Donovan Desmond - Tumblr Posts

As if the season 3 announcement several hours ago wasn't exciting enough, now we have one hell of a new chapter 😭

It's just one tragic event after another...Martha can't bring herself to confess to Henry (and regrets it later), her letter gets censored so she's left waiting in vain to see him, she's basically forced to join the front lines or be killed, meanwhile Henry is struggling to figure out his own feelings but then has a total breakdown when he thinks Martha's dead, gets beaten up and thrown in jail, then is coerced by his father into marrying someone else. Gosh, these two just can't catch a break 😓

But my favorite part of this chapter is young Donovan Desmond's speech. What he says here so perfectly conveys the overall conflict of Spy x Family and sets him up as the ideal antagonist.

The series has shown us over and over how people are indeed liars, but it's also shown us time and time again how amongst all the lies, mostly through the Forgers, that people can still come to understand each other. Donovan's view is one of hopelessness - that true understanding can never be attained and human beings will always wage war, and while the series doesn't downright portray this as false, it does show that there is hope...that, even though people will never stop committing atrocities, at the very least, a middle ground of peace can be found even amongst those who lie to survive.

Donovan believes that we can never know the true intentions of others because we ourselves are hiding our own true intentions...the Forgers are hiding their true intentions, but in spite of that, they've come to love and understand each other. Like Twilight said when he first met Donovan, he won't ever stop trying to understand others and will always try to meet them "in the middle" if he can. Again, this is why Donovan is shaping up to be a great "final boss" who challenges the hopeful message the series has advocated so far. Another example of how, even though this arc seemingly has nothing to do with the Forgers, Endo still ties it back to them and the story overall.

Now the question for the next chapter is...who saved Martha? Also, judging by Henry's reaction when he first sees Martha in the present time (pictured below, chapter 72 during the bus hijacking arc), it doesn't seem like he had thought she was dead at that point. So he must have found out somehow before this that she had survived.

We'll have to wait until next time to find out! Even as the series hits chapter 100, Endo isn't done with this tragic love story just yet 😅

this was a gift for hyp/jamills for the wise hq discord anniversary! :D featuring baby anyas first birthday. this was a lot of fun!;

How do those people even reach those conclusions?

Almost every thought Anya has about Damian is about how to try and be friends with him to put into action Plan B, where, when they’re friends, their dads will meet and Twilight will collect information from him or something and world peace will be secured, because that is what she understands from reading her father’s mind.

Besides, Anya is a naturally kind person who likes making friends and helping people. She does not look at someone’s status and think of it in the same way as some else might normally do, she looks for the kind of character the person has.

Although first impressions aren’t always everything, and seeing her sometimes act on that is funny, like how she initially walked away from Becky and Damian after she first read their minds.

i see comments like anya is getting close to damian because of his father and desmond status but i feel like she’s more of getting close to him for world peace and the mission that her dad, loid gives her. so i wouldn’t say anya is totally ‘using’ him for his status or whatsoever. not to say she’s so young she doesnt even understand much but she just tries her best for her dad loid just like how damian tries his best for his dad. 

This feels like the beginning of another great Yor-centric arc that connects a little more closely to the main plot. 😊

I remember reading before the cruise ship arc and based on the first couple of chapters had some expectations for Yor that fell flat somewhat as the series continued and found her to be the weakest of the 3 main characters. All 3 of the Forgers are my favorite characters in the series, but like I said, I found Yor to be the weakest character-wise of the 3.

But when I got the cruise ship arc, I loved her character a lot more and found her to be more wonderfully developed.

Just to be clear I also like/appreciated all the smaller moments beforehand that focused on Yor. I don’t mean to say that her character stayed exactly the same from her introduction chapter all the way until the cruise ship arc, anyone who has read the series can understand that, all the artful character display and development that has been happening for the main cast.

