#and taking that into account what's basically being expressed is that you find all these bits & pieces interesting and want to see them

[rindreamery]

it's just instinct, all i want is you.

how long it takes for the blue lock men to realize you’re the one.

itoshi rin, itoshi sae, nagi seishiro, michael kaiser, oliver aiku

it takes itoshi rin 6 months.

rin likes to think that he’s slow and deliberate with his relationships— that he’s not the type to have such decisive thoughts about someone so early on. he’s spent years building up a wall to protect his feelings, and he’s not about to let a (potentially fleeting) person ruin what he's worked so hard to maintain. he's only been with you for 6 months, and he has his doubts about whether you would want to stick around. but all it takes is, “i’m so proud of you, rin,” and his world is completely tilted off its axis.

he tries to tell himself that it's nothing; he's been complimented by other people before.

you probably didn't even think much of it when you told him. it’s just a simple phrase, one of many that people say without thinking. but it's different, it's special, when it's coming from you. your words repeat in his head, like some mantra. it's like his senses are overwhelmed by you. he finds himself focusing solely on your voice, the way you look at him with such gentle eyes, the sincerity behind your words— you. it’s scary how much it affects him. it rattles something deep inside of him, and it shakes him to his core.

he doesn't want to hear it from anyone else, he quickly realizes. those praises don't mean much when it's not coming from you. they don't make him feel unstoppable, like he’s on some high that he’ll never be able to get down from. and he's hit with a jarring realization—

“say it again,” he's standing in front of you, ignoring the incessant flashing of cameras that surrounds him and the deafening cheers of the crowd. he's only looking at you.

“i’m so proud of you,” your voice is quiet, but all he can hear is you, “rin.”

—he's fallen for you, much deeper than he thought he would. he’d be damned if he let you slip away.

it takes itoshi sae 1 year and 3 months.

sae had no intention of falling in love with you. needless to say, his affection for you wasn’t some calculated move. the thought of liking you hadn’t even crossed his mind, and he’s not even sure if he’d ever considered you as a friend. you’ve just been around for long enough that he’s stopped questioning it, that he’s grown to tolerate your presence. at least, that’s what he tells himself. he lets you come over when you want, eat all the snacks in his pantry, use his netflix account— to everyone else, you’re basically a couple. before he knows it, you’ve settled into his life the way a familiar song gets stuck in his head without him noticing.

it’s hard to deny the noticeable shift in sae’s behavior whenever he’s around you.

the way the frown on sae’s face vanishes to a more passive state whenever he’s talking to you, and he's much less irritated at the aspect of having to answer your random (but stupid, in his opinion) questions. he’s not aware, but a part of him subconsciously looks forward to it. “would you still love me if i was a worm?” comes another one of your stupid questions, and he answers without thinking.

“yeah.” the expression on his face remains the same, he’s as indifferent as he always is. but his answer takes both of you by surprise. under his cool facade, his mind is scrambling to make sense of his answer, as if he hadn’t expected himself to say such a thing.

you’re flustered, and it’s evident in the way you stumble over your words. a part of you begins to wonder if that was simply a figment of your imagination, like some hallucination from sleep deprivation. “what— huh?”

so he plays it off, he acts as if he meant to say it. “you heard what i said.” he realizes his heart had decided on you longer than he’d ever been aware of.

it takes nagi seishiro 3 months.

nagi’s used to being alone— he’s used to neglecting himself and every aspect of his life because no one is there to tell him not to do so. he’s not used to having someone be a constant in his life, to have someone who isn’t thrown off by his apathetic and lazy attitude. sometimes he wonders if he acts this way to keep people out, and he wonders why you choose to stay despite. but slowly, you color your way into his bleak routine.

at first, it’s subtle. you linger around him, but your presence isn’t demanding for his attention. you’re there, but you let him be.

and then your presence becomes something a little more prominent. he starts to notice the little post-it notes you leave in his locker, and how you remember to sneak in his favorite snacks. or how his pillows start to smell like your shampoo, and the way he becomes used to having you there in his living room as he plays video games. or even the fact that he finds himself waiting by the gate when classes end, and how he doesn’t mind being pushed around by the crowd as he searches for you in the endless sea of students so he could walk with you. so he could be with you.

he starts to feel like he’s truly living, like there’s something to look forward to every day.

when you say, “see you tomorrow,” he deflates at your words. it’s a weird feeling— he feels weird at the thought that he doesn’t like being alone anymore. that he misses you in the way he misses his phone. he feels bored without you there, and a part of him feels so empty when he doesn’t have you beside him.

when he drops you off at home that day, he realizes it feels strange to be alone again— “can you stay with me?”— he needs to be with you.

it takes michael kaiser 7 months.

kaiser lets his ego get in the way of his relationships. he thinks he can have anyone he wants, and that's why he wholeheartedly believes that he's above the idea of yearning for someone. the idea of wanting someone so much that his thoughts would be consumed by them, and only them? it’s unimaginable. he’s used to being admired, worshipped even, by others. he doesn’t need anyone— he doesn’t need you.

so the prick of irritation he feels, when he sees you laughing at another man’s jokes, catches him off-guard.

it shatters his pride, and he tries to ignore the heat that bubbles under his skin. but he can’t ignore the feeling of possessiveness that washes over him at the sight. you’ve always been his— the heated touches, the way you wear his cologne on your skin, the way you linger around him like it’s natural. you're mine, he always thinks to himself, but he never says it out loud. he’s above yearning— but the idea of you being with someone else makes him feel sick. and he’s not about to let another man take you away.

“come with me.” his voice is sharp and demanding, his mere presence filling the space with an unspoken challenge. but before you can speak, kaiser’s gripping your wrist, pulling you into him without another word of explanation. you don’t fight him, you don’t fight the excitement that it brings you. there’s something in his gaze, something so possessive and raw, that makes you follow him wordlessly. you’re mine, the thought echoes in his mind and for the first time in months, he can’t deny the feeling that has been brewing under the surface.

he yearns for you, and he’ll never let anyone strip this feeling away from him.

it takes oliver aiku 4 years and 2 months.

oliver would never deny the fact that he enjoys having you around. but you’re simply his friend— nothing less, and definitely nothing more than that. you’ve been in his life for years now, lingering in his orbit in a way that keeps you both close, but so far. you’re a constant in his life because he doesn’t need to act around you. he never needs to impress you, never needs to win you over with sugary words. you’ve never given him the typical attention he’s used to, the type of attention that he naturally demands. and that bothers him in a way he won’t admit. yet, it’s this disinterest that pulls at him like gravity. it keeps him coming back, keeps him by your side.

but he doesn’t want anything more from you— he doesn’t need it. it’s these words that keeps him from tainting you.

he doesn't like the dangerous and greedy feeling of wanting to have more of you, wanting to see you in ways that no one else has, and that dangerous feeling that makes him want to devote himself to you wholly. and that’s what gets to him. he’s used to being the one in control, the one who dictates the terms.

it's a futile attempt, he realizes. it's always been you who's had the upper hand.

he can no longer deny that he wants you, more than he’s ever wanted anyone. no one else has his heart racing ‘til he can hear his heartbeat in his ears, no one else has him hooked in the way you’ve been stringing him along. and suddenly, all those meaningless flings feel like distractions, like he’s been wasting time when what he really wants is right in front of him.

it’s not about lust, not about the chase—he just wants you. and this time, he’s not about to let fear or pride hold him back.

note. desperate and yearning hcs next??? who knows

© rindreamery, 2024

[fiapple]

do i like jason todd? yes, i think about him far too often.

do i think the section of his fan-base who posit storylines, narrative positioning, & other writing choices for him that either aren't present or are deeply mismanaged/inconsistent in-text, & which have already been canonically given to comic-women (while often also being better written) should at least try branching the scope of their reading out a bit? oh, jesus fucking christ, absolutley.

[blood-smiles]

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐋𝐋 𝐗 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑 .ೃ࿐

slight NSFW warning!

── It was a normal day, you were sprawled out on your bed, your right hand reaching out to toss some chips into your mouth as you scrolled with your other hand down eday listings,

♥ You stopped on an interesting listing, your eyes reading the compelling title “Ball jointed doll”

♥it’s not often you would find these types of high quality dolls for such.. sketchy prices, but what was more strange was the description of the item..

❝ ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ, ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ɢᴇᴛ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏ ʟɪꜰᴇ, ɪᴛ’ꜱ ʜᴀᴜɴᴛɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ, ɪᴛ ʙʀɪɴɢꜱ ᴍɪꜱᴇʀʏ ᴀɴᴅ ʙᴀᴅ ʟᴜᴄᴋ ᴀɴʏᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ɪ ɢᴏ, ɪ ʙᴇɢ ᴏꜰ ᴀɴʏᴏɴᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴅᴀᴍɴᴇᴅ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏ ʟɪꜰᴇ, ɪᴛ ʜᴀꜱ ᴅᴏɴᴇ ɴᴏᴛɪɴɢ ʙᴜᴛ ʀᴜɪɴ ᴍʏ ʟɪꜰᴇ ᴇᴠᴇʀ ꜱɪɴᴄᴇ.. ❞

♥Well, someone needs therapy, don’t they? There is no way a doll of all things can “ruin” someone’s  life.. It’s not like it’s haunted, right? Right?

♥You clicked the “buy” button, little to no money being taken out of your bank account from how little the doll costed.

♥The shipping was quick, two days passed before a knock was heard on your door and a small box was delivered to your doorstep.

♥You held the doll in your hands, looking into its life like eyes and gently adjusting his white clothes on his body, the craftsmanship on this doll was absolutely amazing, you could tell how much love, time and devotion was put into the doll.

♥Your fingers ran over the character’s ruffled dress shirt and small details, you brushed down the little thing’s raven hair, smoothening the minuscule fly aways on his small head.

♥You hummed in deep thought, thinking of a name to bestow upon the figure.. He looked like an angel, being clad in white and having beautiful features, so the only name suitable for him would be something similar to “Angel”.. ah! Yes! The perfect name would be “Angelo”!

♥you put down the doll carefully, letting it sit on your bed side stand, propped up against your wall gently, deciding to sit down and play some games on your PS4.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 felt he was being lifted up by his torso.. Just where was he? Everything was so bright, just a moment ago he was in darkness.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 felt his cheeks flush as he glanced at his new owner, the last one was way too much of a wuss to withstand his love.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 wanted nothing more but to show you his life sized form to wrap his arms around you, he could just tell you would take good care of him.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who has two de-attachable and attachable genitalia, female and male genitals.

 ♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who quietly climbed onto your bed while you were playing with your.. light up box, 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 bit his soft lips as he gently put his thighs around your head.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who cooed at your shocked expression, watching with a small smile as you thrashed and tried to get out of his hold before just giving in.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who gasped at the feeling of your hands gripping his thighs roughly, your finger nails digging deep into his soft skin through his white dress pants.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who whimpered quietly at the pain, feeling a pleasurable sensation from the bruising starting to swell his on top of his fair skin.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who couldn’t help but gently grind his hips into the back of your head, his little predicament becoming more and more prominent than before.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who introduced himself as your doll, his dark eyes peering into your own (e/c) ones, his eyes crinkling up at the corners from the love sick smile on his lips.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who basically became your care taker, making sure of seeing that you were well fed, well bathed and happy as you could be.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who took care of the house hold chores, bending under the kitchen cabinets to “fix” the leaking pipes, arching his back and giving you a nice view from behind. You know damn well that that faucet wasn’t the only thing leaking

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who wore your tight shirts and shortest shorts around you, trying to tempt you into making love with him. 

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who would sleep in YOUR bed with you, would refuse the idea of sleeping in the guest room, you do know that dolls get cold easily, don’t you? How will he keep warm if he isn’t wrapping his legs around your torso and burying your head in between his soft chest? Hm?!

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who just adores you, he just can’t stop giving you kisses and taking care of your every need and wish! 

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who made a demonic contract with you, promising you that he would serve and love you for the rest of his (inexplicably long) life! All you have to do in return is to be by his side, won’t you sign the contract, dearest?

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who has strange markings engraved into his lower back, a pentagram design carved into his perfect skin with what seems to have your name in it now.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who somehow summons huge amounts of money out of nowhere, well.. at least rent isn’t a problem anymore!

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who would do anything for you, absolutely anything you ask for or could ever desire.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who is your obedient servant and forever lover now, he just loves you sooo much!! You don’t need anything else other than hi— Who is that new doll? Who is he? (Y/N). who. Is. That?

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 Who chose you as his owner, you were gracious enough to take him even after being warned about the risks, his heart beats blood for you, just you, he is eternally grateful to you.

♥ 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲! 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹 who loves you more than moths love light and would shatter his soul if anything were to happen to you.

“I love you so much.. I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!! Look here! I carved your name on my chest, do you like it, honey?♡”

[dwonfilm]

Teaching tech. | Soldier Boy x Reader

Summary: Butcher tasked you with the job of teaching a freshly thawed Ben, aka Soldier Boy, how to use technology. First off you started with teaching him about the iPhone.

Warnings: bit of Solider Boy being Soldier Boy but otherwise, mostly fluff.

“Dammit!” [Y/N] heard Ben’s voice from the other room and she sighed. Next was a smash and that made her rush back into the bedroom. Immediately Ben’s eyes lifted up to see her coming in and he scoffed. “I didn’t break the cocksucking thing this time.” He stated plainly. “Good,” she answered. “I don’t have the money to buy you a fourth phone.” She moved to sit on the bed next to where he was currently sitting. “This shit ain’t a phone, it’s a thin ass rock with futuristic shit inside. Phones have a base and a receiver or they were these massive bricks with buttons—not whatever the fuck a touch screen is-“ Ben ranted, but [Y/N] just laughed. “Yeah, they were those things once but this is 2022. Life’s changed a lot and eventually you’re gonna need to learn all these things.” She spoke, picking up the phone that was on the bed between them, swiping up to unlock it. Bits of her [Y/H/C] hair covered her face while her attention focused on the screen. Ben just watched, a grumpy expression on his facial features. “How’d you get stuck doing this anyway? Where’s the Cum Guzzler or the Cheerio?” She laughed, Ben’s nicknames for people were always pretty humorous. “Hughie is scared of you and Butcher can barely explain anything in the entire history of life’s existence.��� Ben gently laughed at her answer. Fingers moved across the screen, making selections that she didn’t think were necessary to explain to him at the moment. “So, the bean pole’s afraid of me huh?” He asked, not really expecting an answer. However it did bring up another question. “Why aren’t you scared of me?” His tone seemed indifferent but there was a hint of something more inside his eyes. Something she was oblivious to since her own were focused on the screen of the phone in her hands. Though, she slowly gazed up from it for a moment. “Honestly,” she began with a pause directly after. It was as if she was attempting to think about how to answer him. “I was at first, a little bit, but I just try to sympathize.” He scoffed almost immediately. “You sympathize with a piece of shit like me? No wonder it’s so easy to get you women in the sack. Jesus Chris-“ She turned her head and shot a glare at him. “You can sympathize with people without wanting to fuck them, for starters.” She rolled her eyes, moving her gaze back to the phone in her hands. “No one’s perfect, not that it’s excusing.. well everything. Despite all that, no one here has any real room to judge too harshly.” Ben quirked a brow at that. “That so? Don’t tell me a pretty lil’ thing like you has baggage!” Part of him was sort of mocking her, though he was getting curious. “Moving on, I made the email for you and set up an account for you to use the phone.” She began to explain, looking over to him but finding a confused expression on his face. “E-what?” He asked plainly, green eyes gazing into her own. “Right, I forgot you have no grasp on the basics.” She turned towards him now.

