#I’m very adamant about that

[lickithrice]

Don’t put ai on my feed.

[karouvas]

getting a little obsessed with the concept of Blue after Persephone’s death resenting Adam a little for spending so much time with her towards the end (especially considering usually Blue and Calla had scenes together in BLLB vs Persephone mostly being in scenes with Adam), even though she knows that’s unfair but it doesn’t change how she feels. Especially with the context of his being psychic and in a way fitting more into 300 fox way than she can, also not true but something I really think she feels considering her struggles with being too magical for non-300 fox way residents and lonely as a result but feeling too normal within her family. And he definitely on the other hand is jealous that she has a loving family unit, and probably that she had Persephone in her life so much longer. Idk I just think those would be interesting notes for them and kind of compliment their love triangle related jealousy, also a nice natural progression of them both mourning her death in BLLB and it bringing on their fear of Gansey’s death.

[babybirbb]

he goes, i go, a marvey playlist

harvey - her’s // good luck, babe - chappell roan // i can see you - taylor swift // calling after me - wallows // cologne - beabadoobee // snap out of it - arctic monkeys // settle down - ricky montgomery // forever with me - conan gray // change - djo // fresh out the slammer - taylor swift // all in - the army, the navy // you’re all i have - snow patrol // leaning on you - haim

[mikeywaveoven]

chainshipping hc that i’ve never seen anyone else have before:

after the bathroom, adam started panicking about baths and even showers because of waking up in that tub. bc of that, lawrence sits outside the bath/shower on the floor whenever adam needs to bathe, so he can calm him down if needed and always make him feel safe. after a couple years, adam doesn’t need him there anymore, but he likes that lawrence still does it for him so he never tells him to stop.

[dekusleftsock]

“You should know more than anyone what a soul can do when they take charge of their own fate”—an analysis/accumulation of how Alastor views choice, redemption, and most importantly, Heaven

This quote I feel has gone… surprisingly unnoticed fandom wise. Hell, I haven’t even seen shippers address it. The reason? It destroys any and all ideas that Alastor doesn’t believe in redemption.

Now, why do I say this? We don’t know how Adam got into heaven in the first place, that is true, however we DO HAVE the context of the biblical story of Adam and Eve.

The story never tells us where they go. The Bible never outright says whether they fell because of the ultimate sin of temptation, nor does it say they repented themselves in their living life. However, because in Hazbin we have the context that Adam is both a winner and the leader of the angelic army, PROVES to me that in some way some how, Adam repented for his crime and the ultimate sin.

Adam, the person who literally made the worst sin in all of creation with the biggest impact, is in heaven. Not only that, but he’s the leader of the Angelic army, he has control. He has influence. He has power.

Fundamentally, repenting in the afterlife and in the living life work the same. They both take steps in betterment, and you can and should be forgiven for crimes that were committed. Because betterment isn’t just some selfish choice to make yourself happy, it’s for everyone. When you improve yourself, the people around you tend to be happier. Regardless of how heaven feels about it, or how YOU feel about it, improvement of any kind helps the world go round.

Alastor isn’t stupid, he isn’t naive, he isn’t even power hungry. He’s intelligent, he can put two and two together. If a winner who made the ultimate sin was somehow able to repent, anyone can. And that is dangerous information.

He sings about how he refuses to be altruistic, how he refuses to care. Not because he never BELIEVED in redemption, oh no, he does. He knows it’s possible, everyone can change—cut from the same fabric, a winner can just as much fall as a sinner can rise.

No, the reason Alastor hates this altruistic behavior or genuine care for others, is that it challenges the belief that he is unfeeling, inhuman. That he can rip himself from his very fundamentals.

Alastor is prideful. Aside from the serial killer aspect, it’s probably why he’s in hell in the first place. There’s a reason he parallels Lucifer so much, a reason his narrative foil is vox. Both of these men suffer from their abilities to look past their own power and reach, to the point one of them is the ruler of the pride ring.

And this prideful problem is what keeps him from accepting change—he has to be special, he has to be different, he has to be the performer, he has to be in control. Why wouldn’t a man so obsessed with control over his status and the people around him NOT BELIEVE in redemption? That’s so unbelievably far from that concept. It’s the polar opposite even.

Alastor is actively choosing not to redeem himself. It’s honestly the main flaw in Charlie’s plan to begin with—the average sinner is far more likely to choose redemption because they have been put in a place of genuine suffering; however, overlords are unique in the ways that overindulgence actively empowers them. They are choosing to bad things, not because of happenstance or even trauma. It’s why characters like Valentino are so easily dislikable, even though other characters or other sinners have or are actively doing as bad or worse things than him. (I trust the fandom on here understands that liking a character vs liking their actions are different and that it makes sense for people to genuinely like Valentino 🙏🙏- signed by someone who isn’t necessarily a Val fan just someone who enjoys his interest and what he brings to the table antagonist wise)

Val, Vox, and Vell all choose to do bad things. They are one of the few sinners within hell who HAVE the choice to make others happier/make themself better without Charlie’s involvement, which is why they ARE such good antagonists. It challenges Charlie’s beliefs in whether every sinner can or should be redeemed, and for that reason alone I find them an interesting concept.

