#how to give your villains their comeuppance

[penny00dreadful]

Comeuppance - Part 1

Part 2 AO3

It was getting beyond ridiculous now. And if no one else wanted to help, then Dustin would take it upon himself. 

Steve had helped him get his first girlfriend. He’d put his body between Dustin and the demodogs in the tunnels, even though he was half conscious and fully concussed. He’d helped them escape from torture and taken the blows in their place. He’d kept silent about his bites while they strategized in Max’s trailer. 

He’d been with them through almost everything. 

The only thing he’d missed was that first year but even then he was defending Nancy and Jonathan. 

Dustin just wanted his brother to be happy.

And if no one else was going to do it, he’d do it himself.

He’d looked at his mother, how much brighter she used to be before his dad had died all those years ago. 

He looked at Lucas and Max who always had secret smiles for each other. 

He looked at Hopper and Joyce who’d found each other again after years apart, there to support their partner in everything. 

He wanted that for Steve. 

Steve deserved it.

To be happy with someone. 

Maybe Dustin had… breezed through one or two of his mothers romance novels for inspiration, trying to figure out who the perfect candidate for Steve would be. How he could make it happen. What the method might look like. 

With that in mind, he pulled in the rest of the Party who seemed to go along with him more begrudgingly than anything. Maybe they’d just gotten tired of arguing with him.

He’d have to examine later if that was something he needed to work on.

How could he become a world renowned scientist or engineer if he didn’t have anyone who would push back against him?

“Eddie!” Dustin called up towards the roof of the trailer, where he could just about make out the small plumes of smoke curling up against the bright blue sky. “Stop sunbathing, we need your help.”

The sounds of Eddie’s chains and jewellery rattled against the roof, telling Dustin he’d just rolled onto his stomach, allowing his arms to dangle down over the edge as he continued to puff away.

Eddie exhaled the smoke in his lungs and took a haughty tone when he said “A man such as myself would never be caught sunbathing, Henderson. That’s jock shit.” 

Something caught Eddie’s attention behind him. He glanced back and when he turned towards the Party again he had a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“Did you hear me?” Dustin crossed his arms over his chest like he’d seen Steve do on numerous occasions before, trying to exude the same authority. “I said we need your help.”

“Alright.” Eddie let out a loud exasperated sigh. Dustin could tell he was playing up his irritation, though. “I’ll bite. What do you need my help with?”

Dustin grinned wide, delighted to be able to expound on his plan. “Steve’s love life.”

Something thudded against the roof of the trailer but Eddie didn’t flinch, didn’t turn to see what it was, just continued staring down at them, blank faced.

“What was that noise?” Mike asked, staring up at him.

Eddie shrugged. “Kicked something. Pray tell, why are you coming to little old me for help with Steve’s love life?”

“You two are friends now, right?”

Eddie snorted into his elbow. “I suppose that’s one word for it.” He muttered, barely audible from all the way up there.

“And you’re a guy his own age.” Dustin had to shield his eyes from the sun as he stepped closer. “He’ll listen to you.”

That got a loud laugh from him. “The hell gives you that idea?”

“He’ll listen to you more than he’ll listen to us.”

“You’d be better off asking Robin.” Eddie propped his chin up on his hand. “They’ve got that weird mind meld thing going on.”

Dustin huffed. 

Robin would never hear them out. 

“We can’t ask Robin.”

“Well maybe you should stop meddling, you ever think of that?”

Meddling? What was he, a child? Some evil villain? No. He wouldn’t call what he had planned meddling. He was aiding. He was helping. 

Meddling implied he didn't know what he was doing, which he did. 

He'd researched.

“I’m not meddling. I’m helping. We’re just trying to make the guy happy so what’s the issue? He’s clearly lonely.”

Eddie’s expression hardened. “Clearly lonely, is he? That’s a real charming thing to say about your babysitter, Henderson. Not everyone needs romantic connections in life. He has me, he has Robin. He has Nancy and Jonathan and Argyle. And up until a few seconds ago I would have said he had you all too. But apparently you’re not enough. Because he’s lonely.” He spat out the last word like it had personally offended him.

“He’s been single for so long-”

“Have you considered that maybe he’s happy that way? Or that he already has someone and just hasn’t told you?”

Dustin scoffed, crossing his arms again. 

Eddie just wasn’t getting it. 

“He’d tell me if he had someone.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

Eddie let his voice drop low. “Because you meddle, Dustin Henderson.”

“Dude, why are you being so defensive right now?” Couldn’t he see that what Dustin was doing was for the best? For everyone? Why did no one seem to want the same things for Steve that he did? “We’re asking for your help to make our friend happy!”

“Why can’t you ask Robin?”

Robin also wouldn’t get it.

“She’s too close to the issue. She won’t be objective. She’ll side with him no matter what.”

“And I won’t?”

“No. Because I know what I’m doing? I’ve researched this? It’s not fucking rocket science. If the idiots in movies and tv can make it happen surely we’ll be able to do it easily.”

The Party was practically a protégé mix of brains. There was no way this could fail.

“Movies and tv.” Eddie muttered to himself like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Jesus Christ.” He tilted his head back behind him for a few moments, listening for something before turning to face them again. “Alright, listen. I’m not agreeing to anything yet but tell me who’s the other person wrapped up in this?”

Dustin finally allowed himself to smile, proud of the clincher he was just about to reveal.

“Nancy.” He said, puffing out his chest and cocking his eyebrow. 

He’d definitely just won this argument.

Except Eddie didn’t smile back at him and immediately agree, like Dustin had been expecting. 

Instead Eddie moved his whole head with an eye roll and groaned. “You can’t be serious. He’s over Nancy. He’s told us all many, many, many times. He doesn’t want a relationship with her.”

Fuck sake. What wasn’t Eddie getting about this? 

That’s just what people said when they were trying to save their hearts or there was some kind of contrived misunderstanding. 

Dustin had seen the way Steve looked at Nancy from the car at the Snow Ball. 

He’d heard the things he said to her in the Winnebago.

“Well, I don’t believe it. There has to be a reason he’s not dating Robin and we all heard the Winnebago talk. They’re meant to be. They’re perfect for each other.”

Eddie pursed his lips but stayed silent for a few seconds, considering. “Okay. And what about Nancy?”

Dustin blinked up at him confused. “What about her?”

“What does she say about this whole thing?”

“We can’t tell her, Eddie. We can’t tell either of them. Obviously.”

“Uh-huh. So Steve’s pining after Nancy, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Is Nancy pining after Steve?”

Dustin opened and closed his mouth, trying to formulate his comeback. He hadn’t really… thought too hard about that. But like… why wouldn’t she want him? 

He was handsome, he was strong, he had money, he wanted kids, he wanted marriage, he was respected around town.

He was the perfect package!

And actually, if Dustin remembered correctly, she’d smiled at Steve during the Winnebago talk so she was receptive at the very least. 

But he didn’t have a chance to articulate his argument because Eddie was barrelling ahead again.

“Oh right, I get it. Nancy doesn’t have any agency in this because the guy should always get the girl no matter her opinion right?”

“No!” That wasn’t what he meant. “It’s not like that-”

“You’re telling me that Nancy Wheeler,” Eddie interrupted, “gun toting, government fighting Nancy Wheeler. The same Nancy Wheeler who is currently working on her exposé of the sexism she experienced at the Hawkins Post, which is due to publish the second she goes to college at Emerson, where she already has an internship lined up, is going to just go along with this? And also, did I forget to mention, she leaves in six weeks? If you do get the two together what’s Steve supposed to do then?”

That was all semantics. 

Once they were together they could work that out between themselves! But Dustin knew Eddie wasn’t going to like that answer so he came up with something else quickly because it wasn’t that hard, because this made sense.

“He could go with her!”

“Oh, so fuck any desires he had, then? He’s just gonna drop everything here and go? Follow her like a lost puppy?”

Dustin rolled his eyes again. “C’mon Eddie, now you’re just being combative for the sake of it.” He placed his hands back on his hips, again trying to exude parental authority. “It’ll be good for him to experience things. What does he even have here to drop? I mean, it’s about time he moved on from this town, right?”

“Henderson.” Eddie snapped in warning. 

There was a moment of pause where they both stared at each other before Eddie rolled back around to face the back of the trailer. He muttered something in low tones that Dustin couldn’t hear and the next second was clambering down off the roof.

He landed far more gracefully than Dustin would have thought he was capable of before stomping over. “Do not let him hear you say that. He’ll think you don’t care whether he’s here or not.”

Dustin threw his arms out at either side of him. How could Steve possibly think that? He was just stating plain facts! “Of course I care!”

“Then act like it!” Eddie threw his own arms out in a similar fashion. “You’re making these decisions without him. What you’re trying to pull is peer pressure, all of you, you understand that right? It’s barely a step away from bullying.”

“Eddie, c’mon.” Mike crossed his arms, unable to meet his eye. “You’re looking at this all wrong. That’s not-”

“Yes it is. You’re all trying to get him to conform to what you think he should do, regardless of how he feels about it.”

Dustin shook his head, looking up at Eddie and imploring him to understand. What they were doing wasn’t malicious. “I just want him to be happy.”

But Eddie wasn’t relenting so Dustin would have to compromise somewhere to make this work.

“I understand that.” Eddie started. “But this isn’t-”

“Listen okay, FINE.” Dustin huffed. He did not stomp his foot. “I swear if you help us I’ll… I’ll stop if it doesn’t work. I swear, I promise if this doesn’t work and we don’t get Steve and Nancy back together I’ll never meddle in his affairs again. Please, I swear.”

Eddie loomed over him, dark eyes, dark hair, dark clothes, intense presence and Dustin was suddenly reminded of why he was intimidated by him when they first met at school. “On your mother?”

He nodded eagerly, hope starting to rise in his chest. “On my mother.”

“Okay.” Eddie sighed. “If it doesn’t work you are to never stick your nose in his business again, you understand me?”

“Yeah, I get it.” Dustin agreed, his mind already planning far ahead. “But you don’t need to worry about it, it’ll work.”

“You’re so sure of that are you?”

“I know him best out of all of us, I know him.” He tried not to let his smugness through, he really did try. But he couldn’t help it. “This’ll work.”

“I think you’re looking at this through little kid lenses and can’t see past the end of your own nose.”

Dustin opened his mouth in offence. “I’m smarter than you, you know.”

“I know but that doesn’t mean you’re a grown up. You're sure you have all the relevant information? You know everything there is to know and there's no way this could go wrong?” Eddie was acting like he knew something Dustin didn't, which just couldn’t be true. He’d planned for all the eventualities. 

“Of course I do.”

“Alright.” Eddie nodded, turning back to his trailer and pulling himself back up onto the roof. “If you’re sure. Now scram, kiddos. I gotta get back to my sunbathing.”

It was all going terribly. 

If Dustin didn’t know any better he’d think that Steve was totally checked out from the romance sphere. And he was acting a little weird. During one of their usual rides to the arcade, he’d told Dustin he was happy, which was great but it had come out of nowhere.

“Okay? I’m glad you’re happy?”

“I mean it though.” Steve drummed his fingers against the wheel. “Where I am in life right now, my friendships, my relationships, I’m happy. I don’t need anything to change. I’m good with how things are.”

Dustin had to think back on what they’d just talked about. 

They’d been speaking about Steve’s most recent trip to Indy. He’d been a little cagey on what he, Eddie and Robin had been doing up there, but that was probably because it was some weird grown-up thing they were doing that they didn’t want Dustin to know about. Like he couldn’t handle it, whatever it was.

There was nothing they’d talked about that might have led to this.

“Right… well thanks for letting me know?”

Steve just nodded at him like it was a job well done and the whole thing was just plain weird.

Things got even weirder when he saw Nancy. She was dropping off some of her old study notes to him and she mentioned that it was a good thing that she was single right now. She’d be going away to college soon and she couldn’t stand the idea of dragging someone away from their home just for her sake.

Dustin stared at her a little bewildered but tried to get her to see reason anyway. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone there with you, though?”

“No,” she answered lightly, “it would probably add more pressure to be honest.”

Dustin didn’t think there was any way that was true. Surely it would be easier to acclimate with someone from home to keep her company.

