#jeremy lore post

[starlightswordfight]

they call me the writer. dare i say the author

[thesquirrelqueer]

Costume related questions with Scott Folan

Daniel: Do you know why they changed Jeremy's shirt in the London productions?

Scott: The change was sort of a collaboration between me and the costume design. I wore the original shirt in the dress rehearsal and there are some photos of me in Will Roland's shirt, but I think we just wanted to put our own spin on it because there's very little change, especially in costumes from Broadway to London. And I think it was just there were certain iconic costumes that can't change and there are certain iconic costumes, like Jeremy's t-shirt, that can change. We felt like that one could change. And obviously I didn't design the t-shirt but I was onboard with that decision and that was what I mean by "collaboration," I didn't come up with the design.

Daniel: Was it hot having to wear the long sleeves under the sweater?

Scott: It was so hot. I mean I loved it, again this wasn't decisions I made but things I loved about it were I got to do the thing I do in real life which is sort of *attempts to show "sweater paws" with a short-sleeved shirt* it's a thing I did as a kid. I think things like that would just come out subconsciously, if you put me in a long-sleeved t-shirt I just do it. But then the answer to the last question was: god it was BOILING. Just boiling.

Daniel: Going off of that, you mentioned Will Roland's shirt, did you wear costumes that had previously been worn by other cast members and do you know who wore what?

Scott: Yeah :) The answer is yes because they were labeled. Like there were obviously some things that didn't fit and some things that did and it was funny to see what did and funny to see what didn't. Shoes were specially ordered just cause people have different sized feet and also sort of germs stuff. Like you can wear the same sort of hat if it's been washed a thousand times, but feet, they get very sweaty. It's sort of like wearing the same pair of pants, you know what I mean? You just wouldn't do it. Yeah I think it was mostly to do with having different sized feet but if they'd presented me with Will's shoes I might have been like "can we get another pair?"

[pliablehead]

Super self-indulgent little piece of writing I did laying out the guys from EE as a dungeons & dragons-style adventuring party, which I have just mailed to @heyjudelaw but figured I’d also share here if anyone cared hehehe

Central among them stands a dark-clad man who draws the eye almost instantly with his towering, statuesque height, and then keeps it, quite striking in appearance and countenance. His dark hair rakes back from a noble brow in an elegant widow’s peak, and with it, two smooth, sweeping devil’s horns, darker still–a tiefling, then, from some high elven stock but some of something else, deeper, infernal. The rake of his horns only serves to make him look even taller. He wears a long, crisp travellers’ coat, its shining buttons left undone along his front; it is perhaps black, perhaps only nearly black, effecting something more subtle and expensive than a stark blotch of pure pitch might in the dappled soft-focus light of the wood. Beneath it he sports no armor, merely a simple knit sweater with a high turtleneck, obscuring nearly all of his tanned skin. It is clear he does not need it: here in what should be at least three days’ rough travel from the edge of the wood, his clothes and slim boots show not a speck of dirt nor wear, and not a single strand of his smoothly coiffed hair falls out of place. Some sort of power beyond the material realm of the forest auras him–the only thing about him that is difficult to look at. Though his eyes are also dark, theirs is a warm, liquid darkness, speaking of more brightness and kindness than the rest of his striking presence might command.

At his side, another—perhaps maybe even tall as the tiefling man, but comporting himself such that he appears smaller, somehow stooped without stooping, his shoulders in an altogether different set. He is unmistakably elvish, though in a rare way of no clear high elf or wood elf bearing, his fine features and complexion betraying neither, his eyes clear but hooded and narrow, as though constantly peering into spaces deeper and further than the planes around him. The singular visage of an arcanist. This elven man is clad in soft cloaks of greys and tans, much more of a place in the wood than his tiefling companion seems to be; and belted around his waist and shoulders are a number of small, esoteric devices that he seems to touch and catalogue with a practiced, almost uncanny ease, finding one and implementing it immediately in almost the same deft, fluid motion. The casual movement of his dexterous hands belies the deep arcane complexity of the challenges they perform, mastered only after years or even decades of study—despite his unassuming appearance, his reputation has come to precede him. Surely this is the wizard Kaines.

