Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of discussions about Alastor ships and why so many people see them as toxic, or feel like his character gets completely changed into someone who only exists to be “useful” or even reduced to a servant for the sake of the relationship. And honestly, I can see that too.
I’ve seen countless comments blaming different factors, especially his sexuality, but I believe no sexual preference, gender expression, relationship dynamic, or position inherently makes someone less worthy than another person. The same goes for whether he’s dominant or submissive in a relationship. Every role in love is valid and equal.
So why does it feel like it never works with Alastor?
To me, the answer is because there’s no respect. Alastor is a character people don’t respect.
He’s always framed as the worst person in the room, always the one in the wrong, always the one who needs to be “fixed”, or merely tolerated as “broken” or “evil.”
I think this is also reflected in how many Alastor fans stayed attached to Radiodust. In Radiodust fanfics, Angel Dust was often written as someone who admired Alastor, treated him with genuine tenderness, or even saw him as a savior or simply someone worth loving. Angel Dust is a character that has good qualities, and bad ones. Alastor? Same thing. Good and bad qualities, and the good ones are the reason Angel Dust fall in love with him. That dynamic is much more rare in Alastor’s other ships.
In Radioapple, Lucifer is rarely portrayed as anything other than the divine, depressed angel who graciously “accepts” Alastor, while Alastor himself is depicted as dirty, evil, and tolerated only out of loneliness (as if Lucifer doesn’t owe him any apologies for how he treated him in the show). As if Lucifer never did anything wrong. Lucifer is automatically “the good guy,” while Alastor is automatically “the jerk.” That’s what toxic love looks like, and honestly, I think anyone would grow tired of it eventually.
Even in Radiostatic, (the ones who didn't portrayed Vox as nothing but a "broken baby" who in truth is there only to isolate and destroy Alastor as a person, fanfics who usually start with a depressed Vox who comes in the hotel, that is another trope for another rant) the same feeling remains: Vox is treated like the poor naïve victim, while Alastor is portrayed as the charming but poisonous snake. They portrayed the dinamic as if Alastor is somehow worse than Vox… (when for what we saw in canon that is far from the truth). Even there, in the end we have Vox who is so affectionate. And Alastor? what are Alastor good qualities? *cricket sounds*
This is something I've found that a lot of people found as "oh so romantic":
Person A: "how could you fall in love with a person like me?"
Person B: "I don't know, I just know that I love you"
Sorry guys but really I can't find anything romantic in an exchange like that. ❌
I firmly believe that if a person fall in love with another one, it is because the qualities of the second person have fascinated the first.
"But Alastor is described often as hot or beautiful" Oh and no, beauty didn't count. I really can't see that as a "true quality".
Remember this scene from "The swan princess"?
I'm with Roger here...
Without respect and reciprocal admiration, a relationship eventually becomes exhausting. Without respect, toxicity becomes inevitable. As long as Alastor keeps being treated as“more evil” than everyone else, instead of being judged fairly alongside characters who are constantly excused, infantilized, or romanticized despite not being that different from him, there will never be genuine respect for him. And without respect, he’ll always end up being used and reduced to a servant within ships. That is my thought.
