Why I Love Trafalgar D. Water Law

Ehem...

Loki and/or lokius video set to Bad by Wale.

In my mind and let me be clear this is purely a delusion that I have created but...

In my mind, there is a weird three-way race happening where no one is trying to win or is even aware they are in a race. But it's a race to make to most lgbtq+ adjacent main character in Shonen anime. And I was to be the main character. I love Yamato is he my son whose older than me. But he's not the protagonist of anything but my heart.

I mean, in my mind, as of September 2024, One Piece, Boruto(inexplicably), and HunterXHunter are in this race to the gayest. Like at any point Borumitsu, Killugon, or Lawlu could be canon and nothing would change about the main story of the manga. Like it wouldn't get worse or better.

And in my mind those are the best and most insidious ships.

This isn't about ships . This is about how close all three of these are to being the first shounen jump manga with a gay/bi lead and how widely they vary in quality. Like it goes from gold tier one piece to good but kinda rough Hxh to fuxling boruto!

What I'm trying to say is Oda please... please make lawlu canon before Boruto make borumitsu canon. For the culture. Please! I ship borumitsu and I still don't want it to be the first. Oda do it for your most devoted fans!

This was all in good fun. I don't like boruto, but that's because I don't get kawakis character (if someone could explain why I should care about him, please do). All ships are valid even if the manga they are in isn't. Even if some fans make it really hard to be part of the Fandom that ship is from.

Let's see who wins! Place your bets!

Tumblr Moving

Hi, I moved all my anime stuff to this https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tabyktowtw

area. I’m starting to two new tumblrs to keep things organized. One is anime stuff and the other is shipping and yaoi type stuff. Sorry for being so non-descriptive, I'm a vague person that like long discussion. I’mg going to post my latest anime thing here but it going to be the last one.  Never shall the yaoi/shipping stuff and the anime stuff meet, except when I want them to. I’ll make another post about where the yaoi/shipping stuff is when I actually decide on it. 

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

Ok lets Go! 

One Piece, Law, and Femininity

Preface: Three warnings and a Request

Warning!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Law before One Piece:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pre-time  Skip Law

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

Now the good shit.

Post Time Skip Law 

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

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

Dressrosa: The Holy Grail of Uwu Law 

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

Wano: Then He Stayed

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

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

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

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

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

About Sanji:

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

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

Boruto Part 1: M.F.F

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MOTHERFUCKING FRIENDSHIP. Boruto and Mitsukis friendship is a chocolate covered marshmallow. Its sweet and pleasant and if i'm ever sad it's the first thing i’m going to go to. Mitsuki has no concept of personal space, social queues, or normal “human” behavior and that bother Boruto exactly zero percent. Boruto seems to genuinely enjoy how weird Mitsuki is and Mitsuki might actually feed off of Boruto's positive and cocky energy. Sarada is also a fucking delight when it comes to scheming and teasing her friends. 

Where her father was a self proclaimed loner and her mother had an inferiority complex that drove her to always try and act arrogant and had a quick tempered, Sarada is willing to go along with schemes if they interest her, is quick to tease and take teases and never feels the need to talk down to a friend unless they deserve it.

Her dry wit matches well with Mitsukis blunt yet playful honesty. An the scenes were they team up on Boruto Are genuinely funny but also show how great they are as friends. Because Mitsuki is always on Borutos side, you know what Borut is doing is wrong when he chooses to side with Sarada. It's fun because we get to see Mitsuki and Sarada playoff each other and we also get to see Boruto without the support of Mitsuki, which he has quickly come to fall back on. Also Boruto's actual life goal of support my friends” is just the goddamn best. I loved Naruto's underdog story, how he originally wanted to be Hokage to prove he was good enough, to get attention and hopefully make friends. That's great, good motivation guy. But FUCK THAT!  Borutos goals are so pure and come from such an interesting place that i can’t hate them. He doesn’t just want to support his friends because he cares about them, he wants to give the support he doesn’t feel he has. Boruto feels that his dad has abandoned their family- and he kind of has- and he doesn't want to make anyone feel that way. He wants to be the person who always supports his friends, not the one who leads them. Because leaders have things they have to do, goals they have to put before others and Boruto doesn't want to do that.

