#unironically. sent by god

[goatsandgangsters]

Book Review: Januaries by Olivie Blake

★☆☆☆☆ [1/5 stars]

DNF at 34% / after 4 stories / on page 133

This was a slog, with juvenile writing, flimsy storytelling, and nothing particularly interesting to say.

I tried. I really tried. But after thinking, "I'm not enjoying this. Maybe I'll try one more?" after every single story, I can't do it. I can't try just one more. I'm not strong enough.

The writing style was unimpressive. It alternated between unsuccessfully attempting a lyrical voice and (much more often) writing in what I've now termed "meme voice"—a quippy, modern-slangy, overly casual tone that often jarred with the fantastical fairytale setting. The two styles together clashed, and neither was wielded with much success.

The short stories themselves seemed to take a very long time to accomplish very little. There was a lot of needlessly convoluted setup, where the only payoff was the exact same cookie-cutter couple falling in love. Again. Seemed extremely roundabout. None of these stories are really "doing anything."

I picked this up because the cover is gorgeous and I thought the seasonal framing would make it a good pick for the start of the year. While the cover remains gorgeous and has thankfully not decayed Dorian Gray-style, even the seasonal framing seems arbitrary. Maybe it becomes clearer with later stories in the collection, but so far there hasn't been anything to tie these stories to their particular season thematically. There's no sense of temporality at all, which seems careless given this collection is structured around time.

I try really hard to finish everything that I pick up by choice. I don't DNF lightly. I can't even remember the last time I outright gave up. But my good will as a reader has been completely squandered and I don't think there's any benefit to continuing—either for myself or for this review, which would probably devolve into angry swearing if I tried to force myself through an insurmountable 200 more pages.

I haven't read any Olivie Blake before, though I know of her. Maybe her novels are stronger (short stories are their own unique skill set), but unfortunately I'm not very motivated to find out, as this was a poor first impression.

Below are my notes that I jotted while reading each story:

The Wish Bridge: 2.5 stars Writing is very juvenile. Alternates between attempting a lyrical fairytale voice (itself meh) and extremely modern slang-y phrasing, which is jarring. Feels like flash fiction on tumblr, but not in a good way (aka trying too hard to rules-lawyer a trope or genre convention, instead of telling an actual story). Not a strong start for a collection.

The Audit: 1 star Took a long time to do not very much, which is not a great quality in a short story. The whole setup seemed like a needlessly roundabout way to achieve what it wanted to achieve; I was expecting it to do More based on the premise. The meme-y voice still isn't my favorite, but it fit better for this story and this character. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around someone unironically writing and publishing this story In This Economy. It truly boggles my mind that this story has NOTHING to say about labor OR free will vs destiny. Truly taking the speculative out of spec fic.

TUMBLR EXCLUSIVE: I hated this short story so much that I had to text @opheliaintherushes venting about the bizarre pointless premise, and I think you'll all hate it too, so I'm transcribing my annoyed texts below so you know that I am Justified In My Ire once you understand the plot [editor's note: annoyed texts have been condensed for clarity]: so it's set in what I'm ASSUMING is a near-future sci-fi setting where using ~technology, they have this new pilot program where people in their 20s can find out how much money they're going to earn in their entire life, get the whole lump sum upfront as a loan, go enjoy their youth, and then when they're like 35 they go do whatever job they're "meant to do" that earns them all that money in the first place You might think the point of this setup is to explore something about work or wealth or youth or capitalism. You would be wrong. Our annoying 20-something protagonist finds out the ~terrible news that she now has 40 MILLION DOLLARS IN HER BANK ACCOUNT. She has to go to grad school when she's 30 so she can get the qualifications for her job at age 35, but otherwise she has a decade to enjoy HAVING 40 MILLION DOLLARS Also did the question of free will or fate factor into this ever? No. It did not. She spends the entire short story doing absolutely nothing. She said she was going to quit her job to travel. She doesn't do this. She repeatedly GOES TO WORK. (She works in, wait for it, a bookstore because of course she does of COURSE she fucking does. and it's a ~chill bookstore that makes all its money selling rare books so she doesn't have to do like, any work). It is so many pages of her just like, considering buying Nice Chocolate and then getting stressed and not buying it. And then continuing to go to work The thing that she DOES do is repeatedly hang out with her downstairs neighbor in his apartment that he never leaves ever. He only got several hundred-thousand dollars, because he's going to die young, which is why he's stopped leaving the apartment (again: do questions of fate come into play here? No) They fall in love, which apparently was the actual point of this short story. Seems like a whole lot of unnecessary setup to me just to write a story about falling in love with your weird neighbor So anyway, after doing absolutely nothing with her 40 MILLION DOLLARS for like twenty pages except think about how she doesn't really know what to do with it, it ends with her renting a bunch of famous paintings from museums and bringing them to this guy's apartment so that he can enjoy them without leaving his apartment. The end. hold onto your blood pressure, but her roommate is in law school (she chose not to find out her ~destiny) and the protagonist is like "do you want me to like, pay for law school" and the roommate says no (??) and the protagonist is like "I just want to make things easier on you" and the roommate says AND I QUOTE "things being easy isn't the point." which like WHAT. in this economy????? Why are you setting up a story about WEALTH AND FATE AND PREDESTINATION AND WORK to literally just bone your neighbor I'm literally staring at the wall of my cubicle and thinking "I don't know if I can do it. I'm not strong enough." Usually books that I hate take longer than this to go off the rails. It's been 51 pages. There's 300 more.

this was also the point when I came on tumblr and complained to you all about my suffering, but then I continued to read two more stories "just in case it got better." It didn't.

Sucker for Pain: 3.5 stars On a style level, the writing was worlds better than the first two. But in terms of plot and character, it was basically every YA paranormal fantasy that's ever been written condensed into 40 pages, so it wasn't really for me. At least that there was some degree of prose.

My feeling is again that we just sort of meandered around for 40 pages. There isn't a strong sense of purpose here, or that real kick that short stories are meant to have. So far none of these have been Doing Anything in a storytelling sense

The Animation Games: 2 stars Well, this one went in directions I did not expect, which is not the same as Doing Something. Again took too long to do very little of substance and unfortunately it devolved into meme-y-ness and a very typical couple dynamic that's been done to (ha) death. I kept looking at the number of pages and feeling deeply frustrated that there were more of them. Romantically murdering each other with weird antics like somebody decided they wanted Tom/Jerry instead of Tom & Jerry went on for an excruciating number of pages.

Shoutout to one of the worst sentences I've ever read: "He let the water coat his lips, seeping coolly onto his tongue, before it slithered gradually down his throat and settled conclusively in his stomach." Slithered? Settled conclusively?? Maybe I shouldn't have complained about the meme voice if this is what her attempts at being lyrical are like. But unfortunately this sentence lives in the same story as meme-voice dialogue such as "I sort of assumed you were the regular kind of dead." It's painful.

The only thing I felt after this story was exhausted relief that it was over.

In conclusion: I would recommend this book to people who want to look at the cover without ever opening it.

[cdroloisms]

c!quackity is bad at being evil

strongly agree / agree / ambivalent / disagree / strongly disagree / don’t care whatsoever

c!quackity is bad at literally everything BUT being evil more like

[tayloralisonswift]

talking to homophobic christians

[arielluva]

waiting for files to upload and having a moment about feelings ive had my entire life but never realized i had

[deedjre]

my aunt sent me a bible verse saying that it might help with my anxiety and it. i shit you not. opened with "do not be anxious" and i'm losing my mind

[crowtrobotx]

every time that “don’t use AI chat to talk to your favorite characters, find an RP partner!” post rolls around my dash I have to laugh bc like I agree in theory but I am always reminded that my one (1) attempt to get into the tumblr RP community years and years ago was the single most unpleasant online experience I think I’ve ever had. literally how do so many self-centered, cliquey, outrageously rude people exist in one place.

[linabirb]

i saw what you reblogged about chinese characters and. i almost cried. how did you pass. are you okay. do you need an ambulance.

