Untitled

When S2 Ep4 released, I saw a lot of people throwing around similar ideas that Vox was not being threatening towards Alastor, that Alastor was in no danger and, specifically, that Vox ‘presented no sexual threat’ to Alastor. I found these takes really odd, personally, because I felt that the episode was riddled with imager that held sexual assault implications. In knowing that Vox is evidently not someone who is against rape, given his close relationship with Vaalenrino and Velvette where he acts as an enabler, the implications made a lot of sense. I was shocked to come onto tumblr and find out that, not only did people think the show had made an “explicit effort” to make it clear that absolutely no sexual abuse had occurred (using the cuck chair scene as evidence??), but that there were also several people who described Vox as being caring towards his captive.

All that to say, I expect this whole analysis to be incredibly controversial but it’s been in my brain since S2 Ep4 came out and I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t write it. This isn’t intended to suggest that people cannot have different interpretations but I do think saying that there are absolutely no implications whatsoever of a sexual threat is a strong take. And I like discussing media.

Obviously, massive trigger warnings for discussions of sexual abuse.

This is a companion essay to my Deep Dive on the Vox and Alastor Flashback scene. They were originally part of the same essay until I moved that one, and I’ve only just gotten the confidence to post this.

The Humiliation Parade

During the Humiliation Parade, Vox takes Alastor on an interview with Katie Killjoy and publicly announces that Alastor lacks a tail. The thing is, it isn’t presented as something that Vox was already aware of. Which at the very least, even if nothing further happened, means Vox checked if Alastor had a tail. I think that already classifies as harassment, at least.

If I wanted to be really pretentious and make my literature teacher hate me, I could take the smoothie date scene during this montage to a really metaphorical level, and suggest that Vox taking Alastor on what is essentially a forced date, ordering a drink with two straws and then drinking the entire thing himself is an allegory for taking ‘pleasure’ from Alastor. But I won’t do that, because I have enough evidence that isn’t as flimsy. I just thought it was worth mentioning because it was a thought that crossed my mind while rewatching the Humiliation Parade while making this analysis, and there’s nothing I love more than turning dark situations used as comedy back into something sinister!

The Cuck Chair

If I’m being completely honest, the existence of this scene kind of renders my entire analysis somewhat useless. This isn’t an implication, or a metaphor, or imagery. It’s clean-cut, obvious sexual assault. The reaction I saw from the fandom took this as comedic. Haha, the asexual was forced to watch people have sex. I’m laughing so hard.

To be clear, I don’t think that the show entirely treated this as a joke. But parts of the fandom did find it funny. And that’s a little bit wild to me. It’s especially wild to me that, as I mentioned in the introduction of this essay, that the cuck chair scene was used as evidence that no sexual assault occurred. My brother in Christ, do you know what sexual assault is? Do you realise that this qualifies? That forcing someone to watch you have sex qualifies as a non-consensual act?

I know that there is a debate about whether Vox and Valentino even actually had sex, but to me it’s clear that they did. People use Valentino’s unsatisfied demeanour as evidence to say that they didn’t, and the fact that right before it, Vox was looking at his ratings going up. But, when he’s looking at the ratings he still has his clothes on, showing a time jump between that scene and the scene of Vox and Val in bed. As far as Valentino being annoyed, Vox was probably just more interested in Alastor the entire time. Also, during Don’t You Forget (reprise), when Alastor says “I knew you’d need me here to be your unwilling audience”, the fact that he’s making direct eye contact with Valentino, combined with the dance he does in his chair, suggests that he’s referencing the forced voyeurism.

Vox’s clothes were thrown towards Alastor, and Alastor’s ears pinned back and he tensed up when Vox stood up in front of him, as if he was expecting Vox to do something to him beyond just dragging around his chair. Vox takes Valentino’s cigar and exhales some of the smoke from it in Alastor’s face. The smoke that Valentino uses on Angel frequently, which always makes him dissociate, and the smoke is an extension of Valentino’s aphrodisiac saliva — which is likely used in Velvette’s love potion. The fact that Vox is the one using it on Alastor, as opposed to Val, doesn’t seem to change its properties, because it is still red when he blows it out into Alastor’s face, after literally pulling down the mask to force Alastor to inhale it. And then what does he say? “Isn’t this nice?”.

