#reading the pilot

[lediz-watches]

Hazbin Hotel Pilot (kinda)

Yeah, I'm either three years late or three months early, but I'm here now and I'm documenting this for the sake of posterity, because SOMETHING is going to come out in January and the internet deserves to laugh at it.

Finally watched the pilot about a month ago. Loved it. Love the songs. Love Alastor because of fucking course I do. Love Angel Dust despite myself. Want to watch Charlie's story. Love it all. Am addicted to the fan songs. (One hell of a team and Radio Play are currently on repeat in my soul.) Hate fandom already. Miraculous Ladybug eat your goddamn heart out. No matter what happens, some part of the audience is going to hate it.

This post is actually more about why, than the pilot itself.

Before I get into it, I have to admit something. It's pertinent, I promise.

When Twilight was a thing, I heard all the hatred for it and believed it, but my sister was into it and I believe in giving everything a shot, so I read it too, expecting to hate it. And spoiler alert, by the final book, I LOATHED it. I literally had to stop myself from throwing that stupid thing across the room at least twice. But before that final book, I was so foolishly impressed.

Not by the writing, especially, but by what I thought it was doing. Because I looked at the characters and what I thought they were, and I thought that was so cool and subversive. An eternal teenager who was made a vampire against his will by a loving father figure. An immortal stuck in the body and emotions and hormones of a seventeen year old. And he falls in love for the first time. Could you IMAGINE anything worse? And a girl who swans (hah. Unintentional) into a new town and a new life, who also falls in love, but grows out of being seventeen. And there were these parallels! Romeo and Juliet! The fourteen year old trying to escape a life she didn't want, swept up in first love with an older lover! The idiot nineteen year old who's so desperate to Live His Life that he kills himself over a summer fling! THE PARALLELS, MY FRIENDS.

Yeah, I... I misinterpreted that one a little.

But this is the thing that we so often do with TV shows (and book trilogies....). We are watching and consuming something that is not complete, and in doing so we make assumptions and cling to things that may not actually be there. Edward was not an eternal seventeen year old, and Bella was not a normal girl growing into a young woman. It was a terrible, trashy, vaguely Mormon-propaganda teen romance that probably started as a Labyrinth fanfic, don't @ me.

(I love Labyrinth by the way, please don't come for my head)

Now, with Hazbin Hotel, and especially with Alastor, fandom is doing that in several different ways. Some of the fandom want him to be Evil Incarnate, here to corrupt the innocent and pure-hearted Charlie. Some of the fandom want him to be Bugs Bunny With Teeth. Some of the fandom (ie, I) want him to be Creepy Good and/or Do Evil Unto Evil (because that's what Louisiana Voodoo actually is, and it's so cool and I want to see a show do deals-with-the-other-side-for-good well andandand). Some people want him to be weak, some people want him to be super powerful, I would find it super interesting if he's super powerful because he's sold his soul to some greater power that's just using him to manipulate Hell... (today I was thinking about What If Lilith Is The Mastermind????)(also, ask me about my idea for a plot where he's actually a pawn to Heaven's worst)

No matter what happens with Alastor, some part of the fandom is going to be FURIOUS.

Now, for me, yes he's my favourite character from the Pilot, but the most important thing he does is provide a foil to Charlie, who is 100% the main character, and SHE is what's going to make or break the show for me.

Because the way I'm reading HER is that she's a preppy little private school girl that wants to save the whales and feed the children in Africa. She's taking gap years, she's doing voluntourism, she's holding charity balls for the homeless, she's taking cheesy photos in front of Homes She Built For The Kids and then gushing on Instagram about how she was hashtag blessed and got to feed the elephants.

The story I've read in this pilot, and the story I'm interested in, is that private school girl getting absolutely slapped down, so she can build back up into an actual good leader; stronger and better than her parents never even tried to be.

For me, the story I'm interested in, is all of the characters learning that redemption and goodness isn't some goal to achieve. It's a path. And sometimes, you find it only in the people around you. You shouldn't be good to get into Heaven, you should be good because you want to be good. Because you want to be there for your friends. It's about choice, and who you want to be. You make your own Heaven.

And to that end, I don't want Alastor to be the Evil Saboteur. I just want him to be her foil. Her equal and opposite, in every way that matters.