The best thing about this series is how the characters are all nuanced and don’t just fit neatly in some silly trope and that these characters are quite substantial in their own right. Some characters from the side cast I was hoping to find a little more of, but I am hoping that proper exploration and development is found in future chapters.

mission 65 is easily one of the best chapters so far, and i'm so, so glad that yor is getting the recognition and character development she deserves.

i'm all for the goofy faces and drunken shenanigans but i constantly felt like yor was always left out whilst loid and anya and even bond got to do a bunch of cool shit and be developed. the cruise ship arc was a great first step but i really hope we get to see yor come into her own, in earnest, with this newfound support network.

i really hope this sticks, because my god does yor deserve a series of connections that don't revolve around her being super strong (anya & yuri) and perfect (loid) ((or what yor thinks is required of her)).

That’s similar to what I’ve been thinking too!!!

Also it does seem like she is a nicer lady compared to her husband, and I’m glad to see she at least seemed to like Yor and was happy to befriend Yor, along with the other ladies, and this is quite an unexpected positive development in operation strix, but now that Yor has found another way to tie into the main plot (all by being her wonderful self), this is very interesting seeing this both matriarchs actually befriending each other.

Like I said, Melinda seems to be more easygoing than her family and seems nicer too, but it’ll be very interesting to see more of her character!

I get the feeling that she is a nice person, at the very least valuing Yor as a friend because she actually likes her, so I am hoping that will still be the case but I don’t know!

I am happy that this new mom group of friends that Yor has seem to actually like her and accept her even without knowing much about her beforehand to know if she’s elite or not or if she is a mother for an Eden student. Its about time she got a group of friends that are good to her as she is with everyone!

Yk people are talking about how WISE never considered getting through to Donovan with his wife who's "sociable" but there's something suspicious about her essentially disguising herself at the departmental store, Damian thinking about his father more and the extremely suspicious name of "Lady Patriots Society" and Melinda never introducing herself until the very last panel

Out of the 3 Forgers, Yor was the one who made the most good first impression to a Desmond.

I am really hoping that Yor is able to befriend Melinda and the rest of the Lady Patriots since Yor needs more friends. I don't count her catty coworkers. I do wonder what if this encounter goes south and actually puts more pressure on Loid and Anya. Melinda probably knows about Anya punching Damian and she might hold a grudge. Or maybe she heard of Loid approaching Donovan and that raised some red flags. I am sure Yor would offer a heartfelt apology since she blames herself for teaching Anya. While I hope that Yor can win Melinda over, it would be dramatic if things didn't go well (because the Forgers are an infamous family.)

SPY x FAMILY Mission: 22 to 25.

SPY x FAMILY Mission: 22 to 25.

WHAT THE FU-

Sxf most accurate character description

spy x family characters as 'whose line is it anyway?' prompts

Loid

Yor

Anya

Franky

Yuri (about Loid)

Fiona

Sylvia

Henry Henderson (Martha told me so)

Becky

Damian

Ewen

Emile

George

Bill

Melinda

Donovan

Bond

✨Bonus✨ Bondman

One little thing I love about spy is that when two characters are biologically related, Endo knows how to draw them physically similar. They don't all look the same even though it's the same style of drawing

I love 😭💖

Yor and Yuri

Melinda and Damian

Donovan and Demetrius

Even Twily and his dad

I never noticed how similar they are, the sad thing is that Twilight probably isn't aware of that because he doesn't remember his dad's face 😔

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME HE HAS SCARS AT THE SIDES OF HIS HEAD?!!!

I just feel a lot of people are quick to categorize Twilight as a good person when, in reality, he's just as much of the problem. He's not a noble man trying to care for his family, he's a spy from and enemy country trying to get close to the former prime minister in order to get information on him and give it back to his home country so that they can retaliate accordingly. It's only an assumption that Donovan is a fascist. We don't even have an idea about what caused the war in the first place or what pushed either nation into it. The only information we really get is from the enemy country or disgruntled citizens.

Twilight claims his goal is to prevent the war and stop children from having to suffer, but we are still unclear as to what that actually means. Again, ironically, he is the one who's allowing the war to continue and allowing for children to suffer. As long as WISE exists, the SSS will and vice versa. They're both at fault, and we can't decide who's good or bad based on who's telling the story. Twilight is an unreliable narrator who's resented the east since he was a child, an man who was so desperate to fight for his country he lied about his age to join the military and now is working as a spy in enemy territory.

