Mysterious Moron

I feel like the fandom hasn’t tapped into the full potential that is den-den mushis as animals first and communication devices second. Like, is it possible for a snail to refuse a call from someone they don’t like? Are there lazy snails with shorter calling distances because they can’t be assed to go for their full range? Are there some snails with speech impediments? 

Tumblr users reblogging pics and creating fanart so it’s all over my dashboard: Here he comes

Or, How to Stay Safe & Save the World at the Same Time

Hey all. Seems like it’s getting tough out there. 

Seems like shit is getting really real, really fast. 

I’m here in New York, doing ICU transfers for one of the hospital systems, and I can’t lie to you… it’s bad. 

We’re storing bodies in refrigerated trailers because the morgues are full. 

The City is reopening potter’s fields and digging mass graves. 

Hundreds of people a day are dying. Soon, thousands.

Mostly older. Some previously-healthy adults. Mercifully, not many kids. 

It’s real, and it’s bad. 

But I promise you, the world is not ending. 

And I also promise you this post will end with HOPE, even if it’s hard to read. 

But I want to talk about something… a misconception I’ve been seeing over and over again. 

This is actually a really interesting question, because on one hand we kind already have the answer, and on the other hand we kinda don’t. 

The only other president we have would be Big Mom eating Mother Caramel, but unless I’m misremembering we’re never shown if the Soul Soul Fruit reincarnated as a fruit and was then also eaten in her selma-induced rampage or if she more or less obtained her powers via the worst form of osmosis to ever exist in fiction. 

If it’s the latter, we can assume that this would qualify as Wapol eating a second fruit and exploding, but Wapol’s power is to eat things. That is its function. He’s able to consume people non-fatally, but is also able to—for lack of a better term—take things apart and put them together as he sees fit, kind of like an assembly line. 

I’m gonna put these both together because I don’t want to belabor the point. I’ve been in the fandom long enough that I find Sanji conversation to be, quite frankly, exhausting. Also not a huge fan of lists, because there are so many variables to consider and One Piece is an incredibly long series so these things change over time. 

That being said, I want to reassure everyone that I’m not going to use this platform to bash Sanji (or Chopper or whoever) or his fans, because this is supposed to be fun, and bashing isn’t fun. I’m sure there will be things that come up that I want to talk about in the future, but I hope to be both fair and civil when that time comes. 

I did a write-up on Chopper on my main blog describing why he was my least favorite Straw Hat, and in that I said that if you were to chart my feelings on Sanji it would look like I have ventricular tachycardia, and that remains true today. He has some incredibly high highs, but also is the source of some of the lowest lows of the series. Whole Cake Island is my favorite arc post-timeskip, but his nosebleed shenanigans on Fishman Island still exist. I tend to dislike his archetype anyway, so I’ve never cared for him and barring some spectacular writing or divine intervention never would. But some of his antics (especially post timeskip) taint everything about his character which in turn gives me very little patience for some of the things I would be able to excuse or overlook in a different character that I’m more predisposed to liking. 

To put it another way, I have a line of acceptable bullshit that I’m willing to put up with for different characters, and Sanji gets very little leeway. There’s a version of Sanji that exists in my head where he’s one of the most interesting, complicated member of the Straw Hat Pirates, but that’s not the version that exists in the manga, or at least not often enough for me to care. 

Chopper I just find boring as hell. I wish Oda would have gone with his initial design instead of turning him into a mascot character.

So here are my tiers of Straw Hat favoritism. I can’t rank them just because it does shift around so much and there are so many aspects to consider, but here’s my best shot:

Tier One - Favorite of Favorites, Can Do No Wrong, We Stan a Queen, No I Will Not Pretend to be Unbiased: -Robin

Tier Two - Really Damn Good, Will Throw Hands Against Haters, Best Character Arcs, Am Heavily Invested In: -Nami, Usopp, Brook

Tier Three - Good But Cannot Relate With, Fulfill Function Well, Enjoy Reading About But Might Not Want to Meet in Real Life: -Luffy, Vivi, Jimbe, Franky

Tier Four - They’re Fine I Guess, Have Moments But Sometimes Boring, Mostly I Don’t Care: -Zoro, pre-timeskip Chopper

So there’s a lot going on here, evidenced by the frenetic cuts and dynamic paneling, but I like the inclusion of this dude here. Up until this point the people of Drum Island have been putting on an act, trying to scare of the Straw Hats through threats and a show of force.