But despite his numerous attempts to get Nancy and Steve alone together in situations that could easily turn into dates, with soft touches or glittering eyes or whatever else the fucking books talked about, nothing had happened. 

No progress had been made and it was fucking frustrating.

He’d gotten the two of them to sit together, away from the rest of the group at the cinema and they just… watched the movie?

Not once did Steve try to put his arm across the back of Nancy’s seat or take her hand or even whisper to her, getting their faces close together except to nudge her playfully for the popcorn. It was a perfect set up and he was doing nothing with it.

How was Steve so bad at this?

Didn’t he have a reputation in school?

And Eddie was less than helpful. 

Every time Dustin leaned forward in anticipation of something happening between the two of them, Eddie would throw a kernel of popcorn at his head with a childish giggle, watching the scene unfold like it was the funniest thing in the world.

Dustin’s next attempt had fallen flat as well. 

He’d told Nancy that all the older teens were meeting at the diner for dinner together and had gotten Eddie to pass the message onto Steve. Nancy seemed wary initially but relented surprisingly easily, without much of a fight and Dustin was convinced he was getting better at this.

But the Party watched from the bookshop across the street as the two of them chatted amicably and even laughed together a few times but that was it. They didn’t share any food between them, they didn’t feed each other, they didn’t even get the single milkshake with two straws. 

That was a beginner level move!

Dustin was losing his fucking mind, just trying to get those two to do something so he had to go big. 

Again he recruited Eddie to help, out of complete necessity this time. 

Because there was no way Dustin could sneak into The Hideout to see how this plan was shaping up but he was confident that something would happen this time around. 

He told Eddie to do everything within his power to keep the two of them together. 

Alcohol is a social lubricant, it shouldn’t be that hard. 

Eddie had just scrunched his nose in disgust, mouthing 'social lubricant' to himself.

But even that was a lost cause because when Eddie walkied to update him on their progress a little breathless, probably from playing, he said he’d shredded so hard on stage, Steve spent the whole time watching the performance which was the exact opposite of what they were trying to do.

Dustin was nearly ready to lock the two of them in a closet until they got to it, but he wasn’t there. 

Yet.

He had another option up his sleeve.

Which is why he was shocked when Max announced she was pulling out of the whole thing.

“Listen, dipshit. It’s not working.” She’d said, frowning at him.

“It will work! You can’t pull out now!”

“I can and I will. When you come from where I come from you learn pretty quickly to mind your own fucking business if you don’t want a punch in the face and it’s getting there.”

Dustin could do nothing but throw his hands into the air as she stormed off.

It gave him the final push to start ramping things up.

“Eddie, we need you to flirt with Nancy.”

The man in question turned his head slowly and methodically until he was facing Dustin completely, his hand still hovering over the battle map he was prepping.

“Excuse me?”

“If you make Steve jealous, that might be the kick he needs to finally do something.”

“You’re playing with fire here, Henderson. You can’t toy with people’s feelings like that.”

“Who’s toying with feelings? There’ll be no feelings involved.”

“What about Steve’s feelings? What about Nancy’s?”

“You're overthinking this.” These kinds of miscommunications always worked out in the end, come on.

Eddie’s mouth was set in a firm, grim line. 

He looked beyond irritated.

“And there’s no way this could possibly blow up in your face, right?”

Dustin looked at him like he had six heads. 

Why was he the only one who was seeing sense here? This was how things were done. 

He was saved from having to answer by the arrival of Nancy and Mike into the Harrington basement.

Steve barely glanced up at their arrival, just sending a short smile their way, too deep in conversation with Robin about the news or interior design or whatever the fuck grown ups talked about.

Dustin sent a very pointed look Eddie's way who heaved the most put upon sigh, rising from his seat and giving him, the middle finger which he sarcastically reciprocated.

“Hey Nance.” Eddie said, sildling up beside her and oozing charm and charisma. “I'm glad you decided to come today. Don't know what I would've done if I had to go without seeing your pretty face for much longer."

Steve and Robin’s conversation abruptly cut off. 

Robin was blinking up at Eddie from her position on the couch with nothing short of bewilderment and Steve just raised an eyebrow looking almost amused.

God damn it, why was he amused?

Nancy herself looked incredibly confused, flitting her eyes in between Steve and Eddie for just a second before Eddie made some kind of hand gesture that Dustin couldn’t see.

Nancy smiled.

“Just a pretty face?” She asked, batting her eyelashes at him which on its own was weird. Dustin didn’t think he’d ever seen Nancy do that before.

“Oh of course not, Lady Wheeler. Everyone knows you’re more than just a pretty face.”

She reached a hand out, grasping his upper arm in a little squeeze. “Dunno if I could say the same thing about you.”

Eddie clutched at his heart, stumbling back a few steps. “Oh! The Lady Wheeler has wounded me most grievously!”

“Oh, stop it, you.” She swatted at his arm. “You’re still pretty.”

Which… this wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Nancy wasn’t supposed to flirt back! 

“Would you care to join us?” Eddie asked, sweeping his arm out towards the table where the rest of the Party had finished setting up. 

Dustin stared open-mouthed. 

Eddie never asked anyone to join unprepared. 

“I’ve heard this arena of play isn’t unfamiliar to you.” He continued, lowering his voice and leaning in close to Nancy but he wasn’t quiet enough to stop Dustin hearing him. “I’ve even heard you used to get into costume for the kiddies. You into a bit of roleplay, Nancy?”

Steve widened his eyes at Eddie and twisted his wrist.

Shit. 

Steve hadn’t won most human on human fights but he could probably take Eddie to the cleaners pretty easily. 

Steve wouldn’t though, right? He wasn’t that kind of guy?

Dustin was, thankfully, proven right when both Steve and Eddie went back to ignoring each other in favour of watching Nancy.

Eddie straightened up and Dustin could see a slight scowl and a glare on Nancy’s face but it was filled with more fond exasperation than outright anger.

Eddie broke away from her with one last wink and took his seat behind the DM screen while Nancy lowered herself down next to Steve and Robin.

“I’m going to pay for that later.” Eddie muttered to himself.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Mike grumbled, thudding his forehead into the table.

“Chill the fuck out, Romeo.” Dustin hissed. “You’re supposed to be making Steve jealous not getting Nancy to actually like you.”

Eddie just shrugged. “I can’t help it if I’m irresistible.”

Time flew by as they all got sucked into the game and Dustin felt his spirits lifting. Steve kept glancing in Eddie’s direction and it gave him hope that their plan had worked. Maybe he was getting jealous if he couldn’t keep his eyes off him over the top of the magazine he was pretending to read.

Dustin’s suspicions were all but confirmed in the next few days as Steve started to slowly mope around every time Eddie shot a wink in Nancy’s direction or made her giggle. 

It was honestly a bit over dramatic the way he’d sigh wistfully towards them or get an honest to god pout on his face.

“This is your chance, dude!” Dustin jumpscared Steve in his kitchen, nearly causing him to spill the popcorn he’d just poured into a large bowl.

“Jesus H. Christ, where the fuck did you come from?” Steve set the bowl down a little louder than he needed to before reaching up to rifle through his cabinets for more snacks.

“Washington.”

“Har har, very funny.”

“I’m serious about this, Steve. Aren’t you jealous seeing Eddie flirting with Nancy all the time? Don’t you want to do something about it?”

"Dunno if I'd call it jealousy." He muttered.

"Come on, you need to like…" Dustin wanted to say 'mark your territory' or something but he was pretty sure if that ever got back to Nancy he'd be six feet deep before he could even blink, so he just mimed a shoving motion.

“You’re not seriously suggesting I punch Eddie for Nancy’s favour are you?”

“No! That’s not what I’m getting at at all, fucking hell. I meant for you to turn on your Harrington Charm I’ve heard so much about! Steal her away from him!”

“I don’t think anyone can ‘steal’ Nancy Wheeler, Henderson.” His tone abruptly shifted from exasperation to something sadder, like he’d flipped a switch. “Besides, what’s the point?" He sighed, like a wistful maiden. "She’s clearly more interested in Eddie than in me.”

“That’s a very defeatist attitude. You haven’t even tried anything yet.”

Steve looked down on him, turning something over in his head before nodding. “Okay. I’ll try. Now help me carry these back inside.”

Dustin happily filled his arms with snacks and followed Steve back out to the living room where the rest of their friends were waiting.

Eddie and Nancy were sitting side by side on the couch, pressed up against each other. Dustin took his seat on the floor along with the rest of the Party, spreading the snacks out in front of him and keeping an eye out as Steve flipped the lights off before making his way over to the two.

“Excuse me there while I just-” Steve lowered himself down, directly in the middle of Eddie and Nancy, practically on their laps until they squirmed away to avoid their legs being crushed under the weight of one muscular jock. 

Eddie was biting his lip in the way he usually did when he was trying not to laugh and Nancy had her hand covering her mouth, maybe in shock. Probably in shock. 

Robin sat next to all of them in an armchair with her hands covering her face, shaking her head and Dustin had to try very hard not to facepalm into the next century. 

God this guy was hopeless.

Steve wiggled a little in place, getting comfortable and placing the popcorn bowl on his lap with a goofy grin. “Are we ready to start?” He asked, plucking the remote from Eddie’s hand and pressing play.

It was only a couple of days later when Dustin’s walkie crackled to life in the dark evening hours.

“Operation White Picket Fence, sound off.” Mike's voice came through.

One by one each member of the Party confirmed they were there, ending with Dustin. “This is Dart the Bard, checking in. Over.”

“This is a Code Orange, I repeat this is a Code Orange. Over.” Mike called.

“Hold on Paladin. We need to wait for Kas. Over.”

“That’s a negative, Dart. We need to talk without him. Over.”

But Eddie was a part of Operation White Picket Fence, even if his participation was working a little too well. Maybe that’s what this was about.

He huffed, endlessly glad they'd decided to stick to codenames, he couldn't deal with his mother overhearing any of this.

“Okay,” Dustin replied, “let’s switch to our backup channel just in case he checks in. Over.”

The Party sounded off their agreement and he turned the dial on his walkie, settling on the right numbers and waiting to find out exactly what was going on.

“The plan is backfiring. It’s going wrong. I overheard Emerson on the phone talking about Kas and Babysitter. She was going on about how she’s really started to like Kas. Like like. She has a full blown crush on him now and apparently it’s helping her move on from Babysitter. Over.”

“Shit. Shit, shit, shitshitshitshit! This is not what was supposed to happen! Over!”

“I know! What the hell are we supposed to do now? Over.”

"We'll tell Kas to stop. Maybe get him to start talking up Babysitter instead. Over."

"I don't want to see my s-Emerson get hurt over this, Bard. Besides, Kas is way better than Babysitter anyway. Over."

"But they're not meant to be! And Kas doesn’t even like her like that! Babysitter and Emerson are meant to be! We'll just have to regroup. Start pushing them harder or something. Over!"

"Yeah, because that's been working out so well so far." Lucas grumbled. "Over."

Dustin nearly jumped at the sound of the phone ringing elsewhere in the house. He sat, waiting for his mom to pick up. At least if she was on the phone he could be sure she wasn’t listening in. 

When the ringing stopped and he could hear the muffled sounds of his mother talking to someone, he continued.

“Babysitter hasn’t been on a date in months and the only person he’s been hanging around with other than Red Bird is Kas! He’s not trying anymore so this has to happen before Emerson leaves for-”

“Dusty? Phone for you.” His mother’s voice came through his closed bedroom door, accompanied by her knock.

“Shit. Hold on, guys. Phone. Over.”

Dustin pushed himself to his feet and opened the door, following his mother down the hallway. “Who is it?”

“Eddie.” She replied with a soft smile.

Speak of the devil. He thought. Well, no time like the present to sort this out.

“Hello?”

“Hey Dusty-Buns.” Eddie’s infuriating smile was audible.

“I told you not to call me that.”

“But it’s so fun! Listen, I need to talk to you about this whole Nancy and Steve thing-”

“Good, because I need to talk to you about it too. You gotta dial it back, man.”

Eddie paused. “What do you mean?”

“You’re getting in too deep with her, you’re starting to pull her attention away from Steve and that was not a part of the plan.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I’m not sure if I can really do that…”

“Wha- why? Why, Eddie, why?!”

