Archie Betty Veronica Hot Threesome Three Way Sex!

I have recently learned the effectiveness of using regularly-searched Google phrases in the titles of my blogs. Anything that helps get eyes on this thing, folks.

Sometimes a battle in pop culture has a clear winner. VHS beat Betamax. Blu-Ray beat HD-DVD. Coke beat Pepsi, and with the added bragging right of not tasting like hobo taint.

Other times there's no clear consensus. Was Cheers better with Coach or Woody? Alien or Aliens? AskJeeves or Lycos?

I also realized that the first embedded image in a blog becomes the default thumbnail for online searches.

And within that second group is a subset, wherein we all know the correct answer but for some reason pretend it's a legitimate debate with two equal and worthy sides. No one actually thought Go-Bots were worth a shit, and yet there they were in schoolyard conversations about whether they or Transformers were better. Never mind that receiving a Go-Bot figure as a gift was legally recognized as proof that your grandparents didn't love you.

I think we should take a stand on this subset.  There's no reason to pay lip service to the idea that one side of some hilariously lopsided pop culture disagreement even has a chance just because we want to look fair.

So today I'm taking a stand, a "why on earth are we even talking about this like it's a choice!?" declaration.

It's time we stop pretending "Betty or Veronica?" is a real question.

Listen closely, you stupid son of a bitch.

Now, I could simply yell "BETTY" and turn tail and walk out, leaving the dissenters to linger in the fart I trailed behind me as I left, but I feel I need to give this the attention it deserves and examine many of the angles.

For one, you might call into question my admitted bias toward blondes.  I acknowledge this and admit that it certainly plays a role in my personal decision, but I'm attempting to make this applicable to everyone, even those who might not be swayed by a swishy flaxen ponytail or sexy tousled waves of fragrant sun-kissed locks.

Hey, baby.

Trade their personalities and mannerisms and you'll find that their respective hair color will have little sway over an educated decision.

Moreover, we have to acknowledge that the Archie universe is a bizarre, sometimes anachronistic but sometimes modernized Everytown, and that the town and residents of Riverdale were created during a very different time with very different ideas.

Forty feet to the east of Pop Tate's Chocklit Shoppe.

I bring that up because of one of the quickest answers to leap to our minds today, whether we're men or ladies, is that Archie never chose one because he was trying to put together a threesome with both Betty and Veronica. We must sadly admit that this is just a product of our depraved modern imaginations, though, as Archie is pretty determinedly asexual. This kid's most heart-racing knock-kneed aspiration for a shared activity with these two gals is milkshake-based (again, sadly, not in the modern parlance).

Dude, c'mon. Put in a little effort and you can live the dream.

Although I suppose it could be some sort of subversive victory for the artists that they got away with winkingly depicting Betty and Veronica vigorously sucking while Archie sits between them with an excited grin on his face and everyone exchanges "are you enjoying this? Because I want to watch you enjoying this..." glances.

In that spirit, I have no idea who this redhead is, but I like where this is headed.

But nothing in that vein could be overt. We're talking about an eternal teenager who was somehow born without the hormones that generally accompany being a teenager, who regularly keeps company with a vainglorious douchebag with definite date-rape potential...

"Here, dry your eyes with this chloroform-soaked rag while I fluff myself."

...an "eccentric" who has worn the same paper crown every day for his entire high school experience, and who has even more fucked-up erotic hangups than Archie...

...I meant his lust for hamburgers. I don't have a clue what the fuck is going on here.

...and a monosyllabic idiot who goes by Moose.  And two gorgeous girls who are each inscrutably determined to have Archie for herself.  Because when your dating pool is dominated by idiots, rapists and weirdos, you take what you can get from the eligible bachelor pool.

So let's start with Veronica Lodge. Rich, bitchy Veronica.

Wearing both her name and her initial. Even her tramp stamp just says "Me!"

