You know I was wondering if Crocodile ever did have any kind of involvement with the Revolutionary Army in secret (lest the Government finds out and revokes his Shichibukai status), what kind of involvement would that even have been
And now, with both the Vegapunk/Ohara flashback and Kuma's flashback, it's being made very clear to us that the Revolutionary Army was broke as hell 22 years ago. Like the fact that this has been brought up twice now in a relatively short span of time is interesting to me, that's usually a sign it's not an unimportant plotpoint
But you know who would have had money to help fund the Army
A funny little warlord who would eventually go and build a fucking casino to run for funsies. A warlord who had to give the Government some of his Pirating Income to keep his warlord-status
Like Crocodile hated the Government anyways so why not help fund the Revolutionary Army in secret, out of spite if for no other reason
Vaguely related, but I keep on remembering this scene (post-Enies Lobby), which at first glance just seems like a basic Lore Dump
But then there's the
"Yet..."
(Or "however", she says "no ni" in Japanese and you could translate that in many ways, I would probably have gone with "however" but that wouldn't have fit into the speechbubble)
Mind you, the conversation just kind of ends there, next we see Garp realize he probably shouldn't have mentioned Dragon infront of such a massive audience, so wherever that "yet" was going to lead to we will never find out, because Oda conveniently changed the subject before we got to it
And you know. Like yes, Robin could be just expressing her shock over finding out that the leader of the Revolutionary Army had a child with someone
But also, Robin was a part of an organization that was trying to overthrow one of the founding countries of the World Government in an explicit attempt to go against said Government (compared to like, Blackbeard, who currently wants to make Fullalead into a "pirate country" that's a part OF the World Government)
Like you don't have to be a genius to look at Crocodile's ultimate goals and compare that to what Dragon is doing and find a few similarities here and there maybe
(Also like, Crocodile's equivalent in Romancing SaGa 2 is meant to be Wagnas, the queer-coded leader of the Seven Heroes (whom the OG Shichibukai are based on) who "hoped to help the world". You know, an interesting detail and all.)
Not to mention, during the time Robin spent with Baroque Works, if Crocodile was ever in contact with the Revolutionary Army at all, considdering she has the ability to easily spy on people and that she didn't trust Crocodile one bit, it wouldn't be unsurprising if she ever spied on Crocodile and/or just overheard a phone call or knew about Crocodile having secret spending habits or something
(Mind you, I'm not saying "she knew" Crocodile was involved with the Revolutionaries, more that she might've been Suspecting Things, that "yet" being about her connecting the dots while unsure if her conclusion was right or not)
Of course Crocodile's plans can't have been Dragon Approved by any means, especially considdering the Army had been looking for Robin for over 10 years (pre-timeskip)
Four years of which were with Crocodile. Like if he was FULLY allied with the Army and KNEW they were looking for Robin, surely he would've called Dragon and been like "hey I found the kid from Ohara, wanna come hang out" or something. But no, he had bigger plans and kept Robin a secret from the Revolutionaries and the Government alike
Also like, I have seen people question why the Revolutionaries weren't involved with Alabasta's rebellion at all, and "Oda hadn't come up with the Revolutionaries yet at the time of writing" (/"OP was meant to end at Alabasta at one point so there would've been no reason to introduce the subplot at that point") aside
Between Baroque Works being a secret organization working undercover (thus the Army might not have been aware of the civil war being manufactured), the framing of the King making him look bad and very much the type of monarch that deserved to be overthrown in the Army's eyes, and Crocodile maybe lying through his teeth about what was happening in the country... Yeah, the Army's lack of involvement with Alabasta suddenly makes sense
EDIT Minor addition: Just realized that because Crocodile was technically working for the Government, if the Revs ever did send forces to participate in Alabasta's civil army and taking down the throne, the Government could've easily ordered Crocodile to step in to stop the rebellion and take down the Revolutionaries, right? Because he was supposed to be on the Government's side, right? And surely the Army wouldn't have wanted to fight against Crocodile if they were secretly allied (Croc's secret betrayal aside), and if Crocodile refused to fight the Revs the Government could've seen that as a reason to revoke his Shichibukai rights (which wouldn't be great if they wanted to keep Crocodile in a position where he could fund the Army?). So it could've also been a case of it being for the best for everyone's sake to let this one play out "naturally"
But my point is
I'm just deeply intriqued by these little details and wonder if I'm Actually Masterfully Connecting The Dots Like a True Genius or just seeing a pattern where there's none.