While I doubt Endo is gonna pull a big switcheroo on us and reveal that the West was the problem all along, I do think considering that possibility makes the story far more interesting that just a good vs bad.

I love that everyone who isn’t lying about their identity has an alliteration name

Franky Franklin

Becky Blackbell

Henry Henderson

Donovan Desmond

Demetrius Desmond

Damian Desmond

Melinda… wait

To put this tin-foil hat in use, remember this scene from Spy X Family. When Murdoch Swan asked her if she prefered her old mama or her new mama.

Occam's razor suggests that her mother died and Anya is crying because she is missing her and knows she won't get her back.

Most people know the implications and the themes of this so I am going to move on to two less likely theories.

A slightly more blunt razor would bring up the theory that Anya never had a mother and that she is a test-tube baby (a theory I believe some other people brought up).

In this case, she would be crying because she never had that motherly figure and seeing other kids with their mothers makes her feel left out and missing something she never got to experience until Yor came into her life.

That scene in the first episode where the mailman gives the interview letter from Eden:

"Could you please give this to your mommy or daddy?"

"There is no mama"

"ohh- I mean sorry"

There is an expectation that she has both her mom and dad and she may have some pressure on her to be in society's expectations of a nuclear family. She might be saddened by her inability to achieve that until this moment.

The implications of this are that unlike Loid and Yor, Anya is really starting her family from scratch and has no previous of what it feels like to be in a family and have people unconditionally look after her. For the three Forgers, it would mean there would be three unique approaches to this family:

Loid would be creating his family anew after losing all of them in the war.

Yor would be starting a new family and changing her connections with her only remaining family Yuri to fit in with this new family.

Anya would be having her first permanent family after only seeing others with theirs and experiencing it in momentary bursts from her previous adopted families.

It would also solve the potential issue of Anya's mother or any of her old family members from showing up again (because they don't exist). While her mother being dead would also resolve this, here's one thing that the 'test-tube baby' origin has over it: the records of the mother before the secret organization created Anya.

If Anya had a mother before the main events of Spy X Family, how come there isn't any information alluring to her and/or that she was pregnant. (Admittedly finding this information could be interesting story for the work to go into) but for simplifying Anya's background, her not having a family that is missing or that would miss her would cut this string.

Now to bring up the tin-foil hat that I promised in the first line of this reblog.

What if these weren't tears of sadness but rather of fear.

What if the few memories of her mother were so terrifying and so horrific that it caused this reaction.

Now admittedly this is a stretch with a lot of holes if you did managed to fit this over Anya's backstory. The issues that this theory resolves, the other theories seem to resolve a lot easier.

Why Anya doesn't talk about her old family: while this theory suggests she doesn't think about them because she scared of them, the other theories have simpler explanations of 'because they're dead' or 'because they don't exist'.

What if Anya's old family shows up: While the other theories have 'because they physically can't', this theory has a potential story between the family you make and the family you're related to but Damian Desmond can be easily fit onto that track.

Why Anya hones in on a spy and an assassin for parents: she was starved for entertainment from facility that made her do tests instead of play explains this but her biological family being so terrible that a spy and an assassin are somehow improvements also explains this (it explains it worse but it explains it).

This path would bring up familial abuse as a theme. While we have the Desmonds with parental neglect as abuse and Loid's biological father hitting him in an incorrect way of teaching him lessons, the story does not have physical abuse that has completely selfish reasons behind it. But does this story need that?

Donovan Desmond already ignores his son Damian as he thinks has no use for him and gives him little to no attention. Damian, as a result, is willing to stave off sleep in the episode 'Damian's Field Research' in an attempt to get more academically ahead so that his father notices him again.

Do we need an example where this dangling of a carrot from the abuser is more deliberate?

Should the Desmond family be the only bad family dynamic that is focused on?

Another path the series hasn't tread yet is excessive love to the point of unhealthy possession.

While there is Yuri Briar, Yuri respects his sister enough for her to make her own decisons and has learned to respect Loid enough to leave him alone at the moment.

