#riverdale thoughts: I have them

[roxyandelsewhere]

if i were ever to remake riverdale i'd assign the characters these buttonsonas and use them like cutouts in a terry gilliam animation or perhaps as puppets

[arsenicpanda]

So interesting how every girl in 50s Riverdale can be desirable except Ethel. Gee, I sure do wonder what's different about her

[isys777]

Riverdale is... watchable again?

So.

I’ve watched the last two episodes of Riverdale (episodes 1 & 2 of season 7) because I am a proprietor and collector of unassuming, under the radar, not quite enemies to potential lovers ships like the dairs, the bamons, and of course, the jeronicas. Though I left Riverdale in my rearview mirror seasons ago, I can’t help but always have an eye out for how my favorite raven haired Riverdale duo is doing. Of course when the promo for season 7 dropped the hints that something may happen there, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to tune in. And I was very pleasantly surprised!

This isn’t a post about Jeronica but instead about how much I enjoyed the first two episodes, the second one especially. I don’t fully understand how the cast got pushed back to the past as 30 year old teenagers despite that gorgeous black girl who’s name I forgot telling me last episode, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever genius in the writer’s room came up with that as the beginning of the end for the show was truly inspired. Going back to the basics is exactly what a show that got as outlandish as this one did needed.

The problems are simple and relatable, the villains aren’t otherworldly, it’s intolerant and judgmental adults inserting themselves and their views on a bunch of kids just trying to figure everything out. It’s the expectations the characters are putting on themselves as well as their own demons, not literal this time, that they have to fight. The 50′s dialogue is cheesy but in an endearing way, and the actors are really given something to work with.

Camila’s performance as Veronica as well as Madelaine’s performance as Cheryl in particular are really standing out to me. Instead of Veronica just being a bunch of quips and a large persona, she’s clearly holding onto a lot of insecurity and puts up a wall and puts on a mask that Camila allows genuine emotion to break through at the best times. And Madelaine does very similar work with Cheryl, which makes the moment of pure joy when she was dancing with Toni, for just a moment, all the more charming, and everything all the more sad in her last scene.

All of the actors are able to add dynamic to their characters that hasn’t really been there. I really appreciated Archie’s moments with his mom in regards to his father and how much weight that holds in every part of their lives. And KJ’s performance of Archie is so endearing I just wanna wrap him up in a blanket. I didn’t mention some other performances but everyone is really putting their all into this and I really appreciate it. Even the directing has been very dynamic, I really appreciate the use of mirrors and negative space in some of the shots. As I was watching I couldn’t help but feel like this should have been the show from the very, very beginning.

I know this won’t last, even in the last moments I was getting the sense of the spectacle and exaggeration that Riverdale is known for. As well as the overindulgence of unnecessary sex scenes that was hinted at for the next episode. And I know eventually things will reset and we will likely go back to what Riverdale is known for. But for the moment, I appreciate where they took the show, and if all I get before the chaos is just those two episodes, I’m glad I took the risk and was able to enjoy them.

[eastvillages]

thinking about how it isn’t varchie this barchie that we should be bantering about. thinking about how we should just all accept whatever happens (and i’m not so sure it will be varchie or barchie, at least not solidly!) thinking about how every (normal) archie ship brings some different interests, personality traits, and ideas out from him!!!

betty brings out archie’s deep longing to live up to his father. she brings out his boy next door nature and his dream to lead a simple white picket fence suburban life!!! and that is okay!!!!

veronica brings out the little voice saying “what if” in his head. what if i didn’t follow the path everyone is telling me i should be on? what if i didn’t allow myself to be influenced by my legacy? what if i did move to new york and live in a penthouse?? and that is okay!!!!

jughead brings out his creativity. jughead is the narrator and archie is his muse and the hero of his story!! jughead also brings out the little “what if” voice in his head but in a much different way!!! what if i pursued music again? what if i dropped everything and ran away with him? and that is okay!!!

josie brings out his love for music. reggie brings out his humor and competitiveness. et cetera et cetera!!!

