#against his own judgement

[chromatic-lamina]

Read this analysis. Amazing. Under a cut (super nice to do that after the official release), but click on it and read this amazing analysis of 1087 and its main protagonist).

One Piece-Mini Chapter Round-Up(Chapter 1087)

My heads not in analysis mode much right now but a new One Piece chapter came out after the most recent Void Month so I wanted to talk a little about the focus of this weeks chapter. Catch it below the cut.

Garp. That's the focus of this week's chapter. And through it, we get so much more insight into the hero of the navy than is evident at first.

A lot of my assumptions and conclusions are based on what happens next. Because the situation looks hopeless at the end of the chapter and Garp isn't smiling even though he is a D and he might die soon. SO! What does that say?

First of all, there's an assumption that Garp expects some intervention. Now, I'm gonna come out and say that I expect Coby and the other marines, as well as everyone they have rescued, to make it out. I also expect Garp to die. I also don't think Garp's death will be front page news. I don't know how it's all going to go down but I think there's a chance Garp expects Kuzan to bail them out. I don't think Kuzan will blow his cover that early. So that leaves some deus ex machina to save the new generation. Who knows what that'll be? I'm not here to speculate. What I am here to do is to talk about what all this says about Garp.

Garp is in deep denial. That's basically what his character is. At the beginning of the chapter, Commodore Brannew states that being a hero is a strength that you have to earn. And Garp has earned that. But just like Kuzan, he has also let it slip away by denying the obvious truth. The Marines are a corrupt organization that he continues to be the poster boy of by staying with them. He sees the truth of it. He also sees the truth of the matter in that those he loves and trusts choose things other than the Marines, and therefore condemn it as well. Him having to watch the execution of his adopted granson, Ace, should've been the final nail in the coffin but we see how he deals with that and all of those painful choices and decisions. He ignores it and keeps punching away. Training his body instead of confronting what all of it means. At the end of the chapter, Garp states that Justice will Prevail with a grim look on his face. Not at all like the D's we have seen in the past, smiling as they face certain doom. To me, this feels like Garp losing the way of the D's, those who challenge power. This invoking of justice at this time also brings back to mind my favourite Marine, Fujitora, and how he represents that Justice is blind. Garp wants his justice to be blind too. Thinking that if he does enough good on the side of the law that he'll tilt things in a way that'll lead to change.

It's the perfect counter to every single Marine with a strict sense of justice. Arguably they all see themselves as necessary if not even the good guys. But Garp, with his immense strength, reputation and extremely long tenure is the perfect counterpoint to them. He shows why their efforts will not pan out. Right now the only reason he's even making a dent is because he is working outside of the system. And even then, as an agent of the government, it's just senseless chaos. It's a resetting of the status quo and not real progress. To me this seems to be heading towards a tragic end for an extremely tragic character. Garp is denial and ignorance. Garp is stubbornness. Garp is one of the best foils in the series. But most of all, Garp, who's had so many of his loved ones choose a path away from him, is a tragic figure.

Being a hero is a strength that you have to earn and that justice will prevail are also concepts that link back to Luffy in a positive light. And by having Garp basically be a foil to Luffy in this sense, Oda highlights how great our protagonist is as well. A lot of people disliked the idea of Luffy being a chosen one a la the gum gum fruit/nika/gear 5. But Oda really wants to hammer in the point with this chapter that being a hero is something you earn. And something Luffy has earned with his actions as well. I'm sure Garp's end will be epic and tragic and probably somewhat heroic, but that heart of a hero that Luffy has is something Garp lost a long time ago. And Luffy shows how Justice really is blind.

Blind in that it doesn't follow laws. There's a lot that can be said about how justice is subjective, with how each admiral seems to have their own version and how Luffy's is entrenched in kindness. And how there is no cosmic right or wrong and how the law is a threat to follow rules and not at all true justice.

Garp also reminds me of so many of the older people I know and some that I dearly love and some that I wished I could love. He's stuck in his ways and because of that it's not hard to project that loved one that refuses to change onto him. He's relatble in the the way that he's someone who wants the best for you but your definition and his don't quite match up. And you see the love there but there is also the overbearingness and the expectations. I love garp. I hate garp. I love garp. He's such a great character.

One last tangent in this wildly rambling post. Garp and Koby. Koby is naive and falls for the pirates trap. But Garp realizes that it's not a fault with Koby. Koby needs to keep that innocent heart he has. It's absolutely essential that he does. And just like how Whitebeard couldn't get mad at his idiot son Squard, Garp can't let Koby take the blame and become what he has. Someone blinded to other's because they've been too busy ignoring their own pain. So Garp has only one job. And that's to get Koby off the island as the same marine he was when he got captured. He doesn't want Koby to change like Dragon or Luffy or Ace or Kuzan. More and more this becomes like Marineford and Whitebeards death. The ship splashing down. The hidden stab wound. The absolute insistence in believing in your own son. You hope that these character's learn from the past. That they change. That they aren't doomed to repeat the past because the story needs them to. You hope that this time it's different. You hope.

