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cptn-m · 26 days

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One Piece chapter 1111 review

Last one going into another long break. Potentially but not definitely the end of volume 109. And I think a shift into the final bit of action for the Egghead Arc. While I'm disappointed to have to go three weeks without, I definitely prefer Oda getting the downtime he needs to carry the story through to its end inn the best way possible. And the phrase "scheduled maintenance" in the announcement makes me think this is going to end up being an annual thing, which at least means it won't be a surprise in future years.

We do at least get some gorgeous colour pages for a send-off. The classic piratey vibe of the Jump cover has a whole lot of appeal while the colour spread has some gorgeous lighting for Copic work. The transparency on the jellyfish is stunning. There's cute symbolism in giving Kuma a seahorse shirt, perfect for the series' most dedicated single dad. Bonney and Vegapunk getting to be included is also a good touch, Always nice when current arc characters get to hang out with the crew on these things. I also really like the One Piece logo down the bottom with the jellyfish top and tentacles around the O.

Mars breaks inside the barrier. I initially thought he'd was rebuffed by the lasers last week, but I should have known he'd be able to use his immortality to power through undaunted. And that makes the situation really bad for the crew.

The apparent lack of concern the Strawhats have for Vegapunk's broadcast is interesting. I actually had to go back and double check if they even knew it was happening at all. They do, but it still doesn't really seem to concern them. Escape has become the most important thing, and though I'm sure they'd stand and fight if one of the surviving Vegapunks said it was their greatest dream and the Stella's dying wish to make sure it goes through, but even they seem to be putting their lives first. It's actually kind of funny the number of people complaining last week about Oda using the 'ticking clock' trope in yet another arc, only for the crew to just outright ignore it and continue with their original plan of escaping. All this plus the escape map to lay out the distances and groups involved paint a picture of how the final stage of the arc is likely to play out.

This is an interesting chapter for Lucci. Obviously a commanding show of strength to stay standing after Zoro's big hit and then to remain conscious and clear-headed after Jinbei's subsequent blast, but also to call Kaku his partner and beg for his life to the ultimate authority of the Five Elders. Remember, in Lucci's eyes 'gods are not bound by logic' and 'it is the natural order for gods to have whatever they desire' (chapter 907). He also showed an extreme callousness toward any team member he thought wasn't performing up to par at Water Seven, like the potentially now-dead Nero. To make the request at all, to a man whose desires and whims have complete priority, speaks to a kind of camaraderie I never would have figured he had in him. At some point I'll have to go back over Water Seven properly and see if there's anything that can be interpreted differently with this side of him in mind.

Lucci also looks absolutely terrified when Mars appears, but he immediately recognises the Elder even in his monstrous form and doesn't hesitate to obey. We were told before that anyone below the rank of commodore can't even meet them, but it wasn't clear how much of a secret their specific powers were. York's reaction at the end of the chapter shows that she wasn't aware of the demon forms, despite the Vegapunks having had audiences with the Elders.

The Haki roar is a cool show of power. I'm looking forward to learning more about the limits of the physical effects of Conqueror's Haki and how much they can be controlled. I also loved the visual gag of all of Luffy's stuff blowing off, seeing him stick his scars back on. Amazing comic instincts on that one.

I think one of the big important things to remember for Luffy's characterisation in this chapter is the way the giants talk both with him and about him to Warcurcy. They say that he looks like the god they've heard tales of, but when Warcury asks who Luffy is to them, the only important part is that Luffy is their friend. And we learn concretely that it wasn't even the Nika appearance that inspired them to come intervene, they just saw that he seemed like he was in trouble in a place they were close enough to. Luffy isn't the messiah of the giants (at least not yet), just a guy who makes the right friends.

I try not to dwell on spoilers without the full story, but they definitely coloured my perception of this chapter's baseball bat gag. When I read that Luffy 'conjures' a bat, I was extremely worried. I have raged against the perception that Luffy's new power is literal imagination and that he can magic things into existence or warp reality in any tangible way. I would not want that to be the way the story progresses. Imagine my relief when the outcome is only as absurd as turning a palm tree into a bat with his teeth. I could take or leave the paint and hat. They only interact with Luffy himself and are gone in less than a page, so I can take them as part of the bit. The paint in particular is funny because to leaves the bat looking exactly the same as if it had a layer of Armament Haki (at least as far as Haki is portrayed to the readers). That's like the one part Luffy could have just manifested through willpower and he finds paint instead.

I expected more emphasis to be placed on Ju Peter's revival, but he's just kind of there after the explosion. Do we think the original head reattached to his body, or did he grow a new one? Maybe Oda's saving that reveal for later, when we go further into what the Elders really are.

As much as I want to see Franky get some action, I think the three vice admirals are setting up a Kuma moment, probably his big finale for the arc, whether it's a full awakening or death, or taking his daughter and teleporting away. Borsalino seems to be out for good, understandably overwhelmed by his emotional distress. I wonder if there'll be a tangible difference in the next fight against him, if it happens in a scenario where his heart can truly be in it. And then the robot, with that big, important Joyboy connection promising big things to come. I wonder, if the Strawhats are being characterised as unconcerned with Vegapunk's broadcast, if the robot will then be the force that makes sure it plays in full. Or is there some kind of twist coming about the broadcast's source that we haven't considered yet. Mars asks York about the room Vegapunk is in, as if he thinks the broadcast is actually live. Saturn only said to the other Elders that he thinks Borsalino killed Vegapunk, so they may be operating on the assumption he's somewhere else, especially if the technology to record and repeat a message via snails is not widespread.

But these are questions for three weeks from now. Meantime, I hope Oda enjoys his rest and processes everything he needs to process about Toriyama and comes back to the series refreshed for the home stretch of the arc.

#one piece #one piece spoilers #manga review #one piece manga #monkey d luffy

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godofcreatitivity · 10 months

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One Piece the Movie

(the following is a nonprofit fan based parody any characters from one piece is owned by Eiichiro Oda, Toei Animation Co., Ltd., any characters from super Mario are owned by Nintendo, any characters from troll hunters, are owned by DreamWorks and universal)

Chapter 8: A New World

(The Multiverse)

Luffy slowly began to open his eyes as he suddenly realized that he wasn’t under water, but someplace entirely different.

He was surrounded by giant colorful clouds that filled the air around him and had him floating around in a strange clear sphere tunnel.

He went over to touch the clear tunnel around him and it felt as if he were touching an iron wall that was really clean.

He then spotted something in the corner of his eye and looked over to see something bright green coming towards him.

Once he had gotten a better look at the object he saw what it actually was, a pipe.

It was glowing bright green and looked as if it were connected to the colorful clouds that surrounded him.

He then saw another…

Then another…

And another…

They were everywhere, connecting to almost every cloud he saw.

They were also connected to the clear tunnels that he was currently traveling in that look as if they were entering somewhere.

“WHOA”, he said in amazement at the beautiful scenery he was witnessing for the first time in his life.

This place looked amazing and was probably the most beautiful he had ever seen in his three years of being a pirate.

He had never witnessed anything like this before, especially on strange occasions such as this.

He was still looking at the scenery before a large object bumped him across the head.

Luffy looked up to see that it was one of the barrels that he kept on the Sunny.

OH SHIT THE SUNNY.

He had been so busy checking out the scenery, that he almost completely forgot about his friends and the predictamit that they were in.

Luffy quickly started looking around to see if he could find any sign of them or the ship.

After a couple of moments of looking around, he suddenly spotted something large coming toward him.

It was the ship.

And after taking a closer look he saw them, Zoro and Vanellope, clinging onto one of the railings in the ship.

“GUYS”, Luffy called out to them.

They both heard and looked over to see him floating right behind them,”LUFFY”!!!, they both shouted back at him.

Luffy started swimming towards them (pushing past and any broken parts of the ship that were in front of him).

Thankfully, the speed of the tunnel helped him catch up to them rather quickly.

Once he was close enough to them, he extended his arm and grabbed the same railing they were hanging on to and zoomed his way up to them.

“YOU GUYS OK”?, he asked loudly due to the sound barrier breaking noises around them.

Vanellope nodded in response to his question.

Zoro started glancing around before saying,”GUESS WE KNOW WHY HE SAID ENJOY THE RIDE HUH”, sarcastically, as he now realizes why the man in white shot into the water.

He had opened a portal in the sea that caused it to open up underwater, sucking them and the ship into this.

Vanellope looked around and nodded her head,”YEAH '', she said before turning to Look at Zoro,”DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS PLACE IS”.

Zoro turned to her and shook his head.

She looked to Luffy for an answer, but he did the same thing.

Both pirates had seen a lot of things on all their adventures, but neither one of them had even a thing like this before.

This was something entirely new to them and they had no way of even coming close to understanding it.

But even though they couldn’t figure out what this place was, it didn’t stop them from being mesmerized by it.

Or at least Luffy and Vanellope were mesmerized by it anyway.

Zoro on the other hand had on his mind and unfortunately it wasn’t anything too pleasant.

Even though they were currently in a place quite beautiful, he could forget the fact that they were just in a short but intense fight with the same person who had sent them there to begin with.

Now there was just the question of where were these invisible tubes taking them, and are there more threats like the stranger waiting for them there.

Vanellope looked around with wide eyes,”WOW THIS PLACE LOOKS AMAZING”.

Luffy chuckled at her,”YEAH IT DOES”.

After that exchange they both began to chuckle almost forgetting about the danger that they were just in.

Zoro caught this and stared at them before suddenly snapping his fingers to get their attention,”HEY HEY HEY NEED I REMIND BOTH OF YOU OF HOW MUCH DANGER WERE ALL CURRENTLY IN RIGHT NOW”, he said in a warning tone,”AS COOL AS THIS PLACE LOOKS, WE’RE HEADED RIGHT INTO THE PALMS IF THAT WHITE SUIT GUY, WE NEED TO FIND A WAY OUTTA THIS PLACE”.

Luffy and Vanellope (hearing this) both nodded their heads in agreement.

Besides, Luffy still owed that guy a good ass kicking, and he was gonna give it to him if they were all trapped in this place.

Luffy then turned to face one of the walls and aimed his fist at them,“DON'T WORRY GUYS I'LL GET US OUTTA HERE, JUST GOTTa-,”.

“NO LUFFY”,Zoro shouted before grabbing Luffy’s arm and turning him back to face them,”WERE NOT ABOUT TO START PUNCHING THE ONE THING THAT MIGHT BE KEEPING US ALIVE IN HERE, WE NEED TO THINK OF SOMETHING MORE SMARTER AND SAFER TO DO”.

Vanellope nodded her head in agreement,”YEAH SORRY LUFFY I'M KINDA WITH ZORO ON THIS ONE”, she said holding tightly to Zoro so that she wouldn’t fall.

“COME ON GUYS STOP WORRYIN, EVERYTHING'S GONNA BE FINE '', age shouted encouragingly.

This caused Zoro to slap his hand on his head in frustration,”LUFFY OUR SHIP IS IN PIECES, WERE FAR FROM THE TOWN, AND GOD KNOWS WHERE WERE TRAVELING THROUGH THIS, NEED I REMIND YOU, MULTI DIMENSIONAL PORTAL”!!!!, he shouted, grabbing Luffy by the collar and shaking him with his left hand.

He then inched closer to Luffy’s face and stared him right into the eyes,”SO PLEASE TELL ME HOW THIS VERY BAD SITUATION GO FROM BAD TO FINE”!!!!

A second or two of silence passed between the three of them before Luffy started to smile widely,”CAUSE IM TELLIN YA BUDDY, WERE CREW AND CREW STICK TOGETHER NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS”, he shouted cheerfully.

The enthusiasm that he was showing had left both Zoro and Vanellope suddenly touched.

Luffy continued to put on a brave and determined face,”AND AS LONG AS WE'RE TOGETHER, NOTHINS GONNA TEAR US APART-“, suddenly two different pipes come out of nowhere and intercepts them.

It all happened so quickly, the speed that they were going at and the sudden force of the split pipes caused Luffy to accidentally let go of the ship’s rail.

But instead of going into the same direction as his two friends, he was sent through another.

Luffy locked on in horror as he soon realized that he was going down another pipe and being separated from his friends.

He threw out his hand in a hurry to try and grab hold of the ship, but alas it was too late.

He was already too far down to be able to reach them in time

“ZORO, VANELLOPE”!!!!!!!, he cried out to his friends as they went further into the pipes.

Zoro and Vanellope were in too much shock and were moving too fast to be able to respond.

Luffy watched as they both sucked into a much less friendly looking pipe.

The clouds around it were foggy and filled with lava, the pipe at South looked as if it was made from stones that came from magma.

He could do nothing as he saw both of his friends enter into the terrifying pipe.

He try his best to reach out to them, but to no avail.

They were gone and he couldn’t do anything about it.

But he didn’t have time to be sorry, because suddenly he turned to his front, and saw that he himself was about to enter another pipe.

He looked around to see if he could find anything to grab, but there was nothing. What are you got right in front of the pipe he grabbed onto one of the sides of it trying to hold on it’s tight as possible..

But the force of the pipe was so strong that he let go quickly and was sucked into this new pipe.

He didn’t know where he was going on the other side of that pipe, and he sure as hell didn’t know what was waiting for him on the other side.

(The Mushroom Kingdom)

Luffy was suddenly shot out of the pipe and landed face first onto a soft but stern object that caused his face to flatten.

He then slowly slid down against this wall shaped object for a few seconds before l sliding only the surprisingly soft ground.

His hat was soon shot out of the pipe too and landed softly on his head.

After a few moments of groaning, he turned to lie on his back.

He then placed his hand over his mouth and nose after taking a deep breath and reinflated his face and body.

Once he was done he hopped up from where he was lying down and began to dust himself off and fix up his hat.

It was a few moments before he realized just where he was.

His jaw dropped in aw as he got a better look at what he had crashed into.

It was a giant red mushroom with white polka dots on top and it stood almost if not taller than a house.

He took a step back away from the giant mushroom until he walked into something soft.

He turned around and saw that it was another red mushroom, it was nowhere near as big as the other mushroom but it stood a few inches taller than him.

He started to look around and noticed that it was just these two mushrooms but a whole forest full of mushrooms.

Everywhere he looked he was surrounded by nothing but mushrooms.

There were mushrooms of all different kinds of sizes, big mushrooms, small mushrooms, ugly mushrooms you name it.

Not only that but he heard birds chirping in the distance as well.

It all left Luffy amazed and shocked at what he was seeing for the first time in his life.

“What is this place”, he asked out loud as he was looking around, trying to get a good look at this place.

After a little bit of doing just that his stomach started to growl.

He suddenly was hungry…..

Really hungry……

So hungry that he could practically eat anything at that moment.

Ge started looking around and suddenly spotted a blue mushroom a few feet away from him.

He walked up and kneeled down in front of it trying to get the whole look of it.

And to be completely honest it looked just fine to him from where he was looking.

Though the mushroom didn’t give off any hints, signs, or looks that could have been poisonous.

But he remembered the last time he ate a mushroom without properly checking it out.

And let’s just say that it wasn’t a fun day for him.

But these mushrooms were a different color, so that had to be good for something, especially his stomach.

He shrugged his shoulders and reached his hand out to grab the mushroom when suddenly…….

“DO NOT TOUCH THAT MUSHROOM, YOU'LL DIE”, someone witha high pitched voice jumped up from behind the mushroom.

This startled Luffy, causing him to fall behind on his back and hit the back of his head.

He felt a sharp pain before groaning and began rubbing his head gently.

He then look up at the person responsible for this and was surprised at who or what it was

It was a tiny person with what looked like a white hat with red spots on his head. He had white skin, and wore what also looked like a brown backpack, a blue vest, and white pants. He also had on light brown shoes.

Luffy unfortunately didn’t get a good look at his face.

Luffy looked in confusion as he watched the small person carefully inspect the mushroom for a couple of seconds.

Then all of a sudden his mood brightened up as he looked upward but didn’t show any eye contact with Luffy, giving him a better look at the little person’s face.

He didn’t have a nose or any ears, and his eyes were as black as tar.

He also didn’t have any eyebrows or any little stumbles on his face.

He also looked as if he didn’t have a speck of hair in his body.

He was also holding a long wooden stick that was almost as tall as Luffy.

If he was human he certainly didn’t look like it at all.

“Oh I’m sorry”, he said before leaning on the blue mushroom,”False alarm. This one’s perfectly fine”.

Luffy tilted his head in confusion,”huh”.

The little person continued, still not looking at him.

“Well you see even though all of these mushrooms look bright and colorful, there a bunch of mushrooms that can really dangerous, like the purple mushroom, which can be very poisonous, to the point where they can even cause death if not taken care of quickly”, the little person started to explain to Luffy.

He then patted the mushroom,”But thankfully it looks like you got the blue mushroom instead so you should be ok…., we’ll you might have a couple of hallucinations but it should be fine-.

Just then the little person finally had eye contact with Luffy and almost instantly stopped talking.

He had finally actually looked at the person that he was talking about mushrooms to.

After a moment or two of just staring at Luffy, he jumped up and hopped over the blue mushroom.

After he did he slowly and carefully took a step towards Luffy (who was still lying on the ground).

“Whoa”, he took a step closer,” What are you”, he asked curiously.

Luffy titled his head to the side once again in confusion,”Huh, I was gonna ask you that”, he said before hopping up on his feet before pointing at the smaller person’s face,”Hey wait where’s your nose and ears”.

The little man rows an eyebrow,”Nose and ears, why would I have those”?, he asked curiously.

“Well everyone I’ve seen so far have always had those so I was wondering if you don’t got em”, Luffy explained.

He then looked at the round hat on top of the little guy’s head and started poking it,”Hey why do you gotta squishy hat in your head”.

That shocked the smaller man, causing him to use his hiking stick to thwack Luffy right on the hand,”Hey this isn’t a hat it’s my head”.

Luffy stopped poking his head and then just stood there, frozen with confusion.

His head, what did he mean by that.

There’s no way that this thing in this little guy's head could actually be part of him.

Luffy quickly glanced at some of the mushrooms that were all around him.

The thing on that little guys head sure did look a lot like them.

This was all definitely confusing Luffy now,“Huh Wait why does your head look like all of these mushrooms”.

“Well because I’m a mushroom just like these”, he answered,”Only I can walk and talk and they can’t”.

That last answer caught Luffy by surprise,”huh, you're a mushroom guy”?

The little mushroom person nodded his head before walking over to a mushroom tree, and standing next to it to give Luffy a better example.

Luff yo took a step back and placed his hand on his head.

“Whoa that’s so…….”, He paused for a moment causing the little mushroom man to feel like he was about to say something bad,”COOL”!!!

He shouted before running over to him and taking a closer look at the top of his head,”That explains why you had such a funny lookin hat”.

The sudden niceness of Luffy caused the mushroom man to chuckle a tiny bit.

He was surprised by the fact that whoever this guy was in front of him wasn’t a tiny bit freaked out by this, but he didn’t really want to press on it.

It wasn’t as if Luffy had never seen any magical creature before, believe it or not. He had on a lot of his adventures, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to him.

But it definitely was interesting to see any strange creatures once he had the chance to meet them.