Smallest among their number, but by no means slight, stands a man of a much more human bearing, though there lingers just enough in his bone structure and the cool piercing blue of his eyes to indicate some elven heritage within him as well, perhaps several generations back. Compared to his companions he seems almost nondescript by choice, with dark, close-cropped hair and a matching stubbled jaw flecked through with grey, and a posture of almost deliberate, calculated looseness, an alert mind and a keen gaze. He wears light and almost airy raiments, a diffuse shade of blue, as though of a white fabric dyed by hand to perfectly match his eyes, and their monotone palette seems—symbolic, representative of something, perhaps some order he has sworn himself to, or some other alliance beyond his traveling party. Despite the shaded cool of the forest, the shirtsleeves of this raiment are short, as though to give him the broadest and easiest range of motion. Mounted at his waist are a few small instruments of combat, blades and cudgels clearly designed for nimble swiftness rather than overpowering might, though his bared arms are corded with lithe muscle, that same loose but wary carriage.

At the front of the party—stepping forward—

Not the first of them to stand out and command attention, but the one who does so now with the greatest strength and tenacity, good gods, impossible to look away. Like his companion in blue, he appears mostly of human heritage, but whatever other ancestry lies in his blood is not that of his half-elven cohorts, but some more fey or bestial nature, some kobold or gnoll of some deep underforest, gleaming feral about his wild blue eyes, the unsettling too-clean sharpness of his teeth. His brows and the shadow of his jaw are dark, but his head of hair is bleached to blond by some caustic process or by some other clime’s blazing sun, a strange clash, at home in his strange whole. His broad body is clad in textured, dark black underleathers, a wicked pitch-black breastplate and greaves, all underneath some sweeping sleeveless cloak or priory tabard—mist-grey and somber, at its surface, but seeming to ripple with a frisson of hellfire orange and magenta when the woodland breeze catches it, there one moment and vanished the next, preternatural and alarming as the rest of the man himself. Whatever vestments these are that he wears, nothing of the divine realms has lain touch to them. His power, compelling and captivating as has ever graced this wood, stems from something oppressive, ancient, and fathomlessly dark, till it nearly clouds the air around him. Against its weight he seems almost illumined by compare.

And so bidden, you approach the crossroad…

[cvbullshit]

CV Missing Kids(+Charlie) Facts:

Charlie is the kindest and most merciful

Susie shares responsibility of her dog(whom possesses Mangle in this) with Classic

Fritz is the most hot headed/angry one(he's angry, not vengeful)

Jeremy is technically the most reserved/quiet

Gabriel took Nightmare(Sans)'s old crown and wears it on his hat

Gabriel is the most sly and manipulative one

Susie is the second kindest but sort of more easily frightened

Cassidy is the most vengeful (obv) and sarcastic

Cassidy doesn't hang with the Missing Kids as much anymore

There is one extra child named Kate, however she technically isn't part of the MCI, no one knows where she came from or who she exactly is

Kate and Cassidy treat each other like siblings

All the Missing Kids(-Kate) all possess two versions of their animatronic. Gabriel has Freddy/Withered Freddy. Jeremy as Bonnie/Withered Bonnie. Susie has Chica/Withered Chica. Fritz has Foxy/Withered Foxy. Cassidy has Golden Freddy/Withered Golden Freddy. Kate only possesses Fredbear.

All the kids(-Cassidy and Kate) are attracted/drawn to Nightmare(Sans)'s negativity, which causes them to follow Nightmare a lot

Charlie and Cassidy talk with OMC every now and then

Cassidy is sort of a tomboy

All the kids try to just stay away from any version of Afton nowadays, they just wanna do their own thing

[kaleschmidt]

Sometimes a couple can be you and your beautiful zombunny wife who was murdered

[lockedtowers]

also if we’ve written before and yall wanna be affiliates hmu

[rainbowbilly]

🌈i was gonna wait until i’ve drawn some fanart but i REALLY need to talk about muffin jack and jean-françois/jeremy RIGHT NOW or i’m gonna EXPLODE !!!! i’ve been hyperfixated on it for a couple of weeks now and i’m so so so sad it never really ended up getting made !! :[ i’ve been looking for as much stuffs about it as i can for AGES and AAAGGGHHHHHHH it’s SO COOL !!!!! the art and the story and the characters are ALL SO COOL !!!! also jean-françois/jeremy...he’s funny <3 🌈if there’s ANY other fans out there PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TALK TO ME !!!! I NEED SOMEONE TO TALK TO ABOUT  IT !!!

