AUGH I’d love to see more time looping odile if possible,,,,, how do you think she’d like; “devolve” over each of the acts as compared to Siffrin over time :O
ok im gonna be honest i did like portrait edits months ago and just never finished them. so here you go
I WANT SOMEONE TO TAKE THIS SOUL. I CAN'T BEAR TO KEEP IT. I'D GIVE IT JUST TO GIVE. AND ALL I WILL TAKE ARE THE CONSEQUENCES. WILL SOMEBODY TAKE THIS SOUL? then, of course, nothing replied, nothing speaks to you in the night. and i walked my way home, there was no one in sight. save a bird, watching me. so i stopped and let it watch until i found it had said, now i'm taken, the night has me. you won't hear me singing. you're a cage without me. your pain is eased but you'll never be free, for now i'm taken, the night has me.
I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.
I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.
The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...
Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.
I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.
And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?
It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.
To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.
In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.
Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.
So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.
What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.
Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?
You're so real for still being a Danganronpa fan on 2024. Like, right now I was just scrolling throw my archive, and I see a fanart of danganronpa that I reposted like 2-3 years ago made by you, and I was like, DAMN, you still on that? Dope as fck.
Hope I don't sound to rude, I was just really excited about it.
well. I dunno man it's out of my hands! I like my little corner, people are nice and I have fun.
Why is every Ever After High redesigner an Apple hater. I just wanna watch some interpretations of the plot and some cute new designs, I didn't come here to hear u complaing abt Apple for 30 minutes.
What Deku doesn't understand is that the “League of Villains” encapsulates exactly who Tenko - the Crying Child Deku was so adamant about saving - is. He thinks reaching out a hand, smashing that hatred, and saving Tenko means getting Tenko to abandon the League. He is completely wrong - and he would've realized this if he just talked to Shigaraki in all the time he fought against Shigaraki. And listened to what Tenko said in Chapter 418.
The League of Villains is the group Shigaraki Tomura created in order to wreck shit and kill All Might and bring down Hero Society. Shigaraki picked the name and picked the purpose and picked its members and he leads them towards the apocalypse—
—and this is also the group of outcasts that are his comrades and friends; that he gathered and created a place for, where they can be themselves in a society that ruthlessly denied them that. He accepted Twice without care for his insanity and inability to use his quirk, never pushed Twice to do more than he was able to. He accepted Spinner despite being a Stain fanboy and having a weak, nearly useless quirk, and promised him the destruction of the world that hurt him; for all of League. When Toga was pushed by the other members to choose a Villain name despite wanting to live as herself, as Toga Himiko, Shigaraki spoke up in indirect defense of her choice, providing himself as an example of someone who didn't use a Villain name, and who can override the boss' words? Dabi was allowed to come and go as he pleased, and although he was the most aloof member, by the end, he was declaring the world burn for "our" sake - plural; the League's. Mr. Compress believed in Shigaraki enough to entrust an ancestor's dream and family legacy to him; when surrounded by Heroes at Jaku, he was willing to die to save Shigaraki, to let him escape.
The League is a collection of people that Shigaraki cares for - that he saved. That was always the surest sign that ‘Tenko’, sweet and kind and hero-aspiring boy, was alive inside.
Without the League, without having seen the time Shigaraki spent with the League, a reader can just write off Shigaraki and say there’s nothing left in there worth saving. The League is literally the evidence for Tenko have still existed and that Shigaraki was "worth" saving, long before we ever saw ‘Inner Tenko’.
But Deku doesn't understand that.
To go further: outside of the League, Shigaraki still had his distorted but undeniable kindness and fairness. I've spoke about it before, and sorry for repeating myself, but even towards his Villain enemies, he gives them consideration: Shigaraki left Overhaul crippled, but 100 chapters later, he's still continuing Overhaul's work - the quirk erasing bullets - and even laments that Overhaul would be disappointed when Shigaraki sees some of the bullets destroyed. All For One at Jaku tries to take over his body, at the time seemingly only a phantom voice in his head, but Shigaraki still acknowledges that he's grateful AFO took him in. It's only when AFO oversteps that again and again, taking possession of his body, that Shigaraki would tear the AFO vestige from inside out and mock him when the opportunity arises.
And there's ReDestro, and the importance of the ending of MVA. RD and his army picks a fight with Shigaraki - something that Shigaraki explicitly points out; the blame for what happened to Deika is on largely them. RD challenged Shigaraki and the League; blackmailed them, kidnapped their broker, and attacked their pitiful 6-member team with a town-sized militia; insulted Shigaraki, destroyed The Hands, tried to kill him. Shigaraki had every reason to just dust RD while the man was sitting there bleeding out with his legs cut off. Just finish him off without even giving the guy last words. It was more than fair.
