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TL;CR MEME
1. Comment with your character.
2. Receive comments from others.
3. Reply to their comments with long ballads and explanations of your characters' relationship throughout the game.
4. Suffer as we have suffered over your CR.
1. Comment with your character.
2. Receive comments from others.
3. Reply to their comments with long ballads and explanations of your characters' relationship throughout the game.
4. Suffer as we have suffered over your CR.
no subject
anyway, and then endgame happened, and they got reunited with hikage and everyone else who died and it went? okay? everyone is traumatized but they are going home together and it's fine! they have so many issues they still need to work out, and they also need to like, catch hikage up on stuff? but. it's fine. everything else i'm going to talk about are things that i was not sure where to fit up there because trying to do these things in chronological order is so fucking hard, jan.
the piano! i... assume he probably kept giving her lessons even though they stopped getting mentioned at some point. but also, steph's piano lore is tied to the extremely difficult to get lore, so her opening up to him about playing at all and wanting to do it with him was a rather significant deal. but even more, it was something they both had in common and could bond over, especially since she knew it was something important to belph. she like, offhandedly mentioned to other people she knew how to play, but belph was the one that she really like, actually played with? a lot.
other things... a part of her wondered if the constant flirting was too much, especially since belph didn't want to date yet, but also he had? no problems with doing it back? so she figured it was fine. it was just trying to figure out what kind of flirting was okay, and what was going too far, and admittedly at least belph was fairly good at judging her when she said something too much which is another thing she appreciates about him because she knows that sometimes she is A Lot.
also they constantly joked about being homewrecked but. wow it really would have never happened, because at this point steph is so in love with belph that even though she can acknowledge other people are hot, or that other people are her type, she wouldn't think about dating them. even with like dimitri, who is very much her type and who she could have probably gotten an actual crush on if they didn't wait so long to start talking, it just. would not have been close to her belph feelings. it's horrible. also honestly one of the reasons she wasn't super bothered about their love lives being outed to camp is that it meant there was no chance that anyone else would try to pursue belph romantically. she is so jealous.
OH and also the fact that he actually lets her give him physical affection now is? a lot? even though apparently he couldn't fuckin feel a lot of it!! i hate you. but he would always ignore her hand or move out of the way and stuff, but now he lets her hang off of him and hug him and? hand holding?? it means a lot to her.
anyway, at this point all that is left is to go back to gotham and she will use her resources so that belph can find a good therapist? and honestly it probably won't be that hard considering uh, a lot of really weird ass shit happens in comics, so he could in theory even talk about murdergame stuff and it'll work out. but she is going to try to make his stay in gotham as comfortable and good as possible so that he can have time to himself and heal even a little, and she is going to to hold his hand the entire time, because he is her best friend who she loves so very, very much, both romantically and platonically. i am pretty sure i missed stuff but this is embarrassingly long so i have to end this now goodbye
no subject
i need to preface this with a reminder that belph is self-sacrificial to a fault. he will pretty much always put others' well-being and feelings over his own and has prioritized the agency of his loved ones even if it meant knowingly setting his own life on fire. this is how everything went horribly for him in canon. i know you kind of know all of this but it will colour a lot of how he deals with steph so it's worth stating..........
first off: why he wasn't willing to say yes to steph just yet. the general gist is, as steph knows, mental health. specifically, it ties to elcia and then his more personal problems. this is going to take a couple of paragraphs, i'm sorry.
elcia—he's not... really over her? i wouldn't say he's pining after her or anything, because as i've said, he burned that bridge, prepared for it to be forever. (though, as you know, part of his reluctance is because immediately getting into a relationship with steph after essentially dumping elcia—even if they were never officially together—makes her seem like a rebound, though she isn't, and although SHE WOULD APPARENTLY BE OKAY WITH THAT, STEPH PLEASE, he doesn't want that for her.) still, everything with elcia became a mess and it's like. he will never receive closure. hypothetically, he could find a way to locate her in whatever world she ended up and have a proper discussion with her now that his uncle isn't hanging over their heads, but for all he knows, she'll have completely moved on, and he doesn't want to interrupt her new happy life just so he can have some peace of mind. so, he accepts that as a chapter of his life that will never really close.
the problem is that he made a lot of decisions that he believes were ultimately necessary to protect her from his uncle but that he knows are also fuckin terrible for a relationship. like giving her a nice date the day before he started ghosting her. he sure did that. and in a horrible way, he was rewarded for these decisions? she's safe, and heck, thanks to grimm, she's even happy now! so what if belph himself is completely miserable? consciously, he knows this isn't great, but instinctively, because of the lack of closure, it's hard to let go of his unhealthy methods of handling things. at the same time, he knows that wow, should not bring that into a potential relationship with steph.
