#this is a personal gripe i have but i really cannot deal with the way luke is written in som | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

neon-draws-sometimes · 11 days ago

Text

big killer chara’s code in soul deletion fic wip

authors note: this is still under constructions and some of the scenes aren’t really connected properly or have place holders [like this]. Keep that in mind lol. Also don’t read if you don’t want this fix spoiled ig??

anyways.

Summary [wip]: Core, who’s befriended Killer, discovers mysterious edited code in him. Core investigates further and realizes this code is responsible for Killer accepting the deal with Chara, and decides to take the manner into their own hands.

It was strange, the way Killer first became Killer.

He remembered standing there in the Justice Hall, will as strong as either. Prepared to face his death over and over.

He died.

He remembered.

That wasn’t normal at all, and for a moment, Sans considered giving up. But no. No amount of torture could make him work with them, become a disgusting killer.

“Fine. I’ll work with you.”

It came out of nowhere, just a few loops later. Sans covered his mouth in shock. It didn’t feel like he had said that.

Chara looked annoyed. Sans could tell they knew he wasn’t actually going to do it, even if he had technically said he would.

Then, a couple loops later, Sans seriously considered it. He was bored, agonizingly bored.

He looked at the kid’s face. They looked smug, like they knew what they had done had finally worked.

Sans felt this strange dissonance between his resolve to not work with that freak and his painful boredom. Something felt wrong, really wrong. Sans had never felt this before.

Sans walked up. And shook their hand.

***

Killer lay on the carpet, reflecting about his past. This was something he usually preferred to distract himself from, but recently Core Frisk had him thinking about it. They were talking a lot to him lately, trying to help him. It was a wasted effort of course, Killer couldn’t be helped. But still, they were determined to try and fix him.

Killer was annoyed at first by them, but it was nice to have someone to talk to honestly. Killer didn’t like to bother his Boss or coworkers with pointless stuff like this.

***

“Killer, I have something to tell you.”

He got that same strange feeling he had all those years ago with Chara, like something was off.

“There’s… there’s something in your code that shouldn’t be there. I’m removing it.”

“That isn’t funny.”

“…”

“Kid…?”

“Sorry Sans, this is for your own good,” They said earnestly, moving their hand like they were pressing a floating object only they could see.

Killer tried to tell them to stop, but it was too late. His soul seized, and with a painful feeling, began to warp into a heart shape, becoming lighter in color as it went.

Killer screamed, half in shock and half in pain, and collapsed to his knees. His vision blacked out.

***

Killer woke up in his room in the castle, tightly griping the sheets. Beside the bed, Nightmare and Core Frisk argued.

“I’m helping him!”

“You cannot just alter a persons soul like that!” Nightmare retorted. “You didn’t even ask his permission, did you?”

“I didn’t alter his soul, I just deleted the foreign code in him!”

“…which caused his soul to change.”

“Indirectly!”

Killer moaned and tried to sit up. Immediately both parties stopped their argument and surrounded him.

“Killer, are you alright?” Nightmare crouched down next to Killer’s face.

“You feeling alright now, buddy?” Core looked hopeful to Killer, probably thinking the pain was just a temporary side effect.

… it definitely wasn’t. His chest still stung and he felt his black tears emptying from his sockets at a rapid pace, quicker than they ever normally had.

Nightmare stood up and left the room, presumably to get a towel.

Killer looked at Core Frisk. Core Frisk looked at Killer. They continued their impromptu staring match until Nightmare came back, setting a towel on Killer’s lap.

Killer started to sweat.

Core Frisk and Nightmare were shouting again, probably starting their argument over, but Killer could barely hear them over the feeling of wrong in his gut.

Killer began to heave.

***

“H-huh?”

Alphys was still half asleep. She sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes.

“His soul. I think there’s something wrong with it.”

“I-oh, sorry. I’m sorry. Is it-��

“Get over here. Now.”

Alphys felt a cold chill down her spine hearing those growled words. She tried to remind herself Nightmare was probably just afraid for Killer, but she couldn’t shake her anxieties completely.

She quickly pulled on her lab uniform and bolted through the portal.

.—-

Alphys held her modified stethoscope to Killer’s soul, trying to focus despite the frantic whispers of the Frisk variant and Nightmare.

She heard something strange, like a churning sound. Alphys thought of the liquid pouring faster than she ever remembered from his face and his heaving and coughing and had a realization. [lalala wip]

“Uh, ahem. I think I know what’s wrong.”

[they don’t hear.]

“G-guys?”

[too busy arguing, getting nowhere]

“Hey!”

[still no.]

“HES PREGANANT !!11! [ican’t resist I need to make this joke.]

They both stared at her, mouths agape. Killer also looks mildly concerned, like he might’ve believed it.

“J-just getting your attention, haha. Sorry. Um. He’s fine, it just seems like his soul is expelling all this… what was it?”

“Corrupted determination.”

“A-ah. Right. And it’s weird, because his soul seemed fine with it before… but, u-um. Now he’s. Expelling it, via increased flow from his facial offices. His soul is kinda. Throwing up. It’s pushing up all the, um, liquid, a-and. Well,” She stopped herself there, not having thought of how to actually end the sentence.

“So, he is going to be fine?” Nightmare asked quickly.

“Y-yup. He should be totally fine,” She quickly added, “But, I’ve. N-never seen something like this so. If he does anything weird call me I guess?!”

—-

Nightmare gets worried and calls the outcode scientist alphys. She’s like he’s fine physically his body is just expelling the toxic substance.

—-

——

“So it wasn’t my fault,” he mumbled. “[], it wasn’t my fault?”

____

Ok so killers only hobby other than being annoying was killing people. He legit has a giant gap in his life. Bro needs a hobby

“…you sure have a lot of free time now that yer not killin’ people n all.” -horror

Everyone glares at him

“what? S’ true.”

#Utmv #my writing #wip #utmv fic #lallalaa

8 notes · View notes

childofaura · 1 year ago

Text

Ok... I swore to myself I wasn't gonna make another negative MAWS post, that I was just gonna leave it at the Twink Slade disappointment post.

But apparently there's this trend that's been happening on Twitter, where people are trying to bring up the 2004 "The Batman" designs to try and defend the designs of the MAWS rogue gallery. And that was the territory I CANNOT let go, as someone who is a fan of Jeff Matsuda and his character designs.

SO FIRST, LET ME CLARIFY: I'm simply making ONE post about ONE factor of MAWS that irritates me. I'm not here to just sit and constantly bash on the show. I wouldn't do that, I have a personal close friend of mine who enjoys the show and I'm happy for her and I want her to enjoy the show. I have SO many gripes and reservations but I recognize those are personal.

I'll be putting this under a Read More and tagging it as Anti-MAWS so MAWS fans don't have to read/deal with this post. Probably just don't read my tags as well.

So if there's one thing that has irked me the most about MAWS, it's the redesigns and rewrites of Supes' rogue galleries. Mostly the redesigns though. MAWS took a bunch of colorful, diverse, and fantastical designs and made them monotonous, bland, and simply not fun at all. And yes, while the in-universe explanation (Being that they're all mechanically enhanced rather than freak accidents or born that way) makes sense, it still makes the villains incredibly un-appealing. EVERYONE is in boring black, white, and gray armor (aside from Parasite and while I think his physical design is neat I have issues with his character rewrite too, I'm just not here to discuss that). Everyone who had incredibly fun or creative designs was horribly washed out. Silver Banshee went from being a literal ghostly wraith to a boring motorcycle-looking chick. Livewire went from a vibrant blue lightning motif (that SHE herself created) to boring merc armor. And yes, I have issues with Slade's armor, the head was promising but the overall design has color-balancing issues.

