Dont bother looking in the comments for them cus I deleted the replies plus I blocked them on this blog. (Also do not harass them if you know who this is-- thats why theyre covered by red).
Oh my fucking jesus nipples, shut the fuck up and stop acting so benevolent for someone you don't know to sound more correct.
I wake up to this idiocy at 3:40 AM, reply to how ridiculous it is, and return to my new main to see a few of my friends' posts. Come back, they make even MORE ridiculous claims and complaints. Also, yes, people, it is FUCKING ableist to call someone younger for "not knowing something". Yes it is ageist for saying they cannot be critical BECAUSE they seem too young. That I sadly do not expect you all to know till now because of white people culture making that second nature (my family included). But please stfu, my post is a complaint. If they are allowed to get upset, I am allowed to get upset or slightly annoyed. (I KNOW they said this but they dont care they came here to look like the more sound person as they have not full knowledge what happened in their own words.) I also have had to tell this person 8 times "they don't have to, you are right about that' with an announcement of going buh bye. But here's the thing: If youre gonna use the "theyre a minor" card, teenagers can still say when theyre leaving??? I would as a pre-teen?? And again, NO one is saying you HAVE to and I clarified at the bottom that they already did what they did, and it doesnt really matter cus you cant time travel or smth about it. Plus any shit I talk here about them? It's more of just me being angry because what I (sort of) wake up to is someone thinking they HAVE to talk down to me as if I'm having a tantrum about not being able to do something harmful to myself. Read my posts if you are going to add to the conversation. Obviously this one didnt as they make multiple "points" I either debunked already or have said something that nulls the reason to say anything, and even says that, essentially, my reblog was "needlessly long" which I SAID AT THE BOTTOM OF MY REBLOG!!! I KNOW BITCH. I DIDNT THINK I'D HAVE TO SAY ALL THAT. I was also hoping I didnt need to! But deep down I knew some motherfucker would feel the need to come to the "logic rescue"! Shut the fuck up I dont care this was a little vent opinion. And what struck it most was not that they didn't say anything, it was that they got mad with me and others for reacting, how LITERALLY anyone would react, toxic or not, to a huge blog disappearing without a trace after making posts about spam of wishing harm on someone else in their submissions. Otherwise I wouldn't give a single fuck that they said nothing. But they had to try and act better or disappointed while also being like "I think you guys are ina bad community". End of discussion.
A second part to my Horizons commentary addressing other issues I have with the show. Barely any of it has to do with Roy though. Kinda lengthy. And be warned, negative opinions and such.
I'll start with one that actually did not start in the second act (post time skip). Amethio. Okay it's no secret that he is my favorite character out of the cast. Part of the reason I finally got off my ass and started watching Horizons. I liked what I was reading about him and wanted to know more about him. There was just one problem. Anything I read or saw on Tumblr about Amethio was pretty much everything there is to know. Because he makes very seldom appearances.
Amethio is a great but terribly mishandled character with untapped potential. His backstory is complex, being the grandson of Gibeon who leads the antagonistic team. He had a normal life as a baby but it changed when his mother died, with his father giving him up and his grandfather wanting him assimilated into the Explorers. So you’d think he’d be the one taking most of the charge when it comes to Gibeon’s main goal. But…nope! Kicked off the main mission after just six episodes. Most of the antagonism is instead done by Coral and Sidian, with Spinel being the ultimate threat. Chalce is there too I guess (she gets more attention in the second act). Like, I get Amethio was never supposed to be the main antagonist, but six damn episodes before they introduce the real antagonist?
So Amethio behaves sort of like an anti-hero. After getting booted off the pendant retrieval mission, he changes it to capture the Black Rayquaza. He spends time following the RVT around, with a few actual clashes. The problem with all of these clashes, the battle ends prematurely because a greater threat appeared, whether it be a Pokémon too tough to handle or the Explorers themselves interrupted. Which is just…shitty. I get what they were going for but all it does is make him look incompetent when he very much isn’t. He is well trained, strong, but is never given a real opportunity to show that off.
