Sanuso

slowly going through my asks, sorry if i take a bit to post my answers, life gets in the way sometimes + i'm working on other long posts too!!!

months ago, while mindlessly scrolling through twitter, i came across an analysis of this particular panel from chapter 434 (i can’t remember who wrote the thread, i’m so sorry </3), and i really want to talk about it too.

(EDIT: original author of the thread is @goingbuggy!!! go check out their metas, they're amazing)

the thread was focusing on the way the speech bubble covers shanks's scar completely, and how it can be seen as a sign of vulnerability. oda is using shanks’s own words to hide his suffering, letting his physical scars be representative of his emotional ones, even though the event he’s talking about is completely unrelated to the way he got his scar.

in fact, we know shanks is not ashamed of the scar, since just a couple of pages after this one he mentions it directly as a way to start the conversation about blackbeard:

he doesn’t have a problem with the marking itself, it’s just used as a narrative device, a tool to highlight (in an extradiegetic way) his emotional wounds and the pain he always tries so hard to hide, in an effort to keep his usual composure.

the original author of the thread compared the panel from chapter 434 to another, way older one, from the very first chapter:

this takes place right after shanks loses his left arm to save luffy’s life. it’s obviously a very emotionally charged moment, which means the best thing to do would be showing a close-up of shanks’s reaction to everything that’s unfolding in front of him at that moment (luffy’s cries, or even his own reaction to his sacrifice). oda, however, chooses not to do that; instead, he hides half of shanks’s face, just like he did in chapter 434. the way the moment is portrayed tells the reader shanks is willing to hide his pain in an even deeper way than what he’s showing by smiling at luffy right after getting his arm chopped off.

it’s a great way to explain an important characteristic without stating it right away. it's a focal point of shanks's character: it's his way of showing luffy he cares about him and would much rather hide his suffering than pass it onto him, but it's also oda's way of conveying that shanks is much more vulnerable than what he allows himself to show.

having said that, the reason oda chose to bring back this framing in chapter 434 appears obvious: shanks misses buggy.

it’s plain to see, especially if we look at the whole page.

shanks tries so hard to act collected when talking about buggy, but it’s obvious that he’s hurting. his wording makes it clear he’s trying to detach from him (“that’s the end of it” + “rumors have it”); he acts like buggy doesn’t exist in his thoughts anymore, when it’s obvious he still does. he feels remorse, he regrets letting buggy go. he’s scared he might have been in the wrong. he knows he hurt buggy, but he desperately wishes he didn’t.

all of this weighs on him in a way he isn’t used to, so he locks these feelings up, thinking of them only in relation to something that happened in the past, and as so, stays in the past. he smiles while talking about him and buggy, but it’s a remorseful smile. he cuts the conversation short even though he vividly remembers what happened between them, and as he does so, his words hide the scar. he desperately tries to patch things up in his mind by exclusively clinging onto the good memories they share, but the remorse always creeps up on him. he always smiles when talking about buggy, even when he’s talking directly to him. but his smile always ends up looking sour.

this is exactly why i hate it when people say shanks doesn’t care about buggy. oda wouldn’t have given these panels so much depth if he didn’t want to show just how much shanks actually cares. even just the fact the panel we are focusing on directly mirrors a panel from the first chapter, one so important and impactful, should tell you everything you need to know.

buggy will always be shanks’s weakness. caring so much about someone when you’re a pirate of that caliber is difficult in itself, even more so when that someone is so far away from you now.

Sabo Week Day 1 - Flames

happy sabo week everyone!!

just a heads up: this and my last entry will be the only shaded/finished pieces for the week bc, u guessed it, i ended up being pretty busy :') i hope u can enjoy this journey with me nonetheless!

YAMAHIYO WIN???

Your shuggy meta broke my heart, stitched it up together and broke it again. It’s so beautiful, I hope it is actually that deep in canon, but there’s no way it isn’t. This could not be an accident.

omg thank you so So much for this, i didn't think i would be able to make anyone feel like this with my writing but this is such a pleasant surprise!!! thank you anon <3

and yes, i always question myself when writing this type of posts; i'm always like "is this actually meant to be that deep?", sometimes i even get stuck while writing analyses because i'm afraid of looking like a moron that twists the most frivolous aspects of canon in a desperate attempt to make everything about their ship. but then i regain consciousness and realize subtext is a thing that actually Exists, and authors deliberately use techniques like that all the time to highlight aspects of a character's nature without having to make explicit statements.

so while i surely am afraid to end up looking like a fool if oda chooses not to do anything meaningful with shanks and buggy and just leaves their relationship stranded, i will never stop bringing up all the little things that keep them connected, in spite of everything, after all these years. there's no way those are written into the narrative without a sliver of purpose.

...did luffy basically just debunk the "shanks and buggy see each other as brothers" theory lol

I sent you an ask about shanks hiding his scars in more than the chapter you posted and I’m not sure you got it?

hi! yes i did get it, don't worry! i'm still writing my answer cause it's a bit long and in-depth, but i should post it soon if all goes well :)

new official art for law's birthday!!!

the hearts baked him a cake... this is the sweetest thing ever

i baked a cake to celebrate law's birthday earlier today,

i think it came out pretty cute! i'm sure my law action figures loved it too despite their seemingly uninterested looks...

bonus picture of The Tiny

Please more thoughts about Penguin x Shachi 🤩😋

of course anon!!!

penguin x shachi!

god i just cannot be normal about them. they make me insane. paradoxically, the more i'm fixated on a ship the harder it seems to find the words to talk about them. seeing them or even thinking about them at all just makes my mind shut down lol. but i'll try my best to write something that isn't a nonsensical ramble about how they make my brain short circuit <3

something i love about them is how insanely close they seem to be. actually, that's the main reason i ship them. every moment one of them is on screen, the other is there too, right beside him. it's something so comforting but also so concerning, not in a bad way of course, but in a "what the fuck is wrong with them /affectionate" way. and the thing is, nothing's wrong with them, they're just like that! they've spent their whole life together, never a moment apart, so of course they're going to keep spending every waking moment attached to each other's hip. and the whole crew has just accepted it. no one ever questions it, it's just a given that they'll always be carrying out their missions together.

actually, we saw someone questioning it once, in the first chapter of law novel's second installment. i've been meaning to talk about this in a (long overdue) separate post, so i won't go into detail on it, but this is the gist of it. when something kept the two of them apart for the first time, it was an actual disaster. both of them almost cried in front of the rest of the crew because they were made to sleep in separate rooms, and they weren't used to it; penguin was the more mature one about it, but when shachi started to complain about the decision, penguin almost cried. law, bepo and hakugan laughed at shachi, because the whole thing was so stupid to them: i mean, a 17 year old crying about not being able to sleep in the same room as his buddy? but penguin didn't laugh. he made fun of shachi a bit, but then there he was, trying his hardest to keep his composure and not end up getting ridiculed like shachi did. yeah. i can't believe this moment is canon either.

what i'm trying to say is, they've both proved, in different ways, that their bond is very, very important to them. it's essential to their wellbeing, i'd say. they just work better together, and no one is allowed to come between them. that's exactly what i love about them.