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#Take The Bait
mamaangiwine · 3 months
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"Somebody needs to do something about Sephora 10-year-olds...these i-pad babies are so rude and don't do what they're told....oh my God, these kids can't read and have no social skills...Ugh, look at these little consumers and their Stanley Cups."
I am, in fact, actively worried for these children and I refuse to hate them for the ways that society, as a whole, has failed them.
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transgayhawkeyepierce · 11 months
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Everyone reblog with your most unemployable traits
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they-call-me-haiku · 2 months
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yeah, i'm still not over this episode.
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verocitea · 9 months
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So I got the funniest hate comment today
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official-crab-posts · 3 months
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hey everyone, i know this is a silly gimmick blog but i feel i need to clarify that zionists aren't welcome here. people who think the violence in gaza right now is in any way justified or proportional to october 7 and support the genocide being committed against palestinians need to get off my blog. leave.
people who use this situation as an excuse to be antisemitic also need to get the fuck out of here. it is never okay to be antisemitic and trying to use your support for palestine as a shield is pathetic. i dont want you around and i do not like you. when i find you i will block you. save us both some time and just unfollow me right now.
i just wanted to make my position clear. free palestine. 🇵🇸
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qqueenofhades · 6 months
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I'm sure it's only a coincidence that a few days after Putin says Biden "needs to be undermined from the left" to help Trump win, noted Russian agent Jill Stein, who the Kremlin already extensively promoted in 2016 in the successful effort to hurt HRC, and who already endorsed fellow pro-Russian tankie Cornel West, jumps back into the 2024 race as the "Green Party candidate" talking about how "the two-party system has failed us."
For the love of fuck, let's not do this again.
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bloggingboutburgers · 8 months
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...Maybe queerbaiting can only ever mean homobaiting or transspecbaiting
Idk don't kill me those are just cans of worms
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justlidlthings · 2 years
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🎣
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frog-plague · 2 months
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Am I bored yes. Am I petty oh fuck yes
REBLOG IF MINORS CAN BE SYSTEMS
That is all
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based on this (the other bit was the regular "tiktok disorder") ranting
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miseria-fortes-viros · 4 months
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ngl some of u r starting to sound ableist the way u talk abt percy jackson. just so u know adhd doesn’t make u a complete fucking moron
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tomorrowusa · 4 months
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Don't risk a rerun of the 2000 election.
In the first presidential election of the 21st century many deluded progressives voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.
Their foolishness gave us eight years of George W. Bush who plagued the country with two recessions (including the Great Recession) and two wars (one totally unnecessary and one which could have been avoided if he heeded an intelligence brief 5 weeks before 9/11).
Oh yeah, Dubya also appointed one conservative and one batshit crazy reactionary to the US Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito are still there.
Paul Waldman of the Washington Post offers some thoughts.
Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024
Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it. This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center. But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are more diverse than those of any of his predecessors. He has directed more resources to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the opposition from the Supreme Court, his administration has moved aggressively to forgive and restructure student loans.
Three years ago the economy was in horrible shape because of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic. Now unemployment is steadily below 4%, job creation continues to exceed expectations, and wages are rising as unions gain strength. The post-pandemic, post-Afghan War inflation rate has receded to near normal levels; people in the 1970s would have sold their souls for a 3.2% (and dropping) inflation rate. And many of the effects of "Bidenomics" have yet to kick in.
And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced recession of 2020 was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.
It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for employment rates to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since. To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college? It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.
Biden has gotten things done. The US economy is doing better than those of almost every other advanced industrialized country.
Our rivals China and Russia are both worse off than they were three years ago. And NATO is not just united, it's growing.
Sadly, we still need to deal with a far right MAGA cult at home who would wreck the country just to get its own way.
Biden may be elderly and unexciting, but that is one of the reasons he won in 2020. Many people just wanted an end to the daily drama of Trump's capricious and incompetent rule by tweet. And a good portion of those people live in places that count greatly in elections – suburbs and exurbs.
Superhero films seem to be slipping in popularity. Hopefully that's a sign that voters are less likely to embrace self-appointed political messiahs to save them from themselves.
