Mel, why do you like staticapple? Just a general question because it's definitely one of the more rare pairings since they don't actually interact with the show and many Radioapple/Radiostatic fans often depict them in a battle trying to win Alastor's affections so I wanna know what about it drew you into it?
So, this is a bit of a long story, and I've been drinking, so I might ramble. I'll start with I'm not into RadioApple. I have honestly tried because I love enemies-to-lovers, but I just don't see it, no matter how hard I try.
Now, Lucifer and Vox are both among those tied for my favorite character, and so I spend a lot of time thinking about them both. If I remember correctly, I was thinking about how two of my favorite characters hate Alastor and them bonding over that fact if they met, and then I went on to think about how Vox being the opportunist that he is would definitely try to win favor with the King of Hell, and Lucifer would just eat up the attention. And that's where it started to turn into a crack ship.
I very jokingly came up with a scenario of Alastor and Vox starting to rekindle their friendship, but Alastor being the asshole that he is, doesn't actually care to show up on time when they were supposed to meet at the hotel. Lucifer ends up being there, so Vox complains to him, they share a few drinks, and end up making out. Alastor walks in on this and gets all jealous, but Vox is just like "Ha! Should've valued my time, bitch!" and leaves with Lucifer.
Well, that scenario stuck with me and evolved until I eventually started plotting a whole ass fic - again fully thinking of it as a crack fic. But then I started plotting out their interactions. And I thought about how they both have a passion for creating things, and they would admire each other for that; I headcanon them both as ADHD (Lucifer as AuDHD), and they would totally relate to each other in the way they hyperfocus on their projects; and they're both starved for touch and attention, with neither of them capable of doing things halfway, so they would inevitably end up completely devoted to each other. And suddenly I wasn't so sure it was crack anymore.
I started consuming StaticApple content (though still not as much as RadioStatic, I'll admit), and that funny, crack scenario I mentioned above evolved into my not-at-all crack fic, Red with Envy.
And then I realized that while enemies-to-lovers is definitely my favorite trope (bonus if it's friends-to-enemies-to-lovers), I do have a second-favorite romantic trope that I've never seen labeled before. I'll call it assumptions-to-friends-to-lovers. For me, this harkens back to Supernatural, with my main ship being drowley (enemies-to-lovers), and my secondary ship being sastiel (assumptions-to-friends-to-lovers).
Essentially, Person A is prepared to not like Person B (Lucifer's very prejudiced against Sinners/Castiel sees Sam as 'the boy with the demon blood'), but is surprised when they meet them to find that Person B was not at all what they expected. Person A gives them a chance, despite their preconceived notions, and find that they actually relate to Person B in a few ways. They become close and end up falling in love. Once I realized that, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't so surprising I ended up shipping StaticApple.
