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Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock in VENOM (2017) dir. Ruben Fleischer

A Friendship Forged in Respect: Kenta and Ryuga

Spoiler for Beyblade Metal Fusion, Metal Masters and Metal Fury

So this is my first post on this blog. I’ve gotta do something big, something that will get people’s attention. Maybe a post about one of the Big Three, though now it’s more like the Big One and all these goddamn upstarts. Yeah, maybe I should do a post about Hero Aca or Black Clover. Something fresh, something mainstream…

The Beautiful Friendship and Ryuga and Kenta From 2010s Beyblade.

Godam it Lorelei we suck at this! Ok, whatever too late I’m already going down this path, can’t go back.  I love Trading Card Game Anime and its compatriots. Honestly, I’ve never been able to categorize shows like Beyblade or Bakugan Battle Brawler. I know they’re described as sports anime but that’s not really true. They don’t really follow the same logic or structure as most sports anime. They kind of do but in my opinion, they’re much more similar to TCG anime. So i kind of just lump them together. I really really needed to explain that because I’m going to be calling Beyblade a TCG anime in all my post, including this one. Just thought you should know.

Anyway, I love TCG anime, none of them are particularly good, even the good ones are only decent next to most other shounen anime. And don’t bring up Vanguard because it’s good but is has all the flaws that TCG anime, so live with it. I’ll deal with Vanguard another day. TCG anime basically live and die based on their characters because the premise of them all being Card Game / Child’s Toy runs our world and only it can save humanity is just impossible to take seriously. And that’s where they get me, I’m a sucker for good character writing or just really likable characters. Just find my old Boruto posts, you’ll see.

I have, to date, seen the entire 2010s Beyblade, all three series, all the way through five times. I’m not proud of that, but yeah I kind of am. This series has a weird soft spot in my heart and I genuinely like all the main cast and quite a few side characters. This could have just as easily been about Blader DJ and American DJ or King and Masamune. I can and will dedicate a whole post to Tetsuya Crabby Watarigani who is just king troll. But today, today it’s of the weakest (one of) and the most op characters chance to shine. This relationship is the pinnacle of what Beyblade has to offer as a series, it is, in my humble opinion, a distillation of what makes Beyblade not awful.

Kenta is probably one of the weakest bladers in the whole series. He’s smaller than everyone physically. His Bey is a stamina type meaning that it doesn’t pack a lot of punch. His role as a person who gets beat to show how tough someone is was taken by Hyouma, Tsubasa, Yu and Kyoya halfway through season one and he never got it back. He is right next to Benka in terms of filler comic relief. Ryuga on the other hand, is Beyblade Dio, Over Powered to the point of absurdity. He basically stole the Role of villain in parts of the second Series and was defeated by a virtual GOd in the third. He is always the strongest blader in the show and has lost a total of three or four matches across three series. He is a god amongst men and hates everyone. So what happened? How did they go from, never having spoken to here take all the powers of my Bey (arguably the strongest Bey in the series)? Well, it all started when Kenta got depressingly self-aware. 7 episodes into the 3 series, 109 episode into the entire series Kenta has a sort of revelation. He realizes how goddamn useless he is as a character outside of moral support. He also realizes not only how lame and depressing that is but also how it doesn’t really do much to solve the problem at hand. So he leaves, instead of wasting his time training hoping that a star fragment will just choose him or playing back up to Ginga, he goes to find Ryouga. Deciding that if he can’t be of any use as a blader, the least he can do is be the world’s most persistent messenger boy and convince Ryouga, an actually strong blader who does have a star fragment, to help them. Its like if Trista went to convince Kiba to help them at the beginning of the Orichalcos arc instead of just kinda being they’re being the muscle even though they didn’t need muscle and if they did Joey was there. Anyway, Kenta finds Ryouga only to be turned away and instead of giving up out of fear because Ryouga is known to literally burn his enemies with a figurative dragon, he stays. He pursues Ryouga across deserts, jungles, and oceans until he agrees to help his friends. And because of this, we get to see sides of both of these characters we haven’t before.

