You know I was wondering if Crocodile ever did have any kind of involvement with the Revolutionary Army in secret (lest the Government finds out and revokes his Shichibukai status), what kind of involvement would that even have been
And now, with both the Vegapunk/Ohara flashback and Kuma's flashback, it's being made very clear to us that the Revolutionary Army was broke as hell 22 years ago. Like the fact that this has been brought up twice now in a relatively short span of time is interesting to me, that's usually a sign it's not an unimportant plotpoint
But you know who would have had money to help fund the Army
A funny little warlord who would eventually go and build a fucking casino to run for funsies. A warlord who had to give the Government some of his Pirating Income to keep his warlord-status
Like Crocodile hated the Government anyways so why not help fund the Revolutionary Army in secret, out of spite if for no other reason
Vaguely related, but I keep on remembering this scene (post-Enies Lobby), which at first glance just seems like a basic Lore Dump
But then there's the
"Yet..."
(Or "however", she says "no ni" in Japanese and you could translate that in many ways, I would probably have gone with "however" but that wouldn't have fit into the speechbubble)
Mind you, the conversation just kind of ends there, next we see Garp realize he probably shouldn't have mentioned Dragon infront of such a massive audience, so wherever that "yet" was going to lead to we will never find out, because Oda conveniently changed the subject before we got to it
And you know. Like yes, Robin could be just expressing her shock over finding out that the leader of the Revolutionary Army had a child with someone
But also, Robin was a part of an organization that was trying to overthrow one of the founding countries of the World Government in an explicit attempt to go against said Government (compared to like, Blackbeard, who currently wants to make Fullalead into a "pirate country" that's a part OF the World Government)
Like you don't have to be a genius to look at Crocodile's ultimate goals and compare that to what Dragon is doing and find a few similarities here and there maybe
(Also like, Crocodile's equivalent in Romancing SaGa 2 is meant to be Wagnas, the queer-coded leader of the Seven Heroes (whom the OG Shichibukai are based on) who "hoped to help the world". You know, an interesting detail and all.)
Not to mention, during the time Robin spent with Baroque Works, if Crocodile was ever in contact with the Revolutionary Army at all, considdering she has the ability to easily spy on people and that she didn't trust Crocodile one bit, it wouldn't be unsurprising if she ever spied on Crocodile and/or just overheard a phone call or knew about Crocodile having secret spending habits or something
(Mind you, I'm not saying "she knew" Crocodile was involved with the Revolutionaries, more that she might've been Suspecting Things, that "yet" being about her connecting the dots while unsure if her conclusion was right or not)
Of course Crocodile's plans can't have been Dragon Approved by any means, especially considdering the Army had been looking for Robin for over 10 years (pre-timeskip)
Four years of which were with Crocodile. Like if he was FULLY allied with the Army and KNEW they were looking for Robin, surely he would've called Dragon and been like "hey I found the kid from Ohara, wanna come hang out" or something. But no, he had bigger plans and kept Robin a secret from the Revolutionaries and the Government alike
Also like, I have seen people question why the Revolutionaries weren't involved with Alabasta's rebellion at all, and "Oda hadn't come up with the Revolutionaries yet at the time of writing" (/"OP was meant to end at Alabasta at one point so there would've been no reason to introduce the subplot at that point") aside
Between Baroque Works being a secret organization working undercover (thus the Army might not have been aware of the civil war being manufactured), the framing of the King making him look bad and very much the type of monarch that deserved to be overthrown in the Army's eyes, and Crocodile maybe lying through his teeth about what was happening in the country... Yeah, the Army's lack of involvement with Alabasta suddenly makes sense
EDIT Minor addition: Just realized that because Crocodile was technically working for the Government, if the Revs ever did send forces to participate in Alabasta's civil army and taking down the throne, the Government could've easily ordered Crocodile to step in to stop the rebellion and take down the Revolutionaries, right? Because he was supposed to be on the Government's side, right? And surely the Army wouldn't have wanted to fight against Crocodile if they were secretly allied (Croc's secret betrayal aside), and if Crocodile refused to fight the Revs the Government could've seen that as a reason to revoke his Shichibukai rights (which wouldn't be great if they wanted to keep Crocodile in a position where he could fund the Army?). So it could've also been a case of it being for the best for everyone's sake to let this one play out "naturally"
But my point is
I'm just deeply intriqued by these little details and wonder if I'm Actually Masterfully Connecting The Dots Like a True Genius or just seeing a pattern where there's none.
