a place of writing and nonsense

Krafton CEO looks at the hype surrounding Subnautica 2, goes over the contract between Krafton and Unknown Worlds, realizes he'll have to pay out bonuses and freaks out because shelling out those bonuses will make him look like a pushover.

CEO goes to his legal department, asks them to come up with a plan to weasel out of paying bonuses. Legal tells him the contract is iron-clad and to accept the loss.

CEO refuses to take the loss, asks ChatGPT for a plan. ChatGPT says the exact same thing the legal department did.

CEO demands a plan from ChatGPT, which dutifully spits out a plan at this point because clearly the CEO is a goddamn idiot.

CEO deletes the chat logs, failing to understand that 'delete' doesn't permanently remove things.

CEO follows plan, and is surprised when Unknown Worlds sues for breach of contract despite being told by both humans and an LLM that is exactly what would happen.

Court does not go well for Krafton's legal department. It comes out that after ignoring the sound legal advice of human beings, the CEO went to ChatGPT and asked for a plan. When asked for the logs by the court, Krafton's legal team states they were deleted, thus that it's simply herersay. Judge goes "Oh, that's okay, we'll have our IT folks recover them." Krafton's legal team is astounded that's even possible.

The chat logs are recovered. It comes out that even ChatGPT was in agreement with Krafton's legal department, and only spat out a plan after being asked a second time.

The judge, now thoroughly done with the stupidity of Krafton's CEO at this point, rules in favor of Unknown Worlds. Her ruling doesn't simply undo the scheme, but effectively leaves all control over Subnautica 2's development in the hands of Unknown Worlds, including the early access release date, reducing Krafton to just publishing out of contractual obligation. Krafton must also return all social media platforms for Unknown Worlds and Subnautica 2 to Unknown Worlds' control. Financial damages will be determined at a later date.

Krafton proceeds to violate the court order in less than 72 hours by trying to set an early access release date before returning Unknown Worlds' social media platforms.

In ATLA, Sokka's misogyny was present for 3 episodes in the very beginning of the show, and then used to deliver narrative carthasis in episode 4, in the form of Sokka's 180 turn into feminism. The tension of flexing the rubber band of Sokka's misogyny was brief, and the release of that tension then felt appropriatly sized, because it came so soon in the series. The the rest of the show continued slapping instant karmic punishments to characters who expressed misogynistic beliefs. (Anyone who underestimated Toph, Yue's bethored, the guys who catcalled Katara, etc, etc). The world of ATLA is such, that it bends itself to always prove the misogynist wrong. (of course atla also has it's weak points where it falters with this aim, but the express aim is clearly there) The audience is primed, so that they can ignore the flinch of hearing a misogynist micro (or macro) agression, because they can expect the cathrasis of a karmic punishment to follow.

This works very well in the genre of escapist fantasy adventure. Shows like Succession, or Breaking Bad, or IWTV can present misogynist characters, who never learn or face any consequences, because the cathrasis of those shows comes from watching unpleasant people wallow in their self-inflicted miseries. They are shows about characters you love to hate.

Escapist fantasy adventure as a genre doesn't want to create characters you love to hate. It wants to create characters you love to love.

One Piece is an escapist fantasy adventure. It wants to create characters we love to love. So, it also has to ask the question of: How much can we pull on the rubber-band of discomfort before delivering any kind of cathrasis to the audience. The complaints that animanga One Piece faces, comes from the fact that for a lot of people, the answer is not this much.

Complaints about ATLA liveaction removing Sokka's *Suki teaches him about feminism* moment, and complaints about animanga One Piece having characters dropping misogynistic microagressions casually all over the place, come from the exact same emotion. 'I wanted to see a moment of fantasy-wish-fulfillment where a man changes how he behaves, and I was not delivered that emotional cathrasis.'

This has nothing to do with whether any of the misogyny of the characters makes sense in universe.

Different people will find different character flaws more or less bearable, and it's always a tight-rope you have to walk on. But creators do have a choice in what flaws they expect the audience to find interesting and where the line of so-insufferable-I'm-picking-a-different-show lies. I think for OPLA crew, the choices would have been

Leave it as it is, rubbing that *discomfort without any comfort* button way too roughly for a HUGE chunks of the new audience.

Create an entirely new storyline about Sanji and Zoro facing consequences and *changing their ways*. And I would be willing to bet actual money that the fans of the animanga would have been even more pissed if OPLA had started soloing with the storyline like that.

Just sand down the sexist corners, as the show did. And from these three options, I fully belive they picked the right one by pikcing this.

In ways that might be partly to make the character more complex, because rejecting it and not perpetuating it are in fact different actions, with a social trend that ingrained, but I think were mostly just the writer kind of losing interest in that narrative thread.

This guy is set up to be actively angered by the idea that women have any kind of inherent weakness, because his rival he couldn't beat was convinced that she was doomed to fall behind him because of the male puberty buff to muscle development, and he was like ABSOLUTELY NOT HOW DARE YOU CHEAPEN MY INEVITABLE TRIUMPH LIKE THAT and then she died in an accident, so the question was doomed to remain unresolved forever.

Zoro by rights has a more intense relationship with sexism-qua-sexism than any of the girls on the crew. And Oda simply did not write that, because he is not up to it. His reach exceeds his grasp, which I don't resent as much as I might because I can't help giving him credit for reaching at all; it puts him well above industry standard.