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nonsensefromtheabyss · 3 months

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Alastor Analysis

(Throwing my hat into the ring because the smiley fucker has me in a headlock. Warning; long and potentially insane. God I hope the cut works.)

I think something significant is gonna go down with Alastor in the next few episodes. I think the man is slipping.

Something that sticks out to me on rewatch is that Husk isn’t worried by the lights flickering or Alastor’s voice changing (the usual signs of him getting vicious.) He doesn’t look scared when the collar appears; his initial order of reactions actually goes ‘surprised’, ‘bitch please’, and then he starts doing damage control. It takes Alastor pulling on the chain to make him stop and actually look at how angry the overlord actually is. It says a lot to me that Husk’s first reaction is to be pissed off. He looks like he’s recognising that his bitchy demon master isn’t going to take any advice and he’s gonna be made to back off—and he’s angry about that.

To detail, the fact that he approaches Alastor directly with his concerns and not Charlie (you know; the all-powerful, hotel owning, hell princess whose daddy’s in town), and puts the focus on him possibly getting into trouble means that Husk did all this out of a sense of concern or compassion. Husk isn’t acting purely in the interests of the hotel here, he’s trying to protect Alastor. This is a genuine offer of advice being thrown in Husk’s face for no apparent reason beyond arrogance; he has every right to be pissed off, and he is. He’s angry with Alastor and he shows that even as he’s shutting up. Angry, not scared.

Husk bitching about Alastor isn’t unusual. He cares enough to try and help the bastard out. The way he interacts with the conversation initially indicates to me that means he normally feels safe enough to do things like this. He’s comfortable calling his master out. He’s doing his best to stop Alastor making some kind of mistake. He is trusted with the information that Alastor isn’t a free man himself. When the chain appears, he’s frustrated, he cedes ground… but he isn’t scared.

I don’t think Alastor manifesting Husk’s chains is unheard of in their relationship—Alastor’s a mean bitch who only tolerates a little bit of poking before he snaps—but I do think that the pulling of that chain is usually as bad as it gets. That’s the point where Husk stops talking but hasn’t started looking worried yet. Husk was probably fully expecting that being knocked to the floor would be the end of the matter.

He’s scared—the most scared we’ve ever seen him—only after Alastor goes Radio Demon on him, and that’s why I think it’s something he’s never had happen before. Husk wasn’t expecting that degree of reaction at all. And I think it’s a sign that Alastor is starting to lose it.

We know the smile is fake. We know it’s a form of self-imposed self-discipline that’s as rigid as it is insane. And we now have it confirmed that Alastor has some pretty aggressive insecurities that are eating away at him behind the facade. Last time he was seen as ‘less than’ he slaughtered hide way to the top of the Pride Ring

Going episode by episode, there’s a subtle pattern of Alastor getting progressively more snubbed, which isn’t really what you expect when you’re introduced to the character in the Pilot. Vaggie describes him as someone of almost mythic power and, even with Angel’s levity and irreverence, that’s the impression that sticks, cemented by the way he takes out Sir Pentious. You get an immediate impression of what Alastor was like at the very top of his game.

You know: before the Seven Year Absence.

In the first episode, there’s the advert. The video advert. It’s all played for jokes (as it should be) but if you look at it as a first domino it makes sense. It’s our reintroduction to Alastor as a character: he’s made a terrible, unhelpful tv commercial and the ‘good’ one (we never get to see) was made with significant help. He clearly loathes having to do it, and he’s clearly got no real skill in it (if he did, he’d be showing off because he’s unbearably vain, you all know this is true.) He’s out of his element and he’s not adjusting quickly enough; people don’t know him from the radio anymore because Vox has the monopoly in entertainment.

Speaking of, in the Second Episode, we get Vox, aka the first and only person who gives a damn where deer boy went. Vox gives this shit by playing dress up and writing a diss track which Alastor immediately co-opts to make him rage quit. The song slaps—Alastor’s part in the song slaps… but it’s worth pointing out that Vox is the only person shown caring that The Radio Demon is back; the other two V’s are mildly entertained because they have renewed lease to absolutely dunk on Vox, and, while the crowds are drawn to the radio, they don’t look… bothered. There’s no big reaction of ‘dear god, it’s him (the deer god)’. Granted, we don’t see their response to the threat, but tbh if any radio threatens you with a return to The Bad Old Days the only honest reaction is to be a little scared, you don’t need to be in Hell for that.

In any case, regardless of how much he sucked at it, Vox still felt confident enough to make his little coping track public in the first place. He felt certain enough about Alastor’s lack of standing to make his own insecurities into a musical. The cultural idea of Alastor and his mythos has degraded enough for people to take potshots and then broadcast those potshots for funnsies. It’s pretty far from where we started in the Pilot with Vaggie not even wanting him past the door.

