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elmaxlys · 2 months

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please can you tell me about donato i appreciate your love posting and want to learn

😳❤

And I appreciate your interest in Him godbless 🙏 Genuinely from the bottom of my heart THANK YOU for asking about him however I cannot shut up once I start so this got long and increasingly unhinged as it went I hope you still enjoy reading about the Man of All Times

Donato is a side character from Tokyo Ghoul and its sequel, Tokyo Ghoul:re. He's the foster father of the first series's deuteragonist, Amon Koutarou.

In Tokyo Ghoul there are, well, ghouls - who are a human-looking species that can only survive by eating human meat (they can drink coffee but pretty much any other food is off the table for them). Donato is a ghoul.

Some ghouls hunt humans despite not wanting to, some ghouls scavenge dead bodies they find, some ghouls delight in the hunt. Donato? Oh he's a picky eater, see. Not to the extreme of the character nicknamed The Gourmet but what he likes most is children's meat. And so he held an orphanage for God knows how long and ate the kids he had there. Koutarou was one of the kids at his orphanage.

Then one day Koutarou found him killing one of the kids and understood he had been lied to all along, that none of the kids had been adopted: they'd all been eaten by the very person taking care of them - with it being implied (at least imo) he might have fed the kids some of the meat too.

What Donato means by "go along with his lie" is making Koutarou help him prepare the meat of his very siblings for his father to eat. We don't really know for how long it went on but he was pretty young. Donato never harmed Koutarou physically. Never touched him. Never ate him.

But when Koutarou was 12, despite being extremely powerful, Donato was ultimately caught by the CCG (basically police to catch and kill ghouls) and put into ghoul prison where he was able not to be executed by being a useful motherfucker. Think Hannibal Lecter kind of role. They come to consult him on cases because he doesn't give a single flying fuck about anyone that's not him so he can sell out other ghouls no problem if it means staying alive.

So useful in fact that he gets away with huh. stuff.

(he's the greatest hhhhhhhhh)

So anyway while they caught Donato, the CCG found Koutarou hiding in the huh place where they prepared the dead bodies of the kids. So they took him in like they do orphans of ghoul victims and he then became a ghoul investigator. The CCG are able to get proper answers out of Donato when they send him so they send him to ask stuff from time to time because the above will happen if it's not him. All this time, Koutarou has wondered Why Donato didn't kill him like the other kids, blinding himself to the truth that's, really, been staring at him in the face all along.

(rate SS is the highest rate a ghoul can achieve without cannibalizing on other ghouls, which Donato never did, maybe because ghouls taste disgusting to other ghouls)

(Look At His Smile) (Help) (can't keep typing, must stare at him.)

Stuff happens and Donato gets out of prison :D he decapitates the warden :DD he massacres a whole clan which has real powerful abilities with his besties after being on RC suppressants for 15 years :DDD (RC suppressants make it so a ghoul can't use their abilities, can't regenerate etc) (I'm jealous of the warden)

Later, as Stuff Happens and Donato and his besties we rarely if ever see him interact with raid Tokyo and we finally see Donato fight and lo and behold!!!!!!!

he can detach his kagune (ghoul's predatory organ) to make traps

he's so quick and precise!!!! killing a guy super precisely from super far away with his kagune just to lure his prey in the building he was standing on top of (the guy he killed was on the ground and pretty far from the building itself)

he is even MORE sadistic than we'd seen until then!!!!!!!! hhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Confirmation Again That He Loves His Son So Much

HE CAN CLONE HIMSELF

HE USES HIS KAGUNE + FINGERS TO MAKE CLONES OF HIMSELF AND SEND THEM TO FIGHT WHILE CONTROLLING THEM LIKE PUPPETS FROM AFAR AND THEY DISSOLVE WHEN DESTROYED

Going insane i Love this man So muchhhhh

Like he goes and lures a man (CCG investigator) in an abandoned building. Man comes with subordinate. Donato cuts off one of Subordinate's arms. Donato crucifies Man to ceiling and rips off Subordinate's second arm in front of his eyes. They talk and BIG REVEAL turns out Man's father was the one who caught Donato and put him in jail in the first place BUT in the previous arc we saw that Man had also beaten and captured Koutarou (who became a ghoul due to Mad Scientist experiments) and we know Donato and his besties (The Clowns, or Pierrot) have a super reliable information net so he definitely Knows. So!!! Is Donato taking his grudge against Man's father out on Man? Is Donato avenging his Son? Both?? These are my favorite chapters and my favorite thing in the entire sequel if you couldn't tell this is incredible INCREDIBLE he also insinuates that the reason he resents Man's father is that he took him away from his son and just. HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Also ! and this is getting super disorganized and I'm sorry, but Donato cooks! He knows how to cook human food despite being a ghoul and therefore not being able to taste human ingredients!! (or is he really a full ghoul? mystery) that's so cool ! and he bakes! he bakes donuts! his son loves sweets!!! donuts are Amon's favorite!! That's why my tag for them is "Donut Family"

And I'm not making sense by now but!!! the next time we saw him the Clowns raided Tokyo AGAIN and it's revealed Donato can TAKE CONTROL of the most POWERFUL entity in Tokyo Ghoul!!!! (a kakuja, aka a kagune armor by a cannibal ghoul, and this one being The most powerful) AND IT'S INSANE IT'S INCREDIBLE

And so Koutarou goes to stop his dad and they fight and they fight and!!!!!!!! Donato doesn't taunt, he doesn't fight back. We KNOW what he's capable of, we've SEEN IT but he doesn't do SHIT while his son is fighting to Kill and then Koutarou does manage to decapitate him after having a realization that oh shit he was also a bad person and admitting to himself that he'd actually loved his dad all along

Words said by Koutarou during the first them interaction we see VS Last words Koutarou says to Donato AND in the whole manga

INSANE STUFF

and!!!! it comes right after Donato completely and entirely demonized himself, denying any feeling he might ever have had and so all he can do is laugh (and cry. we saw him cry.)

BUT! not over.

I think Donato ISN'T DEAD because 1) during the entire last conversation he's talking as a decapitated head and unless we're in Jojo it's not possible 2) kagune can talk without lungs 3) it's Established Donato can make kagune clones that can talk and fight normally 4) we never see the rest of the body which I therefore assume just evaporated like clones to when destroyed 5) Ishida rule number 1: no body = no death

And ALSOOOOO my blog title!!! It comes from the monologue Donato has with the Man in the abandoned building, right as he's ripping the second arm from Subordinate!!!!!

TASTE HOW IT FEELS. HOW I FEEL. HOW CRUEL IT IS. CRUEL TO BE ONE OF THOSE WHO CAN ONLY BUT WATCH OVER OTHERS

quote of all times

Donato just escaped from 15 years in prisons during which he had to constantly see his son go from dangerous mission he could die in to another dangerous missions he could die in. He had to see his son actually get defeated hard while he was TRAPPED IN HIS CELL PRAYING and Koutarou did survive but got turned into a ghoul AND fuck okay fuck we know Donato knew Koutarou was alive but WE DON'T KNOW HOW HE LEARNT IT we don't know how long he believed his son was Dead okay I'm crying rn (there's also how his son got beaten down and captured in the previous arc by the very man he's got there on the ceiling)

alsooooo he's got this sliiiight god complex lol

ALSOOOO ghouls wear masks that both represent them (for example one has a white rabbit mask and she's always late, another is nicknamed No Face because 1) his mask is blank 2) he changes masks often 3) he's a mask maker) and hide their civil identity from the CCG when they hunt or fight them.

