#me back on my buggy loving the sea and shanks loving buggy bullshit

[aimbutmiss]

The sun was setting as the two sat on the beach in silence. Buggy stared out into the sea with sad eyes, feet buried in the warm sand. Shanks was familiar with that look; it was something his friend did every now and then, after he ate the devil fruit. Buggy was the one to break the silence, asking him a question without taking his eyes off the horizon:

"Do you know what it feels like to have something you want literally in your grasp, but never being able to have it?"

Shanks stared at the man with longing. His blue hair was flowing with the evening breeze, and his eyes were fixed on the vast ocean in front of them. The final rays of sunlight were illuminating his skin, and all Shanks wanted to do was to touch him. Even one brush of his fingers against his cheek would be enough, but he held back, looking away from the other.

"No. I don't know what it feels like at all."

#me back on my buggy loving the sea and shanks loving buggy bullshit #will I ever stop?? probably not. #I had no plans of writing anything today but here we are #it's something super short but it packs a punch I think #one piece #buggy the clown #red haired shanks #shuggy #buggy x shanks #shanks x buggy #shanks #buggy one piece #my writing

[mega-ringsandthings-world]

There's something so interesting and tantalizing about the idea of outsiders reacting to a character once they come out from a significant event and the reactions to it. I’m thinking about Shanks again and the people he used to know—because it’s going to be about two years in captivity, another year and a half to heal and get back to snuff before either Shanks or Mihawk are gonna hit it out into the wide open blues again. That’s almost four years of people not seeing them—aside from the people who meet them right after, like Buggy.

What I’m trying to get at is, for two years, Roger's old crew had to watch their pseudo-son get showcased in front of a Den Den, spouting the most horrendous propaganda, being paraded about like the government's show pony. What seemed to be a happy and healthy life of luxury, they could only assume, having betrayed them—do some of them hate him? Do some of them try to justify his actions to themselves? Do some of them drink themselves to sleep, hoping he’s betraying them, praying behind cameras and photo ops he isn’t being tortured? Not to mention while all this is going down, they're being run down like hound dogs with a scent? And since the world government is cleaning shop and doesn’t have to worry about a wave of wannabe pirates to slow them down, they can get to the nitty-gritty of tracking Roger's crew down to ground.

People like Rayleigh or Crocus probably won’t even have time to grieve or settle down or drink themselves into a stupor. Every second will be running, hiding, buying what you can, and stealing the rest, going into the underground’s underground. For two years! You can’t tell me a lot more of them aren’t caught, a lot more of them aren’t executed (maybe even taken back to Loguetown where they can see Shanks face to face and see as he is forced to watch from below as he begs and cries, curled into the arms of another dead-eyed child before the spears pierce their back and all the cries turn to screams.)

Maybe they resent him, hate him in their own ways, as much as they understand and love him. So when Loguetown burns and everyone escapes and on the front page (if the government doesn’t cover it up) is that little boy, maybe not so little anymore, torching the place to the studs. How do they react?

Not just them, but the rest of the pirate world. Him, Mihawk, and the other survivors must be the most hated pirates on the sea for those two years, seemingly choosing protection and the lap of the government over Impel Down. Seeing their faces plastered everywhere as part of the rehabilitation effort of the Marines, they must be seen as traitors of the highest order. But then they escape, and Loguetown burns, and rumors and secrets start to get out about what really happened in logue-town, the true horror show. Maybe even the Revolutionaries spur this on with pictures and scars and their own interviews, learning about the coercion, the psychological and physical torture, the assaults, the corruption that keeps compounding on its self into a public relations nightmare. They have to come face to face with a smiling 14/15-year-old, knowing that under all that makeup and false cheer is a child being tortured.

Like Oda-sensei, that’s gotta mess with you. And your image when Mihawk and Shanks hit the scene—are they going to get as many weary glances as they are pitying ones? Like not only did all my trauma get blarred to the world in graphic 3D with surround sound, but people also treat me with awkwardness or like brittle porcelain.

Yeah. The official story that was released was that the pirates in the square were offered a mass pardon/amnesty after the execution, and most of them refused and rioted, being the mindless violent grunts that they are. But the more famous pirates, being of sounder mind, accepted the pardon/amnesty and are now working in conjunction with the government to rehabilitate the other pirates. Which is a load of bullshit, but one becomes a lot more believable once they start putting people out in front of the cameras. Shanks is going to be the object of resentment, sorrow, and yes, hatred, for his former crew. As far as they are concerned, he sold them out with Roger not even cold in his grave. Most of the crew are going to believe that he truly betrayed them, and those will be divided into ones that detest him and ones that afford him a measure of sympathy. On one hand, he's a traitor spitting on the memory of Roger and Roger's care for him and that's it, on the other hand, he's just a kid and seeing Roger, his idol and father figure being killed must have been a big enough blow that it turned him a coward willing to buy his own safety. Neither opinion is very favorable to him. But others like Rayleigh and Crocus don't think ill of him, they knew him, and they would have the sense that there's something insidious going on. They'd be the ones who worry and grieve for him and think the worst. This does not mean they don't have their doubts, though. When the government puts the heat down on the Roger pirates, the first thing that everyone is going to think is that Shanks gave them info, and even Rayleigh and Crocus will think it was forced out of him somehow. (for the record, Shanks never once betrays anything in the years he's a captive) and so the resentment builds, even in the ones who still secretly nurse a care/love for him. The running, the hiding, the fear, the times of need and living like animals and the unceasing relentless pursuit is not going to make it any better. And then, yes. They start getting picked off. That's inevitable. The marines get lucky one time, the Roger pirates actually do get sold out another time, and other times yet crewmembers sacrifice themselves to let the other's get away. (it's important to note that while the Roger pirates had been disbanded, they grouped back together under the persecution) However it happens, some Roger pirates end up in Loguetown, set to be summarily executed. And the Marines make sure they see Shanks before the fact. Those Roger pirates don't have a clue what's been happening to Shanks in the interim, and they react to him as one might expect. Mihawk kills a Roger pirate in the course of defending Shanks from them. They don't realize how wrong they were until too late, until they witness the situation at Loguetown first hand, or witness Shanks publicly begging for their lives, or the punishments he's given for that, or, during the rare times the marines do grant a stay of execution, what Shanks has to do to procure it. But it always ends the same for every captured Roger pirate, and the last thing they'll always see is a helpless Shanks being held back by Mihawk. (They'd have many questions about Mihawk, if there was time to ask them.) needs pt.2

#one piece #op #opla #dracule mihawk #akagami no shanks #hawkeye mihawk #red haired shanks #mihawk one piece #shanks one piece #mishanks #loguetown au