#its their REASONING. having the same DNA does not make you less of a person oh my goddddddddd | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alatismeni-theitsa · 4 months

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It is natural for humans to place importance on our ancestry and ethnic origins, its just human to want to be part of a bigger story. Last summer I visited my great-grandparents homeland and got to see the village they grew up in. Seeing family farm and talking to people who knew our family was incredibly touching and made me feel deeply connected to the country and to our history. I mean, my ancestors lived and toiled on that land for generations, long before the current borders existed. Our time in the US is recent and short in comparison. So I don´t think one can entirely dismiss the importance of heritage and ancestry to the individual.

That post didn't dismiss the importance of heritage at all. It just said that your blood alone won't make you less culture-shocked or better adapted than other people, when you have little to no contact with said culture. No one discouraged ancestors of immigrants against contacting the culture. I'm very happy about your good experience and I find it natural for locals to get excited and happy when finding out a person hails from their area.

There's a variety of reasons some nations care a lot about their grandparents' area/country and others do not. I've found that mostly people from the US feel strongly about the old place of their family. Perhaps it's the feeling people have in newer nations. I guess it was a very big thing "leaving for the US" instead of "leaving for Portugal", "leaving for Germany", "leaving for Egypt," and so USAmerican families hold the old land dearest in their hearts.

In fact, USAmericans seem to have their lineages recorded better than many other countries. (Exempt are the cultures that do ancestor worship or have similar practices) Someone does need to tell me if USAmericans think every person in the "old world" has a written lineage and we are all constantly proud of what our ancestors did, and have a deep connection to how awesome our 3rd great-aunt was.

The truth is, most of us don't give a fuck. And yes, I'm talking about 3rd-4th gen. immigrants (and sometimes those of refugees), too. People migrate through countries and areas all the time, and yet this feeling is not as strong. I will tell my experiences in a while.

But in general, I haven't seen the same strong feelings in European, Middle Eastern, and African friends. (there are always exceptions and this is my personal experience) For example, Greeks (who live in the freaking Balkans, where we know no one is a 100% anything) rarely talk about their ancestry and if they do they just say "hey my grandma was from X place" and the rest of us say "cool" and we continue with our lives.

A few might remember their family history because of a heroic ancestor or because their family had epic drama. Greek refugee families from Minor Asia tend to remember their "lost fatherlands" (dir.trans.) because the trauma of the 1920's is still palpable in the family. But this is a different flavour of longing than what I hear from USAmericans.

"It's just human to want to be part of a bigger story" you said, and I agree, but this idea doesn't seem to have the same impact on many nations.

Enter: me. <3

I've never visited the places/countries my great-grandparents and grandparents came from, and where 3 of my grandparents grew up (when they died they hadn't been to these places for 50 years minimum each). I have a famous Greek uncle, the cousin of my grandpa, whom I never met. I always saw him on TV but our lives never intersected and... well my life went on.

I don't feel a tangible connection to these people and lands. I mean why would I? I'm a complete stranger to them. Part of my line couldn't been in Egypt for 14 generations and I will never know (well unless I take a DNA test) but even if I learn it won't impact my life whatsoever. What am I supposed to do? Go to Egypt and walk through Cairo shouting the surnames my dead family members had? My family could be only in Greece for 50 generations and I still wouldn't care. 😂

On the Greek and foreign places my great-grandparents (and even half my grandparents) are from: I definitely don't consider myself part of those specific cultures and subcultures. Once I had to Google what type of language one country spoke (I knew the language name cause..geography). I couldn't even imagine myself living there without serious social adjustments. It would be nice to visit and learn stuff about the local culture, for sure, but I would feel like a tourist still.

Two weeks ago I saw a woman from the village of my great grandma in the market. We exchanged a few "ah ok you're also from there, cool!" And that was the end of it. What else are we supposed to say? There was no ✨ deeper connection ✨ or something. Why would I care about their opinions on family members from 100 yrs ago - only in case they remembered them - whom I never met and I don't know if they'd like me?

(Funny story, a Greek friend of mine thought her grandma was from Austria and it turns out she was from... Thrace 😂 She just was in Austria for work for a couple of years. This didn't impact her interaction with her grandma at all 😂 I don't know how but it was a very short conversation because we just didn't care much)

Also last year I commissioned a traditional clothing piece in a village very close to my grandpa's village in Greece and not only I didn't know the terminologies for that village but also for my grandpa's village. The complete stranger on the phone had to tell me that stuff and explain to me the importance of each piece and how the villages separated themselves through clothing. (I also accidentally offended him with how I called a thing). Sure I can imagine my grandpa living there, but things have changed there since the 1930s. Houses, markets, roads, these are not the same things he saw when he was there.

My dad just shrugged when he saw how the village (in another country) my other grandpa is from today. I didn't feel a magic spark either tbh. I deeefinitely don't know shit about the place. We have more of a connection with the old refugee families in our area than people from that village.

Blood alone won't familiarise me with these cultures and subcultures. I have to go through the learning process like every other foreigner. A Chinese immigrant (to name a place from far away) living in these cultures for a decade now has a better understanding and connection to them than I do today. It would be nice if someone from these places remembered my family but I don't think they do. It comes off as desperate - in my case - to say "Remember this family who lived here a hundred years ago?" What is the average person supposed to know 😂 I don't even know the old families in my own hometown. I know some surnames, alright, but people personally? naah..

Ofc sometimes people remember their diaspora relatives and they keep in touch, so when you go to that country you have still a "root" there to familiarize you with the current culture.

My family is not the golden standard but I gave examples to demonstrate how people can view ancestry.

I don't disregard the strong feelings about the place of origin. I don't think it's a negative thing to want to find out what happened in your family. But locals can get uneasy when someone from a family that hasn't stepped foot in this land for 3 generations comes around, and think they will fit right in. The locals can tell the cultural difference, even if they remain silent. One example for Greeks is... the Bachelor show - of all places - and for Italy one episode from the series White Lotus presented this situation accurately.

That doesn't mean locals don't feel happiness or affection for that person. I know I'd be happy if, after 3-4 generations I saw my diaspora cousins up close and we talked about Greek stuff. It would just be a cringe if they pretended we didn't have any cultural differences and that Greece is today exactly how their grandparents left it. I guess most people just ask for a reality check + empathy with the locals when someone comes from abroad.

Guys, if you are not from a recently-founded country what are your experiences with this?

#gives me suggestions on how to tag this #answered #ancestry #diaspora

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toh-infodumping · 2 years

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I recently talked about the possibility of Hunter growing up outside the castle only to be saved by Belos for manipulation tactics in this post.

However, I accidentally looked over the fact that while, yes they do grow.

They also pop out of the ground. Having it be such a core memory for Belos that it's not only cemented his mindscape gallery but also presented in his worst memory.

And its such an important aspect for Grimwalkers that even the Collector makes a jab at it.

Yet, this answers and brings up so many questions for me. Let me explain myself.

Belos "finding" Hunter and taking him in can, of course, be refered to with this. Hunter comes out the ground, confused and new to the world, where Belos "finds him" and takes him in. Being fresh to everything, Belos knows it's easy to manipulate the idea into Hunter that-

1) The sigils are good and they make the titan happy

2) "You're useless without magic" (as this scene suggests),

3) The titan has big plans for you,

4) "Wild magic is bad and it killed our family," as Belos most definitely took the chance to immediately tell Hunter that upon his "birth."

The kid's head is fuzzy and he's dealing with memory issues (explaination further down)? It's because Wild Witches attacked him and their family, killing everyone but him and Belos- his uncle. Of course, it's due to THAT reason! No wonder his head hurts now and he can't remember ANYTHING until now!

But it is sad to know that Hunter did believe that piece of information wholeheartedly until the end of Hollow Mind.

Also, not to mention, Grimwalkers raising from the earth can also explain these scenes-

There are A LOT of Golden Guards in total. A LOT. And for them to be raised from birth to whatever age they were at when they got killed is implausible. This many would have taken thousands (1000+) of years to accomplish as Belos suggests he only raises 1 at a time. "We can make another Grimwalker!" - "Not until we deal with this one." (King's Tide) Yet we know Belos is- give or take- only 350+ years old.

Plus, all of these skulls are around the same size, which means they all around the same age. And in the pictures above, the hand reaching out of the ground is a grown hand within the teenager range. My personal belief is that these Grimwalkers come out of the ground between the ages of 12-18, as slowly the Grimwalkers get younger and younger for easier manipulation - where they get to learn about the world and be put into training to learn how to fight. Yet, it's all a ruse to have the information digged into them that they- a powerless witch- is in a world full of magic and they're useless. But the titan has big plans for them so they better train hard. They have to make Belos not regret taking them in.

However this doesn't answer other questions that plagues my mind.

How much does a Grimwalker know when they come out of the ground? I brought up "memory issues" before as it'll be convenient if Grimwalkers can speak, understand language, and get up and move around easily. However, they wouldn't have Caleb's memories. After all, they have Caleb's bone (dna), not his brain. And DNA doesn't hold memories in the way I'm talking about. Therefore, it must be fuzzy for them when they come out of the ground, right? Unable to remember anything until that very point.

But that's also assuming Grimwalkers come out of the ground understanding language and being able to move their limbs accordingly. There is a chance that they come out of the ground with the mentality of babies and not heavy amnesia folks. In the sense that they don't know how to talk or walk. Yet, if so then maybe they're quick at learning so it's not super annoying on Belos and his very thin patience?

How long do they know they have to stay in the ground to grow? Is the growing process quick? Is it one hour equals one year? Or is it one day equals one year? In my personal belief, I am leaning towards 1 hour or even less equals one growth year as on the day of Unity, the Collector suggests making a new Grimwalker to play with at the day of Unity event. Which will be impossible if this is a multi day process.

And if it is a quick growing process, is that why the first grimwalker is so jaring to Belos that it become a core memory? Was he expecting to wait days only to suddenly witness a hand shooting out the ground 16-18 minutes/hours later?

So many questions left unanswered and yet answered enough to understand Hunter and his situation even more. I keep being impressed by the writing in this show.

#toh #toh hunter #toh spoilers #the owl house #the owl house spoilers #toh belos #analysis post #hunter is a potato guys i cant #also sorry if this post seems everywhere i havent been sleeping and when i do its very little #chronic insomnia be like that

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sirensplayhouse · 2 years

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Hii, I am the Spaniard ask once more so I guess... go and make more popcorns? 😬This is going to be long because I want to make everything really clear and also, because I had two people replying back to me??? So, do what you think is more appropriate in terms of uploading to your blog ✨💞.

First of all, my first ask was just for the person that was asking for the manifestation of being half Spaniard. Where people came saying do not change your nationality or dna, manifest being comfortable in your own skin or the racism to stop if you like yourself just as you are. Do not change just for other's thoughts (what I agree with).

My intention was to say: Like, you (the manifesting one), if you want to be half Spaniard that's not offensive at all! As a Spaniard, I am going to accept it as an honour!

But I also wanted to explain them and to the general comments because there was more than one, I did not even tag them? I wanted to say to your general public and to the girl than being Spaniard is more than our late history, more than the "colonizer" adjective that has been lately put into us next to the other nationalities (because our history is really different. And that there is not a reason to not wanting to be a Spaniard.

I quote: ( " I know im going to seem like i have a superiority complex but really you shouldn't revise being half spanish, they also had a bad history like all countries do!"+ "they have negative history"). This is where I did not agree, and I wanted to give my own opinion to the person! I did not even tag them😭😭. Like, are you insinuating that she should not want to be Spaniard for something that Spaniards cannot control?? That I should not want to be a Spaniard because of the history of the country? Cause yes, the first did not sound really nice (even thought I know she is because I follow her blog but that was not the most correct comment). And here is where I wanted to explain: "Spanish Colonization" was and is not as bad as other countries make it look like. So, do not let that be a reason to stop enjoying Spanish culture.

