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!”
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any particular thoughts on how number would react to delores?
Do I! Do I!
The long and short of it is that Number would fucking hate Delores. She represents too much about how bad things could have been for him and begs for self reflection, which he is not going to do.
She's an immediate shorthand to show how desperate and insane Five got living alone in the apocalypse, with the added level of that Number is also Five. Number is also confident and comfortable in his identity as aroace - been there, tried it, didn't like it, he's good to go. And now here's this alternate version of himself that not only went so far off the deep end that he made up a person to love, but he then made that fake person his wife.
We know the nuance of Five and Delores (at least through my headcanon - Five was 13 when he landed in the apocalypse and had very limited examples and vocabulary for what adult relationships are and mean to build his Person with), but Number absolutely is not going to sit down and listen. He's out, it's too close and too real and makes how close he was to being Five too much. Delores' introduction to us in the show was a real What The Fuck; her introduction to Number would be a true mindfuck. She's where he's drawing his line for Too Far.
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Hi!! Since pocketwei just recommended a bunch of your fics, I just wanted to tell you that I think you're the gold standard of dofuwani and mishanks on AO3. Actual inspiration. I need to sit down and devote a day to commenting on your fics because I've read most of them and your writing lives in my head rent free.
AOADFDUKIDUFLJ ??!!!! HOW DO I EVEN RESPOND TO THIS AAAHHA. "the gold standard" aahhadufdgu what the hell, dudedfkdufj. Thank you thank you!!
^^ Live Haze Reaction
Please don't feel like you have to leave any comments or anything, it already means the world to me that you took the time to read my writing, and be so fair and generous with it, (eyes glazing over, maniacal air) bringing it to life inside of you by considering it and letting yourself think about it (normal again), aaaahhaa it makes me so sentimental. We are alive !!!!
That said, of course, I'd be happy to hear anything you want to share in the form of a comment (getting the emaail is like a syringe to the spine for me), but don't overthink it or feel pressured to comment on everything or share in utter Platonic eloquence, blah blah. Just whatever you feel like saying, long or short, critical or flattering, observational or analytical or reactive, or even just an emoticon, it's all good!
(I suppose, too, it doesn't really matter whether you'd like to share them with me in particular--sometimes it's nice to give fixed form to your thoughts, and know they're worth that effort, so there's your explicit permission to simply use my comment sections as a medium to prove you exist, haha.)
but um. tldr. thank you! one million kisses.
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lol remember when eivor was like "i will not be captive to another man's gaudy design. my destiny is mine to weave." and then she. proceeded to be captive to a man's idea of what she should be and did not, in fact, weave her own destiny because she was too busy following the old god in her head despite having previously expressed blatant disinterest (and that's putting it mildly) in doing so. and then after finally finding safety and comfort among her people after a lifetime of scrounging and clawing for every ounce of happiness she ever got she then proceeded to die alone on the opposite side of an ocean from everyone who ever loved her and who she loved in return.
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