#val does a yell with her mouth

[girlboypersonthingy]

hiiiii!!!! so i’m thinking of a velvette fic where u meet the vees after having dated her for a bit (a few weeks maybe). you hate them. you think they’re creepy and just assholes, even for being in hell. (you’re a bit more wholesome but yk still a sinner) like you just do NOT like the guys. you’re super worried abt velvette’s reaction to that fact so u try to sugar coat it but she’s just like “thank lucifer! i didn’t want them to be creepy bad influences on u!” and u’re both super relieved. i love her.

Heeyyyy I was wondering when you’d send in a Velvette request ☺️ you got it friend! Enjoyyyy~

TW: Val being a perv 😎 for like one second tho, Velvette gets a bit suggestive,?? Lots of cussing lol

The Only V For Me 💜

“AAHHH!!! Darling, you’re finally here! How was the drive? How was the driver?” Velvette watches as you walk through the doorway of her studio, looking around with big doe eyes at all the bright lights and flashy outfits and really beautiful model demons.

“Velvette!” Before you can say anything more, she’s pulling you into a a deadly tight hug. “It was actually…like way too much, babe. You don’t have to do all that fancy shit for me, ya know? But…yes, it was really nice. Thank you.” Velvette offers you a cheeky smirk followed by a quick kiss to the cheek.

Your darling girlfriend snaps her fingers and yells out a command to one of her assistants. “You! Come here.” She makes a ‘come here’ motion with her finger as she turns her attention back to you, her lips upturned into a smile again, “Are you thirsty? Hungry? Anything you need, you tell her.” She points to her assistant who is now right at your side. “Anything my darling asks for, you get it.” She gives the worker an intimidating glare before winking at you.

“Let me show you around!” Velvette puts an arm around your shoulders and pulls you along, pointing things out, explaining them. She is absolutely beaming with pride right now, glancing at you often to see your reaction. As you pass a mannequin clad in a really nice outfit, a gasp comes from Velvette. “Oh my! You know who would look absolutely stunning in this little number?” And now she’s flashing you this flirty grin and her bright red eyes are looking you up and down. Suddenly her smooth demeanor dropped as she grumbled under her breath a bit then sighed deeply.

“Oh, who am I kidding. With Vox and Val both here today, if I dress you in anything more appealing than what you’ve got on now, they will definitely try to steal you from me. You already look too cute…” This pulls a laugh from you but your laugh stops suddenly, stuck in your throat when you see how serious her expression is at the moment.

“Wait. What? What do you mean-“ And suddenly the doors swing open, slamming into the walls behind them as an extremely tall, blue-skinned individual with big red heart shaped glass quickly approaches Velvette, towering over both of you.

“WHERE THE HELL IS VOX?! I’ve been looking for that flat faced fuck all day.” He growls out and you take note of the fact that Velvette doesn’t flinch a bit. “Why the hell are you asking me? If he was here, you’d have found him already.” She snaps back and as the angry man before you was about to screech out another sentence, his expression softened rather quickly as his eyes fell on you.

“Why hello~ who do you have here? Wow! What a gorgeous creature you are. I’m Valentino. What’s your name, sweetheart?” One of his hands slips into yours and as he goes to lift your hand to his lips, Velvette pushes him so hard he nearly falls over.

“Their name is (Y/N), alright? And they are MINE. Now back off, Val.” She hisses in response, now tightly holding your hand, the hand that Val was holding just a second ago. “WHOO! Alright. My apologies, dear. Didn’t know this one was all yours. But I mean FUCK! They just have such nice lips! I mean, look at that mouth. You have the perfect pair of dick sucking li-“

Velvette shouts over him, “SHUT IT!!! You’re actually so vile. Get out of here, Valentino! You’re freaking out my babe.” She gives him another shove, making him frown angrily at her before he stomps off, probably punching a wall or kicking something over as he leaves. Oh, he definitely slams the door again too.

“Alrighty! Where were we?” Velvette seems to relax a bit more, going back to a more chipper and excited attitude as she again shows off all of her impressive work to you. She even got a few models to come do a little show just for you, all of them casually posing and showing off different outfits. Velvette kept asking your opinion, begging you to be ‘bloody honest’ with her.

“Oh, darling! You just have to come over one night and let me dress you up, just us two! Hmm~ I could dress you up and then maybe even…undress you again.” Just as your girlfriend started to flirt with you and as you started to feel more comfortable in this environment-

“Velvette! Happy Friday. Have you seen Val? I haven’t been able to reach him all day. I’m-“ The strong, electric voice that sounded from behind you two made you jump a bit and brought a frightening grimace to Velvette’s face.

“Oh~ Hello. (Y/N), right? Pleased to meet you! I was wondering when our precious like Velvette was gonna bring her play thing over. I’m Vox, creator of Voxtech. You know, on the late night talk show…and the morning talk show. I’m also the news anchor.” He doesn’t really offer you his hand, he more so just reached out and grasps your hand in his, giving it a rapid shaking.

His grip on your hand hurts a bit and the smug smirk on his face makes you somewhat intimidated by him. Vox just…gives you the creeps even more than Valentino did and he basically verbally assaulted you. Before you can even come up with a response to him-

“Yes, yes, yes. Everyone knoWS WHO YOU ARE, YOU PRICK. NOW WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” And now Velvette looks kind of scary, like so pissed off and annoyed that she looks like she could actually kill someone right now. The someone preferably being Vox. Her bright red eyes glow with rage and irritation, her pretty lips now turned into a deep scowl.

As she yells in his face, his expression drops to one of annoyance and exhaustion. “Where’s Val?” Velvette groans before responding. “You’ve got to be fuckin kidding me! He just left, looking for you. Look on your stupid little cameras and find him and go tell him to STOP SLAMMING MY DOORS OR IM GONNA-“

Not that Velvette scared you but…she looked pretty upset right now and her yelling is enough to put anyone into a slight panic. So you slip you hand around her bicep, gently pulling her tense arm back a bit so you could comfortably slide your hand down to hers, interlocking your fingers. Her words stopped in their tracks, your tender touch almost making her flinch. Her head whipped around and she looked at you for a good few seconds, a smile slowly growing on her lips. She turns back to the screen-faced man, her smile not faltering this time.

“Off you go.” Velvette quite literally shoos him away with a wave of her hand as her other hand snakes its way around your waist and back until her arm is fully wrapped around you and you’re pressed into her side. She turns her back on Vox, determined to keep her full attention on you for the rest of the day. You’re too distracted by her embrace to notice if Vox had even left or not.

You clear your throat. “Babe…?” “Yes, love?” “Don’t get mad.” You look at her with a serious expression, causing her to blink in confusion. “Mad at you? Never. What’s on your mind?” Velvette pulled away from you for just a second then she faced you and held both your hands in her own.

“I feel…extremely uncomfortable here. Specifically, with Valentino and Vox. I-I…I’m sorry I just…I don’t like them…very much…they scare me.” Velvette chuckles before you can finish your sentence and you’re not sure if you should be relieved or even more worried. Suddenly, she pulls you into a tight hug, her hands rubbing big circles all over your back.

“Ugh, I’m so terribly sorry, darling. Truly, I figured those two would be busy on a Saturday, too busy to be bothering us already.” She turns her head to kiss your cheek then pulls you in even closer. “Fuck! I’m actually so relieved you said that. Those two are so terrible…truly, irresponsible! I mean it when I say I’m the backbone of the Vs okay? Those two pussies would fall apart in a matter of hours without me! Ugh they can’t even keep it together for one day!” “Babe…” You try to calm her again, seeing how worked up she gets having to constantly deal with her work partners.

With her attention solely on you, she softly says, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. What do you want to do next, hm? We can go somewhere. Anywhere. Just say the words.” Her long fingers gently graze the skin of your cheek, causing you to become a bit flustered. It’s almost baffling how she can be so cold and cruel to everyone around her except you. You were her only weakness, and she doesn’t mind one bit. She loves you endlessly. She wouldn’t trade this feeling for anything in Hell.

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

I’ve been spending the past like hour looking at your page I love it sm! I have some questions :3 1. Does Rosie have a design in your au yet? I’d love to see her being actually super scary- 2. Do velvette and vox know how Val treats angel? 3. Where is angel’s brother. Just what is he doing in hell.

Just for you anon I have drawn Rosie incredibly quickly and she kind of looks like garbage but ive never drawn her before im so sorry

For any issues in this (a few I can already spot) I will be fixing when I work on her full body design 🙏 I like her original smile and hollow eyes but honestly sunken in eyes that are barely visible are a lot scarier to be so she gets that. Ive also considered making her blind but we’ll see if I go through with that (I would love to design her a really fancy white cane though… something with that umbrella it does things to me..)

As for Vox and Velvette, I don’t think Velvette is anywhere near as aware as Vox is. The majority of her knowledge is some horrible things have probably happened but she’s never seen it or explicitly gotten any confirmation her suspicions are true so she refrains from prying into it because it’s “not her problem” and finding out would make things more complicated for her image and work, though she absolutely does hat Valentino and is 100% okay with killing him and has discussed kicking him out with Vox multiple times, however they have yet to settle on this.

Vox is definitely aware of what Valentino does but doesn’t actively engage himself in it aside from very sparse talks with Angel on set that usually involves Angel becoming irritable or jittery in Vox’s presence. Vox does detest Valentino’s behaviour and treatment of Angel and will frequently roll his eyes at the mention of Angel since in his mind “its always something with him” and by now any complaints Valentino has about Angel get filtered out after so many years of hearing the most mundane things Valentino is upset about. (ie. Angel moving even though he didn’t live with Valentino to begin with) Even though he heavily disapproves of what Valentino does he still turns a blind eye to it and leaves Angel with little to no help, only ever giving him a few words of advice or a brief warning if Valentino is in a bad mood that day.

Velvette is also unaware of Vox and Valentino’s actual situation as well as basically everyone else. On the surface they come off as “friends with benefits” however Vox is in a (very loosely) similar situation to Angel. Valentino will make similar threats and statements to Vox as he does Angel and currently, Vox doesn’t realise that Valentino is exploiting him. As of now, he hasn’t processed “I don’t actually want to be doing this” or “I am uncomfortable in this situation”. He is still suffering the effects of an abusive work relationship since Valentino does still hit and yell at him, he just hasn’t processed the sexual aspect of what they do was pushed onto him unnaturally rather than him consenting to it openly. Hopefully this makes sense? If it doesn’t feel free to DM me about it or send in another ask and I can clarify more

Angel’s brother currently is still in the mafia and is mingling with crime as usual, however a decent few years ago he ended up gambling away +65% of the families earnings at Husk’s casino back when he was an overlord and ended getting himself stripped of all respect and ranking and is currently attempting to repay his family and work his way back up while trying not to get killed. He is also vaguely homophobic still but has become more tolerant of it after being around and meeting more people. He definitely doesn’t think its “natural” but he knows when to keep his mouth shut and will probably understand more about it someday. Not anytime soon though. He also hasn’t seen Angel for around 8-10 years now and by seen I really just mean yelled at him from across the street and then got a brick thrown at him probably

[scaly-freaks]

letter to inmate 13453-079

I'm not meant to write letters to you anymore.

They let me do it at first, said it would help with the 'therapy.' All these unsent reams of paper crumbling under the pressure of the red ballpoint. Dad got me a montblanc pen. I think he thought I'd like it because I used to 'write' a lot when I was a kid. I keep it in the little box it came in and let Cannibal play with it sometimes. A pen is meant to be used and worn-down, not all fancy and shiny. It reminds me of those polished beetle shells you used to bring me when I was good. Does your sister still collect them? I saw her at court during your sentencing, but they wouldn't let me talk to her. She mouthed something but I couldn't make it out. Her smile reminded me of yours. They all thought I was crying because I was relieved. He'll be locked up till he's dead, they said. He can't hurt you anymore.

They looked happier for themselves than they did for me but I've never been good at reading people's emotions well so I don't know.

I learned yours, still remember them. Does your baby finger still tremble right before you hit someone? They keep writing articles about you. I don't think they actually hate you at all. You're young, handsome and evil. America loves that. I'm not supposed to read about you. I do it anyway. They said you've got another life sentence on top of the first because you cut the face off that kiddy-diddler and wore it to frighten the guards. I pictured you giggling and I couldn't stop laughing. It woke Val up.

He's six now, and he doesn't like living in my parents' house. He asks about you a lot. Still calls you Krampus. I finally told him you're his dad, but I don't think he understands yet what that means. He thinks I'm his only parent and that I grew him from a flower one day and watered him with all my love. I tell him that's why he came out so pretty. He asks so many questions, sometimes I get frustrated and shout at him to shut up. That's when he cries and tells me he likes you better, and demands to know where you are and that you never yell at him.

I didn't tell my family you carved that baby dragon for him. They'd take it off him. I said I made it and they said I'm very talented and oh poor thing, you must have been so lonely down there, you probably needed all the distraction you could get.

So, I've started whittling now. That's my thing. The smell of it reminds me of you, wood shavings and petrichor and that bitter tinge of gun smoke you'd never explain.

Val's hair is down to his back. He says he wants to cut it short like yours, but I don't want to just yet. I'm still attached to brushing it every night. He has that Hightower dimple in his chin, and the wrinkle on his nose and between his brow when he's annoyed, just like you. He started kicking the other children at school so we had to pull him out and we're trying homeschooling now. My family would never say it out loud, but I know they look at him and wonder if he has more of you in him than he does me. It's the violence of his tantrums, I think.

They all pretend to be so very 'understanding' but the truth is, they want us both to get better quickly so they can continue with their lives and go back to pretending everything is fine. When they thought I was dead, that you killed me the same night you snatched me off that dark street, they got their closure and they moved on after grieving. Now the wound is ripped open again. They've forgotten how to tend to it. It's been too long.

Anyway, I don't know how to end this.

Bye, I guess.

a lipstick print is pressed to the bottom of the page, the pucker weak, as if she hesitated.

[signed-sapphire]

The Fallen Star ✨ Wish Reimagined

Chapter 3 - The roses

Tw: nightmare, fire, small prick I guess? it's a thorn, swearing as always, it's Asha and by that I mean it's me

Chapter 2

Asha is burning.

She's screaming, she's being crushed. The crackling of fire echoes in her ears, drowning out her own cries.