Now let's look at the redesigns of the rogue gallery for the 2004 "The Batman" show. These are mostly drastically different from their original design counterparts, just like MAWS. But the massive difference is that most of these designs are still colorful (where it applies, obviously not to Penguin), recognizable, and push the borders of imagination; They're so ludicrous and exaggerated in their design and their physical features. Even if I was disappointed in some of the character rewrites (Like Mr. Freeze having only a small cameo to Nora in the flashback, but mainly being another selfish thug), the designs are still great. You can look at The Batman villain designs and easily recognize them because they follow the basic structure of their original designs.

Joker:

Is still in his green, purple, and orange color palette, with his trademark freakish grin. The design takes creative liberties with the spiked hair, the more athletic physique, and the actual clothing style of his outfit, but this is clearly meant to be Joker.

Mr. Freeze:

Is now essentially a cryomancer thanks to his mutation, but this is still obviously Mr. Freeze. Some kind of helmet (in this case encased in his own ice) wearing a thermal freeze suit, and his red eyes invoking the red goggles he wore in his original iteration.

Catwoman:

The design exaggerates a lot of features of the OG outfit, like the ears and the goggles (though the OG design really just has eye spaces), and uses shades of crimson and purple, but you look at the black bodysuit and the whip around her waist and she can clearly be identified.

The main argument I'm making with the 2004 Batman designs is that they're A) recognizable to their original counterparts by invoking the same color scheme and basic design points, B) Colorful and pushing the lunacy of a world full of supervillains, and C) Completely stand out from each other, no two villains look as though they're of similar origins (besides obvious pairs like Joker/Harley Quinn and the two Clayfaces, the latter which was a guy who took concentrated serum made from Ethan Bennett's Clayface DNA). The Batman designs are good because while they ARE drastically different from their original counterparts, they honor the original designs.

Whereas in the MAWS redesigns, none of the redesigns are reminiscent of their original counterparts (besides the obvious Brain and Monsieur Mallah, kind of hard to fuck that up), and lack the fantastical element that The Batman redesigns (And the original Superman show, where it applies) had.

Livewire:

Looks nothing like her original counterpart. The armored clothes, the lack of lightning motif, lack of color to her outfit (I'm not here to talk about the race-swapping), none of it is supposed to tip you off to being Livewire, especially when her character is written so drastically different. You should be able to tell who Livewire is BEFORE you see her powers.

When OG Livewire looks like this:

Silver Banshee:

Is just a regular human in drab clothing. There's some kind of attempt to give her the hint of a ghost motif with the bone legs, but then that disappears in her later costume design. Same later costume that tries to half-ass a skull motif on the helmet but it doesn't work with the helmet's angles.

When this is Silver Banshee's original design (going with a still from Batman Unlimited)

And if they wanted to stray from the whole "supernatural" aspect, they could have compromised like they did in Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay:

Which I mean I still don't like that redesign as much as Silver Banshee's OG design, but it's still recognizable and it's still cool.

The bottom line is basically this: You don't have to justify liking this new Superman show and its take on new characters. But to try and say the character designs on MAWS are like the 2004 "The Batman" cartoon redesigns is such an unequal and imbalanced comparison. The thought process for the character designs in these shows are so drastically different from each other, and the execution of said character designs aren't comparable.

#discourse #Anti MAWS #Anti My Adventures with Superman #Listen I'm not saying any other gripes publicly about the show; Again I have an irl friend who watches it #and I'm absolutely not about to drag her down or just rag on the show; so I get it #But if there is one thing that can really make or break something for me it's character design #And the one thing I'll openly criticize MAWS for is how basic their character design process seems to be #The showrunners FROM THEIR OWN MOUTHS said that they purposely made Lois look like Luz from Owl House #So there is NOT a lot of creative thought process going into these redesigns #And to compare that to Jeff Matsuda who is an industry veteran and who's worked on MANY shows with incredibly kick-ass designs #Well that is a stick in my craw that I can't let slide #'BUT AURA DON'T YOU LIKE THE 3D HE-MAN SHOW AND THEIR DESIGNS?!'#Yes I do but A) I'm not out here claiming that they're faithful designs to the original characters (Because Duncan and Teela clearly aren't #B) Nor are they badly designed characters that I'm trying to compare to a whole different level of character design #The Batman 2004 show was an incredibly fun show that captured the dark and melancholy nature of Batman; and the villain designs were fun #MAWS isn't on the same level as The Batman

26 notes · View notes

madraleen · 2 months ago

Text

Seraph of the End: Battle in Nagoya A Pleased Commentary (ft: an ode to Miyu Irino and Kensho Ono)

-the fact that yuu doesn't give a flying fuck that he was experimented on and that he lost control and turned into a monster is both preposterous and refreshing

-yeah, see, this is good, this is what i was griping about in s1- here mika has a concrete goal, to save yuu from humans and vampires. and guren's is "kill the nagoya vampires." it's better than "kill all the vampires."

-the action scenes are definitely better than s1 directing-wise (although the long conversations mid-battle still annoy me).

-i like mika. how he's playing for and against both sides, his composure and private suffering, how he didn't kill miss soldier when she asked him to, but mercy-killed her when it was clear the vampires would torture her. i like him.

-yuu's mika-senses are tingling. no, they're sweet, they're sweet in their dynamic. and shinya and guren, i like their dynamic too.

-i can't explain it very well, but i feel like miyu irino gives yuu an extra dimension. like, he makes him more tangible? he feels very complete, like he actually exists in three dimensions, like he has a life outside of what we see? idk, like he's a real boy.

-unfortunate for the team, crowley and his girls are too strong -.-

-the drama around guren while everyone tries to save him, good stuff

-oi, i'm tearing up at the young yuu nightmare flashback with guren

-YUU'S SMILE AND JOVIAL ATTITUDE WHEN HE SAYS HE ISN'T A TEAM PLAYER AFTER ALL AND GOES TO SAVE GUREN OH MY GOD *chef's kiss*

-maybe it's because irino-san is so good at the understated, more introverted moments. he plays them so subtly and smoothly, that when he goes "SHOUNEN PROTAG GO!" it feels like a multi-faceted person rather than your typical shounen protag.

-YUU HAS A HORN

-hell hath no fury like mika coming for yuu

-gee, the whole run of mika going through the soldiers to get to yuu is tense, GOOD STUFF GOOD STUFF

-"but if you're yuu's family, we're your family too, mika-kun" oh yoichi, oh my heart :')

-YES SHINOA, that's what i wanted from you, some mika support

-i'm gushing over the fact that shinoa et al TRUSTED MIKA ENOUGH TO LET HIM LEAVE WITH YUU, just because they trust each other's judgment, good stuff

-what did narumi ever do for his team to be used as cannon fodder WAH

-WAKE TF UP, YUU-CHAN! man, i really feel for mika

-THE BOYS ARE REUNITEDDDDD. they're sweet, they're so sweet with each other. and he's strong, dude, mika is so strong, mentally. yuu literally pulls him close and coaxes him to drink and he still refuses. yuu all but force-feeds him to keep him alive

-isn't mika a seraph of the end too though? wasn't he experimented on?

-"if it's hard, i'll find a way to turn you human again"- IF it's hard, if it's not or if mika wants to be a vampire, yuu is fine with him just being a vampire, THEY ARE SO SWEET I CANNOT

-KIMIZUKI'S SISTER?!?!?!?! WHAT?! OF ALL PEOPLE?!

-WHAT IS HAPPENING AT THAT AIRPORT, I HATE KURETA, WHAT IS HE DOING TO OUR OWN PEOPLE

-ummmmm... guren just stabbed kimizuki...

-oh he stabbed yuu too, this is going well.

-i don't know if it's because both kensho ono and miyu irino have this smoothly natural tone when they need to, but their interactions sound SO natural, like i can believe yuu and mika are two real people with a real relationship sitting and talking in a real room.

-yuu will need fifty shinoa hugs to regain his humanity after this

-BUT WHO IS THE FIRST TRUMPET

-yuu is the kind of force that it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with him, you root for him anyway

-no no, kureto, we deal with yuu with hugs here, not fights

-so many factions! i kinda want to read the manga!

-FOUR MONTHS LATER! that's a lot of months later!

