"When I was given the first draft of Lilly-Bella's introduction, it was clear pretty early on that both people who had gone over this already (GR and Crow) didn't have much experience with writing transgender characters (though I will say I kind of already knew Crow didn't have much experience, but that's a story for another time).
Lilly-Bella's first draft seemed a bit more trying to build up the "reveal" that she was trans (which one could argue the current draft still does, just a bit less so), rather than her being someone who could be trans and that factor being something that didn't have to be a big deal. Another thing was that she went into detail about things that some would consider to be a bit... let's say *intimate*, at least for a conversation with someone she just met not even 20 minutes prior.
I feel that the changes made help alleviate these issues, at least partially. Honestly, it's great to have representation that feels like it hits pretty close to home. With all that being said, I'm glad to have helped shape this character in a way I feel works a bit better, and I hope to help more with her in the future (if GR is willing, that is)."
I will certainly ask for Wix's advice in the future, if and when the subject of bringing up Lilly's character in reference to her being trans becomes more prevalent. I will say she does appear again down the line, in a more active role than she had in this one due to her forced servitude under Vox. But you can rest assured things start going up for Lilly over time and she will return the favor for RJ more than once to the point he probably is going to owe her more than the other way around.
If you're wondering, just for kicks, what "GrimmDagger Dungeons" is based off of, basically all the classic dungeon crawlers of the early 90s that featured a first person view. Most specifically, Legend of Grimrock and Daggerfall. The latter of which was developed for the Elder Scrolls franchise by a certain video game company we heavily referenced here in this chapter. We'll get into that in a second. Let's just wrap up our discussion on Lilly-Bella.
I hope my use of her to talk up the 90s did not come across as too much nostalgia glazing, as I have said I wanted to avoid that. Again, it was mostly just to create the fast friendship bond between her and RJ. As well as properly showcase that RJ can have an actual conversation with someone that doesn't devolve into some ridiculous nonsense, like it sorta did with Emberlynn. At least Lilly is sane, probably more sane than RJ in some cases I think. Which is somewhat surprising, as I think working for Vox would drive anyone nuts.
Speaking of, the man of the hour. Vox is a great villain, in the sense that he's absolutely horrible but you enjoy watching him be horrible and look like an idiot. He's not harmless, but he's still enjoyable to have around. I wanted to capture that perfectly here, portraying him as an egotistical dickhead who is incredibly full of himself and cannot fathom being snubbed so directly. I think that's really why he hates Alastor so much, he can't understand why anyone would tell HIM that they don't want to join up with his big plans. Like, why would Alastor reject him? Clearly, there's something wrong with him! In fact, Vox never wanted Alastor anyway! He's above caring about Alastor! Who's Alastor? He's just throwing this random video game announcement out in public for funsies! Not to outdo any rivals! He's not petty at all!
So yeah, Vox in this chapter was very much based off an incredibly cartoonish depiction of Todd Howard from Bethesda Studios. Not one to one, of course not, Todd isn't nearly this evil. I imagine he's far more competent. But Vox is basically the distillation of everything wrong with media, that includes video games. He always has an excuse, a buzzword, a line or consolation prize for anyone who questions him. But ultimately, all of it is to just get him more money and all of that is to just get people to sign over their souls to him. He is plenty horrible and it's a delight to watch him act as such.
I'm kinda happy he's season two's main antagonist, because that aligns perfectly with my own plans. And it also means all this stuff with RJ is just set up for future stories!
Now I'm being careful to avoid spoilers here, I'm sure there are questions I could answer that you want answered but I can't talk about them in detail. I can't even list them since it would give to much away. I'm sure you're at least wondering if Greg of all people is going to be a regular Cameo. Eh... only if I want to point out the hypocrisy of grifter gamers again. And even then, that's not this story's purpose. I may have gotten a little on my soapbox about the state of gaming with RJ, but it was to serve a purpose. To point out how little Vox hates being upstaged and what happens when someone so openly defies him.