Getting back to Alastor specifically, however, he chooses to carry himself as someone who cares most about the entertainment of himself and the general population. He is untouchable, sadistic, unfeeling, uncaring, and most importantly, he is irredeemable. Charlie cannot and should not touch him with a twelve foot stick of empathy if she wishes to keep her dream alive. <- this is how I think he wants himself to be perceived

This was my thought process of him—at least up until the finale—he doesn’t want anyone to know what’s going on underneath that smile; there’s this post that was made on an Alastor ask blog a while ago, I’ll link it here, but I think it speaks to such an important part of Alastor and his character.

"The clothes I wear—to finally loop back to your original question, terribly sorry for the digression!—they serve two purposes. One, they consistently identify me, like a uniform. Two, they keep your damn eyes off everything but my smile."

It’s an amazing monologue and is apart of a very funny fic based off of the ask blog, which I’ll link here, but I think it articulated something about Alastor that, up until the point where I’d read that fic, had felt unexplainable.

Alastor’s smile has never been “forced” upon by anything. And if it is, well I guess I’ll eat my words and complain about how very uncreative it is, but this is his choice and his alone. Just as Alastor is choosing not to redeem himself, he is also choosing to smile, day in and day out, when he’s stressed out of his mind or having a good ol’ meltdown. It’s not that he physically can’t do so, but that a mental key is unable to be pushed into a misshapen lock.

Alastor, is a performer. At heart he’s a radio host. Why would a radio host have to smile? Why, you can hear it in his voice of course! It promotes a feeling. Studies upon studies have been done about how acting like an emotion you WANT to have can bring you closer to that emotion. Like, say, smiling while performing a radio broadcast after staying up all night killing people can help you stay chipper and professional!

And, as Alastor explains, a smile to him is a tool. The first thing you notice about someone at any given moment is their face.

But, I made a specific bit of wording earlier. I said my perspective was that he is someone who wants to be perceived as irredeemable.

But, given how he chose to reveal that aspect of himself with Charlie, I almost feel unsure now.

Obviously Alastor was never an angel. Viv is so obvious about it visually with vaggie and possibly carmilla, that atp I think I could point out anyone who came along and looked vaguely angelic and be right. He wasn’t. Unclipping his wings meant something like, trying to take control back. Everyone perceived this “thing” he’s describing, as a who.

Who has control over Alastor, who has him on a leash, who makes Alastor feel genuine, unable to hide, overwhelming fear. And this could still be a who.

But it could also be a what. Or a place. Or a noun. Unclipping his wings may even mean… going to heaven.

Do I think he wants to do this the fair and just way? No. No he doesn’t. He’s fucking Alastor. Whenever we think about him being empathetic, I will remind us that he is still Alastor who has killed thousands. He should redeem himself, he should want to, he should try, but he’s not doing that. Not yet.

So, to get back to our boy Adam and Alastor’s little monologue to him, it’s clear to me that Alastor believes anyone can take charge. God, angels, demons, Lucifer, they don’t have power. Not really. Because when it comes down to it, your soul and what you do with it is still yours. That’s power. It’s why I used that monologue and explained my perspective on his smile, just as much as he chooses his fate, chooses his words, chooses his smile—having a choice and control over oneself is power.

“What a soul can do when they take charge of their own fate.” Taking charge of one’s fate is what Alastor perceives to be true power. He tries to enact this through his fight with Adam, yet fails spectacularly when he lacks the true nuance to having control over one’s soul—care. Love. Fighting for something or someone else.

Everyone else in this fight wins a major battle in some way—Angel saves one of the egg boys/protects the hotel(I’m including husker in this example), Charlie saves her dad, Vaggie saves Charlie, Sir pentious by all accounts still wins in the end against Adam because he becomes a winner after fighting for Cherri, so on and so forth—the only one fighting for no one or nothing here is Alastor. Funny how, in the one fight in sir pentious’ life where he fights for someone else or something else, he gets his cake and eats it too. He becomes a winner. Adam still dies. He doesn’t win but he does.

Alastor is choosing to not redeem himself, to not care, because he doesn’t have to as an overlord—but if he wants to prove himself, if he wants control, if he wants to take charge of his fate… he has to let himself. He has to choose to care about something outside of himself. Being in denial that your plan may be inherently altruistic and that you only care to the extent that you have to, isn’t fighting for something.