Everything is bright, but there's a single pair of eyes staring at her from behind the flames.

(Imagine something like this shot from The Owl House)

The creature tilts its head, its expression unreadable. It emits a series of musical tones, like a melody woven from starlight and moonbeams. Asha feels a strange pull, as if the creature is trying to communicate with her through some arcane language she can't quite grasp.

The roof caves in and crashes down, obscuring Asha's view of the figure. The collapse pushes the rubble further into Asha, squeezing the air out of her lungs.

Someone pulls the rubble off her. She wants to yell. Watch out! You'll get crushed too!

They say something. Asha can't hear them. She wants to reach out. Stay with me. The words are on the tip of her tongue. Her throat is parched.

Don't go back in! she wants to cry. Someone's in there!

Why are you leaving me—

She wakes with a gasp, something flat and wet catching the inside of her mouth.

Asha hacks. Valentino had accidentally licked her tongue.

She wipes her tongue and takes a moment so her eyes adjust to the darkness. In the dim light filtering through the curtains, she can make out the familiar details of her bedroom. But with it, she can also see the memories of the dream, crisp and fresh in her mind.

The feeling of panic, of helplessness... she won't be able to fall back asleep, not with the echoes of their screams still haunting her.

This was bullshit. She shouldn't be affected this much by a stupid book. It was just a light.

Asha gets up. She does not tremble.

She unties her hair scarf. Valentino raises his head, his cheek fluff smushed flat from the blanket.

Asha smiles softly and pets his velvety ear. Val bleats quietly, and Asha kisses his forehead.

"Stay here, baby," she whispers, grabbing her cloak. “I’m going for a walk. I'll be back in a bit. Go back to bed, okay?”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The air is cold, but the crispness is a shock to her system that Asha desperately needs. She decides to head to the gardens.

She smiles softly as she remembers the gardens of her childhood. They had roses there, too. Asha used to paint the white ones red.

Red like fire.

Asha hurries on.

She tucks her hands inside her cloak pockets as she walks across the checkered-grass floor. Asha stops at a pocket of daffodils, walking between them and sitting down, careful not to disturb the petals.

Asha watches the flowers dance in the wind, effortless and elegant. She brushes her hand along a row of them.

Right before she reaches the end, she pricks her hand on a thorn. Asha swears under her breath, pushing back the flowers to see a single strewn white rose laying amongst the crowd.

Asha picks it up and stares at it in distain. At a glance one might gloss over it. Even now, a drop of crimson blood painting the petals, the rose blended in quite well with the daffodils.

But up close, it wasn't fooling anyone.

Asha plucks off the petals and tosses away the thorny stem, watching the wind carry the petals... and something else, too. A quiet conversation, approaching Asha's location.

“Baz, I told you, it’s fine, Dahlia just wanted us all there.”

“Argh, but what if we get caught?” came the responding whisper. “Safi, I– I–”

“Hey, breathe,” Safi whispered. “We’re al– a– ACHOO! Why are there so many flowers?”

“Hehe. We’re in a garden…”

“Heh. Made you laugh.”

Asha rolls her eyes and makes her way out of the flowers, making sure her footsteps are heavy enough to catch their attention.

“Eep! Your nose gives away your lies! Hide, Safi!”

“Oof!”

Asha rounds the corner, and Bazeema hides her face as the bush next to her sneezes.

"Ah. Bashful. What are you doing here?” Asha asks, entertaining the other girl’s silly fantasy.

Bazeema peeks open her eyes and lowers her hands. “H-hi, princess. I- I –”

“Speak properly.”

“I–” The girl swallows. “I like to come to the gardens to get inspiration for my designs,” Bazeema squeaks out. “I’m a weaver. My hijab this morning– I made it myself. I’m actually really proud of the design–”

“Yeah yeah yeah, I don’t care,” Asha says. “What are you doing out at this time?”

Bazeema blinks. “I, um… couldn’t sleep. I was worried about Hal.”

“Pfft. Worried?” Asha smirks.

Bazeema looks firmly at the princess. “Yes," she whispers.

Asha frowns. “Right. Uh. Sorry... that your friend is now depressed.”

“Hal has been through a lot, and yet she still smiles. It’s… a trait I admire about her.” Bazeema’s face takes on a wistful look.

Asha is about to respond, but then the bush sneezes again.

“Welp! Time to go, oh I am rather exhausted! Maybe I need that spindle idea of yours!” Bazeema peeps, ushering Asha out of the gardens. “Thank you for gracing me with your presence, princess! Sweet dreams!”

The gates slam in her face.

Asha blinks.

She entertains the idea of throwing Bazeema out the castle windows.

(Can't find the gif, but Bazeema is the old man that Emperor Asha would punish for throwing off her groove)

“So, you admire Hal, huh?”

“Oh, shush, Safi!”

The sound of footsteps retreat. Asha pushes open the gates.

“That was shady,” Asha says, pulling her cloak hood over her hair and shadowing the two teens.

She sneakily follows the two teens to the chicken coop. She peeks around the corner to see the seven teens holding candles and quietly catching Bazeema up to speed.

“I fell asleep in while cleaning my dad’s armour, and I heard something." Sleepy's voice.

“It nearly killed me!” Gabo huffs. “Abuela told me to go see what was causing a ruckus. That could've been the last she saw of me!”

“Baaaaa!”

Asha covers her mouth with her hand to silence her yelp as Valentino pops up beside her. “Jeez, baby! You scared me!” Asha whispers, pulling the goat close.

Dario signs something, not paying attention to the conversation.

“We trapped it inside the coop, but it’s scaring all the chickens,” Safi says worriedly.

I think they're performing an opera, Dario signs, grinning.

Gabo stares in disappointment at his friend, then moves on. “That’s why we sent you to get Bazeema. You’re worrying about the birds too much when you’re here,” he grumbles to Safi. “They’ll be fine.”

“The chickens probably think it’s a fun surprise,” Hal offers. “They sound like they’re having fun.”

“And why wake us all up for this?” Dahlia yawns. “Dario, put the soap down. Where did you even get that?”

It flew out of the coop! Dario grins. He signs with one hand, spelling out some words since the other hand is occupied with holding the bar of soap. I think the chickens laid it. It smells like apple. Hey, do you think this is related to the S-

"Dario, for the last time, spoons cannot be ingested," Dahlia says, massaging her temples while Safi takes the soap from a frowning Dario.

Simon looks nervous. “Well… my papa’s one of the bookkeepers for the castle. I think I know what’s in there—”

Suddenly, Valentino wriggles out of Asha's grasp.

"Valentino!" Asha whisper-shouts as the goat and runs towards the teens. Dario notices the blur of fluff heading towards him and stumbles back, dropping his candle and colliding with Simon, who's already snoring against the wall.

The impact shakes the wooden support beam, and a pile of baskets falls down on Dario’s head. Bazeema yelps and swats at the baskets, crashing into Safi behind her.

The two fall down, almost knocking over Dahlia, but Gabo pulls her out of the way and stomps out the fire Dario's candle lit.

"Okay, spy! Reveal yourself before I do something I won't regret!" Gabo snaps. Dahlia shushes him.

Asha rolls her eyes and pulls down her hood, stepping into the light. The teens' eyes widen, and they scramble up, quickly dropping into a bow.

All except Dario, that is. He was still peering into the chicken coop.

Hal pulls her friend into a bow.

(I can't find a picture but it's like that part in the movie where the seven teens bowed down to Queen Amaya)

"Threatening a royal, Grumpy?" Asha tuts. "Keep it up and I'll have your friend's precious chickens filleted."

Gabo snarls, but stays quiet.

"Now, care to tell me why you stole my goat?" Asha asks. "And what are you doing by the chicken coops when you should be sleeping?"

"None of your royal business," Gabo mutters.

Suddenly, a burst of sparkles poofs out from the crack under the coop's door.

Safi kicks over a pile of baskets. "Whoops! I am so- so-- ACHOO!" The baskets kicked up some hay in the air. "I am so clumsy!" he laughs awkwardly, sniffling.

"What are you hiding?" Asha demands.

"Nothing! And no one!" Safi says quickly.

"Well, we should all head to bed! You too, princess, your otousan would be very cross if he saw you out this late!" Dahlia smiles, moving to direct Asha away.

There's another poof, and a discord of musical instruments.

"Magnus?" Asha scoffs. "I can deal with my adopted father. Now out of the way."

Dahlia looks desperately at her friends. Asha storms past her, shoving away Hal when she tries to stop her.

The princess yanks open the wooden door. Inside the coop is a crazy sight.

Dario smirks, self-satisfied.

Chickens, dancing, doing ballet

Angry chickens in bisexual lighting

Chickens, shooting out eggs out of PG-hidden cloacas

Chickens, juggling their eggs

And in the center, conducting them all...

The thing was round, with eyes shaped like a sparkle and an oval respectively, five points sticking out of it like little limbs.

Exactly like the symbol on the spellbook in Magnifico’s study.

“Oh, fucking hell," Asha swears.

Chapter 4

Author's Notes

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I hated writing this. I was just stuck, and then I was like, fuck it, I'm posting it because the next chapter I'm really excited to write. Because if I add more, then the cut-off would be... too harsh? I don't know. My phone is broken so I can't create gifs right now akjdkjajksjskjksaj fuck it. Post.

Btw, Star in The Fallen Star looks like this:

With a sparkle on the (our) left and a "regular" oval for the other eye on out right.

GET READY! THIS CHAPTER SUCKED BUT THE NEXT ONE SOMETHING BIG HAPPENS AND IT IS A LONG ONE!

Me to my own writing

[radioluminescentoblivion]

Hazbin Hotel: The Corruption of Creativity. Part 2 

1. Continued Discussion (Also Spoilers)

I wanted to continue talking about the problems with the show in part 1, but since this crossed the line between the art and the artist in terms of discussing two different subject matters, it made it rather difficult to try and divide it up. So this goes off from the additional notes I made for the show and transitions into the problems I have outside of it from behind the scenes. This post will go into more about Vivziepop, the community, and her controversies and how this impacts not only the show but her bottom line as well. 

BE WARNED, this will include some serious topics like Sexual Assault, Harassment, Death Threats, Misconduct, and Suicide. Read at your own caution…

2. Angel and Valentino: A tone-deaf understanding of the source material 

I left this part out of the first post because this would be the point where I transitioned into the issues that led me out of the show onto reality. But I’ll still talk about this segment in Episode 4: Masquerade to provide context. In the episode, Vaggie persuades Charlie to be more commanding around the hotel to get things done or in Charlie’s words “aggressively kind” about her being the boss of the hotel, she marches up to Valentino’s studio where Angel Dust is having a sex scene filmed and he gets worried and wants her to leave but she doesn’t listen. She comes across Valentino who has a no-more subtle approach to Charlie’s presence. Valentino resumes the film but Charlie gets in the way and mayhem ensues: this enrages Valentino and prompts him to put out the fire that Charlie caused, leading to an uncomfortable scene where Angel Dust gets abused in his dressing room as Val berates him and reminds him who he belongs to. Afterward, Charlie gets upset and is about to go off on Valentino but Angel Dust intervenes and yells at Charlie to leave. This then transitions to the infamous song “Poison” by Blake Roman. The next scene continues with Angel Dust crashing on Husk’s bar table demanding some hard alcohol to numb the pain.  

When I first watched this scene I could feel the raw potential of how this went out, how despite the show’s pacing still had a slow-burning impact on the viewer to appropriately leave a bad taste in their mouth (no pun intended). You can see and feel the devastating impact laid down on Angel Dust by his abusive boss and with the additional context from the music video Addict where he has his soul sold to Valentino where he gets sexually assaulted and abused, it only makes it more depressing. Angel Dust’s relationship is a horrifying reality that many people in the sex industry face every day which makes it all the worse for marginalized people such as POC, women, LGBTQIA, and all of the above. Sure it’s not the best depiction of an abusive relationship I’ve seen in media, but it does drive the point home, it also makes it more reassuring to see Angel Dust open up his feelings towards Husk, expressing empathy to each other more and even have a song about it with “Loser Baby”. This draws them closer than before and results in Charlie apologizing for her slip-ups with Angel forgiving her. 

Episode 4 is a bittersweet example of when the show goes into a direction differing from the main plot that focuses on the side characters in a way that matters most and builds up on who they are as people and how they might one day be redeemed from being sinners. On its own, the episode is a good case of how the show can work with its stories to display the varied life of Vivziepop’s vision of hell. However, the perspective of the narrative becomes very contradictory when it goes outside the story. 

On December 9th, 2023, a Twitter user and creator known as UninformedArtist posted screenshots from a deleted user account of a storyboard lead from Helluva Boss/storyboard artist from Hazbin Hotel, R2ninjaturtle or Raphielle. R2 has made art centered mostly around Angel Dust and Valentino, sometimes Vox (The TV-headed demon) in non-consenting scenarios and other explicit interactions. And with Vivziepop engaging with R2’s post featuring Vale and Angel in these situations with a lighthearted giggityness to it, creates a huge form of whiplash. 

Now normally if this was an artist outside the Spindle Horse team, I wouldn’t mind this too much and just take this as someone expressing their taboo kinks—that happens a lot. However…this is coming from someone who works on a show that features an abusive sexual relationship that is supposed to be taken seriously. And yet, you have an artist who works on this show who has a kink for sexual assault and abuse and the creator of the show who hired this person is getting all cutesy about it. Are y’all starting to see the red flags here? 

If this was a show that didn’t take itself seriously and wanted to make some edgy humor similar to how Sir Pentious got railed by everybody in the nightclub in episode 6 (which also doesn’t help Viv’s case since these things are supposed to be taken seriously.) But that isn’t the case, it wants to have its cake and eat it too. You want to make this show highlight the dark side of the sex industry, Yet you also make a light joke about rape in the show while having someone who gets turned on by that to work on that same show. This also demolishes the message of the abuse even further when you have R2 and Vivziepop herself getting excited over “Angest” Pins of Angel Dust and Husk being chained to their masters. 

If this still doesn’t seem like a conflict of interest to you for trying to convey the point about sexual assault, abuse, etc. Imagine if I made a story about genocide: I display the horrifying realities of how a marginalized group of people being oppressed by the ruling majority class try everything in their power to kill, erase, displace, and steal from the people they hate so much and want to destroy to the very roots that no one will ever forget in gruesome detail, everyone from friends, family, and enemies are being systemically wiped out by these fascist’s monstrously distorted pursuit of glory. 

