#musings;; vaggie

[heartscfvalor]

Introducing: Lucifer and Vaggie

Looks like you could use some help From the Big Boss of Hell itself!

Lucifer is the King of Hell, a fallen seraphim angel who gave the humans free will after falling in love with Lilith, Adam's first wife, and enticing Eve with the apple. Described as a "dreamer", Lucifer had a lot of big thoughts and emotions over humanity, wanting to really expand on them and see where their creativity would take them, but in giving Eve the apple -- either metaphorically or literally -- he instead allowed darkness and wickedness to come to earth. In punishment, Lucifer and Lilith were sent to Hell, never to see Heaven again.

Growing despondent with the sinners coming to Hell and being filled with nothing but coldness and cruelty for each other, Lucifer ended up pulling back from his kingdom, allowing Lilith to run it for the most part; he greatly admired her power and her beauty, loving her with his entire self, and at some point, they conceived their daughter, Charlotte Morningstar, nicknamed Charlie. She is truly the apple of his eye, bending over backwards to try and make her happy, but as she grew older, the more awkward things became, especially when Lucifer and Lilith eventually split up.

Despite thinking that Charlie's dream for her Haz.bin H.otel is a little off the wall and kooky, Lucifer remembers what it's like to have big dreams, and he supports his daughter in every endeavor. He's quite thrilled that she's found love, and while he's not Alastor's biggest fan, he's willing to tolerate the R.adio D.emon for Charlie's sake. When they rebuild the Hotel, Lucifer adds rubber duck decor everywhere in hidden spaces, as an inside joke between himself and Charlie.

Need you to know I love you More than anything

Vaggie was once one of the most ruthless Exorcists in Heaven, so much so that Adam considered her his favorite, which...not really an honor, is it?

Unfortunately, due to being an angel, Vaggie has a more compassionate nature than she might want anyone to know about; during an Extermination Day, she came across a very small and helpless Sinner that was almost childlike, stirring feelings of empathy and guilt. She urged the Sinner to make a run for it, and in retribution, one of Vaggie's "sisters" Lute ripped one of her eyes out, before cutting her wings off. Leaving Vaggie bleeding out on the street, Lute and Adam left her behind, so Vaggie was able to find a place to hide until the Extermination was done.

What no one expected was for Vaggie to be found by Charlie Morningstar, who mistook her for an injured demon and took her in to nurse her back to health. During this period of time, Vaggie grew to fall in love with Charlie, finding that her gentle nature was exceptionally appealing and sweet, and Charlie in turn fell in love with Vaggie.

Armed with a celestial spear, Vaggie is both the Hotel's manager and Charlie's main protector. She has a great distrust towards anyone who she deems a threat, especially the other angels, and she's quite harsh when she feels the moment calls for it. Despite this, she believes wholeheartedly in Charlie's ideas for Redemption, and she hopes to help Charlie succeed in saving Sinners.

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

WHAT is going on with Vaggie please i need to pry open her skull

girl stood out from the Exorcist with her single-stripe wings, they get torn off, she gets kicked out-

her hair was short like Lute's back then

probably another thing all Exorcists are supposed to be in lock step about- bloodlust, murder, looking almost identical in uniform (vaggie thought no one would know her out of uniform) (Wrong)

Charlie finds her. Charlie, who has long hair, and 3 years later Vaggie's grown her hair out too

and it's a sign of her new life with Charlie. as Carmilla kicks her butt Vaggie complains she's "not used to fighting with long hair-"

she hasn't had to fight in a long time

she's been CHOOSING not to, new life, new hair style, new her-

EXCECEPT not. Her long hair? Has the Exorcist double stripes that her old wings never did

her new clothes? oh yes she's got a skirt now, she's in red to match Charlie, she's dressed to manage a hotel not slaughter people- but the thigh highs and long gloves of the Exorcist uniform are still there too

it's there even when she gears up to FIGHT them

and when her wings come back- When her NEW wings grow in???- they still have just that ONE stripe. THEY didn't change. The hair thing, it isn't her aging into double stipes in three years- it's either natural and something the short hair hid, or deliberate and new, and which one would be more unsettling?

which one would be more fucked up- finding out you finally fit in when you can't anymore, or still trying to fit in when you absolutely don't want to?

it's like she grew out her hair to get away from her past, but also, it's a reminder of it? wings gone. long, twice-banded hair flowing down her back instead, filling in the space where her wings used to be

why the red X over her lost eye? a mirror of an Exorcist's mask-

(some have the right eye crossed out, some the left, one of their few small variations)

why not just a normal patch? Why not a hairstyle that'd cover it completely?? Why underline the reminder and MAKE it impossible to ignore- is she proud of it? The eye she lost for not doing something she knew was wrong? Why is she keeping so much of the Exorcist look- habit? nostalgia? homesickness? guilt????

