Help, I'm New To Tumblr, And I'm Still Figuring Things Out, But I Need Help.

Help, I'm new to Tumblr, and I'm still figuring things out, but I need help.

I just found myself stuck in an argument with two Hazbin Hotel fans about whether or not it's okay to like Valentino. I am very scared rn😭😭😭 I don't know what to do. They keep comparing him to classic Disney villains and saying he's funny, and they also compared him to Darth Vader. Help!

I personally think the sinners losing their memories would be really interesting if they went in the direction of: In order to be redeemed, you have to make up for your sins. So the show would be about these clueless sinners desperately trying to remember and find out what sins they had committed in order to redeem themselves. Of course, there would be sinners who don't care to be redeemed since they realized they could gain power in hell. Those sinners would become overlords.

Maybe originally, all sinners were supposed to be redeemed, but over time, that concept was lost, and sinners started forming a society in hell, which was originally more of a void like place. Eventually, the sinners start over crowding this space that wasn't made to permanently hold so many people, causing the extermination.

Charlie is desperate for a way to stop the extermination, and she somehow finds out about the original intention of redemption, thus kickstarting the events of the story. This would also make it clear that Charlie knows sinners can be redeemed so that her idea doesn't seem as out of nowhere.

The story would be reminiscent of that game, the last campfire. But instead of the embers being scared to move on, it would be sinners that are too lazy to put in the work or that are content with staying in hell.

Obviously, this would change a lot of things about the story, and there are still a lot of details to smooth out, but I think it could be really interesting. This was a lot longer than I intended, whoops.

(Side note, this would also give an explanation for why none of the sinners act like they are from their time period. It is a pet peeve of mine about the show, along with Angel Dust's stupid boots shorts istg!)

Judaism doesn't care too much about afterlife. Bad people of course gonna get tortured but they won't be tortured forever eventually they gonna reunited in the same afterlife. In christian theology people memory are being wiped out when they reach afterlife. Hazbin hotel should gone with that

It's cool concept. Well if the show still was about redeeming sinners than it would ruin the whole point of the show, but if they choose that Charlie was redeeming imps it would. Plus redeeming imps makes so much sense.

The more I learn about this Raph guy, the more horrified I get. That is not okay.

When it comes to rape fantasies.

It'd be one thing if people were like-

Doing it privately, and in private forums.

But people be doing this in PUBLIC!

Which effects the REPRESENTATION of sa victims. Which is TERRIBLE.

It's why Raph 2 doing it was so goddamn bad.

It displayed rape being seen as a "positive" thing in media.

Which HURTS RAPE AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT VICTIMS.

Especially when said person sexually harassed someone irl.

It's awful, and the more we display violent porn (rape), sexual harassment, pedophillia, incest, and beastiality as "positives" in media the worse people will be treated overall.

That's the problem I was talking about.

It's why when I saw Autistic Swag saying "What Raph did was just a kink!" it made me vomit on the inside because THIS SHIT HURTS PEOPLE! Holy fuck why cant people put two and two together?!

Representing something as positive in media= people will do it MORE. It's why people did more anal sex after it was representing anal as a positive/acceptable thing to do.

So to all the proshippers reading this:

STOP FETISHIZING HORRIBLE THINGS.

AND DNI!

Blitz deserves better (me)

Stolas’ Abuse Tactics On Blitz

Viv clearly does not want you to see Stolas as an abuser. However, there is a strong disconnect between how a writer may want you to interpret the story vs how it actually comes across, and how Stolitz comes across is disturbingly different from how Viv wants you to see it.

Out of curiosity, I decided to look at some abuse tactics online and see how many lined up with Stolas’ behaviour and. Holy shit. Viv is actually writing an abuser without realizing it. Let’s go through every tactic that Stolas uses, shall we? Sexual Abuse

This one is very obvious and I don’t feel the need to explain it.

Threatening

Again, another obvious one; Stolas is directly threatening Blitz by taking away the thing he needs for his job, so Blitz wouldn’t have a choice but to accept the deal.