To that end, I didn't hold back, both before and during RJ's appearance on stage. Vox uses many corporate buzzwords or form letter answers to deflect concerns or criticisms. You may have recognized a few of them if you're big into gaming like I am. when RJ gets up there, it becomes harder because the dragon doesn't budge and he doesn't just let things go. Vox is forced to confront his business practices and how clearly predatory they are, until he just says "Fuck it, turn him into a drooling corporate catchphrase drone."
Which brings us to "It Just Works", the chapter title and song. It is a clear parody of the song of the same name by the Chalkeaters. Whereas that one was calling out Bethesda's many failures as a developer, this one is basically laying out how Vox manages to soak up so many souls through his awful games. Namely, because no one has any other options and the system is rigged in his favor. When I heard the song, I instantly thought of Vox. It fit him so perfectly that I needed to recreate it for the Stupid TV Man post-haste for this chapter. And it worked out wonderfully! Again, with assistance from Crow.
Although it also served to give RJ another semi-win, as he's able to turn the tables of Vox as a result of this. It doesn't go perfectly, of course. Why would it? If Charlie has trouble convincing people through song, why would RJ have it any easier? All he manages to do is to give the sinners who can't afford Vox's prices a different option. That's enough in Vox's mind to label him a threat. Setting up a host of not so great scenarios RJ will find himself in the chapters to come.
RJ helped Lilly at the expense of gaining more of Charlie's affection and putting himself in Vox's crosshairs. I like to think this shows his growth as a character who will prioritize others before himself and his interests. That he will do something that's right before he does something that will help him. And it won't be easy, it won't always be rewarding, but what's right should matter more than either of that in my mind.
It was also pretty fun to have the VR game Vox was running act so glitchy and awful. That whole conversation between the two NPCs was honestly my favorite thing to write during that sequence. As it was just so indicative of the dialogue system in Elder Scrolls games. When it works it's fine, when it breaks it's nonsensical beyond belief.
The chat log was just another way to show that RJ is able to get into Vox's systems as much as Vox was able to get into his. As well as show that, maybe Alastor is manipulating things just a bit to give him a way to spy on Vox a little more. Plus, it was an easy means to telegraph to readers that the other two Vees will show up in due time.
And then of course, Charlie gifts RJ a guitar controller to help him practice his music. I felt it was necessary to show that Charlie learns things from RJ as much as RJ learns from things from his adventures. It's a good method of portraying how this relationship is developing and prevents Charlie from feeling like a static character. One who is just there to improve RJ's life. No, RJ improves her life by helping to inspire her and now that she's committed to fostering RJ's burgeoning musical talent, with any luck she gain the confidence that her own music will someday empower demonkind as well. Just like her mother.
I felt it was important to close out with Sir Pentious though to reaffirm the chapter's message, that RJ is not tied down to his pursuit of Charlie anymore than Charlie is tied down to her pursuit of improving RJ's life. That he has other friends, people he wants to be around and he will do his best to not neglect them. It's an important bit of his own personal growth. One that continues in the next two chapters.
Cult Fashion: Chapter 15 was all about continuing a trend from Chapter 10, that being Charlie trying to use the Hotel to help make Hell better for everyone. It makes sense to me that part of the hotel's plan would require sinners to actually, you know, DO things that could redeem them. And while the first season of the show was on a severe time crunch, and just getting sinners to do something nice requires them to recognize being nice is a good thing, among a bunch of other factors, we probably didn't get to see that more than we should've. Also, again, Hellborn stuff is Helluva Boss' territory. Sinners get their stories told in Hazbin Hotel. And until that crossover gets made that's not really going to be a point of discussion.
I am not nearly so bound by the rules of Amazing Prime or copyright or even time restrictions in any sense of the word. So I can have Charlie actually doing the charity work I imagine she tries to get her residents to do on the regular. Within the very limited confines of Hell's kindness that it rarely offers. In this case, enough people care enough to throw away their clothes and not really give a shit if you raid from the local dump for them. That's what passes for the Goodwill down here! Although, apparently it's not much better up here, let's be honest.
