#And again that's not to say I dislike the actual episodes or anything I still think they were an absolute blast

[paperhats-and-evil-schemes]

*The Room voice* OH HI MARK!

Firstly I just wanted to say how nice it is to see you back and dabbling a little bit in Villainous again! 💕 It's been a little slow in the fandom these days, so seeing one of my favourite Paperhat blogs come back has been such a treat! I loved seeing that art + paragraph of Black Hat going absolutely feral! So exciting to see what's in store with White Hat again!

If I may, I had a question I've been wondering about... Will the new(er) Villainous episodes have much impact on your current writings? Like new characters for example, or how the main cast's relationships with each other are developing and such like?

Shit dude, I dunno how I missed this ask for so long, sorry for replying late, totally my bad

I DID NAHT HIT HER, I DID //NAHT//

Lmao but anyway, thank you, you're sweet. 💞 As for your question, that's gonna be a pretty definite "no" from me, tbh. As much as I like the new episodes and characters, I don't really have a fitting place for the new heroes (especially considering, as somebody else sort of pointed out, I already gave Flug a different history with a hero and ex-classmate since we hadn't known his backstory yet at the time) so adding characters like Heed and Goldheart seems a little redundant. I could possibly make cameos of the new BHO clients I guess? But I haven't really considered it or anything. My fics were plotted out years ago back when we only had shorts and orientations to go off of, so it'd feel a bit weird to try and change things now.

On the topic of the dynamic between the characters though, it actually in my opinion? feels a lot different in the episodes as compared to how they all interacted in the shorts, orientation videos, older comics, and all that. I'm not saying I dislike the episodes so far, I still very much enjoy them, but the energy between all the characters has noticeably shifted (especially with BH) in a way that I very much doubt I'll be replicating. I actually saw a post a while ago, when I was perusing tumblr (while my blog was still deleted so I unfortunately couldn't save the post and can't find it again smh, pretty sure it was by @petitprincess1 though) that summed up pretty well how BH feels a lot less "involved" with the group shenanigans now than he was in the shorts & orientations, and that extends to how he interacts with the others, too. Like, with the episodes, it's kind of like he's this completely untouchable entity that's a lot more detatched from what his staff are doing, whereas in the shorts & orientations, he was a lot more involved with them, would horse around and join in when they're all messing with each other or pranking, just felt overall more "present" with the group even though he was still, of course, very much the boss. It's that kind of dynamic that I've always more leaned towards when it comes to my fics, and it's what I prefer overall with the characters. (I'm probably rewording these points like trash lmao, but hopefully you get what I'm saying (also hopefully I didn't misunderstand that last part of your question and ramble on forever about the wrong fucking thing HUHUHU))

It'd be way too much trouble to try and keep up with new things or retcon old fic stuff

Anyway, sorry for being a rambly fuck, but yeah, TL;DR, when it comes to my fics, the character dynamics (especially BH) will continue to more resemble the shorts and orientation videos rather than the full episodes. I don't see much point in changing anything I currently have going on just to fit the newer stuff, it just feels like that'd be kinda tonally jarring, ya feel?

[nerdyfan1]

Ok guess talking about A New Wish again cus I got invested lol

Anyways maybe it’s a me thing (it’s definitely a me thing) but, I do get a little sad when ppl act like Peri doesn’t care about or straight up hates Dev. I’ve seen a few rbs and tweets it’s not a lot but, it did make me think about this. See I actually got the opposite impression of what we’ve seen of the dynamic. Peri cares a bunch for the kid and Dev doesn’t dislike him just still struggling to trust him. We’ve seen him take awhile to trust ppl and let his mask down for Hazel. She also seems to be the only one who got to him so far.

So Peri is going through what a lot of parents do, ending up with a kid they weren’t prepared for. Bro seems mostly tired. If anything I feel if Peri was to be mad at anyone it not be Dev, it be the fairy department who assigned him a very obviously tougher case that a newbie as himself wasn’t equipped to handle. Dev by no means is a bad kid but, he’s more complicated compared to his god kid counterpart in Hazel. She definitely has her own issues (hence why Cosmo and Wanda wanted to help her) but, she’s more well adjusted than what’s going on with lil Dimmadome over there.

I’ve seen someone mentioned Peri was screwed over by the Fairy Department here which I 100% agree with. In fact I’ll go a step further and say they both were. Just like Peri should have been given a kid who he could more reasonably handle Dev should have gotten a gotten a fairy that had more experience so they could properly handle his issues. Yet despite all this I actually like that they were paired up this way.

It was a unfair yes but, also really irrelevant thinking about this. Cus given how the episodes been going so far I definitely see these two having an arc about Peri learning to appreciate his parents while letting them know he’s his own man now. While Dev is gonna learn to continue to open himself up to others. Eventually growing to trust Peri and see him as a dad. You given who his actual dad is like.

I take these two so seriously guys. I don’t think I’ve seen a fairy and god kid relationship like this. Most of them are usually at least got along relatively well. Honestly no not here. Peri and Dev pair up feels like it is set up to fail yet the idea they still in the end up making it work and get to see each other eye to eye is great. I have a strong feeling that where this is heading.

I’ll give them a bit and they’ll be like the sweetest adopted father and gay son dynamic. 💞

Edit: Wtf where all these notes coming from? I’m at least glad to see ppl agree with me here. I’m beyond happy he got Peri btw. Even if in universe it probably was a mess up or The Fairy Department fucking shit up lol

[ohnopeh]

i was rewatching gallavich scenes (no one’s surprised) and to be honest, i think the whole monogamy thing is pretty clear from the beginning ( to us, cause they’re dumb )

neither of them want the other to fuck other people but they share one braincell thinking the other wants to mess around. ian talks about monogamy saying its about not having sex with others and mickey expression changes

he’s clearly panicking wondering if ian mentioned it because his husband wants to fuck around. he doesn’t want to lose ian and is afraid that saying yes to monogamy could be a deal breaker (im pretty sure mickey was feeling insecure as fuck about not being a good husband since they fought about the money, job etc.)

when ian sees mickey’s reaction, he mistakes it as disappointment/disagreement with being monogamous. you can totally see he’s regretting mentioning it and wondering how the hell he’s going to get out of that situation.

he’s like ‘what the fuck what is this reaction what is going on why isn’t he saying he wants to have sex with me only?’ (cause again, one braincell shared)

so they’re just dumb fuckers who want the other to be happy but they just confuse each other, not realising they want the same thing. mickey asks ian what exactly is counted as having sex : blowjobs, proper fucking? because he wants to know what ian would want from others and if he can handle that, but of course ian thinks that’s mickey asking because he is the one who wants to fuck around!

none of them want to just disappoint the other so mickey plays it cool saying ‘you don’t want to fuck other people?!’ (reminds me of ‘you don’t want to fuck angie? everybody fucks angie’) and of course ian’s defensive too saying ‘me fucking you only? no… so difficult… no… i could never… not like ive been doing so for 10 years… going back to you all the time… saying sex with you is fucking fantastic… no….’

but then ian says

that’s his way of trying to let mickey know he’s actually not into the whole open relationship thing. but considering they just keep saying they want to do it, mickey simply thinks ian is being hypocrite, not being able to see what he truly meant by that. when ian writes down that he wants monogamy, he’s being honest and i suppose he kept on thinking mickey wanted to fuck around cause he didn’t show his answer (which was mickey’s way of trying to do what ian wanted cause he always want ian to be happy and will do anything for him)

they just keep being dumb as hell until the episode where they have sex with other people. you can see mickey has realised ian isn’t into it but doesn’t want to admit it, to keep mickey happy— because mickey is taking the piss out of ian by pretending he’s having the time of his life trying to find new friends to fuck around with.

( again, ian is forcing them to find gay friends just because he thinks that’s what they’re supposed to do to archive their new happy life )

mickey staying with the other gay couples for drinks he doesn’t like, company he dislikes. he waits for ian to call it a night and even then he took the piss out of ian asking if he really wanted to leave. they end up having sex with the others but once they’re home ian says it was a waste of time and mickey points out they did want ian wanted so badly, making gay friends and having sex with other people. so how is that a waste of time if ian wanted this all along?

mickey asks

(are you still going to pretend we want to fuck other people?) and ian admits that, no, he doesn’t want that. he doesn’t want gay friends to talk about their sex life or friends to bang just because. explaining he’s okay to have lip ( and mickey ) as their only friends cause they’re alike and that’s what he needs. he doesn’t have to force himself to be different or fit somewhere.

i know people also discuss the scene where ian is at the gym in their new apartment, where he smiles at the guy flirting with him. to me that scene was just ian being taken by surprise ( as he didn’t really expect the guy to hear him ) and maybe even glad that there are gay and accepting people around them (not like southside) so it only proved more and more that their life in the north side could do good to mickey too. it makes sense because in the same episode mickey freaks out about the new place, it shows how they react to changes and ‘safeness’ as mickey says it makes him feel uncomfortable to have a better life, something new that he has no control over (like him saying he has no idea how to escape safely from the northside/their new house— if needed)

long story short : they are dumb and always want the other to be happy but scared to communicate properly and mess things up. they only want each other in all the way and that’s what it is and will be forever! shameless writers for s10-11 were something else tho, im sure there were better ways to write this plot but still lol

[gemsofthegalaxy]

One of the things I've seen said was it's ironic that Blitz now won't stop blowing up Stolas' phone when he couldn't be bothered to text him when he was in the hospital, or didn't care enough to

And maybe I'm being nit-picky with wording, but, I wouldn't say it was that Blitz didn't care enough to text or see Stolas. I think Blitz's affections are muddled and way, waaay more subtle than Stolas' big big emotions but I am feeling very vindicated as of the most recent episode because it's hugely concrete evidence, finally, that Blitz cares about Stolas

I know Blitz has brushed Stolas off a lot, seems annoyed by him, rolls his eyes at his affection and sexuality, but imo none of this means Blitz doesn't actually like Stolas. I've said this before (and also keep trying to make a longer post and failing) but if you look at how Blitz treats Moxxie, he is highly abrasive and a dickhead even to the people he clearly adores. In Truthseekers, he's upset at the idea he might have crossed a line by telling Moxxie he disliked one of his interests but at the same time he rags on Moxxie for his vanilla sex life with Millie and like 50 other things all the time. He is nearly obsessed with Moxxie, wants to be near him, cares for him, and is still a complete jerk to him a lot of the time. Because we see less of Stolas and Blitz and very different sides of the relationship, I know some people have read into it that Blitz genuinely is disinterested in Stolas but I really don't even think it's been the case.

Back to the point at hand, I wouldn't say that Blitz refusing to see Stolas while he was in hospital is due to lack of care. If anything, probably too much care. Blitz, understandbly, probably has a complicated relationship with hospitals after the fire accident. In The Full Moon he acknowledges in the opening song that something is up, he knows Stolas wants to talk and he also states outright he doesn't want to address the weirdness, he wants thing to stay the same, chill, transactional, no feelings involved. Now, if Apology Tour hadn't gone down how it did, I might believe that Blitz doesn't want feelings involved because he doesn't have feelings for Stolas in the first place (although, again, I maintain he's always cared about Stolas and we do get hints to this, they haven't been super blantant)

But oohhh man in Apology Tour, it's never been clearer, from the first moment of the episode, Blitz is fighting for Stolas in a way we certainly haven't seen before (in his abravise messed up way). He is visually and viserally upset at being confronted with the fact Stolas doesn't think he ever cared about him precisely because he does care about him. He's viciously jealous at another man "stealing" Stolas' attention because he ultimately feels like Stolas belongs with him, even if he's not ready to let that happen in a way that's good for either of them.