Here, I will start replying to the asks

First one

"why are u taking this so personal tho" Because I am Spaniard and there has been an insinuation where she, and consequently me, should not want to be Spaniard because of its past, thing we cannot control. That's a really random thing to say?

"Why did I bring other countries?" To make a comparison. If she had said she wanted to be half French, everyone would have gone crazy over the coquette-Torre Eiffel-baguette aesthetic, no one would have brought the past of the country. And the same would have happened over Japan, where maybe yes, there would have been comment talking about the fetishization but not of the past of the country. Do you get me know?

How does saying objectively "Spain has a bad past" affect u as a person? Once more, because I am Spaniard? It's not that it affects and it's going to kill me, you know? It's just an opinion at the end of the day, But I don't want "history" or a "past" that we hold no real power over to be the reason of people not wanting to enjoy our culture, disrespecting it or to be the only thing they see about Spain? Like, as I said I am really proud of the country I was born (with it less and its more characteristics).

Second ask

This one in general just sounds bitter? and holds ideologies that I don't agree with.

"did you just choose to dismiss what I said because you don't want to acknowledge that Spain also colonized other countries or what 💀?" I don't know who you are nor which ask belongs to you 😬, as I said back there, my first ask was not to debate you. Did the Spanish Empire colonize? //Colonize definition: to take control of (a people or area) especially as an extension of state power. Yes, we did. And then the territory became "Virreinatos", political organizations with the same rights as the peninsular Spaniards as it was considered a new Spanish territory. Americans and "poor" Spaniards lived under the same conditions. Take a look at the "Las Leyes Nuevas" by Bartolomé de las Casas if you are interested in the topic.

Following denunciations and calls for reform from individuals such as the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, these laws were intended to prevent the exploitation and mistreatment of the indigenous peoples of the Americas by the encomenderos, by limiting their power and dominion over groups of natives.

Although the New Laws were only partly successful, due to the opposition of colonists, they did result in the liberation of thousands of indigenous workers, who had been held in a state of semi-slavery. This was in 1542, almost right after the Colonization. New Laws - Wikipedia

I can't and i won't defend that Spain was a perfect Empire but these things are usually hidden?? As if we were all monsters that did not want to treat the native Americans as people?

"Yet black people, latinos, and others are still suffering from the after effects of colonism (not knowing the native language, our names being replaced with Spanish names, etc)".// The language thing: yes, it is what it is. What am I going to say it about it? As an example: Spain speaks Spanish because it was colonized by the Roman Empire who spoke Latin. The Spanish names things, yes, and it is mostly due to "mestizaje" too. That's the fact that Spaniards and native Americans started to get together and to mix both DNAs. Also, Spaniards decided to live next to the native americans and make them citizens of the Empire but what did the british do? Kill them. That's why I say that the Spanish Empire was and is way better than the English one or the Dutch one. The British never did want to mix with the native Americans. It was when the Spanish colonies became British that the killings began in those. But the british always put us in their stuff to half-excuse them. (Black Legend (Spain) - Wikipedia)

Here you have the killing of the british: British slaughter of American Indians | Cosmos Chronicle

And in here you can compare the spanish vs british empire: Genocide of indigenous peoples - Wikipedia

"All contributed to colonism and you're gonna react by saying "oh it wasn't that bad?" Please you sound so ignorant "// I will remit to the past paragraphs. Spaniards accepting the native Americans under their empire or ideology and the British wanting to genocide all of them to get their territory IS AND NEVER WILL BE the same colonism. And also, you sound so ignorant saying that.😔

"dk why you're even bringing up Japan either"// Comparing reactions to the same thing to explain my post.

I just wanted to let them know that they don't have to contribute to white beauty standards to be considered beautiful and accepted.// Yes, but I don't even know what you mean by white standards. As if all "white people" had the same features. As if Germany and Norway were all the whites in the world 🤌.

Also, does this sound "stupid" for you? So something not being liked by you =stupid??????????????????? So bitter, seriously.

I don't even know if this is going to be read, but I hope I was able to explain some things <3. In conclusion Spain >>>> British. The real Spain >>>> The idea that you all have of us.

Hope everything was clear enough and that some things could be understood from my point of view. Cause this was long af and if someone read it and is able to understand it , my congratulations!!

Also, to you, Siren, sorry for the big post. But in this way it could be taken as new information? Anyways, have a nice night (because in Switzerland...it must be late right now). 💖💖

hey love <3,

quick note I’m not actually in Switzerland😭it’s just a term that signifies that basically I’m in the middle and not getting involved💀

but I do wanna make one comment about the whole “why are you taking it so personal” I don’t think the anon mean to insinuate that they shouldn’t want to be Spaniard because of Spains past I just think they meant it as saying they shouldn’t want to change their ethnicity but that’s my take on that 😬

but uhhhhhh lovely post thanks for the information 💗and hopefully y’all can come to some sort of conclusion and understanding if each others point of view.

#loassumption #law of assumption #manifesation #loa blog #loa #anon <3 #anon asks #anon answered #law of assumption blog #anonymous

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sophieinwonderland · 2 years

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for us the parts vs people thing is like awkward for us bc we Know logically that everyone in our system is just one person who's brain made dissociative spilts between parts of their personality but like because of that it's effectively like we're different people so. yeah idk just our 2 cents for us personally

Yeah, the disparity between what seems logical and what feels true can make this subject really complicated.

Although, I think one reason for this disparity is that it's trying to ruse a scientific lens to what's more of philosophical question of personhood. As it is, we can't really even observe consciousness in the human brain or even clearly define it yet in a way everyone would agree upon.

Even when it comes to facets that have splintered off of a whole, I believe those can still be elaborated to the point that one might consider them to constitute whole people in their own right under certain philosophies.

One might make the comparison to a starfish. Sever a limb in the right place, and that limb might grow into a new starfish. It came from the original. It shares all of its DNA with it. That limb was even attached and moved in accordance to the thought patterns of the parent. But it's no longer the same starfish.

But let's play with this analogy further. Let's visualize an advanced species of fully sapient alien starfish. One of these starfish decides to pilot a giant robot. This starfish flies this robot around for a while. It's a single pilot in a single mech. But this starfish finds the task difficult to do alone, and splits itself into five pieces. Over time, these pieces grow, each becoming a new starfish, but having memories of when they were a single starfish.

While piloting, they operate the craft as singe unit. But eventually, this team of pilots exits the craft. Five pilots come out where one went in.

Are these the same starfish, or are they separate? Each starfish broke off from a single starfish. Each share memories up until the point of separation. But each may have deviated in different ways over time.

And who are these starfish? Which one would be the original? Any of them, none of them, or all of them?

One could say that the ability to fuse is proof that every headmate is indeed the same person, but I would counter this by asking one to visualize a table with a single water droplet. Imagine that you take a thin ruler and divide this water droplet in half, scooting half to the side. Do you now have one water droplet, two water droplets, or two halves of a water droplet? Do the split droplets no longer qualify as a droplets in their own right because they were split? And what happens when you push them back together? Would this fusion prove that they were never separate to begin with?

So where does consciousness fall into this?

In the end, science doesn't provide a right answer to these questions. What view is more logical will come down to a matter of perspective and your individual philosophy.

I don't want to change your mind here, just let you know that if you feel like separate people and identifying that way feels healthier for the system, then it's okay to do so, and isn't less valid than the alternative.

#ask box #psychology #philosophy #pluralgang #multiplicity #plurality #plural #endogenic #plural system #endo safe #parts language #syscourse #system #systems

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jayjamjary · 2 months

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I've finally figured out a stand design I would want for jjba self-insert. This is all subject for change as I just thought of it in the shower and I'm now typing this out on the bathroom floor so yeah I haven't flushed it out a whole ton. Just shower thoughts and revisions I think of as I write this. Descriptions under the cut.

Name: Weird Science

Appearance: The bit of the stand that shows up first appears as a large, glowing gold, semi-transparent, right hand that's arm can appear just upto before the elbow at most outreached. With how abnormally scaled the arm can be compared to an actual human arm, this allows it a reach of about 2 meters. The arm appears from my right hand (because I am right handed) and the base of it lines up with the same spot on my arm. In calm situations, it won't be scaled up at all and will just perfectly overlap with my hand. In battle, it would probably be stretched all the way out to the elbow, lined up with my elbow, and will be scaled up as large as I can make it. Inside of the palm of the hand is an eye that looks like my own. If the hand/arm part gets injured, it reflects on my own hand/arm. If the eye gets injured it reflects on my left eye. I summon the stand a bit with my left arm/right eye but it will be smaller and less stable. If my right arm gets cut off or left eye gouged then that's the best I've got ig. I'd keep this hidden like Polnareff did Silver Chariot's ability to shed its armor.

After the hand/arm/eye bit does it's work, the rest of the ability will manifest into whatever book I activate with it so the outside and general size can vary a lot. I prefer larger books with images drawn/photographed and text written in a clear to understand style for obvious upcoming reasons.

Ability: The hand/arm/eye bit is used to scan a person and can only scan them within a foot (about 1/3rd of a meter) of the surface of their body. It can scan their full body if I run my stand down the length of their body and get all their limbs or it can just get one section if I just hold it in one place. I prefer to just get one section if I'm looking for something in particular because otherwise it's a lot of extra information that gets crammed into the book and the font size and diagrams start getting way too small to fit.

Once scanned, the book will fill with as much biological information as you can think of about the area scanned in the text and image style of the original book. I hate using poetry books and anything with abstracted art styles. They're terrible for this. I adore biology textbooks though.

If I scan just your finger, ill be able to look through all the layers of your skin, muscles, bones, sweat glands, veins, arteries, capillaries, any tumors you may have, etc with lovely little diagrams preflagged with any abnormalities. The pages of the book kinda work like a screen where I can zoom in on different bits (despite this, bigger books are still nicer because I can't tell what I need to zoom in on if the font and diagrams are puny. In the back of the book, I can also see all of the genes turned on by your epigenome in all of the sections I have scanned very small font with a drop down menu for if I want to see the individual codons. Generally I can't do much with this information without a ton of research but I do know how to throw in a stop codon if you know what I mean.

And about actually using this book, I can edit things. I can flag a tumor to be destroyed or increase the production of tumor suppressing genes; I can select cells are areas of cells and force them to duplicate or preform apoptosis, I can change your DNA (keyboard smashing in new codons here tends to be quite useful in defeating enemies it just may take a bit depending on how lucky I get); I can turn on/off different genes in different sections of your body by fucking with your epigenome (like turning on genes for making an eye in your balls); and I can crank up production of different stuff like hormones or enzymes.

The books stay the way I've made them forever but they can be destroyed without any harm to the scanned person. Nobody else can edit the information in the book or even zoom in/out on stuff. Non-stand-users can see the book but only in its original state. They cannot seem the hand/arm/eye bit.

Weaknesses? Many. It's an overwhelming amount of informationt that gets put into that book and while I am planning to go to college for bio premed and then med school, I haven't yet. Sure I'm in a few college classed in my high school but I'm not as educated as I could be to use this stand well. I also have to scan a person to use it first. Without internet to google shit, I don't know what certain genes are or the total effects of different enzymes or anything. As I use my stand more, ill develope quick strategies for obtaining different goals in editing people but I don't know a ton. Making cells duplicate/apoptosis has to be done by selecting cell by cell unless I figure out how to change the genetic code for it. Changes in the genome/epigenome can take a bit to express themselves on a large scale as well.

