#ariedit

people saying that they hate betty attitude this season really don't know her character. i don’t know about you but the way lili played betty this season really was it for me, now i understand a bit why she was acting like that.—i think i said this before but betty's s5 "hardened by life detective" vibes have been obvious from the start. if you take s1 betty who pushed every emotion and hurt down and you add a shit ton of extra shitty stuff to it, you're bound to get s5 betty.

she is angry. she has reason to be and that's not just because of jughead's voicemail. she's been kidnapped and tortured, her job sidelined her (not that she should be an fbi agent but you know what i mean), her superior is not only a demeaning twat, it's someone she should not be sleeping with but she's being reckless. it's not like people with trauma are often self-destructive and reckless.

oh wait, they totally are and betty's self-preservation is pretty much non-existent right now.

and all of that is before we get into whatever emotional damage she's inflicted on herself for hurting jughead in the past.

from the "me and jughead haven't been together for seven years", the shoulder touch, the "hey"….she was confused, annoyed and hurt at the same time. this is my opinion at least. she don’t understand why jughead wants to be friendly with her when she thinks he hates her.—i agree, i've been waiting to see all season why she's so standoffish with him and, no, i don't think the voicemail is the sum of it. i think the voicemail is the outcome of it all, not the whole reason. we have jughead's version of the events in the voicemail (which was given not sober and emotionally charged), we don't have her side of those 5 years yet.

the truth might very well be, as some people say, somewhere in the middle.

she confided to him about polly and said it was nice to see him again bc we know how this is gonna end. but the way she acts is the most “betty” thing she’s doing in this season so far, she hasn’t commited emotionally to someone since she was with jughead, she seems annoyed more at herself than playing the victim like people are saying.—she is absolutely being reckless with herself, not playing the victim. she's the one who thinks she's a lost cause. if anything, she's probably internalized every bad thought everyone has had about her for the last 7 years and decided it's all true.

sleeping with archie and glen? incredibly bad ideas. and she knows it. she's found ways to justify it (saying she and jughead hadn't dated, etc) but that doesn't mean she doesn't understand she was playing with a certain amount of fire. and i think her starting the conversation in 5x08 with archie, realizing she can't keep using him to bury her problems (archie saying it more bluntly doesn't mean that betty doesn't essentially say the same thing in their conversation) gets lost in the episode but it was important for her to decide when it comes to that. going right back to glen after archie? yeah. also bad but easier for her to use him because glen isn't even a friend so her level of guilt/investment is much lower (probably zero, ha).

betty is never going to be emotionless when it comes to jughead and that means she can't hide from him and she pretty much always fails when she tries to. avoiding him seems to be her best defense against him.

i have the bad feeling she probably was also held captive by tbk when jug sent that voicemail. so that doesn’t help.—i mean, the timelines don't add up in reality but it's also riverdale and the class of 2021 came back 7 years later into the year 2021 so it's entirely possible.

people invalidating how she feels is really weird to me. even if she cheated, doesn’t mean that jug was in wrong too. what i’m mad most about this cheating storyline is the fact that she’s the only one who had it the worst. yes i said it. veronica doesn’t speak to her anymore, jughead literally caller her a bitch. meanwhile archie is allowed to talk with the love of his life and bestie !! and they have the guts to invalidate how she feels about being called that way.—she can make the bigger mistake and jughead can still be wrong for his mistakes. there seems to be some sort of competition of who has the purer fave and that's...weird?

truly, archie is the real winner here. he pretty much gets to carry out his love affair with hiram and still get veronica when he wants for the most part.

honestly, it's just hypocrisy. the same people that vague blogged or reblogged me to drag me for saying that it was bad writing for betty to cheat are now some of the people who say that jughead calling her names in the voicemail is bad writing. which is just, you know, funny to me at this point.

i have no interest in their character purity play but more power to them i guess.

invalidate her trauma bc cheating is a bad thing but jug doing drug and stuff is better than a mistake made by a traumatized kid ! i’m not saying invalidating jughead now. i’m just saying that if they excuse his attitude why betty is a whore for it? twt is saying they ruined her but more of that kiss? she’s the normal betty cooper for me.—ask me how much money i'd bet that had jughead been the one to kiss someone, none of this year long saga of calling people names would have happened.

one last thing this jughead makes me feel uncomfortable. i really hope he doesn’t hurt himself. i felt tabitha discomfort too…and the way he called betty a bitch…i wasn’t expecting a love poem from him, i mean he was hurt. but i’m too used to his soft voice towards betty. even when they fought back in high school there were heart eyes there.—oh, doll, i think he's already hurting himself. he's not drinking or doing drugs because he's picked it up recreationally. this show isn't going to show him casually partying, that's not the track they've taken on substance use. his leaving that voicemail has had it's consequences for both of them and i'm sure sober jughead isn't going to be a fan of what he's said to her.

i want angst but pls don’t let them hurt each other more. we know they love each other but i don’t want them to end up like falice. they’re different, ofc. but i prefer the whole thing of misunderstanding each other than big ass fights like that :(—they've been talking about not being their parents since s1 and i think that's what they need to overcome now so it doesn't complete the cycle. and big fights in fiction usually means big passion. i'd be far more upset if they were indifferent to each other.

jughead was calling betty and leaving angry voicemails 5 years after a breakup while he was dating another girl, that's not exactly someone who's lost his passion for her, you know? her anger is buried and she's taking it out on herself but i feel like it's because she's been avoiding the one person who can push all of her buttons.