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the-girl-who-didnt-smile · 15 hours

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The Many Faces of FTM Alastor (Demon Form)

If you’re wondering why there are three different Alastor heads here, why he has darker skin, why he has curly hair now, all sorts of questions, all is explained under the cut.

Let’s get this out of the way first:

WHAT IS “FTM ALASTOR”?

He is a non-canon Alastor, among the ranks of “Alastor 2p” and “Alastoria”. He is the main character of Pauvre Ti Bête!, a horror spin-off of Hazbin Hotel that is way the fuck darker than the TV series. He is called “FTM Alastor” (“FTM Al” for short) because he is Female-to-Male Transgender.

WHAT ARE “THE MANY FACES OF FTM ALASTOR”?

The three faces shown here are the physical appearance of “FTM Alastor” at different stages of his life.

His initial appearance (shown on the far left) is completely identical to canon Alastor.

His final appearance is depicted in the other two images. He actually has two different forms, like the Pokemon Cherrim. Both are accurate. As a shape-shifter, he switches between these forms.

WHY DRAW “THE MANY FACES OF FTM ALASTOR”?

I have already given “FTM Al” a human form that is pretty distinct from the fanon human design of Alastor. It is also inevitable that he will look different from Alastor’s canon human design. But up until this point, I have been drawing “FTM Al”’s demon form no different from how I would draw canon Alastor’s demon form.

This is very stupid of me. This is, like, not allowed! How is anyone supposed to be able to tell “FTM Alastor” apart from canon Alastor? You can’t add him to the non-canon Alastorverse if no one can tell him apart from canon Alastor! How is anyone supposed to draw cute art of him standing next to canon Alastor if they look exactly the same??

So I finally got off my ass and gave him a demon form that’s different from canon Alastor’s. I only drew his head here, since his body appears identical to canon Alastor’s. At some point, I want to draw a full body shot of him. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.

FTM AL’s INITIAL FORM - EXPLAINED

“FTM Al”’s initial form is completely identical to canon Alastor. This is because, within the Alastor multiverse, “FTM Alastor” is a convergent counterpart to canon Alastor.

“Convergent counterpart”? What are you talking about? Stop making up words!!

“Alastor 2p” and “Alastoria” are divergent counterparts because the premise of each character is radically different from canon Alastor. Within their timelines, there is never a point where they converge with canon Alastor.

Conversely, “FTM Alastor” is a convergent counterpart. If we compare the timeline of canon Alastor with “FTM Alastor” during the Pilot and Season 1 of the TV series, these two Alastors are completely identical in terms of appearance, personality, events… literally every aspect of their character. It is when Season 2 releases (or, when we get canon Alastor’s backstory) that these two characters will completely diverge. I don’t know what backstory Viv is cooking up for Al, I just know it’s not FTM Alastor’s backstory.

For Pauvre Ti Bête!, I had to take this “Death of the Author” approach to writing FTM Alastor. I know there are tons of livestreams and tons of Tweets that Viv has put out, but there are just too many. I tried to sit down and watch a livestream, and I just couldn’t. I’m not…I’m not strong enough… There are so many hours to these livestreams. Additionally, Viv might change her mind about something she livestreamed before. I’d be so pissed if I wasted hours of my life watching her livestreams, only for her to change her mind about what she said before!! So I just have to apply “Death of the Author”. Anything that’s not present in the Pilot or Season 1 or “The Radio Demon” comic may not be present in FTM Alastor.

FTM AL’s FINAL FORMS - EXPLAINED

A huge theme of Pauvre Ti Bête! is period-typical racism. Race is a lot more important to this story than it could possibly be in Hazbin Hotel. One of the main reasons for this is because New Orleans Voodoo is a religion that originates from Africa. It was practiced by Africans who had been enslaved in Louisiana, home to the most important slave market in America. A lot of people don’t know this, and think that voodoo is just shadow men and voodoo dolls. For these reasons, I want “FTM Alastor””s final form to have more visibly African features. So he has darker skin and much curlier hair.

The middle image is actually Alastor’s base form. Within Hazbin Hotel, a person’s demonic form takes features from their appearance as a human at the time of death. FTM Alastor initially looks like canon Alastor because he shapeshifts his appearance to have lighter skin and straight hair. This is because, as a human, he straightened his hair. He also had stress-induced vitiligo, which had advanced to destroying almost all of the melanocytes in his face at the time of his death. He is written to be someone who is very narcissistic and concerned with his image. He was mortified by this condition and absolutely hated having an uneven skin tone in his face. Once he arrived in Hell, he started using shapeshifting to hide his vitiligo. It made more sense to make his skin lighter, due to the severity of his condition.

