#come closer i'm very normal about music. i definitely don't have like 80 playlists

[verysmallcyborg]

FIVE SONGS I'M INTO RIGHT NOW °⊹♫∘｡⁺₊🎧⁺⋆

tagged by @iron-sparrow!!! thank you <3 i THRIVE on listening to music for almost all of my day/night (it'll be hard choosing only 5 because a lot of current faves are in fornax's pvp playlist LMAO)

Re-Vision by Amaranthe

Maybe there's a light at the end of the line Or just a concept, a vision to improve it Let the night wash away from your eyes It's your decision, revision, how to do it

2. Reborn by Xandria

I will not give up I will not stand down I try to find my way It's never enough I close my eyes now There is no turning back It's the end, but I'll be reborn

3. Bleed Out by Within Temptation (lightwarden!fornax song.... AHEM)

God bless she walks in her last winter The halo around her head it starts to linger Her fear has died, her heart is still unbroken There's no remorse, she doesn't mind She bleeds out

4. Datastream by Scandroid

Open yourself to me, we better entwine Breathing in binary, our systems inline Searching for frequencies and scanning through time Both lost in the datastream that's leaking our minds

5. Show Me by Alina Baraz & Galimatias (honorable mention for a fornax/ryss song tehe)

All that you are is all that I need Sunset in your eyes, let me with your loving I'm searching for the thrill, it's you, you make me feel You make me feel

tagging @elliewiltarwyn, @cindernet-explorer, @abyssalmermaiden, @selnyam, and @chadhunkler! (no pressure tho as always! or if you already did this/got tagged then consider it a BOOP)

[fantasy-mixtapes]

Kristen Applebees Season 1 Character Playlist BREAKDOWN

OKAY, SO this one is gonna be an ordeal.

I set a 6-song limit for every other playlist I made, but this is the playlist that started it all. So, I didn't have a limit. So it's 12 songs long.

Which is honestly like a normal playlist length BUT it's gonna be a long breakdown which I will lovingly do because I LOVE Kristen with my whole heart. Either way, this is deffos gonna be a long post so read if you want (i would very much appreciate it obvi but I get this is pushing it).

Genres Included: Folk, Singer-songwriter, Alternative, 80's

1. Save the People, The Mountain Goats

When wilt thou save the people? Oh, God of mercy, when? Not kings and lords, but nations Not thrones and crowns, but men God save the people For thine they are Thy children as thy angels fair Save the people from despair

Starting off strong with my main man John Darnielle. John, as prolific as he might be, did not write this song it is originally from the musical Godspell by Steven Schwartz. I was raised as a theater kid and I remember one summer my mom took out our cable and the only things we could watch on the tv were dvds and vhs tapes of musicals, and the 1973 Godspell movie was definitely one of my favorites. Its like "what if Jesus was around in the 70s and was a hippie clown and also was crucified on a chain-linked fence and beaten by cops" ...ah, good times.

ANYWAYS, I don't feel like I need to get into why this is a perfect Kristen song - I feel like it really gets to the divide between the way that Christianity is taught to kids vs the way it is enacted by the adults that do the teaching.

2. Father Texas, Birdtalker

Father Texas on his toes Tells me where and when to go He's a savior, liturgy man He's a stickler and a soap monger Shove it down your throat Holy answer man He says obey and I'll love ya Now I'm doing just to prove And I'm walking out of fear But the devils done

Ok so I was raised Catholic, which I feel like is a whole different flavor of religious trauma compared to Evangelical or Baptist vibes - which I feel like the Helioic religion gives. Either way, this song slaps and really gets to that Evangelical vibe.

3. Big Houses, Squalloscope

I build bridges with these arms I will not build a fortress In the circle around the kitchen table I say my "amen" because I feel blessed Secretly hoping, while joining hands, that you can't feel my trembling fingertips

Here's young Kristen Applebees - Chosen One of Helio- who just wanted to help people. She meets her first non-religious friends, plans to convert and save them, and then straight up dies on the first day of school. She comes face to face with her literal god, is disappointed and grossed out by him, and then is magically (and violently) revived.

Can you imagine her returning home, trying to answer her parent's questions about the first day, making it through dinner, crawling into bed, and just lying there? AHHHHHHHHHHH

4. Under The Table, Fiona Apple

I'd like to buy you a pair of pillow-soled hiking boots To help you with your climb Or rather, to help the bodies that you step over along your route So they won't hurt like mine Kick me under the table all you want I won't shut up, I won't shut up Kick me under the table all you want I won't shut up, I won't shut up

Speaking of those family dinners, as the days go by and Kristen gets closer to her party, how do you think she's gonna react to whatever comments her parents make about them hmmmmmm? The result of coming out of your social shell and realizing how bad the people around you really are.

