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[violivs]

NMTDaily: Football Antics Part One

- I’m just cracking up at how nervous Beatrice is! The nervous babbling! And it is definitely because, since she hasn’t started school yet, this football game is the first time she’s seen Benedick since moving to Auckland- since they were 14, really. (I don’t think she was there when Ursula filmed his part of Vox Pops, or at least she was better able to avoid him then. No avoiding being seen here though!)

- Bea may be in denial, but her “holy shit my crush-that-got-away is Right Over There In Person” energy is radiating! Which is perfect adaptation work for Miss Starts The Play By Oh-So-Casually Asking About Benedick And Playing It Off With Insults.

- “We’re here to support Leo, we’re here to Support The Boys, we’re here to see Pedro, and Definitely No One Else, At All, Promise” 👀 I see you Beatrice

- “I’m sure he’ll be wonderful, and so will-“ *Extremely Long, Pointed Pause* “-everyone, really.” Hero knows what’s up!!! And Bea just assumes she’s talking about Claudio, which, yeah, but the way Hero looks really intently at Bea on this line and says it with such intention- she is teasing Bea about Ben here for sure.

- Bea and Hero are having a sass-off complete with impressions of each other and Ursula is all “just keep taking pictures, they’ll get tired eventually”. Ursula is a treasure.

- The sass-off is also great! I love that Hero, as nice as she is, can still hold her own against Beatrice here. It’s a good thing, because making fun of people is kind of a love language for Beatrice.

- Starting in on Meg again (poor Meg), as a way to seed some backstory that will matter later! (Robbie got kicked off the team, hmmmm.)

- And Bea immediately pivots to bring up Claudio. The fast forward through Hero’s gushing is so funny and cute. She was definitely trying to say Robert Pattinson reminds her of Claudio, which, I can see it. 2014 is calling again though, right at the end of the Twilight era. If this series were set much earlier we would definitely have heard Bea hating on Twilight, lol.

- “He’s nice!” being the only thing she can say, says a lot. And Ursula being the one who gets Hero to admit she thinks he’s cute, awww. The hiding behind the hair! The oohing over Hero’s crush is majorly bringing me back to what it was like to be a teenager, it’s adorable. Poor Hero lol

- Ah yes, “Leo says we can’t film the match” AKA the in-world explanation for not being able to make an actual football scene realistic. I say that with zero judgement. The workaround of Leo saying no is cleverly done, and makes sense since the only plot-relevant stuff goes on on the sidelines anyway.

- The little moment of Hero narrating the game! I love that. She’s so into it that she forgets she’s not supposed to mention Ben in front of Bea, and then she starts worrying about Claudio which is also very cute.

- (My brain instinctively: Ooh! Ben mention! First Ben mention by name in a Hero and Bea vlog!!!! Milestone!)

- Enter Meg! (and Robbie). “I’m going to be the real star, you just don’t know it yet!” An icon.

- Robbie throwing out a Game of Thrones reference, it’s like a signal that he’s sort of part of the group for now, but his energy is Off. Dark colors, never really looking at anyone but Meg. Bad vibes.

- And Meg and Robbie as a visual sign of Bea’s discomfort with relationships, her idea that they’re all PDA and no boundaries. That in Bea’s and to some degree Hero’s eyes, Meg chooses Robbie over their friendships, over homework, almost over her own self, and Bea does not want that imbalance for herself at all. But she doesn’t know how to express her discomfort and concern in any other way but scorn for Meg. So much character work for so many different characters in one episode at once, I love it.

- I love Ursula sticking up for Meg, even if it’s never particularly fun watching other people make out. This is an Ursula Appreciation Liveblog, and I’m also still loving her tumblr, btw.

- Part Two next and it’s time for the I Know You Of Old scene! Ahhh!