[lonesomedotmp3]

is anyone writing decent riverdale s7 fic can someone get on that. I don't see how that's possible because it's conceptually flawed but psspspsp gay riverfans we could Try...

[james-stark-the-writer]

you know, i appreciate the work Susan Sontag has done for people appreciating Camp and stuff but i feel like if you are still using Susan Sontag as the authority on Camp in the year of your lord 2023, using notes that were written in 1964, as if the landscape of art and our relationship to art hasn't fundamentally changed since then,,, it's like, you need to catch up babes, a lot of those points are still really relevant, i'm not saying throw it out, but like update your understandings of Camp beyond that one authoritative text that's at this point almost 60 fucking years old. Susan Sontag is not the fundamental authority on what art today is or would be considered Campy, build off of those basics, please dear gods, evolve your understanding of what Campy art today actually looks like rather than trying to apply a prescriptive label from a text that can kinda boil down to 'Camp is whatever you feel like, and you'll know it when you see it because it won't be like traditional art' because the attempt to define it is so wide, calling every non-traditional piece of art campy is fucking pointless and not how anyone is obviously using the fucking label, people are very deliberately talking about one specific feeling they get from the piece of art, and it's got very little to do with aesthetics, at least as far as TV shows are concerned (movies are a different conversation), and much more about presentation and tone and intended effects and what the whole fucking point of the piece of art actually is, which is a lot more than what is afforded to most things considered Campy, like 90% of the shit people call campy at this point is just called campy and then it's left there, because it's a "oh you can't say anything about it because it's campy" like at this point it almost functions as a conversation ender because anyone you're talking to about any aspect can just go "yeah that's meant to be that way, it's campy" and it's like. okay, where do we go from here? should the piece of art not be analyzed as a work of art? does it not deserve to be evaluated in good faith and treated like any other piece of art? i understand the urge to defend the use of the term, as like "oh we're using it because people are misunderstanding art and what it's trying to be", and as a Riverdale-truther (as in genuinely love it as a piece of art and what it says and does, it's not fucking campy i swear to god, none of you fucking know what pulp art is!), and as a TASM2 truther (best Spidey movie after ITSV, and definitely best general movie after ITSV, and i don't care what your opinion is) i understand the urge to want to defend it as camp, but like, what's the piece of art actually doing and trying to say, what are the deeper layers at play? or are you really just satisfied saying something is Campy and stopping your analysis of the piece of art there? is your soul really okay correcting someone's interpretation of a show and saying it's campy and not doing anything beyond that? what does it being campy actually change? what the fuck does it actually do for the piece of art, if the piece of art is even campy at all?

[twofacedharveydent]

On the surface, Lauren's life appears perfect, but she knows something's missing. After crossing over to the Southside one night, she meets a Serpent by the name of Sweet Pea. Their summer fling ends just as fast as it begins, but when her life takes a turn for the worst, she suddenly finds herself starting a new school year in a new school filled with gangs and a stubborn Serpent.

FFN | WP

Beneath The Surface| @missecharlotte →  Lauren Kinley & Sweet Pea

[cescalr]

Hm

Hmmm.

[frankensteindotpdf]

i still havent decided whether or not i have the puzzlers disposition

[misfortunegirl]

anyone who is inlove with me 👉👈

[arsenicpanda]

I am coming to terms with the fact that my opinion of Julian changed 100% because of his duet with Archie and how nice his voice is. Tragically, I am not immune to tenor men 😔

[wandamaximoffappreciationblog]

What I thought of Riverdale Season 7 “Don’t worry, darling”…

As much as I think the show went down in quality, and I think a lot of the latest plotlines have been nonsensical, I am genuinely going to miss the good aspects to the show and characters I love. I’ll miss Betty and Cheryl the most probably. I think season one and two were wayyyy better and this show should have just kept the murder mystery elements from that going but alas, we didn’t get that. I actually did like the school in season four though. As far as the new fifties season goes, I liked this first episode but had mixed feelings on them referencing emitt till. With how all over the place the shows theme is at this point I just don’t know how I feel about them referencing such an important real life event for black people. I’m loving Jughead again after hating what they did with him the last two seasons. Actually really likening Veronica. Cheryl’s obvious internalized issues had me so sad. Her and Betty look soooo gorgeous this season. Im not sure on how I feel about Archie so far. Also I want FP back!I’m pretty excited but also sad for such a big fandom for me to close!