This would definitely check talking mushroom people off I’d his list.

The mushroom person walked away from the giant mushroom and towards Luffy and poked him with the stick,”So what exactly are you supposed to be and where did you come from stranger”, he asked curiously.

“Oh I’m a human and just came outta that green pipe up there”, Luffy answered.

The mushroom person rose an eyebrow and looked towards the pipe and then back to Luffy,”Whoa, wait do all humans come out of the green pipes”.

Luffy shrugged his shoulders,”I don’t know, I hope not, my mom would be pretty ugly if that was true”.

The two of them began to burst out laughing after that last remark from Luffy.

After a few moments of laughter, the two of them started to calm down.

Toad wiped a tear from his left eye before exchanging his hand out to Luffy,”I’m Toad, I’m a wanderer that collects things from this forest to sell at my shop”.

Luffy smiled and shook his hand,” I’m Monkey D Luffy and I’m a pirate”.

Toad gasped,”Whoa- what’s a pirate”?, he asked curiously.

“ We’re people that like to explore the sea, go on adventures, meet new people, and eat tons of good food”,Luffy happily explained.

“Wow really”, Toad asked.

Luffy nodded,”Yup”.

“Now, you must live quite the cool life, huh”,Toad asked him.

Luffy chuckled before suddenly remembering that he had no idea where he was.

He started to check his surroundings before aske Toad,”Hey so, what is this place anyway”?

Toad smiled before suddenly walking past Luffy and spreading his arms out wide,” This place is THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM”!!!!!!

Luffy watched in amazement as he saw a medium shot of the mushroom looking forests that surrounded the two of them.

It was almost like a big mom’s cake island except without the cake and sweets part and everything was surrounded by mushrooms and there was a giant dat old lady with a bunch of kids trying to kill him.

Luffy placed his hand on his hat,”Wow this place is AMAZING!!!!, I mean how big and tall all of these mushrooms look, it’s almost like this is all a big crazy dream”.

Toad (hearing that) jumped up from where he was standing and thwacked Luffy across the head with his walking stick,”You felt that right”?

Luffy smiled and nodded his head,”Yup”.

Toad shrugged his shoulders,”Definitely not a dream then”, as he began to start walking forward and turned to Luffy to follow him,”Come on I show you around”.

Luffy nodded again before running forward to catch up with the mushroom man.

The two of them began walking into the forest as the toad began showing Luffy different parts of the mushroom forest.

And as they were walking through the forest, Luffy and Toad had begun to have a little bit of a conversation with each other.

Nothing too much, but for the next couple of minutes it was basically toad telling Luffy little bits about some of the creatures in the forest and all the little artifacts as well.

He even took the time to explain to Luffy that the pipes that were scattered everywhere were actually used as almost a sort of fast travel device.

Basically they had the ability to pretty much teleport anyone who goes through it anywhere that the other pipe was as long as they were still connected with each other.

That explains how Luffy and his friends were able to be sent here in the first place.

As they keep walking through the forest, Toad then turns to him,”Hey so if you don’t mind me asking. How did you end up here anyway”?

Luffy stops after hearing the question and gasps loudly.

He had been so caught up with meeting toads and watching the beautiful scenery of this new world. He had almost completely forgotten about his situation.

Toad looked at him with concern,”Luffy you ok”?

Luffy turned towards the toad in a panic,”I almost forgot toad, my friends are in trouble”.

Toad then gasped loudly,”What really is that and wait you have other friends that look like you”?

Luffy nodded his head,”Yeah, we were all taken down one of those pipes by white suit guy”.

Toad shit him a confused look,”White suit guy”?

“Yeah and while we were in there we got split up through two pipes”,Luffy explained to his new friend.

“Well, if that’s the case, maybe your friends just ended up in another part of this forest. Maybe we can find them, what did the pipe look like?”, Toad asked.

Luffy put his finger on his chin as he was recalling what just happened,” well, I didn’t get a good look at it, but it looked like it was foggy and dark, and also covered in lava”.

That last bit of information caused Toad to gasp loudly in fear as he stopped walking a few feet in front of Luffy.

He knew exactly where that pipe led to and it wasn’t anywhere close to good.

Luffy gave toad a look of concern after seeing that,”You all good toad”?

Toad paused before speaking,”Um…. Yes, we’ll no, actually this is a little far from good really um….,he turned to Luffy with a scared look on his face,”Luffy I don’t know how to tell you this but um…your friends may have landed in the “Dark Lands”, and they if that’s where they are, then you’re friends are in terrible danger”.

Luffy gave him another concerned look, wandering what he was talking about,”Why would they be in trouble”.

“Because that world under…….”, Toad checked his surroundings before moving over to Luffy,”His rule”.

Luffy then shot Toad a confused look not knowing what he was talking about.

Toad caught this and deep inched closer to Luffy,”Bular”, he said warningly.

Luffy tilted his head,”Who’s that”.

This caught the toad by surprise,”The butcher”?.

Luffy’s confused expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“The God of war, The king of the trolls, The crusher of skulls”, Toad continued trying to jog anything in the young pirate's head.

But nothing changed.

Luffy had that same confused look on his face from earlier in Toads warning.

He had absolutely no Idea who toad was talking about much less any of his titles.

“Who”, Luffy asked curiously.

Toad was definitely shocked now,”You don’t know who that Monster Bular is”?

Luffy shook his head,”Should I”?

“OF COURSE”, Toad shouted before he started pacing back and forth,”He’s the most evil, wretched, powerful creature alive, he’s known for his love for death and destruction, he’s a monster Luffy and he’s killed any who’s dare stood in his way.

Luffy began to tense up after hearing that.

He may have gone up against evil forces like that before, but it was never a good thing whenever he did.

And it was far from ever easy to deal with.

Toad then stopped and gave luffy a sad look on his face,”I’m sorry Luffy, but if your friends went through there then….”Toad turned to look at the ground and closed his eyes before turning back to look at luffy,” the. You're probably never gonna see- huh”, he saw that Luffy was no longer standing in front of him.

He then saw Luffy not only walking into another direction, but he was walking towards the pipe he just came out of.

A horrible feeling went through Toads body as he realized what Luffy was probably about to do.

He immediately ran right past Luffy and put his hands out in front of him to stop him from going to the pipe,”Whoa who who hey, what are you doing Luffy”?

Luffy looked down at Toad with a determined look on his face,”I’M GONNA GO SAVE MY FRIENDS AND KICK THAT BULAR GUYS ASS”!!, he shouted angrily before trying to move past Toad.

But Toad was too fast and he ended up in front of Luffy again to stop him,”LUFFY did you not just hear what I said, that monster is a bloodthirsty tyrant, a merciless butcher, the number of people he’s killed is unknown”.

Luffy (who still continued to walk towards the pipe) simply stepped over Toad trying not to hurt his new friend,” I DON'T CARE WHO HE IS OR WHAT HE'S DONE, BUT IF HE HURTS MY FRIENDS I'M GONNA SEND HIM FLYING”!!!!!

Toad was doing his best to stay in front of Luffy, trying to keep him away from the pipe,”Luffy his realm isn’t known for letting outsiders who stumble upon it have an easy or fun time, much less the outsiders who have the intention to kill their king”.

After a bit more running, he was able to once again get in front of Luffy and stop him,”If you so much as step into his kingdom he’s gonna kill you man”.

Luffy (hearing this) stopped in his tracks.

Toad continued,” You have no idea of what he’s capable of, the kingdoms he destroyed, the countless worlds he’s taking over, and he and some of this is just without his army, which I need to tell you is very, very massive”.

Luffy stood there listening for a few moments before bowing his head down.

“Look I’m sorry but if your friends really did go to the dark lands, then prepare yourself because you’re probably never gonna see them again”, Toad said sympathetically, or at least try to.

After hearing this Luffy turned to look at Toad,”IT DOESN'T MATTER TO ME HOW BIG HIS ARMY OR KINGDOM IS, THERE'S NO WAY IN HELL I'M GONNA RUN AWAY FROM THAT BULAR GUY”, Luffy shouted loudly.

Even if what Toad was telling him was true, Luffy could never and waited while his friends might’ve been in danger, even if the journey had met certain death.

How could he call himself the future king of the pirates if he wasn’t willing to try and go through all the difficult obstacles that would lie ahead of him.

“But Luffy I’m telling you you can’t just stroll in there especially alone you wouldn’t know where to go or where to find your friends”, Toad reminded him.

“Well, if that’s true, then why don’t you come with me and show me around the place”, Luffy encouraged.

But that suggestion left Toad frozen,”What the no no no no no no no no, I can’t go with you I’m not built from danger much less fighting, I’m a mushroom would like to be cute and cuddly, those monsters will use me as a chewing toy.

Luffy frowned and shook his head disappointed,”Toad that’s not true people can do anything that they put their minds to. It's only if you don’t believe in yourself that you can’t do it, you could be a fighter if you wanted to”.

Toad responded by waving his hands back and forth,” look I’m sorry, but I’m not a fighter. I’m a wanderer. I'm not gonna be able to be much help to you out there.

Luffy frowned and bowed his head in disappointment.

Toad was about to do the same when an ideas suddenly popped into his head,”But I think I know someone who can”.

Luffy’s face suddenly flooded with excitement,”Real who”?

Toad ran forward and hopped up on top of one of the mushroom trees,”The ruler of this land, our princess”.

Luffy tilted his head in confusion,” wait you guys have a princess”?he asked as he ran over toad and hopped on the same mushroom tree.

Toad nodded his head,”Yup and because I’m such an amazing friend I’m taking you to see her, and don’t worry she can help you, she can do anything”.

The two of them started hopping on top of the mushroom trees until they reached a certain point.

Toad stopped on top of a mushroom and turned to Luffy in excitement,”Alright Luffy welcome to the mushroom kingdom”, before he pointed out into the distance.

Luffy after a few moments caught up to Toad was able to see what he was talking about.

And l me tell you….

It was beautiful…..

There was a large castle out in the distance that was on top of a hill.

It was hovering over what looked like a little town under it that was surrounded by mushrooms.

There were also multiple fields that were right next to the kingdom as well.

And finally there was a massive rainbow that hovered over the castle itself.

Luffy’s eyes went wide with amazement, this place looks absolutely amazing despite it being covered by a bunch of fungus.

Toad then walked up to him and patted him on the leg,”You ready for this buddy”.

Luffy nodded his head in determination as a response,”Hell yeah”.

Toad than ran ahead,”WELL THAN COME IN LUFFY OUR BIG ADVENTURE BEGINS NOW”, he shouted as he made his way down the mushroom trees.

Luffy was about to do the same but stopped himself for a moment and clenched his fist tightly before looking up at the sky,”Hang on Zoro and Vanellope, I’m on my way”, he said to himself before hopping down some of the trees right behind Toad,”MUSHROOM KINGDOM HERE WE COME”, he shouted as he burst laughing.

The adventure has begun, or at least Luffy's side of it.

(End of Chapter)

sorry for the short chapter I didn’t really wanna extend any of this seem too much.

But hey, cheers everyone we’re finally in the mushroom kingdom when the adventure begins.

How do you like meeting this story's Toad for the first time?

And don’t worry he’s going to be getting a lot more. Seemed in a lot more lines then he did in the movie.

until the next chapter

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hellfire-fist · 3 years

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I am once again thinking about the fact that Zoro never 'fully-smiled' prior to his reunion with Luffy in Wano.

I rest my case.

and my body

#my entire face is smiling #HOW TF DO YOU NOT CRY ABOUT THAT #it's really just booze and Luffy that could do that to him and I'm g with that TBH #Luffy really breaks all Zoro's barriers #it's sweet af #HIS SMILE WAS SO FUCKING BIG I CAN'T #that shit literally surprised me because it's been so long since he had such expression #and I mean- not my mouth is turned upwards shit #rare AF #Roronoa Zoro #Monkey D. Luffy #Zoro #Luffy #one piece #one piece manga #zolu #Wano Kuni Arc #otp

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opbackgrounds · 4 years

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Alright, friends, you know the drill by now. Here’s Part III of Sarcasticles’ overblown thoughts on sexism in One Piece. If you haven’t already, go read Part I and Part II before proceeding.

I promise after this I’ll be done. By hook or by crook, we’re getting through the point of the original question. To the Anon who originally sent the ask, sorry it took this long to get here, I hope it’s helpful.

Also, I allude to some very, very minor Wano spoilers, so if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing here’s your warning.

Characterization? I Don’t Know Her

What makes a good character?

I’ve spent an awful lot of time talking about character designs, when, funnily enough, it’s one of the aspects I pay the least attention to when it comes to deciding if I like how an author portrays their characters. I personally don’t care for fanservice, never have and never will. But unless it’s particularly egregious, I tend to ignore it because there are other factors I think are more important.

The secret sauce for building characters is hard to define, because a good writer can take a concept that has no right being any good and turn it into something incredible (Oda does this all the time) where bad writers will seemingly slot all the right information in the right holes and still have their characters come out of the developmental oven flat and under cooked.

One of the biggest buzzwords floating around these days is agency. Is a character active in their own story, or are they jerked around by the needs of the plot? Is their voice heard? Is their voice unique, or do they blend in with the background?

This is particularly important, because the term Strong Female Protagonist has been warped into shorthand for “girl who fights a lot and looks pretty doing it”. You can have a girl strong enough to lift mountains and still have her be a shit character. You can write a girl who’s main motivation is to get married and have babies with phenomenal depth. What matters is execution.

The Petition to Call A Group of Rescue Arcs a ‘Damsel’

Both Nami and Robin had to be rescued, their main arcs bearing similarities that are impossible to ignore. But these aren’t copies of one another as much as variations on a theme, and with the existence of Marineford and Whole Cake Island I think anyone would be hard-pressed to say that One Piece’s rescue arcs are a girl’s thing. At this point it’s a feature, not a bug.

Which makes sense given how fundamental the idea freedom is to the series. Hell, the first thing Luffy does after becoming a pirate is free Coby from Alvida’s tyrannical reign. Then he frees Zoro from an unjust authority that would have killed him had Luffy not intervened.

Notice a pattern here?

One Piece is written like Pachelbel Canon, in that a very simple core of ideas are repeated over and over with layers of complexity and nuance added over time, examining the same themes from every possible angle.

And when you look at the Four Big Rescue Arcs -- Nami, Robin, Ace, Sanji -- you’ll see that it’s Ace who’s given the least agency throughout his arc. Nami chose to hijack the Going Merry, repeatedly chose to push away the Straw Hats until she reached her breaking point, at which she chose to ask for help, with Luffy only intervening once she does.

Robin is a little less obvious, but during the post-Water 7 party chapters, Aokiji makes the interesting observation that Robin could have escaped CP9, but chose not to

Remember that before Robin’s backstory was shown, Luffy specifically said he didn’t care if she wanted to die or not, so long as she was with the Straw Hats when she made her decision. No one bullied her into “I wanna live”. It was a choice she made of her own volition after realizing the depths the Straw Hats would go on her behalf.

I know there are people who disagree with me, but Nami and Robin are well-written characters. I’ve expounded enough on my reasoning both here and on my main that I don’t want to spend the time belaboring the point. What I do want is to note that Luffy wouldn’t be able to attain his dreams without them. Nami keeps them on course while also severing as a sort of moral compass for the crew -- remember she was the one who insisted on saving the giant kids at Punk Hazard -- while Robin’s ability to read the poneglyphs is what’s going to get the crew to Raftel.

Robin admittedly doesn’t have the same presence within the Straw Hat Pirates as Nami, but I would hardly call that sexism. Since Water 7/Enies Lobby she’s been pretty content to go with whatever Luffy says, and the fact that she’s literally quieter than anyone else in the crew means she doesn’t get as much focus. I think there could be more scenes with her using her specific skill set, like her investigations in Wano and the forensic anthropology scene in the pre-Jaya chapters, but I’m okay with her being a supporting character.

The East Blue Crew have consistently gotten the most focus of any of the Straw Hats. They are the core of the crew, something Oda admits in a roundabout way in the Color Walk where they all appear together for the first time in a color spread

With the main cast as large as it is, not everyone is going to have the same amount of focus or development. Robin is given a unique voice within the story because she doesn’t overreact the way literally everyone else does. Through her silence, she stands out. I find there to be very meaningful character development when she feels comfortable enough with the Straw Hats to start calling them by name in Thriller Bark, relaxed enough with her friends to comitt her first facefaults in a series lousy with them in both Dressrosa and Wano.

In an ideal world, Oda would better rotate through his cast, much like how Brook was the unsung MVP on Whole Cake Island (where Nami was also excellent in a supporting role) but I don’t think people realize how hard it is to juggle almost a dozen different people in a story that’s bloated exponentially over time. To his credit, Oda has handled his expanding crew better than most writers.

I also find it hard to judge this aspect of the series because the manga’s not done yet. I don’t know how Robin and Nami will be used in the future. I mean, Robin never got a chapter title declaring her “The Seventh” which I find suspicious, so Oda could very well have events in store that completely turn our perceptions upside down. It’s impossible to say.

I will acknowledge that the lack of big fights is somewhat disappointing, but neither Robin nor Nami’s dreams revolve around them getting stronger. Robin doesn’t need to use her power to make people explode from the inside out, Nami doesn’t need to fry end-game bosses with her lightning stick. That’s simply not their narrative purpose. With the exception of Tashigi, I’ve found that the female characters advertised as fighters have lived up to their billing. Hancock came out of Marineford unscathed. Carrot’s sulong form was awesome, in the old-fashioned sense of the word. The whole climax of Whole Cake Island revolved around surviving Big Mom’s wrath. Not beating her, not fighting her, it took all the Straw Hats had to just survive. Once again you’re left with a number’s game where where there just aren’t enough female characters to even pretend things are balanced.

All said, I think if you’re going to complain about the lack of Robin fights then I think you also have to complain about the lack of Brook fights, and that’s just not something you hear about, especially after Whole Cake Island. You can’t have it both ways. Either there needs to be more even distribution of major fights throughout the entire crew, or you have to acknowledge that a character’s worth isn’t dependent on their fighting prowess.

One Piece is a battle manga, and I do think that it’s fair to criticize when a character isn’t allowed to fight when they’re perfectly capable of kicking ass. But it’s also an adventure story, and that opens up entirely new space for a character to occupy, and that’s where I think Nami and Robin (but especially Nami) really shine

That Moment You Realize Humor Isn’t A Universal Language

I’ve spent so much time defending Oda’s designs and characters that it might seem like I’m perfectly okay with everything that’s portrayed in the manga. To be clear, I’m not. If the messages and comments I’ve gotten over the past several days have taught me anything, it’s that many fans share the same sticking points I do, namely in regards to some of the gags.

I again want to be careful here, because I’m hardly an expert on Japanese culture and it’s really hard to tell if Oda writes his jokes because he thinks they’re funny, or if he thinks his audience will find them funny. I’m again going to default to somewhere in the middle, because if Oda truly found the perviness distasteful he probably wouldn’t have included it, and I’ve read enough SBS to know the guy likes his dick jokes.