[thatneoncrisis]

harrows a sped kid but gideon is a girl who should by all accounts at LEAST have a 504 plan but all adults dismiss her as merely combative and disruptive, at Best theyll throw in a "not utilizing her potential to the fullest." multiple teachers have vaguely alluded to her having ODD rather than think for a second about why she might be acting like that

[jamiethebee]

(In which I spiral down a rabbit hole with Midoriya that has little to do with @codenamesazanka 's original post that started this (x).  FYI I sorta separated Deku/Izuku to indicate Deku as the hero and Izuku as the person outside of heroics.)

I started thinking about this post again (see the link above) and how Deku doesn’t really understand that non-perfect or sanitized victims exist AND still need to be saved and not by destruction. (The "maybe killing someone does save them" thing is a great way to assuage guilt but it's a stupid copout.)  Deku (hero) and more importantly Izuku (person) doesn’t really understand that though because he WAS a “perfect” victim.  Midoriya stayed quiet and inconspicuous and didn’t make a fuss about the bullying or discrimination he faced, he just kept his head down and hoped that something would change without any real effort on his part.  And if he had died as a result from the bullying he would’ve been hailed as an unfortunate victim (of who? or what? Don’t worry - isn’t his death so tragic? oh well now on to our next news story -), so any critique of society and the individuals who reinforce the status quo don’t actually have to do anything.  I know there’s more nuance here and lot of cultural things happening with this all but I’m not gonna dig into that right now.

Moving on!  Quite frankly the boy didn’t live long enough to get out of his childish mindset and get some “righteous" anger at the wrongdoings and failings of society.  All Might came along when he was still starry eyed and hopeful to lift Midoriya out of the trajectory of his life and Izuku never had any time to get to the point where he comes to terms with the hurt caused society’s rejection of his self and get angry about it.  As such, he can’t understand the league.  It probably doesn’t even occur to him that he's missing that understanding because for him it worked out - he got the attention and support to be able to escape the circumstances of his birth/quirklessness and to leave the box (deku) that society shoved him in. Twice and Toga never had that support – they both lived how they needed to in order to survive in a world not meant for them until they broke down.  (Maybe that's why Vigilante Deku AUs were so popular back in the day - they speedran Midoriya past the hopeful kid stage and to a point where a lot of the fanbase was in their own lives - seeing the issues in the world and wanting to affect change.)

Izuku, for all that he claims to want to connect to the villains, hasn’t given enough thought or empathy to understand how continuing to live a life where you don’t fit in with society can be deeply hurtful as well as the emotional repercussions of having unchangeable parts about yourself be reviled.  This isn’t to say Izuku had it easy -  of course Izuku went through hardships but.... there’s a big difference between living through stuff as a kid and finding a way out of it vs living through that, growing up, maturing, and in turn looking critically at society.  But I can’t bring myself to fault Midoriya for those exact reasons because he's just a kid. He doesn’t have the perspective to see outside of himself – at least not for the villains.  Because that seems to be too far of a stretch for him?  But Todoroki was close enough to Izuku’s mindset for him to help back in the sports festival arc.  I also acknowledge that he's a teenager and IS capable of critical thinking, but from what we've seen, his schools have never actually made the students examine the world they live in - which is a different skill from quirk analysis or historical or literary analysis or the various writing exercises that students go through. 

(Believe me – you can have the brightest kid but, most of the time, unless you point out the shortcomings of their mindsets, it won’t occur to them to look further.  (Not necessarily assuming that they’re wrong, but rather that their consideration of life is not as expansive as it should be. Especially for a kid wanting to be the greatest hero and save everyone.)  For example: many abled bodied people don’t realize how inaccessible places can be until someone brings it up to them or they find themselves in that situation (like a temporary crutch or wheelchair).  It’s through no fault of the able bodied person that they weren’t aware enough to consider it in the first place, but what they do once they realize physical accessibility is an issue, is on them.)  Back to the point – hero society never calls attention to it’s own shortcomings despite the proof quite obviously existing and the people within society don’t seem to spare much thought either. The adults who have seen more of these instances are then of course more culpable in this than the kids who haven't.

