#helluva crit

[sludgekludge]

'ozzie couldnt do anything, satan is the law-' is it not cowardly as fuck to be one of the few people with power to even speak at all, to just sit down and agree with the decisions being made about someones life while your lover frantically texts you, begging you to do something to save his best friend?? while his friends and family bawl their eyes out in chains in front of you?? at best ozzie is a massive coward. what punishment would he even receive? stolas gets a slap on the wrist just cuz he's royalty lmfao and ozzie is a whole ass sin. don't question authority, kids! rules are rules!

even if satan didn't listen to him, would it not have said a lot about ozzie's character if he just tried to speak up? even easier, ignoring the fact the whole...setup for this entire episode was bombastically stupid, why not just have ozzie be the one to contact stolas instead of him just like. accidentally seeing the court hearing on TV. send him a text. 'hey stolas there's some tomfoolery afoot my brother you gotta step in' at least that would be doing something to try and help instead of sitting on his ass and agreeing with the authority even when you feel like it's wrong. why why why is viv so desperate to defend her characters making bad decisions. they're allowed too, yknow. if it frightens you so terribly, don't write them to be doing this shit. the sins didn't even need to be in this episode. all they did was squabble, lmfao

[moldy-lemons]

this pride merch is so incredibly ass, i shed an actual tear. this looks like something i would beg my mom for when I was eleven. also it’s being sold at hot topic, shocker.

[spopsalt]

The way the song Mastermind romanticizes Blitzo's trauma bond/codependency to Stolas is disgusting :D

Like Stolas saying "I would rather die than live life without you by my side" and Blitzo saying "I can't live life without you by my side" THAT'S NOT ROMANTIC! THAT IS CODEPENDENCY AND YOU KNOW IT! I hate it when lines like that get romanticized, it is not cute, it is U N H E A L T H Y !

Also Stolas...YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER AND YOU KNOW HOW HORRIBLE YOUR WIFE CAN BE! SO BY DYING FOR BLITZO YOU ARE KNOWINGLY LEAVING YOUR DAUGHTER WITH YOUR WIFE WHO WAS EMOTIONALLY ABUSIVE TO YOU! Worse, he didn't even THINK of Octavia, yet we're supposed to believe he's some flawed dad who's "just doing his best🥺"

FUCK THAT! He is a bad, emotionally neglectful dad, no matter how hard Viv tries to convince us otherwise. And Via is NOT required to keep her dad in her life, ESPECIALLY after she saw that he was going to give his life for Blitzo, without even thinking of her, and how it'd affect her when she saw her dad ABOUT TO FUCKING DIE! Especially when he promised that he would never leave her, and he was about to do exactly that ON TELEVISION! And Stolas KNEW that this is exactly what Via was afraid of

"Are you going to go with him and leave me behind...? Go somewhere where...I can't find you...?"

then Stolas saying

"No! No, no, no, not ever!"

...So he just fucking lied to his daughter's face, hell, no wonder why she's pissed and cut Stolas off, I'd do the same if I was in her shoes, yet people are getting angry at her for it.

I mean it's bad enough that she's romanticizing Stolas and Blitzo's relationship when Stolas fucking COERACED HIM and now you're trying to make their relationship so cute and RELATIONSHIP GOALS!

[critical-velvet]

Hello hazbin/helluva critical community. I need y’all to do me a favor

If you see user aster-spiral-30, block and avoid them. They’re a serial harasser and have wished death on other people. They also think that being a monsterfucker makes you a porn addict and shipping Charlastor is immoral, no really.

People like this shouldn’t be tolerated in critical communities.

[purgatory-hotel]

Why is Mammon significantly more gluttonous than Beelzebub and why is she so disgusted when he starts eating in the courtroom? I get that greed and gluttony often go hand in hand in a lot of media but when you have two separate characters representing each sin then you need to like. Actually make the character that represents gluttony... gluttonous lol

[eldritchx]

Not that deep in the helluva / hazbin critical community but I would like to offer a rare pair: Fizz x Tex (hear me out here.)

