#it either happens or it doesn't. it's arbitrary

[gender-euphowrya]

it's astounding how pr & marketing people, people whose entire job & education revolves around knowing what people like & enjoy or how they think, so often have no fucking idea what people like & enjoy or how they think

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

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[catboybiologist]

So. Little bit of personal reflection and nudging.

I think that Tumblr has over exaggerated my passing for a while, partially bc the pictures I post are only at good angles. My voice is also mostly untrained, but I've been doing subtle nudging upwards over time, and I can make it kind of androgynous sometimes if I try.

"Passing" is a very nebulous, arbitrary concept that will never be a 1 or a 0. It's also not a necessary goal to your transition. There's also a HUGE zone of passing where people know you're trans, but still read you as a woman overall. Yes, even transphobes. Something in their brain subconsciously reads trans women as women even though they try desperately to overwrite it.

Everything in this post is a neutral assessment, and a collection of random observations. I'm making personal observations about my passing.

With all that in mind, here's my honest personal assessment: I think I'm tipping into the "passing" zone as of very recently, like in the last month or so, and it's been a very interesting set of observations.

A couple of things have stuck out in my mind:

Far less frequent "degendering", and far more frequent binary feminine terminology is used for me. Eg, previously, a store worker calling everyone sir or ma'am would sometimes avoid using either for me. Now, I get miss and ma'am more consistently.

Store workers getting confused or asking for clarification if I ask for any men's clothes or sizing. I've only done this twice recently but got a double take both times.

More time spent reviewing my ID when it has to be checked.

Store workers and strangers automatically gesturing me specifically to women's rooms if I seem like I need a bathroom or ask for one. I still try to avoid gendered restrooms as much as possible, but I've needed it a couple times.

Cis friends have subtly shifted from "you're a woman no matter how you look, you don't have to blend in with cis women" to "you're ridiculous, no one will question you" if I casually mention a problem that arises from being visibly trans

WAY less "tranny glare" in public.

The one thing that has yet to happen is someone being outright surprised when I say I'm trans, but I think that's mostly because I can't think of anyone that I've newly met recently that I haven't had time to introduce myself beforehand to, or doesn't see my overt signifiers like my laptop stickers.

I'm not saying I'm unlockable, and as a 6ft tall girlie I don't think anyone will ever be surprised to learn that I'm trans. But I do think that the general public, glancing at me or having passing interactions with me, is binning me in with cis women more than they used to.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

I don't understand the chevron law thing, could you explain it like I'm five? Should we be working towards fixing whatever the courts just fucked up?

So, okay, I am condensing like a semester of a class I took in 2017 into a very short explanation, but:

It would be really annoying for Congress to individually pass laws approving every new medicine or listing out every single poison you can't have in tap water, so instead there are agencies created by Congress, via a law, to handle a specific thing. The agencies are created by Congress but overseen by the executive branch (so, the president), which is why we say things like "Reagan's EPA" or "Biden's DOJ" - even though Congress creates them, the president determines how they do the thing Congress wants them to do, by passing regulations like "you can't dump cyanide in the local swimming pool" and "no, you can't dump strychnine, either."

However, sometimes people will oppose these regulations by saying that the agency is going beyond the task they were given by Congress. "The Clean Air Act only bans 'pollutants,' and nowhere in the law does it say that 'pollutants' includes arsenic! You're going beyond your mandate!" To which the experts at the EPA would be like, "We, the experts at the EPA, have decided arsenic is a pollutant." On the flip side, the EPA could be like, "We, the experts at the EPA, have decided that arsenic isn't a pollutant," and people would oppose that regulation by being like, "But the Clean Air Act bans 'pollutants,' and it's insane to say that arsenic isn't a pollutant!" So whose interpretation is correct, the government's or the challengers'?

Chevron deference basically put heavy weight onto how the agency (i.e. the government) interpreted the law, with the assumption that the agency was in the right and needing pretty strong evidence that they were interpreting it wrong (like, blatantly doing the opposite of a clear part of the law or something). If there was any ambiguity in how the law was written, you'd defer to the agency's interpretation, even if that interpretation was different depending on who was president at the time.

(Note: there are other ways of challenging regulations other than this one, like saying that they were promulgated in a way that is "arbitrary and capricious" – basically, not backed by any evidence/reasoning other than "we want it." Lots of Trump-era regulations got smacked with this one, though I think they'd be better at it if Trump gets a second term, since they've now had practice.)

Chevron deference wasn't all good – remember that the sword cuts both ways, including when dickholes are in power – but it was a very standard part of the law. Like, any opposition to a regulation would have some citation to be like "Chevron doesn't apply here" and every defense would be like "Chevron absolutely applies here" and most of the time, the agency would win. Like, it was a fundamental aspect of law since the 80s.

The Supreme Court decision basically tosses that out, and says, "In a situation where the law is ambiguous, the court decides what it means." That's not completely insane – interpreting law is a thing judges normally do – but in a situation where the interpretation may hinge on something very complicated outside of the judge's wheelhouse, you now cannot be like, "Your Honor, I promise you that the experts at NOAA know a lot about the weather and made this decision for a good reason."

The main reason it's a problem is that it allows judges to override agencies' judgements about what you should do about a thing and what things you should be working on in the first place. However, I don't think there's really a way of enshrining that into law, outside of maybe adding something to the Administrative Procedure Act, and that would require a Congress that isn't majority Republican.

I will say that kind of I expected this to happen, just because IIRC Gorsuch in particular hates Chevron deference. IMO it's a classic case of "rules for me but not for thee" – Scalia and other conservatives used to rely on Chevron because they wanted their presidents to hold a ton of unchecked power (except for the EPA), but now that we've had Obama and Biden, now conservatives don't like Chevron because it gives the presidents they don't like unchecked power.

[bird-butch]

so obsessed with kim's complex relationship with the whole idea of being a "good person". like generally speaking she does want to do good in the world. she wants to make a difference. that's why her passion lies in doing pro bono cases. and even when she's doing things you might consider unethical, she finds ways to justify it to herself. they deserved it, it was necessary, etc. although even this is pretty inconsistent because sometimes she does have the chance to do something dubiously moral for a net positive outcome, but still hesitates or feels bad, because she has (sometimes seemingly a little arbitrary) lines she won't cross. anyway, thinking about this now after watching 5x03, because it explores the other side to this: whether other people perceive her as a good person. which is just as if not more complicated. because on one hand i don't think she cares very much about what people think of her (or, she does care, just not in the sense of getting sad if people don't like her), but on the other she gets incredibly upset when acker assumes she is just like all the assholes who don't care what happens to regular people as long as they get richer, that she is the exact kind of spoiled nepo baby millionaire lawyer who has never had to work for anything in their lives that she hates so much. lumping her in with them and their "fancy suits" (not knowing that she's never really been able to afford that, just switching between the same couple sets in her closet for years) and their "shiny german cars" (not knowing how she crashed her old car from how hard she'd been working, how hard she's had to work for everything she's ever had). telling her, indirectly, that she's just like the landlords that made her childhood hell (which probably hits particularly hard because she knows it's kind of true, and she hates that her job is making her do this). she's so upset by all this that she ends up visiting him again at night to tell him about her childhood trauma, something she never does for anybody. perhaps not even jimmy. that's huge for her, (and also just genuinely a kind of insane thing for anyone to do lol). that's how desperate she is to make sure he doesn't view her like that. but again, he assumes she's lying, or only saying it to make herself feel better, or to get what she wants, selling herself out. but really she just can't stand the fact that anyone would think of her like this. not necessarily the "bad person" part, because we know that she doesn't appreciate people seeing her as this perfect, pure, good either (see: chuck's weird as fuck comment about jimmy having "ruined this fine young woman" (honestly i think she'd have been justified in killing him herself after that); everything with howard; even jimmy a lot of the time despite him being the one who knows her best), but that they could be so wrong about how. she doesn't mind being seen as a rule-breaker (because she is, at times, as we see in the bottle throwing scene this same episode), but she can't stand having her mistakes and her bad actions being attributed to something that isn't true, is outside of her own agency, and that she hates the implications of (like being rich, or uncaring about people's lives because of that). she can't stand to have her whole person be boiled down to the terrible work she hates, when she tries to do so much good and, most importantly, meaningful work alongside it. even though this guy doesn't know her, or know what she does, and by all accounts is not someone whose opinion should matter to her. i think, more than probably any other character in the whole breaking bad universe, kim is the person who best understands how "good" and "bad" are not a binary, and the nuances within, and nothing pisses her off more than when other people try to project their own ideas of morality onto her to sort her into one box or the other. and she's so real for that

[kenomacreature]

NO, THE VALENTINE'S LETTER IS NOT FROM W.D. GASTER

On the supposed veracity of a 'quirked up' Gaster

A little over a year ago, Toby released a newsletter on Valentine's Day. It contained a bunch of cute little Valentine's cards from various characters across Undertale and Deltarune, randomly selected for individual recipients. The rarest one, however, stood out from the rest, and contained a lengthy letter from an unknown sender, seemingly addressing us as players of Deltarune. After a while, it was deleted from the official website. Naturally, people jumped to the conclusion that Gaster had sent it, and this hypothesis remains the most popular to this day.

