#this is not a passive aggressive argument against those saying his ability to read emotions is an invasion of privacy

[braininatankwithalaptop]

I love how much Zorian's empathy is like most autists' daydream.

Zorian: "Aw man, I just can't connect with people and their actions are confusing and emotions cause me distress."

Normal people: "wow have you ever thought about . . . being normal? It's your fault you don't understand other people."

Telepath spiders: "Here's your problem, you're assuming that your experience fits the normal lens. Here's your diagnosis and now you have a support network that will help you be better at reading other people's emotions and crowds don't hurt you anymore. In fact, you'll be better at reading people than anyone else."

Zorian: "Damn, this slaps. I'm so happy with my condition now." Normal people: "No Zorian! It's unfair for you to be better at reading emotions than us! );"

Zorian: "Skill issue."

[notthatiwilleverwriteit]

Hey I saw your answer about akigetsu and damnnn it was such a good read. They always manage to bring so many emotions in me. Also I saw that you mentioned you might have shipped akiharu if they were executed differently.. how do you mean? I too think that haruki and akihiko would have been better off as friends sigh. Last thing, hiiragi and shizu what's your thoughts? XD

Hello, dear haffi-shipper!

I have kept your ask waiting for a long time, but I think I’m finally getting around to answer you. To be honest, I’m still not completely sure what I want to say or how to convey it exactly but I don’t think further mulling is going to make much difference. So, let’s get to this finally!

“I saw that you mentioned you might have shipped akiharu if they were executed differently.. how do you mean?”

Here is the previous AkiUgetsu answer you are referring to. In it, I talked about why I think they dragged their relationship on for so long even though it was clearly painful for both of them after becoming roommates. I also said this in the end about AkiHaru:

Then there is also the development of AkiUgetsu to AkiHaru to consider. Now, I feel like I have to make something clear before entering this part of my answer. I do not ship AkiHaru. In fact, it’s probably my Given NOTP. Personally, I don’t see any romantic/sexual chemistry between them and I think they would have been better off as friends regardless of how AkiUgetsu ended. For me to feel their relationship, I think their development should have been executed better/differently.

Before I get to your question, let me tell you why it took me so long to come up with my answer and why it threw me in a bit of turmoil.

At first, your ask seemed relatively “easy” to me. I set out to reread the comic from the AkiHaru point of view but as I kept reading, I noticed two things.

First of all, I was rushing through the AkiHaru parts of the story. I was skimming instead of reading and even skipping some panels without paying them proper attention. Catching myself skimming and skipping got me thinking why I was doing it. I knew I couldn’t answer your question with such half-assed work, but it seemed I just couldn’t dig into AkiHaru. After a while, I decided to stop reading and not resume until I had solved this problem. And it turned out your ask was a good chance for me to really take a good look at myself.

As a fair warning, what I’m about to say next might offend someone, especially if you’re an AkiHaru shipper. But those things are the basis for what I have been feeling and going through, so I’d appreciate it if you would at least hear them out. 

I’m pretty sure people who have followed me in the Given fandom know that AkiUgetsu is my OTP through and through. People with whom I’m closer probably also know that my relationship with the AkiHaru folks is…complicated for the lack of a better word.

To me, the Given fandom has been one of the most frustrating fandoms I have been in. Character bashing, ship bashing, bashing disguised as crack, cliques, banning, kicking out, and very passive-aggressive behavior all around. It seems we can barely talk about anything without lowkey offending each other and we seem to lack the ability to keep scrolling if something isn’t to our taste.Now, I fully understand this kind of behavior concerns the whole fandom, though I would say some ships are more peaceful than others and are just doing their thing. But in my experience, it’s the AkiHaru folks who do the lion’s share of dominating the fandom and lowkey silencing people.

Before anyone comes at me, please know that I’m not saying people can’t ship what they want or that everyone has to agree with my personal preferences. I have no problem with people shipping AkiHaru and/or disliking AkiUgetsu. It’s their business and freedom. What I am saying, however, is that I have encountered many Ugetsu/AkiUgetsu fans who feel like they don’t have any space in the fandom. They are hesitant to post about Ugetsu/AkiUgetsu in groups etc. because they are afraid of the avalanche of AkiHaru folks who just can’t keep scrolling. And this hesitance spreads until it seems like you’re all alone in the fandom.

I’m also not saying that every AkiHaru shipper is the same. I’m sure the majority of them are perfectly nice people, and I’m even friends with some of them. It’s just that the most vocal and aggressive of them can act very entitled and as if their endgame ship gives them some kind of moral high ground in the fandom. In other words, if you can’t see the superiority of AkiHaru, there must be something wrong with you.

The reason why I have developed such a strong disliking of AkiHaru is precisely because of the way the AkiHaru fandom behaves. In my time of being in the fandom, AkiHaru has gone from neutral “meh” to a NOTP to me. And that development is why I realized I was rereading the AkiHaru story in such a half-assed way. The canon story of AkiHaru evokes the same frustration, anxiety, and “ugh” reaction in me as the AkiHaru shippers do, and I end up barely being able to read the panels through.

But trying to answer this question made me realize that I haven’t been fair. It’s not right that I’m not giving the ship a fair chance just because I associate it with the fandom. The fandom does have a big role in how people view something in canon, but it’s ultimately up to me if I lowkey deliberately won’t give something a chance. This behavior also goes against what I personally believe because I think that kind of skewed reading leads to biased interpretations. Despite what my personal interests and biases are, I don’t think I can pick and choose what to acknowledge in canon.

So, I was forced to swallow a somewhat bitter pill and take a good look at myself. I had to almost completely rethink my take on AkiHaru which is why it took me so long to work up to this answer.

Another thing that I realized after all the deliberation was that I might come out as AkiHaru curious at the end of this. After the closing of the Given Facebook group I was a member of, I took a step back from the main fandom. I wanted nothing to do with the constant arguments and bashing anymore. I pitched up a little corner for Ugetsu folks and decided I would be content with that space. It’s a small group and will probably never grow big but at least I won’t have that nervous churn of stomach every time I get a notification from the group.

But I think that step back helped me see AkiHaru better and even get more interested in it. My reaction to it isn’t as clouded with my feelings towards the fandom as it used to be. My guard isn’t as high anymore, and I feel like I can give it a proper chance now. I have had some tickles to even try and write AkiHaru. AkiUgetsu still remains as my OTP for sure, but I’m beginning to get some sparks of inspiration from AkiHaru as well.

I’m sorry for the long explanation but I just wanted to make people reading this know where I’m coming from with AkiHaru. Now, finally to your question!

The main “problem” I have with AkiHaru is that I can’t see much romantic chemistry and depth between them. In my eyes, they pale in comparison to what AkiUgetsu had. AkiHaru is cute and fluffy, but I feel like “cute uwu” is where the conversation begins and ends with them. However, that changed a little to me as I kept deliberating. Their relationship started to gain a few more layers but they still don’t really have the kind of complexity and development that would pull me in. I can see they are in a relationship in the comic but I’m struggling to really feel them.

I think stories involving long-term unrequited love are very tricky to execute well. If A has been one-sidedly in love with B for a long time, it’s difficult to make B return those feelings in a way that feels natural and not forced because of the plot. Especially if that change is from friendship to romantic love. In AkiHaru’s case, I could feel Haruki’s unrequited crush on Akihiko but I’m really struggling to feel Akihiko returning those feelings. He confessed to Haruki in canon, but the process of him gaining and discovering those feelings was lost on me.

I think the one of the biggest reasons for that was the 6-month timeskip Kizu decided to take in chapter 28. I do think Akihiko started to see Haruki in a different, more romantic light during his stay before their CAC performance. But I feel like the mental process of his feelings for Haruki taking shape and strengthening to the point of confessing was lost in the timeskip. Akihiko went from inklings of seeing Haruki in a different light to “I wanted to become a better man for you”, and that change in him was basically covered with a couple of panels of him buying Haruki some coffee.

Now, I do realize there were panels of Haruki talking about Akihiko moving out, quitting his part-time jobs, spending more time practicing the violin, and “acting strangely”, but all of that is telling instead of showing. When it comes to something as big as Akihiko going through all that change – the biggest issue I always have with these kinds of stories about unrequited love – the story needs to show the development to me, not tell me.

So, if there was one thing I would have changed in AkiHaru, it would have been that timeskip. I would have loved to see inside Akihiko’s head during all that time and actually see the progress of his feelings and resolve. What does he love about Haruki? How does Haruki make him feel? Don’t just skip all of that and make him confess and say that he’s now trying his best for Haruki. If you compare the way Akihiko was made to fall in love with Haruki to how his story with Ugetsu was told to us, the difference is like night and day.

In some ways, I think AkiHaru lacks the development and care that AkiUgetsu and even UeMafu has. As I said in my earlier answer, the direction from AkiUgetsu to AkiHaru makes sense to me and now I can even appreciate it, but even with my new rereading of AkiHaru, the ship doesn’t bring as much to the table as AkiUgetsu did. It’s fluffy and uwu but where is the rest?

I think this also shows in the fandom’s AkiHaru content. I see a lot of fanart of blushing Haruki and posts raving about cute AkiHaru panels, but I’m struggling to find layers in the fluff-fest. What about conflicts in their relationship? What about how will the downsides of both Haruki and Akihiko’s characters affect their relationship? With these questions I’m talking about the fans’ thoughts and ideas. For example, I would be genuinely interested in AkiHaru folks’ headcanons.

