#reading the latest chapter really fueled a lot of my thoughts lmao

[hellfire-fist]

Appreciation Post for the Future Pirate King and the Future Greatest Swordsman’s bond 🤝

I believe the reason why I love Zoro and Luffy’s relationship so much is because it’s just so pure. From beginning till present, you still see how much they trust eo (and how it just gets stronger by the day), the show of respect for eo’s strength, and how Zoro always know where to get Luffy (If you’ve read the wano arc in the manga you would know what I mean), plus Luffy’s confidence in Zoro is delightful. I love that they don’t need to say much when they’re together and I love how Zoro just understands Luffy so much more than the others that he always seems to know what to say to him. 

I see some people try to downplay this by saying, “the other strawhats would do the same thing”, and yes I would agree, but you really can’t deny the fact that most acts of sacrifice/respect for Luffy is highlighted in Zoro’s character more so than the others. I get that a lot of people in the community likes the idea of equality in terms of the strawhats’ bonds with eo, most of all with Luffy, and I do love that concept as well but then again, Zoro always gets that emphasis. Their are a lot of instances where we see Zoro defend Luffy, but in this case I would refer to that time in Thriller Bark. I honestly think that Oda making Sanji interfere/try to take Zoro’s place as sacrifice was a brilliant choice. I say this because it showed us the difference between Zoro’s sacrifice and Sanji’s. With Zoro, he says his value/worth is on par with Luffy’s, that his dream is almost as big as his captain’s. Zoro throws his swords, which was honestly such a great symbolism for him ultimately sacrificing his dreams which was far more important than his life. On the other hand, Sanji addresses his sacrifice almost casually, and I’m sorry for stating it this way (English is not my native language), but I felt like he just phrased his statement in a “cool way”, I’m not saying it wasn’t worth anything, but the biggest theme in one piece are dreams. In that particular moment, with him saying that he would be “most feared by the marines in the future” as an incentive or as an exchange for Luffy’s head , it just felt very ‘eh’ compared to Zoro offering his dreams you know? but I do like that he tells Zoro, “whatever happened to your dream idiot!”, because it really showed how Sanji cared for him despite them always fighting with eo, and essentially how he cares for everyone in the crew (looking back at this makes me really appreciate Sanji and his arc more than ever). However, you see the difference in approach, Sanji always tries to be chivalrous, and we know his actions does mean a lot. But to him, his life wasn’t worth much, his statement of one day being the man most feared by the marines was quite unusual and a little out of character, but then we have to consider the fact that he likes to one up Zoro, and I’ve always felt that it was his intention here. I also took notice of the fact that Sanji’s statement was more general, he offers his life for everyone, he didn’t separate Luffy from the others. Sanji is a self-sacrificing idiot and honestly we love that for him. On the contrary, with Zoro—his act felt more momentous and substantial. Maybe it’s ‘cause of how he phrased his words, but whenever I try to think about that moment, it just makes me think, “damn, for him to say that...”, ‘cause his character, in terms of notoriety is almost always comparable to Luffy. He is the guy the side characters would think of as the captain they always say, “How can a man like him work for somebody?”. I like to think that this was a way to show us that Zoro wouldn’t have done that so easily or go that far for somebody else. He can give his life away like it’s nothing, yes, but him doing that for Luffy meant more because this was him giving his all away. Not to mention, it’s not just his dream but Kuina’s as well, and we all know how significant Kuina was to him, but he also gave that away. And in comparison to how he states his sacrifice, he really placed a lot of weight in mentioning Luffy. He even the mentions the crew almost as an afterthought, and even then he goes straight back to talking about Luffy again, “there is already no other way to save the crew!...If I can’t even protect my captain’s dream, then whatever ambition I have is nothing but talk!”. There’s also the fact that Sanji wasn’t really asking Kuma to do it, he just tells him to get it over with while standing and trying to act poised, even when his legs were shaking (Sanji best boi 🤧). Zoro, however, begged. He fucking begged and kneeled, and bowed his head, he completely submitted to Kuma in that moment, just so he can get the message across that ‘you can’t take him, take me instead’, this was such a fucking moment because ‘pride be damned, Luffy’s life is worth more than that’. This was without a doubt a moment for both Sanji and Zoro, like Brook then mentions in the next chapter, Sanji had the same resolution as Zoro, but I would say that Zoro’s execution of the whole thing really made the moment more profound and meaningful for me (for me okay), it just felt and meant more to me when I read and see the panel, I could bloody cry. Honestly, I still have a lot to say about this but I think I can stop there (～o￣3￣)～

Why did I elaborate on this particular moment? The answer would be because to me, this was where I really saw how the bond between the two ran so deep. It took me aback and made me emotional in more ways than one. It’s like wbk but not really??? From “I’ll cut you if you get in my way” to “take my life in exchange for his”

ᶻᵒʳᵒ ᵃˡʷᵃʸˢ ᶜᵒⁿᵗʳᵃᵈᶦᶜᵗˢ ʰᶦᵐˢᵉˡᶠ ʷʰᵉⁿ ᶦᵗ ᶜᵒᵐᵉˢ ᵗᵒ ᴸᵘᶠᶠʸ ᴵ ʷᵃⁿᵗ ᵗᵒ ʰᵘᵍ ʰᶦᵐ

Honestly, at this point whatever they have is canon. They are each other’s partner and no one can tell me otherwise. Zoro is the Rayleigh to Luffy’s Roger, period. 

