#greater good spoilers

[ambrosiagourmet]

This is just a smaller observation that will hopefully someday be part of a larger analysis on Kabru's view of Laios & how Laios impacts him...

But I think it really interesting that Kabru surrenders something for Laios twice, and that these moments are inversions of each other.

The first time, Kabru gives up his life to maintain his control. He changes the course of the entire story with this action, and is willing to die to achieve that. Kabru is (supposedly) entrusting the future to Laios, but he is still very much the primary actor in the overall narrative. He is still the one choosing what the story should be.

The second time, however, Kabru gives up his control to keep hold of something personal and selfish (in the way of dungeon meshi selfishness - it is a good thing to keep this desire. It small piece of what makes him a living creature). He steps aside to let Laios choose the way forward. He surrenders narrative agency for personal agency... not changing the story, but changing himself.

[disheveledtranquility]

This scene will forever haunt me.

[anistarrose]

to be honest when i see people say that "moral center" characters are boring, i'm like. well, to each their own i guess, you can have your taste and i can have mine. but also: 99% sure that's a straight-up skill issue on behalf of whoever's writing the characters you're thinking of. because when they're written well, characters at the moral heart of their story can also be interesting, complicated, evolving and contradictory, messy, flawed, in possession of Complexes, and most importantly, perpetrators of mistakes so tragic and devastating that they shape the entire narrative. and i know for a fact that all of that is true because of my best friend Lup Adventurezone

[vaguely-concerned]

the mourn watch background gives you such a GIFT in having other characters notice and call out on-screen that rook code switches like a motherfucker. the whiplash of hearing my snarky 'heeey I'm just a little guy! :>' funnyman rook speak the heightened ritualized phrases of the mourn watch with perfect seriousness and gravity completely naturally and/or break into an academic tone that can keep up with emmrich at the drop of a hat never stops giving me such endless delight. truly their real mind is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside some hideous mourn watch casual wear

[iicaru2]

the funny thing to me about wyll being described as the most normal guy in the party of tadfools is that he is only “normal” in a comparative sense. of course he looks like the most sensible, trustworthy individual here, look at the batshit insane people he surrounds himself with. it’s easy to come off as sane at first glance when everyone he knows is pissing off gods and violating the faerûn equivalent of the geneva convention left right and center. then he drops his own wild lore out of left field— like that time he attempted grand larceny at eight years old, or that he has fond memories of reading mermaid porn his father kept hidden and can recite them from memory, and you remember that he should not, in fact, be trusted to make wise decisions if left unattended.

[amaranthdahlia]

i leave him to you. | i got it ... my hero.

[afterthelambs]

This 20-yr old cartoon is basically the plot of Arcane

I'm not exactly surprised so many people jump to classify Jinx a terrorist since she kinda fits the Western stereotype of that (although that's debatable since she doesn't have a concrete ideology or organization), but I guess I'm a bit surprised the real world commentary is flying over some people's heads in a way that gets them to justify Piltover's response as valid or write off Jinx's response as unreasonable.

In my opinion Jinx was partially intended to be a deconstruction of the terrorist stereotype by interrogating what causes someone to be like this in the first place. They deliberately gave her bomb/ explosion motifs, plus she's literally firing a missile at a tower of politicians. It's meant to evoke a certain imagery but you're not supposed to stop there. Youre supposed to ask "okay well why did it get to this point and how could this have been prevented?" and the answer to both those questions is Piltover.

Season 2 takes this further by asking what's the difference between a terrorist and a revolutionary. It's not a coincidence that Piltover (the oppressive regime) is the one framing her as a terrorist while Zaun sees her as a revolutionary symbol. In reality, she isn't either of those things (not completely) but no one sees her as Jinx-the-complex-person because of the dehumanization someone in her role gets subjected to, from both sides.

Piltover and Zaun are not the same. I really don't think you can both-sides-are-bad this conflict at all, particularly when one side possesses all the resources and power for centuries. You can debate about whether it was handled properly because yes the writers have biases and I think the depiction of fascism and revolution was rushed and clumsy, but I do appreciate the attempt at real world commentary.

[renegadesstuff]

GIVE HIM HIS BUDDY BACK 🥺🥹

[ariadne-mouse]

Still thinking about just how deep in it Liliana Temult is. Like in the eyes of the narrative she went from

absent & possibly dead, very sad -> alive just estranged?? mysterious! -> possibly involved in a cult, tragic, can her daughter reach her? -> uncomfortably high up in said cult -> the cult's goddamn General and striking such terror into the local population of the Ruidus that they are afraid of even her appearance or someone who looks like her

Ordinary people who are trying to resist the dictatorial Imperium/Ruby Vanguard alliance and their iron control of the populace are terrified of her. You don't strike terror just by "being there". Terror happens because of actions. And it leaves us to wonder what exactly Liliana Temult has done during her time on the moon to make the citizens fear her so much.

[kmesons]

some starcanwreckedpulp character drawing requests from discord! got to try out some new grey brush markers for these.

[kacievvbbbb]

The fact that Viktor was right there! They were right beside each other and Five didn’t even look at him. Viktor who was his closest sibling and probably his best friend for all he knew the concept of it. Viktor who made him those disgusting marshmallow sandwiches for months hoping he’d come back to eat them. Voice who was all Viktor had when they were kids didn’t even look at him. The world was ending they were about to die and Five didn’t share a moment with a single member of the family he crossed timelines to save. STEVEN! WHAT WAS THE RECIPE!