This was also my opportunity to have RJ change his clothes more. At the very least have him dressed in something besides a T-shirt and sweatpants. I don't want people thinking that's all he ever wears at all times. I just needed to get him a means to get more clothes. And a way to force him to get them, if we're being honest. What better way than Vaggie reminding him that girls probably like their boyfriends dressing up for them.
Charlie is a big motivator for RJ, let's just acknowledge that.
The "makeover montage" as I call it, was basically just a gag reel, most of the outfits based off of ones I found on the internet that I could imagine RJ wearing and all of them being terrible. I think the christmas tree one was the funniest. Before you ask how Vaggie knows about Christmas, remember, she is actually an angel. And Charlie would know because... well, come on, it's Charlie. This isn't a lower tier Hellborn situation like with IMP who didn't even understand the concept of Christmas, thinking the Karen client just mispronounced their holiday. You really think Charlie wouldn't find out about Christmas? The holiday that seems to just scream about everything she loves?
Although I imagine Crow likes the accidental crossdressing one. He was the one who suggested that gag.
This leads us into our introduction of Bethy, our Bostonian Wannabe Hollywood Star Fashionista! Half-Squid, Half-Lobster, all because of the nature of how she died. She was immensely fun to visualize and write about, I'm honestly most sorry I don't have her picture ready at all because I feel like she deserves it the most given her design is fairly out there. I worry people might have trouble picturing her, but she's really not that hard. She's got a squid-head with several tentacles that she walks around on, while her lobster body, claws and all, is suspended in mid air. That is until she drops to the floor in order to quickly scurry along it.
Bethy's design also helped in excusing her rather rubberhose animation-style of moving. She is a very squash and stretch character, a concept I really enjoy seeing as it can create a variety of fun visual gags. Not easy to translate to text format, I know, but I feel I managed to capture it well enough. I could see very definitively where Bethy's tentacles were at all times and it created a very interesting dynamic with the other characters. Overall, I just really enjoyed describing her insane movements.
The other fun thing about Bethy was her backstory, just the absurdity of the Golden Age of Hollywood brought to form that seemed very appropriate for the Hellaverse. Which is already plenty absurd. I said before giving the sinners somewhat comical deaths takes the edge off a little. The same is true here. Maybe more so for Bethy than Lilly-Bella. Lilly committed a murder, which is bad, but she did it against someone who had screwed her over. Bethy meanwhile was a scheming go-getter in the cutthroat movie business of the 1930s. She did a lot of bad things to get to the top and it caught up to her in the end. It sorta took the edge off the fact she described, basically, breaking someone's legs or overdosing her rival, if she got food poisoning and was then crushed by a massive squid prop. Like, she's kinda paid for what she did. You can accept her more despite the fact she did bad things because her death was so over the top.
Plus it's just a funny visual. It is, the dark humor is on full display here, but really no more than it was in Coco. I mean, they opened the movie with a man getting crushed by a Bell and everything. I guess it somewhat helps to make death a bit absurd in general to take the edge off of things. It's probably why Helluva Boss, when it does assassination episodes, makes the murders so... overblown.
I think what motivates Bethy more than anything though is that she's a trades master. A real Renaissance Woman if you will. She can act, she can design, she can write and she can direct. At least she believes she can. She obviously has an ego, if she has any specific set of sins, it's Greed, Pride and Envy. But she's not malicious about it. She's just eager to prove her artistic talent. Unfortunately, she's not the only one down here like and they are people that are far hungrier than she is for the big time.
The little fashion show, along with RJ's outfit, was a nice way to showcase RJ's newest set of clothes. Don't worry, I'm going to make more of an effort to better explain what RJ is wearing at any given time. If I feel it's important anyway. This is just my way of establishing that RJ isn't always wearing the same thing anymore. And I kinda liked creating the lumberjack inspired outfit for him. It felt right for him, like something RJ would be okay wearing.
But let's get on to Velvette, because I feel we have a bit to talk about with her. This came up a bit in the comments and such, and I feel like I need to make note of it here for my own sake. Velvette is NOT a nice person. She's a villain, plain and simple. It's written all over her character, from the moment we saw her she was being demanding fashion diva, bullying her designers and models directly to their faces.
