THE URL IS AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION PLEASE DONT HURT ME

[stellaapologist]

hiiii i’m finally making a hellaverse critical blog

the names specter, he/she/kit/they pronouns, 21

putting my helluva boss salt here so i don’t bother my mutuals. mostly helluva boss bc i haven’t actually watched hazbin hotel lmao

main blog is the-soup-specters-sillies! might also post about hh/hb rewrites here at some point

update: also posting criticisms of TADC now.

[fvckw4d]

Im beginning to think that the reason a lot of people are invested in defending tadc, even if they themselves arent fans of it and never were, is because its the kind of thing made for the exact demographic of people who tend to hang out online and especially on Tumblr—very internet young queer art nerds and fandomheads who see themselves as temporarily embarrassed popular indie creators. A lot of them are taking people frustration at tadc personally because it feels personal. Tadc represents the online culture and a future thing they want to make someday.

The idea that tadc, an indie project made by a trans creator for very online nerds, still failed to say something salient feels wrong somehow. The fact that a lot of people are breezing past the creator's racism is just part of that. It suggests theres something wrong with the industry and the culture and that demographics dont salvage that. It suggests the same thing hazbin hotel did before it, but was quickly buried under jokes about edgy humor and kink—just because a project is indie and queer doesn't mean its good, it doesn't even mean its progressive or immune to selling out.

Tadc's story asks a few questions: what does "success" look like? Telling a meaningful story? Telling the story you WANT to tell? Selling plush toys? Making it "big time"? Having a personal relationship with fans? Doing just as good in following and financially as something put out by a bigger studio with more money?

And on the fan side—does it matter if its good, or good by your standards, as long as its not Disney? Do you judge it the same way? Do you judge it at all? Does art make you feel good when it feels like part of your community? When it makes you feel like part of a community? What kind of community? Does art need to do that?

What do you want art to say? What do you want to say back to it?

[mad-not-disappointed]

Gummigoo after finding out he's an NPC: my whole life was a lie.. what about my mother? my family? my memories? were any of those real? is my only purpose in life to entertain real people while i suffer in this stagnant existence? am i destined to live out the rest of my life with the knowledge that i've never been a real person?

the main cast after finding out they were brain scans and not real people: oh no. anyway

[stellaapologist]

anyone else get a little weirded out when people call jax a fumbler. like yes funny haha but she did drive her friend to suicide. that's a bit more than a fumble i think

[baydoors9000]

We're doing everythinggggggggg BUT putting things in the show, omggggggg "They've been talking for hours 😍" ABOUT WHAT???

[carto0ncritter]

When Ribbit opens up to Jax and tells her about their Mormon parents, Jax doesn't react at all. She doesn't say "I'm sorry" or even "That sucks" or anything like that. Instead the scene plays out like this:

Girl, not everything is about you, have some empathy. And even if Jax did feel bad for Ribbit, we don't get to see her face so... we can just assume

[stellaapologist]

its not just me right... you guys see it you see the appeal...

[etiennelux]

reading a negative review of something you love written by a person who very clearly didn’t understand it at all

[t-valentines]

reading a positive review of something you love written by a person who very clearly didn’t understand it at all

[jabberwockypie]

Reading a negative review of something you hate by someone who very clearly didn't understand it at all and hates it for the wrong reasons

[metaworldrename]

I’m glad we’re calling out Vivzie and Goose on their bigoted tweets, no matter how obscure. But why aren’t we seeing this pushback against Zach Hadel? On top of all the thinly-veiled racist “jokes” that the other two do, he also spread Nazi conspiracy theories with a straight face while defending JonTron. And he’s friends with Shadman. For that matter, why do I always have to spell out that Jschlatt runs GamerSupps, a company that collabs with Nazis and makes products with their likeness. I feel like there’s a bit of selective awareness going on and we need to challenge that.

[stellaapologist]

this is the most invested ive ever gotten in a crossover crackship. welcome to my twisted mind.

[mad-not-disappointed]

Caine from episodes 1-7: seemingly the antagonist (?) but pretty tolerable guy overall, doesn't really seem to understand human emotions but he's trying his best to keep everyone happy

Caine in ep8: faces one (1) minor inconvenience and immediately turns into a full blown villain who tortures everyone for no reason

Caine in the very next episode: 🥺👉👈 i'm sowwy can we be friends again? i suddenly gained empathy by just looking through all of your social media profiles

[pinkoctodoodles64]

i've been really interested with the idea of ragatha x ribbit lately, even if not too much is known about ribbit yet and i doubt we'll see these 2 interacting much in the finale in whatever flashback there is (let's be real: 99% of her moments with be mainly involving jax and i guess kaufmo i just know it 😭)

i still enjoy having thoughts of these 2 together regardless of what little canon there is so far and i also like them being just friends too

[nungusposts]

Dare I say I have no mouth and I must scream to TADC is what BoJack Horseman is to Helluva boss.

[ubuyo]

liking a character from a thing you don’t like

[raggadollie]

like what if they were a little self-aware

[heytherepixiestixx]

[fortunelowtier]

I usually dont follow these kinds of cartoon conspiracy theories, but I'm like 70% sure sure that TADC was supposed to have a different ending than what we got. There are simply too many pieces of evidence or plot points that pointed towards something that ended up going nowhere

Even if you wanna be generous and say that stuff like "Scratch...the first abstraction" and Caine not being able to tell who's an NPC and who's not were just one-off things not meant to be elaborated on, there's still the fact that Goose tweeted shit like this