Ryouga has been a stone cold bastard the last two seasons. He is a crazy, manipulative fiend who has never shone any mercy. The first time we see him in season three he’s training by fighting a Volcano and he’s winning. So it is genuinely shocking when he offers Kenta food after he passes out the first time. Crazy, cold-blooded Ryouga shows a modicum of respect for Kentas effort to pursue him. He also tells him to leave but not unkindly.  He truly believes that this journey would be too much for Kenta and respects his effort enough to feed him and tell him to back down. And when Kenta refuses he lets him stay. Ryouga has been a lone wolf this entire series but decides to let Keenta travel with him because he knows he has the determination to follow up on his words. One of his biggest issues with Gingka and Kyouta earlier in the season was that they weren’t taking this new situation seriously… Neither of them had put the time in to experiment with their new Beys and really push themselves to the limit. They hadn’t put any thought or effort into training with their beys or their fight with him.  Kenta, on the other hand, is working with someone who doesn’t see him as the small friend character. While Ginga may not hold back when he battles Kenta, it always feels like a friendly battle that Kenta knows he can’t win. But Ryouga not only demands that Kenta stand on his own two feet but shows respect and pride when he does. We get to see Kenta choosing to work with Ryouga in spite of knowing what he’s done to his friends and what he’s capable of. As viewers who have only seen Kenta as this sweet kid, it’s surprising to see that he would tolerate Ryouga if it meant getting stronger and helping his friends. And as the series continues we get to see a few more of Ryoga’s kinder moments. In the end, when the chips are down ad Ryuga loses against Hades he doesn’t do what he normally would. He would normally vow revenge with his last breath, instead, he passes the torch on. For the first time, he finds in Kenta someone as determined as he is to be the best blader and to stand by their convictions. When he gives the power of El Drago to Kenta we can finally see the stories for these two characters reach a surprisingly full and complex arc. The strongest Ryoga and the weak Kenta become friends not because the plot demands it or because they’re both so nice but because they see in each other what others don’t. Kenta put his faith in Ryouga and Ryoga did the same in kind.

That’s my super long discussion of Ryuga and Kenta from Beyblade. I really like these two and they’re two of my favorites the series. Beyblade really does have some of the most likable characters in anime and I find it genuinely hard to hate the show because of it. If you have the time watch the show. I hope you enjoyed this, thanks!

I just want to state I don't mean this as a miyuki hate post. Buuutttt..

Whenever I watch Ace of diamond I can't help but imagine what it would be like if Eijun participated in a team swap and ended up with the nishiura nine. Like could you imagine the amount of HEALING that would happen. Like the sheer lack of toxicity, neglect and constant threats from the coach. Nishiura has at least three different therapist that come by at this point. They meditate before and after games and practices. They have regular fucking vibe checks and are constantly trying striving to be more open and vulnerable with one another. He would tell them about the yips and momo would make that into an entire hour and a half with a guest lecturer who talks to them about different types of trauma and how to respond.

Eijun would explain how miyuki ignores him for furuya and Abe would go insane. He micromanages so much of Mihashis life, he would NEVER!

His third day would end with them eating at Tajimas house. While tajima graps his faces and makes Eijun yell " I'm a bad bitch!" Over and over.

Ren would meet up with Haruna and they would install such a deep sense of greed and pride in him. Like bitch you're a pitcher you're meant to be prideful, a little selfish and more than a little spoiled. Who's says you're not the ace? Fuck those guys they're not you. You decied whose the ace. You'll leave that mound when you're dead!

Eijun would come back happily pitching by himself because he knows that miyuki should be thankful to catch his pitches not the other way around. He would serve so much cunt while also being able to clearly and honestly explain how and why people's (miyukis) actions affect him.

Man I need that cross over

At work, just had a thought. I need kingsman/ call of duty crossover. Where ghostsoaps adopted kid meets hartwins adopted daughter Daisy (eggys sister) and they just kick ass and solve crime together. Ghostsoaps kid is just this tough as nails brawler type and Daisy is this dainty smooth spy type. They both bond over how much they miss and kind of resent their parents. But still love them. Someone make that fic.