- BUT FIRST: another video I didn’t know was posted so early, and get ready, because I’m about to be insufferable in this next one. I will not be able to help myself. My boy is about to enter the scene! My beautiful cringe-y boy! How I’ve missed him!!! Next liveblog post coming soon, I hope. 😊

💖🦩🥭

[violivs]

some REAL weird stuff: on april 9, the lizzie bennet diaries facebook page started promoting an app which is meant to basically be a rewatch of the show on the anniversaries of the episodes being released, which coincidentally is the same idea ashley clements, who played lizzie, had and made two years ago on the 10th anniversary. people thought it was shady esp since ashley has said some pretty disparaging stuff about how the creator of the show handled things while it aired and after it was done, so they messaged her and she’s just posted this. apparently, NO one besides bernie su is getting paid - not residuals, nothing from the fact the lbd channel is monetized, nothing from the app. there are producers and actors that worked on the show in the comments saying they weren’t even CONTACTED about it, which is INSANE

since i know some of u follow me for p&p & might see ads for the app, here’s the heads up that you should not download it and probably not interact with the lbd accounts at all. they really have no interest in the wellbeing of the crew that made the entire show possible. it’s very sad :/

[violivs]

NMTDaily: A Wild Hero Appears

- It makes me a little sad that Bea tweets out this video with “meet the prettier version of me”. You’re beautiful in your own right, Beatrice, and I don’t think Hero would want you to compliment her by putting yourself down. This moment starts to show Beatrice’s insecurities, in a very teenage-girl way. It feels very accurate to that time of life for sure.

- What’s interesting, though, is that this tweet, where Bea thinks of herself as less pretty than Hero, is a direct parallel to and reversal of the moment in a future episode when Claudio tells Ben who he likes (Hero), and asks what Ben thinks of her, and Ben says he prefers her cousin, naming no names. These lines are adapted from the play. Now, I’m not going to say it’s good or ok for the guys to be comparing the girls to each other, even unintentionally, and of course Beatrice has to develop her own self-confidence outside of what anyone else thinks of her. But it is very sweet that at the time she makes that self-deprecating tweet, Beatrice already, unknown to her, has someone who looks at her before anyone else, who always thinks she’s the prettiest girl in the room. It’s just that even he doesn’t know it yet! Ben has thought Beatrice was gorgeous since long before he could admit it to himself, and that just makes me happy.

- I bet Hero’s “you’re not so bad looking yourself, Bea” is her answer to the tweet. She’s too sweet even to directly address it.

- Hero reading TFIOS is so incredibly 2014. (I can also tell she’s an actress and isn’t actually reading it right now because she’s that far into the book and she isn’t SOBBING. I’ll never forget how hard I cried and I’m not afraid to admit it.)

- “Hero it’s Darcy on a horse” being the thing to get her attention is hilarious and adorable and how many Jane Austen Movie Nights do we think she and Bea have had? Definitely some!

- Hero is adorable and we love her enthusiasm and many many video ideas 😆

- there are so many amazing quotes in this episode. “room tour. room tour. ROOM TOUR”; “I am very proud of the witty capabilities of 3-in-the-morning me” amazing.

- Bea is starting what’s essentially senior year in April at a new school. That has to be stressful. Good that she seems cheery about it. I’m sure she’s not at all worried about who else is in her classes…

- Now I want lemonade! Lol. But US lemonade for me. Research is telling me that NZ/Aotearoa lemonade is just basically lemon soda, like it is in the UK, as opposed to the US lemon juice + water + sugar situation. I hope Bea gets to try US lemonade on her travel year. It’s so good when it’s good.

- the Hersula origins! “She’s so lovely I catch myself wanting her to insult me” 💕

- Shoutout to the NMTD Fandom Revival Discord for catching the fact that Bea’s line “what is this cake even for” is a reference to the TARDIS cake Ursula shared on her tumblr, showing that Ursula and Hero surprised Bea with the cake for no reason at all, they’re just that sweet and lovely!

- A brief aside: Ursula’s tumblr has been lovely. She’s posted lots of desserts including one that she said is her dad’s specialty, so now I headcanon that she likes to bake because it’s something she and her dad do together. Ursula lore!

- Poor Meg. It’s tough to be an early bloomer, and you can tell the girls know they shouldn’t be making fun of her for it. I’m glad Hero told Bea to stop, but she was still going along with it and was the one who said the “Queen of Scream” line. We know they’ll learn, though.

- I also notice the link to Ursula’s first video in the description of this episode is now broken and goes to a page that says the video doesn’t exist. Fortunately VOX POPS is alive, well, and next in the playlist. Interesting how links break over time.