Here's how Donato uses his mask: he wears it while fighting the Man. He's hiding his feelings, he's hiding himself. He's showing a blank face of supremacy (his nickname is Crown and stuff). WHEN REVEALING HIS GRUDGE AGAINST MAN'S FATHER HE TAKES OFF HIS MASK. When he goes back to fighting he puts it back on!!!! AND in the final fight when he faces his son he takes off his mask RIGHT AWAY he fights without a mask The whole time and he looks sad and sjcdnjfvjdvfnkdjd

ALSO we learn later from a ghoul who has done that (My Favorite Woman, Roma) but ghouls who eat a lot can look younger than they are and Donato looks pretty old but he's the 3rd head of the Clowns and spent 15 years in prison, and the Founder (Roma) says she's 50 and so but she was captured when Old Geezer Head of CCG was still young and she's a professional liar so I think she's at least around a century old and Donato is necessarily older than her so I think he's around somewhere from 150 to 250 years old

I don't know if anything i've just said made sense right now I tried to be organized at first but hhhhhhhhhhhh Donato do be doing that to me

He's just. He's so great. His nickname in the CCG is both Crown and Father (as in Priest but also hhhhhhhhh). He loves his son unconditionally. He's one of the cruelest characters in Tokyo Ghoul (I put him up there in the top 5 along with Eto, Yamori, Kijima and Tokage). The only people he cares about are his son and an alter of the Main Character. He's a lying liar (saying he's not sentimental right after he went out of his way bc of his grudge against Man and Man's father For Example). He's a catholic priest who's the only character in TG not seeing any aspect of the act of Eating as an act of Love (when catholic god is love and catholics eat god's body). He canonically says fuck. Author says he's Russian but he has an Italian name + he's catholic. Author didn't even design him, he's one of two characters Author's friend designed for him. He's SO brutal. There's a panel of him holding dismembered heads BY THE SPINE like hhhhhhhh god i wish that were me

I want to include Every panel here istg he's SO GREAT and he's My Dad and I Love Him here are some posts + some panels because Look at Him

#thank you <3 #donato porpora #clown of my life #long post #tokyo ghoul #gore tw

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raisinchallah · 10 months

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the recent discourse re:yuri is so curious to me. my two cents is that some of it can be attributed to the very well researched book on yuri history by erica friedman that came out a couple years back which made the seemingly legit claim that the genre started with women authors. of course the whole picture is more fraught than the viral posts i see on this paint it. and the book itself has a long section on The Bad Parts of yuri. but the quotes i see people use and word of mouth fail to mention that part. i can kind of get the defensiveness bc yuri is so often dismissed as a genre JUST for the tillitation of men in a way that really erases the quite large subculture of lesbian/bi otaku and the women writers themselves. which tbf is often the case with a lot of these subcultures (sooo much "moe" was/is written by women but was imediately dismissed as a dude thing. this kind of radicalized me as a teen.). all of that being said there WAS an interesting shift these last few years on the stories being told and how they are told (maybe because of the critical/comercial success of kabi nagata's memoirs and of series like kase-san and yagakimi? the overall evolving discourse about lgbt people on the public sphere? the uptick in openly queer women writing independent webcomics? none of these? all of these and more? shrugs). i've been reading unhinged gay manga in dynastyscans for like, a decade by now. and it's become increasingly more common for them to feature adult women, people actually saying the word "lesbian", lesbian bars even. it still surprises me constantly. comic yuri hime actually split itself in two (the idea is that the core mag is for women and the other is for men. fostering this idea of yuri by women to women). even the kirara magazine started including a lot of yuribait in its publications. which is a different beast entirely but is amusing enough that it makes me go "okay who is this FOR? yuribros? just to snatch the stray lesbian reader?". sorry for the long message i am just fascinated by all of this.

no worries at all this is actually extremely interesting thank you so much for all these extra details yeah i have been curious about like general demographic surveys or such of major yuri magazines yeah that makes sense from a lot of my research as well erica friedman seems to be the main source of a lot of information about yuri i have also wondered in general if some of the confusion around the genre also seems to come from a lot of western bookstores manga hosting sites and so on seemingly grouping memoir and short like joke comics about lesbians and so on under the yuri label i mean im sure part of that online is cuz dynasty scans has a really wide interest in what they seek out and translate which like i love that this stuff has a wider audience but its odd to call it yuri yeah ive noticed that as well in terms of shifts in whats actually focused on i read one yuri manga that was also about broader yuri fandom i guess like about a lonely lesbian who wrote yuri doujins and so on helping another manga artist find her love for drawing again and talking about like actual stuff about being gay and so on idk very interesting the places things are going like i think thats the other funny thing about the new narrative around yuri is like as you said its often kinda surprising still when characters actually say they are lesbians cuz a lot of works kinda held onto like oh ur my exception oh this will fade etc idk fascinating stuff thank u also for the details about the states of different magazines very interesting also if u wanna discuss this more in dms :3

#also if u like unhinged gay manga thoughts on gunjou owo

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wufflesvetinari · 1 year

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just for the hell of it here is a new year’s day list of my favorite books i read this year. i didn’t read nearly as much as i wanted to but i DID read a good proportion of hard or classic SFF, which has to count for something. variety, maybe.

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, James Tiptree, Jr. - this is a scifi short story collection that repeatedly punched me in the gut and continues to haunt me with weird nihilistic alien sex concepts as metaphor for the human condition. Tiptree was a female science fiction writer active in the 60s-80s, writing under a male penname. themes included gender, apocalypse through human error, biological-drives-as-cosmic-horror, and Weird Alien Sex Stuff. all of this is wrapped up in gorgeous prose and a sense that she knew something about the future you really didn’t want her to be right about. (also the stuff she pulled in terms of writing craft is just unhinged, really admire it)

Blindsight, Peter Watts - okay this...admittedly is another extremely bleak book about biological-drives-as-cosmic-horror and apocalypse through human error. but i promise it’s different. it’s like Weird Human Neuroscience + Unknowable Aliens and also there are vampires for some reason, but they are SCIENCE vampires who have a glitch in their brain when they see right angles (crucifixes). look i...can’t describe blindsight. read it and get depressed with me.

Uprooted, Naomi Novik - ok, for something completely different, this has such a classic “fantasy book i loved in middle school” vibe but it’s good. there’s a young woman in a small village who gets dragged into magic beyond her understanding but SURPRISE! turns out she is also magic and you can’t stop her from doing whatever the fuck she wants. consists of Prissy Love Interest constantly saying “no, what you are proposing is physically impossible” and her just doing it and him becoming increasingly distressed because that’s not how any of this should work, jesus. just a very cozy power fantasy with some fun magic system stuff imo

A Night in the Lonesome October, Roger Zelazny. i bounced hard off his chronicles of amber when i was younger but this book is...how do i describe this book. this book is cozy and creepy halloween fun. in the background, various stock characters (frankenstein, dracula, a witch, the wolfman, etc) are playing a polite but intricate game of shifting alliances and power that will allow them to either shepherd lovecraftian gods into this world or keep them out. BUT the book is told entirely from the POV of their animal familiars, who are doing their own wheeling and dealing with each other. it’s a quick read and a surprisingly nice one, with characters acknowledging that they might end up killing each other but it’s nothing personal and everyone admires each other lol.

...oh fuck that’s right i read The Dispossessed this year. um...ok. this was a REALLY good book but it’s ursula le guin so that is obvious and i should’ve read it way sooner. it blows most other things out of the water. read the dispossessed for a really thoughtful exploration of society-wide implementation of principled anarchy and how that might work and/or not work. there’s this really bittersweet proposition that the unifying human experience is pain, but in a way that is more comforting than nihilistic.