You think maybe they’d let him function as an ally better but, pre-timeskip, that only happened a few times, one of them being the final fight with Gibeon. All of which, yeah, it's just one big group project and Amethio just sort of falls in the background because the focus is more on the RVT. He makes sparing appearances in between all these fights, like the writers mostly reminding us that he exists instead of putting him to use. His role as semi-antagonist/semi-ally just puts him in a bad position in terms of utilization. He’s never the true focus. The heroes are the RVT, the villains are the Explorers, and he’s just there in the middle. Which sucks as it doesn’t have to be this way. The Pokémon anime just doesn’t know how to handle characters like him.
And because Amethio doesn’t get the attention he deserves, things are even worse for Zirc and Onia. When all three of these characters were officially revealed, I was incredibly excited to see them working together as these new antagonists. It was an interesting choice to make Onia a sort of crazy cat lady who probably enjoys lolcat memes and Zirc was a secret Nidothing fan, even interacting with them online while he and Dot were on opposing sides. I think it's sweet how the two of them are so loyal to Amethio and seemed like the only characters who actually had his back for a while. But just like Amethio, they seldom do appear.
I prayed this would get better post time skip but it's even worse than before. It started strong, with even Zirc and Onia getting their own episode. Amethio’s return episode was phenomenal too along with the next episode being his first random filler which was nice to see. But now he does everything off screen and only shows up for some major events. The Zygarde Cube given to him, his quest to collect the pieces, all of it is done off screen. No episodes dedicated to him bonding with Zygarde in the wake of Gibeon’s death. Zirc and Onia were pretty much absent from the series after they located Amethio, the reason for this being that they needed to “work on the inside”. Which was just code for “Yeah, we need you out of the way and no we're not going to show you actually working on the inside”.
And I gotta say, I understand that Amethio isn't the protagonist, but given how much Spinel fucked his life up, how he took so much from him, I'm salty that the writers don't care to give him more involvement in bringing Spinel down and have just reduced him to the Zygarde holder. He suffered the most out of anyone. He deserves to be seen more often, shown what he does without being in the presence of the RVT. It doesn't even need to be a full episode, just take about half like they did in the Mighty G episode. Once in a while. Like you can still give the protagonists most of the attention. Whatever, probably too late for this now. They treated Amethio like a punching bag throughout the first act and barely gave him anything for this treatment.
Okay, I'm gonna break away from Amethio and his crew to talk about someone else. Gibeon himself. He’s probably more complex than Amethio, but the anime spends very little time on him. Most of the stuff we learned about him was condensed to one episode. He’s a scientist who ends up traveling with Lucius and Rystal to find Laqua, 100 years prior to the main events of the anime. Laquium makes him lose his mind and costs him his friends, one having to seal himself in Laqua to keep it from doing damage and the other having to run off and keep the legacy going. But then everything that happens to him between then and present day is not talked about. And he only appears in front of the RVT once before battling them and then dying.
Like, we just not going to talk about how he got to that point? Nor how he decided to form a new faction of the Explorers? How he managed to create Exceed? How he met his most loyal follower, Hamber? When tf he got that weird suit put on him as his body could no longer sustain itself? And a big one for me, what his relationship with his daughter was like and what impact did her death have on his mental state, if at all? Like, this is bullshit to make someone so fascinating but because this is Pokémon you can’t talk about it too much cause time has to be spent on the funny magical creatures battling and the power of friendship like come on… If this was any other anime, we would know a lot more about him and Amethio. Was hoping maybe we’d get some more in the timeskip but it's clear by now that ain’t happening.
IDK, I get the feeling Gibeon was just too dark for the Pokémon anime. As is Amethio’s backstory of family dysfunction leading up to where he is now. But it’s like…so interesting like wahhhhh. Ever since Gibeon’s crashout it feels like they tried to tone things down a bit. Maybe corporate not happy about their kid friendly show for their billion dollar IP going down that route of mental instability and family abuse. I mean I should have figured this with that bullshit way they made Amethio reconcile with Cervantis.
Moving onto a second act specific complaint, the Explorers. Just what did they do to them? Spinel should be more menacing than he was before now that he's in charge but he really isn't? He only appears once in a while to make some ominous comment before he's gone again. Chalce did get some development and focus. At least now we know why she complies with everything Spinel does. But we don't know what he did or said to make her abandon any sense of morals she had, I'm guessing it had to do with money going to her school, probably Gibeon wasn't forking over the money which made her ultimately betray him. They barely let Coral and Sidian do anything anymore in order to make them into Strong Sphere influencers or some shit. Like remember when Coral launched Glalie into the Brave Olivine and severely damaged it? This is just so vanilla and bland compared to that.
