#The Power of Friendship

[characterssaythedarnestthings]

"We are going to defeat Dracula with two things: Garlic, and the ✨Power Of Friendship ✨💕💫😻😽😸🥳🫶🤩🥰🥰. Here, I made crucifix Friendship bracelets! 🥰✝️📿" - Abraham Van Helsing, Dracula

[opbackgrounds]

Before driving deeper into Usopp’s side of thing, I want to focus a little bit on Luffy, because as I’ve mentioned previously, this fight between has a bit of a different flavor from other Luffy-centric battles, but what I haven’t mentioned yet is how public all this is. The final battles with big bads like Arlong, Crocodile, and Enel were all away from other people, but not here. The shift of Luffy becoming a more public figure started with his ass whooping of Bellamy way back in Jaya, but even that was only in front of a bunch of pirates. Showing up to rock Enies Lobby is what’s really going to launch him into the public spotlight, and so it stands to reason that this final stand against Lucci is seen by both the marines and the Straw Hat Pirates.

So far he and Lucci have been on pretty equal footing, but Lucci managed to save his last big trump card until this moment, and seems to have Luffy beat when Usopp shows himself for real. Oda puts a ton of emphasis on Luffy’s expression, this panel alone taking up 3/4 of the page.

And, like, imagine Luffy’s shock. The gag of him not recognizing who Sogeking is turns on its head and is instead played for the deepest, juiciest drama. Usopp isn’t a Straw Hat anymore. He had no obligation to come to Enies Lobby. But he did.

All throughout Enies Lobby there’s been this running thread of the Straw Hats helping each other out of situations they couldn’t handle alone. Nami saving Sanji, Sanji saving Usopp, Usopp saving Robin. Hell, Robin not trusting her friends to keep her safe from the World Government is what kicked off this mess in the first place. The whole reason Luffy was so adamant about going against Lucci was because he recognized him as the strongest threat to the crew, and it’s Luffy’s job as the captain to protect those under his leadership from that kind of danger.

But right now he can’t. He’s not strong enough. And it’s not until Usopp threatens to put himself in harm’s way against an enemy they both know he has no chance about that he stands up and finishes the fight. Because even the captain needs to be propped up by his crew once in a while, and Luffy would rather die than have one of his crew get killed.

Do you remember now the fight started between Usopp and Luffy in the first place? Usopp argued, using the Merry as a proxy for his feelings, that Luffy would leave behind and abandon the weakest members of his crew to further his own ambition, and here, now, Luffy is showing in a very real way that that’s not true. But even if Luffy is willing to put his life on the line to protect Usopp from people like Lucci, he still needs Usopp’s help. He still needed those words from his best friend in order to stand up one last time. 

[kheldara]

Interview with the vampire but the interview is just Daniel & Louis bullying Armand and making him pull sad faces

[witchpussy42069]

Yeah applying for jobs feels dehumanizing. Yeah society is crumbling. Yeah we are all oppressed by the ruling one percenters. Yeah the world is full of cruelty. But you Cannot Stop Me from baking fucking bread with my Beloved Friends. And you can't stop me from drawing flowers. And you can't stop me from moving worms out of the sun back into the dirt in the shade. And you can't stop me from asking for help even when my past experiences have tried to convince me to never do so again. I am STUBBORN and I will CONTINUE LOVING

[o3o-lapd-o3o]

odysseus: MY FRIENDS ARE MY POWER

odysseus: *activates windbag jetpack*

odysseus:*activates limit break: six hundred strike*

[turtleofthehollow]

Got another fic idea for Alastor and Lucifer cuz they're my faves

We know that Luci tried to redeem demons long ago, and failed miserably at it, so what if he gets a second chance to redeem someone, and it turns out to be Alastor

I can see this going a number of ways

He did it at of spite to annoy the radio demon and miraculously wound up succeeding

Alastor egged him on because he wants to see Lucifer fail at redeeming anyone first hand

Charlie encouraged them to get along, and it somehow ended up with Alastor being redeemed - no one knows how that happened

They made a deal where Alastor gets all of Luci's powers if the King of Hell fails to redeem him

There's so much potential with this set up with Alastor wanting Lucifer to fail for his own amusement, and goes along with it to see how far Luci will go; and Lucifer doing his best because it supports Charlie's goals, and gives him a chance to make up for his past failings

It's made all the better if through all of this, the two actually manage to reconcile their differences and become something close to friends by the end of it

[lovinglonerhybrid]

So Cody burns is like twilight sparkle. put him in any situation and he solves it with the power of found family and friendship. I mean at this point Cody burns would bring shockwave into the family and he would find it logical.

[sirgawainofgalifrey]

Love the recent movie trend from Ballister and Puss in Boots with same aesthetic of "sad grown man having a crisis who's ONLY friend is a literal child"

[rfswitchart]

Amity Blight and Her Broken Strings

So, on Twitter, I saw someone say something about Amity and Hunter's relationship (obviously platonic. People who ship them romantically are gross.)

Naturally, I agree with this, as you've seen in my fics Kindness and Forgiveness as well as Road Trip. I feel like they share a best friend/basically sibling sentiment towards each other, and that Amity wouldn't bare ill will towards Hunter having been through the same things he has... HOWEVER, this also brought me to another thought, and it begs a question... Why was Amity, out of all of Hexsquad, able to move when she was turned into a puppet?

Simply really, she was already someone's puppet before and she broke free of their control...