First and foremost, one must address the culture gap. Japan ranks last among G7 nations on gender equality, In 2004 two-thirds of Tokyo women in their 20-30s reported to being groped while on public transport. There are numerous barriers that make it difficult for a woman to succeed either in the workplace or politics.

From what I can gather, some of these trends are reversing, albeit slowly and with great resistance. Contrary to what many people seem to believe culture is not always value neutral. And I say that as an American, recognizing there are plenty of things about my culture and country that are really fucked up.

But who gets to decide who’s right and who’s wrong?

When inside that kind of environment, that kind of culture, it’s a lot easier to understand how a character like Sanji can exist. It’s easy to understand why Momo shoving his face into Nami and Robin’s boobs might be played for laughs. It’s not an excuse, but an explanation. And with Sanji failing more often than not, being the butt of his own joke as he slowly turns into a parody of what he once was, one could almost say Oda is pointing those types of people and saying, “Look how pathetic this guy is. Now go laugh as he gets a nosebleed so bad he needs multiple blood transfusions in order to not die.”

I say almost, because Sanji is never condemned for his actions, nor does he learn from them. Instead you have this character who’s supposed to be one of the kindest characters in the series decide to immediately go peep on a woman’s bath house after gaining the power of invisibility.

Stay classy, Oda.

As distasteful as I find it, I don’t find fanservice to be an inherently evil thing that must be eradicated at all costs, and with Oda doing things like putting his entire cast, male and female, into skintight leathers you can hardly say that he’s excluding the men.

Everyone will have their line in the sand, and mine goes back to agency. When Nami did her Happiness Punch way back in Alabasta, that was of her own volition. When Nami and Robin dress in clothes that show everything but the nipple, that’s something they chose and feel comfortable in.

But when Smoker and Tashigi swapped bodies at Punk Hazard, Tashigi specifically asked Smoker not to strip, and he did anyway, opening her coat and removing her bra. This is especially egregious as Tashigi is one of the very few women in the series who is always shown wearing very conservative clothing. Oda specifically showed Tashigi getting upset at Smoker’s actions, and Smoker repeatedly refusing to listen to her.

That’s where I draw my line.

Some Final Thoughts I Couldn’t Fit Anywhere Else

Thought The First--Oda has an interesting habit of turning his most despicable, scummy pieces of flaming human garbage into the butt of the joke. Villains like Crocodile and Doflamingo are certainly evil, but it’s the idealized, cool type of evil that makes you almost admire them. There aren’t very many real-world Crocodiles, but just about everyone knows a Spandam, or an Absalom, or a Vander Decken. These kinds of villains aren’t scary because of their physical prowess, but their unyielding obsessions and the power they’re able to wring from the system, and -- surprise, surprise -- all three are either actively trying to be creepy sex pests or coded as such with the visual language of the comic.

And Oda turns them into a mockery.

While there are some who feel like not treating serious issues like sexual assault seriously are doing a disservice to people who have endured similar experiences I think there’s merit to turning them into a laughingstock. As someone much smarter than me said once, if an opinion cannot withstand mockery it’s revealed to be ridiculous, and these scummy-scum villains are certainly ridiculous.

Thought The Second--It’s hard to say how much sexism is a thing in-universe. Kuina is the only one who is explicitly told her dreams were impossible because of her gender, but with the recent reveal confirming that her family came from Wano, which in turn is based on Feudal Japan, it’s hard to say how widespread these beliefs are. Tashigi brought it up again at Loguetown and Bellemere specifically told her girls that they lived in an era where “girls needed to be strong, too”, but otherwise it’s not a topic that’s been explored in any depth

Thought The Third--The in-universe fetishization of mermaids has some implications that I think are unintended but worth discussing. Shirahoshi has a reputation of being one of the most beautiful women in the world despite not leaving her tower for over 10 years (she’s 16). Mermaids whose tails have split are worth less on the slave market than those whose are intact. Even Zoro erased Kokoro from his memory after meeting the more attractive Caime. It’s one of those odd things that when combined with the more obvious racism themes could have some unfortunate implications, and I think could have been avoided had Oda show a little more restraint with some of his jokes. Unintended consequences are still consequences.

Thought The Forth--There are many other instances throughout the series that people bring up with talking about sexism in One Piece. I feel like a lot of these can be explained away individually -- for example, both Belo Betty and Rebecca’s stripperific outfits were inspired by other media, the painting Liberty of the People and Red Sonja respectively; Lola chasing after an obviously abusive man makes a whole lot more sense when you meet Big Mom; Hancock’s love sickness could be seen as an emotionally stunted woman experiencing her first crush, etc., etc -- it’s when they’re all put together that they begin to read as “Problematic”.

It would be impossible to go over all these individually, but I tend to fall on the side of leniency. In the end, everyone has to make their own decisions based on their own values. I’m hardly unbiased, and my enjoyment for the series will undoubtedly make me look the other way when another might call the exact same incident The Worst Thing Ever. The thing is, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and most are convinced that theirs don’t stink. I include myself in that statement. In the end it’s a comic for kids. It’s supposed to be fun.

Thought The Last--I have spent entirely too much of my time writing this up, but in the end I guess I have to go back to what I said when I talked about my thoughts on Sanji: Everyone has their own personal line of acceptable bullshit, and for me Oda does more good than bad. Sanji specifically gets very little leniency from me because I don’t like a lot of the gross behavior Oda passes over as a joke. But the female characters themselves, generally speaking? They’re fine. There are other mangaka that have more equal male to female ratios or have women play more active roles in the story, but Oda does a lot better than most other shonen titles I’ve read.

It’s okay to be critical of media you enjoy. It’s okay to complain. But remember that One Piece is a very long series, and there are some fans who have been a round for literally decades. I myself started reading weekly around the time Duval was introduced, way back in 2008. Every time a new batch of fans comes in the same old arguments get stirred to the top of the pot: Sanji is a creep, Oda can’t draw women, why doesn’t Robin ever get to fight?

It can be exhausting to go through the same hoops time and time again. So if you’re someone who is being critical and feel like no one is listening, or that a bunch of fans are going out of their way to defend Oda, that could be one of the reasons why. They’re tired of having a series they enjoy be shit on.

There are other fans who legitimately don’t think that Oda’s done anything wrong, that jokes are just jokes. If you happen to fall in that category, remember that not everyone feels that way. Art reflects life, which in turn reflects art. One Piece is a few million copies away from outselling Batman. To say it isn’t influential to young readers, both in Japan and abroad, is beyond asinine.

I thank everyone who’s taken the time to read this so far. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how civil the discussion and my inbox as stayed. Even if I didn’t respond to your message, I promise that I did read it.

I wrote as much as I did because I know this is a topic a lot of people care about, and also so I hopefully don’t have to write about it again. A lot of hours has gone into this project, and it’s been exhausting, but in a good way, if that makes any sense. I’m ready to put it to rest.

I was joking with some friends that I think I’ve hit just about every hot topic issue now, so hopefully I can go back to fun questions like speculating if Wapol can eat a person and poop out a devil fruit.

Until then, Sarcasticles, out

#sexism #one piece #long post #sarc talks

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jippy-kandi · 4 years

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Digimon Adventure 02 Blood Types (+ Astrology)

The Chosen Children (DigiDestined) in Digimon Adventure and 02 do not have official birthdays. However, Toei Animation officially gave Miyako the star sign Gemini and the blood type AB. But I’ve always focused on the astrology aspect of their source of inspiration -- and completely disregarded their blood types.

That was wrong of me. Their blood types are almost as important as their Western zodiac signs, no matter how ridiculous I think the idea is.

Taichi ‘Tai Kamiya’ Yagami: Aries Sun, Blood Type O

Hikari ‘Kari Kamiya’ Yagami: Taurus Sun, Blood Type A

Miyako ‘Yolei’ Inoue: Gemini Sun, Blood Type AB

Mimi Tachikawa: Cancer Sun, Blood Type B

Daisuke ‘Davis’ Motomiya: Leo Sun, Blood Type O

Jou ‘Joe’ Kido: Virgo Sun, Blood Type A

Ken Ichijouji: Libra Sun, Blood Type AB

Sora Takenouchi: Scorpio Sun, Blood Type O

Takeru ‘T.K.’ Takaishi: Sagittarius Sun, Blood Type B

Iori ‘Cody’ Hida: Capricorn Sun, Blood Type A

Koushirou ‘Izzy’ Izumi: Aquarius Sun, Blood Type AB

Yamato ‘Matt’ Ishida: Pisces Sun, Blood Type AB

Blood types are even more popular than astrology in Japan. And, more importantly, every single anime character with an official birthday is always listed with both their star sign and their blood type. Because it matters. The blood type is there to either offset or complement the Sun sign.

I’ve recently fallen into a bit of a Sailor Moon hole (nostalgia at its finest!), and noticed that the main character, Serena (Usagi), was officially a Cancer with blood type O.

So I actually decided to look up what blood type O meant -- and it gave Serena an outgoing, friendly disposition with leadership skills.

Ah. That’s cheating! XD;

So, yeah, it only took me 20 years to really acknowledge that Miyako was given an official blood type, and that it might actually mean something, lol.

Apparently, only around 30% of people in the US know their blood types, whereas at least 90% of people in Japan know their blood types.

Yeah. Blood types are a MASSIVE DEAL in Japan (and South Korea and Taiwan . . .). Even bigger than astrology, apparently.

I still find the whole thing utterly ridiculous, but I forced myself to read up on it because I’m interested in the “origins” of the Chosen Children (character trivia is interesting to me!). Because, as Sailor Moon showed me, their blood types should either complement or offset their Sun signs.

I’ve also never thought about the “impact” of their blood types because I’ve never had an issue with identifying a character’s Sun sign. Whether an anime character with a Sun sign was introverted or extroverted was never an issue to me because, well, if you’re really knowledgeable in astrology, it’s really easy to see “through” that and see the “core” of their character anyway.

Mimi being an extroverted Cancer, for example, was never a barrier to me -- because all Sun signs can be introverted or extroverted, especially in an anime series created by writers who can do whatever they want with their characters. It’s the “skeleton” of the character that lets you know exactly which Sun sign inspired them. So I’ve always just accepted, “oh, the writer wanted to create an extroverted Cancer”, for example.

I just didn’t know that the writers actually gave a reason for their characters’ extroversion or introversion -- via their blood types.

It’s been in front of me this whole time . . . but I just ignored Miyako’s blood type because I personally think the whole blood type thing is ridiculous. I still think it is, but it was wrong of me to ignore it -- and I think anyone who is actually interested in figuring out the origin of the characters would be wrong to keep ignoring their blood types, too. It goes hand-in-hand with astrology.

Fortunately, there are only four blood types, so reading up on it was pretty easy. But, as there are only four, it’s a lot more restrictive than astrology -- and a lot of traits are contradictory, especially when you give one character a blood type, as parts of it will fit and parts of it won’t.

(This blood type system is just as bad as the Hogwarts Houses. Honestly, I never understood its popularity -- it never made sense to me and is such a terrible system. Hermione is a Gryffindor because she’s brave? So . . . all Ravenclaws are cowardly intellectuals? And not one Slytherin stayed to fight in the final battle, so all Slytherins are pure evil? OK, I’ll stop. I’ve just been disappointed in JK Rowling recently.)

Here’s one summary of the four blood types (note: there are tonnes . . . so I recommend googling for some more to get a better idea!):

Type A -- “The Farmer” Best traits: Warmest, reserved, sensible, patient, responsible, perfectionists, wise, and cautious. Worst traits: Fastidious, over-earnest, obsessive, stubborn, the least temperate, inconsiderate, jealous, cold, angry.

Type B -- “The Hunter” Best traits: Passionate, active, creative, animal-loving, flexible, cheerful, friendly and optimistic, vocalizing personality Worst traits: Irresponsible, forgetful, selfish, lazy, impatient, unreliable and "going own way".

Type AB -- “The Humanist” Best traits: Creative, calm, rational, sociable, intelligent and adaptable. Worst traits: Critical, indecisive, unforgiving, aloof and not trustable

Type O -- “The Warrior” Best traits: Confident, self-determined, ambitious, strong-willed, intuitive, agreeable, competitive and athletic. Worst traits: Unpredictable, spiteful, self-centered, cold, aggressive, arrogant, envious and ruthless.

(Source: Wikipedia)

The Japanese population consists of approximately 40% blood type As, 30% Os, 20% Bs and 10% ABs. This is actually important because the As and Os are considered the more “popular” (”socially accepted”) blood types, whereas people really consider the minority, ABs, as “weird” . . .

The associated traits are also kind of all over the place, depending on which source you’re reading. And there are a lot of them . . . so it can get pretty confusing! But I found it a lot easier and simpler to break them down into groups of introverts and extroverts:

Type A: Introverted

Type B: Extroverted

Type AB: Introverted or Extroverted (AB is A + B combined, hence, AB!)

Type O: Extroverted

I also read some anecdotal descriptions from Japanese people or people who have lived in Japan -- and what their Japanese peers think of the blood types (so a “real world” impression of them). Because it gives me a better idea of the “general opinion” from actual people (therefore a reflection of “common knowledge”), which gives me more context and understanding than just reading a set of traits.

For example, guys with blood type B are considered playboys -- so a lot of women (who believe in this crazy blood type personality indicator) generally avoid dating them. Blood Type As are considered the “stereotypical” quiet Japanese personality, blood type Os are considered the best people in general to be around, and blood type ABs are considered “weird” and social outcasts.

I even read someone saying that they’ve never seen people in Japan being discriminated against due to their star sign, but that they have seen people being discriminated against due to their blood type (usually AB). Apparently ABs don’t “play well with others” to the extent that some Japanese companies avoid hiring them. Some Japanese politician even exploded angrily at work, subsequently resigned, and his apology was, “Sorry, I’m blood type AB” . . .

Yeah. Crazy. But it gives me a really good idea of what the blood types “mean” (no, I do not believe in blood types -- I’m just seeing what the “rules” about it says!).

Because I like to be thorough, I also wanted to see the blood types “in practice” -- with Sun signs, too. So I looked up the Sun signs and blood types of some official anime examples to give me a better idea and understanding of how anime creators/writers use and execute star signs and blood types together. I think these characters are popular enough that most people would be familiar with a few of them, too.

Sailor Moon: Cancer Sun, Blood Type O

Sailor Mercury: Virgo Sun, Blood Type A

Sailor Mars: Aries Sun, Blood Type AB

Sailor Jupiter: Sagittarius Sun, Blood Type O

Sailor Venus: Libra Sun, Blood Type B

Tuxedo Mask: Leo Sun, Blood Type A

One Piece’s Luffy: Taurus Sun, Blood Type B

One Piece’s Usopp: Aries Sun, Blood Type O

One Piece’s Nami: Cancer Sun, Blood Type A

One Piece’s Zoro: Scorpio Sun, Blood Type AB

One Piece’s Sanji: Pisces Sun, Blood Type O

Naruto’s Naruto: Libra Sun, Blood Type O

Naruto’s Sasuke: Leo Sun, Blood Type AB

Naruto’s Sakura: Aries Sun, Blood Type O

Gravitation’s Yuki: Pisces Sun, Blood Type AB

Gravitation’s Shuichi: Aries Sun, Blood Type AB

I definitely understand it a lot better now. But it’s clear that they do “cheat” and just take certain aspects of a blood type to go with a zodiac sign. For example, while Sanji is an outgoing, silly Pisces, he’s not the leader of the Straw Hats.

Also, most of the ABs are the typical “dark” characters with tragic pasts . . . so social outcast is spot on.

Now let’s finally get to the Digimon characters!

I want to be clear that I am not trying to “assign” blood types to the Digimon characters. This is about determining what the Digimon Adventure/02 staff actually used as a blueprint for the characters.

For example, if I were to “assign” a blood type to Yamato in Digimon Adventure tri., I would definitely give him blood type O (for leadership abilities -- while ignoring the outgoing aspect . . . I guess his Pisces Sun “dims” it!).

But I don’t think the original staff for Adventure/02 “used” that blood type for him. I really don’t see Adventure/02 Yamato as a capable leader (but I do in tri., where he is 1000% the better leader for most of the series, over tri. Taichi).

This is about the actual source of inspiration for Yamato’s character by the original Adventure/02 staff, and not the tri. staff (who I don’t think knew that the characters were based on signs/blood types), so tri. Yamato’s personality is irrelevant to this particular discussion.

Because Toei Animation gave Miyako both a star sign and blood type (as do the majority of anime writers for their characters), and it’s 100% clear they gave star signs to all the Chosen, then they gave all the characters blood types, too. Because star signs and blood types go hand-in-hand in Japanese anime.

Taichi ‘Tai Kamiya’ Yagami: Aries Sun, Blood Type O

I think they kept it super simple with Taichi, their main character and protagonist of the entire series. Aries Sun for leadership, blood type O for leadership as well. I don’t think his Aries Sun needed to be “offset” -- he’s an outgoing person and a “warrior”, and blood type O just complements that.

Hikari ‘Kari Kamiya’ Yagami: Taurus Sun, Blood Type A

I think blood type A for her because it just complements her Taurus Sun. Type A is really the Earth equivalent in astrology, and there’s nothing about Hikari that suggests to me that she’s more than Earth (well, except when she’s taken over . . . which I think has nothing to do with her).

Miyako ‘Yolei’ Inoue: Gemini Sun, Blood Type AB

Official. Note that the blood type here just complements her Sun sign as well. Blood type AB is actually considered the equivalent to Gemini in its duality . . . so the writers here just doubled down on her duality. She’s also the more extroverted version of an AB, where they can be both.

Mimi Tachikawa: Cancer Sun, Blood Type B

She needs an extroverted blood type to offset her introverted Cancer Sun, like Sailor Moon, who is a Cancer Sun with blood type O. So B or O for Mimi -- I lean more towards B, because Mimi doesn’t have leadership qualities. And I think of her outgoing, cheerful nature as more similar to that of Takeru, rather than Taichi.

Daisuke ‘Davis’ Motomiya: Leo Sun, Blood Type O

Like Taichi, I think they went super simple with him and just gave him the leadership blood type. There’s nothing about his personality that sways away from being a stereotypical Leo -- this includes the fact that quite a few anime makes the Leo the “mean” character. Daisuke is not that mean, but compared to the others, he’s definitely the most “obnoxious, jerk”-type amongst them. (Examples of mean Leos: Sasuke in Naruto, Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon.)

Jou ‘Joe’ Kido: Virgo Sun, Blood Type A

I just think all the Earth signs are blood type A, lol. It just complements their boring Earth sign . . . again, I am not insulting Earth signs, it’s just textbook astrology! (I swear. I’m a boring Earth sign . . . lol) Jou is such a Virgo to me that I think his personality is the Earth equivalent in blood types.

Ken Ichijouji: Libra Sun, Blood Type AB

I’m the most confident with Ken’s blood type. AB can give you an introverted, social outcast character -- which offsets his Libra Sun’s extroversion. Done. (Sasuke in Naruto, for example, is a Leo Sun who should be outgoing -- instead, he’s an introverted, social outcast because he’s blood type AB. Also, I just noticed that Ken and Daisuke are Naruto and Sasuke, but with swapped blood types. Neat.)

