Riverdale

Riverdale is a television show based on the characters by Archie Comics. Unlike the original Archie Comics, Riverdale takes a darker tone, with the first season revolving around the mystery of Jason Blossom's murder. 
==Canon==
Original plot synopsis released by the CW
==Characters==
===Main characters===
Character 	Seasons 	Seasons 	Seasons 	Seasons 	Seasons 	Seasons 	Seasons
Character 	1 	2 	3 	4 	5 	6 	7
Archie Andrews	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main
Betty Cooper 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main
Veronica Lodge	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main
Jughead Jones 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main
Cheryl Blossom	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main
Kevin Keller 	Recurring 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main
Reggie Mantle 	Recurring 	Recurring 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main
Toni Topaz 	 	Recurring 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main
Fangs Fogarty 	 	Recurring 	Recurring 	Recurring 	Main 	Main 	Main
Tabitha Tate 	 	 	 	 	Main 	Main 	Main
PARENTDALE 	PARENTDALE 	PARENTDALE 	PARENTDALE 	PARENTDALE 	PARENTDALE 	PARENTDALE 	PARENTDALE
Alice Cooper 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main
Hermione Lodge	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Guest 	Guest 	
PREVIOUS CAST 	PREVIOUS CAST	PREVIOUS CAST	PREVIOUS CAST	PREVIOUS CAST	PREVIOUS CAST	PREVIOUS CAST	PREVIOUS CAST
Josie McCoy 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Guest 	Guest 	 	
Fred Andrews 	Main 	Main 	Main 	 	 	 	
FP Jones 	Recurring 	Main 	Main 	Main 	 	 	
Hiram Lodge 	 	Main 	Main 	Main 	Main 	 	
===Recurring characters===
*Valerie Brown: Keyboardist and songwriter for the Pussycats
*Melody Valentine: Drummer for the Pussycats
*Moose Mason: A Riverdale High bulldog who is closeted and has feelings for Kevin
*Joaquin DeSantos: A Southside Serpent, FP's right-hand man and Kevin's ex-boyfriend
*Sweet Pea: A Southside Serpent
*Midge Klump: A popular River Vixen and Moose Mason's longtime girlfriend
==Fandom==
===Shipping===
:See also: List of Riverdale Relationship Names
Currently, Betty/Jughead is the biggest Riverdale ship. According to Fandometrics, the pairing had the 13th most active fanbase on Tumblr in 2017.2017′s Top Ships The two got together in the sixth episode of the first season. The ship, however, has quickly become rivaled in 2018 by the most popular (and only canon) F/F ship on the series Cheryl/Toni.Choni search @Fandometrics (August 2018)
A Betty/Veronica kiss was alluded to by showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa months before the series premiere.Riverdale team teases Betty and Veronica kiss at Comic-Con Said scene from the pilot was later included in a teaser.Betty and Veronica, in a Riverdale Teaser, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! Reactions varied from excitementThe ‘Riverdale’ Fans Who Are Hardcore Shipping Betty and Veronica to accusations of queerbaiting. While the kiss wasn't followed by a romantic relationship in the show, Beronica became a prominent ship, though it was eventually surpassed in fanwork output by Betty/Jughead.
Archie/Jughead, Betty/Archie, FP/Alice and Veronica/Archie are also popular.
Season 2 of the series saw the addition of Southside characters and, subsequently, as the universe was expanded, many new ships became popular.
===Statistics===
*In 2017 Riverdale was ranked fifth on Tumblr's Top 30 "most reblogged" live-action television shows list2017′s Top Live-Action TV Shows
*In 2018 Riverdale was ranked second on the list of Tumblr's Top 30 "most reblogged" live-action television shows, gaining three places from the previous year2018’s Top Live-Action TV Shows 
===Terminology===
*Core Four: term used for the four main characters of Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Veronica Lodge and Betty Cooper
*Parentdale or Riverparents: name given to fans of, and the fandom surrounding, the adult characters on the show
*RAS: fan acronym for showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
*SoQM: acronym for The Sisters of Quiet Mercy, a location featured on the show
*Highs and Lows: part of a quote from Archie Andrews, used by fandom to describe the plot lines in the show that feel absurd or surreal
=== Challenges ===
* Riverdale Bingo
==Controversy==
===Racism & LGBT-misrepresentation===
Riverdale promoted itself upon release as a 'diverse' adaptation of its source material, although the opposite has proved true. Josie McCoy was racebent and portrayed by a black actor, but barely received any storylines nor screentime, despite being part of the main cast and promoted as a star of the show.
A further issue is the show's treatment of character of color, specifically black characters. In Season 1, Chuck, one of only two male black teen characters on the show, is chained up and nearly drowned in a hot tub by a white girl (Betty) having a psychotic episode. Chuck was depicted as a misogynist, nowhere near his characterization in the comics. The other black teen character, Trev, was also a silent accomplice in the show's sexual harassment storyline and was not featured otherwise. When Chuck shows up again in Season 2, the show seems to have been made aware of the criticism and intend to redeem him, only to use their only canon lesbian character, a white woman (Cheryl) to frame Chuck for stalking and harassing Josie, with whom he was developing a romance.
This storyline is also a depiction of coming out that is considered a use of the offensive, out-dated Psycho Lesbian trope, in which Cheryl stalks, harasses, and later gaslights her supposed best friend Josie McCoy, the only black main character. Cheryl never suffers any consequences for treating Josie this way.
In Season 2, Cheryl is up with who would become the show's other black main character, Toni Topaz, to form the Choni relationship. Some see Cheryl's treatment of Toni and the sidelining of Toni as another one of the show's issues.