Misc:

for short fiction, i LOVED this baroque-styled cosmic fantasy (“The Twenty-Second Lover of House Rousseau”) about a courtesan-bot gaining self-awareness and taking cathartic revenge. what sets this one apart is the voice imo

for fanfic, i liked “Macushla” by Hinn_Raven, an AU where Stephanie Brown gets picked up by the League of Assassins at a young age and is assigned as Damian’s bodyguard

for tv, i found The Peripheral extremely fun character-wise and stylish to look upon, a sort of post-William Gibson William Gibson

ah shit, i think Our Flag Means Death came out in 2022 as well. wow!!

#oh my god there's so few books on my goodreads shelves for this year sob #i did NOT read many comics. trying to get back on the horse now #books

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princess-dirt · 4 months

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Was thinking about Babymetal and then about Jpop. I was thinking about how insane some of the shows these idols put on were. I made me think further about Kpop and what would've happened to it if it didn't blow up in the late 2010s.

Because when I think of Jpop, I think of Su Metal being crucified during a concert, the 100+ member groups, the insane outfits, how some idols become Pro Wrestlers to promote themselves, and just how niche some of these idol groups are.

By contrast, Kpop has become more and more generic. A lot of kpop songs have a lot of English lyrics. Some songs are 50-100% English. It's a super interesting contrast, seeing kpop lean into getting as much foreign attention as possible while jpop often panders to increasingly niche audiences.

I love both, but going back to my thoughts earlier, imagine if BTS never blew up. If other groups never followed up. I became a kpop fan back in like 2014 and I remember big bang, exo, 2ne1, block b, bap, Vixx, etc doing the most insane concepts. Insane hair, wild outfits, bold makeup, over the top MVs, everything oozing creativity. Yes, there was a lot of failed concepts and groups, but even the cringe was fun. The broken English that was never proofread, the low quality dance practice, the unhinged variety show appearances, companies throwing everything at the wall.

Imagine instead of these things being reeled back and made into a science, they would've just gotten more over the top. Imagine Visual Kei levels of hair, makeup, and clothes. Imagine groups delving into metal to find themselves a niche.

Another split they have is the idols themselves. Kpop and tripled down on the trainee system. Meanwhile, Jpop has embraced a "watch them grow" type of system. Where they recruit girls or guys at super young ages. Essentially, selling fans of the potential of certain members, encouraging fans to cheer on their favs as they graduate young groups and mature into a full blown idol.

Each one has a ton of cons and valid criticisms, but for another day.

Anyways, this post wasn't that deep. I just found it fascinating how these things started in very similar ways but have split so dramatically down different paths.

#kpop #jpop #music #idol

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rotzaprachim · 3 years

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Literally obsessed with Deirdre and Nuala’s toxic dynamic in this fic draft actually

#Like the border thin line between lol I really shouldn’t have to clearly label WHy what Nuala says isn’t ideal #Versus like I do think people on here would take her womanhood is blood and pain so I will pass it on to YOU sort of toxic femininity stuff #Seriously. Like entranced. How do you fuck up three different daughters in their own special ways etc #Increasingly unhinged posting etc #Nuala taking nialls canon simplistic nationalism and turning the Ireland is a woman discourse into well it’s YoUr job to bear and bare the #Scars /

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aeide-thea · 3 years

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[menstruation cw]

this in the context of that post i reblogged that was like, 'my gender is a secret!' and also of the fact that i'm spotting a little, which at this point i basically experience as like, disappointment and also shame, a private offputting thing about me to be concealed, as indeed most things about me are (private, offputting, to be concealed: take your pick, they're all true)—

but anyway i was thinking, most of me reflexively simultaneously feels as though anything feminine about me is private and also as though anything masculine about me is private even though presumably it's difficult for both those things to be true and also presumably neither one is, presumably my body tells people both things and my affect tells people both things, although i guess whether they know how to listen to what they're being told is a different story?

but anyway really i guess it's not just gender, really i guess i feel as though everything about me is a secret, which of course can't actually be true both because other people can see you and also because for any part of you to be secret there have to be other visible parts of you behind which to conceal the secret parts. unless i guess you hide all of yourself in yr room away from view. but. hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that a camera is also an object that can be photographed—an object that can be touched—when really i just feel like a disembodied eye. but also of course an eye embedded for better or for (lately, mostly) worse in a body. this body. etc.

#sry 2 be posting increasingly unhinged posts eventually i will go to sleep and do a reset #the psyche #what is gender we just don't know #feelingsblogging #also of course possibly nonsense to assert an idea of gender as private when it's so fundamentally social or at least socially constructed #unclear #(...gender of the day: unclear)#anyway picture yr blogger as like. a melting dalí watch #face sliding slowly off etc #...sorry that's kind of horrifying if you think about it the wrong way‚ maybe don't picture that #just‚ you know. melt thaw resolve itself into a dew etc #anyway

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just-another-hhazbin · 3 years

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I have a question for you:

I'm aroace, and while I love Alastor and that he's ace and potentially aro (not sure if the aro part is definitely canon or not), apparently Viv has said in past streams that he's egocentric/doesn't love anyone but himself and I'm concerned that that's why she made him aroace. Especially if he's definitely aro, since if he were only ace it'd be less questionable imo. Granted, he does have friends so the "only loves himself" thing may not be 100% true, and these things could still change while the show's in development. I'm just kinda worried about Viv's reasoning. What do you think?

Hello, fellow aroace! I find it both amusing and suiting that I received this ask several hours after I queued the ADHD Alastor reblog, because to me, they are very similar subjects.

To the best of my knowledge, Alastor has been confirmed ace in canon by Vivziepop. However, only Faustisse, who i don’t believe is any longer a member of the Hazbin team and has never been in charge of such official decisions, openly declared him aromantic.

However, Vivz has hinted at this, but holds off at the last moment because she wants “people to ship whoever they like and to have fun” (paraphrased).

That’s... not great reasoning and vaguely problematic in and of itself, implying that aromantic people cause problems and etc., but whatever. It’s a smart marketing decision and helps prevent the fandom from turning into even more of a bloodbath than usual, so I understand why she decided that. Do I agree? No. Do I understand? Yes.

However, it is issues such as what you bring up that makes me somewhat thankful we haven’t seen him officially declared aro (yet).

If you’ve seen my aspd!Alastor or other aspd posts, then you probably know some of my thoughts on the subject. For those who haven’t, I’ll take it from the top.

I... am also concerned. I think in the end that how much depth Alastor’s characterization is given will determine whether or not the aro is a good move.

From what we’ve seen and what’s been given, Alastor is a manipulative, unhinged, sadistic, vaguely narcissistic asshole who cares nothing for anyone other than himself. On that description alone, I would very much recommend not labeling him as aromantic. Aro people have had enough of that stereotype, thank you very much. Also, people such as that can experience romantic attraction, it’s just that they tend to be douchebags about it.

That being said, the Alastor comic does give me hope.

(If you haven’t read the comic, go do so, because there be spoilers ahead. https://www.hazbinhotel.com/alastor-comic/page-1)

Yes, he’s a generally annoying pain in the ass dressed in bright red. However, he also wasn’t just going about his business killing everyone for the Hell of it. Sure, he might do that sometimes, but I’ll take “sometimes.” Furthermore, he wasn’t purposefully extra-dickish to customer service people (unless you count feeding the birds, which should be considered a crime but also, Radio Demon, could’ve been worse) and he tips street musicians while being kind to his fans.