So uh. That's my stand idea B) I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to share ideas/thoughts/anything

TL;DR:

I CAST CANCER!!!!!!!

#yayyy jojos #jjba #jjba stand #stand design #jjba self insert #op

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oldscratch-thebigd · 2 years

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OK. SO. THE PART WHERE THE PLOT STARTED PICKING UP. please keep in mind neither the boys nor the audience know about splinters former identity at this point - we're supposed to be under the impression that hes just a huge fan of lou jitsu's films. the episode "the league of evil mutants" reveals (through a musical number sung by john cena, nonetheless) that yeah, lou jitsus dna was used to mutate the turtles. the boys are huge fans of his films so they go "omg hes our dad thats so cool" BUT THEY DO NOT KNOW THAT HES LITERALLY THEIR DAD. AS IN THE MAN WHO ADOPTED THEM AND RAISED THEM IS LOU JITSU MUTATED INTO A RAT. THEY DO NOT KNOW THIS. BARON DRAXUM DOES NOT KNOW THIS. splinter tries to tell them but they cut him off saying "even if it was lou jitsu's dna that made us, you're still our dad!" (which is the cutest fucking thing in the world btw.) n e way its revealed in the next episode if im not wrong on the order and the boys just react by going "lou jitsu was a lot cooler before he was our dad". anyway uhhhh remember the foot clan lol? they became a problem Very early on but we start seeing what their true intentions are a while later, after introducing a character known only as the foot recruit - a teenage girl who seems strangely dedicated to their cause. WHAT IS THEIR CAUSE, YOU MAY ASK. what the fuck else would it be if not reconstructing the dark armor to resurrect The Fucking Shredder. splinter finds out about this after april gets a job at a store that works as a front for the foot clan, and he Just Now finds out that his sons have been fighting the hamatos ancient enemies the foot clans for a good while and he DOES NOT take it well. basically he blames himself for not training them well and not noticing what theyve been doing, and he takes it upon himself to try and stop the shredder from being resurrected. N E WAY. the boys decide to learn the hamato clan's ninjutsu at the last fucking second, but it predictably does not go well and they get captured. splinter finds them and ends up trading the final part of the dark armor, which has been in the possession of the hamato clan for ages, for his sons' safety. the boys are upset that splinter would be willing to resurrect the FUCKING SHREDDER but at the same time they kinda get it bc hey he did save them from being killed. the shredder is fucking alive again But hes very clearly... off. hes acting less like a man and more like a beast, uncontrolled and unpredictable. leo and splinter decide to strike up a deal with big mama (notoriously not a good person to make deals with) so that she controls the shredder, since yknow she can do that for lore reasons and she has PLENTY of reasons to not want him around. big mama helps them but, in her own words, she altered the terms of the deal at the last second. ofc they dont know this though. so the show actually progresses for a while without worrying about the shredder bc hey, big mama took care of it, right? WRONG BITCH!

THAT BITCH WHAT DID SHE DO

#aero.txt #mediocre ask #I AM GETTING SO INVESTED. WHAT DID SHE DO

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antidotefortheawkward-art · 3 years

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I just got into the Lego Monkie Kid fandom recently, and I must ask. How do you feel about the Wukong/Macaque shipping? I've seen a lot of people say it's inappropriate because they're commonly interpreted as brothers. But others say it's okay cause it's not set in stone and lmk has changed some details on the original story, including Wukong & Mac's relationship.

I will be frank and say that Sun Wukong x Liu'er Mihou (Six-Eared Macaque) shipping grosses me the hell out, and it is one of the biggest reasons I'm hesitant in involving myself with the Lego Monkie Kid fandom, due to its domination of the fandom.

This will be a long post, so here's a bulleted TLDR:

I feel it is unfair to consider LMK independent from JTTW, given just how much LMK draws from JTTW.

I feel that the fandom's earnestness to detach LMK from JTTW does not consider how LMK is a Chinese piece of media and is thus insensitive of JTTW's place in Chinese culture.

JTTW functions as a Buddhist allegory. Within this, Six-Eared Macaque represents Sun Wukong's flaws and strife, and is literally created from him. Therefore sharing the same DNA while being two separate people, functionally siblings. Which is what has led Chinese popular culture to commonly interpret these two as such.

That being said, even if LMK makes them beyond a shadow of a doubt not siblings, I still think it's gross to ship people who were siblings in the source material. Shipping is not the only way to interact with media.

Why It's Important to Consider JTTW in Relation to LMK

While Lego Monkie Kid has changed details in the original story, I do not think it's fair to consider it as independent from Journey to the West. As a Chinese person, I feel the fandom's earnestness to separate JTTW from LMK is insensitive at best.

Journey to the West is one of the 四大名著 [Four Classical Novels of China]. Not only that, it is arguably the most accessible of the four, and as such, it occupies a very special place in Chinese culture. JTTW is a story everyone grows up with, whether it be the actual text, adaptations, or even just a bedtime story from a family member. Nearly everyone can name the main pilgrims, notable antagonists, chapter titles, and weapon names. The story is basically a backdrop to everyday life due to how much it's casually referenced, whether it be in pop culture or even food names. As such, much of the story is considered general knowledge. Changing details and rewriting parts of JTTW for an adaptation is expected because everyone's already so intimately familiar with the original story. It doesn't make an adaptation any less of an adaptation. With the case of LMK, I don't think you can reasonably consider it independent of JTTW. Not only are the majority of the cast lifted directly from JTTW, but Qi Xiaotian makes a point to directly quote chapter titles in the literal first and second episodes. If you want to call LMK anything, it's honestly a fan continuation.

Similar to how I've spoken on my discomfort regarding people using the Arthur Waley names for the pilgrims, I'm uncomfortable with people detaching LMK from JTTW because it feels like an avoidance of the original Chinese culture and context. LMK was originally produced with a Chinese audience in mind. As such, the target audience would have gone into LMK with the cultural context JTTW holds. Detaching JTTW is insensitive to the original intent of the producers, insensitive to the fact that LMK was produced for an audience that isn't just white westerners, and insensitive to JTTW. Therefore I think it is disrespectful to consider LMK without considering JTTW.

It will take time to understand Journey to the West, especially if you're not a fan who grew up with the story. However, I believe that if you're interacting with media from a culture not your own, you hold a responsibility to take measures in order to interact with said media and its culture respectfully. If creators are going to share an important part of their culture with you, then it is common decency and courtesy to interact responsibly. It's better to expend the effort to familiarize yourself with JTTW than to act insensitively, watering down its significance for the sake of digestibility.

Sun Wukong and Six-Eared Macaque within JTTW

Before going into my JTTW-grounded reasons for being uncomfortable with Sun Wukong x Six-Eared Macaque, I'd like to make a point in bringing up how JTTW is, at its core, a very Buddhist story and that you cannot, in good faith, separate the religious aspects from this story. JTTW is often read as a Buddhist allegory, and as with any allegory, thoughtful analysis and interpretation is a must.

(Chapter 58- Photos from my copy of 西游记 and screenshots from Vol. 3 of Anthony C. Yu's translation)

Please note the title of Chapter 58 uses the wording 二心 for "two minds" and that these are the same characters for 二心, the Buddhist concept of double-mindedness referenced in the screenshots below.

(Screenshots of Anthony C. Yu's JTTW footnotes regarding the Buddhist thought behind Six-Eared Macaque, provided by my friend @uwukong -who has xyr own post with further reading on interpretation of Six-Eared Macaque functionally being Sun Wukong's brother)

It is commonly accepted that Six-Eared Macaque was literally created from Sun Wukong and is a personification of his strife, his flaws, and the things generally holding him back from the true path to enlightenment. Some adaptations go as far as to depict Sun Wukong in genuine pain when killing Six-Eared Macaque since the act of killing Six-Eared is actually hurting a part of himself. While "sibling" may not be the completely technically correct term for their relationship, Six-Eared Macaque shares DNA with Sun Wukong, since he was created from Sun Wukong. However, as a separate person with identical genetics, Six-Eared Macaque is functionally his sibling. If you have to pull the "technically it's not incest" card, then I don't really think there's ground to stand on. The "grey area" this ship resides in is too thoroughly debunked by the text.

That being said, even if LMK decides to change Sun Wukong and Six-Eared Macaque to be explicitly, unequivocally, undoubtedly unrelated, I still find it really uncomfortable to ship characters who were brothers in the source material.

Please don't go through such lengths to ignore the original text and its significant Buddhist context just to justify a ship. There are other ways to interact with media other than shipping. I'm a gay Chinese man and I too want to see more gay rep in Chinese media, but let me tell you, the monkey brothers are not a healthy place to look for them.

#asks #anonymous #incest tw #lego monkie kid #sun wukong #monkey king #six-eared macaque #liu'er mihou

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robinofgothamcity · 3 years

Text

♡ prompt: a baby appears into your timeline to reveal an unexpected surprise.

♡ pairing: Bart Allen (Impulse) x fem reader

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / for OBVIOUS reasons, it’s altered when it comes to the canon universe because we all know legitimate canon wouldn’t work for this....pain. also!! please if any of you are interested in more characters with prompt, let me know!!

both you and Bart weren’t together. not in the slightest. at the very least, both of you had flirted with each other, PLAYFULLY and all things considered, Bart liked to talk to girls when he had the chance. he was very much like Wally in that sense.

since you weren’t exactly the type to try to flirt with every person with a pulse like Bart did, you really only playfully ‘flirted’ with Jaime, Gar, and sometimes Robin when you were feeling extra confident.

the lair was extra dead tonight with only you, Bart, and Gar sitting down and watching whatever was on TV. you had you legs kicked up on Gar as Bart was reaching over to your lap to grab the popcorn that you were holding.

“the lair being this dead seems unnaturally calm,” you told the two boys. they nodded in agreement but before you could even take another breathe, all of your eyes were averted to the large blue orb that was suddenly in the room. Bart grabbed his gear from behind the couch and Gar immediately transformed. you grabbed the pocket knife from your pocket and held it in a very similar Michael Meyers pose, “what the hell is happening,” you heard Gar whisper.

as all of you were ready to attack, all of you saw a baby, no older than ten months pop out. your instincts immediately jumped to grab the infant before it fell on the ground. you looked to the boys with wide eyes before staring back down to the baby, “oh, hi baby,” you whispered as it let out a cry.

“that’s a baby!” Gar screamed, not knowing what to do. both you and Bart looked at him like he was an idiot, “of course it is! what else would it be?” you retorted, not in the mood to hear his slight stupidity while a child was wailing.

you grabbed the blanket you were using a while ago and wrapped it around her like your sister had taught you. having a niece you guessed at its perks as the baby immediately calmed down, “call someone!” you whispered to the two, “Nightwing, Megan, fucking hell, even the Bat if you can!”

both Gar and Bart ran to the nearest COMM link and rang for anyone in the Justice League or your leaders. as Gar was standing behind you, admiring the tiny baby, he looked at her before looking at you and Bart, “huh, she kinda looks like if she was some kind of combination of the two of you,” Gar said off-handedly.

you and Bart looked at each other before laughing hysterically. a kid? with Bart no less? that sounded like some kind of joke if you’ve ever heard one. Bart sat down next to you and peeked at the hair, “he does have that Allen red hair though,” you stared at him before smacking the back of his head.

it didn’t take long before Nightwing, Robin, and Batman ran into the lair. whatever distress signal Gar or Bart let out must’ve worked because you had never saw any of the three get here as fast as they just did. you looked to Nightwing and Batman while showing them the sleeping baby.