Sora Takenouchi: Scorpio Sun, Blood Type O

I view Sora as an “extroverted introvert”. She’s definitely an introvert, but she plays well at being an extrovert. Because her Scorpio Sun is introverted, I think her blood type offsets it to make her a little bit more extroverted than usual for a Scorpio. So I think O or B both works for her -- I lean towards O, because it’s called “The Warrior” and she has that meaning in her surname. Plus, O would make her the same blood type as Taichi, giving exactly the same “connection” as being Mars-ruled does. (The exact same connection . . . competitiveness, sports, etc.)

Takeru ‘T.K.’ Takaishi: Sagittarius Sun, Blood Type B

This also just complements his Sun. Also, I know I’m supposed to disregard his tri. personality, but I do also think that Adventure/02 Takeru has the ingredients to grow up to be a charming playboy, so . . . lol. Blood type B it is!

Iori ‘Cody’ Hida: Capricorn Sun, Blood Type A

Again, this blood type just complements his Sun. I think the blood type is complementary when the character is so like their Sun sign -- and Iori is incredibly Capricorn. So much so talking about him bores me, lol. (I don’t hate him! I swear! He’s just SO MUCH Capricorn!)

Koushirou ‘Izzy’ Izumi: Aquarius Sun, Blood Type AB

Blood type AB are said to be “geniuses” or “talented”. Koushirou is Adventure’s genius, seen as a bit of an outsider just because of his intellect. I think AB is being expressed in a similar way to Miyako’s AB here; the more positive aspects of it (”genius”), as opposed to the negative aspects of it in Ken and Yamato (social outcast). I also view Koushirou as an “introverted extrovert” -- I think he’s actually an extrovert; if you put him in a room full of intellectuals, he’d stay there forever talking to everyone.

Yamato ‘Matt’ Ishida: Pisces Sun, Blood Type AB

Similar reasoning to Ken -- I think the writers set out to make Yamato the “social outcast”-type character in Adventure (when Ken didn’t exist). I consider Yamato the blueprint for Ken’s character in a lot of ways, actually. They used Yamato to be the “outsider” (troublemaker, doesn’t really fit in) in Adventure, to turn against his friends -- and then upped it a few hundred notches for Ken in 02, who also has blood type AB. ABs are also blood types A and B combined (who are opposites); see the contradiction? Yamato can be both shy and confident; he can be cool, calm and collected one minute, then off-the-rails emotionally the next. AB! Actually, I’m just as confident about his as I am Ken’s. ABs are the easiest to spot in anime! They just turn every Sun sign dark, lol.

And that’s my current list!

The blood types are subject to change, as I’m not an expert on them by any means. I literally just looked the whole thing up a few days ago, so my knowledge on it is very, very basic compared to the years I spent reading about astrology from multiple different sources (and thus why I’m 100% certain on those).

This was a lot harder than their Sun signs. With astrology, I could fact-check myself with their character designs, Crests, digimon partners, name meanings and roles in the plot -- but with blood types? Nope.

This is just me guessing with what I think was being done with their Sun signs (to complement or offset) -- where most of them do seem to just complement their signs. But I can’t grasp on to any “evidence” like I can with astrology, unfortunately. I’m pretty confident with Ken and Yamato’s blood types, though.

What do you guys think? What blood types do you think the kids were given in Adventure/02? Please disregard anything you saw in tri., as that’s an entirely different staff (who interpreted and expressed the characters as they saw fit). Just focus on the characterisations from Adventure/02.

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namirotraeu · 4 years

Text

Online Relationships

I know it took me a long time to finish this fic, but I hope you’ll still give it a try. I originally planned it to be longer. I had to delete several scenes since it does not match, maybe I’ll use it in my future fics.

Please enjoy the final chapter and let me know your thoughts.

“Personalities and relationships tend to differ offline. “

(Part 1) I (Part 2) I (Part 3)

Title: Online Relationships- Part 4

Pairing:Trafalgar Law X Nami

Genre: Romance / AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 1734

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, they rightfully belong to Oda Eiichiro.

Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships because of her beauty. It was not her fault that she became the cause of a ten-year war. It was the Fates who were weaving her destiny. Nami liked the epics The Iliad and The Odyssey, which tells the story of Helen. She read the books all over again every time she finds time to do so. She loved how the story tells that we are rational beings and it is our actions that makes our fate. Helen chose to love and that love became the downfall of a lot of people. Nami, on the other hand chose, to leave a comment on Law's post. She never thought it would end up like this.

16 love reactions. 5 likes. 25 comment replies.

Luffy D. Monkey: Zoro, Sanji, Robin, Franky, Ussop, Chopper, Brook, Vivi and Shiraoishi. Look! Nami, we demand an explanation! Since when did you and Torao became too close?

'Ugh, why did Luffy have to be the first one to see this? He even tagged all our closest friends.' Nami thought in despair.

Sanji Vinsmoke: Is the shitty doctor your boyfriend, Nami-swan? T^T

Zoro Roronoa: Witch, I told you to behave. Law, better take care of her.

Nico Robin: My, my, I never knew that he stole your heart, Nami.

Chopper: So it was Law that Nami likes?

It was not only her friends that reacted and commented. Even Law's friends did.

Shachi: Captain! She commented. Hurray!

Penguin: Yay! Our captain is on his spring time.

Bepo: Sorry for not noticing it earlier. I'm rooting for the two of you. May your relationship be strong. Aye!

X-Drake: Hmm..

There are a lot of people who reacted which she did not know personally, but were mutual friends with Law in Facegram. At this point in time, she regretted what she did. It would be a big deal for his and her friends. She even read a comment conversation between Penguin and Luffy saying they should team up to match the two of them. What is done is done, so she decided just to meet up with her friends in Baratie's Food Joint. Luffy said that Robin and Franky will be joining them since they have no work for today.

Her friends have already placed their own orders when she came to their table. She ordered her favorite tangerine smoothie and the lunch special from the counter. Luckily for Nami, Law and his friends were seated far from their table. She is too ashamed to look at them, but her curiosity urged her to take a glimpse on his table. Even with the crowd their eyes always find each other. His lip draw into a smirk, then he waved at her. She smiled and waved back while her cheeks is slightly blushing. It felt like it was just the two of them in the food joint full of people. But they are not. Both their group of friends is observing the two of them.

Luffy, Chopper and Ussop was laughing out loud when they saw Nami coming back to their table.

"Why are you laughing?" Nami questioned. The trio continued to laugh till Ussop decided to answer her.

"Law sudden used his bag to hide his face after you smiled at him. He was so red."

"Eh? I don't believe you. We both know you're a liar." Nami taunts her friend.

“Shishi.Torao! Look over here. Nami wants to see your face" Luffy shouted. Nami hurriedly punched Luffy to silence him.

She subtly glanced and saw Law's friends looking at her while pointing at Law, who is burying his face on the bag. His friends was laughing and teasing him. He is obviously pretending to be sleeping, she knew he wasn't someone who can sleep in any place. She found this scene cute and she happily ate her lunch with her friends.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

Marine duties in the town vary depending on which branch you are assigned. Being a Rear Admiral, Drake doesn’t have much to do than waiting for a new mission for him. He often uses his time off visiting museums to see dinosaur artifacts or collaborate with universities for dinosaur researches as a hobby. Today was he was supposed to meet Corazon, Law’s foster father, to fetch a package for his father. However, the old man called that he will be sending over his son because he has urgent matters to deal with his brother.

He knew the whole time him and Law would be together would be spent with them pissing off one another. That nerd really makes him tick. Just thinking that they would be meeting up in a few minutes made him exhausted.

While strolling in the park, he saw a familiar red head who was leisurely walking.

“This would be interesting.” He thought. He heard that Law tend to be quiet when she’s around.

“Nami!” He called out.

“Oh! Hey Drake. It’s been a long time since I last saw you. What’s up?”

“Nothing new really. I’m supposed to meet up with Law in Buggy’s Steak House for lunch. Join us.” He invited.

“It is your treat? You know I like free things.” The younger girl beamed.

“Of course, and you’ll get a bonus of seeing Law.” He teased.

“I see him almost every day in the campus or at Baratie. He should be the one getting a bonus of seeing a cute girl like me on weekends.”

“You should say that to him.” He chuckled.

They arrived shortly at the Steak House. Law was already grumpily waiting for Drake.

“You said you’d be here thirty minutes ago.” Law scoffed.

“My bad. I brought company.” Drake pointed at Nami.

“Nami-ya?” Law was shocked at the unexpected appearance of the girl.

Drake wanted to laugh out loud at the shocked state of Law. The rumors were indeed true. Maybe this lunch would be interesting.

“Hey Law!” Nami greeted.

Nami sat next to Drake while they are sitting in front of Law. Law ordered for Nami because Drake won't stop teasing him to pay for her.

"I never knew you were this close." Law stated as he looked at the two red heads conversing like its just the two of them.

"We knew each other for quite a long time and you know the thing about Robin." Nami explained. Drake and Robin used to date, however, things didn't proceed romantically as both have their priorities.

"Hn." Law quietly finished his meal.

The two red heads continued on talking. While he stayed quiet observing the two.

It didn't take too long for Drake to excuse himself. “I better go. We have emergency at the base. Walk her home or I’ll tell Cora-san that he did not raised you to be a gentleman. Surely, he will be disappointed.”

As a matter of fact, there was no emergency. He was just annoyed by Law’s state. He thought he would enjoy him squirm at the girl’s beauty, but it became boring since its not like his usual shitty attitude. Might as well give the two a little push. Maybe Nami could forgive some of his debts.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

"You don't really have to walk me home, Law. I'm going to the university to check on the progress of our team's prototype." Nami said.

"Nah. I'll walk you there. Could it be you're afraid of me?"

Nami was shocked by the question. She was quite shy that he is walking her to the university but not afraid.

"Nope. Why would I be afraid of you? I doubt a nerd could outrun me." She taunt.

"I don't think so. I may be a studious type of person but I have been athletic since I was middle school. I beat up Shachi and Penguin when I first met them."

"Being violent is not the same as athletic. Why would you even beat up your friends."

"It was their fault since they were bullying Bepo. We were all young back then." He argued.

She noticed he is awkwardly keeping distance between the two of them as they walk.

"You know, sometimes I don't get what you are thinking. Online we are so close, but offline we're so awkward." She said bluntly. If she wanted to move forward they would have to break their barriers.

"Its just that I don't know. When I'm with you I feel like a different person, Nami-ya. Every plan I make to get close to you, seems won't work. I guess plans do not apply to you and your friends."

"Do you really like me? Or are you just pressured from the people around us?" She was embarrassed to ask, but decided to ask anyway.

"Why would I be pressured? When I met you before it was just you, not my friends nor your friends. At first I thought I was just an infatuation, but it grew on me. Nami-ya, I like you."

She leaned to gift a light kiss on his cheeks. "Let's take it slow until you are used to being around me. We should hang-out like today more."

He stared a her rosy cheeks and glorious smile. What happened today will surely change them.

"Oh! I think we should give them our response, Mr. Heart stealer."

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

Their friend's phone rang with a notification; it was a tagged comment from Law. He posted a photo of Nami drinking coffee from a cafe. From the photo, they could see Law's favorite hat on the table.

'I don't know about being a Heart stealer, but this girl clearly stole my heart.' This was the caption of the photo.

Before their friends could comment on the post, another notification rang. Again, they were tagged in the comment section, but this time it was by Nami. The photo she posted was from the same cafe. A booked covered the lower area of this face, while his golden eyes looked straight to the camera. Nami leaned her cheek on the top of his head, while giving a bright smile and peace sign.

'Oops! Exams are still ahead. Gotta keep this nerd Heart stealer focused on studying.'

Nami captioned it this way to show that even if they will be moving forward, their dreams would be their top priority.

It wasn't long until her and his phone began ringing. They friends wouldn’t stop until they heard the whole story.

#one piece #nami #trafalgar law #Lawna #OPAU #fanfic #fic:Online Relationships #nerdLaw #college #LawXNami

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whirlybirdwhat · 5 years

Text

East Sea of Monsters - Chapter 5

Franky starts. to notice some weird shit about his crew.

Read the entire series on Ao3 for better quality and authors notes! Gen, creepy, featuring all of the Straw Hats, multi-chapter story.

“The East Blue has a different nickname to those in the Grand Line, and those who hail it as home have a few… unique traits.”

-----------

Creepy - Franky

Now, Franky had seen some weird stuff. The Franky Family’s weird, Water 7’s weird, hell, he’s weird.

But he has to say, the Straw Hat’s take the cake on how weird, how crazyyou can get.

And he’s not just talking about the way the Captain’s made of rubber, their doctor’s a reindeer, their swordsman wields three katanas (one of them is supposedly cursed), and the latest member of their crew is a talking skeleton.

Nah.

That stuffs pretty SUPER if you ask him, the kind he can roll with.

It’s the other things that get to him.

The creepy things.

He first notices these creepythings when he goes into the kitchen to restock his cola and grab a midnight stack after working all night, and finds two pairs of glowing eyes staring at him from a top the counter, accented by a sharp-toothed mouth and far too much glistening red wet stuff for him to handle.

Like a man, he assumes he’s gone far too long without sleep and back tracks out of the room as quickly as he dares before his mind can fool him further.

The eyes follow him every step of the way, and even the thing starts shifting unnaturally to follow him out of the room before Franky gives up on acting SUPER and just sprints away.

The next day he thinks it’s just a nightmare, before realizing he was most definitely awake, his eyes are alwaysperfectly functional, and Luffy just thanked him at breakfast for not ratting his midnight snack out to Sanji.

Hell.

What the fu-

Thriller Bark was creepy for a number of reasons, most of them relating to the island itself and its inhabitants – zombies, shadows, ghosts and SUPER talking skeleton dudes – but Franky can handle that.

It’s the othercreepiness that really stands out to Franky, makes him feel like that time before on the ship – the kind that he thinks isn’t real but knows later it most definitely was.

He first notices it as Brook boards the ship. He seems positively delighted to be there, to be among human souls again, but all the same he appears to… lean awayfrom certain members of the crew. Franky would dismiss it if he didn’t know that A) Brook leans towardother members of the crew and B) Luffy, the most welcoming to the skeleton, is the one that makes the skeleton the most nervous.

(Franky is sure that if he asked the man, he would say something along the lines of They make my hair stand on ends – not that I have any hair – Oh wait! I do! Yohohoho!

He doesn’t ask though. He isn’t sure he wants to know what he thinks Brook knows.

But he’s a builder, a shipwright, however. It’s in his nature to poke around for a potential problem.

Not that his crew is a problem, of course.)

The next creepy things he notices are more Zoro related. It’s subtle, wouldn’t really be an eye catcher if Franky hadn’t been looking for it already.

You see – ever since he met the swordsman, he feels as if he isn’t actually seeing all of him at once. There’s always been a haze, sitting about him, as subtle as they come, like a cloud on a misty day.

Seemingly normal, but with a closer look, it’s like it doesn’t match the rest of the world.

So, he keeps recalibrating and recalibrating his eyes, keeps looking for the odd moments when Zoro seems to just – fadefrom existence, like he slips out of sight and just doesn’t come back until one the crew drags him to where he’s supposed to be.

(Franky entertains the thought that maybe this is why he’s always lost but dismisses it almost immediately.)

And here – on Thriller Bark, when life itself is being torn asunder by humans playing devils and gods – that chain tethering him to thisrealm seems to solidify, and the cloud resting about his shoulders fades away…

Leaving Franky to catch glimpses of limbs coated in shiny green scales, and eyes that flicker red from the back of a green head. They wink at him when Franky stares too long, and fade away the next moment, as if there was only ever cropped mossy hair on the man’s head.

The cyborg would think it was Robin’s handiwork if the eye wasn’t distinctly beast like, and Robin concentrating on using a hundred other summoned limbs to defeat an enemy.

The fading veil like thingover Zoro is even pointed out by the monster that has Luffy shadow of all things and that’s when Franky knowsthis stuff isn’t justin his head.

Because if that idiot can say Hey you guys are little demons (meaning it literally, Franky thinks) and why are you so foggy green sword guyand make Robin smile that scary knowing smile of hers, Franky is definitelysane.

He hopes.

However, the creepiest thing by faris Zoro’s smile, toothy, bloody, and with more thirst and death than Franky has ever seen before.

But maybe that’s just Zoro. He can never tell with the guy.

(So yes, Zoro is creepy. And Franky doesn’t like the way when he shouts Three Thousand Worlds!The world seems to split for just a second, as if a man just stepped and sliced through three thousand places at once and still managed to dissect an enemy with three clear strokes of sharp (cursed, haunted) blades.

No - Franky doesn’t like it at all – because, on stormy nights at Water 7, Tom would give in to Franky’s pleas for the scariest stories Tom knew of, as it fit the mood and would be SUPER during the storm, c’mon Tom! and those stories would oft feature tales of a man – a monster – with a dark hole for a heart, and a pitch of tar for a soul.

The man had a penchant for flashing across seas with a single step, havoc in his wake, as if the barrier between realms had no hold on him, as if space bent to his will and not the other way around.

It reminds him of Zoro, sometimes, when he casts a look at the swordsman in battle.)

The third incident is, funnily enough, with the third member of the ‘monster trio’, Sanji.

Franky thinks he finally knows why they’re called the monster trio, beyond them being simply ridiculously powerful.

The incident occurs when they are in the New World, after two years of training and a heartbreak so deep it cuts all of them to their soul.

(Franky does not like the rumors of Marineford. They say it was the War of the Best, that only the most powerful walked its bloody path, but Franky has heard that there was more than men fighting there –

And that there was a suspicious plume of fire at Ace’s grave, three days after Luffy rang the bell, a horrific mimicry of the fire that was said to have warred over the dead man’s father’s grave three days after his execution.)

Franky’s finally back in his workshop, with the sound of his crew, his family, surrounding him with a cacophonous yet beautiful noise and a new idea under his hands, and he couldn’t be happier.

But the next bit requires a bit of balancing if he wants to make it work – he has to lift the glass panel into the eye of the ring, but he can only reach it if he uses one hand, leans on his tiptoes, and stretches the other arm out for balance.

In hindsight, he should have added this bit first.

Oh well.

Almost there…. Almost got it – easy, easy alri-

“Franky?”

“AH!”

CRASH!

With a thunderous sound, Franky whacks his had around, turning his head as he does, letting the glass shatter to the floor and nearly hitting the tray of Cola out of Sanji’s hands.

And that wouldn’t normally be odd, Franky can be clumsy especially when he’s focused and someone startles him (he supposes he needs to retrain himself in that regard, before their little… break … Luffy had taken to jumping up on Franky’s shoulders while he was working to see the new creation, and Franky had learned not to startle – Luffy will probably continue to do that again (at least some things stay the same…)) however it’s what happens in that second of chaos that freaks Franky out.

Franky’s hand, big and metal as it is, should have grazed Sanji’s side. But it didn’t – and not because Sanji dodged away either.

Instead, it is as if there was a giant hole in his side, gaping and wide yet perfectly ordinary, so that Franky only touched a black silk suit instead of the skin underneath.

