#SOMETIMES IT MAKES ME LAUGH SO HARD.

[namisweatheria]

I feel like we don't discuss Nami's relationship with gender enough. Her entire character is so deeply informed by being a girl in a male-dominated pirate world and it's so interesting and so worth talking about.

The background creepiness of Bad pirate crews, which are most of them, how they tend to not have any female crew members at all, how they beckon any pretty young woman around to come play with them and join them. It's real bad. It's also like, a totally 2 dimensional portrayal of evil that is reserved for the most background of background characters.

However I think their ubiquity says a lot about how piracy is meant to be perceived by the public in One Piece, and is one of the strongest indicators of how prevalent misogyny is in-world.

It's very normal in One Piece for regular island inhabitants to have never met a Different class of pirate in their life. There's no reason for them to withhold judgement that maybe these pirates won't be like every crew that attacked before, and to wait and judge them by their actions. I mean frankly that would be irrationally weak self-preservation.

There are people who live peacefully under the flags of Yonkos who protect them, and feel loyalty and gratitude to them for it, but that seems to only be thing with very big name pirates. The East Blue, being the weakest and least populated, has no such plethora of powerful people and resulting turf wars.

So. Nami. Is very clearly implied to have never met any Different pirates before. I'm thinking about what that means. About how every group of pirates she stole from were creepy, dangerous men. How she started going out stealing when she was still a young child. How she didn't have a mother anymore to guide her or comfort her. How Arlong would grab her chin inappropriately, talk about her as a "human female", as property, and god knows what else.

How all the men in Arlong's crew treated her patronizingly, pretending they're all friends, teasing her and playing at respect when really not a single one of them ever stuck up for her or hesitated to accuse her of betrayal. Who were always ready to kill her if she refused to cooperate. Who grabbed her and intimidated her when they felt like it.

That's what she had to come back to after a close call with stealing from other predatory men, instead of the relief of home there was a dark, cramped room filled with endless hours of misery and isolation and blood. Where any one of her captors could barge in and demand new maps, work faster, where did you go, you took too long again this time. Endless threats and incursions.

I'm thinking about that her fight scene in Alabasta, where she tumbles and rips off her cape and uses it to catch her enemy's spikes, before leaping to her feet and running out the back door, all in one moment. How it makes her enemy reconsider her and think, "so the girl's not a total novice at fighting after all." What that implies about her experiences as a young thief. The times she wasn't fast or clever enough and had to fight and claw her way out. Why she always carried a staff and a knife. Why she was the only one before Chopper who had any medical knowledge or experience.

You know she was stitching herself up. And the weapons, how do you think she learned to use those? If any of the Arlong Pirates helped her it wasn't out of kindness and it wasn't gentle.

Then I think about Nojiko, and Bellemere's memory, and the only softness in a hard life. How easily Nami connects to every young woman experiencing hardship that she meets. How completely she dismisses the struggles of men unless they mean something to her and are going through something terrible. The way that Nami only has sympathy for women and children is easily noticeable in-text, but it's also something confirmed in those words by the author. And it's clearly because of the life she lived, the men who had all the power and only abused it, who saw her as nothing but a girl to take advantage of, without anyone aside from her sister clearly knowing and caring about any of it.

Nami clearly isn't bitter, she doesn't think the world owes her recompense, on the contrary she knows she is far from the only person in the world to suffer the things she has suffered. She is endlessly reaching out and kind, but only to those that she isn't sure would get help without her. Certainly, before Luffy, Usopp, and Zoro, no man ever reached out a hand to her without an ulterior motive.

I think when she sees a girl in trouble, a girl biting her lip to hold in a scream of grief, a girl running in the woods away from a monster, a girl captured by pirates, she sees someone who no one is coming for. Who no one will stick up for. A person without allies in a world against her. Whether it's actually true in this case or not, she runs straight for that girl anyways every single time.

