broke: The Warmind Rasputin was destroyed by the Witness when he fired on the Pyramid Fleet
woke: The Warmind Rasputin was disabled and badly damaged but through various defensive measures salvaged enough of himself for us to rebuild him, and will soon be back online
bespoke: Rasputin’s been awake for months but keeps playing dead to avoid awkward conversations
Something which really has me thinking while reading some takes on Hazbin Hotel and, especially, Helluva Boss, is that people ignore the warning at the beginning.
There is a reason why these shows are intended for an adult audience and it’s not the reason you are thinking about.
Younger people can understand violence (and realize it’s not something which should be imitated) and sex so that’s not the reason, the real reason is that they usually can’t understand the situations characters find themselves in.
I read soooo many “critical” posts blaming either Blitzø or Stolas and the reason was that the poster had never found themselves in a similar situation.
It’s ok, teenagers should have those rose-tinted lenses when talking and thinking about love and relationships (really, you want to have them, trust your friendly aromantic girl in her late 20s) BUT that doesn’t mean that you can understand how different relationships work, especially when you have none real life examples.
Stolitz is so complex because is real, but it shows ADULT problems, which not everyone can understand. You can’t judge it through a “all relationship must be fluffy and pure and perfect” state of mind, because real life relationships outside of “high school sweetheart” AREN’T fluffy and pure and perfect.
Reason number one my human Loop isn't canon-compliant is because I believe Loop remaining in their star form rather than going back to looking like Siffrin is important to the theme of change especially seeing as Loop's character in general has a lot to do with being forced to drastically change both slowly over time in their own timeline and suddently at once when they made their second wish and how it negatively affects them. Reason number two is because I think them wearing a shoulderless skin tight glitter dress suits their design but it would not actually be their first choice in fashion.
Do you think that the Red Crown is/was an extension of Narinder? Some primordial power given physical form? I personally believe it to just be a Little Guy™️ content to just. Hang out.
we may not know for sure what the crowns are, but I do believe they're physical manifestations of godhood to a point! Like, we know that's where the power lives, and we've seen diagrams and in-game art that confirm a crown digs into the host's brain, and I believe thats closer to a symbiosis than it is any sort of parasitism. The crown doesn't appear to harm the host, but we have some proof that the death of one leads to the death of the other! Not "feeding" it (depleting your cult) kills the Lamb, and the deaths of the bishops destroy their crowns!
mind you, none of this feels to me like concrete evidence that the crown itself is alive. it is able to change seemingly infinitely at the will of its holder like a tool, and the holder can change themself given enough power, but we never actually see it react in any way whatsoever to anything done to or with it in canon art, as far as I'm aware. It's always just staring! I think it's more like an extra limb
y'know like when male anglerfish bite a chunk out of the female and then dissolve themselves fully to turn themself into a set of inputting gonads. yeah maybe
Thinkin of Bruce's back cavity in the Meat Marionette Au.
I like to think the spine splits open, with the default being closed and him having to flex certain muscles to open it, almost like a mouth. The cervical (upper) and lumbar (lower) vertibrae are all single pieces and don't open, the lumbar continuing down the tail, while the thoracic are split into two pieces each. There's probably specialized muscles in the back that for lack of better terms tugs and moves the ribs in the back to pull the cavity open, hence why the shoulder blades are also shifted to the sides.
Or something like that lol.
y'know what we don't talk about enough? Hazel died. We talk about how she grew up in the 30's and 40's and we talk about how out of place she feels in the modern world, but! She died! She was dead! She has spent more time dead than alive, and not by a close margin!
How does that effect a person??? We got some of it in the flashbacks, but once those caught up with her present timeline and she shared them, they just kind of... disappeared. And she was a regular girl with some weird past experiences. That's one way of doing it, sure!
I think it would have been a lot cooler if she was just a touch creepier. If she felt a little bit Wrong. Yeah, in general she's more approachable than her brother, she's more sociable and less closed off, but. If you actually spend any time with her, it can be difficult to tell which child of the underworld is actually more unsettling.
Hazel is bright of personality and has a dazzling smile, but sometimes she'll just... shut down. She'll go completely blank for like half an hour and nobody knows what to do with it. Sometimes she forgets she's alive. Sometimes she'll spout the grimmest shit you've ever heard like it's nothing, she won't even notice it's weird until the room goes quiet. She spent decades in Asphodel, which is designed to make people forget about themselves and wander around for eternity, only she didn't have the luxury of forgetting! Wild! After she comes back to life, sometimes she forgets that she's allowed to Do Stuff now. She can spend so long sitting and staring at nothing. Sometimes she'll start crying on cloudless days because it hits her again that she can actually feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and she can hear birdsong. Every little mundane experience is a blessing and she will make you remember that in the most foreboding way possible.