Crisp Rat Infesting Another Mid Looking Film, No Big Surprise There.

Luc Besson is directing a new Dracula adaptation? Where have I heard that name before???

Oh, what the fuck

And then from the same article:

Absolute creep. I'm not touching anything he does.

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Voynich Manuscript SparkNotes

Trust me I'm getting tired of this too but... This is Micah Mayfield, a guntuber who recently released a video in which he made a "joke" ab

Maybe not all of his friends but a good chunk definitely. Also We*digoon is friends with Turkey Tom, that should be enough for anyone to disavow him.

I understand that IPOS' video isn't the best when it comes to being accurate but that doesn't change the fact that We*digoon is comfortable being friends with nazis, transphobes, and racists.

Unless We*digoon makes a video shitting on all of his bigot friends, then he's a bigot in my eyes. Doesn't matter if he's "nice" while sitting back as his friends openly desire killing queer people.

Best-case scenario: He is standing back as his friends joke about killing trans people.

Worst-case scenario: He's a slimy fuck who supports their ideals but hides it under his YT persona.

Nuanced and Multifaceted Conflict vs. “Good v. Evil” in fiction

So. This is another thing I’ve wanted to talk about for a while. I promise I won’t always be focusing on Helluva Boss in my critiques, and I actually have quite a few other series I want to talk about.

There’s a big chance that I’ll be saying everything other people have already said, but I can’t help but WANT to talk about this specific character in regard to the story’s conflict. I think that it’s important to recognize when a character is written to be a complex person, and when a character is written to be an enemy to be defeated, and how not following through with your set-up can affect your story.

And HB does that A LOT in my opinion.

So. Let’s get into it. This time I’ll be talking about complex conflict between characters vs. black and white conflict, and I’ll also be touching on story set-ups and audience expectations.

I want to talk about a character who could have really made some of the internal character conflicts have so much more depth and intrigue. I want to talk about Stella Goetia

*as a side note this post is MUCH longer than I intended but I really wanted to get into a lot of the background and reasons for how Stella’s character development has actually completely changed what HB’d story conflict could have looked like. I’ll try and sum up everything in the end in a TLDR for y’all

So. Most of the reviews of her character I see talk about how she’s been “ruined” by the writing team revealing that she’s always been very abusive towards Stolas

I have to start off by saying I actually don’t think that Stella or her portrayal was “ruined” by the writing direction her character has been taken in.

In fact, this critique bothers me, because it doesn’t really get to what I think the actual root of why people are disappointed in Stella’s characterization, and the type of conflict that now exists between her and Stolas.

The main reason I believe people are unsatisfied with Stella is because they believed that her character was being set up for a complex and nuanced conflict between her and Stolas, and then that turned out not to be the case.

A quick disclaimer- I do think it’s possible to subvert audience expectations about story and characters in a satisfying way. But it has to be done in a way that respects the audiences intelligence and willingness to think about the story.

If your plot-twist, unreliable narrator, subversion, or what-have-you is done well, the audience should be able to either figure out what’s going based on the little information you’ve given them, and if they don’t, the change or subversion should still make sense and CLICK in hindsight.

Otherwise, your subversion will end up feeling cheap or confusing. Or worse, like a lie.

And this is one of the MAIN issues I think people have with Stella.

As the audience, we were NOT given enough information on her or her character before it’s revealed that she’s just “evil” and always has been, apparently since she was a literal child.

Again, I don’t think it’s an inherently bad decision to have a flat or pure evil villain. I’m fine with Stella being one, even if it’s less interesting to me personally.

But it’s definitely very different from what was initially implied and set-up, and the audience can pick up on that.

Before S2E1 “The Circus” we see Stella a total of 3 times in person, with one time being a flashback.

I’m going to go over those times to analyze if anything set-up in Stella’s appearances points towards her being. Well, totally and irredeemably awful and abusive I guess.

The very first time we see Stella is in the same bed with Stolas—Octavia calls for her parents, both Stolas AND Stella. Stella grumbles and refuses to get up and tells Stolas to go. This doesn’t immediately strike me as a sign of her being a terrible person. That exact scenario is present in a lot of family comedies, kids’ movies, and sitcoms.

Nothing about this screams that Stella is a terrible parent or an abusive partner to me. It just tells me she’s tired and doesn’t want to get up, which again, is not uncommon.

The next time we see her, she’s yelling at Stolas, and she throws a servant at him in anger.

Now, there’s no excuse for this, her behavior here is not okay, regardless of her feelings. But we understand why she’s acting the way she is--she’s furious with Stolas for cheating on her. At this point with the information we have, it’s also very reasonable to believe her feelings have been hurt.