Third Episode… people of the conference room, please raise your right hand if you care why this staticky twink has been gone for seven years. *cue the deafening silence of no hands being raised*

Alastor is shut down and dismissed entirely in front of every other overlord at once, and it happens without consequence. He can’t do dick. He can’t play up the mystery, or draw them in to his narrative, or do anything to take control of the room. No one asked, no one cares. The meeting (which, if Carmine’s surprise at seeing him there is any indicator, he might not have even been directly invited to) moves on. I’m almost certain that the only reason he played coy with Zestial was because he thought he could have that Moment with everyone there and listening. He wants so desperately to be listened to.

We know that the hierarchies in Hell are less about who could actually make you eat concrete and more a popularity contest. That’s made explicitly clear in the first episode with low level sinners tearing strips off of Charlie, and clearer still in Helluva Boss where Stolas gets disrespected by the whole club for his messy personal business—in song form. And what I’ve not actually seen anyone else talking much about is how Alastor may be a very physically powerful demon but he’s getting no respect from any of his old peers. Sure, maybe the masses are spooked, but it’s not to the point where it’s making anyone else lose their chokehold. The people huddled around his radio still flick their eyes back to Vox’s screens when he talks. The egg boys ask him inane personal questions the same way they would anyone else. His own peers neither respect him nor care that he’s come back. Nobody has shown (positive) interest in the hotel now that it’s his personal enterprise.

We’re told the time skip was five months. We have no idea if things have changed in those five months, but Alastor starts Episode 5 palpably agitated. I’m guessing things didn’t go up for him. I’m guessing that it’s setting in for him that this is the vibe now, and the only person who actually thinks him untouchable is, well, him.

Add Lucifer. Suddenly, his business partner might not actually need him at all, either as help or an emotional connection, because she can replace them with her father, the actual king of Hell, who doesn’t like him; there’s an infinitely more powerful and capable demon in what is functionally Alastor’s home; said powerful demon has no fucking clue who Alastor even is, the role he plays, or the effort he’s invested (regardless of reason) into Charlie’s project, and there is no Alastor Approved way of making any respect happen on that front. As far as he’s concerned, he’s looking at a brick wall with FUCK YOU PERSONALLY graffitied on it.

Regarding the songs with Alastor in them, both of them are serving two purposes; the first is to piss off someone who slighted him, but I think the second is to reassert to everyone present his importance specifically after an instance of them forgetting. With Vox the primary objective is roasting the other overlord into shut down and the secondary is warning everyone listening that he’s still a viable threat despite what they just heard. With Lucifer, the first goal is to piss harder than the devil, but the second is reminding Charlie that he’s important and he has a place with them. Little as he’d like to admit it, it’s two cases of Alastor demanding a return to the way things usedto be. He wants to be the most terrifying thing on the wavelengths by default, and is willing to short out the power supply to all Hell to get that; he wants to be valued so much by the people around him that the most important man in Hell can’t just supplant him by being there. Obviously it doesn’t work out like that, but a self-absorbed nightmare man can dream.

And then Husk brings up the idea that he might be vulnerable on top of All That. It’s the final straw. He has spent the last few episodes very subtly scrabbling for a shred of acknowledgement and his bitch ass is getting none.

Mimzy, if I’m allowed to speculate a little, is deliberately thrown into the mix at this juncture because of how she relates to Alastor in juxtaposition to the damage his seven year absence and unspecified deal has done to his reputation; she wants to hide behind his coattails because he’s the big, scary Radio Demon who can protect her from anything, because who in their right mind would cross him? She’s literally a part of his old life. She’s reacting to him the way everyone did seven years ago—with complete and total faith in his ability to be an unholy monster at a moment’s notice.

Being told ‘hey, maybe she’s in deeper shit than you can shovel because someone’s tying your hands’ is, to Alastor, just another snub in a long, illustrious line, and this time it’s personal because it’s coming from Husk. It’s not just a newly popular medium he’s no good with, or Vox with his haterection, or a meeting he can’t derail with his personal life, or a boardroom full of equals he newly means nothing to—it’s his own people thinking he’s not capable anymore. And Husk is happy to say that with literally the most powerful man in Hell right there for comparisons in inadequacy. Going full dial eyes on him isn’t just an over-vicious retaliation, it’s a demonstration and reminder of what Alastor is capable of… and it’s probably done for himself as much as it’s about putting Husk back in his place.

Because that’s what Alastor used to be able to do; make all the other overlords cower on their knees at his feet while he regaled them with all the ways in which they could fuck off.

Seven years of possibly not entirely voluntary absence… and this is the closest to that he can get. A guy whose soul he owns, who will be back to snarking in a few days time, having to be dragged into prostrating himself on the carpet. One of the few people who inexplicably give a shit about him promising to shut up only on pain of death.