There's only one problem: the letter isn't from Gaster, and I can prove it. Or get pretty damn close, anyway.

I'll keep it short and sweet. I've gone over every single piece of confirmed Gaster dialogue multiple times, and done the same with the Valentine's letter. I'll start by listing the key features of Gaster's confirmed dialogue up to this point, and then compare it to the key features of the letter writer. Then I'll expound a little bit on what I think we can take away from this whole situation.

Key features of Gaster's dialogue

Gaster’s dialogue is characterized by a very peculiar syncopated rhythm, with frequent and arbitrary caesura which is communicated either through short pauses in the rendering of dialogue on screen, or (double) line breaks. This is Gaster's key identifying feature. There is no consistent pattern tying the caesura/line breaks to any practical or grammatical feature (such as punctuation); it is purely arbitrary. You will sound like G-Man from Half-Life if you voice the dialogue with the appropriate pauses.

Sometimes, Gaster will split one line of dialogue across multiple “text boxes” (or any other equivalent) for extra emphasis.

Rarely, Gaster’s punctuation will follow a space. In both instances so far, it happened as Gaster was introducing a new chapter of Deltarune.

When speaking in Wingdings, Gaster does not use punctuation.

When speaking in a normal typeface, Gaster consistently uses punctuation, the only exception being one instance in the tweets preceding Chapter 1.

Gaster’s use of language distinctly tends to be either quite formal or lyrical.

While Gaster is usually perfectly coherent, he will occasionally indulge in philosophical musing, make leaps you can’t reasonably be expected to follow, or present bizarre notions (such as the “flavor” of pain, or the notion of “favorite blood types”, where C and D are apparently candidates; that said, Gaster might simply be testing how the player will respond).

There are certain words or phrases Gaster repeatedly comes back to: “VERY, VERY...”, “INTERESTING”, “WONDERFUL”, “EXCELLENT.”, “TRULY…”. Toby seems to rely on the first two phrases especially to make it clear to the reader that Gaster is the one who's speaking.

Gaster retains a serious tone and almost never exhibits humor or self-awareness.

In Japanese, Gaster's dialogue is spoken (very unusually) exclusively in katakana and kanji, with very formal language used.

In Japanese, Gaster's first person pronoun is 'watashi' - to the best of my knowledge, a common neutral way to refer to yourself in formal settings or to strangers. In informal/casual contexts, however, it apparently tends to only be used by women.

In Japanese, Gaster refers to the player exclusively with 'anata' - a formal neutral pronoun which is most often used in cases where the speaker doesn't know the name of the person they are addressing (in paperwork for example).

The only exception is in Entry 17, where "what do you two think" is translated with the pronoun 'kimi'(-tachi, the plural form). Kimi seems to carry some complex nuances - as far as I've gathered, the gist is that it signifies a superior position by the speaker, is socially acceptable when speaking to a subordinate (if you're a teacher or boss for example), can be affectionately used between close friends and family, but is otherwise typically seen as rude or condescending, especially to strangers or superiors.

"During the survey portion, [Gaster] uses “ware-ware” - a rather stiff way of saying “we.” He ends his requests with “kudasai” (please) and uses the polite endings desu/masu. He’s almost excessively formal, as this level of politeness is unusual in Undertale/Deltarune." (source)

The above points by and large do not apply to the text after the vessel is discarded, which is part of why people theorize it's spoken by a different person. This post looks at the differences in Japanese between Gaster and the 'second voice'.

Key features of the letter writer

The letter writer utilizes (single) line breaks which exclusively follow punctuation. Gaster’s arbitrary caesura is not present. You will not sound like G-Man if you voice the letter.

The letter writer says “DELTA RUNE”, whereas Gaster has only used “DELTARUNE”; this is, admittedly, not entirely consistent across translations.

The letter writer uses very idiosyncratic and/or shoddy punctuation, which Gaster rarely does.

The letter writer uses none of Gaster’s common words/phrases.

The letter writer comes off knowingly forgetful, aloof and silly – behaviors which Gaster has never exhibited in his dialogue.  

The letter writer exhibits a fondness for riddles and paradoxical statements, something absent from Gaster’s characterization so far.

The letter writer is noticeably less formal and elegant than Gaster usually is, joking, meandering and rambling where Gaster is typically succinct and to-the-point about the topic at hand.

The letter writer seems easily excitable and uses exclamation marks at multiple points throughout the message, something which Gaster, heretofore characterized as reserved and calm, has done a total of one time.

The letter writer seems aware of the player, which is consistent with Gaster… and yet, the letter writer adopts an unfamiliar, questioning stance towards us and commissions our help, despite Gaster having already established contact with us ages ago and collaborated with us for two chapters now – on cordial, well-acquainted terms at that.  

The letter writer does not have a clear objective in mind, whereas Gaster has been “patiently waiting” to put his plans into action. 

The letter writer is quite blunt and judgemental, dismissing Valentine’s Day as “absurd” and remarking that the player (presumably, anyway) is “very odd”. By contrast, Gaster is reserved, unanimously polite, and only ever offers his opinions when he has something positive to say.

In Japanese, the letter is in a mix of hiragana and kanji (but slanted towards the former) and uses casual language.

In Japanese, the letter writer uses the first person pronoun 'watashi'.

In Japanese, the letter writer refers to the person being addressed with 'kimi' - not 'anata'.

So what do we make of this?

The Valentine’s Day letter is, at the very least, presented in such a way as to make the reader think about Gaster. This is mostly from contextual features of the letter – the letter being “strange”, its “illegibility” possibly referring to the Wingdings font, it disappearing and getting deleted from the website shortly afterwards, and, of course, the letter seemingly being addressed to the player, who only Gaster has been shown to be truly aware of so far.

While all of these are valuable considerations, it must be stressed that not only does the actual content of this letter contain zero substantive similarities to Gaster’s dialogue, it outright contradicts every significant pattern that’s been established so far.

The letter is clearly meant to evoke Gaster, and it would’ve been trivial for Toby to confirm that it was Gaster if he wanted to. Even with all the other patterns broken, Toby could’ve retained the caesura, or written it in katakana, or had the letter writer say “VERY INTERESTING” or “WONDERFUL” or any other common phrase of Gaster’s and this matter wouldn’t even be up for debate. However, Toby deliberately refrained from clearly identifying the writer as Gaster. Instead, he systematically cast doubt on that idea by making it, in every respect, completely unlike all other dialogue we’ve heard from him.

So I think the question to ask is: why would Toby even do this? If this really is just Gaster, why not make that clearer? Again, even if this is showing a “different side” of him, it still would’ve been the easiest thing in the world for him to prevent undue speculation about it being a different character. It seems tremendously implausible that in the already unlikely case of Toby doing a complete 180 on Gaster’s characterization, that he wouldn’t communicate that fact more clearly. If you think this letter is from Gaster, you have to basically ignore the fact that Toby is deliberately (because to imply that he's unaware of this would be absurd) posing a question about the identity of this letter which on first glance would seem to be from Gaster; you either have to assume that his doing so is meaningful (in which case it can't be Gaster), or that Toby is essentially doing this for no reason to trick or confuse the fandom.

I personally see no other plausible answer to the question of “why give us such good reason to believe that this isn’t Gaster” than… this simply not being Gaster. Or at the very least, not the same Gaster that we’ve previously spoken to. 

Who could it be then?

The short answer is that I have no idea. But I think we can narrow down a list of candidates (presented here in no particular order).

#1 - It really is just Gaster The first possibility is that this actually is just the same Gaster that we've come to know. I've made it clear how I feel about this scenario.

#2 - It's a shard of Gaster or a flashback I personally am not fond of Gaster having some form of split personality, but there is at least some support for that idea in Undertale. Likewise I don't see why pre-shattered Gaster would be less coherent than shattered-across-time-and-space Gaster, but it's technically plausible. The benefit of these candidates is that they obviously go some ways towards explaining the Gastery aspects of the letter while also accounting for the dramatic difference in their characterization, but if you ask me, they come with considerable baggage.

#3 - It's the Secret Boss of Chapter 3 or 4 It would fit the bill. All caps dialogue, distinctive speech pattern, probably insane, connected to Gaster, and seemingly about to send you on some weird personal quest. This is the one my money's on. The only issue is that it might be too on the nose if they really are addressing us, the player, directly, and referring to the game of Deltarune (but remember - they say "DELTA RUNE", like the prophecy, or the symbol).

