Princeliest on AO3
27 | they | Prince/Bellamy
hello! I am here to damage my own emotions and hopefully take everyone reading my works down with me
occasional [#personal] stuff, [#my writing], rarely [#meta], and a varying conglomeration of fandom posts specifically tailored to pretty much only me.
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I found a fic "The Last Bus Stop in Hell, Now Boarding" by @prince-liest and… well, some scenes just stuck around in my head (read: tormented my artistic brain) long enough to get me down to sketching them out. Then a few hours, a few brushes and a few different colouring experiments later, it was no longer barely a sketch, at the expense of actual lunch... Oh well.
For those who haven’t read it (spoiler free), Angel and Alastor got their bodies swapped involuntarily, and the horrendous expression on Angel’s face belongs respectfully to Alastor.
Now, bear with me, because I’ve been overthinking this scene the whole time I was drawing it – Angel made a promise to Alastor, but one that is much more of a gesture of reassurance and what-happened-will-always-remain-in-this-room kind than anything resembling actual deal. And then, mere moments later, Angel realises that helping Al AND keeping the promise is impossible, so he dismisses the fact that he even said anything, and just jumps right onto the helping part, because he knows that that’s best thing to do for a friend. But Alastor doesn’t share that view – maybe it’s a mix of trauma, shame and the loss of control over almost anything, but he doesn’t think clearly at this point – normally, he’d sooner or later agree with Angel. But not there, not then – he’d rather expect the impossible to happen, and rage when it doesn’t.
And there’s the interesting choice of words – he could’ve called Angel anything at this point, we know how rich Alastor’s vocabulary is – but the word he chose was dealbreaker. Maybe, just maybe, from a perspective of hellish overlord, a sinner that twists and turns in an attempt to get rid of their contract is nothing less than pathetic, but what if the deal was only verbal, no signing, no contract, just "trust"… There are probably no other beings in Hell that, ironically, have less trust in somebody’s WORDS than the overlords, knowing what extremes the sinners are willing to go to just to squeeze their way out of a sticky situation. Also, one can only become a dealbreaker exactly in that scenario, when nothing was set in stone.
For Alastor, dealbreaker is a knife in the back. The worst kind of liar. The very being that reminds him so painfully that trust doesn’t exist without force applied to it by a binding contract, which, if you think about it, is a paradox. Dealbreakers are the reason he distances himself from everyone.
And here’s the sugar on the cream (pun intended): Angel is only trying to HELP. What a beautiful tragedy.
To end this little overthinking session: it’s been a long while since I’ve read anything that would make me genuinely terrified, and it’s even more amazing that it began as something quite hilarious. Do mind though that the topic is HEAVY, to say the least.
I can’t say I’ve read a lot of Hazbin fics, but so far Princeliest writes Alastor probably the closest to his original character, which I love. Please, keep up the good work!
ALRIGHT, 2250 words later, the outline is complete!! I'm actually very excited for this one, I think it will be great! +^+
It's inspired by the true crime girlie Vox human modern AU I mentioned in the author's note of the last 666, but I find the actual setting of hell infinitely more interesting, so it's just a similar vibe adapted to a hellish setting, and also enabling me to write Alastor being Alastor without the limitations of measly human bodies. <3
It's also Vox's turn to have the POV, which makes it a gothic romance. From literally anybody else's perspective, it's a horror story.
New fic idea I'm outlining for after the next installment of 666 :sparkle:
Omg wait is #11 the cncity fic you have planned 👀👀👀👀
Hahaha, yes! It might be the last one in 666 for a while, though, because another radiostatic idea has gripped my brain and I just pumped out a 2.3k word outline for the whole thing. It shouldn't wrap in a way that leaves things dangling, though!
MR PRINCE YOU PROMISED US NO SAD ENDINGS WHAT DOES THE RACCOON POST MEAN ???
IT'S NOT A SAD ENDING IT'S JUST A HILARIOUSLY IMMEDIATE SUBVERSION OF VOX BEING SOMEONE PEOPLE SEE AS THE EMOTIONALLY CONSIDERATE ONE IN THE RELATIONSHIP PLEASE DON'T WORRY
he's a condescending prick who also thinks he's the emotionally mature one compared to Valentino and now Alastor, of course he thinks he knows what's best to get Alastor to figure his own shit out. so. y'know.