#the slightest effort in analysis towards their characterizations can prove what I'm saying

[thenonbinarydetective]

I don't like Frank in the games. More specifically how he is in the later ones. I hate how his entire character becomes entirely dependent on Nancy and Joe. He's barely his own person. He's a dude with a crush and an annoying younger brother. He's static. He's stale. He's boring.

I usually love Frank Hardy. He is a good an interesting character. Until Her Interactive gets to him. He's a young man who's eager to learn, eager to please, and eager to be responsible. He's faced a lot of pressure in his life, maybe from himself more than his family. He has a father who is somewhat unreliable and more accident-prone than anyone I've ever met. A father who disappears for weeks on end, leaving his son to take more responsibility in their family. Switch sister to brother in the song "Surface Pressure" and now it's about him. He supports his mother when she fears her husband might be dead or dying from yet another injury. And it didn't matter if that father would show up to ever soccer game or school play because he still missed other shit because other people needed his help. He's mature because he's faced a lot of shit, probably even some that's been kept from the readers. There's no way he had a stable childhood. We can tell.

And yet even with his maturity, he's still a teenage boy. One that likes to play sports. Have fun with his friends. Go to the beach. Learn new skills that could be useful. Or just a hobby that he falls madly in love with and he can't stop thinking about it. Or doing it. Or sometimes even focus on mysteries because of it. Sometimes he's got far more autistic coding than Sherlock Holmes. He likes fun. He likes parties. He likes dancing. He likes doing things that other teenagers do. No offense to anyone specifically, but I am so DAMN TIRED of trying to headcanon or just talk about Frank doing normal teenage boy things and people basically telling me that I'm wrong for it. He's young. He likes to play video games and goof off the same as Joe. He's fucking 18, not 80. Treat him like it.

But when you get the the games Her Interactive flattens him with a fucking hydraulic press. Some of you might not even see it because you have your own version of canon or your brain is too clouded by shipping to see it because you just like seeing him having a crush on Nancy. You all know I don't really give a shit about Francy. That doesn't fucking matter with this. Or maybe it does because I (and others) blame it for affecting how Her Interactive messes up his character. If Frank isn't defined by Joe he's defined by Nancy.

Which is a real fucking injustice in my book because the Hardy Boys have their own goddamn franchise and are main characters in their own right. Literally they don't share copyright with Nancy. They're not her sidekicks. They're not just flat, boring characters. I've argued this with Ned dozens of times and I know y'all are tired of it cause it doesn't match your idea of what canon should be, so maybe I'll try someone new.

The games Frank Hardy sucks and shipping ruined him. So here's some water because this is gonna be a hard pill for some of you to swallow. I already swallowed mine with Ned and with Frank so don't even try some snippy comment. I know how catty y'all are about this.