#so despairing!

[aphel1on]

i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good

#getou suguru #kaneki ken #abyss twin #i know there are others who im not thinking of rn #feel free to reblog with more examples #aphelion.txt #tropes #WAIT I REMEMBERED MORE #jaina proudmoore #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #phosphophyllite #i just spent like half an hour trying to find this on tv tropes but it must be. Too specific of a thing i have in mind bc #I just kept finding similar and related but too broad categories #despair event horizon. fallen hero. well intentioned extremist. etc etc etc #like specifically i'm talking about when the character's EMPATHY is the CRUX of the problem. sosooo crunchyjuicytasty #edit: #also just know that i am reading every tag on this post #and enthusiastically scribbling down the names i dont recognizr #so i can check out their series later #edit 2 wow this post blew up 🫡 godspeed fellow villain likers #the amount of people tagging this as 'me lmao' is concerning to me #wwx #how did i fucking forget this was also yllz era wwx

[blueboyluca]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

#dog books #this chapter was very sad reading #when you become aware of punishment #and its use and its prevalence #it's hard not to despair #again this is why positive reinforcement feels like absolution #maybe now my eyes are open I can make up for what I did #what I did because it's what everyone does #because it's more acceptable to punish than to do anything else #I've been having so many thoughts about punishment and society and justice #this book was very validating #another great validating moment in my jumbled thoughts #was listening to the You're Wrong About episode on justice #with Amanda Knox #it helped to ease the despair a little

[guardian-of-soho]

The more I think about the last minutes the more I’m sure Crowley was saying goodbye from the minute Aziraphale told him he’d said yes to Heaven. He doesn’t confess his love like he’s hopeful, he confesses it like a eulogy. He doesn’t kiss him to make a beginning, he kisses him to seal the end. He watches him go like it’s the last time.

Crowley knows Heaven. He knows they’ll want to either make Aziraphale just like them, or destroy him. Either way I think he believes he’s seen his angel for the last time.

#‘nothing lasts forever’ #‘no I don’t suppose it does’ #that look on his face is despair #to be clear I know this won’t end like this #but he doesn’t #he’s spent six thousand years keeping a little space for them both #he doesn’t know what Aziraphale can do without him #(neither does Aziraphale) #(maybe they need to learn) #(maybe he’ll find he has more help than he thinks) #(if Gabriel and Muriel were so ready to leave who else up there is questioning?) #good omens 2 #good omens #a/c

[circuscountdowns]

inspired by how I do not let my 27ish followers be dead for longer than a ritual cooldown :) (and now I have so many immortal necklaces and egg yolks???? forever cult forever and ever)

#cult of the lamb #narilamb #Uh oh narinder are you going to promise the abandonment issues lamb to be by their side through thick and thin? #In my head this is in the timeline before the other bishops are brought in so their relationship is. Well. I could go on 4ever bout it. #Also somewhere in Darkwood Aym and baal shudder in despair #cotl art

[mickedy]

Professor walked up to the chalkboard mid lecture wrote this down and then went back to lecturing

#its a literature analysis class so. Typical #Madness and Despair. i get it

[mishiami]

learning to see the demon prodigy as a person and a friend

#lyrics are from lemon boy - cavetown #i listened to the song and fell to the ground in despair but its so them #my art #bsd #bungou stray dogs #soukoku #skk #chuuya nakahara #dazai osamu

[foe-paw]

YOU THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD OUTSMART THE VERY THING THAT RUNS THE BLOOD OF YOUR KIND?

#starkid #black friday #team starkid #hatchetfield #uncle wiley #wilbur cross #foe art #my brain disease re. this weasel guy in full denim continues #in Mine own headcanon he was very similar to john mcnamara when he entered the portal - a strongly moral person and a patriot #but wiggly manages to establish that the only way for wilbur to get what he wants (to help his country even though it is sick and militaris #and poisoned with consumerism and the chase for money above all else- #(wilbur cross is an anticapitalist is what i'm saying) #anyways yeah. wiggly sells despair and wrath and convinces him that the Only Way to save the world is through wiggly's ways! #no hope otherwise! #so....... why not become a comically evil double-crossing full-denim satan archetype! #also fun fact it took me two whole watches of black friday before realizing wiley wasn't meant to be literally satan #he's only figuratively satan! #the anticapitalist activist we deserve :]

