I canāt believe they made this joke twice in the same book. I love it so much.
Whoās gonna tell her?
Can you guys imagine? If you actually lived in the 70s or 80s, youād all dress exactly like this every single day!
I think this is one of the best things Iāve ever seen. Thank you 2014 Archie comics.
Also this might be the coolest hairstyle Dilton has ever had:
Okay, my real question though: how did Archie and the other guys grow their hair out so quickly for 80s day?? Did Dilton concoct an instant-mullet potion or something?
Archie started sometime in the 40s, right? They juuuuust missed my favorite eras: the 30s, for their cartoons, and the roaring 20s, for their basically everything. I wish the Archie gang had been around in the 20s. (Just imagine the outfits, for starters.)
So it feels like this 2014 comic book is specifically targeted towards me, because they have TWO SEPARATE COMICS about swing dancing!
Just one would be crazy awesome to me. Two is kind of unbelievable.
Thatās it, thatās the whole post. I really really like that they made two whole comics about swing dancing, and Iām sharing my excitement with the few people who will see this post.
So thereās this one comic where Dilton is absolutely FLIPPING OUT over how much Jughead annoys him. Itās really crazy. Iāve never seen him that emotional about ANYTHING. He looks like heās going to murder someone. Itās one of my favorite comics.
I had wondered, before reading this, what a direct interaction between my two favorite characters would be like. This comic reveals the obvious fact that the two are polar opposites. The overachiever and the slacker. Of course theyād be at odds.
Iām going to completely overthink this comic, and write entirely too many paragraphs about my headcanons for it. You have been warned.
The first thing I glean from this comic is that Dilton has a serious control-freak streak. āSome people just arenāt happy unless everyone else is just the way they want āem to be.ā I will Remember This Detail. I must collect charactersā flaws for future reference. Dilton gets pushy with other people when he thinks they should be different. Itās not enough for him to follow a strict set of rules, everyone else should too, or it irritates him to the point of cartoonish fury. (If anyone thinks theyāre above the desire to change others, try being the only person in a group project who does any work, and see if youāre still willing to live and let live. I can definitely relate to Dilt here, to some degree.)
The second takeaway is that I headcanon exactly what led to the ending panel where Diltonās been converted to Jugheadās way of life, instead of the other way around. I want to make a comic about it. Diltonās been harassing Jughead for days about how he should change every aspect of his lifestyle. Jug asks why his lifestyle is so bad, and Dilt again lists off the things Jug does that he thinks are wrong. Jug then sort of disproves these claims, not denying them, but denying that theyāre problems.
Sure he sleeps in class a lot, but thatās because class can be boring (surely gifted student Dilton understands this?). Jughead still gets mostly good grades, so he must be doing something right. He pays attention when he needs to. And maybe Dilton thinks his clothes are stupid, but who cares what he chooses to wear? How is that Diltonās problem? And as far as ācluttering the landscapeā by sleeping at the park, and eating a ton at the Chocklit Shoppeāseriously? Heās just existing in public places, doing completely legitimate things to do in those places. Heās minding his own business. Gluttony and sloth arenāt crimes unless they actually affect someone elseās life. And these actions shouldnāt be. So why are they affecting Dilton so much?
There are plenty of other reckless teenagers to try to reform, ones with way worse actions and way worse grades. So why Jughead? What makes him specifically the object of Diltonās fury? Is it because he gets away with it all? Is it becauseālook, Iām gonna skip to my point. Diltonās so bothered by Jughead specifically because heās jealous of him.
Heās jealous that Jughead sleeps through boring classes because he already understands the materialāDilt is also sick of sitting through repetitive or easy lessons, but he wants to keep up appearances as the āresponsible smart kid,ā so he has to look alert even when he feels his time is being wasted. Dilton is jealous that Jughead finds it so easy to relax, napping in plain view of any passerbyāDilton cares too much about how other people see him, and heās terribly afraid of appearing lazy or wasting time, and anyway heās always too anxious to relax properly. Dilton is even sort of jealous of Jugheadās unabashed gluttony, because it displays a lack of shame that Dilton finds unattainable. Jughead doesnāt worry if the things he likes are āgoodā or ābadā, he just does what he wants. And it almost always works out for him.