That’s not all – in the flashing second, with as focused as Franky’s eyes were, he could see a wisp of smoke and something sparking flickering from the cook’s pointy mouth, as swirly eyebrows stood out against literal ash-gray skin.

He doesn’t know how to react, doesn’t even know if what he saw was real, only gives a small, high pitched laugh and ‘yeah, what about you? You startled me!’ when Sanji asks if he’s okay.

He sits in a kind of stupor, cold cola held in a metal (shaking) hand as Sanji takes his leave.

What did I just see?

Franky casts a glance at the shattered piece of glass on the ground, and the empty space in the machine it was supposed to go in.

Guess I’ll know soon enough.

Thankfully, beyond shadows in the corner of his eyes, weird hazy visions, spooky feelings and flashing eyes in the middle of the night, Franky only has one more major …. freakyevent before he gets the (terrifying) answer he’s looking for.

Nami’s yelling at him for bringing the Watcher (named by Chopper for its big eyepiece after he came down to see if any glass had gotten in his foot after the accident with Sanji) up on deck, as its apparently ‘Too big! I can’t get a proper tan with that in the way!’ and ‘What does it even do’but he doesn’t particularly care.

After all – she’s one of the five reasons he brought the thing up here.

(Brook had been uneasy around her and Usopp too – despite the fact that Usopp was more scared of him, and Nami was a woman (damn bony pervert.) Both were relatively weak and lacking any freaky power like the Monster Trio had, so it had buggedFranky for ages why Brook was tense around them andthe Monster Trio, but not the cyborg or the talking reindeer.)

He turns the machine on just as a dark cloud passes over the sun.

Suddenly – the world is cold, and dark, and dreary, and Franky knows his eyes look far away as he peers through the lens at his comrades.

Wait, what… what?

They aren’t there – only Robin, sitting on her lawn chair, is.

Instead of the others, Franky views a shapeless form of wind and cloud and bursting yellow eyes, and something crouching in the corner of the deck, feathery, shadowed and whimsical.

It has far too many joints to be human.

Franky pulls away as a smashing, sparking noise emits from his left, and a crashing from his right.

The suns shining on them again, and the chilling song Franky swears he must have heard is already nothing but a distant memory.

Nami’s hand rests on the right side of the machine (is Franky imagining the little claw-like scrapes just before her nails?), denting it gently, while faint smoking (a bullet?– no, it smells far too much like Usopp’s Stars to be that) wisps from the cracks of the mention to his left.

“Franky,” Nami smiles, all knowing and terrifying, as her eyes seem to glow a particular shade of molten gold (weren’t her eyes brown?) “I suggest you stop.”

Usopp looks over and cocks his head like a bird, as if his place hadn’t been filled with feathers a second ago. He doesn’t say anything, and that is somehow scarier than Nami’s words.

“Okay?” She prods.

“Okay,” Franky agrees, and promptly begins to dismantle the machine.

“Good.”

The spare parts find a home in the bowels of the ship where only Luffy treads normally, as Franky can’t stand the sight of them, even if it was good metal (can’t bear to throw them out either, something tells him they’ll cause more trouble in the ocean depths than on the ship).

He feels all cold and empty when he looks at them.

He shouldn’t feel that way on his ship of dreams, surrounding by loving crew members.

Robin is the one to finally give him the answer to all the freakiness his crew has going on. He thinks she was amused by it before the Watcher mishap.

(She too avoids the metal when she can. It isn’t like her at all, and it’s the final tipping point in her observation of his interactions with their less… human campanions.)

It’s the day after said mishap and Franky’s still all jittery, feeling like he’s seen something taboo, when Robin glides up to him in the aquarium, where Franky’s relaxing with some Cola Floats (Who knew cola could taste so good with ice cream?).

“Did you know that five of our crew hail from the East Blue? The Going Merry did as well.” She says simply, and hands him an old but cared for book, with pieces of paper – newspaper clippings? And some notes? – sticking out of it. “Read that. Make sure it comes back to me in good condition” She finishes with some grabbing motions, taking Franky back to the time he first joined the crew which results in him nodding vigorously, and the woman disappearing into the hall with a satisfied smile.

The title is East Sea: Devil Waters, and Franky gulps.

Inside, the freakiness is explained, and something in him relaxes with it. At least he knows whythey’re all freaky now, and that all the rumors he’s heard are true.

(His questions are answered and somethings he didn’t even know were strange had an explanation.

He had heard of Klabautermann before, he knew Merry had one, and he knows Sunny does as well. But – this explains the extra presence he felt in Sunny’s hull some days.

He’s glad he created the Mini Merry – who knew ships could have restless ghosts? He’s happy the lamb has a final resting – haunting –place, safe in the cradle of her comrades and out of the ocean’s depths.)

#whirlywrites #whirlywhat #op #one piece #franky #fanfiction #drabbles #roronoa zoro #monkey d. luffy #cat burglar nami #usopp #nami #robin #sanji #going merry #thousand sunny #thriller bark

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bronzeflower · 5 years

Text

A Witch’s Spell

This is for @authenticaussie for the @opvalentines !! Sorry that it’s kind of late, but I hope you enjoy it regardless!

Zoro is known as the strongest, most trustworthy, and most loyal of all the knights in the kingdom which was exactly why he was the one tasked with protecting the youngest prince-the one and only Monkey D. Luffy.

There were three princes in the kingdom-Sabo, Ace, and Luffy. Sabo was known for his great intelligence and his ability to command the army and create full-proof strategies. Ace was known for his great strength, mastering practically every weapon there was and using his fists instead. And, finally, Luffy was known for…

Well, Luffy was known for attracting trouble.

Which was exactly why Zoro was currently locked in combat with a witch that Luffy managed to piss off at some point or another and now Zoro was left to fix the mess the prince made.

Now, Zoro knew perfectly well that Luffy could defend himself, and he was damn good at it too, but right now, while Zoro dodged and blocked bolts of lightning and fire and other spells, Luffy was fighting the head of a corrupt organization of witches.

Zoro could barely recall how the hell Luffy managed to get in the situation of, first of all, finding out about the organization of witches that used their powers for evil rather than for the good of the kingdom and, second of all, coming up with a plan to get rid of them.

Just kidding-Luffy never made plans unless he was forced to, and Zoro knew for a fact that Luffy had sprung in head first to stop the witches from killing people.

Zoro sprung out of the way of a charged ball of lighting as he attempted to find an opening in the witch’s defenses. Usually, he would just slash at something until it was dead or, at the very least, mortally wounded, but the witch had a perpetual forcefield up that Zoro couldn’t seem to break through.

This, of course, meant that he just kept trying to cut through the forcefield until it finally gave underneath the strength of his swords.

The witch froze in shock, thinking that it was impossible for anyone to possibly get through her barrier without magic.

Good thing Zoro's swords are cursed.

"How!?" The witch exclaimed before glancing around their surroundings. "No matter! Take this!"

Zoro posed to block the magic spell that was cast, but, to his surprise, the witch's spell completely missed him and instead hit someone with a familiar voice.

"Ow! What was that for?" Luffy, who had apparently finished taking down the head witch, was only somewhat harmed, but, given his insane tendency to heal extraordinarily quickly, he was probably still hurt enough to kill the average person.

"Hey, Luffy. Give me a second," Zoro said.

Zoro was distracted enough by Luffy's presence for the witch to get the drop on him, and he was hit by a spell.

However, Zoro had no idea what the witch just cast on him-he wasn't hit by electricity, and he didn't have any burn marks on him, and also the spell didn't hurt that much, so, frankly, he had no idea what the witch just cast on him.

"What, have you given up? That didn't even hurt at all," Zoro taunted despite the fact that he was usually an attack first, ask questions later kind of person. His taunting did not stop him from immediately slicing into the witch and leaving her on the floor to fend for herself.

"That was so cool, Zoro!" Luffy exclaimed. "Did it really not hurt though? The spell she threw at me did. Why wouldn't your's hurt?"

"Hell if I know. She was mostly throwing lightning and fire at me, so I don't know what made her choose to cast other spells."

"She was shooting lightning and fire!?" Luffy had stars in his eyes. "Tell me about it, tell me about it!"

"I love it when you're excited about stuff like that," Zoro found himself saying despite having no intention of actually voicing that thought out loud. "Anyway, the lightning spells cast lightning bolts, and the fire spells cast balls of fire."

"SO COOL!" Luffy exclaimed, focusing on Zoro's statement about the spells rather than Zoro's comment on how excited Luffy was. Thankfully, Luffy being an idiot prevented Zoro from dying of embarrassment.

"How'd your fight with the big boss go?"

"It was boring!" Luffy lamented. "She didn't cast any cool spells, and she spent the entire battle in a barrier. When I broke through it, she went down with one punch! It wasn't a challenge at all!"

"What about your wounds?"

"She had a bunch of animal companions that kept attacking me. There were so many of them!" Luffy waved his hands around, indicating the number of animals that surrounded him during his battle with the boss witch.

"No match for you though, huh?"

"Of course not! They were small fries!"

Zoro and Luffy eventually made it back to the castle, where the kingdom's doctor, Chopper, gave an evaluation of both Zoro and Luffy in order to assess how much they got hurt.

Chopper fixed up Zoro's wounds and started asking him a few follow-up checkup questions.

"Anything else that happened?" Chopper asked. "And don't you dare lie to me! I know how you are when it comes to getting hurt! Tell me anything, no matter how small."

Zoro was going to try and relieve Chopper's concerns, but this mouth started going before he had a chance to think.

"I got hit by a witch's spell," Zoro admitted, and Chopper became extremely alarmed, which was exactly what Zoro wanted to avoid.

"What!? Do you know what it is? Never mind-I'll grab Robin. She can determine what spell was put on you!"

Chopper soon came back with Robin, who did a couple of tests and finally determined exactly what kind of spell was cast on Zoro.

"It's a truth spell," Robin explained. "Not a very powerful one, so it should wear off within a day, but I would advise staying away from people you want to keep secrets from."

"Luffy is literally impossible for me to avoid."

"Oh?" Robin quirked an eyebrow. "And what secret are you trying to keep from Prince Luffy?"

“I’m in love with him,” Zoro found himself admitting, and the look Robin gave him made his face feel like it was on fire.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about avoiding Prince Luffy. I think you should worry more about avoiding your enemies, as currently would be the best time to extract any confidential information from you.”

“Yeah, Zoro!” Chopper confirmed. “You don’t have to try and hide your feelings from Prince Luffy, so don’t worry. And since Robin has confirmed that the spell cast on you isn’t serious then I have decided to say that you’re good to go! However, I recommend taking it easy because you’re still hurt. No serious exercises!”

“I’m probably going to end up working out anyway, but I’ll do my best.”

Chopper sighed in resignation.

“I guess that’s the best I’m going to get. Alright, go off and make sure Prince Luffy stays out of trouble.”

“You and I both know that he’s completely unable to do that.”

“I know! But it’s the principle of the matter! And you’re supposed to be Prince Luffy’s personal knight!”

“He can protect himself,” Zoro said before going off and checking in on Luffy despite the truth spell.

Turns out, Luffy was waiting for Zoro’s examination to be over and jumped up once Zoro got out of Chopper’s office.

“Zoro! Zoro! Sanji said dinner is almost ready! Let’s go! Let’s go!” Luffy clamored, practically bouncing off the walls.

“I love you,” Zoro confessed without thinking because he had a truth spell on him that apparently made it so he compulsively said anything that he was thinking.

“I love you, too!” Luffy responded, but that didn’t really mean much because Luffy was constantly professing his love for others.

“No, I mean that I love you romantically.”

“That’s what I meant!”

“Oh.” With that, Zoro felt a large burden suddenly lifted off of his shoulders. He guessed Robin and Chopper were right.

“Now, come on! We have to get to the dining room before Ace and Sabo eat all the food!”

#zolu #opvalentines #authenticaussie #one piece #monkey d luffy #Roranoa Zoro #chopper #nico robin

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velkynkarma · 7 years

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I've just read your cool One Piece/Voltron posts, and I was wondering how do you think the rest of the paladins would get along the crew when they came to save Shiro or whatever? (Pidge would would LOVE Franky and Chopper.)

I’m only gonna go into one or two interactions for each paladin, because otherwise I could write a whole essay on character interactions. Even prior to the timeskip there were a LOT of Strawhats, it’d be difficult to write their interactions with each paladin :P Shiro’s been covered here and here, so he won’t be covered extensively in this list.

As a general rule I think most of Team Voltron would get along with the Straw Hats. The Straw Hats are a kind of weird bunch, but I think once team Voltron adjusts to the bizarre physics and powers and generally weird antics of the Straw Hats they’d be okay with them. They’re a generally friendly bunch after all. I think they might have a few ideals barriers at first with the Straw Hats, since they are outlaws and Luffy professes to not want to be a hero, which is kind of what Voltron is all about. But the Straw Hats tend to do heroic things quite often anyway just to help people out because they’re not assholes, so I think they’d get along okay in the end. I can see the paladins getting a little exhausted by the high-energy Straw Hat crew, especially more reclusive characters like Keith, but overall they’d all work well together.Also, the Straw Hats are totally psyched about the entire concept of Voltron, especially Chopper, Franky and Usopp, because they are experts on Giant Interconnecting Robots, naturally. Except Robin. Robin is Not Amused. Or Zoro. Zoro doesn’t remember because he forgot it. On purpose. But I think there are a few team/crew interactions that could be of interest.Hunk and Sanji: Oh my goodness fuck YES. This is the one I would want to see the most. Enthusiastic gourmet with an incredible palette, and professionally trained gourmet chef. I feel like Sanji would try to give Hunk crap at first just like he would for any of the chefs back home, but since Hunk tends to be a little more passive (more like Usopp in general temperament), this might get a little rocky. Sanji’s pretty perceptive though, he’d probably eventually back off and just focus on the one passion they both have, FOOD. I CAN see a major conflict showing up at some point since Hunk has proven to be a bit wasteful of food in the past (he threw some of Sal’s worse offerings around when he didn’t approve, and was 100% involved in the food fight, or the food goo attack), whereas Sanji treats food like it’s sacred. You don’t waste food, period. That might be a point of contention, but I can see Hunk really learning from it, and the two would get along pretty good after that. Bonus: through weird coincidence they both play the same leg. I can also see him hanging out with Franky or Usopp though, both for their technical/engineering savvy...and Usopp because he’s funny. Keith and Zoro: As a general rule I don’t see Keith getting along with most of the Straw Hats, or at least struggling with the high-energy crazy stakes of the ship. Keith likes quiet. The Straw Hats are the very antithesis of “quiet.” Keith also doesn’t really like loud enthusiasm, or people who shirk the very big responsibility of saving the world. The Straw Hats are literal outlaws with wanted bounties and they don’t give two figs about saving the world (even if, through coincidence, they often do—for the Straw Hats, they only do so because it’s personal in some way, or they just Happened To Be There). But I can see Keith getting along with Zoro, who’s closest to him in temperament. Zoro also tends to be the outsider in the crew as well, since he’s quieter and a little warier than the others. Also, Zoro is an expert at not just swordsmanship, but dual- and triple-wielding swords. I can see Keith deciding to train with him just to learn new techniques for even higher levels of expertise. Shiro: Keith, please tell me you’re not learning that three-sword style...Keith: Of course not, that’s ridiculous.Shiro: Oh, good—Keith: I mean, I only have two swords.Shiro:.....A secondary character would probably be Robin, who’s also quiet and calm...and also has quiet an understanding for some dark and sordid pasts, so she could relate if he needed a listening ear.Lance and Usopp: I can absolutely see these two having a lot in common and getting along well. They’re both the people-person of their respective group, they’re both the resident snipers, they both have a tendency to want to run away from conflict unless they have to stay and fight, and they both have insecurity issues in regards to their place on the team where everyone else has a clear-cut role. Usopp’s dream is just to be a brave warrior, whereas most of the rest of his team has some form of ‘be the best at X’ or ‘do X first,’ which implies some degree of expertise in order to be successful. Likewise, Lance often equates ‘success’ with ‘being the best at something,’ even if that definition of success doesn’t really suit his own skillsets (which are geared towards people, or supporting others). I think they could relate here. Obviously, they are also both excellent shooters and great at keeping people entertained, and I have a feeling they could get up to some insane shenanigans as a team.That said I can also see Lance getting into some real spats with Sanji over girls, because they are both the resident would-be Cassanovas of their teams. That could get ugly, especially since I’m pretty sure in one-on-one combat Sanji’s gonna win that one hands down. (Lance totally hits on Robin and Nami at first. Sanji comes to their defense, he thinks. Robin finds them both amusing; Nami thinks they’re both idiots...but she will absolutely play Lance like a fiddle if she needs something from him).Bonus Bonus:Sanji: *kicks Zoro through a wall*Zoro: *throws Sanji off the deck*Lance: Ugh, those two are so loud! Why are they always arguing?! Keith: I know. Can’t they just get along? They’re on the same team!Every Other Straw Hat and Paladin: *dumbfounded stare at Lance and Keith*Pidge and Franky: Franky is the most tech-savvy guy on the team. In the absence of computers, Pidge would be all over the more mechanical aspects of the crew. She would absolutely want to know how the hell a cola-powered engine works, how Franky gets that much weaponry stored away inside of himself, and all about how the Thousand Sunny works. It’s a kooky kind of engineering and lacks the delicate elegance of the Castle of Lions or the natural efficiency of the Olkari technology, but it’s strangely effective and highly intriguing. I don’t know that Pidge would like Chopper the most, they don’t seem like they have a lot in common. He’s cute, but Pidge hasn’t been proven to fall head over heels for cute things in the show like she does for machines (Beezer), which Chopper isn’t. The person I can see her interacting with the next most is probably Usopp, who also invents all kinds of stuff, or maybe Robin, who’s a bookworm, and that might appeal to Pidge in other ways. Allura and Nami: Nami has already proven she’ll adopt princesses in the past and I think Allura would be no exception. I think Nami would invite Allura to hang out with her and avoid the insanity of the majority of her crew (plus the rest of Voltron, once they get involved), and considering how frustrated Allura got with team Voltron fooling around with the gun noises, I think she could probably use the break. Allura and Nami are also the respective navigators for their team/crew, so I think they’d have quite a lot to discuss (space travel vs ocean travel, for example, or Allura offering input on maps and planets, since she’s frankly amazed they haven’t even managed to map their own world yet). Allura gets along with Robin really well too, and Chopper, because they’re both shapeshifters. But perhaps the craziest moment is when she and Zoro end up in an arm wrestling match, because she can match him evenly in a no-holds-barred strength fight, to the shock and awe of every single Straw Hat crew member. I mean, this is the same guy who threw a building at an opponent once, and Allura’s just like, “Oh, what a quaint game you humans have, with these strength matches.” (On the flip side, every Voltron paladin is frankly stunned any human can keep up with Allura at all). Coran and Brook: Look, they’re both the old uncle-grandpa type characters of the team. They’re kooky, they’re quaint, they’re deceptively polite and formal, but they can still kick six kinds of ass if you threaten their team/crew, and don’t you forget it. Coran laughs at all of Brook’s skull jokes even though he only gets maybe 20% of them. Brook yo-ho-hos for a solid minute at the Coranic joke. Brook listens to all of Coran’s old war stories and tales of ye olden dayes, and is able to reproduce some Altean music after getting a bit of a walkthrough to how it works, so they can sing old Altean folksongs and such. Coran learns every word of Bink’s Sake and will belt it out at the top of his lungs with great enthusiasm. Coran and Brook also know what it’s like to be an only survivor, and to watch the rest of your race/crew die, while being the only one to carry on a tradition or still keep a promise to those people. Coran also gets along with Franky well (again, mechanic, and that inherent paternal instinct that’s kind of there but silly). He’ll help Sanji out with setting places or with minor food prep too, but Sanji’s banned him from anything more intense than that after that horrible Paladin Lunch. Which he forced down like a trooper because you don’t waste food, but man, never again. The Space Mice and Chopper: Chopper’s the only other one who can understand the space mice besides Allura, I have a feeling they’d get along great. They can talk to each other and share adventures. It’d be awesome for them.Luffy gets along with everyone in the same way he gets along with everyone in canon: About 75% of the time you want to clock him for being an idiot, and 20% of the time he’s friendly or calm enough that you’re just kind of neutral to him, but then there’s that 5% of the time he shows an incredible display of wisdom or leadership and you go “Oh...that’s why we listen to this guy.” All the Voltron paladins have seen it at this point, so they’ll put up with Luffy’s goofy antics, play with him, tell him stories about their giant cats that turn into a giant robot, and pull him out of the water a dozen times in a day, because it’s endearing in a weird way, but they also know he’s got their back when they’re in trouble. Hands down. No questions asked. He’ll tear apart an entire island if that’s what it takes to save them, ‘cause they’re his friends, and that’s what Luffy does.(The paladins all refused to join in on Tactics Fifteen though, because...no. Just. No).