I really dislike their relationships with the Sins — not only are they written poorly to me, but they're just uncomfortable? Lol. Beelzebub sells Hellhounds like property, which includes Vortex. For Ozzie, I really hated their dynamic after 1x07 — they were a cool villain couple and then they became so cheesy to the point I face palmed.

These relationships are supposed to be important in terms of world building. Sins getting intertwined with the lower class Hellborn shouldn't be something CRAMMED INTO THE BACKGROUND or used to make said Sin look "better". I hate this show, sorry.

But on a more positive note, I think these two would work well together. Vortex has a very easy going, charismatic and fun personality, meanwhile Fizz is very energetic, sassy and cheeky. Plus, I would enjoy seeing more imp / hellhound dynamics; it's a little tiring seeing more of the richer class when the whole premise was about underdogs trying to make a living in a world designed to destroy them.

Additionally, Tex reminds me of a strong man, which can parallel Fizz's jester aesthetic. I honestly do not have much lore or anything for these two, this is just for fun and it'd be cool seeing how their relationship would play out hypothetically.

[neeweekeewee]

Baby’s First MeatRider 🥰

I blocked this person because this was getting ridiculous.

This person was upset that I said Stolitz was abusive. I literally do not understand why people come onto the critical tag just to throw a conniption that people DARE have a different opinion than you. I also cannot stand when people say that “If you don’t like it, don’t watch/interact with it.” Thats stupid. If everyone were to do this, literally nothing would get done. Activism would not exist.

What got me about this person was that they were saying that I have no right to speak on a topic because it’s fictional and I should just not watch it.

They assumed that I was not a victim of SA (which I AM btw). Then they said that any type of media should be allowed if it helps SA survivors “cope”.

They continued by saying that I don’t support victims of trauma because I am against “immoral content”. Since they didn’t specify what they meant by immoral content I am assuming the worst since they also practically admitted that any media should be allowed after I asked if depictions/representation of rape, murder, child p0rn, homophobia, classism, racism, and others should be allowed as long as it’s fictional (something I am totally against btw). And MF said “any media” sooooo….

That’s called abuse.

If you like watching others get victimized because it helps you cope. Thats disgusting and you need to get help immediately. Please.

Does anyone else have anything to add? Especially about the whole “Watching depictions of SA helping a victim cope with their own experience” thing. Because maybe there’s something I’m not understanding there…

I would love your opinions!

Also FYI; Proshippers, Pedophiles, Racists, Transphobes, Homophobes, Nazis, Zionists, Misogynists, Ableists, Rape Apologists, AND Minors are not allowed on my page! DNI!!!!!

I am an adult, neurodivergent, queer, and female and I DO NOT TOLERATE ANY HATE AGAINST A GROUP OF PEOPLE.

[hellaverse-critical-confessions]

im so thankful i found this account because i NEED to get this off my chest. it irritates me to my core and i dont think anyone else feels the same way.

STELLA'S DIALOGUE IS SO FORCED AND I HATE IT. i understand she hates her ex-husband for cheating and thats fine, but the way she talks about him and her tone when she does it feels so incredibly forced and it agitates me. i've known this since the first episode of season 2 and i'm pretty shocked nobody else has noticed this.

helluva boss WANTS you to hate stella, but they do it in a way where its being shoved down your throat in a "hey, look at this! isn't she SUCH a horrible person for hating stolas??? isn't she SOOOOO evil?!" kind of way. its fine if you make a character people aren't supposed to like, but if you do it in a way where people can tell its forced it doesnt work.

i believe stella has potential, and i think she'd be a great villain-like character if it weren't for the fact that when they make her talk about stolas, it sounds forced. it's literally nothing but mocking, hating, and making fun of him and it makes me want to bash my head into a brick wall. YES she is allowed to have hatred for him, but i don't want to hear it every fucking time she talks about him. it's repetitive, unnecessary, and pretty annoying if i'm being honest.

tl;dr: stella's dialogue whenever she talks about stolas feels incredibly forced and it's always pissed me off since she started doing it at the beginning of season 2.

sorry for the long rant, but this is something that has bothered me for a while and the new episode just fueled that hatred further.

