Alastor in Hazbin Hotel Season 2: Are the TV show and fandom entirely different artistic mediums?

Transcript Transcribed by Laura M.

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back! My name is Courtney, I am here with my spouse Royce, and together we are the Ace Couple and we are ringing in the new year by... I guess eating the frog and getting out of the way - potentially - the scariest episode of the entire year in the very first week.

Royce: Eating the Frog…

Courtney: You’ve heard that before, haven’t you?

Royce: No.

Courtney: Usually it’s on a daily task thing. People will say, like, whatever task you least want to do, whatever you’re dreading because it’s hard or boring or because it makes you anxious, do it first thing in the morning. Eat the frog right away and then it’ll be gone off your plate. And our frog this year is Hazbin Hotel. Why is Hazbin Hotel our frog, you may ask? Well. [chuckles] The fandom is scary. Scary fandom! Plus, episodes concerning media like this, with an enormous fandom, tend to get sort of an outsized audience, so we’ll get people who have never listened to our podcast before coming in just to listen to this one episode in isolation. And that is fine. But with how controversial Hazbin Hotel, its creator, Alastor as a character, and the general concept of asexuality is in most fandoms, I know a lot of folks coming in to listen are just either hoping we will validate your preconceived opinions or you’re gonna want to just be here to argue.

Courtney: But it is actually with this fandom phenomenon that I want to start with because our podcast, by and large, is about asexuality, real life lived experiences of ace people, ace representation in the media, acephobia, negative stereotypes in general society, among other social commentary. So at the end of the day, the main purpose here is to talk about Alastor as asexual representation. But I have learned, since this is not the first time we’ve talked about this show or this character, that fandom seems to be its very own medium. Whereas I, as someone who is not in the fandom and does not desire to be in the fandom, I am solely watching the TV show, what is presented on the screen for me as a viewer of this cartoon, do I think this is good asexual representation in the media?

Courtney: And I think first and foremost, in order to be considered good representation for a minority sexuality, it needs to be obvious. I think that is the baseline. I don’t subscribe to the fact that every ace character needs to be absolutely perfect, the best person, not at all problematic. That’s where a lot of folks in the fandom have, I have noticed, tried to split hairs about Alastor saying, like, “Oh, he’s bad ace rep because he’s a murderer.” And then of course everyone says, “Well, you know, everyone here is in hell, everyone’s bad, so you really can’t hold that against him.” And those criticisms and back and forth, I think, is a little more surface level than I’m interested in. I want to get deeper. I want to get really into the weeds. And in order to do that, I think we have to separate Hazbin Hotel, the TV show, from Hazbin Hotel, the expanded fandom. Because those two are very different things. Completely different.

Courtney: And anyone who came from the fandom, most of those folks I have spoken to as someone who is really only interested in the show and the final product, have so much more to draw off of that is just not accessible to the general public. There are tweets and tumblr posts and fan art discussions and interviews at conventions and podcasts from years ago and streams and the social media posts of voice actors. And a lot of folks will try to say, “Well, that is all canon. If it came from the creator, that is canon.” And we have had people take some of our criticisms from our first episode and say, “No, the fact that Alastor is asexual is a lot more obvious than you gave it credit for, because there was that whole ace in the hole line.” And I have not changed my mind on that. I don’t think that’s good enough. And in fact, doing a lot more thinking over this last year or so, I think I’ve gotten more upset about–

Courtney: You know, it’s not even the creator of the show or the writers at this point. It’s the fandom folks who are viewing it from that lens as someone who is in the fandom and not understanding that their lens and their understanding of the show and these characters is fundamentally different than the lens that an outside observer is going to come into it with.

Royce: And this is similar in many ways to discussions people will have with a big long-running book series that gets a minor TV adaptation or movie adaptation. Particularly if it’s not a very well done TV or movie adaptation, one that takes a few liberties with the source material. Where, if you’re coming from full series of novels and talking to someone who just watched the movie, there are some points in the conversation that you just really can’t have because, yes, the media diverges. In this instance, there’s a fandom canon and a TV show canon are two things, and sometimes one may exist entirely inside the other, sometimes one may contradict the other.

