#HE CANNOT BE DISCOUNT DOCTOR FACILIER but im completely fine with him being bargain bin skull knight
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
the-girl-who-didnt-smile · 1 month ago
Text
Tumblr media
Baron de la Mort
Here is my take on a “Baron Samedi”-type Hazbin Hotel character (take two)
His name is often shortened to “The Baron” or simply “Baron”. In terms of character design, this is just a rough draft.
This doesn’t even begin to look like the art style of the show! Jesus Christ…
The previous, scrapped concept was deeply offensive, on many different levels. In a nutshell, I erred in taking Denise Alvarado, Randy P. Conner, and Wikipedia as reliable sources for Haitian Vodou. I’m that fucking stupid! It was also a mistake for me to include a reference to Sosyete Nago, given the recent controversy. The reason I have not just deleted it is because it illustrates exactly what not to do, and mistakes are a learning experience.
Baron Samedi is one of the most misrepresented lwa in popular media, which I previously discussed here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54861145/chapters/150245212 
Tumblr media
To correct past mistakes, I attempted to style him after Andre D. Pierre’s portrayal of Baron Samedi, with some deliberate changes. This is why he smokes cigars, and in his human form he wears sunglasses (although, his sunglasses are styled after Gustavo Fring)
Tumblr media
Andre Pierre painted this incredible mural of the lwa, and I genuinely think Baron Samedi is the single most stylish man in this entire pantheon. I’m a little sad that his immaculate, anime-esque facial hair never made it into the public consciousness… 
Tumblr media
In all seriousness, I actually think one of the coolest things about Pierre’s rendition is how he depicts Baron Samedi carrying scales, because he’s the Supreme Judge over the human soul. That’s so fucking cool!
My brain is so rotten on One Piece, I just immediately connect him to the Holy Knights and Peak Stylish One Piece Man: Impel Down Crocoboy
Tumblr media
This is how this man dressed in prison!
Funny story… Baron is actually supposed to be Donquixote Doflamingo. 
Tumblr media
Because I am insane, I genuinely think Doflamingo is the only One Piece man who has better drip than Crocoboy.
His drip is so horrible, ugly, and evil, just like everything else about Sir D. Onquixote D. Oflamingo
He is the most evil drag king who will ever fucking live.
This guy is not nearly as evil as Doffyboy, but this is why he always wears sunglasses… he for sure has a second pair of sunglasses underneath his sunglasses… Lanmò is supposed to be Bellamy… Lavi is supposed to be Monet...
At that, this is actually the reason for the inclusion of Lanmò and Lavi. TAKE ONE PIECE FOR EXA– So you know how Baroque Works was introduced before Crocoboy, and Bellamy was introduced before Tanjiahdo Lofulamingo Sama. If you put a ‘boss’ character into a story, you have to give him henchmen and introduce the henchmen, otherwise the bossman doesn’t seem cool… There’s a sequence to things. Lanmò and Lavi demo ‘henchmen’ types characters you would give this guy.
Anyways, you know how Doflamingo - ugliest man in all of One Piece - is WAY stronger than Crocodile (the Suna Suna no Mi is complete dogwater) but plagiarizes the shit out of his look… This other guy is stealing Doflamingo’s look. This is why elements of Dofla D. Mingo and Croco D. Boy are both present in his design.
So “Baron of the Dead” was just a placeholder name. That name sounds so bad. I decided to give him the name “Baron de la Mort”, which is also kind of a stupid name. He and “Maman de la Vie” break the Jojo-ass naming scheme to signify their unique importance, as the gods of the dead.
He is not actually Baron Samedi, but a human from another universe. In the universe he comes from, there exists something like Baron Samedi. In fact, this is actually how you reveal the identities of THE GODS themselves, through the backstory of THE GOD OF DEATH! The added element of them being from another universe just makes it more fun, because you can make them human souls from any time period and alternate history imaginable - including the future!
The backstory for “Baron de la Mort” is described here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55065466/chapters/151062802  
Here, it is crucial not to collapse his moral complexity. He cannot be described as “pure evil” or “a hero”; for his extraordinary ruthlessness and moral neutrality, he was the perfect candidate to become Mortality itself.
I genuinely think this makes for a very interesting fictional character; however, the subject matter must be handled with the utmost maturity. Hazbin Hotel is not exactly a show known for its maturity… If he were ever to appear in a show like Hazbin Hotel, this aspect of his backstory should only be implied, and not addressed directly. If a flashback is shown, it should not involve his criminal history, but his relationship with his son, who came out as homosexual to him.
