songwrite: (AA91103275)
Archibald "Archie" Andrews ([personal profile] songwrite) wrote2017-03-12 07:12 am

INFO


Archibald Andrews
mom basics
nickname. Archie
canon. Riverdale (TV)
canonpoint. Post-Sweetwater Rescue (mid-S1 E13)
wiki history. Here
age. 15/16
height. 5'11"
hair. red
eyes. brown
occupation. Part-Time Fry Cook at Malts n' Munchies/High School Sophomore
housing. Heropa Independent Housing (with Reggie Mantle!)
status. Registered
powers
danger magnet. the uncanny ability to find trouble whenever he goes looking.
safety jacket. when he's wearing his ridiculous letterman jacket he's physically invulnerable.
team spirit. when he's working together with other people he can run faster, hit harder. (maxing out at the human peak, so around 500lbs/30mph)

power details. Here


ooc info
player. Cris
plurk. [plurk.com profile] borf
discord. ensigncris#4369
time zone. CST
availability. late nights & weekends (I work second shift)
personality
The first thing people tend to say about Archie Andrews is that he's a good kid. He is polite, goes out of his way to be kind and considerate whenever he can, and in general tries his best to do the right thing—though like most people his age, he doesn't always know what that actually is. He is a very hard worker, has an open mind and cares deeply about practically everyone and everything.

He's not perfect, of course. He's really sheltered and more than a bit oblivious, he has an unfortunate tendency not to think before he acts, he's painfully indecisive and gets very emotional, very fast in ways that make him disgustingly easy to manipulate. He has a need to insert himself into the center of problems involving the people he cares about and take responsibility for fixing them even if his help is unsolicited (or unneeded.) His guilt complex is through the roof and his self esteem is in the absolute dumps. He requires constant positive reinforcement in order to feel good about himself, and won't stand up for himself unless someone else is also on the line. He is, on occasion, optimistic to the point of idiocy, frequently comes off as air-headed and flaky, and can be far too permissive when it comes to his friends.

A lot of Archie's current personality is shaped by the fact that, over the recent summer, he was lured into a sexual relationship by one of his teachers. Over the course of their affair she isolated him physically from his peers and emotionally from his father, manipulated him into lying to the police, and managed to convince him not only that he had been the one to pursue her (patently false, as seen in flashbacks), but that if they were ever discovered he would be in just as much legal/social trouble as her (her exact words were "I could lose my job. You could be expelled. We could go to jail.") When she was chased out of town by a friend's mother, he became blatantly self-destructive (hitting a punching bag until his knuckles bled, playing football with an injured hand and then trying to apply his own first-aid after, picking physical fights on his friends behalves, etc etc ad nauseam) and deeply self-loathing, calling himself too stupid and selfish to deserve the friendships he'd had since childhood, and being convinced that everything he touches he manages to somehow ruin.

At his current canonpoint it has been months since the teacher was privately run out of town, but Archie absolutely has not in any way processed what happened to him, or even that anything damaging did happen to him. Instead, in his struggles to fill the void she left behind, Archie throws himself into new romantic relationships and also into taking care of other people and trying to solve their problems (both things that seem to help him regain some semblance of confidence/self-esteem.) He exhibits a dogged persistence and resourcefulness when he is motivated by helping other people that can be very effective, but can also get him and others into genuine danger. He wants to be there for people (he wants to be the one to be there for people, which lead to a some discomfort/jealousy when his two best friends entered into a relationship with each other and no longer needed specifically his support) and he starts to get restless and reckless when he can't, either driving himself to danger (as when he confronted the Serpents in their own bar) or to distraction (as when he got drunk before Jughead's party) to cope.

When his parents split up two years pre-series, Archie was given the choice to move to Chicago with his mother or to stay in Riverdale with his father. He chose the latter, which means that he was there to see his father unravel in the wake of being left by his wife (his father spiraled all the way to the point of receiving a DUI that he then proceeded to hide from Archie.) A good chunk of his guilt complex/his idea that its his job to fix everything probably grew out of this experience, because by the age of 15/16 Archie fully believes that he's responsible for 50% of their household finances/security and for protecting his father, keeping him safe and happy. He is convinced that he owes his father for raising him and that he should be paying him back by working off his debts, something he literally does when he goes to work for his father's construction company (even though it is very against Child Labor Laws wtf Fred) over the summer and on the weekends during the school year, despite not liking the job and wanting more than anything to secure a different kind of future for himself through studying music. This culminated, in the season finale, with Archie attempting to take an actual bullet for his dad, though he was unsuccessful because he didn't manage to insert his own body completely in the way before the gun was fired.

But Archie's life isn't all (or even mostly) bad, and he's certainly not always sad. He is reasonably popular at school, and has a genuine love of playing football and writing music, both of which he has managed to find a way to pursue largely through the support of his peers. He enjoys watching movies and playing video games and reading comics—in particular, his bedroom is absolutely lousy with DC Rebirth posters—he laughs a lot and he just plain old likes people. He's ridiculously romantic and tends to fall in love at the drop of a hat, he almost never manages to hold onto a grudge for longer than a few days at a time, and he has an uncanny way of making friends with just about everybody no matter what the circumstances or what strictly highschool social taboos they're flying in the face of by socializing. Honestly, just some distance from Riverdale's particular brand of chaos alone has the potential to be very, very good for him.