Courtney: Yeah, but the thing is, when you’re talking about like a novel to movie adaptation, that’s a really common one we’ve seen over time, ordinarily that movie does feel like they are trying to bring the essence of this story to a new audience. And they want this new audience to experience the parts that they feel are important or integral to this story. And of course, some folks who read the novel are going to be upset if their favorite parts got cut out, if something gets changed in a way. But usually it seems to me like a movie being adapted from a book is supposed to be for a new audience. It’s supposed to say, hey, there’s this great book. Only so many people read books. There’s a whole camp of people over here that read movies a lot more than books. Let’s adapt to this for those folks, because this is a great piece of media.

Courtney: The fascinating thing about Hazbin Hotel for me is that the fandom kind of came first. Because we had a YouTube pilot for years before it ever actually became a show. And in that time, this enormous internet fandom emerged. People started making fan art of the characters. People started asking questions of the creator, trying to get more information about this character, trying to go directly to the creator of the show because there wasn’t any other source material to draw from. And this fandom was hungry for it. They wanted more, so they were trying to pick and pull as much as they could out of media that did not exist yet. Which is fascinating. That is a very, like, new phenomenon with not only the internet, but this iteration of the internet and the culture around fandom and content creation.

Courtney: I mean, it wasn’t that long ago where you couldn’t just put a pilot or launch a concept on something like YouTube and it would get that big of a reach. So it’s very modern, but because it is, I feel like the TV show is almost a TV show adaptation of a pre-existing fandom in a way that makes it awkward to watch at times as someone who is not engaged in the fandom. And let me give you an example of what I mean by that. So I said, going back to the ace in the hole line, I have said before that it didn’t feel as much like this is good canon, solid solidification, this is asexual representation. It felt like a blink and you’ll miss it, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, to the fandom who already knew that Alastor was asexual. That is what it felt like. Lots of people, when I said that, were a little frustrated because they’re like, “How more explicit can you get than Ace in the Hole?”

Royce: Did they not understand that Ace in the Hole is a phrase? It’s like a trump card. Like a secret weapon.

Courtney: It is a preexisting phrase that doesn’t have anything to do with asexuality. The only thing that could be a double meaning is the phrase ace. We are at a point in time where not everyone in pop culture knows that ace is short for asexual. I would argue that the demographic that predominantly makes up this fandom is more likely than the average person in the world to know that, which is another reason why I think it was a line put in there for the fandom. But also Ace in the Hole is not common parlance in asexual culture. And I gave it credit. I said it is a cute idea to use Ace in the Hole as, like, a closeted asexual. I think that’s cute. I think it’s fun. I wouldn’t be mad if that catches on. However, I have never encountered anyone actually using that outside of the fandom. It is only fandom people who take Ace in the Hole as this great inside joke, this great community phrase.

Courtney: I haven’t seen it break out into more general asexual culture, and it certainly hasn’t gone past there to more broadly queer culture. And let’s put a pin in the Ace in the Hole comment, because I do want to talk about why I’m gonna maybe even get more strict on that phrase as being held up as, quote, good ace rep. And when I make these criticisms, I’ve had folks say, like, “You shouldn’t be so harsh to VivziePop. She is–” blah blah blah. Or, “You shouldn’t be so harsh to the character or the creators, because ace characters should just be allowed to exist. They don’t have to have a whole ‘they are asexual’ plotline.” And believe me, I do not want that from this character. I don’t like that for a lot of characters. And that’s another issue, and sometimes folks come in who have never listened to any of our other episodes, I don’t tend to like most aces learning what asexuality is and finding themselves plot lines in media. And I definitely don’t want to see it from a radio demon in hell. So that is not what I’m advocating for.

Courtney: I just want it to be more obvious to the general public watching the TV show. I personally don’t think one’s understanding of a TV show should totally hinge on whether or not you follow the creator on social media or if you’re in a broader fandom having conversations about it online.