“the three of us were just watching a movie when a blue orb came literally out of nowhere and the baby popped out. we swear we didn’t do ANYTHING,” you explained through nervousness. Batman hummed, seeing how calm the baby was, “kinda looks like the two of you,” Nightwing said out of curiosity.

“THAT’S WHAT I SAID!” Gar yelled, “it has her hair but Bart’s hair color.” you sighed out of annoyance as Nightwing agreed. Batman on the other hand looked at you and back to Bart who was eerily quiet for someone who talked A LOT.

he gave Dick a look as if the two of communicating telepathically. on instant, Dick looked to the three of you, “what did we say about leaving stray cups around,” Nightwing told the three of you. you sighed, “sorry, we didn’t have time to pick up,” you said grabbing your pink Solo cup and tossing it in the trash.

“we’ll see what we can do to get the child back where it belongs,” Batman said giving you a look, “the baby hasn’t given you any trouble, right? come with me and bring the child. we can run a DNA sample and see if he has any connections to any of the members whether it’s in the league or among the team,” he asked.

discreetly, Tim had gotten a cotton swab and took the spit from the residue on the solo cup and put it in his small pocket before following all of you. you felt the baby stir in your arms and as she opened her eyes, you smiled down at it. you had no idea where these maternal instincts came from but oddly enough, you had this mother bear protectiveness over her.

you waited for something that had to be brought by Nightwing to the lair and during that time, you played with the baby, who Bart decided to call Autumn for the time being. Nightwing came back a bit later and gave whatever he brought to Nightwing as he watched you and Bart play with the girl.

while the two of you wanted to hand the baby over to Gar, Megan, Zatanna, hell even Robin, she immediately refused and let out a blaring cry whenever you or Bart let her go. everyone immediately handed her back to you or Bart as soon as she started crying and almost as quickly as she started crying, she stopped when you or Bart held her.

“do you think I can go feed her? she’s probably hungry,” you told Nightwing. he nodded as you got up with the baby and grabbed her by the arms, holding them high in the air so she could use her legs to walk without falling, “she seems like a great mom,” Nightwing said.

without a thought or even a second heart beat, Bart nodded in agreement as he watched you walk out. Bart wanted to follow you but didn’t want to seem like he was overwhelming you so he stayed with the Bats and Gar.

not even realizing, he had fallen asleep against the wall as DNA results pinged up on Tim’s screen. the baby had the closest match to your DNA and using the spit from the previous DNA testing Bart had done on Bart, both of your photos showed up as the parents. Tim got Dick’s and Bruce’s attention without trying to make a scene.

Dick laughed because of course the two of you were the parents. no wonder Autumn didn’t want anyone to hold her except for the two of you. as Dick looked down to look at Bart, he saw that he had finally woken up. Tim signaled that he was in the kitchen, trying to make Autumn laugh.

“ironic how that works out,” Gar said. Nightwing and Batman agreed as he told Nightwing to be the one to break the news to the two of you. Gar wanted to hear what you both said when he told you and Tim tagged along as a result.

as they all entered the kitchen, they heard ‘Killer Queen’ by Queen playing from your phone as you and Bart were playing with Autumn. “hey, did the results come back? I bet 50 bucks it was Megan’s and Connor’s!” you said.

Nightwing handed you the papers in a manila folder. you couldn’t help but laugh at how eerily reminiscent this was to a Maury TV show segment. you opened the folder to see your team photo right along Barts as the arrows pointed to the Autumn.

out of sheer shock, you dropped the folder on the floor as you felt like the wind was knocked out of you. Bart looked at the ground to see what the results were but he, unlike you, laughed. you had given Nightwing the baby to hold before grabbing the folder.

“congrats?” Gar said awkwardly, “you’re parents!”

before you could respond to his witty comments, you saw the same blue orb enter the lair again. you stared at the orb as two people walked out, arguing with each other at the top of their lungs. you grabbed the baby from Nightwing and held it tightly against your chest as Bart went into defense mode and jumped in front of the two of you.

“i think it’s the two of you from the future,” Robin said as eerily similar version of the two of you walked into view. future you immediately sighed in relief as she saw you holding the baby, “so she did get sent to the past,” future you said.

you looked yourself, “so, I’m assuming bird boy here did his little magic and figured out both of you were the parents?” you said. you nodded as older Bart chuckled and stood next to his younger self, “how did we get together?” he asked himself.

“what’s the date?” he asked. Nightwing gave him the date and Bart laughed, “you’ll see in a few weeks actually. word of advice, don’t piss her off while she’s pregnant. I learned this the hard way,” Bart warned. older you smiled at you as you stood next to Bart, “we gotta go back to our timeline. the twins are killing me and she’s getting restless,” you said.

“TWINS?” all of you screamed at the sudden confession. older you smacked yourself as Bart warned you about spoilers, “twins....” you murmured to yourself as your older versions walked back into the orb and waved all of you off.

Nightwing had told Gar and Tim to leave the two of you alone so you could process what you had just found out. you looked too Bart who was scratching the back of his head, “we have kids together, huh?” you told Bart, “three kids at that,” he replied.

you gave Bart a smile, “whenever you’re done flirting with every girl on the planet, you know where you can find me,” you told him, giving Bart a wink before walking back into the kitchen, “no fair! you flirt with Jaime all the time!” he retorted as he walked into the kitchen.

#Young Justice #young justice imagine #yj imagines #dc #DC comics #comics #DC imagines #dc imagine #dc x reader #bart allen #bart allen imagine #bart allen x reader #bart allen x you #kid flash #impulse #impulse imagine #impulse x reader

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makeste · 4 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 287: Family Reunion

Previously on BnHA: The Tomura For One VS Deku And Pals clusterfuck reached new levels of clustfuckery as AFO possessed Tomura’s body and stabbed Kacchan and Endeavor. Shouto was all “good thing I leveled up offscreen so as to be able to fly around whilst carrying 400lbs worth of people”, and did just that and it was like, damn, son. Meanwhile Deku’s rage went Mach 100, and he kicked Tomura’s ass for almost two whole seconds, but in the process he apparently forgot that IF TOMURA TOUCHES HIM THAT IS VERY BAD, and so he stupidly let Tomura touch him and Tomura was all “GAME, SET.” Fortunately for Deku, his quirk plays by its own rules, and so the chapter ended with us cutting to the METAPHYSICAL OFA/AFO PARANORMAL DREAMSCAPE OF MYSTICAL BULLSHIT, where AFO!Vestige was all “lol Tomura y u mad”, and Nana!Vestige was all “SUP DEKU, YOU’RE JUST IN TIME, LOOKS LIKE IT’S ASSKICKING O’CLOCK.” I’m paraphrasing a bit, but that’s more or less the gist of it.

Today on BnHA: AFO is all “well if it isn’t Tomura’s grandmother who I murdered that one time”, and Deku is all “?”, and AFO is all “fucking vestiges, man, wild”, and Deku is all “??”, and AFO is all “ANYWAYS GETTIM TOMURA”, and OFA is all “NOT SO FAST”, and Deku is all “???”, and really, same. AFO then goes off on some wild tangent about how Deku is unworthy because he couldn’t protect everyone and needed help from OFA and got mad about his friends being stabbed, which is such a cold take it gave me hypothermia, but it ends up not mattering since Deku and Tomura both wake up seconds later with OFA still in the possession of its rightful owner, HOW ABOUT THAT. The chapter ends with the LoV approaching on Gigantomachia’s back with Dabi practically salivating at the mouth, and Toga trying to reignite an old fandom blood feud. Toga why would you do this to me. Toga.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS

[CROWD LOSING THEIR MINDS] FINALLY THE NANA HAS COME BACK TO BNHA!! IF YA SMELLLLL WHAT THE NANA IS COOKIN!!!!! [RINGSIDE BELL CHIMING WILDLY] [LOUD AIRHORN NOISES]

“chapter 287: mistake” omg. yeah I’ll say you made a mistake, AFO. I HOPE YOU ENJOY THESE FLEETING LAST MOMENTS OF YOUR SHITTY EVIL LIFE

(ETA: so in all seriousness this must be referring to AFO’s belief that All Might/OFA made a mistake in choosing Deku, right? “I can’t believe you went and chose this shounen manga protagonist as your champion, what were you thinking.” I’ll just put this out there: however many comic books AFO read as a child, it clearly was not enough.)

wow Deku how slow are you

yes you’re inside OFA you dimbulb, did you think your clothes suddenly vanished out of the blue and the ghost of Nana just randomly appeared in the real world by some freak coincidence?? can you believe this kid. breaks his arms a measly 10-15 times in a row and all of a sudden he can’t think straight, get it together Deku

but also brb having a moment at the fact that his thoughts immediately run back to Kacchan, even with all of this nonsense going on and Nana about to lay the beatdown on AFO’s potato-lookin’ ass. forget that noise, all he wants to know is whether or not Kacchan is all right. fuckin’ geez. AM I OVERREACTING HERE A BIT. probably

(ETA: ALSO!! the way he just trails off!! “Kacchan is...” and then he can’t bring himself to complete the thought. oh my god my heart.)

HOLY SHIT

okay,

damn but this man sure knows how to ruffle my feathers. as eminently detestable as ever!!

could it be any clearer here that AFO is not on Tomura’s side?? for a moment I thought he had actually grabbed him by the back of the head in order to get him to look. but nope, he’s just resting his pointing hand on top of his head instead while he’s all “HEY TOMURA LOL IT’S THE GHOST OF YOUR DEAD PATHETIC GRANDMA”

for those keeping track at home, this would be the first time that Deku has heard this information -- that Tomura is Nana’s grandson -- and possibly the first time Vestige!Nana has heard it as well. Nana died when Kotarou was still a child, so for all we know the Vestige!Nana didn’t even know she had a grandson, lol. TODAY ON “MAKESTE RANTS AT LENGTH ABOUT THINGS THAT WILL PROBABLY BE ADDRESSED WITHIN THE NEXT THREE PANELS”, anyway moving on

lmao for the record I fucking LOLed at this giant question mark immediately bubbling up over Deku’s head

no idea what AFO is about to ramble on about now, haven’t read that far yet. but let the record show that Deku’s immediate reaction to hearing “BTW NANA IS YOUR ARCHNEMESIS’S GRANDMA LULZ” is everything I could have hoped for

(ETA: fandom nailed the shit out of this one with the confused Mr. Krabs meme lmao.)

okay so now AFO is monologuing at length about how he would sometimes have “riveting dreams” about the previous owners of all the quirks he stole. but once he gave the quirks away they stopped bothering him?? holy moly let me just take all the notes

okay so he’s saying that Vestiges are created whenever someone has their quirk stolen by AFO. but if they then disappear when he gives the quirks away, does that also mean that whoever receives the quirks also gets the original owner’s Vestige bundled in every time?? that would be wild okay hold up let me read the rest of this

so he’s saying that the Vestiges are actually the “consciousnesses” of the original quirk owners, which have become embedded in their dna or something. SOUNDS INCREDIBLY DUBIOUS TO ME LOL but on the other hand this is a world where children can be born with airplane heads, so my disbelief can hardly afford to pick and choose what it’s gonna be suspended at! anyways though, how does he know he’s the only one who was able to converse with them? did you conduct detailed six-month follow-up interviews with everyone you gave quirks to or what

and if it really is the case that this ability was formerly exclusive to him, isn’t that more evidence than ever that OFA and AFO are actually THE EXACT SAME QUIRK oh whoops am I getting ahead of myself again, sorry

MEANWHILE TOMURA IS ALL, “GRANDMA?”