Imagine me making all that…but, ✨WE HAVE A NEW MERCH DROP✨ Now you too can get your starving mother holding her dead child in her arms grieving, not only that, I also meme and get excited about someone’s art depicting those same people getting persecuted and ethnically cleansed for sexual gratification, YAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!11 

Do you see how fucked up this is now?

But that’s not even the worst part about it. As more people started to show disgust and concern over this stuff, one of whom was a minor (I won’t say their name for their security you can read the thread yourself) this resulted in R2 saying some pretty fucked up stuff to this minor, using vulgar language directed towards this individual, not even doing the bare minimum of checking the person’s account to see if it was a younger person or not. It still wouldn’t excuse the behavior regardless of age, but this makes it all the worse.  

Now I will give credit where credit is due (which ain’t a lot here) R2 did apologize for their comments made, but it was more of a backhanded response, and when a user pointed out the flaws in this comment, they simply responded: “Stay Mad”. On top of having to victim-blame a minor for being uncomfortable seeing this imagery, Vivziepop herself also chimed in with the victim-blaming, claiming how R2 was “joking” and that “You can’t always know the age of a random Twitter account you’re clowning on”. Even though they had their age on their Twitter account which is wild to me. She also goes on to say they don’t have a lot of influence on the show and that they’re harmless. 

I’m not here to tell viv that R2 should be fired, I don’t think they’re a danger either, and it probably would’ve helped to just block R2 and move on from such gruesome imagery. That being said, that doesn’t excuse someone for sexually harassing a minor or for the creator of a show to double down on it. I hope R2 and Viv can learn from this experience and try to do better. 

I want to be clear here I’m not trying to “cancel” people for having different tastes regardless of how people view it on a personal moral ground. I’m not saying Viv has to fire someone because they think this way, I’m not even saying that you can’t have any moments of nuance about a difficult situation in your own way and cope with it, that’s fine, that’s healthy. What isn’t healthy is sexually harassing people online and begrudgingly victim-blame a minor for coming across this shit. And it doesn’t make your work look genuine when you have someone who works on the storyboards of your show who gets off on the very thing you’re trying to take seriously.  At that point, you’re not trying to make a serious story, you’re making a rape fantasy for someone. This wouldn’t be that big of a deal if this was supposed to be taken at heart as a real issue. 

If this was just this related incident that was the biggest controversy for Vivziepop, I wouldn’t bat too many eyes. But unfortunately, you’ve read the title, you’ve read the warnings, so you know this isn’t where it ends. 

3. SpindleHorse Workplace Misconduct

It’s not any news that allegations of misconduct at SpindleHorse Studios have been buzzing around since Helluva Boss was made into a YouTube series. These allegations have been met with both skepticism as well as a concern as to how things were going behind closed doors at SpindleHorse, but these allegations would grow and become more of a problem when animators who worked on Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel spoke out about it, giving their experiences about workplace culture, low wage pay, and fears of speaking out on these issues because of retaliation from Viv, her team or the rabid fanbase. Some of the employees and contractors even spoke out anonymously for fear of getting blacklisted and targeted by the community. That being said, it wasn’t always a nightmare for some people who worked at the studio, and some that worked there have mentioned it being a pleasant experience, but I’ll get to that later. All these things plus more are mentioned in a passionfruit article that I’ll link below for a further read. It’s pretty damning. 

But I’ll mention some of the keynotes that are worth mentioning:

Low Pay Wages on Clean-Up Animation

Users like Chai posted on January 5th, 2024 on Twitter how clean-up artists are offered a low pay of 35$ a second of rough animation. Not literal seconds mind you, but $35 a completed animation per second, that’s $1.45 for every 24 frames. For reference, according to ZipRecruiter: The average pay for a work-at-home animation clean-up artist is lower than this with a rate of $29 an hour nationwide

https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Work-From-Home-Animation-Clean-Up-Artist-Salary#Hourly

(this isn’t an exact figure to go by for all clean-up artists nor do I know all the financial ins and outs of animation, so I may be wrong on some math here.) It's not as bad, but it's still low. One freelance animator mentioned that when Helluva Boss was on pause for Hazbin’s production, they had no choice to find another source of income so they had to deal with the low pay and stressful job that ultimately wasn’t even worth it in the end after finishing Hazbin Hotel. While this is nothing new in the animation industry (especially one where it's the most thankless and underpaid job), the wages can vary depending on the project, location, industry, etc it just goes to show that this is a recurring practice within the industry that really needs to change. Be it for animators or artists alike. It’s one thing to make a passion project with your closest friends and partners or people who need an extra buck and aren’t suffering, it’s another to offer up underpaid jobs with slave labor wages and then suddenly make it seem as if desperate people have a “choice” to work or not it's no more unacceptable than those who defend such practices. 

“The job was voluntary, nobody was being forced into taking less money”

This is a sentiment that is brought up a lot by Neylan in the article. I’m well aware that Neylan said they had a fixed budget and had to lock the budget to adapt rates for things to work out. Now I could understand this being something for newbies getting into work for the animation industry for a first-time experience, but to make it seem like this was a part-time job to work at is baffling to me, especially for something seen as a passion project, which to me, is a code word for work for me for free/less money. Not to mention, the notion of “no one is forcing you” is one that is echoed frequently in other abusive industries like the video game industry (despite these people having no other choice to find another job to survive.) 

No Human Resources

As of now, SpindleHorse has no Human Resources or dedicated HR person aside from Neyland himself who performs such tasks as coordinating and firing freelancers and works as the production supervisor at the company. Though he mentions that something they’re hoping to fix in the future. I guess it remains to be seen. 

 Fear of speaking out

It's not a surprise that people become weary when speaking out about their experiences in or out of SpindleHorse. Freelance artists such as Erin Frost wrote in a tweet thread before getting deleted about her experiences at SpindleHorse and her frustrations with people not believing her when being open about the unstable and abusive environment working with Viv and how she got a note sent by one of her lawyers as a scare tactic.

https://ben-the-hyena.tumblr.com/post/699242311996047360 

Artists Ken Cook and Nicholas Jordan also spoke out about the bombardment of harassment from fans. With Ken, making a whole pdf on their circumstances of crediting their work and ideas.

https://www.docdroid.net/zyvFyCb/kens-experience-pdf

The pdf also gives some transparent insight into Vivziepop’s workflow in conceptualizing and executing stories. As well as some horrible accusations against Ken such as grooming and trying to steal viv’s IP of Hazbin Hotel despite clearly stating that wasn’t their intention, on top of gaslighting and bigotry such as transphobia and acephobia. 

I could go on about Vivziepop’s history of manipulative and toxic behavior toward friends and peers, but for the sake of relevance, I wanted to keep it mostly tied around 2018-2024. When viv isn’t directing her venomous ire towards her colleagues that she doesn’t like or agree with, she directs it towards those outside her work/friendspace. 

Kedikatzen is an artist who made a webcomic back in the days of old that is now discontinued. Judging from the discussion, I’ll assume it was around anywhere from 2014-2018, but I’m not sure, Kedi/Katt was not only bullied by viv herself but got harassed by her zealous fans. All Kedi wanted was an apology but never received one, forcing her to delete her personal accounts and avoid the internet for a while before coming back in hopes of starting over, until she heard news of other people speaking out and wanted to also chime back in just to prove this wasn’t an isolated incident. In 2020, Viv was making big accusations of stalking, harm, and threatening to use lawyers against Katt (noticing a pattern?)  All while acting like the victim here when she clearly wasn’t. 

She also explains how Viv went to a con in Georgia at one point and met up with April, a person she had beef with in the past, and when April wanted to clear things up with no hard feelings, resulting in viv to tweet about April “stalking” her which in turn made her rabid fans send death threats to her which she deleted and then made an apology about.

But even when it’s not towards other creators, she’s also had a history of being very defensive towards her critics, often deflecting legit critiques, getting salty about criticism as a concept or critics as people, getting defensive about people just having slight gripes, etc. 

As someone who is a critic myself (I mean you are reading this) it's not surprising that you will come across bad critiques of things and that people will either be trolls or just assholes, but for those that have genuine criticism, viv tends to lump them all together despite saying she thinks the criticism is important for growth when it's obvious that isn’t exactly what she wants. I’ve sent tweets to her at one point calling out these bad takes on criticism, but that was ages ago and unfortunately, I don’t have those tweets on me—sorry y’all.

And now we get to our final and easily one of the most depressing segments of this post, which is the dark side of fandoms and the damage they can cause. 

4. Fanaticism

It goes without saying that the community for vivziepop has garnered some of the most abysmal, delusional, toxic, and manipulative fan base since Steven Universe if not worse. I’ve seen a lot of shitty people in fandoms, but this takes the cake of it being up there with the greats such as: MLP, FNAF, Steven Universe, etc. It’s quite amazing how such a community is so dedicated in all the best and worst ways.

But all jokes aside, the vivziepop community has had a long radioactive history of having the most deranged of fans sick themselves to those they deem less than worthy of respect or decency. So much so that some will even dehumanize others be it in or outside the fandom, and lose their shit over the most trivial of inconsistencies. Obviously, this isn’t supposed to be a sweeping generalization of everyone, just a focus on those who have lost their cool. 

This makes situations all the worse when the leader herself has something unflattering to say to someone she doesn’t like. Viv is known to both intentionally and unintentionally enable her fans to attack people, innocent or not. Now that’s not to say Vivziepop herself is all to blame here, nor does that mean she hasn’t made any… “attempts” to apologize, but it was more just playing the victim card and slapping some backhanded response on it. 

Though this is older she might’ve made more “apologies” over time, so if someone has a more recent example of this, please let me know. 

However, this leads us to the most crucial part of this post which is the story of Shay and how they took their life. 

The document opens with an introduction from a person named Liv who explains the story of how Shay was a young queer neurodivergent fan who got to be part of the community around the days of the Hazbin Hotel pilot, Livestreams, and Huniecast, Shay was a massive fan of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss that she would collect an abundance of merchandise in support of the show, holding Vivziepop to high praise as a creator. They would also share and like posts from social media to further spread their infatuation with the media. 

Those involved in the screenshots were part of a fan discord server dedicated to HH and HB and shared their love for specific ships like RadioDusk (Alastor and Angel Dust), this ship would be widespread in the server at the time until around the middle of 2023, with new members who had a focus on the HuskerDust ship (Husk and Angel Dust). This new inclusion of members began fueling flames with their support for their ship, creating a resentful environment towards RadioDust fans, this fueled the flames of what would be a digital turf war between ships in the server and the internet at large on different social media sites all from the same community, some bouts of which have been around for quite some time and continue to this day. 

On December 12th, 2023, Shay showed gratitude for an administrator stepping in to stop the barrage of harassment by HuskerDust fans over Shay’s comments on the ship made them uneasy due to the age gap and coerciveness of it. Shay felt that their moments of joy in the community just wasn’t there like the good old days with Ashley, Michael, and Ed, but now it's just resorted to ship wars, with Vivziepop herself partaking in these petty engagements and enabling the toxic mentality of the HuskerDust shippers. But despite all this, they continue to support viv and hold her in high esteem. 

Later in the year, Shay would pay for the ultimate package that was available at the time for early access to Hazbin Hotel ($80 no shipping) to show their support for the show and new cast but felt iffed by the growing pain that would be the HuskerDust shippers on Twitter, this was also between the time of the teaser’s release and trailer’s. As these HuskerDust shippers grew more zealous towards those who had different ship preferences like Shay, it made them step away from their position of being a RadioDust shipper in turn for something more middle ground in not wanting any ship to be on top of another. 

On December 11th, 2023, the conversation between Shay came back again expressing more disheartening feelings about the state of the fandom how they don’t belong anywhere, and how further in the conversation after some downtime, Shay feels out of place and like garbage and that they feel greatly disappointed about Vivziepop’s continued enablement of this mob mentality. 

This would be the same time the HuskerDust ship would be teased on Twitter and Instagram by the voice cast and animators, making an already overloaded community of rabid shippers go even crazier. Shay would continue to spiral into emotional distress. How they felt betrayed by Vivziepop for choosing one side and enabling their behavior, Shay expressed hopelessness and felt sick—this would be the last time they ever posted.

On December 13th, 2023, the Hazbin Hotel trailer dropped with praise from the community, especially with the HuskerDust fans in awe of this post, pushing the envelope further. https://twitter.com/HazbinHotel/status/1734999724397035963 

Eden (the one who took the screenshots) was concerned and tried to reach out to Shay, but made no progress with Shay’s accounts being deactivated, after Shay left the server, Eden followed suit the leading day and tried to contact them, however, it proved to be impossible since they didn’t friend them and sending a message only prompted the discord bot to notify Eden that they couldn’t message Shay since they don’t share servers anymore. Eden did however get in contact with a close friend of Shay’s known as Mari, and since then Mari had ceased supporting Vivziepop’s work after the incident.  

On December 14th, Mari got in contact with Shay’s sister as they expressed their worries of Shay’s attempt at suicide. Further screenshots that are mostly blurred show multiple attempts were made directed to the Hazbin Hotel team to call out such destructive behavior. 

None of them received any response from the team or Vivziepop herself. 

Mari and Shay’s sister would continue to keep in touch with updates on Shay’s condition until 26-27 of December, Shay died from serious gastrointestinal injuries from drinking household cleaning acid, causing her to cough up blood, and having been sent to the hospital on December 13th. The last screenshot messages include Shay’s sister and Mari in grief over the passing of not only a friend but a loved one. 

Liv further explains that they were a HuskerDust shipper at one point, but now feels a deep loathing and regret at such a title, their statements close with sorrow, and urge people to be wary of such dangers a fandom can cause. 

5. Conclusion

I didn’t really have plans on making this deep dive at first, especially seeing how there were a lot of moving elements to this saga, some of which were far too extensive to cover all the controversies, critiques, drama, etc. I wanted to make this as condensed and digestible as possible. Though I realize this wasn’t the best-formatted post, I guarantee this has some issues that can be fixed in the future (assuming anyone gives a shit). 

