Yes, Pearl and Marina decimated Frye and Shiver in that rap battle—and yes, Marina recognized what was going on and knew what Shiver was doing and played accordingly. She is 23 years old and, as Pearl said, has a big mind—she knew she was in a rap battle, and Shiver getting increasingly irritated to the point of trying to end it with Marina giving the classic sassy "I can do this all night" proves it.
But I digress.
Yes, Off the Hook won that battle handily. But that doesn't mean that Shiver and Frye are bad at what they do.
It just shows their inexperience.
Compared to Squid Sisters and Off the Hook, Deep Cut is pretty much still an indie band. They're really only known within the Splatlands, and only reached the level of fame needed to take over Anarchy Splatcast a couple years before Splatoon 3. And that's fine, I'm not dissing them—but it means that they don't really know what it is to work within the broader music industry as a whole, or go up against musicians who have experience working on a world stage. Shiver and Frye feel threatened by Off the Hook performing in Splatsville because they feel as though Off the Hook could replace them, despite the fact that Off the Hook is famous enough to have done a world tour and this is a single drop in the bucket to them. Not to mention, Pearl has close to a decade of experience as a musician by now. Frye does not. So for Frye to step to her . . . no wonder she got stomped. This isn't Pearl's first rap battle and it won't be her last.
Of course, not all the members of Deep Cut show this inexperience. Big Man knows there is a lot to be learned from seniors in the music industry, as shown by his collab with Squid Sisters and how he was "awestruck" by Off the Hook and didn't participate in Shiver and Frye's confrontation.
But Shiver and Frye's inexperience IS showing here. They have so much skill and talent! But if they want to go beyond Splatsville, they need to grow up a bit and not pointlessly pick fights with those who could help them. Picking a fight with Off the Hook in particular is silly af, because they LOVE collabing with less known artists to give them a boost, as seen with their Damp Socks collab. This didn't have to happen at all, but Shiver and Frye picked a fight, Pearl and Marina finished it, and, well. They got served the dish they asked for.
(But in the end it was still a collab, so maybe it'll still help in a roundabout way.)
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Yj takes to mocking their mentors behavior after being lectured for being irresponsible and the public’s perception of YJ
Bart is going on about science that no one would understand even if he wasn’t talking at Mach 3 and popping out of no where going ‘flash fact-’ or starting a fight with a villain while eating an entire large pizza
Tim’s whaling on some fucking rogue and dude is 🤏🏾 close to being unconscious and tim goes “😡 now talk” (it doesn’t make it better that the rest of yj is in hysterics)
Anita mimicks the powers of whichever magic user she’s seen or heard most recently unless she gets bored and decides to act out horror movies which just leads to a villain cutting the power but they realize Anita showed up and they’re frantically trying to turn the power back on bc everyone thinks she’s actually possessed
Kon goes full on ‘Fear not, citizen! For I have arrived, a lone kryptonian with naught but justice in his heart’ along with saving one specific reporter first in every disaster (it’s linda and she thinks this is hilarious) he does hero landings and he says all the cheesy hero lines just bc he knows sometimes the medias perception of Clark annoys him (there’s a clip of a fan confessing and Kon goes on about how his only love is justice)
Greta before retirement is saying the lanterns oath before every attack and clowning Tim any chance she gets but Greta after retirement occasionally does crowd control which is just Greta doing finger guns and saying shit like totally tubular and gnarly while leading civilians away from danger or going on long winded rants about planes
Cissie is telling every person she saves that’s at least five years younger than her that she’s adopting them and then paying off some random debt and never speaking to them again or flirting with whichever member of yj is closest/has already taken down their opponent this doesn’t change much when Cissie retires, she just starts filing paperwork to adopt whoever gets second place and she will tell everyone that she’s married to the yj member on the news no matter where she is or what she’s doing
Cassie has a battle axe, a shield, and a lasso and somehow manages to use all three every fight while mimicking Diana’s speech patterns and demolishing anyone that gets a hit on yj (the only thing ww takes offense to is Cassie’s over the top feigned ineptness when it came to technology ‘Suffering Sappho! What is this strange contraption?!’ ‘🤨 my fucking phone??’)
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Annabel Lee & Fears: A Short Essay Based On Ep70
Here it is, folks, the truest crux of Annabel’s character, her deepest fears is not going mad or even people discovering she’s not as put together as she tries to appear, but rather:
Was that gambit of constant scheming and using others worth it, Annabel? Was always trying to think ten steps ahead and always keep yourself in a position of power and control truly worth it, because how can you ever be trusted when all you do is play 5D chess with everyone?
There is is, folks!!! Just like her greatest strength- her cunning willpower- is centered around a certain bright moon, Annabel’s greatest fear is rooted in Lenore. The deepest, darkest trenches of her soul, the one thing that would shatter her heart and send her lungs choking fer breath? The killing blow that would end her and make all these charades worthless? It’s Lenore seeing her constant conniving and asking Annabel, “Why would I be any different? You already have no problem using everyone else as a pawn, how could I ever possibly trust you, Annabel Lee?”