“Email is pretty easy, it’s like sending letters to people—only digitally and in a much faster time period. It used to take y’know, days, weeks for those to be delivered. Now it just takes seconds—also instead of a home address you just need their email address. Does that make sense at least somewhat?” Her voice was gentle, not sarcastic or cruel. [Y/E/C] eyes meeting his green ones as he was silent for a moment. “Yeah, I guess.. I mean it seems straightforward enough—though doing that stupid shit is gonna be harder than understanding what the fuck it is.” He answered. “Well, yeah, but we’ll get there.” [Y/N] offered a half smile at him. “No one’s asking you to be Steve Jobs after a day,” she tried to encourage him but his face was blank yet again. “Who the fuck is that?” He asked, to which she sighed gently. “…never mind, it’s not important. What I meant is that none of us are expecting you to know how to use it all within the blink of an eye.” She replied before moving her gaze back to the phone. He peered over at the phone while knitting his brows together. None of it made any sense to him. Now the screen was black again, before the stupid symbol popped up. “..the fuck is it doing now?” He asked, moving his glance to her face. “It’s updating the software,” she spoke before shifting it to an analogy he’d understand. “..which is like maintenance on a car kind of—it makes sure everything’s working and also is.. replacing the parts in a sense. Fixing things that weren’t working and replacing them with things that will work and hopefully work better.” It took a second, but the analogy did help. “Makes sense I guess.” He spoke, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes watched for a moment before he became bored, so, he did what he usually did and turned his attention to whoever was occupying the space with him. “So tell me, how’d a gorgeous gal like you get tangled up with a fucker like Butcher anyhow?” She laughed softly but she didn’t look up at him this time. Mostly to hide the fact that she was blushing just a little. [Y/N] knew that she shouldn’t be feeling this way, by all accounts this man was still Soldier Boy. He wasn’t a good person, but the more she spent time with him the more she realized he was letting her see the man behind the persona and maybe.. maybe there was more than what he’s done in the past. After all she was preaching sympathy just moments prior. “Flattery will not get you out of the tech lesson, but since it’s updating you’ve got a little wiggle room.” She took a gentle breath before beginning to tell a very condensed version of events. “Becca, Butcher’s wife, she was my mom’s best friend. When my mom got killed in a car wreck, Becca sort of.. became my maternal figure.” Ben nodded, feeling some of the strings attached to his heart pulling. “I’m sorry about that, doll.” It was the least he could say. “Where the hell was your dad?” He asked, not knowing subtly if it were to bite him on the ass. She sighed gently. “Couldn’t tell you, never met him.” Ben could sympathize with that in a way, his own father being a piece of shit and all. “Sorry ‘bout that too.” He spoke, keeping his gaze on her own. She simply nodded before the phone’s screen lit up in the bright colors again, signifying that the software update had been completed. Picking the phone up, [Y/N] swiped up to begin the process of actually setting things up. “Okay, back to this-“ she spoke but was immediately cut off by Ben’s loud groaning. “Fuck sakes, is this really necessary?” He grumbled, which caused the woman next to him to roll her eyes. “You already know the answer to that.” Again he grumbled, acting like a mix between a grumpy old man and a stubborn child. “If this was forty years ago and some fine piece of ass was trying to tell me I had to do somethin’..” She turned and her [Y/E/C] eyes met his face with a pointed glare. There was a momentary pause as Ben contemplated whether or not to continue.

However, he was mischievous by nature and so he opted to continue on with his train of thought. “..I’d have grabbed her by her pretty little chin and talked her into getting on her knees so I could show her a better way to use that mouth.” [Y/N] again rolled her eyes. “Anyway,” she brushed it off and moved on immediately though Ben was wearing a little smirk. “Picturing it, aren’t ya’?” He asked, clearly attempting to make the woman flustered. She turned her gaze back towards him with a blank expression upon her face. “Picturing me, punching you in the face? Absolutely I am.” She answered, which had Ben’s smirk fall completely. “You new age women, chicks in my day would’ve been creaming their panties at the chance to get with Soldier Boy.” Ben grumbled, irritation showing on his face. It was amusing to [Y/N] that he thought he’d get her to crumble so easily. Pushing herself up into a better position she’d lean the phone towards the Supe. “Alright, so I made two emails—one has the Soldier Boy name on it, just in case there’s.. I don’t know people that have business offers or something. Granted, that’s if we all live and you don’t get thrown into jail or whatever they do to other Supes and the other is for, well, more personal shit. That’s the one I was telling you about when I mentioned it initially, the one that’s tied into everything on the phone. I downloaded some stuff but now you need to try it.” She handed the phone over to Ben, praying he wasn’t gonna break this one. It was clear that he was trying to hold it gently, which would’ve made her giggle out loud—however the man was in an overly sensitive state and she wasn’t going to push that. “Alright, so tap the icon that says ‘App Store’ and wait for it to open.” [Y/N]’s voice was gentle and Ben nodded, putting his finger over the square with that name underneath it. However he left it there and so the apps began to all shake. “What the fuck is happening?!” He exclaimed, to which she gently moved her hand and pressed the button labeled ‘done’. Now the apps went back to being still and she sighed. Gently she grabbed his index finger and lightly pulled it towards the screen again, Ben wanted to grumble but he was too distracted by how her fingers felt against his own. Where his skin was rough, battle tested and calloused.. hers was soft, maybe a scar here and there but nothing compared to his and the contrast? It was more enjoyable than he’d ever admit out loud. [Y/N] pulled his finger down toward the screen and gently tapped it against the screen to open the app. “You just gotta tap, see.” She spoke, letting go of his finger. “Huh.” He replied, but it wasn’t very loud. “Now typing on these things is probably gonna annoy you, it annoys us all and we’re used to the technology. Just.. try to not freak out and break it yeah? Shit is easy for you to snap, given y’know..” After she said that, she couldn’t help but to chuckle. When she did Ben felt himself smirking just a little. There was a split second where their eyes met and lingered, before she spoke up again. “Alright, so if you just click on this one it’ll take you to the place where you can download them. I think most things that are necessary for now are already there but I wanted you to know how to do it, so.. you like sports right?” She asked, tone kept gentle. “Uh, yeah, obviously little less on the up and up these days.” He replied, to which she nodded. “Alright well type in ‘MLB’ right there in that search bar, click it first though.” [Y/N] explained and for a moment Ben just stared at her, as if she had three heads. Eventually though he moved his gaze to the phone and tapped the screen over the search bar, which brought up the keyboard. “So.. these fucking things are called apps?” He asked, typing the three letters slowly into the bar and then she pointed to the blue button labeled ‘search’, which he tapped before looking up at her again.

“Yeah, they have one for just about everything these days.” She replied, pointing to the button that said ‘get’. Ben tapped it and the symbol to signify it was downloading appeared. Once it had finished, she smiled slightly before reaching underneath his arm for a second. “So, to close an app, you just swipe up like this.” Gently she placed her thumb on the screen and swiped upward to bring the phone back to the Home Screen. “Now, that closes it for the moment. Swiping up in a short motion brings up all the open ones like this-“ she explained, demonstrating. “Once they’re up like this you can swipe up again and fully close them.” She closed all of the currently open apps to demonstrate to him how to do it. “You really think I’m gonna remember all this shit?” He asked, almost glaring when he looked in her direction. It was a lot of information to take in, so she took a gentle breath and locked the phone. “Okay, fair, let’s take a break then.” [Y/N] placed Ben’s phone on the bed between them and slowly pulled out her own. He couldn’t help it, curiosity took hold and he glanced over. “You can put pictures on that thing?” He asked, noticing her Lock Screen photo of a drawing of the moon. Quirking a brow for a moment, she then figured out what he meant. “Oh, yeah! You can. Did you wanna do that on your phone?” Her voice was sweet as their eyes met yet again, bringing back the slight tension that continued to linger between them. “Fuck it, shit looks better than whatever the fuck it comes with.” He replied after a moment or so of silence. “Do you have anything specific you want?” She reached up with her free hand and tucked some of her [Y/H/C] hair behind her ear. Ben’s expression was pensive for a moment or so as he tried to think of anything he’d like to have as a background on the phone. “I dunno, just find something badass—none o’ that girly shit.” She shook her head before thinking herself, trying to figure out something she could use. “I’m gonna go take a leak.” He spoke up, pushing his frame up and off of the bed before grumbling about something and making his way over to the bathroom door. Once he’d closed it, she thought for another second before smiling to herself. Lifting the phone up at a decent angle, she quickly opened the camera app and primped herself slightly—snapping a couple of pictures of herself right after. Flicking through the few she found the one she liked the most and made it his Lock Screen wallpaper. Thumbs darted across the screen and within another two minutes or so, spent entirely on Google, she’d found a nice photo of Ben’s shield. It worked well for a Home Screen.

It wasn’t long after that [Y/N] heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on, seconds passing before the door was pulled open and Ben re-entered the bedroom. Lifting her gaze up to meet him, his green eyes held something she couldn’t quite pinpoint. She gently laid his phone onto the mattress and kept her attention on him while he sat back down onto the bed. “Are we doing more of this shit? ‘Cause I think my fuckin’ brain might implode.” His voice was deep, housing a distinct rasp to it. [Y/N] couldn’t help but to chuckle at the old man antics he was displaying before answering the question. “No, I think we’ll save some lessons for another day. After all, there’s much more than just the phone you’re gonna need to learn.” After she’d spoken, he groaned for what felt like the millionth time. “It’s amazing how you bounce between acting like a senior citizen and acting like a teenage boy.” Her voice held a humorous tone as she again chuckled, it was Ben’s turn to now offer her a pointed glare but there was definitely a layer of amusement behind it. Just as he was about to offer up a retort, the bedroom door was pushed open and Butcher popped his head in. “Oi [Y/N], need ya’ to come help Frenchie with a little project.” His accent was thick and his eyes held a wild expression that was pretty standard for the man. [Y/N] sighed and slowly pushed herself up from the mattress, but turned towards Ben with a gentle smile. “If you have any questions just.. come find me.” He nodded, because his brain wasn’t sure how to react to the little smile on her lips. Sure there was a lot of unholy and downright vulgar thoughts swimming around in his noggin about her, there had been since he laid eyes on her—however there was something more that lingered and that was causing a short circuit in his mind. She turned back to the Brit and groaned. “This better not be anything messy because the last time-“ she was cut off by Butcher’s laugh. “It ain’t, I swear.” [Y/N] rolled her eyes as the two left the room, closing the door behind them. After a couple of minutes Ben remembered [Y/N] lecturing him about locking the goddamned phone, but she had left it unlocked. Pushing the button he heard the clicking noise, but tapped onto the screen to make sure he hadn’t accidentally turned it off somehow—and that’s when he saw it. There underneath the time and the other bullshit, was a picture of her and her smiling face. Since he was by himself, he didn’t have his guard up and his lips curled upward into a smile. “Pretty lil’ lady.” He spoke out loud, his heart feeling something he’d not felt in quite some time.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Hi guys! I am soooooo sorry about how long this took. Between writer’s block and my fear of it sucking, I was just struggling for a while. This is my first attempt at writing for Ben so if it’s bad, I’m sorry! He’s a more complex character to nail in writing and hopefully I’ll get better at it over time. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

• —– ٠ tag list: @roseblue373 @mrsjenniferwinchester @stillhere197 @xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx @aylacavebear @ladysparkles78 @globetrotter28 @jc-winchester ✤ ٠ —– • ·

[transmutationisms]

this is probably shaped by my limited frame of reference, but im really fascinated by witnessing the real-time development of adhd as a diagnosis. people attribute so many symptoms to it now or maybe they always did? i was wondering if you have any thoughts on what is the use of adhd specifically as a category within psychiatry. I'm esl so sorry for any confusing wording

no you're right imo; diagnostic categories are always somewhat in flux ofc but ADHD is one that has seen a particularly pronounced shift in the last couple decades. obviously this is multifactorial but my observation goes something along these lines:

'hyperactivity' has been dx'd in children since about the 1950s (also when Ritalin hit the market) but the ADHD dx doesn't really take off until the 90s (also when Adderall, a 2nd-gen reformulation of the 'obesity' drug Obetrol, hit the market). so, it's not all that surprising that 20 years later you see increased patient awareness of the diagnosis, increased popular interest in it, and shifting / expanding ideas of what it means and what ADHD 'is'. it's a relatively young dx.

part of the reason it's young is because it's basically a 'biopsychiatric' dx, meaning it diagnoses certain behaviours as being a 'brain problem' rather than having social causes or context. in practice this is complicated because psychs do use pharmacological approaches in conjunction with psychodynamic ones all the time; nevertheless, the central promise of DSM ADHD and its pharmaceutical treatments has consistently been that the ADHD subject has a physiological, neurological disorder / dysfunction / aberration, and that the drug treatments on the market fix it. that none of this is actually empirically supported is conceptually inconvenient and entrenched by the research process.

the biopsychiatric narrative is worth paying attention to because the context here is one in which it has become commonly accepted that behavioural 'disorders' and affective distress of various kinds can be, basically, either of pure biological origin, or else Your Fault. in the case of childhood hyperactivity, Your Fault historically also included Your Mother's Fault; part of the reason many mothers embraced Ritalin in the 50s and 60s was because the proffered pharmaceutical narrative explicitly challenged the idea that these mothers had done something 'wrong' to result in their (mostly) sons exhibiting disruptive and hyperactive behaviour.

this dichotomy of biology vs personal failing is very overtly present in quite a bit of discourse around ADHD today. if it's my brain being 'wrong' or different, then it's not something I've done wrong but a disease with a simple chemical fix. in this context I don't think it's surprising at all that a lot of popular and patient conceptions of ADHD have seen a considerable widening over the past few decades. often people like to blame this on pharmaceutical companies, and it's true that industry benefits from these discourses and frequently invests in them (eg, via instruments like ADDitude mag). however, that's a pretty simplistic explanation on its own and doesn't really account for the ways in which patients and potential patients also find this diagnostic category personally useful, for reasons ranging from identity-formation to the desire to access prescription amphetamines. ADHD increasingly shows up as a biologised explanation for behaviours ranging from 'eating too many sweets' to 'postural sway' and so on. you can see in such examples how invoking the idea of an aberrant ADHD brain is both reassuring to people who have been made to feel ashamed of certain behaviours, and provides a sense of shared identity and community with others.

all of this is to say: I don't find it surprising at all when I see a relative broadening of notions of ADHD, almost always expressed in biological terms (the 'ADHD brain' operates differently, 'seeks dopamine', causes this or that). ADHD is in some ways a particularly blatant distillation of this general trend in popular psychiatric discourses, for reasons relating to expectations about childhood and child behaviour, and the historical and present relationship between the ADHD label and the regulation of amphetamines. but much of what's happening with ADHD in terms of popular discourses about it can also be seen with many, many other psychiatric diagnoses, to varying extents and in various ways.

my experience writing about ADHD on this website leads me to close by explicitly stating the following: I do not think any ADHD behaviours / symptoms are people's 'fault' or an individual failing; I do not think using drugs for any reason is morally bad or needs to be justified; the fact that I do not think ADHD is a 'brain disease' does not mean I think people are 'making it up' or exaggerating wrt any difficulties they experience personally, professionally, emotionally, &c.

