I'm a critic, but I have eyes and ears

made a sideblog where i can reply to and reblog things to criticize and add onto without attracting attention to my main. EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION WE ARE TWO NOW!!! I am Snek, the original guy!! and my friend is Derg!! She uses she/they pronouns so be nice to her or i will explode you-

(Note from Mod Derg, if I reply to you I will likely use this lil dragon emoji to mark that it's me! 🐲) We are into Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss. We criticize the shows, We also defend the shows. We want to be clear and honest about what the show is and why we are criticizing/defending it. Anon is on, media is off. There is no changing this. We pick and choose when to be polite, but there will always be a reason when we're not. Don't expect any particular answer when talking to us, we'll agree when we agree, and disagree when we disagree, no exceptions. We will correct misinformation when we see it, criticize other critics, and call out when people cherry pick or ignore things for the sake of their argument. Both shows have plenty to talk about without misrepresenting them or the creators. Tags, for searching purposes (to be expanded as need arises) may i take your order - Ask Box tag [character] defense - defending a character [character] offense - hating on a character Post by Snek - self explanatory Post by Derg - self explanatory "That will be all." - Snek

Alright. I'll walk with you to this pier. So you want them to acknowledge these things... Then what? Genuinely, what's the goal when people say this? Do people want nazi propaganda on-screen? Do people want child abuse on-screen? Okay, say that hazbin hotel acknowledges Nazis in Hell... Okay?? like what next? Do you want them to be redeemed, or just immediately killed with no fanfare? What is the point in saying this stupid crap? Valentino is blatantly a rapist. Vox is also blatantly a rapist/ otherwise sexual assaulter and a murderer and he's actually racist. Velvette makes date rape drugs. Bad people EXIST in the show, you dingleberries.

^ This one!!

So there's a lot of talk around Stella and I feel like it's soo easy to either overly villainize her OR woobify her, while I am in the camp of. Actually I want to keep her just as vicious and petty as she is while still expanding on her as a character. Most of what we see of her is her hating Stolas, otherwise she's gossiping and being a jerk, and I want to see more of her than that!

So I got to thinking. What do we know about her? Well, we know that her marriage with Stolas was arranged. Likely as a way to marry their family into power and gain a higher standing among the royalty of Hell. And she's got an older brother, Andrealphus, who is a Marquis. Now, it's not really clear whether that was a position he was already in line for, or if he gained it after Stella's marriage to Stolas. It could be that their family was already prestigious though, and Andrealphus was slated for that position anyway.

Now, Andrealphus has ice powers. Quite potent ice powers, from what we've seen. It's also not clear if the powers come with his role, or if his role was entrusted to him because of his powers, but I'm leaning toward the latter. He was born gifted and his powers were likely encouraged, he was given the best possible training, all to prepare him for his future position.

And then we have Stella. The younger sister, now having to find her own place in this family. With a flashy, promising older brother taking up all the attention, which I can see leading to some resentment and a lack of self-confidence. And what about Stella's own powers? Does she truly have none when her brother can do what he does? Consider!

Stella does have her own abilities. But it's perhaps something subtle, something seen as useless by her fellow royalty, and so it was dismissed by her parents. A useless power. Her only use is in marrying Stolas and raising their family's standing. Thus, she's set up to only see herself as a future wife and mother, just a royal pawn, and it's just not her place to refuse.

It could be why she's already such an angry child.

Granted, she might have already had a temper naturally, but rather than nurture her and try to redirect those urges, they simply didn't care. Or hey, it's Hell, they might have encouraged the viciousness, seeing it as befitting a future Goetic Princess. But being second place to her brother, being discouraged from practicing her own unique abilities, told that all she's got going for her is that she's pretty... I can see all that leading to a lot of anger. No one cares what she does, so she does whatever she wants.

(btw I headcanon that her power is actually talking to animals. but she was promptly told that she's "not a fucking Disney princess" and to knock that shit off. which adds an even sicker dimension to that picture of her strangling dogs. If she can't talk to them, she's just going to hurt them, since apparently everyone's fine with that)

So we fast forward to now. Stella has neglected her own powers because she was told they were worthless. She likely didn't get as good of an education as her brother since she wasn't meant for a leadership role (and if she skipped out on lessons, they just. shrugged and let her. might be why she's so bad at politicking). Her family likely praised her for securing the marriage with Stolas and having a daughter, but then things start falling apart, they have no actual interest in each other, and the final straw is Stolas getting publicly involved with that low class imp and this friction finally leads to the divorce. Even if she didn't like him, could you imagine how humiliating that would be, how much it would tear at her, that this was all she was told she was good for, it's her destiny, and now he's leaving her? What would her family think??