He obviously does want social interactions, and was increasingly frustrated and upset when everyone fled from him and the rose wilted at his touch. He wants positive interactions! He wants joy and pretty things and obviously does care about what others think of him, despite statements to the contrary.

And of course, the culmination of him indeed committing a murder and going full cannibal on someone’s ass... after stepping in to stop that person from abusing a customer, giving him a second chance, and then intervening again to stop the asshole from assaulting someone else.

None of these actions had any benefit to him. He knows that this will only increase his reputation as do-not-fuck-with-or-speak-to at worst, and have no affect at all at best. But he does it anyway.

So. If this is the Alastor Vivz sees and if we get more of him, of an Alastor who yes is a bit of an unhinged serial killer cannibal but also seeks out positive interspersonal interactions and cares about strangers, then I would be much more settled with giving him an official aromantic designation. Because then it’s not just that he said “fuck people and relationships; I’m a narcissistic sadist,” but that he’s searching for personal connections that resonate with him, and romance just isn’t it.

So. Yeah. Right now a lot of shit has been said about Alastor official and otherwise, half of it contradicting itself, and while I am Definitely Concerned about him playing into the stereotypical tropes around bad aro rep, I do have some hope that maybe it could play out well.

Also, unrelated to Vivz and how she and her team handles things, there’s always the fact that Alastor’s brother from another mother is undoubtedly Hannibal, who is the most in-love cannibalistic sadistic narcississtic serial killing gay to ever gay (or kill), so that’s a nice little counter-argument to have if and when people decide to be shit about Al’s character + acearo rep.

#hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #vivziepop #alastor hazbin #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor headcanons #hazbin alastor headcanons #alastor headcanon #aromantic Alastor #aroace alastor #aro representation #asks anonymous #long post #text post #alastor comic #alastor comic spoilers

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cassafra5 · 3 years

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Where Have I Been?

Hey everyone,

It’s been a long while since I’ve made an address about what’s been going on with me and why I’ve had difficulty posting. It’s felt weird being on this site with the large elephant in the room being “what happened to you?” After having made addresses previously explaining a couple of rough experiences, I felt too ashamed to mention something even worse. It felt awful to post something after more than a year of nearly no activity, but I feel like it’s been severe enough to warrant this. I had also been requested not to speak originally because certain parties were worried about becoming “pariahs” on here, but I am writing this post to clear the air and to explain what has happened by my own account.

It’s been more than a year since I escaped an incredibly abusive relationship and left New York. After having lived there for three years, it has taken me quite a while to begin recovering from everything that has happened since 2016 until recent. During this time, my spouse and I were used by his family as caretakers for his grandmother, and we were also threatened with homelessness as his family considered taking the condo we lived in. The mounting stress caused him to start lashing out and to begin drinking, and his behavior grew increasingly erratic. For more than 3 years, I lived in a home where every door was broken to get to me when I tried to get away, and every wall in the house was left with a hole or a dent. I was forced to live under horrible conditions, but when I reached out for help about the abuse, multiple people antagonized me, shunned me, and waved away my concerns because “it’s not like he hits you every day.” My mental and physical health suffered greatly, and I still have lapses in my memory from that time because of just how dire my circumstances became.

Inevitably, I had to leave and was “helped” by some coworkers who, unfortunately, took my situation as a means of having a personal crusade, and thus exacerbated the situation further. Police were involved and I had to endure literally running away with what I could carry. Our divorce only just finalized. A majority of my belongings are still in New York, as I only carried back what I could scramble together while I had the police with me, as well as what was sent to me to try to convince me to come back. At this point, I don’t expect to get my remaining belongings back.

My ex is very unhinged and not well. It is harmful and counterproductive for me to be in contact with him or to involve myself any further with him. That being said, I would appreciate that anyone reading this not reach out to him, if you know who he is, as it may cause further incidents that I do not want. This address is mainly for my own recovery to help me move on with my life, and to explain why I’ve been so inactive. Despite it all, I want him to grow as a person and move on with his life as well.

During our separation, my ex involved a Tumblr user that has commissioned me multiple times. He effectively used this person as a means of getting information about me and to put me in a hostage situation – stating multiple times that if I didn’t speak to him, he would go through this person. I fought with my ex multiple times to try and get this person removed from our personal issues, but repeated attempts to warn this individual did not work. I excused this user’s behavior multiple times because they are very young and naïve, and for a while I assumed they just didn’t understand the situation enough to see how much they were hurting me and furthering the abuse. However, I was then made aware that this person was taking commissions from my ex and making decent money off of him. Even more egregious, they were also giving my ex information about me on who I was hanging out with, what I was currently doing, my day to day schedule, etc. I actually had to argue with this person over my safety and privacy, only to get “but I’m making money” as an excuse for them to continue selling my information. To say this was a breach of my confidence and trust is an understatement, and I cannot explain how violated and outraged I felt when I found out that a follower I was trying to protect had blatantly chosen to stay in the middle of my messy divorce and profit off of my mentally-ill ex while spying on me.

In LA I had a rough time adjusting. I did not have a support system to come back to and unfortunately I realized just how quick some people are to take advantage of someone in my situation. I have ultimately learned that I can’t try to understand people like that nor give them the benefit of the doubt. Throughout my time here on Tumblr, I have met some wonderful people such as @kirain who I’ve become best friends with, and who actively helped me escape the situation I had been in. But I’ve also discovered that some people don’t see me as a person worth basic common decency and respect. I’ve literally had users reach out to me just to get the details and gossip for their own amusement, or to either one-up me or stroke their egos over their own successful relationships, which has hurt me immensely. I even had a nightmare where my ex found me and chased me down, and when I reached out to the person he’d turned against me, the only response I got was, “Well, technically I just commission you, so I’m more of a client than a friend, so you shouldn’t be angry.” This person continued to take my ex’s money and profit off of everything that happened after I cut contact, and I don’t have the words to explain how absolutely nonsensical this entire situation seems to me.

I have cut off both individuals from my life and, while I don’t want to jinx it, I am doing much better. It’s been very difficult, but I’ve been recovering and have made great strides. I’m fixing up my house and making it my own after years of feeling like I couldn’t unless my ex allowed me to. I am working and learning in a new profession and I’m finding people who I can really feel are friends, and even more so. It’s been very night and day to be around people who respect and care about my wants and needs, and to have my autonomy back. I no longer have that feeling of being dipped in acid, which is exactly how I felt in New York.

Getting back into drawing and expressing myself is a challenge and something I’m slowly trying to revive. I do really appreciate all of your patience and kindness. Some things I used to draw are a bit difficult but I am slowly getting better.

To my ex and to the follower mentioned, I would ask that you refrain from contacting me or retaliating. I do still have videos, screenshots and other things that I have kept. If I am attacked for making this post, I can and will release them to corroborate my story. All I want is to be left alone, and I should not be silenced and muted because of you fearing repercussions for your actions.

#personal

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erazonpo3 · 4 years

Photo

Intro to my infodump on Alphecca but also I’m getting more and more shameless about it so I’ll probably dump a lot of other shit too later but back to the point: I never tend to stop mutating characters in my head but for all intents and purposes Alphecca is at a point where I’m satisfied with how fleshed out she is in my mind, so I figured I’d write it down.