[kevinsdsy]

hi 🌸 i’m having such 24/7 shawn anderson brainrot that i saw this post and thought ‘shawn would tweet that about jean’… & leave jeremy wondering what ✨jean moreau lore✨ he doesn’t know yet (probably something so unserious)

HEHEHE i like this very very much so i obviously had to add my take on it 🙂‍↕️

[starlightswordfight]

we have hot cocoa mix so I made some and we also had coffee just on its own so I also added that and holy fuck. party people . listen to me

[displ3azant]

CURRENTLY ASK-ABLE: - Unpleasant - Infected (Plez oversees the questions, though.)

(Before cut is In-Character.)

Hiii! Helloooo!

Hello!!!!!! Hehe, thiz iz actually super weird trying to write an intro-- give me a minute.

So, HIII!!!!!!! I'm Unpleasant! That'z not a joke, that iz literally my name. There'z no "deep reason" behind it, it iz literally just what people refer to me az. But, if that'z too weird, I do also go by Unplez or Plez for short.

Uh, pronounz? I don't really care, actually. I don't have a set gender, I've never really met a gradient who doez. That being said, since I started hanging with Infected I have been called he and she specifically a lot... so if it'z easiest for you, just roll with the crowd.

Right, so... the blog. Thatz thiz blog, haha! Well, the easy answer iz I waz super bored, Infected can suck a huge ####, and I like talking about myself! But... I kind of suck at talking in general, so I guess I'll type and answer questionz about myself.

BUT KNOW MY BOUNDARIEZ BEFORE YOU ASK QUESTIONZ! 👇👇👇

(Below cut is Out-Of-Character.)

To those who know me: Good to see you're still stickin' with me! I promise I will make an effort to make this blog much less of a dumpster fire like the last one.

And to those who are only now coming across this blog: Hello! My name is Hex. You don't have to call me "Mod Hex", or anything, just "Hex" will do. I'm the only guy running this thing here. I'll talk more about myself soon, because oversharing is what I do best.

Blog-Context

So, if it wasn't obvious enough from the intro, this is an ask/rp blog for the Unpleasant Gradient from Regretevator, but specifically in the context of the plez-centric au I have created for him. Or, well, the "AU" in question is actually just some freaky amalgamation of all my fucked up headcanons, which means...

I AM NO LONGER DOING DIRECT BLOG ASSOCIATIONS! Really sorry about that, I love my friends with all my heart but if I wanna keep consistency, I'm gonna have to "write the story" on my own. However, I do want to give full credit to my friends @sk8tr1101 and @party-noob for some major concepts involving Unpleasant, especially Audrey who already has some awesome ideas herself. Go check them both out!

MAIN TAGS:

#unpl3zansw3rz - Asks

#unpl3zrambl3z - Non-ask related posts/reblogs

#unpl3zlor3 - Plot points and similar

#ooc - Out-of-character post

OTHER TAGS (to be updated):

(nothing yet, hehe)

Blog-Owner

So hiiii, I'm Hex. If I can be bothered, out-of-character posts will either have the #ooc tag, be in purple text, or be signed off with my name. I'd prefer if you refer to me using he/it pronouns, thnx!

I'd also like you all to keep in mind I am 17 years old, therefore a minor, and even if I wasn't 17 I do not appreciate NSFW/Explicit jokes towards me, ESPECIALLY if you don't know me. It's one thing when you're my very close friends or my partner, it's another thing when you are a stranger on the internet asking me things I should not have to answer.

My other accounts are: @hexexists - my main blog, if you receive notifications from this account, please know it is just me! @hexational - my regretevator blog @geometricgiovanni - a Jeremy ask/rp blog set in the same universe as this one! Please note, however, that in the context of this blog, Unpleasant is not aware of the blog nor would he like to be.