And this is Adam’s problem too! He’s long since stopped fighting for any real purpose than getting hard on beating people who can’t fight back, and this is WHY he loses! He isn’t fighting for anyone! He isn’t even fighting to protect the institution of heaven. This is why someone like Sera is dangerous, she cares about something outside of being an authority over a place. She cares about Emily.

And I have to say, I’m rooting for Alastor. Regardless of how selfish his plan may be, I’m still rooting for him—because for him to do what he wants done, he has to better himself.

I think remembering the context that Hazbin is inherently about choosing to stand back up after being kicked down, is so so important. It’s about choosing to love yourself, choosing to care, choosing to improve. And I love that Viv is making her message about how no one can be better without choosing to do so. You can’t make someone fix themself, you can’t make someone care, you can’t make someone love themself.

And I know this is a thing said often times to put people with mental health issues down, but it does have some merit to it. You can’t get better unless you try. Nothing will make you, that has been and always will be, your choice.

[orangesnail]

Who picked up the pieces of Adams life after he died?

Did anyone ever file a missing persons report? Did his parents assume he never wanted to speak with them again? Living out the rest of their lives haunted by their memories of a young boy they scared away, not knowing their sons body has been left to spend an eternity in companionship with those who put him there, a cold uncaring coffin.

Did Amanda ever revisit his apartment? Body full to the brim of bone breaking ache at the life she took because of her mistakes. Takes the photos he took of her, to protect herself, to remember him, to hurt herself with.

Did his landlord clean out the apartment? Shaking his head and cursing Adams name while chucking out each memento of a an incredibly lonely apathetic life lived, unaware of the preserving hope for something better hidden in each photo, in the messages on the answering machine that have been replayed many times.

Who gave him the respect of not just being an afterthought, but the courtesy of being remembered fondly at the forefront at their mind?

[otherworldsivelivedin]

What do we think Ronan and Adam even do to relax?

Like, aside from each other.

[sarellathesphinx]

Both square enix and other players can take the idea that Cait has his own personality and sense of will separate from Reeve from my mummified hands

[compacflt]

I was wondering if you had thoughts about how Ice and Mav's politics don't fully align with their actions? There was a post where you said Ice's politics are more socially liberal than Mav's but Mav is also the one who goes out to La Jolla to hit on guys before Ice, and later again when he's broken up with Ice, but Ice only goes out with women out of fear for his honor or whatever. Same with their respective thoughts on feminism, with Mav's mild respect for Charlie (telling Ice not all women fit the stereotype) but later Ice is the one who sends Juno to Mav's Top Gun class without telling him she's a woman and Ice has a respectful friendship with Juno. I think you said Ice is vaguely on the ace-aro spectrum (demi-homoromantic) which is a sort of fascinating irony that he doesn't have the words for it whereas Mav is the one with the theories about Ice's sexuality. Though with their hypocrisies and inconsistencies this all just feeds into their characterizations of the fact that they keep divorcing their actions from their spoken words from their identities.

okay going to take this point by point

1. yes i have addressed their politics in relation to their actions before, so maybe read this post and this post before you read this one, just to see where my other thoughts line up

2. gay republicans and conservatives do exist (at the very least certainly republicans and conservatives who have gay sex in secret)

3. before maverick is a political actor he is a human being, and the characterization that we are primarily given for him is that he is impulsive and reckless and doesn’t think through his actions. As ive written about many times before—from a story construction standpoint, his thoughtlessness is his number one most important character trait. He is both thoughtlessly dangerous (his hero’s “fatal flaw;” he can’t stop himself from making bad decisions) and thoughtlessly brilliant (the navy’s best and most daring and heroic pilot). He does what he wants without thinking about it; and he makes excuses and hollow promises whenever that plan doesn’t work out (“I know better than that. It will never ever happen again;” [it happens again] “I’m not gonna let you down. I promise.” [goose dies shortly thereafter]). His thoughtless impulsiveness overrides everything else. Maybe the act of having gay sex (to address your “he gets fucked in La Jolla before ice” point) is politically subversive, but for Maverick’s thoughtless character that we are shown in Top Gun, the most subversive possible thing would be to LABEL the gay sex and think through the consequences of it. To call a spade a spade and call himself gay or bi or queer or whatever. That would be the most subversive (and with mav, entirely unbelievable imo) possible thing. That takes conscious effort of thought, something maverick is near-incapable of doing. As long as he can get away with it without thinking about it, he’s politically in the clear, with regards to his character & character arc. If that makes sense. “Don’t think. Just do.” That’s literally his motto lmfao. He represents thoughtless action as an archetype; his politics come secondary to his desires

4. Their “respective thoughts on feminism” are divided into two camps: 1. “Professional as required by the law” and 2. “Sex pest mode.” They’re naval officers in the 1980s. Whether republican or democrat, that’s kind of par for the course. How men treat women can be a performance to other men. Any respect i made them show towards women had broader, more metatextual “need to move the conversation/story from A to B” reasoning behind it. See the first post I linked for much more on that.