Like this is far from confirming the theory, I'm just saying, the pieces do kinda fit together do they not
196 notes
·
View notes
There's this weird phenomenon where the people who are really, really invested in Campaign 3 being The Best try to argue that it's the most closely bonded party. when in fact the absolute strongest material with Bells Hells thus far is them realizing with a shock that they've spent almost three months alternating between "my way or the highway" and smoothing things over to the point that they almost shatter along with Ashton and realize that they absolutely cannot go on a time-sensitive, mission-critical journey to save the world without stopping to take a team-bonding vacation.
And to be clear, this rips, but it feels as though while Campaign 1 and Campaign 2 fans might disagree on their favorite campaigns, they do like their campaigns for what they actually are and simply have different preferences with regards to what kind of story they like. This particular flavor of Campaign 3 fans, and there's a decent number of them, only care about winning on the most kindergarten-ass "all you need is love 🥺" axis (also, shades of the bean-counting/points approach to media analysis) but as a result they put forward an idea of the campaign that's simply not the reality and it's like, do you like Campaign 3? Or do you like the fanfiction version of it you wrote in your head based on the first 10 episodes and into which you have slowly dissolved your brain? There's plenty of valid reasons to enjoy or even prefer the campaign, but it's easily the most dysfunctional party and that's fine!
109 notes
·
View notes
hi! i always love your MDZS/CQL takes; can i ask what are the questions you think CQL is asking, as compared to MDZS?
I haven't actually revisited either canon in ages, which is making me nervous. what questions the novel is interested in can be pretty contentious all on its own! @mikkeneko has an excellent answer in the notes here which I reccomend to everyone. My own thoughts are honestly pretty scattered- I keep on deleting things and going hm, that's not quite right.
So, for the obvious-to-me example, people reasonably zero in on the creation of innocent doctors/radish farmers who Wen Ruohan is holding hostage. In CQL it's easy to infer that Wen Qing and Wen Ning are maybe the only cultivators and almost certainly the only combatants among the Wen remnants, and their status is much more ambiguous in the novel, which I personally think is asking, essentially, "and so what? were they wrong to run, when they had a chance? Do they deserve what Jin Guangshan will do to them if they go back? Aren't they just people, actually?" Whereas the question that CQL is asking is more to the effect of "What does Wen Qing owe these people, when she is their only defence? What is she entitled to do to save them, at other people's expense? If she fucks up that moral calculus, what then? Does it matter if she's personally fond of some of the outsiders who are going to get hurt? If one of them saved her brother? Later, this question will flip to what Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, and the parallel to Jiang Cheng's situation in particular is, I think, genuinely pretty fun. You're giving up the Wen as soldiers who've laid down their arms in exchange for Wen Qing also grappling with leadership and the question of how many horrors she can stand to look the other way on to protect her own people. one reason I keep deleting so much is that a lot cql's changes were motivated at least in part by censorship, which I think we mostly share a general and justified distaste for! but I also think that within the bounds of that censorship the creative team put a lot of work into actually doing something interesting with those changes. Or, for another example- nieyao! There's a much greater emphasis on the nmj-jgy relationship, it's unambiguously very close and they are clearly extremely important to one another, and I think that's because the cql team has a lot to say about love, trust, power, and the ways those things interact, and that reflects back on all of the other relationships in play, including Wangxian. Almost every time, when CQL chooses change a relationship they make the characters in question closer- that's true for Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji, for Wen Qing and the Yunmeng contingent, for Zixuan and Mianmian, and Huaisang and Meng Yao. It's even true for Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, who have a close and trusting relationship in first life! CQL puts a much greater emphasis on "all right, so you care, what next?" How do you choose someone and then choose to be good to them? What if there's a massive power disparity between you? What if you seriously disagree about your priorities and morals? How do you trust someone who's betrayed you? When is it a stupid choice to trust at all? How do you have faith that you know someone well enough for that trust to be meaningful?
for legal reasons i would like to specify that it's not that mdzs isn't interested in these problems. i do remember wangxian's literal trust fall. cql is asking these questions all the time about everyone. also for legal purposes i'm not suggesting that cql lwj and jc love each other. but! they establish a three month wartime partnership looking for wwx and then jc immediately drops him on wwx's say-so despite apparently having a positive enough opinion of him to tell wwx he thinks they should make up twice. lan wangji will later tell wwx he thinks he should loop jc in on the second flautist! these are people trying to navigate some kind of relationship/shared interest/community, as opposed to a hateful void. cql wants to say hey, how do you go about this? while I'm here and rambling cql also puts a lot of emphasis on wwx's connection to yunmeng and changes things up so instead of feeling alienated right before he leaves our last glimpse of him there is happily picking lotuses and playing with a kid! in both stories the narrative is asking who do you protect? who do you leave behind? can you ever get it back? but the angles are very different.
