#and the fact that stolas is still the only one who genuinely laughs at blitz's jokes is just...so good...

[mentalmeles]

That episode was SO lovely. I really wish that I had something akin to this series when I was younger TTATT

[ohmyglobwhatthefrickamievendoing]

Blitz is gonna fall stupidly in love, isn't he?

He knows what it's like to have Stolas be in danger, to have a gun pointed straight at him and to be seconds away from death.

He knows what it's like to see Stolas in his full form, how terrifying and monstrous he really is, all in the defence of Blitz

He knows how much it hurts when he thinks Stolas is ashamed of him, when he thinks the only thing Stolas wants from him is sex

He knows how happy it makes him when Stolas laughs at his jokes, when he's the only person who laughs at his jokes

He knows how much it affects him when Stolas is upset, sad and scared (about Octavia being alone in the human realm)

He knows how angry he becomes when he finds out Stolas is in genuine danger

And how terrifying the realisation that Stolas could get hurt, could get killed, is

He knows how much he actually likes the time he spends with Stolas even when it's because of the deal

It's easy. And the way Blitz sees it Stolas is safe because as long as Blitz shows him a good time then no matter how crude he is, how much of an asshole he is, how much he uses Stolas for his own gain (the same way Stolas uses him) Stolas will still stay because it's not like Blitz could actually hurt Stolas, right?

And NOW Blitz has been confronted with the facts, he realises that;

• Even with a way to break off the deal, he doesn't want to leave. He doesn't want Stolas to toss him out. Striker's words about rich, pompous Goetias did get to Blitz but he was still willing to beg as long as Stolas let him stay

• He thinks it's not possible for someone like Stolas to love someone like Blitz, and how that's blatantly not true because Stolas does love him and does care for him. That all the times Stolas acted as such prior to this only for Blitz to dismiss it as being part of Stolas's "kink for the lower class" were all genuine attempts by Stolas to get closer to Blitz, to share time with him

• He was hurt by Stolas's actions and words at the beginning of their deal (even if Stolas did & said the majority of those things because he was inexperienced, repressed and taking cues on how to proceed with this from Blitz himself, those actions still hurt Blitz and lead to him feeling like he was lesser, and that matters) and even after Stolas started being more genuine with Blitz, that hurt stayed festering within him until it got the chance to explode out

• He has the ability to hurt Stolas in unimaginable ways the same way Stolas has the ability to hurt him. He has always had the ability to hurt Stolas, and the same way Stolas has unintentionally hurt him throughout their deal, Blitz has been hurting Stolas this whole time. Except now, Stolas has realised what he has done and took the steps to start making amends, to start fixing it. But Blitz only just realised it at this very moment - that all this time, he had the power to break Stolas, to push him too far, that Stolas even had a limit he could be pushed to in the first place. And Blitz did all that and that hurts Blitz. Making Stolas cry hurts Blitz. And he does try to reach out, he does try to fix it the second he realises he has hurt Stolas (something that is as terrifying and painful as it was the the first time he realised Stolas could be hurt) but he has finally, finally pushed too far and he's sent out

• He has finally lost Stolas, and now he gets to experience what it's like to not have him. What it's like to lose Stolas, who has become a safety net to Blitz, one of the only people who wouldn't leave him no matter what he did. What it's like to live a life (however briefly) without Stolas's presence (even if that presence was sometimes only in the peripheral).

After all that, don't you think Blitz is going to be madly in love? After all those realisations consecutively sucker punched him in the face, you don't think he's gonna come out on the other side with the additional realisation that he's in love with this pompous, rich asshole? Not only that but he likes him, is fond of him, misses him. That it hurts to hurt him. That seeing him cry hurts. That being unable to protect him hurts. He's gonna come out with the realisation that he loves making Stolas laugh at his stupid jokes, and that he'd never let Stolas be defenceless again, that he'd put himself between Stolas and any danger that threatens him.

That at some point Blitz is going to look at Stolas and see the most beautiful thing in existence

[aquaburst3]

As I mentioned a few times now, I just watched all of the available episodes of Helluva Boss as research for an original writing project. What are my thoughts on it? Well...