You said it, Anon

[onesidedradiostatic]

Prev. https://www.tumblr.com/onesidedradiostatic/768663529880436736/re

Oh I see what you’re saying now! There’s been no “positive integer” of ace Mammon in the show! And you’re right!

I personally don’t hold out any hope that the show will ever cover or explicitly bring it up, outside occasional secondary/metatext, like the pride piece or social media. (I feel similarly about Alastor.) Can’t feel let down by the absence of something you hoped for if you never let yourself hope for anything! <— I tell myself, curled up on the floor. The old and factually incorrect “can’t miss what you never had” fallacy. /sarcasm

I’ve got aroace goggles but they’re not rose-tinted…. Likewise,

“(also having the "good" characters tell the ace character he's unfuckable and that he should keep fucking himself kindaaaaa doesn't sit right with me, I really don't want to read bad faith into mammon being made ace rep but it gets kinda hard like this)”

I feel this too, and nihilistically I feel like it’s just another one of those commonplace things that Hellaverse-style writing tends to use for comedic effect that inadvertently (or via unexamined bias, ie “this came so quickly and naturally to you that you didn’t pause to think about how this could come across to other people in your target audience or if there was a more effective way to do this before giving the go-ahead and locking it in? Ok.” Disclaimer: this is common in lots of media! I don’t intend to say it’s something unique to the H.verse writing. It can happen to anyone, like catching a cold, but it’s the hope that the writing and editing process will catch these instances and make them better, but stuff can slip through, it happens. No offence intended) implies something Less Than Ideal like a harmful stereotype or perpetuating casual bias and then assigning them Morality etc. We don’t need an aspec rendition of the Hays Code/Disney/dudebro film “queer-coded villain who you can tell is bad because they’re queer and that’s bad because it’s not good like the good guy!”

The “You like/don’t like sex/romance? What’s wrong with you? I’m the normal one!” can be toxic/dehumanising in both directions when one side thinks it’s superior to the other. But the common M.O is

- the old “If sex/romance = value/virtue/humanity, Then less/no sex/romance = less/no value/virtue/humanity”

- (Bonus points when it equates sex/romance with the capacity to love and be loved!)

- which when used as an insult is basically just a rehashed cousin of those nice-guy “fuck you you’re ugly anyway” and manosphere “I don’t want to fuck you therefore you have no/negative value”

- weirdly but not that surprisingly, it shares a few vibes with ablism, probably because certain people see aspec as something “missing or defective”. Which has historically been thrown at all lgbtqia+ so it’s sad that it persists from within the queer umbrella

- But, loosely speaking of theoretical connections to ablism… I’m not claiming that fidget toys are exclusively for one type of neurodivergence/or ASD. But there is enough fodder for a potential bad-faith reading “show implies aspec symptom of neurodivergence/ASD, says they’re unfuckable and less valued than neurotypical amatonormatives! correlation does not equal causation!” type thing. I’m too sleepy to go there.

- Saying “you’re unfuckable” to someone who doesn’t want to Do The Fucks isn’t an insult in of itself, (it’s like saying “You’ll never get a girlfriend!” to a gay dude, they’d be like “that’s exactly what I want!”) but the connotation that fuckable= worth as a person, therefore they have no worth, is. Like, you could just say “you’re a worthless piece of shit” and not bring sex into it at all, but it’s Hellaverse and sex is everywhere, including the language. It’s the lingua franca… the lingua fucka?

I could assume a goodish faith usage of insulting an ace character as unfuckable/‘the only person who’ll fuck you is you die mad’* in the “I know this bothers you, so I’m using it to bother you” way. Like how in the pilot Angel used -isms to bother Vaggie. :/

*’the only person who’ll fuck you is you’ is also a bonus trope of ‘aspec people are autosexual/autoromantic or self obsessed’ 😂

But yeah otherwise it sits weird.