SO basically a rundown:

Alphecca’s main purpose is to be the “Season 1” villain, in which her part in the story can be expanded but mostly wraps up in a self-contained plotline, and has relatively low stakes so that there’s room for the narrative to escalate. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t pose a threat as an antagonist- because she absolutely does- but simply that her behaviour of terrorising people and raising bodies is already the status quo, and she has no grand design or plan of action. Cassandra steps in to change that status quo for the better, but her failing to do so won’t leave anyone any worse off than they already are. Yet with that being said, Alphecca is also built to be Cassandra’s antagonist specifically, so of course there has to be a resolution there.

Alphecca as Cassandra’s antagonist

Alphecca exists to be a foil to Cassandra, so that when you put them together their differences shine brighter. Where Ilione is a foil to Cass in that she’s largely her polar opposite: extraverted, very emotionally sensitive, inexperienced etc, Alphecca is a foil to Cass by being very similar to her but for a few glaring differences. It’s worth noting that while their personalities are pretty different, they share a same jaded perspective on life and struggles with mental health that stem from an ugly ZT origin story.

Both women were approached by Zhan Tiri during a time they felt powerless, and sided with her over loved ones in an attempt to regain control over their life. They were encouraged to embrace malice and sadism, had their faith in their loved ones undermined and had those insecurities stoked, and all this instability created the perfect storm for them to be easily manipulated and betrayed. Zhan Tiri operates as a cult leader does, seeking out vulnerable people and cutting them off from their remaining support networks until they have nowhere left to run, even if they want to.

It’s not to say Cassandra wasn’t making her own choices, but this kind of gaslighting shouldn’t be dismissed either. Some people will forever lack sympathy for her, but that’s exactly the point of Zhan Tiri’s manipulation- if nobody’s willing to help you out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself you’re going to be stuck there to rot, so you may as well keep digging in the hope that you might hit gold eventually.

Alphecca and Cassandra are both victims to Zhan Tiri’s super fun form of control, but the major difference between them was that Rapunzel remained willing to help Cassandra out of that hole. Alphecca didn’t have a Rapunzel, or a Varian, or a Eugene, and instead over time she became twisted and warped into a menace who doesn’t need Zhan Tiri’s encouragement to do terrible things anymore. And that’s what makes these two foils to each other; Alphecca is the monster Cassandra never was but could have easily become if she was never shown compassion.

Thus the only person who can stop Alphecca is someone who can empathise with her, at least to some degree. In fighting terms, Alphecca has a bottomless bag of tricks up her sleeve and the nature of her undeath makes her essentially immortal. She cannot be conquered, only slowed down, and the more pissed off she gets with you the more volatile and dangerous she becomes.

Cassandra initially sees Alphecca as a chance to prove herself, both as a force for good and as someone who can rid the world of Zhan Tiri’s legacy. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Alphecca cannot be defeated through conventional means, because otherwise warriors like Adira (who has encountered Alphecca before) would have been able to deal with the problem. Considering that Alphecca herself has sought out her phylactery to destroy it- with an extra thousand years of hunting up her sleeve- but failed to do so, makes it apparent that she can only be stopped by being reasoned with. But for a lich who hardly remembers the human experience, that’s pretty difficult.

It ultimately means the only person who can stop her is Cassandra, because the only person who can reason with her is someone who can empathise with her from a place of camaraderie rather than condescension, and recognises that the cycle of violence needs to be broken by compassion and not just violence but harder.

The Storyline

Basic plotline goes like this:

Early on into her journey Cassandra learns about the bone witch that roams the wilderness and terrorises innocent villagers, desecrates the dead, is probably a cryptid because legends have existed about her for generations, et cetera and so on. When evidence appears that this witch is real Cassandra and decides to investigate, because this is a pretty straightforward “good guy stops the bad guy” situation for her to jump into. (By this point Ilione is also tagging along).

Their first encounter with Alphecca is pretty tame. They intercept her at a mausoleum, she does a fancy music number/generally has a good time fucking around with them, but ultimately skulks back into the shadows at the end. It’s sort of all in good spirits and Alphecca isn’t ‘defeated’ by any means but still bows out as a show of good sportsmanship.

Their future encounters are a lot less nice.

The more Cassandra continues to pursue her, the more pissed off Alphecca gets, and when Alphecca gets pissed off she begins to embrace her sadism and her outbursts become more violent and cause more collateral damage. She lowers herself to underhanded tactics like throwing Cass into a nightmare reality a la Tromus and becomes increasingly sinister. The ‘tentpole’ of this plotline probably marks the shift from Alphecca as a trickster figure into a more dangerous one as Cass and Lio learn that she was also a disciple of Zhan Tiri.

The situation ultimately comes to a head by the finale, by which point Alphecca is very much unhinged and out for blood. She becomes fixated on Cassandra and does her best to hit below the belt, sniffing out her insecurities about her past with the moonstone and bludgeoning them with a metaphorical sledgehammer, and basically tries to goad her into a complete spiral.

This is the emotional climax, and the underpinning of Cassandra’s character development in becoming emotionally sound enough to shake it off. It’s at this point she understands what Alphecca is doing; Alphecca is caught in her own eternal maelstrom of emotional torture and latches onto anyone she can drag down with her for the small amount of pleasure it brings. She’s able to recognise those feelings because she can empathise with them and knows exactly what she needs to hear in that moment.

There’s probably some extended backstory revealed by this point too, going into a little more detail about the way in which Alphecca was caught in Zhan Tiri’s web down to becoming a lich, but of course what’s more important is the resolution.

With Cassandra getting through to her, Alphecca is able to pull herself together long enough to ease the situation back down again and have a more honest conversation about hope and humanity and compassion and all those good things. Cassandra admits that she can’t do much to ‘fix’ her, but starts by continuing Rapunzel’s legacy and showing forgiveness and compassion to someone who doesn’t think they deserve it. (Alphecca isn’t entirely regretful of all her actions, but does acknowledge that she ought not project her pain onto others anymore.)

Alphecca Post-S1

Alphecca doesn’t really get a ‘redemption arc’ because honestly I don’t want her to be redeemed. It’s not really a moral stance so much as I believe she’s genuinely disinterested in being a better person, she just has the selfish desire to be able to live happily again. And that’s kind of all she needs. She doesn’t care much about other people, but she’s working on herself and that means squashing the sadism.

I think it also continues to make a good parallel to Cass: Cassandra is trying to do better not only for herself but by others because she sees it as her own social responsibility, whereas Alphecca just wants to do better for herself and if other people benefit from that, that’s just a bonus.

Alphecca doesn’t join Cassandra on her travels either, although she does make appearances as a reoccurring character. Cassandra is upfront about the fact that while she wants to help Alphecca, she needs to help herself first, and the damage Al inflicted on her is slow to heal. They’re both in danger of dragging each other down in their own spirals so it’s best that they give each other space, but it’s also very important that they’re able to share their experiences. It’s a minor struggle between Cassandra and Ilione that Lio doesn’t really understand a lot of Cass’ struggles, although she does try to be sensitive about it. Alphecca provides that alternate perspective: Lio can provide support but little empathy, while Alphecca can provide empathy but little support.

I’ve also got more Alphecca stuff living in my brain regarding her origins, her own foray with Death and her association with lesser and greater deities, her relationships to other ZT cultists, et cetera et cetera but I’ll probably stop here to keep it succinct.

But basically over the course of this plotline Alphecca goes from wacky evil villain to really tragic but still evil villain to not really evil villain but still kind of a jerk neighbour that shows up at your house asking for your wifi password acquaintance.

#basically my build-a-bear guide to making an antagonist #it's fun #of course there's so much more to making characters and villains than just this but basically foils good #alphecca #cta au #my art #cassandra #female villains can have little a homoeroticism as a treat

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therobinsonwayoflife · 4 years

Note

How would each of the Robinsons handle Covid-19 lockdown?

