#i still don't trust the theory

[stillness138]

for hc ask game: triss is actually coral, ngl my fav "mainstream" theory

so uh

i don't like it 🙈

there are, i feel, two types of people into this theory: us the shitposters, and redditors who can't discern between books and games and end up taking it completely seriously.

so the idea of it is that Triss did die at Sodden and Coral used the chaotic situation to assume her identity, right?

my biggest issue with it is... Coral has no reason for doing that. She was well-known and well-respected in life as herself, she had everything she wanted, including Geralt. consensually, even.

my other big issue with it is that book Triss exists for a reason. The jealous best friend who is just spineless enough to throw the people she supposedly cares for the most under the bus when faced with a decision that would require her to take a real stand. seemingly sweet and caring, but spoiled inside. Sapko was trying to say something with her and gave her an arc that would've been undermined if it was actually someone else.

my last major issue with it, stemming from the previous, is that it diminishes the impact of what Triss did to Geralt. Coral wouldn't reminisce about him from the time during Season of Storms the same way Triss thinks about him in Blood of Elves because Triss is recounting a rape. And it was her, no one else, because again, she's the jealous best friend. Like, i'd rather Geralt didn't go through that at all, but given Triss also repeatedly tries to kiss him and whatnot after coming to Kaer Morhen... it's her, not Coral.

(in SoS, Geralt says smth like "you caught me on your flowery-peachy-magical perfume pheromones" [yeah he says pheromones, i don't know either man] and Coral goes "aint no way, actually you caught me on your elaborate mating dance when we first met" which like, you could read as she legit used magic and gaslit him afterwards but the whole, for the lack of a better word vibe, or i guess context of it comes across way different than the very much one-sided account from Triss. Geralt reads as very aware and very active in SoS. they are somewhat similar backgrounds, but i truly don't think what Sapko wrote post-saga in SoS is supposed to be the same event he described in BoE.)

however, i understand where the theory came from, because it seems to me like a similar place to the origin of W3 Dijkstra being a doppler. it serves as a bit of a cope for game Triss having like 3 different personalities early on.

that's the other side of the theory, right? that (only) game Triss is Coral?

which i definitely get, but again, there's no reason for Coral to do that. why would she be interested in all the manipulation and politics? game Triss eventually crystallizes into more or less her book personality - sweet looking, but rotten - despite CDPR's unwillingness to acknowledge her crimes in the text of the games. they still keep referencing everything else from the books, game and book Triss aren't two different characters.

as someone who takes design decisions way too literally, i truly think there's not much to it beyond Triss in W1 being written by mashing together book quotes by a bunch of different characters. it is wild and kinda funny but yeah. i'm not a fan :D

[barra-400]

June pt.28

[happyk44]

actually annabeth joining luke's army as a double agent for chb but percy doesn't know this so he just thinks alright and grabs grover and hooks it over there bc annabeth does what she wants and he knows there's no convincing her otherwise bc she's a stubborn ass and also ares fucking sucks so as far as percy's concerned the gods can suck it based on that alone

grover is just ??? bc he does NOT want to be over here and percy's just like "look, we can't convince annabeth to not be part of monster army, so the only option is to be part of it ourselves" and annabeth walks in on them trying to join (or rather percy trying to join for both of them and grover looking on the verge of tears) and she's just ??? bc what the fuck percy why are you two here

whole time percy is going on a rant about ares and how he sucks and how he's pretty sure the god has abused clarisse ("maybe we should get clarisse to sign up with us") because no one believes that he wants to join luke's army and they just thinkk he wants to spy on them so he's trying to show that he thinks gods (well at least one god) is a total ass and can get obliterated and percy will be happy to do that bc he did it once before, he can totally do it again! and if they get clarisse she can deliver the final blow as an FU

someone asks why grover's there and percy is like "um. he's my best friend? he has to come with me? what, you think I'm gonna fucking fight my best friend? are you stupid?"

meanwhile grover is having the worst panic attack of his life. like why is this how he discovers percy has no morals. couldn't it be something smaller like putting french fries in a strawberry milkshake?