The Good:

The premise of this show is solid. Imps having a murder business where they take out targets in the human world? Sign me up. (Hell, the elevator pitch for this show alone is so cool, but botched that it inspired me.)

The show is genuinely hilarious. Some of the jokes made me laugh hard like the one where Stolas says that Striker wants to suck his own dick for having a giant statue of himself or Blitz saying "Daddy likey dummy" to the agents.

Ozzie and Fizz's relationship is entertaining and oddly wholesome.

I'm impressed about the celebrity voice talent on the show, including the VAs for Zim and Jafar and even fucking Kesha.

All of the voice actors are doing a fantastic job.

Striker is a fantastic villain and a great foil to Blitz.

A lot of the major characters minus Stolas and all of the female ones are solid. Blitz and Fizz are my favs.

The soundtrack slaps.

The Bad:

This show suffers from a lack of narrative focus. The show's more interested in shoving in shiny new plot points in our faces over developing what they already have.

The show shifted away from the main premise and is now only interested in the Stolas/Blitz relationship, which is toxic nor very good. There isn't a proper major plot line anymore. Things just...happen. Only 4 out of the 15 canon episodes are about IMP doing their fucking jobs.

There is a lack of narrative consistency. Characters will frequently have something bad happen to them in one episode, and go on like nothing happened in the next. The only time it sometimes does address this is by blink and you'll miss it text messages. Which is jarring in a serialized show like this. It's so bad that I thought I missed an episode a few times, when nope, that's the next episode.

The show is way too fast paced. Major plot lines that should've lasted a season are solved in a couple episodes like Fizz and Blitz's beef.

The female characters are all underdeveloped and utilized. (I also find it funny how Fizz is more complex and fleshed out as character than Millie despite being only in a few episodes.)

In Season 2, characters are turned into idiots for the sake of the plot like when Blitz forgot that Heavenly Steel can hurt Stolas, and Ozzie forgetting that he can just teleport to where Crimson is at and just kill him.

Vizi frequently drops random facts about the characters on Twitter or music videos instead of the actual fucking show.

The show genuinely feels like Vizi has no plan and is making shit up as she goes.

The Ugly:

Stolas is one of the most annoying and infuriating characters that I've ever come across. He starts out almost as a villain or a morally grey figure at least. That is slowly disappears in favour of making him a uwu sadboi who can do no wrong and never held accountable for his fucked up actions.

Instead of treating the affair subplot with any nuance, it's a completely black and white issue.

Stella is also transformed into a cartoonishly evil and abusive bitch just to excuse Stolas' actions and make him justified. As someone who has a friend who had her ex-fiance cheat on her and is still dealing with the aftermath, that infuriates me.

Stolas and Blitz's relationship is super toxic. It's sexual coercion, since Stolas is using his position of power over Blitz to get sexual favours out of him. But it's treated like a prince and the pauper style romance by the narrative, and Vizi wants us to see them as destined star crossed lovers.

It suffers from double standards and hypocritical writing. Dark subject matter is treated as morally abhorrent in one case, but then in another instance it's a joke. (Like how male abuse as being treated something terrible when it's happening to Stolas, but then adds in a bit where they mock Moxxie for being assaulted by girls and that is meant to be funny.)

Over all, this series is disappointing and wasted potential. Season 1 is flawed, but enjoyable while season 2 just sucks. Hazbin Hotel blows it out of the water, at least for now. (I have the hunch the same issues might pop up in that one as well.) I'll watch the odd new episode out of curiosity, but not religiously. Which is ashame since the original premise is so strong. However, I would love to read a fix-it rewrite fic of it on AO3, because the idea has potential.

[vizowrites]

Does anyone else want to know the story behind Blitz's panic buttons like some of them make sense right like the deranged client button, Stolas. But then you get to some of the others and it just brings about more questions. Like the client giving birth one. Did this happen more than once? Or did it only have to happen once before Blitz was like "nope never again I'm adding a button so this doesn't happen again."

