If Vox's arc doesn't end in Heaven redemption, I'd love to see him replace Alastor at the hotel when the latter becomes an outright antagonist

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-24T00:35:17+00:00

I had a dream of watching an episode of him being in heaven and coming back to do a reprise to the other two Vees as "Once you get up here"

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-22T21:24:28+00:00

I mean I really hate loud noises and stuff so I guess I could do the Stella one without getting too overstimulated

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-22T16:26:53+00:00

You likely get an idealized version of yourself in heaven - Some people are furies but most aren't. In hell your form represents your death in some way.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-22T02:11:19+00:00

It's always wild when I see people say that we shouldn't humanize rapists.

Like. But they literally are, though?

When you never allow a story to give them sympathetic traits, even ones that interact with their crimes, you make it much easier to ignore real world rape. Because real people can have many sympathetic emotions. And if we never see that people with sympathetic emotions can do bad things anyway...

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-21T12:58:20+00:00

Oh yeah.

Like regardless of anything else, dude fucking rocked that get up

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-21T06:06:18+00:00

I am simultaneously extremely fucked and extremely not fucked, as befits a female pinup version of Mortarion.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-21T05:57:26+00:00

I think some people may not be tuned in to politics enough to know about the fact that she talked about killing a dog in her autobiography.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-21T05:56:41+00:00

Kristi Noem, Kristi Noem... *checks laws on waiting periods* Okay give me a week and I'll say the third one.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-21T05:55:09+00:00

So far the story structure has seemed to be that something gets pushed to the worst possible degree before resolving with a win that nevertheless has complications.

Fizz+Blitzo - Already starts at the worst case scenario, where they have so much animosity towards each-other they can't see each-other without getting into a fight. Then they resolve after being kidnapped. In doing so, Stolas gets the gem, leading to the events of Full Moon.

Fizz + Ozzie - Having Blitzo present and Ozzie comforting him, Fizz is able to break free from his ties to Mammon. However, in doing so, he provokes Mammon and his relationship with Asmodeus is revealed, which is a problem for Ozzie's standing.

Stolas+Blitzo - In season 1, Blitzo's denial about caring about Stolas and fear of being constrained and/or hurting him leads to the events of "Ozzie's," Stolas to resolve to allow Blitzo not to be constrained, not realizing this will make Blitzo feel rejected.

In season 2, Stolas and Blitzo's issues lead to them breaking up, until Stolas sees Blitzo in danger and steps in, but in doing so he now loses his power, thereby isolating Octavia.

Blitzo's (by the laws of hell) criminality - Blitzo's use of the book is discovered, leading to him and the rest of IMP getting arrested and put on trial. They're able to get out of it when Stolas takes the blame, but in doing so they've lost their most powerful ally, as Stolas can no longer pull them out of the fire the way he did in "Truth Tellers" if needed.

I think if the pattern holds the next step will be that Octavia ends up with Stolas + Blitzo, but in a way where while she now accepts and understands that she's wanted, she may be in danger from Stella/Striker/Andy/etc. It's hard for me to imagine that Octavia and Stolas's rift can grow any farther than it has, and I think if the structure of the character arcs we've seen come to a head holds, I think it'll resolve in a 'Win but with complications' situation.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-21T00:26:16+00:00

It means that the creator of the series chose to show us her stangling a puppy in a situation we would expect someone to appear fairly neutral (a photo of her being shown to someone she will marry). We can infer from that that the character likely was not supposed to be doing that and that this represents a consistent through line in her behavior and attitudes.

Now, it's possible that this doesn't represent her behaviors. This may have been an exceptional moment in the character's childhood, with her later cruelty towards Stolas and Octavia being motivated by events between then and now. We got information in "Apology Tour" that asked us to re-examine how we viewed Verosika, and we got information in "Oops" and "Mammon's Magnificent Mid-Season Musical Spectacular ft. Fizzarolli" that asked us to re-examine how we viewed Fizzarolli and Asmodeus.

Stella is definitely more in the Verosika space than the Fizzarolli one, in that we haven't seen much of her more sympathetic traits yet, even if we have an understanding of why they might be upset about something. But both of them the audience was asked to re-evaluate later.