5. Cleric Girl, Sisyfuss

I need my cleric girl tonight So she can bless me in this plight Dress me in crucifixes so they die on sight I need my cleric girl tonight

This is just a fun song I see as Kristen finds her groove within the party, kinda around the DJ brains fight. Also it makes me think of the prayer chain thing that she had the whole party on at some point.

6. Cornflake Girl, Tori Amos

She knows what's going on Seems we got a cheaper feel now All the sweeteaze are gone Gone to the other side With my encyclopedia They musta paid her a nice price She's putting on her string bean love This is not really, this, this This is not really happening

There's something about a Tori Amos song that never fucking misses. This song, for me, kinda gets at the part of growing up when you really start to uncover the truth of things for yourself, instead of listening to the things you were always told. Kristen buys the book of world religions and reads about the atrocities people did in her god's name. She is also told that the "cool camps" she was going to were run by an actual fanatical cult. Yikes.

7. Eldest Daughter, Isabel Pless

Bring me your battered, your bruised, and your scarred Florence Nightingale, to your broken hearts Bring me your bleeding I'll stitch it up with a bow Tugging at the sword in the stone The dormant hero in me is yet to be known Dying to prove myself again, but I don't know how Wanna lay my weapons down Lay my weapons down Want everyone to adore me even though People's emotions are out of my control Smothering fires Letting flames claim my hands I would do anything to be needed Over and over again.

Okay, the thing about this song is that we get the root of it here in season one, and it shows up really lightly, but God almighty, do we get one hell of a payoff in the next two seasons. Damn. The first time I listened to this song I cried. It's on several of my dnd character playlists - because, for some reason, I can't stop making dnd characters with self-saccrificing tendencies. HM! I WONDER WHY?

But anyways, yeah... something something, Christian households raising their eldest daughters to be surrogate mothers and laborers, something something Kristen is a cleric while her brothers are paladins, something something Women being healers

8. Angel Eyes and Basketball, Foot Ox

There are flowers growing all around A massive animal inside of me And it's so ugly, and I'm so broken And I'm so ugly, and it's so broken I am calling all of my friends To pull me out of this hole But they're so caught up in their own shit And I'm so caught up in my own shit

Ok, this is full Christian guilt. I also really like the way this song is one of those upbeat but devastating ones because it makes me think about her inspiring speeches to her party members just being her ranting about how horrible everything is, and then they get +1 to attacks and extra hitpoints. Living La Vida Loca.

9. We Fell in Love in October, girl in red

Smoking cigarettes on the roof You look so pretty, and I love this view Don't bother looking down, we're not going that way At least I know I am here to stay We fell in love in October That's why I love fall Looking at the stars Admiring from afar

Ok, I know this is cheesy. BUT TO MY CREDIT: both the song and the season came out in 2018. Also, you know Kristen would stream the fuck out of this song.

10. Running Up That Hill ( A Deal With God), Kate Bush

And if I only could, I'd make a deal with God And I'd get him to swap our places I'd be running up that road, be running up that hill With no problems

AGAIN TO MY CREDIT: I made this playlist in 2020 - two years before Stranger Things brought the song back to the general psyche. No shade, of course, to the stranger things; it's a perfect song to choose, and the scene effectively made me cry.

But anyway its here because at her bones, Kristen would die for her friends and has and will (unfortunately) continue to. Speaking of

11. Arms Tonite, Mother Mother

I cry in the afterlife I cry hard because I have died And you're alive I try to escape afterlife I try hard to get back inside Your arms alive

Kristen's dying count is more than double most of her friends at this point - and golly gee just wait till season 2!

Can I roll a nat 20 and then be alive?

12. Glory (Bunker Sessions), Bastille

And all their words for glory Well, they always sounded empty When we're looking up for heaven Looking up for heaven Way down here upon the ground When we're lying in the dirt There's no looking up for heaven Looking up for heaven

I really love this bunker session version of this song; the strings and the piano just give it a lovely honesty. Gorgeous song. Perfect way to end this season

[rlyc00l]

headcanon request ask! (no pressure or anything tho, just thoughts if you have 'em)

1.) What kind of music do Rhys and Zer0 each listen to? ...Aside from Digby Vermouth I guess :p

2.) Zer0 sleeps under a desk at one point in your fic. Do they usually sleep in odd places, or is that just when they don't feel safe?