Gaslighting

Throughout all of season 1, Stolas repeatedly belittles and dehumanizes (or dedemonizes…? Idk) Blitz by treating him as a toy, his “impish little plaything”, and gives off the impression that he looks down on the imp. Blitz clearly feels uncomfortable by this and tells Stolas to stop, but he doesn’t.

However, once we get to Apology Tour, Stolas actively the denies the idea that he ever looked down on Blitz and claims that he never did. Stolas says that Blitz just has this idea about Stolas in his head that isn’t true despite the evidence saying otherwise, and claims that he always did his best to support Blitz.

This is gaslighting. Gaslighting is a form of manipulation used by abusers to make the victim question themselves and their own sanity, which is what’s happening here.

(I forgot to mention the “I never realized you though to low of me” in Full Moon but that line absolutely comes across as gaslighting as well).

Playing The Victim

In that same episode, Stolas sings a whole song about how hurt he was by Blitz, how he “let Blitz get too close” or how he’s a motherfucker, framing Blitz as a horrible person and him as the person he hurt. Given the context here, this reads as Stolas playing the victim, making Blitz out to be a horrible person and singing about how hurt he felt, which again, given the context, this can be read as that.

Criticizing

Stolas accuses Blitz of being like Striker of all people in the first scene of Apology Tour, and says that he didn’t even bother to come save him when Striker captured him (even though he literally sent Millie and Moxxie to save him cuz he was busy).

He then paints and treats Blitz as someone too up his own ass to realize Stolas has true feelings for him, given the context Blitzo doesn’t come across as in the wrong in this scene like the narrative may want you think.

This is criticizing, which is an emotional abuse tactic that abusers use to assassinate the victim’s character as a way of demonizing them.

Stolas is an abuser

The whole Voodoo thing is one of my biggest complaints when it comes to HH. Also, the fact that Viv got called out on it, and instead of being respectful or just taking it out, she basically said, "It's Okay guys, he's mixed see? It's fine. Also, blah blah, something about dead mother that we never hear about in the actual show blah blah blah. I'm good at representation (even though I refuse to draw people of color) 🥺"

You can not convince me he was originally mixed. His human (and demon form) have no hints to being mixed at all. And that's coming from me, a paper-white mixed person. Sorry, this rand got out of hand.

I agree with everything being said in this post. This post is very well put, not to mention informative and interesting!

So there’s Voodoo but no Lwa?

Before everyone decides to jump me just know that I’m black, I grew up in a very Catholic environment and my grandparents implemented African traditions to worship God. Throughout the years of my dear old childhood, I also witnessed cults and beliefs outside of Christianity and know briefly of a few African Deities, spirits, syren, and many more.

So I can talk about voodoo, I still tried to do as much research as possible, and if someone sees any mistakes in what I say I apologize, be polite when pointing it out to me and I’ll modify it.

So here’s the first thing I want to address…

White people can do voodoo… what? You don’t believe me, here…

It’s been done since the 19th in New Orleans and whoever can worship is a much more nuanced issue.

You see in voodoo, there are these things called Houses (Humfo). It’s a temple where a community of people worship diverse Lwa and are led by a priest or priestess.

It’s a closed religion which means that you have to ask before entering one House. Some may refuse you because you have European ancestry, and I won’t lie Voodoo is mainly dominated by people with African origins due to its roots. You still could eventually find a house that’ll accept you but you can’t randomly start on your own without going through the process of initiation. Don’t mess with African spirits or spirits in general, voodoo is a group activity for a reason.

Now that all of this is cleared I want us all to come to one conclusion. Voodoo is only and ONLY for the people who will respect it. This applies to all religions.

And to writers.

Write about what you know and if you don’t know something research it! Don’t stop at Wikipedia, go on other sites, see documentaries or videos, and get books from the nearest library. Maybe you know someone who is more experienced in the subject you’re trying to write about?! I know it can be a long boring and annoying process, but sweetheart who told you writing respectfully about a preexistent thing was easy? If you’re unable to sit and open Google for research then don’t write about it!

Now that we all agree on something, do these scream respectful representation to you?

[“I care about representation!” Sure Viv, we believe you.]