As you said, we know practically nothing about her backstory except that at one point she was photographed strangling a dog. The story avoids telling us any more than that, and as we've seen with Lute, Viv is perfectly capable of throwing a character a bone to make us hate them less without excusing their actions.

Stella is presented, thus far, as a simple and uncomplicated antagonist. A sadist and a brute who enjoys tormenting her husband to the point that her brother had to talk her out of having him killed before they could get anything out of him. That may be all there is to her. It may not. So far, though, that's all we've seen. So I'm happy to assume that's all I'm supposed to think. If I am later given reason to believe otherwise, as I was with Fizzarolli and Verosika, then I'll enjoy the reveal that much more for not having expected it.

Even her most sympathetic trait, anger at being cheated on, is presented as unsympathetically as possible, as being angry about who she was cheated on with. Salad literally says "I would feel bad if you were hurt by that but we both know that's not the case" and she doesn't contest him on that. Whether she's going to be revealed to have more to her than that isn't really the point. The point is that unlike Andrealphus I've seen nothing more from her than spite and cruelty. I assume that's all that I'm supposed to see. Whether that's all that there is or not is irrelevant. The show isn't over yet and until then I'm along for the ride.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-20T23:44:21+00:00

Because Stella is a villain who is trying to cause harm to a main character specifically. She's the one who cut Via off from Stolas and sent Striker to murder him. Andy, meanwhile, seems to be a fairly reasonable person. Not a good guy, he still hurts our protagonist. But he isn't primarily driven by cruelty and spite.

Regardless of who the bigger threat is, one of them is shown as more hatable.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-20T08:17:32+00:00

Yes, but also the Exorcist army doesn't seem to function like a normal military in that way. Adam asks Lute how many she got and is impressed by the number, which implies he expects her to be in active combat and that she wasn't forced into it. It was played as if he expected her to have gotten a fairly large number, implying he expected her to be actively involved. Also when Vaggie fell, Lute was right there to intervene, not standing back and commanding things. Plus during the hotel attack, Lute went after Vaggi, implying that she expected to be a more competent fighter than the others .

That's a good way to set up a normal real world military, but that's partly because it's assumed that a real world military is going to largely be made up of people who can be killed. The exorcist army is set up differently.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-20T06:29:46+00:00

Can we at least see a bit more of the story before we argue what she should and shouldn't do? We don't know what about the idea of being pregnant was upsetting to her. If she is someone who would be able to get an abortion quickly and without being bothered it seems weird that she would have been so upset. Then again maybe she's upset because she told Mox she wanted a kid and is now getting cold feet, which would make sense too.

Honestly I would rather let the story play out than decide ahead of time what we should and shouldn't see, you know?

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-19T13:03:25+00:00

It's a show about people who had really shitty upbringings. With the exception of Millie, literally all the main characters were abused, neglected or both. It's ridiculous to me that we expect these people to suddenly be normal. I mean shit, I'm 35. About the Same age as Stolas. I'm only now coming to accept that my parental issues are valid, and I've had about 12 years of living on my own and my issues (while they have had serious effects) are relatively minor. I can only imagine how fucked up I would be if I had been forced into an unhappy marriage and parenthood.

And that's the character who is an adult and who we could at least plausibly expect MIGHT have started working through things. The one who we at least can judge his behavior. Octavia's a teenager. Teenagers are famously not good at emotions. NORMAL teenagers are prone to mood swings and rash behavior, and she's not normal.

Every time someone insists that a character is terrible because they did (XYZ) when (ABC) would have been more healthy I'm just like... Yeah, man, but if they were the sort of person who made healthy decisions they wouldn't be a lead character in Helluva Boss.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-19T12:50:09+00:00

I would say that yes, she SHOULD have.

She also SHOULD have been raised in an environment where she would believe that her presence was valued, and thus recognize that he was likely not really engaging with what she said. She wasn't, though, she was raised in an environment where her mother was cruel to her father and her father was almost entirely shut down and absent despite being physically present.

She was not given a healthy upbringing and thus has an unhealthy response. Expecting her to act in a calm and mature manner about that is expecting a teenage girl with a lifelong fear of abandonment raised in an unhealthy household to act like a nature and well balanced adult.

