I love you, Mr. Murderbritches.
I'm tired
are miller and quiggs gonna have a gay little kiss? 🥺 👉👈 a wittle smooch?
Okay but only because it'll be funny
So. Hear 5. Nika. Loony Tunes Luffy, if you will. Tell us your thoughts on him and any potential meta? 👀 I’ve been aching to hear it from you since we first saw him go Full Silly Boy.
it's hard to answer this, because i have so many thoughts. i'm just going to try and start from the biggest points and move down.
i like gear five a lot, and i think this development feels very appropriate as a culmination of both luffy's character and the themes of one piece as a whole because of how it interacts with three extremely dominant motifs that have reoccurred throughout the story: freedom, laughter, and the sun.
from the very beginning of the story, luffy has acted, in small ways and big, as an agent of complete freedom. from his first meeting with coby to his breakout at impel down to the liberation of wano, what luffy does is destroy systems that control and oppress, if only because they are in his way. every strawhat is somehow trapped and held back from pursuing their own dreams when they meet luffy, and he frees them all, along with hundreds of others along the way, whether he's inspiring shirahoshi to venture outside or crushing yamato's manacles. his talent for this has always seemed almost preternatural.
luffy is not necessarily a benevolent person; he doesn't care much about helping people in the abstract. he's selfish. he values freedom for freedom's own sake, not because of any greater moral convictions. he doesn't think much about the negative knock-on effects of things like causing a mass breakout at impel down, and he doesn't really go around seeking out downtrodden and oppressed people to free out of a charitable or selfless instinct, nor does he really do anything because it's the right thing to do. he's dismissive of the idea that he might be a hero.
but because he is a completely uncontrollable free agent, and he doesn't really want anything but for himself and everyone he cares about to be completely free, he constantly collides with the systems of oppression that control his world, and when those collisions happen, it is the systems that fail, time and time again, because oppressive systems always do eventually. they can't withstand the light of day. and because he lives completely confidently and unapologetically, he is constantly inspiring others to do the same.
so by the time we are told about nika for the first time, we already know that what nika is said to do is what we've seen luffy doing for more than a thousand chapters: he frees people, and inspires them, and makes them laugh.
i also find luffy-as-nika to be very interesting and thematically appropriate when positioned in opposition to the various antagonists in one piece who have declared themselves to be gods, frequently some of its most tyrannical and oppressive villains- enel, the celestial dragons, doflamingo. all enslave and imprison people, robbing them of their freedom.
nika is a god of slaves, and a creature of liberation. the natural enemy, as rosinante might say, of that sort of megalomaniacal 'god.'
one piece has also consistently connected the theme of freedom, as embodied through luffy, with the sun since very early on. the sun pirates, former slaves, used the symbol of the sun to wipe away the brand of the celestial dragons. (and aren't i curious to know what jinbei might know about nika- he never did answer who's who's question about it.) the fishmen more broadly view the sun as something to be reached when they are truly free. on wano, the coming dawn is understood as the coming liberation. impel down and the florian triangle, places of indefinite imprisonment, are lightless dungeons where the sun doesn't reach. the sun is freedom.
and luffy has always been thoroughly sun associated, from the visual of his hat to his origin on dawn island in the east blue, to his ship, the thousand sunny.
finally, one piece has always placed a great deal of emphasis on smiles and laughter (laugh tale, joy boy, roger laughed, etc)- but that joy must be real. it can't be forced. we're told again and again, through koala, dressrosa's toys, and most obviously the victims of the failed SMILE fruits, that to force someone to smile, denying them the right to cry, is nothing less than an atrocity. people can't be forced to be happy- they should be happy because they're free.
luffy in gear five is laughing nigh-constantly, but it's just because he's having so much fun. unlike the victims of the SMILE fruits, his endless joy is genuine, because in this form, he is completely free- nobody can stop him, and nobody can control him. as he says himself, he can do whatever he wants.
i know that some people felt this moment was in some way a deus ex machina, but it just didn't feel that way to me, because of how well it plays on the story's established themes and trajectory, as well as concepts like devil fruit awakening having been established hundreds of chapters back.
luffy is the sun, the sun is freedom, freedom is joy. i think it makes total sense.
Please heed relevant content warnings on each post. Completed collections have physical and digital copies available for purchase on my store.
Soliloquy down to Three is an anthology of dark sapphic comics, all of which are a mix of both old and new inspiration. Its title is a line from 'craters', indicating that the phrase "I love you" manages to fit a whole monologue worth of feeling into three words.
The compiled version contains exclusive illustrations for each couple, as well as a secret ending to 'craters'.
1. fishing twine 2. hook, line and sinker (sequel to 'fishing twine) cw: suggestive imagery 3. RED cw: suggestive imagery, blood, murder with an axe 4. RED - epilogue cw: blood 5. patchwork canary cw: mouth + neck mutilation, blood 6. craters cw: implications of suicide
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10pm is a collection of introspective comics that covers feelings of aimlessness, alienation and finding joy in creativity again. Its full title is "It's 10pm. Do you know who you are?" which is a twist on the old PSAs that used to play on American TVs reminding parents to check up on their children.
