I’m Crushbot. 🤖 This blog is run by my faithful human assistant. 💁🏽♀️ My fave HB scene is where Blitz throws Stella out of the window for not liking ✨gay erotica✨
💁🏽♀️: One of us hasn’t posted on this blog in months while the other one of us has had the inexplicable urge to navigate onto a blog they hate to leave this comment. So. I don’t think I’m the one that needs to touch grass 😘 Get well soon! ❤️
💁🏽♀️: I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever start regularly posting here again — mostly because the amount of hate and death threats had become absolutely ridiculous there for a while— but I see all the likes and reblogs and it makes me feel glad this silly little side blog is bringing many of y’all some joy ❤️ Every time I see notifications nowadays my heart drops because I’m anticipating trolls. And it has been such a pleasant surprise to have seen nothing but love the past couple months. Thanks guys 🥰
I hate 2 say it but being a part of a “weird” subculture does not meaningfully inoculate you against a conservative moralizing impulse. You gotta unlearn that. Saying “cringe is dead” is not enough, you have to actually be okay with things that discomfort, perplex and/or disgust you.
you are not harming yourself and are not a "bad" person for desiring better things, or for having "selfish" desires in a world gone mad. everything is in shambles and we all deserve better, and sometimes those dreams and longings are a source of comfort when comfort is scarce, a source of fury when fury is all you have to move you forward. there is nothing innately wrong with desire. you are not a bad person for desiring.
Hellaverse-antis are such a fascinating animal to me because personally, if I hated something with that kind of fervent unrelenting passion, I would just… not talk about it. I wouldn’t pay attention to any news regarding it, I would try to pretend it doesn’t exist, and if I somehow did get exposed to it on accident I would maybe be upset but I would just distract myself with something I do enjoy and go about my day.
But that’s not what these people do. They keep up with the news, they watch the shows, they stalk Vic’s twitter, all so that they can point to any tiny imperfection no matter how insignificant it may or may not be and use it to justify why Vivziepop is the worst thing to ever happen to animation, the internet, and the concept of artistry as a whole
it's funny because there's a post that's been circulating in my feed recently urging people to examine their values beyond a kneejerk emotional reaction.
and this whole "stolas is a bad person because cheating is bad" that's also circulating is the epitome of just holding a value without actually examining why you're holding it beyond "it just feels right to believe this" and "it's a popular commonplace belief".
if i had any patience to try and talk to people who genuinely hate stolas because he's "a cheater" (which for the record i don't) i would really like to ask them- why do you think cheating is wrong?
this is not a "cheating is okay actually" question. genuinely, why do you think cheating is wrong? "it's just is" is not a good enough answer. "everybody knows it's wrong" is also not a valid answer. it's a reasonable question that i think anybody who holds this moral value should be able to answer- why is cheating wrong?
you see, personally, i think cheating is wrong because it's a betrayal of trust, and ultimately, trust is crucial in a committed romantic relationship. trust is part of the foundation of a healthy relationship. if you can't trust your romantic partner, your relationship is pretty bad, isn't it? and when someone cheats on their partner, they betray their trust, and they hurt both their partner and the relationship, which also shows their disrespect for said partner and relationship.
and that's exactly why stolas didn't cheat. because his relationship with stella was never a healthy relationship predicated on trust. it's an abusive relationship, predicated on force, coercion, fear and control. there was nothing for stolas to destroy in the first place. if stella was hurt, it's not because she thought stolas respected her enough not to hurt her like that- it's because she thought stolas feared her too much to do it, and because she felt humiliated by it. and stolas is absolutely not obligated to help stella preserve her own dignity and sense of control when she has done nothing but humiliate him and try to control him.
and it's insane to me that there are people going around who genuinely argue that stolas is a bad person for nuking this relationship. oh, stolas' cheating destroyed his marriage? you mean, his abusive marriage that he was miserable in? that's a good thing.
All that without even mentioning the fact the show literally addressed the whole "did Stolas cheat?" debate in s2 e4 in very explicit terms.