[crosbyism]

"but then again this is the guy who’s publically known for loving to eat ass so"

I'm sorry, I thought Nate eating ass was fanon. Are you telling me this is an actual canon fact??

god i love when people don’t realise how much “fanon” around sid and nate is actually canon. it’s like heroin to me. also bc it’s like. 90% of the stuff in fics (which is probably why people assume it’s fanon but. oh boy it’s not. there’s shockingly little fanon around these two, mostly because canon is so abundant).

yes, nathan mackinnon is a known ass-eater. let me direct you to this post, anon. you’re welcome.

other nate (and sid) facts you might not have realised are canon:

nate is a known advocate for therapy. he’s been seeing a sports therapist since 2017

they wear matching clothing all the fucking time, sid has said publicly that he started wearing white sneakers and updated his wardrobe due to nate’s influence (iirc nate might’ve even bought him his first pair of white sneakers? either that or it was a “he told me i need to so i did” situation). they share a tailor. unfortunately i now have to bring your attention to the fact that since they have an alarming amount of matching clothes that they’ve bought for each other, that means that they in fact have to know each other’s clothing sizes off by heart. they also low-key share clothing btw

their families celebrate canada day together and their dads are best friends. in-law behaviour goes crazy

nate did in fact stalk his way into sid’s heart (got the same personal trainer and agent at age 13; built his house next door in 2017; they’ve been spending every day in the summers together since at least 2015. sid cooks for them daily, or at least did pre-pandemic. sid refuses to use nate’s gym tho so they always use sid’s).

nate used to have a fan twitter account more or less where he rooted for the pens. it was active until 2017.

sid and nate regularly go to summer weddings together as each other’s dates. they have done this since, once again, at least 2015

nate has confirmed that he used to have a poster of sid on his wall as a teenager (he didn’t confirm he used to jerk off to it but frankly. i think that’d be saying the quiet part out loud)

when sid won the cup in 2009 and held the parade in cole harbour, nate stood by the side of the road watching it. he was about to turn 14, he was already working with sid’s trainer and agent, and he was about to start attending shattuck (sid’s junior high). due to old pics we also know that this was RIGHT before nate had his first growth spurt and hit puberty. i’m not saying seeing sid with the cup kickstarted nate’s puberty and gave him his first boner but i’m not NOT saying it

nate dated vanessa morgan of riverdale fame in his rookie year. she’s now good friends with elias petersson from the vancouver canucks (this means nothing but i do think it’s a very funny coincidence).

nate schmidt, formerly of the VGK, once failed a drug test (it turned out to be a testing-fuck-up); when nhl players were asked about it natemack iconically said “i don’t think he was sticking a needle up his ass” (i just like this one)

when he was a kid, the one other thing sid wanted to be was a hairdresser. nate, on the other hand, “didn’t have a plan B”

nate is canonically possessive of sid (see: the asg 2024) and sid is canonically delighted by this and into it

they go on so many lunch dates in the summer my dude. they go grocery shopping together. like there’s so many pics of them in grocery stores or out having coffee or weird green shakes

oh i almost forgot, they went on a roadtrip through ireland last year. they’ve been on holiday together multiple times over the years though. done some eurotripping together and stuff. in 2015 they spent three months together, three weeks of which were spent living in sid’s santa monica condo together just the two of them

sid has put up a picture of every stanley cup winning captain in his basement since 2008, when the pens lost in the scf to DET. apparently this serves as motivation for him to win the cup. he notoriously does not watch the playoffs after the pens are out

however, he partied so hard at nate’s cup party he actually closed down the party with his dad. nate is the only non-teammate sid’s ever been seen supporting for a cup run (he’s also never been to his teammates’ cup parties afaik so. there’s that)

also they talked on the phone daily and between periods during nate’s cup run. they also canonically have almost weekly phone dates that can run multiple hours. quote nate “i can’t talk to anyone else the way i can talk to him”

they each have pictures of the two of them together framed in each other’s houses

there’s rumours they’re building adjoining houses on neighbouring properties in cape breton next to a golf course bc apparently being neighbours in halifax isn’t enough or something. this one is as yet unconfirmed by reputable sources though

