I don't beta fics (or stories in general) anymore unless I personally know the author, because, to be crude, I am an atrocious fucking elitist. I have strong opinions when it comes to writing, which means that on my part it's a chore to beta if it's a topic I don't care about and the prose doesn't hold up, and on the author's part they have to endure a LOT of criticism on my part, which, while in good faith, can't feel too good to receive because there are only so many tactful ways to say "I think the very base concept is garbage and you should scrab and redo it from the start."
I did do a lot of betaing back in the days though, and the two most common problems for new writers, are thus: One, too much telling & too little showing. And two: having sequences of actions that are completely fucking illogical because the author really wanted to include two scenes, or two pieces of dialogue, or anything like that, and utterly failed to connect them in a logical manner.
This is relevant to this post because that second point is absolutely PLAGUING Hazbin Hotel.
Now, some quick context: I have been listening to Hazbin Hotel songs for a couple weeks now, and I think they're catchy. I've been having this really cool version of Hazbin in my head. I never really intended to watch the show. However, a friend of mine is constantly complaining about it, so I decided to give it a try. I watched episode 4, since it's widely considered the best one, and it's fairly self-contained.
I think it sucked. Alas, I have opinions on what it sucked. So I'm going to share that with you guys, along with what I think could have been done with the base concept.
Anyways. The premise of Hazbin Hotel, for those who don't know, is thus: Charlie, princess of hell, decided to open a hotel to redeem sinners, and hopefully send them to Heaven once rehabilitated. Episode 4 focuses on Angel Dust, a gay sex worker with an inclination for drugs. The episode opens with Charlie doing some exercises with the hotel residents to better them, when Angel gets a call from his boss and abruptly leaves the session. Charlie, who REALLY wants the guy to see the exercise to its end, decides to follow him to his workplace (a porn studio) to convince his boss to let Angel stay at the hotel for longer.
Things go about as well as you'd expectn with Charlie making herself a nuisance on the set by accident, and then the following sequence of event happens:
Okay. Am I the only one seeing the issue here? If it doesn't matter if Charlie is aware of the abuse or not, why does Angel's boss hide his initial treatment of Angel? If it DOES matter that Charlie truly believes Angel is here of his own volition, why insult him right in front of her? Are you seriously girlie saw "dude is insulting Angel in front of me" and "Angel is telling me to leave" and didn't conclude "dude threatened/forced Angel to get me out?" This makes her look stupid as fuck.
Anyways. There's a quick musical interlude about how Angel fucking hates his job, it's slowly killing me, and being stuck in that abusive situation makes him legitimately suicidal. Afterwards, Angel goes to get a drink to forget his sorrow. The bartender, Husk, tells him to "stop looking for the solution to [his] problems at the bottom of the bottle." After plenty of back and forth, Angel gets pissed off and storms off of the hotel. Now, Charlie won't go after him, because following him against his will is exactly what upset him. That makes sense. So instead she asks... Husk, the very guy who just upset him. Why? Why not send literally anyone else? She tells Husk "don't force him back to the hotel, just make sure he's safe." Why not do it yourself? You're the princess of hell. You're, presumably, more powerful than any other random demon. If you don't plan on talking to him anyways might as well make sure he's as safe as can be.
But whatever. Husk goes, follows Angel in another bar, and immediately witness someone trying to spike Angel's drink. Husk fucks them up, grabs Angel, and run. Angel reveals he can tell when his drink was spiked, Husks asks the following:
Now here is a list of things that would be a logical answer to that:
Now here is Angel ACTUALLY replies:
Which. Is not an answer. This is not an answer to what Husk asked. This would be an answer to "you WANT them to drug you?" or anything similar. Not "you LET them drug you?" Do you see what I mean when I say events in this episode happens without any logical link between one another?
This sequence is followed by the song Loser Baby, which I liked a lot more when I didn't have any context for it. It basically amounts to Husk & Angel being like "life sucks and it's never getting better, but at least we're in this together." This would land a lot better if these characters were like. Friends. Alas all I saw this entire episode were two people who couldn't stand each other and I don't personally believe "your life sucks but mine does too" is really comforting when coming from someone you dislike. It could be interesting as like, "my life sucks but I refuse to die before you do cuz that'd be letting you win and I hate you," which COULD evolve into enemies to lovers, but here I'm just here like. Ok ig.
The episode ends with Husk and Angel going to get drinks together while dunking on their bosses. Hey remember earlier when Husk received to give Angel a strong drink cuz it's a path to self destruction? I guess that's no longer an issue! Sure, there are differences between drinking to forget and drinking socially, but they can both be tools for self destruction, so like. What's up with that.
No one acts consistently through the episode. No one acts consistently within the same scene. This is bad writing.
And it especially sucks, because... I can see ways to fix this. As I said, you could have the Husk/Angel conversation more antagonistic- even just "well I hate you but I still have basic human decency in me to want to help you, but you never let me help until now so let's rib at each other til you're too pissed off to be sad." We could have Husk & Angel in essentially a suicide pact, which would justify the whole "yeah let's drink together let's be unhealthy together" at the end?
Obviously, the real winner for me would be for Charlie to be the one to talk to Angel. She's the inciting incident of the episode, I think I'm justified in thinking she should have SOME sort of important role here. She has a very conservative attitude through the episode (frowning upon bdsm at Angel's workplace) so I assume she frowns upon alcohol & drugs too. It'd be cool if she got to learn the reasons WHY he's an hedonist who uses sex/alcohol/drugs to forget his sorrows. I assume a show about redeeming sinners should have something to say about sins, and "a lot of people sin (here: drink/snort coke/fuck) because they're in a miserable situation with no way out, the solution to have less sinners is to fix our society not the guy" would be one hell of a statement. Through the episode, Angel & Husk both seem to think of Charlie as a bubbling princes who knows nothing of the real world, it'd be cool for her to learn about that "real world", and maybe even for Angel to learn that Charlie knows a thing or two, she just refuses to show it. And of course, it'd be cool if Charlie could learn more about Angel's boss, because her whole deal is "I want to be kind and save everyone," and have someone as evil as Angel's boss, who clearly has no interest in any sort of redemption, would lead to interesting character development on Charlie's part.
Anyways. Whatever. That was my opinion on Hazbin Hotel episode 4. Maybe the other episodes are better, idk, I'm not really interesed in exploring more. Read Slightly Damned.