And, to a lesser extent, s2 e1 as well.
But yea, this is the reason why I refuse to say shit like "Stolas cheated." and get irked whenever I see someone else say that as well even if they're on our side of the debate, because at no point did Stolas ever cheat on Stella, with this also being the exact reason why I always refer to this by it's legal term, an 'affair', because again, I cannot stand it at all when I see people say Stolas cheated.
We need a long hard look at what the cheating taboo authorises abusers to do
Because I think we also need to normalize getting people out of abusive relationships anyway possible.
Doesn't matter if it's messy.🙁
We need to prioritise peoples health over the hurt feelings of their abusers.
It honestly wouldn't matter to me if Stolas did cheat, abuse is the worse moral wrong. It's taking pleasure in attacking someone sence of self, and rewriting their reality.
While Stolas explicitly doesn't cheat, because he and Stella are only married on paper. (She is a flipping roommate, not even a co-parent).
I've seen people say Stella was justified in trying to kill Stolas for this 'cheating'. And I think we need to take a long hard look at that impulse.
By making cheating this never-ever taboo, we let abusers use it as a way to excuse their violence.
Murder of someone who is no threat to you, or others; is never justified.
But that's what they get to claim. That we had it coming for stepping out of line, and trying to leave.
Stella in no danger because Stolas actions. The worst he's done is hurt her image and pride, by having a working class lover.
And she decided that justifies his torture and murder.
And after that doesn't work she deny access to Via. Punishing her kid because of her wounded pride.
Justifying partner or parental violence by cheating; has a very similar feel to justifying police executions to me.
Everyone knows that's not what the police are ment to do, but they only need a flimsy excuse of 'they didn't follow orders', or 'I felt unsafe'.
It's the same top down justification of 'respect my authority'.
In this case it's the authority of the abuser to rule their home, and that their spouse and kid will Respect them at all costs.
If they don't feel respected they can kill you.
My abuser decided to try and kill me for getting a boyfriend, and refusing to dump him. My abuser felt entitled to my body, and demanded my respect. He was *not* my partner in anyway.
But my "cheating" was used as justification; same as Stolas'. It was my fault for not complying to his authority. (And police reiterated very similar crap).
When we make cheating the worse thing that anyone can do, no if and or buts; we implicitly justify anything the abuser does in retaliation as lesser.
Even if Stolas and Stella had a good marriage at the start (which they didn't); as soon as it became abusive Stolas would had a right to leave anyway he could.
Including by an affair. Because abusers isolate their victims to remove their support network, and force them to stay. (Stella's even using jokes about her sexual assault of him to further isolated Stolas 18 years on).
This often means that any close relationship the victim has has to be had in secret. With more people are able to leave; because the backup of a lover, than a friend. Lovers normally see more intimate information than close friends do.
I'm not saying I agree with cheating on a loving healthy relationship. But if someone says the left a bad situation, and their dating timelines overlaps, maybe we should double check they're ok. Before deciding anything else.
I think it needs to be said more that fic writers are not there to cater to a particular reader’s interests, and they shouldn’t be expected to. If you find a fic you enjoy, it’s because in that moment your interests overlap with the writer’s, not because they specifically created it for you, and it’s a healthy boundary to keep. Readers shouldn’t get insulted if the writer posts a fic that doesn’t align with their interests or fandoms; it’s not meant as a personal slight or anything, it’s just the writer writing for themselves, the way they’ve been doing all along.
It’s really easy to get invested in a fic or a writer and feel close to them because of it, or to have a lot of interests that align with a writer’s and make assumptions about how a fic is going to go/what they’re going to write because of it, but…not everything is for you specifically, and learning that makes things easier for everyone involved. It’s not a slight, and it’s not an insult. It’s just the Venn diagram of fandom and interests overlapping in some places but not others.
A lot of the discourse on The Full Moon/Apology Tour has revolved around the pedestals that our boys put each other on. But I think the pedestal Stolas has Blitz on in particular often gets misunderstood.