This is a key part of his past human life. He is designed to contrast with Moxxie and Angel Dust’s fathers, in that he did not reject his son and loved him unconditionally. Unlike his wife, his son’s soul was not used to create a god. He doesn’t remember him, but on some level he misses him.
Recently, I watched the documentary Des Hommes et Dieux (2002) [Vimeo] [Kanopy]. One of the things that really moved me was the parents in this documentary, who didn’t reject their children. This is in part because of their religious beliefs - that they were born that way to serve the lwa. It’s remarkable… Haiti - the nation that did the right thing, and paid the price for it - is one of the most impoverished places on the Earth, and yet there’s this side that’s accepting of this. The culture I grew up in is WAY more affluent, but there’s no equivalent to Vodou; homosexuals and transgender people were just hated, “better off dead”... 
In terms of media representation, it is important not just to show characters who are themselves LGBT, but the parents of those characters. Importantly, this representation cannot just be superficial (e.g., the “lesbian” or “gay parent” background characters, who have no speaking lines and are easily censored) You have to actually show how did these parents grapple with this reveal? How did they handle the shock of it, and why didn’t they reject their children? This matters because it might be able to change the minds of some parents in the real world. Family rejection has a huge, negative impact on LGBT children, and several minority communities are disproportionately affected by this trend. Intersectional representation is scarce, and often feels inauthentic - especially when a creator takes characters who were clearly originally planned to be white, racebends them, and doesn’t account for cultural differences. This would be a unique opportunity to show this side of Haitian culture, in an authentic way.
What I had actually envisioned for this character is a darker spin-off of Hazbin Hotel - a story that takes place in its world and expands on Earth and the afterlife. He is best utilized there. Barring this, he still makes for a fun character as the “grim patriarch” over a motley crew of henchmen / “capricious children”. In terms of personality, he’s supposed to be a cross between Gomez Addams and Gustavo Fring.
This aspect of his character was inspired by Donald Cosentino’s Sacred Arts, in which he characterizes Baron Samedi like so: 
“Bawon Samdi is a family man, presiding over a whole clan of related spirits who bear a startling collective resemblance to the Addams family…There is, for instance, Bawon Lakwa, the imbecilic brother who keeps the cemetery grounds, and Gran Brijit, the ghoulish, red-eyed wife, and the wise Bawon Simitye. But it is their capricious children, known collectively as the Gedes, who are the truly beloved of the Bawon’s family. As sacred children, the Gedes merge with the other dead, and the other lwa, to form the holy trinity of Vodou. Everyone seems to love the Gedes, for in linking the cemetery to the phallus, they celebrate our common sexual victory over death.”
SOURCE: Cosentino, Donald. Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. United States, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1995. p. 405 https://archive.org/details/sacredartsofhait0000unse/page/404/mode/2up? 
If Milo Marcelin’s Mythologie Vodou, Vol. II is to be believed, Baron Samedi really does have this band of “capricious children” following him around. This is a scary ass lwa, described as The Supreme Judge over the Earth and The Lord over the Dead, who bewitches people and turns them into zombies, also has a bunch of kids with these hilariously clashing personalities, who sing funny songs where they call Baron Samedi “papa”... Not to mention that several of them may or may not be gender non-conforming / non-heterosexual… I think that’s fun!
Didn’t you love Baroque Works?
Baroque Works was so fun… it was literally just:
Tumblr media
The Donquixote pirates were even better. 
Just:
Tumblr media
Several aspects of Baron are actually inspired by Don Corleone, but it’s a mistake to make him visually resemble the Godfather, as it makes him look too much like Francois Duvalier. This is why I think he should adopt a Victorian era-esque style - to make it obvious he is not “Papa Doc”. It is also why he should not speak in a nasally voice; I was picturing him with a super deep voice, or an effect layered over his voice. He needs to have a distinct and intimidating voice. Ideally, he is voiced by a Haitian voice actor.
(in the Japanese dub I was totally picturing him sounding like Ryūzaburō Ōtomo)
To summarize his powers (his stats are not changed):
He is the Grim Reaper of Hazbin Hotel; he is tasked with escorting human souls to Heaven or Hell (your ass probably didn’t get into Heaven…you’re probably going to Hell)
He exerts pure Death Anxiety on humans, making him appear Scarier than is visually conveyed… (I know my art is bad! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!)
