defending lucy carlyle on the internet isn’t enough i need a gun.

made peanut butter cookie dough at 1 am and had some epiphanies about one piece and its women.

yknow, before i had finally picked it up i had seen a few posts floating around sharing screenshots of some of the women's designs essentially being like "lol look at how sexist this series is theyre all super busty and have tiny waists and huge hips and are literally clones of each other i cannot believe anybody says this series is good" and i had taken them at their word. i remember talking to a friend of mine whose been into op for several years now and i said, "i know op is really good or whatever but . the women . the women."

and y'know, its not like those posts came to any conclusion i wouldn't have. usually when people design all their female characters like that its uh, its bad. and the gender ratio isnt honestly very good either, lets be real, but. all things considered, one piece treats its female characters quite well, especially in comparison to other shounen.

like even the fanservice is extremely mild - i cant speak for the anime because i havent watched it, but as far as the manga goes, like, yeah we have gratuitous bath scenes but unironically name 5 shounens off the top of your head that dont. there arent any panty shots or groping scenes and even sanji who people will complain about now is. honestly quite mild especially considering this is a 20+ year old series that is the best selling manga of all time. is it good and should we have to deal with this at all? no, but also its like. ok welcome to shounen lol

people who know like nothing about the series like to write the whole thing off as sexist but i would honestly argue that one piece treats its female characters narratively quite well. i mean even in shounen that are typically lauded as feminist and progressive like fullmetal alchemist, how important to the plot are the women, really? like mei and winry are, hawkeye and olivier kind of, you could probably count izumi, and trisha doesnt count because shes the dead mom. and, like, 80% of hawkeyes life revolves are mustang exclusively. i love fma so so very much and it is definitely like One of The Most Pieces of Media, Ever that i will always 1000% recommend and the female characters are Really Really Good, do Not get me wrong, but there is something quite funny to me that the same people who will call op sexist and irredeemable also love fma. and god forbid you bring up a series like demon slayer where the one actually relevant female character could be replaced with an inanimate object for all she actually does.

in contrast, one piece's women are completely and entirely crucial to the plot. without nami, zoro and luffy literally wouldve gotten Nowhere and sanji never wouldve joined the crew and also they wouldve been completely dead so many times over, extremely, and wouldnt have gone to drum island and picked up chopper. without kaya they all definitely wouldve died attempting to go into grand line. without vivi they wouldve been stuck on little garden for a year, assuming they survived, and never wouldve picked up robin. without robin luffy wouldve died and they wouldnt have made it to skypeia or completely brought down enies lobby, declaring war on the world gov, and also literally luffy would be completely unable to make it to laugh tale. without conis like everybody at skypeia would be extremely dead and also probably the straw hats too. and these are just the immediate effects on the plot for just a few of the female characters, let alone all of them and long reaching effects. i dont have time to like sit here and list everything but tldr the women and the choices and decisions that they make throughout the course of the story, not just flashbacks and things done in the past, have huge ramifications for the plot. theyre crucial you literally cannot take out the women from one piece because the story just wont make sense.

and not even just that because the women are actually characters. in a lot of series the author is afraid to give the women flaws because it might be construed as sexist or theyre just extremely lazy writers so they take the easiest possible route of creating what is essentially a cardboard box with the shape of a woman and duct taping either "nice :)" or "hash tag girled boss" onto it and calling it a day. typically all their dreams and aspirations (if the author has been so kind to bestow one or two upon them at all) are directly surrounding their male companions. with one piece the women are actually characters. they have fully fleshed out personalities with flaws and dreams and aspirations that do not revolve around the men in their lives. like there are some, yes, but also like zoro's entire thing was completely kickstarted by kuina, a girl who he could not beat, so like . equality.

and im definitely not saying that the women are perfect because. they are not lol we dont have nearly enough like absolutely stone cold female villains or women who can go toe to toe with relevant male characters and their fights dont get nearly enough focus and so on and so forth, but for all the complaining that non one piece fans do about the female characters theyre actually handled quite well like the least you could do is read a plot summary lol

and sidetracking mildly but it is also very nice to see the male characters do things that are typically perceived as "feminine" and have that be a normal and even good thing to do. like people have talked about it before but in one piece like. everybody cries. its not just the women its not just the young boys its everybody. its good and its encouraged and its ugly crying !!! these arent pretty tears !!!

and even more than that i think is really with sanji recently where after so long where he's taken on his burdens and tried to deal with them on his own and by himself, it is a huge moment of character development for him to finally ask for help. tenfold because he is part of the main power trio, very much the strongest characters in the entire crew. him finally realizing he cant deal with everything by himself and he has friends who love him and he can rely on to take some of that off his shoulders is not supposed to be a moment of weakness, its a moment of strength! we're supposed to be cheering him on! and not even just that - when he asks for help, hes not asking for the help of the other men in the power trio, he's asking for robin!!! a woman !!!!

tl;dr

An Excerpt From An Interview

A lot of readers had a meltdown over The Darkling’s fate.

