☆ Azzy ☆

The trauma of sex trafficking, and of filming, can be very specific at times, and can involve more than one expects. Its not just the violation of the body; it's the exposure to others without one's proper consent, the understanding you're being reduced to a piece of meat for entertainment, the fact that even when you escape the recordings of your torture are still out there. Being coerced into filming is just so much more, and can be shown in so many different ways, but Angel Dust just ends up falling flat for me because his trauma is shown in a very hollow, broad way when it's just not like that in real life.

Have Angel Dust react around cameras in different ways, have him playing up the performance aspect of himself for the cameras (something I think the Hazbin pilot did semi-well), give him a false pride and a simultaneous dread over his "films", or even show him grappling with how many people have been able to watch him be violated. I think there's so many different ways to make it work but the canon writing falls flat because it doesn't want to fully address this trauma, just show it in flashy pop sequences and watching Angel Dust get brutalized.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how Valentino gets woobfied & treated as just some silly guy. Whether it's the merchandise (like the "Pimpin Not Simpin" mug), or people on the production team, or even just in the writing itself, I find it very odd and honestly gross how those running the franchise try to sell Val as this quirky character when he's a rapist & sex trafficker. It's like they want to have their cake and eat it too: make Val a terrifying, abusive threat within the narrative, while also making cutesy ship art & acting as if he's just a normal character. Or how the imagery used for Poison is incredibly similar to the imagery used in fetish comics made by the lead storyboard artist for that sequence. It makes the writing feel all the more cheap and gross.

Honestly, in general, I think Vaggie as a character would do so much better if we actually got to see her acclimate to hell and its people alongside the viewers. Not only does it give us a natural way to learn more about hell, but it also endears Vaggie to us through that bond of learning (which is to say, as we learn alongside Vaggie, we get to bond with her). Maybe it would've been better if we saw Vaggie's loss of angel status (perhaps as the event that inspired Charlie to create the hotel), and then got to follow as she learned more about hell, got close to sinners, and relearned the true forces behind the system she was a part of.

Right off the bat, I want to point out that of the 3 canon lesbians in the franchise,

one of them is named after vaginas, & like I said in the original post, can be summed up as "Charlie's knight girlfriend",

one of them (the ONLY black lesbian) has no positive interactions with women on screen, & actively works with & is friends with a sex trafficker/rapist, including creating date-rape potions as part of a business enterprise with said sex trafficker,

and the last one (the only lesbian in HB) is a background character who debuted by killing the woman who slept with her husband, only to end up in a sexual relationship with said woman.

Alongside these less than good lesbian characters are a collection of other queer woman, mostly bisexual and pansexual. And you'd think, especially with how prevelant queer men are in the franchise, these queer women get a chance to shine too, right?

No, actually. A majority of these women are confirmed outside of the show, and again most of them don't show more than mild interest in other women, and most end up with men or their romantic endeavours have been focused around men. This isn't to shame queer women for being in romantic relationships with men, I just find it odd that we don't see these women actually being queer, actually being attracted to women or in relationships with women.

Even with woman/man pairings like Cherri Bomb & Sir Pentious, or Millie & Moxxie, the writing focuses on the men. Sir Pentious' crush on Cherri & how it affects his love for the hotel, Moxxie's vows of love towards Millie & how his relationship with her fuels him. But never Cherri & Millie, how their relationships make them feel beyond surface level love and affection. It's a strange pattern to me, how these shows avoid women's attraction while relishing in relationships between men.

I also want to point out that there is only one trans character with any sort of speaking role. Already that's pretty odd, but then you realize she's a background character who's only been in one episode and one short. Additionally, there's only been non-speaking, truly background extra, trans men, and no nonbinary characters at all, which is especially weird when you consider Vivienne's past transphobic remarks, including changing one of Millie's siblings from a trans man to cis.

I personally believe there's a few different characters in this franchise who could benefit from being trans or even just being seen through a trans lens, but that isn't the point. The point is that we've only had one character in both shows who was trans, and even she was just a background character who then was used countless times for sexually charged merchandise.

Charlie! I messed around with her shape language and outfit so she read as more warm, friendly, almost like a Disney princess, while still keeping her classic uniform (I may give her an alt outfit that's more casual and princess-like, just for fun)! Same with her hair, put up in a bun to keep professional, with a cute almost Snow White bob. I decided to fully make her a ball-jointed doll, with fake gold joints, and a general uncanniness to her (esp her eyes). Finally, I gave her a slight heart/apple motif (her vest & its details, her bun, and her eyelashes), both to represent her compassion and how, in my rewrite, hellborns are born from sin, with Charlie made from the first sin in the garden of Eden.

Vaggie/Viola! I actually loved her outfit from the pilot, but I wanted to keep her former exorcist status, so I decided to juxtapose her casual, cutesy outfit with armor from her past (she's still on guard and ready to attack, despite being safe in companionship). Additionally, I really wanted to add moth characteristics without relying on the silhouette of her hair, so I added moth feet (w/ leg warmers to resemble leg fuzz!), eyes with similar coloring to moth eyes, and an antenna hair strand.

Angel/Stardust! I personally think that after his death, he'd abandon his mobster outfit and roots, so I decided to use his outfit the contrast of his hypersexuality versus his hatred of his work. Quoting what I said to my friend about his outfit, "I wanted his outfit to be the most modest thing in his wardrobe, since it covers most of his skin. But its harnessed and with latex elements, still subtly sexual in some ways." I also wanted to add more spider traits, hence the fangs and opisthosoma, and I changed his fur color to yellow with blue accents so he wasn't just pink.

Alastor! I decided pretty quick that I wanted to simplify all the different aspects of his character, so I chose 3 to focus on in my redesign: the deer, the distinguished radio showman, and an aspect I added myself, rot and death like a carcass, to symbolize the slow death of his medium. I also decided to research time period accurate suit jackets, and then exaggerated the length & flow of the jacket (pairing it with a pencil skirt just for the hell of it) to fit an outdated idea of timelessness. I gave him many little places of decay, including an exposed neck and finger bones, and kept his skin desaturated in comparison to his outfit to symbolize his radio persona compared to the real him.

Husk! I don't have too many notes on him to be honest. I wanted to keep his very surly, moping in sadness and alcohol vibe while still bringing something fresh to the table. I decided to make him just a black cat (for bad luck of course, what brought him to his current fate), with greying hair and fur but no wings. I also changed his outfit to be a stained, unkempt uniform, and finally, changed his color palette to be more blue focused to show both his mood, and to show the potential therapeutic effect he has on his patrons as a bartender.

Niffty! I pretty much overhauled her entire design, but I do have quite a few thoughts about her. I didn't want her to just be a bug, I really wanted to play with her form being a reflection of how she's infantilized, as well as provide writing potential for my rewrite (contrasting her sweet, innocent look with a totally murderous and neurotic personality). I decided to make her a beanie baby-esque lamb plushie, with a cute doll dress. The dress itself is meant to be a reference to both Alice in Wonderland, and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (also why she has red hooves!), a parallel to how she seems to not be the type of person to hang around Alastor or to be in Hell at all. Again, quite a fun contrast between her looks and who she actually is, and it provides an interesting potential conflict between people treating her as if she's childish, and her actually being quite competent and not at all what they may expect.