-mika and yuu have been living together? my heart. is yuu mika's only diet?

-heh, the specials are cute.

-but actually, i kinda... the manga...

#seraph of the end #seraph of the end: battle in nagoya #owari no serafu #anime commentary #it's always the airports isn't it

2 notes · View notes

farewellneverland2004 · 11 months ago

Text

my gripes with ep 1 Phayu

so I came across this post that made me remember my biggest gripe with Phayu at the begining.

Plot-wise, I see why that needed to happen, because unlike everyone else around them, Rain doesn't really Idolize Phayu, in fact, he's semi-jealous because his current crush is enamored by him. Still, he doesn't know the bike bro is Phayu, so he admires him in a different way than others. If he acted nice (like he should've done) and let him know he indeed remembered him, he'd probably just be another admirer from afar. but if Phayu pretended not to remember him when it was only like a day or two ago and they actually talked, he'd have a less than admirable look at Phayu but still recognize him as a flawed person.

while also giving a better excuse as to why Rain didn't hesitate to ask him for help, because he knows more about cars than he does, but since he doesn't remember him, He feels comfortable asking for help from him again. at least, that's how I read it

but character-wise, this seems not only cruel to crushing Rain's spirit but also a way too convoluted and silly plot for a man with Phayu's level of intuition. Like what nitwit tinkers with a guy's car to have an excuse to be their knight in shining leather jacket, yet decides "you know what? I should make the cute guy think I don't remember him instead of just saying the truth that I vividly remember the cutie on the side of the road with a flat tire to maybe idk have a cute little icebreaker talk?"

Like there was no reason for him to think this would actually work out for him in his favor and he just got lucky that Rain is terrible at subtly stealing glances at him. Because for all we know, he could've just been completely willing to accept that he didn't remember him and move on with his life.

If anything, this, along with him fucking with his car should give him the idea that maybe Rain isn't just completely playing hard to get.

Maybe I'm Bias, but I 100% am on Rain's side for the mishap/borderline assault. Phayu! Buddy! you're supposed to be smarter and more mature than this! You genuinely thought that he was supposed to get the hint that you wanted to hook up instead of having him pay money to get his car fixed, when his car was messed up BY YOU!? You're hot! but sometimes people are just stranded in a rainstorm and need a mechanic, and they're willing to pay money for their car to be fixed.

It's not easy for everyone to catch on to the deeper meanings behind "can you pay the price" or whatever. and if you thought he was just clumsily hitting on you, why did ti take you a good head wack before you got the memo that he wasn't looking to sleep with you?

Is that what you think "playing hard to get" is? You're the king of playing hard to get! you should be able to tell the difference I feel.

But, like I said before, I am speaking from the lense of someone who is neurodivergent. So I might just be interpreting things as the way I view interactions with people.

But can someone else tell me if they also agree with this gripe? cause I know that kinda toxic and jackass decisions in the first episode of shows aren't anything new, but I just feel the scene is almost written as if we are supposed to all believe that Rain was the one making mistakes and leading him on because he's supposed to be too dumb to realize how obvious he is about his attraction towards Phayu. And I hate that because not only does that feel like victim blaming, but also excuses Phayu for making a dirt bag decision of trying to sleep with a very confused college student who is verbally telling him to stop and that he was not intentionally throwing himself at him.

like i said before, I love Phayu, but that decision making always pisses me off because it doesn't even really fit with his character.

#love in the air #love in the air series #phayurain #bl gripes #if I hear one more person call Rain stupid again im gonna riot #phayu was the stupid one in ep 1

10 notes · View notes

kiyaar · 8 months ago

Note

Tell me about the things Destiel does for you? Is it the way Cas has torn himself apart (metaphysically, spiritually, his literal true form is mutated and scarred) for his love of Dean, but in a way Dean cannot physically SEE without it burning his eyes out, that all the other angels and demons keep insinuating Dean or Castiel himself has done SOMETHING permanent and transformative to his true form, but Dean brushes it aside as queer innuendo? That he CAN'T accept that Cas loves him so much it’s broken him or else he has to acknowledge that love or shoulder the burden of being the very poison to people he loves just like he’s always feared? And Dean brushing off the angel's comments might make Cas feel like Dean doesn’t really care rather then him not understanding/shielding himself?

(And that Cas's final act forced him to face all of that?)

Or that Dean, a man that went selectively mute as a child after the fire for almost a year, can't ever SAY what he wants. How he needs people to see past his protective, false layers of bravado and machismo to know what he's truly asking for. And this man that can't ask directly loves so dearly this Alien Being that can see HIM as he is truly, but lacks the experience, context, (and self esteem)* to read between the lines of “you're family” “stop being stupid and listen to me” “… you leaving?” and “I need you” instead of hearing: “I care about you so much I will die without you just like I would without my brother” “be safe I don’t want you hurt” “please stay” and “I love you”. And thru Cas's lack of comprehension Dean takes it as rejection over and over? That this man that hates his inability to speak at the right time or to say what he needs to say, who hates that he reacts with anger or silence instead, can’t say anything back to Cas that MEANS half of what Cas said at the very end

*(Cas at the beginning and later at points thru the hazes of regret and self loathing Cas hears “we are of a few comrades in this fight” “I don’t trust your judgment you idiot” “please leave already” and “you can stay because you are useful”

He SOMETIMES gets to “you are part of a very small group of friends we trust” “please don't get in trouble we have to bail you out on” “what are you up to? Want to watch a movie?” and “my life is easier and better with you in it buddy”)

i think it has to do with queer loneliness for me. i come to spn assuming dean winchester is a deeply closeted bi man and is dealing with some hefty queerphobic daddy issues and is also like big into self-denial and masking and self-destruction via substance and willing himself to be a human tumbleweed to deal with those issues. okay. in comes castiel whose first relationship move as a weapon (!!) of heaven is to literally brand him, singlehandedly pull him out of hell and then imprint on DEAN PERSONALLY which is like. a (queer) trauma savior fantasy.

castiel laid a hand on you and he was LOST! like! fuck me!! (–dean winchester, probably –) no one has ever loved me that way and certainly i can't deserve it and god i want to keep it but i don't know how! and like. the Show puts them in RIDICULOUS situations like. the world is ending. i sold my soul. i was tortured for 40 years for nothing. you can't go home again but sometimes home comes to pull you out of hell. dean goes to hell a child and he comes out an old man. he drinks and he gripes and he cries a lot but jesus god, i'd cry too. who on EARTH is going to understand that experience? no one has the language to talk about time like that, the absence of it, the agony of the duration, the skip. castiel does, because he's ancient as fuck.

it would be far less compelling to me if dean could articulate what he wants and needs and loves, but he has trauma blinders and castiel is like. he is so dangerous! but in the way a weapon in the hand is dangerous to the holder if the holder keeps fucking pointing it at himself. and castiel's only (successful) love language is burning the world down for dean and dean doesn't fucking want it! or he doesn't want it like that! or he wants normal things, instead, like consistency and a relationship that isn't constantly chafing his avoidant attachment and abandonment issues - but all he knows how to do is be mad and seethe and wrap it all up and cry about it behind a locked door in a hotel room he shares with his dipshit brother! god!! man cannot handle being loved unconditionally and he makes it everyone's problem! i'm unwell! see also: Mitski_I'm Your Man.mp3

#ki replies #spn #pulling out my clown makeup palette to spit up a lil brainworm manifesto for you in the year of our lord 2024

5 notes · View notes

evilwickedme · 2 years ago

Note

Hi so. As someone who is vaguely into comic book adapted media, but hasn’t read any superhero comics ever, what sort of like. Super basic suggestions would you have for some favorite characters/runs/series you’ve read? Sorry for the SUPER broad question

So I'm waiting for my doctor's appointment and it's taking forever and my earphones are out of battery so sure why not let's give some recommendations. As usual keep in mind I'm literally just a guy and plenty of people will disagree with me or have read comics I've never touched. Also I've read a very random collection of stories like I've never sat and read any specific spider man run but I've read random specific spider man stories you know? Anyway

Marvel

I've been reading Marvel comics for a long time now, so I'm most solid about these recs.

