i hope it's okay to ask, i'm curious, but i'd like to know how does astereus / the starwake system have an alter based on dante break, micah's character? please correct me if there's a better way of phrasing this question. i love reading your posts about them! ❤️

Ooohhh, this is a really good question, thank you so much for asking and giving us an opportunity to talk about this topic! These alters who are based on individuals outside the system are Introjects ( specifically, Factives / factual alters are alters created after real people and Fictives / fictional alters are alters after fictional characters, although there are introject alters who can represent after abstract ideas, tropes, archetypes, etcetera, which us cluster personally call them conceptual alters or Conceptives ).

Dante Break was a character of Micah's who xe was extremely connected with since xe was fourteen, Dante being xyr most comfort and all favourite character that xe created for xyr special project, Beyond the Unknown, and even roleplayed it on social platforms during high school years, roleplaying being one of the things that strengthened xyr writing passion and dream of being a published writer when xe accepted xe couldn't take the path of becoming an astronaut due to xyr amnesia and disabilities.

It's unknown when Durante ( alternative name of the Starwaker based on Dante to avoid confusion ) came into being or if it was originally an alter fragment that wasn't fully developed who took upon the Dante Break identity, but Durante initially existed to help Micah ( as a teen while xe faced depression, derealization-depersonalization, self-hatred, and internalized ableism ), cope with the loss of xyr ultimate dream of being an astronaut while teaching xem the importance of carving xyr path in xyr own life.

As explained from our research with own personal understanding and experiences with OSDDID, It's highly common that systems have a large amount of introject alters after fictional characters who one or more alters always been attached to or become more hyperfocused on at this time. These characters are the easiest sources of joy and comfort that the brain would introject from to help the affected alter better adjust in their life with their current health state and living situation.

However, it is possible indeed that alters can be created after real people who the alter(s) know, may it be based on someone who had a significant positive impact to that alter such as a caregiver or negative like an abuser. Although keep in mind, introject alter =/= their actual source. The introject alter may relate to their source in some degree, but in the end, they are their own person who can choose to disconnect with their source or maintain their source identity for their comfort.

To add our own personal experiences, we do have several introject alters, few prominent being based on Sun and Lito ( and suspectingly Wolfgang ) from Sense8, Jang Nan-gam from A Killer Paradox, few of our original characters, we even had an alter based on the " monster tamer " character archtype when I was hyperfocused on watching Pokémon and Digimon during the summer two years ago and this alter deeply loved to explore and interact with bugs. He really loved ducks as well and would have us watch duck related videos with him.

Durante was highly active when Micah ( and Philos when fronting while Micah was unavailable ) portrayed it for the show, hearing its suggestions and comments at times, but xe only thought xe would be exhausted and slip into the Dante Break persona when xe's used to being it for xyr arts career. Durante would sometimes be co-present with Micah while xe's acting or being interviewed, which it and especially Philos were the main reasons why people came to speculate that Micah had DID.

Phoebus and Philos always knew Durante's existence, then soon Phobos, but Micah became aware some time after xe got the diagnosis on their DID, exploring their inner world in one of the first few times and met it who was loitering about.

i'd love to read more about micah's dante break character! 👀

Before we touch upon Dante Break, going over the details of Micah's arts career, xyr arts career started in 2010 after xe graduated with Arts Bachelor from the four year Performing and Visual Arts program at the USC School of Dramatic Arts.

With xyr second eldest siblings, Valentine Everlove, Micah initially took in theatre and played a large amount of leading and supporting roles in various drama productions until 2013, xe expanded xyr career into film and television. Xe often saw acting was restrictive as it's generally held with high expectations by both the audience and production teams. In 2015, wanting to have a media that Micah could have most creativity liberty while being unbounded to restrictions and expectations, xe produced a series called Beyond the Unknown, playing its unreliable narrating and morally ambiguous protagonist, Dante Break. Beyond the Unknown became popular over time, expanding upon five seasons before it completed the storyline in 2018.

Beyond the Unknown was a story that Micah had since xe was fourteen years old, fascinated with the worlds of science fiction, supernatural, and especially metafiction; Dante Break being Micah's most comfort and all favourite original character. Beyond the Unknown was about the multiverse that was falling apart from Nihils, an ancient race of eldritch beings from the Void that consumed those in their ways after breaking free from the Cosmic Order's weakening grasp. The audience plays an essential role with Dante taking them as a character, calling them the Outlooker and itself the Outsider, and they undergo a series of adventures across different areas of time and space, playing diverse themes and genres. The audience learns in the fourth season that the entire multiverse dies when the story of Beyond the Unknown concludes, making them the ultimate cause of the universal death due to them initiating and ending the existence of this universe and its story. Although Beyond the Unknown then had an interactive sequel film, Beyond the Unknown: Against the Void, where Dante Break managed to give the Audience a chance to save the universe, having one of the three endings depending on the choices that the Audience make:

The Good Ending ( everyone lives while the multiverse returns to cosmic harmony ), the Neutral Ending ( certain or every important characters dies but the multiverse can still exist, entering the state of " rebirth " ), and the Bad Ending ( everyone and everything and everywhere dies, only leaving you alive in the void forever ).

Dante Break is the childling of L'appel du Vide and Mise en Abyme, the personified Time and Space, but Dante's existence corrupted and created disturbance in the Cosmic Order, becoming an eldritch entity of time loops and liminal spaces, chaos and entropy, black holes and dark matters, the unreality itself ( being the unending cycle of creation and destruction, life and death, the Cosmos without beginning or end ). Dante Break is its mortal name as its divine name was Khaoboros, the Devourer of Chaos. Essentially, Dante is known to be God's worst nightmare and mistake.

Dante Break with its source was inspired by several medias that its creator and actor, Micah Xenowake, highly enjoyed, such as: Alan Wake, House of Leaves, and the Truman Show. In regards to existing characters, Micah took inspirations for Dante from Mephistopheles of Faust, Jack from English folklore, Atlas from Greek mythology, and several others. Beyond the Unknown explored the themes of breaking free from fate, gaining control in the narrative, and the inevitable act of loving the self and others despite it all. Micah wanted to have the protagonist who could be carelessly aware of the ultimate fate, but eventually breaking their own cycle of nihilism, they chose to do something about it rather than letting this awareness fester. Dante Break was seen to be coded with Dissociative Identity Disorder from its erratic behaviours and personality while people speculated Micah had DID, as given the interviews and behind the scenes xe's part of, although while xe never made any comments on this speculation about Dante and xemself, xe's more than content about people making headcanons on Dante's DID coded nature.

Dante Break is amoral and curious to the fault, constantly travelling between time, space, and even the universes. Despite its general associations with chaos and nihility, Dante exists as a neutral being that never takes any sides, rather is it only ever carving its own path to anything and everything that most interests and benefits it, as well as it is a cosmic outsider to discern real faults in established systems and be the force of bringing awareness to choices and their impacts. Dante excels in the arts of sorcery and trickery, engaging in them for its own curiosities and delights. Dante initially didn't care about the multiverse's approach to death, its nihilism and skepticism being the highlights of its character, but across the Beyond the Unknown storyline, with the Audience, it learnt to recognize the forms and functions of Love before it could comprehend its existence, hence, Dante was able to continue the timeline by making a grand choice that could lead the Audience to save the multiverse once and for all.