#4 - It's the Man behind the tree Obviously this is assuming that the Egg Man isn't Gaster (and personally, I don't think he is). Handing you an Egg is a similar kind of mix between surreal and silly that characterizes the letter. The Egg Man seems at the very least connected to Gaster, so this would explain that aspect of the letter too. There's also the mirrored flavor text "Well, there is a man here" / "Well, there is not a man here", which is reminiscent of some of the contradictory repetitions in the letters - though, granted, that kind of language is also somewhat associated with the "someone" contacting the Secret Bosses, who I do think is Gaster. Let's move on before we get too confused.

#5 - It's Everyman Everyman certainly has Gaster connections through his appearance in Undertale's True Lab, his status as a recurring easter egg in Deltarune, and his liberal travels between the Light and Dark Worlds. Other than that, we can't say much about Everyman (cards on the table - I think Everyman is the Egg Man). But he definitely isn't Gaster, and he seems semi-important, soooo... could be him! A combination of #4 and #5 would be my second choice behind a new Secret Boss.

#6 - It's FRIEND Okay, I'm not even convinced "FRIEND" is a real character, but if you're not aware, there's a weird Spamton-like entity that briefly appears in Queen's basement in Chapter 2 which, oddly enough, is tied to Gaster via its internal filename, DEVICE_FRIEND. There are a ton of crackpot theories about this thing; I'm not particularly fond of any of them. But I haven't been able to come up with a very enticing explanation for the FRIEND phenomenon myself, so maybe it really is a new character, and the letter was their formal introduction. At the very least I'd say it's more plausible than it being Gaster.

#7 - It's the 'second voice' Once you've accepted that the vessel was discarded by someone other than Gaster, this may seem like a tempting conclusion. However, there are a number of issues with this idea, namely that the SV does not speak in all-caps, uses kanji more frequently than the letter writer, and uses different pronouns. The same reasons that compel us to distinguish between Gaster and the second voice also compel us to distinguish between the second voice and the letter writer.

#8 - It's Dess We know very little about Dess other than that she disappeared in what many assume to be a Gaster-related incident. The problem is that there's not much reason to believe this over the other options, aside from maybe the choice of the 'watashi' pronoun.

#9 - It's the "unused" voice in the code Which many assume to be Dess. Again, not impossible, but I think this stretches credulity even more because there's quite a shift in characterization from UNUSED's scared helplessness to the letter writer's brash, loony arrogance. And while I'm not an expert in Japanese, from a quick glance it seems like UNUSED uses kanji with more frequency than the letter writer does. This post seems pretty informative re: what can be gleaned from the Japanese translation of UNUSED.

(Thanks @kitten-kokomo for the above two suggestions)

#10 - It's some entirely new character unrelated to all of these This is possible, of course, but there's nothing to say about this scenario; if this is the case we couldn't have predicted it and we have nothing to work with at the moment, so we'll just have to wait. I will say, the Gaster connections make me think this is unlikely. We already have a bevy of potential Gaster minions.

Okay, that's all I have to say about the letter.

Good by!

[tokiro07]

The Implications of Straw Hat Loki

It's not a hard and fast confirmation, but Luffy directly and seriously inviting Loki to join the crew rather than it clearly being a joke strongly suggests that Loki will join either by the end of Elbaf or, like Jinbe, will accept the invitation but wait to join until he takes care of some personal business

For the purposes of this post, assuming that one of those outcomes will happen, how will Loki's recruitment affect every other candidate's chances?

Crew of 10

The biggest argument since shortly before Jinbe's recruitment was how many Straw Hats there would be at all. Many people said that Jinbe wouldn't join for various reasons, but the most common that I saw was that the crew was already too crowded and Oda wouldn't be able to juggle any more members

Others believed Jinbe would join as the final member of the crew, as that would mean there were ten Straw Hats after Luffy said in chapter 1 that he intended to recruit a crew of "about ten." Once he officially joined, the argument that the crew was too crowded became even more popular, especially since even now Jinbe has barely had any opportunity to have any character development or one-on-one interactions with the rest of the crew

If Loki is to be recruited, at the very least it means that Luffy wasn't counting himself in the original plan for ten, but more than likely also means that Oda isn't concerned about "overcrowding" just yet. In other words, Loki's recruitment in and of itself means that the gates are open for all remaining candidates

Powerset Overlap

We don't know much about Loki's abilities as of yet, but the one thing we've seen is that he can summon lightning. In terms of combat ability, this makes his powerset strongly overlap with Nami, who uses lightning as her most potent finishing moves, while also lacking all of Nami's weaknesses (her overall weaker build and the need to set up her attacks)

This was an argument against Carrot back in the day, and is still an argument against Monet for her overlap with Brook's ice, so unless Loki somehow loses the lightning ability, that means Oda has no issue with any given two members having similar abilities

That said...having two characters with overlapping abilities looks a lot different than having three, so while Loki's presence may strengthen the argument for Monet, it seems like it may actually weaken the argument for Carrot. For the sake of argument though, I'm only going to give a point to Monet and not take one away from Carrot, as that may seem arbitrary or hypocritical

Alphabet Theory

But that isn't Loki's only point of overlap, though: there's also his name

One of the more popular theories over the years has been the Alphabet Theory, where each pair of letters in the Latin alphabet is ascribed to one of the Straw Hats (AB=Brook, CD=Chopper, etc.). This has been a recurring argument against Carrot, Yamato (YZ=Zoro), Monet (MN=Nami), and many others, while also serving as evidence for Pudding or Pedro (OP still being unclaimed)

Loki, though, clearly overlaps with Luffy, so unless Loki changes his name mid-arc, the Alphabet Theory has more or less been debunked

There is still the possibility that my Epithet Theory will be proven true, and that the remaining letter pairs of GH, OP and WX will be applied to the titles that the remaining Straw Hats are given (ex: "Harpy" Monet, "World Ender" Loki, etc.), but the point remains that the actual names of future recruits are no longer in question. That doesn't hurt the likes of Pudding, but it does help everyone who wasn't already covered by those letter pairs

Signature Color

Loki isn't just debunking theories left and right, though; there are some he's staying in line with, or at least he seems to be for now

On the cover of volume 111, we see that Loki has light purple hair and a deep purple fur cape

My immediate instinct when I saw this was that his signature color overlapped with Robin's purple, but looking closer, while his cape certainly does resemble the shade that is typically associated with Robin, his hair is actually much closer to the red end of the purple spectrum than the blue end that Robin's tends to be

(Apologies to colorblind and fully blind folks who can't see the difference, please trust me that their color schemes are distinct)

Therefore, I think the intention here is that Loki's color is magenta, slotting him right between Robin's purple and Chopper's pink without issue

Unfortunately for Pudding, this means that her case has gotten a bit weaker, as it was widely believed that her signature color would be magenta thanks to recurring colors in her outfits. She could still have brown thanks to her hair, which would make her distinct from Jinbe's ochre, but I'm not exactly feeling confident about it

That said, before Jinbe joined, the theory was that the Straw Hats colors would reflect the RGB color wheel, with Jinbe representing azure and the remaining recruits representing magenta, chartreuse and spring green/viridian, but with Jinbe being ochre, that was soundly debunked, so it's harder to use this new evidence to predict what colors may still be to come

I've proposed in the past that Jinbe's exact shade, odoiro or yellow ochre (note the background of Jinbe's Film Red poster below), is meant to pair with Usopp's yellow, and suggests that all of the Straw Hats' colors will come in pairs, so with that framework we might be able to make a solid prediction

Magenta can easily be taken as either a purple or a pink, but given that Loki also wears a purple cape, I think it's safe to say that he's meant to pair with Robin rather than Chopper. This would make our current pairs:

Luffy and Chopper (red and pink)

Usopp and Jinbe (yellow and ochre)

Sanji and Franky (blue and cyan)

Robin and Loki (purple and magenta)

Brook (solo because he represents both black and white, but arguably can be paired with Vivi whose color is white gold)

This would leave Nami's orange and Zoro's green to be paired

Carrot could easily be slotted into either, as her outfits frequently incorporate spring green and carrot orange, but Carrot herself is still heavily debatable for a litany of narrative reasons, so I would say Loki merely doesn't affect her here rather than aiding her at all

For other oranges, I think we're looking at a shade of brown (ex: Pudding, Kuma, Marguerite), amber (yellow-orange, ex: Rebecca) or vermilion (red-orange, ex: Kinemon). Of those examples, I don't think any of them aside from Pudding have any strong narrative reason to believe in them currently, so it's possible that it'll be someone we haven't met yet. I've said before that I believe a Space Pirate will join, so I'm choosing to believe that their fur will be given a bit more of an orange hue when we see them colored by Oda himself

I've also seen it suggested that Yamato could be vermilion thanks to his horns or as a reference to Oden, but I'm not inclined to believe that myself. I once suggested he could pair with Robin's purple thanks to his rope belt modeled after Oden's, but obviously that's out now, so that just leaves the blue-green tips of his otherwise white hair to pair with Zoro

Obviously my preferred green recruit would be Monet, but there are other characters associated with green like Pedro, Tama or even Bonney with her spring green hat, though she seems to have dropped it from her design as of Egghead