[makeste]

killing is not so easy as the innocent believe

or, some follow-up thoughts on Hawks, and chapter 265.

you guys this chapter has got people in some kind of way though. myself included lol.

it’s never a good thing when I get an ask like this on a Wednesday. and SURE ENOUGH, lmao. hang in there anon we’re in this together.

I love how all three of these asks seem to be implying that Hawks is basically toast. death certificate all but signed and notarized. which is reasonable to be fair!

regarding Machia though, after giving it some thought, the fact that he was mentioned when he didn’t have to be leads me to believe that Fatgum is correct, and he will not be making an appearance. it’s possible this is just the manga attempting to catch us off guard, but if Horikoshi wanted to do that, he could have just as easily bided his time and made no mention of him at all until he suddenly came barging out of his hidden basement room at an inopportune moment. going out of his way to say “hey remember Gigantomachia? yes well he is in sleep mode at the moment so not to worry” is kind of a waste of time unless it really is true. could be wrong on this though!

regarding the voice recorder/communication/mystery device thing, I now have a brand new ridiculous theory on that thanks to a chat with @blessedgirthma​, but more on that shortly. 

now then, let’s talk a bit more (or, to be honest, a lot more) about Hawks.

lol y’all I am being called out. but in seriousness, this is honestly one of my favorite things about doing the recaps though. the fact that my reactions are recorded for posterity for better or worse. the thing is, when I’m actually reading the chapter for the first time, it’s a complete rollercoaster lol. it’s just whiplash reactions to stuff (which is why 90% of it is dumb jokes because that is my honest instinctive reaction to 90% of everything) and speculating wildly on the spot. and a lot of times it is way off.

one of the things that particularly impressed me about this latest chapter is the fact that Horikoshi was genuinely able to manipulate my emotions so effectively and make me so anxious about the fates of both of these characters in the heat of the moment. not every writer can do that! in fact it’s pretty rare for a shounen manga in particular to actually get me to really start doubting and wondering whether a character is actually going to die. because let’s be real guys, it’s a rarity. especially with this particular series. and even when people do die, they come back as OFA ghosts, or they’re brought back to life as Kurogiri, or they never died to begin with and they’re currently trying to kill Hawks, etc. so on top of the shounen manga tropes, we also have comic book “no one is ever truly dead” tropes. so yeah.

so the point I’m leading up to here is that I don’t think Hawks is actually going to die. I know it’s ridiculous; I know he was just set on fire and isn’t looking too hot (ha) right now, but again. it’s a shounen manga. other characters have survived (1) breaking their arms a dozen times, (2) having holes of all shapes and sizes pierced through their lungs, (3) everything All Might and AFO did to each other at Kamino jesus christ, (4) having their entrails spilled out, (5) being crushed by a water tower, (6) pissing Todoroki off during the climax of Heroes Rising, (6) being blown up from the inside out by a quirk, and (7) having their eye sliced open and being blasted through a building and falling fifty feet from the sky onto the hood of a car while on fire. and this is far from an exhaustive list. this is an off-the-top-of-my-head list. yeah. so neither Hawks nor Twice is actually dying if this is anything to go by.

now then. I said I was going to talk about Hawks, so let’s talk. first off, I just want to make it clear that I’m not part of the pro-Hawks faction, or the pro-Villains faction, or whatever. I’m in neither of those factions, or both of them. or whatever you want to call it. basically I love Twice and I love Dabi and I love Hawks. and recent events have not changed this at all, except perhaps to make me love them even more. but anyway, just wanted to put that on the record. and yes, I told Dabi to set Hawks on fire, and I would say it again too, because Dabi setting Hawks on fire potentially saved both Hawks and Twice, so yeah. homicidal though it may have been, it was good timing all the same, Dabi.

so Hawks! let’s talk about what actually happened in this chapter. “um Hawks tried to kill Twice, is what happened.” well, not quite! what actually happened is that Hawks said he was going to kill Twice. and then... he didn’t.

lol, yeah. eyeroll-inducing technicality there, I know. wishful thinking, naive, willfully disregarding what we actually saw in favor of trying to support my own interpretation of the character. absolutely that’s what it is! but since we all acknowledge that, might as well continue down this line of thinking and see where it leads. so indulge me if you will.

