#What is a Mastermind | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

anthurak · 4 months ago

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"I'd like to hear him out..."

(credit to @phuezo for the awesome art XD)

So here’s a fun little AU concept for the past couple months since Mastermind aired and people started throwing around ‘What if Charlie (or Lucifer) was at Blitzo’s trial?’ ideas:

What if Vaggie didn’t (entirely) lose her wings to Lute’s attack? Meaning that Charlie actually KNOWS that Vaggie is an angel from the beginning. And leading to Vaggie not hiding her identity by pretending to be a sinner and instead be generally open about her past as an angel and exorcist. Which I think could have some rather interesting ripple effects.

Now I realize it might be a bit headscratching how ‘Vaggie doesn’t lose her wings’ leads to ‘Charlie (and Vaggie) showing up at Blitzo’s trial’, but hear me out.

First off, I think the ‘How’ of this divergence is actually pretty easy to imagine; instead of ripping her wings off, Lute decides to inflict a different kind of sadistic torture on Vaggie. Terribly maiming her wings to prevent her from flying, but still leaving her wings to make it clear just what she is. Basically, Lute and Adam fully expect Vaggie to be torn apart by vengeful demons.

But in true dramatically ironic fashion, Vaggie is NOT found by the ‘evil, terrible demons’ that Lute and Adam (and even Vaggie herself) were expecting, but by Charlie Morningstar. And I think we can all agree that Vaggie happening to have a pair of angel wings would NOT meaningfully change Charlie’s reaction to finding her in the slightest.*

Charlie still basically falls for Vaggie at first sight, takes her in and patches her up and gives her a home. And in this version, after it becomes clear that Vaggie’s wings aren’t healing, Charlie also calls in a favor from Uncle Ozzie to design some cool cybernetics/prosthetics to give Vaggie full wing-functionality back. And after a while, Charlie and Vaggie fall in love and start dating just like they did in canon, possibly even sooner/stronger given that Vaggie doesn’t have the specter of hiding who she is from Charlie hanging over her in this version.

And this is where we get to one of those interesting ripple-effects of this change.

Because I think it is VERY likely (as in, I imagine we’ll actually see this come up in the actual show) that Charlie’s belief in sinner-redemption and drive to help sinners in large part came from Vaggie. Specifically in that Charlie believed that Vaggie was a sinner. As in, Charlie falling in love with someone who she thought was a sinner was a MAJOR factor in Charlie believing that sinners could be redeemed and general drive to help them.

Now obviously I’m not suggesting that Vaggie was the only reason or that Charlie wouldn’t care about the sinners otherwise. At the same time, I think it’s a bit ridiculous to assume that Charlie believing the woman she loves was a sinner all that time wasn’t a major contributor to her motivation in ‘making a hotel to redeem sinners’. Or that Charlie knowing Vaggie WASN’T a sinner from the beginning couldn’t put her on a different path…

Basically, this version of events with Charlie falling in love with ‘Vaggie the fallen angel/former exorcist’ instead of ‘Vaggie the human sinner’ ends up rippling out to lead Charlie to focus not on the problems of the human sinners, but rather the problems faced by the hellborn demons.

Say for example; because Charlie knows that Vaggie is an angel, and thus almost certainly NOT bound to the Pride Ring, the pair end up taking a few trips/dates to see the other rings. Particularly given that Vaggie already know Asmodeus.

But in the process of these trips, Charlie starts noticing many of the issues faced by the hellborn demons. Many of which she doesn’t remember from back when her father was running things…

Basically this ties into another theory I’ve had since Mastermind that a lot of the societal issues we see in Helluva Boss are the result of, or at least have been heavily exacerbated by, Lucifer’s long ABSENCE from ruling thanks to his centuries-long depressed isolation. Something that I think Mastermind pretty heavily hints at given everything we see from Satan in that episode. And that at some point, Hazbin Hotel is going to show Charlie having to DEAL with many of these issues as part of her arc of growing into a leader and future ruler of Hell.

And in this version of events, instead of being drawn to wanting to help the human sinners, Charlie is drawn to wanting to help the hellborn demons. Basically, since her father clearly isn’t doing his job, perhaps SHE should step up and try doing it instead?

And of course, Vaggie is right at her side through ALL of this. In fact, she may even be a bit more gung-ho about it, given that it probably feels to her a bit more feasible than ‘redeeming sinners’.

This all leads to Charlie pushing herself not so much into ‘replacing’ her father outright as ‘ruler’ of Hell, but rather starting to assume a kind of regency position. Not full-on ‘ruling’ (yet), but still starting to assume some of the roles and duties that her father has been neglecting for a couple hundred years.

And the fun thing is that nobody is really able to stop Charlie from doing any of this. After all, she IS the princess and heir apparent of the Morningstars, meaning she is well within her rights to assume a number of roles of her father. Particularly as Charlie makes it very clear that she is not trying to outright supplant her father, but is simply assuming duties that he’s been neglecting. To the point of keeping the title of ‘Princess’, or maybe ‘Princess Regent’.