So, Midoriya was also failed by society (cough all might cough) as well, but he chose the hero path - to save people. We see him starting to consider the deeper issues in his talk with Uraraka, and the few times he “tries” to talk to various villains shows that he is aware enough of underlying issues - which makes it his duty as a hero to do something about it.  In that way, he is at fault. He chose a profession to devote his life to that should require this of him.  And through his hero work, Midoriya has seen the problems in society and yet he’s chosen to turn away from them (and by problems/them I’m referring to the villains “too far gone to save” and the issues they represent). 

(Sorry Midoriya, but considering we’re nearing the end and you haven’t shown any growth in this area….. I am faulting you for metaphorically pushing your head in the sand.  I do want to be wrong though.  I really want the kid to prove me wrong.)

And he’s able to turn away from them guilt free, in part, because he’s gotten the proverbial thumbs up by his classmates that it’s ok and that they’ll just be better and be model minority heroes and that will fix the problem! Because they’re positive representation!  Or something?  If you can put your mind to it that will fix things! Just try harder! Again, very idealistic but they are kids, so it comes with the territory.  (Horikoshi didn’t have to make them unquestionably right in that approach though.  Toga and Uraraka coming together for the win! The Shoji and Spinner match up not so much.)

Overall, there’s something about how Deku still fit into society's boxes in an acceptable way and never truly faced what existing outside of "acceptability" was like.  Don’t get me wrong it’s tough to live in the mha world as a quirkless person and of course it has its problems and restrictions, but that’s still a box that society provides for, even if the society in question doesn’t like it. 

And I'm not saying that Izuku had to live through a terrible life to understand the villains!  Just that, he has the capacity to look outside himself and be empathetic, but the application of it is lacking, despite knowing there’s problems, despite having LIVED with some of those problems. Extrapolate, boy!!!! You don't need empathy to reach out to others but the whole compassionate/kind Midoriya thing has been touted since the beginning! So I want to see it!

(Not sure how much sense this will make to people, but there’s a maturity that comes about with either time or certain circumstances that can be hard to grasp unless you’ve lived through it.  And quite frankly, Midoriya hasn’t. He went from a perfect/acceptable victim to the top tier of society (heroes).)

(Basically: Midoriya never **matured in the restrictive environment he grew up in and can't emotionally connect with the league who did, because of that. Instead he seems to have internalized the "if they were better" or "if they were truly good" then there wouldn't be a problem because just look at his classmater!, so villains being villains is their own fault and no one else is culpable.)

**centers on the idea that someone starts off as hopeful in regards to their discriminated position in life and over time matures to understand how society supports that discrimination and come to terms with the hurt that it's caused them personally (and in this case to fight back against it)

also, if you made it this far, i'm just having a fun time reading codenamesazanka's posts about the latest chapters

[ifyougiveuptoday]

we need to let them loose in a shopping mall with unlimited budget NOW!!!

[a-gay-bloodmage]

Short Breeches

(Blackwall x Mallory Trevelyan, Sera & Mallory Trevelyan)

Sera figures that at least half of the Inquisition has a crush on the Inquisitor, Mallie. As a gift to the people, Sera devises an ingenious prank—seal Mallie's wardrobe and leave her with nothing but a tank top and a pair of homemade shorts. The Inquisitor, Mallory Trevelyan, does not exactly appreciate trying to keep up a fake female identity when nearly everything is on display in front of the Inquisition and the Warden Blackwall.

[nerdbarbie]

reminding everyone that bills initial perogative was to defend the harley quinn shirt girl and joe was the one to plant the idea in his head that girls who go into comic shops are just attention seeking. even after joe said that, bill didn't look convinced. he continued to look unsure and nervous. bill dickey is An Asshole. he's a shitty, rage filled nerd. but he also had that like, glimpse of a chance and it wasn't directly influenced by anything of note. that was just how he felt in that moment

[christnarr]

marriage counselors HATE THEM!

[lord-squiggletits]

Something else that makes me sympathetic to Pharma's situation is like. Idk if there's an actual term for this or if someone smarter and more academic wrote it about some real life context that actually matters.

But, so we've already established among Pharma stans that the circumstances at Delphi were blackmail/torture with no real way out that wouldn't involve Pharma being responsible for people getting killed (either killing patients for the deal or having everyone die bc he failed his end of the deal).

