#but like. oops! i was wrong about the character!

[cat-with-a-keyboard]

so @blunderbussin gave me an excuse to write an essay about hirasawa and im going to do that instead of anything impactful with my life and it's going to probably get stupid long. oopsie

So the aspect of Hirasawa that intrigues me the most is the lore surrounding the interactive live shows, a form of storytelling he's more or less pioneered. While there seems to be no particular overarching story (anymore. but thats a story for another day), all the stories that are told by the different shows are loosely connected, sharing characters or referencing events in previous shows; as well as being supplemented by sporadic stories that Hirasawa writes about some of the characters.

And listen. When i say 'loosely connected' i mean i have spent hours and hours and hours with my closest friends (who are also hirasawa fans) trying to stitch these events into a semi-cohesive whole because this old man does not give two brass coins for any kind of continuity (and he's really loosey-goosey on any kind of details), which drives me absolutely insane because goddamnit i will make this stupid thing make sense all together.

Also there's really some pretty banger concepts in these lives: machines that enforce the reality of the world based on collective perception, totalitarian government ruled by an alien fern, the green nerve network (its really hard to explain), Sim City as a place, an echo of modern cities in a virtual universe, Layer-Green/Communo Hybridia, the digital sea, timeline hopping cyborgs with terminal self-loathing

im talking about HIM my beloved good times girl, my rotten cheese man btw ↆↆↆↆ

anyway. this is a topic i could literally talk for hours about And I Have. i've spent so much time lovingly crafting theories only for them to have about a million holes shot through them because of some silly detail i completely forgot. oops. but im going to shut up for now before i get into the really deep/silly shit because if i speak about the ascii dragon or luuk sathwan khondiaw i will literally never ever shut up. i am a dork

[moeblob]

Karen: LMAO every guy I meet reminds me of my big brothers that's so funny except if Paul is already my brother and you're also a brother that's a bit awkward, huh Hot bartender: THATS MOVING REALLY FAST AND I LIKE YOU AS A PERSON BUT - Karen: having my brothers date would be SO WEIRD Hot bartender: Well on the bright side I literally cannot speak more than five words to him so we aren't dating because he's so cute

(Everyone else: that is somehow the most depressing bright side we never want to hear)

[dazais-guardian-angel]

kinda wild to me that one of the most compelling aspects of both Chuuya and Kunikida's characters to me, that I never really see talked about, is how they're heavily set on a doomed crash course towards complete and utter destruction, and how I am so, so worried for them both.....

[purpleshadow-star]

So, the season finale of Hazbin Hotel came out last night.

Spoilers ahead

I was never part of the Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss fandom(s), though I have been watching Helluva Boss since about midway through when season one was being released. I only watched the pilot for Hazbin Hotel maybe six months to a year ago, and I only ever watched it once. I never kept up with VivziePop or whatever was happening behind the scenes. I watched Hazbin Hotel as it came out the past few weeks, I’ve watched some TikToks about it over the past week, and I read through a few (like, three) of the character’s wiki pages like, yesterday.

So, with all of my inexperience in the fandom and in this universe, I’m going to try to predict how the show is going to end.

Kind of.

Well, I’m going to make a prediction.

I think Angel Dust will be the last resident of the hotel we see get redeemed.

Angel was the first resident of the hotel. It’s only fitting that he’d be the last (that we see, anyway).

I think that season one was almost like a set-up season. The main characters and their characterizations/arcs have been established. The main problem, the extermination, has been temporarily dealt with. It’s been proven that the main objective in the show, redeeming sinners through the Hazbin Hotel, is possible. Seeds of a bigger plot and future trouble have been planted.

Now that the bigger plot things are out of the way, I think the show will be able to (hopefully) slow the pace down now and really focus on the hotel itself and the redemption process of the sinners that choose to be there, along with the individual characters and their personal journeys and arcs.

I think that Sir Pentious getting redeemed and making it into Heaven proved that the concept of the hotel can work, so now that they have the bigger, newly built hotel, they’ll start to get more residents. We’ll meet and bond with more characters as the seasons go on and they’ll go through the hotel and eventually get redeemed and go to Heaven.