then, his issues in general. he was already leaving grimm in a weird state, and not just because, uh. actively suicidal. his uncle (and elcia, to a lesser extent), along with belph's feelings on his society, has defined so much of him, but he was leaving all that to go with steph. he accepts it as a necessary step to take (especially since, well. he's seen what he could become in the future if he stayed behind, and nothing quite wrecks your self-esteem like knowing in another timeline you go insane and destroy the world) but it's left him kind of unsure of who he is now. he hasn't even be able to think about that during any of the mgs, because he treated himself as more of a tool than an actual person through both of them (which was in part a necessary coping mechanism in order to not just kill himself) and therefore did not do a lot of soul-searching. he doesn't know what he'll become once they leave this entire situation and go to gotham, so it feels awkward to promise a committed relationship when his own self feels... very unstable right now? like, for all he knows, not being in a high pressure situation could ironically make him more suicidal—not that it necessarily will, but again! he doesn't know!
(he also just does not know what steph sees in him. he recognizes that inside, he's a very empty person at this point in his life and so much of his attitude is superficial, and this is probably why people did not particularly care about him because they could sense this, so like wow. there's nothing to him! a break-in asked what he considered his best quality and belph's unknowing answer was nothing. on surface level, he hears steph when she informs him of all his good qualities, but he does not feel them, so yeah. it didn't help that while no one was insensitive enough in crau to say to his face that steph deserves better, he's kind of aware they're thinking it. and hey, he agrees!!)
in other words, the overall problem is that belph does not trust himself to act in a healthy manner, whether in a relationship or when it comes to life in general. so, it seems unfair to make steph any promises in those regards.
ANYWAY NOW MOVING ONTO THEIR RELATIONSHIP IN GENERAL IN CRAU
so entering another murdergame sure was awful. with that said, belph has come to expect nothing of the world, so it was less devastating and more like, "well i guess this might as well happen again (time to kill all my feelings and go back into 'focus on the goal' mode)." however, the one thing that he wanted to do differently this time was... not angst at steph so much. belph's issues are largely rooted in his desire/inability to help people + the fact that associating with him tends to ruin lives, so in the aftermath of his breakdowns in grimm, he felt super guilty about unloading his problems onto other people, because what right does he have to complain? therefore, he was determined to not have any more breakdowns or be self-absorbed as he felt he was in grimm! he was going to be there for steph and support her and ask after her feelings more often, etc.
was any of that actually necessary? probably not, given that steph had never said "hey i wish we talked about my feelings more often" and uh. this came with the unfortunate side effect of steph feeling bad that belph became even more anti-talking about his own feelings, but sometimes... sacrifices are necessary............. and again belph is, you know. still working out how to act in a healthy manner. it's a work in progress. sorry, steph.
but the fact that steph had such a shitty time, straight from the first week, absolutely reinforced this mindset for belph, and combined with his general allergy to admitting vulnerability, it was why even by the end, he couldn't bring himself to open up even when he knew she wanted him to. as steph suspected, everyone else never asked or dropped it quickly because they assumed he was confiding in others (he wasn't), so he is super rusty at it, alas.
(also, another reason why he kind of shut down was because. a lot of the things he's working through are things he's not sure if he should talk with her? she knows most of his lore by this point, but it seems pretty awkward to make steph listen to how he feels about the girl who's essentially his ex, and his situation with his uncle is simultaneously too similar and too different from her issues with her father. he doesn't want to pick at that wound for her by bringing up his family issues, and... how he feels about his uncle is weird? he both appreciated it whenever steph was immediately FUCK HIM, because he freely acknowledges that his uncle is a horrible person, but also felt awkward about it because this is still the person he unfortunately loves most in the world. he's not sure if steph can truly understand that. not that he necessarily believes she doesn't, but again, he doesn't think he should start digging at her own abuse issues to begin with to see if she does. anyway.)
speaking of which. he did try to make friends at the beginning, but they all either died quickly, kind of dismissed him, or seemed annoyed by him even when he wasn't trying to be annoying, so he... gave up. especially after hikage and sanji died. again, sorry steph. belph actually does not want to be codependent with her? he realizes that to be unhealthy for any kind of relationship, and enough of his life has been spent on revolving around other people (his uncle, namely) so he knows it goes badly! but trying to form friendships just wasn't working out for him here. (also, like steph, the fact that someone murdered hikage and got away with it kind of gave him trust issues.) eventually, he was really only left with her and one or two others and it became inevitable that they would go turbo. but he does want that to chill a little once they're in gotham; at the very least, she hopefully has other support systems she can count on.