#anonymous #one piece #voltron #velkynkarma answers #how many times can I throw tactics 15 at you #not enough #revel in all of its stupid glory #even not going into every character interaction this is so long #I can't stop myself I'm sorry #Anonymous

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cptn-m · 1 month

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One Piece chapter 1110 review

This is a chapter that doesn't disappoint. Things are really heating up as we hit the tenth chapter of volume 109 with Egghead's likely final end-of-volume cliffhanger to come in the next chapter or two.

But we start out with a new cover story, and yeah, it's Yamato following Oden's tour of Wano, which is probably the least exciting thing going on this week. However with the last cover story having such a large and immediate connection to the current story, I'm going in with an open mind and considering my hopes. Seeing some of the stuff that got shortchanged in Wano's clipped epilogue would be cool, like Ryuma's grave for example, or passing by Izo's tomb and seeing Kiku visiting. Perhaps a more direct confonrtation of the public's feelings about Tama's Kurozumi heritage. That one might be hard in the pantomime format of a cover story, but you never know. It's going to be a few installments before there's enough info to make any real prediction about the story's trajectory though, we know they never quite stay the course they seem to start on.

Getting back into it, Oda spends a couple of pages building into the big reveals. We also get a timeline update, with 3 minutes down already, which is a brisk pace as Shonen countdowns go. The summoning circles definitely seem closer together and like they're placed in a more rubble-strewn environment than in the final spread of the last chapter, enough to ease my concerns about the space shifting slightly.

And the monster designs that come out when the shadows are pulled back are truly awe inspiring. I don't know a lot of yokai or much about any of them (could tell you a little bit about classic sandworms though), but these are easy 10/10 beasts with all of Oda's best character design ideas on full display. When One Piece ends and he inevitably gets restless after his well-earned break Oda should absolutely do the Toriyama (RIP) thing and design monsters for games. What do you even say to a pair of pages like this? I can't stop looking back to them.

And these guys are made to feel like a threat too. None of them speak in the whole chapter; similar to Saturn's original rampage it makes them feel all the more inhuman. (Saturn did speak when he confirmed the summons in the last chapter, so we know they can but you still get the same effect from how sparse their dialogue is.) They spring immediately into action with no apparent coordination or communication between each other, and they go straight for their goals. There's no posturing or speeches or taking test shots at Luffy to measure his power. Nasjuro is off and running already, cutting down Pacifistas to unblock the Buster Call fleet, solving problems for the bad guys. Mars takes a shot at the barrier, and even though it doesn't work you know he's going to be there the moment it goes down for real. And Ju Peter and Saturn go straight for Luffy. They really don't feel like playtime villains, which is exactly what you need at this late stage of the story.

The absence of Warcury is curious though. Is he also fighting Luffy, or is he going for something else? Charging towards Bonney perhaps?

But what are they? The fact that the odaboxes simply give creature names without specifying a Devil Fruit type is super suspicious. Nasjuro's ice powers mirror Brook's abilities (which allegedly come from having returned from death, rather than being directly a feature of his fruit), which could maybe suggest that he as well has returned from some kind of underworld.

I'm not ready to totally rule out it being a misdirect and them having Devil Fruits of a matched kind, but the weird details are adding up.

Speaking of weird details, I can't quite tell if it's weird scaling/camera angles or not, but it almost seems like Lucci knocks Enma away from Zoro only for it to boomerang back to his hand. I'm not crazy, right, other people are seeing this? At a glance you think maybe it goes up and he catches it as it comes down, but that flight path is curved in every panel. So what, did Zoro just get lucky with the amount of spin, or is there some strange new property of Enma's power/contained Haki being shown here. Or something to do with Zoro's close grim reaper encounter? Stick a pin in this one I think we'll be coming back to it later.

I'm ambivalent about the Zoro and Lucci fight as a whole. The outcome was never in doubt, and it was too offscreen to provide any real character interaction or clash of ideology to add substance. Zoro snapping and finding the motivation to take the win right away when Sanji talks him down is a decent bit for the two of them, but it's not quite enough to make the whole fight feel like more than padding.

Truly, if Lucci had been handcuffed properly after the death game portion and never made his breakout attempt, I don't think the arc would have played out any differently. Even the silly anticlimax of the sliding ship serves the purpose of justifying the Sunny getting from A to B over dry land, but Lucci? Was taking Stussy off the table that important? Was it the only way to make it believable that Zoro wouldn't follow Sanji and Vegapunk down to the Labophase and get involved with the Elders too soon? I'm having a hard time seeing it, but the arc isn't over yet.

The final spread is a fantastic callback and great hype-builder for the next chapter. And I think it's going to prove just how far the Elders' regeneration is able to go. The Elders aren't going down here, definitely not, but with Dorry and Brogy there might just be enough muscle on Luffy's side to hold them back until the broadcast goes ahead.

We're getting colour pages next week, and I have to wonder if an Akira Toriyama tribute is coming. Jump has to do it, there's no way they won't, but the gap between when the pages are finalised and when we see them, and the break between when Toriyama died and when it was announced to the public makes it all kinds of tough to figure out the earliest that could happen. I could definitely see Oda pivoting last minute and trading out a finished colour spread to something in honour of Toriyama, but the timing is tight. We'll see soon, I suppose. May the hits keep on coming for the Egghead finale!

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#one piece #manga review #one piece manga #monkey d luffy

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onepiecefeatstuff · 7 years

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Will you share your life with me...? Part 4

Will you share your life with me for the next ten lifetimes?

The next months felt like heaven to Sanji, even more if he compared them to his journey in hell when the crew fell apart for the first time. Sure, he missed his crewmates (and if you asked him about Zoro, he might even change his normal expression), but he couldn’t imagine other person to live this improvised retirement with. He would wake up every day and make breakfast while he heard Nami humming happily in the morning as she watered her beloved tangerine trees. Then they both would have breakfast and talk about the smallest things, still in their pijamas. Sometimes Nojiko would appear out of nowhere and scare them both, and when that happened, Nami used to grab her sister by the shoulder and take her with her. Sometimes he heard them yell at each other, sometimes all he could hear was laughter. He didn’t understand their weird relationship, but Nami always came out fully-dressed and with a brilliant smile, looking as beautiful as always.

But sometimes, he preferred her when she was just wearing a messy bun and a large t-shirt, just like every morning. It was a strange feeling, but it felt like she was wearing something more intimate than any bikini she ever wore. Still, he couldn’t complain about those either. It was like every piece of fabric was made to be worn by her, or at least to him it was.

Some days they would go for a walk, and visit Belle-mère’s grave. Nami would tell their adventures to the wind, and he held Nami tighter when tears started to fall on her face. And although it was hard to see her breaking down, he really appreciated those moments where she let her barriers down, and she let him in. Moments like that brought them closer.

They would often visit the Baratie, and Zeff and the rest of the shitty cooks in there would always joke about giving them the table with the most romantic view. To the happy couple, they used to say. At first, Nami was the first one to deny every sign of relationship they could have (and not just to Zeff, but also to her sister, Genzo and practically everyone), but as time passed by, Nami would smile and sometimes even joke about it. He didn’t know what to think about that, either. Was she starting to have feelings for him, or was it the contrary? Could he hold his hope or should he give up already? But a man doesn’t give up, not without having tried at least a hundred times. And he preferred not to count how many times he had failed, so for him, every chance was the first one. And every time she didn’t say “no” was a little spark of hope.

By the end of the fifth month, he started to feel like luck was finally on his side. Or at least, romance was. And what else could he need? Well, if he started to think about it, he would need Genzo’s approval, but he was starting to think that he may tolerate him a bit more than at the beginning. Sure, he liked to remind him of how no man alive could deserve Nami, but he said it softly, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. And he was sure that meant something. There are moments when just a look is enough to know what the other is trying to say, and Sanji knew that this was just the same. However, he never dared to ask what exactly did Genzo mean with that: was it an encouraging gesture? Or a “good luck: you’ll need it” one? Anyway, he wasn’t going to give up. He knew that even if he would want to (which, to be clear, he didn’t), he couldn’t. He was too tangled in her orange locks, too lost in her brown orbs.

And he had Nojiko on his side, of that he was pretty sure. And as the good strategist he was, he knew that a strong ally could mean everything. In war and in love, the battlefield is a cold place, and when things are going down, it’s better to have someone cheering you up than sinking just by yourself.

One day, while he was doing laundry, he overheard one of the secret conversations between the sisters. He didn’t mean to stop and listen, but his curiosity won that battle.

“… C’mon, haven’t you seen how he looks at you?” Nojiko said, but he heard no answer from the redhead. “Yes, that’s exactly the face I’m talking about. And you know those puppy eyes don’t work on me, so you could save them and answer me.”

Sanji heard Nami pant before saying anything “Okay, I may have noticed something. But it’s nothing new, his tongue just hangs out whenever he sees a skirt, I swear.”

Wait, were they talking about him? Did she really think of him that way? And how could Nojiko not fall for Nami’s puppy eyes? Sanji had so many questions.

“Well I haven’t seen him flirting with anyone but you since he came here. And you said it yourself before, he doesn’t even flinch when a hot girl crosses the door of the Baratie. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“I only said it was weird, since he used to that and now he doesn’t!” Nami refuted, and he was sure she was holding her anger.

“Then you’re admitting I’m right, sister” Nojiko laughed, and Sanji could almost hear Nami’s body relaxing “You’re just avoiding the obvious because you are too afraid of getting hurt that you prefer to keep thinking he’s some sort of womanizer.”

“He’s not!” Nami yelled, much to Sanji’s relief. “He’s a gentleman.”

“Then where the hell is the problem? The way I see it, you two have nothing to lose. He clearly likes you, and if you allow me to say it, I think he loves you. And just by looking at your red face right now, I can tell you feel the same.” Nojiko stated.

Sanji waited for Nami’s response. He knew he should leave, but he couldn’t, not without hearing her answer.

“Fine, you win.” Nami admitted, and Sanji swore his heart skipped a beat. “I may have developed feelings for that stupid cook. So what? It’s not like anything is going to change!”

“And why not?” Nojiko asked the same thing Sanji was questioning “It’s a simple equation: him plus you equals a relationship! And me getting a beautiful bridesmaid dress at your wedding, and don’t get me started with kids, because I’m gonna be the best auntie ever!”

Wedding? Kids? Sanji couldn’t process all that information quickly enough, and when he heard the slightliest movement on the room, he ran like hell, with the bad luck of bumping into Genzo.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You almost kill me!” he complained, too loud for Sanji’s own good “What were you doing? Were you spying on Nami? Or worse… were you sneaking out of her room?!”

“No, sir, I’m sorry but I…” Sanji started to apologize, even though it wouldn’t matter, because Genzo only believed what he wanted to believe.

“This is how you pay me for everything I did for you? I let you in my village, I let you in this house, and you can’t show a minimum of decency?!”

“Actually, I was just running to make you three a snack, if that’s okay” Sanji lied, trying to sound convincing. The last thing he needed right now was Genzo doing another one of his solo shows.

“Oh, okay. That’s… That’s really thoughtful of you, young man.” Genzo said, and let him go.

Just as Sanji was walking out on his way to the kitchen (because he now had to prepare three snacks before Genzo suspected a thing), Genzo called his name. He turned back, just to see him smiling.

“Good luck with that, by the way.” He said with a wink, before disappearing.

“What the hell does that mean?” Sanji thought. Was he talking about him and Nami? No, he couldn’t… But what if he had? He didn’t need luck, though. He needed a plan. His eyes were the very image of hope, and he couldn’t believe his luck: Nami, his Nami, his redhead goddess, liked him. And not like she liked Luffy, or Usopp, or the marimo. She like liked him. But there was no time to lose, he needed to act before it was too late. He took his Den-den mushi and called the Baratie.

“Welcome to the Baratie. What can I offer you?” a monotone voice said.

“Shitty old man, you better save me the best table for two you have!” Sanji said happily.

“That lady finally settled for you? I pity her” the voice responded, with a laugh. If Sanji didn’t know Zeff like he did, he may have thought he was insulting him, but he knew that deep down he was smiling. He knew that he was proud.

“I will need you to prepare the most romantic ambiance you can. Don’t skim on it! After all, it’s not every day when your little eggplant gets to declare to the love of his life.”

“Actually, it is! You have been swooning over her the moment she walked in the first place. But don’t worry, we’ve got it all covered here, son. Now, what should we put on the menu?”

“Nami-san’s favorite dishes, of course. I lend you a list the last time, you should have it on the kitchen. Also, I need a fruit salad to be the final dish. It’s a tradition.”

When Sanji told her he had booked up a reservation in the Baratie, and that everything was set up for dinner, Nami felt confused. She didn’t remember having agreed on going to dinner that soon again. However, she didn’t complain. The Baratie meant free exquisite food and a big smile on Sanji’s face, and even if she wouldn’t admit it, she couldn’t say no to that happiness he radiated when he walked in that restaurant. She guessed it would happen the same with her and Cocoyashi, right? And they were here a whole lot more than in there, so it wasn’t fair.

Nami’s concern grew stronger the closer they got to the floating restaurant. They took a little ship, as always, but when Nami grabbed the helm, Sanji didn’t even mutter something about doing it himself, like he usually did. He seemed off. Was something wrong? She couldn’t help but worry, although his expression wasn’t tense at all. Maybe he had something important to discuss with Zeff? Whatever it was, she didn’t feel like interfering. After all, he never did it when she was talking with her sister, and she appreciated that. That allowed them to have conversations like the last one… Her face turned red while thinking about it. How embarrassing would it have been? She almost admitted she liked him! Nami tugged her dress. Her sister convinced her to wear it just in case it was a date, and she ended up doing what she said. Of course it wasn’t a date, but if it was, she admitted she wouldn’t have said no. And that was enough for her sister to swing around the house like crazy, apparently.

Finally, they arrived to the Baratie. Sanji took her hand and drove her headfirst. He had been practicing his speech in his head during the run, but he couldn’t remember a single word now. He breathed heavily, trying not to panic.

“You can do this” he whispered to himself.

“Do what?” Nami asked him. He always forgot her sensitive hearing, didn’t he? Luckily, Zeff welcomed her and lead her to their table. Sanji had to admit the work was impeccable, and Nami’s smile was so wide he almost felt his heart melting. God, that woman could really bring him down without even muttering a single word.

“What is this?” Nami asked Zeff, her eyes examining every slight change of the restaurant. “It’s not Valentine’s Day, is it?”

She pointed at the table, filled with rose petals.

“Just sit down, miss” Zeff responded with a smile “Your meal will be served in a minute.”

Zeff gave a little tap in the shoulder to Sanji as he headed to the kitchen. That was it. It was time.

“Sanji-kun…” Nami called his name, before he could say a word “What is going on? Is this because of Usopp?”

Usopp? Why would it be about Usopp? His face had to look like a puzzle, because Nami laughed and explained herself.

“It turns out our friend Usopp got engaged with her childhood crush just a few hours ago. I thought he told you.”

Usopp, engaged? Sanji couldn’t believe. Him, out of all people, the first one to get married! And there was him, who still couldn’t confess his feelings properly to the woman she loved, even though she was standing right next to him.

“No” he managed to say “I didn’t know about Usopp, and this is definitively not about him. This is all because of you. Listen, I… I don’t even know how to start to tell you how much you mean for me. You’re gorgeous, you’re witty, you’re everything I try to tell you when you roll your eyes; but you tend to ignore me, and don’t get me wrong, because I know I can be a little annoying, but that’s just my way to be perseverant. Because I do know one thing: You don’t give up on the things you love. And I’ve never loved anyone as much I love you.”

Nami opened her mouth to speak, but Sanji kept going.

“And I guess I never thought I actually had a chance with you, so I stuck with our friendship. I thought that would be enough, because it was the only thing I aspired to. But then… And please don’t get to angry at me right now because I know Zeff is probably looking at us and I don’t want him to see it, but I kind of heard a piece of conversation you had with your sister, so I’m sorry for that. But I can’t apologize for what I heard, because it made me feel like the luckiest man alive. I guess what I’m trying to say is… Will you share your life with me for the next ten lifetimes?”

After his speech, Nami was a complete mess. She felt angry because she spied on them, she was also embarrassed for what he heard, but she was… Happy. Like, extremely happy. And relieved. Since he asked her out, now she didn’t have to do it herself.

“I think I can handle that” Nami responded, grabbing him by the tie and pushing him closer to her. She was so close she could feel his heart beating really fast, his heavy breathing right next to hers. She saw excitement in his eyes, and she stepped even closer. So close their lips were almost touching. But she decided that wasn’t close enough, so she kissed him. It was slow but passionate for her, and simply perfect for him.

“So how much is it to share our lifes for not one, but ten lifetimes?” she asked when they distanced.

“Just as much as you want it to be” he said, stepping closer once again.

Ohmygod I can’t believe this series is finally over. Part 4 was longer than I expected, but I hope I didn’t dissapoint you. I’m gonna miss these two like crazy, so I’ll probably start another fic right away.