Like all other Loa, he can possess humans and communicate with them through their dreams; he can be petitioned to bewitch another human and/or give them horrifying nightmares.
He alone has the power to create zombies; all zombies are created through him, in some way.
His black-colored magic is Death itself; a human does not die until he kills them; he can be petitioned to postpone a human’s death.
His signature move is where he rips apart a human soul but slows down time while he’s doing it, so the person experiences torture forever (this attack looks WAY COOL but it’s not very strong… four-dimensional confetti is a lot stronger than this…) This is extremely easy for him to do; he can make millions of these without breaking a sweat.
He has the highest Attack Power of any god; this means he can kill everything in a given universe, in an instant.
When he fuses with his wife, she basically gives him infinite Healing. They become the most powerful thing underneath uppercase God.
If somehow figure out a way to kill his unkillable wife, he goes BERSERK where he gains the power to do things that are completely impossible, at the cost of all his Battle IQ
Although he is forced to assume a human form, he shapeshifts to look like a skeleton when carrying out his duties as the undertaker. When he does this, his sunglasses become his eye sockets, the skull painted on his face becomes an actual skull, and the rings on his fingers become bones. He wears a small black cross, which is not inverted, and black gloves to hide his Scary Skeleton Hands. 
To be honest, there are a lot of Scary Skeleton Men who look Scarier than this, but I think his powers are Scary as fuck. If this was something you could encounter in the real world, I would just about shit my pants!
In two regards, I may or may have massively played myself. 
Firstly, I previously assumed that God (Hazin Hotel) exists, but it dawned on me that we’ve never actually seen God. Walk with me here, but what if God doesn’t actually exist, and it’s just a conspiracy made up by the angels in Heaven? In which case… Bon Dieu isn’t actually God. He’s just this horrifying Eldritch Abomination who created The Boys, then fucked off into hyperspace (or, hyper-hyperspace) I guess! …Can you see why it’s a problem to call them “Baron Samedi” “Papa Legba” etc…?
Actually, this is not that big of a deal. It’s kind of funny if “Bon Dieu” is this just Bill Cipher-ass, super-powered Abomination.
But secondly, I think it is likely that “Double Hell” exists. EXPLAIN YOURSELF. Well, I think it is likely that there’s some other zone(s) outside of Heaven and Hell, because of the existence of Roo. They’ve shown the various Rings of Hell in Helluva Boss, but Roo does not seem to be in any of them. So where is she? In Dante’s Inferno, there are actually more than seven Circles to Hell; perhaps there are secret levels to Hell, and Roo is in one of the secret levels. Another possibility is that she dwells in a zone outside of Hell proper! Then you have to consider the fate of the souls destroyed by the Exterminators. What happens to those souls? What happens to souls that have been ripped apart? I think it’s doubtful that they merely cease to exist. Otherwise, there would probably be many people seeking out this “exit” from whatever horrors they are experiencing under a Soul Deal with a Demon Overlord. The more likely answer seems to be “Double Hell”... which probably isn’t called “Double Hell”, but it’s existence is implied in the pilot. Basically, instead of respawning in the Pride Ring, you respawn here, and this is just torture for eternity. Something like every cell in your body burns forever… Real Hell, if you will. If I had to guess, I think this might be where Roo dwells, and she somehow feeds off of torturing these souls forever… that would be SICK!
If this turns out to be even partially true, I think this ROCKS I’m down, but it does completely undermine the concept of the Real Hell attack... The Real Hell is way less cool if Double Hell exists. However, I still think it’s a little cool in that it’s more ancient than even Double Hell. Charlie is such a sweet girl that if Double Hell exists, she might make it her mission (and succeed) to free all the souls from “Double Hell”.  So I guess a cool thing about Real Hell is that nobody ever gets out of it. Baron is the only thing that can free a human soul from this torture, and he never does. He never goes back on his decision.