I. I HAD SUFFERED SO MUCH. to be honest i'm not one of the best students in my class when it comes to chinese, mostly bc i skipped some classes, usually bc of health problems WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT HOW I SKIPPED ONE CLASS TO GO AND WATCH MAHIRU'S MV and uh. y e a h i had to do more assignments than other students so that i could get more grades and all of that.

idk if i've mentioned this before but our chinese prof actually wanted to have like. summer classes with us, like, not officially, but you know, she was just afraid of us forgetting everything because of the summer break and was like "so yeah, if anyone wants to go somewhere and just sit there and continue learning chinese, we can do that" AND I REFUSED. honestly, i love this prof a lot and she's very funny and her classes are interesting, but. please. i need a break. also that one classmate who annoys me the most you know the one btw she actually started acting even worse i just didn't tell you anything was the first one to agree to have those summer classes and she even continues to ask us if anyone will go with her AND NO!! LEAVE US ALONE!! (also sorry can i rant for a bit. so like our prof told us that we can pick any place, since those classes are not official and we don't have to actually go to uni, so this girl ORGANIZED LITERALLY EVERYTHING WITHOUT ASKING US and went "okay that's it we're going to the cat cafe i work at. that's where we'll have those classes. that's it." and when one of my classmates was like ".. but what if someone is allergic to cats" she just. stood there. istg if i hear her say something like "oh i just act like that because i have a hyperfixation and my hyperfixation is cats <3" LIKE?? STILL?? PLEASE THINK ABOUT OTHERS TOO???)

and also. my family keeps saying that it's okay i'm just a freshman (well not anymore but still) it's normal that i'm kinda bad at chinese but also. i spent like six or seven years learning japanese and i still don't know it that well so ;w; i just wish they would stop saying things like "oh you're so good at languages and all that stuff" like. i'm not even that good at english. come on. and also we actually had one class with our seniors AND THEY WERE JUST AS BAD AS US. i even was like "b-but i thought that if we spend more time learning, we'll get better-" and one of those students was like "WE THOUGHT SO TOO GIRL 😭" i will never forget how one of those seniors was like "hey btw i think i'm getting better at chinese" and our prof was like "really? :) can you write this character for me then" and he did it while looking so confident and i thought what he wrote looked really pretty and then the prof was like "please go back to your seat before i kill you right where you stand :D"

[kazutoes]

WHAT DID YOU EVEN DO IN TOMODACHI LIFE

OH MY GOSH AHAHAHHA OKAY so tomodachi life was the first game i ever preordered, well, begged my mom to preorder because the minute i saw it it was LOVE at first sight-- i watched the nintendo direct several times, i learnt every single thing there was to learn about it then when i got it i was in HEAVEN, originally i made my family and friends but it devolved to when i got a new hyperfixation i made a new island, and id try nd shove my favorite ships together-- i also just love how silly it was and i would make songs + make sure my miis all got matching outfits, im p sure my original lookalike got to level 20 (which is max) and she was dripped out so much

it gets even BETTER bc i've even played a little bit of tomodachi collection (which i love), and while doing that i found a save editor so i ended up just smooshing all my favs together anyway via that way, i dont really play it a lot anymore but it is one of my FAVORITE games ever -- i pray to god that nintendo will listen to our prayers and give us tomodachi life on switch or hell, even the next gen console

tl;dr: NINTENDO PLEASE YOULL GET 350 DOLLARS FLAT IF YOU RELEASE TL ILL BUY A SWITCH ON LAUNCH

[ughmulder]

hot like the tropicz

[feminariden]

LESS THAN 3 HOURS TO THE GAZA CEASEFIRE

[forgetmenotsystem]

.

[kxsagi]

HIII this is my first time requesting so😭😭

I was wondering if you could make the bllk boys having a streamer gf who's basically the funniest person ever?? Like she lowkey glazes herself and then the next moment she starts cringing when she sees the "y/n core" videos on tiktok. (You can add any1, just plzlzlzlzl add Hiori, Karasu, n Kaiser!!)

Bonus prompt: maybe streamer reader who still stays up late at night to stream and her bf is so deadass tired of her yelling and screaming in the other side of the room that he comes there and stares at her while the door creaks slowly as she plays horror games. She gets jump scared by her ugly ahh bf /j

“𝐢’𝐦 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 *𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬*”

a/n: this had to be one of my favorite requests to write for

and i'm sorry i couldn't figure out a better title idea 💀

ft. hiori yo, karasu tabito, kaiser michael, itoshi rin, itoshi sae, isagi yoichi, shidou ryusei, nagi seishiro

hiori yo

hiori didn’t even realize you were a streamer when he first met you. he just thought you were like, a social butterfly with a particularly aggressive discord server. 

then one night, he saw you on twitch – camera on, screaming over a boss fight, yelling “I GOT THAT DOG IN ME” before immediately dying. you threw your headset across the room. it was love at first sight. 

your duality confuses him so bad. you’ll be on stream going “guys i’m literally a divine being sent by the simulation to enlighten humanity with my content 😋” and then an hour later you’re doomscrolling tik tok whispering, “why did someone make a ‘me-core’ edit using ✨creepy reverb lana del rey audio✨… i don’t even own a taxidermy bunny.” 

hiori has a burner tik tok account where he just likes all your edits. he won’t admit it. but he does. 

if you stream late at night, he always gets up halfway through, rubbing his eyes, looking like a baby panda, and just mumbles “babe… pls… not the five nights at freddy’s mod again…” 

you get jump scared and scream, not because of the game, but because he’s standing in the dark doorway like a victorian child ghost. “you almost made me shit my chair, don’t do that!” “bed. now.” you whine until he drags you off cam by the hoodie. your viewers think it’s romantic. 

karasu tabito

karasu found your stream randomly one night and IMMEDIATELY followed because “wait… why is she kinda insane. i like that.” 

he joins your discord and bullies you lovingly in VC. “yo, did you just hype yourself up and then lose to a 12-year-old in valorant? L-stream, honestly.” “i’m literally god. i am the main character. i could seduce anyone, anytime.” “bold of you to say that while getting shot in the ass by a roblox avatar.” 

but he also unironically thinks you’re the funniest person ever. he clips your dumbest moments and adds meme captions before sending them in your friend group chat. 

every time you find a “[name]-core” tik tok you audibly gag. “WHO MADE THIS. WHY IS IT SLOWED + REVERB. WHY AM I STANDING IN A FIELD. WHY IS THE CAPTION ‘she was soft, but strong’-- I JUST STREAM MINECRAFT.” 

karasu’s like “nah, but they ate with that. that’s exactly your vibe.” he’ll even say that on stream just to watch you suffer. 

during horror streams, he intentionally opens the door and just stands there like a menace with a cup of water. you scream and almost die IRL. “WHY ARE YOU BUILT LIKE A LOUD JUMPSCARE???” “you love me 😌”

kaiser michael

kaiser is an attention whore. the second he found out you had a fanbase, he started doing PR. “this stream would be way better if you had a hot cohost, just saying.” “do you want to play or are you just here to inflate your ego?” “yes.” 

you constantly glaze yourself on cam like “i’m carrying this server. i’m so powerful. how do people even function without me,” and then kaiser strolls in behind you and goes, “hey guys, don’t believe her lies. she just got killed by a goat in-game.” 

your chat LOVES him and it pisses you off. “WHY are y’all saying ‘kaiser nation rise’?? this is MY stream!!” 

he deadass becomes a meme. someone edits him with villain music every time he enters your room while you’re playing horror games. 

you’re about to beat a boss when you hear the door go creeeeeak. kaiser leans in with the most punchable face asking, “need help, champ?” you throw your mouse. 

but also? he tucks you in when you pass out in your gaming chair at 2 AM, muttering “of course she passed out mid-stream again.” turns off your lights and sets an alarm for you. 

you wake up to a note that says “your villain made you breakfast, don’t get used to it 🌹” 

itoshi rin

rin hates stream culture. HATES. IT. he walked into your room one night and heard you go “i’m literally slay-coded and built like a tax return,” and just stood in the doorway like you were a stranger. “what the hell are you talking about.” “it’s for the brand, babe.” 

he’s always muttering under his breath when you’re live. like you’ll be gaming with the mic hot and rin’s just in the back going “why is she screaming like that. it’s a raccoon, not satan.” 

you scream again and he yells back, “IT’S NOT EVEN CHASING YOU.” 

chat lives for it. they call him “the offscreen hater,” and you know someone made a slowed-down tik tok of his blurry silhouette in the background of your cam with the caption “he doesn’t love the world, but he loves her.” you wanted to die. 

sometimes, he just opens your door mid-stream and doesn’t say anything. just stares. and leaves. you get scared every time. 