Good governance is a steady process – not a collection of magic tricks. Experienced and competent individuals who are not too far removed from the lives of the people they represent are the best people to have in government.
Paul Waldman concludes his column speaking from the heart as a liberal...
I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like. It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.
Exactly. Rightwingers take the long view. It took them 49 years but they eventually got Roe v. Wade overturned. To succeed, we need to look upon politics as an extended marathon rather as one short sprint.
Republicans may currently be bickering, but they will most likely unite behind whichever anti-abortion extremist they nominate.
It's necessary to get the word out now that the only way to defeat climate-denying, abortion-restricting, assault weapon-loving, race-baiting, homophobic Republicans is to vote Democratic.
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jamietwat · 7 months
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Roy and Jamie doing the celebrities read mean tweets thing but instead of from random people, it’s just all the bullshit they tweeted about each other that the other didn’t see in the time between Roy blocking Jamie on everything after Jamie tagged him in a tweet about how overdue Roy’s retirement was and Roy unblocking him but not telling him and just waiting for him to figure it out himself once they became friends (not that Roy would ever admit that that was what they were)
(Also, they definitely regularly seemingly unprompted tweeted horrible things about each other and fought online before that but neither of them blocked the other (or followed the other) because they preferred tagging the other in their bullshit for extra annoyingness but Roy was just at his limit for putting up with anything when he retired so Jamie said something not even as bad as usual and got blocked instead of the public argument he was anticipating)
Keeley’s like oh god this is a bad idea I’ve seen what they both tweeted and there’s no way this isn’t going to end up with them both pissed and probably getting into a physical fight
But instead, they both find them hilarious and there’s a lot of “oh, that’s a good one” and “that’s not your best work. You said worse to me this morning” and it’s the most Roy Kent’s been caught on camera laughing
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lolomidi · 2 months
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The Price of Entertainment: An Episode-By-Episode Analysis of Alastor's Facade
I don’t think any character in Hazbin Hotel has been discussed as much as Alastor, and it’s a testament to how much the writers put in his character that the mystery of his intentions, past, and contract have been so debated on.
There are some takes I vehemently disagree with, but something a lot of people seem to have settled on is that Alastor is, behind his massive ego and cool-headed persona, insecure about his place in Hell after his long “sabbatical.” I want to do an episode-by-episode analysis of Alastor’s behavior and how Season 1 shifts our view of him from an unquestionably powerful Overlord to something with more depth, and while I won’t be speculating on who owns his soul and how he’ll break that contract in those post, I will take a guess at the future of his character in a narrative sense. I will also implicitly be addressing my issues with some of the conclusions others have made, or at least playing devil's advocate.
NOTE: I want to clarify that none of this is meant to depict Alastor as some poor woobie. He’s still awful. He’s in Hell for several reasons and being a serial killer is only one of them. Rather, I want to analyze what is shown to us about him, and how those story beats can be used to determine where he’ll end up by the finale of the series.
ALSO NOTE: I haven’t followed all of VivziePop’s comments outside of the show about the characters, and it’s possible that certain details have been changed between the release of the pilot and the show, so take any mentions of what hasn’t been explicitly depicted within the show with a grain of salt.
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Part 1: Recap Analysis
This section will consist of commentary regarding Alastor's appearance and behavior in the given episodes, with retrospection based on new information given in later episodes if needed.
“Overture”: Alastor is pretty one-to-one with his depiction in the pilot in the first episode. He’s snarky, open about his sadism, but helpful if begrudgingly so. Interestingly, he’s able to put together a well-edited, if tonally awful, commercial, and probably could have done better if he weren’t intentionally being an ass about it. From the finale we know that he and Vox likely used to have a more magnanimous relationship, and it’s likely that he picked up some tools of the digital trade in that time despite or before being turned off completely by it.
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“Radio Killed the Video Star”: Vox effectively plays heel for Alastor this episode as we continue that first impression of the Radio Demon. We spend a good time showing off the former’s power and how far his roots have spread throughout Hell’s society, only for Alastor to effortlessly trounce him and steal from his audience, despite being gone for so long and his position in Hell less stable. This indicates that Alastor does still have pull, but at the same time that his position in the hierarchy of Hell is being contested due to the length of his absence. He deals with it easily here, but we’ll see in subsequent episodes that things aren’t as smooth as they first seem.
