#lacuna talks

[dallacuna-b]

Adding onto my previous comments about deer ear language, I think this scene is fun to interpret through that lens:

Pinned back ears, Focused Aggression; ears up, Alert.

I've seen a few takes on this around, but my personal interpretation is that Alastor was so invested in whatever the hell he and Vox were doing here that he just forgot anyone else was there. To me, he's perking his ears not so much in reaction to what's being said, but just because someone spoke at all—surprise at an interjection.

And then the ears stay up because it's like, he lost the flow of it. He and Vox had a thing going and now it's awkward to get back into it. What, he's going to go back to being in a charged aggressive state after an interjection like that? No way

This look is so funny to me, I see it as a like, "Do you mind."

[lace-hazbin]

I know you said you think Vox isn't fluent in Korean, but is he largely able to understand spoken Korean? Or is there a limit to how much spoken Korean he can understand also?

Outsourced this answer to my co-conspirator @dallacuna-b, who is Korean themself and, that aside, has more linguistic experience than I do! (Plus it’s nice to delegate when chronic pain is beating my ass LMAO)

Lacuna: This is a good question, but one with a that needs a lot of context and nuance. The answer to this depends on two different variables: Historic Context, and Social Context.

To keep it brief, on the historical side, as established in the canon of the show, it's been around, possibly more than 70 years since Vox died and went to hell. That's a lot of time for language to change. Take for example, just English. Even though we can understand the bulk of English from the 40s and 50s, there are some things we would wholly misunderstand without context. Take, for instance, these famous panels from Batman #66 The Joker's Comedy of Errors! (1940):

These mean something very different to us now! Given that we have no reason to believe that Vox spoke Korean in those years, that's a long time for a language to become almost impossible to follow. Heck, we see that with internet slang every day.

Further, if Vox died in the 50s as is, I believe, at least Word of God established, this means that he died either immediately prior to, during, or after the bulk of the Korean War (which is technically still ongoing, aha)—this means that the Korean he would have known is not only 70 years old, it's from a country that no longer exists as we know it.

Since the Korean peninsula was split into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK / North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (ROK / South Korea) in 1945, and then signed the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953, the two cultures have been relatively isolated from each other and developed along completely different tracks—language included. These differences can be seen in both the vocabulary and the cadence of how they speak. In the second video from about 13 years ago, the narrator is speaking Seoul broadcasting dialect, and the woman in the video is speaking the most common North Korean broadcasting dialect. I'm not sure if non-Korean people can hear it, but the difference in cadence and emphasis is quite distinct to a Korean ear.

This isn't even touching upon the fact that even in modern North/South Korea, regional dialects can be incredibly difficult for people from other regions to understand! At least in South Korea, this forces everyone from other provinces to learn the Seoul Dialect, which is the one that everyone worldwide is probably most familiar with through kmedia, ahaha. I won't get too into this, but this video gives a decent snapshot of how different they can be.

Then there is, of course, social context. When Lace and I headcanon Vox as wasian, we're doing it within the context of actual US history, meaning that we take into consideration period-typical discrimination. Given the historical tumult of the 1930s onwards for Asian-Americans, it makes sense to us that Vincent, in his desire to assimilate into White Americana, would forgo his Korean heritage as much as possible. This seems likely to us, given that it's a pattern of behavior we see continue even through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and even into the 21st Century, when the stakes for East Asians weren't nearly so high (though discrimination continues on in its new forms).

It's a common story in any immigrant community, but very much so in Asian-American communities, that the children of first-generation immigrants either lose touch with, or never learn, their parent's native language, to the point where there are countless songs and essays written about it (Lace: It happened to me ^_T), but here's one from a Korean person who gives some context as to why, although I emphasize that this is one person's experience and that other people's—including mine—are very different. (And as a linguist, ignore where they say Korean is an altaic language!! That is a widely rejected theory.)

So given all this, in our headcanon, whatever Korean Vincent would have known is limited to what his mother would have used with him, which was an older form of Korean to begin with, and a language he has had little contact with in seven decades. Given the time period, he was disincentivized from using the language, and most likely he went all-in on a mastery of English that let him become the broadcasting star we know him to be. Given internalized racism, there's likely little reason or motive for him to pursue a connection with Korean culture post-death either.

God all this and I didn't actually answer your question ahaha, but what I'm getting at is, I think that he probably can't understand spoken Korean, especially modern spoken Korean. Maybe an old nostalgic word here or there, buried deep in his memory, but even that depends on what dialect is being spoken! I personally think if he wants to understand Korean, forgoing any fantastical intervention, he'll practically be starting from scratch.

Lace: I think prior to losing his Overlord status (I think) in the S2 finale, he could download language packs, though…

[dallacuna-a]

ALNST Translation: "Karma" Billboards

I'm sure someone's already put something out there, but I wanted to chip in my two cents too:

Left: "A Grand Opening amidst Controversy—'Will the ALNST museum be okay?'" or "Is the ALNST museum okay like this?"