There’s so much one could write and explore just on the general topic of “Aspec and Othering in the Hellaverse”, it’s actually fascinating. Whether it’s a good fascinating or bad fascinating is irrelevant though. Gender and Sexuality in horror and horror-inspired media is always a blast to look into. (You can’t tell me Alastor isn’t a little horror inspired. How his aspec-ialty can play a part in his portrayed uncanny-valley not-humanness to other sinners, being part device, performance and contradictory animal, etc etc. There’s heaps to go on if anyone felt inclined. Goodnight tumblr)

(prev)

this is a lot so I don't think I can cover everything here but yeah

I personally don’t hold out any hope that the show will ever cover or explicitly bring it up, outside occasional secondary/metatext, like the pride piece or social media.

alastor was at the very least allowed a verbal confirmation in hazbin itself so I don't think it's impossible for mammon (or octavia) to have allusions to their asexuality in their show, really I accept even subtext. for mammon it's still not even subtext yet, just word of god. but again, I won't fully judge him as bad rep here because obviously the show isn't over yet so reference to his asexuality could still come up in the future, I just had some hope it would happen sooner than later y'know and also ASMODEUS got to show up in full pan wear but we don't get any reference to mammon being asexual?

but yeah sorry this one is kinda nitpicking at this point, moving on, all you said after that yeah exactly what I meant about bee saying no one wants to fuck mammon as an insult, I know it's probably not intentionally shaming an ace character for it but it still can have bad implications even with good intention as just a lighthearted canon-typical joke

and this actually

- But, loosely speaking of theoretical connections to ablism… I’m not claiming that fidget toys are exclusively for one type of neurodivergence/or ASD. But there is enough fodder for a potential bad-faith reading “show implies aspec symptom of neurodivergence/ASD, says they’re unfuckable and less valued than neurotypical amatonormatives! correlation does not equal causation!” type thing. I’m too sleepy to go there.

I'm a bit worried about the infantilisation too, I've already seen people compare mammon talking about sex as an asexual to being like a child talking about sex

and mammon's constant use of toys in the trial doesn't really help with it, I worry that the logic behind mammon as ace rep comes down to "he's too childish and immature to understand sex and just pretends to understand it when he talks about it like a child" and that's on top of the whole "I can't see him caring about anyone legitimately therefore he's ace" logic which I have ALSO seen people say in response to him being ace

I don't want to assume that these were the actual intentions behind making him ace, of course these qualities can co-exist on top of being ace but the problem starts when you start correlating them and I think it's already bad that these are takeaways some parts of the fandom have

maybe I'm judging too early, maybe I just need to wait for mammon to be referenced as ace in the show itself and see how it's treated. but just. idk. there's just a lot of factors at play that makes me skeptical of him as ace rep, I was already skeptical when he was revealed as ace rep in the helluva pride art but this episode's showing of him has made me even moreso. genuinely, I do think having a canon sex-favourable ace is good! great in fact! but I can't praise it just for that when there's no indication of him being ace that you can see from watching the episode, if there is ever an episode that indicates him being asexual while being sex-favourable then I will praise it

anyways sorry for having topics surrounding ace mammon be so negative, I feel like it could overshadow the fact that I still really enjoyed the episode!!

