Hey! I absolutely adore all of your reblogs, especially the Billford ones- but with you leaning into a bit of Hazbin Hotel, I'm quite curious! What are your thoughts on Lucifer? I don't see you reblog much of anything on him, and I'd love to know your thoughts on his character, his development, etc!
Aww thank you so much! I'll admit Lucifer still isn't one of my top favs (that honor belongs to Vaggie, Angel, Vox and Charlie) but he's definitely grown on me. I guess I had a fuckton more thoughts on him than I assumed, your ask gave me the opportunity to ruminate and organize them a bit. Go my scarab of retrospective/critique/defense/analysis/speculation:
I was initially attached to the pilot-era inference that Lucifer was the strict parent and Lilith was the understanding but absent one, so I was kinda blindsided by goofy depression dad, voiced by soft-spoken, youthful sounding Jeremy Jordan, who weally weally wuvs his daughter and is just bad at communication uwu! But the more I think about it, his deadly sin of pride (thinking oneself better than everyone else) would naturally lead to isolation, being unwilling to ask for help, and depression. The disappearance of his wife, one of the few others he respects, naturally exacerbates this.
In reconciling with his daughter, he's also forced to share space with those he respects the least: sinners.
(Despite everything, he still defers to Heaven's authority. And if he wasn't good enough for Heaven, there's no way sinners can be.)
(continued under the cut!)
The only hotel resident he shows any affinity for besides Charlie is Vaggi, Charlie's girlfriend and a fellow fallen angel (though he still struggles with her name, get it together dude).
(Greeting her warmly, while he either ignores or actively fights with the sinners)
(Lauding her underappreciated efforts around the hotel, albeit to piss Alastor off)
(Disclosing a tightly held, dangerous secret to her with little prompting when he could have simply refused to do what she asked because he's the Motherfucking King of Hell)
Another aspect that warmed me to him was S2, which assauged my two main concerns from S1 that made him feel kind of flatly written to me: his relationship with Charlie and his amount of power.
I didn't buy him and Charlie's sweet reconciliation in the same episode he's introduced in S1, it felt too neat and didn't ring true to a strained father-daughter relationship the way say, Stolas and Octavia do to me. But S2 made it clear there's still issues between them, which I appreciate.
Additionally, his Big Damn Hero moment in the S1 finale had me worried he may become too OP/a deus ex machina/a writer's pet/Gary Stu. His edgy "I'm so cool haha fuck you" dialogue while he dunks on Adam, as fun as it may be, didn't help.
So naturally, I adore the "can't hurt sinners" limit on his powers, proving my concern there wrong. What a perfect punishment for the prideful angel who gave humans free will! Make him live with the worst consequences of that and unable to fight back!
I know it's fun to make "X character is a fraud" jokes but like. It's Hell. Of course it's gonna be full of frauds and liars who act like they're hot shit. Power is based on who's the best salesman, the best performer in the circus ring. For a while, that was Lu and he's still riding on that reputation a bit, but without Lilith to back him up that power is being challenged.
Lilith, as a former human herself, was evidently much better at connecting with sinners, and likely helped remind him of the positive side of giving humanity the power to choose. On his own, Lucifer is weaker than ever and more prone to regretting that decision. S2, much more than S1 where the main antagonists were the angels, demonstrates why he may feel that way by showing some of the worst downsides of a free, lawless society.
What's the good of free will if the majority of people choose to reject self-actualization in favor of senseless violence?
What's the good if they choose to turn their brains off and follow a conman/aspiring techno-dictator? (Man, do I feel this one.)
What's the good if they use their free will to override the consent of those weaker than them?
I think it's significant that Lu was absent for the entirety of Hear My Hope, stuck in a torture machine devised by Vox, and unable to see a group of sinners come together, reject Vox's plan and choose to value life more than hatred.
In the aftermath and with little context of what happened, he's in a more vulnerable position than ever. As far as we know, this is the first time a sinner has learned his weakness and exploited it, and he got dangerously close to all of Hell discovering it. He has more reason than ever to fear sinners (and as mentioned before, he is likely too prideful to admit this or ask for help).
(Maybe I'm reading too much into this and he's just embarrassed about being clumsy, but doesn't he seem a bit wary here of the new sinners who have checked in? Like "Oh shit they can't see me fumble again what if they figure it out")
And with S3 poised to heavily feature the Morningstars and Alastor...well, things are about to get interesting. Especially since Alastor seems to have already known this secret, and Lu knows he knows.
(...There's some kind of arrangement between the two of them. Either it happened offscreen between seasons, or they were just pretending to meet for the first time in Dad Beat Dad for secrecy's sake.)
My Experience w/the Hellaverse Fandom: A Retrospective
I will say, my time of being in this fandom, for the longest while, since the pilot dropped and following Vivziepop for all her work, has been a time and a half.
Do I regret joining? No, I've made a close friends in this fandom and just stick close to them nowadays.
As a person, that is a POC, this fandom has by far the most racist, xenophobic, misogynistic folk I've ever seen in my lifetime and that's concerning. Many folk are incredibly rude and downright disrespectful if you don't share an opinion with them. A good majority fetishize Eastern artists and unconsciously hold them up on some pedestal.
I was in a server where an Eastern artist was accused of tracing and rather than go ask the artist, via their DMs (which were open btw), they jumped the gun and made an announcement in the server causing ppl to go harass the artist, and people make xenophobic comments in the server. Turns out the artist didn't trace at all, they were just good at replicating on model.
With an audience, consisting primarily of white men and women, the racism and xenophobia comes out so easily, it's mind boggling to me.
Now, when meeting fans irl, at conventions, they're all such a delight, I've never had any issues and you know why, most of them don't have a social media besides Instagram usually.
The moment I mention that I am POC, the tonal shifts happen, the "we feel that we have to walk on eggshells around you" because you're just a blunt and honest individual, or they just never communicate with you because they're afraid you're going to "lash out". It's a rinse and repeat pattern that just keeps disappointing me.
However, most folk wanna fetishize my skin color, my Louisianan culture, but not really care about my history you only care because you love Alastor. And don't get me started on some Alastor redraws I've seen done by many white folks some they do not know how to color brown skin at all.
I used to be in a server called Hazbin Art Initiative and I can tell my story. I was used, even though some people have apologized. I was still hurt and the trauma I've experienced of people only talking to me out of some gain they wanted, still makes me sick at night. I have never healed and will never heal.
My motivation was killed for a while from being in that server, and being told that rules were made up, bc I wasn't liked, or I was too "intense", even though I'm just a very straight forward and honest person, is just childish. This is why you kicked me, really, when I could have just been talked to. Instead you tried to get me to post art to stay active when I don't like being told what to do, having a server feel like an exclusivity club, and lastly, most of y'all didn't like my art, and played favorites and I didn't want to keep posting in a place like that.
I've closed and put my walls up and I can not trust people after this. It's just disheartening how this has been my experience for the past 6 years. This was the more recent happenings.
My asks are open. I will not answer everything publicly as a heads up
No longer associating with Blackbackedjackal due to personal reasons + the apparent threats she made towards Ependa, a latina artist, about possibly sending ICE to her home.
Get help and stay away from me. Stay away from DogBlud. Stay away from Ependa.
I'm a latina, as well. You know this. How'd you think this would go...
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