NOTE: This is a silly thought experiment intended for virtual fun and frolic. If you have the means, self-isolate; if you have even more means, donate to your local COVID relief fund & think abt mutual aid to thy neighbours.

Now enough of the real world.

Firstly, the Robinsons live in a utopia where society is sustainable & environmentally friendly and where we no longer have monocultural industrial farming that causes mass epidemics. Worst case scenario the world would experience minor discomfort as its 👌 healthcare system and humaniatarian economy would mean COVID-19 would pass in two weeks where everyone stayed home, got tested, played animal crossing, and went back to work.

That mumbo jumbo aside, in the universe where everything is on fire, I would still imagine that the wealthy, crafty, and optimistic Robinsons are able to continue their lives in much the same as they did before: they’re eccentric billionaire shut ins with all the resources they need not only for self-sufficiency but to sustain their weird hobbies without ever leaving the property indefinitely. Indoor zoo, gym, pool, gardens, greenhouses, fly vending machines, back up power grid, indoor labs, art studios, sky-high ceilings for canons, propeller hats and indoor snowball fights, indoor studio & live frog performances, indoor train, robots & octopus servants to go to the grocery store, cut your hair, get your mail, etc. On top of that they have the latest and greatest & would have no problems telecommunicating w friends via holographic emojis.

HOWEVER the Robinsons would probably still do their part to help others & possibly feel the burn of the world dying around them alongside the economy’s impending collapse.

Order of the Robinsons’ likeliness to lose their marbles: Joe, Tallulah, Franny, Petunia, Fritz, Carl, Gaston, Art, Spike + Dimitri, Wilbur, Bud, Billie, Lucille, Buster, Cornelius, Lefty

Tallulah, if she has any seamstressing skills (or employs people who do) might convert her fashion business into cotton mask business.

Fran would perform live stream concerts and she would’ve been a part of that ugly Imagine celebrity-sing-along video. She might also start to do increasingly unhinged gardening vlogs like January Jones. (She would’ve also secretly donated lots of cash to charity.)

Wilbur’s sitting around playing video games, let’s not kid ourselves. (Neil probably has the timelab on triple lockdown, too.)

Art is a delivery guy so he’s obviously still working. The fact that he delivers intergalactically begs the question of wether the bad universe Robinsons have to deal with an intergalactic as well as global plague.

BHG is dead I’m sorry :(

Neil, as the owner of a multi-billion dollar corporation, is the only other Robinson likely to be interacting with the politics of the pandemic directly. His business isn’t an essential one but could easily be converted:

Reusable PPE: medical and sanitation supplies are disposable for obvious reasons but in times of scarcity, it’s wise to consider reusable alternatives like silicon bodysuits and plastic helmets.

Better masks: As of today a reusable respirator called the North 7700 is already being considered as an alternative to disposable surgical masks that have to be individually fitted to the wearer. Every. Time. Purportedly these masks are also more effective than the N95s (by like 1-5%). They have not been univsarlly adopted and they are also super awkward and bulky for surgeons who might need more space in their field of vision. Neil’s likeliest covid project is to redesign the the surgical respirator mask to be slimmer, versatile, accessible, efficient and resizable. I’m picturing a very fancy, transparent, silicone version of the N95. Maybe they automatically fit to the wearer through sci-fi magic.

Maybe he develops spray-on gloves as seen in a Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ spray-on shoes?

ROBOTS & other automisation to replace engadagered essential workers such as grocery store clerks and delivery people. RI could develop a fully automated postal service & cleaning staff for hospitals. This could also be how the reusable PPE is sanitised. Depending on how intelligent these robots are, some of them could even sub in for orderlies and nurses

Better testing: automate mass testing

Higher accessibility to the internet and better telecommunication software: WiFi everywhere the way Nikola Tesla intended, free laptops / phones / devices and improved video conferencing technology

Software that helps w e-learning and e-working

Automated industrial farming? With an automated delivery system?

(In a post covid world this could lead to fully automated luxury communism or fully automated surveillance dictatorship your call)

Efficient pop up test sites, temporary sinks, etc

Improvements to public transportation (which we can assume is already automated so there’s no danger of drivers getting infected). Maybe the monorail cleans itself & has better air filtration. Maybe the seating and poles etc are rearranged to encourage people to stand apart.

Some kind of insta-garden for people wo yards in their homes? (Aka me. I would like this please thanks)

Bread machine

Maybe he helps develop some kind of powerful purel-like soap that kills the virus without water. But that’s not quite up his engineering ally so

Collabs and funding with biotech companies & hospitals to streamline hospital procedure, improve respirator, PPE, COVID testing technology & even vaccine research. Cornelius thinks the human body is gross but he also feels a moral obligation to help so...

If Neil were evil, he could also contribute to surveillance policing, where those disobeying social distancing and social isolation rules are either admonished by drones, surveilled with cameras, trackers, GPS, facial recognition or even house arrest anklets. But again he’s not evil...

I would also like to think that he pays for his employees’ health insurance and sick leave. Again, we hope he’s not evil.

Maybe the family also donates some food & extra supplies. With so many overseas friends they might send care packages or smth. Fran & her brothers are sure to video call the franahuccis often (their parents are in their seventies/eighties at this point).

The would also implement safety measures Gaston the over-50s and disabled among them. Joe, Bud and Lucille will find a way to self isolate from the rest of the family in style. And possibly with a lifetime’s supply of purell. Maybe they still attend dinner via Skype hologram. Or maybe each individual lives their lives as normal except in a giant self-isolation bubble that Neil invented. Bud will probably create a silly YouTube series to cheer up kids.

#disney #meet the robinsons #mtr #familycanon #headcanon #analysis #cornelius #ri #covid 19 #ask

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drewinator23 · 4 years

Text

FE3H MBTI [Dimitri — ISFJ]

lol so. it looks like a lot of people are subscribing to the idea that dimitri is an ENFJ, in contrast to edelgard, who is supposedly an ENTJ. i believe that misses the point of these characters — and their dynamic — almost entirely, especially in dimitri’s case. while i will say i think edelgard is an INTJ, at least that isn’t too far off from ENTJ. the cognitive difference between ISFJ and ENFJ though...oh boy, where do i start.

the whole dimitri/edelgard conflict isn’t so much a clash between Fe and Te as it is a clash between Si and Ni — with dimitri, of course, representing the former. Fe vs Te does come into play a little (ISFJ’s auxiliary Fe vs INTJ’s auxiliary Te), but i honestly think the main focus of their clash is the past vs future dynamic typical of Si/Ni conflict.

ISFP seems to be a popular choice for dimitri too, but tbh i think a lot of people are mistaking his Si for Fi. i just want to say, right now, that this man...does not have Fi. lol. not in his main functions anyway (yes i will be getting into shadow functions, and cognitive loops, and all that good stuff, so if that’s not your cup of tea then here’s your warning!) ...but yeah let’s get into it.

