People talking about Dead Boy Detectives is wild to me because when I was a kid Dead Boy Detectives by Toby Litt was the first title I picked up and pulled as a kid that was a comic that just looked cool and had a cool name and I loved it and it just got cancelled at issue 12 with no warning or announcement. It just got taken off solicitations.
And unfortunately the dead boy detectives were not cool enough and didn't sell enough that DC wanted to keep trying with them so when they were gone they were just gone...for like a decade. I'm sure I heard they show up in sandman anthologies and such but you get. People never even seemed to care when I brought them up. I kinda just harbored a secret DBD love and thought that people just didn't get it
So now to suddenly randomly be seeing people talk about them and the name be so common is cool because I thought the concept fucking rocked and was super fun as a kid. And kid me feels very validated for my belief that the name alone is cool enough to keep publishing.
Haven't seen the show yet but I defo will. Truth be told it is exciting to hear about the show but one of my fave comic writers in the current game did the DC series so I wanna check that out first the most.
One of these days the argyle/kali post will stop getting reblogged and blowing up with 45 notifications randomly and I will finally know peace on this site again.
And finally on Nancy's character I do have to say I find it weird people problematize inherently the act of sexualizing her in the show or her having romance in the show.
Or just generally like not to say Nancy's depiction is entirely devoid of misogyny but inherently I don't find anything wrong with a sexual depiction of such a character and I find it weird people do. It's also somewhat misogynistic I feel that the 1000000 gratuitous depictions of sexuality that exist in males teen fiction is like not even allowed at 1% for characters that are meant for women for some reason cuz everyone knows women are sexless.
It's like.......people realize women and teen girls get horny, have sex, romantic lives, etc right like it's not a very unique thing to sexualize them or make romance important for them. Sure I'd argue most depictions in pop media is problematic but not all. I hope people will understand sexualization=acknowledgement of sexual life not simply for the purposes of male gaze enjoyment. I get that there is a feminist push for more diverse representation, I just think it shouldn't color the actual analysis of what is there. It's not impossible to have both characters who are and aren't into romance. It's just that is blatantly a part of Nancy's character that she loves people deeply of which her boyfriend is her scene partner in about 80% of the show, it is genuinely ridiculous to pretend like the development she had was independent of him or that it is uniquely true to the character for her to have an *independent* ending .
Obviously there is gratuity and crossing the line wrt gratuity but I'd hardly say Nancy in the show is sexualized gratuitously in the sense of her having a ton of sexualization, it's mostly present in the show as merely an acknowledgement of her sexuality rather than a focus or gratuitous. And that's just good honest writing.......like would it be better for people if two horny teenagers got together and the sex was just not acknowledged like they're the scooby gang. Just like Jonathan and Nancy sitting there fully clothed in S3.
Also as a third thing, this is a hot take and I don't mean it to anyone who enjoys those tags, makes fanfics,fandom content or anything for them. I enjoy a lot of it and everything is allowed and supported by me in fandom. I'm talking very specifically about a very small subsect of posts I saw just after S4 and not broadly about this community or 99% of the posts I see from it.
But I just don't get like as someone who ships a lot of the queer ships in the show(Loudly Jargyle and quietly Ronance and Byler while also supporting most others just not actively shipping them) l don't get people who want to generally downplay the role Nancy and Jonathan have had in eachothers lives. As I enjoy both of them and enjoy them as queer characters it is weird to me in both fandoms that sometimes you find people who discard the opposing character and as someone who enjoys both it kinda sucks to read. Like hey....queer people can like people of the opposing gender and have relationships with them too, it's not like awful to acknowledge that the romance was deep and loving. Not that everyone is like this, just there are some fanfics that feel like they put in the effort to put the other character/romance down and I'm like damn. I get that some people just don't want to include like an entire paragraph about Nancy talking about Jonathan's hair when they want to write lesbian sex.
The above hot take is kinda separate from the rest of the post.
