#and vlad does not know how to interact with traumatized children

[hannahmanderr]

DannyMay Day 8 - Electric Core AU

(day 7 is coming, I promise afhdsj)

Words: 1,804 (FFN)

Summary: Vlad wants more than anything to help the child who has fallen to his same fate. Unfortunately for him, his help is the last thing Danny wants. (dialogue prompt borrowed from @danphanwritingprompts)

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“I want to go home.”

Vlad frowned at the boy huddled into the corner of the couch across from him. “You are home,” he replied matter-of-factly before taking a sip of his tea. 

“No,” Daniel said. The dark bags under his eyes stood out in sharp contrast to his paper-white face. His left eye and cheek convulsed in a tic. “You kidnapped me from my actual home.”

Vlad sighed. He’d been over this with the child already. “I didn’t kidnap you,” he said. “I brought you here to help you, my dear boy. I told you, I’m the only one who can truly help you.” The fact that he continued to ignore this fact was beginning to irk Vlad a little, but it was more hurtful than anything.

Daniel pulled his knees even tighter into his chest as his face twitched again. “I had Sam and Tucker. They would’ve helped me.”

“I certainly believe they would have attempted to help you, but their success in doing so is a completely different matter. Do you think they can even begin to understand the things you’re going through? The being you’ve become?”

“Don’t say that!” Daniel shouted. His eyes flared momentarily with a toxic green glow. Tiny sparks crackled in his disheveled hair. “I’m fine. We were figuring it out just fine until you showed up and kidnapped me!”

Vlad gingerly set his teacup down and inhaled deeply through his nose. It was… difficult to avoid showing the painful impact of the child’s words. It was even more difficult to avoid retaliating with his own shouts. “Please, my boy,” he pleaded, switching tactics. “Look at yourself. You can barely keep yourself corporeal! It’s a miracle you hadn’t blown out your parents’ circuit system by the time I found you!”

Daniel pressed his hands over his ears and shook his head like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “No, no,” he said as he squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s just a side effect, it’ll wear off soon. It’s just a side effect, it’ll wear off soon.” He continued to repeat the sentence over and over again like a mantra, his face continuing to tic irregularly.

Vlad found himself at a bit of a loss. It had been a while since he’d been in such prolonged, close contact with anyone, least of all a teenager. He was admittedly embarrassed that he didn’t quite know how to conduct himself here. A consequence of choosing to lead a life of reclusivity, he supposed, but it was now proving to be a disadvantageous choice.

Then again, what other choice could he have possibly had? After being quarantined, after losing contact with Jack and Maddie, after discovering just what he’d become…

He resisted a shudder. No, he couldn’t let the same thing happen to this poor child.

Silently, he rose from his armchair and moved toward Daniel, choosing to simply phase through the coffee table. The boy still had his hands pressed over his ears and his eyes shut tight; his mouth continued to move in his mantra, but no sound was coming out. Vlad knelt in front of him. He reached out to take Daniel’s hand, but he hesitated and settled for grasping the edge of the couch after thinking better of it.

“Daniel,” he said, then, remembering how he’d first been introduced to the boy, said, “Danny…” Buttercream frosting, this was hard. He hadn’t been in a position where he’d had to comfort someone other than himself in years. Was he keeping his voice gentle enough? Did he seem calm? He certainly didn’t feel calm.

Focus, he told himself. Taking a deep breath, he began again. “Danny, please,” he begged.

Miraculously, the boy heard him. Watery blue eyes opened and bored straight into Vlad’s. The man had to resist the urge to shy away from Daniel’s intense gaze. He could see the unfiltered power simmering behind those eyes, and he found himself wondering exactly what the child was capable of.

“Please,” Daniel whispered in a cracking voice. “Please… I don’t - I just wanna go home. I just want all of this to stop.” His cheek convulsed again as he lowered his gaze. Almost inaudibly, he said, “I don’t even know what I am anymore.”

