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#trauma's all around
bluelolblue · 2 months
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i think it would have been really silly if chad stahelski were to give santino more emotional baggage by not just making him immature but giving unresolved trauma and- (gets shot to death, marquis style)
Oh, absolutely! Pls I'm convinced Santino has some unresolved trauma, idk why I just have that vibe with him
Like... mostly childhood trauma, something definitely happened
I mean, he's really power hungry and even needing attention, in my opinion, and he seems to control his emotions well (although, I think he has a bit of short temper). Could be just his personality, but... it could also be trauma response
I could yap about this a lot, like write a full on Santino trauma theory/yapping on this topic, and I'm planning to analyze him deeply in detail one day, so yeah also gonna yap abt this 😋
I'm just casually giving him trauma in my fanfics while I'm waiting for Chad to say anything abt Santino's childhood/his backstory
But yeah it would be silly if Chad does that
Chad Stahelski pls confirm that Santino has some kind of trauma :)
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This is a man with a trauma 😞
(Have a Santino screenshot :3)
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bigfatbreak · 7 months
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"what's the biggest difference in Tom's character in the dad villain au" you've never seen a papa-bear go so grizzy mode so fast
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 1 month
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I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wen ning#wei wuxian#wen qing#jiang cheng#Truly Massive disclaimer here: I am a Jiang Cheng enjoyer. I like his character. I enjoy that he is very flawed and volatile.#This episode of the audio drama has a lot of great breakdown scenes featuring JC - and they all deserve a feature.#But underlying this comic is a small meta comment of 'ah man I have too many comics of JC just wailing sadly'#My goal is to draw 6-8 comics per episode - I sometimes have to truncate and cut good scenes out.#Especially when a large majority is just different flavours of trauma and toxic relationships to your self-worth.#I would also like to make a note here that just because you lose the ability to do something that is very tied to your core identity-#-does not mean your life is over. It will feel like the end of the world. It will send you into a spiral of grief. It will hurt so badly.#Sometimes we do not realize how tied up our identities can be in certain things until we are cut loose.#You don't lose yourself. I promise the pain will fade in time. I promise you will find other things to tether you. I promise you will be ok#Life moves forwards. Time moves forwards. You move forwards.#Ego death just means an opportunity for ego rebirth. You are never committed to being the same person forever.#To wrap this around to JC: Yeah I love the twist with the core transfer but man I would have loved to see JC accept the loss.#Obviously it happens for a reason (story) but I can have my AUs. I can have these 'what-ifs'.#described in alt text#I'm trying it out! *please* give me feedback - I want to eventually Add image ID to all of these comics one day
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im-a-freaking-joy · 2 months
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CALLING ALL EXMORMONS/PIMOS
i have a proposition- lets all write the nastiest, most unhinged, atrocious mormon themed smut that we possibly can. It was honestly weirdly healing for me to read wild ass smut on ao3 that was themed around the religion and not the musical, and i want it to become such a popular trend for exmos and pimos to start doing that they have to start vagueing about it in general conference. It doesnt have to be good. It just needs to *be.*
Once im done writing my Ammon×Lamoni smut fic I'm absolutely reblogging this post with the link added, please join me in this unhinged rebellion
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dykealloy · 5 months
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ripple effect legacy // my tears are becoming a sea, M83
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wheatnoodle · 4 months
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steve calls everyone to check up on them at 8:00 every night. like clockwork, the phones will ring and one by one, each kiddo confirms their safety. it puts his mind at ease, at least just a little bit.
robin only calls steve. never at a specific time, but always way too late in the night to be something she planned. 2:34, 1:17, 3:55, 4:11.
“steve? steve, please tell me you’re there.”
“i’m here, robbie.”
she’s huffing and puffing like she ran a marathon in her sleep.
“they don’t- they’re not- your face?”
“nobody’s here but me. no russians. no injuries.” he tries to keep his voice even, steady, let her know he means it.
“promise you’ll call if they come? i’ll- i’ll get you out this time, i swear, i- i’ll do more. promise?”
and steve shuts his eyes, holding back a sad sigh as he pictures her in that bunker, where her brain currently is, screaming out for him, begging them to leave him alone, to stop hurting him.
“i promise. but there’s nothing to worry about. i’m okay, you’re okay. there’s no russians.”
“i should have saved you-“
“you did save me, robbie.”
“i could have- i should have done more.”
“you did enough.”
and her breathing stutters before it finally slows down, her lungs settling on an even pace. he can lay back now.
“i’m gonna…gonna go to sleep again.”
“good. you do that. i’m a call away.”
“a call away…okay…yeah…okay. i love you.”
“i love you too, robin.”
“okay…g’night.”
“goodnight, robbie.”
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I’m literally begging y’all not to disclose your trauma in order to justify and validate your tastes in fiction.