She literally marched into the Overlord meeting and demanded that they follow their "assault plan" despite not knowing how to kill Angels. I've had this discussion before, although frankly it was muddled by a bunch of other things and people misunderstanding my point, but the fact is Velvette is very arrogant. She probably didn't think it would work, but she did clearly use it as a fact finding mission to figure out what, exactly, any of the Overlord knew about the dead Angel. But if it did work, you can bet your ass the Vees would've just sat back and watched all the other Overlords get themselves killed.
Velvette is awful, just because she's not a rapist like Valentino doesn't absolve her from being awful. And I felt that way even before we learned about the date rape drug she advertises. With herself. I think people try to let Velvette off the hook by suggesting that, oh she's not so bad, she's not like Vox who brainwashes people to buying his shitty products, or Valentino who exploits and physically harms his enslaved actors! She's just mean to people! Yeah, uh, she works with the other two very directly though. She a villain! She doesn't get a pass just because she's a girl.
However, we haven't really seen much of her. She had one song, and it was kinda overshadowed very quickly in literally the next episode by Poison, which put Valentino's brand of evil on full display through the eyes of another character. Velvette's song was just very explicit trash talking. Fun, but not nearly as morally devastating. Meanwhile, Vox got a full duet song dedicated to expositing about his rivalry with Alastor. Which showcased his power and abilities as an overlord that controls all of visual media.
What does Velvette do? She can... switch clothes? She trends on social media? See this was my problem, as well as I think the overall perception. Velvette has had a chance to really showcase how awful she is or what the extent of her powers are. I wanted to use this chapter, as an opportunity, to better explore who Velvette is as a person, at least, and explain why she does all this. And, frankly, it's pretty obvious to me. She told us as much, I just elaborated on it. Mainly... she thinks it's fun. Why else would she insult Carmine to her face, just to get a rise out of her? She's a toxic cyberbully who does it in person! And that's the fun of the character, being so unashamedly disrespectful.
Which brings us to "Respectless", the song I was forced to miss during the episode it premiered in because RJ had no reason to even be near that Overlord meeting. I really wanted to involve it in the story, because it is a really good, fun song. The confrontation between Charlie, Vaggie, RJ and her over Bethy being railroaded like she was by her contract. I felt, fine, if her cussing out Carmilla Carmine wasn't enough reason for people to get pissed at and love to hate her, have her shit on Charlie. That's like kicking a puppy!
Plus, it gave one of the Vees a chance to find out something about RJ in the process. Thank Crow for the air horn idea to help hide the final lyrics from Charlie. I was struggling with a lyric that would actually hit RJ where it hurt before he suggested that. It pays to have an editor think outside your head for you. Hard to do that otherwise really.
This brings us to the Heavenly Eye Cult, some fairly mysterious quasi-revolutionaries and whatever their nefarious scheme is. You can trust that they'll be showing up again and more of their backstory will be revealed. I do hope, at least, I'm not accused of portraying another group of rebels as actually the bad guys as counter-productive or something as a result. I could go on about this, but let's be clear, not every rebel is fighting for a good cause. See the Confederate States of America for the most obvious example of that. And the Heavenly Eye aren't really rebels, they just use revolutionary rhetoric to justify their real goals. Which, without revealing too much, are not good for anyone down in Hell. Especially not those who are most vulnerable. And they're after Charlie for some pretty obviously terrible plan of theirs, I mean, it can't be anything good.
You won't have to wait forever to see them again, but just be aware, the more you learn, the more you'll probably end up hating them. What I can say of them right now... think of them as a reverse on the Satanic Cult trope. Suddenly what they're doing will make a degree of sense.
If you're wondering why Velvette didn't just kill RJ or why she used a gun to finish off that last Eye Cultist, well that's simple enough. As revealed later, Vox has plans that require RJ alive. Or at least somewhat intact. And again, I'm not sure what Velvette can exactly do, so... let's just say she didn't want to waste her powers on a bunch of pathetic little sinner upstarts who didn't really matter in the long run in her eyes.