Much like Hunter was because of Belos, Amity was being used, lied to, manipulated and controlled by Odalia. And think about how awful Odalia was to her. Forcing her to break her friendship with Willow, threatening to expel her friends from Hexside, coming between her and her girlfriend. Using her to test weapons and humiliating her publicly. And all so Odalia could have a 'perfect little girl' who was just like her. Amity never understood that things could be different, that she could choose her own destiny. In the care of her mother, she was little more than a puppet...

And of course, we know that Amity's friends helped her realize that. Especially one who kinda became a little more than a friend...

And of course, her understanding and realizing that her dream and goal being that she "wanted to choose her path herself" was what awakened Ghost and gave her a staff. Being able to control your own life, as a victim of child abuse, is so important, especially when you've gone through as much as Amity and especially Hunter. And that's why I think she was able to move on her own, because she is no one's puppet, not anymore. Amity Blight broke free of her chains and she is never, EVER, going to be shackled and puppeted again...

[besttropeveershowdown]

The Worst Trope Ever Showdown: Round 1, Side A

Found the Right Person

a character is single and content with it. they say they aren't interested in dating and haven't felt this way about anyone. others keep telling them stuff like "you just haven't found the right person yet" and they always respond saying that they don't want to. but then, mostly right at the end, they do find the right one and start a relationship with them that comes very sudden and is like weirdly intense. bonus points if the character is a strong and independent woman and then in the end decides to give up her job or hobbies for love or whatever.

Propaganda:

I hate it so much. I'm aroace and people constantly ask me when I will finally find a partner or that I just haven't fount the right one yet. I do not want to find the right one! leave me alone! and seeing these characters that I can relate to, that have a good life, maybe a cool hobby and friends who is also constantly asked this and says that they don't want a partner, and then having them stripped of this aspect because suddenly they find the love of their life and drop these things because their partner wants them to, is not fun. because this implies that everyone deep inside wants to find someone, and people who say that they don't are lying. because apparently only finding love and admitting that you were wrong and actually wanted this all along can make you happy. amatonormativity at its best. people will point to these characters and be like "look, even they could find love, there is still a chance for you", fuck off

The Power of Friendship

Companionship with others is a character's greatest strength.

Propaganda:

This trope seems to be everywhere, from books to tv shows to movies. It's always at the end of the fight when everyone is about to give up and then the hero launches into a speech about this and all of a sudden they have the strength to defeat the villian even though they were literally about to die

[crimeoflove]

something i love about the song of achilles is how the pair of them are like sexually dissatisfied hobgoblins when they're seperated for more than a day.

'we drank deeply for all we had missed'?

BULLSHIT.

that's just confusing code words for 'yeah we smashed all night'

you horny bastards.

[sinank0606]

This was such a great moment from the anime that really showed that all of them are friends even if they joke about Nate being ordinary and that they enjoy being his friend.

Kinda wish the anime had a lot more of these moments, especially later on...

[opbackgrounds]

More than any other story I've experienced, One Piece lets character traits simply be traits without pigeonholing them as being positive or negative. You see it most with Usopp and Sanji, but much like Sanji's chivalry, Usopp's negativity is presented as part of who he is. It's not something that must be overcome in order to become a better, more complete person. While it gets him into trouble during Water 7, without it the Straw Hats would have lost here at Thriller Bark.

It feels very much like a role reversal from when Sanji saved Usopp from Jabra back on Enies Lobby. Usopp's particular brand of negativity is something only he can do, and for once the rest of the crew has to depend on him to save the day. While there is character development for Usopp during this fight, the core of who he is as a person doesn't change, and that's a really interesting way to handle character development.

And just like the others can depend on Usopp to beat Perona because of his specific ability, Usopp has to depend on the others to defeat the "weaker" zombies surrounding the room, because he's not strong enough to fight them on his own. Even when Usopp gets his hero moment, he has to rely on others to cover his weaknesses.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Happy 400th Anniversary (and one day) to the First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays.

Quote from the Wikipedia article about it:

The printing of the Folio was probably done between February 1622 and early November 1623, and the book was entered into the Stationers' Register on 8 November 1623 (Julian calendar).

The very existence of the First Folio kinda makes me want to cry happy tears every time I think about it. It was published about six years and some time after Shakespeare's death, and without it, about half of his plays would have been completely lost.

And the reason it exists at all is because his friends and colleagues did the work compiling his plays and raising the money to get the book printed.

Shakespeare himself may have doubted that his work had any worth. But his friends cared enough about his legacy to make sure his plays were remembered.

[mjblue]

Quick question: what is the best way to tell others about one’s fanfic here on tumblr.com?

In definitely-totally-unrelated news:

This has been a series of quotes in Shameless Self-Promotion™ of:

Chronicling the Marauders’ generation throughout their school years and beyond! Featuring the trials and tribulations of growing up, the ✨magic of friendship✨, and the 𝕷𝖔𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖗-𝕻𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝕾𝖍𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖜 𝖔𝖋 𝖀𝖓𝖆𝖛𝖔𝖎𝖉𝖆𝖇𝖑𝖊 𝕱𝖆𝖙𝖊 :)

Year 1 (and a bonus short story about Andromeda) completed on ao3; Year 2 now being published!

[aroacesetitoff]

Sorry its the middle of the night but Im summoning the evergang

@veejusttalks @duckies27 @drearygenie @demise-seems-dead @classifiedemonics @radiation-muncher @taylorfromthestars @maxiduhfrog @chaosbutwithak @keptchalice8868 @eris-of-disco @moonbean25 @cryptikexp @beeware-of-lulu @the-huntress24

if i tagged the wrong person im sorry