This wraps up the AkiHaru part of my answer. I probably upset some people and I apologize for that, but I feel like I needed to address those things. In the end, I got a lot of things off my chest which helped me clear my own feelings towards AkiHaru. I still prefer to keep my distance from the main (AkiHaru) fandom, but I do realize I hadn’t been fair in my judgment of the ship. There are some things that will most probably always sting in my heart, but I think I have gained some new interest in AkiHaru after giving it a proper chance.

“hiiragi and shizu what's your thoughts?”

ShizuRagi isn’t exactly my area of expertise, but I do love the characters and I’m excited to see them becoming canon. To me, ShizuRagi has the kind of depth and complexity that interests me.

Hiiragi is definitely one of my favorite uke characters in all of the BL I have read. It’s so unbelievably refreshing when an uke is shamelessly head over heels for their seme. I love his inner tsundere simping for Shizusumi. I also absolutely love the confidence, energy, and brilliant shine of Hiiragi. To me, he has the vibe and intelligence of a music producer. But despite all the tough confidence, he is also considerate of his surroundings and worries easily.

Overall, ShizuRagi is probably my second favorite ship after AkiUgetsu. I love the complexity of how Shizusumi feels about Hiiragi. I’m drawn to the darkness he seems to carry and what kind of contrast it creates with Hiiragi’s dazzling shine. The overwhelming and at times a bit intimidating devotion he has for Hiiragi but at the same time feeling like he’s being cast aside by Hiiragi/he’s someone who can’t compete for Hiiragi’s love tickles my angst bone. There is this dark energy in him that wants to both cherish Hiiragi’s light but also seal it off just for himself. In some ways, ShizuRagi reminds me of AkiUgetsu but just with a dynamic that is the kind that “fits” an endgame relationship.

So, yes, double thumbs up for ShizuRagi development!

Thank you for your questions! They proved to be difficult for me on a personal level, but I’m glad I went through that process. Also, thank you for your endless patience waiting for me to get my thoughts sorted out!

[cienie-isengardu]

The development of Law’s relationship with Zoro - Part 4: Dressrosa, The Breaking Point (Protecting Law)

<<Part I: Before Meeting>> <<Part II: Sabaody Archipelago, The First Meeting>> <<Part III: Punk Hazard, The Alliance (A)>> <<Part III: Punk Hazard, The Alliance (B)>>  <<Part IV: Dressrosa, The Breaking Point (The Plan Failed)__ (Saving Law)__(Protecting Law)__ (Birdcage, Pica and Doflamingo)__ (Aftermath)>>

While Doflamingo was addressing people of Dressrosa and explaining the rules of “game” to punish 12 enemies of his (chapter 746), Luffy was talking with Zoro, most likely explaining what happened in Throne Room. We can only wonder what exactly Luffy told him, did he mention anything related to Law. At the same time, Zoro held Law’s sword that he had to find somewhere around. Interestingly, according to SBS vol. 71, Trafalgar’s nodachi - Kikoku (Demon’s Cry) is in fact a cursed blade and Zoro is sensitive to such “evil” nature of swords what was seen with his own Sandai Kitetsu. As a swordsman himself, of course he took care of the sword while Law couldn’t do it personally. At the same time, we don’t see Zoro returning Kikoku to the owner, just that he had it while talking with Luffy. Another worth to mention detail is the cover of volume 75 (in which the discussed panel comes from) that adds to the impression that Zoro passed Kikoku to Luffy instead of Law. What supports the feeling of keeping distance between those two.

Using Den Den Mushi, Zoro contacted Robin to check in the situation:

For the upcoming chapters, the visual setting of three Supernovas shown together in the same panels will reflect this scene - Luffy as the central figure in this trio…. except a specific kind of situation but about that in a moment.

Like always, Luffy wasn’t bothered much by the whole enemy’s game, while Zoro did not show emotions at all. Law simply watched the whole situation (while his sword lied close to him). At least until Luffy declared to Rebecca he is going to kick Doflamingo’s ass because that went against the main goal of Law’s plan.

Zoro did not take part in the argument between two captains. Yet his reaction (holding and squeezing tighter his katana) seems to be quite ambiguous. For sure it was a sign of support for his captain’s decision - as in, ready to fight everyone and everything, no doubts about what should be done (read: kicking Doffy’s ass regardless of Law's objection). But at the same time it looks as, well, threatening Law is too big a word, because Zoro wouldn’t cut a defenseless man, but there is something (passive) aggressive about such a gesture. Law’s silent reaction (to Luffy’s words? To Zoro’s lack of reasoning with Luffy?) makes me think there was more going on in this scene than just Law’s angry(?) surprise/shock. This probably was another moment for Law to see who the fellow Supernovas were at the core.

Whatever Law’s impression was at that moment about Luffy and Zoro’s determination to save Dressrosa instead of thinking just of their own survival, the next few hours(?) gave him a better understanding of the dynamic between Zoro and his captain. In all fairness, the experience was gained by his own misery thanks to dealing with the insanity of Straw Hat with only Pirate Hunter for some sort of mental support. Starting with such treatment in chapter 746:

Without asking for permission or any warning, Luffy simply grabbed Zoro and  Law and straight up jumped from a high place… only to land into the middle of an enemy group.

Law wasn’t happy about that - even threatened (again) Luffy that once he is free from handcuffs, he’ll kill Luffy. Usually Zoro reacts strongly to threats against his nakama, yet here he totally ignored Law’s words. Maybe he knew there was no time to worry about that or maybe he simply understood Law’s fury because really, that was a natural response to Luffy’s impatience. Unlike Law, Zoro had a lot of experiences with Luffy’s crazy ideas of “fast transport” and even many Straw Hats well familiar with their captain’s antics still weren’t comfy with it. The whole situation was even worse for the Heart captain due to seastone shackles that were A) weakening him and B) blocking his devil fruit’s powers so it was a freestyle “falling” he couldn’t in any way control or prevent if something went wrong. And Law seems like the type of person who likes to have control over things. So the resentment toward Luffy was an understable reaction.

One more important note about the landing scene - like was previously mentioned, Luffy for the majority of upcoming interaction between the three Supernovas was presented as a central figure, a “connection” between Zoro and Law. Both on the contextual level on which the analysis is based and in the visibility; in the sense how the layout of the panel has been planned. The biggest, most oblivious exception to the usual dynamic of Zoro-Luffy-Law were moments in which Zoro switched his position to put Law in the (safest) middle. Whatever he did that solely for Law’s safety or just Luffy’s (who by carrying all the time Trafalgar on his right arm couldn’t fight at 100% of his abilities and thus the right side was less guarded), the change was beneficial to Heart captain.

Since Luffy carried powerless Trafalgar, Zoro was the only one mobile to actually adapt his position to the needs of the situation. Like right now, cornered by the enemy, Zoro stood a bit ahead of two captains, with a katana already in hand, ready to fight.

Let’s just think about Law’s situation for a moment. Defenseless and surrounded on all sides by enemies, absolutely dependent on protection of fellow Supernovas he barely knew - including one chaotic dumbass responsible for his misery in the first place. Zoro, on another hand, was the only one person from Straw Hats crew that did not irritate or confuse Trafalgar in the last days of stress. But then the build impression of stoic, straight-thinking Zoro slowly started crackling. Like in the landing scene: Luffy thought he landed in a bad place to which Zoro noted there wasn’t any good place for them on Dressrosa right now and it was time to run away… just to run in the wrong direction. Which Luffy corrected the swordsman only to run in the wrong way too.

Law seriously didn’t need more stress at this point of life, yet not only Luffy but Zoro too, were challenging his self-control and patience.

Not much time has passed and Luffy already was caught by enemy’s attack:

Straw Hat managed to dodge “Super weight man” but get stuck for good. Both captains were saved from the powerful/deadly kick of Dellinger thanks to Zoro. Roronoa didn’t even cut the enemy, just kicked Dellinger in the ass and used his attack to push heavy Visa off from Luffy, freeing him for good (and once again, the frame presents Law in the middle).

The same like on Punk Hazard, Roronoa reminded Luffy to be careful.

This moment has an ambiguous feeling about it. On one hand, Zoro once again seemed to ignore Law's presence and focused on Luffy. On another, I think there is something diplomatic about the way Zoro addressed the situation. Because Luffy would be more or less fine, even if stamped by Visa. He was, in the end, a rubber-man and it wouldn't be the first time when something heavy crashed into him with high speed. Going Merry did that on a few occasions, when Luffy was using gomu gomu no balloon to save the ship from crashing into mountains / rocks. Unlike Law, who would be crushed to death.

The biggest problem during the run of Three Supernovas was how defenseless - thus useless in fight - Law was at that moment. He was totally dependent on Straw Hats and Zoro couldn't be not aware of that. On Sabaody Archipelago, when Eustass Kid decided to deal with marines alone, both Luffy and Law got so pissed off at the mere suggestion they needed to be saved. But there, Law was in need of save because seastone cuffs took all his powers, all his control over the situation. It was so easy to make fun of Heart captain, point out how powerless he was, complain about that. And some people would abuse the situation to laugh at Law. Zoro could say something along the line “be careful because Law can't fight”, yet he reprimanded Luffy without dragging Law into discussion. Without a fuss or making Trafalgar feel like a burden. Warning Luffy to be careful is similar to Punk Hazard's scene in the regard of demanding from the captain to not fool around and get the grip of himself. But unlike the previous arc, Zoro's demand was kept short, to the point. No speech how one mistake can cost them life - what was true in Dressrosa too.