Then there was the over-reliance on Rubina and Indi to be the easily-thwartable villain in the same vein as Jessie and James, but lacking any of the personality and depth. The most we got in terms of personality is that one likes red Pokémon and the other likes blue Pokémon (yet they never gave them Throh and Sawk, smh) They are just as Amethio describes them, “Spinel’s hand-reared pets”. I’m not sure if the Pokémon they use are actually their own and are just property of Exceed. Makes me think of how they made Jessie and James function in Journeys where they don’t use their own Pokémon but Team Rocket rentals.
They should feel like a larger threat, but the Explorers as a whole felt more threatening and menacing when Gibeon was in charge of them. And I think this is mostly because Liko and the others dealt with consequences back then. Like Coral blowing up the Brave Olivine. Or Dot not getting to Chalce in time before she stole all the info from Naranja Academy. What happens now? Spinel says the public eye will be after the RVT now that he smeared their name but then nothing fucking happens cause they don't encounter anyone who believes him thus there are no consequences. Sure, they sort of felt consequences when they failed at getting the captured heroes the first time, but that was set up in the most unfair way that made the gang look incompetent for trusting in an email after what they’ve been through previously with the Explorers. That was something completely in their control and they didn’t use common sense. Should also mention that they didn't even really fight the Explorers either. They fought the five captured heroes under the influence of Laquium. So not needed were the Explorers that they sent Rubina, Indi, and three nobodies to "command" them. Like I'm sure you can get any five year old to do the same. Coral and Sidian only moved caused Amethio showed up.
Okay lets move on from the Explorers and turn the attention to the RVT. You already know my opinion about Friede and how he was handled after the end of the first act. But what also sucks about him being gone is that the writers seem to not have any sort of need for the other adult members of the RVT. They’re just reduced to cook, mechanic, healer, and wise sage. Before they actually had focused and gave their opinions on how to handle the Explorers when Friede was around. Now…nothing. Just let the children take on this evil corporation by themselves. I mean, okay, I guess you can make the argument that’s very on brand for Pokémon. This is a very common complaint in the fandom.
I can't be certain on this, but between the Explorers and the adult RVT getting less screentime, it's almost like the Pokémon company doesn't want to keep shelving out money to get the voice actors to have more voice lines (like Friede, Spinel, and Amethio for example; though that doesn't explain Coral cause she voiced by Ikue Ohtani and they'll pay her anything to keep her cause she’s Pikachu lady). They're probably saving a lot not having Friede be a regular. And this was sort of a joke last week with how badly Friede’s Charizard was animated in one scene. Maybe they really are just running out of budget. The animation does seem like it's getting choppier. I remember the first act having very fluid animation, not just Pokémon but people too. It's ridiculous that there would be a thin budget from a billion dollar IP but…not unbelievable.
I'm going to talk about Ult for a bit, a controversial addition. He’s an…okay character. I was more forgiving towards him in the beginning of the second act as he had untapped potential, plus him roasting Coral and Sidian was needed. But…I don’t see too much growth happening with him, as much as I hoped for. He feels the most unchanged out of everyone. He has learned to trust others a bit more, which is a plus. But my biggest gripe with Ult is actually his Dragonite. Not simply because “oh he’s just given this OP Dragonite cause GameFreak has to advertise its Mega Evolution” but just at how convoluted its backstory is.
It’s weird how it stayed in its Poke Ball for years and years, and only revealed itself once Ult had the desire to protect someone. This may have been intended as to not straight up give him Dragonite, but to earn it. But it’s just so…IDK. Dragonite really seems to love Ult, and you’re telling me when he was homeless and hungry on the streets of Lumiose that he never felt compelled to come out and protect him? *insert gif of JonTron “I get it, I don’t get it” here* But I’m pretty sure Dragonite was only made into a mystery with this wishy-washy restriction on it just because the writers had to keep it hidden until corporate officially revealed Mega Dragonite. There’s nothing more to it than that. Also, personality wise, yeah just a standard Dragonite like Roy's Lucario. Seems like it's a carbon copy of Ash's Dragonite.