Courtney: And in the second season that we recently watched, there were a couple of lines. Because just being in the Ace Community, we have seen and heard conversations about Alastor being ace, so we went into that first season knowing that in the fandom he is canonically asexual. So we were looking to see evidence of that in the show because I’m separating these out. These are two distinct types of media here. But second season, didn’t necessarily go in with any expectations other than let’s see what they do with this character. Let’s see how he progresses. And there were absolutely some lines that were so weird and out of left field and jarring and made, like, no sense, but were said with such gusto that we, sitting here, had to be like, “That was taking a shot at the fandom, right? That has to be what that is. There’s no other explanation for this line of dialogue.”

Courtney: And the one that I distinctly remember, this happened a couple of times, but the one I really, really remember was like the TV demon Vox, who is sort of showboating, he thinks he beat Alastor. Alastor is secretly scheming, but he’s showing off to everyone, “Look, I’m more powerful than Alastor. I’ve captured him. I’ve done all this.” And just doing like a little media tour, and all of a sudden he goes, “And he doesn’t have a tail!” Or something like that. And we were shocked. We’re like, “What? Where did that come from?” That makes no sense at all. And so just knowing that this fandom exists and how it exists, that was our only explanation that has to be directed at the fandom. And so we searched it up, we googled it, like Alastor doesn’t have a tail, and lo and behold, what do I find? But Tumblr posts, Reddit posts, general social media discussion about whether or not Alastor has a tail, and I was seeing fan art of Alastor with a tail.

Royce: Yeah, that was a somewhat jarring fourth wall break for– only for people in the know.

Courtney: And I do think that there are at times ways to give little easter eggs to superfans, but it shouldn’t be so weird and jarring that people who don’t know where that came from are like, “Why? Why is this in here? That doesn’t make sense.” And there were a couple of moments like that, and I can only imagine moments like that are even weirder for someone who is trying to watch the show who doesn’t even have a vague general concept of the fandom that we do. And like [sighs] I guess to add just like a little bit of insult to injury after this, you know Vox has captured Alastor, he has him, like, tied up to a chair, he’s parading him around and showboating and all this. They, like, fully end that episode with someone making, like, an explicit comment about Alastor and Vox. I don’t remember for sure what it was verbatim, but it was like, “Oh, you two just fuck already.” And that’s just how that episode ended or that scene just ended.

Courtney: It didn’t even have, like, Alastor reacting to that. And so I would argue that between the real fast season one saying, “Oh, isn’t this girl too young for you? JK, I know you’re an ace in the hole.” “A what now?” And then season two, no more indications of Alastor being asexual, but making that comment? It seems like at best we got two one-off lines, one to appease the asexuals in the fandom and one to appease the people who really like to ship Alastor with other people. And they seemed to have completely equal weight and time, and maybe even a little more heavily weighted toward the like, “Oh, just fuck already.” Because there’s no other way to take that. That is abundantly obvious what is being said. Like, that is bringing together an imagery of like, an enemies to lovers fantasy with these two.

Courtney: So before we go further on that, I did find a really, really fascinating Reddit thread, and I’ll link it in the show notes. But it was a question posed a couple years ago asking how the Ace in the Hole line has been translated in other languages.

Royce: Oh, that’s interesting.

Courtney: It’s so interesting! Because puns are already hard to translate. Good translators do magic all the time to try to make jokes work in their native language. But a translator translating the line in English, “You are an ace in the hole,” is going to have to fundamentally know that that is talking about asexuality if they’re going to have any hope of getting that across in the next language. And I think some of the responses we got in the comments on this post prove that it wasn’t obvious to everyone. The top comment says: “In German it’s: ‘I know there’s more behind that,’ from Rosie. To which Alastor replies, ‘What was that?’ What comes across is that Alastor is having ulterior but not romantic motives for being with Charlie. But has nothing to do with his orientation specifically.”

Courtney: But then a second comment says, “The German dub, the translation gets completely lost. She is instead suggesting that, quote, she knows that there is something else behind that. Funnily enough, the subtitles state it clear as day saying, ‘I know you’re asexual’.”

Royce: This wait– This is Netflix?

Courtney: No.

Royce: Amazon Prime?

Courtney: I think it’s Prime.

Royce: Okay. Interesting. Different teams, I guess.

