#MOSTLY I'M EMOTIONAL

[nouverx]

Day 1 and Day 2 of RadioStatic Week

First Meeting and Sharing a meal! I like the idea that Alastor is the one who approached Vox first because of how unique he looks eheh

[welcometogrouchland]

ANOTHER SKETCH DUMP! Featuring more of me playing with lineless art. Batman reborn era trio (dick, damian and steph) I miss you...when will you return from war. Also featuring Steph designs bc I've seen ppl dissatisfied w/ her current look, some good mom Talia, and Jason Todd poetry club. Duke is confused not that Jason would start a poetry club but that he'd have such mid poetry opinions. (ID in Alt)

[betweenlands]

i need you all to listen to me. you know how youtube will sometimes randomly recommend videos with like, 58 views? sometimes the stars align and the fucked up algorithm does something right.

go out there and watch a smaller mcyter. sub-100k at the bare minimum, but ideally under 10k and even more ideally under 1000 subs. bonus points if they have in the low 100s to under 100 subscribers. watch whatever video you got recommended. watch another of theirs if you vibe with it. pick a specific series of theirs that you really like. subscribe to them.

now. this is really important. leave comments on the video or series you like. do a running gag if it helps remind you to comment. and more important than that: pick a story they're telling and engage with it. draw silly fanart even if you don't have any place to share it with them. write a tiny little story and keep it all to yourself. hype them up to your friends. get excited about this person's videos. if they do have a discord or whatever, send fanart, get involved in their community, et cetera, just --

i cannot stress enough how good it feels to have at least one tiny niche thing that's your special thing. it rules. the more you can get the better, in all honesty it doesn't even have to be an mcyter it could be an itch.io visual novel or something, just pick something obscure you stumble onto and hold it close and let it tell its story.

there will always be something there.

[keymintt]

autovivisection

[shannonsketches]

I just wanted to play with color on Toyotarou's art and I these panels spark the most joy

[l-in-the-light]

Trafalgar Law and shreds of closeness part 3: Donquixote Family Edition

What can I say, I got struck with inspiration yet again, the thoughts just do not want to leave me. This time it will get dark. And it will hurt, so feel warned. I will take a closer look at Law's closeness to the Donquixote Family and also do a small case study of affection between Doffy and Cora and their dad as well, to get a fuller context. Main focus will be on physical affection, yet again.

So what do you think, did Law get support and affection from his "second family"? I would say, very little. But let's look at evidence:

We have verbal support from Doflamingo himself when Giolla and Buffalo start to fear to touch Law or to even stay in the same room after they learn he's sick. That's 1:0 for him, I'm sure Law appreciated and remembered it. In retrospection, it would have been better for him if he didn't.

Then we have Giolla and Machvise who handled him like he's an object. Giolla keeps touching Law on the head, probably not caring why he seems displeased with it. She's just reinforcing the trauma, but I think overall she means well, she just doesn't think much about it. Giolla also shows Law the most physical affection and I swear it feels like she's trying to make up for her initial reaction, she's just not going the right way about it, making it worse instead.

Meanwhile we have Doflamingo, who despite defending Law before, never touches him. And I mean, never ever. Doffy remains cold not only with Law though, which we will see in a moment.

And then we have Baby5. She feels sorry for Law and even cried for him when she heard the story of Flevance (not in Law's presence tho), but she herself is bad with affection and care, because she also never received much, it also doesn't help that she is genuinely scared of Law's angry glares. All she can do to show him she cares is to smack and scold him. And of course when she does smack him it's on the head, which only becomes a trauma trigger over and over again. Those two just completely miss each other by a mile.

That's it. No other Donquixote Family's member ever tried to show some care in front of Law. They train him of course, but would you count kicking and punching him as a positive experience? Yeah, I don't think so.

And let's not forget Corazon, who carried Law like a bag of potatoes (and threw him around) for a long time, even after he kidnapped him. The Trip to Hospitals All Around the World kinda made him become better, holding Law close, trying to make him smile, carrying him all the time and at one point he even begs Law: "please give me the chance to do things right, stay strong for 3 more weeks!". Doesn't change the fact the touches he did give Law at the beginning were brutalized forms of affection, and we can't really forget that fact: that's exactly how Law's trauma of being touched on the head even started in the first place.