[yourjughead]

Attack Dog

Sweet Pea X Reader enemies to lovers

Synopsis: You return to Riverdale to find your best friend Jughead has joined a gang he said he never would. A certain member of said gang takes an interest in you in return

A/N: This was a draft from years ago. It's set when the Serpents join Riverdale high (a throwback) but also somehow their senior year....

This is very long, apologies.

Pt. 2 Pt. 3 Pt. 4 Pt. 5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You piled your books into your locker, the Monday dew still cascading the halls. Groggily going about your business but happy to be finally back in Riverdale High. You had moved back on Friday night with your family and had already seen most of your friends that same night. After moving around so much with both your parents in the army it was nice to finally replant your roots.

“Ah yn, how I have missed you standing there" Archie threw himself against the locker smiling.

“I missed you too Archiedoodles, do you think we can go see Jughead today?” Archie had decided to keep you away from Jughead for as long as possible, he didn't quite think you'd want to see who had become. 

“Emm I don't know, he's kinda busy lately” 

“Too busy for me...did you hear that?” It was like a scene from a film. The banging of the hallway doors and entered the Serpents, their new school. You and Archie looked to see the swarm before Archie could see who was leading them.

“Oh hey YN look at this locker door” he turned you against the lockers by the shoulders.

“Archie what the hell” you laughed pushing against him to turn and see Jughead striding past you 

“Juggy!” 

“Yn!?” You ran over to him, interrupting his new hard core image, giving him a giant hug. 

“What the hell are you doing back?” he smiled greatly shock still colouring him.

“Mom's done with the Army so she moved us back, dad still has a few more years but that's okay, I'm back! What are you doing here Arch said you moved schools?”

“School moved us”

“Us?” It was then you noticed the sward behind him and the leather jackets they wore. You took a step back, all of them eyeing you.

“Oh….umm” Archie joined your side, the group glaring at him harshly. 

“I thought you said you'd never jo-”

“-uh yn this isn't the place for this conversation” Jughead interrupted you.

“Well then make it the place Jughead” a chorus of oohs from behind him followed.

“Come on yn let's go, you must meet Veronica” Archie wrapped an arm around you breaking the stare off you and Jughead were having.

~

The day flowed on and you avoided Jughead as much as possible, until the final bell rang and he cornered you outside your car.

“Yn we need to talk”

“I'd love to talk to Jughead, let me know when you see him will you?” you opened the car door but he closed it again, almost catching your fingers in it. You sighed loudly at his action.

“Yn it is still same the Jughead-”

“Really?! I remember a Jughead who hated the Serpents and what they did to his dad and how they're basically the reason his family is in two! I remember a Jughead who promised he'd never get caught up in that world! Because you sir, are not him!” you jabbed your finger into his chest.

“Hey Jones you coming?” A tall serpent called from across the carpark.

“Just a second! Yn this shouldn't be a big deal, so I have a family now, it doesn't matter!”

“You have a family now?! What am I then?! And Archie and Betty?! We were your family, your friends….” you looked down at the ground and he looked desperately at you, the tall Serpent called him from the background again before beginning to stride over. 

“YN, I don't want to have this conversation in front of the Serpents, I have to keep a strong front for them” you rolled your eyes at him as Sweet Pea reached his side. You couldn't help but glare at him and he gave a small laugh. 

“Jones, who's the attack dog?”

“Listen here Snake Brain-” 

“YN, leave it!” Jughead cut across you earning another laugh from Sweet Pea, you began to seethe at your old best friends defence of his new family member. 