I think that during all of this, for the next few seasons, we’ll see Angel work towards redeeming himself too. At this point, he’s accepted the hotel. He’s accepted his place there and he’s been visibly getting better. We’ll see him continue his path to redemption while also dealing with Valentino, his contract with him, and any other personal conflicts that arise.

I think that partway through the show, we’ll see Angel start to kind of put off becoming fully redeemed. Maybe he’ll just slow down, but I think we’ll see him become more apprehensive about completing his redemption.

At this point, he’ll probably already be in an official relationship with Husk, and his situation with Valentino might be resolved or at least not as much of an issue anymore. I think he’ll start putting off officially moving on into Heaven because he realizes that he doesn’t want to leave his friends behind. He won't want to leave the friends he’s made at the hotel, so even though he might be ready or almost ready to go to Heaven, he’ll just keep putting it off.

I think Angel’s ascension to Heaven will be the big series finale. I think that it’ll be a big emotional moment. Angel will accept that it’s time to move on, and there will be an emotional scene where he says goodbye to Charlie (who, as a Hellborn demon and not a mortal soul, can’t go to Heaven like the other sinners), and Vaggie (who will choose to stay with Charlie and has no desire to go back to Heaven), and probably Alastor (who loves his power and control too much to want anything to do with redemption himself) and maybe Niffty (I’m undecided about whether she’ll try for redemption, but I’m thinking no, at least as of right now). If Husk stays behind, that’ll be an absolutely heartbreaking goodbye too, but I’m thinking that, at some point in the show, Husk might decide to try for redemption as well, so maybe he and Angel are going together and saying their goodbyes together.

I think we’ll get a teary goodbye for the people Angel is leaving behind in Hell, but we’ll also get a joyous reunion scene where he meets up with all the redeemed souls in Heaven as well. He’ll get to see all the former residents we got to meet throughout the show, and maybe he’ll even have a moment where he gets to reunite with his sister, too. It’ll be a somewhat bittersweet moment, but a happy one overall, because Angel Dust, the first resident of the Hazbin Hotel, who didn’t take it seriously in the beginning and thought redemption wasn’t possible, who went through so much in Hell and who didn’t think things could get better for him, will have finally completed the journey to redemption and moved on to Heaven.

And then maybe we’ll get an epilogue-esque scene or series of clips of Charlie and Vaggie happily continuing to help redeem sinners in the Hazbin Hotel, of Angel and the other redeemed souls happily living their best afterlives in Heaven, of the redeemed sinners meeting and welcoming new redeemed souls into Heaven as they come in.

And maybe, taking place some time in the future, maybe years after Angel goes to Heaven, we’ll get a moment of Charlie and Vaggie, and any of the other original cast that stayed in Hell, being allowed to take a day trip into Heaven. Maybe we’ll get to see them reunite with the redeemed sinners in Heaven in person for the first time since the redeemed souls left, and it’ll be a happy reunion where they’re all just happy to see each other again and catch up. Maybe at this point the show has already established a way for the redeemed souls to still be able to communicate and keep in touch with those in Hell, so maybe this isn’t the first time the two groups have spoken to each other since the redeemed souls left the hotel, but maybe it is the first time since the redeemed souls left that they’ve been able to see each other in person, so the teary hugs all around are expected and maybe even appreciated.

Maybe the show will end on a happy note, where our first and most skeptical hotel resident ends up happily redeemed with a partner who loves and values him for who he is and friends who care for him, and where our main character is able to fulfill her dreams of helping her subjects find the best version of themselves and move on to a better place.

Maybe the extermination no longer happens, so there’s no more deadlines. Maybe being redeemed is no longer just an escape from second death. Not every soul in Hell is going to want to change, but for Charlie, it’s not about redeeming every soul. The Hazbin Hotel started as a way to decrease Hell’s population so that the extermination would no longer be necessary, so that no more souls, however awful, would be needlessly killed, but Charlie knows that the extermination was never about overpopulation, and yet she’s still going through with the hotel and she’s still working to redeem sinners.