All of this is assuming that there are any rules about the colors aside from being distinct, though. Oda may well not care about the number of overlapping shades, and it's even possible that Loki's color won't even be magenta! Like I said, nobody thought Jinbe's color would be a shade of brown, so the "obvious" answer isn't necessarily the correct one

Either way, though, since Oda himself is the one deciding and publicizing the signature colors, we can confidently say that it is an intentional choice on his part, so if Loki's color is in fact magenta as it appears to be, then we know the remaining members won't be

Devil Fruit Number

Speaking of theories that Oda has acknowledged, one fan pointed out in an SBS a long time ago that all of the Straw Hats' Devil Fruits use names that correspond to the pronunciation of numbers (ex: Gum-Gum/Gomu-Gomu->Go=5, Mu=6->56), and when added together, they seem to create 325 (read: San-ni-go -> Sunny-Go, another name for the Thousand Sunny)

The only number left to reach 325 would be 29, and 2 and 9 were the only digits not yet present, so many people concluded that Kuma and/or his Nikyu-Nikyu Fruit would be a shoo-in to join. However, that would inherently preclude the addition of any other Devil Fruit users, and yet we now have Loki and his yet-unnamed Fruit

This leaves us with a few possibilities:

Loki's Devil Fruit will be named in a way that evokes 29

Loki's Devil Fruit will be named in a way that evokes 0, thus not interfering with the rest of the math in any way and leaving room for another 29

Loki's Devil Fruit will be named in a way that evokes 20 or 9, leaving room for another Fruit to evoke whichever his doesn't

Loki's Devil Fruit will not evoke any number at all, thus disproving the theory entirely

In Scenario 1, there's the chance that there will still be one more recruit with a 0 Devil Fruit, but it does not suggest that there has to be

Scenarios 2 and 3 both strongly suggest that there will be one more recruit, either a 29 or 9 respectively

And Scenario 4 proves that the numbers were a coincidence (or at least an abandoned design choice) and have no bearing on future recruits

Obviously Scenario 4 would be the most advantageous for any given Straw Hat hopeful, but it would also be the least useful for narrowing down candidates. Scenarios 1-3, meanwhile, are all very useful for eliminating possibilities:

Pudding's Memo-Memo and Tama's Kibi-Kibi don't seem to correspond to any numbers

Yamato's Inu-Inu Fruit, Model: Okuchi no Makami might imply 09 with O and Ku, but that would only leave 2, which wouldn't add up to 325

Bonney's Toshi-Toshi corresponds to 10 and 4, but Chopper's Hito-Hito already covers 1 and 10, and Brook's Yomi-Yomi already covers 4 and 3

Kuma's Nikyu-Nikyu and Kinemon's Fuku-Fuku would both still be viable in Scenario 2, but no other scenario

Monet's Yuki-Yuki can be taken as "kyu" in reverse, as 9 is made up of both the kana "ki" and "yu", slotting into Scenario 3 perfectly

Like I said, this will be up in the air until we learn the name, so I'll revisit this topic when the time comes, but my point is that, no matter what, the name of the Fruit will be a complete game-changer to one of the longest-standing recruitment theories

Gender

However, possibly the longest-standing, or at least most popular theory that Loki is positioned to disprove is the Gender Theory, AKA the MFMM Pattern

In short, in both East Blue and the Grand Line, Luffy recruited a male, a female, then two males, in that order, with specific shared characteristics between counterparts

A man referred to as a monster, introduced in bindings (Zoro "the Demon" bound to a cross, Chopper "the Abnominable Snowman" bound to a sleigh)

A scholarly woman, introduced as a villain (Nami, navigator of the Arlong Pirates, and Robin, archaeologist of Baroque Works)

An outcast and leader of men, introduced with the need of a new ship (Usopp the Liar, leader of the Usopp Pirates who helped procure the Going Merry, and Franky the Dismantler, leader of the Franky Family who built the Thousand Sunny)

A gentleman pervert, introduced upon a ship (Sanji, waiter of the Baratie, and Brook, musician of the Rumbar Pirates)

The issue here should be pretty obvious: Loki isn't a scholarly woman! He's a brutish man who decries the need for education in favor of combat training! If he's recruited immediately after Jinbe, then the entire pattern as it stands falls apart!

Even if he delays his recruitment like Jinbe did at Fishman Island and a woman does get recruited in between, that introduces another issue - Loki's parallels to the other 3rd slot recruits

Loki is an outcast, sure, and he does have followers, but all of his notable followers are animals, and they don't really seem all that relevant to his story as of yet

No, I think that Loki is actually a better fit as a parallel to Zoro than he is to Usopp: the Cursed Child, bound to the World Tree

In that regard, Jinbe is actually a better parallel to the 3rd recruit, being the "Boss" of the Sun Pirates, despite his introduction as a prisoner in Impel Down

Loki's recruitment would necessitate a new ship, as the Sunny isn't big enough to carry him, buuut Jinbe was invited to join the crew when we were introduced to the Ark Noah, which Luffy has been foreshadowed to use to fulfill Joyboy's promise to bring the Fishmen to the surface, so...who knows!

What this tells me is that we're still getting the four parallels (Bound Monster, Scholarly Villainess, Leader of Men and Gentleman Pervert), just out of order. If Jinbe would normally have been third and Loki first, then the final order will most likely be 3142, giving us the Gentleman Pervert next and the Scholarly Villainess last

Orrr it's all wrong and none of that matters. Maybe Loki's recruitment is completely debunking the parallels, and we can get one or even two more women at any time, their personalities and interests be damned!

Maybe all of the New World recruits will be introduced in chains; Luffy did break Yamato's handcuffs at Onigashima, and then extended an explicit invitation on his way out of Wano, so perhaps Yamato's AFAB status will allow him to count as the female regardless of when he joins?

Again, we won't know for sure until the end of Elbaf: if Loki joins immediately, we know the pattern no longer directly applies; if he promises to join later, we can be confident that the Scholarly Villainess is incoming

So...where does that leave all of our recruits?

Final Tally

This won't be a comprehensive list by any means, but with all of this new evidence in mind, combined with how the story has progressed since I previously reviewed all of the major candidates, this is how I view the current standings:

Pudding - could be the Brown Straw Hat, definitely not the Magenta; Devil Fruit doesn't add up to 325; former villainess (though "acting" isn't quite scholarly), foreshadowed to join the crew by Luffy; currently Blackbeard's hostage, positioning her to be saved by the Straw Hats. Verdict - likely by narrative, though less so by patterns, and could easily be rescued after all of the major battles conclude

Carrot - could be a second Orange or Green Straw Hat; would be a third lightning user, possibly redundant; not a villainess or a scholar; despite traveling with the crew for a long time, didn't get a satisfying character arc in Wano and was forced to become the leader of Zou. Verdict - unlikely to join the crew proper by narrative and most patterns, but definitely set to be a returning ally in some form

Yamato - could be Orange or Green, but doesn't seem likely; Devil Fruit doesn't add up; affiliated with a villain but never actually one himself, heavily debatable if he qualifies for the female slot (I insist he does not, but that's up to Oda, not the fans); definitely not a scholar; currently journeying through Wano and inadvertently recruited Ulti and Page One and seeming to start his own crew. Verdict - unlikely to join the crew proper, but likely to become a Fleet Captain

Tama - could be Green, definitely not Purple; Devil Fruit doesn't add up; not a Scholarly Villainess; strong relationship with Luffy, showed how she would fit in at Onigashima; dream left unresolved as of the end of Wano, but implied to be forthcoming. Verdict - viable but unlikely, most likely to join Yamato's burgeoning crew

Monet - would be Green; would only slightly overlap with Brook's ice but has enough to make her distinct; scholarly interest in astronomy; Devil Fruit may add up; may not need to be the second New World recruit anymore; still absent from story - needs to be reintroduced properly, but has enough hints to suggest her return and role. Verdict - extremely likely by patterns and fit...buuut not by the current narrative...

Bonney - could be Green, definitely not Pink or Purple; Devil Fruit doesn't add up; not a Scholarly Villainess; strong relationship with Luffy, showed how she would fit in at Egghead; still present at Elbaf, feasible to continue contributing, but might stay with Kuma. Verdict - likely by narrative, but not a guarantee

Bellamy - could have been the Magenta Straw Hat thanks to his tattoos, but definitely isn't now, and has no viable alternate colors as of yet; Devil Fruit doesn't add up; could have been the Leader of Men, but has near certainly lost it to Jinbe; foreshadowed to rejoin Luffy as a subordinate someday - dreams of making flags for Luffy. Verdict - very unlikely by patterns, but still at least somewhat viable by narrative, though more likely to join the Grand Fleet

Space Pirate - could be Orange, definitely not Magenta; little chance of overlap with other crewmates, though we don't know enough about any of them yet; probably won't have a Devil Fruit; would definitely be invited by virtue of novelty; would likely be met either aboard a spacecraft or on the moon, setting them up as the Gentleman Pervert. Verdict - viable, but we'd have to actually be formally introduced to a specific member first

In short...aside from the fact that Loki's inclusion has allowed me to keep harping on about this topic when I thought it was dead, very little has actually changed!!