“WHY AM I HERE, WELL LET ME TELL YOU A STORY, GRANDSON. YOU SEE THAT MAN GROWING OUT OF YOUR RIBCAGE THERE? WELL IT’S JUST THE FUNNIEST THING, ACTUALLY”

WAIT SO IS HE SAYING THEY’RE SOULS OR NOT??

this makes it sound like they won’t ever get to rest, which sure sounds like a soul thing to me. well whatever, soul, consciousness, I guess it’s just semantics at the end of the day

anyways though, so this asshole is finally done talking (I’m sure that won’t last), so now we can finally have the heartwarming reunion we’ve all been waiting for

sigh

-- actually, no, not “sigh”!! you know what!! because Tomura says “whatever the reason”, but that’s only because he doesn’t actually have a fucking clue about the reason. like, I don’t know if the knowledge that AFO killed Nana would be enough to give him pause, but if he knew the whole story and knew that AFO was behind not only Nana’s death, but the rest of his family’s deaths as well... now that would be a whole different thing

anyway. but at least it’s becoming clearer now why AFO spent all that time raising Tomura up as his heir and brainwashing him even though he seems to have been planning this body takeover the whole time. it’s all because he loves making people miserable! yaaaaay

btw HAS NANA HAD THE EXACT SAME MOLE ON HER CHIN AS TOMURA THIS ENTIRE TIME WTF. am I just the least observant person who ever lived lmao

lol wtf

ground: [randomly starts exploding]

Deku: “ONE FOR ALL IS BEING ERODED!!!” LOL IS THAT WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE, OKAY THEN. I’ll take your word for it

y’all I cannot fucking get over this “AFO growing out of Tomura’s hip socket like a fucked-up ventriloquist dummy” shit though

you do realize that absolutely no one can take you seriously right now, right?? it’s important to me that you know this

WHAT’S THIS NOW

seems like SOMEONE has had it up to here with a certain SOMEONE ELSE’S bullshit lmaooo bye Felicia

I SAID GOOD DAY!!

you guys why is he not dying!!

-- OH DAMN

love how Deku is just lying there like “YOU KNOW THOSE DAYS WHERE YOU’RE LIKE, THIS MIGHT AS WELL HAPPEN.” poor Deku

(ETA: where in god’s name is OFA Prime standing. why are my thoughts fully consumed by this lmao.)

are Nana and OFA Prime even doing anything?? why are they sticking their arms out like that. wait hold up is this all a big metaphor for the back-and-forth going on between Tomura trying to steal OFA and OFA being all “actually no you can’t, please enter your password and click on all the boxes with bicycles in them to prove you’re a human first”?

OH SNAP OFA PRIME SAID NO THANKS

“SORRY BRO WE’VE ALREADY MADE OURSELVES AT HOME HERE”

I have only just noticed that metaphysical!Deku has the same scars as actual!Deku. and yet his arms are not currently broken! that doesn’t really seem consistent to me but whatever!! maybe he saved right before the boss battle, that would be smart of him

anyway, that’s great and all that OFA Prime is here helping out, but I really wanted to see Nana fight AFO in a one on one though so I’m a bit disappointed. also why is it only the two of them?? where are Banjou and the others. of all the times to be sleeping on the job

FOR FUCK’S SAKE, THIS MAN

WOULD YOU STOP. WOULD YOU JUST QUIT IT ALREADY

oh shit hold up

doesn’t this confirm that the reason he wanted to transfer his power to Tomura is because he believed it would make him strong enough to finally take OFA because of Quirk Singularity? jesus christ. and here he was so sure of himself. but it turns out he doesn’t actually know shit! you can’t just fucking take OFA like that ya dingdong that’s not how it works

(ETA: SO, A THOUGHT -- is there any sort of subtle hinting here in the way that he words this? “if your strength is combined with mine”, as opposed to “if my strength is combined with yours”? no idea if the admittedly-so-small-as-to-be-almost-inconsequential distinction between those two sentences exists in the original Japanese or not, but I find it very interesting that the English wording implies that he’s the one adding Tomura’s strength to his own, rather than vice versa.)

now he’s insulting Deku!!

excuse me sir WHO ASKED YOU anyway. and never mind that being consumed by an, AND I QUOTE, “unquenchable” rage is your protege’s whole THING, and that he also needed your help to avoid being burned to a crisp a short while ago. where do you get off I swear

(ETA: also just want to point out that in the panel before this one he says that he’s been “watching through Tomura”, which pretty much confirms that his consciousness or whatever is alive inside of him all the time. Tomura is definitely not getting rid of this guy any time soon.)

WOW

first he calls Kacchan useless, then he calls Deku a simpleton, and don’t even get me started with Nana. just, you guys. this man is just... a very, very rude man

NOW OFA IS ALL “THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT MAKES HIM SUCH A GOOD PROTAGNIST YOU BUTTMUNCH” AND OMG PREACH

“DESPITE HIS COMMON SENSE” sdfkllk my man he already has one brother roasting him, take it easy guy

AHH WHAT

IS THIS BACK IN THE REAL WORLD

YEP

hahaha nice try Tomura

so Deku’s all “I didn’t lose my power! BUT” and I assume the “but” is the part where his arms are still broken and shit, and meanwhile Tomura’s body is almost healed up now finally

they’re both wiped out and now AFO is again petitioning Tomura to let him take over goddammit

“you won’t lose your mind” yep, he sure won’t! scout’s honor!! pinky swear!!

meanwhile Deku is getting fucking desperate flkjl;k my baby. and Machia is going to show up any second now too, probably. what else can fucking go wrong at this point

oh shit I shouldn’t have asked

get ready to rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrruuuumble, probably

OH MY GOD

WELL AT LEAST SOMEONE HERE IS HAVING A GOOD TIME. jesus

so as soon as he heard Endeavor was there he got all, “TIME FOR THE BIG REVEAL”, is that right? WELL JOKE’S ON YOU TOUYA, YOUR DAD DOESN’T SEEM ALL THAT CONSCIOUS AT THE MOMENT, SO THAT’S GOING TO DRAIN A LOT OF THE TENSION FROM THE SCENE WHEN YOU GO ALL REVERSE DARTH VADER ON HIM AND HE’S ALL “ZZZZZZZZ”

meanwhile Toga is having unsettlingly quiet angst

jesus christ Toga this is all we need right now

“WAS JIN-KUN NOT A PERSON” sdkfjlk Horikoshi I swear. please have mercy on this fandom. this is the debate that refuses to die!!

but seriously ffs, the issue isn’t that Jin deserved to die, it’s that the countless people whom Jin would have either directly or indirectly killed didn’t deserve to die either. people don’t only become people when you attach names and faces to them! we all loved Jin because we’d gotten to know him, but that doesn’t mean his life was inherently worth more than the lives of all the people he would have killed. sometimes there’s just no good answer

like, it’s just crazy to me that because the heroes are all “we want to protect everyone!” but then aren’t always able to do so because that’s literally impossible, whereas the villains are all “we don’t care about anyone other than the select few people that we actually like!”, the villains somehow wind up getting the better PR. it just so happens that it’s infinitely easier to be loyal to the interests of a few people as opposed to ALL THE PEOPLE. like, no shit, it’s easier to stick to your moral code when you barely have a moral code. and so the villains can kill thousands and no one bats an eye, but if a hero fails to save even one person they’re hypocritical moral failures. like what the hell

BUT ANYWAY, sorry to go off on a tangent there lol, it’s not really a big deal. I’m just preemptively trying to stave off more discourse about it lol but who am I even kidding

anyways lol, but of course they won’t kill you unless they have no choice, Toga. but when it comes to catch-22 situations, it’s a bit much to infer that the heroes don’t consider the villains people just because they opt for the choice that spares more innocent lives. I sure as hell don’t want my babies out here killing people, but to say that they can’t no matter what or else they’re no different from the villains is just...

anyway so the chapter has now just ENDED, just like that!! on a shot of Ochako’s face!

I SENSE ANOTHER THROWDOWN COMING. and it had better not be a total letdown like the last one! NANA BARELY DID ANYTHING HORIKOSHI, WHAT THE FUCK. I started out with such high hopes lol

but I will settle for Toga VS Ochako, and Deku VS Tomura: The Sequel: Shouto’s Revenge! SPEAKING OF HEROES WHO HAVE NO QUALMS ABOUT MURDERING PEOPLE lmao

#bnha 287 #shigaraki tomura #all for one #shimura nana #midoriya izuku #one for all #lil bro when are you gonna get yourself a proper name so I can tag you #himiko toga #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #ofa the first

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shoechoe · 3 years

Text

why pucci is an underrated villain

so basically, i love pucci and this is why

(warning: spoilers for jojo’s bizarre adventure, stone ocean. also, this is a sort of continuation of my other post “why jolyne is an underrated jojo”, and while you don’t have to read that post to understand this one, you can check that out as well if you haven’t and want to.)

Enrico Pucci is a jojo villain who i think gets looked over as a character way too much. I don’t see much hate directed his way (in fact, i often see him being praised as an exception to the rest of part 6 by people who dislike the part- “I hate everyone in Stone Ocean except for Pucci” is basically a classification of Stone Ocean Dislikers™ to me). But, i feel like he does often get forgotten. I see him mentioned easily the least out of every jojo villain, and when he is, he’s always just there to be a simp; a DIO simp. His entire characterization in the fandom is just “I love Jesus and want to fuck DIO”, which gets on my nerves sometimes. (The Diopucci aspect is actually even sort of problematic, but I’ll get to that later). I think there’s a lot more to Pucci’s character than just “Christian who is also a loyal DIO follower”. Additionally, to my knowledge, not very many people have gone into depth about Pucci’s character and explained why they do like him.

So, here are some reasons why i think pucci is pretty great

first: his stand(s)

Pucci’s first stand, Whitesnake, has the ability to create illusions and take aspects of a person in the form of discs (usually he just takes stand and memory discs, but he can take other aspects of people as well, as we saw when he removed his eyesight).

Now, honestly, I love Whitesnake just from the concept alone. It can forcibly rip aspects from people in the form of discs? That’s cool as hell.

rip jotaro

Whitesnake’s illusions are its second ability, albeit used less than the discs. It can put people into a dreamlike state while their bodies are slowly eaten away with acid, and can also be used to disguise Whitesnake, as demonstrated when Pucci disguised it as Weather Report to get close to Jolyne and the rest of the group.

People have criticized the fact that Whitesnake doesn’t use the acid attack again after the first time he does it, and that it was an “araki forgot” moment that the ability was only used once. However, I think it makes sense that Pucci wouldn’t use this on Jolyne again. The acid is very slow, and easy to get out of if you’re aware of what’s going on, which Jolyne would be since she’s gone through it once before. The attack is kind of a one-time ability, and if it fails, it can’t really be used again with the same effectiveness.

I also really like Whitesnake’s design, and how you can infer more about Pucci’s character by paying attention to it.

For example, Pucci is a priest and a supposedly devout Christian, but Whitesnake evokes much more of a “devil” feeling in its black, spiked outfit, constantly angry expression, and broken eyes that appear as though they’re melting, which is contradictory to what Pucci thinks of himself as- a kind, benevolent Christian who wants to redeem sinners and “achieve heaven” for the rest of the world.

A lot of people also like to assign stereotypes or generalizations related to very strong-believing Christians to Pucci, like:

“Pucci is homophobic because he is a Christian.”

“Pucci doesn’t believe in science because he is a Christian.”

“Pucci is heavily conservative because he is a Christian.”

But, if we’d take a look at Whitesnake, would those stereotypes be necessarily true? The patterns covering its body read “GΔCT”, or the letter symbols for DNA. Something like DNA symbols covering Pucci’s stand would imply that he does believe in science, which would also mean that he believes in things like evolution. This conflicts with the common view on Pucci in the fanbase, which makes me think not a lot of people have realized this.