Sure, some/most/all of the Goetia/other nobility might not like a lot of the ideas and goals Charlie is talking about, such as ‘Maybe the Imps, Hellhounds, etc AREN’T actually lesser and born to serve the nobility and shouldn’t be treated as such’, but there also isn’t really anything they can do to STOP her or remove her from her new position. After all, the only one with the authority truly above Charlie’s is Lucifer himself.**

And the nobles who do make a scene and/or pitch a hissy fit about Charlie’s ‘radical ideas’ tend to find themselves at the business-end of her girlfriend’s spear, sword or divinely-mailed fist. Really, in this situation Vaggie is a pretty big fucking deal all on her own, being a fallen angel and all. Certainly NOBODY is going to be judging Charlie on her choice of romantic partner. Well, maybe some sinners might judge her for dating a former exorcist, but any Hellborn demons, even the Goetia? No fucking way. Really, people would probably be making comments on how Charlie is taking after her mother.

Heck, even in the short time since Charlie started this endeavor, Vaggie’s probably earned her own title or two. ‘Blade of the Morningstar’? ‘Wings of the Princess’?

Of course it’s also worth noting that there are still some pretty hard limits to what Charlie can accomplish in terms of fixing/reforming the issues of hellish society, at least in the short term. She can’t just snap her fingers and fix classism or completely wipe out the Goetia’s authority (or the Goetia themselves). Particularly as Charlie doesn’t have the ultimate overriding authority of her father. Realistically, Charlie’s authority as Princess/Regent only just supersedes that of any of the Sins, and while that might put her above effectively ANY other one person in Hell, it also doesn’t give her absolute ‘do anything I want’ authority either. Not to mention that this is still Charlie we’re talking about, who in this timeline is still only JUST getting use to throwing her authorial weight around.

But at the same time, again there really isn’t anything anyone can do to fully STOP Charlie from doing anything either. Meaning that in the short time since assuming her new role as regent, say about a year or two, Charlie has already started making small but noticeable changes and ripples to Hell’s society.

Which brings us to this new version of Mastermind, with Charlie and Vaggie making a surprise appearance at Blitzo’s trial and Charlie actually wanting to hear the imp out. This leads to a number of other fun changes including but not limited to:

Charlie invoking both ‘Princess Regent Authority’ and ‘Favorite Niece Privileges’ to get all of the Sins voting on her side to hear Blitzo out and override literally all of the Goetia royalty.

Andy-the-not-actually-a-sister-fucker pitching a hissy fit over this and getting choke-slammed and almost speared by Vaggie.

Blitzo still finding a way to fuck up this golden opportunity by running his mouth. Because this is still Blitzo we’re talking about, and giving him a chance to talk is ALSO giving him a chance to dig himself into a deeper hole.

Stolas choosing the exact worst (and funniest) moment to dramatically burst in with his big, dramatic ‘sacrifice myself for the man I love via song number’ gambit, which actually only makes things worse/wackier when Charlie starts asking pertinent questions.

Andy pitching more hissy fits as his plans continue to unravel and getting repeatedly chokeslammed and/or kicked in the dick by Vaggie.

Striker getting dragged back in when it becomes clear there are a LOT of holes in his story, only to constantly flip-flop on his story because he can’t figure out which authority figure(s) he should be selling-out-to/kissing-up-to in order to save his own skin.

Charlie, Vaggie and even Satan becoming ever more flabbergasted as it becomes clear that the suspect (Blitzo), prosecution (Andre), defense (Stolas) and witness (Striker) in this trial are in fact ALL complete fucking idiots.

*Admittedly I do have one other possible change in mind to help reinforce this: rather than a sinner child, Vaggie actually spares an imp kid, or perhaps a sinner child and their imp kid best friend. Which leads to the imp kid actually leading Charlie to the injured Vaggie and also telling her that this angel actually helped them and got hurt doing so.*** Which again serves to reinforce just how wrong Adam and Lute and much of heaven are about demons.

** And if you’re going to ask ‘Why doesn’t Charlie just go to her dad directly and get him to do his job?’, remember that Charlie had to be practically dragged kicking and screaming by her girlfriend into calling up Lucifer for help in Hazbin. I think it’s pretty clear that pre-Hazbin, if Charlie can get what she’s after without getting her dad involved, she is ABSOLUTELY going to do it.

*** Also this hypothetical imp kid doesn’t actually show up again and DOES in fact have a living family, meaning that NO, Charlie and Vaggie DON’T ADOPT THEM. Because I KNOW that is exactly what some of you started thinking when I mentioned an unattended child in relative proximity to our heroines.

And of course, once again HUGE thanks to @phuezo for the awesome art of Charlie and Vaggie XD

#hazbin hotel #helluva boss #hazbin au #helluva mastermind #Charlie Morningstar #Vaggie #chaggie #hazbin what-if #hazbin fanart #awesome art

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