#hazbin critical

[dyssonant-skyline]

Alastor has never felt like an intimidating presence to me. I tried to implement a quick fix, though I'm not sure if those teeth would be animation friendly, and well, anything that appears frequently will lose it's impact over time.

The thought is, if all other sharp teethed characters have the standard shark style points, giving Alastor more realistic teeth would make him stand out. Giving him more real teeth size/layout also turns his smile proportions more eerie as the space around his teeth is just a void, his lips stretching over empty space.

It also turns the smile into a threat more directly if the audience interprets his teeth as the teeth of a carnivore. If you see the teeth of a predator animal, that's showing their intent to use them. Plays into the cannibal backstory and all.

I also just like having more negative space in his face. His yellow teeth can be really intense sometimes.

[celtrist]

I want... Charlie to have questionable morals.

I really want to see a more fucked up version of Charlie in canon. Like, okay, I am a die-hard for sweet bubbly girls in media. But I always see how some people make Charlie actually, oh I dunno... demonic? And it's so refreshing for her type of character. I could honestly see her having low empathy (and we kinda see this with how she handled Angel's situation or even Vaggie's nervousness about taking control on an activity). An exploration of that trait (if it was intended) would be interesting to see for a protagonist, especially when her main goal is about helping others. I would love to see her actually have a level of difficulty in understanding others' feelings from the other residents, sinners, and even her father.

But give her a fucked up side. Not a "she gets more power when she's angey uwu", but a "oh, she's a little fucked in the head". It would give so much to her character that she just doesn't have.

@/murmurmurena (don't wanna bother them so slash there we go) has some fun ideas with Charlie. I highly encourage people to check their stuff out! So many fun dark ideas with her character while also still keeping to her canon personality pretty well! Personally, I think Charlie being a bit more naive to her own messed up traits would work best but her also being aware of these traits can make for some interesting character for her.

THIS FIC, "A Game Between You and I". RIGHT HERE WITH THE FIRST CHAPTER. A bit of spoil for the fic here: but I love how they handled Charlie’s absolute ignorance as to why the idea of Russian roulette is horrifying to Angel Dust. It doesn't feel like her being intentionally malicious or aware that she's the odd man out here. This is also a pretty old fic going by only the pilot, but the point still stands that it was such a fun take for her character!

Charlie is one of my favorite characters in the show in part of the POTENTIAL she could have as being the most bubbly sweetheart character while also being the most messed up character in the show. I can't say I have strong confidence with the show's writing and fully expect them to stick with Charlie being the "nice girl but oh no, don't get her angry or she gets scarwy". Which isn't bad for a character mind you, there's just so much more potential to Charlie outside of that trope, especially when you get into the theories of her either being a doll, Roo's biological daughter, or what have you. And for the MAIN CHARACTER of the show, it would be not only interesting but also bring the spotlight back to her.

There's really no question that the side characters steal the show, particularly all the male characters. If I'm honest, Charlie does not feel like she gets a lot of love from the show itself when she's supposed to be the main character. She feels far more flat compared to the rest of the characters (again, the male cast in this "female-lead" show has more depth than most of the female cast currently. I wouldn't be pointing this tidbit concerning the genders of characters if it weren't for the fact Viv defended Helluva's lack of development with their female cast by saying "Hazbin is a female-lead show and Helluva is a male-lead" and Hazbin ended up with it not feeling female lead (to me) and the male cast just completely stealing the show. I don't normally care about gender stuff, especially since I do personally lean interest towards male characters. But using one show as a defense for poor development of the female characters, and then that show not really holding up with no very interesting well-developed feeling female characters irritates me. It's just very clear that these shows don't seem to care much about the female cast :/)

If you like how Charlie is written that's totally fine. PERSONALLY, I just think they're missing so much opportunity with her character by just making her the standard female character type. I honestly don't have a lot of faith they'll actually do something with Charlie's character though. She's a pretty static character in S1 being the same from start to end. Not changing or learning anything to create any development. What does the end of season Charlie do that start of season Charlie wouldn't do? Fight back? Because we see with the pilot (which is the “first episode”) that Charlie does fight people if pushed like with Katie Killjoy and even Valentino. Static characters can work in media depending on the show or their role. But Charlie is the MC of a show about “bettering one's self”. So to have her as a static with not a lot of strong dilemmas for herself (like we see with Angel Husk Al and even Vox) seems silly. Plus, considering Hazbin is telling a whole story and it's not a fun episodic thing, characters are expected to grow on some level. Or else, what was the point of their hero's journey?