Most of them were determined by their current role in the narrative rather than by how Loki affected the patterns, with only Bellamy's patterns being unilaterally dashed (though his Devil Fruit could be saved by Loki)

Of course, my main concern was whether he helped or hurt Monet, and as far as I'm concerned, he helped a ton! Overlap? Dead! Alphabet? Dead! Color? Alive! Gender? Alive, but less strict! Devil Fruit? Potentially a non-issue!

I'm in no way saying that this is proof that Monet is going to come back and join, but honestly, I'm just glad to know she's still in the running. So many of those patterns felt like a weight on my shoulders, hoops I had to jump through to prove that she still had even a sliver of a chance, but now they've just....vanished

I don't feel like I need to fulfill a thousand disparate and arbitrary conditions to justify having hope anymore, I just feel...free. Free to point out fun parallels and trivia without needing to account for every possible angle. And even if someone points out an angle I didn't account for, it doesn't feel like I need to fight against it with everything I have anymore. I can just breathe, safe in the knowledge that Oda will do whatever he wants with his story without being beholden to the observations fans always assumed were a meticulously laid out trail of breadcrumbs

But what do you think? Are you glad to see so many patterns be debunked, or did that hurt your faves' chances?

Is there anyone you have in mind who was helped or harmed by Loki, or is Loki the one you were hoping for all along?

[apple-salad]

Rose Ribbon Embroidery "Mini" Projects (for BABY NYFW) Part 1: Kumya JSK

I decided semi-last minute to attend BABY's fashion show at NYFW!

BABY had mentioned in their NYFW brand description that their newest collection would be a return to their origins, as well as presenting archival items.

You have to dress to impress for NYFW, right? So of course, I had to pull out all the stops and wear my Rose Ribbon Embroidery.

Also at the last minute, I decided to make a few extra complementing items...

A matching RRE kumya JSK, and a bonnet.

What follows is more of a sew-along/journal rather than a tutorial or guide, mainly for my own memory's sake. But if you enjoy looking at my process (sometimes sloppy), I'm happy!

Also feel free to take a look at the more romantic process video I edited.

Part 1: Kumya JSK

Part 2: Bonnet

To make a matching kumya JSK, I first had to investigate the original dress a little! This I found actually very fascinating because I had never bothered to take a very careful look at the construction details of this JSK (it was, and still is always a precious item that I am afraid will get dusty or dirty if I look at it wrong...)

I actually even found a spot where it looks like the material was torn and someone roughly repaired it by hand (laugh). I have a feeling this was a factory mistake/fix (either from fabric manufacture or sewing) because it's hidden beneath some lace ruffle and I don't really think it's something that an owner would let happen, but who knows.

So here's a few details of RRE~

Many people don't know that RRE is made of velveteen! And further, there is sometimes a misconception that it came in a "cotton" and "velvet" version. As far as I know, there is only one version made out of cotton velveteen.

So the white can get dirty and attract dust super easily :')

The bodice has a panel of 3 ruffles + upper "hashigo" (ladder) lace part with ribbon. It is also boned (BABY's crap boning with sharp edges and no channels, meh...) but obviously I can skip that for kumya.

The skirt has a trapezoidal embroidered panel, the star of the show, surrounded by 3 tiers of ruffles that extend all the way around the back. The last "tier" is not gathered and has a smaller ruffle all around the skirt.

While thinking about how to construct something similar in kumya-scale, I found it fascinating that the under-material the ruffles are attached to are cotton! Makes sense to reduce bulk, plus you can't tell when the ruffles cover it.

The density of ruffle starts out quite concentrated, and then reduces as the bottom ruffle is reached. The cotton under-material also seems to have less material gathered than the main velveteen ruffle. This also makes sense to not only reduce material usage but also because having a huge amount of gather on the bottom tier can make the skirt look too heavy.

Knowing this, I fussed out some semi-arbitrary ruffle multipliers for each tier (and lining) in my notebook. Very important to keep tabs on how many fabric strips I need and their exact widths!

Also since everything is in kumya-scale the gathering is generally reduced by a lot. Kumya doesn't need much to have a very full skirt, and with such tiny tiers the effect of the gathering can easily look like overkill. The kumya elizabeth OP gathered lace/tiers very lightly:

As reference dimensions for kumya, I have these two kumya dresses which I used lightly (mostly the sugar bouquet one because it's a JSK). I also have the babydoll kumya, but as it was out of commission for a while (on my christmas tree!😅) I didn't use it for checks at all.

The sugar bouquet "bodice" is about 3cm long. I decided to extend it one more cm to 4cm to make it easier for me to calculate for the ruffles and also leave enough space so the ruffles would be visible and not potentially buried.

I use a cotton velvet fabric and a mixture of cluny and torchon lace I have on hand. This velvet has a noticeable twill weave to it and is thinner than the velvet BABY usually uses, but the thinness is perfect for this purpose. I was originally going to just use cotton sateen but remembered I had this!

You can't see the weave from afar so I tolerate it. I wouldn't have wanted to use polyester velvet/suede-like/minky, I think.

Since the material is still a velvet and does have a thickness compared to cotton, I decided to roughly hem any ruffle edges by hand with a simple once-turned whip stitch. it kind of seals the raw edge and hems it at the same time. Note that this is not a great idea for something that would be worn and washed a lot, but this piece in this specific case won't be.

In general, when it comes to mistakes with this piece I mostly ignore them because it's kumya-scale and not only will most people not notice, but as stated above it's also not a piece that will be worn and washed often so quality of construction isn't much of a concern.

Mentally deconstructing and calculating the construction of the ruffle part was a bit of a pain. My lace was wider that I needed so I had to roughly mark out where it should be sewn into the ruffle, not always with great success.

I'm also not great with working at small scale...much respect to doll clothesmakers.

The bodice of the sugar bouquet kumya JSK is made from a front trapezoidal panel with a strip of fabric attached to the sides that extends all the way around the back, and the skirt attached to that. So I cut some slightly angular side panels to attach to my rectangular/square-ish front ruffle panel.

(I threadmarked approximately where I wanted the seam to go because I don't trust myself to attach the side panel in the right area/dimension otherwise with such a wonky panel)

Simple straps made from strips of fabric. I make these slightly thicker than a regular kumya JSK as well because I feel like RRE has thicker straps too (well, the entire construction of the bodice is a bit different, but ignoring that...)

And a facing layer of ordinary cotton is sewn to the front panel.

For the section of lace at the top, I frankenstein together 2 types of lace that I trimmed to look more like the lace used on the original JSK. It seems the original JSK also has this lace sewn through the lining layer, so the stitching is visible from the inside.

I use the thinnest ribbon I can find--some silk ribbon in this case. It actually works really well because silk ribbon is very thin/flimsy and can be tied and threaded in nicely with relative ease.

By the way, if you aren't aware already, a yarn needle works very well for threading ribbon through lace.

Bodice portion finished. This took way longer than I was hoping, an entire night. Hopefully the results are worth it.

Next I fuss out the skirt. At this point I am working out the calculations and investigations already mentioned previously. I did make a few mistakes and had to re-cut a couple tiers!

I use a different lace from the bodice for the tiers because I thought the shape of this one was closer to what was originally used (it's actually the bilateral ladder lace used for the bodice, but instead of cutting off the lace edges and using the thread-through part, it's just cut in half)

After hemming the ruffle, I attach the lace to the velveteen ruffle with a single gathering stitch (too lazy to use 2, and the thick material makes it hard to gather anyway). The under cotton layer is gathered separately and sandwiched between the cotton layer of the previous tier.

Coming along. I think the lace length for these ruffles is a bit off/uneven/less than ideal, but oh well, can't be bothered to fix it...

After the third tier, a non-gathered velveteen tier is attached with gathered lace.

I also prepare the bottom ruffle, but that will be attached to the completed skirt.

Next, the most exciting but also potentially the most taxing part must be done--the embroidery!

I know that the top of the embroidered panel is basically the same width as the bodice ruffle (referencing the original dress), but the width of the bottom is a bit arbitrary (about 3x the width of the top of the trapezoid)

I mark out everything roughly with water soluble marker (the darker patches are where I messed up and used some water to erase, waiting for it to dry...)

The midlines of the panel as well as the 1/3 lines were marked because I 100% do not trust myself to make the embroidery symmetric without doing so. I'm a beginner and not nearly skilled enough in embroidery to freehand...

I carefully investigated the original embroidery and copied the locations of roses and leaves to my mini-panel. Once I have the general shape that I'm happy with, I start embroidering.

I didn't take too many progress photos of the embroidery, but I also don't think you need them. Because the scale was small, this took an entire evening/night which I think is not too long?