What I guess I mean to say is it's weird to me that we get so puritan with stuff we go back to the 50s with the misogyny like some people really want women to be depicted as like sexless and romanceless and they don't enjoy romance or sex and their romantic or sexual partners are not allowed to be important and they can't enjoy or just have sex.
Also men can do all these things with no problem and it's often endearing for them to do so.
I gotta be real and I am not even coming in new with this take I have been beaten by like 100 perverted video game designers and Hollywood Horror Directors and Stephen King and like everyone but there is something so very fun and delightful about a character who is just like A GIRL like a normal ass girl with girly interests who has to occasionally pull out a shotgun and take on something gore-y and disgusting. It's probably gender related both for me and the general allure of the character in the sense of a character technically hopping multiple gender lines.
I feel like this is one of the few archetypes of female characters I enjoy of Hollywood from the past. Even if some of the allure and fun is just in gender lines being subverted it always gets me into a character.
It is funny to me that ST has 6 main woman protagonists and they refuse to or are uncomfortable sexualizing like 4 of them for different reasons so because of that Jancy has by default become the load bearing main couple you see most intimate or sexual moments of throughout the show, and also like Stancy is technically show wise the second most physically intimate we've ever seen main characters until Joyce joined the party in s4, but I mean also it was like 4 years late and it happens at the end of the penultimate season. it makes Nancy come off so much edgier in the show than every other female protagonist because of this. Even though canonically she's not really. it makes more sense to focus on the "innocent" aspects of the character because it provides a contrast to the exterior hard shell put up against the UD and other people that aren't Jonathan.
It's just that there's no way to write this show and emphasize the more schoolgirly parts of Nancy's character. Like even when they do in S4 with the puppy dog scene or the high school scene it's not so much they don't attempt it's just it's actually hard for the writing to make Nancy come off as innocent and schoolgirly and young than she is just because the other women protags are a mom and 3 other schoolgirls. kinda sucks though hough I would say-visually at least-the funnest part of Nancy's character is the shotgun is hidden UNDERNEATH Tom Cruise posters,boyfriend's sweaters and mixtapes. It's like imagine Nancy's moodboard is just like tom cruise shirtless, bowie, Fall colors, Jonathan and then a bunch of glitter but also shotguns and a glock 19. It's definitely the contrast of this cute schoolgirl who has to be transformed into like a superhero overnight that makes her character fun from a visual POV I thought.
Sometimes Joyce felt like she didn't even know her own son. She'd turn around and suddenly Jonathan was different than she remembered. A little more withdrawn, taller, more tired. The first time was when he was little, old enough to watch Will for a little while until Lonnie got home so she could leave for work. She set Will up with a coloring book or some butcher paper to draw on, make sure there was a snack out on the counter in case one of them got hungry, then she would kiss her boys on the head and then leave for work. Jonathan never complained about it, just dutifully sat with his baby brother and watched him draw while fidgeting with her old camera. She couldn't afford film very often, but he loved to take it apart and put it back together, would sit at the little coffee table and arrange all the pieces by size or in order, then do it all again the next day.
And she never even considered that Lonnie might stay out later than she thought. Never considered that Jonathan assumed that human shield was part of big brother duty. It wasn't until she realized he hadn't said a word to her in a week, that she saw the bruises on his wrist that went up his arm, that she saw the new dent in the wall that had apparently been put there by Jonathan's HEAD-
It was still several more days before Jonathan found his voice again after Lonnie had been kicked out, divorce papers following not long after.
And then she felt like she lost sight of him again when he started working. He was the youngest employee at the movie theater, worked more days than he should, but Joyce couldn't bring herself to complain, not when he would smile so big after buying a roll of film or some new crayons for his little brother. But then the water bill went up and she began to find his paychecks tucked into her purse. And when it came down to using that money or going without heat in the dead of February-
They didn't talk about it.