The point of making this post isn’t to “cancel” Vivziepop, but rather highlight the VERY consistent pattern of egotistical behavior that she has displayed over time, how she intentionally uses manipulative tactics to gain leverage over people and weaponizes her audience against those she disapproves off. Vivienne Medrano has not changed for the better and unless she takes a little self-reflection on her actions, she never will. If her silence on someone taking their life over the consecutive harassment and death threats from HER fans doesn’t ring any bells on how she really views her audience and other people, I don’t know what will. Vivizepop has shown everyone how she has no stability in running a full studio or maintaining a healthy social presence (indie or otherwise) and how she should invest in her personal demons rather than value fictional ones over others. 

If you are a fan of Vivziepop and her work or were on the fence about it before, I hope this provides some clear context as to why she “Gets non-stop hate” and that it would be wise to reconsider your loyalty or support for her at face value. I want this post to be an important message for those who still love Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, this isn’t about me being a “hater” but someone who wants you to be cautious just like I was when I first heard about these allegations. 

If you’re still not convinced about what I or many, many, many others have been saying for years. Perhaps it would help if I came from a more vulnerable position? (Not the most original but whatever)

When I was first introduced to Vivziepop’s work by my sister, I instantly fell in love with her work with her Die Young fan animation. Since then, I was never the same, and as I mentioned in my last post, I got indulged in her craft and was introduced to not only her community but the furry community as well. I kept tabs on her zoophobia comic and her other works, supporting her along the way. Vivziepop’s style of art and animation greatly influenced me over time and I propped her up as a major influence in my art and I still do to this day. One of my favorite characters of hers was Clarrisa, Fabian’s daughter from Zoophobia (we never saw her in the comic doe). Clarrisa would inspire me to create a character heavily inspired by her called Clair (I’ll more than likely work around the name to not make it as obvious) she was the first character I took seriously in my pursuit of art when I otherwise wouldn’t have cared or taken it seriously before. What started as one concept for a character with a fox based on another person’s character, would spark an entire list of stories with their worlds and characters—and I had Vivziepop to look up to for that. 

But knowing that this is the same person I looked up to as a source of inspiration, leaves a poisonous taste in my mouth that can never be washed off. I no longer support Vivienne now or in future unless she has shown that she is really willing to take major strides to improve herself. As it stands now, she’s left a legacy of pain conflicting with future potential with new creatives. I don’t ask for people to stop loving her work because guess what? I still love her work too in some areas, I just won’t support her anymore. (at least financially or influentially). 

If you are a fan of her work, own it and keep making and loving what you do, draw fanart, make redesigns, have your ships, write fanfictions, etc. Two realities can exist: you can enjoy someone’s work, but also recognize when someone is a massive piece of shit who makes donkey dooky. (Hello Warrior Cats fans).

Shit sun, I’m still making fan art for some zoophobia characters because I still love those characters or their designs, I ain’t special!

“You know, for the longest time I thought you were cool…”

Final Thoughts:

I honestly didn’t expect this uh…rant/analysis? To be this winded, I apologize if there are segments in here that are just a mess, if y’all have any constructive feedback, that would be appreciated. Or maybe I’m just a big meanie that needs to self deletus? Idk, I highly doubt this post will get much attention. I could’ve spent all this time and energy drawing my characters kissing each other or somthin. But here I am, making a totally original post about a creator I’ll never meet. But, if you are a vivziepop fan old or new and you feel like this post has done some justice or resonated with you, then I’m glad! I know there are some really good people in the community who aren’t alone on this and feel the same way, and I understand…I think. 

Anyways. I’ll just leave some sources here and give credit to the people who made these posts linked here, if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t really be in this position now to raise awareness on this controversial topic. Please support these people below, don’t harass anyone or be a massive bigot for those I critiqued or featured here, be civil for fuck sakes, and yeah. I hope y’all have a good one.

Rest in Peace Shay- 2003-2023

Sources:

[darbyoakana]

An Overlord's Tail - Chapter 8

An Overlords Tail Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10

Summary: Alastor X reader, F/M. Vox has convinced himself he can win you over.

Warnings: Kidnapping, violence, Val is a fucking dick

Other Notes: none

Darby Link Tree

____________________________________________

Chapter 8: Bonding Experience

Things had gone back to normal for the most part. Interactions between you and Alastor were taken slowly. The usual day-to-day was the same. As for more intimate experiences, you waited for him to initiate. There was more affection in his actions, little things. His hand on the small of your back, subtle glances. You were willing to go at whatever pace he wanted, you were just happy to be with him and that he wasn’t avoiding you anymore. The rest of the staff was also grateful, Alastor was now in a good mood most of the time.

The party had been a topic of conversation for over a week. It seemed like everyone had a great evening. You were out on some errands and on the way back to the hotel you checked your phone. Charlie had asked if you’d stop by the stationary shop to pick up thank you cards to send to the party guests, an order was ready for her. You were in the middle of texting her to let her know you didn’t mind picking them up for her on your way home, your phone blowing up with heart and smiley emojis from Charlie when you were interrupted. 

A van pulled up next to you, the door thrashed open and two men jumped out. One grabbed you from the back, arms around the chest. You dropped your phone. You used the leverage to throw your legs up and kick the other man in the nuts. Once your feet were on the ground again you whacked the man holding you in the face with the back of your skull several times before he dropped you. You ran, thinking you were in the clear. But just as you were passing the back of the van, a hand reached out. Electricity overwhelmed your body and you slumped in Vox’s arms. 

“Sorry babe,” he picked you up and put you in the van. Glancing at his lackeys he scoffed. “Haha oh shit, she beat the crap out of you, how fuckin’ pathetic! What do I even pay you for?” 

You woke tied to a chair in Vox’s penthouse. You groaned as your eyes refocused. You were in a familiar living room between the two sofas, facing the coffee table and large windows. Valentino was on one couch smoking, scrolling on his phone. Plumes of pink smoke wafted around. Vox approached you, realizing you were awake.

“Hey babe…” he said softly. “Sorry about all that. It should have been a simple stress-free snatch-and-grab. But that's my girl, huh? Always complicating things.” 

“I am not your girl,” you growled. 

“Aw, come on now. Be open-minded. I went to all this trouble to get you,” he leaned over to be level with your face. “I had to be very patient and you know that’s not one of my virtues. Boy oh boy, you really don’t leave the hotel often do you?” 

“Fuck. Off.” 

“Oh doll, I’ve missed you,” he moved a piece of your hair out of your face. “And your sassy little mouth.” 

“Is that all you miss about her mouth?” Valentino asked. He waves his fingers at you. “Hola, chica.”

You struggled against the ropes holding you down. 

“I guess I’ll hear you out, not like I have a lot of options here.”

“See! There you go! That’s the right attitude!” 

“Well spit it out, what half-cocked plan did you come up with?” you spat. “Does this actually have anything to do with me? Or is this about Alastor?” 

“That’s a really good point,” Valentino said.  

“Val, not helping,” Vox said. “No. If this had to do with him don’t you think he’d be sitting here instead of you?” 

“No,” you laughed. “If you could, you would have already.” 

“Also another valid point,” Val stated. 

“Okay, enough from both of you!” Vox yelled. 

“You have a limited amount of time here, I suggest you get moving.” 

“He only cares about himself.” Vox laughed. “What, you think he’s going to come save you?” 

“Yeah. I do,” you stated. “But let's say he doesn’t, I imagine Charlie will wonder where I am. Who do you think she’s going to run to? Her ex-exorcist angel girlfriend? Or her King of Hell angel father? One way or another you are getting your ass handed to you.”

“Another noteworthy point she's making,” Val hissed through his teeth. “Why are we doing this here?” 

“Fine! I’ll get to it then.” Vox grumbled. “You know I want you back, what is that going to take?” 

“You have nothing I want.” 

“I’m sure that’s not true, we could come to an arrangement. You could have whatever job you wanted. Or, no job at all. I could treat you like a queen. I could make you famous, or start your own company, anything! Just tell me what you want.” 

“Pass.” 

“You could have anything and everything you’ve ever wanted. You really want to work at that stupid hotel all your afterlife?” 

“I don’t know what I need to say or do to make you understand, we are done here. I’d rather financially struggle for eternity than come back to you. Especially after this bullshit.”

I can do this, he thought. He could get you back. Avoid the lengthy heartbreak he endured before. He could make you happy, he just knew it. He just had to make you see that he was serious. That he wanted this, he wanted you. 

“What if…” he hesitated. “What if I gave you my soul?” 

“Excuse me?” you said, shocked. “What the fuck Vox.”

“What?!” Valentino exclaimed. “I did not just hear you correctly. What the fuck did you just say?!” Valentino was up from the couch, shouting. He grabbed Vox by the collar and dragged him out of the room. “Excuse us a moment.” 

You could hear shouting down the hall. Vox must have lost it. Offering his soul? Even half is a huge deal. That would shift the power of not only him as an overlord but his company too. It was a choice that affected both Valentino and Velvette and he was just tossing it around like it was nothing. Maybe this wasn’t about Alastor after all. Maybe he did actually love you? 

The doors opened and Valentino entered the room without Vox. 

“He’s going to take a little time out to gather his fucking sanity,” he huffed. “As for you, I’m tired of this. I didn’t care that you were his little sidepiece. But like hell if I am going to suffer this again! I endured years of him whining about Alastor. He finally stopped complaining when you came around and now it's the same goddamn fucking thing.” 

“Aw poor baby,” you said flatly. “Do you want me to call your madre to come change your diapers?” 

“Shut the fuck up!” He slapped you across the face. You felt your lip crack and the slight taste of blood hit your tongue. “You dumb whore!” 

“Wow. Did your mommy also raise you to hit like a bitch?”

“Cunt!” this time he socked you and your head hit the back of the chair with a thud. It took you a bit to shake it off. “I don’t mind roughing you up if you’re into that, baby. Cause I certainly am.” 

“Fuck,” you could see a blurry red cloud in the corner of your eye, the impact broke a blood vessel. “There you go champ, I knew you had it in you.”

“Ugh. You are going to start cooperating and give him what he wants,” Val demanded.

“Yeah, no thanks,” you could feel blood dripping from your nose, he got you good on that last swing. “I’m not doing shit.”

“I wasn’t asking,” Val pulled a syringe of purple liquid out of his pocket. “We're going to make you a little bit more complaint.” 

“What the fuck, Val… come on, that's a bit excessive,” you uselessly struggled in the chair. “Please don’t.”

“Oh, now we want to play nice? Too late.” 

He injected it into your arm with an aggressive jab. Your vision immediately blurred. The room moved like you were floating on the ocean. You tried to keep your eyes open as you tilted your head back to rest on the back of the chair. By the time Vox returned, you were slack-jawed.

“I had a little chat with our girlie here and I think she’ll be more behaved,” Val told Vox, returning to the couch.

“Oh, uh, okay… great,” he came over to you. “Oh, what the fuck Val, did you hit her?” 

“Just a little.” 

“Ughhhh. You are not helping me here!” he turned back to you, taking your face in his hands to look at the swelling and bruise that was already forming on your eye. He grabbed a rag and wiped the blood from your nose. “I’m sorry, doll, are you okay?”

You blinked hard several times trying to clear your vision. All you could see was the blurry glow of Vox’s face. 

“Pretty… blue…” you giggled. 

“Uh..” Vox looked at your dilated eyes. “WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK VAL!? Did you drug her??”

“Yes, now make a deal for her soul so we can be done with this fucking bullshit!” Val spat. 

“Fuck…Fuckkkkkkk,” he groaned. He took a deep breath. “What is wrong with you? She’s never going to trust me now!”

“Oh yeah, 'cause kidnapping is such a bonding experience. Shut the fuck up and take her soul. I gave her a nice little cocktail, if she isn’t willing now in about 20 minutes she’ll be so hungry for your cock, she’ll give you whatever you want.” 

“Fuck fuck fuck. This isn’t how this was supposed to go.” 

“What was the plan then? You sell her your fucking soul and ruin everything we have going for us? What the fuck is wrong with you!?” 

“Get out,” Vox sat on the opposite couch than Val, placing his head in his hands. “Get. The. Fuck. Out. N̷̬̝͚̒̚Õ̶̢̧̨͔̮̳̫̘͍̭̤͉̻̤̊̉̈́̋̈́͐͌̎̑̈́͘͠Ẅ̸̢̱̘́̔͛̇̓̓̈́̈̉̅̏̾͘͘͠!” 

“FINE,” Val hissed. “But if you give that cunt your soul, I will personally kill both of you fuckers. Do you understand me!?” He picked up the drink he was nursing and threw the glass against the wall. “FUCKING RIDICULOUS!” 

The doors slammed behind him. Vox sat there, head in his hands, panicking. What options did he have? There was no way he’d be able to convince you to come back now. He was fucked. You groaned as the room spun. Vox untied you from the chair, picked you up, and carried you to the couch. He laid you down, propping your head up on his lap. He ran his fingers through your hair. 

“Fuck.. I ..I’m so sorry.” 

“Vox..?” 

“Yeah, babe... I’m right here.” 

“I don’t feel good,” tears dripped from your eyes.

“Yeah… I know. I’m sorry, doll. I’m really sorry. I don’t know, I just thought… I’m so stupid.” He sighed. “I wanted things to go back the way they were… I thought I could...I don’t know.”

 He wiped a tear from your face, you shuttered at his touch. He knew he had a short amount of time before the love potion part of the cocktail would make the situation so much worse. Val intended for him to take advantage. Vox was a lot of things, but he wasn’t that. You were already starting to squirm, clenching your legs together. After several minutes of drowning in his thoughts, he swallowed his pride, picked up his phone from the table, and dialed the only person he knew at the hotel. 

“Hi, Angel? Yeah uh…it’s Vox. I need to talk to Alastor please.” 

“Oooooof, yah, about that…uh…” he paused. “He’s already comin’ for yah bud. Good luck!” Angel hung up. 

Fuck my life. Vox sat and awaited his fate. 

It didn’t take long before Vox could hear screams and crashing sounds coming from lower levels of the building. The doors of his penthouse burst open, black tentacles flailing. Alastor’s large corrupted form twisted its way through the doorway. Smears of blood and body parts littered the hall behind him, half of a body in his large claw. 

“Al.. I fucked up,” he let out a heavy exhale. “Please take her home. She needs you.” 