with that said! his attitude towards this ended up going in the complete opposite direction of grimm. it really started after hikage's death and was cemented after the break-in where he killed her. that is, that being left behind would probably be worse for her than death. from the beginning she and hikage had always been like 70% of his reason to not die? (to avoid hurting her and to avoid hikage losing it) (the other 30% is, again, because he had to help save everyone. unsurprisingly "because he wants to live" is basically 0%.) but once hikage was gone, he didn't want to leave her alone, because while she had other friends and shit, he did recognize that he was probably the one person she was most attached to. and then in the break-in, he had to make the conscious decision to put his life over hers. (and, i mean, kara and ash's, but he would've done it even if it had only been him and steph.)
steph was not wrong to think he was high-key traumatized, even if he ultimately never breathed a word of this ever to anyone. yeah, already being a murderer didn't make it easy when he's still fairly anti-murder in general (and his reflexive feelings about having killed also get complicated because they, like everything in life, tie to his feelings about his uncle). but at the end of the day, he feels like it would be worse for steph to kill (more) than it would be for him. and again, it goes back to the fact that belph respects the feelings of those he loves—more than he will prioritize their physical well-being. if steph would rather die than take a life, belph will respect that, as much as it pains him. and, more generally, if one of them had to die and leave the other behind, he decided that he would rather be the latter. so even if he had gotten his hands on another protection item, he wouldn't have given it to steph this time. he became pretty determined to live from that point on for her sake, aside from when volunteering to be voted off because it was something that affected everyone and they were nearing the end but this is also why he didn't make a point to insist on it. also again this is only within the context of the murdergame and not exactly applicable to once they're back in gotham. welp. though he will let her to do whatever she wants with her life either way, including sacrificing it if she feels it's necessary. he hates it, but them's the breaks.
oh i should talk about when the ot3 was outed. belph mostly found it funny because his uncle constantly kept tabs on his social circle for blackmail purposes anyway. people harmlessly knowing about his love life is just a step up. in an unfortunately fortunate kind of way, it actually helped him to have their relationship treated like a messy spectacle. everyone made up their headcanon for why they weren't getting together, meaning that no one guessed that the reason was because of his abysmal mental health and therefore no one ever tried to help him, allowing him to dance away from talking about feelings. i did say this was good for belph in a bad kind of way.
but it really did reinforce how well he and steph got along, because they were in fact on the same page and rolled along with it and turned it into a joke, as they did with everything. he loves her, wow. she's so great.
though there was hikage! belph did support her with him, however hypocritically (because he knows hikage's in an even worse place than him), but he did back off when steph actually admitted that she probably wasn't ready for a relationship with him yet. them realizing that hikage might have a crush on him too was also "oh......... i guess this is happening" but then hikage immediately died so belph never had to think about it until endgame. he still doesn't really have to think about it, because it gets put into the "i really cannot think about romance right now" pile with steph. however, this does mean that now instead of actively shipping hikage and steph, he just supports steph and hikage working out their problems, so if they get together before belph gets his own shit sorted out, then good for them! genuinely. this is probably killing steph who i imagine might wish for belph to be even a little jealous but he is not.
similarly, while he would put hikage over any other potential suitors because he also wants hikage to be happy, he ultimately would've supported her if she had suddenly swerved and pointed at someone else in crau. but yeah, he knew at heart there was no chance of that because she was so. fuckin attached to him. so all the homewrecking jokes were purely jokes. did he wish she was less devoted to him because he doesn't want her to wait for him? yes. sighs deeply.
also letting her be physically affectionate was because he felt like it helped her. which is not to say that belph completely hated it (again, he did not feel it most of the time, but also. belph can be pretty physically affectionate himself when he's in a better place mentally), but for him, it was less "i want this" and more "if it makes steph happy, then i don't mind". he will never ever tell steph about the drawback to his ability (that he will still have going back to gotham, laughs this is how he's going to make fake ids for getting into bars) for this one reason.
i'm sorry francy i can't do three comments and also i'm sorry for how much of this is just belph meta so. ALL IN ALL he hopes he was a good friend and support to her in crau! that's all he's ever wanted to be for people in general (plus, like, his desire to make society a better place meaning he will probably offer to help her with her vigilante stuff). he doesn't know if he succeeded because he doesn't even know how to deal with his own traumas let alone other people's, but he did his best—to be someone she could be sad at, help talk through any issues, let her vent while calming down her worse impulses, be meaningfully supportive without being blindly encouraging, which is also why he freely admitted whenever he thought she was being frustrating—and he hopes that him being around made life even a little easier for her........