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keets-writing-corner · 22 days

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Alright everyone, buckle up and sit down. I was talking with @nerdasaurus1200 on another post and came to the conclusion that I need to write Sera meta so let's freaking GO

I'm mostly gonna be talking about Sera, what we know about her so far, and what makes her tick (aka her fears) and why she's not a bitch/asshole the way apparently so many people like to portray her? (I've mostly just been hanging out with fan art and headcanons specifically about Lucifer in the fandom so I haven't seen these specifically, but someone approached me about how they liked m portrayal of Sera in my fic which was NOT that of an asshole and apparently multiple people are portraying her that way? Idk I haven't seen any but uh yeah let's talk SERA)

Characters are always the most important part of a story, and even if they're not a main character and/or the audience nor the writer know what they want/need, the writer at the very least needs to know How and Why a character makes decisions, instead of just "oh they're an asshole" So let's do that for Sera. Why is she making the decisions she's making? LETS GO

Let's start off by talking about what we know about Sera

She's at least as old as Lucifer, she was there for the creation of earth given the appearance of her silhouette in Charlie's exposition

We know that the exterminations might have been Adam's idea, but it was HER decision to approve them

We know that she's FOR SURE older than Emily

and the other thing we know for sure about her is that she is the High Seraphim (we don't know WHAT that means exactly but clearly it is a position of authority and rule)

So those are the things we know for sure:

She's about as old as Lucifer

She approved the exterminations

She's older than Emily

and she's the high Seraphim

Now I'm going to circle back to all of these points but I want to start off with her relationship with Lucifer

Unfortunately for all of us, the only thing we can say about their relationship with 100% certainty is that they for SURE know each other, either because they were essentially "coworkers" in the past, or because they're both the respective rulers of their realms (even if Sera has some people above her) and they're implied to interact with each other

(at the very least you cannot convince me otherwise that they don't interact. Someone had to have talked to Lucifer about the exterminations for him to have had "approved it" and we know it wasn't Adam because Lucifer hadn't seen Adam since he fell to hell until the finale, and we know that Sera was not only the one to approve said exterminations but also decreed that no one else in heaven know about them. She clearly must have spoken to Lucifer about it because there's nobody else left who had the authority to do that AND knew about them)

So at the very least in present day Sera and Lucifer have some sort of professional relationship as leaders. And I'll come back to this because it's implied that this relationship isn't a very good one, but first let's talk about the past

full stop, we have NO IDEA what sort of relationship Sera and Lucifer might have had when he was still in heaven. But here's the thing, even if their relation was strictly "yeah I know them cuz I work with them, but that's as far as it goes" Lucifer's fall STILL would have been horrifying for Sera to witness. He was the same rank as her, probably no other angel except the elders likely ranked higher, and they still banished him. Charlie's storybook leaves it at that, but Lucifer implies it was violent in his debut episode.

trauma is a funny thing when you think about it, you're just as likely to develop trauma by watching someone else be assaulted as you are for you to have been assaulted. And Sera was there, she likely saw the whole thing happen. So not only did Sera watch how brutal the elders could be to someone who questioned and disobeyed the order, but the fact that it was done to LUCIFER someone of equal rank and authority as her means that absolutely NOBODY is safe from the elders

and this is without taking into account that on some level, she and Lucifer had to have been close. There are no other seraphim in heaven besides her, the elders (who appear to be rather hands off and uninvolved) and Emily. Emily was likely created as a replacement for Lucifer, so at the time, it was basically just her and Lucifer as the only seraphim up there. They not only worked closely together, they likely had a close bond as well. Now I have my own head canon preferences as to what kind of bond, BUT let's ignore that and look at 3 options (although there are likely more, but huuu this post is gonna be long already so let's not push it yeah? )

option 1: equal peers. You are Sera and you've known Lucifer all your life. You two have "grown up" together, learned about the world and your powers together. You're comrades in arms! You know all of each other's secrets! You lean on each other for support as you lead heaven together. You work together all the time. Sure, he can be a little excitable at times but it's so much FUN right? This guy could be your bestie/brother. And you sit back and watch as the only ones with more authority than you, skewer him and banish him to hell for having questioned the order and now there's a metaphorical spear against your back at all times because you know it could have been you instead, and it could still be you if you don't behave

