I Hope Steven Yeun Won’t Have To Say This.

Me when i’m on my deathbed: Are… Are my ships canon?

Me while while writing a soriku KH continuation with their daughter as the PC for fun in my head.

RIKU + TAN SORA= *slightly lighter * KIDAGAKASH FROM ATLANTIS 🤯!

Okay I’m sure this has been pointed out by a million people but let’s just listen to the chords of “Love Crime” in this scene starting at 0:31 and disintegrate.

x

if it doesn't have a lowercase lyric title with intangible sadness hand in unlovable hand hurt/comfort "i'll take care of you it's rotten work not to me not if it's you"–esque sentiments tagged on it what's the point

Why I Love Trafalgar D. Water Law

Let me just say that I’m actually not a huge fan of one piece. I don’t dislike it and I actually really like most of the stories, characters, animation, music and pretty much everything about One Piece. I just never got particularly attached to it. One Piece was a show I could enjoy without actually being invested in... anything. Excpet   Nami, I could never bring myself to like her and I only partially know why. Anyway I pretty much stopped watching after What happened at Impel Down- you know what- and didn't get back on the wagon until very recently. I had nothing to watch, and had pretty much gorged myself on the awesome mindless fluff that is Future Card Buddyfight. I thought “hey I love action adventure shounen anime, I’ve seen and finished almost all of them from Rave Master to Law of Ueki to both versions of HunterXHunter. Why not give One Piece another look?”. And It.Was.Worthit! I still don't like Nami, o was still so-so about everything else and Robin was still Best Girl. The I got to Punk Hazard, oh what joy was that arc after all the training and the “will the just meet all ready! OMG do we need to go through this again!” that was Fishman Island. Smoke was back and awesome, Ceasare was a joy, even the fucking name Punk Hazard was cool and the setting lived up to my own hype. The there was Law... then there was Law. The last time we say him he’d been putting Luffy back together and before that we’d got a glimpse of his greatness on Sabody - I know I’m spelling that wrong-. Everything about Law is badass, from his character design, to his voice acting, to his powers, to the his badass cursed long sword. Law was very cool older guy trope from every shounen anime i’d ever seen rolled into one with a pimpin coat and hat to match. Even the opening shows him standing above Luffy with Luffy looking up to him like he’s someone we should care about and take seriously. He’s so formidable Luffy thinks he’s someone worth looking up to. A spot reserved for very few. And then that whole image is ruined by the cluster fuck that is the actual Trafalgar D Water Law. The actually law is an antisocial, paranoid, wreck with terrible luck, and a habit of over planning things to the point that it inevitably blows up in his face. He is perpetually grouchy and a surprisingly picky eater. And I love that, I love how off model they went with the actually personality of Law. He like the living image of the hot girl tripping as she tries to flirt with people. He tries so hard to come off as cool and badass that its kind of hilarious when he actually has to act and immediately just ditz around. In Laws actually screen time, his win lose rate is comically depressing  compared to other characters. He always tries to plan three steps ahead but that causes him to be completely thrown out of whack the moment step two doesn't playout the way he though it would. In the end he either gets help to fight the big bad or doesn't fight them at all. Luffy carries him for most of the second part of dressrosa and her just goes along with the Ninja-Mink-Samurai- Pirate alliance for some plan that will probably fail or because he has nothing better to do. It just kind of nice to see such a weird mishmash of character traits form a show that usually has very guy either be too badass to exist or a joke character. Though its happened with the past before with characters like Buggy of even Doflamingo-  do I didn’t take seriously at first because of how he dresses- its great to see the opposite happen a really cool powerful character being shown to be kind of a lame antisocial weirdo. 

I guess this is just what I do on this website now... 

Ok lets Go! 

One Piece, Law, and Femininity

Preface: Three warnings and a Request

Warning!!!

Let's get this out the way. I do ship Law and Luffy. That doesn’t matter to this particular theory/analysis but it's better to be upfront about one's personal biases. I don't think it's canon nor do I think it ever will be. But if anyone wants to use this for their own ship theories, have at it. 

