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Just wanted to clarify, as I think I was one of the folks who talked about Sterling thinking this was all a trick by April- I wasn’t thinking that was ever actually the case, more wondering if that dark thought ran across Sterling’s mind when she saw April flirting with Luke. That their whole thing had been some twisted head game April played with her. Obviously that got cleared up later outside. But I think she coulda thought it was a possibility given they were enemies less than a week before.

Ah, I’m answering this so late all the relevant previous asks are weeks old by now, but yeah, I assumed the anon was referring to other comments out there? Your ask hadn’t come across as implying it was an actual trick, just the possible perception of. 

And honestly, thinking more on it, since I just giffed the scene where Sterling leaves the lock-in, the way she’s legit angry and going, what’s wrong with you, there’s this genuine confusion at what exactly WAS going on, so it could definitely have been a fleeting possibility, not even necessarily that it was all a trick, but that April was playing weird mindgames with her, the April she knew a week ago wouldn’t have flirted with Luke either.

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i have never wanted a fic more, than i do stepril!! i remeber reading “childhood friends to enemies to lovers” on fandoms where the characters are like 30 and not even canon. come on fic writers, if we can conjure up childhood/teenage personalities/plotlines for people on their 30s, surely we can do this! please. anyone?

Aww, I’m sorry I took so long to reply but I actually went and checked ao3. When you sent this, there would have been 16 fics in the tag. There are now 91, so that’s not terrible! 

But I super get your point, this is ripe for fic, it’s left in that perfect place where they’re separated but it’s the kind of conflict that you can play around and work with. Sometimes canon leaves characters SO far apart it’s like, okay, it’s gonna take 90k words for them to even be in the same room, and other times–and I find this HARDER, where they actually have no conflict at all, they should be together and just…aren’t? Like, how do you handle that in fic? “Hey, we should be together.” “We should.” The end. Post-s1 Stepril, you have so much juicy material, and all kinds of ways they can get back together or carry on a secret relationship, or have April react to Sterling putting her dad in jail (that might take 90k words).

Lmao at your comment about how people write HSAUs for characters in their 30s, or say, when they’re warlords in a dystopian future? I remember getting into discussions about why there were so many HSAUs and wondered if it was just people wanting to write away from canon, but, for example, Glee had a ton where they stayed in school. I think it’s that a lot of fic writers actually have experience with high school, sometimes recent, so it’s easier to write what you know, as opposed to hospitals or mysterious warehouses. Even if you haven’t been to American high school, there’s so much media out there based in it and it’s easier to research. It’s also interesting to write as a stripped down archetypey version of other worlds. The popular kids, the nerds, you slot people into simplified positions and try to replicate their original dynamics with way lower stakes. 

Though I guess the really good fic, even if it’s a HSAU, goes beyond the basics, because like, look at the world of TBH. Sterling and April are somehow both the popular kids and nerds, and the stakes are certainly higher than they might be. Even if you start with this relatively simpler setting, people are complex. I haven’t really looked at the actual fics yet, but I assume most are canon adjacent and not like, doctor or rock star AUs.

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TBH romances are so well written and acted! the awkwardness is real. it reminds me of the cutthroat honesty of Sex Education, but a little more PG rated. Which, I guess is also more age appropriate. I hope Netflix doesnt fuck this show up, especially since it got stuck on a cliff hanger

The awkwardness was SO well done, but I’m grateful it was always at a level where I wasn’t just covering my face in secondhand embarrassment. It was like..endearing, first love stuff. ^_^ 

I’ve never seen Sex Education but when I was making my friend watch TBH, she also compared the two. Wish it had that kind of popularity though, lol. You sent this quite a while back but no real progress has been made on the renewal front since and you can see the cast trying to promote it recently, which to me means it’s still up in the air. It truly would suck to not get at least one more season to resolve all these open threads.

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April has some of the best lines on the show. I’m still laughing about her making up the perfume thing and then smiling while telling Hannah B & Ezekiel to get breath mints (we all know who she’s thinking of) and someone on tumblr really said that april speaks like a repressed renaissance lesbian with the whole fait accompli and patula thing lmaooo can you please gifs april’s lines on the show? I would really appreciate it

Hey, some of us regress to old-timey overly literary kinda European to COPE, okay! 😛 

She really does tend to do that, lol, I hadn’t really actually made the connection till you pointed it out, but yeah, like using philandering instead of cheating too. It’s definitely funnier and probably actually has a legit connection to her diving into Christian scholarship, partly because she’s an intense nerd and partly to escape Other Things, but if it’s just a character choice because it’s funny as hell, I’ll take that too.

I’ve added it to my list to gif but probably won’t get to it for a while. 😡

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I really love Devon Hales’ voice. I could listen to her all day.

Omg, right? I was thinking that during yesterday’s live, it’s so clear and melodic.

I remember noticing it during the second half of TBH, when April was suddenly shown in this different light, the light Sterling was seeing her through, and I’ve mentioned the transformation before, the hair and outfits, but the voice too! When she’s not putting on the mean girl superiority, it seems closer to her natural voice, from interviews and stuff, and it’s literally noticeable in how nice it is. I like it a lot.