I thought about changing his powerset, but no… the mental image of Gustavo D. Fring going BERSERK is so goddamn funny to me. This guy is so fucking smart too! But no… Santa Claus and Nina Simone are smarter than him… 
In the Santa Claus v. Gomez Addams/Morticia Addams showdown, it is actually a very close fight. So you’re thinking to yourself “How does Santa Claus kill the Dyad with INFINITE ATTACK and INFINITE HEALS?” Basically, if he blows up the entire multiverse, there is no more space for anything to exist but himself. This is how he fucking wins… there is a 50% chance Mr. and Mrs. Corleone win, but a 49% chance Louis Armstrong (underdog) wins instead… 
The one thing I did tweak is the impossible battle scenario between him and his wife. I think it’s kind of pointless for purple-colored magic to destroy black-colored magic; rather, it’s that the two cannot harm each other. Life cannot kill Death; Death cannot kill Life. So basically they are just locked in an infinite stalemate. But if he was fighting someone other than his wife who somehow has purple-colored magic, he does win solely because he has the Berserk mode. He’s a bit of a Stu in this regard… It takes him forever to figure out the condition that triggers it, making this one of the most boring fights imaginable.
He is sometimes seen carrying a staff, which was visually inspired by the In Extremis display at the UCLA Fowler Museum. The staff would look unsettling if it existed in real life. As it is not made out of materials that exist in the real world, it falls into the uncanny valley of “organic vs. inorganic”. The black portion of the staff is supposed to resemble a human aorta.  
Also inspired the In Extremis display, “Baron de la Mort” and “Maman de la Vie” are figured as skeletons, while “Lanmò” and “Lavi” (demons who sold their souls to them) are rotten flesh. It should be immediately visually obvious that former pair are “the boss” and the latter pair are “the underlings”. 
In addition to Baron Samedi, “Baron de la Mort” is also inspired by a “Devil” figure who appears in American folklore. There is a very fun theory that this “Devil” is actually Baron Samedi. I do not know if it is true (it could turn out to be bullshit), but I think it makes for a fun story in a fictional setting. This is why he has a minor black cat motif, as this “Devil” is associated with black cats. He is occasionally seen holding a black cat Godfather-style, to contrast with “Big Papa”’s dog motif.
See also: Jacobsen, K. (Nov. 1, 2002). The Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Volume 36, Issue 1: https://southernlit.org/volume-36-issue-one-fall-2002/ 
Selling your soul to “The Devil” is a big thing in American folklore, which is why a human can sell their soul to “Baron de la Mort”. Unlike “Big Papa”, Baron is not much of a Dealmaker. He does not seek out humans to make contracts with; they seek out him. This is very rare, as only the most desperate humans (living or dead) ever seek him out. His soul deals are extremely brutal - some of the worst to enter. Unlike “Big Papa” he also makes deals with souls in the afterlife, as he moves freely between the realms of the living and dead. (Papa is powerful enough to do this too, he’s just not interested in it)
Baron is also sometimes seen carrying scales, but he’s technically not the Judge. He does not decide who goes to Heaven or Hell, but he is the Supreme Executive Authority. Because he wields Executive Power, he can override the decision on a human’s final destination. For this reason, he is extremely powerful, outranking the Archangels in Heaven and the Seven Deadly Sins.
He rarely exercises this power, as he has so little regard for human lives.  If he abused his Executive Authority, he would have been removed from his post. On rare occasion, he overrides the decision and adopts human souls into his personal domain - a third option outside of Heaven or Hell, called “The Underworld”. 
Previously, I defined a set of criteria to join the Underworld. Baron de la Mort is a lot more elusive about his criteria. It seems to be something he does on a whim, and appears to happen pretty randomly. 
The real reason for this is because, in his past human life, he had a large family of several children and grandchildren. Upon becoming a god, he lost his memories of his past human life, but he occasionally gets glimpses of it in a process similar to dreaming. He cannot clearly remember this, but on some level he misses his children. 
The irony here, is that unlike SOME OTHER PEOPLE IN THE ROOM this guy is actually a good father figure. This serves to humanize him, and make him more fun (Don’t you love Gomez Addams??)
He is designed to contrast with “Big Papa”. “Big Papa” is inspired by Papa Legba of New Orleans Voodoo; “Baron de la Mort” is inspired by Baron Samedi of Haitian Vodou. In spite of his name, “Big Papa” is not a good father figure; “Baron de la Mort” actually is. “Big Papa” is the only one who doesn’t have a spouse/ex-spouse; “Baron de la Mort” and “Maman de la Vie” are the only two who were married, not just in their present lives as gods, but their past lives as humans. They are also the only two who have children (adopted, as they are not allowed to conceive another Loa). 