[llcvleywons]

꒰ — 𝙔𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝙀𝙔𝙀𝙎 𝙊𝙉𝙇𝙔. ⊹₊ ⟡ ⋆ ꒱

꒰ — in which, enhypen finds out another member likes you

꒰ — pairing — hyung line + gn!reader

꒰ — wc - about 1k

꒰ — a/n ,, first story on this account, hope you guys enjoy !

HEESEUNG is somewhat chill when he finds out sunghoon has a crush on you, not the “i’ll fucking kill him” type, but definitely would. the only thing that would set him off is when sunghoon pushed the wrong set of buttons in heeseung. you and sunghoon were just hanging out— you swore you guys were. but it seemed like sunghoon had a different idea when he wrapped his arms around you. heeseung, just getting drinks from the bar, came back. the grip in the cups changing every second, his knuckles turning white. he walked over to the two of you. “hey baby, i think i left something in the car and you need to come with me.” he grabbed you by your arm, dragging your body to the car in a rush as he pushed you inside the car while getting inside. heeseung tugged at your clothing while kissing your neck, mumbling into it.

“you think i’m fucking playing with you? it’s alright, i’ll just show sunghoon why you’re fucking mine.”

↳ more under the cut!

JAY isn’t the jealous type. like heeseung he’ll keep it cool, calm, and collected until he sees something he doesn’t like. so when he saw jake all over you, that’s when he knew when to snap. jay was just trying to get your food, until, he saw jake’s arm wrapped around your pretty body. he knew not to retaliate, but he just had to. you were his. and only his. “y/n, let’s go.” jay said grabbing your arm, you already knew what was gonna happen when you got home. the car ride home was silent, even a pin drop was heard. when you arrived home, you mentally prepared yourself for what was about to happen. you two didn’t even make it to the bedroom before you two were on the floor, jay rummaging to take off your clothes.

“you’re gonna be a good fucking girl and take what i give you. jake can’t fuck you like i do. jake can’t make you cry and beg for this dick like i do.”

SUNGHOON is definitely the jealous type, and he shows it too. constantly touching you around jay, playing with your fingers, holding your waist. there’s nothing he didn’t do with you because he wants to show him that you’re his. but it was one day jay decided to push sunghoon to the edge. jay got a little too close to you, touching your hands, holding your waist, all the things sunghoon did. and it wasn’t until later that sunghoon realized it. his head whipped around, his soft expression turning into a mean one as he basically stomped to you and jay. “we’re leaving y/n” you didn’t say anything but accepted your fate as you were being pushed head first into the backseat, softly whimpering.

“you think jay can touch you like this? see you like this? no. he can’t give you the fucking pleasure i give you. because you’re only fucking mine.”

JAKE is obviously the jealous type. i mean look at him and his handsome face. he thinks no one should touch you, see you, or have you like he does with you. you’re only his aren’t you? well, heeseung doesn’t think so. heeseung just can’t seem to keep his hands off you, playing with your hair, touching your hands from time to time. jake just doesn’t know what he’ll do if heeseung doesn’t stop. that’s why he instantly grabs your hand in a hurry. “let’s go before i fucking snap at him y/n.” he grumbles. “but jake- shut it. you put this on your fucking self.”

“i’m showing heeseung why you’re mine pretty girl.” he said as he pulled out his phone to record. “say hi to the camera, pretty.”

[moghedien]

this isn’t meant to be judgement on what other people choose or their opinions and there are reasons why there is no actual ideal solution, but if I’m playing the game in which I want every character to get what I feel is the best outcome for them personally, Shadowheart is always ending the game with her parents alive

There are a couple of reasons for this. I’ve done both endings with the Selûnite path for her, and I literally just let her pick what she wanted the first time (which ended in her parents dead) and seeing both, I do think she’s happier with her parents alive in general. I think, as with other characters (specifically Lae’zel comes to mind in her romance) you have to kinda challenge them on what their first immediate response is when giving them an option in order to get to what actually makes them happiest and what they’re afraid to admit

But if we’re not even taking like the arbitrary measure of happiness into account, I do think that thematically, keeping her parents alive is the only real option if you don’t want Shar to win.

The options here are either let her parents die and Shadowheart is free of the pain in her wound, or save her parents and Shadowheart spends the rest of her life with the threat of the wound hurting her at any moment. Basically no parents and no pain or parent and chronic pain for the rest of her life.

Harsh options either way, and especially when you phrase it as “chronic pain forever” being the thematically correct path, but look at it from the angle of rejecting Shar and what those options really signify form a Sharran angle.

If her parents die, she has no pain, which is good, but she also has no parents. She has no way of learning about her past other than random scraps she might find or maybe eventually remember somehow. She also has no attachment to her Sharran cloister anymore and no attachment to any Selûnite community either. She’s void of everything, including the physical pain. Now there’s obviously like emotional turmoil she’s feeling, and you do get a scene where she expresses that, but it’s from her loss. She only has loss now. The Lady of Loss gave up her physical hold on Shadowheart and in doing so, made Shadowheart embrace loss. Shar might not win completely, but she doesn’t really care about her individual followers and communities as much as they want her to. This is still a win for Shar because she still got Shadowheart to make Sharran choices in the end and embrace losing everything: the pain, her parents, her community, her past.

Hell, the desire to free oneself from pain entirely is a very Sharran pursuit. It’s why we see people turn to Shar. Ketheric turned to Shar as a way to get Isobel back and free himself from grief. One of the people that can lead you to the Sharran cloister is a man who remembers nothing about himself except that the House of Grief helped him because he was very sad and now he isn’t. Nevermind the fact that he doesn’t even know where he lives now or that Ketheric didn’t get what he wanted, it’s the motivation of freeing oneself from some kind of pain that drives people to Shar.

That is why Shadowheart received the injury in the first place.

I jokingly call it a shock collar sometimes, but that is basically what it literally is. You can get Shadowheart’s dad to reveal more about it if you control her and go talk to him in camp. The wound is because Shadowheart was constantly misbehaving and her parents weren’t converting, and they needed something to keep her in line and also motivate her parents. Shadowheart’s pain was supposed be negative reinforcement for her not to act on her kinder inclinations and for her parents to finally fall in line and reject Selûne so that they would stop seeing Shadowheart in pain. The desire for no more pain was supposed to drive Shadowheart and her family closer to Shar.

And all of this on top of the fact that Shadowheart’s memory was wiped repeatedly to an extreme degree, even by standards of the evil memory wiping cult. She was supposed to be a blank slate that only desired to feel nothing by the end. The perfect Sharran.

So if she keeps her family alive, what does she get? A life time of guaranteed pain from Shar, but also her family. Guilt over learning all she’s done to her parents over the 40 years they were held captive, but also answers about her life before Shar and kinder memories with them after Shar. She doesn’t get to not know all that she’s done and all that’s been taken from her, and she’s forced to feel all the negative emotions that come with that, but she gets comfort and positive feelings too.

The moment I keep going back to is the scene you get after she saves her parents where she’s clearly distressed. You get a similar version of this if her parents are dead, but if her parents are alive, they show up at the end of the scene when she’s crying because of the guilt she’s feeling toward all that happened to them. The specific moment in that which I obsess over a bit is when Shadowheart apologizes to them and says that they shouldn’t have to see her like this (because they just walked in on her crying). And it’s her mom’s response to that which makes me a little insane

It’s the emphasis on feeling that really gets me, and I think is the most important part here.

Because Shadowheart was apologizing specifically for them seeing her feeling. She was in this moment apologizing for them having to see her crying and in a very vulnerable emotional state over her own personal struggles and the immense amount of guilt she feels over seeing the extent of what was done to her parents, some of which she did. She’s not supposed to feel anything about that, as a Sharran. She’s not supposed to feel at all as a Sharran, good or bad.

But it’s her very visibly feeling something that her mom points out wanting to see. it’s the one word she puts emphasis on, because that alone is proof that Shar doesn’t have a hold on her. If she’s feeling something, even if it’s bad, then Shar isn’t winning and isn’t controlling her. Shar literally had to resort to trying to coax her into wanting nothing more than to be free of feeling in order to get her to behave, after all.

If Shadowheart accepts that she’ll have pain for the rest of her life in order to save her family, Shar doesn’t get anything but the shock collar she already had. And the point of the shock collar was to eventually never use it. Hurting Shadowheart wasn’t what Shar wanted. Shar wanted to eventually stop hurting Shadowheart because that meant she was a good perfect little Selûnite-turned-Sharran who had been properly corrupted. Pain wasn’t the point and was supposed to have an ending if Shar got what she wanted.

So when Shadowheart rejects the loss of the pain, that’s about as close as she can get to telling Shar to go fuck herself. Her plans didn’t work, not even a little. Shadowheart isn’t wiping her slate clean (again) and rejecting feeling things just because they’re painful. She’s reconnecting with the past that they spent 40 years trying to erase and she’s doing it even though it’ll be hurt.

Basically by keeping her parents alive, she’s doing every single thing Shar has spent four decades trying to stop her from doing and giving Shar absolutely nothing in return. Shar gets nothing besides the ability to hurt Shadowheart, which isn’t even something she wanted in the first place.

And proof of this is shown in the epilogue, where if you romance Shadowheart and kept her parents alive, you both point out what Shar hasn’t been triggering the wound much lately. She triggers it a lot and randomly in the end of the game, and it’s clear she’s pissed off, but by the time six months have passed, it’s apparently barely happening. Because pain wasn’t the point and it wasn’t what Shar wanted. The pain was Shar throwing a tantrum because she didn’t get what she wanted. Shadowheart calls it petty in the game and that’s literally what it is. Just pettiness from a god. And it’ll probably happen to some extent for the rest of Shadowheart’s life, yes, but it’s clear that Shar is bored and realizes it’s not going to work. She might try some other ways to get at Shadowheart eventually, but in making that choice, Shadowheart denied her any ounce of power that Shar actually cares about. Even if the pain is there, the fact that it’s there is proof that Shar failed.

[wwaheoh]

"Running Into Them at the Mall", Cunning Hares x gn!Reader, SFW, Fluff

a/n: can you tell i'm even worse at writing happy things?

At the mall, you were perusing through some movie tapes, action, comedy, horror… nothing that you felt was good enough for the Cunning Hares Weekly Movie Night. Usually you’d go to the video store on Sixth Street, Random Play, to find movies, but since you’d heard about them having to make a new account and helping Wise save Belle from the Hollow, you didn’t want to also put pressure on them to get more movies when their main income was basically gone for the time being.

Sifting through the remainder of the ‘New Release’ row, a familiar voice rang out from behind you.

Nicole ///

“Hey! Looking for a movie?” You could hear the smile in her voice. Looking back, Nicole got close, in her usual getup, hair a soft pink, basically pressing against you as she looked at the movie you had been reading the description of. “Ooh~ cheating on Random Play huh?” She spoke with a playful, teasing tone, slyly wrapping her hand around yours to get a better look at the movie you were checking out “No! Just heard about everything and don’t want to impose. I think we've watched everything there ten fold.”

“Mm, and you didn’t want to come with me to the mall?” “You got your nails done, they’d take longer to be finished than it would to check out all the movies in this whole store!” She looks at you with a deadpan expression, “Hey, perfection comes with time (and money).”

After picking out a movie, you rented the tape out for the week, before heading to the food court to grab some food before home. You realize that she had basically gotten you to buy her free lunch for the day before heading back to the base…

Billy ///

“Yo!” An artificial voice of Billy spoke behind you, nearly spooking your soul out of you. For such a loud metal-bodied guy, he was surprisingly quiet. “Whatcha looking for?” He peaked over your shoulder, “Ahh, mm, never thought you’d like this sorta movie? It ain’t Starlight Knights: The Movie but whatever, c’mon! There’s an arcade here, heard they got God•Finger, gotta get my name onto the top of the leaderboard!”

Giggling at his antics you agreed, but you reminded him that you had to pay before leaving. The movie you got wasn’t particularly your kind of movie, more dramatic and less action-y explosion-y type.

He got Number One on the Leaderboard, with you landing at Number Three.

Anby ///

Turns out, Anby was also shopping at the mall, having accidentally taken the shopping list you made- that you’d forgotten at the base.

“Hello.” The usual monotone voice had a happy tone to it, something hard to hear had you not been as close to her as you were. Turning from the movie you’d been reading the description of, you waved with a smile. “Hey Anby! Wanted to try a different spot to find a movie.” She nodded, crouching next to you to read the text on the movie cover you were holding. “This doesn’t seem to be the type of movie you’re usually interested in.”

“Yeah, been just browsing for now… wait. Why are you here? Don’t you pick next week?” “Huh? The shopping list I picked up said I was to find a movie for this week.”

You looked at the bag she held in her hand. You looked at the bag you had resting by your side. You looked at her cute face, soft white hair framing it like a picture.

“That was my shopping list.” You broke the news to her.