[bleepzip]

the. them. its the

#meme redraw B) #theyre so. crushes them into a pink paste #my art #komahina #nagito komaeda #hajime hinata #nagito #hajime #hinata hajime #komaeda nagito #sdr2 #danganronpa goodbye despair #danganronpa #danganronpa fanart

[kittykatthetacodemon]

I too want to be so gay and in love that my relationship is part of an “institutional problem” and the actual Metatron, Voice of God, has to come down from heaven on high to stealth break us up because the miracles we do together are too strong. Power couple

#good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable husbands #in the last hour since finishing the show I have swung so wildly from despair to rock hard and very amused optimism #these two are canonically the most intelligent and competent idiots to have ever failed to achieve literally anything #and everything always ends up alright for them in the end #so. everything is gonna be fine. and I’m going to watch and eat popcorn and point and laugh at heaven and hell #for thinking they can outwit these nitwits

[crismakesstuff]

cast out of paradise

#please see my vision here #PLEASE #sorry for injecting my catholic trauma into the silly superhero show guys I can’t help it #the fallen angel #invincible #invincible show #invincible fanart #omni man #omniman #nolan grayson #mark grayson #debbie grayson #crismakesstuff #the original painting ‘the fallen angel’ is just SO HIM #the grief the despair and anger about his own choices #ITS NOLAN! #ok but if you guys let me ramble if I had to assign biblical roles to the graysons #i can see nolan as god himself (or lucifer but more so god tbh) debbie is mother mary and mark is jesus #the whole ‘lamb of god’ motif just fits mark wayyyy too well #also I saw someone make art of debbie and mark as ‘la pietà’ and I’ve been a changed person since #AGAIN SORRY FOR THROWING CATHOLIC IMAGERY AT THE SUPERHERO SHOW #this is how my brain wants to cope w it ig ;-; #catholic imagery

[kiwibongos]

some redraws c:

#so many of the cutscene illustrations were SO ugly im sorry #the clock scene didnt even match the rooms lighting like it should #and gundham was a fucking stick #anyway #bongo art #danganronpa #danganronpa v2 #danganronpa v2 goodbye despair #sdr2 #danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 killing harmony #kokichi oma #kokichi ouma #fuyuhiko kuzuryu #gundham tanaka #kazuichi soda #kazuichi souda #nagito komaeda #art #digital art #screenshot redraw

[guardian-of-soho]

Aziraphale is a guardian.

We left him at the end of s1 with the knowledge that apocalypse was still coming. He'd saved the world for that day, but Heaven was still bent on destroying it. The ones with the power to burn everything were still inescapably loveless. It really looked like he and Crowley alone of all the Earth-walking beings would fight for the world.

And he loves the world so much. The opening scenes of him in the record shop, buying his Shostakovich 78s? The warmth toward Maggie and her music and her heart? The generosity, and the delight in the shared understanding, and the pleasure in the discovery that he could make her life better? That he could spare her pain, give her a little more time with her joys? He knows how fragile those are.

He wants to give that to the whole world.

He wants to believe he can lift the doom hanging over them all, banish it permanently. He is desperate to believe it. Even if he wasn't longing so fervently to be seen, approved, affirmed by God's word (I was so undone by his jealousy as he watched Job speak to her) -- even without that I can't imagine him not wavering at Heaven's offer, faced with the chance that he could use all Heaven's might to guard the world again and get it right this time.

And then he's offered that power with apparent warmth, and feigned approval, and the shameless claim that at last they understand. They hear what he's been trying desperately to tell them as long as he's lived in the world. They're telling him that he's finally made his point -- that they are proud he's tried so hard for so long.

So -- the ending is shattering. It is maddening. It's utterly unfair on Crowley. And I didn't see it coming, and yet.

Aziraphale is a guardian. He really will have to see for himself that power won't love what's good; there is no way to make the world safe forever.

