Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
@lonely-lost-insanity (you should go check out her blog) and I were sharing headcanons about our mutual favorite babygirl piece of shit and I decided to post mine here
we borrowed @head---ache 's character ask game for inspiration on this one, so bare with me here. (also if you like Sonic, you should check them out too)
🏳️🌈 A sexuality headcanon: Asexual and completely sex repulsed, mostly because both the fluids involved, and other people's genitals completely repulse him. He also deals with feelings of severe shame any time he gets aroused, but that's more of a gender identity crisis than anything
🏳️⚧️ A gender headcanon: Though he's primarily masculine presenting, Alastor is actually genderfluid, though he only learned about it recently. Angel is the one who caught on and talked to him about it, and currently the only one who knows since Alastor isn't confident enough about it to tell anyone else
😇 A headcanon about their religion/lack thereof: His maternal grandmother was a slave who was originally from Haiti, so he grew up following the practices of Hatian Vodou. He was actually training to become a Oungan (similar to a priest for those unfamiliar) before his mother died and he got shipped off for the Great War
🧸 A headcanon about their childhood: He used to have a little hand-sewn frog plush that he cared for for years until his dad burned it in a fit of rage. Alastor never forgave him for that because it was a gift from his grandmother
👻 A headcanon about what scares them: He has a phobia of dogs from his death, but he's also scared of heights and confined spaces, and thunder gives him flashbacks to mortar fire
🎶 A headcanon about music: He has listened to and enjoys a lot of modern music, but only plays it when he thinks he's alone - Vaggie was Shook to find him rocking out to Insane Clown Posse while making breakfast one morning
👽 A headcanon about a weird quirk of there: Alastor is actually weirdly good with guns after his time in the military - they're one of the things he makes sure he's always up to date on just in case of an emergency. He can take one apart and put it back together while telling you the caliber it shoots and the brand it is. He also owns a surprising number of them, and usually keeps at least one on his person at all times
💤 A headcanon about their sleep: He has the worst insomnia, but likes to pretend that he just doesn't need sleep to seem mysterious. When it gets really bad, he'll just drink until he either blacks out or temporarily dies of alcohol poisoning. He says it's the same thing as sleeping. It's not
🦾 A disability headcanon: He had a serious hip injury when he was a kid that never healed right, and while he was in combat, the knee on the same side was severely injured. It doesn't bother him too often now, but the cane he always has isn't for show - he keeps it on him to store part of his power, and to have on-hand in case his injuries flare up (which, rather inconveniently, starts happening more after his fight with Adam - when he no longer has a cane)
💝 A headcanon about their love language: His love language is primarily touch which both makes his touch aversion easier and harder to navigate. If he likes you, he can usually get comfortable enough to express his love language, but on his bad days, he just has to go without his primary form of comfort because it would make everything worse
🫂 A friendship headcanon: Alastor and Vaggie can actually get along quite well when they put their minds to it - they're both down to earth and naturally pessimistic (though Alastor hides it better), both love spicy food, and lived surprisingly similar lives (not super similar, but moreso than they'd thought). Alastor becomes okay with Vaggie's touch faster than he did with Husk when they'd first become friends
💔 An angsty headcanon: Despite her best efforts, Alastor's mother didn't actually love him. Alastor was the result of a rape, and after he was born, she repeatedly debated smothering him - all the way until she died. Alastor knew deep down, but she still cared about him and showed him affection on her good days which is more than his father ever did, so Alastor always figured that he could just love enough for the both of them
🪢 A headcanon about their family: Alastor;s grandmother was actually the one to begin teaching Alastor about Vodou since she was a Mambo (female priest for those unfamiliar), but she died when he was 6 so he started learning from his mom and an older woman a few blocks away
📓 A headcanon about their hobbies: He actually really enjoys drawing and has countless sketchbooks with everything from ideas for furbies (straight up furby ocs lol) to landscapes to random doodles, to portraits. If anyone ever picked up one of his sketchbooks and looked through it, he would immediately die of pure embarrassment. The only things he wants people seeing are the things he shows them
