#charluggie

insp by @kambiteydragon i love putting Lute in situations

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon), Hellaverse | Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss Universe Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Lute/Vaggi | Vaggie (Hazbin Hotel), Adam/Lute (Hazbin Hotel), Lute/Charlie Magne | Morningstar/Vaggi | Vaggie Characters: Lute (Hazbin Hotel), Vaggi | Vaggie (Hazbin Hotel), Charlie Magne | Morningstar, Adam (Hazbin Hotel), Zestial (Hazbin Hotel) Additional Tags: Fallen Angel Lute (Hazbin Hotel), Lute falls with Vaggie, One-Sided Adam/Lute (Hazbin Hotel), One-Sided Lute/Vaggie (Habin Hotel), Blindness, Threats of violence and torture, Amputation, Adam Being a Jerk (Hazbin Hotel), Adam Being Adam (Hazbin Hotel), Weird line of unrequieted love Series: Part 7 of Тоска, or, will you still love me, though I taste of blood and war? Summary:

Fallenwings Day 7: Alternate Universe

Vaggie fucked up. Lute had a duty to care for her exorcists. Surely Adam could bend the rules, after all, he complained about them often enough and Vaggie was one of the best exorcists in the legion.

Lute was very, very, wrong.

Also if you dont mind, you said once that you dont enjoy charlute/charluggie fics cause they tend to demonize Adam. If you were to write those ships (and im not saying you should), how would you go about it?

Thanks!

Honestly, I'd mostly just remove that aspect? Namely...

1. I'd say that Lute and Adam are best friends who love each other dearly. They ARE very important to each other, their relationship just isn't sexual or romantic.

2. If it takes place after the extermination battle, Lute would hate them at first. Seething, undying hate. Full enemies to lovers that takes a VERY slow burn. Of course, taking the sinner Adam route could circumvent this to a significant degree and also give her reason to interact with them.

3. Don't try to make Lute a better person than we see in canon at the starting point. Don't make her an abuse victim at Adam's hand or give her a tragic backstory. Don't say that heaven was right. I would ABSOLUTELY vibe with saying that she was indoctrinated, but beyond that... This is actually my major gripe with a lot of Adam-centric stuff. Make her a better person through character development, not by making her better through retcon. "She was never that bad all along!" does not a redemption arc make.

(damn, now I'm tempted to write, lol).

Die by the blade is gonna be a war story. I've got plans, I've got a red string board. Burn everything and rebuild from the ashes or something like that. Good wholesome fun, kinda like a slumber party but with artillery.

Was thinking about why the exorcists? Why am I writing them like this (besides b/c Lute is a badass and also a fucked up little mess who is fun to write)? In the show we see the exorcists portrayed as a uniform army of ruthless and obedient soldiers. They represent unwavering loyalty to Heaven, and serve to give the underdog protagonists something to defeat.

There's something interesting to explore there imo. Exorcists aren't supposed to be people to sinners - another person, you can fight back against, you can relate to, you can understand. The exorcists are designed to be faceless in their uniformity. Sinners can't touch them (at least on paper). They are less of an enemy and more of a force of nature, something inevitable. More than that, I think they're really designed to be a terror weapon. Overpopulation is a flimsy excuse, if that was the actual concern you wouldn't be using swords and spears in the 21st century. You do that because it is fucking terrifying to have a masked creature in impenetrable armor hunting you down with a bladed weapon.

Then, you give the sinners the ability to hit back. A vent for centuries of fear and rage over brutal, inhumane treatment. Given the circumstances, it is so, so easy to justify retaliation by any means. Poison gas, whatever awful shit Alastor does to the people he consumes, eating them alive - they aren't people so why not? Even if they were, eye for an eye, right?

Now back to the exorcists. They've been propagandized to hell and back (pun intended). But there is still a person under that mask. They view their actions as at the very least necessary, possibly even right depending on which exorcist we ask. Sure, they probably recognize that they're inflicting pain and death, but at the same time those who don't get as into it as someone like Lute does needs something to keep themselves sane. Its not an unreasonable conclusion that they'd say 'Yeah, we kill them, but its quick. Its clean, its maybe even honorable because we look them in the eyes and kill them with our own hands.'

Then, this perceived honorable and righteous conduct is met with atrocities. Exorcists aren't just killed, they die badly. Eye for an eye. The efficient killing is gone, replaced with atrocities, and it becomes so easy for them because the demons, the sinners, well - they aren't really people to the exorcists.

Now we're in this cycle of atrocities. The Hazbin setting sets the stage brilliantly for a war that is utterly without mercy and built upon atrocities. Until someone or something stops it, that cycle will continue. Shit, mercy was never an option from the outset. Exorcists don't take prisoners, and unless someone in charge like Charlie puts their foot down no one is going to take an exorcist prisoner - both in retaliation and because frankly, its too dangerous.

That brings me back to my original thing of why the exorcists? We get plenty of humanization of sinners in the show, they're the protagonists. I think to really appreciate the lengths this conflict has the potential to stretch to the exorcists need to be humanized too (plus I just like them, they're a vibe, love my goofy lil murder pigeons). To see someone go from horsing around with their siblings to committing atrocities. That's the real tragedy of it all, that if both sides stepped back long enough to just try and see each other as people, actual people, they might find common ground.

And of course, the reconciliation after such a conflict will be interesting. Seeing how those mental and societal scars heal - or don't. And of course, with Charlie's Exorcists, exploring the swing between extremes of love and hatred.