“I dunno, man.” Dustin could hear him shrug. “I kinda like her.”

“No! Nonononono! You can’t like her! You’re not allowed to like her, why do you like her?!”

“What do you mean I’m not allowed? And as for why, have you met her? You used to have a crush on her!”

“Yeah, when I was a child, you can’t be serious about this, Eddie.”

“I’m super serious about this, Dustin. I like her. I want to ask her out.”

“Jesus Christ this was not part of the plan!”

“And I didn’t want to be a part of the plan from the start! You forced me into it! I told you it wouldn’t work.”

“It will work. It still can work! We're still doing this whether you like it or not. I’ll see you at Steve’s tomorrow. Don’t do anything stupid in the meantime!”

“Dust-!”

Dustin slammed the phone back down onto the cradle, stomping back off to his room, ignoring his mother’s calls after him.

“Guys,” he said, snatching his walkie up from the floor. “Things just got so much worse. We need to come up with a new plan before tomorrow.”

Steve didn't seem too suspicious when Dustin called him to let him know the Party didn’t need a ride to his house for the get together, they’d bike. They needed time to get their plan straight anyway.

All of that was thrown out of the window, however when they pulled up to the Harrington home and heard shouting coming from inside. They all shared a nervous glance with each other, easily recognising the voices as coming from Steve and Eddie.

"-can't believe you would do this to me!" Steve yelled, standing on the opposite side of the living room to Eddie who had his arm draped over Nancy's shoulders. Robin was sitting on the couch between them, unusually subdued with a lollipop in her mouth, her eyes ping ponging between them like she was watching a tennis match.

"Steve, please! I thought you'd be happy for me!" Eddie shouted back, waving his free arm around.

"Happy for you? How could I be happy for you when you're stealing Nancy away from me!"

Nancy gave a little frown but didn’t speak.

“I’m sorry Steve but-”

“You’re supposed to be my friend Eddie!” Steve's voice pitched high like a whining dog and he sniffled… loudly.

“I am your friend! But you can’t expect me to ignore the pull of true love!”

Nancy turned her head to look at him. “True love?” She asked, her tone flat.

“That’s right. True love, shnookums, my precious little rainbow cupcake.” Eddie booped her on the nose and she looked like she was fighting hard not to punch him.

Dustin was horrified. How could everything have gone so wrong?

“This is a complete betrayal! I don’t know if I can ever look at you the same way again, either of you! In fact, I don’t think I can look at you anymore at all!” Steve’s voice was wavering as turned his back on them, facing Robin with his arms crossed who stared at him wide eyed, biting into her lollipop. 

“I don’t think there’s anything more I can say to you two. I never want to speak to you again! I never want to see you again!” Steve cried, throwing one hand over his eyes and holding the other out as if to push them away. “Go on, run away together and leave me behind! I wash my hands of you two.”

“That’s too bad Steve, I’m sorry this is goodbye forever, never to see each other again, never to interact or even ask the kids about one another in passing. This is truly a terrible, irreparable breaking of the Fellowship, never to be fixed!”

Jesus they were both laying it on thick, rubbing as much salt in the wound as possible, probably hurting each other terribly in the process. How had it come to this? Was their found family really going to be so broken forever? Dustin didn’t know if he could stomach it.

“Eddie.” Dustin breathed as he and Nancy turned to face them, apparently completely unsurprised to find the Party standing in the doorway. “What have you done?”

“What have I done? I did nothing but follow my heart, struck down by Cupid's arrow! What have you done, Dustin? You started this.”

“This wasn’t the plan, Eddie! This wasn’t the plan!”

Steve turned back around, his face suspiciously dry but Dustin was too far gone to notice.

“You were only supposed to make Steve jealous!” His voice was rising into a shout. “Not fall in love! You were never supposed to seriously flirt with Nancy and I told you not to ask her out! This whole thing was to get Steve and Nancy back together!”

“What plan? What whole thing?” Steve had walked over from his far corner of the room, planting himself down right next to Eddie with his hands on his hips and a stern look in his eye.

Dustin floundered, opening and closing his mouth. “The- we- there was a plan…” he took a deep breath. Well it was all completely fucked anyway, what was the point in keeping it quiet? “The plan was to get you and Nancy back together.”

"Behind our backs?" Steve prompted, not moving. He kept his hands on his hips and kept that hard look in his eyes, waiting for Dustin to continue. 

“You haven’t gone on a date in ages, Steve! And you and Nancy were so good together-”

“No we weren’t.” Steve and Nancy cut him off in unison.

“But- it’s- you two are meant to be together! Do the whole white picket fence and babies thing! You just needed a push so I said I’d give you that push!”

"You certainly 'pushed' enough, Dustin." Nancy said, unwinding Eddie's arm from around her shoulders. They were barely even touching now as if some kind of act had been dropped. As if-

"Wait."

"Personally, I think I pulled off 'straight' rather well." Eddie grinned, the picture of smug pride.

"Wait. But this… this was all an act?! But you…” He pointed between Steve and Nancy.

“Listen to me very carefully, Henderson.” Steve raised his hands and began using sign language exaggeratedly along with his speech as though to really punctuate his statement. “I. Don’t want to. Be with. Nancy. Nancy. Does not want to. Be with. Me. Your plan would have never worked-”

But Dustin just couldn’t let this go. He’d been so sure.

“It would have! It would have worked! There were just some,” he gestured in Eddie’s direction, “variables we didn’t think to factor in.”

“There were a lot of variables you didn’t think to factor in. Some of the biggest being how I would feel about this whole thing!" Steve said, jabbing himself in the chest. "Or Nancy! Or Eddie! You just ploughed through without any consideration for our own emotional investments. Did you ever once stop to think why? Did you ever think there was a reason why I’ve refused every time you’ve been bugging me about pursuing Nancy again? Or Robin? Or anyone else? No, you didn’t. You just assumed I wouldn’t know what was best for me or that I wasn’t smart enough to be making my own decisions. That I don’t know my own mind as well as you do.”

Dustin winced. He knew it was a sensitive topic for Steve, people always assuming he was stupid because he couldn’t read quickly or had difficulty hearing. But that’s not what he’d done! That’s not how he’d intended it!

“That’s not-”

“Yes it is. That’s exactly what it is. I’m very familiar with it, I’ve been listening to it my whole life. People making decisions for me about school or sports or whatever because I couldn’t possibly be able to figure it out on my own? I used to see it all the time, I know what it looks like. You ignored every sign, every way this thing could have and would have gone wrong. And because you refused to consider any of these factors you could have blown up some of my most cherished friendships forever! No coming back from it. Permanently damaged. Do you have any idea what that would do to me? To us? We are not your fucking playthings to mess around with, Dustin!"

Panic was starting to settle deep in Dustin’s chest now. He needed backup, he needed something, someone, it wasn’t malicious it was just… he was just trying to help!

“Eddie?”

“Don’t look at me, I am not on your side here, Henderson. I told you how this would end when you first approached me and you wouldn’t listen.”

“But you were bluffing! There’s no way you could have known he wouldn’t want this! You don’t know Steve that well.”

“What happened to 'you're a friend his own age', huh? You’re still assuming you know everything without a complete picture. There’s a glaring puzzle piece you’re missing out on because, and I’m sorry I have to say this, you don’t look at things objectively like a scientist should. You let your emotions run you and again refuse to see past the end of your own nose.”

Dustin crossed his arms, unable to look any of them in the eye. If he had missed something it couldn’t have been something that obvious. He just needed to find out what it was.

“What could I possibly be missing?” He grumbled.

“Oh no, you don’t get to bully that information out of us." Eddie said. "If you were meant to know, then you’d know. But you don’t get to decide what secrets people do or don’t tell you. Part of being a grown up is understanding that.”

“But why… why wouldn’t you tell me something like that?”

“This. This is why, Dustin." Steve answered, running a hand through his hair. "Because you meddle. For months we’ve been telling you not to, but you don’t listen. You’ve made us feel like we have to keep things secret from you because what if you decided this secret thing is a bad thing, even though it makes the people involved happy? If you decide it’s bad or not the best course of action, you might have decided again that you know best and try to break it. Don’t even try to deny it, Dustin, you know it’s the truth.”

“But… but if you’d just told me it makes you happy-”

“You mean like how I told you I was happy where I was now and didn’t need Nancy back in my life romantically? That I was happy with how all my relationships are now?" Steve sighed, shaking his head. "You still tried to fuck with it, Dustin. You still tried to fuck with a good thing because you think you know better.”

“The both of us went to you separately and made it crystal clear that we were happy with things the way they were." Nancy said. "We’d agreed that if you backed off, we’d back off too. But you didn’t. You could’ve destroyed our friendships, destroyed our relationships, destroyed each of us mentally and emotionally. You just kept pushing. You want to be treated like a grownup? Well congrats, you got what you wished for. Consequences. No sugar coating. Grown up consequences. Just like you wanted.”

“But what about the others? They were involved too!”

“And they’ll get their punishment. But we all know you were the ringleader.” Eddie crossed his arms over his chest, unmoving.

“So that’s it? You’re happy being single? Really?” Dustin knew he was pushing. He knew he should have really kept that last comment inside, he really should have. 

Because Steve had been irritated, pissed off and upset. But now he was angry. Honestly and truly angry and Dustin didn’t think until this moment that it had ever been directed at him before.

It was a soft anger, simmering and cold and disappointed.

“You still don’t get it.”

Steve was looking at him and underneath the anger and disappointment there was also a streak of heartbreak that Dustin didn’t know what the fuck to do with.

Everyone else was looking at him now, Eddie and Robin were like marble pillars, bracketing Steve at either side with a stern look on their face, Nancy was glaring down at him and all of his friends behind him had wilted.

He was the only one left standing proud and a horrible, terrible part of his brain was saying to him that if everyone in a room was telling him he was wrong, maybe… maybe he hadn’t been as right as he was sure he had been.

“But I-” Dustin stuttered. He… he hadn’t set out to hurt Steve. He would never… “It wasn’t supposed to go like this.”

“Dustin.” That was Nancy, circling around him now until she came to a stop in front of him. “I think it’s time for you to go. All of you.”

“But-”

“If you refuse to leave, it will become trespassing.”

Trespassing? What, was Steve going to call the fucking police on him or something? But a glance back at Steve’s face, resigned and hurt and angry told him that maybe he couldn’t exactly hash everything out right now. 

He’d just have to wait for everyone to calm down and then they could work this out. 

They could work this all out, right?

“I mean, how could it all have gone so wrong?”

They were all sitting in Will's room, the whole Party in a circle on the floor. Dustin was… confused.

He was angry. He was hurt. He was… so upset. And all with himself because… well because he had hurt Steve. Had been hurting Steve for long enough that Steve felt like he had to hide things from him.

He made Steve feel like he couldn’t talk to him, tell him about this good thing in his life because he thought Dustin might fuck with it?

And yeah, Steve hid shit from them all the time.

His rocky recovery after the Upside-Down, both mentally and physically. The amount of times he had to fight off infection from the road-rash on his back and arms. The nightmares. The panic attacks. The concussions. The hearing loss.

But all those things Steve hid from them because he didn’t want them to worry, he didn’t want to burden them with their problems. 

He’d never hidden something from them, from Dustin because he was happy. 

Whatever this thing was, it apparently made Steve really, really happy and Dustin never knew. Because Steve had been afraid that if he told Dustin and Dustin didn’t like it for whatever reason, he’d try to take it away, try to meddle.

God, he was starting to hate that word. 

Meddle.

It felt so fucking childish. 

"It was never gonna go right." Max muttered from in between Lucas and El.

And Dustin didn’t know why it was that that did it, that quiet and slightly accusatory comment from Max who rarely pulled her verbal punches that caused the first tear to spill free.

And they just kept coming. His vision was blurring and there was a terrible lump in his throat, forcing its way out.

The first sob that broke through sent a ripple throughout the group, plunging them into silence and Dustin could feel them all staring. 

The next second he was set upon, everyone coming close to get their arms around him or hands on him, to comfort him even though he didn’t feel like he deserved any of it. 