and annabeth is resisting the urge to start screaming and now she's gotta vouch for percy and her vouch for percy is basically "if it came to saving me and grover or a bus full of people about to plunge into the atlantic, percy would save us, no hesitation" and everyone's like "jesus christ, the hell is wrong with this kid" because like maybe they're on the side of a cannibalistic titan but they're not fucking evil

ofc once they're let into the group, annabeth drags them both to the side and wrings percy a new one for fucking up her double agent plans and they're both whisper-arguing bc it's not his fault he didn't know she didn't really shack up with the enemy, but like fuck off percy, you didn't have to follow me here! why the hell would you choose to come here, were you going to try and kidnap me and bring me back to camp by force??

and percy is just like "yes that is 100% what i was going to do, i was definitely not joining with the intent to be by your side and blow up olympus because i'd rather destroy the world than fight my friend" and grover turns to annabeth and is just "he's fucking lying" "yeah i know"

anyway grover is released as a double agent for the monster army (but actually for CHB) bc the idea is that he can help them get more demigods to their side as a searcher being sent out to grab kids and he's mentally banging his head bc NOW he has to figure out how to get unclaimed demigods safely to camp without making it look like he took them there on purpose and if it looks like he defected back to CHB, they'll probably kill annabeth and maim or imprison percy and good gods, percy i hate you so much rn

percy? idk. it's past summer so he just goes home and luke is like "bro you can't just fucking leave" "um no offense luke but if you try to stop me from going home to my mom who i love more than life itself i will legit eat you" and then he goes home

come december, grover is calling percy up like "hey i found these fucking powerful ass kids, plz help me get them to camp without making it look like i got them there on purpose" and so they gotta loop annabeth in who's just mentally banging her head and cursing percy out over this whole thing as she strategizes a way to get the army there but have them fuck up so badly it would look super suspicious if grover just shoved them over

so first she yells at percy then she makes grover call thalia up so she can help him and it'll be okay 'cause she's in the same area as him so it won't look suspicious, it'll just seem like camp sent her in with him, like they do sometimes when there's dangerous monsters that a satyr might not be able to handle by themselves.

and then she makes percy go with them as support for grover's "nefarious" deeds since thalia's there. and it's a whole fucking thing, and mentally she's just like "oh thank fuck" when artemis and the hunters show up.

they retreat back to wherever the monster army was at this time (not the boat, but like idk. atlas' post? were they all chilling there or was it just luke and some ppl being assholes and everyone else was still on the boat, i can't remember) and curse their loss of two powerful and clueless demigods, only for percy to call annabeth up a couple hours later like "hey, remember those kids from a couple hours ago with the manticore and the hunters and everything"

"percy it was two hours ago, ofc i remember it, my memory isn't as shit as yours" "right right, you're elephant" "oh my- why are you calling me!!" "oh yeah. uh. well. they're kinda in my house" "what??" "yeah they're sitting right across from me. my mom's giving them some hot chocolate."

"how the hell?"

"i have no clue. they also have no clue. they just, uh, didn't feel safe at camp, bc grover was being weird about trying to save them. which, um, yeah, makes sense. and they don't like thalia because her spear scares them 'cause they don't like lightning. and also the girl said the hunters keep trying to convince her to join them which is freaking her out, so they didn't want to stay at camp. and then suddenly they were in my house."

"..."

"what do i do?"

this time annabeth bangs her head physically on the closest wall. and somewhere in the fine forests of new york, grover is banging his head on the nearest tree, both of them unified in their feelings of "for fucks sake percy i hate you so much rn"

[suncaptor]

nothing will make you sympathise with conspiracy theorist ideology more than having a seemingly rare reaction to a vaccine lmao.

