Thinking about Weird Barbie and how she's the very obviously queer outsider of the Barbie world, she straddles the lines between Barbie and the Real World. She's the most aware of the performative nature of it all. She supports Barbie while also gently mocking her panic at losing the hyperfeminine perfection. Her weird house is also home to the discontinued reject weird Barbies, the outcasts (including very gay earring Ken) who never fell into either the original matriarchy or the Kentriarchy brainwashing.
The other more classically heteronormative and beautiful Barbies both pity and fear her, and at first the narrative pities her as well. She's the vessel of girls going weird and crazy and feral on their dolls and that's amazing. Weird Barbie is aware of who she is and how the world sees her and she loves it. She's Weird Barbie and She Owns It.
i just want to remind everyone that, since the grishaverse is kinda sorta based on the victorian era, and since wealthy victorian families dressed their toddlers (girls or boys) in dresses, and wylan was very wealthy growing up, there are definitely family portraits in existence of baby wylan wearing one of those goofy ass victorian baby dresses
Friends with benefits but the benefit is giving each other societally unacceptable long hugs and generally being more touchy while literally being friends and not actually a couple
[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]
Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?
[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*
–
Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.
Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!
Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.
* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.
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
Ein wunderliche und erschröckliche Hystori von einem großen Wüttrich genant Dracole wayda Der do so ganz unkristenliche marrter hat angelegt die mensche, als mit spissen als auch die leut zu Tod geslyffen
A wondrous and frightening story about a great berserk called Dracula the voivode who inflicted such unchristian tortures such as with stakes and also dragged people to death
good god do not go on fucking twt rn, people are looking through past tommy and wilbur clips and speculating that tommy was abused as well (whether he was or not is not important right now, don't speculate about his personal life when he's not even online to correct anyone, for the love of god can we focus on shelby), or pushing phil, tommy, jack, charlie, quackity, etc. to say something asap as if they're not probably processing the fact that one of their very good friends has been an abusive piece of shit this entire time.
ALSO (this is not defending him this is just something i've seen that is pissing me off) i've seen people saying he was a creep for making a lot of friends who are much younger than him, like teenagers. but a) phil has made friends with these same people and no one is getting pissed at him, b) being friends with people who are younger than you (YES including in their teens while you are an adult) is not a morally terrible thing, you can be friends with people who are younger than you and not be a creep, c) CALLING HIM A "CLOSET PEDOPHILE" FOR BEFRIENDING YOUNGER MEN IS JUST TAKING EYES OFF OF SHELBY AND TRYING TO PUT IT ON THE YOUNGER MALE CCS YOU ENJOY. for the love of god stop focusing on the male streamers who haven't even had a chance to say something yet and focus on SUPPORTING SHELBY. THE VICTIM.
"Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily."
+ process(tw blood)
Also, look at him, bloody little guy 🥹
This drawing was inspired by several matador pics :D here and here:
^ I don't think I'll ever live up to the second one ah. There's several pics of that specific guy just soaked with blood, and I'm uh a bit obsessed with then ITS FUCKED UP I KNOW OKAY! But I've not drawn blood in a while so it was a bit difficult so I added less than I would want to I guess. Also I'm obsessed with how often they kneel in bullfighting?? Like okay who are you arching your back and spreading your legs for-
im so glad empanada, even after a tough day, got to have that talk and hug with richas and then bagi where em got some lovely advice about dealing with grief from richas & talked about what went wrong during the day
but i can't help but contrast this with sunny. sunny who empanada still hasn't seen. sunny whose been alone for days. sunny whose talked with almost no one. sunny who doesn't know bad is dead. sunny whose pretending tubbo isn't dead. sunny who got no goodbye. sunny who got no long talks about grief. sunny who got no explanations. sunny who no one visited today. sunny whose birthday is tomorrow. sunny who no one will wake up for first tomorrow