Or is she retaking them for herself? Vaggie what are you thinking while you do all this- you HATE angels and heaven and the Exorcists and everything you were- Did you think it all meant something different, before realizing the truth? Something you could follow and be proud of?

are you trying to make all those things mean everything you once thought they did

or is being an exorcist still such a big part of you that you, shit liar that you are, can't cut it out of your life as easily as Lute did with your eye?

.... but your wings. They came back different.

they look even less like a proper Exorcists wings than before

(maybe because heaven didn't give them to you this time. you found them down here, in hell, with Charlie)

you AREN'T an exorcist! you don't kill sinners, you fight for them, you're trying to help save them, you're trying to redeem yourself right along side them, why why why WHY

why do you keep looking so much like the people you hate?-

oh. right. you hate yourself don't you. only... it's not ALL of yourself

i don't think your wings would have come back, if you hated the part of you that loves Charlie (it's the only thing you're clinging to, in fact. the hope that you won't fail her. that you can help her) (you hate yourself each time you fail- but you still try again) (you've never failed when it comes to that) (you've never given up on somehow being who she needs you to be)

do you REALIZE there's more to you now than the parts you hate?

hmm. i wonder

[creativitycache]

...what it means is they're all drawn by the same studio

[mxthbladed]

Vaggie smiled as she stood at the edge of the cloud, glancing back at her daughter. "You ready, bebé?"

Esperanza stood beside her, peeking over the edge. Her wings were folded against her back and she felt a small shiver run down her spine as she asked, "You're flying with me, right?"

"Your mother and I will be flying with you, yes," Vaggie confirmed. "We'll be right beside you in case anything happens. But we won't hold your hand. Right, Lute?" she prompted, glancing at her partner.

@holyfurnace

[cyanoticfireflies]

Hazbin Hotel - Rewatch Thoughts (Episode 1, Part 4)

Charlie gets home and does *not* want to admit just how bad things went, but I think she actually was going to tell Vaggie before she got interrupted to see the new commercial.  But with Vaggie so happy and excited, she can’t just crush her enthusiasm like that, so she lets Vaggie drag her over to the couch.

(Are Angel’s feet *on Husk’s tail?*  Poor kitty.  No wonder he looks so pouty.)

I kind of wish we had seen the finished commercial.  I feel like it was still destined to be a little bit of a mess, honestly.  Vaggie’s few words of delivery are cardboard flat, Alastor is glitching out in the corner, and no one could pull that bottle out of Husk’s claws. 

Also, is the “Now Playing” a joke for us?  It should say something like “Now Open” or “Vacancies” (if any of these guys knew how to run a hotel.)

Niffty is so gleeful at Charlie, Vaggie, and Angel’s anger when it gets interrupted.  Husk is watching their reactions, and Alastor is, as you’d expect, as unconcerned as possible because he’s Alastor.  So much for the outcome of his limb-pulling.

He seems almost as amused as Niffty, just more quietly.

If you’ve never taken the time to read the ticker tape on the 666 News, you should.  It’s one of the awesome things about Vivziepop shows – there are a million little hidden extras.  No lorum ipsum for them!

“The extermination is happening in six months.  This is not a drill!  Confirmed!  Legit!  Fuck!  CFYCBHNJM we all dead soon!!  Why does this always happen to me?”

We watch the countdown go from 358 (365 minus the week it’s been, so that’s spot on) down to 176.  Six months is half a year, and half of a year is 182.5 but even if we take out the seven days half of 358 is 179 instead of 176, so my guess is that this six months takes place over a winter/spring and a short month like February accounts for the lost couple of days.

I’m also guessing it’s 6:50 in the evening – the hands on the clock look the same length to me, but it does seem like a full day has passed rather than it being like 10:35 in the morning.  But since Adam offered Charlie lunch earlier in the episode, I think that means our poor sad girl was either stuck hearing Adam ramble about his hook-ups for literal hours (highly probable), listening to a lot longer rendition of “Hell is Forever” than the rest of us got, or wandered around in a lost daze after the meeting, not wanting to go home and face her failure.

Someone make our poor sad girl a hot cup of tea and put a blanket around her.

This ending scene gets a little time-fucky because it seems like it would have to logically be a flashback.  Unless a body was just laying there for a week and the Exorcists didn’t notice one of their own missing for that long. 