[ravioliet]

more Whiteoutposting but honestly i think there needs to be more content out there focused on Whiteout and her relationship with Darkstalker, because there's a bunch of similar things out there about Darkstalker and Clearsight and having to watch someone you love go on this downward spiral and losing the person you once knew etc etc but i haven't seen many people acknowledge that Whiteout experienced that too? and not only just with Darkstalker either like Whiteout literally had to watch as she lost all of her family members one by one but up until the end she still had faith that maybe things would work out and that Darkstalker still loved or at least cared about her so maybe their love would prevail and she could at least save Darkstalker but it just. didn't happen and she ends up losing him too and i'm so

[elizabethrobertajones]

I stan Alphy's character development. Me too, lil buddy.

[aromanticasterisms]

iansan relevance right off the bat let's fucking go

[nraqi]

ANDUIN AND VARIAN HATH REUNITED AT LAST

[moongothic]

I want to preface this by saying that this is meant to be kind of a shitpost. I just. The thought passed my mind. I laughed at it. Thought about it again, laughed some more and I just had to get it out of my system. So here we are

So when I read the myth of Toyotama Hime I did start to wonder if it could be used as fuel for the Crocodad Fire, the myth being about Toyotama coming from Ryuugyuu Castle to give birth on land etc. And in One Piece, we do have that very castle on Fishman Island. Which isn't surprising or anything, Oda getting inspo/names from various mythologies is nothing new by a long shot, and it's unlikely you could somehow tie Crocodile to Fishman Island through that myth. Like Toyotama coming "from the ocean" could just be turned into "Crocodile coming from the sea as a pirate", doesn't have to be deeper than that

But then I thought

...Do we actually know Crocodile isn't part-merman

Like. You see--

We know half-merfolk-half-humans do keep their fishtails like full-merfolk (see Charlotte Praline), and we know that while mermaids split their tails after 30, mermen never do. So between that and us having The Most Scandalous Feet Pics of Sir Crocodile (from the jailbreak cover story), well, we know he has basic ass human feet, so we know for certain he can't be half-merman

But also

Chimney is 1/4th mermaid. The only mermaid features she inherited from her grandmother were her hair color and her being a "good swimmer". Chimney is part-mermaid, and she has human feet

Like the only thing that could debunk this idea (based on what we know about Chimney) would be if Crocodile was a shit swimmer, but he's a Devil Fruit user so of course he can't fucking swim. So we have literally nothing to prove or debunk the idea.

So like

You've heard of "Crocodile is Whitebeard's bio-son" You've heard of "Crocodile is the missing Kuja Empress" You've even heard of "Crocodile is Xebec's son".

So how about

"Crocodile is 1/4th merman"

Why the fuck not

But the funny thing is

Not only would it weirdly explain why the fuck our beloved Sand Man Who Can't Fucking Swim is named after an animal known for swimming (like OP has weird fucking names, see; Smoker, Baby 5, Monkey D. Dragon, etc. What bugs me about Crocodile is the slightly contradictatory theming, but if he was named "Crocodile" by his merfolk parents, suddenly, it kind of works)

But also like. We know Crocodile fucking Hates the Government. And to be fair, there's plenty of reasons for anyone to hate the World Government, you don't need a personal grudge to hate them.

But if he had merfolk parents (who might be stuck living on the surface because they wouldn't have been able to get their child to Fishman Island without someone essentially delivering him there, 'cause he wouldn't have been able to just SWIM there), then there's a genuinely possibility said parent(s) could've ended up getting caught and turned into slaves. And boy would that give someone A Personal Fucking Grudge Against The Government

But also, due to the in-universe discrimination against merfolk, if Crocodile was part-merman it could mean he could've been harassed for it since a young age, or worse yet, could've become a target for slavers if anybody found out. And somehow, having to hide that part about his heritage would work really well into his trust issues

Not to mention, after escaping Impel Down, Croc and Jinbei have this brief convo (that turns racist) where Croc expresses his surprise over Jinbei being able to summon fish, having thought only merfolk could do that. Of course, Croc being a seasoned pirate and all you could totally expect him to like know about mermaid legends etc, but him having no knowledge about Fishmen is a bit odd. Especially because we know he's been to the New World, so you'd think he must've gone to Fishman Island at least once before? Although, his former Shichibukai Rights probably would've allowed him to cross over the Red Line through Marijois instead of having to pass through Fishman Island, but regardless, it's odd, is it not? But if Crocodile did have merfolk parents whom he got separated from at a young age?? Maybe he learned a thing or two about that side of his family, but never enough?? And then having to hide that side of his heritage could've left him just estranged????