Deadpool

This is obviously the subject I know the most about and I've been very clear about this in the past but my favorite Deadpool run/story is the 2012 run by Posehn and Duggan, and it was one of the first comics I ever read so obviously I think it's pretty good for beginners. It's got some solid humor, a healthy balance of violence vs story for a Deadpool comic, and it's got some serious heart too. It's also a soft reboot of the Deadpool canon, only has a few references to previous events, so it's really readable for newcomers. If you like Deadpool and are willing to pick up an ongoing I also warmly recommend the new ongoing by Alyssa Wong. We're only three issues in right now but it's delightful and we've officially got our first non-woman love interest for Wade, Valentine Vuong, who's non binary!!!! Super recommend.

Kamala Khan

The original Ms. Marvel run for Kamala from 2014 by G. Willow Wilson is both delightful and incredibly beginner friendly. I haven't kept up with her but she's got a relatively easy catalogue to follow and she interacts with a lot of other heroes which means she's also a good way to get to know the marvel universe at large.

Jessica Jones

Alias is a bit of a darker, more adult series, but it's also entirely a standalone story that requires, in my humble opinion, no knowledge of the marvel universe at large to read, and is ridiculously well done. If you've seen the show, season one is a relatively faithful adaptation in that it covers the spirit of the comic and includes most of the main characters but does not adapt the story beat for beat. Definitely look up the trigger warnings if you're going to pick it up but it's a truly excellent story.

Hawkeye

I'm not as much of an expert in Hawkeye comics as @not-the-blue is (who's currently attempting the truly Herculean task of reading every important Hawkeye issue ever for her lecture, wish her luck) but Hawkeye (2012) by Matt Fraction is a really well done self contained story that includes both Kate Bishop and Clint Barton, and has an issue from the POV of a dog named Lucky the Pizza Dog who is so good! The Hawkeye tv show was based on this run but the comic is considerably better. My one problem with it as a beginner's comic is it does assume familiarity with Clint's personal history, so if you don't know that Clint used to be married to Bobbi Morse, now you know have fun.

I'm much much newer to DC as y'all know but here's how I got into it at least!

Superman

All Star Superman is the easy answer and therefore the answer I'm going to give! It was conceived specifically as a story that could be read outside of main continuity, a sort of definitive story that includes all of our main Superman cast and deals with a lot of Superman's mythology without being bogged down by needing to fit in with the mainline DC universe. It's not my favorite Superman story I've read but it's really beginner friendly. My one gripe with it, and I'm not the only one by any means who feel this way, is that I think the art is butt ugly. A lot of people think it's gorgeous and I just cannot see it. I follow ppl on TikTok who refuse to read it bc of the art like. Idk. Story's great but I wish literally anybody else had drawn it

Batfam

Honestly I'm not sure there's an easy way to get into batman. Most of the elseworlds stories* I've come across for batman are either completely disconnected from the main universe in a way that makes them unrecognizable or not very good for beginners. One thing I'd do is check out the webtoon Wayne Family Adventures; it's free, and it'll get you familiar with the names of pretty much every batfamily member. The problem with WFA is that it's based on fanon interpretation of the characters and character dynamics, so even though it'll loosely reference the occasional canon event, for the most part you can't really trust it for anything more than civilian names, vigilante/superhero names, and basic appearances of, well, honestly pretty much everyone, including people I haven't even begun getting into for real. From there it's pretty much just diving into it. For Red Hood, I recommend reading A Death In The Family (the print edition I own also has A Lonely Place of Dying, which introduced Tim and is honestly a better story) as a prelude for Under the Red Hood, which, you know, reintroduced Jason as Red Hood. The first Batman story I read was Batman: Black Mirror, which features Dick as Batman and focuses on the Gordons a lot, it's a really good story, my only gripe with the story is the changing art style, the two artists do NOT mesh well. Batwoman: Elegy is a really, REALLY good standalone story, might actually be beginner friendly now that I think about it, cause it's basically her introduction (not literally but very close to it) and it doubles as her origin story; also it's written by Greg Rucka, and I'd trust him with writing my life story, fr.

*elseworlds stories are DC's term for any story that does not take place in the main multiverse and is entirely non canonical. Marvel doesn't really have this concept except I guess what if? stories, most of the non-canonical stories marvel chooses to tell simply take place in another universe within the main multiverse. All Star Superman is an elseworlds story

Watchmen

Is Watchmen beginner friendly? I genuinely have no idea, I'm incredibly biased bc it's literally the first comic I read, before I even had my webcomic phase. It's a DC comic in the sense that it was published by their imprint, but I don't even know if it counts as an elseworlds story, it's just... Completely unconnected to anything. It tells the story of the second generation of heroes in a world that is closer to ours than Marvel or DC's. There's only one truly super person in this world. Because vigilantes really did appear and rise to some kind of prominence in this world, comics look very different than what we know, and the main story is interspersed with an in universe comic about a pirate. There's a lot of political commentary in this and some of it arguably didn't age well, but it's a really interesting deconstruction of the superhero genre and one of the most notable of its kind. For better or for worse, modern comics are what they are at least partially because of this comic, and I think it's worth a read

Indie comics

I know you said you wanted beginner's recs for superhero comics, but I want to give a couple of recs for indie comics because they're worth checking out as well

Lumberjanes

Y'all know their work from She-Ra, but before they were the creative mind behind one of the most successful queer cartoons ever ND Stevenson was a well known indie comic artist and writer. They've created a number of comics I love, including the Graphic novel Nimona which I also warmly recommend, and they're also the reason I picked up lumberjanes, which is a story of a girl scount-like summer camp which is deeply weird. It's queer and a lot of fun, sort of Night Vale vibes at times. If you're looking to get into indie comics this is definitely one of the best

Giant Days

This one is a lot lighter than Lumberjanes since it's a slice of life comic about three college girls, not that Lumberjanes is exactly heavy duty. Honestly don't have much else to say about it I think it's really good!

And that's it for now! By no means a comprehensive list of... Anything, and not even a list of my personal favorite comics (although I did only include comics I genuinely enjoyed). Good luck!

(mutuals feel free to add on to this!)

#comics #superheroes #marvel #dc #marvel comics #indie comics #gail speaks #ask #page-vacat

22 notes · View notes

quoteablebooks · 10 months ago

Text

Genre: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal

Rating: 5 out of 5

Content Warning: Homophobia, Hate crime, Religious bigotry, Bullying, Racism, Self harm

Summary:

Maeve’s strangely astute tarot readings make her the talk of the school, until a classmate draws a chilling and unfamiliar card—and then disappears.

After Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards while cleaning out a closet during her in-school suspension, she quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school. But when Maeve’s ex–best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace.

Shunned by her classmates and struggling to preserve a fledgling romance with Lily’s gender-fluid sibling, Roe, Maeve must dig deep into her connection with the cards to search for clues the police cannot find—even if they lead to the terrifying Housekeeper herself. Set in an Irish town where the church’s tight hold has loosened and new freedoms are trying to take root, this sharply contemporary story is witty, gripping, and tinged with mysticism.

*Opinions*

In case you don’t want to read this whole review, let me give you a tl;dr version. I loved this book as an adult, but it would have been my whole personality if I had read it as a teenager.

Still here? All Our Hidden Gifts is a YA novel that follows Maeve Chambers as she discovers a deck of tarot cards in the dusky basement of her all-girls school and finds reading them comes naturally to her. However, as her popularity rises with her readings, it sends her on a collision course with her former best friend Lily. After a disastrous reading, Lily goes missing and Maeve starts to believe that maybe there is more to her natural ability to read the card than coincidence. As she joins up with aspiring actress Fiona and Lily’s older sibling Roe to figure out what happened to Lily, they discover that much darker and more powerful forces are working in the city of Kilbeg, Ireland.