Later Octavia talks about how her parents didn’t used to hate each other, and the way Stolas’ tries to explain their failing marriage to her comes across like his relationship with Stella is one that’s always had difficulties that they have tried and failed to overcome.

None of this information is enough to really convey or hint that Stella is and has always been abusive or evil. It shows that Stella and Stolas have a very rough relationship, and that Stella most likely has anger management difficulties, but you have to do lot of extra work to come to the conclusion that Stella is completely at fault here.

The next time we see her though, things have clearly escalated, because it’s revealed that she’s one that hired Striker to assassinate Stolas.

Now. Usually. Yeah. That would be a HUGE red flag. And I mean. It still obviously is.

But, and I never thought I’d use this uno reverse card, this is one of the few times where the explanation of “But it’s hell, what did you expect???” actually makes sense to me.

Because yeah, it is hell. It’s the end of episode 5 when we learn this, and our protagonists have killed and assassinated multiple people. Taking a hit out on people really doesn’t seem to be that uncommon of a thing in hell.

Even the next scene after the reveal that Stella is the one who hired Striker makes light of how serious this is, by showing that Stella was basically yelling her assassination plot right to Stolas’ face.

This is played for laughs! I genuinely am not sure if the writers intended for this to be foreshadowing of Stella’s abuse or not because if so, they turned her attempting to kill her husband into a joke!

If you cannot keep your themes or tone consistent, how is the audience supposed to follow your story?

There is subtle storytelling, and then there’s tacking information and character points later on in your writing. And this can have two causes.

Either your audience has to do the work of story-telling for you and make up their own reasons for what’s happening to make the story coherent OR they will be disappointed and dissatisfied by the final product.

I think that’s the main reason why S2E1 of Helluva Boss felt so jarring story-wise, and why Stella, to me at least, suddenly felt like a brand new character.

Like I haven’t been this confused by a character being suddenly evil since Hans from Frozen.

(like seriously why the hell did they put this scene in if not to just trick the audience. This isn’t giving us any plot info it’s only giving us contradictory info on his character. Like I talked about before, Hans’ heel-face-turn doesn’t feel like a twist. It feels like a lie.)

Okay so, how does any of this actually affect anything? Who cares if Stella is evil, that doesn’t automatically make the story bad!

Well. Yeah, of course not. Ironically, having the main conflict your story being a battle between “Good v. Bad” characters is neither good nor bad. It’s just a story decision. And ultimately at the end of the day, the writers of Helluva Boss can choose to tell their story however they’d like.

But, depending on how this is executed, good v evil stories can be a lot less interesting than morally grey or complicated conflicts and characters.

I am more interested in the version of the story where Stella and Stolas are imperfect and messy people. I am more interested in the story where Stolas has an affair to escape being in an arranged marriage, and Stella overreacts by arranging a hit on her husband (unless calling out a hit is normal in hell, but we can’t know b/c there is no baseline for what is considered normal in hell)

I am so much more interested in the story where Stolas and Stella are both depicted as being in the wrong, as being incredibly hurt by each other’s actions, and as not knowing how to repair their broken relationship for the sake of their daughter.

That story feels very real to me. It’s one I want to engage and invest in.

I want to see if these characters can grow to accept their mistakes and learn and change for the sake of Octavia and having to co-exist with each other, or if they’ll slip back into mutual destruction and toxicity.

But that’s not the story we’ll get to see, because it seems like the writers are more interested in keeping Stolas from having to grow as a character. And because of that, Stella has been turned into an evil obstacle that must be defeated, instead of a nuanced and real person.

I also feel like I have to say. I know I would be MUCH less frustrated by this if I hadn’t seen an HB crew member talking about how their show is similar to Bojack Horseman.

Because. It’s just not. I’m sorry, I’m not saying that to be mean, or condescending, or rude, but the way characters are written in Helluva Boss is almost completely black and white at this point.

Regardless of the writer’s intent, the vast majority of the choices they have made in Season 2 come off as explanations to excuse the protagonist’s mistakes, and give them a “get out of being potentially in the wrong” free card.

Compared to the writing decisions in Bojack, which almost always has characters confront their wrongdoings, for better or worse, HB honestly feels like it’s the Anti-Bojack.

It would take a TON of character development and time to make HB’s characters as interesting, fleshed-out, and as real as Bojack’s are, and at this point that’s I don’t think it will ever happen.

Again. Having black and white conflict is FINE. It is a choice in story telling that can be done very effectively. But if you are making a black and white story where one side is always terrible and evil, and one side can do no wrong, you can’t act like you’ve written something that is deeper and more emotionally complex and grey than that.