One of his tentacles whipped out and wrapped around Vox’s neck, bringing him to his knees. Scratchy radio growls bubbled up from Alastor’s chest. He dragged Vox across the room, raising him up off the ground. Alastor’s jaw clenched and teeth grinding as his neck made a piercing cracking sound. Blood dripped from the corners of his mouth. 

“If she left.. Wouldn’t.. Wouldn’t you do .. anything to get her back?” Vox gagged, gripping at the appendage crushing his throat. The tentacle continued to apply pressure, a small crack ran across Vox’s face. “..ple..ase..” 

“Ala..stor…” you mumbled, curled up in a painful ball on the couch. 

You reached your hand out to him. His expression softened and form shrank, lured out of his murderous rage by your voice. He tossed Vox, landing against the coffee table. Glass and wood broke beneath him. Vox sat up and dragged himself to the other couch, pulling a few pieces of glass out of his arm. He tried to catch his breath. Alastor sat down next to you, removing hair from your face. He growled when he saw the swollen red lump around your eye.

“She’s right, I’m no good for her,” Vox said, defeated. “I didn’t appreciate her until she was gone. I didn’t realize what a hole she’d leave. I miss her kindness, her humor,” tears formed in the corners of Vox’s eyes. “Don’t fuck this up Al. Don’t do what I did.”

Vox had a new sense of clarity and was finally letting go. He could see that no matter what he did, he pained you in one way or another. Situations both in and out of his control would always affect your quality of life. Tonight was a great example. He could finally see that you deserved better than he could give. He had failed you, just as he’d failed Alastor so many years before. Vox wrapped his arms around his knees and sobbed. He felt heartbroken and knew it was his own fault. 

“Please… deal with this later? Take me home,” you pleaded. 

“Very well. But this will be addressed,” he snarled at Vox. 

Alastor picked you up and all faded to black. 

[fanofstuff01]

Yeahh.. A small piece of Highschool AU I managed to write. It doesn’t have Adamsapple, sadly, only a bit of holydust. If you don’t know about it, I suggest you to look at @things-arent-what-they-seem66 ‘s account. (a way to tag you bud heheh)

Enjoy! Also slight Emilute

Can you fucking believe all the work I wrote got deleted and I had to rewrite it?!

Adam took their usual, plain food on his tray with dissapointment. Someone needed to tell the fucker who decided these that they were preparing food for highschool kids and not for some criminals.

“Move faster!” He yelled at the line, receiving some swears but no movement. He sighed.

“Adam!”

He turned his head to the voice. Emily was waving happily at him, waiting with Lute. He smiled weakly and mouthed “go without me”. Though they didn’t.

“Hey girls.” He went straight to them when he finally got out of that damned line. He fist bumped Lute as best as he could and began walking.

“Why did you two wait for me?”

“Tolerating them is easier when you’re not alone.” Lute pointed at the Vee’s. Adam groaned, fucking wednesdays. “And Michael isn’t around.”

“Lucky prick.”

The certain group were talking about the same topic again. Adam cursed on the inside. Couldn’t they have a single lunch where no one ever mentioned Alastor?

“So… Oh. Adam. Lute.” Vox greeted them, though it didn’t sound like one. “We were just talking about how to get rid of Alastor. Why don’t you join us?”

“Suure.” Adam gave Lute “Get Em Out Of Here” eye and she understood the signal.

“Hey Em, can we talk?”

“Now?”

“Yes. It can’t wait.” Lute smirked playfully and took Emily’s hand.

“O-oh. Okay.” Emily flushed. Adam rolled his eyes in the background. Sure, this had to be the way Lute did it.

Adam sat down as the girls walked away, playing with his meal as he waited the group to threw another one of their crazy ideas. Sure, he wanted Alastor to have it worse, who wouldn’t but nowadays the things they suggested were no longer cruel, rather straight up illegal. Vox offered to burn him alive for fuck’s sake!

“So, as I was saying, we can’t physically hurt him. Any other ideas?”

“Getting him expelled?”

“I tried that.”

“Exposing him as a groomer?”

“How the fuck is your mind working Val?! No one would believe that!”

“Then what do YOU have in mind Voxxie?”

“I DON’T KNOW!”

“Weakening him socially?” Velvette looked up from her phone, popping a bubblegum.

“Oh how genious! And how are we doing that, Dollface?”

“By beating one of his friends? Then everyone would be away? Really Vox?”

“…”

“This is why you’re my favorite Vel.”

“Hey!”

“So we’re doing it?”

“We’ll need someone first. Hmmm… Then who could be that lucky fella… Hunter?”

“He’s pretty useful.” Val sipped his apple juice.

“You’re right. Morningstar?”

“Alastor? Caring about Morningstar eating shit? That’s a laugh. Also that guy is no joke. He can fuck us.”

“I meant the spoiled Princess.”

“Same ending. And don’t even RECOMMEND Nifty freak, Val.”

“Why would I?!”

“Who else, who else…” Vox tapped his chin, then his face lit up. “Aha! How about *Angel’s surname*? He is-“

“No.” Adam was listening them half ears until now, but he heard that surname loud and clear. And he didn’t like that it was being mentioned on their murder table.

“No, what?” Vox spoke, half annoyed-half angry. Adam would be dead fucking meat (in social life, probably) if he wasn’t at the same status as them.

“No, you are not touching him. I may not be a part of your twisted shit, but you will not be bringing him into this.”

“Oh, you’re letting Alastor humiliate us? Only for a street whore?” Vox’s voice took a more threatening turn. The other did not care the slightest.

“Does Alastor look like he cares for anyone to you? Please.”

“Pssh. It’s still a great way to get him to be left alone. You really need to let go of your stupid weakness for that slut.”

“I don’t plan to. And, I think if you want to keep your rep safe here, you really need to stop telling me what to do.”

“Fine, fine. God. Why are you this sensitive about him anyway?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Whatever. How about we..”

They kept their blood conversation going but Adam wasn’t listening anymore. His mind took him to a complete different moment. A pretty meaningless memory from his past, nothing much.

Adam wrinkled his nose as he took out a dead mouse from his bag. Cliché much, huh? It didn’t scare him, only disgusting a bit. He threw it away and returned to his food.

“Hey, is anyone sitting here?” A cheerful voice spoke. Adam lifted his head up.

A blonde boy he didn’t knew had picked this table to sit. What a wrong move.

“No?”

“Theen.. Can I?” He quirked an eyebrow.

“Sure.”

“Thank you!” He exclaimed happily and sat down.

“Why did you chose to sit here in all places?” Maybe he should warn him.

“I don’t know. The other tables scared me, they are too loud! And you seem nice.”

Yep. He was definitely a new student.

“Okay.”

“What’s your name?”

“Adam.”

“Nice name. Mine’s actually Antonio, but Dad said it’s Anthony now. When we moved here. Which is fine, I love Anthony. Use the one you like.”

“Ok-kay…” Adam wondered where he came from but couldn’t bring himself to ask. He thought of warning him for a second time but his thoughts were interrupted.

“Sorry, I talked too much right? My brother usually says this. Not like he loves anyone talking though. He’s boring. Mom says he’s lot like my father. Do you have any siblings?“

“I don’t.”

“I wish I didn’t too. I bet it must be amazing. But I would miss my twin sister, she gets a pass. I’d still be fine without my brother.”

“Why aren’t you sitting with her then?” God this boy was right, he talked too much and too fast it overwhelmed Adam’s brain.

Anthony bit his lip. “Dad said she’ll be in a different school. I don’t know why. He often makes weird decisions, it only makes both me and Molly sad.”

“Hm.” What else could Adam say? He was used to having nobody with him in this state.

I should definitely get him to go away.

“Sorry! I don’t realize it when I talk too much.”

“I don’t mind it.” Adam looked around. It should’ve been happening by now. “Listen-“

“You don’t?!”

“Yes but-“

A fit of giggles and laughs came from behind. Adam didn’t have to look to see who they were. Usual girl group, on their daily torture visit for Adam. How were they this sneaky?

“You found someone from your kind, Kadmon? From the trash can?”

“Go away!” He yelled.

“Okay weirdo! Have fun with your stupid Italian friend!” They walked off. Huh. It was quick. Adam returned to the now confused boy.

“Look, uh, Anthony. You should go.”

“What? Why?”

Adam rolled his eyes. Was he dumb?

“Trust me you wouldn’t want to be seen as my friend in here.”

“By who? Is that- Ooh.” It finally clicked in him. “Is that why you are sitting alone?”

“I-“

“Well I’m staying anyway.” He shrugged.

“Wait, what?” Adam was caught off guard by this.

“You said it was okay for me to talk! Barely anyone I know thinks like this! And I’m not letting go of someone who did, thank you.”

“Huh? I didn’t-“

A hand was pressed on his face, covering it slightly with mashed potatoes. “You already said it!”

“Hey!” He slapped his hand away, annoyed.

“Why are you this dead serious! Relax!” He giggled and went back to his seat.

“Oh, this is funny?” He threw a spoonful of broccolis at him. And couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped away when Anthony was absolutely disgusted by them.

“You’re laughing though!”

Adam was brought back to the present day. He shook his head, trying to focus on nothing but the meal infront of him.

————

I wrote this at 3 am sorry if some parts are stupid af.

[michaelasworlds-blog]

Sugar, Spice and Nothing Nice

~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 8: Love, Val ❤️

Note: Sorry for not updating for awhile, I’ve been working and was exhausted from working. Also if anyone is triggered by anything I’m writing let me know and I will definitely make some changes.

🚨TRIGGER WARNING: Emotional Abuse, Violence, Sex 🚨

“You gotta get rid of him,” Angel said.

“What? No! He’s mine!” Sugar hugged the dog.

“Val sent that,” He started. “Did you read the letter?” Angel leaned against her bedroom door.

“I did,” She picked the letter up.

“What’d it say?” Angel goes to reach for it but Sugar pulls the paper away.

“Nothing much.. just that he was sorry and that- hey!” Angel snatched it.

He examined it,

Just something I wanted to give to show my love for you.

- Val ❤️

Angel glared at the note, “Nowhere in this letter does it say sorry.”

“Well I think it was sweet that he remembered..” she looked down.

He sighed, he knew it was hard; especially after Val starts to give. But she tried so hard, “Look I get it, but he’s not just giving you the dog-”

“Barktholomew,” Sugar interrupted.

“What?” Angel asked.

“That’s what I named him,” She kissed the dog’s head.

“What kind of name- whatever look, he didn’t give that to you just because he was sorry, he wants you back; it's a favor for a favor,” He tried to explain.

“I know..” She still wasn’t looking at him.

“Are you thinking about going back?” He asked.

Sugar doesn’t answer, this makes his stomach drop; “You can’t go back.”

“It’s not easy,” she looked up. “I owe him, he found me, he saved me.”

“I understand, but please, don’t go back,” Angel pleaded. “If you do this, you’ll be back at square one.”

“I don’t want to be homeless again Angel,” she burst into tears.

Angel sat next to her on the bed, “You’re not gonna be homeless, okay?”

Sugar nods in agreement, “You shouldn’t go back either.”

“I can’t..” he looks defeated.

“Why?” She raises an eyebrow.

“It’s- it’s just different okay?” He lays back on the bed.

It’s quiet for a while, he hears a lighter being lit, he sits up to see Sugar lighting a blunt; “See? Look at you, now you’re into drugs.”

“I’ve always done drugs,” she blew smoke out of her mouth. “Who are you to tell me about doing drugs?”

“Whatever,” he rolled his eyes. “Are you at least gonna share that?” She handed him the blunt, “You going to the party in a few days?”

“Party?” Sugar looked confused.

“It’s to bring in more sinners into the hotel,” he passes it back. “Ya know what no, you’re comin to that party.”

Sugar laughed, “Okay.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Yes I got it,” Sugar said into the phone.

“Well?” Valentino’s voice came from the other side, he sounded impatient.

“Thank you, I just don’t know-”

“Don’t know what? If you can do your job?” He interrupted her.

Sugar put her hands through her hair, “No I can do my job,” she mumbled.

“Then why aren’t you doing it?!” He yelled. “You know what? If you don’t get back here, I’m going to come get you myself; trust me you don’t want me to come get you,” Valentino threatened leaving Sugar in a cold sweat. “Are we at an understanding? Or do I need to demonstrate?”

“No! I understand, I’ll be there tomorrow,” She said, feeling horrible.

“No, you’ll be here in an hour,” Sugar could almost see the smug look on his face.

“Ok.”

The call ended and the room was filled with silence, Sugar looked around her room. She was bringing trouble here and she didn’t want to do that. Charlie didn’t deserve that, Angel didn’t deserve that; no one did. She grabbed her duffel bag and started packing it, it didn’t sound like anyone was in the hall; she could probably make it out the door if she was-

Her thoughts were interrupted by the bedroom door slamming open, in the doorway stood an enraged Cherri Bomb.

“You cowardly bitch!” She stormed up to her pulling Sugar by her shirt, “You’re just gonna leave?!”

“What?! You heard all that?” Sugar gasped. “You were eavesdropping?”

“And if I was?” Cherri shrugged.

“That’s just wrong,” She responded, offended.

“That’s not the point!” Cherri pointed at her. “Do you know how hard Angel has worked to try and protect you from that moth ass dick?! And you’re just gonna go off and play his sick game!”

“You don’t understand, I’m leaving for him,” Sugar pushed Cherri away, “Valentino threatened to come here if I didn’t come back; Angel shouldn’t have to see his face in the only safe place he knows so I need to leave.” She was on the verge of tears.

Cherri sighed calming down, “Well, what should I tell him then huh?”

Sugar was silent, she hadn’t thought of that; “Just tell him to forget about me, tell him I’ll be fine-”

“What the fuck? I’m not telling him that!” Cherri interrupted her.

“Well I don’t know, okay! There’s no way to sugarcoat this!” Sugar said loudly then sighed, “Please, please help me, I know we barely know each other but..please?”

“Ugh!! Fine,” Cherri took Sugar’s phone, before she could react Cherri handed it back. “I put my number in here, I’m doing this for ANGEL okay.”

“Thank you,” Sugar sighed in relief.

“Yeah yeah whatever, now it’s time you do something for me,” Cherri grinned.

“Um okay?” Sugar raised an eyebrow.

“Find a way to come to the party fundraiser thing,”

“Ugh what?!” Sugar groaned. “I don’t wanna!”

