224 posts
Latest Posts by not-ur-average-hydroflask99 - Page 2
Luffy’s childhood; abandonment issues, parental negelect and loneliness
When we talk about the one piece character’s childhoods, it’s usually the darker sides of the series. Oda has a nack of giving most of the characters terrible childhoods and backgrounds, which usually shapes these characters.
Oda does not shy away from that with the Straw Hats either; notable members such as Sanji, Nami and Robin has been seen as one of the most saddest childhoods. Hell, all straw hat members have had a bad childhood; including Luffy.
Not many people really care/see Luffy’s childhood as a terrible one, which I quite disagree with, because, really, Luffy did have a not-so-good childhood.
We know little to nothing about his really early days, but we can assume Garp took care of him. Until Oda says something about it, we can only speculate. But we do know that Garp was a terrible parental figure, making Luffy, a child at that time, go through many dangerous situation, which might’ve been for comical reasons, but I’ll get to that later.
So already from the start Luffy didn’t have a stable life or parental figure. Enter Shanks. Shanks was like a light for Luffy, becoming his idol through and through. It is most likely that Luffy and Shanks were quite close, because of the canon fact that Shanks and the crew stationed themeselves at Foosha village for nearly a year.
And then Luffy eats a devil fruit and Shanks looses his arm. We already know that Luffy was broken from the fact that Shanks lost an arm and blamed himself. Little guy felt so guilty, which is the worst feeling in the world. Shanks leave not long after, leaving behind a child with a hat. We all know Luffy looked up to Shanks a lot, and Shanks was probably one of the first actual parental figures for Luffy. I don’t think Luffy really felt abandoned per see, but there was something, hell he was crying buckets when Shanks had to leave. Everyone hates to say goodbye to someone you love/look up to, especially if you’re a child with not a lot to lose.
And then Garp, good ‘ol grandpa, dumps him onto some stranger away from the village that Luffy most likely grew up in. Garp dumped him somewhere dangerous without any care in the world. Ace and Sabo didn’t even want to have anything to do with Luffy at the start, yet Luffy tried his hardest to befriend them, probably because of his abandoned issues and the fact that he hates being alone. Imagine you’re dumped in a new place full of strangers, bandits, and the two kids nearly your age tie you to a tree and argue which of then should k!ll you. You just didn’t want to be lonely.
And not to mention all the times Luffy was kidnapped/beaten by bandits and pirates alike. He was kidnapped and t//tured by bluejam, and he was what, 7 years old? No child deserves that.
And then he finally gets some stability again, he got big brothers now and a dream that grows every day, despite Garp trying to snuff it out like a match. And then a part of that stability is gone, Sabo died. We know it took a heavy toll on Luffy, and why wouldn’t it? Luffy loves people too hard, too scared to be alone, which makes a loss harder. We can see that it caused some drift between him and Ace for a little period, to the point Luffy got mauled by a bear because they were too used to having Sabo around and Ace trying to push Luffy to be stronger.
Luffy is terrified of loosing Ace as a result of Sabo’s death. He is terrified to be alone, probably ‘cause he most likely grew up lonely, he didn’t have anyone to care for him, at least not a long time, only temporary, something that Luffy probably was used to. He gets more worried about Ace, terrified he will be gone too like Sabo, which doesn’t help his issues at all.
The reason why many brush it off is because of the ‘comedic’ way it’s shown. Probably because it’s from Luffy’s narrative (or maybe Oda just saw it as comedic, who knows) which tunes it way down and leaves people with a more lighter impression. Which makes sense, because that is how Luffy sees the world, but it’s still saddening when you look more between the lines.
Luffy was a kid, negelected by many adults, lonely with a handful of people he loved, no stability in his life, greif and guilt-stricked from certain moments in his early life and a fear of loneliness, clinging desprately at the people he had left.
drew this helpful diagram for mha fans who don't understand what a character arc is
lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)
if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.
--
no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.
I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.
I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.
If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.
Here is your annual reminder that if you want to read Homestuck but find it a little intimidating or are just not a big reader, Lets Read Homestuck by Team Voxus has completed all but the tail end of Homestuck.
LRHS starts out a little rough in the beginning, but the 'beginning' accounts for, like, less than four hours. Out of the total runtime of over 62 hours.
Also the voice actors are fucking tremendous and I will never stop saying that the voice actors for Karkat and Rose deserves an award for their work during Act 5.2.
Oh and if you're like me and need background noise to work, I uh I ripped all of the audio for every episode of LRHS and put it on my phone. It's organized with a audiobook app called Sirin.
Here is my GDrive folder with all the mp3s.
wait actually???
Hand made stickers and posters I made so I can stick around. Feel free to screenshot or make some of your own like these! Free Palestine
I have to tell you guys something.
you see these asks?