The people who are or you fear are going to get on your case about your fantasies, taste in fiction or how you identify? Do not give a shit about you. Or the trauma you have faced. They don’t give a shit about other trauma survivors either, and they don’t care about how callous and shitty they seem. All they care is about controlling and policing people they think they might have a sliver of power over.
You can block or clown or do whatever you want. (I recommend blocking, don’t feed the trolls) But please for the love of god do not tell random strangers on the internet who have absolutely no business knowing you’re traumatized and have X Y and Z mental illnesses from it.
Don’t reveal yourself as vulnerable, don’t paint that target on your back, and don’t give people access to possible triggers that may hurt you.
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yashley · 7 months
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Did she keep you trapped?
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trans-androgyne · 1 month
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“Me hating men isn’t radfem behavior! TERFs don’t even actually hate men, they just hate trans women.” Radfems would beg to fucking differ!! They most certainly hate men, and they will tell you so with pride. Have you ever actually heard from a radfem? They think all men are inherently predatory and dangerous and should be kept as far away from women as humanly possible if not outright be killed. Yes, they hate trans women the most—because they conceptualize them as men mocking and harming “real” women. That doesn’t mean they aren’t also misogynistic towards trans women; they are. That also doesn’t mean they don’t team up with cis men against trans people sometimes; they do. But if you look into it literally at all you will immediately see that radical feminist ideology hinges on blaming not just the structure of patriarchy but individual men for the oppression of women. If coming to terms with that makes you uncomfortable, sit with that for a while and figure out just how comfortable you are with bio- and gender-essentialism.
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hypewinter · 1 year
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The Young Justice learns about a new experiment going on at Cadmus once again involving cloning and decides to go rescue the clones. They expertly break into the facility avoiding all alarms only to find out that they trigger anyway. Instead of a voice coming on over the intercoms announcing intruders though, it instead announces an escape. What?
The team continues navigating the base until they come across two kids. The older boy can't be older than 8 while the girl being tugged along behind him looks around 5. The boy narrows his eyes and his body tenses up.
"You're definitely not guards. Who are you?" He questions.
It's Superboy who steps up and says "We're the Young Justice. We came here to rescue you."
The boy doesn't seem to believe them but the girl immediately gets excited. Apparently she couldn't wait to meet real life superheroes. Especially Superboy. That means whatever Cadmus was doing with the kids, they'd already implanted knowledge of the outside world in them. That didn't bode well.
The team decides to push that to the back of their minds for now and focus on the mission. They manage to convince the boy (with the help of the girl) to come with them and they get the two out of the facility. Of course this is after they take all the information they can from the servers (Thanks Robin).
As they get both kids to the medical wing on the Watchtower, the boy introduces himself as Danny and the little girl as his sister Ellie. Connor's never seen clones with such a close bond before and he can admit he's a little jealous that he and Match don't have that kind of relationship. Still he's just happy they rescued the two.
Now to find out who they're clones of and what Cadmus wanted to use them for.
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electryone-moon · 1 year
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Regulus secretly put a protective enchantment around Pandora’s lab so she would be safe from any volatile potions or backfiring spells.
This meant that Pandora didn’t realise just how dangerous her experiments were because they’d never properly injured her.
In 1979, Regulus went for his little swim.
In 1989, his spell wore off.
In 1990, something went terribly wrong and with no protections in place, an eight year old Luna had to watch her mother die
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anistarrose · 2 months
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The thing about the "fridged" trope is that obviously you can't have a female love interest dying as a defining moment for a male character because that's not feminist, but you also can't have a male love interest dying as a defining moment for a female character because then she's just going to have an arc revolving around her relationship with a man and that's also not feminist, and you also can't kill off a love interest from a gay relationship or a relationship involving a nonbinary person because that's burying your queers, which is at least as bad as misogyny if not even worse, and now suddenly you can't kill off romantic partners at all in stories because no matter the demographics, it's going to be problematic somehow, which is... a pretty ridiculous limitation to impose on storytelling.
And, like, it would be satisfying to have a solution other than "it depends on context if not straight-up vibes, and it's usually very reasonable for audience members to have a range of opinions on the execution of one specific instance," but. Yeah, you do kind of have to just vibe check it in a deeply subjective manner sometimes.
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wolfythewitch · 7 months
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Do you ever have that feeling where, despite your distance with your religion, there's still moments where sparks of what you were bought up with, return?
I'm from a religious family, but I'm not in touch with my own religion. Yet there's me calling in the name of the Lord before and after I eat. It's like this lingering piece that I never turn to look at but somehow slips into my ordinary life.
I don't really know you that much, or your religious status. But seeing your religious talks made me want to bring this up.
I don't even know if I make sense here- just- ignore this if you want to, I don't know.
