#be forewarned that below that readmore is. well it's 2.5k words

[obeetlebeetle]

(1) im so glad u liked my kpvvy ask! i loved reading ur answer and ur thoughts on how it would shake out. i agree that kpvvy are more bittersweet mirrors than trying to save/serve each other, and that respect is so interesting to me. i was worried about word limit so i didn't mention rue who is ofc important to all of this too - rue learning of wuvvy's betrayal done in the name of love...when i sent the au, i forgot about the glamour aspect

hi. so. i maybe wrote an essay in response to this chain of asks. and honestly very little of it is fun and shippy, it's basically a wuvvy deep dive after the first 400 words. but, y'know, if you squint it's still ostensibly abt a kpvvy au.

if u read it and think 'ok well this guy is a drag' my only defense is that yeah i am kind of a drag.

some mild au hcs to soften the blow:

wuvvy calls in her favor right away, getting hob to help set up the potions, but they fall into the habit of doing tasks for one another in exchange for a favor, which is always called in as another task.

hob's tent is a mess and his presentation is immaculate; wuvvy's to-do list is perfect and she never manages to look tidy. she helps him reorganize with her system, and hob shows her how to care for her clothes and her hair, braids it back on busy days so she isn't stressed, hides love notes in her pockets.

wuvvy introduces hob to the assistants to the assistant, the vast array of working class folk that make the event a success, and he finally feels natural and comfortable letting himself have fun with people who make sense to him.

being capable of beastspeech, wuvvy reads hob's letters to wrackingspelt. hob cries. wuvvy laughs at them both.

wuvvy arrives at the ball with rue but slips away with hob, confused and torn-up and fully in love with both of them. but dancing with rue in the light of the fireworks, kissing hob in the shadowy woods, feeling wanted and letting herself be wanted for the first time in her life, she is deliriously happy. she has always believed that if anyone saw how much she wanted from them, they would turn away in fear or disgust, or would otherwise suffocate under the weight of her affection while never giving her enough in return. between hob and rue, however, she's finding that they can love the monster in her, and their love might actually sate her appetite.

ok. that's all i got. essay:

(1) im so glad u liked my kpvvy ask! i loved reading ur answer and ur thoughts on how it would shake out. i agree that kpvvy are more bittersweet mirrors than trying to save/serve each other, and that respect is so interesting to me. i was worried about word limit so i didn't mention rue who is ofc important to all of this too - rue learning of wuvvy's betrayal done in the name of love…when i sent the au, i forgot about the glamour aspect

(2) so i was thinking of wuvvy secretly approaching kp as herself + generally sussing him out more thoroughly. maybe this would be a way of disarming kp's skepticism, false honesty. kp + rue are harder for me to understand, i have trouble picturing what would happen next. how would hob feel to get to know an equal he admires? so much more approachable + understanding of devotion. maybe wuvvy's just nice at first and then friendly sparring becomes… more than friendly lol

yeah ok! this is a completely different narrative if wuvvy approaches hob as herself. i’m working with something similar for the cyrano au — hob and wuvvy establishing a dynamic that revolves around occupying similar roles with VERY different feelings towards those roles. the question is whether hob would fall for the seduction — if wuvvy approaches him after that moment in the woods, after the burnt letter, i dont know that he would be taken in. this is rue’s best friend, after all. if she approaches him with commiseration and friendship, though, she might catch his heart, and that would make the most sense for her getting the opportunity to see and sympathize with hob.

from there, well. i see them finding each other as collaborators. we know that if hob meets a fey that works and that seeks out his company, he will genuinely want to help them. and we know that he likes the bloom, he’s inspired by it, so there is a lot of opportunity to him to spend time learning about wuvvy’s tasks. she earns his trust by letting him in, then uses that bond to “help” with his own task, situating herself as an outsider to the court of wonder in order to become his confidante, his fellow spy. i like them sparring, i like them sharing their mother tongue with one another, and i do think there’s passion to be explored there. but another scene that jumps out to me is them pouring over the wall of red string and feeling like conspirators, drawing closer behind closed doors. since it’s the seduction angle, i imagine this is where wuvvy would start engaging his affections through tenderness. 