Thank you for the lovely comments throughout this project, and of course, for reading it! ♥

#one piece #one piece fic #op fanficton #sanji #nami #sanami #sanji x nami #inspiration: the last five years #will you share your life with me

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kingofthewhatpod · 6 years

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Fanfic Friday #3

Oh god, oh dear, oh no. This was supposed to come out last Friday, and yet it was delayed for a week without any news. I mean, I did technically tweet it last Friday but maybe anyone who follows me can forgive me because this week you get both? And.... er... I’ll try to do better? Maybe I’ll do another post on my real thoughts about Fanfic Friday, but if you’re reading this, and you just want to get to the good stuff, let me delay no more!

I return to Fanfic Friday’s roots (after only a single week off, ha) of seeing how I would teak a non-canon arc. Heck, maybe I'll have constructive creativity for a canon arc one day. But not this day. Because I was originally sending these out as tweets, my thoughts in places are brief. Adventure in the Ocean's Naval was fine. It was palatable. But I don't want a slightly overcooked hamburger and some fries. I want steak with garlic mashed potatoes.

Things I liked:

The mystery of the island, however short lived

The guardian monsters

Captain Joke didn't have friends like Luffy, and that was his downfall

Things that could be improved:

Usopp/Nami didn't do much of anything

Magic not explained

who cares about Joke?

As before, I'll keep the premise. Mysterious island, land of adventure? check. But this time, there's no octopus, no immediate fight. Luffy and Zoro andd the ship still fall down below because hijinks. (maybe Zoro is napping and doesn't keep a careful eye on Luffy, who gets bored and starts messing around on the ship, or he sees a cool bug. And him running around somehow dislodges the anchor long enough that they fall). So they all end up down below, and they meet a rather shady old man (think Jafar disguised as the beggar) who tells them about this wicked cool treasure of the gods. It's on the other side of the island if they're brave enough to get it. It is said to grant any wish.

Usopp and Nami are probably freaked out, Sanji would very calmly be like "who would fall for that?" but Luffy has decided to go check it out, and Zoro is just like "he's the captain." So they end up going, some more willingly than others Now, you'll notice this call to adventure is some kind of bad guy (you know what? Make it a poorly disguised oni. Everyone notices except Luffy), instead of some kid. Firstly, I'm usually not a fan of the kid characters- even if they're related to the deeper themes. But also, maybe there *is* a village down here, and they meet a crying Hamu who is like "don't try to go get the treasure! Even Captain Joke, the hero pirate of the village couldn't do it!" But why would that deter Luffy? Answer: it wouldn't.

Luffy could be all "Yeah, but I bet he wasn't as strong as I am. I'm going to be King of the Pirates." (King of the What Now?) Maybe Hamu comes with to watch this idiot in action, maybe he just stays behind. The crew will come back through for the ship anyways and they can tell him about their adventure. Now, they get halfway across a suspiciously empty field, when all of a sudden these stone walls come up from the ground, creating a labyrinth and separating the crew. Luffy might try to rocket up but there's some magical barrier. Also you can't go back the way you came, inwards!

Now, Luffy will basically get lost and increasingly frustrated. I cannot stress how funny this mental image is, as he yells and rampages but to no avail. I don't think the Straw Hats can hear each other. As I mentioned in episode 25 of the podcast, it'd be interesting if the Straw Hats faced off against the former Joke pirates. You get just enough characterization through dialogue and actions that you feel like you actually know this character. Also, I want to touch on the nature of the Joke pirates. Joke was betrayed, just like in the original. But instead of faceless shapes, there are 4 you can clearly see. Also the hint of *something* off-camera giving off a dark red light.

Spoilers: But because Joke's commanders were evil-hearted, they became tainted, causing their forms to morph and become... well, weird and monstrous. We can imply the other no-name members of the Joke pirates were killed in the labyrinth or by these commanders

Anyways. Zombie commander guys facing Luffy's crew one on one. Zoro first. He faces a man clad in weird armor (because One Piece), who constantly bangs on his breastplate, simply saying "Strong! Strong!" He's very bulky and has tusks. Maybe make him look walrus-ish. Anyways, he's very strong, and he hits hard. Zoro can't pierce his armor, and there's no obvious weakpoints. This guy's deal is that he just wants to be strong, as a dark reflection of Zoro's own ambition. He wants it so bad he'd sell out his captain to make a deal with a monster. Eventually Zoro wins, I think by using the butt of his sword to BANG right on the dude's helmet, and then breaking the monster commander's weapon, maybe burying him beneath the rubble created by slashing the walls surrounding them. And of course Zoro gets a badass line. "What good is strength if you won't use it for your captain?" Because he is a GOOD, LOYAL BOY. Or maybe a comment on his enemy's internal weakness. "If you're too weak to stand and you get knocked down, stand up again even stronger"

Sanji's opponent: A rockstar with a wicked cool guitar and cool shades and a flashy jacket. Yes, I said a rockstar. This is One Piece which has all sorts of crazy character designs. Does it make sense that he has an electric guitar? Do I care? The ideological reason they're suited for each other is because this guy (maybe he's like a creature of the lagoon. Yeah that's it. He's more frog-ish) likes ladies but he's vain about it and only cares about himself (betrayed Joke because being a priate wasn't cool anymore). Anyways he fires actual music note shaped projectiles by strumming his guitar, and Sanji can't really get close at first. That is, until... maybe Froggy says he'll hunt down Nami? Yeah, and then Sanji kicks tthrough these weird music notes, runs forward and kicks him in the face!

"Coolness can't be forced," Sanji remarks, adjusting his tie. "And no woman would ever want to kiss you." (Also, side note, I'm not a huge fan of the shonen trope of suddenly becoming stronger when someone is threatened. But I couldn't think of a way for Sanji to win otherwise. I need to get better at this. That’s what having a weekly schedule is meant to help with!)

Usopp's opponent: A squid looking guy who hides behind cover and always runs from battle. He betrayed his captain because he was afraid of what would happen if they continued their journey. Usopp tries to snipe him when he comes up from behind cover but Squid boy is very fast. Usopp wins by purposefully acting all angry and firing a bunch of his explosion stars, secretly taking out the cover further down the battle field until the next time squiddy tries to run he gets blasted in the back. "How can a man run from danger for his whole life?" He asks with a smirk. Bonus points if his knees are still shaking while he says it

Nami: She faces a fairy. Yes, a lady who got all shrunk by the monster's power. Maybe a flying sea horse-ish type design, to keep it aquatic. She, like Nami, is money obsessed, and didn't want to share her treasure with Joke. She's another agile one and shoots giant bubbles. Can Nami polevault with that pole of hers? Yeah, let's say she can. So she leaps over one of the bubbles and maybe throws a coin past the lady, causing her lady to quickly look away- unable to resist the allure of gold- just in time for a nice solid smack of the pole. "Try thinking about others once in a while" is Nami's line before she continues through the maze.

Now, it seems the maze is magic in nature (no duh), and the Straw Hats (minus their captain) have come out of the maze. And before them is the treasure. But before they can approach, the red light from earlier. oh no! It's the old man from earlier! (who could have guessed???????) He gets huge and reveals his true form, growing in size, saying he'll never give up his treasure. But before the battle can start, you hear it. CRACK! WHUMP! CRACK! Cracks are appearing on some part of the maze wall behind them. It explodes and in comes an enraged Luffy! Angry that he was lost for so long. Bonus points, Sanji kicks a piece of rubble that was going to hit him, Zoro cuts a piece that was flying at him, and the eternal butt monkey Usopp gets hit in the head.

Luffy: Who's this? Zoro: Dunno Sanji: That's the old guy from earlier. Luffy: Whaaaat?? Grandpa wasn't a good person?? Nami: Honestly, captain... Usopp: *recovered from the rubble* Hey, Luffy, what was that, you jerk!!!

Now, the point is that this monster likes to sow chaos. Just like in the original special, Joke was betrayed because he had crappy friends. And The Straw Hats seem incredibly disorganized. So the monster king grins. "How would you like to join me and I'll grant you your wish?" Zoro, Nami, Sanji, Usopp, each of them get all quiet and start walking over to accept the deal. Luffy is watching them, a look of mild confusion on his face. They stand right in front of the thing and the monster grins. "Good," he says. All four of them at once give him a solid whack, kick, shot, and slide. "As if!!!" They cry in union. Luffy grins and punches the big creature in the gosh darn mouth. Well, probably the nose but I like to say "punch in the mouth"

He's not defeated *that* easily, and maybe if I spent more time rewriting and drafting this I could come up with an exciting narrative. The point is that the monster is too strong for even Luffy on their own, but they fight as a team.

You might think Luffy tends to prefer to fight alone, and maybe he does for a while. But the monster *could* wish himself stronger, and it could look like Luffy is about to lose when his crew mates save him, allowing him to prepare for an even stronger punch that will finish it. And of course the wish granting gem breaks. Of COURSE Luffy sends the monster flying and he smashes into the thing and it gets launched with him over the horizon or something. Of course everyone's mad but Luffy shrugs it off, since it's more about the journey than the destination So... yeah, that's basically it. Luffy comes back to the village, Hamu is like "How did you do it?" and Luffy just grins and is like "with help from my crew." And it's a sweet moment. Hopefully you liked it! I feel like this was the longest one yet.

Happy Friday everyone!

#KotWN #Fanfic Friday #chapter 3 #feedback appreciated #Sorry for being late

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eternal-bruh · 7 years

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Why being caught in a Casual Loop is best to be avoided: I

Chapter 5

"And what's wrong with you now?" Linus has to take only one long look at them this morning to realize that something bad has happened and it is only going to descend into more shit later on in the day if his gut feeling is anything to be relied on.

He casts one inquiring look at Sappho, but the man shakes his head vigorously, declining with all his might any fault or involvement in these idiots' new and sudden bout of depression. Which is all the more alarming now that he thinks about it.

"If this has already happened did I feel like this too? Like, again?"

Long nose is close to rocking back and forth on his feet judging by his unfocussed eyes. He notices Linus' stare and takes a step closer, clamping his offending hands on Linus’ shoulders.

"Did you already say this before or will you say it again?!"

The native squirms under the wild stare filled with madness, but it proves to be an iron cage so he opts to just glare at the next probable culprit.

"What is he saying, Robin? And what did you do to break your crewmates?"

The woman has the nerve to blink and look amused of all things.

"Just a theory."

The official's eye twitches at the storm of gibberish the sniper is pulling. And now he is the one being rocked!

"What the hell is he even saying?!"

"He is asking if you think it’s possible to know the end of your own life and what are we doing today." The archaeologist informs him leisurely and Linus pauses.

"Those are completely unrelated!" With an almighty push, he manages to shove off the offending guy and huffs. Straightening his clothes, Linus clicks his tongue disapprovingly. They look like shit. And so he tells them.

"Well we sorry if we look this! Possible because someone had us sleep in a small box all last night!" Nami cries out indignantly, hands on her hips and expression stormier than the Grand Line itself.

Well damn it, she's become better at speaking, Linus thinks as he grudgingly cuts her off the list of possible victims of his curses.

Biting the inside of his cheek like a real mature person, Linus crosses his arms and turns his back on them.

"I suppose you will be grateful to leave here then."

He knows where they are supposed to be going, but that doesn't make it any easier to navigate through the palace grounds while once again hoping against hope that they will not be seen and any other curious idiot will stay out of his way. He knows just the right place in the north-west wing of the palace grounds, right next to the outer wall overlooking the ocean. That small corner where the sea meets the island's shore and is towered over by the watchtower and the palace itself. Where most windows don't reach and where guards usually come to laze around. A place no one will ask him too many questions about being in. Because during this unsettling night, Linus has quickly reached the conclusion that introducing the Strawhats to at least some people he knows will be inevitable and a pain in the ass if he won’t do it willingly.

Why? Well, he now – somehow, at least a little – believes that this obscure group really is here from so many years into the future and possesses knowledge of strange and new technologies that they do not. It will be stupid not to keep them at an arm's length and learn everything he can under the pretext that he is responsible for them. He wants to know more about the Devil Fruits as a whole, but especially about the captain's because those are his powers that he has swallowed and Linus has to make sure that the guy knows how to use them right.

They are way too quiet, he notices after a good while when the enjoyable silence leaves in its wake only a strange and awkward feeling crawling up and down his spine and it is starting to irritate the hell out of him. He opens his mouth more out of spite, but at the sullen looks behind him – minus the captain's, which is not that surprising considering that the kid is pretty much a clueless ball of gum – he decides against it for the moment. It doesn't matter anyway, because their destination is in sight and deserted as is expected.

"So... meat?" Luffy tries for the nth time that morning at breakfast when he was presented only a normal portion of a plate composed of fruits. So he has now decided to appeal to his ancestor because he can.

Linus frowns at the nonsense question. "What meat? We have no meat here."

Luffy's head tilts to the side out of reflex as the straw hat wearer processes the foreign words accompanying the relatively only one he knew by heart.

"No? Here?"

"No is no. And yes, not here Luffy. There's no meat here." Robin's kind smile for her captain looks too encouraging to Linus to be completely innocent, but what the hell.

"N... No?" The man tries and it doesn't come out as horrible as he had thought it would.

Most of the pirates nod supportively at his attempt.

"For your first word it was pretty good, bro!" Franky grins and offers him an appreciative thumbs' up.

The native shakes his head at their needless excitement and fixates a serious stare on Luffy's sunken face which he promptly decides to overlook.

"We fight. Now."

And without any further ado, Linus launches a swift rubber attack that is promptly counterattacked by a 'Gum Gum Pistol'. Luffy looks taken aback by the sudden strike, but he isn't one to refuse a fight. This is finally a language that he can work with.

Linus decides on a swipe with his foot next, but the straw hat wearer only jumps up and launches a massive series of punches that the other avoids by rolling across the ground.

Jumping back to his feet, Linus decides to close the distance and trap the kid but the other is fast enough to reciprocate and doesn't fall for it, much to Linus’ surprise. The kid seems pretty stupid at first sight, but fights must be an exception. Or so it seems. Not only that, but fighting rubber with rubber is a pretty stupid idea to begin with.

The Strawhats watch the exchange of blows with interest, finding it a pretty amusing twist of fate to see their captain fighting with somebody using the same kind of powers as him. It isn't like watching a mirror – it is more like looking at different kinds of levels of the Gum Gum Fruit. Until now Linus hasn't shown many impressive or amazing moves, but he can keep up with Luffy and not get tired out and this is saying many things. Rather, the native uses more rudimental attacks that are not even as closely creative as Luffy's are. In contrast, they have probably been developed throughout years of fighting with them. Linus isn't shouting attack names for starters, and he seems more concentrated on studying the younger's moves than knocking Luffy down.

Linus itches to take out his sword, but he supposes it will be kind of unfair to the kid so in the end abstains to do that. But the fight is becoming dull and the kid has some admittedly flashy moves that he can't see the purpose of in a fight where you have to conquer an entire island in under one hour. Of course, they can cause mass destruction perfectly, but that is the least one would aim for when invading towns full of would-be citizens. It looks to him like Luffy is used to destroying rather than keeping things intact and that is a shocking opposite to his own style. It makes him yield to finish the fight and put the kid in his place.

Concentrating on the trajectory the Luffy’s fist is going in, Linus crouches down to avoid it and slams his hands on the ground. He hears Luffy’s surprised yelp and he uses the momentum to launch himself in the air, reaching for his sword while keeping his eyes trained on the confused kid. He doesn't let him get away with jumping out of the range of his attack. Linus lands hard, makes the ground swell under Luffy and launches him into the sky, though he doesn't get very far when a rubber contraption ties around his middle and pulls him down towards the cold, now hard, ground.

The crew watches with mouths agape as their captain gets plastered on the ground quite literally and in what could only be a twisted turn of events. Even by their standards.

"Are you alright, Luffy?!" Chopper is the first to snap out of his daze, his doctor side taking over instantly. The small reindeer runs quickly towards the raven haired teen, officially ending the fight.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Luffy is surprisingly laughing while nursing a bump on his head.

Linus towers above him like an immovable statue, his face caught somewhere between undecided doubt and disgruntled curiosity.

"What was that?!" Nami looks from one Monkey to the other for answers, but her question is brushed off by one and blocked by language barriers by the other.

"What the hell was that?" Linus scoffs as he pulls his rubber sword from around the kid's middle.

Franky and Zoro watch it reform into a normal looking one with solid interest.

"You – it – rubber?" Usopp cracks the coconut open first, because no one else seems to be up on doing that.

Linus throws him an odd look that suggests he should have known about it by now.

"Of course. The ground, too. Don't tell me you don't know anything about your captain's powers!"

Everyone looks at Luffy. The raven head blinks and grins back at them.

"Luffy not can do that!" Usopp cries out quickly in a broken language.

Linus takes in their honest expressions of raw confusion and resists the urge to slap his forehead.

"Then what can he do?"

"Be rubber. That it." Sanji flicks his cigarette absently.

Undeterred by the answer, Linus crouches down in front of the kid and repeatedly slammed his hands on the ground. Luffy watches him with an odd expression on his face, but keeps his mouth shut because he does not want to make Linus mad. The pirate captain leans back when the other's head snaps up to glare at him.

"Now you. Think of rubber!"

"Think of rubber, shithead. And do the shit he does." Sanji clears up the message for his captain.

Luffy bites the inside of his cheek in concentration and does as he is told, but nothing out of the ordinary happens besides him looking very funny to his crewmates.

"That was on another level than usual!" Nami breathes out after a good laugh.

"Yohoho! Luffy-san was so serious for a moment there!"

Luffy throws his ancestor a betrayed look which the man only shrugs off, too immersed in the fact that the idiot can't do what feels like second nature to him.

"Why?"

"Luffy is only made of rubber. He cannot make other things that." Robin explains.

Linus' eyes widen. "Then he can't become normal either?"

The archeologist's eyebrows draw up at the question, but she shakes her head negative. Linus deflates and lifts his arm.

Robin takes the offered hand with only a second’s hesitation and probes it to confirm what Linus is insisting about.

"He feels normal. No rubber."

The Strawhats pale.

"Wow, how did you do that?! Can I do it? C'mon old man, show me!" Luffy's face is beaming in excitement, but Linus shakes his head.

"Can you clone yourself, Robin?"

Robin nods. "Only one or two. I tire out easily if I do more."

Linus exhales through his nose. "Then it's the same with you, too. Sappho has hundreds of these."

Usopp chokes on his spit. "Wha-!"

"How do you think he discovered all these things?" The native ruffles his hair in frustration. "That idiot made the Fruits imperfect!"

"He said that he made the Fruits imperfect." Nami tells Franky.

The shipwright rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Or maybe Sappho had to make them this way."

Robin relays the message to Linus, who looks a little more pacified at the suggestion but nevertheless thunderous.

"What other Devil Fruits do you have?" The official asks, shifting from foot to foot as he opts to change the subject before he can make up his mind and really kill the blond.

"I! Human Fruit!" Chopper announces, lifting a hoof.

"Then... he was a raccoon?" Linus blurts out, studying the doctor much more closely now.

The small pirate does not need to understand everything to know what the man has just assumed and he promptly cries out in protest.

"I'm a reindeer!"

Linus blinks at the furious face, but thinks better of it.

"So I suppose the skeleton and the blue haired guy have Fruits, too?"

"No, me has none!" Franky grins, pointing a thumb at his chest proudly.

The native looks up at the musician. "So you have some kind of animation Fruit then?"

