#but are not themselves real people

[mxtxfanatic]

Ever think about how the author of PIDW transmigrated into his most nothing character who only existed to push the protagonist on the “right” path to popularity before dying? Ever think about how he transmigrated into that character from their birth, completely deleting that person from existence, while his own existence as the creator of the world he now inhabits is so thoroughly erased that we readers only know his “real name” as the character’s name? How the only name he carries over from his first life is a shortened version of his innuendo pen name? As if his existence as a person is nothing next to being the author, which is only marginally less nothing by virtue of the job’s one purpose: to make sure a story is following the “right” path to popularity before dying to enshrine that fame/infamy amongst readers?

No? Just me? Ok…

#svsss #human metas mxtx #something something the complete lack of regard for creators of famous works #where in some people’s minds they only exist to create content to be consumed #but are not themselves real people #just a name on a page with no meaning or significance #something something #people get on the fact that sy takes ‘too well’ to pidw #but we know the man’s original name #we know the makeup of his family #we know his class status and that he didn’t go to college #we don’t even know sqh’s name #I don’t think HE knows his original name anymore

[marzipanandminutiae]

quotes by Victorians about the 1920s view of their generation's women

"We are frequently told that the Victorian woman...generally behaved like a pampered and neurotic infant. This is all moonshine. I do not think that I ever saw a woman faint before I came to London in 1869, and not often after then...they enjoyed a hearty laugh, and a good many of them a contest of wits with any man." -Nineteenth Century, a Monthly Review, 1927 (written by a man born in 1850)

"What queer ideas the girl of 1929 has about the Victorian period- they are not a bit true...Marriage was by no means the end and aim of our existence. Oxford and Cambridge claimed quite a few of us after school days were over. We had great ideas about 'life' and what it all might mean to us." -St. Petersburg Times, 1929 (written by a woman born in 1853)

"True, debutantes were chaperoned at balls. But that fact did not prevent them from dancing as frequently as they chose with their favorite partners. The idea that girls in the Victorian era spent their days sewing seams and practicing scales is another fallacy." -Gettysburg Times, July 1, 1927 (quote from the Dowager Lady Raglan, Ethel Jemima Somerset, who lived from 1857 to 1940)

#history #when they were still alive to defend themselves #maybe- much as I rag on modern historical fiction -we've gotten a bit closer to the truth than our grandparents did #see this is one reason I love studying the Victorian era (besides hoarding their detritus like a dragon I mean what) #it just is One Of The Eras Of All Time in pop culture #and it means so much to so many people that getting to the real human bottom of it fascinates me #spoiler: it boils down to 'people were people and always have been'

[meigsbrainrot]

game changer is like. the legal version of what the joker would do.

#think about it #all the puzzles and mind games #making people question themselves #sam reich is the joker real not click bait #sam reich #game changer #dropout #dropout tv #sam reich game changer #same reich dropout #meigs yaps

[jewreallythinkthat]

Something I really don't understand is this obsession the anti-Israel crowd (in the West) have with death and martyrdom. All they care about is dying, and often killing for their cause; I see nothing about building a better future that isn't based on the murder of 9 million Israelis.

It's easy to die for a cause. The challenge is living to make a better tomorrow.

#jumblr #antisemitism #i/p #killing yourself and others does nothing to promote peace. frankly killing others is just terrorism in this scenario #if you want peace then you should be workng with jews and israelis #deal with antisemitism islamophobia and the rot in the knesset to move towards a two state solution #anything other than a two state solution is discrimination and death #dying for your cause is not cute or progressive. its lazy because you didnt want to put in the effort to do real work moving forwards #jews are 0.2 of the worlds population. if you refuse to engage with them you are the problem #majority voice doesnt mean correct. it just means loud #if your voice is leading to people killing themselves then you need to take a long hard look in a mirror

[inkskinned]

the rise of AI art isn't surprising to us. for our entire lives, the attitude towards our skills has always been - that's not a real thing. it has been consistently, repeatedly devalued.

people treat art - all forms of it - as if it could exist by accident, by rote. they don't understand how much art is in the world. someone designed your home. someone designed the sign inside of your local grocery store. when you quote a character or line from something in media, that's a line a real person wrote.