[papertowness]

most unrealistic thing ab house is people acting like james wilson isn’t funny as hell

[killjoy-prince]

House M.D. but it's when a character says the name of the episode

[luna-loveboop]

Sky vs Hyrule post is coming along great 👍

[giddlygoat]

i just finished rewatching gravity falls for the first time since i was dipper and mabel’s age, and somehow i only remembered AFTER it was all said and done that today is their birthday. poetic. i’m in emotional shambles.

i hope everything works out. i hope my twin brother and i stay close forever. this show gives me a lot of hope and determination and i hope i never lose that, or my childlike sense of wonder and whimsy. you know, the important stuff. i’ve also decided just now that i’m going to stop being self-conscious about getting sappy. i love this show with all of my heart and it’s been my dream for a long time now to someday create something that can inspire sincerity in others as much as gravity falls has inspired me to always strive for authenticity. that was a long run-on sentence but i hope it makes sense.

thank you alex hirsch for creating the perfect show!

[fatedroses]

The (perhaps cursed) result of Zenos listening to Tsukiko sometimes (she has no remorse).

[thebirdandhersong]

in my you're on your own kid era again (I never left)

[overtake]

deceased at the implication that lewis was so deeply hurt by max’s dumb secret santa gift to valterri one year that he refuses to participate in the videos as a staunch moral stance. max lives rent free in these people’s heads so badly that they have to write fanfiction that frames lewis as some heroic protector of bottas to cope with him … just not wanting to do something he doesn’t have to do? save lewis from his own fans, man.

[jakeperalta]

so long london is a very specific kind of sad where there's the obvious level of empathy for a narrator who is sad about a heartbreaking experience. but then there's also the level of knowing that you are in the one that brings the lows and the bluest days in a relationship and it hits a little too close too home to hear how unbearable that is :/

[koifsssh]

the very first meeting!

due to shenanigans, Rainy technically met maverick twice! of course, with that mask of his, and Rainy's foggy memory, it can be difficult to remember such things, especially when one party wants to keep themselves at an arm's length, to a certain extent!

but anyways! it's just something cute i like!

when maverick was a guest, I'd like to think it was a silly banter between them... they're just two guys talking about whatever nonsense...

...yes, Maverick got to keep the hat... Rainy doesn't wear them much anyway, it's not like they stay on during his performances! (and no, he's not going to try and glue them on!) (dialogue is in the image descriptions by the way! in case it's hard to read our handwriting!)

maverick belongs to @thatthirstyweirdo! bwah!

[flyingwide]

this is a Dhan appreciation post. I love that this man is looking at Gabi like "what the FUCK, ma'am"

Gabi: "Would [me killing him] have been more palatable to you?"

Dhan: "Y E S"

[sawg-the-saw-blog]

had to fix something with my tickets tonight at @sawthemusical & the guy at the window straight up asked if we'd rather be in the front row! In the blood splash zone! FUCK YEAH!

we were then informed that the guy at the window was Cooper Jordan. thanks, Coop ✌🏽😎

[dylanconrique]

i don't think we appreciate aaron's, "you sound like the old dude from up." as much as we should because it is absolutely hilarious, and he is 1000% correct.

[blluespirit]

I sort of like the thought that Zuko and Aang take the Sun Warriors' warning not to tell anyone about the dragons a little more seriously… and they keep it between them. Of course, they trust Sokka, Toph and Katara. Of course they know they wouldn’t tell anyone, but now three people (including Iroh) know the truth about Ran and Shaw. And that’s three too many when you’re trying to keep a secret.

(and there are other people at the temple as well - like Haru, Teo and The Duke - who, while trustworthy, aren’t as close to them as the others, and when it comes to secrets with as much consequence as this one, you can’t afford to take any chances.)

Furthermore, the culture within the Fire Nation since Sozin’s rein has been warped. The culture is not to respect the dragons as the original firebenders, it’s to conquer and kill them. It’s the ultimate proof of your strength as a firebender. All it takes is one mistake before rumour spreads, and people go looking for the ultimate hunt. It’s not something Zuko or Aang can risk.

Whether Katara, Toph and Sokka (and Suki) ever find out the truth is up to you. But post-war, after Zuko returns from a strange, poorly explained trip with a dragon, and eventually develops the ability to use rainbow fire, either the others have some questions about Aang’s knowing look, or they are finally let in on a monumental secret.

[3416]

yoooo this sportsnet article is actually so interesting if any of you are curious about why bertuzzi was benched yesterday. i love game analysis stuff like that.

[lavenoon]

Well, he has a point

Based on a conversation I had with my sister