#“hey- what in fucks name.”

[zarnzarn]

Penelope owns a golden chain.

It is a thick, large piece with two cuffs connected to one end of it, made of robust metal that still shines beautifully years later. It stretches perhaps some four metres, at most, and the clasp in the middle allows her to twist it tighter if she wants it to. The blacksmith she had commissioned it from had given her two copies of the key- one of which she'd tossed off of a high cliff, and the other that she keeps safe in a locked box in her room.

It can clasp to her bed, to the throne and to the bath flooring. She had it enchanted by a witch on the run from a neighbouring kingdom in exchange for security, to never cross the limits of the shoreline- so she never loses it, she'd said. She had won a favour off an alchemist in a bet and gotten it spelled to never break. She polishes it every day carefully to look it's best before she leaves the room.

It has only one use.

"I will hobble you like a horse," She hisses to her husband when he returns to her after twenty years. Adjusts herself and leans down to whisper in his ear, "I will chain you down like a common beast, cut out that silver tongue of yours so you can no longer get into trouble, break your fucking legs."

The chain clinks as Odysseus gasps for air. Penelope smiles and traces the edge of his adoring, breathless grin. "You are not allowed to leave me ever again."

Penelope owns a golden chain.

It looks wonderful around her husband's feet.

[quicklings]

trapp is like murph in the way that he WILL end up the straight man of any party.

[starry-bi-sky]

more incorrect quotes for the stillborn danyal au - dpxdc

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Student: so like,, *gesturing to Plasmius* is he like,,, your dad or...?? Phantom: he would be if he wasn't such a BITCH Plasmius: excuse me Phantom: YOU HEARD ME

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Under the Bleachers: Danny and Dash smoking in solidarity Dash: Danny: Dash: do you have notes from Lancer's class today Danny: since when do I ever have notes from Lancer's class Danny: I can ask Tucker but only if you have notes from Abernathy's class Dash: deal

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Sam and Tucker: *making s'mores with Danny's lava hair* Danny, as Phantom: >:I Sam: you're just mad because you didn't think of it first Danny: yEAH

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Danny, freshly ghosted: .... Danny: well. at least i dont need to waste money on lighters anymore

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Tucker: with how long your hair gets we may just have to start calling you rapunzel Danny: don't you dare Sam: rapunzel, rapunzel, let down your lava hair Danny: NO

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Danny's hair tie breaks in the middle of a fight Danny: fuck Skulker: language child Danny, pushing lava bangs out of his face: fuck you! just for this im turning your suit into molten slag Skulker: waitholdonwecantALK--

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Danny: you know, by your logic Maddie is equally as guilty for abandoning you as Jack. She also never visited you while you were in the hospital. Vlad, had put his infatuation with Maddie aside but still kinda had feelings for her: Vlad: you're right Danny, not used to an adult agreeing with him: I-- huh, I am? Vlad: yes. If Dr. Walker had cared about me -- even if only as a friend, she would have tried to remain in contact with me. But she didn't. She is also as equally guilty for the accident that took your life too since she also failed to properly check over the portal for flaws and any improper wiring. Danny: wait- wait, i mean-- Vlad: this means only one thing Danny, bewildered: ??? Vlad, extinguishing all lingering feelings: I have to kill her too (somehow) Danny: nO.

[ahjuummas]

This is what a real man wears when he goes to war. I'm not doing this to impress her.

Dreaming of a Freaking Fairytale (2024) dir. Kim Min Kyung

[acoraxia]

// Dum, di-di, day

[weepingalaxy]

cuddle with the homies (but with heavy romantic undertones)

[ligbi]

I think we should be allowed to burn corporations to the ground

even aside from all the current residuals&streaming availability fuckery, I was looking at  978-0786847655 one of the Disney Fairies books with some lovely illustrations and the artists listed are

The Disney Storybook Artists

That’s nothing. That’s less than nothing. I want names and proper credits. SO many books are published by the mouse with only this catch all name listed for worlds of work. What if I want to track down the artists and support their individual work? Do you keep them in a cave and not let them see the sun? Or do you just not believe in proper crediting.

‘oh but there was probably a contract and they were surely paid’ yeah and ???? paid how much what about residuals are the artists even allowed to put these books on their work history since without their name credited anywhere. The contract or job listing or internship clause or whatever tactic disney uses to get away with this is scummy while sure this type of thing should be low on the list of priorities on how to de-shitify the world, it should be on the list.

yes some of the artists who have worked on the franchise are listed on the artofdisneyfairies tumblr, but that’s a fan account and it’s incomplete. A book should have full proper credits in it

The corporation may own the art but they didn’t make it and they shouldn’t hide who did the work as neither artists nor ‘consumers’ benefit from that.