Ask/RP-Boundaries

Let's start off by reiterating that I AM NOT OKAY WITH NSFW/EXPLICIT ASKS IN ANY CAPACITY! Sick of getting them, they're repetitive and annoying. Asking safe-for-work questions involving Unpleasant's anatomy is one thing, but I am not responding to ANYTHING involving genetalia.

ALSO! I am very unlikely to respond to things that is either hard to make a unique drawing for or don't progress the story (unlocking "lore" and such). I'm watching your ass, Mango, I know what you like to do (/lh). Joke asks are still okay, you don't *have* to progress story, but please keep in mind my "criteria" for answering asks when sending them. A clean inbox gives me a clear mind. I do not like notifications.

Shipping content: Shipping content is okay, but I don't care much for romance personally and so will likely not play much into it. Please don't push anything, I guess, and nothing that promotes proshipping or any kind of literally illegal pairing. If you dislike any direction taken ship-wise for this blog, then block me and move on with your day.

Roleplaying: While I'd prefer to not be in direct contact with other rp blogs, I am totally cool with roleplaying side stories and stuff, interactions and such! Please keep in mind though, Unpleasant in this is not a very social person, so you're probably not going to get the reaction you want.

Also! I think OCs are super cool and am happy to respond/interact with them as well! However,

PLEASE DON'T SEND YOUR GRADIENT OCS TO THIS ACCOUNT IF YOU WANT ME TO DRAW THEM! Please instead send them to @hexational! A lot of people were sending me their Gradient ocs to the previous Unpleasant account, and as much as I love seeing Gradient ocs and Gradient sonas, I'd love to be able to draw them, and if you are just asking an opinion on them and not an in-character ask or a genuine question involving other gradients I'd much prefer you send them to the account previously tagged!

That's pretty much all I can think of! Sorry for the long post, I just have a lot to say hehe

Lots of love, - Hex

[sir-jay-bell]

7 holy nights of jeremy day 5 - lore

(let's just pretend i didn't forget to post this yesterday ehehe)

i LOVE the headcanon that e1! joel is made of terracotta, and that he sculpts all his clones from terracotta!

so here is my contribution for that!

[connectionterminated13]

I do I do I do I do

hm. starting to think people don't actually care about jeremy unless he's conjoined at the hip with michael. curious

[bearlythere]

will not shut up about how bluey's 30 min episode gave us so much more lore and references to the real world

the writes really made so much literal and euphemistic use of the word "sign" in this episode

in chronological order! and spoilers below!!

do let me know if I missed anything out!

FRISKY AND RAD'S WEDDING!!!! in the iconic heeler house!!

bandit's bully bucky dunstan being the real estate agent selling his house

English sheepdog buying the bluey house (emigration - would be nicer if they got english voice actors to voice them though)

the bluey house was actually for sale on an Australian real estate website! and as per the time of writing this post, it's been "withdrawn from sale" - the bluey digital marketing team AMAZES ME.

I wonder which city bandit got a new job in - don't know if they'll explore that in future seasons

bluey's friend the brown dog (I'm sorry I don't know his name) having 2 mums!

winton talking about his divorced parents and the terriers' saying their mom likes winton's dad!!!

jack and his army interest! him and rusty playing army!!

the sitting in a tree, kissing thing that kids do

Jeremy the gnome

bobo being the car's name

frisky's licence plate being fr15k

the first time kids sit in the front seat of the car

police officers pulling people on the road over LMAO

rad's profile picture being him goofing around with his 2 brothers

how realistic it is trying not to lose someone you're following on the road

the butterfly from slide!! 🦋 it has a name! flappy!

everyone being afraid of the butterfly except bingo because we know she loves insects!

chilli reminiscing how she and frisky used to go to the lookout to "think" when we all knew she meant drink LOL

frisky's 3rd friend appears!