Cutest thing in existence!

thor and loki ponyo au – based off this scene [x]

YES! I thought I was alone in this world!

I can’t be the only one who came out of the theater shipping T’challa and Everett Ross…(his outfits looked so cute)

Soooo Malams talking about Alexander right? When he says that " he's not what he seems" . They assume it's Yorick but it's definitely Alexander. Right? I'm not the only one thinking that. It's the bird who has decided to befriend Arthur, something

A. Birds don't normally do.

B. Only Eldritch abominations, serial killers, and sad religious men do.

So yeah. That birds betraying him. Right?

I don't know of this is far or even makes sense. But I think that Jon (tma) would have a harder time in the Malevolent universe than Arthur would have in the TMA one. I just get the feeling that he would have a harder time adjusting to fight the size and abilities of the monsters Arthur fight. Most of Jon's (tma) enemies are human shaped and have some abilities but nothing too bad other than Nikolai. I think Arthur would honestly be kinda happy to know he's mainly fighting things that are people shaped. Also the "gods" here don't directly interact with you sp they don't usually have personal beef. Unlike in Malevolent where those bitches can hold a grudge. Can you imagine Jon warning Arthur about Elias only to find him just physically fighting him because he had the nerve to say his daugters name. Arthur tries to warn Jon about like wildebeast or some other monster. And Jon tries to ceaseless watcher it but it moves so fast and maybe turns invisible? He gets it but oh shit there's more! Also there are cultists now!? And who the fuck is that dude in a suit eating chips and saying Arthur would have dodged to the left? Idk i just think it would be funny to have them switch worlds.

I guess this is just what I do on this website now... 

Ok lets Go! 

One Piece, Law, and Femininity

Preface: Three warnings and a Request

Warning!!!

Let's get this out the way. I do ship Law and Luffy. That doesn’t matter to this particular theory/analysis but it's better to be upfront about one's personal biases. I don't think it's canon nor do I think it ever will be. But if anyone wants to use this for their own ship theories, have at it. 

This writing “theory” I have doesn’t apply to children because they kind of inherently fall into a third category. Their age tends to naturally make them more vulnerable and in need of assistance. When it comes to gendered writing children tend to get a pass. There are many reasons why but that's not what this is about.

Sanji is a newer and only other expectation to this “theory”.  More on that at the end. 

Request: If you don't think Yamato is a dude, this is not for you. The whole point of talking about feminism in this regard is to talk about how femininity is performed and perceived. Gender is a social construct and how we construct it is important to the feminine conversation. If you cant accept and understand that... read a few essays and come back later. Seriously I am talking about roles, behavior and presentations of gender here. Also I want to support my son (he’s older than me but, still). 

Part 1: Oda Writes the Backstories of Female Characters the Same Way he Draws Them.

A lot of people push back on the idea that Oda only knows how to draw the same female character by pointing at characters like Big Mom or Dandan. So I would like to change the phrasing. Oda only knows how to draw attractive women characters one way. When they're old hags, he's got options. But if they’re even supposed to be mildly attractive then he’s got one option in a variety of colors and accessories. He writes their backstories in roughly the same way. They have a lot of big differences. I can honestly say most important people in one piece have unique and interesting back stories and goals. But the skeleton of almost all the women are the same. I only say almost because One Piece has a stupid amount of characters and there is a 10% chance that some minor character from some obscure island in East Blue somehow flew under my radar. But this rule does apply to all the main women characters. Let's talk about it. 

1a. Oda Loves Taking Away Women's Autonomy. 

Seriously Oda cannot resist putting women in positions where they are either slaves, or working in a group that they are opposed to, or living under constant threat of imprisonment, or some combination of those. Nami was enslaved at a young age by Arlong, Robin had to join CP9 because she needed protection from the world government and then almost got imprisoned by enies lobby. Vivi joined Cp9 to save her country. Hiyori spent years living with and presumably fxcking a man she hated hoping that one day someone else would be strong enough to defeat Kaido to get revenge. There are countless cases of women, specifically women, being sold to Celestial Dragons for the sole purpose of sexual slavery. Like shows up so fxcking often. Aces mom had to hold her child in her stomach for an extra 15  months to him from the marines and probably died because of it.  If Oda is writing an important woman character who is relatively young you better believe she spent years of her life not being in control of it. And if she's older, she either a mom of some kind or was a badass and settled down because some man in her life died, or both. 