[bugbuoyx]

can i just say that afab privilege is the funniest fucking term ive ever heard of in my life

[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

[brother-emperors]

Crassus, Caelius, Cicero, Catiline, Conspiracy

boy howdy these four sure are something. not featured in this soup of C names, Caesar! what on earth happened here.

Plutarch, Crassus

Sallust on Crassus, Ronald Syme

Patron and Client, Father and Son in Cicero's "Pro Caelio"

Crassus' New Friends and Pompey's Return, Eve J. Parrish

Catullus and His World, T.P. Wiseman

Cicero's Catilinarians, D.H. Berry

[knuckleblaster]

[incorrect-league-of-villains]

Ochako: Hi, I'm Ochako! And you are?

Toga: not as straight as i thought i was, apparently

[front-facing-pokemon]

[moeblob]

son boy raccoon trash can man suffering in a dnd au as a cleric bc his warlock will not stop committing murders and he has to keep coming up with reasons murder is valid to convince the gm its fine and under control

[fishareglorious]

i mean its not as if i know much about her but man. still can't believe she's a. vampire????

[yellowocaballero]

dude psyched ur reading orv, insanely curious about ur takes

My friend @charterandbarter put it best.

ORV is pretty fascinating to me. It's really just a self-insert isekai OP webnovel, and it is nothing else. Its medium is trashy and lowbrow, and its genre is almost devoid of high art. OP isekais are 'id' stories, meant to be satisfying and fun and contain very little of substance. ORV is a very well executed OP isekai - it contains the elements of the genre that make it satisfying, it understands why people read the genre and enjoy it, it reproduces those elements very well, and it is very concerned with telling an enjoyable story. ORV really, really loves webnovels and isekais and shitty wishfuillment stories. There's a lot more to ORV than the 'fist pump' moments of kdj doing something cool or pulling a fast one on a shmuck, but those moments are the undoubtedly the point of ORV, as they are the point of all SIOC isekai OP webnovels. And that's the point of ORV.

Metanarrative stories are cheap. Neil Gaiman's written 30 and millenials love waxing philosophical about the power of narratives. These metanarratives tend to describe stories as a theoretical framework through which we understand the world and our lives. Therefore, stories are tremendously important and valuable because they contain the totality of religion, history, culture, relationships, and lives. ORV says this too. But this theory tends to land at mystifying and exalting stories on virtue of them being stories, which I think misses the point. Stories aren't special because they're stories. They're not more sacred for containing our lives. What ORV says is that stories are important, because our lives are important. I like that a lot more.

ORV says that stories are our way of ordering a disordered world. A history, culture, nation, and religion are stories. None of those stories are true or real, because histories/cultures/nations/religions are constructs - they're how we interface with reality. They're created with a purpose, told for a point, pulled together into a narrative, and are satisfying or dissatisfying based on certain factors. ORV's perspective on fiction is deeply seeped in its own nature as 'low art'. There's something very cynical and commercialized about narratives in ORV, and every narrative in ORV is being told for a quick buck or to try and spread an idea for an individual's gains. It's a very unromantic, unimpressed view of narratives and fiction. It's pretty much the only way a SIOC OP isekai webnovel like ORV can talk about it without being disingenuous. And it's remarkably raw and visceral as a result, because ORV loves SIOC OP isekai webnovels like kdj loves yjh. Fiercely, insanely, like breathing, exactly for what it is. No pretensions.

It's bizarre, because ORV is about love. It's not about love for anything that deserves it. Not for a story with a lot of literary merit, a main character who is a remotely kind or lovable person, or art itself outside of its commercial or philosophical value. kdj really, really, really fucked loved TWS - because it was there, and because it lasted 15 years, and because it was fake, and because it was what he had. He loves yjh because yjh was his only companion in a dark world. That's fiction. Fiction helped him survive, because love is a way of ordering a disordered world.

I'm still reading myself, but ORV seems to be about how we manage to live in a hard world, and how to find it within ourselves to love each other and find meaning in that hard world. I see why kdj's the protagonist: he can find merit in something for existing, and loving it for being there, and he holds onto something because he has it. He sees the value in that. He read it in a book.

TL;DR: ORV is well-executed trashy commercialized art that is so obsessed with trashy commercialized art that it's looped straight back around into being somehow the most raw and visceral depiction of love I've seen in a long time.