“What did I do?” He blubbered. He wasn’t even sure who’s shirt he was crying into. “What do I do? Steve didn’t tell me, he won’t tell me b- because he thinks I’ll try to take it away. Wh- what do I do?”

“Dustin.” Oh, that was Lucas. He was destroying Lucas’ shirt. “Do you understand why what you did was so fucked up? I’m not asking to punish you more, but you can’t fix it until you understand what was broken. It’s science.”

Science.

Yeah, okay. He could understand that.

Can’t just smash pieces back together. You gotta examine them.

“I- I ignored all the times they told me to leave it alone?” 

Lucas nodded. “Yeah. Anything else?”

Someone was running a hand up and down his back and someone else had both his hands in a firm grip.

“I… I kept pushing. After they told me to stop. Af- after they told me they were happy. Because I thought… I thought, how could they be happy? I wouldn’t be happy in their position, so they must not be happy. And everything with Steve… trying to push Robin or Nancy towards him because… because he’s supposed to be with someone, right? And they’re his friends so why wouldn’t he want one of them?”

“Same reason you wouldn’t want me.” Max said. “Or El.”

“I did want you once.” Dustin mumbled. There was no point trying to deny the past. Not at this stage.

“And Steve wanted Robin once. But they’ve always been just friends.” One of the hands in his squeezed, and that was probably Max. “Could you imagine someone trying to force the two of us together now? After everything we’ve figured out between us?”

“B-but that’s different. You’re with Lucas.”

“So? What if I wasn’t and someone was still trying to push us together? Or what if we had to hide our relationship because of small minded idiots and we couldn’t say why you and I wouldn’t work out, we just had to hope someone would take our word for it. And then what if they didn’t and just kept pushing?”

Dustin hummed, a weak and shaky thing but he could see her point. It would be fucking torture to try to deal with all of that and to not be able to say anything about it. 

What a terrible hypothetical. 

“I…” He sniffled, trying not to wipe his nose off on Lucas’ shirt. “I need to apologise. I need… I need to talk to him.”

There was a tap on his shoulder and he glanced up to see Will holding out some tissues.

He took it with a watery smile. 

“We’ll help you figure it out.”

Part 2 AO3

@augustjustice

Big thanks as always to @hbyrde36 for her magnificent beta work and to the STWG for their motivation and @hairstevington for her help with the ASL section. 😘

[lurkingshan]

Thank you for leaving these tags @pharawee! Without getting into any speculation about how Dead Friend Forever will actually end, I do want to address your question and talk about why most of us want to see severe consequences for these boys. The short answer: it's about genre expectations and the psychological catharsis of a good revenge narrative.

To get down to the really basic point: people who love revenge thrillers love them because they are a fantasy construct in which good people survive and bad people get what they deserve. In a world where bad things happen and we rarely have any control, a good revenge story can be exhilarating, giving you the feeling that justice prevailed, villains received appropriate comeuppance for their wrongs, and the protagonist seized control back and experienced much needed catharsis for their suffering. Real life is very much not like this, which is why it's such an appealing genre of fiction.

So how do we calibrate what "appropriate comeuppance" means? This is where genre expectations become really important, because the genre the revenge narrative plays out in sets the terms for where that bar sits. In The Glory, a recent world class revenge drama, we were in the psychological thriller genre, so revenge came in the form of Dong Eun playing mind games with her bullies until they destroyed their own lives. No murder necessary. Dead Friend Forever, however, is in the horror genre, and specifically began its story by planting itself in the slasher subgenre, giving us a masked killer and setting up expectations that these boys are being hunted. When you watch a slasher, you come in with the mindset that most of the characters are going to die and begin rooting for it and looking for reasons why they "deserve" it. And typically, in a slasher, it takes very little for a character to "deserve" a death--you often see people die for the tiniest infractions, like making a rude comment, telling a bad joke, or having sex. But DFF went much farther than that and gave us a multi episode flashback in which we got a detailed accounting of every wrong this group of boys committed against Non, increasing the audience's bloodlust and conviction that these boys needed to pay.

So why do so many of us want the bullies to die? Because the genre demands it, and the story set the audience up to expect it from the outset. I have seen some discussion of the way the show is blending different horror subgenres and not sticking strictly to typical slasher conventions, and that's true, and expected. Slashers are usually two hours max, and this show needed to fill 10+ hours of content, so it's doing a really interesting blend of slasher, mystery, psychological thriller, and other horror subgenres. But the bones of the story still hold, and despite the storytelling choice to give the villains some nuance and fleshed out motivations for their behavior, they are still villains who destroyed Non's life. If you're feeling overly sympathetic to any of these boys at present, I encourage you to go back and remind yourself how they behaved in the early episodes of this story, which took place after the events of the flashbacks. These are not genuinely remorseful kids who made minor mistakes and then got their acts together and became upstanding citizens; they just want to move on and avoid blame and accountability for what they did, while Non's entire family was irrevocably destroyed by their actions.

If this story ends without Por, Tee, Top, Fluke, Jin, and Phee suffering genre appropriate consequences for their choices that harmed and betrayed Non, it will be a letdown and many will feel unsatisfied. In real life, we may believe that forgiveness is the right path, and we know that Buddhism teaches unconditional forgiveness. But this is not real life. This is a fantasy genre that is specifically meant to provide an escape from the constraints of real life morality and obligations. No one wants to show up to a fantasy party only to receive a moral scolding. The most disappointing thing a revenge narrative can do is wimp out on delivering the actual revenge.

[ilikekidsshows]

Usually I like a character with a red flag, that's why my list of favorite characters is mostly villain or dark hero because there's something intriguing about that type of character. For some times I've been wondering why Marinette just turned me off despite having the personality trait that I usually like and reading your responses to your asks just make me realize why.

She just has no interesting background story to back her red flagness. ._.

It just like you said, Naofumi has a reason why he choose to abandoned his heart and compassion. And it's not just Naofumi. Most if not all the fallen hero or villain characters has something, a reason, why they become a villain or fallen hero. Marinette has none.

She's. Just. Being. Spoiled. Rotten.

Even as a hero she also has nothing that make her as interesting character, she's literally a normal girl with a normal life who happen to part time as a hero just because a magical jewel happened to appear on her room.

I've seen people said Adrien has no motivation to be a hero, but I'd say it's Marinette who has none. Because if she has motivation to be a hero then she won't be as passive as she is.

Also, lately I've seen news about some DEI companies hiring that happened overseas and of there's DEI hiring in miraculous, Marinette would definitely be it. Because there's nothing bout her that screamed a hero, she just doesn't has it in her. I mean this is a girl who would wither away in almost every little inconvenience possible, she doesn't have that conviction to be a hero or even protecting anyone. If your hero need external validation for every inconvenience then maybe they're not a hero and shouldn't be one.

---

Exactly. Also, just like a lot of people are saying, Marinette’s descent into villainy could be interesting if that was what the writers were intending to do. If the point was that Marinette’s past of being coddled, excused and validated at every turn has led her to consider others as nothing more than existing for her benefit, that could be interesting in how the story chooses to tackle and resolve that. But that’s very much not what is happening. We’re supposed to side with her or at least be ready to forgive her the instant her lip wobbles and she cries about what a terrible person she is again. We’re supposed to think she’s justified or just stressed out. All of our sympathy should go to her instead of her victims just because she is Marinette, the greatest Ladybug ever.

Shows with villain or fallen hero protagonists acknowledge that what their protagonist is doing is morally wrong, so they put effort into making that protagonist someone you want to root for in other ways. They make the villainy over the top and entertaining, they give the protagonist an understandable reason to act the way they do so that the viewer can get into their head, or they make the opposition of the protagonist even worse and therefore deserving of comeuppance. I very much enjoyed Death Note in my youth while fully realizing Light was a villain protagonist, because the story does all of these things at some point during the manga's run.

Episodes like ‘Derision’, ‘Adoration’ and ‘Confrontation’ make it seem like the writers were, on some level, aware of Marinette’s lack of rootability, but they couldn’t bring themselves to cause her enough hardships to bring her to the level of characters like Naofumi. Chloé traumatized Marinette a year before the show, but in a way that it doesn’t really affect her at all except to excuse the way she acts around Adrien. Chloé and Lila try to frame Marinette for theft but fail immediately. Chloé and Lila mess with everyone’s school forms and something that should be resolved with everyone in class complaining instead requires Marinette to break the law to “expose” Lila and Chloé, but even that was a single-episode plot.

Despite all these efforts, the problem of rootability still persists, however, in that, outside of these two very specific characters, everyone is constantly showering Marinette or Ladybug in adoration. She isn’t entitled to the things she claims she is, like Adrien, and she isn’t enough of an underdog to justify her stepping on others to get to what she wants. But she still does it. She only hangs out with her friends to order them around to help her accomplish her goals and she constantly requires emotional support from the people around her for her nonexistent or self-caused problems while offering none in return.

[ghoularaki]

you ddon't have to do this at all but I wanted to ask for villain Deku hc/scenarios because I really love your fic "the lonely district"

i am so sorry this took forever and i'm so glad you liked it!!

tw: yandere! midoriya, stalking

first off, midoriya did not mean to go missing the day bakugou was attacked by the slime monster. it was pure coincidence. after being completely and utterly humiliated after being rejected by all might, he frankly lost all his will to live.

standing on the edge of a building just as bakugou told him to, he really contemplated ending it then and there. from a distance he watched to world move on without him. no one would miss him if he was go besides his mother and maybe you, but you had kacchan so you'll be okay.

just as he was about to end it all, a voice called out to him.

"you hate them too, huh?"

turning around he saw a boy a few years old than him, eyes and neck covered in scars. his scratchy voice beckoned him like a siren call. "you hate how the heroes and all their stupid worshippers never get their just desserts."

usually midoriya would refute. he loved heroes, he loved quirks, but for once in his life he voiced his deepest, darkest thoughts. "yeah i do."

then and there shigaraki made a deal with midoriya, join him and his cause and they can reap the benefits of the new society they create, devoid of heroes and were villains get their comeuppance. he introduced midoriya to afo and told him about his... situation. ever the benevolent man, afo offered midoriya a quirk as long as he stood by shigaraki.

midoriya rapidly agreed. he would honestly agree to anything to get a quirk—liking shigaraki was a bonus. so afo handed him a very simple quirk, a subtle one so midoriya could stay under the radar.

he was gifted heightened senses. his hearing was decibels beyond a human's capabilities. he could see farther and in the dark, he could smell something from miles away. he could almost taste the chemical makeup of anything he consumed. he was stronger and faster than ever before. and most importantly his intuition had developed so much he could predict anyone's movements. people became mere chess boards pieces, only able to move in certain spots.

as he gained his power and developed it until it was his own through painstaking trial and error, he sulked in the shadows never once leaving bakugou and most importantly, you.

he watched you closely as you slowly lost your mind from his disappearance. he watched outside your window the first couple of weeks as you did anything you could to find him. if only you knew he was right outside. you watched you blossom into the hero you are today.

his glowing eyes saw it all. how you forced yourself into the darkness over and over. shrouded in fear, vomit pouring from your lips as you tried to control your quirk. how you strived to become a hero so you could be strong enough one day to save people like him and bakugou.

it was admirable, but sickeningly naive. as the months passed, he grew to hate you too.

so when the league of villains first attacked, he relentlessly targeted you. the hope in your eyes quickly diminishing into confusion, he drank it up. you never once fought him, you ran away any chance you could. you refused to fight him. at first he took it as an insult. do you see him as weak? not good enough to give the time of day now. but he soon realized, no, you were the weak one.

as bakugou swooped in to save the day, he let him. he would get his revenge soon enough.

midoriya didn't really care when the league dissolved and he was left on his own. after a while he didn't care for afo's plans anymore. all he wanted was bakugo and you.

the years truly made him grow fonder. he didn't check on bakugou as much as he did you. midoriya knew to be weary of the man. he wasn't as rash as he was as children. his intuition could be compared to his and it set him on edge. bakugou was to perceptive for his own good.

but you, oh sweet you. you hadn't changed much. you still carried that naivety to you. despite all you had gone through, you still saw the best in everyone especially bakugou. for some reason you two never once left each other, like two binary stars, chaotically swirling around until the one would eventually consume the other.

in private, you two would be attached to the hip, but oddly any time you were put on missions together it was like dogs and cats fighting. for once, midoriya would see that feisty side you never showed him.

since he was on the run, dipping in and out of areas to avoid being sent to tartarus, he frequented your apartment. you were rarely home. so on difficult days when he knew you weren't home, he would crash on your mattress.

he knew you feared him. it wasn't hard to tell with how you actively avoided any area he was spotted in and actively dreaded having to check it out with bakugou. but it almost seemed you didn't want to find him, not out of fear for yourself, but for him.

though the glimpses he got of you and not being able to touch you started to get to him. he couldn't take it anymore. he longed for since you were children, and though the love had no longer been pure, he didn't care.

he would destroy you until you were his and he wouldn't mind taking bakugou along with you.