"i could do that." sure, but you didn't. there's this joke where a plumber comes over to a house and twists a single knob. charges the guy 10k. the guy, furious, asks how the hell the bill is so high. the plumber says - "turning the knob was a dollar. the knowledge is the rest of the money."

the trouble is that nobody believes artists have knowledge. that we actively study. that we work hard, beyond doing our scales and occasionally writing a poem. the trouble is that unless you are already framed in a museum or have a book on a shelf or some kind of product, you aren't really an artist. hell, because of where i post my work, i'll never be considered a poet.

the thing that makes you an artist is choice. the thing that makes all art is choice. AI art is the fetid belief that art is instead an equation. that it must answer a specific question. Even with machine learning, AI cannot make a choice the way we can - because the choices we make have always been personal, complicated. our skills cannot be confined to "prompt and execution." what we are "solving" isn't just a system of numbers - it is how we process our entire existence. it isn't just "2 and 2 is 4", it's staring hard at the numbers and making the four into an alligator. it's rearranging the letters to say ow and it is the ugly drawing we make in the margin.

at some point, you will be able to write something by feeding my work into a machine. it will be perfectly legible and even might sound like me. but a machine doesn't understand why i do these things. it can be taught preferences, habits, statistical probability. it doesn't know why certain vowels sound good to me. it doesn't know the private rules i keep. it doesn't know how to keep evolving.

"but i want something to exist that doesn't exist yet." great. i'm glad you feel creative. go ahead and pay a fucking artist for it.

this is all saying something we all already knew. the sad fucking truth: we have to die to remind you. only when we're gone do we suddenly finally fucking mean something to you. artists are not replicable. we each genuinely have a skill, talent, and process that makes us unique. and there's actual quiet power in everything we do.

#also pay plumbers more. and electricians. and other devalued occupations #idk that this makes sense #but im like #people being so fucking pleased with themselves about the fact they can ''fake'' art #n im like #sure #but what if we stop making things for you huh #what if we stop giving u this stuff anymore #what happens to ur ai art? does it keep growing? does it keep making choices? #why do u need to see us as machines? #''i want X to exist but i don't have the skill to do it'' #okay spend literally years of your life studying #''i don't want to do that'' #okay pay someone who DID do that #''no i don't think it's a real skill'' #okay so. YOU can't do it. and a LOT of people can't do it. but you think WE should be able to? #FOR FREE? #either it has value or it dont baby make up ur OWN mind #btw studying here is not used academically. i think if ur like. constantly knitting. #thats studying #do u spend hours reading and find urself taking notes and learning about writing #ur studying #do you follow other artists and spend a lot of your time trying new things (even unsuccessfully) #that's also studying #etc #was weird to write this thing about choices and then be like. wait why DO i like that

[gingerhastoomanyobsessions]

the lords in black are so interesting to me because. they’re so us. we’re watching the citizens of hatchetfield suffer for our own entertainment just as much as they are. we’re their accomplices in all of it

pokotho made hatchetfield into a musical because musicals are entertaining. and we ate that shit up! it’s soooo fun watching a little man scramble as the world around him bursts into song. the musical genre is satirized because pokey knows how the genre conventions work just as well as we do. we like watching musicals so much that black friday and npmd are musicals, too, even though they don’t revolve around pokotho’s plans as much as tgwdlm. we want them to sing. pokotho does too.

bliklotep is the audience and the audience is bliklotep. trail to oregon calls the audience “the watcher with one thousand eyes” and that’s not all, in watcher world blinky seems to be able to see through the eyes of anyone and everyone who loves spectacle. he wants to see the characters go through angst because WE love angst. it’s fun to watch alice and bill express their buried frustrations. blinky wants it to end in bloodshed because he loves tragedy, and let’s face it, so do we. it’s like that one post about how hamlet is aware of the audience and is angry that we don’t do anything to intervene because we want to see how it plays out. personally, I think blinky could have stopped the woodwards if he really wanted (he’s an elder god, after all) but alice shooting him shifted the narrative so that the emotional payoff would be more fulfilling if they escaped. and blinky loves a good story.