“guys my boyfriend just jumpscared me more than this entire horror game.” rin offscreen: “skill issue.” 

itoshi sae

sae’s your boyfriend, your mod, your stream saboteur. he’s not even subtle. 

he’ll donate to your stream under fake names like “bankruptcy enjoyer” or “ur bf’s hotter” and say things like “why does she act like she’s funny. someone humble her.” 

you know it’s him. he doesn’t even try to hide it. when you call him out, he just goes, “prove it. court of law style.” 

sae walks in when you’re in full hype mode yelling “I’M A NATIONAL TREASURE,” and he just raises an eyebrow like, “they lied to you.” 

he takes photos of you mid-stream while you’re frozen mid-yell or making some cursed expression and sends them to the group chat. “can someone please take her internet away.” 

during your horror streams, he’ll open the door just to toss something into the room, like a pillow or sock, and you’ll scream and fall off your chair. he’s laughing like a proud gremlin. “you’re the worst!” “and yet you keep letting me in.” 

isagi yoichi

isagi is the sweetest mod to ever exist. he’s there in chat cleaning up spam, pinning your donation goals, hyping you up like “SHE’S GOT THIS 🔥” every time you enter a boss fight. 

he also helps you review VODs and timestamps your funniest moments. he’s invested in your stream like it’s the world cup. 

you’ll be gassing yourself up like “i’m the blueprint, i’m the moment, i’m the–” and isagi’s in chat like “YOU ARE 🫡.” 

but then… you find a “[name]-core” video with melancholic lofi and black-and-white clips of you saying things like “i think my toaster’s gaslighting me” and you spiral. 

isagi tries so hard not to laugh. “i mean… it is kinda deep if you think about it.” 

he’s so sleep-deprived because of your night streams. there was one time you screamed during a horror game and he ran in half-asleep, baseball bat in hand, yelling “WHO’S HERE?! WHO HURT YOU?!” 

it was just a pixel zombie. you peed a little from laughing. 

shidou ryusei

shidou would rather die than miss one of your streams. he doesn’t even care about the gameplay, he’s there for the chaos. 

every time you start acting delulu, he matches your energy like “YEAH SHE’S A GODDESS, ALL HAIL HER.” “i will smite you, shidou.” “okay mommy 🥴” 

he hijacks your streams. if you don’t lock your door, he’s bursting in with a red bull and climbing onto your bed in the background like a jungle gym. 

one time he scared the life out of you by opening your window mid-stream while you were playing a horror game. you screamed and accidentally headbutted your mic. 

chat was crying laughing. someone made a gif of it and called it “shidou jumpscare arc.” 

he once made a “[name]-core” video entirely in capcut. it had stick figures, comic sans captions like “crazy but hot,” and explosion sound effects. it went viral. you’ve never recovered. 

nagi seishiro

nagi watches your stream like it’s bedtime ASMR. you’ll be yelling and raging and he’s just lying there on your floor with a blanket over his head, unbothered. “mm, background noise. nice.” 

he likes when you hype yourself up. you’ll go “i’m literally cracked” and he’ll mumble, “you are. carry me next game, yeah?” 

if you’re still streaming when he’s trying to sleep, he’ll get up slowly, peek into your room like a zombie, and just stand in the doorway. not blinking. silent. “is… is that my boyfriend or the grudge?” you get scared every single time. he finds it funny in a deadpan way. “you’re so jumpy. wow. embarrassing.” 

one night you were crying-laughing at a “[name]-core” tik tok where someone said “her voice sounds like unmedicated lightning,” and nagi, without even opening his eyes, went, “that’s kinda accurate.” 

you slapped him with a pillow mid-stream. 

© 𝐤𝐱𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐢

[loony-binz]

Some bitchass TWST hcs (feel free to request someeee)

Epel is trans (fight me) 

Vil has to be hyper-aware of his facial expression because he has resting bitch face

Leona is a piece of shit stoner

Adding to that, Jack always is on the verge of tears around Leona because the stench of marijuana is PUNGENT

Riddle has naturally rosy red cheeks, so a lot of people think he’s either embarrassed or irritated with something

Rook has freckles from all the time he’s spent in the sun, and uses makeup to cover them (CANON?!?)

Floyd watches National Geographic like it’s the Super Bowl

Azul is like Velma, where he always drops his goddamn glasses, and sometimes Floyd purposely pushes him so his glasses fall off

Cater almost leaked his own nudes like the dumbass he is

Ruggie decided to steal some of Leona’s edibles thinking they were normal brownies, and claims he saw the face of God (it was Mickey)

Rook was found in the school vents at least once

Ortho has threatened to dox someone via an anonymous account because they bullied Idia online

Ortho has successfully doxxed someone

Idia’s hair has almost burnt down his room because he couldn’t defeat a boss

Lilia has a tattoo, but he refuses to reveal where (it’s a tramp stamp)

Malleus has fallen for every single deez nuts joke known to man

Sebek has also fallen for every single deez nuts joke known to man

Ace is scared of spiders, and Jamil canonically hates bugs, so one time the entire school freaked out because they had heard the most HIGH PITCHED and LOUDEST scream they’ve ever heard. Turns out it was Ace and Jamil cooking when they found a spider.

Kalim smacked his head on the top of a door frame while riding a magic carpet

Ortho accidentally leaked Idia’s fanfic account, and Cater bookmarked his fics

Jade knows Lilia is Silver’s dad, and has threatened to have make out with him just to make Silver uncomfortable 

Silver listens to the shittiest music you can think of

Deuce sings in the shower

Trey unironically thinks minion memes are funny, and it has made Cater cry

Riddle can eat an entire cake in one sitting without feeling an inkling of nausea

Kalim, Lilia, and Cater made the shittiest track you could ever think of and posted it to SoundCloud

Idia found their track and almost threw up

After Idia’s fanfic account was leaked, Cater showed it to Kalim and Kalim tried ask what ABO was. 

Ortho told him what the acronym stood for, and Kalim thought he was talking about robots, so Jamil shut off the internet for a week

Jack tried to high-hive Epel, and Epel’s hand was red afterwards

Trey and Che’nya made an entire cake and sent it to Riddle’s mom anonymously with the words “eat my ass” written in frosting

Neige secretly owns a Vil stan account

Vil secretly owns a Neige hate account 

Someone tried to make a “ur mom” joke to Malleus and he just responded with “my mother is dead.” With a completely straight face

Idia is the pinnacle of toxic k-pop stans (kinda canon but-) like it’s so bad that it blows the toxicity of the k-pop stans in this world out of the water

Vil had to slap the sense back into Epel because he was binding unsafely 

He also got him the most boujee ass binder you’ve ever seen

Trey has a model of teeth. Not even like dentures just like- a model of the average human mouth. 

Leona is a thigh man. Argue with the wall.

Cater and Idia have gotten into the CRAZIEST internet beef

Somehow, out of the two of them, Cater got cancelled

edit: YUHHH so I made a masterlist and a pinned post!!! For all that like my HCs PRETTY PLEASE send me some requests!! I wanna get to writing again! •v•

[kisapmta]

love is a stillness i never knew | c. sturniolo

series masterlist

summary: you meet a cutie in the sauce aisle of the grocery store.

pairing: christopher sturniolo x fem!reader

warnings: none. for context, oc is 22!

notes: was inspired on vday by sam smith’s new song and just got around to finishing the first part. this is literally all just context and set up and back story and nothing too exciting but i hope u still enjoy<3

word count: 4k

—

Every girl dreams of being in love.

Well, maybe not every girl. And maybe not in the same way you do—which was often and unrealistic. Delusional. For as long as you could remember.

It started the day you watched Cinderella for the first time. You were 4 years old. Naive and sitting too close to the TV, you were completely engrossed by the way Prince Charming refused to stop searching until he found the slipper’s perfect match. The movie ended, and from then on you wondered who was going to yearn for you like that. Like a prince does his princess. Would he also sweep you up in a carriage? Or fight off an evil witch? Maybe he would be Flynn Eugene Rider. God, you hoped.

As you got older, your wonder never left, but reality had reshaped your options into much less promising prospects. Would he be the one who baited you into a 6 month long talking stage—the one with no balls who said ‘I wanna be with you, baby, but I’m just not ready for a relationship yet.’ Or maybe it was the one your friends nicknamed Oedipus—mommy’s boy—who couldn’t drive and didn’t have a job and still needed her help to wipe his ass.

Maybe it was the one who cheated on you. Twice. Because you loved him. And after the first time, with an ‘I’m sorry’ note attached to the first bouquet of flowers you had ever received from a guy, you swore he changed. So you took him back.

And then he cheated. Again.

It was a devastating roster. And yet, through every disappointing experience, you clung to your dream of love. You kept searching. Kept trying. Kept running headfirst into walls that, in hindsight, had been plastered with red flags.

And just when you started to think maybe you were asking for too much—maybe love wasn’t meant to be the way you imagined—he came along.

The almost. The one you thought was going to be different.