And the first time the writers gave Stella more than 3 sentences to string together, they made it very clear that any chance of her being a more complex and engaging character was being tossed out the window.

————

TLDR:

The main reason people are upset about Stella being shown as abusive in S2E1 of HB is probably because the initial depictions of her didn’t give us enough information on her character to tell that she was just evil/a terrible person.

The way the story was written in S1 to set up the possibility of a very interesting and complex conflict between Stella and Stolas, and when it was revealed that she’s just. The worst. There were people that were disappointed by this, because they expected more.

Audiences actually aren’t idiots, and when you subtly foreshadow something and then completely change things, that can be frustrating.

It’s MORE than okay to write a straightforward good v evil story, but it depending on the way it’s written and executed, it may not be as interesting to mature audiences as a more morally grey story would be.

If you can’t write characters confronting their flaws and being in the wrong, please don’t compare your writing to Bojack, I mean. C’mon.

Vivziepoop Stans Love One Note Dimensional Protagonists

They always mentioned how she s/a him but if you dare bring up the idea that Stolas sexually coerced Blitzo then you get tons of justification saying it's Blitzos own fault. It's one thing to always be a villain but it's another thing to be a villain you find in shipping fanfiction to justify having your pairing get together without being condemned for cheating.

Trust me I'm getting tired of this too but...

This is Micah Mayfield, a guntuber who recently released a video in which he made a "joke" about having a trans person in his gun sights....

And oh man would you look at that? Its Grand Thumb! The man who Brandon Buckingham who will make fun of you for thinking that they are terrible people or not! These are all people Wendigoon are comfortable being around. Let's see how Garand Thumb is taking the criticism?

Ah! I see! Surely a great person to be friends with!

Another new critique video I mostly agree with, this is made by the same person who made that “How to waste a villain” Stella video. I’m sorry but the female characters just don’t get the proper focus and time the same way the male characters do. They’re all obstacles for the male characters, mainly Stolas and Blitz because the show is fucking revolved around them. Octavia can’t be a character on her own or focused on alone without be attached to her father, Millie has the personality of stale bread and is attached to Moxxie, having absolutely NOTHING going on for her other than being a southern bad ass fighter, Verosika is just a standard tool for Blitz’s “development” to show that he’s a 2 dimensional character who deep down “cares” despite Verosika not even showing up since episode 7, Loona is an unlikable bitch who never changes even when the show tries to give her a sad backstory and have her be “lonely”, and mainly only gets focus when the show wants to dive into her relationship with Blitz despite that never changing either, and finally Stella is a one note boring bland villain who could have been a 2 dimensional character that actually had a relationship with her daughter and still been the antagonist, just EXPLORED more to make her actually interesting, but we can’t have that since the all the show wants to do is suck off Stolas and Blitz and paint them in a godlike light where they never get the consequences of their actions and get praised for being “2 dimensional”.

The funny thing is that I say Millie has the personality of stale bread, but honestly? This is just my opinion but I think almost all of Viv’s female characters have the personality of stale bread, or they’re at least so by the numbers like I said before. I literally don’t blame the fandom for favoriting the male characters more because the female characters are so bland and uninteresting compared to the males, and that’s the writers faults because you can smell the favoritism. They all try so hard to make characters like Blitz and Stolas into 3 dimensional characters that they push the others to the back and only focus on THEIR perspectives and are so AFRIAD to actually paint them as flawed beings that can be in the wrong and do bad things that aren’t excusable. I think that pretty much sums up Viv’s outlook on her male characters as a whole. She tries so hard to make most of them either 3 or 2 dimensional, especially the ones she favors and are her “babies”, she adds so many things to them, once again being an overly ambitious writer, for example look at all the things she’d added to Angel and Alastor’s characters over the years compared to Charlie or Vaggie. Even fucking Husk has more stuff to him than Charlie or Vaggie does. This is why everyone thought Charlie was so fucking boring compared to Alastor or Angel because she is. She only has one thing to her and isn’t developed enough to even be interesting compared to them. While the majority of her male characters are either 3 or 2 dimensional, her females are either 2 dimensional (but flat) or 1 dimensional, having basic labels to them like “the nice but snarky one” or “the edgy mean bitch”.

