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Was browsing medical subreddits for horror stories to avoid work (so now you know that about me) and had a Trafalgar Law insight...

1. Surgeons are fucking insufferable about their precious hands. And that's why Law's are decorated with medical symbols.

Discussion: Surgeons famously consider themselves like the artists of the doctor world. The kind of artists with god-given inborn greatness contained in their Hands. When surgeons have kids they gather their surgeon friends around to examine the offspring to see if they've inherited THE GIFT. the gift of slender strong and steady hands that can wield precision instruments with finesse, purpose and yes, drama.

Law is the son of doctors who absolutely thought this. He probably had a Surgeon Hands Yes party when he was three instead of a birthday. So he's kind of vain about his hands, and had them decorated to mark this gift. They are his pride, and his inheritance. Something from his parents and past that cant be taken away. Law is probably more extra about his hands than even Sanji, though in kinda the opposite way. Sanji refuses to use his hands for anything but life-giving labours (cooking♡) while Law is like "Hands of death baby!"

Which brings me to his finger tats.

2. Law's finger tattoos are a signature.

The other thing i noticed, while watching surgery / extraction videos (so now you also know that about me) is that the doctors who regularly post their videos to the internet seem very invested in people knowing that this is their work. Their hands. Like, even beyond a concern for protecting their intellectual property on the internet. It seems to be a competitive thing, so that no one confuses them with other, technically inferior surgeons posting the same thing. Some will watermark their videos, some talk throughout the video to narrate their perspective and expertise, but I'm seeing some who WRITE their NAMES on each finger of their LATEX GLOVES. Because you never see the surgeons face in these videos, just their hands working on the patient, and they want you to know whose hands.

And that's what Law is doing with the D.E.A.T.H finger tats.

3. Law identifies with death

Surgeon of Death isnt just a moniker for him. I thinks he thinks of himself AS death, or at least its instrument. The recipient of divine gifts from an altogether different god than the one who usually gives out surgeon hands. Like, even if he does occasionally save people with his gifts, to him it's another aspect of control over death, and not an aspect of giving life.

Again, though, similar to Sanji, this is a way that he rejects the regimes of life and death imposed on him by the powers that be. The directive given to sanji was to kill in service of authoritarian power, and his refusal comes in turning all his genetically engineered prowess to caring for people instead. That's his form of piracy.

The directive given to Law was to die. First, to heal the sick, but then in becoming sick, to die and be forgotten. His lasting refusal comes not only in surviving and healing himself, but in taking his healing gifts and applying them to bringing death to the world government, and the world it created. In broadcasting this in the tattoos of his hands (the only consistently visible part of his body), he's making a claim on the domain of death that gives the lie to the world government's claim on it.

Hes like, you guys think you control life and death in this world? Well you fucked up and didnt kill me. So it's mine now.

(again, i mean no disrespect or hate towards any of the white actors and actresses in tfatws, including sebastian stan!!)

but i was reading through the interview that anthony mackie gave for variety magazine (2021) and there was one thing he said that, in light of recent comments and takes i have seen regarding the unequal consideration of sebastian stan and anthony mackie’s acting and characters in tfatws, really resonated with me.

this? this is awful. this quote shows that not only does anthony mackie know that he is viewed in this light by critics and fans of the white actors whose fame he watched from the sidelines, it shows that this is normal for him. 

anthony mackie is so used to being sidelined and looked over that it is normal for him to feel like that.

anthony mackie went to juilliard. juilliard. the legendary performing arts school. he worked his way through project after project, was forced to watch his white costars’ celebrity rise from the sidelines of many of them, but kept acting and taking projects that were important to him (ie. the banker, shelter, detroit, the hate u give). he is a very talented actor with excellent range, an actor who tries to understand every character he portrays and works to the peak of his ability to play them accurately.

and it is evident that in the mcu, in the case of sam wilson, he has done a fantastic job. 