#crowley already knows it #has known it for ages #has fed off aziraphale's hopefulness and tenderness and love for as long #to keep himself out of despair #if aziraphale can make it through whatever disillusionment comes next with his courage and his tenderness intact #it will be so much more sure #he'll have so much more to give crowley #but even if it shatters i know crowley will hold it all to give back to him #they keep each other soft in the end #jkafdkjlfdsakl;fd;lak;dalfkjj; i'm helpless to the radiance of their goodness to each other #aaaanyway them's my first thoughts #good omens 2 #good omens #go s2 #good omens s2

[unsalve]

baldur's gate 3 + @screenshotsofdespair

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 astarion #astarion #halsin #bg3 gale #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #lae'zel #karlach #shadowheart #bg3 halsin #bg3 raphael #raphael #bg3 emperor #haarlep #the emperor #screenshots of despair #idk how to even tag this #continuing this since i had so much fun with the witcher 3 ones #* mine #unsalve

[spooksier]

everybody's favorite civil servants

☆ prints | patreon | comics ☆

#art zone #fanart #magprotocol #tmagp #alice dyer #samama khalid #THE BESTIES EVER! #i really do love these two im so excited to see them in a fit of despair 👍 #the magnus protocol

[arunneronthird]

i survived thanks to your mercy

#hmm i have no idea what i did but i think it looks rather nice #i wanted to draw this scene so desperately #the despair really hit me #one piece #roronoa zoro #my art

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 198

Now Bruce was not expecting to reincarnate upon his death. At least he thinks he died, he’s pretty sure he did. There wasn’t any other reason for him to be a well, literal baby. Around two he thinks, which fits well with the fact that it’s around that time that babies start forming memory recall, if he, well, remembered correctly. 

But while he knew about reincarnation thanks to Shayera and Carter, he’d never exactly given it much thought towards himself. Because seriously, what were the chances of such a thing as him being given another chance? 

So he was quite surprised at his situation, experimentally opening and closing pudgy hands that looked well, just a tiny bit off. He’d never been that pale before, he thinks, even back when he never went outside like, ever. 

He turned his gaze towards the mobile above him with a sort of idle curiosity- a mixture of bats (ha) and other trinkets he wasn’t familiar with. It also caused him to get his first good look at his parent, asleep on a rocking chair right next to the crib. 

Huh. They had the same pale skin he did, albeit in the light it looked like it was slightly tinted blue, and while their hair was white they didn’t exactly look old. They looked surprisingly well rested for raising a toddler too, unless they had a nanny or something similar… He rolled over, managing to very shakily push himself to his feet with the help of the crib. 

Why was standing so hard as a toddler? And why did he have his memories of everything except how he had died anyway? 

His head whipped up from where they were staring at his feet when he heard a snort, finding his parent awake and standing. Somehow silently enough that he hadn’t noticed- or he was that easily distracted by the unfamiliar giddiness bursting in his chest. 

“Morning little bat,” his parent easily picked him up and held him while he inwardly sighed at the nickname. Of course his bat motif would follow him into this life. A low rumbling almost caused him to jump, his body relaxing before he could fully register the sound. The… purring? 

Oh. 

He wasn’t human this time around. 

#Dcxdp #Dpxdc #Prompts #Vlad is a young-adult dad to a reincarnated Bruce #After the hospital he drowned his despair/distress in any way he could & ended up with a baby boy #Bruce’s main suspected species of what they were was vampire before the ghost reveal lol #Bruce can’t say shit about Vlad’s thievery but he has the most judging expression for a toddler #Then he also sees his new dad develop and try to figure out powers #Vlad was terrified to pick him up when he first discovered his ghost fire #Yes this very much changes Vlad’s relationship with Danny #The reunion has 14 year old Danny meet a Very Smart 8 year old Bruce #Yes Bruce clocks teenage vigilante instantly #And look he Would try to get Vlad to stop the possession shit but as long as it’s actual assholes he can’t exactly judge #He blackmailed SO many people in his past life… he's trying Not to be a hypocrite here #Why yes Bruce IS very liminal from having a half-ghost dad #Vlad panicked more than he did when his fangs came in (Bruce has made a file about both himself & everyone he meets) #Just because he’s now baby doesn’t mean he’s no longer Bruce #At some point someone from his world might find their way to this one but that would be a very long time in the future lol #Vlad (unaware of his core being able to feel his ghostling’s big emotions): Wow raising a child is surprisingly easy