He already trained for awhile, but he still failed in the confrontation, and I think it was because of the touch. Being pinned down made Law probably freeze and unable to move. But even after being saved by Doflamingo, Law doesn't even try to seek support in him, unlike Baby5. Here we can see Doflamingo is alright if someone seeks comfort in him, but he will not give it by himself. That makes Doflamingo-Law combo the worst possible match up, a person who will never give it first and a person who will never ask for it, no wonder things were always cold between them.

Thanks to the fight against Smoker in Punk Hazard we learn that Law managed to overcome his trauma of being pinned down to a significant degree, because he manages to escape on his own. This scene gets an extra focus in the manga (it takes like 5 different frames!) which further convinces me it's that siginifcant. Law probably trained himself not to get overwhelmed like that ever again. Still, I can't help but notice soon after this happened Law starts to have troubles breathing, which means it still didn't leave him unaffected. He pushes to finish the fight faster afterwards as well.

One of his trauma triggers is feeling helpless and being pinned down definitely counts for that. I don't think this started with Vergo, I would say it was already a thing after Flevance, when he had to discover more and more dead bodies of people dearest to him, unable to do anything about it.

Let's look at his symptoms thanks to which we can recognize he's going through a triggering situation. Visible shivering, heavy panting (to the point of weezing which makes me think it can even go as far as bordering on hyperventilation or the opposite - apnea). And then in the last image he just goes stiff which I interpret as him completely freezing up. Damn, that's actually a lot. It's very similar to Robin's trauma responses in Water 7.

You can also notice that Law clenches his fists and it seems to be a sign that he's struggling or forcing himself to be strong. He still does it *a lot* when he's an adult. I think it might have honestly became a habit. He does that just before a battle, in most stressful situations when he knows he can't show his emotions (or just doesn't want to), and well, if we go by the anime version, also when he leaves Wano with his own crew. Basically any time he makes a firm resolve or a hard decision, he also does that. I swear sometimes it feels like he struggles for half of the Dressrosa and Punk Hazard, which you know what, might be way too accurate.

Also bonus wholesome points for Luffy caring more to support Law and Muucy than caring for falling into water himself. I'm not sure how much that helped Law when he was dealing with a triggering situation, especially that unfortunate contact with the top of his head. I guess it's still better than similar situation but with Law completely alone.

This puts this scene into a completely new perspective, right? He's shivering here and definitely froze up, even his speech bubble looks distressed. He's not getting angry here, his trauma trigger kicked in. I did check if he ever shivers or freezes up when he tries to, for example, stop himself from feeling angry, but no, we never see that happen. I'm sorry for ruining the comedy :( tho to make it better, he's also shocked, because just moments before Strawhats feared him, and now they already don't and even laugh at him. Damn, I'm now so torn about this scene, I mean, Strawhats couldn't have known!

Now a promised closer look at Donquixote family's approach to closeness and touch. When they were still Celestial Dragons, they barely touched each other. No small touches on the back, hand holding or anything else you usually share with kids. The closeness starts only after they're all starting to be persecuted. First time we see Doffy holding his mom's hand is when they run away from their burning house. First time we are shown Homing hugging his kids is when village people are beating them up and he is just trying to cover them with his own body, so he takes the beating instead of his kids.

The last memory Rosinante has of his father is the hug. And the first memory he has of Sengoku is also a sort of half-hug. Might be why he got so attached to him.

Little Doflamingo and Rosinante are always together, but they never touch in any way. It's clearly Doffy who takes care of his younger brother, probably also telling him to toughen up.

Weird mocking touch on the head from Trebol. And like always, no one ever touches Doflamingo, not even his own officers, and that's true ever since Doffy was a child.