On the subject of “Port-au-Prince”... this is a character I designed to be the adoptive son of Baron de la Mort (I need to rewrite his bio at some point…). He was originally designed to resemble Guede Nibo, as portrayed by Andre Pierre. However, this was a misguided decision, as Andre Pierre himself took offense to the notion that Guede Nibo is gay.
Having pondered this, I think the most respectful course of action is to eliminate the association between “Port-au-Prince” and Guede Nibo. If you look at his character design, “Port-au-Prince” really doesn’t look like Guede Nibo. Sure, they both wear purple, but he just looks like a cartoon twink version of Prince, the singer. “Port-au-Prince” is so early in development, I didn’t even draw a full body image of him. I’ve decided to scrap any association between him and Guede Nibo, to avoid making him physically resemble Guede Nibo, or equate the two on any level.
Rather than being a tribute to Andre Pierre’s artwork, he is now a tribute to Milo Marcelin’s Mythologie Vodou, in which Marcelin describes how Baron Samedi has many “children”. “Port-au-Prince” is just one of these children. In fact, he is actually the youngest one, as he is the one who was adopted most recently. For this reason, he is the least powerful one, but he is still a lot more powerful than the average angel or demon. The Hazbin Hotel version of Guede Nibo would be his older brother - the most powerful of his siblings. However, this character would not receive as much focus as “Port-au-Prince” himself, who receives the spotlight because he has some sort of connection to Angel Dust. 
Presently, I figured “Port-au-Prince” as a Haitian American. He was born to a Haitian mother - a sex worker - in New York. Because he physically resembled his father - who abused and abandoned his mother - she was cruel to him from the earliest age. She and her boyfriends abused him throughout his childhood. Their relationship was so sour, that he ran away from home during high school. He was taken in by a gang, who got him hooked on crack. As he experienced homophobic bullying as a small child, he was closeted his entire life. He died violently, at a young age. 
He was supposed to go to Hell, where he would have become Angel Dust 2.0, but Baron de la Mort decides to adopt him instead. For this reason, he is far more well-adjusted than Angel Dust. Because these two have very similar interests and personalities, they would get along swimmingly, but Angel Dust would probably feel intense jealousy and grief upon seeing his loving family.
This is the direction I decided to go in, but I can see how this could still be taken the wrong way, especially given my track record… If deemed controversial, another option is to remove his drag persona (or, make her a different character from him) and leave his sexuality open to interpretation. In terms of media representation, it is also important to show cisgender heterosexuals who are not traditionally masculine / feminine, and have gay or trans friends. In this alternate scenario, he would have several friends in the LGBT community, but his own sexual orientation would be unconfirmed. 
I might change his backstory to make him Haitian - not Haitian American. The reason he is Haitian American is to establish a parallel between him and Angel Dust, who is also from New York. I think it also makes for an interesting contrast with him and Lanmò, who was born in Haiti, but grew up on the West Coast. These make for interesting settings, but I might make changes to his (and possibly Lanmò and/or Lavi’s) place of birth / growing up.
Baron de la Mort’s special move is still The Black Hole of Torture, but the attack is called Judgment now. It’s the same attack, but he’s classy about it. 
I associate him with black holes because I FUCKING LOVE THE BLACK HOLE MULTIVERSE THEORY!!!
…It’s actually called Schwarzschild cosmology.
I just love that this is a real theory that scientists genuinely think might be our reality. Our universe is inside a black hole and the black holes inside our universe are portals to other universes. That would be SO NUTS!!!
Imagine this: You fall into a Black Hole, get spaghettified, wind up in the fictional One Punch Man universe, millimeters away from Saitama’s fist. That would suck balls…
So I put this into my fanfiction, but I implemented it in the dumbest most pop science way ever. This is an aspect I am probably going to change, as it places an unnecessary constraint on the creativity of this story. I’m probably going to revise this so it just conforms to Michio Kaku’s conceptualization of the multiverse.
Doesn’t this piss you off, though?
On top of everything else about Big Papa, he’s the character you introduce multiverse bullshit through.
BOOOOO!!!!! 🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅 MULTIVERSE PEAKED WITH MILES MORALES!!!!!!
…I imagine Vivziepop has zero plans to canonize the Hazbin Hotel multiverse. At this point, the world at large is experiencing Multiverse fatigue. But because I am terrible, I genuinely think this would be a fun way to implement the multiverse.