Law didn't betray any reaction to Roronoa's words but I think there was a part of him that could feel glad for not humiliating him any more. He already had a hard time being carried like a sack of potatoes and forced to trust Straw Hats to not kill him in the process. He didn't need to be reminded how powerless he currently was.

Soon after that the Three Supernovas run into a crowd of citizens trying to capture Doflamingo's enemies. Zoro showed concern about them, not feeling right to cut desperate common people which Luffy agreed. Once again, Straw Hats proved how different they were from the majority of pirates. Law alone was okay to set Kaido after Doffy's head which in the long run would put the people of Dressrosa in harm's way.

Finally, the admiral Issho showed up - Zoro, due to previous movement of dodging an attack, didn't have time to change his position thus came at Luffy's left side. In that formation, Law was the least protected one which put Luffy at disadvantage as well.

Though Zoro was the character of lower status (the only non-captain Supernova and two stars on Doffy’s list in contrast to Luffy & Law’s three), it was Roronoa who actually fought the marine officer. What makes sense; he already had a chance to test Issho’s strength and was capable of freeing himself with a flying slash from gravity trap / attack while Law and Luffy couldn’t fight at full capability. Of course, manga only gave a small insight into their fight and the skirmish with the admiral was ultimately stopped by Pica's giant presence.

Of course, once Luffy heard the high pitched voice of a colossal enemy, he laughed like a maniac, despite Zoro’s (and enemy foot soldiers) warning.

Straw Hat’s reaction hit Pica’s berserk button to the point the man didn’t care if he killed members of his own Family or subordinates with his destructive attack (“It’s not even a punch anymore!! The town is falling on us”). Everyone could only run away as far as possible. While on the run, Zoro once again reprimanded his own captain. Or, at least, tried. Until he started laughing himself (chapter 748).

(Once again, the translation varies from one site to another; in some versions, Law told Luffy and Zoro “knock it off, you two…!!” or outright called them “you dipshits…!!”. Still, all three translations made it clear how unhappy Law was about the whole situation)

That moment is another breaking point of Law's impression about Zoro as the stoic, reasonable counter-balance to Luffy's madness. Because Roronoa wasn't any better than Monkey D. Luffy and that was the biggest "betrayal" to Trafalgar’s idea of what Pirate Hunter should be so far. Law was so, so disappointed in the angry way and he did not try to hide it.

Frankly, Law’s stoicism was put to the test the whole time and it was cracking under pressure more and more. Zoro and Luffy’s lack of self-preservation instinct definitely didn’t help at all.

Pica’s attack sent Supernova Trio flying far away from the palace, what allowed them to (sort of) catch a break. Zoro’s main focus was of course at the gigantic enemy, wondering how they could defeat him. His words weren’t directed at anyone in particular, but gave an opening for Law to join the discussion.  In the past, Law shared his knowledge about powers of enemies and how they worked yet this time he had no advice to give. It may suggest that Trafalgar wasn’t that familiar with the true nature and weakness of Ishi Ishi no Mi (what makes sense, since Pica’s powers are strictly related to rock and his attacks too destructive to use them recklessly, so young Law may never truly see the true potential of Pica in fight. Also, Doflamingo did not mention Pica when he named those of Family Law learned fighting skills from nor Law’s flashback showed any closer interaction with the man).

Or maybe Law didn’t have enough time to recover to talk about strategy against Pica and once Candevish showed up, there were other matters to worry about right then. Especially since the man tried to kill Law on the spot who was saved only by Luffy’s quick reaction (though Zoro already had a sword in hand, once he noticed the non familiar face, so maybe all of them felt the ill intention coming off Cavendish?).

Through the whole discussion with the man, Zoro stayed silent, while Law was furious at both Luffy and Cavendish. Including Luffy’s declaration of them being friends.

Law denied it and frankly, after the whole “adventure” of almost dying time after time because of Monkey D. Luffy’s lack of common sense, no one can blame him for such rage and lost composure. Still, whatever Law said about his relationship with Straw Hat, Zoro was guarding him more than his own captain. What makes sense - right now Luffy didn’t have to carry Heart captain (thus in case of attack wasn’t burdened in any way) while Law was still powerless by seastone. Zoro didn’t sheathe the sword and stood behind Luffy, the same as Law. At least until Luffy’s former rival (enemy) didn’t declare to be sort of on the same side as them. Law once again was faced with Luffy’s insanity, when rubber-man admitted that food given to him by Rebecca was the main motivation for his actions. Through the whole meeting with Candevish, Zoro was the only one person in the group that did not piss off Law even a bit.

Luffy and Candevish had another argument (who is gonna beat Doflamingo), but this time Luffy decided to run away and leave the man to his delusional talk about popularity. The Supernovas Trio soon met another Luffy’s rivals from Colosseum: Happo Navy Gang, the giant Hajrudin, king Elizabello II & Dogma, Abdullah & Jet, admiral Olombus, Ideo, Slayman, Blue Gilly. All powerful in their own right, all feeling indebted to Usopp (Straw Hats) for breaking Sugar’s curse to the point every one of them decided to take Doffy’s head.

Luffy was not really happy to see his rivals showing up one after another, even less when none cared that he decided to personally kick Doflamingo’s ass. Zoro’s initial reaction was commenting “you know lots of weird people” but beyond that did not show any distress (unlike Luffy) while Law did not talk at all.

In the group of so many self-assured fighters arguing who will take down the enemy, only Roronoa seemed to not be affected by emotions and approached the matter with cold pragmatism. He proposed a compromise: all fighters backing them up but the proposition was shut down. Mainly because all had too big egos and were too stubborn. Including Luffy, to Law’s utter shock.

Here some interesting details:

↪ Zoro once again held a sword in a hand. What suggests he didn’t consider the meeting between pirate alliance and the colosseum fighters as the “safest”. At the same time, the sword stayed unsheathed so it wasn’t totally “hazardous” feeling either. Though the situation could quickly get out of control and turn into a fight no one really needed, Zoro gave the fighters a benefit of doubt.

↪ Despite the benefit of doubt, Zoro still changed the usual position from Luffy’s left side to his right. Once again, Law was put in the (safest) middle. The change happened quickly, with the (second rival) giant Hajrudin showing up. After meeting with the Happo Gang, Luffy already was ready to run away while Zoro did not betray any sign of worry. The framing makes it look like he went ahead to face the gigantic man just in case, thus putting himself between two captains and the possible enemy.

↪ Once again Zoro acted protective of other Supernovas without making a fuss about it.

↪ There is a visible difference between how Luffy and Zoro approached the subject of the argument. Through the few pages, from meeting Candevish to arguing with all colosseum fighters, Luffy kept saying he will kick Doflamingo’s ass - in contrast, Zoro said to other men “back up us” what sounds like he actually remembered about Trafalgar. Considering how personal taking down Doflamingo was to Law, being included despite the current state of powerlessness most likely alone made (again) a good impression. On other hand, Luffy from the start to the end was selfish in the sense he decided to kick Doffy’s ass on his own and outright dismissed the very thought that anyone else should do it. Surprisingly, somehow along the way, Straw Hat switched from “we will go to the palace to kick Doflamingo’s ass” (said to the crew at the beginning of battle) to “I’m gonna do that” without including even Zoro.

↪ There is something interesting in the fact that the bigger group around them, then Zoro and Law spoke less. Even more, when one spoke the other usually stayed silent through the conversation with the strangers. What could be seen with Cavendish (Law was screaming talking) and the bunch of colosseum fighters (Zoro’s solution to join the forces). In the case of Roronoa, it seems like a normal thing for him; the more unfamiliar people the bigger chance he will keep quiet and simply observe what is going on around. That of course does not mean he is shy or anything like that, just acts like an introvert. Law seems here to operate in a similar way. Though in contrast to Zoro (who occasionally was commenting on people's idiocy), to Trafalgar the whole situation was as much as ridiculous as overwhelming judging by his shocked face.

↪ Even if Law’s impression of Zoro cracked a bit due to his bad sense of direction and  laughing with Luffy at dangerous enemy, when it mattered Roronoa A) didn’t lost his composure and was not influenced by emotions or personal pride and B) was reliable. In contrast, Law’s tolerance for all the chaos and absurdity (and one chaotic dumbass) was barely maintained the whole time.Trafalgar screamed in powerless(?) furypowerless fury(?) a lot and in general showed emotions in unusual manners. On Sabaody Archipelago and Punk Hazard, Zoro rarely couldhad a chance see Law so stressed and out of his depth. Dressrosa for the first time allowed him to see a different side of Law. In a way, Zoro finally had a chance to see (judge) what kind of man Trafalgar was once the control and devil fruit powers were taken away from him. He saw Law when he was vulnerable and it seems this shared experience builtin the long run built a solid ground between those two characters.

The argument between Luffy and gladiators was temporarily stopped by enemy attack. After that all of them rushed after Doffy’s head. Luffy met a befriended in colosseum bull and on his back rode alongside Zoro and Law. Since the situation became more dangerous, Law permanently ended between the Straw Hats, with Luffy defending the front while Zoro secured the rear.

During the run to the palace, King Elizabello and Chinjao stopped Pica’s attack and destroyed his stone arm but no true damage was done to the enemy. Zoro then advised the men to not waste energy until they figure out how Pica’s powers work and for now, just run (chapter 749).

