Thinking about everything I won’t get to see from Dead Boy Detectives cancellation… As a Payneland fan, it’s easy to focus on the boys. But their relationship is amazing because of all the others around them. What I won’t get to see on screen:
- Crystal and Charles working together and navigating romance and friendship in close proximity.
- Edwin’s tears when Niko comes back to him, maybe even changed after her own supernatural arc.
- The Night Nurse’s character development, confronting her very black and white beliefs, only to realise the contradictions of her new role with these peculiar boys.
- Crystal fucking up while she processes her traumatic upbringing, and finding out how the deeply lonely privileged child and the black girl who holds the keys to her generational and communal power coexist within herself.
- Niko, sweet Niko, who’s the most surprising and loveable character of all, and who gets to explore her own experience with death and chosen families, because it’s a part of being human.
- The Cat King reflecting on his own past and improving and helping the heroes, or maybe just carrying on being a chaotic demi-god.
- Jenny’s backstory and how she finds some meaning into being the father figure to this group of teenage idiots, because no one else could possibly understand them.
- Tragic Mick learning to embrace his curse because there are good things about being human.
- Monty’s experiencing freedom now Esther is gone, and how scary and exciting and lonely it is to decide your own dare when you’ve spent your whole life cared for and controlled by someone else.
- More queerness, because for once, it’s real and not hidden under layers of interpretation. Because for once, the creators are telling us “yes, it is a story for you, we made it that way because we care and queer stories are meaningful”.