We have no idea if Exorcists give a flip about each other since we only really spend time with the two most extremes (Vaggie and Lute) but they do seem aware of each other if only because all of them are so pissed at Vaggie later. 

(“Boo!”  “We hate her!”)

Someone didn’t notice that their roommate didn’t make it home?

Also, if it wasn’t a flashback then Adam moved up the Extermination before they found the body.  Which I guess they could have if as noted above they moved it up because someone reported an Exorcist missing after the Extermination.  Missing, presumed dead.  But then that also implies that Lucifer just lets them fly their little spy drones around all of the time. 

Maybe he does, but you’d think someone would mention it.

(At what point did Velvette and the other Vees find the head?  Or did it just get popped off so good that it was no where near the rest of the body?)

I love the hypocrisy of the angels here.  “We can go down and murder loads of them just for funzies, but if one of us dies then it’s time to wipe Sinners off the face of Hell.”  Sounds about right. 

So much for a nice holy “turn the other cheek.”  But this is really emphasizing that, to Adam and the Exorcists and very likely Sera, the Sinners have no rights *at all.*  Not even a right to exist, since fighting back against the wiping out of their own soul existence is unacceptable to them.

Also, how do they not know that it was Carmilla that killed the angel?  The Exorcist wasn’t alone when it descended upon her daughters – they had five angels around them on Extermination Day, but there’s only one body, so presumably the other four got away (ran away after seeing Carmilla kill one of their own.)  Do the Exorcists practice “snitches get stitches” or something?

_______

Best Song of the Episode: Hell is Forever

[ghosts-of-the-apocalypse]

Love the idea of Spamton running amuck in the Hazbin Hotel.

He'd fit in so well.

Alastor would find him entertaining and treat him like a little pet. He takes Spamton out on walks to cannibal town to go see Rosie who loves dressing him up in cute outfits.

Husk would be freaked the absolute fuck out by him.

Charlie would be off-putted at first but eventually learn to like the little guy. She tries to help him, but he's like that one stray cat that always shows up but never sticks around long enough to get a hold of so you just end up leaving food out and pspspsps-ing from a distance.

Angel would throw cheetos at him to see what would happen.

Lucifer would get pissed off at him because Spamton would set up a drop shipping account where he sells knock off versions of his rubber ducks. (Lucifer totally tried to take Spamton's "business advice" once and got scammed bad)

Vaggie would get an instant fight or flight response wherever he appeared in the room.

Nifty would probably vibe with him, they'd have roach tea parties together.

Fat Nuggets and Spamton would orchestrate a mafia gang together whilst managing a lucrative 2nd hand car dealership and in their free time play black-jack in the basement.

[aestheticbyais]

"Well, I don't trust him!"

Vaggie character aesthetic.

[isforever]

someone yell at me to revamp this blog tmrw <3

[happy-hazbins]

Do I need another muse. NOOOO!!

Is writing with Spooky fun af?! You bet'cher college burn out, ADHD, dealing with chronic depression, sweet ass it is!(endearingly referring to myself btw not anyone else inparticular~) x'D

@lettherebemonsters

[drengar]

Also here is a small stealth promo for my new HH multimuse blog. Still has a lot of work that Dee and I will be doing throughout the day. But I'm just so excited about it, especially since next week I'll be on vacation and it will be a stay-cation so I'll be active on both blogs. Hopefully.

[out-of-heaven-and-hell]

Honestly if Vaggies Zuko I have to wonder if that would make Adam Ozai

[dcnt-preach]

Holy shit , I didn't know about the fucked up shit that happened in that specific era in time . I thought things like the White Australia Policy was like the 1950s holy fuck that's so recent but absolutely tracks , I was just trying to see what was going down in general to help flesh her more and maybe fuck with her design more and got flashbanged .

[cyanoticfireflies]

Hazbin Hotel - Rewatch Thoughts (Episode 1, Part 3)

I know Adam has his guitar and Alex Brightman voice, but is he an actual rockstar in Heaven?  He’s going on about his gig in his anecdote. 

They talked about how Lilith empowered demon-kind with her songs – but how did Heaven get its groove then?

I’m so fascinated by this because Adam knows who Charlie is.  He knows she’s Lucifer’s daughter, which pretty much makes her Lilith’s daughter (theories in the epilogue, theories in the epilogue) which means that she could have been Adam’s daughter if his first wife hadn’t run off with another guy.  Honestly, considering how immature and spiteful Adam is shown to be later, sitting down and talking to Charlie and having lunch “with” her is reasonably chill behavior on the Adam scale….  I’m kind of getting “that weird uncle that peaked in college” vibes from him.