Everything about this story is such a “me” book that I am surprised that I hadn’t heard about it before randomly finding it at a bookstore. There is witchcraft, tarot cards, interpersonal relationship drama, an urban fantasy that interacts with real-world issues, and a flawed main character who is trying her best. I can’t think of anything about this book that I would gripe about, though if you are more of a plot-driven reader, this could be seen as dragging in places. As I am more of a character-driven reader I was pulled into Maeve’s story and how she interacted with those around her. At times I wanted to shake her and other times give her a hug, but that’s what it is like being a teenager.

I was so uncool that it never occurred to me that I might be able to climb the social ladder in middle and high school. That being said, I luckily played an instrument and therefore had a built-in group of kids that I at least had something in common with and did well in terms of academics. However, with my anxiety, I could see myself being like Maeve, desperate to fit in and have friends, even if it meant hurting someone else if I had an ounce of self-confidence. Who knew that low self-esteem had some perks? There is something so relatable about Maeve and her outbursts in an attempt to deflect from her fears and insecurities. While Maeve does not always make the best decisions, we have all been in a place where we have made them before. She is one of my favorite heroines.

While this is a YA novel, it deals with heavy topics of homophobia, the rise of the far right, and gender identity. I feel that O'Donoghue carefully crafts the story so that these topics are handled in a serious way, but without taking on a lecturing tone. I really liked that none of these issues are magically fixed by the end of the novel, in fact, it is a rather ambiguous ending, but this is also the first book in a series. I appreciate an urban fantasy, especially a low-magic one, that makes a point to show that magic isn’t going to fix everything because some people are just horrible. I think that Roe’s whole character was beautifully handled and also that Maeve’s attraction to him doesn’t change or is even questioned as his gender expression changes.

O’Donoghue also writes Maeve and Roe’s relationship in a way that made me kick my feet at times but never shies away from all the complications of Roe being Lily’s sibling. Roe is so kind and patient with Maeve but has no problem taking her to task when she needs to be checked. While everything is new, I can see them becoming a favorite couple if they stay together throughout the series. I also really liked Maeve and Fiona’s friendship and the awkward moments but also the genuine understanding they have for one another as well. When she is so jealous of Fiona at times reminded me of cringey memories from my own teenage years.

Overall, I just really loved this book. I wanted to keep reading and see what was going to happen. The characters are lovable and the story is compelling. I have the next two in my shopping cart for when I need a little treat and decide to buy myself books. 5 out of 5

#All Our Hidden Gifts #The Gifts Series #5 out of 5 stars #caroline o'donoghue #booklr #book review

5 notes · View notes

erabundus · 1 year ago

Text

anonymous &&. said... 💭 + chongyun's friendship

ren's friendship with chongyun is actually really fascinating from a character development standpoint — because chronologically ( unless i'm forgetting something ) they are the first mortal he has actually allowed himself to get close to who isn't entangled in his dealings in sumeru. he befriended him entirely of his own volition, even if i'm sure ren, unreliable narrator extraordinaire, would probably gripe that he was pulled into it against his will if asked. he could have walked away at any time. he could have kept things strictly impersonal — but he didn't, and that's symptomatic of his own character growth as he slowly learns how to let other people in.

and the way that it's developed is also incredibly INTERESTING as well — because there was a very heavy emphasis on a transactional element at first. ren sees every relationship in this world as inherently give and take, even if the things being exchanged are more conceptual in nature. ( company. love. loyalty. ) that was true during his scaramouche era, and it's a line of thinking he still clings to, even now — he's been burned enough times that he can't see anything as truly unconditional and free anymore. ( i could delve into how he feels compelled to "earn" affection from his loved ones, but that's another post entirely. ) yet his initial dynamic with chongyun kind of takes this tendency of his and weaponizes it against him — for his own good. because there's this human who keeps on giving him things, giving him food, and ren feels OBLIGATED by his weird moral-adjacent code to pay him back in whatever way he can.

i can't find the specific post, but there comes a point early on in their dynamic where chongyun calls him a friend and i cannot overstate how much that changes the entire trajectory of their relationship — not only because it completely throws ren for a loop, but because it starts to change how he goes about approaching them. again, everything from ren's perspective is transactional; this isn't necessarily a cold or standoffish take, it's just how he's grown to view the world as a defense mechanism. so when he hears chongyun thinks of him as a friend, a little light flicks on in his head — he can repay him with his COMPANIONSHIP.

congratulations ren, you've allowed yourself to make a friend. now if only you could not be so weird and overcomplicated about it.

and he does TRULY consider them a friend in return, because if you read between the lines, ren does go above and beyond for chongyun in such a way he wouldn't necessarily need to if he was merely doling out his presence like a nondescript form of currency. i think a really good example of this is during the ( infamous ) what does water smell like debacle. ren's status as a puppet is something he keeps INCREDIBLY close to his chest because he's painfully aware what destruction can be wrought if the wrong kind of person happens to find out about it. yet he trusts chongyun enough to share with him his greatest secret — something that has deeply TRAUMATIZED him, and he does it of his own volition ... for the sake of answering a silly little nonsense question.

your honor, they are friends and it is a very important dynamic to me ...

SEND 💭 AND A TOPIC FOR A HEADCANON .

#anonymous #cryoexorcist #𝟎𝟎𝟒 : 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥. ◟ hc .◝#( i feel this is more like an analysis of their friendship from ren's pov but i hope you enjoy regardless!! )

5 notes · View notes

virdemption · 2 years ago

Text

Canon A-90 facts you were never told about but I was

Trans man + He/Him.

Subspecies derived from Ambush's species - Probably explains why they were good childhood friends.

Security - He is a knight. At least he comes across as that. He wants to appear as noble and respectable as he can but he's actually very feral. Even moreso than the other two! His stop sign is his shield, his sword was custom made in secret before he ran away for the hotel.

His armor makes him the heaviest entity out of everybody (both rooms + doors) but he's actually underweight and is one of the lightest when he's not wearing it.

[BODY HORROR + BLOOD + KNIFE IN BOTH LINKS] He can do this! I go a lot more in depth here!

He... Is really bad at using his sword. He never learned how and his blades are more natural feeling to him but something something internalized pressure before going to the hotel weighing in + doing that forever before the sword but he'd still rather use the sword.

Inability to properly use the sword is why he deals less damage than the other two. It's usually when he's using the blades and claws when he gets someone in one shot.

His blood stains EVERYTHING and not even A-60 or Guiding Light can clean it. They hate it so much when he activates his bodily blades.

SOUNDS SOUNDS SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH THE SOUNDS. Biggest gripe with the movement is the sounds. Even if you hold still, make just the slightest noise or the wrong one you will be sliced. He has good hearing and hates it.

Cannot STAND the sound of ringing phones especially. People would text him but they're so taken aback by how he texts vs how he talks that they'd rather not. He replies with shit like "Howdy :3c" and they're like what is wrong with you.

Isn't as aggressive as A-60 but is way easier to piss off than A-120, he does often snap at people.

He's fairly neutral for the most part, the anger comes from the obnoxiousness of intruders and the fear they'll hurt Curious Light.

Sometimes. (Increasingly more often). When he's hungry, he will get more aggressive (but in a manic way, not anger). Full razors, cloudy mind, and a higher sensitivity to sounds follows through as he'll tear apart intruders limb by limb and feast on them right then and there.

He doesn't keep the bones though, he gives them to A-60.

Gets really jittery a lot and tends to struggle clearing his head.

He was the last Rooms entity to show up in the hotel before their banishment (you'll never guess where). A-60 and A-120 had made it there together a few weeks beforehand. He arrived there as a getaway from his expectations and to find cool stuff.

Found Curious Light wandering the Rooms after she got super duper lost and takes care of her until he can one day reunite her with her mom (Which they do eventually, and he's good friends with Guiding Light).

Carries a duffel bag everywhere that has a bunch of random junk collected off of intruders. He's somewhat attached to a lot of stuff in there.