She'd told him he wasn't alone and it felt like a lie sometimes. She'd told him she was there for him, and then he'd planned a funeral by himself and Lonnie was back-
She hadn't gotten the call when he was arrested, she only knew about the fight well after the fact. She'd watched him open a gift from Nancy at Christmas and couldn't bring herself to ask what had happened to his camera. Because she didn't know, had hardly noticed that it hadn't been on the kitchen table or in his hands for what, maybe a month now?
And it kept happening. She'd find herself tangled in grief or anger or even just with a moment's peace, and then begin to wonder what was going on with him. When she'd last sat down and asked him how he was doing. He'd normally give a one word answer and then maybe decide to talk a little more, but he'd never volunteer the information.
She'd watched him say goodbye to Nancy before they left for Lenora, seen the way he gave Will a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder before guiding him to the car, but she'd also seen the way his shoulders slumped, the quiet sadness he was carrying.
None of the kids had been handling the transition from Indiana to California particularly gracefully, but Will and El had demanded so much immediate attention that it was two months before she really got a good look at Jonathan. The younger two had gone upstairs for the night and he was sitting on the couch in front of the tv, but he was looking at the wall instead of the screen. "Hey," she murmured, taking a seat next to him.
He jolted, but settled after looking around the room, gaze dragging over the doors and windows. "Hi mom."
"Doing okay?"
"Um. Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Are... you okay?" His voice had been tentative, but she nodded. "Good, that's- ...good."
"Have you talked to Nancy lately?"
She watched as he seemed to close himself off at the question. She watched as he pulled on foot up onto the couch and held his knee to his chest, back pressing into the corner of the couch. "Once or twice. She's busy with the school paper and college essays, she doesn't have much time for calls."
"College, huh? That's exciting. Are you sending out applications yet?" She should know, she thought. She should've asked that sooner.
"Soon. Um, yeah. Soon. I talked to the counselor at school, he helped me get a couple forms with deadlines. So. I'll be doing that soon." He shrugged. "How's, um, selling...?"
"It's okay. Better than double shifts at Melvald's." She chuckled softly and watched as he gave her a faint smile. "School going okay? Are you making friends?"
"It's okay. Nothing special." He shrugged, but his tiny smile got a bit more... genuine. "Yeah, I made a friend, actually. His name's Argyle, he's pretty cool."
"I'm so happy to hear that, honey."
And she'd felt like that was the best conversation they'd had in years. After that, the name Argyle came up in conversation more than a few times. When Jonathan's car finally kicked the bucket after two years of being on it's last legs, she finally met the mysterious Argyle she'd only heard about.
He was an eccentric young man and after just a few minutes, she could see the way Jonathan was pulled out of his shell around him, the way he leaned into casual touch instead of away from it. The way his smiles actually reached his eyes and were pulled bigger than she usually saw.
Argyle became a more common presence in the house after that. He'd come over after school and on weekends when he wasn't working at the local pizza place. He'd take over the kitchen with Jonathan and they'd bicker over the stove or laugh as they mixed what she thought had to be truly awful combinations of food. They'd spread out on the couch and Jonathan would be pressed in close, leaned in so they could whisper through the movie while El and Will sat on the floor to watch with them.
But she still seemed to be missing a lot, especially when she opened the door to Jonathan's room, bringing up some of his laundry from the dryer, only to find Argyle pinning him down to the bed, both of them panting like they'd run a marathon.
Thankfully, they were fully clothed, but Jonathan's loud yelp of embarrassment was louder than the door slamming shut. Clearly she'd missed a lot. Again. She swore softly and left the basket of laundry outside his room. She'd always kind of thought that Will might- but Jonathan?
And he hadn't mentioned anything about his relationship with Nancy, she'd just assumed things were okay between them. Was he still with her? Was he... cheating on his girlfriend? That didn't seem right, but could she really come to that conclusion?