Starting from about this point is where Lute begins to become more interesting to me than Adam.  We get what he’s like.  But when he’s asking whether a girl would want a “lesser” guy to him, Lute shakes her head, agreeing with him. 

She hasn’t said a word so far, but immediately she’s on Adam’s side – not at all appalled that this guy representing Heaven is acting like this and in agreement with him even.

Lute will remain fascinating to me, just saying that now.

Adam goes into listing what he thinks is “our biggest problem” and knowing what we know about Adam later him possibly having herpes is both amusing and scary.  I’m pretty sure he uses the exorcist army as his own harem.  Maybe that’s why all of them are so angry.

(Yes, I think everyone caught the fourth wall break.)

(We’re not the ones who refuse to go out in public without a mask on, big man.  Well, at least not since COVID numbers went down!)

I really want to find out Niffty’s backstory. 

I’m sure Vivianne already has the whole thing drafted out in her head.  But that complete paralysis when the camera was rolling seemed like a trauma response.  And that’s in a room that has a guy that is frequently raped on camera standing a few feet away from her.  Niffty goes totally dissociative until she hears the word “cut” and the camera beep off.  So, so curious.

(Have some nightmare fuel.)

I feel like working in the film industry Angel would be the perfect person to explain “fix it in post” to Vaggie if she hadn’t bitten his head off.  He literally raises his hands in surrender when she snarls at him, so done with all of their shit.

What room is Vaggie in when she’s editing the commercial?  We know there’s a reasonably better working TV down in the living room since they were watching it at the beginning of episode 4, and that room doesn’t look like hers and Charlie’s room that we see later on.

And why did this seemingly unused room get matching elephant statues for the mantle?

Alastor shows up to be generally unhelpful and kick her while she’s down, as he’s wont to do. 

Alastor’s shadow thing is so interesting to watch.  In some ways, it almost acts like Asmodeus’s extra faces from Helluva Boss, mimicking Alastor’s emotions.  But then other times it acts semi-separately.  Is the shadow thing supposed to be Alastor’s unfiltered id behind his veneer?

(You can actually kind of see a non-psychotic deer form for Alastor when the camera bugs out when Vaggie is trying to video him.  That looks like a deer to everyone else too, right?)

When Alastor has his “this face was made for radio” freakout, he’s missing the X in the middle of his forehead that he always has later, which is just an interesting detail to note.

I also feel like “who or what you are” is something that could come up later on.  We know that Alastor is an aberration in Hell, having powers at levels never before seen from a Sinner.  Either his deal goes back farther than I was suspecting or else he’s been very not-usual from the start.

I feel like what Alastor does here with Vaggie is the first (or second if the pilot is cannon) step along a long road to desensitization.  We make him see two deals in the current timeline in the show – once to not have to fuss with the TV ever again, once for a favor where Charlie “harms no one.” 

He seems to be getting them used to making little, insignificant (or maybe significant, depending on his favor – it was very specifically worded) deals with him.  Like when you try to get close to a stray animal so inch your way towards it one step at a time.  Though in this case Alastor would probably do the biting…

I also feel like it’s very telling that Alastor didn’t bother to offer to do his whole set/costumes/crew thing when Vaggie first asked for help with the commercial.  Only when helping with the commercial was in some way beneficial to him.

Are these dude’s Alastor summons a couple of times other Sinners, or are they just fake, temporary creatures?  Does that mean that Alastor is controlling them or are they equipped with some sort of rudimentary AI that lets them perform the tasks he’s set to them?  If they are other Sinners, Husk and Niffty are out of uniform.  If they aren’t, Angel can probably keep the one he hits on later as a fancy sex toy without many moral implications.

(Alastor should give up being the Radio Demon and give Velvette a run for her money in the fashion industry.  Angel and Vaggie’s outfits in particular are *chef’s kiss*)

I hope Alastor’s closed captions staff are better than Amazon’s, though. 

Also, at some point during the flash back to the hotel, Adam has finished his pile of ribs.  I don’t know how if he never shuts up enough to let someone else get a word in edgewise.

Adam and Lute start talking about the Exterminations, and Lute mentions that she “got a good 275 this year.”  (We’ll be coming back to that number later, by the way.)

Adam seems impressed by this, telling her that was “bad-ass” and giving her a fist bump.  While calling her “danger tits.”  Lute does not, in fact, punch Adam in the face for this.  Again here Lute seems totally on board with Adam’s… Adam-ness.

She seems like some of the girls that I’ve known from school, work, etc that go out clubbing and actually will give the time of day to the guys who wear sunglasses inside and think that negging is a successful way to get women’s attention.  Lute, you are encouraging bad behavior!