Middle: "ALNST Disaster 7th Cycle… Where could the culprit have[…]"

A friend told me that some people are interpreting the middle billboard as Mizi being missing. The implication is more that she's vanished in the eyes of the public, as criminals tend to do after a crime—possibly in hiding.

[dallacuna-b]

The funniest crack theory I have for this season of Hazbin is that all of Alastor's decisions can be explained by him going through deer rut.

He's angry, he's violent, he's single-minded and making decisions that seem impulsive and or ill-advised. He decides to fight Vox injured and with no staff. He seems generally more feral.

Deer are different from dogs—they don't pin their ears flat when they're sad, scared, or angry. Alastor doesn't flatten his ears for more than a flicker in his duet with Rosie, but they're pinned back almost the whole Reprise with Vox. When deer pin their ears back, it typically means one thing: Aggression. When are they most aggressive?

(spot the difference)

The season released around November. You know when white-tailed deer breeding season is in Louisiana? (for clarity this is a joke, obviously real-life release time doesn't influence in-narrative time but even so—)

Is he angry because his sex drive is up (which can happen to ace people!) and he's venting it through violence? Or is it that instead of getting horny, he simply gets carnally violent? Either way, that laser focus on Vox? Scheming or not, it was weird! It was charged!

"Of course you're hateful and crazy and making unhinged decisions—you're in a rut" (pun intended)

[dallacuna-b]

Hello, it's been a while but I'm back with another unserious theory that I'm about to insist on for fun: Take this microphone on Alastor's vanity. Nothing too strange, it's just there, innocuously.

On his vanity… Not connected to anything……

… Why?

I elaborate my thoughts on Bluesky and below!

It certainly doesn't seem to have a purpose! He's not broadcasting from his vanity. The design of the mic—though it could just be stylistic oversight from the artists—is quite a bit more modern than we would expect from Alastor.

Mind you I am only doing cursory research for this mostly joke theory but on a quick look, it definitely wasn't the style of mics in the 1920s, which is a period of time Alastor could have been active as a radio host and could have had lingering paraphernalia from.

It most certainly isn't from the 1930s, either, which seems to favor blockier styles or the ring suspension model, both of which we see represented in Alastor's canon

(suspension ring left, blockier design right)

To me, the design of the microphone in the first screencap stands out to me as more modern. Like I said I'm not looking to deep dive on this, so I haven't found what I think could be an exact match for the design (if one even exists!), but it evokes any of these more recent ones to me:

Though seeing as the pole of the stand doesn't actually attach to what I think is the head of the microphone, there's a question of whether it's a microphone at all—with drawn art there's always the question of if something is intentional or human error and there's no way to know ahahaha.

(Edit: Actually, leftmost mic and the pill mics in the pictures directly above this paragraph also don't connect the mic head to the pole! So it's probably a functional microphone.)

In any case, if it's an intentional omission, maybe this isn't meant to be a functional mic at all—it could be a model, or a trophy of some sort—but if it was simply a mistake or an obscure mic model, it could be a functional mic. Either way though, I argue that its design is from the 1950s onwards, and I personally think it's doubtful that Alastor would get himself a contemporary mic/model for his own self! Not when he's still using his older-style equipment to present day.

So was it a gift then? Points in favor is that it's kept in the same area as Niffty's roach crown, which was also a gift.

This then begs the question: Who would give a gift to Alastor? And of those people, who would gift him a newer microphone, of all things? There's probably an argument that could be made for a variety of people—(I think Mimzy chief among them, personally)—but as my tags imply, the answer I'm going to argue for is that it could have been a gift from Vox, prior to their fallout.

To me it makes the simplest answer—we don't see other characters that Alastor interacts with taking any real interest in broadcasting, and we don't see him really discuss it with anyone else. Equipment's the kind of gift only a very good listener or fellow enthusiast can really give, and Vox was once both to Al.

(Of course, can't write off the possibility that it's a trophy of some sort, but I feel like if it were a trophy, there are better ways to signal that from a design standpoint (making it gold or silver) and if Alastor were award-winning in some way, it's likely to have come up in dialogue by now)

Something really interesting also is actually how little this mic is actually on screen. For most of the scene, it's actually covered by Alastor's body!

This implies to me that it's not something we're actually supposed to notice very easily. There could be many reasons for that, of course, but I think one of the more compelling ones is that—as the story and staff have thus far implied—there's more to Vox and Alastor's history than we've been shown, and that this is a detail we're supposed to notice and revisit later.

I think it's also interesting that we only see this vanity as a part of Alastor's room when he's in distress. We didn't see it in season 1, if I recall correctly. So, our first view of this vanity is Alastor in private, drinking and smoking—vices we hadn't seen from him before!—seething over his lost power and injury. It's intimate. Our association with this vanity space is private and intimate, which means that the items on it are possibly also sentimental to him in some way.

In any case, as per usual, just putting my thoughts out there on a whim, hahaha. I'm never really arguing that my theories are true so much as saying that I think it's a substantiated reading + hard to disprove.

Thank you for reading it all if you did though!