Therefore, in retrospect at the very least, I can't comprehend Blitz's lack of going to the hospital as a lack of care in and of itself. I think he just couldn't handle it, honestly, it would be too big, too real, too significant, too close to the truth of the matter to acknowledge not only to himself but to Stolas that he cares enough to visit him in the hospital. And he can't let Stolas knows he cares that much, because he won't be good enough for him. I mean, clearly, the conclusion is still the same that it comes across like he doesn't care enough, but it's more complicated than that, is what I'm trying to say

[chaifootsteps]

Still thinking about Viv's claim that she thinks both sides are in the wrong and it's bugging me enough to do a quick episode run down to see how exactly that claim stacks up. Hopefully quantifying a bit more will help see where we're actually at

Ozzies: Between episodes 6&7 Stolas gets a personality transplant and goes from calling Blitzo his 'impish little plaything' and demeaning him to being head over heels for him, calling him by his name and bowing to him. When the car drives away the camera lingers on Stolas crying, though the episode ends on Blitzo and his emotions so we'll call this one even

Queen Bee: We see Blitzo's emotions in the aftermath in the form of a self-destructive bender, but noticeably what he says to Loona is that he's upset that he'll die alone. He doesn't say anything about being upset about feeling used or mistreated by Stolas (he even says his name along with the others before he throws up)

The Circus: Retcons galore backstory about how Stolas and Blitzo were childhood friends and despite using him for sex all s1, Stolas was apparently really in love with Blitzo the whole time?? It doesn't make a lot of sense but go with it. Episode ends with a song where Stolas not only implies Blitzo was somehow lying to him this whole time (Genius.com contributor suggests Stolas believed Blitzo actually loved him, which seems the obvious interpretation of these lyrics) but also makes him out to be a weak victim. He shows no guilt whatsoever for the part he played in making Blitzo feel degraded and used.

What’s between you and I Just a comfortable lie I’m the fool who believes When you look in my eyes

Seeing Stars: Stolas being framed as badass while he's choking his butler and it not being remotely bad on his part that he continues to sexually accost Blitzo in their first meeting after Ozzie's. Any criticisms Blitzo makes of Stolas (not remembering his own spells) are dismissed by Stolas with nonsensical arguments (it's relevant Blitzo can't remember Moxxie's phone number, apparently?)

Exes and Ohs: Stolas isn't in this episode or mentioned at all

Western Energy: Text message exchange after Ozzie's show Stolas giving a non apology where he doesn't actually address the problem, literally doing a 'I'm sorry if something I said or did upset you'. Episode ends on Stolas alone in the hospital where the viewer should pity him that Blitzo didn't come to visit :(

Unhappy Campers: No Stolas!

Oops: Blitzo dismisses the notion that Stolas cares about him by using examples obviously meant to favor Stolas. He is framed as jaded and unreasonable and Fizz is the obvious voice of reason. The imp who hates royalty is called a supremacist, Blitzo is the in between who dislikes Stolas and Fizz - the one who capes for royalty - is presented as in the right

Full Moon: Blitzo again criticizes Stolas, without getting to mention anything specific from s1. He is framed as going too far and tries to apologize. Stolas acts like the deal was a mutual thing even when admitting it was wrong

By my count that's basically no examples in Blitzo's favor. And I imagine if we counted all the Twitter likes from Viv on posts favoring Blitzo we'd turn up a big goose egg there, too

Careful, now! You laid out all the facts and stated them plainly, and we know that that makes a certain subset of fans angry and scared.

Viv can claim that "they're supposed to both be in the wrong" all she likes, but it doesn't mean a thing if every other word of writing in season 2 suggests the opposite. I guess the real test will come in Apology Tour, when we get to see who's actually doing the apologizing.

[live-laugh-lenney]

Hellur, how are uu!!! This is my first time in tumblr. And there are only a few of george clarke or arthurtv fics. Very thankful for one of the people who creates them🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

May i request a reaction for Arthur or George where all of their fans love their gf, especially she's just a normal beautiful gal 😍😍😍 what if their girl has dimplessss

hi lovely. welcome to tumblr, welcome to my blog, welcome to a safe place to come vent and chat all things arthurtv and chaos crew as well as youtube! lots of love! thank you for popping by - don't be a stranger, at all. i have so many thoughts for this :')))

G E O R G E

everyone loves her.

he takes his time to introduce her publicly because she's isn't a girl who is known - she's not a youtuber, she's not a tiktoker, she's not an influencer so he wants to slowly wean her into the chaos of his life and shield her from twitter's hate and the tiktok comments that will be written about her.

because, of course, there will always be some people who dislike her - its part and parcel of being with him and she knows that.

those that love her, she loves back. she always keeps an eye on her social media, always checks in with them, replies to their tweets and she does little q and a's on her instagram story about herself... with the occasional question about her and george or anything to do with their relationship (without going into much detail - she leaves that for his podcast).

and he definitely has her on for an episode, alongside andrew, like a couple's podcast episode where they just spill the beans on what it's like to date max and george. from the horse's mouth comments from someone who is dating someone so loved and well-known in their industry line of work.

"i'm pretty sure everyone loves yn more than they love me."

"what can i say? you're not the only one with a pretty face., georgey boy."

"it's the dimples, i'm telling you."

and she will always tease him because she knows how loved she is in amongst his followers. always having pictures taken at events they see her at, taking cute and funny selfies, hugging those who want to give her a hug and george just loves to see it happen.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

A R T H U R

his followers speculate before arthur actually announces that they're in a relationship...

he's much more of a soft launcher with the two of them as opposed to completely introducing her - he never sees the point in posting her alongside her social tags because she's not someone known to many in the world.

he can't hide on social media; and that doesn't stop him from being a simp for her. people go digging once they see them together in public, people see that he likes her posts, they can see his comments and he doesn't see the problem because that's his girl and if he wants to show his love for her than he can. he just chooses not to launch her hard by giving her a dedicated post so people know who she is.

so when it's been long enough, and he sees that people love her and want to see more of her, he starts bringing her onto his channel.

that's how he properly and formerly introduces her.

"yn's here with me today."

"he needs the views, figured he may as well use me as clout."

"well- no, that's not- no-"

he gets so soft in the face, cheeks going red and he stutters and she loves that he still gets giddy over how she has such witty remarks back to him.

"i'm just messing, i'm here for my five minutes of fame."

"again, not what's happening."

and it's just sweet moments where people can truly see them for how they actually are together - so sickeningly in love with each other that it's almost too sweetly gross to witness.

and, my god, the edits that come out of it are something yn could sit and watch for days because it really captures just how they are as a couple. and she's no stranger to sharing them on her socials, saving them to her camera roll, showing them to arthur when they're sitting and aimlessly scrolling their accounts, commenting how she loves them and that it's so special to have their sweet and loving moments documented in such a way.

out in public, he's so soft with her and always stands close to her on their museum dates and they're always holding hands down the busy streets of london and he always holds her close to him on the tubes whenever they need to get public transports and he's always weary of her going over to meet those who had seen the two of them in the street... people take photos, they take videos, they share them all over the internet - they can't stop them from doing that. he knows she's just being kind but he always tells her that she can never been too careful. but she loves them just as much as he is thankful for them; and of course, he sits back and watches as they start showing off how much they adore her. xx

[ms-cartoon]

I still stand for what I say about my last post when it came to Alastor and Charlie, though lately, people have been telling me that Alastor was only saying all that and acting like that just to piss off Lucifer. While I can understand why people would believe that (cuz of how sadistic he is) it doesn't truly convince me. . . . Because WHY is he trying to piss off Lucifer? What is it about Lucifer that got under his skin so much even before the song? Why is he so competitive against him while trying to get Charlie's approval.

You can't tell me Alastor didn't get mad the second he saw him cuz LOOK at him-

You might think I'm looking at it wrong, but Alastor looks too pissed looking at Lucifer hugging Charlie. Almost as if he's possibly jealous of what he's seeing. And if that were the case, then once again I ask- Why would he feel anything for Charlie??? And if it has nothing to do with Charlie, what other reason could there be??

This also brings me to question . . . Is it just me or did Alastor seem a bit out of character in this episode? Getting triggered over the slightest of things to the point of cussing, so quick to show how much he dislikes someone, and quick to give threats?

The entire time he was shown so far before now, dude was totally chill, no matter what people said or did to him. Usually, when someone back-talked or insulted him, he would reply with a smile and laugh it up like he wasn't taking that someone seriously. If not that, he would reply with a witty comeback even. Usually, it's HIM who's pissing everyone else off instead of the other way around. The only time where he showed a little bit of annoyance is with Vox or anything TV-related. But in THIS episode, one little insult about his idea for the hotel's name is enough to drop an f-bomb on Lucifer??? Are you serious?? Out of all the things he would cuss about??

You could say he was only doing all that either because he was pushing Lucifer to be a better father or something. But maybe they could actually show that.

Not to mention this moment with Husk-

What the hell what THAT all about???

[supernovafics]

series masterlist | last part

pairing: modern!actor!steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 8.1k words

warnings: explicit language, angst, fluff, smut (18+)

summary: it’s ten months of texts, phone calls, voicemails, anything to make it feel like everything isn’t too different. and for the most part, it works. until you and steve finally see each other again

EPILOGUE | ❝𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒆❞

You: How’s New York so far?

Steve: Good aside from Tom trying to force me to do more press stuff than what we initially agreed on and I’ve only been here three days

You: I kinda miss that british man

Steve: That truly offends me</3

You: I’m sorry<3

You: Okay very very important question

You: Empire State of Mind or Welcome to New York?

Steve: ???? 

You: You’re in New York for the next month so one of them has to be your signature song (and yes this is coming from the person that has only been to New York a handful of times. shut up don’t mention it) 

Steve: Can I say no to both of them?

You: No.

Steve: Okay then 

Steve: The Taylor Swift one

You: Solid answer

You: Now I will start your morning right every day you’re there by sending you lyrics from that song :) 

Steve: Oh god

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Steve: What was the name of that show we watched for almost five hours at your place that one night?

You: It sincerely hurts me that you forgot the name of Brooklyn Nine-Nine….

Steve: Yes, that’s it! I was thinking about this one episode we watched of it but I couldn’t remember the name

You: Are you about to watch it without me? (if the answer is yes that hurts me even more)

Steve: Yes I was… But now no way I would never watch it without you

You: A true friend. Thank you 

Steve: Oh wait I’m just now realizing how late it is where you are. How are you even talking to me right now? 

You: Yeah, it’s 2am but I can’t sleep. First day of real filming tomorrow. First day being AD. And yes all the pre-production stuff me and Jessie have been doing since we got to Spain two weeks ago has been perfectly leading to this moment, but now it just feels so fucking real and even though I know I’m not gonna mess up or anything I’m still nervous

Steve: You’re gonna do great and actually I think it’s impossible for you not to be really good at what you do  

You: Thank you

Steve: I would suggest that I call you and we watch an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine to take your mind off things but you should sleep 

You: No actually can we do that? I’m wide awake right now and I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep anytime soon 

You: Also fun fact: I’m actually able to function better when I’m running on barely three hours of sleep 

Steve: That’s a huge lie but okay

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“… Please leave a message after the beep.”

You listened to the all-too familiar sound of the “beep” and then began speaking. “Okay, I know it’s like three in the morning in LA right now, so it completely makes sense why you didn’t answer. But, anyway, I just landed in London last night and now it’s morning and I’m at the coffee shop that you told me I should go to while I’m here.” 

“It’s really, really great, and I hate how right you are about the tea being amazing, and it actually makes me change my mind about how much I dislike tea. Oh, also, I got my first ever British scone from here and it’s so good too. I think I’ll probably be spending every day at this place while I’m here for the next month.”

“And I know you raved a lot about the breakfast sandwiches here too, so I will try that tomorrow. I think you said that the bacon one was your favorite, but please confirm that because I can’t fully remember… Oh, wait, nevermind, it’s definitely the bacon because I do remember you saying that you miss it a lot.”

“I could bring you one back if you want? No, wait, actually, that wouldn’t make sense because even when I leave London, I’m still gonna be in Europe for three more months… Wait, I see that they sell coffee mugs here, though, so I could definitely bring you back that if you wanted me to? They have some cool options.” 

“Alright, I think I’m just rambling at this point so let me shut up.” You let out a small laugh. “Okay, bye.” 