They are scams.
They are bots made by scammers to try and make a profit during a GENOCIDE!
If you see these types of asks in your inbox, report the account and delete the ask.
If you really want to make a difference in helping Palestine, do your daily clicks in arab.org! donate esims and use trusted sources when donating.
Thinking about how much the strawhats need Usopp.
His place on the team has always been weird and uncertain for him. He's a sniper but also he's an inventor and he fixes the ship but the thing he gets known for is mostly the long nose and the lying. He calls himself a great captain but he's not the captain and in fact he has very little decision-making power and even less actual confidence. He's the most cowardly. Or maybe he's the bravest. He's pretty sure they only keep him around because he helped them get a ship. He'd die for them anyway.
But the strawhats don't really need a sniper, or a liar, or a guy who gave them a ship. They need Usopp. And the reason has nothing to do with whatever his official role on the crew may be.
They need Usopp because they need a (goodhearted, clever, brave, talented, but nonetheless) regular guy. It's actually so important for the strawhats to have someone who knows what it's like to be weak, who has to really grapple with the consequences of every fight and crazy adventure, who has some semblance of being average and practical about things.
Nami shares some of this role of not being impossibly strong and unkillable the way the others are, but even she has solid close combat techniques and has random bursts of crazy where she'll do things like stab a 3 inch wide spike through her foot to win a fight and help Vivi. She's just pretending to be normal. You can see the glint in her eyes and know she's actually insane.
Also, Usopp is like. Actually nice to people. Regularly. He wants to avoid conflict. They desperately need at least one crew member who wants to avoid conflict. Nami does not serve this purpose quite like Usopp does, either. Sure, she doesn't want to get into fights willy-nilly and she'll often run instead, but she has a harsh and prickly personality that doesn't exactly set people at ease. Chopper also avoids fights but that's mostly for medical reasons and he has very little problem getting into them if he thinks it's necessary. Sanji is kind to people, but he's only nice to women, and will start fights with very little prompting. Luffy is friendly but completely tactless, Zoro doesn't even try to be sociable, and Robin thinks murder is a little funny. So again, between all these weirdos, they need a guy who's just like. Hey what if we said good morning like normal people. What if when some stranger is mildly rude and has a lot of weapons we just ignore it. What if we like. Got along with people. That would be neat.
Anyway I don't have a big grand finish for this post but just. The strawhats were genuinely in need of Some Guy, and Usopp solves that problem even though he thinks he's not special enough. Of course he's unique and talented and strong, but he's still an average human with average physical strength and slowly hard-earned skills. The strawhats without that have no tether.
I love (and am actively ill over) the fact that ace canonically will not shut up about his lil guy. when jinbe found out ace’s brother was in impel down he was like OHHHHH LUFFY the kid in the strawhats you’re ALWAYS talking about. to luffy’s face he’s like “punk ass” but to everyone else he’s handing out school pictures from his wallet
⋆｡° ✮ เꪑρꪮɾtᥲᥒt ρꪮ᥉t᥉
what’s happening in congo? x
what’s happening in armenia? x
what’s happening in sudan? x
what’s happening in palestine? x
gofundme links to help people in palestine
masterlist on palestine (full credit to creator)
brands that support israel!
what’s happening in guatemala? x
how hawaii was illegally annexed by the US.
some articles on tigray x
ace & aro - ace awareness week.
— please share more links, videos or posts!
@davekatweek day 5: Crossover
My two favorite things: Homestuck and Soul Eater. This was almost late but I hurt my drawing hand today so I’m working slower than usual. But the pain is nothing compared to my irrational need to do things on time.
Also, this is actually a redraw from like… three years ago maybe? I did drawings of all the kids and then the post-scratch trolls but never got around to posting them. I’m kinda tempted to redo all of them, but that’s a project for another day.
For favorite au/favorite trope day, I’m back with the SoulEaterStuck babeyyyyyyy!
I did DaveKat last time so obviously I had to do RoseMary for this one. In my version of this au, I imagine Rose as a witch rather than a normal meister. But she’s in sort of a (spoiler) Kim situation where she’s pretending to just be a normal student at the DWMA. Yes technically that’s also a Medusa situation but the difference is that she isn’t there for nefarious purposes. But she does like messing with Kanaya once she finds out that she’s a witch.