It’s something that you wouldn’t catch if you hadn’t paid close attention to Whitesnake and understood what the symbols meant. So, I think that’s pretty cool.

There’s also what Whitesnake is named after, which is the English rock band formed in 1978 of the same name. I think Araki chose the band “Whitesnake” in particular because it fits with the stand’s aesthetic and abilities:

-White is a color associated with purity and goodness, but snakes are animals associated with death, poison, untrustworthiness, and evil. This effectively makes the name “Whitesnake” an oxymoron.

-Whitesnake’s acid attack could be considered like a snake’s venom. Additionally, it being able to create illusions fits with the “untrustworthy” feeling a snake evokes.

Whitesnake is probably in my top ten favorite stands in the entire series. It has a very cool ability, symbolizes its user well, has a good design, and was used in an interesting way.

Now onto Pucci’s second stand, C-Moon.

C-Moon is what Pucci’s stand became after he fused with the Green Baby, a creature made out of DIO’s bone.

I won’t discuss much about its appearance, because I think it’s pretty straightforward- since it’s a fusion of Whitesnake and the Green Baby, it appears as a fusion of the two. What I do want to talk about is its ability, which is to:

a. shift gravity in a 3-kilometer (1.86 mile) radius around Pucci

and b. Turn everything it hits inside-out.

C-Moon’s ability is just cool as hell. I know that’s not a very intricate reason, but it counts. I loved the fight with C-Moon, and the things Jolyne had to come up with just to keep herself from dying in one hit.

I also thought it was interesting that C-Moon was a remote-control stand, unlike Pucci’s other stands. I like to think that the fact that it’s a remote-control stand that follows simple orders is related to the fact that it is partially made of the Green Baby, which is an entity separate from Pucci. Perhaps the Green Baby is C-Moon, in a way? It is a living being, after all. Maybe the Green Baby’s consciousness is in C-Moon, and it follows Pucci’s orders. After all, it and Pucci fused, but all Pucci himself seemed to gain from that was a change in hairstyle and weird eyelashes. Its consciousness should’ve logically went somewhere.

There’s also the song that C-Moon is named after, which is the Paul McCartney song of (you guessed it) the same name. I think the relation to the lyrics of the song and the stand is pretty straightforward.

“C moon, C moon, C moon is she C moon, C moon, C moon to me How come no one older than me Ever seems to understand The things I wanna do? It will be L7 And I'd never get to heaven If I filled my head with glue What's it all to you?”

The lyrics “I’d never get to heaven” is clearly relating to Pucci’s goal of achieving Heaven, and the fact that the next stand is named Made in Heaven. C-Moon is the transition stand in-between Whitesnake and MiH, so it probably represents the fact that Pucci is facing his greatest struggle yet to achieve heaven with Jolyne and the others trying to stop him, and that it would be “L7″ (which means lame) if he never got to heaven when he’s already gotten so far.

I really like C-Moon. It’s not my favorite stand, but it’s got a neat ability and the fight against it was one of the better fights in part 6, in my opinion. I just wish it was around for a little longer? It doesn’t exist for very long, but it definitely leaves an impression.

Then, there’s Pucci’s third and final stand: Made in Heaven.

Made in Heaven is probably one of my favorite stands in JoJo. It is the culmination of all of Pucci and DIO’s work up until that point, and is just generally epic as fuck, honestly. Even if you don’t like part 6′s ending, you kinda have to admit that the concept of Made in Heaven as a stand is very cool.

Made in Heaven is a stand with the ability to accelerate time. This makes it the last of the series of stands with time-focused abilities held by villains- DIO with the ability to stop time, Kira with the ability to turn back time, Diavolo with the ability to erase time, and finally, Pucci with the ability to accelerate time.

It also comes with a few additional variables that Pucci can control. He can control what Made in Heaven accelerates specifically- this is how he accidentally ended up aging the baby we saw in the scene where he was taxed by his stand and was unable to fully control his powers, but in the final fight, he only accelerated inanimate objects, like the Earth and the sun, but kept living things such as humans unaffected.

Made in Heaven’s acceleration also slowly grows faster and faster as it goes on- days went from being an hour long to two minutes long to three seconds long, and then to the point where the Earth span so fast around the Sun that it appeared as a strip of light instead of a sphere.

Finally, it stops when the Universe hits the “singularity point”, and resets into a new one.

To be honest, when I was reading this, I was mostly thinking of how cool this will look when it gets animated. I’ve seen several fan animations online of the Made in Heaven arc, and if the anime looks even half as good as those, I’ll be happy.

There’s also Made in Heaven’s design, which is probably the most unique-looking out of all of the main villains’ stands. It appears with a humanoid look from its head to its waist, with it being intercepted by the front end of a horse. This evokes a centaur-ish feeling, with the main difference being it has the front end of a horse instead of the back end. There are also ropes attached to the horse’s head that the humanoid part holds on to, which evokes the feeling of someone riding a horse (Pucci horse girl confirmed?) It also glows and sparkles, and has the color palette of being white and gold with a couple other light colors for the accessories. This gives strong “heavenly” vibes, and makes it appear as though it really could have come from heaven itself. (It even sort of gives me “biblically accurate angel” vibes, in a way- specifically, maybe a cherubim. Although, that may be a stretch.)

There’s also Made in Heaven, the Queen song that the stand is named after. Ignoring the fact that Made in Heaven is a banger and a perfectly fitting song for a stand like this, the lyrics are also significant and connect to Pucci.

“I'm taking my ride with destiny Willing to play my part Living with painful memories Loving with all my heart”

This, when read with the context of JoJo’s, is clearly talking about Pucci. He’s playing his part in the Heaven Plan, and taking a ride with destiny (he believes that he is being helped by fate to achieve “heaven”). He also has many painful memories of his past- the tragedy with Weather Report and Perla, and the death of the person he worshipped and was friends with, DIO.

“When stormy weather comes around It was made in heaven When sunny skies break through behind the clouds I wish it could last forever, yeah Wish it could last forever, forever”

I think this could possibly be related to Weather Report’s ability. Pucci was killed by Emporio with Weather Report (the stand), and part six ended out with stormy weather.

“Made in heaven I'm playing my role in history Looking to find my goal Taking in all this misery But giving it all my soul”

This seems like Pucci believing that his goal in life was to complete DIO’s original plan of attaining heaven. He’s gone through loads of misery in his life, but he pushes through and finally achieves his goal (before being killed, and having all of his work reversed and being erased from reality... but let’s not talk about that just yet.)

So... Made in Heaven is an absolutely terrifying stand. I love it.

Second: Pucci’s personality and relationships

When it comes to Pucci’s personality, people mostly just characterize him as being a heavily religious Christian who worships DIO (like I stated in the beginning). But, I feel like there’s a lot more to him than that.

Like, for example, can we acknowledge the fact that Pucci can be genuinely hilarious?

pucci gets mad at a prisoner for stealing his cross so he abruptly cuts from his casual conversation and slams her head on the table

Pucci doesn’t have a record player on him so he uses a random guy’s head to play Hallelujah

Pucci is just... climbing the NASA poster on the wall... because he wants to, I guess. Thanks for the visualization, Pucci.

He’s mostly pretty calm and composed, but he has so many ridiculous, out of the blue moments where he just becomes chaotic as hell. I love it.

He also has some little character quirks that I found to be fun and charming. We can see that he’s conversational, and likes having innocent small talk with the prisoners (in his first scene, he has a serious discussion with a prisoner about heaven, but ends up derailing the conversation and talking about cherries instead and almost forgets his original point.)

His method of calming himself down is, interestingly enough, counting prime numbers. We know he’s been doing it for a while, too, because he’s memorized them up to the thousands.

I found it strange and random at first that counting prime numbers was something that Pucci did to calm himself down, but the more I thought about it, it actually ties into his philosophy. Pucci is a person who gets anxious and scared about all of the disorder in the world, so universal constants like prime numbers help him by reminding him that there is still order in the universe.

I also really like how, unlike villains like DIO and Diavolo, he doesn’t really start off as very overpowered. He’s strong, but not invincible, which makes him an attainable threat that Jolyne and company could take care of at first. However, as they failed to prevent him from progressing through his heaven plan, he slowly grows stronger and stronger, gaining more powerful stands and abilities until he becomes practically invincible with the stand Made in Heaven. (Can I mention that I just find it really cool how Pucci’s stand evolves over time? It makes for an interesting plot progression.)

There’s also a very important aspect of his character that I’ve been neglecting to talk about until now, and that’s his relationship with DIO.

DIO and Pucci have a very interesting relationship with each other. They appear to be much closer with each other than any other DIO follower we see- they have several scenes where they have very personal interactions with each other, and it’s clear that Pucci cares about DIO very much.

We’ve seen before that DIO has a very different temperament towards his followers than he does his enemies. He appears very relaxed, calm, and polite towards most of his worshippers. It’s somewhat apparent that this is mostly a front to appeal to them, and he unleashes a much more chaotic, almost manic attitude in the final fight against Jotaro. But with Pucci, it seems like his down-to-earth attitude is much more genuine, and it seems as if he does really respect and like Pucci as a person and a friend.

Pucci is the only one who knew about DIO’s heaven plan, and helped to form it with him. He also knows a lot more about DIO than most of his other followers do- he knows where he sleeps, and is often invited to DIO’s home to have friendly chats and discuss casual topics with each other. They even have some banter with each other that normal friends would have.

I love Pucci’s smirk at that line, lmao

They even have an honest conversation about how Pucci’s stand could easily take out DIO’s The World, and leave him standless. Pucci could betray DIO and get away with it very easily- DIO even demonstrates this by grabbing his hand and forcibly pulling it towards his face, revealing The World’s stand disc in his forehead. However, Pucci reassures DIO that betraying him is something that’s never even crossed his mind before, and DIO says this:

The reason DIO brought up the thought of Pucci betraying him was because he was genuinely afraid of losing him. He says that Pucci is someone that he really likes not just because he’s a powerful stand user, but because he really just likes to hang out with him. This is probably the most vulnerable we see of DIO, and it’s incredibly interesting. It’s something that he doesn’t show very often, but Pucci brings out of him.

This has also led to a lot of people that ship Pucci and DIO with each other. It’s a big meme in the fanbase, and it’s easily the biggest jojo villain ship. And when you first look at it, it makes a lot of sense- they’re very close with each other, and there’s even a scene where they share a bed together. DIO is canonically bisexual and seduced many of his followers with the gender being irrelevant, and Pucci’s sexuality is ambiguous at best, since we don’t see him date or show attraction to anybody in the series.

But... here’s the thing. Pucci was actually a minor when DIO was around. He was fifteen years old when he and DIO first interacted.

Yeah... you see the problem here? I don’t really want to ship a hundred year old vampire and a teenager together. Although, I don’t really blame people who do ship them; there’s nothing to suggest that Pucci was a kid in this flashback, and I think most Diopucci shippers just genuinely aren’t aware of that. (also, i think it’s fine to headcanon that maybe pucci could’ve had a crush on DIO still or something like that, as long as it’s unrequited on DIO’s part).

So, I think I’m just going to stick to friendship between DIO and Pucci. I genuinely do like their friendship with each other, too. It’s very interesting, and I think it makes DIO a better villain in retrospect with the knowledge of his full plans for the world, and the fact that he did really care about someone despite how evil he is towards everyone else.

There’s also another character that Pucci has an important relationship with, and that’s his fraternal twin brother, Weather Report.

