As An Asexual, Alastor Is So Valid For This😭

This is part three to the Playful Punishments series

Lucifer has become an absolute menace, and Alastor enlists Charlie's help in getting revenge. Unfortunately, he seemed to forget that Lucifer is literally THE Devil, from the Bible.

This is a platonic SFW tickle fic. If that's not something you vibe with, then kindly continue moving - do not pass GO, do not collect $200, just move along lol.

hi! I'm trying to get other peoples opinion on this-

what do you think alastors human life was like?

sorry it took me so long to answer this one, I've been busy lol

are we talking about what I think for canon, or the headcanon backstory that exists purely for angst? Because those are two veeery different answers lol. I'll just answer the canon opinion, and maybe do another part about my headcanon if anyone's interested

As far as I know, it's been confirmed that Alastor's mother was colored, and at least hinted that she was Vodun (not sure on spelling there) I think that his father is also confirmed to be white, and I know we're all pretty sure by now that he was abusive. We know Alastor likely became a radio host, and was a serial killer (obviously lol) who hung around Mimzy frequently enough. For simplicity's sake, I'll say that Alastor was born in the year 1900, making him 33 when he died

Now, for the speculation. I feel like his parents only married when his mother got pregnant, which resulted in her being outcasted from the Vodun community. I believe she still would have taught her beliefs to Alastor, which probably angered his father, who was most likely Catholic based on the most popular religions in the area at the time. I don't know if it would be ore likely that Alastor's father killed his mother and Alastor killed him because of it, or if Alastor killed his father because of the abuse and lived with his mother until she died of illness. Either way, his father ends up out of the picture. For this, I'll say that his mother lived.

Something I don't usually see people take into account is that the US got officially involved in WW1 in 1917, and started drafting 18yo boys in 1918 - ironically enough when Alastor was 18. The law that prevents "the only surviving son" from being drafted wasn't even thought of until 1964, so Alastor wouldn't have been spared from the draft. I believe draft contracts were about 2 years long, so unless he was injured, Alastor would have spent about that much time in combat. He likely had PTSD from that, but they didn't know what that was at the time, so it would have gone untreated.

He gets home when he's 20ish, and eventually becomes a radio host, befriending Mimzy in the process, but he struggles when he comes home. Nothing seems to alleviate the awful feeling building in him since he came back, and then his mother dies. He snaps. Based on that pre-canon comic, Alastor typically targets predators/abusers ("I do hate those who can't show a little more respect towards those of fairer means"), which makes it pretty ironic (or purposeful) that his name literally means "Avenger".

He hears a woman screaming late at night on his way home, and sees a man cornering her in an alley. Maybe the screams remind him of his mother, or the things he saw overseas, or maybe he's just angry, but he picks something up and bludgeons the man to death. Later, he can't stop thinking about how good it felt to end such a miserable creature, so he does it again. And again. Until eventually, he's killed dozens of men just like his father, and he's reporting his own murders on a news broadcast for the police.

I like to think he didn't practice cannibalism until he got to hell. But if he did practice while alive, it probably would have been during the Great Depression. Times have gotten hard, and while he still has his job, money is tight, and it would be so much easier if he just took a cut or two from the man he just murdered.

However, he still has to dispose of the less edible bits (clothes, hair, bones, etc), and he does so in the bayou behind his house. One day though, there was a hunter who for some reason thought he was a deer. Barking Alerts Alastor of his presence, and he takes off, dogs close behind and baying loudly. Then a gunshot cracks through the air, and Alastor feels a split second pain in his head before collapsing to the ground. The bullet somehow didn't kill him, but it did paralyze him, so there's nothing Alastor can do to fight when the dogs eventually begin tearing into him. In the end, it was the blood loss that killed him as he was mauled, and it seemed like an eternity before he finally succumbed to that. (this is what breeds Alastor's severe dislike (read: fear) of dogs

this is pretty rough, but I figured I'd probably better just get it all out at once lol. Let me know what you think!!

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!!])