- This episode is apparently from before the characters start answering YouTube comments, I checked the comment section. That’s something I’m interested to see whether the NMTDaily emails will highlight, because I remember the characters’ comments being very fun to read! Good for immersion too!

- I’m embarrassed to even admit this, and I blame growing up without cable tv or video games, but I’m just now realizing this title is a Pokémon reference. This show was always even nerdier and more full of pop culture references than I realized! Excited to see if I find anything else I didn’t get before!

💖🥭🦩

[violivs]

NMTDaily: And So It Begins

- Beatrice’s first vlog! What an opening line, I love it lol. I remembered the hand wave on “hello, people of the Internet” having a wider arc across the screen than it actually does, funny enough! Glad I didn’t specify the wide wave when I referenced this line in MARRIED, the fic I posted on the 25th.

- “I’m not too old for Halloween”, girl after my own heart!

- Always thought it was interesting that Bea’s mother is American. I wonder how/why they decided that. It’s the kind of super specific detail that makes Bea feel so real, because who would make that up? It’s also interesting that it means Bea and Ben’s families are both somewhat international. Another parallel for them, another thing they have in common.

- I bet the Aunties’ wedding was the cutest thing ever, imagine Hero and Leo standing up with them! That’s probably the last time all of the Dukes were together before the story starts.

- I’m surprised Bea’s parents moved because her dad got a promotion. I would have assumed her mom did, because we get the impression of her as the high-powered businesswoman. But good for Bea’s dad. Is it canon that he’s a university professor? (Promotion = tenure?) Or did I make that up for fanfic and/or confuse him with Ben’s parents being professors in canon? Listening for that. Maybe Bea’s dad was actually also a business person all along and that’s how her parents met. Who knows.

- Bea says Australia like I say Indiana, lol (no hate to anyone from Indiana though! Just another of those inborn rivalries with the neighbor, like the Oz/NZ one.)

- “A great science program” I forgot Bea was a science person!

- I always loved the set decoration in this room, I remember it’s Hero’s room, and it’s so artsy and cozy and pretty. Love the wall art.

- “Leo and I are in charge of the house for the next six months” Excuse me, does this series really only take place over six months? Well, it ends in the first week of November, so that’s seven full months. I think it felt like it lasted a whole year when it was airing though. Time slowed down during a certain arc for sure.

- “in-joke with myself!” Classic. I kind of love that the text on screen saying “good one Beatrice” is Bea talking to herself again in-world, but out-of-world it’s kind of the Candle Wasters talking, interacting both with their own main character and with the audience. Meta.

- “Sorry my life is so boring” are like, THE famous last words for an LIW protagonist. Honey, you got a big storm coming!

- I was always so incredibly impressed with Beatrice’s independence, her comfort with leaving her parents and essentially being on her own before she even finished high school. I was alone in a college dorm hours away from home when I first watched this, second semester of freshman year if I’m not mistaken, and I could barely believe I’d managed it. I couldn’t imagine doing that any earlier than I had. I thought she was so brave and cool. I think Bea actually shows more hesitation and nervousness than I realized she did in this episode, both because she’s not used to vlogging yet and because being in a new place is nerve-wracking, but I still think she’s so brave.

- It’s so interesting that in a reversal of the play, it’s our Beatrice who comes from away to Messina to start the story, instead of Benedick and the other men returning from war. Of course, we’ll see how the boys’ arrival on the scene is modernized soon enough!

- Harriett does such a great job making you care about Bea and like her right from the start. You just want to keep listening to her talk. I can’t wait to do just that over the next seven months.

- The Benedict Cumberbatch crush is a stroke of genius, but what are the odds that there happens to be a super famous guy named Benedict that you can reference who is at peak relevance in the exact year your MAAN modernization premieres? Truly, this series as it exists could only have happened in 2014. It was the perfect time and the perfect people. What luck.

- Oh, this is the wider arc hand wave I was remembering! It’s just at the end of the video and not the beginning. Funny!

- Covering the camera with her hand and ducking out of frame at the end of her first video is a direct parallel to what Bea and Hero do in their final NMTD video, sliding out of frame and all. Love that.