Veronica is an unrelatable ice queen. She does not care about your feelings or your problems. She has no interest in hearing about your day, nor in feigning interest in the things you like. Veronica comes from wealth, cannot see a common ground with normal people who have normal problems, and can be regularly found making statements that paint her in an appallingly negative light, completely bereft of self-awareness.

"I'm also evidently a 'c-word,' though in these innocent times I have no idea what everyone means by that!"

Veronica is everything you imagine when I use the simple rhyming slur "rich bitch." She probably has strong opinions about "those people in the middle class." She votes Republican. There's no problem she can't solve by sending one of her daddy's assistants to deal with it while she shops and demands a scarf that wasn't on the floor-display mannequin all day, accruing poor-people germs and possibly even being handled by Mexicans.

Keep telling yourself that, you soulless succubus.

Even as a child, I had no idea why Archie was torn. Veronica Lodge is a terrible person.

As an adult, I can only imagine the sort of exciting missionary-with-the-lights-off fantasies Archie hopes to indulge in with her if she ends up winning him.

I never once read an Archie Comic that made Veronica seem like someone I'd even want to spend an afternoon with, let alone pine for in an erotic or romantic manner. She was always the wet blanket, complaining about the conditions and wearing fucking pearls and heels on camping trips and wondering why the burgers-and-fries diner didn't carry foie gras and quoting welfare statistics she read in Ann Coulter books.

So imagine my confusion when, on the very same page and often in the very same panels, I see Betty Cooper.

(sigh)

Sweet, good-natured, down-to-earth Betty, who is so obviously the right choice for long-term happiness for Archie that it actually makes me angry to see him waffling and considering casting Betty aside so that he can be yet another thing Veronica Lodge wanted and received, just another bauble or possession, until she gets bored with him now that the hunt is off and casts him aside to be alone and screwed out of his chance to be truly happy.

Moron or no, Moose and I are definitely of a like mind on this one.

How can two girls who are drawn so closely to identical still appear so different? How is it that they can both smile and yet you can see the sun shining through just one of them, guileless and perky and fun?

[Add caption if you can manage to think of something funny while looking at sexy tousled hair AND a swishy blonde ponytail, but never mind, it's obvious you can't]

While Veronica is bitching about mosquitoes and the possibility of getting mud on her Manolo Blahniks, Betty is wearing overalls smudged with mud from where she spent the last half hour planting carrots because she remembers that one time you both agreed that you like carrots, and she's smiling up at you and saying "Ta-daa!" and presenting her makeshift garden with a big eager-to-please smile, looking up from where she's still standing on her knees with a spade in hand and making you wonder if it would be too forward to lean down and wipe away that small smudge of mud on her cheek and maybe lean in further and kiss her.

And maybe later you can give each other some examples of just how eager-to-please you both are.

Role play optional, though this is as good a starting point as any.

You want to know how relatable the Betty fantasies are, even the mundane day-to-day non-erotic ones?  Well, I just riffed that little bit above without specifying a vegetable in my original draft, then went back and made it carrots after I nosed around for five minutes for a picture of Betty roughing it on a camping trip or something... and ended up finding exactly the scenario I just outlined for you, only in a way sexier outfit than overalls.

Dude. Short of washing the garden's cucumbers in front of you, she couldn't give you more of an opening.

Little touches like this are everywhere in the Archie universe. Betty is fun. Betty rolls with the punches and just wants to be with Archie and have a good time. It doesn't even matter what they're doing. The difference between her genuine want of Archie Andrews and Veronica's craven need to win a conquest to beat Betty is tremendous and obvious.  That he doesn't seem to be able to see this makes me resent Archie. I don't want him to end up with either of them anymore.  I want Betty to wise up and figure out that she's smart and gorgeous and fun and sweet, and way too good for this wishy-washy lump.  And when she cleanses herself of this silly love triangle she's been locked in for years, she can move on to someone better, like-

Fuck. That poor, poor girl.