And at the end of the episode everything he’s done means nothing and he has to tell Mimzy to leave anyway… and he’s subdued and uncomfortable about it. She’s his friend, one of the few people willing to tolerate him, and apparently one of the last people to share the perception he has of himself… and he has to tell her to go because the reality is that he, for whatever reason, is not making choices which are entirely his own. The reality is that Husk may be right; Alastor’s grip on everything and everyone around him is, for a variety of reasons, not as strong as it used to be. The guy is unravelling behind the mask; he’s insufferably proud and it’s starting to strangle him.

The point of all this is, there’s a pattern of escalation here. I think Alastor is out of his depth and it’s going to start showing. I think he’s going to make some sort of desperate bid for control to get his standing back. I think he’s going to have to reckon with his own disappearance. And… I don’t think it’s gonna be pretty.

TLDR: My Beloved is a time bomb and him dominating Husk was just the alarm going off. I believe this with my whole heart because of Reasons.

(Side note: I think it’s been sidelined and/or cut due to season constraints and the show being rushed to shit by production, but I do believe Charlie and Al must have some kind of bond. It’s been five months of living together and she doesn’t turn around and refute his claims or even look surprised by them, which implies to me that the events are true if not the presentation. Obviously the girl’s got daddy issues and Al doesn’t actually see her as a daughter, but I really don’t think that equals ‘there’s no fond feelings here at all.’ Plus everyone else is there watching their nonsense; while Alastor has 0% shame, I’m pretty sure someone else (Vaggie) would have something to say if him claiming affection for Charlie was as left field for them as it was for us. Really wish we had more time for relaxed character interactions to let dynamics breathe, there was such potential in HH’s concepts but I feel like we’re skipping whole chunks. I want the dumb beach episode, you know?)

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel analysis #hazbin hotel alastor #This man has been stuck in my skull for days #Scraping behind my eyes with a teaspoon to get rid of him #I just feel like he’s gonna snap at some point #He looks like he’s going to break his fucking teeth smiling like that and it’s going to happen soon #Everyone so worried about the extermination #Bitches should be worried about this idiot cracking under massive internal pressure and wasting all Hell to make himself feel special again

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luimagines · 3 months

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Caught K-I-S-S-I-N-G Part 2

Masterlist

Part 1

Part two will include Legend, Twilight and Warrior.

Content under the cut!

Legend

You sighed, running your hands through Legend’s hair as he rested on your chest. He sighed in return and turned his head to look at you. “Rupee for your thoughts?”

You shrugged, smiling and poking his cheek. “This is nice.”

“Oh... I think so too.” Legend blushes softly and hides his face against you once more. You bury your hands in his hair again.

The summer breeze passes over the both of you. The grasses around you whisper soft nothing around the two of you with the sun draping a soft blanket over your shoulders.

Legend moves and shift, pushing himself up. He moves up, putting his hands on either side of your face. You poke his cheek again, feeling too relaxed to be bothered. “Yes? Care I help you?”

Legend kisses the tip of your nose. “Why are you so cute?”

You bite your lip, trying to control your beating heart. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If anything, you’re too cute. It shouldn’t be allowed.”

Legend leans down to kiss your lips softly. He whispers, resting on top of you you once more. “Impossible.... I love you.”

“I love you too.” You say sweetly. You bring your arms up and hug, getting comfortable with the change in weight placement. You run your nails over his scalp and Legend all but flops on top of you. You grunt and chuckle “Enjoy that?”

“You don’t ever have to stop... like ever.”

You laugh a little more. “That’s fine by me. I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.” You whisper back, feeling content and warm and safe.

There’s a soft crunch of damp grass and twigs being crushed as someone makes their way over to where you are. You pray they don’t find you. You had only just gotten Legend to relax enough as it is.

“Oh.” Time blinks and coughs. “I was wondering where you both went. My mistake.”

Legend groans and rolls off of you. “What is it, Old Man? Is the Captain having another hissy fit again?”

Time gives him an unimpressed look. “Vet.”

“I’m right and you know it.” Legend points at Time’s face, sitting up. “Are we needed or not?”

Time rolls his eyes. “As a matter of fact, yes. The Knight of Skyloft is looking for you.”

Legend sticks his tongue out and turns to you. He runs his hand down the side of your cheek. “I’ll try to come back.”

“It’s over.” You sigh.

“I can come back!”

“But you never do!” You pout. “It’s ok. Go see what Sky wants. He wouldn’t ask for your help unless he needed it.”

Legend seems a little put off by your words but he eventually stands. He pokes Time, hard, but Time doesn’t seem to feel it. “You owe me time with my lover, Old Man.”