Fiona Frost might be obsessed with Twilight and has tried to haress Yor out of being his wife, she hasn't directly forced Loid to divorce his wife and still greatly respects Twilight's decisions either though she might disagree with them (like at the end of the 'Wheeler' arc where Loid gives his reasoning for sparing Yuri).

The work does not yet someone yet have someone control somebody because they can't stand the idea of them operating in a way they don't like. Anya's old family being possessive to the point of harm would cover it but should the work showcase why this isn't true love?

I am not saying this is a likely theory, Endo is unlikely to go down this path and more likely pick one of the other two, but it might be something to think about and see how it affects the subjects of Spy X Family.

The Opposite of Occam's Razor

The current definition of Occam's Razor is 'The simplest answer is the most likely'.

So is there anything that means 'This convoluted, complicated, unlikely and far-reaching answer is actually correct'?

As many people have pointed out already in chapter 106, the Forgers—a fake family—act more authentic than the Desmonds—the actual family.

But really…the Desmonds aren’t a “real” family, not to me. Not in a way that matters...

SxF is really good at showing relationship dynamics and how blood doesn’t always make a family. This is so true now that you read chapter 106 and compare the Desmonds and their interactions to the Forgers and how they act with one another.

With the Desmonds, there is no warmth shown in how they interact. I'd say there's barely any love either (we know Melinda does care for Damian despite the conflicting thoughts, but it seems she's not allowed to show it). Damian tries to form connections but no one in the family is receptive of it. The parents have a hands-off parenting style. The older brother keeps to himself and doesn’t open himself up. Damian literally finds more affection in his dog and butler than his actual family and that’s so heartbreaking!

The Desmonds may be a family in all sense and purposes, but they don't present in a way that all families are meant to.

On the other side are the Forgers. Loid and Yor married for convenience. Anya is adopted. They’re only together because of Anya due to her mind reading abilities. It’s all a sham for WISE’s mission and to lower suspicion from the secret police.

But despite the intentions behind forming this persona of a perfect family unit…you can tell that there is a genuity to their relationship with one another. You see love, care, emotion, respect, and protectiveness. The family may be fake but the feelings they exhibit are so real despite the motives not exactly being pure. Loid, Yor, and Anya experiencing life together led to them forming bonds that they cherish. They Forgers managed to create a warm place they can comfortably call home.

idk I just find it so fascinating to see how a family brought together for convenience and ulterior motives can develop true familial bonds compared to an “official” and “real” family. I want to write a thesis paper about it lmao

I do wonder what the future holds for the Desmonds. In Damian's case, I hope he and Anya can grow more together so she can show him what a real loving family is. If Donovan really is as evil as the narrative is making him out to be, my hope is that he can be taken out of the picture so the rest of the family can heal from their respective traumas, then grow back together on what little familial love is left over. But we'll just have to wait and see when it comes to that...

Donovan sure trained Demetrius well in the art of being inhumanely perfect and polite.

Also,

Demetrius: (Drinks steaks sauce to ensure a clean plate)

Damian: (too scared to speak)

Melinda: (twitching to leave)

Donovan: ...

Donovan: what a great evening with the family!

I read chapter 106 of Spy x Family again and uhhh… guys? I don’t think the Desmond family had soup with their dinner. Look:

That looks like steak with some kind of steak sauce (maybe it’s a gravy) and some veggies on the side. But look who’s sipping on his spoon during a tense moment.

Demetrius… are you fucking drinking your steak sauce? You can’t even see any sauce when Donovan excuses him. See?

Side note: Melinda, there are children starving in Ostania. Take some tips from your firstborn and clear your plate.

But back to the topic at hand. Did Demetrius drink his steak sauce to clear his plate? Kiddo, when people say clear your plate, most of the time, they mean finish your vegetables. You didn’t have to drink your steak sauce to get out of the Ostania’s most uncomfortable dinner party. I’m begging you please

Average family games:

The person who makes others uncomfortable wins!

Donovan wants to be undefeated in this game

IT HURTS!!! IT HURTS SO MUCH

He received one sentence. He passed the dinner in fear of saying anything. His father gave him 1 sentence, and it made his day.