“Well then I’m not doin shit for you,” She crossed her arms.

“Okay! Okay! I’ll try geez!” Sugar rolled her eyes.

“Good,” Cherri smiled a bit. “Be careful okay?”

“I will.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sugar was surprised that when she entered the set later that day, Valentino had just told her to get ready and get on set; the whole shoot he talked to everyone but her, basically giving her the cold shoulder.

“I want a smaller chain around her neck,” he said, sitting back in his chair.

The chain around her neck was removed and replaced with a smaller one, she gasped as it closed around her. Her head was roughly tilted upward towards a smug actor, “I’m fuck up your entire body;” he bit his lip. Three more male demons surrounded her, Sugar gulped.

A grin spread across Valentino’s face.

“Action,” The director smirked.

Taking a hand mirror from her nightstand, Sugar looked at her reflection, there was a bruise around her neck from the chain and a red mark on her face. One of the actors decided to slap her, she stared at herself some more; something was wrong.

“What’s wrong?” She sighed into the mirror.

I don’t want to be here..

“Bean-”

No! Why did you agree to come here?! You always swear you’ll keep me safe! This doesn’t make any sense!

Sugar listened her annoyance growing, “Now hold on, I am not the one who decided to come here; for hours you were feeling guilty and bad!” She snapped. “I am only doing what you want me to do.”

Right, doing what I want while you also get to do what you want! You are a sneaky bitch! You know what?! This is my body! You clearly don’t know what you’re doing!

“Bean..” Sugar said cautiously, she was losing control. “You are upset right now-”

GIVE ME MY BODY!

“Wait!” Was the last thing Sugar got to say before the door opened.

Bean turned, seeing Valentino in the doorway holding an ice pack, he walked in giving it to her. “Thank you,” She said in confusion.

“Mhm..” He said not looking at her.

There was a minute of silence, “I don’t understand,” She broke the silence. Valentino just side eyed her, “You’ve been giving me the cold shoulder all day and now you’re giving me ice.”

“Oh.. you don’t understand?” He said sarcastically. “Understand this, you’re a traitor!” Valentino snapped.

“How?! I apologized to you!” Bean crossed her arms.

“Yeah! Then you went back to that bitch’s hotel!” He glared at her.

“I didn’t know that! You seemed pissed at me! Then you gave me Barktholomew-”

“Who?” Valentino looked confused.

“Barktholomew, the dog you gave me,” she responded.

“Oh, I thought I put on note to name him- nevermind, you didn’t even call or text,” he pointed at her.

Bean sighed, he was such a child, “Well I’m sorry, I just feel like I’m not wanted here anymore;” She looks at her reflection.

Valentino sits on the bed next to her on the bed.

🚨TRIGGER WARNING: Sex & Manipulation (it’s consensual sex but it’s between an abuser and victim) Skip bold font if not comfortable.🚨

He takes the mirror from her, placing it to the side, “Sugar baby you know I want you here, I’m crazy for you.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” Bean was defeated; she didn’t know if he was sincere or not.

“I was just messing around to teach you a lesson amorcita, I would never hurt you baby girl,” he grinned, kissing her hand.

She blushed, biting her lip as he kissed up her arm to her neck. Bean giggled as he started biting her neck, she tried to pull away but was pulled back by Valentino. She started moaning as he put a hand up her shirt, Bean climbed onto Val’s lap straddling him.

“Let daddy show you how crazy you make me,” He smirked before kissing her.

Bean moaned, feeling his lower hands remove her underwear, he lays her on the bed before undoing his pants; “Take me daddy,” Bean pulled him by his chain piercing. He grinned, red liquid coming from his mouth, Val makes out with her. She starts to kiss him back, tasting that sickly sweet saliva she was so used to. Wrapping her legs around his waist she gasped feeling him enter her, he bites into her neck as he thrusts into her faster. She moaned, clawing Val’s back, Bean looked confused seeing something small in the corner of the ceiling. Was that a camera? She grinned, Vox was one sick bastard. Her smile then faded to horror, holy shit there are cameras in the rooms.

(END)

(Sorry I know this chapter is lacking I haven’t been in the right headspace)

[sherlokiness]

Dany is thinking about who betrayed her when she hears the wolf howling- as if in answer.

Also the moon and the wolf lmao? Jon's wolf runs away from the moon three times in his dream. To where? In the cave where the sun is hidden.

The air is cold to him (cold which smells like death) when Val's hair is silver (again under moon). And she belongs with his wolf when her hair is dark honey and her eyes are blue. Again there is the sun-like element here in her looks. (red=sun and blue=morning sky). When people realize that the moon may want Jon, but he himself/his wolf desires the sun, things will become easier for them

No but you don't understand!!!! She felt sad and lonely after Jon's death and that's romantic. Nevermind that it doesn't change her hunger nor that it results in a restless sleep. Reminds me of her feeling sad about the slaves in AGoT but going "welp. can't be helped. It's the price of the Iron Throne." Rest in peace, Daenerys. But probably not. I'm partial to the theory that she gets eaten by her dragon after she's stabbed. The red door= a dragon's mouth.

About the moon, I guess they missed the part where the wolf was running from it. They see moon and later the moon kissed jon snow so bam! True love! Val belonged with Ghost and Val has silver hair! Bam! True love! Pls go back to the passage and review what was it that "Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely". This takes me back to the last season leaks where Ghost supposedly will come up to Dany's stomach and that's how it will be revealed she's pregnant. I was in the J stabs D camp years before so I was like no way they will have J kill a pregnant D so I just ignored those leaks. Ghost like Dany? Will she call to him and make the word a song like Mel? The only singing this girl does is when she's burning people and singing/yelling Dracarys.

Literally laughing about the cold air. Where is the sweetness? Oh wait. Only she can taste it. Also silver hair Val's cheeks were white unlike the one with Ghost where it was flushed- meaning there's a touch of red. Let's look at the chapters too. Silver Val was at Jon VIII while dark honey Val was at Jon XI. So tell me why would Jon say "it had been a long while" if it's only been a few chapters and in the same book? Seems to me silver haired Val wasn't such a lovely sight.

[fanficsfreeideas]

BottomAlastorWeek2024 - day 3 Cock Sleeve

Chapter 1

The bar was unusually quiet when Angel stumbled in, looking worse for wear. "Hey, Husk, today was rough. I had to be Val's cock sleeve while he was filming." Husk mixed up a drink and handed it to Angel without a word.

Alastor, sitting nearby, looked confused. "Acting like a barn animal will be easy," he mused aloud. "But I don't understand the 'sleeve' part. My dear, what does a rooster have anything to do with your job?"

Lucifer, lounging on the couch with Adam, burst out laughing. Adam was grinning broadly.

Husk smirked, enjoying the unfolding scene. Angel choked on his drink. "Smiles, you’re joking. You’re pulling my leg."

Alastor smiled innocently. "Why, my dear, I'm not. I don't understand how acting like a rooster would be hard. It seems odd that he wanted you to act that way, but I could be a cock sleeve, no problem."

Lucifer and Adam both jumped up. "Let's do it, then," both fallen angels exclaimed, Lucifer with eager eyes and Adam with lusty ones.

Angel yelled, "Wait, Smiles!" but Adam had his arms around him, silencing him while Lucifer addressed Alastor.

"So, Bellhop, do you want to be our cock sleeve to prove to Angel that it is not that hard?" Lucifer asked.

Alastor halted, suspecting he had misunderstood something. He already stated that he could do it without any problems, so he can't go back now. glancing at Lucifer, who was waiting for a response. He flashes his well-known smile. "Yes, I would like to be. Yours and Adam's cock sleeve." Lucifer grinned, Angel was going to say something, but Adam's grip tightened over his shoulder, whispering, "Be quiet spider, don't ruin this for us; we wanted that ass for a while." Angel merely gives a nod.

Alastor gulped, seeing Angel looking upset and Husk back to cleaning, missing the grin on his face. Adam walked over after letting Angel go with a warning.

"Now, Bambi, there's no reason to fear. You will only have to act like our cock sleeve anytime we want because, as you said, it's not that hard. Will you be a good when you keep our cocks warm?" Adam whispered the last part so low that Alastor did not hear.

Lucifer was salivating, his tail moving back and forth. He was hard, and he and Adam had been planning to find a way to get Alastor. Angel felt bad for the guy, but oh well, he tried.

Alastor looked at Adam's hand. "I want to be fed afterward."

Lucifer laughed. "Oh, don't worry. We will be feeding you well. It may even make you crow in delight."

Vaggie walked in and looked at Angel, who shook his head. She walked over to him. "What the fuck is going on?"

Husk, with a shit-eating grin, said, "My boss is whoring himself out with Lucifer and Adam."

Vaggie choked. "What?"

Angel added, "He heard me talking about being a cock sleeve and—"

Vaggie sighed. "And the moron thought you were talking about being a chicken?"

"Yup."

Vaggie grinned. "So, he's about to make a deal?"

"Yep." Vaggie joined Husk with a shit-eating grin.

Charlie walked in just as Alastor, her father, and Adam shook hands. "What the fuck, guys?" she shouted. All three men looked at her. "Alastor, what type of deal did you just make with my dad and Adam?"

"My dear, don't worry. I just have to be there."

Lucifer covered his mouth. "Don't worry, Char-Char. Alastor is to put on a show for Adam and me anytime we want him to."

Charlie had a feeling her dad was lying. "So don't worry."

Vaggie looked at the other two. "Should we tell her?"

Both said, "No, it's best to keep what happened a secret."

Charlie frowned, still suspicious. "I don't know what you're up to, but I'm watching you," she said, narrowing her eyes at Lucifer and Adam.

Adam grinned and winked at her.

Lucifer chuckled. "Now, shall we get started?" He gestured for Alastor to follow him and Adam.

As they left, Charlie turned to Vaggie, Angel, and Husk. "Okay, what happened?"

Vaggie sighed. "Hun, don't worry. The deal won't harm Alastor. He wanted it."

Husk smirked. "Yeah, Charlie, he was telling them how he wanted to perform just for them."

Angel looked away, feeling guilty. Charlie noticed his discomfort. "Angel?"

Angel cleared his throat. "There's no need to worry. They even promised to feed him once they're done with him." He added, "Well, at least whatever her dad and Adam are making him do for them, they're going to take care of him afterward."

Charlie crossed her arms, still concerned. "I hope you're right. I don't want Alastor getting hurt."

Alastor followed Adam and Lucifer, now unsure of what exactly he had agreed to but determined to prove he could handle whatever challenge they threw at him.

"Bellhop," Lucifer said smoothly, "do you understand what you've agreed to?"

Alastor nodded confidently. "Of course. I promised to be your cock sleeve. I don't get how acting like a rooster makes you and Adam so enthusiastic."

Adam chuckled, patting Alastor on the head. "Oh, Bambi, you'll soon find out why. But first, let's get somewhere more private."

Lucifer led them to his room in the hotel. Once inside, he locked the door and turned to Alastor, his eyes gleaming with anticipation.

"Now, Bellhop, are you ready to begin?" Lucifer asked, his voice dripping with excitement.

Alastor nodded, still determined. "Yes, I'm ready."

Adam grinned, stepping closer to Alastor. "Good. Then let's see how well you can handle being our cock sleeve." Alastor was about to start clucking when Lucifer moved behind him, resting his hands on his shoulders, causing Alastor to jump and growl.

"Relax, Bellhop. Just follow our lead," Lucifer said soothingly.

Alastor took a deep breath. "Sire, I don't believe one needs to touch a rooster."

Lucifer whispered into Alastor's ear, "But my dear, your role is not of a rooster but to keep my cock nice and warm along with Adam's. But don't worry, you will still be crowing. Now, be my good deer, and let me get you ready to keep Daddy's dick nice and warm."

Alastor was frozen. They had played him. Lucifer and Adam began to undress him. He focused on the task ahead, realizing he had whored himself out.

Adam's fingers brushed against Alastor's skin, sending shivers down his spine. "Such a good boy," Adam murmured, his tone both soothing and commanding.

Lucifer's touch was equally electrifying, his hands moving with a mix of tenderness and authority. "We'll take good care of you, sweet heart," he whispered in Alastor's ear, his breath hot against his skin.

Alastor closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing as their hands roamed over his body. The room was filled with an intense, almost palpable anticipation.

"Let's start slow," Adam said, his voice gentle but firm. "We want you to enjoy this too."

Lucifer nodded in agreement, his hands sliding down to Alastor's waist. "Just relax and let us take control."

Alastor felt a mix of anxiety and excitement as he surrendered to their touch, ready to embrace whatever they had planned for him.

[neverburied]

a surprised blink is earned , stolas' eyes wide &* glowing a little brighter than usual. he hadn't expected that answer at all -------- in truth , stolas has never been chosen for being who he is. he's only ever been a prize ; something worth possessing. &* while it is true that angel has plenty to gain from stolas , he doesn't make the owl-prince feel like he's being manipulated. perhaps stolas is naive &* this will all ruin his life [ . . . ] is it bad that he does not care ?

hands find purchase against angel's waist , fingers lightly flexing against the fabric there. ❛   you are safe. without a doubt. ❜ his head shakes just a bit , even the idea of angel being threatened in this manor laughable to the demon.

❛   we both choose each other ------ that is the long &* short of it. so what do we do about it ? ❜ a soft hum is earned as he raises one hand to gently cup the sinner's cheek as his thumb brushes his cheek. ❛   my divorce is inevitable. as much as i would love to make my via's life less complicated , her mother &* i staying together is anything but conducive to a healthy example of what a loving marriage should be. there has never been a day without yelling in this home. ❜

a frown tugs down the edges of his mouth. would it be any easier for her to accept hell's most popular adult entertainment star ? probably not. but at least there would be love. at least stolas would be happy. DID ANY OF THEM CARE ABOUT THAT ?

