If We Were Villains

by M.L. Rio

I seemed doomed to always play supporting roles in someone else’s story.

The future is wide and wild and full of promise, but it is precarious, too. Seize on every opportunity that comes your way and cling to it, lest it be washed back out to sea.”

“There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” he said. “On such a full sea are we now afloat, / And we must take the current when it serves / Or lose our ventures.

But Richard, in pale pearl gray and a blood-red tie, cut the most impressive figure of us all.

Screw Richard!

“On the dance floor,” I said, “prowling for first-years who don’t know they’re gay yet.”

Harmful stereotype

A pause. “Are we going to play this game?” “Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true,” I say. “I thought they would have beaten that bullshit out of you in prison.”

😂

I don’t know how to continue. Of course, I was at Meredith’s mercy. Like Aphrodite, she demanded exaltation and idolatry. But what was her weakness for me, tame and inconsequential as I was? A thing of mystery.

This feels oddly misogynistic and I’m not sure why. I think it’s similar to the notion of “she asked for it” if a woman is beautiful, that men can’t control themselves because of how hot a woman is.

If pressed for details I told them only what could be found on the Internet or was obvious: that she was a natural redhead, had a small birthmark on her hip, wasn’t shy about sex.

She’s more than her sex appeal, this disgusts me.

She could tempt anyone, but Fate didn’t seem like a good target. We had one casualty already.

This is infuriating

“I think you understand it perfectly. Nothing makes sense to him either. His whole world is falling apart, and once he realizes he can’t stop it or fix it or change it, there’s only one thing left to do.” My eyes adjusted slowly, maddeningly. “What’s that?” His shadow shrugged in the gloom. “Absolve yourself. Blame it on fate.”

Colborne: “You haven’t seen this girl. You don’t understand how unlikely.”

Disgusting

“I’m not Richard’s understudy,” I said. “I’m not going to step in and play his part now that he’s left the stage. That’s not what I want.” “I don’t want that either. That’s exactly what I don’t want. Jesus, Oliver.” Her eyes were hard—green bottle glass, sharp-edged and brittle. “Richard and I were done,” she said. “He was a bastard and a bully to me and everyone else and I was done with him. I know nobody wants to remember that now that he’s gone, but you should.”

People keep pinning Meredith as some temptress harlot and it’s so fucked up. The misogynist undertones is sickening.

I lowered my voice. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just—maybe it’s because you’re you, and I mean, look at you—but I don’t understand. Why me? I’m nobody.”

Send Oliver to jail!

“I’m as bad as the rest of them. Treat a girl like a whore and she’ll learn to act like one.” Her shoulders inched up, barely a shrug. “But that’s not how you treat me. And that’s all I wanted.”

Oliver is still treating you like one!