Surprisingly, the fighters that not so long ago were all about their pride and ego listened to Luffy’s subordinate while still arguing with Straw Hat himself who should defeat Doflamingo and calling him the “stupid savior”. Through their journey, Law didn’t say any useful information about Pica nor shared any observations that might help in the fight, despite being to some degree familiar with Pica and pretty smart to analyze other people’s fighting styles.

Frankly, Zoro was the only one sharing aloud his observations with his captain (and Law?) after Luffy hit the enemy with a powerful, yet fruitless attack. Because of that, it seems like Pirate Hunter so far had the best understanding of stone giant’s powers.

Soon after that Pica finally showed up his true body. Up to this moment, Roronoa was more or less neutral about the whole chaos around him and now had his killer smile (that Law most likely couldn't see but could pick up the predatory tone from Zoro’s voice) due to upcoming fight with a strong opponent.

Law’s reaction was not shown at all, but once again he experienced Zoro’s insanity; the thrill of deadly fight, instead of worry about danger. Dressrosa, like Sabaody Archipelago and Punk Hazard arcs, confirm Pirate Hunter’s lust for battle. Another thing is the complete trust between Straw Hat Supernovas - Luffy avoided Pica’s attack (saving everyone in the process) and was just like “I’ll keep going ahead” while Zoro took on himself stopping Pica for good.

Like fighting a tricky devil fruit user is no big deal. Even insulted Pica by calling him “a pebble” and “Soprano singer” while knowing full well how sensitive the man was to such words - what Law may or may not heard before he and Luffy get too far away.

The next part: Birdcage, Pica & Doflamingo

[actingdeep]

Jean & Cat

Give me your hand. Only give 'yes' or 'no' answers for now. We will go back later at the end. Close your eyes. I'm going to start by saying the Lord's Prayer.        "Okay."        That was all Lorraine could say these days. She would eat oatmeal when we set a bowl for her and she would smile. We put a red cigarette in her fingers and told her to inhale. She would cough twice in an elderly way, with sunken eyes staring straight forward, and she would smile.        We shifted our intimate yet quaint and twisted car songs and dialogues to the back porch around 6 a.m., after tiptoeing past conked couple Jean and Ryan crashing on their living room floorbed, making coffee, using the restroom and watering the silly-looking dog. There is a very alien type of relaxation that comes with being the last ones alive from a late night civil war on your own good health, with everyone else defenseless and asleep like regrettable casualties.        The horizon stretched and yawned. Past our feet, in the dew-covered grass, layed the sheepdoglike Lily, with her green bone flinging around her teeth. Cat had abilities within her revealing dormant truths and hidden pasts in others. I had amphetamines within me releasing all boring skepticism and reason. By the end of the night, she had given me a personal palm reading. The accuracy was daunting at first (and still is). It was a superstitious and almost laughable act, yes; but it was pinnacle altruism--and at that moment, after all these years, it was finally clear to me that she was my friend.        I was feeling a little effete as a hidden star burnished the scale of an overripe and infirm world. Cat and I had inadvertently stayed up all night. We were either still drunk, or low-key tweaking, or probably both. Our eager spirits were about to be given another boost out of their usual pockets of time and space. We lounged with sleepless energy in squat gray outdoor chairs on the small back porch, with blowing trees and birds singing in the early summer morning. Jean had already long fallen asleep on her living room floorbed, and now that I finally had Cat out of the car, I could let my blood cool between easy nature and cheap science.        The dome of the pipe we were smoking Annie from caught some outside debris from the wind that was blowing and made a slight brownish blemish on the inside, which made the taste of the rolling smoke a little less clean than the previous hits. Many a time when Jean and I were gulping down cherry-flavored vodka around this time six or seven years ago, in the bedroom right behind Cat's, when they still had their old house, I had never fathomed a table could turn so drastically: the table being my relationship with these two women--mother and daughter--over time frames scattered and separated by intermittent spaces of buildup and decay. The days when talking to Cat filled me with dread seemed like false memories when I looked at her now. I almost liked her more than Jean these days--a funny thought, indeed.        "Are you still hungry?"        "Okay."        At 4 a.m. we were back from the bar, and pulled in the driveway of Jean's grandparent's house. She struggled to shut her car door and sauntered inside. I followed, but before I made it in the house, I heard my name called back from behind me from the driveway. I turned to see Cat gesturing for me under the dim car light. She was looking around in the car for something I don't remember what. I got back in to help her search for something likely of the highest unimportance. As we began to talk more, we ended up being in the car for at least an hour. When Cat begins to chatter with you, an angel should come down from Headache Heaven to give you a Valium and a bucket of popcorn. We hadn't talked very much all night, only because once she dropped off Jean and I at the bar, she didn't come in to join us finally until around the last half hour we were there, where I would eventually start a scene that would close the entire bar for the night.        We laughed about that, and caught up with one another in general about the changes and differences in our respective current lives. Her overall pleasantness caught me off-guard, somewhat. As conversations in parked vehicles usually go, especially with our current bodily chemical states, we eventually graduated from serious discussion, to banter, to no words--just full duet performances to bands like The Violent Femmes and Fleetwood Mac, stridulate and true.        This is nothing like using Tarot cards. Those things are complete bull shit. I am going to try to knock something loose here.        They're screaming again: this time, passively-aggressively around the edges of the room, little hash symbols and asterisks and ampersands tunneling in the air and in and out of Lorraine's smiling ears. At first, the day was calm: quiet snores, with the T.V. playing The Price is Right, as some were still laid out on the floor asleep, some in chairs with coffee and paper, awake. The small house seemed much more open than it should have been. I watched the game show and sat on the couch next to Brenda, Cat's girlfriend, as she was scrolling her finger on a phone screen and grimacing a little. Jean's disheveled head was zzzing right next to my left foot. I put back large gulps of the coffee Brenda made me to put off my ineludible crash, and had cigarettes on the bright, thin clean carpet.        Brenda started it; it was around 11:30 a.m. Grunting, she staggered over to Cat's floorbed to lean down, and WHUP!, smack her on her overturned body, making her yelp in a terrible way, like a little, running dog that pivoted wrong and twisted it's paw. Some moments you don't want to ever remember--that is--until you really can't. She had only been asleep for about twenty minutes, and immediately:        "Fuck! What is...what is wrong with you?" cried Cat, still stridulate.        "Who's all these motherfuckers in yer phone messagin' ya? Always fuckin' around on me, ain't ya? Don't give a rat's ass about me."        "I don't talk to anyone, Brenda. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!"        "Ah, bull shit," waved Brenda, turning away like a troll.        "Fuck you!"        "Fuck you right back, bitch."        "I haven't gotten any sleep all night, Brenda. I was up talking to Derek all night, and I just fucking fell asleep."        "Well, good morning bitch!"        And so on. This match lasted hours; piercing echoes branching off into littler sub-arguments (but just as loud) over other things they thought would be good also brought up, neither showing mercy, except to make a jeer and cackle at the other's expense. Dan had already taken Ryan to his morning college class and hadn't gotten back yet, so between sleeping Jean, contented Lorraine, and highly tired I, no one was attempting to dampen the vicious quarrel in any way. I was sitting quietly, looking down at my feet and Jean's stirring hair ball, not from lack of sleep, but from the plain child greenness of these two women.        I knew Cat as a married woman to a husband, once. But no surprise came to me when I met her current girlfriend (womanfriend). I knew this was more of an emotionally-hinged relationship and sexually less so; only the emotions in use were nothing but petulant combativeness, desperation, and cold resentment; they were fools together. After a while, crash impending, I would simply walk outside, away from it all, until the screams muffled themselves in the distance.        "Okay."        Dan was the man of the house, and also Cat's dad. He was a few years shy of sixty years. Although I had never met him before, having stayed the night at his house, he was quite jolly and approachable. He smoked cigarettes with the front door open. His wife Lorraine sat by him in a low-back rocking chair, onlooking. The rooms of the house were typical in the grandparently sense: white-gold ceiling fan, porcelain figurines behind glass cases, mini fish tank, placemats on multiple kitchen tables, a smiling woman sitting in a smiling rocking chair, big television. The only thing out of place was the smoking; it was a subtle invasion of a seemingly innocent atmosphere, akin to squeezing your girlfriend's ass at church service. I couldn't believe I was smoking a square on a davenport.        Did you know the dead see the future?        Back in school, when Jean and I dated as teenagers, her mother Cat was in a seriously disobliging state--dependent on drugs like Xanax and methadone. She would stay in her room twenty-four seven and roar at us to turn the music down. She only left the house when absolutely necessary, and had a round, evil scorn forever in her floating eyes. She was ponderous, choleric and painstakingly contrary, instigating daily screaming matches with her husband, or daughter, or both. She was always in carping pain, and loved to spite her old pasts to herself in drugged, futile insanity. When she would bring her mom her dinner trays, Jean usually took accusation and insult as gratuity. On the occasions she was in good spirits (which usually implied she was unusually zapped), she would talk to you for what seemed like long hours about things like ghosts or glory days if you weren't careful to sneak past her bedroom door, which was permanently ajar, with a low, rambling sound leaking out of it always. I loved being in Jean's room more than anywhere in those days. I remember a pink sheet covering an overhead window making every movement and shadow a cotton candy daydream, sitting on a stack of two single mattresses, with us both leaning against a wall with blanketed legs and her kitten, soft and white between us, with secret, window eyes.        And there would be Jean: beautiful and youthful in blonde and black and pink and brown eyes. She was in the school's color guard and I would watch her practice double and triple rifle spins in her backyard for hours, smoking dirt weed to her music playlists. We were underage drinkers; but she always had a guy to buy alcohol for us (to them, just her), and once he would drop it off, she would cutely thank him and send him away, bringing it into her room where I waited, and we would drink from the bottle, giggling; or, we would just stay in her room for hours to avoid Cat by playing music, taking pictures, or just making each other laugh hysterically in various ways. I hope I never forget that laugh.        "Okay, honey."        We carried our drinks over to a rounded booth in the corner and talked for a while, saying hello to the barkeep Stephen as we walked in, and to all the other puffy, smiling faces we recognized, but didn't know. It was just Jean and I right now, talking like we always could, no matter where or when we ever were. Apparently, Cat was sticking around the parking lot for a while to connect to the internet on her phone for something rather (or was she?), and selling soupcons of various pills here and there to her bar regular buddies, amiably, with wrinkled eye corners.        Something is coming through. A man with a flattop military haircut. I also see an older man sitting in an easy chair. How well do you remember your childhood? Does the name Tom mean anything to you?        Jean and I sat near the DJ booth, which wasn't really a booth inasmuch as it was a large man sitting in a folding chair with a laptop. We laughed, but were loving what he was playing. Her and I have always been able to listen to music together comfortably for long periods of time, often with naps and cool silences. In the moment, I felt that we were actually a good couple when we were seventeen, even though it only lasted a couple weeks, tops; but being friends was barely different, and easy to do. She had many boyfriends, one at a time, in constant replicating sequences--one, and another, and another. I never minded that--it is a task for most people to be alone. Ryan was her current boyfriend, but she didn't bring him to the bar--and not just because he was underage. She used men like a body pillow or an aspirin; leave them at the house and use them for comfort as needed (and they were always young). She was dull now. I had to entertain her because she was dull, and I loved her; but of course, in loving her, I was dull, also. After some rounds, we would smile more easily.        I asked when her mom was going to join us, because, to this point, I really had no clue as to what Cat was even doing, us having sat there drinking, unjoined for an hour or two now.        "She's in the car, smoking speed. That's her drug of choice now." After I gave off a questioning look, she continued: "I really don't mind it. I mean, at least she can function."        Hmmm.        I rounded my eyes, and curled my wet lips. I excused myself, and bolted outside towards the car. I knew Cat would share; greed a moral hit-man. The dim car light was on across the street.        After twenty minutes or so, I sat back down in the booth and readjusted my eyes, feeling fresh. Jean was standing by the DJ booth.        "Do you take requests?"        "I take donations."        An older woman with a strained gait and a proud, pauper air waddled up to our booth and gave a friendly hello-how-are-you to Jean, but not to me. Jean had a subtle knack for being pleasurable and forebearing to humdrum dishwater persons, the subjective soul inside me under a spell of well whiskey, and also Cat's treat, slowly making my thoughts increasingly insubordinate here.        "Aye! A Jeanie in a bottle!"        "Hi, it's good to see you."        (No it isn't. She's foul!)        "Been missin' ya round this place. Where ya been, girly?"        "Just working, and taking care of grandma."        "Oh, bless your heart! How is she?        (She's okay.)        "Y'know--good days and bad days."        (Too bad this Jeanie can't grant wishes; she'd make it no days.)        At one point, I reached over and took a sip out of Jean's beer bottle. The woman slowly straightened her mouth and furrowed her brow, glaring at me.        "You're disrespectful."        "I bought this. I've bought all her drinks." A cheap maneuver. She turned to Jean:        "You should find better friends."        I saw Jean's mouth twitch a little, then turn up again. "This is my oldest friend," she defended me cooly, with an undertone of hate only I could detect. I smiled at the woman as if to say, "How about that?" She had a countenance that was one part protectiveness for Jean, another part antipathy for me, and a third part, something I couldn't place, but that was definitely for herself.        "It's okay, honey, he's really okay," said Jean sedatively. Jean looked more allayed than I was once the woman had eventually returned to her table.        The front door was slowly staving off tottering bodies as the night bloomed into day. As she passed by them, coming back in from a cigarette, Jean looked up and noticed an old school friend of hers, who was talking to a man that happened to be sitting right next to me, at the far end of the bar. This made her face light right up, I noticed, which contented me quite well, as Jean in general wasn't particularly boisterous. She skipped up to the old friend and gave a kind and delighted hello. But this girl was obviously completely disinterested in her, and gave her a lowbred, patronizing sneer.        "Okay."        Freshly cold-shouldered, Jean rubbed her arms, and became specially downcast, then: this was not okay. Seeing her so depreciated so abruptly sparked a most tender agony within me that would prod my heart, even under the many obtunding whiskeys I had imbibed over the night. I called the insipid girl's attention, and seconds later, she looked up at me, and when she looked up at me, I vengefully, and without restriction, said:        "What kind of rude, phony, fucking bitch are you?" Her body didn't move, but her fingers and face started to contort as she glared at me. She dropped her jaw a little, and then clenched it, and widened her thick, black eyes as a fire rose in them. Jean stood back a little, and the girl began to defend herself in belligerent fury, while I held my own ground in the meantime. Every sentence she spoke bumbled over the next; she was clearly plastered, and in rage. I continued to fuel that rage as I rebounded spurring insults like "Fuck you!" and "What do you know?" with gibes like "I can't! I'm outta cash!" and "Fish swim, birds fly, and you're a cunt!"        This soon started a mini-uproar on that end of the bar, and very quickly had all the remaining bar-goers perking up from their glasses. Some people began to hover nearby us gingerly, in case of the possibility that things could get physical, as her and I continued to altercate, teams now forming behind us.        After about three more minutes of her drunkenly calling me names and I relentlessly making fun of her for being fake and angry, the bartender Stephen kicked her out. He was good friends with Jean (a regular there), and had saw us together all night, and must have been partial. He told the friends of the girl I accosted, now a tornado of nails and hair and fury, body still unmoved, to take her outside, and so they did. He locked the doors, then turned to give me a face of exhausted vitriol. I still sat there at the long bar next to my friend Cat, the medium, and her deservedly defended daughter, one of my most nascent and esteemed loves from years and years ago. Because of our mutual friend Jean, he would only give me a little hell for causing such a row, and I gave him a most disingenuous apology.        We reset and regrouped, and were soon out the door. What a perfect pleasure it is to mislay all complacency and trepidation, and to actuate defiance in the face of all of our false, permeable cordialities, and to see just how easily it can all fall away. To feel what I did to be an imperative as to glorify a strayed memory of a forgotten devotion only moreover authenticates my conviction that the ways we go, and the happenings in our lives, occur for no reason at all but for our own attempts at nullifying an unavoidable and steadfast state of lifelong suffering. Jean thanked me for standing up for her, and gifted me an old look and smile that, so many years ago, I would have never believed I had forgotten.        "Okay."