He even tells Trebol he's too close. Doffy doesn't want touches anymore, because it seems in his mind he understands them as someone protecting him, and he doesn't need protection. Ever since he killed Homing, Doffy took the role of being a head of the family and protecting Rosinante, so no more hugs or hand holding for him. In other words, Doflamingo associates physical affection with protection and incoming abuse. And whenever he touches someone it's exactly for that reason: to hurt them.

An interesting parallel because this happens in exactly same chapter: Law is trying to move away because Luffy's "too close". He even lets him take the transponder away and just stands there and waits. And you might wonder: what for? Is he hoping Luffy will give it back by himself?

No, it just took some extra time for Law to brace himself to touch Luffy and shove him to the side. Even though both Doffy's and Law's first instinct here is to move away, Law is struggling but actually tries to overcome it, contrary to Doffy, who seems content in his "no touching" comfort zone.

Let's take a look at Dressrosa now. Doffy is carrying Law by his clothes, Law is unconscious, but he will not touch him directly anyway. Cora-san used to do it as well at first to Law.

But then, you might ask, they fought so much in Dressrosa, surely some kind of touch had to happen as a result? I mean, most of them were indirect touches with Doffy's strings, kicking Law or stopping him by grabbing his sword. But you are right, exactly two touches do happen. You're not gonna like it.

This is literally the first time Doflamingo ever touched Law. To stop his attack he forcefully grabbed his hand. Law is shivering, this actually triggers him, and there's just no way Doflamingo doesn't know that, he can feel it.

And then he makes the full use of the situation. Doflamingo holds Law up in the air, but we can see by the onomatopeia that he's literally holding him up by his hand alone and Law is just freely dangling there, Doffy's not using any strings to immobilize him, not even armament haki. He doesn't even need to. Finally he gave Law the touch he must have been craving when he was a child from him, but it's not a caring one, and what's the next thing Doflamingo does to that hand he just touched? He cuts it off, ripping open the psychological wounds, making them deeper, perhaps hoping Law will never recover from them. Because that's the easiest way to control him later if he wishes to do so, to make him pliant, defenseless and unable to fight back and terrified. But also to punish him for the "rebellion" against him... but also to punish Law for his need and fear of touch. This is a lesson: never want affection, closeness or touch, you're never getting any. Unless it's this: abuse. And if you don't think this is terrible enough, let me remind you: this is their first touch *ever*, Law probably waited for it when he was a kid.

And Law is just hanging there, not even trying to move, and it lasts for like three or four pages long, and I remember when I reread this a couple of times, I was a bit puzzled. Why isn't Law struggling to release himself? Why is he just letting this happen? Especially when it's becoming very clear what Doflamingo is gonna do next. So I have my answer: Law froze up, it's his body shutting off on it's own and all he can do is to just be there and wait for it to be over. It's painful, because we know Law always struggles, always fights back, and he tries here, with words, but he can't do anything else and he just watches it happen.

And this is the second time Doflamingo touches him. It's after the Gamma Knife attack, Doffy knows what he's doing here, he chooses to make contact with Law's head/face (he must have noticed Law's discomfort to it before when Giolla often did it to Law as a kid, and now he utilized this knowledge). He tries to make Law freeze up so he can't finish his move and who knows, maybe that was the final factor of why Law failed to kill off Doflamingo.

To wrap things up, I will share the interesting parallel that I think can be drawn between two rather unexpected characters: Law and Boa.

Both Law and Boa are most comfortable around Bepo (and the snake in Boa's case). Both are victims of brutalized touch and lack of loving and caring one. But while Law fearfully accepts what's given to him, Boa rejects it (even symbolically by kicking fluffy animals away or refusing any show of affection like gifts). Both are touch starved, but Boa will never even try to touch Luffy, and the only time Luffy touched her was in that stealth mission in Impel Down (they didn't have the choice) and hugging her after she gave him the key to Ace's cuffs. Boa doesn't return the gesture, she is very flustered and falls to the ground afterwards, which reminds me a little of her later scene with Rayleigh. Not even Boa's own sisters are shown to share any sort of physical affection with her, Boa shows cold and manipulative attitude to almost everyone besides them. The only other person Boa ever touched was Rayleigh (she's on the ground here again) after he helped them fight off Blackbeard's assault on Amazon Lily and it might be a traumatic response: Blackbeard tried to strangle her after all. Boa's love is passionate and platonic, she shows her affection and caring with indirect gestures (food preparation, offering support and help etc.), probably because that's what she remembers others tried doing for her before. She can't even deal with intimacy face to face and Law also tends to act cold to very open displays of affection and emotions.