[dallacuna-b]

I'm crying, I'm not actually super involved in looking at fandom stuff so I hear almost all of it secondhand, and what I'm learning is that I apparently think Alastor is way more evil (positive) than the majority of the fandom—I didn't know people thought Vox is worse than him.

Personally, I fully and lovingly consider Alastor low-empathy, possibly alexithymic, manipulative, and antisocial (assigning all of those as neutral values), and fully capable of taking incredibly damaging or malicious actions for personal gain—that gain sometimes being only emotional gratification!

I have a lot of thoughts about this in respect to his relationship/dynamic with Vox, so continuing below the cut…

Vox is the Big Bad of the season and making flashy moves, but we see Alastor meddling in his interpersonal life in a very specific way, using an intimate knowledge of Vox as a person against him to shake the foundations of Vox's self-perception, and it isn't for any greater good!

I think that's rather sinister (positive)—and it's not something a good person would do, especially with such exuberance! Make no mistake, he's actively hurting Vox, for reasons that have nothing to do with Vox's present political ambitions! He's undermining Vox's confidence, his composure, his relationships…

(And by deeming those things worth undermining, could indicates to the audience that those things are all important to Vox, I'd argue on a more personal level, but that's a different post…)

Depending on how far the story takes it, left to continue as he is, Alastor's going to do some massive damage in a way that doesn't end up helping anyone (and honestly, probably not even himself in the long-run—I think shortsightedness is a delightful flaw of his).

But I think it flies under the radar because it's funny! He's having a laugh! You're laughing with him, see how funny Vox reacts! And Vox, he's a bad person too—in a way that's more obvious, because he's hurting the characters the story designates as 'good' and who express hurt in conventional ways.

Vox is an imperfect victim. Him falling out with his friends or crashing and burning isn't going to win him much sympathy as a self-made, self-declared despot, in or out of narrative.

What delights me about Alastor as a character is that I think the story has provided enough proof that he's plenty smart enough for all this to be intentional. If he plays his cards right, Vox will look cold or erratic and take the blame, and all Alastor had to do was talk from a chair.

[dallacuna-b]

Thank you so much, everyone, for 400 notes on our Murder Protege AU ficlet! I don't think either @lace-hazbin or myself expected so many people to enjoy our 1950s Older!Alastor/Younger!Vincent premise, but I'm thankful that people do ♡

If you haven't seen it yet and are interested, you can find the prequel comic here, the ficlet here, and the fantastic sequel comic here.

Feels kind of silly writing something like this, but I'm grateful, so here it is ahaha

[dallacuna-b]

Over on BlueSky, I saw some speculation regarding this specific noise that occurs partway into the Alastor-Vox flashback scene. Some people were suggesting that it seemed like a happy, more organic noise (purring, bayou peepers), while others suggested it was probably discontent—either way, an indication of Alastor's emotional reaction to being touched.

@lace-hazbin pointed it out that it sounded electronic to them in a 'lost signal' sort of way, and it reminded me of a certain fact, and it led me to consider other options—something more physical—so now my personal favorite theory is this: The noise Alastor made is due to radio interference caused by Vox's electricity.

If you watch the clip in full, you can see that in advance of Vox grabbing Alastor's shoulders and leaning his head in close that he's emitting a lot of electrical between his antennae and his fingers.

It isn't a stretch of the imagination to then assume that he has some buildup in his body, enough to meddle with Alastor's radio frequency. To further support this, I posit that even though he's the radio demon running on yes, probably magical hell radio frequencies, in life he would have been broadcasting in AM radio, as FM radio was only invented and introduced in the late 1930s.

A characteristic of AM radio—also known as amplitude modulation radio—is that it is very sensitive to interference, especially compared to FM radio. (A relatively simple explanation as to why can be found here). You can see in this video here that relatively simple electronic appliances can cause a radio to emit atypical noises:

The noises that interference can cause in a radio broadcast can range from buzzing to clicks to pops to whines to more, a basic list of which can be found here.

In any case, back to the flashback scene, one could argue that this theory can't be the case, because Vincent places a hand on Alastor between the electricity and the noise in question, without any sound effects. I think my counter-pitch to that would be that the most electrically active part of his body is the actual TV part, his head. That would explain why the noise only occurs when Vincent leans in closer to Alastor.

Now, do I think that this is all intentional on the Hazbin Hotel team's part? No—I think if anything, my evidence is relatively circumstantial. However, I do think that it can't be disproven, especially given that it can be applied to other scenes:

For instance, in the fight between Alastor and Vox, once electricity is involved, it becomes difficult to discern whether certain sound effects—such as the high pitched whine—are meant to be for the electricity or the radio.

The background static of the end of "Don't You Forget (Reprise)" could be from heightened emotions, but could also be from charge + proximity (note that this is a sound effect separate from the heavy breathing, as it is absent from the studio version of the song).

But even if it doesn't end up canon-compliant in the end, I do think that the idea is a lot of fun and good food for thought when it comes to technology like radio and video.