(3) the lying would still be lying, that hob caught feelings for wuvvy who is sacrificing herself as a honeytrap for rue. but it's double ouch feeling for him that: not only did wuvvy know the saboteur was rue all along but that she did this FOR rue rather than genuine connection. that wuvvy thought he was dangerous for rue, never actually trusted/liked/wanted him. who could ever like him, etc. easily manipulated blunt instrument. (wuvvy = fine instrument?)

you def hit the nail on the head as far as the severity of the betrayal. hob doesn’t take being used lightly when it comes to rue’s lie, and this would be exacerbated by the fact that he WAS manipulated on purpose and that he WAS taken for a fool. it could only be tempered by real feelings of love and care from wuvvy. bowie emotionsandphenomena pointed out that hob is not functionally a blunt instrument; that may be how boil and blemish see him, but his plans are precise and intelligent. if they’ve been working together, wuvvy would see that, and the betrayal compounds as hob is left feeling as stupid and humiliated as he does when being lambasted by his superiors.

(4) wuvvy, eventually guilty and burning up inside maybe. liking and pitying hob more than she expected. her closest friend besides rue is theo, who she may not have seen for decades or centuries since the last bloom, she has not been lonely but she has only had rue as rue has only had her. with hob it is fun to fight and run and get messy in ways she can't standing next to rue, moving for rue. hob would never, could never tell her what to wear.

(5) idk how rue would re/act… idk if i can see rue falling for wuvvy once hob comes into the picture. maybe if hob really is distracted by wuvvy + refrains from pursuing rue, they would start seeing her as she cares for them: wipes their tears/holds them. but it's hard for me to see how this would help rue see wuvvy's love as romantic. rue learning this has been happening, that wuvvy came between them and hob makes me feel insane tho. it feels so doomed for wuvvy. 

wuvvy is not someone who wants to confess her feelings, ever; she doesn’t really seem to trust anyone but herself. honeytrapping hob is just as good as being rue’s assistant because she can create rules for it, she knows what will be expected of her and she acts accordingly. it’s a job, and wuvvy, like hob, is only able to identify her value in being good at her job, in how she meets the conditions she has set. this model has worked well for her thus far; she genuinely has been happy with her arrangement with rue. it’s rue that identifies that she acts a certain way around them, represses some part of herself to make room for rue. it’s rue that identifies, upon divesting themself of their loyalty to the court of wonder, that their position affords them a measure of control over wuvvy.

in contrast, lying to and manipulating hob would put her in that position of control. & she would start to understand why control doesn’t allow for desire. negotiating who has the upperhand when one party can never really achieve that position is not possible.

i think that that’s where this starts to come together. wuvvy sees in hob what happens when you give yourself over to someone so that you are not responsible for your happiness. she can see what it means to be taken advantage of, to be used, and to accept that as the price for having all your decisions made for you. her performance of affection becomes real the longer the honeytrap persists, because she’s seeing the way hob is treated by his court and the lack of joy in his life, which leads her to confront what she has actually been seeking in her relationship with rue.

importantly, wuvvy is happy in her model of devotion. she loves rue, and until that moment in ep3, rue has not used wuvvy, has not wounded wuvvy, and has given wuvvy everything she asked for from the relationship she herself facilitated -- it was a choice, after all. it was the last one she had to make.

loving hob and knowing she has power over him, has used him, and having him love her is what makes her realize that she wants a different relationship with rue — a collaborative relationship, where neither party has the ability to use one another because instead they rely on, care for, and support each other instead. hate to signpost my own analysis but, i have a whole treatise on how this was the climactic point in canon kprue and how it gets reconciled between them.

as far as ruevvy and kprue in the au — rue was canonically falling for wuvvy at the start of the story, and with hob’s attention on someone else after the woods while wuvvy supports rue through their reveal and encouraging their happiness, they would fully commit themselves to wuvvy. it’s less of rue recognizing wuvvy’s feelings and more rue developing their own feelings. and we know that rue would choose to act on those feelings. rue, like hob, hates lying. meanwhile, kprue looks more like canon kpvvy — there’s mutual attraction, perhaps a deeper bond if they get the chance to learn about each other, hob respects and admires rue, rue is jealous of but sympathizes with hob, etc. they don’t have the opportunity to fall in love, but the capacity for love is there, and the closer they draw to wuvvy the closer they will draw to one another.