Weather Report (his real name Domenico Pucci), while not getting very much screen time by himself, plays a very important role in Pucci’s life and the story. He starts off as someone hiding out in prison with no memories of who he is- not even his name. That’s how he got the nickname “Weather Report”, because everybody simply called him by his stand name. He was extremely quiet and mellow, and most people in the prison weren’t aware of his existence.

Then, he finally recovers his memory disc at the end of the Underworld fight, and has a... reaction to it.

Suddenly, Weather’s personality changes drastically. He becomes a violent, impulsive person who constantly flaunts his abilities and attacks innocent people simply for annoying him. This freaks out even Anasui (who is creepy as hell in his own right).

Rainbows appear in the sky- a subconscious effect caused by Weather’s powerful stand abilities being unlocked for the first time in years. This extension of his abilities is called Heavy Weather.

Also, uh... snails. Lots of snails.

Now, this is important to Pucci, because he is the only one who understands Weather’s ability properly- he’s the one who removed Weather’s memory disc in the first place.

I’m going to discuss more about Pucci’s backstory in the next section, but him and Weather Report do serve as parallels to each other, and understanding Weather is important to understanding Pucci.

A thing that struck out to me about Weather’s stand is that it appears as a fluffy mass of clouds forming a humanoid.

I want to point out the parallel between Weather Report (the stand) and Whitesnake. While Whitesnake appears as a devil, Weather Report appears almost like an angel as a white, cloud-like being.

Weather (the user) and Pucci’s designs are also sort of hypocritical to their actual characters. Looking at Weather Report, you would probably guess that he’s the evil one and Pucci is the good one.

He literally appears with horns on his head, like a stereotypical demon. Meanwhile, Pucci is a priest- a person who claims to be a man of God.

He has priest robes, and even a star on his forehead after fusing with the Green Baby. His design would tell you that he presents as a good, virtuous person, but his actual character is nothing like that. Meanwhile, Weather appears almost devil-like, but again- his actual character is nothing like that.

Weather is also the first one to call out Pucci’s hypocrisy and the evil that he’s doing without realizing.

Weather even almost kills Pucci himself, before being interrupted by Jolyne and Hermes.

Weather’s stand is also the one to eventually defeat Pucci, after he accidentally inserts the stand disc into Emporio, which makes for a fitting stand to be the one to kill Pucci. I used to think it was kind of stupid that Emporio (an eleven year old child) was the one to eventually defeat the main villain, in the end. But then, I realized that it really wasn’t him doing it- he even states himself that the stand was acting on its own. It was really Weather doing the killing; Emporio was just the vector for it to be able to function.

There’s also the song Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai, which most people just recognize as the song that Weather Report’s hat is referencing. however, I believe that this is also vaguely referencing Weather and Pucci’s relationship, as well.

“It's a wonder men can eat at all When things are big that should be small Who can tell what magic spells we'll be doing for us And I'm giving all my love to this world”

I think this is referring to Heavy Weather’s ability, and that humans are being turned into giant snails- things that are big, but should be small.

“And now that things are changing for the worse See, its a crazy world we're living in And I just can't see that half of us immersed in sin Is all we have to give these”

I think that the lyric “Half of us immersed in sin” is referring to Pucci. He and Weather are twins, and Pucci is the one “immersed in sin”. The word “sin” also has religious connotations, which would make the fact that the priest is the one immersed in sin extra hypocritical.

“And I'm thinking what a mess we're in Hard to know where to begin If I could slip the sickly ties that earthly man has made And now every mother, can choose the colour Of her child That's not nature's way”

I think that this is referring to Pucci and Weather’s backstory. The mother that experienced a stillbirth stole Weather Report instead, which isn’t “nature’s way”.

Now, here’s the thing. I get that Weather called Pucci “the worst kind of evil there is”, but honestly? I think Pucci is easily the least evil jojo villain, by far.

Most of the arguments I’ve seen against this is based off of misconceptions surrounding how Made in Heaven works, so I also want to talk about that in the next section. But first, I want to discuss Pucci’s backstory.

Third: Pucci’s backstory (and why he’s such a tragic character)

Pucci’s backstory does a very good job of explaining how he got his current beliefs about morality and the world today. Unfortunately, it has also sparked a lot of debate in the jojo fandom regarding a pretty sensitive topic- I want to touch on that in this section as well (It’s not really related to why Pucci is underrated, per se, but I still want to talk about it, as it’s been on my mind for a while.)

So, Pucci’s backstory begins with him and Weather report being born as fraternal twins. However, a mother who experienced a stillbirth stole Weather and replaced him with her dead baby, so she could still raise a child of her own.

It skips to the time when Pucci is fifteen years old, and has his first encounter with DIO in church after it has closed. DIO explains how he has been searching for encounters to recruit people, and gives Pucci a Stand arrow before leaving.

A little while later, we see Pucci cleaning the church, and the mother who stole Weather Report comes up to him. She is crying, and confesses to Pucci that she stole the baby from a random family- without realizing that Pucci is a member of said family.

Pucci keeps this a secret for two months, up until his sister, Perla, and Weather Report start dating- without them realizing that they are brother and sister. Pucci, who is horrified at this, wants to tell them the truth, but if he did, he would be excommunicated from the church, as he would be revealing the confessions of a sinner. Trying to avoid hurting his sister, he tries to hire a shady man to force Perla and Weather Report to break up with each other.

The man, after doing some research on Weather, discovers that the woman who stole him (which he assumes to be Weather’s biological mother) married a black man in 1972. He, as an extremely racist person that is associated with lots of members of the KKK (something that Pucci didn’t know about), hates interracial couples and calls the KKK to murder Weather. This causes Perla to kill herself out of grief, without realizing that Weather was still alive.

After discovering Perla’s dead body, Pucci ends up being pierced with the stand arrow he’d kept in his pocket ever since it was given to him by DIO, and he unlocks his stand, consequentially also activating Weather’s stand.

Weather and Pucci eventually confront each other, which ends up with Pucci stealing Weather’s memory disc.

This ends Pucci and Weather’s backstory.

Now, while a lot of the things that occur in it make me deeply uncomfortable, I do think this is a good backstory that perfectly explains Pucci and how he came to worship DIO and develop his belief system.

DIO appeared to Pucci as a strange, anomalous encounter. He stated that he was “allergic to sunlight”, gave him a seemingly random object, talked about some weird shit related to gravity, healed his twisted foot, and then left. I think ever since this encounter, Pucci’s subconscious then viewed DIO as his interpretation of God. When he was at the lowest point of his life, a vision of DIO came to him in his mind, and he felt the urge to meet him again. This is what caused Pucci and DIO’s bond to form, and how he became such a trusted confidant in DIO’s army.

It also explains Pucci’s motivations. The world in his ideal view of “heaven” is one where everybody is subconsciously aware of their fate at all times, as seen in the Pucciverse.

It makes perfect sense that he would view this as “heaven”. Fate has completely screwed him over, in more ways than one, and it was all completely unexpected to him. Everything about the tragedy of his backstory fell into place so meticulously, it’s only natural that Pucci would believe in destiny and think that it was up to fate for his sister to be killed that way. So, he came to believe that the best way to live life would be to be aware of your future at all times, and be completely prepared for everything that is to come your way.

However... this backstory also did something else- bring the subject of Pucci’s actual race into question. a lot of people have argued about it, and it’s become a very sensitive topic to discuss. (To be honest, even I’m kind of nervous to be talking about it, but here goes nothing.)

~~~~~ (this is sort of a tangent, so you can skip it if you like. I added tildes to where the tangent starts and then where it ends.)

So, in the vast majority of media such as the colored manga, all of Pucci’s figures, and in video games he’s featured in such as Eyes of Heaven and All Star Battle, Pucci is obviously being portrayed as dark-skinned. However, many people have pointed out that if Pucci was black, his backstory would be... very strange. There are two main things here:

1. If Pucci is black, then why would the rest of his family appear to be white? 2. If Pucci is black, why didn’t the KKK target him?

Now, a lot of people have come to the conclusion that Pucci isn’t black, with the reasoning for his obviously dark skin being that “he’s just tan”. However, I really do not think that is a valid explanation. You really can’t argue “just a tan” with Pucci; it’s very clear to me that he’s being portrayed as black here.

I don’t think it’s possible for a 100% white person to be as dark as Pucci is. Besides, we see Pucci as a newborn and a small child, and he still has the same skin color, which wouldn’t make sense if he was simply “tan”.

You could also argue that since the colored manga, figures, video games, etc. weren’t made by Araki, you can’t use them as an example- but at the same time, don’t you think Araki would’ve said something by now if he had a problem with his character being universally portrayed this way? And, even in most of his own drawings and the black and white manga, Pucci is still clearly shaded darker than the other characters.

So instead, here’s an explanation for how Pucci can still be black and have his backstory make sense.

First off, he can be visibly dark, but have the rest of his family be white passing while not actually being fully white. Weather and Perla appearing lighter than Pucci can make sense when you consider there have been documents of children from interracial couples being different skin tones. His parents can also be nonwhite, but white passing, and Pucci is just the only one we see in his family who isn’t white passing due to genetics passed down from his grandparents or other family members. (Either that, or the dad could just not be the biological father. I mean, we have no evidence that isn’t the case.)

Second off, the reason why the KKK didn’t target Pucci- I think it’s important to note that it isn’t the entire KKK who knew about Pucci, it was just the one man he hired to break up Perla and Weather. It was never stated that the man was a member of the KKK, just that he was “friends” with a lot of them, so his racism could be different than simply hating everyone who isn’t white; he seemed much more concerned about the potential “race mixing” between Weather and Perla. Remember, he didn’t bother looking into Pucci’s family, so he could’ve just assumed that Perla is white, as she is white-passing (and was unaware that she is related to Pucci) and Weather isn’t. He could’ve ignored Pucci for this reason, as Pucci is not only single, he is a Christian and is actively paying him to break up what he perceived to be a mixed race couple. I’ve known people who are *incredibly* racist, but have a certain level of tolerance towards nonwhite people, as long as they don’t try to date someone of a different race than them. This is an absolutely disgusting belief regardless, but it would explain why the man ignored Pucci but went after Weather for dating Perla.

~~~~~

Okay, phew... I got that out of my system. But yeah, that’s why I think that Pucci can still logically be black in-universe. (well, mixed is more correct. Pucci is actually mixed, so he’s both black and white.)

Now, onto why Pucci is the least evil JoJo villain and how his character is so tragic to me.

Pucci, I think, is the only Jojo villain who genuinely wanted the best for humanity. His goal was to recreate the Universe into his ideal version of “Heaven”, where everybody is aware of their fate so they won’t have to suffer or try to resist as much. This being “heaven” makes a lot of sense to a person like Pucci. After all, it would’ve saved his family a lot of trouble. He wanted everyone in humanity to know their fate, so they wouldn’t have to suffer like he did. That’s a goal with inherently good intentions- the problem comes with that the heaven plan is a terrible idea born from one of the most evil people in Jojo, that Pucci has become misguided and corrupted by.

If Pucci had never met DIO, I believe that he could’ve been a genuinely good person. He started off as an innocent future priest who just wanted to serve God and help the rest of humanity. But, ever since he met DIO, he became a fanatic dedicated to serving him. Since then, his morals became twisted without him even realizing- he became willing to murder for DIO’s cause.

His stand started off as something that could take away painful memories and destructive powers, as he first uses it to weaken Weather’s dangerous ability and take away his memories, to prevent him from hurting himself and Pucci (Weather became extremely vengeful and suicidal after the events of his backstory- you could argue that Pucci believed that he was doing Weather a service by removing his memories. He even put Weather in the prison with the hopes of potentially being able to “save” his brother later). But eventually, Whitesnake became something more twisted, as Pucci began using it to control people and deceive them.

