quiet nerd

today i decided to take a break from the comic and procrastinate... this is what i did procrastinating.

Yeah, i'm taking a break from the comic by making a fucking animation.

keeping their heights somewhat consistent was the hardest part, bc after the kiss Alastor shrunk lol. Good thing i noticed.

don't look at the details, it becomes cursed.

I need to try and make, like, animation where i don't draw each frame from zero, instead i copy and redraw only what is supposed to move... should be easier to keep sizes consistent.

at first i was going to draw them dancing, hense the big unused space, but Vox decided that nah, he wants to put his tongue in Alastor's mouth. Fucking bastard. Well, i guess, i'll do dance next time i have the mood for drawing 100500 frames for a 10 second animation (it's actually 57 frames, rate 8 frames per second)

AU Masterpost

But canon just doesn't support it. The amount of times Alastor pulls away and Vox doesn't continue to engage physically is just too telling. Will he hurt him? Sure. It's what they do to each other, it's reciprocal. But Alastor being literally tied to a chair and pulling away when Vox puts his hands on his shoulders and Vox not grabbing him again??? There's just still some degree of respect there.

People try to go too hard one way or the other. Is Vox kind of a hopeless romantic? I think so. Is his view of romance completely fucked up and controlling? Yeah! Like him having emotions doesn't make him Good. It doesn't absolve him. And acting like he's just some cold monster doesn't work either, because it just doesn't fit the narrative. It's also boring af, honestly.

Does he not SA Alastor because he thinks it's wrong? Hell no. He doesn't do it because he still wants Alastor to actually want him. To acknowledge him. The thing that people miss so often with this is how badly Vox wants to be wanted. It's not a win to just take it, because it's not what he really wants in the end.

It is canonically, demonstrably a fact that Vox doesn't want to possess Alastor. He DID possess Alastor for a time and he was still miserable. Yes, he enjoyed some petty revenge and the attention/status awarded by Defeating The Radio Demon™️, but the most important part of having Alastor as his prisoner was the opportunity to have Alastor back in his life- having an opportunity to make Alastor like him again. That's why he spent the entire Chair Era bending over backwards to impress Alastor, to the point of continuously fucking over his own plans and his partners to do so.

Just having Alastor means nothing to Vox. Having a genuine bond with Alastor means EVERYTHING. That's why he's so fucked up over Not Having It anymore, it's why he tries so hard to earn it back, it's why he has a complete fucking meltdown and gives up on Existing when he thinks it's unattainable.

I’m just saying that the entirety of season 2 showed us just how much both of these characters enjoy (while still being harmed by) this little psychosexual game they have going on. If this moment didn’t make you understand just how reciprocal their deal is, then you might need to watch the season again.

Two problems, actually.

One: the token costs for running AI agents are now exceeding what they were paying the employees they fired.

Two: when the tokens run out, the AI stops. Just stops. No continuity. No workaround. Just a spinning wheel where your workforce used to be.

You fired humans to save money and bought a subscription that bills you into a corner.

The employees you let go knew what to do when things broke.

The AI just invoices you for the outage.

And then there’s the permission problem nobody wants to talk about.

To do its job, the AI agent needs access. Full access. Your systems, your patents, your contracts, your future plans. Everything you spent years building, handed over to a process that has no loyalty, no discretion, and no skin in the game.

You didn’t hire a replacement.

You gave a stranger with no soul the keys to everything you own.

Enjoy.