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Valentino writing tips: language

I’m not an expert by any means, but I thought I might provide some insight into how I, personally, handle the nasty moth's dialogue.

Like all languages, Spanish is highly regional. We don’t really know Val’s actual background as a Sinner, so your guess is as good as mine. Given his VA is Puerto Rican, however, I write Valentino as someone who speaks Caribbean Spanish (like me!). The three Spanish-speaking countries/territories in the Caribbean are: Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. I'm not familiar with Cuban Spanish, so we'll focus on the first two for now.

Some of these are more specific to one place than the other, but I’m mushing them together for simplicity’s sake (don't come at me).

Fun quirks of Dominican and Puerto Rican Spanish:

A habit of shortening words, like “ven pa’ca” (“come here”) instead of “ven para acá.” We frequently eat the letters “r,” “s” or “d” toward or at the end of some words.

Pronouncing “r” as “l” in some words.

Pronouncing “t” as a soft sound between a “th” and a “d.” Although this voice has a Spanish (from Spain) cadence, you can hear the modified “t” sound in “Valentino” here.

Fun Dominican and Puerto Rican words and phrases:

“Coño” as a casual curse, typically used as an expression of frustration (like “fuck!”). My username is basically a really intense version of coño, and is a very Dominican phrase.

“Diablo,” which means “devil,” is also commonly used as an exclamation.

“Hijo de la gran puta,” a classic that roughly parallels "son of a bitch," but literally translates to “son of a great whore.”

“Papi” or “papi chulo” (“cute daddy”) as a term of affection. “Papito” is the diminutive version of this phrase.

On that note, you can add “ito” to the end of just about anything to make it a diminutive (cutesy/smaller version). “Chulo” means cute, for example. “Chulito” is the even more affectionate/smaller version of that.

“Dique,” which is used to express doubt. Vox might say, “I am not obsessed with Alastor!” Valentino might mutter “diiiique” in response. This is a Dominican thing.

“Wepa,” which is something usually shouted in excitement. This is a Puerto Rican thing.

“Vaina,” which kind of means “thing,” often with a negative connotation. So, Valentino might look at one of Velvette’s designs, find it hideous, and say, “que vaina más fea, oof” (“what an ugly thing, oof”).

“Fó,” which is sort of “ew” or “gross,” usually re: bad smells. You shout it.

“Mano,” short for “hermano” (“brother”). Used between friends.

“Dímelo” (“tell me”) as a greeting. Something that would be said when answering the phone, for example.

“Cojer” as a means of saying “to take,” like taking something from a table. This word has a very different context in other regions. In Mexico, for example, the verb “cojer” is vulgar and means “to fuck.”

“Ahorita,” which in my experience means “later.” In other regions, it can mean “right now” or “later” depending on context.

Commonly used phrases in Mexican Spanish.

You’ll want to avoid these if you’d like his dialogue to be consistently Caribbean-inspired:

“Pinche”

“Verga”

“Wey”

“No mames/no manches”

“Qué padre”

“Chingar”

Calling acquaintances “primo” or “jefe”

I mention this Spanish dialect specifically because it's the most common one in the world. And hey, Val could be canonically Mexican or Mexican in your headcanon! That's cool, too. I'm just providing insight for consistency's sake.

Other insight:

“Ay dios mío!” is a generally overused phrase, in my opinion, and not actually said IRL as frequently as TV makes it seem. Just my experience, though.

“Ay” or “uy” are good filler sounds. You hear Val shout it when Niffty snaps at him.

Valentino canonically squeaks like a moth when passionate!

His voice takes on an echo/growl when he’s particularly angry.

Mixing English and Spanish is tricky. Spanglish is not uncommon in PR, DR, and the US, but usually only when speaking with someone else who is fluent in both languages. Valentino seems plenty fluent in English; he uses lots of contractions, complex sentence structure, and slang. He doesn’t need to inject Spanish phrases in favor of English ones when conversing with another English speaker. He does do it sometimes for emphasis (“the devil’s princesa” or “this chiquita”).

As cliché as it is, defaulting to a Spanish phrase in moments of alarm, anger, frustration, or affection is also not uncommon if you grew up in a Spanish-speaking home. If someone surprises me, I shout “coño” by default, for example.

Valentino uses pet names when referring to others, like "amorcito" (“little love”) and "Angie" over voicemail.

Generally speaking, Val likes to stretch his vowels to be theatrical ("he mooooved!"). He sometimes eats the ends of English words, like “fuckin’” instead of “fucking.” He also sometimes rolls his “r” for English words, like in “ungrrrateful whore!”

Val's accent isn’t consistently strong, which could be a stylistic choice, or he could just be prone to a kind of unique code switching, for lack of a better term. My friends say I speak English with a Spanish accent when conversing with my family, for example (it’s not intentional).

Okay that’s it, bye!

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I really love the idea of Alastor slowly getting more and more comfortable with the main crew at the Hazbin Hotel. Like, he THRIVES off of being mysterious and shit, but it's hard to keep that persona up 24/7 - especially when everyone starts slowly getting more comfortable around him. (EVEN when he does the Big Scary Demon thing! What???)

Like, for instance in Ep5, Charlie isn't alarmed by what he's doing, and tbh neither is anyone at the hotel. The only person who comments that what he's doing is alarming is LUCIFER, who doesn't live there. No one else even seems to bat an eye, and Vaggie isn't upset that he takes the fight from her to do his big scary demon shit.

