Halt's Brain Damage

Posting this here so I remember to do it later

Hey everyone, I know it's going to be a busy day for a lot of people, but Google enrolled everyone over 18 into their AI program automatically.

If you have a google account, first go to gemini.google.com/extensions and turn everything off.

Then you need to go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini and turn off all Gemini activity tracking. You do have to do them in that order to make sure it works.

Honestly, I'm not sure how long this will last, but this should keep Gemini off your projects for a bit.

I saw this over on bluesky and figured it would be good to spread on here. It only takes a few minutes to do.

Oh my god!!!! This is adorable - and exactly what I pictured with my headcanon, I'm stealing this art, it's mine forever now

Thank you so much for making this, I love it so much

Shittily drawn comic again of an accidental Ler!Vox and Lee! Alastor

Based on @void-occupation ‘s AMAZING HEADCANON of Alastor’s tentacles being tichdhklish

Ok, hear me out (angst, bc of course)

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!!])

I don't know if someone's done this already, but imagine the Justice League is doing some mission or another and Batman gets captured. Maybe it was on purpose, maybe it wasn't but whatever the case, the JL is now Concerned. Their main tactician is gone, and some of the villains are Batman's Rogues, who they admittedly don't know much about

They bust into where ever Batman's being held and only one person is there that they see. They take them out and wander around until they find Batman in a room with Harley Quinn. They go in guns blazing only to stop in pure confusion

Batman is tied rather impressively to a chair while Harley sits opposite of him with a clipboard in hand and glasses perched on her nose. Bruce looks absolutely miserable while Harley turns around with a wide smile as if she hadn't been holding Batman hostage. To be fair to her though, Bruce honestly had figured out how to escape his restraints about 5 minutes after he woke up, but he knows that the Joker doesn't ever listen to Harley and she'd get upset when her "impromptu therapy" sessions would get interrupted when they were in college together. He'd always had kind of a soft spot for Harley so he'd stayed. Not that anyone else needed to know that of course

everyone's interaction goes something like this:

Harley: Oh hi!

Superman who is Terminally Polite: H-hey. How are you?

Harley: Oh, I'm good. Batman and I were talking about his obvious abandonment issues and severe anxiety!

Bruce, mortified and hiding it surprisingly well: No we weren't

Flash: Is this...normal???

Harley: Yeah, just about - any time I get to watch him I usually give him some therapy. He obviously needs it and it's not like I'm doing much with my degree otherwise!

Bruce: First off, rude. Second off, why is everyone just standing around? We've got work to do!

And the entire League jumps guiltily as they realize they were kind of just staring at their captured teammate when there is indeed work to be done about the rest of the group they're facing. Then, Harley drops the bomb that she wasn't even involved???? She just heard that they'd captured Batman and broke in to Therapy at him while he couldn't get away

This is a (kind of??? QPRs make it confusing) platonic tickle fic, if it's not your cup of tea, just keep scrolling

Just some casual affectionate fluff featuring lee!Alastor and ler!Lucifer to sooth the souls of the people who read my last two fics which were pure unapologetic angst

YOU.

You are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT and I don't know how I missed that. It just makes it even sadder every time someone makes fun of him for it.

BUT...

I think I can make this even worse

Now imagine, Halt's seasickness is caused - not just by brain trauma - but by a combination of that and a mentally scarring and fundamentally traumatic experience like... oh, I don't know

Your twin brother trying to drown you while on a fishing trip

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE

because this wouldn't be the first time trauma has made Halt sick at the sight of reminders of it. In particular, a certain line from book 8, when Halt is telling Will and Horace about his childhood, and he mentions that Ferris tried to poison him with a plate of shellfish, but it only made him violently ill to the point where he almost died

What does he say? Oh, that's right. He says, "I still can't face the sight of a plate of shrimp." HMMMMMMMMMMM Even worse??? When he says this he's joking about it

Nice trauma response you're making jokes about there, Halt. It's funny because we all know for a fact that if anyone else were to make jokes about their responses to trauma, he would be all over their asses

To sum it up, Halt gets physically ill when presented with trauma related triggers (specifically childhood trauma), and the brain damage only exacerbated that fact

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk and goodnight

Halt's Brain Damage

I mentioned Halt's head trauma in an earlier post, and said that I would elaborate on it. Well, this is my elaboration. Keep in mind, I am not a health care professional, I am only certified to perform first aid. I am only speaking from what I have witnessed in someone who has had a similar condition from a motorcycle accident, and from what I find and cross-reference in my internet search on the matter.

