#something to bear in mind

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[pacifistsworstnightmare]

SHUT UP! — mha drabble

you & your kid think it'll be fun to pull a prank on dad together.. lets see how that goes

feat. katsuki, izuku, eijirou, shota, keigo, touya, & tomura

a/n : this is so silly. and has also been festering in my drafts since the beginning of june. it's 2:30am i gotta go to work now enjoy this

m.list !

BAKUGO KATSUKI — (¬_¬")

the plan had been set in motion: get him with the joke as soon as he gets home from patrol. you'd been a little wary at first, knowing he'd be tired and a lot more irritated than usual, but your son shrugged off your worries and said it'd be funny.

"'m home, fuck— s'rainy as fuck out there, feel like a wet dog." you're washing up some dishes in a sudsy sink in the kitchen when he gets home, loudly, and don't have much of a choice to not get wet before he's draping himself over you with a huffed out greeting.

"i'll get you a towel, hang tight—" you squirm out of the wall of muscle leaning up against you and turn to look past him towards your son— he's already nodding and grinning. little shit. "can you come dry these dishes for me while i get dad a towel?"

"shut up, mom." katsuki stiffens immediately, whipping his head around so fast his neck creaks a little to stare daggers at his son— turning to look at you in sheer disbelief for a second before back at the culprit.

"fuck he just say to you? the fuck you just say to your mother?" hes already beelining it towards the living room, dripping wet and miserable and definitely not in the mood to stand for you being disrespected. not that he ever really is.

your son gulps, realising that maybe his dad's reaction wasn't as funny as he'd hoped, and jumps up off the couch with his hands out in surrender.

"it's a joke! dad it's a joke, i promise! she's in on it!"

he's turning around to face you again when you wander into the living room with a towel over your arm laughing. laughing.

"hah? fuck're you two conspiring against me now for?"

"here, towel."

"thanks baby, 'nd you— don't talk to your ma like that, not even for jokes. i'll kick your ass, that's my wife."

"gross, dad."

"dry the goddamn dishes."

MIDORIYA IZUKU — ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´-

izuku's curled up on the couch, hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, watching something half-heartedly while the hum of you unpacking groceries fills the kitchen. the house is quiet, soft and warm from the rainy afternoon.

“babe, can you come help me put these groceries away?” you called.

from the other room, your daughter’s voice rings out, just a little too sharp.

“can you shut up, mom— ’m trying to watch something.”

izuku blinks. his head turned toward the hallway slowly, like maybe, he’d misheard it. he sits up straighter, remote forgotten in his lap.

“pardon? what was that?”

you can already hear the nervous shuffle of socks on the floor as your daughter peeks her head around the corner.

“izu—”

“no, what was that? is that any way to speak to mom? or anybody for that matter?”

you step out from the kitchen, grocery bag still half-unpacked in your hands. “izuku—”

“no, honey, wait please. have you ever heard me speak to mom like that? what makes you think that's okay?”

his voice wasn’t raised — it never needed to be. but there was something in his tone, that quiet disappointment, that makes your daughter’s face scrunch up instantly with regret.

“izu, sweetheart, we're just messing around— she wanted to see your reaction to something like this.”

“yeah! we were just joking dad, s'okay.”

izuku sighs softly through his nose. still steady. still so deeply earnest.

“being disrespectful to mom is not a funny joke.”

“okay, sorry dad.”

“no, apologise to mom.”

she turns sheepish eyes up at you, scuffing her toe against the floor.

“... sorry mom.”

“better.”

izuku leans back against the couch again, rubbing his temple — like that whole thirty seconds had taken a year off his life. but there's a faint smile tugging at his lips, already betraying how weak he was for both of you.

KIRISHIMA EIJIROU — ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

he’s just come back from the gym, hair still damp, hoodie sleeves pushed up, hauling two grocery bags in one arm like it’s nothing. you’re finishing up dinner when he walks in and kisses your cheek like always.

“smells amazing, babe. need me to set the table?”

“nah, it’s okay,” you say, glancing toward your son. “can you dry the dishes for me while i finish this?”

your son— who had been buzzing with anticipation all afternoon— leans back in his chair and delivers it like a pro.