Call Ended

-

You: *image attached* 

You: Enjoy that picture of me being the most touristy tourist in the world :) 

Steve: I can’t believe you’re doing the leaning tower of pisa pose thing

You: I had to. I couldn’t come here and not do it. It feels like tradition. A rite of passage, if you will

Steve: You’re such a dork 

You: Joke’s on you because I fully take that as a compliment, so thank you 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The feeling of your phone vibrating in the back pocket of the jeans you were wearing surprised you because you thought you had turned it off for the day. And then seeing Steve’s name take over your phone screen further surprised you, but you didn’t hesitate to answer the call.  

“Hi,” You said. You were on a break for the first time that day, so the timing of his call was actually kind of perfect. “This is a pretty nice surprise.”

“Hey, how’s it going?” It felt really good actually hearing his voice for the first time in what felt like forever.  

“Pretty good. I never thought I’d actually find myself truly missing LA, but now I kinda can’t wait to be back there in three weeks,” You answered, saying what had been on your mind for a while at this point. “How’s Vancouver?” 

“Nice so far. It’s actually been snowing a lot, but I like it.” 

“I hope you've been doing all of the snow and Winter activities; making snow angels, sledding down hills. Y’know, all the stuff they do in children’s Christmas movies.” 

You almost immediately heard Steve laugh at your words. “The apartment I’m staying at here has a balcony, and last night after it stopped snowing I made a really small snowman.” 

You smiled. “I love that. Please send me a picture of it.” 

“Okay.”

Things became quiet for a moment, and it was a silence that easily felt comfortable and you didn’t mind it at all. Simply knowing that Steve was on the other end of the call felt like enough. 

“This is a random thought, but we never usually talk on the phone. Mainly because our time zones are insanely different, so the timing is never right, and we’re either leaving each other voicemails or just texting, which is fine. But it’s really nice hearing your voice. It’s just… really comforting.” You let out a soft breath. “Where I am right now and where I’ve been the past five-ish months have become my makeshift “homes,” but talking to you actually feels like home, in a way… And I know exactly how disgustingly cheesy that sounds. Don’t say anything about it, or I will end this call.”

Steve laughed a bit. “No, I agree with you. We’ve talked about feeling lonely before, but even though we haven’t seen each other in what feels like a really long time, whenever we text and especially when we talk on the phone, it’s hard to feel lonely. It’s like all of these miles between us don’t really matter, which is nice. You’re my “home” too.”

You were quiet for a second, fully taking in his words and smiling at how happy they made you feel. It was the kind of happiness where you also kind of felt like crying. 

You loved what you had been doing currently with your job and you wouldn’t have changed any of it, but you also really wished that you could see Steve right then; you would’ve killed for a hug.  

“Okay, I think I should go before I start crying,” You said, only slightly joking with your words. “Also, I only have ten more minutes of my break, and I haven’t eaten since this morning.” 

“Oh shit, I’m sorry.”

You shook your head even though he couldn’t see you. “No, don’t be sorry. Like I said, I really like when we can actually talk to each other. I like hearing your voice.” 

“I like hearing yours too,” He told you and somehow it was easy to hear the smile in his tone. “Okay, I’m gonna hang up now. Go eat something.”

“Aye, aye captain,” You said with a small laugh. “Talk to you soon.”  

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You: I just watched the final cut of Fear of Lonesome with Jessie… Enjoy this picture of me currently bawling my eyes out at the ending

You: *image attached*

Steve: Sorry for making you cry?

You: It was worth it, honestly

Steve: You’re coming to the cast and crew screening next week right?

You: Of course. I will happily cry at this movie again :)

You: It’s kinda really fucked up how good of an actor you are 

Steve: Thank you? At least I think that’s a compliment

You: It is<3

You: Anyway I’ll see you next week then

You: The first time in a really really long time. Holy shit 

Steve: That feels a little weird to think about. But a good kind of weird

You: Yeah definitely the good kind 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

It was a moment that was ten months in the making. 

Ten months of texts, voicemails, and sporadic phone calls. Ten months of being so far apart from one another, but doing so much to make it feel like you weren’t. 

It was all leading here— seeing Steve in person at the small theater in West Hollywood that had been rented out for the night’s occasion. And when you saw him, talking to random members of the cast and crew, it didn’t exactly feel real, which made you not say anything. 

Until he saw you and your eyes met and small smiles were quickly shared. You gave him a small nod before you got pulled into a conversation with someone.

He looked a little different, hair grown out a bit more and there was something minorly different about his stance, but overall he was still your Steve. Well, not technically yours, but close enough. You then wondered if he thought you looked any different. You personally felt a bit different, in a good way; like you’d become better over the past ten months, and in some ways, more of yourself. 

It was almost amusing how, most of the time, the time seemed to move slowly over the past ten months, but now it was suddenly moving so much faster. 

Everyone left the lobby area and started making their way inside the room that the screening would be happening in since it was scheduled to start in five minutes, but you and Steve lingered back, walking toward each other until there were only a few beats of space between you two. 

You smiled at him again. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He stepped forward to close the rest of the distance between you and pull you in for a hug, but you stepped back. 

“Oh, I don’t know if I’m allowed to hug you. Y’know given that you’re an engaged man and all.” You tried to be completely serious with your words but it was hard not to laugh at least a little bit.

According to many celebrity news outlets, Steve and his female costar of the limited series he’d been filming in Vancouver for the past five months were dating. It was a rumor that started about two months into filming, and there had been no confirmations about the said relationship but there were also no hard denials, so the speculations continued. And then there were even a handful of news outlets that went quite insane with their headlines and said that the two were secretly engaged. You both had laughed about it then when you sent that article to him, because the rumors were hilariously ridiculous, and you couldn’t not joke about it now. 

“Ha ha,” He said, voice deadpan. “I didn’t even get to tell you, but Tom suggested that me and Lily actually start fake dating because, in addition to all of this giving so much more press to the show, it could also help me. If I’m dating someone it will fully “kill off the asshole image.” I immediately vetoed that idea, though.”

Although the asshole narrative that surrounded Steve still existed— not as prominent as it once was but it still lingered whenever his name was brought up by the media— it was hard to see him like that anymore.  

You let out a laugh. “Of course Tom would suggest that.” 

“Yeah, he’s…” Steve trailed off with a quick shake of his head. “Anyway, c’mere.”

You walked into his open arms that time, pushing up on your toes to circle your arms around his neck as his wrapped around your waist. Your eyes fell shut as he held you tight and it was then that the time felt like it started to move slow again. 

“I have something for you,” You told him after a moment, words getting somewhat lost in his neck but he was still able to hear you. “A little gift. It’s in my car, I’ll give it to you after.” 

“I also have something for you,” Steve whispered, and you opened your eyes at that.

You pulled back from the hug, still smiling at him. “Great minds, hm?”

He nodded and matched your smile with one of his own. Seeing him right then still didn’t entirely feel real just yet, so you went quiet once again and the two of you simply looked at each other. 

During the past ten months you and him had talked pretty much all of the time, but there was something different about this moment. Feelings that you thought you had successfully pushed far away rushed right back to the surface. 

“We should head inside,” He said, breaking the silence and pulling you out of your thoughts, which you were grateful for because you really didn’t want to think right then, especially not about that.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You were the one that suggested Steve come back to your place and the small gift exchange happen there. 

The screening felt as if it ended too soon and the inevitability of the night itself ending started to hang in the air. However, you couldn’t allow that to happen; you wanted this night to last as long as it could. 

Steve agreed with your suggestion and thirty minutes after various goodbyes were said, the two of you were sitting on your couch as a frozen pizza that you’d just bought yesterday cooked in the oven because both of you were hungry. 

You were already wearing the navy blue oversized crewneck he got you that had “Vancouver” embroidered in white across the front of it. It was comfortable and perfect, and a simple gift but also the best thing you’d received in a while. 

“I hope you like this,” You said as you handed him the gift you’d gotten for him; a cream colored mug with the logo of a coffee shop in brown lettering on the side. “I know you said that you were okay with not getting a mug from that coffee shop in London, but I just really wanted to get you this one.”

Steve looked at the mug for a second and then at you, a smile on his face. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” You said and your fingers started mindlessly playing with the hem of your crewneck as you continued speaking. “I’ve missed you a lot this past year. I know we talked so often and everything, but being right here, in person, feels really nice.”

“I’ve missed you too,” He said softly before he placed the mug on the coffee table barely a few feet away and then met your eyes again. “There were so many times where I wanted to just drop everything and go see you. Rearrange plans or cancel some stupid press stuff and meet up with you. Even if it would only be for barely a day or whatever. I just always wanted to see you.” 

You wanted to tell him how much you related to his words. You wanted to say how there were a countless amount of times where you had yearned to do the exact same thing. However, you couldn’t find the words to tell Steve any of that, so instead you only looked at him for a bit.

It was almost funny how many times you had become at a loss of words so far that night simply because of him. But it was as if the fact that you were suppressing so much made you unable to say pretty much anything. Because you were scared of where exactly your mind would go if you didn’t immediately shut down some of your thoughts that involved you and Steve, especially now that he was right here instead of thousands of miles away and no longer solely limited to the confines of your phone.  

He was your friend. Best friend. And it had been so much easier to pretend that that was where you and him solely began and ended when you both were so far away from each other— when he wasn’t right in front of you and you weren’t so easily reminded of how close you two used to be in such a different way. 

Those same revived feelings from earlier that night came right back again, and they practically increased tenfold because you found yourself wanting to kiss him so fucking badly. And, of course, there was a part of your mind that immediately told you just how bad of an idea that would be. However, at that moment, you became okay with all logical thinking being pushed out of the window. 

In your mind it felt like you were moving in slow motion, scooting closer to him on the couch and sliding into his lap so that your legs were on either side of him, but in reality it was happening so much quicker. However, you stopped there before you did anything else.

You could see some confusion in his eyes and also something else that you couldn’t fully decipher, maybe he was contemplating things as much as you had been before you decided to take this sort of plunge.  

That look was almost enough to wake you up and remind you of what had been agreed upon all those months ago, but it wasn’t enough to make you pull away from Steve. However, instead of sliding off of his lap or moving things further, you gave the metaphorical ball to him. 

You let silence hang in the air as the two of you simply looked at each other and you gave him the opportunity to push you away. To tell you that there wasn’t any part of him that wanted this to happen. That he was so far past feeling anything like that toward you anymore. That he never even thought about it.

You would’ve been okay with any of those things happening because even though it would’ve hurt, it would actually make things a thousand times easier. 

But, he didn’t do or say any of that. Instead, he closed the last bit of space between you two and slotted his lips against yours. 

It was an immovable and obvious fact that you had missed him so much over the past ten months, but you now realized that you had missed this just as much. A soft kiss that almost immediately turned into something more with one of Steve’s hands coming up to cup your cheek and the other finding your hip to keep you steady. You couldn’t help but moan into his mouth when his tongue ran across your bottom lip making the kiss deeper, and your hands fisted themselves into his t-shirt to bring yourself impossibly closer to him. 

For the time being, you effectively turned your mind off. You deliberately chose not to think about what this exactly meant or what it would come to mean. All you focused on in that moment was how fucking good doing this with Steve felt. 

Your hands found the hem of your crewneck because you suddenly felt way too hot and you pulled away from Steve for a second so that you could slip it over your head, leaving you in just your black tank top and shorts.  

You became so lost in the pure happiness of everything that was happening right then that you couldn’t hear anything except your heart pounding in your ears and the soft sounds Steve was managing to elicit from you due to the way he was squeezing your hips.  

“The oven,” He mumbled against your lips, which slowly snapped you out of the haze you were in. “The oven is beeping.” 

It was then that you heard the incessant noise; almost too loud and clear. 

You abruptly pulled away from Steve and maneuvered off of his lap. “Oh, shit.”  

He followed you into the kitchen as you opened up the oven and used a mitt to grab the circular pan the pizza was on and place it atop the stove. 

“That was, um…” You trailed off not knowing exactly where you wanted to go with your words. 

Steve shook his head. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it.” 

“I don’t regret what just happened,” You blurted out. They were the words that pretty much mimicked what was said after the first time you two ever had sex. But, instead of those words first coming from Steve they were coming from you. “And I don’t really know what that means, and I kinda don’t wanna think about what it means right now. I kinda just don’t wanna think at all right now. Sometimes I feel like I think way too much when it comes to us.”