[wombywoo]

Thank you for all your answers! I can't explain how excited I am about this story of yours. I want to gnaw on your brain. 😅 Hope that doesn't sound too weird.

Marc is one fucked up guy. They need to arrest him because that's so damn bad. Seriously, how did Quinn get away from him? Why do I get the feeling that Quinn didn't fully get away from him?? Is he going to make a surprise villain appearance? D=

I think Danny and Vincent should team up and stab Marc. <3

Please tell me Quinn doesn't pull the same choking RACK stuff with Vincent. I can't imagine Vincent would be happy with Quinn pushing himself like that, even if he's feeling low.

I know a psych eval would bench Quinn forever, and that wouldn't be good for him, but boy does that boy need some better coping mechanisms. A couple of therapists. A lot of hugs. Just, all the love.

I'm glad Vincent cares about Quinn so much, but I'm also excited for the potential drama as he tries to get Quinn realise he cares about him. It sounds like Quinn is going to make it as difficult as possible for Vincent before melting into his arms.

I'd love to know more about Vincent's complicated feelings, especially about the evil vampires, and Quinn's visions. I just love hearing all your speculations and lore domes, no matter how drama or trauma filled they may be. <3

Please by all means continue munching my brain, it's very motivating !!!!

Marc is the worst for sure. And his ass needs to be incarcerated stat, but unfortunately he's rich and powerful, sooooo... dot dot dot Quinn had 'broken up' with him a few times, but there was always a something pulling him back, so maybe he's still feeling that tether.... (don't worry, Marc will have his comeuppance eventually, I am just building sweet sweet tension)

I would not be opposed to Vince and Danny giving him a stab or two 🤔..

(And he will make an appearance btw; his company is funding the task force, hehehe.....)

As for Quinn and his, uhh. not great habits in the bedroom, that's also something that may come up as a point of drama. I can see him trying to push Vincent into being rough with him, even taking it too far when he's feeling particularly..not great. Predictably, Vincent will not be a fan of this, hence the ✨drama✨ I do think they can eventually develop some healthier bdsm-type stuff for Quinn, but for now--he's not got the best history with sexual risk-taking, and he's probably going to steer towards something that's not very safe or sane 😬

asdfgh honestly at this point, I'm not even sure if there's therapy strong enough to help him 😭 Which is why it's crucial that he has Vincent now, and more importantly--FIG, who is perhaps the best thing he has for feeling good and happy in his life 🥺🙏 hugs are also appreciated

There will definitely be a lot of future drama, in fact, I keep chewing over potential scenes and rubbing my hands together like a totally normal not-insane villain...

Vincent is *very* concerned about Quinn's visions, moreso than Quinn himself. He's got sooo many questions and very little answers. And his ties to certain evil vampires in the past might start becoming relevant again, so that's always fun to revisit....

I have a loooot more stuff I've been contemplating, so I will share accordingly, or perhaps get off my ass and actually write this damn thing 😤 Please standby <3

[pendwelling]

Helloo,sorry for the trouble but could you tell me a bit about the ending of twsb? Is it a happy ending? Do all the main 3 get to live together? I am still in 170s as there is no other eng translation out there to read ahead... 🥺. I would really appreciate your help as the curiosity is killing me.

//SPOILERS FOR TWSB ENDING!!!!!!//

I answered a similar question on twt/x so I'll just elaborate on my answer from there haha:

It's a very VERY happy ending!!!!! Think of all the struggles and desires of the main characters and imagine them finally getting peace, solace, and happiness. TWSB at its core had always been a very character-driven story where the goals and desires of the characters were what largely push the plot forward, and after all their struggles, you can tell the ending was lovingly crafted over a careful build-up of 920 chapters. They all get their resolution, and character who have went through tragedies get their second chances at living a kinder life, and the villains get their comeuppance in the fair way that TWSB tends to treat its antagonists (there's also proper trial investigations being done and etc etc, politics and court affairs in this novel is actually so interesting.)

All the characters have obtained their perfect endings in their fitting respective ways! It's a super gratifying conclusion for readers, and the thing about Sookym is that they also do a great job in making us care (or feel strong emotions towards) their large cast of characters.

In a more meta sense (since TWSB, for its genre, is surprisingly very meta)(and this is also a spoiler in regards to the universe's God), the "God" wishes for the main characters to be happy, and so the story has shifted itself so that a happy ending is something that our beloved characters are finally able to achieve for themselves without outside interference of original narrative structure forces (think of it a bit like ORV's Probability, TWSB has something similar to that). And in fact, for both the TWSB universe, AND the original QPB universe, as well. I can also confirm that the original Jesse Venetiaan gets his well-deserved happy ending, too! 🥹

Yeseo does indeed get to reunite with his siblings, too, and he ALSO gets to live with Cédric and Ham Ga-in Christelle on the weekends! (Despite pretty much being "married" into the Imperial Family and becoming Pope, this guy still chooses to work his usual 9-to-5 in the modern world LMAO.....)

There is an inter-world arrangement going on that is a bit hard to explain because there's a lot of context behind how it came to be haha, but basically Yeseo is essentially a bride that moves between households after getting married (LMAO). Everyone is very happy! Cédric especially, is very very smug that he gets to keep his beloved partner close by—he even safely escorts Yeseo back home like a dutiful partner whenever he needs to go back to his family home HAHAHA. Jung Hyunseo and him kinda have some beef over it, actually (Hyunseo: "this is his home?? why does he need an escort...." *insert smug Cédric face*). Hyunseo is really the older brother who has to deal with the antics of eccentric otherworldly in-laws and a model-student younger brother who has now grown up to be a bit of a troublemaker..... (There's a scene where Yeseo shows up and goes "Here's our baby!" while holding pretty-much-their-baby(DONT ASK WKDJKD)(AND NO THERES NO MPREG) and gives Hyunseo a near heart attack while Cédric looks so so so smug and self-fulfilled, he's such a brat..... (affectionate)).

All in all, after the war between the Riester Empire (with the allied forces of other countries + Crown Princess Elise) and the Sneijders of Venetiaan, there are award ceremonies (several characters get promoted or given new titled ranks), memorials and eulogies for those fallen in the war, and a very well wrapped-up conclusion to this huge conflict (again politics in TWSB are actually very interesting and really well done imo). It largely has to do with the Almighty God, as well, but I won't say much about that because 1.) It's a revelation that is best made while reading yourself, and 2.) It's a bit complicated to understand without the proper context anyway hahajah....

(I can also confirm that future emperor Cédric probably won't have to worry about siring an heir. Congratulations to Yeseo for essentially being the queerplatonic mother to his two partners' "children".....)(this sounds absolutely crazy but it makes sense OK trust me, but anyway, CYC are partners and I trust that they will continue to support each other for a long, long time hehe)

It's super, super satisfying, and a very happy ending for Yeseo and friends! :')

[purplerakath]

Cobra Kai and Accidentally Going too hard on the Iron Dragons

So the Iron Dragons are kind of... a problem. The showrunners and writers had an idea for them, but the execution went a little too hard at it, and we kinda need to deal with it.

Cut for spoilers and also talk about SA and how writers don't understand SA when the victim is a man and the abuser is attractive and female. (But I'll keep that to the end, and warn before I get into it if you wanna read about Axel and Wolf first.)

Dr. Frankenstein's Axel

So Axel is the most sympathetic of the three, he's big and powerful but also a victim (of Sensei Wolf) and generally just weird. Not intended to be harmful, but that how big and powerful he is isn't the end of who he is.

And yet they botched the landing.

See, if he was big and powerful and used what Sensei Wolf taught him to try to 'protect' Sam that'd put him in the tragic monster camp. That he cares for the only person to give him kindness, but shows it through the tools he has at hand: violence.

However he's covetous of her when she isn't in actual threat. So it reads more possessive and sinister than the writers probably meant. Having him menacingly stare at Miguel. Which is probably an emotional beat they didn't mean to hit.

Of the two botched landing, this is botched less, but in the same direction. They know what they wanted, but didn't land the nuance well.

Sidebar: Axel's physicality, as in how large and imposing he is, how good he is at violence, is a part of the tragedy. He was shaped generally scary and honed to match that impression. When he didn't need to be.

Sensei Abusive Jerkface

So Sensei Wolf is meant to be evil, and he's meant to be evil in direct mirror to Johnny. This works. He's in the grown-ups world so he's allowed to be more out and out evil because he's why the kids aren't alright. (Kreese, Kim, and Terry are also more overtly evil than say Tory, Kenny, or even someone like Kyler.)

Sam seeing him be abusive to Axel in the same ep that Johnny is getting all uppity and Cobra Kai-y with the kids (because Daniel is kidnapped) is meant to draw this comparison.

This one they did not botch the landing. He's bad and he's the level of bad you expect.

Zara (without the SA)

So Zara is meant to be selfish and two-faced, she's a girl's villain. She flaunts herself and is egotistical, but she has the skills to back it up. She acts nice in public but cuts with words the moment she doesn't have 'her' audience. She's in the same vein as Yasmine from S1 but actually will kick your teeth in.

And her sleeping with Robbie is meant to be her undercutting Tory off the mats mostly for fun, and because she can. And if a pissed off 'thinks Tory has already cheated on him' sober Robby slept with her, it'd be tacky and Robby would feel bad and it'd make Robby and Tory awkward for the rest of the season (which is the intent).

The issue is a Robby who has believed Cobra Kai lies sleeping with Zara sober would come off as an asshole, and the show decided to hedge that bet. Having him be drunk to make him more likely to go along with it makes sense, there can't possibly be anything else going on here, right?

The intended girl is loathsome, she's meant to be about as endearing as S1 Yasmine (compare to say S1 Moon who is far more endearing, or S3 Yasmine who has a soul). She's intended to be very satisfying to see get her comeuppance. But they made her worse than intended due to a stupid social standard.

Conclusion

Conclusion before the Zara SA stuff for people who don't wanna read that.

The intentions behind each character, abusive jackass teacher, abused well meaning large boy, and self-obsessed bitch (not super fond of the language but that's essentially the point the writers were trying to hit here) are good antagonists for the season. We don't need Axel to be villainous in the same way Kwon is, because we have (well, had) Kwon for that.

But they missed the mark by yards (Axel) and miles (Zara) on the execution. Making them far worse than intended. The same mistake, but on massively different scales.

And now Zara (with the SA)

So the problem is that they (the writers) did not realize if they swapped the genders around how BAD this looks. Because there is a fundamental disconnect in society as a whole that consent laws DO MATTER. Consent laws matter when the girl is hot and the boy fundamentally cannot say yes. This is the third show I've run into that hit this plot point, and this is the third show to miss the mark.

Even The Fosters, which had a male character who was too drunk to consent sleep with a female character sober enough to know better, focused less on the 'he's too drunk to consent' part. The show was more focused on the 'she is around a decade older than him, he is a minor, and she's a manipulative abuser playing everyone in her orbit like fiddles. She is also dating his dad.' So while the show did say 'sleeping with fully smashed boy bad' it didn't focus on that being the whole of it.

The other example, Degrassi, had a protagonist do this shit. Then it plays out as 'he's a cheating cad' when he had dumped her, and only slept with her because 'he was both blackout drunk and had lingering head trauma' which made him pliable. The writers did not see the line they were crossing due to a fundamental social idea that 'all boys are down for sex even if they can't say yes.'