And I feel like while "he's still in the wrong because he killed people" is part of it, another sort of implicit part is the idea that Pharma should've been willing to take more personal risk, maybe even risk dying? I mean, Ratchet does ask "why didn't you just detonate it near the DJD" (to which Pharma responds that he did try to get Sonic and Boom to do it, but they refused) so like

Idk I feel like we do have this social notion of martyrs as a very romantic ideal, people you can praise for being so brave and strong and righteous that they ended their own lives for their cause, while you can also coo about how sad and tragic it is that dying is what it took for them to do the right thing. But at the same time I feel like in reality, having an expectation that people become martyrs is kind of a toxic social norm bc like. It's very easy to demand that others sacrifice their lives for some Ultimate Moral Good when you yourself aren't experiencing the same hardships as they are. And ultimately it is kind of fucked up to tell someone "the moral thing you should've done was risk your life/kill yourself" because asking someone to pay their life to do the right thing is no small request. And sure, the typical response would be to call them a "coward" for caring more about saving their own skin instead of doing the right thing... but again, death is a really scary thing and self-preservation is a really strong instinct, so it kind of feels like having this binary view of "you're either a Brave Hero who sacrifices your life for everyone else or a Dirty Coward who's too scared of dying to do what's right" is kind of fucked up?

I guess the best way to describe it is that if someone willingly gives up their life as a sacrifice to others, it can be a noble thing because it's a choice they made willingly, but if it becomes a Moral Standard that in order to be a Good Person you have to be unafraid of throwing your life away and if you aren't willing to die you're a Cowardly Bad Person, that's when it becomes toxic.

Idk, I guess how this ties back to Pharma is that he was never in a position where he expected to make these kinds of moral decisions/ultimatums. He's a doctor who doesn't even get into combat, his job is to heal and not to kill, he's behind the front lines in a hospital that's supposed to be a safe, neutral place for him to heal people. So in the face of suddenly having a "murder people on behalf of me, or I murder everyone you swore to protect" ultimatum thrust upon him, I understand why Pharma wasn't """"""""""brave enough"""""""""" to "do the right thing" (whatever that would've been in the case of Delphi). You could argue that maybe a frontliner soldier accepted the burden of possibly dying for their cause and they've become used to it as someone who lives that reality every single day, but I feel like for Pharma, who's a doctor and a protected non-combatant (from what we can tell), that sort of risking of his life/living with the fact his life could be snuffed out any day isn't something he would've been prepared for at all.

And for me personally, from an outsider's perspective, it strikes me as kind of unethical to go "oh well he should've just detonated the bomb himself even if it killed him" bc again, there's a difference between witnessing a moral conundrum as a bystander versus being the person living with it and being under time pressure where it's do-or-die. Just as part of my personal standards, I feel like death is such a huge consequence/burden of someone's actions (literally you are no longer alive, any potential you had left is cut short, you cease to exist on this plane) that it feels rather callous to go "Well you should've just been willing to die for your beliefs if you really cared that much!!!"

[termagax]

u know at the beginning i kind of thought kfp4 was gonna do something with shifus whole. deal. but they didnt like at all which is a shame

[dreampearls]

obsessed with the idea of scara and webtoon collei interacting they would be soooo uncomfortable around the other but not realize it's for the exact same reasons that they hate themselves HEY wait okay im sad now. this was supposed to be a funny post :-( man

[cave-monkey]

It dawns on me that the journey to the west took 5,040 days exactly, right, and while the book goes from tribulation to tribulation, there were still only 81 of those. And they were missing one when they got there. And some of the tribulations Tripitaka went through happened before the journey even started.

So, even being generous and saying that most of the tribulations that occurred during the actual journey could be said to have taken a few days to handle each, that's still only about 10% of the journey. A tribulation was anything that happened that put Tripitaka in danger or presented any sort of obstacle to him. Anything even remotely exciting would have fallen into that ~10%, and nothing else could have happened, because otherwise they wouldn't have gotten west one moderate inconvenience and/or major trauma short of the prize. (I mean, unless the thing that happened managed to not involve Tripitaka at all in any way, but that's very hard to do when you are all attached at the hip.)

Holy cow they really were just walking. ALL THAT TIME. No wonder Zhu Bajie was stirring the pot at any given opportunity. It was literally the only thing to do.

[dutybcrne]

Okay, saw the summer event preview and aaaaaaAAAAA

[mars-ipan]

i do love my family very dearly but the internalized ableism the men in here struggle with is. so much

[pttucker]

Han Sooyoung looked at me with a confused expression because she didn't know what I was trying to do. Cho Youngran wondered, "…What do you want to say?" "What do I want to say? My mother knew what constellation you would get." "…" "Maybe she saved your daughter for the purpose of trying to use you. She is such a person."

Uh...Dokja?

Hate to break it to you, but you are also "such a person."

You've literally outright said that you've saved a person because you knew they would be useful in the future. In fact, you've done it multiple times. You don't even try to hide it.

[purposefully-lost]

The fact that Charlie kind of thinks of himself as stupid and slow when he's not at all </3

[julijbee]

playing pathologic 2 as a disconnected ndn hitting harder than local man expected, more at 8