random path, he followed the road not taken by one all american archie andrews.

julian took over archie’s role in the musical—the fictionalized tale of his literal life, taking up the torch as the classic red-haired all star—and then wandered aimlessly as a “lost soul” (indecisive, unsure What His Story Is About) until eventually following the fated footsteps of Fred Andrews by enlisting and dying in the war

a life for a life. julian took on the narrative to try and set archie free.

[harpieisthecarpie]

Okay not to be analysis georg over Alien Stage but I adore the ROUND 7 (Till vs Luka) art that dropped recently so much. And thus I will be analysis georg

(cw: I lightly and nonexplicitly reference the abuse Till suffered under captivity, including the heavily implied sa.

This is mostly contemplating Till's psyche, how Ivan's impact on Till contrasts the aliens, and art as rebellion against dehumanization. With that comes the possible triggers of Till's story.)

Till's closeup is what compelled me to post at all, because it's a very deliberate choice that speaks to his emotional state going in, and contrasts him strongly against Luka

This is long btw

The closeup focuses on the lower half of Till's face. It draws attention to his mouth and headset mic by mimicking a camera's depth of field to emphasize the yawning space between them, while using the metallic mic as a lure. The lighting sharpens the mic while softening Till.

The emphasis on Till's mouth (and mic) is indicative of a stark emotional shift from Round 6, where crushing hopelessness left him passive and barely singing.

Metatextually, the story being told by completely diagetic music videos ties strongly to the contrast between the aliens who've made the voices of the enslaved humans a commodity and the humans who are only given a voice through song.

There's a reason why music has been used for both propaganda and rebellion throughout our societal conflicts. You can only scream so loud before bystanders tune you out; music compels them to listen.

And I think that dichotomy between authority and autonomy, between the artist as product and as person, within the universe of Alien Stage is going to be delved a lot deeper into with 7.

Till having a hands-free mic and green strap over his shoulder leads me to believe he's going to be playing guitar again. Which we've seen him use for acts of rebellion before.

I saw someone saying the headset was a sign of his isolation, but I see it as him reviving the angry hope he'd extinguished using Ivan's memory. From what I've seen, Till never seemed happy when he had a standing or handheld mic. He's a creative, hands-on guy whose art and rebellions come from when he is able to use those hands.

Drawing, guitar, fighting... there's a reason he was singularly stripped of autonomy in ways we haven't seen happen much elsewhere (that physicality reminds me of Hyuna, I wonder if Luka will notice that). The caging, bodily restrictions, and physical degradation and assault from the aliens singularly target his personhood.

Even in the closeup art there's that possessive ownership, that clear replacement of Person with Commodity. His tears (or sweat) have been pointed out and remarked upon by the aliens. Yet the shot leaves out his eyes, which are often tied to personhood in literature because of how humanizing they are. Dilation, movement, eyelid position, blinking. It's hard to look into a creature's eyes and not understand there's a mind behind them.

The aliens commodify the emotion through his tears but deny the humanity behind them. They dissociate music as art with an artist behind it, even while intuitively knowing how an artist's lived experiences can create compelling music. The aliens want their product, they don't care that art isn't just entertainment to consume. They don't recognize the power music can have. They don't value it enough to truly understand it.

I wonder if this could be analagous to anything in the real world. Hm. Nahhhhhh. ANYWAYS

Till is creating what the aliens want, but the closeup has the same color palette as when he and Ivan were running away during the meteor shower. That shine on the mouthpiece even looks like a falling star.

The meteor shower was a moment of tension. A held breath before a breaking point: you can escape or you can stay trapped, but whatever decision you make you can't ever take it back.

It doesn't matter whether Till believes his last decision to stay was a mistake, he was a different person when Ivan took his hand. And he was changed again when Ivan kissed him before making that stage his death bed. Their death bed, perhaps, since something in Till had to die in order to be revived.

And Till is the only one in that arena who has the memory of running with Ivan under a cascade of falling stars. He is the only one those colors mean anything to. The aliens may be commodifying his tears, but they have no grasp on the emotions behind them. There is something within Till they cannot take, breathed into him by Ivan.

Ivan may have believed his love for Till was shallow, but he gave it freely. One of the reasons I even ship them is because Till has spent all his life in captivity getting pieces of himself carved out by aliens trying to consume his soul, and while Ivan can certainly be fucked up... he has always lain his insides out on a silver platter for Till. Given even the ugly bits over, despite knowing they'd be disregarded.

Till was strangled more visibly for how his humanity spilled out, but Ivan had been slowly suffocating because he refused to let them free. He accepted the role as pet (entertainment product dress-up doll) to keep his humanity safe. He played into the aliens' desires because he refused to give them any parts of himself that mattered.

But he still wanted to be seen, still needed to be known, so he gave them to Till.

And now Till is on that stage again (that had eaten Sua and Mizi and Ivan), carrying fragments of his loved ones that they had slipped into his palms. Quiet moments of joy and despair and fear and love. Bits of themselves they never allowed the aliens to have, that made a home in Till.

And what is love, surrounded by an entire society that refuses to acknowledge your humanity, other than an act of rebellion?

Which I think will be very interesting to see juxtaposed against how Luka seems to be portrayed. With an earpiece seemingly feeding him information, in the cool tones evoking a memory of Hyuna, whose closeup doesn't even deign to glance at his face.

(Though- not to overanalysis georg- it's interesting we get a glimpse at his seemingly gloved fingers. And that their color palettes are both interrupted by a small bit of green. Till's by what I think is a guitar strap, and Luka's by the center of his earpiece- and its sound.)

[totopopopo]

trying so hard right now get my all american boy to dress goth for halloween but he is not biting unfortunately

[garbagequeer]

whatever happens we must always remember. archie going left archie going right

[disabled-battlekukku]

remember when archie sonic made the echidnas british colonizers and not only were n*zi echidnas introduced but the guys they were actively being racist against (the dingoes) were portrayed as pissy bad guys, "appropriated" the echidna's technology (despite the echidnas themselves appropriated their land) because they "couldn't create technology of their own" and also more n*zi caricatures too

and then the spirit of one of their colonizers banished them to desert superhell

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

I know I have a series on my ao3 account called "my tiny ass fandom fest" for small fandoms but I feel like I should have another one titled "absolute fucking rarepairs" because I have some ships for fandoms that over 30k fics but I'm writing a pairing so small they have below fifty fics (some all the way to BELOW TEN bc I'm the only one writing them).

...all of which is to say I don't know how my Riley/Ivan/Chase fic got so popular in the Dino Charge fandom because up until a few months ago I was the ONLY ONE writing for them.

[mean-vampyre]

Archie Andrews, tragic hero and american teenager.

[teenbeachmovie3]

do you guys remember the good old days? back when archie would go left....... then subsequently he would go right.........

[pineapplepond5]

what Indian 'The Archies' could have looked like:

what we got instead:

[familyabolisher]

mar made me watch archie's all-american mind the other day and i'm now sooo insane over how it's literally archielita.....