betty!

she/her it's me and my denim mini shorts against the world

[r3tr0b3tty0]

self promo for the radiostatic nation 🗣️

until i draw a cover art this is what i have

link to my current ongoing fic:

I Did it My Way

[r3tr0b3tty0]

Hi ! I love your story and I wanted to ask if we will ever get the actual lore behind between al and his father? In the latest chapter Al says “You don’t know what he did to me back in that limbo!” but what does it actually mean?( english isn’t my first language so maybe i just don't understand that expression idk) I know its a common hc that his father was abusive but is that also the lore in this story? will their dynamic be explored explicitly? I'm really curious to why al is so wary about his mom getting a new bf seemingly sending him over the edge.

I'm also really interested by why he didn’t want to aknowledge his relationship with Vincent to Clark? Is this some kind of trauma due to experience or is he just apprehensive knowing how some people react to homosexual relationships? It's somewhat refreshing to see that for once Vincent isn't the only one who experiences internalised homophobia !

Another thing that was very surprising to me is how well Alastor reacted to meeting Clark. I know he realised that al's mom isn’t his but I still imagine he treats her just the same as if she was his. I really thought he'd have a more defensive behavior just like al. So is this part of the act to get into vincent's good graces or does he truly ''his'' mom being happy in this life time even if its with another man? If it's the latter what caused such change between his and al's reaction ? (Personaly I hc that it might be the life periods he lived in where he most likely was raised with so called "tough love" or maybe the ''wisdom''?)

Anyway after all this rambling I just wanted to tell you how great your fic is. One of my favourite really! I love how in character you write them eventhough they have such different lifes from the ones we all know and love. I know you were stressed about last chapter but dw it was an amazing and hope yk we all have faith in you (and the boys obviously (at least al and vince the two old men a lil' less ;)/jk))

Can't wait for next chapter!<3

i love these long/detailed messages :D !!!

“You don’t know what he did to me back in that limbo!” refers to what alastor has done to al in his mind. i felt like limbo was a fitting word to describe that setting.

lore behind al and his dad: im going to get into that when we see more of clark. currently the reason why he's distrusting of his mom's partners is not because of his biological dad, but more so because of the partners she took later on after he had passed, who were not as kind to him. i know the abus/ve dad is a popular hc which is why i want to try and maybe go the opposite direction? lmk what you think about that.

i think i talked about it more before on this blog but im still trying to figure out whether his dad was a good guy or not. like in the modern day, there wouldn't be as many barriers surrounding interracial relationships as there were in the 1930s. i know he could still be a horrible father and person, these people do exist, but that trope feels a bit repetitive with all of the other fics that include alastor so... maybe ill try something new with his portrayal? as a separate character living in a separate timeline, of course.

why he didn’t want to acknowledge his relationship: again, after his experience with her ex-partners, he does not trust other people with any kind of information about him, and he does share some qualities here with our own alastor in a way where he does not want others to know his private life in case they might use it against him. homophobia is also a big part of it, as even now he likes to keep their relationship somewhat hidden from society, both because he's a private person and because he doesn't want that kind of vulnerability to be out there. that’s why in the first chapter vincent was surprised he initiated physical contact in public.

im still unsure whether i want to go deeper into it, because it is very likely that alastor deals with the same amount of internalized queerphobia as vox given the time period and place he grew up in. now that i mention it, i do find it weird that people are very eager to explore vox's possible internalized queerphobia but not alastor's. maybe it's because there are some hints in the show that might lead people to believe it and alastor seems like a pretty confident guy on the surface, but i found it odd that people love focusing on vox's character journey and not alastor's....

alastor reacting to clark: this is why i kept his pov during the interaction a bit ambiguous so that this topic can be unraveled later. regardless of father's own morals/intentions, given the fact that he was a white who had a mixed child in the south, alastor could not have had him raising in the public eye. therefore, i feel like deep down he would have wanted a father figure to be in his life. and being isolated from most of the communities lead him to want some semblance of "normalcy", wanting to feel "complete" because he didn't feel like it. now, clark is a black man, which is already a plus in alastor's book. he is successful, wise, kind, and is the perfect dad alastor always wanted. this is why he got so attached to him so quickly. so i do think that alastor would have wanted the closest person he has to his mother to be happy, there is some truth to that, but there's also something deeper.

and al on the other hand had a different experience. it is his life after all, which is why he had a different reaction.

thank you for the questions and the kind words! your analysis is very detailed and incredible and it's always a pleasure to answer and read these messages :) !!!!