"Oh, no! I am quite dead." Brook announces jovially.

Linus pauses to process this information and he turns to Robin, who seems to have become his designated helper.

"What was his name again?"

"Brook. He ate the Revive Revive Fruit."

The raven haired man chokes. "What kind of name is that?!" It takes him a minute to realize what he has just shouted out and he clears his throat in embarrassment. "Brook, why are you a skeleton then?"

"I was lost... and came back... late?" Brook tries to simplify matters as best as he can for everyone's benefit.

"And when he came back, his body was already a skeleton. That is the reason for his image." Robin adds mildly.

"I... see." Linus isn't sure if he really can, but this is indeed the most logical way of how things went. "You have one of the Fruits Sappho was talking about."

"Live forever Fruits?" Nami asks curiously, surprised to get a sharp nod in return. "But... Brook can die, right?"

The navigator turns her head in the skeleton's direction, looking for confirmation or a denial. Anything.

The musician nods slowly, his empty eye sockets seeming to narrow marginally.

"I can indeed die if my bones are turned to dust. I will simply have no body to return to."

"Brook says that he can die. If his body turns to dust." Robin translates for Linus.

The raven haired man shoots Brook a critical look.

"I suppose this 'Revive Revive Fruit'," the raven haired man makes air quotations with his fingers, "is imperfect as well. Here, the man born with it has been living for a thousand years already."

Usopp gasps audibly at the information while Robin occupies herself with listing all the other Fruits they know and categorizing them for later use. Nami slaps her hands over both Sanji and Luffy's mouths to stop them from talking and shouting questions, trying in vain to translate what Linus has just said.

Seeing no problem with their curiosity, Linus continues. "He was born one hundred years after the first powers appeared on the island and he-"

"So he's not some kind of living legend that's been here for... ever." Zoro tries to whisper to Franky a little more conspicuously, but it goes heard by the storyteller anyway and he is rewarded with an expectedly dirty look.

"He has been living for more than a thousand years, returning to his body whenever he dies. After a while it has become too deteriorated to be lived into so he started changing bodies, negotiating with their former owners over them. That's how he's been getting by until now."

"Immortality, huh?" Brook hums thoughtfully, though if he is going to be honest this whole story does not sit quite right with him. It sounds like a very long and lonely journey. And he thought that fifty years was a long time.

"This does sound a little wrong, but I suppose this is just the way things are." Robin's smile is devoid of any amusement as she sits down on the grass. "Does he negotiate with the owners before they die?"

Linus scratches his head, this subject a little out of his area of expertise, but mind fueled by the rumors and his own experience with the man.

"Yes. Negotiations are usually very extensive and can last a very long time." The native's mouth pulls tight and the hand that is absently rubbing the side of his head falls limply. "He is an eccentric man. I hear he's haggling for a woman's body next."

Sanji discretely files this u nder his 'valuable Devil Fruits that are already eaten' list.

"Everyone has their preferences, I'm sure." Robin tries to see the bright side as Linus doesn't look too positive at this point in the conversation.

The man sitting in front of her snorts and looks Brook in the eyes – or his soul's eyes, to be more specific. "That man brings his fear of death to the extreme."

"You look to know him well." Sanji remarks as he exhales a cloud of smoke. He crouches down and stubs the used cigarette on the ground.

Linus grounds his teeth, but doesn't deny it. "You can say that. My grandfather is friends with most of the Sages so I inadvertently met all of them when I was young."

"What did he say?" Chopper tugs on Usopp's pants, but the sniper shakes his head grimly before his gaze focuses on their historian.

"I didn't get most of it. Did you, Robin?"

The black haired woman closes her eyes and opens them back slowly. "Neither did I. He just used a couple of complicated words I've never heard before. But I believe he has met these Sages." She regards Linus with a serene expression that is meant to reassure him no secret plan is involved. "What are Sages?"

Linus grins slyly as he works to push Luffy off him. He swears that this kid gets bored way too easily, though he kind of understands where he is coming from.

"The five people that are said to live forever." He explains smoothly. "They tried calling them elders, but those five clunked everyone who said that word over the head because – ‘they are not old and wouldn't get since they are immortal so stop calling us that, you idiots'." Linus quotes, making sure to speak slower and revise any complicated words that might have slipped. "Clunk is when you hit."

"Yohoho, I see!" Brook laughs good-naturedly. "Though it sounds quite like the World Government we have in our time."

"Indeed." Robin's voice is decidedly heavier than before and she stands up with unusual stiffness. "It seems we might have another piece of the puzzle."

"You mean the Government might have copied them?" Nami crosses her arms as she looks over at the waves hitting the crumbling cliffs a few meters away.

"He said they were five, right?" Franky inquires and guffaws when he gets an affirmative answer. "I knew those idiots were just posers!"

"I kinda' doubt they're just that, Franky!" Usopp exclaims, looking around in fear, though it is obvious no shady old man from their time is there. Even so, after Enies Lobby, discussing about the World Government at any time is not making him any more comfortable.

Luffy's head snaps up when it seems that the discussion is set to some familiar tunes and he leaves his ancestor to his own devices as he saunters over to his friends' side.

"What's up?"

"It is entirely possible that they've gotten the idea of how to install and conduct an effective government from Raftel's example." Robin begins, her brown eyes wide and fixed steadily on the ground. "But there is always the possibility that one of them is a traitor and changed camps."

"Or will." Zoro adds, casting a furtive glance in the palace's direction.

"We shouldn't throw stones at anyone right now." Brook intervenes calmly. "First we have to figure out what kind of powers the rest of these people have. And associate them with the ones from our time."

"Brook-bro's right. No use pointing our fingers if we don't know in which direction." The crew's shipwright shrugs and the finality in his tone suggests they should drop the subject for now.

"What are you guys talking about?" Luffy's face is contorted into a truly painful kind of confusion that Usopp physically feels.

"Politics mostly. Linus said something and we started talking about the World Government." The sniper grimaces at the escalading groan that comes from his captain before he even finishes the sentence.

"Why can't you guys talk about something interesting!" The straw hat wearer slumps to the ground, defeated.

Chopper is next to him in an instant, fussing over whatever unseen injury the fight earlier might have caused him to fall to the ground for.

Nami pursed her lips at the pitiful show.

"Someone's coming." Zoro's urgent whisper and Sanji's suddenly lifted foot disrupts the easygoing haze they have been wrapped in.

Luffy's protests die as soon as the swordsman utters the first word and he looks up, gaze sharp and focused on locating the intruder.

Linus looks at their sudden agitation with raised eyebrows, not understanding one shitty fucking thing they are saying, but trying hard to make the connections. It does not go very well.

"So many people here! Is this a party without me you’re throwing, Linus?"

The voice comes from behind and Linus’ eyes widen quizzically while his heart stops for a split of a second. When his brain finishes making the connections and printing the results, he stares at the Strawhats' hanging jaws – again with the jaws, these people are much too easily caught off guard – and they seem to struggle between staring at him and at the newcomer.

Taking a deep breath because he feels that this is what he really needs right now, Linus turns around and bites back the waterfall of insults threatening to burst out of his mouth. Instead he opts to stare at the man crouched on top of the wall, standing against the morning sun and thus having his face partly obscured by the light. Which Linus is sure that is meant to make his entrance more ambiguous and mysterious, but in his eyes the guy is only ever pushing his luck. And this is the last damn time – he'll make sure of it.

"What the smothering hell are you doing here?" The raven head growls lowly, ignoring the whimpering and urgent whispers erupting from behind him.

The man on top of the concrete grins smugly and jabs a thumb at his chest. "Come now, is that the way to greet me?" The whine in his tone is almost amusing if the sight of his face wouldn't be too irritating to look at.

The intruder drops down from his perch and lands on the ground with a dull thud. Somehow, his closeness makes the Strawhats take a collective step back. Linus bites his tongue and decidedly doesn’t ask why their captain looks positively horrified at the moron he is just about to pummel.

"Well?!" Linus insists when all the idiot does is stand there like a restless child that just wants to intrude on something, but ends up being rightfully ignored. His jet black gaze studies the partially undressed man with as much criticism as he can materialize before he gets distracted. By the thing that most probably got the idiot so hyped up to search for and bother him.

"What is that shit on you!"

The Strawhats jump and Linus hopes that his roar goes unheard inside the castle.

The black haired man in front of him grins smugly and puffs out his chest which is partially covered in blue, purple and gold ink. "You like it? It's a phoenix, y'know?"

The simple question sparks a wave of anger in Linus and he clenches his fists, trying to calm down before he speaks.

"You got a tattoo on your wedding day?!" Screw calm, he still manages to explode like a volcano.

"A tribal style tattoo like they do on Shando-"

"You have to be ready in-" Linus stops and turns to glare at the sun for short a moment before resuming his rant, "two damn hours!"

"Did he just read the hour by the sun?" Usopp whispers to the closest person next to him.

Nami shoots him one of her usual looks that spells 'you're disrupting this dramatic moment', but shrugs. "I can too. I just need time to study its position to determine the exact hour."

"Yeah, but he did it in a second!" The sniper insists.

"What's got you so fired up today?" The taller native asks curiously, his eyes meandering towards the Strawhats. He seems to be too preoccupied with studying them to see the incoming rubber fist that hits him in the face a second later.

"You should have been preparing!" Linus draws back now that his anger has been well consumed in the screaming fest and places his hand over his face, silently wondering why on earth all shit is falling on him to deal with nowadays. "Why did you get a tattoo for anyways? Kallisto not interested enough?"

The other's face darkens a visible shade and he looks about ready to start stabbing Linus, but instead of that his shoulders slump and he sniffs.

"I thought it'd be romantic, y'know? Kalli said so..." He trails off and beams up again, like a light bulb switched back on. "Who're these guys?"

Linus rolls his eyes at the roundabout answer, but he is not at all surprised. Only concerned for the future of this kingdom. It won't be surprising if he'll end up being the one running all the shit in a couple of years, but for now the Monkey clansman remains hopeful. Maybe they'll find another idiot for the job. Going back to the present, he supposes that introductions are due but the faces of some of the time travelers make him rethink his decision. Their captain's pale and shaking form speaks volumes. But the intruding idiot is getting impatient and the kid opens his mouth right then so he doesn't have a choice in the end.

"These are my charges at the moment, the Strawhat pirates." He gestures to the group at large, recounting some of the names, but finding out that he has lost many of them from his memory. "Robin, Brook, sniper-"

"I am Usopp!" The long nosed man interrupts with a harrumph.

"Nami, right?"

The navigator sighs and nods. She knows that this is the extent of knowledge Linus possesses about their names at the moment, so she decides to take the lead and presents in turn the rest of her crewmates.

"Zoro, Sanji, Chopper, Franky-"

"And that's their captain, Luffy." Linus finishes, throwing the slowly reddening kid a warning glare to keep his mouth shut.

Unfortunately, Luffy has been close to erupting for a while now and the sound of his name does not help him or his nerves.

Linus' companion makes a noncommittal noise as he returns the Strawahats' greetings.

"What's wrong with 'im? No matter, I guess. Nice to meet you too, Luffy!"

Luffy startles, his eyes wide and muscles stiff. He stares at the man with a specific kind of horror Nami associates with Thriller Bark or – in general – with seeing a ghost. Which is most certainly so in this situation. They've all been taken aback, but most rational thinkers that do not include their captain for obvious reasons, have soon realized that it isn't and couldn't be that person. Hell, everyone excluding Luffy has had enough time to make peace with that thought, but unfortunately their captain has a one-track mind that only blares through the alarms of one thing inside his head at a time. And this won't make Linus happy, goddamn it.

Face looking as if he has just discovered the One Piece, Luffy jumps to his feet and lifts his foot, intent to close the distance and catch the poor, innocent man in the most dangerous bear hug of all – his trademark, rubber one.

"Ace is that really you?! What are you doing here? Did the guy sent you here, too?! You really know how to speak this language!" Luffy's shouts are incessant as he struggles in Sanji and Zoro's twin holds on his arms and against Franky's massive fist clenched around his body.

"Luffy calm down, he's not Ace!" Nami tries, but her voice is too weak against that resolve swimming in his wet gaze.

Linus looks at Luffy and resists the urge to slam his head on a rock repeatedly. Next to him, the newcomer chuckles nervously and rubs the back of his head while he watches the spectacle in wonder.

"I see that I've got a fan."

The official is not so sure about that. Not in the mood to hear the reason, though still curious as hell why the kid has suddenly lost his mind, he turns towards Robin's serene figure at the edge of the stormy group and asks when he is sure that her attention is on him.

"What is he screaming about now? Again with one of your ghosts?"

The archaeologist smiles in bemusement at their predicament.

"Indeed. I am sorry, but our captain is very emotional about this. Can you clear this maybe?"

She hums and Linus could have said no, but now he is compelled to even if he has been compelled from the start anyways because he has to introduce the tattooed man standing next to him. But this doesn’t mean he likes it either way. Bracing himself for whatever the hell will come next from this unpredictable group, he gestures toward said man.

"This is Amon, prince of this kingdom."

Silence reigns as Robin finishes relaying to her captain the translation of his words. Of course, this spurs an argument between the blond and green haired pirates and the rest have to enter the fray because why not. And when their captain finally snaps out of whatever trance or deep thoughts he has been in and actually begins to listen to what Brook and Nami are telling him, his face drops heartbreakingly as he studies Amon with the biggest amount of disappointment and sadness Linus has ever seen in someone. And then Luffy starts rambling about this or the other in that broken language of theirs, rapid firing everything he is still confused about and probably complaining over the situation. Because everyone they have met looked like those ghosts of theirs and he pouts and dries his last tears until, finally, he stops. All of them stop. And Linus will never know how close he has been in his assumptions.

"And Linus’ best friend!” Amon adds happily in spite of the slightly awkward atmosphere, slinging an arm around the other’s shoulders which is promptly shrugged off.

Linus rewards the guy with a good old glare and pursed lips.

“No, he’s not. Just an irritating guy who needs to be constantly babysat.” The official spits and promptly ignores the string of complains falling from the prince’s mouth. He addresses the Strawhats. “His wedding is today, so I need to get him inside the palace. Stay here and don’t move. Alright?”

He sighs in relief at Robin’s compliant nod and she makes sure that her friends get the message as well. Linus won’t be caught saying it out loud, but the black haired woman has become quite an indispensable link between the two languages in this short time. She shoulders half of his workload and he’s very grateful for that. It is safe to say that he has been completely lost when he heard that his job is to keep them safe. He hadn’t known how to even communicate with them and suddenly Sappho and the other competent folk decide that he has to make friends with the so-called pirates. It took him all night to accept this new reality and make peace with the fact that he’ll have to teach them their language or possibly have him learn the continentals’. Which he is trying to, but it proves too difficult to just be fine with catching words as they fly around. So he makes up a plan that will hopefully not end with this whole place destroyed.

Ruffling his hair again, Linus turns around and makes to grab Amon’s arm but instead of a solid limb, his hand passes through it. The gaping hole around his hand remains small for a moment, shy tendrils of fire licking his rubber skin without any intent of burning it before the gap gradually extends and swallows the raven haired man’s whole body, leaving only a red bead behind that promptly falls to the ground.

Linus watches it drop with a blank range of what-to-do-next. Behind him, the pirates look on with grim faces, most of them being aware that such a possibility is thoroughly possible. Luffy bites his lower lip in an effort to not run out there and hug the man who so resembles his older brother both in appearance and in powers. Hell, he’ll go as far as to say that their personalities are almost alike.

The older Monkey clansman member rolls his eyes at the constant chuckling coming from seemingly all around before Amon reappears in a small storm of fire a couple of meters behind him.

“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” Linus groans at the cheeky smirk on the guy’s face. Seriously now, he is not helping his situation at all.

Turning on his heels, he marches off determined not to lose Amon again and when he is certain that the fire user is secured in his iron grip he drags him toward the towering building. He opts to ignore the incessant mumbles and complaints thrown his way like a professional.

Nami shakes her head at the sight, not sure what she can say in this situation.

“Luffy, I need to make sure things are clear in your head for now.” Robin’s voice echoes around the clearing an instant later and seven people turn to gaze at their captain’s form, slouched on the ground in apparent defeat. The historian smiles indulgently and is willing to comply with any of his questions.

Luffy lets out a breath that sounds close to a snort and closes his eyes as if willing all the complicated things far away from him. A few moments of uncharacteristic silence later, he nods his head and opens his eyes to give Robin his full attention. But he speaks before she can.

“I know that’s not Ace…” His voice breaks on his brother’s name. “But he looks so much like him!”

“I know.” Robin agrees mildly, sitting down next to him. “As hard as it sure is, you must always remember that none of the people we meet here are in any way people from our time.”

Her words ring loud and clear, obviously addressed to all of them.

“They may be distant relatives, direct lines of ancestors and who knows what else. But they are not one and the same.” Twinkling brown eyes regard melancholic jet black kindly. “I know it brings back bad memories and it hurts to see them so close when they are not. It is a century too early for any of them.”

“So we have to keep calm no matter what we see.” Zoro concludes, cutting Robin’s speech short.

“This might be just what they need to mark us as spies. Let’s not give them that chance, Luffy-san.” Brook accompanies his input with a small laugh that is meant to lighten up the atmosphere.

Luffy looks to be thinking it over for a minute before a smile blossoms on his face and he chuckles.

“Yeah, you guys are right!”

With a small push he lifts himself off the ground. Once back on his feet, the rubber man studies their expectant faces and grins.

“I’ll keep my guard up from now on!”

Sanji snorts at the out of context promise, but Nami supposes this is as good as they will ever get and that has to count for something. She resigns herself to wait in the relative silence they have going on. She ignores the louder ones of their crew in favor of giving her rumbling thoughts a semblance of order. Sounds of the game of tag fills in the bouts of silence and prevents the general mood from descending into depressive again. Luffy and Chopper are certainly not undeterred by being told to wait and do nothing.

Linus returns fifteen minutes later when the game is reaching its climax and Robin clearly is going to win. The black haired man looks as if the whole world has just dumped a heavy boulder on him to carry up a mountain in the middle of winter, but at least his gaze is still burning with determination.

“You will eat lunch at the Monkey family manor today.” Linus clears his throat. “Where you will also be staying from now on, by the way.” The native blinks at the collective cheer Nami, Franky and Sanji give while the rest of the crew looks like their birthdays are coming. Swallowing back his curiosity, Linus continues. “But first, I have a few things to say to you.”

He pauses to make sure that Robin is listening.

“From now on you can walk through the city without problems. But please do not do anything to attract attention to yourselves!” He stops and glares at Luffy in particular. “You can visit Sappho whenever you want, but I’d suggest you do not go out there just because you are bored. There are also a few rules of the manor, but I will be relaying them as we walk.”

Robin nods and immediately starts translating for her friends. Linus occupies himself with studying the sparkling waters of the Grand Blue as their undulating waves splash against the rocky shoreline. He wonders if he made the right choice in the end, but seeing his charges’ considerably happier faces than before, he supposes that he is on the right track at least.

#opbigbang #opbigbang2017 #fanfiction #one piece #straw hats #luffy

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