- I can’t believe how much there is to talk about even with these early episodes. These posts are gonna get so long they’ll have to go under a cut for the later episodes!

💖🦩🥭

[violivs]

NMTDaily: Hero and Ursula’s Transmedia Accounts Debut

- I don’t think I ever knew that Hero had a transmedia Instagram account. That’s new to me! I’m excited to see what else she posts on it throughout the series.

- I do remember Ursula’s tumblr but I don’t know if I ever scrolled back enough to see the photos in the most recent email before. It’s extremely cute that she includes links to follow “My Friend Hero”, “My Friend Bea”, and “My Friend Ben”. She’s a sweetheart. Ursula deserves the world and so much more appreciation.

- It’s also really interesting that she considers herself friends with Ben before the events of the series happen to combine the two halves of the friend group. It’s probably because she’s best friends with Balthazar and he’s the crossover friend who is close friends with both the girls’ group and the boys’ group. I think it’s very possible that Ben doesn’t fully realize that Ursula thinks of him as a friend and not just an acquaintance because she’s so quiet and it can be hard to know what she’s thinking. Now I’m really interested in what their friendship would be like. They probably wouldn’t hang out one on one, but they would enjoy each other and never quite know how to tell each other that. Which is definitely a type of high school friend experience people have that rings true to me. All from the tiny detail of her linking to his channel on her tumblr. I wonder if he links to her channel on his? I bet he does, I have to look out for that.

- Update: oh my god I just scrolled through Ursula’s tumblr and saw that she posted Ben’s first vlog and mentioned in the tags that she helped him edit it! He “tried to do everything himself” and almost managed it, apparently. That says to me that he was probably complaining about how hard editing was, and Ursula offered to help. And I checked, he thanked her in the video description on that vlog. Ben and Ursula canonically hang out and edit his first video just the two of them???? Excuse me, this changes so many things. I am now obsessed with the Ben and Ursula friendship. This is definitely, for Ben, an example of that thing where social anxiety makes you kind of selfish and unappreciative of the friends you do have, because you dislike yourself so much you never believe they really like you, and then you hold them at arm’s length and never realize that’s literally why you’re so lonely. Ben probably feels like he doesn’t know how to talk to Ursula because Ursula is so quiet, and I bet she can get overwhelmed by him, but also sees that his heart is in the right place. And this makes Ursula yet another friend who has doubtless hung out with Bea and Ben separately and heard them complain about each other, so of course she’s on Team Love Gods. She’s just so dear and eager to help her friends, I love Ursula.

- I am also still sad that Ben never had an in-world Tumblr account I could have followed. It’s not story-necessary, but I’d have liked it.

- I kept thinking the grass was bugs and getting scared, but I still like seeing Ursula’s nature photography. She’s definitely growing up to be a pro videographer/photographer/director/cinematographer or something.

- Ursula also posted a picture of a TARDIS cake she and Hero baked for Bea, which, first, why are there not more Hero and Ursula friendship fluff fics AND Hersula ship fics about them baking together? I love this. They are so cute and sweet.

- Does this cake post mean we have an approximate canonical birthday for Beatrice? Baking a cake for someone feels like a birthday thing. It was posted on March 30, so is Bea’s birthday March 30? This is huge, I don’t think we ever got anyone’s birthday except Hero’s elsewhere in the series! Unless the cake is a belated Welcome to Auckland cake? I haven’t rewatched Bea’s first video yet, I’m terrible, I know, so I don’t remember how long she’s been in town. They didn’t actually say it was her birthday, so it’s probably a Welcome cake. Oh well. Still sweet!

- Also, the tags say the cake is banana cake! So Beatrice already likes Ben’s favorite food, and she’s definitely a huge fan of Doctor Who even though she downplays that to avoid praising anything connected to Benedick. She’s so stubborn, I love her, and they are meant to be. This will not be the last detail indicating how much they have in common and see eye-to-eye. I love all of it.

- I also love that this isn’t the last themed cake to appear! I remember the dalek cake from the pizza party later in the series. Ursula and Hero were hobby bakers and shippers on deck from the start!