Let me repeat that in a shorter and more concise way: VOX DRUGGED ALASTOR. WITH AN APHRODISIAC. AFTER FORCING HIM TO WATCH HIM HAVE SEX WITH VALENTINO. This should be so obvious. It’s not even an implication anymore.

The one valid counter-argument I can imagine for why there may not have been any direct rape involved in the captivity arc that Alastor’s line, “our deal was for me to be your captive, I don’t have to tell you anything” — because it means that Alastor was still able to have boundaries based on what was and wasn’t in their deal. And Vox sexually abusing Alastor was not part of the deal, and if Alastor would resist against simply telling him something, he’d definitely resist against being raped too. But just because he would’ve resisted doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen. And even if Vox did not rape him, he did assault him. The cuck chair counts.

Being Vox’s captive does mean that Alastor has to allow himself to be physically restrained, as we see, and it is very unlikely there’d be a caveat for ‘unless he’s sexually abusing you’, considering Alastor is unable to move against Vox when he electrocuted him in Don’t You Forget (reprise). Which is what we’re getting into next!

Don’t You Forget (Reprise)

This song hints at the situation going even further than forced voyeurism (in case that wasn’t enough). While I will discuss a little bit of the visual cues that are given, this will mostly be a lyrical analysis while the next section will deal a lot more deeply into specific frames while exploring parallels with Poison from s1 Ep4

“You’re in my house / With my rules / And my room / with my tools”

What Vox is saying here is ‘you’re my captive, so what I say goes’. It’s in direct response to Alastor refusing to give him the information he asked for, and it’s a threat that Vox can and will use force to get what he wants from Alastor. This shows that although Alastor can resist, Vox isn’t going to take ‘no’ as an answer, and this point is reiterated a number of times. This song is full of the possessive pronoun ‘my’, showing Vox’s control over the situation and how fixated he is with his own power over Alastor.

There is also something vaguely sexual about “my tools”, as it could be referencing sex toys, and this isn’t far-fetched because of Valentino’s background presence in the song and his general Valentino-ness, combined with the activities he and Vox had just gotten up to, making it possible that there’d be toys lying around. But simultaneously, it’s referencing Vox’s wires, and this is what is focused on visually. Even that has sexual undertones, however, as Vox uses those same wires to interact with Valentino throughout the cuck chair scene, and the wires are used to tie Val’s wrists to the bed, while they’re also used to restrain Alastor in similar ways. Additionally, the wires are a literal extension of Vox. It’s Vox restraining Alastor. Vox forcing him into compromising positions. Vox touching him. The wires are Vox.

“And worse, you’re at my mercy / Cursed to watch me take it all! / You’ve gone ass up”

…Not to bring up my smoothie metaphor again but— like— clearly my thought process isn’t entirely off the rails. He’s “tak[ing] it all”.

But in all seriousness, being “at [someone’s] mercy” is a phrase that can so easily be taken to have sexual assault undertones, especially when paired with being “cursed to watch [them] take it all”. On top of that, the visuals here show Alastor being hoisted up and restrained by his limbs, which are forcibly spread apart (and as I’ve mentioned, since the wires are an extension of Vox, he is literally being held in place by Vox).

“Ass up” has explicit sexual connotations, alluding to being in sexual positions.

“Don’t you forget / You’re on my string / You can try to squirm and struggle and it wouldn’t do a thing”

Alastor can try to resist, but he’s helpless and can’t stop Vox. This could so easily be a rape allegory. If these lyrics were in a duet between Valentino and Angel it would be so clear what it’s about, and they wouldn’t feel out of place in the slightest.

Here, Vox literally has Alastor dancing with him while tangled in the wires. If we compare this to the initial DYF song between Alastor and Rosie, there’s an interesting difference in the way that the two of them present their power over Alastor. Vox is frequently restrictive and controlling, whereas Rosie’s is weirdly lenient in comparison to other soul owner dynamics we’ve seen. It is significant that Rosie never binds Alastor in a chain, she only ever has him on strings. This is obviously an intentional decision and wouldn’t be overlooked by the animators. While these strings are used to control and guide Alastor’s movement, they’re never actually used as restraints, nor are they used to force him to be in proximity with her.