Vlad watched in empathetic sorrow. He’d been plagued with the same thoughts for years after his accident and forced quarantine. Even now, he occasionally found himself second-guessing his own existence. In comparison, the boy’s accident had only happened a few weeks ago. Nowhere near long enough to come to terms with the whirlwind of emotional chaos and confusion that came with it.

“You are… a wonder,” he began slowly. Before he could stop himself, he continued, “You have come face to face with Death and denied him - a feat that few others throughout history have been able to accomplish. You - you have been reborn from the elements of your death, into something far greater than an average human. You are nothing short of the miracle that has led you here.” 

Vlad’s own words surprised him. Usually he wasn’t one to wax poetic like that. It was this child, though - this unassuming fourteen-year-old boy who never would have caught his eye otherwise. Something about him compelled Vlad, grabbed him by the shoulders and tore at his heartstrings, stirring in him, for the first time in nearly 20 years, the wrenching pain of care for another.

And he was okay with it. More than okay with it. The realization that he’d meant every word he’d said terrified him, but in the same butterfly-inducing terror that possessed a person just before they took the leap of faith.

He was ready to take that leap.

Daniel stared at him, dumbfounded. “A miracle?” he hissed. His eyes burned with green light again, and Vlad caught a vague whiff of sulfur. “You’re calling this nightmare a miracle?”

Vlad faltered. He hadn’t exactly been expecting this response. “Oh, my child, not like that. Please, I -”

“No!” Daniel shouted. The tears evaporated from his eyes in a tiny puff of steam. Sparks began snapping in his hair again. “I am not your child! Don’t you dare call me that!”

He extended his legs abruptly, nearly knocking Vlad from his feet. The man quickly stood, hands raised. “Danie- Danny, please.” He was struggling to maintain his calm demeanor in the face of a boy rapidly losing control of his already unstable abilities. “All I want is to help you!”

“I don’t want your help!”

Perhaps words weren’t the way to placate him, Vlad was beginning to realize. Maybe a physical demonstration would be more effective. He exhaled and concentrated on the buzzing knot of energy right above his sternum. With the precision of two decades worth of practice, he willed the energy forward, into his arms and hands. He was vaguely aware of the crackling electricity rippling across his scalp and down his spine.

Ever so gently, he expanded his energy further. No need to frighten the boy any more than he already was. But he needed to do this. He needed to show him he could help.

Daniel’s eyes flew wide open. “What are you doing?” he demanded, though his voice trembled. Whether it was from fear or anger, Vlad couldn’t tell.

“I’m trying to show you,” the man explained. In one swift move, he allowed his energy to make contact with Daniel’s, but he was nearly overwhelmed by the sheer strength and ferocity of the child’s aura. A quiet voice in the back of his head began to worry that the boy’s power was too much for either of them to handle.

He silenced that voice quickly. He couldn’t give into that, not now.

Instead, he said, “Can’t you feel it? You and I, we’re the same. Our energies are the same.” It was true. Being so close to Daniel’s own fledgling core, feeling the unwilling yet inevitable ballet between their two spirits, it told him as much. His hot, precise electricity found itself in perfect harmony with the boy’s burning cold lightning storm. The resulting potential was intoxicating. Vlad savored it with every passing second.

He needed this. He needed to help the child, to make him understand just how right it was that he was here.

Daniel, sadly, did not have the same reaction. He yelped and tried to scamper as far from Vlad as possible, resulting in him falling through the back of the couch. By the time Vlad rounded the corner of the couch, Daniel was back on his feet, though his form continued to flicker and his face twitched more rapidly. The snapping electricity in his hair fizzled through strands faster and faster, and Vlad caught sight of an angry red lightning pattern painting the underside of the boy’s jaw, down his neck, and below his collar.

“S-stay away from me!” Daniel shouted, continuing to stumble backward. “We’re not - I’m nothing like you!”

The words stung Vlad like a thousand wasps. Losing all remaining composure, he cried, “That’s not true! Please, Dani- Danny, I can help you! I’ve been through this just like you, I can teach you how to control it, but please, you must calm down before you hurt yourself!” And before I lose you, he added silently.