He was tall and well-built and had his own business. He always opened the door for you to the passenger side of his Porsche. He cooked. He cleaned. He knew how to follow basic hygiene practices. Not once did he ever say, ‘One more game, I promise, we’re just about to rank up.’ He didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. He gave you flowers—and not ‘I’m sorry I cheated on you flowers’, but roses sent to your doorstep by the delivery man. He bought you a sparkly, expensive bracelet. Took you on extravagant dates and could hold a conversation if he was interested in the subject. Even your parents liked him.

In theory, he was kind of perfect.

But he was old. And serious. And never laughed at your tik tok references—not because they weren’t funny, but because he didn’t really get them. He was always busy with business meetings and corporate events he had to attend. Of course, he would invite you. But after going to the first one, and what to you, felt like a literal LinkedIn mutuals meet and greet from your own personal hell, you wanted to poke your eyes out. It was not for you. The empty handshakes and the overwhelming smell of weird cologne and the way everyone unironically said ‘noted’.

And the thing is, it didn’t stop at the venue. These things followed you into dates, where conversations felt more like networking than anything real. Where his hand never reached for yours, where his eyes never lingered. Where love felt like an afterthought.

Work first, always.

Love, if there was time.

Because that’s who he was—a businessman, through and through.

So you tolerated it. The ever-growing emptiness in your chest, the sense that something was missing, though you couldn’t quite name it. At least he treated you well.

It wasn’t until he sat you down one day, looked you in the eye, and asked you to move with him to Hartford, Connecticut—to settle down for his business, to maybe start a life together—that you laughed. In his face.

You hadn’t even meant to, but the answer was so obvious. You weren’t ready for that. You did not want that. He was great on paper, sure, but there was no spark. No connection. No love.

And so, with Mr. Old Fuck, your childhood dreams finally started to crack.

———

“—And bitch, he was actually serious. Like I swear this was genuinely the first time I’ve seen him excited to do something together since that first event.”

It hadn’t even been an hour since Businessman asked you to drop everything you had in LA and move to Hartford, and you were already on the phone with Val, your best friend, debriefing yet another failed roster pick.

“Literally the first time I think I’ve seen him have a thought behind his eyes while talking to me in the four months we were together,” you added, dramatic but, in your opinion, entirely accurate.

“And what did you say?” she asked, barely holding back a smile.

“Nothing. I just laughed.”

There was a beat of silence before she lost it, laughter splitting through your phone speaker.

“Bitch—”

“No because I thought he was joking! And then he didn’t laugh with me and I was like, ‘Oh fuck, he’s serious.’” You explained between your own giggles, the memory of the conversation still ridiculous to you. “So then I had to make up some corny bullshit like ‘I think you deserve someone who’s ready for that life with you right now.’”

“No way,” she gasped. “You laughed in his face? Oh my God, I wish I was there.”

“To be honest, so do I, like I actually feel kinda bad. I literally wanted to point at him while laughing—maybe you could’ve stopped me.”

“Absolutely not.”

She never met him in person—never got the chance to, since he was always at work—but the second you told her he was 32, she imagined the guy to have halitosis and already gone through crown balding. He didn’t, obviously. But she just never took him seriously. Even when he treated you well. Even when he checked all the right boxes. Because she knew, in a way you hadn’t yet admitted, that he wasn’t the one.

“Four months in and you’re gonna ask me to move states with you—before even moving in together, like are you insane?” you groaned.

“He was old,” she stated, like it explained everything.

You didn’t acknowledge her, too wrapped up in your disbelief to have actually processed what she said. “But what do you mean Hartford? Like what is there for me?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing for you in Hartford—probably just more old people.”

You sighed. “Exactly. And I mean, I get that he had his whole business thing, but what did he expect me to do there? Sit?”

She giggled at this. “Pretty much, I guess.”

You breathed a laugh through your nose. “Why would he ever think I’d want that.”

You heard her shuffling around, absent minded as she replied, “‘Cause he didn’t know you.” Her tone stated it like it was obvious.

Oh. A small crack splintered through your chest. It hurt to hear out loud what you’d been denying to admit to yourself for months. You opened your mouth to say something—to defend him, for some reason—but the words never came. Because she was right.

He did know some things about you; your schedule, your coffee order—except he always got it slightly wrong. He remembered the easy things, the surface-level details, but he never asked about anything deeper.

You exhaled. “But it just made sense, you know? He was kind of everything I ever wanted. To be spoiled and taken care of.”

Val didn’t hesitate. “But it wasn’t enough.”

The earlier amusement between you two faded, leaving something else in its place. A quiet frustration that never fully went away.

You sighed, rubbing a hand over your face. “I just don’t get it.”

Val hummed. “What? He was weird, you dodged a bullet, end of story.”

“No, but like—it’s always like this.” You exhaled sharply. “Like, it’s not like I chase these guys. I don’t throw myself at them. They find me. Literally normal dudes I think I can finally be on the same page with, and then boom—just kidding, I actually spawned from Satan's ass.”

Her laughter came back. “Yeah,” she admitted. “You do have the worst luck.”

“Thanks,” you said blankly.

She continued. “I mean it. The roster is insane, every guy you've dated is so… unique.”

“Fuck off, Val, I’m serious,” you groaned. “Like, is this just my fate? He was perfect and he still turned out to be a freak—like what the fuck.”

She tsked at you. “No, dude,” she started, “you’re just unlucky.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

Val sighed. “Look, you’re not doing anything wrong. You just keep meeting guys who think they want love but have no idea what that actually means. And because you’re normal, it just takes a while before their weird intentions start to fully reveal themselves.”

This was not the first time you were hearing this. After receiving this same advice for a second time post Oedipus break up—the first time being after No Balls—the words kind of lost meaning to you. You groaned again, turning on your side. “So what, is this it then? This is how it’s gonna be forever?”

“Stop. It won’t be.”

“But how do you know?”

Val shrugged, even though you couldn’t see her. “Because you wouldn’t still be trying if it was.”

When you didn’t reply, she softened. “Look, I know it feels like you’re just in this endless cycle of getting your hopes up just to be let down. And yeah, it’s awful and men fucking suck. But you’re not settling. You know what you want, and you know to walk away when it’s not right.”

You stayed quiet.

“And that means that when it is right, you won’t have to guess,” she continued. “You won’t have to sit there wondering if you’re forcing it or making excuses for them. You’ll just know.”

You let out a slow breath.

“You think?”

“No doubt.”

And for a while, that reassurance was enough.

———

Two months later…

It wasn’t some grand, cinematic moment. Just an aisle and a shelf of pasta sauces.

You were trying to plan dinner, caught in a silent debate with yourself over which jar to pick. Too many options. As you scanned the shelf, you reached for two bottles, one in each hand, and carefully read the labels to compare. Four Cheese Combo or Four Cheese Blend.

“What the fuck is the difference?” you mumbled to yourself.

It was only your third time at this store. After getting swept up in a New Year’s resolution and convincing yourself you needed to eat better, you decided to start shopping organic. Not that organic was the issue—you still ate terribly, mostly instant ramen and frozen pizzas. But now, they were from the organic store. The effort made you feel better.

Over your past couple trips, you’d noticed the actual health freaks who shopped here didn’t usually venture into ‘preservatives’ territory, so it startled you when a voice came out of nowhere down this normally empty aisle.

“That’s a good one,” he said.

Did he say that to me?

You couldn’t tell. You weren’t the type to initiate small talk with strangers. At the very least, you usually said ‘hi’ before speaking to someone. So, naturally, because you never would’ve said that, you decided the comment was meant for someone else, and pretended not to hear it.

When you didn’t respond, he added, “I mean, unless you like watery sauce, then go with the other one.”

Oh, he did say it to me. Against your better judgment, you turned to the voice that spoke.

You didn't expect him.

He was gorgeous—effortlessly so. Not in a way that demanded attention, but in a way that made you look twice when you finally noticed. His build was deceptively modest, swallowed by the loose hoodie draped over his shoulders and the baggy jeans hanging low on his hips. But as he reached for his own pasta sauce, his slow and steady movements revealed a quiet definition in his forearm. The way his fingers curled around the jar. The subtle flex of his biceps covered by nothing in his wife-beater. You blushed. Sexy sleeper build aisle 8.

“I mean, I don’t know much about pasta sauce, but my mom swears by this one,” he said, pulling you from your thoughts for a third time.

My mom swears by this one. You had heard those words one too many times from Oedipus. This made you want to leave him there 0 for 3 with no response. But you noticed he had beautiful blue eyes. That was one of your two weaknesses—the other being ‘guys who look like they can crush me like a bug’— and Sleeper Build checked one of the boxes, so you entertained him.