Like this is far from confirming the theory, I'm just saying, the pieces do kinda fit together do they not
the death grip zoro has on wado is insaneee. this scene is only a few panels in the manga and doesn't include zoro's reaction, so this was a nice detail added in by toei.
i find it interesting ? how negatively some people react to zoro's behavior / attitude regarding usopp in water 7 and think that it was genuinely detrimental to their overall relationship...? W7 saga has some of zosopp's greatest moments because zoro holds usopp accountable (at least in my opinion). like yeah he's p uncompromising, but its because he WANTS him there with everyone. he knows usopp can do and be better, so he doesn't let him get away with anything!! letting him come back without showing he's learned anything from it would be a disservice to everyone on the crew, including usopp!!!
and like. zoro's not one to just be all talk especially when it really matters. if he truly thought it was best for the crew to leave usopp behind, he would not be saying he "didn't hear anything" no matter what luffy was saying and yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hey hey its time for more @pain-in-the-butler 's Coattails fanart cause it's the fanfic and just in case any dadbastian lover on my blog for some reason hasn't started reading? I hope these may be an incentive.
glad I got these out of the way now, they were really scratching my brain! I just love really visualizing things. this was the wholesome stuff tho, so stay tuned for when I get out something... hard. eventually
also I had planned to draw one moment with Soma but I didn't get to :[ so that'll either come with whatever comes next, or... tomorrow. idk lol
now then, before I go, everyone go wish her a happy birthday!!
Thinking about IDW Optimus again and the fandom's aversion to even acknowledging he exists bc he's a cop or whatever and like. Most of the time people literally just replace him in fic with some white bread knockoff archivist/librarian, not even bothering to keep in IDW OP's personality (which just bolsters my theory that the problem isn't him being a cop the problem is that he's too multifaceted but I digress).
And it's annoying because you could totally write IDW Optimus as not a cop while still keeping his canon personality. You just have to realize that the reason IDW OP became a cop in the first place is because his formative experiences when he was young shaped him to basically have two priorities: 1. To help people and 2. To do it by being on the ground actively doing something about the bad things happening to people.
IDW OP would not be a fucking librarian or archivist because even though those are noble pursuits that can help people and change the world, and Optimus is educated/smart enough for the profession, he wouldn't be satisfied just teaching people or spreading information about activism or social-historical studies or whatever. He's a mech of action: he needs to be doing things right now, in front of him, to people he sees/interacts with in his own eyes, improving society with concrete actions rather than indirect action or abstract inspiration.
So basically the alternate job ideas I can think of for IDW Optimus are something like being a firefighter (or any first responder really) or even whatever the equivalent would be to international charity organizations, those ones that send volunteers across the world to do stuff like build housing/infrastructure or distribute food or whatnot. I mean I can't imagine that the equivalents to these things would be exactly the same in IDW Cybertron, so you'd have to get a little creative with it, but these are just some ideas of jobs that would fit IDW Optimus' personality while still filling the niche of "not a cop" for people who are just that opposed to it.
Though I think the revulsion against coptimus is annoying in general tbh because IDW is already a continuity that rejects the idea of easily defined good/evil people or groups. It feels like people really want Optimus to be a good person in a very sanitized and academically approved way, so he has to be nice and squeaky clean but also like, a perfect leftist who knows theory and holds the most progressive opinions on every single issue....
There is no room for the idea that good people join bad institutions, there's no room for the idea that the reason people think cops are good guys who help people is bc of the government propaganda everything is saturated with. Hell there's even later issues of the Optimus Prime series by John Barber where Optimus like, MULTIPLE FUCKING TIMES, is shown in flashbacks grappling with the fact that he as a cop/Zeta's regime that he works for might not actually be improving society like they say they are, and dealing with the fact that he feels more like a lesser evil compared to the Decepticons (perhaps not "lesser" at all).
It's like there's this idea in fandom of like, fictional media and opinions on media having to strictly adhere to progressive ideals at all times. So people just go "cops bad, this character is a cop, therefore they suck" without being willing to engage with the idea of like. IDW OP is born wanting to fight injustice and protect people -> a good way to protect people is to fight the people who are hurting them and committing crimes -> surely following the law is a reliable moral code to guide him in this -> becomes a cop because he's been indoctrinated into a society (much like our own) where he was told that the state/the law exist to protect the people and being a cop means you get to fight bad guys that hurt people. There's really so many interesting concepts there that could be (and CANONICALLY IS) explored about how good, well-intentioned people can be led to harmful actions simply because they have been fed the idea that the things they're doing are good/helpful/noble. Which is especially important for a character like Optimus, I think, who has a cultural icon status as The Irrefutable and Perfect Good, so it's really important actually to use IDW Optimus as an example of how even the most noble people you know have held problematic beliefs or done bad things at some point in their life. You know, because no one is born perfect and ideologically pure, and in fact society is constructed in exactly a manner to make people drink the kool-aid and believe that the systems designed to hurt them/others are just a normal, if flawed, society.
