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reposting the gif version of this because I don't think many people saw it 🥀

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Fizz just looks so cute right here and I love how we get to see Fizz be undeniably happy, looking like he owns the place and is on top of the world, which isn't too far off since he's literally on top of his world if you want to go there. ;) ^_^<3<3<3

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'you could absolutely break my heart / that's how I know that we're in love.'

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I hope this becomes canon someday 💕

A happy owl and a purring lizard ✨️

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Just a man and his owl… nothing going on here…

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The Dread

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oh no Blitzø is traumatized

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nah, you sorried him so hard that YOU cried

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Vox through the decades! ✨📺✨

hc that the animation on his display changes based on the popular animation style of the time. I had so much fun designing these!!

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my boyfriend wants to love me but I won’t let him.

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Fizz couldn’t come to the party this year 😔

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How Blitz and Stolas figure out how they feel: external vs. internal processing

I've been in therapy a ton (feeling like I'm not alone in that in this fandom), and one of the things I've learned from it is that I like to process my thoughts and feelings externally- by talking about them. It turns out not everyone is like that. I'm like Blitz in this way.

I first got on this topic when I was thinking about how Blitz flip flops in Apology Tour. When he goes to see Stolas at the beginning of the episode, he goes in with an idea he's trying out- a narrative he's committed to FOR NOW, insisting that he's there to reinstate the full moon deal with TONS of undue and shaky confidence.

Is this plan something he's actually confident in? Absolutely not. But he's going to commit to it damnit and see how it plays out. Does he believe it? I think he does in the moment. He's convinced himself anyway, and when Stolas wears him down and he understands that he's not doing himself any favors . . .

He starts processing the real shit aloud.

I don't think Blitz has ever admitted this to himself, at least not this articulately and accurately. He needs to say it aloud in order for it to be real. Oops too real.

He's SCARED because he didn't even KNOW he felt this way, but things are becoming very clear and dangerously close to the heart of the matter . . . so he pivots again back into comfortable territory (conflict).

By the end of the conversation, he arrives at a new mission, one that's sort of an equilibrium between his realizations about his honest feelings and his need to have a mission he feels confident in. He's not all confident or all honest- he's still in flux.

There are SO many more examples of Blitz realizing how he feels BY TALKING (later in Apology Tour when he's talking to Stolas, and then when he's talking to Verosika . . . but then also back in Oops, etc.), but I'm going to leave it at one for brevity here. What's important is that we NEVER see Blitz processing alone. Even in his part of the duet (more on songs in a sec), when he's technically singing to himself, he's consoling himself with a narrative rather than really processing the things that need to be processed.

Blitz needs a person to process with.

But Stolas is an internal processor. We know this already because he made the plan to give Blitz the Asmodean crystal and sat on it for literal months, procuring the crystal, ironing out what he would say, trying to initiate conversations with Blitz, but never explaining how he felt to anyone before it was time- and absolutely NEVER in a way that was half baked.

The way Stolas sings his feelings actually gives us a really clear and beautiful picture of how he processes and figures things out. I forget who said it, but someone on the Helluva creative team referenced a broadway truism that in a musical, characters sing what they can't speak. I think for Stolas it's often what he can't YET speak because he's still processing. He has full honest conversations with himself (Stolas Sings, Just Look My Way), and then when he's face to face with Blitz, he knows exactly what he wants to say. His feelings and beliefs actually progress from song to song- he expresses his awareness of a problem in Stolas Sings and gets more precise about how he feels and what he needs to do about it in Just Look My Way.

By The Full Moon, for better or worse (kind of both), Stolas knows exactly what he wants to say to Blitz and how he wants to say it.

Even when he's upset, angry, and then drunk, when Stolas speaks about his feelings, he's consistent. He's decided. He loves Blitz. He wants a real relationship. From his point of view, he doesn't care about social class, so he can't understand why Blitz is so stuck on it.

But he's missing something key (it's the social class thing- it's definitely the social class thing), and internally, he's cooking, and we see that (again) when he sings.

This is the rawest and most in flux stage of his thought process that we've seen. Because this is how he figures out what he thinks and feels- with himself, in song.

Okay- so interesting psychoanalysis- why does this matter to the story?

Well, I think that Stolas doesn't understand that when Blitz speaks in these super emotional, fraught conversations, he doesn't go in knowing what he thinks and feels. He's figuring it out on the fly. He's figuring it out BY talking, and needs to be allowed to do that. Should he do this with a therapist instead of with the person most likely to be hurt by the ideas he flies through on his way to his true feelings? For sure, but this is Blitz.

In turn, Blitz doesn't understand that when Stolas acts absolutely certain and doesn't seem to take in the things Blitz is saying, he's not talking to a brick wall. He's talking to a moveable person who, once he's alone (or singing) is going over and over everything and breaking his thoughts down and reformulating until he arrives at something new.

So . . . it might be a little much to ask these two to understand each other's different processing styles- but they're coming along in their own ways. And I'm looking forward to them understanding each other. Someday. Maybe. Fucking sit down and talk. Slowly. AGH.

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Blitz is going to be the death of me.

Right before the crystal, when he thinks that Stolas is really breaking up with him, he straight up begs.

"Stolas, please, I need this book. Please."

Uh huh the book . . .

"I need this book, Stolas. I will do anything.

Looking down (maybe telling himself, "I knew this was coming eventually") and then looking up, trying not to cry.

Despite . . . his everything here, I'm pretty scared that half the audience will think this is really about the book, and I'm not ready for the bad takes yet.

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stolas tugging the disguise down to hide blitz better. blitz holding stolas in his lap. stolas peering up at blitz from the couch looking so fucking sad. blitz's little "go on" wave when stolas automatically looks to him for permission to go dance. it's about the familiarity despite the hurt. it's about loving someone and being angry with them but being unwilling to let either overrule the other. it's about being unable to stop caring even if it might be easier on both of you. i am sobbing facedown on the floor

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Stolas getting a glimpse of Blitzø’s self hatred

Blitzø getting a glimpse at Stolas’ drinking/ loneliness/ self destructive behaviors

They’re in their “finally getting to see the real me” era