Halt, as we know, has suffered MANY blows to the head - a lot of which could have been fatal if not for the intervening hand of Lady Luck and some very conveniently placed Plot Armor™. Now something that both the characters in the books, and probably a good portion of the readers either don't know about or haven't considered is the resulting brain damage - or more specifically, the damage done to Halt's gray matter.

For those of you who don't know (no shame), gray matter is tissue in the brain that is largely responsible for motor functions, emotions, and memory. Gray matter cells are known to be the longest lasting cells in the body, but they do tend to degenerate and die as people get old. There are other things that can speed up the process of gray matter cell death, most notably Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and traumatic brain injury.

I have a friend who was once in a bad motorcycle accident that resulted in a metal rod and screws being put into his wrist, and a sudden increase in gray matter cell death brought on by the head trauma. He was a teacher of mine and currently has a wife, daughters, and grand daughters, and he is just over fifty years old. I had the same class with him all year for 4 years (JROTC), and during that time, I was able to see how the condition affected him as time passed. He does make jokes about it, and is very open with it. I also asked him if it would be okay to post this beforehand, don't worry. The symptoms that Halt experience in my headcanon align with this because it is my closest experience with it.

Obviously, these characters don't know what gray matter is, but that doesn't mean it won't affect Halt, and some of these symptoms are things that Halt experiences in the books. I'll give examples of that too.

One of the symptoms of gray matter damage is difficulty controlling emotions. Now you may be saying, "But Void, Halt practically patented the ability to control emotions," and you're right. However, we all know that Halt has a pretty quick temper that can lead to some rash decisions - and this seems to get slightly worse as the books go on. One of the biggest emotions that people with damaged brain matter have issues dealing with is anger - closely followed by sadness and feelings of emptiness (AKA signs of depression).

Another symptom of gray matter damage is memory loss. The only example of this I can think of off the top of my head (that doesn't include when he was poisoned which is a whole other type of trauma) is when he had extreme trouble finding the correlation between the red hills and Redmont in book 7. Then again, it was a stressful situation and no one can be expected to notice everything. Not to mention that he was the only one to make the connection at all. This one and the next one are more for angst potential then as current existing evidence. Imagine really quick as Halt gets older that the memory loss starts slow - forgetting that he already told someone something, forgetting where he put something, etc. Small stuff. But later, it gets worse. He starts to forget meeting new people, important past events, how to cook certain things, or even just trailing off in the middle of a sentence - unable to remember his original purpose for speaking, almost as if a sort of fog has started blocking things out. A lot of times, he'll know that he knew it at some point, but sometimes, he doesn't remember that he knew that thing in the first place. Sometimes gentle reminders will work, and other times, entire stories, recipes, and tasks will have to be completely re-hashed with him.

The final symptom I'm going to cover in this already too-long post is how gray matter damage affects fine motor skills and language. I'm fairly certain that there is an example of this somewhere in the books, But I would have no clue where to look. We're going full angst potential on this one boys. Again, it starts small - some slight tremors in his hands here, a troublesome button there. Then, it gets worse as the years pass. Having difficulty tying knots, writing getting more and more difficult, cutting his hand while trying to prepare food, dropping his mug of coffee for no apparent reason, sometimes slurring his speech, forgetting certain words from other languages, not realizing that he had reverted back to Hibernian in the middle of a sentence because his brain temporarily stopped being able to comprehend Araluen speech.

Halt doesn't want to tell anyone that the changes in his behavior that he can't seem to control frighten him. He's never been genuinely afraid of his own mind before up until he could no longer control what happened. It was a type of fear he was unfamiliar with, but couldn't stop from growing every time he failed to tie a knot, or someone told him about an event he couldn't remember. Everyone else was afraid too, but they toned down their own fear whenever they saw that desperate look in Halt's eyes that he couldn't quite hide, the one that begged for any confirmation that he wasn't crazy.

What the hell. I just wrote an entire essay. You know those posts that say, "In this essay I will discuss..." but they never get to the essay? Yeah, that but completed. This was born from the fact that Hal't has had a bunch of head injuries and I immediately thought 'haha brain damage go brr' and proceeded to write that in essay form. If you've made it to the end of this monstrosity, more power to you.