“Oh.”

“That was $40.”

“Nicole’s going to blow a lid.”

“Yeah…”

The two of you went through the extensive inventory of movies available in the shop, choosing one the two of you believed Nicole would like. Maybe this would save you two from Nicole’s wrath.

Nekomiya ///

a/n: i didn't forget her this time!

“Ooh? Looking for a movie?” You nearly jumped out of your skin. The sneakiness of a street cat- er, catgirl, was not to be underestimated. “What’re ya thinking?”

“Hey Nekomiya, just browsing. Nothing’s really catching my eye.” “Well, y'know what they say! You can’t think on an empty stomach, meow!” You stared at her with a deadpan expression. “Did you come here all the way just for some free lunch?”

“Aha… no! (Maybe).” You sighed, but understood. Commissions had been low recently, on the account of Nicole- and by extension the whole of the Cunning Hares, working to aid the citizens in the lawsuit against that corrupt construction company. Awful business that.

“Alright, c’mon. I’ll go check out, then let’s get some fish in that belly!” “Hey! Not all of us want fish!” “Then what do you want?” ”Mackerel…” “That’s fish.”

Bringing the video tape to the front, you paid before making your way over to the food court with Nekomiya.

[crooked-wasteland]

The Sound of Music: How the Hellaverse Doesn’t Get Musicals

Despite two generations being raised on the concepts of musical theatre through the Disney Renaissance, it's only in recent times with Disney’s failure to replicate their own formula that people have been compelled to ask why. Why do some musicals work and others don’t? It’s easy to find someone on YouTube talking about musicals and discussing the “I want”/“I am” song without really understanding what that means for the musical as an overall structure. In order to adequately grasp the importance of understanding how singing works in musicals, one must start at the beginning: Opera.

Like musicals, Opera is also broadly separated into two types of songs: Aria and Recitative. Recitative is the part of opera left behind. During the evolution of musical theatre, the operetta adapted recitative into dialogue, breaking apart the songs throughout the story and leaving only the Aria behind. Aria in opera is what are the large musical numbers that are best remembered. The entire story comes to a crawl as a character stands center stage, looks to the back wall, and starts to sing. The Aria was how theatre go-ers would learn about the characters, their motives, and desires. The recitative was often performed like a sing-song narration that could be more or less musical, but the true depth of the story was found in the Aria.

The reason why the story worked was the structural cohesion of getting to know your character in one grand, memorable way and checking in with them as the narration went along. You would see how they changed based on the songs and their progressions. You’d understand why things would change as the songs were coordinated with dramatic events littered throughout the plot. Something would happen followed by a character singing how that thing affected them. This basic structure inherited from Opera is still the structure of Musical Theatre. The Aria further deconstructed into the “I Am” and “I Want” songs. These songs as a basis help offer a deeper connection between the audience and the characters while also adding a sensation of progression with how the songs interplay between the narrative and world.

With the transition to our modern musical theater, we have tightened up the formula of integrating musical numbers and the pacing of traditional theater. Singing should never result in a stagnation of the story. We should constantly be learning something about the characters, story, or world at all times. Music works best when paired with profound moments in the story. The more emotionally heightened a scene or plot point, the more effective it is to express it in a song.

These are just the broad, unrefined general guides to how musicals work, but I believe these are substantial enough to grasp what makes a “good” musical and what is lacking when someone says a musical is “bad”.

On the surface Happy Day in Hell appears to be a classic “I want” song, heavily inspired by Howard Ashman’s Belle. My argument for this comparison being that Happy Day in Hell touches on all superficially similar points as Belle from the unnamed background chorus, Vaggie following Charlie by jumping along the rooftops similarly to Gaston, and the overall subjects the song incorporates such as the emphasis on setting. My points are focused on the superficial and take in account that the context are not identical, but the purpose was meant to be an imitation in some manner. Whether its a homage to Beauty and the Beast or merely a clumsy ripoff, Hazbin Hotel is very obviously copying notes. Which is why it's easy to identify why this song just doesn’t work.

I will preface this portion by recommending Calxiyn Cares Too Much’s video on Happy Day in Hell. She makes similar points to me and, while we do disagree on some points, overall she has more ethos than I do, being a musical theater performer. She is generally more lenient on the music and story than I am while providing more in depth technical critique in terms of rhyming conventions and lyrical pacing. But while I don’t agree with everything she has to say, I do think her video is worth a listen.

To come out and say it, Happy Day in Hell is a disaster of an “I Want” song due to a lack of coherent wants and this is the result of not knowing how writing and stories work. Even divorced from the structure of a musical, the entire message of the song is fundamentally confused and this is in part a failure of understanding narrative structure and misunderstanding what was going on in Belle.

In Disney’s 1991 animated film, Howard Ashman started the story with a magnificent musical number, masterfully weaving in the setting with the desires of the titular character and her conflict with the rest of the world. She is an outsider, both in her own perspective and that of the town. We see her disinterest in them with her line “There’s the Baker with his tray like always with the same old breads and rolls to sell”, layering the delivery with a hint of melancholy and perhaps even a hint of condescension. The lack of variety in her life is a source of resentment to her, not in that fiery passionate sense, but the frustrated impotence that comes with craving experiences over stability. She isn’t a cruel or rude person, but her attitude towards them is that of how someone would regard an NPC.

This is most clearly seen when she attempts to engage the baker in conversation about her book and he waves her off. The little eye-roll and smile as if to say, “Of course” with a shrug of her shoulders. It’s the purest display of condescension without malice. The movie has comparisons of the Townspeople to Sheep, first having Belle interact with sheep instead of the town before depicting the town as its own kind of herd to later outright having The Mob Song with the lyrics “We don't like/ What we don't understand/ In fact it scares us”. The subliminal messaging of their “sheep mentality” is intentional and multifaceted, not just positioning Belle above them by simply setting her apart but confirming that her perceived superiority should be seen as the truth. Belle is a better person than anyone else in town, she is special, that isn’t being challenged.

This is called world building. Belle’s singing is not just telling us about the town, but her feelings about the town and the town’s relationship to her. It foreshadows the finale and sets all the tracks down to move the story along. Belle wants fantasy and adventure, she doesn’t care that she doesn’t fit in whereas the Town’s musings of her shows that her not conforming is disruptive to them. This additionally explains why Gaston and his quest to marry Belle is so supported by the town at the end of the film. Why would they completely go along with imprisoning her father in the asylum unless Belle agreed to marry Gaston.

The opening number made that kind of escalation so natural to where it makes little sense to question motivations of anyone involved in the story. We have a thorough and intricate roadmap of conflicting wants and needs from three major characters in the cast all through the subliminal use of language and themes. So when Belle is literally singing about the town what she is actually conveying are her motivations for her want. “I want so much more than this provincial life.” The character embodying that provincial life is the Town. The Town is what Belle wants to run away from. Gaston is the force trying to keep Belle from leaving the town and pressure her into something that better adheres to the values of the town.

This song is the thesis of Beauty and the Beast.

Similarly, Happy Day in Hell is the thesis of Hazbin Hotel. But what exactly is that thesis? This is where the wheels fall off the cart. Happy Day in Hell doesn’t set the stage for Charlie’s desires and motivations, but rather loses focus and meaning the second Charlie leaves the hotel.

The straightforward response is that Charlie wants to convince Heaven of something to motivate them to do something about her Hotel.

It is unclear what she expects Heaven to do, let alone what she is going to do to get that outcome. In just discussing this question I have been told what Charlie wants is anything from “Convince Heaven to redeem sinners” (like she appears to be doing in Welcome to Heaven) to “Convince them to stop the genocide” (which seems to make more sense in regards to Adam and Lute), however neither of these aspects actually address the main issue of the song number: Sinners don’t believe in Charlie and her hotel.

This issue is also why the actual structure of the episode is just wrong: the B plot has nothing to do with the A plot. While it isn’t always necessary for that to be the case, it actually holds a story together better when they do overlap. In Rick and Morty season 3 episode titled “Pickle Rick”, the family attends therapy and Rick turns himself into a pickle to get out of it. Beth takes the syringe full of an antidote Rick was going to use to turn back into a human after the family left, showing how she doesn’t trust Rick not to abandon her. Beth’s B plot of attending therapy with the kids thus ties directly back to her fears of abandonment and distrust that kicked off the episode in the first place while juxtaposed with Rick’s A plot that, on the surface, has absolutely nothing to do with therapy. However, Rick entering a top secret base is metaphorical to him infiltrating Beth’s emotional fortress. He never asked to be there, and for all intents and purposes he doesn’t want to be.

As Beth locks down her emotions on Dr. Wang, the facility responds similarly. Even more, it is a father who is sent to kill Rick in order to protect his daughter. A plot point that becomes an even deeper parallel in the season five finale where it is revealed that Rick’s tragic backstory of his Beth being killed in an explosion alongside his wife from season 3 was actually true. So Jaguar having refused to work for the Russians and losing his daughter in the process is a direct and intentional parallel of their motivations. The hardships Rick faces throughout the episode from rebuilding his body to destroying a secret Russian spy base are thematically relevant to the B plot of attending family therapy. This episode also places Beth and Rick in a position to have their relationship evolve through “Froopyland”.

”Pickle Rick” was emotionally and thematically necessary in moving the characters to a place where they could change. And that was masterfully rafted through parallels between the A and B plots. So when it comes back to structuring “Happy Day in Hell”, it makes no sense for Charlie’s plot to focus on convincing Heaven to do anything. It makes more sense for her to be trying to convince Sinners to come to her hotel and attempt redemption. If she is trying to convince Heaven to redeem sinners, she should have sinners who she thinks are ready to be redeemed. If she is seeking a ceasefire from the exterminators, then she should have a hotel with more than one resident to show that there is a desire for redemption within Hell. If anything, the song reaffirms that Charlie’s plight is pointless.

Because of this confusion and lack of focus, Happy Day in Hell is a weak thesis for Hazbin Hotel. It apes on structures it doesn’t understand, telling a story it hasn’t earned, and fails to thematically connect the two plots of the episode despite having both leads in Vaggie and Charlie singing together. Structurally, the song foreshadows the fumbling of the rest of the series’ major plot and world building. It lacks an understanding of why musicals are the way they are and fails on even a surface level to comprehend the important role of musical diagesis And its inherent limitations in storytelling on top of failing to structure the music thematically to the character motivations and overarching plot.

Visual Storytelling is an intricate circus of multiple mediums coordinating together in a delicate balance that can corrupt the entire production by just one mistake in the visuals, pacing, writing, or music. All of these categories have their own completely unique set of rules that only become more complicated when trying to be used in tandem. And to have a director not understand the fundamentals of ¾ of those categories results in a sloppy cacophony of poor choices.

[cinnamonest]

Yan childe x teacher reader BUT the reader has a lover OMG I CAN'T-

//cucking + filming noncon, age gap, Ajax is an awful little bastard as usual

(also here's the original Delinquent!Childe x Teacher!Reader post, and the second sequel post)

Oh anon. Anon. I love this, but consider: take it a step further.

The poor boy finding out that his precious teacher he’s been fantasizing about fucking silly is MARRIED.

Typing away on her keyboard when his eyes drift and he stiffens up when he sees the ring he never noticed before. The pain. The horror. Devastated.

He’s never even met the guy, and yet he hates him so much. It’s not fair that he got to you first, just because he was born earlier than he was!

He’s probably not good enough for you. Some old guy who can’t rail you with the vigor and intensity that a young guy like himself can, probably can’t keep up with your drive either. You must be so frustrated and unsatisfied.

Now it feels so awful on his tongue to call you what he normally does. Miss _____, he says, and it feels like he’s spewing poison from his mouth, knowing it’s some other man’s name practically forced on you by dumb traditions and social standards (not that he wouldn’t do the same, but that’s different). It makes his chest hurt to hear it, the name feels like a constant reminder that some other man basically has laid claim to you, that the name marks you as belonging to someone who isn’t him.

He does some digging, finds everything he can on the guy, any online profiles or social accounts. Ugh. You deserve better. If it were him, he would just support you himself, you wouldn’t have to slave away doing paperwork all the time.

Even worse is the fact that the guy has a nice job — you know, the kind you need some higher degrees for, which he definitely won’t get seeing as his behavioral record is pretty much guaranteed to keep him out of any credible institution… still, you don’t need that much money to get by. Sure, he’ll never make that much (without getting into crime, at least, which isn’t an impossibility…), but still, he’s better for you.

It’s so much worse, though, when he stalks your accounts, sees pictures of the two of you together. Makes him feel sick to his stomach, you look happy and he doesn’t like that. He ends up having to close the window, unable to handle any further emotional damage.

He starts to pry, little by little. Can’t be too blatant, but he slips in a question every now and then — how you met, what you two do for fun, so on and so on. It makes his stomach churn to hear you talk about him, but he can’t refrain from continuing to ask, practically a compulsive urge.

God forbid you express any sort of discontentment. Even the slightest frustrated sigh, passive-aggressive comment in regards to the man, and so on, he perks up and zeros in. Oh, so you are unhappy. Typical unsatisfied wife that’s getting pent up from unmet needs and all that.

He’s very attentive to those complaints, the things you mutter under your breath and the implications of it all. He works too long and is never home (terrible, he would never leave you so lonely), he’s never helpful around the home (which wouldn’t be so much of an issue if you were home all the time and didn’t have work responsibilities), he suspiciously disappears sometimes for “work trips” or unexplained entirely (unforgiveable, your suspicions are well-founded, he’s definitely cheating and you shouldn’t forgive it).

Sometimes you sigh and shake your head — ah, sorry, I shouldn’t trouble someone your age with all this… but he assures you it’s fine… also he’s searched a list of local divorce attorneys, you know, if you consider that, which you should.

He’s not the best at being subtle or exercising restraint, so he can’t help but actually mention it out loud — life is short, better to divorce than stay in a miserable relationship! But you sigh and say it’s not that serious. He holds out on the hope that there’s an unspoken “yet” at the end of that, that eventually you’ll get fed up.

But you don’t. You keep tolerating it. It’s somewhat understandable, since divorces are difficult and messy, and you would need somewhere to stay and all that.

But getting one’s own place isn’t that hard. He would know, now — he’s actually been picking up odd jobs recently, all to get his own place. Hard to balance that with schoolwork, but he manages (and he’s in the absolute bottom-tier difficulty for courses anyway, with very little actual homework, and it’s not like he’s prepping for college like a lot of his peers). You’re very pleased with it, say you’re proud of him for being so dedicated and responsible, completely unaware that he only really has one intention for doing it all anyway.