RJ setting the clothes on fire was a bit of a spur of the moment idea for him, and it did somewhat kill two birds with one stone. It saved Bethy's fashion show from getting absorbed by Velvette and helped take down the biggest of the Heavenly Eye attackers. However, now Velvette hates RJ just as much as Vox for messing with her own schemes. So yeah, RJ is two for two on pissing off just the worst people, technically he's also pissed off the cult since they apparently think he's some prophesied herald of the apocalypse. Can't win for losing, can he?
Well, at least Charlie was kind enough to get his other friends to make some Iron Maiden and other rock band shirts for him. I feel like that helps to illustrate that RJ has come a long way in a short time within the eyes of his fellow residents. Even Alastor pitched in, although clearly he has other motivations. It also shows that Charlie was perfectly willing to help RJ find stuff to wear that he does like. Which emphasizes that she doesn't need RJ to dress fancy or anything, that she doesn't think his style is embarrassing. She just wants him to have choices. And I think that's important to keep in mind for all of us. That if you have real friends, they won't want you to change, they'll just want to give you more ways to be yourself. Whatever that self of yours is.
Masquerade Adaptation: I uh... I don't really have a funny title for this one. I don't think I want one. Let's get this out of the way, Masquerade is probably the first episode of what is largely a comedic show that decides to drop the funny in favor of some very heavy themes. And for that reason, I think a lot of people misinterpret what was going on in it, in a lot of ways.
For one. Charlie butting into Angel's job and making it "worse", when all she really did was step into a place with a problem she couldn't really solve. Angel was already in an obviously bad place and was hiding it from her. Valentino was always making his life crap. If Charlie hadn't shown up, Val would've come up with whatever excuse he wanted to make Angel work later and longer. Now, don't get me wrong, she did make a mistake by not reading the room, or at the very least thinking she could fix what was going wrong with her "aggressive kindness." But I don't think it's fair to say she hurt Angel by trying to help him. Let's blame the person who's actually the abuser.
For some reason though, some people blame her for not utterly destroying Valentino right then and there. Forgetting that, Charlie isn't exactly used to using her powers to hurt people and that Angel literally stopped her for fear of Valeinto hurting her. That is why he acted the way he did. The whole episode was about him ending the act, admitting he was hurting and then going to Charlie and thanking her for being there for him. It was a turn in his character! And I also don't appreciate people thinking Charlie was somehow selfish in this episode for... I don't know, being grateful her friend forgave her? Like what the fuck?
But really, what most people get pissed off over is the claims that this episode somehow fetishizes sexual violence or even excuses it. That Angel should just accept he's a loser, suggesting that the song "Loser, Baby" is about internalizing victim blaming, and not do anything to change his situation. When really it's about finding comfort in people who are hurting or have lost just as much as you. It's literally what Husk and Angel do together afterwards, joking about how much Val sucks instead of Angel pretending that he likes his job and is proud of his work.
The point is, a lot of people don't understand this episode and take the, admittedly, very graphic and triggering subject matter as some sign that the series is pro-rape and blames the victims of it. Which could not be further from the truth, given the content and lyrics of Poison, which is literally talking about how Angel is slowly killing himself and hates himself because of it but doesn't know a way out.
It probably doesn't help that people get really pissy about Valentino's merchandise, as if that somehow means Viviziepop and her team support rape. Well, if that's the case DC should stop making Deathstroke a thing, since he had sex with an underage girl! Merchandise does not suggesting the condoning of a character's actions by creators. If that were true, then we might as well claim George Lucas always supported the Empire because he had action figures of the stormtroopers made.
So, when I made this chapter I felt I needed to be really careful with how it went. Crow and I had a few discussions about it. Maybe we got more worried about it than we should've honestly. Better than being under worried though. I never once had the intention of RJ witnessing the abuse first hand. I never wanted him to overtake the Poison song. And I wanted him to come at the situation as an outsider. If the original episode was about giving us the perspective of a person who was experiencing the abuse, I needed my chapter to be about somehow having to find a way to navigate talking to someone facing it.