he took mcu sam wilson from a potentially two-dimensional cap sidekick to having a personality highly suggestive of the fleshed out, opinionated, reckless hero that he is in the comics, and that portrayal likely would not have come through in ca:tws and beyond from a lesser actor. 

mackie has also mentioned in interviews that one of his greatest concerns is that of the success of tfatws, because he has felt that if the show flops greatly the marvel executives are going to see his casting as nothing more than a mistake. 

that is also heartbreaking. he has done nothing to deserve feeling like that, yet he is so used to being kept in the shadows that that is honestly how he feels about his first lead in a major franchise. 

so i hope i don’t see everyone talking solely about sebastian stan’s acting. and completely glossing over the fact that even from the trailers and clips, anthony mackie has had a magnanimous presence in the show and in the story.

because that is already, unfortunately, happening.

this goes back to what some people had mentioned on my previous post that i had noticed as well, where. it was sebastian stan’s tag trending after the big tfatws content day, while mackie’s was not.

that’s absurd. mackie is the other lead of this show, not even cast in a side role this time, and he is still being sidelined by fans in favour of yet another white man. and sebastian is an excellent actor in his own right, yes, but nothing warrants ignoring anthony mackie’s presence in the show, as he is the other lead.

as fans, we have the ability and therefore the responsibility to make this the show where mackie can have faith that he truly is a main character and the lead in what is going to be a very successful tv show, not just a prop for yet another white man. 

we have the power to do that.

and mackie damn well deserves it.

one of the reasons it’s so incredible is because it’s such a pointed and deliberate refutal to hypermasculinity in the action genre, built on literally decades of white supremacy, homophobia and misogyny, and in hollywood action flicks, one of its most persistent forms is using homoerotic tension between two (white) male leads as a punchline. masculinity, especially white masculinity, as established by the likes of Michael Bay and Quentin Tarantino, always comes at the expense of vulnerability and tenderness and can only be established by either deriding and mocking it any accusations the expression of such. 

so, when that one mook goes “what is he, your boyfriend?” to joe, it’s supposed to be an insult his masculinity, essentially setting up a rebuttal to reassert it. the expected play-out would be that he flies off the handle and either maims or threatens to main the guards, because in action films being accused of queerness is the ultimate insult. it sets the punchline similar to countless action movies before it, but then the punchline….never comes? 

Joe is angry, he is insulted, but not because he’s been accused of loving another man; he’s indignant that they dare to assume he does not love Nicky enough.  

 Joe saved the galaxy, not once, twice. He is probably the last jedi alive, if you don’t consider Lykon, whose force ghost appears often, most times by lunchtime, especially when Andy is at home, and Andy, who rarely uses the Force and prefers blasters. She could have been trained in his place and become a far stronger jedi than he is, but destiny (the Force? chance?) chose differently. Joe now has one robotic hand, two lightsabers, trauma for a lifetime and the gratitude of an entire galaxy. The Empire is no more.

(If he thinks about it, Booker always says ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ exactly before things usually go to shit, but that might be because Booker is too pessimistic to survive a life of crime and not because the Force speaks through him. You don’t see Quynh complaining about our perpetually low chances of survival, says a voice in Joe’s head that sounds like Andy, and she has been a smuggler for a decade.)

Being one of the last jedi alive means sometimes Joe pretends he has jedi things to do, then he disappears, knowing no one will be able to catch his lie. He likes to find places where he won’t be recognised, but it’s getting difficult, with the tale of The Old Guard leading the Rebels to victory spreading through the galaxy. He still has to get used to the people stopping him in the streets, aliens from every planet holding his hands and thanking him for killing the Emperor.

Joe never wanted to kill. He only wanted to save as many people as he could after he wasn’t able to do so for his family.

You can’t save everyone, Lykon had told him, back when Lykon was the one with all the answers and was teaching Joe how to feel the Force flow through him.

Well, I disagree, Joe had said, stubborn, stricken with grief, too much raw power under his fingertips waiting to be released. I can try.