[restoringsanity]

Hello, my url is saltbearthekitten (I am a sideblog). I'm trying to pile together some psychological studies (links to, more like, but you get the drift) that can support our arguments. For ex: I've seen antis excusing their abusive behavior by claiming that they were abused, like being abused cannot in the end turn out an abuser. I want to help provide evidence to dispute these claims. Do you have any good readings you would recommend? Your blog is very refreshing and I binge read your posts.

I will make an effort to find an answer to the question “Can victims of abuse become abusers?”. It’s a 2226-words-long effort, so I’m putting it under a ‘read more’.

tl;dr: yeah, sure - but anyone can become an abuser or someone displaying abusive/manipulative behavior; there are people more likely to do so; meanwhile children/adolescents who have suffered child abuse or have been exposed to domestic violence are considerably more likely to display internalized/externalized behavioral issues - such as depression, anxiety, trauma, aggression, manipulative behavior.

“The Line between Victims and Abusers“ by Steven Stosny makes for insightful reading, but it’s a little dated (2009), and I don’t entirely agree with some of the patronizing wording. It still draws an interesting line between victims and abusers, and points out how victims can become abusive in their behavior.

“The victim protection movement began as a noble attempt to counteract the most insidious aspect of the abusive dynamic - blaming the victim, which has the effect of making the victim feel ashamed of being abused. But as is the case with all effective social movements, the pendulum has swung too far the other way. We now have a victim identity movement, fueled by an industry of self-help authors and advocates, that has conferred a certain status to being a victim and thereby blurred the line between victims and abusers.”

Note: This article is a think piece. Very strictly speaking, it doesn’t count as scientific data. The author seems quite proficient in his field though, hence why I’d argue it’s still representative of the subject.

I’m noticing there’s also a bit of a problem with the question you’re asking. When you ask “Can a victim of abuse become an abuser?”, the only possible answer to that is ‘yes’, because the subject of abuse isn’t strictly a matter of personal history. It’s also a matter of likelihood, plausibility and circumstance, as well as mental health, among other factors. It is entirely possible for a victim to become an abuser, for them to develop abusive mannerism and behavior, and for their ‘status’ as a victim to manifest itself in abusive coping mechanisms and/or mannerism and behavior that is similar to abusive mannerisms and behavior, but not the same. The question should rather be “Can anyone become an abuser?”, to which the answer is also ‘yes’. There are stages and degrees of abuse, and it’s not always equally severe, or even noticeable. Another question worth asking would be “What is abuse?” or “What is abusive behavior?”.