This writing “theory” I have doesn’t apply to children because they kind of inherently fall into a third category. Their age tends to naturally make them more vulnerable and in need of assistance. When it comes to gendered writing children tend to get a pass. There are many reasons why but that's not what this is about.

Sanji is a newer and only other expectation to this “theory”.  More on that at the end. 

Request: If you don't think Yamato is a dude, this is not for you. The whole point of talking about feminism in this regard is to talk about how femininity is performed and perceived. Gender is a social construct and how we construct it is important to the feminine conversation. If you cant accept and understand that... read a few essays and come back later. Seriously I am talking about roles, behavior and presentations of gender here. Also I want to support my son (he’s older than me but, still). 

Part 1: Oda Writes the Backstories of Female Characters the Same Way he Draws Them.

A lot of people push back on the idea that Oda only knows how to draw the same female character by pointing at characters like Big Mom or Dandan. So I would like to change the phrasing. Oda only knows how to draw attractive women characters one way. When they're old hags, he's got options. But if they’re even supposed to be mildly attractive then he’s got one option in a variety of colors and accessories. He writes their backstories in roughly the same way. They have a lot of big differences. I can honestly say most important people in one piece have unique and interesting back stories and goals. But the skeleton of almost all the women are the same. I only say almost because One Piece has a stupid amount of characters and there is a 10% chance that some minor character from some obscure island in East Blue somehow flew under my radar. But this rule does apply to all the main women characters. Let's talk about it. 

1a. Oda Loves Taking Away Women's Autonomy. 

Seriously Oda cannot resist putting women in positions where they are either slaves, or working in a group that they are opposed to, or living under constant threat of imprisonment, or some combination of those. Nami was enslaved at a young age by Arlong, Robin had to join CP9 because she needed protection from the world government and then almost got imprisoned by enies lobby. Vivi joined Cp9 to save her country. Hiyori spent years living with and presumably fxcking a man she hated hoping that one day someone else would be strong enough to defeat Kaido to get revenge. There are countless cases of women, specifically women, being sold to Celestial Dragons for the sole purpose of sexual slavery. Like shows up so fxcking often. Aces mom had to hold her child in her stomach for an extra 15  months to him from the marines and probably died because of it.  If Oda is writing an important woman character who is relatively young you better believe she spent years of her life not being in control of it. And if she's older, she either a mom of some kind or was a badass and settled down because some man in her life died, or both. 

1b. Women Need to be Saved in Order to Achieve their Goals and Men Need to be Supported. 

This is gonna be a little hard to explain but it all comes down to how problems are solved, who solves them and why. Kinda. I think the best way to explain it would be to give an example. Lets look at the first two members of the Strawhat Crew. Zoro’s goal is to be the strongest swordsman. Simple enough. He tries to fight Mihawk the moment they meet, he loses and swears to grow stronger and defeat him.  Nami has two goals, or more accurately she needs to accomplish one goal in order to achieve her true goal. Nami needs to get out from under Arlongs control in order to achieve her goal of mapping the whole world. She also wants her family to be able to live in peace and not be broke. Unless she accomplishes that first goal, she cannot accomplish the other two. She needs to be saved in order to continue her story. Because she’s  unable to save herself. Which is reasonable. She's just a person and Arlong is a super strong fish demon man. So Luffy saves her. He punches her problem away real good and she is now finally free to do what she wants. If you know anything about Laws character I'm sure you can see where this is going . Robin is the same, Luffy punches away the people that want to control her real good and declares that he will fight the entire world to let her have the chance to live freely.  

