#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.

[thebramblewood]

I was tagged by @retrotrait, @simvanie, @moonwoodhollow, @aheathen-conceivably annnnnnd @salemssimblr to post my top 24 screenshots from 2024, but I jumped the gun on posting a retrospective earlier this month.

I still wanted to do something, though, so I'm going to take some inspiration from @elderwisp and talk about my favorite story scenes of the year specifically - since there's nothing I love more than yapping and reminiscing.

Before I start rambling, I'll tag @living-undead, @esotericas-sims, @fallstaticexit, @simsdaughters, @biffybobs, @whyeverr, @kissalopa and @earthmoonz! I'm sure some of you have already done this (and no pressure if you don't want to), but I'd love to see you reflect on your year in whatever way suits you!

Good food and hard truths with Grace Anansi (one, two). I think this is quietly one of my favorite moments in the story so far because it revealed so much about Caleb's past that until this point had only been hinted at. It also gave him a friend and confidante, which he sorely needed. This was an extremely lengthy and exposition-heavy conversation, so it was challenging but rewarding to write, edit (endlessly), and execute in a compelling way. Plus, its final moments had to lead seamlessly into...

Party like a spellcaster (one, two). I think this was the first flashback in the story, so it was a pretty big deal! It was also the point where my ambitions started making scene preparation increasingly complicated. I spent a hell of a long time converting broomsticks and potions into pose accessories, but I was so pleased with how the vision came together, and it taught me a lot of skills that have become indispensable as my ideas grow more elaborate. Overall, it was a welcome moment of levity and joy for Caleb, even as we know tragedy looms in the future.

Lilith does a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing. Turns out once I started doing flashback scenes, I couldn't stop. You guys have no idea how it felt to sit on this particularly nasty secret for months. I wanted it to be a shocking reveal that fully established Lilith's villain status, but I also knew I would have to get her back into Helena's - and our - good graces eventually. It's been interesting to write a character like her who you love and hate at once. Ultimately, I want all of us to be on the same rollercoaster ride as Helena, equal parts repulsed and fascinated. This was especially wild to bring to life because it felt pretty surreal to be adding a whole new layer to this idea that originated years ago in my legacy!

Helena Zhao can't come to the phone right now. I was very proud of this scene because it was the first one where I made all the poses myself. It was also a major turning point in Helena and Julia's relationship, where their sisterly bond is deeply tested. I may have cried a little while writing and shooting it. I really enjoyed the brief moments we got to spend in Julia's perspective, and I hope to bring her back if the story calls for it. Although she was in extreme shock at what her sister had done, I imagine she'd eventually come around to having a bit more compassion for her situation. She'd probably be open to reconciling someday, presuming Helena ever sets foot in Copperdale again.

Reunited and it feels so... good? (one, two). I didn't even realize I posted Helena and Lilith's reunion on April Fool's! Everyone was waiting with bated breath to see if they would ever cross paths again... and who are we kidding? Of course they would! I had a very good time writing this conversation and giving Helena a chance to finally get everything off her chest - though, of course, she couldn't help but be worn down by Lilith's manipulative charm in the end. And then Caleb got his comeuppance for keeping the truth of what happened a secret for so long, reminding us once again just how scary Lilith can be.

Plasma Pals! As dark as this story is, I enjoy weaving in moments of comedy and lightness when I can, so it was really fun to portray Caleb and Helena's evolving friendship through the lens of a cheesy sitcom. I wasn't sure it would hit with anyone other than me because the funniest things I write are usually accidental. It's hard to be funny on purpose! But it ended up being possibly my most popular story post ever, so obviously I did something right.

Lilith teaches Helena the true art of supernatural seduction. I wanted this section of the story to be all about the two very different approaches Lilith and Caleb take to teaching Helena. This was one of my most technically challenging scenes. I shot the entire attack sequence twice because I was underwhelmed the first time. But in the end I'm glad I took the time to do that because it contains some of my favorite screenshots ever and really conveys Helena's internal struggle. But will she be able to resist when it inevitably happens again?

The night where it all began, part one. I love this entire series of flashbacks, but I'm particularly fond of the opening because we finally get a glimpse into what Caleb and Lilith's relationship was like as humans. It turns out they liked each other! And only bickered in a light-hearted way! And conspired and giggled together! This was another scene where I made all the poses. It was exhausting, but these flashbacks to the Vatores' vampire origins were so important for me to get right. I'd been thinking about them for a long time, so I wanted them to be as perfect as possible.

