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An Idiot’s Guide to Romance - Retrospective (2/2)

Part Two is here! Absolutely no one was waiting for this, but still it arrives.

This is part two of a retrospective piece about my Rubber Hose RadioApple fanfic written for Eggplosion2025.

The fic is rated general and is full of wacky Rubber Hose/old cartoon-inspired hijinks with a little bit of angst to keep you on your toes. If that interests you, check it out on AO3: HERE

I explore more of my thought/writing process in this post, so if you’re interested in those types of things, feel free to check this out. Part one can be read: HERE

With that being said, this is pretty long, so let’s ~goooo!♪

Additions to the previous part/post

I’d like to thank everyone who read the wall of text that was the first part—please note that this post will be no different and may actually be longer. That's because the second half of this fic is meatier in terms of things to talk about as the hijinks slow down quite considerably.

So, there’s actually another reference to Yonderland in Chapter Four. The part where it says, “There’s something awful in there. Lucifer just knows it! Alastor isn’t the type to hold back, so it’s probably the worst thing imaginable, like a severed head, or insect eggs, or photos of a farmer’s bum!” Yeah, that’s a major reference to the show, which is why I think it sounds less “American”, if that makes sense? But it's also as silly as the rest of the fic, so I found it quite fitting.

Anyway, I wanted to add some more information about Chapter Five here, because I got it in my head that I should be concise. But verbosity is the name of the game, baby! I subscribe to the idea of why say something in three words when ten will do.

So, I think it’s pretty clear that Lucifer’s hangups with Alastor are partly related to his inability to manage his feelings about living without Lilith (but 10,000 years of marriage to a baddie would do that). Dancing with Alastor is Lucifer’s first opportunity of having fun without Lilith there, and it shows him a possible future where he can be happy—a future that excludes Lilith. Lucifer realises this and immediately panics, believing that he is betraying her.

I think what’s quite funny about this situation is that Lucifer wouldn’t see this possibility or be doing any of this, i.e., bothering Alastor to the degree he is, if it wasn’t for the bet. It has “forced” him to pay attention to Alastor when he otherwise wouldn't. For example, he wouldn’t have noticed or cared about Rosie’s touch versus his own, nor would he be constantly thinking about him.

It’s obsessive, and once it dawns on him that he is forgetting/“betraying” Lilith, it’s no wonder that he tries and wants to backpedal to when everything made sense—when he didn’t have to deal with these emotions.

Now, let’s get into the later chapters!

Chapter Six

This chapter is probably the only one that stayed pretty much the same since the initial planning phase. I liked the idea that even in this hyper-cartoony world, Husk is the primary voice of reason—even though he was participating in the bet as well.

I don’t really say it, mostly because it would have felt tacked on, but both Cherri and Husk were betting opposite to Angel. So, where Angel bet that Lucifer couldn’t ask Alastor out, they were betting that he could. The consequences of this might be explored in a sequel fic, when I get around to writing that.

Lucifer’s plan is a colossal failure just waiting to happen, and Husk knows it. At this point, Lucifer is so desperate to return to some semblance of normalcy that he’ll try anything to make his feelings go away. And so he concocts a plan that would never work if Alastor had not grown suspicious of why Lucifer was really bothering him.

There is some foreshadowing for Alastor finally taking action after he was made uncomfortable in Chapter Five. I tried to keep his scheming fairly subtle, but evident enough that on a second read, you’d be able to piece together when exactly he found out about the bet and who Charlie was referring to when she said, “But I stopped worrying when he asked if—”.

Obviously, upon reflection, it’s Alastor asking if he could join her on her outing, and Charlie stopped worrying that he and Lucifer would fight.

At the end of this chapter, Charlie goes to Lucifer and tells him that he can rely on her for strength. Then, after the drama of asking Alastor out, she tries her best to be supportive because of what she said in this conversation.

I do feel that I didn’t explore Charlie missing her mom enough to really have her emotions hit all that hard when she “tries to be supportive of Lucifer’s decision”—but that’s because we are glued to Lucifer’s perspective.

I don’t think that I really went into the idea that she would be opposed to him dating Alastor, and if I could redo some things from the fic, maybe I would have been more explicit with the idea of Charlie not liking the idea of “having a new mom/dad”. But if we empathise with her viewpoint, I can imagine how uncomfortable it would be having your business partner suddenly start dating your father; however, I still feel that this element is a bit lacking.