So, maybe the extermination is a thing of the past, but Charlie will still continue running the hotel and giving sinners another chance, because everyone deserves another chance. Because Hell isn’t forever, and despite whatever some people did when they were alive, they deserve the chance to try to redeem themselves. They deserve the chance to try to be better. And that’s Charlie’s dream. She just wants to give her subjects the opportunity to do better, and not everyone will take it, but in the end, we'll see that all the effort was worth it for those few souls who do.

So, to recap: I think Angel Dust will be the last sinner we see get redeemed. We might get clips and/or mentions of souls after him, but he’ll be the last character to go to Heaven who’s journey to redemption we’ve seen. In the series finale, he’ll be the last major character to be redeemed, and we’ll get to see him live his best life in Heaven while Charlie happily stays behind in Hell to help guide more souls along the path to redemption.

Or at least, that’s something I’d like to see, anyway.

[bifairywife]

someone with daddy issues & never stood up to their bully is beginning to ship their comfort character with a bully, i cannot interfere it is a canon event

[ghastlybespoke]

rewatching casualty and we're at ruby's first episode in casualty and sam and iain are so shitty to her. like yeah she's not perfect but like my dudes ?? wtf. yeah, she might have fucked up with daisy the second time, but what she did was literally what the guidelines of her job told her to do, whether that would be considered morally right by everyone or not.

sam and iain definitely aren't my favourite characters by any stretch but i honestly hated them this episode. ruby, to me at least, seems like she might be autistic (doesn't like eye contact, strict moral guide/follows rules, misunderstanding of allistics confusing social rules, etc) and they mocked and belittled her basically the entire episode (quite frankly, it felt a whole lot like ableism to me).

[gale-in-space]

I think GPT series shit and other bots and how we as humans treat them have kind of soured my former fondness with robots and AI in fiction

[left-circle]

Lrt like more than half of the fics of shadowheart / lae'zel are not even about them at all and I really wish people would understand how fucking obnoxious it is for a f/f tag to be dominated by m/m or f/m.

[eric-the-bmo]

every once in a while i take a step back and realize how fucked up Lovers Reversed is

[aaronymous999]

I will never shut up about one of the worst tropes in fiction THAT NOBODY TALKS ABOUT- and ahem the winner is: “Pairing off every main character, and I mean EVERY into a romantic relationship at the end of the story or sometime during the story” even if it makes no sense to the plot, or the character made it clear they aren’t interested in romance, all because some authors for some reason ( there actually is a reason but yknow ) think all the characters need to be paired off for a happy ending. Fandoms engage in this trope too sometimes and I very much so dislike it. And then there’s the weird cousin of this trope, “Most characters get paired off, but mostly the women, the men don’t need a partner and three kids, mainly just the women.” LOOKING AT YOU WARRIOR CATS DONT DENY IT YOU ARE GUILTY AS CHARGED.

[clownkillsyou]

i think one time i did see someone say mrs wimbleton could be doc in mcla and i think thats rlly funny

[time-slink]

that grian drawing you made....!!. in my brain, rent free. I am ,,, SO serious about this. the baggy black pants. the red sweater around the waist.. muscle BULK. the floofy hair. the skin-colored sclera to give the illusion of his socket eyes.(!() STRONGK SHOULDERS.. THE ARM HAIR THE ARM HAIR THE A R M HAIRER L HEELLO??? ? the only thing keeping me from going completely insane is that he doesnt have the forearm veins BUT YEAH i love He <3. SO much. like i have nothing against twink baby-face femboy grian likers but hoooOOLY SHIT you know how to draw a Man,, not even like the ultra sexified anime boy kind of man. I mean like. I'm cis as hell but that is what i would want to look like if i was a guy. The perfect balance of intimidating and friendly and cheeky and cutesy and ,,, basically he looks like everything i could ever want in a grian design ok god bless <3

this is kinda on me but i did NOT expect the sheer volume of people hitting on my grian design in the tags its really funny to me,, glad yall enjoy haha kinda funny note: his sclera aren't intended to be skin colored, he sorta just doesn't have any in the way i draw him—but i guess its up to interpretation! thats kinda cool now that i look at it again

[icedvanillas]

Hot take but a game about the intricacies of free will and how any one decision by any character can impact all aspects of the narrative because choices don't exist in a vacuum and will have consequences on the outcome should not have had a "best ending" where everyone survives at all.