I'm going to try to go into a coma now.

Alastor's Animal Noises

I won't call this an unpopular headcanon, just one that is slept on.

So, everyone knows about Alastor making deer noises, both in canon and fanon. In the show he canonically makes little fawn squeaks when Rosie hugs him (which lives in my head rent free at all times) and does the elk scream a couple times throughout the show. Fanon is just as up in arms about this trait of his, and I think it's great.

But.

What if he ALSO made alligator noises? HEAR ME OUT - trust me, you won't regret it.

So.

When you really think about it, there are a large amount of traits that Alastor has that would make it logical for him to share traits with an alligator as well as a deer. These include: teeth/habit of eating sinners(cannibalism) (alligators are known cannibals), place of origin being Louisiana, persistent presence of bayous in his life (near his home in the living world, supposedly where he hid his victims, where he died, and the bayou in his room), ambush predator (makes you feel at ease by being unassuming then strikes before you even realize the danger), and his temper (appears calm until he's NOT) just to name a few.

Despite what people tend to think, alligators actually make a TON of different sounds, though there's a few main ones I'll talk about.

First one is the territorial growl.

I feel like Alastor could make this sound when he's being territorial (obviously), threatening, or protective (as rare as that is). He begins making this sound a lot more often the longer he stays at the hotel because he begins to see it as his territory, and the residents as his people (not that he'd ever admit that lol). Also, I feel like hearing this loud, bass-feeling noise from this rail-thin deer man would be a bit jarring, especially if you'd never heard it before

Second sound is the defensive hiss.

This is a sound Alastor would make if he's feeling threatened. I'm thinking scenarios where he's annoyed/mad/anxious are when he'd hiss, because they're all scenarios where he'd be trying to get something or someone to leave him alone. It's a very different yet very similar sound to a cat's hiss. They can mean similar things, but hearing an alligator hiss is significantly more threatening, which fits Alastor's character. Also, it means he can still sound terrifying when he's the one who's scared (if he manages to make a distressed gator sound rather than a distressed deer sound that is lol)

And of course, we can't forget the mandatory cute sound, the baby swamp puppy chirps.

If he gets to make fawn noises, you bet your ass he's gonna make swamp puppy laser sounds. The scenarios where he'd make these noises are a lot more rare, but they definitely exist. He wouldn't ever admit it, but he sees Rosie as a mother figure, and just as he tends to greet her with fawn squeaks, Alastor will subconsciously start doing little baby gator chirps when he's looking for her and can't find her. His instincts are to call out to her so she can find him - the same way baby alligators do with their mothers - and the side effect is that he makes cute little laser chirping noises without even realizing it. He has a tendency to do it when he's looking for anyone he likes who is older than him. Zestial finds it charming and the few times it happened to him, Husk refuses to talk about, a lot of mixed feelings brought up by the fact that the man who owns his soul has given him at least somewhat of a parental role subconsciously.

anyways, these were just my thoughts on it, feel free to add on your own or use it as inspiration for your own work (let me know though, I want to see it!!!!) (putting this in the lee!alastor tags to feed the imaginations of my friends there who are always starving for more things)

Something Gained, Something Lost

Alastor has grown sick and tired of his constant inability to control his emotions. He resorts to some...drastic measures to regain it

Chapter 1/6 is posted, make sure you mind the tags before reading, there is self harm in this one

This is part 5 to the Therapy Pig series (yes I told you guys I'd get it out lol)

Me??? Projecting on Optimus Prime????? Blasphemy. Could never happen, you're being ridiculous. More likely than you'd think.

hello its me- haunting your dashboard and askbox once more haha-

i saw this somewhere else but I don't remember where; what would hell's version of winter be like? I remembered your headcanon about alastor getting cold easily and I would just like to share my vision.

so hell has an extreme climate- we know that- so winter is basically Antarctica. not alastor-friendly AT ALL, it only ever happens once in a blue moon in hell so he's never really had to deal with this before. the whump possibilities are endless lmao. all-around suffering for the deer man.

do with this what you will! no pressure ofc, this is more like a concept you could make your own story or au with so i'm not sure if it counts as an ask- but do whatever you wanna, and if you did ever do a fic, (if that be a series or a one-shot) I would love to make a comic or cover as a Collab! :D

PLEASE never apologize for haunting my dash/asks, this blog is very ghost-friendly!!!!! All ghosts are allowed to haunt as they please!!