“Noted.”

Twilight

You were both laying against the tree, taking some time for yourselves before the group could catch onto your disappearance. Twilight was actually the laying against the tree. You were laying against Twilight.

You let out a contented sigh and turn around, rolling around gently on top of your boyfriend so you wouldn’t be digging into him.

He huffed jokingly and put an arm around your waist. “And where do you think you’re going?”

You giggle and cross your arms over his chest. His eyes open and he greets you with a charming smile. “Hello little darlin’~”

“Hello.” You smile back. “Go back to sleep. I’m just looking at you.”

He snorts and moves his arms to wrap around you better as he adjusts his position against the tree. “Oh? Is that all? You tend to do that a lot. I should start charging.”

You laugh and flick his nose. He scrunches it. “Yeah? And what would you demand? We both know I don’t have rupees.”

“Kisses.” A boyish smile crosses over his face.

“Ah.” You smile wider. “I think I can do that.”

You lean in and peck his gently. “Like that?”

“Hmm...” Twilight grins. “Not enough to pay the toll.”

“The toll.” You echo incredulously. “Dork.”

You kiss him again and his hands come up to hold you gently in place as he kisses you back.

A twig snaps. “SORRY... bad time.”

You pull back and move a little ways away so you can see who just should up. It’s Wild. You didn’t even know his face could get that red. It matches his scars. “Oh, hey champion. Need something?”

Twilight is less amused. “Nope. He just said so.”

You smack your boyfriend. “Link, behave.”

Twilight jokingly sticks his tongue out at you, dissolving into a soft smile once you said his name. “I’m always on my best behavior.”

“Liar.” You hiss and turn back to Wild. The poor guys is scratching the back of his head, walking backwards slowly. “Wild? You ok?”

“Y-yeah... I’ll just... go.. get the Captain instead.” He says awkwardly. “Don’t even worry about it.”

You’re tempted to worry about it but Twilight tightens his grip on you before you can even think about getting up. You look at him for an answer but he doesn’t remotely seem apologetic. In fact, he looks quite smug. You sigh. “Alright, but if you need anything... You know where we are I guess.”

“.....sure...” Wild makes his escape.

You turn your head to scold Twilight but he silences you with a kiss before you can even get the words out. “You love me.”

You huff. “You’re lucky that I do. What if it was important?”

He kisses you again. “Like he said, the Captain can do it.”

You... can’t really argue with that.

Warrior

“Do we have everything?” You looked in the bags you had bought, trying to go over the mental list that you had.

Warrior holds your other hand in his, carrying the majority of the bags in the other “I think we do. You still have the list, right?”

You hum and stop walking. Warrior stops as well and lets go of your hand so that you can rummage through your pocket to dig out the list.

You find the tiny scrap of paper. It’s been folded multiple times and you weren’t the one to write it but you can make out what it says for the most part. You go down every item and do you best to remember if you had come across it earlier.

You more or less can recall the all items on the list with the exception of three, but was because you had already looked and no one was selling them in the area. You nod to yourself, satisfied with your work. “Yup! That’s everything.”

Warrior grins and holds his hand out to you again. You take it without hesitation.

You skip to catch up to him and land by his side. He chuckles and pulls you a little closer. “Cute.”

He pecks your lips.

You grin. “What? I didn’t do anything.”

“I just think you’re cute in general. Is there anything wrong with that?” He challenges playfully.

“I suppose not.”

“Good.” He smirks and kisses you again.

A high pitched piercing whistle can be heard from just beyond you. It last a solid three seconds before it jumps another note higher. It’s an obnoxious wolf whistle.

You both break apart with a slight jolt and look in the direction the sound.

Hyrule stands just a little ways away with a smirk on his face.

You roll your eyes while Warrior meets The Traveler’s grin with a deadpanned expression. You can hear the other hero laugh as Warrior pulls you tighter to his side. “Very funny, Traveler!”

“Thank you!” He calls back, not at all sounding remotely apologetic.

You snort.

Warrior raises an eyebrow before unexpectedly pulling you back in and kissing you deeply. You think you can hear the grocery bags falling to the ground. Warrior’s hand comes up to caress your cheek not too long afterwards.

You melt into his touch, instantly forgetting that Hyrule was even nearby to begin with.

You think you hear him yell out something else but you’re too focused on the man in front of you and the way he tenderly holds you to care. Warrior pulls back with a dazed and borderline sultry look on his face. “There.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t worry about it.” His smile turns devilish. “I quite liked that a lot.”

Part 3

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #linked universe x reader #lu x reader #I took a break before my vacation and over my vacation to not write anything (kinda #commissions don't count #and goodness #i think i can visibly see the different in my writing #i feel like I'm no longer pulling teeth lol #we creatives gotta take more breaks XD

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