t’noy karaxis has blorbos. we joke about it, but that’s really what it is, isn’t it? he’s the fan who watches the movie again and again and again and again to see his favorite character’s dramatic death scene. he’s the guy who writes and reads angst fics by the hundreds because he likes to see his faves cry. he’s the hatchetfield enjoyer who’s on the edge of their seat waiting to see how ted kicks the bucket this time. the bastard’s box is pretty much just an ao3 account filled with whump and hurt no comfort. he’s sadistic AND he genuinely adores ted, because we fans are often cruelest to the characters we love the most. he puts ted through character growth— the realization that his life went the way it did because of his own mistakes, his inability to be vulnerable with jenny before it was too late— and he does that by writing a 56-chapter angst fic that’s still updating to this day

nibblenephim is the fan who voraciously devours every scrap of content that a creator produces and demands more, more, more. let’s face it, the fandom will never let starkid rest until we see this story through to its end. and then someone will demand a sequel series. nibbly is hungry because we will never stop yearning for more stories. he’s simple because that desire itself is simple— as humans, we need creativity like we need air to breathe. nibbly wants more because we want more. and we will never be satiated.

wiggog y’rath is the ruler and the king because he’s the self-inserting writer. I think jon matteson plays paul *and* wiggly for a reason— wiggly is the only lord in black to be played by the same actor in every single show, and that actor also plays the protagonist of tgwdlm. wiggly wants to be the protagonist. he tries to force himself into the human world of hatchetfield because he wants to participate, dammit! he wants to be the bestest ruler that the earth has ever seen! everyone has to love him because he’s going to be their bestest fwiend! when he appears in human form he’s gonna be the prom king! he’s the ebony dark’ness dementia raven way of the hatchetfield multiverse. he wants every human character to bend to his whims and to love him and to put him at the tippy-top of planet earth because he’s the writer and the writer’s main character, you fuckheads, and he can make whatever story he wants, whether the other characters like it or not! if you’ve ever written a self-insert story? congratulations! you’ve been wiggog y’rath.

and the funny thing? I don’t think the lords know that they, too, are as fictional as anyone else in hatchetfield. maybe blinky knows— he sees through the audience’s eyes, after all— but I don’t think the others do. if they did, maybe they’d be a little less tyrannical. a little bit nicer.

but then the starkid writers wouldn’t have much of a story to tell, would they?

#the lords in black #starkid #hatchetfield #hatchetverse #npmd #join me in the metafiction analysis hole. #the real villains of hatchetfield are the starkid writers themselves and those of us who want to see the shows! #the only reason the lords in black fuck up the world is because WE want to see that story!!!!! #note: the ‘you fuckheads’ bit was meant to be in wiggly’s voice/pov. I do not think the good people of starkid fandom are fuckheads.

[spider-xan]

Regarding Mina's description of Dracula and why it's problematic, a good starting point would be to read the Wikipedia article for physiognomy, which is the outdated pseudoscience of face reading that is unfortunately rooted in racism, antisemitism, ableism, etc., and was very popular during the Victorian era as a way to judge moral character based on facial features.

So when Mina says 'His face was not a good face', she is not just saying that Dracula is ugly (though concepts of ugliness and beauty are not value-neutral either), but that she can tell that he is evil based on his facial features; note that one of the facial features she singles out is a 'beaky nose', which comes from Cesare Lombroso's idea that among other traits, hawk-like noses are a marker of criminality on the basis of criminals being evolutionary throwbacks who are less evolved than non-criminals; many of these allegedly 'criminal' and 'degenerate' facial features are obviously racialized and not associated with Gentile whiteness, but in opposition to it.

Stoker was definitely interested in physiognomy and uses it as a narrative device to show how certain heroic characters are intelligent, perceptive, and educated on the latest (pseudo)sciences (the modernity theme again) - namely Mina and Van Helsing, but also Jonathan to a lesser degree; we will definitely see this idea come up several more times, including explicit references to Lombroso himself.

It is also important to remember that linking physical appearance and morality still happens today - think about how many people say they can tell someone is a bad person bc they're ugly or that 'People get the face they deserve' where good people age gracefully and bad people age poorly, even though aging has nothing to do with personal character.

#dracula #dracula daily #re: dracula #mina harker #mina murray #abraham van helsing #van helsing #the sad irony with lombroso is that he himself was jewish #yet pioneered a theory of criminality that encouraged bigotry against his own marginalized ethnic group #which is also why it's frustrating when people dismiss mina's bigotry by saying she's an autistic-coded woman and would never #marginalized people can still internalize prejudices that hurt themselves and others #and she is ultimately a narrative device written by a bigoted writer not a real person herself

[redysetdare]

Thinking abt how so many characters in media who canonically state that they don't like people touching them constantly have their boundaries broken and are forced into hugs by other characters and every single time they are shown to be upset it's supposed to be a flaw that they need to overcome until they just are forced to accept/like it.

