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dream-girls-evil · 4 years

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Oh boy someone finally took pity and is gonna let me talk about The Lovers XD

This project got...SO much bigger than intended. It started as a funny crack idea I sent to another CAOS blog about Lilith freaking out about Adam and asking Zelda to be her fake girlfriend. And then I actually started thinking about it, and it has now turned into a four-part series. And it’s going to be angsty. Crack and angst, that’s my brand.

The titles for the series, The Lovers, is a reference to the tarot card. It represents a choice to be made in one’s romantic life, one that often has serious consequences and might be irreversible. It’s going to come into play on both a literal and metaphorical level. We never saw Zelda’s third card in the Tarot episode, and with what I’m setting up, The Lovers will be fitting. But it’s also just a theme of this series--Zelda and Lilith both wanting to choose each other and not always being able to, and the consequences there are for their choices.

The titles for each part of the story, after several re-labelings, come from the song Deep End by Birdy. They are 1) Can we just pretend? 2) I wish they’d told me, 3) How do we mend? and 4) If you mean everything. The titles as well as the general vibe of the song itself should give you a really good idea of the tone and content of this fic. There’s a lot of longing and love but also regret. I actually first heard this song on a Zelith video (here), and while my story is very different than the one the video portrays, it’s themes and hopeful ending are really what inspired me to use the lyrics. I also love this song because it’s not strictly and obviously about romantic love, and neither is this fic. It’s going to be a very slow burn to their eventual relationship, because it’s really important to me that they truly bond as friends and get to know each other as people first. Right now, they each need a friend and confidante much more than a romance, and part of what I think gives them so much potential as a couple is how similar and well-suited to each other they are on those basic levels first and foremost.

Everything else below the cut!

Can we just pretend?

Oh, so much to say about this fic. I love fake dating fics, it’s just a hilarious trope with so much potential for awkward and absurd situations. Plus, I know there are several in this fandom, but they’re all AUs, and I think one of the fun parts of setting one in the CAOS universe is that Lilith and Zelda are trying to fool each other just as much as everyone else. Their motives are really layered and at odds, which is great to watch since they are both so good at acting and manipulating, so in the course of trying to play each other they find that they’ve kind of met their match and enjoy the challenge.

For Zelda, on the surface (and what she tells Lilith), her central motivation for everything is still trying to gain power within the church, and with Blackwood still being her best route to do that, she wants to use this fake relationship to make him jealous. Really, it’s just adding another layer to the pressure she puts on him to make their relationship legitimate. But also, she has reason to want to keep him away for the moment: Leticia. Then, finally, of course, she just wants to stay close to Lilith because she’s suspicious and hopes that if they spend time together, she’ll be able to monitor and limit Lilith’s interactions with Sabrina, plus improve her chances of catching the woman in a lie.

This part of the series takes place starting with the events of A Midwinter’s Tale and ending a little after The Epiphany, and you’re all in for a wild ride. There’s lots of shenanigans, but also a lot of softness and angst--and that’s where the layered meaning of the title comes in. It is obviously humorous because this is the question Lilith asks Zelda in the beginning--”please pretend to be my girlfriend and help me out”--but as things go on and the two of them start to actually bond, it takes on another context. A fake relationship needs a fake break up, and they both know that once that happens, things are really going to change. Zelda will pursue Blackwood, and Lilith will continue doing whatever the Dark Lord asks her to do with Sabrina. There’s not really going to be room in their lives for this real friendship that’s formed, but they want to pretend they’ll make it work. Whoops, started with crack then gut-punched you with feelings.

Anyway, there will be bed sharing, Hilda completely misinterpreting things, a whole side plot with Vinegar Tom, awkward dinner dates, temperamental telekinesis, and hide and seek in the mortuary! Yaaay!

I wish they’d told me

So, this part is sad? Sorry. After their fake break up, they are both moving in different directions and really trying to pretend they don’t miss each other as much as they do. And while they are trying to hang on to their friendship, they choose their own plans over each other a lot. This also takes place over the remaining episodes from part 2, so there’s a lot of heavy content in general, and honestly, not much is going to change just because Zelda and Lilith are on better terms.