They like him! Hell, the only 2 people less than pleased when he shows back up in Ep8 is Husk (who he owns) and Lucifer. Even Vaggie is smiling and pleased he survived. (And even Husk and Lucifer don't look that upset, just not appreciating his dramatics.)

And so, slowly Alastor just begins to drop his Radio Demon persona. He's still touch averse, but as long as it's not forced, he allows people to touch him for small instances at a time. He begins letting the others see him when he's tired or less put together. He plays music when he's doing something around the hotel, and if someone catches him dancing, he might just invite them to dance WITH him. He dresses down if he's not going anywhere, and drapes his jacket places to not wear it all the time. He lets them SEE HIS TAIL. (No one is still allowed to touch it, nor his ears, but it's the principle of the thing.)

The main crew even stop being alarmed or scared when he DOES do his ominous shit, like they don't even react when his eyes turn into radio dials and he threatens them over something stupid. They're just like "uh huh, sure, pal." And mime patting his shoulder (they know he doesn't like being touched when he's already in this state).

He defends someone at the hotel by ripping them to shreds with his tentacles and eating them, and the person he defends just looks so thankful (even with him having blood all over him, his eyes black, and tar-like drool dripping from his mouth) and he's so caught off guard that when they ask if they can hug him, he LETS THEM.

(The entire hotel loses their shit when he drops both the radio voice AND talks with his Louisiana Creole accent one night as they're drinking.)

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I dunno, sometimes it feels much better to have a neutral word to describe a neutral reality rather than being defaulted to "gay" at best and "frigid bitch" at worst

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the true haunting is the WIPs sitting in your drafts that you never actually finish

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DEAR ALL HAZBIN HOTEL FANFIC WRITERS !!

Are you writing a fanfiction that's Alastor-centric and don't know the culture of Louisiana or the deep US south? Well do I have good news for you! I am actually from deep south LA and I'd be happy to help you out with culture, sayings, foods, cars, history, ACCURATE last names, and much much more! I'm always free to beta read, so just dm me either on here and I'll always respond! I know that we all know the 'jumbalaya' thing, but believe me, there are so many amazing dishes that you all miss out on putting into your stories! I know that not every HH fan lives in the south so obv its hard to write abt New Orleans or Louisiana and sound accurate or feel confidant about the information you write, and I'd be happy to help! Feel free to DM me, thanks!

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okay okay. instead of "Alastor is a father figure to Charlie"

i raise you "Alastor is Charlie's (evil) fairy godmother". because it's more accurate

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Psst hey!! Over here!

Fic writers and original story writers are the same!

Writing fanfics doesn't make you any less of a writer!

Yall are just gatekeepers. Stop being assholes. There's room for everyone!

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Angel Dust: I don’t think we can mansplain, manipulate, or malewife our way out of it this time.

Alastor, cracks his knuckles: Manslaughter it is.

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PILOT vs SERIES

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Plz more boop

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the question, you see, is not ‘is it too ooc for this character to cry’ but rather ‘what circumstances would push this character to cry’

this is the whump wisdom, go forth and make that character cry

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Imagine hell has to defend itself against heaven again and this time the overlords are actually plotting together about it. So they're trying to come up with a battle plan and Velvette brings these figurines to put on the map. Most of them are just little faceless mannequins she uses for her outfit designs and she's written everyone's names on them. But one of them is a very realistic, very detailed Alastor figurine in a wedding dress.

And Carmilla is like "Okay so we need to figure out how we're going to forcibly close the portal to heaven— Alastor, you've been very quiet and thinking, do you have an idea?"

And Alastor just looks up at Velvette and gestures towards the figurine very calmly but with a twitching eye and goes "Why do you have this?"

HEL:DPGLPSHKPSGSDPOKO ANON I'M CRYING. can we bring this back into the lucifer commission saga and say lucifer was commissioned by vox to make that figurine. add this on to lucifer deciding to join an overlord meeting just to try and keep more in touch with the sinners and he's like "oh! I made that" and alastor's like "you WHAT" and velvette goes "YOU'RE the one vox commissioned this from??" and alastor's like "vox WHAT??????????" and then they sing a reprise of "you didn't know?"

every iteration of this gets worse and worse I'm sorry.

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🦔

This is Charles. He wants to go on a journey around tumblr. could you show him around?

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Ya'll want to know the funniest shit?

I'm researching the era when Alastor was alive right now to get a better idea of both his character, the life he lived before Hell, and to hash out a backstory for him.

And so, apparently, Alastor lived through the Prohibition (which was basically the United States government illegalizing the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol because they thought it was the cause of a lot of domestic violence and child abandonment).

Alastor canonically died in 1933.

Do you know how long the Prohibition lasted?

From 1920-1933.

ALASTOR LITERALLY DIED THE SAME YEAR ALCOHOL BECAME LEGAL AGAIN. CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW BITTER HE MUST'VE BEEN?

The Prohibition officially ended on December 5, 1933, and now my headcanon is that Alastor died December 6, 1933. Literally the day after he could legally drink all the booze he wanted.

I am learning a LOT about New Orleans and the era Alastor lived through (including the gay community in the city at the time) which has been a lot of fun, and I just wanted to share that tidbit because it is so fucking funny to me.

[fictionocean]

I always seem to remember this when it’s almost over 😅

Happy International Asexuality Day!!!