He was planning to take that part slowly, ease his way there, but you push the limits of how much he can tolerate when he’s forced to meet the guy face-to-face. He’s just sitting there as per usual in your after-school sessions, talking a mile a minute as per usual, having a good day, completely unprepared for the psychological gut-punch he’s forced to experience when that same face he saw online comes walking right into your classroom. The sacred space that’s supposed to be just for you and him.

His soul is crushed when you get up to greet the guy all happily, practically ignoring him for several extended seconds before you gesture over to where he’s sitting and introduce each other — with himself as the student I’ve been tutoring, you know the one. The man nods, casts a single uncaring glance his direction.

Right. She mentioned you before.

The hell does that mean. He keeps the smile plastered to his face, but it’s twitchy. What did you say? Was it bad? No, you wouldn’t say anything bad about him… except maybe certain factual statements like the whole behavioral record thing, but he can accept that that’s his own fault.

Still, he doesn’t like the way the guy looks at him. A vague condescending, disdainful glance. Makes him curl his hands into fists and clench his jaw. If it weren’t for the whole “impulse management” thing you’ve been hammering into his head for months now, he might have outright attacked the guy.

It’s practically torture to sit there. You say something about how you’re going out for your anniversary, so he came to pick you up. Awful. Like you might as well have stabbed him. Not to mention it’s cutting into what’s supposed to be his time with you, and now he has to leave early.

So he’s forced to walk to the front doors with you both, listening to you talk all happily about where you’re going, while he’s forced to continue to pretend to be perfectly fine with it. Ugh.

You bid him goodbye, and he smiles and waves and walks the opposite way… and the moment you’re out of sight, he’s scowling and grinding his teeth and kicking rocks on the road all the way home, sulking like a petulant kid, imagining all the horrible ways he hopes your date goes terribly wrong.

It makes him seethe all night long, laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, nausea ruining any chance he had of sleeping. He can’t even go sulk around his parents with the hope of getting attention like he used to do when he was mad, now that he lives in this little apartment by himself.

How is he supposed to live under these conditions, no attention available on demand. You don’t even text him to see if he got home safe like you do sometimes. Probably too busy doing whatever with your husband who’s more important than he is. Hmph. His mind briefly flickers to wondering what you’re doing now that it’s later in the night, but the obvious realization only makes him feel ten times more sick. He doesn’t get any rest.

And the longer the night goes on, the more irritated he starts to feel, the misery and hurt begins to turn to bitterness and anger. He starts to feel like you probably know — no, you definitely do. And yet, you willingly tortured him like that. You've been so nice to him, giving him all that attention and affection, knowing you won't ever give him what he really wants and being totally fine with causing him so much pain. He's hurt, and more importantly, mad.

But he can't hate you… your husband, however, is a different story.

That guy kept his arm around your waist walking outside, rubbing it in his face like that. He’s certain that your husband must realize that he loves you (way more than said husband does, for the record), but that look of disdain — he doesn’t even see him as a threat, does he. Thinks that he’s not even proper competition. That much is painful. Bothersome. Annoying. Rage-inducing.

Well, he’s wrong.

That’s the thought that pushes him over the edge. He’s already had the idea in his head for a long time, he just kept bailing out every time he gathered the gall to go through with it, much to his own shame.

But clearly, continuing to be passive is not going to get him anywhere. Come to think of it, a few months ago, he would never have hesitated to go through with whatever impulse struck him, no matter how violent. It’s not like he hasn’t been expelled or arrested before.

He appreciates the time he’s spent with you, but he’s starting to think that all those little speeches about “self-control” and “thinking before you act” and all that have only really just made him docile and tame. How embarrassing.

A man should just take what he wants, right? Anything less is practically a blow to his pride.

He’s still not the brightest when it comes to formulating plans, but his rather straightforward plan ends up working. You actually agree to swing by when he says he has something to give you, something too big to carry to school himself, so he needs you to come pick it up with your car and all that. You must really trust him. Or you’re just naive, maybe, but he likes to think you trust him, however unwise that may be.

He worries that you might back out, but you show right up to his door. The motions from there are mechanical, putting his brain on a sort of autopilot mode in which he just goes through with it, without thinking too much, lest he hesitate, until you’re secured.

Grabbing you by the shoulder and jerking you inside, hand over your mouth, other arm around your waist and picking you up. It's a short distance to the bed (well, mattress on the floor), since it's just a studio apartment and all.

You being so weak makes it so much easier. He can technically tell you're struggling, but it barely feels like resistance, just weak squirming and thrashing that doesn't even loosen his grip in the slightest. You make cute little noises of surprise and confusion and fear, muffled by his hand over your mouth.

Sadly, he can't afford to have you attracting attention from the neighbors, so he's forced to keep you gagged, pulling your shirt over your head (to which your whimpers turn to full-fledged sounds of panic), and — after the brief moment where he has to detach his hand from your mouth, hearing you stammer out a wait, wait— balls it up and stuffs it into your mouth, quickly grabbing the duct tape (he, feeling very proud of himself for such clever forethought, thought to go ahead and tear some long strips off and stick the ends to the wall ahead of time), and placing it over your mouth, flipping you over onto your stomach.

You're so cute. You make the cutest little noises, your eyes get all teary, you squirm and whimper and try to pull yourself away, but he's got your wrists pinned behind your back with one hand, the other pulling your hips back. The cutest part by far has to be when you feel him jerk your skirt up, his cock pressing against your flesh and pushing inside of you, your squeals get louder and higher pitched and you struggle so hard, to no avail.

So mean, though, to pretend like you didn't see it coming. You know what you did. You led him on on purpose. Knowing full well the sort of things he's done to other people — beating his peers black and blue on impulsive whims, getting into fights because he felt like it, stealing stuff and vandalizing stuff and all those other things he knows you know he did, since it's all on his records… you willingly came all by yourself, in private, with someone like that, who you know full well is so much stronger than you are—

What did you fucking expect?

Up until then, the stream of words from his mouth are all amused and teasing and sadistic, but in those words, and the sharp jerking thrust accompanying them, you hear that underlying anger breaking through. You really hurt him, you know, by being married. He loves you so much, and you had to go and do that to me, he says, as if it was a retroactive choice, as if you should have predicted his presence in your life years in advance, as if you willfully did it to spite him years before you knew he existed.

Is it irrational? Sure… but it isn't going to change that he feels that way, and he’s mad and you can't do anything about it anyway, so he's going to keep blaming you for what you did wrong.

He keeps muttering about how stupid you are — for coming here so naively, for choosing your dumb fucking husband over him when he's so much better and loves you so much more, for all the little things you did to lure him in and make him want you so badly, for being so nice to him and having a body you should have known would make him want this so badly.

It's all your fault.

The words get more and more muffled and slurred as the movements get faster, harsher, you squeal with each thrust that makes the springs creak and the whole mattress itself move back and forth against the floor. He points out that you're leaking all over him, fluid drooling out of your hole and spilling onto his hips and thighs, satisfied by the shameful little whimper you make and the way you hang your head. You must not get fucked good enough at home, huh.

And then, he starts to slow down. There's a pause. You see him reach over, to where he tossed a few things that were on you when you came in onto the floor. Fishes something out of your purse.

You made a confused, panicked little sound when you notice he's holding your phone. Easily unlocked, whatever method you use — he holds it up to your face or forces your thumb to press against it, or, most alarmingly, even if it's protected by password or pattern, he enters it with a single try. Shouldn't have opened your phone around him so much, of course he would pay attention to that.

You're flipped onto your back, reeling from the sudden harsh movement, grunting and squirming when your bra is pulled up to your collarbones and your skirt pulled up even further, exposing your body completely before shoving back inside of you, and oh, what a euphoric sound you make — and this time, you visibly clench down on him when he does. Perfectly timed, too.

Your stomach clenches in dread and panic as you see your phone’s front side facing you.

Smile.

You cry out louder than ever before, struggle so hard, so good. His hand latches onto your throat and squeezes hard, and your hands, now no longer in his grasp, reach up to claw at them, all entirely futile. The sound of skin slapping skin reverberates around the room, and you see him tilt the camera downward, ensuring he captures the sight of his cock pounding into you, stretching you apart, all the slick fluid now coating everything from your thighs to his hips, and the sweet, precious sounds you make for him.

He wonders if anyone has ever made you react like this before. If your husband is going to be torn apart by the realization that he's made you feel better than he ever has, that he's better and bigger than him. The sheer fear on your face would suggest that. The thought feels euphoric.

He re-angles himself, leaning forward a bit, ensuring his body presses against your clit — you start to tense up, push back, your heels dig into the mattress and your body writhes with greater force than ever before. Your eyes squeeze shut and you shake your head but he doesn't stop, and you hate yourself so much in the moment for the sensations your body feels, the guilt and despair overwhelm you, you feel a cold chill in your gut — but you finally spasm and shudder on his cock all the same, clearly trying so hard to minimize it and hold back the sounds and movements, but the involuntary shudders and soft little cries are unmistakable all the same.

Normally, he would want to stay inside you longer — but there will be plenty of chance for that later. This time, the prospect of pulling out and capturing it is too tempting, and God, is it satisfying when he does. The squelching sound, the way his cum starts to drool out of you onto the mattress, the way your hole twitches from the sudden absence, slightly agape from the intrusion. It's so, so perfect, better than he could have even imagined.

You rip the tape off your mouth, gagging and coughing from the strain on your throat, and the overwhelming sensation leaves you in a dazed stupor for a few moments… your head slowly drags over to him, and an ice-cold spike of fear strikes through your heart when you see that he's still on your phone.

Slight movement from you as you try to push yourself upright takes his attention away from it, eyes flickering over to you.

Ah, right.

You make a scared little sound and pull your hands close to your chest (very cute!) as he looms over you again, but you're helpless to do anything as he puts the phone down to flip you over again, this time taping your wrists behind your back, adding a new layer over your mouth, and finally one on your ankles. Your struggles barely faze him.

You see him zip his pants back up and pull his shirt back on, standing and making his way over to the door, shuffling his shoes back on before grabbing your car keys.

I'll bring these back. Your place is only five minutes away if I drive, you know. I won’t get into any wrecks this time.

It occurs to you that you've never told him where you live, but it's the least of your concerns then and there. Your heart sinks to your stomach as he takes your phone again, grinning as he types and, after a pause, makes one distinct, final tap that you know can only be hitting 'send.'

His head turns over to you, that same dopey, carefree smile on his face as always, that now seems so much more sinister than before.

Don't worry. He won't have enough time to call the cops.

Your muffled words don't stop him. You writhe pathetically on the ground as the door opens and closes before you, listening in dread and despair as his footsteps slowly fade away.

[y-rhywbeth2]

D&D Vampire Lore Dump #2

"Biology" Their "metabolism" and their physical body, their senses, why they're not aging and "vampires actually make fantastic torture victims, if you're a monster: vampire healing and how to inflict scars on them."

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER FOR FIRST TIME READERS: There are two things to note about the lore presented here: First, while the standard stat block in the monster manual is the default, in terms of lore vampires have this annoying tendency to be incredibly, stupidly varied. They are magical monstrosities ruled by the power of symbolism and superstition above anything else.

The next is that D&D is decades old, spans five editions, several settings and hundreds of writers. One guy establishes a piece of lore, and then the next picks it up goes "nah" and writes something else. I collected info from four different source books, all from different editions, which naturally don't entirely agree on how vampires work. Lore never stays consistent and may contradict itself. You may see information somewhere else from a source I don't have that contradicts what I wrote here. If you read this and like some of this stuff but not other bits, take the good and ditch the rest. Larian themselves have not written BG3 totally compliant with some established D&D lore or the original games.

Basically, in D&D, canon is what you decide it is.

Feeding | "Biology" | Hierarchy | Weaknesses and Cures | Psychology

The transformation into a vampire causes little physical change, except for the fangs, and the fact that their facial features seem take on a permanent hardened expression, appearing more "feral" in a way that is likened to a starving wolf. Spawn moreso than freed vampires, and in 5e they have claws despite the fact that freed vampires don't. Rarely a vampire's eyes turn red upon changing, but this doesn't usually happen. Their eyes do start glowing red when they're angry through.

Most of the vampire's five senses are sharpened by undeath. They can see perfectly in the dark, for example, and are very hard to catch off guard. The only one that gets duller than it was when they were alive is the sense of touch - "a blunt, phantom sense of touch, more mechanical than biological. It is a pale, crude approximation of a real tactile sense." They don't feel the effects of physical exertion and their ability to feel pain is dulled (but not nonexistent). They're not particularly bothered by high or cold temperatures unless they're at extremes (like frostbite levels, or "standing by a lava pool" levels). They're also largely unbothered by electric shocks.

They don't breathe, though they do actually have a heartbeat as their blood still gets pumped around their body. It doesn't provide any biological need of a living circulatory system, but is possibly part of keeping the body animated via magic.

Vampires do not produce body heat and tend to be room temperature to the touch unless they've fed within the last 24 hours, in which case they appear alive.

Lacking brain activity on account of being dead, vampires are immune to mind effecting spells and psionics. The fact that Astarion is affected by the tadpole is likely due to Netherese magic. The parasite is canonically modifying his undead state to its needs and has shut down his vampiric abilities, as he observes in one banter.

Their physical abilities massively increase. They have superhuman strength, speed and reflexes and are far more durable than the living.

Vampiric blood looks like humanoid blood at first glance, but takes on a golden sheen when held up to a light source. Also if the vampire it came from is still alive, then that blood can have strange magic properties… which are random! Maybe it burns like acid, or puts you under mind control if you touch it, or explodes into flame when exposed to sunlight! You won't know 'til you find out, it could do anything or nothing.

Vampires are capable of siring partially-undead children with the living (Dhampirs). Dhampirs are alive but as they grow up and their undead heritage starts to manifest they begin to share their vampire parent's cravings and feeding habits and are not terribly fond of said parent, as a rule.

Vampires are the only undead that require sleep. That turned out to be a very long topic of its own though, so maybe I'll focus on the details another time. Short version: Vampires have an instinctive knowledge of how close sunrise is. Some vampires can chose to sleep much like humans, others will immediately shut down the second the sun appears over the horizon and be dead until the moment it next sinks below said horizon, at which point the vampire is 1000% aware and awake again. They are bound to soil from their grave/homeland and must sleep on/in that or be destroyed. In BG3 specifically, looking at Cazador, elves still reverie (trance) in undeath. (In reverie, elves relive their memories of years gone by in vivid real time instead of dreaming. It's how elves avoid forgetting their own lives while living 700+ years) Vampires also hibernate, where they chose to go into a deep sleep for an unknown and uncontrollable length of time reaching centuries in length. Usually due to depression.