Hmmm I think so. My whole thing with it is really complicated haha. I still go to church every Sunday, though I prefer doing volunteer work with the kids over listening to the sermon. I pray before I eat out of habit. I find myself quoting the bible more often than I open to read it (though this is changing because of all the times I look for references lol). There's a resentment that I get whenever it's brought up, especially around my family. I find myself immediately on guard the minute it becomes subject of conversation. Sometimes at night I'll pace around and just talk. I don't know if I'm talking to myself or to god or whoever but. I'll talk. I think I still believe in him. I definitely believe that there's something out there. I don't think the question is of belief as much as it is of care. Do I care enough to try?
I'll say this though. Whatever I'm doing right now has gotten me to think more about bible and religion than I have in the past few years. So. That's fun! Who knew trying to explore something your own way instead of the way forced onto you by your environment gives your room to feel everything out without any preexisting pressure?
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krakensdottir · 10 months
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Also something really important I want to point out about Aziraphale's religious trauma.
It's often framed as him being directly abused by Heaven, generally emotionally. And while I don't doubt he's been belittled at points - probably not by Gabriel, the iconic exemplar of the Toxic Positivity boss, but we know how Michael and Uriel etc. can be - it also seems like he's received quite a lot of praise and has generally managed to pull off the appearance of being A Good Angel, or at least a satisfactory one. I don't think, and this is controversial, but I don't think Heaven was usually overtly hard on him.
Because that's not how this kind of cult mentality usually operates. Instead, it teaches you to abuse yourself. Your overseers don't have to directly hurt or insult you if you're so ingrained with fear of failure by the culture you were brought up in that you constantly question yourself as not good enough.
It's not as... satisfying, I guess? As an external abuser being the main issue. But it's a lot more real. At least to me, because I suffered so much anxiety over being 'good' when I was a kid, and it wasn't from direct abuse. It was absorbed from the culture I was surrounded by. I picked it up by osmosis from society at large, and it tormented me. I worried, I doubted, there was a time I literally feared going to Hell. And I wasn't raised strongly religious. My mother certainly treated me as a Good Kid, and never gave even the suggestion that I wasn't. But I felt that way anyway. And it tore me apart. Because internalizing that shit makes it so much harder to fight.
And to be clear at this point, I am not saying Heaven isn't abusive. I just think the nature of its abuse is more subtle and insidious than it's often given credit for. And - this is even harder to accept, but it's true, and it's important - it's not just abusive to Az. All the angels are victims of it. Yes, even Gabriel. The moment he, one of the most powerful forces in Heaven, steps out of line, we see that no one is exempt. Never even mind Muriel, who is literally on the lowest rung of the Heavenly ladder and has probably never been told they're worth anything beyond being, you know, an angel, so at least you're better than humans and demons.
It's a contrast with Crowley, who has long since accepted most (not all, there are definitely some deep issues remaining, but they're nothing like Aziraphale's) of his internal doubts and struggles. His fears are almost entirely external. He doesn't beat himself up if he fucks up. He doesn't have to. There are people happy to beat him up for him. So when things go really bad for him, his instinct is to run. To get out of the way of harm as much as possible.
The fact that Aziraphale is harder on himself than anyone else could be is a vital part of his character. He self-punishes. He self-criticizes. He feels awful every time he breaks the rules in the slightest, even though he isn't usually caught at it. Crowley can find some safety in solitude if he keeps his wits sharp and his head down. Aziraphale can't, because he carries Heaven's conditioning with him at all times. He doesn't need oversight, it doesn't take external threats to keep him in line. You don't need direct threats when literally everyone in your celestial workplace has seen firsthand the consequences of rebellion.
I don't know if I'm making sense here. Again, this is informed by personal experience and I can't claim to be unbiased. But I see so much internalization with Aziraphale. He literally can't even accept praise without being nervous as hell, and I don't think it's fear of punishment or ridicule that's his primary motivation. He simply cannot ever be good enough for himself.
That's how they get you.
Anyway, I think it's why his reaction to disaster is the opposite to Crowley's, why he feels he has to turn and face it and somehow avert the horror (or, alternatively, find some way to reconcile it in his head and accept it - because let's be real, that's often what happens) rather than get himself away. He's less afraid of failing his superiors than he is of failing himself. And God, who is, objectively, the biggest abuser in the entire story.
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needforfidelity · 2 months
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i’d kill to be in a forced sin scenario with a priest, no matter how much i deny it, when he rubs his thick cock against my slick, warm cvnt, how could i say no? how could i say no to the gift god bestowed upon us? father says as long as i do not waste his seed, as long as i keep it inside of me, god will forgive us <3
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dykealloy · 5 months
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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.
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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.
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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.  
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. 
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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.
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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?
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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. 
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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. 
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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. 
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