Very introverted, struggles to express anger with words and starts speaking complete gibberish when aggravated, especially dealing with intruders or if A-60 is upsetting Curious Light. (H gagweek sihco hc lgc shcr ht nils64 nlxo)

Guiding Light, A-120, and Ambush are the only entities who can translate his gibberish.

Eyes show as just a dark void, but his irises become visible when experiencing any extreme emotion, pupils also being visible if it's that strong of a feeling. Depending on emotion, they change shape and size (e.g. goat-like when stressed/scared).

Blood/internal systems change colors from red-yellow-green depending on how he feels as well. His default color is actually yellow but he's never in a good enough mood to shine that or green. Therefore everyone assumes he's just normally red. Even though a few people have seen him yellow and one person has seen him green.

He's the reason there's so much gold and batteries in the Rooms, when he collects them from humans, he scatters them about so people get distracted and give him the chance to strike.

Collects skin conditions like pokemon cards he has eczema acne and that thing where you get spots on your torso after your body fights off a virus I FORGOT HOW TO SPELL IT but his entire body is pretty red/yellow/green depending on how he feels as previously mentioned.

Positive relationship with A-120 for the most part, finds A-60 annoying but puts up with her (Help I hate most A-90 ships)

#some of this the A03 crowd will already know because i'm kinda THE A-90 guy on there #anywyas #roblox doors #headcanon #whaaaaat did i say something #i mean i'm right!!!!! these are canon facts lsplash told meeeeeeeeeee #(for legal reasons the previous two tags are sadly lies)

4 notes · View notes

mystech-master · 8 months ago

Text

Putting in my own long response because I have my own word-vomit

first off, keeping those tags in

Secondly, my personal gripes with the series:

I feel like changing the Extermination motivation from "Overpopulation" in the pilot to "Preventing an uprising" hurts the premise of redemption. Before, the Overpopulation problem meant the exterminations were a necessary evil that they had to deal with, accept, and work around. They needed to happen so there is no arguing against them, and the Angels are too powerful to fight back against. The Hotel and redemption are the only hope. Now, not only do we know it is more about "Fuck you Sinners know your place" but now we know that they can easily fight back against the Exorcists, so it just makes me wonder. With the reason no longer having any justification and now knowing they can prevent it, why would anyone bother trying to "save themselves" from extermination when they know the reason is bogus and they just need to be strong enough to fight back (like the usual way things are in Hell)?

This series really doesn't want to bring up the massive timetable it is working with. For the Sinners, these are people who have lived up to around their 30s minimum and then spent decades in Hell, PLENTY of time for tons of shit to have happened. Then you got Charlie and her family who should be centuries to THOUSANDS of years old, and yet if you were to tell me these guys were their listed biological ages (Charlie in her 20s, Alastor in his 30s, etc.) I'd have no reason not to believe you. Charlie's massive lifespan and time alive is SO much room to fill in stuff like "What made her want to redeem Sinners in the first place?"

More of an issue with the broader Hella Verse, but the fact that so much shit is locked behind Helluva Boss and cannot crossover. Especially when it comes to Charlie and Lucifer. For Charlie, when it comes to her dream of redemption, one of the big reasons she gives in the show is "These are my people/These are our people", which feels weird when we will never see how she feels about the 85% of her Kingdom of her fellow Hellborn locked in the other show. People say that Charlie is kind of a flat character, learning more about her backstory and how she grew up could help mitigate that and naturally as Princess of Hell she should be interacting with the Sins and the Goetia, but NOPE. As far as Hazbin's canon is concerned it's just her, her parents, and she stayed in the Pride Ring. As for Lucifer, when you look at him and his relationship with Charlie in a vacuum, it seems fine. He is just Charlie's dorky yet distant dad. But when you remember that this is the King of Hell, shit looks weird. To start, it looks like after the fall Lucifer just became a depressed duck man while Lilith was the Queen girlboss running Hell. The Overlords and the Goetia seem to be doing most of the work doing ANY governing, and much like with Charlie, having him not be able to interact with the massive other chunks of his Kingdom, the Sins, or the Goetia and vice versa really feels like something is missing. Also, to go back to my first point. The "Preventing an Uprising" thing doesn't make sense when no one we've seen on the Sinner demon's side is capable of GETTING TO HEAVEN TO CAUSE AN UPRISING IN THE FIRST PLACE! Heaven portals clearly need to be opened by an Angel, no one else. But, even without that all of the people even remotely capable of getting to Heaven with portal magic either don't give AF about the Sinners (Lucifer) or are locked in the other canon and also probably dgaf about the Sinners (the Sins and the Goetia).

Those are my personal gripes though

Thirdly, moreso responses to some of OP's points. Not all of them, just the ones I feel like I could actually talk about.

First off the redemption thing. Asking about the crimes, and if they want to change and why not. Again this is an issue with the show not wanting to acknowledge the massive timetable, and therefore never bringing up the characters' human lives. As for what rules they are working with, "Who is throwing the book" no one knows apparently. It seems like "Sin" in the Hellaverse is any generically "Bad" behavior, for any reason (sexual deviancy, murder, stealing, doing drugs, greed, cannibalism, the most classic easy to call-out "evil" shit).

The Sexual assault being a joke one moment (Angel Dust to Husk I imagine) to being treated for drama and seriously the next (Valentino to Angel Dust) I imagine is also a problem I see in Helluva Boss where, they are going all "Ha ha we're an adult cartoon, Murder Drug Sex Joke LOL" where people can be charming assholes one moment but then you have the super serious moment next because you want characters to be sympathetic and relatable but that just ends up looking tone deaf. I've seen people say that Angel being all promiscuous (I hope that's the right word) is meant to be an SA victim's method of having control or something but again it looks like it clashes too much with the method.

For the Gay relationships being better than the Lesbians. I can't remember any Lesbian shops in this franchise other than Chaggie, but is it boring probably because it's attached to Charlie who many think is flat? If I am forgetting any Lesbian ships in HB then please remind me.

As for the specific character points

With Charlie I agree that she doesn't seem to add an arc, but what annoys me is when I see everyone online now start all repeating how she should meet someone too far gone who doesn't deserve redemption which just kind of feels edgy. I get what they mean, but it just feels like those guys who want to break the optimist with the cold hard reality. I'm just reminded of the "Naruto tries to talk no jutsu Hitler" or "When Steven Universe meets a bad guy * insert long paragraph and Steven crying pic * while another guy would kill them" or some joke like that. Again, I get what they actually mean, it just tends to come across like that, at least to me.

As for Charlie showing off more of her power, that leads me to ask "WHY is Charlie the Princess of Hell?" Like, narratively, what does it do? Almost no one respects her rank and she doesn't like to fight/resort to violence. The only thing it SEEMS to do is A. give her a reason to care about the Sinners (the "These are my people" reason, but like I said before that has its own issues) and B. give her the resources to start the Hotel and grant free room and board to its guests. BUT, if we go the opposite then we have another problem. If Charlie is instead someone willing to throw the power around, doesn't;t that basically eliminate almost ANY threat? Like the stuff with Valentino, if Charlie could just snap her fingers and Thanos him, that entire conflict would mean nothing. Even if she isn't someone who likes to resort to violence Val is clearly someone who'd push her buttons enough. If she just has enough resources or power to throw at any problem that isn't an emotional one, all conflict means nothing.

For Alastor, his not wanting Redemption may be true, it's what his big mystery is that keeps him around. We don't know WHO he is contracted to (most people theorize it is Lilith not Roo, due to their shared 7 Year Absence). Based on the final episode (pre-battle and the finale song) he seems like he could either be slowly coming around to liking the Hotel goers genuinely, or he is going to double down as a secret true bad guy in the final hour. We'll have to wait and see. As one of my old favorite shows once said "The Mask worn too long becomes the face"

I agree on the point of Sir Pentious being infantilized for the show. I honestly thought he was going to be a bit more of a recurring bad guy before staying at the Hotel at a mid-point way of the season, but when I learned we were only getting 8 episodes I was fine with it because it would be better to get that over with ASAp so it wouldn't;t be crammed in at the last minute in this already crammed story.