Footsteps, hesitating and quiet, came down the stairs and she looked up to see Jonathan creeping down with Argyle behind him. "Jonathan-"
"We're going to go pick up- to uh, we'll be at- I'll be home later." He grabbed his left shoe from where it sat by the door and yanked it on, nearly fumbling his balance as he tried to get his other shoe on at the same time. Argyle reached to steady him, but he jerked away from the touch, panic written across his face.
"Honey-"
"We can just pretend you didn't see anything. Because you didn't, there was nothing going on. I'll be back later tonight, we've got something- a thing."
He was out the door like a shot, she'd only seen him move that fast when someone's life was on the line. Argyle hesitated behind him, standing in the empty doorway as he glanced at Joyce. "...I won't keep him out too late," he said quietly before slipping out the door.
Joyce sat in the empty living room with her head in her hands and sighed loudly. She didn't think she knew him, and it felt like that was intentional. She didn't know what was going on in his life, she didn't know when he would come home, and all she could do was sit there and worry.
It is interesting to me that Jonathan's cycle comments combined with what they refer to for each parent and how those are contradictory.
Jonathan is trying to break the Lonnie cycle by staying with his family but by doing that is repeating the Joyce cycle by not pursuing what he wants.
But he's only going Lonnie's way because he's avoidant and doesn't want to pursue what he genuinely wants because it makes a lot more sense to compromise on something he wants than what he thinks others want.
He needs to break the cycle by confronting the problems created by it and pursue something he genuinely wants for once.
I never forget when people on reddit downvoted me for suggesting Jonathan was wearing clothes similar to Lonnie in s4 as symbolism.
In a scene where Jonathan is talking about not wanting to become Lonnie.....as if that simple bit of symbolism is impossible for anyone to think of.
I don't like Eddie but I think it is kind of funny that one of the main criticisms of Eddie is like "Oh he was the weird kid in high school no one liked and he reminded me of mine so I didn't care for him". Like as if that wasn't the fucking point of his character, he was a bit of a weirdo......yeah he was a bit of a weird kid yeah. The show is about nerds and freaks and weirdos, I think people forget about this.
Also the implication here is like.....I didn't really care about the weird kid in my high school......they could go brutally die and i wouldn't care is kind of like.....very terrifying and psychopathic as a casual sentiment to drop on a post I gotta be real.
I don't even like Eddie and I wasn't even a weird HS Kid but god damn people who are like "Oh he was just a weird loner kid who gives a shit about him when he brutally dies" like you people need to look yourself in the mirror. I know it's a minority of the audience but still.
The only copium I have for Argyle in s4 is that for some reason he's playing a distance support role and Eduardo Franco is shooting those scenes at a later date and location+they didn't really wanna reveal it right away.
Because the teens are in the radio tower for s5 right? And Suzie was contactable via radio in s3 so maybe they are communicating with him in Utah? Or something. We know that Suzie will probably have some role in S5 given that she's showed up 2 seasons in a row so it's possible that's where Argyle shows up.
It's also possible that it's a reveal moment in between episodes. Like if they shot S4 stuff for S5 they could have had Argyle leaving in the S4 scenes at the end. And if theres a timeskip right after, I don't know why the teens need to contact Suzie but it might be a reveal moment for the show that he's with Eden in Utah now. It's also possible the teens are contacting multiple people from the radio tower and only contact suzie for support later in the season which is when you see Argyle again and they want that reveal kept secret. It's also possible he leaves Hawkins and eventually shows up later in the season for a big save in the van or something and they don't want that revealed.
I think it's possible Hawkins also just isn't quarantined in s5 for whatever reason.
I love that it is canon that Argyle's type is "Oldest sibling with chaotic younger siblings, vague goth aesthetics, too much responsibility and absentee parents"
she doesn't fit the story at all and should never be mentioned again
but
she definitely just belongs on the show and totally fits in and it definitely doesn't drag the show that we have to go out of our way to show her and her family
