#Had to put the disclaimer for the piss on the poor site

[infamouslydorky]

Why I think Mael Stronghart can be an interesting character:

Stronghart is often regarded by others, especially in a western audience, to be a boring antagonist. Most often I see aa fandom put his enjoyers in one of two categories:

1. You find him physically attractive or

2. You love to hate him.

I'm here to propose a third option: perhaps he is, in fact, interesting. He isn't necessarily the most openly expressive individual, and that seems to make people inclined to think him boring, but it's more that is his outward presentation to people. Like Damon Gant with his jovial persona, Stronghart wears a veneer to give a sense of invulnerability, a resoluteness, security, and impartiality, which would probably be required in his mind of someone not only a judge in authority but a person who is representative of a larger governmental judicial whole.

Ace attorney is no stranger to the concept of antagonists serving as representative symbols of a larger systemic corruption, Stronghart being part of this lineage, though if discussing what makes him individual, it would be that he needs control. He needs security. He mentions himself that he likes things to run smoothly, like the gears of a clock.

This brings the point of the clock analogy being relevant to his character. If ever encountering a traditional clock, the mechanations operate by an elaborate system of gears. The maintenance of which requires particular maticulousness, the likes of which, if neglected, begin to show wear on the machinery and the clock begins to slow and fall apart. His chronic tardiness is also reflective of this idea, as it shows his negligence. He adds more gears and systems to the elaborate mechanations of his plans that he can not keep up to attend to them all and begins to show signs of deterioration by his delays being unable to keep up with the mess he's made to keep as much in order and control as possible.

Truly, Stronghart's journey as a character is one of obsession with control and by putting all responsibility of everything on himself because he finds difficulty in putting trust in others, he bites off more than he can chew, and Sholmes exploits that to take him down. It certainly doesn't help that "Chunosuke" decides to hickory dickory dock up and down said clock, further throwing a wrench into these unsustainable plans, exacerbating the original issues in the first place.

He serves as a foil to all of the protagonists for this reason. Ryuunosuke is ultimately successful because he relies on others. Likewise with Sholmes, Barok, Susato, Iris, Gina, and others. Stronghart can't do that because he can't trust others for loss of control, and a key component of trust is vulnerability. He will not give his vulnerability. He can't. He can not trust a broken system that allows guilty individuals to get away with their crimes by means of corruption, so he takes matters into his own hands. It's that inability to trust that brings his downfall and allows Ryuunosuke and friends to actually bring about positive change.

The last time we see Stronghart, he is laid bare before all the consequences of his actions and only when he is finally caught, does he display any act of vulnerability, not because of giving trust, but because he's given up on everything and the one person he had any sort of trust in: the queen because, in his mind, she betrayed him. He's a royalist because the Queen represented the ultimate symbol of control and security. "The benevolent force guiding the empire." So when she leaves him to rot for his misdeeds instead of rewarding him for doing what he believed was justified for the betterment of Her Majesty's empire, he dies alone, a broken, lonely man.

[kingofthenorth]

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this since I first reblogged this. Like, I'm THAT put off by what a huge downgrade this is. I'm seized by some primal need to hate on it a bit and hopefully drive it from my fucking mind.

Disclaimers (since this is the piss on the poor site): I AM ATTRACTED TO WOMEN AND LIKE BREASTS. I've also watched plenty of anime. I am also broadly in favor of horny art. So no, this is not about me "not getting it" because of my sexuality, not understanding what anime looks like, or being against sexual art. Not even remotely.

It just... gets so goddamn ugly.

Episode 5 has what is genuinely a very cute and likable art style. I had forgotten One Piece once looked like this. It's exaggerated and cartoony in a way that's very charming. Even though this is the era of One Piece I actually watched, it's been so long that I forgot it used to look good.

Episode 155, to me, is almost reminiscent of how not-total-beginners-but-not-very-good-yet fanartists draw anime girls. The long, slender build and lack of much detail outside the hair and bikini feels like it belongs on someone's deviantart. It's not really that bad, but neither is it especially good. What bothers me more than anything is that it looks more like the quality you'd expect of the first season of an anime rather than well over 100 episodes in.

Episode 380 looks awful, but I had to stare at it a long time before I could put my finger on why. My best guess is that it has to do with her shoulders playing a way bigger part in this than you'd think. Unlike ep 5 and 155 Nami, she actually has shoulders proportioned more normally to her head... but none of the rest of her matches up with that. She still has 155's twig body, now sporting even bigger boobs, and it looks horrible. If you crop her such that you can't see her waist and arms, she actually looks almost normal. Busty, sure, but not bad. It's the waist half the width of her head (counting hair) and stick arms that make her look so freakish (and the huge breasts are not helping). See?

Episode 550... Jesus Fucking Christ. Good LORD. Where do I even begin? I almost don't want to talk about her massive tits. They're the low hanging fruit. They're so bad, just looking at them says it all. Her shoulders aren't as wide as 380's, but the rest of her proportions are so fucked that it makes no difference, positive or negative. Look at her waist. It's only twice the width of the widest part of her arm, and comparable in width to just ONE of her enormous knockers. Her face is so squished, it could fit on one of the giant breasts. I honestly don't understand how this is supposed to be sexy. She no longer looks human. She has no internal organs. She is just a spine with boobs and something resembling a face. Jesus.

Even ignoring the fact that Oda makes most of his female characters look this way while giving the men far more variety in body shape--which SHOULDN'T be ignored--it still looks SO bad. I cannot get over this. How did it get this ugly...

how the fuck does anyone watch one piece when it looks like that 💀