#by overcoming despair

[ultfan]

@ofhope sent in: I know I've only just followed you, but holy MOLY the way I !!!'d at your guidelines (in a positive way, of course)! I LOVE whenever people don't boil Komaeda down to "he's a widdle misunderstood fella"; he has SO many layers of depth to his character that you can, quite genuinely, spend days dissecting and still not fully grasp his character. It's so incredible to see that, and I'm excited to see your portrayal!!! <3

YES!!! oh i'm so glad. i will be honest i was scared about writing him for a long while because i was worried people would be disappointed/critical if i didn't align my portrayal with fanon but... i can't stand him being done dirty like that it made me so sad. he's my widdle fella but yknow in a fucked up way. "little guy" (derogatory). my "little guy" who creates an elaborate scheme to kill everyone on the island because he hates them for of something they literally don't even remember and he won't tell them about. he's so silly what the fuck is wrong with him.

i feel like every time i go in the tag komaeda is either portrayed like this 🥰😊😇😅 or this 🥴🥵😍🥺 and i'm like ??? who is that it's so strange to me. fuck baby komaeda and simp komaeda i want komaeda to be a little esoteric freak whose vibes are so rancid that you can't help but be uncomfortable around him even if he hasn't technically done anything wrong yet.

if you want snippets of my komaeda hot-takes i'm really proud of these posts: feelings on makoto, feelings on mikan, feelings on izuru, why i hate the anime.

also these ones are tiny, mostly jokey posts but they make me laugh and show off my mindset when writing him pretty well: problem causer, despair-inducing jokes, problem causer 2.0, jfc why is he so mean

[quotelr]

Tell me, who have never be knocked down by life’s circumstances? It takes grace and enough strength, to get up and begin again

Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

What If

Kinger feels guilty about Queenie's abstraction because she drove herself crazy trying to set Kinger free? What if Kinger felt so bad bc he's always had memory problems so he couldn't help her as she obsessed?

(Because his memory problems offset the trauma of a prolonged stay - and Queenie of sound mind couldn't help but count and count and count and count and cou-)

What if that's why Queenie abstracted and Kinger didn't?

[sunriseindigo]

my super awesome art from the drdt whiteboard :3

[makotonaegiunderstander]

something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.

“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”

[poetry-protest-pornography]

Well.

Having to unfollow people for posts about Israel and Palestine has started.

I just ...

Can we all try to remember that individual citizens and random Jews and Arab peoples are not responsible for the horrors committed by the Israeli government and by Hamas?

Wishing for the atrocities to stop isn't some bullshit both sides-ism. Hundreds of innocent people -- children, literal babies -- have been murdered and brutalized. It does not hurt my heart or turn my stomach any differently if I know which side of the war the people are on.

Regular people are not responsible for this war, but they are the ones suffering.

There are no sides here that matter. You're either terrified about the safety and survival of all involved, or you have some bigotry to work through, because it's not soldiers and senators that are being raped and beheaded, it's people like you and me. And if you are only able to have compassion and empathy and gut-rending sorrow and fear for one group of people in this awful situation, then you should reflect on what that means about your own humanity.

So just...

Jews are not a collective. Jewish people should not be universally condemned and attacked for the actions of the government of one country. Palestinians should not be made to answer for the actions of Hamas. No one should be living like this.

[fireflaked]

i'm going to keep getting up every day. i'm going to keep living even if the president and apparently half the country doesn't want me to. i'm going to keep positive and put out good energy every day and i will keep expecting others to. i'm going to keep fighting and laughing and loving

[thepersonalwords]

The victory over our inner self is a daily struggle. Be strong and do not give up.

Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

[kitsoa]

The Dystopia That Made Trigun

Ya'll the problem with Triguns insanely long speculative sci-fi timeline is the conundrum of trying to imagine exactly how a dystopian Earth could get so bad that massive amounts of folks needed to yeet themselves blindly into space, but could become so advanced that they single-handedly solve the energy crisis and maybe confirm the existence of god at the same time.

I am not a very skilled dystopia engineer, and there are a lot of flavors but I'd like to think the revolution of Plants on Earth has the potential to alleviate a lot of the aggregators in a full (or seemingly imminent) societal collapse. I'm struggling to work ahead of late-stage capitalism doomer scenarios right now which maybe puts me at a century out. I'm placing Trigun's timeline at 5 centuries out, But the tech advancement can pause at like 3 centuries in since 2 of those are used for space travel before the Big Fall.

So let's hash this out together

Here's what advancements Project Seeds needs to launch:

bioengineering (prosthetics and augmentations)

cloning and gene editing capabilities

cryosleep technology

advanced space travel

gravity control

supercomputing

Here's the rough and estimated environmental factors to cause them to leave Earth:

Resource scarcity

Environmental decline (like global warming and loss of land, and mass extinction)

[speculative] imminent doom from societal factors [like nuclear war and geopolitical unrest]

We know based on the society formed on No Man's Land that capitalism is probably the most familiar and default system used by the immigrants. So we can assume that Project Seeds was created with wealthy benefactors at the helm not only looking for salvation but probably power and influence (cause capitalism gonna a capitalism)-- a true colonial expansion echo despite the optimism.

The Seeds Project strikes me as unaffiliated with a specific country or culture. JuLai and some of the ambiguous ethnicities and lingering languages suggest that it's multi-cultural with English being the primary influence. So it's not a state-sponsored project, but very likely independent-- another point to the wealthy benefactor line of thought. Despite that, those shuttles alone took decades to construct and governmental cooperation to launch so it couldn't have been a completely apolitical endeavor.