And just…why did the writers need to introduce yet another deadbeat dad to the series? Couldn't he just be dead? It would have felt more meaningful at least. Like Dragonite could have just been traumatized by his passing, giving a solid reason to why it doesn't come out of its ball. Salt is just Friede again; an adventurer who doesn't want to deal with his responsibilities and leaves a Pokémon behind to watch over said responsibilities. Is that why Ult got immediately attached to Friede? He subconsciously was reminded of his father? Maybe.
I might be jumping the gun a little with this, but the finale has me concerned already. Looks like they're trying to shoehorn Mega Evolution with the main events of the episode which makes me worried that this will focus on being this flashy spectacle rather than a satisfying conclusion. And I can't say I'm too thrilled about Ann, Nemona, and Penny coming along (sorry, I'll try to explain this) Yes, another complaint I had was the lack of focus on game characters so technically this should be a good thing. The problem is that they spent most of their time ignoring these characters. Now suddenly they are involved in the biggest battle of the series? Like just a few months earlier you had Nemona visit Blueberry Academy only to battle Roy just to send her away at the end. Wouldn't it have been a good time to explain the deal with the Explorers and she could also provide guidance during training? Nope!
The only character I feel the most comfortable joining the team is Penny due to her actually conflicting with the Explorers on multiple occasions. Ann and Nemona just feel like they are there to fill in gaps, especially Nemona who seems to have just learned who the Explorers were a week ago. And just to be clear, I would have been on board with her joining if they actually bothered to set her up properly. The same with Ann. That would have been cool if we got to know all of them in depth and see for themselves what damage the Explorers caused (and also have Arven join too but that’s something for another day). But because they didn’t do that, I'm not totally on board with it, sorry. What would have been nicer was to have the not as strong characters like the adult RVT gain strength and do battle with the organization that forced them into hiding for a year but hey, that's just me. Oh yeah, I forgot that this series now hates adults, except for Diana (which yeah she’s awesome but the others need love too)
Y’know, one of the reasons I was initially hesitant to get into Horizons was that I thought there were too many characters on the show to get to know. Like it felt overcrowded. But then I came to actually like most of these characters. Only to have many of them lose relevance post-time skip and not get deserving attention. And between the new additions being there and all the Mega Evolution happening, it concerns me that Amethio is just going to get pushed further into the background. At this point it just feels like he’s there because he has Zygarde. Not holding my breath for Zirc and Onia to get any sort of screentime.
I don't know if the end is for sure coming in just a few episodes or if the series will continue on for another year. If it does end now, then act 2 feels terribly undercooked. If act 1 got two years, I feel this should get at least a year and a half. But it does really seem like they're rushing to the end. If it's not the end and they plan to have stuff after the Explorers' defeat, then my fear will be they won't have a use for Amethio at all and write him off the show completely. My hope is that Spinel pulls some sort of trump card that makes the conflict last a little while longer. Though if that happens, that's no guarantee they'll do anything meaningful with the remaining plot. Just more Megas maybe.
Anyway, yeah, those are my gripes. This kind of turned into a mostly Amethio rant, not against him of course but the treatment of him by the writers. Regardless I will finish the series, but I can see why so many people dipped out. Who knows, maybe the ending will actually be really good and I’m just worried for nothing. Hopefully.
“Look at me, I’m provocative” but it has nothing else going on
I heard it’s the same director as loverboy, but this is worse (at least lover boy was bad in the way it was supposed to be, if that makes sense).
The characters can absolutely be keeping something from each other, but when the audience isn’t in on it, it feels more like you don’t know how to tell a story.
I am not invested in any of these people, and they are trying too many things with these nc scenes. It’s like they took all the inspired and interesting things from other successful shows and then tried to cram them into this but with no reason or style.
The editing is weird, jumpy, and disjointed
They were supposed to hook up to be business partners in a sense, but they are now just practically live in boyfriends. I don’t understand anyone yet and the main character is all over the place. Like he has a persona that we aren’t fully in on. I gave to 2 episodes and I can’t. It’s tide of love again with a slightly bigger budget and more time but about the same amount of storytelling.
Extremely Unpopular opinion, I guess (and completely random), but Peeta is not a good love interest and is actually very manipulative and creepy.
Why?
1. He's "in love" with Katniss, despite the fact that he's only ever talked to her once or twice and his feelings come from watching her from afar. That's not love, that's the kind of things stalkers do.
2. He springs on Katniss the love declaration live where she has no space to process her feelings or respond in any negative way without risking her life or chances of survival.