so when it comes down to it, when wuvvy and hob have fallen for each other, when hob realizes the depth of her betrayal and demands truth at last — well, honestly, i think that they would come to a duel without a confession from wuvvy. they would fight, and as they fight wuvvy would try to defend her actions, and in the defense she would finally let slip the secret that defines her: the impetus was love for rue.

even having been wounded by her, hob would respect wuvvy’s play because of that love, the 'this is how far you will go for rue’ of it all. hob and wuvvy and rue are all written as characters who know how to play the game and play it perfectly. it’s just that rue and hob played it for the courts, which made them unhappy & led to their deep need for authenticity. wuvvy plays it for rue, and hob would see it and WANT that, because wuvvy loves lying so much that she wields it like a board-and-blade. hob would admire it! as long as he gets to be on the other side of it, as long as the player is a person he loves, the only thing that matters to him about their tactics is whether or not they'll include him in the planning. 

so i don’t think it would be a doomed ending for wuvvy. in canon rue is able to forgive her without knowing what she did — they respect wuvvy’s tremendous capacity for love, and they don’t mind that no one gets to know why she does what she does, as long as she's doing what she wants. as far as hob, in canon he doesn’t mind everyone constantly revealing their plans or true selves, because now he gets to see how it all worked. this is why kpruevvy is SO potent to me: wuvvy, a character who wants to be the exception to the rule, could only ever have that same exception with rue and hob. they are all ruthless when it comes to love.

in the end, it would come down hob finally recognizing his true nature in wuvvy. taking her off the pedestal and seeing that she wants something that service has not afforded her. wuvvy letting herself want something. both of them realizing that they found real love in one another, and hob forgiving her because he finally understands why. i like the idea of rue interrupting the duel, being there when it all comes to light, and being able to ask them, what was it all for? What, of anything, made them happy? the answer being, ofc, their time spent together, working together, having someone on their side, having someone to touch and kiss and fight and hold. rue is one who allows them to interrogate the burden of love, and how devotion negotiates or excuses that burden through the way devotees develops their selfhood around their object of devotion. this is the sticking point in both wuvvy and hob that rue is constantly trying to unpick; rue is the one to introduce mutualism, the profound benefit of an ethic of care rather than an ethic of service.

(6) unrelated to the au, idk if the canon kprue ending is happy to me, it feels sad like yes rue loves hob, but i feel like hob is wuvvy 2. did he really want to leave the ALL of the goblin court? his salt goblins? grabalba? idk. out of the frying pan… opposite to how i feel about wuvvy's ending - unhappy but free, at least. the mercy of that, out of sight… sorry for so so many asks! i wish the char limit was longer.

sorry but you really lost me here : ( rue knows that hob loves them, hob knows that rue loves him, and the relationship they enter into is explicitly a romantic one, which is to say, fundamentally different than rue’s relationship with wuvvy. taking on wuvvy’s role in rue’s life doesn’t mean that hob takes on the power dynamic that she had with rue. & like, looking at every interaction hob has with a member of the court, it’s clear that they are not his friends, his family, his confidantes — i know we all love grabalba, but she doesn’t care about him, and frankly he only cares about her as far as a codified relationship of fealty to her king. the unnamed goblins are primarily shown to tease hob, boil and blemish use him, and the military unit he commands has no affection for him, just loyalty. he was writing letters to his horse. idk i really dont see how finding love, devoting himself to someone who cares about him, experiencing desire and intimacy, and ultimately building a new life with them alongside their friends, could be construed as anything other than a happy ending. it’s bittersweet, i suppose — he has a lot to unlearn, and he has a lot to discover, and there will be a very long period of time where he struggles to accept the vast changes in his life. but i don’t think any of those changes will have been for the worse.