I mean the writing in IDW literally has Optimus deal directly and indirectly with the harm he's done as a cop and how people don't/didn't trust him because of that. I don't know what the fuck else this fandom wants if the source material literally saying "OP realizes that cops suck and he hurt people and earned their disdain by doing the things he did" doesn't stop them from going EW cop bastard sucks and is the worst Optimus. Like the narrative barely stops short of outright saying ACAB and Optimus himself would agree with this sentiment.
At that point, the collective fandom beef with IDW OP isn't because he's a cop and the narrative didn't do enough to condemn that. The problem is literally just that people don't read and don't care
TLDR: Consider the fact that good people can do bad things sometimes especially when living from birth in a corrupt society that thoroughly disguises its vices/oppressive structures as completely normal parts of existence
its always surreal to me to see people praise s2 of centaurworld. s2 was so spectacularly bombastic and aimless and it ended in this awkward forgettable fizzle.
i feel like a dick saying it b/c i really do love the show lmao. or, at least half of it lmao (/stares at tnwk). gf and i've been thinking about rewatching it just to write out our thoughts on why s2 was such a poor follow-up to s1 - from the tone to the setup to all the worldbuilding the narrative had to offer in between the (far more) memorable songs of s1. idk. it's sad because cw really had the bones of a cult classic, but idek if you can call it that.
ive seen a few posts commenting on its lack of popularity, and i feel like it certainly deserves more, b/c i do feel like it's a novel idea made w/ love, but the shift btwn s1 and s2 wasnt just in the plot. there was a full-on *fracture* in the quality and direction and i'm still scratching my head over it. more than i should be, probably. but, it's just a bummer.
im gonna miss xixi every day until forever, lowkey want the og timeline to be restored so that she can live
oughgh... sometimes i delude myself into thinking she can still be alive through qiao ling NOT in the sense that her powers transferred to ql (i actually hate that idea) but in the sense that her soul transferred to ql but not in the intrusive way it's like now ql has a little tianxi ai who she can talk to . for fun
there’s one on here currently and they’re bringing back up old controversy (jashshipping)
Yeaa I saw that. They also seem to post a bunch of CJ related things, so I might make the daily photos one since there isn't one for just CJ screenshots/photos
"You can only keep 20 books out of all the books you own" tag
I saw this originally on @theinquisitxor 's page. I thought I'd do my own version of their tag.
Hypothetically, you are only able to keep 20 of your books. Only one book per author/series. So what books are you keeping?
This was hard. I only picked from books I've read all the way through. This list also includes two honorable mentions (because I couldn't limit myself :/). I'll list the titles and authors at the end.
Frankenstein (1818 edition) by Mary Shelley
Mary's Monster by Lita Judge
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls by Emilie Autumn
Byron in Love by Edna O' Brien
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me by Ellen Forney
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
Female Husbands: A Trans History by Jen Manion
Persuasion by Jane Austen
My Plain Jane by Cythnia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
Literary Theory by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
(Honorable mentions)
Abigail by Magda Szabo
The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love by bell hooks (not pictured here- but I do own a copy, I just couldn't find it in time for this post).
I tag: @paperbackpropensity, @thatwritererinoriordan, @godzilla-reads, and anyone else who wants to do this! :)
Because of how long my post already is, please make a new post for your own version of the tag. Feel free to tag me back, if you want, but also credit @theinquisitxor for making the original tag.
i get people not appreciating book!isildur because the pj films largely shaped the popular conception of his character but when people who are watching rings of power complain that rop!isildur has absolutely no redeeming qualities i am truly puzzled
online school isn’t going too bad, i've only had one all-nighter so far lol. i’m really enjoying my pathophysiology class though! and my goal for this week is to get most of my assignments and quizzes done by wednesday, fingers crossed
wishing everyone a great week ✿
+ important biology lesson below
(don’t ask me how many times i've learned the cell parts for a class lol)