Okay, voodoo dolls aren’t used for harm. That’s a myth from Pop Culture and Hollywood and it’s one of those examples of African religion being deemed as malevolent by popular media. Thank you Vivziepop for contributing to the stereotype, a big thanks. 🙂

Seriously, the usual voodoo dolls we see in media are usually tourist traps sold in New Orleans but aren't used by actual practitioners. But, there’s a thing called fetish or bocio, usually, those are figurines made of wood and hung on the tree in front of cemeteries to maintain a spiritual communication between the deceased and the living.

From a personal experience, when I was like 10 or 11 my parents saw safou (African fruit) growing near a restaurant, and the owner said to not get too close as fetishes were hung to avoid people from stealing the fruits. So it also has a protection function.

But I’m not here to talk about my childhood, see I mentioned something called Lwa, let’s see what those are.

Voodoo is a monotheistic religion, it teaches that Bondye [Bon Dieu in French literally Good God] is the supreme creator of this universe mirroring him to the Christian God. But he has no evil counterparts so no Satan or Lucifer.

Bondye is disinterested in humanity and innacesbile to us, but he still keeps tabs through the Lwas giving a polytheistic aspect of the religion. People pray to them and give specific offerings depending on which Lwas they want to please.

They also can communicate with us through dreams and possessions. All Lwas have multiple domains of expertise and if you want something specific you’ll have to call a specific Lwa.

Each Lwa has a symbol related to them they are called Veve. It helps them manifest in the physical world, offerings, sacrifices, foods, and drinks are placed upon them.

“Where are you going with all of these informations?”

Here are the symbols that appear every time Alastor gets spooky or threatens someone.

These symbols alone don't mean anything but they are drawings that can appear in multiple veve. Veves are usually much more detailed and they used complete ones with little simplification in the Pilot, since it’s still canon I’m counting it…

My little theory is that if they decided to simply it is because the animators were already suffering so they lifted up the pain by sparing a lot of details. I mean they used the complete symbols for trading cards.

With all of these it is natural for me to come to the conclusion that to get his powers Alastor calls on the Lwas that grant these extremely powerful ✨tentacles✨, weird red gremlins voodoo dolls thingies, deals-making abilities, and probably other things we haven’t seen yet.

Which means that Bondye exists—

“Th3r'$ n0 God in HH. 🤓☝️”

Sure I can work with that, the Lwas exist and are independent, I guess Viv still has creative liberties.

Since Alastor depends on them that means that he chooses specific spirits to gain the specific power that he has, so I decided to search for a few symbols that have a resemblance to the one of Alastor and we’re gonna test Viv's ability to make something consistent.

A rant about Alastor’s power:

Obliviously they are not all of the symbols in correlation with the one in Hazbin Hotel. I just took these to showcase something fascinating with Viv’s writing style.

1. Marassa-Dossou-Dossa:

They are androgynous twins. They represent the power and purity of children, families, and procreation alongside benediction, love, justice, and innocence. They are children, usually, you can offer them candies, drinks, or banana leaves. They are summoned at the beginning of each ceremony after Legba to signify their importance in the religion.

The Marassa are extremely powerful despite being represented as kids. They usually help people who have issues with getting a child or other important aspects like the death of a newborn. While they are mostly nice and all, they are responsible for bad luck and bring sickness when not correctly served or forgotten.

2. Damballa:

He is one of the Loa who helped Bondnye when making the cosmos and, you can imagine, a very important figure.

Damballa is represented by a giant snake and is often associated with St Patrick's. He is the keeper of knowledge, wisdom, and healing magic representing the symbol of life, peace, purity, and goodness. His partner is Ayida-Weddo who forms rainbows, together they use the same Veve.

They are extremely strict with rules regarding their ceremonies. Everyone needs to be dressed in freshly cleaned clothing, women need to wear a white headscarf made of silk. Alcohol, nicotine, and else are forbidden when calling upon him.

Damballa doesn't have legs, so during the possession, the possessed will fall and wiggle on the ground like a snake and sometimes hiss.