Nifty being infantilized and sexualized is the fault of the main show making her this chaotic gremlin thing. Yeah she was sort of nutty in the Pilot, but Pilot Nifty at least felt like she, at least mostly, had all of her cognitive faculties with her and could actually be talked to.

Those are all my points.

a comprehensive list of everything wrong with hazbin hotel.

quick note before i lose myself in madness, my standards for helluvaboss are non existent because its a free show on youtube. also i kinda like helluvaboss and i will indulge in any bias i damn well please.

oh and spoilers. i guess.

the greater narrative of the entire season is "White lady civilize inner city hoodlum". ex: The blind side. rich girl, affluent family yadda yadda.

the story is set up to be like amphibia, owl house, svtfoe, steven universe, that being starting as something episodic then transforming into story driven narrative. why? because we know the benefits and drawbacks, episodic starts allows us to wander the world, it allows us to understand the dynamics, we are not forced to reckon with anything because there is no deadline. characters are allowed to bloom and shine and the audience can actually get attached.

the source material is Vary Clearly formed from remnants of something out of a middle school edgelord narrative. the usage of transformation, the big spooky grins, the "and then i smile as my eyes glow and-"-isms which in most cases i don't mind because in some instances but in a vary Particular case its astoundingly annoying and that annoyance is like a mold, shit spreads quick.

the color Red. as a lover of homestuck cherubs and karkat and aradia, as someone who fucking loves the color red, it is so painful to say but holy shit tone it the fuck down, i know its hell but their are so many other colors that you can use, its everywhere, the streets, the air, the windows, the screens, the characters, i know the pride ring is represented with red but change up the palates every so often for backgrounds

the rush, this ties into the second point made but i think the story itself is rushed. we know everything way to early. i know way to much and it makes it hard to care about anything because im still trying to digest the last chunk of info. "oh ok, so they clear out hell once a year. oh hell has a heaven embassy? ok. oh that adam the angel, i though he wou- oh its every 6 months now. wait the exterminators die a lot? then why is everyone sca- people in hell already have weapons that can kill angels? w- oh we are in heaven now, ok ma- no one in heaven except for the elites know the exterminations occur? how do-" and its that, just this incessant rush to explain everything to you. notably that's just the god damn spark notes, we need to know everything about the characters now, every single bit of their story, their insecurities, what charlie needs to fix, how she can fix them, the major bad guys, everything. you are never allowed to dwell on a character because we need to rush towards something else. it almost feels like this should have been like... season three, it would have been a fantastic season three if you dropped the introductions honestly.

the concept of redemption. for a story of redemption to work you need to look at three things. What is there crime, Do they want to change, What is preventing them from changeing? there is only one single character that has a notable path of redemption, angel dust, but if you look through their story it feels off. What Exactly is he guilty of? he has sex, does drugs and drinks. his apparent nymphomania is tied to his sad backstory as someone forced into the sex industry so how is that their fault? then if you think about it you start to spiral and notice "hey why are most of these people in hell?" like sure some of them may deserve punishment but then you see the fucking dichotomy and its like "I was a inventor in england and died of the fucking plague, i may have made evil little contraption hoohoohoo" vs "I was a cannibal, a full on cannibal, i fucking killed people and ate them and then someone shot me". ONE OF THESE THINGS ARE A LITTLE MORE FUCKING EXTREME. i'm going to go fucking nuts, the thing they went to heaven with when presenting a case to angels on the idea that redemption and becoming a better person is actually real was angel dust not drinking at a party and not having sex with consenting adults and i want to go fucking insane. WHAT IS THE CRIME, WHO IS THROWING THE BOOK, WHAT DOES THE BOOK INTEL, ARE WE ON GOOD PLACE RULES?! half the cast dont Need redemption they need fucking help, and the other half of the cast do need redemption but they do not seek it making the point moot. sir pentious acts like he has the brain of a hyper intelligent toddler tossing about toys, its almost like he did his one bad thing of spying and then got caught, sank his little diddy about forgiveness and second chances and become a null point through out the rest of the series, sure their was Some weight to him sacrificing himself, he was a decently funny character and he had good moments but him popping up in heaven felt like a fore gone conclusion, he didn't deserve to be in hell so why do i care that he is suddenly in heaven? because its working on the concept the good place already made. no one actually deserves eternal punishment they just need help processing what makes them a dick, but instead of looking at all the parts of the afterlife that make it bad, inefficient and then creating and trying ideas to see if it work instead over a few seasons, we crash dick first into all the major plot points in regards to that and say "tada, we fixed it.".

having a sub-plot about sexual assault and its victims then having multiple sexual assault related gag ruins your point.

don't make a bunch of stereotypically jewish characters into cannibals, that was a big thing, really shouldn't have to say it.

if you are going to make a character black, make them black, you can say alastor was black but sweet seren-fucking-dippity that's not a black man.

pot meet kettle but yeah the cursing could be a little less liberal. maybe just blue hair or the pronouns, not both.

there is a very distinctive art deco/jazz aesthetic which normally i love but i feel as though it is not used to its full extent and in some cases really hurts the character design in and of itself.

this is a vary obvious bit but the story is a million times more interested in gay men then it is of lesbians, which culminates in this insane thing where the writers clearly have more talent or perhaps it would be more abt to say practice writing male gay pining then they are with lesbian pining. which i personally think is hilarious because i did not know you could min max fujoshi-ism that hard.

this next section is more to do with each character on a fundamental level, for the sake of brevity whatever there is left, i'm just doing ones with speaking roles.

13. Charlie:

(see what i mean about that red thing?)

as originally stated charlie fits rather comfortably into every white saviour narrative, though that seems to be part of her joke. though i'm not entirely sure how much of a joke it can be when its rewarded and expected to advance the plot.

her character design says nothing, it has the motif of old puppets or dolls, she wears something vaguely similar to service suits, her demonic form is just some extra horns.not to say every character needs to have their life on a clothes rack but some more snake and goat imagery would be nice

its not the chol design of charlie with snake hair, not an actual problem but its a problem to me, damn you @cholvoq for ruining my ability to look at any of the characters without wishing i was seeing your designs instead.

character wise aside from the white savoir bit, i'm having a bit of trouble understanding what the arc of the character is. she is shown to be naive, someone who doesn't understand how the world works but everytime she says something its something astoundingly clear like "people can actually get better". and its treated like someone demanded faygo in every water fountain. is the joke that the world around her to cynical or is so to naive? please pick one or the other.

now if you know me, you know i fucking hate overpowered characters with a blinding passion, one that would set alit the god damn abyss but in this one special instance, i feel like its warranted, she's the direct descendant of fucking God, she can swing her weight around a little, i mean god damn. she in so many instances looks like shes cowering so often, why would the daughter of lucifer get backed down by some rando pimp? why wasn't she the one to fight adam? sure you can say she is young but how young? her parents were there since pre-abrahamic times, most of the characters showed up in hell in the 1900s, some of them showed up in the 1600s, how old is charlie??? how long does it take for her to learn how to be strong? The story does not suffer if charlie is strong and knows she is strong. it can easily be a case of "i don't believe in violence to a weird degree". fit it into her apparent naivety about the world to believe that violence is never the answer even when dealing with a being that is unilaterally horrible and abusive and monstrous.

she ga- no im kidding, i do think her romance was waysided a bit, it would have been fine to have more scenes of them togather and in love you know?

14. Vaggie

why did you name the lesbian vaggie...? Don't do that maybe?

I like how her design is almost moth like but again i feel as though you could have amped that up.

she feels as though someone tried to combine undyne and pearl from steven universe, same story beats and design elements. it makes it hard to really distinguish her as a character.

i honestly dont have much to say about her. she is fine.

christ kill me, lets just get the big one out of the way

15. Alastor.

God Damn

where to start.

