#because the witch had said something like hey Lindy really deserves to be class president

[maddie-grove]

So I was watching Beastly and it occurred to me that it would be interesting to make a non-supernatural modern-day version of “Beauty and the Beast” where the Belle figure and the witch figure are one and the same.

She’s a poor, weird girl who has a crush on the Prince equivalent, and he finds her endearing enough that he’s a little bit friendly/flirty when they’re alone, and it builds her hopes up. But he’s too embarrassed to act the same way in front of his popular friends, so ultimately he blows her off in a snotty, hurtful way. He doesn’t do anything over-the-top cruel, like call her names or deliberately publicly humiliate her, but it goes beyond just politely icing her out. She’s understandably angry and sad, and she goes home and puts a “curse” on him (she found it on the internet and it’s some goofy mall goth shit but the feelings are real).

That same night, he gets into a car accident, and it’s just stupid, random happenstance—he isn’t doing anything particularly foolish, like driving drunk—and he’s seriously disfigured. And (as in Beastly) his family is shallow and emotionally avoidant, and he also doesn’t want to see anyone from his old life, so he ends up dropping out of school and taking classes at home and generally not going out.

But the Belle-Witch girl comes back into his life. He feels guilty about having hurt her feelings and doesn’t want her to feel bad for him, so he lies about his identity. She knows who he is but thinks he doesn’t remember her (they only interacted briefly, a lot of stuff has happened, and maybe she’s changed her look somewhat). She feels guilty about having wished this fate on him, because it’s not satisfying to see it actually happening, just horrible. And eventually the mutual deception has to unravel and there’s probably some kind of external obstacle as well. He does not turn un-disfigured, and also she is not conventionally hot and she dresses weird and that never really changes. But they fall in love.