BRANDY IS PREGNANT???

the canon in d rendition as bgm

the busker being the priest??

also they got mort and maynard to come attend the wedding too!!

frisky's father is a typical surfer dude lmao

we see trixie standing amongst the girls during the bouquet toss. and then we see stripe come in to intercept the toss. does this mean that stripe and trixie are not married yet and have just been cohabitating? stripe grabs the bouquet and celebrates, but we see trixie face palm... what does this mean??

love the photo montage and the huge family photo, how it shows that you can't get everybody to be ready for the photo

AFTERPARTY

GRANDPA BOB WENT TO INDIA TO FIND HIMSELF 😭 man needed spiritual rediscovery

the busker is the music dj too!!

uh oh... stripe and trixie are fighting... perhaps it was about the bouquet toss? and we see socks playing with the cake toppers - possibly mimicking her parents actions

awww Radley quit his job so that frisky could stay in a city she loved ❤️

they brought back the music from dance mode!

NANA AND BOB FLOSSING!!!

chattermax randomly appearing 😭

bingo getting stuck in the railing again

bingo being sad because she has to move and lila won't be able to follow. which is also the moment I realised they won't be moving in the end, because of the montage at the end of daddy drop-off episode where bingo and lila grow up together and be friends "forever and ever and ever"!

the 2 English sheepdogs pushing their fluff away from their eyes to see haha

THEM SEEING WINTON'S DAD'S HOUSE WITH A POOL WHICH IS FOR SALE BECAUSE THEYRE MOVING IN WITH THE TERRIERS AND THEIR MOTHER!! THEY ALL FIT IN ONE CAR!!!

seeing the iconic bluey house empty, with spots where furniture used to be somehow makes me feel a little empty and nostalgic

the montage of them saying goodbye to their old neighbours, bandit having one last chat with pat, the girls and chilli saying goodbye to judo and her mum

Judo still has short hair!

chilli reminiscing the kitchen because bluey took her first steps there

WHO SANG THAT SONG IN THE END PLEASE RELEASE IT LUDO STUDIOS

THE SHEEPDOGS WENT BACK ON THEIR DECISION TO BUY BLUEYS HOUSE TO BUY WINTON'S DAD HOUSE

you can tell how much chilli didn't want to move as she was the first one out of the car running over to hug him when she realised bandit didn't want to sell the house anymore. and the shoulder shakes shows that she was fully sobbing too

iconic kiwi rug! loved the simplicity of the last scene, where even if there's nothing around you, as long as you're together with the people you love, eating the simplest meal, enjoying the moment, that's family.

[emry-stars-art]

We may branch off into separate masterposts as we keep going, but for now, here’s this ✨ there may be some overlap or ambiguity with various posts, but I’ll do my best to organize!

mermay 2023 pdf/zine (free download)

mermay 2024 pdf/zine

oops all mers au 🦈🪼🐋

brainstorming pg1 mermay 2023 piece head pats for jellyneil whalemack

mer cuddles

squid jean take 1

hybrid mer Kevin

jellyneil’s gender

Neil tries to catch food for Andrew

How Neil sleeps sometimes (and harbor seals being cute)

Tiny baby squean?

When sharkdrew surprises jellyneil

Jellyneil and its stingers

Whalemack taking sharkdrew to Abby & Bee

Squean angst

Whalemack babysits

Jeremy & Jean designs (jeremer and squean?)

Killer whales (Allison, Renee, Riko)

Kefin and jellyNeil bicker

sharkdrew au 🦈🏴‍☠️

brainstorming pg2 sleepy baby sharks/some lore sharkdrew and whalemack

Neil meets the shark (evernote scene)

sharkdrew finds a washed up pirate

Mer Kevin and human Jean&Jeremy

Maybe another first meeting

jellyneil au 🪼🎣

first mini comic pt1 / pt2 jelly life cycle/baby jelly neil little Andrew finds a baby jelly

harpoon fisher Andrew

baby jelly sounds

bubble rings snippet

jellyNeil in a bucket

[bonnet-spotlight]

Hello hi!! Could you please make matching Jeremy, Unpleasant and Enphoso layouts for tumblr and discord? Specifically for the art with Jeremy, the art by @// geometricgiovanni 's mod?

If not, that's fine of course!! Your edits are pretty k BYE!!!!!