“Didn’t know they hired the pasta patrol here,” you finally replied.

This made him laugh. Not just a quick exhale or that obligatory half chuckle people do to keep a conversation going, but an actual, full laugh. It caught you off guard.

“Pasta patrol,” he said through giggles.

His demeanor had completely changed. The initial nonchalance he held melted into something weirdly charming. His sharp features were softened by a perfect smile. His beautiful blue eyes disappeared in the squint of his laughter.

You chuckled despite yourself, and stared at him a little awkwardly. Your response wasn’t even that funny to you, but his reaction was contagious.

"Sorry, I wasn’t trying to interrupt you,” he continued once his laughter finally subsided, “just overheard you kinda struggling.” He nodded toward the jars you forgot were still in your hands.

You returned them back to their places on the shelf, and at the same time, you felt his gaze flicker over the rest of your body. You couldn’t tell if it was out of curiosity or maybe, hopefully, out of interest. It lingered just long enough for you to notice and make your stomach flutter.

You tried to brush off the feeling. “I don’t know if I should be trusting a recommendation from someone with that cart,” you bargained. Both of you turned to his basket—premade pastry dough, a pack of pepperoni, some mozzarella, and two Cadbury cream eggs.

He smiled at you. “If you tried my Pocket Pizzas, you’d know it’s fire.” He set his sauce down with the rest of his haul.

Tried the what?— “Sorry, tried your what?”

“My Pocket Pizzas. Pocket Pizza pizza pockets.” He explained like the repetition somehow clarified anything.

You didn’t respond. Your lips parted slightly, brain catching on something that surely wasn’t what he meant. Except now, it was all you could hear—pocket pussy, pocket pizza. Same thing essentially.

Sleeper Build, oblivious, glanced toward your cart. “Better than that frozen stuff,” he said, looking at the pizza pops in your basket.

The grin tugging at his pretty lips voided any offense you should’ve taken. Instead it sent butterflies through your stomach. You still very obviously judged him through a face you made. “I think the name of yours alone makes yours worse, actually.”

“Not fucking with a Pocket Pizza?” He said it so casually that it took a second for the words to register. A beat passed before his expression shifted, brows furrowing and lips pursing as he crooked his neck back slightly. Pause. It was written clearly all over his face as his thoughts finally caught up to your own.

Laughter broke between you two.

“Don’t think I could if I wanted to,” you replied, no longer referring to the name of his homemade recipe but the sex toy itself. Your giggles lingered as you tilted your head. “Do you though?”

He chuckled. “I mean—” He started, then exhaled through his boxy smile, backtracking his words. “Actually you know what? Forget it.”

With anyone else, you would’ve just let it go. But you noticed a faint flush of red start to bloom on his cheeks, so you pressed on. “No, my bad. You were so confident about it a second ago. Keep going.”

He laughed a little harder this time, running a hand along the side of his jaw. “Yea, no, we’re moving past this.”

“No? Well I guess, your pocket pizza just can’t be that good then.” You hummed, and after a moment you finished, “Mine’s better.”

His eyes widened in subtle disbelief as he stared at you, his heart throbbing smile never leaving his face.

It wasn’t like you to be this flirty and direct with a stranger. Or it was, but usually the circumstances would be different—at the club or the bar, under the influence, and with guys you didn’t really find that attractive, because it was just easier to flirt with them when they weren’t that cute.

But here you were, sober and very much attracted. Maybe it was his biceps. His strong sleeper build biceps and the way he was laughing at everything you said and the blush creeping further down his neck that was fueling you with the same confidence as a third shot of tequila.

His gaze flickered to your mouth for a second before he started shaking his head. “You’re a freak.”

You chuckled. “What?” Playing innocent, you reached into your cart. “Gourmet. Truly can’t get much better than this.” Finally steering the conversation back to actual food, you grabbed the frozen box and pointed at the packaging—Gourmet Pizza Pops.

He looked like he was about to reply when a voice called down the aisle.

“Chris! How fucking long does it actually take to pick a sauce?”

Both of you turned toward the source.

Two guys strode toward you, their presence effortlessly filling the space. Even from a distance, their resemblance to him, to Chris, was undeniable—same height, same sharp features, same easy confidence. Triplets, you assumed.

When they reached you, they dropped their items into the cart—a case of Dr. Pepper from one; a carton of eggs, Easy Mac, and a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream from the other. Guess you weren’t the only one making questionable choices at the organic store.

“I got it Nick, relax.” Chris replied, pointing to the sauce.

Nick—broader, a little older-looking—glanced down at the basket, then started shifting things around like he was looking for something. “What about the paper towels?”

Chris shrugged. “I haven’t gone yet.”

Nick shared a look with the third brother. You noticed this one had the same pretty biceps, but his were decorated with a sleeve of tattoos. He spoke this time. “So what the fuck have you been doing the past 15 minutes?”

Chris lifted a hand in question. He turned his head to look at you, silently asking ‘are they deadass’ through his expression. Not wanting to mediate what was clearly the start of a sibling debate, you just let out a quiet laugh and shook your head.

He turned back to them. “I was just getting other stuff,” he excused.

It was then both brother’s gazes shifted past Chris to meet yours. The slight annoyance in Nick’s expression instantly faded into something more attentive. You also caught the tattooed one’s slight eyebrow raise. Their stares were intimidating. They were all gorgeous.

You waved at them, pizza pops still in your hand. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hold him up.”

A look of realization flashed through Tattoo’s features, then he smiled at you. “Oh. No you’re good,” he reassured. He shifted his eyes back to Chris, “I know he was probably the one keeping you, anyways.”

“Matt, shut your mouth.” Chris’s chuckle cut through his serious tone.

Weak protest. Matt wasn’t done. “15 minutes, dude, you could’ve just said you were flirting.” His lips curled into a knowing grin that matched his tone as he teased his brother. Nick raised a hand to his mouth to stop the giggle that accidentally slipped past.

The way he said it, like you weren’t standing right there, made you want to pass out. Especially knowing that Matt was blaming the wrong person. But you weren’t gonna tell him that you were the one who instigated the pocket pussy conversation.

“What are you talking about, we were just talking.” Chris defended, even though all four of you knew Matt was right.

You assumed it was somehow through their magical telepathic triplet senses that they could tell Chris was lying, but at least the other two were oblivious to what you guys were just talking about.

Nick chimed in. “Right. So did you give her your number yet, or were we still getting there?”

Chris had his head turned away from you, but by the way his shoulders shook slightly, you could tell he started laughing again. “I literally hate you guys so much,” he said through his giggles.

Despite the second hand embarrassment—or honestly, direct embarrassment that you were feeling from the way they called out their brother, the three of them fell into a comfortable fit of laughter with each other.

Nick started again once his giggles subsided some. “You need to hurry up, we still need to film.”

Chris exhaled and tilted his head backwards for a second, recomposing himself before turning back toward you. “I’m so sorry about that.”

“No, it’s okay,” you said casually, matching their chuckles with your own to mask the awkwardness you were feeling from the whole situation.

He still gave you a sincere apologetic smile, then reached into his pocket for his phone. He scrolled through the device for a few seconds before offering it to you. “Let me make you a Pocket Pizza one time.” The phone was open to a new contact page. “Trust me, you’ll never go back to the frozen shit.”

You hesitated for a second. The forwardness of his actions, despite everything his brothers just teased him for, caught you off guard. “I’m not eating it if you’re gonna keep calling it that.” The three of them giggled at this, and you took his phone anyway.

You entered your number and handed the phone back, your fingers brushing against his. His touch lingered—a second too long—but his eyes never looked away from yours. The earlier tension returned for a moment, brief but just as intense before it was broken once again by Nick’s voice.

“It was nice to meet you…” Nick looked at you expectantly.

“___,” you filled in, smiling.

At the same time, Chris glanced down at his phone, reading the name you’d saved in his contacts. He quickly typed something before his brothers started pulling him away.

Matt spoke this time. “Lovely to meet you, ___.” He flashed you their boxy smile. “Sorry to rush things, but we still gotta upload.”

Film and upload. You had no idea what that meant, but there was no time to ask. You made a mental note to bring it up the next time you spoke to Chris and settled for a simpler reply instead.

“All good. You guys have a good night.”

Chris’s eyes crinkled in a smile as they met yours once more. “See you later, ___.”

You waved as they walked away, finally turning your attention back to the reason you were here in the first place—to pick a sauce. But before you could even reach for one, you heard them speak again from further down the aisle.

“She’s so pretty.”

“Dude, I know. She’s also so funny.”