They wanted to absolve Robby of his responsibility. So he would be well and truly without weight in making 'this mistake' (the writer's thoughts). Which in turn means a setting where he could not consent, and so the writers accidentally wrote a rape plot. They didn't mean to, they didn't mean to have Zara be THAT evil.

But here we are. The only advantage Cobra Kai has is we're not suppose to like Zara. We're not even suppose to like her as much as S3 Tory. Who is a messy complicated thing to root for, who does very bad things but she's been through it.

So... congrats, Zara is the worst teenager on the show. Don't attempt to redeem her ever.

[lol-jackles]

https://x.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1816896612767010938/quotes

Yikes, a lot of these quotes are.... not super great for the show lol. Just a sampling of some of the ones I saw:

are they fr ??? trust me, nobody wants to see that nazi bitch on their screens a spin-off following a nazi and a racist a spin-off show following a nazi…. for what During this era, Stormfront was killing black people she encounters alone. The ‘twisted murder mystery’ is just Stormfront trying to exterminate black people. Do we really need a series of Stormfront k wording a bunch of POC people with no comeuppance? Can't wait for the seires to make Nazi's be misunderstood 😐 I like the show but can we admit The Boys as a brand is no longer satire? It’s literally the very thing that it’s satirizing but with the opposite tone. A show with 2 racist characters as the lead is not what I was expecting. this is about to bring another massive wave of annoying fans into this fandom it’s so unbelievably over

So lots of fans having the same reaction I did - a bigot and n@zi as your co-leads???? And it's going to be a film noir murder mystery as well.... In case you wanted to solve the case of why tf they thought this was a good idea.

Kripke called it "LA Confidential with superheroes":

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C96eorCREgK/

Link and Link. Yeah those were my first thoughts. It's like Amazon saw how much people liked watching Homelander almost lose his shit every season and said, "We'll give them a new show with two villains who are his dad and lover!" Except neither Jensen nor Aya is Anthony Starr. Add that prequels have the problem of low stakes and then you have unchecked power and no consequences which isn't exactly an outrageous concept at the moment.

LA Confidential huh? Lemme guess, Kripke only remember the scene of prostitutes forced to get plastic surgery to look like Hollywood stars like Rita Hayworth and Shirley Temple.

My guess is Solider Boy starts out like Ed Exley, an ambitious detective investigating a murder and uncovers corruption within the LAPD. But unlike Ed who was only slightly corrupted by the system, SB goes all into becoming corrupt because of his ego.

[scumashling]

Thooughts on Redo of Healer/A Whump Rewrite

CW: mentions of abuse, physical torture, noncon, misogyny, homophobia and slavery below

Incoming long post. It does have a point.

So, awhile back before I made this account I decided to do an endurance watch of a somewhat infamous anime entitled Redo of Healer. For those of you blessed with ignorance, Redo is a dark fantasy harem romance/rape revenge story based on the light novel of the same name by Rui Tsukiyo.

Set in the Kingdom of Jioral, a kingdom currently at war with the Demon population and built on the slave trade of the demi human population, the story follows Keyaru, a Healing class hero, who after 4 years of being enslaved for his uniquely miraculous abilities, (and enduring a fuck ton of emotional, physical and sexual abuse along the way) embarks on a brutal quest for revenge against his sadistic former party members/tormentors, (Bullet the Cannon Hero, Blade the Sword Hero, and most prevalently, Princess Flare, the Magician Hero who orchestrated his drugging and imprisonment.)

He gets Flare first, escaping prison, cornering her in her own soundproof bedroom, and proceeding to torture her physically and eventually violently raping her. So, now that he's gotten his revenge, does he just kill her? Call it a day and leave her a broken, ruined mess like she did to him? I mean. What more could he possibly do to bring her lower?

He changes both their faces, fakes both their deaths, erases her memories, and when she comes too, he tells his named is Keyaruga (groan) her she's his loyal attendant and lover, dubs her Freiya, and immediately coerces her into having sex with him. They then embark on a journey to destroy the Kingdom she doesn't know is hers.

Along the way, he slowly begins recruiting more girls into this party/builds a harem, often by coercive or outright nonconsensual mean like drugging/brainwashing and having a lot of sex with

Setsuna- A slave demi human wolf girl named that he purchases as a battle slave/it's okay she wants to be a slave because he's just so great

Kureha- A knight of the Kingdom who Keyaruga who he drugs and raped after she attacks him

Eve-a extremely powerful demon girl. The only one he doesn't coerce into fucking him

(note: below is all my subjective opinion.)

I wanna stress that while it is a very Whump heavy story, Redo is extremely Not Good and I cannot recommend it. And I'm not just saying that because it's a rape porn with high production values (though it has a pretty intolerable amount of extremely brutal rape for anyone who either doesn't have a hardcore CNC kink or who's brain isn't broken from reading violent fanfiction at age 13 like yours truly),it is genuinely one of the worst written pieces of fiction I've ever read. The pacing is terrible, the magic system is generic , the dialogue is atrocious, try character designs are so mediocre ( wow another hot girl with gigantic tits? How did you come up with that idea?!), the villains are all vile depraved power tripping rapist idiots who immediately get their comeuppance by the equally vile protagonist, who is always one step ahead is also so insufferably smug. Its also extremely edgy and lazy in regards to how it treats shit like slavery (pure shock value pretty much,). Because plot and theme is not the point though, the torture porn is.

Redo of Healer is also, and I cannot stress this enough, extremely extremely homophobic ( if you disagree that's fine you're allowed to be wrong <3) I won't go into it too much bc this post is already long but Blades character can be be described as every horrible stereotypes about lesbians stacked on top of each other in a trench coat. The author is so transparently trying to offend me by writing her this way that she actually has the opposite effect and gives me the giggles. Which now that I type that out is kind how I feel about the whole story. it's a pretty terribly male power fantasy about a terrible violent man who sexually tortures slightly more terrible violent men and women. And quite frankly, when I watching it , all I could think was "I could write this so much better."

Because see, even though everything I said before about redo is true, i also find it incredibly interesting:

There are a lot of Whump tropes in redo. Slavery, dehumanization, beatings, bastards Whumpees getting revenge on lady Whumpers, conditioning I think? intimate and sadistic whumpers, mind control whump, non consensual drugging, human pets. Theres prob more I forgot. They aren't handled well but they are there.

I love the rape revenge genre. I have vivid memories of getting together with my teen girls friends and watching Jennifer Hills and Hailey Stark tear apart some bastards. Based shit.

Redo is the first male victim on female perpetrator rape revenge media I've come across. it is also, the first I've seen where a victim makes their rapist into a willing sex slave as part of their revenge.

There are story elements and themes that do hold potential, specifically around power and the places lines between victim and abuser get blurry. Eg: Keyarga assumes locking away Flare's memories has made her into a new person, because Freiya is so sweet, and Flare is an abusive bitch. He eventually has to come to terms with the fact that he didn't erase Flare. They are they same person. Freiya is sweet because she has none of Flares life experience, and is with someone who shows her love and appreciation. More if this instead of a smug asshole fucking hot women because he can

When I found myself disgusted I briefly entertained the thought that I might be sexist. analyzing that thought for more then a minute I realized that ridiculous. I don't hate it for being a male rape revenge, I hate it because it's a male power fantasy. And I hate it because of Keyarga. Because he is a man who is constantly drugging and brainwashing recruiting women who cross him into his slave battle harem, all of whom he rapes has sex with aside from Eve, and even if he's not framed as a good person, he's framed as a badass. People who feel entitled to hurt others because they were hurt are not badass. They are pathetic. And more importantly, they are broken. Any story about people like him worth it's salt with acknowledge that.

TLDR I am re writing Redo Of Healer as a Serious Story about a Bastard Whumpee Who Brainwashes and Enslaves his Whumper, and Falls in love with her in the process.

It's still in its early stages. I have some picrews, some plot outlining and the basic jist of how I want to change about the characters and what I want to keep, and my partner, who's more familiar with fantasy RPG stuff, is helping me develop the magic system into something more interesting. But I do want to thank this community because I've been stewing on this horrifying story about torture and the nature of power for so long wondering who would want to read it and now that I've learned of Whump I know there is actually a chance that there is an audience.

Anyway, I've been typing way too long. I will post more about this at another time.

Also a reminder, I am new to writblr and to tumblr in general. Im still finding my footing in terms of some of the functions of the site and the etiquette/social norms/terminology, or like, the ways people follow each other's writing? Idk where I'm going with this just please keep that in mind

[hawthornsword]

Bad Batch 3x4 thoughts:

I LOVE that despite Crosshair previously complaining that she doesn't have much of plan, she actually does. It's just high on goals and low on actionable steps. The step she has thought of, while nearly crashing to her death flying the shuttle, is to get coordinates of Tantiss so they can go back. Her plan is to rescue her brothers. ALL of them. It's not even a question for her. It's assumed, and she's surprised when that's not everyone else's priority too.

She's such a sweet sweet kid. She doesn't want to hurt anyone even though she can and has and knows sometimes she has to. She's so good.

"Stow it." - sounds like something Hunter or Echo would say, lol. I wonder how often she reminds Crosshair of his brothers.

I love that despite that Crosshair is theorectically the older, more mature, more experienced one, when Omega wants to try something - he lets her try. To try and fail is often how you learn, and she's so thoughtful and determined and eager that she is always working out how to make an obstacle into an opportunity. That is how highly successful people think. Crosshair sees this and gives her the room to try and to fail and to grow, all while his own respect for his sister is growing.

Also,

Omega: I don't want to hurt anyone.

Crosshair, internally probably: I DO!!!

🤣🤣🤣 "a temporary requisition of funds" - you can tell Sid has been her babysitter. She didn't learn everything from her brothers.

"And if you lose?" - Don't worry Cross, that's when you get to start shooting. 🤣

Omega continues to impress me. She was pretty annoying in the beginning of season one, but that's to be expected because she was a little kid. She's grown and learned so much and now she's showing so much maturity. She's not going to compromise her morals just because her scary big brother she wanted to rescue says so. Like yes, practically speaking, leaving Batcher behind is the safe thing to do, but Star Wars heroes don't win by abandoning their allies. That's one of the entire themes of the whole thing. You stick by your friends, no matter what, and that's how you win. She stands her ground.

"My skills are being wasted." Crosshair is willing to let Omega lead I think because he's out of his depth a bit in civilian territory, still used to a straitforward battlefield, while Omega's entire experience outside of Kamino is in situations like this. So despite that the adult should be taking care of the kid in this situation, she's the one who knows what she's doing. But he also points out to her not to waste the advantage he brings to the table, because he knows at this point that she's got a strategic mind and can factor that in in some useful way. They're becoming such a good team I'm so excited!!!!

"All right. Let's try things your way." She's responding to the imperial, but glances at Crosshair to indicate it's his turn to shine. Chef's kiss, 10/10. I adore little things like that.

Release the animals!!!! Yes, good, classic distraction shenanigans! Comeuppance for the villain without the heroes even having to do anything is so delicious. And they even got away with their credits! I'm having such a good time!

Hah, Omega being sassy. She's thoroughly into teenager-hood.

Oh shit the dramatic lighting on that shot of Hemlock standing at the crashed shuttle is gorgeous. Also really enjoy his quiet rage. He's such a good villain.

Poor Crosshair still can't quite let himself hope...

Oh god, that quiet moment of arriving home. That's beautiful.

Wrecker greeting her first, no hesitation, complete joy. And then Hunter following, hesitating. He must be feeling so guilty that he couldn't save his girl, that she had to do it by herself. So, so, proud, but wishing he'd been better so she didn't have to.

Wait, what, NO! I wanted the emotional Hunter Crosshair reunion damnit!!!!

Ugh, okay that was really good. I'm quite happy.

[mdhwrites]

I'm sure I'd be called crazy by the fandom for this but I actually feel bad for Belos.

After the (obvious) reveal that he was a human I didn't like him, rather I hated the idea than the character, because I much more preferred the mysterious figure he was in s1. However the Wittebane brothers conflict was an interesting concept I was curious about until it got no resolution on how things escalated to the current situations.

So I agree Belos is boring (become so to me since mid S2), but I can't hate him.