Jeremy + Unpleasant + Enphoso Matching Layouts

Made for @seabunnythatlikeshorror

Extra notes //

Credit for both the Jeremy and Unpleasant art goes to hexatational, on both of their roleplay sideblogs respectively. Credit for the Enphoso art goes to notaspy-yah, specifically this post. I was NOT caught up on the lore of Hex's Regretevator AU. Didn't find out that their Jeremy and their Unpleasant were exes until halfway through making these and was kiiindaaa too lazy to redo them by that point. Sorry... These should work perfectly fine with Tumblr, haven't tested Discord so I don't know if they function for Discord. If they don't then I apologize. And finally, sorry that this request took a month to respond to. I was putting it off since I originally misread it and thought that the art for all three of them had to be from Hex, and was confused because I couldn't find any Enphoso art by them. Fast forward a month later, I reread this for the 50th time and finally understood what was actually intended.

[beetle-blogging]

I'm still not done with this theory. I thought about it again in context of the transcripts of the Small Print in the Marriage Agreement bc something about it niggled at me, and I connected some dots. This is gonna be long and partly a rehash of some of my previous posts, sorry.

TL;DR: Betelgeuse might be, or might have been in the past, trying to gain immortality through marrying and then murdering Lydia the same way Delores tried to do to him, except in BJBJ, he was trying to contractually obligate Lydia into the steps of the ritual through the small print of the marriage agreement. One of which, apparently, includes Falling In Love. He's only trying half-heartedly, though. Cause he likes her.

There was literally no reason for Delores to have been in the second Beetlejuice movie except to give Betelgeuse an excuse to narrate his backstory and exposit to the audience about the immortality ritual that Delores tried to pull on him.

Betelgeuse is clearly both intimately familiar with the ritual bc he was a victim of it, as well has theoretical knowledge of it, or else he couldn't have narrated the flashback like that. He, while alive, wouldn't have known about the cult or the requirements and purpose of the ritual, or even that there was one. He had to have looked that up later.

The ritual definitely requires marrying and then murdering your spouse and stealing/binding their soul, and likely also requires the love of the victim (at the time of the wedding? Wedding night? Murder? Cause while Betel doesn't seem to like Delores anymore, he did look smitten in the flashback and called himself "bewitched". Love is at least useful to get them to marry you) - and possibly also for the victim, because Delores was still acting like she had some possessive, fucked-up love for Betelgeuse. That part is actually very weird. Why the hell would she STILL act like she's into him when she murdered him, or at least tried to? I know fanon has it that he's a fantastic lay, but it's been 600 years. While I'm at it, I doubt the consummation was just for fun or done as a last kindness for the condemned, so there's another likely necessary step of the ritual.

And while that backstory and bit of lore was imo very interesting and sad, it didn't actually add anything, did it? We didn't need those particulars, fun as they were to watch, they weren't relevant to this movie. "Betelgeuse's ex wife is pissed and hunting him" would have given us the same movie minus the lore. Or just write her out. We didn't need her stalking the halls, or killing Bob - which was just added to give her more to do - or even showing up at the church, either. She was completely unnecessary after that flashback. Or even at all, if nothing further is ever going to be made of that ritual or cult (and would we want another soul sucker in BJBJBJ?). Ok, she was scary in a hot way, but that's it. Even without her, Astrid could have opened the door to the Sandworm in order to get rid of Betelgeuse in the church, who'd then have rerouted it to only Rory, followed by "We had a deal" etc just fine. The number 1 complaint people have about this movie is that Delores was just there for no reason. Betelgeuse/Delores does follow the theme of Love Betrayed same as Astrid/Jeremy and Lydia/Rory, and that's neat, but that wouldn't have required a background story involving a cult and a ritual that can get one out of the dead thing, for good gain you Immortality, through marriage and murder.

Then there's this:

Delores: Your soul belongs to me, my love, for eternity.

Betelgeuse: You don't want to spend eternity with me.

That sounded like they'd be bound together forever, not like she was going to eat his soul. At least, it sounds like that's Betelgeuse's understanding of what Delores is after. He'd still have been by her side. He just didn't wanna be after she killed him. Ok, so that bit is also there for a reason. Everything else, between flashback and church scene, is filler. Poor Bob.