His control of the Force and his emotions is much better now, but Joe doesn’t know if he got better as a person: old Joe would never hide in the dingiest tavern in the planet to avoid house-hunting (planet hunting?). Looking for a place fit for his Jedi Academy is more difficult than he expected, even if the task before that was literally ‘Overthrow the Government’.

He has just ordered a glass of non-alcoholic phattro, the liquid bright red and cool, perfect for the desert climate of the planet (it reminds Joe of Tattooine, the times when he lets himself remember the life of before), when the Mandalorian walks in.

The newcomer is tall and broad-shouldered and immediately strikes Joe as a mess of contradictions: his beskar'gam is half shining steel, half metal rusty with age, as if he didn’t have the money to pay for everything and had to compromise. He keeps his head low, but his walk speaks of quiet confidence. He doesn’t keep a hand on his rifle, despite having the eyes of half the tavern on him, but as soon as one of the clients curses and dashes for the exit, he runs after the man with impressive speed.

The mandalorian was prepared for a chase, and Joe, Saviour of the Galaxy, gifted jedi, can only gasp as the wanted man runs past him, while the Mandalorian trips on someone’s puke and lands on him, armor and all.

His phattro is now completely on his cloak, not to mention it’s getting difficult to breathe. The mercenary (Joe knows the type, after living with Quynh and Booker for two years) struggles to stand up and mutters something under his helmet, a curse more than an apology by the sound of it. He doesn’t spare a look for Joe but looks around frantically for his target, who had the good sense of disappearing through a back door, certainly helped by the shady staff.

“Kriff,” Joe hears, the metal not enogh to hide how young the mercenary sounds. He must be Joe’s age.

“Excuse me?” Joe finds himself saying, his indignant tone dangerously similar to Andy’s most royal high-pitch of outrage. Joe stands up and shoves the Mandalorian, who still hasn’t moved but looks around helplessly. “That was my drink!”

The man startles and looks down at himself, drops of phattro pink on the chestplace, then at Joe, who tries to stand up in the most dignified Andy-esque way he can. He knows he looks ridiculous, but when the hood of his cloak falls and his face is revealed, there are loud gasps all around him. Someone screams: “It’s Al-Kaysani!”

Joe doesn’t like to play the saviour card, no matter how many tries Booker tries to convince him to pull a heist with him using the Al-Kaysani name as shield. This is one of the first times Joe is glad of his fame: he waits for the mercenary to realise his mistake and apologise properly. Silence has fallen in the tavern, even the live band is looking right at them.

The Mandalorian looks at Joe for a few long seconds. Joe is surprised by how expressive his body language is, compensating his hidden face: it’s clear the man does not welcome the attention of the patrons, his shoulders are stiff, now he looks ready to take out his blasters and try a desperate exit.

Joe is startled to see the reflection of clear blue eyes through the dark glass of the helmet, or maybe it’s just a trick of the light. He feels the Force tapping on his shoulder, the same way it happened when he met Quynh in Tattooine with Lykon, years ago. Time expands like molasse.

“I’m sorry, should I know you?”

They get tired. I’ve honestly never seen so much sleeping in an action movie.

And they can be restrained with zip ties and buckles and held down by normal-ass dudes and get the shit beat out of them because of course they can.

You know what else I strangely enjoyed? No six pack abs.  No bulging biceps. 

The Old Guard made me think a lot about how often I’d seen fast healing paired with super strength or other kinds of physical invulnerability, and how interesting things get when it isn’t. They can still get hurt in a fight, and a serious wound won’t kill them like it would a regular human but it can temporarily stop them in their tracks. They heal fast but not instantaneously. Booker can’t just instantly jump up after getting hit with a grenade; he has to wait, in a high-stakes situation, for his guts to heal up enough that he can start moving around. They can get captured. They can get overwhelmed. It makes their fight scenes feel extremely real and physical in a way most standard superhero action sequences don’t.

I was trying to come up with Typical Italian Things that a 900-year-old Genovese man could still Relate to in modern times, especially something that we Italians, no matter the regional difference, can identify as ‘Ours’.