Big thanks to @tae-rambles for mentioning the scene with Boa that completely slipped my mind <3 added it in the edit!

[sysig]

*You’re starting to feel very sleepy... (Patreon)

[anyoldfandom]

I just had. A devastating realization.

In episode 3, when Six says "In our line of work, we need to be careful. People we pull into this life, they can too easily get caught in the crossfire."

And that always stood out to me bc it feels pretty personal, but we don't actually know who he's talking about. Not Holiday - she was in Providence before they met. Not One, he brought Six willingly into the life, and people don't really turn due to exposure with EVOs, so Six wouldn't have "pulled" him into anything. Maybe White getting bleached, but that was more a result of his own actions.

I always kind of thought it was a character we never met, an ambigous "someone" that died in his past, but on a rewatch today, it clicked that while Rex was talking about Circe...Six was talking about Rex.

Six brought Rex to Providence when he could've brought him anywhere else. Providence would've believed the robot destroyed - they did believe the robot was destroyed. Thry definitwly had no reason to link it to this kid. But Six brought this child, this EVO, to a place where he had earlier that day watched them kill another EVOfor research, where they had other human EVOs explicitly caged to deconstruct. He took Rex into the lion's den to show Holiday, and Rex had no idea. Six could've been more careful, and taken Holiday to see Rex instead.

But he was emotional. He was tired from seeing One suffer, tired of killing people and monsters, tired of fighting an endless war. It's very possible that working for Providence is what turned Six from that shitty, cocky guy he was 20 years ago into the tired soldier he was when he met Rex. He saw hope, an opportunity to save people, to save his father and bring hope to the only other person who seemed to care about EVOs beyond killing them.

And for that, Rex suffered. White suffered. Six watched the man he loved be forced into an office and the child and hope he wanted to protect fall under Providence's grasp. He pulled Rex into the life because he wasn't careful, denied him any semblance, any opportunity of a normal life. Six became Rex's protector, but he can't protect Rex from the very thing he pulled him into - the mistake he made because he let hope and desperation drive him.

And...it also makes me wonder. Do you think he feels he doesn't deserve Rex? Do you think his heart drops when Rex jumps headfitst into danger? When he sees the kid hurt on the field, or pushing himself past his limits to save people - do you think Six feels guilty he's in that situation? If he'd been just a little smarter, this child wouldn't be suffering. More people overall would be hurt, sure - but the child he cares about, the child who made him into a better man, would be safe. It's a selfish thought from a man who has only known the selfish life of a mercenary for so long, a man we see selfishly cling to hope with One's suffering.

And part of me wonders if that's part of the reason why he trusts Rex, but he tries to play it by the rules first at the beginning of the show. Thay beyond just protecting Rex, he feels responsible for this current danger Rex is in, and that the best he can do is protect Rex as much as he can, to take the brunt of the consequences of Rex's rebellion and stunts on himself.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

just noticing lwjs bunny-ear hair ribbon. that's so cute

Good eye! Here's another little character design detail.

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

here's a fun fact: there were 114 jews in sunderland in 2001 (this was the only year i could find census data); the chances that roy billetted with a jewish family are like. vanishingly small. and i don't think he was canonically intended to be jewish but if there's no jews in a story i will add them (add us), and i really do think there's something about the alienation of growing up jewish away from any sort of jewish community that's very resonant with his arc. because he moves hours away from home and then he loses his grandfather — loses the person who was implied to be his primary caregiver, who had things left to teach him and never got the chance: how to ride a bike, but maybe also how to set a seder plate and build a sukkah and taper off caffeine the week before yom kippur once he's old enough. you can't pick up judaism through osmosis, is the thing, not unless you're around other jews. so he grows up five hours away from home and the school holidays, the holidays from football, never line up with his holidays so he doesn't celebrate; starts to forget what he would have been celebrating, or how. but then he comes back to london and phoebe's shit dad fucks off for good, and his sister decides they're going to raise her jewish. and it's fucking awful, having to learn his own culture from books and from his sister, pushing down the resentment that it's ingrained in her the way it isn't — the way it maybe never will be — in him, but he doesn't want phoebe to grow up feeling the way he did. and so he learns.