[malulurivers]

Who is your favorite tears of the kingdom character?

hey now~~~

that's a big old question you're asking there!

that's a really hard one to answer!

with so many options, an argument could be made for all of them.

how i adore link even if i scold him for constantly doing things i dont ask him to how i yearn for zelda and cherish every moment with sidon how i long to know more about yona to the point of planning fics to detail more of her life and history how i beg the game to give me more of tauro and plan to write things for him too to sate my curiosity and as a fellow linguist how could i not love him too?

with so many options, could there ever be a wrong answer?

...yes, yes there could be--

my favourite character is obviously master kohga.

is he the best written character in the game? no.

do i endorse his behaviour or want to be friends with him? absolutely not.

do i want to be part of his clan? see above.

do i write for him? no.

but does his theme go the hardest? ABSOLUTELY

is he a riot to see on screen? ABSOLUTELY

is he a trash man? ABSOLUTELY HE IS!

ok, all jokes aside, i'm not in love with kohga (i have a soft spot for tragic men, not pathetic men unless it's reigen, who is the most pathetic man to ever pathetic and of course i adore him). but he is my favourite from the totk roster. or at least, my emotional favourite.

there's something just so fun about him. he's so stupid, so incompetent and yet still so successful somehow that i just find him hilarious.

he's not very multilayered, and though i think there's stuff to be discussed about how the yiga operate, how they're effectively a cult and how it makes sense that they're there, and how they affect the world around them... there's not much i want to discuss about him, actually.

normally this is something i don't like in a character, he lacks depth, that's not very compelling. but when he's on screen, when his soundtrack goes (and it goes hard) it's impossible to not get hyped and just have a banging time. also his fights were just so fun, so ridiculous!

he really provides levity to tone too, especially in the depths where it's actually quite lonely down there (kudos to the sound developers especially for that one!). i can't tell you how special the weird euphoria felt when i finally saw movement in the depths (which is just an innately hostile environment no matter how strong you are) and it was his dumb ass.

i was genuinely laughing but also very sad when (mild spoilers for later game:) he basically shot himself into the sky because that was probably going to be the last time i would see him. to be fair, i haven't finished the story yet so i still have a sliver of hope.

i think he's a bit of a hidden gem of the game, and i'm still cross with nintendo not giving him any voiced lines and cutscenes like with other characters. his va from age of calamity gave it his all and absolutely made this character fantastic to me, and he would've gone to town with these scenes! a massive missed opportunity!

i have more i could say but i think i would have to explain my opinions on tears of the kingdom as a game, and that would get really long as i have many many opinions on it. somewhat mixed opinions, and that's not the vibe for right now!

tldr: in terms of favourite character, in one way it's master kohga lmAo

in terms of 'favourite to talk about/write about' it is probably link, by virtue of spending so much time with him in game. though i genuinely like pretty much all the characters to a very similar level!

i don't really have a standout character that i'm attached to like i do with arcane, and i'm... not really sure why? i mean, i do have some ideas but i'm not sure exactly. it's probably more of an arcane thing though rather on the totk end XD

anywho, thank you for the question anon! i had a lot of fun thinking about it and trying to work out my answers because i genuinely hadn’t thought about it before! i hope your curiosity is sated XD

[annoyingloudmicrowavecultist]

ugh i can’t vote for anyone in the tboy swag semifinals bc i have a grudge against all of them. joking i love them but. doof took out apollo, miles took out barney, link took out mettaton, sonic took out apollo in the general trans swag competition. my approach to these polls has always been pettiness first and who i think should win second and im not changing now

[dodecademons]

Damn all those annoying people that were mad at the boys for existing got what they wanted in the end. No more boys. And now no more the wilds. "But it wasn't the whole fandom just a few loud ones" thats literally all it takes sometimes babe. If you search the wilds and all that comes up are a few mouth breathers hating on the show for adding boys (when that is literally the reason for the show. To compare the girls and boys) then how is that in anyway good for new fans coming in? Good for marketing? It isn't. I'm sure that's not the only reason, but it is a big one whether they mention it or not. Also a lot of you openingly admit to skipping the boys scenes. Congrats, you did it. You got the boys out of the show.