I brought this up with my dad and he brought up a great point. Marineford. He said well Luffy lost pretty bad in the paramount war and needed to be saved by many people. Even costing him Ace. But, I would like to point out that the people who did that, Akainu and Blackbeard are still roaming free. Luffy needed to be saved in the moment but he’s still going to be the one to resolve the issue. Like Luffy, Zoro, Franky, Jinbei, and Brook have all needed saving at some point during a fight. But they always get to square up and finish the ones that are important to them. And their goals don't require them to be saved before trying to achieve them. The point comes down to who's allowed to deal with the finishing blow to their main goals/ problems. Luffy isn’t going to punch Mihawk for Zoror, or make Ussops dad respect him, or whatever the fuck Jinbei wants. But he did fight Arlong for Nami, Cp9 for Robin and Doffy for Law. 

1c. Girls got to College to Get More Knowledge, Boys Go to Jupiter to Get More Stupider

The women of One Piece are objectively smarter than the men. Emotionally and Intellectually. Women in One Piece are normally more patient, less stubborn and willing to retreat when they have to. They also don’t get as love sick as the men. I mean Boa lets her feelings for Luffy get her into insane shit, but that's the joke. Like One Piece women aren’t really known for having someone's looks  affect them. There's a reason there is a most Beautiful Woman in the world with no male counterpart. Like Smoker is Zaddy and no one cares. Most of the guy characters who are overly sneaky and plotting are villains or assholes. That's not to say there aren’t smart men characters, Franky is a genius at his craft. But being smart and careful isn’t part of his character or reflected in his behavior. 

 Part II: Trafalgar D. Water Law,  The Saddest Little Uwu 

I haven't loved Law since the first time I saw him. I have loved him since punk hazard though which is pretty fxcking long. His strong Emo vibes and general refusal to go along with any of Luffy’s bits seemingly for the sole sake of keeping up an image that not one present cared about really endured him to me. I’m pretty trad goth and he reminds me of those emo kids that refused to wear pink or be nice just because they thought it wasn’t hard core enough. Then as the show goes on he develops into one of those healthy goths who know that being an outsider is about showing vulnerability, kindness and maybe dressing in a lil pastel. I really like Law and his weird role in the story so far. Ok, my I love Law rants are done let's get to what we need to get to.

Law before One Piece:

Trafalgar D. Waterlaw was born in Fleavance. He lived a pretty happy normal life, a doctor father, nurse mother and cute baby sister. Until he was about 7 or 8? Around that time the town of fleavance started experiencing some unknown illness. I will say in our real world it is pretty similar to what silicosis actually does to you. Minus the Vitiligo and some other symptoms.  In the world of One Piece its called amber lead poisoning and its almost completely fatal if not properly treated Which is hard to do on its own. But it's even harder in Law's case since the neighboring towns and probably the world government didn't really know what amber lead poisoning was or how it spread either. So they said fxck it, burn it down, kill everyone and call it a day. Problem solved!

So yeah, Law's family is dead, he escaped Flevance by hiding among corpses, and now he is slowly and painfully dying. 

Then it gets worse, it gets so much worse before it gets better. He pulls a Tim Drake and forces his way into the DonQuixote Family by threatening to kill himself and everyone else with a bomb. Because seeing everyone you know and love die painfully and then have the government cover that up will do that to you. Doffy sees a lot of himself in Law and decides, “yeah, this’ll do”. 

Doffys’ nicer but objectively less cool younger brother Corazon also sees a lot of Doffy in Law and decides to immediately put a stop to that shit. He slowly and secretly teaches Law how to enjoy at least some aspects of life. Shows him the first and true affection he’s been shown since his entire village died. It ‘s great. And then, TLDR, Corazon decides to betray Doffy, gets caught, stuff the Ope- Ope Fruit down Law's Throat so he can cure himself and then get shot to Death after saying I love you to Law for what is seemingly the first and last time. Also Sengokou was there.

We don’t really have a clear idea what Law did after this but we do know a few things. 

He became a pirate with the sole purpose of taking down Doflamingo 

 He seems to have chosen a submarine as a pirate ship in order to better hide from Doflamingo and also make it harder to attack him. Because Doffy is a devil fruit user. Even though Law is also a devil fruit user and this puts him in extreme danger. Especially since...