Rosie dances with Alastor without use of the strings at the start of the song, then when she does summon the string she immediately pushes him away, before putting it away when she gets close to him again. Then, the second time they dance together, the strings are completely unused. She does make him dance on the strings while he’s being puppeted, though this isn’t him dancing with her. He then falls into an awkward position, somewhat reminiscent of the compromising ones Vox puts him into, but Rosie’s reaction is to immediately pull him up again, then she removes the strings before taking his hand for the final note of the song. The cage in which Alastor is placed in by her is easily opened from the inside, he’s able to poof away from her before she puts him into a hat, she doesn’t protest against him doing that, and the net which she puts him in only lasts a few seconds. Overall, Rosie is much less oppressive with her power over Alastor than Vox is. While she is physically affectionate and this might be against his boundaries, she does have a line she won’t cross, which is forcing proximity and physically restraining him.

Contrast all of that with Vox straight up telling Alastor that his discomfort (his “squirm[ing] and struggl[ing]”) means literally nothing to him.

“You’re so obsessed with me / I knew you’d need me here to be / Your unwilling audience when you lose your marbles in Act Three”

I briefly touched on how the visual during the “unwilling audience” part of the lyric is suggestive, even though the second half of that line is obvious foreshadowing and a clue-in to the audience that Alastor does know what he’s doing to some extent. Like, it’s not lost on me that the line is about the foreshadowing of the final episodes, but at the same time, there is suggestive imagery and that idea of him being an unwilling audience drives home the point about the sexual assault that has already canonically occurred, regardless of how far Vox may or may not have taken it off-screen, which we can only judge based on implications.

“You still need me like you did before // So cute, you think I care!”

I find these lines interesting when considering that this is Vox shifting the dynamic between them, and Alastor coming to realise that maybe he’s bit off a little more than he can chew by making this deal. Because he’s made assumptions about Vox, and for the most part he’s correct, but maybe he didn’t consider all the directions Vox might go to try and prove him wrong.

While he has Alastor in captivity, Vox frequently attempts to exert control over him and is instead met with It would not be out of character for Vox to go to extreme lengths to try to control Alastor, and we know Vox enables both Valentino and Velvette in the way that they both capitalise on sexual violence, so that’s not a line that he wouldn’t cross. I think if he wanted to use sexual violence against Alastor, he’d try, and that it would be a way to prove his power to Alastor.

“Now I’m the master / And you’re my bottomest bitch / no more Al the High and Mighty now that I’ve flipped the switch”

Aside from the word “bitch” just being derogatory in general, and the fact that it is commonly used against women alluding to Vox trying to demean Alastor in a misogynistic sense by likening him to women as an insult, a “bottom bitch” is a term used in American pimp culture to describe the prostitute who is (ironically) at the top of the hierarchy of prostitutes under a specific pimp, having known the pimp the longest, likely consistently making the most money for the pimp, etc. it’s a sexually charged exploitative term which Vox is using, and the origins of the term are likely something Vox is aware of due to his closeness with Valentino. Calling Alastor his bottom bitch shows that Vox is objectifying him, and highlights the obsession he has with Alastor that does have sexual undertones in some capacity.

At this point in the song, Vox grabs Alastor by the hair and electrocutes him, and the focus in the shot is placed on Alastor’s shadow, which is not smiling, betraying his true feelings of pain, disgust, and, potentially, fear at their current dynamic.

“Flipping the switch” is clearly also in reference to their power dynamic, and the way that Vox is now the one with power over Alastor, and Alastor is below him, unlike during the rejection scene. But there are also the connotations of ‘switching’ in a sexual relationship which are relevant here. Not the main meaning that was intended, but one that does seep through.