3. Le Baron Samedi:

He’s the spirit of the dead, resurrection, and the giver of life, it’s him you need to call if you wanna get in touch with your ancestors. He avenges the souls of the dead (witches, those who were wronged, etc, …)

Le Baron Samedi will heal your wounds if you’re willing to pay back, while it’s not his only ability the rest may be considered sinister since he’s a master of black magic and curses. If someone sends you a hex that brings death so long as Le Baron doesn't let you, you won’t die. Oh and you see the Christian Cross, it’s also his symbol.

Le Baron can manifest himself in our physical realm through specific rituals I won’t bother to describe how he presents himself just search his name on Google and look at the image. Despite being married to Maman Brigitte, he is still known for cheating. He’s also openly lewd quick to swear and likes to mess with people with a big ego.

Usually, his followers can be seen wearing black and purple as he favors these colors but it’s not obligatory.

4. Ayizan:

She’s a sweet grandma and protector of commerce. You can see her with a white dress and deep pockets buying groceries in local markets, and she gives candies to children and people who are respectful.

She’s associated with the rites of initiation in the religion, which is a ritual or ceremony to signify when someone passes from one group to another it implies a change of status in the society. (ex: passage of child to adult)

She’s a typical priestess and knows of the many wisdom and mysteries regarding initiation and the natural world. She’s one of the greatest healers of the pantheon and while she doesn't heal physical wounds, she heals psychically offering health.

5. Papa Legba:

He’s the spirit of crossroads, both metaphorical and literally. It’s symbolizes choices and opportunities. He’s also the intermediate between men and the spirit world people said he’s always in front of Houses. Papa Legba is invoked at the beginning of ceremonies to open the way for communication with other sprites and deities. While he’s mostly benevolent, he can be stern and enforce spiritual rules.

Some may also depict him as a fertility God, a tricker, or a protector of children. In Haiti, he facilitates communication, speech, and understanding. Children like him and he’s often asked to babysit.

He’s associated with Saint Peter since this figure also has keys that grant access to an afterlife.

Debrief:

With all of this informations, we can all agree that none of these spirits works with Alastor as there’s mainly associated with what we could consider a positive aspect of spirituality. Alastor isn't really an example of purity, goodness, and else. Plus his powers have no links to any of the–

“But there’s Le Baron Samedi, he does Black Magic.”

That’s true and he’s actually the only Lwa from my list who could potentially work with Al but there are a few issues. Le Baron Samedi messes with people with a big ego, even if Al decided to work with him it would be quite complicated. Add to that Alastor's respect for women, I don’t think he’ll like to work with someone who cheats on his wife.

But let’s actually think of the potential here, making him a tangible entity Alastor could speak to, would have led to interesting character dynamics with Le Baron mocking Alastor and making him rethink his decision every time he tries and acts selfishly. Le Baron Samedi could have been the one slapping Mister Deer Boy to reality.

Personally, I think it would have been cool to add hints of the partnership by making Alastor’s suit black or giving him purple accessories but Viv's palette of colors is unfortunately very limited to the same shade of red.

“You only listen to 5 deities that appear to be popular, maybe somewhere there’s actually a Lwa that is working with Alastor and you simply didn't choose to show it to us.”

There’s actually one spirit I can think of. Bakoulou Baka, I did not find pictures of his veve unfortunately.

What I can say about him is that he grants powers and wealth. But since he’s associated with dark energy, those things are finite and you’re royally fucked if you don’t repay him in time. He is so evil that people are scared of calling upon him.

Baka in general is a term used to refer to spirits willing to deal with very powerful sorcerers. They pretty much will do anything only if the price is right, they are malevolent spirits who’ll turn on you if you don't do your part of the deal.

Alastor was mentioned to be stuck in a deal, it would be a great twist if the one who got him in this situation was an Evil Lwa he underestimated and failed to repay when he was alive. But we know Vivziepop that won’t be the case.

“You’re too harsh on her those will be obliviously mentioned in season 2.”

Think back to all of the things I said in this post, the different terms like House, initiation, Lwa even the word Voodoo itself, are they even mentioned ONCE in the show? Did Vivziepop make an effort in the FOUR YEARS of production to include them? Did she make the slightest bit of effort to make sure that the new audience knows that Alastor practices voodoo?!! Even by watching the pilot you can’t tell it’s mentioned once fastly by Charlie AS A JOKE.