#text #touch averse #no wonder ppl assume the same of real ppl #everyone wants to think of themselves as the acception as the one who will fix you and make you like hugs #i hate that. i hate you media who have characters with touch aversion as a flaw #we need more characters who are just touch averse and people accept that #no acceptions no 'growth' no 'fixing them' or 'making them love hugs' nothing. #only thought abt this becuz im rewatching kipo and it bugs me so much that wolf tells kipo to not hug or touch her #and kip just responds with 'deal with it' and then later on wolf is suddenly fine with hugging and repeats kipos line #it feels so wrong because it was a blatant disrespect of boundaries that was played off as a good thing

[bleue-flora]

What's often interesting to me, is Dream spells it out in the finale and people often still don't get it, so I thought it'd be interesting to see what he was actually referencing here. To see where it all started.

[24:27] Tommy: “That first war, me and Tubbo versus you–how it should have ended–why’d you take it?” Dream: “Tommy, you ambushed me and killed me. You stole all my shit! You tried ambushing me in a little cave–you don’t remember that? I feel like you just–your memory is just–gone.”

So here is the ambush Dream is talking about, where Sapnap and Tommy basically decide to just kill Dream and then kept all of his shit. [Death 1]

He gets killed again when he tries to take back his stuff. [Death 2]

Tommy kills him for fun right after he respawns with nothing. [Death 3]

Then after Dream gets his stuff back (via our boy Punz) and he takes the discs to get Tommy to stop, he gives Tommy back his items. But unsatisfied, Tommy goes after Dream, gets one of his discs back and hides it in the little cave. Dream tries to find it, while Sapnap and Tommy try to stop him. They are unsuccessful until, Tubbo brings them axes and they sneak up and corner Dream in the little cave, ambushing and killing him. Once again, taking all of his shit, (including, yes, the other disc.) [Death 4]

[27:58] Tommy: “Think about that, we could’ve been friends but no because you have to figure out the reason you have to get–”  Dream: “Yeah we could’ve but you–you ruined the chance of that long ago. It was you.” Tommy: “I ruined it?” Dream: “You ruined it!”

And I don’t think it’s unfair for Dream to say that in the finale, because for Dream it’s this stream early on, these moments that started it all. It’s these instances of of Dream getting murdered and robbed and made fun of over and over. Him, trying to not just make peace for everyone, but also reclaim respect and peace for himself. It’s Tommy chasing after Dream when he has nothing to kill him and rub it in his face. It’s Dream, even after all of that, giving back their items. It’s these instances of violence taken too far to the point they clearly pissed Dream off and didn’t care or follow his very simple request of just giving an apology and his belongings back that shape my distaste for Tommy and sympathy for Dream. It’s these moments that I feel like are gone from Tommy’s and our memory that highlight a different story.

[28:34] Dream: “Yeah, we could have been friends if you weren’t a little shit.”

#c!dream #dsmp #don’t worry I’m also covering what Tommy next to be fair… #dreblr #dream smp #dsmp finale #dsmp analysis #dsmp lore #dishing up lore #lore thoughts #c!tommy #interestingly enough it is actually tubbo who kills him here in the cave which is an interesting parallel to tubbo killing him in the final #c!tommyinnit #dsmpblr #c!discduo #discduo #c!dream and c!tommy #I sometimes like think that maybe these three or at least on of these deaths was canonical for Dream since it is plot relavent #and how interesting that would be to shape the story because then the gravity of it becomes that much more real #this of course only works if Dream and punz could later revive people back to fill lives which unclear if that’s true or not… #I did consider this more before I saw a post highlighting that punz and dreams tests on themselves happened after the staged finale

[creekfiend]

My favorite thing about Dracula Daily is the reaction journey you go on trying to be generous to our friend Jonathan in which your FIRST reaction is like "this fucking IDIOT" and then you're like "well hang on, hold on, let's be fair, like, it's hard to be genre savvy when you are IN THE BOOK wherein the genre is basically invented; like of course he doesn't know that Dracula is Dracula, I am approaching this from the standpoint of someone living in modern times, I need to try and imagine a world in which Dracula is just another name" and then you come IMMEDIATELY back around to being like "oh yeah no even grading on a curve and including genre-savviness handicaps this guy is the stupidest man alive nvm"