Dominant Si

“I must never forget that day. I must never allow their deaths to be forgotten.”

dimitri has a very strong connection to the past. and this doesn’t just apply to his past, but to the concept of the past in general. in stark contrast to edelgard, dimitri vehemently believes in “preserving what deserves to be preserved,” which is an important factor in why his methods are far less radical than hers. he believes it’s possible to improve the system currently in place without tearing it from the ground up the way edelgard does. he places a lot more focus on honoring the fallen, on reminiscing about days gone by, and on respecting tradition in general. and this isn’t to say he’s a dense fuck. dimitri is very much capable of criticizing tradition where it’s due, and we see him do this on multiple occasions. it’s just that he has a lot more appreciation for the positive aspects of tradition/“the past” which edelgard seems to ignore completely. where edelgard wishes her “worthless dreams of the past” would go away, dimitri legit admits to relying on his headaches/nightmares of the past as reminders because he is genuinely afraid to forget the faces of those he “let die,” along with those he killed. he believes forgetting their faces would be an insult to their memory. he talks about his history with edelgard far more than she talks about her history with him. he becomes furious when edelgard’s forces attack the holy tomb and “desecrate the dead.” i think you guys get where i’m going with this. while it’s true that a substantial amount of dimitri’s connection to the past is unhealthy, that’s largely due to the trauma he suffers, along with the cognitive imbalance stemming from his Si-Ti loop. obsessing over the past the way dimitri does is far more indicative of an unhealthy Si user than it is of shadow Si, which is more likely to just abandon the past altogether...or uh, “trample the past underfoot” (looking at you, hegemon edelgard).

“I owe you, just as I owe the spirits of those I let die.”

second point — duty. (i’m guessing this is the point a lot of people confuse for Fi. dimtiri’s pretty preachy, yeah, but not all talk about justice is inherently rooted in Fi. more on that later though.) this guy literally constructs his entire life around the idea of fulfilling his duty, be it his duty to his father, his duty to dedue’s people, his duty to his kingdom, etc. he constantly talks about his need to fulfill these duties, and pretty much all the effort he puts into anything is driven by this. even his earlier, more light-hearted supports tend to carry a running theme of him making promises (which he takes almost comedically seriously), encouraging his classmates to be responsible, creating debts to be repaid, and so on. the only reason he even goes to the academy in the first place is, by his own admission, to fulfill what he perceives as his duty as the Sole Survivor of the Tragedy of Duscur™. obsessive revenge is a fucked up conception of duty, sure, but it transforms into something healthier by the end of the story while remaining very distinctly Si. his duty to ghosts becomes his duty to the living — to the people in his kingdom who need him now. essentially, he develops a more constructive attitude toward duty that helps both him and the people he constantly feels he “owes.” my boi snaps out of his Si-Ti loop and becomes a bro again once dat aux Fe and inf Ne come back to balance shit out, y’know what i’m saying? anyway speaking of aux Fe,

Auxiliary Fe

“This victory is the result of everyone’s hard work. Thank you, my friends.”

academy phase dimitri (and i guess uh...post-post-timeskip dimitri) is just about the nicest guy ever. he can be stiff and awkward to the point of being comically serious at times, sure (thanks dominant Si), but he’s generally very polite and agreeable. he’s conscious of the atmosphere in his conversations and always makes an effort to keep things comfortable for everyone involved. tbh he could make do with less of the whole constantly-falling-over-himself-apologizing thing, and it would be kinda cool if “sorry” didn’t make up over 90% of his dialogue, but i digress. regret is dimitri’s middle name so it kinda makes sense for it to permeate even his most mundane interactions. ANYWAY my point is — dimitri’s always trying to make sure everyone gets along and he generally prioritizes harmony over being fully honest about his own feelings, which strikes me as a lot more Fe than Fi. a simple but hopefully effective example of this is his support with flayn where he eats her awful fucking food and tells her it’s delicious even though he can’t taste it. he later admits to her that he was only saying what he thought she’d want to hear, which is like...peak Fe my dudes. a good chunk of his support and even main story dialogue involves him trying to smooth things over, prevent conflict, let people know they did a good job, and so on. and this isn’t just with respect to the other blue lions, but to the other house leaders as well. a lot of the praise he dishes out commends hard work and effort (thanks dominant Si), but his focus is also largely on teamwork and cooperation.

“I saved someone—saved you. That and that alone has always been my crutch.”

now on to the darker side of...not-so-healthy Fe users. dimitri openly admits to dedue that saving him gave him a reason to live, that it makes him think it was worthwhile that someone “like [him]” survived. and this savior complex doesn’t just apply to his relationship with dedue, but to his behavior and decisions in general. it’s exacerbated by the sense of genuine responsibility and duty he attaches to everything (thanks dominant Si), and it sparks up in many different ways. he admits that he feels like it’s his responsibility to help the orphans at the monastery, since he lost his family like they did. he tells byleth he wants to become like rodrigue, whom he describes as “someone who can reach out and save a lost soul.” he apologizes to byleth for not being able to save jeralt (?? BRUH.) he begs byleth to tell him how he can “save” the ghosts of his loved ones, even though they’re...you know. dead. i think this prob comes from his endless regret that he couldn’t actually stop anyone from dying in the tragedy, so he’s just obsessed with saving everyone he can now. in any case, dimitri feels the pain of loss in war very, very acutely, which is why he freaks the fuck out in remire. he later admits the flames in remire reminded him of the flames in duscur, which flung him into the same rage he associates with what happened in duscur, even though he had no particular connection to the villagers in remire. he absorbs the suffering of people around him like a sponge and surprise surprise it breaks his mind. eventually his Fe gets overloaded af and shuts down (hello Si-Ti loop), but even unhinged dimitri shows an occasional connection to others’ feelings — endearingly so when he pats a random orphan’s head, and eerily so when he sympathizes with fleche’s bloodlust and allows her to join the party because of it.

Tertiary Ti

“He’s dead. There goes our chance to gain more information.”

dimitri’s introverted realm is one of Si and Ti. he wants to reconcile his understanding of what happened in the past with a logical, substantial explanation, and he works tirelessly to find this explanation. this becomes increasingly apparent when he actually spends time alone — when he isn’t in the company of others, dimitri is far more research-oriented than he is overtly sentimental. he is interested in learning the facts of his circumstances, and he spends hours in the library looking for answers, trying to find out for himself what really happened. he is skeptical of the generally accepted “truth” that duscur itself is to blame, and instead believes that the blame foisted on it is meant to cover up something far more underhanded. of course, he is right about this, and he conducts as much research as he can to get to the bottom of the event. he spends hours in the library, late into the night. he reads about his uncle, lord arundel, and immediately suspects his involvement because the church’s records of his donations abruptly stop right before the tragedy. dimitri questions the man himself about this during their brief encounter pre-timeskip, though it (predictably) doesn’t really lead anywhere. he tries this again post-timeskip, but arundel dies before dimitri can pry too much out of him, which the latter bitterly laments.

“That is merely the logic of the living. It’s meaningless.”

much like dimitri’s Si, his Ti becomes warped once he enters his Si-Ti loop — feeding into a harsh, twisted, self-deprecating sort of logic that only reinforces itself and ignores other viewpoints (thanks to Fe and Ne shutting down). he becomes uncharacteristically blunt and critical, and the colder, more cynical view of the world we see glimpses of pre-timeskip becomes far more pronounced. in his mind, it doesn’t make sense for the living to move on in hopes of appeasing the dead. turning a blind eye to the dead is blasphemous, and anyone who believes that the dead would want the living to do so is merely adopting “the logic of the living” — a delusion to make themselves feel better. this belief likely helps him rationalize his own desire for revenge, and inability to let go of his past, and so the Si-Ti loop reinforces itself. to reiterate though, dimitri’s Ti is incredibly helpful and constructive when he isn’t loopy (ahahah. get it.) but anyway yeah, in short, his analytical process is typically far more introverted than the sensitive, emotion-focused approach he maintains externally. also, his attention to detail and refusal to accept things at face value are more subtle, covert elements of his personality, but they are definitely there. it’s not as pronounced as claude’s auxiliary Ti, sure, but tertiary Ti ain’t a force to be reckoned with either.