To put the situation simply, Jughead is like the kid who speed-writes his essay the class period before itās due, and still somehow gets an A. To someone who spent a week researching and revising theirs, this is infuriating. It feels so unfair. Sure, Jugheadās metaphorical A doesnāt do anything to remove Diltonās A. Whether or not Jug succeeds, it doesnāt affect Dilton. Except it does, because it doesnāt feel fair that Dilton spends so much time anxious and planning and monitoring his behavior in an attempt to be perfect, and Jughead can just skate on through life without worry and be doing basically just as well. Because if there arenāt serious consequences for laziness and indulgence and nonchalance, then that means Diltonās been putting himself through all this stress for nothing. If Diltonās way of life is equivalent but less efficient, then itās wrong, and Dilton is not used to being wrong about anything. Itās not something he handles well.
So yes, heās flipping out. Because he needs Jugheadās actions to be objectively wrong and in need of correction. Or else heās got to reevaluate pretty much everything about himself.
Probably Diltonās not even aware that all of this stems from jealousy. He wonāt admit it to himself. He feels far too self-righteous to examine his motivations. But at some point while heās chasing Jughead all over Riverdale, heās going to slip up and yell something that reveals basically everything I just wrote up there (but more concisely). Heās going to reveal (and realize for the first time) that this whole thing is just a desperate attempt to justify his own anxieties. After two weeks of this āreform Jugheadā nonsense, they say something like:
J: [at the end of his rope] āI just donāt get why you hate me so much!ā
D: [also at the end of his rope] āHate you? I WISH I could BE you! Itās not fair!ā
Jughead is completely shocked by this, and Dilton starts rambling about how hard he tries to be perfect and how he wishes he didnāt care what people thought of him and how Jughead can relax but he just canāt and how Jug has to be doing something wrong because if heās not than Diltonās wrong and heās failed at life and thatās literally the worst thing that can happen andā
And Jughead immediately responds by saying thatās waaaay too much to worry about. (Because it really is. That doesnāt make it easy to get rid of though.) Jughead says okay, if youāre so jealous of me, then letās flip the script. You stop trying to turn me into a teacherās pet, and Iāll start teaching you how to enjoy life a little more. How to care less about what people think of you. How to worry less, and know which things are actually worth worrying about. How to be a little lazy and waste a little time without feeling like youāre committing some sort of crime. I am going to teach you to be like me, for the sake of your sanity. Because if that stressed mess you just said is what the inside of your head looks like all the time, thereās no way you can keep going like that for long without imploding. (Boy, he thinks, I always thought the brainiac students had the least worries out of anyone. If being on top makes you this paranoid, then donāt sign me up.)
So thatās how you get from point A to Dilton wearing a matching sweater and whoopee cap and asking for burgers. Heās learning through imitation. (Probably too strictly exact of an imitation, but those instruction-following instincts get drilled in deep.) The original joke is that he just spent too long around Jug and sort of absorbed his vibes, I guess, instead of the other way around. But my explanation makes more sense to me. Itās not like Diltās being brainwashed, heās making the choice to act like this. And why? Because he really needs to be less hard on himself, and he finally understands that. Look at him at the start of the comic: wound up and melting down over this tiny little issue thatās not even his problem. Look at him at the end: relaxed, hanging out with his friend, going to do something purely recreational. Sure itās funny that heās dressed like Jugheadās mirror image, but when you think about it, this is clearly a good change for him (in all ways but the twinning outfit).
I really do think Jughead needs to impart his wisdom onto Dilton. Needs to teach him to calm down and do things not for a grade or an award or a reputation, but just for his own well-being. To go out to restaurants. To take naps in the park. To worry less about school. To exist in the world outside of his strict framework of self-imposed rules. He needs to teach Dilton to choose imperfection, and to be proud of it.
Because I need him to teach me that.
As always, this entire thing is 100% completely projecting.
"The most smug and pretentious looking Dilton" like thank god we found him, my crops were dying (also Archie stop making fun of Dilton cos he wants to learn how to sew)
diltonās smugness has changed so much over the years. like iām still amazed by his evolution from Boy Genius to Boy Genius But With Human Emotions.Ā
i sketched out a graph of his smugness as a function of time:
there's an organ harvesting cult that builds a rocket, to go into space
actually theres like 30 different cults and a dozen serial killers running around
the gang spends a season playing Satanic Panic!D&D, complete with an on-theme cult+serial killer
they go to a parallel universe where the town is called "rivervale"
archie is human sacrificed to the maple gods
archie enlists in the US military (they did this in the comics ages ago tbf) and adopts a dog that later develops steven universe powers
the dog got powers from getting exploded by a bomb. archie also gets exploded by that bomb and also develops Powers (this happens to several other characters)
cheryl is wandavision and gay
im not even going to describe what happened in the season 6 finale
origamiaround
stormborns
tangentwithtanner
yousharknotpass
discoholicmusic
areudirty