To further this point i really want to point out episodes 35-37, were we really get to see the power of MOTHERFUCKING FRIENDSHIP shine through in all the characters. This show has done ten times better than the original when it comes to introducing and evolving a large cast, though this has cost it in terms of pacing and advancing the plot.Or at least thats what ive heard as a complaint. I was to busy in my cloud of loving all of these characters to care. Also i”ve seen and read a disturbing amount of long running action adventure shounen manga, and i've become pretty numb to long over stretched arcs. Shounen anime is my second favorite type of any BTW, My first two being sports anime and magical girl anime. So you can imagine how little fucks i give that the overall plot isn’t going particularly fast.Any way, Those three episodes not only show MOTHER FUCKING FRIENDSHIP at its best it also highlights a really big problem with how the show portrays its character versus how the show -mainly the adults- talk about its characters.

SPOILER,SPOILERs,SPOILERS, GET THE FUCK OUT NOW!

*ahem* Kakashi is hosting the graduation exams this year, but before it he does several interviews were he asks the kids what they want to do and why they want to be ninjas. A large part of this episode is devoted to the fact that Boruto doesn't have a solid “reason” He says he wants to be a ninja because all his friends want to and he wants to support them in their goals and being a ninja is the easiest way to do that. He doesn't really have any plans of his own and is perfectly fine being the Mercy of the group. He originally says he wants to be better than Naruto but that isn’t the only reason. This pisses Kakashi off, he feels that Boruto not really having any plans means he lacks resolve and that can be dangerous on an actual mission. He feels that Boruto should want to become a ninja for some reason and that if he just waltzed into battle because he wants to be with his friends and beat his dad, without any goals of his own he won't have the strength to fight the really tough battles. Kakashi is WRONG. Everything the show ways shown us up until this points completely contradicts this way of thinking, Boruto would never risk a teammate or friend in any situation. His resolve to support his friends would only make him more valuable in a group setting. He has never been shown to  be the type not to make up his mind when it counts and always feels responsible for the safety and care of those around him. The biggest reason he was so obsessed with solving the ghost incidences was because he was the only who could see them and felt obligated to help because of that fact. Boruto has never been afraid to ask for help or get advice when he needs it and nothing about his character has shown the lack the resolve necessary to do what he must for his team and village. 

Though none of this matters because the conclusion the show appears to come to is that Kakashi is in fact wrong. After Boruto loses and the chips are down he states that he was wrong to become a ninja just to be with friends then figure what he wasn’t and that he inslt strong enough to support those goals. And Everyone says “FUCK NO BRO!” Everyone of Borutos friends tell him that it was his support that allowed them to grow and change as people and that if he wasn”t the way he ways they wouldn't be there.The problem with this is that the doubt he had wasn't there until kakashi said something. It's true that Boruto told Mitsuki it was kind of lame that he didn’t have high ambitions but he was fine with that. He’s just not the type to be overly ambitious, he's happy supporting his friends and knowing that they can fall back him when they need to. The show says that Boruto lacks the resolve to be a ninja, but it shows him to be reliable kid whos good to his friends and family -minus naruto- and who always tries to do the right thing. His friends also say that and they win against Kakashi by working together with Boruto.

And its even worse because at the end Kakashis like   “now you have the resolve to do what you have to.”  But Boruto hasn't changed in terms of his goals or his mindset. He still wants to support his friends and see them grow, he still as curios and intelligent as before. All that's happened is that he was forced to confront the previously nonexistent idea that maybe he wasn't doing good by his friends and that he needed have more self oriented goals. Boruto's version of friendship is, in my humble opinion, much better than Naruto's. People seem to actually like each other, they actively seek each other out. While a large portion go Naruto story was about him gaining friends in spite of Kurama, that doesn”t change the fact the supposed “friends” he did have treated im and each other like shit. It was perfect for the story that it existed in but can’t hold a candle to its successor.