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“Scrambled Eggs”: In terms of the eggs, there’s not much to talk about. He begrudgingly accepts Vaggie’s request to get rid of them “humanely,” but brings them back to the hotel after they prove to be useful spies.
More importantly, we get our first small hint that Alastor’s ego can be bruised when Carmilla doesn’t humor him during the meeting between Overlords. Now, I actually disagree with a lot of the takes on this episode in that I think it indicates that at least some of Alastor’s views and need to prove himself as a powerful Overlord are the result of self-delusion. Yes, he does need to reestablish himself as a person not to be messed with after being gone for so long, but I think it isn’t as bad as some are making it out to be, which makes his behavior in later episodes more strange and excessive if anything.
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Carmilla, who mind you is a busy and stressed woman trying to hide the fact that she’s successfully murdered an angel, hits his ego by not caring where he’s been (something he wouldn’t have revealed in the first place), but she also welcomes him back, which is more than you could say to Velvette and by extension the Vees. And minutes before that, Zestial, who’s probably the highest on their totem pole, does go out of his way to meet with Alastor and inquire about where he’s been. Alastor himself gets over the slight pretty quickly and has no issue contributing to the meeting. Overall, he isn’t necessarily terrifying other overlords, but he still has an established place with them and they do seem to get along well enough. He’s “part of the group” unlike the Vees, who are treated more like upstart outsiders.
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I also want to point out that despite Zestial likely outranking Alastor in power, they seem to be alright with each other. Alastor is cordial and does not demonstrate a desire to antagonize him like he does Lucifer in the next episode. Speaking of which…
“Dad Beat Dad”: This episode gives us a lot to chew on and is the first major indicator that Alastor’s issues go beyond wanting to be the center of the room. From the very moment Lucifer walks into the hotel*, his eye is twitching and he is visibly pissed. Lucifer undermining him (notably contrasting Zestial, who is polite despite his power) doesn’t help and makes Alastor let loose his first swear in the entire show. Being the petty bitch he is, Alastor, knowing he can’t intimidate Lucifer in any way, immediately goes for his weak point–Charlie–and plays up the role of a caretaker for her and the hotel. It’s a low blow, but it also feels like a defense–he’s signaling to Lucifer that this is his hotel, that things are taken care of already, and that they do not need his assistance, even though they ultimately do in order to get a meeting with Heaven.
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But then things get more complicated with the appearance of Mimzy, who, to the surprise of several characters due to his solitary nature, was friends with Alastor all the way back when they were alive, and she carries a load of implications with her. She’s the only crack so far at what a “human” Alastor is like–apparently he’s a heavyweight drinker, a good dancer, and most notably, in Mimzy’s words, a sweet man who "becomes a kitten" when he's drunk. This is a huge departure from the unflappable, egotistical Radio Demon we’ve known up to now, and I think it’s a purposeful choice that we’re hearing this information but not shown it like his early days in Hell just prior. It’s simultaneously left to the imagination but difficult to do so because it contrasts so heavily with everything that has been shown to us beforehand. Another thing is that Mimzy is sure that Alastor will clean up her mess–and apparently this isn’t the first time he has, if Husk is anything to go by. So many people seem to miss this, but Alastor, who hates being tied down or disrespected, has been allowing Mimzy to leech off of him, presumably due to their past friendship making him turn a blind eye.
Alastor is on edge for this entire episode and is already unusually snappy when Husk addresses Mimzy, and pushing the button that was his contract is what sends him over the edge. His temper exploding is a direct result of his feeling that his control over both the hotel (via Lucifer) and his personal life (via Husk’s “doubt” that he can handle everything and that his reputation is what it used to be, plus the reminder of his deal) is being taken away from him. Alastor’s threat to Husk, which seems to not be his usual behavior if Husk’s willingness to show concern and talk back in the first place is anything to go by, is an attempt to remind both of them that he holds the cards, that he’s a powerful Overlord that is not to be trifled with, and he explicitly says as much when he goes out to deal with what Mimzy’s dragged in.
