𓆩 𝑷𝒆𝒕𝒆 𝑫𝒊𝑵𝒖𝒏𝒛𝒊𝒐 𓆪

Pete DiNunzio's Favorite Shit
Headcanons based on their canonical personality and 90s aesthetic. Favorite movies
Pete consumes horror as if it were industrial oxygen.
Her favorite movies would be:
gore,
cheap,
uncomfortable,
violent,
and with exaggerated practical effects.
He would LOVE:
Dawn of the Dead
The Evil Dead
Re-Animator
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Night of the Living Dead
Pete is that guy who:
“He prefers a movie filmed for ten dollars with fake blood to something modern with CGI.”
It has pirated VHS tapes stacked in dangerously unstable columns.
Some of them probably aren't even usable anymore, but he refuses to throw them away because "that edition has better audio."
Favorite music:
Pete listens to heavy metal as if he's fueling an emotional nuclear reactor, or because he thinks that if it has violent or gory imagery, it's an advantage.
Bands would suit him:
thrash metal,
death metal,
punk horror,
and dirty nineties metal.
Headcanon:
sleep with music that's too loud,
knows useless facts about defunct bands,
and uses aggressive songs to relax 😭
Bands he probably idolizes:
Misfits
Slayer
Type O Negative
Black Sabbath
Favorite collections:
Pete collects glorious garbage.
Her room looks like a horror movie after an earthquake:
monster figures,
cheap masks,
torn posters,
old Fangoria magazines,
dusty comics

Pete DiNunzio's personality is practically an emotional grenade.
Canonically, Pete is one of the most aggressive and explosive members of The Eltingville Club.
General personality
Pete:
impulsive,
rude,
hyperreactive,
obsessive,
and VERY emotional although I would never admit it.
He's the kind of person who can turn a discussion about comics into a civil war in less than thirty seconds.
Although everyone in the club is toxic in their own way, Pete stands out because:
He loses patience very quickly.
He shouts a lot,
He constantly threatens people,
and takes his hobbies too seriously.
She has a volcanic temper. She literally seems to live in:
“Nobody understands true horror cinema except me.”
Obsessions and interests
Pete is obsessed with:
horror movies,
gore,
classic monsters,
zombies,
slashers,
practical effects,
metal,
and extreme geek culture.
He's probably the most passionate of the group when it comes to horror. When he talks about movies or monsters, he goes from bitter to a total fanatic in seconds.
It also has a LOT of nostalgia and elitism:
hates “mainstream” things.
criticizes other people's tastes,
and believes that his interests are superior.
How he treats others
Pete is usually:
hostile,
defensive,
competitive,
and quite verbally cruel.
He constantly insults his friends and rarely shows affection in a normal way. But within all the toxicity of the club, there is a kind of "miserable friendship" between them 😭
Sometimes he seems like the rabid dog of the group:
Bill manipulates,
Jerry complains,
Josh tries to control,
and Pete explodes first.
The more human side
Although he's often unpleasant, Pete also conveys:
insecurity,
immaturity,
frustration,
and the need to belong.
Beneath all the aggression is a teenager deeply trapped by his obsessions and emotions. Evan Dorkin wrote the club members as a satire of toxic fans, so Pete very much represents the fan who turns his tastes into obsessions.

Pete DiNunzio has a very "90s comic book store wreck" look, perfectly suited to Evan Dorkin's acerbic humor. His design feels like a stress ball with a backwards cap and one too many gory movies watched at 2 am 😈
Physical appearance
He is the shortest member of The Eltingville Club group, but also one of the most robust and visually heavy.
He has a stocky build, that is: wide, compact and somewhat rough.
He has black hair in a buzz cut (very short), although it is almost always covered by a backwards cap.
Its most distinctive features are:
the very pronounced unibrow,
big nose,
acne,
and black (headcanon) and tired eyes, slightly cloudy.
That gives him a sort of zombie-tired-high-school face that fits perfectly with his obsession with horror.
Clothing and style
Pete dresses like Hot Topic exploded inside a horror VHS tape:
horror t-shirts,
metal bands,
classic monsters,
simple jeans,
dark or sporty jackets.
She almost always wears black, gray, or muted colors. She has a very:
“Yes, I know 48 banned Italian films and nobody understands me.”
Body language
He lives in tension 😭
He has an aggressive posture, hunched shoulders, and a face that says he's three seconds away from arguing.
His expressions are exaggerated: he shouts, frowns, and shows his teeth a lot in the comics.
Although he is not muscular, he does give the impression of being physically rough because of how he moves and reacts.
Interesting details
Pete uses contact lenses, canonically.
He is Italian-American.
Its design is inspired by the typical obsessive fan of horror and metal from the 90s.
In the animated pilot of Welcome to Eltingville, it looks even more expressive and visually chaotic.