If you like this stupidly long discussion-rant-review- thing please let me know. If you think i can improve somehow let me, but like in a nice way. If you’re a troll and going to be a dick no matter what, HI!

I agree anx honestly I don't have many issue with Sakura. I think shes happy being a housewife and Sarada and disappointed but understanding of her home situation. Heres The thing, I think a lot of peop, myself included, don't like how hinata handles Boruto and Narutos situation. Hinata knows that Naruto constantly being absent and missing birthday hurts her son and we can see that Boruto is gaining THE self esteem issue from it. She never calls Naruto out on it and always just tells boruto to be more understanding. I think she's not a bad mom, not even close. But that doesn't change the fact the shes allowing Naruto to act this way with no input on her part. Shino has done more to stand up for Boruto than her.

Mothers: Hinata,Sakura

First of all, what the f*** is wrong with being a housewife? What is wrong with a woman dedicating her life for her family? Her kids? Kids–who are a part of her! Family which she along with her husband so carefully built!

Secondly… It is not just the mother’s responsibility to raise a child… The father is in their too… So you might as well say that they are both responsible for spoiling a child.

Thirdly, it is not possible for a parent to control a child’s emotion… You think that Boruto’s behavior is because of Hinata and Naruto raising him wrong?? Then what about Himawari? Why is she so beautifully polite…

Fourth! A woman who is a housewife is not useless and weak, have you ever tried to raise a child? No, so then shut up about who is a good mother. So again hats off to a mother who is a housewife

Fifth!!!! As a 21st century person, you f***ing talk about how a woman lets her child cook??? You think Sakura’s a bad parent? Is that why Sarada turned out to be so polite??? So much capable?? So much respectful to her elders? You say Sakura is a bad parent just because she chose work?? Are you living in the 80′s??? A feat—a feat for a woman who has to raise a child all by herself (Sasuke is absent for most of the part, we’ll talk about that later!) jumbling work and responsibilities for the community yet coming home to talk to/lecture child about friendship… Have you ever done that? No, then shut that filth for a mouth of yours…

Hinata and Sakura are not f***ing weak to be become housewives or neglectful to be a working woman, they have their priorities defined in a different way!

These are the types of arguments that make me realize what kind of a world we all live in-where women are criticized for what ever they do…

p.s. it is supposed to be “off” in the second panel’s first line…

Reblog if this is the Winx you Remember and Love:

Anyone play or watch cardfight vanguard?

Reblog and like if you do I’m curious

YES! I thought I was alone in this world!

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

Dear Horror Podcast Creators,

Hi aroace person here. Ummm, could you stop making aroace people Standish unfriendly assholes that need to learn how to open up to people? Because three times a pattern, and I don't super love the pattern. Like we don't get a whole third of three main options for human affection. I'm an introverted weirdo who writes open letters to podcast writers on tumblr. But I do treasure and protect the few friends I have made. And I act pretty kindly to those others because, well, I'm not an asshole. It's just weird that there seems to be an unintentional correlation between being aroace and being cold and standoffish. I undertand its becuae they also happen to have trauma that makes them that way. But, for example, the sheridan tapes have two main characters. Both of them have trauma. One of them is cold and distant and the other is pretty socialble and talkative and has fucking friends. Which is the ace one and which isnt? Im not calling it out. I like the Sheridan tapes. I'm just saying it's weird that this keeps happening. So you know, mix it I guess. For me?

Sincerely, someone who will listen to the podcasts regardless because I have no morals.

P.s. TMA fans, please don't come for me. You scare me more than voltron people.