- The email with the cake post is titled “putting the Who in superwholock”, which is so incredibly 2014, and also makes me realize that the NMTD characters were really only WhoLocks, none of them were Supernatural fans that I remember. I just find that funny given what a behemoth it was and is on tumblr. I don’t blame them, it’s the one of the three I’ve seen the least of too, it’s just amusing. I actually don’t know if it ever even aired over there, to be fair.

- We also got Bea’s first tweet, in the email with her first video, but it’s pretty simple, nothing to dissect. We get some good tweets later on, though! I promise I’ll make a post about Bea’s first video before the next video email on Wednesday. I’ve decided I don’t have to post recaps day-of, I just want to do them eventually.

- MVP of the past few emails: Ursula! You go, Ursula. Jules 20genderchild is so right that you deserved a last name!!!!

💖🦩🥭

[violivs]

NMTDaily: VOX POPS

- Hi all! I’m going to be rewatching along with TCWs NMTDaily and making posts about each episode, or as many as I can (I might miss some, but I hope not!)

- I want to start by saying thank you again to The Candle Wasters for making my favorite thing. Just, the amount of joy and creative fulfillment and friendship and delight I’ve gotten from this show and this fandom is still unmatched. Thank you so much for making it and sharing it. The love and care and skill with which NMTD was made still shines through and I’m still so awed by it. I think I was probably somewhat overdramatic about my reactions to Lolilo in places where you, TCW, could see, on my main blog, and you didn’t deserve that. I really hope I didn’t send you any aggressive asks about it, or make you uncomfortable in any way. I’m a little afraid I did, but I don’t know for sure. If I did, I apologize. I’m older and more mature now, I promise. I hope you’re all doing so very well now!

- I didn’t realize until today that Project I: VOX POPS was posted first, before any other video in the series. I didn’t start watching NMTD until right around the time Benedick’s first Q&A video was posted, so I binged the first chunk of episodes around that time. It will be interesting to watch them at a slower pace this time!

- I am immediately overwhelmed with warm fuzzies at seeing these characters again. They’re such babies! I love them!

- I never made a post about this, but Ben’s first line being about how he shares a (differently spelled) name with a Pope is both a great first line for him on a character level since he starts as kind of a cocky overconfident asshole (a cover for his soft sensitive insides) AND it’s evidence for my theory that he’s probably Catholic, but lapsed/non-practicing/maybe agnostic or atheist solely because I WILL keep projecting parts of me onto this character, it’s just what I do at this point. Other evidence: he has a confirmation name. We don’t get his full name til Lolilo, but still. And he’s partly Scottish, which can account for the fact that English people usually are not Catholic.

- “you need to imitate an eagle, that’ll scare them away!” That’s Ben’s second line and first bird reference! Already! Wow.

- The favorite band question! Mumford and Sons! Fife and the Drums! Sheep Dog and Wolf! The LORE! The REFERENCES! We’re already off to the races.

- “I don’t need chat-up lines” Beatrice I love you , and you have no idea what’s coming.

- I forgot about Beatrice’s Favorite T-Shirts Ranking System lol

- Extremely funny that Ben says bananas are his favorite food and then he goes on to become synonymous with mangoes instead. Sorry, buddy, you will always be Mango Skin Boy to us. xD

- I forgot how delightful Dogberry and Verges are in this episode

- “that you would leave me” oh Meg. Oh honey. Oh no.

- I’ve seen nine seasons of Doctor Who and only five episodes of Game of Thrones since 2014. Sorry Bea, I side with Ben on this one. And I’ve seen one season of Community. I’m slowly hacking away at the list of media referenced in nmtd that I need to watch!

- love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free! ❤️

- Balthazar plays every instrument, of course.

- Bea must not have an ear for music if she hated that question enough to force Ursula on-camera so she doesn’t have to answer it… Unless Ursula asked her something else she didn’t want to answer! Lol

- Ben makes me cringe so hard a couple times this episode. And yet I still love him. To be fair, that’s just every Benedick at the start of Much Ado, though. The cringy lines are completely in character.

- I decided to save the full story of how I discovered NMTD for whenever the NMTDaily email for Ben’s first Q&A episode goes out, because then it will actually be ten years almost to the day since I started watching. But I’m so impatient and excited to tell the story!