 He made a crew of people who are seemingly doctors 1st, friends 2nd and fighter 6th. Like none of Laws crew members appear to be even mildly good at fighting. I’m pretty sure Chopper could take most of them. 

He names his crew the Heart Pirates after Cora. Which implies that Spanish, just like real world Spanish, is canon in One Piece. And that also reminds me that Law is talking like a nun in his flashback. Is Law catholic? Or was he raised catholic? Either way it adds to the uwu and the trauma of it all. If you know, you know.

 He started working with Caesar Clown, a man he fxcking hates. In order to get closer to Doflamingos secrety secrets.

Pre-time  Skip Law

I’m skipping when we see him in Sabaody because all we learn is that he's edgy and has a bear. When we see him again after Marineford it's actually kind of interesting because we learn he’s also first and foremost a doctor before being a pirate. He saves Luffys life because that's what doctors do and Luffy doesn’t seem like a bad dude. 

Now the good shit.

Post Time Skip Law 

My booooyyy! Love of my life, my sad lil uwu. Law is introduced as one of the coolest, coldest, scariest Warlords. He will literally rip your fxckin heart out. Evanescence playing in the background and all. Luffy immediately undermines thats by not thinking he’s any of those things and tying chopper to his head. But we got a whole episode and a half of thinking he was actually too cool for school. Like we all thought he Shanks when he’s actually just Mihawk. Like his cool but also pretty easy to bully if he likes you even a lil and will let you get away with a lot. It’s just hard to get him to like you, at first. So we get through punk hazard, see what a glass canon Law is and move to Dressrosa. 

In between those two points we also see how sad Law is and how similar he is to both Robin and Nami in behavior. He was Robins darks sense of humor (from the trauma)  and general introvertedness (trauma!?) with Namis greed (did i mention trauma). Which makes sense for the back story we learn about. 

Dressrosa: The Holy Grail of Uwu Law 

Law, Luffy and Doflamingo in Dressrosa is what happens when you put Nami and Robins backstory in a blender with crack cocaine and Katya (the drag queen). It’s just this sad tired uwu man,that came to commit murder suicide, trying and failing to accomplish that goal. Only to be figuratively and literally dragged along by a lunatic that barely knows him. Like Law went to Dresrosa not hoping he would die but assuming he would and not really caring. He didn't have an exit strategy because he didn’t think he was exiting. His plan was to use Luffy as a shield, Ceasar as bait and then murder suicide himself and Domflamingo out of existence. He was so desolate by the time his second fight with him ended. He had no hope, his plans had failed and he even dragged a bunch of innocent people into the crossfire. He would die, the people of Dressrosa would die, the Strawhats would suffer and maybe die and all for Laws’ fruitless revenge. Then Luffy stopped that foot. And Law decided to stay. And Luffy beat up Doffy. And Law was free. For the first time in over ten years Law was free. 

Wano: Then He Stayed

Because he didn’t plan to make it this far. I laughed out loud when Law said they were enemies after Wano ended. Motherfxcker who? Law you don’t want to be pirate king. You barely want to be a pirate! Frankly at this point I think the only thing keeping Law from a non-deadly early retirement is Luffy, his bounty, and pride. And he can get rid (ignore) of two of those things (you won’t guess which!).  Law fought and almost died in Wano to fulfill the deal he made with Luffy. Even though Luffy would not have begrudged him on reneging on that deal. Law told him it was made in bad faith and he had fxck all to gain from fighting Kaido. But he did it, he believed in Luffy and Luffy punched the problem away like always. 

And this ends the story of the Saddest Uwu Boi, Trafalgar D. WaterLaw. 

Part III: You Have to See What I’m Getting At. 