Inferior Ne

“Lineage, race, faith, ideologies... If we could just accept each other and make mutual concessions, one step at a time... Perhaps... Who knows if that’s even possible.”

again, this is one of claude’s functions but more baby. take upside down man’s dominant Ne and make it a bit smoller, more scared, and quicker to shut down. inferior Ne is brilliant, but unfortunately the fourth function tends to be one of insecurity. dimitri aspires to be open-minded and accepting (there’s a reason the inferior function is sometimes called the aspirational function), but it’s something he admittedly struggles with at times. he believes in compromise and understanding, and not just in an Fe way — dimitri advocates for reaching out to other perspectives in war, in politics, and in various other contexts throughout the story. it isn’t the first thing on his mind, but it’s an ideal he genuinely admires. and later in the game, once he snaps out of his loop (which is inherently tunnel-visioned due to its introverted nature), he opens up to the idea again and seeks to understand edelgard’s point of view. he asks to speak with her, to get a better idea of where she’s coming from, to negotiate and hopefully reach a mutual understanding. this echoes his dialogue in chapter 3, where he laments the incident with lord lonato and expresses his belief that they shouldn’t have cut him down, but talked to him instead. dimitri’s Si-Ti loop effectively shuts this desire down, for a very long time, but it finally wakes up again once byleth reminds him “there must be another way.”

“I wonder which is best, Professor... To cut away that which is unacceptable, or to find a way to accept it anyway.”

again, as long as byleth is there to steer him back on track, we all know the answer dimitri gets to this in the end. there is always an air of uncertainty about it all — and he definitely needs someone to help kick that inferior into “aspirational mode” — but he is ultimately capable of it. it begins as more of a question than anything, but with guidance it becomes an ideal he can properly believe in and seek for himself. it’s what allows him to finally reach for edelgard’s hand in the end. once he accepts the parts of himself he previously couldn’t, he finds himself able to accept edelgard as well — to extend that same mercy to her. once he’s out of his loop, he doesn’t just regain awareness of his loved ones’ needs with Fe, but becomes invested in understanding their perspectives and motivations again with Ne. he listens to people again, lets them help him, asks them questions, and shows genuine curiosity in their answers. claude would be proud eh?

Shadow Functions

okay here we go. i’m going to make this part shorter since it’s the main functions that matter most, and i know not everyone subscribes to the idea of shadow functions. but anyway here’s the dirt.

Opposing Se

“It’s not that I have grown weary...more that I find it difficult to be around everyone at the moment.”

this man literally cannot taste food. do i even need to elaborate? okay for real though, dimitri often finds it hard to remain present. he’s often caught up in his duties with Si, or worrying about the atmosphere with Fe, or stuck in his research with Ti, and so on. he is very much capable of making pleasant conversation, but actually feeling present is very difficult for him, and he even goes so far as to describe joy as “fleeting.” he struggles to enjoy festivities, claiming they “don’t suit [him],” and prefers instead to chat with byleth about his childhood. he can’t truly enjoy the meals he eats with others, but he remarks about the dishes he “used to love as a child.” trauma aside, dimitri finds genuine comfort in reminiscing about the past, and he often brings it up in his conversations with others. this is a classic dynamic between dominant Si and the opposing Se that comes along with it.

Critic Fi

“Whatever my feelings, it is all the act of a monster.”

dimitri’s personal feelings are...very, very low on his priority list. and despite all his preaching, he ultimately believes that whatever his personal moral compass may be, it doesn’t justify his actions. and he extends this belief to everyone else as well. simply put, dimitri doesn’t think any set of ideals or morals can justify the actions committed in war. as Aleczandxr words it, “the only reality of war is tragedy for him. there is no such thing as a ‘glorious’ or ‘romantic’ death, and sacrifice is blasphemy.” this is evident in his disgust at people trying to glorify glenn’s death (which dimitri ironically shares with felix — who of course has demon Fi — but that’s a topic for another time.) no subjective concept of morality could possibly justify murder, in any context, and this belief is a burden dimitri admits he believes he will carry forever. dimitri’s introverted realm is a reconciliation between Si and Ti, not Si and Fi. although he believes this should apply to everyone in theory, he often struggles to voice it outright, leading to the hypocritical dynamic that often comes with auxiliary Fe and critic Fi. an example of this is when he tells ashe not to beat himself up for what happened with lord lonato, in an attempt to comfort him, but then proceeds to beat himself up for the exact same thing as soon as ashe leaves. furthermore, the advice he gives marianne in his support with her is to understand that she doesn’t have to “force [her]self to smile as [her] soul bleeds,” though that is exactly what he does for the majority of the academy phase. in any case, the fact that he chooses to give her this specific advice, of all things, is telling.

Trickster Te

“I do not want you to die a death like that. Not even for the sake of loyalty or duty.”

dimitri struggles with efficiency. his intense loathing of sacrifice, regardless of context, makes it very difficult for him to strategize as a commander the way that edelgard does. his rational side is, for the most part, internal; he uses it for his research, his theorizing, his personal endeavors to obtain more information and better understand his circumstances. but he struggles to apply that same level of cold, hard logic while commanding his troops, especially in battle. this comes up in his support with ingrid, who remarks that any good king innately understands some of his soldiers’ lives must be sacrificed for the greater good. she then proceeds to call dimitri’s ideals soft-hearted, which is as good an encapsulation as any of how his Te compares to edelgard’s. war and battlefields aside, dimitri struggles with being harsh in general, preferring to speak to others in softer, more personal terms rather than being blunt. he translates his Ti findings into “acceptable” Fe terms, except for when he enters a loop and said Fe shuts down. during these phases, dimitri is harsh in a manner far more characteristic of “unfiltered” Ti than it is of unrestrained Te, as he snaps at others to leave him alone more than he is inclined to order them around.

Demon Ni

“Do I have the right to live for myself?”

as soon as dimitri snaps out of his Si-Ti revenge craze, his first instinct is to ask who or what he should live for now. and even after byleth tells him to live for what he believes in, it’s very clear in dimitri’s subsequent supports that “what he believes in” is still fulfilling his duty to his kingdom. the difference is that he now has a healthier conception of said duty, and is finally open to accepting his loved ones’ support. that said, he has never been naturally inclined to follow his more personal desires, plainly admitting that he has rarely — if ever — given his own dreams any thought. furthermore, he struggles considerably with looking toward the future, and is unable to do so without byleth, who needs to physically stop him from looking back and guide him onward in the final cutscene. even at his healthiest, dimitri is a defender of the past. he criticizes edelgard by asking her if she would really force people to “throw their lives away for the future,” and warns her that regardless of how strongly she believes in her vision, the future she creates will be “built on a foundation of tears.” this is because he understands, better than most, just how critical the past can be in any individual’s life.

Conclusion

the internet needs to stop hating Si and just let characters be well-written “and Si” at the same time lol. especially in such obvious, practically textbook cases of high Si. one of the most common arguments against Si dimitri is that his devotion to the past is only caused by his trauma, and “isn’t the real him.” the fact of the matter is, dimitri’s Si manifests in so much more than just his duty to avenge the fallen. it plays a huge role in so many other elements of his personality, as do the other functions that come with being an ISFJ. i’m tired of these implications that Ni is some inherently higher, “healthier” form of being lying under literally any indication of Si, which automatically gets discarded as trauma or something lmao. c’mon guys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#fe3h #dimitri #mbti #isfj

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