I want him to be evil only to those who deserve it, but be incapable of seeing himself as anything but worse still, even while everyone around him knows he's actually on the right team. The inverse of Charlie's arrogant light and hope.

I want him to push her, to challenge her, to be constantly watching and mocking and I want it to be a constant struggle between which of them is right or wrong about the sinners. I want them to represent the two sides of western religious ethics - the carrot and the stick. Be good so you're rewarded, or be good because torment awaits those who aren't. I want them to end up a platonic but perfect team, leading Hell's sinners out of this eternal struggle to survive and into afterlives they actually want to live.

But I don't know if that's what we're going to get. There are so many ways to read the second half of the pilot. Alastor rolling his eyes when Charlie tells him no voodoo, only to immediately offer a deal? The fact that Charlie, who effortlessly warps reality with her song, can't fix up the hotel or feed anyone, while Alastor, a supposedly mere human sinner, completely transforms everything with a few clicks of his fingers. The way Alastor treats Husk and Niffty - the way they respond to him! Niffty barely acknowledges this guy who we all assume owns her soul, and there are whole essays that could be written about how Husk responds to Alastor in general.

And outside the two of them, these characters are all so good! Angel Dust. I am not invested in his story (we've seen it before), but I ADORE him. A character that's so comfortable in his masculinity, and still considers himself a man, even as he wears women's clothing and works in a feminine industry and suffers a traditionally feminine tragedy. And he's so deadpan and snarky and horrible and I LOVE HIM. I'm not invested in his story, but I WANT TO WATCH IT.

Sir Pentious. What the hell is up with him? I must know more. I must cringe and groan and see him fail and then get back up to fail again.

Vaggie. What is she doing in Hell? HOW DID SHE DIE? How did she hook up with the king's daughter? Why is she signed onto this endeavour that she clearly doesn't really believe in?

I NEED IT.

So yeah. I will probably be disappointed, but god damn am I looking forward to this thing.

[prokopetz]

One of the most common questions I get about my games is "can I play as this? can I play as that?", and I'll level with you: basically every game I write is about a narrowly focused experience, so if you're the sort of player who's afflicted with the contrarian urge to insist on playing a character who's the exact opposite of whatever type of character a game is notionally about, regardless of what type of character that is, you're probably not gonna have a good time.

[demaparbat-hp]

Want to know what I believe? It's right here

Dig a little deeper and it's crystal clear

.

(WIP)

[aardvaark]

i’ve said already many times that The First David Job is one of my favourite episodes for sophie in Leverage, usually in reference to the scene with her, nate & sterling on the rooftop. BUT i also love that episode for her relationship with parker! when sophie says "what would parker do?" and follows the knowledge she’s learnt from parker, it’s a very good almost-end to their season one arc.

over the course of season one, sophie’s gone from saying the same thing as eliot about parker - "there’s something wrong with you" (pilot) - to acting as a maternal figure (feeling parker’s forehead in The Two Horse Job) and mentoring her (The Juror #6 Job). she’s started to get some insight into parker’s past (The Stork Job) and has a rather unique way of seeing parker, noticing the vulnerability and loneliness under her fairly spiky exterior. however, appreciating parker’s expertise is a different thing entirely. The First David Job makes it clear that sophie’s actually been listening to parker and that she trusts parker’s expertise!! sophie takes a very literal leap of faith off the building, lol.

it’s important to me because it shows sophie doesn’t simply pity parker, doesn’t write her off. she’s learnt to appreciate that parker is indeed a very competent, analytical, knowledgeable professional in her field. she sees that same passion for the craft (the craft of crime, yes lol) in parker that she experiences herself. and this all mirrors how sophie comes to appreciate and trust parker’s ability to talk to the mark in The White Rabbit Job towards the end of their whole-series arc. gah!! this First David scene, it’s a good moment. it’s a great moment!! and notably there’s a similar thing between nate and hardison there, likely between nate and parker as well since he’s masterminding this plan.