Anyway prompt credit to @413countdown
made this.
sometimes i want to reach through the screen and shake sabo by the shoulders because. god. there's just so much going on with him.
he's first introduced through the veil of luffy's memories- here he's just another feral jungle kid, sticking it out with ace and luffy, the 'nicer' brother in young luffy's eyes. and then boom. you find out he's a runaway noble trying to escape his abusive, neglectful family- and this changes nothing. they get to become sworn brothers, but just as quickly as this is resolved, his asshole of a dad takes the three of them hostage. and what does sabo do? he gives up the little sliver of freedom he'd fought for, is willing to become miserable and lonely again if it means ace and luffy are spared. and then he comes home to find that in his absence, his parents have already found a replacement! great!
and he doesn't even get to address how fucked up that is, because stelly runs his mouth and now sabo's too busy trying to figure out how to stop his brothers and their home from getting burnt to the ground. he never gets to give them a proper goodbye- he exhausts himself trying to reach them, but he can't because. you know. he's ten. so where does this leave sabo? ten years old, with nowhere to go- he sets out to sea to try and start over, and for the crime of wanting to escape a terrible life, he's punished with an explosion to the face. he loses his memories, his brothers lose him- and so the cycle continues.
then the army saves him, takes him in; he's essentially a child soldier, with how prodigious of a fighter he is from the get-go. but hey, he thinks he's finally found his footing, even if his past's a blur to him- then it all comes flooding back. in the worst way possible. he sees his brother's corpse and he remembers, but it doesn't matter, does it? he's too late, ace is gone, and sabo's lost ten years of a life he could have shared with his brothers. we don't even know how (if, even) he recovers from this- except for a single passing statement from koala, asking him if he's 'had that dream again' because he'd been crying in his sleep. this is never brought up or addressed again. great!plus, we never do find out if getting blown up at the ripe old age of ten could have left any lasting fire-related trauma; and if it does, what does that mean for sabo, who's pretty much made of it, now?
both of these questions are answered at once- sabo treats the fire as if it's ace. it's ace's legacy he's carrying on, and it's ace he seeks freedom for. he copes by making sure ace lives on in his flames, and how can he ever hate the fire living in him if that fire is all he has left of the brother he never got to see again?
i just have to wonder about him, because he's got so many Issues that just. don't ever get addressed? every time we see him deal with his grief (episode of sabo, his own retelling of events in dressrosa) we never really discover anything about him. i wonder how it felt to finally remember the childhood that eluded him, just to find out he was an unwanted, replacable child. how he feels, living with the knowledge that he could have done something to save ace, that he'd failed to remember the two people he loved the most? i wonder just how terribly that guilt must weigh down on him- because where luffy's already begun to heal, sabo still sees ace in everything he does. his title of flame emperor is a direct callback to ace's final attack in his fight against blackbeard. he talks to his goddamn fire like his brother is still in front of him, which is sweet and heartbreaking and, considering his backlog of unaddressed trauma... incredibly unhealthy. i know these will probably be left unresolved for the sake of moving the story forward- but god, sabo, are you okay?
Homestuck Epilogue where on Earth C the kids do literally ANYTHING other than get into politics or become hermits… Part 1
So I kinda made up my own epilogue for homestuck back when I was in college… Just a thing to kinda entertain myself while sitting through the classes that didn’t apply to my major lmao. But now I’ve been out two years and what’s an unemployed 24 year old loser supposed to do with all this free time and a newfound affection for these characters? Fuckin draw them ofc! I tried rlly hard to kinda combine elements of the mspa style into my own style, but it clearly needs some work.
Basically the plot of my epilogue au/rewrite/whatever the fuck you call it is that for the first like 100 years of them being on Earth C, the kids wanted to figure themselves out and live their lives now that they were free from the game and in a world where nothing can really hold them back. Since a lot of them lived their early years in almost to complete isolation, they pretty much wanted to be involved in their new society. Tho since society had already p much developed since they skipped ahead 5000 years, they just let the people do their thing while they did their own things. The kids only rlly got involved if they rlly had to.
But then after about 100 years of doing things, all the kids just kinda went MIA and nobody knows what they’re up to. Sure Rose and Kanaya still manage the mother grub, Jane still runs her company, and sometimes you might see Dirk out behind an Earth C Denny’s at 3am, but for the most part everyone is kinda gone. Where? Only I know :)
Anyway I’m gonna do a part 2 with the surviving trolls and Calliope… eventually…
Terminal Hanaki? Boring. Chronic Hanahaki? Exciting.