1b. Women Need to be Saved in Order to Achieve their Goals and Men Need to be Supported. 

This is gonna be a little hard to explain but it all comes down to how problems are solved, who solves them and why. Kinda. I think the best way to explain it would be to give an example. Lets look at the first two members of the Strawhat Crew. Zoro’s goal is to be the strongest swordsman. Simple enough. He tries to fight Mihawk the moment they meet, he loses and swears to grow stronger and defeat him.  Nami has two goals, or more accurately she needs to accomplish one goal in order to achieve her true goal. Nami needs to get out from under Arlongs control in order to achieve her goal of mapping the whole world. She also wants her family to be able to live in peace and not be broke. Unless she accomplishes that first goal, she cannot accomplish the other two. She needs to be saved in order to continue her story. Because she’s  unable to save herself. Which is reasonable. She's just a person and Arlong is a super strong fish demon man. So Luffy saves her. He punches her problem away real good and she is now finally free to do what she wants. If you know anything about Laws character I'm sure you can see where this is going . Robin is the same, Luffy punches away the people that want to control her real good and declares that he will fight the entire world to let her have the chance to live freely.  

I brought this up with my dad and he brought up a great point. Marineford. He said well Luffy lost pretty bad in the paramount war and needed to be saved by many people. Even costing him Ace. But, I would like to point out that the people who did that, Akainu and Blackbeard are still roaming free. Luffy needed to be saved in the moment but he’s still going to be the one to resolve the issue. Like Luffy, Zoro, Franky, Jinbei, and Brook have all needed saving at some point during a fight. But they always get to square up and finish the ones that are important to them. And their goals don't require them to be saved before trying to achieve them. The point comes down to who's allowed to deal with the finishing blow to their main goals/ problems. Luffy isn’t going to punch Mihawk for Zoror, or make Ussops dad respect him, or whatever the fuck Jinbei wants. But he did fight Arlong for Nami, Cp9 for Robin and Doffy for Law. 

1c. Girls got to College to Get More Knowledge, Boys Go to Jupiter to Get More Stupider

The women of One Piece are objectively smarter than the men. Emotionally and Intellectually. Women in One Piece are normally more patient, less stubborn and willing to retreat when they have to. They also don’t get as love sick as the men. I mean Boa lets her feelings for Luffy get her into insane shit, but that's the joke. Like One Piece women aren’t really known for having someone's looks  affect them. There's a reason there is a most Beautiful Woman in the world with no male counterpart. Like Smoker is Zaddy and no one cares. Most of the guy characters who are overly sneaky and plotting are villains or assholes. That's not to say there aren’t smart men characters, Franky is a genius at his craft. But being smart and careful isn’t part of his character or reflected in his behavior. 

 Part II: Trafalgar D. Water Law,  The Saddest Little Uwu 

I haven't loved Law since the first time I saw him. I have loved him since punk hazard though which is pretty fxcking long. His strong Emo vibes and general refusal to go along with any of Luffy’s bits seemingly for the sole sake of keeping up an image that not one present cared about really endured him to me. I’m pretty trad goth and he reminds me of those emo kids that refused to wear pink or be nice just because they thought it wasn’t hard core enough. Then as the show goes on he develops into one of those healthy goths who know that being an outsider is about showing vulnerability, kindness and maybe dressing in a lil pastel. I really like Law and his weird role in the story so far. Ok, my I love Law rants are done let's get to what we need to get to.