3. By creating this situation Peeta (and Haymitch) engineered a situation where for Katniss's survival she must pretend to have romantic feelings for him.
4. Peeta suspects Katniss has romantic feelings for/is involved with Gale, but this doesn't stop him from enacting this plan.
Oh, but it's all for the sake of Katniss's survival! He was willing to die for her! How noble! How selfless!
No, it wasn't. But then again, the hunger games are messed up and people do messed up things there. That's understandable. If Peeta had ever bothered to apologize to Katniss for putting her in such an untenable situation maybe they could have built a more real foundation to a relationship.
But instead, the books are more concerned with Katniss feeling confused and conflicted about her feelings for Peeta and Gale, and castigating Katniss for not be grateful enough, for keeping secrets or having secrets kept from her and then her making mistakes because she doesn't magically make the right choices while not having the whole picture.
Katniss/Peeta could have worked. If Peeta, instead of being in love with Katniss since day one, "just" admired her. And if he thought that since he won't survive the games he wants the other person from district 12 to win. If he asked/warned Katniss about the lovebirds plan.
And yes, you can still have an element of uncertainty of how he really feels, if he is actually falling in love with her or not, and Katniss uncertain about how she feels about him. And this would still require Katniss to act in love on TV for her own survival, but this would be a choice she makes, not a plan she was manipulated into.
Instead, Katniss is pushed into a situation she has no real agency over, where she has to kiss another person in order to survive. And she has to be grateful about it, grateful that Peeta wants to sacrifice his life for her. And who's forcing her to kiss the feverish Peeta, anyway? Where's the gun to her head?
(The entire hunger games are a gun to Katniss's head, wielded by Peeta: if you want to survive, Katniss, you must kiss me)
But the hunger games are messed up, anyway. Kids forced to kill other kids. What's a few kisses in comparison?
Peeta says he doesn't want the games to change him into something else, implying he doesn't want to be forced into murdering innocent kids like Rue. But he does use the games to push Katniss into a situation where she must express affection for him in order to survive. And the situation requires Katniss's "willing" participation, making her complicit in this situation, making the romantic connection between them a fait accompi.
It doesn't matter that later Katniss does develop genuine feelings for him, because how can we trust these feelings are not just a victim of coercion making the best of a terrible situation? In the beginning of Catching Fire Katniss realizes she must sell their romance once more not only for the sake of her own survival but for that of her family's. Under those desperate circumstances there's a lot of internal psychological pressure to turn the fake relationship to a "real" one. And of course it helps that Peeta is young, and handsome, and gentle, and repeatedly expresses to Katniss that she is the most important thing in his life. He tells her:
"Katniss... If you die, and I live, there's no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You're my whole life", he says. "I would never be happy again."
---
But what other choice did Peeta have? - is the counter argument. He was genuinely trying to save Katniss's life, and he had no idea that he would survive the games. He had no way of knowing he would be forcing her into a relationship with him for the rest of her life. And the games are the ultimate culprit here, making teens make horrific choices in hopes of survival.
But the thing is, Peeta did have other choices: he could have chosen to share the plan with Katniss. But even if he hadn't, he could have later genuinely taken responsibility for what he put Katniss through.
That doesn't happen. Instead, the books focus on traumatizing Katniss and Peeta further, and ending the books with them together. Oh, look, these books say, look how traumatized and messy and grieving these people are, the games were terrible and war is terrible and propaganda is terrible and no one exits them unharmed or unbroken.
Peeta and Katniss are messed up and scarred and traumatized, the book says... but at least they have each other.
---
The books frame the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale as Katniss not only choosing between two boys, but also between two different paths. Gale represents violence and vengeance, violence that ultimately kills innocent people, that kills Prim. Peeta, meanwhile, is supposed to represent compassion, unity, and resisting and winning through diplomacy. The narrative and Katniss admire Peeta's ability to influence and manipulate public opinion for protection and survival.
Yet the narrative doesn't quite acknowledge that Katniss is a victim of such a manipulation. Peeta declared he loves Katniss to protect her, but it's also awfully convenient for Peeta. Since he apparently genuinely believed that he would die, his last major act before entering the games did two things:
1. Both Katniss and the entire world became aware on some level of his feelings
2. For this to not backfire on Katniss, she couldn't reject him publicly. She would be forced to play along.
So Peeta gets to have the world and Katniss acknowledge his love for her. He doesn't warn or ask Katniss for permission (and spare me the Haymitch excuse that her reaction needed to be genuine. What if she had been in love with Gale and so reacted to Peeta's declaration in horror or disgust?).
