A short comic strip exploring Doflamingo and Viola.
Please scroll past if you don't like the ship or find it triggering. Thank you.
Read right to left
Doflamingo and Viola.
I find their whole unmentioned relationship in the series so interesting and would have definitely loved to have had it explored more for both of their characters, even though I'd imagine it's quite dark and complex, there's so many things I want to know, especially at what point did Viola feel close enough to call him "Doffy"?
If there's one thing I'm sure of is that Viola used her Devil fruit to see if there was anything in him that she could change for the better and there wasn't...
Maybe she had a "I can fix him." Phase and realised that this psycho man could not be fixed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Either way would have absolutely loved to have explored their dynamic... Maybe it will get brought up again? Maybe never. Maybe it's better Doffy stays in Magellan hole and never sees her again or anyone for that matter lol
This art is truly beautiful. I know the knee jerk reaction in the fandom is that it must have been pure abuse/non consensual the entire time when we speak about them.
But I think both Viola and Doflamingo are written as far more complicated characters than just that.
Don’t get me wrong, it still never would have been right. The power imbalance is far too much. And she has every right to have wanted him dead after everything he did.
I’m just saying that they were both very damaged, isolated people. Living under the same roof for a decade. Maybe she did feel the briefest sympathy for the devil. Maybe the devil didn’t want to feel so alone. A mistake either way between enemies. But one that did happen in one form or another.
A short comic strip exploring Doflamingo and Viola.
Please scroll past if you don't like the ship or find it triggering. Thank you.
Read right to left
Doflamingo and Viola.
I find their whole unmentioned relationship in the series so interesting and would have definitely loved to have had it explored more for both of their characters, even though I'd imagine it's quite dark and complex, there's so many things I want to know, especially at what point did Viola feel close enough to call him "Doffy"?
If there's one thing I'm sure of is that Viola used her Devil fruit to see if there was anything in him that she could change for the better and there wasn't...
Maybe she had a "I can fix him." Phase and realised that this psycho man could not be fixed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Either way would have absolutely loved to have explored their dynamic... Maybe it will get brought up again? Maybe never. Maybe it's better Doffy stays in Magellan hole and never sees her again or anyone for that matter lol
This art is truly beautiful. I know the knee jerk reaction in the fandom is that it must have been pure abuse/non consensual the entire time when we speak about them.
But I think both Viola and Doflamingo are written as far more complicated characters than just that.
Don’t get me wrong, it still never would have been right. The power imbalance is far too much. And she has every right to have wanted him dead after everything he did.
I’m just saying that they were both very damaged, isolated people. Living under the same roof for a decade. Maybe she did feel the briefest sympathy for the devil. Maybe the devil didn’t want to feel so alone. A mistake either way between enemies. But one that did happen in one form or another.
We've all internalized the fact that Luffy will eventually get huge but it's time to admit that it's equally possible for that to happen to Sanji. Poor widdle marimo.
This is in no way me trying to be like rude or hateful, so if it comes off that way I apologize.
Like I kinda understand the CoraLaw ship, I also like don't? For some reason my brain just views it as like almost grooming??? Idk, would it be possible for you to please further explain your view on the ship? Obviously you are under no obligation to do so, and it's fair of you think you shouldn't have to explain your thoughts on it. I am moreso just curious.
Regardless I absolutely adore your art, especially how you draw Penguin and Shachi.
This isn't rude at all, this is actually quite polite and civil! And also-
I shall go in depth below since it'll be a lot.
First and foremost, a lot of people seem to have a totally bastardized idea of what "grooming" actually even IS nowadays. It gets tossed around so much that people forget that the main trait is INTENTIONALITY. It is an INTENTIONAL process of manipulation and abuse for selfish reasons (similar to gaslighting). It is very hard to "accidentally" groom someone. You can give them the wrong idea, maybe, but that's not grooming. It originally means to basically prep and train up someone for a specific role later in life. Doflamingo uses this meaning of the term when talking about wanting to train Law up to become his righthand man.
Cora-san's character is LITERALLY DEFINED by his selflessness and sacrifices he makes to save Law's life. He doesn't expect anything in return. He acts on a sense of duty and then empathy. He suffers greatly in attempts to allow Law to survive and live freely, out from under the thumb of his brother.
Speaking of Doflamingo real quick, for some reason I feel like I see the ship of DofLaw get a lot less hate than CoraLaw despite the fact that they're in similar positions. Usually, because people have the headcanon of DadCora even though Law never views or refers to Cora as a father figure in any canon or spinoff material. If you have that headcanon, fine, whatever, but you have to remember that canonically, Law and Cora do not see their relationship as familial. That's part of the weight in the scene that Law has with Sengoku after Dressrosa. "Don't look for a reason for somebody's love."
Law didn't have to be family or important or anything for Cora to love him. He just did, if anything, from a sense of deepseated empathy and understanding of the pain that Law was going through.
Now- the actual shipping part of it.
It is also extremely difficult to groom someone if you are GONE FOR 13 YEARS.
The most commonly depicted manner of CoraLaw as a ship is Cora returning after 13 years, whether he secretly survived Minion Island, has been a ghost, was resurrected- whatever it may be, there is the gap of Cora being gone and assumed dead for over a decade. That is a LONG TIME to be separated from a person, and by the time you reunite, things will have changed, ESPECIALLY LAW. He is NOT the same person he was at age 13 anymore, obviously. He is a fullass grown adult at age 26 in the current canon. He has become an entirely new person with new strengths, confidence, and outlook on things.
Another important part of the ship to me...is that it is most often LAW who is pursuing CORA, not the other way around. LAW is the one who has spent all this time devoted to avenging Cora and being basically obsessed with honoring his memory and repaying the sacrifices that Cora made to him. The devotion is met in equal measures in that sense.
Their relationship as adults, 26 and either ALSO 26 or 39 (depending on if Cora is resurrected or has actually been alive this whole time) is them recognizing how things have changed and how their dynamic has now evolved into something totally different. Law isn't a kid that Cora can pick up like a football. He's an accomplished pirate captain. He was a warlord for a bit!!! He's an insanely powerful and scary guy tbh!!!
But Law still has a soft spot for Cora, still talks about him with an edge of kindness and love. Law would he terrified of admitting that he's perhaps developed feelings because of the fear of rejection from his most precious person, the one he owes everything to.
A lot of fics go with the mutual pining angle, both afraid of ruining what they have, despite the fact that things aren't the same as they were 13 years ago. It's an interesting space to explore and requires a lot of trust ans vulnerability on both ends-
No. It's not a conventional relationship by any means. I won't argue that. But that's why I like it, damnit. It's a fictional scenario that is largely impossible in our world, and it's a fun space to explore and to consider the depth of the affection they already have for one another, evolving into something different and new.
That's the main takeaway here tbh for me. It's FICTION. Literally no individuals are being hurt and it's not even ticking off any boxes of the usual Dead Dove sort of things so. Yeah