He was quiet for a second before he nodded at you. “Okay.”

His hands found your hips and you were softly pressed against the side of the kitchen counter. You two shared a look that felt as if it was saying a million things, none of which you particularly wanted to decipher right then. 

Before things could stay silent for too long, before you accidentally let your mind fall down a spiraling rabbit hole, you nodded a bit and mimicked Steve’s previous word. “Okay.”   

His hands came up to cup your face before he leaned in to kiss you again. You didn’t waste a second to push yourself onto the counter and Steve’s lips found your neck, roughly kissing and nipping at the skin. Your hands started playing with the hem of his t-shirt before circling in the loops of his jeans and pulling him flush against you. When you felt his hardness press against your inner thigh, you took in a sharp breath and let out a soft moan. You were completely certain that you would’ve let him pull off your shorts and underwear and do whatever he wanted to do to you against your kitchen counter if you weren’t reminded of something else. 

“The pizza?” You mumbled, a bit unable to form the question coherently because all you could really focus on was the feeling of Steve’s mouth against you. 

He pulled away from your neck and met your eyes. “We can eat it after.”

He didn’t have to specify further for you to know exactly what he meant. You smiled and pressed a quick kiss against his lips. “Yeah, after sounds perfect.” 

It became a blur of movements after those words fell from your lips. His hands found the backs of your thighs and he picked you up— the abruptness of the action made you simultaneously yelp and laugh as your arms came up to circle around his neck. You were carried to your bedroom and softly placed down against the unmade bed. Clothes were quickly shed until there was nothing between you and him. 

No words were said in these rushed moments where hands and mouths roamed almost everywhere on each other's bodies; the brief looks shared and breathy noises coming from both of you were enough. 

It was as if one mind was being shared or a song that only you two knew the words to was playing and both of you were singing along. Your hands were in his hair, softly pulling because the groans he’d let out were probably the hottest thing you’d ever heard. And his middle finger softly teased your clit as he whispered the filthiest things in your ear because he knew just how much that would make you lose it. 

It had been almost a year but neither of you forgot these little things about one another and it almost felt like second nature to be with each other in this way. There wasn’t a hint of nervousness or awkwardness, and maybe that was saying a lot more than you wanted to admit. 

You were positive that if you fully thought about what was happening right then, your mind wouldn’t hesitate to yell at you that this was a bad idea; that it would only make things complicated, and start you both back at square one. 

However, it would also tell you that the times in your life where you felt your happiest and most comfortable mainly consisted of moments with Steve, and that was something that felt as if it would never change. 

Therefore, when he slipped inside you with a low groan that you caught with your mouth and proceeded to make you come faster than you had in such a long time, it was hard to feel anything but completely happy. 

Your legs wrapped around him, coaxing him deeper inside of you and soft “pleases” fell from your lips begging him to come. And after a particularly hard thrust, he let out a loud “Fuck” and came inside of you, and you couldn’t do anything but moan at the feeling of his cum painting your walls. 

The weight of him crushed you in the most comforting way possible, and you tilted your head upward a bit to meet his lips in a soft and lazy kiss. The two of you stayed just like that for a while, coming down from your highs and letting your racing hearts return to normal. Your head fell back against your pillow, eyes closing, but you didn’t feel tired. 

“When those articles about you and Lily dating started coming out, I knew exactly how ridiculous the rumors were because I feel like we have the kind of… friendship where you’d tell me if you were dating someone… But, there was still a small part of me that believed it for a second, and it was actually so hard to not feel a little sad about it.” Your words came out quiet, and you actually had no idea why you had just said all of that— perhaps that confession did not make for the best post-sex pillow talk conversation. But, for some reason, you wanted to say it. 

It was a thought that had weighed on you all those months ago, and you knew that you couldn’t tell that to him then because of what it implied. And you weren’t entirely sure why and what made this moment different from then. 

Steve was quiet for a bit and his face was buried in your neck as he softly spoke. “I don’t really know what to say to that.”

“It’s okay,” You whispered back. “You don’t have to say anything. It was dumb of me to feel that way about it.” 

He rolled off of you and the feel of his warmth against you was something that you missed almost immediately. For a second you thought that maybe you ruined this moment, whatever it was, but then he said something.  

“What are you doing this weekend?” He asked, and you were grateful for the randomness of the subject change. 

You let out a breath that you didn't know you’d been holding and turned on your side to face him. “For once, absolutely nothing. It’ll probably be the last time I actually have nothing to do before the documentary I’m helping out on starts filming in a month, and I have to do some pre-production stuff for it soon.”

Work was honestly the only thing in your life that felt completely certain, so it always felt easy to talk about.

“You should come to New York. I’m going tomorrow, and I'll be there until the premiere here for the movie next week. I have to do some press stuff and have a few meetings. A bunch of boring stuff, but you should come for the weekend,” Steve said, one hand finding your bare hip and softly rubbing the skin. “To make the boring stuff a lot less boring.” 

You couldn’t help but smile at that, and you nodded at him, quickly deciding not to think too heavily about your answer. “Okay.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

It was a little surprising that it wasn’t surprising how easy things fell back into that old place with you and Steve. Back to what sort of resembled the “arrangement” that had started during filming a year ago where you two pretty much acted like you were in a relationship, but neither of you would say the words or wholeheartedly acknowledge that fact. 

There was a lot that you two would eventually have to talk about, but you decided that that would be a bridge that you’d cross once you were hours away from getting on your flight back to California. And it was a flight that kept changing because you didn’t want to leave New York just yet; you didn’t want to leave Steve yet. 

So, your weekend trip extended days upon days until Wednesday came and it was agreed upon that you’d just go back to Los Angeles Friday morning when Steve was heading back there as well because that was the same day as the movie premiere.

You had a little work to do during those first few weekdays you were there, but you found it easy to respond to emails and make the phone calls you needed to from the comfort of Steve’s apartment, which was smaller than his place in LA but of course still massive and had a great view of Central Park. The dining room area became your makeshift “work from home” spot with your laptop at the table at pretty much all times. And while you did that, Steve was off doing press stuff for the movie, or he was in meetings; the things aside from filming that came along with being a famous actor. 

And then when the day would change into the evening and then night, you two were together, doing everything that you both had desperately missed doing. You two still knew each other’s bodies so well, and it was as if that fact was only further and further proven every night. 

It was hard not to be close to each other when for so long, you hadn’t been able to be, and because of that, things became a little different this time around in comparison to what the “arrangement” had been. There were little touches and affections— holding hands while sitting as close as you possibly could on the couch or Steve kissing you goodbye before he’d leave the apartment— that hadn’t happened before because of the lines that had been metaphorically drawn, but they felt pretty blurred now. 

A sort of routine quickly and almost effortlessly formed and it gave you that glimpse into what you and him could be if the circumstances were slightly different. And it was hard not to admit that you completely adored what this “what if” looked like. 

“We need snacks.” Your words were random and abrupt and Steve only looked at you amusingly. 

It was Wednesday night, days before things would inevitably change, and you weren’t completely sure what they’d change into— if they’d go back to the normal you had created with Steve where the two of you were friends and nothing more, or if things changed into something else entirely. You still completely avoided thinking about it all, and it was pretty damn nice living in this fantasy world. 

The two of you were on the couch in his living room. Your legs were draped over his lap and a blanket covered you both.

One of Steve’s hands was absentmindedly rubbing your leg beneath the blanket as he spoke. “There’s some stuff in the pantry.” 

“If we’re about to spend the entire night watching The Hunger Games movies we need more than just the chips to keep us alive.” 

His eyebrows furrowed at your words. “Am I underestimating how long these movies are?”

“You definitely are,” You said with a small laugh and pressed a quick kiss against his lips. You then pulled off the blanket that had been draped over the both of you and stood up from the couch. “I’ll go to the convenience store down the street.” 

Steve got up as well. “I’ll come too.” 

You quickly shook your head. “No way. It’s kinda insane how the paparazzi seem way more ruthless here. I think they’re always camping outside the building.” 

Over the past few days, you had come to the conclusion that it was lucky that Steve lived in an apartment building because whenever you would leave and come back, no one could ever know that you were there for him. And you knew just how big of a field day they would have if they did know, especially because of the dating rumors that were still circling about him and Lily.

“Yeah, way too many famous people live here,” Steve said as he followed you into his bedroom.

Your small suitcase, that had only been meant for a weekend trip and was packed as such, was a haphazard mess in the corner. You slipped off the shorts you were wearing and pulled on a black pair of leggings.  

“And yet, I’ve still not run into Paul Rudd on the elevator since I’ve been here,” You jokingly said and expected Steve to laugh, but instead he bypassed your statement.  

“Wait, it’s raining. You sure you’re gonna be okay out there?” 

You smiled at his slightly concerned face. “Okay, I know I’ve been living in LA for a long time now, but don’t worry I have in fact experienced rain before.” 

Steve shook his head at you but still couldn’t help but laugh a little at your words. “Hold on.” 

He almost immediately walked away, heading into his closet, before you could ask him what he was doing, and then returned moments later with a hoodie and umbrella. 

“I was already planning to steal a hoodie, but thanks for the umbrella,” You told him with a smile as you put on the plain black hoodie. “What kind of candy do you want me to get?”

“Skittles.” 

“Solid answer,” You responded with a nod. 

The two of you headed toward the front door and you put on your shoes that were next to it. Once you were done, Steve handed you the umbrella. He then pulled the hood of the hoodie over your head and then leaned in to press a kiss on your nose. “Don’t meet Paul Rudd on the elevator.”

You laughed a bit. “I’m sorry, but I really, really hope I do.” 

You didn’t meet Paul Rudd on the elevator, and you told Steve that with an over dramatic sad sigh when you came back from the store twenty minutes later, a bag full of junk food in hand, before you both settled back on the couch.

The two of you were only able to fully watch the first two Hunger Games movies before falling asleep an hour into the third one, around two in the morning. You half-woke up when the credits were rolling and then lightly poked Steve awake so that you two could go to his actual bed for the rest of the night.

“This is how it would be, y’know,” Steve said in the morning, words slightly getting lost in your hair.

The two of you were cuddled in his bed, your back pressed against his front and one of his arms draped over your waist. You had just finished having a half-awake discussion about what to do for breakfast before he said that he had to leave soon for the final day of press interviews for the movie, but he told you about a bagel place nearby that you’d probably like. And then the conversation shifted to a pinky promise agreement that you and him would finish the final two Hunger Games movies that night. 

Things became quiet after that, with both of you savoring the last few minutes you could spend in bed, and you found his hand, intertwining it with yours and pulling it up to kiss the back of it. 

You almost shifted around to face Steve after he abruptly said his previous words, but you felt too comfortable in your current position to do so. “How what would be?”

“You and me if we decided to be something real.”

 “Steve,” You said softly and then decided to shift around so that you were looking at him. His hair was a little disheveled and he looked pretty tired, but he also looked so cute. If he hadn’t just abruptly pushed open the door to the conversation that you knew needed to happen, you were certain that you would’ve kissed him right then. 

“I’m just saying...” He said as his shoulders upturned in a small shrug. “Also, I’m slightly kidding. This week has been really good, and I’m glad we got to have it, but I know things will go back to… normal soon. And that’s okay.” 

Hearing him say that— confirming that things would just go back to how they were, a friendship where you both seemed to just lie about what you really wanted and how you felt— made you get hit with the sudden realization that you hated the thought of going back to that.

However, for some reason, you couldn’t find the words to tell him that right then, so instead you nodded at what he had just said and plastered on a fake smile. You made your voice sound as light as possible. “Yeah.” 

He left the apartment forty-minutes later and you left it twenty minutes after that, deciding to go to the bagel place he suggested because you were hungry and also because you didn’t want to be alone in his apartment with only your confusing and contradicting thoughts to keep you company. 

However, somehow as you walked aimlessly around Central Park— your bag with your plain cream cheese bagel in one hand and iced coffee in the other— that was when it felt like the dam broke, and your mind started spiraling because it finally felt impossible to keep avoiding and pushing your thoughts away. You were finally facing the bridge that you had told yourself you’d eventually have to cross, and in your head, you could see that the end of it was leading in two completely different directions. And you knew the exact direction you wanted to go in. 

