The Untouchable Writer's Pet: Why Quinn is the Most Frustratingly Written Character in Being a DIK

Not even a 4th wall break can save this character.

Among all the characters in Being a DIK, few spark as much argument as Quinn. Her defenders claim that people only hate her because she plays the bad girl or offends sensitive players who don't like "strong women" who don't care about others.

That explanation is completely wrong.

People do not hate Quinn simply because she acts like a villain, is the bad girl, or treats others poorly. They hate Quinn because the game refuses to let the player actually fight back against her. Is she a villain? Is the MC the hero? If both are true, she's a badly written character for the sake of DPC having a "bad girl" without knowing what to do with her. If neither are true, she's just there for the sake of it, and anything the player does or she does is irrelevant. And in fact, we can do nothing to influence her if we wanted.

When you analyze her story, her total lack of consequences, and her sudden plot retcons, it becomes clear that Quinn isn't a complex, mastermind antagonist. She is a poorly written "writer's pet" whose entire existence relies on shielding her from bad outcomes, and forcing every other character around her to act completely stupid and ignorant.

(She is one of many reasons the MC is a moron, but that's a rather different conversation.)

1. Zero Player Agency: The Tybalt Comparison

As good as it will ever get. I guess we live vicariously through the Destroyer...

To understand why Quinn fails as a character, simply look at how the game treats other antagonists.

Tybalt. The game gives you direct, satisfying ways to deal with him. You can:

• Punch him in the face
• Knock his teeth out
• Humiliate him in public
• Mess around with his room
• Help shatter his plans with Jill

Even Bella will knock his teeth out if you choose not to. He acts like a jerk, and the game gives you the tools to put him in his place. Regardless of your actions, he is put in his place via Jill, his blackmail ends. As does his bodily symmetry.

Now look at Quinn:

• She tases the MC.
• She drugs Tommy on the roof.
• She slaps Riona to force her into compliance.
• She blackmails sorority pledges by lying about "free tuition."
• She supplies pretty much everyone on the campus with drugs, and decides to charge double (for no reason).
• She runs a bathroom-stall prostitution ring right under the sorority's nose, and no one reports this.

What does the game let you do to Quinn in return?

Absolutely nothing.

You can tell her to "eat shit," and she just laughs at you. You are never given the choice to:

• Punch her
• Report her to Sage
• Expose her, her prostitution ring, and drug schemes to the school administration
• Take her drugs and report them as evidence in a crime
• Hand her over to the police.

She gets total "kiddie-glove" protection from the author, making her criminal ways feel completely untouchable for no valid reason. The best you get is in Episode 12 when on a Zoey path, Zoey trips her at the New Year's Eve party. Thanks DPC, having our girlfriend deal with a girl who just humiliated us in front of the whole school? We're the MC, right?

In comparison:

Tybalt's Design

Fair Agency => Acts like a jerk => Player can punch/humiliate him

Quinn's Design

Writer's Pet => Commits crimes => Game blocks player from (at least) exposing her

Oh wait. You can take Quinn's bottle of rum from her room in Episode 7. That'll show her.

2. Dumbing Down the Cast to Keep Her Plot Alive

"I swear I'm totally not an airhead like Arieth! I'm just written that way when she's near me."

For Quinn’s paper-thin criminal scheme to work from Episode 1 to 8, the game has to force the surrounding characters to drop 25 to 50 IQ points.

Then there's the forced silence of the MC.

From the moment the MC discovers Quinn's "restaurant" prostitution service and her drug distribution, logic dictates he should warn people with actual evidence. This is especially prominent on Jill's path, where her entire background is about the drug-induced death of her sister. Instead, whenever the MC talks to Maya or Sage, he is writing/code-blocked into dropping vague, useless statements like: "Quinn is bad news."

Just how is she bad news, MC? Tell them.

You are never given an option to explain why she is bad news or reveal what she is actually doing. The author deprives the player of basic common sense just to keep Quinn's plot from collapsing in Season 1.

* * *

* SAGE'S UNBELIEVABLE IGNORANCE *

* * *

Sage is written as an outgoing, passionate yet caring, studious, and hyper-organized sorority president. Yet, we are supposed to believe she is completely blind to what is happening inside her own sorority:

• A major drug-dealing operation? On multiple occasions and from multiple people, even from her, being in Quinn's room? Sage doesn't notice.
• Pledges believing their tuition is somehow magically free? Sage never knew and when she does find out it was from Quinn, she never asks questions.
• Half her sorority members (Riona, Camila, Sarah, Melanie, Mona) are busy "turning tricks" to pay dues or buy drugs? Sage has no idea.