"That really doesn’t bother me. Occasionally I would get a tweet from somebody who’s like, ‘How come Alina and The Darkling didn’t end up together?’ I’m all for people who want to write fanfic, but there’s absolutely no way I would ever make a relationship that was, quite frankly abusive. People like to forget the fact that he tried to enslave her, tried to steal her power, and even if you put all those things aside, the idea that Alina would forge that kind of alliance with somebody who mutilated one of her friends…Alina has this team of people who had sacrificed so much to defeat this man, the idea that all of a sudden she was going to be, 'Never mind, he’s hot, let’s have fun.’ It was just unacceptable to me."

And.....

"If I wanted people to hate The Darkling there would’ve been many ways to do that, I could have him kill a kitten or something. It almost became this challenge where I was going to keep him as compelling, charismatic and attractive as possible because I don’t believe the people that are most dangerous to us are devoid of those qualities; they’re the people who enter our lives who are broken and beautiful, but are still bad news.”

She said all this with a straight face.

***

I've read this specific one (and maybe that's why I dont search for them anymore neither read them lol).

So let's break this statement piece by piece, shall we?

First of all: look, Idk how things went at the time but like... when the interviwer says "the Darkling's fate" I think she means his death, right? So why the hell she made that about ships and shipping??? There was no reason for that! Anyways, this just shows how HER mind is so focused on that and whomst exactly would do anything for their(HER) ship to "work", right?...

And let's go to the part where she talks about Alarkling then: I love how she puts it in a way like she had nothing to do with how their relationship went down and like, she couldnt have done nothing about it lolol look, I know sometimes writers feel like their characters conduct the narrative and make decicions that you werent "expecting" and dont go with what you have planned at first, but with a piece like tgt where we clearly see that the author didnt respect the organic course of things, making all she could to stick with her planned couple that just worked inside of her own mind, I think we have a right to say that, if she wanted to, she could have changed the Darkling and Alina's dynamic and relationship (and I'm not even saying on a couple/romantic basis, she could have made them turn down friends or allies or whatever!, eventually) and she knows this damn well! So perhaps she should stop playing innocent on this, like it wasnt HER choice and it's all on the bad Darkling, a FICTIONAL being created by HER that is following HER script and what SHE'd planned !!!!! And no, people DONT forget all the crapy things he'd done, but since the first book readers had the hope he would turn around and redeem himself (at least on where he wronged Alina) cause the author put that hope in there, she did play with the idea of redemption within his character, then ofc some people would be sad and/or pissed and disappointed because she didn't delivered; you dont get to play and tease people with something without ever delivering it and expect people to be quiet about it and dont complain later, but well, she said that doesnt bother her anyway (which I dont believe it's true lol), right? So... And btw, Genya's torture was bullshit and ooc and gratutious (this interview just made me see that she REALLY did that just to make him irredeemable already) and it's ALL on her and it was her shittiest move in the whole trilogy (even more than Alina's fate), maybe she should think a little about why she needed to disfugure a female character that had already been raped and manipulated and used in order to further a villain's arc and put him into a hole he couldnt get out by doing an act based on...something(???) that didnt even fit in that character's motives and reasons and modus operandi, just saying... (self critique never killed anyone, you know, and in this case, she REALLY needed to think about it cause that was very problematic and harmful). And I have to lol everytime I see her talking about how the Darkling wanted to "steal" Alina's powers, omfg the irony ,,,,,,, should I remind her who exactly "stole" Alina's powers away by the end of the day ???? SHOULD I ?????? Spoiler alert, it wasnt the Darkling........... WHO'S THE VILLAIN NOW UH? WHO??? WHOMST ?????