Option 2: Lucifer is your mentor. He's taught you everything you know. The ropes, your powers, the world. He's fantastic! You admire him greatly. He has such energy you could never hope to match. You put him on a pedestal, and in one fell swoop the only people he answers to destroy your mentor in front of you. You are now alone, without any more advice or guidance other than a warning to not step out of line as your mentor once did

Option 3: Lucifer is your apprentice. He's adorable! A little over enthusiastic but who doesn't love someone who's passionate about the things they like? He brings a wonderful energy and vibe, and... he's your responsibility. You try to reign in his wild energy only for the elders to step in and banish him because you failed him and now you know that the elders could do that to you too

So, I'll be honest, option 3 is NOT the one I'm biased towards, but if it ends up being that one, it would make Sera's behavior towards Emily extra heartbreaking. She already failed one apprentice, she will not fail another one, right?

Either way, Sera is terrified of going against the elders because of what they did to Lucifer in spite of his rank. She knows first hand how harsh they can be and because of that, she will do everything in her power to make sure nobody around her falls into the same fate. No one will ever question the elders again, and she will lie and withhold information to make sure that happens

And we're just talking about the INITIAL banishment.

Now why would Sera bring this up, unless what she was most afraid of wasn't even the initial banishment, but of the suffering she clearly knows comes afterwards? And why would she care or even know about the suffering? Well, if it's true that she and Lucifer were close, then regardless if she was spying on him or not the way we know heaven can do, she still watched a cute enthusiastic little angel go from this:

to this

all because because he suffered.

She watched him question, get banished, suffer, and change into someone she didn't recognize, in real time. And the worst part is, she's not only scared of what happened TO him, she's personally scared OF him and what he's become. He might be fallen, but he's still a powerful angel

And this segways into another bullet: she approved the exterminations, but WHY

Charlie's intro implies it was as some sort of punishment towards Lilith who was rallying the demons and they felt threatened

But clearly there's more to this

So first thing I'd like to point out, Sera doesn't look happy about this decision. She mentions as much in the song "You didn't Know" when she outright tells Emily "It was such a hard decision" and earlier in the same episode she outright tells Adam she wouldn't have approved of this if she had known it'd make things "worse"

But this is incomplete. Something doesn't make sense. Sera clearly meets with Lucifer for certain matters as previously established, and Lucifer, in spite of his initial trauma "NO CHARLIE DO NOT TALK TO HEAVEN" knee jerk reaction, never doubted that he COULD in fact get her a meeting with heaven. He outright tells her at the end of episode 5

He never says, "I'll try to get the meeting". He says straight up, I can do this. There isn't a doubt in his mind that he can get this meeting. He knows Sera will meet with him/take his call (idk how he contacts heaven) and will agree to the meeting. We don't really know WHY Sera agreed to this if she thought it was a bad idea and never really intended to entertain the idea to begin with, going as far as to tell Adam to rig the results and calling Charlie misguided. So what's up? Why on earth would she agree to it? Well...?

Sera is scared of the demons of hell, hence why she approved the exterminations, but she's even MORE scared of Lucifer and folded to his request. (or idk maybe there's more going on here and she feels guilt about what happened to him so she folds to him sometimes idk, but for the sake of this meta, SHE'S SCARED OF HIM)

but here's what's kinda weird. Charlie's storybook only mentions LILITH'S involvement with the demons rising in power, not Lucifer. Sera later claims that they were uprising to Emily as the reason she's scared of them and that it's her job to keep everyone safe.

Clearly SOMETHING happened between the creation of Hell and the exterminations being approved that involved BOTH the sinners AND Lucifer that made Sera scared of both. Sera doesn't seem the type to fear without reason. She fears questioning the order because that incurs the elders' wrath. She fears the elders because of what they did to Lucifer. She fears angels falling because she saw how much it hurt Lucifer. Sera is not the type to fear randomly. Clearly there is some sort of thing that happened that made it clear to Sera that Lucifer is to be feared enough to fold to his requests and that the sinners are dangerous enough that it justifies genocide.