But Shigaraki didn't. He went and talked to RD. To mock him for picking this fight, but it was still a talk. And when RD acknowledge his defeat and kowtowed, Shigaraki let him live. Took over his army and resources, but RD was still alive and even made lieutenant.
Without this - if Shigaraki had just dusted RD after defeating him - we would have only seen Shigaraki as a conquerer and not someone who can be reasoned with. He would just be AFO with different minions. And Shigaraki wasn't.
He can be brutal, and he seems like he's destroying for evil fun; but Shigaraki has his compassion and justice. A Villainous Hero for the Villains. It's why he destroys; it's why he doesn't regret his actions, why he wishes good luck to Deku to continue it, even after Deku smashed his core of anger and hatred. Shigaraki saved his League, and he refuses to disavow doing so. Because he shouldn't.
Daniel and Armand spent four years meeting up and having long, intense conversations about philosophy, culture, and history before they officially got together.
They had a very active social life and seemed to spend several years doing a wide variety of interesting activities together.
Daniel mentions how he grew increasingly bitter over the years. Things between him and Armand fell apart due to Armand not being willing to turn Daniel.
Daniel is free to leave at any time. Armand won't try to chase Daniel down if Daniel doesn't want to be there.
Daniel's alcoholism spirals out of control when he isn't with Armand. Daniel has been on the verge of death because of his alcoholism multiple times prior to this chapter.
"I decided it's my break day today,
Oh coincidentally, I'm gonna sit here, and watch you work."
also it's too cute how Nemo just came run at me whenever i sat on a bench
tbh i’m rlly excited for the tripolar fukuchi showdown. you people aren't real sskk believers i think they can clutch it without chuuya/dazai/verlaine/whichever overpowered character stepping in to carry the fight
before i proceed, this is not a hate post!!! i am just saying things
i need people to understand that part of shinichiro's "charm" and appeal as a character, is that he isn't as good as people pointed him out to be. he's not the best person in the world. he isn't an "uwu" goody two shoes. he's pretty flawed and kinda selfish sometimes. he has good intentions ofc, but most of the time, they fall flat because of the outcome. and before people argue with me, lemme pull out some receipts
sano shinichiro has:
told haruchiyo to forgive mikey for uh *checks notes* mutilating his face
said "that's just how he is" in reference to haruchiyo swinging a katana at people and ending up in jail because of it
disregarded haruchiyo's mental health when it came to time leaping and made him shoulder the burden of his demented younger brother (😭)
gave an 8 year old time leaping powers because he had good vibes
murdered someone
let's stop pretending he didn't do anything wrong. love shinichiro for who he is!! a huge fucking idiot who has no foresight. with a really big heart, that is slightly compromised. because he's probably a traumatized kid. not like he had to raise his younger siblings with no support or anything. his mom died and his dad was a fucking hoe, then he died without ever being present in his life. the guy had it rough which in turn made him a little rough. i don't understand how you can like a character by fabricating facts about them and denying the actual...facts. i hate some of the things that shin has done, but i still love him. i am a true shin fan because i accept that he's fucking great and an inspiration to so many people but he's also kinda awful a bit <33.
(this post was inspired by a post @chaoticdelinqueerwithglitter made but idk how to link things!!! so check out their blog :))
art trade with the endlessly amazing @all-alone-in-the-moonlight! seriously this was an unbelievable amount of fun, and i am Dying In Real Life over how much i LOVE the piece i got in return! PLEASE go check it out over on their page cuz it is so so beautiful and adorable and silly and they absolutely killed it <333
Idk who needs to hear this but human empathy is good, actually. Empathy is not some kind of gift we only reserve to Good Deserving People and withhold from Bad People We Don't Like. It's so deeply ingrained that it comes naturally for most people and that is good. If it means having empathy for people who wouldn't feel any for me, you know what, I'll take it.
You can feel human empathy for thousands of desperate migrants who keep sinking off the European coasts and for a handful of rich guys who may have slowly suffocated to death in total darkness because they were stupid enough to spend 250k each to get themselves into a death trap and plunge down to the world's most famous shipwreck.
Empathy is the ability to understand what they went through and how they must have felt. It has nothing to do with moral judgment, or condoning actions, or wanting to leap at anyone's defense - let alone with mourning them. And it can suck, to feel some empathy even for someone you hate. It absolutely does.
But I hope I'll never see the day where I won't at least flinch, for a brief moment, before any kind of human suffering.