Your friendship with Steve was supposed to be more than enough. That was what you had told yourself that night at the wrap party to convince yourself that you were completely okay with only having a friendship with him. 

But now, after these past five days of getting that glimpse into what something more could look like, you knew that just being friends really wasn’t enough, and it never would be. And although a part of you still felt a little scared to risk it all, there was an even bigger part of you that didn’t want to give this up anymore. 

You couldn’t give up how completely and irrevocably happy Steve made you in more ways than just friendship. It was a mixture of the butterflies you’d get in your stomach whenever he would pull you close to him to press a soft kiss against your forehead or cheek and the wide smile you’d get on your face when he’d come back to the apartment after being gone for hours. It was also how he would look at you so adoringly when you would ramble about work stuff and how he could easily manage to convince you to stay in bed for “five more minutes;” five minutes that would always turn into at least ten but you never cared. 

Steve Harrington made you the happiest you’d ever been and you suddenly became tired of continuously avoiding that fact.  

It was a series of quick but definitely long overdue actions that happened next. 

You found yourself sitting on a park bench with the thought of eating your bagel or drinking more of your coffee long forgotten for the time being, and instead they simply sat next to you, because there was something else you needed to do at that moment. You pulled out your phone and went to Steve’s contact, pressing the call button before you could think twice about it. 

It went straight to voicemail, just like you knew it would because he always kept it off during interviews, so you waited for the way too familiar “beep” sound and then started speaking. 

“Hi,” Your voice came out softer than you expected it to, so you cleared your throat. “I knew that you weren’t gonna answer, and I’m kinda glad that you didn’t because I just want to get all of this out all at once. So, stay tuned for a very long-winded ramble from me.” You let out a small laugh. “Um, anyway, these past five days that I’ve been here in New York with you have been so good, like insanely good, and I’ve been avoiding thinking about what would happen after this and what would exactly change between us. And I was completely okay with not thinking about any of that because it made it easier to just live in the moment and be happy with what we’ve been doing. But then this morning, you said that it’s okay that things will go back to normal soon and that finally made me think about everything, and I realized that I don’t want us to go back to “normal.” I actually kind of hate the thought of doing so.” 

You stopped for a moment, gaze becoming fixated on a group of friends that had blankets spread out in the grass and were having a picnic not that far away from you, and then you looked at a couple that was walking down one of the paths holding hands. 

After taking a quick breath, you kept going. “You’re so important to me, and our friendship is so important to me too… But I love you. I’m in love with you. And because of that, I can’t just be your friend. I want more, I want us to be something real; and that’s pretty much exactly what you said that night at my apartment almost a year ago. I’m so sorry that it’s taken me this long to realize just how fucking great we are together.”  

Your hand that wasn’t holding your phone to your ear began absentmindedly playing with the hem of the sweatshirt you were wearing; it was the Vancouver crewneck he got for you.

“I want us to have days like this past week forever. And I know that this week has kind of been a fluke because, for the first time in a really long time, our schedules worked out pretty well. But we can make this work. I know we can. I was an idiot to say that we don’t make sense before because we do. Yes, our lives pull us in pretty different directions most of the time, and it sucks, but it's okay because it doesn’t change how I feel about you, and it never will. And I think that's the most important thing. It's why I know we, us, can actually work.”  

You leaned back against the wooden bench and let out a breath. “Okay, wow, I’m so surprised that I haven’t been cut off yet… I’m currently sitting on a park bench in Central Park, and I got a bagel and coffee from the place you mentioned. I haven’t tried the bagel yet, but the coffee’s pretty good…” You trailed off with a shake of your head and then laughed a bit. “I have no idea why I’m telling you that right now. Um, anyway, I’m gonna stop talking now, and I’ll see you back at the apartment later. Bye.” 

When you ended the call and pocketed your phone away, you felt an immediate weight lift off of your shoulders and you let out a contented sigh that turned into a small laugh. 

You waited for a second, though, waited for something that resembled dread or regret to suddenly hit you, but it never did. And that was what let you know that what you’d just done was fully the right thing to do. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Hours later, you still felt nothing but complete contentment with what you had done, leaving the minute and a half long voicemail that would, in fact, change everything. You wanted it to change everything. 

After responding to a handful of work emails and then enduring an hour-long phone call with one of the Producer’s of the soon-to-be filming documentary, you were in the kitchen searching for some sort of a snack to eat. However, hearing the sound of the front door opening halted your rummaging. 

“Hi,” You said, watching Steve enter the apartment and then close and lock the door behind him. 

He met your eyes almost immediately. “I really loved that voicemail.”

You smiled at him, at how quickly he wanted to address the elephant in the room before it really even had a chance to enter. “Yeah?”

He didn’t hesitate to nod his head and he smiled back at you. “Yeah. I’m never deleting it.”

He looked so happy as he walked over to you where you were leaning against the kitchen island, and that look made your heart constrict in your chest. 

“I love you,” It didn’t feel the tiniest bit scary to say the words right to him, they just felt so honest and undeniable. Your voice was soft and your arms came up to wrap around his neck, hands immediately finding home in the hair at the nape. 

“Mm,” His eyes slipped shut as his arms circled around you, pulling you against him.  “Say it again.” 

Your mouth was right against his ear as you spoke. “I love you.” 

He hummed again and then pulled back a bit, his nose brushed against yours and his lips did the same. It was all so teasing, like he wanted to take his absolute time with kissing you. However, now it didn’t have to be slow or drawn out because none of this was going to abruptly end; there was no expiration date apart of this like the arrangement you had a year ago. 

“I love you too,” He said before finally slotting his lips against yours.  

There was so much expressed in the soft kiss. It completely felt like the beginning of something new, something better, rather than simply a continuation of what you two had. The kiss was so certain and sure and it only further confirmed to you that everything happening was right and good and perfect. This was what you had wanted from the moment the two of you made that pinky promise during the wrap party; the one where you both said that you wouldn’t let your friendship end. Technically, it wasn’t being broken. 

You pulled away when you started feeling lightheaded and you met Steve’s gaze as you allowed yourself to breathe for a bit. You were quiet for only a second. 

“This will work,” You whispered. 

Steve nodded and then pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Yeah, it will.” 

The three simple words comforted you, they wrapped around you like a warm blanket, and you savored the feel of them. For the first time, probably ever, your overthinking mind felt sated; it couldn’t find anything wrong about this moment. You finally felt like you could breathe so goddamn easy because there was nothing to truly worry about, and you found yourself wanting to cry at that feeling, but you didn’t. Instead, you kissed Steve’s cheek and then his other one, and then his nose and forehead. 

“This is random, but I’m really, really glad that I was forced to be your assistant.” 

Steve laughed a bit at that. “Sometimes it doesn’t even really feel like that's where we started.” His hands found yours, intertwining them and giving them a light squeeze. “But, I’m so fucking glad that it was you.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

author’s note: i'm gonna miss these two<333 i hope yall enjoyed this series! its been a rollercoaster fr (a good one for the most part though lol) i might do lil blurbs for these two someday because i'm way too attached to them and i have some minor ideas of some things i'd wanna do involving them.... but that probably won't happen for a while because after somehow being able to put out chapters weekly for this i do in fact need a Break lmao but anyway thank you for reading and enjoying this series🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾

[bestworstcase]

Your post re: Salem's attitudes towards magic got me thinking about "Why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans, when we can replace them with what they could never be?" from Lost Fable again. I'm finding it a little difficult to blame people for believing she thinks the current crop of humans are just inferior when the only subject on offer in that sentence is "these humans." Of course when you stop to think for two seconds why Salem says or does anything she does it makes total sense that her hangup is with the gods, but that just makes me wonder even more why write the script like that? How unreliable is the direct dialogue in Jinn's vision supposed to be taken vs. her narration? (The simplest read of that episode seems to be of course the narration is biased per the question asked, but otherwise it's a frame narrative for the flashbacks which may or may not be more objective portrayals of events. The fact that the characters are also physically witnessing these scenes means they can't be 100% objective I think, but still leaves open the question of what's skewed and by how much.)

Unreliable or not, it's just a surprisingly absolute statement to put in her mouth considering how often we're invited to question her motivations everywhere else.

i do take the dialogue in the lost fable to be accurate to what the characters said, perhaps with some smudginess if what we’re seeing is ozpin’s memories exactly – in which case the dialogue in scenes he wasn’t present for is suspect because it’s what he imagines was said based on what salem told him, and the rest is probably closely accurate paraphrase because no one could be expected to remember the exact wording of conversations from several thousand years ago! but even then i would expect the parts he was there for to be reliable enough. 

so much rides on the lost fable and specifically this one line that it would be beyond cheap for the resolution to be “she didn’t say that at all, actually.”

the first time i watched the lost fable, i did intuitively interpret that line as salem alluding to the gods – so i think there’s probably some degree of her statement reading as ambiguous or not ambiguous depending upon how one habitually uses the word “redeem.” specifically: how precise one is about the verb requiring an indirect object. 

to ‘redeem’ something means to take some action to settle a debt, or redress a wrongdoing, which—inherently—implies the presence of a creditor or wronged party. in some contexts, the implied creditor is only an abstraction (think “the city’s robust public transportation is its only redeeming quality”—redemption is used here in a figurative sense to mean that the one making the statement dislikes everything but the city’s transit system); and in casual speech it’s fairly common to leave off the indirect object if it isn’t necessary to identify the wronged party (think the common phrasing of “so-and-so redeems themself”).

but while it isn’t incorrect to drop the indirect object, necessarily, there always is an indirect object; it isn’t possible to redeem a debt or a wrong that doesn’t exist, nor to have a debt without a creditor or a wrong without someone wronged. (as an aside, this is why redemption arc discourse tends to always be arguments about forgiveness—redemption does, inherently, definitionally, necessitate forgiveness—and this is also why i’m pedantic about differentiating ‘redemption arc’ vs ‘atonement arc’ vs ‘villain-to-hero arc’ and dislike the popular usage of redemption arc as an umbrella term.)

anyway, in simpler terms: when salem says “redeem these humans,” the apparent meaning of the next clause depends on whether or not one is predisposed to hear that phrase as a clipping and mentally append the implied indirect object, which makes her complete statement “why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans [from my sin in the eyes of the gods] when we could replace them with what they could never be?”

<- and then the question becomes, which “them” is she referring to? “these humans” or the gods who will judge whether redemption has been earned? her elision of the gods is entirely within the realm of common vernacular, and salem is a character who regularly circumlocutes (and earlier in the lost fable itself we have ozma’s quizzical “what are you saying?” signaling that salem’s speech is cryptic or confusing – because ozma doesn’t understand her; this is an intended trait versus the writers fumbling), and she says this in a moment of emotional distress (which she mostly bottles up, but while ozma is explaining all of this to her she’s leaning on the desk with her arms folded, listening intently – this is the same posture she has when she’s huddled in the shadows making herself miserable with conjurations of her children in 8.4).

so there’s quite a bit of weight here on the side of, “salem just discovered that her partner has been manipulating her into serving the gods she abhors throughout their entire relationship, she’s deeply shaken, she isn’t awesome at clearly articulating her thoughts in general; is it really surprising that she might misspeak to the tune of saying ‘them’ in reference to an (elided but necessarily implied) antecedent of ‘the gods’”

it (clearly) isn’t going to occur to most viewers as an obvious interpretation of the line, but i think it’s well within the bounds of what is reasonable for the narrative to later reveal that salem really meant this, particularly given how deliberate and how clear the storytelling themes are. definitely a risk, because some section of the audience is undoubtedly going to feel lied to and cry retcon, but rwby takes creative risks all the time.

and then there’s the ‘fairyales of remnant’ piece of it – the anthology is very much in dialogue with the lost fable across the board (on this see also ‘the two brothers’ presaging the thematic treatment of the brothers in v9, and ozpin’s paired commentaries on ‘the infinite man’ + ‘the girl in the tower’ being discussions of truth, propaganda, and forgiveness). so why does ‘the shallow sea’ begin like this:

Long ago, before the fish had scales, before the birds had feathers, and before the turtles had shells, when our god still walked and crawled and slithered the earth, there were only Humans and animals. (And Grimm. There have always been Grimm. There will always be Grimm. But those creatures don’t figure in this story, so just put them out of your mind, if you can.)

and end like this, after a story about the god of animals leading their chosen people to transform by submersion in magical waters, to the horror of those humans who refuse to change: 

From that moment on, there have been animals, Humans, and Faunus. And the descendants of the Humans who turned away from our god’s great gift have always carried envy in their hearts. To this day, they resent us for reminding them of what they are not and what they never can be.

humans and animals (and grimm) -> animals and humans and faunus, and the last line – the mythic explanation for human hatred of faunus – is a nearly direct repetition of the last thing salem says in the lost fable?

now obviously not everyone can be expected to read ancillary material like the fairytale anthology, and that’s why the shell game with the implied indirect object matters; but it is interesting that ‘the shallow sea’ is stated to be a very old oral tradition (one which “contains deep truths,” no less) and that it repeats that line in a context that is quite plainly not about genocide – but rather cultural pride in the face of intense, often violent, persecution. 

this story also 1. explicitly belongs to a closed tradition, and 2. is (obviously) one ozma knows despite there being no indication that he’s ever reincarnated as a faunus. which – together with the story’s age – adds up to at least the implication that it is possible he heard this story from salem, because the reasons she might be conversant in ancient faunus oral traditions are. well. obvious. 