Also IDK if it's worth anything but in the cover stories, we were introduced to our first mermaid Camie at the tail end of Alabasta, while the Miss Goldenweek coverstory ran during Water 7 where we meet Kokoro and Chimney. IDK it's a funny coincidence

I just

Could you fucking imagine

How fucking insane would that be, if Crocodile was part-merman

[feral-radfem]

I hate all the males orbiting radblr, jsyk.

I don't trust a single one of you. I actually trust y'all less than other men running around the internet because there is a literally no reason for you to want to be here. It doesn't help that all of you are either trying to convince someone you're not abusers, acting weird around children, or doing your stupid moid white knight shit, either, btw. None of you are here for the right reasons. I don't believe y'all for a second.

Go away. Women make up 51% of the population, we are in the unique situation as an oppressed group with a majority population that we simply don't need our oppressors to side with us. We can easily make up the 3.5% of the US population needed to overturn a patriarchal system without y'all. We have too many studies showing what happens when you add a male into female spaces for so many of us to be all right with y'all hanging around, TBH.

[nierielfaegir]

Let the headcanon continue!

[gulava]

This sums up the KH experience pretty well.

[nientedal]

god that post made me mad. "humans just CAN'T be persistence hunters, because persistence hunting doesn't make any sense to me personally! no i'm not going to cite any sources, just trust me, i read about it in school!"

okay, mmhm, sure...except it does work. it does work, and we know it does because it was still in practice by modern humans in the central Kalahari until AT LEAST 1990. some of those people have even explained some of the challenges and nuances of the practice as well as the knowledge they use to make it easier. it's not the only method of hunting humans have used over the years, but it is definitely one of the methods in our repertoire.

"humans can't run for multiple days without food and water (which is how i assume persistence hunting works, for some reason)! and they're not fast enough to chase an antelope without losing it! and tracking is a stupid concept that doesn't work, and i'm going to scoff and ignore it!"

you don't have to run for days. you don't have to be super fast. you just have to be fast enough to not let your quarry rest long enough to recover, and you do have to be able to track-- which is absolutely a real thing that people can and do learn how to do.

(i suspect the OP ignored tracking as a possibility for the same reason they tried to discredit any information about the indigenous peoples of the Kalahari as basically being (1) all noble savage bullshit from the 60s or (2) irrelevant because it's not what their forefathers were doing-- their anthropology course probably taught them about the challenges these bands are facing with colonialism, and probably also taught about the rampant misinformation about them, but it did not teach any actual respect for their cultures or knowledge. or for them as, you know, people. whose grandparents remember the way their grandparents hunted, and can talk about it, even if they are no longer able to continue the practice.)

(knowing the noble savage stereotype is bad doesn't make it less racist when you still talk about people from a stance of "but my modern ways are better than their hungry primitive ways and i'm going to talk as if they're already extinct and have no expertise worth discussing.")

"there's no POINT to it! we have tools! and weapons!" the point is not getting gored and kicked to death by a wounded animal four times your size that didn't die when you hit it the first time. the point is that an exhausted kill is an easy kill where you don't die. it's a decent point. it's fucking reasonable. also, afaik there's decent odds we learned hunting before we learned tools.

and yeah, i get that the OP was just upset and yelling in the initial post. i do understand that. and I understand their frustration at hearing a theory misrepresented as fact. but their subsequent reblogs and responses are equally thoughtless pseudointellectual posturing, and i'm sorry, it's garbage. someone pointed out modern pursuit hunters exist, and they basically went "mmmmyeah, all of that is just outdated, cherry-picked misinformation and you're very stupid and i'm very smart, look at me i know lots of tribe names and i'm going to link some articles about why these people no longer matter, isn't that sad and TOTALLY relevant to this conversation." someone else mentioned tracking, and they ONCE AGAIN basically said if you lose your line of sight, that's it, you're done, you've lost your quarry. tracking isn't real, don't even bring it up. hoofprints in wet ground in the rainy season? those are fake. doesn't happen. broken brush where a panicking animal has run? lol, that's not real. you can invent tools, but learning to follow an animal? bullshit. total malarkey. it's all just guesswork. you can GUESS where the antelope went but that's the best you can do.