5. i never said ice was on the ace/aro spectrum, or if i did i DEFINITELY meant it sarcastically. That could not be further from what i believe. This isn’t something I’ve ever discussed on this blog before, but a MASSIVE part of the philosophical discussion I’ve been trying to moderate within this project over the last year is the question— “do labels even work with characters under these very specific and extraordinarily extreme conditions and societal pressures?” It’s a question I took from my time studying early American history—the contexts of certain environments, and I would definitely count the elite officer ranks of the navy in the 90s and 2000s as one of these certain environments, simply Are Not Conducive to the easier (path of least resistance maybe) ways we civilians handle sexuality and friendship and trauma. There are so many variables and external and internal pressures within an environment like the upper ranks of career navy officers that sexual orientation labels lose all nuance and accuracy. I don’t think Ice (as i have written him) is gay. I don’t think he’s straight. I don’t think he’s bi. I think he’s an unlabelable product of too many variables for labels to have any effect on how he is perceived. Which, in our society built around labels and categories, is admittedly difficult to wrestle with. But doesn’t make it any less worth wrestling with.

6. Yes, ice and mav’s hypocrisy is the linchpin of the entire story.

They’re both trying to have their cake (“honor” and moral superiority based on the harmful traditional subjective morals arbitrated by elite navy officership) and eat it too (a fulfilling relationship with the love of their lives). & the point is that they cant. they have to settle for one.

[aforgottenthing]

Do you think Lawrence took up smoking after the bathroom trap?

[ducktracy]

!!!NEW REVIEW!!!

the first Looney Tune of the 1941-1942 season is one of the LT shorts i personally have the most opinions and theories and feelings on out of the entire run—a very promising start to a very promising season!

perhaps best known for its own remake, 1948’s Back Alley Oproar starring Sylvester and Elmer Fudd, Notes to You is a hidden gem of musical timing, behavioral comedy, empathetic portrayal of characters, immersive storytelling, dubious directing to keep the audience guessing, and perhaps the bearer of the darkest ending to any Looney Tune. all high praise for such a seemingly innocuous short about Porky’s plans to get a good’s night sleep being repeatedly violated by a cat with an insatiable itch for music—and heckling.

[karouvas]

Adam is turned on by being taught Latin (Ronan) and History (Gansey) by powerful rich hot brunette men with nice cars so ofc Greenmantle scores points with him.

[finndoesntwantthis]

Elite boyfriends/husbands/exes/enemies they definitely wanna bone:

Hangman: Kenny, Cody, Swerve, Jay White, Mox & Renee, Adam Cole

Matthew: Kenny, Okada, Adam Cole, Cody, Hanger, Kevin Owens

Kenny: Ibushi, Matthew, Hanger, Don, Cody (and Brandi), Adam Cole, Mox, Okada, Xavier Woods, Seth Rollins despite not ever being seen together (minus maybe a rare run-in back in old ROH days) great job having the most you dumb fuckin whore (I’m in love with him, I am not immune)

Nicholas: Hanger, Adam Cole, Cody, Kevin Owens, congrats to him for honestly having the least sexual chemistry with people that’s an accomplishment and a testament to the fact that he is the most well adjusted

Special shout out to Cody for being sexually obsessed with Kenny in 2018 to the point that he tried to seduce Ken’s boyfriend and made his wife kiss Ken in place of himself. Legend for that. Best run of his career tbh.

And congrats to Adam Cole for doing his best to court every single member of the elite, I’m sure that has always worked out very well for you (they killed him)

I am of course open to taking more to add to everyone’s list

[sol-draws-sometimes]

I am once again listening to the bright sessions, but just the Caleb episodes

[derrydeer]

poor adam he goes through torture and dies alone painfully and now a bunch of gay bitches use him as a vessel for their own pain. guy can’t get any rest

[willowbirds]

Not me thinking about what could happen if Mister gets the shard!

Think about it.

He’s an elemental so the shard likely wouldn’t burn him.

He could gain more fire powers, the flames that make up his body possibly turning white or blue with how hot his temperature has become.

Ashton has an arm made of lava rock which could be a perfect perch for the wielder of the fire shard.

If Ashton and Mister are near each other perhaps it gives them a benefit for their elemental connection.

It would be much easier for them to sneak around since they’re one person and a monkey.

Perhaps Fearne could still gain an ability since she is tethered to Mister.

I dunno, I just think Mister makes the most sense to me.