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It’s only after he lets his anger out on the mobsters and “proves himself” that he visibly calms down and makes the logical decision to tell Mimzy to leave with a serious attitude, and also doesn’t antagonize anyone for the rest of the episode. It seems like despite his fury earlier, he was listening to Husk, who’s rightfully smug about it. He’s even present when Charlie declares her desire to protect her people, and his smile seems just a tad bit more genuine.
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*Note: it’s not impossible that Alastor has some sort of personal grudge against Lucifer which caused his hate-on-first-sight, depending on the circumstances of his disappearance and contract (i.e. if it’s with Lilith).
“Hello Rosie!”: As opposed to Dad Beat Dad, Hello Rosie is arguably where we see Alastor at his most in-his-element. He gives off a lot of conflicting vibes at the beginning, from mocking Charlie’s distress to, in a shockingly honest moment, lecturing her about the importance of a smile to portray strength, a card we’d only been shown due to comments outside of the show. He smugly holds his knowledge over Charlie’s head but is visibly impatient to have her make a blank check of a deal with him, solid enough to benefit him but vague enough so that Charlie won’t feel immediately threatened. He’s clearly been waiting for an opportunity like this since the events of the pilot.
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After that, he puts back on his gentleman’s demeanor and introduces Charlie to Rosie, and from here on he’s arguably at his most comfortable in the entire show. He’s relaxed around Rosie and is actually willing to ask for her help (something I can’t see him doing with any other character), casually complains about Susan, is encouraging to and praises Charlie even behind her back, and most notably, gives her his radio cane unprompted. More on that later. He also mentioned wanting to guide Charlie to Rosie specifically, implying that he was being genuine about wanting to act as a mentor to her, though his intentions are probably self-beneficial.
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“The Show Must Go On”: The finale is arguably the most revealing episode on what Alastor’s inner world is like, as we see him unmasked several times. For one, his private admission to Niffty, the closest thing he has to a friend within the hotel, that he’s enjoyed watching the other residents connect to each other. This is in direct opposition to his initial (stated) reason for helping the hotel in that he wanted to watch them all fail, and yet he seems content with his initial assumptions being proven wrong. There’s no malice or sarcasm in this moment, he’s relaxed and talking to someone he relatively trusts.
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And so he goes into the battle swinging and confident. Then, of course, Adam.
I want to bring up something before we keep going. Yes, fighting Adam without angelic weaponry was a needless risk. Yes, Alastor fell victim to the very sloppiness and arrogance he accused Adam of, and it’s thematically appropriate that he was the only one to lose his battle in that he was fighting for his own ego more than “love.” But also, people seem to forget that Alastor is the only demon in the entire show with a precedent for permakilling without an explicit reliance on angelic weaponry, as the Overlords he toppled in his original rampage seem to have never returned. He’s egotistical, but not stupid. He may have genuinely believed that he had the means to kill Adam himself but didn’t get the chance/couldn’t due to his contract or absence possibly weakening him. But that's speculation for another day.
So, he has to retreat before Adam double-taps his ass and is too injured to return until after the extermination. He makes a grand exit, but not before grabbing the broken pieces of his radio cane. The one he allowed Charlie to use just an episode prior, and presumably is a conduit for his powers, and he grabs it while a murderous angel is inches away from wiping him off the face of Hell.
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His portion of “Finale” is the first time we see him singing alone and not playing off someone in a duet. It’s obvious that he’s trying to keep his composure, still speaking to himself in his artificial transatlantic accent (which we now know for a fact he doesn't need to do, seeing as he finally broke character when Adam wrecked his cane) and reassuring himself that he’ll come out on top next time. But here his front shatters and we openly see what the show has been hinting he is for the first time: a deeply paranoid, desperate, and unstable man.
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Essentially the worst-case scenario has happened: after a season of interfering with every attempt to capture him on camera, Vox has footage of him at his lowest point for all of Hell to see, and he’ll have “died” a martyr, a weakling, and still in the chains of an unwanted contract. For Alastor, who is so deeply afraid of showing any sign of vulnerability, who wants to be seen as a monstrous Overlord, it’s understandable that this humiliation is enough to send him into a mental spiral and recant any fondness for the hotel in favor of accomplishing his own goals. Worse yet, when we next see him he gives zero indication of any of this even when Charlie and company are simply glad that he's alive, which leaves us to wonder: has he been like this behind the smile from the very beginning?