“Abusive power and control” (wikipedia article) gives a general overview in regards to how abusers gain and maintain control.

Here’s a very small excerpt,

Braiker identified the following ways that manipulators control their victims:[3]

- Positive reinforcement: includes praise, superficial charm, superficial sympathy (crocodile tears), excessive apologizing, money, approval, gifts, attention, facial expressions such as a forced laugh or smile, and public recognition.

- Negative reinforcement: involves removing one from a negative situation as a reward, e.g. "You won't have to do your homework if you allow me to do this to you."

- Intermittent or partial reinforcement: Partial or intermittent negative reinforcement can create an effective climate of fear and doubt. Partial or intermittent positive reinforcement can encourage the victim to persist.

- Punishment: includes nagging, yelling, the silent treatment, intimidation, threats, swearing, emotional blackmail, the guilt trip, sulking, crying, and playing the victim.

- Traumatic one-trial learning: using verbal abuse, explosive anger, or other intimidating behavior to establish dominance or superiority; even one incident of such behavior can condition or train victims to avoid upsetting, confronting or contradicting the manipulator.

Manipulators may have:[3]

- a strong need to attain feelings of power and superiority in relationships with others

- a want and need to feel in control

- a desire to gain a feeling of power over others in order to raise their perception of self-esteem.

Personality psychology also appears to play a considerable role,

In the study of personality psychology, certain personality disorders display characteristics involving the need to gain compliance or control over others:[10]

Those with antisocial personality disorder tend to display a glibness and grandiose sense of self-worth. Due to their shallow affect and lack of remorse or empathy, they are well suited to con and/or manipulate others into complying with their wishes.

Those with histrionic personality disorder need to be the center of attention; and in turn, draw people in so they may use (and eventually dispose of) their relationship.

Those with narcissistic personality disorder have an inflated self-importance, hypersensitivity to criticism and a sense of entitlement that compels them to persuade others to comply with their requests.

To maintain their self-esteem, and protect their vulnerable true selves, narcissists need to control others' behavior – particularly that of their children seen as extensions of themselves.[11]

Once more, the goal should rather be to identify abusive behavior. It’s not to find an absolute answer to the question “Who can or can’t be an abuser?”.

If you were to ask the question “Does a number of antis display abusive behavior?” my answer would be - yes, absolutely yes, holy fuck do they ever, yes. Not to mention that the ‘antis’ displaying said behavior then proceed to victim-blame/shame, seeing as how ‘antis’ firmly believe that their victims absolutely deserve being abused.

I could easily write an entire post about that alone, and I probably should.

Another aspect of the ‘Can victims become abusers?’ question would be the

“Abuse Defense” (wikipedia article), which describes the following,

The abuse defense is a criminal law defense in which the defendant argues that a prior history of abuse justifies violent retaliation. While the term most often refers to instances of child abuse or sexual assault, it also refers more generally to any attempt by the defense to use a syndrome or societal condition to deflect responsibility away from the defendant. Sometimes the concept is referred to as the abuse excuse, in particular by the critics of the idea that guilty people may use past victimization to diminish the responsibility for their crimes.[1]

When the abuser is the victim of the crime, as is often the case, the abuse excuse is sometimes used as a way to "put the victim on trial".

The Supreme Court of the United States has held on numerous occasions that the defendant should be permitted to present any information that they feel might affect sentencing. Despite this legal precedent, the availability of the abuse defense has been criticized by several legal experts, particularly in the aftermath of the trials of Lorena Bobbitt and the Menendez brothers. Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz has described the abuse excuse as a "lawless invitation to vigilantism".

Interestingly enough, this law is meant to take the dynamic between the abuser and the victim into consideration (and even then it’s highly contended). It does not refer to victims of abuse lashing out against people that were not implicit in their abuse.

“Behavioural consequences of child abuse” is a fairly recent (2013) research study, which describes how any type of abuse can affect children and adolescents in how they express themselves (- arguably, when left untreated, those behavioral issues might be carried over into adulthood).A small excerpt:

Effects of violence and neglect on attachment and brain development

A strong and secure attachment bond with a primary caregiver is the core of developing resilience and a healthy personality.7,8 It strengthens a child’s ability to cope with stress, regulates emotions, provides social support, and forms nurturing relationships.9 The world is experienced as a safe place in which to explore and develop independence. The child finds comfort and support from his or her caregiver when under stress. When children are abused, they might display disturbed forms of attachment and abnormal patterns of emotional response toward their caregivers. This might subsequently lead to a serious attachment disorder with symptoms such as those shown in Box 1.5–8

Box 1.Symptoms of attachment disorderThe following are symptoms of attachment disorder.

- An aversion to touch and physical affection: The child might flinch, laugh, or even say “ouch” when touched; rather than producing positive feelings, touch and affection are perceived as threats

- Control issues: The child might go to great lengths to prevent feeling helpless and remain in control; such children are often disobedient, defiant, and argumentative

- Anger problems: Anger might be expressed directly, in tantrums or acting out, or through manipulative, passive-aggressive behavior; the child might hide his or her anger in socially acceptable actions, like giving a high-5 that hurts or hugging someone too hard

- Difficulty showing genuine care and affection: The child might act inappropriately affectionate with strangers while displaying little or no affection toward his or her parents

- An underdeveloped conscience: The child might act like he or she does not have a conscience and might fail to show guilt, regret, or remorse after behaving badly

Finally, “The Effects of Child Abuse and Exposure to Domestic Violence on Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior Problems”is another fairly recent (2010) study based on the “Lehigh Longitudinal Study”, ‘a prospective study of children and families begun in the 1970s to examine developmental consequences of child maltreatment’.

Abstract

“Results show that child abuse, domestic violence, and both in combination (i.e., dual exposure) increase a child’s risk for internalizing and externalizing outcomes in adolescence. When accounting for risk factors associated with additional stressors in the family and surrounding environment, only those children with dual exposure had an elevated risk of the tested outcomes compared to non-exposed youth. However, while there were some observable differences in the prediction of outcomes for children with dual exposure compared to those with single exposure (i.e., abuse only or exposure to domestic violence only), these difference were not statistically significant. Analyses showed that the effects of exposure for boys and girls are statistically comparable.”

Objectives and Rationale“In summary, the current study examines several outcomes in adolescence with known links to child adversity -- a range of internalizing and externalizing behaviors, depression, and delinquency. We hypothesize that: (1) violence exposure will increase a child’s risk for these outcomes, and (2) youth exposed to both child abuse and domestic violence will show an elevated risk for these outcomes over either type of abuse alone. Finally, we explore the role of gender as a possible moderator of childhood exposure on later outcomes in adolescence. The gender-balanced sample and longitudinal design of the current study allow tests of developmental relationships that are not possible in studies with cross-sectional data or in studies with only one gender.”

Relation between Child Abuse and Adverse Psychosocial Outcomes

“Numerous studies have demonstrated that experiencing child abuse can lead to a range of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. For example, research has shown that abused children can exhibit a variety of psychological problems, including anxiety and depression (McLeer, Callaghan, Henry, & Wallen, 1994; McLeer et al., 1998). The effects of being abused persist into adolescence; teens who were abused as children are more likely to experience depression and other internalizing problems (Fergusson, Horwood, & Lynskey, 1996; Widom, 2000; Wolfe, 1999; Wolfe, Scott, Wekerle, & Pittman, 2001). Teens who were abused as children are also more likely to exhibit externalizing behavior problems, such as delinquency and violence perpetration (Fergusson et al., 1996; Fergusson & Lynskey, 1997; Hawkins et al., 1998; R. Herrenkohl, Egolf, & E. Herrenkohl, 1997; McCabe, Lucchini, Hough, Yeh, & Hazen, 2005; Smith & Thornberry, 1995; Widom, 2000; Wolfe, 1999).”

Relation Between Domestic Violence Exposure and Adverse Psychosocial Outcomes

“Exposure to domestic violence in childhood has been linked to a similar set of outcomes, including low self-esteem, social withdrawal, depression, and anxiety (Edleson, 1999; Fantuzzo, Boruch, Beriama, Atkins, & Marcus, 1997; Graham Bermann, 1998; Hughes, 1988; Lichter & McCloskey, 2004; Litrownik, Newton, Hunter, English, & Everson, 2003; McCloskey, Figueredo, & Koss, 1995; McCloskey & Lichter, 2003; Moffitt & Caspi, 2003; Sudermann & Jaffe, 1997); and aggression, violence, and delinquency (Herrera & McCloskey, 2001; Lichter & McCloskey, 2004; Litrownik et al., 2003; McCloskey & Lichter, 2003; Sudermann & Jaffe, 1997). In a recent meta-analysis of studies that examined the relationship between domestic violence exposure in childhood and adolescent internalizing and externalizing behaviors, Evans, Davies, and DiLillo (2008) found significant mean-weighted effect sizes of .48 (SE=.04) for internalizing behaviors and .47 (SE=.05) for externalizing behaviors, indicating moderate associations between exposure and both outcomes.”