And well, let's get back to Genya's case and the part where she says "Alina has this team of people who had sacrificed so much to defeat this man," I mean, if Alina isnt supposed to unit forces with shitty people who hurt her friends then why the fuck she would be on the King's side ????? Ok that in s&s Genya was on the Darkling's side, but it isn't like she didn't and couldnt see the King was shit too and Nikolai wasnt the first one in the throne's line of succession, so ???? Why exactly she would have to be on THEIR side??? And I'm not saying she should be on the Darkling's side either, ofc not, but the thing is (and it's other point that bothers me): she shouldnt be EXACTLY on the monarchy's side either! But if LB thought she must, then at least she could have seen its problems and be critical about them and could try to make a better Ravka by improving the govermnent system and making opposition to the Darkling at the same time. It bothers me that Alina never grew to have a political view and agenda when her own existence was very political! Something that the Darkling got it since the first time people tried to kill him, and he was way younger than Alina when that happened (but maybe she spent too much time living as an otkazatsya to get right away what meant to be a grisha in that world, luxury the Darkling didnt have, but still... after everything she went through, after she accepted herself as a powerful grisha, where people were still trying to use her and her powers from all sides, she should have gotten something out of there, she should have seen more clearly through, the only thing she had to do was using her fucking brains). Alina was just pushed through the narrative by people with their own purposes and agendas and she never grew to have one for herself (her purpose was based on urgencies created by people with agendas, for example: she wanted peace for Ravka, why? Because the Darkling and the Monarchy entered in a civil war; why was she staying by the Monarchy's side? Because the Darkling wanted to enslave her, so at least these people here arent trying to do the same (as long as she knew.......... except for the Apparat), so she was always reacting to the situations rather than acting and creating new ones based on her own purposes). Or maybe LB did this on purpose so she could justify Alina's resilience in losing her powers by the end of the trilogy (which doesnt, ofc). But then she lost the opportunity to create so many nice nuanced conversations about politics, oppression, privileges, power, religion, the ways of war, etc.; if Alina had been the opposite of the Darkling but still getting his point and being attracted by him and his ideas but still sticking on what she believed in and showing better ways than him to do things (I mean, how about Alina throwing on the Darkling's face that he said he was trying to end the war and create a better world for grishas beggining by enslaving and controling her, a fellow grisha, which was exactly what their oppressors did, so it was very contradictory and not by far the best shot, and it wouldnt be long lasting, I mean, I would've loved to see that! But maybe it was too dangerous... what if he'd listened to her, uh ??!?!?!?!!!!! what if he was convinced by her, uh ???!?!?!?!!! then they would have to be kind of on the same side, right? and omg! god forbid this from ever happening !!!!! 😒😒😒 ), anyways, it'd be much more nuanced and interesting, in my humble opinion...

I have more rants about the grishaverse concerning the political aspects and LB's bias choices but I wont get to it rn, that's it for today.

Pet Peeves

Okay. Pet peeves. I have a lot of them, you probably do too.

Lots of them come from people I don’t like at school. So.... here are 5 of my top pet peeves:

0. KIDS TALKING IN A BABY VOICE

OH MY FRICKING GOD. You don’t know how many girls in my school talk in a baby voice. And it really pisses me off.

You maybe thinking: but lots of young babies talk in baby voices! Do they make you angry too?

N. O.

You know why? Because that’s how it is. Babies always have little chipmunk cute voices when they’re younger.

But when you are NINE YEARS OLD FOR HEAVENS SAKE you would get annoyed too if everyone around you was giving you puppy eyes and little ‘cute’ voices in order to try to get mo et off of you. THAT STUFF AINT ‘CUTE’. That stuff is annoying.

And when it comes to your teenage years, those kids are still doing the little chipmunk voices because they can’t help it. It’s habit. They are going to have that annoying cry baby voice for the rest of their life. Oh heaven forbid.

0. WHEN TEACHERS DONT MARK YOUR PRACTICE TESTS

ok. I get it. Teachers are busy. They have their own lives. They have their own children to take care of. And i understand that marking a whole classes work is time consuming. But as the nerd that I am, I believe that TEACHERS SHOULD MARK THOSE PRACTICE TESTS THEY GET US TO DO BEFORE THE ACTUAL TEST

you know why????? I don’t know? Maybe because there is hardly any point of doing the practice if we don’t get any constructive criticism back. Because if we don’t, we can’t improve before the test.

Besides it’s not like other random people who have very busy lives with other jobs are marking it. TEACHERS GET PAYED TO TEACH US.

KEY WORD: PAYEDDDDDDDD

OH MY GGOOOOOODDDDD WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAAAAND

0. WHEN PROPLE TOUCH ME

My parents actually hate this one. They think I’m a bratty child who just swerves away from them for no reason.

Am I not allowed to have my own rights as a semi independent female minor of the 21st century?

I just don’t feel comfortable with people touching my shoulders and stuff. It creeps me out. Is it that hard to understand? God.

0. WHEN PEOPLE THINK EVERYTHING IS ABOUT THEM

Once, I was going through Wattpad and this author was talking about how she’s finding it hard to write chapters because she’s having a bit of a writers block and she finds it difficult to write 1000+ words on each chapter, which to my opinion is a decently long chapter. (That’s the minimum of all my own chapters anyway)

But to be honest, I’m pretty chill as long as it’s a good story.

But then THIS OTHER RANDOM GIRL CAME SWERVING INTO THE COMMENT SECTION AND WABAM.

“Are you saying that my chapters aren’t good?” SHE LITERALLY SAID THAT (I know I didn’t use the word literally correct but who cares. I don’t).