So Stella hates him, seeing him as a pathetic embarrassment, she can't believe she was forced to spend years of her life in this man's company, and all that fury and resentment reaches the point where she just wants him dead and out of her way. And my thoughts on that are... she needs to move on. I think to give Stella some actually good nuance and development, we need her to let it go. Stolas's life has been ruined. He'll get his position back eventually, but right now, he's out of her hair- feathers. I would like to see a Stella who uses this time now to discover herself. I want her to find some hobbies, go on vacation. Hell idk maybe Andrealphus gives her the keys to his yacht in Envy and tells her to go nuts

I want Stella to have a character besides "Stolas's angry ex-wife". And maybe we will get more development for her in season 3! But for now it's fun to imagine other facets of her personality, I want her to find more self-confidence, to love herself for the things she can do and start practicing her powers again. Talking to animals was just a suggestion, it could be anything. Like God, imagine if she actually had an innate ability to heal and nurture plants, something she could have bonded with Stolas over, but she was brought to believe such a power was worthless and so. Never brings it up. A missed chance. A what-if she can't stop thinking about but she has to move on. Ya know??

Just give the angry bird lady some nuance!

hewwo all this blog is getting a second mod, I'm a friend of the blog creator and have actually been sorta lurking behind the scenes offering my own insight so. Figured I might as well formally join! You can call me Mod Derg, I love both Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss but I'm not above acknowledging their flaws, I enjoy theorizing and coming up with headcanons, I have like every song from Hazbin Hotel memorized and will sing them VERY VERY LOUDLY, aaand my favorite ship is Radioapple and my fav character is Lucifer. woa

happy to meet y'all. The other mod (the one who's been doing all the posts until now) is gonna go by Mod Snek! We'll tag our posts with who made them but just keep in mind most will probably have a blend of insight from both of us.

We still had scenes like him singing about wanting to make angels his sex slaves in “Once We Get Up There” (there’s even a visual where he fantasizes about shoving an exorcist angel’s face near his crotch) and cackling after ordering a hypnotized Angel to strangle his best friend Cherri to which the former had no choice but to comply, there are probably others I’m forgetting right now but those two immediately came to mind, neither of which imply that his actions will be downplayed it’s just that he and Angel had so little interactions in the second season that obviously we didn’t see the side of him that we saw in “Masquerade” in it.

Valentino had a few funny jokes, but being funny =/= being sympathetic. it's pathetic how people respond to him. It's not anyone else's fault if they feel sympathetic for a known rapist the moment he's funny or quirky. They are the problem if they think that. Valentino is the type of abuser who is suave, he's charming and funny and lures people in, only to trap them. You only see the red flags when you're backstage. It's portrayed like this too, in Angel POV he's a monster, no contest. in Vox/Vel POV he's a whiny pissbaby. This isn't cuz they want you to sympathize with him, this is just how he acts with his friends. They are never dishonest, they ALWAYS portray him as a monster when he's with Angel. They also get so mad at the mere concept of Charlie ever smiling at Valentino for any reason as if the narrative forgave him, but after that we get Valentino looking at Angel like this:

This isn't a friendly face. Angel immediately quits the hotel, feeling like it doesn't matter, cuz Valentino will always have him in that soul contract. This isn't sympathetic behavior they're portraying. THERE IS AN OMINOUS EVIL MUSIC CUE HERE. He's evil, nobody's debating it but these people. beat the haters with this one phrase: "Bad people are nice to people they care about." even a monster can care about its family. (and children if applicable.) ALSO One time i asked someone what they would do differently with Valentino, and- well- they gave me a plot about Valentino being a wild, violent Latino brute of a man killing people indiscriminately on the streets that gets tamed by the civil white man Vox and given opportunities he didn't have before. and genuinely thought it was better than what we have. Jesus Fucking Christ???

In “Loo Loo Land” when she was yelling at him she picked up their Imp servant and throw him at Stolas while saying “you want to fuck this one too?!” clearly indicating that she’s less upset about the cheating itself and more so about the fact that he cheated on her with an Imp meaning that had he cheated on her with another Goetic demon she wouldn’t have as much of an (if any) issue.

Also people keep saying that they don’t want her to be excused but to be given nuance while also being depicted as a bad person who became this way because of the situation she’s in which is a lie, especially because a lot of them already try to downplay her abuse of Stolas, not to mention acting like she’s owed a more sympathetic portrayal because she’s a woman in an unhappy arranged marriage (as if there aren’t enough stories out there with that exact premise) or “had to get pregnant and give birth to a child she didn’t want” even though she’s a bird lady and laying an egg isn’t remotely comparable to a 9 months pregnancy that ends with hours in labor.

Let’s be real, if she had the nuance and sympathy these antis want her to have so badly they wouldn’t like or care about her and downplay her writing like they do with female characters who have traits similar to the ones they wish she had (e.g. Loona and Verosika), the only reason they want nuance/sympathy for her is precisely because she doesn’t have it in the actual series so they’re stuck on “what could’ve been”

Stolas and Stolitz are. mixed for me. I kinda like em, i kinda don't. I agree with all this.