Joel sits awkwardly at a family dinner table that isn’t for him.
It’s nice and all, he reckons, for Impulse’s family to invite him over after he leaves the hospital. Even before—everything—Joel’s family hadn’t really been the “big meal around a big table” type, so he’s getting some new experiences here too. And it’s nice and all, that they want to thank him for his role in finding Skizz.
But like. It’s not like he or Impulse or Skizz could explain how it happened, when asked. “Magic brain ghosts” and “evil butterflies” and “Joel still isn’t certain all of that was real and is trying to pretend it wasn’t” puts a damper on that. Also, adults are kind of shit at talking around the fact Joel’s whole family is dead, so he gets the sense he’s sort of harshing the vibes, you know?
Still. It’s a nice gesture. He guesses. It’s free food at least, which is decent, and as close as Impulse and Skizz are, every time one of Impulse’s family says something stupid, Skizz taps Joel’s leg with his foot or steals a roll or something, and it makes Joel feel…
He’d have been sad if Skizz had died, probably. Like, he wouldn’t know. He didn’t come here to make friends, he came here to get a degree and get out. Also, that’s stupid, because it’s not like Joel would have known he was missing a really awkward congratulatory family dinner in which Skizz kept on trying to sneakily steal beans. Probably would have just moved right on. He’s not… friendly.
But.
They stand outside afterwards, waving by to Impulse, promising to walk together so that neither of them Vanish. They’re quiet.
“Thanks, man. That meant a lot to them,” Skizz says.
“Yeah, well, I can do stupid things for free food,” Joel says.
Skizz laughs. “It was nice having you there, too. Man, they’re even worse with you! It’s like not knowing you means they’re even more awkward about family tragedy.”
“Trust me, most adults are way worse. You should see my social worker,” Joel says.
“Didn’t he ditch you, dude?”
“Haha, yeah, he did,” Joel says.
They stare up at the streetlamps together.
“I was really ready to go for a bit there,” Skizz says. Joel’s hackles raise. Oh no. Emotions. Bad. Go away. “It was like—man, it felt like the whole world was empty. But when you showed up, it’s like I remembered… I’d miss dinners, dude.”
“I have no idea why, that kinda sucked,” Joel says, baffled and sarcastic, because he’s a moron who can’t handle emotional conversations, this is why everyone avoided him at the funeral, stupid.
Skizz breaks out laughing.
“You’re great, man! I’m glad we met. Uh, my place is only a block away, and I won’t go following any stupid butterflies. See you at school?”
“Yeah man. See you,” Joel says—
I am thou.
Thou art I.
Thou hath formed a new bond.
With the power of the Chariot Arcana, you shall build the chains with which to hold on to reality.
RANK 1!
“What the hell?” Joel says, tripping over his feet. “What? What? Where did—what the fuck that wasn’t Pygmalion oh god do I have more than one voice in my head—”
“Dude, are you okay?”
Skizz’s almost frustratingly strong and comforting arms grab Joel.
“Tell me you heard that,” Joel says desperately.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about. I could take you back to the hospital—no?”
“I am either crazy or am going to end up in a government lab?” Joel says, voice getting high and squeaky.
“We can ask Mr. Hills about it? He came to talk to me after I woke up in the hospital, apparently he like, knows stuff,” Skizz says.
“I don’t wanna,” Joel says.
“Tough luck, buddy, you just almost fell over and cracked your head open!”
Suddenly, Joel remembers a long-nosed man and a blonde in a very blue boat. He remembers a cryptic conversation about bonds and power and their importance. He takes a deep breath. “Can you cover your ears for a moment?” he says.
“Yeah, sure thing, why—”
Joel, as loudly as he can, screams. He hears several birds fly away. He pants.
“…Joel,” Skizz says.
“Yeah thanks man don’t worry about it let’s never speak of this again I’m sure it’s nothing. I definitely didn’t have a weird dream about this and should go to bed.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever you say,” Skizz says cheerfully before laughing, which Joel continues grumbling about all the way back to his apartment.
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It’s tempting, when learning any skill, to claim that you’re not very good at it. But there also comes a point when such a declaration stops being a realistic assessment of your beginner capabilities and starts to undermine the effort you’ve invested and the ability you’ve developed.
Particularly when learning languages, I find that the temptation to undersell your ability can be hard to ignore. When your barometer for success is people who have been learning the language since the day of their birth, it’s easy to feel inadequate, especially when the end of the road never seems to come into view.
The way we talk about language, it is a skill you either have or lack - you can speak it or you cannot, you are fluent or you are not. But language learning is a lifelong process, and even native speakers learn new things about their own language all the time. There is always something more to learn, so it’s unrealistic to expect yourself to know everything.
Perhaps you will never be perfect. But you care enough to try, and keep trying, and that is something to be proud of in itself.
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I wish Hazbin had more than 8 episodes this season bc 1) the pacing is all over the place (outside of episode 4) and 2) it would’ve been so nice to actually see when and why Alastor started to genuinely care about the hotel.
The pilot and the first episode of the show characterize him as sticking around for the entertainment because of how silly the idea of redeeming a sinner is to him but then episode 5 has him fully backing up Charlie’s wishes for the hotel and even tells Mimzy she’s welcomed to stay if she actually wants to try redemption and was upset she had put the hotel in danger with her presence.
I think that turnaround in Alastor’s perspective is so interesting but when did that happen? Why did that happen? How did that happen? What made him care?
He clearly still has ulterior motives, there’s 0 denying that given his scene with Husk in the same episode, but he does seem to actually care about Charlie and her hotel. Which can be connected to the leash Husk claimed Alastor is bound by but Alastor is also the most distant from the cast.
We never see him around everyone for more than a few minutes at a time. Everyone went out to the club in episode 6 but Alastor is nowhere to be found in the entire episode.
That bond with anyone in the hotel, even Charlie, that would explain Alastor’s sudden support in the hotel has not been shown on screen and I really wish the show had more time to do that.
That’s really what Hazbin lacks. Time. Time to slow down and just let the characters breathe. Everything is moving so fast because they probably didn’t know a second season was coming until later which I can understand but that also means the plot takes priority over the characters and a majority of the cast is suffering from it.
Angel’s the only character who’s gotten an episode solely about him and exploring, expanding, and developing his character and his bonds in the hotel are what we see the most. This makes sense given he’s the main guest in the hotel but no other character has been able to have their own character and arc be explored the way Angel has.
The show needed more episodes like Masquerade to explore the cast before diving headfirst into the Heaven vs. Hell redemption conflict. That was always going to be the direction the show went in but they needed so much more time to do it because there are so many characters to juggle and so much is happening. Big moments that are supposed to matter don’t hit as hard as they should bc the cast is overstuffed and everyone is fighting for screen time.
This isn’t the teams fault, they’re doing a decent job with the limit time they were given but 8 episodes is not enough time for a show this ambitious with everything it’s trying to do. Doubling the episode count to 16 would’ve done wonders for the pacing and the show could slow down and take its time.
A lot of what Hazbin presents are good ideas. It’s all interesting but none of it is given enough time because the big Heaven and Hell plot has to take a majority of the shows focus. I do hope season 2 fixes this but that’s also gonna depend where the show is going after season 1 is over. We’ll see next week.
My main wish for the show going forward is each character gets their chance to be explored just as Angel has.
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