Daniel’s fingers dug into his biceps. His eyes were shut tightly again, but Vlad could still see the remnants of their toxic green glow seeping through the cracks. His facial tic was uncontrollable at this point. “I’m not - I-I can’t…” he gasped in between short, panicked breaths. The smell of sulfuric ozone was pungent at this point.

Daniel fell to his knees. Hastily, Vlad drew his energy back in and dropped to his knees as well. “Daniel! Can you hear me?”

The boy didn’t respond. Instead, he gasped violently and opened his eyes wide, revealing twin pools of green. “M-my… too - too much,” he choked out as his form flickered wildly. 

The moments that followed happened in quick succession. Vlad, operating purely from his panic, reached forward to put his hands on Daniel’s shoulders. In that moment, he felt every hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand upright; the tang of something metallic could be tasted in the air. He recognized the hallmark signs of the impending disaster and, in the next moment, realized he was too late to stop it.

The instant his hands made contact with Daniel, a blinding white bolt of electricity cracked into existence, forming a ring around the boy’s waist. 

The resounding force launched Vlad backwards and into a bookcase. The back of his head slammed into the edge of a shelf, and he crumpled to the ground.

The last thing he saw as he slipped into unconsciousness was lightning dancing across snow white hair and Daniel’s acidic green eyes.

[juria9090]

PHANTASY PHEST 2022 DAY 6

Isekai : Infinite Realm edition

Note : I accidentally deleted this work

I will explain now Brace yourselves. Alright. Vlad, Jack and Maddie's work on a project during their college years actually work and do not explore on Vlad's face. Their research is to prove the existence of alternative dimension.

A fight between them rift apart their frienship. Vlad is the one to leave them. Jack was heartbroken.

The Fenton family is a successful family known to be a renown family full with geniuses.

Both children are out hnder so much pressure and it takes a toll on them. They both have to mature fast. They have to take care of themselves. No one else. Jazz here is absent in Danny's life most of the time so their relationship is not great neither is his relationship with his parents since they favour Jazz more. Jazz does love Danny but she love how her parents paid attention to her

The incident happened and this time the members of Fenton family were there to see Danny being ripped apart into a portal as the portal open on him. All of them are left with heavy guilt and no corpse to bury.

Danny is isekai into another dimension called Infinite Realm and the people there heard his scream. It haunted them for years.

He was reborn as baby in a noble household. He actually have great magical powers but it cannot be detected. The couple did not care, they were waiting for a child for a long time and now they have been blessed with one even though his magical signature is weak.

The people of Infinite Realm are dimensional traveller. Danny may travel when he us stronger but he can't travel into his original dimension where he died. He really can't. Everytime he tried to step into it he is transported back into Infinite Realm. He could only watch and interact using the window portal.

You know, typical isekai thing. Yes. Baby Danny have the mind of a 14 years old traumatized sad boy.

Don't worry he have a happy family that greatly cares for him.

The rouges are there but they aren't ghost. Magical people with true magical powers.

You know what is hilarious. Danny's blue eyes and black hair self is dubbed as Phantom beecause he wore his appearance from the time he died and usually found disappearing whenever someone tried to catch a glimpse of him. Dead but alive kid in that form ain't having a good time and have to wear leg brace so he can walk comfortably. He made the leg brace himself.

Danny can shift into two form for now. His past self and current self. Current self have great health but he still favours his past self because it feels like himself.

[linkspooky]

The Kids Who Can’t Cry

Plenty of people besides myself have pointed out this pattern, but what does it mean? Why are Dabi, Himiko, and Shigaraki essentially the main trio of the league of villains all drawn making this face? Analysis underneath the cut.

1. Shigaraki

What’s important is all three of these scenes where Dabi, Himiko and Shigaraki are all drawn smiling in the most inhuman and unsettling manner possible are all parallels to one another. In those scenes the villain is talking with the heroic foil, and trying to express themselves some way only to be misunderstood. Shigaraki is with Deku. Himiko is with Uraraka. Dabi is with Hawks. 