Hiatus Notice

This is going to be my last post until December. I mentioned it in my first post on this hellsite, but I have to leave for training and won't have any access to my phone for about 5 months. If I'm lucky, I might start getting access to my phone after the first 10 weeks, but I wouldn't place any bets on it. Once my training is done I'll go back to posting as normal.

Wish me luck, and I'll see you all sometime around Christmas!

You know those "I am not a robot" tests that some websites require? Well the autobots sure didn't. Ratchet is the first to find out. He's just doing some regular every-day stuff on the monitor (definitely not googling something one of the kids said because he didn't understand it even a little bit, shut up Miko), and suddenly this page full of jibberish pops up along with the little, "I'm not a robot" box. Naturally, Ratchet masks his confusion with pure rage, because how is he supposed to use this garbage earth technology when every resource requires him to copy down a word that isn't even there because it's literally just scribbles?????? After he learns what it is, he'll just angrily ask Raf to fill it in for him, though he is considerably insulted that this stupid little test works on beings as advanced as Cybertronians.

When Optimus first sees the test, he just freezes in complete confusion. He's completely bluescreened. The monitor told him to pick all of the pictures with the bicycles. He did that. How was he wrong. The screen told him to pick two items that are the same shape, but he is literally trembling, about to shut down like a microsoft computer because none of them are the same shape. How can they be the same shape if they're different colors aND DIFFERENT FUCKING SIZES-

Everyone looks at him in confusion when a static-electricity-like sound emanates from his head, and then he just slowly slumps to the ground because the confusion made his processor glitch, and the kids could practically hear the windows shutdown music as he just dropped to the floor. (This isn't the first or last time this has happened. This is the reason he doesn't try to understand the more confusing gen-z memes. If you've ever seen videos from Orion Zax on youtube, think the oven joke video, and that's literally just this. If you haven't, look it up, it's great)

You know a funny thing to think about is if cybertronians have some like, goofy ass software/hardware limitations.

Like those clothes designed to confuse ai image recognition, would they just not be able to comprehend what they're looking at like some eldrich monstrosity?

Or I've seen videos where someone is speaking polish but it's pronounced like it's english and I'm just imagining that shit messing with their translation software.

Would their vision bug out if they're near something radioactive like a camera would?

Feel free to add onto this if anyone has more thoughts.

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

Sometimes, I think we all just forget that Halt is in fact a huge fucking Nerd™. Think about it.

All the stuff he knows about history and culture and languages and geography, and just about anything he can get his hands on. It is especially mentioned in the first four books, like when Horace is trying to avoid a history lecture from Halt - and he is so familiar with them that he can tell just from the tone Halt is using that he's about to start one.

Halt just genuinely enjoys learning about the world around him, and I think that is awesome. It's nice to be reminded every now and then that Halt is just super smart. Tactics, cultures, food, plants, law in other countries - you name it and he probably knows a good bit about it. Even art! He's always the one to do artistic stuff (Shield emblems, writing out and making seals for documents (forged, obviously), making weapons and disguises and acting - whatever is needed, he's got it covered. And you know that if he doesn't know about something, he is sure as all hell going to learn.

Just wanted to bring that up, remember to incorporate things like that into writing, it's a pretty neat character trait that never actually gets touched on.

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

Some Lee!Alastor Headcanons to Fuel My Brain

The lee!alastor tag has been painfully empty for the last few days, so I've decided to contribute a few headcanons of mine for you all to see and consider as you wish. Feel free to add on to this post with headcanons/rants/fics/whatever of your own if you want, I was just personally experiencing withdrawal symptoms and needed to fuel my addiction lol

(These are tickle headcanons for those unfamiliar with the terminology. If that isn't your thing, just scroll right on by)

First thing's first. Something I think everyone is sleeping on? Scalp massagers. Specifically the wire ones. I personally think those things are ticklish as fuck, and I'm far from the only one. The majority of us have come to the agreement that Alastor's ears are also ticklish as fuck. Just take a moment with me and imagine the potential:

Someone (probably Angel, or Lucifer) gets a scalp massager and is going around trying it on other hotel residents when they aren't paying attention. It's just for fun, and they're getting the typical reactions (jumping away, super startled, or just completely Unphased). Then, they manage to catch Alastor by surprise and do it to him, but instead of the typical reaction, Alastor startles before bursting out into staticky giggles. Alastor has no clue WHY it tickles so much, but it does, and he's practically paralyzed in a weird half-curled position as whoever has the massager just keeps running it over is head over and over. He can't try to escape, he can only giggle and babble out nonsense words, especially when the ends rub up against his ears which only makes it MORE ticklish, which he didn't think was possible. After the other demon shows mercy (and somehow isn't immediately slaughtered) Alastor develops a healthy fear of the massager, and grows incredibly anxious with anticipation and adorably flustered any time someone brings one out

Speaking of massagers brings me to my second headcanon. This man CANNOT get a massage or he will absolutely die. People who are tense can be more ticklish as a result, and since Alastor is already incredibly ticklish, having tense muscles makes this 100x worse. I have really tense shoulders, and any massage there immediately makes me hysterical, and I imagine Alastor would be the same. If he was comfortable enough to do so, he would be the kind of person to absolutely die if he were to get a full-body massage because it would tickle so damn much - even through the pain that comes with massages. Rosie likes to pretend to massage his shoulders and neck just so she can tell him to stop squirming and giggling so much because she's trying to help him

Another quick headcanon. I like to imagine that he's mostly covered in fur, and while it isn't terribly long in most places, it can still get tangled after a shower, or after being smothered by his clothes all day, so he has to brush it regularly. This is an absolute nightmare for him. Even when he's brushing his own fur, he has to stop every few seconds because he starts laughing too much in certain areas, like over his sides or belly for example. No matter how often he does it, he never gets used to the feeling, and it only gets worse if someone else (usually Rosie) does it for him. At least if he does it himself, he can stop once he starts laughing. It makes it take a long time, but it's less flustering. If Rosie (or Satan forbid someone else for whatever reason) brushes his fur, she usually tries to get a much done at once as she can, so she usually keeps going until he's begging for a break. Also, she thinks it's absolutely adorable, so she'll keep brushing areas that make him squeal long after all the tangles have been removed

Last one for now is that he can feel the static from people's phones. If he's close to someone when their phone rings, he can usually feel the static of it crawling teasingly over his skin. It usually isn't a big deal, but if someone is being bombarded by calls that they keep ignoring (let's say Valentino obsessively calling Angel Dust), the static quickly becomes overwhelming and he'll beg the person to answer their phone or turn it off, if straight up bashing it against the nearest wall isn't an option. It doesn't tickle a particular area, more of an all-encompassing tickle over his entire body. If he gets to the point of begging them to answer, it's usually because he can't hold his laughter and squirming anymore and is trying not to make a fool of himself. He feigns annoyance so people don't find out the real reason he wants the calls to stop. The secret comes out when Angel absolutely refused to answer Valentino one day, but didn't want to turn off his phone because he was in the middle of doing something on it, and Alastor finally broke and curled up where he sat, giggling hysterically and begging Angel to turn his phone off

That's all I have for now, I hope you enjoyed these headcanons. If you decide you like them enough to incorporate them into anything you write/draw, tag me!!! I'd move to see it. Also, as mentioned earlier, feel free to add onto this as you wish, I'd love to see how you all make these headcanons your own

At first he thought that maybe it was just a prank or an outing Charlie had forgotten to tell him about, but after he discovers he can't even call Husk or Nifty to his side, that's when he starts panicking because he knows that they're Gone. He practically searches every room, tearing the hotel apart for even the slightest hint of what happened to them, and he just becomes more frantic the longer he goes with no leads until he finally collapses in the lobby on the couch and has a proper panic attack. The others try to calm hims down, especially once he starts pulling at his own hair and gouging his arms with his claws, but - obviously - they can't help very much and just have to watch him fall apart.