Especially when it's SO obvious that the writers want me to hate him and they're so insistent about it. It was the same thing with Odalia too, (and Boscha to some degree). And when I can see through the stupid decisions these characters are made to do, despite being nonsensical, it gives me the opposite effect and makes me pity them for the simple fact they've been done dirty. I may also do it out of spite because I hate when a show basically tells me what to do. In this case how I should feel about these characters because they are so evil~ , ok and? I get the idea, are you gonna do anything else besides this?

So the villains that I'm supposed to hate I don't hate. But (ironic) the villains that I'm not supposed to hate, I DO actually hate, which is the collector, for the same reasons you said before, he's really flawed as a character and that sad story of him being a misunderstood child didn't sell me shit, I rolled my eyes.

So this has me torn between talking about The Hand of the Author and kind of the sliding scale of villainy and its weird impact on your audience. I feel like this is mostly about Belos and why his actions never really sell you on him being a monster so let's talk about the inverted relationship between a villain's action and audience response. What am I talking about? Well... It's effectively why our response to someone killing a dog is "I'm so ready to see that fucker die," possibly even with a smile on our face while our response to someone grimacing at a person of color makes our blood boil but then the dude who kills a thousand people by destroying an entire town still needs to give us a reason to care. One is active aggression and the taking of a life while the other is a microaggression... But one that most people will actually relate to. And the last one is so beyond the realm of believability or resonance that it doesn't actually leave much of an impact. Boiled down: It's why the fandom absolutely despises Odalia and Bosch but this is the THIRD ASK where someone goes "I never got into Belos as the most evil thing there". Belos is evil to absurdity. He's killed a LOT of people for really BAD reasons so HATE HIM. Meanwhile, Boscha's just a bitch and not even that good of one and yet people HAAAATE HER. This is why it's an inverted relationship. The more a character is strictly evil, the less an audience is actually going to hate them because often times in order to do so, they become more of a caricature and their actions frankly get more absurd from a human standpoint. Meanwhile, a character who wouldn't even be tried for a crime in real life but is still doing harm is seen as much more evil because that's all too real to the human experience.

This isn't purely meta though. Part of it is that the more plainly evil a character is, the more subconsciously an audience knows they're going to get their comeuppance. This is probably part of why people hate the SU finale so much because these people have done such awful, horrendous, unforgivable things and instead of a punch out or punishment, they're talked down. I haven't seen the finale though so I can't say too much. Quick tangent: The other way around is almost as bad. I've seen Belos' death scene and I despise it because that is not Luz standing there. That is a commentary on "Happy Ever After" endings where even the villain gets to live or the main characters are just that kind hearted. TOH goes so far as to almost characterize even RAINE as being GLEEFUL in murdering this man who is already dying. There's a reason why more finales who want this will have the main character, who is good hearted enough to not want to see life lost, be pulled away by a more morally nuanced character who says it's better this way. Neither is expressing joy but they both recognize the danger needs to be dealt with so they can't save him. It keeps your good guys looking good while allowing for a final moment of moral complexity about when the kindness of the main character finally runs out. Then again, that implies Luz is an actually kind character who has endless amounts of love to give and is not just blessed by the author to make friends with anyone they want to.

Sorry. Back on track. This meta context makes it so that a pure evil villain, one who does things that are entirely unrepentant, is flagged as going to be taken down someday. There's no coming back for them. Someone with more nuance or does smaller aggressions though can still appear human which makes the actions feel less like the writer's evil thoughts made manifest and instead like a person who had the choice one day to be mean or kind... And chose mean. And that they may never choose kindness but that the chance is always there. And not only is that more compelling, it's far more painful to the audience. It's effectively what I HAVE to write a lot for Rich Witch because these characters claim to be friends but have been raised in a way that makes the inherent act of friendship almost toxic... But you can see glimpses of better. Moments like Igni and Azu talking about a book series they like. Blair and Pythia showing real care for each other. Azu opening up and taking risks with Daina even while she keeps such strict control over the rest of the friend group and even Daina. It's meant to be frustrating because that's where they're going to grow out of. And this is also why the show's attempts at humanizing Belos, at trying to pull back from him pure evil, is actually worse than him being one note. I've talked to MANY people about the fact that Rich Witch is a LONG series because these complications require time, effort and focus not only to make not all be lip service (Hi Hunter) or feel rushed (Hi Amity to some extent, because while Lumity doesn't feel rushed, your character development does). It is genuinely good sometimes to just have a one note, but fun, villain that an audience can be excited to see curb stomped. They don't need much fleshing out. They don't even need much screentime because they can set up their credentials REAL FAST. But then we get into the inherent issue with TOH: It knows one note villains are not something people praise... But it doesn't know why a show like Avatar still has Ozai. Because Ozai is not a complex villain. Any complexity comes from his children but we learn honestly very little about him throughout the series besides him being a bastard and that works GREAT. It gives us a moral opposite to Aang, who constantly tries to do right by everyone, his evil justifies Azula's evil and why we would go so far against his son and banish him and allows us to understand why the Fire Nation is as ruthless as it is... All without wasting much time! I'm pretty sure the closest we get to a real episode that is an equivalent to Hollow Mind for Ozai is pretty much during the invasion of the Black Sun when Zuko defects... AND IT'S STILL NOT EVEN MAIN PLOT OF THE EPISODE! Because what's important there is the deep villain, not the one note one. And yet TOH devoted so much time to Belos while ignoring Hunter besides backstory implications which is not how you flesh out one of your theoretically main characters at that point. Because it doesn't want to be accused of having a basic villain despite all the fun people have had with characters like the Joker.

And frankly, I feel like that comes down to not understanding either the importance of that inversion. Something going for horror or cruelty might try to humanize to cause discomfort in an audience. A reflection of our own reality but also broken is going to hurt more. But... If you're, I dunno, an adventure comedy, that sort of tone might not be useful for you. It might just be better to have someone who can facilitate really cool fights and let our heroes have a lot of Big Damn Hero Moments because those fit with the tone you're going for. It also sells us on why EVERYONE wants this fucker gone so we don't have to worry about the consequence of if the heroes murder him because you're curious why God himself has not struck him down. And not understanding this creates a problem like not understanding why simple, likable, mostly flawless main characters exist. Because sometimes that's just what's best for the story, especially if you have any sort of time limit to telling your story. But Belos only started getting spotlighted in S2B so the writers clearly didn't give a fuck about that expect, did they? So they went with what makes for a better video essay. Or blog in this case, even if it made for a worse story.

=========

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[bishkebab]

Thought dump on the Ted Lasso finale below the cut

The Ted/Rebecca fakeouts actually felt kind of mean to me until I realized I was looking at the show from a tumblr perspective and thinking they were picking on shippers vs looking at it from a mainstream audience perspective and realizing they were thumbing their nose at the expectation that Ted and Rebecca would end up together because Ted HAD to have a love interest at the end.

The way Roy and Jamie were talking about Keeley made me cringe hardcore. It felt like a regression, especially when Jamie brought up the video as a gotcha point. I was so glad that Keeley said fuck it and didn’t end up with either of them, even though I was originally rooting for triad.

That made it clearer that the point was that even though they both have grown a lot, they both have a long way to go….and even if they didn’t, growth doesn’t guarantee anything! They could both have become the absolute paragons of perfection and Keeley still wouldn’t have to choose one of them! I think it made sense for Keeley to be single at the end because she’s barely been out of a relationship for more than short periods throughout the show.

Even though I wish Keeley and Rebecca had been endgame, from a watsonian perspective they’re at different points in their lives. Yes, they’re both powerful women, but Keeley has a huge career trajectory in front of her and Rebecca is looking for peace and a family.

I loved the callback to the suggestion box at the beginning of the show, with Nate getting to proudly pass around his even more bedazzled box and Jamie sneaking in extra money with a wink instead of putting in his gum with a sneer.

Rupert sweeping around in his evil coat felt a little over the top, like we could have somehow forgotten that he’s The Villain and they wanted to make sure that we saw him Earn His Comeuppance. Seemed unnecessary.

When they passed the ball off to McAdoo and I was holding my breath trying to figure out how his super powerful corner kick that broke the window was going to be significant, and then he kicked it through the net like something from a sports anime 🥲

Ted’s arc was actually what was most baffling and depressing to me, up until the very end. He looked so subdued for the first half of the episode, and it felt like we were being shown how everyone around him felt about him going but not how he felt? Like, shouldn’t there have been some sign of joy for what was ahead, not just resignation that it was what he had to do? Even the speech in the locker room felt like an attempt to justify the fact that they hadn’t actually given him a future beyond “be in the same country as your son”.

The final diamond dogs meeting helped a lot. We actually got to see Ted being Ted again, plus the full circle of seeing Nate back in the fold plus Trent and Roy added in. Perfect scene 10/10 no notes 🥹

I was going to be so hideously depressed if Ted’s final scene had been him getting out of the taxi and walking with Henry back into his ex-wife’s house. Like what, you’re going to throw away all your autonomy and growth and just be a third wheel to Michelle and Dr. Jake because your son needs you? But the final scene made me feel a lot better, because it felt more like…a real reason. Like look, at the beginning he was running away from a dying marriage and a son he was afraid to fail, and he became a father figure to an entire team, so then he needed to go home and give his own son the coaching he gave those other young men and face his dissolved marriage head on.

And then the elephant in the room, Trent my beloved. I’m not going to blame any of the TedTrenters for being disappointed, but I will say the impression I was given of the laugh police scene by people in the tag was vastly different from my interpretation of the scene. I didn’t see it as Ted shooting Trent down or not liking his enthusiasm at all, it was just a gentle admonishment to not fish for a reaction (and also, like, don’t bug me when I’m concentrating on reading lol) but Ted was looking at him with complete fondness the entire time, he didn’t seem actually bothered by Trent himself; and Trent didn’t seem dampened at all, just a little abashed. I don’t know, I kept seeing it interpreted as Trent’s bid for connection - “I just want you to like it” - being rebuffed in that scene, when to me it is met and returned by Ted’s note on the book- he didn’t just like it, he loved it!

The thing is, people were analyzing everything James Lance was saying about Trent through a shipping lens, and so I can understand why it would be so disappointing to not see what they thought he was telling us we’d see. My view is, James Lance fell in love with his character, and he’s looking at everything from a purely Trent perspective. Someone asking him about how Trent looks at Ted and him saying “oh wow, you noticed that? Yes, that’s significant” could definitely come off as “yes, Trent has feelings for Ted” but I always pretty much interpreted it as “yes, actually Trent is attracted to men and I’m impressed that people picked up on that”. And the final shirt that said it all- “Stay Golden” - is a thank you to Ted and a well-wish for the future, not the love confession we were hoping for.

While I 100% think James Lance did play Trent as having some level of feelings for Ted, ultimately Trent’s love story is with himself. He says it at the final diamond dogs meeting- I don’t necessarily think people change, but they learn to accept the person they always were. Trent went from his tough-as-nails, unflappably suave persona to a massive dweeb 🥹 he wears band shirts and dorky scarves and leopard print shoes! He does cute little paws during diamond dog meetings! He dances awkwardly with his crush’s mom! He takes off his blazer and twirls it around his head like a maniac!

Like to go from being astonished by the fact that Ted actually meant it when he said he enjoyed spending the day together, to joining in with the team’s revelries? He loves himself now!

Like I said, I’m not denying the subtext. I absolutely think Trent has some feelings for Ted, and I absolutely think Ted is bisexual (though I doubt he knows it). But I don’t know, I guess I never saw Ted as showing any conscious sign of reciprocation purely because, to be honest, he IS still a huge mess. He’s way too absorbed in his own guilt and confusion to be able to figure that out. But I didn’t feel like the show actually, canonically shut down the possibility. 6 months, a year down the line…? Trent has finished his book, he’s no longer a sports journalist, Ted is in the states near his son, who’s going to write the fanfic for me about what happens next…? 🤣

I will say one loose end that I sure wish had been tied up was Dr. Jake. So what, Michelle’s just going to…keep dating a walking ethics violation who was shitting on the game to her and her son? I mean, he wasn’t in the final scene so maybe they did break up, though I hope to god that wasn’t supposed to imply that she and Ted would ever end up back together because I WOULD break into Jason Sudeikis’s house and smash his kneecaps.