The common point between all three scenes is that these three characters are fumbling, trying to express something inside of them. The first scene happens between chapter 68-69 when Shigaraki wonders lost in the crowds trying to find an understanding with himself. 

During the scene Shigaraki genuinely talks to Midoriya and asks him what he thinks. He expresses the feelings inside of himself. 

However, Midoriya describes Shigaraki as someone he can neither understand nor accept. He rejects him entirely. 

We, as the audience know all of the similiarities between Shigaraki and Midoriya. We know that Shigaraki was once Shimura Tenko, a boy with a dream of becoming a hero who was told by everyone he couldn’t. We know that Tenko once stood up to bullies and tried to make friends. It’s understandable that Midoriya doesn’t understand this, he’s not a mind reader, but there’s still a great deal of ignorance in the way Midoriya acts. 

Shigaraki shows clear signs of trauma and mental illness, especially in his connection to All Migt, and yet Midoriya’s understanding of him is shallow and two dimmensional. He can’t possibly conceive of Shigaraki having any othr motive for hurting people besides “Wanting to destroy them.” 

Shigaraki is trying to express himself to somebody unwilling, and unable to understand him despite all the similarities between them. This is a pattern in hero society, immediately after the UA attack nobody can conceive of a reason why Shigaraki would want to attack UA besides him being a man-child who enjoys destruction.

When Midnight suggests that somehow Shigaraki might not have gotten the same quirk counseling as everyone and that’s why his quirk is out of control and he uses it so dangerously, Vlad even directly questions why they should even bother talking about his motives. 

Does Deku have to go out of his way to try to understand the motives of him and his friends? No, not necessarily. However, Deku is somebody billed as an empathic and caring character. It’s a character willing to empathize with anyone before this point showing a complete lack of empathy. To a character who shows clear signs of instability and mental unwellness. Shigaraki’s genuine signs of trauma, his itching, his fickleness, his inability to process his emotions in a healthy way just get him demonized as a man-child. 

The kid who was able to see the kindness, in Eri’s quirk. 

The hero who says that he can’t call himself a hero unless he saves a crying little girl in front of his eyes. The hero who says he wants to save everyone, just sort of treats Shigaraki like he’s a one dimmensional monster even though his circumstances are literally exactly the same as Eri’s. Just because Shigaraki can’t cry the same way Eri can. But some people smile when they express trauma. 

When Shigaraki experienced the worst trauma of his life, he smiled and tried to ask for help when his family just died five minutes ago, and this was used to deahumanize him and as an excuse for everyone else in the busiest intersection on the road to ignore him. This didn’t just happen to him as an adult, it happened as a kid as well, nobody helped because he couldn’t beg and cry for help, because he looked ugly instead of like a perfect helpless victim in need of saving.

Shigaraki smiles in response to his trauma. He remembers his worst trauma, literally his family dying, and he grins. It’s literally an attempt to distance himself from his own emotions and process them because he has no healthy way of doing so otherwise. He’s trying to express himself in the only way he knows how and he gets ignored. 

2. Toga

Toga acts similiarly to Shigaraki. She tries to express herself to Uraraka, tries to compare the two of them. As Himiko is much more emotionally intelligent than Shigaraki she also gives a voice to Uraraka’s innermost feelings.

Once again Uraraka doesn’t see her as a human, or try to listen to anything she’s said. Himiko isn’t a person with feelings and her own reason for doing things, she’s just a psycho. 

Even though Himiko is really perceptive of Uraraka’s own hidden feelings the same is not true the other way around, even though we know that Uraraka is a very kind, emotionally intelligent girl who is always noticing the pain on other people’s faces she loses all that perceptiveness when dealing with Himiko.

Does Uraraka have to empathize with a girl literally trying to stab her and suck her blood? No, not necessarily. However, at the same time this is a character we are told always goes the extra mile to understand people, notice their pain, and always being motivated to help just kind of ignoring Himiko. 