The way Annabel is SUCH a great morally grey character, y’all tell me you love hot villains yet many a time I’ve seen people calling Annabel too heartless. She’s the opposite! She cares!! SO MUCH!!! She would burn the world down if it meant kissing Lenore one last time, to the point where her deepest fear is losing Lenore in the process of trying to protect her. All Annabel knows is using manipulation to gain the upper hand because simply being born a woman in the Victorian era she was so throughly disadvantaged by such a horribly misogynistic society that girlypop had to scrape together any form of control she could. Annabel wants so badly to protect Lenore but all she knows are her own methods of protecting herself, which involves plausibility deniability and facades and sometimes sheer cruelty, and that’s where the conflict arises. From the start Annabel assumed Lenore and her had the same understanding of this ‘fake enemies’ ploy going on but surprise surprise babygirl, not everyone is overthinking four parallel universes ahead like you do. This boils over into her lover having doubts on what’s real and what’s not, which then culminates into Lenore asking if Annabel is using her affections as empty currency to get what she wants, and Annabel’s first move to tell Lenore to fucken kill her????
“To you alone, I have left myself completely defenseless.”
The drama of it all!! The shattered facade leading to exploding vulnerability of it all!! The dim sun sparking out into a heat death just to prove her sincerity of it all!!! The exposed innermost organs ripping out my heart with my bare hands and begging you, “Do you see it now? Do you see the way it beats for you and only you? Tell me you see it, tell me you see me…” of it all!!
Oh baby the way Annabel still retains this deep fear of Lenore not truly believing in the “only thing that’s real” to her, the way her lover’s ghost still lingers and haunts her and is then ripped up from her innermost psyche like a desecrated grave and given form by Ada’s power. The way, after all this time- and I mean all this time from Lenore’s constructed resurrection, to their relationship blossoming into a wedding, all the fucking way up to that bell tower scene, the fucken way Annabel still never truly let go of her fear that Lenore doesn’t see her, doesn’t see how she alone bashed through all of Annabel’s walls and made a home where her heart laid. I’m sure during their living relationship all the way until the wedding Annabel’s fears were greatly settled, but it’s the fucken way these panels implied that this wretched heartache never completely left Annabel’s guilt-wracked soul.
I just know, okay I just KNOW, that even up until she was putting her wedding dress on Annabel still questioned if she even deserved this happy ending because she still feel phantoms of guilt fer this betrayal. This comic only furthers this implication of unabsolved guilt when it’s made clear as day that Annabel’s biggest fear is Lenore not believing in her love. And before anyone argues how Annabel can currently feel guilt fer betraying Lenore when she hasn’t recovered the memory yet, I’ll argue back that from the very beginning of the comic these two were inexplicably drawn to each other even when they had NO memories. Therefore, even if she doesn’t have the explicit memory, I highly doubt Annabel’s subconscious would ever let go of something as huge as deeply hurting the one person she truly cared about in such a wretched way.
Fuck, dude, I mean Annabel’s greatest fear wasn’t even Lenore dying- which was already a huge thing if y’all remember her tearstreaked, panicked, “What is left? If she’s not here, what’s the point?”- no her greatest is Lenore!!! Not!!! Believing!! Her!!! Like yeah losing Lenore physically definitely would’ve cut so deep even her bones would bear the scars, but losing Lenore in the form of the other woman walking the same ground as her but choosing to stay away?? Call her fucking selfish because some people would rather have their other half still be alive even if they’re not by their side, but Annabel ain’t one of them that’s fer sure. Babygirl has spent a lifetime perfecting the craft of deceiving others fer her own gain, but the ONE TIME she’s genuine her heart is to be called nothing more but empty??? Oh babbyyy that’s gotta fucken hurt.
The thing is, I don’t think Annabel really loves herself all that much. I really don’t. A huge focus on self-preservation doesn’t necessarily mean one really loves themselves, and when we add the aforementioned guilt she carries? Plus, the fact that Annabel being forced to swallow down her anxiety attacks from a young age could easily lead to her having a rather sour view of her 'not normal' self? Yeah no yeah, I truly don’t think Annabel loves herself that much, if at all. So really, this line is adding immense insult to already grievous injury. Not only does Annabel deeply fear Lenore not believing her affections to be true, she also fears the New Yorker misconstruing her as nothing more but a shallow as hell, prissy, little pampered damsel, a role pretty much everyone else regulates her into whether she wants it or not (right from the beginning, before she even set her schemes in full effect, Annabel was already explaining, “Ada wanted a queen, so I gave her one”). Lenore, the only one Annabel had believed to ever really see her fer her, is now discrediting Annabel’s vulnerable affections AND seeing her as that unloving ice queen like everyone else?? Horrible terrible horrible!!! She may have a ribbon threatening to strangle her right now, but it’s clear that ghost!Lenore’s words are what truly cut her down to size. Y’all seeing that fucken pain in Annabel’s eyes? Her worst fear is just so… personal.