A vampire's body is frozen in time, and they will always have the same appearance they had when they died. The magic that keeps the vampire frozen in time, unageing, also gives them regenerative properties as it tries to reset them. Within minutes of receiving a wound, the wound has closed itself as if it were never there. "Wounds close, broken bones reform themselves, even missing limbs regenerate…" Reducing a vampire to 0 hit points also does not kill them, but that's for a later instalment. If one were to torture a vampire one could get both incredibly creative and make it last indefinitely.

They also can't get new tattoos or piercings, as the body heals them over again and pushes out the ink/metal. On the same logic if they had body modifications before they died then they'd never be able to get rid of them - if you scrape off the skin a tattoo is on or tore off a pierced lobe, the skin that grows back will still have the tattoo and the ear will have the hole for the earing still there.

However, there are forms of magical damage that inflict permanent marks on a vampire, which are called stigmata. Sunlight, holy water, holy symbols and the like are known to leave a scar. A silver plated blade might also do it.

There are two energy planes: Positive and Negative. Also known as the Planes of Life and Death, whose energies infuse the Prime Material Plane (which contains worlds like Earth and Toril). Living creatures are powered by positive energy (also called "radiant"), while the undead are animated by negative energy ("necrotic"). It's actually theorised that the undead somehow exist on the Prime Material Plane and the Negative Energy Plane simultaneously, though this seems gets into a lot of planar lore and conflicting information that I'm not going into. Traditionally, due to this difference, the undead are healed by spells made of negative/necrotic energy such as Inflict Wounds spells, but in reverse would be harmed by healing spells. 5e has not included this detail, that I've seen.

[vickyvicarious]

Ooh any thoughts on the pairs chosen and their tasks, for the final hunt?

I actually think I have a half-written post about exactly this lurking in my drafts from last year, though I will warn you that it contains spoilers for the journeys. Let me see if I can find it and finish it/clean it up a smidge... Ah. Yes. Here it is:

So, let's take a look at our travel arrangements. The team almost (but not quite) split up into the exact three options Mina listed for Dracula to follow. The only difference being that instead of "by road" we have "along the river." But still it's pretty close.

Each group has a sort of designated scribe who has historically been one of the main writers of the novel (more a meta necessity this, but given the heroes making such use of records it is still helpful to them if they wish to compile an account afterwards as well) as well as someone who will probably take the lead on vampire hunting, though where they can everyone will surely assist. They also have at least one person per group who can presumably make themselves understood by locals. I also added a 'caretaker' category because they're all running low on steam and it is an important consideration character-wise.

Basically this is just me taking a look at how each team is divvied up and why/what meta we could get out of it.

By Rail: Van Helsing and Mina

Scribe: Mina

Fighter: Van Helsing

Languages: Van Helsing

Caretaker: alternating

The two leaders. The brains if you will. They are heading straight to the castle. Van Helsing wants to kill the vampire women, and if he can get the jump on them/ambush them in their coffins it makes sense for him to do so rather than the younger men, whose strength is better saved for a possible direct confrontation with Dracula. And if anyone dies doing this, Van Helsing basically says better the old man who has already lived a long life. Keeping Mina further away from Dracula for as long as possible makes sense too in order to minimize what influence he can have upon her. Having her along to help find the castle as well will be useful, though it does mean she'll be brought in closer contact with his seat of operations and other vampires. But they've planned not to bring her into the castle itself.

The mode of transport is fitting for both of them. Mina of course IS the train fiend and so it's perfect for her to ride a train there. But Van Helsing too has spent a lot of time riding trains back and forth in the book to acquire information that can save a woman from becoming a vampire. Now his last train journey is in an effort to put that information into practice as he tries to save Mina from becoming a vampire/stop the spread by killing the other vampires. Not to mention of course Mina isn't really well and he is older so letting them take the relatively less taxing forms of transportation (train then carriage) makes sense. They both express concern for one another and work together to make sure the other is doing as well as they can throughout the journey as well.

Mina specifically traveling this way makes for a really cool transition from her utilizing the ultra-modern method to then traveling into the past almost as she echoes Jonathan's journey from the beginning of the book and also becomes more and more connected to vampirism/the vampire ladies (and by extent the ancient opposite of the modern civilization that the train represents). This rush to get there first also could reflect the two of them, but especially Mina, outthinking Dracula as they are ready to ambush him upon arrival.

Finally, Van Helsing was the most concerned over Mina's fate and was the one she put most in charge of deciding when she be killed... but he was meant to ensure Jonathan did the deed. So it makes for a really interesting pairing to put him there to make that final judgement but his own promise inclines him to put off action even if he thinks she's passed the point of no return. That said he still is trying really hard to have faith in her despite his doubts and fears, not just because of the promise.

By Land: Quincey and Jack

Scribe: Jack

Fighter: Quincey

Languages: Jack

Caretaker: none

Quincey volunteers early for this job. And Jack speaks up to join him because they work well together and have done things like this before. This actually makes them the only team to both do that, as Van Helsing argued for where Jonathan and Mina should both go. They are also the only pair who already know one another well pre-vampire hunting together.

While this is perhaps the least likely route to meet vampires (second-likeliest route to encounter Dracula, but the other group will almost certainly meet the vampire ladies) it is probably the most physically taxing. They're riding all day. Jack could theoretically be the caretaker here, as he is the doctor, but in reality they both are pressing on really hard and neither one is shown to be making sure the other gets enough rest or whatever. It kind of seems like they're setting a pace where they're both tired enough to just drop off when they get a chance.

Quincey is the leader among the two of them. He's the first to volunteer, and he seems very comfortable with horses and leading a hunt. However, in the larger context of his role in the group as a whole, he is very much the support, and while Jack has had a much larger role, when in the group he's generally support as well (though his trust with Van Helsing means he is usually more involved in discussions than Quincey). So it is fitting that these two are taking the "just in case" route - especially Quincey, who often does this sort of filling in where needed. Also fitting that they are bringing along horses for the others should they be needed. They're being the support team.

One more kind of interesting detail... this is the only group to actually travel with other people for a while, but also the group who talks to locals least. No meta point to this, just noticed it.

By Water: Arthur and Jonathan

Scribe: Jonathan

Fighter: Jonathan

Languages: Jonathan

Caretaker: Arthur

This list of roles makes it sound like Arthur isn't doing much. But that's far from true. It's quite possible he can communicate with locals as well (I just put Jonathan down as we know for a fact he can, though stiltedly) and he's proven himself in defeating a vampire in the past. Jonathan however is the main fighter, shown multiple times not to hesitate to attack Dracula. In fact though, Arthur's most important role here is as the caretaker and transport. He ensures that Jonathan gets the rest he needs, and he's the one not only to acquire the boat but the one who knows how to operate it. Not flawlessly, as we are told when there's a crash, but he's still essential in getting them up the river.

These two men following what seems to be the specific route Dracula took makes for some really interesting continuation of Jonathan's book-long acquisition/mimicry of Dracula's traits. The boat in the first place and then their impersonation of Romanian officials also is another instance of the repeated contrast of Arthur as the good (vis)count using his money and status to help, as opposed to Count Dracula or his alias De Ville using his status and money for evil.

It also is really fitting to pair Jonathan and Arthur together as the two husbands of the women Dracula has attacked. Arthur's reality could become Jonathan's future if they don't succeed here. There's some psychopomp imagery that got talked about a few years ago which can add another fun layer. The linked post there is focused mostly on Greek mythology, and talks more about this, but these two being the ones to travel up a river into a symbolic land of the dead (Dracula's land) is fitting in a couple ways too.

When convincing him to go with Arthur, Van Helsing invokes Jonathan's right to revenge as well. Mina aside, both of these two are the ones who have the most 'right' in that sense, as they've been most personally harmed by the Count. Arthur has gotten some measure of closure when staking Lucy at least, but Jonathan hasn't had anything of the sort. They're both "young and strong" and highly motivated.

.

Not to be reductive, but there's kind of a fun thing going on with head/hand/heart here if you want. Mina and Van Helsing are the new/old brains and each leaders in their own right. Quincey and Jack are both more supportive characters at least by this point in the book and one is shown to be a protector physically while the other is literally a doctor. Jonathan and Arthur are the lovers of the women attacked by Dracula, and also represent two different approaches to the idea of said love becoming a vampire (though again it's never fully realized in Jonathan's case, so presumably he could have gone either way should he be forced to actually make the choice).

Another fun detail when comparing all three... In each case, one person or another takes the lead at least some of the time. Mina and Van Helsing are the ones who alternate that role most. They both take turns looking after one another, driving the horses, and we even get written accounts from both of them. Jonathan and Arthur both take turns on watch but Arthur is the one who knows what he's doing on the ship and looking after Jonathan who is totally focused on leading the hunt. We don't hear much from the other two on their journey, but presumably Quincey is mostly in the lead - I say this because he historically has been in such circumstances (which Jack specifically mentioned when agreeing to go with him).

[the-way-astray]

The Keefe Sencen Infantilization Argument (because I've seen people say that saying he infantilizes Sophie is a bad-faith argument):

(Note: This post is a repost. I had my thoughts scattered out over a few posts, so I wanted to put them all together in one cohesive post. If you've already seen all the original posts, then aside from like two sentences being reworked and the format being better now, there's like nothing new here for you. Sorry.)

Examples of Keefe infantilizing Sophie and my explanations as to why this is infantilization and not okay:

Lodestar, chapter 4. What I originally said: “There you go, rocking the whole adorable-when-you’re-angry thing. I think that’s what I’ve missed about you the most.” Keefe infantilizes Sophie by saying she’s cute when she’s angry. She is trying to express her feelings, and all Keefe can do is be all Awwwwww. Isn’t that so cute? She’s angry! How adorable. It’s a form of invalidating someone’s feelings, by treating them like they’re just entertainment or by brushing them off like that. It’s some of the most manipulative behavior out there. It also saves Keefe from having to actually take Sophie’s feelings into account. His infantilization of her also shows up in his incessant need to protect her. It’s icky and gross, and authors should stop encouraging this behavior.

Sophie and Keefe are having a mental conversation and Keefe starts talking about Sophie's love triangle/square situation and Sophie doesn't want to talk about it. Not a fan of this, because Keefe butts into Sophie's personal business, then when she gets worked up, he heavily implies that he thinks it's cute. But this one isn't particularly bad compared to the others. Don't get me wrong, I still think this is infantilization, but the best I can say about it is it's not the worst example.

Lodestar, chapter 46. What I originally said: “You’re so cute when you worry, he told her.” More classic Keefe infantilization. He once again invalidates Sophie’s feelings by dumbing them down and acting like they’re this cute, quirky, inconsequential thing.

Sophie is obviously incredibly worried. Keefe clearly knows this. And his comment is to be like Yeah, but don't you know that makes you sooooo cute??? Like, sir.

Lodestar, chapter 65. What I originally said: “Is this going to be another one of those nights where you spend the whole time yelling at me to come home? Keefe asked, making her sit up straighter as his thoughts filled her head. Because as much as I love it when you get all feisty on me, now’s really not a good time.” God, Keefe is so subtly invalidating. He treats Sophie like she’s just his personal worry machine, not a person with valid concerns and ideas. The flippant way he talks about her worry for him makes me so mad. He takes her worry for granted and throws it back in her face, without a care for how it would affect her mental health. He brushes her off and invalidates her because he thinks he’s so much smarter than everyone else. Not to mention he calls her worry “feisty” and further infantilizes her feelings and ideas.

This one honestly stands alone. Context doesn't really do anything to it. The infantilization for all these quotes is in the quote itself, because it is invalidating to treat someone's outburst of negative emotions as entertainment. Keefe basically just says that he finds it cute when she insists he comes home because she's worried about him??? He's like, yeah, Sophie's worried about me, tearing up her mental health over me, but like. She gets feisty when that all becomes externalized and she begs me to come home! Again, it's just a way he's able to brush Sophie's feelings off and disregard her opinion entirely.

When I say Keefe acts like Sophie is his personal worry machine, I'm saying he acts like her worry only exists for his amusement. He doesn't see the deeper feelings behind that worry (or if he does, he certainly doesn't respect them), and only see it for what he sees it as: something cute and adorable.

Nightfall, chapter 24. What I originally said: “‘I know! Our little girl is growing up and getting so snarky!’ Keefe pretended to wipe his teary eyes. ‘I’ve never been so proud.’” “Our little girl” . . . that totally isn’t creepy or infantilizing at all. The way Keefe talks about Sophie here is genuinely so gross, even if it is a joke. 

This is a joke. 100%. But it's a joke that sat very poorly with me because of the way Keefe verbalizes this. The problem for me is in the quote itself, again, because I feel like saying these sorts of things constantly is just so weird.

Nightfall, chapter 32. Wouldn't say what I originally said adds anything new, so I'm just gonna move past that. The larger problem here is 100% the fact that Keefe is clearly trying to joke to deflect Sophie's anger away. My argument isn't about that. My argument is that saying that someone's anger is adorable is textbook infantilization. In context, Keefe uses it as a way to deflect or joke. But the simple act of saying that is a form of invalidation where Sophie's emotions are made out to be some silly, inconsequential thing.

Anyway, about this quote in particular. Sophie is obviously freaking out, and she is clearly and seriously trying to tell him that his joking behavior is unacceptable. Keefe responds, not by listening at all to what Sophie said or what she's feeling, but by instead saying this. This invalidates Sophie's very real feelings as well as saves Keefe from having to confront what Sophie's telling him. And yes, this is a product of his deflection, but my point here is that saying someone's anger or worry is adorable or cute when they are trying to be serious is textbook infantilization, because it treats that opinion they have as a silly, child-like tantrum. "Awwww, isn't that anger adorable???" is what you say about a tantrum-throwing toddler who just got their favorite toy taken away, not someone your age presenting a valid, serious opinion. My issue is with the statement "Your anger/worry is adorable/cute" itself, not how Keefe uses it to deflect. It also presents Keefe, subtle as it may be, as the only one with valid opinions on things because Sophie's adorable little feelings get in the way of her rationality.

And before you say Sophie calls him out on this, yes, but he doesn't change. I'm not going to talk about it at length here, but Keefe apologizes to Sophie in the Nightfall scene after his bed rest more out of a desire to make up with her than a desire to change his bad habits. You can see this because he continues to do it into Unlocked.

Nightfall, chapter 34. Again, I don't think what I originally said adds anything relevant, so I'll skip that here.