Viv just clearly enjoys writing and developing her male characters more and that’s been clear even before Hazbin came along. I don’t understand why both her male and female characters can’t be interesting. What’s so hard about creating a female character that’s on part with her males? What’s so hard about putting the same energy and effort she does for writing characters like Angel, Blitz, and Stolas for a female one? What’s so hard about making her females 3 dimensional and engaging? I’ll never get it. In my personal opinion guys, I don’t think the show is sexist nor do I think Vivzie as a person is, but one thing is clear, whenever she creates a female character, she sees a VERY limited option on what they should be like. It’s like she doesn’t know ANY other kind of tropes or character quirks outside of being eye candy or extremely edgy, and that’s the problem. No character should be so damn limited or by the numbers, any character can be many things as long as you put your mind and effort to it, and that’s something Viv and HB writing team hasn’t done. They would rather focus on their male twink yaoi fanfiction soap opera that HB has become, and as for Hazbin? I’m expecting the same thing honestly, just the female characters to be mainly flat and the males being more dimensional and developed.

Since it is getting warm again will we get to see Fievel peeled once more?

Soon They Peel Me

People on here really defended this piece of shit?

I'm not linking the post because I don't wanna spread it, not like it's too difficult for anyone to find it on their own.

after seeing the godawful trailer, I did a reread of the Electric State and i cannot physically understand how the russo brothers did not "see potential" in the story

i'll admit, i underappreciated the writing on my first read! going over it again there is so much richness to the character building and the dread of the atmosphere. There's a vibe that I can only describe as desiccated americana and i love it. The world is rotten and dying, and there is really nothing left to do but go on for going on's sake.

anyway i'm doing a very large essay on Stålenhag's whole body of work, but the Electric State holds a special place in my heart as the first of his books I discovered and the most resonant to me, so i just had to share my thoughts right after the reread.

This is less about the artwork, which i could talk about for ages, and more just a general overview of the story themes specifically!

(Moderate general spoilers? i don't go into much detail, and it's not a story overly reliant on its plot twists anyway)

The hopelessness of The Electric State is rather unique among Simon Stålenhag's works - his other books, set in Sweden, are much more fondly nostalgic, though they of course offer strange horrors of their own - but of a much more physical, immediate level.

The Electric State is different. It takes place in an alternate 90s US even more drowned in consumerism and blind greed than our own. A civilization that is crumbling, not from nuclear war or global crises or meteors, but by its own hand, by capitalism driving itself into the ground. The perfect pleasure machine, the neurocaster headset, leaves people twitching, comatose creatures whose minds lie in vast Silicon Valley servers as their bodies are left to starve.

Michelle does not have the privilege of escapism. She is one of the few left to wander a silent world, an apocalypse without people to see it. She is privy to the horror of watching the inevitable trajectory of a world falling to its death, and feels only recognition that it's probably better this way.

Michelle is never sad about the end of America. She doesn't ever reminisce about how good things used to be, or how we should have "appreciated it while we had it." But she certainly does reminisce.

She has the memory of her foster parents, who derided the government "coddling neurine addicts" like Michelle's mother. She has the memory of her grandfather coughing himself to death in their tiny apartment, irradiated from his lifetime of underpaid work assembling gigantic war drones. She has the memory of her mother overdosing on a drug the government hooked her on during her service in the military. She has the memory of her first and only love, a love which the world hated, how it kept her alive in her foster home of Soest City, and how it was ripped from her by the pastor.

Unlike Stalenhag's other stories, there is no element of nostalgia or quiet undertone of hope. Only disgust for what came before, and quiet fear for what comes next.

The horror of the Convergence, the eldritch machine god hivemind, is not even very relevant to the story - if anything, it's a side plot. When Michelle faces actual danger, it's never from giant robot gods in the mist; it's from cops and hotel clerks, from doomsdayers hoarding guns and a FBI agent hunting her down. She lives in fear of other people, of people who say they want to protect her.

But when she sees the gigantic silent machines wandering through the mists of Oregon, she isn't afraid. It's almost peaceful. The Convergence is beyond understanding. It grew out of the servers where millions of minds seeking oblivion from the world went to escape, and they converged into something unknowably vast who wanders the world in a hundred million thoughtless bodies. It's otherworldly. It does not fear, it does not dream, it does not hope, it does not hate. Maybe that's better.

I was scared. But I also felt something else when that thing stepped out of the mist in front of our car. I can't think of a better word than awe. Like when you suddenly become aware that you've walked into the wrong part of the woods and come face-to-face with a gigantic wild animal. Beyond the grotesque, there was also something else - something majestic.

And in its wake, the citizens of Point Linden, hundreds of people linked together, their neurocasters connected to the oily god in the mist, floated across the ground in front of the car, and they looked almost happy. Calm and peaceful, they moved past the car and formed a single group again behind us, and soon disappeared into the mist again.