There’s only two reasons Malevolent isn’t set in the modern era
- Arthur would look less insane by default because he could just keep an earpiece in and pretend he’s on a phone call or has a hearing aid the entire time
- Gay marriage is legal and if those two were allowed to be freely in love every episode would be twice as long because we’d have to go through 40 EXTRA minutes of homoerotic banter and they’d never get anything done
Sidenotes on these:
- I think it would be supremely fucking funny if it was set in the modern era with the headphone thing because Arthur wouldn’t appear crazy, he’d appear rude which is infinitely worse and would also annoy the fuck out of his villains and also friends because he looks like he’s on a fucking phone call while fighting for his life.
- If he pretended he had a hearing aid in he’d be like “I can’t believe you’re attacking me. I’m literally queer and disabled. You’ll get cancelled” and everyone’s like 👁👄👁
- Also in the hearing aid situation, someone takes it off him or turns it off (idk how hearing aids work) so he won’t be able to hear them except he still can and doesn’t know how to proceed without his attacker accusing him of faking a disability he was absolutely faking
- If they were in a time period where being queer is allowed we’d get Walking Bisexual Disaster Arthur Lester and get acknowledgement that everyone he meets becomes slightly obsessed with him for better or worse and they might (read: are) a little a lot mayhaps definitely attracted to him. a bit.
- Arthur Lester would know memes. You guys he’d know what Vine was. He’d be a tiktok cryptid that every one-in-five teenagers in Boston has seen and witnessed doing something absolutely unhinged. A teenager on a train vlogging about their trip when in the background a blind guy is chasing down some random dude and the other guy tries to throw him off the train and the video goes Viral instantly
- I’d love to see Arthur, most assuredly up to date with technology try to work with John, who has no idea what the internet or AI is or ARTHUR SOMETHING IS POSSESSING YOUR PHONE IT’S WRITING DOWN EVERYTHING YOU SAY
In conclusion, Modern AU Malevolent would be more comedy than horror-mystery