Courtney: Very different teams, right? One knew something that the other didn’t. And we have some folks who, you know, were watching it in German, but also clearly know English, are commenting in English, who are saying, you know, “I’m asexual too, and I’m really sad that this got lost in the translation.” But I don’t think it’s just the fault of the translation. Someone just being paid to translate this would have to be familiar with the fandom and outside sources about Alastor’s asexuality because it’s nowhere else in the text. Not even signs or, like, clues about it. Nothing that’s obvious enough to a general population viewer. Some don’t try to make it a joke or a pun at all. Apparently Greek just says, “I know you are asexual,” which is honestly a lot more obvious than Ace in the Hole [laughs]. In Hindi Rosie says, “I’m just joking around. I know there isn’t anyone for you.” But in a Russian translation she says, “I know you’re too boring for this.” In Brazilian dubbing she says, “I’m joking. I know you’re full of mysteries.” To which he responds, “Oh yes I am.” The Dutch subtitles say, “I know that you are a stand-up guy.” Like, I know you wouldn’t be with a girl who’s too young for you, I guess?

Royce: I just had to google something. Because that’s interesting, given that Charlie is an actual demon and Alastor was a human.

Courtney: Yeah, I think she’s probably, like, maybe even older than him.

Royce: She’s like 200 years old.

Courtney: Well, there you go. The Japanese version borrows the English word for ace, which we’ve seen before. We’ve talked about Koisenu– Koisenu Futari, great show. They basically borrow aroace from English. The translation in the dub scene basically says: Rosie, “Oh, who is this fine person you brought with you? Goodness, Alastor, isn’t she too young for you? Just kidding. You’re a closeted ace.” And Alastor says, “And?” I love how all these translations in subs and dubs are sometimes different in exactly the same language, because again, probably different teams, but also some make it so much more obvious that he’s asexual. So some people watching the show actually did get impossible to miss, confirmed, yes representation. In some, it was taken so far out that they don’t even have, like, the plausible deniability, but those who know know, kind of a thing.

Courtney: So you can’t blame the original creator for what translations do. That’s out of their hands. But I can blame the fandom who are adamant that it is indisputable, impossible to miss, canon in the show, so obvious everyone should know. Because it’s just not. In French, they translate the actual meaning of the idiom, ace in the hole. I kind of like the Arabic subs maybe the best: “I know that you are not interested in sex.” I think that one’s my favorite, actually. Alastor’s asexuality is only canon in Arabic. Because again, when we’re talking about non-human creatures, when we’re talking about characters from another time, a lot of people will say, “Well, they aren’t going to come right out and say he’s asexual because he’s from the 1920s. And they didn’t use language like that back then.”

Courtney: I don’t need the word asexual said in historical contexts or non-human, non-earth contexts. But I do need the ‘little to no interest’ in sex – or in the case of aromanticism, romance – to be obvious. Because I know that the acephobic brand of fandoms is going to deny asexuality time and time again. We have seen it before. So if Arabic is my favorite one, I think Italian is my least favorite. And mind you, I did not fact check any of these, so if someone on here is just saying nonsense and this isn’t how any of these are translated, I’m just reading the Reddit comments and trusting that at least most of these were translated in good faith by people who have a good grasp of both languages in question here. In Italian, it’s like, “Oh, I’m joking. I know you can still put it in the hole.” And he says, “Excuse me?” Awful. Absolutely awful.

Royce: That sounds like the team translating it didn’t even understand the original wordplay.

Courtney: Yeah. Apparently in Swedish it just translates to, “I know you’re asexual,” and he goes, “What?” Love it. Good job, Sweden. But see, this is also what I’m talking about. There is a commenter here who just says: “Well, I learned a lot of new things today. I had no idea they meant asexual when Rosie called him an ace in the hole.” And this commenter is supportive, they say that’s awesome. But that’s more evidence to my point. It was missable on its own as the only line to allude to or try to show or in any way demonstrate his asexuality. It really doesn’t do enough, at least not in the original language. In French-Canadian it says, “I know you still have an ace in your pocket,” which they equate to saying, “I know you have more tricks up your sleeve.” But since asexual and aromantic... But this person says it still kinda works, question mark? But also admits, “I wouldn’t have gotten it if I hadn’t watched the show in English first, or if I didn’t already know Alastor was ace.”