And even later, the narrative never hints that Peeta did something bad to Katniss. Since it was for her own good, she should be grateful. He doesn't ever need to apologize for putting her in that position.
And I find this narrative framing uncomfortable and disturbing.
Uuuu, I really want to know about #17 (pet peeves) :)
I could write a textbook about this, but: I actually am not keen on an overemphasis of smut in fics to the point that I've seen writers skip the story to get to the smut (even when not tagging it as that kind of story). At certain times in certain fandoms fic is deeply associated with smut, and I really wish that weren't the case.
At my core I like reading fan fiction so that all my friends from the game or show or whatever can go off and have more adventures, less so for, well, *makes kissy faces while smashing dolls together*. For BG3, it fills the hole in my soul that DLC should be filling. That is generally VERY evident in the stories I write (it took Lia and Gale THIRTY CHAPTERS to bang, and Tavaria/Rolan are MUCH SLOWER).
If you like reading that stuff fantastic! If you like writing that stuff fantastic! But for me, I think that fic emphasizes smut over story too much, and writers (not necessarily you obv, just in general) often gloss over the story to get to the sex.
And then at the same time, because it's so over-emphasised, plenty of people who would make GREAT fic writers absolutely won't, because the sex isn't their thing and they feel like they're 'supposed to'.
Like, yes,
I’ve seen a lot of Angel Dust-involved ship critical posts lately, all of them cruel and mean-spirited and all of them from those HuskerDust shippers who give the rest of them a bad name and go out of their way to attack anyone with a ship involving either Husk or Angel. They do this because “HD is canon”, and even those who don’t like the ship have resigned themselves to it being canon. But here’s the thing: in both the actual text of the show and in the meta, it’s not. And I’m going to go through several points to prove that it isn’t canon. (Note: these are all tropic flags and nothing else. Consider this a tiny media literacy course.)
Getting this out of the way: this isn’t anti-HD, a discouragement from shipping HD, or saying “it’s literally never going to be canon”. Obviously, people are free to ship whatever they want for whatever reasons they want; this isn’t intended to bully members of the fandom or to shame anyone who ships it, nor to attempt to convince people not to ship it. This is simply a response to claims of the canonicity of the ship being used to bully non-shippers, and speaking from the viewpoint of the narrative, the tropes, and the meta, it is not canon.
tl;dr: I don’t hate the shippers, I hate the bullies. This is not a discourse invitation, this is a trope analysis. If you don’t like what I’m saying, move on or block me. If you think I’m being mean, I really don’t care, because this is specifically a response to people who are being mean all the time. People in the fandom are terrified to be even vaguely critical of this ship because of the potential backlash, but I’m an Aquarius with a block button, idgaf.
HD was not confirmed canon by Medrano in an interview or on Twitter
To get this first point out of the way, the primary proof that HD shippers will use to claim their ship is canon is a Tweet Medrano put out after Episode 4 was put up on Amazon, as well as a Zoom interview where the interviewer asked her about HD.
The Tweet, which included a screenshot of Masquerade and asked what HD shippers thought of the episode, included the ship name. This is an example of engagement farming, a technique used in social media when people will use trending/popular tags, words, and phrases in order to increase engagement with posts and videos. The use of the HD ship name was not a confirmation of the ship; rather, it was used to capitalize on the ship’s popularity, ensuring that the algorithm would distribute it to as many people as possible. We know this was engagement farming because it was simply asking the people who shipped them what they thought of the episode. It didn’t call it a HD episode, nor did it say it was for the HD shippers.
In the Zoom interview, while the person conducting the interview used the term HD, Medrano herself never did. In fact, she went out of her way to avoid using the ship name, and instead, used the generic word “relationship” when describing their future interactions, a word she has also used to describe future progression between Charlie and Lucifer (so, if this makes HD canon, then it also means that Charlie and Lucifer will be a canon romantic ship).