The thing with this section is that there will be a lot of added context to certain scenes. Blackwood’s passion play will be a direct dig at Lilith, and knowing Zelda was involved with it will make it hurt all the more. Lucifer giving Blackwood His blessing to marry Zelda will be to minimize her influence on Lilith as much as Sabrina. Lilith’s tricks with the tarot cards and her glamour of Edward will be to try and help Zelda as much as for her own ends.

The only really big thing that changes is that without Adam and his offer of taking Lilith to Tibet, the awful dinner scene will be replaced with Lucifer taunting Lilith about what Zelda is going through, since it lines up with the honeymoon. But don’t expect Lilith to save her, unfortunately, because she’s terrified of what Lucifer would do to both of them if he found out she interfered. Plus, she is conscious that it would bring up a lot of questions if she did, like how she knew Zelda was in trouble, and she’s afraid of that, too. Which brings us to the end of part 2 where, obviously, everyone finds out who Lilith really is, and it’s much worse because they all genuinely care about her and trusted her.

On the bright side though, we will see Lilith’s relationship with Sabrina, and the Fright Club and Spellman family by extension, improve, and how that affects them both. It’s going to get very awkward for her at times listening to Sabrina and Hilda treat her like Zelda’s ex and lament their break up, but they’ll also show her a lot more care and consideration and go to her for help more, which is a very odd experience for Lilith.

How do we mend?

Part 3! Kudos to everyone who’s actually read this far, because I know it’s literally a fucking essay. Anyway, as should be obvious from the title, this largely deals with Zelda and Lilith trying to figure out their feelings for each other in the aftermath of Lucifer’s imprisonment. On the one hand, Lilith’s betrayal is a lot more personal for Zelda. On the other hand, because she knows Lilith a lot better, she realizes a lot more of the truth about Lilith’s relationship to Lucifer and exactly what she went through. So Zelda is dealing with a lot of guilt and confusion about what was real and what could have been done differently and how she actually feels about Lilith after it all. So, again, we have a lot of added context to some of her actions, like deciding to have the coven pray to Lilith.

Meanwhile, Lilith is just lonely. She’s got her crown, but she’s also lost the first people who ever really respected and cared for her, even if they didn’t really know her. She wants to talk to Zelda and explain but doesn’t feel it’s her place. Bring on the yearning. Eventually they will be brought back together though, and that’s the start of this series really diverging from canon, because Lilith’s relationships to everybody is going to change how they handle a lot of events. Plus, I just really want to do a better job with Mary’s plotline and the pagans’ portrayal than canon.

They’ve got a lot to work through and work out, and will finally have to really confront and examine their feelings for each other, especially with some of the very emotional things they go through. They’re very protective of each other, and I love it. Another interesting thing will be when Marie comes on the scene and shows interest in Zelda. I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to play that dynamic yet, but I do know that it’s not going to be one of jealousy or competition. I’m not into that. They’re all mature adults perfectly capable of respecting each other’s boundaries and choices.

If you mean everything

Finally! Part 4 is the least planned out, since it’s so far in the future and so reliant on how the pacing of part 3 works out, which I don’t know yet, and also whatever I take from part 4 of the show, which I don’t know yet. But I do really want the main focus to be on Lilith and Zelda working through their respective traumas in the context of their relationship. They’ve both been through a lot, and they need to learn how to talk about it with each other. And I think that they’ll still be having some trouble coming to terms with the intensity of their feelings, because love isn’t something that’s been abundant in either of their lives really, and it has a way of changing your priorities even if you didn’t plan on it. I do think this part will probably end up being shorter and more like an epilogue. I’m definitely not going with the pregnancy storyline, so Lucifer/Blackwood will probably end up captured at the end of part 3 unless I can think of another way to have them escape or separate them.

WOW this was literally so much, let me know if you made it through! XD

I hope it was somewhat interesting. I didn’t even try not to give any spoilers because I’m me and overshare. But I hope it got everyone excited for this story and inspired to keep bugging me about writing it, because I need it.

#caos #zelda spellman #lilith #caos fanfiction #zelith #madam spellman #caos lilith #tomorrownevercame #the lovers (tomorrownevercame)#the lovers part 1 #can we just pretend? (tomorrownevercame)

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