And now to bring back the whole Sera is older than Emily. Emily didn't know this otherwise Sera wouldn't have needed to tell her. AKA Emily wasn't even around when said conflict happened. Sera not only had to go through something that clearly traumatized her to the point where she agreed that genocide was a reasonable response, but she had to go through that ALONE. Trauma is hard enough to deal with, but to have to navigate it alone really gives it some steroids it has no business in having

This genuinely makes me wonder how long the exterminations have to have been taking place. It probably took a WHILE for hell to gather up enough numbers that they started making buildings by the look of Charlie's storybook, AND THEN did something against heaven, so this was not happening from day one of hell, far from it. And this also makes me wonder how old exactly is Emily? She strikes me as extremely young

season 2 come out please, I'm working from CRUMBS here, there is so much we don't know

But yeah, all of this to say, Sera isn't just some alpha bitch who's prejudiced against demons (not to say there isn't bias there, there ABSOLUTELY is, ugh) but at her core, she's a leader who underwent a lot of trauma and she's full of fear and she makes decisions, rational, moral or not, based off of that fear. And yeah unfortunately, fear, especially trauma based fear, messes with us in ways we never would expect

a kind man may suddenly resort to violence. The confident argumentative person, may instead end up frozen. Someone who thought they valued their family all their life instead runs away. We may regret what we do in moments in fear, we might even logically know that we're making bad decisions, or decisions that go against our morals. Sera CLEARLY hates that she made the decision to approve extermination, but she holds onto it steadfast because it alleviates the fear

Funnily enough, I don't particularly LIKE Sera. I dislike her microaggressions towards Charlie and her attempts to sabotage her efforts at the meeting by calling upon Adam. But as a writer, looking at the clues I got to say she's a very interesting character to me. She seems like a reasonable authority figure, but she's so full of trauma that she's letting her fear make all of her decisions for her

#hazbin hotel #Sera #sera hazbin hotel #lucifer morningstar #lucifer #Meta #Analysis #character analysis #ugh I wanted to talk about so many other things too #but they would derail the overall topic of SERA #so idk maybe be on the look out for more meta from me?#I almost went off on a whole tangent on how Lucifer and Sera respond to trauma in an eerily similar way #Lucifer was so desperate to just give Charlie whatever she wanted #but the second she said the magic trauma words #there was no hesitation no thoughts on his part just immediate IDEA SHUT DOWN #like the way when you touch a hot surface and the signal of HOT doesnt even reach your brain #your spine just yeets your hand away from it before you can even process what happened #that's what happened to Lucifer #he heard HEAVEN and immediately said NO #Sera is similarly also shutting down ideas from Emily due to #get this #THE SAME EXACT TRAUMA #(lucifer's banishment by the elders)#idk it's pretty fascinating #but yeah Sera isn't a bitch or an asshole she's just scared #for herself but especially for the people she loves

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vargaslovinghours · 7 months

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It's here! It's the big one-oh! Get ready for the 10th! (1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9)

Starting off with some Just Desserts stuff; it's not exactly against the rules to modify Pets with features they wouldn't naturally have - like a cat with wings - but it is side-eyed by other players

He might be projecting just a little bit lol

Obviously he'd support Joel wiping the floor with other Pets in the arena haha

Next one's a continuation, comic-style!

Since they've only got the one pet between them, they have to take turns directing Joel so he doesn't get confused on who to listen to haha, I'm sure it doesn't help that they have similar voices and Scriabin is constantly butting in. I think in this setting Edgar might be able to get away with pushing him around a little more haha ♪ He'll still pay for that later :)

FNF x Vargas! Quick, who wants to collab as I know Nothing about music composition lol - what might their voices/instrumentation sound like! I’ve always been a fan of strings for Edgar, piano for Scriabin personally :)

These were the two poses I had the absolute strongest mental images for, so they get the big pretties! Scriabin having a secondary feature to his Up animation (not just pointing a finger gun but also “shooting” it), only being visible when the note is held ah, I just love the animation in my mind’s eye lol

Two poses inspired by their bouncies! Edgar’s Down and Scriabin’s Right - I didn’t have them onhand for reference, but I’d definitely push them closer to the originals :D

I really like the idea of most of Edgar’s poses being smaller, more closed-in, and Scriabin’s being big and bombastic, but their Lefts are the opposite! Haha ♪

I've seen a good several songs that have a mid-level transformation which I find Very cool :D I suppose these could also be for different stages, but going from a whole Edgar to him missing an eye and actively bleeding and screaming and stumbling around to the music - I just think it's a neat concept lol

Scriabin's transformation would be with his wings of course!