- It’s amazing how back then, these kids were my contemporaries and the Lizzie Bennet Diaries cast felt impossibly old compared to me. Now the NMTD kids are babies and I’m older than Lizzie Bennet! Trippy. It sure has been a nice ten years.

Until the next one! Happy NMTD Day, fellow flamangoes!

💖🥭🦩

[violivs]

Free serotonin is realizing there was a moment in fictional!2019 when Benedick Hobbes learned that his favorite book Good Omens was getting a TV adaptation starring his favorite Doctor, David Tennant. He must have been so happy and excited I just can’t help smiling at the very thought.

[violivs]

A cheeky lil celebration of 10 Years of NMTD

Nostalgic for early tumblr? Craving that Dracula Daily mineral? Perhaps obsessed with a certain enemies-to-lovers Shakespeare play?

Look no further, NMTD(Taylor's Version) is here!

Set in a New Zealand High School, told by teenage vloggers at the height of superwholock. It’s Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing for the nostalgic and curious.

Thee 2014 transmedia experience; with videos, tweets, insta and tumblr posts direct from the characters to your email inbox.

Emails arriving from 24 March - 5 November 2024.

https://thecandlewasters.substack.com/

[violivs]

Beatrice/Benedick + Text Posts (Part 2/?)

[violivs]

Beatrice/Benedick + Text Posts (Part 1/?)

[violivs]

Answered a couple asks from a lovely anon recently about NMTD and Lolilo, and realized that tagging them all with the fandom tags was kind of clogging the tag. So here's a masterpost instead:

The one where I recommend the beatriceeagle metas and some of my own fanfics

The one where I talk about the real-world background of the "Ben there, done that" line and what I headcanon it says about the characters and the Beadick relationship, and also talk about how precious the cuddling fluff in TEA is

The one where I give my headcanons for what happened with Bea and Ben post-Lolilo and into their future

No one is obliged to pay attention to my opinions, but people seem to enjoy and respond to them when I share, which always makes me happy. So this post is to avoid clogging the tags but still let you all know, hey, hi, here's some more Beadick meta from me! :)

[violivs]

I just went through my main blog’s Lovely Little Losers tag looking for something, and found that I went through a period of referring to the concept of Benedick having social anxiety disorder as not my headcanon, but my HEARTcanon. And if that doesn’t say the world about me, I mean, what does?

Heartcanon. That’s what he means to me.

[violivs]

This is a post from back when they first started releasing the Q&As. It is alarmingly possible that the Jake one will be out soon, assuming it exists. And I will be here to react to it. Not prepared in the slightest, but I’ll do it.

(I want to know every single headcanon he ever had about Ben and every single thought he had about the series and I know it WILL only be four minutes and very minimal but !!!!!!! Gimme. Pretty please.)

Update: NVM, there won't be one. Ah well.

That was also not terrible. I finished both of the videos, and will now stop liveblogging. At least until they release the Jake McGregor one, which I’m definitely gonna have to pause every two seconds to freak out over. 

[violivs]

Watching the (newly posted but very old) LLL Q&As from Reuben Hudson and Matthew J Smith that were posted today (I will post more about the TCWs ending and be emotional and thank them again for everything later), and Reuben said if he could have any AU of NMTD he would pick Star Wars, and Matthew said science fiction in general. And I am sad that I know very little about Star Wars, so I can’t write the fic.

I could make an edit though! What would that look like? Any Star Wars fans who are also still NMTD/Lolilo fans left out there?

….and am I way off, or does Claudio have a liiiiiiittle bit of Anakin energy?

[violivs]

Since 2014 I’ve been the one who periodically finds and relates musical theater songs to NMTD, and I’ve been back on my beadick meta writing hard this week, and now I’ve gone and done it again. And that’s because “All I’ve Ever Known” from Hadestown is a Beadick song for the end of NMTD and the gap between it and Lolilo.

“All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own, but now I wanna hold you” hello? That’s Beatrice AF. So independent she has to learn how to let herself love him.

“All I know’s you’re someone I have always known” and it’s been this way since 1598 bitch!!!