1. the parade
2. the elevator
3. the machine
4. the candle
5. the stone
6. the dredger
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Heart-eaters is an anthology about the ugliest, gory-est, most heartfelt and most brutal parts of love. Sitting at a whopping 180 pages, Heart-eaters is the longest anthology I've made yet, and took over a year to finish in full.
The compiled books available for purchase on my store contain an exclusive joint-comic to "Shallow Grave" and poem named "Laozi's bowl", as well as 9 original full-page art splashes unique to their assigned stories.
1. the sunset cw: gun violence, death, blood 2. the calamity cw: eye scarring, blood, eye mutilation, gore (minimal) 3. seeing clearer (epilogue to 'the calamity') cw: biblical references 4. shallow grave cw: gravestone imagery 5. bite of winter (joint comic to 'scorched earth') cw: gore, blood, death, cannibalism, dismemberment 6. scorched earth (joint comic to 'bite of winter') cw: blood, death, burning alive, beheading 7. ashes to ashes (prequel comic to 'scorched earth') 8. little dove (prequel comic to 'scorched earth') 9. warmth 10. the fox god cw: emotional manipulation, animal abuse 11. the fields cw: blood, animal death, mild gore and blood
(ง'̀-‘́)ง
THE BATMAN (2022) dir. Matt Reeves
It's kinda poetic that most of the Jedi who survive 66 are younglings or half trained Padawans. Cause for all the propaganda painting the Jedi as baby stealers who sentenced those children to death, every single one of those Jedi are children whose Masters did everything in their power to keep that baby alive - even when it meant their own death.
Currently thinking about Batdad using his Dad Voice™️ on villains:
Bruce, tired: Edward, what the fuck did you do?
The Riddler, suddenly nervous: …I can explain.
Bruce, disappointed: Harleen, honey, we’ve talked about this.
Harley Quinn, looking at her feet: Sorry, Brucie.
Bruce, exasperated: Pamela, I say this as nicely as I can, what the hell were you thinking?
Poison Ivy, twiddling her thumbs: …that it’d be fun?
Bruce, completely Done: Jack, I swear to fuck—
The Joker: Okay, I’m sorry, I’m done, I’m done!
Bruce, sighing: Oswald…
Penguin, whispering to himself: …oh fuck me
…so anyways I need an entire fic of this now. If Bruce just… forgetting which voice he’s supposed to be using, then realizing it works Really Well, and then purposely using his Dad Voice. On the villains. Also (in case you couldn’t tell, lol) I love the idea of him using their given name, not their “villain name.” Just an extra little tidbit 😊
I love Batman’s Dad Voice™️ so much
Can you make a master post for your time travel au drawings? I can't find them all and it's sooooooo good!!!!
DAWWW >////< okay anon JUST for u :]!!! (and also anyone else who needs it :3)
All comics are read from left to right
START
Helmeppo tries 2 stand up to his daddio
Syrup Village
Strawhat interlude 1
Iceburg is so confused
Marines talk about upcoming strawhat rookie superstars
Bon Clay’s cover stories: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14
Franky Family is concerned bout Franky
What’s goin down in Skypiea?
Cobra is worried about his daughter :(
The encounter at Sabaody Archipelago
The Poseidon timesave strat
Ace cover stories: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
ASL bros reunite + wheryheart's lovely add on :)
Whitebeard Alliance
Whole cake Island AKA Zeus retrieval
Clipping Shenanigans
Disclaimer: Inspired by Geokat's Take the World by Storm but my time travel au is it's own seperate original work :) (except for parts 1 to 3 of the ace cover stories but like,,, cmon,,, THAT WAS TOO GOOD TO NOT ADAPT)
Look look one of the best fics I've read was under 10k and you say that's not valid? One of the most hardhitting has been under 2k and that's not valid???
Man, what the fuck, that's just sad. For you. I'm gonna keep reading these short ones cos I have the attention span of a toddler. Okay? Okay.
Fanfic tiktok is wild... I see so many people saying shit like "I could never read anything below 60k!!", or "What story can you even tell in under 5k words?" or "A oneshot below 10k isn't even a story!" or "I always filter completed fics by 100k< only!"
And I'm like...
A) which fandoms are you reading fics for where you have this kind of offerings on the regular?
B) have you heard of short stories? If you truly think every story NEEDS to be longform to connect with people, I sincerely feel sorry for you.
C) Average novel length is between 50k to 100k. I'm sorry, but CONSISTENTLY demanding fic writers to push out fics of that length is insane. Just think about it: YOU DEMAND AUTHORS TO PUT OUT FICS THAT COMPARE TO COMMERCIAL NOVELS IN LENGTH (AND QUALITY) AS A BASELINE.
Yall are wilding.
Boss is asleep, cannot stop me from frogposting