Their voices were hard to distinguish. You couldn’t tell that it was Nick and then Chris who spoke, but the compliments made your stomach tie regardless. Unable to help yourself, you glanced back at them.

Your phone suddenly buzzed in your pocket—the two-minute-delay iMessage reminder taking back your attention.

Unsaved Number: ___ sounds way better than a pocket pizza

Unsaved Number: Sorry

Heat rushed to your cheeks instantly. You brought both hands to your face, letting out an “oh my god” before quickly remembering where you were. You glanced around, checking if they—or anyone else—had caught you losing your shit. The preservatives aisle was empty once again.

Chris grocery store: omg hahaha

Chris grocery store: sick freak

You saved the number and hit send, smiling as you reached for the Four Cheese Combo—his recommendation. Little did you know how much this sauce and this chance encounter was going to change everything.

———

hiiii! thank u for reading 🫂 i love sexy sleeper build christopher sturniolo. lemme know whatcha think ily<3

[dykealloy]

Trafalgar Law and Faith

Pre-emptive warning this is going to be another LONG metapost/analysis. There’s a lot I could talk about here but for the sake of structure I’m going to split this into three sections, i.e. the main ‘faith transitions’ that Law has gone through in the narrative thus far: 1. Flevance (catalyst for loss of religious faith), 2. Corasan (martyr that figuratively and literally saves law by giving him something to live for, introducing the will of D.), and 3. Luffy (cementing faith in this new belief system and regaining trust in the goodness of humanity through the living embodiment of everything Corasan believed in).

Before we get into all that though, let’s establish that Christianity is a thing in one piece. Speedrunning through some visual examples that come to mind; the Flevance church and nun (holding a celtic cross - censored in the anime version), a nun literally praying to God right before Marineford, Vinsmoke Sora’s grave marked with a cross (is op Christianity a northern thing?), Usopp and Chopper having crucifixes and holy water whenever ghostly stuff is brought up, Kuma and his trusty bible, the religious symbols on Kikoku’s hilt (could instead be more a reference to the Red Cross/symbol of humanitarian and medical aid as a doctor) and especially in whatever Mihawk’s got going on (though this could just be a Japanese cultural thing with Christianity being a minority religion or Oda just finding that some of the iconography, y’know. looks cool). There are also many other references to other religions e.g. hinduism, shintoism, buddhism, etc. Whether op forms of religion are the same as the real-world ones is debatable, and yes, Law being canonically raised as a devout catholic schoolboy with all the religious trauma associated with that is comical, but let’s take it all unironically for a hot minute. For fun. 

1. Flevance

Law’s birthplace (Flevance) is described as being, at one point, “a very wealthy country with an unearthly beauty about it, with pure white soil and plants, like some kind of snow kingdom in a fairy tale.” The country’s wealth came from the very bedrock it sits on — white lead, which could be used to make various high quality products like tableware, cosmetics, weapons etc. When the wider world heard about this everyone wanted a piece of Flevance (the World Government also getting involved with distribution), and very quickly white lead became a “bottomless well of money”. So, hooray. Law gets to grow up in a rich city in a big house with educated doctor parents and probably gets to go to private school on weekdays and festivals with his family on weekends. One problem. In their greed, the Government and royalty have been knowingly hiding the truth about this supposed goldmine from the beginning. White lead is a toxic poison. Mining it from the ground over the last century and putting it in so many everyday products has resulted in it accumulating in the citizens’ bodies and leading to amber lead sickness, shortening their life-span with each successive generation – with the children of Law’s generation fated to die out before they reach adulthood.

In the bible (especially in the old testament), God often inflicted these insanely disastrous events upon humanity, usually as some kind of punishment for their wrongdoings or as a test of their faith. Some events of which include (but are not limited to): famine, outbreaks of disease and natural disasters (e.g. hail, wildfire, earthquakes, floods). Historically, these stories played a key role in how humanity interpreted meaning from horrible disasters (e.g. assuming bubonic plague was sent as a punishment by god). Fire imagery is very common among these disasters as a representation for hell, which is clearly reflected in the destruction of Flevance.

Sometimes these disasters had sole survivors act as messengers for God. With that context, let’s put ourselves back in the shoes of a ten-year old Law. Raised religious, freshly traumatised from losing his home, his devout family, all the comforts of his life, and having the outside world completely abandon him, this kind of event is likely going to be processed as some form of divine punishment. Law stumbles through hell, finds all his dead classmates, and the last words of sister nun echo through to him here. Merciful and salvation are huge catholic buzzwords – promises of holy compassion, deliverance and hope – and all of it fire and smoke and riddled with bullet holes before him. A genocide funded, perpetuated and covered up by the same body Law was promised was there to save them. And the only reason Law hadn’t died with them was because he wanted to stay with his little sister Lami, who was on her deathbed, and his parents, who were themselves trying to help the afflicted citizens, Law’s own father (before he was shot and killed alongside his mother) begging for more doctors, fresh blood, anything the world can offer, and asking “Why doesn’t the government announce to everyone that white lead is not infectious?”

Oftentimes (and in the case of Law), when there’s a promise of heavenly intervention or some miracle that doesn’t follow through, it results in an ultimate feeling of betrayal and anger. Unfortunately a lot of Catholic teachings also use a lot of guilt, essentially teaching people that the bad things that happen to you are your fault and there needs to be some sort of penance (queue Law’s survivor’s guilt that carries on down the road). But also, if this was supposed to be some divine punishment, for what exactly? For the town being blinded by the incredible wealth they were sitting on? Being lied to? Continuing to extract their livelihood, ignorant of its dangers? Punishment for who? His parents? His innocent little sister? For ten year-old Law? These people who believed in God, who were good people? That’s fucking stupid. None of these people suffered and died for any reason at all — certainly not for a sacred one. God hadn’t saved a single one of them. Law had to crawl out of hell himself by sneaking over the border under a mound of corpses.

Given everything that happened here, Law has every reason to fall into nihilism, and you can see how his upbringing would’ve bred a lot of the feelings of guilt, anger and resentment that you still see in Law (which would suggest that though this is where he likely cuts ties with the religious/Catholic component of his faith, growing up with these teachings in his formative years would definitely influence underlying beliefs about how the world works, and how Law behaves and subconsciously processes information), but at the same time, there’s usually some form of redemption and changes to how these patterns of behaviour can be approached later down the line.

2. Corasan

Fresh off witnessing his whole world burning down around him, Law meets Corazon at the very bottom of this pit of self-destructive rage and unprocessed grief. Rosinante himself mentions to Sengoku that the hatred in Law at this time reminded him of his brother, but beyond the anger, harsh pessimism, vengefulness, I think you have to reach to find similarities between them. You can see some fragments of Doffy in Law down the line at times, with Law seeming to enjoy violence (especially against the navy, but given what they did to Flevance, it’s some well-deserved retribution for Law imo), but I’m not so sure it’s the cruelty so much as it is the high he gets off his own flavour of justice. Doctor’s Hippocratic oath maybe, but never once does Law like seeing others die (even at this point, he’s in tears next to a dead body, even though he’s the one holding the knife), and later on in Wano he makes it explicitly clear to Zoro that he’d rather see the mission fail than have any of them end up dead.  

Little Law wanted to destroy the world and everything in it, but thinking rationally, what other choice did this kid have? He had no remaining family, was doomed to die before he hit puberty due to a terminal illness, was perceived as an infectious subhuman that most doctors would’ve sooner tried to exterminate than help. To Law, the world had turned its back on him – considering him a monster for simply surviving. He has all this hatred and pain boiling away with him with no tangible target to direct it towards. And this is the first clear cut rejection of faith that we see in Law. Any concept of a merciful God had just died. What God would allow this? Why is Law alive (a question that he repeats to himself throughout his life), why are these scumbags alive, why is the world going on spinning as if nothing has happened when his whole world had gone up in flames, why does anyone at all get to be here when everything I loved is gone? And it’s far easier to fall into a despondent nihilistic stupor than it is to work through any of that, and what’s the point in trying to process and move on from it, when there’s no hope for a future for Law anyway? When the only thing waiting ahead is more pain? What was this, if not a punishment? He’s supposed to be some messenger for God? How about fuck God, or whatever entity that exists that made him suffer this. Law’s not going to be a messenger for shit, thanks, he’d rather be their monster, he’d rather watch the world burn.