so. three things:

(1) Hawks is a spy. he lies. he lies all the time. when Horikoshi wants us to know what he’s actually thinking, he shows us.

so naturally the reason I bring this up is just to point out the fact that throughout all of chapters 263, 264, and 265, we have not actually seen a single one of Hawks’s thoughts (assuming Caleb is correct in his translation of 264). he’s making speeches, he’s trying to plead his case to Jin, and we see a ton of Jin’s thoughts. but none of Hawks’s. not so much as an ‘I was afraid of this...’ or ‘his quirk is too dangerous, I can’t let a single one of the clones slip through’ or any of your typical run-of-the-mill fight narration we might normally expect to see for a scene like this. there’s nothing. and what this tells me is that Hawks’s words may not in fact line up with what he’s actually thinking.

(2) Hawks is hesitating. we know how fast he is. hell, even if we didn’t, this chapter would be all the evidence we need. but we do in fact have plenty of other evidence.

these things are deadly. each one is solid and we’ve seen he’s capable of using them like bladed weapons. if he wanted to, he could stab Twice through the heart in the blink of an eye. look at the precision he used to tear his mask open (to distinguish the real Twice from the clones) without actually harming him. he wouldn’t even have to move. but he is deliberately holding back and trying to stop Twice in other ways -- by pleading with him (“I don’t want to fight you”), hitting him with a disabling blow, and finally by pinning him down and trying to intimidate him.

but then he just sits there.

saying he has no choice. holding the feather knife above him. but he doesn’t actually do it. and okay, maybe it’s because he truly is fond of Twice, as we know, and so he’s giving him the chance to say his last words or something. but what was it he said just a few pages before this one, though? “we eliminate villains with haste”? I don’t know about you, but I for one sure wasn’t seeing any haste in those last few pages. the man who goes too fast, huh. I’m just saying.

but maybe he was just psyching himself up to do it. maybe he would have gone through with it on the very next page if Dabi hadn’t intervened. maybe. but you know what though? that hesitance -- the fact that he was so conflicted despite supposedly believing that he’s doing the right thing, and despite being groomed by the shadier elements of hero society since childhood to make this precisely kind of decision -- to me, that does indicate that Hawks is not a killer by nature. he’s battling with himself right now. he’s desperate. he doesn’t want to go through with it; he resists the act; and then crucially, right at the decisive moment, Horikoshi prevents us from seeing whether or not he actually would have done it.

(3) and what about that? it’s interesting that this question is one which has come up over and over ever since the disappearance of Best Jeanist, isn’t it? the question of just how far Hawks is actually willing to go. the question of whether or not, when push comes to shove, he will make the cutthroat decision. will Hawks kill for the greater good? Horikoshi poses this question again and again, and yet he still refuses to give us an actual answer.

(oh hey, that’s a nice flashback you’re having. sure would be a shame if it were to... cut off right there so that we never find out what actually happened past this point!!)

(“whether this is really him” -- really?? you actually go and show what is by all accounts and appearances Jeanist’s actual dead body stuffed in a bag, and yet you still cast doubt on it? why? at this point you’re just fucking with us. and also, actually, the fact that it’s a dead body is not, in fact, proof that he killed someone, because morgues exist. and appearance-altering quirks. and clones. and all sorts of other conspiracy-theory-fueling shit. so yeah.)

isn’t that strange? well no, actually, it’s not strange at all, because you only need to take one glance at the fandom (or my own indecisive recaps) to see that this refusal to confirm this one crucial fact about Hawks’s nature is having precisely its intended effect. when you write a story, you want the readers to care. you want them to be invested in what’s happening. you want to keep them in suspense. and so in Hawks’s case, the fact that we just don’t know for sure makes him an insanely compelling character to watch, because will he actually do it?? will he kill Twice?? is he a killer??

and still we don’t know. even now, Horikoshi refuses to lift the veil for certain. and all I have to say about that is this: maybe he is. but if he is, if the answer to this lingering and drawn-out mystery ultimately turns out to be a simple “yes”, then that would be a bit anticlimactic to say the least.

so those are my thoughts! oh, except that I did say I was going to talk about this thing though:

so we don’t know what this is, or why Hawks pulled it out at such a strange moment. I’ve read a few theories, but I have to give @blessedgirthma​ credit because this one is my new favorite omfg:

like. guys. guys. I know it’s absurd and it’s not going to happen lol. but can you just imagine, though. Dabi’s standing there with the crazy eyes, talking about how heroes are all scum, and how he never trusted Hawks, and the fact that Hawks was even willing to kill a fellow hero to gain their trust only to betray them is yet more proof of how hypocritical and disgusting these so-called heroes are. and then, just as he’s about to deal the final blow, HIS OWN CLOTHES TURN ON HIM and he’s all “?!” and IN BURSTS BEST FUCKING JEANIST oh snap, whaaat, HE LIVED, BITCH.

