Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper

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Pairing
Pairing: Archie Andrews & Betty Cooper
Alternative name(s): Barchie, Betchie, archiebets, archiebetty
Gender category: Het
Fandom: Riverdale
Canonical?: Canon
Prevalence: Popular
Archives: barchiefanfiction @tumblr
Other:
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Archie/Betty is the het pairing of Archie Andrews and Betty Cooper in the Riverdale fandom.

Canon

New Riverdale (2015—)

The modernisation of the Archie Comics universe features the first storyline to contain extensive continuity, as the characters have mostly been kept at status quo in perpetuity throughout the history of the comics, with only one-shots, eg. Archie Marries Betty, developing the characters through adulthood, steady relationships and finite storylines. The 2015 story begins with Archie introducing the reader to Riverdale, his high school and 'showing the reader around' until he sees Betty in the hallway and brings up his heartache: he and Betty just broke up. The story continues to explain that a 'Lipstick Incident' was the reason for their break-up, but nobody in Riverdale other than the two of them know what it entailed. When Veronica Lodge moves to town, Archie is distracted and infatuated, while Betty eventually starts dating fellow baseball player Said. Archie eventually falls for Veronica, but is still hurting when he sees Betty and Said together. Even while Archie is with Veronica, he and Betty share a moment where they almost kiss.

Riverdale (TV series)

Archie and Betty start out the series just before their sophomore year, meeting up after a summer apart. Betty has decided it's time for her to tell Archie that she has feelings for him, while Archie's grown up a bit and gotten very physically fit from working at his father's construction company, which lead to him, unbeknownst to everyone, being used by a predator, the high school's music teacher. Before Betty can tell Archie how she feels, new girl Veronica rolls into town and catches Archie's eye. Betty's perturbed and doesn't say anything. Veronica, ostensibly trying to befriend Betty, encourages her to ask Archie to the homecoming dance. The three of them end up going and Betty reveals her feelings to Archie. After the dance, Cheryl hosts a party where they play spin the bottle. Archie and Veronica kiss in the closet and Betty leaves the party, heartbroken. Archie goes looking for her and gets advice from Jughead on the way. Archie shows up at Betty's house and tries to apologise. He says that she's 'too good' for him, but when she asks if he loves her, or even likes her, he responds that he of course loves her. When the friends learn that Archie and Grundy are 'together', Betty does everything she can to save Archie from the predator and soon, the predator is driven out of town.

Betty starts dating Jughead while Archie dates Valerie and later starts dating Veronica. Archie and Betty work together to save Mr. Svenson and the town from the Black Hood and share a kiss. They never talk about it, except when Veronica and Jughead, respectively, learn of it. Generally, Veronica and Jughead seem to suspect that Archie and Betty are in love, but since they never follow through on it, the other romances remain. Although Archie and Betty aren't seen spending a lot of time together, there are moments showing their deep bond and love, often in situations where they run to each other's rescue at the drop of a hat without a second thought. They're also seen a few times to exhibit jealousy at their respective relationships. In their senior year, after pretending to date to help keep Jughead safe from a murderous writers group, Archie and Betty's feelings for one another finally resurface and they kiss. They spend some time trying to come to terms with the repercussions it will have for Veronica and Jughead, and ultimately Betty leads the charge in them dropping it.

SEASON 5

After advertising a new beginning for the series and its characters, fandom was disappointed to see Barchie starting to be explored but ultimately abruptly dropped after two episodes of story together. This lead shippers, who have waited for 4 seasons to see Barchie not only explored but just at a bare minimum have scenes together, which the show barely affords them, to successfully start a hashtag trend for the mid-season finale episode, which aired in March 2021.[1][2][3]

Fandom

A popular pairing in the fandom since the beginning of the series, somewhat helped by the history of the comics, but ultimately from fans shipping them from the pilot episode. Despite the canon being dominated by Archie/Veronica and Betty/Jughead, there has always been a vocal segment of the fandom dedicated to Archie and Betty, hoping for them to blossom into a Childhood Friends to lovers pairing. The fandom grew steadily over the course of the seasons, sparked in Season 2 by their first on-screen kiss. With Season 4 rumoured to finally see the pairing actualised, fans started the hashtag #BarchieSeason4 on twitter as a campaign for the pairing and to gather the fandom in excitement for the possibility. When Archie and Betty started fake dating and their feelings surfaced in the second half of Season 4, the fandom exploded, resulting in the most liked posts on Riverdale's official instagram account as well as the hashtags #Barchie, #BarchieRising and #StoryOfBarchie trending in several countries.[4][5] The ship also trended on Tumblr in two separate weeks around the airing of episodes 4x17 and 4x18, at #5 and #11, respectively.[6] The latter number was the only ship from the show to break the Top 20 that week.[7]

After Barchie kissed in the April 15 episode of the show, the Grant Gustin meme began to circulate on Twitter, with Bughead on the tombstone and Barchie as Gustin.

Because this pairing rivals the most prevalent pairing on the show, Betty/Jughead, some fanatics have taken to threatening to boycott the show, trying to convince the show's writers and producers that the show will sink in the ratings/get cancelled if Bughead doesn't remain a couple and even going so far as sending death threats to entertainment writers who speak either favourably or neutrally about Barchie.

There are also shipper segments not solely dedicated to Barchie, but shipping eg. both Barchie and Bughead, Barchie and Varchie, or several pairings. There's a specific subset of the fandom that ships Barchie, Falice and Choni, using the term Barchonifalice and also Barchie/Choni using Barchoni. When the Season 5 trailer was released in December 2020, #BarchieSeason5 trended above #Riverdale in the US.[8][9][10] Other trends included Archie and Betty.

Fanworks

Videos

2020

betty & archie | walk away [their journey so far...]
Betty & Archie | Falling
you wanna play with fire || barchie
Betty & Archie | Light Me Up
Betty & Archie | Bruises

Archives and Links

References

  1. ^ Yall it’s been less than an hour??? Let’s gooo reply with yoir fave food and use #BringBackBarchie
  2. ^ you guys I’m dead #BringBackBarchie
  3. ^ GUYS! #BringBackBarchie
  4. ^ StoryOfBarchie search, trendogate (Retrieved 09-05-2020)
  5. ^ barchie search, trendogate (Retrieved 09-05-2020)
  6. ^ Fandometrics — Week Ending 20 April 2020 (Retrieved 10-05-2020)
  7. ^ Fandometrics — Week Ending 4 May 2020 (Retrieved 10-05-2020)
  8. ^ WE OVERTRENDED RIVERDALE OH MY FUCKING GOD #BARCHIESEASON5
  9. ^ Our power #BarchieSeason5 #Riverdale
  10. ^ #BARCHIESEASON5 STILL TRENDING!
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