Corazon survives Law’s stabbing and doesn’t rat the little shit out (to Law’s confusion). It’s business as usual for another two years, then, one day Rosinante overhears his true name - Trafalgar “D” Water Law, and everything changes. On the back of his own beliefs, Rosinante dedicates himself to making sure Law a) lives and b) doesn’t become his brother. Law’s relatively short six month stint with Corasan forms the basis of Law’s new creed going forward, and all it took was a bit of kindness, love and humanity when the rest of the world had abandoned him. In the end Rosinante doesn’t save Law for the will of D. and the storm he’s predicted to bring in the future (as Law suspects), but he certainly believes in it, and the strength of Corasan’s conviction transfers right over to Law when he forces the ope ope fruit down the kid’s throat to heal him, tells Law he loves him, then sacrifices himself to set Law free.

Law clings to that love he was given, he takes all these fundamental teachings and ways of thinking in regards to faith that were drilled into him during his youth, rejects the religion element and applies just about everything else to Corasan. He holds onto the last shreds of what Corasan leaves him with. Corasan becomes his “benefactor” (he gave my my heart), his saviour, his martyr. 

And the crazy thing is, Rosinante was never really this saint Law makes him out to be. Law hated the clutz when they first met (mostly on account of Corazon throwing him through a glass window down at least two stories and into a pile of scrap). Corazon initially showed nothing but contempt for his presence (to ward him and the other children away from the Donquixote family, but these are still extreme measures). And it wasn’t until after learning Law’s name that Rosinante dragged him kicking, crying and screaming from hospital to burning hospital (not very saintlike in of itself), even after Law begged him to stop. Rosinante became Law’s saviour partly because of his belief in the will of D., and probably due to some guilt being a Donquixote, but mostly because he has always had a bleeding heart and he pitied (and had very quickly come to love) this angry, sick, deeply lost little kid. All this to say that Law’s faith in Corasan – this saintlike figure Law upholds him as in the future and the lengths he’s willing to go to avenge him/fulfil Rosinante’s purpose reflects the strength of the absolute beliefs Law would’ve been raised with in regards to God.  

Whether it be out of survivor’s guilt (just one more body to heap on top of the Flevance pile), his love for Corasan, or for the sake of taking vengeance on the man that took away the one good thing he’d been able to regain in his miserable life, Law adopts Corasan’s will, the will of D. (which in of itself seems divine in nature), incorporates it into his new belief system, actively takes on the role of the divine punisher/justiciar and dedicates his life to bringing down Doflamingo.

3. Luffy

Catholicism dictates that the entirety of someone’s beliefs should be dedicated to one true cause (that cause being God) and expects people to ride on that, letting it carry them through life, give them hope, purpose, etc. But a lot of former Catholics choose instead to find that through something else. Corasan ignited the spark in Law’s faith around the will of D., but it’s not until he meets Luffy that this really becomes something that feels tangible and real for Law.

When Law saved Luffy in Marineford (putting the heart crew in danger for a stranger he met once), he said he did so “on a whim”, but that seems incredibly ooc for Law — this man that pretty much planned out how the rest of his life would go after the dust of Corasan’s death settled and he came to terms with the fact he wasn’t going to die at age thirteen like he’d originally thought. Circling back to the concept of Law being a sole survivor/messenger for God, it is interesting that Law is the one to seek out Luffy (given that Luffy is usually always the one either being abandoned by people or recruiting his crewmates), and Law is ultimately the catalyst for pulling him towards Dressrosa and Wano. There must be a REASON that led to Law deciding Luffy to be the most viable option out of the Worst Generation for an alliance (beyond blind trust in an unhinged captain that just so happens to also bear the initial D, and Luffy being one of the few captains crazy enough to go along with what Law was cooking up). 

Law undoubtedly would’ve kept a peripheral eye on Luffy for some time before officially meeting him due to him being a rising competitor pirate and another “D” (I imagine the news of his utterly insane exploits would’ve made good reading material, too). The first time Law lays eyes on Luffy in Sabaody though, he still blows all expectations out of the water — crashing headfirst into the crowd of a slave auction and immediately committing a felony against a member of the most powerful upper one percent.

The world nobles are at an “untouchable God” tier in terms of class standing and believe it’s only natural for them to be entitled to whatever and whoever they want in this world that’s beneath them – the same kind of self-aggrandizing false divinity that Law has a a lot of repressed rage towards and that the will of D. is fated to oppose, so this, understandably, is a highly compelling first encounter, but it’s really only an initiating factor for what ultimately draws Law to Luffy. From their very first meeting (and probably before then, in the news stories and rumours Law likely picked up on), it’s made abundantly clear that Luffy does what he wants without a second’s hesitation, no matter the consequences, simply because he feels it is the right thing to do. Some call this an iron will, Law would be more inclined to call it willful stupidity and trouble, but time after time Luffy somehow manages to pull off what Law would best describe as “miracles”. And Law believes the straw hats just might be the ones to drum up another one for him.

Luffy’s also got a lot of passing resemblances to Corasan going for him, e.g. inherently kind, compassionate liberators with big dumb hearts and wide goofy smiles in spite of everything they’ve been through, treating Law as nakama and saving his life despite his protests etc. All of which I’m sure Law hasn’t been completely unaffected by despite the high walls he puts up. And the more Law learned about Luffy the more it probably became clear that he is the antithesis to Doflamingo, i.e. what makes Luffy so goddamn dangerous and terrifying beyond his physical power is his ability to make friends with a simple kind of unconditional love that gets reciprocated enough so that these friends are willing to die for him.

Luffy agrees to the alliance, they successfully blow up Caesar’s base, and head off to Dressrosa. Now’s the time I should bring up that it’s taught in Catholicism that self sacrifice is the ultimate heavenly deed, and here Law is undoubtedly prepared to be a martyr for his cause. Law sends away his crew to Zou before Punk Hazard with the expectations that he’d never see them. He cultivates a fierce emotional detachment against Luffy’s willingness to bring him into the fold of the straw hats, and is resolute in that when the time comes, he will handle this himself, he will carry out Corasan’s will, and if he has to die for it, he will die with Corazon’s name plastered on his back. (Note here that Christianity is contradictory in that Law being this ready to die here is a sin, because revenge and suicide are highly discouraged, so you could say that by avenging and dying for his saviour, Law would be committing both the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate sin).  

Things get very dicey for Law in Dressrosa, to put it lightly. Doflamingo reveals that he was a celestial dragon (linking back into the will of D. “enemy of the Gods” notion), puts Law on the backfoot and gives him a thorough beating before shooting Law with a couple dozen white lead bullets in front of Luffy (because even when he’s winning Doffy loves to be a cunt about it). By the time Doflamingo is cuffing Law to the heart seat, it’s all looking pretty grim, and it’s very apparent when Luffy shows up to save him, that he is ready to die. 

Law here has given up. He spent years planning his revenge for Corasan, but he lost, and he has very little left in the tank (physically, emotionally, spiritually). But Luffy doesn’t listen. Luffy who doesn’t think, doesn’t care, who trampled all over Law’s carefully laid out plan from the get-go and who is willing to take on Doflamingo single handedly for the simple slight that he dared to harm Luffy’s friend Law. Law will never find peace in his own demise because Luffy doesn’t do peaceful. He does loud and unashamed and open with no rhyme or reason other than the excruciatingly simply fact that he loves people and he thinks the people he loves deserve to have good lives. Luffy chucks Law over his shoulder and drags an injured Law across the city despite his protests (sound familiar?) and in the process inspires the fighting spirit in Law again.

When Law confronts Doflamingo again with Luffy in tow, Law’s faith in Luffy confounds him. The last Doflamingo remembers of Law is this beautifully moldable dark pit of grief and rage who’d given up on believing, period – who wanted the world destroyed. Not so long ago, Law had been a candidate for Doflamingo’s next protégé. Now?

THIS is the action (grinning, staring down the barrel of a gun, flipping Doffy off as he tells him in not so many words that he may kill Law but he will never beat Luffy), Law’s unshakeable faith in the face of his own death is what has Doflamingo realising he will never regain control of Law again – is what incites Doflamingo to go from breaking Law down so he can build him back up again, to conceding defeat and outright killing him. 

The trust that Luffy inspires in Law and the way he talks about Luffy (Luffy being this powerful, miracle-inducing liberator that Law can’t comprehend but follows anyway, Law laying down his hopes on him, weaponizing the will of D. to try and provoke fear from Doffy), is very reminiscent of the awe and faith talked about in scripture. Law discovers the feelings of comfort and hope that Catholicism was supposed to give him in Luffy, but Law’s belief in Luffy is a direct rejection of those teachings. Rejection by believing in a real life person as opposed to the divinity he was taught about. He’s also cementing his belief in the will of D., thus rejecting Doflamingo and all the people that embody the sort of “all powerful” divinity that he abhors (i.e. celestial dragons, Kaido, the Gorōsei/five elders) for the embodiment of hope and humanity. 