[r3tr0b3tty0]

Hiiii! Just wanted to say I LOVE YOUR FIC, I STAYED UP ALL NIGHT READING IT, ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I'VE EVER READ IN MY LIFE, it really shows how much effort you're putting into it, THANK YOU FOR THE MEAL. I had a question but more like a curiosity, where would you say we're in the story, like, are we in the middle, is this act 2, you've never planned for it to go that long, yoi want to make it even longer? Just curious about your thought process about what's to come. (I'M A SUCKER FOR SPOILERS I'M SORRY I SWEAR I'M NOT FISHING FOR THEM, I JUST CAN'T HELP MYSELF)

im finally back from my vacation so i can finally start answering some messages!!!!

thank you for reading im glad you're enjoying it!!! sometimes i wonder if im putting too much effort into a fanfic but reading ppl's reactions and receiving support from all of you is always worth it :D

it is technically act II - think of alastor's possession of al as a climax of act I. as for how far we actually are i think it's about two thirds? currently the goal is around 25 chapters, but that may change! i also want to write a short spinoff of when al and vincent are in college but im still trying to plot things out for that one...

[sceneriot]

small thing inspired by @r3tr0b3tty0’s idimw ,,, my favorite fic atm

[r3tr0b3tty0]

WAIT HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS THIS IS AMAZIIIING I LOVE IT THANK YOU SM ❤️❤️❤️ the expressions and the body language are very well done aaaa my heart it got me questioning myself why i made these poor guys go through it all. im big fan of the artist and their style and i'm so grateful they made something for IDIMW :) !!!!

i'll make sure to leave a link to this art next chapter so more ppl will see it, but for now please go support it!!!!

[r3tr0b3tty0]

in this chapter they uhh.... yeah.... um.....

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

enjoy the ride, that's all im going to say!!!

[r3tr0b3tty0]

hiii

how are you doing lately? hows your study?

i just wanted to thank you for writing such a beautiful and fascinating story. no matter what others people say, i love your fic. Love the vision. First of all ofc - idea . Your idea (au lets say) is exactly what student life like. Like kinda broken but still vibe yeah.. and all the boyfriends things is sooo cuteeee and heartwarming. Also the way you writing Alastor(Al) in his dating era and at all is so accurate and the thing we all always wanted . Your Al is not just sarcastic. Hes goofy, yes! Sometimes lil stupid but goofy(in good way). A lot of writers doesn't allow this. But basically its his characters, like canonically he makes jokes, not just scary mf radiodemon etc.

Asexuality is so good explored cuz the man understands all (al) and your writing makes me fell bad for him, vinc and vox. And Alastor is kinda asshole(we knew it) .

Also the atmosphere , the tension , the drama. I cannot wait to see the ending and next chapter. Love your dialogues , i struggle a lot with them. But yours feels so natural and in character for everyone of them. Like why are you so good at that? (Sincere)

btw do you planning more hazbin fic especially radiostatic / murdermedia ones ? (Pls say yes 🙏)

Thnks for writing, and making us happy❤️

ily betty 💕

thank you for this sweet message! ❤️❤️❤️

my studies: im currently taking the summer semester off so im pretty much chilling. i have been going outside a lot and swimming so that has been really nice :)

writing al: i love when writers give him flaws and personality, and i wanted to show that he's not as one dimensional and nonchalant as some people make him out to be. there's still so much we don't know about him so why not explore his current character and play with it, you know?

i do hope im writing his asexuality right haha i dont have a lot of experience with being asexual and being in a relationship that still, on occasion, participates in these activities. i know that al's asexuality has been the topic of debate for the longest time and i really want to respect his identity and orientation. sometimes i feel like fic writers tend to ignore that side of him just to not overcomplicate some things, which is something i want to avoid. i feel like if you are going to include intimate scenes WITH an asexual man you should at least mention his unique way of approaching these scenarios instead of writing him just as allosexual as the person he's with.

but if at any point there's something i can improve on in that department please let me know! i would love to hear from people in the similar position like al!

writing dialogues: something that helps me to write dialogue is listening to streamers, WHICH IS A WEIRD THING I KNOW BUT HEAR ME OUT!!