Law’ backstory and character development is just that of any main woman character. Sad thing happened when he was a kid, putting him on the radar/ partially in debt to a bad man. He spent most of his life running from this bad man by working for/ with people he hated. He met Luffy. He tried to fight the bad man and system but didn’t have the strength of heart and/ or body to defeat him. Luffy punched the bad man real good and told Law he was pretty without makeup, he didn’t need it. Law was finally able to move freely as a person and decided to support Luffy in his immediate goals (and probably his long term ones too. Let's be honest he has nothing else to do)  even though that puts him and his crew in even more danger. But now he knew, Luffy would punch that danger just as good as the previous bad man. 

Honestly I don't know what this means or what purpose this knowledge serves. Like, this doesn’t change my opinion that lulaw will never be canon. This doesn’t change how I view Law as a character. This doesn’t change how I view Oda as a writer. This only serves the purpose of excising these thoughts from my head and putting them permanently on a website filled with people who will call me horrible things for even admitting I ship Luffy with anyone. So that's something I guess. 

About Sanji:

Sanji is going through a weird, unexpected but good character transformation right now. His writing is becoming more Law/Robin-esque. Which is weird and unexpected but very good. I have thoughts on that but its for a different post. I don't think it undermines my point though because this shift is relatively recent, only happening in the Whole Cake island arc and not fully forming until near the end of Wano. This either means a shift in how Oda choses to write male characters or a shift in how he views Sanjis’ role in the narrative. Only time will tell. 

*This unrelated but I’ m realizing Law shows just as much tiddy as Robin and Nami too.*

Dear Horror Podcast Creators,

Hi aroace person here. Ummm, could you stop making aroace people Standish unfriendly assholes that need to learn how to open up to people? Because three times a pattern, and I don't super love the pattern. Like we don't get a whole third of three main options for human affection. I'm an introverted weirdo who writes open letters to podcast writers on tumblr. But I do treasure and protect the few friends I have made. And I act pretty kindly to those others because, well, I'm not an asshole. It's just weird that there seems to be an unintentional correlation between being aroace and being cold and standoffish. I undertand its becuae they also happen to have trauma that makes them that way. But, for example, the sheridan tapes have two main characters. Both of them have trauma. One of them is cold and distant and the other is pretty socialble and talkative and has fucking friends. Which is the ace one and which isnt? Im not calling it out. I like the Sheridan tapes. I'm just saying it's weird that this keeps happening. So you know, mix it I guess. For me?

Sincerely, someone who will listen to the podcasts regardless because I have no morals.

P.s. TMA fans, please don't come for me. You scare me more than voltron people.

Unpopular opinion:

Wukong did nothing wrong in LMK.

In my heart of hearts, I firmly believe that everyone like his unhinged energy right until it became too much. Like everyone enjoys his wild and free nature until that means he's so free he doesn't constantly hang out with you. Also in the canon of journey to the west Macaque tries to frame Wukong for murder after attacking tripataka. I am of the opinion that Macaque did Wukong super dirty by leaving him under that mountain because he felt abandoned. And if Wukong "killed" him for the same reason he did in the book then Mac kinda had it coming. I understand he probably felt replaced or maybe thought he was saving Wukong but come one! I just think that if Macaque can get a pass for leaving Wukong under that mountain for 500 years then Wukong should get a pass for trying to achieve his dream of being a baddy at the cost of his close friendships.

Just saying, give the man a break. He's doing better now... kind of.

I've never felt more like the writers are holding me hostage using characters thn I do watching bucchigiri?! Like they have to know that arajin is not why most people are staying. They have an Asamine shaped gun pointed at my head that this point 😭

I need a roses and champagne lulaw au. Where law is a doctor who just starts working in the new world. His dad Cora doesn't talk about their family much, but he does know he has some family there. Cora raised him tough and taught him how to fight but he prefers to be reasonable. He runs into Luffy one day on the way to a house visit. Luffy immediately takes interest and the plot plays out roughly the same. Luffy is running the Mafia for his grandad garp but trying to do good. If there is already a mafia au like that, please let me know. But this one should also exist. I'll write it someday.