For the roses I use a combination of the "pinwheel" rose method and french knots (+ some additional plain stitches where I wanted more volume).

The nice thing about ribbon embroidery, I think, is that the ribbons add so much texture that even if it's a bit messy it looks very impressive anyways. Plus your mind will mentally interpret some random puffy ribbon lines as a flower anyways.

I use regular DMC 6-strand embroidery thread (split in half, so 3 strands used here) for the vines and leaves. Because I also suck at embroidery and have never embroidered a real project/learned real techniques I mostly kept the leaves simple and slightly abstract with 3 branchlike stitches. I think I currently can't fuss with making nice rounded miniature leaves without messing up every second stitch...

Finished.

I spray water to remove the marker marks and let dry.

Attach embroidered panel to ruffles. I should have double checked where the panel was aligning with the ruffles on each side since it's uneven, but whatever.

Gather bottom ruffle and attach to skirt.

I attach the bodice strip to the front bodice panel as well, and sew the straps down.

I basted the front of the bodice to the skirt by hand because I wanted to make sure they were aligned. Because I messed up sewing the ruffle tiers to the embroidered panel and they are somewhat misaligned, I tried to adjust where the top of the skirt was sewn to the bodice to compensate, it didn't work that well but eh, it's alright.

Gather the skirt and sew to the bodice portion. This was very fiddly and I had to redo some parts several times because the lace wasn't getting sewn down properly. It's still not great but I'll fix any egregious parts by hand.

The gathering is also pretty uneven, but I'm ignoring it...

Looks almost done but not yet!

There is a tiny bit more embroidery on the edges of the middle ruffle tier. I marked approximately where I wanted the roses to be and roughly embroidered them (without a hoop because it's too complicated to figure out alignment before construction, although embroidery is always easier with one).

I also add a back ribbon to simulate waist ties, a detail I notice on a few other BABY kumya JSKs. The waist ties on RRE have a slightly rounded/pointed shape to them, so I freehand this shape for the bow "tails" (because I'm getting tired and lazy, I didn't really measure although I did check that the width was approximately the same throughout). The backside of the waist tie is another layer of cotton, which reduces bulk when turning the shape inside out (the backside of the original JSK is also just lining material). I also folded a long strip over itself and basted it down, creating a loose tube shape to use for the bow part.

It's pretty hard to create defined folds in the bow with such thick fabric, but I tried my best...at least it's likely the back will rarely be seen.

I gave the dress a final allover spray with water to hopefully erase any remaining soluble marker. Also, some interior hand finishing needed to be done (mainly tacking down some unruly seams)

And finally, actually finished. The embroidery thankfully turned out decent enough to distract from any weird spots of construction and so on. It looks quite remarkably like the actual dress, so goal achieved I think!

Extra contents:

I make kumya little wrist cuffs because some of the kumya variations (such as babydoll kumya) come with them, and that's really cute.

BBD kumya seems to use a type of lace that's already elasticated, but I don't have that on hand so I just sew two pieces of the same lace used for the bodice ruffles together to make it bilateral and stitch on an additional elastic with a stretch stitch. And add on a little ribbon bow (I only have silk ribbon in this narrow width, but I think a ribbon with more body such as poly satin or cotton satin would work better)

And I also make two of those little applique ribbon thingies (you can buy them cheaply from craft stores and so on, but whatever) and stitch them temporarily to kumya's bows for an extra accent.

I'm lazy so I use the bloomers that came with the hawase kumya set underneath (I'm sure making a similar pair of bloomers wouldn't be too much work but I have no idea if these are patterned with some kind of shaping/rise and I don't want to deal with that)

This is actually yuefii's kumya that I am still hoarding for whatever reason and has its eye and mouth fur already trimmed.

And now Usakumya is ready to see the runway :)

Part 2 (bonnet making) is here.

Thank you for reading! If you ever decide to take up a similar project, I'd love to see it!

[theamityelf]

I love the idea that makoto wears so many layers because he gets cold easily. And then that gives opportunities for his partners to either carry around extra hoodies for if he gets cold or to hide the blankets so they have no choice but to cuddle.

Oh, both are so good. The preparedness and the underhandedness both work perfectly for pretty much all of my favorite Makoto ships, lol.

Byakuya definitely keeps spare jackets in Makoto's size in his school locker, car, and house. He avoids looking like he's being considerate by demanding that Makoto change his jacket for arbitrary reasons. Like, Makoto walks in wearing what he always does, and Byakuya notices that the wind has picked up and Makoto's going to be cold later, so he drags Makoto to his locker like, "Absolutely not. That hoodie clashes with my tie. We can't possibly been seen standing next to each other." And gives him a heavier jacket.

Kyoko doesn't carry around too much stuff, so she's not as much one to give him a spare jacket as one who keeps track of all the warmest spots nearby. She'll be investigating a case, and behind her back Makoto shivers a little, and she notices it and says, "Across the street, there's a small store with good heating. Talk to the owner, while you're at it. Ask him if he saw anything unusual." All without breaking focus.

Sayaka definitely also keeps spare jackets for him in her locker, but they're ones he'll find embarrassing, like a teddy bear jacket. Something especially soft and huggable that makes him blush.

With Nagito it would definitely be a situation where something unlucky happens to Makoto's jacket, Nagito lends Makoto his, and then something unlucky happens to his jacket, too. And maybe it happens when they're at a social engagement Nagito didn't want to go to anyway (like a very loud outdoor birthday party for Mondo) and Nagito suggests, "Why don't we go inside for a minute, so you can warm up?" Makoto agrees that it'll just be a few minutes, but they end up cuddling on Mondo's couch for the rest of the party.

Izuru factors Makoto's tendency to get cold into pretty much everything. Sometimes it means he'll adjust the thermostat in someone else's house without asking, to keep Makoto comfortable before it can even become a problem. Sometimes it means he'll deliberately manipulate the conditions so Makoto will be cold, either to keep him close (like the sleeping bag scene in Despair's Throbbing Heart) or, similar to the Nagito thing, to exit a situation faster.

[mesetacadre]

I'd disagree with "No working class in any country has anything to get out of either side winning." when it comes to Russia ngl. The working class of Russia doesn't benefit if the US was able to militarily succeed or worse balkanize Russia. Also, the people on Donbas and Crimea have chosen to throw their weight behind Russia because of the oppression they were already facing from the Ukrainian state far before the special military operation began. Dogmatic internationalism like this is what leads to groups like cpusa being functionally useless to actually advance any critique outside of "both sides must defeat their bourgeoisie" which in practice just becomes anarchism or at worse wrt to Palestine fully opposing national liberation struggles or refusing to take sides w/ Venezuela's oppositional communist party. Hopefully this comes off well, because it's meant as an earnest discussion. Highly recc the interview Rania Khalek did with one of the leaders of the Russian Communist Party on this topic.

context

Yes, the working class in Russia will suffer much more were the US to break Russia up (which a victory in Ukraine does not entail but that's beyond the point). Does that mean NATO's working class will benefit from it? or that Russia's proletariat will benefit from their victory? You're right, you're not thinking like a communist, you're thinking like a campist unable to see the interests of the working class in the entire world lies not with this or that dictatorship of the bourgeoisie but with their own self-government free of exploitation. Are we supposed to be tailists here? Are we actually meant to uncritically follow what x section of a working class ""chooses"" in an inter-imperialist context? Yes, Russians in Crimea and Donbass prefer to be under Russia, as do the Estonian people largely prefer to put their weight behind the fascist worshipping Estonian government. There is a difference between focusing on the criticism and struggle against our own bourgeoisies, and simply calling for the other side to win. You're making the exact same assumption the propagandists of NATO make when they label internationalists as Russian chauvinists, they distort revolutionary defeatism into "psyops" by the other side, and you're actually holding that position. Communism is not about taking the majority position of an arbitrary section of the working class because it just so happens to not be what our own bourgeoisie says. It's a revolutionary position, able to identify the revolutionary intuitions in the working class and push it to its farthest extremes through the framework of communism. You're following the exact same logic the patsoc groups follow when they decide to be the most transphobic and racist, because big swaths of the working class are transphobic and racist.

In what world is the defense of the interests of the working class in opposition to this or that bourgeois alternatives functionally anarchist? are you under the impression that working for a dictatorship of the proletariat is anarchism because we oppose bourgeois states? This is vulgar to an extreme degree. "Dogmatic internationalism", what a phrase. Is it dogmatic internationalism when the KKE blocks an arms shipment to Ukraine? is it anarchic when communists in Europe and the US aren't contrarian for opposition's sake and actually develop a position independent of this or that dictatorship of the bourgeoisie? Get real. What fantastical leap of logic to assume this automatically leads to holding left communist position regarding national liberation movements, if anything it's the constant confusion opportunists create around Russia's capitalist interests that leads people to assume it's comparable to the Palestinian genocide. You're arguing against a mirror.