This relates to Himiko’s backstory as well. What was Himiko explicitly told to do by her parents? Always hide her pain. Always keep herself hidden for the sake of blending in. Wear a fake smile and be a nice, normal girl. 

Himiko couldn’t even cry when she was sad and alone. She had to repress everything for the sake of being normal, for the sake of being acceptable to others, and now she doesn’t know how to anymore. 

Himiko at least tried to be normal, tried to express herself in normal ways only to be misunderstood by everyone around her and is continually misunderstood and dehumanized even now. The easy life she wants is just the normal life that everybody else has, the one a normal girl like Uraraka has. But she doesn’t know how to express that, and Uraraka who has not been traumatized in any significant way doesn’t really understand what she’s been through. She can’t. 

3. Dabi

We finally get to Dabi and his foil Hawks, where we can see not only is Dabi misudnerstood like in the previous two examples but his feelings are outright denied. Uraraka and Deku are ultimately both children, it’s understandable they don’t get the feelings of villains who have tried to kill him but this. 

Hawks is not any better than Dabi in this situation. He just murdered Twice in cold blood right in front of him, but even though Hawks is actively the agressor in this situation look how he treats Dabi.

He accuses Dabi of nearly killing Twice, even though not only did Dabi show up to intervene for Twice’s sake, but he showed up to rescue Twice, from Hawks. The sheer gall of Hawks to try and kill twice but at the same time accuse Dabi of being the one to put Twice in danger. 

The way they interact is completely different. Twice is someone who trusts Dabi. Dabi literally  puts himself directly in between Hawks and Twice so Twice won’t get harmed any further. Yet, Twice still sees himself as the hero in this situation. Even while actively harming, and trying to kill Twice in his head he still thinks of himself as saving him. 

Then after murdering Twice in cold blood after going on and on about how he was avoiding his vitals, and how he was going to carry him out of here and save him, when he’s directly confronted with Dabi’s anger over his dead friend, Hawks invalidates those emotions. 

You’re not sad because you’re smiling. Hawks says. Hawks, literally the person who killed Twice, right in front of Dabi, then criticizes Dabi for not being appropriately sad about it. This is when Hawks has expressed no remorse for what he has done. 

In his own head, Hawks is the hero and Dabi is the villain. Hawks feels guilty for his own actions. His own inhuman ability to shut off his own emotions and do what must be done. However, Heroes don’t kill people. Hawks must somehow remain the hero. He must be the one who is right. Therefore, he blames Dabi as the villain. Dabi is the scapegoat. Dabi is the one who was wrong. Dabi is the cold blooded killer even though he has done nothing more than try to protect his friend. 

Dabi must be evil, must be a villain so that Hawks can be good. Hawks has to justify his actions and emotoins by dehumanizing the person in front of him. It’s not about Dabi at all. Dabi’s emotoins don’t even factor in or matter. It’s all Hawks self justification and the narrative he tells himself where he is the hero doing the right thing. And this is something that appears in Toga’s fight against Curious too, the villains literally have to fight for control of their own narrative, to be able to tell their story about their trauma in their own way because the heroes will always try to render it in easily digestible forms. They can’t be people, complex, messy people they must either be categorized as hero or victim. 

Toga can’t be a normal girl, she has to be a martyr. Toga’s own feelings or opinions don’t matter. Hawks goes one step further and suggests that Dabi doesn’t even have feelings, he’s not even properly sad that his friend is dead. 

Which Dabi finally replies with what is true for Himiko and Shigaraki. It’s not that he doesn’t want to cry, he can’t cry. Heroes continually confront villains with their actions and act like they feel no guilt at all, like they’re heartless psychopaths and treat them as such when the manga has shown us again and again the opposite. 

Even if Dabi was crying his eyes out it wouldn’t matter though. Jin was crying, and that did not stop Hawks. The heroes who view themselves as heroes, who view themselves as empathic and good people who would never ignore a cry for help all stop acting that way when confronted with Shigaraki, Himiko and Dabi.

