#Smiling like an idiot about this

[nonsensefromtheabyss]

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?) 

[braceletofteeth]

headcanon that Sky is known at Prapai's workplace as "the boss's boss"

[nonuggetshere]

(ID start: A drawing of The Pale King from Hollow Knight holding a white and grey firefly larvae in his lap and reading him a book. End ID.)

LOOK AT IT, LOOK HOW CUTE THIS IS

Another commission I got from @alaskaartz ! OBSESSED with how cute it is

[basketobread]

I LOVE LUNARA SO MUCH. SO MUCH. I WANT TO BE IN HER PARTY BUT NOT EVEN AS TAV. I WANNA BE SOME COMPANION WHO HAS THE HONOUR OF TRAVELLING WITH HER AS MY LEADER. THANK YOU FOR HAVING BLESSED US WITH THE MOST GORGEOUS TAV AROUND 🙏

OMFGGGG YOU GUYS ARE GONNA KILL HER FROM BEING SO SWEET DSFIUFHSDSDF THAT'S SO SWEET OF YOU TO SAY HAHAHA SHE LOVES YOU TOO ANON!!! SHE IS SENDING YOU HUGS AND KISSES!!! AND THANK YOU, I LOVE HER!!! SHE IS MY NUMBER ONE POOKIE PRINCESS!!! <3333 (she might accidentally detonate a bomb as the leader but she's trying her best)

[goliig68]

Some tianshan scenarios that I can't get out of my head:

I want he tian to call mo pretty or beautiful, even if it's internally, like imagine tianshan on a beach date and it's sunset, then sun's golden/orange rays shine through mo's features and make his Hazel eyes and red hair look bright and shiny, and then on that moment he tian realizes that just how beautiful mo guan shan is.

Imagine tianshan slow dancing at he tian's apartment and he tian is surprised that mo is good at dancing, and mo tells him that as a kid, he used to dance with his mother alot. And sometimes he tian looks at mo's eyes with a look that is full of love and adoration which makes mo blush and look away cuas he can't look into he tian's eyes for too long, and when music ends he tian places his hand on mo's cheek to lift his head up and kissing him softly.

Or imagine mo standing on his tiptoes to kiss he tian 😭 and with his both hands resting on he tian's nape to get him a little closer but he still has to stand on his tiptoes cuas he tian Is just too tall😭 and when they separate mo is looking at him with an annoyed but flushed face and tells him "you're too tall, it's annoying" which earns a laugh with fondness from he tian.

[s0ckspuppet]

I actually love Nicky's wedding outfit so much (despite me only finding really low quality pictures of it so its hard to fully replicate lol)

I feel like he'd definitely always wear hoodies and casual clothing so this would be new to him. He has no idea what he is doing and its great.

[bookshopbentley]

up in heaven sometimes the other angels can’t find archangel aziraphale . no one looks to the stars . but there he is . and without his crowley , they only bring minimal comfort .

[wormlette]

ok ch2 is up. please enjoy the yearning 🙏

[willowser]

"oh! hey, c'mere, i gotta show you something funny!"

whatever nonsense satoru had been planning on spouting is tucked away the instant he sees your coy little grin, and one of his own grows on his face, made brighter and wider by the ease of your invitation.

yes, he's just spent the last seven minutes in your doorway, silent and scheming, thinking on what to say to attract your attention — but it doesn't matter if that's now been disrupted, because he'd take your attention any way it can be served, cold or hot. it's warm today; that much he can tell by the way you beam at him, as he comes to stand beside you.

you dig through the top drawer of your desk for a minute or two, and satoru is bubbling with things to say, now, about the little mess you keep there, but he gets distracted by the hurried, chalky handprints staining the material covering your ass. the sight makes him grin so hard that his cheeks swell, nudging his blindfold up the littlest bit; satoru finds it invigorating, this innate ability you have to fluster him. the heat in his face is surely visible, even to someone like you.

"aha!" you dance back and forth on your feet for a second, stopping only when he starts to join you, excited, and then you hold up two dangly, jingling little things right in front of his face. "a student's sister is selling these for school, and they made me think of you! so i bought us some to match!"

keychains, he realizes, suddenly sober. cute and colorful miniature ice bars.