Law before One Piece:

Trafalgar D. Waterlaw was born in Fleavance. He lived a pretty happy normal life, a doctor father, nurse mother and cute baby sister. Until he was about 7 or 8? Around that time the town of fleavance started experiencing some unknown illness. I will say in our real world it is pretty similar to what silicosis actually does to you. Minus the Vitiligo and some other symptoms.  In the world of One Piece its called amber lead poisoning and its almost completely fatal if not properly treated Which is hard to do on its own. But it's even harder in Law's case since the neighboring towns and probably the world government didn't really know what amber lead poisoning was or how it spread either. So they said fxck it, burn it down, kill everyone and call it a day. Problem solved!

So yeah, Law's family is dead, he escaped Flevance by hiding among corpses, and now he is slowly and painfully dying. 

Then it gets worse, it gets so much worse before it gets better. He pulls a Tim Drake and forces his way into the DonQuixote Family by threatening to kill himself and everyone else with a bomb. Because seeing everyone you know and love die painfully and then have the government cover that up will do that to you. Doffy sees a lot of himself in Law and decides, “yeah, this’ll do”. 

Doffys’ nicer but objectively less cool younger brother Corazon also sees a lot of Doffy in Law and decides to immediately put a stop to that shit. He slowly and secretly teaches Law how to enjoy at least some aspects of life. Shows him the first and true affection he’s been shown since his entire village died. It ‘s great. And then, TLDR, Corazon decides to betray Doffy, gets caught, stuff the Ope- Ope Fruit down Law's Throat so he can cure himself and then get shot to Death after saying I love you to Law for what is seemingly the first and last time. Also Sengokou was there.

We don’t really have a clear idea what Law did after this but we do know a few things. 

He became a pirate with the sole purpose of taking down Doflamingo 

 He seems to have chosen a submarine as a pirate ship in order to better hide from Doflamingo and also make it harder to attack him. Because Doffy is a devil fruit user. Even though Law is also a devil fruit user and this puts him in extreme danger. Especially since...

 He made a crew of people who are seemingly doctors 1st, friends 2nd and fighter 6th. Like none of Laws crew members appear to be even mildly good at fighting. I’m pretty sure Chopper could take most of them. 

He names his crew the Heart Pirates after Cora. Which implies that Spanish, just like real world Spanish, is canon in One Piece. And that also reminds me that Law is talking like a nun in his flashback. Is Law catholic? Or was he raised catholic? Either way it adds to the uwu and the trauma of it all. If you know, you know.

 He started working with Caesar Clown, a man he fxcking hates. In order to get closer to Doflamingos secrety secrets.

Pre-time  Skip Law

I’m skipping when we see him in Sabaody because all we learn is that he's edgy and has a bear. When we see him again after Marineford it's actually kind of interesting because we learn he’s also first and foremost a doctor before being a pirate. He saves Luffys life because that's what doctors do and Luffy doesn’t seem like a bad dude. 

Now the good shit.

Post Time Skip Law 

My booooyyy! Love of my life, my sad lil uwu. Law is introduced as one of the coolest, coldest, scariest Warlords. He will literally rip your fxckin heart out. Evanescence playing in the background and all. Luffy immediately undermines thats by not thinking he’s any of those things and tying chopper to his head. But we got a whole episode and a half of thinking he was actually too cool for school. Like we all thought he Shanks when he’s actually just Mihawk. Like his cool but also pretty easy to bully if he likes you even a lil and will let you get away with a lot. It’s just hard to get him to like you, at first. So we get through punk hazard, see what a glass canon Law is and move to Dressrosa. 

In between those two points we also see how sad Law is and how similar he is to both Robin and Nami in behavior. He was Robins darks sense of humor (from the trauma)  and general introvertedness (trauma!?) with Namis greed (did i mention trauma). Which makes sense for the back story we learn about. 