3.) Aside from emoticons, how could someone tell Zer0 is in a good mood? (I'm coming up a lil blank because it's not something we get to see much of in canon T-T)

One day I'm going to be able to answer an ask without writing a miniature essay but not today. I simply have a lot of thoughts about a lot of things and I really like writing stuff 1.) Zer0 I have like a super solid, very passionate opinion on. Enough for a playlist. Music that is fun to kill stuff to. :) Mostly energetic electronic bullshit (especially dance-y stuff), some extremely cutesy anime shit, some random fun stuff, and a few completely unexpected pieces of bubblegum pop. They feel absolutely no shame about anything they listen to, the last thing a bandit getting good and stabbed by Zer0 might hear is "♫Hey Mr. Wonderful Oh you're so incredible Hey Mr. Wonderful~♫" blasting in their helmet. Rhys is harder for me because unlike Zer0, I don't feel like his tastes are in-line with someone who spent a lot of time discovering music on vampirefreaks.com in high school and that pretty much makes his tastes a mystery to me. So, 100% going off of vibes? I feel most strongly about popular 80s music (he's an 80s yuppie ~in space~). Probably knows lyrics to a lot of the cheesiest shit like Opposites Attract (but he has a surprisingly good singing voice. Because I think it would be jarring and therefore funny, and because Troy Baker.) He gets at least a little tipsy and he'll try to get Zer0 in on it but like, they physically cannot sing. Otherwise, honestly his tastes are mostly probably not too out there, a lot of the kind of thing that pretty much everyone likes—not necessarily popular, but not really weird and divisive stuff. No specific genre or anything. The actual tftbl music would make sense too? And throw in some real sensitive/emotional stuff that he would get super defensive about if one were to give him a hard time about it. Also, "bisexual nerd music". I don't have a definition for what this is, it is just vibes.

2.) (Whoops you asked this before I posted the last chapter, where this basically gets answered. I wrote the whole answer to this ask and then got super distracted for a few weeks) It's based on how secure they feel. Usually they feel confident in their ability to go from being comfortably asleep to up and ready to defend themself, even in totally new environments. But with their current condition and the knowledge that they're being hunted they're not going to take a chance on comfort, especially not somewhere as obvious as a bed. 3.) Okay, wow turns out I have a lot of thoughts on Zer0's moods so I'm gonna try not to make this super long. I think it takes a pretty pronounced good mood before someone who doesn't know Zer0 well notices (but like, a less pronounced good mood still has a lot of the same signs, just toned down). Even then, it can be kind of subtle. I think most times we see Zer0 in BL2 they're having a pretty good time (except during the ECHOs, when they're in FFYL, when you AFK on them and they're bored, and during the actual sad deaths). Like, even when they're happy they're still childish and can get pretty mean. But, yeah, Zer0 in a particularly good mood: Generally they're friendlier and more sociable. Their laughs are more genuine, they're more willing to engage in conversation, there's a lot less of those curt replies, long periods of silence, and straight up ignoring things. They're even more prone to offering compliments—not that they normally wouldn't acknowledge their friend's achievements (as long as they aren't feeling kind of bitter towards them). In most moods they're "playful" to some degree, they enjoy messing with people, but if they're in a good mood it's closer to lighthearted teasing rather than being a dick for their own amusement. They'll still be a dick, but in a nice way? Like, purposely turning Rhys into a flustered mess (this has backfired on them, pre-relationship, because Rhys can completely unintentionally do the same thing to them, and then their only defense mechanism is being a dick. Straight up ignoring him/"I was talking to her"). Body language-wise, they just seem more comfortable? Again it's subtle, and it's not like they're ever particularly uncomfortable, but they usually hold themself like they're constantly ready to spring into action. And yeah, even in a good mood they're ready for a fight, but their stance is more open, they use slightly more animated and open body language, and if it isn't absolutely necessary, they struggle to stay still. In BL3 they have that very cute thing where they bounce on their toes and that's totally a good mood thing (yeah, they do it randomly in-game, but their bl3 emoticons are also random so who cares lol). Extremely good mood? They might actually like, show physical affection with friends. Not a lot more than a clap on the back, *maybe* an arm over a shoulder, a pat on the head for the short people that probably comes off as a little condescending and maybe is a little condescending, because it's Zer0.