[azural83]

What's the point of having characters from different time periods when they behave and swear like they're edgy american teens?

[xnixnbvg]

Ripped Pants is a social commentary based on how repeating a joke over and over doesn't actually make it funny. Even with different punchlines. SpongeBob basically predicted Hazbin Hotel humor.

It also can mean making fun of yourself in good fun is a healthy thing.

[namitheslime]

it infuriatiates me to no end how Hazbin Hotel treats the topic of rape/sexual misconduct in general.

Prefacing this with the statement that should be obvious with a brain- I do not care if you like the show. Im of the opinion that DNIs are stupid and you should cater to your own experience. I have friends who like it and more power to them for enjoying a show that I cant. This is just my opinion. If you feel personally attacked by this opinion, i kindly advise you move on.

With that out of the way, the thing that irks me is the intense double standard it has with the scenes. Husk is very obviously uncomfortable with the flirting and sexual harassment that Angel Dust puts him through. Yet, its always treated as a joke or not that serious. Yet when Adam harasses women, its taken much more seriously when they are doing the exact same thing. When Angel Dust is being abused by Valentino, its played with 100 percent seriousness, but when Sir Pentious is dragged off into a room with no consent, its treated as a joke.

Similar issues with Helluva Boss, too. The intense double standard the showrunners have with these characters is insane. For HB, its sometimes worse because they shove everything away to justify a toxic yaoi couple that, by all means, is insanely unhealthy and fetishizing. The scene where Blitzo doesn't kill the couple because theyre gay and remind him of him and Stolas is so stupid.

Could you imagine the backlash if Stolas was a guy and Blitzo was a woman? This would be a rich, powerful man using a disenfranchised, struggling woman trying to make ends meet by exploiting sexual favors from her if she wants to keep her business up. Then the show twists her into being the villain because she said a few mean things. Same thing with Husk and Angel. This would be a man making a disinterested woman super uncomfortable with sexual advances and not taking no for an answer. But for some reason, once its MLM, everything is fine. It's clear that the writers have a BL/Yaoi fixation and it makes me, and many others,super uncomfortable.

Im not saying that this type of toxic dynamic shouldn't exist in fictional works or whatever, im saying that its handled with the tact and delicacy of a drunken bull in a China shop. They can be explored in interesting ways, but HB/HH does not do that. They want to justify their favorite characters' actions. The most prominent of which is Stolas, who was genuinely much more interesting before they turned him into an uwu baby smol bean who never does anything wrong. I dont like using this term, but in the traditional sense of the word, Stolas is a Mary Sue.

I wanted to like both shows, I really did. The landscape for young queer people is barren at best, and many people take comfort in these shows as it's the first time they've really felt seen by media like this. But it also worries me, as the show is not exactly tactful in its writing, representation, etc.

Also the shows suck in general when it comes to female characters and plot, and how they fucked up a genuinely interesting demon pantheon and whatever but that's a whole nother rant lmao

Sorry for formatting, im on mobile and all that jazz

[exhelluvafan]

Dude what happened to your account? Good to see you back tho!

In short, what happened is that I was getting fed up with infighting within the Hellaverse critical communities and I ended up nuking my account as a means to protest and to distance myself, but at the end, it didn't matter either way so I decided to do a comeback, also fueled by Hazbin's S2 announcement and the announcement of Helluva Boss The Stolas Show: Mission Zero.