[holystrongegg]

Twenty one pilots did it again, they got me out of my art block with this masterpiece of an album ❤️

And this...this is what I make with my newfound inspiration. Of course it's a meme redraw, and I spent way too long on it, enjoy lmao

Edit: this is what I'm referencing in the oldies station video lol forgot to add it

[general-gt]

This is definitely not what I had plans to write and finish in 2 days, but @keferon’s mecha pilot jazz au infected my brain and I had to shake this thing loose.

[hansama]

So about Sans narrating Night Vale,,, I'd listen to that 

 (VOTE FOR SANS if u want him to dudududu in your ears) 

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

you want a new kind of guy, fine, i raise you: the lady i was briefly roommates with in college who once smoked a blunt at a party and then spent an hour confessing earnestly to me that she genuinely preferred reading detailed episode recaps over actually watching the tv show in question

[technoarcanist]

Alright, I've put it off for too long. Y'all win, I'm gonna purchase Lancer RPG and see how far I can take my mech piloting inspiration

[onelungmcclung]

Brass is upping the end-of-tour requirements from twenty-five to thirty missions.

[sammygull]

[localguy2]

Okay look you don't understand, The Pre-Pilots Kai book does things to my brain that I couldn't even imagine-

I already adore Kai and Zane and their show dynamic but this fucking book takes it to a WHOLE new level, like "Jay and Cole are best friends" levels when it comes to dynamic.

I've said a million times and I'll say it again, Kai gets Zane like no one else, he has a particular soft spot for the guy the other ninja didn't have at the time, and I'd argue even nowdays he still has that soft spot, and I'd assume vice versa as well.

And just, aghhg7abflnwofm

They both are so amazing I love them, Zane might not fully understand Kai, and the guy probably stood out to Zane immediately because he's so god damn out there and Loud and angry and all that-

But even if he's bad at emotions, he's smart enough to know that it's out of deep care and worry...

"I envy you"

HE FUCKING KNOWS KAI IS LIKE THAT BECAUSE HE'S SO WORRIED ABOUT NYA GET OUT-

Then suddenly, it's turned 180 when Kai wonders why Zane even envys him.

How can you envy someone that just lost their family member?

Answer: You don't even have family to begin with.

Like the secretly ever caring guy he is, Kai goes:

"I've been so caught up with my own problems, I never stopped to think about what his might be."

At that moment, Kai realised that despite everything, he has a luxury that Zane might never be able to expiernce (within the context of The Pilots, ignore "Tick Tock" for now), and he can't even imagine his life without any family.

That, in Kai's mind, is hard to comprehend fully, "Wouldn't that be at least a little distracting?"

Oh how we'd come to eventually understand SO CLEARLY if you've read the Zane Pre-Pilots book and watched Tick Tock, as a matter of fact, that that's possibly the most distracting thing ever for Zane, he constantly thinks about his past, and Kai managed to make that good assumption purely off of Zane's explanation of his very brief past.

And if that wasn't already bad enough for my brain rot-

Since they have time, why not and try solve Zane's issues with him?

Look I'M TELLING YOU- THESE 2 ARE BESTIES-

[crossthread]

No jokes here. The Navy’s best pilot and the Navy’s best admiral. Between them, eight air-to-air combat kills and five stars. These were men who commanded respect with or without your approval. This was the picture of ruthless competence.

Debriefing (& Other Stories) • part 2 of Easier Done Than Said by @compacflt

[arotheosis]

as an aroace person I will say that personally I'm such a sucker for a platonic "I love you" and I'm happy to take it that way, but whatever form of love this is I am so happy for them regardless. I want them to have the happiest ending no matter what. (even if my heart sings for a poly pilot program QPR)

[middlingmay]

Found an interesting and slightly heartbreaking excerpt from an interview with Callum Turner (And Austin Butler) about Major John 'Bucky' Egan:

But Turner also played a game with himself where he would put a mental barrier between him and the planes that define Egan’s service in the war. “I know that Egan didn’t like being up in the skies,” Turner says. “There’s nothing comfortable about that situation, and nothing comfortable about being back on the ground having to think about going back up. I hated getting in those planes, and I just built that friction between myself and that experience. The feeling is fear, and the adrenaline is the thing powering you through.”

Source: https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/masters-of-the-air-austin-butler-callum-turner-reunion-1235919586/

[nats-uvi]

Angst time :D👍

You can read my rambling about her in the tags