How Caleb was transformed, one and two. Again with the flashbacks! I think part of the reason I like them so much is because, as much work as they are, they always offer a change of scenery that refreshes my creativity. This particular scene was one I was obsessing over for months, so I had cultivated a very specific vision of how it would play out and didn't want to compromise. I'm glad I had the foresight to start learning posing far enough in advance that I felt ready to take it on. If I had to choose, this is my single favorite scene of the year. Everything came together exactly how I wanted, and it gives me chills every time I revisit it.

A very vampiric dinner date, part two. This entire sequence took so much work to complete from beginning to end! But it was the first big outing beyond Forgotten Hollow in a while, and I wanted it to be special. I enjoyed being able to put a bunch of pre-mades into compromising positions with your guys' vampires. As much of a pain as it is to pose multiple Sims, the end results are always worth it. And then, of course, the sequence resolves in Helena and Lilith having a genuine moment of intimacy for the first time since Helena was turned, which had us all squealing.

Helena is horny and confused. Can you believe this is the only Ulrike appearance of the year? 😭 I'm really glad I managed to sneak one in. Even though they broke up before she was turned, Ulrike is the ultimate reminder of Helena's human life, of everything she left behind and of what could have been. Other than her family, Ulrike is who Helena misses most when she thinks about the past. This scene was pulled together quickly based on me finding the pose pack. I wasn't entirely sure if it would even work as part of the main narrative. But I feel like the spontaneity made it feel extra special, even if it is a smaller moment.

Forgotten Hollow 101. If anything, the theme of this year has been taking an increasingly long amount of time to finish every post. This is in part because I got busier in the second half of the year but also because I can't stop thinking up crazy complicated ideas. This one took me a month more or less. Even though each vampire only had one picture, it required a lot of effort to get them all in game, find poses, set up locations, etc.! But it was so important to me to do justice to your guys' vampires, so I was happy to take the time, even in the couple of moments where I began to feel burned out. I hope to keep showing off your lovely creations next year!

[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.

[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! :')

[mdhwrites]

When it comes to heroes who don't kill, do you think it can sometimes be a copout when the villain dies anyway after the hero spares their life?

Like "oh this guy has to die but we can't have our hero be a killer so let's have him accidentally blow himself up or something."

When done poorly, sure, which is a running theme when talking about ALL tropes... But no, I fucking love this trope so let's talk about why this happens. Why it's good and why it honestly rarely feels like a cop out. I'm going to cheat with it though and use one of the best examples of all time for it:

So the idea behind this trope is that it's comeuppance. Like the purest form of it. A villain's lack of empathy, their tendency to cause pain, death, agony, etc. catches up to them and finally is inflicted upon themselves. They of course do not mean to, they do not see harm in what they are doing normally so why would they intend this, but it is the outcome of their actions. Of hate and bile. It is actually MORE effective than if the hero killed them themselves because it is a full condemnation of the mindset, beliefs and will of the villain as it is shown to only be destructive, even to the self.

Clayton here tells Tarzan "Be a man." He isn't even afraid of being shot because he sees the world as only a place to discharge strength, To conquer, kill, hurt and maim because that proves you are better. You are stronger. You are the dominant predator. As such, he lashes at all that might see him as weak or small. That which support him in weakness.

Like the vines support him here. The vines do not see him as little. They do not see him as worse. And yet, because they stop him from being as cruel and terrible as he desires, he lashes out, striking them down one by one until he has nothing left to save him and that same support leaves him to... Well, hang.

By contrast, what would have been said by having Tarzan kill him? How do you represent that individualistic greed and need for power being triumphed by another individual slaughtering him? By another discharging strength instead of merely defending themselves? Hell, Tarzan trying to reach out to him, trying to warn him, trying to give him the kindness that Clayton will not give the world is exactly correct because it is the hero contrasting and refuting the villain's ideals. Like Tarzan says: "I am not a man like you." He can see outside of himself which is why he can use nature like he does because he doesn't have to rely on only that which he considers a part of himself. He doesn't have to rely on only his strength and he doesn't need to kill like Clayton thinks you need to in this world. To have Tarzan kill him would have proven him RIGHT.

And to potentially strangle your ending like that just so you can say your hero kills? Sorry but your story is going to choke, just like Clayton did if you do. See you next tale.