When Law survives (again), he expresses he’d rather see Luffy beat Doflamingo with his own eyes or die with Luffy if he loses than leave. Then he watches, after all this talk of miracles, looking up in reverence as Luffy delivers, bright as the sun, haloed by the bars of a cage that’s haunted him for over a decade, Corasan’s words echoing at the back of his mind. God had never saved or freed Law, but Corasan was there for him, the heart crew was there, Luffy was there. And this is Law’s biggest, clearest rejection of religion – this newfound faith in humanity. 

This faith in Luffy is put to the test again in Wano when Luffy is struck down by Kaido, but Law never truly stops believing that he’ll make a comeback. Even when the straw hats doubt whether he’s alive or not, something tells him Luffy’s not dead, and he holds onto that hope. 

We also have the whole nika/joyboy backstory which really only reinforces all of this imagery/god-fearing looks of awe from Law and this idea of Luffy who is this perfect juxtaposition of empathetic and kind to incredibly fearsome fire and brimstone fighter. And regardless of whether you’re into the ship or not this is the impetus of Law’s relationship with Luffy for me, because here’s Luffy who has every right to have a chip on his shoulder and be downtrodden about all the injustices against him, here’s this little guy who against all odds, in the darkest of places, embodies light and hope and kindness and proves to Law that there will be hard times but there IS a happy ending at the end of the tunnel, despite it all. And everytime Luffy rises to the insurmountable challenge and wins, it just further cements that the will of D. is alive, that Corasan was right, that there's something redeemable in Law, a reason why he was worth saving, even if Law doesn’t understand it quite yet. 

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Of Ghosts & Griffins

What do they worship? The Winged Lion, whom they mistake for a god?

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It's so interesting how Izutsumi's cat is dominant in this place. I don't understand enough about soul magic or the spell that maintains this to know why. It FEELS right - this is a place for monsters, and that's the part of her that's a monster? But I bet there's worldbuilding that explains it...

WAIT, OR: that couple pages I reblogged with hte werewolf clearly implied that Izursumi isn't a human with a cat spirit put in her, she's a cat with a human spirit put in her. So maybe whatever enchantments shield and maintain the Golden Country bring the cat spirit to the fore as part of their preservative properties, doing their best to remove this curse upon the poor cat? Izutsumi doesn't change shape, just mind, because the souls are so mixed and/or the human soul is so much stronger than hte cat.

Who the fuck took a human soul and put it in a cat. Why would you do that I wonder if we'll ever know.

(The question of the comic is thus, of course: did Falin's soul get put inside a dragon's, in which case she'll be stuck with a dragonoid body at best, or did the dragon's get put inside Falin's, in which she should be able to shift back and forth at will once the Mage isn't forcibly holding the dragon's soul dominant?)

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This is the most hobbitly we've seen Chilchuck. I keep expecting him to start talking about how his old gaffer used to drink down at the pub.

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shadkjsh Chilchuck get your mind out of the gutter!

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These would unironically do numbers at the right Met Gala. I unironically really like the middle, floral one. And specificially the crossed-antlers brassiere on the third.

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They're dead! They're under a spell (a curse) of immortality so they can't change and they can't leave and nobody knows they exist and they can't make an impression on the world and nobody even really knows they did exist, not as individuals beyond a vague collective legend; and most of all they don't hunger, they don't want for anything in their bucolic life (except freedom or death) and they don't hunger for food, they don't eat and even if they do eat it they can't enjoy it, because they're immortal but in every single way that matters they are d e a d !

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Alright my current theory is: this kingdom always venerated a winged lion deity, for whatever reason. Myths happen. Then one day, a demon slipped in from wherever demons slip in and disguised itself as the winged lion in order to be easily trusted by the populace. It started offering the fulfillment of desires in exchange for the consumption of other desires.

It tricked the Mage somehow, so that by their powers combined they turned the populace of this city into a feeding pen for the demon - safe and happy forever! being slowly drained of all their desires.

But as the people's desires started to run truly dry, until they were functionally dead, the demon grew hungry - and maybe greedy. So it sent the villagers this "prophetic dream" about one who would save them, motivating Delgal to get to the surface - probably with the demon's help, covert so the Mage wouldn't know; still pretending to be a god if Delgal himself knew. It let the dungeon be opened, drawing all sort of greedy and desperate people down into its feasting range.

...whatever trick/bargain it made with hte Mage, it's probably going to try to do much the same with Marcille, with her terror of loss.

:D

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P.S. I love how Yaad keeps calling him "Sir Laios" like he's a knight, instead of just some guy with good intentions who thinks monsters are neat. Also, Chilchuck literally just shaking his head at Laios.

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Needless to say, the contrast between Laios's blind panic at being told he's a prophecied hero and king and Kabru's "If I had the ability to take over this dungeon and kingdom, I'd fix absolutely everything and no one would have any problems ever again" is hilarious and wonderful.

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Laios basically just told that orc chieftain that he'd think about what he'd do as king, right? ...Well, I guess it's time for him to think about it.

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THEIR HANDS ARE COLD BECAUSE THEY ARE D E A D.

Btw in a just world, Yaad would be a woman. Princess in a Tower vibes off the charts. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

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I'M FINALLY PAST WHERE I GOT IN THE SHOW!!

I see this translation is calling the Mad Mage "Sissel." Just as its decision to call her the "lunatic magician", I deem this to be a stupid-ass decision and have elected to ignore it in favor of "Thistle", which is a much better name for a weird elf orphan turned mad mage.

Ah, damn, they corrected to he/him pronouns. So much for women's wrongs... I STAND BY it making perfect sense in-universe for our protagonists to get it wrong from their first, confusing meeting, though!

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Takin' a moment to appreciate Thistle's fucked up pupils, which I'm given to understand indicate the demon's influence. I'm having so much fun! Are you having fun? I'm having fun.

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...does the famous dwarvish sense of direction derive in part from secret dwarvish trail markers that they put in all dungeons and mines and never tell other species about? That's great. That's so good. They clearly do ALSO have sensitive inner ears, and secret cultural practices.

Btw I adore every time someone calls Chilchuck "Chil." NICKNAMES ARE A SIGN OF LOVE.

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SEEING SENSHI IN DISTRESS MAKES ME IN DISTRESS, AND THEN YOU DROP HIM LIKE THE FOOTBALL ON A CHAPTER CLIFFHANGER?! JAIL! JAIL FOR AUTHOR! JAIL FOR 1000 YEARS!!!

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This map is 10/10 desired detail. I want to know the difference between dwarf-style, gnome-style, compound and I bet elf-style dungeons so bad.

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Marcille just cut off one of her braids for Senshi! She didn't hesitate at all! Her hair!!!

And they're risking basically all their food on this! (Man I love how all life, including revivification and creating familiars, literally requires heavy caloric input. I love love love how this comic starts with the simple premise "food is essential to life" and says it over and over in infinite ways.)

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This is just very cool art to represent what's happening. I don't like looking at it, it makes my eye hurt.

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This visual is just so good.

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Brotp: In-Laws on a Mission

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unironically this panel fucks so hard. I need to name something after this. I also need to watch this episode just for the intense energy of this whole sequence.

(I Love how they're just squeezing and re-shaping these things like playdoh. Good familiars best friends just to tolerate this shit.)

Btw I also really like that, while Marcille has started teaching Laios some simple healing spells, that's kept clearly distinct from this sort of advanced magic. Multiclassing takes levels just like the rest!

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TWO-SHOT KO ON A GRIFFIN! Have I mentioned how fun it is that these guys are fucking good at their jobs? We love a little competence porn on the side.

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CHILCHUCK WAS THE FIRST TO START TALKING ABOUT HIS PAST! Yes, of course, he had to be. He's the one who's most aggressively closed-off about it, as opposed to passively closed off like the rest. Mulitple good panels here fo Chilchuck being the emotionally intelligent one, too.

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oh my god Senshi's story.

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I'm so glad she keeps putting them in full-body animal suits.

(And I feel Hiromu Arakawa's cowsona in the Chili's tonight...)

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P.S. OH, LAST MINUTE EDITION as I open the next chapter: They all changed species before they stepped in hte circle of change-your-species mushrooms!! Oh man I can't wait to see a) shenanigans and b) how this gets woven into the ongoing subplot of interspecies conflict, and any other greater themes. Fuck me uuupp Ryoko Kui! (...tomorrow, bc I have to go to bed now :( )