At the Eltingville club, friendship doesn't work with affection. It works with:
discussions,
humiliations,
geek competition,
and a very rare emotional dependency that neither of them would admit to.
Josh Levy:
Josh is like the "leader" of the group... even though nobody really respects him 😭
Personality
bossy,
neurotic,
controller,
and extremely obsessive about the club's rules.
He's the one who tries to organize everything:
meetings,
debates,
conventions,
games,
etc
But he always ends up yelling at someone.
Relationship with Pete
Pete and Josh argue CONSTANTLY.
Josh thinks Pete is impulsive and an idiot.
Pete thinks Josh is an unbearable nerdy dictator.
Even so, they understand each other all too well in their geeky obsessions. They're like two dogs fighting inside a comic book store.
Bill Dickey:
Bill is probably the worst morally 💀
Personality
manipulator,
arrogant,
sexist,
offensive,
and absurdly immature.
He has a morbid need to feel superior to everyone.
Relationship with Pete
Pete and Bill have a friendship based on:
insult each other,
to make fun of others,
and compete to see who knows more.
But Bill does know how to deliberately get under Pete's skin.
Many times he provokes it just to watch it explode like a microwave with a fork inside.

Jerry Stokes:
Jerry is the most pathetic of the group… and that's saying something.
Personality
insecure,
pessimistic,
whining,
socially awkward,
and quite cowardly.
He's the typical friend who:
“She panics about everything, but she keeps showing up.”
Relationship with Pete
Pete usually bothers him a lot 😭
he yells at her,
He insults him,
and loses patience with him quickly.
But oddly enough, Jerry is probably the least threatening to Pete, so sometimes he ends up tolerating him more than the others.
General group dynamics
The entire club functions as:
basically an emotional bombshell

Many people take characters like that and turn them into "misunderstood tough guys", when canonically Pete:
Yes, it is unsafe.
Yes, he is frustrated.
BUT it can also be genuinely unpleasant.
And that matters a lot in The Eltingville Club, because the work is a satire of toxic fandoms, geek elitism, and unhealthy obsession.
Things that are especially faithful to the canon
His absolute obsession
Pete doesn't have normal hobbies.
He has obsessions that consume his entire personality.
When he speaks of horror:
He gets too excited,
correct people,
He becomes aggressive,
and acts as guardian of “the authentic”.
Horror is not entertainment for him.
It's religion with fake blood and VHS tapes.
Pete is constantly trying to look tough:
shout,
threat,
insults,
acts aggressively.
But often he feels more like a frustrated teenager than someone truly intimidating.
It strongly gives the impression of:
“A person who does not know how to manage emotions except through anger.”
And that makes it strange to analyze because beneath all the toxicity:
He is immature,
validation is required.
and wants to belong to the group as much as everyone else.
geek elitism
This IS essential in Pete.
He doesn't just enjoy things.
You need to feel that your tastes:
They are more intelligent,
more authentic,
or more “real” than those of others.
If someone says:
“I like a popular movie”
Pete would probably respond as if they had insulted his entire family 😭

Pete has the energy of:
dark room with crooked posters,
smell of cold pizza,
CRT television turned on in the early hours of the morning,
and twenty VHS tapes lying on the floor.
Everything about him feels so wrong 😭😭😭😭:
messy,
intense,
noisy,
and emotionally volatile.
-He might be considered an exaggerator (the character), but it's the reality for many.