hi yeah Also using this as an opportunity to advertise it again lol hi ill dm you

i have pdfs of all three fics from tdc series

jus dm me for them with your email (sorry i can only send them over email attachment) and ill send over 👍 easypeasy style

(edited because i have Certain Compunctions)

Ah yes, the Act II finale, where all our protagonist's TERRIBLE DECISIONS finally catch up with him!

Genuinely one of the things I think went best with MWDF is that the plot is almost entirely driven by Michael making horrendously bad decisions. He doesn't always know they're bad decisions when he's making them (sometimes he does) but he always finds out about it, sooner or later. This is one of those 'later's. He begins Act II by asking Our Villain Here to murder somebody (two somebodies), then spends the entire act convincing himself that didn't really happen because the guilt would be overwhelming, while Our Villain Here gets more and more suspicious that perhaps his murder husband is not as into murder as he originally suspected.

Our Villain is a bit of a scientist. He likes to test his theories. If Michael gets upset about the murder of a woman whomst Our Villain knows with absolute certainty that Michael hates, well! The next-best explanation is that Michael was using him and doesn't accept him as an equal and that will need to be corrected.

He also does not give one single shit about Meg's life, as he doesn't particularly give any shits about anyone's life, except his own and perhaps Michael's. What started as scientific curiosity turned into full-blown obsession (I am not convinced Our Villain Here is capable of love in any sense of the word), and he is both deeply jealous and rabidly protective of his little experiment.

I think this scene stands out because it captures the different violences of Michael and Our Villain quite well. Michael shouts and cusses and throws stuff, but very rarely do we get the sense that these are an expression of a genuine desire to harm somebody—he's just blowing off steam. Our Villain, on the other hand, is patient and jovial and polite and cannot fucking wait to hurt you. A little later in this scene is, I believe, the first time in the entire story that he raises his voice, and it is not funny.