“Just call me when you feel like being yourself again” you breathed out the words until your lungs nearly emptied, moving to open the car again to be stopped by Sweet Peas voice 

“i think the snake skin is him Princess-”

“Don't you have some drugs to deal to children or something -” you cut across him this time.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Sweet Pea raised an eyebrow, smile now long gone. Jughead looked between the two of you

“I meant what I said, or is the leather jacket cutting off the blood flow to your ears”

“Listen I don't know you Princess but you're not exactly making a good impression-”

“I don't give a fuck what you think about me, you seem to care a lot about what I think about you though” more Serpents seemed to join around, panic began to rise in Jughead, his attempted to stop Sweet Pea but Sweet Peas voice came harsher.

“You're seriously misguided Princess” 

“And you're seriously what's wrong with Riverdale” you said through gritted teeth, receiving scoffs from the gathering Serpents but Sweet Pea stated unreadable eyes fixed on you. 

“Guys just relax, YN I'll call you later” Jughead reached for your arm but you moved took a step back.

“Don't bother”

~ 

For the remainder of the week you avoided Jughead and the rest of them, instead spending time with your friends you missed so much. Catching up with all the chaos that had gone down since you left 3 years ago, and there was a lot. It was nice to feel like a senior around your friends, how it should be. You were shocked that for the most part everyone was understanding of Jughead joining the Serpents, you couldn't really understand it. Jughead continued to try to text or call you until you had enough. You needed a break from it, leaving your phone turned off on your dresser before putting on your runners. 

You tried to process how you felt as you jogged through Riverdale, trying to remember your old route. You were zoned out of the world as your legs took you from a jog to run, the burn growing from your thighs down to your shins. You had been out for an hour or so now and by the third wrong turn you landed out of your subconsciousness and back to the world in front of you. Lost. How could you forget the town you grew up in. Suddenly you became very aware of the dark night that had closed around you. You looked around for anywhere still open, only a gruby bar was in your sights. They probably had a phone you thought, walking right past the fading sign of the Whyte Wyrm. 

Upon approach you noticed the large amount of motorbikes outside the door.  Then the amount of Serpents jackets and their owners flowing in and out of the bar. Shit you thought. You turned to leave back through the carpark you just walked through and instead crashed directly into an older Serpent and his pint of larger, sending it all over him. 

“What the fuck?!” He half yelped at the cold hitting his chest. You stuttered apologies as you moved to walk past him. Instead he caught your wrist with bone crushing force. Without realising what you were doing, you sent the heel of your hand straight up and into his nose, contorting it completely. He shouted before releasing you and you moved from his shadow, other Serpents witnessing the incident and gathering quickly. You begged your tired legs to bring you running back to the main road as some began to follow you shouting. 

Sweet Pea walked around the wall of the car park boarder and was immediately confused by the several Serpents beginning to run towards his direction. You didn't even take notice of him as you ran past, your leg then spasming, sending you my into the pavement. He didn't know where to look. You pulled yourself cursing behind the pillar of the entrance, resting your head again the cement of its support, preparing to get mangled by Serpents. 

“Sweet Pea!” An older woman shouted his name bringing his attention from you and your attention to him. 

“Ehh yes Penny?” 

“Did you see a girl, Y/C/H, this tall or so” the woman made a guestimate of your height with her hand. You held your breath as Sweet Pea fought every instinct to not look down at you. 

“Emm I did see someonel go over the hedges towards the back there, maybe thats her?” 

“Great, she just broke one of the Seniors noses, girls dead meat” shock painted Sweet Peas face and he tried not to laugh at the thought. The woman then gave a wave before running off with the others in the direction he sent them. He exhaled loudly, looking at where you once were sat, now empty. Sweet Pea looked quickly to find your shadow hobbling down the road you think you came down. He gave a small laugh, rolled his eyes and began to jog to catch up with you. 

Part 2

[doctorcurdlejr]

Niko!! what'd you think of I saw the tv glow. I finally saw it last night and noticed you posting about it so I wanted to know your thoughts :)

Levi!!! I was JUST wondering what you were thinking about the movie after I saw you posting about it as well... we are so media discussion pilled in this way, it's awesome. ANYWAYS I've had so many thoughts since I first saw it and I've been trying to turn them into something coherent for a little bit now.