So yeah, and thank you kindly, Anon, I wasn't expecting such a quick Anon ask in the first days of this side blog existing lol

[officeobject]

My brother (the youngest one at least), has some spy gadgets and all, and he personally enjoys them, but we have quite different tastes at times, so I wouldn't, maybe not even if I was still his age - but yeah, like, they seem so cool in the commercials and on what the packaging says, and then they merely can do light stuff, say some lines, or detect movement - my tween self had plans on buying the spy stuff, not because I actually really wanted it, but for genuine use for adulthood, in case I needed to protect myself, revenge on enemies, face off ghosts, infiltrate the government, etc -

Over all, I also had those gadgets in mind, when thinking about the Voxwatch stuff. I have no idea how they'd even execute it in NOT such a way, and Hellaverse fans are supposed to be grown adults, not my tween brother who still plays with his spy gear and toy gun and whatnot (not saying that makes him or his preferences inferior, just saying that I have no clue what they'd do, given their demographic is supposed to be NOT-HIM, but that there otherwise IS value to the supposed spy-gear).

Watch the voxtek spywatch in the deluxe package end up literally being the same quality as those spy watches from toy kits that just light up and say a few phrases at best or just literally do nothing at worst. That's just a flat out scam at that point.

That would be embarrassing. Imagine if the Voxtek spy watch takes a long time to arrive similarly to the playbill. Other than that, I hope they keep their promise that the watch is limited-edition and don’t resell it to a super low price.

[maniwannadiezz]

guys,, guys,… it’s the Hazbin Mrs. Hellluva boss

can’t wait for people to unironically draw her to really get the h8er that is me. Little do you know I can bait you into it while also being critical of the show 🥺😰

Anyways is she annoyingly red enough? Does she hit all the markers? :))

bonus: she’s a zombie somehow. I dunno you figure that out on your own.

[66kenobi66]

Here's some good Hazbin/Helluva critical videos I've seen (since it's so hard to find good ones on YT)

(Both are by GalXE!)

(Left one is by HezuReviews, right is by Autistic Swag!)

(Both are by Madeline Maye!)

(Both are by Cassidy Whiskey!)

Please go check these people out, all of them are extremely talented. Some of them even shared some insight and clever criticism into this series that I hadn't even thought of! (I especially like the Madeline Mayne ones as they poke into how both HB and HH fail at their queer representation.)

[mickmeasley]

theory:

vivziepop kickstarted the indie animation revolution the same way freud is the father of modern psychology:

by having some good ideas but elaborating on them so badly alongside a whole bunch of terrible ideas that a whole bunch of people felt compelled to come on the scene just to keep the ball rolling and steer things in a better direction, partly to prove they could and because they had genuine passion, but also because letting freud/vivzie be the sole, defining player in the field would be very embarrasing for everyone

so much of what i feel is poorly executed/sorely lacking in hazbin hotel and helluva boss is done so much better in all the other indie cartoons that I almost feel like this is genuinely the case, that taking the cool ideas of hazbin/helluva and actually doing them well this time was in the back of everyones mind when formulating their series concepts

>The Amazing Digital Circus

does the "character-based-dramedy around finding connection and meaning in (whats basically) hell" better

>Lackadaisy

takes the "gangster furries in snappy suits + art deco aesthetic" ball and runs with it, but they actually can design good character designs and period accurate clothing

>Murder Drones

idk much about this one, havent watched it but from what i've heard they do the whole "emo angst meets cosmic horror" thing a lot better

>The Gaslight District

Worldbuilding and aesthetic reminds me a lot of Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel, but here its WAY more coherent and focused, with the pilot actually answering a lot of obvious questions about the worldbuilding similar to ones that, IIRC, Hazbin/Helluva stil hasn't answered to this day. Also, better action, better art direction, better edgy humor/characters, better music, better father/daughter dynamic, better fucking everything

[lamb-dragonfly]

Honestly, the show would really only make sense if Alastor was the main villain (and likely with zero redemption).

[dyssonant-skyline]

every time someone makes a comparison between hazbin hotel and fosters home for imaginary friends, (which isn't that often I've heard it twice?), this image flashes in my mind

now you have to see it too

[owlintheemptiness]

Me sitting down to doodle a bit before sleep:

[floralcavern]

Why. The fuck. IS VOX A SHARK???

“It makes perfect sense! Velvette is a doll, Valentino is a moth, so what about Vox?” A TV. HE IS A TV. HE IS THE TV DEMON. HE HAS A TV.. FOR A HEAD. Vivziepop, wtf??

This is somehow one of the dumbest character choices she’s ever done. AND THAT IS SAYING A LOT.

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

This is so fucking funny