#putting devo la main in the blender

[ddanosaur]

devo la main has BPD: an analysis brought to you by a guy who also has BPD

listen okay it’s my personality disorder and i get to choose the fictional characters i project it onto

after relistening to ethersea i’ve come to the conclusion that devo is a BPD king (or at least exhibits a lot of BPD traits imo)

let’s first start by going over some of the diagnostic criteria that i feel devo meets:

1. fear of abandonment

it’s been explicitly stated that devo hates being left alone and with what we know about his past it tracks that a fear of abandonment would develop after a) being isolated, neglected, and abused for most of his life, and b) his mom “mysteriously disappearing” when he was 6

he probably spent a lot of his time at the cloister trying so hard to be “good” so that he would be able to get the acknowledgment and attention from his caregivers that he needed, but as we know from the interactions we see with him and guidance and orlene and the flashback, it’s likely he rarely ever got that

i’d also say that he does show signs of taking efforts to avoid abandonment, mainly in the form of pushing ppl away before they can abandon him first. the moment in benefactors folly where he’s trying to piss the others off enough to let him go alone is a big example of this imo

2. unstable relationships

i think it’s pretty obvious that devo’s interpersonal relationships are a mess. like with those in the church, with the others on the coriolis (ESPECIALLY amber), and with most of the ppl he interacts with

devo has a very special talent of pissing ppl off by simply opening his mouth for long enough. and imo i think that after guidance’s death he def split on amber after realizing she wasn’t going to be the mother figure he wanted her to be and id say also that he split on guidance too around the time he left the church

3. unstable self-image

being isolated and manipulated and raised to be a certain kind of person from a young age can do some serious damage to a developing sense of identity. devo has also said himself that he bases a lot of who he is on the anger and resentment he feels towards the church and the ppl in it

i can also see there being a lot of disconnect between his identity as devo, as devotion, and as damien cern. he doesn’t know who he is but he knows that he’s angry

4. impulsive or self-damaging behaviors

look, a mentally sane person would not use their body as a conduit to channel powerful compression magic through and into a bomb (something that is again explicitly described as an irrational action), nor would they dive into magically dark water while barely knowing how to swim

i could also see arguments for reckless spending with immediately getting into debt with felix, and i get the vibe that he has used alcohol as a maladaptive coping mechanism on more than one occasion

5. mood swings

his emotions seem to really flip on a dime esp with his anger. it does not take much for this guy to fly off the handle and imo he also exhibits intense emotions as well

6. problems with anger

this goes along with point 5 i think. devo shows a lot of trouble with controlling his anger and lashing out at ppl with little to no provocation

devo has a very explosive temper and travis even described him as being like an exposed nerve. he lashes out easily and is quick to threaten others when he feels he’s not being taken seriously

we don’t really see much that would point towards suicidal/self-harm tendencies, and i think there’s a bit of stuff for the chronic feelings of worthlessness and emptiness as well as stress-related paranoia, but in my head those do exist in him if you look deep enough. and from my list he already meets at least 5 needed for a diagnosis

another big thing about BPD that i see in devo is the very black and white thinking. he sees things very much as either black or white, right or wrong, and this gets him into a lot of conflict and confrontations with others. he has a very strong sense of justice and while it causes a lot of problems for him and the ppl he interacts with i also think it’s what drives him to do what he does and fight for others as strongly as he does

and he’s wrong a lot of the time, things aren’t that black and white and there are a lot of grey areas he has trouble seeing and it leads to so much conflict and tension which i eat up like a yummy treat

a lot of ppl with BPD (myself included) are very self aware of the problems they have and devo does definitely start to develop that awareness of him being a piece of shit and how he’s not great at his interactions with others

this is a very self-indulgent headcanon but it means a lot to me and devo has such a grip on my brain rn i just had to share this