There's a brief moment where he wonders of they've all just abandoned him, but he dismisses that thought because he knows Charlie would never leave behind the hotel she worked so hard on (the others are struck with the realization that Alastor truly believes that they would abandon him, and Charlie's love of the hotel - the building is the only thing that would keep them from leaving him behind)

Alastor is absolutely consumed with trying to find them - he doesn't take care of himself regularly, he barely sleeps, barely eats, only visits people or does his radio show if it's to help him look for them. He just can't stand the idea of losing anyone else he's grown to care about, so even if everyone else thinks they're dead, Alastor just refuses to believe it. Part of it is the fear of loss and ending up alone once more, but there's a deeper part too.

He knows exactly what it's like to disappear and either have everyone give up too soon or simply not look for them in the first place (both during his 7 year absence and after the battle with Heaven), and he refuses to do the same. He ends up becoming terrified that his contract holder might have done something to them, and reaches out to them

Ironically enough, this is how the others find out that Alastor doesn't own his soul - he's so desperate to find any lead that he'll confront the one he's most afraid of to do it.

In the end, when they eventually manage to find a way to undo the spell, Alastor tries desperately to act unaffected, but after a few denials that he even noticed they were gone, he bursts into tears because he was so terrified that they might be gone forever

And there's definitely going to be a lot of Talks after everything is over and done with because holy FUCK Alastor actually needs some serious therapy and reassurance that the people around him will actually not leave him for whatever reason he's cooked up in his head, and ALSO what the FUCK what do you MEAN that someone owns your soul and held you captive for 7 years??????? Overall there's just A Lot of things that need to be discussed in the aftermath of this shitshow

Been thinking about a fic idea where Charlie botches a spell during a hotel redemption activity, where Alastor is the only one not present for. Lucifer was trying to coach her through the spell, but got distracted because he noticed there was a fucking drone outside the window pointed directly at them.

As far as the drone picks up, one second all the hotel members are there. The next second, they're gone. Vanished.

To the hotel members, they don't notice anything out of the ordinary at first at all. They're still in the hotel, and they can see each other just fine. It's a bit confusing when the drone just... promptly gives up and flies away. But they all figure Lucifer catching it just scared TV face away. So, no big deal.

Then Alastor comes back. Charlie greets him, but he seemingly ignores her. Lucifer, pissed by this attitude, tries to grab him— only for his hand to go right through Alastor's shoulder.

Realization immediately sets in.

They've become ghosts.

Obviously, ghosts don't exist, but this newly discovered spell (Lucifer is definitely trying to reword the situation to make Charlie feel better here) basically gives the properties of the stereotypical ghost.

They can't be seen. They can't interact with the world around them. The only person of their ragtag group who remained untouched by the spell was the singular person who wasn't there— Alastor.

There's more rules to the spell apparently, which they figure out quickly. For one, they are anchored to the hotel. At first, they thought that they couldn't go through walls when Lucifer tried to walk through one to the outside, but it turns out that they CAN walk through walls. They're just blocked from going out of bounds.

The last thing they figure out about the spell is that there doesn't seem to be a time limit. Which, obviously, is very bad. Usually, temporary spells with similar effects only last a couple of hours, but when everyone wakes up the next morning still incapable of grabbing a simple door handle, it becomes evident that they've gotten into a bigger mess than previously thought.

And then, Alastor realizes that everyone is "missing."

And he freaks the fuck out.

Yelling their names, breaking down doors, having straight up panic attacks. And the hotel inhabitants are watching it all happen, unable to say or do anything while Alastor begins physically harming himself, ripping out his hair and gouging deep marks through his skin with his claws.

They already felt pressured to figure out how to undo the spell, but now the pressure is worse because if they don't figure this shit out soon, Alastor may actually permanently hurt himself at the rate he's going.

(A few individuals, meanwhile, are hit with the realization that Alastor may actually care for them. More than he was ever willing to show.)