======+++++======

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.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[saturncoyote]

What's your opinion on the Trolls villains that have gotten redemptions? such as Barb and Crimp and I guess technically Veneer also counts despite still receiving a comeuppance at the end

Just asking cause I've personally always found the Trolls franchise's redemptions to be pretty lackluster to say the least and as a Creek fan

Its somewhat annoying how the franchise seems to extend sympathy to almost every bad guy except him even people who are honestly kinda worse tbh.

anyway sorry to drone on lol I'd just be curious to hear what you think of other Trolls villains since I've only seen you talk about Creek on your posts in the past.

Barb is so awesomeeeeee she's literally my favorite part of the whole movie ! I will say i wish we had gotten a further look into her backstory, we only get a few GLIMPSES of it coming through with her mentioning the difficulties of being a queen but other than that we're given no insight on why she is so keen on making all the Trolls live "happily together", but i almost don't mind it because the movie is still REALLY good without it and the message still works wonderfully

I really like Veneer's arc, his struggle to say no to his sister is done really well, even when Floyd tells him what she's doing to him is wrong he still gives the bottle back to her when she compliments him, it's a very important message to give to children, that the people who you love may not always have your best interests in mind

Crimp though is a interesting one because we never find out WHY she's hanging around ? Seeing how Velvet will just throw her into the closet and leave her there i'm assuming she might have been in a similar situation to Floyd, not literally stuck and physically incapable of doing anything but it FEELS like there might be something in there, a fear of some kind, Velvet and Veneer DO have power over her after all

It does strike me as weird that of all these villains, Creek is the only one to miss out on a redemption, especially when he's a guy who has a very valid reason to have done what he did, it doesn't make me dislike these other villains though because i think it's good that they were given a chance to grow and change ! Redemption isn't something you "deserve" it's just something you do If anything i can add this to the list of reasons on why i want to give him a redemption arc so badly ! All those other guys already had their chances, i wanna give some attention to the guy who didn't

[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.

[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.

[tracybirds]

hiya! for the ask game- 14 and 15

-cora :]

💕💕 Thank you Cora!! I got a bit long and rambly bc I'm doing this first thing in the morning lolol but yay, fun questions!

14. Tell me about a headcanon you love, dislike and have a neutral opinion on

I am not married to any of my headcanons lol so if I contradict any of these in fic then shh you didn't see that 😅💕 however!

Love: I think it was @gaviiadastra who introduced me to this one - Gordon and John sending each other interesting articles and cool facts about the science stuff they're reading and just generally putting their heads together and geeking out 😄 it's cute and relatable

Dislike: The thing I love about Thunderbirds is how genuine and kind everyone is, so I don't really like any headcanon that takes away from that. Like John ensuring that bad people get their comeuppance leverage style, or Scott or Gordon losing their temper that stuff I don't mind and think is pretty fun, but the most important thing for me is that they are never cruel and they don't exact revenge on anyone.

Neutral: I would say I hang out here for most headcanons since I mostly have a "sure, why not!" thing going on 😄 Maybe Virgil and his coffee love? I'm pretty neutral on that - I'll write it into fics if I need it, but I have no issue with having him leap out of bed raring to go if I need him to do that instead!

15. Which protagonist do you think would make a good villain?

Lol and just after I said I didn't like anything that took away from them being good. But honestly, I think that they all have the potential. That's the thing about having a lot of power; the consequences of your actions are extremely far-reaching and have the potential to propel you into being seen as a hero or as a villain very easily. And almost all the characters have a lot of power that they're currently wielding for good and if even of them were to switch, things would be bad. I think the following would make the best villains though because they have extra power in particular ways over the others so have a shortlist:

• John - he's the one that usually gets a bit of the evil potential schtick and it does make sense. He has the ability to be sly and calculating if he were to ignore the emotion of the situation, to pull all the information at his fingertips together and then use it and it's all that information that he has access to that would make him have the ability to do far more damage than your average villain.

• Scott / Jeff - For similar reasons so I've grouped them together - both of them have power over the rest of their family due to their leadership positions and the high trust model present in said leadership, and they have the charm factor over everyone outside of their family. They have access as leaders of a major corporation to more people and could very easily assign tasks to people who never see the whole picture until it's too late...

• Lady Penelope - like all of them, Penelope has a name and a reputation that she can use to her advantage, but she especially has access to a network of spies and agents who could be convinced to gather intel and carry out plots for anything that money and simple persuasion can't accomplish.

There's some themes here of course - money, information, influence, trust. All of these things give you power over others and all of these can be abused to craft a villain (thank goodness they all chose otherwise!! They all chose kindness and that makes me !!!!!)