More of the WOY idea! Scriabin's being so nice 😈♥

You know I had to draw Jake in this style, he's too cute not to, I had to! Fun proportions hehe

Two little balls of sunshine <3 This was the one where I really couldn't decide what art style I was most reminded of between Steven Universe and the rest haha

A rubber hose smooch! Cartoony mwah!

Don't be fooled Wander, kisses are temporary, bullying Edgar is forever

The topic drifted at one point to the idea of Scriabin and Edgar being able to turn their brain-sharing on and off which gave me a Two Yeses/One No idea

Started with them on equal footing - both of them can say no to oppose the other, and in order to link back up they have to both agree! And how that might look depending on who initiates hehe <3

I think it'd be good for them to have hard boundaries in place, not able to be coerced into giving up their privacy :)

As well as them being able to just tap in and Know again, Scriabin using it to be lazy and not try to communicate with his mouth haha

But even with those hard stops in place, how would sleep affect things! If he tried, could Scriabin break into Edgar's dreams? Even if he gave permission, would his subconscious allow that? :0 It's interesting!

Quick break for a scribbly concept of how I wanted my first Vargas Drabbles soft cover to look haha - I didn't end up using the red inlay but it's definitely an idea for next time 👀

Back to brain-sharing, but this time featuring a return to body-sharing! :00 I hadn't considered it until Zarla mentioned them physically phasing together and then became Very interested in exploring it, when isn’t Scriabin annoying tho lol. It’s because you love him, Edgar!

Falling back into old habits of emotionally degrading Edgar, but he has the power to kick you out now! Just try your smart mouth on him from out here, where it hurts less!

Get back in on good behaviour, or because he misses him too much ♥ I love his sweet face here I 💕💗💖❤️💞💝

How dare he be so inviting, Scriabin has to deal with a physical heart and you are trying to kill him, cruel mean Edgar (lol)

Inspired by the hug test haha ♪ Hug him!

This was supposed to be a sweet moment :( Scriabin can't help it, being vulnerable is icky haha

But when offered the opportunity, you take what you can get <3 They are so damn cute, gah

Hehe ♪ There needs to be Some level of awkwardness to it, it's still Vargas after all. Would it hurt? No, maybe more like an organ shifting back into its correct position :)

How's he supposed to help it when you make it so easy

They'd have to negotiate safe and opportune times to share minds if it required them to share a body! Scheduling when to be apart would probably be stressful, but so would being together haha

Edgar doesn't want to deal with this until he's more awake, and maybe not at all if he gets jealous hehe

And finally again, we've returned to the Two Yeses/One No idea - who gets to decide who's "No" counts once they're already enmeshed? :) Introducing the Lobster Trap ✨

“slrch” is such a gross sound effect haha

Really struggling with the concept of Scriabin’s autonomy! He quite literally exists outside of you now Edgar, you have to let him grow on his own!

Scriabin probably just wants out to do something Edgar morally objects to, enough to suffer his company while pissed. The idea of Scriabin having his own body and still having to take Edgar over to exert his own personhood again, ugh, it’s so fraught <3

The Lobster Trap has so many potential outcomes, even discounting one side over the other! Obviously I had to make as many as I could come up with lol; starting with Scriabin getting to decide when he hops in, and Edgar getting to decide if he lets him out - two yeses all around to show it As Intended, all going well :)

And here are Edgar's No options: his no overrides letting Scriabin out, but does nothing to deter Scriabin from coming in without his permission. I think this is one of the worst configurations for them haha ♪ It’s so easy for them to be cruel to each other!

Now the other way around! Scriabin has to get Edgar's permission to come in, so here's their Two Yeses :D Obviously he did it to annoy Edgar, he'll never get to read in peace haha. Not that he would even without this hehe

Edgar's No would shut Scriabin out, which I think would be good for them honestly; Edgar gets time to process things on his own without Scriabin manipulating him from the inside, and Scriabin gets to eat humble pie

Two Yeses again, though it was hard to imagine a situation where Scriabin would willingly hop out at Edgar's request - to make fun of him though? Yes ✨

And again, Edgar's No not overriding Scriabin's Yes - I think this would be really good for them! Edgar doesn't get to hold him against his will, and Scriabin doesn't get to burst in without his permission!