But that’s not surprising since Lute is quickly revealed to be a zealot, a fanatic, an extremist. 

She hasn’t just drank the Kool-Aid, she was pouring the fruit punch flavored powder mix into the pitchers for other people to add the water to. 

(Is this because if you, personally, catch an angel making one you de-angel-ify them?

Her belief system is carved in stone, and unfortunately for Charlie and all of Hell that belief system is that Sinners double-dying is not only an acceptable thing but an excellent thing.

Lute does reveal something here that has the potential to become important later: that Lucifer made some kind of arrangement that spares the Hellborn from the exorcisms. 

Vivziepop’s other show “Helluva Boss” focuses a lot more on the Hellborn than Hazbin Hotel does (obviously, with Hazbin being focused on the redemption of Sinners.)

The Hellborn that we see/know/spend time with in Hazbin are going to include: Charlie, Keekee, Razzle, Dazzle, the Egg Boys, Fat Nuggets, and that’s pretty much it.  Everyone else aside from background characters in Hazbin – I may have missed one or two – is an open target.  I guess maybe fallen angels must also be exempt since no one is trying to go after Lucifer himself.

Lute’s words do seem to upset Charlie a bit.  “How little you matter,” she said, and it looked like a hit to Charlie’s battleship.  Which I know Charlie is a bouncy blonde ball of daddy issues at this point, but it really seems like the opposite, doesn’t it?  Like she – and the other Hellborn – were being protected.  Is Charlie upset that the exorcists aren’t coming after her because they can’t, so they don’t really care about (killing) her?  Maybe that’s just Charlie’s guilt for being exempt?

Charlie tries to explain her plans to Adam and Lute, but by this point we all know that she’s not going to succeed, right?  At least her crayon drawings are kind of cute.

“Hell is Forever” sounds like one of the songs that the youth pastors I grew up having to go hang out with every other week (divorced parents, split custody) used to make religion cool to the youngsters. 

Very Skillet, Fireflight, etc.  This ain’t your grandpappy’s religion – except the whole eternal damnation part.  Except I’m pretty sure they would have censored some of the “fucks” to let us have this one.

Adam kind of cuts through all of the divine judgement propaganda to get to the heart of things in the second verse.  This isn’t even about population control or final death or any of that – he and his exterminators just enjoy it.

 Since we find out later that no one else knows about the exterminations, I imagine that the exterminators have to be – up to a certain point, at least – on their best behavior in Heaven.  This kind of makes Extermination Day a bit like “The Purge” for exorcists. 

One day to go nuts and get it all out of their systems.  Frankly, it might be a little bit dangerous for Heaven to stop the extermination; after several thousands of years of having that release valve, if it was suddenly taken away that pressure could go pretty kaboom – and Sera won’t let that kaboom happen anywhere near her Winners.

(Charlie is right.  Where did all of these backup singers come from?  They’re gold, not full monochrome like Lute, so they’re probably not real exorcists they yanked into the meeting room from the lobby.  Adam must have a “give me a posse” button in the Heaven version of the meeting room.)

Adam’s big reveal comes right at the end of the song.  They’re moving the next Extermination Day up to six months instead of a year out.

Who approved this plan?  Did Sera sign off on this?  This seems like really bad population control practice.  The exterminations seem to already be getting worse and worse (Carmilla Carmine says specifically that this most recent extermination was brutal, with approximately 15% of the Sinner population being wiped out.) 

If they increase the pace and severity of exterminations, that’s almost a third of the population each year.

I stopped going to church a long time ago, but that number seems interesting…

Revelation 9:15: “And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind.”

Revelation 9:18: “By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.”

This may not mean anything.

(We'll pick up in Episode 1, Part 4 due to Tumblr's 30 images-per-post limit.)

[mxthbladed]

[[ anyway, to distract me, who wants to plot a ship ]]

[pxrifiedmxniac]

Now there's a possibility that Ryuko and Vaggie's kid may be exposed to both of their nerdy interests.

[flxshy]

@cast-you-dxwn ( x )

“You are very cryptic and not at all comforting.” 

She comments about his words, her one eye staring him down as if his words weren’t about to haunt her very existence for the foreseeable future. 

It was bad enough that she had to worry about heaven now, even worse now that she had to worry about her girlfriend’s uncle coming down on the side of heaven another time, with an unknown date at that. 

It made her want to pull her hair out. 

“I think its a fucking nightmare, for the father to allow this to happen, and then restarting by making you kill your brother. How can you be so calm about this?”