“IT’$ h@rD t0 Do that.”

Yeah, writing is hard you have to deal with it. And be for real, there’s a scene where Vaggie enters Alastor’s room and sees him eating a deer, rather than see him in the middle of breakfast that could have gone like that:

“What the hell are you going?

– Just a few offerings to keep the Lwas happy.”

Smart people would have been like “What What the hell is a Lwa?” They would have searched it on Google, and Bam people know Al does voodoo.

“But th3 szeN3 w@s to sh0w h3 was a canibal.”

We’re talking of the same guy whose bestie is the cannibal queen, when Rosie proposed fingers to Charlie he could have accepted it. Good now the audience knows he’s a cannibal too, yay!

Religion is an important aspect of characters as it explains most of their behavior. That’s the type of thing you introduce in the first seasons then expand on the second.

And we’re talking of the same show where Husk looked at the screen and told us each of the main character archetypes. I’m surprised Alastor hasn't been called Voodoo Man or something.

I thought of those rewritten scenes in the span of two minutes and you’re telling me Viv couldn't in four years?!

“But HH is b@seD 0n B|blic@l t3xt. Voodoo |s DifeREnt. 🤓☝️”

Are you aware Voodoo is essentially a very big salad of multiple beliefs mixed together rights? You know that one of them is Christianity right?! Some Lwas are associated with Saint, so nothing prevented Viv from making a new class in Heaven called Lwa whose job is to assist the Saints in their task.

When Charlie and Vaggie presented themselves in front of the gates, Saint Peter could have been the one holding the keys and Papa Legba would have been the one reading the book to know who was entering or not.

With the bare minimum in terms of research (1 week), I managed to think of quick easy but effective ways to implement voodoo in the Hellaverse in the span of 2 poor minutes. So why can’t Vivziepop do this when she had FOUR YEARS?!!

Or maybe it’s just that… she doesn't care.

She doesn't care

You need to have a very VERY blatant lack of care for the source material to present voodoo the way Vivziepop did it. Every time the veve appears around Alastor it’s to communicate one thing danger and threat, it’s a harmful stereotype that needs to end people pointed it out she refused to listen.

And it’s because of this lack of respect that bullshit like these happen in her fandom.

Alongside this, you can count the many comics of Alastor using voodoo dolls to hurt/control someone. I’m not blaming any of these fans, I’m blaming Vivienne Medrano for feeding such harmful ideas about the community and not making it clear enough that those symbols are part of a rich culture that people hold dear to their hearts and NOT A FUCKING AESTHETIC

You want an actual example of respect for foreign beliefs?

In the movie Exhuma, the main characters are a shaman and a geomancer, obliviously those who worked on the movie took creative liberties regarding shamanism in Koran culture BUT they actually called a Shaman. There’s a scene where one of the main characters is supposed to do rituals, the actors learn an actual choreography and do it as accurately as possible the shaman was there to supervise everything from beginning to ends.

All I’m asking is for Vivziepop to open Google and do a deep dive. It’s like a school presentation, you sacrifice at least 2 or 3 hours of your days to research your subject, and she had 4 years to do that a little bit of everyday.

Noo it’s too complicated apparently and come on look at these beautiful veve! It’s edgy if I draw them with red on a dark background they look EeViiiIil.

I said it I said it again, if you’re not willing to research as much information about a preexisting subject.

Don’t write about it.

If you don’t have a little bit amount of respect for a religion and care about representing them properly.

Don’t write about it.

Don’t be like Vivziepop.

✋🤣 HELP

And then 😭, Vivienne your comedy sucks ass my soul but you certainly don't fail in making people laugh.

She blocked them cos nobody implies that her *totally* badass OC is cringe & would die immediately by the hands of Bill

I can't 🤣, also just qrts that cooked Alastor or was funny:

And byee again, I'm just being petty. Idgaf, she screwed over so many people people & meddled with others livelihoods so idgaf hurting her precious feelings no more.