Legion of Diversity

it gets treated as this like stock fandom AU and i'll see people like 'i don't understand why anyone wants to read this' and i'm like yes that's bcos it's pretty intense* fetish content & you don't have the right assortment of fetishes for it? there's a bunch of other similar Stock Settings that just haven't breached containment.

firstly the aforementioned demographic of people who have somehow genuinely failed to clock that it's a kink thing

but also a second demographic of people who seem to have taken its like. prominence in fandom spaces as a sign that they're somehow 'expected' to like it? i've not really seen this attitude with any other kink.

the omegaverse belongs to an genre i have mentally dubbed 'speculative kink'. there are various other types of speculative kink; a well known example in fanfiction spaces is the dom/sub AU, a kind of precursor to omegaverse where the premise is 'what if everyone was biologically a dom or a sub'.

however: there various other shared speculative kink settings out there. unfortunately I cannot get into this too much without discussing some uhhh Devils Sacraments I have attended so you will have to trust me. but I'm aware of several other demographics out there doing speculative kink worldbuilding.

a major difference between omegaverse and the other speculative kink settings I'm aware of is that omegaverse takes itself much more seriously. omegaverse works are often aiming to be understood as serious commentary on gender roles with legitimate worldbuilding. in contrast other speculative kink is typically very open about the fact that the worldbuilding is complete nonsense that exists in service of getting to the kink as soon as possible.

Also, don’t be afraid to read out loud if it helps. There are some times where I’m reading something and nothing I’m doing it getting me through the passage so I just start reading out loud. It helps you focus on the words cause you are hearing them as well as reading them. It’s a useful skill and I don’t care how old you are, don’t be afraid to do it if it helps.

I've been playing today. Probably a year ago I picked up this book, which had a technique for sewing set in circles I hadn't tried before. I never quite got around to it until last night. I have some fabric that is crying out to be made into a quilt with spots and I wanted to practice before I dove in.

If you're interested in the technique without buying a book, look up six minute circles on YouTube and you should find some videos.

Anyway I made a couple successful circles last night and then today I wanted to play some more.

I tried some different sizes and two circles in the same block, then I tried overlapping the circles.

he was created at least seven years ago, as that's when we see the hooded red-haired figure speak to the gorosei. whether you believe that was shanks or shamrock (and i'm still of two minds about that myself) i doubt that scene would have been included if oda didn't already know about shanks' history and family. + this means shamrock is first shown/hinted at in an arc that is all about introducing deeper lore and endgame characters of the series.

he was (almost definitely) included in the panel at the end of 1121. i mean it hasn't been confirmed but who the hell else could it be lol. while theories differ on what the intention is behind showing these twelve characters, it feels pretty clear to me that they're going to be the twelve biggest players in the endgame. and damn, oda's gotta believe a character's going to be important if he decided he needed to feature them here despite not having even properly introduced them yet.

3. shanks is important. like, really important. do we know why yet? no! has he been all that present for like 99% of the story? no! but there's a reason he's lurking in the character page of every single volume, including all the ones he's not in. he's the character who kick-started the series and luffy's entire journey. he's been referred to as a "child of fate" for some unknown reason. so another character being as closely related to him as to be his identical twin brother means they pretty inevitably have a major role to play.

4. whatever tf this means

We don’t know much about Shanks’ relationship with his bio family but based on what we’ve seen of God’s Valley and other flashbacks, it doesn’t seem like the Roger pirates knew who Shanks was. Like, he was a random baby they found and they have virtually no way to track him to Garling. They might have thought he was a celestial dragon’s kid but they don’t really have a way to confirm it or know who he belongs to. Like, Garling doesn’t even have their iconic red hair so you wouldn’t see the two and assume it. Conversely, Garling has no real way to know Shanks is his kid. He might remember his kid’s hair color but unless Roger is throwing Shanks at news coos and announcing he picked him up on god’s valley, Garling has no reason to link a random kid on Roger’s ship with a kid he probably thinks is dead. Unless, of course, he has a literal carbon copy of Shanks hanging out next to him regularly and can hold up Shanks’ first wanted poster right next to Shamrock and notice they look the same. Also, even if Shanks knows he might be a celestial dragon, why would he ever trust any of them if they said he was their kid unless they showed up with a literal copy of him right next to them as an obvious twin?

Also, if Oda ever wants to reveal Shanks’ heritage to the world at large, Shamrock’s kind of the only way to do it. You could have someone leak Shanks’ heritage but who would believe them? It’s a wildly outlandish story and the government lies all the time about pirates. Sure, civilians might believe it but his fellow pirates? No, it sounds crazy. But we’ve already seen in Elbaph people getting attacked by Shamrock and assuming it’s Shanks. So if Shamrock ever makes a very public appearance, Shanks’ heritage is going to be undeniable and be a much larger potential conflict. Obviously I don’t know if Shamrock will be used in this way but it’s just about the only way the larger population could hear about Shanks’ heritage and have the teller not just get laughed out of the park.

It gets even funnier though when you consider his current crew who are made up of two guys who were unquestionably villains to Luffy but the last time they were in a battle with our protagonist, they were fighting to save his life, like Buggy got him off the battlefield and Croc stood with the Whitebeard pirates (who he hates) to protect Luffy. So, of the three, Mihawk is the one who is consistently an antagonist while the other two clear villains have also been allies.