As for your beautiful vision: I love it. I will help it grow and will nourish it until it becomes a beautiful whump monster right here on my little laptop. Not sure WHEN I will make it happen, but I WILL make it happen. For now though, I will simply add to this headcanon (expect whatever I add to probably end up in the fic lol)

Winter in Hell is quite the phenomena - only occurring around once every century or so. It doesn't stick to a set schedule though (Lucifer still shudders when he remembers that time that they had five winters within the span of a single decade.) They are also completely by surprise: the most notice Hell has ever had for a winter is that the temperature dropped five degrees in one day. The next morning, sinners couldn't even open their doors the snow was piled so high. And of course, it wouldn't be Hell if the winters were the normal length, no. Winters in Hell can be anything from six months to the record of three motherfucking years. The last winter took place in the late 1910s - about a decade or so before Alastor died.

As mentioned in my previous headcanon, Alastor is a Louisiana boy. And Louisiana did not receive a SINGLE FUCKING INCH of snowfall the entire time Alastor was alive (trust me I CHECKED, that shit is WILD). That means a few things. 1.) Alastor has never seen snow in his now 120ish years of existing. 2.) Alastor has never felt anything below 50°F his entire existence. 3.) Alastor is painfully thin, which means his body has no way to preserve heat. And 4.) Alastor does not appear to have any clothing besides his three-piece suit that he wears all the time in Hell's usual blazing temperatures with seemingly no issue. Of course, this means that his suit would do nothing for him in Actual Cold Weather since he's so used to it.

With all of this knowledge, the only conclusion I can draw is that once winter actually hits, Alastor is royally FUCKED. Especially considering that a winter in Hell is compiled of all of the worst things about winter. The cold air is dry, and the wind is sharp and biting - in the way that leaves your face stinging and your hands and lips splitting. Somehow simultaneously, the snow can change between huge flakes and straight-up sleet, which if you've ever been in sleet, you know it sucks major ass.

If someone doesn't give Alastor a heated blanket He Will Die. Alastor makes the mistake of going outside exactly twice (because let's face it, I love him but this man is too prideful to accept that the weather will kill him after only one attempt - he's Just A Bit Dumb). Both times he has to be rescued by someone at the hotel after he almost fucking freezes to death like An Idiot, and he manages to also get hypothermia both times because he refuses to do anything in halves. After he also almost freezes to death in his room (which is how they find out there's a draft), he's not even allowed in there, and they move him to a guest room right next to Charlie and Vaggie's room that Lucifer added a fireplace to. He alternates between the kitchen (the oven is very warm and Food), his room (the fireplace is very warm and the bed is cozy), and the couch in the lobby (the fireplace is very warm and the couch is cozy and also Alastor is antisocially social).

He is cold. He is miserable. He is perpetually shaking like an old chihuahua. Some of the residents thought it was funny at first, but that quickly stopped after the first Almost Death. They have to watch him because Alastor becomes very despondent, and if he stops shivering, he needs to be warmed up again. Alastor is more exhausted during the winter then he has ever been in his entire existence due to all the energy his body is burning trying to stay warm. He's sleeping more than ever, but he looks absolutely terrible - eyebags so dark they look like a goth guy's eyeshadow, hair a mess, and an overall very strained look about him. He also eats a lot less, so he begins losing weight which is the exact opposite of helpful in this situation. It gets to the point where Husk is willingly braving the elements to get to the butcher shop Alastor likes just to get sinner meat so he will hopefully get something in him.

This winter is the first time any of them have ever seen him willingly snuggle up to someone, and it's fucking LUCIFER because this little bastard puts out the most heat because for some reason that it part of being a seraphim. Lucifer for his part just kinda lets it slide because Alastor would probably die if he didn't and that would make Charlie sad. Ok, and he kinda reminds Lucifer of when Charlie was little and would snuggle up to him, but that's no one's business but his own. If he's a little softer with Alastor afterwards, and less easily provoked by the sinner, that is also no one's business but his own.

hooo, I really let this one get away from me lol. Hope you enjoy this, and please feel free to haunt me as much as you want!! And when I eventually get this pushed out, it would be absolutely fantastic if you decided to make a comic/cover. I absolutely love your art