Anyway, I dunno. I still feel like it was weirdly sad on Ted’s behalf, but I felt like it was a nice ending for everyone else. Overall it was…fine. I’m not tortured by any of it. I’ll just be over here continuing to read Ted/Trent fan fiction 🤷🏻‍♀️

[dominimoonbeam]

is it wrong for me to absolutely love when quinn comes back for darlin and there's a huge fight scene or a bunch of angst in your fics lol, he's a messed up character but god does he have a lot of opportunities to be an asshole in literally any au. i like the idea that he's in love with darlin he's just rlly fucked up

I have to say no because I also love that. Quinn is a great villain vehicle!! He has so much room for fudging and building whether it's to make him worse or darkly understandable. Either way, it's still so good to see him get his comeuppance! I'm obviously biased because I think I've written Quinn's death like 5 times now.

I think my most likeable Quinn (in my opinion) was in No Luck Left and that's a brutal fic, but like, he had this warped idea that he was the one who looked out for Darlin and had been protecting them. Of course, he also got what he wanted and didn't give them any autonomy, but that's because he's a crazy villain!

Even though my Quinns are all pretty ooc now that we have more canon of him, I'll probably keep on with that... haha He's just so fun!

I really should count how many times I've killed him now... I think Ash is holding the Quinn killing record across my fics though. <3 <3

Thank you, anon!!! This was fun to get to talk about!! <3 <3 <3

[mischief-lies-and-stories]

Loki's Kids I Want in the MCU

Ranking Loki's children in the Norse Mythology in the order I want to see them in the MCU. (There are a few that have already been in the MCU, albeit not canonically as Loki's children, so I'm going to rank them in the order I would like them to come back (or not).)

Sleipnir (8-legged horse): I want him the most. He has shown up in some of the comics that I read, so it's possible he has already made an appearance in the MCU and I just missed him. (And I'm getting mixed up with the comics.) But I want him to come (or come back), and I want it to be acknowledged that he is Loki's child, since none of Loki's mythical children that have shown up in the MCU have explicitly or canonically been Loki's children. One, Sleipnir's origin is the best myth. And two, as far as I know, the only one where Loki is explicitly the one to give birth to his child.

Fenrir (the wolf): We have seen him already, in Ragnarok. He fell off a waterfall, and then they blew up the planet. I don't have any theories on how he could still be alive, but I don't need one. He's still alive. I'm not looking him up on doesthedogdie dot com; he's still alive. He's a good boy. He's a good dog, he's adorable.

Jormangandr (the world serpent): I just like snakes, yo! And so does Thor and so does Loki! And Jormangandr is a big snake and I like him! And ultimately this is just the order of how I like animals, it goes sheep, dogs, snakes. And Loki didn't give birth to a sheep, so Sleipnir is taking that place.

(and 5.) Narfi and Vali (his children with Sigyn): I have mixed feelings about this. One, I want them to come, because it's interesting. I don't know how I feel about Sigyn showing up this late in the game, but Narfi and Vali can show up. That's fine. Problem with this is that one of them is enchanted by Odin to kill the other, and then that one's entrails are used to tie Loki up before he gets poisoned by the serpent right before Ragnarok. And that sucks. I don't want to watch that. I've already written it (Bring You Safely Home to Me), I don't need to watch it. So if they show up, I'm gonna be like Uh oh, we're in the endgame now. And not like Avengers: Endgame. How's Loki gonna get out of this one? (Spoiler alert: He does, but only at the very end of the world, and then he dies, like for real, for real.)

6. And last but not least, Hela. Because fuck Hela. I don't want her coming back. Cate Blanchett was gorgeous as Hela, and that was great, but I don't need her back. She was kind of meh as a villain, and ultimately, she had her comeuppance. She slaughtered the Warriors Three; what the fuck was that about? Good-bye! You're done now. You played your role, you caused Ragnarok, and now we're done with you. So when I say that she's only at number six, I really mean she doesn't need to come back at all, that's fine.

Although, I will make a confession. In the comics, she's gay. And is married to Karnilla, the queen of the Norns (I'm pretty sure). And Karnilla's badass, she's a sorceress. In Where Mischief Lies, she was Odin's head sorceress, and was training Amora. Until shit happened and then she wasn't training Amora. (I won't spoil anything.) So if you take Where Mischief Lies as canon supplemental material for the MCU, Karnilla's already canon in the MCU. So she could just find her way down to Hel. (I don't think Hela is dead, I think she's back down in her realm where she's supposed to be.) They can get married and that's fine. I just don't want her causing shit for Thor and Loki anymore, because I'm done with that, thank you.

Also Fenrir should be down there too, and in the comics, Fenrir ends up being daddy to Kid Loki's hellhound Thori, so that's another reason why Fenrir and Hela should be alive still. So in order for Journey into Mystery to become canon in the MCU they both need to be alive still.

[limerental]

Dijkstra/Isengrim, Triss/Philippa

Well oopsie whoopsie, I did basically immediately fall asleep after reblogging that ship game last night but lol

Dijkstra/Isengrim

What made you ship it?

I'm working on an entire essay at the moment of "why I ship it and you should too" but in brief, they're both ugly, snarky, intelligent, and devious outcasts who did objectionable things and in any other story would have probably ended up as villains and gotten their comeuppance. But they're not villains and also not heroes, and they ultimately end up discarded by the powers that be when their usefulness ends. If they'd met a year earlier, they would have dismissed or outright killed each other without a second glance. They're equals from opposite sides of a conflict that ultimately had no sides. And there's something about that understanding they have in their Lady of the Lake chapter that is just soooo deeply important to me.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

I love that witty banter is a given, that a lot of things are said without being said, and that they're both fiercely loyal and stubborn characters who would easily turn that loyalty toward one another but also likely consistently irritate one another with how stubborn they can be. I love that they're equal partners. I love that Dijkstra's a big tall fat ugly guy and that Isengrim's also ugly and disfigured and it's the first thing anyone notices about either of them. I love the thought of these two old men, both of them capable of great violence and rage toward those who have wronged them and indifference to the suffering of those they feel deserve it, being domestic and almost cloyingly romantic with one another. Just. The gooiest, softest romantic domesticity two old men in love have ever known, and they also could wreck your shit in an instant if you wrong or threaten them.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I don't really like the direction CDPR/the games chose to go with Dijkstra's character and so usually chose to ignore it. His character design? Wonderful. Innovative. Excellent. Show-stopping. Exquisite. But his storylines and motivations... have very little to do with his book character and I don't really like them. Book Dijkstra isn't ambitious and especially post book canon after getting burned, I don't think he'd give a shit about politics or power.

Triss/Philippa

What made you ship it?

Triss' character arc is one of my favorite's in the whole book because it's so... she's terrified and she's convinced she's doing the right thing and she's insane and she's compassionate and she's emotional and she's traumatized and she's trying to cling to anything that makes any kind of sense in a world that doesn't make sense. And Philippa is so radically her opposite in every sense and also, I don't think she's every really wholly loved anyone but maybe for a little while wants to love Triss and maybe she does. I love the ship as an inevitable tragedy, like watching a car wreck that you can't look away from.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

Honestly I just really love morally dubious lesbians doing questionable things. I love that Philippa brings out the worst in Triss that was there before her and that she is convinced doesn't exist, and I love that maybe Triss could bring out the good in Philippa even for a moment. Also, the imagery of a bird of prey and her gentle, rabbit-soft lover... Triss getting pulled in by her dangerous, seductive allure and Philippa getting pulled in by her supposed delicate fragility hiding claws... They're not some great love story, but they do have strong potential for the messiest codependent yucky absurdity with a lot of hard kink and rare soft moments.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Maybe not that unpopular of an opinion, but I think Philippa being a lesbian was not some progressive move by Sapko or even a very genuine character decision but really just a big joke (most of his characters are ultimately big jokes though, the whole story is a bit of a joke). I don't think Triss/Phil was intended to be canon but just accidentally looks that way if you squint. Death of the author though, that yucky lesbian is ours now.

[problemswithbooks]

Gonna be honest. It doesn't even feel like the manga wants me to think Hawks made a bad choice. Even now. Its just feels like a cliffhanger about the destruction that would have happened back then if Hawks didn't make the hardest choice. And then the heroes would have been utterly crushed.

Oh, yeah, I can totally see this interpretation of those scenes with Hawks and AfO, but I think that shows the poor writing of the story in and of itself. There are stories where the point is that it can have multiple interpretations, but the way bnha is set up that doesn't feel like Hori's intention (and if it is, he's not doing a good job writing it that way).

Part of the reason I saw it as the more Hawks Critical way was because of how other fans were talking about it--clearly a lot of people see it as Hawks past coming back to bite him in the butt. All I saw were people cheering it on and happy that he was getting his punishment for killing Twice, and of course ignoring how poor the writing was for this set up.

Because, yes, your interpretation is more plausible given how Hori wrote past events. Hawks killing Twice didn't do anything but save a a lot of people during the first war. The villains might have still retreated but Twice would have continued to fight for his friends and given the lack of care any of the LoV show for Shigaraki's condition and still blindly follow AfO, it's easy to assume Twice would be 100% fine with taking orders for him. This would have lead to a Sad Man's Parade anyway, and perhaps and even worse one that included cloned nomu and AfO's.

If Hori wanted Hawks to be wrong and this be his comeuppance for his actions there were one of two things he should done to pull this off at least moderately well.

Have Hawks actually straight up murder Twice. For all that people say Hawks killed Twice on orders and acted due to giving into his brainwashing from the HPSC, that's just not true. Hori went out of his way to show that Hawks only killed Twice after he had lost most of his feathers to Dabi and Twice was escaping in order to use his Quirk. Hori even had Twice kill a Hero in order to save Toga, proving his intentions were violent. If he wanted Hawks to be wrong and following orders similar to how Nagant did, all he had to do was have Hawks stab Twice in the back without even a second thought, or trying to talk him down at all.

Show Twice being unsure/ concerned about the PLA's plans and the part they want him to play in it. Something that Hori absolutely refuses to let any of his villains have is doubt or remorse for their actions. If we'd been given a few panels of Hawks and Twice bonding where Jin voices that he has some reservations about the plan. He joined the LoV for the feeling of family and he still feels that, but with the added MLA members he's worried that things are changing. He wants his freinds to be happy but isn't sure if trusting the MLA is a good choice. Plus, he doesn;t trust the doctor and is worried for Shigaraki, who he thinks the doctor might be tricking or hurting in someway. At the end he just fiuguires he's not a smart guy and he should trust his freinds, but it's clear the idea of using his Quirk to possibly level Japan still weighs on him.

Either of these would have helped show Hawks as wrong. The first one has Hawks do something actually morally wrong. Even if Twice his fine with the plan as he is in canon and as seen by Deika he's still willing to level cities for the LoV, it'd still be wrong for Hawks to just stab him in the back without even trying to arrest or talk him down as he does in the manga.

The second has Hawks knowing Twice is having conflicted feelings, giving him something to try and change Twice's mind about using his Quirk, and bring in doubt that Twice would 100% act like he did in Deika City and help the PLF destroy all of Japan and kill innocents lives just because his friends say so. It also could be used to foreshadow AfO's take over of Shigaraki and how the LoV feel about it. It makes Hawks wrong for killing Twice because there's a chance he might not use his Quirk to deadly effect, yet Hawks kills him anyway. It also means that Sad Man's Parade being used against the Heroes is his fault because now Twice/Toga is using it for revenge. There was a chance Jin would have changed his mind, but Hawks betrayal makes sure Jin uses his Quirk for revenge.

Using both together would be even better.

But as it is Hawks wasn't wrong for taking out Twice, and if Hori plays it off as if he was, it's not going to work very well. He made the villains way to remorseless and over the top violent, showcasing multiple times how much Twice was willing to do for his friends. On top of that if Twice's Quirk does turn the tides, it only proves more how right Hawks was to kill him during that first war. Because it's 100% certain that Jin would have used his Quirk had he lived, that Heroes losing major ground to it or people getting killed by it, only shows how the first war would have been a loss had Twice lived.