dangan-radio

[dangan-radio]

Actually no. I’ve seen a lot of debate online whether Makoto or Chiaki (or Nagito, or Hajime/Izuru, or Kiibo) represent hope. And it’s.

Okay, they all represent different TYPES of hope.

Makoto is inner strength/perseverance. He is keeping hope in bad situations, seeing the world for all it’s fucked up glory, and going No. I Will Hope Despite This. He has hope in others because he has hope in himself; he acknowledges that he despairs, and thus he understands that others despair as well. And he goes… no. There is still hope despite all of this. He’s perseverance.

Chiaki’s hope is belief. Belief in others redemption, belief in their capacity to be good. She very explicitly doesn’t forgive the remnants crimes (“murder should never be forgiven”) but she does BELIEVE in their recovery. She believes you can get better, and she believes that there is hope for you always. No one is inherently bad, and if you’ve been made cruel by the world, you can change too! She is the complete opposite of Junko here, because Junko is forgiveness without hope. Junko looks at you and she goes, you’re fucked up, you’re always going to be fucked up, nothing you do can change this but I love and forgive you for it anyway. And that’s alluring! That’s why she’s dangerous! Because Chiaki’s ideology is the (more) correct one, but it’s also the harder one. You have to put effort into it. You have to try and get better. And if you don’t believe you can, that you’re even capable of it (yes you are, everyone is), then it feels pointless.

(There are many things that tie Chiaki to belief in the game. The biggest one being her speech on it during trial 3.)

Izuru is toxic hope. He is the hope HPA sought: a being with every talent, capable of changing the world. Brimming with potential for a better world. Potential he does nothing with. This is not a false hope exactly, because any hope you feel is a hope- but it’s an empty one.

Hajime… is a few things, he believes the HPA academy’s hope’s too, but he also is forgiveness with hope to contrast Junko’s forgiveness without hope. Hajime does fundamentally believe that people can change! Otherwise, he wouldn’t seek a talent at all, and would accept being a stepping stone like Nagito. Hajime wants better for himself, and he couldn’t do that without the hope of something better in the first place. That’s why Junko points to HPA taking advantage of his hopes. Because he did genuinely hope for better things, and acted to achieve that. Hajime himself is tied to forgiveness the same way as Junko is (biggest evidence being Mikan’s final FTE). He’s a person who, unlike Junko, can’t tell someone’s psyche from a glance. But he tries. He tries to get to know you, and he tries to understand you. Hajime is care without understanding and Izuru is understanding without care (seen especially in how they both approach Nagito in SDR2; Nagito’s FTEs vs chapter 0). Hajime cares about people, and he takes the time to try very hard to understand him even though it doesn’t come naturally to him. He forgives the cast and honestly sometimes excuses them to a ridiculous degree - I’m thinking specifically Mikan; her FTEs and Island Mode is like… I do think Hajime would be well within his rights to blame her - esp with island mode - but he already knows that Mikan isn’t actually like that, she’s just a product of her circumstances. If Chiaki believes that Mikan can get better and improve, Hajime believes that her true character is already kind; Chiaki believes in your potential and Hajime believes in the you he’s come to known. He’s not exactly hope, but he offers it to people; the belief that they already are better than this, and forgiveness for all their flaws.

Nagito’s hope is desperation. It’s survival. It’s a spiders thread. It’s bloody and desperate because his whole life has been, too. Nagito believes in survival of the fittest because survival is all his life has ever been. Hope mist be that, too. Because to Nagito, everything is. Everything needs to be weighed on a scale and found deserving or wanting, because that is what the world did to him. And Nagito believes in that world. He believes it can be beautiful. He believes, but it’s such a hopeless belief, because something in him does not believe he deserves happiness, and goodness, and hope itself. It isn’t for him, but for others. It isn’t for him, but it’s all he has. For all his grand ideals, hope has always been survival to Nagito Komaeda. And because he doesn't believe in people changing, in a small dog becoming a large dog, he has no hope in himself either. His hope is survival, but that isn't for him. He doesn't feel he deserve it- there's a reason he spends most of the game trying not to survive.