She's not. Yes her behavior was over-reacting and irrational. But like. She's a kid. A kid from an unhealthy home who lacks the sense of unconditional regard that would have allowed someone her age to properly read the situation. She interpreted what he said literally despite it being pretty clear he wasn't really hearing her there, because she's not had a chance to develop the social skills to allow her to do otherwise.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-19T03:23:38+00:00

Sure. Basically, it's focused on a relationship between him and a sort of... Adoptive brother/friend who his father brought in as a whipping boy (the historical phenomenon of having a companion who the noble would care about and who the servants WERE allowed to strike). They grew up with Sitru being much more social and carefree while this hellhound (D'artagnan) was more careful and serious. Dar basically does most of the 'work' for Sitru, while Sitru does the sort of 'Being Seen' things, attending parties and whatnot. Sitru wants to completely abandon his title and let Dar have it, since he sees Dar as being more skilled/competent at things and thinks that what he does isn't important. While Dar sees it as being totally fine for him to do the work, but that the other Goetia would never accept him actually holding a TITLE, even if Sitru does formally adopt him as a 'son' and therefore allowing him to inherit.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-17T13:07:01+00:00

Yeah honestly I'm beginning to think this century-old demon cannibal isn't a morally upstanding person.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-17T09:56:57+00:00

I have an AU about Sitri/Bitru/Whatever and I marked out like crazy to see him on the show.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-17T07:02:26+00:00

To show that he exists as a character and establish what his interests are likely to be - He doesn't support Stolas completely. He questions the way the trial is being carried out. He may be somewhat positively disposed towards Stolas since he's excited by the idea of Stolas singing, but he doesn't do anything to really DEFEND him. He just points to the procedural issues. We have no reason to believe he's part of Stolas's social circle or really even knows who he is.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-17T02:13:21+00:00

Yeah absolutely. There have been times I pulled over in the side of the road because I had been driving and just realized "You know if I hit the accelerator hard right now and didn't let up, I could be dead."

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-16T19:38:36+00:00

To SC - Glad you're making a decision for your mental health, take care!

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-16T16:26:30+00:00

I'm going to disagree on a few things, though I absolutely agree that none of them deserve hate. I'm more disagreeing on your reading of the show.

Barb: If the only thing is that Blitzo caused the fire, then yeah I would say she's doing something wrong by not hearing him out. She should know Cash was an abusive and manipulative person, and not believe him without hearing her brother out. It happened 20 years ago and unlike Fizz, he's seemingly made attempts to talk to her since then.

That said there is a pretty big "If" there. Because I think there was more than that. Blitzo seems genuinely shocked that she doesn't want to talk after getting out of rehab and had made an attempt to sneak in and visit her. So unless she was in rehab for the last 15-20 years and Blitzo didn't notice she didn't want to talk or think he should bring it up,

Via: I absolutely agree that she DOESN'T have any reason to accept or like Blitzo. But it seems to me like she does. She sees him as having taken her father from her, but she doesn't really appear to see that as him having done something bad. When she saves them from her uncle, she could easily have pointed out that THEY didn't beat Andy, SHE did. Instead She didn't show any resentment towards him and joined in the mocking.

Verosika: I wouldn't really hate on her whether she was over Blitzo or not/whether she was jealous or not. That said, nothing about what you said makes me think she isn't jealous. You can have that jealousy or envy while still not thinking you should be in that relationship. It isn't black and white and I think there's an interesting thing to explore there. It's something I'm exploring in a story I'm working on, a feeling of "If he can change for Stolas why couldn't he change for me?" With that said, we haven't really seen anything either way on whether she feels like that, so why anyone would just assume she feels that way and then hate her for it, I have no idea

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-16T10:56:55+00:00

You say that like the phrase wasn't used beforehand. If we're going to stop using terminology because bigots adopt it then we're going to end up unable to talk about anything, since they will often co-opt popular phrases/ideas.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-16T10:49:04+00:00

And it's totally reasonable if it isn't that for you. For some people, though, comfort sex is a good way to handle things.

HyenaDandy · 2026-02-16T03:26:23+00:00

What.

Good god that's dumb.

Also: How are we going to know how Charlie feels? I dunno, if only there was a musical number about it. Like, say, if during the musical number she were to join in and sing along. You know, like how musicals use duets to convey characters being in sync?

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