most media we see is scripted. it is lines that have been written and edited by a multitude of people, which is why they sometimes feels very unnatural and forced. but when you're watching a stream, you hear an unedited and uncut version of the way people actually talk. they usually go on tangents, they use filler words, they stutter and stammer more often, they express themselves in a very unique way, they have their own quirks, they get distracted, they are very reactive, etc. etc.

their dialogue with each other is also going to be, then, more natural. when there is an interaction on a stream, i can usually feel their energies bouncing off each other and hear the way their conversation flows from point a to point b.

of course, you can also go out and hear the way people talk in the real world, but i believe that it's easier with streamers just because they are usually very animated and expressive, something that should be present in character writing.

hopefully this helps! writing pretty much anything is just collecting things from the real world and translating it into text, so it is a skill!

writing more rs fics: i have a one shot planned that's coming up, that's all im going to say ;)

once again thank you for the sweet message and im glad you're enjoying my work :D 💕

[r3tr0b3tty0]

Th thing about Vox is I get the feeling he's wallowing and actively choosing to put all his efforts into escaping his current reality. He's built the isolation chamber, so he's not totally helpless, he still has access to resources to get things done down in hell. He could try to mend things with the Vees. He could seek medical treatments to help him recover faster. But he's given up on hell.

IDIMW vox:

but in all seriousness this just goes to show how much egoistical he is!

in order to get the resources in hell that he needs he'll have to search for them, in order to mend things with the vees he has to put in the work to do so, in order to seek medical treatments he will have to be patient and willing to give his time and effort.

but he doesn't want to do any of it! he wants things to go back to normal and he chose the easiest route to do so, one that requires him to do nothing! no self-reflection, no growing, nothing! that world is a clean slate for him, an undeserved one at that, given how horrible he is, and he immediately dug his claws into it and is refusing to let go because it operates like some sort of a coping mechanism for him.

it's tragic and understandable but it's also unbelievably selfish of him, it's one of the reasons why he's (at the moment) my favorite character to write.

this is why i didn't give alastor and vox too much growth during the entire duration of the fic - they're doing this journey completely wrong! of course, the said growth will come a bit later, but throughout the story, at this point, all they've been doing is avoiding responsibility for their own narcissistic actions by choosing to go back to this reality that doesn't warrant any personal reflection.

gaaaah i love vox he's such a fucking idiot but man if i were in his shoes i would probably do the same, despite my earlier grievances. wrong choice to make, i know, but at the end of the day, you gotta really ask yourself whether you blame the guy for doing something like this.

[r3tr0b3tty0]

TOMORROW (who's ready for IDIMW chapter 17?)

whatever you think is going to happen it might be a little bit worse than that :D

im so nervous because im scared i might lose a few readers over this fucking chapter KLSDJFLSKDFJ PLEASE PROMISE TO TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT IM DOING!

good luck!

🫡

[r3tr0b3tty0]

The latest episode made me laugh so hard. 😭 The interaction between Vox and Alastor played out like a movie scene in my head, with each of them making their case while Clark was just standing in the middle, watching everything unfold. It was so funny.

I also loved Vincent and Alastor's interaction. I've always thought Vincent is just as crazy and psychopathic as Vox, but he acts differently around Alastor because he loves him. I really loved that you showed that side of him. It's so entertaining to watch them interact, and it's such a contrast to Vox and Al's dynamic, which feels much more tense because you're always afraid of what Vox might do since he's so unstable. 😞

Sorry for the long message, though. 🥲

my intention with that scene was to have vox and alastor go through some sort of a social d/ck measuring contest because that's kinda their thing haha

playing with vincent/alastor and vox/al is something im really looking forward to in this latter half of the fic! while we've seen their interactions in the previous chapters, the chapters going forward will have to do more with them being aware that they are speaking to their demon counterparts, which will develop a separate branch of relationships.

vincent is lucky that alastor is trying to get on his good side in order to try to team up with them or else he would be in as much trouble as al would be given how sadistic alastor can be. if alastor wanted to control someone, he would also threaten them the same way vox did. but that's not his goal, which lets vincent be a bit bolder towards him since he's the one who holds power over alastor during this moment due to the latter's desperation for resolution.