The famous scene. I do admit that Sophie calls Keefe out this time. However, as I've already said, this doesn't stick, so it hardly matter. Keefe continues with this behavior through the series and into Unlocked, where he doesn't necessarily say these things out loud, but you can see he still thinks them.

Nightfall, chapter 70. What I originally said: “‘Much as I’m enjoying this sudden overflow of adorable Foster-rage—it’s not worth it.’” Ah, more of Keefe infantilizing Sophie and invalidating her feelings. If someone finds your anger or worry “adorable” and acts like it’s this cute little quirk, then that’s never a good thing. Especially if they enjoy it. Someone who cares about you should never enjoy seeing you angry or worried.

Sophie's having a serious, key word here is serious, discussion (we'll call it a discussion, even though that's not particularly correct) with Cassius, and even though her rage isn't aimed at him this time, Keefe telling Sophie her rage is adorable when she's being serious is still dumbing down her emotions to that of a toddler throwing a tantrum, not a grown-up (at least relative to Keefe) having a very valid reason to be angry. Just because he agrees with her anger, doesn't mean he can't still infantilize her.

Flashback, chapter 1, page 12. I think what I said in my original post just about sums it up: “‘You’re so adorable when you worry. I’ve told you that, right?’” (12) Yes, you have, and saying it more doesn’t make it any less icky and gross and infantilizing. It’s like he’s dumbing Sophie down to this object who only exists to entertain him with her adowabuw wittle feewings, instead of a person with very real, very complex emotions.

Keefe fans the air, so we have physical evidence he knows exactly how worried Sophie is. And his response is to be like, so cute! So adorable! Once again, this is serious, and Keefe is acting like Sophie's worry exists only to amuse or entertain him. I don't know else to communicate that that isn't a good thing. Someone being worried usually means they have something they're worrying about, worry doesn't just manifest out of thin air for entertainment's sake. Sophie also responds poorly to his writing her off, with what and the glare and all.

(Side note: When I was looking for that quote, I found a quote where Fitz says the exact same thing, I'm talking word-for-word "adorable when you worry" stuff. Like I mentioned in my disclaimers, I'm not saying he's more right for this and I'm not letting him off the hook. It's icky when Keefe does it and it's icky when Fitz does it. But I'm solely focused on Keefe, which is why I'm not bringing that up. It's also worth it to note that Fitz doesn't say this over and over again, the way Keefe does.)

Flashback, chapter 17, page 304. I think I'm just going to copy-paste exactly what I said in my original post because it's exactly what I'm trying to say: “‘Hear that, Ro?’ he interrupted. ‘She’s giving me her serious voice.’” (304) Another example of Keefe infantilizing Sophie and dumbing her feelings down for the sake of a joke. Awwww, isn’t her serious voice so cute? She only does that when she thinks she has something important to say to us grown-ups! Awwwwwww. 

Apparently, people don't get why this is a bad thing, so: acting like someone isn't being serious when you can literally feel their emotions and know they're being serious just because you don't like what they're saying is not just invalidation, but infantilization, because you are dumbing their emotions and the complexities behind them down to that of a child attempting to be serious.

I'd also argue that this shows Keefe's true colors: he only really listens to her opinions and respects them when he agrees with them. Disagreeing with someone is all fine and good, but you can still respect the other person's opinion and not dumb it down and act like it's lesser than your own. If Keefe said "Sophie, I hear you, but I think you're wrong" (in Keefe jokester language, obviously, not word-for-word what I wrote) then I wouldn't call this infantilization, I'd call it respect. My problems arise from when Keefe acts like Sophie's opinions are stupid because Sophie is the one saying them with that adorable little pouty voice.

Flashback, chapter 21, page 355. What I originally said: “It’s always fun when you get feisty.” (355) I’ve said this about a gajillion times, but Keefe’s infantilization of Sophie is so horrific, it’s like he doesn’t care about her at all. He just sees her emotions as amusement for himself.

This is a sad scene, and Keefe has every right to be emotionally . . . off in this scene. But it still doesn't change the fact that he calls Sophie's anger "feistiness" and then says it's fun when she gets angry. You could say that's not exactly what he said, but it's likely that's what he meant given the past few quotes I've shown. Keefe has demonstrated a pattern of thinking Sophie's anger is amusing or adorable or fun. Anger is a negative emotion. When Sophie feels anger she doesn't feel good. And Keefe is like, yeah, but it's cute! Do you see how that's not the greatest thing to say? It says a lot about his internalized beliefs about Sophie, and is essentially confirmed by Unlocked. And even if that didn't represent the way he saw Sophie inside, that's still a really shitty thing to say because it still carries the invalidation.

Legacy, chapter 3, page 70. What I originally said: “‘Tell me why you have that cute little crease between your eyebrows.’” (70) You already know what I’m going to say. Keefe finding Sophie’s worry cute is textbook infantilization. But also, if he finds her worry and anger so adorable, what’s he gonna do when the Neverseen are defeated and Sophie doesn’t have as many things worrying her?

So, the crease between the eyebrows is obviously because of worry. So by saying he finds it cute, Keefe indirectly says he finds Sophie's worry cute, though I'm sure I don't have to spell that out because he's already flat out admitted he finds Sophie's worry cute several times. I'm going to sound like a broken record if I repeat what I've been saying this entire post about why this is infantilization, so instead I wanna talk about that last paragraph there. Keefe literally knows how queasy Sophie's worry can make her sometimes, and he has expressed this before, as well. So he knows exactly what Sophie's going through when she worries. And still, he acts like her worry is amusing, funny, cute, or otherwise a quirky little thing. I don't understand how Keefe can be so invalidating, having had firsthand experience with Sophie's emotions.

“But I was only half listening because she gets this cute little crinkle between her eyebrows when she’s trying to be serious, and it makes me want to reach up and smooth her forehead with my fingertip—and I’m betting she’d think I was super weird if I did that, since it’s not like she’s my . . . ” (Unlocked, very first paragraph of Keefe's diary entry, 481)

Don't have an e-book of Unlocked, unfortunately (boooooooo). So the context is that Keefe is giving us (or himself???) an intro to what he's doing here, which is writing about his drawings. He explains that Sophie gave him the idea and gives a general overview of what she said to convince him. Then he says this quote.

Here's what I said, which I stand by: I hate the way Keefe talks about Sophie. She’s just this soft, kind of ditzy, child-like sort of figure in his head. He admits that he doesn’t care what she has to say, he just cares about how adorable she looks while she says it. This is a textbook sign of a toxic relationship. You should care about what your partner/crush says, because that shows that you see them as a person, not as your personal cover model. Also “trying to be serious” paints Sophie as this impudent little child who’s trying to get the attention of the older, more experienced adults and it very much implies that Sophie is not serious, but awwww, look how cute she looks trying to be serious, isn’t it adorable? Except Keefe and Sophie are the same age. So this is another case of textbook infantilization.

Personally, I think I made it fairly clear why I think this is infantilization. Keefe did not listen to the latter half of what Sophie said because he was too busy imagining how adorable she must've looked as she said it. I don't know how to make it more clear that Keefe does not respect or care about Sophie's opinions. He did what she asked, sure, but he did not actually listen to her. Again, implying Sophie was not being serious when she was is infantilization. It takes away the weight of what Sophie is saying and makes it out to be a thing of like, Oh well, Sophie told me to, so I guess I'll humor her adorable little wishes and give it a shot, but let's get back to what's more important here, which is how cute she probably looks! I don't know how else to explain that that's not an attitude you want in someone who claims to listen to you and respect you.

Addressing some other things (Keefe calling Sophie herself cute [1], Keefe's deflection [2], Keefe praising Sophie's prowess [3], Sophie not seeming bothered [4], and The Real Problem [5]):

I don't think Keefe calling Sophie herself cute or adorable by itself is infantilization. That's just a cute, fluffy teenage crush. 100% cool with that. My problem is with Keefe dumbing Sophie's negative emotions that have complexities behind them down to something cute or inconsequential by calling them adorable. There's a quote in the diary entries where Keefe describes Sophie's blush as adorable and proceeds to describe it in vivid detail. I don't like it for personal taste reasons, but I would never argue that this is infantilization. Because. It's not. There is no dumbing down of emotions here, no shrugging off experience or maturity. There's just a kid with a crush.

As for Keefe's habit of deflecting stuff through jokes, yes, it's a flaw and yes, some of the times Keefe infantilizes Sophie, he's using it as a joke to deflect. Yes, that's the larger issue. But the point still stands that the way in which he thinks of Sophie's worry and anger is infantilization.

There are moments where Keefe talks nonstop (sometimes in a very unnatural way, in my opinion) about how powerful and amazing and brilliant and talented and spectacular Sophie is and how he respects her choices and whatnot. I don't see this as particularly contradictory to his infantilization. Keefe can dumb Sophie's emotions down to cute, inconsequential little playthings while also insisting that he thinks she's amazing and powerful. I do think he does think that she's incredibly talented, but he also invalidates or disrespects her choices because he sees her emotions as adorable and unserious. Sophie is objectively powerful and talented and smart, I'm not really sure how saying those clear facts out loud changes the fact that Keefe still sees Sophie as very juvenile in his head. He can respect her prowess and capacity for talent while still disrespecting her opinions and emotions. The two can coexist. This is why I say Keefe pedestalizes and infantilizes Sophie simultaneously.

As for saying this doesn't bother Sophie (except in that one instance where she glares at him), I'd hardly say it matters. People can be the object of toxic behavior without realizing it. Sophie doesn't really seem to care past a handful of seconds when Keefe reads her emotions without her permission (on purpose, with intention), but I think most of us would agree that that doesn't make it acceptable. And Keefe's infantile views of Sophie say more about him than they do Sophie, which is the argument I'm trying to make. My point is that Keefe sees Sophie's emotions as inconsequential little things that don't need to be taken into account. This is all mapped into how he sees her internally. Again, just because Sophie doesn't seem bothered by Keefe's comments, doesn't mean they're acceptable, especially considering it gives us a view into the way he truly sees Sophie. And if Keefe thinks of Sophie is such an invalidating way, how are we supposed to believe he'll respect her when she argues with him, instead of just writing it off as "that adorable rage"?

And last but not least (as this is literally the reason people are annoyed with Keefe, regardless of what flaw you're talking about): the infantilization isn't the problem. Not really. What the problem is is that it is never called out by the narrative and when it is, it lasts two seconds, doesn't stick, and Keefe continues with it having not learned a thing. He doesn't change, and I can give you a thousand explanations for why Keefe may be so prone to infantilizing Sophie based on his childhood, trauma, and everything else, but none of that is an excuse. And I'm certainly not a fan of the way we're constantly told that Keefe respects Sophie when he's clearly so ready to undermine her emotions or dumb them down. If you're going to have him say things like this, it should be understandable that it's not a good thing.

I think it all comes down to this: Imagine you were trying to get a very serious point across to someone or otherwise feeling very emotional over something and then you look over and the other person's reaction is like, Aw, you're so cute when you're all worked up trying to be serious! Anger so adorable! Worry so cute! I love it when you get feisty! Wouldn't you feel like they don't respect what you're saying? Is that not incredibly icky and weird?

Here is the definition of infantilization. I think it's very difficult to make an argument that Keefe is not doing this to Sophie. And if you think that's bad, oh boy, is it so. Much. Worse. In the actual Unlocked novella. It's very difficult to deny that Keefe only sees Sophie as an adorable little cute thing that amuses him when you read it. But I'll get there . . .

Anyway I'm leaving it off with this because these are the vibes I get from Keefe every time he makes an infantilizing comment about Sophie (minus the yelling, Keefe doesn't really yell):

[cowboys-tshot]

A Beginner's Guide to Epic: The Musical

Are you new to Epic: The Musical and overwhelmed by four years worth of content to go through? This is for you! (Note that this is a work in progress post that will be added to in the future as new information and Sagas are released).

LAST UPDATED: 09/01/24

*There will be some spoilers in this! The Odyssey is thousands of years old, but Epic: The Musical is an adaptation, meaning things are different. I recommend listening to all the songs in Epic before reading this, as this guide is intended to clear up misunderstandings/confusing moments and provide context.

**All of the underlined bits are links to whatever it is I'm referring to, just in case I'm making no sense. I will try to include sources for everything, or at least indicate where I got certain information from if there's no link available.

General Info:

*This is basic information about Epic: The Musical as a whole. This includes where to find new information and content, BTS things, etc.

• First of all, here's a quick rundown by the creator himself. There'll be some overlap in terms of what I cover here.

• Epic: The Musical is created by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, often referred to as "Jay" or "Mr. Jalapeño" by his fans. This is who writes the songs, casts the characters, and voices Odysseus himself!

• Epic: The Musical was originally (pre-Ocean Saga) produced under Blair Russell Productions, but Jay has never been paid the royalties from the songs released under them (and they have yet to give back control of the Epic social media accounts), so Epic is now produced under Jay's own company, Winion Entertainment LLC. (source)

• Jay is most active on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. All videos that he posts to these platforms are generally the same, so don't worry if you can't follow him on all of them. He talks about several Epic-related things, including release dates, BTS, animatics, details about the music/story, snippets of released and unreleased songs, and also plenty of funny videos. He is very active within the fanbase, and you're likely to find him (and other cast members) leaving comments on posts by fans!

• Here are Jay's other links, including the Epic: The Musical Discord server. In my experience, the Discord server and Tiktok are the best places to get information as quickly as possible.

• Epic is still in progress. As of the latest update to this guide (09/01/24), the Wisdom Saga has just been released last week, leaving only two more sagas before the end. The songs are all part of a concept album, and there is currently no stage adaptation.

• Jay takes many creative liberties with The Odyssey for the sake of this adaptation of the story. He made a video recently explicitly saying to NOT use Epic as a basis for your knowledge of The Odyssey, at least when it comes to academic settings. Many of the things that occur in Epic DO NOT occur in the original story, and some parts of the original story have been cut out. Here is a video where Jay explains the purpose of Epic as an adaption. (I won't be including a list of differences in this post, but I might make a separate one if anyone's interested.)

• Although Epic takes a lot of these creative liberties, there are several little easter eggs sprinkled in among the actual plot points from The Odyssey. (I'll go into these later.)

• Jay will usually do a recap video before each new saga, going over all the events of the previous sagas for any newcomers.

• When a new saga is released, Jay will hold a LIVE listen-through. I highly recommend being there for these events, because they include lots of cool and important things such as:

official animations, animatics, and artwork, all of which provide insights into character design and events within the songs

Jay's live reactions (his facial expressions and little dances/lip-syncs are delightful)

details about the events within the songs that aren't made clear within the music itself (like what a character is doing, what is happening around them, etc)

Jay's comments in the LIVE chat, which includes details/easter eggs, BTS stuff, jokes, headcanons, and LOTS of love and praise for the actors and fans!