one of the weirdest experiences ive had being trans and out so far was when i went to the doctors about hrt and she walked me through the consent form (the one that tells you youre doing irreversible damage to your body and you're a freak) with a pen in her hand like crossing shit out and being like "this isn't true, this is actually completely false, this is totally an exaggeration" and it was stuff like "research on hrt is limited poor and speculative" or "hrt can increase risks of disease" or "testosterone makes you more violent and angry" like idk having it written in a way intended to make you feel like you're making a big mistake is one thing but the fact that the form has like literally proven false info in it and the doctor had to verbally be like sorry this isnt even true its just on there because society hates trans people. is wild
Had to unfollow this one person on here cause they just would not stop making posts about how transfems on e getting periods is just made up symptoms and like, I don't have definitive proof I only have my and others experience but like how do you, as someone who is not on e, who has access to the same amount of studies looking into this with decent sample sizes as I do (none), feel so confident to say it's all just placebo and made up ? What makes you so confident ? Cause I gotta say after almost two years of nearly right on the dot once a month suddenly feeling nausea all week, taking the most unbelievable shits, feeling all my organs cramp, and having mood swings out the ass which always just so happens to line up with when the two people with uteruses in my house also get their periods, I feel like I have more data to work off of than you do
Yes, this is true. Transgender women DO get periods. Monthly bouts of the hormones in our bodies running amok and causing all the symptoms short of the actual ejection of blood from a uterus. Cramps, mood swings, etc. It happens. Look it up. lol Heidi and I have determined that I become an emotional train wreck around the end of each month. And while my doctor warned me that the hormones would affect my emotions, I DID have to find out that it would happen PERIODICALLY because of a PERIOD. lol And I now have a sneaking suspicion that this strip and my commentary will be bringing some trolls out of the woodwork. We shall see.
hot artists don't gatekeep
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
You might remember him as Zico from @ismail.jood videos
What a beautiful heart he has. The world can take lessons from this child.
Photos- @ashrafamra for @anadoluimages
By Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory (2023)
[...] The problem in Israel isn’t solely Netanyahu. He’s the symptom of a major larger societal shift. Replacing him with another carbon copy will change little for the millions of Palestinians who live under a brutal military occupation. One possible successor, Benny Gantz, has spent his career proudly promoting the destruction he’s caused in Gaza in previous wars. [...] Back in 2019, I wrote for the Jewish Forward outlet in the US that anti-Palestinian racism was ubiquitous in Israel, undeniably exploding since 7 October, and Netanyahu had simply been a reflection of contemporary Israel. A 2016 poll found that close to half of Jewish citizens wouldn’t live in the same apartment blocks as Arabs. Fast forward to early 2024 and 68 percent of Israeli Jews opposed facilitating humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to an Israeli Democracy Institute study. This is at a time when Palestinians in Gaza are starving to death due to Israel’s deliberate policy of withholding lifesaving aid into the besieged territory. As far back as a 2012 poll, a majority of Israeli Jews opposed voting rights for Arabs if the Jewish state annexed the West Bank, and one-third of Israelis wanted Arabs in Israel to be denied the right to vote. In other words, apartheid was the Israeli vision for Palestine.
. . . continues on MEE (1 Apr, 2024)
Free Palestine
Hello everyone, I need your help please.
Haneen from Gaza has contacted me on Instagram, she needs donations to help her family evacuate. Here is her gofundme page
I know I don't have a really large following, and I've been doing my best trying to spread her donation on Instagram but to no luck. Her situation is explained in the gofundme description.
If you can't donate, please share. I would also recommend that you go on arab.org and click daily to help the Palestinian people.
@/folkoftheshelf on Twitter has made a thread of fundraising links for Gazans. I’ve transferred the links here, please boost them as the conflict is worsening:
Help Ahmad Hassan and his family escape Gaza
Help Halla Morshed’d family escape Gaza
Help Dr. Yousef Alsweisi and his family escape Gaza
Evacuate Sohad’s family out of Gaza
Help Donia Tanani and her family escape Gaza (they are close to reaching their goal!!)
Help Zinh and her family escape Gaza (they are close to reaching their goal!!)
Help this Gazan family rebuild their lives (they are not close to their goal as of writing)
Help the Zack Family
Help Hala Jad and her family (they are at a 1/3 of their goal)
Help Walid and his family escape Gaza (they are close to reaching their goal!!)
Help Mariam Radi and her family (as of right now they are not close to reaching their goal)
Help Maha Abu Shammala evacuate the family from Gaza (they haven't met their goal as of writing)
Help Ronza Alaa and her family (they haven't met their goal as of writing)
Help Noor and her family evacuate to safety (they haven't met their goal as of writing)
Help Manar Abuqata get his family out of Gaza (goal hasn't been met as of writing)
Help Farah save her family
Help Ahmad’s family escape from Gaza to Egypt
Help evacuate Mohammed Harara’s family out of Gaza (they are halfway through their goal!!)
Help Dana and her family escape (they have almost met their goal!!)
Help Anas’ family escape from Gaza (goal has not been met as of writing, note that the money is in krona, 1 usd=11 krona)
Help Ibrahem Ra’fat Daher and his family evacuate Gaza
Help Hakam Albalawi save his family (goal had not been met as of writing)
Help Tabseem AbuJamie’s family evacuate (goal hasn't been met and only has two donations as of writing)
Rafah Masterpost