[cent-scratchnsniff]

I'M GOING TO LIVE

[owari--hajimari]

goddamn. hanekoma. playing dealer with a stacked deck. arming every faction. placing eggs in every basket. bets on every hand.

“an inevitability”; that the proxy handpicked by the composer would be a fan of CAT, the proxy being a fan of CAT ensures a strong imagination, the proxy possessing a strong imagination means the proxy’s worthy, the proxy being worthy ensures the composer would pick him. it didn’t have to be neku, necessarily, but it always would’ve been. neku is at the mural, because he is the worthy proxy, joshua is at the mural, because he’s there to collect his proxy, minamimoto is at the mural, because the fallen angel has informed him of the composer’s identity.

shibuya being destroyed is an unacceptable outcome. the composer must be stopped; the proxy must change his mind, the conductor must win their game, or the fallen angel’s game piece must kill him. there’s a perfect outcome out there, but insurance is necessary. so kitaniji gets his pins, minamimoto gets his taboo noise, joshua gets a busted tracker, and neku gets a mentor.

hanekoma lays the groundwork for neku to become the kind of person that can influence joshua. “trust your partner”, the other various advice, telling neku some things about joshua to get him to sympathize. and it’s because he’s neku’s idol that neku tries to internalize it, because it’s CAT saying these things. and neku died because he loved CAT’s mural. an inevitability.

[venomgaia]

lobo the drow druid and his quest to befriend every evil/morally ambiguous npc as part of a tactical alliance

[theywontletmebeprincipal]

[moongothic]

The worst part about trying to figure out what Crocodile's deal is that because he's so fucking irredeemably evil in Alabasta... Like... Yeah he's just irredeemably evil. Like I love him but he did cause countless casualties, a ton of pain and suffering and literally attempted to blow up a million people

Like no amount of theoretical "trying to do it to save his son from the Government" or "trying to stop the Government from hurting anyone else" or just "doing it for the greater good" is going to make him any less of a mass murderer

But also Robin absolutely 100% helped with all of that shit simply because she wanted to read the Poneglyph for herself.

No amount of her intending to betray Crocodile from the begining and sabotaging his plans erases the fact that Robin also caused countless people to starve to death and die in the civil war. Her sabotages only succeeded out of sheer luck, and only spared the lives of the people at the final battle. She has the blood of countless innocents on her hands. Because she wanted to read history.

But her crimes were swept under the rug because she has a sad backstory and her sabotages worked out just at the nick of time by sheer dumb luck

So Croc??? Just??? Is there a chance??? At all???

But also he did literally intend to sell Buggy into slavery

Like, fuck Buggy, but jesus

What's also killing me is that we like. Don't know what Luffy thinks of Crocodile right now. Which really is like. The thing that will decide how we, as the readers, are supposed to feel about Crocodile. Luffy is our POV

Like we don't know what Luffy's opinion of Crocodile is after he helped save Luffy (and spared Ace once) during the Summit War. Like Luffy clearly fucking hated the man in Impel Down and the two interactions they had during the War weren't like positive (in the sense that Luffy himself didn't think of the interactions as particularly positive. Defending Whitebeard from being attacked once and then being like "wait what HIM?!" when Crocodile defended Ace. To be fair, in the midst of the chaos, there wasn't much time to spend on Pondering On Such Things because Ace needed to be saved, and Oda goes out of his way to not show us what's going on inside Luffy's head, because it's all meant to be out in the open anyways. Regardless, these weren't like "yay it's Crocodile! :)" moments for Luffy is what I mean)

But also Luffy was very grateful of Law for saving his life and was willing to put his trust into Law for their alliance- of course, they weren't explicitly enemies to begin with, rivals at most, but still. Luffy respects those who help him.

But also Luffy grew during the timeskip. Like he's not that clueless anymore (like he finally understands Hancock is in love with him etc), and similarly Luffy gets that Buggy is an absolute loser now. But also Buggy did also help save Luffy's life (even if it was by accident), and while IDK if Luffy is aware of that, I don't think that helped improve Luffy's impression of Buggy

So like. The fuck does Luffy think of Crocodile, at this moment? Even with the Cross Guild reveal, he didn't even really comment on Croc and just focused his energy on being confused about Buggy being "the leader" of CG. IDK it feels almost intentional or something, that we don't know what Luffy thinks?? Especially since we did get Zoro's opinion on Mihawk in the situation?? Or am I delulu?? (Sidenote. I'd love to know what Robin would have to say about Crocodile helping save Luffy's life. What Jinbei might think of the final words Crocodile left him with before blasting them out of Akainu's reach. But mainly just Robin's thoughts)

Like IDK my best guess would be that Luffy still hates Crocodile just the same but is like grossed out by technically owing him one??? In the classic

-kinda way, you know? And that he'd be just kinda confused about it?

Because I can't fucking imagine Luffy being like "oh we're cool now" with Crocodile, let alone "Yay Crocodile :) He saved my life!". But also like. Luffy does kind of owe Croc one. Kind of. And Luffy is usually very respectful of that kind of thing. Aaaaaaaa???

(Also does. Does Luffy even know it was Crocodile who yeeted him and Jinbei out of Akainu's reach to begin with. 'Cause he was unconcious. Knocked the fuck out. Does. Does Luffy even know. Did anybody tell him???)

I just.

There's the reasonable part of me that knows Crocodile is an irredeemable evil dickbag and everything he has ever said and done up to the most recent chapters support that. He is too far gone.

And then there's the absolutely delulu part that loves a tragic villian who gets a heartwrenching redemption that's looking for any fucking sign that could indicate Crocodile could maybe be one