• Seeing as there is no stage adaptation for Epic, a lot of the visual elements come from artists and animatics/animations. Jay actually works with several of these artists for official trailers, artwork, and animatics/animations! Some of these artists include: Ainhoa Velasco, @wolfythewitch, @gigizetz, @_mircsy_, @drawing_angie, @anniflamma, Scilla_nimation, el_crafts, samantha_artt, and Giulia Toneatto. These people are all incredibly talented and deserve all the love from the Epic fanbase!

Info About the Music:

*I am not musically adept at all, and this post is already very long, so I am not going to list much specific information—just general common themes and some examples of them. Most of this information has been confirmed by Jay, in videos that I've linked below.

• If you're having trouble understanding the lyrics and/or the meaning behind the lyrics, Genius lyrics has the entire album and is full of helpful notes about the context within the musical. A lot of lyrics get misheard, so even if you think you understand what's being sung, I'd recommend checking just in case lol.

• The Troy Saga and The Cyclops Saga have been rereleased under Winion Entertainment LLC! This includes new vocals, altered music, etc. These were released alongside The Thunder Saga, along with new cover art. It's preferred that you listen to these versions of the songs, and NOT the originals, because Jay only gets royalties from the current ones.

• Many characters have their own musical motif, or even multiple motifs. There are also other motifs that are more general, like the "Danger is Nearby" motif.

• Many important characters have their own instrument that plays an integral part to the songs they're in. You can typically tell which instrument accompanies each character by listening to what is most prominent in a song that focuses on that character. (ex. Hermes with harps and the lyre, Athena with the piano)

• If you hear a character's musical motif or associated instrument in a song they don't play an integral part in, that can mean a few things (listed below). With the more general motifs, they have their own separate meanings outside of the characters.

That character is present, even if they're not singing. (ex. Hermes in "Puppeteer," signifying that he's listening to Odysseus' speech, which is brought up at the beginning of "Wouldn't You Like")

That character is related to whatever event/conversation is occurring. (ex. the same musical motif in "Ruthlessness" and "Storm," signifying that Poseidon is the one that sent the crazy storm)

The kind of instrument being played can indicate the emotion or tone of a scene. This is scene primarily with Odysseus, where the use of a nylon or acoustic guitar indicates that he is not being ruthless (source).

• When background vocals are accompanying a mortal, there is always a physical, in-universe source for those voices (ex. Odysseus' crew as background vocals in most of his songs). When background vocals are accompanying a god or other powerful being, there does not have to be a physical source for those voices—gods can basically summon a choir of voices at will (ex. "Ruthlessness"). (video explanation)

• Background chanting specifically is a common element in Epic songs. Typically, this chanting consists of the names of characters present/focused on in the song (as seen [heard?] in "Survive," "Ruthlessness," and "King").

Unclear/Vague Moments Explained:

*Some of the plot points, characters, etc. in Epic can be confusing on the first or second listen. So, I'll clear up some of the common things people (including myself) didn't notice or understand at first.

• The deep voice at the end of "The Horse and the Infant" is Zeus, voiced by Luke Holt. Zeus shows Odysseus a vision of Astyanax, the infant son of Hector, and tells him to kill the child.

• Odysseus drops Astyanax from the walls of Troy at the end of "Just a Man." Many people didn't catch this until the callback in "Monster" at the end of Act 2.

• "Warrior of the Mind" is quite confusing to those that don't have context. It is a flashback to a younger Odysseus, when he first met Athena and took her as a mentor.

• Athena has an ability called "Quick-Thought," which lets her have telepathic conversations with someone within milliseconds by pulling their mind into another dimension.

• Polites dies at the end of "Survive." He is the voice saying "Captain...". (I didn't realize this for a good while when I first started listening to Epic.)

• The voice telling Odysseus to wake up in "Keep Your Friends Close" is Penelope, not Aeolus.

• The lil' guys in "Keep Your Friends Close" are called winions (they're also the Lotus Eaters in "Open Arms"). Jay describes them as "little wind creatures that dance when they get excited and then float away uncontrollably." They don't actually exist in The Odyssey, but they're pretty cute!

• At the end of "Ruthlessness," the line "remember me" is said by Poseidon, who's basically sending his voice through the ocean fog (since Odysseus is very, very far away from him now).

• In "Done For," the yelling you are hearing in the background is essentially a Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh battle between Circe's chimera and the monster Odysseus summons using the moly plant given to him by Hermes. There is an animatic by mircsy to serve as a visual aide, which I find very helpful!

• In "There Are Other Ways," Circe was holding a knife and planning to stab Odysseus as she tried to seduce him. When he pulls away and rejects her, she quickly hides the knife.

• In "The Underworld," shades (souls) are in a constant loop, repeating whatever they were thinking when they died. Tiresias is an exception to this rule, seemingly because of him being such a powerful prophet. (confirmed in "The Underworld Saga" LIVE listen-through)

• I feel like this is fairly clear, but for those that aren't familiar with The Odyssey, I'll say it anyways. (Spoilers? I guess?) The prophecy in "No Longer You" is SUPER heavy on the foreshadowing. I won't go into it here, since many people already have, but let's just say the Greeks were big on self-fulfilling prophecies.

• As mentioned previously, background chanting is a big thing in Epic. In "No Longer You," the background chanting also serves as a prophecy detailing the future events of Odysseus's journey. Currently, only part of these lyrics have been confirmed by Jay: "SIREN SONG - SCYLLA THROAT - MUTINY - LIGHTNING BOLT." This leaves two lines that are not confirmed.

• In "Mutiny," after Odysseus is stabbed, he is tied up and knocked out before the crew sails to the nearest island. Right before he says to get to the boat and row away, he manages to untie himself.

Fun Facts/Easter Eggs:

• Circe is voiced by Jay's girlfriend, Talya Sindel.

• When Poseidon kills off most of Odysseus' crew in "Ruthlessness," he says that there are only 43 men left. But in "The Underworld," the souls of his crew say that 558 men died under his command. Considering Odysseus started off with 600 men ("Full Speed Ahead"), this math doesn't add up. This is because in The Odyssey, when Odysseus and his men party with Circe for a year, a man in his crew named Elpenor woke up drunk on Circe's roof and proceeded to walk off the roof and die from the fall. He actually has a cut song.

• Jay messed up the amount of years in "There Are Other Ways." It had not been 12 years, but 10. This little screw-up is referenced in "Different Beast."

• Odysseus' mother is voiced by Jay's actual mother.

• If you see people commenting "rawr rawr rawr" or "🦖" on Jay's videos, they're referencing his April Fool's prank this year. He made a video saying he'd completely changed the Act 2 closing song, "Monster," and proceeded to play a happy-go-lucky sounding song going "I am the monster, rawr rawr rawr."

• In every single saga, Odysseus says "what." in an absolutely bamboozled manner (or "huh" in The Troy Saga, and he does it twice in The Ocean Saga). It happens in "Open Arms," "Polyphemus," "Keep Your Friends Close," "Puppeteer," and "No Longer You." Occasionally, this "what" will be said by a different character (Poseidon in "Ruthlessness," the siren in "Different Beast")

• Perimedes (another man in Odysseus' crew, who lives all the way until "Thunder Bringer") and Elpenor were best friends.

[shiny-kaibernyte]

Could you write toothpaste having a huge crush on the player character, and the other BB league members teasing him for it? I love this account, your writing is amazing :)

Apologies this took so long! I hope you like it and I do hope you don't mind i went for the headcannons style for this one. 💜💜

Pokémon Headcannons | Drayton x Reader (Crush)

Pokémon Scarlett and Violet DLC Spoilers ahead!

He may not be the best with words, but he tries his best.

Warnings: Pure fluff

SPOILER WARNING: Mild Spoilers for the Main SV game and both DLC Stories and characters.

This man is terrible at hiding his crush for you. He may think he’s being smooth with it; but the moment you walk into the room, he could be mistaken for a Magby with a flush his face goes.

His head's like a battlefield. He’s having a Pokémon battle in his head about what to say to you. Should he buy you something? Take you out on a date? Should he ask Carmine for help? Do you like apples?

He wouldn’t dare ask Lacey for help, the torment and teasing she would give him would haunt his dreams forever.

Surprisingly Drayton would feel the need to ask Crispin, that did not go well to say the least. Crispin told him to make you feel that shows his love for you. It's a good thing Drayton had Crispin try it first… he’ll never fully recover.

You however are somehow none the wiser to his crush. To you he's just benign Drayton with added clumsiness now. Which if you're honest makes him kind of adorable watching him fumble over things and try to fix them but failing. 

It would take him a long time to confess to you, mainly because every time he goes to he backs out because he thinks it will ruin your special friendship. He cares for you too much to risk that.

This pattern continues until Carmine drags him to one side and basically scolds him for talking his time, gives him a swift kick up the butt and off he goes to find you. 

Kieran would be snickering from the side at Drayton’s confidence drop but overall would support him from the side-lines. Even if he won’t admit it.

His confession didn’t go how he had planned. But it worked anyway. He tried desperately to find the words to express his feelings but always came up short. No matter how far he walked or how much he wrapped his brain around the words. Nothing. 

Once he sees your face, your smile, just you. He folds completely. The words don’t form but his actions do all the talking for him.

That confident demeanour leaves him just for a moment and instead is replaced by a more caring and cautious side. Gently taking your hands into his, speaking no words. Drayton simply admires you for a moment, watching your features trying to read how you feel before kissing you.

[dysthoepiadaily]

how are you gonna casually mention the symbolism behind dan's branding and not drop the entire essay, wth op... 😔

Mostly because if I write it, it'll take a lot of effort, and I think I'll be writing for an audience of one, LOL, given that I tend to get slightly technical with vedic astrology, and my whole thesis is based on vedic astrology, LMAO. And, bc this is already in my mind, I didn't really think to elaborate on it, given how much vedic astrology exposition I would have to do. But, I am itching at the seams to talk about it, so prepare for a long ass essay under the cut, ig

DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to say that any of this is REAL, I am simply pointing out coincidences and patterns that are interesting to me. While I believe in astrology, I don't expect others to, and I'm uninterested in arguing about the causes, effects, and underlying meaning of any of this. I just find it interesting

Basic thing is that Dan has Ketu (South Node) in the first house, and that is interesting, because Ketu is quite an invisible planet. Like, what it rules is authenticity, purity, soul purpose, divine inspiration, isolation. When you think of a planet like this, it's almost impossible for it to get famous, if that makes any sense. Fame would ruin the purity of a planet like this. The ideal expression of this planet is as a saint or a monk, away from the world.

Fortunately, this planet is always expressed to the masses through its opposite, Rahu (North Node). Rahu is a planet that rules glamour, the material world, fame, the occult. Rahu and Ketu are two halves of a whole, often symbolized by an immortal beheaded serpent. Ketu is considered to be the body of the serpent (lacking senses, but has the ability to move using muscle memory), and Rahu, the head of the serpent (ability to speak, think, see, focus, but unable to act). Having Ketu in first house means that Dan's Rahu is in the seventh house, the house of the partner.

Because Ketu is associated with purity, it's also associated with loss, fire, and doom. Kind of like, it burns down whatever is in its way, and what remains is the purest form of the object (According to hindu mythology, the material world is not real, and ashes, then, show the inherent nothingness of the world. brand appropriate for Dan). This is where we get into Dan's first symbolic brand, which is "danisnotonfire". With this branding, Dan sort of erases the effect of the firey nature of Ketu, and increase his Rahu. Funnily enough, according to the Vimshottari Dasha system, his Rahu dasha (activation period for Rahu) began in April 2009. I couldn't begin to make this shit up, because Dan started his twitter account in May 2009, a month after his rahu dasha started. This dasha will end in April 2027, btw.

With Rahu being in the house of the spouse, this name is also what attracted his partner to him (Phil has pretty significant Rahu in his chart, as well, which is why he is indicated by Rahu in Dan's chart, but Dan's Rahu is stronger, just harder for him to access, since it is not HIM). This partner also brought him fame and material gain.

Because Rahu is associated with glamour, it's also associated with inauthenticity, hoarding (material resources are simply not real), anxiety and, also... fun. Ketu is all about purity, doom and gloom, and meditation, but Rahu is about stimulation. If you get too into it, and base your life on it, it becomes anxiety inducing, but if you treat it as a video game you can log out of anytime, it starts to become fun and enjoyable. Unfortunately, this is very difficult for most people to do, because Rahu is the material reality that tries to trick you into thinking it is the most important thing in the world.

Rahu and Ketu require for there to be a balance, basically, for their ideal expressions, because excess of Ketu brings depression and inertia, while excess of Rahu brings anxiety and overstimulation. They are natural cures for one another. Rahu and Ketu are also not real planets, and they are mathematical points that are meant to show the timings for... eclipses. Yes, a classic Dan Branding!!!!

The best way to deal with Rahu and Ketu is by enjoying Rahu, and then burning down the Rahu with Ketu whenever it gets too anxiety inducing. So, when Dan got tired of the inauthenticity of Rahu, he basically burned down the danisnotonfire brand, to be more authentic to himself. And, during this time as Daniel Howell (his true self, in a way), he posted less, and he came out as gay to be true to himself (Ketu authenticity).

Because he actively tried to strengthen his Ketu during this time, he also lost a lot of projects he meant to do (ketu rules loss, if you guys remember), and had a bit of a difficult time. Ketu isn't an easy planet to deal with, AT ALL. Strong Ketu means dealing with constant failures, dislike from other people, and being forcibly isolated in many ways. That said, Ketu is still a force to be reckoned with, and if something is successful even when Ketu is strong, it's considered extremely important, materially as well as spiritually, because it is divinely guided, and Dan executed some of his absolute best work during this time, as well, as is natural for ketu.

Anyway, Dan's new return to youtube is marked by... DanandPhilGames, the channel where he is with Phil, who represents his Rahu. With Phil, he can gain a lot of success, because Rahu allows you to do the fun and silly projects that Ketu will never let you do.

I think that's maybe all of it? If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask, LMAO

TL;DR

Rahu is inauthentic material life and also fun, ketu is authentic spirituality and also depression, Dan's Ketu is him by himself, and his Rahu is Phil. Dan's eclipse shirt brings balance to his Rahu and Ketu, his danisnotonfire brand reduced the impact of Ketu into his life, and also got his partner into his life, and the DanandPhilGames brand does a similar thing as danisnotonfire did.