To go back to Makoto… he kind of embodies both belief in being better, and forgiveness for when you fall short. I wish we got more on how he felt about the remnants (there was a bit in DR3 and a bit at the end of SDR2) cause this is extrapolating a bit, but I think he kind of combines the best aspects of Hajime and Chiaki.

But you know what? None of them are hope to me. Like, thematically, Makoto and Chiaki represent it most in different ways, but the character that gave me the most hope?

Usami/Monomi.

I’m serious. Her speech right before she’s executed is the single best hope speech in DR to me. I seriously can’t think of another I like more rn. She is a big factor in why I’m even ALIVE right now, that speech gave me hope in a really dark time in my life. Usami/Monomi doesn’t get enough flowers for everything.

She’s a naive hope. A sometimes incompetent hope. But one that always clumsily tries. She failed the cast by not being able to protect them, but it was important that she tried. Even if it wasn’t appreciated, even if she was hated for it, she tried her best. She cared about them, believed in them, forgave them, and tried so so hard. And that’s hope to me.

Clumsy. Naive. Childish, at times. Incompetent at times, too.

But trying her damned hardest.

(Also- Kiibo is the hope of V3’s universe, the hope of fiction, and the hope of the killing game. His hope is explicitly the reason why DR went on so long in that universe; he’s the meta hope of the series itself. So in a way the most and least relevant hope of the series itself at once lol.)

[dangan-radio]

Drew these for fun because middle school me always wanted to make a talrnt swap au idk if ill make more lore

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more fluffy creatures

part 4 here

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cowboy komahina would be beautiful 💖

oh yeah baby (will probably post more of them)

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Everybody says that komaeda is the moon and hajime is the sun, but I think it's the other way around

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🌙🍒🖤

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gay

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I know hinata forgetting komaeda has liars disease and hinata having to pause and think hard about how many sides an octagon have are pretty memorable moments, and it was truly a dumb, short-sighted decision to go along with the kamukura project, but hinata is still like, very smart don’t forget (not to mention the octagon thing is a translation issue anyways and not what really is going on there).

He still is the one spearheading all the investigations and trials, and he has to be adept enough to actually pass through the trial. Even before the time of sdr2 and the kamukura project, he had to get in to the reserve course and keep up with his reserve course studies without the leniency afforded to the shsl students. and beyond book smarts, since he doesn't have a shsl talent clouding his perspective he has the most common sense out of anyone.

He also has social smarts and is able to get along well enough with anyone ("well enough", not "well", he is still an asshole of course). Its impressive how he can get along with all the varied personalities of sdr2, and how the basis of all his relationships comes from wanting to understand others. not to mention in nearly all his relationships he's the "straight man" to the other person's "fool"

Even with emotional intelligence, yes he can be blunt and rude and turned tail when komaeda expressed his fondness while dealing with the liars disease, but he also has countless other pleasant, mutually beneficial relationship building interactions throughout everyone's free time events and island mode dates.

Thinking about komaeda specifically, yes hinata was obtuse when komaeda had the liars disease, but that was also a high stress situation in an already high stress situation. Compare this with the ending of komaeda's island mode. Island mode, without the stress of the killing game, is a more "neutral" environment, and here it is Hinata who not only picks up on komaeda's fondness for him, but he's surprised when komaeda says he "only" wants to be friends and promises to keep trying to understand komaeda. Just because hinata is a tsundere and is hesitant to share his emotions, doesn't mean he's unaware emotionally.

[dangan-radio]

[dangan-radio]

hajime doodle jumpscare

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i miss them.....

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i practice komahinaism

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hajime hinata period cramps

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i found this scene in the game so moving i had to draw it

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color experimentation 🎨

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:D