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ameircans talking about red note like they have never spoken to anyone from another country ever about anything

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Sometimes people will hate a parent-type character in a way that's so far from actual canon that you can tell it's not the character they really hate but Their Dad from Real Life. Which is fair but really annoying when you're trying to post about The Character

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my hot take that's gonna get me canceled is that i LOVE fakeout deaths. I'm 100% with oda on this, i like it when characters get to celebrate with their friends at the end of an arc. i don't like when their friends are sad about losing them.

i think fakeout deaths are one of the reasons that op is so good, because it's a story that's deeply aware that everyone is the protagonist of their own story. and protagonists get to survive impossible odds. we were totally fine with zoro not dying at thriller bark for his sacrifice because he's a protag, and the survival of characters like merry, pell, pagaya, pound, etc aren't very consequential to the story, so why NOT keep them around?

op is so good in large part because of how much oda loves the characters, even the most minor npc, and his unwillingness to kill them is an indication of that. it makes the impact of the actual deaths hit that much harder. when merry, ace, wb, pedro, yasuie died, there were lasting repercussions on the characters and the world, and that's great! i think oda killed izou and ashura because of reader or editor pressure and decided he didn't like that cause he immediately brought the vegapunks back LOL.

does it "cheapen" some of these characters' sacrifices and make op a less serious work of literature? maybe! but i personally assign value to a sacrifice based not on what was lost but what the character was willing to put on the line. and i think one piece is a work with serious literary merit by accident, that's not what oda set out to make and it's missing the point to want it to conform to that standard. it's a silly shonen and oda is committed to keeping it as such, and i think it does what it set out to do in the best possible way. i know what series I'm reading, idk if everyone complaining about fakeout deaths does. i wouldn't love this series nearly as much as i do, nor could i get as attached to the characters as i am if the characters i love were constantly getting killed just because they 'should' have died. where's the fun in that?

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via NYPost: Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to launch a “big f–king operation” across sanctuary cities — including Chicago and New York — immediately after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, multiple sources told The Post.

Starting Jan. 21, multi-day “ground operations” will be launched across cities that have served as safe havens for migrants because the local authorities do not cooperate with the federal government when it comes to immigration issues, sources said.

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imagine if when people mentioned the netherlands people listed every colony, genocide, mass murder and warcrime the netherlands committed. that's kinda how people talk about china but tbh we should start doing that with european countries instead

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knew this woman who used to be a gay man and when he was a gay man he liked ‘ironically’ referring to himself as she/her and so when he came out as a woman he decided the next logical step was to also switch his pronouns to he/him.

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OP: "Every respectable lion head has a rebellious butt."

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Too good

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I feel like we need a refresher on Watsonian vs Doylist perspectives in media analysis. When you have a question about a piece of media - about a potential plot hole or error, about a dubious costuming decision, about a character suddenly acting out of character -

A Watsonian answer is one that positions itself within the fictional world.

A Doylist answer is one that positions itself within the real world.

Meaning: if Watson says something that isn't true, one explanation is that Watson made a mistake. Another explanation is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a mistake.

Watsonian explanations are implicitly charitable. You are implicitly buying into the notion that there is a good in-world reason for what you're seeing on screen or on the page. ("The bunny girls in Final Fantasy wear lingerie all the time because they're from a desert culture!")

Doylist explanations are pragmatic. You are acknowledging that the fiction is shaped by real-world forces, like the creators' personal taste, their biases, the pressures they might be under from managers or editors, or the limits of their expertise. ("The bunny girls in Final Fantasy wear lingerie because somebody thought they'd sell more units that way.")

Watsonian explanations tend to be imaginative but naive. Seeking a Watsonian explanation for a problem within a narrative is inherently pleasure-seeking: you don't want your suspension of disbelief to be broken, and you're willing to put in the leg work to prevent it. Looking for a Watsonian answer can make for a fun game! But it can quickly stray into making excuses for lazy or biased storytelling, or cynical and greedy executives.

Doylist explanations are very often accurate, but they're not much fun. They should supersede efforts to provide a Watsonian explanation where actual harm is being done: "This character is being depicted in a racist way because the creators have a racist bias.'" Or: "The lore changed because management fired all of the writers from last season because they didn't want to pay then residuals."

Doylism also runs the risk of becoming trite, when applied to lower stakes discrepancies. Yes, it's possible that this character acted strangely in this episode because this episode had a different writer, but that isn't interesting, and it terminates conversation.

I think a lot of conversations about media would go a lot more smoothly, and everyone would have a lot more fun, if people were just clearer about whether they are looking to engage in Watsonian or Doylist analysis. How many arguments could be prevented by just saying, "No, Doylist you're probably right, but it's more fun to imagine there's a Watsonian reason for this, so that's what I'm doing." Or, "From a Watsonian POV that explanation makes sense, but I'm going with the Doylist view here because the creator's intentions leave a bad taste in my mouth that I can't ignore."

Idk, just keep those terms in your pocket? And if you start to get mad at somebody for their analysis, take a second to see if what they're saying makes more sense from the other side of the Watsonian/Doylist divide.

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been seeing some posts that piss me off

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Au fucking revoir Mister Prince

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So… I got a notification from the State Department at like 8 PM Pacific that my passport was approved, and I was quietly thankful and stunned bc my legal gender in Oregon is listed as X, or undeclared, and that's what's on my passport. I'm pretty sure someone(s) worked late to get the X passports done today.

I was already really grateful to whoever in the Seattle Passport Office worked late to get these things processed on the last Friday before That Man gets back into office... and then I got a notification that my passport shipped at fucking midnight Pacific and whoever got that shit out the door so it couldn't be picked up on Monday and like, denied and shredded?

They're my fucking hero.

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This sounds fun. 🏦

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scantily is basically the most classic way to be clad