But really, it'll always be messy with them <3 Even in the best scenario, if Edgar's Yes overrides Scriabin's No of being forced inside - even if he couldn't hold him there, just the action of making him see from his point of view and all that entails... ♪

Little jailbird, just wants to fly away on clipped wings 💔

Now for something completely different lol. Scriabin wrote a resumé! I’m sure it’s full of accurate information to help him land a proper interview :)

Good, good, dates, prior experience, employers, skills, conquests-

Scriabin insists he's a sexpert but if there's a degree on his wall I haven't seen it

There is such a Massive difference between writing resumés and actually doing the work the resumé is required for, come on. I do love just how miffed Edgar looks tho haha

S: >:3c | E: Yeah alright point taken

Tiny spacefiller - he's so mad! He's gonna tell you all about it!

Oh hey wow Nny's still here, that's neat. Originally there was an Edgar next to him but only the main character turned out cute, rude

Quietly cutting potatoes <3 Domestic

I love Scriabin getting scared inside Edgar but him having to put on an outwardly placid face so he doesn't freak Nny out in turn haha. Nny's love language is knives

But that's where the nutrients are! Speaking of Ghost-

Teaching him how to flay skin, not necessarily strictly on potatoes hehe. I like the idea of Nny kinda spacing out when it comes to his favourite activities - yeah he hates touching people, but that takes a backseat to talking about murder and playing with knives

Obviously Edgar's a bit distracted himself lol. Nny just casually talking about what happens when you separate the flesh from the body and Edgar and Scriabin are over here discussing Just how gay this is haha

I went and reread one of my old drafts of One Way Mirror recently and ahh I’d forgotten how sassy they are with each other lol

I'm still crazy about them <3 They drive me absolutely mad 💕 I think it's funny too, since I started writing OWM while deeply fixated but didn't think much of the Flavour of my writing I didn't expect anything from rereading, but it does taste a bit like mainfic hehe ♪

I love when Scriabin argues how much he wants to "help" Edgar while controlling him up and down, Edgar's not about to take this sitting down if he can help it! Also emasculating insults my beloved ♥

Thinking again about Hunchback; not quite any of the already-established stuff (they're not playing the roles, nor are they separate and seen the movie! What!), about why Scriabin would side-eye Edgar so much during Out There. It's a good song for him :) And I love drawing him like this haha, proud and haughty angle <3

Edgar with slightly less floofy hair and the closed-line nose style from a few years ago lol ♪ I do like bridge/bottom of the nose style I've grown into, but it's still a fun style to return to every once in a while :)

And one last sneaky cheeky kiss for smooch practice before the very end! Just try and stop me! Why did Scriabin turn out so pretty tho ♥

So that's June through September, again-again! Well, almost - turns out I actually made too many sketches for my Blank Slate AU/fic - literally as many as are featured here! - so it needed its own post. So please look forward to that!

#💟#Doodles #Art #Sketchdump #Scriabin #Edgar #Jake #Nny #Blood #There's also some potential body horror and possible uncomfortable boundary-crossing so be warned #So the standard Vargas fare haha #Lots of crossovers this time! Practically crossover central in here! Lol #The FNF doodles were like 95% inspired by the absolutely Incredible Animation vs. Friday Night Funkin mod #Specifically Stickin' To It but honestly watch/listen to the whole thing it's actually incredible #I've seen some pretty amazing FNF mods but that one hits different for me it is So inspiring #I mean yeah I already love AvA lol but just ugh the amount of care and work that so obviously went into it <3 #The kind of passion is contagious! As evidenced by all the other crossovers as well lol #WOY passion <3 And yeah I'll count Just Desserts too why not haha #The biggest inspiration is still the original tho >:3c Nothing sparks images quite like The Source - of course haha #Conversation is a big aspect of that haha - all of those middle doodles of them mind sharing again were largely just from talking :D #And I mean - some leftover thoughts and feelings about You Can't Live Like This but when am I not lol #I want to see them being good to each other! I want to see them being cruel to each other!#Dynamic truly unmatched haha #I did actually write a temp resumé for Scriabin (as practice :P) but there's a lot of ambiguity left open lol #I do love them being domestic together #Some of these feel real disjointed 'cause if you read the last bit you know I had to cut a lot!#Well rather - separate them out into their own sketchdump lol I can do ~90 images but not double that I already had to make this three times #Which means I Think that I've gotten all formatting errors from attempt two but if I didn't? Just ignore those if you'd be so kind <3 #I could go back and fix them but hahahaha absolutely not you actually couldn't pay me #Lol tho ♪ Just happy to have another one done :)

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