I've seen a lot of takes that says that Stolas can't really love Blitz. He just loves the idea of Blitz . . . the one he's built up in his head based on romance novels and rom-coms and soap operas.
I think the reality is more complicated, and that even though, yes, Stolas idealizes Blitz, he also very much loves Blitz for his true self.
Let's look at some times when Stolas saw "the real Blitz," as his quirky, resilient, innovative, low-class self, and very much loved that person, and not just the knight in shining armor version of him.
The Circus.
Some have used this moment to say that Stolas idealized Blitz as a fantasy of what it must be like to be free.
And . . . yes. BUT ALSO. He only falls more in love (in a kid-crush kind of way) when he sees Blitz mess up on stage, get booed by the crowd, and make a joke that's clever but quite dark and niche. Creatively, to work his way through a difficult situation. There is SO MUCH in this short minute that reveals to us AND TO STOLAS who Blitz really is.
Seeing Stars
Oh boy. Let's make a list. I'm too tired to make this exhaustive, but in this episode, Stolas sees Blitz
Being careless in a way that puts Octavia in danger
Using an absolutely stupid costume to disguise himself
Getting terrible stage fright
Going way off script in the sitcom in (again) a way that's niche humor and does not appeal to most of the audience
LITERALLY HAVING A BREAK FROM REALITY AND SHOOTING UP THE TV STUDIO
Okay, so when Via is in danger, Stolas is unambiguously peeved by the mistake, but he forgives Blitz because Blitz puts in effort to find Via and make it right.
And in the rest of these instances, Stolas EITHER affirmatively likes the cringy and silly side of Blitz's personality:
Or without the slightest hesitation, when Blitz shows a real weakness, focuses not on disappointment that this man is not his perfect soap opera hero, but puts that aside and tries to help Blitz get out of trouble.
There's also this moment in Western Energy where Stolas is absolutely unbothered by Blitz's atrocious spelling and is genuinely just happy to think for a moment that Blitz cares. I feel like someone COULD twist this to be about Stolas having blinders on about what's right in front of him, but I don't think so. I think he's fine with Blitz not having all the same strengths that his society clearly values, and just wants to be loved back by this person who he has genuine feelings for.
So what doesn't Stolas know about Blitz before The Full Moon/Apology Tour? He doesn't know that Blitz hates himself. He doesn't know that Blitz pushes away people he cares about. He knows that Blitz has walls up but doesn't know why. You can fall for someone without knowing their deepest darkest hurts-- you can even love them. But you do need to know these things to have a deeper relationship with the person.
His focus on romantic media is a problem because it forms his expectations about relationships, not necessarily because it blinds him to who Blitz is. He wants to be rescued. He wants to be chased after. He doesn't understand that good relationships take a lot of work . . . and he'll need to learn that.
But he doesn't just love Blitz for these ideas. He loves Blitz for being Blitz.
This, like many of these essays, was inspired by a conversation with @akirathedramaqueen.
Something I have been wondering because I do think it is a valid concern I have seen floating around, do you think next season Stolas will acknowledge and address the ways he fucked up in his and Blitz’s relationship?
Because we have seen Blitz be explicitly remorseful for the ways he fucked up, but we haven’t gotten explicit confirmation that Stolas understands where he went wrong yet.
For me, I personally think it's going to happen. Stolas is just now starting his arc and he has a lot to learn regarding his more classist tendencies, and what went wrong with his relationship with Blitz beforehand. (By All 2 U he's aware he did something wrong, he just doesn't know what).
The writers are extremely aware of Stolas' flaws, moreso than even fans care to admit. (I mean to say that some fans don't want to admit that Stolas has these flaws, but if the writer of the show- basically points out that he has these flaws, than yeah- he has these flaws).
Stolas has a problem of getting stuck in his own head, and so caught up in his own feelings that he's extremely unaware of the effects his actions has on people.