Then there's the population. The project's reach is insane, not just in talent, but passenger interest. I'm assuming children were not on board, so you are talking about countless able-bodied adults abandoning their lives knowingly for the promise of a better world. The environmental factors aside, the prep-time for the project had to have been decades in the making. That's a long time to keep the propaganda circling for the promise of better. That kind of interest fades as people age into different stages of life. (Depending on the scenarios we could be looking at a mass draft? Unlikely but very interesting). We know that the survivors of the Big Fall were not specifically tailored to create a society without the comforts they were bringing along or the government of No Man's Land would look a little more stable.

So, what kind of society could form such a vast space immigration project while simultaneously on the verge of collapse?

Well, a desperate one.

The logic follows that as the resources grow scarce and the inequality gaps create vast populations of suffering among disenfranchised people-- fascism rises, which broadly stymies innovation. It's a real roadblock to this scenario. So the jumpstart out of this would be either war or a scientific breakthrough-- or both. There's always going to be interest and innovation in DNA science as a part of the medical field. Even in heavy capitalism that is going to get a lot of money thrown at it. The only thing needed to create Plants is large leaps in gene editing and cloning.

I'll throw out a number, 50 years. We've got cloning and Jurassic Park stuff. Then boom. Angel Mummy discovery. Scientists create the First Entity. But at the same time, geopolitical tensions ramp up because of the destructive potential of this entity. (I mean the First Entity has the Drain ability, that's black hole powers. We're getting wars). But the Plants are developed off of that and the First Entity is destroyed in the Julai foreshadowing lab accident many years down the line. --We've solved the energy crisis and there is probably a huge boom in advancement-- probably those physic-defying advancements to boot. But we have our militaristic flashpoint in technological prosperity, all while the earth is raining hellfire, the cities are flooding, and mass extinction events are occurring. Enough to get Trillionaires with savior complexes to start making Project Seeds.

Aaaand they are probably funding the countless wars so people join the expedition.

Conclusion: Project Seeds is a corrupt colonial project manipulating the hopeful desperation of a beleaguered population, created by the ultra-wealthy to garner absolute control in a humanity reset.

Good thing Nai crashed the ships!

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

How do I look for this post that I KNOW IS REAL (except I saw it in a half awake stupor) without looking crazy and/or reminding people of the agonies

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

I’m scared because I’ve lived my life wanting to die most of the time, and now that I don’t ...

[quotelr]

Keep trusting God. He will lead you in every step of the journey.

Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

[deancasforcutie]

On god The Winchesters already healed me so much by establishing the Akrida as not only trauma brainworms but specifically Finale Trauma made manifest (through Dean, unable to move on from his own death as the audience surrogate). After that episode left so many Empty spaces in which we could have reconstructed the writers' network-omitted narrative of empowerment like group therapy but that the cruel opportunists of fandom/hatedom instead filled with their own bullshit doubts and toxicity where there was none, this spinoff that understood the assignment shows us the peace and clarity of mind to say to that, That's not mine that's yours. I don't want it I'm not internalizing it. It's fucking disgusting getitoff getitoff getitoff 🪳😫

[lunar-wandering]

moon 2 deviates from it's course and crashes into earth and kills trump on impact. like to charge reblog to cast-

[kanene-yaaay-o-retorno]

Random au because I can't stop thinking about this:

On the doc Mike and Pac found in the prison said that if Walter Bob completed that specific task he would be free from the jail/no longer a prisoner, right? (MY memory isn't the best so maybe this is a bit wrong but that is what we have for today folks augstwfwywfrqcw)

So

What if one day he finishes the task and Cucorucho with a smile brings him to another federation building and asks him to get into a room

So

Days later Fit is asked to clean a room, no big deal, another day of honest work where he starts lurking around looking for anything that could be useful for him and his mission

And then, in another place that he isn't suppose to be, but that he got into anyway is a... something. In the corner. It's small, it's scared, maybe even trembling a little bit and tired, very tired.

It's an egg.

When he enters, it turns around to face him and Fit freezes for a second because now he can clearly read the name on top of the kid.

"Walter Bob"

Well, he isn't coming out of that building alone.

Also! For fluff purposes! Imagine he bringing him to show Pac and Mike, like, Walter Bob doesn't have the memories of Before but he can't help but feel at ease around those "strangers" and their vibrant, lively energy, especially because they seem to like be around him as well, always full of hugs and itens and new places to show around.

Ramon being a good older brother! Showing him how to explode things and being perfect to bring his more quiet and chaotic side.

The fact that before he couldn’t remember ever having a bed just the cold metal of the cell and the guards shouting and pain and experiments and cold cold cold

But now it's different! Now he has a family, people from everywhere smiling and talking to him and helping and saying strange, kind things like that their house is his as well and that if he ever ever need he could call

And then Forever reforms the NINHO to have another room and Bad calls him to chat while making his buildings and Baghera gives him a bunch of invisible potions so they can hang around listening to gossips and Philza is always chill in letting him visit and Foolish laugh and goof around like nothing could ever go wrong everytime he gets too anxious and Mike and Pac are there and...

And Richas gives him beautiful paintings to put in his room and Dapper show him all his cool animal collection and Leo take him to a train ride and Tallulah helps him to decorate his room and...

And and and

(And the hope is there, it hurts too much to bare sometimes, like it's a knife that already cut him before.

But little by little, with time, the wounds begins to heal)

[aparticularbandit]

the idea of junko losing her memories of hope's peak academy and going out into the world she created and saying, this isn't what i wanted.