It eventually crosses a line into deliberate ignorance. It’s not seeing those on the other side as human beings, which is dangerous because it can literally turn murderous in the case of Hawks and Twice. It’s cries for help that go ignored because they’re not presented as easily digestible narratives. It’s a breakdown in empathy in a story where the stated goal of the main character is to be a hero who “never loses, and saves everyone.” There are people not being saved. There are people who are not being helped because they can’t ask for help. 

Thanks to @savetenko​ for pointing out this parallel to me here!

[quipadeedoodaa]

Wanderer of the Ghost Zone

What if instead of aliens, the WOY cast were ghosts?

insert new to the ghost biz and halfa, Danny Phantom. looks like he could use some help. Who better for the job than the resident Helper of the ghost zone?

Wander gets contacted by Clockwork to help a somewhat jaded Danny out after the events of the ultimate enemy. Team Phantom be really suspicious of the "helping" ghost, but since CLOCKWORK brought him over, they GUESS they can trust him a LITTLE. Sam gets along with fighty ghost, Sylvia. Syl’s obsession is the same as Danny's, Protecting those she cares about. namely Wander. while Wander's obsession is helping [obviously]

Wander's actions really do help Danny not only learn how to be more sympathetic to his enemies and thus end more attacks before a destructive battle can occur, but Wander's GREAT at listening and helping him EMOTIONALLY since he's still really traumatized from Dan and seeing everyone he cares about die. So a nice friendship is forged. Syl helps by sparring with Danny and helping him fight off ghosts who DON'T just want to talk it out.

Meanwhile, Wander's failed to mention that he's actually got a pursuer himself. that is until LORD HATER! himself along with Commander Peepers and their army of watchdogs pour out of the ghost zone and attack Amity Park demanding they hand over the helping ghost. the citizens think that means Phantom, but Wander and Sylvia know better. When Danny goes to beat up Hater, Wander panics and jumps in the way. "WAIT STOP! I can't have some of my friends hurting my OTHER friends!" "Wait, WHAT?!" The watchdogs are basically level 1 ghosts in power, and are knocked back with a single punch so aside from their numbers they weren't really an issue, Hater was the real threat shooting lightning and all.

After Wander steps in the fight instantly stops and Hater is cut off by Peepers running up. "There! Look see! I TOLD you he was FINE!" Peepers is really frustrated, because they all got dragged out here on Hater's whim. Hater totally is at least FRIENDS with wander, maybe more~, but he still denies it, despite basically the entire ghost zone knowing the truth. So he'd actually thought something had happened to Wander, "what if those ghost hunters got him, Peepers?!"

Team Phantom is just sorta. "oookaaay???" and Wander, realizing Hater did all this because he was WORRIED about him gets so touched he cling hugs like he does making hater all embarrassed. Peepers orders the watchdogs to fix the damages since it was clear that wander WASN'T kidnapped or being dissected. and Team phantom along with the main four retreat to a safe space to chat. as obviously a LOT of filling in needs to be happening.

Wander hadn't mentioned to Hater that they were going to be gone, as he hadn't thought Hater would get so upset about it. "OF COURSE I'm UPSET! You're MY greatest enemy! What if someone ELSE tried to kill you before I could?!" which just makes Wander squee and start hugging him again. Sylvia and Peepers roll their eyes and ACTUALLY explain what was going on while Hater and Wander run around like children in the background.

Tucker and Peepers get along. Sylvia and Sam join them and they all snickering about Danny being stuck with the lovebirds who are now BOTH trying to help him out, but are just giving him a headache instead.

Jazz is thrilled and busy writing research notes about Wander and Hater's interaction, which is one she'd never seen with ghosts before.