“I don’t know how or why or who am I that I should get to hold you” and Benedick’s shit self-esteem and social anxiety are looming

“Suddenly I’m holding the world in my arms” I’M-

“Say that you’ll hold me forever, say that the wind won’t change on us. Say that we’ll stay with each other, and it will always be like this”

and then the rules happen

[violivs]

Something that caught my eye in my rewatch last night is during the episode in the courtyard with the ‘I’ll stay until you say go’ conversation, during Ben’s speech, the famous jump cut on “You’re sort of- I’m in lo-“

That wasn’t a natural pause in speech, that was an edited jump cut! So does that mean he actually finished the sentence in the moment and only cut it out of the video?!

So, here’s how it would’ve gone. Lines from the episode in bold italic.

—-

“You’re sort of- I’m in love with you.” Ben freezes, looking down at the table.

He can’t believe he said that. He said it. Out loud! To her face!

It’s a moment that lasts what feels like a lifetime, waiting for her to respond.

Bea does a sort of weird little gasp. “Oh my-“

He cuts her off hurriedly. “You don’t have to-“

“Ben.” She takes his hand and when he looks up, by some miracle, she’s smiling. Her eyes are bright with emotion. “I do. Of course I do.”

Words are impossible for him, hearing that. He’s never been so happy- but something in his face must betray doubt or uncertainty because-

“Really.” Bea insists. “Me from a few months ago would literally drop dead at the thought of saying this, but you are the best part of my life right now. You’re everything.”

He closes his eyes and just lets her words wash over him for a moment. It’s the best thing he’s ever heard.

“Ben?” She asks, like she really doesn’t know, doesn’t understand why what she just said drug his brain to a grinding halt.

He almost wants to laugh.

“Bea.” He lets her name linger on his tongue, a blessing, as he searches for the right words. “It’s like… All it takes is one little smile, one little acknowledgement that I mean something to you, and it’s like everything just stops.”

And everything does stop.

Because she has no more words either. She just leans in, just like that, and kisses him.

(And then the episode continues from there, where they break apart smiling and pull another I don’t actually like you though and go to Stats together. She doesn’t actually say the words ‘I love you’ back, here, because she first says it in her song.)

[violivs]

Also, I know people have already pointed much of this out, but the degree to which Bea and Ben’s conflict in Lolilo is completely spelled out in foreshadowing in NMTD is staggering.

Bea’s “you should never be so reliant on anything that you feel completely lost when you don’t have it” and then her spending so much time trying to convince herself that she’s fine and doesn’t care when Ben goes away to school when actually she hates being without him. So she says stuff like “I’m never coming to visit you” and acts like she’s fine, inadvertently making him think she must not miss him much. And she has to learn that she can need Ben close by so badly, and tell him so, while also still being independent and feminist and emotionally healthy. (And the extended metaphor of losing and finding her phone representing losing and finding Ben again, I could write novels, people!)

Bea’s “some guys feel this sexist ownership of their girlfriends when they really really shouldn’t” and then she ends up with Ben, who is so NOT possessive that he almost breaks them up by refusing to admit that he wants her to either not go abroad or take him with her, because he’d never put that on her or try to limit her. He wants her to have everything she wants, on her terms, even if it breaks his heart. The problem is just that he doesn’t believe that she loves him just as much as she values her life plans, because his anxiety tells him he doesn’t matter that much to her. And she also literally had a line in the dont-need-a-boyfriend video in nmtd about “the pressure to continue to like a guy after you get sick of him”, so of course, Ben thinks she’s sick of him. He saw that video after all, if not when it was posted then when they rewatched everything together.

And then there’s Ben’s Q&A where he answers whether he’d travel with the Doctor and take Bea with him by saying “I don’t know, that’s a big commitment, are we ready for that?” And then when she actually is going traveling, he waits until the last possible moment to ask if he can come along, because he was afraid that she’d say they weren’t ready for that, and the only resolution to that conversation would be “we can’t sustain long distance for another year, it’s killing both of us, we have to break up” and he Cannot break up with her, he can’t even fathom it. So he goes to absurd lengths to Not have that conversation.

It is literally all right there. Problems with how it was actually done aside, at least you can see the through line.