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Part 2: Closing Thoughts and Future Speculation
With everything we’ve taken note of above, we can start to piece together a picture of who this guy is, and what the writers are going to do with him.
Alastor is sentimental. It’s not just his attachment to older technology or his love for being the center of everyone's attention. He likes being around people, he has friends, one of which he continuously indulged despite her using him multiple times, and he ultimately was starting to enjoy his time at the hotel before his defeat spooked him. Despite him using her, the fact that he was even willing to let Charlie use his cane (and note that he takes it from her as soon as she’s given a substitute, so that is a significant gesture for him) is an implicit display of trust whose implications don’t become apparent until the finale.
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But this is paired with deep insecurity. Alastor, despite being one of the most powerful people in the Pride Ring, has a crippling fear of being seen as vulnerable or “lesser” by others. There could be multiple overlapping reasons for this: the general climate of Hell, whatever happened to him seven years ago, his experiences as a mixed-race human living in Prohibition-era Louisiana, his original death, a natural predisposition, etc.
Regardless, this anxiety of his is so overwhelming that, when paired with the ever-present stress of not owning his own soul, it’s driving him insane. He made a splash in Hell upon entry and now he’s desperately trying to reinvoke that in order to defend himself both physically and mentally. He’s the gifted kid who’s slowly going nuts trying to keep up an impossible momentum as they grow older. He’s an ex-human denying his humanity because he doesn’t want to feel human. Everyone’s out to get him, and anyone who could be an enemy is an enemy unless he has total control over them via a contract, power, or the reassurance of years of close friendship. It’s why he’s cordial to Zestial but takes Carmilla (who wasn't even trying to spite him) and Lucifer’s comments personally, in the same way someone with low self-esteem might want to lash out against an authority figure who they feel is looking down on them.
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Worse yet, he can’t/won’t let these feelings out and is bottling them up so that no one will know he feels this way (note how quickly he was able to relax in Dad Beat Dad when he was given an outlet for his stress), because that’s a sign of weakness too. It’s honestly kind of frightening that in his final scene he gives zero indication of being injured or of just having had a meltdown. By all outside accounts, he’s his usual chipper self, and no one at the hotel save for maybe Husk, who can’t say anything Alastor doesn’t want him to, would realize anything is amiss. The reason his part of “Finale” is chilling isn’t just because of the implications that he will become an antagonist in the future–it’s that his mental state is so poor that he is no longer acting rationally, which makes him unpredictable in the worst possible way.
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I think Alastor’s character arc isn’t going to be redemption by way of going to Heaven, I don't think that place is his style anyway, but rather redemption of his own self-image. I don’t think the writers would make what is arguably the most popular and well-developed character in the show just to say that he’s hopelessly evil and simply end it at that. We’ve been exposed to multiple facets of his character, and while his deeds and probably his intentions are sinister, his underlying motivation for it all seems to be “freedom,” which decidedly isn’t (unless your name is Eren Jaeger).
I do believe that he’ll have his villain moment where he indulges in his worst impulses, but that ultimately it won’t do anything to fulfill him, because as we see in the official comics before the release of the show (which may no longer be canon but still give a viable “baseline” for the characters), when his desire to be feared and respected is granted, it only isolates him. Like the others, he’ll have to hit rock bottom before he can climb back up.
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Pentious, who was successfully redeemed, needed to understand that people weren’t out to get him, which allowed him to make the decision to put his friends before himself and trigger his selfless sacrifice. Angel, who’s well on his way to redemption, needed to realize he wasn’t alone and could rely on others, and his confidence and self-love has grown enormously since then. I think these are both lessons Alastor will need to learn eventually as well. He’s the manager of the hotel, but also undoubtedly a patient. He’s hungry for freedom, but only when he learns these lessons will he be truly free.
Or maybe I’m thinking too much into it idk lmaooooo
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My submission to the SatoSho Discord's Weekly prompt: Kabedon
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reblog to give the person you reblogged this from a ⭐️Rodimus Star⭐️
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karlylaylayy · 7 days
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