🙄

anyway, i don't know enough about human evolution to guess why we're shaped the way we are, and i'm not going to speculate on it today. but what i DO know is that i am willing to believe the G/wi and the !Xo when they say, hey, if you drink a lot of water and then chase a large ungulate through the hottest part of the day in the fucking Kalahari at a steady jog, it will probably overheat and collapse before you will. because one, i kinda figure they know what they're talking about, and two, it does actually make sense when you stop and think for thirty fucking seconds. sure, you need to be physically conditioned to run distances in extreme heat, and you need to be able to find your quarry again if you lose sight of it. but conditioning and tracking are both things you can learn, no matter how badly certain clowns wish it wasn't because it doesn't support their bias. 🙃

[no-brain-just-akutagawa]

I wanted a Fedya icon to celebrate this chapter but me having a Sigma and Kolya background made it 100x more aesthetically pleasing sjdhdhjd

[vitasexualiiis]

this is gonna go the way of "fyodor's ability is sentient" i am sure, but my pet (hehe) theory is that natsume is essentially pulling the strings behind the scenes (cat's cradle, anyone?) and manipulating dazai into various positions within the narrative is a huge part of that

[calamitys-child]

Listening to a podcast discussing conspiracy theories and deconstructing the ideas behind them and it's reminded me of the coolest practical lessons in critical thinking I ever got, both in high school, both from the same teacher. One was a month long project on who killed jfk in which we could basically present any theory as long as we cited all our reasons and it got us really excited about research and interpretation, but it was the follow up that I liked best.

Our next project she brought us into class and showed us a documentary claiming the moon landing was faked. Gave us worksheets to do that sided with that stance. And at the end of class a bunch of us were like miss wait this doesn't seem right?? and she said okay, we'll discuss that next week. The next lesson, she showed us a mythbusters episode countering all the claims of the original documentary and gave us worksheets for that, and another bunch of people went wait miss you can't teach us two opposing things, which one is right? What do we put on the exam??

So she split the class in two and told us each to present a case based on each side, and to explain why our source was or wasn't the more reliable of the two. Got us to debate each other directly and use additional sources to back us up and explain why those sources were reliable and should be believed. And because they were randomly assigned there was no guarantee you'd agree with the stance you were presenting, but you had to present it like you did. At the end of the project she asked us all which stance we found more convincing and why, and the majority of us basically said "we think that the moon landing is real because most of the arguments against it seem like someone reacted to a confusing thing without testing it, but when you test it and ask the person running the test to explain the science it makes sense once you have more information. Also, one documentary was made with the help of scientists with qualifications and experience and the other was made by people who don't have that but like to write mystery books, which looks like a less reliable way to get an answer. But we still dont understand why you showed us both if one is wrong."

And she was like excellent. You've done exactly what you should do. At high school level, we as teachers are expected to filter for the reliable sources for you, so you know to repeat that to pass an exam, but if you want to be historians on your own, I won't be your teacher any more once you graduate. Lots of people have opinions and theories and research about times in history, and it's your job to learn how to look at them and decide who you want to trust. This won't be on the exam, but I need you all to know it. You all did a great job following the school's instructions to repeat information you were given, but for some of you, that information wasn't on a reliable foundation. I know you all know how to pass an exam. You're smart and you've been trained to follow these instructions. What you deserve to be taught is how to use all this once you don't have to do exams any more.

And then as a reward for us doing a good job at figuring out the value of checking your sources' sources she let us watch Bush get hit in the face with a shoe before we had to go to maths. Shoutout to you Ms Hannah you were a good'un I hope you're doing well ten years on from that class