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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: October 7th, 2023

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  • Ah, I didn’t wanna give the impression of completely ordinary so as to be a character from Dostoevsky’s novels, but I guess how I wrote it can easily take the topic there. Just wanted to make the distinction between “you are someone special’s descendant, albeit without yours’ or viewers’ knowledge till the story ends” vs “you are someone special only through your efforts, even among the specialty group of ninjas, heroes, devil fruit users etc.” The first one has been pretty much trodden with either last minute revelations justifying huge power-ups, or setting the stage for the plot armor of the protagonists.

    I’d argue that the will of ancestors is different, and even their effect on Luffy’s development is rather through direct action than just being related by blood. Without Dragon directly interfering, Buggy would have got Luffy in Loguetown. “Strong blood” was never something openly used in One Piece before, even more it was pretty much criticized through some villains like Axe-hand Morgan’s fascist ideology and the showcases of Celestial Dragons.

    The illusion of re-emerging endurance through hardships all over again just thanks to willpower is just as a basic, and as a tired trope for plot as the use of ancestry, but it can nevertheless result in a good variety of situations like the post-Shabody separate training arc, and is a much more comfortable aspect to cheer for a protagonist through.

    Having the ancient and most powerful spirit emerge through the protagonist to beat up the bad guys is pretty much against how Luffy’s efforts are portrayed. Yes, Luffy does not acknowledge such a thing and plays the usual fool to not understand it, but for all intents and purposes, except for one to subvert later for a possible plot-twist, Luffy is regarded as Nika by the other characters and the audience. In my opinion, Luffy should have been rejecting such a thing as reincarnation or even personification of someone else outright so as to assert the quality, fun, and morals of his own efforts than to utilize ancient bloodline powers, like rejecting Raleigh’s offer for the explanation of One Piece and being played favourites as well as being deprived of the fun of overcoming things by oneself.

    Inherited will being a culture, thought structure, morals, or aspirations vs being some ancient person’s spiritual being has been pretty distinct for me in One Piece till about Nika exposè.

    It is a taste issue, and as far I can see you try to help out with the reframing the problem I have to resolve it, and I thank you for that.




  • Tbh I am really pissed about this in One Piece’s rather latest track. The will of D. and people with the D. names could have been pretty ordinary people with strong wills, good nature, social skills etc. opposing the injustices we see in the manga, but lately with all this reincarnation of Sun God Nika stuff, it is no different than what Naruto and Sasuke have been reduced to.

    I know it is 25 years in the making and cultures and perceptions change, along with perception of tropes in entertainment, but can we at least go beyond this “the special one” or “the chosen one” stories?

    I also know Oda has been a spectacular surpriser and a mangaka that can connect and change most trivial things to most core stuff to do unforeseen changes to the core of his world-crafting, but my doubts in One Piece being as unique as it was before the New World has been increasing these last 10 years of commercialization of it.





  • They meddled with the Islamic countries beyond what befalls them, and they helped the worst of the extremists come out in the instability they helped create.

    Besides, being some of the worst offenders on climate pollution per capita by far and making someone else’s homes burn to global warming first was bound to create these refugees whether those ecuador countries were stable and tried to counter the local symptoms or not. I’m not saying advancing the comfort of human living is a sin or anything zealous like that. All I’m saying is that glossing over personal and corporate consumption while neglecting apt measures in favor of decoy policies and trying to reflect the blame somewhere else was bound to have the problem become bigger and more apparent.

    They reap what they have sown over the last few decades. Trying to put up a gunship and gunboat barrier over Greece while bribing the corrupt Turkish president to keep over millions of Syrian refugees, let aside others flooding illegally in groups of hundreds from Afganistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, etc. will work so far to keep the facade on.

    Rising fascism in Europe is not a defense against the religious extremists. It is due to desire for continuity of personal comfort and freedom in the face of reckoning day, by ensuring those who they fucked over can’t come near and try to share in their abundance of resources.







  • 5.15. isn’t that bad of a kernel version in my experience. Admittedly, I’m don’t have any latest gen hardware at the moment, but using one generation back RX 6700XT without problems on it with Mint. Alternatively, one can install the newer 6.x kernels with a few clicks if needed, they are not actively blocked or unlisted.