Which actually leads me to my next point, which is how just before Annabel’s worst fear is revealed in stark, horrifying detail, we see Prospero’s. Lemme just preface this by saying what Prospero went through is n o t any less terrible and is a super fucken mega valid fear/trauma, but let me cook y’all just hear me out. Prospero’s fear seems to be about medical malpractice and/or being conscious during a painful operation that likely went south (aka ‘oh shiiitttt he fucken DEAD-‘), and that’s fucking tragic as all hell. Yet, okay let me cook here, it’s more… I don’t want to say general, because that does NOT mean his fear is any less significant but it’s like. Way back when, death via medical bullshit was more or less fairly common, especially during wartimes (which is the era I headcanon Prospero to be from); meanwhile, Annabel’s fear is so uniquely hers, it’s borne of a culmination of specific experiences tied together by her relationship with Lenore.
By contrast of a more common fear vs something so deeply personal and specific to this one person- because it’s not just unrequited love, it’s being so vehemently denied and misunderstood by the ONE (1!) person who you wholeheartedly trusted in your entire life who also oops mega died on you- this distinction gives way to an almost more raw, more visceral feeling to Annabel’s fear sequence. Again!!! I am not undermining Prospero’s own trauma, I promise!!! But you have to admit that there’s something, from a narrative standpoint, that hits so much harder with how deeply personal Annabel’s fear is. The contrast is even more great when you look at how Prospero’s involved a buncha bloodied hands not really tied to any faces or even any indication of personhood like accessories, scars, etc etc. It could’ve been a group of anyone holding him down hurting him; on the flipside, Annabel is being restrained by one very specific person we see in full view. The faceless crowd who could’ve been anyone at anytime vs the lone perpetrator whose history you know like a second name. It’s just!!! So personal!!!
In conclusion, on the surface level, one would think a character so deeply ingrained in using deceptions and manipulation would have her greatest fear tie into having her true nature revealed to everyone she’d fooled, but then it turns out it’s the complete fucking opposite. What homegirl fears the most is her truest, innermost self not being believed and accepted by just one (1!) person. The way it’s framed is just so heartstabbingly personal, especially when you parallel it to a previous fear sequence just a few panels preceding it. This is it, your honor, this is Annabel’s deepest driving force broken down to its bare essentials. To hell with whatever reputation she’s carefully crafted! Who cares what anyone else thinks of her if she doesn’t believe her, if she doesn’t SEE her. Really, truly see her. Lenore is the defining point that Annabel has revolves around so wholeheartedly, and there’s no point to anything anymore if Annabel loses her. This crux of her character, OHHH BBAAABBYY it’s just so well done because we, as the audience, have been given clear evidence to build up this narrative of Annabel’s characterization fer so long now and to finally see it come together in a fiery explosion of lesbian angst with this latest chapter??? Gods, the writing of Nevermore will never not drive me absolutely insane in the membrane.
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As someone who LOVES a good old time travel au, and after seeing amazing fanart of kid!Mihawk i have to let it out!!
I just wanna read a time travel fic where baby Mihawk wakes up and finds himself in the world of adult Mihawk and he's like wtf is going on?
And word goes around that a kid that looks exactly like Hawkeyes and carries the same cross knife as him is roaming around this island and rumors say it's the son he abandoned to fend for himself.
And so, marines and every pirates he ever wronged come after him for revenge and the little guy is just thinking why is everyone trying to get me? While doing his best with his cross dagger to rid of them.
And Shanks, good ol' shanks could have sworn that if his old rival had an 9years old, he would know about it (also he refuses to let the bitter taste in his heart take over unless his own eyes see) so he's skeptical about the whole thing and that's the only thing that gets him to leave his hideout in a reclused ghost island waiting for whatever is his big plan to take place.
News say Red Shanks is on the move after being mia for a few years and everyone got their panties in a twist, what could have raised the emperor from the dead.
He follows from island to island because apparently the young boy knows how to avoid the marines and pirates coming after him.
Till one night, on their stop at some bar on an island that wasn't really on the plan, he sees the boy. Just outside the bar in an alley, where he went to empty his guts from the booze overfilling his body, there stood bloody faced, cross dagger in one hand, a tiny version of his old rival with a bounty hunter's body at his feet.
The boy furrows his eyebrows even more at the new arrival and strikes another pose in case the new guy tries something funny. But Shanks, drunk ass Shanks, who knows his rival by heart is a 100% sure the little guy is in fact his rival for whatever magical reason, there he stands in front of him in the form of an 9years old and Shanks giggles at that -to which the child takes great offense- and just say "hey kid, i'm a friend of your dad's, want me to take you to him?"
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