I started this young asl fic the other day and immediately had to exit because of how ooc I thought young Luffy was. Or rather, maybe, how I felt the author doesn't know what it's like to have older brothers.
It was just... okay I don't want to give any identifiable details so just suffice to say. There was a moment were Luffy was afraid of something, and his older brothers being there, saying they'll protect him, sleeping right next to him, wasn't enough to put his mind completely at ease.
And just... There's this moment, in canon, where, I think it was after Sabo died, Luffy was looking up at Ace's back. And despite being so small, still a child, Luffy was even smaller, so from his perspective, Ace looked tall and reliable and strong. it made me tear up immediately, because I recognized that feeling so deeply.
Maybe I'm just projecting, but for me, when I was young, I felt like my older brothers could do anything. Could protect me from anything, even when that didn't make any sense. How can you, when you're just a kid, with all the frustration that entails, not idolize the kid who is confidently paving the way for you, who seems to know everything, to always be the coolest, and the smartest, and the strongest? When you're so little and you feel like you can't do anything, and they're everything you wanna be?
I got so many nightmares when I was little. I was scared of the dark. I was scared of things I saw that weren't there. But my room was at the end of the hall, and to get to it, you had to go past both my big brothers' rooms. Focusing on that, that they were between me and the world, made me feel safer than anything.
I don't know, when he looks up at Ace, I'm just reminded of all that. The way he loves his older brothers, even when they wouldn't give him the time of day, even when they brushed him off meanly, it reminds me of me. The way he's such a youngest sibling in so many ways, the way he changes when they're around, it reminds me of me!
So yeah, I think if Ace and Sabo told him they were gonna protect him, and he could see and hear them sleeping right next to him, Luffy wouldn't be afraid of anything.