Dressrosa: The Holy Grail of Uwu Law 

Law, Luffy and Doflamingo in Dressrosa is what happens when you put Nami and Robins backstory in a blender with crack cocaine and Katya (the drag queen). It’s just this sad tired uwu man,that came to commit murder suicide, trying and failing to accomplish that goal. Only to be figuratively and literally dragged along by a lunatic that barely knows him. Like Law went to Dresrosa not hoping he would die but assuming he would and not really caring. He didn't have an exit strategy because he didn’t think he was exiting. His plan was to use Luffy as a shield, Ceasar as bait and then murder suicide himself and Domflamingo out of existence. He was so desolate by the time his second fight with him ended. He had no hope, his plans had failed and he even dragged a bunch of innocent people into the crossfire. He would die, the people of Dressrosa would die, the Strawhats would suffer and maybe die and all for Laws’ fruitless revenge. Then Luffy stopped that foot. And Law decided to stay. And Luffy beat up Doffy. And Law was free. For the first time in over ten years Law was free. 

Wano: Then He Stayed

Because he didn’t plan to make it this far. I laughed out loud when Law said they were enemies after Wano ended. Motherfxcker who? Law you don’t want to be pirate king. You barely want to be a pirate! Frankly at this point I think the only thing keeping Law from a non-deadly early retirement is Luffy, his bounty, and pride. And he can get rid (ignore) of two of those things (you won’t guess which!).  Law fought and almost died in Wano to fulfill the deal he made with Luffy. Even though Luffy would not have begrudged him on reneging on that deal. Law told him it was made in bad faith and he had fxck all to gain from fighting Kaido. But he did it, he believed in Luffy and Luffy punched the problem away like always. 

And this ends the story of the Saddest Uwu Boi, Trafalgar D. WaterLaw. 

Part III: You Have to See What I’m Getting At. 

Law’ backstory and character development is just that of any main woman character. Sad thing happened when he was a kid, putting him on the radar/ partially in debt to a bad man. He spent most of his life running from this bad man by working for/ with people he hated. He met Luffy. He tried to fight the bad man and system but didn’t have the strength of heart and/ or body to defeat him. Luffy punched the bad man real good and told Law he was pretty without makeup, he didn’t need it. Law was finally able to move freely as a person and decided to support Luffy in his immediate goals (and probably his long term ones too. Let's be honest he has nothing else to do)  even though that puts him and his crew in even more danger. But now he knew, Luffy would punch that danger just as good as the previous bad man. 

Honestly I don't know what this means or what purpose this knowledge serves. Like, this doesn’t change my opinion that lulaw will never be canon. This doesn’t change how I view Law as a character. This doesn’t change how I view Oda as a writer. This only serves the purpose of excising these thoughts from my head and putting them permanently on a website filled with people who will call me horrible things for even admitting I ship Luffy with anyone. So that's something I guess. 

About Sanji:

Sanji is going through a weird, unexpected but good character transformation right now. His writing is becoming more Law/Robin-esque. Which is weird and unexpected but very good. I have thoughts on that but its for a different post. I don't think it undermines my point though because this shift is relatively recent, only happening in the Whole Cake island arc and not fully forming until near the end of Wano. This either means a shift in how Oda choses to write male characters or a shift in how he views Sanjis’ role in the narrative. Only time will tell. 

*This unrelated but I’ m realizing Law shows just as much tiddy as Robin and Nami too.*

Ok ok ok. It's late and I should be going to sleep because I have to wake uo really early tomorrow but u just had a thoguht. Several thoughts. A thousand thoughts. Soriku child spin off game. Set like ten years in the future. They have a daughter (because these games need to do right by female character ls at least once. Larxene can not keep carrying the entire female cast) and she gets forced to quadratum for reasons I'm still ironing out and looses her memories. She's slowly get them back over the first hour tutorial of the game as more heartless appear In her world. A door opens to that in between world all of soras tutorials are in whose name I can't remember right now. Anyway. Her mural is partially covered so you can't see everyone on it. A door opens and she goes to the following worlds Alice in wonderland, Lion King 2, Moana, little mermaid two, lilo and stitch , brave and corpse bride. All of them focusing on young women who have to deal with growing up and being in positions of power when they kinda just wanna do whatever. Expect corpse bride but honestly Halloween town matched about as much as pirates did so it'll keep tradition while also introducing a new zany dark tim Burton world. Ok I think that's it for now. I'm gonna hyperfixate on this for days!