HD was not confirmed canon by Blake Roman or Keith David
In much the same vein as the aforementioned Zoom interview, when Roman and David were interviewed about the interaction between Angel Dust and Husk, both actors carefully avoided using any terminology or wording that suggested a romantic relationship, only talking about the two of them as close friends. If the ship had actually been confirmed by Medrano months earlier, there would be no reason for the two of them to skirt around the issue. There was also nothing teasing the potential of the ship, simply straightforward information about their friendship.
Husk has been called Angel Dust’s “best friend” by Medrano repeatedly
Medrano has always, when referring to their future interactions, referred to Husk as Angel Dust’s “best friend”. Additionally, while she has never shied away from stating when a character has any form of romantic interest in another character, her only comment on Husk has been that he is pansexual, but she has quite specifically never once stated that he has any romantic interest in Angel Dust.
“Loser, Baby” is the “we’re not so different” buddy musical song
Much of Hazbin Hotel can only be understood through the lens of the form of media that it’s taking most of its cues from: namely, musical theater. There are many tropes that exist within musical theater, specifically in the types of songs themselves, that are used as shorthands to tell audiences what relationships are between characters and how they will be interacting going forward, because all storytelling in musicals are abbreviated by necessity, and songs exist to encapsulate large portions of character/story development in short periods of time.
“Loser, Baby” is, tropically speaking, a song that occurs during the main character’s lowest point in the first half of Act II. This is when they have encountered a massive hurdle in their journey (a breakup, a death, getting kicked out of their house or school, losing their dream job, etc) and are feeling hopeless and lost. In this instance, one of two kinds of songs will occur at this point during the show:
The first is the romantic duet, where the MC is dejected and negative, and their love interest is attempting to turn them around. This is the point when the love interest realizes they are in love with the MC, whether they confess these feelings or not, and is a plea for the MC not to give up.
The second is the “snap out of it, you moron” song. This takes place when the MC is on their own and is found by either a character we are familiar with who has realized they misunderstood the MC (who goes from being a point of conflict to a friend), a family member of the MC (usually either a sibling, an adult offspring, or a parental figure), or by a character we have never met before (generally one considerably older than the MC). This is the song where the other character confesses to the MC that they understand their pain because they were once in the same situation, or because they went through a similar painful progression if that situation hasn’t changed. This song typically carries a “suck it up, buttercup” message and is considerably more callous than the romantic duet, because it is a communication of tough love. It’s important to note that this is never a duet between the MC and their love interest.
“Loser, Baby” is quite firmly in the second category. It is not romantic in nature; rather, it’s Husk realizing that he misjudged Angel Dust and, subsequently, telling him “a lot of other people are in your position, I’m one of them, you aren’t special, stop whining”.
If “Loser, Baby” is romantic, Husk is a predator
For the entirety of the series up until this song, Husk has shown that he has absolutely zero interest in Angel Dust romantically. “Loser, Baby” comes on the heels of Angel Dust confessing to suffering from a great deal of physical and emotional abuse and manipulation, as well as crying in front of someone else for the first time, showing his first true moment of real vulnerability. If Husk uses that moment to suddenly show interest in Angel Dust, it says that either A) Husk is only interested in Angel Dust once he realizes that he is emotionally broken and in a vulnerable position, or B) Husk is willing to use this vulnerability to his advantage and subsequently manipulate Angel Dust. Both of these things are contradictory to Husk’s character.
Husk and Angel Dust have minimal interaction in Welcome to Heaven
Episode 6 has two plots: the A plot, which is Charlie and Vaggie visiting Heaven to attempt to bargain with the Seraphim; and the B plot, revolving around Angel Dust’s temptations to regress into his addictions. In the B plot, Husk’s only interactions with Angel Dust are judging him for wanting to do drugs (which directly contradict his claim in “Loser, Baby”, where he expressly states that he’s fine with Angel Dust’s hooking and drug addiction; it also comes while he is indulging in alcohol, his own vice, which is the definition of hypocritical), and being silently proud of him when he doesn’t do drugs. This is the behavior of the Shoulder Angel or of the Detached Father, not the love interest.
Angel Dust is a main character, Husk is not
Angel Dust is a member of the main cast, alongside Charlie, Vaggie, and Alastor. Husk is a secondary character. It isn’t feasible to have a main character pursue a relationship with a secondary character; you can have an MC who is already in an established relationship with an SC, but you cannot build a relationship between an MC and an SC because the SC doesn’t have enough lines or screen time. Keith David is also quite expensive, and there is no way the show will be able to afford the price that would be required for Husk to be a larger presence in the show.