Kevin Keller, the show's only gay male main character, is barely featured on the show or afforded any defining characteristics outside of his sexuality. Fans argue that he is mostly used as a plot device when the show finds it 'convenient' that he exist.
Josie's two best friends, band members and also black women, Valerie and Melody, were written out of the series without explanation, despite the band and Valerie featuring prominently in Season 1. Melody has barely ever gotten characterisation nor speaking lines.
===Asexuality and Aromanticism===
In 2016, the fourth issue of Jughead (2015–2017), written by Chip Zdarsky and drawn by Erica Henderson, made Jughead's asexuality canon in that continuity.Archie Comic Reveals Jughead Is Asexual That's not the case in Riverdale (a show that was in the works before Zdarsky and Henderson's take on the character).Archie Comics Drama Series ‘Riverdale’ Set At Fox With Greg Berlanti Producing This discrepancy has proved to be a source of wank in Riverdale fandom, especially in its early days. In March 2017, oneshortdamnfuse posted: 
A different point of view:
The aspec community in particular took issue with the erasure of his identity from the comic, so much so that #AroAceJugheadOrBust was created on Twitter#aroacejugheadorbust on Twitter (via Nitter.net) to criticise the decision. (June 2017) by Mikayla Micomonaco Some aspec folk refused to watch the show because of it.
===Queerbaiting===
The show has continually throughout Season 1 been accused of queerbaiting the audience, starting with the series trailer Beronica kiss which turned out to never have been romantic. 
At 2018 Comic-Con, showrunner/creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacassa responded to a question with regards to the show's queerbaiting that "as a gay man he takes representation seriously" and had "learned a lot" over the last two seaons, seemingly indicating that the show would aim to rectify its problematic representation and queerbaiting.Riverdale 2018 Comic-Con Panel (July 2018)
===TPTB, Cast, and Their Relationship with Fandom===
Aguirre-Sacasa and most of the main cast are on Twitter and Instagram, where their episode live blogs and behind-the-scenes pictures are common.
Archie Comics applied to trademark the portmanteau "Bughead" in 2017.BUGHEAD - Trademark Details
In an interview with Glamour, Cole Sprouse (Jughead) talked about shipping:
A humorous video in which the "Riverdale cast teaches you how to practice safe shipping" was published by Entertainment Weekly in September 2017.
===Anti-Fandom===
Riverdale has a significant anti-fandom and general poor reputation outside of the shows's audience. It is frequently mocked and bashed for poor writing and strange narrative decisions. There are many video compilations of clips of the show taken out of context to prove Riverdale's "bad writing." Fans of the show argue that these people are missing the point of Riverdale's appeal: that is is intentionally campy, melodramatic, and fun.
==Notoriety within Wider Fandom==
As the show has gone on, Riverdale has gained infamy in being one of the strangest and most bizarre shows on TV. Many people, who've never so much as seen a single episode, will hear about the plots and events through Tumblr tags, Twitter posts and Alex Meyers videos, with little in the way of context. Though fans of the show are often just as perplexed by the bizarre nature of many of the plots. Certain scenes and plot points in particular have gained notoriety within wider fandom spaces, many of which becoming or influencing memes:
*Polly and Alice Cooper dropping the former's incest twins into a fire, before they begin to float upwards.
*Betty's 'serial killer' genes
*Drugs called 'Fizzle Rocks' are leading kids to have seizures and is connected to a bunch of people playing a DnD knockoff.
*An organ-harvesting cult whose leader tries to fly away in a rocket.
*Archie is attacked by a bear after spending time in a Canadian woodland.
*Archie goes to prison and takes part in an underground fight club
*A secret illegimate clan of the Blossom family who live in the woods fabricated a story involving mothman and aliens to distract from them murdering people, including Polly.
*Kevin making tickle fetish videos.
*Jughead getting rabies in an NYC sewer.
*Cheryl leading a religious cult based around her dead brother Jason.
*Cheryl sacrificing Archie by pulling out his heart in a ritual intended to cure Riverdale of its problems
*Toni nearly leaving her baby on a tree stump overnight cause the gang his father belonged to used to do it to stop them crying.
*A seemingly neverending supply of secret siblings.
Certain quotes are also infamous:
Memes and jokes about other far-fetched ideas the show could possibly integrate are numerous.
====Links====
*Riverdale's 10 Biggest WTF Moments (So Far) - Gizmodo article by Beth Elderkin and Myra Iqbal (February 2020)
*The 22 wildest moments that actually happened on season 5 of 'Riverdale' - Insider article by Olivia Singh
*21 "Riverdale" Storylines Ranked By Ridiculousness - Buzzfeed article by Kelly Martinez
*Riverdale: The Show That Went Completely Insane (Sept 2021) by Super Eyepatch Wolf
==Fanworks==
===Fan Art===
* riverdales by madebybon
* tbh i really like this series by bibinella
* Veronica Lodge from CW’s Riverdale. by aintthesharpesttoolintheshed
===Fan Vids===
* RIVERDALE | Do you know where the wild things go
* ►riverdale; believer
* Riverdale | 99 Problems 
===Meta===
*Riverdale: Ethics & Archetypes by burberrycanary
* Something I find interesting and hope is 100% purposeful on the writers part is: by hellyeahbughead, March 2018.
==Archives & Fannish Links==
* Riverdale works at AO3
* Riverdale works at FFN
===Tumblr===
* riverdales-daily
* riverdalemeta
* officialriverparents
==References==
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