…and if that’s so, then ‘the shallow sea’ as written in the fairytale anthology completely recontextualizes salem’s last statement in the lost fable as salem quoting from a faunus creation myth both she and ozma knew in order to express her rejection of the brothers’ mandate, which would 1. neatly explain why ozma seems to have understood exactly what she meant even though none of the lost fable witnesses picked up on it, and 2. provide an elegant and very simple opportunity to ease the general audience into this revelation by having a character in vacuo retell this myth, using that same closing line. you don’t even need to mention salem directly – the turn of phrase is memorable enough that a lot of viewers will go “…why does that sound eerily familiar” and that plants a seed for later. (or if you’re going for more of a sudden record scratch moment, salem is the one declaiming.)

from a character standpoint, it also makes a lot of sense for salem to respond to ozma in this way – his liking for stories is, one presumes, not a new thing that developed after the ozlem kingdom’s collapsed, and he also clearly isn’t just cynically using fairytales to deceive and manipulate – else he wouldn’t have apologized to the kids by referencing ‘the girl who fell through the world’ and comparing himself to alyx. stories are just important to him and part of how he communicates.

so if salem heard everything his god told him and then said “no, none of that matters, why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we could [paraphrases the conclusion of a story where the hateful envious people who refuse to change are simply sent home and not allowed to live in the harsh but free new world with the people who chose to embrace change]” – she made an effort to say what she meant in his language, and what she meant was either 1. figuratively associating the brothers with the envious humans who were sent home and “these humans” with the faunus who were now free to determine their own fates, or 2. “okay yeah these humans aren’t great, have you considered more faunus as a solution” (<- this would be extremely funny if it turns out the shallow sea is a more literal story than i think it is, but i think it’s much less likely).

more broadly, to the question of why the line is written that way – i can only speculate based on what i would be thinking in the writer’s shoes, and the overall structure of the narrative around salem – but i imagine the absoluteness is sort of the point. it’s meant to be a really shocking and frightening thing to hear coming out of her mouth, while also being, if you pause to think very precisely about what she said, quite plausible as a verbal stumble – the alternative antecedent of “the gods” for “them” is implied and eliding the indirect object of “redeem” is common vernacular – and then there’s this other possibility hinted in an ancillary text that she might have actually been quoting a story as a verbal shorthand both she and ozma understood. 

there’s a narrative expectation that the viewer will be right there with the kids making the same snap judgment about what salem meant – because i think the kids all absolutely did take this at face value as a statement of genocidal intent. the story itself is structured like a nesting doll such that each new revelation appears at a glance to be the whole story, but isn’t and in fact has large gaps and details that don’t add up which become glaringly obvious as soon as you reach the next layer and look back, but if you’re paying careful attention as you go it’s also quite possible to piece together the missing pieces. 

delivering information this way trains the audience (…mostly) to expect that the information we’re given is incomplete and maybe not wholly accurate. the advantage here is that even if the vast majority of the audience is completely blindsided by a specific reveal, for most viewers that’s going to feel really exciting – this happened in v9 with the lore reveals about the brothers, massive overnight reversal in the mainstream fandom views of darkness with the general mood being that it was cool – as opposed to feeling tricked or lied to by a “retcon.”

and that builds up a certain kind of trust, that the story is a puzzle but it isn’t going to cheat. it’s also a bit of a challenge or an invitation for the audience to try to figure out what’s coming, like a mystery.

with salem, i’d bet that one line in the lost fable is supposed to seem weirder and weirder the more you think about it, because… why doesn’t it track with anything she says before that point in the lost fable? why does the story begin with salem waxing poetic about humanity’s virtues? why does the narrative make such a big deal out of nobody knowing what salem wants AFTER the main characters witnessed a seemingly open-and-shut declaration of her “true” intention?

at the same time, the amount of explanation required to argue for an alternate interpretation – even if it’s really not complex or a reach – compared to the ease of just taking the statement exactly at face value, in and of itself is both a misdirection (most of the audience will take the path of least resistance, and hopefully enjoy the journey the story takes them on while leading them to the eventual right answer) and sort of the thesis with respect to the storytelling themes. salem thinks coolsville sucks!

but i am also very willing to consider (because of my own intuitive reaction to the line) that the writers perhaps did not mean for it to seem quite as unambiguous as the general audience and most of the fandom ended up taking it, because if you’re spending a lot of time immersed in a specifically theological context regarding redemption (which the writers probably would’ve been, given the importance of the religious narrative in the lost fable and in relation to this line in particular) – and if you’re also in the habit of being very precise and careful about how you phrase things (which is true of how rwby is written in general) – and if you’re writing what might be the most critical episode in a complicated puzzle box story, whose fulcrum is a red herring that is also meant to provide a clue to anyone who thinks to look at it more closely and with an open mind — then yeah i can see a scenario where the writers may have felt that the specific wording of salem’s statement was more ambiguous than it actually is. in which case the echo in ‘the shallow sea’ might have been a bit of an effort to correct course by giving the subset of fans invested enough to read the fairytales (<- the cohort most likely to be keen to unravel the puzzle) an additional hint. who knows.

[keets-writing-corner]

One thing I noticed is that Lucifer doesn't disassociate when singing, and what's one common factor in his songs? Charlie, so I like to imagine that in these instances he's so focused on her that his depression temporarily takes a back seat because he loves his kid so much that he forgets why he's sad in the first place.

ooh I like your headcanons!

hmm I guess we could look at this a couple of different ways (some of what I'm about to say comes from personal experience which may be different than what some other people experience so idk feel free to agree or disagree with my musings)

So dissociation doesn't [technically] affect your ability to speak, it affects your ability to focus. The way I was talking about it in my analysis was that it nerfed Lucifer's conversation comprehension, with him being unable to follow along the entire time (and consequently either has NO idea what anyone is talking about or only gets half the picture).

The only times Lucifer really fumbles his words is when he gets nervous around Charlie either cuz he's trying to make a good impression

Or when he realizes his depression is biting him in the ass and he just missed crucial pieces of information and cannot bluff his way through the conversation

Although shout out to that one time we caught him realizing he needed to bluff and stumbled a little

But otherwise, he articulates himself perfectly fine, cuz again, dissociation isn't about speaking ability so much as it is about focus. Even in my bouts of dissociation I can verbalize myself just fine for the most part, it's whether or not what I have to say is relevant to the conversation, which uh Lucifer also showed off at some point when he thought Charlie was asking him about the hotel's appearance rather than her actual plan to redeem sinners and comments on the railings. (Or idk there is another interpretation that he was avoiding the subject, maybe it was both he disassociated while Charlie was explaining everything to him but did catch that she wanted to redeem sinners at some point, but didn't quite understand what she was asking until she clarified? he didn't seem surprised when she did clarify so I'm assuming he ended up catching it at least once)

So I'm bringing this up because it ends up being kinda hard to tell whether or not he is or is not disassociating when he sings, cuz the dissociation wouldn't affect the singing at all.

When he's having a sing battle against Alastor, sure he's articulating himself well and presenting his points, but we don't actually know whether or not he's following along what Alastor is saying. Honestly, Lucifer vs Alastor just seemed like 2 territorial chickens yelling at each other trying to be louder than the other one. Maybe Lucifer is catching everything cuz his jealous and rage helped him focus for once, maybe he's not catching everything but he doesn't need to catch everything to know that he doesn't like Alastor and he doesn't need to focus to tell Alastor how much he dislikes him.

But what about the other two songs, "More than Anything" and "Finale"?

He is technically outright having a conversation with Charlie in the first one and in the second one, he seems fully aware of the context of the situation and is focusing more on a lifting spirits role

Well it could be a lot of things I think. I don't think it's that the depression or the sadness took a back seat, that's still present. From my own experiences, it is possible to get yourself to focus in a dissociative episode when the subject matter is something you're passionate about or in Lucifer's case, someone that he loves. We know the dissociation was unfortunately strong enough that it was making him miss out on a lot of things Charlie (aforementioned loved one) was telling him, especially in the beginning.

But looking at "More than Anything" what changed in that scene? He was with Charlie the entire episode but that was the first scene where he really managed to hold a conversation. I think it was a combination of: Okay his baby girl is there and she NEEDS him, and he opens up as to why he's hesitant about her plan. He's not explicit with the mention of his trauma, but trauma does make someone more alert. I'd also like to give a special shout out to @in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene who made these lovely tags on my analysis post

Specifically, I want to talk about that they mention that Lucifer is being a lot more genuine in his song with Charlie, aka he's not masking. He's not trying to hide or bluff how he's doing. He's not putting on a show, he's not being goofy or larger than life, he's being genuine and his genuine self is tired, sad and resigned. Let me tell you, my dissociation is 100% worse when I'm masking.

I think in "More Than Anything" a mix of things are going on, he's not needing to mask for a minute which boosts the focus, he's opening up about trauma and it's being gently received which boosts focus, and he's talking to someone he loves about something he was once passionate about which boosts focus. So ye! It could entirely be that in that song he was not dissociating!

As far as "Finale" I legitimately can't really tell whether or not he is? He's not really having a conversation with anyone, he's just trying to uplift his daughter, and again, in my experiences, dissociation doesn't necessarily nerf your ability to speak. We also know that he knows how to put on a show even in the depths of the dissociation like in "Hell's Greatest Dad" soooo as for that song... -shrug-?????

There is an element here that we have to take into account. Hazbin Hotel is a traditional musical, so we must look at a theater saying, "When the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing." Which is more or less what happened in all the songs Lucifer was a part in, so there's definitely some meta technical things going on in that a song wouldn't be very dramatic if the person singing it was dissociating the whole time? I mean I guess it could be done, I've just never seen it? Usually the musical number has to be clear in its purpose. The protagonist of Dear Even Hansen can sing just fine when any other speaking parts he fumbles with his words a lot.

AAAAAAALLL of this to say: Does Lucifer stop disassociating when he sings? -shrugs- I think it really depends on the context, but I wouldn't at all be surprised cuz high emotion can lead to greater focus in a moment. Although it's really cute to think that he doesn't dissociate cuz singing with Charlie is just that much of a boost for him cuz he loves his wittle girl

[utilitycaster]

@disastergenius replied to your post “perhaps unpopular but while I do agree the EXU...”:

re: this party doesn't talk much; i think that narratively, fcg's death isn't the call for them to talk in the way that molly's was? Molly's death happened early and bc of molly, but it was the wake-up call the party needed while separated and to actually begin to work together. bh's have different problems and fcg's death wasn't a result of party but was fcg's decision. so it also makes sense that it's not bringing the group together or anything, it's just mourning

​So I think this is part of it but I also wanted to post this as a full response because I've been thinking a lot about this! In short...having experienced a death within a friend group, people respond in weird ways, and for the most part, with the caveat that this was a friend among my friends from college and she died when we were all adults in various different cities and therefore not necessarily closely in touch all the time, we did not have a big sit-down and go around talking about our feelings. It's much slower. And I've talked a lot with people who have experienced a death within a friend group that was closer. Sometimes the group falls apart dramatically. Sometimes it just drifts apart. Sometimes it's sort of a weird blank space no one knows how to deal with.