Courtney: In Turkish, “I know you’re too charming for this one.” And this comment, “I think it’s fair to say that it was lost on a portion of native English speakers as well. Source, I’m one of them.” And then we have a mean-spirited comment saying, “People actually spinning it to mean he’s asexual?” With laughing crying emojis. So I will concede because I know asexual people who are in this fandom, I know asexual people who love this character and do feel seen and represented by this character, I will concede that perhaps he is an obvious and good ace character in the fandom. If the fandom were to be treated as its own medium. In the medium of television, I don’t think the original English is strong enough. Some of the translations made it more obvious. And for those folks who are watching it in those languages, either with the dub or the sub, that’s awesome. That’s cool. That is a different story. But it sounds like there are a lot of other languages out there where it became even less obvious.

Courtney: So yeah, I guess to the question of can and should asexual characters be allowed to just exist in media and not have a whole plotline about their sexuality? Yeah, but it does still need to be obvious. Like, if I don’t know from watching a TV show that a character is indisputably asexual, that’s just kind of a non-starter. I can’t consider it good asexual representation. And that does make this one very difficult to analyze in that way. Because, based on these Reddit posts, I can’t deny that there are some languages where it was made obvious in the TV show that he is asexual. I, as a viewer, didn’t get that experience. I, as a viewer, had to rely on the fact that I know that he is asexual in the fandom. And as someone who is not in the fandom, that is frustrating.

Courtney: And it becomes even more frustrating when fandom people get mad at non-fandom people for having that criticism, for saying it is not abundantly clear in the show. Because if you come in, having known for years that Alastor is asexual, engaging online every day with content about asexual Alastor, piecing together streams and Instagram posts and tweets spanning years to collect evidence and bolster your confidence in this character’s sexuality, then when you do finally get a show and you get a little line like, “I know you’re an ace in a hole,” that feels like a lot more than it is. And in fact, I think there’s probably a lot more fandom content than there is actual content for Hazbin Hotel right now. The seasons are short, the episodes are short, there’s a lot of characters, and a lot of different things they’re trying to pack into short seasons.

Royce: I believe that there’s, what, 16 episodes on Amazon Prime? They’re usually about half an hour. There may be a couple that are a little bit longer. And then there was the original YouTube pilot. There is also the spin-off series Helluva Boss, which I don’t think has much character overlap, but it does have setting and lore overlap.

Courtney: Yeah, and we haven’t watched that one.

Royce: And it’s– I don’t know how long the episodes for that are, but there are a few more of them than there are Hazbin Hotel. But I assume, just given the way that fandoms go, there’s a lot of content generated inside of one.

Courtney: Oh, exactly. There’s fanfiction, there’s fan art. There’s people who just– You know, even just trying to stick with things the creator and/or voice actors have said, or other people working on the show in some capacity who maybe aren’t even making fanfiction, but maybe they’re contributing to, like, fandom Wikipedias. Like, is there a better word for those? Because Wikipedia is its own thing, but you have these like fandompedias.

Royce: Wiki is the general term.

Courtney: The wikis. You’ve got all these wikis, so you have a bunch of people in this fandom who are finding this information, collecting it, storing it. And then you’ve just got good old-fashioned social media posts. You’ve got Tumblr posts. You’ve got people making short little celebratory posts like, “Yay, VivziePop said this! Isn’t this great?” And then you’ve got people doing, like, full-on essays about their thoughts about a character and their identities. And sometimes claims get made in those social media posts or in those wikis that are from such an obscure source from so long ago that it can be hard to actually find the original source. So sometimes it’s hard to know, you know, what did this creator actually say? When did she say it? Because I know in preparing for our first episode on Hazbin Hotel, I did try to search some of these claims because, you know, I mentioned VivziePop, as a creator, has like a laundry list of controversies that people will talk about online.

Courtney: And as someone who is not in that fandom, but tried to find the source in the inciting incident of some of these controversies, some of them I just could not find. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but maybe it was said at a convention that wasn’t recorded. Who knows? But then things do get spread, things can get warped.