I’m so delusional that I actually think this is true of canon Alastor. It’s not enough that I think he’s FTM transgender. I also think to myself “the reason his skin is so light is because he had vitiligo, and vitiligo is a stress-induced condition, it was probably really stressful being the first radio host of color and most prolific serial killer of America at the same time! and he has straight hair because he used to straighten it with a hot iron before he transitioned, but once he became a radio star, he used lye to make it straight because that’s what people did in the 1930s, because America was a really racist place back then! of course he doesn’t naturally have straight hair, his hair is really curly because he’s half Black!”

How do I have takes more delusional than “Alastor is FTM transgender” and “My Deviantart OC exists within the canon of Hazbin Hotel”???

None of this even starts to be true!!!

Alastor just has naturally straight hair because he’s supposed to look like Willy Wonka, and Viv just really likes Willy Wonka!! This is a really light-hearted show!! It’s a fucking musical!!! You’re not supposed to take this show seriously, stop trying to take this show seriously!!!

…But it’s so much fun to do exactly that.

So yeah. There are tons of really good redesigns of Alastor, where he actually looks like a Creole man of color from the 1930s. To be honest, my attempt is pretty mid. But in his final form, FTM Alastor stops straightening his hair and reassumes the hairstyle that he had when he was a child. It’s stunning, It’s powerful, It’s brave. But actually!! You see, I have been calling Alastor a psychopath (and I will continue to do so, because it’s funny) but FTM Alastor is actually not written to be a true psychopath. Rather, he is supposed to be a pseudo-psychopath, who does not have antisocial personality disorder, but the worst case of untreated c-PTSD. Although he thinks he is in control, he has actually been puppetted by his childhood trauma his entire adult life. He’s that guy who thinks that his trauma justifies doing all sorts of evil behaviors, including (and not limited to) murdering hundreds of innocent people. In all seriousness, these traits are largely inspired by a relative of mine, who has done all sorts of abusive things due to having an extremely severe case of untreated PTSD. I do not know if this is what Viv is planning for Alastor, but I think it would be a really interesting direction to take his character in.

Let’s also make him transgender Cab Calloway while we’re at it!!

So yeah, him reassuming his childhood hairstyle has a lot of symbolic weight. It symbolizes him reclaiming his past and no longer allowing his childhood trauma to control him.

Also it's an unwritten rule that non-canon Alastors have to have a different hair color to canon Alastor, so I gave him a slightly shifted hair color. I was super lazy about this...

Anyways, as I mentioned before, he has two final forms. The middle one is actually the one I want to be his final, final form, where he is no longer hiding his vitiligo. However, I want FTM Al to actually feel real, like a real person who has vitiligo. Vitiligo is an awful condition to have, not because it actually makes you ugly, but because it so frequently causes horrible body image issues in the person it afflicts. You look in the mirror and think to yourself “that’s not what my face is supposed to look like! that’s not my face!” As a person who struggles with crippling gender dysphoria, I cannot relate to this at all. As I mentioned before, FTM Alastor is written to be someone who is really narcissistic. Even canon Alastor seems a little narcissistic (this is an understatement… he seems really fucking narcissistic!!) FTM Al was literally the most famous radio star of the 1930s. He had to wear a shit ton of makeup to hide his condition every day. It was awful. Therefore, I think he feels more realistic if he switches between two forms. Sometimes, he feels good about himself, so he doesn’t hide his vitiligo. Other times, he can’t stand the sight of it, so he makes his skin an even tone with shapeshifting. My vision for him is that he eventually stops hiding it all together, it just takes him a long time to get there.

Also, if it was not clear, in his final forms, FTM Alastor is a good guy. He might be “Neutral” aligned, but he’s no longer an antagonist and is an ally to the good guys. I just think it would be really cool if he switched to a darker skin tone after becoming a good guy, to subvert the trend of good guys having lighter skin and bad guys having darker skin. It also symbolizes him overcoming his childhood trauma, which was full of racial abuse that was reinforced by the racist time he lived through.

I think this is the only ethical way to give Alastor vitiligo. Otherwise, you’d only ever see his vitiligo when he’s doing something really evil, because that’s when his makeup melts off his face and you can actually see what his face really looks like. Wow, that’s really going to make real people with vitiligo feel good about themselves! What I actually want is for the sexiest sexyman in all of Tumblr to not just be FTM trans but to have vitiligo as well. I think that might make real people with vitiligo actually feel good about themselves. Isn’t that wholesome?