Ummm okay I have written 1k+ words about this movie, the suburbs, and escapism via teen TV.... clearly I was dying for somebody to ask this I guess so thank you for indulging me <3

First and foremost, I absolutely loved it! I've seen it twice now and the first time I watched it I got to see Jane Schoenbrun talk about the film right after. I already really liked it from that first watch alone. I found it so deeply relatable to my experiences - both in terms of growing up gay and trans, but where I am now in my 20s trying to navigate adulthood. Hearing what Schoenbrun had to say really cemented my feelings and thoughts about the film.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a big influence on the movie (it's why Amber Benson makes a cameo as Johnny Link's mom). Even though I don't have the same emotional link to Buffy since I never watched it, I recognize it as the same type of warmth I experienced growing up with Riverdale. When Owen says he feels like his insides have been scooped out but that he's too afraid to look and have that wrongness everybody knows is there be confirmed, Maddy simply responds "Maybe you're like Isabel. Afraid of what's inside you." Tears forming but not falling, breathing shallowly, I grabbed the paper and pen the theater keeps at the seats for people to order food with and wrote that line down - the slip of paper is still somewhere in my car. Writing it now almost feels lame in its simplicity, but it felt like my insides were being flayed open.

During the director discussion, Schoenbrun talked a little bit about this idea of how truly fucking bizarre it is to grow up in the suburbs. Like, when we think about the pinnacle of normality in American culture, it's the image of middle-class cis-hetero-white suburbia. At the same time, despite this cultural dream of normality, everybody is hyper-aware that the suburbs are one of the least normal things ever. So, the ACTUAL cultural understanding of it is that it's where we go to, like, passively kill ourselves (*George Costanza voice* WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY YOU KNOW!). This idea isn't new, I mean there are so many films and shows about navigating that specific bizarre dissonance from Rebel Without a Cause to Heathers to Twin Peaks. Probably half the pre-teen to teen TV I watched obsessively growing up, stuff like Strange Days at Blake Holsey High, Making Fiends, Truth or Scare, and eventually Riverdale, were never shy about being weird and morbid and saying "yes, the suburbs are exactly as bizarre and lethal in the ways you can already feel in your bones at 13." I Saw the TV Glow does a really good job of keying not only into that mental dissonance but more specifically into how those of us who have felt so intrinsically weird and different and wrong fell back on these shows like they were capable of doing the emotional version of a rescue breath maneuver after being drowned.

In high school, if there were two things about me that any person who even vaguely knew me could list off it was that I watched Riverdale, and I was a lesbian - and I was mocked more for the Riverdale. At that age, I was, without a doubt, the most miserable I have ever felt in my life. I rarely left the house because my family lived in a development that made me want to scratch my skin off when I walked out our front door. Owen didn't leave the house for days, afraid Maddy could somehow force him out. I sobbed constantly and frequently to depressing indie rock on the floor of my closet while hoping my family would just once read the (honest to god) KEEP OUT poster plastered on my door since I didn't have a lock on it. Owen didn't leave his room for days, afraid of what Maddy recognized in him. I didn't go on dates and kept my chest binder shoved to the bottom of my bookbag while wearing dresses that could've come from a how-to-be the perfect 50s housewife manual. Owen didn't leave his bed for days, afraid of Maddy touching his neck and Isabel's dress. I also watched Riverdale with the kind of zeal you see in a Pentecostal who has found God and started speaking in tongues to let you know it. I own a button that says, "Don't Make Me Go Dark Betty On You," I cherish it in a way that is only achieved by knowing exactly how corny and trite it is and then moving straight past that because well actually, and most people wouldn't get this, she's holding back something deeply dark and wild and- and disgusting. something painful yet intrinsically her. but i get it, obviously. or maybe not obviously! hopefully not obviously, but- basically, I'm just saying I get it: the experience of reflection and recognition through the other and all that.