It's almost incomprehensibly funny that the HOTs president has no idea what's going on under her nose.

Sage apparently has her head so far up her own "academics" and obsessing over Chad that she completely misses a full-scale drug and prostitution ring operating out of her own building, school grounds, and elsewhere. It makes Sage look completely clueless just so Quinn can keep playing "KingPin & madame" from literally two doors down from her.

3. The Great Substance Retcon: From Cool Kingpin to Messy Amateur

"I shall now change my mind to do whatever DPC thinks."

Quinn’s identity shifts wildly throughout the story, showing a complete lack of long-term writing consistency and characterization.

Is she a student? Is she smart and passing classes? Does she have a plan for the future?

In Episode 1 she's the Untouchable Party Girl KingPin, claiming her drugs are non addictive. She appears boastful, confident and in control of her vices. Later on, she's a hard drug dealer, getting ever deeper into narcotics, hallucinogens, and getting violently mugged in alleys, having Riona threatened and her being powerless. In Episode 12, she sabotages her own business through retribution of Buddy via snitching on him, loses her friends as dealers, Riona, and all her contacts. She tries to get Mel and Sarah to do hard drug dealing for her and fails. She's become some kind of incompetent criminal...because. And we don't know why.

She storms out of the dean's office, loses her buyers, and alienates every friend she has. We're not even sure what's going in the background with her, or how the restaurant -- if at all -- is operating anymore.

Apparently, she's set for life after Episode 12, because she has money and drugs. Ok? How much? Is she truly rich or just embellishing?

To make matters worse, her fans often live in complete denial about this. They claim she doesn't use hard drugs despite scenes showing her nodding off with a needle in her arm.

She previously said no to hard drugs due to her father's death, and dealt only with cannabis, hash, and mushrooms. But now? Pish-posh, she's the KingPin! Time to go all out, girls!

But no one follows her. She's lost Riona, and Mel and Sarah are out.

What is going on with Quinn, DPC?

4. Episode 12: No Heroic Rescue, Just Pure Hypocrisy

Thought you were going to confront and save/fix Quinn? Nope!

Contrary to some popular fan theories, or hopes the story will go a certain direction, the MC does not rush to Quinn's rescue in Episode 12. He doesn't track down a drug dealer to pull her out of a ditch, nor does he save Riona, or from Quinn. The MC doesn't even try to get her off drugs. Quinn is simply off doing her own thing, barely caring about anyone except herself, and the MC can't influence her at all. It's like she's in her own story and the MC and us are just along for the ride, giving the audience an omniscient view while our MC moves further and further away from us (I'm looking at you, TC point system.)

In Episode 12, Quinn doesn't experience a grand realization or seek help to "fix" her life. Instead:

• She doubles down on the drug trade. She stays knee-deep in her illegal business, trying to get figures like Buddy and Vinny out of the picture for their violence toward Riona. Which is understandable, but contradictory, since they're the ones giving her drugs to sell. How long can her money and drug stash last?
• She publicly shames the MC. At the Episode 12 party, she calls out and slut-shames the MC in front of the entire crowd if his body count is high enough. Even if she's fond of him/the player is on her path. What the heck, Quinn?
• She acts purely on her own terms. In Episode 12 when she admits she missed the MC and publicly kisses him on her route, she doesn't ask for help or show any character growth. She remains the exact same unrepentant bully regardless of what she was just going through, like destroying her drug family.

It makes zero sense. Publicly attacking one of your own clients and trusted lovers at a party is terrible business and bad relationship behavior. But Quinn does it anyway because "she's the villain." Yet, despite her endless backstabbing, she faces zero real retaliation for any of it. Does the MC retaliate or get angry? The best you can do is toss her off your lap if on her path, finally rejecting her.

Oh, she lost a friend in Riona. The loss! (Does she even care?) There's the whole forced railroading of suggesting Riona take the higher ground and make up with her, or simply remove Quinn from her life; which as stated in previous posts, forced a Riona Path or Quinn Path. Apparently trying to be the nice guy to teach Riona forgiveness doesn't make sense to DPC.

