a scooby doo series set in community college where the gang is in a criminology class and end up in a huge debate on the first day of class that leads to them starting a podcast talking about local urban legends, only to realize things aren’t quite adding up and they go to investigate for ~journalistic authenticity~ and end up solving a real-life crime disguised as supernatural occurrences. this happens every week and they’re frequently featured on the school newspaper. they only have twenty listeners
Genuinely think the only way he could have survived and been able to recover is if the kids actually tried to save him as soon as they thought something was wrong with him.. even if he survived the mindflayers attack at the mall he probably would've died anyway
Expecting Billy to redeem himself/make amends immediately after Starcourt had he survived is so ridiculous to me because imagine someone surviving that level of physical and psychological trauma which included being graphically assaulted by an inter-dimensional creature, body and mind controlled like a puppet forced to do heinous things against their will, technically surviving two car crashes, then being skewered several times after your childhood trauma was laid bare to a stranger who actually cared about your suffering so you decided to die for them… and then surviving which would inevitably require a lot of therapy, only for people to be like you should really apologize before I’m willing to recognize your pain ://
Oh wait, I don’t have to imagine that at all because that’s what happened. Personally, whenever anyone tells me Billy would need to do a lot of work to redeem himself even after all of that in order to be the least bit acceptable to them I am just like… logistically, how? How would he be physically and mental able to do All The Work you want him to in order to be an acceptable person? You put any normal person through all of that, and they’re gonna be too catatonic to function. Billy was already traumatized before all this, having learned that he is unlovable. Now, you’re expecting his extensively traumatized brain and body to be able forgo his own physical and mental health needs in order to relive all of his trauma and grief and shame and guilt to your satisfaction while his needs aren’t met at all.
That’s how traumatized people end up dead. I hope y’all realize that.