RJ tries to comfort Charlie of course while she's feeling awful about the mistakes she made while trying to do just that. But we also see him confront an angle about the episode that gets overlooked by a lot of people, the fact Vaggie put Charlie up to the whole idea to begin with. She was the one who told Charlie to use "aggressive kindness" to assert herself. And did nothing to suggest that was a bad idea. I was honestly surprised no one was mad at Vaggie for not reining Charlie in more.
I had RJ take up that role, but for very selfish reasons as he didn't want to piss off another Vee over Angel who he thought could handle himself. It was only when it was revealed Angel was far worse off than even he thought, that RJ felt so terrible that he needed to find a way to make it up to Angel. I think it went a long way to showing that there are a lot of ways to screw up in how you handle dealing with someone's abuse problems. Namely, you could make it more about your own safety than theirs.
Not that there was much RJ could do. Let's face it, he can't exactly take on an Overlord in a fair fight. Less so if Angel doesn't want him there. So, he respected Angel's wishes, much as he hated to do so in that moment.
And then he confronts Vaggie about not stopping Charlie. For giving her the idea to begin with. And while Vaggie does feel guilt, she also acknowledges and explains another point. One that is overlooked here. Sometimes, you need to break something to fix it. Yes, Angel suffered as a result of what happened, but due to everything becoming strained, it was now impossible for him to just go back to pretending he was happy. That there was nothing wrong. He couldn't hide it anymore and that led to him being forced to take redemption, the Hotel and Charlie more seriously.
This of course leads to RJ and Husk's team up. And this provided the levity we needed for the chapter. Husk doesn't treat RJ like most others do. They're either amused by or begrudgingly go along with his antics. Husk, however, will outright tell RJ he's being an idiot. RJ wants to do the tropey stuff, he loves the tropey stuff and the formulas and all the good story and narrative things that make it fun. Husk couldn't care less. He just wants to get the job done. So he'll call out how completely unnecessary a ton of the things RJ wants to do. That real life isn't like a story and that tropes are not instruction manuals. RJ doesn't listen because if adventures aren't fun, why bother? He's like the "Anti-Rick Sanchez" in that way. RJ will go to any lengths to play the story right, and he will not suddenly get bored and decide to cheat at it. Well, maybe if he doesn't like a certain trope he will, but RJ really likes running story formulas. They're comforting.
If you liked Husk and RJ's dynamic, rest assured there will be more. Maybe not for a while, but trust me, it's not the last time they'll team up.
The song was a bit tricky this time. RJ was always going to take part in it, because it was my way of fully cementing that all three of them do have something that connects them, that they can lean on each other when they need to. So figuring out what RJ would sing about was hard, I wanted to avoid making it about Charlie. I tried, it just didn't ring right. Thankfully, I figured out a different angle and I feel it works much better.
I think I did a good job recontextualizing the song. And RJ got a Tommy gun out of it, so we all got a win.
But then of course, I revealed the big shocker. The subtab unlocked and revealed RJ's buffs and debuffs, blessings... and curses.
The way the blessings work is simple, if you play to the strengths of the blessings, injure yourself or act as the butt of the joke, you will be rewarded with a rebalance to your karmic energy. Critical damage will help you heal faster, laughs will unlock toon force skills.
Curses are set at what they are. They won't become better or worse. They off SOME benefits as a way to offset the problems they cause, but ultimately they are detrimental. RJ's curses are that he'll get repeatedly hit on the head. And that the universe will conspire to cause him trouble. The latter is more significant, "May You Live in Interesting Times" is basically RJ getting his wish for adventure and it backfiring horribly. Because now, literally any random event can happen and it most always will put him in deep shit when it does. He's a danger magnet. And finding that out is... not great.
You may have noticed it was also the pay off to the joke running throughout the chapter. With someone leaving before RJ could really finish talking. First Charlie, then Husk, and when he got to Niffty, he thought it happened again, but it turned out she actually got closer. So, I thought that was a fun running gag with an even better payoff in my mind. I hope you did too.
Anyway, that's most of everything. You're gonna have to tune in next Saturday to find out more about those curses and what RJ can do about them. For now though, thank you for your time and I hope you'll be here to check back in with me again soon.
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