There is a forty year age gap between the two
Sinners do not age, nor do they mature. We see examples of this in every single Sinner throughout Hell; Angel Dust is a good example, as he died in his 30s in 1947, meaning he would be (at minimum) 110 years old. However, he acts like a young man in his early 30s who spent most (if not all) of his life in a deeply repressed home. Another good example is Cherri Bomb, who is clearly in her 20s, but would be at least in her 60s by this point. Because of this, it is easy to determine that not only do their bodies not age, their minds do not, meaning that the age they were at time of death is the age they will be, mentally and emotionally, forever.
Angel Dust died in his 30s. The only official number Medrano ever gave for Husk’s age at death was 75, and she has stated both that he died in the 1970s and he was born before the year 1900. While no specific age has been stated for Angel Dust, he is written to be between the ages of 30 and 35, meaning that there is a minimum age gap of forty years between the two of them. Additionally, if Husk was intended to be the love interest of someone in their 30s, he would not have been specifically written to be an old man.
Angel Dust has never once come on to Husk
Angel Dust is a flirtatious and sexual character. However, his only flirtations with Husk have been responses to statements Husk made that could be taken out of context. Not only does he never take the initiative and flirt with him first, he also never propositions him; the closest he gets is telling Husk he would be lucky to be propositioned by him. (As a side note, Angel Dust has only ever propositioned two characters in the entire show: Alastor, both in the pilot and the first episode, and Alastor’s shadow construct in the second episode).
It could be said that this is because Angel Dust has “true feelings” for Husk and is, therefore, too shy to overtly proposition him, which brings us to the next point:
HD as a ship is built entirely on homophobic writing tropes
There are several points about this ship that are, ironically, homophobic, but I’ll be focusing on the last two points: the age gap and Angel Dust’s sexual nature.
The age gap: the gay male community has, since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, been plagued with this idea that enormous age gaps are not only fine, they’re expected. Age differences that would never be tolerated in heterosexual or even lesbian couples are waved off when the characters in question are men. This has created the false expectation that many older gay men have--namely that they are “owed a twink”, and that younger gay men are almost required to submit themselves to a much older man as a rite of passage.
Angel Dust’s sexual nature: Husk has quite expressly stated he has no interest in Angel Dust’s overt sexuality, to the point that he refuses to even look at him as a person until Angel Dust reveals other facets of his personality. This suggests that, for a relationship to work, Angel Dust would have no choice but to repress his urges, or that Angel Dust’s sexuality is a front and he actually isn’t that overt. In either case, this would be a direct parallel to Angel Dust’s life as a gay man in the 1930s and 1940s, where he would have been forced to be closeted under threat of prison or death, and either Husk himself or the audience would be forcing him back into a form of that closet.
Crimini has no stated relationship with Angel Dust
Crimini, a character who is slated to appear in Season Two, has been described as Husk’s adoptive daughter who will make up the bulk of his character plot going forward. Not only does Angel Dust have no stated relationship with her, he has never once been mentioned alongside her character at all. If Angel Dust was intended to be Husk’s love interest, that would make him (functionally) another parental figure to Crimini, if perhaps a reluctant one; that would make him an integral part of Crimini’s future plot, but seemingly, the two have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.
Despite the fact that Medrano changes canon based on fan opinion all the time, the show is written too far in advance to change major plot beats just because one ship got really popular
We in the fandom know that Medrano has a tendency to fold in the face of fandom wants and desires. However, between the pilot and season one, the HD fandom was rather small; this would have been when Medrano was working with Amazon, getting future script approval and mapping out the way the story was going to go, and at the time, RadioDust was just about the only thing keeping the fandom alive long enough for interest to remain during the three year gap, and we all know that isn't going to be canon. Because of the sheer amount of overhead and advance planning that goes into something like this--particularly considering that season two was already in production in the wake of season one’s premier--the fact that the HD fandom grew after the season’s release would be unable to have any effect on the show because it would be far too complicated and far too expensive to make big changes. HD would only be viable if it was already planned from the beginning, which it quite clearly was not.
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So what's my point with all of this? My point is that the content of media means things, and part of media literacy is understanding the difference between wishful thinking/projection and canon.