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR ASKING ME THIS BECAUSE IT'S SOMETHING I'VE MEANT TO MAKE A POST ON BUT I KEEP FORGETTING!! I actually do have a personal headcanon for how these buttons came to be--and that headcanon iiiiiiiiis:

The buttons are in the exact order of the events that caused them to get added onto the panic board. :D

So, in order, Blitz has felt the overwhelming need to get Moxxie, Millie, and/or Loona's attention while in his office because.....bitch needs more coffee, shat his pants, had a horny client, had a deranged client [I love that this one came after the horny client btw :D], had a client give birth, saw a fucking ghost, and--last and debateably least, the most recent addition of Stolas.

I just.....I'm laughing even as I type this, I just can't deal with the implications there are here. XD

So the "More Coffee" button is absolutely no surprise. Blitz has a caffiene addiction and this is actually something that I'm going to be writing up about more in a separate ask so be on the look out for that one in the future if you want to hear more of my thoughts on it!! Then, sometime down the road, he shat his pants--which, honestly, again, I'm not completely surprised by. But THEN we get to "Horny Client" and this actually interests me for two reasons: 1. I love that it's shown but never spoken that Blitz is like.....one of the hottest people in Hell considering how many people either have or are currently wanting to get into his pants, and 2. Blitz didn't want to have sex with the horny client so hard that he decided to install a panic button for when it happens. I think the second one is particularly interesting because it made me realize that for as dirty as Blitz is, and how unabashed he is when it comes to going all in when he does choose to have sex with someone else, he's never really been horny on main himself. I almost wonder if it has something to do with my first reason where he just knows that he can get sex when he wants it, or if he just genuinely doesn't stress out too hard over sex, but either way.....it kinda makes me wonder just how many times he's had to press that button.

And also, I think, adds a whole extra weight to the fact that Stolas has his own button but that's jumping ahead a bit.

Then we have "Deranged Client" which.....yeah. That one's also pretty par for the course. It's Hell, it's kind of expected that most of the Sinners that are going out of their way to pay I.M.P. to take out someone who's still on Earth would fall into that category. XD

But THEN we get to the client giving birth, and the thing that fascinates me about this one is the fact that it means that Blitz has some clients who aren't Sinners, but Hellborn like himself. See, Sinners [the formerly human souls who populate a good portion of the Pride Ring like Angel Dust, Alastor, and the three Vs] aren't able to reproduce. Therefore, if there's a client in Blitz's office who's giving birth, that client has to be one of the Hellborn [an imp, hellhound, succubus, demon royalty, or some other being who has only ever existed in Hell before].....which opens up some very interesting doors. Why would a Hellborn want to kill a random human on Earth?? My personal headcanon for this is that it only happened the one time, and it was a succubus who was trying to get Blitz to kill the human who knocked her up because he refused to pay child support, and she ended up going into labor in the middle of his office from getting so riled up about the whole thing. :P

And then as if the "Client Giving Birth" button wasn't crazy enough to think about, then we get to "Ghost", which just has me like.....how the fuck does that even work?? Ghosts are in Hell?? Though that makes me wonder if perhaps what it is is that, much like how on Earth, we hear stories about humans being able to see the spirits of those unable to pass on, maybe it works in a similar way in Hell with the Hellborn?? So you can have ghost imps and hellhounds and all of the other naturally born denizens of Hell just kind of pop up randomly on people when they're going about their business. If that's the case, that would honestly be kind of hilarious--and it would be an interesting answer to what happens to the Hellborn when they die, as--unlike Sinners--they do appear to have lifespans and naturally age. I'm really interested to hear what you guys think about this one tho!! How do you think ghosts exist in Hell?? :D

-takes a deep breath-

.....And I don't even really want to say too much about the fact that Stolas has his own button, but I think it says a lot that for someone who supposedly went into this "transactional fucking" arrangement willingly, Blitz still found it necessary to install a button to let the other people in the office know that he didn't want to be alone in the room with Stolas anymore.