Courtney: But at the end of the day, I don’t think you should have to track down that information in order to, like, prove your point about a character from a TV show when I do think you should be able to watch a TV show and have a generally good grasp of who these characters are. And there are times in this show, there were times in season one and there were definitely times in season two where it did feel like some information had to be shoehorned in very quickly in order to make something else make sense. It did feel like things went very fast at times and that there are a lot of characters and not all of the characters felt like they really had time to breathe and grow and develop. And that again could be solely Amazon Prime’s fault, like, for greenlighting very short seasons.

Courtney: Maybe this TV show just really needs more episodes in order to give things the proper time and emotional weight that they deserve. But in briefly trying to wade into just general conversations and reviews online amongst people in the fandom, just to see what other people think about these things, I do believe that people in the fandom are viewing the show very differently because they have all of this outside knowledge and this outside information about who these characters are, what their identities are, other things they may have done, different things they feel just because of all this extra knowledge that they have been sitting on before the show even became a show, between seasons.

Courtney: And so it very well could be that for those folks it’s not even necessarily registering to them how fast paced and shallow some of the elements of the show feel. Because there aren’t really, like, filler episodes of TV shows anymore, because it seems like most TV shows don’t get as much time as they want. And back when television had just more episodes per season, there would be these episodes that sort of just felt like a side quest or focused on one character to finally give them a spotlight after they haven’t had one for a while. And I feel like episodes like that did a lot to give more emotional weight and character development outside of the more explosive plot points.

Royce: When done right, yeah.

Courtney: When done right, yes.

Royce: There are definitely– the time padding filler thing varies based on the media.

Courtney: Yeah. And like it’s sometimes it is just annoying filler that isn’t utilized well, so.

Royce: Yeah, we’re waiting on the source– new source material to come out. [Courtney laughs] So we just need to get through a couple weeks. Yeah, that certainly exists. The short time frame of a lot of things greenlit on streaming services combined with the fact that this isn’t coming off of a previously published source material, it is coming off of a cloud of, you know, online information instead changes things.

Courtney: Yeah. And it– it’s unique in that way. Because, whereas there are a lot of times when I wanted more time with a character or a concept or a plot line because it didn’t feel like it really had time to cook, I think there are some people in fandom who have been, you know, sitting and marinating with these characters in this world for so long outside of the show that they can bring– And I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are very parasocial elements to this as well in the fandom where they’re able to bring that, like, parasocial relationship where they’ve had all this time with these characters to think about them in different ways and to internalize different aspects of what they heard this character’s identity was or they heard this about that character. And so I think getting less feels like more if you’re coming from that lens.

Courtney: And because of the parasocial elements of fandom, either having a parasocial relationship with the creator of the show or with the characters themselves or both, and also with the knowledge that fandoms are very often entrenched in acephobia, I have heard it time and time again. I know so many asexual people in a variety of fandoms. In this one, in other shows, other franchises. And I hear all the time how incredibly toxic and acephobic most fandoms are, or at least certain pockets of these fandoms. To the point where I know a lot of ace folks who have completely sworn off fandoms and said, “I’ve had too many instances of horrendous acephobia in fandoms, so I have just left and I am not doing that anymore.” And then there are some who have experienced or witnessed acephobia and fandoms but still stay because they love this world and these characters that much. So they sit and dig their heels in and try to fight back against that acephobia, which is understandable.

Courtney: If we take the Hazbin Hotel fandom and say this is its own medium and in this medium Alastor is canonically asexual, undeniable, it is obvious. It is so obvious that anyone saying he’s not is acephobic. Then it makes so much sense that there are people in this fandom, especially ace people, especially people who have an especial affinity for this character, who are going to, you know, have a very visceral reaction and recoil when they hear people undermining the, quote, ‘canon truth’ of Alastor being asexual. Because I’m sure more often than not, people who do try to undermine that are acephobic. But for the purposes of media analysis in the show, all we heard for years was Alastor is such a great asexual character. Even before the first season of the show came out, I had people coming to me saying, “You need to watch this pilot on YouTube. There’s a great asexual character in it.”