#i heard the peasants muttering about satan and a crowd of hundreds of people saw me off my crossing themselves and POINTING AT ME #IM SURE ITS FINE. #REAL ESTATE WAITS FOR NO MAN #dracula daily

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

Nimona headcanons cause I love this chaotic little family

I’ve seen a lot of people say Ambrosius is a morning person and Bal is a night owl 

And I have to respectfully disagree 

Will Bal pull some all-nighters in the lab? Absolutely 

But this man is the most early bird coded character I’ve ever seen in my entire life 

When he isn't fully invested in a project he can't stay up past 10 pm

He wakes up at 6 am refreshed and barely needs caffeine 

I’ve also seen a lot of people say he’s a dedicated coffee drinker but something about this man screams “Coffee gives me migraines” 

Ambrosius on the other hand 

That’s an insomniac if I’ve ever seen one 

He’ll get ready for bed around 9 and then stay up til 3 in the morning

Poor babe needs coffee in an IV

He used to wake up really early back in the institute cause he was forced to run a mile every minute he was late to class 

And he’s a heavy sleeper so after the wall came down and he quit being a knight he wouldn't wake up before 1 pm even with Bals help 

And Nimona is just as bad 

Most nights Ambrosius will leave the room because he moves a lot when he can’t sleep and Bal is a light sleeper 

He’ll sit in the living room watching tv while trying to sleep and most of the time Nimona will join him 

Every once and a while Bal will find them laying on top of each other on the couch and will take them back to their respective beds 

And if you’re wondering what their favorite show to watch together is it’s those house-flipping shows 

But not for the reason you think

Most people watch those shows cause they think it’s inspiring 

Ambrosius and Nimona talk about how terrible these people are at their jobs  

They’ll go on hour-long rants about how these people are stripping the houses of everything that made them a home

(Ambrosius is a sentimental bitch and would be a maximalist after leaving the institute prove me wrong)

When Nimona is bored she’ll go into the city disguised as Bal or Ambrosius 

And she’ll fool literally everyone it’s a pretty common occurrence for the boys to be at home and then they hear the other swearing like a damn sailor because there are already news articles about it

The only people she can’t fool are Bal and Ambrosius 

Bal will shut them down almost immediately 

They’ll walk over to Bal and won’t even get a word out before Bal says “Shift back Nim you’re freaking me out”

They always make a big deal out of being caught making big decorations like “I’m getting better and one day I’ll fool you” 

And he’ll hum in agreement but he knows that it doesn’t matter how good he gets or how observant he is he’ll be able to fully copy every little detail 

The details that Bal has spent the past decade and a half remembering  

You know the little things like how he can’t say Bal or Nimona’s names without smiling even when he’s pissed

Or how he scrunches his nose when he laughs 

Ambrosius always acts like Nimona tricked him

He’ll let them get comfortable in the character and then he’ll drop the bomb 

Something small and inconspicuous like “Hey Nim do you want pizza for dinner?” and they’ll excitedly proclaim “Hell yeah pizza!” 

It takes them a second to realize they’ve been played and when they do they never make a big deal about it

They normally just mumble a curse or two and walk away with their tail between their legs (literally)

The first time Nimona tried to trick Ambrosius was when he was having one of those days 

You know the days when even breathing feels like a fucking battle

This was in a really awkward period too

Like right after Nimona and Ambrosius started trusting each other but right before they really started to get to know each other 

But she knew the boys well enough to know if Bal came home to a sad Ambrosius then he’d be in a bad mood for the rest of the day 

And she knows that the only thing that can cure a mopey Ambrosius is Bal 

She walked into the room and started talking to Ambrosius and was kind of surprised and a little bit peeved about how well she was fooling him

Until he said “You can drop the act Nim I know it’s you” 

They kind of just sat in that silence for a minute until Nimona said the first thing that came to her mind 

“You want me to find my sax?” 