I found Ashton's behavior in particular to be really well done on Taliesin's part and deeply affecting. They're exhausted not just mechanically but emotionally, and they don't want to really talk to anyone, but they do very much want some kind of comfort that doesn't require a lot of effort and most importantly, they don't want to be alone. When I had to learn about the (Jewish) religious practices surrounding grief and mourning, one of the things they tell you about sitting shiva (and to be clear this is not unique to shiva, it's just that Judaism has very clear time delineations of the mourning process) is that sometimes you just go there and sit with someone who doesn't want to talk much. His reaction felt incredibly real and natural, is what I'm saying. Grief can be isolating and tiring and difficult to talk about.

It feels right for the others too. Like...we can talk about the rapid pacing but that's been the case for much of the campaign, and no, I didn't like the EXU decision but what's done is done. I think deciding to, as Chetney said in 92, "make it count" seems very natural. I do hope there are conversations in Zadash and/or Aeor but at this point "we're drunk and tired and aren't ready to really feel this", especially since in-world, everything might be over in a week or so, makes a lot of sense. I also think FCG's death has united the party at least in the sense of purpose, and I think some people just dislike that the purpose is "double down on the moon plot." I think at the very least we'll have to visit it when they tell Imahara Joe (and hopefully Dancer, too.)

Ultimately, again, while I do love the episodes after Molly's death, episode 27 only has three party members in it, and episode 30 is arguably more about Fjord and Jester and Yasha being rescued (and on a meta level, welcoming Travis and Laura back to the table after parental leave) and incorporating Caduceus into the group as it is about Molly being dead. A lot of the conversations are about that, and 31 is very much about fucking around in Zadash and doing weird shit! Jester and Veth make Molly illusions not long after while on Darktow! The effects of Molly's death ripple through, quite honestly, the entire rest of the campaign and the grief is very nonlinear. Again, I adore episode 2x30, but I think one should be careful not to overly romanticize it; the party is still very much working through those initial feelings throughout the entire pirates arc, which takes place over the span of a couple of months. Bells Hells might not have months, and it might not get explored to the same extent, but I do think we'll see the effects nonetheless.

[mephistopheleswasrobbed]

Ghost Pepe Silvia is back with episode 2 of Peaceful Property/On Sale and it's still gay and here's why (this time a little less chronological):

1

Pangpang approves. She and Peach are obviously very close and Peach values her opinion a lot. Pangpnag, even though she's technically his younger sister, has taken on some stereotypical older sibling roles in relation to Peach. She takes care of him, protects him and now she's even kind of become his manager. She clearely takes this very seriously so her disapproval would be a hindrance to any potential relationship with Peach. But unlike with Best, she does approve of Home.

(Btw finger guns? That's kinda bi of you, Pangpang and Home!)

And while this approval might initially be rooted in Home's wealth, it can't be the only factor (Best has money. Not Home levels but definitely a lot more than the siblings. And it didn't help him.) and it ceartainly isn't by the end of the episode.

(Actually there might be a parallel here between Pangpang going from valuing Home for his money to valuing him for his character and Home who starts out trying to solve every problem with money but is strating to learn that there are more valuable things he can bring to tha table.)

2

Not only does Pangpang approve, she ships it. We already know that she plans to marry off her brother to attain financial security for them. Now that she's found a rich guy whom she also approves of, she's doing her best to make it happen.

From trying to mediate and damage control their fights,

to (not so) subtly planting ideas in Peach's head.

3

As I predicted last time, Home does flirt with Kan again this eppisode. But it happens only once, when he introduces her to the siblings, and it seems even less serious than last episode. If anything it feels more like posturing, trying to play himself up, infront of Peach.

(come on he even looks at Peach while he says this)

4

They keep fighting like little children because they actually care about each others opinion.

So Peach pouts when Home insults his sandwiches.

Home pretends that he doesn't need Peach only to complain about his absence two minutes later.

They go at it in a 'No-you!' manner of arguing at the slightest provocation.

5

Home keeps reaching out to touch Peach. He doesn't do that with anyone else (aside from one quickly stopped attempt with Kan)

6

We see Home abandoning every other character except for Peach. Not only does he not abandon Peach, he carries him on his shoulder after Peach faints in his arms, and when he gets attacked by posessed Pangpang, instead of running away he puts himself into danger trying to pull her off Peach.

7

Then there's the whole sequence they basically pulled out of the dislike-to-lovers trope box. First Home pretends that he totally doesn't care about Peach only to talk his uncle's ear off about him, showing that he obviously does care.

Then the wise friend (In this case uncle Kit) talks some sense into him, making him see that he's also at fault, leading to:

Home pacing in front of his crush's door, debating with himself on whether or not to knock, finally making up some external reason why he should actually knock. Only to chicken out at the last minute, hide, and then witness something he wasn't supposed to.

Classic!

8

Home calls Peach hot in his own ad.

(and gives him a phallic object as a prop)

9

And at the end of this episode we get the moment Peach starts to fall.

Namely after Home tells him he arranged for Rak's mother to receive her benefits. Thus proving to Peach that he is capable of looking past his prejudices and show kindness to a stranger without having to be forced into it.

Peach, who has been described as and shown to be a person who is very kind and empathetic towars strangers (including those that he's afraid of, read: ghosts, which is why he's able to get them to pass on), obviously values kindness and empathy in others. Previously he had found Home lacking in that department, but now that he's shown the capacity for it, we can clearly see Peach immediately softening towars Home. (At this point I have to give some praise to Tay for managing to convey this with barely any movement, in general all four of them have done really well so far)

Peach's blossoming feelings for Home are further shown when he definitely doesn't even care whether Home approves of him when Pangpang asks about Home's verdict after the trial exorcism,

and when he enters the 'I-totally-don't-even-like-him' stage that we've already seen from Home, as examplified by his "Nonsense" response when Pangpang calls him out for being posessive.

There's no use pretending Peach, your sister has you figured out.

10

Home continues to grow through his association with Peach (and Pangpang and Kan), being more polite when he visits the siblings, trying to get Rak's mother her money, paying the siblings even though he initially told them to do it for free. And he continues to simp for #hotnerdexorcist.

Just look at his fond little smile as he watches Peach and Pangpang freak out about the money.

11

And last but not least we're returning to my ass-pull segment of punching symbolism I'm titeling Peach punching his way to love:

This week we had one punch and one prevented punch, both coming from Peach. I would like to argue that both symbolise the character growth that Home needs to undergo so Peach can fully fall in love with him.

-> The manager stands for the part of Home that Peach sees most of this episode. The part that thinks money solves all problems, that looks down on poor people and has no desire to give a chance to anything he deems "lesser" (like Peach's sandwiches). This part gets punched by Peach because this is the behaviour that Peach can't stand, that Home has to grow from.

-> The mother stands for Home's less visible but still present side that does care about others and is willing to set things right when he realises he made a mistake/was unfair in his judgement over others. Peach tries to punch this part, too, because he can't/isn't willing to see the potential for kindness in Home but Pangpang holds him back, allowing him to see that this isn't someone to be punched. Just like she repeatedly tries to make her brother give Home a chance, to give Home the opportunity to show that he does have some redeeming qualities.

And that's it for episode 2. Now that Peach has also started to fall, let's see if I have more to say on his part in the next episode!

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

Ok a rant about Cerri bomb and how much I HATE her

In the addict music video she was a very supportive friend of Angel and I loved her in the pilot! I wish we got that supportive best friend to Angel in the final product, but unfortunately she is a woman in a vivziepop show.

She’s AWFUL now I can’t stand her, the way she tried to make Angel relapse was so weird like pilot cherri wouldn’t do that! I also really dislike her design it has to be one of my personal least favourites (not the bottom though nothing is worse than alastors design to me) she isn’t enjoyable to watch anymore she had potential if she’d only been introduced earlier! Imagine if she was introduced in episode 4 and played the supportive friend she was originally supposed to be!

And GOD I hate her ship with pentious, it was SO RUSHED, so poorly done and the ship isn’t very “so cute and in love!!” When you remember she showed literally NO interest in him until Angel brought up that he has 2 dicks, and this is supposed to be a romantic relationship we CARE about.

Cherri didn’t need a romantic relationship she needed CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT we needed to get to know her! If you’ve only seen the show and no other Hazbin media at all (which shouldn’t be required you should be able to get all your info FROM THE SHOW) you’d barely know anything about her character or who she is. I wish we got pilot cherri bomb, and that she got a design update, and that her and pent’s relationship was either taken slower or didn’t happen at all

You silly little creature you, you have me writing in my notes app instead of Tumblr because I’m about to go crazy!

Cherri Bomb. More like Cherri what the hell happened

Anyway I’m gonna tackle this one thing at a time, and also forgive me if I word something weird I just woke up an hour ago at the time of writing this.

First thing, design: I personally quite like her design since it very loosely reminds me of Iris from Ruby Gloom with ofc the one eye, the very rowdy personality and kind of the hair, but those are very broad design choices and its just me remembering some random girl I thought was silly but like Iris did it better.

Okay now second thing and then we go into literally everything else: My blog has been an angry pit of despair for everything in Episode 6 as of recent so let’s tap into that again 🤏 just a little. I am going to give my classic centrist opinion and say I don’t mind Cherri Bomb all that much but I absolutely get why people dislike her, and I mean this in the kinda way as people who dislike… Idk Fukuchi from BSD. WILD jump in fandoms but gimme a second. I can’t 100% say that Cherri Bomb in the pilot was better than the series since we have no idea if maybe for some reason she was intended to be like that offscreen, but judging by the pilot and “Addict” alone, it’s very unlikely. I could see her maybe being a bad influence at times and being like “Loosen up dude we’re in hell and its Friday” or something (idk if they have Friday in hell but everyday is probably Monday 🥁) but overall I feel like she’d end up apologising for it. However on the other side of things, I can understand why Cherri did that in Episode 6. Of course not to say this is okay, but Cherri is still very clearly not in the “redemption” mindset. She’s happy the way she is and is really only focused on certain aspects of issues. We see her comfort Angel in “Addict” but thats basically the extent of it. Cherri’s definition of “self-care” seems to be less of actually taking care of yourself and more like just letting go and having fun instead which really only gives a momentary fix to the issue, much like how substances can be abused. Do you kinda see what im getting at? Cherri offering Angel drugs while he’s trying not to relapse is not okay, full stop. But her reasoning as to why makes a bit of sense for her purpose in the show which is honestly not much, since, as you said, she is a woman in a Vivziepop show.

To my knowledge Cherri is like 30-ish years younger than Angel Dust in Hell experience so she’s likely not reached a point where she’s gotten tired of how things work, as well as the fact we don’t really have much of an idea on her backstory aside from that random shot in “Addict” of that guy in a puddle??? But generally she seems to be in a better position than Angel is, so there isn’t really any reason for her to want to change, yknow? I will say I do like exploring characters that are good friends while still being bad influences at times, but I’m going to be honest I feel like thats really not what Angel needs right now. I wouldn’t be as pissy about it if she did end up apologising afterwards (I’m just gonna headcanon she did for my sanity) but even then as Angel’s friend we don’t know like… anything about her. I would’ve really liked to get some kind of callback to the pilot where Cherri mentions she thought Angel was dead until the random Sir Pentious turf war, and maybe we could see her actually being worried about Angel again instead of those 3 frames in “Addict”, but Hazbin is rushed and I guess we don’t have time for that. And also YES it would’ve been great to see her in Episode 4 and actually doing something but again, Vivziepop is boring.

Going forward I would really like to see Cherri, if not become a patron, at least try to be a better friend and sure if she wants to keep doing stuff she can keep doing it, but just don’t encourage other people to relapse. It is very simple.