Courtney: And you watch that pilot on YouTube and go, what asexual character? Where? And so now you have, you know, online discourse about, “This is an asexual character, this is great ace representation in the media, it’s Hazbin Hotel.” If someone were to end, “This does happen, and I know for a fact it has happened.” If, you know, an ace person online is like, “Oh great, I’d love to watch a TV show with an ace character in it,” look up Hazbin Hotel. “Oh, it’s a TV show. Oh, it’s on Amazon Prime, I can watch that.” And then they go watch it expecting to see this really obvious great asexual character, they’re going to be confused and likely a little disappointed. There is in the fandom, probably as a result of a backlash against acephobia, sort of an outsized emphasis on a character’s orientation. The way people do talk about his orientation online you would think it’s a lot more obvious in the show than it is. And so it really is a branding issue and an issue of setting expectations.

Courtney: So we did learn a little more about Alastor this season. And the thing that at times feels a little clunky to me in this show is not only the fact that there are lines written into it that are a hundred percent geared towards the fandom, and make no sense to anybody who is not privy to those conversations. There are a lot of elements that, with my limited knowledge of the fandom and the controversies and the conversations that happen there, a lot of elements of season two felt like they were written as a counter to previous criticisms. And it really does feel– I don’t know that it would be better. I don’t know if it would be worse. I don’t know if it would be the same but different. But there is just something about watching this show that feels like if the fandom didn’t exist in the way it does, the show would have been very different. It feels like, while at times the fandom is being directly spoken to or being shot at, at other times it almost feels like some of it is tiptoeing around the fandom and the controversies. So my cynical take on that – which I do not know for a fact, it is merely my opinion – I think this show would have been better art if it wasn’t so obvious that it was written with the fandom in mind.

Royce: And by that you mean that the show as a standalone piece would have held up better?

Courtney: I think so. That’s my opinion.

Royce: I would agree with that.

Courtney: And in a lot of ways, I kind of wish I could see what the show would have been if the fandom isn’t what it is. Because there are some good elements. There are elements that I don’t like as much. I really don’t like how much cursing there is, how many explicit sex jokes there are. There’s a lot. And they don’t feel meaningful. Like, I’m no stranger to, you know, mature cartoons, but a lot of times it feels like the language is just there for the sake of being edgy.

Royce: I’ve been thinking about this a bit too, because on paper, a show that gives a different look at biblical themes, that’s usually something that I like. A show that does tend to be a bit dark, that does tend to have trauma either in the present or in the backstories of the characters, that usually tends to be something I like. But of all the ace-related media that we’ve watched, oftentimes the media that we’re watching is not really up my alley in the first place. Like we’ve set through a lot of very soft teenage coming-of-age or school time shows that were fine, they weren’t particularly entertaining in my opinion. This one was actually more of a struggle than those. The first episode of season two I thought was particularly bad, the rest of it was again fine.

Royce: But I do think that given how many characters there are, and given the plot lines that are trying to be achieved, and given the short runtime, a lot of time ends up getting wasted by dialogue that doesn’t do anything. And that’s a lot of– a lot of the cursing, a lot of the insults. It’s– I’m not saying that all of it should be gone, but we got the point, these people hate each other and they’re generally very sharp or aggressive about it. But I think that a lot of time in the series is wasted on those sort of repetitive dialogue points. And the cursing, too, like to the extent that it’s used, it kind of makes it all fall flat. And I think back to like Bojack Horseman.

Courtney: Yes.

Royce: Where the word fuck was used one time in each season and it was used to completely sever a relationship. So it, like– It had impact. And Bojack was a crass show as well, like–

Courtney: Oh, and he did curse a lot, too. But like the creators made the decision that this word is going to have significance every time we use it and that’s going to make it stand out from the rest. Because at a certain point– Like, I’m sure someone out there in the fandom has counted, like, the swears per minute. [laughs] I don’t know what they are, but they’ve got to be higher than, like, any show I have ever watched and for very little payoff. And in some ways, I was really upset when Alastor started cursing. There was a time when he just got really annoyed with– You know, Lucifer’s in the room, they’re already rivals and he was just deflated and he was just kind of like, “Fuck this, I’m out.” And he just, like, leaves in frustration. And there was just something about that where I was like, “That is so uncool.”

