Sounds about right. Russ is such a loser I am anxious to see if he will ever start a troon arc… “sleep with me or you’re transphobic!” Seems in line with that he’s said and done.
Nah, Russ doesn’t see trans folk as “winners.” Remember that Russ gets all his ideas about success and popularity from 80’s rom coms, which a lot of kiwis assume were all his parents let him watch and he internalized life lessons from them. He wants to be the Studly Popular Jock with the Hot Cheerleader girlfriend, but at the same time he’s also the Valiant Quirky Underdog who Wins The Girl at the end of the final act.
Going from male to female and becoming popular and envied for it was not a common plot of mediocre late 20th century movie cliches, so it is not part of Russ’ reality. Also Russ is a raging misogynist and views women as inferior. He’d die before becoming one.
That always killed me, btw: Russ’ clear need to be the Plucky Underdog, but his aversion to being seen as anything less than a 9/10 and totally cool kind of ruins the “weird unpopular kid who becomes the hero” vibe of said movies.
Russ’ opinion of himself is more like a fan fic Mary Sue: very attractive, talented, funny, amazing person who
for some inexplicable reason is not popular, because mean gatekeeping Rich Girls stop everyone from seeing how fantastic the Mary Sue is, and not through any personal flaw of her own. Going through life possessing every possible talent and attractive quality, and it’s just normies’ inability/jealous refusal that stops them seeing how superior (and humble!) the character is.
also, can I just say:
>moves to Vegas to escape the stigma of his stalker conviction
>informs the local courts of his stalker conviction
never fucking change, star buddy.