SIR PENTIOUS! About Sir Pentious, this is going to be incredibly short. I don’t hate the ship but also I’m not really crazy about any of the Hazbin Hotel ships? I also don’t really hate any except for the genuinely horrid ones but thats basic sense. I absolutely agree with you, Cherri does not need a romantic interest. Romance doesn’t always = growth and growth should not always = romance. She needs some genuine character TLC and I hope to god she gets some in season 2. We’ve only seen a few minutes of her so I have yet to give a firm opinion, but as of now I’m just hoping they do something actually interesting with her instead of just alluding to Sir Pentious ship. Also the penis thing. 1. What was that, and 2. It made me and my friends briefly pause to sex Sir Pentious and come to the conclusion he is likely transgender/hj

TLDR; Please give us a fun Cherri Bomb again. ☹️

[koichi-nomura]

ive seen a lot of people say they dislike the helper (for very understandable reasons tbh, its... not written well lol) but im curious as to why you dont like the tourist or the good deed :0

Sorry I forgot to reply to this!

With these episodes it’s mainly just my preferences, for the tourist idk how deeply I can analyze it I just generally don’t enjoy the happenings of the episode (and I hate Trudi lol) I guess it’s just kinda frustrating to watch for me. It’s not like I’m personally offended by it as much as I claim, I just don’t enjoy and so prefer not to watch it again, which I guess I can sorta equate to “hate”.

There’s not a lot I can say redeems the episode for me other than the part towards the end where Wander makes another orbble and the needle ends up inside the orbble too, something about how the animation looks or how there’s more object permanence than usual just makes it cool to me. And then him picking it up after, I just like it.

For the good deed it’s a LOT of personal preference; I’m not into most of the little gags that happen, there’s a lot of gags I love a little later in the series but basically most of my enjoyment of the show and the jokes and such come from the main 4 (or arguably 5) characters being themselves, (that’s actually how I feel about most anything I watch, I love character-driven stories and character-driven humor) After that I don’t really get the moral? I almost feel like it’d be better without a moral because I’m not sure they really got across what they wanted to get across? Thirdly there’s more out-of-character Wander because it’s still pretty early on, I know it was for a gag but I don’t like that Wander turned down helping Hater at the end lol. And lastly for spiritual reasons I avoid watching anything that features fortune tellers/tarot card readings among other things.

But thanks for asking!!

[lotusparadisaea]

I keep thinking about how Only Friends would've benefited from a longer run-time and how some specific things of the show could've been handled a lot better if that were the case so I'm writing them down to have them all out there.

Giving Top a personality.

I think one of my many grievances with the show (despite the fact that I like it a lot) it’s the fact that unlike other characters, Top doesn’t seem to have much development outside of his relationship with Mew. We get to learn a little about all these characters episode from episode, yet all we know about Top are throwaway things that are almost never mentioned again or instantly resolved, or don’t carry throughout the show.

For example, his drug use. We learn about his drug use and apparently, it’s immediately resolved once Mew offers to sleep with him to make him stop. He can, it seems, stop cold turkey. Although he seems to be a very “sentimental” user (he talks about being high when he’s alone or to have fun). This is never brought up again, not even when Mew starts using. Which I found weird? I thought maybe he would get back to it after he ended his relationship with Mew, or at least have a harder time deciding not to take it, yet his drug use was mentioned once, resolved instantly, never brought up again.

Then, the sleeping pills and his trauma, we get to learn why he uses him, his trauma around sleeping alone, yet we never really see him struggling with that, in that same scene Mew agrees to sleep with him, and then we see him deciding not to take them, calling Boeing instead. Yet. We never really see him struggle with not being able to sleep otherwise. He has PTSD about a traumatic event on his childhood and I think he, as a character, would’ve benefited from a scene where, after breaking up with Mew, and before calling Boeing, he tries to sleep alone and isn’t able to, maybe showing his discomfort, an anxiety episode or something similar. The worst thing is this scene exists, where he decides to take someone else home after he sees Mew and Ray but fails, he can’t have sex with them, he CRIES and has to tell them to go away, and YET THE SCENE WAS DELETED.

Just learn more things about him in general. We know Nick’s dreams of animation and Boston’s photography, we know Sand wants to travel the world and go to music festivals, damn, we even know Cheum’s girlfriend, April, who only shows up for like three episodes is going to film school and makes confusing indie short films, yet we don’t seem to know much about Top’s aspirations, dreams, likes and dislikes, other than the fact that he used to sleep around and now he’s in love with Mew.

Boeing showing up sooner.

Had Only Friends been a longer show not being cut short by the typical run-time of your average GMMTV BL, and it had, let’s say, 18 episodes (like other gmmtv shows such as PSIHY), Boeing’s appearance in the last stretch of the show could’ve been less rushed. He could’ve showed around episode 12 and still make chaos and ruin relationships for six episodes, instead of three episodes where we barely get to learn anything about him other than he deeply dislikes Top for having dumped him. Like, why is he trying to get on with everybody? What are his motivations? Does he just like the drama? Does he have an actual plan? Like I could say: Boeing deeply regrets leaving Sand for Top, he realizes he made a mistake as soon as Top dumps him, and since then he plans to get Sand back and ruin Top’s life. That could be a motive. But we don’t know much about him, not really.

And also, sooner as in: we should’ve had flashbacks of his and Sand and Top’s relationships. I know that would’ve ruined the reveal of the actor, but I think there are clever ways to show flashbacks of a relationship without showing the actor’s face if the reveal was so important. Right now, we see Sand being awkward around Boeing but never straight up saying no, why is he so hesitant? The whole show we’ve seen him being in love with Ray, what was his relationship with Boeing like? Why did it make him hate Top so much to enact a revenge plan on him, even knowing he could hurt the person he currently likes? Were things really that insane? We know they had plans together but that’s because we were told this episode, it would’ve been so much better if the change we see Sand have in Boeing’s presence had much more context.

Exploring more the different relationship and dynamics

Okay, I think the show does a great job at this but there are things that seem so out there, that aren’t really developed or that could’ve use deeper approaches.

The group friend: why are they even friends? Did they met in university and found out they were all queer and banded together? Why, if both Cheum and Mew find Boston’s sexual life so awful they stick around him? Why did Cheum act like Ray was the only one at fault in the whole raymew debacle when they’ve always known he has substance abuse problems and he’s in love with Mew? Why does she says Ray never cares about them and yet the first scene of the show it’s them poking fun at Ray for always telling them he loves them while he’s drunk and he’s drunk all the time? The whole friend group should’ve had a deeper approach, imho.

Ray and Mew: okay, so Ray is in love with Mew. Mew knows this. We know Mew stopped Ray from committing suicide and that deepen their vow. We know Mew chose to be with Ray because he wanted to hurt Top. We know Ray couldn’t say no to Mew, even though by that point he already liked Sand. Yet we barely have any scenes of them together. We hear from their friends that their relationship was a mess, as short as it was, but we only really get one episode showing it. The next episode they broke up and are really mature about it, which? Okay, fair, but what was really their relationship like? We had glimpses of it.

Cheum and literally anyone else other than Mew: she’s Mew’s ride or die apparently, but she’s supposed to be friends with all of them. She even says if she weren’t a lesbian she would choose Ray, yet we never see her being a good friend to any of them. She’s literally a better friend to Top that she ever was to both Ray and Boston.

No half-assed plots

Sometimes it feels like the show is trying to do too much and it isn't able to. Specially these last episodes. The whole Atom/Boston debacle could've been better if it had taken more episodes to develop. We don't see his "friends" ostracizing him other than the first confrontation, but like, they literally threw him off their thesis project, even if Boston is leaving, i think he would've been at least a little worried about not being able to graduate. Atom hasn't gotten any consequences, Cheum and Mew have not apologized. I feel like this plot should've been better executed.

Same thing goes for Mew's little "Reputation" era.

And other plot points like, apparently Sand and Ray were sleeping together all the time when Ray and Mew were together? But this was never shown, in fact, it was implied Sand was keeping his distance, trying his shot with Freddie #2, telling Ray he wasn't his rebound or second option ALL THAT WHILE STILL SLEEPING REGULARLY WITH HIM?? There's a lot of "tell and don't show" in the series and it falls flat because of it.

The things they did show are good, for example, Ray's drinking problem. When we finally reach the rehab plot it doesn't feel rushed or out of nowhere because we've seen Ray drink all the show.

More development for the main couples.

This is self-explanatory, but like Jojo himself said they had to cut scenes for ALL of them because of the run time. I feel like for a relationship/character driven show, sometimes it really seems affected for the short run time. There are scenes we see in previews we don’t get, scenes that are released ON TWITTER because they didn’t make it to the show and a lot more of depth in the book that in the show and if that’s not a clear sign that the show should’ve been longer idk what it is.

[bekkachaos]

BRIDGERTON THOUGHTS PRT 2 !

Send help it's literally more Polin I can't help it!

Once again, spoilers ahead for S3 part 2 so keep scrolling if you don't want em! This is my part 1.

It might be an unpopular opinion, but there was too much angst for me. Colin was too angsty for too long, and I know it was only really an episode and a half, But I felt like we got too much of book Colin's bad side and not enough understanding. Like I very much get it and he had a very valid reason for being hurt, but it was dragged almost to the very end of the last episode and I just wish there would have been a little less.

The constant asking if she was going to give up Whistledown kind of annoyed me and how cold he was every time they had that conversation just broke my heart a little bit for Penelope.

I know so much has been changed from books to show, but it's strange that in the book he knows about Whistledown before anything really happens, I mean they have that first kiss where she asks him to but everything else happens after he already knows. So for him to be so cold. Just made me feel sad. I understand it in the context of the show but still.

And something I really disliked was when they're in the room where they're going to have their wedding breakfast and Penelope asks something along the lines of "if you still want to marry me" and he says "I'm a man of honour and we were intimate", I really hate that it came to suggesting he would marry her out of obligation, It just really rubbed me the wrong way. And I wish it had been something along the lines of. "I love you Penelope and I want to marry you. I just don't know if I can forgive you for this", which he'd already said, but I would way rather that have been put out there than to ever even imply that he could marry her out of obligation. I know he was mad and betrayed and jealous, But that one line really bothers me. I've made a whole post basically saying this word for word but that's how strongly I feel about it! Like I get it from Colin's perspective and how he's grappling with it, I do, I just didn't like it.

Also, Colin never actually said sorry? For treating her like shit after he found out. Like I do think his feelings were valid and that he deserved to be upset, but he never said sorry for some of the stuff he said and for being cold even though Penelope apologised so many times.

Luke's emotion though when Colin found out and in the conversations after was incredible, when the tear fell at the end of ep 6 my heart stopped and then broke into tiny pieces!

Something about their pairing that I really like though is that they both feel inherently unlovable for one reason or another (Penelope has always felt completely unloved and overlooked, and Colin has always felt people showed him affections for shallow reasons and not actually for who he is), but both of them prove to each other over and over again how much they love the other and know the other and see them in a way no-one else does.

HOWEVER, I'm not sure they did a good enough job portraying Colin's side of this (I'll update on my rewatch send help). Not sure his coldness and hesitation was addressed enough as jealousy as it could have been. The scene where Penelope says "just love me and hold me and kiss me, what holds you back" and he says "I don't know" like was that just a little abrupt or was that just me? Because from the book I could follow that it's the jealousy of how accomplished she is but not sure the general audience picks up on that.

AND ANOTHER THING, there was absolutely not enough making up after everything was resolved with Whistledown, I needed more love and kisses and softness after the ball!

I know there were things being added to set up for the next season, but damn it was already 70 minutes long, what's 5 more of sweet and in love Polin??

Gotta say though, all of them with their babies in the end was adorable, and you can't deny the last shot kissing in the sunlight of the drawing room (where Penelope spent so much time staring out the window pining after Colin) was so fucking romantic! And the shot with their little baby boy, love!

One last thing, did they spend an exorbitant amount of time dancing or is that just me? Almost as much time as they all spent drinking lemonade in eps 1-4

Overall I loved their story, it's been my favourite pairing so far. Not sure any of the others will top it for me, but time will tell! Episodes 4-5 were definitely my favourites by a long shot!

Okay okay imma do part 3 with my thoughts on everything else 😂