I partly agree with you wrt to Lenin's imperialism, it is an unfinished definition. But "unipolarism" is not even close to an actually materialist approach. Are the contradictions between different capitalist factions suddenly fundamentally different because there isn't a "balance"? How exactly does this make the "underdog" capitalist share common interests with the working class he exploits and sends to a meat grinder? Do we support small businesses too because they have certain opposing interests to the Amazon and Google monopolies?

[chireikiden]

There's a few things that I think are left ambiguous in the sense of having both a more straightforward and a more intricate/interconnected reading. I kinda lean towards (and simply prefer) the latter on most counts, but feel like it's good to acknowledge the questions too.

Did Suika knowingly screw over Mizuchi (either via her whole offer being a scam, or by relenting and leading the lynch mob to her once it was decided she would die) or did she really not mean for this to happen and just caught up to her for a final talk before the lynch mob did? The latter would also make her motive for helping Mizuchi escape Former Hell more interesting. May still come up in CDS, as I suspect Suika's still going to make an appearance, even if it doesn't get an unambiguous answer. If the Shuten-douji stories are anything to go by, as far as I can remember, Suika actually has a lot of history picking interesting humans to recruit as youkai.

Did the lynch mob kill her for some more basic reason (e.g. revenge on her as a shrine maiden or the Miyadeguchi, her not fitting in well enough, her being inconvenient for them somehow) or because they'd picked this arbitrary point to start enforcing the new "no jinyou"/"no attacking humans" rules? I lean towards the latter because it just makes her rant about the system fit together better, and feel that it's even kinda necessary for the bit about "this land soon becoming a domain of youkai" to make much sense. Plus her title "Casualty of the Great Barrier". Otherwise she's just a casualty of some random youkai who happens to dislike the barrier. While she's still a hypocrite, it's more understandable to be unduingly salty about it if the order of events was: 1.) The youkai strongarm her into becoming a youkai because they are attacking her, a human 2.) The youkai kill her because becoming a youkai or attacking humans is banned However, it's also fair to say that can make the youkai's behavior seem a little weirdly flipfloppy (even if they weren't acting as a coordinated group). Unlikely to be explained further, in my opinion.

Was the scapegoating of the Miyadeguchi just something else that happened later on, or about the betrayal that Mizuchi herself committed? The latter is way funnier/more dramatic/more hypocritical on her part, and thus the superior option. Though the Hakurei punishing the rest of her clan is still something to be mad about. Unlikely to be explained further.

It is fair and funny to note that Mizuchi was absolutely a weirdo in life too, "getting used to" attacking humans concerningly quickly. (I look forward to artists interpreting that as anything between some Kogasa tomfoolery and her taking the first excuse to become a serial killer.) On the other hand, it also makes sense for her to die extra mad about the youkai betraying her because she thought she was on their side now, and apparently even had some pro-youkai attitudes in general. Can't be betrayed by your enemies. Her thoughts on youkai may well be elaborated further.

If this isn't stating the obvious, I'm getting the vibe that she may be trying the classic gambit of "forcing" Reimu to exterminate her properly to teach her a lesson (and/or to commit suicide by shrine maiden). Heck, even her final line in the chapter can kinda be read as a coy way to say "I'm coming over there now, for you to deal the final blow that ends your so-called extermination."

Dunno the details. Presumably the new system of Gensokyo they were helping put into place, which it now seems included purging the entirety of the priestly class besides the Hakurei, which we didn't previously have a clear idea existed. And though I try to make a distinction and not cite it as an "equally canon" source, ZUN's lore bits in Gensou Narratograph reinforce the idea that human society in Gensokyo was thoroughly reshaped only when the barrier was put up, including being herded into the Human Village and having their old hierarchies destroyed. The Hakurei might have helped coordinate this if they could play good cop with the humans.

This (with or without the Narratograph inclusion) does paint an interesting image of the Hakurei as an organized, scheming clan with some agency in what happened, though we can't take Mimi's understanding of the events at face value. It also makes me wonder when and how they were reduced from a proper faction to just one shrine maiden in existence at a time. Maybe they were just purged or allowed to die off, too, once they'd outlived their usefulness.

[olderthannetfic]

Can I poke the bear for a moment and get angry? Because I'm seeing "posting as activism" more and more in fandom spaces, and tonight I saw a post that made me lose it.

There is a post about (current events) going around that says, "full offense, but in this time, your own comfort doesn't fucking matter, you should be uncomfortable about things that are happening, and I hope you can fucking live with yourselves if you are quiet. It takes five seconds to retweet or reblog, fuck your aesthetic, fuck your anything aesthetic."

And my god. How dare they.

Yes, there is severely fucked up shit happening. Yes, people should be aware that people are being killed. Yes, there are people who are just shrugging about it and pissing off. But how does reblogging a post certify someone as Good or Bad? How does this person know that someone hasn't already helped out meaningfully in some way, or is still helping out, but on other websites? How does this person know that someone isn't barely holding on by the skin of their teeth, and they would have a mental breakdown if they got closer to any more stressful things?

I know a multitude of people, including myself, who have recently either needed to call lines, check into facilities, move back in with their parents, or go on medication because of how insane things have become in their own lives. How does this person not understand that blogging; being on tumblr; engaging in fandom, having a small space that someone can control in its entirety, is a reprieve for people who are already at their wit's end outside of that space? And that's okay.

(We are not doing the relative privation shit in this house. I refuse to entertain that.)

Ironically, by insisting that people participate in sharing posts when they're already stressed and exhausted, that's a surefire way to make their problems worse, and potentially prevent them from acting helpfully in the future because suddenly, their exhaustion turns into full-blown burnout. That's how it works. Professionals tell you to dial things back if you are too overwhelmed. There is a reason for that. There is a limit to how much people can mentally process and handle. Compassion fatigue exists. For a lot of us, we are already at our limit. We need space to relax, and not have arbitrary obligations thrown on us. That is not our fault, it is not a character flaw, it does not mean we are bad people. And just because horrific things are happening elsewhere, it does not mean we can, or should, stop taking care of ourselves first. Yes, it feels shitty to think, "you know what, I can't reblog this". You bet your ass that I and my friends feel guilty about not being able to engage as much as we think we should, but that is how it goes. I can put my head underwater for a bit. But I cannot keep my head underwater forever. I will drown.

Not to mention the obvious part: guilt-tripping people to the extent of implying they are somehow contributing to genocide, just because they won't reblog a post, and implying they should not be able to live with themselves if they do that, is beyond revolting.

I am angry, and I am not sorry.

--

So many of those kinds of posts—and they turn up during every set of horrific real world events—sound like people who are in a country far away from the events, diaspora at most but probably just randos, venting their impotent rage because it's the only way they can feel productive in a situation where nothing they can do is productive.

[ilikekidsshows]

This whole Marinette breaking Adrien's amok thing also brought upon another wave of people just saying "that doesn't really count cuz *insert arbitrary reason*" or "it was just baldy handled or poorly explained" because "Marinette wouldn't DO that" and I'm like...... I get that you wanna hold onto the Marinette you loved for years, but how many seasons are you gonna pull that excuse? Not everything you disagree with that canon Marinette does is an ooc mistake of the writers that doesn't count "for the real Marinette". What do you mean "she wouldn't do that"?? She fucking DID IT on screen! And a lot people weren't too surprised by it beyond how quickly it happened in s6 and that she didn't even try anything else. But I wouldn't call that out of character. Not at all the sides of Marinette I would ever focus on like this, but no, it's not ooc.

I'm really starting to get annoyed by people saying that. Though I know I'm not the first to complain About it.

I just wanna look them in the eyes and ask directly "what do you MEAN she wouldn't do it or she's now just always written as her worst self?" Pretty much all she does has been consistent all the time! Nothing new here just new lows, but that's nothing new either.

If you think Marinette is constantly ooc or at her worst to an "unusual" or "unnatural" degree for her, can you then even still say that you LIKE Marinette? Cause it sounds like these people clearly wouldn't like her if they stopped disregarding canon for the Marinette they thought she'd be by now years ago.

Anonymous asked: "marinette wouldn't have been willing to kill adrien! she wouldn't do anything like that! they wrote her so out of character!" *thinks about all times she left chat noir to fight against akumas by himself, thinks about when she has plans that destroy public property that may or may not have people in/around them, thinks about when she was ok with letting lila as an oyster be cracked open, thinks about all the previous sentis she was ok with killing even after sentibug, thinks about-

---

People who are better at specifying what they mean have said that ‘Werepapas’ Marinette being willing to kill Adrien with her own hands is a huge change from ‘Volpina’ Marinette being ready to give up when she thought Adrien was in danger of falling. Which, yeah, sure, but we gotta remember, Marinette has always been less squamish about damage she caused or planned to happen.

I mean, she's literally pushed Cat Noir onto an Akuma’s sword for a plan (Backwarder). She's broken the Eiffel Tower and caused a bunch of other collateral damage. She G-rated killed Lila on screen with a smile in ‘Chameleon’. There is a reason Marinette stans have started saying that, when Ladybug shows up, that place is a battlefield and everything goes. Marinette causes collateral damage on purpose willy-nilly. If Miraculous was a better show and I thought it was building up to something, I'd think having the power to reset the universe has made her feel like she's beyond limitations like death.