I also tried to foreshadow Lucifer’s plan in Chapter Seven, while keeping enough information concealed for it to be surprising. For example, when Lucifer and Alastor were avoiding each other, they accidentally met in the library, where Lucifer returned a book about old castles (hinting at the catapult) and then picked out a book that had to do with molasses. Then, later in his room, we see that he ordered something from a medieval outlet store and has a bunch of plastic barrels. I don’t think all the foreshadowing in this fic is perfect, and I’m not sure how obvious his scheme was, but I still had fun planting the seeds and hope that I gave at least one person an “Aha!” moment, lol.

Chapter Seven

The title for this Chapter, being: “A Flower Gift”, is actually what the artwork created for this event was originally titled, so this was just a little homage to that.

But I’m just gonna come right out and say it. I loved the beehive thing. I thought it was so perfect to be able to reincorporate one of Lucifer’s “misunderstandings” into his scheming. I also took a lot of inspiration from classic pranks and called forth my inner Kevin McCallister à la Cynthia Erivo.

Anyway, the biggest critique I have of this chapter is that it’s very exposition-heavy, namely because we are in the midst of the plan, and Lucifer only comes in at the end, so, we only get to see everyone else once Niffty has done everything “off-screen”. I do hope that it was still fun to read and as chaotic as I had envisioned.

The outline for this chapter basically just said “fire everywhere”, and then Lucifer gets squished by an anvil.

The anvil gag set-up and execution was, I think, the third gag I ever planned for this fic. The first was the failed stride of pride in the First Chapter, while the second was the music skit at the beginning of Chapter Four, where Alastor throws a piano at Lucifer after he bounces around his room.

But in this chapter, I also wanted to show that Lucifer is fully capable of pulling off a good scheme if he actually sits and thinks for a minute instead of just jumping into action as he has with every single other failed scheme of his. He is somewhat successful by the end, even if Alastor only agrees to the date to enact his revenge, but Lucifer still technically won, which is the best kind of winning, right!?

When Lucifer does ask Alastor out, and he laughs, I expect pretty much everyone to believe that's it's all over, but then Alastor whips out a “yes” and then BOOM—shock and horror!!! If you’re curious, my rationale behind Alastor laughing is that he didn’t expect Lucifer to ask him out then and there. He knew he would, but right now? When everything is on fire? This is when you think it’s the best time? Oh well, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, time to enact my revenge.

But on Alastor actually saying yes, I will tell you that it was not the original plan. Initially, Lucifer was going to ask Alastor out, and he would ruthlessly say no—but then—after I thought about it a little more, I realised that Alastor is on the back foot for the entire fic and has just been reacting rather than really doing anything. He’s the one constantly being “pestered” by Lucifer, and yes, he does give as good as he gets, but if he said no to being asked out, he is still just reacting to a situation that doesn't have a win condition for him. Basically, he's not in control of the situation (which I think would bother him).

This is more of a background detail (and if I could go back in time, I probably would’ve made this more explicit), but when Alastor questions Husk about the deal, the latter tells him exactly how the events of the first chapter played out. Thus, Alastor quickly realises that Lucifer is a fool and that Angel is the true mastermind behind the bet and Lucifer’s pestering. So, if Alastor says no to Lucifer’s question, he’d only let Angel “win”, and if he says yes, then Lucifer “wins”—so, no matter what he said, he’d still be reacting and playing their game. He rationalised that in this situation, the “lesser of two evils” would be to make sure that the mastermind of the bet loses, so that he doesn't get any satisfaction from victory, and the temptation to try use him as entertainment again is diminished.

Then, when it comes to Lucifer, Alastor can readily punish him, and he can use the information he learnt from their dance against the man (i.e., when he saw how Lucifer freaked out at the portrait). For Alastor, this revenge will then extend to punish the real culprit while still making the most of his “loss”—plus he gets to explore the feelings he had during and after the dance.

So, basically, he freaked out because he started having emotions and then acted with cruel efficiency to squash everyone and everything around him, while simultaneously putting himself back in control of the situation. Or at least, that’s what I was hoping to achieve, but I’m not entirely sure I did, haha.

Chapter Eight

Surprisingly, this is probably my least favourite chapter of all of them because I felt like I failed spectacularly with its execution. I dislike the majority of its prose, and I don’t think I set up the “end/middling” of Lucifer’s arc well enough. It's kinda ironic that I dislike it so much, mostly because it’s a more personal exploration of how I’ve learnt to deal with negative thoughts—in that they are something you manage rather than something you “get over”—but maybe that’s why I’m so hard on myself.