Bal shouldn’t have been surprised to find Nimona disguised as him serenading Ambrosius with the worst freestyle jazz he’s ever heard (which is saying something)

He didn’t even say anything he just sat down and cuddled the love of his life while watching their kid try and play the sax while breakdancing

#nimona 2023 #nimona movie #nimona headcanon #nimona #ballister boldheart #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister x ambrosius #goldenheart #those dorks know each other better than they know themselves #I'm fully convinced Bal has spent days counting the freckles and beauty marks on Ambrosius' face #Cause they're sappy like that #Nimona isn't the best at comforting people #it's a real learning curve #especially cause these boys have a sadness that runs crazy deep #I'm sending all of these poor traumatized bubs to therapy #this is so long #I think it’s the longest post I’ve made in a while

[vaguely-concerned]

me: *thinking about kira in her thematically significant white tank top* you know maybe it is worth it to keep going after all

#I love her in her full uniform too but when the tank top comes out. that's the real shit #when the sleeves come off to show that she's stubbornly and earnestly doing some Rebuilding among the ruins. yeah #star trek #star trek ds9 #ds9 #kira nerys #also the way kira's emotions are so big that they express themselves in her whole body is everything to me #'overacting' my ass why do so many people hate joy and wonder and sincerity and kira's expressive shoulders

[ghost-bxrd]

How would Talon!Dick react to someone using magic to pretend to be Jason? Like a shape shifter looking and acting like Jason? 🦉

Violence. Straight up violence.

I reckon Dick would be able to suss out imposters very easily due to the fact that him and Jason still mainly communicate with bird sounds, especially as a form of greetings and reassurance of the other’s presence. And while it might be comparably easy to take someone else’s form, the shapeshifter/magic user would have a much harder time imitating that special kind of language. Or actually I reckon they wouldn’t manage at all.

And Jason is good at bird sounds. Insanely good, to a point where even Dick wouldn’t know the difference between a true talon and Jason if they didn’t have their special call signs.

So even if the imposter knew about the bird sounds, just one wrong or slightly off hoot would be able to tip Dick off that that’s not his owlet.

And that’s enough for him to switch straight to burning fury. Mostly out of the deep seated terror that whatever stole Jason’s face may have hurt him to do so. 🦉

#it’s not enough to get Dick to kill #but he’s fairly violent with the perpetrator #read: several broken bones and a clipped artery #apprehend in point-one seconds flat #an angry talon is a scary talon #seriously don’t do it #meanwhile Jason: my dickie senses are tingling #meanwhile dick: desperately trying to find his REAL owlet #meanwhile Bruce collecting the knocked out shapeshifter/magic user: literally how are people still stupid enough to attack Robin #when everyone else who tried literally landed themselves in a coma #if they were lucky #talon dick grayson #jason todd #batfamily #dick grayson #batfam #bruce wayne #batman #robin #Nightwing #owl song

[moongothic]

You know I wasn't going to post about this, but the more I think about it the more it drives me up the walls

So when Luffy and co release Crocodile from jail, it's specifically under the threat that if Crocodile tries anything funny, well, Iva-chan has a trick up their sleeve to put Crocodile back in-line.

So what the fuck was that actually about? What is Crocodile's secret weakness? I'm specifically looking at the way this is phrased in the manga, because the anime's added dialogue kinda messes with what's implied here. But what Iva specifically says is that Ivankov in particular holds the key to one of Crocodile's weaknesses, but they'll stay quiet about it as long as Crocodile behaves himself ("Vataashi wa koitsu no yowami wo hitotsu nigitteru", a very clunky but literal translation could be "One of his weaknesses is within my grasp". The way Viz translated the line is a bit different so I'm not bothering with getting a cap of the panel, you wouldn't be able to tell how these lines were phrased in Japanese based on Viz's translations anyways) (The dialogue Toei added was Crocodile furiously shouting at Iva-chan, telling them to not say anything and Iva-chan reminding Croc to watch his tone or else they'll reveal Croc's past to everyone. A lot of people don't remember this was in-fact added by Toei, hence I wanted to clarify/remind what happened in this scene originally)

And now. Obviously. When Oda went out of his way to introduce a brand new character whose entire personality is being queer and their power is giving people magic HRT. And then like five chapters later re-introduces Crocodile. And tells us that these two have Secret Beef. And never proceeds to fucking tell us what the hell that was about. Yes, the natural conclusion one would come to would be that Crocodile is stealth trans. That is basic, good storytelling. You (re)introduce two characters, tell us they have beef, one has a very specific ability; you're supposed to connect these dots in your mind. So that now, if Oda revealed to us tomorrow that Crocodile was canonically trans, it would not surprise anyone because it's already been set-up in the story, by this very scene. It's a logical conclusion.

But. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Iva-chan's blackmail might actually not be about Crocodile being trans.