In any event, Quinn is not a character; at best she's a role. At worst, a series of stereotypes with zero development.

5. The Incompetent "Mastermind" Nobody Actually Fears

Best Girl smashes Worst Girl.

Defenders love to compare Quinn to classic media villains. But who in the game is actually intimidated by her?

• Not Maya. Maya literally slapped Quinn across the face in front of the entire HOTs sorority.
• Not Riona. Ditto, at the New Year's Eve Party. No more shit taken.
• Not Sage. The moment Quinn suggested Sage ask her parents for money, Sage angrily snaps back at Quinn and warns her never to cross that line again.
• Not Lily. Lily openly mocked Quinn when Quinn tried to blackmail and bully Mona. "It must suck to have nothing on me, nothing to retort or extort..."
• Not Mona or Camila. Both of them completely ignored Quinn's orders and slept with the MC for free behind her back.
• Not Zoey. If on her path, Zoey trips her in Episode 12 after the Never Have I Ever MC slut-shame scene.

That leaves pre-Episode 12 Riona, a vulnerable girl whom Quinn has had for a "friend' for a while, who she physically slapped into submission once. That isn't the mark of a long term friend, or a criminal mastermind.

That's the mark of a weak, low-level bully who can only pick on people who can't fight back.

It's sad. It's pathetic.

And worse? It's boring, lame, and predictable. Can DPC write villains at all?

The mark of a good story, the protagonist/antagonist, is the quality of it's villains.

But don't take my word for it. Take Stan "The Man" Lee:

"Once we've invented a hero, that's it. He's pretty much the same, issue after issue. He's predictable... Our villain has to be unique, clever, inventive, and full of fiendish surprises… you've got to be as interested in the scoundrel as you are in the stalwart in order for the story to work."

Quinn is selfish. Uncaring. Vindictive. The same, predictable bad girl she's been since day one.

So why did you rate her a B in Episode 12?

Let me guess DPC: this scene also didn't happen?

According to my Episode 12 tier list, Quinn is a B. Why so high if she's so badly written?

Well, Quinn, being protected in the narrative by DPC in Episode 12, was the only character that had 2 full romance scenes. The only other 2's were Jade and Jill, and they were tangential in their 2nd scene. There was a focus on her story, and that made her largely the most entertaining factor in the Episode.

Entertaining. however. doesn't mean she was a good or well written character in those scenes. It means that there was comedy/drama to be had simply because she was involved. (i.e. the whole Cop/Buddy scene was as a result of her, the same with Vinny.) She wasn't literally in the scene causing the drama, but because of her, the scenes played out. So it's technically her story, so she gets points for it.

She's still below average on visuals, personality, and a full -5 on Hypocrisy.

Conclusion: A Character Protected by Authorial Armor

Who else aside from a deluded author would think this was a good idea?

Quinn is not a deep or complex villain. She is a "basic bitch"-bully given a generic backstory ("I come from a broken home") to force fake sympathy. The idiotic make-up tattoo of a rodent named from her dead father doesn't pull any heartstrings; it makes average players cringe at this ridiculous flashback from a children's picture book. It's also hilarious the DPC is once again using generic Daz3D assets trying to make stories out of them (B&R jackets? Why, let's name the whole school B&R. As opposed to, I don't know...have actual DIK jackets? DIK's are just...orange and black jackets?)

What makes her the worst-written character in Being a DIK is that the author refuses to write a villain without making them completely untouchable. On a visual novel path built around choice, being on Quinn's route gives you zero ability to guide, change, or fix her, let alone influence her. She simply does terrible things, the surrounding characters are forced to act dumb so her plot works, and the player is denied any real satisfaction or agency in bringing her down. Or at very least, trying to help her.

In every single way, Quinn is a massive narrative dud. She's a character designed to be hated because she is bad, but also shielded by the plot and code so that you can never actually defeat, help, or influence her.

Choose her as a romance option? Sex is transactional. Until in Episode 12 she declares you're "her man". Huh? A whole Episode 11 of barely any interaction while she plots her drug-dealer's demise, and we just sit back, party plan, and go "what's up with Quinn and Riona?"

She's pointless, incompetent and not very likable or attractive compared to the massive cast of Being a DIK.