👗 A headcanon about their clothes: He much prefers dresses and skirts (if wearing shorts or boxers underneath) to pants because he likes the way they move, look, and feel, but since he isn't confident in his gender identity yet, he refuses to wear them
🔪 A headcanon relating to fighting/violence: He's actually really good at hand-to-hand combat because of his time in the military, and he only improved once he went to Hell and fought all the overlords at the time. If he and Vaggie were to spar, it would be pretty close, but he could most likely beat her
🌟 A headcanon about their desires/wishes: Sometimes, Alastor wishes that he didn't have such a hard time with being touched - he can still remember the times his mother would go to touch him lovingly and he'd shy away from her, and he knows he can never go back and change it
🥇 A headcanon about what they’re best at: Overall, his greatest skill is his ability to read people. It stems from his traumatic ass life when reading people's mood had the potential to save him from getting a beating. Now it's saved his skin on multiple occasions - from interactions with his owner to spats with Vox or other beings more powerful than himself, he knows how to talk people into revealing their plans without them ever realizing they'd done so. It's also a skill that's gotten him in plenty of trouble, but for the most part it's saved his ass
🍫 A headcanon about food: He does like some sweets, but he can only have them in moderation - except for any coffee-based dessert. He would KILL for a whole tray of tiramisu
🎭 A headcanon about what they lie about: His relationship with his father. He always claims that he's always hated his father, but deep down there's a part of him that wishes he'd gotten his approval/love, and missed the father he'd have once in a blue moon when the man was in a pleasant enough mood to deal with his son
❤️🔥 A romantic headcanon: While he personally has no wish to have a romantic relationship, he's a sucker for reading about the sweet ones who will always go back for each other
💄 An appearance headcanon: He has fawn spots all over his back and shoulders, and it's symbolic of the fact that a large part of him died the day his mother did - when he was just a child
🖕 A headcanon relating to anger: Alastor doesn't like lashing out at people when he's angry because it makes him feel like his father. The problem is that he has a pretty short fuse naturally, so he usually just buries his claws into his palm until he bleeds to try and calm down. If he can feel an explosion coming on, he'll go to his room, lock the door and put up a sound muffling ward before destroying his furniture in a fit of rage. when he calms down, he fixes everything with magic and apologizes to the picture of his mother he keeps on his mantle before going back to what he was doing before
😺 An animal related headcanon: Surprisingly enough, dogs actually really like him which is unfortunate because of his hatred (read: phobia) of them. They'll go up to him begging for affection and he immediately starts having trauma flashbacks to his death
😬 A headcanon about the worst thing they’ve done: If you asked him, he would say that it was the fact he helped his father bury his mother's body after he murdered her, but Alastor had no choice in the matter since he was so little and the only other option would have been to die with her
😭 A headcanon about the worst thing that happened to them: He faced different types of torture for the entire 7 years he was gone. Sexual, physical, mental, emotional, you name it, Alastor probably experienced it. Then he was just shoved back into the world and told to get to work, so he still hasn't dealt with anything
😶 A random headcanon: He's a surprisingly great runner. Like yk those videos of track relay races where one person is easily catching up to everyone else after their team was falling behind? Yeah, that's basically Alastor. And he only got better at it after going to Hell and getting deer legs - which are made for running. He's got really good form too, to the point where you'd think he did track or something but nope - entirely self taught
I've been having these thoughts bounce around my head for about a week and I finally decided to post them. I don't know who's going to see this, but whoever sees it needed to. I guess this is for an AU rather than a headcanon, but whatever, just hear me out. I was inspired by The Owl House, specifically Hunter, so maybe that will spark some interest. This is about to be a rant, so I'll go ahead and add the read more thing
Okay, now that I have your attention, time for angst.
SO, in The Owl House, we learn in season 2 that (SPOILER ALERT) Hunter is a grimwalker (a clone of someone who died for those of you who don't know), and that before him, there were TONS of other grimwalkers that Belos murdered for "choosing to betray him" AKA realizing that Belos was an evil psychotic bitch. Also, that Hunter looked the most like Caleb (the dead guy he was cloned of) out of all the other grimwalkers, but he didn't KNOW that he was a grimwalker until a very angsty reveal by his abuser (Belos) who then immediately tried to murder his ass.