Like the general fandom assumption for the past 15 years has been that Crocodile's stealth trans, but we actually don't know he's stealth. He could be openly trans, and between that being a borderline requirement for Crocodad to be real (since he would've been a Shichibukai for years before Luffy was even born) and the possibility that his earring could specifically be a gay earring, like. Yeah. Crocodile could be openly trans. If Crocodile's perfectly happy to let the whole world know he's gay, then him being trans shouldn't have to be a secret either. We the readers could just be unaware of it because it wasn't relevant information to us, and his transition would be old ass news in-universe and not worth bringing up.

And thus, if Crocodile isn't stealth, then Iva-chan can't blackmail him by threatening to out him, becaus he can't be outted.

Now for a while I did considder that Iva-chan could've been actually threatening to detransition Crocodile if he tried anything funny. Surely he would hate that, so much so that he might not have wanted to even hear Ivankov suggest it. But thinking about it. Unless Iva-chan can use Armanent Haki or get Crocodile moisturized, they shouldn't be able to hit Crocodile actually. Like Croc's Logia makes him impossible to hit unless he specifically allowed himself to be touched. So even if Iva-chan tried to surprise attack Crocodile with Estrogen, Croc should just turn to sand automatically, the attack should not land.

Meaning Iva-chan shouldn't be able to detransition Crocodile against his will, at least not without Haki and we don't know if they can use it, so that can't be Crocodile's weakness either.

And so we have to ask the question. What the fuck is that weakness then that Ivankov mentioned?

All we really know is that Crocodile doesn't want this weakness to be brought up, it's a secret. And for all we know Iva-chan might be the only person in the world who knows about it.

And I just. Like.

There is one weakness, kind of a universal one that many people could have, one that has been brought up time-and-time again post-timeskip, one that has become more and more relevant in the story, especially now at the begining of the Final Saga.

A secret weakness.

If pregnancy is what cracked Crocodile's egg and he transitioned immidiately/soon after giving birth, then it's entirely plausible Iva-chan could know Crocodile had a secret child. And surely he'd want nothing more than for his child to be safe, not end up in trouble because of him. And Ivankov most certainly could put that child in danger, especially now that Crocodile was officially no longer on the World Government's side, there'd be no protection for the baby. All Ivankov had to do was leak the information out, that Sir Crocodile had a child, and anybody who had beef with him could get their revenge by attempting to find the child.

Like I'm just saying. This could line up nicely, actually

#Moon posting #OP Meta #Sir Crocodile #Crocodad #Keyword COULD #I know one might WANT to argue that surely Ivankov wouldn't put someone's child in danger #But Iva-chan can be mean or cruel if they feel like it. Remember they had no intention to help Luffy nor Bon-chan Luffy not begged.... #...for them to save Bon-chan while HE was on death's bed. And they did forcibly transition that prince (to be fair he did attack first etc) #Point is; If Crocodad Real then Iva-chan would know that Crocodile's Secret Child would be 17 by now #And even if they did leak the info about the child's existence as long as they don't know the child's name it might not do that much damage #Like it could send people on a wild goose chase to find the child but without any leads how could anybody find the kid #And again. The kid would be 17. Surely that's old enough for them to defend themselves if they did get discovered #And hey what's the alternative here. Ivankov outting a fellow queer. That's not exactly great either. #The blackmail's gonna be kinda fucked up regardless but also Crocodile did attempt to nuke 1 million people so who cares about his feelings

[gideonisms]

I become 300% more of both a lover and a hater when I'm on my period. just a time of the month when I have strong opinions I would say

#i want to kiss a butch for 3 hours. also i'm the only one in the world with correct opinions about everything #me the main character of life #anyway i saw this post complaining about sanitized mass marketable queer art #where the person described themselves based on the interests i guess they thought were most stereotypical and then were like #isn't there something rawer or more real than this #to which i would say there is! but you went to the queer market day #idk it is a frustration of mine too i do get it #but i think some people could stand to just get weirder and like the things they like #idk i buy cute little queer stickers all the time but i regularly stand out as a strange person in both queer and straight communities #get a friend who worked the same shit job who will sell you abstract alien art they made while they were high it's not hard #go to goodwill more. you'll find some raw expressions of humanity. #if you just want your interests to be more genuine to you it's simple #you just have to accept that maybe 2 other people will be able to rec you music or foods you enjoy #being more specific isn't everything it's cracked up to be sometimes #i think the problem here is mainly capitalism