❛   will you stay , then ? ❜ a hesitant question , gaze unsure only in regards to whether angel would push past his own insecurity about everything. ❛   you will be protected. freed from your contract. i will wipe val from the depths of hell if it is what you desire. you can stay here &* be provided for. i ask for nothing but your company , angel. ❜

angel’s fingers twitched at his sides, that tight coil of anxiety wrapping itself around his chest, threatening to choke him. he stood there, fragile and raw, as if stolas’s words had peeled away the last layers of armour he clung to so desperately. his heart pounded beneath his ribs, echoing the tremor in his hands as he swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry.

he had spent so long convincing himself that this — whatever this was — didn’t matter. that it was just another arrangement, another pay check, another escape when val was too much to handle. but with each soft, trembling breath stolas took, angel could feel the lies he had spun around himself unravelling.

god, he was so tired of lying.

he had always been an actor. a performer. a commodity. he knew how to laugh when he didn’t feel like it, knew how to smile even when everything inside him was screaming. his whole life was one big performance, a carefully constructed mask that cracked and shimmered under neon lights, but never quite broke.

his chest tightened as stolas’s fingertips brushed his arms, the contact soft and hesitant, like he was afraid angel might shatter if he pressed too hard. maybe he would. maybe he already had.

he didn’t pull away, though. he couldn’t. instead, his arms loosened, his hands unfolding from their protective grasp around his torso. his eyes, once fixed on the floor, slowly lifted, meeting stolas’s gaze. his lips parted, and for a moment, angel wasn’t sure if he could even speak.

❛ stolas...spendin' time with you, gettin' to be around you... ❜ his top hands shifted, wringing nervously while his lower ones rubbed at his arms, feeling the ghost of the others touch. his throat tightened, but the words kept spilling out. ❛ i ain't had to pretend to be someone i ain't for months. someone who you'd prefer. you...you just like me bein' myself, even when that ain't the prettiest, or the nicest. even when i come uninvited, or off my face you....you make me feel safe. ❜ his voice was soft, hesitant. it wasn’t something he ever admitted, not even to himself. but it was the truth. satan, it was the truth.

and if he wasn't going to see stolas again he owed him that much.

❛ how could i chose anythin' else but you? ❜

[eatingyourteeth]

We as a society forget that Seokyoon almost robbed a man if it wasnt for Jongwoo. He is a crime boy let him commit his crimes

[skogmord]

Could u draw some more Jay Weinberg?

Only if u say please :)

[michaelasworlds-blog]

Sugar, Spice and Nothing Nice

~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 1: The New Recruit

🚨TRIGGER WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS ABUSE AND SA🚨

Hell, 1996

“Angel! Angel Dust! Over here!” Demon Reporters surrounded Angel Dust and Valentino as they made they’re way to the limo. “How does it feel winning another “ Sex-x-xi Award?!” One of the reporters pushed a mic in front of him.

“Pretty fuckin awesome!” Angel smirked. He honestly didn’t even care that HE won specifically, Angel just didn’t want Titfucker to win. Seeing her heated face always made his night.

“Valentino, are you planning anything new for next year?!” A female reporter looks up at a smiling Valentino.

“I always have new stuff coming out,” he smirks. “And I’m always looking for fresh faces, so if you wanna ever make some big money let me know,” he winked at her.

Angel rolled his eyes, he looked at Val then at the reporters and sea of fans. Noticing most of the attention off of him he slowly made his way to the limo, he was tired and really wanted to get away from the yelling and screaming; it was great for a while but it soon became just a bunch of noise. He tried to fake a smile and wave at the screaming crowd trying to reach for him, reaching the door of the limo he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned, seeing a short demon standing on the barricade staring at him, they had navy blue skin and wore a black hoodie, they smiled sweetly waving at him excitedly. Angel smiled back warmly waving back.

“Angel baby, let’s go,” Angel heard Val’s voice.

“I’m coming,” Angel said loudly. He slowly walked up the demon, they were getting more excited the closer he got.

“Hi!” They squealed, bouncing up and down. “I saw your videos, they’re cool!”

“Cool isn’t really the word that a fan would usually use to describe my work. Are you sure you’re watching the right stuff?” He raised an eyebrow at them.

“Okay, I’ve only seen one video, I believe it was called Cumming Home for Christmas?” The demon took off their hood revealing brown curly hair, with small horns coming out of the hair. Angel finally examined the rest of them realizing this was a girl.

“Ugh! That one was so old! What do you live under a rock?” He joked.

“No..a dumpster,” she says.

“Excuse me?” Angel looks at her dumbfounded.

“The one in the alley by the strip club.”

“Right, because there’s not a bunch of strip-“

“Angel!” Val yells cutting Angel off. “Let’s get a move on! Daddy is very lonely!” He smirks, sending a chill down Angel’s spine.

“Uh, have a good night I guess-“ Angel turns to leave but the girl grabs his hand.

“One day I wanna be as famous as you,” she smiles. Angel smiles before getting into the limo, sitting by the window opposite of Valentino, who is sitting next to two female demons.

“Ladies one at a time, no need to compete, we can make this a three way,” Val smiles, red liquid coming from his mouth. He looks over at Angel who’s looking out the window, Val pulls him over on his lap. “Or we can make an orgy,” he gives Angel a devious smile.

Angel sighs, he was so exhausted, Was the last thing he thought before red smoke was blown into his face clouding his vision.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hell, Present Day

Hundreds of demons yell and cheer at the stage watching Angel as he dances around, and on the stripper pole in the middle of stage.

“Yeah baby, show daddy every inch of that body” A male demon shouts, watching Angel climb then flip upside down with a seductive grin on his face.

Angel looks around at the crowd faking a smile, he doesn’t know if the smile is very convincing, it was so much easier to fake everything when he was high. He hadn’t done anything since the hotel reopened about a week ago, it was hard; REALLY hard. He felt in control yet at the same time out of control, when he felt out of control he could always count on Husk to bring him back..sometimes. Across the room in the VIP area sat Val, with two male demons on each side of him; his arm draped around them with a cigarette in one hand. He stared at the stage smirking at Angel, Valentino hadn’t really bothered him as much since the incident at the club; however he did make him work way longer, to the point where Angel fell asleep in his dressing room. Apparently it was to “inspire” the other actors to do better, complete and utter bullshit.

Angel finished his dance slowly going into a split, the demons in the crowd screamed and whistled. He walks off the stage grabbing his blazer, Angel was ready to go back to the hotel; or at least his dressing room. He just wanted to be with his fat nuggets.

“Ugh, I need a drink,”he mumbled, walking into the VIP area. He sat next on the couch near two female demons making out.

“Angel baby,” Valentino blew smoke in his direction, “Such a beautiful performance, you always know what to do to get the crowd going.”

Angel sits back on the couch sighing, “Well you know, it’s all for you Val,” he rolled his eyes going through his phone. Cherri had texted him a few times, Husk had texted him once; he wasn’t good with phones or any technology really.

“Oh stop it you flatter me, you’re the artist love; on stage and on camera,” Valentino he pulls Angel next to him. “Speaking of on camera, we miss you had the studio baby,” he puts his arm around him, Angel looks away nervously but Val turns his face to his; “I miss you..” Valentino licks Angel’s neck before biting it.

“Val..”Angel moans, Valentino begins kissing him; Angel can taste his sweet saliva, his mind beginning to become cloudy. Before Angel is consumed he turns his head away from Valentino moving away from him, “No,” He wipes his mouth.

“Excuse me?” Val glares at him.Others in the VIP begin to glance over at them.

“Not tonight,” Angel doesn’t look at him. Val yanks Angel back towards him. Angel looks up at him in fear.

“You would literally be nothing if it weren’t for me,” Val angrily whispers in his ear. “Now I let that cute shit you did at the club go, but if you keep fucking with me; there are other ways I can get your ass to come back to the studio, got it?” He growled.

“Yes,” Angel responded in a low voice.

“Yes, who?” Val pulls him closer.

“Yes, Valentino,” Angel’s voice trembles.

“Good boy,” he smirks, pinching his cheek. Valentino lets him go, turning to the crowd, “Sugar Cube sweetie!” He bites his lip. “Come here baby”. He gestures with his finger.

Angel turned seeing a girl walk into their section, she had navy blue skin with green eyes and curly hair in two low puffs. She wore black shorts, and a crop top with an upside cross around her neck. Angel stared shocked, could this really be the same girl?

“You actually came I’m so surprised, sit down,” Valentino pushes the demon on the opposite side away, this Sugar sat in his place. “Have you met Angel?” He nudges Angel and he turns around.

“I have, I’m a huge fan of what you do,” she smiles at him. “I don’t know if you remember me.”

Holy shit! This was the same person, “Uh.. yeah, I thought you were homeless,” He raised an eyebrow.

“I was, Val really helped me out,” She smiled.

Angel looked horrified.

Holy shit.

“Yeah she started a week ago,” Valentino smirked. “I decided to do some good for the people of hell, kind of like what your little princess is doing with that hotel; except working for me comes with more benefits.”

Holy shit.

[itsjust-aiden]

"Fishsticks? Really?" It is enough to prompt a laugh out of Aiden, a quiet stream of giggles at her personal choice of censorship. Good on her and her self control regarding a filter - Lord knows Aiden couldn't do it, and he's been relatively tame lately - even that is more than a child should hear. "Might want to watch that sorta language around your mini-me - fishsticks is especially offensive."

It's a funny thing to consider hearing a child yell out the word 'fishsticks' out of frustration in the classroom. It is better than the alternative, all things considered, but Aiden had a stream of expletives falling from his mouth before he even hit double digits. Soap and hot peppers in the mouth did little to deter him, nor did it teach him how to flip on the brain to mouth filter that so often could have saved him from many altercations.

Val draws out another laugh from him, this one more of a challenge. "Don't make a threat you can't keep. I think I have more than half a foot on you - might be all limbs like Gumby, but dead weight is dead weight." He makes a show of picking out another ice cube from his cocktail, holding it up towards her for a split second and then discarding it to the ground at their feet. "You'd have had a better chance in middle school." He slides into the seat next to her, back to the table and elbows supporting his lean back with legs stretched out without care for any passerby that might trip if they aren't paying attention.

"I can't give up when I'm looking for someone to distract me from-" one arm extends to fan out to the crowd the festival has brought in. "- this. But, Fiona did. And then I lost her. As Aiden easily does when he's distracted too long by whatever is going on stage. Not to mention an altered headspace makes staring at the stage-side screens a different experience that distracts him so long he loses track of time. "Define fun. Could you do that? Or has mom life made you dull."

Valerie allows herself to take a seat as she watches her family go on yet another adventure without her as she makes room for herself in an abandoned table, her cold legs already sore from walking for the past hour holding Amelia's hand on her own, a wide-eyed three year old looking at Coral Cove and asking questions Valerie only has some answers to. She takes these few moments of solitude to appreciate the time she just shared with her daughter; no matter how tiring it may be, there is no moment she isn't thankful for Willow's existance and her involvement in the matter.

The journalist it about to retrieve her phone from her purse for the first time in the past two hours when a cold object is pressed against her neck, a shiver runs down her body as a natural response whilst the rest of her body jolts.

"FFFFFFISHSTICKS" she shouts, mom filter constantly on at this point. Before she has time to turn around and face the person she wants to skin alive, a familiar voice beckons next to her, and suddenly everything begins making sense.

Val groans at both the pricks on the nape on her neck sticking out and Aiden's presence as she blinks, the beginning of a headache making itself presence on her frontal lobe. "Count your blessings we are in an open space with over one hundred witnesses Stevens, I swear no one would even find you for weeks if you ever think of doing that again" the constant gimmick between them starts, her empty threats highlighted by a smack on his arm. "Maybe someone needs to take a hint. After the second message you just gotta give up and move on, dumbass" she challenges, taking out her phone and placing it on the table in front of her, whilst still maintaining eye contact with the other, gesturing at the seat next to hers.

"If you must know, Willow had me running around the past hour, was about to check my phone. Funny to find you here, what poor soul had to take one for the team and drag you out of your house?" a smirk. "Having fun?"

[rebelrayne]

Summary Seb isn't overly emotional. He's not a sticky sweet guy who loves a big romantic gesture, or someone who would pick up a bouquet of roses on the way home. But lately... There's something about Valerie. Rated Teen

Under the cut or on AO3

@litgwritersroom Not Gary or Tim, but I gave everyone's favorite non-LI, Seb some love.

also thank you to @mergrl, @csmicletters and @longbobmckenzie for beta reading this 🤍

Seb’s stomach churned just thinking about the cutesy sandcastles everyone built the day before. They made a swing for their kids, they counted the number of bedrooms they’d need. Hell, they even dug little holes and stated that’s where their pool would go. What was next? Naming their children? He’d never been overly sentimental, he wasn’t sappy and sweet. He watched as Bill and Valerie celebrated their win. He liked Viv well enough, he thought she was cute and she was kind-hearted but lately…

“Have you ever wondered why they call it shipping if it comes by truck?” Valerie held a cereal box in front of her and studied the back. It had cartoon characters sprawled all over it with a maze for kids to use. She had her elbows resting on the table as she used an index finger to move through the printed maze. “Seb? What do you think?”

She was quirky as hell, that’s what he thought. “How do you even think of these things, Val?” She never told him that he could call her ‘Val’, but he started to anyway. He noticed that she didn’t let anyone else shorten her beautiful name, it was as if it was a special privilege only for him. “You say the most random things.”

Her chocolate brown hair bounced along with her shoulders while she giggled. “I’m just individualistic,” she explained, “you understand that more than anyone else here, don’t you?” She nudged him playfully with her shoulder. He hated that he felt the way he did. Every time she touched him, even an accidental graze, it gave him a shock. It was too late now, he thought. He knew she was happy with Bill.

“Hey guys!” Speak of the devil. “Valerie, are you eating that stuff? Come on, that’s no good. There’s tons more cereal to pick from in there,” Bill said. Every time that bloke opened his mouth, Seb could feel his eye twitching. He could feel his fists balling, he would start to grind his teeth together tightly. He knew Val was happy with Bill… But dammit, how was she happy with him?

He watched Valerie force a laugh. Didn’t she ever get tired of that? “You and your opinions, babe.” She said it as if it was no big deal, like he was a baby that learned how to clap its hands for the first time. Like it was… cute? Either that, or she was a damn good actress. “How are you feeling about everything, Seb?”

Seb didn’t expect for her to turn the attention back to him. He’d never had the heart to tell her that he couldn’t stand Bill. Everyone in the Villa was a bit too… Positive? Happy? Energetic? Ah, wait… Vanilla, that was the word. “I’m feeling good! I’m well excited to get back home and see Doom and the kittens though.”