ANYWAYS, obviously, as the angst-lover I am, I think about this literally all the time. Then. I started thinking. I absolutely love Alastor, he's such a blorbo. And what do I do to my blorbos? I give them immeasurable amounts of trauma, c'mon, keep up.
What do we know about Alastor? Well, someone owns his soul. He disappeared for unknown reasons for seven years. He is INCREDIBLY anxious about whoever owns his soul - or at least the deal itself (as evidenced by his musical breakdown where he literally TEARS HIS OWN HAIR OUT FROM THE STRESS), and that he's probably going to use the deal with Charlie either for nefarious purposes, or to escape his deal.
Which brings us to the point of this post in the first place (kind of???? I might have just been mindlessly rambling there), and the start of my AU. I'm not going to pretend I know who owns Alastor's soul, but I really vibe with the idea of it being either Lilith or Roo, so that's who I'll be thinking of for the majority of this post. What if the person who owns his soul made a deal with him when he first got to hell (or it could be one of those versions where someone sold his soul before he was even born [a sort of "I want your first-born kinda deal] and they let him know when he got to hell which is how he got all his power so quickly), but he managed to either tick them off or get really close to escaping the deal, which lead to them killing Alastor.
Then, the contract-owner realizes, "Oh shit, I kind of need him," and finds out how to make whatever the hell equivalent of a grimwalker is. Thus, Alastor 2.0 is born. However, they can't have him knowing he's a clone - he might find a loophole in the deal that way. So they find a way to control which memories he has. They replace all of the memories the OG Alastor had up until whatever it was he did to get killed in the first place - don't want him getting any ideas after all.
This works fine for the contract-holder for a while, but then Alastor is back on the same shit - trying to find loopholes, backdoors, ticking them off, whatever, and oops, there goes another one. Well shit. Guess it's time to make another clone. So, the process is repeated, and the song and dance continues. However, it always concludes the same way - with Alastor's inevitable "betrayal". Also, none of the clones ever seem to look quite right - sometimes the eye color is wrong, or the height, the cheekbones, or the nose shape - whatever it is, something is always off
So, after many failed attempts, they decide to take a different approach. When they make the new clone, they give them the same memories, everything is the same as the previous attempts, except they don't turn him loose right away. Instead, they keep him under their thumb for seven years - really just until there was something they needed him for. Those seven years were spent conditioning him. They were determined to make him perfect. After all, this clone was the one that looked the most like the original Alastor, there was no way they would let him go like the others.
In his time at their side, Alastor endured unspeakable cruelties - beatings, torture, extreme sensory deprivation, emotional manipulation, sleep deprivation, total isolation - you name it, it was almost certainly done during that time. This is also when his smile was sewn on because the contract holder wanted him to smile more, and used his defense mechanism to torture him (smiled to hide weakness, forced to smile against his will, making the smile itself a constant reminder of how powerless he really is). There was rarely an action Alastor did that provoked his contract holder, but that didn't matter. They convinced him that each "punishment" was earned, that they were simply trying to help him see his own shortcomings and failures, and to make him better. Obviously, this is complete bullshit. However, when you live like that long enough, with no other influences, you become conditioned to believe it.
Eventually, for whatever reason, the contract holder released Alastor on strict orders to go to Charlie's hotel, and Alastor is doing exactly what they told him because he's terrified of the idea of being summoned back to their side. He hates his contract holder, but at the same time craves their approval, because if they're happy with him, then he won't be in pain. However, Alastor has to Alastor, and once he's on his own, he starts looking for ways to escape his deal - but he's sneaky about it. Years of constant conditioning made him cautious. He has no memory of ever searching for loopholes before - a least not successfully (bc the contract holder doesn't let the clones remember those things), so he does the best thing he can think of: he makes a deal with the Princess of Hell herself.
I'm definitely going to make another post about this, probably detailing the reveal. Not right now though because I have homework to do, and this is getting to ungodly lengths
(if you want to see the next part when I post it, keep an eye on the '#grimwalker alastor au' tag. I might just make this a whole thing if anyone is interested. I'll make it a whole thing anyways because I feel like it and deep down I post for myself, but if you're interested, I highly encourage you to ask about it [I don't bite!!])