“shut up, mom.”

for a second, it doesn’t land. eijirou just kind of… pauses. like the words didn’t quite register.

then he turns around. slow. brows drawn, eyes confused in that deeply wounded way that only the kindest men get when their heart breaks in real time.

“what… did you just say to mom?”

your son is already scrambling. “wait— wait, it’s a joke, dad! it’s a prank! she told me to—!”

eijirou just stares. and somehow, that’s worse than yelling.

“that’s not funny, bud,” he says, voice low and serious. “that’s never funny.”

his tone is gentle. but heavy. and now your son looks like he’s about to cry.

you step in quickly, laughing, trying to smooth things over. “we just wanted to see what you’d do, promise. he doesn’t actually talk to me like that.”

“he better not,” eijirou says, arms crossed, trying so hard to stay chill but still visibly upset. “i don’t care what trend it is. don’t talk to women like that. ever.”

“okay! sorry mom,” your son blurts out.

eijirou sighs, rubbing the back of his neck like the whole thing aged him a little. “you're good, kid.”

your son nods quickly.

“cool,” he says, walking past to start setting the table anyway. “love you both.”

eijirou's still a little pouty during dinner. you catch him looking across the table like he’s checking to make sure no one’s actually upset. like he needs to hear you say you’re okay to unclench fully.

you lean over, kiss his cheek. “still your favorite girl, even if i rope our son into dumb shit?”

“always,” he mumbles. then, louder, to your son: “and you owe mom foot rubs. forever.”

“dad.”

“forever.”

AIZAWA SHOTA — /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

you hear the front door click open, the soft scrape of shoes being toed off in the entryway. a second later, shota rounds the corner into the kitchen, hair damp from the rain, capture scarf lazily slung around his neck. he gives you a slow blink of greeting.

“hey,” you murmur, smiling as you load the last of the dishes into the washer. “dinner’s in the oven. can you go remind your daughter to wash up?”

before he can answer, her voice rings out from the hallway, sharp and snappy. “can you shut up, mom?”

there’s a beat of total silence. you don’t even turn around. you just hear the slow, deliberate sound of shota setting his phone down on the counter. the air shifts — heavy, still.

he walks into the living room, quiet as a shadow, and your daughter freezes mid-scroll on the couch. she had been so sure this would be funny — you'd even gone over the plan twice. but now she’s face-to-face with her dad’s dead-eyed stare and visibly regretting everything.

shota doesn’t raise his voice. he doesn’t even look angry. just tired. and disappointed.

“say it again.”

her confidence cracks immediately. “i— it was— we were just—”

his voice is flat. final.

“don’t talk to your mother like that.”

she crumbles like paper. you poke your head around the corner just in time to see her frantically whispering apologies and swearing it was all a joke. shota doesn’t respond — just turns around and trudges toward the bathroom like none of it happened.

you catch his eye as he passes you in the kitchen. he doesn’t say anything, but you can tell. he’s filing this away. she's not gonna try that one again.

TAKAMI KEIGO — ૮(•͈⌔•͈)ა

you’re wiping down the kitchen bench when keigo strolls in, feathers still twitching at his shoulders from his evening patrol. he always comes home like this — talking a mile a minute, tossing his gear wherever, already searching for snacks and smooches.

“smells good in here,” he says, peeking over your shoulder, hands skimming your waist. “hey, didja get those honey-dipped—”

“babe, can you help set the table?”

before he can answer, your daughter pipes up from the couch, her voice loud and loaded.

“can you shut up, mom?”

he stops mid-sentence. blinks once. and then looks over at her, smiling — a little too wide.

“you said huh, chickadee? run that one by me again, think i misheard ya.”

she freezes. the grin she was wearing slides right off her face.

“i—i was just kidding, it was a joke! mom told me to— it was a tiktok thing!”

keigo tilts his head, still smiling. “you telling me you meant to say that to my girl, for a tiktok thing?”

you groan softly. “kei—”

“because i know you’re not talking to my wife like that. not in this house. not even once.” his voice drops low and silky, the same voice he uses when he’s interrogating villains — which, unfortunately for your daughter, she’s heard on national television.

she’s already halfway to your side, hugging your arm and mumbling an apology.

keigo ruffles her hair on the way to the fridge. “that’s more like it. now say something nice about your mom, quick. balance the karma.”

your daughter stammers out something about your pretty hair, and keigo, grinning, tosses her a cold drink from the fridge.