Everyone's having so much fun screwing around over the next week or so, they don't notice watchdogs going missing

it isn't until Wander, who knows them all by name points out that he can't find some of them, that everyone else gets curious too. but only Wander is REALLY worried about it, though he does keep bringing it up to Danny until Danny decides FINE we'll look into it. the two of them slip away from the group, surprisingly hard despite how Danny's parents should have been a good deterrent for all the ghosts. [somehow Jack had gotten distracted by a couple of watchdogs and made friends with them??? Maddie taking advantage of the situation to do non invasive testing on them because they let her.]

They find a "crime scene" of sorts and following the clues and trail back to the zone, a part Danny had never been to and Wander tended not to visit since nothing lived there. They find a weird but still small army there and hide when someone in a large suit of armor shows up. [Dominator]

the dom bots would bring forward the latest captured watchdog and Dominator would sink her claws into them and corrupt their ectoplasm turning them into a Dom bot themselves. obviously it's time to GTFO and Danny tries to get away but Wander makes himself known offering a fruit basket to the new ghost. he'd never met them before and he knew EVERYONE! instead of accepting the offer Dominator attacks Wander and Danny only managed to get the helping ghost away in the nick of time and flies them back to Fenton works.

mystery of the missing watchdogs solved, but NEW mystery of who this ghost is, has appeared.

So dominator's obsession is unknown, but her powers include ghostly fire [which she's got to so fine a control she can make it into lava] and her corruption ability where she can alter the ectoplasm in any other ghost to make them into her minion. and I do mean ANY other ghost

events happen with everyone trying to put all the pieces together. she's exposed as being a woman and ends up catching Vlad and making him a minion.

Wander and Hater bond more. Peepers idea is to use Danny's ice powers to fight her but things go south. because of having vlad under her control she gets access to all his tech including prototype stuff and she manages to steal Danny's ice powers

"Now she's got lava AND ice powers?! That's it! we're doomed!"

Not sure where this’ll go next, but hey! Fun concept, right?

[sinceritygem]

Reasons Trevor and Alucard’s Friendship Matters to Me

Watching this series, Trevor and Alucard’s friendship hit me really hard, not in the least because I realized it’s the dynamic I have with my partner and one of my best friends (I’m Alucard, if anyone is wondering).

The reason that this dynamic resonated so deeply with me is that the series really captures the way that, despite being so different on the surface, these characters are dealing with very similar traumatic experiences. They are able to find companionship specifically because they both have outside status, and that friendship is presented as thoroughly beneficial and healthy inside a show that’s full of darkness:

1. They Get to be Their Full, Flawed Selves

Alucard is a half-vampire with the weight of stopping his dangerous father from destroying the world on his (very young) shoulders. 

Trevor is the only heir to a family of vampire hunters who were both legendary and hunted to extinction, who also feels responsible for stopping Dracula. But everyone hates him. He’s also quite young. 

Both of these men have impossible burdens, and are ostracized by other people who have no real understanding of their experiences. We literally meet Trevor in a bar with other patrons talking about how they want his whole family dead, and we know humans (and his own fucking father) want to kill Alucard.

These two are set up to be diametrically opposed enemies: Alucard is all class and coldness where Trevor is crass fiery chaos. Alucard is an upper crust noble where Trevor is a working knight. They’re literally the Vampire and the Vampire Hunter.  But we never really go there. They are aware of their differences, but when they’re together, they get to be young men. They give each other shit for the way they talk or stupid things they do -- not actual distaste for one another. Their badgering happens because they are safe to be flawed, and safe enough to let the other see who they are. Other than Sypha, neither character lets anyone else in the show remotely this close to them.  When Trevor and Alucard meet, Alucard coldly and aloofly asks if they’re searching for a savior, the larger-than-life role he’s constantly forced into. In return, Trevor shrugs and says he fell down a hole. He doesn’t have this expectation of Alucard, and Alucard is free to meet him as a peer, which he pretty quickly does.  There’s a great follow-up exchange in Season 2: Sypha: Try not to kill each other while I’m gone.  Alucard: Oh, please. We're not children. Trevor: [Pointing at Alucard] Eat shit and die. Alucard: Yes, fuck you.[They both chuckle.] This is the bullshit of friends, not mortal enemies. It’s also the bullshit of late teens or early adults, not two men who have the entire weight of the world on them. Because of their friendship, they get to actually be people. 