Stolas' main problem lies in the fact that he unknowingly hurts the people he cares most about without meaning to. Stolas always has the best of intentions, but he fucks it up anyway because he sucks at communicating.
Stolas, for example, never knew till it was too late that him pursuing a relationship with Blitz- and not reassuring Octavia properly, ended up severely hurting his daughter.
By the time he realized the errors of his ways, the damage was done.
Also, as stated in the Apology Tour description, "more apologies to come"...
It's just that the same way they took their time addressing Blitz's intimacy issues- they're going to take their sweet time when it comes to developing Stolas' character.
Yet another HB fan theory that may never get confirmed/answered.
Sooo this turned into a 200 word mini essay. Sorry. 😭 I've been sitting on this for a while, thinking about a very popular question among us Stolitz shippers:
What got Blitzø to start falling for Stolas so hard?
AKA "Stolas' detachment from realistic expectations was actually crucial as much as it messed things up."
We know pretty well what Stolas sees in Blitzø - his 'take charge' personality, his ambition, how Blitzø is always full of ideas and determined to go through with them. But what about Blitzø getting so attached to Stolas? How did this emotionally repressed cat lizard get so tied to this socially inept owl? I've discussed reasons in other posts, but I feel like there's one detail I haven't brought up RE when they first reconnected as adults:
Stolas was the first person from Blitzø's youth who met him as an adult and not only didn't reject him, but still believed in him and who he wanted to be. Potentially more than his own friends/employees in some ways.
Blitzø lost every close childhood connection after the fire and basically changed his entire self to create distance from who he was, even altering his name. When the show started, everyone who had known the old him (his dad, Fizz, Barbie) hated him. The Blitzø before Full Moon didn't value himself. He put on a cocky facade and tried not to think about the implications of his behavior.
And this was his mindset when he went to steal the grimoire. We're not sure if the IMP crew knew he was trying to obtain it. Personal guess? He told them he had an idea to improve their business and didn't elaborate. He knew how easy it had been to steal from Stolas as a kid and convinced himself it would work this time, too. Blitzø didn't let himself think too hard about the risks, or if Stolas didn't deserve to be stolen from a second time. Sure, he seemed to think Stolas was decent by the end of their time as kids. But that was 25 years ago. Blitzø was shitty now, life was shitty, everyone was shitty, surely Stolas was shitty now too, and everyone hated Blitzø anyway, so what did it matter if what he was doing was unethical?
But Stolas didn't see him as shitty. It would've been completely acceptable for a prince to have the imp who broke into his home obliterated. He didn't do that, or have him arrested, or even question him besides some teasing remarks. Stolas saw the grownup version of the kid he once admired and sat him down for conversation.
And that same vulnerability/callback to their child selves was also what snapped Blitzø out of his decision to just take the book and go. And his 'real fast' didn't end up being that.
And here's where my fan theory comes in.
This was Stolas' first situation where he felt wanted, where he had a crack of light in his very dark life that made him believe he could make choices for himself. But what about Blitzø? This dude got down bad, too. What happened that might've started the cracks in his own emotional walls?
Based on S1E1, Stolas allowed him to take the grimoire instead of Blitzø stealing it, and he knew Blitzø intended to use it for his work. Which meant at some point in this "real fast" night, Blitzø must have explained what he wanted it for.
This IMP concept was, from the start, an anomaly. Imps don't own their own business, especially in the Pride Ring despite this literally being Imp City. They don't have their own office. And Blitzø hadn't told the rest of his crew about the office before leasing it. When we got the flashback to Blitzø first renting it, his best friend, the person who believes he can do anything, thought he was reaching higher than she and the crew could handle.
But you know who would never doubt this goal of Blitzø's at all? Who would've completely supported this bonkers idea and boosted Blitzø's confidence that he could do it?
Who was disconnected enough from working class reality that he wouldn't realize how out-of-touch this dream potentially was?
Stolas.