The answer, as always, comes from food. With the premise that there is No Such Thing as a Homogeneous Italian Cuisine, One (1) Red Thread I can think about that doesn’t require ingredients that are associated with Italy today but that Nicolò wouldn’t have known, is frying.

Until, like, yesterday, in Northern Italy you fried in butter (or ‘strutto’, lard) and in Southern Italy you used olive oil - today most just go with sunflower seed oil - but the point is, we like frying. Any food group. No matter the region. 

Think about anything - Cheese? Fish? Meat? Vegetables? Pasta? Pastries? Pizza? Someone somewhere has fried it. And perfected the recipe. Some regions more than others (looking at you Napoli e dintorni), but still…

Now, Southern Italy is Much Stronger on the ‘if it’s remotely edible I will fry it’ game, so Ligurian Cuisine doesn’t have many fried specialties from what I’ve seen - Liguria has a great olive oil, but they mostly use it as a condiment (or to soak their focaccia, not that it’s not a Fantastic Idea). 11th century gastronomy (what Nicolò would have been familiar with) was probably a bit poorer than today’s.

Here’s where Malta comes in handy, though.

We know from That Scene that Malta holds a Special Place in Nicky and Joe’s heart. It’s a common middle ground between both their homelands AND a crossroads for anyone in the Mediterranean. It’s an indipendent country now, but damn if it hasn’t exchanged hands through history (unrelated note, on a scale from 1 to 10 just How Much did it Piss Them Off that the bloody British Empire had possession of Malta for two centuries?!). 

Malta is a pretty small island though, so if they ever stayed longer than a sexcation, they couldn’t exactly settle down for long before people grew suspicious. Also, Nicky must have been Uncomfortable sharing an island with the Knights Hospitaller.

But, Malta is literally a stone’s throw away from another, bigger, island…

Sicily. Another land who’s been volleyed back and forth among kingdoms and cultures for millennia. A land where nobody would bat an eye at a guy looking like Nicolò and one looking like Yusuf being friends and sharing space in general, because they both blend.

And, most importantly, a land where frying food is a RELIGION. To quote a Sicilian customer of my brother’s pub, “if you don’t fry your vegetables, what are you even doing with your life?”

My point being, Nicolò has most probably experienced the whole evolution of Sicilian cuisine, repeatedly, for centuries. He and Yusuf must have eaten SO MUCH FRIED FOOD I can’t even think about it. And it’s comforting for them, because it’s not only So Fucking Good, but it’s also as close to home as it’ll ever get for them, in a way.

Tl;dr: you can tell when Nicky is Stress Cooking because he hogs the kitchen and Fries. For HOURS - like, he starts working on their lunch at 5 AM. Everything that comes out of those stoves is fried. Everything. 

YES TO NICKY CRUNCHING ON CHIACCHIERE/GALANI/CROSTOLI/BUGIE *CHOOSE YOUR VARIATION* (the same exact dish having Fifteen Different Names: an Italian Saga)

Since I am still Reeling from That Post about Chicago vs Napoli (this sounds like a duel that should be solved with a football/soccer match, just to keep the Flavour), LET’S TALK ABOUT THE PIZZA DEBATE.

Personally, I think he would side with focaccia first (because it’s his, damn it), BUT if they really have to talk pizza, he would side with Napoli. Pizza in the US exists because immigrants from Napoli brought it there, so any American pizza is a branch of the original tree. AND, by looking at pictures of deep dish, I can tell that Chicago’s branch has… diverged A LOT from that tree. It has diverged so much it’s become a pizza-flavoured pie, in my honest opinion. Not saying that it can’t be tasty, mind you - but that’s just not a pizza anymore.

This is me projecting, but the thing that really gave me an eye twitch on that tweet was the contradiction between #nationalpizzaday (national being the operative word here) vs the ‘pizza capital of the world’. Like. Chicago, babe. The US is Not the Entire World. Please, stay in your lane.