[sludgekludge]

...COULD you elaborate on your thoughts on stella?

sorry if this is rambly, i just got home from work lol, but 👍

i think ultimately stella is a misogynistic stereotype (stupid bitch bimbo dumb bitch wife who is dumber than all the men around her and ruining her husbands life because she's just genetically built to be evil, because she's a woman-) at best, and a complete waste of potential at worst. it's insane how many people gloss over the abusive situation she was put in, because the narrative designated her as mean to good boy stolas. functionally a mail-order bride who was forced to sleep with a man she didn't like until she was a teen mum. horrific.

i don't mind the idea of her being abusive inherently - i think that the way they went about it is quite possibly the most juvenile, childish writing decision, though. she's mean and evil ummmmm because she is and she's been that way since birth. i get it, not all abusers have 'reasons' for lack of better word to be that way, but even the most rotten egg probably won't go 'well i do it cuz i wanna!' and have that be, like, the truth, especially when motivations for stella are right there. also, this is like...a story. you're meant to be saying something! why did you take the most boring 1-note way out in your narrative fiction?

like i said, she's functionally a mail-order bride. she's less powerful than stolas, more to lose in a divorce. she lost her teen years to an arranged marriage - can that not be a motivation? can she not take out that anger and grief on stolas, couldn't she have projected those feelings onto him? is that not more compelling? it doesn't make it ok, of course, if she abuses someone to ease her own pain, but it's compelling. it makes her a character.

maybe she tried to make it work with stolas because she has more to lose, and he didn't reciprocate, so that manifests in anger towards him. maybe she's mad this is the life she ended up with. maybe stolas suggests divorce much earlier because they're both unhappy and this makes her upset, since again, she has more to lose. maybe she did really genuinely care about him and his lack of reciprocation angers her. none of those motivations make any abuse ok, but it gives motivation to who should be a pivotal character. it gives depth, but instead, we got a stupid bitch who doesn't have the brain capacity to have depth at all. miserable. they wrote this woman to have a horrifically tragic life by accident and still want you to hate her so bad that they neglected to write her as an actual character.

tl;dr: she's boring as fuck when she shouldn't be and her brother shouldn't exist and her whole 'ermmm i abuse you because its fun and i giggle yaayyyyyyy thog not care' is a retcon anyway BUT that's its whole own thing

[moldy-lemons]

oooo the misogyny is strong here

[spopsalt]

Honestly, the fact that Barrett Wilbert Weed the talent behind…oh I don't know…VERONICA FROM HEATHERS THE MUSICAL, like this girl is a fucking POWERHOUSE! Have you HEARD Dead Girl Walking and Our Love is God!? Girlfriend has some pipes!

She does act as someone else…oh but you wouldn't know them, it's a small part…y'know just…JANIS FROM MEAN GIRLS THE MUSICAL who sang Revenge Party!

And they got Patrick Page, the fucking AMAZING voice behind Judge Frollo who was able to belt out HELLFIRE are wasted on Helluva Boss is so disappointing.

I mean I'm glad that they are getting work at the very least, and that we get to hear them sing ig since they are truly talented, but it is disappointing to see them wasted on a show like Helluva Boss. But the fact that they give them so little songs and completely ignore their talents is also disappointing. Octavia only has the song "I'll be okay" and Satan only sings 1 minute in the song "Mastermind". Like, Viv, if you're going to underpay your animators so you can hire these people, at least let them cook!

[critical-velvet]

Will never understand how someone got away with falsely accusing someone of pedofilia and beastiality and still has a big following in this community

[purgatory-hotel]

the actual Stolas is so interesting. he's an owl with long legs who likes plants and precious stones and he teaches astronomy. I would've loved a silly bird who likes shiny things and gets his derp on in the show. he is sort of like that but everything else about him puts me off

[resisteverything]

Anyone else bothered by how Helluva boss is about an evil horny predatory pansexual succubus man who has constant disastrous toxic relationships due to his hyper sexual nature, and the monogamous cisgender opposite sex couple that he stalks and obsesses over because he envies how healthy and stable their marriage is?

It sounds like the premise of an old horror movie that’s super homophobic. But sure this show is sex positive.

[m3nt4llyr4v3d]

If there’s one thing I can say about HB/HH, it’s that I’m learning a lot about demonology from people talking very passionately about it in regards to how neither show utilizes it whatsoever

It’s a bit of a shame that this is the reason I’m learning it, but man is it absolutely fascinating regardless. I love learning about subjects like someone is grabbing my shoulders and yelling at me for 30 minutes like this