2. They Can (Finally) Rely on Someone

Alucard and Trevor have both spent a lot of time alone, and have both been abandoned by family members, emotionally and/or through death. Alucard literally left home and slept for a year, and Trevor roams around getting drunk and starting fights. These are people who expect to be abandoned and disappointed.

But they trust each other. Pretty immediately.

This exchange starts partially out of need. Alucard says, “I need a hunter and a scholar. I need their help to save Wallachia, perhaps the world, and defeat my father.” But it does matter it’s Sypha and Trevor. He appreciates their honesty, and their bluntness. He very quickly appreciates their humor. And it’s mutual. Trevor respects Alucard’s wit, humor, and commitment to his goal.

3. Their Suffering is Understood, But Not Dwelled On

Part of the reason for above is because they have an understanding of shared experience, even if they’ve handled it differently. 

More importantly, they both get what trauma does, and have a respect for each other for having gone through it. Alucard has a line right at the end of Season 1, when the gang is assembling, where Trevor asks why Alucard wants to team up and kill Dracula. Alucard says, “Because it is what my mother would have wanted. And we are all, in the end, slaves to our family's wishes.” This is a huge connection for Trevor, who can see both the humanity (taking a kind action for a loved one) as well as relate to the burden of our family’s wishes, which in his case is passing on the vampire hunter manner. But it’s also more personal than that. There’s a line late in Season 2 where Alucard says, “I’m disturbed to find I had more of a childhood than you did.” Alucard is not coy about how fraught his childhood was, but that also gives him the empathy to actually understand that Trevor had it rough. He isn’t belittling Trevor; he’s actually seeing him. 

These men who have had almost no one support them suddenly have a person who values them as they are and can deeply see what they are experiencing. That’s huge. 

4. They Don’t Have to Worry About the Other One Being Afraid of Them

Alucard and Trevor could both kill each other. They establish that the first time they meet and remind each other of it constantly.

This is actually a trauma response. They’re so used to people leaving, that they’re pushing to see if the other will leave.

This is crucial to their friendship, because the other one doesn’t leave. He’s not even really phased. He just makes a joke and keeps going. This is how they build trust, and it mirrors Lisa’s relationship with Vlad -- one of the clearly healthy dynamics in the show.

We can contrast this with Trevor’s interactions with the Priest and various tavern-goers, who all hate him genuinely and immediately. His pushing away tactics “work” in these cases and get him hated.

Alucard is similarly disliked by the vampire community and we can assume general humans. Worst of all, his own father has actively rejected him. Alucard thus decides to be cold and distant, similarly pushing others away. But in their friendship, they are equals, and they are kept around, even with all their flaws and monstrous ability. They even start to exchange some traits. Trevor thinks things through a little more and isa little more genuine, and Alucard relaxes a little more and engages in some asshole tomfoolery. They begin to let down their defenses. 

5. This Dynamic is Healing Oriented 

The reason this dynamic gets my heart strings going is that IT MATTERS SO DEEPLY. These are two damaged souls fighting an impossible fight, and THEY FOUND SOMEONE WHO RESPECTS THEM AND SEES THEM. Alucard and Trevor don’t ask each other to be different than they are; they use their skills and approaches to try to solve an impossible task, while validating that they want the other one around. They also accept and support that the other person has experienced trauma. 

These are the friendships we deeply need when we’re carrying the weight of things like PTSD, abandonment, neglect, abuse, and other mental health worries. I love Alucard and Trevor because they are such GOOD, HEALTH FRIENDS, even when their own shit is still messy. I absolutely relate to Alucard Tepes, and this show gave me a renewed appreciation for the Trevors in my life. I’m here and as healthy and strong as I am because they saw me and they loved me.

A follow up to “Reasons Alucard Tepes Matters to Me” Here [X]