He’s, like, the least villainous villain the series has had but also he’s the only one of his villainous comrades who hasn’t jumped into the path of a marine admiral to save Luffy’s life.

I like Garp as a character, though I think he's a shitty grandpa, but this scene gets harder to take seriously the more atrocities we see the marines and World Government commit.

We’ve seen tons of islands and countries that have fallen victim to pirate violence and, sure, a lot of it is either sanctioned by the marines or have marines looking the other way but it’s still pirate instigated. Like Doflamingo got away with Dressrosa cause he was a warlord but he was gonna do what he did regardless of warlord status, that just made it easier. In fact, it’s implied that if he hadn’t had warlord status and blackmail on the celestial dragons, the government would have done something about his take over. Pirates are a real threat to every day people and without the marines, those people just have to hope someone like Luffy comes crashing through their fucking country.

This is not me saying the world government shouldn’t be overthrown, just like me thinking there needs to be some kind of law enforcement body doesn’t mean I don’t want the current police in our world disassembled. I’m seen a lot of people call for revolution in the US over the past 6 years at least and a lot of them seem to not really realize the horrific impact that would have. If you’re talking about overthrowing the whole government, when the government is very well armed and will fight back, you are talking about a lot of people dying. Massive swaths of people dying, often times people who are more vulnerable.

Does revolution make a lot of sense in certain circumstances? Yes. But by choosing full revolution, you’re choosing to let a lot of people die who maybe didn’t have to. If the government is bad enough, you’ll end up saving people in the long run but how many will have to die for that? I definitely think the World Government is so terrible it has to be overthrown but that’s gonna mean a lot of death, both in the fight to take power and the power vacuum that’s gonna follow when places that did have the government’s protection (cause they do their job sometimes and people benefit from it) are now left with no safety net.

I generally don’t have a high opinion of Garp but I also really understand the perspective of people who are in the system, are even able to help people through the system, and think the system as it is helps more people than it hurts. If Garp abandons the government, sure, he could go apeshit on a bunch of people but will he be helping more people than he would be able to while he can use the government’s resources to do it? If the marines are gone, what comes after it? Something has to but will it be a better government or the random roll of the dice as to whether you suffer under Kaido or keep living your life as usual under Shanks? We don’t actually know and Garp knows even less.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen in God’s Valley and I’ve seen a lot of theories but if all that happens is Garp and Roger kill Xebec and go on with their lives, it’s incredibly understandable why Garp would just stick with the marines.

It’s understandable even before you get into the fucking horror of how powerful the five elders seem. Like, real question, could Garp even beat them in a fight? What can he even do against them even if he leaves and joins a revolution? Sure, he can help some people when it comes to revolution activities the same way the revolutionary army currently does but who’s actually going to have the power to take down five of those monsters, not even taking into account that there are actually six and the sixth one can make a new one if you manage to kill one.

Even without taking the full implications from One Piece in, it makes sense why people choose to stay in corrupt systems and choose to believe in corrupt systems when their only other option is fully dismantling the system and starting from scratch on a massive scale. But taking into account the full implications of the five elders, who the fuck aside from people like Luffy and Dragon would look at those guys and think, “we can battle through an entire government which potentially has weapons of mass destruction and then take those guys down, sure”?

I have lots of negative feelings towards Garp for a great many things including not liking that he chooses to continue working for the government but I can fully understand why he would. Same reason my mom can know how terrible the police are to the point that she was yelling at the screen in the climax of Get Out (spoiler: where the seeming police car rolls up to the scene of a black man fighting a white woman, meaning my mom knows that black man is dead if that was a typical police car) but she is still in favor of the police. Sure the system sucks but what are we doing without it? What comes after it? How do we protect ourselves and each other in the transition? These are really valid concerns that are really applicable here when we are talking about such a huge body of government being taken down.

And for the people who say Garp should have left anyway even if he wasn’t gonna go full revolutionary, what good does walking away do? If Garp’s in the marines, at least he can help some people, at least he might be able to mitigate the damage. If he’s on the side lines, he can’t do shit.

You can get them sharpened for $5 once a decade and you're good. My Grandmother still uses hers she got in the 1960s, mine are 20 years old and still amazing.

They offer a lifetime warranty, but you won't need it.

With these, I can cut God.

It was about $5, takes a couple minutes, and those scissors cut through six layers of quilting cotton without issue. Tested the success by sharpening a pair of those children's scissors that are only supposed to cut paper. Hahaha! Those things are now deadly.

(Just kidding. I did flinch to think of those near my shears.)

Those sharpners might be okay for cheaper scissors, but will spoil the precise cutting angle of scissors that aren't Fiskars. The angle is super important.

I personally own and love and adore my LDH shears. This is what I have, and they cut through fabric like buttah. https://ldhscissors.com/collections/fabric-shears/products/traditional-fabric-shears They are a Canadian/Chinese brand and right now it looks like the tariffs are not affecting them, not sure if they are absorbing that or if the FAQ is out of date.

The other brand I have used, and also have heard recommended by many others is Kai. https://www.wawak.com/cutting-measuring/cutting/scissors/?Brand=Kai