Alias Talks - Blog Posts

"I know it’s not natural. Somehow I… I feel it. I’m sorry, my academic detachment seems to have fled me."

Jonathan Sims, Hive - MAG032

THANK FUCK, JONATHAN SIMS, I WAS WAITING FOR YOU TO SAY THAT SHIT-

Jonathan Sims, you skeptical little archivist, I love you so much but stop discrediting every statement you come across.

So, I just begun listening to the Magnus Archives Podcast; and even if I could stay here hours to talk about how much I love it already, I'm here to be my dumbass self:

I'm here to talk about the episode 16: "Arachnophobia"

The first thing you gotta know about why I feel like this about this episode, is that I'm in no way shape or form arachnophobic; I love spooders with all my heart and to me, they're only the arachnid equivalent of the danger noodles (which I also love, but I'm not here to talk about this).

Second thing is that when I'm scared, I try to empathize with the villain and not the protagonist of the horror I'm watching, or in this case, listening to.

In this Episode, Carlos Vittery explains how he moved to this flat to find the thing he had been fleeing from: spiders.

But tell me, just tell me, that I wasn't the only one to think how good must've felt the spider the second Carlos saw him on the TV screen.

I just imagine Carlos trying to grasp at his sanity while this little shit just makes fortnite dances on his tv screen, while giving him a metaphorical middle finger.

I'm at it again

What if, one day, Doflamingo pulls a Crocodile and comes back from Impel Down, but since he has been a prisoner for a long time (it hasn't been a long time now, but it will be by the time he gets out of prison, hopefully), long enough for his hair to grow, and maybe even without his glasses.

And Law sees him. His hear jumping right out of his throat, and his eyes instantly watering at the sight of that familiar head of unkept blonde hair. His mind automatically reminiscing about the man that saved his life and the day he saw him, his black coat a dark contrast against the pure white snow, surrounded by big and small droplets of dark, dark blood. He remembers that day, still hearing the deafening silence coming from him. That same silence told him that the man in the black coat was still alive and helping him one last time to get away from danger, while he could just watch the snow slowly coming down, burying his savior.

Law then blinks, cursing for that little moment of weakness (but not regretting it, because as Sengoku told him at Dressrosa, the best way to honor a loved one is to remember them), to then only to shiver as the man in front of him opens his mouth to regard him with an unfortunate and familiar maniacal laugh, his smile too wide to be genuine, too different from the last smile Cora gave him, a cruel and mocking smile.

Would Doflamingo share something, if anything, with his brother? Or would he look like a wicked and twisted picture of a past lost to hatred?

I regret ✨nothing✨

As some friends of mine may know: I could be considered a moronsexual and clownsexual for the sole reason I simp for Buggy The Clown

And Oden's backstory with kid!Buggy

is not helping my condition✨

So, Sengoku was teaching some cool lore to new recruits and this fucker comes in?

Sakazuki Akainu, go away before I do something I might regret and let Mr. Sengoku finish his PowerPoint presentation.

So um,,,I hate him so much.

But I just checked and I discovered that I'm not the only one who ears the opening melody of "Do I Wanna Know?" as a nervous response to this particular panel.

So... Could we talk about volume 94 for a sec?

Like, first oh all, Eiichiro Oda, how dare you. I've been crying for an entire day about characters that I swore I wouldn't care about.

So: Here we are at the beginning of the chapter, where there's the explanation of why SMILEs are bad etc. etc. etc. AND I'M ALREADY BAWLING MY EYES OUT.

Then the narrative switches to Luffy being chaotic on main, I thought I was gonna have fun, but no. Those two come in.

A classic. Kidd's *angy* and Kamazo's laughing like the maniac that he is-

Oh wait.

What if he... isn't a maiac...but is in fact a SMILE eater?

That would make sense, but why would Kaido not keep this man with him? Is he a native from Wano, from the poor district?

Then Kidd, who I read went back to prison with Kamazo without making too much of a fight (which is already fucking suspicious) decides to speak.

And. I. Start. Crying.

He starts talking about the crew and "WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY?" and Killer can't stop laughing because he literally c a n ' t express any other emotion anymore and I CRY SO HARD.

In each and every scene Killer keeps laughing and laughing, and the more he does that the more I realize that he's doing that instead of crying and I feel bad about not caring more about the Kidd Pirates-

Like...look at them.

They look so broken.

In italian the translation was done well, but they changed the original concept of the dialogue: While Makino tries to get them to say "Hello, what's your name?" Ace keeps on saying "I am Ace! Who are you?", which in Italy and probably everywhere else in the world is kind of unpolite, but not too much. When Makino tells him that that's wrong and not a polite manner of speaking, Luffy corrects him with " You have to say "Who THE HELL are you?" which in Italian is even LESS OKAY. The funny thing is that Ace does not use an even worse correction of the phrase, but he just rolls with Luffy's correction, repeating it to Makino; making this seven year old little boy the bringer of chaos in the conversation. Which, to me, is adorable.

I’m kinda curious how they translate this joke in English, actually, because the comedy in Japanese comes from the fact that Ace and Luffy just straight up SUCK at choosing appropriate ‘you’ pronouns. Makino is TRYING to get them to say ‘hello, what’s your name?’ but neither of them can think of an actual polite way to say ‘you.’

Ace starts with teme, which is so hostile it’s essentially a swear word, and Luffy tries to correct him to omae, which is less rude but still really not polite (and also what Luffy uses to address literally everyone in the present), and then Ace tries onore, which is less commonly used than teme but ALSO super angry/derogatory.