Discussion“As hypothesized, children exposed to violence (either child abuse, domestic violence, or both) had higher levels of externalizing and internalizing behavior problems in adolescence than those exposed to neither form of violence. Youths who had both witnessed domestic violence and had been direct victims of child abuse (i.e., dual exposure) were more consistently at risk for the entire range of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems investigated than those who experienced only one form of violence exposure. In fact, dual violence exposure was predictive of higher scores on all nine outcomes addressed in this study, while experiencing child abuse alone or domestic violence alone was significantly predictive of only some of the outcomes. A direct comparison of dual and single exposures found that for two outcomes-- delinquency and depression measured by the BDI—scores were higher for those with both abuse and domestic violence exposure. The effect of dual exposure on depression was maintained after accounting for other risks in the family and surrounding environment.“

So, essentially, and I’m breaking it down very simplistically here - victims of any type (or many types) of abuse can very likely display characteristically abusive behavior, and they’re even more prone to do so than those who have not suffered any type of abuse (or fewer types of abuse). That is not to say that they are inherently bound to become abusers themselves, but they are highly prone to aggressive behavior, as well as abusive/manipulative behavior.

[jaewvns-blog]

░ ° » VILLAS TASK 004 – FAMILY! 〉

easily an introverted kid, jaewon didn’t grow up with the conventional loving family ( surprise ! ). being the only child, his mother and father wanted everything “perfect” in their lives which included their son. even if it was at the expense of their individual relationships, they were willing to sacrifice his happiness and healthy image of what a family is supposed to be like in order to ensure he would thrive professionally in the way that they wanted. so smash that read more to find out just how awful his family really is !

SEUNG-BIN JEE ( FATHER )

jaewon’s parents were always a duo, withholding strong beliefs that they forcibly fed to jae. his father was the more quiet out of the two, yet the most passive aggressive when it came to expressing his distaste for piano. his focus was education, a stable and reassuring path to success which was brought up every night at the dinner table. his father was the type to drop subtle comments around the house whenever jaewon was near, popping in and out of his room while he practiced piano relentlessly to ask, “why are you wasting your time?” considering his father was a successful and well-known doctor, his biggest aspiration was for his son to follow in his footsteps into a profession of his own choosing. however, when what was supposed to be a hobby turned into jae’s growing fascination, he quickly tried to deter him onto the path that he wanted for jae which turned into elaborate and elevated arguments. there was never any comfort that came from his father, and jae learned fairly quickly that he didn’t share the same relationship that the average son shared with a father. his father shot down any attempts to bond, only leaving for a broken and defeated jaewon whom gave up on all efforts all together eventually. with such foreign emotions at a young age, jae could only be met with the constant furrow of his brows at how calm and collected his father was around other people, offering smiles all around compared to the stone cold gaze that he offered jaewon. it was like his father treated him with a sense of professionalism – a patient whom he would pick and prod at for his own self-benefit. he wanted to have his sons future planned out his way opposed to how his son wanted it to be, each comment serving as an attempt to wither him down until he gave up resisting. his father passed away from lung cancer when jaewon was the age of sixteen, yet jaewon had little to no time to grieve over the man whom was so unfamiliar to him before his mother latched onto his throat – it had only just began with her.

DAIN JEE ( MOTHER )

his mother was very similar to his father, yet more outspoken and forthright with what she thought of piano. typically dain fed off of his father’s comments, quick to back him up with an antagonizing smile. being very manipulative, she always turned the tables on arguments to make jaewon feel like they were his fault for not listening to his parents, making him out to be a disrespectful boy who was ungrateful. she was a majority of the reason that jaewon always kept his mouth shut and took the heat, nervous that she would twist his words into something that he didn’t mean. like his father, jaewon learned fairly quickly that he didn’t share the same relationship with his mother that the average son did. there was a lack of comfort, love, and empathy when it came to her, and her chocolate brown hues were stale with a lack of love when she looked at her son. it wasn’t until his father died at the age of sixteen that dain really turned up the heat, forcing his fathers ideals onto him much more forcefully because of her desire to carry on his memory. she would even go as far as threatening to take piano away if he acted against her wishes, forming his passion into a bait of sorts to bend his will in her own twisted direction. it was like his father had become a trigger for her, dain turning from a mildly ( and i say mildly very very loosely ) sane manipulative person to a harsh and cold human being. she always ensured jaewon that he would merely turn out to be a “lowlife playing piano in some cheap restaurant” along with other hurtful comments. the first thing she said to him in the hospital was, “at least now you can move on with your life.” jaewon is insistent on keeping her out of his life, her efforts to stay in contact slowly diminishing throughout the years as their relationship has grown stale entirely. when his accident happened, his mother was nothing short of relieved and had no problem saying that.

BENJAMIN AHN ( BROTHER ) & TAEMIN/MELODY AHN ( SECOND “FAMILY” )

if you were the ask the only child if he has any siblings, his response will always be “yes.” ever since he was born, jaewon has known nothing more than the reassurance that comes with his relationship to benjamin. the two practically raised each other, being the support system of love and comfort that neither of them received from their parents. they’ve been through thick and thin, yet their relationship has never deterred for a minute. an unspoken bond always ties them to one another, plans for their futures and recollections of their past only solidifying the love that they share. though their relationship has never changed, many aspects of their personalities have, the two of them by each others side throughout it all. they’re a constant – a reliable variable that one another will always have accompanied by the comfort of a confidant, a best friend, and a brother. benjamin is the only family that jaewon has ever known, and though sometimes he gets lonely, he couldn’t ask for anything more. as for the other two ahn’s, jaewon has always seen them as family, though he hates them just as much as he hates his own parents. growing up as neighbors, both of their mothers ( and their similar tastes for manipulation ) made them into best friends. they spent much time throughout the week at one another’s place, practically becoming conjoined homes. their parents fed off of each other as means to make the two boys miserable, believing that it was mere “discipline.” the similarities in their lives only pushed the two boys closer, making them damn near inseparable now. though the ahn’s are people whom jaewon will always hold a similar distaste for, he’ll forever be grateful to have the brother he never got.

PARK SOL-BOYEOL & KIM JUMI ( GRANDPARENTS )

though his grandfather passed when he was young, his grandparents have always been a small ray of hope in his life. one of his favorite memories involves his grandfather and how he would set up scavenger hunts for jaewon whenever his family would go to korea to visit, having a plethora of actives for him to complete. those were times in which jae felt the most at piece in his life and the most able to act like a kid given that his parents never allowed that at home. being the grandparents on his mothers side, they’ve always remained mildly in the dark and oblivious to the way that jaewon was treated / the seriousness of his injury. though his grandfather passed away long before his injury, his grandmother was only given a mild and vague debriefing of the incident until benjamin contacted her and told her the real story of what happened to him. ever since then, his grandmothers relationship with his mother has completely tarnished; a family torn at the seams. every once in a while his grandmother reaches out to make sure he’d doing well and insists that he visits. part of jaewon is scared though with consideration that he hasn’t seen her since before his accident.

DANIEL THORN ( PIANO INSTRUCTOR )

daniel thorn, being a well-credited and known pianist, had picked jaewon up from a very young age and made him his pupil. his instructor, his coach, and one of his few friends ( given jae was originally a very introverted kid ) he saw the endless potential in jaewon and his exceptional skills. he was his star student, helping him to flourish and grow to the best of his ability. given the ridiculous amount of hours that they spent together a week alongside all of the traveling that they did with one another, the two of them were so close that their bond appeared unbreakable. if anyone was ever anything close to a father figure in his life, it was daniel thorn. his world quickly came crashing down after his accident, however, words of praise for acing his juilliard audition turning into pleads from thorn to not give up. every visit that he paid to jaewon in order to persuade him into not giving up and working back to where he was was enough to break and crack at his crumbling exterior. he pushed him away and thorn reluctantly let him, reassuring him that he’d always welcome him back and work with him again; a plea to not give up. thoughts cross his mind of thorn all the time, the thought itself upsetting him given how important he was in his life. though his thumb hovers over the green call button, he’s always too reluctant to press it.

[spamzineglasgow]

(REVIEW) A Context in Flux: Azad Ashim Sharma’s ‘Against the Frame’

In this review, Maria Sledmere explores the representation of global conflicts and everyday politics of hybridity, identity, xenophobia and experimental poetics within Azad Ashim Sharma’s debut publication, Against the Frame (Barque Press, 2017).

That brings us back to what the ambition of theory may be -- what theory desires. That's difficult to answer, but I think a theory should go beyond illuminating the deep structure of an event, object, or text, should do more than establish or embellish the framing discourse within which this object of analysis is placed. What the theory does first of all is respond to a problem. You look at what you can't use -- you look at the explanations you have for something and you feel that they aren't translatable, that they don't adequately illuminate something about another form of thought, or the event of a thought. So you are moved to begin to rethink.

— Homi Bhabha

> Azad Ashim Sharma’s collection Against the Frame (Barque Press, 2017) is dedicated in memory of his grandparents, A. B. Kazi and Zainab Ebrahim Asvat. This is a book that speaks to the lineages of the personal as much as the political; to imply some sort of separation between each would be to deny the woven threads of oppression, racism and prejudice as they play out in lived experience. Against the Frame is a book of contemporary Britain in the context of racialised phobias, charged disasters on a global scale, intergenerational traumas and media distortions. Comprising 42 pages of untitled lyric poems, it’s a restrained, brooding navigation of love, solidarity, terror and belonging in all its loaded forms. It lashes when it must, devastates with softer images then cuts to the chase like a certain look exchanged across the platform of a tube station. It works by sequence, contrast, accumulation. Its tone is monochrome, London fog with splashes of scarlet.