Whatever, the point is that this movie is one big glaring trans allegory about how it sucks dog shit to live in the suburbs, and even at our most repressed we find these little snow globes of actualization in the glow of a tv screen that isn't afraid to show you the world you see. I've seen some people say that, like, in this context accepting or coming into your transness is this monumental death of self, which I get, but I feel there lacks a nuance in that because either way Owen is dying. Unlike Maddy who buries herself alive only to come out renewed, Owen doesn't kill himself upon facing the reality that the world is constructed to keep him miserable and the only way out is to take back what it is that the world wants to keep scooped out of him. Instead he just passively lets it drag him to a much more permanent death. This lack of suicide sucks in the kind of way that forces you to sit in your car on the midnight drive home and think to yourself am I letting myself suffocate because at some point knowing the misery became less scary than admitting I've been capable of doing something about it the whole time?

Clearly, I’ve been enchanted by the film’s narrative and meta-textual language. If you're familiar with it, you can see how Schoenbrun built this movie like a long-form dream episode of a canceled teen show filmed in Vancouver. Lynchian? Yeah, sure. Riverdalesque? THIS we cannot possibly deny. Schoenbrun said they included Amber Benson as an act of healing the inner rage experienced at Tara’s death in Buffy. This is a Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa ending Riverdale with a bisexual polycule after his gay Archie play got ceased-and-desisted type move. There’s probably more I could say about the soundtrack and the visuals, but I’ve hit over 1k words on this, so I’ll leave it at I enjoyed this movie a lot. :)

Maddy is an out lesbian who left town to escape the misery and found it strapped to her ankles. She slinks out, an animal pressed against the gymnasium floor, and says "I'm not telling you anything you don't already know." Owen looks into the camera and narrates. He cuts himself open with a box cutter, fully acknowledges what's there, and the movie ends with his suffocating apology parade for the unremarkable inconvenience of his excruciating suffering. You can be gay and trans, you can know it and you can stop repressing it, but you're not going to stop suffocating until you can find a way to destroy the part of you that truly deeply does want to die, reaching for the comforting euthanasia of normalcy. Stop visiting the dream of the life you want and make it into your reality with the same kind of unrepentant conviction seen in some underfunded but wildly ambitious teen television series. In other words: you must try to survive the ego death of being weird. A weirdo, who doesn't fit in and doesn't want to fit in!

[r1leyswrld]

my heartbreak high season two thoughts (spoilers)

* why is spider actually kinda hot

* him speaking french is oh my god so subtly attractive

* his home life makes everything a lot more clearer

* and i love him learning what it takes to try and be a good person, trying to do it for missy and then trying to do it for himself

* his whole life he never had a father figure (you can be a good man/person without one) and instead had to deal with never living up to his mom's expectations. so he became everything she thought he was bc nothing else worked and he couldn't please her regardless of what he did. it honestly makes sense that when he first realizes he wants to change he does things to prove himself to missy instead of being good bc he wants to, shows how he doesn't know how to do it and it really makes sense

* once again this show handles every thing beautifully

* darren and cash's relationship omg

* the back story behind darude and cash omg

* cash and darren going through trials and tribulations

* loved the dusty cameos

* that man is still hot

* i love the fact that him and Darren are actually kinda friends?

* the way he gives advice to cash was so nice and the fact the advice was actually really fucking good

* cash then going "you might want to buy a new lock i kinda broke yours" OMG

* missy and spider are my new favorites

* i liked the idea of ant and harper but there really wasn't much development with them

* the whole thing was them actually being friends and ant actually being friends with a girl without sex and with not a lot of attention on them it seemed like that's exactly what it was

* harper's haircut this season OMG i love it

* it suits her so much

* malaki's letter being burned in the fire hurt so much

* the back story for cash's name OMG

* cash's nan and Darren doing words with friends

* the scene between cash finding out that his nan has a boyfriend

* the whole rowan bird psycho story line was so fucking well written and at no point did it feel like a riverdale-esque thing

* i love malakai's journey of self discovery with his sexuality and how close him and missy are

* malakai is still hot but omg hello missy

* we saw so much more of missy this season and i fucking loved it

* regardless of what you have to say about spider bc he was and is a shit person, the relationship between them is really cute built on understanding and being in tune with each other's needs also if any one can put him in his place it's her

* the whole set up of not having one clear villain the whole season or knowing who they are was so fucking good and added to the mystery