Instead I think the writers just actually, unironically think it's okay for Marinette to destroy and kill whatever and whoever she wants to because she can fix it afterwards.

[rei-ismyname]

How do you think about the krakoan resurrections, narratively, I’ve been reading more of the Krakoan line and while I’ve enjoyed the worldbuilding and the plotting related to the resurrection process(like how big of a deal it was for the secret to get out), I do appreciate it’s gone.

I feel letting everyone have a get out of jail free card, with exceptions to people who don’t want to get brought back(even then that didn’t work, good one Erik), spoils the stakes a little, and also funny in a morbid sort of way that despite all their suicide missions and long odds, it’s only now that our major xmen are dropping off like flies for these multiple deaths.

Apologies if this was incoherent, just observations i have reading so far

Worry not, it coheres well enough! A great question :).

I love it! I thought it was an amazing achievement for the mutants to have and a luminous yet fraught foundation to build a country and culture around. Five mutants working in concert to resurrect people! What a concept, and the mutant circuit itself was taken to exciting places even when it was mundane. It was a compelling developing world building choice in the need for secrecy while still being quite fragile. There's not as much redundancy as they'd like, for instance - though fortunately they didn't all die at once.

Of course, the flipside of that is how the worst person on the island managed to subvert it and burn the universe. That was fun too. It's no small thing to have power over life and death, and even seeing the younger mutants become so cavalier about it felt new and interesting.

Comic book deaths rarely feel like anything more than a setback, and the convoluted or unexplained ways people return tend to feel rote and predictable. I can't get excited about a solicit saying 'next issue an X-Man dies!' or similar because I know it's a temporary inconvenience to goose sales. In most cases creators already know when or how they're coming back. I didn't really see it as a get out of jail free card - more a paradigm shift that challenged writers to introduce more interesting stakes.

Taking that arbitrary, low stakes genre convention and pushing it to its logical endpoint struck me as a clever way to move past that tiresome sensationalism. Death doesn't have to be the only stakes, especially when mutants have more to lose than ever. A nation, vulnerable to external threats. A society built on quicksand. Bad faith actors living next door. Geopolitics! Any mutant can return without preamble to this brave new world, for good or ill. It wasn't a perfect safety net either - Otherworld, Arakko, dying publicly, the secrecy, requiring proof of death, the clone issue, etc all altered the paradigm with new stakes.

In short, HoxPoX stopped pretending that death was final or even meaningful and found new stakes to explore. I don't think Krakoa would have been as powerful without it, narratively and thematically. The fact that warriors were prioritised and precogs secretly banned set up dominos to explode in everyone's face. Mainly Chuck and Mags. The power they exercised over Mystique, for example, was so fucked up. That was always going to ignite and it didn't disappoint. They solved for death but they didn't solve for life - and that's the tricky part. As powerful as resurrection is, it's just as powerful a thing to have weaponised against you.

I do wish we got a book about The Five as characters, exploring their family unit, the pressure and position, the religious awe surrounding them. They're all pretty interesting people who barely knew each other beforehand (except Egg and Tempus.) They appeared in books here and there, but X-Factor and IXM (and HoxPoX to a degree) were their most substantial appearances. COVID happened at a terrible time for X-Men comics and messed up publication but I'm still happy with what we got.

As for how I feel about resurrection protocols being off the table (except for Chuck, apparently. Nevermind that it doesn't work that way) - it was inevitable and I think I've mostly just accepted it. From The Ashes is very back to basics and it wouldn't really fit, so I'm happy it's not being used RN. Definitely think R-LDS is a cynical and shallow idea taking shots at something wonderful for little gain.

Thanks for the ask! I hope it makes sense.

[llamagoddessofficial]

So, I wanted to know a little about how you see soulmates? I honestly want to see your take when it deals with HMF Sans in particular while it deals with a particular Soulmates AU. Usually, whenever I write Soulmates AU... to add DRAMA to the setting, I'd like to the soulmates the ability to feel the other's pain.

I want to know how'd HMF would think during the incident that caused his head to cave in while dealing with a universe akin to how I would write a soulmates AU. Would that change anything about what happens?

This is a very good question!

I like to write Soulmates as a resonation between Souls. It may be two Souls who are extremely similar to one another, so similar they hum the same tune. It may be two Souls that are different in the perfect way, singing like a harmony. In physical terms it's a mutual feeling of comfort and ease that you just can't explain. It can be platonic or romantic; Soulmates may be couples, but they may also be best friends.

Monsters place a lot of cultural importance on Soulmates, because their Soul constitutes so much of their being. Monster Soulmates feel the attraction a lot stronger than humans do. For Monsters it's super obvious, and for humans, it's a gut feeling.

Though definitely a good start to a relationship, being Soulmates doesn't guarantee a perfect happy ending! Relationships are still relationships, that require work and love and patience. Soulmates are still individual people. They can fall out with one another, if either party won't put in the leg work.

-

A personal note on this; I know some people make Soulmates a super big deal in their writing, the mega crux of relationships, if you're Soulmates you're guaranteed to be in love forever. And that's totally fine! I just don't really gel with that idea. Like... what about the rest of me? What about my personality, my hobbies interests, my wants? I'm more than an arbitrary magical link with someone. When I read 'we're Soulmates therefore I love you' I start to think stuff like "Would this person not love me otherwise? Would they even LIKE me if we didn't have this magical link? Do they actually care about me, or do they just start caring because they think they need to?" I feel that I wouldn't want to be with someone who only suddenly starts liking me because magic told them to.

In most of my stories, I don't make Soulmates a big thing. In a lot of them my characters aren't even Soulmates at all. It's why I like @recklesslycaffeinated's spin (in Six Ex-cell-ent skeletons) so much; the skeletons are her Soulmates but they love her for reasons outside of the Soul stuff. Sans even makes it clear to the Mc in the sequel that being Soulmates doesn't guarantee a relationship at all, it just guarantees some kind of connection, and being Soulmates with her is just a bonus that makes him feel comfortable. I love that take.

[dsknsk]

I feel like the very concept of E.G.O Corrosion isn't talked enough about (maybe due to their hair nearly always remaining) but just stop and realize how creepy it is.

So, picture the following.

You are going into battle, together with your allies. Both you and them are armed and skilled, even if you don't always know what you will be facing. For emergency cases, your superior has given you something called E.G.O. And to gain it, you had to come into contact with...something. Something clearly not human. Something that you don't fully understand, but you know that it behaves with a totally different logic and morality than what you consider familiar. They call it an 'Abnormality', after all.

But somehow, you resonated with it. It was like something from deep inside of you accepted it. Like you felt what it felt. Maybe it was its struggles that particularly moved you. Or just everything it stood for.

You don't know. Either way, it resulted in you being able to synchronize with it, just for a moment, transforming you to draw out its powers to fight with. It's like a short while that you cooporate, it agreeing with you just for a moment.

And yes, it talks to you.

Usually, it's in the background and you can easily drown it out with your own thoughts. And you only talk back when you're using E.G.O. But it's there. You feel a bit mentally drained after using E.G.O too, so you prefer not to use it too often.

At first, the fight goes just about okay. You start to think that you'll get this cleared together anytime soon. Your allies are fighting next to you, and everytime they happen to win a clash, your mind brightens up a little, boosting your own confidence in turn.

But then.

One of your allies fails a clash, and their punishment is harsh. The enemy doesn't seem to stop their assault on them, staggering them and beating them into a pulp. And then, you've lost them.

You know that in the end, you'll all be brought back, but it nonetheless takes a toll on you. Your mind blurs, and you find yourself losing your focus much more often. At the very least, you see that your allies aren't doing so well, either.

It doesn't take long before things go from bad to worse, and your mind can't take it anymore. The voice of the Abnormality you resonated with rings in your head still, but now, you can't bring yourself to suppress it anymore. Your mind is too weary to do such a thing.

So you allow for it to swallow you whole.

Your consciousness falls into a dark abyss, your body warping as the Abnormality takes over, speaking through your mouth, with your voice. You've lost all common sense and couldn't care less for arbitrary things like 'ally' or 'enemy'. Why do they matter, anyway? You can't bring yourself to think about it.

So you lash out. You let it lead for you, letting it run wild with free reign. Your body is changed, cruelly contorted into...something that they stare at in horror. The cries and desperate shouts of those around you don't reach you anymore. It's all clouded over, until...

You're back.

Still in a daze but also not, you feel that you can think for yourself again. You're not doing great, but you're not going off the deep end like just then either. You now know what you just did - the looks on your allies' faces tell you enough. And even now the voice is back to being just slight background noise, your acts just then will always feel like it was on some level, your own.

There's no time to think about that, though. For the battle hasn't yet ended.