u/AddiWhisper

Now, I’ll be honest with you: I haven’t watched anything from the Hellaverse past the pilot for Hazbin Hotel from when it was first released back in 2020, but I am familiar with VivziePop’s speed-drawings, AMVs, early shorts and her webcomic ZooPhobia, the latter being what I want to talk about now that she is trying to adapt it into an animated shorts series.

Having read the webcomic from start to last, when it was left to an indefinite hiatus, the art and character designers are the only good things I can say about the comic, because the rest just ain’t good. The cast is too numerous and the characters are either flat or not fleshed out, especially as many of them only make a few brief appearances throughout the “story”, which I mention in double brackets because the plot is rarely ever self-contained and often drifts off to convoluted and unfinished subplots. There’s also the issue with the writing, ranging from expletives thrown for the sake of it, to being overall simplistic for what is effectively a long-arching story of a woman with zoophobia (hence the title) being sent to an academy filled with anthropomorphic animals and fantastical beings. Not to mention the attempts at being edgy with the references to hell which come across as corny.

In this sense, it does remind me Beastars a lot in that both were essentially the authors’ first major attempt to write a long story when prior to that their stories were mostly episodic and self-contained, and both fell flat (although in Itagaki’s case, she did manage to conclude her series, albeit underwhelmingly). In that sense, the flaws are understandable, especially as many long-narrative webcomics are often like that.

With that being said, reading Zoophobia has left me with a poor opinion of Vivzie’s screenwriting skills, especially as she seems to be too thin-skinned towards any criticism no matter its merit, so I doubt she improved on that front. In fact, I attribute the Hellaverse’s success mostly to the fact that other people besides her wrote for both Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss. So yh, since it won’t be a show with an overarching plot like the webcomic so much as a series of shorts, I’m more confident with the adaptation, especially if people other than Vivzie are responsible for the screenplay.

What are your thoughts? Am I too harsh and ignorant on her latest project and overall writing skills?

I cannot tell you how many times I heard haters come to me and argue to me about how Stolas “coerced” Blitzo into sleeping with him. Like every time I stumble upon a Stolas hater, immediately they tells me the exact same story.

Like if they’re going to hate Stolas, at least have a unique reason for hating him. But telling me the exact same criticism is just proof of how illiterate and ignorant they are.

They always tell me the same stuff over and over again, about how Stolas coerced Blitzo. About how he kept on talking to Blitzo on the phone in Murder Family despite the fact that Blitzo didn’t want to talk to him, or how Stolas invited Blitzo over and “sexually harassed” him in Loo Loo Land.

I hate people who parrot the exact same arguments over and over again without any proof of that, let alone any fact checking whatsoever.

Ooh, look at this! Viv wrote Stella to have raped him, ooh she is portraying women as bad girls! That’s not good, men are the only ones who abuse women and that’s it! Women cannot abuse men at all!

Sighs.

I hate Male Victim Deniers a lot.