AND SHE SAID OTHER STUFF THAT WAS IMPLYING THAT SHE THINKS THAT BC THE AUTHOR WAS HAVING TROUBLE WRITING, THAT SHE OBVIOUSLY THINKS THAT HER CHAPTERS ARE TERRIBLE.

*cue the facepalm and the eye roll.

Sigh.

0. GIRLS WHO ALWAYS TALKS ABOUT BOYS

okay. To be honest, I talk about Shawn Mendes and other celebrities and male book characters all the time.

BUT THIS IT DIFFERENT. I KNOW THAT I WONT BE ABLE TO DATE THESE PEOPLE

but some girls (keep in mind that we are just young teens) like to talk about boys all the time.

And by all the time, I mean, every 15 mins they talk about Daniel, or Will or some other dumb dude that I have actually never met. And the problem is, that my friends who talk to about these guys, don’t seem to take into account that I don’t have to social life.

No social life = fan girl in over dumb functional boys.

Fangirling= no spare time to meet any boys.

I mean, I’m not complaining. No one can beat my Mathew Daddario.

Anyways. Those are my 5 pet peeves.

I'm the anon who asked about the show and we'll you just seemed a bit upset with it and I was curious, sorry😅 Also do you kind explaining why you don't like the writers? I just really like to get your opinion on that ☺

I wasn’t really upset, I’m sorry I came off that way D: I tend to get confused when people ask about my opinion and stuff.

Keep in mind, I wasn’t really part of the fandom when it first aired so all I have is second hand knowledge and saw the fallout from outside it. If anything significant has changed, well, I’ll try to be informed but I don’t think anything has.

Basically, I thought it was p skeevy for the creators/writers to get defensive when asked about the character’s ages????? Like I realize that western creators don’t seem to care about every little detail of a character-like their blood type for example-but the fans wanted to know something like that, whether it was about shipping or just genuine curiosity, and to me it was an easy enough question. But then they came out and said Sh/////////////ir///////////////o was 25 and I was like,,,uhhhhhh,,,,,what???? And after thinking about it, there just seemed to be something really OFF about that. I would’ve pegged him as 19/20 but thats not really what matters b/c im never gonna NOT see that 25 even if they do release an extra statement saying he’s 19/20 and neither are others. And of course, there was IMMEDIATE backlash within the fandom-I remember thinking about how toxic it was BEFORE that, which was the main reason I didnt really want to watch the show-because suddenly there’s an adult character being shipped w/ minors and there’s always the parts of a fandom that defend such ships(I still get very, very wary and uneasy browsing through fics on A03 b/c Sh/////////ir///////////o is a complex character for me personally and I straight up avoid the tag on tumblr even if I like the character.) Now, I’m not sure how many older creators actually pay attention to how the internet works and how fandoms tend to form(especially on tumblr)but the creators/writers didnt really seem to CARE about how that would blow over. Especially after, if I’m remembering right, they released a seemingly shippy art of Sh/////////ir////////////o, who was just declared 25 years old, and Ke////////i/////////th, who was put at 17 I believe. So honestly, it’s not just that I dislike them, it’s that I distrust them because it didn’t seem like they even attempted to do damage control, especially since this is such a huge matter. Again, I wasn’t in the fandom(and I probably wont ever think of myself AS part of the fandom)so most of my impressions are second-hand but still that was something else. Not to mention, I’m fairly sure they recently tried to pull the same bs w/ A/////////////ll///////ur///////////a for whatever reason.

Like, my guy, they single-handedly ruined their own fandom-and the show for some people. People will still watch the show, people will still ship what they want regardless of other people, but the toxicity stays with you. And knowing that the creators/writers of the show fed into that, without care or remorse, just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

(Tbh the writers probably have less to do with this whole thing then the creators, but I was fairly confused last night so,,,,,)

(But I mean, also, they chose to develop two out of seven protagonists and their relationship-whether you see them as platonic or god forbid romantic-over the rest of the characters in the course of 13 episodes. Though I’m fairly conflicted over this, seeing as how 13 episodes w 24 minutes isn’t exactly a TON of time. But it’s whatever.)

(Also, I’m side-eyeing them a little b/c they promised LGBT+ themes but La///////////////n/////////////ce still flirted w/ female coded characters and they keep on insisting that he’ll flirt with anyone or anything but they havent exactly backed up that statement, and the only nod they gave was when P////////////id///////////ge was conflicted over which bathroom to use, whether because she identifies as nonbinary or b/c she was confused over the signs(honestly tho, why would aliens subscribe to the human gender binary???). It just feels like queerbaiting a bit, since they haven’t really SHOWN characters as LGBT+ you know?)

Sorry this took a while and I sort of went off on a tangent ;;;;;;;