Now we come to this transcript of the small print of the Marriage Agreement (only the highlighting is mine, transcript by jadeluz-official (who deactivated, and I don't know their current username or I'd link directly), which tbh, I'm not sure if we can count the text as canon bc it's basically imperceptible to the majority of the audience, but if the transcript is accurate then the contract is plain fascinating:

Do you see what I'm getting at? Cause the Immortality Ritual Theory occured to me weeks before I ever saw that transscript, I first mentioned it on my blog here and send herefortheships an ask related to the idea before that... but the part where Love might be an requirement for the ritual just hadn't occured to me then. Then I reread that small print which would compel Lydia to love Betel, my mind flashed back to Betelgeuse saying Delores had bewitched him, and I was like, uhhhh.

In context of my theory, Betelgeuse trying very hard to to woo Lydia (firm, very visible canon) and also having a contract ready that would obligate* her to love him for eternity and to fulfill all his needs (which is technically in the movie, but barely legible), is very sus. We've got love, marriage, sex (needs), and two people bound together for eternity all covered. The only stuff that's missing is the blood-drinking and the animal sacrifice. Which, 1) might have just been for the satanic aestetics, and 2) would still have been very easy to get Lydia to do if that contract had made her fall in love with Betel.

*again, the canonicity of that small print is questionable, but it does recontextualise Betel's wooing A Lot. Or like, make his motivations for it more ambiguous. Why write the Agreement like that? Why write it at all? (Was that in the script? I very badly want to read the script but I can't find it)

None of the above imo invalidates the headcanons/observations I and other people have made about how Betelgeuse did not try all that hard to either enforce that marriage agreement - which HE never even signed.

(he didn't even have Lydia sign it below when it says it will become effective once it's signed below, and yes I am being pedantic about a prop that people likely weren't meant to read anyway, but someone did bother to write it and it is meant to be a contract written by a demon/evil spirit who makes a lot of deals, so the signature being in the wrong place is really funny to me)

An agreement which should not have been voided by the Code 699 violation anyway bc it's an engagement, not a marriage. Nor did he physically/magically force Lydia into marriage in the church despite having ample time, plus there's his suspicious failure to fight back against banishment and instead inflating like a balloon and becoming helpless at the first "Betelgeuse".

Those can't all be out-of-story oversights. Maybe the handbook was meant to say "voids marriage contracts", but even so, the contract makes the code-violation it's own loophole. There's so much wriggle room to get out of the marriage. It's like the scriptwriters made a list of ways Lydia could escape the marriage this time, and then used all of them.

I don't think Betelgeuse really wants to screw over Lydia the same way Delores did him. At least, not anymore. But the pieces are set up in a way to suggest that the thought has occured to him, and that he might keep the ritual in his proverbial backpocket in case "have her fall in love with me and agree to stay with me forever voluntarily" fails.

Or maybe, he believes that the immortality ritual is still his actual plan A - cause this theory does imo fit quite nicely (as a retcon) even into the first movie where he said he wanted out of the creepy dead thing for good, cause he's arrogant enough to believe he could get Lydia to "help" him with that if only she let him out for a bit so he could make her like him (tbf, Toonverse proves him kinda right; he can be lots of fun) - and is now deeply, genuinely confused why he keeps self-sabotaging and giving Lydia outs, cause he himself is not aware just how deeply he's fallen for her after 30 years of watching her and trying and failing to get her attention. Too deeply in love to just give her a love potion (Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian had them, and hey, if Truth Serums exist...), take her to a church, take her to bed under the influence, and then kill her. And too much in love to make her love him through a contractual obligation that she'd be bound to after the wedding.

Betelgeuse pointed Astrid to that loophole in the Handbook by drawing her attention to the book in the church and implying she'd find info about his and Lydia's deal in it. Mention of the deal is not in there, only the loophole to it is. And he knew she saw that page already because he clearly followed her to Jeremy ("She decided to trade lives with the boy"). This self-sabotage could have (further?) backfired on him because the other page she'd flipped to at Jeremy's was the one about Sandworms.

He's a deeply, deeply conflicted man.