So, what did Pucci end up doing, in the end? He killed/attempted to kill anyone who got in his way, manipulated several people, supported DIO (albeit due to heavy manipulation on DIO’s part since Pucci was a gullible kid), and reset the Universe.

Now, a lot of people have taken Pucci resetting the universe to meaning that he killed every organism and recreated them, but this is untrue. The Made in Heaven universal reset doesn’t directly harm any living beings- only the ones that Pucci directly killed weren’t able to move on to the new world. If the reset killed everyone, then Emporio wouldn’t have been able to move on from the old Universe, as he would’ve been reborn as a counterpart to himself with no memories of Pucci. it is also directly stated that “only the living can move on to the new world”. So... No, Pucci did not commit mass genocide.

Pucci still isn’t a good person by any means. However, when you compare his actions and motivations to the other villains, his crimes are honestly significantly less bad by comparison.

Dio: murdered countless people, was stated to be literally born evil, has committed rape and sexual assault several times, and wanted to rule the world for his own selfish gain.

Kars: Genocided his entire race over a disagreement.

Kira: murdered over 48 innocent women for sexual desire. So, his crimes double as murder and rape.

Diavolo: sold drugs to children, tried to murder his own daughter and burned down his entire hometown. He also killed his mother and the priest that adopted him.

I can’t really call Pucci “evil”. He’s not a good person by any means, but he’s not pure evil, really. He’s an individual who wanted the best for humanity, and thought he was doing the right thing. However, he was willing to lie, manipulate, and kill to achieve his goal, and became corrupted by other people much worse than him.

And that’s why I think Pucci is such a tragic character- his life was full of almost nothing but misery, and he ended up taking a very dark path towards evil. Then, he dies a brutal, horrible, painful death at the hands of his twin brother’s stand, and gets erased from reality entirely.

Jesus Christ, you can see his eyes pop out of his face

You see my point, here? Wouldn’t it be miserable as hell to live a life like Pucci’s? It almost plays out like a Shakespearian tragedy (well, a very jojo-ified Shakespearian tragedy, but you get my point.)

Pucci is a person who I think really deserved better. Maybe he could’ve turned out a much different person than he ended up being. He had the potential to be a genuinely good person, but thanks to DIO and other circumstances that couldn’t have blame pinned onto anyone, he wasn’t.

That’s a big reason why I like him as a character, and why I find the portrayal of him in the fanbase to be so inaccurate. I feel like a lot of people hate him because of all of the people he killed, which I find to be a shame, because they ignore everything else about him. (All of the people he killed came back to life, too, anyways.) I’ve seen people who genuinely believe that Pucci deserved infinite death alongside Diavolo, which I really do not understand.

So, to sum it up: I really like Pucci. I love his personality, how he recontextualizes the events of Stardust Crusaders, his relationships with the other characters, his backstory, his stands, and the tragedy of his character. I really hope people begin to appreciate him more eventually.

people who say that david productions should skip animating part 6 are being stupid

#jojo #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo villains #pucci jojo #enrico pucci #pucci jjba #pucci jojo's bizarre adventure #analysis #very long post #this took me a long time to write so i hope you guys like it #i didn't expect this to be so long tbh #like it started off as just a few paragraphs and then i found more and more to talk about and then it just #became this behemoth of a post #i just. i like pucci i guess #shoe talks a lot

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fresh-bag-of-ham · 3 years

Text

ok let’s talk SUNSCREEN

SO the UV filters available in the US can at this point be considered truly terrible. One of the main reasons you’re supposed to reapply sunscreen every two hours is that many of the filters we use are destroyed by the very UV radiation they are designed to block. Killed in the line of duty, thank you for your sacrifice, etc. Counterpoint: sunscreen is gross and reapplying it every two hours is the worst. I am not doing that. Fortunately, Europe and Japan/Korea have been much quicker to approve newly developed more stable UV filters for use and at this point they have some really good ones. They also have much better UVA protection, both because of the better filters available and better labeling regulations.

A quick simplified summary: UVB causes sunburns, is directly absorbed by DNA strands which causes the mutations that lead to skin cancer, SPF measures protection against this only. UVA does more generic damage, creates free radicals associated with aging, wrinkles, collagen loss, pigmentation, etc. etc., but can also contribute to immunosuppression and therefore skin cancer. It’s more complex than this obviously but that’s not really the point of this post.

My sunscreen criteria: I hate wearing sunscreen. However, Accutane + sun = an extremely bad time. My ideal sunscreen is something that doesn’t feel disgusting to wear so I will wear it regularly in the first place (i.e. dry-touch), something I ideally don’t have to reapply super often under normal daily use (i.e. photostable UV filters, water-resistant when necessary), and has maximum protection. As long as I’m wearing it, I also want as much UVA protection as I can find, without compromising the former criteria.

Note: The sunscreens I tried are almost all chemical UV filters and several are loaded with alcohol, so if that upsets your skin then proceed with caution/ask me for a specific rec!

Note 2: All of these are SPF50+ (the highest rating allowed in the EU (meaning they tested at at least SPF60) unless otherwise specified *cough*Supergoop*cough*)

Best Face: Kao Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence (x)

Best feel, best protection, best price point. This gets recommended everywhere for a reason. Bit of a silicone feel on the face. No white cast. Smells like alcohol at first. Really, really quality daily face sunscreen. Water resistant. Caveat that because of the alcohol I would make sure to throw a layer of moisturizer on beforehand to make sure I’m not totally drying myself out.

Also make sure you get the name exactly right, there’s a blah blah Watery Gel that’s totally different consistency, totally different filters, etc. etc. It has to be Watery Essence.

Best Body: Eucerin Sun Sensitive Protect Dry Touch Sun Gel-Cream (x)

This was a sleeper hit, so shout-out to Eucerin for the greatest body sunscreen I’ve ever tried. This stuff is SO protective and dries SO. DAMN. DRY. Zero grease somehow, feels like nothing. It’s even water resistant. I tried a couple LRP body sunscreens but they honestly aren’t worth mentioning. Eucerin or bust babey!

More Face Sunscreens:

I’ve also tried all top five sunscreens from this Stylevana listicle of Asian face SPF (x). The thing about face sunscreens that they’ve started doing is loading them up with silicones and acrylate polymers, which leaves a silicone-y feel on your skin like a makeup primer. As far as I can tell from poking through various patents, these polymers are doing a few things in the formula: a) emulsifying/stabilizing the newer/bigger UV filter molecules, and creating an occlusive layer over the UV filter molecules on the skin to a) improve water resistance and b) reduce eye stingy-ness. At first I thought I wanted to avoid these seemingly unnecessary additives but considering their function, these are all features I want/need in a face sunscreen so we’re living with them.

1. Shiseido - Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen Skincare Milk: really good, sliiight white cast but absolutely no streaks, more like a foundation just a hair too light for my skin tone. However I can’t imagine buying this because #2 on the list is better and 1/3 the price. Medium silicone feel. Something I’d probably only break out for when I went to an outdoor summer wedding.

2. Kao - Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence: I have already sung its praises.

3. MISSHA - All Around Safe Block Essence Sun Milk: closest to a US milky/greasy sunscreen experience here, though very fluid and still absorbs nicely. No silicone feel. Not a bad choice but nothing special.

4. Canmake - Mermaid Skin Gel UV: probably second favorite after Biore. Similar, bit less of a silicone feel. I’ve gotten red a couple times using this though, possibly because less silicone feel = no layer of protection against sweat/physically rubbing off? I bet this would be perfect under makeup though, it’s super light.

5. COSRX - Aloe Soothing Sun Cream: SO moisturizing, almost a dewy feel that sits on your skin and never dries. I wanted to love her, but unfortunately she is so loaded with the aforementioned polymers that when you reapply/put the appropriate amount on to begin with, it completely gums up and pills and you lose all protection. Also definitely not water resistant. Probably my top pick for a winter daily face sunscreen that I wouldn’t ever be worrying about reapplying though.

Other Contenders:

La Roche-Posay Anthelios Invisible Fluid (x) and Bioderma Photoderm Max Milk (x)

These two bad boys have the highest rated UVA protection currently on the market, 46 PPD for La Roche-Posay and 42 PPD for Bioderma. The LRP is extremely watery (technically alcohol-y) and comes in a teeny bottle(though same size as a lot of these I guess) but it is The Best UVA protection money can buy. The texture is really nice too, and feels super water resistant. If I’m outside sweating or on the water in the summer, this is going on my face. I've also seen it on sale multiple times since I’ve started researching sunscreens (because it’s extremely popular) so you can definitely find it in the $0.30/mL-or-less tier if you keep an eye out.

This Bioderma is cheaper and also extremely protective (thanks Helena @bronyraurmp3 for the rec!) but unfortunately it stung both my and Mr T’s eyes like a BITCH. Extremely unpleasant experiences for both of us. TBH if I’m out in midday sun, swimming or kayaking or something, I’m gonna be wearing a long-sleeved UPF rashguard to protect my arms and upper body and not worrying too much about whatever cheap greasy sunscreen I put on my legs. This Bioderma stuff would be going on my neck, ears, and hands though bc it’s super water resistant.

Eucerin Sun Sensitive Protect Mattifying Fluid : bit of a white cast, really slippy texture going on and nice dry touch texture when it dried down, but drying down took foreeever. Probably really nice if you’re sensitive and pale.

Eucerin Sun Oil Control Gel-Cream Dry Touch : VERY matte and dry-touch, would have loved it if I hadn’t gotten burned using it (doesn’t have all the newest most stable UV filters). Approaching the expensive end of things too, but would be a lovely option if you really prioritize non-greasiness and don’t need the premium protection? Mr T really liked using it on his bald head lol.

Supergoop Unseen Sunscreen SPF40 (US): This is recommended many places but it has to be a joke that people are actually paying Shiseido Anessa prices for old American UV filter selection, only SPF 40, and no UVA rating to speak of, right??? (ok they do have a PA+++ rating meaning a PPD of 8-16, so. this is acceptable.) I did not test this one but damn wtf. The texture is probably nice though and it looks perfectly sheer in the photos on their website, so maybe as a last resort for darker skintones that show a white cast with everything else? At that price tho... you do you but damn.

Jigott Snail UV Sun Block : This had good reviews on Yesstyle but it sucked. White streaks, bad.

La Roche-Posay Anthelios Ultra-Light Tinted Mineral Sunscreen SPF60 (US): Another in the outdoor-wedding only price range. There’s a tinted and a non-tinted mineral version and I ended up mixing them together to get a shade that looked pretty good on me, but needing two bottles for that puts it in the extremely ridiculous price category. Really slippy nice texture that takes a bit to dry but dries down perfectly matte. I guess the person who wants to shell out for a high end all-mineral tinted sunscreen exists somewhere out there but I would bet there are many nice cheaper mineral options out there that I haven’t tried.

And that’s it! For EU sunscreens, I was able to order them on caretobeauty.com, and Japanese/Korean ones from yesstyle.com or stylevana.com, though I had to go to eBay for the Biore and Anessa. I ordered some Biore from a seller on Amazon but they shipped from Japan and I think they got taken by customs because the last known location on the tracking info is Chicago, so finding a seller in the US that has already imported them seems like a good idea (vendor lullabellabeauty on eBay worked great for me, fwiw, I will definitely order my Biore from there in the future).

If you have specific questions about any of these, or if you have any recs you think I should try, hmu! You will be shocked I’m sure to hear I have a whole sunscreen database at this point.

#skincare

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