Courtney: Like Alastor as a character did start very cool and intriguing to me. I liked his deal. And I kind of like the idea of having, like, a more level-headed, like, he seems to act a little more proper, but he’s really sinister and he’s very threatening. But at times he’s silly and jovial, but you know there’s an ulterior motive. And he’s just very well put together. And so when you start seeing that he’s kind of just like every other character, it starts taking away some of the elements that make him interesting. Like, I think it would be extremely cool if he was the one character who did not swear. Everyone else is cursing up a storm, and he doesn’t. I think that is one way that if you’re going to have most of your characters cursing all the time, you could still use that in an interesting way by setting a different character apart from them.

Courtney: So I am looking at the time here and we are gonna have to get going for today, but I’ve got a lot more to say on this topic. So we will be making this a two-parter. We’ll be back same time, same place next week to talk more about specifically season two of Hazbin Hotel and Alastor’s character, a little bit about his origin story and some of our thoughts on that.

Courtney: But I do think, since it is interesting that you brought up Bojack Horseman as a very different example of a cartoon with an asexual character who used cursing in a more strategic way, I do want to recommend for people who are in any way interested in translations, subbing and dubbing, there’s a great video by our friend Sarah Moon called Japanese Bojack Horseman, Understanding Adaptation. And I’ll go ahead and link that in the show notes.

Courtney: That is a show with a lot of puns, and that is a show with some asexual-related puns. And Sarah does a really fascinating breakdown of how some of those decisions are made. And like, the one thing I can say, they’re very different asexual characters, of course. We’ve spoken at length about Todd Chavez and how I think he is still one of the best examples of ace representation in the media, and the rare finding yourself discovering your asexuality in media that I actually really enjoyed. Even though there are puns around asexual, it’s not just one single pun and nothing else. It is a character we see in pretty much every single episode from season one, and there is an extended arc about his asexuality. And even once he comes to terms with it, he is still a character in the show who is important to the plot.

Courtney: So in terms of the ace-related puns in that show, and translation– Mind you, I’m only familiar with the Japanese translation because of this video. I haven’t looked into how other languages do it. Even if the puns or meaning behind those ace jokes didn’t translate well, there’s no missing that as a plot point. It is so consistent and obvious. So I do think there are other pieces of media we’ve talked about that I will be bringing up in episode two next week. Because there are instances of historic fiction where there’s an ace character, but the word asexual isn’t necessarily going to be used. Getting into a bit about Alastor’s backstory, we’re going to see just a teeny tiny bit of how he was as a human, and we’ve even gotten some other characters in different media adaptations that share a couple of identity overlaps with him in life too. So I think I’ve got a lot of different parallels I’m going to make to try to get across where this television show sits with me in the broader context of all the shows we have talked about. So stay tuned for that.

Courtney: As always, thank you all so much for being here. We are going to leave you off, as usual, with today’s featured MarketplACE vendor: Lokabrenna Designs, where you can find handmade jewelry and keychains primarily made with glass and semi-precious beads. We’ve got several different collections here that you can browse through. Some of them have color palettes reminiscent of some of our Pride flags. We’ve got some that look very inspired by the Ace flag, some that look very inspired by the Aro flag. But if Pride jewelry is not what you’re looking for, we’ve got a lot of cool gothic looking designs, a lot of red and black, some beads that look like dragon eyes. Motifs of snakes and birds, stars and moons, even mushrooms, all kinds of things.

Courtney: I ordered, sort of, an ace color palette necklace for myself because not too long ago I actually found this perfect vintage dress that is just accidentally Ace flag colors and stripes all the way down. And it’s one of those rare finds that, even though it is a single vintage dress, it somehow fits my body perfectly. And I saw this necklace and just hoped and prayed that it would be perfect to wear with that dress. And let me tell you, I got it in and I immediately went to try it on with this dress. And it is perfect. It is the perfect size, the perfect chain length, the perfect colors. I am super happy with it. I think I have my new Pride outfit for June. Links to find Lokabrenna Designs are in the show notes on our website as well as the description box on YouTube. And we’ll consider this frog half eaten.