don’t look at me like that. let me have this. all I’m saying is it could happen.

so that’s it! those are all my current thoughts about Hawks and about this contentious chapter which is tearing fandoms and loved ones apart. in my perfect world Hawks lives and Twice lives and Best Jeanist lives and Dabi lives but gets captured maybe so as to have Endeavor angst along with some fucking flashbacks at goddamn last. as of today March 22nd 2020 all of these are still possible outcomes, so I’m gonna embrace it.

and lastly, getting back to the real mystery of this chapter,

WE CAN ONLY HOPE.

[comicteaparty]

April 22nd-April 28th, 2020 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from April 22nd, 2020 to April 28th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

How has reading webcomics helped you through a difficult time in your life?

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

It's helped me a few times. I used to be very cynical about love, actually.

I have been rejected and mocked time and time again, so I gave up on love for quite a while. But reading webcomics about love, not just loving someone else, but also loving yourself helped me be able to love myself first.

I was able to see characters who did things for themselves, who were allowed to be flawed and selfish and grow from it.

So it's inspired me through hard times. By constantly thinking hey, if they can grow up in their story, maybe I can, too.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Years ago after my first year of college, I was discouraged from writing due to my former English prof who kept insisting that I wasn't a native in the US and thus, assumed my english wasn't really great . I gave up hope in that class and failed for the first time in my life, but. I got into reading a handful of webcomics to get through that time and er JoJo's which got me out that deep pit of my life. It renewed my interest in comics which drove me to work on my first webcomic to OIYD! today. Honestly if that didn't happen and wasn't fueled from the experience alone, I won't be here reading and making webcomics. So yeah, thanks terrible prof. I still hate your guts but I became a better person because of it lmao.

DanitheCarutor

Uh, hm, the answer for this is kind of complicated and tangent-ish. For context, I'm the type of person who didn't realize you can do certain things until actually seeing it being done, like when I first saw the Chrono Crusade anime as a kid it blew my mind that a cartoon can have a bad/sad ending. I'm better at figuring things out by myself now, but I was pretty mentally nearsighted in the entirety of my childhood/teenhood. When I stumbled upon a webcomic at 14-15 it opened up a lot of stuff for me (it was a trippy porn comic called GRIND, funny enough), before then I thought only people being published could make comics for some reason? So that started my interested in making comics, although I only made stand-alone pages of random fantasy scenes from different stories until 2009 which was very short lived, didn't even make it past one chapter. My second attempt came right after that, this one lasted until chapter 3, then I moved into my latest project which I'm very determined to complete (it's almost halfway finished, so yay!) I started my latest project because I was going through some really rough emotions, having almost daily full blown existential crises about work and my life. I didn't feel comfortable talking to anyone about them and didn't even know who to talk to, so I condensed every awful thing my brain has held onto in my lifetime that really uncomfortable webcomic. Or at least some force popped a fully finished story in my head and said "Hey, this will help, distract yourself with it." In short, if it weren't for discovering and reading webcomics I don't even know where/if I would be.

Sorry this isn't totally reader related, but if it weren't for discovering webcomics I wouldn't be making them.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Reading? No. Not beyound the comfort of an old favourite. Making? Yes. Keeps the mind engaged.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I picked up webcomic during my school years, when I was in a stage of self discovery. I start picking up comics that were unique, depicted different body images for women, that means alot to me. I'm very self conscious about my appearance, one of my parents used to give fat shaming insults that grind into my self conscious. But after reading stories of characters; adventuring leads with different bodies or flawed personalities, it moved me.. and inspired me. For the first time, these plus size characters were people not stereotypes! I started drawing more variety in my cast as a result. The LGBTQ+ stories came in abundance, I learned about transgender, gender dysphoria, open relationships.. things only comics will tell me! Before, I would have never known what 'polyamory' is or that it even exist. Some comic creators are even open to talk about mental health issues, giving me courage to write that into my own stories. Before webcomics, I didn't have a habit to post comics online. They were sketches stashed away, but since reading other's creations. I learn about self publishing and see the beauty in my own skills. I want to post more online, meet people.(edited)

Feather J. Fern

I actually started webcomics because I was in a hard time in my life. Thanks to them, I met a lot of cool people, a lot of good times and it was stressful, but I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Page, Rambler Extraordinaire!

Fictional escape never helped me. I don't have much else to say. I've never had any comics offer me solace, though it would have been nice had it been so. I mean, sure, I've spent quiet, lonely nights with no company but a comic before, but it wasn't any sort of escape from the oppressive moment, but rather a part of that moment. Basically, I don't think it's ever helped me, but I can definitely understand how it helps others.