“there ya go, much better. be sweet to the hands that feed you.”

you roll your eyes. “you’re so dramatic.”

he leans in to kiss your cheek. “dramatic for you, baby. always.”

TODOROKI TOUYA — (๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑)

you’re stacking dishes in the sink when you call out over your shoulder, “you wanna take the trash out once you’re done playing, please?”

your daughter barely looks up from her tablet. “shut up, ’m busy.”

the room stills. you turn to look at her, but before you can say anything, touya’s voice cuts in from the hallway — quiet, but with that unmistakable edge.

“hello? whose fuckin’ house are you in? talking to my wife like that?"

he’s standing in the doorway, arms crossed, head tilted just enough to show he’s serious. not raised-voice serious — just very unimpressed.

your daughter startles, eyes wide. “it was a joke—!”

“nah, don’t start that,” he says, stepping into the room slowly, like he’s keeping himself in check. “jokes’re supposed to be funny, kid. that wasn’t.”

she shifts her weight, looking between the two of you, starting to realize maybe she overshot it. “it was mom’s idea! why am i in trouble?”

touya glances at you. you raise your hands in a little whoops shrug.

“was mom’s idea, huh?” he says, sighing. “alright. then you’re both in trouble.”

uh oh.

SHIGARAKI TOMURA — ₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎

tomura's laser-focused on the game, perched forward with his elbows on his knees, controller twitching in his hands. your daughter’s camped beside him in a nest of snacks and pillows, barking callouts into her headset like she’s in a war zone.

you don’t even really mean it when you call out, “hey, you two wanna take the trash out when you're done?” you know your daughter's ready for her best performance yet

“shut up, mom.”

click.

“hey!” your daughter squawks. the screen’s gone dark. her teammates are yelling in the headset. the moment is ruined.

he’s sitting back now. deadpan. one brow lifted. like he’s deciding whether to ground her or just launch the whole xbox out the window.

“you say that again?” he says. voice dry. eyes not blinking. “please. i dare you.”

she's scrambling to fix it already. “it was a joke! mom told me to say it!”

he hums, setting the controller on the arm of the couch. “mm. and you listened. rookie move.”

he finally glances your way. “both of you are banned from internet culture. effective immediately.”

“you’re so dramatic,” you say.

he points at you. “you’re the ringleader.”

your daughter mumbles an apology, still pouting. he tugs her hoodie over her head and traps her in it.

“talk to your mom like that again, and i’m replacing the xbox with a chessboard.”

“you don’t even know how to play chess!”

“guess we'll be bored together.”

— 2025 © pwn. all rights reserved. do not repost, narrate, or translate my works. thanku!

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

A phone call between brothers (takes place AFTER this incident and Fiddleford's phone call)

Sorry if this is OOC!

[fatedroses]

When you sell your soul to the merchant devils for outfits v-v

[elbiotipo]

It's fascinating to me that for our modern (at least on European-influenced societies) thinking, the classical Roman way of life is so familiar. When you read about it, the rethoric of the speeches feels modern, a society based on contracts and laws and litigation, with public works, a state bureucracy and standing army and trade economy and even spectator sports, a concept of philosophy separated from religious dogma and tradition, with even a limited understanding of a government by 'the people' and 'citizenship', even the names all sound familiar even if in completely different contexts, and no wonder since they inspired our current politics.

This all in contrast to medieval feudalism, which is completely alien to me. A society created upon family connections and oaths of fealty and serfdom with no such thing as an overarching state, not even kingdoms were any more real than a title one person holds, and all held together completely, utterly, to an extent I cannot emphasize enough, by the institution of the Church and the Christian faith. In a way we just aren't used today in our secular world. I simply cannot overstate how everything, every single thing, was permeated by faith in the Medieval worldview and the Church which took its power from it, we have an understanding of it but I think people just don't realize it.

[allthatmay]

So, today my husband said, "Some people think Shanks is a radial leftist, but I think he's the most centrist character in the show. Dragon fills the role of the radial leftist/anarchist that people often attribute to Shanks."