> When Homi Bhabha talks of a move towards beginning ‘to rethink’, he means with theory, but that’s not to exclude poetry. For Sharma’s poetry does nothing if not engage with theory, within the fraught realm of a present defined by problematic frameworks of racialised identity, hierarchy and myth. A South London poet of mixed Islamic-Hindu heritage, Sharma is well-poised to unpack these conflicts, as they play out not just in the news, but also in the embodied discourse of the street. Against the Frame engages with ongoing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, portraying the feedback loops of media representation and everyday interaction. The deceptively ‘simple’ form of the short lyric becomes the ideal stage for intervening within our culture of soundbites and throwaway social media posts. Sharma will show up the terrible collage of our hyper-mediated present with an Imagist’s precision:

More white foreskins must preen like satire with human rights to vote offence and make Arab grave for occidental cenotaph spectaculars.

The often deadpan tone serves to heighten the intensity of the subjects presented. It wouldn’t be quite right to simply say Against the Frame is a ‘polemic’; its lyrics are subtler than the term implies; Sharma uses dramatic or explicit images with simultaneous conviction and restraint. Images of body parts detached from bodies highlights an absurdism around questions of definition, the arbitrary ornamentation of all that identifies our heritage, our skins, our moralised standing. Sharma constantly shows up Western hypocrisies through the lens of specific events as they ricochet between the scene of occurrence and their media and political reception back in Britain and/or Europe.

> In a way, what Sharma offers us is shortcuts to these fraught and complicated issues. I mean shortcuts not to sound reductive, but in fact an expansion, a kind of portal to accessing almost unthinkable knowledges, narratives and trauma. I mean shortcuts in relation to the elliptical tension of two lines that offer so much, that speak so much to what we can or cannot know, that gesture towards the deceptively neat tragedies that our sociopolitical systems propagate: ‘Everything has slipped away / into the algebra of the ballot box’. I mean also shortcuts that hold complexity within the torque of discursive ironies:

Precarity has become the buzzword for whiteness. A whiteness so world interior that it mistakes itself for the critique of itself & forces that critique upon us.

There’s the understatement of the ampersand, the sense that Sharma so adeptly shows up the hypocrisies of white logic, the workings of white universalism, via the cutting restraint of what resembles a philosophical argument. Sharma reveals how one accepted, mainstream proposition or assumption can be so easily undermined by its own logic, the way it plays out. Hearing Sharma read, however, these lyrics acquire by their very reasoning, their surprising warmth, a force that touches the compasses of both emotion and ‘common sense’. Live, Sharma reads in a way that is powerful and ‘held’, as well as conversational (his frankly incredible two-and-a-half hour SOAS Radio interview attests to this). There is a voice in these poems: for all their sweep and politics, their ability to comment on a general occurrence, their restrained ‘I’, the voice is there like a current, a charge, a bringing together of specificities. A threading, rather than congealing of experience. The voice responds to a problem, the poems stage the coming towards the event of a thought. Sharma’s ‘We’ is a statement of solidarity, a drawing together of histories of oppression. His ‘us’ is generous, empathetic, vulnerable, potential with united strength. Writing in Threads (2018), Nisha Ramayya argues:

I think of the weaving frame as a context in flux, that may be moved and expanded across spaces and times, that may transgress national borders and rational systems, a potentially unlimited context. I think of threads as parts that frame, as repetitions that enable memory, destruction and recreation, as continuities that loop and accrue meaning.

Being Against the Frame is to be against the frame: the representation that holds in singular, that imposes one narrative upon a plural experience of difference and identity in space and time. Ramayya’s revised sense of the frame is one that catches hybridity in its many woven strands. The way Sharma draws in the dialogue tags of familiar platitudes and wrenches them astray with control and poise feels a bit like weaving, or at least reworking in the sense of a craft, a generative movement towards production, expression, improvisation or inhabited pattern. I can’t help but think also of the work of pace and echo, the soulfulness of honesty, the pass between the ‘I’ and the ‘you’, the double consciousness of the seeing and seen, the collective and singular held within a hybrid identity:

When we look in the mirror we are made to fear ourselves. When you look in the mirror you see the victim, the innocent. And you say these images are easy, simple, don’t experiment with your language enough!

Here, Sharma challenges common Anglo-American critical receptions of BAME poetry, which tend to read work solely by way of the poet’s racial identity, ignoring vital innovations in form within their work. To write of that familiar trope, the glance in the mirror, is apparently to lack ‘experiment’, to write with ‘easy, simple’ images. I can’t think what it is, but those last two lines compellingly echo for me. Almost like a Basho haiku, a spellbinding line from Ariana Reines or a familiar Imagist lyric I can’t quite place. The direct ‘you say’, which speaks beyond the event of the reader encountering this particular poem, and gazes hard at entire histories. In the way that H.D.’s rich and mythical lyrics challenged perceptions and receptions of gender and sexuality in women’s poetry, Against the Frame unravels the myths of racialised experience by forging a space for concrete realities of daily struggle. Sharma defies you to shut down or dismiss that powerful image of the mirror, the duality of terrorist and innocent, inside and outside, held in the self contained by mainstream representation.

> His work is experimental in its suffusion of image, the clarity of sentiment delivered in complex affects which cut across genres, discourses and times. To say this is ‘contemporary’ is to acknowledge the historical context of its occurrence, but also to emphasise the ongoingness of its tensions in the public and private spheres of the mind and the street, the self and the city, the comment section and the television. Some of Sharma’s lines are beautiful and striking in their simplicity, lines that demand to be read again and again like crashing waves, whose interruptions are the fissures we cleave by policy and political gesture:

My drowning nourishes your eyes and in your passivity overflowing all passivity before the stimulation you ban my existence without an apology.

Of course the word ‘ban’ would link me to Bhanu Kapil’s stunning Ban en Banlieue (2015), a strange kind of lyric, prayerful novel which follows its young brown (black) female protagonist home from school in the insurgent moments of a riot. A novel which quotes from Giorgio Agamben, ‘To ban someone is to say that no-one may harm him’. Ban herself ‘is a dessicated form on the sidewalk’. To dessicate is to remove the juices, the moisture of something, often for preservation. The banning of someone’s existence is, Sharma’s poem suggests, an act of self-preservation. What dessicated bodies must we keep on the streets to hold our nation? Sharma asks such questions in the braided turns of an intimate poetics of the body, of the polis, of the everyday. What is staged goes beyond the term ‘micro-aggression’ and accumulates throughout these short lyrics as a scarlet thread of pain, a woven history that binds its heritage to the unfolding contemporary. As with Claudia Rankine’s Citizen (2014), subjectivity in all its tensions is essayed through scenes of daily encounter, through weighted shifts between the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ and the ‘we’. Whose clothes do we wear, whose skin do we share, how does this matter, what language becomes us now?

> ‘This montage is a garb for unfreedom’, Sharma writes. I think of poetic form, and something Lisa Robertson says about how garments are ‘lyric structures’. These poems envelop you, they are a distinctive ‘garb’; they make fraught visibility of their subject in the world. Sharma’s montage of detail is a clustering, held quick in the space of short lyric. You can read all these poems at once, as I did walking through the park on an incongruously bright May day; their sequence demands a sort of anxious thirst from the reader. Yet this imperative is also held on a single page, that space of clearing and tension and dwelling. The way the poet might juxtapose within a line two fraught images: ‘like bullets in a kidney | like mud on an eyelid’, the staged virgule highlighting what can be done in the 'special now’ of lyric poetry (Jonathan Culler), what comparisons made. One simple trace of mud to weigh up against a bullet shot through an organ. We think about violence, the marks we leave. We think about writing.

> With fresh and commanding expression, Sharma recalls myriad acts of violence, social exclusion, economic oppression and cognitive dislocation within the racialised, xenophobic space we call this nation. He probes ‘ways of knowing’ in the pointed, short-circuited era of ‘gunpoint’ and ‘discount’, the ‘known chaos’ of mass media and its vortex of paranoia and accusation. If the frame is that which stages one event, often anachronistically, in the context of another, then to be ‘against’ the frame is to offer alternative shortcuts to diversity within representation. The work of lyric as the work of the chorus or commons, but also as the work of empathy, a coming towards understanding, a making space for thought. What Bhabha says of theory rings true for Sharma’s poetics: this is a rejection of existing frames for thinking racialised experience, a woven, experimental movement that finds space in its formal poise for translating racialised conflicts, contradictions and the ‘climate of fear’ kept aflame by the hostile temperatures of mass media discourse.

~

Endnotes

I recently heard Sharma read for the first time at an 87 Press event held at Typewronger Books in Edinburgh, alongside Dom Hale, Callie Gardner and Gloria Dawson. The way he delivered poems from this collection, as well as several new ones, interlacing personal anecdotes, shout outs and apologies for (I’m possibly glossing here) being ‘a South London poet in Scotland, complaining about South London’, marked a warmth and openness that went beyond the space of that bookshop, that Saturday eve. A maturity and sobriety that challenged my own sense of what poetry can do, the conversations and intimacies it might spark, the space and care and attention it holds. Sharma’s SOAS Radio interview is such a trove of musings on personal histories, higher education, politics, philosophies of hybridity and the contemporary poetry scene, not to mention an excellent playlist of UK dubstep, jazz, blues, rap and more. It’s rare that poets get so much radio time, let’s face it, so do have a listen :)

Against the Frame is out now via Barque Press and can be purchased here. 

Text: Maria Sledmere