Also, I just think he looks cute this way. If you don’t agree with me, fucking, sue me!

Bro, it’s going to be so crazy for me when Vivziepop reveals Alastor’s canon human design, and he just looks like a white guy with a tan. He’s just a really Italian-passing cisgender male. I’m gonna be like “damn, I was way off-base…”

RANTING ABOUT WHITE- / ITALIAN-PASSING ALASTOR

I might get canceled for this, but I actually don’t have a problem with Italian- or fully white-passing Alastor.

A lot of people assume that Viv made up Alastor’s race after the voodoo controversy, and that she had originally planned for him to be white, but I think this is really unlikely. Alastor is really light-skinned. But if you go back to the pilot, the characters who are fully white are like #ffffff white. Alastor’s the only character in the main cast who has the same skin tone as Vaggie, who is clearly Latina. This is like really silly, but you also know that he’s from New Orleans because he likes jambalaya. It makes way more sense that she always planned for him to be white-passing Creole. But it wouldn’t surprise me if she makes him Italian-passing instead, even if she had originally planned for him to be white-passing.

If she originally planned for him to be white-passing, I actually think it’s a mistake to retcon his skin tone. That is, unless she plans to radically rewrite his backstory. This might shock you, but the South was like this really racist place in the early 1900s. You can’t just change a character’s skin tone without it having huge consequences on that person’s life trajectory.

…But have you considered: That maybe, I’m just an idiot. This is a fucking Amazon Prime musical cartoon, heavily inspired by Disney princess films. Of course they’re going to sanitize the shit out of American history! It would not surprise me at all if Hazbin Hotel takes place in an alternative timeline of American history, where racial segregation was not a thing, and racism just did not exist. I really need to stop taking this show seriously, but I’m crazy and I can’t stop doing that.

But yeah… You’re not gonna believe this, but white-passing fanon Alastor is still one of my favorites. Not my most favorite (and NOT NEARLY as ALL-TIME FAVORITE as VERY VISIBLY biracial non-canon FTM transgender Alastor!!!) but still a favorite. People criticize him for being the whitest white boy to ever white, but they are wrong. White-passing fanon Alastor is in fact not the whitest white boy to ever white. He’s just pretending to be the whitest white boy to ever white. Back in the day - under racial segregation - there was SO MUCH social pressure to pass for white! You’d be crazy not to if you could. Alastor’s mother was probably light-skinned but didn’t pass for white, and it is through her Alastor has African ancestry. Since Alastor loved his mother, he was actually really in touch with his Creole side. Maybe he saw how his mother was mistreated because of her race, or he resented his conditional white-passing privilege. Maybe that’s why he became a serial killer. It writes itself! This would literally never come up in the show, but we would get some really good fanfiction out of this guy. I think this character is actually still really interesting.

But not as interesting as very visibly biracial FTM transgender Alastor. THAT GUY”S THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!!!

I have chosen to depict FTM Alastor as biracial, with a father who is fully European and a mother who is fully African. It is actually very unlikely that this is the case. Alastor is described as being a mixed race Creole (not just “Creole”) and he is also described as having partial Caucasian heritage. It is therefore very likely that his father was fully European, while his mother was of partial European and African descent. For max historical accuracy, it is also likely that his mother was very light skinned, with mostly European heritage, due to the devaluing of dark skinned women and the fetishization of light skinned women in New Orleans. I don’t know if Alastor’s mother is going to be portrayed as light skinned, though. I have chosen to take creative liberties here, as I think it makes for a more interesting story if Alastor’s father was fully European and his mother was fully African. The maximum African heritage he could have is “half African, half European”, so I went in that direction even though it is unlikely to be canon.

I don’t know if this comes through in my artwork, but FTM Alastor is supposed to be this guy who doesn’t even start to pass for white. It doesn't matter how much congolene he puts in his hair to make it straight. He sounds really white, but anyone looking at this dude’s face can tell that a generous half of his DNA comes from Africa. I would not use the adjective “light-skinned” to describe him. He has the same eyes as his mom, who was fully African, and his nose is supposed to be a classically “mixed” nose. That’s why it doesn’t look like his father’s or his mother’s nose. Even after his immune system destroyed all his melanocytes, you can still tell he’s a mix. It’s probably impossible to tell this due to the mukokuseki effect in animation, but I just want to put this out there.

FTM Al really is just way less white-passing Stormé DeLarverie.

#alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #ftm alastor #trans alastor #hazbin alastor #the radio demon #ftm al #commentary #i got really derailed in this one...

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