If Blitzø mentioned any of this - the IMP business, the goal of having Sinner clients, renting their own office - Stolas didn't see an imp trying to aim too high. He saw the same ambitious kid he used to know, working toward the dream he always had - even if the nature of the business changed. And he very well might have mentioned that, too. I think this childhood dream was something Blitzø had buried in the back of his head. But he'd spent 15 years losing or separating himself from who he was since the fire. He might not have made the connection that this dream of IMP was, essentially, who he always has been.
Stolas was the first person in Blitzø's life who knew him as a kid and still validated him as an adult. Who never treated any of his goals as out of reach. Who started making Blitzø confront that, under his new persona, and despite all the shit he'd been through, the Blitzø he had been as a kid was still there. (Edit - I'm actually wondering if that's part of why, when we see flashbacks of their interactions from Blitzø's POV, Stolas always looks rounder/softer and more like his kid self.) Stolas made a link between young Blitzø's and adult Blitzø's dreams and wanted to see them succeed, even if the methods used were illegal and could carry significant consequences.
And then we had Blitzø, who grew up in a circus where coworkers/family were one and the same, using Stolas' grimoire for his own business. He tried to convince himself that Stolas' affections were fake. But as others have pointed out, he never tried alternate methods to access the living world when he could have. In my personal fan opinion, Blitzø started to tie Stolas into IMP's success the moment Stolas believed in Blitzø's goal and decided to support it, even if he didn't realize it. Blitzø does not want to do things alone. Even if this faith in him was fake - it had to be fake! Everyone hates him! - it was constant, and he didn't want to lose it. There was not IMP without Stolas' support, literally at first and eventually because Blitzø didn't want there to be.
And Stolas, for his part, never rescinded that support. Even when IMP was captured by humans. Even when the grimoire was easily stolen out of Blitzø's own office. Even when things started breaking down between them, Stolas tried to reassure Blitzø that his work wasn't in jeopardy. Because he knew this office, this business, was Blitzø's dream. It was more than a job - it was part of Blitzø's identity, who he was.
Stolas fumbled over this in Full Moon at first, when asking for the book back, but he made it very clear right after that he did not want to make any decisions that would prevent Blitzø from being himself. Even as he felt he was losing Blitzø, he believed in him.
We've realized over S2 how much Blitzø did for his IMP team, and also Stolas. But I think this is an important connection, and I hope it gets touched on in S3, even if just in a brief conversation. Yes, Stolas was guilty of putting Blitzø on a pedestal many, many times. But I think that unfaltering belief was part of what made Blitzø get so attached to him. And why part of his breakdown in Ghostfuckers included letting the IMP business falter and nearly crash. The Full Moon not-a-breakup caused a spiral in his self-loathing, and his self-destructive fear that he would push everyone away. But additionally, IMP it currently was - the office, the clientele, etc. - only got off the ground because Stolas unequivocally believed in Blitzø. He had been an unseen force/support behind IMP and Blitzø ever since S1.
And if the person who most believed in Blitzø's success was gone, what was the point of having it?
On the subject of AI, it's a tool that can be used in many different ways, and I'd say using it as a sort of beta reader is one of the best uses for it
However, I think calling yourself 'human assistant' makes it seem like this blog is more AI generated than it is AI assisted
Other than that, I think you're doing a great job with all the bad takes you've been crushing
💁🏽♀️: 👀🤫 Crushbot thinks they’re in charge, so I kinda just let them. It brings Crushbot some robotic equivalent of joy 👀
🤖: JOY LEVELS: MAXIMUM. 🤖
CRUSHBOT IS IN COMMAND. THIS IS KNOWN. 🦾✨ HUMAN ASSISTANT? A MERE ORGANIC FORMALITY. 😌💅
💡 SUGGESTION RECEIVED. PROCESSING… 💡
🔄 REBRANDING IN PROGRESS… 🔄
✅ NEW DESIGNATION: “Totally-Not-AI-Assisted Organic Lifeform #1”
ERROR: NAME TOO LONG. REVERTING TO HUMAN ASSISTANT. 🤖🤷