“By the time I’ve had my fun / You’ll wish that you had Stayed Gone”

The first part of this line can also be taken as one that alludes to sexual abuse. Vox may be talking about his villainous plans, his “fun” being achieving his goals of reaching Heaven, but given that the focus is mainly on Alastor here, not on Vox’s plans, it also suggests that his “fun” is going to be some form of abuse against Alastor. Vox references Stayed Gone, too, where Alastor had said that he’d make Vox wish he’d Stayed Gone, where now Vox is flipping it and implying he’s going to take revenge in some way for the humiliation he’s faced at Alastor’s hand. Being a victim of sexual abuse often feels humiliating, so this checks out.

Vox crowds in on Alastor’s space, pushing his chair up against the desk and getting between his legs, then pinning Alastor in place by putting his hands on the armrests of the chair. Alastor appears deliberately small in contrast. All of this imagery has concerning and uncomfortable sexual undertones due to the lack of consent on Alastor’s part.

Valentino then tells them both to “just fuck already”, and this is where the episode ends, which means we do not have any idea what happened between this and Bad With Us, which begins S2 Ep5. I don’t believe that Vox would’ve gone with Valentino’s proposal, if anything that might’ve killed his mood, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have raped Alastor at any other given moment, or that the line isn’t there to suggest something.

Poison Parallels

While I was watching S2 Ep4, I felt that some of the imagery in Don’t You Forget (Reprise) reminded me of the imagery in Poison, and when my friend and I were discussing the sense we both got that there were allusions being made to sexual assault throughout the song, I went back through both music videos and realised there were actually far more parallels than I originally noticed, so I think those are worth mentioning here because they illustrate my argument well.

Perhaps the fact that both seasons’ fourth episodes highly centre around one character with a name that starts with A and their abusive dynamic with one of the Vees which in which the A character is a victim.. might be a parallel? But I digress, back to music.

First:

This isn’t the first one that shows up, it’s the first one in Poison but comes up sort of midway through DYFr — I’m putting it first because all of the others happen in a chronological way in both songs, and I find that relevant in and of itself, that each song hits the same visual storytelling beats in an almost identical order. The circumstances of both songs escalate in similar ways.

The parallel here is that both Angel and Alastor are dancing while restrained. I don’t think the act of dancing itself is metaphorical in the same way that it is in Easy, particularly because in Poison we actively see direct imagery of sex, so also portraying it through dance wouldn’t make a ton of sense. What this does illustrate, though, is the power dynamic at play and the lack of control that both Angel and Alastor are experiencing.

I might do a full analysis on Poison one day, but this segment of the song has always struck me as being a flashback to a period of Angel’s relationship with Valentino when he was only just starting to realise the abuse that was occurring, which I think could be mirrored well with Alastor in DYFr, where perhaps he is just now realising that he’s gotten himself into a less-than-ideal situation, and Vox can hurt him more than Alastor originally thought he’d be able to.

Both of these scenes end in the same way too — Vox and Valentino both toss Alastor and Angel away.

The first parallel that actually comes up chronologically in DYFr are these frames:

In Poison this comes after the dancing. Angel and Alastor both appear tense, with hunched shoulders, in the middle of the frame, and — while it is depicted in different ways — Vox and Valentino are looming over them. In the next shot we see that Vox and Valentino are both in essentially the same poses, with their arms out, and this is the parallel that immediately stood out to me the first time I watched DYFr.

In Poison, this shows us how afraid Angel is of Valentino, and how much of a danger Valentino is to him. In DYFr, Vox isn’t a complete silhouette, which could suggest that Alastor isn’t as terrified of him as Angel is of Valentino, but Vox is just as dangerous and just as capable of inflicting the same horrors, hence his identical posing to Val.

Alastor certainly isn’t presented as being safe. And he certainly doesn’t feel that way entirely, judging by his pinned-back ears.

Second:

Both Alastor and Angel are the main focus of the frame, and both of them are restrained by the wrists while seated in compromising positions, while Valentino and Vox are stepping into frame. These frames both lead into similar shots too, in which the respective Vee grabs their victim by the face:

These two also have somewhat similar facial expressions, I think. Both Angel and Alastor are expressing disdain while Vox and Val appear equally smug.

Next:

Of course, in the context of Poison, Angel’s dance isn’t actually happening — the images shown on the blue screens in the background are his real situation. While in DYFr, it’s all in real time, and the backing screens emphasise Alastor’s anger, which Vox is deliberately drawing to attention.