[brown-little-robin]

okay, I'm crowdsourcing advice for a minute, so bear with me and please lend some words if you have any:

I want to get out of the house more. Like, on a regular basis. Weekly, maybe. Preferably, I would like to be interacting with people—the same people—every time, for... like... accountability, but also because I am hoping to put myself out there as the 21st century's most neurotic platonic Casanova. Uh. Making a friend or more out of this would be desirable. But I think if I go out with the intention of making a friend, I will be disappointed.

So. I want to go do something, for that something's own sake. I don't want to go be fake once a week hoping to get a friend out of it.

However, the beautiful state of Iowa is a bit cultureless, and I am too introverted and easily overwhelmed for this world (e.g. going to bars is probably not gonna be my thing). So.... I guess.... any suggestions? opinions? thoughts on making friends in general, or finding good activities as an introverted adult, in general?

oh yeah, also: I am poor. that's a factor. so. signing up a class or similar is not a great option right now.

what the heck, I'll add a silly poll for fun:

[stirdrawsandreblaws]

a selection of dunmeshi discord emotes i made since the series started lol

feel free to use as icons too or edit or w/e idc let's just all have fun \o/

bonus: parasitic worm emotes under the cut bc i made them and we use them so why not lol

they're made to go together; server has the connected ones as :pa: :ra: :si: :te: and the final tiny one, optimized for dark mode discord, is :ohworm:

action screenshot:

[macbethisms]

the third prince is so interesting to me bc he's made of the themes. he subconsciously attempts to replicate his parents' power dynamic with his first (and only) real relationship except it's not even a real relationship bc his evil mistress is manipulating him the whole time. he looks like the physical ideal of warrior masculinity (you know. the one who died in the last book) except that he sucks and is useless and can't fulfill his singular purpose and literally everyone knows it. he's a hollow shell with nothing inside but also he's intelligent and perceptive and a whole person underneath it all but also it doesn't even matter who he is bc he's being slowly suffocated by other people's expectations and agendas but also he has no choice but to be nothing bc he can't be great. "what if you were willing to do anything to get what you wanted" well what if you didn't even know what you wanted. what if what you wanted was so completely opposed to who you are and what you were made for that you could never actually believe that you could have it. what then. he's happy about two people being tortured to death bc his mom didn't like them. he's the living embodiment of a crumbling heirless dynasty. he's a blushing maiden being seduced by an older man with ill intentions and he's a powerful royal whose lover is wholly reliant upon him for survival. he and baoxiang are both punishing each other for the things they hate about themselves. his death causes the end of the book. and he's been dead since the day he was born.

[cordeliawhohung]

me: oh boy, i've been having the absolute worst time with my mental health lately, have cried every day for the last week straight, have been having the most insane and disgusting family drama known to man, but at least i have my blorbos (:

annnnnnnnnd back to my hiatus i go. (maybe enjoy the 76k words of the FREE story you're reading and not have this be your first comment unless you wanna get blocked <3)

[hypervoxel]

Oh, so, like, the entire first season's establishment of the characters and their interactions don't actually matter in Helluva Boss. Okay, cool.

Like, I get that characterization develops over time and the writers come up with new ideas and places they want to take the story, but. So much of the Stolas/Blitzø stuff recently isn't character development: it's retconning.

[39oa]

Jason Robertson for ESPN’s The Point

I have a lot of kids and... people who come up to me and [are] like, "Oh, you're Jason Robertson," and they're Asian and they want a picture. Or I remember going to a game, during the season, and I saw a Filipino flag.