CANON ALASTORIA
CANON ALASTOR 2P
Tumblr media
THINK IT OVER VIVIENNE!!!!!!
…And now to address a serious topic. MAN is this Wikipedia article bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Vodou_and_sexual_orientation 
Zora Neale Hurston was correct in identifying the Gede spirits with the Black peasantry of Haiti, but she was incorrect in describing Gede as the only lwa indigenous to Haiti, and assuming that he has no African counterpart. The name Gede is derived from “Gede”, a vodún from the Dahomean pantheon.
See: Herskovits, Melville Jean, and Frances Shapiro Herskovits. Dahomean narrative: a cross-cultural analysis. Vol. 1. Northwestern University Press, 1998, p. 124
https://archive.org/details/hersokovits-dahomean/page/n189/mode/2up?q=gede
The Gedevi were the original inhabitants of the Abomey plateau who were imperialized by the Aja-Fon kingdom of Dahomey. They became something akin to an “untouchable” class, subjugated at the bottom of the social hierarchy, and enslaved circa 1625-1724:
“The Gede reflect the abject in that their experience reflects the worst of the Dahomian conquest, capture, and sale; the Middle Passage; and the stigma and torture of Saint-Domingue. The Gede Rite is suited to the traumas of economic globalization, including the plight of boat people and disposable migrants, separation from family in diasporas, and the ordeals of sex work in the sexual economy.”
SOURCE: Hebblethwaite, Benjamin. A transatlantic history of Haitian Vodou: rasin figuier, rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2021.
In other words, the Gede are so closely associated with the oppressed race/class of Haiti, their history can be traced back to the original oppressed ethnic group from before the Transatlantic slave trade.  
It’s really fucked up that this category of spirits has been twisted by white people to fit into the international LGBT agenda. The Wikipedia article is a prime example of this. I’m saying this, as someone who is both queer and transgender. I already said this, but shit like this fuels animosity against the LGBT community. It doesn’t help but harms “the LGBT community” native to Haiti - which is not called that, but “La Communauté M”. 
I have previously misrepresented “LGBT inclusion” in Haitian Vodou. Normally when this subject comes up, it’s about the inclusion of white people, not Haitians themselves (see: Randy P. Conner). It’s fucked up! I have attempted to correct this by focusing my research on “La Communauté M” - not the white LGBT community - but it is possible misrepresentations are still present.
This is why you have to be very careful in attempting to work LGBT themes that involve Haitian Vodou. DON’T DO WHAT I DID!!! It is also why this concept still might be misguided. The best approach might be to eliminate these characters entirely.
Haitian Vodou - sacred to the Haitian people - has been appropriated to Hell and back, to the point that a bastardized version of it is frequently passed off as “New Orleans Voodoo”. Popular media influences what people do in the real world. Images from American Horror Story still pop up when you search Google for “Papa Legba”. Hazbin Hotel has fans of all races, but it still has a majority white audience. If the lwa are haphazardly put into this story, it could directly contribute to people appropriating and disrespecting the culture. 
The purpose of Baron de la Mort’s backstory is to deal with a mature subject matter - the historical factors that led to the current crisis in Haiti. Why is Haiti - the first nation to permanently ban slavery - on the brink of government collapse? It says a lot about the world at large, doesn’t it? This is something that could be addressed in a darker, more mature spin-off series (one that does necessarily have to be a cartoon). Even in a light-hearted series, this character could be used as part of a donation effort to Haiti and/or Haitian refugees. On the other hand, it might be a mistake to include this character at all. Unless you radically change his appearance, people are inevitably going to think he’s supposed to be Francois Duvalier… it’s just so easy to slip and make this guy offensive.
Another option is to replace ‘Baron de le Mort’ with a character inspired by Grand Zombi. Grand Zombi was associated with death (“Li grand Zombi qui fé muri”) and was one of the most important Spirits of Louisiana Voudou. The lyrics of a song sung for him went:
“L’appe vini, li grand Zombi, pou fé mouri, pou fé gri-gri!” 
SOURCE: Anderson, Jeffrey E.. Voodoo: An African American Religion. United States, LSU Press, 2024.
These are all factors to consider. 
(as a daily reminder, I am in fact crazy enough to think about “what if my ORIGINAL CHARACTER DO NOT STEALS were in the canon of Hazbin Hotel”... it’s just a really fun hypothetical, I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!)
1 note · View note