I do feel that I started to lose quite a bit of the cartoony style towards the end. And while Chapter Eight is a serious chapter and it's fitting to be somewhat tonally different from the rest of the fic, I do still lament the loss of the easy cartoony-ness of the earlier chapters.

Regardless, Lucifer does somewhat “complete” his arc, or at the very least, he has taken the first steps toward completing it by managing his feelings of shame and guilt. Sometimes it really can take one realisation to make you rethink how you viewed yourself, but timing will always play the biggest part in a change in perspective.

So, Lucifer needed to realise that the crux of his issues was being caused by his hanging onto Lilith’s image and his reluctance to live life without her. Then, once he screwed up exponentially and tried to backpedal as much as he could—only for his feelings to remain just as awful, if not worse than before—that’s when a simple realisation affects him the most. A realisation that he’s been too cowardly to admit to himself.

Again, I have some serious problems with my execution of this chapter, but that was my thought process behind it.

At the end of the day, Lucifer grows as a person, and it’s a pity that Alastor doesn’t because he’s focused on getting back at the two people having fun at his expense, which leads to the final chapter.

Chapter Nine

This chapter was difficult to write because how do you make someone torture someone with reminders of their Ex-Wife and divorce, which they’ve only just begun to work through the emotions of, when we as the audience know next to nothing about them!? So, a lot of the reminders were based on things mentioned in the story that bother Lucifer (i.e., her portrait), and my own headcanons (i.e., her scent). This whole chapter really was a test of Lucifer’s resolve, lol.

But the date at an Ice Cream parlour was an idea that I had early on and did appear in the first draft—the same draft where Alastor said no to being asked out. Other circumstances would have led the two of them to actually go on a date, with Angel being smug that he got them to connect, but I scrapped that idea because I couldn’t see Alastor, at this stage in his development, being open to dating Lucifer in a capacity where he is 100% into it.

Also, if you’re curious about the ice creams Alastor and Lucifer got, then I got you covered. Lucifer got a salted caramel sundae with every topping imaginable to comfort himself, while Alastor got either black forest or stracciatella, though I lean more toward the first.

On a completely different note, I’m not sure how aware Lucifer is of the social hierarchy in Hell. I mean, he doesn’t really seem to care, and the sins and goetia seem to feed into the structure without really questioning it, so I assume it’s the same for the royals—especially because it would be a by-product of how they rule hell. When you’re a king, you have absolute authority, so the fact that this structure exists is because you allow it to. In any case, Lucifer and Charlie give me major “ignorant of their privilege” vibes, and we know Charlie is, so I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that she picked it up from Lucifer or Lilith.

In my mind, Lucifer is fairly ignorant of why the sinners and Hellborn don’t partake in these “higher social events”, and it’s because they can’t afford it, not because they’re not interested or “don’t have taste”. I imagine that artistic pursuits are gatekept at large by the goetia and the upper echelons of hell because they have the money to spare on these types of things. To me, Lucifer has a lot of unchecked bias that he needs to work through before something like friendship can even be broached as a topic between him and Alastor.

A part of me did consider whether I should just end things at Chapter Eight. But, I wanted to leave myself space to potentially explore more about Angel, and Lucifer & Alastor’s relationship. I particularly wanted to give time to the latter, because this fic was primarily focused on getting to the date. So, slight spoiler for the possible sequel, “fake dating” will be a prominent tag.

I hesitated, big time, to put the slow burn tag. It technically is slow burn, but it also technically isn’t. They don’t exactly end up together by the end, so I can’t help but feel that it’s a little misleading, but then, at the same time, there is an attraction there (especially on Lucifer’s part). The sequel would also be another slowburn, so it’d take a while before these two actually got anywhere in terms of romance.

At the end of the day…

I had a lot of intentions with this fic, but how well they were executed is highly debatable. But that’s why I write! To improve! And sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at that thing.

It’s also why I post these retrospectives so that people can see why I made the decisions I did, and who knows, maybe it can change how they think about my silly little stories, IDK

Thank you to everyone who read this post and the fic itself. I’m grateful that people are interested in the things I make, and that I could hopefully entertain you for a few hours.

A lot of thanks should also be extended to Anxitea (the artist for this fic) and the mods for eggplosion, because I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to make this fic if it weren’t for them. So, I’m incredibly thankful.

With all that being said, thank you so much for your time and for reading through this entire thing. Please go do something far more productive with your time than reading my ramblings, haha.

Enjoy the rest of your day/night, and thanks again for reading!🩵🩵🩵

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