“I can adopt one of the kittens, right?” she asked with those big, innocent looking doe eyes. He could never say no to that face. No, never. “Please?” She forced her voice to sound whiny, probably for effect and she knew it would drink him crazy.

Seb laughed and covered his ears as a joke. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Just have mercy on my poor ears.”

“Oh! Hey! I got a text!” Val let her syllables linger as she yelled. She chuckled to herself as she watched Seb shake his head like a wet dog.

“What happened to mercy on my poor ears?” 

Val rolled her eyes as she stood up and flipped her hair back. “There’s no time for mercy, Sebastian!” She rolled her hand into a fist and placed it to her mouth as she cleared her throat dramatically. He felt a smile creep onto his face as he watched her prepare herself as if she was about to give a speech at the Oscars. Islanders, today you’ll be participating in the Lie Detector challenge! Each Islander will choose three questions they want to ask their partner while hooked to a lie detector. Boys, please head to the fire pit. Girls, please move to the roof terrace. #TruthsRevealed #HonestyIsTheBestPolicy

Seb looked over at Viv, who seemed calm yet excited at the same time. He liked her, he did. What was there not to like? But lately…

“You’re getting ready to think of some grilling questions, huh, Seb?” Val elbowed his side playfully. Her coffee-colored eyes sparkled as she giggled at her own joke. She clutched her sides then carefully pretended to wipe under her eye as if she’d laughed so hard, she cried. She waved him off. “Go easy on us, boys!”

Seb decided to go easy on Viv. He knew she wouldn’t dream of asking him anything too difficult, she just wasn’t that way. Viv was so selfless, so sweet. Seb swallowed hard and sunk deeper into the cushions of the sofa, which reeked of coconut sunscreen. He placed his hands in his lap and started to pick at his fingers. What if Viv didn’t go easy on him? He would almost deserve it with his back and forth…

“Are you alright?” Viv asked as she slid up next to him. She was so nice, he thought. Why wasn’t he still excited about her? He met her eyes, which were full of concern. It looked as if she was trying not to pout out her bottom lip, but was failing miserably at the task. “You seem distracted today.”

He shook his head and placed a faux smile on his face. “Sure, I’m great, Viv.” He draped an arm around her and sighed. “I’m nervous about the challenge, you know? This might cause some drama in the Villa and I’m not about that.” Why was he lying to her? He didn’t even know what was going on in his mind exactly… He just knew that his mind wasn’t always on her…

“Drama?!” Val exclaimed as she stood up from her seat. She placed the back of her hand to her forehead and leaned back. “I love the drama!” He couldn’t help but smile, she could turn any day around. She placed her hands on her hips as she giggled. The red fringe on her bathing suit top swayed as she flopped back down onto the couch. Bill went to put an arm around her, but she wiggled away as she continued to giggle. She looked directly at Seb. It couldn’t be, could it? No.

“Classic Val,” Seb said. “You do have quite the flair for the dramatic.” His stomach fluttered when she winked at him. What was this feeling? Was it really that he just wanted her? No. She was happy with Bill and he was… content. “Who do you think is going to go first?”

“Got a text!” Elladine exclaimed as she stood up and waved her phone around. “Looks like Viv is up first and Bill is asking the questions.”

Bill jumped to his feet quickly while Viv followed behind him. He looked so immature, so stupid as he ran off cackling to himself. Seb sent a look over to Val. She quickly looked away. Had she been staring at him? No. That was all in his head, maybe she was just watching Viv and got caught in a daze.

The Islanders watched in silence as Viv was hooked to the machine. Wires stuck all over her body but her eyes were cast down at the floor. “Okay, Viv! Just checking to see if it’s working. Your name is Genevieve, right?”

“That’s right,” she answered. The screen showed the machine glowing with a green light, a loud ding as she sighed in relief.

“Alright, let’s try this one: Do you enjoy sharing a bed with Seb?” Bill read from the notecard like a 6-year-old who couldn’t read yet. He sounded like a robot. Why was Seb picking everything the guy did apart now?

Viv nodded with a bright smile. “Yes.” The machine gave another joyous response.

“Do you think you might want to see where things go after the Villa?”

“Yes.” Ding.

“Okay, Viv, last one: Are you happy to be partnered with Seb?”

“Yes.” Ding.

Why did he feel like such a jerk? Was it because he would have had to answer ‘no’ to all of those questions in order for the machine to give the same response? Oh God, he would have to answer ‘no’ to get that damn machine to light up green like Christmas morning.

His knee started to bounce, a ball formed in his throat. He could only hope he would go last so other Islanders were too involved in their own drama from their own questions… That was wishful thinking, wasn’t it? None of these people would have drama in their couples. He was going to be the only one to lie all day, wasn’t he?

Couple after couple, Islander after Islander… His theory proved to be true: no one was lying and there was no drama. How could a group so honestly boring even exist? How had they found these Jiminy Cricket type people? He groaned to himself, muttering very quietly under his breath as Nicky’s final question prompted a collective ‘Aw’ from the others. It made him sick, all this love talk, all this cutesy shit.

He picked up his phone and felt the color drain from his face. Of course he would have to ask Val her questions. Would she notice him wince when she gave a satisfied response for Bill? Would she catch onto him if he frowned and looked away when she said she liked Bill?

They headed towards the room and for the first time all summer, there was absolute silence between them. “You alright, Val?” He asked as he slipped into his lab coat. He scrunched up his nose upon noticing the pair of glasses laid on the bed for him. Did he really have to put those fake readers on? He rolled his eyes as he snatched them from the bed.

“Yeah, I’m just a tad nervous about the questions,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “Bill is pretty, uh, opinionated.”

“That’s one word for it.” Seb sat down at the computer and ran his hand across the keyboard, feeling the bumps of the letters as he moved his fingers back and forth. “You’ll be great, Val. You always are.”

Val cleared her throat. “Thanks, Seb.” Her voice sounded shaky, unsure of the way to respond. She had every right to be upset, he thought. It wasn’t like Bill was known to be calm and level-headed. “Let’s get this over with, I guess.” That didn’t sound like her at all.

He was almost too angry to read off the questions. This challenge was making her so nervous, her gorgeous smile was no longer an accessory to her outfit. “Alright, don’t be nervous. Let’s start off easy. Is Seb your best friend in the Villa?” He looked over at her and grinned.

Her smile melted him, the laugh she gave made his heart flip and flop inside his chest. “Yes, he is.” Ding.

“Alright. It looks like everything is in order.” He grabbed the small set of notecards and tapped them on the table. “Let’s see, first question: Do you think you and Bill have compatible personalities?” Wow, Bill wasn’t messing around, Seb thought.

“Hm,” she paused, shifting her attention to Seb, “yes.” The machine sent out an ear-deafening scream as it alerted the others of the lie. And here he was thinking there would be no drama. 

“Wow,” he said. “Okay.” He took the first notecard and placed it face down on the keyboard. “Let’s, uh, try another. Don’t worry, Val.” He looked down at the card and rolled his eyes. For fuck’s sake. “Next question: If Bill asked you to be his girlfriend, would you say yes?” Well, the first question probably answered that.

Val chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. She shifted in her seat, squirming uncomfortably. “Uh, well…” She looked towards the headboard of the bed, the opposite direction of the camera. She had her hands in her lap as she tapped her fingers together. “No.” Ding.

“It’s alright, Val.” He put the notecard on top of the other on the keyboard. “We only have one more. Are you ready?” She nodded, but still has her gaze fixated on the bed of the hideaway. “Okay, I’m right here, just remember that.” He hadn’t even looked at the last question, but when he did? “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mumbled. He wanted to just rip it up. Could he do that? Would it be permitted? His heart pounded in anger, but only because the first two questions had revealed so much. “The last question is: Is there someone else in the Villa you’d rather be with?”

Val’s eyes widened, her lips parted as she looked at Seb. Her eyes flickered down as she started at his lips then she cleared her throat. “Yes.” The two of them sat in an eerie quiet until the machine replied happily. Ding.

“What the heck, Valerie?” Bill’s face was a mixture of so many emotions. He looked pissed, but then he looked upset, but then he looked like he wanted to murder someone? Had it not been caused by something that Val had said, he would have been happy to see someone show some damn emotion in this Villa. “Who is it that you’d rather be coupled with?”

Val walked right past him. She always had her shoulders back, her step always had a bounce to it… But not now. No, now, her head was hung in defeat, she shuffled her feet to the couch and sat down at the very end. She shifted her body away from the other Islanders, leaning herself on the arm of the chair.

Seb went to go after her but Elladine grabbed his arm. “Didn’t you hear me? You’re up.” Damn it.

He followed her back, he hadn’t even gotten a moment to himself. At least he got his wish, he was last… But at what cost? He so badly wanted to tell Elladine he refused to take the test, he should have just said to hell with it and sat down with Val anyway. He knew he couldn’t though… It wasn’t his place, was it? To comfort her that way. But lately…

“Are you ready?” Elladine said as clapped her hands together. “Is your full name Sebastian?”

Seb nodded his head slowly. “It is.” Ding.

“Great!” Elladine snatched the cards from the table and crossed her legs. “First question: Are you happy to be coupled with Viv?”

Technically, he was. Was it lying if he said yes on a technicality? Why was he so nervous to give his answer? “Yes, I am.” He shut his eyes tightly but the machine agreed. Ding. He sighed a breath of relief and let his body relax. Maybe all of the questions would be this simple, maybe she really had gone easy on him.

“Aw!” Elladine’s voice was whiny as she giggled. “Okay, next question is: Is Viv a good kisser?”

Okay, maybe these would be easy. He smiled, confidence oozing. “Yes, she is.” Ding. Too easy.

Elladine nodded and tossed the card to the back of the pile as she shuffled to the final card. Her smile faded. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no. That did not look good. “Uh,” she said, “well, I guess this is the final question…” She looked at Seb with an apologetic look, the glass of her readers had a glare that made it impossible to see her eyes. “Would you rather be coupled with… with Valerie?”

He wasn’t even in the room but he could practically hear the whispers, the muttering and the shifting of bodies on the couch as they moved to the edge of their seat. “Uh, um.” What was he supposed to say? “I don’t know how to answer that without hurting Viv.” He looked down at his lap again, which was something he had become very accustomed to ever since he started to realize his feelings for Val. How could he not want to be with her?

“I don’t think you can–” Ding. Elladine sighed. “Oh.”

“Yeah…” Seb took a long deep breath. “Oh.”

Viv intercepted him before he got back to the living room, which he was almost thankful for. At least he didn’t need to face everyone after that spectacle. He could only imagine the pained expression that Bill wore… “I had my suspicions,” Viv said as she leaned her shoulder onto the wall in the hallway. “I’m sorry it had to come out this way, I guess.”

“You shouldn’t be apologizing, Viv. It was all me. I should have said something sooner, maybe you wouldn’t have felt like you needed to say it that way.” Maybe the other Islanders and their peaceful ways were rubbing off on him. “Don’t be sorry.”

“I still am,” she answered with the curves of her mouth downturned slightly. “Partially because had I just not asked that question…” She stopped mid-sentence and blinked rapidly, tearing her eyes away from him. “Why didn’t you just say something?”

He was the worst human being on earth. Why wasn’t he happy with what he had? “I don’t know. I like you, Viv, I do, but lately…”

“Stop.” She stood up straight, her hair flopped along with her head as she moved it from side to side. “I need some space from you.” She turned around and trudged away. Even though she said it was okay, even though she told him it wasn’t a surprise… He felt like he should pack his bags and leave for hurting her the way he did.

He took a deep breath and walked towards the roof terrace. There was no way that he was going out there. He wasn’t ready for the bloodbath. Well, more like he just wasn’t ready to face Val. She didn’t think of him the same way, he was sure of it. He’d always just be her best friend in the Villa, nothing more. He pushed the door to the terrace open, a little too violently. He just had to take his frustrations out on something, he couldn’t help it.

He fell onto the bench and grabbed a pillow, putting his face to it and screaming into it. He fell back onto the bench, putting one leg up and allowing the other to stay firmly on the ground. “That’s quite a show you’re putting on there.” He lifted his head to find Val standing at the door. “Can we talk?” She shuffled her feet, kicking at an imaginary pebble on the ground.

He sat up and nodded. “Of course we can, Val.” He held the pillow in his lap and watched her sit down next to him, at least an arms length away. His heart sank at the sight. Your heart can’t really sink, he thought, but that’s how it felt. Not only had he ruined the couple he was in, he ruined his friendship with Val. He couldn’t help it though, not really. It wasn’t like he could get out of asking the question… “I’m sorry about what happened.”

“But what you said,” she paused, “would you rather be coupled with me, Seb?”

He gulped. He couldn’t get out of answering this question either. “At first, I was happy to be friends. You became the person that I wanted to talk to about everything. You were the person I ran to first when something happened, you were the person I wanted to learn everything about. But lately…” He sighed and placed the pillow on the other side of himself. He maneuvered his body to face her. “But lately, I see you and I get excited. I’m not a grand gestures kind of guy. I don’t do flowers, I’ve never kissed anyone in the pouring rain. I’ll never tell you that my heart skips a beat while I serenade you outside your window… But I can tell you that over the past month, there’s no one I’m more excited to talk to. There’s no one else I’d rather spend my lazy days with. I’d swim the ocean to just get one look at you…”

She blinked a few times, seemingly at a loss for words. “You don’t have to feel the same. Heck, you don’t even need to say anything to this. I’m sorry it had to come out this way, Val.” He placed his hands on his thighs to stand up. “I’ll give you some space, okay? I don’t want things to be awkward.”

“Wait!” She placed her hand on one of his. He met her eyes with a look of bewilderment. “At first, I was happy to be friends. I was more than thrilled to just know everything there was to know about you, but lately…” she smiled, “but lately, it’s you I want to see when I wake up in bed in the morning. It’s you I want to kiss goodnight. Seb, it’s you I want to be coupled with. It’s you that I want.”

He didn’t even waste a moment. He cupped her face and pulled her in. He didn’t want to stop and ask himself if this was a dream. He felt her catch her breath as he moved his hand to the back of her head, running his fingers through her hair. Sure, they had complicated things, they had made some waves in the Villa. Seb wasn’t overly sentimental, he wasn’t sappy and sweet. But lately…