And, huh, yeah. People do often talk about Shanks like he's an anarchist, but he's really not. I've always said that Shanks is a mediator, keeping a tentative peace between the pirate tribes and the government until the time comes wherein the One Piece can be claimed and the mysterious consequences can happen, but that means he is effectively playing the part of a centrist—straddling the fence, as it were. The key difference, I think, is that Shanks knows for certain that change is coming in the form of a rubber deity, and he is trying to guide it into place. All his work is done behind the scenes with very little violence if he can help it.

Now, it's easy to assume that Shanks' plans involve the complete dissolution of the government as it presently stands; that he is simply using his power & influence to mitigate harm for the many until the "real fight" can begin (and, with him having recently decided to chase the One Piece, now it has), but that might not be the case (and, even if it is the case, a lot of centrists use "mitigating harm for the many" as a reason not to take action against some truly heinous acts). The reality may be that Shanks doesn't see the need for the total collapse of the government, or perhaps he knows something about it that we don't (i.e. because he might be of Celestial Dragon blood). I don't really believe this is the case because, as far as I'm aware, Shanks hasn't ever shown any real support for the World Gov but he has shown, time and time again, that he believes in dreams, in people's personal willpower, and in the ability of anyone to become strong and change the future. But the truth is that we can't know his intentions for certain without Oda giving us more information, so my husband's assertion that Shanks is a centrist makes some sense.

In particular, Luffy is what makes this theory interesting: slap him in between Dragon and Shanks, and there's a very real dichotomy between the two "fathers" in his life. See, Luffy idolises Shanks and thinks of him similarly to a father, but he might realise as time goes on that he can't be like Shanks; he might realise that Shanks' ideals will only carry him so far. After all, what good is it to be a pacifistic when your enemy is a powerful government that is comfortable with mass murder?

(My rebuttal is that Luffy is the only one who can be like Shanks. He is effectively Shanks' dream: Shanks wants to be strong enough to do all the work himself, to suffer all the pain himself, and while he is one of the strongest men in the world, he simply can't do that; what he can do is only achievable through the support he has at his side. Meanwhile, Luffy has close support in his crew, and he has the Gum-Gum Fruit! He can literally become a godlike figure and shape the world around him! He can do everything that Shanks wants and needs and, as sure as I am that Shanks wishes he could have done it himself—I'm thinking back to his days with Roger here—he knows that it was never meant to be him.)

This is where Dragon comes in. Dragon, in direct contrast to Shanks, uses violence as a tool whenever he can. He's all about the greater good, for lack of a better term. His thinking is along the lines of, "People are suffering now and we can help, and we have no qualms in forcibly dismantling a government that uses slavery, genocide, and imprisonment to control its populace. We don't wait for the right time to act, we simply act." Do I think Shanks would approve of Dragon's goals? Yes. Do I think he would approve of Dragon's means in achieving those goals? No, but mostly because Shanks is very self-sacrificial and tries to take whatever suffering is necessary for change onto himself, relying only on his small, personal crew, whereas Dragon is happy to let other people martyr themselves for the rebel cause. He lets a small, amnesiac child join them, for crying out loud—something Shanks would never do, not even if the child proved very capable.

If anything is to come from this difference of ideals, I think it's that Luffy will learn from both of them and find his own way to the One Piece and into the world waiting beyond. Why? Well, because Luffy is all about freedom, and no one on the side of Dragon or Shanks is truly free. As for the world itself, it's hard to predict what will happen after Luffy's done with it because it's pretty dependent on Oda's philosophy. For instance, Oda seems to approve of monarchies, which is not something I would personally imagine remaining in a world without a governing body—but, hey, what do I know?

Of course, we all know that the true centrist in the show is undeniably Garp. He will let real, undeniable harm befall those he cares about in order to maintain the status quo, or to stop the government from toppling because [gasp] that would be the worst thing ever! He's a man who believes the government is essential and joins up in order to change it from the inside, only to fall short of his own expectations because he won't stand up when it matters most. Not even for the sake of his beloved grandson.