"adorable, huh?" you pull them back to assess in your palm, touching gently at the plastic as if they were real, as if they could melt in the warmth of your hand. "which one do you want? the watermelon is the cutest, so i was gonna give you that one."

everything satoru had thought to say dissolves, leaks between his fingers, sugary and sweet. he's left with nothing, cold, then, smile frozen, as you fiddle with something so meaningless—

you look up, waiting for his response, and he watches you clock the change in his demeanor, instantly; you can't see cursed energy, but you can see — something, within him. always have been able to, though he's yet to figure out how.

"unless you want strawberry," you shrug, a little awkward now, but sunny as usual. "do you even have keys, actually, or do you—"

"no take-backs!" he snatches the dainty thing from your hand, sticking his tongue out at the flat look you send him. "i get watermelon!"

"fine," you pout for just a second before sticking your tongue out at him, too, and then you laugh quietly to yourself. amused, like a child.

once you start to dig around in your messy drawer for your car keys, satoru turns his attention to the tiny treat, focusing on it. trying to ignore the blood rushing in his ears.

it's so simple. so silly. you are, selfless and honest to a fault, all the traits that make you a liability in this world. if anything were to happen to your students, then you wouldn't make it. and if anything were to happen to you, satoru thinks—

right there in your presence, so close that he can hear your heartbeat peacefully thundering over his own — he can feel the cracks in his composure. how close he is to splintering off, how quickly everything would collapse if he dared to blink wrong.

if anything were to happen to you, satoru thinks, he'd go insane. he already has.

a small laugh leaves him, at the thought, but he closes his fist around the small keychain when you look up at him again. still grinning, leaning in so close that you're about to be stopped.

"do you like it?" you ask, open and hopeful and silly.

it makes him laugh again, because you really have no idea.

[peachcott]

my meet the artist for this year ♪(´▽｀) i had sooo much fun working with the ace attorney style!!

so hi, i’m cotton! it’s so nice to meet you!

[fawndlyvenus]

You know what makes me happy? Seeing what those I care about love. What interests have captivated their hearts, thoughts, souls, and minds. What hobbies keep them busy and feeling the sparks of joy and creativity around them. What current obsessions have them wanting to talk to others for hours on end about it, and also how that may shape them in a new and exciting way.

I just really love to watch people light up, eyes sparkle, and excitement roll over their bodies when they are around things that bring them joy, and make them happy. Their energy and enthusiasm bleeds out and seeps into the area around them, making the universe more vibrant and enchanting.

And I hope others never try to take that away from them, or make them feel awful about it. Because I promise you it’s beautiful and wonderful. It’s a great treasure. Don’t let others steal that from you.

[taichouu]

Got curious Abt ur oc kou n was surprised to see her in tons of verses! Where did she come from, what's her deal I love her design already and I literally just met her. also Do u have like. A master post for her :?

LEAPS INTO THIS ASK

I unfortunately do not have a master post for her (because im pretty shy about sharing my ocs unless people ask for her directly. Should I make one??) but she is a rather old oc! I think I've had her for a little over 5 years now and she's probably my most loved on OC out of my bunch because I adore drawing her.

Her journey started as a BNHA centric oc actually (lowers my head to the ground), but the idea for her and her design have been in my mind for a LONG time, they just needed a medium to be expanded upon! As everyone here knows, I have a special interest in birds, so BIRD PEOPLE are my thing. Kou is literally just a human owl hybrid right down to her genetic makeup.

(Aren't they so cute. Augh owls are one of my favorite species to dive into)

Her design was initially based on an Asian Wood Owl (above ^^), but over the years that I've had her, she has changed designs and verses along with my art style!! It also depends on if the AU/Verse I put her in allows for her to have more exaggerated features. She has a lot of interesting physical characteristics in fantasy settings (her bone structure and organs are actually so fascinating to me but I'd be here ALL night if I went into it 🤧 if you really want to know more I can make a separate post for it).

Recently she's been in more of a modern setting, and I play with her a lot in the ygo verse with my close friends. Kou can stand on her own as a character in any setting, I just LOVE allowing her to interact with my favorite characters in medias i like ^_^ in modern settings she trades her wings for those plastic Halloween costume angel wings that she always incorporates into her outfits.

I no longer really touch bnha due to a lot of things, but I still do draw Kou with her wings on occasion <3

[coconut530]

GO FRENCHIE GO!!!!

[alexkablob]

Other favorite bits from the Dorley reread: Lorna's Paranormal Investigator Arc™

[absolutemimery]

1 year since I fell in love with the big fat red guy

Extra selfship doodles hgghghhh