108 notes
·
View notes
not to get into discourse mode on here but the recent shit w/ ao3 being once again called out for being run by racists/genocide supporters and seeing so many fucking Absolute Gormless Shitheads blindly defend OTW and going " dOn'T bRiNg FiCtIoNaL PoLiTicS iNtO tHis!!!111!1 " as if they are not immune to propaganda is wild .
my siblings in sin , ao3 is literally The Racism Fetish Fanfiction site , and propaganda via fictional work is exactly how racism perpetuates. ao3 and the otw are a part of the problem whether you choose to acknowledge it or not because they contribute to the cycle of violence , fetishisation and colonisation of marginalised groups via complacency (and sometimes even blatant PASSIVE ENCOURAGEMENT) , and then they cover it up by using soft cutesy buzzwords like " anti-censorship " and " free speech " and their dumb ass complex tagging system to appeal to white people , so when Actual Minorities and people affected by the shit they put on there speak up about it they're met with all kinds of bullcrap about "jUsT bLoCk ThE tAg If It'S a PrObLem1111!111" or "YoU'rE jUsT bEiNg a fAnDoM cOp!11!!"
You're a part of the problem if you support ao3 and actively continue to use it & donate to them , especially in the wake of the OTW being actively chockful of zionists who will , ironically , silence those who speak up and rally with Palestine for liberation . And If you decide to take this as me being hostile towards you or trying to " bring fiction into real world issues " , remember that at Any point in time you can go on ao3 for yourself and find thousands and thousands of raceplay fics and other various works that glorify and condone racism , and that the otw and their large userbase (primarily composed of white people!) has a track record of trying to shut up POC when this issue is brought to light .
Idgaf if ao3 is for " anti-censorship " , because there's a difference between anti-censorship and HIDING BEHIND the concept of free speech and the 1st amendment to do and say awful , horrendous things and believe you're above critique , punishment or consequences for it .
tl;dr: fuck ao3, fuck the otw, free palestine, and most importantly: you are NOT and will NEVER be immune to propaganda if you choose to ignore it because it benefits you.
45 notes
·
View notes
This is why I don't want to make friends in the system community. I want to. I do. But I'm sick of being misinterpreted. I'm sick of having to deal with a stranger's triggers. I'm sick of having to fight against someone else's s*scourse opinions. I'm sick of being forced to voice my own.
I just want to have a genuine experience in this community. I want to talk to people who just want to share and discuss their opinions. I don't want to talk to someone who is triggered to the point of struggling to say the right thing.
I've thought about making a discord server for systems. I've thought about it real hard and asked myself if its worth it. Do I put my identity out there for other people to scrutinize? Do I take the risk that some people in this community are actually nice and want to interact with me? Do I talk to people who may start rumors about me, or get all their other system friends to hate me? I truly doubt anyone would be that dedicated or sadistic to do that to a random stranger they just met. But anonymity is important to some extent. Am I willing to risk sharing my voice or appearance to a bunch of strangers that I don't actually know?
It just feels like a mistake trying to reach out to people who won't give me the time of day to have an honest conversation with them. And I'm not talking about one person. Please don't see it that way. I'm saying I don't trust most system blogs who are willing to weaponize their knowledge over someone's feelings. Especially to someone who is likely untreated and unable to receive treatment.
I'm so sick of being in this disingenuous community. I should be allowed to discuss and document my trauma journey without experiencing intense scrutiny and judgement. And I wish it was the same for everyone else.
I reblog posts for discussion and intellectual conversation. I want meaningful interactions. I want to talk about stuff without having to pull up 15 bagillion sources for every fucking word I say.
I'm not here to be scrutinized and judged by strangers all over again, like I'm being abused in an organized fashion. Friends are nice to each other, community members hold some level of respect and etiquette towards each other, let's share more compassion. But until then, I'll be here, with friends, who just happen to be systems.
I'm not going to make friends just because they are systems, I literally can't trust it.
13 notes
·
View notes