"alastor is mixed race" mixed with fucking what? concrete? there is not a single black feature on that creature, now im not saying you have to make him a png of louie armstrong but it wouldn't hurt to add a curl to the hair maybe? make it a tiny bit more wavy? Something? a crumb i beg of thee?

his symbolism is all over the god damn place, native american monsters (you know the one), voodoo, radio, puppets, stitches, circuses??? and Tentacles i guess. two of those are from closed religions so if you dumped those you would actually get a more concise character focused on the concept of vox populi as a means of societal control and influence as we see in his first song. but again that gets drowned out repeatedly by all the other random toy box bits shoved into him.

tumblr sexy man bait

he serves no purpose in the story. he does spooky stuff, pretends to do things and then goes back to sitting around looking spooky. i understand that his motif is supposed to be aloof mastermind but maybe have him do more mastermindy things? if you remove most of alastors scenes, bar the songs, it doesn't change all to much. husk and nifity can still be at the hotel, they could be looking for outs in their contracts the same as angel dust. hell it even helps with the one scene where he dose some spooky shit, asking charlie for a favor in exchange for his help in the fight with the angels instead of asking him about angel weapons which should have remained a strictly vaggie scene.

his presence in a way delegitimize the story, as I noted in in the section regarding redemption, the three parts are "what is the crime, do they want to change, what is stopping them?" and alastor kinda just spits in the face of that. he is a serial killer cannibal that has no qualms about how evil he is and apparently must continue being evil due to being under the control under someone legitimately called the Root Of All Evil. show him take a slight interest in the idea that maybe shit for him could be better, make him Want Change at the bare fucking minimum or dont have him at the hotel.

his stupid little fucking horns, big shot the troll liker wants characters to have big fucking horns, make them noticeable or dont have them.

he looks more like a dog boy, which could have been an interesting thing with the collar motif but fuck me i guess.

personal pet peeve but i fucking hate characters that have a million plus powers, stick to a set number, be creative.

im getting more petty as i go on so last point: he could have been in less episodes, he didn't need to be in dad beat dad, that should have been just a lucifer and charlie episode. inverse the red and black and i think he would be fucking great color wise, his body type is the same as ten different characters, he isnt radio enough, aside from the voice and and staff if you told me he was the fucking Cat Demon i would have been just as convinced.

16. Angel Dust

what the fuck, gay spider? its hard to actully articulate all the thoughts i have on angel dust, not in the sense that he is a deeply thought provoking character but in the fact that there is not much meat on the bones.

all around i think angel dust is kinda middling. he has a decent enough romance with husk, he has a decent enough story line that revolves around battling addiction and removing yourself from an abuser (which the story tries to brand as "Redemption???")

I dont like that most of his jokes would qualify as sexual harassment, i don't mind him being sexual as a character but continuing on when clearly someone doesn't like the jokes hurts the character.

not a critique but he is pink, which honestly ill fucking take at point, as long as its not more fucking red.

i think his design is an improvement over some of the old vivzie designs but it feels like it could have done with going a few more rounds of design changes.

same thing with alastor, charlie and vaggie, there is not enough of the animal that they are supposed to be. You could have told me angel dust was a fucking bee or something and i would have had to believe you. nothing about angel dust initially says spider, hell he dosent even have enough limps to be a fucking spider.

17. Carmilla carmine

are... are you supposed to be a rabbit...?

Big Yoai Hands

ballet fighting style, could have been cool, wish she fought more like sanji or chun li.

A single mom that works to hard, who loves her kids and never stops-

her song was decent, not great, decent. it feels as though the actress has experience singing but not in the way they tried to make her sing during her two songs. they have a obvious mexican influence, honestly just let her sing in spanish in the english dub. go listen to the spanish dub, "out for love" sounds great in spanish.

i wish i had more thoughts on them, fucking rip.

18. cherri bomb

that's not a punk aesthetic that's 2010s alt

decent character, they showed up once or twice i guess, no real thoughts.

19. egg boiz

absolutely perfect, i have not notes on them, these are perfect creatures.

20. Emily

im so fucking happy to see a singular blue character

does the naive dreamer bit better then charlie

We really shouldnt have seen her until the end of season two or middle of three.

good contrast with the other angels on screen.

Wait she is supposed to be black??? Where???

21. Husk

keith david you absolute delight, Why on gods green earth did they only give you one singing part?

one of the few charecters where its clear husk is a cat, i do like the kinda... marquee design, he is a magic cat, thats neat. i still think you can toss the wings and eyebrows and still have just as good of a charecter.

has a deeply intresting story of someone who died as a nobody, became the fat cat of hell and then was forced back to the bottom by their own vices, not used at fucking all.

huge potential, little pay off.

22. lillith

I know nothing about her except she ditched her kid and husband to vacation in heaven and i think thats kinda funny.

alot of werid things floating around her, again she shouldnt have been shown in the show at all until next season.

23. lucifer morningstar

no notes, funniest charecter, did a song based on friend like me.

few notes: i do like the idea that the immortal symbol of pride is a constant emotional wreckage constantly seeking approval through grand showmanship and manic energy that threatens to take over anything they touch.

would have liked more snake stuff on him, maybe some more goat things like horns.

that is such a stupid fucking staff lmao.

24. Adam.

alex brightman you absolute fucking delight, you should have had more songs.

I wish his design was more focused on the idea of him being a glam rock wash up

I fucking hate his mask

We shouldn't have met him until the end of the season.

25. Niffty

again she is supposed to be a bug or cockroach but nothing about her points to that.

token straight

keeps rocketing back and fourth between sexulization and infantilization

you had kimiko glenn but didnt give her a single fucking song?

26. Sir Pentious

the secret season one redeemed.

the pilot version of him felt more like someone that could do a season one redemption arc, a megalomaniac constantly attempting territory grabs, there is something you can work with, actual character flaws to work through.

essentially a child after the first episode.

actually a snake which i appreciate.

no where near steampunky enough.

27. the villians of the show dont make much sense, each one feels like they should be season long deals on their own instead of a bunch of team rocket esque idiots that show up on occasion, do a bad thing and then leave.

28. Valentino

gOD THERE IS SO MUCH RED

only a moth some of the time.

sucks as a villain, maybe they need more screen time to show why they suck in a more substantial way aside from being told that he sucks.

it is interesting that angel dust is only under his magical control when in the studio, it shows that angel dust has to make a conscious choice to return, which in turn can be made to show how abusers can draw back their victims. I do not think it was done well in this circumstance as it shows him to be cartoonishly evil, constantly flying back and fourth between sweet and utter psycho, there is no actual reason for angel dust to ever actually go back to the studio, he just does so every so often.

29. Vox

legit who cares? the only thing about him that is in any way substantial is all the dope ass fan art we get.

propaganda machine angle that is not explored at all, just hinted at. no actual barring on the story whatsoever.

why didn't he try to do the same shit as alastor by the way? he knows its bad if alastor gets in good with charlie so shouldn't it be a ass kissing race?

same body shape as literally every other male character.

tumblr sexy man version of pyrocynicals fursona.

30. Valvette

the actual poster child of the shows huge problem of "Show me, don't tell me".

apparently the glue that holds the villains together. never shown.

apparently the one that makes the love potions that valentino is famous for. had to learn about that in the fuckin wiki trivias

we know so much about her from things outside of the show.

was there to call carmilla a coward, that's her plot contribution. she shows up every now and again but its never anything substantial and serves to more around take up run time for people We Don't Need To Know Yet.

im not trying to be mean, animation is animation, we need smaller studios to have success in the industry so that other indie studios can have that success, felling a tree makes it easier for others to follow. showing that its possible to number brain rot exacs helps all animators.

but this show has so much bullshit attached to it, it has so much fucking potential that it fries my brain with unyielding frustration.

this took a bit to write, im tired, thanks for reading.

#hazbin hotel #helluva boss #critique #long post #hellaverse #hh and hb #vivzieverse #vivziepop #was waiting all day to post this after seeing it this morning #review

2K notes · View notes