[angellambdraws]

Trafalgar-Monkey clan

[apas-95]

I’m an anarchocommunist that thinks a lot of other anarchists are stupid. For example, I don’t think that most people will just make insulin or do garbage collection/processing out of the kindness of their heart, and I also don’t think if it was genuinely done out of the kindness of their hearts that it’d work great. My idea is that for the “getting people to do the shitty jobs” question, the people that do those jobs should be compensated better in some way. Maybe a larger/nicer house, I’m not sure on the details. But other anarchists will say “all labor is equal”, and while I’d like to agree in the “work is hard” sense, I think things for the obvious common good, like teacher or garbage man or doctor deserve some sort of reward over other jobs. And for the efficiency of the labor, I think *specifically for labor* there needs to be some sort of organization, and we can use what’s worked before. We don’t need to have bathtub insulin if there’s a factory right there, and if there’s no connection from the insulin factory to doctors/pharmacists and truck drivers then it won’t work either. Really, my main problem with Marxism/Leninism or Stalinism or Maoism or any combination of those is that there are specific people with far too much power over others. I’m ok with light power in the way of “man you gotta drive the firetruck to the burning building even though you hate the dude that lives there”, but I’m not ok with the idea of a supreme leader or representatives in a political sense due to as I’ve amounts of power obviously corrupting people.

Really I’m sending this to you to get your criticism of my ideas- I think you’re pretty smart, and even if I disagree with you on some issues, I think I agree with you on others. I also want to say that not all anarchists are… like that.

So, years ago, before I started reading any Marxist theory, this is about where I was at politically. If you think about any of the practicalities, you come up to points where, very clearly, the maxim of 'no authority at all' conflicts with being able to do anything. If you're seriously considering how society could be better organised, if this is something you actually intend on bringing about, then you make some amount of concession to reality - as you did with the firetruck example!

Now, myself, I went on like this for a good while, coming up with methods of truly democratic organisation that wouldn't be susceptible to the types of totalitarianism I'd heard about, ending up very similar to your position. I was interested, however, in how these 'failed experiments' that I'd learned devolved into bureaucracy started out, and I started reading up on the history, and realised, with some discontent, that what I'd developed, once I'd made all the concessions for reality that would be necessary if this system were to be the actual one real human beings lives depended on, was essentially identical to the Soviet system.

From there, I read up on Marxist theory, still basically wary that this had all, at some point, been taken over by an evil dictator, but able to see that the earliest stages, at least, had been exactly what I was imagining, but put into practice. Reading the theory, reading how their experience experimenting with different forms of organisation, and the failures of some types, had led them to discover what did and didn't work, and adjust accordingly, made me suddenly appreciate why certain things were done certain ways. The harsh experiences of civil war had revealed certain dynamics and mechanics in the way society and production worked, which translates into political theories that bore out results I wouldn't have expected (and neither had the communists who had discovered them through practice!).

Eventually, with some chagrin and a significant deal of excitement, I realised that much of what I'd passively absorbed about socialism, many of the common-sense maxims that I'd been taught by capitalist society about the nature of power and so on, were very much artifacts of a decades-long war against these communists and the system they'd built, carried out by exactly the corporations and empires I had thought myself opposed to.

I won't critique any individual point of yours, but I will enjoin you to try out some Marxist theory - Dialectical and Historical Materialism, or Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, or Principles of Communism, or even the Communist Manifesto, and to read between the lines of whatever capitalist source you read on socialism, to notice every [citation needed] and wonder what actually happened such that someone felt the need to make something up.

[random-cockroach]

Vortex as a vendigo (I don't mean exactly this mythological creature but as something similar to this, just didn't find close one to this)... with a bit of boggart's abilities...

[bartonbones]

i would love to make a post connecting the bear, expedition 33, and severance as a cultural trend of shows focusing on grief but specifically the avoidance of grief and the difficult work of healing from it in favor of alternate worlds and work and creation, however, my fear is that it actually is NOT a broader trend and is more indicative of the media i, personally, am choosing to consume

[turtleblogatlast]

“Haven’t You Noticed (I’m a Star)” from Steven Universe works so ridiculously well for Leo

[tarrielrae]

🍅 kiss me, moonlight // sasuke uchiha icons pt. 14 🍅

[lunarharp]

more phoenix wright situations

[ruethrills]

@ Fak

[nana2009]

late happy mother's day to everyone's favorite boymom ever

[miredball]

THAT’S SOMETHING

potrait of a lady on fire, céline siamma / ‘cupboard love’ in in the kitchen: essays on food and life, ella risbridger / the clean house and other plays, sarah ruhl