vox and al are far more toxic given vox's infatuation with him. unlike alastor, who is trying to leave this universe (and is quite aware that he wants his vincent and not al's), vox wants to settle and live in it. he's taken al as captive in order to get his rather undeserved "happy ending" because he feels like he's entitled to it and al's affections as well. he's unstable because he's what holding everyone back. he's unstable, because he's willing to hurt vincent's body in order to control al, who stopped acting like he did when he thought he was speaking to vincent. vox has absolutely nothing in hell, he lost his ability to move, he gave up his business, him and his colleagues are still on bad terms with one another, and he lost his reputation during his you know what attempt. of course this world and al is the only thing that looks brighter (no pun intended) for his future, and for vox, it doesn't matter what he does to keep it that way, even if it means going through the means of force and coercion.

i know im probably stating the obvious here, but i just wanted to express my own view of each of their respective dynamics because i love yapping and i find this love square very very interesting :)

[r3tr0b3tty0]

I love your art so much! It's so cute 🥺 Al and Vincent look beautiful in your hands, hahaha. And the way you wrote their relationship in the first chapter of I Did It My Way is just 😭🙏💕

I love the part where Al pretends he's possessed by a demon to scare Vincent (it's even funnier when you know what happens later), and then he suddenly pounces on him to kiss him. AaAAAaaA, that whole interaction had me completely hooked! USBWISBZIZJ

sorry for the late reply but thank you so much💕!!!

it was a bit difficult to begin writing the relationship of al and vincent because it's a completely different take on murdermedia/radiostatic and first impressions are always important to establish two characters' dynamic! really happy to see people root for them in the present :)

on the topic of the first chapter, that "possession" scene won't be the only callback to that day, as you'll see in chapter 17 that's coming up pretty soon 👀...

[r3tr0b3tty0]

IDIMW is getting updated on july 29th :D!

writing some parts of this chapter literally made me feel a bit queasy im not even joking this shit is getting serious

hopefully you all won't hate me after this because i PROMISE there's good stuff coming too we just have to get through a little bump in the road that's all !!

[r3tr0b3tty0]

IDIMW chapter 17 with no context🤐

this chapter is destroying me like i HAAATE writing it but i also LOOOOVE writing it i can't look away from it either way it's such a beautiful disaster ohhh my god

i already said that it's a tonal shift but i think it's needed and this chapter was long overdue...

i'll try to update IDIMW before the end of the month because im going on a vacation soooo watch out for the chapter in the upcoming week :))

[r3tr0b3tty0]

mama's boy mama's boy

featuring the coddled and the coddler

[inaloop]

Cute Al and Vincent doodle based on @r3tr0b3tty0 ‘s fanfic, I did it my way! You gotta read it!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[r3tr0b3tty0]

OMG SORRY I JUST SAW THIS THIS IS SOOOOO CUTE 🥺🤍🤍🤍!!!! the artstyle is so bubbly and adorable it made me audibly aw, i love how cozy they are! please give this artist some love :D !!!

[r3tr0b3tty0]

IDIMW chapter 17 sneak peek💔

uh oh....

[r3tr0b3tty0]

small update: IDIMW chapter 17 is... making me cry :( ???

i was a bit lost with the direction of this chapter at first because it's too early for another scene i was planning on writing, so i needed something else between the two events. it took me like a couple weeks to get into, but then it hit me like a truck.

just started writing it and now im tearing up?? last time that happened was when al didn't get his present what's going on :((

it's so weird because it's right after such a goofy chapter? at first i thought it wouldn't fit seeing as it was a total tonal shift from the past series of events but then i realized where al and vincent are at this point in the story and where they're forced to go from here. hopefully you all will get the reason behind the said tonal shift and why this chapter is so important for these characters' storylines.

a part of me was afraid that this fic's getting a bit stale for the readers so here i am, trying something new. i know a lot of people don't feel that way, but i do, so im crossing my fingers and hoping that this thing works. it's also something i've never written before, so maybe i can learn something myself along the way.

little spoiler:

all roads lead back to la la land...

[r3tr0b3tty0]

hermes alastor🪶

i got sidetracked by hadestown and drew this, promise i'll get back to that IDIMW wip in a sec :)

also i might draw more of this au in the future as i already have all of the characters planned out! currently thinking vaggi as eurydice, the vees as the fates, and lilith/lucifer as hades/persephone (not sure who's who here tbh. more so leaning towards lilith as hades because she'll look rad as fuck)