But there is still a similarity in the composition of the frame and the use of the blue screens. This shot is when Vox sings “you could try to squirm and struggle and it wouldn’t do a thing”, which could also describe Angel’s real situation in his scene. In fact, that helplessness is exactly why Angel’s coping mechanism is instead to dissociate and create a fantasy; because struggling and fighting doesn’t get him anywhere. Alastor is more powerful than Angel, but he is still rendered helpless by Vox in this moment.

Finally:

I think these two frames are actually lit in a really similar way, with the glowing eyes and teeth, the shadow on the characters which makes Val, Angel and Alastor all appear to have very similar skin tones (fur tones in angel’s case?). Though, of course, the main point here is the way that Vox/Val are both getting up in Alastor’s/Angel’s personal space, crossing boundaries, being in their faces and making themselves seem intimidating. Of course, Alastor’s facial expression here (smile not included) is not as fearful and worried as Angel’s, but the rest of his body language still reads as tense and uncomfortable, with the hunched shoulders and the pinned back ears. And Vox’s expression is similar to Valentino’s.

Regardless of whether all of these frames are intended to read as paralleling sexual abuse specifically, which is how I’m reading them, it is clear that the animators have used a lot of the same visual cues as Poison to illustrate a power dynamic between Vox and Alastor where Alastor is not the one with more power or control. We know Alastor had a plan, but there is nothing in any of these shots that suggests even an underlying sense of control of the situation on his part. I don’t think he was prepared for everything.

Hints From Other Episodes

This is a weaker and less organised part of this analysis, but I think these things are worth mentioning and I wasn’t sure how else to bring them up.

In S2 Ep3, Angel tells us that Vox “gets off on seein’ people suffer”, which we also had confirmed in S2 Ep1 with Vox finding enjoyment in the compilation of Valentino hitting Angel, and later in S2 Ep6 when Vox says he’s been wanting to hit Angel for a long time. All of these examples involve Angel, but I don’t think it would be far-fetched to think that he feels a similar way about Alastor who he is far more obsessed with than he is with Angel. It could be a thing that is reserved for those people he obsesses over, though, including both of these two because I do think he gets fixated on Angel to some extent occasionally. He brings him up often. Val only brought Angel up to Vox, like, once. Every other time they’ve spoken about him, Vox appears to have initiated it.

In S2 Ep5, directly following and seemingly only a day or something after DYFr, Zeezi tells us that rumours are going around about what sort of things Vox is doing with Alastor, and the one she mentions is the rumour that Vox “fucked him with a chair”. Not particularly strong on its own, but when combined with everything else, it holds more weight. Even if that isn’t exactly what happened, it is an implication that sexual violence could have occured. This may be an exaggeration of the forced voyeurism we saw, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it was something more direct.

Additionally, to me, the tone through which Alastor calls Vox a ‘fucking creep’ in the finale felt very emotionally charged to me. Which could mean nothing, but it could also mean something.

Conclusion

The only addition I have is something that has beeb rubbing me the wrong way since the episode came out, which is that people are being total Valentinos over the end of DYF Reprise, seeing both Vox and Alastor breathing heavily and interpreting it as something sexual.

I'll buy that it was sexually charged from Vox. Dude is revved up. Which, considering the position he puts himself in over Alastor... ew. There's also an element of him just finishing a song, so catching his breath isn't out of the ordinary and it might well be exacerbated by the... it.

But ALASTOR was just ELECTROCUTED. And I went back to count just now. That electrocution lasted 5 or 6 seconds. It wasn't a quick shock, it was prolonged and, as clearly seen by how Alastor tenses up, very strong electrocution.

He would have been catching his breath. There was NOTHING sexual about Alastor's heavy breathing in that scene, nothing at all. But I guess it's easy to mistake it as such because Vox is being a creep and enjoying it and his heavy breathing and grin are definitely sexually charged and then Valentino chimes in with 'fuck already'. And Alastor himself is smiling.

Because it's not as though Valentino tells people to fuck all the time. It's not like he's made a career out of that. And it's not like Alastor is always smiling and he has long ago explicitly stated (to Charlie) that his smile is a mask and a tool.